Chapter Text
“We need to stop doing this,” Dick says as he grabs his costume from where it’s haphazardly crumpled on the floor.
Jason watches Dick pull the material of his suit over the bite mark Jason left on his shoulder. He thinks to himself that neither of them can really stop this. It’s become a habit that neither of them are willing to break. They keep saying they’ll stop but then they run into each other alone on patrol and next thing they know they’re fucking.
He exhales slowly, smoke clouding the air in front of him. Dick looks good through the veil of smoke. It makes the whole situation feel like a hazy dream.
“Really Jay?” Dick asks as he looks at the cigarette.
“Habit,” Jason says with a shrug as he inhales again. Then again, Jason is switching one habit for another.
“Your mouth tastes like an ashtray when you smoke,” Dick says as he zips up his costume, contorting in a way that shouldn’t be possible in order to get the zipper up.
“How’s the Thompson case going?” Jason asks in order to change the subject. He doesn’t want to think about how he’s actually cut down on smoking since he and Dick started doing this. Jason doesn’t want to give Dick that kind of victory. Anyways, the cigarette after sex is to avoid Dick kissing him goodbye. Jason presses the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray on the nightstand.
“Why? Are you thinking of taking it on?” Dick asks as he searches for his boots. He picks one up, realizes it’s Jason’s, and then tosses it aside. “Because if you are, there better not be a trail of bodies. This is something I’m working on with the BPD, if they suspect anything is up-”
“You’ll what?” Jason challenges. “Put me in jail? You and I both know the evidence against him is irrefutable.”
“It was,” Dick says as he runs his gloved hands through his hair in an attempt to straighten it, but it only sticks up more. Even with his hair sticking up in all sorts of odd angles, Dick looks sexy as hell. Jason has to exhale slowly so he doesn’t get excited again. “But any evidence that we had mysteriously vanished.”
“So, why doesn’t Nightwing take care of it because he’s already solved the case?” The sheets are pooled at Jason’s hips and he can see Dick’s eyes linger there for a long moment before he looks across the room.
“Because I’m trying to clean up the police from the inside Jason, you know that.” Dick picks up his domino mask and comm from the nightstand. “I have to go,” he says as he puts the mask back on. Jason’s not happy to see Dick’s blue eyes replaced by the blank white of the mask.
“I’ll see you around,” Jason says with a smirk.
“You better not,” Dick replies as he opens the window and slips out onto the fire escape, languid as water and silent as death as he slips into the night.
“We both know I will.” Jason says.
-
Three days later, Jason returns to Blüdhaven under the guise of checking Dick’s progress on the Thompson case.
He grapples from rooftop to rooftop, telling himself he’s not actively looking for Dick, but frequenting the stops over crime alley that he knows Dick likes to patrol. Jason stops a few crimes in progress on the way, but taking down a couple of thugs is something that feels like a warm-up to him. Small robberies and alley crimes were literally child’s play for Jason, there’s something nostalgic about taking down a criminal in an alley for a former Robin.
After breaking up a fight between a few guys outside a bar, Jason takes a breather on top of one of the taller buildings in the city. He gets the barest hint of a cigarette craving as he watches the city below him. It’s not a nicotine craving, Jason doesn’t get those anymore after his dip in the Pit, but it’s the need for the steady deep breaths smoking gives him. Dick can criticize him all he likes, but there’s nothing more soothing than a cigarette on top of a tall building.
“I thought I told you to stay out of it,” Dick says from behind him. No one can ever hear Dick coming, hell, even Bruce is surprised when Dick appears behind him sometimes. Jason doesn’t startle though, he just smirks behind his helmet.
“I am staying out of it,” Jason says. “My hands are clean tonight.”
“What are you doing here, Hood?” Dick asks, Jason doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s exhausted. Leave it to Dick to work himself until he’s so tired he can barely stand. It’s a habit Dick picked up from Bruce. Jason has a tendency to fall into it, but Roy has a good tendency to knock Jason out if he’s been working too hard. Literally. Asshole.
“I thought I’d pay you a little visit to see if you’d made any progress,” Jason says as he stands up and turns to face Dick. He stops short for a second, Dick has a bruise on his jaw and a cut on his cheek. Dick is usually smart enough to block punches to his face. “Clearly, you haven’t,” Jason says. “And you’re getting sloppy. When was the last time you took a break?”
“I slept two hours last night,” Dick says.
“You need to rest,” Jason says. “Get some sleep so you can actually block punches to the face.”
“Are you just going to criticize me?” Dick asks. “Because if you are, save it and go home. I can take care of things here on my own.”
“Can you?” Jason asks as he steps forwards.
“I’m not here to fight you,” Dick says. “Just go home.”
Jason hums, acting like he’s taking a moment of deliberation, “I think I’ll stay in the ‘haven tonight.”
“No,” Dick says. “I’ve got everything under control.”
“The Nightwing I know doesn’t just get punched in the face,” Jason says as he steps forward again. He takes his helmet off and cups Dick’s cheek in his hand. “I’ve already taken care of some stuff tonight, people know Nightwing and Red Hood are kicking ass in Blüdhaven. So tonight, let’s go back to your place, patch you up, and get some fucking rest, because you look like you’re dead on your feet Pretty Bird.”
