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Jason Todd is a man of many talents. Many opinions.
Today, his talent? Running into people he wishes were dead. His opinion? Dick Grayson makes top five of that list.
“We’re in public,” Dick hisses, nodding to the fact that they’re literally in street clothes in the cereal aisle of Little Piggy’s Supermarket.
“And I don’t care,” Jason hisses back, pressing his forearm harder into Dick’s throat. “What the hell are you doing in my neighborhood?”
“I thought-” Dick coughs and grabs Jason’s arm, twisting it behind his back. “I thought that was a mask only thing, dude.”
“Definitely-” Jason grunts, throwing Dick over his head and into a Froot Loops display. “-not!”
Dick bounces back immediately, but a crowd has started to form, and Jason watches the little wheels turn in his head. He remembers being a Bat. He remembers how secret identities are paramount. And then Dick throws the match, not so much as dodging when Jason rams him into the shelves.
“I could tell everyone right now,” Jason whispers in his ear as he pins him to the ground. “It’d be so damn easy.”
“The hell is your problem?” Dick demands, rolling out of the way of Jason’s fist before he breaks his face.
“You did not just ask me that.”
“HEY! The police are on their way! Break it up before-!”
“Stay out of this!” Jason yells at the manager. He recognizes him. Clarence-something. He doesn’t feel great about lashing out at the locals, but kicking Dick Grayson’s ass is relatively high on his priority list. He’s the next logical step, after all. First he showed his replacement that he doesn’t hold a candle to the real deal. Now he proves that the impossible standard isn’t all that and a bag of chips. And finally, he’ll show the big, bad Bat and his stupid code of conduct where they can stick it.
Yeah, sorry, Clarence-something. This is pretty important.
“Jason, cut it out!” Dick urges, but that only pisses Jason off more. He does not take orders from Mr. Golden Boy, thank you very much.
People are pulling out their phones now, and Dick looks pleadingly at Jason. They both know what will happen if Jason keeps fighting: Dick won’t be able to do a damn thing about it.
Jason throws his shoulder into Dick’s chest, hears a rib break, and then backs off. “Stay out of my neighborhood,” he tells the heap on the ground. “‘less you want to do this again.”
If there hadn’t been people around and Dick had fought back, Jason would have stuck around to finish the fight. As it is, however, Dick isn’t going to put up a real fight, and for whatever reason, that just doesn’t work for Jason. It feels cheap, to say he scared the legendary Nightwing into submission when the real reason was that he didn’t want to reveal his identity. If Dick ever comes back, Jason will try again then.
Suddenly, alarms blare through the aisles, drowning out the 2010s pop mix that’s piped over the sound system. At first, Jason thinks it’s for him. The police must have already been nearby, making record time. But then he remembers that police sirens don’t go over loudspeakers, and an explosion rocks the building.
Dick is up and moving before Jason can act, escorting a group of shoppers to the exit. Not one to be outdone (this is his town, dammit), Jason helps a family with screaming kids out the doors and then returns for more, falling into a rhythm as more explosions go off, blasting shelves into each other and blowing broken glass everywhere.
It’s on Jason’s final sweep that he hears a familiar voice shout out for him.
“Jay, come help me!”
God. Grayson comes to his neighborhood and then expects help-
But when Jason follows the sound, he finds Dick struggling to free an unresponsive elderly man crushed by one of the heavier shelving units. Under no circumstances can Jason sit back and let Dick struggle.
“I can lift it,” Dick explains, “but I need you to-”
“Got it,” Jason says immediately, grabbing under the man’s arms. “On your count.”
“One, two-” Dick lifts the shelf, allowing Jason to pull the man out.
Under normal circumstances, Jason might throw the man over his shoulder and carry him outside. As it is, the man is a bit too large, even for Jason’s liking. Dick is beside him in an instant, obnoxiously desperate to prove how great he is, probably. They each take the man under one arm and start dragging him to the exit.
