Chapter Text
In the chalet upstairs, they were given extremely temporary guest rooms—one for the Bats, one for the Arrows, and one for Jade and Lian. Jason didn’t trust Ra’s al Ghul’s hospitality to last past the point that his grandson’s eloquence stopped seeming like an entertaining novelty, and Damian agreed that they should patch themselves up, wake Roy, and scram.
Still, it was a relief to wash his face; to partake of the strong, sweet Turkish coffee and ludicrously elaborate spread of food the staff brought them; to just fucking sit for a minute. Damian helped him clean the wound on his back—it didn’t need stitches, thankfully, just a few butterflies and a bandage—and taped his ribs.
“You’re good at that,” Jason said as Damian packed up the first aid kit and Jason eased reluctantly back into his own filthy, torn shirt. Better than Jason had been at that age, but then, Jason had only started learning proper first aid when he was twelve. Damian had had to learn it practically from birth.
Sort of fucked up that either of them had had to learn it, really. Maybe Lian would have a different kind of childhood. Jason hoped so.
Damian shrugged. “It would be foolish not to be.”
“Yeah,” Jason said, and paused, then pushed forward. It was hardly the most difficult thing he’d had to say today. “Listen...thanks. For this, but also, you know. For coming. For talking Ra’s down. All of it.”
Damian drew himself up even more stiffly, which was impressive considering how rigid he usually was. “Red Arrow is my teammate. If there is a threat to her, it’s my responsibility to remove it.”
Jason bit the inside of his cheek and didn’t push. He could give Damian this out. “Sure,” he said.
It was Damian’s turn to hesitate. “You aren’t...in Gotham very often,” he said. “And when you are, you don’t stay at the Manor. It was probably...useful for us to work together on this mission. It will improve our strategic teamwork in the future.”
Jason wasn’t as fluent in Damian-speak as Dick or Alfred, but he was pretty sure that was Damian’s way of asking if they could hang out more. He hid his surprise. “You’re right,” he said. “We should probably, uh, work together more when my best friend hasn’t been unwillingly resurrected and turned against his family.”
Damian nodded curtly and scowled in the direction of the coffee pot, clearly uncomfortable with even this mutually pathetic attempt at a brotherly heart-to-heart. “Harper. He is...that is, I hope he is himself again when he wakes up. For you.”
Jason blinked rapidly. “Yeah. Thanks,” he said, and then he was scowling at the coffee pot too because if he looked at Damian’s little face he would absolutely lose it.
God, did Bruce know how to raise kids or what?
He had less than a moment to collect himself before there was a soft knock on the door. It opened and Dinah poked her head in. “Hey,” she said. “Ollie’s going to bring Roy out of it now. I think he’d like you to be there.”
Jason knew she didn’t mean Ollie. “Thanks,” he said, and stood up with a muffled groan. He felt better with his injuries seen to—and after taking some extra-strength painkillers—but he’d be hurting for weeks.
He followed Dinah into the room next door, Damian trailing behind with a determined look on his face that told Jason that if Roy wasn’t in his right mind when he woke up, at least one of them was ready and willing to put him right back down again. It was probably for the best, but Jason couldn’t think about it. Couldn’t consider the possibility that he might lose Roy again, so quickly.
Roy was sprawled on the bed. Even unconscious, his face looked more like Jason was used to seeing it—soft and relaxed, not blank. How many times had Jason seen him like this, when they’d shared hotel rooms and tiny safe houses on the road? How many times had he studied his face when he was free to look his fill, memorizing the constellations of his freckles like he could read the future in them?
In retrospect, he probably should have figured out that he was in love with Roy sooner.
Ollie was seated at the edge of the bed, holding something that looked not unlike an epipen. Bruce carried something similar in his utility belt, and so had Jason, once. Connor knelt on the other side of Roy, clearly ready to pin his shoulders down if necessary. Jade stood as far from the bed as possible, holding Lian, and al Ghul hospitality must have extended to providing baby supplies from somewhere, because Lian was going to town on a bottle, cheerfully oblivious to the tension in the room.
Dinah took a position between Roy and Jade, and nodded at Ollie. “Go ahead,” she said. “Wake our boy up.”
Ollie nodded back, then jabbed the needle into Roy’s thigh. There was a beat, and then Roy convulsed, sucking in air as his eyes flew open.
“Jay!” he gasped, and Jason’s heart seized.
Roy’s gaze darted wildly around the room until it landed on Ollie’s face. “Jason! Jay, I—Ollie? Ollie, where’s Jason, I hurt him, I need to—”
“Hey, hey, shhh, fella, it’s okay,” Ollie said, somehow managing to smile and look like he wanted to cry at the same time. “Jeez, way to make a guy feel like second best. Todd’s right here. He’s okay.”
