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A promise made by Dick Grayson was a promise kept. Jason was confident in that. And in the world he lived in, where you could swear that the sky is blue one day and wake the next to find it green, where the only things certain in life were taxes and death but not if you’re rich and not if you’re Jason Todd, finding something to be confident in - finding someone to be confident in - was a rare and beautiful thing. So, when they didn’t talk about it for a few days, then a few weeks, he wasn’t worried. By the time a few months had passed, however, he realized that maybe he was going to have to be the one to bring it up.
Jason wasn’t a therapist, far from it, and Dick didn’t owe him anything, but Jason couldn’t let things lie. Not as they were. It wasn’t Jason’s responsibility, it wasn’t his job, and it wasn’t his obligation. It was something else, something softer, lighter. Something made of love and comfort. Something made of time and experience. Something entirely Jason Todd and wholly Dick Grayson.
Still, Jason knew he couldn’t run in headfirst, guns blazing, like he so desperately wanted to. He had to wait for the right time to present itself. It was crushingly difficult and the easiest thing he’d ever done wrapped into one three-week period.
Because the Cave three nights later was almost the right time but definitely the wrong place, emphasized by Steph stumbling in with a hastily applied field splint on her wrist ranting about men “as a concept, you and Big Bird don’t count”.
And it wasn’t a week later in the Warehouse District leaning against a grimy brick wall, catching their breath after taking out fifteen armed men because unlike in the movies, the bad guys don’t take turns attacking. It was quiet, sure, generally isolated, yeah, but Jason was bleeding from at least three of his major appendages and Dick had a cut on his forehead that needed dressing.
Nine days later was a strike-out as well. It would have been perfect if it hadn’t been for that fucking chicken. He’d never considered vegetarianism before the incident and now he never would.
But, dangling his legs off the edge of the Wayne Tech Research and Development building roof, his throat felt dry and his train of thought came to a screeching halt. This was the perfect time, with Dick sitting about half a foot to his left, way up where no one could hear them, where no one could interrupt, where they could pretend it never happened if need be. The wind was loud enough to provide an excuse for any ignored questions. This was it, and yet…
Jason couldn’t find the words even as he was overflowing with motivation. He couldn’t -
“I don’t like to dwell.”
He held his breath, unwilling to disturb the delicate situation. Wasn’t this exactly what he wanted? Why’d he feel so sick all of a sudden?
“I know you think I need to talk about it, but I don’t. And I don’t like to dwell.”
Jason waited for Dick to continue. Taking a second to wonder who uses the word ‘dwell’ in conversation. He supposed allowances could be made for a man who formally learned English from an old British man and one of the richest men in the world.
Nothing was said for several minutes. Long enough for Jason’s pointer and middle finger to become uncomfortably hot. Carefully, he stubbed out his cigarette before it could singe the hair on his knuckles and burn him, his gloves abandoned beside him on the ledge. Probably wouldn’t have hurt, one too many nights drifting off on fire escape with a half-smoked Marlboro hung loosely between his fingers had successfully fried the nerves there.
Dick cleared his throat. “I think it’s better if we both just forget about it.”
And Jason expected that. It made him angry anyway. “Like hell I’m gonna forget about it. Dick, you can’t keep living like this.”
“Living like what?!” his brother exclaimed. “Living like I have for the last fifteen years? Existing in the only state I’ve known for the last decade and a half? So, I should just what? Uproot everything because you think I’m traumatized? I can’t just undo it, and why would I? It’s fine. Everything is fine. I don’t need to go digging into shit that happened years ago and neither do you.”
It’s a stark change from his demeanor during their first conversation.
You deserve better , he wanted to shout. It hurts to look at you. To know what’s been done to you, what’s being done. I can’t even look my reflection in the eye, it makes me fucking sick. Every time I ask you for help I feel disgusted in my unwavering assurance that you’ll say yes.
Jason turned his gaze away from the glowing lights of the business district to his brother’s slight form. His shoulders were hunched, knees drawn up to his chest, and his eyes seemed to be looking at something far off near where the city disappeared in a blur.
