(ARCHIVAL FIC) GHOSTS

[salvadore_hart]

original src tumblr

GHOSTS

for jaydickweek day 5 prompt: arkham knight au

warnings; tattoos and spoilers for the end of Arkham Knight

Vicki Vale checks in on twitter with ‘Is reclusive Wayne ward home for good?‘ and paparazzi photos of Dick Grayson, hands raised to ward off the cameras. It goes viral. Jason doesn’t know what to do with how Dick looks.

 

 

Vicki Vale checks in on twitter at the Briarwood Tattoo Shop in Downtown Gotham and a notification pops up on Jason’s phone. It was netted, unexpectedly, among the alerts set-up for threat surveillance, and while Vale has broken her share of high-profile exploits, she’s not usually releasing information Jason is interested in. Even in a resettling, broken Gotham her news is mostly of the rich and famous.

Jason thinks of ignoring it, but then his phone buzzes again as the tweet starts to garner traction. Whatever Jason expects when he looks it over it’s not, ‘Dick Grayson, reclusive heir spotted getting ink in Downtown Gotham. Is reclusive Wayne ward home for good?’

Attached are two paparazzi shots of Dick. He looks worse than the last time Jason saw him, and that had been months ago after he’d chased Jason into a fight in Penguin’s territory; and after Jason had punched him the face. Now, Dick’s hair has grown out of the undercut to a messy length he’s pulled back messily into a tie at the nape of his neck. His facial hair is no better.

Looking at the picture, Jason wonders how long it’s been since Dick last chased him down. How long since he’d heard “Nightwing spotted” shouted over the GCPD scanner? Dick’s wearing sweats in public which isn’t part of the cultivated Wayne, playboy persona. He doesn’t smile for the cameras like he usually would. Instead his hands are up to ward off the flash of cameras. He looks tired. Jason can’t help wondering if, under his domino, Dick had looked this tired during their altercations.

The thought needles at Jason. He revisits the pictures over the week in the quieter moments between running from the GCPD and staking out warehouses, waiting for the power shifts over Black Mask’s former territory. Amongst the dark stone and scaffolding of a city rebuilding, sometimes the screen of Jason’s phone is the only light as he scrolls the replies to Vale’s post.

For five days, Nightwing is absent.

Jason tells himself it’s reconnaissance when he seeks out Dick’s penthouse apartment. Dick is the only one left who knows who the Arkham Knight is, and while Dick hasn’t acted on that knowledge except to approach Jason himself, Jason needs to be vigilant of him becoming a threat.

Jason tells himself this over and over as he spies on Dick through the sliding glass door on the balcony. Inside Dick is soft, wrapped in sweats just like in the photos. He eases himself gently through the open plan apartment from kitchen toward the living room. He has an arm cradled against his side, light pressure on his side that could mean a broken arm or broken ribs. With his free hand, Dick draws his fingers through his hair, pulling it up and holding it out of his face.

There’s enough light that Jason can see the shadow of his reflection imposed on the glass. He’s in full gear and the blue light from the helmet disappearing into the points of his Bat-like armour. He looks intimidating. Like a threat.

As it turns out though, Jason wasn’t as well hidden as he thought. Dick opens the door suddenly, and he looks bewildered. “Jason? What are you doing here?”

The mask modulates his voice. It doesn’t sound like him when he says, “Nightwing hasn’t been spotted in Gotham or Blüdhaven recently. Someone needed to make sure you weren’t dead.”

It barely skirts the truth: that there’s no one left in Gotham to check in on him. Dick doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t close the door on Jason either.

Curiosity has Jason following Dick inside.

“I’ve been recuperating,” Dick says quietly. He tucks stray hair behind his ear and moves back to what he was doing before seeing Jason startled him.

Perching gingerly on the edge of a couch, Dick reaches with his good arm and looks over the mess of papers on the coffee table. Now inside, Jason can see that there are several open case files, intake photos of Harvey Dent and Oswald Cobblepot stare up at them amongst the photos of people Jason doesn’t recognize. He assumes they must be people that have been on their payroll, if not out right associates of the rogues.

It looks like Jason’s own files on who will be shuffling for power in the vacuum created by the loss of Batman.

Jason looks at Dick, brow furrowed in concentration as he takes notes in code on a legal pad. He’s several pages into it already, and the files are a scattered mess like Dick has picked one up to read it then placed it haphazardly down to look through another, then repeat every time he had an idea.

And, yeah, Jason may have missed years while he was trapped with the Joker, but he still remembers this. The look of a man consumed. He remembers it clearly in Bruce, especially those weeks right before Jason was taken. Bruce hadn’t eaten or slept because he was too busy trying to figure out how the Joker had escaped Arkham.

Jason has never seen Dick this badly in it though.

“This doesn’t look like recuperation. It looks like obsession,” Jason says.

Dick doesn’t even spare him a glance. “Excuse me if I don’t take a lecture from you when you were spying on me from my balcony in full armor.”

It’s surprising, the hint of anger in Dick’s voice. It reminds Jason of years ago, how Bruce and Dick would scream in frustration at each other after a case gone wrong. And when they were done days would stretch in tense silence, their anger still tangible. Jason had nearly forgotten about it. He’s heard sadness in Dick’s voice since he came back. Even hope the handful of times they’ve worked together (always spontaneous, never coordinated, and always with GCPD on their heels). The first days after - well, Dick had chased him for days, looking as relieved as he was desperate.

This anger is closer to what Jason had been expecting from Dick.