Jason stepped forward, feeling suddenly and unaccountably shy. “Hey, buddy.”
“Jason.” Roy’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“Hey, no, it’s okay, it wasn’t your fault.” The hesitation vanished; Jason rushed to the bed and sat down as Ollie moved out of the way. Roy pushed himself up into a seated position and Jason put his hands on Roy’s shoulders, his sides, as if he could help, even though all of Roy’s wounds from this battle would be mental. Or maybe he just wanted to touch Roy. “You weren’t yourself. You think I give a shit about a broken rib or two? You came back. That’s all I care about.”
“I’m sorry,” Roy said again. His eyes were watery. “It was like I could see everything, I knew who I was and what I was doing, but I didn’t care. Nothing meant anything, and it was...it was easy, because that meant nothing hurt, either. But you...fuck, Jason, looking at you still hurt, every time.”
That was a pain worse than the broken rib. “Sorry,” Jason gulped.
“Jay, no.” Roy hauled him in, until Jason’s forehead touched his, and Jason closed his eyes. “Don’t you dare be sorry. It saved me. You saved me. I—shit, Cissie! I hurt Cissie, is she okay?”
He pulled back again and Jason followed, not wanting to let go. “Yeah, yeah, she’s okay. You just punctured her shoulder, she’ll heal. She knows you didn’t mean it.”
Roy’s forehead dropped to Jason’s shoulder. “Fuck, and I attacked Emi, I…” He paused, then looked back up at Jason’s face. “Did you say something about my daughter?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, mustering up a smile. “Yeah, I did.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Jade, who was already approaching the bed. Jason stood to give her his place; he thought he felt Roy’s hands cling to him for a second before Roy’s gaze dropped to Lian and he let go.
“Jade,” he breathed, looking at her and then back down at Lian, who had finished her bottle and was staring at him with wide, curious eyes. “How...when…”
“The last time,” she said, sitting down in the spot where Jason had been. “Before you went into Sanctuary. You’ve been gone a year, Roy. She’s three months old.” She smiled. “Her name is Lian.”
“Lian,” Roy repeated. Jason had never heard so much wonder on his lips. “Can I…?”
He held out his arms tentatively, and Jade passed Lian over to him. He traced her round cheek with a finger, touched her fine hair, and even a few feet from the bed Jason could see his hand was shaking.
Lian gave him a wet, gummy smile and seized his finger in her tiny fist. Roy let out a choked noise.
“Hi, Lian,” he said. “I’m your daddy. I’m sorry I got here so late.”
Lian gurgled in response.
“She looks like you,” Roy said. When he looked up at Jade, Jason could see the sheen of tears in his eyes. “She’s beautiful.”
Jason felt a light touch on his shoulder and turned to see Dinah, who nodded in the direction of the door. Right. This wasn’t something they all needed to hang around and witness. This moment should just be for Lian’s parents.
They all slipped out of the room, and Connor closed the door gently behind them—at which point Dinah promptly burst into tears and buried her face in Ollie’s chest.
“Hey, shhh,” he said, sounding both unsurprised and softer than Jason had ever heard him, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s okay. We got him back, pretty bird.”
He bent his face to her hair, and Jason wasn’t sure whether it was to comfort her or hide his expression until he saw the way Connor was bracing himself against the wall, one hand over his own face. Like father, like son, Jason supposed. Damian looked profoundly uncomfortable and very much like his own father at the sight of all this raw emotion.
And Jason…
Jason knew he was fundamentally a selfish person. He always had been, especially when it came to Roy. So the wounded howling in his chest wasn’t a surprise, really. He should have seen it coming the moment he knew there was a possibility they could bring Roy back.
After all, Lian deserved to be with both of her parents.
The important thing was that Roy was back. Jason would steal away the scraps of him that he could, as usual; he’d always had light fingers. And if he couldn’t quite be satisfied with that, well, he’d never expected to live a life of satisfaction in the first place.
It would be enough.
*
They were still standing awkwardly in the hall when Ra’s swept towards them, trailed by half a dozen servants.
“Good. You’re clean,” he said, glanced at Jason, and added, “...Somewhat. I believe I have more than paid whatever debts I might have owed you for ferreting out a potential traitor.”
“What are you going to do with Merlyn?” Ollie asked.
Ra’s gave him a flat look. “That information is not part of what I owe you, archer,” he said. He held out a hand to Dinah; she offered hers warily and he brushed a kiss against her knuckles, making Ollie puff out like an angry porcupine. “Dinah, it was lovely to see you again. Damian, collect your rabble and go deal with the situation outside before I decide to.”
