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The first subtle colors of dawn began to brighten the dark silhouettes of the tall buildings of Gotham. Here and there, windows started to light up and the city began to set in a new routine.
Despite all the time that had passed, returning to Gotham, if only for one night, still left him in a frenzy, a tingling under his skin that he couldn’t get off sometimes for weeks.
With a mechanical gesture, Jason turned up the collar of his jacket to cover part of his face. Despite the days getting shorter, it wasn’t particularly cold. Jason still shuddered, clenching his jaw. If he were to stop and think about it, maybe he’d associate it with a memory of his childhood, when he used to hide in those same alleys in much colder nights - he didn’t, though. He quickened his pace instead.
The apartment, one of the first safe-houses that Jason bought in Gotham after, was located in one of the worst areas of the city, a dirty alley where the only light source consisted of a malfunctioning streetlight situated at its mouth and almost solely populated by the handful of rats that nested in the nearby sewer.
The night was still almost silent. The city was lazily waking up and the slums had not yet shaken off the surreal quiet that followed the usual hustle and bustle of the night.
Jason took some time before walking into the alley, weighing the idea of going back to patrol, ammunition and helmet still heavy in the worn bag he carried over his shoulder, before walking in briskly. He also considered lighting another cigarette, only to remember that he smoked the last perhaps only half an hour before. It had been a relatively calm night and Jason had found himself wasting the past hours observing the city from the rooftops, smoking and wearing himself out, waiting for something to catch his attention.
(The cigarettes were an ineffective remedy, but were also the only one he had available.)
He found Dick waiting for him near the apartment door, standing, leaning back against the wall, resting with his chin against his chest, hands shoved in the pockets of a black hoodie that he wore over the Nightwing suit. His mask was off, perhaps stuffed in some hidden pocket. It almost looked like he was dozing off.
(That was some unexpected visit.)
"Dick-" and the curse, the bad joke (sleepybird) and whatever followed cut off in Jason’s throat.
"Hey," Dick looked up and stretched a little, smiling, lazily rubbing his eyes in a childlike way that on anyone else would have looked sickeningly sweet, "good morning."
Jason let out a short laugh, more tired than mocking, and didn’t return the happy greeting, fumbling with the keys instead. From the inside the safe-house was little more than two poorly furnished rooms, not much better here than the dimly lit alley it faced, but it was all that Jason wanted to pay for his short stay in Gotham - good for keeping a low profile and as far away from Wayne Manor as possible.
(It should have been a quick two day trip. A quick night on patrol to punch a couple of assholes, get some info on a job and goodbye, many thanks for the hospitality. Digging into it, though, the assholes to punch were much more than two and Jason had been rotting in Gotham for almost a week.)
The apartment door, a shabby old wood panel peeling off in several places, got stuck. Jason muttered a curse and Dick hesitantly asked if he needed help. Jason shut him up before he could get any closer and opened the door with a hard shove.
Jason took a couple of steps inside. He ran a hand over his face, feeling the cool rough gloves on his sweaty skin. He heard Dick follow behind him hesitantly, shuffling the soles of his boots on the floor, as if he wanted Jason to be aware of his presence. Jason couldn’t see him, but he was sure Dick stopped on the doorway, waiting again. Theoretically, Jason knew he could tell Dick to go away at any time. A gesture would be enough - his middle finger raised, if he ever felt theatrical - and Dick would disappear as he arrived.
Still, "You can come in, y’know," he said, sounding too little sarcastic and very much tired before quickly making his way through the small kitchen. Jason didn’t wait for Dick to follow him, but he still heard him carefully close the door behind himself and mirror his footsteps.
There was a carton of cigarettes Jason remembered leaving on the table that morning. He dropped his bag with a loud thud on the floor and clumsily pulled off his gloves with his teeth, biting the tips of his fingers in the process. He took a steady breath when he finally had the cigarette between his teeth. He didn’t realize his breath was ragged, or that he grasped the edge of the table with enough force to whiten his knuckles. Nor did he register Dick’s presence at his side.
“Had a bad night?" Dick said softly, placing a hand close to where Jason was torturing his own, almost holding them. He began tapping with his fingertips on the worn wooden surface. "Jay?"
