Chapter Text
PRESENT.
Dick.
He knew who was at his door by the way they knocked: hard, fast, like they were running from the law and needed Dick to shelter them. And given who it was, he knew why they were there.
There was only one reason why Jason would show up unannounced at Dick’s door this late at night, an hour or two before Dick left to go out on patrol.
Dick unlocked the door, not bothering to check the peephole, and opened it. He had guessed correctly. Jason was standing there in civilian clothes, a black t-shirt and faded black jeans. He looked like he’d been crying, his eyes red and the rest of his face pale. Dick stepped aside and let him in, closing the door behind them and locking it.
“B?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Jason answered. His voice sounded wet. He had definitely been crying. Dick braced himself; what had Bruce done this time?
“I’m sorry,” Jason added self-consciously, shoulders hunched, arms crossed over his chest, an undeniably defensive posture. Bruce made Jason feel vulnerable and weak. Jason hated feeling vulnerable and weak. “I know you have your own problems.”
“You are not a problem,” Dick replied, ushering Jason farther into his apartment, toward the sofa. Jason looked around. Dick realized this was the first time he’d visited since Dick moved here. He felt a spike of guilt, again, for the way he continually deprioritized Jason. He was working on it. He’d keep working on it.
“You’re right,” Jason observed. “This place is nice. Not depressing at all.”
Dick might have gloated, under better circumstances, but that wasn’t the right move tonight. Instead, he offered a genuine, “Thank you,” and then suggested, “Sit down, I’ll make coffee.”
Jason’s eyes flicked to his, a brief flash of something like panic. “No,” he insisted. “Please. Sit with me.”
Shit. Bruce had really done a number on Jason today. Was Dick going to have to get involved? He really hoped not.
He said, “Okay,” and sat with Jason. Jason remained close, hunched forward, gazing down at his hands in his lap. “Whenever you’re ready,” Dick prompted.
Jason shook his head. “I don’t know where to start.”
“You talked to him?”
“I talked to him.”
“What made you decide to come here, instead of going home to Roy?” Roy was Jason’s rock, the foundation of his support system. When Jason went to someone other than Roy, it was because he wanted or needed something specific to that person.
Sure enough, Jason answered, his gaze returning to Dick as he admitted, “I wanted my big brother. Is that stupid?”
A tight fist clenched around Dick’s heart. “No. That’s not stupid.” He really did need to start making Jason a higher priority.
Jason continued, “You missed me. You love me. You’ve told me so many times, from the very beginning. The very first conversation we had. So did Alfred. But not Bruce.”
Dick raised his eyebrows in surprise and concern. “He’s never told you he missed you?” Bruce wasn’t exactly known for frequent displays of affection, but that seemed like a major oversight.
“No. He’s never told me he loves me either. Not since I died.”
“No wonder you feel like he doesn’t care.”
Jason sniffled. He was trying to hold back tears, blinking rapidly to keep them at bay. Dick put a hand on his shoulder. “If you need to cry, go ahead and cry. I won’t judge.” He’d been learning the importance of feeling his feelings in therapy. Far be it from him to deny Jason the opportunity.
As if on command, a few tears slipped out of the corners of Jason’s eyes. He sniffled again and looked away, visibly embarrassed despite Dick’s reassurance.
“My bio dad didn’t love me,” he bitterly explained. “I’m pretty sure he hated me. I had a dad who loved me for three years. Three fucking years. Now I wish I never had one at all.”
“I can’t imagine how that feels,” Dick said, and he meant it. He’d lost two loving parents, and that was a tragedy Jason knew well, because of his stepmom. Dick didn’t know how it felt to lose a parent like Jason’s dad. Jason had said before that he was happy his father was dead, but Dick was sure there was more to the story than that.
“My mom left me. My dad hated me. Now B can’t even say it,” Jason summarized. “How am I supposed to feel about that? What’s wrong with me? Why aren’t I enough? Why am I so hard to love?” His voice rose with each question, and when he looked back at Dick, there was a desperation in his eyes. Dick shifted closer, put his arm around Jason’s shoulders. Jason leaned into him slightly.
“You’re not,” Dick assured him. “You are not hard to love. You’re so easy to love that I tried to hate you when I first met you and I couldn’t. So easy to love Roy couldn’t help himself, even when he knew it might end badly, and even though he had to betray me to do it. You tried to push Tim away and he still ended up loving you. You got Damian to love you. Alfred loves you. Cass and Steph. Roy says his family loves you. And B does love you, he just doesn’t know how to show it. Jason, you are not hard to love.”
