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The problem with the Manor is that everyone in this house is so paranoid, which means that every window and balcony is booby-trapped within an inch of its life, which means that it’s nearly impossible to just smoke a fucking cigarette. It’s like trying to sneak out of the house from Home Alone. Jason has disarmed three trip-wires, two alarms, and a particularly nasty trap and is just pulling a cigarette out of the pack when he realizes there’s someone else on his usual spot on the roof. And he mocked Tim for situational awareness.
“You know those are bad for you, right?” Dick says, from his perch between two gables.
Spare him the lecture. Of all the vices he could have, Dick’s gonna give him a hard time about nicotine? “Dickie-bird, if I live long enough for the cigarettes to take me out, we can all count ourselves unbelievably lucky.”
Dick flinches. Jason sighs and tries to remember that he told himself he wasn’t going to pick a fight tonight. “Why are you out here, anyway? I thought this whole shebang was your idea. Family dinners, togetherness and harmony, all that jazz.”
“Just needed a break, I guess,” Dick says. He looks tired, all of his usual frantic energy drained from his limbs. He’s got one leg tucked up into his chest, the other braced against the slope of the shingles. It’s such a young posture, Jason thinks, and wonders if Dick used to come out here. If this was his spot, before it was Jason’s smoking hidey-hole.
They sit there in silence for a while while Jason smokes and Dick studiously ignores that he’s smoking. It’s chilly out, late fall biting at the air. Jason used to have a blanket up here, but it looks like the box he stashed behind one of the chimneys is gone. He’s wondering if it’s worse that someone found his stash of cigarettes or better that they didn’t leave it up there as some kind of bizarre memorial, when Dick speaks again.
”Do you know," he says, staring down at his taped-up hands, "there's a world in which I never came back. I went to Blüdhaven, or New York, or the damn circus, and I had a normal fucking life."
"No, there isn't," Jason says.
It's meant to be a joke, and he's about to follow it up with a dig about Dick's martyr complex, but Dick makes a horrible barking sound in his throat and he doesn't get the chance. "No," he says. "I guess there isn't. Infinite universes, and in every single one I never get out."
God, Bruce has fucked them all up so bad. "Not too late to stick it to him and join Cirque du Freak."
Dick just looks at him. "Yeah? And who's going to keep track of Damian's after school schedule, and make sure Tim sees the sun sometimes, and-"
"Keep me on the straight and narrow?" Jason says, his voice dipping dangerously.
"I was going to say eat your cooking," Dick says, softly. "You still cook like you're helping Alfred feed an army."
Jason sags back against the brickwork. The sky is smudged with clouds and the everpresent Gotham smog. “I don't know, Dick. Maybe Bruce, seeing as Damian is his actual kid?”
“Because Bruce is such a good parent.”
“I don’t know, he did an OK job with me.”
Dick just stares at him, flatly. “Really.”
“I mean, sure, he royally fucked it up at the end. But we used to go to baseball games. He came to my parent-teacher conferences. You know, dad stuff.” Jason shifts uncomfortably under Dick’s increasingly incredulous stare.
“That sounds nice,” Dick says, finally, turning away to look back out over the horizon. The light on top of the WXYZ tower blinks steadily, pulsing like the flaring end of Jason’s cigarette.
“Yeah, it was.” Jason taps the ash away, takes another drag. “God, did he ever haul you out to that horrible lake in the Catskills to get eaten alive by mosquitoes?”
Dick laughs a little, and Jason thinks he’s about to hear some great story about Dick doing a triple flip off a canoe, but Dick just says, “Bruce wasn’t my father.” Like it’s obvious. Like Jason made a sweet but stupid mistake.
“The hell he wasn’t,” Jason says, his gut tightening. All those years of Dick’s ghostly presence in the cave, his suit in the case, his laughing shadow on patrol. All those years of falling short. Bruce hadn’t said it like that, not ever. But Jason’s not stupid. He knew what it looked like when Bruce was disappointed in him well before it was Red Hood Bruce was frowning at.
“I know things were different with you,” Dick says, “but it’s not like he failed me or something. He never tried to be my father. We were partners.”
“You were nine.”
“Yeah.” Dick’s wry grin is visible even in the half-light. “And we were partners. I’m not saying it was a good idea, but he was pretty messed up back then, and so was I. It worked, for a while. Obviously it didn’t work out so great at the end.”
