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"The technical parlance for tonight," Steph begins. "Is total fucking shitshow."
Jason Todd is standing in her living room, with the bare, haunted look of a man who had to close a portal to hell that spawned spontaneously in the middle of the Gotham Heights suburbs. Which is more or less what happened. He's only got the domino mask on, since his helmet got eaten by a demon with a penchant for head biting, and he's covered in black goop from when said demon exploded about five minutes later because apparently Jason puts fucking bombs in his helmet, which is something Steph would address except she also fought all those demons and is covered in black goop and also her shoe is missing, which should not be the thing she's focusing on right now but somehow is. Because that's the kind of night it's been.
"Okay," Jason says finally. "Sure. I'll buy it."
"And in the technical parlance," Steph continues, stepping back into the kitchen to rustle around in the cupboards. "What we do after a total fucking shitshow is get crazy stupid drunk."
When she turns back with the bottle of wine and two glasses in hand, Jason is still standing in the middle of her living room with a furrowed brow. Without the helmet, it's easy to track every emotion flitting across his face as his expressions slide back and forth between confusion and wariness.
"Is it," he says, slow and doubtful.
"Yep," Steph chirps, sliding down onto the couch. "You get to forget about all your worries. Something something team bonding. Gossip and girl talk. Et cetera, et cetera."
Jason's brow furrows harder, this time with a judgemental cast. Out loud, he says, "Is that your whole argument?"
"Pretty convincing, right?" Steph says, waggling her eyebrows. Jason scoffs. "Listen, if you want to head out, you can. I get it, it's been a long fucking night. But you did me a favor and pitched in and fought some demons or whatever, so the least I can do in return is booze you up."
She certainly couldn't blame him for leaving—fighting demons tends to sap your social battery. But then again, he didn't have to follow her back to her apartment. He's had every opportunity to call it quits and dip, but he's still here. He's still willing to be around her. That probably counts for something.
Jason's mouth twists and pinches in on itself. Finally, he sighs, holds up a finger, and says, "One glass. Then I'm going home to take a fucking shower and crash."
Honestly, farther than Steph thought she would get. "Hey, sounds like a plan to me," she says, already pouring a glass. Jason lowers himself onto the couch next to her, muscles stiff, like he's waiting for something to blow up on him. Not a crazy assumption, given the lives they lead. "That still gives us a good window for chitchat and girl talk."
"One glass," Jason reminds her, as if she didn't just hear him say it five seconds ago. "There's not gonna be any need for chit chat or girl talk. Got it?"
Three glasses in, Jason turns to her and says, "I don't know if he ever saw me as a person at all."
"Dude," Steph says, tipping back the rest of her fourth glass in one go. "You're telling me. I swear to God, he hated my guts."
Jason's head lilts towards her, like it's too heavy to stay up on his shoulders. "Really?"
Steph considers. "Well, no," she says. "That's not fair. He didn't even respect me enough to hate me."
She pours herself another glass, all the way up to the rim. She's earned it. Jason watches her for a second, clicks his tongue, and says, "It was fine at first. When it was all, you know. Shiny and new or whatever."
"When you didn't know any better," Steph says.
"Exactly," Jason says, gesturing towards her with the glass. "I didn't know what was in for. None of us did. How the fuck could I? I was grateful I had a fucking roof over my head and something to do with my hands."
"Like punching people," Steph says, letting a fist of her own arc through the air. "Very cathartic."
"Yeah, no shit," Jason says. "I was getting to act, instead of just being acted upon. I thought I fucking mattered." He takes another long swig, swishes it around in his mouth. Steph leans an elbow on the back of the couch and waits him out. "I don't know. I think I got too big for it. Like I felt too big or I wanted too big and either he thought I was bluffing or he never took me seriously at all."
Steph bobs her head along, because that's it, that's exactly it. "Yes, bitch. Get his ass."
Jason makes a face, mouths get his ass to himself as he downs another mouthful. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this.
"I'm a good listener," Steph says, putting on airs. "And it's good wine."
"It's fucking awful wine," Jason says, even as he takes another sip.
