Work Text:
“Hey, Jason?”
Jason turned his gaze from the stars overhead to Danny beside him, a wistful look painting his face in a way that was both eerie and contemplative.
“Do you ever wonder what it would have been like?”
“What what would have been like?”
“If neither of us had ever died?”
Oh.
Danny continued to look up towards the constellations he’d just spent the better half of the evening pointing out and naming for Jason. His lips were pulled slightly down at the edges, leading Jason to believe this wasn’t the first time Danny had let his mind wander down such an existential rabbit hole.
“No, not really.” Jason allowed himself to be selfish, keeping his gaze firmly on Danny as his face morphed in response to Jason’s words. Danny’s brows knit together in thought, his bottom lip coming up to sit between his teeth as he ruminated on whatever was going on in his head.
Sure, Danny and Jason had discussed the whole ‘dying’ thing before, just never in such hypotheticals. Admitting that you’d died and not come back fully right was only fair once you reached a certain point in a relationship. For Danny and Jason, it only took a couple months for the truth to come spilling out of Danny in fervent admission.
It took even less time for Jason to assure him he thought he was ‘right’ in the only ways that mattered, relating to his fears and assuaging both Danny’s and his own in the process.
In that way, they were similar. They were the same.
In this, Jason was uneasy to admit they weren’t.
“Hey,” Jason prompted, finally pulling Danny’s eyes from the heavens above their heads to the swirling teal shade of Jason’s own. “Where’s this coming from?”
“I don’t know, I just–” Danny dropped his eyes from Jason’s, pulling a part of his heart from his chest with them. “I just wonder sometimes… what life would have been like if I never walked into that portal.”
From there, the words tumbled unbidden from Danny’s lips, gushing from his heart in unending thought. Whatever dam had been in place keeping those thoughts and the disappointment they inspired at bay had reached its bursting point. Jason wasn’t sure if he was grateful for that fact or not yet.
“Would I have ever become an astronaut? It was my dream for years, Jason. One of the only things I could look forward to besides moving out of the broken home I never would have wished to be born into. Would my dream have come true if I was never diagnosed with a ‘heart defect’ at 14?”
Jason watched helplessly as Danny’s cheeks flushed with emotion. Only a thin sliver of Danny’s eyes peeked out from under his bangs, but the bitter turmoil that roiled within was strong enough to get his point across without needing anything close to full eye contact.
“Hey, Danny, look at me.”
Jason slid a scarred hand along one of Danny’s cheeks, waiting for him to lean into the tender touch before tilting his chin upward. When Danny reluctantly met his gaze, it was with watery despair along every crease and wrinkle etched into his face. Jason gently swiped his thumb along his cheekbone, brushing the constellation of freckles he had the privilege of witnessing regardless of whether or not it was a clear night in spite of Gotham’s smoggy atmosphere.
“We can’t change what happened in the past. Despite the fact you know an ancient being capable of doing exactly that, we still couldn’t do it. We wouldn’t do it. Or, at least, I wouldn’t do it.”
The little wrinkle between Danny’s eyebrows returned with a vengeance in the wake of the pout now jutting his bottom lip in Jason’s direction. Jason let the view urge him on. He needed to say this, and Danny clearly needed to hear it.
“What happened to you was horrible. It pains me to know just how badly you were hurt in that accident, but it hurts even worse to know how it still affects you. If I could go back and prevent you from ever being hurt in the first place, I would in a heartbeat. But I would never go back and stop you from doing all the good you were able to do after the fact.”
“I don’t understand,” Danny breathed, eyes flitting to and fro across Jason’s face as he searched for answers Jason was struggling to put into words. But Danny needed these answers. It was why he had opened up to Jason in the first place. After all, that’s what partners were for; they supported each other and helped one another carry the burdens that weighed them down when they became too heavy to bear alone. Taking a deep breath, Jason continued.
“You’ve saved countless lives, Danny. You saved the entire planet when no one else could. Not even the Justice League. Despite the horrible things you experienced and the things you unwillingly gave up, you’ve made the best of the situation you found yourself in and did more good for the world than anyone could have ever asked of you. And you did it all because you wanted to.”
It took one more deep breath before Jason was ready to continue into harder territory.
“I’ve done horrible things that came about because I died. If I could, I would take every single one of those things back. But I can’t, so instead I make up for it every time I answer a distress signal. Every time I head into battle alongside my friends and family, it is because I want to be a better person. To save others, like I wish someone would have saved me. I can’t change the horrible things that led me to this point, but I can let them inspire me to do better for those around me. Those are choices I will never take back.”
A tear rolled down Danny’s cheek, its trajectory intercepted by Jason’s thumb. Then another. And another. Soon, Danny’s cheeks were becoming wetter faster than Jason could combat his tear’s trails. But he would never give up. Not on comforting Danny and most certainly not on Danny himself.
“And besides,” Jason concluded, a wry chuckle escaping his lips before the words could even form in the space between them. “If we never died, we probably would have never met.”
Danny’s eyes widened in realization, looking up at Jason as if he had hung the stars himself that very night. If Jason could, he most certainly would. If only so that Danny could spend each night excitedly educating him on every astronomical fact he knew in that amazing mind of his.
“It’s actually pretty ironic that the worst experience of both of our lives is the one thing that probably could have ever led us to each other. I’m sure as hell not happy about the path it took for us to get here, but I feel so fucking lucky to be here now with you.”
Lips smashed into his, Danny sinking his fingers into Jason’s hair as he tried in vain to pull him closer despite the laws of physics. Jason met him eagerly, proving in whatever way Danny needed that he was cherished and loved and that, even though this may not have been the life he’d wanted growing up, Jason would spend the rest of their time together making it better than anything he could have ever dreamed up.
It wasn’t until Jason felt his weight shift on the tiles did he remember they were perched precariously on the roof of Wayne Manor. Reluctantly breaking away from the eager lips chasing his own, Jason wrapped his arms around Danny tightly in a hug he figured they both really needed right then and there. Danny clutched back just as desperately, breathing in deep to slow the racing heartbeat Jason could feel pressed up against his chest.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” Danny sighed, tightening his hold on Jason’s sweater.
“Die, apparently.”
Danny squawked indignantly, pulling back to swat at Jason’s chest as the twinkling chime of the laugh Jason loved so much bubbled out past his smile. “Too soon, dude!”
Jason couldn’t help but laugh too.