it's a long climb up the dusty mountain

Chapter 6: Day 6 (Jason)

Somehow, a quick patrol through Blüdhaven’s criminal underbelly turns into a grocery run.

Jason did not plan for this to happen. Jason does not plan for a lot of the things that happen in his life. But somewhere around 6 a.m., just as the sky is turning grey, Jason passes by a little neighborhood grocery and remembers the inside of Dick’s fridge. It’s not empty—Dick never lets his fridge get all the way to empty—but the assortment of food inside is completely random, and Dick is almost out of a lot of things. Maybe he wasn’t planning to bring the kids home so soon. Maybe he hasn’t had time to get groceries this week.

Jason has time. Jason has all the time in the world. And the store is right there.

He gets back to Dick’s apartment with several reusable bags—because Red Hood cares about the environment—dangling from his arms. It’s a juggling act to get his key out of his inside pocket and unlock the door, but he manages to let himself in without dropping anything.

Two pairs of eyes lock onto him from across the room.

Jason stops, just inside the door. Damian narrows his eyes; little Jay does the opposite. After a second, his wide blue eyes slide away, but then he keeps darting little glances at Jason, like he’s trying not to get caught.

Dickie did a similar thing last night.

Jason wonders what the penalty for making eye contact was, with their Bruce.

His knuckles itch.

“Todd,” Damian says, with all the warmth of a general greeting one of his soldiers.

“Damian.” Jason moves past them, into the kitchen, and sets down his bags. He unpacks the oat milk, the soy milk, the eggs, and the orange juice, and starts loading them into the fridge.

“Why do you call him that?” Jay murmurs.

“Because that is his name,” Damian answers. His voice is noticeably softer, and Jason turns away to hide a smile.

“But…” Jay hesitates. “Are you just gonna call us both the same thing?”

“You have the same name.”

“Everyone else calls me Jay…”

“Is that what you want to be called?”

The next bag has the canned goods, mostly different kinds of soup. Jason opens up the pantry—a narrow closet between the kitchen and the hallway—and finds a disaster zone.

Good grief, Dick. He pulls out an open bag of chips, which does not have any chips in it, but several similarly open bags of dry beans. This is embarrassing.

“Where were we?” Damian says, on the other side of the pantry door. Jason raises his head.

“Um… that one.” Jay is almost whispering now, but he doesn’t sound scared.

“Willow,” Damian says. “Female domestic shorthair. She is friendly, affectionate, and playful.”

“She’s pretty,” Jay says.

“Tt. She is also up to date on her vaccinations, spayed, and house-trained. A worthy candidate.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jason shuts the pantry door, bringing himself face-to-face with the kids. Damian has his smartphone out, showing Jay something on the screen; he tilts it to hide from Jason.

“None of your business,” Damian says.

“Yeah, it kind of is. Seeing as how I’m one half of your adult supervision.”

“We’re looking at cats,” Jay says, with a worried look at Damian, and then one at Jason. He still won’t make eye contact. “He’s showing me…”

Damian lifts his chin. “T—Jay expressed interest in adopting a cat. I’m showing him some of the local options.”

“We can stop,” Jay says.

“No, that’s okay,” Jason says, at the same time Damian says, “No we will not.”

Jay darts a glance at each of them.

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Damian says, with a nasty glare at Jason. “We have no reason to stop. We are not finished.”

“Right,” Jason says. “It’s fine. It was just a question.”

“I don’t remember asking you, Todd.”

Jason bites his tongue.

Do not snap at the child. Do not snap at the child. Damian can take anything Jason might throw at him, up to and including physical violence, but Jay can’t. Jay still sees him as a threat.

“Right,” he says. He turns away from Damian’s glare, deliberately putting his back to the kids, and goes back to the hurricane aftermath in the pantry.

The bathroom door opens.

“What’s going on?” a hushed voice says.

Dickie.

“Nothing, it’s fine,” Jay says. “Damian’s showing me cats.”

A few minutes of silence follow. Maybe they’re having some kind of nonverbal conversation, or maybe the kids are just looking at pictures of cats. Jason finds a box of pancake mix (gluten free) and gingerly peers inside.

He finds a bag of pancake mix.

Well, how about that.

“Who wants pancakes?”

Jason leaves the pantry and goes through the motions of assembling milk and eggs, pulling out a pan, opening and closing cupboards until he finds a set of measuring cups. He doesn’t look back at the kids until he has a double helping of the powdered mix in a bowl and the rest of the ingredients ready to go.

He finds Dickie and Jay sitting at the counter and Damian just climbing onto a stool next to them. Dickie watches him with a pleasant, carefully blank expression fixed on his face.

“Pancakes would be lovely,” he says, so polite it makes Jason’s teeth ache.

“Pancakes it is,” he says, and he starts mixing.

Mixing is good. The sweeping, repetitive motion gives him something to think about besides the look on Dickie’s face. The cheerful, empty look in Dickie’s eyes.

Jason whips the batter so it almost sloshes out of the bowl. Almost, but not quite. He reigns it in at the last second. He keeps it under control.

Jay watches him. He looks blank, too, but Jason can see sparks of curiosity behind the mask. Maybe Jay hasn’t quite mastered it—shutting himself off like that—or maybe Jason knows his own face better.