Jason focused for a moment on the soft tap tap of Dick’s fingers. Regulating his breathing pattern became a little easier. Searching his pockets for the lighter was more simple.
The flame trembled noticeably when Jason lit the cigarette and tried a drag. "Mh," he muttered then, answering Dick’s question, and exhaled a puff of smoke.
He took a second drag before adding "Have a seat," in the most casual tone he could manage, hinting with a nervous gesture to the pair of chairs on the other side of the table.
Jason didn’t wait for Dick to give him an answer. He turned away and picked up a couple of fairly clean cups from the sink and, after two failed attempts to turn on the old stove on the opposite side of the room, was able to put a small kettle on the flame.
The clock hanging above the stove marked almost five in the morning. It highlighted the silence for a while, until its battery ran out a few minutes later.
When he was done, Jason turned. Dick sat, legs crossed, hands tucked in the pockets of his hoodie and a (worried) smile curving the corners of his lips. He made a pathetic attempt to meet Jason’s gaze, but Jason looked away again to fiddle with the stove and the drawers. He remained quiet.
With the table and more than a few feet now to separate him and Dick, Jason still couldn’t tell if the restlessness in his body was getting worse.
(Dick should’ve gone away at any moment, tired of Jason and his mood swings, of being ignored and treated like shit, if his unusual silence was some kind of signal--)
It was Jason who broke the silence once again, a moment later, "You want something to drink?" he said, and slammed shut the drawer he was searching with too much strength. When he turned, holding a half empty packaged tea box, Dick hid a tense grimace pretending to wipe his mouth with a sleeve. Jason noticed, "I guess I'm a little dry, anyway," he added, shaking the box. "And I’ve got a very limited choice."
He didn’t mean it as a joke but it pulled a short laugh from Dick and, despite himself, even Jason found himself smiling and swallowing whatever he wanted to add.
"I’ll take whatever you want to offer me, Jay."
Jason bit his tongue. "Earl Grey, of the lowest quality," he specified (unnecessarily, Dick knew very well that kind of box). It had never been one of Dick’s favourite blends, Jason found himself thinking, putting the bags into the two cups. In his predilection for anything that could be considered sweet, Dick always choose something more fruity. (Jason had bought, with Dick on his mind, a chocolate flavoured tea while he was on a job - he hadn’t given to him yet, though.)
"That’s perfect." Dick nodded.
There was no sugar or lemon in the apartment and Jason carefully didn’t offer any. If seen from a wrong and negative angle, the situation could almost resemble a mocking (and stupid) metaphor for his and Dick’s relationship. Jason lit another cigarette.
He smoked in silence for a few more minutes. Dick watched the smoke curls with a pretend interest and Jason watched Dick.
"That doesn’t look like your usual fashion." Jason gestured at the hoodie Dick wore over his suit - the zip was slightly lowered, and Jason caught a glimpse of the blue tone that adorned it. As simple and bold and rather pathetic as it was as a disguise, it was infinitely Dick. (And, had it been another moment, Jason would’ve laughed at it and, probably, Dick with him.)
Dick slowly put his hands up in an awkward gesture of surrender.
"Hoodie’s yours," Dick made a dumb guilty face, "I kinda stole it when we last met."
Jason remembered that night pretty well. They met after patrol, when the sun started to rise, and Jason had once again welcomed Dick in one of his shitty safe-houses - an apartment slightly out of Blüdhaven where Jason crashed a lot more often than his usual and where he took, little by little, for a reason or another, most of his (few) possessions (mostly books, weapons). It had been a quiet night. Dick had arrived without a tear in his suit, flying over the rooftops like the pretty bird he was, and handed Jason a warm take-out bag (cantonese rice, his favorite). They ate on the rooftop, watching the sunrise, and Dick almost fell asleep on Jason's shoulder after he ate his own rice box and part of Jason’s.
Jason looked at the dirty tiles, before slipping back his hands in his pockets searching again for a cigarette and the lighter.
Breathe in, breathe out. Once, then again, and the implication of Dick’s simple admission, along with Dick’s figure wrapped in a hoodie at least two sizes too big for him, just dissipated along with the cigarette smoke.
