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"The experience of being in between-between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith. It is like the time when a trapeze artist lets go the bars and hangs in midair, ready to catch another support: it is a time of danger, of expectation, of uncertainty, of excitement, or extraordinary aliveness."
-Paul Tournier
The call comes in at two thirty-four am, on Dick’s first night off in three weeks.
He throws his arm over, hand fumbling blindly for the offending object. He squints at the screen. The caller ID reads as unknown, but Dick recognizes the area code as local, and huffs. He can’t not pick it up, with the life he lives, so he answers with a groggy, “What?”
“Hey Dick.”
It’s Jason, which is rare enough that Dick snaps awake, the heavy exhaustion that had been clinging to him falling away, replaced with sharp concern. Jason’s greeting is slurred, and Dick’s mind races. Poisoned? Injured? Why hadn’t Jason called Batman, or someone who had been on patrol?
“Jason? Are you alright? What’s going on?” Dick tries to hold back the edge of panic in his voice, but it slips through anyways. He’s good in a crisis, but when it comes to Jason… He and Bruce were similar in that regard.
Jason barks a laugh that’s not quite sharp, before answering him, “-‘m fine, big bird. Just, just got a lil sloshed is all.”
Dick breathes out, deeply. Concern turns to annoyance rather quickly. He loves his brother to death, but he longs for his full night of sleep more, at that moment. Jason getting drunk on a Friday night wasn’t exactly an emergency worth waking him up at the ass crack of morning for.
“So why are you calling, again?” Dick asks, again only semi-successfully stamping the emotion out of his voice.
“What, can’t I give my big brother a call?” Jason teases. Dick sees it for what it is, though. An evasion. His brother had actually called for a reason, it seems.
“ Jason. ”
“Fuck, alright, Jesus. Look I, I need somewhere to crash tonight.” Jason sighs. The slurring is gone from his words, and Dick wonders how much of it was put on to begin with. Dick sits up finally, and flips on the lamp on his end table, swings his legs over the side of his bed.
“I thought you just moved into a new place?” Dick asks, but he’s already pulling on pants and shoes. Jason huffs another sigh over the line, but it sounds less contemptuous and more guilt ridden.
“Yeah, I just. I can’t go back to Roy and Lian drunk and smelling like shitty beer, Dick. He’s been having a rough time, and…” Jason trails off, and Dick understands immediately.
“I get it, Jay.” Dick grabs his keys and wallet, and pulls on his coat, “Where are you? I’ll come pick you up.”
Jason gives him the address, and forty minutes later, Dick pulls up to a bar entitled “Dott’s Shots”. It’s a dive, as seedy as they come, with the neon sign spluttering out every few seconds. Jason is sitting on the curb out front, hands buried in his dark hair, back bowed. He looks up as Dick parks.
Dick gestures at him to get in, and when Jason stands, he looks liable to fall over. He really had gotten pissed, then. Dick allows himself a moment to worry, before stuffing it away. He knows Jason wouldn’t appreciate the concern. Jason collapses into the passenger seat, and Dick has to force himself not to react to the smell. Jason hadn’t been exaggerating, he really did reek like cheap booze.
Dick pulls back out, and they start the drive back to Bludhaven. The streets are empty this early, so it goes quickly. Jason spends the time on his phone, texting quickly. Dick lets the quiet stretch until he takes the exit back towards his apartment.
“Did you two have a fight?” Dick asks, feeling like he’s stepping out onto thin ice. Jason finishes his text, puts his phone away, and scrubs his face.
“Not… really.” Jason says at last, and Dick thinks, that’s not a no. Jason must see his nonplussed expression, because he continues, “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Dick hums, and glances towards Jason. He’s slumped against the door, his six foot two frame managing to look small, with his face pressed to the cool window, watching the city blocks pass by. He swallows down the emotion rising in his throat.