“Is there milk?” Jay says. “In the pancakes?”

“Jay,” Dickie murmurs. Jay ducks his head.

“Sorry,” he says, in Jason’s general direction. “Sorry.”

“’S fine,” Jason says. Stop that. Don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for. He wants to say all of those things, and he wants just as badly not to scare the kids. They’re touchy. Fragile. They’re already out on a limb, extending a dangerous trust, just by sitting in the same room with him. “There’s soy milk.” Jason holds the carton up. “That okay with you?”

“Yes, yes sir,” Jay says. He nods, and now the veiled look on his face is hopeful, and it makes something twist in Jason’s gut. “That’s good. Thank you.”

“Don’t call me that,” Jason says. “You don’t have to. I’m just… you. Remember?”

Jay nods. He watches Jason for another minute. Then he says, “Do you have vi-til-i-go?”

Jason frowns. “Vitiligo? No, it’s…”

He doesn’t actually know why he came out of the Pit with a white streak in his hair. The Lazarus Pit was supposed to fix him, to repair his battered brain and body. It did more than that—it reversed the effects of malnutrition, gave him an extra foot of height, and hard-reset his body to peak physical health. It also gave him a skunk stripe and eyes that practically glow in the dark. A permanent reminder, maybe, of where that health came from.

“I don’t know what it is,” Jason says, “exactly.” He has to be honest. If he lies, the kids will never trust him again. “It could be from head trauma. Or stress. But I don’t know for sure.”

“Head trauma?” Jay says.

“Jay,” Dickie says again.

“Hey,” Jason says. “You remember what we said about questions?”

“Questions are allowed,” Jay says. “Always, about anything, across the board. You—can’t always answer, but it’s always okay to ask.”

That’s what Dick said, yesterday, during the apartment-ground-rules talk. It’s exactly what he said, almost word for word. Jay rattles it off in a single breath and then looks at Jason out of the corner of his eye. Like he doesn’t know how Jason will react. Like he’s nervous.

Jason wonders when he learned to retain information that way. To regurgitate it, almost word for word, on command. He wonders if that was ever good enough for their Bruce.

“Good,” he says. If his voice sounds a little off, a little strained, no one here is going to mention it. “Remember that. You can ask whatever you want. Doesn’t bother me.”

He can’t tell if the kids believe him. They don’t ask any questions after that. Jason mixes the batter, opens drawers until he finds a ladle, and pours the batter over a hot pan. He makes the pancakes small, so they’re easier to eat, so the kids have more control over portions. So they’re less likely to have food left over on their plates.

The bready-sweet smell of box mix pancakes fills the kitchen. Damian starts up his shelter cat slideshow again, murmuring in the background. Pale sunlight slips through the window over the sink, illuminating swirls of dust.

It’s… nice. Peaceful.

Then a door opens, somewhere out of sight. Footsteps pace through the hallway.

Jason takes a deep breath.

“Good morning!” Dick Grayson, the real Dick Grayson, Nightwing, swings into the kitchen. He’s already smiling, but Jason sees his gaze dart across the room, from Damian to the kids to Jason himself, placing them all in relation to each other. “It smells good in here.”

“Pancakes,” Jason grits out, mostly to avoid the kids having to say anything. “You always get up this late?”

“Mm-hm.” Dick peers over at the batter sizzling in the pan. “Do those have flour in them?”

“No,” Jason snaps. “They’re gluten free, because I made them with your pancake mix. Which is gluten free.”

Dick squints at him. “I don’t have any pancake mix.”

Jason crosses the kitchen in two steps to grab the box from the counter. He waves it in Dick’s face. “Then what’s this? Money laundering?”

“Oh,” Dick says brightly. “That pancake mix. I forgot about that.”

Before yesterday, it was weeks since Jason and Dick last saw each other. Months since they talked for more than a few minutes, exchanging information on a rooftop or over a secure line. And in that time apart, Jason realizes, he made a fatal tactical error.

He forgot how fucking annoying Dick can be.

“Shut the fuck up,” he says—in his mildest tone, because he still has the kids behind him, watching every move. “If you’re gonna be in here, make yourself useful, get the toppings out.”

“Sure,” Dick says.

He moves around Jason, fluid and sure-footed as ever. He grabs a jar of peanut butter from the pantry, raspberry, strawberry, apricot jam, and whipped cream from the fridge.

“Juice, too,” Jason says.

Dick opens the fridge. “Oh, that’s new,” he says.

Jason snorts. “So you forgot about the pancake mix, but you have the contents of the fridge memorized?”

“No, really,” Dick says. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t have any fruit juice in here yesterday.”

He turns away from the fridge, smiling, and Jason realizes his mistake a second too late.

“Little wing,” Dick says, grinning like he just won the lottery, “did you go grocery shopping for me?”

He’s trapped. What is he going to say—no? Damian and Jay saw him come in with the grocery bags. It’s his word against theirs, and even Jason has to admit that this is a stupid reason to paint a child as an unreliable witness.

He turns to the stove instead. “Someone had to,” he says. He flips the next batch of pancakes. “You were out of milk. And everything else.”

“Aw, little wing, you do care.”

