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The air in Bludhaven felt different from the air in Gotham.
It was colder, more crisp, but each gust of wind that blew across his skin felt laced with loneliness. The sister city to Gotham was quiet. It was quiet and it felt empty, in a way that was daunting. Like the moment you step over the city limits, a chill is sent down your spine and whispers creep into your mind.
Jason’s bike revved, he kicked up his stand and hit the gas, peeling onto the open road past the massive sign that read:
“Welcome to Bludhaven”
The words bounced off of his vision, instead he was caught up on the spray painted symbol above them. A blue stylized bird silhouette. The same one plastered on seemingly every train car, streetlight post, and brick wall across the entire city. He opted to speed down the streets without his Red Hood helmet. Figured it would cause less of a scene since he was doing his best to be incognito.
His plan was pretty simple. Slip into Nightwing’s apartment, fuck with his psyche a little bit, knock him off his high horse that this city has strung him up on, and then leave.
His real target was Batman. Nightwing was collateral, but that didn’t mean he wanted to make him feel any less guilty.
He should’ve stopped Batman from enforcing the no kill rule, he should’ve stopped him from slapping the Robin suit onto the new kid so quick, and honestly he should’ve went and killed the clown himself.
If it was Dick who had been beaten to death, Bruce would’ve had the Joker six feet under. Jason knew that for a fucking fact.
He snarled, before closing his eyes for a moment, forcing down the pit rage. He could feel his pupils glowing a slight green and shook his head to snap out of it. He wanted to be calm before seeing Nightwing. He wanted to be articulate and cunning. He wanted his words to hurt, not his fists to fly. No matter how hard the pit tried to get him to swing.
His bike turned down a narrow alleyway. It was midnight, so Dickiebird was probably still patrolling this shithole. Somehow, Bludhaven felt worse than Gotham. At least the city streets in Gotham were bathed in neon light and had a false sense of bright security. In Bludhaven, it was dark and the streetlights were a dim yellow. A total contrast to the man he once knew. God, he didn’t know how Mr. Sunshine himself managed to live here.
He ignored the memories threatening to disperse in his mind. The memories of their patrols, eating lunch on the rooftops, and training together, even Dick teaching him how to do a back handspring. He could still feel his hand on his back, spotting his landing-
He tried harder to ignore, slamming the breaks and parking his bike against a brick wall hidden amongst the shadows. His guns remained holstered. He was Red Hood from the neck down and the dead Wayne boy from the neck up. Jason would never be able to forget reading those god awful tabloids when he was resurrected, pictures of his headstone and his funeral plastered across the front pages. Dick hadn’t even bothered to show up.
He gritted his teeth, craning his neck to look up at the fire escape to his left, leading straight up to Nightwing’s window. He began his climb. The night was clear so he didn’t have to worry about slipping on rain water. The only reason this place was a step up from Gotham so far.
He observed the window, spotting a small electrode alarm fastened to the outside. He made quick work of it, disarming it by crushing with his palm and tossing it into a nearby dumpster down below. He slid open the glass, slightly concerned that it wasn’t locked but then remembering that Nightwing had to get inside somehow.
He clambered in, less graceful than normal, but inside nonetheless. He ran a hand through his hair, finally taking a good look around after scouting the outside of this place for a month.
It was messy, a stark contrast to Nightwing’s public image, both as a vigilante and as a billionaire’s son.
The window led to the living room, which opens onto the kitchen, connected by a wide counter topped with bar stools. From the living area, someone could lean over the counter into the kitchen, which is partially enclosed by a short wall. A small window in the wall offers a glimpse into the next room, so Dick could see and speak to someone on the other side while cooking or lounging. Not that it seemed probable considering the lack of life of in this place.
The coffee table was covered in files and pictures, all insights and evidence from different cases. Jason didn’t bother to look through them.
The kitchen counter was just as messy, covered in old takeout containers and piles of mail. It was difficult to tell whether Dick spent every waking moment in this place, or if he was barely ever here at all.
Jason walked into the kitchen, his footsteps deadly silent despite the creaking floors, and peered into the fridge. It was practically empty, the guy clearly hadn’t been eating anything that didn’t come out of a box. Jason cringed at the feeling of worry that crept into his chest. He didn’t have space in his mind for worry regarding this asshole.
He left the kitchen, in a mood somehow worse than the one he walked in with, crossed the living room, and made his way to the bathroom. He turned on the light, the flickering bulb casting the room in a dingy yellow. He grimaced at his own reflection, unsure if it was him or the lighting that caused the bags under his eyes to become noticeably darker.
