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The warehouse next to Miller Road had been rigged for this type of night, the type of warehouse with old chemicals still sitting in the back, paperwork from five years ago still littered around and now, thanks to some drugdealer finally figuring out that its empty, some sort of content that should not be available to anyone.
Dick already had the layout memorized through the various maps that Bruce had, and Jason had it memorized before Dick had finished debriefing the mission. Jason just stoof there with quiet irritation as Dick kept talking about the mission, using the same tone that he used when they were younger, and Jason hated being told things that he’d already worked out, especially in that tone.
"You're doing that thing," Jason said, rolling his eyes under his mask as he dropped down from the fire escape.
"What thing?"
"That tone. The 'I'm briefing you like you haven’t already read the file forward and back' thing."
"I don't have a tone."
"You have too many tones," Jason said. "That's your worst one."
He didn’t say it warmly – nothing about Jason had been warm since he came back from the dead, the sweet mischievous kid replaced by a man who had been through too much – but it wasn’t rude either. Dick has begun to learn that Jason not having a rude tone is now seen as a win, and that he has to build the relationship up slowly, brick by brick.
“Alright then,” Dick spoke, “No lecturing, I promise. Just facts about the mission, for me to remember. So there's around 600 pounds of unstable chemicals and Penguin’s people rigged the building so that it’ll all blow up if we touch the wrong part. We have around 20 minutes until the buyer shows up, and its lost forever after the buyer takes it.”
"That’s better," Jason said. "Was that so hard?"
THey snuck in through the loading docks side door, the one that the blueprints said was original construction, and hasn’t ever been wired to the newer security system.Dick immediately worked on disabling the pressure sensors on the east wall while Hason worked on the detonator sequence. The two of them worked in silence for a couple moments, which was the easiest they had worked together in months. It was when they talked that Jason shut him out, but working together in silence was something Jason was remarkably well at.
It was actually going really well, at least until the buyer’s crew showed up ten minutes earlier than their estimated twenty, and the quiet version of the late night job turned into something much louder, with guns going off and a room still stacked with chemical agents.
"That's not good," Jason said, staring at the six men appearing with guns.
"That's really not good," Dick agreed, and threw himself sideways behind a support column as gunfire chewed through the space where he'd been standing.
They cleared the room as fast as they could, faster than they would have liked to given how many placed gunfire could be found in a warehouse full of flammable material, and Dick could see Jason’s eyes harden as he looked at the multiple colors of wiring.
"Mask's in the way," he said, more to himself than to Dick, taking off the red mask. "I need both hands and a clean sightline and this thing's fogging."
"Jason—"
"Don't," Jason said, reaching up and pulling the domino face covering under his mask off and shoving it into one of his pockets, “I need to be able to see the wire colors, or else it could be fatal.”
It wasn’t an actual conversation, but there wasn’t time for arguing. Dick stayed quiet as his mind went through multiple different scenarios that could result if someone saw Jason’s face or linked him back to the dead kid Bruce Wayne brought home, but there wasn’t enough time. Besides, Jason worked so much faster without the mask, muttering under his breath as he pulled apart multiple wires. Jason finally cut the third green wire which thankfully caused the small red numbers to blink twice then turn black.
"Got it," Jason said, the two words coming out as an exhale that made him sound like an exhausted forty year old man, instead of someone barely old enough to drink.
Nine minutes later, they were out of the warehouse, the alarms of police in the area still going off as they gave the nearly six hundred pounds of chemicals to Commissioner Gordan.
They went for the rooftops, and Dick noticed that Jason didn’t put the domino back on. He was breathing really hard, and when they landed on a rooftop and stopped, his hands went to his knees for a few seconds, as if his body was trying to come down from a job that went very wrong. Dick turned to check on him, concerned, because Jason in a warehouse is something he never wanted to think about ever again. The images from a few years ago that Bruce shared were already too horrible, but when he turned around to look at his little brother, that's when he saw it.
It was barely visible on the dark rooftops, but it was just bright enough to see the scar that ran across his throat, just above the collar of his jacket. It was old, but not old enough to be from before the death, and it was pale and it was raised enough that it didn’t look like it cam from a knife fight. Dick knew what a batarang scar would look like. He’d seen dozens of them out on the job, helped patch some over the years when they landed weird, especially back when Batman was still learning how to use them properly. He knew, as well as Jason, that this was a batarang and that Batman was the only person who had access to these.
"Jason?" His voice came out wrong, small and almost like a question.
Jason’s face freezes for a moment, looking at Dick with a carefully placed expression that wouldn’t give anything away.
"Don't say anything," Jason warned.
"Jaybird, is that—"
"Just stop," Jason said, reaching into his pocket to put the domino back on and cover up his face, but it didn’t do anything to cover up the scar underneath it, because the domino wasn’t low enough to cover it up, and Dick didn’t know how he had missed it before. “I’ve had a while to get used to what’s on my own neck. You don’t need to remind me again.”
