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Red Hood doesn't hear the bowstring pull taut, but he does catch the arrow being loosed, thanks to his enhanced hearing — a leftover gift from the Lazarus Pit. He waits for the minuscule whistle of the fletching, and rolls out of the way. He needn't have bothered; the arrow didn't hit anywhere near him. The archer lands neatly next to him, smirking as his eyes travel upwards. The recognizable red arrow sits embedded in the wall above them, a sprig of mistletoe dangling from it.
There's already a dusting of snow on the ground, but even more is continuing to float down — thick, fluffy flakes illuminated by the streetlights — the expected snowstorm just getting started. Gotham is quiet tonight, most people already inside and cozy to avoid the incoming inclement weather. There will be a few hours of peace, when the snow covers all of the transgressions of the streets, before the night shift workers and early birds start to disturb it. It's pretty, Jason thinks.
He realizes he spaced out when Arsenal clears his throat and raises a single eyebrow. "Well?"
Hood scoffs and rolls his eyes, although the archer definitely can't see it with his helmet still on. He hopes the sentiment transfers.
"You can't make an exception just for me?" Jason doesn't know how he knows, but he's certain that behind the ridiculous sunglasses the archer is doing his best attempt at puppy dog eyes.
"I think that would work better without, you know, the—" A metallic clink clink sound echoes through the space as Red Hood taps the spot in between the eye slits in the helmet to indicate Arsenal's sunglasses. He's moderately sure that the proper vigilante won't shoot him in the back so he turns to leave. He has a boyfriend and plans with an expensive cup of tea waiting for him. The archer reaches out, like he might want to grab Jason, but he stops himself. Jason keeps walking.
"What's the matter? It's mistletoe! A Christmas holiday tradition. Romantic, too. I have it on good authority that you're very fond of both of those things."
The archer's voice is teasing, but not ridiculing; endearing in a way he's not used to in the streets, and so so familiar. He knows that tone, knows that voice; knows he's heard it speaking kind words even when Jason wasn't, even when Jason didn't deserve them. Arsenal is wearing a uniform more fitting of the weather — one with sleeves that covers his arms for once — but if he wasn't, Jason's nearly certain he already knows the tattoos that he would see on very familiar biceps.
"Roy?" The name sounds wrong through Red Hood's monotone vocoder, but he has to be sure before he gives too much of himself away.
Arsenal — Roy — takes his glasses off, and Jason knows those eyes. He hurriedly undoes the latches on his helmet, exposing his bare face to the archer. To his archer. Jason forewent the domino he usually wore due to the fact that even the crime families and rogues laid low during the first snowstorm of the year.
"There you are, Jaybird." Roy sounds breathless. It makes Jason's cheeks warm with a blush that he's sure would visibly extend down to his neck if he wasn't wearing armour. "You're so pretty." It's too earnest, and Jason finds that he can't meet Roy's eyes.
If the other Bats ask, Jason will claim that the red colour on his cheeks is from the cold, but both he and Roy know better. They've been together for almost a year now, but Roy's openness about his feelings still astounds Jason sometimes. Bruce, and by extension the rest of the family, have always believed in actions over words, but Roy has no such hangups. Jason is still getting used to Roy's easy affection; it makes him shy in a way that Red Hood the Crime Lord should never be.
Jason isn't as certain about his feelings as Roy is, but one thing he does know, is that Roy makes him feel safe in a way he never has before. Not even with Bruce. Not even with Catherine and Willis before the drugs and the drinking. The redhead, somehow, trusts Jason. He can still remember the first time Roy confronted Jason about continually sneaking out for patrol. Jason had told Roy that he couldn't say anything yet — if it was just him, he would gladly do so, but he wore the Bat like the rest of the family, not that Roy knew that, and he wouldn't put them at risk — but that he would explain eventually, when he was ready. When they were ready. He asked Roy to trust him, and Roy had.
There are emotions circling in his head about Roy that he can't put a name to. Emotions that make his face warm and his head spin and his chest tight. He thinks it might be love.
He takes a step towards Roy at the same time Roy takes a step towards him. They meet back under the mistletoe. It's poetic and romantic and cheesy and all of the things that Jason hasn't let himself wish for since before he saw the Batmobile parked in Crime Alley. It occurs to him in this moment that he doesn't need to wish for it anymore. Safety and love aren't things he hopes he may get one day anymore; they're what Roy Harper hand delivered to him the first time he called him Jaybird.