And then another explosion goes off directly below them. The ground disappears. Jason remembers a loud crash, tumbling through the air, and then, finally, darkness.
---
The first thing Dick is aware of is the rumbling. It hums steadily, shaking the ground beneath him and moaning like an engine that just won’t start. Infrequent booms echo in the distance.
The next thing Dick notices is how cold-
No. No, sorry, the next thing he notices is the slap.
“Jezus Christ, Jay,” Dick groans. “I couldn’t even fight back.”
“I was waking you up, you bastard,” Jason spits. “You weren’t responding.”
Dick presses his palm to his forehead and slowly sits up. Their only light is from Jason’s cellphone, and it doesn’t provide Dick with much more information than he already knew.
They’re in some sort of basement. Or maybe an old mine. Giant slabs of broken cement and heaps of dirt block off one side of the room, and the other side disappears into the darkness. Jason looks pretty banged up, bruises blossoming under his collar and creeping down his arm. His nose is bleeding, and he’s covered in dust.
“You okay?” Dick asks, and Jason flips him off.
“Don't pretend to care. Let's just get out of here.”
“Where's the old man?” Dick calls, pausing as he stands, head spinning. He definitely whacked it good in the explosion. Good enough to knock him out. Good enough to make thinking and walking a challenge.
“Didn't make it,” Jason replies. Dick hurries over at that, noticing the man buried under the rubble. He places two fingers under the man's clammy jaw, pressing in multiple different spots but failing to find a pulse. And his face is…
Yeah. Okay. This guy is dead.
“Dammit.”
“Coulda just believed me, but okay,” Jason sighs.
“You threw me into a shelf two minutes ago! You really expect me to trust you??” Dick shoves his finger in Jason’s face, and Jason smacks it away.
“Get over yourself, Grayson.”
“Me?” Dick’s voice cracks, and he blinks away a burst of stars. “You’re the one who can’t stand having other vigilantes in this neighborhood you randomly claimed as yours!”
“Don’t give me a reason to hit you,” Jason warns. “I’ll leave you here for dead.”
“We’re trapped in a sinkhole, and you’re still worried about some stupid feud?
Jason’s voice goes dark, a deadly calm filling the little cave. “How can you say that? You know this isn’t some stupid feud. You know what he did. You know what he didn’t do.”
What you didn’t do rings through the air, unspoken but as loud as a sneeze in a crypt.
“You have a right to be angry,” Dick concedes. “Let’s get out of here, and then you can go back to hating my guts.”
Jason sniffs indignantly. “Like it’s that easy,” he mutters. But he doesn’t protest further, and Dick takes that as a win.
Dick pulls out his own phone and turns on the flashlight, directing it towards the side of the room cloaked in shadow. The walls look unnervingly brittle, built of dried mud and bolstered with wooden beams. The room they’re occupying is relatively bare, save the giant pile of rubble behind them. Ahead is a narrow corridor with nothing but darkness beyond it.
“Looks like old tunnels from the Nike site,” Dick hums. “It was around here, right?”
Jason huffs but responds all the same. “Yeah. Decommissioned in the sixties and torn down in the eighties. They blocked off the tunnels, but they never filled them in.”
“So, theoretically, they’ll lead us to someone’s basement?”
“Assuming the basement it’s attached to wasn’t torn down and filled with cement, yeah.”
“Oh,” Dick sighs. “That’s… reassuring.”
Jason rolls his eyes and shoves past Dick, heading down the tunnel. Not one to be left out of the action, Dick hurries to catch up. He realizes he’s nauseous now, and he can’t tell if it’s from the head injury or the reminder that Jason Todd is alive and wants him dead.
Well… he knew Jason was alive for a while now. It’s the fratricidal tendencies (does Dick even deserve to call it that?) that make his stomach twist. When he died, Jason was a good kid. A sweet kid who screamed for Dick when he saw a bug but then insisted that he leave it alive and release it “back to his family.” He never complained about chores and would even visit Dick at Titans Tower near the end. In every conceivable way, Jason was a more compassionate, more appreciative kid than Dick ever was.
