Chapter Text
Dean jumps from rooftop to rooftop, combat boots slamming down hard against the ground beneath his feet with a low thud. His breath is labored, but barely so, and he doesn't make any move to repress the wide smirk he has on underneath his sleek red helmet. He looks over his shoulder to see Cas hot on his heels and that really does a good job of getting his blood pumping. He almost trips as he watches the the older man leap and fly through the air after him, but manages to balance himself just as he coasts to a stop on the ledge that overlooks the building he'd been racing Cas to. He reaches into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulls out the detonator he'd tucked inside earlier. He thumbs over the button slowly and waits for Cas to catch up.
"Seems like you're losing your touch, big bird," Dean huffs in amusement. Of course, its a total lie. Cas is as agile and graceful as he's ever been. He’s also probably in a hell of a lot better shape than Dean is, if the extra softness around his stomach is anything to go by, but that's besides the point.
Dean likes pushing Cas's buttons, always has, ever since John took him in and he started training with them both as Batman’s second sidekick. Bugging Cas has sort of become a hobby of Dean's since coming back to Gotham, but truthfully, it isn’t as if this is new. Dean’s always done this with Cas, even when everything wasn’t so sinister and dark like they are now. This thing between them was far more innocent back then, fueled more by insecurity and arrogance rather than snark and strategy. Dean’s just picking up where they left off, with a hell of a lot more innuendo, and maybe even some lawbreaking. Okay, plenty of lawbreaking.
Dean has found that the longer they keep at it, the surprisingly easier it gets to work his way under Cas’s skin. It used to be a lot harder. Cas was almost impossible to crack, even getting him to smile was like pulling teeth and he never got Dean’s jokes or responded to his shy flirting, but now Dean can seem to do it in under five minutes if he tries hard enough and oh does he try.
Dean laughs as Cas lands a few yards away, eyes narrowed to slits beneath his domino mask and pointedly focused on the device in his hand. He looks annoyed and Dean mentally pats himself on the back, because that means he’s doing his job.
"Don't even think about it," Cas warns in that low gravelly baritone that Dean sometimes thinks about at night when it’s just him and the shitty water pressure in his shower. The older masked vigilante has starred in quite a number of different fantasies that Dean’s had, especially back when his hormones were out of control and he was still donning the Robin costume. It didn’t help -- and it still doesn’t -- that Cas wears that tight ass suit when he’s fighting crime under his Nightwing persona. He’s not kidding either when he says tight ass, because that’s exactly what Cas has got. Hey, its not like he and Cas are actually brothers, not by blood anyway.
The both of them were just adopted by the rich millionaire, John Winchester, who just so happens to double as the infamous Batman in his spare time. They were also both turned into teenaged sidekicks to the self righteous same hero, which is something Dean doesn’t like to spend much time thinking about anyway due to the fact that the subject only manages to piss him off when he does. Why John hasn’t learned his lesson about kids being in the field and stopped training them to fight at his side all together is beyond Dean’s comprehension. His stint as boy wonder obviously ended badly, dead at the age of sixteen doesn’t exactly scream success story, and now John has two more that he’s put in harms way. Not that Dean cares, because he doesn’t, but deep down, in a place he doesn’t ever like to ever acknowledge, he can’t deny that his replacement and the new kid (Kevin he thinks his name is?) deserve better than that. Any kid would.
Dean waggles his eyebrows at Cas, wolf whistle blowing past his lips as he gives him a once over and leers at him mockingly.
"Ooh. Someone's got their bossy tights on tonight. Shame I don't do well with authority," Cas seems to straighten up further at that and he squints at Dean in what seems to be aggravation.
"If you press that button I won't hesitate to call the police and you will be locked up in Arkham," Cas threatens, voice steady and sure. This time Dean’s the one who rolls his eyes.
"I'm quaking in my boots over here, bluebird," Dean's retorts easily, clearly not perturbed by Cas's threats as he rocks back on the balls of his feet. It’s not like he doesn’t think Cas will call Commissioner Singer to come try and arrest him. Dean is sure that’s exactly what Cas will do, but Dean is comfortable with the knowledge that there’s a very slim chance that even the best of Bobby Singer’s men would be able to catch him.