“Wait, what situation outside?” Jason asked, but Ra’s was already walking away.
“Get Harper,” Damian said. “When he says go, he means now.”
Wary of what he might see, Jason let Dinah be the one to knock on the door and interrupt Roy and Jade. Roy moved easily when he got out of the bed, with no trace that he’d been dead for over a year, but Jason was still hobbling like an old man despite the tape on his ribs. Even so, he was a little surprised when Roy came up beside him and tucked his shoulder under Jason’s armpit, offering support.
“Just like old times, huh?” he asked, beaming into Jason’s face from far too close.
Jason turned away after a beat too long, too many endless seconds of re-memorizing that familiar smile. At least Roy still stank of the Pit, of sulphur and rot; a smiling Roy who smelled like himself would have been too much to bear. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
“Hey, I’m the one who broke you, I should at least be the one to help you out.”
Thankfully they were moving by then, and Jason could pretend he was concentrating on getting down the stairs instead of the solid warmth of Roy pressed up against him. They all followed Damian down two flights, through a long hallway, and out the front door—
—and stopped, dumbfounded, at the sight before them.
“Holy shit,” Roy said, and then, “Crap. Lian, pretend you didn’t hear that.”
The ground and sky in front of the chalet were packed with superheroes, a riot of muscles and weapons and primary colors. Jason started to count and almost immediately gave up, but there were definitely at least several dozen Titans and a fair number of Leaguers. He made out Superman and Supergirl and one of the Superboys; the Hawks, circling slowly because their wings wouldn’t let them hover; red blurs that meant impatient speedsters. Kyle wasn’t there, as promised, but Jason spotted every other Green Lantern he knew of. Even Bruce was there.
“Wow,” Roy said. “Batman really turned ‘em out for you and the kid, huh?”
Jason forgot himself and turned to stare at him. “You think this is for us?”
Roy gave him a puzzled look.
“They’re for you, dumbass. You think Hawkgirl gives two shits about me? You think fucking Damage even knows who I am? I don’t know if Dick did it or Kyle, but—Roy, this is for you. They came for you.”
Roy blinked at him, and Jason almost wanted to laugh, because after all this, did he still not get it? Did he still not understand how loved he was?
“Look,” he said. “Look who’s in the front.”
He nodded to Dick and Donna and Kori and Tempest, all racing to be first to greet Roy. Kori and Donna were the fastest, obviously, sweeping Roy off his feet in a hug that was all stars and sparkles and glowing hair. Tempest wasn’t far behind, but Dick paused and caught Jason as he staggered without Roy’s support.
“He’s really back,” Dick said. Jason couldn’t see his eyes behind the whiteout lenses of his mask, but he could hear the tears in Dick’s voice.
“Yeah,” Jason said, trying for gruff and missing by a mile.
“I know you told us not to come, but…it’s Roy. Would you have stayed home if I told you to?”
Jason scoffed. “I would have kicked your teeth in.”
“Yeah,” Dick said fondly, the big idiot, and then held him at arm’s length. “Are you okay? You look like crap.”
Jason looked back to where Roy was now being lifted off the ground in a hug from Cyborg, while a green labrador retriever barked and wagged its tail furiously.
“I will be,” he said.
They couldn’t exactly set up a receiving line for everyone to welcome Roy back, considering that he quickly started to look exhausted and overwhelmed, and also because at any second Ra’s might get fed up and drop a nuke on their heads. Cyborg and Zatanna set up portals and started ferrying people through them to the Watchtower, Titans Tower, and various home cities.
Jason knew that Bruce was standing next to him before he turned around. “I didn’t even think you liked Roy,” he said. “Not serious enough.”
“He’s not serious enough for Gotham,” Bruce said. “Not everywhere is Gotham.”
They watched as Roy hugged Hal Jordan while Impulse ran excited circles around them. Bruce was right. Jason belonged in Gotham, with its gray skies and endless winters. Roy belonged somewhere brighter. Somewhere with his daughter.
“It concerned me, when Dick first formed the Titans,” Bruce went on. “I thought they would be a distraction. But they were good for him. His friendship with Roy was good for him.” He paused. “Roy’s been good for you, too.”
It wasn’t a question, exactly, but there was a question in there. Jason still didn’t look at Bruce. He wasn’t entirely sure they were talking about the same thing; either way, it wasn’t exactly something he’d ever discussed with the old man.
“It has to go both ways,” he said. “I have to be good for him.”
“Jason,” Bruce said, and Jason finally turned to look at him. He was as impassive as ever, face mostly hidden by the cowl, but Jason had been reading through that since he was twelve. “Of course you are.”
