Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The human body is a wondrous thing. The muscles hold the physical memory of letting go of the fly bar, turning a triple or quadruple somersault, and locking wrists with the catcher while traveling at a hundred kilometers an hour in the air. The sensory receptors take in every bit of information detected in a crime scene, sending visual images, sounds and smells to the main control center where the most salient details are identified in mere seconds, all through an automatic response. The biological rhythm regulates and coordinates most of the bodily functions to keep the machine running on a daily basis, without even needing to be briefed on the greater good, or to be convinced of why we fight.

But it can also be very frustrating—annoying, actually. Much like a house cat or a digital printer, sometimes it just doesn’t know how to follow instructions. 

Every night when he goes to bed alone, he ends up waking earlier and earlier in the morning like a screwed-up countdown clock. Five or ten minutes a day doesn’t seem to make much of a difference at first, but after a couple of weeks, Dick finds himself lying awake in bed at five o’clock, glaring at the depthless ceiling of his bedroom, in his apartment that’s still enveloped by the coldness of space, and cursing his brain for its treachery.

His senses grow heightened in the darkness. It feels unbelievable how he can hear the humming of the refrigerator from his bedroom despite the walls in its way, the creak of the mattress underneath him yet he’s not moving a single muscle, and the rustling of tree leaves right outside his window, even though they have been shed off and swept away a week in prior.

It’s mind-boggling. It makes no goddamn sense. He’s never had trouble living alone before, and while his sleep schedule hasn’t been the healthiest by any normal standard, it’s at least somewhat consistent. It’s one of the things about himself that he can rely on. And if he can’t trust his own body—well, this would be a dangerous trend of thought to follow.

It’s five fifteen now, that’s as far as so much thinking can take him today. He closes his eyes and goes through everything he needs to do for the week, repeats every piece of information that he can recall, hoping to overload his brain into a coma. At least he’d get some shuteye that way. Just as he starts to nod off, the alarm clock blasts him back to the land of the unfortunately awake and conscious.

“Great,” Dick mumbles. “Fantastic.”

He pulls himself up on the bed and twists his body around to glance at the lighted snow globe sitting on the nightstand. It could be just his imagination—after all, he is experiencing a suboptimal level of sleep right now—but the glow appears a bit faint. He really has to get some new battery packs. That task is being moved up the to-do list and it’s now on today’s agenda.

In the bathroom, all washed up and refreshed, he stares at the loser in the mirror, thinking—Don’t get codependent. You’re a full-grown man. You can’t be having separation anxiety. What you need is a balanced diet, good exercise regime, a positive mental attitude—and battery packs. That’s all he needs to stop a mutiny being committed by his own body.

Part of him wonders if the same thing happens to Jason too, but he never gets the chance to text him about it. Turns out, the fix for separation anxiety is just to not separate. So now, instead of staring at one loser in his small bathroom mirror every morning, he’s looking at two. And whaddaya know, he’s getting his five and a half hours of sleep at his regular hours again. Everything is fine. Nothing to worry about.

But there is something to worry about, according to the man on the radio: the weather. It’s either going to be the coldest or the warmest winter in New York yet, and meteorologists are not sure which one would be worse. So be prepared—stock up on canned food, blankets and heat packs. It’s time to break that piggy bank and invest in warm hats and knitted scarfs. Mittens too, if you can spare a dime. 

As the city moves into the season, patrol is made more difficult. Even with the thermal suit, he can still feel the wind across his cheekbones become more and more cutting each night. Time like this, he thinks Jason might actually be onto something, equipping himself with a helmet.

Envy, by itself, is not a satisfying emotion, not unless it’s followed up with malicious pleasure for when the table is turned. Still, he has to wait eight months for that to happen. It would be a little strange if he starts to remind Jason how his helmet is gonna heat up quicker than a car parked in the summer sun comes July. That’d just give him an advance warning, and he might lose his only leverage. Worse, he’d lose Jason to the southern hemisphere or something, and he doesn’t want to spend another summer alone, no more than he does winter.

Cold as it is, it’s not the only thing that contributes to a below-average night of patrol. There are many types and variations to a bad night, and tonight has witnessed the foulest of its kind: he is halfway peeling off his sweaty suit and looking forward to a warm, relaxing bath, when the police scanner suddenly turns busy, and he has to squeeze himself back into the clammy sleeves, puts his mask on and heads back out.

When he gets back to the apartment the second time, Jason is sitting in the living room fixing his utility belt, having already washed and changed. Dick heads straight for the shower, trying to get the smell of a burning building off of himself. When he comes back out, he plops down on the couch, grabbing a fortune cookie off the coffee table as he does. 

“There’s leftover in the fridge. Want me to go heat it up for you?”

“Nah,” Dick unwraps the plastic. “I’m not that hungry.”

He cracks open the cookie, pops half of it into his mouth and unfolds the piece of paper inside.

“What does it say?”

