Chapter Text
It’s dark.
Sometimes Dick feels like it’s always dark, but there’s a special sort of darkness in Gotham on nights like this, when he feels like he’s just taking over as Batman again and the weight of the wings are too much to overcome. He startled twice tonight, both times luckily while he was alone, but it’s taking time to adjust back into fighting alone. He never thought he’d miss having a partner this much—but Damian is a vastly different partner than Bruce. The scowling was pretty similar, though.
Dick affords a smile, as he always does when he thinks of Damian, and shuts off the light. He leaves the blinds open, though. It’s a habit on dark nights like this—it’s a little comforting to him to feel like he’s a little more connected to the city this way. Back in Bludhaven, he slept with his blinds open most nights. Still, despite having witnessed firsthand the way Bludhaven could chew a person up and spit them out, sometimes he misses those days.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, caught up in his nostalgia, when he hears the knock at his window. Dick stands up again and walks until he can see a face through the glass.
“Jason?”
Without hesitation, Dick is already unlatching his window. There’s no trademark smirk or inappropriate jokes thrown Dick’s way, just a glassy-eyed stare. Splashes of blood are visible on most of Jason’s face, as well as his jacket and boots, and the helmet in Jason’s hand. Dick helps him climb through the window and leads him to a chair.
“Do I need to call Alfred?” Dick asks gently, because there is a limit to his own powers. Jason shakes his head, though. “All right,” Dick affirms, “Wait here.”
After a quick trip to the kitchen, Dick returns with a wet towel and a glass of water. He hands the water to Jason and then stretches across the bed to snag the first aid kit from the nightstand. Jason takes a sip of the water and then just holds it in his lap while still staring blankly into the gloom. It suddenly occurs to Dick that he never turned on the lights, but the idea seems wrong somehow, so he leaves them. Instead, Dick simply picks up the towel and starts to swipe at Jason’s face. The blood there is dark and starting to dry, but Dick scrubs at it determinedly until it comes away.
Jason doesn’t flinch, or react at all, even as Dick finds cuts that indicate at least some of the blood is Jason’s own. By the time Dick reaches Jason’s neck, the towel is stained red and Dick has to rinse it out in the bathroom sink. When Dick returns, Jason is sitting in the same position, staring the same glassy stare. Dick is more concerned than ever now; he disagrees with some of Jason’s ways and means, but this lost boy is still Dick’s little brother. Nothing could erase the memories Dick has of the mischievous little Robin with a big heart and too many scars on it. Not even if Jason’s grown up now, big and strong and perfectly capable of protecting himself, and not even if Jason has done some awful things. He came to Dick’s window in clear need of help and comfort, and Dick is going to give that to him.
He cleans more blood from Jason’s hands, then helps Jason out of his red-stained clothes. The entire time, Jason’s eyes stay unfocused and haunted. The entire time, Dick says nothing, but tries to keep his hands as gentle as possible.
Once Jason is stripped down to his underclothes, Dick leads him gently to the bed and lays him down. There are a hundred things Dick wants to know, but they can wait for tomorrow. Right now, any questions Dick would ask could break the fragile truce between them, could see Jason fleeing out the window. So Dick bites his tongue and simply pulls the covers up, denying himself judgment. Whatever happened to Jason tonight, he needed someone and chose Dick. For that much, Dick is already grateful. He will not drive Jason away by prying into things or arguing over Jason’s choices. Instead, he gives—his warmth, his comfort, his understanding. His love.
On impulse, and with a heart full of affection, Dick leans down and places a soft kiss on Jason’s forehead. It gets him the first reaction of the night—Jason’s eyes flick up to look at him for a moment before he shuts them. Still, a moment is enough and Dick caught the surprise there, but also the warmth. Dick smiles even though Jason doesn’t open his eyes again.
“Good night,” Dick tells him, hesitates, and then adds on: “Little Wing.”
Jason doesn’t react, but Dick still sees the slight softening of Jason’s shoulders against the bed.
The smile on Dick’s face spreads and doesn’t leave, even as he picks up the towel and first aid kit and takes them back to the kitchen. When he comes back, it looks as though Jason is asleep, now curled into himself on his side, with the blankets pulled in toward his body. Dick uses all his experience to climb into the other side of the bed without disturbing his sleeping brother.
In the still-dark, Dick lies awake for a while and watches the city, and watches how its lights play against Jason’s face. Their shared darkness is silent except for the soft sound of Jason’s breathing, and when it catches, Dick hears. He hears the catch again, then, and again, and almost immediately Dick realizes what’s going on.
So he moves slow and careful across the bed until he’s next to Jason’s trembling body, and then Dick is wrapping his arms around Jason and simply holding on to him, like pulling a drowning man out of the water.
In the nights when Dick looked down on Bludhaven and felt utterly alone, he’d learned some things Bruce never taught him. One of those things was that some nights a person simply needed to be reminded that they are loved, that they belong somewhere, that they can go home. Dick thinks it must be such a night for Jason. There is none of the resistance that Dick expected, no pushing Dick’s arms away. Jason simply lies there and neither of them says a word as he cries.
Through the window, Gotham’s lights flicker in the night.
It’s dark.
Dick shuts his eyes and leans his head forward until it’s resting against the back of Jason’s neck.