Chapter Text
There is a shadow, on the rooftop.
It’s long, dark cape stretching all the way into the home-grown darkness of the twisting, turning pipes, and spiked, ears alert and edges twitching.
The shadow is alive, moving with the wind, crossing boundaries that it and it alone can see. One could, perhaps, compare the shadow to a moving river, to a clever little hummingbird, or to a squirrel, fearless and confident at great heights, with not a single doubt in its mind that its targets can hold its weight.
The shadow races across rooftop after rooftop, only pausing to send off a line of shining silver into the night.
In those moments, the shadow swings like a pendulum, carefully dropping at the end, whipping the grapple line back like a fisherman preparing to cast once again.
In the darkness ahead, there gleams shining red chrome.
The shadow slows to a stop as the red chrome helmet approaches.
“Hood,” says Richard Grayson-Wayne, under the cowl of the Bat, “Walk with me.”
Jason tries to quash the rising surge of anxiety at those words, but… it’s not exactly easy.
They make it back to the Zeta in one piece, at least, arriving at the Cave with very little fanfare- unusual, given that it’s nearly one in the morning on a Friday night, and even though Dick had insisted on Tim and Steph going to bed at a reasonable hour tonight (rather than staying out until two, as is the norm on Fridays), it’s still unusual to see the Cave so quiet and empty.
“So,” Jason says, “What did you want to talk about, Bats?”
Batman reaches up, tugging at the edges of the cowl with his third and fourth fingers, and just like that, Jason’s speaking with his brother again.
“I might need your help with something,” Dick begins, “And before you agree to anything, because I’m worried you’ll try, this is something dangerous and difficult nad probably stupid, but I really wanted to give you the option, because my therapist suggested it.”
Jason blows right past you’ll agree to something before I say what it is (because while normally, Dick would be very incorrect about that… Jason does really like helping people. He tries to avoid it, stubbornly, and he’s often vocally cranky about it, but he does. He does love helping), and hits right on my therapist.
“That’s great!” he says excitedly, reaching for his brother, “I’m completely serious. Dick, you’ve really needed that these past couple months- that much has been obvious. I’m glad you’re seeking professional help.”
Something in the back of Jason’s head screeches at him for being so enthusiastically joyful about such a simple thing.
Jason, who has spent these past few months learning how to be happy again, dutifully ignores it.
“One of- well, really the only thing we had time to talk about, was how the Bat-cowl kind of makes me miserable when I have to wear it all the time,” Dick explains sheepishly, running a hand through the hair that he’s just started to grow out again, “I don’t know what it is about it, because I’ve used other names before and I’ve been fine. Maybe it’s the finality of it all, I don’t know. But one of the things we talked about was that many hands make light work.”
Jason’s breath catches in his throat.
The passing of Robin was a tumultuous, calamitous thing, an ever-present argument until the situation had finally cooled. Even then, it wasn’t… clean. There wasn’t a moment of acknowledgement, of understanding- something Jason still clearly wishes they’d had.
This… this something new, but the past echoes in a way that rattles his ribcage, painful and joyful in equal measure.
“I can’t go back to what I once was,” Dick says, soft and delicate, “And though I regret some things that happened on the way here, I don’t want to.”
Bludhaven, he doesn’t have to say. Jason curls a hand around Dick’s and pulls his older, smaller brother towards him, squeezing him into the tightest of hugs.
“You want Nightwing back,” Jason says against his brother’s shoulder.
“I do.”
Jason pulls away, hands on his brother’s shoulders, spacing them exactly an arm’s-length apart.
Dick inhales deeply, like he’s not willing to say what comes next.
They stay there, for a moment.
“If I’m going to become Nightwing again,” Dick says, voice tremulous, “I need someone to help me carry the weight of this cowl. And I know you’re young- too young for me to be asking this of you- but Jay, I couldn’t think of anyone better.”
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, Jason tells himself, tearing up anyways. He pulls his older brother into a hug again.
“I’d be honored,” he says, and he means it. Months ago, Jason would have taken the cowl and his guns and he would have painted the street bloody.
Now, though, Jason knows exactly what Dick means by this, when he asks him to wear the cowl.
Symbols are heavy burdens to carry, after all.
“Now, are we going to have a whiteboard schedule for this, or-”
“Dick, just give me a minute.”
“... Jason, are you crying?”
“Yes I am, shut up!”
“I thought that was my job,” Dick says, laughing through teary eyes.
“You don’t have a monopoly on crying-”
On the edge of a jagged-toothed skyscraper, halfway across Gotham, New Jersey, a black-clad shadow watches as the fog rolls in.
There’s a whirring of metal, and someone new- not quite a shadow, not really- joins the ever-shifting darkness that clings to the old metal scaffolding.
“Still getting used to the range of motion?” the newcomer hums, careful to keep his voice low. Blue-clad fingertips rise up to comb chin-length hair back behind his ears.
“No shit,” the shadow replies, “I could barely move my head in this thing three hours ago. Only got the hang of it just before I went out for the night.”
“Ha! Yeah, it’ll do that to you. No idea how he managed continuous upgrades for so long,” the blue-striped figure hums, tilting his head to the side. His hair, free of its prison, falls into his face again.
The Batman snorts.
“You’re gonna need to do that less, you know,” the blue-clad figure chides, “If you want to switch-”
“Don’t you dare, let me have this,” Batman responds, shooting his grapple off into the night before his fellow rooftop-lurker can get another word in.
Nightwing sighs, allowing himself a small, soft smile.
“You’re gonna do great, Jay,” he whispers under his breath, before climbing to the next roof over.
God, how he’s missed a good acrobatics session.
He moves like a ballet dancer, spinning effortlessly and elegantly on the tips of his feet, rising higher and higher and higher in the air with every leap.
Finally, after he’s suspended for what seems like an age in the space between seconds, he touches down on the old, crumbling edge of one of Gotham’s first old, gothic skyscrapers- the ones built back in the early days of the jagged-tooth constructions that reach into the skyline of every major city, the ones from the early nineteen-hundreds, when any skyscraper was truly a sight to be seen.
The stone crumbles under his feet, and Nightwing casts his line outwards, rising up and up and up towards the old, lonely building across the street. As he descends, he nearly brushes the tops of awnings down below, drumming his feet against the roof of a car. He rises, landing in an elegant bow on the edge of the rooftop.
The sky darkens and thickens, the wind turning salty and wet with the smell of impending fog. Nightwing lets the breeze flow over him, relishing the cool night air with a smile.
He dances, smiles, and jokes as he makes his rounds, dancing higher and higher and higher every time, until he crouches on the edge of the Wayne Enterprises building, the sign illuminating even the furthest clouds in the near-pitch dark of the sky.
A ways away, the Bat-Signal glows, a yellow-white warning against the sky. Nightwing hums, estimating the distance, and steps off the side of the building.
As he falls from the rooftop, grappling hook cast like fishing line high into the late-night fog, something in his chest warms a little bit like joy.