"It does the trick," Steph says, and Jason lifts his glass up like he's toasting. "Anyway. The thing is he takes everything seriously." She lets her voice drop into a mocking gravel and Jason's mouth twitches up before he forces it back into a frown. Too late. Steph's seen. "The problem is that he takes some things more seriously then anything else. And he's never going to take you the most seriously. Even when you've earned it."
Jason is quiet for another second. "You've spent a lot of time watching him."
Steph shrugs. "All of you," she says. "He's not special." His mouth twitches up again, so now she knows making fun of Bruce is an in. Easy. She could do that all day. "He judges me, and now I get to judge him. Full circle." She blows out a breath, tilts the rest of the glass into the mouth. "Man. The shit I could tell you."
"Okay," Jason says. She glances over at him. He's rolling a hand forward, looking at her expectantly. "Okay. Tell me shit."
"Well," Steph says, picking up the bottle again. "If you insist." This time, she doesn't bother pouring it out into the glass.
"That's disgusting," Jason says.
Pointedly, she takes another sip straight from the bottle. Jason gags exaggeratedly. "Jesus," Steph says, mostly to herself. "Where to even start?"
"He's a controlling, self-obsessed, self-righteous freak," Jason says bluntly.
"Well, yeah," Steph says. "Duh. But sometimes I also wonder if. I don't know." She chews on her lower lip until it splits, surprising herself with a burst of iron against the cloying sweetness of the wine. "Sometimes I wonder if it was a misogyny thing?"
Above her, Jason blinks, hard. "Misogyny?"
"The systematic oppression of women across—" Steph starts, flatly, but Jason waves her off.
"I know misogyny," he says, and then, slightly rushed, "I mean. I don't know misogyny, but I know of misogyny and I, uh. I think—"
"Quit while you're ahead," Steph tells him and surprisingly, he does. "Anyway. Think about it. What's the difference between me and Tim, really? Like he had training, sure, but I could have had training too. They kept on telling me to get the fuck out and go home and stop getting into trouble, but why couldn't I have done it? Why couldn't they have helped me?"
It comes out as more plaintive and vulnerable than she means it to. Stupid alcohol. Stupid loosened inhibitions. She takes another swig.
"And you think it's because, what?" Jason asks, nudging her ankle gently with his foot. "You're a girl?"
Steph sighs gustily. "I don't know," she says. "There were a lot of reasons, probably. I was a stupid kid. It's not like they were wrong." Jason's face pinches together, but he doesn't interrupt her. "But at the same time. Why not me? Is it because I have tits?"
Jason chokes, sputtering wine out over the couch. "Jesus, Steph."
"What?" Steph throws a hand out and nearly whacks it back on the cushion. "God forbid a woman discuss her lived experiences—"
"Relax," Jason hisses. "I'm not trying to like—invalidate your life story or whatever—"
"Wow," Steph says dryly. "You're such a good ally."
"Shut up," Jason says.
"Nevermind," Steph says. "You're canceled."
"Ignoring you," Jason says. True to his word, he does not respond to Steph's muttered double canceled. "I never thought. I don't know. Obviously he has one million fucking problems, but is Bruce really the kind of guy who—" Another aimless gesture. "I mean, he works with women like Diana. And Cass. And—" He's frowning, hard. "—Other ones. That I can't remember right now. Right?"
"So if you're a goddess, you get a pass," Steph says sharply. "But not if you're a desperate fucking teenage girl."
Too sharp. Jason freezes, for a second, and Steph's wondered if this is what pushes it too far. Another second, and he's lifting the glass towards her and saying, "Point." Steph levels the wine bottle his way in recognition and takes a swig in unison with him. "I did also say and Cass."
Steph snorts. "Yeah, well," she says. "Cass is basically a goddess anyway. So."
"You know, I've been wondering," Jason says, shifting towards her. "What the fuck is up with that?"
Great. Even Jason Fucking Todd has noticed Steph's sapphic shitshow. She groans, dragging her hands down her face. "Christ. How much fucking time do you have?"
