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Jason is smoking.
Or, he will be. Soon. Probably. Maybe, if he can get over the sick feeling ravaging his gut whenever he thinks about smoke in his lungs.
He will smoke. He will.
He just needs a second first. Maybe a few seconds.
Jason doesn’t like smoking, never had. The smell had always reminded him of his old apartment, with his dying mother and angry father. He used to choke on the smoke whenever he stepped into the living room, when his dad sat on the only recliner they had, surrounded by beer cans and a single ashtray with the shitty The Price is Right channel playing on the illegal TV he had gotten from a buddy. He used to have cigarette scars scattered across his arms; pale circles left over from his father's drunken rage.
The Lazarus Pit had erased the scars, made him a clean slate, given him a fresh start.
Stole the proof that he had survived his childhood, replaced it with a rage too much like his fathers.
Jason doesn’t even like smoke. He had died from smoke, the burn of it raking claws down his throat and tearing his lungs from the inside. Had died buried under rubble and with more broken bones than intact ones, his body shaking with each weak cough he forced out, knowing he wasn’t going to make it home this time, no matter whatever magic Robin gave him.
That he would die as he had lived, surrounded by smoke and an absence where a parent should be.
He will smoke. He will. It’s just that the sight of smoke makes his lungs constrict and the smell of it makes it hard to remember he isn’t fifteen and dying. It’s hard to keep his breathing even and his heart from racing. It’s hard to not feel like he’s back in that fucking warehouse, a crowbar smashing into his ribs and his legs and his—
It’s fine. He will smoke. He will prove he can do it, that he isn’t weak. That his family didn’t need to tiptoe around the subject of bombs and death and clowns like he was a porcelain doll. That his death didn’t steal everything from him.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here.
He’s been flicking the lid of the cigarette box open and closed— the one missing causing the others to shift slightly with each movement— and the night chill hasn’t slipped through his leather jacket yet, so he figured he’s fine. The faint outline of the moon is considerably lower than when he first scaled the ivy of the house through the library window, but it's fine. He's fine. It's fine.
Or, it was.
He hears the rustling before he sees him, the sound of someone crawling up the same ivy he had a couple minutes— an hour— a few— however earlier. It’s intentional, the sound. A warning to Jason, giving him time to prepare. An olive branch extended instead of ambushing him quietly like Jason knows he can.
Jason had gone to the roof of Wayne Manor for some quiet time, for some time to drown in his thoughts and humor the idea of smoking. For some way to remind himself that he is alive and more than the rotting apartment walls of his latest safehouse of the week. For a break away from the rest of his family, even if he promised Tim and Dick he’d stay for crepes tomorrow morning.
But the manor’s halls are filled with too many ghosts for Jason not to want to run. The roof was the second-best choice.
Dick’s head pops over the eavestrough. He gives him a beaming smile; clearly happy he had found Jason’s hiding spot. Jason resists the urge to throw his smoke pack at him and hope he falls the thirty feet down. He settles for glaring instead.
“Thought I’d find you up here,” Dick says as he hauls himself onto the roof with ease, unaffected. “You’ve been gone for a while.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to be found,” Jason says evenly. How long is a while? Twenty minutes? An hour? Time had been slipping away too easily lately, second priority to Jason’s random bad-decision-deep-thought episodes.
Dick’s eyebrow quirks up. “Then next time,” he says as he moves to sit next to Jason on the roof, not close enough to touch without purpose. Close enough that Jason can hear Dick’s steady breaths as he gives him an amused grin. “Pick a better place to hide.”
Jason scowls at him. “I’m not hiding.”
“Really? This feels like hiding.”
“It isn’t.”
“Fine, brooding. You're brooding.”
Jason swatted his shoulder. Hard. Dick laughed with it, hand going to wrap around his stinging shoulder reflexively. “Fuck off, Dickface.”
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Dick holds up his free hand in mock surrender. “Sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yep.”
Dick narrows his eyes. Jason resisted the urge to flick the space between them. He goes back to opening and closing the smoke pack instead. Dick ignores the clear dismissal. “Do you mind if I stay for a bit?”