They get to the apartment. Dick fumbles with his keys for a moment, feeling the exhaustion catch up to him again. He opens the door to the dark entryway, and drops his keys into the dish near the door. Jason immediately makes for the bathroom, and Dick decides not to comment on it. Probably has had a rough enough night without me pointing it out.
Dick double checks his spare room, making sure he had actually changed the linens since the last time Damien stayed over. He grimaces as he hears retching from the bathroom. Definitely a rough night.
He knocks lightly on the door frame, poking his head in from outside the bathroom. Jason is collapsed against the bathtub, sweat rolling down his face, and when he looks up, it looks like more than just sweat. His eyes are red, and he says, “I think I’m too fucked up for them, Dick.”
His voice is distraught, and Dick feels panic lurch at the tone, automatic and reactive. He hasn’t heard his brother so… vulnerable, since before. And even then, it was only ever overhearing him when he was with Bruce.
“Oh, Jay,” Dick can’t keep the pity and emotion out of his own voice. He’s always been a sympathy crier.
Jason and Roy had only recently, finally gotten serious, Dick knows. They’d danced around each other, and then had fallen into something casual for at least a year or two. He hadn’t heard about it from Jason, obviously, but Kori had talked to him about the broader details. Something in the last year or so had finally pushed them further, though, and Dick knew Bruce himself had helped move them into their new apartment in Gotham, and had probably co-signed their lease.
Dick only hesitates a moment before stepping into the bathroom, and raising his arms in an offer. He doesn’t know how to bridge the gap with words. Jason, likely due to still being over the legal blood alcohol limit, pushes himself up and into the embrace.
Jason’s hugs are fierce, always verging on too tight, always grabbing on like he never wants to let go, fingers tangling in shirts and jackets. Dick loves them, loves the rare occasions his little brother allows physical affection. Dick hangs on just as tightly, and pretends not to notice how the shoulder of his shirt grows damp.
oOo
When Dick wakes the next morning, he half expects Jason to have already left. It’s his usual MO, whenever he ends up having to crash at one of the family’s places. But, when he checks the spare room, Jason is still sprawled out on the covers, snoring softly. Dick closes the door quietly, and feels both a little more concerned, and a little more settled as he goes about making breakfast.
He regretfully decides on omelets, as he ran out of flour a few days ago, and hasn’t yet found time to go to the store. He still remembers Jason’s favorite, like he remembers all his siblings favorites.Tim has a sweet tooth worse than anyone, and likes cinnamon rolls or sticky buns with coffee. Stephanie likes smoothies, Cassandra likes chocolate chip pancakes or chocolate croissants, and Duke loves hashbrowns and sausage with an over-easy egg. Damien’s favourite, manaqish, had taken Dick a while to source ingredients for, and find a recipe the boy found to be suitable, but he could whip it up as easy as pancakes now. Jason’s had been peanut butter pancakes, the kid had devoured them most mornings as a kid.
He enjoys cooking for his siblings, though it hadn’t been until after Damien arrived he learned to cook with any skill or proficiency. Jason had always been the best cook, after Alfred, even as a kid.
The toast pops, and breaks Dick out of his thoughts. A groan comes from the spare room, and Dick has to hide a smile. Kid’s going to have one hell of a hangover.
Jason stumbles into the kitchen just as Dick plates the omelettes and butters the toast. He drops into a seat at the counter with a huff, slumping forward onto the counter. Dick snorts, and shoves the plate under Jason’s nose. The taller man, who, like the rest of them, normally has an appetite the size of a small village, doesn’t immediately tuck in. Definitely one hell of a hangover.
Dick, who is like always somewhat running late for work, scarfes down his own omelette quickly. Jason pushes the egg around his plate, but does end up eating it all before Dick rushes out the door, with a, “Lock up if you leave, please!” tossed over his shoulder.
He’d quit his position as an officer less than a year into the job, much to the disappointment of his commissioner, and the approval of his father. He’d instead thrown his lot in with social services, and had fast tracked his Bachelor’s degree in social work in three years. He’d reapplied to the department, and had been hired back on, this time as a social worker. The field was just as corrupt, structurally and individually, but Dick finally felt like he could make a difference with his work, even incrementally.
