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Roy woke with a soft jerk, a familiar textured lycra wrapping around his arm. He grumbled, cracking open an eyelid to see the figure looming over the side of his bed.
“Dick?” he mumbled.
The soft moonlight fell on the hard planes of Nightwing’s masked face, his expression tight and his jaw clenched so hard Roy could see veins popping. Roy shifted in his bed up onto his free elbow so Dick could more easily manoeuvre his other arm, blinking away the rest of his sleep. Dick didn’t respond to Roy’s silent question of what are you doing here? instead pressing his bare fingers—Roy could not see where he had discarded his gloves—to the pulsepoint on Roy’s wrist.
Oh . Roy fell back into the bed, intent to let Dick soothe his anxieties for the night and go back to sleep.
A minute or two passed. Roy could feel his pulse thrumming against Dick’s trembling fingers.
Roy sighed, much more awake than he was when Dick just woke him up. He sat up, arm still in a vice-like grip. As the blankets fell away from his bare chest, Roy heard a sharp intake of breath from above him.
Dick’s masked face was much the same as if frozen in time, his gaze hidden behind a domino but unusually obvious in where it was staring under Roy’s chin. His lips were parted and in the deathly silence encompassing the room Roy could not tell if he was breathing. He slowly reached out to Dick, telegraphing his movements clearly before placing a gentle hand on Dick’s chest. The touch had Dick flinching, but Roy did not pull back, pressing his palm against the slope beneath his clavicle—his breaths came so shallowly and unevenly Roy was surprised he was standing at all.
“Baby, why don’t we sit down?” Roy spoke softly, pulling Dick down on the side of the bed while Roy slid to kneel on the floor in front of him. Roy said, “I need you to let go, okay?”
The grip around his arm tightened imperceptibly. Roy ran his free hand down Dick’s side soothingly.
“Hey, it’s okay, I’m right here,” Roy said, “I just need you to breathe, okay baby?”
Dick did not respond verbally, only with a singular squeeze around his arm. Roy put his free hand over Dick’s grip, the one still gloved, leaving the bare fingers over his pulse alone. He squeezed Dick’s fingers, allowing them to relax before Roy started prying them off. He easily peeled the gloves away to reveal a scarred trembling hand, then guided the hand to Roy’s own chest.
An audible gasp—blessed indication that Dick was still breathing. His palm was cold and clammy, and Roy knew his own body ran hot enough that the difference would be jarring.
“Follow my breathing, okay?” Gently: “In—”
Roy exaggerated his breathing, chest inflating with it as Dick let in a shuddering, hiccupping breath.
“Hold.”
A choked breath—Dick let out a wretched sound as he tried to follow the instruction but instead forcefully expelled breath.
“That’s okay, you’re doing so good.”
Dick sobbed, but he’s finally making sound, he’s breathing .
Roy continued to breathe, watching the way Dick held back the rest of the sobs, could already see him suppressing everything that was bursting in favour of focusing on the breathing. That’s fine. The thumb of the hand on Roy’s chest moves softly over his skin in the shadow of a caress, running over a prominent scar puckering his skin – oh.
Five bullet scars littered his torso—five hollow point bullets. The same make; the same day. The surgery scar—where they cut him open for the few bullets that didn’t make it through and to repair his shredded organs—lay right underneath Dick’s palm, a single bullet scar under his thumb.
“It’s the fourteenth of April. The year is 2008,” Roy recited, mechanical, trying to not think about the proof of survival on his skin. “You’re fine, Dick. We’re fine.”
Dick opened his mouth—to speak or to breath, who knew—but all that came out was another strangled sound. Tremors ran through his whole body, through his hands, through the two fingers that lost their hold over Roy’s pulse, slipping down his raised outstretched arm to grab hold of his shoulders instead. At that moment his whole weight seemed to sag over, the tense line of his body releasing in a pained groan. Roy shot upwards as Dick collapsed, arms coming underneath him while Dick splayed his own arms over Roy’s shoulders and his head fell against Roy’s collar.
Dick was breathing, but Roy still felt the trembling. Roy turned his head so his lips were pressed against Dick’s sweat-damp temples, arranging his knees on the bed so they were on either side of Dick’s left leg and Roy could easily hold him up. “You’re okay. Everything’s okay, baby, we’re okay.”
Hitching breaths—but still breathing deeper and more potently than before, a distinct control tightly wound around each breath after it involuntarily hitched. Roy’s arms were wrapped around his waist and the friction of the Nightwing suit helped him hold Dick upright, but he needed Dick out of the headspace that Nightwing brought with him.
“Can you look at me?” Roy asked, but Dick only tilted his head so he was nestled in the cleft of Roy’s neck and shoulder, hands still tracing the fewer bullet exit scars on his back with purpose.
Roy couldn’t help smiling at the intimacy of the embrace, then went to work. First, he lifted Dick’s head to remove the domino, then moved onto the hidden custom zip, expertly disarming any remaining defensive mechanisms. He helped Dick out of the Nightwing suit, peeling off to reveal inch-by-inch the bronzed skin underneath, sweat-soaked from the exertion of whatever invisible terror gripped Dick so tightly it sent him all the way to Star City in the dead of night. Even as Roy manoeuvred Dick’s arms around, Dick always left one hand on Roy, holding onto him like a lifeline—and maybe he was. Maybe the warmth and movement of his body, the rise and fall of his chest, the healed over scars were all proof that Roy was alive. Maybe that was all Dick needed, but Roy was always going to do more for him.
When Roy moved to kneel on the floor again to pull off Dick’s boots, Dick’s hands on his shoulder and in his hair, Roy heard him.
“... You’re alive.”
Roy set the last boot to the side and looked up, Dick’s shivering naked body in front of him. In any other situation with Roy knelt between his legs and Dick’s hand in his hair it would be erotic, but all Roy could see was the relief in Dick’s eyes, the awareness returned to him as he gazed down at Roy, tear tracks shining in the moonlight; he was the painted picture of a tragic hero.
“That I am, Boy Genius,” Roy smiled.
Roy watched Dick’s deliberately even breaths. “I’m sorry,” Dick said.
“You know I’ll always pick up when you call, right? Could’ve done that.”
“I know.”
Roy raised a brow. “But you didn’t.”
Dick shrugged. “I figured I could get in and out without bothering you too much.”
Roy snorted. “And how did that work out for you?”
“Shut up,” Dick laughed breathlessly.
“No, no, go on. You’re the stealthiest guy I know, except for the – you know – panic attack.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Takes one to know one, baby,” Roy said, standing up and pushing Dick back into the bed. Dick went obligingly and Roy watched him lay down for a moment before he climbed over him to get to the other side of the bed. He pulled up a blanket to cover most of Dick’s naked body then told him, “Now sleep.”
Dick looked at him. Roy gave him his hand and Dick took it, bringing it close.
Dick didn’t say I’m sorry, not when having each other’s back like this was a given. He wouldn't insult Roy like that.
It would be a few minutes before Roy settled into the lull of sleep when Dick pressed Roy’s hand to his forehead, clasping it in prayer to whatever deity deigned to listen. You’re alive, he didn’t say aloud but in his trembling hands, in his quiet sobs. I’m alive, Roy didn’t say aloud but in his rising chest, in his scarred beating heart.