“But why can’t he?” Jason asked. “He showed it before. Why can’t he do it now? Am I just not worth the effort anymore? Have I finally been broken too many fucking times?”
“Jason—” Dick tried to say, cut off when Jason choked out a sob.
“I didn’t want any of this to happen.”
Dick’s heart twisted with empathy again. “I know that. Everyone knows that.”
Jason continued to cry, finally letting it all out. Dick let him. At one point, Jason leaned over and buried his head in Dick’s shoulder.
While Jason was better than the rest of his family at showing emotion, Dick had never seen him be this vulnerable. He didn’t know if Jason let himself be this vulnerable in front of anyone but Roy anymore.
A voice inside Dick, one his therapist had been bringing out of him, said, You should tell him.
He knew the voice was right. Jason was the obvious person to tell. He’d been there for Dick when Dick had broken down the year before. He knew what it was like to feel powerless, to feel like he’d lost control, to be willing to do anything to gain control back. He understood trauma.
He would believe Dick. He wouldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t judge. Maybe it would change the way Jason saw him, if he knew, but maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe Dick could stand to show some vulnerability to Jason in return. It might be good for their relationship.
Jason interrupted Dick’s thought process by saying, “I don’t deserve this.” Dick gave Jason his full attention again. “None of this ever should have happened. I blamed myself for so fucking long, but I didn’t ask for this. I made a mistake.”
“Mistakes happen,” Dick told him. “That doesn’t mean what happened to you was your fault.” It wasn’t lost on him that this was a message he could stand to internalize himself.
“I want to go back. I want to do it differently. All of it.”
Me too. “You did your best, Jay. You did everything you could.”
“I tell myself that,” Jason said quietly, sitting back up, leaving a wet spot on Dick’s shirt where his face had been, not that Dick cared. “Sometimes I believe it. Sometimes I don’t.”
“I know how that feels. But I don’t mean that you did everything you might have been capable of under the perfect set of circumstances. You did everything you could with the circumstances you were given.”
Jason sniffled again. “You’ve felt like this?”
“Yeah, I have. And I’ve had things happen that made me feel broken too. That feeling makes it almost impossible to love yourself, and that makes it hard to believe that anyone else could love you. But we do. You have issues, we all do, but you make the lives of everyone else better by being in them. You make my life better.”
“And you don’t think I’m worse than I was before?”
“I really don’t. And you’re really not that much different from when you were a kid, once you warm up to people. You’re still sarcastic and independent and passionate about helping people. You love to read. You work hard to give yourself a better life. You still have the mouth of a fucking sailor, despite Alfred’s best efforts.”
Jason chuckled. Dick smiled and went on, “You’re so much fun to be around, you have so much empathy for people and don’t want anyone else to go through what you went through. You’re more closed-off than you used to be, at first, and you try even harder to push people away, although I can tell you’ve been working on that. Your methods are different, you have different priorities, and I’m sure some of your life plans have had to change. But you are the same person you were before you died.
“You haven’t been broken. You’ve grown up. It happens to all of us. Ask anyone who knew me as Robin. Sometimes I feel like a different person too, and I blame the shit I’ve had to go through, but everyone changes. The reason it was so jarring for some of us with you was because we weren’t there with you while it was happening. But you know what? I like you better now. I relate to you more. You’re not just my little brother; you’re my friend.”
Jason’s eyes were wide and wet and hopeful. “But what if I could have been even better?” he asked. “I could have done so much more. I could have finished high school and gone to college.”
“You can still do that. What happened to getting your GED?”
“I’m trying.”
“Tim says you’re ready.”
Jason frowned. “Tim doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Tim is an experienced tutor,” Dick countered. “He absolutely knows what he’s talking about. You’re afraid of failure. I get it. You know I do. But you’ve wanted this for so long.”
“It’s not like I can even afford to go to college anyway,” Jason muttered.
“B has a college fund for you.”
“I’m not taking his money.” Jason’s frown became a scowl, but there was a thoughtful look in his eyes. Less harshly, he added, “He still has one?”
“He made a new one,” Dick explained.
“What’d he do with the old one?”
“Created a scholarship in your name for kids from the Wayne homes.”
That scowl faded, and Jason said, “Oh.”
“And what happened to that book you were going to write?” Dick asked.
“That’s more of a long-term project,” Jason replied, seemingly grateful for the subject change away from Bruce.
“But have you been working on it?”
“Not a lot, no. I’ve been busy.”