The worst part is that Jason can’t even snap at him. If he snaps, he’ll be the bad guy. He settles for spiking a pancake onto the plate.

“I have a question,” Dickie says, very softly.

“Go ahead,” Dick says.

“Is there coffee?”

“No, sorry,” Dick says. Big Dick? Jason grimaces at the stove. “We have tea.”

“Oh. Tea would… be good.”

“What do you like?” Dick, the older one, grabs a little basket out of the cabinet next to the fridge. “Let’s see, I have lemon, chamomile, lemon chamomile, lemon ginseng, lemon rose, blueberry, lavender, mint…”

“Black tea?”

“Here’s some. Decaf, is that alright?”

“Oh.” For a second Dickie seems on the verge of asking for something else, but all he says is, “Yes, thank you.”

Dick—Nightwing—puts the kettle on and grabs a mug from the cabinet and hands it to Dickie with the little tea bag wrapped in paper. “Do you want sugar? Or milk?”

“Sugar?” Dickie says. So hesitant, about everything.

“Dick. Juice,” Jason says. Then, “Did you take your meds?”

“I will when I eat.”

“You always eat this late?”

“Only when I have you to look after me,” Dickwing says. Jason glares.

“Meds?” little Jay says.

Dickie looks up from his mug. “Jay,” he murmurs, but the mask is slipping. Jason sees something like curiosity, and something like fear, on Dickie’s face.

“My medication,” Dickwing says. His voice is casual, but Jason can hear him choosing each word with care. “Dextroamphetamine, mostly. For ADHD.”

“Oh,” Jay says. Like he didn’t expect an answer. Dickie’s expression cracks, and he looks down at the counter to hide his face. Jay leans up against his arm.

“Richard,” Damian says loudly. “The juice.”

“Alright, alright.” Dickwing slides around Jason, back to the fridge. He doesn’t look at the kids, but his attention stays on them as he moves. “Let’s see, we have apple, orange, and—ooh, guava.”

Little Jay looks over. His eyes linger on the guava juice.

Aha. Jason turns to the stove, smiling a little. He had the same reaction when he saw the juice on the corner store shelf. The textured glass jar, the bright label—he remembered.

It was years and years ago. At the community center in Crime Alley, before it shut down. There was some kind of Latinx night, and things hadn’t gotten bad yet, so they went. Mom wore a nice dress, Dad slicked his hair back, and both of them were sober. And they had fun.

He remembers his parents twirling each other across the dance floor, laughing under bright lights. He remembers coloring a flag on printer paper, red stripes and a blue triangle and a lopsided star. Catherine taped it up in their window later. And he remembers the tangy-syrupy-sweet taste of guava juice, bright pink in a white paper cup. He was so little. Catherine must have poured it for him.

It’s a good memory. And Jason doesn’t have many of those anymore. He bought the guava juice.

“I was thinking we could go out today,” Dickwing says. He pours three cups of juice—two orange, one guava—with the ease of practice. “Groceries are covered, thank you, Jason, but we should still pick up some toiletries. Soap, laundry detergent, extra toothbrushes. That stuff. And anything else we think of along the way.”

“Who’s pickin’ up the tab for all that?” Jason says.

“I can handle it,” Dickwing says. “Though you’re welcome to pitch in if you want.” Jason snorts. Dickwing looks up at the kids. “How does that sound?”

Jay stares back at him. Damian is back to scrolling on his phone, apparently uninterested in this conversation. Dickie looks down at the counter with one hand propped against his face.

“Um,” Jay says. He keeps glancing sideways at Dickie. “Th—that’s okay. We have… stuff.”

“I know,” Dickwing says. “But that’s going to run out, and I want to be prepared. And I want you to have things that are just yours, that you don’t have to share.”

“Okay.” Jay’s voice is barely audible.

“We don’t have to go today,” Jason says.

“But—but some other day, right?” Jay says. Now his eyes dart between the two of them, the two adults in the room. He could not more obviously be running a threat assessment. “We’d still have to go?”

“At some point,” Dickwing says. “There’s no rush.”

“We can go.” Dickie lifts his head. His voice is suddenly lower than before, the rough warble of a teenager trying to hold back tears. His face is perfectly blank. “Today. Today’s fine.” He puts his arm around Jay—just for a minute, but it says something, Jason thinks, that he’s willing to make such an obvious move.

“Okay,” Dickwing says. “Today, then. And tomorrow we can all stay in and relax.”

Jason turns the stove off with a flick of his wrist. He doesn’t look at the kids anymore. Neither of them is okay. That much is obvious. Dick knows, he must, he’s not stupid—but there’s not a lot any of them can do, short of asking, and no one wants to open that can of worms.

He moves the pan off the heat. He puts the bowl in the sink. He turns to put a heaping plate of pancakes on the breakfast bar.

“Take as many as you want,” he says.

⁂

Every time Jason visits Blüdhaven, he remembers why he doesn’t visit Blüdhaven.

Dick insists that they take the subway downtown to do their shopping. This is unexpected, because the last four times Jason was in this godforsaken city, the subway was flooded and totally unusable. Apparently it’s fixed now. They make it all the way to the 39th Street station before the car lights start flickering and the LED display warns that service past this point may be interrupted.

They get off at 39th Street.