Dick finishes chewing and swallowing, then reads, “It’s okay to feel uncertain about the past and the future, as long as you still have something that keeps you in the present.”

“Wow.”

“Um hmm.”

“How sage.”

“Yep.”

“You ready to hear mine?”

“Oh for sure.”

Jason bents forward and picks up an invisible cookie from the coffee table. Breaks it open and unwraps the totally transparent fortune inside.

“It says, Hickory Dickory Dock. Batman farts eating a shallot.”

“My god,” Dick murmurs. “We’ve got to get you in front of a mic.”

Jason huffs a laugh and his hands return to the tool belt. He goes through each compartment methodically. Takes out its content—be it a taser, a pack of gas pellets or throwing darts, checks them for their readiness, then puts them back in place, same way as he has taken them out.

“That was so bad. Makes no sense. Doesn’t even rhyme.”

“Exactly. It’s like when the universe is trying to tell a joke. You got the spirit right.”

Jason grins, hand slipping around to the inside of his thigh. “You know if you really want it to rhyme, I’ve got just the word—”

“No I think I’m good,” Dick says quickly, then adds, “you weirdo.”

“Yeah? Takes one to know one.”

It’s warm and cosy in the apartment. The TV is on, showing rerun of some daytime program. Dick watches it for a few minutes and realizes it’s one of those shows where the host acts as the mediator for the participants and offers them relationship advice. Everyone on the program either looks very serious, or very unhappy, mostly both. The host, most of all, looks like he’s spent the last twenty years covering news stories in a war zone.

“Want me to clue you in?” Jason glances between the TV screen and Dick’s confused expression, mouth quirked.

“Yeah, what’s going on?”

“Well, that lady is here because she can’t find a date. The host is telling her she’s too picky.”

“Right,” Dick squints at the TV. “So what does she want?”

“A good-looking fella. At least six foot three. Has a job, a car. Can drive her to work in the morning and back home in the afternoon. No kids. No divorcee. No drinker or smoker.”

“Okay… What does that mean? She’s aiming too high?”

“Well I don’t know, Dick,” Jason drawls, grin turning into a smirk. “What do you look for in a romantic partner? What are your selection criteria? Unwavering sense of justice? Uphold highest level of moral standard? Genetically ginger?”

“Come on,” Dick half-scoffs, angling his arm to aim the crumpled cookie wrapper at the bin by the TV. Having underestimated the weight of the projectile, he watches it fly over the target and bounce off the wall, landing lamely on the floor.

“I don’t have any selection criteria.”

“That’s bullshit,” Jason says. “Everyone has criteria. How do you know we are right for each other, then?”

Dick shoots him a glare. “What do you call all this?”

Jason shrugs. He’s moved on from his utility belt to his knives. “Maybe you tripped and fell into my arms. Maybe you were too embarrassed to opt out. Just saying—we don’t know until you share with the live studio audience what you are really looking for in a partner.”

“Fine,” Dick bites into the word, feeling his fingers twitching, so he clamps them together. “Well, I guess it’s easier if it’s with another cape.”

“Naturally.”

“You have to be on the right side of the law, of course. Most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

Dick ignores him and goes on, “You have to be—I dunno, pretty tough. This life is not for the faint of heart, so you have to be mentally and physically resilient. Have your heart in the right place—that’s really important. Kind and sympathetic toward people who need your help. Good with children and elderly, maybe. Um. Wouldn’t hurt to have a good physique—nice eyes, a beautiful smile, strong enough to carry me, if needed. Know how to safely handle a firearm? A really good shot. Also really good with knives. Including kitchen knives. A great cook.”

“Dick—”

“Smart, funny, and kind,” Dick slows his words, echoing Jason’s own from a couple of months back, in the warehouse. “A little dense, sometimes, but I have hope still.”

“Stop it,” Jason says.

Dick stops and waits.

“Stop trying to describe me.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Dick says gently.

“It’s not what I asked,” Jason leans away from him, hunching over himself, leaving Dick only a view of his back. “I wasn’t asking for reassurance. I don’t want you to humor me.”

“I’m not humoring you,” Dick tells him, biting on his lips.

Sometimes he wishes he hasn’t had the whole actions-speak-louder-than-words thing instilled in him from such a young age. Maybe if he had enough time, with enough practice, he wouldn’t struggle at times to find the right words to say to Jason—the words that would offset all the past experiences that have made him distrust pretty promises and sweet nothings, the words that would dissipate his doubt and convince him that they are exactly what they deserve, who they deserve—the words that would make everything all okay.

“What are your criteria?” Dick asks quietly.

“You know.”

He does know. It almost feels cruel, him knowing.

“I think we should tell people,” Dick hears himself saying. “About this. About us.”

“It’s your call.”

“Why only me?” 

“Because the stake is higher for you,” Jason looks back at him over his shoulder. “Because you have more to lose.”

Dick stares at him. “I can’t lose you.”