"I'm not kidding, Red," Cas replies, stance tense while he waits for Dean to make his decision, but there’s something different in the tone of Cas’s voice. The nickname doesn’t seem quite right in Cas’s mouth. Its too short and curt, not that he should be expecting any different, but it just seems... wrong. He kind of misses the way Cas used to call him ‘little wing’ but there’s no way in Hell he’ll ever admit to it. That’ll go with him to his fucking grave, again.
"Anyone ever tell you what a buzzkill, you are?" Dean teases and for second there it almost feels like old times, back when Cas was taking the time to train Dean to be the next boy wonder so he could move on to Gotham’s sister city with a clear conscious. Dean’s reminded of the innocent touches, the movie nights, the marathon sparring matches, the family photos and all the things he and Cas used to do before Lucifer took Dean away from all of that.
"Several times," Cas retorts dryly, but Dean thinks there just might be the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
"Why does that not surprise me?" Dean chuckles and grins, though Cas can’t see it underneath his helmet. There’s a beat of silence between them, filled with nothing but the distant sounds of the city and their respective breathing.
“Is this really worth going to prison for?” Cas eventually asks, any trace of a smile gone and replaced by that righteous holier than thou shtick that Cas is known for which is also accompanied by that grating look of concern that Cas gets when he cares about something he most definitely shouldn’t, because his heart is too fucking big for his own good. Dean is still technically on the opposing side. John has already labeled him an outlaw, just as the rest of Gotham has despite his attempts to save her through his methods. He’s also given the order for Sam, Cas and Kevin to keep from making any kind of contact with Dean and yet here is Cas trying to 'get through to him.' Typical fucking Cas. He’s always been a sucker for the lost causes.
The sound of his own laugh dies off in Dean’s throat as he glances back toward the warehouse that he's currently got on his ‘to blow the fuck up’ list. The next one is a meth lab across town. He may enjoy these cat and mouse games he and Cas play almost every night while they're on patrol, testing each other's limits and running after each other from the end of Gotham and back, but this isn't part of the game.
"Those asshats down there sold some of that new up and coming, untested drug to some kids downtown. They all overdosed. Found a girl's body in crime alley this morning and she tested positive for it," He grits his teeth and clenches his fist at his side as he tells this to Cas.
Dean doesn't mention that she had brown hair just like his mom did or that finding her nearly made him chuck up his breakfast and see red. He doesn't tell Cas about how he shuddered almost as violently as he does every night when he wakes up from a nightmare, panting and gasping with the smell of dirt and blood filling his nose. Nobody knows about that, especially not Cas or any of the batbrats and sure as hell not John. No, they don’t get to know that or revel in his pain.
To all of them he's just some psychopath who murders people for fun. He knows they'll never understand that what he does isn't murder, not when the victims are complete scumbags and human traffickers. He brushes his finger over the detonator, there’s not enough pressure put on to trigger it, but its just enough to get Cas coming closer.
“It's not your place to punish them for what they've done,” he tells Dean as he stops a few yards away from him.
“Well if I don't do it, who will?” Dean laughs, but its cold and bitter even to his own ears. He tries to remember if it was this bad before. If he had this bitterness about him even before he was murdered, but he thinks that this is new-founded and something close to a twisted welcome home gift. Something that Lucifer is probably laughing about right now, no doubt, in the depths of his cell in Arkham Asylum.
Sure, Dean was angry, about almost everything back then; injustice, his felon of a father, his dead mother, the state of Gotham, but it never was like this. When he was still running with John and fighting crime at his side, there were times he felt like he might explode. That feeling was usually reserved for when they stumbled upon kids and women who had been the victims of Michael Dent or Lucifer and his crazy girlfriend Meg, but back then it wasn’t something that stuck with him. After everything was said and done, he’d still be mad, but he could eventually let it go. Now, his rage is almost like a constant and steady thrumming in his veins that just won’t subside once it’s tapped into. It just keeps burning and burning until Dean feels like there’s nothing left.
“Its not like you or Batman have the balls to do it. We all know daddy bats has got a track record for letting garbage like them roam free,” Dean says through clenched teeth as he tries to count to ten backwards to calm himself down.
Dean expects Cas to avert his eyes, to look away from him like a coward and try to justify the reason why the revered and highly respected Batman still allows Lucifer to continue breathing. A man who has killed graveyards upon graveyards of people, including his own adopted son just for kicks, only to be locked up in Arkham to wait until his next opportunity for escape, which always comes without fail.