The shift at the station goes by without much incident, and Dick is grateful to just be filling out paperwork for old cases, and checking in with current ones. It goes by slower, though, and he is just running out of work to busy himself with when his cell pings at him.
He reaches for it, expecting it to be Kori or Babs (they have a groupchat, affectionately named ‘Dicked by Dick’, much to Dick’s humiliation), and so he’s surprised to find Jason has texted him.
Jay : hey, it alright if i crash @ urs again?
Dick blinks. He can’t decide between concern, suspicion, and habitual low simmering annoyance. It was only one in the afternoon, Jay couldn’t have gotten blasted already. Or, if he had, Jay might actually have a problem. Dick knew from Bruce that Jason’s parents had both been addicts, but... The concern wins out.
Dick : Are you OK? Do I need to come home?
Jay : no, jeez dick, im fine dont come home, just mite need a place again tonite
Jay : so is that a yes
Dick : OFC, you don’t even need to ask.
Jay : u type like an old man
Dick snorts, recognizing Jason’s deflection. He’d heard the same thing from Stephanie and Tim, and even Damien had made fun of him for it. One last text pings in, and it brings a soft smile to his face.
Jay : thx dick
Even the small show of genuine emotion, of vulnerability, from Jason is enough to carry Dick through the rest of his shift. By the time he gets off the clock, he still has a skip in his step.
He usually tries to avoid working Saturday shifts, because Saturdays are special . His favorite day of the week. Though he fell out of observing Shabbat with any consistency over a decade ago (and even when he was growing up, they had only ever been able to observe the day when travelling, as Fridays and Saturdays were always big show days), they still hold something that makes them his favorite.
Flying.
Or, more specifically, trapeze.
Every Saturday, he spends his evening as a volunteer instructor for the 6-10 year old beginners class, and in return, he gets free access to the trapeze during their staff fly time. It had taken years for him to get back up on the board, after his parents died. He had still grappled effortlessly around Gotham as Robin, but something about the trapeze; he couldn’t imagine returning to without his parents. Bruce had even offered to buy him his own rigging, at one point, in the clumsy way he had expressed affection back then, and had never quite gotten better at. In the end, Jason had been the reason they installed a modified rig in the Batcave, and Jason had been the reason Dick had truly started flying again.
Where Dick had come to Robin already a professionally trained acrobat, Jason had come to it as a scrappy kid straight off the street who could barely do a cartwheel. Like most kids, he’d picked up tumbling skills easily and enthusiastically, but when it came to grappling, he hit a roadblock, and hit it hard. Dick and Bruce had been fighting off and on (mostly on), but Bruce was helpless to help Jason fly, and so he had called Dick. And Dick only knew one way to learn flight: the trapeze.
Jason had been Dick’s first student, and once he caught the kid that first time, he knew. He had Jason hooked, the same way he had been when he first swung across into his father’s waiting grasp. The time he spent training Jason on the trapeze, objectively to learn aerial awareness, helped a lot of things fall back into place. His relationship with Bruce, while it didn’t heal completely, smoothed out. He stopped seeing Jason as a replacement, and started seeing him as the little brother he was. It sparked the beginning of his transition from mentee to mentor, which would serve him in ways he wouldn’t have been able to imagine as a new adult.
He’d found the aerial gym a few months after Bruce had returned from… well, the dead. He’d moved into the manor in his absence, and so had used the Bat-trapeze, and when he moved back to Bludhaven, he hadn’t expected to miss flying so much, considering his nighttime occupation. And thus, he’d found the gym, who had been ecstatic to have one of the Flying Graysons at the facility.
He drives straight to the gym from work, humming along to the cheery tunes playing on the radio. Bludhaven is gorgeous this time of year, in it’s own way, and the weather has been perfect all week. Dick, who spends most of his days behind his desk, and only spending time outdoors at night, is grateful for the outdoor trapeze rig. He had never grown used to flying in an enclosed room, after spending his childhood flying outdoors and under the bigtop.
