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If it were up to Joseph Wilson, he’d paint a more beautiful scene than the one that stood before him. It would be spring. Brisk but sunny, the tantalizing sickly sweet smell of wildflowers wafting through the air. A small music festival with smooth jazz washing over you taking your troubles along with it, sweeping them far away to distant mountain tops peaked with a light dusting of snow. His friends are there, enjoying themselves, as he watches, chiming in with witty comments that make everyone laugh. It’s a lovely sound. One he can only imagine. A wry smile edges its way across Joey’s lips. So rarely in life are things under our own control.
In the land of reality it’s mid-January, a cold night with the sun hidden away, and the more he tries to wriggle his toes, the more he’s certain he’s going to get frostbite. Why the Titans decided to set up in New York City is beyond him. Sure, it’s close to the waterfront, which tends to mellow the temperature, but the Northeast is occasionally slammed by winds straight from the arctic circle that veered off course. Nevermind the ice and snow. It’s hardly six o’clock by the time the sun sets. It’s miserable and cold, and half the team is suffering from seasonal affective disorder.
To make matters worse, he’s here on a stakeout. Which means freezing your ass off while pressing metallic binoculars to your already numb face and pretending you don’t notice the hypothermia setting in. And sadly for our hero, the stakeout isn’t in any old place, it’s on scaffolding on the side of a warehouse that faces the ocean. The air is damp and it wets his frizzy curls, turning them dark and freezing them to the side of his head. Suffice to say, Joseph Wilson was already having a terrible time.
It wasn’t all bad, though. The subzero temperatures left Joey a perfect excuse to huddle closer to Dick Grayson for warmth. And though it’d be warmer if Kory was his partner, the heat growing in his chest rivaled even the warmest of blazes. Perhaps if people freezing to death in the wilderness tried simply being head over heels in love, they simply wouldn’t die so quickly.
“See anything yet?” Joey shakes his head, removing the binoculars from around his neck. The strap is stiff and frozen, and it cracks when he tries to put it back on. Joey groans internally, there goes twenty dollars out of the Titan’s rainy day fund. “Me neither.” Dick adds dejectedly. “They should have been here by now.” If it hadn’t been Dick’s idea to sit out here, maybe he’d offer some gesture of comfort. As it stands, his patience has worn thin. But he doesn’t protest when Dick takes one hand off his binoculars and slides it around his back and pulls him closer. His heart speeds up traitorously, and he chides it. Dick is only doing this because of the cold. Because it’s advantageous to their survival. He knows this, and while the thought should be in the back of his mind, he enjoys the moment all the same. It’s warm.
The thing about Dick Grayson is that it’s always the wrong time and it’s always something else on his mind, and they will never have a slow moment together aside from times like these. And the logical thing is to turn away and forget you ever knew him and move off to some private island owned by one of your stupidly well connected evil parents and enjoy a life filled with doing nothing but painting beautiful subjects by the sea. But there’s nothing more blindingly brilliant than Dick’s laugh and nothing more rewarding than his smile, and he sounds so alluring when he asks if you’d like to spend the night spent on freezing scaffolding together.
So here Joey is, and it’s truly Dick’s fault, and he can’t stay upset with him. Dick focuses on the mission, and Joey pretends that the fire in his chest isn’t distracting him from trying to spot a flicker of light on the otherwise black horizon. He pretends his heart doesn’t race when Dick shifts, and pulls away. He pretends that it doesn’t hurt like a serrated knife sliding between his ribs. “I think I see something.”
Joey follows his gaze. At least he doesn’t have to pretend to care about the goal of the mission, because it is actually important to stop this particularly nasty shipment of chemicals. Though it’s hard not to feel disappointed when Dick’s hand moves back to his binoculars, even if it isn’t rational. He spots the little speedboat, it’s headed straight towards them, a half dozen men on the bow, dressed in black, and staring through binoculars, not much unlike them.