Open, closed. Open, closed.
“Do what you want,” Jason huffed. He didn’t care, really. In all honesty, the company was nice, an excuse to not smoke, to wait to face that demon alone where no one could see him fail.
Dick doesn’t say anything more for a while, and Jason is content to let the silence linger. His thumb absent-mindedly pushes the lid of the smoke pack up and down, a steady rhythm of shitty laminated cardboard against shitty laminated cardboard. Jason leans back just slightly, lets the shingles dig into his lower back as he looks up at the sky.
It’s cloudy, just like it always is. Smoke and fog and pollution stain Gotham’s sky, making it impossible to make out any stars— or the moon on its faint days. It plagues the city, and Jason wonders if it plagues him too, if growing up without stars and moons only on special days changed him in some inescapable way. If not knowing what was above the grey shrouded him from all the possibilities he could’ve had if he had seen them. If he would be different now, less changed and twisted and ruined, if he saw what else he could’ve become.
Open, close. Open, close. Think, or don’t. Open, close.
Jason feels more like the twisted oak tree jutting out in the middle of the courtyard, limbs flayed and spread in a mess of desperation and cruelty, like arms searching for the sun but not quite sure where it will reach first. It’s a center piece in that strange way unsettling things are. It attracts your eyes simply because it is so openly a struggle you cannot look away.
Open, close. Open, close.
Then, Dick holds out his hand, fingers stretched half-open and glaze expectant. His eyes dart down to the cigarette pack and back up expectedly.
Jason blinks, hands on auto pilot as he passes over a cigarette, holding up the lighter like his mom always made him when her hands were too shaky to get the stubborn spark to light. Dick ducks his neck easily, free hand cupped protectively around the delicate flame as he lights the smoke, practiced.
Jason drops his hand. Dick blows the smoke out slow, sweet rotting staining the air lightly, so different from the heavy scorch of warehouse smoke. They stare at the twisted oak tree. Jason cracks first.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
Dick hums, taking another inhale. Smoke passes between his lips as he answers. “I didn’t know you did, either.”
Jason shrugs. He doesn’t mention that one cigarette is missing, that Jason had tried smoking leaning against the fire escape of his apartment, that it had ended with him curled up in a shaking ball pressed against the rotting tile of his bathroom floor, fingers scraping at long healed scars.
“I don’t,” Jason says eventually, not quite sure why he says it. Some desperate urge to not hide this one thing. To finally be known, if it is only one true fact. He tries to backpedal immediately. “Or I haven’t— not since I—” died. It goes unsaid, unneeded.
Dick’s jaw clenches and his fingers twitch inwards, programmed to curl into a fist better than it was to sooth broken brothers. The universal impact of Batman on damaged children. “Oh.”
Jason’s face burns with a sort of unneeded shame. For being caught, for not following through. For being too scared to inhale smoke on his own terms, but too untethered to let go of something that grounded him into humanity. For keeping that stupid cigarette box with him all the time, just to flick the top open and closed and stare at the smokes he couldn’t stomach to light.
“Why do you have them, then?” Dick’s voice isn’t accusing, or teasing, or malicious. Just curious, questioning. It gives Jason a bit of relief, as much as he hates to admit it.
“Pockets were feelin’ a bit empty,” he shoots out, automatic more than anything. He takes another breath, tries for truth. “It’s— It’s complicated. I don’t know. For when I decide I can. To prove that I’m still in control of me. That how I died doesn’t change who I am now. That it doesn’t control me, even after everything.”
Dick is quiet for a long moment, processing. Then;
“Here,” he says, turning to face him. He pulls the cigarette from his mouth, letting it dangle between his fingers as he pulls out another. “I can teach you. Lord knows if you do it alone, you’ll try and inhale all the smoke the first time and end up coughing up your lungs.”
Jason reaches over to flick his shoulder to hide the uneasiness rising in his stomach. Ignores the fact that that was exactly what he did on that fire escape, used to lungs more rotted and decaying than what the Pit restored. “Asshole. I have smoked before.”
