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Dick presses the bottle to his lips and takes another sip. He sets the bottle in his lap, tapping the side of the bottle.
“Did you know that everything has an extinction year?” Dick asks.
“Huh?” Jason pulls his face away from the TV, he’d been flipping through channels on. He picks up his own bottle from the coffee table. “What are you talking about, Dickface?”
Dick used his bottle to point at the TV. “You flipped past Discovery Channel. Did you know that endangered species have a year that they will go extinct if they continue to die off at the same rate?”
Jason drags a hand down his face and takes a drink of his alcohol. “I’m not drunk enough for this,” Jason mumbles. He looks between his bottle of beer to the bottle of scotch Dick has been nursing. “And maybe you’re too drunk for this. When the fuck did you get a bottle of scotch?”
Dick shrugs. “But did you know? About the extinction thing?”
“No, I didn’t know about the extinction thing.” Jason leans back against Dick’s old worn couch. “Why do you want to go on a hunting spree with me? Kill some poachers?”
Jason laughs, he tilts his beer to his lips and finishes it off. He pushes back up, dropping the empty bottle into a small trash can with a clank. He opens up his next bottle and snuggles back into the couch.
He stares at his brother who is staring down at the bottle in his hands again. Jason sighs. “I was kidding, Dickface.” Then Jason adds, “Mostly.”
“Hm,” Dick looks at Jason. “What? No. If you want to kill poachers, I say go for it. Not that I’m condoning murder, but it’d be hypocritical for me to tell you not to do something I’ve done.”
Jason snorts. “Right. Good one Dickie.”
Dick presses his lips together and pulls his legs up onto the couch.
“You are joking right?” Jason asks, leaning towards his brother. He is slightly unbalanced as he leans forward. Jason brings his beer forward and pokes Dick’s thigh with it. “When would you have gone and killed poachers? Everyone knows that Nightwing doesn’t kill. He has Batman’s ” Jason sneers the name, “moral code.”
Dick hums, taking another sip of his bottle. He smacks his lips together as he pulls the bottle away. “Right, you’re right. Nightwing doesn’t kill.” Dick spins the liquid in his bottle. “I haven’t always been Nightwing.”
“Robin doesn’t kill either, dipshit.” Jason puts his arm across the back of the couch and presses his forehead into his arm.
“Good thing I wasn’t Robin.” Dick tilts forward, swaying slightly as he does so. He puts the bottle in front of his lip and shushes. “Don’t tell anyone. But I’m Renegade.”
“You’re what?” Jason shouts, he pushes himself up. He reaches out and grabs Dick’s shirt. Dick just gives Jason a side eye and takes another swig of his drink. Jason pushes Dick back. “Shit, Dickie. You had me going for a second there.” Jason chuckles. “Yeah, you’re Renegade, Deathsrokes well known apprentice, who has been active off and on for years.”
“Yeah.” Dick is completely serious, not picking up on Jason’s blatant sarcasm.
“No you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No,” Jason says, straightening himself up. “You’re not. Because if the golden boy is Renegade then what does that mean for the rest of us?”
Dick shrugs, “That the rest of you need to get better at hiding secrets from your dad.”
Jason sets his beer on the table and scrubs his face with both hands. Shaking his head, he drops his head and looks at Dick. “Why are you Renegade?”
“Well, I’m not right now.” Dick states petulantly, looking away from Jason. “It’s just something I do occasionally now as a stress relief. As a reminder that there is more than one way to solve a problem.”
And Jason blinks. “Okay, okay.” He nods his head slowly. “I get that. But, why did you become Renegade in the first place?”
“Because if I didn’t, my extinction year would have happened years ago.” Dick says, quietly. He takes another sip of his bottle. He leans forward and grabs the remote, flipping through the channels.
Jason takes in a sharp breath. His brother is talking about his extinction year, as in when he would have died, as in… “You were going to kill yourself?”
Dick looks away from the TV. “I never said that.”
“You heavily implied it!”