“You know for a second I thought you were Deathstroke? I thought maybe he’d come to fulfill a contract.” He flicks his gaze to Jason for just a second.  “I’d have expected that more than you coming to visit.”

“You told me I was welcome.”

“Yeah, and you replied to that invitation with a right hook. Thanks for that.”

Jason notices his fingers are shaking as he turns a page in one of the files.

“Dick,” Jason says. It feels wrong saying his name and hearing it mangled by the modulator.

In the months following the manor detonating, taking with it the only two people Jason had thought of as family, the fire and anger has burned out of Jason leaving him adrift without a mission. And Dick had been on his heels ever since. Trying to bring Jason in from the cold. A reminder that someone knew Jason Todd had once existed.  

Jason’s not ready, yet, but he’s looking at how much the loss has stripped from Dick. He can read it in the tension of his shoulders.

He reaches out, can’t help it, to brush the hair falling into Dick’s eyes.

It’s a stupid move. Dick moves instinctively, and quicker than Jason’s expecting. He raises the arm he’s been cradling against his ribs to block Jason’s hand. It’s two moves, blocking Jason’s touch and raising his other hand for a return strike. But Dick stops before he makes contact with his closed fist. His body is twisted around, and his breath picks up with sudden adrenaline as he freezes up in a fighting stance.

Just as suddenly as he acted, though, his eyes widen and he gasps. The sensory data in the Knight helmet starts analyzing the heat of Dick’s body and pings injuries across his side.

Dick drops his guard, arm pressed to his ribs again as he struggles to say, “Fuck, you just caught me off guard,” through pain.

“What happened?”

Dick ignores the question, but he’s hissing through his teeth. Jason feels a spike of fear looking at Dick, and it’s a surprise.

When Dick still doesn’t reply, Jason does the only thing he thinks might get a response. Pressing the side of the mask causes the face panel to slide up, revealing Jason’s face. He kneels down into Dick’s space, bare faced and brand free to scrutiny.

“Dick look at me.”

Jason burns with the vulnerability, but Dick stops. And his eyes are so blue, Jason thinks, seeing them so close.

He reaches out to Dick, not quite making contact with the injured area, but trying to convince Dick to let him look nonetheless. Jason has to keep acting so he doesn’t head right back out the door. It’s easier to handle Dick’s assessing stare, the lingering of his gaze on the rough scar tissue of where the Joker marked him, if he’s got a job to do.

“How are you injured?”

“It’s nothing,” Dick says, distracted. His fingers curl into tight grips in his sweater though, like he’s holding back from reaching out.

Jason pulls carefully at the hem of it, tugs until Dick gets the idea and relents. He lets Jason pull the sweater up around his shoulders, but even when he’s making protests, Dick doesn’t look away from Jason’s face. Not even when Jason pulls his undershirt up as well to reveal deep bruises all across Dick’s ribs and sides.

“Someone shot at me,” Dick says. “The Kevlar took the worst of it.”

Jason barely refrains from cursing aloud. The bruises are so deep they’re dark purple at three points of impact. But they must be weeks old by the yellowing of the edges. Healing is already starting, and yet, Jason thinks that he has no idea how old the injury is. He tries to think of when Dick might have been shot in the last month, was he in Gotham or home in Blϋdhaven? How hadn’t Jason known?

“I heard from Gordon,” Dick offers. It fills the uncomfortable silence as Jason presses as carefully against Dick’s ribs, and checks for internal injury. “There’s pressure to investigate Batman’s known-associates. There’s suspicion of Nightwing.”

“There’s always been suspicions in Gotham.”

“Yeah, but now they know Bruce is.” Dick stops. “Bruce was Batman.”

Jason wants to ask more, but his fingers are turning Dick’s arm toward him. He just wanted to move Dick’s arm out of the way so he could get a better look at the spread of the bruising and see how far the deepest purpling part stretches. But he turns Dick’s arm and sees dark ink against his skin. Vale may have broken the news, but the reality of Dick Grayson having a tattoo is something else when it’s right under Jason’s fingers.

The skin around the ink is red and inflamed. The ink is raised where it’s healing. Jason feels a sudden vicious urge to press his thumb down hard on it. Almost acts on it as he looks at the image of an open hand, raised as if in surrender to the dagger poised above it. Simple black ink makes up the shading and lines, but it’s less the imagery of offering Dick chose that makes Jason stop. It’s the carefully tattooed words beneath them.  

“Jason?” Dick asks.

He reads the words, “A Good Son” inked on the inside of Dick’s arm and some of that anger rekindles in Jason’s core. He’s careful not to do anything but draw his fingers down to Dick’s elbow. He shudders at the touch, and Jason catalogues it for later consideration.

Jason presses as carefully against Dick’s ribs as he can, and checks for internal injury.

When he’s done, and he’s sure Dick hasn’t probably punctured a lung, Jason asks, “Do you have a first aid kit?” as he stands up.

“Don’t.”

It takes Jason a moment to realize it was Dick who spoke, not him. Dick who curls his fingers loosely in Jason’s sleeve and it seems innocent. But Jason knows how strong those fingers are, how they have held up Dick’s body weight on edges of buildings. If he tries to move, Jason knows Dick could hang onto him if he wanted to.

Except, Jason pulls away, out of reach. And Dick lets him, his shirt coming free of Dick’s grasp without a fight. 

“Hall closet, second door on the left,” Dick says. He stares up at Jason for just a second, and then as if the whole tableau had never happened, Dick turns back to his case files. And Jason slips out of reach, wavering between escaping out the window or down the hall to retrieve the kit.