“Yeah, when you were twelve,” Dick shoots back with an amused smile and a raised eyebrow. “You wanna do this? Fine. Prove you’re tougher than your trauma if you think’ll help. But let me help you. It’s my right as an older brother.”
Jason grinned a little, grabbing the cigarette and slipping it into his mouth. Ignored the anxiety twisting in his gut. “Teachin’ me how ta smoke on a rooftop at three in the mornin’?”
“Gotta be a bad influence somehow.”
“Train surfin’ wasn’t enough for ya?”
He smiled. “I’m allowed to have two or three bad influences on you. C’mon.”
Jason clicks the lighter, watching the flame flap delicately before rising higher, waving slightly in the faint breeze. He brings the lighter to the cigarette, cupping the other as Dick watches. “Take it slow. Suck on it a bit to draw the flame in, just like that, you got it.”
The filter catches easily, and smoke slips into Jason’s mouth slowly, sweet and burnt, ashy and suffocating in a dry way. He didn’t buy the good kind. He didn’t plan on doing this—
(The smoke in the warehouse was scorched, black and heavy, burning at his lungs, his nose, his eyes as he tried to breathe, just breathe—)
“Inhale a little, not too much,” Dick advises, raising his own hand to take another puff. “Hold it in your mouth for a second before exhaling. Don’t let it go to your lungs yet.”
Jason jaw clenched, but he listened, pulling the cig out of his mouth and then slowly exhaling, letting the smoke escape. The smoke curled around his head, drifting in front of his eyes in a haze that had his breath catching and his heart seizing—
Dick’s hand made contact with his back, patting it softly as he smiled. “You good?”
“Fine,” Jason bit out on instinct, and it wasn’t even a lie. The smoke was gone, and his breaths weren’t labored, and Dick was running his thumb over his shoulder blade, grounding. He brought the smoke back to his lips, inhaling deeper this time, letting some of it slip down to his lungs and—
“Woah, woah!” Dick laughed, holding Jason’s shoulder as he hacked and coughed. “Jesus, can’t even wait two seconds, can you?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Jason wheezes out, half bent over with his free hand curled into a fist and pressed against his mouth in a way that just makes Dick laugh harder. “Don’t laugh, fuckin’ dickhead. Livin’ up to your name.”
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Dick agrees easily, thumb slipping to rub along the edge of Jason’s shoulder blade in soothing strokes. “Just take it slow. You’re always too ready to jump in, all or nothing.”
Jason rolls his eyes, but listens, straightening up and staring at the burning cig in his hand before slowly bringing it back to his mouth. He only breathes in a little smoke this time, per Dick’s pointedly raised eyebrow, letting it circulate through his lungs for a minute before expelling it with a cough— there is really no way to get around them at the start.
There’s a flash of a warehouse, black smoke curling upwards and inwards as a fifteen-year-old lay half buried under rubble and waiting for death, smoke burning his lungs and ravaging his throat with dry hacking and desperate wheezing. There’s a flash of panic, of pain, of bones broken and a collapsed lung and so, so much pain—
But then Dick snorts quietly beside him, trying to hide it by taking a long drag and blowing it out slow. The movement brushes their shoulders together, nudging Jason just enough that it jerks his eyes off the smoke curling into the Gotham sky.
“Asshole,” Jason mutters, and the grin comes easier this time, curling at the corners of his mouth as much as he tries to fight it down. Dick’s next laugh is less hidden, echoing off the empty rooftop.
“You love me.”
“Against my better judgement,” Jason allowed, tilting his head down to hide his smile when Dick bumped their shoulders together. “When’d you pick up smokin’, anyways? Figured your golden boy complex would’a saved you from smoker lungs.”
Dick shrugged, bringing the roll up to his lips again. He’ll need a new one soon. “College was rough.”
Jason blinked. Dick didn’t go to college. “You didn’t go to college.”