"That's from a batarang."
"Very observant." Jason's voice had gone flat in the particular way that Dick had learned,over the last couple months. It meant that a door was closing somewhere behind his eyes. "You want a gold star for pattern recognition, or can we get back to base before GCPD decides two vigilantes standing next to a nearly-exploded warehouse makes for a fun headline."
"Jason, that's not—" Dick searched to say something, anything, and came up only with the truth, blunt and unhelpful in his mouth. "That's from him. That's from Bruce."
Jason’s face changed, not surprise, but anger and coldness.
"Yup," Jason said. "It is."
“He never told me.” Dick said, staring at the scar, face so apologetic that Jason couldn’t bear to look at it, “He never, Jason no one ever told me about this.”
"Why would he." Jason’s voice wasn’t angry or cruel. Maybe that would’ve been better. Instead, he was just sad and resigned, as if he had already stopped caring that the man that adopted him would throw a batarang at him. As if he stopped fighting to make that man love him a long time ago.
"We need to talk about this."
"Maybe you need closure," Jason started, walking towards the bike, “But I've made my peace a long time ago, and I don’t need you to bring up these memories again.” and with that he left.
Dick waited for four days for Jason to show up at the Cave again. He ignored Bruce, which probably confused him, but he wasn’t sure if he could face Bruce without yelling at him.
He knew that it would probably take Jason a couple days to show up at the cave again. Jason had his own patrol routes and life after all, he only came by to help whenever he was the only person available. He’d just show up whenever they needed him or he was the best person for a job and then disappear as soon as it was over.
These four days felt like they might have been a little more deliberate however. Dick knew that Jason usually helped out because Bruce would let him train at The Batcave, so the fact that Jason hasn’t shown up was kinda weird. When Jason showed no sign of coming by though, Dick took matters into his own hands and went looking for Jason.
He was doing a patrol the day after when he finally ran into Jason sitting above a shop in Chinatown, just finishing a sandwich.
“Hey Jaybird,” he said, swooping down and landing next to him, “You’ve been ghosting me – see what I did there, cause you were, you know, dead for a while?” Jason looked at him, unamused.
“Anyway, it’s been a while, where have you been?”
Jason didn't look over. "Busy."
"Too busy to answer all of the texts and comm pings I’ve sent you?"
"Guess so."
Dick sat next to him on the ledge, swinging his legs and looking at Jason. Below them, the city was in full hustle, lights everywhere and people laughing or just running around or taking the bus home.
"I'm not gonna act as if I didn't see anything," Dick said finally. "I know you'd probably prefer that. I can't really do it."
"I didn’t ask you to pretend like you didn’t see anything" Jason's voice had a slight strain on it, as if he was trying to make himself sound unbothered. "I asked you to drop it."
"I can't drop it, Jay. You've got a scar on your throat from a batarang Bruce threw at you and you've been carrying that completely alone for—" He stopped, realizing he didn’t know how long it had been.That was its own small horror, not knowing how many months this had sat unspoken. "However long. That's not a thing I get to just not have feelings about."
“Newsflash, it’s not about your feeling,” For the first time since Dick had seen the scar, something in Jason seemed to crack and he stared at Dick with a lot more anger, “That’s like the entire point. Someone finds out something happened to me and it’s all about what they feel about it. My death, me being Red Hood, this scar– I don’t need other people to have opinions about any of this. I’ve processed my feelings and made peace with it, I don’t need someone to bring them back up.”
"That's not fair, I just want to help you."
"No," Jason agreed, already looking ready to jump off the building, "It's really not. But it wasn’t fair when he did it either. Funny how that works out."
"Jason—"
"I have a route to finish." He didn't look back. "Tell Oracle I checked in if she asks."
He jumped off the rooftop, already walking around and surveilling the area, and Dick stayed there on that ledge for a long time afterwards, staring at the spot where Jason jumped off.
Three days later, Dick tried again. He brought coffee this time, because he knew Jason was more likely to listen with bribes.
“I come bearing gifts!” Dick said cheerfully as he dropped into the safehouse he knew Jason favored, “It’s from that donut place I took you back when you were first adopted remember?”
Jason was sitting at the table, cleaning his gun in a slow way as he was watching some show on the TV. He didn’t bother looking away.
"I'm not really in the mood for company, Dickie."
“When are you ever?” Dick asked, setting down the coffee and sitting in the seat next to him.
Jason stayed silent, and kept working the cloth over the gun in a slow unhurried way. Dick understood that this was him answering the question, just him saying shut up without leaving room for an argument.
“I sent Bruce a message,” Dick finally said, because it had been quiet for too long and clearly Jason wasn’t going to start talking first, “He’s off-world right now on League business, but I left him a message. I don’t know what exactly he’s going to say, but he can’t avoid it any longer.”