He grabbed the edge of the mirror, pulling it and revealing the storage behind it. Different orange bottles lined the top shelf, mostly pain prescriptions from Dr. Thompkins, and then one for a medication he didn’t recognize. Jason didn’t dwell on it. He poked around at the cabinet beneath the sink, his eyebrows raising at the sheer amount of medical supplies that was stockpiled below the pipes. Bandages, gauze, sutures, saline, anything you could need in a medical situation was likely under there. God there were even forceps. Jason really didn’t want to think about Dick pulling bullets out of his body, but the image forced its way into his mind anyways.
The pit roared in his ears, but the feeling that followed wasn’t rage regarding his so called brother’s indifference to avenging him, but instead the thought that he needed to protect him came to instead. Jason’s face twisted in visible confusion before he shook the feelings away, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm the feeling in his nerves.
He turned off the light, walking out of the bathroom and over to the bedroom. The bed was messy, sheets and blankets strewn about, as if Dick had fought with them and lost. The window was slightly ajar, curtains swaying in the wind. Jason tried to stop himself but physically couldn’t from giving in to the urge, stomping over to the window, shutting, and locking it. He turned around, looking over to the nightstand.
He sat down on the bed, and leaned over to pull open the drawer. There was a flashlight, a few knives, an extra escrima, and a book.
Jason didn’t recognize it right away,
“You start reading the bible when I died, Dickiebird?” he scoffed, grabbing it and turning it over to read the cover.
Oliver Twist
He almost dropped the novel in surprise. His favorite. Jason sighed. He always thought of Bruce as his Mr. Brownlow, the the kind man who gives Oliver security and stability, even love.
It’s insane how wrong he was.
He opened the front cover, more surprised to see his own handwriting. His name written in big letters under the title page. His copy.
He ran his fingers across the marker, breathing out before closing the book and putting it back into the drawer. He put both hands onto the bed in a movement to stand, before he heard a crinkling sound beneath the covers. He stopped mid-motion, landing back onto the mattress with a bounce before lifting up the pillow. An upside down polaroid photo. Jason picked it up, the photo small in his large gloved hands, turning it over.
He felt his heart drop into his stomach.
The photo was of him and Dick, the older had his arm around his shoulders, a gleaming smile practically twinkling with the camera flash. Little Jason had an annoyed look on his face, tongue sticking out with his arms crossed. He remembered this night. It was the beginning of their first ever solo patrol without Batman. Dick had been hellbent on capturing the moment. Written in pen on the white border read, “Brothers” with an insignificant date, sometime during the summer before Jason’s death.
He stared at it for a moment, taking in each element of the photo before his eyes started to glow green with the familiar rage. He slipped the photo back beneath the pillow.
His stomach grumbled a little bit. He stood, walking towards the kitchen. He felt that he had a right to help himself, thinking of it as a “I ignored my brother’s death and did nothing to stop what came after” tax.
He opened and closed different cabinets, searching for literally anything to eat and finding a box of saltines. Possibly the most bland snack of all time but it would do. He crunched on the crackers, careful not to leave any crumbs in his wake, attempting to leave no trace. He didn’t want Dick to catch on before he could properly reveal himself.
In the midst of his snacking, he watched through the connecting opening in the wall, the window into the living room being slid open. He froze, putting down the box of crackers and stopping his chewing immediately. Nightwing wasn’t supposed to be back for at least another hour or two. It was only half past midnight.
He watched as the black suited figure placed a hand on the sill and hoisted himself inside, practically falling through the window. Well, not practically, he actually did fall through the window. He groaned after landing on his back, the impact sent his skull bouncing off the floor most likely. Jason didn’t want to move and risk blowing his cover and he couldn’t see Nightwing over the countertop.
It wasn’t long before the vigilante’s arm appeared, grabbing onto the top of the couch and pulling himself up. He stumbled slightly, favoring one leg as he loudly shut the window. He turned towards Jason, looking down at his leg. Jason was so focused on his bloodied face, that he barely noticed the blade handle sticking out of his thigh.
His eyes went wide, he almost moved, almost lunged to help him, but remembered what he came here for. He stood still, not intervening.
Nightwing, despite turning fully towards Jason, payed no attention to the entire kitchen area. He ripped off the domino mask: throwing it across the room, it landed on the floor with a slight fwap after bouncing off the wall.
Jason just watched in disbelief, first at his lack of situational awareness, second at his carelessness, third at his lack of understanding when it came to clearly serious injuries.
Dick stumbled into back of the couch, his right arm catching himself from falling while his left pinched his bleeding nose. He must’ve been punched or hit with blunt force. The blood literally poured down his face, his teeth red and his suit growing muddy from the newfound wetness.
He pushed off the couch, limping into the far wall where his domino mask hit, using it to stabilize himself before limping straight into the bathroom. From where Jason was standing, he had practically a full view of the man. Dick didn’t bother closing the door, he figured he was home alone anyways.
He fell against the sink, his arms grasping either side of the bowl as he tilted his head up to look into the mirror.
Jason couldn’t describe the look that Dick had given to himself.