"I mean," Jason says, swirling the dregs in his cup. "Maybe time for one more glass."
"—and anyway," Steph says, a bottle later, laying down against the fluffy carpet. "Long story short, she's objectively the most impressive person in the world and sometimes I think she looks up to me and sometimes I think she looks down on me and either way I'm never going to be good enough for her so why even fucking bother. Cheers."
Jason nods slowly as she violently uncorks and deflowers a new bottle. He's still on the couch, nominally, but slouching so hard he's liable to slide off in the next minute or so. "Every time I hear about dating in the cape scene," he says. "It makes me want to set myself on fire."
It's Steph's turn to choke and send particulates flying. "You're telling me," she says. "The shit me and Tim got up to, oh my God."
"That's on you for dating Timothy Fucking Drake," Jason mutters, taking the bottle from her. She sits up just to shove him in on the shoulder. "Hey, careful—"
"He's not the worst ex I've had," Steph says. A moment of thought. "Probably like. The third worst."
"High praise," Jason says dryly.
"We're still friends," Steph continues. "Probably better that way, especially given that. You know."
Jason clicks his tongue, sympathetic, before he bluntly says, "Because you've got the hots for his sister."
"Yeah," Steph says lamely. "That." And then, seriously, "You can't ever tell him that, by the way. He'd kill himself."
"Oh no," Jason says, but when Steph shoves him again, he says, "Alright, alright, I get it. He's your buddy or whatever."
"Or whatever," Steph echoes. She leans forward to cross her arms on the couch cushions, pillows her head into her hands. "What about you, huh?"
Jason pauses mid-sip. Points at his own chest uselessly.
"Yes, you," Steph says. "What's your juicy relationship drama?" Jason continues to stare at her with the wide-eyed look of a criminal underneath a floodlight. "Come on, there has to be something. Give me the hot goss."
"Hot goss," Jason repeats, with a distinct air of horror.
"I don't even know how much wine we've had, cut me some slack," Steph says. "Speaking of—"
She steals the bottle back from him, taking a good few mouthfuls while Jason sits on the term hot goss. Three swigs later, Jason blurts, "I've never been in a relationship."
Slowly, Steph puts the bottle down the look at him. His face is flaming red. He won't meet her eye.
"Just never had the time," Jason continues, staring up at the ceiling. "For, well. Any of it." He lifts a shoulder up and then leaves it there, retreating into his own skin like a very bulky turtle. "I don't know. I don't really think about it."
"Huh," Steph says. "Do you, like...want one?"
Jason continues to turtle into his skin. "I don't think about it," he repeats stubbornly.
"Hm," Steph says, and then, "Okay. Before I say this you need to know I would rather die than come onto you," Steph begins which is, admittedly, not one of her best openings. Jason stops turtling to put his face in his hands. "But you've clearly got it going on."
"Why are you doing this to me," Jason says, muffled by his palms.
"All I'm saying is if you want to get it, you could," Steph says, patting at his knee. "Listen. Listen. I can be your guide!" Jason groans, reaching out blindly with one palm still over his face to snatch the bottle back from her. Good on him for having his priorities straight. "I can tell you my mistakes so you can learn from them. Number one: Don't get pregnant."
Jason lifts his head. "Wait, what?"
"Presumably, you've already got that one in the bag, so you're already off to a better start than me," Steph continues. "Oh, and and—I have like. Connections and shit. I can totally set you up."
Jason tips the bottle back into his mouth. "God save us all."
"Shhhhh," Steph says, clumsily swatting a hand around his face. "It's gonna be good. You just have to let it be good." Jason makes a pitchy, doubtful noise. "No, shut the fuck up. We're doing it. Like you have to at least try it before you decide you hate it, right?"
"Are you comparing dating to picky eating?" Jason wonders aloud.
"Am I wrong?" Steph asks.
Jason spreads a hand out. "Like I would fucking know?"
"If you don't like it, no harm no foul," Steph says. "Big whoop. Who give a shit. But if you do—" She waggles her eyebrows, salaciously. Jason looks up at the ceiling again.