And then he died. And he came back warped, the last good person left mangled and put back together with pain, resentment, and an overwhelming desire to kill everyone who failed to avenge him.
(Dick avenged him, once. And it felt good. The sound of Joker’s face cracking under his fist is one he revels in more often than he should. But the guilt, even now, of killing him eats him alive. Bruce gave the Joker CPR - revived him before Dick’s actions could become more permanent - but Dick can’t forget that he killed the Joker and liked it. And he can’t tell Jason this. He can’t imagine how betrayed Jason would feel to know that Bruce wouldn’t kill a monster to avenge his dead son but would and did save that monster to spare Dick the guilt of doing it himself.)
They travel down the passageway in uncomfortable silence. Dick keeps checking to see if his phone has reception. It never does. His steps do get heavier, breathing more labored as they go. Jason must have hit him harder than he thought.
“Did you tell the Bat?” Jason finally asks, still a good couple steps ahead of Dick. He doesn't turn around or slow down to make himself better heard.
“What?” Dick is surprised that Jason is talking to him at all. He was certain this would be a silent death march.
“The Bat,” Jason repeats, stopping and turning to give Dick the how stupid are you? look. “Did you hit your emergency button?”
“I don't have it,” Dick replies, wiping sweat from his forehead. It's not especially hot down here, but he's sweating like a glass of ice water in mid-July. “I’m not masked up, remember?”
“Oh, I remember. I just thought you were smarter than that. Why would you leave something that important behind?” Jason shakes his head and resumes his walk through the tunnel.
“I don't-” Dick clicks his tongue. “Look, it's been years since you were Robin. Our protocols are different.”
“Unlikely,” Jason spits over his shoulder. “Bruce doesn't change. We both know that.”
“He did after-!” Dick cuts himself off before he can say something inflammatory. But Jason isn't an idiot. He finishes the sentence just fine by himself.
“He changed after I died?” Jason’s words are low. Serpentine. Dangerously devoid of anger. “He did? So you're saying that Mr. I-Don't-Kill is a murderer now. And he still hasn't killed the Joker.”
“No,” Dick says immediately, wishing he'd never spoken at all. “It's not like that. He changed some protocols. Safety measures. That stuff. But his policy on killing won't change. You know that.”
“Oh.” Jason laughs dryly, so unamused that he might actually find it funny. “Do I ever.”
God, Dick just cannot say anything right today. This conversation with Jason is a field of land mines, and Dick has stepped on every single one, tripped every single wire. He’d blame it on the concussion, but he knows better. Jason has the rockiest of histories with the family, and he actively wants to kill Dick. Not really ideal conditions for a pleasant discussion.
So rather than keep digging himself into a hole, Dick cuts his losses, shutting up and wiping his forehead again. He doesn't feel hot. It’s a little chilly, actually. Why on Earth is he dripping with sweat?
Rather than ponder on the matter, Dick lets his mind drift. The tunnel has to end soon. With luck, it'll be some elderly woman’s cellar. Then they'll sneak out, and Dick will…
Well, he doesn't know what he'll do after that. He doesn't want to fight Jason. Beyond the fact that he thinks this territory dispute is ridiculous, he's really not feeling up for physical combat at the moment. Maybe a nap. Yeah, he could go for a nap. Right now, honestly. It'd be so easy just to close his eyes and-
“What were you doing here anyway?” Jason asks suddenly, the tension in his voice lessened a touch. But it's not much. Like saying that his anger has gone from a starving, rampaging bull to a rampaging bull that ate a few hours ago. Still furious. Still terrifying. But you're marginally less likely to lose your hand if you engage.
“Out of Chex,” Dick replies simply.
“Don't give me that bullshit. You live in Blüdhaven,” Jason says, tone flat. “I’m supposed to believe you came all the way to Crime Alley for breakfast cereal?”