Jason holds his stare, his face shutdown. It feels like a terrible moment, a no-win situation. Either his fear will be confirmed, or Jason will tell him that he won’t lose him, no matter what—then his heart will really start to break.

Jason doesn’t say anything, only nods and turns away.

“I thought I’d be fine with it, if anyone ever finds out—” Jason says quietly. “I thought, it wouldn’t be that bad—it’ll drive them mad, and eventually when you come to your senses and break up with me, at least I get to make fun of you when we run into each other on some rooftop again, at least I’ve had the chance, to get a taste of what it’s like—”

He stops himself. The air has grown so heavy between them, every breath a weight against his chest, Dick doesn’t feel like he can drag himself to even move a finger.

“But then I realized all it will do is to hurt you,” Jason turns and meets his eyes. “So how the hell does it benefit me?”

Against the lead-filled air, Dick lifts his arm and reaches forward, placing his hand on Jason’s arm, squeezing lightly. A few seconds later, Jason’s hand comes up and covers his.

“Can we just go to bed?” Dick whispers.

Swallowing, Jason nods. “Yeah—”

The moment is cut short by a series of sharp, urgent beeping coming from the coffee table, among the pile of communicators and alarms.

“A break-in. One of the supply closets,” Jason says after picking it up. “I need to go check it out.”

“Want me to come with you?”

“No,” Jason looks him over. “I want you to go to bed and get eight hours of sleep. It’s probably nothing. The perimeter alarm keeps acting up after I set it up last week. But better safe than sorry.”

“Okay,” Dick says, watching Jason putting his armor back up, guns holstered, helmet on. He’s halfway to the fire exit when he whips around. Shoulders sagging, Jason sighs at the sight of him.

“If you’re going to wait on the couch, at least go grab a blanket.”

“I will,” Dick gives him a small smile. “Be careful.”

With the window clicked shut, Dick slumps down on the couch. The cushion is still warm from their combined body heat, and he has no desire to get up and leave the spot.

The night can hollow him out so quickly. His body already feels asleep. His mind, on the other hand, is rather comparable to the TV right now—on, but with only a static display screen. 

He flips through the channels one by one, until he finds one that has sound on it, one of the radio stations. He lies back and stares blindly at the ceiling, as voices fill the space.  

“…I don’t understand. I simply do not understand—at that point, Bill exclaimed with agitation. His brows knitted together in a deep frown, and his grip tightened around the still-full glass. His shirt and tie, jacket and slacks were well-matched, almost a little too well-matched, like he was trying too hard to blend in. They fitted them so perfectly, not a wrinkle on that shirt, not a button too loose or too tight. It was odd how he could have afforded these perfectly tailored clothes on a junior bookkeeper’s salary. I wondered to myself why I never noticed it in the short two weeks that I knew him.

“Before I could get a word in, he continued, You speak of love as if it’s indistinguishable from any other physical processes—a straight, thermodynamic arrow of time. But you’re wrong. You said it yourself—love is just a soup of brain chemicals that influence your decision-making. Then you must realize that it’s more biological than physical. You forget that entropy only increases in an isolated system, but it does the exact reverse for a living system such as life itself. To search for life in the cosmos, you simply must look for a reduction in entropy.

“I waved my hand in dismissal. It’s never about the physics, Bill. Would you rather I lie to you? To tell you that everything will be fine? That the narrative itself will find its own way out of this maze it has created? Would you rather I tell you that no, things never fall apart. Relationships don’t decay. Love doesn’t fade. Nothing ever diminishes. No, never.

“If you really believe this, then why made the promise in the first place? Bill asked. Why would you pledge a vow of eternity, only to break it so easily before even a fraction of it had passed, then blame love for it? What was the point?

“Oh, Bill. You talk like you’ve only lived on this planet for a day, so let me tell you something real quick: human beings will do things despite knowing the odds stacked against them. The pursuit of happiness with full knowledge of the hardship ahead is and will always be a noble feat, the truest human endeavor. The result doesn’t matter—the journey there is the real reward.

“Bill stayed silent for a moment, then said, Is that how you justify failures? Is that how you excuse incompetence, indifference, and infidelity—the lack of faith?

“I shook my head. What I’m trying to say is, choices are what propel us to solve the problems in our life, helping us conquer some obstacles but not the others. And when it comes to choices, people will always be capable of making the poorer ones. We either want to become something we’re not, or we are never the person we thought we were. Being human is to be disappointed and to be disappointing.

“Yes—Bill averted his gaze, downing his drink in one smooth swing. In the dim lighting of the bar, his eyes flashed an unnatural green for what I was sure to be just a figment of my imagination—That, I can agree.”

Without knowing how much time has passed, only that the voices have faded away, like someone has shut off the source of it, he wants to get up and open his eyes. But his eyelids feel so heavy, his mind floating so far away.