Zatanna saved Jason from having to come up with a response. “Okay, this one’s going to Gotham!” she called out, opening another portal. “All aboard, you weirdos!”
Dick let go of Roy and headed for the portal; so did Damian, and Jason spotted Tim and Helena moving through the crowd too. “Uh, there may or may not be a Batplane in the League of Assassins airfield,” he told Bruce as they started walking. “You might want to ask Zatanna to send it back to the cave. Or have Replacement fly it home, whatever.”
“Jason?”
Jason turned to see Roy looking confused and unhappy. “You’re leaving?” he asked.
“Oh,” Jason said. “I just...I mean, there’s so many people here, I didn’t want to…”
Bruce put a hand on his shoulder. “Go to Star City,” he said. “I’ll take care of the plane.”
Jason bit his lip. “Guess I’m coming to Star City,” he said, and looking at Roy’s bright smile only hurt a little.
*
Back in Star City there were more happy reunions, as Ollie’s various teenage girls—and Kyle—flung themselves at Roy while he stammered out apologies. Jade, who Ollie seemed to have given up on keeping out of his house, eventually distracted them with the baby, and Jason slunk out into the backyard while everyone, including Roy, cooed over Lian.
Well, not everyone. Cass came up silently beside him and leaned against the porch railing, eyeing his injuries with an unimpressed expression.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Sisters are...nice,” she said. “You?”
Jason took his time lighting a cigarette so that he didn’t have to answer right away. He should be all right. He was all right. Roy was back, and the joy he felt over that was still too big and bright to touch or even understand. But he still felt...unfinished, somehow, like something was missing.
He still felt like he was standing outside, alone, in the cold.
“Yeah,” he said, and then, because lying to Cass never worked, “I will be.” Then he winced. “Shit, you probably want to get home, right? Roy wants me to stay for...I don’t know why, but we can get you on a commercial flight back to Gotham…”
She touched his wrist. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Rest first.”
He nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Rest first.”
Sunset in Switzerland wasn’t even noon in Star City, but Jason couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, not counting being chained to a wall while unconscious. At some point he drifted back into the house and Dinah got a good look at his face.
“Oh boy,” she said, and snagged his wrist, more firmly than Cass had. “Bedtime for Jason.”
“No,” he protested weakly, even as he let her tow him up the stairs and into a guest room. “I can…”
“We did it, kid,” she said. “We beat the bad guy. This is the part where we rest.”
“I’m,” he said, rubbed his eye, and forgot the rest of his sentence.
Her smile was gentle. “Yeah,” she said. “I think the rest of us are going to be passing out in a few minutes, at least the Switzerland crew. Roy always takes the room next door, so he’ll be there if you need anything.”
Jason’s face twisted as he fought not to ask if they were putting Jade in there, too. Roy wasn’t a teenager who had to keep his bedroom door open if he had a girl over, and anyway, it wasn’t any of Jason’s business. “...Thanks,” he managed finally.
Dinah smiled again. “Thanks for bringing him back.”
The guest bedroom had a double bed that Jason already knew his feet would hang off the edge of and a weird painting of Robin Hood on the wall and not much else. Jason managed to strip down to his underwear before crawling into the bed. He thought vaguely that he should close the curtains, since it was nearly midday, but was asleep before he could even make an attempt.
*
When he woke up, the angle of the light had changed in a way that he couldn’t figure out until he realized it was early morning and he’d slept for about nineteen hours. He felt considerably less dead on his feet, but ravenous and sorely in need of more painkillers.
After using the bathroom, splashing water on his face and swishing toothpaste around his mouth until it tasted less like something had died in it, he went back to his room, carefully averting his gaze from Roy’s closed door, and pulled on his pants. He didn’t bother with trying to get his filthy shirt on over his taped ribs, but he probably shouldn’t walk around in his underwear when there were this many teenage girls in the house.
He padded barefoot down the stairs, hoping no one got pissed at him for rummaging through the fridge for something to eat like a feral raccoon. When he reached the kitchen, though, he froze at the sight of Roy, wearing a faded old pair of pajama pants and nothing else and brewing a pot of coffee.
Roy turned and his face lit up with a smile. “Morning, Jaybird,” he said, and Jason couldn’t help the little noise that escaped him at hearing that nickname again. At how familiar it was to find Roy in the kitchen making coffee and smiling at him, how normal, as if he’d never pushed Roy away, sent him off to die alone and afraid and hurting—
He didn’t realize he’d wobbled until Roy was steering him to a kitchen chair, saying words he couldn’t quite make out and gently pushing his head between his knees. Slowly, slowly the blood rushed back to where it should be and he was aware of Roy’s callused hand on his back, rubbing gently as he murmured.