"I feel better about you as a person when you're not making that face," he says, before he sighs, theatrically exasperated. "Fine. Do your worst, Brown."
"It'll be so good," Steph says again. Jason wobbles his head from side to side, face scrunched up uncertainly. She steeples her fingers underneath her chin. "So. Do you like women, or…"
"I mean," Jason says. "I assume so?"
Blame it on the alcohol, but this is not an answer Steph had been prepared for. She scratches at the back of her neck, pushing through the fog in her brain to find an appropriate, thoughtful answer. "Uh. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Like I know a lot of women," Jason says, tilting his hand towards her. "Obviously. Some of the best people I know are women."
"Okay, thank you for your allyship," Steph says dismissively. "Do you want to bang them or what?"
It's almost impressive how much redder Jason's face gets. "Jesus Christ, Steph."
"I mean, it's fine if you don't," Steph says. "I don't get it, personally, but all the more power to you. There are plenty of guys I could set you up with."
At that, Jason's face takes on a blank, blinking look, like Steph's just hit him when he wasn't expecting it. Like that's something he hadn't considered before. "Huh."
"Oh my God," Steph says, and then she makes an executive decision. "You know what? We're tabling this for later. I don't want to break your brain tonight."
She takes the bottle back from him again, drains some of it down. So Jason Todd is possibly-probably gay. Or ace or aro, maybe. Or something. What a wonderful, wild world they live in.
"You've been pregnant?" Jason says finally.
It's a question Steph should have seen coming, but she has to swallow past the instinctive lump in her throat. "Ages ago," she says. "I was a troubled teen statistic, you know how it is." She takes a bracing sip to give herself room to breathe before she goes on. "Gave her up for adoption, if that's what you were wondering. I think they placed her in Metropolis."
"Huh," Jason says again, in a very different tone than last time. Steph isn't sure she wants to read into it.
"She's better off," Steph says, like she's told herself a thousand times. "Probably the only unselfish thing I've ever done."
She doesn't need fucking Bruce to tell her she's a hurricane, brash at best and downright careless at worst. She's lived her life; blown it all up more times than she can count. The last thing that kid needed was being brought up in a cycle of self-destruction. Steph knows all this, tells it to herself almost every day. It still feels like missing a lung.
Slowly, Jason slides off the couch next to her, shoulders touching. "Takes a crazy amount of guts to do that."
Steph's eyes burn. Probably the tannins or something. She swipes underneath her nose. "Yeah, well," she says. "I've never had a shortage of guts. Or shitty exes." Off of Jason's confusion, she adds, "Dean. My sperm donor. Probably takes the cake for worst ex."
"I could kill him," Jason says. Steph laughs. He doesn't.
When she looks over at him, his mouth is straight, his jaw set and serious. "Is this you being sweet?" Steph asks, tapping a knuckle underneath her chin and trying not to smile. Jason flushes; although it's hard to tell with how red his cheeks are from the insane amounts of alcohol they've consumed in the last two hours or so. It's gonna be a hell of a hangover to deal with later. "I don't need you to kill him. It was ages ago. People suck. Relationships suck. It is what it is." She hands the bottle back to Jason, nudging him in the shoulder. "But thanks for offering."
"Whatever," he mutters, but he doesn't lean away from where their shoulders touch. "Don't make a big deal out of it."
Another moment of silence. Jason fiddles with the neck of the bottle. Steph drums her finger against her leg, which is still missing a shoe from the whole demon thing earlier, which feels like forever ago now.
Surprisingly, Jason is the one who cracks first. "I guess that's the scary thing about relationships," he says. Steph brings her knee up and tilts her face onto her thigh towards him. "Especially our relationships. Like it'd have to be somebody fucking crazy to put up with—" Jason waves a hand in some kind of bizarre, encompassing pattern. "—All that."
"That's why a lot of people date capes," Steph says. Maybe she's still gauging to set Jason up with someone. Maybe she thinks he's earned a little happiness. So what? She's drunk out of her fucking mind. "Because then you have someone who get it."
