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It’s a rare morning that he got to hold his lover close, and Jason Todd fully intended to make the most of it, even as sleep pulled against his tired body. After several busy weeks with only glimpses of each other, there were finally no interruptions, no criminal with a schtick trying to take over Gotham and no bats demanding their time. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the pale blue dawn was bright enough for him to make out the slight frown on his lover’s face as he awoke. Dick shifted beside him, arms circling Jason’s larger body and pulling him onto his chest as he yawned away the last haze of sleep. They lay in silence for a few moments, the rhythm of Dick’s breaths soothing that distance ache in the back of his skull.
‘Stop staring at me, it’s creepy’ Jason’s words were muffled as his lips were still pressed against Dick’s chest, and he grunted as Dick’s quiet huffs of laugh jostled his head. ‘What? Can’t a man get a decent lie in anymore?’
‘Sorry, sorry, I’ll let you get back to sleep now’.
Jay only huffed in reply, though he didn’t move from pressing gentle kisses to Dick’s chest, his fingers skimming the edge of his hips as they met the sheets. Lazy mornings like this came few and far between, with Dick’s day job and the never ending work of trying to clean up the city as Red Hood- admittedly a lot less violently than before. It had been a quiet patrol the night before, and with nothing planned for the day Jason could take a moment to look at his lover. His dark hair was glossy in the morning light, his body a deep gold stretched out beneath Jason. A kiss to his collar bone, little more than a gentle press of lips to each side, before he met the scars that outlined Dick’s heart.
Jason stopped, his eyes flicking up to meet Dick’s, ‘I hate these’.
‘I know they’re not pretty-’
‘No’, Jason quickly cut him off, shifting his weight to his elbows as his hands moving up to softly caress where his lips had just been before moving up to run his fingers through Dick’s soft hair, ‘no I don’t mean that. If scars were a problem for me I’d have more issues than I already do,’ he emphasised his point with a quick gesture to the long thin line which stretched up his torso, branching out in a Y over his chest. ‘I hate that you suffered through that, that a fuckin’ bomb was wired to your heart and that you died.’
‘It nothing compared to what happened to you, I-’, Jason was quick to cut him off, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips before he resumed stroking his hair.
‘It ain’t a competition Dickie. I thought you were dead, you were dead, even if only for a minute. I know this sounds stupid, but fuck, for a second I thought I could feel it. Those moments before Luthor brought you back I swore I could feel the earth go cold, that something was missing but I had no idea what. Then when Br- when he told us you were gone, nothing mattered anymore. Not Batman, not the city, not even the fuckin Joker. You’re so important, you’re loved- by so many people- and you can’t even see it’.
It was the closest Jason had come to saying I love you. Instead he tried to say it in actions every day, in the moments of vulnerability he never let anyone else see, in the information tips he left on his desk, in the plastic boxes of home cooked meals he left in the fridge so Dick would eat something other than cereal. He watched as Dick swore softly and let himself cry. Here, in their bed with Jason pressed above him, almost shielding him from the rest of the world which hadn’t quite awoken yet. It had scared him, when he realised the depth of his feelings for Dick, when he realised the admiration and crush he’d harboured as a teen hadn’t left him and had only settled deeper in the years since he’d come back and gotten to know his predecessor. In those years when he’d still been so full of rage that tinted everything green, when his only focus had been trying to make everyone else see just how far the Batman had let his robin fall, that anger and hatred still couldn’t reach Dick.
Dick who had finally seen his face and immediately grabbed his hand and swore he’d never let him go again. Dick who in the face of everything was stubborn enough to look at Jason and see a man worth loving, worth fighting for.
‘I love you, I’m sorry’, Dick tried to keep the sniffle from his voice but the end cracked slightly and his bright blue eyes were watery. Jason kissed him again softly in reply, letting the fingers which had been running through his hair gently stroke the tears away from running down the side of Dick’s face.
‘I wasn’t looking for an apology bluebird, none of its your fault. The machine, spiral, none of it- okay? I’m not mad at you, and neither are your brothers though god only knows that demon brat nearly had his father’s head when he found out.’ Whilst Jason said it with humour, he knew Dick’s brothers hadn’t taken their father’s role in Dick’s disappearance well at all.
Jason hadn’t ever really seen Bruce as a father figure, a mentor sure and before his death he’d looked up to him but even before that he’d always kept a distance between himself and stoic man. Even when back then Dick had still only been Bruce’s ward, neither of them had considered each other brothers. Dick had kept his distance, only appearing at the manor when summoned and the cool tension between Dick and Bruce had left any interaction between him and his successor brief and stilted. Even friends would be a strained term, Jason’s puppy crush on the older robin often made him desperate to please and that quickly turned to frustration when Dick barely acknowledged he existed, never mind pay attention to him.
Jason knew though with Tim and Damian it had been different. That they were brothers in every sense and with Damian that affection and love was almost parental, as Dick had picked up the emotional slack his father had neglected. Hell, Jason had never seen the brat smile as much as when he’d seen Dick alive, he’d almost looked like the teenager he was as he’d sprinted to his brother and all but clambered into his arms before realising they weren’t alone and attempting to appear cold and indifferent. Tim too had rushed to his older brother, grinning and embracing. It was rare to see the children of the bat laugh and smile, but when you stood beside Dick it was hard not to.
Jason hadn’t thought anything could shake that child-like idolisation of his father Damian carried, hell it wasn’t like he hadn’t looked up to Bruce himself when he was that age. It turned out Dick was the one thing that could, Jason wasn’t even sure if they were back on speaking terms. Dick didn’t even tell them himself, and Jason was sure he would have carried Bruce’s secret to the grave, unfairly shouldering the burden of guilt for his disappearance as if it was all his fault, as if he’d had a choice. Jason knew from experience, however, that bringing any of this up now would only made Dick defensive, and he was loath to let the rare morning together pass.
‘The point is, I hate them because they’re proof of your pain. But I also love them - they show you’re still here, still next to me’, Jason sighed, that was two mentions of love in less than five minutes, and the discomfort must have shown on his face because Dick was quick to break the tension, leaning up to take another kiss.
‘I’ll always come back to you, no matter what little wing’.
Here, hidden in their little corner of the world beneath their blankets with the sun slowly letting another day unfold, Jason let himself believe it.