Something drops in his stomach as the realization hits that they’re sitting ducks. “I don’t think they can see us.” Dick whispers in hushed tones. “The light from the city is the only thing illuminating them.” Dick covertly reaches a hand down to his communicator, and clicks a button. It only flashes once.
A foghorn blares in the distance. Joey loses his grip on his binoculars and they clatter off the platform getting smashed on the ground below. Ah… shit. He can feel Dick tense at the noise. The boat is within eye distance, now, moving fast into the dock next to the warehouse. He can’t tell if the men could see.
“I’ll get them.” Dick hisses shoving his binoculars in Joey’s hands. “Stay.” Then he swings over the side of the platform before Joey can protest. Embarrassment quickly overtakes warmth and with renewed vigor, he trains the binoculars on the men, watching them mill about as they come into the port. One of the men scouts ahead and disappears from his view as he walks towards the front of the warehouse.
Something taps his foot, and he quickly reaches out a hand to help Dick scurry back up onto the scaffolding. Just in time too, as the beam of a flashlight cuts through the darkness on the ground. They lie flat as it shines towards them, his face inches from Dick, so close that he can feel Dick’s breath on his cheek, even if he can’t see his face. The broken binoculars jut into him, and he clasps a hand around them, determined not to drop them.
It’s about thirty seconds too late when he realizes that the strap is gone. If he’d realized sooner, then he’d have had time to warn Dick before the scout spotted the damn thing and bent closer to examine it. He’d have paid more attention, and seen the scout signal his crewmates to sneak around back. And perhaps they would have been prepared when one of the warehouse workers kicked out the window above them, sending broken glass raining down over their heads. As it was, Joey only had time to see Dick’s eyes widen as he stumbled over the back of the scaffolding, ensnared in netting.
Contact.
They fall. Muscle memory guides twisting limbs as their minds meld in one thought; breathe. The water hits and Joey feels Dick’s body going into shock in mere seconds. The water is cold, it sears, viciously chilling them to their souls. Another thought; survive. They thrash. The water is dark, they grapple blindly with the net. There’s a winding in my gauntlet. Dick screams at him. He shares memories of being twelve years old and training for this exact situation. Joey wriggles their hands free, and Dick holds their breath.
“You need to stay focused, remain calm, and act fast.” Joey has never met Bruce Wayne but the voice is familiar, rough and ragged, serious and strict. There’s a gravity to it that refocuses his thoughts. “Free your hands first, judge if the net is weighted.” Dick had rolled his eyes because there was no way that this situation could happen, and he’d thought Bruce had been being paranoid. “If it’s not weighted you might be able to swim with it.” Bruce’s face scrunches up. “Otherwise it’s going to suck. Bruce throws a net over them and Dick’s hands begin to move.
Their net is weighted, they sink too fast as Joey clings to those memories letting Dick’s hands guide themselves through motions that shouldn’t be familiar to him, their memory, his memory, it doesn’t matter as long as they survive. Their lungs start burning with a vengeance, and the memory becomes fuzzy and dark around the edges. How long can Dick hold his breath? How long can he hold his breath? He works faster, not wanting to find out. Their hands shake violently, fingers bleeding as their grip tightens on the edged wingding. Joey flinches as the blade cuts too deeply. There’s an overwhelming metallic taste in their mouth. A pounding reverberating in their head. One arm is free. The water is too cold. He can feel Dick’s panic rise as their heart beats faster. They’re moving too slow.
Joey feels bad as he rips into their other arm. He tries his best not to hurt the bodies he inhibits. He hates this. He tries to have better control. Sorry. He thinks, as Dick withdraws into shock. Sorry. He thinks, as he adds another crooked scar to Dick’s chest. It doesn’t matter just go faster! Dick snaps. Joey feels it all conceptually from a distance, the cold is secondary, he checks out of the pain, leaving Dick to face it alone.
One leg free. How far have they sunk? Salt water stings Dick’s eyes as Joey forces them open and upward. Their ears are ringing, Bruce is screaming, edging them on faster. The lights of the dock are far away. Joey get out! Is Dick’s last intelligible thought before he loses his breath.
