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amazingflyingdick · 3 years

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all that glitters.

WHO: Dick Grayson (@amazingflyingdick), Jason Todd (@thatsjasonfkntodd), & mentions of Slade Wilson (@terminator-deathstroke) WHERE: Dick’s apartment WHEN: Backdated to October 10th WHAT: Dick opens up a little more about Slade and convinces Jason to play Truth or Dare.

JASON: Jason was not a meddler. He often left people to deal with their own shit, as he wanted to be allowed to do, but there were moments when there was such an obvious window where he could do something that he couldn’t not do it. It wasn’t meddling, then. It was just taking something that he’d learned and using it. And he’d learned about Dick. Otherwise, what had all those fucking conversations been for?

Still, he’d given it a few days. Maybe he had shaken himself out of it, somehow, and bucked the idea that if you did the same thing a hundred times you’d get a different result on the hundred-and-first. The radio silence from Dick that was still going on days later said otherwise, though.

To his credit, he tried the door like a normal person. He knocked, he rang the bell, he heard Sasha bark once on the other side and the excited huffhuff as she sniffed beneath the door. Dick didn’t answer or say anything, even under threat of burglary. Maybe he didn’t believe him, maybe he didn’t hear him, but either way Jason followed through. He’d been breaking into houses and apartments since before he’d hit puberty - that apartment door didn’t stand a chance.

In a minute, he had it open and was nudging Sasha back. “I’m the one who leaves people on ‘Read,’ dude.”

DICK: Dick knew Tim and Jason both had good intentions when they showed up at his apartment to talk to him. It wasn't their fault that he was still trapped in his head, reliving conversations over and over, and struggling to understand what he must have overlooked.

When he heard someone at the door, he didn’t bother getting up to answer it. That wasn't unusual. He heard a couple knocks throughout the day, but he never responded to whoever was on the other side, even when they tried to talk to him through the door. This time he heard Jason's voice and he frowned, but ultimately decided to stay where he was. He'd gotten a box down from his closet and was going through it on the bed.

Then he heard the door open and, while he wasn't that surprised that Jason made good on his threat to break in, it made him realize he must want to see him regardless of what he would see. Breathing in slowly, Dick got up from the bed and went to the doorway of his bedroom. He'd taken a shower, but he was still wearing clothes someone would sleep in. What was the point of getting dressed if he didn't have plans to go anywhere? "Sorry, my... my phone died. Before that I was just..." He paused, but didn't bother coming up with an excuse. "Just thinking.”

JASON: If anything, Dick looked like more of a mess then than he had when he and Tim had both showed up. Jason had gotten used to hearing from him every day, at least a single dumb message, even if he didn’t respond, so it had been weird to suddenly not only have none sent but to not be answered either. Even if he’d had no idea something else was going on, that probably would’ve got him over to the apartment to make sure he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t, obviously. “Got a billion dollar expense account and can’t buy a charger?” Of course he knew that wasn’t the reason. It hadn’t mattered if the phone was dead if he wasn’t talking to anyone anyway.

Jason was not one to shy away from people at their low points. While he never expected anyone to be there for his (and was generally proved right), what he had always been able to shoulder was the darkest parts for people he cared about. He’d been doing it since he was a kid. It was why he hadn’t hesitated even for a second when Roy relapsed to say he could and would handle it. The reason he often wasn’t there was that he didn’t let himself be close enough to people to know when it was going on in the first place, not because he was unwilling or somehow incapable of dealing with it. He’d had no idea until recently what it even looked like for Dick, much less had a reason to think that there was any call for him to be there during it.

He stepped more fully into the apartment and sat down on the arm of the couch. What he’d done for Roy during the detox didn’t fit here. This was Dick. He knew it had to look different. “You wanna talk?” It was not something he normally offered. If anything, it was anathema to his usual way of operating, but it was the one thing Dick usually did that suddenly he wasn’t doing. He was going so out of his way not to that Jason had little doubt it was the missing thing.

DICK: Dick's phone hadn't died because he didn't have a charger and they both knew it, so he didn't bother clarifying that he did have a charger... somewhere. The lack of a quip or ready made comeback was also uncharacteristic. It almost seemed like he was half-asleep. Sasha, restless, paced between them and finally settled for sitting next to Dick, nosing into his palm and whining.

There were a handful of times when he'd pulled back from the family. It was always when he didn't know how to handle the situation and it was too much for him to regulate. The only thing he could do was isolate himself. He didn't like being around the people he cared about when he was like this, because it wasn't him, it was difficult, and he knew it was disarming to the people who needed him.

Jason asking if he wanted to talk took him off guard. Dick hesitated, but he came around to the chair. He sat on edge of the seat and leaned forward, his arms folded over his knees. There was something fidgety about his hands and he brought one to his mouth, chewing on the nail. His fingertips had practically been destroyed in a matter of days. "You won't like what I have to say.”

JASON: “I never like anything anyone has to say,” he shrugged. “Kind of my thing.” Supposedly, anyway. It wasn’t really true, but some people were incapable of handling being disagreed with. “So hit me with it. I didn’t come over here just to look at your bed head.” And he didn’t feel like pretending like he’d not shown up to try to help, either. Dick knew very well that Jason wasn’t the one who showed up for a lot of casual visits. He’d stopped being quite so disagreeable when Dick did it, though.

Whatever Dick had to say, Jason didn’t expect to be terribly surprised by. Maybe he’d be wrong. He just normally went into everything expecting the worst, shittiest thing to happen, even if it had nothing to do with him. Once in awhile he was still surprised, and maybe this would be one of those times, but when he’d decided to show up he’d already braced for Dick not to have anything to say or do that he liked. Jason made a motion with his hand like he was coaxing an animal out of hiding. “I didn’t write a speech for you, so you’re the one that’s going to have to do the talking.”

DICK: By now Dick knew what Jason said wasn't true, but he didn't say anything. Sometimes it surprised him how much yet how little Jason had actually changed from the way he'd been as a kid. The reactivity was still there, the tendency to see threats when there weren't any, but he was more internal about it now. That was one of the realizations he'd come to during their talk in the library. Just because Jason didn't reach out or resisted initial attempts at reaching out didn't mean he was unreachable. So he kept trying. It was worth it to him, especially because they never had a chance to solidify the bond they'd just started to form before his death.

A long silence passed as he chewed the side of his nail on his index finger, wincing when he drew blood. Exhaling softly, he forced his hands to fold between his knees, keeping them still for at least half a second before giving up, running one of them through his hair to push it out of his eyes. He had admitted to his past with Slade. With Tim, he'd admitted a little more about the seriousness of it. Both of those things were different. Dick hadn't talked to anyone about how he felt now, or what his thoughts about it were, and there wasn't really anyone he could talk to about it. The weight of that was crushing. "I don't know how to be... done with this. For years I thought I was over it, completely, and then..." His fingers twisted slightly in his hair. "I was wrong."

JASON: Whether he did it on purpose or not, and usually it was six of one and half a dozen of the other, he often engineered obstacles that kept people away from him or at least at arm’s length. At the first sign of pushback, and definitely by the third or fourth, most people backed down and stopped trying. It’s what he expected. The predictability of it, while not a comfort, was at least not a shock either. It had taken Dick over a decade to finally start to do it, but he had kept pushing on long enough for Jason to believe he didn’t mean to just up and quit. So he was there, ready to do much the same thing. Whatever impression he gave, he never actually meant to only take and never give.

Jason watched him worry at his hands and resisted the urge to tell him to stop. Dick, who rarely ever stopped moving let alone boxed himself up in one place for a week, had to put it somewhere. Apparently the “somewhere” was fucked up fingernails and fidgeting. He made himself ignore it; there were worse things. “Why?” There had never been anything or anyone that Jason couldn’t walk away from, and the mere idea of it was foreign to him - stupid, even, but he often said that about a lot of the way Dick worked. “What’s Slade got that you can’t get away from? It’s not like you’ve never split up with somebody.” Important ones, even.

DICK: Even though one of the things Jason said to him in the library was that it was a two way street, Dick hadn't fully known what to expect. It wasn't that he didn't believe him, or thought Jason wouldn't be able to go through with it, but he knew that different people had different ways of expressing things. Dick was there for people in his way, but he was smart enough to understand that not everyone's way looked the same. This was Jason's way of offering support, which he appreciated. Normally, Dick enjoyed being needed and he was willing to give everything he had, but right now he was struggling. He didn't know which way was up and he wasn't useful to anyone.

Why. It was a good question. "I don't know," he admitted. "I've been trying to figure that out, but I don't know if I'll ever understand. It was different, it... and after, I was different. I was guarded. I never really let anyone as close to me again. It's not that I didn't want to, because I tried. I tried so hard, especially with Babs, and..." His mouth felt dry and he could feel a prickling in his throat that he fought back. "It just got all messed up. She knew, by the way. She's the only one I ever told." He thought it would salvage the relationship if she understood everything about him, but it didn't change anything. It didn't change the fact that he'd been altered by the experience.

JASON: He’d never been talented at giving people advice in a way that felt good. If he saw something that made sense (or didn’t make sense), it usually came out exactly however it had been in his head. There was no sugar-coating on the way out, most of the time. Maybe he was less harsh with some people than with others, but it was only small degrees of variation. So, he had no Hallmark worthy words of encouragement and solidarity to offer Dick, but he was hoping that if nothing else he could cut through some of what was in his head. He was obviously not capable of doing that himself. Jason wasn’t always, either, when it was his own problem.

The explanation he got was one that set him a little more on edge than he’d expected. It was just the wording, maybe, so he repeated it the way it had sounded. “So what, Slade snapped something in you and he’s the only one that can touch it now?” He wasn’t sure what to do with the admission about Barbara. Regardless of how much or little Dick had told her, it hadn’t changed their trajectory.

DICK: Hearing Jason say the words made him frown faintly, but he considered the question. It was different to have someone else talk about it in such plain terms, asking for clarification, and it forced him to truly analyze the things he was saying. What he'd been doing on his own for days wasn't working. All it did was create an endless echo chamber that left him emotionally drained and even more hopeless. Even though Jason wasn't doing anything but asking him direct questions that simplified what he'd just rambled on about, it was like shooting a laser beam through fog.