Jason makes a face. "Because that always ends so well," he says. "Everybody knows fucking everybody. All it does is fuck up the team. You got horny and now the entire cape community knows your fucking business and is taking sides." He shakes his head, putting the bottle to his lips. "Not worth it. Not fucking worth it."
Yikes. Fair enough. "Is this about Dick?"
"Dick Fucking Grayson," Jason says. Another mouthful of wine. "I can't even get into the shit with Roy and Kori. Jesus Christ. I can't."
His eyes are so haunted that Steph takes his word for it and decides not to push. "Okay, so no capes," she says, mentally scratching a handful of names off the list. "So like a civvie?"
"Who knows," Jason says flatly, but then he goes on with, "Be nice, sometimes." He sounds something close to wistful. "To have someone outside of it all." Steph adds a few names to the list, but Jason's shaking his head before she can get too far down. "No, but then you're either you're keeping shit from them or you're dragging them into something they don't understand." A bitter snort. Another swig. "See, this is why I don't think about this shit."
Steph can't say she blames him. She holds out a hand and he dutifully places the bottle back in it. "Okay," she says again. "Say none of that was a concern. What kind of person would you want to be with?" Jason squints at her suspiciously. She shrugs. "It's a thought exercise. I'm curious."
"I don't know," Jason says finally. "Like what. What do you mean?"
"I'm not grading you on this, relax," Steph says. "Like for me, I want someone funny. I want someone kind. I want someone who stands up for what they believe in. Stuff like that. Who would you want?"
She wants Cass, mostly, but Jason is too lost in thought to comment on it. He chews on his lower lip for a beat before he says, "Funny would be nice."
"Uh-huh," Steph says, rolling a hand forward. Go on.
"Someone who can call me out on my shit, I guess," Jason continues. "I can be an asshole, I get it. I would want someone who can asshole right back. Who can take it. I don't want to be left where I'm at. I want to be pushed. You know?
She does. Who pushes her better than Cassandra Fucking Cain? "Sure."
Another long moment of silence, interrupted by Steph swallowing down the second to last mouthful. She hands the bottle back to Jason, who takes it and finally says, "I want someone who—who cares. Because that's what I do. Or what I try to do. I try to care. And maybe you're right. Maybe it would be nice to have someone to care with me. For me. Whatever."
He downs the last mouthful. Steph touches a hand to her heart. "Jason. You closet romantic."
"Shut up," he says, nudging back into her shoulder. "None of that matters anyway. Like you said. Thought exercise. Even putting all the ethical bullshit aside, he would have to be fucking crazy."
Ah. Speaking of closet cases. "You said he." Jason's face does something startled again, like he somehow didn't notice the words coming out of his own mouth. Steph bats it away. "Don't worry about it. We're tabling it. We're moving on. Don't worry about it."
"Man, alright," Jason mutters. He tilts the bottle into his mouth again, only to look over-the-top betrayed when it turns out to be empty.
For some reason, this is absolutely hysterical. Steph's laugh is a choking, wheezing thing, akin to a hyena's death rattle. Jason must be thinking along the same lines, because he looks at her sideways and says, "Okay, there's no need to pull a me."
"Or a me," Steph says, which is nonsensical, but they can blame the mumblesomething bottles of wine. "I did that dying shit too, remember?"
Clarity dawning over Jason's face, a slight wince of guilt. "Oh shit, that's right."
She pats him clumsily on the thigh and then uses it to leverage herself up to standing, wobbling precariously all the while. "One more bottle left," she says.
"Guess it's time for us to die again," Jason says. "From alcohol poisoning."
"We would die again anyway," Steph points out. Jason lifts a shoulder in concession. "You got time for one more glass?"
Jason's grin is wider than she's ever seen, toothy and childish. Probably because of the aforementioned oncoming alcohol poisoning, but Steph is also choosing to believe it's at least tangentially related to the fact that she is fucking phenomenal company.
"Sure," Jason says. "One more glass."
The ceiling fan spins lazy, creaking circles above them, cutting the late morning light into thin strips of shadow. Steph tips the very last wine bottle into her mouth again and says, "I don't even know if I died, technically. I never asked her. Leslie, I mean."