He pulls into park, and shuts off the engine, still humming. He reaches back for his gym bag, and curses. He must have forgotten the bag at home, too preoccupied with Jason to remember. He checks his watch, and winces. No time to go to the apartment and back either. He looks down at his button up shirt and slacks. Well, fuck.
As if summoned by a higher power, a text pings in.
Jay : ur fridge is disgustingly well stocked, who drinks celery juice omg
Dick : It's supposed to be healthy, Jay, but actually can I ask a favor?
Jay : its disgusting dick, & no
Dick : I left my gym bag by the door, and I need you to bring it to the gym, I don’t have time before class.
Jay : i said no, but fine
Jay : dick.
Dick grins, and sends Jason the address.
Twenty minutes later, he has officially run out of stretches (and excuses for why he has a tie on) for the kids, and he finally spots Jason approaching with his bag. It takes him a moment, and he’s wearing shorts. And a tank-top . Athletic wear. He must have gone back to his apartment, then. Or one of his safehouses? Which would also explain how he had a vehicle to drive over. No matter, Dick’s grin splits his face.
“Jay!” He calls, flailing his hand in the air wildly, delighted to have an opportunity to embarrass him. The kids’ heads swivel instantly, all six of them watching Jason walk over with owl-like intensity.
“Hey kids, this is Jason, my little brother!” Dick introduces when Jason is close enough, pulling him into a one arm hug unthinkingly. Jason, to his credit, barely stiffens. Jason lifts his hand in an awkward little wave.
“Hey, watch them for a sec while I go change, yeah?” Dick asks, pulling his bag out of Jason’s hand without waiting for an answer. Jason looks panicked as Dick leaves him for the bathroom. Dick laughs.
Dick changes quickly, but by the time he comes back out to the field beneath the trapeze net, Jason is holding a lively conversation with the kids as they show off their various ground skills. Dick claps as he comes back under the net to pull the attention back to himself, and asks, grinning, “Who’s ready to fly?”
oOo
Dick smiles encouragingly at Jason as he hangs upside down on the catch trap. Jason stands up on the board, gripping the bar tightly with small hands, just as he has for the last ten minutes.
He won’t make the jump.
Bruce is up on the board too, and has been talking quietly to Jason, hunched down to be on his level, but Jason won’t budge. Dick keeps restarting his swing nonetheless, calling out every time he’s ready to catch, ready for Jason to push off.
This is the part that Dick doesn’t know how to teach. He had never been afraid of heights, even after his parents had fallen. He doesn’t remember a time where he wasn’t in love with the feeling of flying, of falling. Dick feels for Jason, but he doesn’t know the right words to convey the feeling of it all.
Eventually, he pulls himself up to sit properly on the trap, letting out a breath as the blood rushes back out of his head.
“What’s up, littlebird?” He calls out, hoping Jason will at least say what his hangup is, rather than just looking disturbingly terrified across the rig. Dick hasn’t known Jason to be afraid of anything, the kid is brave bordering on reckless, and the terror is distinctly out of character for him.
“I-” Jason calls back, pausing as he looks down again, “What if you can’t catch me?”
“I’ll catch you.” Dick answers instantly. He had worked hard on learning to catch, having only ever worked as a flyer at Haley’s.
“But what if you don’t?”
“Then you’ll hit the net.” Dick explains, but impresses again, “ But, I’m going to catch you. I promise.”
Jason looks doubtful, so Dick adds, aiming for humor, “I catch B , Jay! Catching you will be like... like catching a feather.”
Jason looks at Bruce, who squeezes his shoulder, and nods.
“Alright.” Jason says, and Dick grins. There’s that familiar, strong-headed kid.
Dick starts swinging again, and drops into the catcher’s lock, calling out, “Ready!” just as Bruce calls out “Hup!”