Someone is covering his body with a thick blanket, tugging his arms and legs under it—Always flailing around. Gonna catch your death one day—and stroking his hair gently, touch light as a snowflake.

That night, he dreams of his parents. Their faces are all smoothed over, but the love is still there—it hasn’t faded after all these years, not for a millionth fraction, not a single drop missing in the ocean.

—

They seldom work cases together. Habits are hard to break, and independence is rated very highly on either of their pyramids of self-fulfillment needs.

It’d also be kind of a waste. They are capable of handling two to three cases at a time on their lonesome. Spreading out helps cover more ground, logistically speaking. It’s not like crime is running out in the general vicinity of the state of New York. That’s weird, right? It’s the Fermi—no, the Batman paradox—if vigilantism is so effective, then why hasn’t crime been eliminated yet?

While waiting for the world to become a crime-less paradise, they carry on with their self-appointed duties day and night. Neither of them is too fussy to give the apartment another name other than home—it’s only natural, since that’s where they come back to at the end of the night. Dick has to upgrade his security system four more times, which doesn’t seem too difficult now with Jason backseating him, bickering over the most unimportant details.

Jason comes home one night with a frown and a thoughtful expression, looking like he’s got his thinking cap on.

He seems otherwise intact. No rips on his clothes or grazes on his cheeks. No blood dripping anywhere. So Dick doesn’t reach for the med kit under the table.

“How’s your evening?” he asks.

“Confounding,” Jason answers, as he starts stripping off his holsters. “I spent the whole night gutting teddy bears. Three shipping containers of them.”

“You psychopath.”

“I know. I sicken even myself,” Jason sighs. “And I didn’t even find anything in them. Remember that drug shipment I told you about? It’s supposed to arrive today.”

“Trouble with supply chain, maybe?” Dick suggests. Delay does happen. More often than not, in fact.

“Not according to the logs. No news on the street, either. Those dead-drops I’ve been monitoring—all of them were empty. Snatched a few low-level dealers tonight and they said they were out of stock, can you believe it.”

“I mean, that actually sounds like good news,” Dick says. “Pay on delivery, if they didn’t seem too concerned about it missing.”

“Bodies are not turning up, so I guess no money is owed. They were just a little upset,” Jason pauses, frowning down at his boots. “It’s like their import guy just disappeared, or somehow figured out I was onto him. I was so damn close to catching him.”

Dick gives him a sympathetic pat. “Any money you can trace? It’s always the money.”

When Dick wakes up from his six hours of sleep the next morning, the other side of the bed is empty. He pads his way to the living room, where Jason is sitting surrounded by three laptops and piles of case folders. The look of his face is undoubtedly the face of someone who has jumped into the rabbit hole of paper-trailing and number-hunting.

“Did you even sleep last night?”

“Yeah,” Jason strokes his temple. “Maybe one or two hours on the couch? I had coffee. It’s fine.”

Dick heads into the kitchen, pours himself a cup of coffee too, walks downstairs to fetch the newspaper, then comes back to the living room.

He blows on his drink, watching Jason watching out of the window, head turned, sheets of loose paper slipping from between the folder he’s holding.

“What are you looking at?”

“Bunch of birds sitting on the wire.”

Dick glances down at his mug as he takes a sip. “Any noteworthy ones?”

“Not really, no,” Jason mumbles, but doesn’t take his eyes off the window. The apartment graciously soaks up the heat of the morning sun. There’s something about the warmth of the winter rays that makes even the most impatient man sit still, basking in it greedily like a lizard.

Jason breaks out of his trance with a deep inhale. “You got the paper?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I have the crossword? I think I just need a little intellectual stimulation. Then I’ll figure it all out.”

“Just go to bed, Jason.”

“I can’t. I just had coffee.”

“Take a nap. Let me have a shot at it.”

Jason frowns. “I don’t need—”

“Help?” Dick raises his eyebrows and puts down the mug. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jay. We all need help once in a while. You need help. You just need to ask for help.”

Jason squints at him. “Why are you enunciating the word like that?”

Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, they both flop down on the bed, still panting.

“That was your idea of helping?” Jason asks indignantly once he catches his breath.

Dick runs a hand through his ruffled hair, licking his lips. “Did I intellectually stimulate you?”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jason mutters, pitching his head to the side.

Dick reaches down to pull the cover over him and rolls to his side. When Jason turns back around with a slightly resigned look, Dick tells him, “I’m not gonna steal your case.” His gaze sweeps over his face, eyes serious but tone gentle. “I know it sucks when you get stuck on something. That’s why we could all use a second pair of eyes sometimes.”

“Fine,” Jason flicks his eyes skyward. “You’ve convinced me. Have at it, detective.”

Dick pops himself up with one elbow, looking down at him, at his thinned lips and the tiny frown between his brows.

“Did you like it?”

Jason gives him a wary, sidelong look. “Like what?”

Dick grins broadly.

