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It was a grueling patrol, but Jason is relieved to be home. He missed having Roy by his side tonight, but their usual babysitter, Mrs. Peterson from next door, came down with pneumonia yesterday and canceled. She doesn’t seem to have any idea that her neighbors are vigilantes, but they pay her enough that she doesn’t ask.
Lian is coloring at the coffee table while Jason toes off his boots, leaving them at the front door. She’s wearing her fluffy Stitch pajamas, which she’s been practically living in for the last week and a half. “Hey, princess.” Jason drops a kiss on top of her head as he passes. “Where’s your dad?”
“In the kitchen. He’s playing with the electricity again.”
“Oh, good. Because, you know, I was actually hoping our place would explode, just to spice things up.” Lian giggles. “Has he fed you yet?”
She shakes her head, her black pigtails swinging back and forth. “Nope. But he promised me special sushi if I cleaned up all my books.” Jason will never understand Lian’s passion for her “special sushi,” which is just deli ham slathered in strawberry yogurt and rolled up like a spring roll from hell. Jason gets nauseated just thinking about it, but the kid loves the stuff.
“And did you clean up?”
Lian points over at the bookshelf against the wall. They don’t have a huge apartment by any means, but Jason insisted on dedicating an entire wall to his books. That was one of the conditions when Roy first asked Jason to move in with him and Lian. It took weeks of finagling to convince Jason to relinquish a small section of the bookshelf for Lian’s picture books, which are indeed all in their right places.
“Then it looks like you’ve earned your sushi, little miss. I’m gonna shower first and then I’ll make it for you, alright?”
“I can make it by myself.”
Jason snorts. “After what happened last time? I don’t think so.” It was his own fault for thinking a five-year-old could prepare her own food. It took a solid hour to scrub the yogurt stains out of the carpet.
Jason pokes his head in the kitchen on his way to the bathroom. “Tell me you’re not burning the building down.”
“Okay, then I’m not burning the building down,” Roy says around the screwdriver trapped between his teeth. He stands in front of what was once a light switch, tinkering with something that he most definitely should not be tinkering with, but Jason is picking his battles today.
“I’m not going to bother telling you that you’re on your second strike with the landlord. If he has to come up here again, I’m not defending you.”
“You know what I miss? The old days when people would greet each other by saying things like, ‘hi, sweetie, how was your day?’ ‘Oh, it was lovely, darling. How about a kiss after spending hours apart and missing each other dearly?’ ‘Babe, it’s like you read my mind!’ You know, stuff like that?”
Jason arches an eyebrow. “I’ve got mobster blood caked in my hair. Still want a hello kiss?”
“Not really, no. Go shower.”
“Try not to blow a fuse in the meantime, please.”
Roy salutes with his screwdriver. “Aye, aye, captain.”
Jason goes to the bathroom and relishes in the feeling of peeling off his armor and the bodysuit underneath, every layer soaked with sweat and blood. It’s a good thing his Red Hood getup is all dark colors, or he’d have scarred Lian for life ten times over already.
He turns the shower knob as hot as it’ll go, letting his muscles slowly unravel under the spray. He takes his time scrubbing off the blood and dirt, whistling some shitty pop song that Dick paid Barbara to blast through the comms all. Night. Long. Jason has plans to add that to his repertoire of torture techniques if he ever needs some extra edge. It’s definitely effective.
Jason is in the middle of lathering his hair with shampoo when suddenly the lights go out, leaving him in darkness. An instinctive chill runs down his spine, only to be replaced with annoyance. Of course. Beyond the shower spray, he can hear Lian shriek in fear, followed by Roy muttering curses.
Jason sighs. “Roy?” he calls.
“Handling it!”
Another sigh. This is what he gets for leaving Roy alone. It’s Jason’s own fault, really. He quickly rinses the shampoo from his hair and leaves the bathroom, and towel wrapped around his waist. He navigates the pitch black apartment and finds Roy lighting a match in the kitchen. He’s got Lian tucked in one arm.
“What did I say?” Jason asks.
“I know, I know—”
“I said not to blow a fuse. That was your one job.”
“Technically, I didn’t blow a fuse. I just overloaded the circuit and cut off the electricity for the whole building.”
Jason smacks himself in the forehead. “Wonderful.” Remind him again why he’s in love with this man?
“I’m sure it’ll be fixed in no time.”
“You can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes.”
“You’re overreacting. It’s just a little blackout.”
“We have ice cream in the freezer.”
“I’ll buy more.”
Jason runs a hand through his wet hair. “You’re killing me, babe. Again.”
“It’s just one night without power, right? I’m sure it’ll come back on in the morning.” He bounces Lian a little, who’s got her face buried in Roy’s neck. Poor thing is terrified of the dark. “What do you think, pumpkin? You think you can be brave for one little night in the dark?”