“But, and this is the important part here Jay, I never said that. Got it?” Dick challenges. Then Dick mumbles, “Besides, not like I would have been missed.”
“What the fuck,” Jason breathes out. He grabs Dick’s shoulders and turns him. He smushes Dick’s face. “You are Mister Popular. Mister loved by all. What the fuck do mean no one would have missed you?”
Dick swats Jason’s hands away. “Stop. I wasn’t needed back then. I dropped off the grid with little to no explanation for months. Wally was the only one to contact me during that time. If it wasn’t for Wally, I wouldn’t have stuck around for as long as I had in the first place. I spent years of my life living for anyone who wasn’t me. Bruce and Alfred, Gotham, you, the Titans. I never lived for me. I didn’t know how.”
Taking another swipe of alcohol, Dick sighs. “Then you were dead, Little Wing, I was kicked out of my childhood home, again. I resented the Titans at the time. For nothing they did, they just took my anger and I pushed them away. And they let me. Wally is the only one who kept coming back no matter what. Him and Slade.”
“And even as Renegade, I wasn’t living for me, I was living for revenge, at least that’s what I told myself. I made rules with Slade. No killing innocents, nothing with kids, I’d take out human traffickers, rapists, and pedophiles without questions, I would stop him from taking contracts if I disagreed with the motive.” Dick laughs, he runs a hand through his hair. “I started finding different reasons to live during that time. Finding things I loved without the pressure of a hero's life. Without Batman or a team looming over my shoulder. Slade gave me the room to actually grieve.”
“Grieve what?” Jason asks quietly, afraid of the answer that he knew.
Dick looks at Jason sadly, and Jason knows the answer.
“Me. You went to Slade because of me?”
“No. Yes, kind of.” Dick blows out a breath. “It’s not something I talk about.”
Dick leans back against the couch and snuggles into it. He grabs a throw pillow and hugs it to his chest.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Dick confesses. “I didn’t get what I wanted out of it at the time. But looking back on it, it helped. It helped me move on. Well, no. It helped me keep moving and focus my rage on something.”
Jason grabs the bottle of scotch and takes a long drink. He pulls the bottle from his lips and lets Dick grab it back.
“You said that no one contacted you during that time.” Jason waits for Dick to look over at him. Jason swallows and steels himself. “What about Bruce?”
“What about him?”
“Where was he? You were falling apart, your brother had died. Why would Bruce have left you? You’ve always been his favorite.” Jason states everything he says as known facts. And Dick can’t keep it together.
Dick starts laughing, he bends over himself, laughing so hard. Tears spring to his eyes. “That’s a good one. I have never been Bruce’s favorite. B and I have an unspoken agreement. I know he is my dad and he knows I see him that way, but we both know that I am not his son. I have never been his son, and I will never be his son.”
Dick sobers up, “You are his son, Jason. You have always been his son. Despite the psychological torture with your return, Bruce still wants you in his life, open arms. If Bruce ever finds out who Renegade is, I will never be back in that house again. I know that. Hell, the first time Bruce kicked me out was because I was shot. The second time was because his true son died.” A tear slips down Dick’s face. “You are my brother, just like Tim. And you two are Bruce’s kids. He will never do anything to jeopardize that.” Dick takes another sip of the alcohol. “The reason Bruce didn’t contact me for months, despite me falling off the grid, is simple: he didn’t care. He never cared.” Dick chuckles, coldly. “The only reason he would care now is because Tim would make him.”
Dick slides down the couch and rest his head on the arm of it. “Don’t kid yourself into thinking I’m a member of Bruce’s family. I am a member of Batman’s regime.” Dick groans and pushes himself up from the coach. He starts to walk down the hallway. “I’m going to bed. Feel free to sleep in the guest room.”
Jason watches as his older brother, the person he has always compared himself to, walks away down the hallway. Dick is chillingly calm as he walks down the hallway. Everything that he just said, he said as facts, as if they are undisputable. And Jason is left reeling, everything in his life seeming to suddenly fall into place and crumbling apart at the same time.