"No," he finally said carefully. "But I was ashamed after it ended, because I felt tricked. I wanted to pretend it never happened. It was a... weird split. From myself, I guess, and..." Hesitating, Dick took a moment to think about it. "It was more a self denial. Didn't want to think what happened had anything to do with me. It was easier to shift the blame or chalk it up to being stupid and young. Because what sane person wants that?"

JASON: “Whether you’re sane depends on why you wanted him.” Jason did know a little bit of it, but it wasn’t like he’d pressed him for a ton of the more personal details. He hadn’t really wanted to hear them, originally, but now their relationship had become so pervasive in other aspects of Dick’s life and the city itself that he couldn’t skip out on the details. If he was going to have any insight at all, he needed something closer to the whole picture. “And why you still do. Leave sane and insane out of it. Leave out the idea of Slade changing, too.”

Jason turned and finally sat down properly on the couch. “The guy has to have something that made you cave as fast as you did. You were already doing it when I was in jail. So what is it? Because if I had to, I could tell you every reason I want Roy. I’m not gonna,” that went without saying, “but I could. And they hold up against a lot.” He’d been aware of them the whole time, clear cut - what he admired about him, why he wanted him, why he let himself - and none of it hinged on what Roy could be or might be, it was all just what he was. There had to be something more to Slade that Dick wanted besides the idea that he could be more than Deathstroke, and Jason wanted to hear it without the veil of morality.

DICK: Dick wasn't fully sure if there could be a logical reason to want Deathstroke. What other people saw wasn't what he saw, and trying to explain how things were for him would be bizarre for anyone hearing it. He hadn't lied when he told Jason and Tim that he thought Slade would change and give up Deathstroke, even hoped for it, but that aspect didn't have much to do with how he felt about him. It was a way to excuse why he would entertain the idea in the first place, because at that point, he wasn't ready to face reality. It took a long time to reach the place where he was now - or where he'd been prior to the NOVA incident.

Sighing, he was silent for a long moment, though the comment about Roy did earn the ghost of a smirk. It made him look a little less blank. He wasn't sure if he could give Jason the type of answer he would understand, but he didn't let himself overthink it. The important thing was authenticity. If this was going to fall apart, at least he would be left with some measure of self-awareness. "It was like I..." Dick's hesitated, his brow furrowing, and Sasha rested her head against his knee. "Like I had something solid under my feet. For the first time since my parents, and... he doesn't expect me to do anything. He doesn't want anything from me. Not a joke, not a smile, not Nightwing. Nothing. What he did to NOVA, he did knowing that it could end everything, and he did it anyway. Because he sincerely believed that it would keep me safe, as fucked up as it was, he was putting me first. And I... I know it makes me a hypocrite to wish he'd do things differently, but it isn't because... because my feelings are conditional on that. I never asked him to give anything up and I wouldn't, I just..." He exhaled softly and shook his head, resting his hand on top of Sasha's head. "I just want it to be easier.”

JASON: He didn’t need to point out that the jobs Deathstroke took, killing people for money who’d done nothing but piss off someone enough to put a contract on their head, was wrong. Dick knew that. Jason didn’t think that Deathstroke was worth any of the energy put into him, but that’s all he had to gauge with - the Deathstroke part. Not any of the rest of it. He was trying to tamp down his own judgement about it - which he’d been doing in varying degrees since the beginning - to try to see it as Dick did. He couldn’t, really, but there was one thing he could do and one thing he did believe that made that not really matter. He’d just have to wait and see if Dick’s answer made it worth anything.

“So if it’s not conditional on whether or not he’s Deathstroke, who are you trying to make it easier for? If you’re not asking him to give up something for you and it doesn’t matter to you if he does or not,” because that sounded like what he was saying, whether Jason believed him or not, “then whose opinion are you counting higher than yours?”

DICK: Dick said nothing, at least not at first, but the soft sigh more than indicated what his answer would be. It was always Bruce. "I know you probably think I'm an idiot for caring about what he thinks. It's hard not to." He reached up to rub the back of his neck, already feeling the tension. "I'm not saying it makes no difference, obviously I don't... want people to die, you know that, and I would try to stop it if I were there. That's my personal choice and it's on my conscience. I'll never believe that killing is the right thing to do, but..." Trailing, he swallowed hard. "That doesn't mean I don't understand the justification for it. It's just harder... with him.”

Gritting his teeth, his gaze lowered. "You were right, you know. That day you found out, when you said I was being hypocritical. I know how it looked. I know why you were pissed off. Maybe you don't need me to explain, maybe it doesn't even matter, but... I don't want you to think I changed because of him. I didn’t. It was before that. After what happened to you, I was... angry. I'd never wanted anyone dead before, except Tony Zucco, and Bruce... didn't have the capacity to handle it. Anyway, I didn't want anything to do with him or his ideologies. I rejected all of it for a while, I started looking at things differently, and everything and everyone got... less black and white." It wasn't that he started killing, or ever considered it, but he started to see situations from different perspectives. Dick felt like he was rambling, but it helped when he worked things out aloud, if he heard his own reasoning, and maybe it was more for himself. "When everything went wrong with... Slade, with the Titans, I... overcompensated. Swung back the other way. Then you came back." Bruce's apparent death happened not long after that, and Dick had been forced to take on the mantle of Batman in his place. "And I started to see things differently again. I had to or I'd have to cut you off, and I couldn't. I wouldn't." He paused. "But it made me realize that, even when I thought my morals were identical to Bruce's, whenever something happened, my first thought was always that I failed him. Not myself, but him. It's something I still can't let go of."

JASON: “Fuck Bruce,” Jason said immediately, more like a snap reaction than one he gave any real consideration to. Not that it would’ve been different even if he sat there and thought about it. “He doesn’t get to keep dictating everything. Your...relationship thing with Slade isn’t gonna impress him no matter what you do. You think he’ll stamp on the Bat seal of approval just because you tried to fit it into a box he’d like more? He won’t.”

But it was hard to linger long on berating Bruce with what Dick said next. It got Jason to furrow his brows, and for a few seconds it was hard even for him to know whether what he felt was irritation or confusion. It might have been both. “Where was that attitude when you were offering to reform me?” If it was an unfair question or should have been water under the bridge, it didn’t stop him from asking. Not that it ever did, really. Him being there and letting Dick talk was about as far into considering his comfort as he could go - measuring what he said was rarely ever on the agenda. “How’re you gonna look at me and say it’d be easier for Slade to be more like me when you couldn’t even let me be like me?” Dick had said he’d been right to call him a hypocrite, but for once the questions weren’t accusatory, despite the wording. Maybe not unfair, either.

Jason raked his teeth over his bottom lip. He knew that things were different right then than they had been when he’d shown back up in Gotham. They were different for him, in a lot of ways, and they were different for Dick, too. They were quite a ways past that - offering help, reform, a nice cell in Arkham to get his head on straight (even if that had ended up more on Bruce than on Dick), blah blah - but it wasn’t like he’d forgot. It wasn’t like they’d talked about it. They were past it, but it was still standing there. He’d shown up to let Dick say what he needed to say, but it wasn’t going to do much good unless Jason actually made himself find a way to listen to it.

“You think I actually let go of what Bruce thinks?” It was almost funny, in a bitter way. “I haven’t. I know when he’s disappointed and how I did it. I just realized that it was going to be like that no matter what. He’s never-“ he stopped and shook his head, trying to put the words together the right way and not just the way they formed on his tongue. “None of us are ever going to be what he wants. Might as well be what we need instead.” That was his big, grand contribution to life. Nobody else would provide, whether it was acceptance or affection or whatever else, so it was better to just let go of it and take care of it on their own. “If you’re getting something from Slade, just...take it, man. Take it if it’s there. Who gives a fuck what it looks like to the rest of us?” Any of them. Not just Bruce.

DICK: "I know. I just..." It was hard to put into words what Dick was trying to do in a way that seemed at all feasible, because he knew what an impossible feat it was to get Bruce to understand anything beyond his own narrow view of the world. Although he had been able to emulate that for the sake of donning the cowl, Dick was always a lot more open-minded. There were occasions when he let his ideals and judgments slip, without really meaning to, but at the end of the day he was far more adaptable and willing to listen to other possibilities. It was why he was so much more effective as a team leader. He knew how to take everyone into consideration and fight for a common goal. It was necessary to have a degree of adaptability in order to be at all successful in that.

Jason's question made him flinch and he sighed, looking down at his hands. "You came back when I was trying my damnedest to prove that what happened with Slade had nothing to do with me. Like I said, I was overcompensating. And it was easier to go back to something I knew I could rely on. The devil you know, right? I needed something and I chose Bruce, because the risk I took and what I lost me made me think he must have a point. Everyone needs something to believe in, especially when they no longer trust themselves to do the right thing. I stopped trusting myself." Dick smiled wryly, although the effect was more of a grimace. "You just had bad timing." He'd never wondered how things would have turned out had Jason not come back, because it wasn't a possibility he wanted to entertain. Suffice to say, they would both be in very different places. There never would have been a reason for him to start entertaining those grey areas again. "I never wanted to be like him, though. When I saw him with you, when I realized what it cost him to maintain those rigid standards, I knew I wasn't like him." Dick knew Jason cared about what Bruce thought, but he also knew better than to admit that he knew, so he said nothing. It was strange to know Jason was right on an intellectual level, yet be unable to do anything about the continuous efforts he made for Bruce's approval. Lowering his head, his fingers dug into his arms and he shook his head. "I know I can't spend make myself unhappy for the sake of pleasing him. It isn't just that, it's... I don't need to be seen as perfect, just... acceptable." He paused. "But I do care about how it impacts you and the others. Jason, I..." He made himself stop. "I knew when I first met you that Bruce would let you down, so I told myself that I would be there for you instead. I knew what it would be like for you, that you would never please him and you could... die trying. I knew it because I lived it. And I wasn’t there. You even called me, and I..." That was a dangerous road to go down. Dick clenched his teeth, barely aware of how his fingernails were cutting into his skin. "It isn't just Bruce. I don't want to mess it all up. I want to be worth it."

