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Jason is always in an explosion. His body left the warehouse; he never did. He’s always overtop his mother, watching the numbers go down, his amount of hope going with it. So, although he most likely should have some sort of reaction, he feels fine, barely escaping the bomb. Was it a close call? Yes. Can he still feel the warmth bleeding from the fire on his back? Yes. But is he alive and pretty fine? Yes. So he’ll take what he can get.
Tomorrow will be busy; he needs to figure out who set the trap, thinking he was dumb enough to spring it without knowing it was a trap and figure out if starting a gang war is worth getting revenge. Actually, get revenge and send a message to every other idiot with the ability to build a bomb and a dream to kill the Red Hood. Those are for tomorrow, though. Today, all he needs to do is get home and relax. Get a few hours of sleep, and maybe finish chapter three of The Great Gatsby.
He thinks about lighting a cigarette for the trip home. It’s not far, but he hasn’t had one at all today. He looks around, making sure no one’s trailing him, and when it seems clear, he starts searching his pockets. Each one came up empty, which makes no sense because he knows for a fact he popped his open pack in one pocket. He pauses his search and moves to the edge of the rooftop. Taking a second to a full stop and putting all his attention to the search. His fingers brush against spare bullets, a lighter, an unwrapped peppermint, but no cigarettes. The day plays back in his head. He’d most likely feel it if they slipped out of pocket, but when every pocket turns up empty, the thought gets more and more likely. It’s a loud thud at the opposite end of the rooftop, which snaps him from his trance of searching. His shoulders set, but he refuses to be afraid. Whoever it is is firmly in his territory in a way inviting his reaction. When he turns, with his head held high and hand in a fist, he’s only a tiny bit surprised to see it’s Nightwing.
He and the Bats had reached what some would call a truce. He leaves them alone, letting them think they’re hiding how much they are watching him. And they leave him alone. Allowing him to run the Alley however, he wants as long as he doesn’t test the boundaries of his territory. The little ones scurry away when he appears, clearly threatened with a benching if they get into it. Nightwing and the big bat himself normally just watch him from whatever rooftop they end up on. The first and last time they engaged with each other, it was just Dick warning him never to go after Robin like he did at Titans Tower again. Jason shut him up by asking when he started caring about what happened to replacement Robins, and that was it.
Dick is a performer first, it bleeds into the way he fights. He does extra flips with pointed toes, quips in the middle of a fight, handstands when a normal step would be easier. Towards the end, they started fighting about it. Dick couldn’t understand why Jason refused to add grace into his movements, and Jason couldn’t understand why he had to add the extra when a punch would have the exact same results. It was almost nice, though, to be fighting about something stupid instead of over Jason’s existence. It felt like they were actually brothers. Those days are long gone now. Only memories held by a half dead nineteen year old and a twenty four year old who has plenty of other kids to think about. This is not a performance, though. He slams himself onto Jason as hard as possible. Trapping him under him. He’d rage if confusion hasn’t gotten him.
“Off.” He demands, overtop of Jason. Sounding like a child fighting with a broken toy. “Off.” His pupils are huge, Jason notes, but that’s the only thing that seems off. He’s high, maybe on adrenaline or a toxin. Neither is great news for Jason. No shaking, so rage is out of the question. Fear is a possibility but the Alley is the first place to go and as of ten minutes ago everything was fine.
“What is wrong with you?” Jason asks, squirming without meaning to. Dick is putting his entire weight on Jason’s chest, and while it doesn’t hurt, it also doesn’t feel particularly good. He’s been through worse, much worse but he’d still like to be able to stand up. Instead of responding, Dick starts yanking on the helmet; when it doesn’t budge, he starts pulling even harder. The base of it begins digging into Jason’s neck.
“Dude, what the fuck.” Dick doesn’t respond, he doesn’t even twitch at Jason’s words.
“Off. Off.” He repeats. Jason knows he can’t see it but he rolls his eyes anyway.
“Pulling isn’t going to do anything.” For the first time since he’s tackled Jason, he hears him. His finger travels around the base of the helmet, going from the front to the back, only stopping when he feels the latch. Pure adrenaline shoots straight through Jason
“Stop.” He barks before he can press down. Almost an entire year, and Dick fucking Grayson is the only person who’s ever gotten dangerously close to setting it off. Mask would be so jealous, he’s spent months trying to blow Jason’s head off by any means necessary.
“There’s a bomb in there. If you press it, we’re both going sky high.” Dick gets mad. Jason remembers, through all the smoke that’s become his childhood memories, Dicks rages. His entire face would turn deep red, and he’d get loud. So loud Jason would worry about the china cabinet shattering. But the first warning would be his entire face scrunching up like he’s taken a bite from a fresh lemon. He’d pull that face, and Jason knew to pull back whatever he was doing or go hide in the library until Alfred came to let him know it was safe to leave. Four years later, it looks a tiny bit different. Clearly, it is on an adult instead of a teenager, but there’s no denying it. Now, though, there’s no library to hide in while the storm passes.“Get It Off. Now.”