“Cereal is meal-nonspecific,” Dick mutters. But then he sighs, quickly growing tired of the conversation. It almost makes him wish for the awkward silence again. “Bruce asked me to town for a case, and I figured I’d stop for food on my way to the manor.”
Jason arches an eyebrow. “Alfred buys the groceries.”
“And when’s the last time you saw him pick up cereal?”
It’s a fair point, and both of them know it. Alfred is a stickler for “substantial” meals. Anything like cereal or Pop Tarts or Hot Pockets has to be smuggled in.
“Before I died,” Jason replies, and he doesn’t look quite so angry, face scrunched with cautious agreement rather than complete vehemence.
“Yeah.” Dick isn’t sure what he expected Jason to say. He really hadn’t meant to bring his death up. (Again. He keeps giving Jason openings, and Jason takes them every. Single. Time.) “Look, let’s just… get out of here, okay?”
“Sure.” Jason shoves one hand in his pocket, the other still holding up his phone light. “But I’m going to kill you once we’re topside. I hope you know that.”
Dick can’t even bother to get upset about it. It’s a problem for later. Right now, he just needs to get out of here with as much dignity as he has left. (Which isn’t all that much at the moment, but still.)
The further they move along, the colder the air gets. The tunnel seems to be relatively level, but Dick wonders if they’re actually moving down, going deeper and deeper into the earth.
“It shouldn’t be this far,” Jason says suddenly, “should it?”
“I don’t know.”
Their footsteps get louder, punctuating each uncomfortable second of silence.
Step, step, step, step.
“Why didn’t you do it?” Jason finally asks.
“Why didn’t I… kill the Joker, you mean?” Dick is so drenched in sweat now that his shirt is soaked, and he fruitlessly wipes at his face, trying to keep the sweat from stinging his eyes.
“Yeah. I guess.” For possibly the first time today, Jason isn’t being confrontational. He asks quietly, voice almost meek. He sounds like…
He sounds like the ghost of a little boy, covered in burns and spitting up blood.
“I didn’t know you died, at first,” Dick begins, actively trying to slow his breathing. It’s getting so much harder to breathe, lungs full of cement. “I was off-world. When I got back, you’d been buried for nearly a month. And the Joker…”
Dick wants to tell him. He wants to tell Jason everything.
I beat the Joker over the head, Dick wants to say. I slammed my fists into his face so hard and so many times that his jaw and nose shattered. I cracked his skull. I broke his ribs until they punctured his organs and he drowned in his own blood.
But he can’t say any of that, because then he’d have to explain that Bruce did CPR until the Joker drew in a slimy, undeserved breath of air. A breath of air that should have been Jason’s. A breath of air that the knowledge of which would send Dick’s brother spiralling.
No. He just can’t do that.
“I wish I’d killed him,” Dick says instead. “I feel… I feel horrible for thinking that way, but I want him dead.”
“You can kill him,” Jason seethes, still plodding forward, eyes fixed on the tunnel in front of him. “You should have killed him. But you didn’t because you think the life of that maggot is more important than your own family.”
“No!” Dick replies immediately.
“Yes. Me, Barbara, who next? What will make you finally realize that his death would save so many more lives than it would hurt? What if he killed Alfred? Bruce? My replacement? Would his death convince you?”
Yes. It had already. Guilt crawls up Dick’s throat and settles in the back of his mouth, threatening to choke him. He had only killed the Joker after he thought Tim was dead too. He saw Barbara in her wheelchair and Jason’s cold headstone and the bloody rags of Tim’s Robin uniform and finally said “enough.” It was only after losing his second brother to the Joker that he killed the monster.
“I want to kill him,” Dick insists, wiping the moisture from under his chin. “God, Jay, every time I see his face, that’s all I want to do. It’s just… that’s not my call.”