“You fucking nerd,” Jason scoffs, a flush creeping up his face. “What are you even asking me?”

He shoves his elbow and Dick laughs when he falls onto his back again. They tumble on the bed like two cats hugging, all soft-limbed and sun-dazed, until Dick finds the crook of his neck to hide his giggles, until Jason tightens his arms around him, kissing the shell of his ear and whispering, I love it.

Until, until.

The day shrinks away to make room for the night—after having a few of them in a roll, Dick walks into a vacant warehouse one evening.

Two men are tied up, shoulder to heel, on one side of the building. Dick looks down when he almost knocks over the two plastic canisters sitting on the floor, near where he’s standing. One of them is empty, the other is not.

“Quite a party you got here,” he says cheerily into the air. “Very spacious venue. And you’ve got—” he sniffs the air, “—party juice.”

One of the men has his mouth taped shut. His friend next to him doesn’t, but he is shivering from the drench so much, the words that stutter out of his mouth are all mushed together, their vowels and consonants broken and mingled.

“P-p-please, help us! Don’t let him do it—he’s crazy, he’s gonna k-kill—“

The sound of a lighter flicking open and shut resonates in the empty space. Clink, clunk. Clink, clunk.

Jason shifts marginally, his back leaning against a load-bearing column, his hand disappearing into the inside of his jacket to fish out a pack of cigarettes. He thumbs it open, draws one out, and lights it delicately like a candle stick.

Dick watches him bring the cigarette to his mouth, then halting with a little agitated huff like he just realizes that the helmet is in the way.

Still babbling unintelligibly, the tied-up man and his silenced friend watch his movement nervously, and immediately tense up when he starts to stroll towards them, boots making a squishy sound as they make contact with the wet floor.

Jason crouches down to peel the tape back from the man’s mouth. In front of him, he holds up the cigarette, the lighted end towards himself, the unlighted, filter end towards the man.

The man looks down at his gasoline-soaked clothes, liquid dribbling down into a small pool at his feet. His eyes go wide, clenching shut his mouth and shaking his head hysterically.

“Take it, or I’ll drop it.”

Trembling, the man takes the cigarette in his mouth, lips pressed tightly together, eyes squeezed shut in terror.

“N-no—“ the other man pleads. “Please—we weren’t selling! We were just holding it for a f-friend—whose name I definitely can’t recall—”

Without sparing him a glance, Jason wipes his glove and stands up.

“I-I have memory problem, man—from all the head trauma—”

With his back to the concrete again, Jason holds out the cigarette pack. Dick pulls one out, eyeing the package that’s squashed quite a bit flat, like it must have been carried around for a while, despite still being almost full. 

He watches it get lighted under the dome of Jason’s steady hand, then takes a small drag and blows the smoke out leisurely, feeling his chest grow warmer, and knowing it’s just an illusion.

He looks down at the small orange ember eating away the thin paper. “Oh snap,” he frowns. “I forgot I don’t smoke.”

A quick look-around lands his eyes on Jason standing next to him, his arms crossed over his chest. “You’ve got your hands full too, hmm?”

He lets his vision drift and stop pointedly when it lands on the two men sitting miserably across the room.

“No,” the man protests weakly. “D-don’t come near me—it’s not safe!“

Dick shifts his balance and takes a step forward.

“Oh god—” the man quivers. “Please—I’m sorry, okay? I’ll tell you everything—just keep that away from me!”

Jason crosses the room in a few strides, and holds up a phone in front of the man’s face.

“Start talking. Mess up half a syllable, I’ll make your buddy here eat the whole pack.”

Half an hour later, they watch the swirling red-and-blue police light down below. The perps get a good hose down before being shoved into the backseat of a police car.

“Guess they never caught up on MythBusters,” Dick remarks. “By the way, I think I know who you should talk to about the missing drug shipment.” 

“Who?” 

“An informant of mine. His name is Lenny.”

“Lenny?” Jason repeats, voice turning incredulous. “You’re kidding me—not Lenny the hustler, the guy loitering on Time Square swindling people?”

“Oh good. So you already know him.”

“Last time I saw him, he tried to scam me with one of his card tricks. Then he tried to sell me a fake Rolex.”

“Ah,” Dick nods understandingly. “Well, he’s a changed man now. He’s got a legitimate business. Selling newspaper and maps on Time Square.”

Jason tips his chin. “If he’s such a good citizen, then why is he still your informant?”

“He’s got his ears to the ground. Knows people too—guys smuggling counterfeits. Mostly electronics and sneakers. But also other things.” Dick sends him a look, “Like those teddy bears you disemboweled the other night. Those were counterfeit toys. Not the real deal.”

Jason exhales heavily through the voice modulator of his helmet, frustration apparent.

“But you can’t push him too far, okay?” Dick reminds him. “He’s not gonna talk if you’re too rough on him.”

“You trying to tell me how to do my job?”

“You trying to pick a fight with me so you can feel good about your masculinity?”