Jason is nineteen, but most of the time, he feels thirty-seven. Too old to deal with all the crap in his life but forced to because it’s his life. Right now, for the first time in a long time, he feels fourteen getting caught sneaking out while Dicks is allegedly in charge because Bruce and Alred are across the world for Wayne industries. He drags that feeling down as far as it will go. He is not fourteen, and he never will be again. This is not twenty year old Dick grabbing him by the shirt and demanding to know where he thought he was going.
“Get off me then. I need my thumb.” He’s not dumb enough to actually hope Dick will get off of him, so when he doesn’t move to get up, Jason’s not surprised. He is slightly surprised at the sudden pulling on his left arm. He doesn’t think Dick is trying to hurt him, but he’s also not attempting to be gentle.
“Dickwad, I can’t do it if you're on my arm. You need to move.” Dick turns his head, studying the helmet. He gives Jason's arm another yank as if the laws of gravity will change. When they don’t, he gives them a small frown.
“You’ll stay.” He commands, and Jason can’t help himself from rolling his eyes again. He waits for Dick to move and bites his tongue when he doesn’t.
“Yes, I will stay. Now will you get off of my arm.” Dick shifts, moving his weight further to the right side of Jason. He can’t help himself, he sighs at Nightwing's refusal to get up in any real way. He is smart enough to pick his battle, he doesn’t do anything other than slide his arm out. Unfortunately, before he can do anything, he’s hit with the issue of his glove. He has his helmet on, he can’t bite the glove off, and his other hand is trapped.
“Off.” His patience is clearly close to wearing thin, and Jason just knows he doesn’t want to be around when that happens.
“You have to get the glove off, and I’ll take it off.” Dick doesn’t need to be told twice. He pulls, tosses the glove behind him, and starts manhandling his hand to the back of the helmet. It takes a few tries of jamming, but he’s able to find the latch and match it with the thumb. A click announces the opening of the helmet, and Dick wastes no time pulling it directly off Jason’s head. He feels naked, sure he has his normal domino but he and Dick haven’t been face to face like this since he was a kid. Dick Grayson is looking at Jason Todd, or Nightwing is looking at Red Hood. They have to choose one, but both are true.
“Fat.”
“Okay fucking rude.”
“There’s no baby fat on your cheeks anymore.” Possibly to prove his point, Dick pokes a finger in the center of his cheek. Jason waits, but he keeps it there. Digging it into his skin.
“Yeah, it’s called growing up.” It’s pure pit. It wiped his scars clean, leaving pure skin that lasted less than a month, gave him almost two extra feet, made him wider than Bruce, and carved out his face.
“I had baby fat at nineteen.” Slowly Jason can feel his patience slipping away. There are so many things he’d like to be doing, and being trapped under Nightwing is not one of them.
“Great, good for you. This has been great. We should do this again sometime. Now, will you get off me?” Dick doesn’t even have the decency to respond to him.
“You’re only nineteen, you should have baby fat.” He announces, but Jason can tell the words aren’t meant for him. He can’t tell who he’s talking to. Maybe the voice in his head that told him tackling Jason was a good idea.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll work on it.” Silence passes, and they just watch each other.
“I am happy you are alive.” Something unnatural laces the words. They sound sincere but wrong. It twists Jason's stomach. It’s the last thing Jason can take tonight. He reaches his free arm up and plucks the com directly from Dicks ear. He flinches at the feeling, but it doesn’t stop him. Jason places it in his own ear, wondering when they got so small. It could disappear in his ear if he pushed far enough.
“O you here?” He says like they are old friends catching up.
“What did you do to him?” Oracle snaps, not even faking the hint of professionalism she gives them on the rare day they’re forced to speak.
“I shot him in the head and dragged his body through the city.”
“Ho-od.” She breaks the syllable into two like she used to do when he made her really mad. Her tell that he should make himself scarce for the next few hours. She sounds like the Batgirl he remembers: brave and bold.
“Look, he fucking tackled me; I haven’t even touched him, but that can change. There's something wrong with him, which is not my problem. I’m leaving and it’s up to you who gets him.” He takes the com and tosses it off the roof before she can respond. He is not Robin, she is not Batgirl.
He twists, throwing Nightwing off balance and getting out from under him. There’s no fight, Wing just watches from the ground.
“Do you remember when I had to watch you and you tried to leave?” Jason nods because he doesn’t know what else to do.
“I always wondered if I told Bruce about that, maybe you wouldn’t have died.” His words sound slightly wet, but he doesn’t want to think about that. He forgot Dick agreed to keep it a secret as long as Jason didn’t tell about Dick scratching the back of the Batmobile. Mutually Assured Destruction. They shook on it and everything.
“I can guarantee you it wouldn’t” He leaves before Dick can respond.