“I did, actually,” Dick said, pointedly not looking at him. “Dropped out after the first semester. Turns out balancing school, a job, and vigilantism is a bit hard. Met some people, saw some things,” he tapped the side of his cigarette on the edge of the roof to dislodge the ash. “Spiraled from there.”
“Clearly. Never would'a taken you for a smoker.”
Dick snorted. “I’m pretty sure B still doesn’t know about it. Alfred confiscated my lighter during winter break that year, though.” He winced. “I don’t make a habit of it anymore. That stare was enough to deal with the withdrawal.”
Jason made a sympathetic face; Alfred was something to be feared. More than Batman. When Jason still lived in the manor, he rarely smoked, keeping his shitty pack tucked behind a copy of Mansfield Park. He was too scared that if any of them caught the street rat smoking like a delinquent, he’d be thrown back onto the streets. After a while, the urge faded, replaced by warm food and soft smiles.
That shitty pack was probably still there, honestly, hidden behind a book about a poor girl turned socialite, untouched in the room no one enters anymore.
“Tim probably knows,” he offers, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Doesn’t know how to relate the brother he idolized to the one beside him, smoking with more experience than Jason wants him to have.
Dick grinned, taking another drag. “Oh, Tim definitely knows. I got too many ‘tips to staying smoke-free’ pamphlets accidently delivered to my apartment back then. I’m waiting for him to use it against me next time I try and get him to actually sleep.”
Jason laughs a little, corners of his mouth curling upwards, and he brings his half-burnt cigarette back to his lips, if only for something to keep him busy. His throat burns from the smoke, and he tries to blow it out slow, even when a cough interrupts halfway through his exhale.
Dick doesn’t say anything, stubbing out the remnants of his before gesturing for Jason to pass him the pack. The lighter follows a second later.
“They’re probably wondering where you are,” Jason said after a moment, watching the way Dick’s thumb pressed against the side of the white roll to pull it out.
“Where we are,” Dick corrected, letting the cigarette dangle from his lips as he tried to get the lighter to spark. “And yeah, probably. They’ll survive. Besides— jesus christ , what is wrong with this lighter— besides, I want to be with you right now.”
Jason blinked, not prepared for the vulnerability shoved into the end. Dick didn’t pay notice, too focused on glaring at the lighter as his finger slid over the spark wheel. He took pity on him, reaching the space across and dragging his thumb over the metal with the amount of pressure he mastered by leaning over a rusted fire escape on the edge of Crime Alley, watching a flame flicker and disappear again and again while an unopened pack of cigarettes burned a hole through his jacket.
The flame sparked to life.
“Witch,” Dick muttered quietly, bending down to light his smoke with narrowed eyes. Jason smirked a little, holding it still for a moment before retreating.
“I suppose—” Jason’s voice cracked a little, and he took a small drag to cover it before forcing the words out through the smoke. “I suppose we can stay here a little longer, then. If you want to, I mean.”
“I want to,” Dick said quietly, tilting his head up to watch the smoke curl into the night, slowly lightening with the threads of morning. “Always.”
“Hn,” Jason responds with, because there is nothing else to say and he truly spent too much time with Batman in his impressionable years. He brings his cigarette back to his lips, lets the smoke fester in his lungs for a second, and doesn’t think about a broken boy dying alone and scared. He tries again. “Okay. I want to, too.”
The time flows past easily, smooth and intangible, after that. They talk, and they don’t. They smoke, and they don’t. At some point— and Jason isn’t really sure when, too distracted by the buzz in his finger tips and his older brother making a joke about the Penguin— they end up shoulder to shoulder, close enough that Jason can tilt his head to rest on top of Dick’s comfortably as he made his way through the pack.
Jason gave up after he finished his second, more content to flick the cigarette lid open and closed than feel smoke curling into his lungs. Dick didn’t, letting the faintly sweet smoke cloud over their heads, mixing with the early light of dawn.
It isn’t forced, or tense, or bitter. It’s quiet solidarity in struggle, in knowing and understanding. It’s two brothers trying to heal too many things at once. It’s two brothers trying, and that is enough.