Roy has resorted back to the sad puppy look, and Jason was correct. It is exponentially more effective without the sunglasses. Either that, or it's more effective simply because it's Roy. There's a look Roy gives him, when it's just the two of them alone, sometimes late mornings when they don't have anything to do and they can stay in bed and forget the rest of the world exists. Jason sees it sometimes when he finishes an especially impassioned rant, or the few times that he's managed to track down an accurate Diné recipe to make. He realizes belatedly that he would do anything to make Roy keep looking at him like that.
At some point, Roy must have gotten his gloves off, because he reaches out and places a bare hand gently against Jason's cheek. Roy's hand is warm, calloused but still soft; it's reassuring and grounding in ways that Jason hadn't known was possible.
Roy's eyes glance up at the mistletoe still hanging above them, and then down to Jason's lips. It feels like they've been standing here for years, and Jason wants to give in. He wants to let Roy kiss him under mistletoe in the snowfall like all of the Christmas romantic comedies suggest. He wants to listen to whatever promises the redhead will make, wants to let himself believe them, but he has to know.
Roy starts to lean in before Jason stops him with a panicked "Wait!"
Roy waits.
It's too easy, Jason thinks.
"How?" He isn't sure what he's asking. How did you find out? How do you still stay? How do we move on from this? How can you still look at me like that? He's even less sure if he wants to hear Roy's answer.
"How do I know who you are?" Roy guesses. It's close enough, and Jason nods. "I was talking with my friend and former Titans teammate, Dick Grayson. You know, Nightwing? Maybe you've heard of him? He was lamenting that he didn't know what to get for his little brother since he'd never bought a Christmas gift for a crime lord before." There's no disgust or judgement in the way Roy says crime lord, not even apprehension like with some of the newer members of the Justice League before Diana and Bruce vouched for Red Hood.
Roy's hand is still cupping Jason's face — still abnormally warm, like it's trying to brand Roy's love into him — and his thumb has started to reassuringly caress back and forth across Jason's cheek. "He showed me a picture of Red Hood in the Batcave. No helmet, but still in a domino mask. Not that it mattered; I'd recognize you anywhere, Jaybird, but it didn't hurt that you were wearing my shirt."
Jason knows the day Roy means. He'd been up late handling a new dealer trying to move into his territory, and had slept in. He had grabbed whichever shirt was closest to the door on his way out of the apartment, it had just happened to be Roy's, but he thought it would be fine. The Bats' main love language was stalking, but there was no way they kept track of his wardrobe to know if it was actually his shirt or not. There's something in the way Roy talks about Jason wearing his shirt though — something possessive and consuming — that sends a shiver down his spine.
"So you know about—?" About how I was murdered? About how I clawed myself out of my own grave? About the duffle bag with decapitated heads and the one man gang war I waged in Gotham? About the Joker's dead body on the steps of the Gotham Police Department?
"Yeah, Jaybird. Dick told me everything." Jason makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. He was supposed to be the one who told Roy; he was just putting it off because he is a coward. He's always been a coward. It's why when Talia sent him back to Gotham he became the Red Hood instead of just going home. "No, none of that," Roy says. "I get why you didn't tell me, darlin'. I don't blame you."
"You should." Jason does.
"For what? What should I blame you for, Jason?" He doesn't remember the last time Roy has used his actual first name, and he doesn't think he likes it. "Should I blame you for being traumatized and scared? Or for trying to learn how to live instead of just surviving? Or maybe for being afraid to trust when life keeps giving you reasons you shouldn't?"
"For…" Jason opens his mouth to respond, but he's not sure what the right answer is; he's not sure if there is a right answer. It makes him uneasy. "For lying to you."
"You didn't lie to me, Jaybird. You promised you'd tell me when you were ready. It's not your fault Dick took that choice away from you." Roy's voice is soft and kind, in ways that Jason isn't sure if he deserves.
"But I could have tol—"
"And I could have asked. It's okay. We're okay. I promise." Roy promises, and Roy would never lie to him.
Jason doesn't realize he's crying until the cold wind rushes across the wetness on his face. "I'm sorry," he gasps out, but he's not sure if he means about Red Hood or the crying.