JASON: I know, I just... Jason often got stuck in his own loop about Bruce. He was aware of it to know it existed, but not to muster either the ability or desire to break out of it. It just didn’t matter enough. The loop deserved to be there, so he stayed in it. That didn’t mean he couldn’t see Dick’s for what it was and want to snap him into something different, though. He both knew and could see how much of a waste it was, how dumb it was, and that it’d never end. Did Bruce have any fucking clue? It seemed hard to fathom that he wouldn’t, but it was worse if he did, and did nothing to try to change it, or only managed effort in suspended moments here or there. Jason had had a few of those of his own. The isolated things. An apology, an explanation, a justification. It never changed the whole picture for him, and it obviously never changed anything for Dick either, even if it didn’t look the same. It was easier to see from the outside - he’d just never had cause to look at any of the others long enough to notice. Not that Dick would have let him.

“Bad timing. That’s me.” It didn’t really matter, when it was all said and done, because it was done. It had played out. They’d lived it how they lived it. Jason was only barely reaching a point with himself where he was willing to allow people to add some different context into it, to color what he remembered a little differently than he’d done on his own. “What’d it cost him?” he wondered. “Me? You? We’re both still here, like a couple of idiots.” Not always. But what’d Bruce lose permanently? And what’d he do with the things that got returned to him? Not fix them. That was for damn sure. He was quiet for a couple of beats before finally adding, “You’re not like him anyway, even if you did want to be.” And from Jason, it was no insult. More silence followed. His jaw tightened once or twice and he stared forward at the switched-off television at his own blurred reflection. He had called. He’d not really thought about it again, after. With everything else that had gone down, Dick not picking up the phone had been far from the straw that broke the camel’s back. “I called and you didn’t answer, yeah,” he finished for him. “So? I don’t-“ he sighed, faltering finally. “I never cared that I died, man. Even when I was doing it, I didn’t blame anybody for it. Not Batman, not you, not my fucking mom.” And it hadn’t been dying that had turned him into the person he was, either. Surely Dick knew that, by then. The dying didn’t matter.

Restless, suddenly, he ran one hand along the cushion beside him. “I’m sitting here, right? Would I be sitting here if it-“ Jesus Christ. “If you weren’t worth it?” He wouldn’t be. “Because I’ve got like a billion other things I could be doing.”

DICK: Anyone who took up the Robin mantle understood the futility of pleasing Bruce, of earning that hard-won approval, but Tim had gotten close. What Dick hated to accept was what it had taken for Bruce to get where he was now. The disconnect between how he was when Dick and Jason knew him and what Tim, Damian, and even Steph had seen was so vast that sometimes it was like they knew two different people. One of the main reasons why Dick had been around more for Tim was because of what happened with Jason, and that seed of anger caused him to stand up to Bruce several times for Tim's sake, because Tim needed it, and he had to accept that his own childhood was over. It didn't matter if he could logically or objectively step back and see the situation for what it was. It didn't matter that he knew Bruce loved him. He largely suspected that wouldn't matter for Jason, either - or maybe it would, but there would always be that thought of too little, too late. The difference between them was where they channeled the criticism. Dick turned it inward and Jason lashed out, mainly at Bruce, easily making up for what Dick didn't say.

"We're here," he agreed, because it was true enough. Jason would show up when the chips were down. There were times when Dick hadn't been sure if he would, though he'd always reach out, but that was a long time ago. "It cost him a family. A family he could have had, if he'd just... I don't know, gotten therapy, I guess. That's why he took us in. He wanted a family. Yeah, I got the good little soldier speech and made that dumb oath, just like you did, but he didn't have to adopt us." That was something Dick was certain of, because Bruce hadn't adopted him right away, and that had been the main reason why he'd been so desperate to please him, especially in the beginning. He was terrified Bruce would return him, defective, and pick out a newer, shinier kid who did cleaner backflips. It was dumb in retrospect.

He couldn't help a faint smile when Jason said he wasn't like Bruce, laughing under his breath and pushing his hair back from his face. "Good. He's miserable." As Jason continued, his smile faded and he held his breath. Even though he'd said the word not two seconds ago, it was impossible not to wince when it came out of Jason's mouth. He didn't think he would ever not feel that pang. The first time it had been agonizing, he could remember it so well, and the memories and emotions associated it were heavy. "I know you don't. I know that it might have still happened if I'd answered the phone, if I'd stayed, if I played it all over again, and maybe there was no stopping it. It was Joker's doing. I know that. I just don't want to lose the time we have now, or waste it making stupid decisions." It wasn't so much that he was looking back, but the past was a good reference when it came to moving forward. He knew how tragic one misstep could be. "I still wish I'd picked up that stupid phone. I had your voicemail saved for a long time, but then I smashed it after a fight with Bruce. Lost it." That had been more devastating than he wanted to admit, so he forced a faint smirk. "Your little high voice. It was a lot higher than I said in the car, by the way. I was doing you a favor."

No. Jason wouldn't be there unless he wanted to be. Dick knew that because he knew him. It had taken several good-intentioned but misinformed efforts to reach this point, too. That was why he didn't want to mess it up. "You sure there's anything more fun than watching me wax on and feel sorry for myself?" Rubbing his nose, he laughed softly. "We could play rooftop truth or dare. Trampoline rooftop truth or dare. It's more fun with two people." He paused, then continued quickly. "And I have wine."

JASON: There had been other points, earlier on, when the person in the family he’d have said he was least like was Dick. It had been more like armor than anything. He couldn’t be him, despite all the trying, so the only solution was to wear the opposite like a badge of honor, or at least a badge of defiance. He’d done that for a long time. He might have kept doing it, even, had they not finally managed to yell about something that ended up mattering. He still couldn’t ever be Dick, didn’t even want to be anymore, but what had felt like a gulf that separated them had narrowed into something small enough to see over. Bruce had failed both of them in ways that the others couldn’t understand. Tim had said as much. He couldn’t be insulted by being likened to Bruce, because the Bruce he knew wasn’t the same. And good for him, just like Jason had said. Good for him, but that wasn’t what he got. It wasn’t what Dick got, either.

“Yeah. Cost him a family. Cost us...” he shook his head, “I guess the same thing.” He let the words hang, listening to them as he said them. “For awhile.” And that part, he was still getting used to. Dick had tried for something with Tim and Damian and he’d got it, at least halfway, but Jason had never expected to. He’d given up on it, at least in any meaningful way, and was still easing into the idea that he’d been wrong. He wasn’t ever going to have the father in Bruce that he’d wanted, but he could salvage...something. Somebody. Not just because some words got said - he’d had enough damn words. Everybody had words. Even Bruce had words. Dick was the one finally doing something to prove it, even if the only thing it looked like right then was letting Jason see him be something besides the unattainable thing he’d conjured up for so long. That was fine. It was all he’d wanted, really. Actual truth with something to back it up. “Look up miserable in the dictionary and you’ll see a cowl with stupid ears.” He didn’t want to be like that, either, but at times it seemed inevitable. All those months, years, when it felt like the only thing he had left was just disappointment and fucking anger...had he been much different from Bruce then? Not really. Not on that level, anyway. “Doesn’t really matter anymore if you could’ve made a difference. I’m not asking you to make up for it, don’t need you to pay some kind of pittance for missing a phone call. Just don’t use me as some kind of reason not to do something you want to do.” He didn’t want to be an excuse, much less a burden - something holding him back from himself or from somebody. Even if the somebody was freakin’ Slade.

The remark about his voice finally got him to move. He threw one of the pillows nearby straight toward Dick’s head, aiming to knock him over. “Keep talking and you’ll sound like that by the time I leave.” He stared at him like he was daring him to continue. “What are we, sixteen?” But there were worse things, he figured, than just getting drunk. “Fine. Hope it’s a lot of wine.”

DICK: It might be the singular thing that prevented their schism from being too great. Dick understood what Jason went through with Bruce, the impossible standards, although Jason had an actual person he felt he had to live up to while Dick's own fears of failure were largely internalized. All of that resulted into the tendency to be what the people around him needed. He had the ability to read a room and innately understand how to mold himself to the group. The lack of authenticity ate at him, but the idea of exposing what he thought was fundamentally flawed and broken about himself was horrifying, even though being understood was something he would always crave. It was another thing that drew him to Slade. As it turned out, being accepted and understood was addictive. It made him less reticent to be direct and honest with Jason. The idea that they could share those experiences made the burden much lighter, even if they didn't talk about it, and even if they handled it differently. It came from the same place.

"For a while," he agreed. "For the world's greatest detective, he doesn't seem to grasp long term effects." Abnormal psychology was one thing, but anticipating others' reactions to a sequence of events, especially their reactions, was one of Bruce's shortcomings. Pressuring Dick to let the others believing he was dead for their well being played perfectly into Dick's desire to protect his family, sure, but there had been consequences. He knew there would be consequences. Like Bruce, he thought it was worth what he had to do. It was a burden he wanted to take on for their sake, even though it still troubled him that Bruce had strategically used that angle against him. "Underneath all of it, we all want the same thing, right? Maybe that's just a side effect of being an orphan." That made him laugh, even though he felt more sorry for Bruce than anything. "I used to get so mad when people compared me to Bruce. They did it all the time when I was with the Titans, said I was just like the Bat, and... I hated it." There was no denying he could be a serious and harsh leader, but he'd had to be. There were lives in his hands. If he were going to take on that role, then he would devote himself to keeping everyone under his care safe. It put him under a lot of pressure and there were plenty of occasions when he'd exploded. The position brought out his perfectionist, organizational side - something he'd never relished in, because it wasn't him. Sometimes he wondered if anyone other than Wally, Roy, and Donna knew him at all. Kory, maybe, but even with Kory he'd been largely buying into an idealized version of himself.

