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It is a beautiful night; Jason can’t help but think. It is quite rare to be able to see the Gotham sky, when it is so often covered by clouds. He wishes he could see the stars as well, but that is a lot to ask for. He remembers the endless stars back in the desert as if it was yesterday. They were so many, it felt as if he only needed to stretch his hand a little more to be covered in their luminous dust. It is a good memory, when he does not remember the rest.
He hears a sound coming from behind him, it is so light anyone else would have surely missed it.
“Come out Dick.”
“No names on the field, Little wing.” Dick says with a little grin as he enters Jason’s view.
“Yeah, yeah I know.” he says as Dick comes closer and sits right next to him. He had taken off his helmet some minutes ago, it had felt suffocating. He only wears his mask now.
“How did you know I was here?”
Dick’s eyes narrow at him. “Seriously? You are quite literally the only person I know who has a favorite gargoyle.”
Fair Jason thinks, but also how can that be true? Gargoyles are cool. He is a hundred percent sure Bruce also has a favorite gargoyle but has never and will never admit it. He winces at the thought. He’s been trying not to think of him. It’s already been two days since the disastrous dinner. Now that the rage has been snuffed out inside him, the mass of complicated feelings is too much to untangle. The past haunts him just as much as the potential for the future. Who is he kidding? There is no future, there never has been. All his life he has been cheating fate, that's all this is.
“Hey” Dick says, shoving him with his shoulder, eyes fixed on him. “Don’t think like that.”
“You’re a mind-reader now Dickwing?”
Dick clenches his jaw as he swallows with more difficulty than is normal.
“I just - I don’t like that look. I don’t know what you’re thinking but I know it’s not any good.”
Dick is here on damage control. Great. Always the martyr. When will he learn that some things just cannot be put back together?
“I’m so sorry for what he said, Jay.” Dick finally says, voice strained. Took him long enough. “He had no right to do that. I just- I need you to know that you can still count on the rest of us. As for Bruce…He’s not well. He’s sick or something, I don’t know. He collapsed after you left and his fever has not gone down in two days and if you could only hear what he was saying in his sleep…” He nervously runs his hand through his hair.
“I see.” Jason says. What is he supposed to do with this information? Be glad that at least he was unwell when he shouted Get out of my house to his face. Be sad that Bruce is sick? No, he shall feel nothing instead. It’s probably better this way, easier. Compartmentalize Bruce’s voice sounds in his head, cause even when he hates him, he can’t truly let go of him and ain’t that fucking pathetic.
He looks at Dick. He looks guilty, tired in a way he had only assumed but never seen before. A part of him feels bad for the first Robin and for the role that has been pushed onto him. To be both a father and a brother and a friend and a mentor. To be all that Bruce can’t be. Another part of him feels bitter and jealous that he didn’t have that when he was Robin. The emotionally stable good big brother Dick Grayson, that is something that only emerged after his death.
They have been doing better, Dick and him. It was mostly because of Dick if Jason is being honest. In the beginning Jason wanted nothing to do with him. Then he actively ignored his existence knowing that it was bound to hurt him. He didn’t realize he was also hurting himself in the process. Didn’t realize the pit hadn’t managed to snuff out that wonder from his eyes, the one someone only holds for their first and favorite hero. The legend that was the first Robin, the golden boy Dick Grayson in the flesh who in the beginning Jason was certain had wanted nothing to do with him but had very slowly warmed up to him regardless. Then he died and in his unnatural death he had been loved more than he had ever been in life.
“Jay.” His eyes are worried even with the mask on. “Are you alright?”
God, what a stupid question. When has he ever been alright? Although that is not entirely true now, is it? There was a time that as far as Jason is concerned things had been perfect. He hadn’t realized it then, how could he? No one understands the preciousness of a moment, until it becomes a memory, a beautiful one. One that could never compare to reality, one that can never be replicated, not even if we were to go back in time and feel it all over again.
