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“so tell me to leave
i’ll pack my bags, get on the road
find someone that loves you
better than i do, darling, i know
‘cause you remind me every day
i’m not enough, but i still stay”
– noah cyrus, ‘july’
Dick stares at Jason’s sleeping face; the contrast of dark hair against pale skin, the way his lips are slightly parted, half-hidden behind a hand that’s gripping onto the sheets a little too tightly, even now.
More often than not, lately, Dick’s feet carry him to Jason’s place instead of his own after patrol. Some nights, he falls asleep to the sound of Jason’s heartbeat, finding solace in the knowledge that the other man is right there next to him, safe, at least for one night; some nights, he leaves before sleep can dig its cruel claws into him because he can’t bear the coldness in Jason’s voice in the morning.
Other nights, like this one, Dick stays, but sleep won’t find him.
Instead, he lies awake, wondering whether it still counts as the famed ‘morning after’ if he never even fell asleep, if memories kept him up, of sliding sheets and tangled limbs and whispered promises that would never survive in the harsh light of day?
He realises that this time, he must have dozed off for an hour, maybe two, because one moment, Jason’s face was illuminated by the moonlight falling through the hatch above their heads, and the next, the room was bathed in the pale grey of a cloudy morning and he could hear the rain pattering down onto that same hatch.
Dick considers staying where he is, where it’s warm and comfortable– and where he’s bound to torture himself with thoughts of how peaceful Jason looks when he sleeps, and how the softness in his features will soon make room for the hard edges he always cuts himself on on these mornings after. Restless, he’s blindly reaching for the pair of dark blue boxers that lie discarded on the floor beside the bed before his thoughts can continue their travels down that road.
He shrugs on a plain white t-shirt that, judging by how loosely it hangs off his shoulders, must be one of Jason’s, and quietly makes his way over to the little not-quite-a-window-and-not-quite-a-door that leads out onto the flat part of the roof where Jason often sits and smokes. His bare feet barely make a sound on the wooden floor boards, and he’s spent enough time here to know how to sidestep the creaky ones.
He wraps his arms around himself by instinct, but the summer air that envelops him when he squeezes through the tiny hole in the wall and steps out onto the roof is warm, the cool rain pleasant on his overheated skin. He looks out over Gotham and takes a deep breath; it smells of earth and grass and asphalt in the way it only does when it’s raining.
At the realisation, a word comes to mind, unbidden, a word he hasn’t thought about in years– ‘petrichor’, he recalls Jason saying, but the voice in his memory is younger than the one that whispered sweet nothings into his ear last night. It was back when Jason had still been Robin, and Dick had made no effort to get to know the boy.
On a rainy night not unlike what he suspects this one will turn out to be, and for reasons he’s long since forgotten, Bruce had put the two of them on patrol together. Ever anxious to fill the awkward silence that followed them around like the dark clouds up above, Dick had rambled; about his day, about the Titans, and, when there was nothing else left to say, about how much he loved the smell of the rain.
“Petrichor,” Jason had mumbled, and at the blank look he had gotten in return, “’s what it’s called, the smell of the rain– petrichor.”
Dick’s answering smile had been half-fond and half-patronising, making the younger boy blush a deep crimson. It had been that little exchange of theirs that had cemented the image of Jason with his nose buried in a book that tended to greet Dick on his rare visits to the Manor.
It had also been the first piece of a puzzle of accidental memories he’d made with Jason, each of them carefully tucked away in the corners of his mind for it to paint a picture with. Except fate had ripped the painting apart before he could ever hope to finish it, and now all Dick’s left with is an incomplete outline of a boy he used to know, sharp in places and blurry in others.
The Jason that held him close last night, with his teeth sunk into Dick’s neck and his fingernails adding temporary lines to the permanent pattern of scars on Dick’s back is every inch the boy from his painting, and also nothing like him at all.
Deep down, Dick knows he’s not enough to make Jason whole again, will never be enough, and how could he be, when he never knew all of Jason to begin with? What he doesn’t know is if he can live with not being enough, when all he’s ever known is being too much.
Jason, with a lifelong chip on his shoulder about never measuring up, is, in a way, his polar opposite. It shines through in his anger at Bruce just as much as it does in the remnants of his hero worship of Dick. He hides it well but never well enough; and some days, Dick takes a sick kind of pleasure in the star-struck way in which Jason looks at him; but some days, it makes his skin crawl.
And that’s what it always comes circling back to, in the end, that neither of them will ever be enough for the other. It’s why Jason lashes out whenever one of them gravitates too far into the other’s orbit, and why Dick runs and runs and runs until his itchy feet take him right back to where he started. It’s why, in truth, each is waiting for the other to tell them to leave, knowing all too well that it’s selfishness that keeps them rooted to the spot.