Jason’s hands didn’t stop moving, but he at least glanced at Dick.
"You didn't need to do that."
"I kind of did."
"No," Jason said, and now he did look up, and his eyes were flat and tired in a way that had nothing to do with the gun in his hands. "You didn't. Because whatever he says, it's not gonna change what happened, and it's not gonna change that I've had years to make my peace with it on my own terms, and it's really not gonna change the part where you all keep acting like this is a wound that just opened up last week instead of one I've been living with for a long time before any of you decided to notice."
"I didn't know."
"That's the point, Dick." His voice cracked, just slightly, on the last word, the only real crack Dick had heard in it all night. "Nobody knew. I didn't need anybody's guilt or anybody's apology tour, I needed everyone to leave it alone, and instead I've got you bringing me coffee like that fixes something. And Bruce didn’t need to feel guilty every time he looked at me."
"I'm trying to be here for you little wing."
"Yeah, I understand that." Jason set the gun down, and for a second something almost gentle moved through his face, an old exhausted fondness that made the rest of the conversation hurt more, not less. "I know that you mean it and that you’re trying to help me. But I don’t need help."
"Then what do you need?"
"I need everyone, especially you, to stop looking at me like I'm something that needs fixing." He stood up, "I've gotta head out. Got a lead on the dockworkers thing."
"Jason, we didn't finish—"
"Yeah, we did," Jason said, already at the door. "For tonight at least. It’s not like we ever get much farther."
The window was still open when Dick let himself out a few minutes later, coffee cold and untouched on the table behind him.
For the next couple weeks, the pattern kept on repeating, with Dick constantly trying to find Jason during patrols and trying to talk to him. He eventually told the rest of the Manor, and suddenly, everyone was trying to talk to Jason. Time would start talking as soon as Jason stepped foot into the Cave, so Jaosn learned to avoid going there. Alfred (who used to be Jason’s favorite family member,) started leaving out a warm plate on nights Jason wouldn’t show up, and Barbara would leave Jason’s favorite books as a child out on his bed for him.
Jason didn’t answer any of it with words. Instead, he showed up to jobs and disappeared the second they were done. He would go to the Cave to grab things he needed and then leave directly after so Tim wouldn’t have the chance to bombard him with questions. And while he started with eating Alfred’s food, he slowly stopped coming to the Manor altogether, and over time, Alfred stopped leaving food out and Barbara stopped with the books. There were only so many times someone refused kindness for everyone else to stop.
While the rest of the family stopped, Dick kept trying. But, in the end, nothing ever happened differently. Over the course of two months, there were multiple attempts from Dick that ended with a door slamming, or Jason walking away or cold coffee sitting on a rooftop. Jason had always left the second that anything to do with the scar had been brought up, and Dick was desperate to find some way to get Jason to open his doors..
He never found it though, and maybe there wasn’t one any longer. Maybe too much had happened over time and Jason had already closed all of his door and welded them shut to keep everyone out. Maybe he had been so hurt by everyone – with Dick ignoring him back when Jaosn was first adopted, Bruce letting him die and then in a fit of panic throwing a batarang at his son's neck, and Tim “replacing” him – maybe it was too late.
Jason kept working in the Alley. He showed up whenever they needed him, but it was clear he found a new home. Dick watched him sometimes, when patrols were freer. Jason seemed to be so much more peaceful as he helped old ladies get groceries, gave kids lollipops if they promised not to smoke, gave small restaurants cash when they were about to close down, and just kept everyone safe. He kept the scar hidden under the collar most nights, but Dick stopped being upset over that — it was just a fact about Jason that he’d slowly been learning to make peace with.
Dick still tried to reach out to Jason. He’d probably try for the rest of his life, still not over the fact that he let Jason down multiple times over the years. But he’s learned slowly that if you press on a wound hundreds of times, it’ll never fully heal. That some nights the kindest thing to do was just to leave Jason alone to live his own life, maybe give him a cup of coffee and pretend like everything was normal, or at least, as normal as it can be when you're a vigilante with tasers.
He just didn’t want to push Jason far enough that he would leave. That he would go and find a new home to live in, somewhere away from Gotham and Bludhaven and away from the stormy gray skies and chaotic streets.
And so, the city kept them all, with Nightwing back most weekends, Red Hood in the Alley, and Batman and his team running the rest of the city. Sometimes, people would see Robin on Red Hood's back demanding for a puppy, or Spoiler and Red Hood complaining about some “dick,” but there were other days where they would watch Red Hood and Batman work together, the two as tense as people can be.
There were still some nights where Dick would leave coffee out on rooftops he knew Jason frequented, but after he left a cup, there would be no sign of Jason for at least a week. He told himself that it wasn’t a big deal, and that Jason would be ready whenever he was ready. But he wasn’t sure, some night, if he believed that.