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They’re standing in the warehouse, the industrial lights flickering and the floor slick with mostly water, and Dick watches Jason tuck his clips into his pants pockets, his guns into the holsters. “Come back to the Cave,” he says, and Jason’s hand freezes for a moment, resuming when he looks up at Dick.
“This again?” he asks, some kind of paper-thin humor in his voice. “You know I can’t, Goldie.”
Dick slides his escrima sticks back into their proper place and shrugs. “Sure you can. Don’t tell me you’re suddenly afraid of what B would do.”
Dick can’t see his eyes, but he’ll bet Jason’s rolling them under the face mask. “Yeah, right. You know better than anyone the shit he’s got with me on his turf.” He looks around at the warehouse, the dozen bodies on the ground, the smoldering pile of drug shipments. “‘Sides,” he adds, “I haven’t seen him in almost two whole weeks, and I’d hate to break my streak now.”
It’s true, but that’s not all of it, and he knows they both hear the way he doesn’t say I’d hate to jeopardize what we have going, because it’s been nearly two months of somewhat congenial interaction between him and the big man, but he won’t ever say how nice it feels to not always been yelling with each other.
Dick sighs, and Jason thinks that’s it, he’ll drop it and they’ll both be on their way, but instead he’s reaching for Jason, warm hand landing on his shoulder. “Come back with me, Jay,” he says again, but it’s much more personal this time. “Just – just for the night. We won’t even have to see Bruce, promise.” He lets his hand fall, but stays where he is in front of Jason, and Jason can see the way his face is pinched, the tense set of his shoulders.
Jason pulls his helmet off, tucking it under his arm, like it’ll help him see Dick more clearly, help him get a read. “What’s this really about?” he asks, and he can’t help the way his distrust seeps into it, or his concern. “Why are you pushing this?”
Dick shrugs again, and Jason’s starting to wonder if he’ll get an answer or not when he says, “I worry about you, s’all. When was the last time you slept more than two hours? When was the last time you ate something cooked outside of a microwave?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Jason says, but he’s already made his decision.
Dick laughs, but it’s so far away from what it should sound like. “I may not get as much sleep as I should,” he admits, “but Alfred would never let me go more than a day without something home cooked. Would never let any of us.”
Jason huffs, and even with the white lenses of his domino, he can tell Dick is already resigned to no. “Fine,” Jason tells him, “but absolutely no Bruce, and I’m leaving in the morning.”
Dick’s beaming smile looks out of place with his costume, but it’s still the most beautiful thing Jason’s ever seen, like it always is, and he knows any trouble they’re certain to run into is already worth it.
The Cave still feels the same, no matter how often it changes. There’s always something new, upgrades and computers and gadget in a continuous cycle, and Jason’s still just as impressed by it as he used to be, but like hell he’s telling anyone that.
The growl of their motorcycles echos off the damp walls and lingers, fading, after they’re shut off. He stands next to his bike, waiting for Dick, and he kind of hates how hesitant he is, how out of place he is in this place he used to live, used to love. Dick shoots him a look, and Jason shrugs.
“Come on,” Dick says, heading into the cave proper, and Jason follows behind him, trying not to shuffle his feet.
Dick leads them to the closet – if that’s the proper word for it. It’s more of a hallway with an open-face wardrobe on one side and a long, thin table on the other. He stands beside the wardrobe until Dick reaches for a hanger, handing it to him.
“Here,” he says. “And you can put your stuff on the shelf here,” he adds, patting his hand on one of the several empty shelves.
“Right,” he says, and then he’s distracted by Dick, watching him disable his suit’s security before peeling it off. He folds it neatly, placing it on the shelf in front of him, and Jason kicks back into gear when Dick turns to drop his escrima sticks on the gadget table. He shrugs off his jacket, using the hanger Dick gave him to hang it up on the small rod in the wardrobe, and he makes quick work of the rest of his armor, the pieces neatly stacked on the shelf next to Dick’s. Not for the first time, he wonders how Dick doesn’t come home bleeding out and half broken every night – the stack of Jason’s armor next to the thin material of Dick’s reminds him just how heavily Dick relies on his skills, how unprotected he allows himself to be. No one is that good , he thinks, and it’s bitter on his tongue, but it’s bitterness for Dick, and isn’t that the crux of it.
“If you need your guns cleaned or anything, Alfred usually has everything back by breakfast,” Dick says, and Jason looks over his shoulder to the table where Dick’s placed his escrima sticks next to Tim’s bo staff, and a host of Bruce’s tools. Jason shakes his head.
“Nah, I’m good,” he says, checking the safety on each of his guns before tucking them on the shelf, behind his armor.
There’s a moment with the two of them simply standing there, and Jason wonders why Dick’s brought him here, why Dick asked, why he agreed. It’s not like he expects anything from the Bats anymore, so why –
“Movie?” Dick asks him, and Jason would curse the hopeful look on his face if he could find the heart to do it. He huffs, something like a sigh, and waves a hand in front of him.
“Lead the way, Dickie,” he says, and Dick shakes his head with a smile.
“You know where it is,” Dick reminds him, and Jason shrugs. They’re walking side by side, anyway.