Jason steps off the board, and Dick watches as his grip slips halfway through his first swing, and he falls to the net with a squeal of fear. He bounces a few times, before coming to rest on his back, glaring up at Dick.
“You said you’d catch me!” He yells up. Dick can’t stop the laugh that explodes out of his chest.
“Yeah, if you’d made it across the trapeze, littlebird!” Dick shouts down, still laughing. He pushes himself off the bar, and ducks into a flip, landing gracefully on the net, using the rebound to duck into another flip and landing on his feet.
Jason watches him with wide eyes and Dick grins, sticking out a hand.
“Can’t fly without falling, Jay.”
oOo
The class goes by smoothly, as they’re still working on the skill he introduced the previous week. Jason stays on the ground and watches. There’s another coach watching the skills from the ground, as Dick elected to catch this practice. He loves catching, and has ever since he got good at it for the other Robins. The moment of the catch is spectacular, and makes all of the little kid legs crashing into him at the beginning of the class worth it. He gets into the groove of it, and before long, the class is over, and the kids are flipping onto the net and rolling off.
He stays up in the catch trap, and watches them leave after a quick talk with the coach.
Jason watches him watch them, and once the kids disperse, Dick calls down.
“Wanna go for a fly, littlebird?” Dick half-expects Jason to say no, despite having shown up in appropriate clothes. Jason runs his hand through his hair, gnaws on his lip.
“Fuck it, why not.”
Jason makes for the ladder quickly, mind made up. Dick doesn’t feel like his smile can get any bigger. He starts swinging again in anticipation, watching Jason grab the noodle and pull in the fly bar.
He drops into the lock once Jason signals he’s ready, calling out the trick. It’s something simple, just a planche. He jumps of the board, and Dick watches him fly, reaches for him as he releases and begins to fall. They make the catch, and Dick catches a glimpse of Jason’s face. He’s grinning.
They swing back, and then Dick releases Jason, and he finishes the fall, no one on the board to send the fly bar back at the right time. He lands in the net, much more gracefully than he did as a preteen. Dick extracts himself from the catch trap, and leaps after him, fitting two somersaults into his dive to the net.
They stay laying on the net long after they stop bouncing, staring up at the rigging and the sky above it. Jason breaks the silence after a minute.
“I talked to Roy.” His voice is almost a whisper, and Dick is reminded violently of a younger version of the man beside him, whispering about nightmares in the dark of his room. Dick waits for Jason to continue, not wanting to break whatever peace they’ve had the past twenty-four hours.
“He says I’m the worst self-sabotaging fool he’s ever met,” Jason breathes a shaky laugh, “And that he wasn’t mad about the shit I said, he was just concerned.”
Dick turns the words over in his head, thinks about what he knows about Roy, about Jason. The concern that he had been shoving down floats back to the surface. He rolls his head to stare at his brother, raising an eyebrow, “Shit?”
“Had a crisis after taking Lian to soccer.” Jason winces as he says it, and Dick knows his brother well enough to understand how much he was downplaying whatever happened.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“No, Roy and I already talked it out.” Jason sighs, “Just stupid shit about how Lian deserves better than me. Roy, too.”
Dick hums, and reaches over, squeezing Jay’s arm. “We all love you Jay, no matter what.”
Jason huffs.
Dick’s hand stops squeezing, and starts tickling.
Roy and Lian show up just as they fall over the side of the net, screeching with anger and laughter. Dick stays spread on the ground for a moment, and watches Jason get to his feet and jog over to them. Lian says something, and Jay scoops her up off the ground, settling her on his hip and gesturing at the trapeze. Roy walks with them, ginger hair tucked beneath a cap, a thin overshirt fluttering in the breeze. They look like a family, and Dick feels his heart swell for his brother and his friend. He just barely hears Lian’s quiet, awed question.
“What if you fall?”
Jason’s answer is louder, and Dick wonders if Jason means for him to overhear it.
“Well, you can’t fly without falling.”
fin .