Jason grunts. “Touché. Let’s go.”

It may sound a little strange, but one of the things that bring him comfort in life is to know exactly what, or who he will find at certain places, at certain times. If he travels to the manor right now, he knows he will find Alfred standing in the kitchen, brewing evening tea after a quick dinner. If he visits Barbara’s clocktower on the third Saturday every month, he will find the girls huddling together on the sofa with popcorn and a stack of DVDs, ready for their monthly movie marathon. And if he goes to Time Square, he will always find Lenny somewhere around his kiosk, selling magazines and papers, tourist maps and postcards, overpriced snacks and bottled water.

Lenny greets everyone with a wide smile, regardless of whether the person is a cop, a passing commuter, a child or a tourist. He greets them like he’s known them all his life, like seeing them across the street is a heartfelt surprise. Sure, nine times out of ten, he’s also trying to scam them out of their money, but he does it so joyously, you can’t help but let the positive mood rub off on you a little.

“Is this thing real?” Jason examines the map with a thoroughness that would make most antique appraisers look like kids with magnifying glass.

“Now why would I go and sell a fake map, pal?”

“You tell me, Lenny,” Jason lowers the map, movement slow with deliberation. “And stop calling me pal. I’m not your pal.”

“Sure, buddy,” Lenny chirps. “Feel the quality of that paper—it’s the real deal, man. Yeah, turn it around. Yeah. You gotta try those coupons—best deals in the city. No? You’re not interested in Lady Liberty? Not even free comedy shows? That’s okay—we’ll find something for you. You deserve to be treated like a real prince, my friend. Now don’t tell me—but you strike me as a man who hasn’t ridden in a magical horse carriage in a park before—”

“What I want,“ Jason cuts him off sharply, “is to know what happened with your old business.”

“My old business? You mean in the show biz?” Lenny tuts, shaking his head. “Didn’t work out. People just can’t appreciate the magic of a card trick these days. A real loss, if you ask me.”

“Right, yeah,” Jason turns around to throw Dick a look. “Let me translate that for you, what he meant to say was everybody knows three-card monte is a scam these days, so his cons all fall through.”

Lenny laughs merrily. “That’s funny. You’re a real funny guy, Hood. And I know you have your reservation—hey, I get it. It’s all about trust, right? I trust you, so you outta trust me back when I tell ya I’m a changed man now. Cons? No, no, that’s not me. That’s the old Lenny. I’m a newspaper guy now. Newspaper and map guy, mags too—that’s me now. I gotta go all in.”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re not wrong—see? Not just funny, smart too. Everybody’s smarter these days. People coming around with their cameras, talkin’ about busting my balls.”

“I thought you’re a confidence man. Where’s all that confidence now, huh?” Jason says smugly. “You telling me a self-starter like yourself—an enterprising spirit, and you can’t roll with the punches? You gonna let some internet influencers stop you from shuffling cards?”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Stop baiting him, Hood. Just ask what we came here for.”

“You know anyone smuggling counterfeits?”

“Counterfeits? No, nah.”

“None, huh?” Jason folds the map back up, deliberately against the order of the creases, so it looks a bit puffy than its original state.

“Telling you, buddy,” Lenny rambles on, oblivious of the slipping patience of the other man. “I’m all legit now. Cut my ties with the old boys. Dunno who’s running things these days.”

“A hundred kilos of powder,” Jason growls. “I want to know where it went.”

Lenny’s eyes widen for a second, then he quickly recovers with a solemn expression. “Nothin’ like that. We don’t do that. You sure you talking to the right perp, man?”

“If you don’t, then someone you know does,” Jason steps closer, towering over the smaller man. “Give me names and we’re done here.”

“No guys—” Lenny squeals, which quickly turns into a yelp when Jason grabs him by the arms and slams him against the nearest wall.

“Alright, alright!” he pants, stuck pathetically between Jason and the brick wall. “I have names! Talk to Marlon Red, talk to One Lung and Limpy Dick! They’ll tell you the same thing.”

Air stands still around them for a second. In the distance, there’s the shrill sound of police siren, loud noises of car doors slamming shut, voices shouting and cursing at someone to get the hell out of the way—not quite the awkward chirping of the crickets, but it’s probably the closest you’ll get in downtown New York. 

Without loosening his grip on the other man, Jason looks over his shoulder at Dick, “This guy is pulling our legs.”

Dick snaps his slackened jaw shut, breaking the eye contact as he turns to snarl at the man, “Give us the real names, Lenny!”

“I just did!”

“Real names, Lenny!” Jason picks the man up and rocks him back and forth like he’s a clogged pepper shaker. “Not their fantasy pirate names!”

“That’s what they go by! I don’t know their real names!”

“Give us something we can use,” Dick says sternly, having moved to stand next to Jason for maximum intimidation effect. “Phone numbers, license plates or addresses.”