Midtown is a collection of small shops and apartments rising high overhead. Upper floors jut out over the street, trying to maximize square footage as much as possible. The streets form a grid, except where they don’t; Dick seems to know every side street that cuts diagonally across their path.

He steers them to a little clothing and tailor shop, the kind of place that might get a lot of business during the tourist season. It’s empty now.

“Here’s a good place!”

Dickie and Jay shuffle in after him, followed by Damian, absorbed in his phone, and Jason brings up the rear. “You guys needed socks, right?”

“Wool socks,” Dickie says quietly. “You said.”

“I did,” Dickwing says. “It gets cold here. Do you want to pick them out yourselves, or have one of us do it?”

Both of them hesitate. It’s a physical motion—they go still, like they’re trying to hide without moving. Like they’re bracing to get hit.

“We’ll go,” Dickie says. His gaze darts from Dickwing to Jason, but he sounds sure.

“Great,” Dick says. “I want you to pick out three pairs each, okay? There should be plenty of options here, but if you can’t find any you like, that’s fine—there are plenty of other stores. Worst case scenario, we’ll order it online.”

Dickie nods. He takes Jay’s hand, and then stops, as if waiting for something.

Waiting to be dismissed.

Dickwing must realize the same moment Jason does. His smile fades, but all he says is, “Ready? Break.”

Dickie pulls Jay along into the store. Damian follows them, still feigning disinterest.

Jason watches them go. His mouth tastes bitter.

“Could’ve just ordered online to start with.”

“They need some time outside,” Dick says. “God knows they’ve been cooped up inside long enough. We’re not doing that. I want them to see the city.”

“You should take them to the library,” Jason says. “Jay would like that.”

“Or you could,” Dick says.

Jason’s brain throws up an image of him walking the kids to the library. Showing them around and helping them pick out books. Chatting with the librarians over checkout, swapping recommendations. Getting the kids to smile.

“I don’t have a library card,” he says.

“Oh,” Dick says. Like he didn’t think of that. Like he forgot that Jason is still legally dead. “...You could use mine.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jason says. He goes in after the kids.

He finds them not far from the door, looking at a selection of wool socks. Dickie already has three identical pairs in his arms; Jay has none.

“Just pick some,” Dickie says, as Jason moves into earshot.

He doesn’t approach. He ducks into another section and keeps his distance.

“But I don’t need—” Jay says.

“It doesn’t matter,” Dickie says. It sounds like he wants to shush Jay—like he’s trying to keep him quiet. “Just pick something.”

“I don’t want any,” Jay says.

“Well, too bad.” Dickie looks over his shoulder—Jason ducks behind a shelf—and grabs three pairs of socks, seemingly at random. He shoves them into Jay’s arms. “There. Done.”

Something twists in Jason’s gut.

He knows why Dick brought them here. He knows what Dick is trying to do: prove to the kids that they’ll be taken care of, that they don’t have to fend for themselves. Wool socks are a small thing. They’re not a necessity, and they are a little more expensive than plain cotton. But they’re more comfortable, in the grey cold of early spring. The socks here are soft and colorful and unique. They’re a nice thing to have.

But they’re not a necessity. Jason also knows how hard it is—was—for him to justify spending money on anything nonessential.

He remembers the worry. Always crawling under his skin.

Their next stop is a used bookstore down the street. The building is deeper than it looks; the shelves stretch away into the depths.

They step inside, and then linger on the doormat for a moment. The kids don’t seem to know what to do without explicit instructions. Damian just seems bored.

“You can look around if you want,” Dick says. “We have time.”

Dickie moves a little further into the shop, with Jay at his side, but it doesn’t look like his heart is in it. Dick has never been a dedicated reader—at least since Jason has known him.

He wonders if it was different, in the other dimension. He wonders if the kids will ever trust them enough to openly express an interest.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” the woman behind the counter says.

“Poetry,” Damian says.

“Oh,” the woman says. She tries not to laugh. “I see. What kind of poetry?”

Jason looks over, and the kids are gone.

His heart rate spikes. He looks around again, but Dickie and Jay are nowhere to be seen. They didn’t go out the front door—even they aren’t quiet enough for that—so they must have gone deeper into the shop.

“Is there a back door?” he says, interrupting Damian.

The woman blinks at him. “Yes,” she says slowly. “Well, there’s a fire exit in the back, but we don’t really use it for—”

Jason doesn’t stop to thank her. He plunges into the stacks, into rows of tall and leaning bookshelves that block out the thin fluorescent light.

He lost them. In the space of a few seconds, he lost track of the kids. He forgot that they have the same training he does, the same skill for misdirection and a quick exit. Robins are escape artists. He forgot that these kids are Robins, too—a different breed, for sure, but Robins all the same. He took his eyes off them for a second, and he lost them.

He doesn’t find them at the back of the store. The fire exit is just a door with a lighted sign—there’s no alarm, nothing that would sound off if the door opened. They’re already gone. They’re out in Blüdhaven. Alone. How far could they get in a minute? Two minutes?

He hears voices a few shelves over.

“I don’t want to.”

“Just for a minute. We’re just looking.”

“I don’t want to look!”