"It's not really pittance. It's just knowing how easy it is to make a choice you regret even years later. And what I want... I mean, what's most important to me, is family. It's always been family." That was what made it so hard to risk choosing Slade and possibly alienating them. Dick caught the pillow, but the motion made him fall back against the couch. This time when he laughed it was richer, although the redness of his eyes betrayed other emotions that rose to the surface with it. Tossing the pillow back at Jason, he got to his feet and gestured for him to follow. "It's a lot," he confirmed. "Everyone seems to think wine is the go-to gift when you move into a new apartment, even if it's months after the fact." He had at least a dozen bottles shoved in various places around the kitchen. "Uh..." He dug around in the silverware drawer. "...But I don't have a cork opener. Do you have a pocketknife or something?"

JASON: Though he'd never know for sure, maybe the weight he'd carried around would have been there with or without Dick. If it hadn't been the standards set around him, would it have been something else? He'd wondered, more than once, if he was even capable of the kinds of things that other people were, or if it was truly a situation where he was damned no matter what. If he just was...how he was, and his issues with Bruce, what happened with Joker, all of it just happened to be the circumstances and the situations he'd ended up with. There was no way to tell. He couldn't live a different life to find out. All he knew was that he didn't want that to be true, and if it wasn't inherently true, that meant it was the result of something. Someone. Maybe that was what Dick was saying, too, about what he'd tried to do after things went south with Slade the first time. It just looked wildly different for both of them, as usual. He didn't know how to ask, or if he wanted to, but the thought took hold as he sat there.

"Apparently being a good detective doesn't do much good with this." But it wasn't like they were neat puzzles to be solved. Jason often wished it were that simple himself - that people made enough sense to just put them in the places he wanted them to fit, but he had the presence of mind (sometimes, anyway) to realize it wasn't going to work. He ran his hand along the back of his neck. That was what they had in common, right? All of them? Something in or about the world had spit them out and they'd ended up together. "Yeah, well...wanting is the easy part." Jason had said that plenty himself, that Dick was just the Baby Bat, but that had been the point of what he was doing. He'd projected that himself, whether he wanted to or not. Jason had just had no way of knowing that he should be seeing through it. He had never spent much time talking to Roy about Dick. There was no reason for him to. It was, if anything, one of the things he'd wanted to discuss with him the least. Their understanding of him probably split somewhere, but he'd never wanted to drag that into their relationship. Whatever they were, he'd wanted it to be them. Not something that involved Dick.

He chewed at the inside of his lip. He didn't fidget the way that Dick did, but he too was finding it hard to just keep sitting there, still, doing nothing but talking. One of the things that had always been and would always been difficult, if not flat out impossible for him to accept was that he was a priority in someone's life. Anyone's, really. To be told flat out that Dick wanted a relationship with the family, with him, over whatever he had with Slade that he struggled to distance himself from...it was a struggle to believe it. That was what he was trying so fucking hard to change, at least a little. It left him quiet.

It also made the wine even more appealing. If there was a ton of it, all the better. Jason didn't often get drunk. He didn't like the loss of control that came with it. Mostly, it was something he did in moments of desperation, low times, or just when he was too fucking angry to even know what else to do with it. It hadn't happened in awhile. Right then, if he was going to stay there and they were going to keep doing whatever it was they were doing, he wanted the wine. "Did you just ask me if I have a pocketknife? Have we ever met before? Hello, stranger," he rolled his eyes as he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out something much more sizeable than a pocket knife. "Give me some of those bottles."

DICK: Dick struggled to separate and understand the difference between what Bruce knew, but didn't know how to change, and what he was truly ignorant of. He was always surprised by the truth. At this point, he'd spent years trying to understand how Bruce's mind worked and why he was the way he was. It was something he grasped in theory, but the simplest thing could capsize the whole theory. At this point, he had to reconcile with the fact that there might not ever be a way to fully understand Bruce. What's more, it was no longer his job. Robin had to know how to work alongside Batman, anticipate the moves he made, and to mimic his behavior for top efficiency.

"Hard part's over, I think." That was what he hoped. They'd bridged the gap between them despite all hurdles. Jason being here now proved that the fight was never one-sided. At some point they'd turned the corner and were now on their way to building something different. Sometimes Dick tried looking back so he could pinpoint when that happened, even though he knew it didn't really matter. Where they'd been was inconsequential. He wanted to focus on where they were now. Maybe that was why Jason didn't like to talk about the past, there wasn't much to be gained from it, because the rules were different now.

Hard conversations weren't typically ones Dick avoided, but he knew better than to let Jason's silence simmer. When he was quiet it indicated that he didn't know what to say or had nothing good to say. Sometimes it was best to let things sink in, especially when they'd covered so many touchy topics in a short timeframe. Moving on to something lighter and less emotional was the only way he knew how to redirect the evening that wouldn't result in Jason taking off. He hesitated, but then handed over the bottle in his hand. It was Pinot Grigio. "Wait, I mean one of those like... swiss army knives. You know, with all the little pieces that pop out. They usually come with a corkscrew." It was hard imagining Jason with some boy scout knife, but he supposed it wasn't impossible. "You can't just, like, cut the top off."

JASON: Even though he’d had a family in the legal sense from the day that Bruce adopted him onward, he’d spent so much of the time after the Pit hell bent on staying away from them. He’d still shown up if they needed him, really needed him, and reached out to say so, but otherwise...otherwise he’d just tried to fill in the missing things in other ways. By himself, mostly, but it was what the Outlaws had been for awhile, too. Somebody to have his back and give a damn for awhile, and with whom he could do the same in kind. He’d figured it would just stay that way, with him piecing together scraps of something. Maybe it was still going to be true - the world was still spinning in the same direction and all. They weren’t suddenly going to be one big happy family sitting down to Sunday dinner and going to baseball games together on the weekend. But some things were changing. Had changed. If they hadn’t, he wouldn’t have go to Dick’s place, certainly not tried it twice, just to be there for him.

Still, he couldn’t suddenly just be a different person. Maybe he should’ve thanked him or told him he believed him or anything at all, really, but he couldn’t do it. Later, maybe. Dick was in the middle of a whole fucking ordeal, he didn’t actually know what his priorities were going to be, right? He wasn’t going to hang on the answer. He’d meant what he told him, that he should go for what he wanted and damn the rest. They’d spend too much time doing anything but that. To Jason, it was difficult to fathom the final decision being what Dick claimed it was.

“Who said I can’t cut the top off? I’ll do it over the sink. Wine still tastes the same.” Jason had the oddly shaped Kris dagger that he often carried. “Don’t worry. It’s clean.” It had been buried in many a shoulder and stomach, but it was perfectly fine for getting a damn cork out. Jason took the bottle from him and stabbed the point of the bottle down into the cork before shimmying it back and forth to try to coax it free. Instead, he got a few pieces of chipped cork for his trouble. Rinse, repeat, until he had most of it dug out. “Voila. One bottle down.” But he next time, he was just cutting off the damn top. Nobody had time to play ‘pick out the cork.’ He motioned for a second bottle, not willing to share, and handed the open one to Dick. “We going up or what?”

Practically as soon as they had, there was the sound of shattering glass and the small amount of wine that had been at the very top of the neck spilled over the sides. The cork, still wrapped in glass, skidded across the roof and Jason nudged it away with his foot. As long as he didn’t let the top of the bottle actually touch his mouth, it’d be fine.

DICK: There was a time when Dick didn't think it was possible to bring Jason back into the family. That didn't mean he didn't want to. He'd never stopped wanting to help, even when he didn't know how to help, and he never thought that Bruce's way of handling the situation was appropriate under the circumstances. He understood why he'd done it. Jason had needed help, there was no doubt of that, but he needed more than what he'd been handed. Arkham Asylum wasn't exactly the ideal place to convalesce and find peace of mind. Dick hated the idea of Jason in there, it was discomfort he shared with Bruce more than once, and he'd been encouraged to let the system handle it from that point forward. That was never something he'd ever been able to do completely, even in the more typical situations. More happened once the person was put in jail. It didn't fix anything but the current situation. Everything that followed after that was strained. When he had seen Jason in the years between his release and before Star City, it wasn't for long and they didn't talk about anything of substance. Jason was still adverse to doing it now, for the most part, but he still would. They had. The fact that Jason was here to talk about something Dick knew he hadn't enjoyed talking about demonstrated that he was trying. Both of them were. It wasn't easy for Dick to fully stop and listen to someone else, even when he thought he believed he knew what they were saying. He'd been wrong about Jason before. There was no doubt he'd be wrong again. That didn't mean he wouldn't keep trying to be present in whatever way he could, when he could, and he knew he couldn't just keep himself shut up in his apartment like this.

"But the glass -" There was no time for Dick to protest before Jason was stabbing the knife into the cork. He shook his head, but for the first time that evening he was smiling. "There's probably a million pieces of cork floating in there now." Accepting the now corkless bottle, he handed the second one to Jason even though he expected it to get the same treatment.

Nodding, he led the way to the large glass doors that took them out to the roof. The garden was getting a little wild, especially compared to when Jason had been there last time. Motioning to the trampoline, he was about to say something when he heard the sound of glass shattering. "Are you - did you seriously just...?" His alarmed gaze shot to the cork rolling across the roof and he stepped out of its path, blinking. "How are you going to drink that? Just pour it into your mouth? Wait..." Already he was heading back inside to get Jason something, even if it was a coffee cup.

JASON: Sometimes things had to get down to the wire for Jason to step in. It had to hit do or die levels, and even then there were times when he thought he’d pick the second one or leave someone else to it, at least metaphorically. He didn’t like listening to people circle around themselves and reach for things that didn’t make any sense. He did it too, but he didn’t have to watch that from the outside. If he had, he probably would’ve wanted to kick his own ass more than once. But the difference in where he was right then and where he’d been for so many years was that he’d shown up to try to head things off before it got that bad, and he’d not done it for himself. He hadn’t gone to the apartment twice because it actually involved him. It didn’t. He was there for Dick. That was all. That was all, and that was...still new. For the two of them, anyway. Jason was wading in the shallow end of the pool with it, dipping in his feet and making himself acclimate.