“Busy with what? Not your GED.” Dick was pushing Jason, he knew, and maybe that was a bad idea right now, but he’d been thinking about this ever since his conversations with Jason and Roy. Roy was struggling with stress and addiction, Jason was struggling with stress and Bruce, and neither of them seemed to be putting much effort into themselves. Dick knew all about that. He didn’t want them to end up in the cycle he’d just gotten himself out of.
“The wedding—” Jason protested. Dick cut him off.
“Tim’s planning the wedding.”
Jason tried again. “Roy—”
“Needs your support, yes, but he doesn’t have to rely on just you. Jay, I think you’ve been avoiding your problems by helping other people with theirs. And that’s a great thing to do. Helping people, I mean, not avoiding your problems. But I’m starting to see a little too much of myself in you.”
“Helping people makes me feel good,” Jason insisted.
“That’s great,” Dick encouraged. “That’s amazing. But that can’t be your source of self-worth. That’s why I’m trying to do more things for myself now. Moving out, getting a new job, going to therapy, spending time with Wally and Linda. I just got my personal training certification, so after the wedding, I’ll go job hunting again, because being a security guard pays the bills but it’s also very boring. You were doing so much for yourself too: moving in with Roy, getting married, becoming a stepdad, also going to therapy, getting your GED, going to college, writing a book, getting tattoos. I don’t want you to plateau the way I did when I became Batman. You’ve proven you can do anything you put your mind to. Don’t stop now.”
Jason considered this. “I guess I have been putting a lot of that on the backburner.”
“Do something impulsive. Go get that tattoo you’ve been thinking about.”
“Tattoos are expensive, Dick. I have to budget that shit with Roy.”
“Don’t you have your own money?” Dick recalled that Jason had a separate savings account with all the money he’d earned from his various criminal enterprises. Roy refused to touch it.
“I guess,” Jason confirmed. “But that’s my rainy day fund.”
“Is having a hard, emotional conversation with your dad not the definition of a rainy day in our family?” Dick pointed out.
Jason looked amused, and a little overwhelmed. “What’s gotten into you, Grayson?”
“I feel alive again,” Dick told him. “For the first time in a long time.”
“Holy shit. Dick, that’s amazing.” Jason was grinning now, his troubles with Bruce momentarily forgotten.
He loves you, that voice said. He cares about you. He wants you to be better. He would want to help.
“I know. And I know you know how that feels.”
“I do.”
“Don’t lose that.”
“I won’t. I’ll… get a fucking tattoo,” Jason decided.
“And take the GED test,” Dick added.
“Sure.”
“And don’t think I won’t follow up with Tim to make sure you’ve done it.”
Jason smirked. “I wouldn’t think that for a second.” He looked around. “Do you have tissues?”
“Bathroom,” Dick told him. “Want me to get you some?”
“I’ve got it,” Jason said, getting up and walking to the bathroom, blowing his nose noisily, and returning moments later.
Dick added, in case he’d been too hard on Jason for a moment there, “Don’t think I’m ignoring the fact that you’re confronting your problems with B, though. That’s huge. I’m really proud of you. I want you to keep that momentum.”
Jason sat back down. “Roy said something that really hit me. The reason I was so upset when B ‘died’ wasn’t just that he was gone, it was that I hadn’t put any effort into trying to fix our relationship. I don’t want to have those regrets anymore. I want to try. And if it doesn’t work because he doesn’t try, or because it’s just not going to work no matter what either one of us does, then at least I did what I could.”
“I would bet all the money I have that Roy had been trying to tell you that this whole fucking time,” Dick observed.
“He has.”
“Because he went through exactly the same shit when Ollie died.”
“He did.”
Dick shook his head fondly. “You are so fucking stubborn.”
“I am.” A brief pause. “I could go for some coffee now, if the offer’s still on the table.”
“Sure,” Dick agreed. He moved to stand, but Jason stopped him.
“Nah, let me. You’ve done enough.” Jason went to the kitchen, and Dick watched him make a cup of instant coffee. “I knew it’d help to talk to you about this,” he said as he did so. “You get it.” He stirred hot water into a Teen Titans mug until the coffee crystals dissolved and took a sip, then made a face of disgust. “This tastes like dirt.”
“It’s instant coffee,” Dick told him. “What did you expect? It gets the job done.”
“It’s all you have. Do you only buy high-quality shit when you’re visiting your soulmates?”
“Soulmates?”
Jason explained, “‘Wally and Linda’ is boring, ‘the Wests’ sounds like they’re your neighbors, and ‘your soulmate and his wife’ takes too long and makes Linda sound like an afterthought, so I think of it more like you got a buy one, get one free deal.”
That was clever. “I like that.”