“Never know when the old man’s gonna switch things up,” he says, and Dick hums in agreement.
The room hasn’t changed much from what Jason remembers – the bed in the center isn't very big, and there’s a moderately sized television on a table across from it. Dick grabs the remote on the way to the bed, and he bounces onto it, giving Jason a wide smile. Jason rolls his eyes and gets on the other side like a regular person, pulling the blanket up to slide his legs underneath. The bed is big enough for the both of them to sit side by side, and it's just the right kind of comfortable soft, something Jason's always missed about the Manor.
“What’ll it be?” Dick asks, the Netflix home page up on the TV screen at the foot of the bed. Jason shrugs.
“Whatever,” he says. It's been a long time since he's sat down to watch anything, and he hasn’t really kept up with much.
Dick queues up some Disney movie about an island girl, and Jason’s not surprised to see his tastes haven’t changed since the very few times they did this back in his Robin days. He settles into the pillows, anyway, resolving to at least give it a try.
Dick glances to Jason, eyebrow raised. “What, no comment?” he asks, and Jason huffs.
“Do you want me to make one?” he says, rolling his head to look at Dick. Dick holds his hands up, grinning.
“Just surprised,” he tells him, and he’s still smiling when he turns back to the movie.
Jason is a solid, silent presence beside him until the grandmother dies; Dick can feel him tense where Jason’s pressed their shoulders together, and Dick wishes he could reach out to him without fear of bodily harm.
“I really hate Disney movies sometimes,” Jason says, voice just barely noticeably rough, and when Dick steals a look at him, his eyes are shining.
“Yeah,” Dick agrees, because this part still makes him tear up every time, too. “It’s okay, though,” Dick tells Jason. “You’ll see.”
Jason simply hums, and they go back to silence, although Jason doesn’t move from where he’s leaning against Dick.
As the movie continues, Jason sinks further towards Dick until their sides are pressed together, and Dick can't help but think about how much he's missed him – missed his face and his voice and his company. Sure, Jason can be tense and abrasive and full of so much anger, but he's still the first – the first anything Dick had after the circus, really, and he doubts there's anything Jason could do to fall out of Dick’s affinity for him.
Moana’s learning how to wayfind when Jason lets his head fall onto Dick’s shoulder, and Dick’s whole body stills, surprise and something painful around his heart keeping him frozen. He thinks about the few times they did this when they were younger, crashing together after patrol, and this bed had always felt too big, too cold, after – after what happened.
But now, looking down at Jason’s head on his shoulder, he thinks about how everything and nothing has changed, how they're different people now than they were then, but Dick still loves him and he still trusts Dick enough to do this.
Dick relaxes and he feels Jason do the same, as if he were waiting for Dick to shake him off, push him away – as if Dick could. He leans back into the pillows again, and if his attention strays to Jason more than before, well. Jason doesn’t mention it.
When the movie ends, Dick looks down at Jason again.
“Jay?”
“Hm?”
Dick’s surprised he’s still awake. “What’d you think?” he asks him, voice soft in the now quiet of the room.
“Pretty good,” Jason admits, and then, “I can literally feel you smiling from here.”
Dick laughs, and it reverberates in Jason’s chest, and it leaves something warm and content in its place.
“I’m glad you liked it,” Dick says, and Jason can even hear the smile in his voice. Predictable.
“Are you gonna play another one?” he asks, when Dick’s made no attempt to move, and he thinks he’s surprised him when he feels Dick look at the top of his head.
“You gonna stay?” he asks, quiet like he’s not sure he should be asking, and Jason rolls his head back so he can look him in the eye.
“Don’t see me getting up, do you?” he says, and watches happiness spread across Dick’s face, beautiful, like always.
“Another movie, coming up, then,” Dick agrees, and he’s launching some other Disney movie, this one about a kid in Mexico.
“Do you watch anything that hasn’t been released by Disney?” Jason asks, and he feels Dick’s laugh again, but he doesn’t answer.
It’s about halfway through the movie when Jason’s weight gets marginally heavier against his side, and Dick cranes to see he’s fallen asleep, head still pillowed on Dick’s shoulder. Dick lets out a breath, careful not to jostle Jason, and he reaches for the remote to turn the volume down. He pulls the blanket a little higher up around them, too, sliding into the bed a little more.
He finds himself falling to sleep not much later, lulled by exhaustion and Jason’s warm weight, so he shuts down the TV, carefully tucking them the rest of the way into the bed, sliding his arm under Jason’s neck to keep him where he is, and he drifts off, content.
He's somewhere between awake and asleep when he hears footsteps that are, after a moment, familiar, and he blinks at the doorway when Bruce's head appears. He lifts his hand in a small, aborted wave, and Bruce stares.
Dick knows, in the morning, Bruce will ask him if that really was who he thought sleeping beside him, and Dick won't lie, and Bruce will ask what the hell he was thinking, and Dick will tell him what he always says, and it'll be like every conversation they've had about Jason since he's come back.
But now – now he thinks he catches some distant relative of a smile flittering across Bruce's face for a moment, and Dick presses his own gentle smile into Jason's hair, letting his eyes fall shut, pulled back into sleep by the warmth of Jason's body and the kind of safety he feels no where else but here, like this.