Jason had a routine for nights like these, when patrol went wrong and he accomplished nothing, the informant he was supposed to meet was found dead on the back of a nameless bar, meaning he had to start from scratch yet again. It wasn’t anything particularly weird or complex. It was a lukewarm tea and a pack of cigarettes consumed in the silence of the first safe-house he reached. It wasn’t the calm he searched for after such nights, but it quieted that blind rage that shook his body and loosened the knot that formed in his throat. Breathe in, breathe out, and a warm cup in his hands. Repetitiveness. And, for a while, he could stop thinking about the ifs and the buts, until the pack and the cup remained full.
Now, next to Jason’s dull cup there was another one.
"Okay," his voice was rough from smoking, and Jason made no attempt to clear it, "Okay. You can keep the hoodie if you want to. If you like it.”
Dick was playing with the hem of the sleeves, rolling and unrolling them around his wrists, "Yes, I'd love to.”
Jason traced the edge of one of the cups with his fingers. Both of them were of a dingy pink and slightly chipped. They came with the apartment.
"So," usually, Dick was the chatty one. Jason couldn’t remember the last time he led a conversation, nonetheless, "So, what did you do tonight?" he asked, a bit hesitant on the question.
As Dick began to speak, launching into a general reconstruction of his night on patrol, (focusing on minor insignificant details and ignoring everything else: how he passed a closing bakery and the owner offered him some bread, how a cat joined him for a while on his rooftops run, etcetera, etcetera), Jason lost himself in the story. The only other sound in the room was the crackling of the stove and, once again, the snap of the lighter when Jason stubbed out his cigarette in the sink to light a new one, leaving the mechanical rhythm of the exhale-inhale routine the only focal point of his actions.
By the time the water in the kettle had begun to boil, Jason had casually slipped his hands into his pockets, the tension that stiffened his back loosened, and Dick’s slight smile looked brighter.
Another thing the apartment was missing, was kitchen utensils. Jason had to confront the lack of pot holders by covering his palm with the cuff of his jacket.
He put one of the filled cups, (the least ruined, just slightly chipped), on the table for Dick to pick up. Dick took it, but made no move to drink. He held the cup thoughtfully, as if he was trying to warm his hands.
A note about Dick Grayson that Jason remembered by quite a shameful amount of time, concerned his preference for hot drinks. Jason had a joke about it on the tip of his tongue, but when he was about to spit it out it already lost its meaning. He let the room go quiet again.
Jason held his own cup in his hands, observing its sad content and the tiny teabag floating in it. He stubbornly kept smoking the cigarette butt he had in his mouth.
"Jay?"
Jason looked up.
"Jay, could you come here," Dick moved to the edge of the chair and Jason thought he was going to get up, "please."
And yet again, Jason could have said no. Crushed the cigarette butt in the sink and drunk his tea.
Jason swallowed the lump in his throat, put his own cup on the table, next to Dick’s abandoned one, and walked the few steps that separated them.
Jason noticed the tension in Dick’s shoulders when it loosened up a little. Dick held out a hand to his face, carefully but without hesitation, as if he was afraid that Jason would shut him out again. Jason didn’t. He bent a little, reaching out to Dick’s soft touch, who caressed his cheek. Dick’s palms were warm but his fingertips were still cold.
Dick carefully slid out the cigarette, now little more than a butt, from Jason’s lips, observing thoughtfully first the bitten filter and then Jason, and stubbed it out crashing it against the surface of the table, already dotted with small darker spots where Jason had given the same treatment to other butts in the previous nights.
Jason exhaled his last puff of smoke as he watched the ashes of the butt go off. Dick gently pulled Jason slightly forward, forcing him to look down on him.
Dick was frowning, his lips closed in a thin line and his eyebrows slightly furrowed, his gaze openly worried.
Jason opened his mouth to say something. He couldn’t put together more than a soft sigh.
The corners of Dick's mouth curled slightly upwards and Dick gently stroked Jason's cheeks, "Hey," he whispered, "hey", and moved his hands to caress his neck, in an almost clumsy attempt at reassurance, then Jason’s shoulders, his touch light, trying not to turn it into something invasive. It felt more like a request of permission.