“So spit them out. Pour it through a sieve. Or maybe don’t keep ten bottles of wine without buying a corkscrew,” he shrugged. It was still wine and it’d still get them drunk. If he was going to keep lingering, and it didn’t feel like they were done so he would, that was very high on the priority list. He was fighting his own instinct to recuse himself even though the only reason he was even there was because he’d decided all on his own to go. He wanted to be there, or at least felt as if he needed to be. Again, a novelty. How often had any of them generated that feeling? That he was needed?

“How’s that any different from what you’re doing? You’re just pouring it in your mouth.” With less chance of stitches, but he wasn’t torn up about it. As Dick disappeared, Jason could’ve sworn he heard him clicking his tongue. He took his mangled bottle and carefully hoisted himself up onto the trampoline to sit in the middle of it, and once Dick returned with some kind of cup he poured it as full of wine as it could go. “I never even asked why you have this thing.” He’d always just chalked it up to Dick being Dick, but it was bizarre even for him. “Why the fuck is there a trampoline at your apartment?” He’d not even asked when he lived there. Might as well.

DICK: Dick hated living alone. When he'd moved out of the manor in Gotham, he floated between the Titans until he had his own apartment, but most of his time was spent at the tower. He needed to be around them and around people. It was easy for him to feel lonely. Isolating himself wasn't in his nature and went against every one of his instincts. It was one thing to achieve independence with his own identity, but he always ended up being drawn back into a group. That wasn't something he minded, not really, even though leading always felt more like a burden. He'd frequently channel Bruce during those times. Being responsible for others and their lives had brought out a perfectionist part of him. He always felt tightly wound. When things were bad, he'd been known to snap at the smallest mistake.

"I don't keep them," he called back from the kitchen, fishing through the cabinets for a cup. "And I could give you at least seventeen differences."

Eventually he settled on a SCPD tumbler with a swirly straw. It was the only cup he had with a top on it, and much better than Jason taking his chances with jagged glass. He picked out a Halloween mug for himself with "Halloween puns are so corny!" written across the front and peppered with images of candy corn. Returning to the roof, he handed Jason the SCPD cup and joined him on the trampoline.

The question made him look up in surprise. "I never said?" Dick filled his cup up halfway, hesitated, then sighed and filled it to the brim. Even in the low light he could see the tiny pieces of cork, but it seemed so small next to everything else that he couldn't muster much energy to care about them. "I guess I didn't." He'd talked to Jason before proposing to Tanya. He knew he'd get his unfiltered, honest opinion, and that was something he wanted. "I actually have two trampolines at my apartment. One is just inside." Smirking faintly, he shrugged and took a long drink of the wine. "This one used to be in the gym. I had it moved out here. It was supposed to be just temporary, maybe a night or two, but..." The wine left a bitter taste in his mouth and he took another drink. "I proposed to Tanya on the roof, had a whole dinner set up and everything. All romantic. Our first date was at a trampoline park."

JASON: Jason was not the least bit at odds with the idea of living alone. It made a lot of things easier. But even knowing that, it was not really, honestly his preference. He needed space, the ability to go behind a door and shut it if he wanted, but not always necessarily for there to be no one on the other side when he opened it again. He wasn’t bothered a great deal during the times it didn’t work out that way, but that wasn’t true of many other people. Dick willfully choosing to be by himself and shut away as long as he had been was wildly out of the norm and the brightest red flag he could have waved.

“If they’re in your house on a regular basis, you’re keeping them.” Even if it was the same bottles. It was alcohol, not a damn decoration. They would’ve been drank eventually and he’d not been prepared. So he got cork chips and broken glass. That was how it worked.

He scoffed as soon as he brought back that tumbler, but tipped the ruined bottle above it enough to pour it full. He didn’t bother with either the lid or straw and just tipped it back to take a long first drink. A second one followed as Dick launched into an engagement story, because of course he did. “Guess you picked truth.” Were they still doing that? “What is it with you and needing that ring and piece of paper anyway?”

DICK: In the beginning, Tim was spending the evenings with him, keeping him company, and Dick enjoyed his presence even when they were in separate rooms. It helped to know that someone else was in the apartment. The small movements were a strange sense of comfort. He hadn't told Tim about seeing Slade, not yet, but the conversation was still turning over in his head. There were new things to consider about it now, things that were somewhat... troubling, and took another long drink. This time the alcohol burned the back of his throat.

Dick scrunched his nose. "Was gonna give them to Alfred, but I kept forgetting." Bruce didn't drink. He knew Alfred indulged from time to time, he could hardly blame him for that, or he could at least use them for food preparation. Or something. Instead they sat in his cabinet and collected dust.

Plucking the straw from the trampoline, he stuck it into his bottle. He was sucking on it when Jason reminded him about the game. Immediately he shook his head, rolling his eyes. "That didn't count." Then again, that also meant it was Jason's turn. "Guess that means you're up, though. Truth or dare?"

JASON: “But you didn’t give them to Alfred. Buy a corkscrew.” They weren’t making it through ten bottles of wine that night. Jason might have a slight leg up on ordinary people thanks to the Pit, but he wasn’t some metahuman with metabolism too out of control to let him get drunk. Dick would have plenty of wine still sitting by the end.

Dick didn’t give him an answer to his other question, but he let him dodge it. Many months earlier when he’d told him he was proposing to Tanya in the first place, he’d given him part of an answer. He wasn’t sure he’d ever understand it, at least not from the perspective of someone who actually felt that way. Marriage seemed...nearly useless to him, a government stamp on something that either already had meaning or didn’t.

“Dare.” No contest. He’d given Dick some truths already that night and was going to need a lot more to drink to offer up more, even in a game. He’d get to it, maybe. He brought the tumbler up to his lips and took two long swallows. “Give it your best shot.”

DICK: "What, and drink by myself? Isn't that frowned upon?" Maybe he had isolated himself over the past week or so, however long it'd been, but Dick wasn't about to use alcohol to cope. He knew better. Even right now, there was a certain shame in drinking. It was maybe the third or fourth time he had more than a single glass. And even that single glass was a rare occasion.

Jason's question wasn't one could answer just off the cuff, but it was something he'd thought about before. He thought about it right now too, and turned the question over in his mind as he acted preoccupied with thinking up a good dare. He played this so often with Wally and Roy that he had about half a dozen ideas in a matter of seconds.

But none of those ideas seemed quite right. They wouldn't be challenging for Jason, anyway - and wasn't that the whole point of playing? "I'll have you picking truth by the end of the night." He smirked and dug his phone out of his pocket. "Dare you to take a selfie with me."

JASON: “Depends on who you’re asking. Sometimes it’s the only thing that cuts through.” Jason certainly didn’t shy away from it, but he wasn’t exactly reaching for a bottle at the drop of a hat, either. Especially not recently. He’d drank in front of Roy before while he was sober, but with the relapse being so fresh and the hidden bottles he and Dick had found and emptied had removed any desire to do it. Once in awhile he dipped into a bar, and he wasn’t thinking twice about the wine. “You don’t have to lay around feeling shit all the time.” Not that he figured Dick would really get on that train.

Immediately, he regretted how little thought he’d put into his choice. A selfie wasn’t the worst thing ever, but it immediately showed him where Dick’s mind went and it wasn’t what he’d been counting on. He’d expected something physical, probably stupid, but of course that was too easy. He groaned, but shifted himself until he was a little ways behind Dick and off to one side. It put him at an angle to be in the picture, and he tipped the tumbler up to take a drink right as Dick snapped it.

“There. Your turn.” Jason didn’t sit around coming up with lists of crap he wanted to know about people. His questions tended to just come out like a demand to know something whenever the answer was suddenly important. He could figure it out, though, if truth was up to bat again.

DICK: Dick had seen Roy at low points before, but his involvement had been more transitionary. When Roy first admitted his addiction, he didn’t even find out about it until much later. And the second time, after Jason left and Roy showed up in Gotham, Dick worked hard to convince him to go West. The treatment center wasn’t part of the plan until he’d seen how bad off Roy was. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken much convincing. “But the feelings are still there after it wears off. Sometimes even stronger than before.” Alcohol was a temporary solution. At some point he’d have to face everything again. It was something he’d push himself through rather than push it aside or cover it up. That never ended well. Not for him, at least. “But I could use a break.” A couple hours of peace, free from constant ruminating, wouldn’t exactly be the worst thing. It was starting to get to him.

Jason would do the selfie because it was a dare. That part didn’t surprise him - neither of them were the type to back down once they’d committed to something. It was committing to people that seemed to be their shared problem, but Dick knew his own history was much more convoluted. After snapping the picture, he quickly saved it and slipped his phone back in his pocket. It happened so fast that his own pose had been a nothing but a cheesy grin. He still intended fo put it on Twitter later, once Jason couldn’t dare him to take it down.

“Um...” Maybe Jason would have preferred to give him a dare, but Dick liked having an excuse to tell him things that wouldn’t come up under normal circumstances. Maybe it wouldn’t lead to an exchange, but it gave Dick the opportunity to show his willingness to be honest and open. “Truth.”

JASON: Sometimes even stronger than before. Jason didn't even try to keep from rolling his eyes, though he at least had his head partly turned away when he did it. "Yeah dude, they're there either way. Doesn't mean you have to just sit and do nothing but think about it. Not like you've been making it any better your way." Clearly. Dick wasn't snapping himself out of it, and even if he'd managed to they both knew that it wasn't exactly in a good way either. All he was doing was swallowing it. What was the real difference between that and swallowing some wine for a couple of hours instead? Not much.

Compared to regular people, of which they'd never really been part of, it was likely strange how few pictures actually existed of their family together. Normally it was something formal, some stiff thing to go on the wall back in Wayne Manor, and Jason hadn't even shown up for half of those. More than half, probably. So he let him have the selfie and didn't complain about it outright. For the time being, anyway.