Wasn’t it just a few months prior that Dean tried to clean up John’s mess? Dean attempted to finally kill the man who murdered him in cold blood and who crippled Jo just before that. His attempt was thwarted by John, Batman himself, and he nearly died in the process. On top of Lucifer surviving Dean’s revenge attempt, Dean had to live with the knowledge that John was willing to choose Dean’s executioner over him. The scar where John’s batarang hit his neck is a painful reminder of just that.
Dean waits for Cas to come to John’s rescue with some kind of grand speech about love and morality, just so he can spit out the sharp barb sitting on the tip of his tongue, but it doesn’t come and Cas remains silent.
Dean still feels it though, that anger that he carries with him almost everywhere he goes. The rage that he's been harboring ever since he crawled out of his grave and realized his mentor and adopted father had not only replaced him with a brand new boy wonder, but also let the asshole who had tortured and killed him keep wasting air.
He sucks in a few deep breaths to try and bring himself down. He can't afford to be angry right now. It makes him sloppy and he'd much rather spend the night in his shitty apartment than in a cell in Arkham. His place ain’t exactly the Hilton, but he’s damn sure his creaky mattress is better than the shitty cot he’d be sleeping on otherwise.
“De--” Cas starts to say his name in a way Dean hasn’t heard in some time and take a few steps closer, but Dean draws his hand back and shakes a gloved finger at him.
“Ah ah ah. No names in the field, Nightwing.” Dean tsks and chastises Cas, forced grin spreading at Cas’s slip up as he taunts the other masked vigilante. Code names have always been important. They’re especially important in Dean’s case due to the fact that he’s legally been pronounced dead. He can’t have Commissioner Singer or anyone for that matter suddenly finding out that Dean apparently didn’t die in that bombing overseas like John originally claimed and that he was back from the dead. That tends to draw some questions.
Cas sighs heavily and stops in his tracks again, shoulders tensed and eyes laser focused on Dean in a way that almost makes Dean uncomfortable. That thousand yard stare is yet another thing Cas is known for and somehow Dean always seems to find himself on the receiving end of them. He isn’t ever sure how to feel about it either.
He forces himself to shake it off and inhales deeply as he preps himself for a quick getaway.
“Say hasta la vista, baby,” Dean sing songs and he can hear the sound of Cas’s breath catching in his throat as their eyes remain locked.
Dean brings his finger down on the button with a satisfied smirk, waiting for the inevitable boom so he can step off the ledge and land on the dumpster sitting on the ground below. That way he can make his escape before Cas has the chance to pin him down. Although it isn’t as if Dean wouldn’t stick around a few extra minutes if it meant he got to tumble around with Cas for a bit and get a chance to see what exactly he’s packing underneath that skin tight costume.
His smile fades though and his brows furrow together when the building doesn't immediately go up in smoke. He knows he wired everything correctly. He'd made sure of that and he'd learned his technique from some of the very best, or worst depending on how you looked at it. So that could only mean that…
Just then, Dean sees Sam come striding out of the building, a triumphant smile on his face that makes Dean want to punch something, particularly Cas. Sam looks up at him from the ground, in all his long hair giant-like caped glory, and shrugs at Dean as if to say, what can you do?
"Son of a bitch," Dean growls in frustration and roughly shoves the now useless detonator back into his jacket.
“This ain't over,” he murmurs, low and dangerous. His jaw clenches underneath his helmet as he swiftly turns his back to Cas.
He doesn't look over his shoulder to see if Cas has a superior and smug look on his face, the bastard probably does, but he swears right before he steps over the ledge that he hears Cas sigh his name.
Dean.
Dean ignores it, despite the way his chest automatically tightens at the sound. It’s probably his imagination anyway, because its been a very long time since Cas has -- since anyone -- has said his name like that.
He drops down from the ledge and lets the dumpster break his fall. Then he climbs out of the thing as quickly as he can manage and scowls as he makes a disgusted face and picks a banana peel off of his shoulder. He kicks something that resembles molded food, he hopes, off his boot and represses a sigh before propelling himself over the edge of the dumpster and breaking into a sprint to avoid being tailed back to his safe house. He makes sure to take unnecessary routes and continues changing his direction until he’s sure no one is able to find him or the location of his apartment. The last thing he needs is any of the others knowing where he sleeps at night.
He needs a fucking shower and some leftover tacos. It’s the only way, he’s convinced, that this night will even come close to being salvageable.