“Digging up?” He questioned. “Dickie, this shit is right on the surface. This didn’t just happen years ago, it’s happening now. I’ve seen it myself.”
Dick grimaced but remained quiet. The silence loomed once again. Jason let it linger, listening to the wind and the sound of his beating heart.
“I don’t know how to forgive him,” Dick admitted so quietly that it was almost lost to the crisp night air. “That’s what you're supposed to do, right? Forgive and move on?”
An image of his own face popped into Jason’s head of its own accord, superimposed on that one Thomas the Tank Engine meme. Jason had never heard such bullshit before .
“No.”
“What?”
“No.”
Jason resisted the urge to grab Dick’s hand, to demand he listen. To shake him until it got through his thick skull. Until he came to his senses. Until he valued himself.
“You don’t have to forgive people. That’s not some law of life or some shit. That’s a bullshit narrative created by bullshit people who want to be absolved of their transgressions.”
“It’s not like that,” Dick defended. “I’m not even sure there’s anything to forgive.”
Jason took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then slowly exhaled, letting the cold wind nip and bite at his helmetless face. “I don’t think you really believe that.”
And then it was quiet for a few short and achingly long minutes. He was itching for another cigarette to lessen the tension in his shoulders. Maybe he'll even offer Dick one, if he thought it would help him relax. But if there was one thing Jason learned after all these years in Dick’s orbit, it was that Dick Grayson would rest when he was fucking dead. And even that was fucking debatable.
His ass was starting to hurt from sitting on the hard concrete ledge for so long. The cold was seeping through his layers, crawling toward his skin, biting at his hands.
“I don’t think you actually think that,” Jason repeated. “Because if you really thought that we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Dick chuckled, humorless and a bit sardonic. “We’re having this conversation because I promised you we would.”
“Yeah, and why’d you do that?” Jason pushed.
“To get you to shut up,” Dick bit back.
He wanted to believe it. It would be so easy. A simple hum of assent and they could be on their way. Jason would be free. He wanted to believe it.
He didn’t.
He thought about leaving. Walking away from the conversation. Escaping into the night. Jason would be free. He thought about leaving.
He didn’t.
“Really?”
He knew the answer.
“No,” Dick confirmed.
Because if the conversation ended, if Jason walked away he would be free. But Dick would remain. In a cage that wasn’t a cage. In a trap that didn’t need a trigger. In a space he’d grown to fit, not a space fit to grow.
The quiet came back, harsh and blunt. Not creeping in during a lull in a lively conversation or slamming down like a thick, heavy wall, but sliding into place slowly, like a shield meant to protect, to hide.
And Jason would have respected it, if he couldn’t see right through it.
“It’s not your job to absolve people,” Jason insisted.
Dick didn’t take his eyes off the horizon, didn’t shift his weight or move his hands. Didn’t clear his throat or clench his jaw. He offered no indication that Jason’s words did anything but float away on the wind.
The silence returned.
Jason thought about leaving. He didn’t.
“You don’t have to bear the weight of other people’s actions.”
Another revelation that seemingly slipped away on the breeze.
They were too high up to hear any of the racket of a city that doesn’t sleep, but if he focused Jason could almost hear the laughter of drunkards stumbling home because their cab money went to whiskey, the almost imperceptible brush of clothing on skin as an underaged pickpocket scored a thin wallet. It would all blend together with the honking of horns and the whirling of sirens, with the calls of evocatively dressed ladies and gentlemen of the night. It was something of a symphony and something of a cacophony. Harmonious and dissonant. Dead and alive.
“I don’t like to dwell,” Dick repeated.
Dick continued before the wind could take over again. Jason repressed his sigh of relief.
“I’m not like you, Jay. I’m not good with grudges.”
It wasn’t a blow. It still landed.
Jason thought about leaving. He didn’t.
“I’m not asking you to hold a grudge, Dick.”