"Answer my question then. What is it with you and the piece of paper and the ring?" He'd avoided it pointedly and Jason wasn't going to let him, even if he already had part of the answer. "You need the government to validate that it's real or what?"

DICK: In the past, Dick might have gotten defensive over Jason's reaction or read too far into it. It had taken time and a lot of trial and error for him to understand that Jason's dry comments and eyerolls weren't meant as insults. Now he used that back and forth as a way to connect. He was comfortable teasing him in return, even as he was sure to never take it too far. There were always subjects that were off limits. Then again, maybe that was true for both of them. This, however, wasn't one of those subjects, and the question just made him laugh a little. "Exactly. I'm just turning over the same thoughts on the chance that the light might be different the next time around." With no one but himself to bounce ideas off of, it had made everything feel stagnant and hopeless - but now, even after Jason left, he would have new things to ponder.

He sighed and dropped his head, his teeth tugging on his lower lip. "I was still thinking about it." Maybe he didn't have a complete picture, but he could answer the question as best he could. His chest tightened and he took another drink, even though he was only starting to feel the effects. "You know when I said I was overcompensating? Kind of like that, but... I guess with..." Sighing heavily, he reached up to push his hair back. "I loved Babs, Kory, and Tanya. This doesn't have anything to do with them. It's just... it's why I pushed things in that direction." Dick's mouth felt dry, but didn't let himself take another drink. Not yet. He didn't want Jason to think he was trying to put off an answer. "So after... everything with Slade, I knew there had to be something really, really wrong with me. It wasn't just what he'd done or what he was capable of. It was that after it was all said and done, I completely believed everything was just some game for him - you know what Bruce thinks he's about - because he was so convincing. He turned Rose against the Titans, sent her to kill me, even, not to mention all the times I fought him as Deathstroke after that. The way he looked... it was like..." Setting his jaw, he sighed. "Like he was looking right through me. Like I wasn't even there. And still, I..." He had to stop again. This time it was with a soft, forced laugh. "So I really thought something about me was so twisted that I might never want something normal. Something good. And when I found it, all I wanted to do was nail it down. Maybe it was way to prove to myself that I could still have something that average people could have, people who haven't been through what we have, you know? It was like there was this darkness that I was trying to outrun, and the harder I tried, the more I could beat it back."

JASON: “Spoiler alert,” Jason took another drink, halfway through the full tumbler by then, “they’re not going to look any different the sixty-eighth time that you think about them.” There wasn’t going to be some sudden and previously unseen thing that slotted into place if the only thing he’d done was sit with the exact same information, in the same place, alone. Jason knew what that cycle felt like, knew perfectly well that there was no end to it if left alone. Dick didn’t take it to the same places that he did, or at least he didn’t think so, but that didn’t make it less endless.

He filled the tumblr again to the top from his busted wine bottle as he finally got the answer to that question. It was surprisingly less dumb than he’d been counting on. He kept drinking, keeping up no pretense that his goal was not to be well and truly trashed in as short a time as possible, and pushed one hand back through his hair. “Never gonna be like other people, Dickie. No marriage license is going to change that. Normal people don’t even know what to do with it half the time, anyway.” Marriage didn’t solve shit. It didn’t chase away darkness or give some kind of North Star. It didn’t right a wrong. Someone either did those things, relationships either did those things, or they didn’t. “I don’t know Deathstroke as anything but Deathstroke, so I couldn’t guess at what the hell was going on in his head during all that, but it’s got more to do with him than it does with you either way.”

DICK: "Yeah, trust me, I know." This wasn't the first time Dick had chosen to close himself off from his family, but he wasn't about to discuss those past incidences with Jason. Two were related to him. They were on good terms now, but there were still things he didn't think were necessary to bring up. Things that wouldn't do Jason any good to know about. "You gave me stuff to think about," he added in a quieter voice. "Maybe it'll tide me over."

His brow furrowed as Jason spoke and he sighed, his thumb tracing the mouth of the bottle. "Yeah. It's not that... I want to be, not completely." It was impossible for him to regret being Robin or any of those years with Bruce, despite everything. The early years were still some of the best memories he had. That was also something he chose not to disclose to Jason.

At first he was quiet. When Jason first showed up, Dick didn't plan on talking about the conversation he'd had with Slade. It was still fresh on his mind, though. It was impossible not to give into the temptation now that his head was swimming and some of his inhibitions were lowered. "He thought he'd put me in danger. You know, because being Robin and Bruce Wayne's kid didn't put me directly in the line of fire anyway." Maybe it was different with Deathstroke, who made enemies just the same as Bruce, if not more, and he understood the reasoning behind it. Still, it made him sigh and take another drink. "I talked to him, you know. Slade. I was walking Sasha and saw his bike in the alley next to Rose and Joey's place. I stopped and waited for him."

JASON: He raised a brow at that. Had he? Was Dick actually going to accept any of what he’d said or at least consider it? It seemed like most of the time Jason just threw words into a damn void, no matter who he was talking to, and nothing stuck. Maybe it was unfair of him to keep thinking that way all the time, but it was hard to shake. He wasn’t exactly the guy anyone went to for advice, and did he have much right to blame them for that? Maybe not. “Guess it wasn’t a total bust then.” Him showing up, that was.

Normal was never something that he’d tried to strive for. Jason wasn’t even sure the word had real meaning, anyway. “Good, because you’re never going to get it, and if you did you’d be bored as hell.” Stability, in some sense, was a far more understandable concept. That was all he wanted, and it’d never be granted by a judge or a stamp anyway. Usually it couldn’t be wrung out of another person at all. Dick was out for something else entirely. If he’d only wanted someone at his back, he’d had that more than once and walked away.

It was dumb on the surface to think of anyone claiming to do something for protection, at least where Dick (or any of them) were concerned, but at the same time...Jason did hesitate to think of was some grand offense, either. Unnecessary. Maybe a little insulting. But bad? “The nerve of him to not want to throw you in front of a different bus,” he finally said, purely sarcastic, and took another drink. But he forgot about it when Dick said he’d already seen him. “Just happened to be in the neighborhood, huh?” Dick was still lost in his head, so whatever conversation he’d had with Slade obviously hadn’t turned the world rightside up again, but that wasn’t a surprise. “And? That do any good?”

DICK: "It wasn't. I'm glad you're here, I know I'm not exactly the best company right now." Dick tried to smile, but the result was a half-hearted smirk. Too much weighed on his mind for him to manage anything light-hearted. He knew this wasn't easy for Jason, it wasn't something he was used to doing at all, and he appreciated anything he offered under those circumstances. Because it was so rare, there was no way he wouldn't listen or take what he had to say seriously. Their cross-country trip had loosened any lingering awkwardness that remained after the incident in the Batcave. At this point, it was difficult to believe it had ever been there in the first place.

That made him laugh, but he couldn't hide the wince even with another long drink of wine. "Yeah, I think that was the problem. Once I had it, something always kept me from following through. I always let something get in the way." He'd never put up a real fight, either. With Babs and Kory it'd been mostly mutual, but he knew his own lack of consistency leading up to it largely contributed. He knew they thought it was because he had commitment issues, but that wasn't it at all. Committing had never been the problem. It was a lack of self-awareness that was, in part, a form of denial. Rolling his eyes, he shook the bottle in his hand to see how much was left. "It wasn't all selfless, you know. He didn't want me getting in the way of Deathstroke. That was his priority back then. He thought I would change him, mess up his life, and then die. Even if that did happen, it's not really me dealing with the consequences. He'd be left to face whatever guilt he'd have for it, no matter how misplaced."

Now that he'd brought it up, he knew he couldn't skirt giving Jason the answers. If he did, he knew they'd just come up in the next round of Truth. "They're close to the park. It's where I usually take her." Not that the route explained why he'd stopped or waited. Frowning, he rubbed his forehead and then laid back, bending one of his legs so his foot was flat against the trampoline. "Yeah. No. Kind of. It was weird. He’d been drinking. I could tell." Not that he was one to talk.

JASON: "You're never the best company," he said without missing a beat, but though his tone didn't convey it (purposefully) it was only a joke. Granted, he could only tolerate Dick or practically anyone in limited amounts, but he could tolerate him. Willingly, recently. He sought him out on purpose and not just because life or their family shoved them together and made them figure their shit out for a few hours or a couple of days. "So nothing new there."

On paper, Jason wasn't sure that Dick was ever going to find anyone better than Babs or Kory, but 'on paper' didn't really mean anything. Nothing worked like that. Technically the game only 'gave' him one question and he'd already asked more than that, so he elected to sit on the one that had just cropped up. He'd wait a minute. "Of course it wasn't selfless. Nothing's selfless. I don't even think it's possible." Altruism didn't exist. There were people who tipped the balance away from them when they did something for another person, but there was always something to be gained, even if it was just satisfaction or comfort.

He scoffed and took another swallow, finally feeling the wine move through him in earnest. It always started in his muscles, like warmth or electricity, and spread from there. "Probably at least means he gives a shit." If something was bothering Deathstroke enough to bother getting drunk over it. Then again, maybe he did it all the time. It wasn't like Jason knew. People that maintained that much control and hyper vigilance just usually didn't. "Could be worse."

DICK: Snorting softly, Dick folded his arm under his head. "Don liked me." Don was the conductor at the ghost town. He'd talked their ears off the whole way to the station. By the time it was over, he had Don's entire life story and all the names of his grandchildren. Dick had a way of connecting with people that he wasn't fully aware of. It was how he'd been as a kid, too. He engaged with the people around him like a performer would with an audience, but also didn't ask for anything in return.

"Maybe not." That wasn't what Dick wanted to think, but underneath his optimism and positivity, he was a rational person. He didn't make decisions based off of his emotions in the areas of his life relating to vigilantism. That was what he strove for, anyway. It wasn't always successful, especially when he worked independently and he didn't have anyone else's life in his hands. That gave him a certain amount of freedom.