“Do you ever get the feeling that you will never grow old?” Jason finally says, drunk by the unnatural for Gotham, indigo blue of the sky. He doesn’t think he would have ever voiced this thought if it weren’t for this beautiful night sky. “And I don’t mean wanting to die or some suicidal shit. Just that… it’s not going to happen, like a fact, like a truth that you’ve always known within you.” he stops and dares to look at Dick. His expression is suddenly very serious.
“No Jay.” he says and Jason hates the pity he hears there. He is not suicidal. This is not what this is about.
‘Never?”
“No.” he shakes his head. “It is difficult for anyone to imagine themselves older, but I’ve never given it much thought.”
Jason nods. That makes sense. This is how normal people’s brains work. His brain never fit those standards. There has always been something different with him, something inherently wrong.
“Do you think like that?’
It is a stupid question, and Dick knows it as well. He asks it anyway as Jason was certain he would.
“I do now.” he says and he can see from the way Dick looks at him that this is not enough of an answer for him. He doesn’t even know why he bothers. He doesn’t owe him anything
“Back when I was Robin, I used to feel immortal.” he smiles at that untouched, until now, thought. It is the first time he’s put it into words. The first time he’s confined it into the barriers of language. The colors and feelings of perhaps the only time in his life that he was happy. At least, for a little while.
Dick continues looking at him with that imploring gaze of his. One that has more questions than answers but is also strangely sad. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
“So, you get it?”
Dick chuckles. “I doubt that. Robin meant different things for me than it did for you.”
And ain’t that the truth. He steals a glance to the city below them. It is as depressing and miserable as ever. Still, it is his home. She is me and I am she or whatever they say.
“You don’t know how much I miss it. I don’t think I ever realized how much I’d miss being a child or a teenager until I grew up. I don’t think I’ll ever be as happy as I was in those first years of Robin. No, scratch that, I know I won’t be.”
Dick’s not looking at him. He can see the gears turning on his head. Jason is certain that at least a small part of him agrees with what he said. Regardless, he would never admit it. He’s gotten it in his head somehow that Jason is one of his younger siblings and he needs to protect him the way he does the rest of the flock, but that’s not the case and deep down Dick knows it as well.
“I know it feels that way now.” Dick turns to look at him. “But it gets better, Little Wing. It will get better, just…just don’t shut us out.”
There is a cruel part of his brain that screams at him to leave. That even this answer, small and uninteresting as it may be, is a ploy so that they can have him under their thumb again, control the wayward child, the black sheep of the family. He lets it go.
Jason huffs. “It’s not about that. And you don’t have to pretend when you’re with me.”
“You think I’m pretending?”
Jason thinks for a second. “Yes, even if you don’t always realize it, even if you mean well.” he sighs. “Look, I’m saying it for your sake more than anything. I don’t need your emotional support, big brother shit. I don’t live under Bruce anymore and I’m not that young either.”
Jason’s not looking him in the eyes as he says all that and yet he can feel Dick’s gaze piercing him. When Dick looks away he turns to look at him again. It’s like a game, a hide and seek in which even the seeking is shrouded in hiding, because that’s just who they are, layers and layers of skin upon skin, glued together with regrets and failed promises.
“It’s for my sake, you say?” Dick finally asks and he does not sound angry at all, inquisitive is more like it. He wishes he knew what he was thinking.
“Yes. I don’t need it from you and you are already stretching yourself thin trying to be that for everyone else.”
Dick does not respond for some seconds and it surprises Jason. He was certain that they would be fighting by this point. It doesn’t matter, he’s been wanting to say that for some time now and now he has.
“It is not for my sake Jay.” he finally says and smiles sadly. Jason does not understand. “Because there is a small little detail you’re forgetting, a small little detail that changed everything.”
“Oh yeah, and what is that?”
Dick holds his gaze as he says. “You died.”
From all the things Dick could have said, this is by far the most ridiculous. Why does his death always need to be about someone else? About Bruce’s grief and failure, about Tim taking up the mantle, about Dick developing eldest daughter syndrome. He lived it, he suffered through hell and back because of it and even now he has not gotten any absolution and yet everyone keeps talking as if it somehow affected them more.
“So, it’s about guilt then, that’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes, it’s about that too. It’s about not letting something like that ever happen again.”