Dick loses track of time, doesn’t know how long he’s been standing out there in the rain, but his t-shirt and boxers have started clinging to his skin and there are puddles forming around his feet. He’s dimly aware that his long, black hair is plastered to his neck and that goosebumps have appeared on his forearms and are slowly crawling up towards his chest, but he’s too focused on the raindrops running down his cheeks to care– like the tears he’s too tired to cry, so the sky does it for him.
The sun will be rising soon, he’s sure of it, but the world looks so dark and damp and dreary that it probably won’t make much of a difference. It’s just one of those days that start out in one shade of grey, and will only end in another.
Dick doesn’t bother turning around when he hears the window slide open behind him, but he blinks, confused, when a few seconds later, he can’t feel the rain on his face any longer and there’s a sudden but soft, reddish glow surrounding him. He tilts his head and sees Jason standing there, holding a bright red umbrella, and it all clicks into place.
“You’re soaked,” Jason informs him, a hint of accusation in his voice. He looks adorable, with his hair sticking up from sleep and a pillow crease on his right cheek that wholly undermines his disapproving frown, but Dick knows better than to tell him so. He’s wearing boxers and a t-shirt, just like Dick, only that the black fabric makes Jason’s skin look even paler next to his.
He looks up at the umbrella, then at Jason, and offers a small smile in return. Tired, all of a sudden, he takes a step forward to rest his arms against the metal railing in front of him and returns his gaze to the horizon. He feels more than sees Jason follow and shift into place beside him, steadfastly holding the umbrella over both of their heads. He also feels the warmth radiating off the other man’s skin against his own, even if they’re not touching.
Something about it feels more intimate than anything they did last night.
“What are we doing, Jay?” Dick asks after a while, but he can’t work up the courage to look at the other man as he does.
“I don’t know,” Jason replies softly, honestly, and it’s barely a whisper but Dick can hear the vulnerability in it loud and clear. Somehow, the sound of the rain hitting the ground drowns out all the other noises, all the things that could distract from the little tells in Jason’s voice.
It’s like the world around them doesn’t exist under their umbrella, like they’re shielded by the soft red glow that it casts on their skins and the sheets of rain that are running down its canopy, forming a protective circle around them.
It’s a place that belongs to the two of them and no one else, and Dick wishes desperately that they could stay.
Then, out of nowhere, an odd thought hits him, a thought so silly and out of place that he almost laughs out loud. He doesn’t, for fear of breaking the peaceful atmosphere the soothing rhythm of the rainfall has created for them, but he can’t help but shake his head, letting it hang between his shoulders, a small huff escaping his lips.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“Don’t ask me why, but– I was just thinking how it’s weird that you own an umbrella,” Dick turns towards Jason, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly as he watches Jason’s frown deepen.
“Why wouldn’t I own an umbrella?” Jason asks, head tilted to the side in a gesture Dick knows the other man reserves for when he thinks Dick’s being an idiot.
“I literally just told you not to ask me why,” he rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat behind it; Jason has a point, after all. This isn’t one of his countless, meaningless safehouses, it’s somewhere he considers home, at least as much as he’ll ever consider anywhere home. Still, it strikes Dick as odd that Jason has something as mundane as an umbrella just lying around, just like he can’t imagine him doing the laundry or washing the dishes.
Sometimes he wonders if that means that, in his head, he’s sleeping with the Red Hood, not Jason; not the boy who taught him what to call the smell of the rain, all those years ago. Maybe that boy truly had died, or maybe Dick just can’t accept the person he’s become. Maybe he’s just in love with the ghost of who Jason used to be, and the Red Hood is the closest he’ll ever get.
Maybe, if he believed any of that, things would be easier.
“It’s Gotham, it rains all the fuckin’ time, and I need to go shopping and stuff, y’know? Unlike some people, I refuse to live off takeout,” Jason scoffs. He’s still looking at Dick, lips pursed, like he’s trying to figure out if he should be offended or not, and, as always, decides to err on the side of righteous indignation, just in case.
“I know,” Dick says in his most calming tone of voice, the one that has an equal chance of setting the other man at ease and setting him on edge, “It’s just hard to picture, I’m never around to see you do normal stuff.”
‘We never do normal stuff together,’ goes unsaid, but from the way Jason’s frown softens, he understands anyway.
“Maybe it’s time you are,” he offers, and sneaks the hand that isn’t holding the umbrella underneath the hem of Dick’s t-shirt, knuckles grazing over the small of his back, the lightest of touches to make Dick turn towards him.
So Dick does, and agrees, “Maybe it is.”
“Good,” Jason’s face splits into a shy smile, and his hand comes up to rake through Dick’s wet hair, “Now will you come inside with me so I can warm you up, dumbass?”
“Yes,” Dick nods and leans into the touch, not because he’s cold, but because he wants to feel Jason’s skin against his.
When he presses a soft kiss to the other man’s lips, he thinks he can taste the rain on them, and maybe he can stop running now, maybe what they have is enough; maybe enough was never even the goal, and maybe enough isn’t the limit either.