Work Text:
Jason takes a long drag on his cigarette as he walks down the street, away from the humdrum car that Roy let him borrow, his motorcycle ill-equipped to run this errand. He got to the schoolyard, promptly snuffing out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe, and waited just beyond the property gate, scoping out the students until he saw...
“Uncle Jay!” A little girl with black hair, tied back into cute pigtails that her father no doubt put in her hair that morning before school, ran up to the school’s front gate, her little pink backpack bouncing around behind her. Her eyes were bright and her lips stretched back in an excited smile as she runs up to her ‘uncle’.
Jason can’t help but smile and he kneels down, scooping her up into his arms. “Hey there, peanut. You’re daddy’s having me pick you up today. He’s busy working on something.”
“What’s daddy working on?”
“Not sure but I’m sure it’s probably built to explode. Let’s try to get home quickly so we can watch.”
Lian giggles, covering her mouth as Jason started to carry her back to the car. “Can we stop for ice cream though? Wednesday is ice cream day!”
“Oh really?” Jason chuckles, opening the car door and helping Lian inside. “Okay, since it’s ice cream day.”
A quick stop at the ice cream shop later, Lian was happily licking her chocolate ice cream in a waffle cone with rainbow sprinkles in the backseat of Roy’s beat-up old car, and Jason was in the front seat, a cherry popsicle in his mouth. He pulled up outside of Roy’s apartment, putting the car in park. “Alright, baby, let’s go rub our ice cream in your Daddy’s face.”
“Yeah!” The little girl hopped out of the car, rushing inside, though mindful of her sweet treat. Jason smiles, shaking his head before grabbing her forgotten backpack with his clean, non-sticky popsicle hand. He knocks before opening the door anyway. “Roy! We’re back! You didn’t blow yourself up did you?”
“I’m in the garage! And go screw yourself, Jason!”
Jason smirks, dropping Lian’s backpack on the couch before following Roy’s voice back to the garage. Their ice creams in hand.
Roy was underneath some machine or other. The hiss of the welding tool he was using emanating from under it, along with the glow from the flames. He suddenly rolled himself out from under the machine and lifted his welding mask, revealing his smiling face. “Hey, princess! How was school?”
He saw the ice cream in his friend and daughter’s hand and playfully pouted. “You had ice cream day without me?”
“Yep!”
“Sorry, Roy-Toy. You snooze you lose.” Jason smirks, licking his popsicle and shrugging.
Roy crosses his arms, feigning an even deeper pout, before grabbing Lian shouting, “Then I’ll eat yours! Nom! Nom! Nom!” A raspberry was blown into Lian’s cheek, making the little girl squeal.
“Nooo! Uncle Jay! Save me!”
Jason tossed his half-melted and half-eaten popsicle into one of the wastebaskets Roy kept in here before rushing in. “I’ll save you peanut! Don’t worry!”
“No! Save the ice cream! I’ll fight him off!”
Jason shakes his head and takes the mostly eaten ice cream before running off with it. Well as much as he could, carrying melting ice cream.
“Noooo! My sustenance!” Roy called out mournfully after him. Scrambling to try and get up to chase him. Lian wraps herself around his leg, clinging tight and slowing him down significantly. This pretty much put both Jason and Roy on equal footing.
Jason couldn’t help but beam, running around the house with the two of them. Laughing, smiling, being a bunch of boneheaded idiots. They hadn’t even noticed the doorbell ring and then the sound of a door opening.
“Hey, ho? What’s going on in here?” The head of Dick Grayson poked around the door, calling out for them and making them freeze. Dick smiled at the lot of them, looking down to Lian. “Hey, princess! What’s going on?”
“Daddy’s trying to eat my ice cream! Make him stop!”
“Oh really?” Dick smirks, raising an eyebrow at Roy. “You hear her, Roy. Have at you!”
Dick charged at Roy, prompting Lian to let her father go and scoot away. Dick bowled Roy over and the two started wrestling on the floor, with Roy spitting and cursing.
“Dick...you slippery...son of a bitch! Hold still!”
“Ah, bad word, Roy. Children are present.” Jason teased, kneeling down beside Lian and handing her her ice cream back.
Lian beams, taking the icecream and beginning to lick it again, watching as her father was ‘stopped’ by her Uncle.
Eventually, Dick managed to get Roy in a chokehold, smirking at him. “Now, Roy, can you leave your little girl to her dessert? There’s always next time.”
Roy pouted before he sighed, begrudgingly, “Fiiiiinnnnnee.”
Dick grinned and let him up. The redhead rubbed his neck and let Dick pull him to his feet. “Just know I let you win. I had my daughter watching.”
“Uh, huh,” Dick replies with an air of smugness and disbelief.