“...that’s right, just breathe, Jay. You’re okay. Everything’s okay.”
Jason pulled himself upright with an effort and realized that his eyes were wet and blurry. Fuck, why was he always crying in this house? “You died,” he said, as if Roy didn’t know.
“Yeah,” Roy said, wrapping a hand over Jason’s, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. “But I came back.” He was squatting next to Jason’s chair, looking up at him, freckles on his nose and eyes exactly as bright as they should be. Jason had never been happier or more heartbroken.
Roy swayed towards him, and Jason made himself look away. He thought he saw Roy’s mouth twist downwards before he straightened up, bouncing lightly on the balls of his bare feet.
“Right!” he said. “Was it weird to do, like, mundane things when you came back? I was just standing here before you came down thinking, ‘I died, and now I’m making coffee.’”
“My experience was...a little different than yours,” Jason said, and Roy winced.
“Yeah,” he said. “Shit, I’m sorry. I wish…” He cut himself off.
“What?” Jason asked.
“It feels so selfish. It’s not about me,” Roy said. “And I barely knew you then. But I wish I had been there for you. To make it...easier.”
Jason had to pause to swallow past the lump in his throat. “You did,” he said. “When you...once we were...partners. You made it easier.”
Roy smiled at him again, unbearably soft. Jason knew he should look away, should change the subject, but he couldn’t seem to make himself do it. He just sat there, staring at Roy like a starving man locked out of a feast, until the coffeemaker beeped and made them both jump.
“Oh! The coffee’s ready,” Roy said, so at least Jason wasn’t the only one feeling too off-kilter to know what to say. “Is that why you came down? I didn’t ask.”
“Uh, no,” Jason said, wincing slightly. “Painkillers.”
Roy, who had been reaching into a cabinet for mugs, turned to face him, his face falling. “Because of me. Shit.”
“No.” Jason was standing, across the kitchen and within arm’s reach of Roy before he realized it. “Because of Malcolm Merlyn. You didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Yeah, but I still did it.” Roy’s hand came up as if to cup Jason’s face and Jason went still...but then it moved higher, parting the curls above Jason’s left temple. “You’ve still got a bit of a goose egg here.”
Jason shrugged. “I’ve got a hard skull.”
Roy snorted and let his fingers trail lower, just barely ghosting around the curve of Jason’s ear and under his jaw to guide his chin up. Jason knew from looking in the mirror upstairs that the cut there was barely visible, just a thin red line where his blade had split his skin like lips parting in a kiss. He still trembled as Roy’s fingers traced along it.
“I’ve had worse,” he managed. The cut sat along an oblique angle to the scar left by Bruce’s batarang. This one, at least, wouldn’t leave a mark.
This one, at least, hadn’t been on purpose.
Roy’s face went so deeply sad at that that it was a relief when he dropped his gaze lower to the tape over Jason’s ribs—and then not a relief, when his fingers followed his gaze, feather-light over the edges of the bandage, and every nerve ending in Jason’s body lit up at once.
“If it helps, I think you just broke the one,” Jason said. It came out as barely more than a whisper.
“You weren’t fighting back hard enough,” Roy said. “You should have kicked my ass.”
Jason’s mouth quirked. “Give me a chance to heal up so we can spar, I’ll kick your ass all you want.”
It had been a bad joke before it left his mouth and it fell completely flat in the open air. Roy gracefully ignored it, following the line of the tape with his fingers as it wrapped around Jason’s side and towards his back. Jason lifted his arm so that Roy didn’t have to break the connection until he reached the end.
“This isn’t as deep as I thought it might be,” Roy said, and now he was touching the sword wound that sliced diagonally between Jason’s shoulder blades. Jason’s pulse throbbed, and he closed his eyes.
“Jacket. Kevlar,” he said.
“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure those swords were magic,” Roy said. Jason could feel his breath on his bare skin. Fuck, why hadn’t he put on a shirt? “They felt kinda tingly when I held them.”
There were no more wounds, nothing else for Roy to look at and hate himself over, but he was still standing there, lodged behind Jason’s beating heart. Those fingers went up, raking through the short curls at the back of Jason’s neck. “Jason…”
Jason stepped away, reluctantly turning to face Roy even though he knew his cheeks must be red. “Do you know where Ollie keeps the aspirin?”
Roy blinked. There was a flush along his cheekbones that hadn’t been there before. “Oh. Yeah, it’s...hang on.”