“I don’t like it. It’s scary.”
“I know it is, sweetheart. But do you want to know a secret?” He leans in close to her ear, mock-whispering, “Jaybird over here is afraid of the dark too.”
Lian looks at Jason with wide eyes. “Really?”
Roy nods. “Yep. But you know what? He’s so brave and strong that he overcame that fear and now it hardly bothers him anymore. Do you think you can be brave like that?”
“I can be super brave.”
“That’s my girl. Now, sit here for a minute, ‘kay?” He sets her down on the arm of the sofa. The match has fizzled out by now, leaving them in complete darkness. “I know I have some scented candles around here somewhere. Dinah keeps getting them as gifts and pushes them on me when she doesn’t like them.”
Jason’s eyes widen. “Wait, watch out for the—”
Roy trips with a shout, glass shattering as he falls.
“—coffee table.” Roy just groans in response. “Hang on, let me get a light.” Jason makes his way to the drawer they keep the emergency flashlight in. He turns on the beam to show Roy on the floor, surrounded by glass shards and clutching his leg. There are several small cuts peppering his knee like he crawled on a beach made of broken bottles.
Jason gasps. “Oh my god, Roy! You broke Lian’s crayons!”
Roy flips him off, angling his hand so Lian can’t see. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
Jason helps him up and hands him the flashlight. “Lian, honey, will you help him get to the couch? I need to put some clothes on.” And he’s almost positive there’s another flashlight somewhere in Roy’s nightstand. They’re going to need all the light they can get.
Jason gets dressed and retrieves the flashlight, plus one of Lian’s Disney princess glow sticks. When he returns, Roy is on the couch with his leg propped up on what remains of their coffee table. Lian is shining the flashlight on her tiny first-aid kit which Kori gave her last Christmas. She sifts through her collection of band-aids.
“One to ten?”
“Barely a two,” Roy says. “I already dug the glass out, and none were deep enough to need stitches.” Jason checks him over anyway, just to be sure. He wipes away the blood and applies some ointment over the cuts.
He turns to Lian when he’s finished. “Can I trust you to finish this up while I make dinner?” She nods enthusiastically. Perfect. Lian can keep herself busy plastering Roy in Hello Kitty bandages, and Jason will have time to figure out what the hell they’re doing, food-wise.
“How do you expect to make dinner without electricity?” Roy asks, reading his mind yet again.
“What, did you never have to eat cold leftover pizza in your million-dollar mansion growing up? Weird.” He dodges the pillow Roy throws his way, laughing.
“Those jokes don’t count when you also grew up in a million-dollar mansion.”
Thirty minutes later and the three of them are sitting on the couch, Roy and Jason eating cold mushroom casserole while Lian enjoys her ham and yogurt. Once you get over the temperature difference, cold casserole turns out to be just as tasty as hot casserole. Gordon Ramsey should take notes.
Jason managed to track down the candles Roy was talking about earlier and set them in various places around the living room, lighting the room in a dim glow. It’s not perfect lighting by any means—not even good lighting, really, but at least no one will be falling into another coffee table anytime soon.
Roy’s knee is covered in Hello Kitty band-aids, some of which are in spots that weren’t even cut up by the glass. Roy doesn’t seem to mind. Jason took a picture for potential blackmail reasons.
“I’m bored,” Lian says after a while.
“You could always go to bed,” Roy suggests, “given that your bedtime was fifteen minutes ago but your daddies are nice enough to let you stay up this long.”
“That was nice of us,” Jason agrees. “I think we’ve earned a quiet night to ourselves.”
Lian pouts. She grabs Jason’s arm, clinging to his bicep like a koala. “But it’s dark in my room.”
“It’s dark in there every night.”
“It’s really dark tonight. Can I stay here with you instead?” Her eyes are big and innocent, perfectly disguising the mischief lurking within. This girl could be a successful con artist one day. (Not that Jason or Roy will ever let that happen. She’s going to grow up and become a veterinarian or something equally harmless.)
Roy and Jason meet eyes, having a silent conversation over Lian’s head. Finally, Roy sighs. “Fine. You can stay up with us a little longer, but only because of the blackout, okay? Don’t go thinking that this trick is going to work tomorrow night.”
Lian claps her hands, bouncing in her seat. “Can I have coffee?”
“Absolutely not.”
She isn’t deterred in the slightest. “This is gonna be so fun! We can stay up all night long, even past midnight and three o’clock which is when the ghosts come out.”
“Ghosts, huh?” Jason says.