“Take it. You can have that one for free.” Jason took another sip of his coffee, grimaced again. “Doesn’t help that my throat is full of snot,” he added. “I hate crying. It’s gross, your skin dries out, your eyes hurt…”
“I have some under-eye patches in the fridge,” Dick offered. “They’ll help.”
Jason opened the fridge, finding the under-eye patches, looking down at the packaging, and then looking over at Dick. “I mean, clearly these don’t work very well,” he deadpanned, referring to Dick’s dark, almost bruised-looking under-eyes. Multiple people in his life had called them his only physical flaw. Maybe that was why Dick went out of his way not to cover them up in most situations.
“Fuck you,” Dick replied, but there wasn’t any heat behind his words.
Jason laughed. He put a pair of patches under his eyes and put the rest back in the fridge. “So you’ll keep skincare in here but not food?”
“There’s food in there.” At least, Dick was pretty sure there was.
“There’s takeout containers, what looks like cheap wine and beer, and a drawer of condiments,” Jason listed off. “How many of these are expired?” He held a bottle of ketchup up to the light.
“I didn’t invite you here to judge me,” Dick reminded him.
“You didn’t invite me at all,” Jason argued. He closed the fridge, then leaned against it. “So what problems are you avoiding by helping me tonight? Or have you gone and gotten your whole life together behind my back? That seems like something you would do.”
“Not my whole life,” Dick admitted, “But it’s on the upswing. And after the past few years I’ve had, I’ll take it.” He hesitated. He could leave it there. It probably wasn’t even a good time to open up to Jason. Not after the night Jason had already had. But would he be able to gather up the courage any other time?
He tested the waters. “I don’t want to make this about me.”
“Ooh, classic deflection,” Jason pointed out. “So there is something. Are you gonna tell me about it, or do I need to keep sharing until you feel comfortable opening up?”
“You learned that from Roy,” Dick observed.
“I learned a lot from Roy,” Jason said with a smirk and a wink. Dick made a face. Jason laughed again. “Seriously, though, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No, I…” Dick sighed. Was he going to do this? Should he? It would be good for him, right? But still the words stuck in his throat. “I want to tell you. I have to tell someone. I need to tell Wally and Linda, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
“I get that,” Jason replied, returning to sit next to Dick, body angled to face him. “There’s some shit I haven’t opened up to anyone about, or if I have, I haven’t gone into detail. I know exactly what I want to say but I just can’t say it.”
“Exactly,” Dick agreed. “That’s exactly how it feels. I don’t want to change the way people see me.”
“You’re careful about how you portray yourself to the rest of the world. I’ve noticed that about you. But you have to know that the people closest to you can see who you really are, even when you try to hide it, the way you see who I really am underneath all the trauma and violence and pushing people away. I don’t want anyone to see the scared kid I used to be, but I know people do. I don’t want them to see the heartless assassin anymore either, but that’s also a part of me.”
“You were never heartless,” Dick insisted.
“I tried to be.” Jason looked away, off into the distance, and Dick knew he’d gone somewhere Dick didn’t know about, possibly somewhere no one knew about. And he was struck again by what they had in common.
“It’s the memory I uncovered last year.” The words were out before he’d even fully formed them. Maybe that was the secret.
Jason looked surprised. “And it’s something you need to tell Wally and Linda?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to remind you what you’ve already told me?” Jason offered. “Then you don’t have to repeat yourself. Might make things easier.”
“Sure,” Dick agreed.
“You told me it happened in Blüdhaven, after we met but before the city was destroyed. No one knows about it.”
“My therapist does, now,” Dick cut in.
“Good. You think it’s something that hasn’t happened to me, or at least you hope so. And the person who did it is dead. You also said you couldn’t remember all the details of what happened,” Jason recalled. “Has any more of it come back to you?”
“I was dissociating pretty hard when it happened. I don’t think I’ll ever remember all the details. I don’t think I fully experienced them.”
The feeling was starting to come back to him, the same one he’d felt the first time he’d remembered and every time since. It felt like cold hands dragging him underwater. His head was swimming, vision blurring. His limbs felt numb and immovable, his body distant. His vision tunneled, and he was there again, and his heart was racing, and he felt trapped.
The first time, he’d panicked. Run away. But instead of fear, now he only felt dread, something along the lines of, “Not this again.” He was trapped, in his own mind. There was no escaping this. Part of him would always live here, on the rooftop, looking up at the sky.
“I’ve been there too,” Jason said, and he was referring to what Dick had said about repressing the memory, but Dick knew it was more than that.