Water rushes into their mouth. It’s an awful feeling so overwhelmingly painful that he can’t block it out. Panicked, Joey cuts through the last of the net, and begins to swim. Dick’s body is shaking. Bruce’s yells come to a screeching halt, along with Dick’s consciousness. Joey forces them in the direction he thinks is up, alone. Their heart staggers. There’s not much time left. Their eyes close. With them goes Joey’s only chance of escape. Please. Dick is quiet. His limbs are heavy, in the way that he dreads. It’s not good to force them to keep going. He should get out. Dick is dying. He can’t be dying. Please.
Joey blacks out about ten feet from the surface.
.
.
.
There’s something digging into his chest. Painfully. It’s a passing sensation, rousing him only briefly.
.
.
.
Air is being forced in his lungs. He’s dimly aware of intelligible voices swirling together.
.
.
.
Something cracks. Joey gasps in pain. Someone’s counting, and his chest is crushed in the tempo of a beating drum.
He nearly flies out of Dick’s body. No. Donna catches him. She says words he doesn’t hear and pulls him away from the corpse he’s no longer inhabiting.
Joey hates hospitals. Most people aren’t exactly fond of them, but for him it’s personal. It’s staring at the ceiling for hours on end after his family leaves. Family meaning his mother, because Grant could never be bothered to give a fuck about anything except his pursuit of manhood, and his father’s ego is more important than Joey will ever be. Adeline might be many things, and he doesn’t always agree with his mother and the work that she does and he has his issues with how he was raised but he understands why things were the way they were. Above all else she was there for him. Showing up is more important than anything else.
He had friends as a child, but their visits stopped almost as soon as they started. As soon as their eyes grew wide in fear when they saw the bandages around his neck. When he had to pull out a pad of paper instead of being able to speak. He doesn’t resent them, or their parents, who let them leave, and never brought them back. He gets it. He blames broader societal values and tries not to make things personal. And to be honest, he’s never been good at harboring resentments. It’s easier to forgive than to forget.
His second extended stay was shorter than the first but not insignificant. The Titans showed up everyday, sans the vacation they took without him. He doesn’t fault them for that, even though he was horribly disappointed when he found out everyone bonded on a soul-searching trip out to the Grand Canyon. Again. He wasn’t on the team the first time around, and he’d silently wished for a long time he could at least be there for the next vacation. It’s fine though. At least they made time to visit with him. You can’t expect people to schedule their lives around you, you can only be grateful when your lives brush up against one another's. He forgives in the face of rueful smiles because it makes his heart lighter. He tries to forget. It would make his heart lighter, quiet the thoughts of not belonging. Silently he wishes he didn’t care for them more than they care for him.
And that brings him to a brightly lit room which he has no desire to be in, staring out the window and pretending he’s on a beach somewhere and not living through the consequences of taking too long to escape from a blasted net. Regretting the instinctive decision to make the leap into Dick’s body, because he knows he only slowed him down. He knows all too well from shared memories that Dick would have escaped faster. He knows from lived experience that a few seconds wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. But the other thing about Dick Grayson is that he always finds a way out of whatever situation he’s gotten himself into. He beats impossible odds over and over. He’s fully human but has the luck of the devil and the skills to rig the dice in his favor. But the thing about death is that you can’t escape it. And the thing about Joey is that his life has never been fair.
His powers have always been flawed. A way to protect himself while others take the fall. It makes you feel like a nasty little leech. There’s this layer of guilt that clings to the walls of his stomach that only goes away in motion. It’s why he loves to dance. But on days where he sits in the corner of that brightly lit room at the end of the hall of STAR labs and pretends he can read a lighthearted romance novel through the sheen of tears welling in his eyes, there’s no space for dancing or stretching, or even walking too far away. The heart beat monitor keeps him company, reminding him that this is his place, at least while Dick’s alive. It stays as the others come and go. Friends, no family. Something raw inside him feels like it’s opening up again. It’s been two days and the doctors seem surprised they’re still here.