Dick looks at him for a long moment and Jason wishes he could peel off Dick’s mask. He doesn’t push Jason’s hand away, instead he sighs and his shoulders slump a bit. “Fine,” he says.
“Good,” Jason says as he steps back and puts his helmet back on. “Lead the way.”
Dick stretches a bit and Jason wishes for a brief second that Dick wasn’t so worn out so he could peel off Dick’s costume and see the way his muscles flex when they’re not wrapped in spandex. Dick fires his grapple moments later, Jason close behind him the whole way.
When they get to Dick’s apartment, Jason realizes this is the first chance he’s had to actually get a look at it. Normally they make a beeline for the bedroom. He takes in the way Dick’s living room is set up, a basic living room set, bookshelves, a Haly’s circus poster, and a few pictures of him with his adopted family. It’s startling how normal it is, but how fitting it is for Dick.
Dick closes the blinds before tossing his domino on the coffee table and running his hand through his hair. He collapses on the couch and Jason wants to laugh at how ridiculous it looks. “Go change,” Jason says. “I’ll get you something to eat and then we can patch you up.”
Dick groans and Jason pulls him up from the couch. “Come on, Pretty Bird,” Jason says. He takes his own helmet and mask off and tosses them aside. Dick leans heavily on him and Jason lets him. “What’s been going on that’s made you so tired?”
“The evidence of the Thompson case went missing,” Dick says as they go to his bedroom. He straightens up and Jason unzips Dick’s costume for him. “And then the case file went missing. I was lucky I had backup copies otherwise we would have been screwed. But the chief is refusing to fire the guy that lost the case file because he’s been around for so long. He thinks it was an honest mistake.”
“The only honest thing in that police force is you,” Jason says, frowning when Dick turns around and he sees the amount of bruises on his back. Either the baddies in Blüdhaven are getting stronger, or Dick really needs sleep.
Dick pulls on a worn out gotham academy t-shirt and a pair of sweats. They sit low on his hips and Jason wonders what he’s doing here. After he came back to Gotham, the only person he’s really been close with is Roy. He and Dick have just been fuck buddies, but here he is in Dick’s apartment, still clothed and painfully domestic. They weren’t even that close before Jason died, but now apparently they’re close enough that Jason is here taking care of Dick. He doesn’t try to think about how pathetic that makes him. Jason has always been caught up on Dick Grayson, he should have known he couldn’t keep their relationship simple.
Jason has Dick settle down on the couch in front of the TV and he frowns as he looks at the mess in Dick’s sink. How the fuck is Dick still alive? He pokes around the dishes and not only does he smell spoiled milk in the bottoms of several old cereal bowls, but he’s pretty sure he sees mold too. Jason manages to break away from it knowing he’s probably going to clean the sink when Dick’s asleep.
When Jason opens the door to Dick’s fridge, he’s hit with the painful memories of growing up with an empty fridge. It makes his stomach clench and it takes him a long moment to remember that his fridge is full of food. He makes Dick a bowl of sugary cereal and brings it to him. Dick mutters a thanks and starts shoveling it into his mouth as Jason grabs a first aid kit.
He takes off his jacket, boots, and weapons and sits down next to Dick, popping the top of the first aid kit open. “So who got the best of you during patrol?” He asks as he pulls out cotton balls and rubbing alcohol.
Dick finishes his cereal and puts the bowl on the coffee table. “A drug bust,” Dick says. Jason wipes at one of the cuts, Dick flinches a bit but keeps talking. “There were more men there than I thought and I didn’t realize I’d bitten off more than I could chew until it was too late. I got them all but I got the crap beat out of me in the process.”
“You would have gotten them all if you’d gotten rest or asked for help,” Jason says.
“Look who’s talking,” Dick says and Jason dabs at the cut again, earning Jason a shove. Jason puts a few small butterfly closures over the wound. He settles for a quick kiss over the bruise before he can really stop himself. “Jason,” Dick whispers but Jason pulls back and squeezes some arnica gel on his fingers and brushes them over the bruise instead. What is he doing kissing Dick Grayson so...intimately?
“Do you want some pain-killers?” Jason asks as he cleans up the supplies and closes the first aid kit.
“No,” Dick says. “It’s not that bad.”
“Alright,” Jason says. They shift for a few moments before Dick reaches over and turns the TV on.
“I fall asleep better with it on,” Dick says when he notices Jason’s pointed look. Dick leans against him and Jason hesitates for a few moments before he slings a hand over Dick’s shoulder. One night of this can’t hurt. Dick needs sleep and if he needs TV and Jason’s warmth to help him sleep, fine, Jason will cuddle Dick until he passes out. He reaches up and absently runs his fingers through Dick’s hair as the documentary on TV goes into wolf populations in Yellowstone park. Dick falls asleep and Jason watches him until he falls asleep, lulled into it by the dull narration.
Jason wakes up hours later on the couch with Dick drooling on his chest and wrapped around him like some kind of fucked up acrobatic octopus. Even in his sleep Dick is insanely flexible. Jason manages to loosen Dick’s grip a bit and carries him to bed. If Dick hadn’t been so exhausted, Jason would be worried about the fact that Dick sleeps through everything.
He makes his way to Dick’s kitchen and works on Dick’s dishes. The entire time, he’s trying to convince himself that this is just a one time thing. They’re not going to do it again.
Even as he grapples away and back towards Gotham, Jason knows he’s wrong.