Jason had been here. He’d been trapped, too broken to move, knowing his death was imminent unless, by some miracle, Bruce got there on time. Unable to do anything one way or the other. As powerless as Dick had felt that night.
He remembered how it had felt, when he’d realized what was about to happen. He wondered if it had felt the same for Jason. Had there been a moment when he’d known, and accepted, that Bruce wasn’t coming, and he was going to die? Or had he held onto hope until the very end?
Dick continued. He didn’t think about what he was going to say. He just said it. He took his mind to a different place, his old apartment in Blüdhaven, one of Jason’s earliest visits after coming back. He’d told Dick his story from his perspective, from his death to his return, though he’d given few details. Dick wasn’t going to give many details either. He knew Jason wouldn’t mind.
“I was going after someone. Someone who’d been making my life hell for a while.”
The way Jason had begun: I found out about my bio mom. I’m sure you know that part.
“There was this woman who was going after him too. She also had a vendetta against him. One of those ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ situations, I guess.”
You also know I ran away. I wanted to find her. I felt like I needed to find her.
“I didn’t trust her. I knew I couldn’t trust her.”
I don’t know what I was thinking. I had a home. I had a family. I guess I needed to know… I needed to know if she could love me. I wanted to make her love me.
“Her methods were…”
“More like mine,” Jason finished for him.
A rush of nausea. Dick shook his head. “She was willing to kill people. I won’t compare her to you.” He swallowed. His mouth and throat were dry. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He couldn’t think about it, though. He just had to keep going. It was the only way he’d ever finish it.
“Long story short, we found our guy. She killed him. I could have stopped her, but I didn’t.”
You know this part too. Long story short, she betrayed me. Sold me out to the Joker. He killed us both.
“Practically every ‘no killing’ hero in the world has been there, Dick,” Jason tried to reassure him. “You made a split-second decision. No one innocent got hurt.”
The words hit Dick like a punch to the stomach. Jason must have seen it on his face. “Did they?”
The stars. The night sky. Her weight on top of him. He could have fought her off. He could have stopped it. Why hadn’t he?
He wanted to reach back in time and shake himself. You could have stopped this. You could have saved yourself. You could have saved me. Why didn’t you?
Why did you do this to me?
His voice came out hollow when he answered, “I guess that depends on how you define ‘innocent.’”
“Why? What happened?”
What happened? It came over him, all at once, like a wave. All of it. He closed his eyes against it, and found himself even more overwhelmed.
“No,” Jason said sharply. The word cut through everything else. Dick opened his eyes. “Keep your eyes open. And let me get you something…”
Dick watched Jason stand, return to the kitchen, and open the freezer. He brought back two cubes of ice. “Hold out your hands.” Dick obeyed. Jason dropped an ice cube in each hand. “Hold those.”
Dick blinked up at him. Looked down at the ice melting in his palms. Then back up. “Um, what?”
If Jason was trying to snap him out of it, he’d succeeded, at least temporarily. “When you feel pulled back there again, just focus on how cold it feels. Stay in your body, in the present. You’re not there anymore. You’re here.” Jason had done this a lot, Dick realized. “Do you want to keep going? We can stop.”
“No.” Dick had gotten this far. He was going to see it through. “I have to do this.”
Jason sat back down. He left space between them, but very little of it, silently inviting Dick to reach out if he needed to, but leaving him untouched if that was what he needed instead. It was. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Dick collected himself. Where was he?
Right. On the rooftop. He squeezed his hands into fists. The cold kept him here, at least, looking at the rooftop, remembering it, but not reliving it. It was surprisingly effective. Of course it was. Jason knew what he was doing.
You were right to pick him. He can handle this. He can help. Jason really had come such a long way. He was still the kid Dick met nearly a decade ago, but he was also so much more than that. He hadn’t lost anything; he’d gained it.
“I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I’d done.”
Jason shook his head. “You didn’t do anything.” It was meant as reassurance. He didn’t know.
“Exactly. And I still did nothing. When she…”
He closed his eyes again, and got another sharp reminder: “No. Eyes open.” He did as Jason said. “Do you need to stop?” he asked again.
“No. I need to finish.” Just say it. Don’t think about it. “I’d already rejected her multiple times before, but I guess that wasn’t enough, or she just didn’t care. She pinned me down. I could have fought her off easily. I don’t know why I didn’t. I couldn’t move. I knew what she was going to do and I told her – I begged her – not to. But I didn’t put a stop to it. I just lay there, looking up at the stars, trying not to feel anything. Waiting for it to be over.”