It was a mix of disgust, and grief, and devastation. It made his heart twist into a knot. He continued to stare, frozen, not knowing what to do, or whether he should reveal his presence or not.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden sob coming from the opposite end of the apartment. Dick’s head hung low between his shaking shoulders. Sobs tore through his throat, tears mixing with the blood coating the lower half of his face.
This wasn’t the Dick he knew. The Dick he knew was golden. Gotham’s golden boy and crown prince behind the king Bruce Wayne. Dick was the light to everyone’s darkness. He spun his life from thread into gold and appeared effortlessly untouchable. Jason had always been so fucking jealous. Dick was everything he wanted to be. He was practically perfect in everyone’s eyes. Dick Grayson could do no wrong.
Dick Grayson was perfect. Yet, Dick Grayson was alone. And Dick Grayson was sobbing in his apartment.
Dick Grayson was broken.
Jason grimaced, watching as his older brother positioned himself to sit on the edge of the bathtub. He opened the cabinet beneath the sink and reached for a clean towel, gauze, and sutures.
Dick Grayson was alone and stitching himself up from a major stab wound in his apartment instead of a hospital.
The pit roared louder than ever before.
He watched as he grasped the handle of the knife, taking a few deep breaths with his eyes squeezed shut. Jason felt like he was going to puke. He grabbed it, stilling for a moment, and then ripped it out as quickly as he could. He held back a scream, the towel quickly being shoved between his teeth so he could bite down onto something.
His shoulders continued to shake with tears, quiet hiccups escaping as he removed the towel, pressing it down onto the wound.
Jason stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning his head against the wall. Despite having the physical ability to help, he felt completely powerless. Dick couldn’t take seeing him right now.
Dick’s head tilted forward with the likely nauseating pain, the blood from his nose dripping all over the now blood soaked towel. He removed it, blood still flowing slightly from the wound, and began to peel off his Nightwing suit. He had on a white undershirt and boxers underneath, the suit being off giving him more access to his leg.
He grabbed the gauze and started to pack the wound, wrapping his leg in tight medical tape. He stood after, nearly falling back down from the dizziness of blood loss, but ultimately steadying himself on the sink. He stood with his eyes closed, pinching his nose shut in an attempt to stop the blood. He started with his head tilted back, before tilting it forward, and then back again, as if he couldn’t remember which way he was meant to do it. Jason held back a scoff.
After a few minutes the bleeding from his nose stopped and he used a damp rag to wipe the blood off his face. He bent down, allowing the flowing water to enter his mouth, he swished around, before spitting into the sink, the water running red.
He stumbled over to the toilet and sat on the closed lid, removing the gauze from his wound and grabbing his suture kit. Jason watched as he stitched himself up.
He wanted to stay angry, wanted to feel the rage in the thought that Dick had moved on from his death. That he had forgotten about him. But watching him cry, watching him stitch himself up alone while Jason’s favorite book lay in his nightstand, and a photo of the two of them sit under his pillow, he couldn’t.
The pit had died in his brain. It had gone completely silent for a moment and Jason had almost forgotten what the world had felt like without it.
Dick stood up, looking into the mirror one last time. His eyes gazed away from his own features and met Jason’s, standing in the kitchen doorway, frozen.
Jason stared into the mirror into Dick’s eyes. And to his surprise, Dick just smiled. He bowed his head slightly, leaving the bathroom, and walking into the bedroom, not sparing a second glance. As if Jason were never there.
He knew that he saw him.
Why didn’t he react?
He just smiled as if Jason were an old friend he passed on the street.
———
Jason spent the night sitting awake on Nightwing’s couch. He sat there, silently. Back rigid as his hands remained crossed in front of him.
He couldn’t stop thinking of the look in his brother’s eyes when he saw him. The recognition was clear, and yet they didn’t narrow or widen. They remained completely still, as if his dead brother was constantly standing in his kitchen doorway.
He wanted to leave, pretend that none of this ever happened, but he couldn’t. He felt like he was trapped in his tiny apartment. It felt like his boots moved themselves and his hands had a mind of their own as they cleaned up the bloody mess that Dick left in the bathroom. He washed the towels in the sink, wiped up the drippings of blood that were all over the floor, and threw away the old gauze and needles used to stitch his wound. Then he sat down, where he remained for the rest of the night.
He was going to do a big reveal, step out from the shadows come morning, but then Dick stumbled out of the bedroom an hour before sunrise. Jason’s head snapped to the left, watching as Dick stopped in his tracks.
The man was exhausted, his eyebags a deep shade of purple, his blue plaid pajama pants low on his hips as he ran a nervous hand through his hair.
“You haven’t been here in a while.” he said, voice still groggy with sleep, his eyes squinted at the figure on his couch.
Jason’s brows furrowed, “What?”