Dick’s lungs are damaged. Two ribs are broken. He caught pneumonia almost immediately. Parts of his hands suffered some initial frostbite. He was hypothermic when they brought him in. He’s at risk of bacterial infection from the cuts that Joey made in the microbial stew of the terribly polluted mouth of the Hudson River. They can only guess at the damage to his brain. Joey was inside. There was nothing. But Dick somehow clings to life. And Joey is perfectly unscathed. He feels like hell for it.
People keep asking him if he’s okay after that. After experiencing death first hand. It was nothing. Before Raven died (or vanished, if he’s being optimistic) he got a taste of hell. He never believed in hell until he saw it, and the experience nearly obliterated his mind. He had to reckon with it. Sit with the experiences. How do you sit with nothing? Reckon with nothing at all? Knowing that at the end of your life there’s nothing left for you? More than a million people die suddenly in traffic accidents every year. You’re a hair away from oblivion at every waking moment. Joey sits with that and wishes he was religious.
Dick survives. The doctors credit their world class medical care, the quick response time of the Titans, and Dick’s peak physical condition, but Joey knows better. There’s some force in this universe that’s decided that Dick cannot die. Otherwise he’d have been dead several times over. He’s half awake and relatively alert by his third day in the hospital, and asking to go home on the fourth. He checks out after just a single week, with doctors shaking their heads in disbelief as he goes.
Dick’s alive, but not fine. He’s sore and he sleeps a lot and he doesn’t move from the couch. He coughs and shakes and being away from him is utterly horrifying. But he’s alive. Joey marvels at how precious that is and feels phantom pain in his chest whenever he sees Dick shift how he holds his ribs. Dick’s pretends to be in good spirits, but his skin still has a sickly pallor to it, and it’s clear he’s getting annoyed with the hovering. Joey’s hovering. Perhaps he should feel worse about it, but it’s reassuring not to be alone. Joey’s honest about it. He tells Dick’s he’s scared to leave him alone. Begrudgingly Dick relents.
He’s never quite believed Dick when he’s said that being alone helps him. Maybe that’s intrusive on his part. Maybe it’s terrible of him to assume Dick’s lying. Maybe he’s thinking too much about how a man he’s only seen in Dick’s memories didn’t show up until the day Dick was discharged and watched from afar, on the opposite side of the street as he and Donna helped Dick to the car. At least he showed up at all. It’s not his place to mention that. Maybe he should just leave well enough alone. Because it will never be the right place or right time.
He shouldn’t let his chin rest on the top of Dick’s head when he stands behind the couch. He shouldn’t let his heart leap when their fingers brush, as he hands Dick a glass of water. He shouldn’t be so gentle running his fingers through Dick’s hair when it’s disheveled from sleeping on the sofa. He shouldn’t let his vision be distorted by rose colored glasses and delusions of a happy life together. And still. Life is short. Maybe it’s better to focus on whatever makes you happy, no matter what the consequences are later. The risk of a broken heart seems lower in the face of oblivion. Momentary pleasure passes, and he desperately tries to linger in the seat beside Dick, talking to him for just a little longer.
He suggests his favorite movies. He bakes brownies and buys mint ice cream, and does his best to make Dick laugh, because if he’s laughing he’s not thinking of any of the terrible things that have happened in their lives, and his smile is so beautiful it makes Joey want to kill himself for not being able to kiss him. Joey plasters a smile on his face and resolves to live louder. He mixes his paints together without looking at the colors he’s choosing. He lets his hand creep onto Dick’s thigh. Dick doesn’t shake it off. He spends far too much time wondering if he’s doing the right thing. If he’s taking advantage of it being the wrong place and wrong time. Dick doesn’t shake him off. Maybe this is as close as he’ll ever get. Dick falls asleep with his head against Joey’s shoulder. His hands curl into his. He paints Dick’s smile a thousand different ways, covering the same worn-out canvas over and over again.