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"Why are you up so early?" Jason's voice is quiet in the early morning, still scratchy from sleep as he slides open the balcony door to find you. When he does, he wraps his arms around your waist from behind and hunches over to press his face between your shoulder blades, drowsy and slow.
"Because it's nice out," you murmur in response, as if speaking any louder could break the peace that dawn has given you.
"It's cold," he counters, and you twist around in his hold to face him.
"That's because you're in the shade," you point out, hands on his hips so that you can shuffle the both of you around and switch places with him. "Here, stand in the sun."
"I don't care about the sun," he sighs, but still, he's pliant in your hold, letting you move him however you please. "I care about being back in bed, asleep, with you."
"I'll come back to bed," you assure him. "In just a minute. Close your eyes."
It's difficult, you think, not to laugh at him when he closes his eyes, so willing to follow wherever you go, so ready to do whatever you ask. You take his face gently in one hand, squishing his cheeks together and angling him to stare up to the sun.
"There," you say softly. "How does it feel?"
"Unnatural," he mumbles, his face still held in your hand.
"Unnatural?" you laugh in shock.
"Mhm. It's weird for it to be sunny in Gotham."
"The sun has to shine everywhere eventually," you murmur, moving your hand from his face, finally, so that you can trace the streaks of sunlight across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. "Even if you're not used to it."
"I think you might be making that up," he says, his breath coming out in a big exhale, and you laugh.
"Maybe. Does it still feel wrong?"
Jason thinks that maybe he just shouldn't answer you, shouldn't tell you that it all feels wrong - the unnatural beat of his heart, the body that he dragged out of the grave, the stark white streak of hair that you thumb between your fingers now.
"Do you know what I think?" you continue as you sweep it out of his face, white bleeding into black until he's almost recognizable again.
"What?"
"I think that sometimes… um, you know - feeling weird is how you know you're still alive," you say slowly, your hand slipping down his front until it rests against his chest. With just a pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips, the sun spreads over his shoulders and torso and warms him in a way that feels a bit too strange to be real.
Your hand travels further, pressing against his pec and tapping, with one finger, the steady beat of his heart.
"Baby, I think -" You catch yourself, pressing your lips together like you're not sure you should say it. That, in itself, is troubling to him - the idea that you might have to bite your tongue around him.
He reaches his hand up to yours in reaction, squeezing your fingers gently in his own until you hold his hand back, still tapping that rhythm against his palm.
"I think maybe… if we wait to do it until it feels normal, or good, then we'll never really get there."
Jason squints against the sun, tilting his head down to look at you as you stare up at him. He keeps his hand in yours, letting you tap that endless rhythm against his palm, and his other hand brushes some of your hair out of your face.
"That doesn't seem sad to you?" he murmurs. "To keep trying, even when…"
"When?"
"I don't know," he murmurs. "To live even when it's wrong."
"Jason," you say, your voice uncharacteristically sombre as your brows furrow. "There is nothing wrong with you being alive."
"It wasn't supposed to happen," he counters, blinking his eyes open wider as the sun slips behind a cloud, washing the two of you in a cooling shade.
"Wrong," you say firmly, but then you sigh, rocking back on your heels a bit as you give him some space - an act of kindness from you, but not one that he wants. Jason slings his arm around your waist and tugs you closer, his hand pressing your palm against his chest over his heart.
"I know we don't… talk about it very much," you begin again, quieter now - breathing out in a big sigh against him. "Maybe we should, I don't know -"
"I don't want to," Jason says abruptly. "I don't… You know, I'm - I'm alive now, aren't I?"
"You are."
"I don't want to spend every day pretending I'm dead," he blurts out, and your fingers stop tapping against his chest so that you can press your hand against his skin, instead.
The sun breaks out from behind the clouds again, beaming down towards the two of you until he closes his eyes against the onslaught. You inhale deeply, shifting the two of you around again so that his back is to the light, and as he opens his eyes again, the sun haloes him from behind like something holy.
"Then don't," you say gently. "Don't. You don't have to, anymore."
"I'm not sure I know how," he admits, and you take his hand in yours to press it over your own heart, letting him feel and tap out the beat of your own life.
"I'll help," you murmur, and he's not sure he has any choice but to follow wherever you lead.
"Baby, it's over," Jason says tiredly, throwing a blood-soaked towel into the bathtub and watching as red splatters against the white porcelain.
"It's not over," you retort. "You're -"
"I'm fine," he says firmly, crouching down in front of you while you sit on the edge of the bathtub. "Hm? C'mon, baby, look at me - I got a little banged up, that's all."
"More than a little," you respond sternly, but your resolve is starting to waver under the kiss that he presses against your forehead.
"Talk to me, hm?" he coaxes gently. "What are you thinking about?"
"You," you retort.
"Flatterer," he murmurs against your forehead, but then he pulls back slightly to really look at you. "I'm ok."
"You weren't," you say flatly, and he sighs as he takes your hands in his, rubbing circles onto your palms with the pads of his blood-stained thumbs. "It just scares me, you know."
"I know, baby," he murmurs, and then he tugs one of your hands closer to press against his chest. As you feel his heartbeat, steady and ever-present against your skin, he taps out the rhythm on the back of your hand.
"I really don't want you to die, Jason," you say bluntly, and he huffs out a half laugh.
"Yea, I… really don't want to die, either," he responds.
"Well," you murmur, your eyes trained on your joined hands over his heart. "At least we can always agree on that."
"I'm not dead," he reminds you firmly. "I'm right here."
"But what if -"
"Hey," he says sternly. "I'm right here. And I've…"
"What?" you murmur, because, really, you think you need to hear him say it tonight - just this once.
"I've spent enough time being dead," Jason continues slowly, tripping a bit over his own words, like the confession is foreign to him - like the hope that's carving itself into his chest is new to him. "I'd like to be alive now. Don't… baby, I love you. I'll let you deal with this however you need to, you know that."
"I know, Jason," you say honestly.
"But please don't mourn me while I'm still here. Please don't act - just don't… don't think like I'm still dead, yea?"
"Yea," you sniff a bit, and his hand finds your cheek while his other keeps your palm pressed firmly to his chest. You tap your fingers against the skin there, steadily on beat with the rhythm of his heart and the sound of his life.
"It's scary, being alive - isn't it?" you murmur. "Gives you something to lose."
"Gives you something to live for," he counters, and you huff out a laugh.
"You should live for more than just being loved by somebody," you say softly. "Not that it doesn't matter, but it can't be… all."
"Yea," he muses, and you quirk a brow - because you realize, just a bit, that maybe he's finally begun to think about this the way that he should. "You know - the sun is nice, too. I wouldn't mind living another day, if it means I can stand out in the sun again tomorrow morning."
"There you go," you laugh wetly, your eyes glassing over as you look at him, haloed by the dim light of the bathroom, shining amidst the dullness of it all - like an angel, you think weakly. Like something holy that's graced the earth. "Now you're getting it."