The redhead rolled his eyes and reached down to pick up his daughter, who was now licking her fingers clean of the remaining ice cream. “Alright, princess, let’s get you a bath. Thank’s again for picking her up, Jason.”
Jason shrugs, leaning against the wall. “No problem. We still up for tonight?”
“Yeah, let me just get this one cleaned up and ready for the babysitter.” Roy nodded to Dick and disappeared down the hallway, leaving the two brothers alone.
Dick plopped himself down in Roy’s armchair, looking over at Jason with his eyebrow raised. Most people might not have noticed, but Dick had his ‘Bat stare’ on as he seemed to appraise Jason from toes to the tops of his curly black hair.
Jason raised his eyebrow at him. “What do you want, Golden-boy?”
“Nothing. I just didn’t know that you were picking up Lian. Roy’s super picky about who’s around her. You must be close if he was willing to let you pick her up from school.”
Jason thinks about it. He and Roy have been working together for a long time. They know how to have each other’s backs, both in and out of the suits, and, despite his past, Roy knows how protective Jason is of children. He knows Jason would never let Lian get hurt, let alone hurt her himself.
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I’m around a whole lot, I stay overnight sometimes, so she knows me pretty well, and Roy knows I’d do anything to keep her safe, so-” Jason said with a shrug, not thinking too much of it. Lian was a good kid, Jason liked her a lot, and she liked him, as much as she could one of her dad’s friends.
“I see…” Dick clicked his tongue, nodding. “So...when did you and Roy...you know?”
“When did we what?”
Dick looks at him in disbelief. “Come on, Jay-bird. I know you don’t make it easy to keep up with what’s going on with you, but I’m serious. How long have you and Roy been dating?”
Jason spluttered, his eyes going wide. “W-We’re not dating, the fuck Grayson?”
Now it was Dick’s turn to look surprised. “You’re not?”
“No, we fucking are not, what the hell?” Jason could feel his cheeks warming up and his heart was doing funny things in his chest. “We just hang out a lot. Hell, we work together. Sometimes I crash at his place after a long night, but I crash in his guest room. Nothing like…that.”
“Okay, fair enough, but Roy was telling me about how you come over for dinner with him and Lian the other day. Is that true?”
“...Yeah...I mean...occasionally, yeah. But that doesn’t mean anything. He’s just comfortable with me around him and his kid is all. He brings her to dinners with the Titans all the time.”
“True, but these dinners are not usually one on one. We usually meet in a group.” Dick replied with an air of skepticism. He lets that hang in the air, before continuing. “So...you’re just a friend and ‘coworkers’...and yet you’re spending a lot of time here, you have private dinners with Roy and Lian, and you are pretty involved in Lian’s life, at least enough that you picking her up and things are not out of the ordinary.”
Jason starts chewing on the inside of his cheek. “So? That’s not too weird.”
“No, no it’s not.” Dick rests his head in his palm, obscuring the little smirk that came to his lips. “Especially if you both are romantically inclined to each other.”
Jason glares at him, hissing through gritted teeth. “It’s. Not. Like. That. Piss off, Dickhead.”
Dick raised his arms in surrender and dropped it. He knew his brother well enough that if he pushed, it would break out into a fight. Which was not a good idea with a five-year-old in just the other room.
It was another few minutes before Roy and Lian came out, Roy cleaned up from any grease and change into a clean set of clothes, and Lian was in her PJ’s. “Thank’s again for watching her, Dick.”
Lian grinned and ran up to Dick, jumping into her Uncle’s lap. Dick laughed, scooping her up. “Aw, it’s no problem, Roy. Anytime.”
Roy grinned, nodding, before he wrapped an arm around Jason’s shoulders and pulled him towards the door. “Come on, man. First rounds on me.”
Jason snorted, his cheeks still flushed, but visibly more relaxed. “Uh, huh. You say that then I’m the one who pays for drinks.”
“Cmon man, you’ve got Wayne money.”
"And you’ve got Queen’s!”
“Do you think I’m really gonna ask Ollie for drinking money?”
“Do you think I’m gonna ask Bruce?!”
The two of them continued bickering all the way to the door, with Dick watching them go with a knowing smile. “Have fun you two!”
Jason glared at him over his shoulder. Roy grinned and waved, before pulling a flustered Jason out the door. They headed down the street, with Roy babbling about the project he’d been working on. Jason fell into step beside him, listening as much as he could, but his mind was elsewhere. Focusing too hard on his place in Roy’s life. On how much he spends in Roy’s home, with Roy’s daughter, in Roy’s life.
He suddenly didn’t know how to handle the feelings of warmth in his chest, and the weight that settled on his shoulders. Those large warm arms of his best friend, holding him far closer than should have been normal.
Suddenly Jason’s heart was beating so loud he could barely hear Roy anymore.