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Dick’s lack of sleep schedule has gotten him in some of the best and worst situations in his life. He never bothered to fix it, his work as Nightwing doesn’t allow it. Instead, he adjusted it. Now he has ways to fall back asleep when he needs to. And tonight he really needs to.
Thanks to an emergency case in Gotham City, Dick is staying in the Wayne Manor instead of his and Kory’s apartment in New York. Now he’s awake, it’s three in the morning. He has to go to work later. He gets up from the bed, and steps out of his childhood room. The hallways are dimly lit, just enough that Dick can see where he’s going and the edges of the art on the walls.
He paces a lot when he can’t sleep, especially in the manor. The repetitiveness of the decor and the architecture at night makes it seem like the world is already your dream. He walks through the familiar house, everything normal until he spots a new source of light. Dick walks to where he thinks it’s coming from, and finds one of the bathrooms. Harsh white light comes out from the bottom of the door, someone must’ve forgot to turn it off.
He opens the door, intending to flip the switch and go back to bed. Instead he finds Jason leaning close to the mirror with something in his hand—one of Dick’s old eyeliner pens. The counter is covered in other makeup products and a small pile of tissues stained in various different colors, mostly foundation and blush.
“What are you doing?” He asks, and Jason flinches, getting the eyeliner pencil in his eyes. He shouts in surprise and pain, closing it immediately.
“Nothing– Sorry–” Jason stutters. “Sorry I took your stuff.” He wipes his eye quickly.
“I don’t care about that, I haven’t used these things since I was thirteen. They’re probably expired. Are you trying to do your makeup?”
Jason looks down at the floor, he still has the pencil clamped in his hand.
“I’m not mad, I promise.”
“Yeah, I was,” Jason speaks quietly. “But I’m really bad at it.”
“You want me to help?”
“Can you?”
“There’s a reason I owned all these things. I’ll take off what you have now and show you how it all works. Okay?”
“Okay.” He nods once. Jason sits on the toilet and Dick quickly removes the makeup on his face with a cleanser.
“Now, your skin is a lot lighter than mine. So the foundation I had won’t really help you, but we’ll use concealer for now and if you want we can go buy you things in your shade tomorrow.” Dick wets the beauty blender in the sink and starts applying concealer on Jason’s face. “You want to get the sponge a little wet because it helps the application.”
“You’ll really buy me stuff?”
“Sure, I got a bonus at work last week so I have a bit of spending money. Besides, you really shouldn’t be using all this old stuff. It’s bad for your skin.”
“Thanks.” Jason’s arms are stiff, hands on both his knees and his shoulders are bunched.
“Relax your shoulders,” Dick says. “I’m not gonna tell anyone if you don’t want me to.” Jason seems to unwind at that, and Dick starts applying contouring. “What you want to do is highlight your natural facial features. You have high cheekbones, so you just accentuate them. Got it?” He blends it all together and looks at Jason’s face for a second.
“How does it look so far?”
“Really good. Do you want colourful eyeshadow once we finish with the base?”
“Yeah.” Jason smiles, now he’s definitely calmer. “Why do you have all these things? Are you like a… Crossdresser or something?”
Dick laughs. “No, no. I’m trans.”
“What’s that?”
“It means I was born as a girl. But when I grew up I realised I’m a boy. So now I’m a boy.”
“You can do that?” Jason seems genuinely perplexed at this idea. “You can just decide you’re not a girl?”
“It’s not exactly a decision. People around me thought I was a girl because I was born in a girl’s body. But they were wrong. It works the other way, too.”
“So if I think I might be a girl…”
“You can think about it and talk to people you trust, and understand how you feel about it. That’s what I did.”
“And if I was a girl, which I’m not,” Jason clarifies and Dick nods, “could I still be Robin?”
“Oh, sure. I was still a girl when I started out as Robin. You can be anything you want, Jaybird.” Dick finishes blending out the base entirely. “Close your eyes.” Jason obliges, and Dick starts putting on his eyeliner. “The biggest trick is to blend out the top and keep the bottom sharp. You can use some tape or clean it up with a q-tip at first, but at a certain point you can learn to do it yourself.” He finishes with the eyeliner and mascara before either of them speaks again.
“So how’d you know you’re trans?”
“Well, when I was around your age I decided to get a really short haircut. Strangers always thought I was a boy, and I really liked it. So I told my friends, then I told Bruce and people in my school. And I started a few treatments to look more like a boy, and when I got older I had some surgeries done. Nothing extreme. What colors do you want?” Dick opens the palette and Jason hesitates.
“The purple and pink.”
“Good choices, these used to be my favourite. Now close your eyes again.” Dick starts putting primer on Jason’s eyelids. “Using primer really helps because your skin stays hydrated, and removing your makeup is easier. It also helps it stay on longer.”
They sit there in silence for a little while as Dick blends the eyeshadow colors together. There’s nothing to be said right now, the only sound is when Dick moves around to make sure everything looks good.
“Normally at this point you’d put on setting powder, but since you need to go to sleep soon we’re not gonna do that. You ready?” Jason nods eagerly and Dick moves aside, watching as Jason inspects his face in the mirror. “What do you think?”
After three seconds of silence, he bursts into tears. The eyeliner and mascara run down his cheeks as he lets out choked sobs. Dick stares at him, petrified. He doesn’t know what to do, he didn’t expect this. Before he can say anything, Jason hugs him closely, still crying. Dick returns the hug tightly, he feels Jason shaking.
“I love it,” Jason manages to say. “It’s so great. Thank you.”
“Anytime, kiddo. We’ll go buy things for you tomorrow and I’ll make sure how to do it yourself. Now how about you take it off and go to sleep? You have school tomorrow.”
Jason sniffles and nods. “When can we go?”
“I’ll come pick you up after your last class. We can buy some clothes too, if you want.”
“Maybe.” Jason blows his nose and carefully removes the makeup. His under eyes are a little red now, his cheeks are puffy. Dick turns the light off in the bathroom as they exit, and walk through the same halls together. Jason’s room is right next to Dick’s, every time Dick comes to stay at the Manor Jason hangs out in his room.
“I think I might be a girl,” Jason mumbles.
“I know. But now it’s late, we can talk about it tomorrow all you want.”
Dick stands in the place between their doors and watches Jason walk into his room and lay in bed. He’s about to close the door when Jason speaks up again.
“Can I have another hug?” The words are quiet and shy.
Dick walks inside and wraps his arms around Jason wordlessly. “Goodnight kid.” He ruffles Jason’s hair and hears quiet laughter from behind him as he walks out of the room, closing the door.