“Yeah, Aunt Stephanie told me all about it! Three o’clock is when the witching hour happens and witches and ghosts come out like Bloody Mary and Freddie Cougar and they call come into your house and walk around but you can only see them if you’re awake, which I’m gonna be because I’m not even tired, I could stay up all night long and for a million, bazillion years, and—”
She lasts seven minutes.
Lian is fast asleep now with her head in Roy’s lap, her tiny feet dangling off the arm of the sofa. Jason drapes a blanket over her, kissing her on the forehead. He’s careful not to jostle Roy’s bandaged leg as he takes a seat beside him, putting his arm around Roy’s shoulders. “Well, I’m fucking exhausted.”
“It’s cool if you want to go to bed,” Roy says. “I don’t mind sticking around here with Lian until the power comes back on.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I like it better in here, anyway.” In here, where the light is. Roy doesn’t comment on the hidden meaning that he definitely catches on to, and Jason loves him for it. He just kisses Jason’s cheek, settling against his side.
Jason doesn’t mention the darkness thing often. Or at all. After all, grown men don’t get scared of the dark— especially when they live in a place like Gotham and were raised in a literal cave. But if Lian insists on having the hallway light on in addition to the night light next to her bed, then Jason isn’t about to discourage her.
Roy never says a word about it. Every night he keeps the door to his and Jason’s bedroom cracked open just enough so a sliver of hallway light floods in, and it’s good for both of them, really. Jason feels safer with the light on, and they both feel safer being able to hear every creak and draft in the apartment, falling asleep knowing that nothing will sneak up on them.
Even when Jason was living on his own, post-resurrection, he always kept a lamp on when he went to sleep in whichever safehouse he was squatting in that night. Back before he had a place to call home. On especially bad nights, he would turn on the lights in every single room, even the one in the microwave. Only then could he sleep soundly.
He can’t exactly do that now, but he doesn’t need to. Whenever his head gets too heavy to bear, he’ll simply wrap his arms around Roy and fall back asleep to the sound of Roy’s heart beating under his ear.
Jason isn’t entirely sure what caused the light issue in the first place. Sometimes he can’t remember if it arose before or after he was adopted by Bruce. Other times he’s sure it’s lingering trauma from the coffin, from waking up in pitch blackness six feet underground. No bearings, no sense of what was happening or where he was. The only thing in there with him was the thick, cloying darkness on every side of him. Jason shivers just thinking about it.
“We should get her a new night light,” he says. “Battery powered, not a plug-in. It would be a good investment if you ever try destroying our electricity again.”
Roy hums. “We can pick one up tomorrow. I need to take her clothes shopping anyway. And it might be a good idea to have a couple for the living room and bathroom so we don’t have a repeat of tonight.”
“Good idea.” God, Jason’s craving a cigarette right now. Every nerve in his body urges him to get one and soothe the anxiety buzzing in his brain, but he has a rule against smoking in the apartment or anywhere near Lian. He’d settle for a beer instead, whatever keeps the buzzing at bay, but he doesn’t drink at home either out of respect for Roy’s sobriety. He’s stuck.
Roy must notice Jason’s twitching fingers because he reaches into his pocket, careful not to wake Lian as he pulls out a stick of nicotine gum. “Here.”
Jason unwraps the gum and shoves it in his mouth. He takes a deep breath in as he chews, letting it out slowly. It takes the edge off some, but not completely. Still, it’s better than nothing. “You’re just carrying these on you now?”
"Came in handy, didn't it?"
“And I thought Bruce was the king of being prepared for everything.”
Jason straightens the wrapper until it’s flat like a card. He holds it over the nearest candle until it catches, watching the flame consume the paper, eating away at its edges. He blows it out just before it gets too close to his fingers.
“When I was a kid,” he says after a minute, “my mom and I used to light candles like these. The heat would get turned off pretty often since she was usually too high to remember what day it was, let alone when the bills needed to be paid. But whenever it happened, she would send me to the store with a couple dollars and I’d buy a bag of marshmallows. We’d roast them over the candles and pretend we were camping.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It was. I mean, now I realize that it’s actually really fucking sad that we had to resort to candles ‘cause my mom wasted all her cash on drugs and couldn’t pay the heating bill. But at the time, it was nice. It’s one of the few good memories I have of that time.”
He feels more than sees Roy’s fingers lacing through his own, clasping their hands together. “I was telling the truth earlier, you know. You’re brave and strong and badass all the way.”
Jason snorts. “Even if I get freaked out every time the lights go out?”
Roy doesn’t laugh with him. “Yeah, even then. And you know why?” He rests his head on Jason’s shoulder, lets Jason feel his warmth. “Because of all the things to be afraid of, you picked the one that can be fixed by just turning the lights on. Once you do that, there’s nothing left in the world that can scare you. And that’s pretty damn badass if you ask me.”