A martyr through and through. Honestly he’s getting tired of this persona, even if he knows it is a real one.
“Bruce is a good man.” Dick says resigned. He looks sad as he watches over the city that has both glorified him and hurt him in equal measures.“But he carries a darkness inside of him. He’s been carrying it since he was a child. It is a struggle to be close to him and not get swept into it.”
“And yet you manage.” Jason says.
Dick laughs at that and Jason does not like the sound of that laugh or what it means.
“Well, clearly you don’t” Dick answers.
“And what, you think it’s because you weren’t around? News flash Dickie but my problems have nothing to do with him!”
“Oh that is such a lie and you know it.” Dick almost shouts. “They have everything to do with him! Do you even realize how suffocating it is to be anywhere near you two when you are together? It is like holding a ticking bomb in your hands and waiting for it to burst!” he shouts, his gaze fixed on him and his fingernails leaving crescent moons on his suit.
Even if what he says is true, there is nothing Dick can do about it. He can already feel himself getting worked up over this. “And yet you’re always in the middle of it, trying to what? Do damage control? Pray things will get better between us? He slashed my fucking neck Dick!”
Dick freezes for a second, before he turns to look at his neck. It is covered with double the kevlar and body armour that it needs. No one can say Jason does not learn from his past.
“When did that happen?” he asks shakily, his eyes wide behind the domino.
Jason should have kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t said anything until now. Why did he go and open his mouth today and to Dick of all people.
“It doesn’t matter-”
“Jason!”
He bites down at the insult he has at the tip of his tongue.
“Some months after I came back. I had captured the Joker. I was making him choose between the two of us.” he feels the lump forming on his throat but he swallows it down. “He didn’t even have to kill him, he could have just let me do it. It seems I didn’t have to wait long to hear his decision, a batarang to the throat is answer enough. It was the same night as the chemo-explosion in Blud.” he adds, remembering how he had joked that Batman was losing another bird, while internally hoping Dick hadn’t died. Even amidst the haze of the pit and hatred towards all things Bat-related, there was still a small part of him that remembered the boy that had gone trainsurfing with him and eaten ice cream at the back of his bike.
There are small tears running down Dick’s face, by the time he’s finished recalling that night. He’s surprised by them. There is no reason for Dick to cry over it. That at least everyone can agree, was not his fault.
“How did you get out?” he finally asks shakily.
“I crawled. The pit was really strong during those early months. It is the only reason I can still speak, perhaps the only reason I did not bleed out.”
You don’t just slash the carotid artery and expect to make it out alive with any blood left in you. It was only because of how quickly the pit was stitching the wound together, or at least slowing down the rush of blood that he did not die a second time right next to his first time murderer, by his father’s hand. Damn, not even a Greek tragedy could have come up with such a plot.
Dick sucks in a breath and he sees that his hand is trembling as he grips his own suit, tears still running down his face. He looks wrecked, which only confirms his earlier argument that he should have never said anything. It will just make matters worse now. Despite his anger with Bruce, he does not want to be the one to ruin what the rest of the flock have with him.
Dick stands up.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to talk to Bruce.” he says with a coldness Jason hasn’t heard in years, one that he thought was completely gone.
“No, you don’t.” he stands up as well. “You will say nothing to him, you hear me?” he grips his arm tighter. “What happened that night is between me and him and regardless it’s been way too long since then. It doesn’t matter anymore and I shouldn’t have told you anything, I don’t know why I did.” Jason's words are coming out fast and he feels strangely lightheaded.
Dick turns to look at him, his gaze softening. “I’m glad that you told me Jason. Frankly, you should have told me earlier but it’s fine.”
Jason can feel his heart beating faster now. He is not listening to him. He does not want Dick to say anything, he does not want Bruce to know that Dick knows. He doesn’t want to see what happens or to start wondering if Bruce will seek him out after that. For months now, Jason has been telling himself that what they have is not a family, it is a squad at best, and yet the way he’s trying to protect it now suggests so much more.
“Dick, I’m begging you. Don’t make a big deal out of this, don’t tell him that you know. Please, just don’t do it.”