He opened a different cabinet and pulled out an economy-size bottle of aspirin. Jason swallowed three dry while Roy went back to the coffee. He poured two mugs, adding a single spoonful of sugar to the first and handing it to Jason before taking the half and half out of the fridge and doctoring his own. Jason watched him in silence, unsure if his eyes were stinging because Roy knew how he wanted his coffee without asking, or because he never thought he’d see Roy make his own truly heinously sweet, watered-down coffee again.
“Why are you up?” he asked finally. “Your sleep schedule can’t be as fucked as the rest of ours. Or, well, actually, I don’t know, maybe it’s worse.”
“Oh,” Roy said, and the awkwardness and sadness that had been clinging to him vanished as he let his spoon clatter against the rim of his mug. “Well, Jade put Lian in with me and she got fussy about an hour ago, so I changed her diaper and then I couldn’t fall back asleep.” He beamed. “I changed my daughter’s diaper, Jay. My daughter.”
Jason carefully didn’t react to the first part of that, the part where “Jade put Lian in with me” meant that Jade wasn’t with Roy last night, though what that signified he didn’t know. But he smiled at the rest of it, and didn’t even have to force it. “Congrats, bud. From what I hear, there’s a lot more of that to look forward to.”
“Oh, it was horrifying,” Roy said. “But it was also like I just...she was crying, and I fixed it. I made everything okay again. And then I held her and she went right to sleep and...she doesn’t even know me yet, not really, but that’s my job. I’m the guy who makes everything okay for that little girl.” His expression was wondering. “I just stared at her for that whole hour after. She’s an entire person and she’s so tiny and perfect and I don’t understand how any of that came out of me.” A little laugh. “She’s lucky she looks like Jade.”
“She looks like both of you,” Jason said, and when Roy opened his mouth, insisted, “She does. I can see it.” Roy visibly let it go, and Jason made himself ask the next question: “So what’s the plan with her?”
Roy frowned. “Well, it was getting close to breakfast time, so I brought her to Jade since, you know, my nipples don’t do that…”
“No, I mean…” Jason chewed the inside of his cheek and tried not to think about—or look at—Roy’s nipples. “Are you and Jade gonna stay in Star City? Or will you go to England?” He didn’t know why he was prodding at this. Both were impossibly far from Gotham. Jason was going to hurt either way.
“We’re still figuring it out,” Roy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t really want to leave Star City, and Jade definitely doesn’t want to live in the States, but that’s too far to shuttle Lian back and forth, especially once she starts school.”
It was Jason’s turn to frown. “What do you mean, back and forth?”
Roy gave him a confused look—and then the confusion gave way to delighted understanding, like when he figured out how to make a stubborn trick arrow work properly. “Jay. Did you think Jade and I were getting back together?”
Something leapt in Jason’s chest. “You’re not?”
“God, no,” Roy said, laughing a little. Jason had to put his coffee mug down. “Is that why you’ve been so…? No. Definitely not.”
“But...you have a kid together,” Jason said. “I thought…”
“Yeah, we do,” Roy said. “And that’s always going to matter. Jade’s always going to be important to me because she’s Lian’s mother, and because I did love her once. Part of me always will.”
“But if you love her…”
Roy put his mug down too, and when he moved closer it was with a purposefulness that made Jason’s breath come a little faster. “I’ve loved a lot of people,” he said. “I can’t change that. I wouldn’t change that. But god, Jaybird, did you really think I wouldn’t choose you?”
Jason’s throat clicked. “Yeah?”
“Jason. I came back to life because you said you loved me.” Roy reached for him and then drew back, brow creasing. “Unless you just meant, like, in a platonic friends-and-partners way…?”
Jason shook his head, a little frantically. He couldn’t speak.
“Oh, good. Then yeah.” Roy smiled, and his hand finally curved around Jason’s cheek, where it belonged. “You. I came back for you. I want you. If you’re cool with the whole, you know, undead single dad thing. Also I’m pretty sure I’m technically homeless right now.”
“Roy,” Jason said, putting his hand over Roy’s to hold him in place. He forced himself not to laugh, because if he started laughing, he’d start crying, and he was done with that.
“Gonna kiss you now, okay?” Roy murmured, and Jason nodded, and then Roy’s mouth was on his, his other hand curling into Jason’s hair, and all Jason could think was how and yes and thank you.
The flush was back on Roy’s cheekbones when he pulled back. Jason wanted to trace it with his fingers, but his hands had somehow found their way to Roy’s bare waist, and he couldn’t seem to make them let go. Besides, Roy came right back in to lean his forehead against Jason’s.
“Oh, hey, I’ve been stupid in love with you forever, by the way,” he said. “If I didn’t say that before.”