“Come on, get it over with. Tell me how I’m not enough and that I should’ve saved you like you always do.” he said, annoyance lacing his voice as he rubbed at his eyes, passing Jason and heading for the kitchen instead. He watched in disbelief as Dick opened a cabinet, pulling out a box of cereal and casually pouring it into a bowl.
“What are you talking about right now?”
“Oh great, you’re evolving.” Dick said, emotionless. He sighed, sitting behind the counter and pouring some milk into the bowl, beginning to eat it slowly with a spoon he grabbed from the sink.
Jason didn’t even know what to say anymore, he just stared, his entire face scrunched in confusion as he stood from the couch, walked over to the counter and sat on the other side of the wall.
“What, you think I’m just a ghost in your head?” Jason spat, frustrated at his lack of reaction.
“That’s exactly what you are Little Wing, go back to being normal, this is weird.” he said slowly, spooning more cereal in his mouth.
Jason genuinely couldn’t believe his eyes or his ears or any of his senses frankly. The pit stirred, his eyes glowed a tint of green as he pulled the gun from his holster, almost out of instinct. He pointed it straight at Dick’s forehead.
“Is this real enough to you?” he clicked off the safety, standing from his seat as his chest rose and fell heavier than before. Dick just sighed, dumping his now soggy cereal into the sink, and standing from his seat, walking past Jason and towards the bathroom again.
Jason couldn’t stop himself, he pulled the trigger, the bullet whizzing right behind Dick’s neck as he ducked from the sound. The bullet embedding itself in the drywall behind his head.
He stared in disbelief at the hole for a moment, before snapping his head towards him.
“Jason?”
“Yeah, asshole I’ve been standing here the entire fucking time.”
He took a second, looking him up and down, taking all of it in before stepping closer. He reached out a hand, laying one on Jason’s shoulder, shocked that it didn’t phase right through. With the same hand, he pulled Jason’s shoulder towards him, hugging him with a deadly force. Jason didn’t return it, still trying to register that Dick genuinely thought that he was a hallucination. He stepped back,
“How?”
“Lazarus Pit.”
“My god.” he choked out, a hand reaching up to cover his mouth while he looked at his little brother, recognition striking in a different way when looking at his uniform.
“You’re Red Hood aren’t you?”
Jason hesitated, “…Guilty.”
Then suddenly, Dick laughed? It started with a few giggles, and then it dissolved into full belly laughter, tears streaming down his face as he clutched his stomach. Jason didn’t know how he was meant to react, but the maddening laughter suddenly turned to sobs. He could barely take his older brother crying in pain, let alone crying in pure relief and grief all at once.
When he finally finished he turned and went to sit on the couch, letting Jason fully leave his line of sight.
He was shocked at the amount of trust that Dick had for him, even after learning that he was the guy who had been fucking with him for literal months.
“You know what’s messed up? I was more ready to believe my own brain was broken than believe you were alive.”
“Guess that says a lot about me.” Jason said, bitter and sharp.
“No, Little Wing. That says a lot about what I lost.”
The silence lingers. Jason shifts, restless, hands flexing like he doesn’t know whether to reach for his gun or his brother , “You shouldn’t trust me. You realize that, right? After everything I’ve done.”
Dick lets out a humorless laugh, rubbing at his temples, “Oh, I don’t trust you. Not one bit. But… you’re here. And for today, that’s enough.”
Jason studies him, jaw tight, like he wants to argue, but the pit in his chest twists into something softer, something he doesn’t have words for. Dick leans back on the couch, eyes half-closed, speaking like he’s on the edge of collapse.
“Stay, don’t stay. Put a bullet in me if you want. I can feel you reaching for the gun. Just… don’t disappear again.”
Part of him wanted to scream, to shove Dick against the wall and demand why it had taken so long to recognize him, why his existence had seemed more like a hallucination than a return from the dead. But beneath that anger, sharp and familiar from the Lazarus Pit, there was something else: a hollow ache, a raw, twisting hurt that he didn’t want to admit even to himself. Dick had thought he was a ghost, and that thought cut deeper than any bullet ever could. He wanted to storm out, to prove that he didn’t need his brother’s approval, but another part of him trembled with the desperate longing to stay, to be seen, to feel that hug again, even if he didn’t know how to respond. Vulnerability clawed at him like a caged animal, showing it would feel like weakness, yet hiding it was heavier than he could bear. He was furious and relieved, alive yet still feeling unseen, trapped in the impossible knot of being Red Hood and still just Jason, Dick’s little brother.
He took a moment, staring at the back of Dick’s head, and then at the Nightwing suit he had folded a few hours prior, and then at the mess of a kitchen, and finally at the living picture of the way that his death had wrecked his brother’s life.
Despite the inhuman anger that raged at his core, despite the paranoia lurking in his mind. His heart won.
“I’ll stay.”