Another lurch in Dick’s stomach, but it was accompanied by a sweeping feeling of relief. He’d said it. He’d done it. It was out there now, and Jason’s expression – concern, compassion – hadn’t changed. He didn’t look disgusted or doubtful. He didn’t look like he was rearranging his entire picture of Dick in his mind. He just looked like he cared. Because he did.
That fist clenched around Dick’s heart again. It was a sweeter ache this time, but there remained a bitterness behind it. This was the reaction he deserved. From everyone. And it was deeply unfair and shitty that he had to worry that he would get anything else.
When Dick didn’t say anything more, because he didn’t have anything more to say, Jason summarized: “She raped you.”
The word was like a knife. Dick had never used it before to describe what had happened, not even to himself. But it was the truth. He could use softer, vaguer, more roundabout language, but the meaning was the same.
Noting Dick’s hesitance, Jason asked, “Is that not what happened?”
Dick forced the words out. “It is.”
Jason nodded slowly. “I won’t ask who she was. I won’t look into it. It’s none of my business. She’s dead anyway. Good.”
“Why do I get the feeling that even if she wasn’t, she would be?” Dick asked, shooting Jason a significant look. His heart was still pounding, racing, but he didn’t feel like running and hiding. He could actually have a conversation about this. Holy shit.
“I’d kill her quietly,” Jason assured him, “Without saying anything to you or anyone else about it.”
“Like Prometheus?”
Jason answered the same way he always did: “No one knows who killed Prometheus.”
“Uh-huh,” Dick skeptically replied.
Jason returned to the subject at hand. “The point is, I am so sorry. That’s a hell of a thing to have to carry, especially on your own. I’m glad you’ve told your therapist. That’s a huge step. You’re doing all the right things. How do you feel now that you’ve told me?”
“I feel sick,” Dick answered honestly. “But the ice helped. And I also feel relieved. Thank you.”
“I’m always here for you. You’re always here for me.”
“It doesn’t change the way you see me?”
“No,” Jason answered easily. “Dick, I knew you had trauma. I knew about some of it, and I knew there was more I didn’t know about. It changes nothing for me. The same way me dying, coming back from the dead, becoming an assassin and a criminal, killing a bunch of people, and making one of your oldest friends lie to you and falling in love with him somehow changed nothing for you. Which is crazy, by the way.”
Dick smiled despite himself. “You’re my brother. Nothing can change that. Not even you.”
“I see why it was so hard to tell me, though,” Jason added. “And I see why it’s been hard to tell your soulmates, and why you feel like you have to. I imagine it’s had an impact on your relationships. All kinds of trauma does that, but especially that kind.”
“You understand that part too,” Dick observed. “I know you do.”
“I figured out quickly that sex with strangers was an absolute no-go for me,” Jason confirmed. “I don’t trust strangers, and I can’t be vulnerable with someone I don’t trust. I tried. When I was younger and dumber, I was insecure about the fact that I was trying to be this badass assassin and gang leader and I was still a virgin. I thought I’d get it out of the way. Couldn’t go through with it. But with Roy, it was the easiest thing in the world. Not that you want to know that.”
“As long as you skip the details, it’s fine,” Dick assured him. “It actually helps.”
Jason nodded. “Roy has his issues too. I won’t go into them. And any time one of our various mental health issues acts up, sex ends up on the backburner. We haven’t been as active as we usually would be lately, because of the stress.”
“But you’ve made it work.”
“Yeah. We trust each other. We communicate. He makes me feel safe. I like to think I do the same for him.”
“You do.” Dick knew that for certain.
He hesitated, then, because he’d gotten this far already, the worst was behind him, he added, “I was with Barbara. I haven’t been with anyone since. Wally and Linda are the first people I’ve even wanted to be with. That’s why I have to tell them. But, besides you, and obviously my therapist, the only person I’ve ever even tried to tell was…”
The ice had mostly melted in Dick’s hands. They were cold and damp still, but it wasn’t the same. He looked down at them and frowned. “Barbara. She thought I cheated on her. That was a separate incident, before. Like I said, I’d rejected this woman multiple times. I guess she thought if she got Barbara out of the way… I don’t know. I don’t know why she did any of it. I couldn’t ask her even if I wanted to.”
He met Jason’s gaze. “Do you ever do that? Do you ever try to put yourself in their place so you can understand why? Like it would make a difference.”
Jason nodded. “All the time. Not the Joker; I know exactly why he did what he did. And I know why my stepmom did what she did too, and my bio mom. But I’ve wasted so much time trying to understand my dad. I read a whole book about it. Why Does He Do That? That’s what the book is called. Obviously it’s more about men, and more targeted at female abuse victims, but it was helpful. I’ve also read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, now that I’m working on my relationship with B. And early on I read The Body Keeps the Score, which is about trauma in general.”