Jason's sprawled out next to her on the floor. She hands the bottle back over to him. "Everybody thought you were dead. You lost a whole chunk of your life. Pretty sure that counts."
"Trust me, I'm milking that for all it's fucking worth," Steph says. Jason lifts the bottle in the air in tacit approval before taking a swig of his own. "But I don't know if my heart, like. Stopped. Like actually. And it seems like the type of thing she would tell me, but—"
"She faked your death and moved you to Africa," Jason says. "Who knows shit anymore."
"Exactly," Steph says. "And like does it even matter? If I did die for real. Would it even make a difference?"
"Well, it's fucking freaky either way," Jason says bluntly. The white streak falls into his face as he rolls his head towards her. "Listen. As the resident expert on death—"
"Well, okay," Steph says. "Most of us have died—"
"Shh," he says. "Shush." Steph mines zipping her lips shut. "I was going to say." A pause. "Steph, what was I gonna say?"
Steph snorts. "You were claiming to be the resident expert on death."
Jason narrows his eyes. "Those air quotes feel demeaning."
Steph beams. "They are."
"As I was saying," Jason says, digging an elbow into her side. "Resident expert on death." He waves his palm over her like a blessing. "You can have death privileges. I've said so."
Steph pats at his elbow. "You say the nicest things, Jay."
"Let's not be slanderous," Jason says, with a slight slur. "There's no need for blatant defamation."
"Wow," Steph drawls. "You've got a hell of a vocabulary for a guy who's drunk off his ass."
"I read," Jason says. Steph hums. "Don't sound so surprised."
"Wasn't surprised," she says honestly. Laboriously, she rolls herself over, so she's laying on her stomach with her legs in the air. "Anyway. Jason. I have a pitch. Do you want to hear my pitch?"
Jason cracks an eye open. "Do I?"
"Yes," Steph decides for him. "Anyway. Here's my pitch: Dead Robin's Club."
Jason's pupil slides lazily over to her. "Seems in poor taste."
She waves him off. "We can reclaim it, it's fine." Jason barks out a short laugh. "Oh, we could invite Damian too."
"Ugh," Jason says.
Steph whacks him on the shoulder, and not gently. "He's a good kid! And he got stabbed that one time, he's earned it."
"Ouch, Jesus," Jason says, rubbing at his collarbone. "Didn't he push Tim off the penny or something?"
"It was the dinosaur," Steph says. "And Tim was probably asking for it." Jason shrugs, accepting this easily. "And I said he was a good kid, not a nice kid."
"Maybe so," Jason says. He holds up the neatly-empty alcohol bottle. "But I'm pretty sure Dick would take away your babysitting privileges if we got Dami hammered." Steph thinks of Dick finding out they let Damian anywhere near alcoholic beverages and shudders. " Unless you want to do these outings sober, that is."
"I'd rather die again," Steph says frankly.
Jason laughs, empties down the wine some more. "We can invite him in when he's 21," he says. "How's that?"
Sure, she'll take it. Along with the bottle Jason passes back to her. "You went along with that pitch pretty easy."
Jason lifts a shoulder up, almost like he's about to start turtling again. "Ask me again when I'm sober."
"Okay," Steph says. "I will."
She means it too. It's been—nice. To talk to someone who can listen to her bitch about Bruce without getting the guilty, defensive wince that Tim or Dick or Cass will. Jason is funny and surprisingly thoughtful and he's been to a lot of the same places she has. She thinks there's a lot they can learn from each other.
"So what do we do?" Jason asks. Steph tilts her head towards him again. "At your little—" His hand swirls through the air. "Soirées."
Soirees, Steph mouths, and then. "Fuck if I know. Enable substance abuse. Talk shit. Maybe watch a movie or something."
"Watch a movie," Jason says, doubtfully.
"I would hope I shouldn't have to explain to you the concept of film," Steph says.
"Jesus, a guy asks what Instagram is one time," Jason snarks. "Obviously, I know what a movie is, dumbass."
"Sure," Steph says, dragging out the vowel as purposefully as she can. "What was the last movie you watched then, huh?"