“Okay! I have an address. Put me down please—you got a pen?”

—

“It’s not that life doesn’t have meaning—it has too much meaning. We’re all swimming in it, thrashing about to stay afloat. But I doubt you can even recite the alphabet when you’re drowning, much less trying to decipher whatever message the universe is sending you. There’s always so much white noise—I wish I could cut through it all and see the world for what it truly is. I want to know the answer to love—where it’s all headed. But when I look up the stars for answers, all I feel is their anxiety—to be seen, to remain in the sky and not disappear.

“You asked me if there’s really no hope at all, if we’re all doomed to experience different variations of the same mistake over and over again—let me answer your question with another question: what does the world’s most cynical man fear? If he always anticipates the worst of outcome, his heart not allowing even a silver of hope to slip in and take root, then he must be the most fearless, most well-prepared man in the world, since there’s no scenario where he would be let down. So what would the cynic be afraid of? The cynic is afraid to be proven right. I hope that answers your question.”

“What the hell are you listening to?”

Dick pulls himself out of a contemplative daze and looks down at the small display screen that shines a low blue light inside the darkness of the car.

“I don’t know. Some radio drama, I think. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Sounds like a bunch of gibberish to me,” Jason’s brows furrow, and he reaches forward to turn the volume all the way down.

Dick shifts his attention back at the scenery outside, not because it’s particularly interesting, but because it’s easy to slip into a focused trance, eyes on the target, mind blank. 

“You know,” Jason breaks the silence after a while. “If you’re looking for the answer to love, you know where to look, right?”

Dick flicks his eyes up to meet Jason’s. His face is starkly illuminated by the streetlight reflected off the rear-view mirror, against the dark shadows cast over the rest of his body and his surroundings. The flashing headlight of the passing vehicles slants across his features, his eyes glimmering like the surface of a forest pond, as the first rays of sunlight filter through the canopy and coruscate on the quiet water.

Dark, crisp shadows, joined by the glistening white light, only accentuate the gentleness in his gaze. Past the black-and-white landscape contained inside, outside across the street, the neon road signs glow red and green, almost sinisterly.

“Yes,” Dick replies, the corner of his mouth tilting up slightly. ”I know.”

When Jason doesn’t look away, Dick breaks the eye contact to move his gaze a few centimeters to the left, through the car window, at the owner returning to his motel-style apartment unit.

“You’re gonna lose your suspect.”

Jason’s mouth curves into a smile, eyes never leaving his face as he grabs his helmet and opens the car door until the very last second. “Be right back.”

The door slams shut. Dick releases an exhale, and checks the rear-view mirror before stepping out of the car, following a few steps behind.

The man at the apartment door remains unaware as they approach him from the back.

“Hey!” Jason calls out when he’s a few steps away, voice all gruff and intimidating. “Soft penis, is it?”

“It’s Limpy Dick,” The man turns around and replies calmly with an unamused expression.

There is something quite baffling about hearing a man in his mid-fifties uttering those words out loud with a straight face, in the most toneless voice possible, let alone using the term to refer to himself. But maybe it’s no more baffling than dressing up like a bat every night, or calling yourself Nightwing or Red Hood. Maybe.

“I haven’t used that name for a long time.”

“I don’t get it,” Jason places his hands on his hip. “The name.”

“Cause my name is Dick, and I’ve got a limp? You’re very observant, aren’t you?”

“You should just call yourself Regular Dick. Don’t let your disability define you, man.”

The man turns to Dick, who stands half a step behind. “I don’t work with assholes.”

“Nobody is working with anyone. We’re here to ask questions.”

“Yes, Lenny told me. I’m not the guy you should be talking to. I didn’t do whatever you think I’ve done.”

Jason hums thoughtfully. “See, this is interesting to me,” he leans back, crossing his arms. “It’s interesting when people say that to me, in front of my face, and somehow expect me to buy it, when everybody and their sweet grandma knows it’s just a load of bullshit. I gotta give it to you—ever the optimists, you lot.”

Dick, well, the other Dick, doesn’t take the bait. “It’s One Lung you should be talking to. He’s your guy. But you can’t. Cause he’s dead.”

“When did that happen?”

“About two weeks ago. Natural causes.”

“Hell of a timing,” Jason remarks. “Don’t tell me—just a coincidence?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it—a coincidence,” Other Dick nods. “He’s got COPD. Chronic lung disease. Last I heard from him, he was trying some herbal remedies. Guess that didn’t work out.”

“What did he do before he died?”

“He was a logistics manager. Procurement, transportation, operations management. An all-rounder.”

“Impressive,” Jason nods. “Did you forget the criminal part?”

“I’m getting to it,” the man says flatly. “He had been around for a while. You know how high the turnover rate is in this business. Men like him—smart, low-key, reliable—are highly sought after.”

“And we’re so lucky to have him. Now get to the good part—what was the last shipment he signed off on?”