“You’re really committed to this whole healing process,” Dick observed, impressed.
“Seems like you are too,” Jason pointed out. “Did you ever try to explain to Barbara what actually happened?”
“I tried,” Dick told him, “But I didn’t completely understand it myself, and I haven’t spoken to her outside of work since I uncovered the memory. I don’t know if I should tell her the full story. I don’t think it would do either of us any good.”
“I’m sure, if she knew, she’d want to apologize. Any decent person would. And Babs is a decent person. If she knew the full story, she’d know it wasn’t your fault.”
“I could have done something,” Dick insisted.
“Hey, what did you just tell me?” Jason reminded him. “You did everything you could with the circumstances you were given. Something extremely traumatic happened to you. Your body reacted for you to keep you alive. It’s called a trauma response. Fight, flight, freeze, and there’s a fourth one, people call it ‘fawn’ just to keep up with the F theme but it’s basically people-pleasing your way out of a situation. It sounds like you froze. Everyone assumes I’d fight, but I’m a runner, actually. I didn’t learn how to fight until later. I learned how to run and hide until the danger’s over first, and that’s hard-wired into me now.”
Dick thought about his earliest trauma: watching his parents die. All these years later, the image was still seared into his retinas. He could conjure it on command: frozen in place, unable to do anything about it, unable to stop it from happening.
“In general, though, it’s very common for people to freeze in situations like yours,” Jason continued. “It’s also common for it to affect your sex life. Some people avoid sex, like you have. Some people do the opposite. It’s the difference between ‘no one can take this from me if it’s not on the menu’ and ‘no one can take this from me if I give it away for free.’”
“You seem pretty knowledgeable about this stuff,” Dick observed.
“I’ve done a lot of research on trauma,” Jason told him.
“But nothing like that has ever happened to you.” It was a question, disguised as a statement.
“No, nothing like that. Never marked that spot off on my trauma BINGO card.”
“Good. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
Roy.
He was still at home when Jason called. He’d called Roy once already, in tears, immediately after his conversation with Bruce: “I told him everything. Everything I practiced.”
“What did he say?”
“Not enough.”
“How did it feel to let it out like that?”
“I don’t know.” Jason nearly cut himself off with a sob. “I think I need to talk to Dick. Is that okay? I need to talk to someone who… someone who knows him. And someone who knew me before.”
That made sense. “You should. It’s still early; I doubt he’s left yet. And he doesn’t work weekends, right?”
“He doesn’t. I’m gonna talk to him. I’ll call you after, okay?”
“Okay, baby.”
He’d been waiting over an hour for Jason’s call. Hopefully that meant Jason’s conversation with Dick had been productive.
“Hey baby,” Roy said when he picked up. “Still at Dick’s?”
When Jason spoke, he sounded a lot less emotional, more stable. That was a good sign. “Yeah. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to stay the night.”
In some ways, this was a surprise. It made sense that Jason had wanted to talk to Dick; he and Roy had similar experiences, but Dick had experience specifically with Bruce. That kind of perspective could be validating.
Roy remembered when his relationship with Connor had finally progressed to the point where they could open up to each other about their feelings toward Ollie. For the longest time, Roy had resented Connor for so long for being Ollie’s biological son, his “real” son. It had seemed that Ollie hadn’t really seen himself as a father until Connor had come back into his life.
Come to find out, Connor had felt similarly about the fact that Ollie had taken Roy in while continuing to act as though Connor didn’t exist. “What did you have that I didn’t? If he didn’t want to be a father, that would be one thing, but clearly he did. Just not to me.”
“I don’t think he wanted to be a father to me either,” Roy had explained. “Or maybe he did, but once the reality of it set in, he realized he was in over his head. At least he realized that about you before taking on any responsibility.”
They’d come to the conclusion that neither of their situations was better or worse than the other, and there was no point comparing them. Ollie had abandoned them both. He’d mostly gotten his shit together since then. That was what mattered to them most now.
So Jason wanting to talk to Dick was no surprise. But the only reason Roy could think of that would make Jason decide to stay the night was if he was feeling too emotional to make the drive back to New York, which he clearly wasn’t.
Unless there was something wrong with Dick that Jason felt he needed to stick around to help him with.
Not Roy’s place to ask. So he just agreed, “Of course. Stay as long as you need. Was Dick able to help?”