He learns that it doesn't matter to Roy either way, not when the archer starts whisking away his tears, and whispering declarations of love. "Nothing to apologize for, Jaybird. Okay?" He waits expectantly, but the only answer Jason can manage right now is a small nod. It seems to be enough to satisfy Roy. "Now, can I kiss you, darlin'? Please?"
Jason nods again, but this time can say "Yes." His voice sounds small to his own ears, and if anyone else were around right now, Red Hood's reputation might never recover, but for how deserted the streets are, it may as well be just him and Roy alone in the world. It is love, he realizes.
Roy kisses him, and Jason never wants to stop. He could die again, and this memory would be enough to bring him back to life, he thinks. The need to breathe separates them eventually, but there's an ease that settles over the couple now that there aren't secrets between them. It could always be this easy, Jason thinks.
"I love you." It's rushed and breathless, and he's not sure if he's done it correctly, but Jason needs to tell Roy. He needs the archer to know. It's the first time he's said it to Roy, too scared to cross that line with everything that was unsaid in between them.
"I know," Roy responds, like it's easy, like it's obvious. Like Jason isn't the most emotionally constipated person in the most emotionally constipated family in the world.
"I'm sorry I didn't know how to tell you before."
"You did, Jaybird, just with your actions and not your words. Really, I should have picked up on you being a Bat long before this." Roy smiles at him, and Jason feels like he's won every contest that has ever been able to be won.
"I have to admit though, Jaybird, I do have an ulterior motive for the identity reveal."
Jason stamps down the fear that wants to bubble up. Roy would never do all of this just to hurt him. He knows that. He's always known that, he thinks; he's just not sure when he started believing in it so wholly.
"You're amazing," Roy tells him. "You've made me feel safe and content and like I have a place to belong in ways that I didn't know were possible."
Jason can relate to the sentiment because it's what Roy does for him too.
"I love you, and I simply cannot imagine my life without you in it."
It sounds dangerously close to a proposal.
Roy continues, his voice barely above a whisper, like he's scared of shattering the snowy calm of the street. "You have bewitched me, body and soul. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on."
The archer drops to a knee, pulling out something from his pocket. It occurs to Jason that this doesn't sound like a proposal. It is a proposal.
"Jason Peter Todd-Wayne," Roy says, and it feels like coming home, "will you marry me?"
He's holding the ring box out to Jason, a simple band with small diamonds set into it sitting in the velvet, and Jason realizes that he recognizes the ring. It's been updated for a slightly more modern and practical style, and it's obviously been resized, but he knows it. He has stared at the painting of Thomas and Martha Wayne enough times that it would be impossible not to recognize Martha's wedding band. Roy would have had to ask Bruce, figure out Jason's ring size, find a jeweller, and wait for the work to be done. Exactly how long has he been planning this?
"Jaybird?" Roy's voice, slightly nervous now, cuts into Jason's thoughts, and he realizes that Roy is still kneeling in the snow. He's such an asshole; he's literally getting proposed to, and he can't help but to think about logistics that are inconsequential.
"I'm so—" He tries to apologize before Roy cuts him off.
"Nothing to apologize for, Jaybird." Roy's voice is steadier, almost like he's steeling himself for whatever answer Jason gives. As if it could be anything but a yes.
"Yes," Jason breathes, like a prayer, "yes of course I'll marry you."
Roy surges up to kiss Jason again, and Jason kisses back, trying to communicate all of feelings he hasn't quite found the words for yet. His fiance — and Jason can't help but to be giddy with the knowledge he has a fiance now — greedily takes everything Jason is trying to say.
"I love you," Jason says again when they finally take a moment to breathe. It's easier this time, now that he's discovered Red Hood is allowed to love Roy too.
"I love you too, Jaybird."
Roy lets him know that there is a party waiting for them back at the Manor, but Jason is content to be out here for a little longer. It's snowing harder now, already a thick blanket covering the ground. It's pretty, Jason thinks again, but not as pretty as his new engagement ring. And nowhere near as pretty as his fiance.
The feeling he hasn't been able to name is back, and he is startled by how much of him it consumes. It sits next to the newly realized love, similar but distinct enough to not be part of it. He looks at Roy who smiles at him, openly and unashamed. Jason realizes what the feeling is now.
It's happiness.