He sighed. "I guess." It wasn't the way he wanted Slade to demonstrate that he cared, but he didn't bother voicing that thought. "I told him he shouldn't drive. Dumb." Rolling his eyes, he sat up enough to finish off the rest of his bottle, and was shocked by how blurry the world got in the meantime. He was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol. Leaning over the side of the trampoline, he set the bottle carefully on the roof before stretching out on his stomach instead. "Okay, truth or dare?"

JASON: “Don was two hundred years old and hadn’t seen a living person in a week. Anybody would like you then.” Slight exaggerations on all counts, maybe. “How’s Jimmy doing, anyway? Still hanging out in your backseat? Tell him I said hey.” He’d kept that rouse up for the whole trip - their backseat ghost who’d hitched a ride.

To Jason, there was no “maybe.” There was no true selflessness. They all got something out of helping people, whether it was just the knowledge that they’d saved a life or not. So no, Deathstroke wanting Dick out of the way wasn’t selfless, probably not even a little, but it was better than the alternative, too. It wasn’t his damn relationship either way, but the things Dick kept honing in on were easy to spot from the outside, just like the things he was missing were nearly as obvious.

“Yeah, because driving drunk is the most dangerous thing he’s ever done.” Again, he just offered a derisive noise. He’d ask more, though, after he got past his own turn. He took another drink and stared up at the sky. “Truth. So you don’t dare me to text somebody I love them or something worse.” He’d had enough to drink to answer something, probably.

DICK: "First of all, that town had a population of six." Dick enjoyed the experience so much that he'd taken a million pictures. It was the first ghost town he'd ever been to, but it made him want to look into others that might be nearby. The mine tour was a little creepy, but other than that. Rolling his eyes, he kicked Jason's leg with the edge of his shoe. "Dropped him off with you, actually." That dumb ghost. Dick knew Jason was trying to get under his skin, but he was unnerved by the various stories the tour guide had.

He was still working through the conversation. It left him confused, which wasn't much better than the frozen state they were currently in. Maybe he didn't know what he was going to do about it yet, or what it would look like when he decided, talking to Jason helped clarify some things.

Triumphant, he sat up on his elbows and bit his lower lip. "Hmm." There were at least three dozen things he wanted to know about Jason, but he knew he wouldn't get this chance again. Who knew how many more opportunities he'd have just tonight. It was a rare opportunity and he wasn't going to let it pass him by. "What was your favorite part of the drive? And why?" he added quickly, just in case Jason gave him something monosyllabic.

JASON: “Really? You saw six? I could’ve sworn it was four.” Jason said it completely deadpan, leaving Dick to guess entirely whether or not he was serious. “I guess that’d explain why my mugs keep ending up in different cabinets.” Again, his expression was completely unreadable on its own.

The question was easier than he’d expected, for sure, and thus much easier to dodge. “The 7-11 in Nebraska. I got that blue raspberry Slurpee. Tasted good.” He took another drink and watched Dick over the top of the tumbler, just to see how offended he got by that non-answer. “Your turn. Truth or dare?” He might give him something better than the Slurpee but wasn’t yet convinced.(edited)

DICK: "Six," Dick corrected without hesitation, holding up four fingers. When he realized what he did he laughed. "Maybe I shouldn't have had the whole bottle. And don't joke about that, you don't really know if things like that are real or not." Considering they dealt with gods and goddesses all day long, it wasn't exactly far-fetched.

Rolling his eyes, he shot him a look. "Seriously? It's truth or dare, Jay. You can't lie your way through it. That defeats the purpose." The 7-11. Dick wasn't even going to pretend to believe something that off-hand.

JASON: “Yeah I do.” And he didn’t think he needed to explain again why or how he knew. Not that he had any qualms about doing it. Jason had never and would never shy away from bringing up his death, regardless of company. It had happened and it was his to talk about if he wanted to, even if it was just to debunk some damn ghosts. They weren’t really. There was nothing trapped between life and death, because there was nothing between life and death that he’d seen. It was just one minute on earth and the next, nothing. Less than nothing. There wasn’t awareness to even know the nothing. Whole bottle or not, Dick hadn’t drank enough wine to listen to that, so he didn’t bother. “Maybe I’ve just had some idiot burglar with a gimmick. Organization Man. Marie Kondo gone rogue or something.”

He drained the last of the tumbler, and thus the last of his own bottle, and laid on his back on the trampoline to look up at the sky. It was ridiculous to have the thing on the roof, but since it was there already...it wasn’t exactly hard to find some appeal. At least it was comfortable. “Fine. It was just the actual circus. I’d only ever been that one time.” The one that he’d told Dick about that started the whole idea rolling in the first place, because of course he’d remembered Jason saying it even with the hole in his head. “It was...” he pressed his lips together and mulled it over for a second, “a good follow up.”

DICK: Whenever Jason mentioned his death, joking or not, it made his chest tighten instinctively. He exhaled and tried to look annoyed, but the effort fell flat. It made him reconsider what his response to it should be. Maybe instead of getting upset, he could threaten him with a hug instead. Jason was definitely much more responsive to acts of love than anything resembling an argument. It would definitely be a tactic he hadn't tried before. "Pretty sure it wouldn't be a burglar if you weren't... burgled. You were just organized." Organization Man. "I've heard worse."

Dick didn't expect to get an answer from Jason, even though he'd asked for one. His mind had already searched for the answer on its own, and he'd come up with a few, so he was taken aback by what it actually was. The night he was shot was still confusing when he tried to remember specifics. Some of it he remembered, but there were times when he wondered how much of it were real or just odd dreams patchworked in. "Yeah, it's... it's always weird being back, but they're doing a good job with it." Haly's still had the same appeal. There was a distinctly old-fashioned bent to their advertising and gimmick that made it even more appealing. "Their trapeze act, too. Grade A."

JASON: If he’d been looking at him, he might have seen Dick’s expression change, but that wouldn’t have been anything new. He’d seen the look plenty of times before and it never acted as much of a deterrent. Still, for the moment there was no reason to push it. He’d not even been doing it for a joke. “Maybe he stole a mug. Roy has left some dumb ones over there.” He didn’t even know why. Things just appeared and he had to figure out something to do with them, usually putting them out of sight.

Jason sat the empty tumbler aside and ran his hands down his face. “It looked smaller this time than I remembered, but I guess that’s true about everything.” For Jason, his world as a kid had been incredibly small, usually. It was always day to day, worrying or focusing on what was in front of him because that was what was necessary. Anything outside of that had seemed almost surreal. “Truth or dare? And I need another bottle.”

DICK: "Is that how you explain where his mugs disappear to? Ghosts?" Dick couldn't help a faint shiver even though he was joking - for the most part, at least. "Does he still have the whale whale one? I got that one for him." That was one of his favorites. "For a while it's all we got each other for Christmas." It definitely explained why their cabinets were both full of dumb mugs with puns on them.

Pushing himself up, Dick winced when he felt everything spin. Instead of going himself he made a gesture to the door. "Cabinet. There's two more, I think. Go ahead and bring them both if you want." Not that he would be doing much more of the drinking. Dick didn't have Jason's enhanced tolerance he likely got from the Lazarus Pit. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back against the trampoline. "Wish I got to meet you. The first time you went, I mean. Sometimes I'd take kids my age into the ring with me... depended on the night, though..." He was rambling and the words ran together. "Truth."

JASON: “No, I just put them all in a bag and taken them back over there a the end of the month, so if a ghost wants to save me the trouble they can help themselves.” He wasn’t sure how it was still funny, or why it ever even had been. “Whale, whale, what have we here,” Jason said, shaking his head. Obviously he still had the mug. “Dumb.”

Jason was nearly off the trampoline when Dick said that. He stopped shy of pushing over the metal springs and looked back over his shoulder. Once he’d sat up, he’d been able to tell just how drunk he already was, too. No need for both bottles if he wanted to make it off the roof again. “I’m glad you didn’t. It would have been even harder to leave.” He really didn’t know how much Dick remembered about what he’d said. That night for him at the circus with Willis Todd had been bittersweet. If he’d had even a taste of what it had seemed to him like Dick and his family felt when they performed...leaving it to go back to Crime Alley would’ve been even harder than it had been anyway.

He got off the trampoline and asked his question only when his feet were on the ground and the roof stopped swaying. “You ever think of going back to it again? You’re not a cop anymore. You’ve got time.” He couldn’t travel. Couldn’t actually run off with the circus again. He was curious, though.

DICK: Jason's rendition of the phrase on the mug made Dick laugh richly and for much longer than he normally would have, if he hadn't been drinking. "I got that at Gotham City Aquarium! Back in our Titans days. And by dumb, I think you mean genius."

That was an interesting way to think about it and he hesitated. Maybe that was true. Maybe it was selfish to wish he'd been able to do more in that moment, especially if it led to making things worse for Jason in the future. That possibility defeated the purpose, anyway. "Ever wonder how many times our paths cross without us even knowing it? It's like... I had no idea you were there. If you didn't know about me... if we hadn't been called The Flying Graysons... I'd have just been some kid you saw once. Never would have connected the dots." He pointed at the sky, as if the stars somehow illustrated the point he was making.

"Nah, not really. I mean... circuses travel, you know? I don't really want to leave Star City, even with NOVA gone, I just..." Trailing, he shrugged. "This is where you are. Where our family is. I can't just... pack up and go."

JASON: “No, I meant dumb.” But it probably wasn’t even the worst one that Roy had or the worst one that had ended up in the safehouse. Maybe this would finally prompt him to ask Roy what the fuck all of it was about, anyway.

Jason wasn’t prone to dwelling on a lot of hypotheticals, or at least not wildly useless ones like that. Even if somehow they’d all met a dozen times before, if they didn’t know it, how did it matter? Even if they did know, why did it matter? The fact that he’d ended up with that boy at the circus for an older brother years later was coincidence. It wasn’t as if it changed anything. It was just some weird twist of the universe, a story that had been a little strange to recount. He wasn’t drunk enough to be wistful. “No. But I guess we would’ve went somewhere else on the road trip,” was all he ended up saying. He’d given Dick a lot of sentimentality that night, and maybe he’d have some more to offer, but not for that.