Jason goes red. Well, redder—he's pretty hammered as is. "Um."
Steph grins. "Oh, it's something good, isn't it."
"It's a classic," Jason starts, already defensive. "It's—it's fucking cultural or some shit."
"Uh-huh," Steph says eagerly. "Spill it, Todd."
Jason sighs, exasperated and sourced straight from the gut: "Sleepless in Seattle. 1993. Directed by Nora Ephron."
"Amazing," Steph says sincerely. "Absolutely fantastic. You are the most fascinating guy ever to guy."
Jason shoves clumsily at her shoulder, before he suddenly says, "I used to watch that stuff with my mom."
Steph goes still.
Jason doesn't exactly talk about his childhood. Most of them don't—there's no reason to go out and hit people in the face a lot if you had a pastoral adolescence. Hell, even Tim has that mild to moderate emotional neglect thing he likes to gloss over. You don't get into the cape business without having something you're trying to get away from. But here Jason is, reminiscing. With her, of all people.
"Her name was Catherine," Jason continues. He isn't looking at her, but Steph isn't expecting him to. "She was the only one who ever raised me." A bitter snort. "God knows nobody else even tried." He looks up towards Steph now, but his eyes are directed somewhere up towards the ceiling, just glancing from actual contact. "She did try. Nobody else thinks that, but nobody else was there. She tried."
"My mom too," Steph says, surprising herself. She has to swallow hard before she can continue. "I mean, she was so whacked out on pain meds when I was a kid, Jesus, but she was still the first one to step in whenever Dad started getting mad. I didn't realize how hard she had to have been trying until I grew up a little."
And then Crystal had done the impossible and kicked the pills and the man, folded herself into Steph's life again with a stubborness Steph must have gotten from her. Steph is very proud of her, she thinks. Does she say it enough?
Jason just nods, slow and serious. "My mom was really sick," he confesses finally. "Willis made okay money doing grunt work for whatever rogue was out of Arkham at the time, but it's not a gig that comes with health insurance. So we couldn't take her to a doctor, figure out what was wrong. We just had to make do with the meds we could find. Try to make it a little easier on her."
"Yeah," Steph says, throat thick. "How old were you?"
"I don't know," Jason says, looking away. "Nine, ten maybe."
As old as Dick Grayson was when he first become Robin, as old as Damian when he first came to the manor. Steph pictures the Damian of a few years ago—scowling but dewy and chubby-cheeked—and superimposes it onto the Jason she knows now. He would have been young, is the point; achingly young.
"When Willis was gone, I was the man of the house," Jason continues, with some gruff, mocking affect. "I'd cook up some box mac and cheese, some ramen, whatever I could manage. Sometimes she'd read to me, if she was awake enough. Sometimes, I would read to her. Sometimes, she didn't have the energy for any of it and we'd just. You know. Watch some stupid rom-com. If that's what would help her feel a little better."
His eyes are distant, a little glassy in a way Steph wouldn't ever comment on. Instead, she tries, "You were a downright sweet little guy, weren't you?"
Jason scoffs, cheeks flushing pink again. "Come on," he says. "I was an asshole then and I'm an asshole now. Got into fights at school every goddamn day."
Steph pokes him in the shoulder. "Me too," she says. "I was in detention more often than I was at home, which. Well. Was kind of the point." She looks down, picks at a spot in the carpet. A fresh wine stain, she thinks. Man, has it been a night. "Sometimes, I wonder if—if I had been there. If I hadn't been trying to run from everything by getting into detention or going out to pester criminals. Would she have kicked the pills a little sooner? Or kicked him out of the house a little earlier? If I had actually been, I don't know. Brave—"
"Bitch, you were Robin," Jason says bluntly. "It doesn't get much braver than that."
Steph looks up to blink over at him. He says it so simple, authoritative, like it's a natural, obvious truth. There's this weird, swimmy quality to her vision that has absolutely nothing to do with the water bunching up at the corner of her eyes.
"Ah, hell," Jason mutters, reaching up to pat over her face. "Cut that out. I'm not dealing with that shit right now."