“Jesus,” Jason says. He remembers some of the famous Nightwing fights, although Bruce had tried to keep him away from the worst of them. “He’s not great at sticking the landing, huh?”
Dick laughs for real then, a chuckle that shakes his whole body. “No,” he says. “He really isn’t.”
“What is this, three for four on fucking up kid sidekicks?”
“Four for five. You weren’t around for everything with Stephanie, but god…” Dick shudders.
“Pretty horrendous track record,” Jason says. “Only the old man would be stubborn enough to fail spectacularly at something so many times and keep trying.”
“Well, he does get into a bat costume every night to beat up criminals.”
“Ouch,” Jason says. “Really calling our whole nighttime activities into question here.”
Dick slumps. “Aren’t you tired, Jay? I’m tired. I don’t know how he isn’t exhausted. Every night, for, what, twenty years at this point?”
It wouldn’t have had to be every night if Bruce had found a more permanent solution than locking freaks like the Joker up in a place with the security of wet tissue paper, but Jason isn’t going to pick fights tonight. He stabs his cigarette out with more force than he means to, and a loose tile goes skittering towards the edge of the roof, where it will shatter on the ground and bring the rest of the Bats out to lecture him about smoking. “Shit shit shit,” Jason swears. He can already see Damian’s stupid little scowl.
Just as the tile is tipping over the gutter, Dick unfurls from his crouch, does a back handspring across the roof, lands on one hand, and grabs the tile in the other. His wrist wobbles slightly. It’s his taped hand, where he sprained two fingers last night on patrol.
“Jesus, Dick,” Jason says, his heart in his throat. He can’t jump to the edge of the roof without unbalancing Dick. If Dick’s bad hand gives out, Jason can’t get there in time to catch him. He’s not Cass, or Damian. He's not fast like they are.
It doesn’t matter, because Dick bends neatly at the waist and lands back on his feet. Jason exhales, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. “It was just a shingle.”
“Rule number one of sneaking out onto the roof,” Dick says, waggling the offending piece of slate. “Leave it like you found it, or risk Alfred’s wrath.” He tosses the tile back to Jason, who catches it with thick fingers.
Jason slots the shingle in place and tries to shake the adrenaline from his muscles. Dick pulls stunts like this all the time, he reminds himself. He’s always on the edge of a rooftop, and he never falls. He’s Nightwing, and before that he was Robin, and before that he was Dick Grayson, of the Flying Graysons. He doesn’t need Jason’s concern. He never has.
“You going in?” Dick asks, nodding down at the butt of Jason’s cigarette.
“Thought I’d stay out here a little longer,” Jason tells him.
“Suit yourself.” Dick is starting to fidget, the exhausted quiet that held him earlier burned away. He’s gearing up to be back in full form, and Jason doesn’t have the energy to keep up with him.
“Go ahead. I won’t be long.”
“Sure, sure.” Dick is already halfway through the window.
“Hey, Dick?”
Dick pauses with his back bent in a truly improbable position.
“Damian’s turning out to be a pretty good kid.” The brat has tried to stab Jason multiple times, but Jason came out of the League too. Stabbing is practically a sign of affection. And Dick is good with him, good in a way Bruce seems helpless to replicate. The old man is so precise with his words and so utterly clumsy with his affection.
“Yeah.” Dick’s face softens. “Yeah, he really is.” His smile isn’t a blade or a flashbulb or anything sharp or bright. It’s just a smile, soft and small and a little crooked where his nose never healed quite right.
“Don’t fuck it up,” Jason says, before Dick can get too misty on him.
Dick lets out a little huff and ducks the rest of the way back through the window. “Always a pleasure, Jay.”
“Dick,” Jason says, and hears Dick’s muffled laughter behind the glass.
He leans back against the roof, spreads his arms out to feel the familiar rough edges of the slate. He didn’t lie to Dick; he’ll go back in a minute. He’ll rib Dick some more, and try not to antagonize the brat, and ask Tim about his hobbies and Cass about her classes. He’ll help Alfred with the dishes, and avoid eye contact with Bruce.
Above him the night stretches out wide and dark in comforting blankness. Gotham doesn’t have any stars; it’s never needed them. There’s enough other things to light up the night. Jason fiddles with his lighter idly, flicking it on and off a few times. He holds the flame close, just enough to feel the heat. Then he sits up, twisting to pick up his cigarette butt, and heads back to the bright warmth spilling out from the kitchen. It’s getting cold out here.