“Then whose is it???” Jason spins around, and even in the dim tunnel, Dick can see his eyes. His burning green eyes. (Dick knows that’s not right. Jason’s eyes are blue. They’ve always been blue. He must be seeing things.) “You know the court won’t ever give him the death penalty! Not with a million and one records of insanity! If we don’t do it, no one will. He’ll just keep escaping and hurting people.”
Dick doesn’t have an answer. It’s not an easy question. He feels weak, the cold sapping his energy and threatening to pull him to the ground.
“I’m sorry, Jay,” Dick replies. “I… I don’t know.”
Jason hesitates. Then he shoves Dick to the ground, and the world goes dark once more.
---
“Shit. Fuck. Dammit. Dammit. Wake up, you fucking-!” Jason can’t come up with a strong enough insult.
“Nnh. Jay?” Dick’s voice is watery, and Jason has to pray he’s hearing phlegm or bile and not blood.
“Hey.” Jason does his best to keep the relief out of his tone. Because he’s not relieved. He’s pissed as hell that his so-called “brother” refused to kill his murderer. Any concern for Dick’s well-being is simply false camaraderie from the stress of being trapped in a bunker together.
“Wh-?” Dick coughs and pushes himself up with difficulty. Jason doesn’t help. “What happened?”
“You passed out, you moron,” Jason explains, rolling his eyes. Absently, he realizes that he’s trying too hard to convince himself that he’s not worried. “Because you’ve been bleeding for the last half hour and didn’t bother to say anything.”
Dick feels his face, fingers coming away red from the deep cut on his forehead. “Oh. I wasn’t sweating.”
“You…” Jason shakes his head. “You idiot. You thought that was sweat?”
“Feels like sweat.”
“And smells like ten pounds of raw steak.” Jason stands and holds out a hand. “Get up, or I’m leaving you here.”
Dick, already in the process of trying to stand, grabs Jason’s arm. He clings to him a bit too long, leans on him a bit too heavily, but he takes his own weight quickly after, one hand against the wall for support.
“Still gonna kill me when we get outta here?” Dick asks, still smiling like an idiot despite the fact that he’s lost enough blood to drain a ten-year-old.
“If you don’t die on the way,” Jason promises, because even if he was worried about Dick (which he isn’t), Dick still deserves to pay for letting the Joker off with a slap on the wrist. He stood by Bruce all these years, not caring that Bruce didn’t stop the Joker from hurting more people. (Hurting more kids. Jason has seen the Joker’s stats. Just last Tuesday, he killed a 6-month-old.)
“Aye, aye,” Dick mumbles, forging ahead, hand skimming the wall. Jason walks behind him this time. Not because he’s worried though. It’s because…
Well, it doesn’t matter why.
Regardless, they don’t walk for much longer before they finally come across an exit. It’s a heavy metal door, but there’s no lock, and it takes Jason a single shove to slide it open.
“Oh, no,” Jason groans.
“What?” Dick tries to push himself off the wall, but his every movement looks more difficult than the one before. “What is it?”
“It’s an elevator shaft.” Jason steps aside to reveal a vertical metal passageway with thick cables suspended from far, far above. “Apartment building, maybe Gotham General.”
Dick finally shoves himself onto his feet, approaching the shaft and reaching out, finding he’s just short of reaching the cables.
Jason folds his arms. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Well… only way out, right?” Dick shrugs. “Guess we’re climbing.”
“Oh. Right.” Jason waves in Dick’s direction. “Have you seen yourself, dude? You can barely walk.”
“I’ll manage,” the stubborn idiot insists. “Help me reach the cables?”
Jason shakes his head. “Hell, no. You’ll fall.”
A smile creeps across Dick’s lips. “I thought you wanted me dead.”
Shit. The little bastard. Thinks he’s so damn smart. Like not wanting Dick to fall means he cares about his well-being or something.
“No, dumbass,” Jason corrects. “I don’t want you to fall on me.”
Dick takes a pointed step away from the elevator. “Fine. You go first.”