“He was, yeah. He was a big help.”
No details. Interesting. Maybe Jason just wanted to wait to share them in person. “I’m glad he could be there for you.” And then, because he couldn’t resist, “Does he seem to be doing alright?”
Roy trusted Jason implicitly. He didn’t think Jason was lying or hiding something. But if there was something wrong with Dick, he would keep the details a secret from Roy, especially if Dick asked him to or if it was something Jason knew Dick wouldn’t want other people to know about. So that was the most likely explanation.
“I think his relationship is coming along. He didn’t talk about it too much, but I get the sense he’s finally ready to start being vulnerable with them. He’s definitely making progress with his mental health. I can tell therapy has been helping him. It seems like you steered him in the right direction there.”
“That’s good.” And it was. But it didn’t put Roy’s anxieties to rest.
He’d been feeling like this ever since Dick had forgiven him. No, he’d been feeling it much longer, but it had come to the forefront following Dick’s forgiveness. All he’d wanted from Dick for so long was to repair their relationship. That was why he’d done his best to be respectful and accommodating, even when he thought Dick was being unreasonable.
Well, it was one reason.
But now he’d gotten what he wanted, and he couldn’t help but feel like he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve their friendship. After all they’d been through, after everything Roy had done…
Dick could forgive Roy. He shouldn’t, but he could. But Roy meant what he’d said to Dick and to Jason. He couldn’t forgive himself. And there was much more besides that, besides his treatment of Dick over the years, that he couldn’t forgive himself for.
Jason went on, oblivious to Roy’s inner turmoil. Roy did his best to listen without distraction. “He called me out for avoiding my problems by helping other people with theirs, and he made me promise to take the GED test, which I’m going to. I’m also getting that scorpion tattoo. I’ll use my own money. But I need to do something for myself.”
“That’s great, Jay.” A version of Roy who was less secure in his relationship with Jason might have felt jealous that Dick could get through to Jason about things that Roy hadn’t been able to. But seeing how Roy had, as Jason liked to put it, successfully “seduced Jason away from the dark side,” Roy wasn’t the least bit insecure about his ability to get through to his fiancé. Jason just needed to hear a different perspective sometimes. That was healthy and normal. Sometimes his family and friends, especially Dinah, could get through to Roy about things Jason couldn’t.
“I think it’s important for me to focus on myself more,” Jason added, “Not just for me, but for you. My stress adds to your stress. And all this stuff with B dragging me down has dragged you down with me. For so long I was venting to you about it and not doing anything. You would give me advice and I would ignore it.”
Roy opened his mouth to argue that it hadn’t affected him that much – it had been frustrating, sure, but mostly because he hated seeing Jason go through that – but Jason had more to say. “We’re not having sex as often. We talk about the wedding like it’s an obligation instead of something we’re looking forward to. We haven’t talked about our future after the wedding in a while. You’re up all night with your anxiety wanting a drink, and you couldn’t even talk to two of your oldest friends about it, which at the end of the day is also my fault, because I started all of this when I asked you to lie to Dick about me.”
Roy wondered how long Jason had been holding that in. Jason had always been prone to self-blame, but… “My stress levels aren’t your fault, Jay. It’s been frustrating that you’ve been ignoring my advice, but I knew who you were when I agreed to marry you. You’re stubborn and independent and you need to live your life on your own terms. You’re not the source of any of my problems. You’re the best thing in my life. I’m just going through a rough patch. Not because of you.”
“Because of the wedding stress,” Jason assumed.
“Because of my depression and anxiety,” Roy corrected him. “You know it got worse after I lost my arm. I’m sure you’ve noticed I still haven’t completely bounced back to where I was before. I’m still holding onto a lot of self-hatred about that. And the wedding stress, I think, triggered it to get worse again.”
Tell him the rest, Roy’s conscience whispered to him. He swallowed the words in his throat. I can’t. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’ve been in denial. But that’s made you blame yourself, and that’s not fair. It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.” It’s my fault.
“You’re doing everything you need to do, though, right? Therapy, talking to me, talking to other people in your life.”
“I’m doing what I can, yeah.” Tell him. “Let’s talk about it more when you get home tomorrow, okay? I heard what you said about talking about the future. I want to do that.”
“Yeah?” Jason replied hopefully.
A stone of guilt joined the growing pile in Roy’s stomach. “Yeah.”
“I’d like that.”
They said their goodbyes and I love you’s and hung up. Roy was downstairs in the living room, on the sofa, one of his trashy reality TV shows paused in the background. He buried his head in his hands.
He wanted a drink so fucking badly.