“S’not what I meant. And they don’t all travel.” The one Dick had grown up in did, sure, but there were plenty of places that just had standing buildings. He’d seen them here and there. “You could just make it up. A circus.” With that perhaps odd thought, Jason finally walked back into the apartment proper to get another bottle of wine, which he did not need, and managed to actually dig the cork out in only a couple of pieces by the time he returned with it.

DICK: Dick enjoyed speculating about things that didn't happen but could have happened, or wondering how everything would have been different if the pieces fell together another way, but he knew Jason wasn't like that. Even in their conversations, it was always apparent that Jason preferred to live in the here and now. He might be angry about things that happened or were still happening, but it wasn't as if those things weren't relevant. It made sense. It was better than torturing yourself with negative possibilities - or positive ones, even, especially if it created some kind of resentment.

While Jason got the wine, he pondered the idea. It was more difficult to make sense of after drinking, and also seemed like a much better idea than it might be later, but he had a few ideas by the time Jason returned with the bottle. "What about like... a circus school? For kids. Like they have programs at universities and stuff, but I mean... little kids." He made a motion to the bottle and held out his cup. "Don't forget to share." That was a lot of wine, but he knew pointing that out would only encourage Jason to drink the whole bottle himself.

JASON: By the time Jason got back, the walk had assured him that he was well and truly drunk after all. Getting back onto the trampoline took a little more concentration than it probably should have, even. Once he’d settled, he poured Dick’s cup and then his own full again. “I’m sleeping here tonight,” he said without preamble, knowing there was no way in hell he was going to sober up fast enough to drive.

The return to what he’d said earlier had him humming as he thought it over. The unnecessary noise-making was a plain sign that he was inebriated, though Dick might not have realized it, and Jason didn’t notice. “Is that a thing? Circus school? Sounds fake.” He took another drink and bowed his head forward. “You should do it. Why not? What else are you doing besides Nightwing and finding reasons not to let yourself have the shit you want? Teach some kids to do flips.”

DICK: Dick couldn't hold back a laugh as Jason struggled back onto the trampoline, even though it also made him dizzy. "On the trampoline? It's pretty comfortable, actually. I've done it." Flinging an arm over his eyes, he took a deep breath and tilted his head up just enough to take another drink of wine. "Might need to get some blankets though," he mumbled. "S'a lot colder lately."

Snorting softly, he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. His lips felt tingly. "It is a thing," he insisted. "Some universities have it. What about the younger kids, though? I'm telling you... circus performance is a dying art." It was an interesting thought, and one that Dick pondered further as he rolled over on his stomach and balanced his cup precariously on the padded ledge. Resting his head in his arms, he spoke up after a long pause, his voice muffled, "Truth or dare?"

JASON: “Meant your apartment, but I don’t know if I’m getting back off of this thing. Sleeping outside isn’t that bad.” Certainly not in California. Jason raised up enough to take a long drink and sat the wine aside. If it spilled, he wouldn’t be mourning it, really. He’d had more than enough, and when he looked up at the sky the little dots of stars wouldn’t stay still anymore.

“So teach kids some flips. If you want it done and nobody else is doing it, what’s the reason not to?” Or the excuse. Jason was a big believer in action. If it needed done and wasn’t getting done, anything less than making moves toward it was just whining, really. “You got money and time and knowledge. About this, anyway.” He laughed at his own dig much easier and maybe even louder than he normally would have. In the moment, it was hilarious. “Truth.” He was too far gone to do anything but lay there and speak.

DICK: "Have you ever been camping? In the woods?" Dick's voice was still muffled and his words slurred together. "Always wanted to try it. Like with a tent. S'mores. Alfred let me camp in the backyard once, but it's not really the same." He knew that wasn't what Jason was referring to when he talked about sleeping outside. Just thinking about it made his heart sink.

He nodded, which was more difficult than usual with the heavy weight of his arm over his eyes. "I think I know just the space for it, too." It would take some time, but what else did they have going on? Not a whole lot.

Dick was quiet for almost a full minute before deciding on the question he wanted to ask. "Why Red Hood?"

JASON: “Nope.” Easy answer. “Never left Gotham until I met Bruce and you know he didn’t do it.” Take him camping. “Probably doesn’t even...know how,” he trailed in the middle and closed his eyes, feeling his head swim a little. “The man can design a utility belt with 70 working parts but probably can’t pitch a tent.” He didn’t know if that was true, but it’s not like he’d been given reason to think otherwise. Besides, he’d spent enough time living outside, doing it for fun as a kid hadn’t really been something he’d considered even wanting.

Jason decided to wait and see if Dick was really considering it, the circus school, before he mentioned it again. If it died as a drunken conversation, he wouldn’t push. It wasn’t a bad idea, though. It was energy going toward something rather than just sitting idle.

That question got him to open his eyes again and he looked over. “You don’t know?”

DICK: "Can't even imagine Bruce camping." It was an amusing thought. "I always thought I'd want to camp in Alaska, but it was a lot colder than I expected." Not that the ice caves were warm, but the stove they'd been allowed made it warm enough. It had definitely been a unique experience. "You'd like it. Or have you already been?"

The idea would come to him again the next day, the first day that waking up wouldn't be met with the intense desire to go back to sleep.

What did he know? Dick knew where the alias originated, but that wasn't his question. Not really. "Not what it means to you, no. I mean..." Trailing, he cracked his eyes open and groaned as the sky spun out of control. "Don't look up, Little Wing. Clouds. Look funny."

JASON: “To Alaska?” he shook his head. “Not had a reason to yet. Seems like the place to go when I don’t want to see anybody anymore.” If he managed to live long enough to retire (unlikely) maybe it’d be somewhere like that. Remote. Unbothered. When Jason imagined the incredibly hypothetical and ridiculously unlikely scenario where he ever stepped back and away from the life, he still saw himself alone when he did it. That wasn’t reflective of his situation right then, but he still struggled to visualize that sticking in a permanent way. It was too dangerous to let himself. Nobody needed to know that, exactly. It was just the image in his head.

He didn’t know if he was too drunk or not drunk enough for that conversation, but it wasn’t like he’d taken on the moniker for no reason. There was an answer, though. An easy one. “It was Joker’s,” that part Dick knew. “And after what he did, I decided to make it mine. Not like I’m a product of nothing. Red Hood is what Gotham, Batman, and the Joker spit out.” He scoffed at the warning and looked up just because he’d mentioned it. They did look funny, and he’d soon closed his eyes again against it. “So here I am.”

DICK: "I mean... there are other reasons to go," Dick pointed out, rolling his eyes and then immediately regretting it as another wave of dizziness washed over him. He'd sent the video of the ice hotel to Jason and Tim, fascinated by the artistry of it, and taken dozens of pictures. "Days are so short, though. You have to get up early." That was the only part he'd had difficulty adjusting to. He was a night owl in all senses of the word, not just because his work as Nightwing made him nocturnal. "I dunno if I'd actually camp though." The cold and the wilderness didn't exactly make it tempting.

That was the explanation he'd expected, more or less, but it didn't make him feel any better to hear it confirmed. "Never considered it might have worn out its welcome?" Dick's eyes cracked open and he glanced over at Jason, studying what he could see of his face. It made sense why he'd adopted it at first, there was a certain dramatic flair in the statement, but a lot had changed since then. It'd been years. "I don't know. M'just saying that... you're not really the same as you were back then."

JASON: “Never been a big fan of early.” But he wouldn’t mind missing out on most of the day, either. Anything he needed to do could be done at night, couldn’t it? He usually slept through most of the sun, anyway. But he wasn’t quite ready to hole himself away in Alaska yet, regardless. Something to keep in mind, though, should the desire ever come knocking. Jason’s attachment to and anchor in the world might not last forever - something he always kept in the back of his mind, almost like a talisman to hold onto. The control. I could leave. He wouldn’t, but he could. He had that power, still.

His face felt hot, despite the cool air that came after dark, and if he had one more drink of wine he was positive he’d be sick on that fucking trampoline. “Maybe not to you,” he muttered, because that much was true. Things were different with the two of them. Otherwise, though? He was still Jason Todd. Still Red Hood. He was still exactly that person, as far as he was concerned, maybe just a fraction less loud about it. Very abruptly, maybe to demonstrate it, he flung the wine bottle to the side and let it smash against the roof top. The sound of breaking glass was brief but distinct. “I’m out.”

DICK: "Works in our favor, right?" Dick meant to shrug, but his body felt too heavy for him to manage it with any success. The alcohol made him feel as if he were filled with sand. He considered going and getting some water, but the kitchen seemed ridiculously far and he was pretty sure he wouldn't make it to the door. "Imagine if Bruce were Roosterman." Not that Dick had been taken in because Bruce wanted a sidekick. He wasn't wholly convinced of Bruce's reasoning, if it were for his image or because he felt sorry for him. Maybe it was a mix of both. One thing was for certain, though: he hadn't exactly been father of the year. Jason's beginnings were much different, of course, and possibly even more complicated.

The sound of breaking glass made him jump. "Jay! You're going to step on that in the middle of the night." He should get up, get a broom, but even shifting position made him groan. "Don't step foot off this trampoline."

JASON: “Long as we’re not trying to pretend to be normal, sure.” It wasn’t like they needed a 9 to 5 job, even though Dick had so stupidly kept trying to do that. Jason had never done that. The closest he’d gone to “legitimate” was when he and Roy had landed those few gigs with the government, but that still wasn’t exactly an above the ground kind of thing. He had no particular desire to just live like the masses - he’d never done it, no matter which side of the coin he landed on, and didn’t feel like he was missing out.

“M’wearing boots,” he pointed out, though the words were all sort of slurred together. He wasn’t getting up. Instead, he moved enough to get his jacket off and throw it over him more like a blanket. Fuck it. The trampoline was kind of comfortable. He mumbled something beneath the collar of the jacket that might have been “night,” though it was difficult to tell. He wasn’t going anywhere, either way.

#c: discord #dick grayson #jason todd #slade wilson

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