Jay’s voice. And Dickie’s. Relief crashes through Jason’s nervous system. They didn’t run away. They’re here. They’re still in the bookstore. They’re safe.

“He said we should look around,” Dickie says, in a familiar instructive tone. Listen to me. I’m older, I know best. “You don’t have to get anything, but—”

“But we should do as he says, right?” Jay’s voice is bitter.

Jason feels that sharp twist in his gut again.

For a few seconds, they’re quiet. Jason creeps closer, into the Mythology & Folklore section. He tucks himself into a corner, behind the shelves. He can’t see the kids. They shouldn’t be able to see him.

Then Dickie says, “You’re being stupid.” His voice is cold. He sounds nothing like the kid Jason met yesterday. “You need to stop.”

“Why? So they’ll keep being nice?”

“Yes,” Dickie says. “So they’ll keep us. Away from him.”

This time the twist feels a little like nausea.

“Like it’s any better here,” Jay mutters.

“Don’t say that,” Dickie snaps. “Don’t you dare.”

Jason has heard enough. He slips out of Mythology & Folklore and heads back to the front of the store. Damian is still talking to the woman at the counter; Dick is watching the stacks. He catches Jason’s eye.

“We should go,” Jason says.

“Something happen?”

Jason shakes his head. “They’re just,” he says, and then he stops. He doesn’t know how to say it. “It’s not helping.”

Dick seems to understand. He heads into the stacks and comes back a minute later with the kids in tow. They don’t look upset. Dickie even gives the cashier a shy smile.

Damian leaves with a book of poems by Countee Cullen. Dickie and Jay don’t ask for anything.

They stop at a corner store for the toiletries, and Dick handles that. He grabs a few extra toothbrushes, body wash and shampoo, deodorant, and laundry detergent. They’re in and out in less than fifteen minutes.

They head back toward Dick’s apartment. They walk ten blocks. They’re only a few blocks away when Damian spots an animal shelter on the other side of the street. He’s inside before anyone can stop him.

“Damian!”

Dick goes in after him, and the kids follow after Dick, so Jason goes in too, into the narrow lobby that smells like dog fur and kitty litter. There are a few other people inside, a father with two children, an older woman, and the volunteer behind the desk.

“Damian,” Dick says. “No.”

“Jay said he wanted—” Damian starts.

“No I didn’t,” Jay snaps. “Shut up.”

“Earlier,” Damian says, not to be deterred, “Jay implied that he would also like to have a cat.”

“Damian, we’ve talked about this,” Dick says. “You don’t live here anymore. You can’t just get a cat and leave it in my apartment.”

“Don’t you already have cats,” Jason says, “like, six of ’em? Back—”

Home is the wrong word, so he should say at the manor, but he doesn’t want to remind anyone what happened last time they were at the manor. So the end of that sentence never comes out.

“Caring for an animal is therapeutic,” Damian says. “It can improve mental health and even aid in recovery—”

“We’re not there yet,” Dick says flatly. Jason is suddenly aware of the other people in the lobby. “It’s a good idea, Dami, but not yet. We’re taking things one step at a time. Remember?”

“This is one of the steps,” Damian says.

He won’t back down. He’s as stubborn as his father, with none of Bruce’s strategy in a fight.

“It’s fine,” Jay says. He’s curling in on himself again. “It’s fine, it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” Damian says. “This morning you said—”

“I didn’t say that,” Jay snaps, with a quick frightened look at Dick. “I just said I—I like cats ’cause you asked, and—you said we were just looking—”

Jason looks up and realizes that Dickie is gone. Again.

His heart kicks up. He checks doors and corners, automatically, and before he has time to panic he spots a familiar dark head at the other end of the lobby. Dickie sits next to the old lady, bending over a cardboard box on her lap.

Jason breathes out. He didn’t run. He just moved away from the group. And no one noticed. He must have a lot of practice staying out of sight, Jason thinks. Then he feels a little sick.

Damian and Jay are still bickering. Jason steps away from them. He moves on the balls of his feet, near-silently across the linoleum floor. Dickie doesn’t seem to hear him.

There are kittens in the box. Jason hears the high-pitched squeaks a second before he sees the writhing mass of black and white fur. Four, five, six of them, climbing all over each other and trying to escape the cardboard.

“They’re so small,” Dickie murmurs.

“Six weeks old,” the woman says. “I’d take them myself, poor things, but I can’t possibly take care of them all. Their mama is enough trouble on her own.”

Dickie reaches into the box and lifts a kitten out of the pile. It’s all black, except for a tiny patch of white on its forehead. It meows at him.

“Do they have names?” Dickie says.

“Nicknames,” the woman says. “That’s Spot.”

Dickie moves the kitten in close to his body. It meows again and twists to dig its tiny claws into the sleeve of his sweatshirt. He laughs.

Jason’s heart melts right out of his chest.

Dickie looks up. He looks straight into Jason’s eyes. He goes still—except he cradles the kitten closer against his chest. He shields it with his hands.

“Hey,” Jason says. He moves sideways. He moves over to the woman’s other side and sits down in one of the plastic chairs.

Dickie watches him.

“Hello,” the woman says. She smiles.