“Why?” Dick shouts, twisting his arm free from Jason’s grip and stepping away, eyes blazing.
“What is it you’re so afraid of? He needs to answer for himself. He needs to look me in the eyes and try to explain what the fuck he was thinking before he did something like that! He needs to- Wait. Did he ever even apologize to you?”
His silence is answer enough and Dick knows it. Jason sees his eyes harden even behind the mask.
“I bet he never even mentioned it all. Acted as if it never happened. I saw how he was treating you these past months. Damn it!” he runs his hands through his head, breaths fast. “I should have said something, I should have done more.”
“Cut it Dickhead! I wasn’t exactly an angel either.”
“You are his son! And he is too fucked up in the head to see it!”
Jason is glad they are so high up, because otherwise half of Gotham would have heard them and figured out their identities five minutes into this conversation.
“Well, you are his son too! And it is a shitty position for you to always be found in the middle, trying to mediate things because he remains cold, unchanging and all in all a bullheaded asshole!”
Dick looks at him and it is something like grief that passes over his features.
“My relationship with Bruce is different. I can handle him” he swallows. “But I need him to look me in the eye and tell me about that night. Not because I don’t believe you, but because I need to know how far he can go when it comes to some things. I need to know if he is still the same man I’ve believed in since I was a kid.”
Jason can hardly breathe. No, he can’t handle this. He does not want the answer to that question. It is better to not know. Bruce has fallen so much in his eyes already, Jason thought it impossible for him to fall even more and yet… he still has never let himself ask that question. Because the truth is that the fall is endless, there is always a ledge to fall from when it comes to the people one cares about, to the people we once loved even if we now hate them.
Jason watches as Dick gives him a sad little smile, before he grapples away, before he leaves him here alone on this roof next to his favorite gargoyle who has witnessed all his suffering ever since he learnt how to fly.
In the end it doesn’t matter what Dick will find in Bruce’s eyes when he asks him. The future has an eerie quality to it. Jason doesn’t know when he started thinking this way, but it’s been long enough that he doesn’t remember how to think differently. How can he ever explain to anyone that any long term plans he makes feel like he’s tempting the Fates. How can he explain that sometimes the nostalgia he feels eats him alive, that it has become almost impossible to live in the present moment. It’s not even the traumatic memories that make him want to gouge out his own eyes. The happy ones are worse, so much worse. The way Bruce’s hand felt on his hair when he was proud of him, Alfred’s held back smile, the warm reassurance of being wanted and provided for and most of all, the feeling of having the world at your feet each night he had soared above it knowing that he was helping, that he was good, that he was magic. All these memories are painted in a golden undertone which shines and shines and shines and he hates them for it. He wishes he could live them again, but not in his current body and mind. He wishes he could just relive them as the kid he had been. He wouldn’t change anything. He would just let them wash over him and take away everything he has now become.
He has no hope for the future. He doesn’t think he desires anything from it. It feels like a bleak place more than anything, a blurry one, like those dreams from our childhood that always exist at the edge of our brain, but we’ll never be able to fully remember. The world is changing around him, and Jason sits there and observes it. He’s growing older, but his body has not felt like his own in years anyway. Everyone else around him though is growing older as well and that is worse, so much worse. He had not been prepared for the way the world seemed to freeze for a second when he saw grey hairs on Bruce’s head, small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Alfred is thinner now than he had been four years ago back when he was still a kid and these two people were the ones he loved most in the world. He looks more tired too and his wrinkles are deeper than they used to be.
That is why he prefers not to think of the future, even though he knows he can survive it. Such thoughts feel like they can crush him. Is it fear? Maybe. Fear for what exactly, he doesn’t know. He is not even part of the family anymore and yet despite that a part of him will always be Robin, will always think like Robin, will always wish to be Robin just like he did when he was little and just like all of Gotham’s children wish to the starless sky each night.
He looks at that beautiful sky above him, that stretches out till eternity. A feeling washes over him. The feeling of not wanting to die but not wanting to live either, not wanting to be crushed by the expectations of a world you don't agree with and having only the memories of your childhood for comfort. But Jason knows no comfort can be found there. Perhaps it’s better this way.