Jason shook his head. “You were kind of a zombie, though,” he managed. “I’ll let it slide.”
Roy grinned, bright and crooked and perfect. “Phew,” he said, leaning in to kiss Jason’s temple, and then his cheek, and then his mouth again, slow and coaxing.
Jason shut his eyes and let himself believe it, believe that Roy was back and loved him and chose him. That he could actually have this, this precious moment barefoot in someone else’s kitchen, and every moment afterwards. That everything he was touching was real: the shift of Roy’s muscles under his palms and the softness of his lips and the wet slick heat of his tongue—
Someone cleared their throat behind him.
Jason pulled back just enough to turn and see that it was Ollie, looking resigned—and possibly a little amused—but not surprised. “Oh, don’t stop on my account,” he said. “It’s only my kitchen. Or should I get the hose?”
Jason tried and failed not to turn red. Roy just rolled his eyes. “You’re pretty high and mighty there considering what I once caught you and Dinah doing on that very table.”
“Like I said, it’s my kitchen,” Ollie said. “Is there coffee?”
“In the pot.”
Ollie walked past them and poured himself a cup, adding a much more reasonable amount of milk and sugar to it than Roy usually did. “So is this a thing?” he asked, nodding a little in Jason’s direction.
Roy slung an arm around Jason’s waist to tuck him against his side. Jason didn’t actually care what Oliver Queen thought of him—but he was glad to have Roy’s arm around him just the same.
“Yeah,” Roy said. “It’s a thing.”
Jason lifted his chin, waiting for Ollie’s reaction. Ollie took a sip of his coffee and wrinkled his nose.
“You always brew it too strong,” he said. “Anyway, you two better put some shirts on. It’s a school day and the girls’ll be down for breakfast in a minute.”
“You hate me,” Jason said before he could catch himself. Roy’s thumb rubbed soothingly along his side.
Ollie raised an eyebrow, then took another sip of coffee. “First of all, I lost the right to tell Roy what to do a long time ago,” he said. “Second, pretty sure you’re the only reason he’s even here to get handsy with anyone in my kitchen at six in the goddamn morning, so I’m withdrawing some of my previous objections, even if I do still think you got an attitude problem. But we can pick a fight about it if it’ll make you feel better.”
Roy cracked up. “You’ll never understand our love for each other and rock and roll, old man!”
“Shut up,” Jason grumbled, even as something anxious in him quieted.
Roy grinned and kissed the side of his head. “Don’t worry, I’m sure Bruce disapproves of me enough for both of our dads.”
Jason sighed, remembering the conversation he and Bruce had had in Switzerland. “No, he thinks you’re good for me,” he said resignedly.
“Well, now I’m mad,” Ollie said. “I didn’t raise you to be approved of by Batman, Roy.”
Jason choked on a surprised laugh. Roy elbowed him and then let go of his waist to take his hand. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Come on, Jay, let’s find you a shirt.”
Jason raised an eyebrow but let Roy pull him from the kitchen. “Is there anything in this house that isn’t green?”
“Oh, sure. I think you’d look great in some of Dinah’s stuff,” Roy said, and Ollie let out an indignant noise behind him.
Roy kissed him again in the stairwell, and on the landing, and in the hall. “The girls are going to catch us,” Jason warned him when Roy had him pressed up against the door to his guest room, but he made no move to get away.
“Eh, they all knew I was crazy about you, they can handle it,” Roy said, but he did pull back after one final kiss. “But you’re right, it’s going to be a zoo in here in a few minutes anyway, we should get moving. Besides…” He ducked his head, looking uncertain for the first time that morning. “I don’t think anyone ever formally introduced you to my daughter.”
Jason leaned back against the door and let himself believe in what was in front of him: Roy, beautiful and happy and alive, smiling shyly at him as the morning sun through the window at the end of the hall brought out his faded freckles and turned his hair to flame. This was real. Jason could have this.
He slipped his hands into Roy’s and smiled back. “I’d love to meet her,” he said.
*
One Month Later
“...Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, with Ate at his side come hot from hell shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,” Jason declared. “That this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.”
Lian stared up at him with big, dark eyes, then giggled.
“Yeah?” Jason asked, brushing her round cheek with a finger. “You think that’s pretty funny, huh?”
“Carrion men? What the hell are you reciting to her?” Roy asked, walking past them with a cardboard box labeled “Kitchen.”
“Shakespeare. Julius Caesar,” Jason said. “Unlike you, your daughter has refined tastes. Or she just likes it when I yell ‘Havoc!’” Lian giggled again. “Okay, yeah, it’s the havoc thing.”