Jason doesn’t know what to do. He wants to put Dickie at ease, like he was a minute ago, focused on the kitten. He wants Dickie to laugh again. It doesn’t sound like it did last night. It’s a short breath, higher at the end, and a flash of light that makes his eyes crinkle just for a second. It feels impossibly precious.

“Do you…” Jason says. He swallows. “Want a kitten?”

Dickie’s face doesn’t change. He doesn’t move at all, but a look of surprise—confusion—flickers in his eyes.

He looks down at the kitten in his arms. He strokes one finger between its ears. Jason knows, with a terrible certainty, that if Dickie says yes, he will move heaven and earth to adopt that kitten. He’ll do whatever it takes.

Then Dickie shudders. “No,” he says. “No. Thank you.” He sets the kitten back in the box. “For letting me pet them.”

“Of course, dear,” the woman says. Dickie gives her a shy smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Jason.” Dickwing waves at them from the door. “We’re leaving.”

Dickie hurries over. Jason follows him, out onto the sidewalk, into the fresh cold air. Damian and Jay are waiting for them at the crosswalk.

“Dick,” Jay says. His face is blank, but he takes Dickie’s hand and walks next to him when they cross the street. Dickie seems indifferent, but he holds onto Jay’s hand.

Every emotion plays out in microexpressions. Every movement is calculated to attract as little attention as possible. They don’t ask for things. They don’t even show interest in things, if they can help it. Jason finds himself staring as they walk down the street, trying to determine if Jay is upset from the way he walks. Trying to tell whether Dickie is holding his hand to humor him or because he, too, is scared.

It’s a ridiculous question. Of course Dickie is scared. He’s been scared since the moment Jason first laid eyes on him. The reasons change from moment to moment, but the fear never goes away. He’s absorbed too much abuse, too much shock and fear and pain and horror and despair, to ever let himself relax.

Jason doesn’t know how to change that. He doesn’t know if he can. He is not comforting. He is tall, and heavy, and scarred. He has a deep voice. He is a large adult man, and to the kids, that means he’s a threat.

For the first time in a long time, he wants to be something else. He isn’t sure if he remembers how.

⁂

He knew it was going to be bad.

When Dick first called him on a secure line, and stayed on through all of Jason’s insults, and took a moment to gather his thoughts before he started talking, Jason knew it was bad news.

“I thought you should know,” Dick said. “There was an incident. It’s not an emergency. Everyone is fine. A few days ago there was a planned interdimensional leap from our world to a dimension designated Earth-131.”

Passive voice. Technical language. He sounded like he was quoting one of Batman’s mission reports.

“What does that have to do with me,” Jason said.

“B made the leap,” Dick said. “He didn’t come back alone. He found two kids in the other dimension. They were—” He hesitated, just for a beat, and if Jason had any sense he would’ve hung up and ditched the phone then.

He didn’t.

“They are victims of abuse,” Dick said. “Their names are Richard Grayson and Jason Todd, and the man abusing them was Bruce Wayne.”

And then—while Jason tried to remember how to breathe—he added, “They’re kids. They’re staying at the manor. I thought you should know.”

Jason did hang up then, so he could have a mental breakdown in peace. He called back a couple hours later.

“He fucking kept them?”

Dick told him the broad strokes: where the kids came from, what happened to them, when they arrived at Wayne Manor and what they’ve done since. He didn’t share any gory details; he didn’t have to. Jason knows how to read between the lines.

Bruce went to another dimension, saw a couple of abused, traumatized kids, and he just couldn’t help himself. He tore them away from everything they’ve ever known, brought them back to his home, and shut them up in a house with more security measures than the NSA. And he didn’t tell anyone else.

“Not even the Justice League?” Jason said. “Does he realize how fucking suspicious that looks?”

“He doesn’t think it’s a good idea,” Dick said. “Once the news gets out… I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know what happens after that. I think he wants to at least have the official paperwork in order before—”

“I can’t believe you’re defending him!”

“I’m not,” Dick said. He didn’t sound like he knew he was lying. “It’s a delicate situation.”

“You left them. In a house. With their abuser.”

“He’s not—”

“You’re not that stupid, Dick,” Jason said. “You know what it’s going to fucking look like! To them, at the very least, don’t you fucking care about them?”

“Of course I do,” Dick said. “But I can’t just go in there and take them. I can’t, and I won’t. They’ve been dragged around like that enough already.”

So Jason started planning to go and get them himself. To meet them, at least, and try to fix the mess Bruce made. He had access to the manor, he had enough anger to override his dislike of the place, and he learned a long time ago that if he wanted someone to knock some sense into Bruce, he would have to do it himself.

Two days later, Dick called back.

“I’m going to get them.”

“Oh,” Jason said. “Now you changed your mind?”

“There was—” Dick said, and hesitated.

“Let me guess. An incident.”

“They’re not in danger,” Dick said, “but they need to get out of the manor. I’m hoping B is ready to see sense.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“No,” Dick said. “Do not engage. Let me handle it.”

So Jason hung up, and immediately headed for the manor. If Dick didn’t want him to get involved, he shouldn’t have called in the first place.

He knew it would be bad. Dick had told him about the kids—told him how they acted and what they’d been through—and even over the phone Jason could hear the raw horror in his voice, the anger swimming deep beneath the surface. He knew it would be bad, but he still wasn’t ready to meet them.