She laughs, wipes at her eyes, and doesn't say anything at all about how wobbly his voice sounds. "See?" She says. "Downright sweet."
"Well, there's no need to be cruel," Jason says, and Steph laughs again. "And it wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway."
Either it's a complete non-sequitur or Steph is too drunk to follow. "What?"
"If you had been brave—" This, accompanied with incoherent air quotes. "And stuck around." His Adam's apple bobs. "I stuck around, and I still came home one day to find some asshole dealer cut up a bad batch and. Well."
"Jesus," Steph says softly.
"Already too late," Jason finishes, sliding his eyes shut. "Didn't really matter if I was brave or not. Just had to keep going."
She's thinking of Damian's too-round face superimposed over Jason's again. He would have been very young indeed. They both would have been. Horrifically, crushingly young. Steph expresses this like so: "Our lives suck shit, man."
Jason laughs, pulled out of him in jagged, short bursts. "Fuck, I'll drink to that."
Steph takes a final pull out of the bottle and hands it back to Jason to drain before she flops back down on the floor besides him. She twists her head to look him in the eye. "Thank you for fighting demons and getting alcohol poisoning with me."
Jason waves this away. "All you had to do was ask."
"Not even true," Steph says. "Those demons were literally right in our faces before you were doing anything about it." Halfway through, the sentence cracks open into a yawn. "Oh shit. Jay, I think I'm about to crash."
"No kidding," Jason says. His yawn is only slightly better suppressed than hers. "I should probably head out, huh."
"Dude," Steph says. "If you head out now, you're going to grapple into the first building you see and fucking die." A beat and then, from the both of them in unison: "Again."
"Cute," Jason says. "What do you suggest I do?"
"Just crash here," Steph says simply. Jason turns his head to give her an incredulous stare. "You take the couch, I'll take the floor."
Jason opens his mouth. Shuts it. Finally says, "The floor?"
"It's a nice floor," Steph says. "I paid good money for this floor. I'm very comfy here."
"Uh-huh," Jason drawls. She lets her eyes slide shut, but she still hears him shifting around besides her. "Okay, yeah. As far as floors go."
"Right," Steph says, drowsily.
"My knees will be killing me in the morning," Jason bitches. "And my back. And—"
"Shhhh," Steph says, blindly reaching out to paw over his face. "That's a future problem. Along with the hangover."
"Yeah, that'll be fun," Jason says, and then he doesn't say anything else, long enough for Steph to float halfway up out of her body, off into a pleasant, deepening doze. Jason says, "Hey. Brown." A nudge somewhere around her shoulder. "Steph?"
"Hm," Steph says, which is probably the most pointed response she can manage.
"Thank you," Jason says, achingly sincere. "It's. It was nice to." He huffs. "Christ."
"Careful," Steph says, lifting one heavy eyelid up. "You're going to pull a muscle." Jason is blurry and hazy, but the blob of his face creases in a distinctly nervous way. "But you're welcome. Any time you need to get alcohol poisoned, just let me know." She finds the wherewithal to lift a fist up into the space between them. "Dead Robin's Club five-ever."
Jason is still, long enough that Steph thinks he's going to leave her hanging entirely. Of course, he doesn't, knocking their knuckles together. "Five-ever?"
"Like forever but for cool people," Steph says. "So me, but not you."
"Okay, purple wonder," Jason says.
"It's eggplant," Steph says, and then, "Now shush. You need your beauty sleep."
"I need my beauty sleep?" Jason says, but Steph has decided that she's sleeping for real now, and nothing outside of an all-hands Arkham breakout will wake her. Jason snorts, and then yawns again. "Fine. And so ends the first meeting of the Dead Robin's Club. Jesus."
He can bitch all he wants, but he still stayed. Steph suspects he'll be there when she wakes up, even if it's only because she has painkillers on hand. Tomorrow, she thinks she'll try to talk him into the movie; even if she suspects Sleepless in Seattle is the kind of film she usually likes to mock.
"Good night, Brown," Jason says, very quietly. And remarkably, it has been.