“Then what do you want from me? You say I don’t have to forgive him. You say I don’t have to hold a grudge. You say I can’t leave things alone. What else is left?”
Jason felt anger rising in his chest but fought it from showing on his face. Dick would misinterpret it. Or he wouldn’t, either way it had no place in their conversation.
“A grudge isn’t the absence of forgiveness, it’s the presence of resentment.”
Dick didn’t say anything.
“I’m not asking you to resent him, Dickie. I’m asking you to hold him accountable.”
“Accountable for what, Jason?”
“Don’t do that,” Jason countered.
“Do what?”
“Dick,” he warned, though what he was warning against was a mystery to the both of them.
“Jason.” Dick shook his head, his first movement in a while. “I want to forgive him.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The wind filled the ensuing gap in conversation.
Jason resisted the urge to start chucking small pieces of rooftop gravel off the edge just to watch it disappear into the fog. Something to do with his hands, something to do with his mind.
“I’m supposed to,” Dick finally supplied, late enough that Jason thought maybe he’d imagined it. “It’s supposed to get better after you forgive, isn’t it? Forgive and forget?”
Jason looked at him, really looked.
“I want to forget, Jay.”
In a moment of impulsivity that Jason couldn’t bring himself to regret, he reached over and grabbed Dick’s hand. “Really?” he asked, an echo of earlier.
“No,” Dick followed. “Yes. I -”
Up so high, in a place only Dick Grayson could find true comfort but anyone could find the unparalleled privacy of the vast expanse of open sky, Jason shouldn’t have been surprised. But seeing his big brother - his only big brother - cry, would always be a stomach sinking mix of a sight to behold and a horror to be shunned.
A vile thought leached into his consciousness.
“Dick,” Jason tried.
His tears were silent, contained, a reflection of his magnificent self-control. Jason wondered if seventeen-year- old Dick cried like this. Twelve? Nine?
“Dick,” he repeated. Jason couldn’t even hear his brother’s shaky breaths.
“Can you look at me, please?” He tugged on Dick’s hand just a little. The next words out of his mouth would be embarrassingly close to begging if this didn’t work.
“Dick,” he said, looking his brother in the eyes and imbuing his gaze with as much sincerity and steady confidence as he could. “Dick, it’s not your fault.”
Dick hacked out a wet, coughing sob. “You don’t get it. You never get it.”
He knew it wasn’t a targeted attack. It wasn’t intended to hurt. It did anyway. But Jason was careful not to take it to heart. Dick didn’t mean it and God knows the man didn’t need something else to feel guilty about.
“What don’t I get, Dickie?” he implored. “It’s not your fault. End of statement. No ‘but’ or ‘and’ or ‘if’ or ‘so’. It’s not your fault.”
Dick ripped his hand from Jason’s grasp and stood up in two swift movements. “It has to be my fault. It has to be my fault. It has to be,” he insisted, pacing the concrete ledge.
Normally it wouldn’t cause Jason’s heart rate to spike, seeing Nightwing balanced gracefully on a narrow beam, a bird on a wire. But normally Dick wasn’t ringing his hands with his jaw clenched and tears slipping down his cheeks.
“It has to be my fault,” he continued, Jason’s eyes following him intently. “Because he didn’t do it to you, or Tim, or Steph, or Cass, or Damian, or Duke. I tried to figure it out. I tried. It’s like there was some sort of code that I just couldn’t figure out. And you knew it and Tim knew it. But nobody ever told me the rules.
“If I just knew the rules everything would have been fine. But I was too fucking stupid to figure them out. I didn’t know what to say or how to act. Not like you guys did. It has to be my fault. It had to be me. Because if it’s not me -”
He stopped pacing and Jason felt half the weight on his chest lift.
“Because if it’s not me then it’s him. If it’s not me then it’s him. If there’s no code and no rules, then he just didn’t love me as much as he loves you.”
What the fuck was he supposed to say to that?
“Dickie -”
“It has to be my fault, Jay. It has to be my fault.”