“Well, can you cry havoc at her while she’s in her bounce chair and help me with these boxes?” Roy asked. “We’ve only got the U-Haul for another half hour.”
Jason had been enjoying watching Roy’s arms while he carried boxes, but he couldn’t actually let Roy do all the heavy lifting. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and pulled the bounce chair free from between a couple of boxes marked “Living Room,” placing it strategically so that they could keep an eye on Lian and she could watch them working.
“Don’t worry, princess, I’ll give you the real bloody stuff from Coriolanus later,” he promised, strapping her in. Lian dimpled at him and wrapped her hand around his finger, and Jason felt his heart seize with love for her for the eighth or ninth time just that day.
But that was par for the course, really. It had been ever since he’d brought Roy home, since he’d learned how to not be terrified of holding a baby or changing a diaper or singing a lullaby. Or of being loved.
It had taken weeks for Roy to get his feet back under him and his paperwork sorted out, to undo everything that had declared him legally dead, but he was finally moving out of Ollie’s guest bedroom and into his own apartment. Well. Their apartment. Jason hadn’t quite closed up shop in Gotham yet, but he’d only been back there three days this past month and he’d hated every second he couldn’t see Roy and know for sure that he was still back in the land of the living.
He’d get over it. Eventually.
The fact that Jason hadn’t locked down his plans hadn’t kept Roy from getting an apartment big enough for three, or promptly handing a set of keys to Jason once he had them. The question of where Lian would live full-time was still up in the air, too, and Roy and Jade had had many long conversations about how to make this work and what would be best for Lian in the long run. But for now, she was with them, getting to know her daddy.
Her daddies, maybe. Roy might put it that way. Jason hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask yet.
It was a lot, Jason knew, to be throwing himself into a life on the other side of the country, with a partner—with everything that word had always meant and all the new, astonishing meanings it carried now—and a child. But holy fuck, he’d never been so happy in his life.
He met Roy at the door and accepted a box from him. “Where’s this go?”
“Our bedroom,” Roy said, and Jason had a feeling the stupid smile that accompanied the words was reflected on his own face.
“And here I thought we’d be living in Ollie’s guest room forever,” Jason said.
“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Roy said with a wink. “We still have to keep it down for the kid.”
Jason felt his cheeks heat up and rolled his eyes when Roy’s grin widened. “Go get another box,” he grumbled, and took his to the bedroom.
It was true that sharing Roy’s bed had been another perk of his new life. Not just because the hushed, breathless sex was incredible, even if they did have to keep quiet, and even if keeping quiet didn’t keep them from being mercilessly teased by Roy’s family every morning. But because Roy had Pit nightmares too, now, and Jason could be there to hold him before he sank too deep, hold him before he screamed loud enough to wake Lian. Jason had never known what a gift being able to be there for someone else was.
If he could banish the nightmares entirely, he would do it in a heartbeat. But Roy only had nightmares because he’d come back—back to a life that held good as well as bad, and all any of them could do was hope it balanced out in the end.
Like Jason had said at the Pit: life hurt. But sometimes the good made up for the pain.
They got the U-Haul unloaded and stood there gazing at the boxes for a minute before Roy had to leave to return the van. Lian stared around her too, not to be left out.
“How does it look like so much work to unpack when most of your stuff is back in Gotham and I was dead for a year?” Roy asked.
“Because you’re lazy?” Jason suggested, even though he was daunted, too. “Oh god, I still have to get all my stuff here from Gotham.”
Roy slung an arm around him. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got everything we need.”
“If you say something sappy like ‘each other’ I’m gonna vomit,” Jason said, even as he turned in toward Roy’s touch to kiss him.
“I was going to say ‘each other and a credit card that Bruce pays for,’” Roy said. “You still have that, right? I made it clear that that was a condition of you moving in?”
Jason laughed and kissed him again. Lian squawked and held up her arms.
“Aw, you want some loving too?” Roy asked, unstrapping her from her bounce chair and snuggling back in close to Jason, Lian squished between them as he smooched her chubby cheek. She shrieked in delight and whacked Jason in the eye.
“Well, she’s got your right hook,” Jason said, wincing but kissing her other cheek anyway. It was right there, after all.
“She’ll have the best of all of us. You, me, and Jade,” Roy said, and Jason had to tuck his face against Lian’s hair for a minute. Roy’s free hand curved around the back of Jason’s neck and just stayed there, steadying him.
Sometimes the good made up for the pain. Standing here with Roy and Lian in their new home, it was easy to remember.
“All of us,” Jason agreed, looking up again, and let Roy’s smile remind him that he wasn’t alone anymore.