A request that came a heartbeat later, in a low voice, "...yes?", and then Dick’s fingers crept up inside Jason's jacket collar, between armor and bare skin, and down to stroke his back as he could reach.
Jason curled up to rest his forehead against Dick’s, muttering some sort of agreement, and Dick lifted his face up a little to kiss his mouth.
It was short, but when they parted Jason wrapped an arm around Dick’s shoulders, closing the distance between them he had maintained since the beginning of the evening.
"Your hands are cold, you asshole." Jason muttered. And so was the tip of Dick’s nose, and his cheeks were slightly flushed, Jason noticed when Dick sought his lips in response, kissing him again, and again, holding Jason tighter, kissing his face, smiling.
They were in a ridiculous position: Dick sitting on the edge of his chair and Jason still standing, one arm embracing Dick and one holding the back of the chair, trying to balance himself.
Dick probably had a similar thought, because he pressed another kiss on Jason's mouth and whispered, "Come closer," and put his arm around Jason's middle, making him lose his balance, in an attempt to bring him closer.
Regaining his balance, Jason abruptly broke off the kiss and stood back.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"Nothing." Dick pursed his lips and held his open hands to Jason, who had just realized he instinctively took a step back. He took Dick's hands in his own. Dick’s cold hands felt warm against Jason’s even colder ones, and he noticed Dick’s shudder when he held them. Jason tried to immediately to let go, but Dick intertwined their fingers together. "Everything's alright," he said and placed a soft kiss on the back of Jason's right hand, "I just wish you were closer."
Jason felt his a knot form in his throat and anger and helplessness and bile in climb up in his mouth. It came out as dry, bitter laugh, "No. Like shit it's alright," Jason said and tried to free his hands from Dick’s gentle caress, who instead followed Jason’s movement and stood up, "Don’t tell me that everything’s alright."
"Then tell me what's wrong." and there was a sour note in Dick's voice, too.
Dick laced his and Jason’s fingers together for a second time, squeezing slightly. Jason looked down at their clasped hands. His own were visibly shaking. Again. And, again, he took a deep breath. A pack of cigarettes was still in his jacket pocket, the rest of the carton was still on the table where he left it, less than an arm’s length away. He couldn’t remember where he put the lighter.
"Jason," Dick murmured, calm and practiced. "Jason, you're panicking."
"Don’t--" Jason started, but the words knotted in his mouth and the insult died in his throat, leaving him breathless, his jaw clenched shut.
There was another moment of silence, in which Dick looked down.
"You want me to leave?" he said, so softly that Jason almost couldn’t hear him.
Jason clung to Dick’s hold, almost conscious of the kevlar under his nails and of the marks it would leave on Dick’s wrists the next morning. He hated how the number of times Dick had seen him on the verge of breaking down could be counted on two hands, how Dick anticipated the repulsion and despite everything reciprocated Jason’s hold with the same vigor, still offering to put the pieces together himself.
"No."
Dick nodded and rested his head on Jason's shoulder. "I'm here."
Jason shuddered at the contact, but before Dick could move away Jason sneaked an arm around his waist, holding him in an awkward embrace. Dick freed their hands to return the hug. "Take a deep breath, Jay," he murmured, sliding his hands under Jason’s jacket, "yeah, like that. Breathe with me."
Jason closed his eyes. A part of his mind kept telling him that something was deeply wrong in letting Dick see him so weak and fragile, on the verge of bottoming out, and probably would never keep quiet.
When anger and fear subsided, and the lump in his throat loosened a little, Jason put his arm around Dick’s shoulder, stopping to pass his fingers through Dick’s hair tousled from the night spent flying on rooftops. He tried a clumsy caress, tangling some tufts of hair between his fingers, trying to replicate what Dick did him just minutes before.
Jason caught a glimpse of Dick’s weak smile and kissed his lips.
Dick broke the kiss, a few moments later. Jason grimaced, searching again for his mouth.
"You want to talk about tonight, Little Wing?" Dick murmured tentatively, again, then got up on his tiptoes to press a light kiss against Jason’s temple.
Jason leaned his forehead against Dick’s, dragging a bit with the idea of not answering, then he tightened his grip around Dick’s shoulders. When Dick kissed him again, on the corner of his mouth, and strengthened his own embrace, Jason started to talk.