They were real. Not abstract concepts, not faded copies, but a real teenager dead behind the eyes and a real ten-year-old trying to hide in a hand-me-down sweatshirt.

And they were terrified.

He knew it was going to be bad. He knew the kids were traumatized and scared, loaded down with twisted funhouse-mirror versions of his and Dick’s own traumas. He knew he was going to meet them anyway. He was going to try and help if he could.

He knew it would be hard. He didn’t know it was going to hurt so much.

⁂

They finally get back to Dick’s apartment at five o’clock, just as the clouds break into heavy, clinging rain. It beats against the windows. A delivery girl arrives at the apartment right after them, with food from the Chinese restaurant down the street. Dick tips her fifty percent. Jason matches his tip, just for the hell of it.

He sees little Jay watching as he hands the money over.

Dick moves them into the dining room and gets everyone settled around the table, with the food spread out buffet-style. Dick fills his plate, and then Damian, and then the kids start to move; Dickie passes a plate over to Jay.

“Bismillah,” Damian says. They start eating.

“This is great,” Dickie says. He smiles. It almost looks natural. “Thank you. Both of you.”

“’Re welc’me,” Dickwing says, with his mouth full.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jay says. He stares at the box of chicken lo mein. His plate is still empty.

“Hey,” Jason says. “You remember what we said about eating?”

Jay looks up. He makes eye contact with Jason. His face is calm—placid—but Jason sees something moving under the surface.

“We can eat,” Jay says, “as much as we want. No one will get angry. No one will. Punish us.” His voice catches. He takes a breath. “No one will take away food—as punishment—ever. For any reason.”

“That’s right,” Dickwing says. He doesn’t say it, but Jason can tell he wants to: So why aren’t you eating? What’s wrong?

Jason wants to ask, too, but even he isn’t that tactless.

“It is good, Jay,” Dickie says.

“Yeah,” Jay says. He stares at the lo mein for a while. Then he looks up again—straight at Jason. “So what d’you want for it?”

Jason’s stomach lurches. “What?”

“I said,” Jay says, slowly, looking Jason dead in the eyes. “What do you want for it?”

The kid is tiny. He sits hunched over, with his shoulders lifted, like a cat fluffed out to look bigger, but he looks Jason dead in the eyes, and Jason feels a jolt of real fear.

“Nothing,” he says.

Dickie says, “Jay—”

“Shut up,” Jay says. Dickie flinches, so Jay flinches, and the dangerous look on his face almost cracks. But he keeps staring at Jason.

“I don’t want anything,” Jason says.

“Bullshit,” Jay says. Dickie flinches again. “Yes you do. Everyone wants something.”

Dickie said the same thing. Last night, Dickie looked at him and asked what he had to do to earn a cup of shitty hot chocolate. The only form of kindness these kids can imagine is manipulation. Jason knows that.

He bought them groceries. He took them shopping. He paid for dinner. He smiled and joked and said they didn’t have anything to fear. Of course they thought he was manipulating them.

Jason thought the same thing, once upon a time.

“I know what you did,” Jay spits. He’s so small—and no kid should have that kind of bitterness in their voice, that kind of fear—“Last night. I know you took Dickie.”

Jason’s heart stops.

“No,” he says, at the same time Dickie says, “He didn’t, Jason, I swear, he didn’t do anything, all we did was talk—”

“Stop lying!”

Jay pushes back from the table. His chair screeches on the floor. He’s on his feet, tense all over, with rigid fear and anger in every line of his body. They’re face to face.

They’re face to face, and Jason has no idea what to do.

“Stop lying,” Jay says. “I know what you’re doing. I’m not stupid.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about—” Damian starts.

“Damian,” Dickwing snaps. Then, softer, “No one needs to get angry.”

Jason wishes he was angry. He wishes he could find some anger, horror, disgust—anything other than fear.

“I know what you’re doing,” Jay says. He glares at Damian. Then at Jason. He skips over Dickie. Like he can’t bear to look at him.

“What do you mean?” Dickwing says. “What is he doing?”

Jay stares at him. For a second, he falters. There, that’s the opening, but Jason is too clumsy and slow to take it.

Then Jay’s face twists in a vicious sneer.

“You know,” he says. This is wrong—this is wrong—Jason can hear the anger in his voice, but it’s wrong, that’s not what it sounds like—“It’s easy, right? You pick up a kid, you take him home, an’ you give him a room, and food, and a nice soft bed, and—you give him food and books and clothes and his own room and you take him out places and spend money on him, and all he has to do to pay for it is take your cock up his a—”

Jason lurches out of his seat.

Jay flinches back.

He’s on his feet. Now both of them are on their feet, face to face, and Jay is quiet—Damian is yelling and Dick is talking over him and Dickie is begging no wait please—but Jay is quiet.

He looks up at Jason. Like that first surreal moment in Wayne Manor, he looks up, with his sort-of sharp sort-of round face, with messy black hair and light eyes.

Triumphant.

He got a reaction. He pushed and pushed and pushed and now Jason is about to snap. He wants Jason to snap. He thinks he’s about to get it.

Angry.

He looks angry. He looks defiant. It’s in his body, in his voice, but it isn’t real. He’s a good actor, but Jason knows his own tells.