Something halfway between panic and anger bubbles in Jason’s stomach. He can’t go first, because what if Dick does fall? There won’t be anyone to catch him, and-
No. No, Jason doesn’t care if Dick dies. Dick certainly didn’t care that Jason died. He can’t… He shouldn’t worry about Dick. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.
“I…”
At Jason’s hesitation, Dick returns to his spot in front of the shaft. “Fine. I’ll just jump for it then.”
Jump? For the cables? When he’s got a concussion and moderate blood loss? (Maybe worse?) Jason can’t let that happen. He’ll die. And Jason can’t let that happen because…
(He’s not worried about Dick. He’s not.)
The thought strikes Jason like lightning, and his voice rises with urgency. “I’ll kill you when you get to the surface,” he reminds him. “I’ll kill you, you hear me? I swear to god, I’ll do it.”
“I know,” Dick assures him. “Now, are you going to give me a boost or what?” He’s doing that performer smile. That grin that he wore as Robin. That grin that he becomes when he’s Nightwing.
God, Jason hates him.
“Whatever,” Jason grumps, approaching the elevator shaft and holding out his hands for Dick to step on. “I hope you survive so I can shoot you in the face.”
“Can’t-” Dick grunts, moving from Jason’s hands to the cables. “Can’t wait.” Even tired and injured, he pulls the move off with more grace than most can at their best. It makes Jason hate him all the more. Perfect Golden Boy, capable of anything with enough foolish persistence.
It would make the most sense for Jason to wait until Dick reaches the exit before climbing the cables himself. The odds of him falling are pretty decent, and if Jason is below him, they could both get taken out.
But some frustrating tug in Jason’s gut tells him to follow, so he does. He hates Dick for what he didn’t do, but dying from a fall would be…
Well, Jason wants to tell Bruce he shot his perfect disciple in the face. Or blew him up. Or ripped out his intestines. Letting Dick fall to his death is a stupid way to off him.
There are a couple close calls on the climb up. Dick slips at least three times. Once, Jason could swear the dude passed out for a second. But he catches himself every time and resumes the climb.
They reach the first floor relatively quickly, and Jason stands on the edge of the exit hatch as he pries the door open with one hand. He walks through onto solid ground and holds it open as Dick jumps for it.
And slips.
There’s no hesitation this time. Jason lunges, falling onto his stomach as his hand grabs Dick’s forearm in a death grip. He drags Dick up and onto the floor, and then they let go and lay on the ground for a bit, panting with effort.
Jason recovers first, slowly sitting up and then standing. Dick is still collapsed on the ground, brows knit and eyes shut. His heavy breathing is the only indication that he’s even awake. And here, in the harsh fluorescents of a commercial hallway, it’s obvious how unwell Dick is. Every inch of skin seems caked in dried blood, a gnarly cut in his scalp. Underneath, his skin looks duller than usual, though that may just be a difference in lighting. Even the great Dick Grayson has to look bad in some type of lighting, and maybe fluorescent bulbs are his crux.
The gun holstered to Jason’s leg feels hot, and he rests his hand on the grip. Now’s the perfect shot. One bullet between the eyes. The opportunity is there. It’d be so easy.
“Get up,” Jason grits out, grabbing Dick’s arm again and dragging him to his feet.
“Wh-?” He’s dazed. The adrenaline must have finally run out.
It’d be so easy.
“Get out of here,” Jason orders.
Dick cocks his head, almost puppylike if it weren’t for the… Well. The blood. “Wh’ddya mean?”
“Get out of my neighborhood,” Jason elaborates. “Now. Or I’ll shoot you through the throat.” He pulls his gun and rests it lightly on Dick’s neck.
“O-okay,” Dick breathes. “A’ight. I get it.” Slowly, he circles until his back is towards the exit. Then he backs up until he’s out of the hallway. Out of sight.
Jason sighs and holsters his gun. He’ll kill Dick next time. He will. Partly to make Bruce mad. Partly because Dick deserves it.
But for now, Jason lets him go. He doesn’t know why. He decides it’s better not to ask.