Jay isn’t angry. He’s afraid.

He’s backed into a corner. He can’t see the threat, and it’s driving him crazy. He has to find it. He has to keep lashing out until something hits back, until something leaves him bloody and broken on the ground, because getting hit is better than not knowing.

He looks up at Jason, and he waits to get hit.

“Wait. Please.”

Dickie edges around the side of the table. If he takes another step, he’ll be between Jason and the kid.

“Just—wait, please, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he—”

“Shut up, Dick.” Jay rounds on him. “He’s not gonna be nicer if you roll over and beg—”

“He didn’t do anything!” Dickie is almost in tears. He’s terrified, but his voice never rises above a frantic murmur. “He didn’t do anything, and you, you’re going to ruin every—”

“Shut up!”

Jay lunges at Dickie, and that—that hurls Jason back into his body.

“Hey!”

They both flinch. Dickie steps back. Jay turns toward him, defiant and scared.

Jason falls to his knees.

“You want to hit someone,” he says, “hit me.”

Now Jay is quiet.

Dickie is quiet. Damian and Dick are quiet. The whole room is frozen.

“You want to hit someone, hit me. I can take it. But don’t you dare hit him. He’s just trying to keep you safe.”

Jay stares at him. The anger is gone. Even the fear—all that’s left is shock and disbelief.

“What…” It takes a few seconds for Jay to piece together the words. “What are you gonna do?”

“To you?”

Jay nods.

“Nothing.”

“No,” Jay says, “you’re lying—”

“You wanna know what I want?” Jason says. The realization hits like a fist. He has been lying. “I want you to go to school.”

Jay’s mouth falls open.

“I want you to grow up,” Jason says, “and go to college. Study something you like. Graduate.”

He sits back on his heels. Jay stares at him. Jason stares back. He can’t look at anyone else.

“I want you to be safe,” Jason says. “I want you to get better. Make friends. Go to therapy. Stop having nightmares, someday. I want you to be happy.”

Jay closes his mouth.

“That clear enough for you?” Jason says.

Jay isn’t like Dickie. He doesn’t break down in tears. Still, Jason sees the words sinking in. He sees Jay struggling to fit them in with everything that came before.

“You said that,” Dickie says. “Last night.”

Jason has no idea what he said last night. He hopes Dickie is telling the truth.

“Is that what he said,” Jay says, but the bite is gone from his voice. “What if we don’t?”

“Don’t—?” Jason says.

“Don’t go to school,” Jay says. “Or graduate or go to therapy or any of that stuff. Then what?”

“I don’t know.” Jason shrugs. “You’ll still be doing better than me.”

Jay’s mouth opens again.

“Okay,” Dickie says. He grabs Jason’s hand. “Okay. That. Yes. That’s clear.”

Jason doesn’t know if it is, but he can see Dickie edging away from him. The words are cover for something else.

“You’re free to go,” he says. The words feel heavy and awkward in his mouth.

Dickie nods. He pulls Jay in close—Jay doesn’t resist—and moves in an arc through the living room. He gives Jason a wide berth, but before they reach the hallway he looks back over his shoulder and mouths two silent words.

Thank you.

Then he’s gone.

Damian goes after them. He barely waits a second. Jason hears a voice down the hall saying, “Don’t ever do that again, do you hear me? Don’t you ever—” And then the door shuts. Then the room is quiet.

Jason is alone, with Dick, his brother.

“Hey,” Dick says. He’s right next to Jason. Jason startles a little. “You ready to move?”

That’s a weird question, Jason thinks, until he tries to stand. All his limbs feel disconnected.

Dick puts his hand out. Jason takes it. Dick pulls him forward, so Jason can go up on one knee, and then get his feet under him.

Dick pulls him into a hug.

He puts his head down on Jason’s shoulder. Jason sags against his hold. He’s taller than Dick. He has been for a while. It still surprises him sometimes.

They stand there for a while.

Dick lets out a long, heavy sigh. He steps back.

“You want the couch?”

It takes a minute for Jason to understand him. “After that?”

“Sure,” Dick says. “You should sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“Yeah,” Dick says. “Me neither.”

He moves back to the table. He starts gathering up plates.

Jason looks out the window. He sees his reflection in the dark glass. It looks distant. Blurred and indistinct. Small.

They’re so small.

Small, and hurt, and angry, and scared. They’ve been lied to, over and over. They’ve been hurt in every way a person can be, by someone they should have been able to trust. Of course they don’t trust him. Of course they keep assuming the worst. Assuming anything else would be suicide.

Jason knows that. He knows. He remembers how long he spent walking on eggshells, trying to do everything right, because he knew how much it would hurt when Bruce finally snapped and threw him out. He remembers how long he lived with the sickening fear that it was all preamble, all a ruse, and soon Bruce would come to his bedroom and take what he really wanted.

Jason remembers all of it. And he keeps making every wrong move. How is he supposed to fix this? What has he ever done right? He breaks everything he touches.

“What are we going to do?”

Dick stands in the kitchen doorway. He stands tall, alert, but relaxed. He stands watch over the room. Dick, Nightwing, the protector, the best of all of them.

“Everything we can,” he says.

⁂