“I can tell you it’s not drugs. But I guess that’s not the answer you’re looking for. So I’m afraid there’s no good part.”

“You seem awfully familiar with the goings-on for someone who’s been out of the game for a long time.”

“I suppose that does invite suspicion,” the man says reasonably. “Look, beat me up if you want. Feel free to dangle me off a building if that makes you feel better. But it’s in both our best interests to inform you at this point that I recently had a heart bypass surgery. It’s also not gonna change the fact that I’m not lying to you. I don’t even know much about what he did. He’s got his business. I’ve got mine. And mine is selling computer parts. Semiconductors. Unless you want to know more about that, there’s not much I can offer you.”

“What about the guys working under him?” Dick probes. “You know who they are?”

“No, sorry,” Other Dick replies. “All I know is that he knew them, but they didn’t know who he was. There’s a reason why he only went by that ridiculous nickname.”

“You know his real name?”

The man tells him. Then he pulls out his wallet and hands Jason his driver’s license. “I’d tell you it’s not fake, but I guess that’d make me too much of an optimist.”

“Did he have any next of kin?” Dick asks.

“Yeah, an ex-wife and a little girl.”

“Okay, thanks for your help—”

Jason grabs the older man by the collar before letting go with a push, making him stumble half a step back. “Don’t leave town.” The man nods, unfazed as he adjusts his worn chore coat, and turns back to his apartment door.

They split up and Jason heads to the hospital morgue to check if One Lung really is as dead as the man has claimed.

“He’s quite dead,” Jason confirms over comms, speaking as if he’s an expert in the subject matter—which is not untrue. “Hundred percent. You got anything?”

“Sort of,” Dick replies, scanning the modestly decorated apartment before looking down at the small metal piece in his palm. “I found an unmarked key in the cereal box.”

“Tell me you found a lock that goes with it.”

“No such luck,” Dick murmurs. “No PO box under his name, no car GPS, no hidden compartments under the floorboard, I’m afraid. Just lots of hospital bills. I was hoping you’d find something useful in his personal effects.”

“Phone was a bust. It’s a burner. Although…” his voice trails off. Dick can hear the cogs turning beautifully in his brain. “I’ve got his metro card. Wanna bet he’s big believer in public transport?” 

One public transit database hacking later, “I’ve got an area narrowed down. Let me just—huh.”

“What is it?”

“That key you’ve got, does it happen to be a padlock key?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I’m picking you up in ten,” Jason grumbles. “You’re gonna looove this.”

Within twenty minutes, the car comes to a halt in front of the only building within a mile radius, a large warehouse shaped squarely like a toolbox.

“Feels familiar, doesn’t it.”

Dick leans forward to check out the exterior of the self-storage facility. It looks exactly like the one they visited months ago, except it’s on the other side of town, and instead of red and yellow, it’s painted bright green, like it belongs to some gardener who’s really paranoid about people stumbling over it.

It takes them an annoying amount of time to find the right padlock to the key and unlock the unit. Inside is decorated as a full office, with rows of filing cabinets occupying three sides of wall.

“Jesus Christ,” Jason swears. “Why can’t people just get rid of their shit.”

Dick opens a drawer in one of the file cabinets and takes out a thick dossier. “It’s an archive. He’s kept all the records on paper.”

“Talk about paranoia,” Jason mumbles. “Please tell me this is all chronologically arranged.”


“So…lie?”

“Okay, okay,” Jason nods strenuously. “There must be an index list, like a library card box or something. Or—hear me out—we can like, scan all the paper and the notebooks, and line them up by shades of color—cause the older ones got to be darker, right? If that doesn’t work, we can—”

“Um. I’m pretty sure that’s going to take longer than if we just leaf through them,” Dick points out. “And I don’t see any index list around.”

Jason groans. “I hate it. I hate this place. Twenty-odd years I’ve never had to step foot in one of these before. Then you came along, and somehow I ended up dumpster diving in other people’s crap twice in six months. How is this not absurd?”

Dick hums sympathetically, and drops the folder filled with photocopied receipts in an empty cardboard box, first in the pile. “You may not be interested in absurdity, Jay. But absurdity is interested in you.”

“Yeah, well,” Jason mutters, reaching for a box and a stack of file folders. “You tell absurdity that I’m a taken man.”

The owner and collector of twenty years’ worth of junk—or treasure, the jury is still out—has kept everything. Every transaction record, every shipment number, names of criminal and law-abiding customers, of officials bribed to look the other way, of accountants and lawyers coming and going. Nothing goes to the paper shredder, it seems.

There’s enough evidence to put away an assortment of criminal enterprises. It will take time, however, to sort through it more properly, and to build the cases, tracking down contacts that can take them to bigger, law-breaking fish. That’s all well and good, but the primary concern is to locate the drugs trafficked more recently—at the very least, some kind of confirmation that they ever made it to stateside in the first place.

The entire archive may be a goldmine, but walking on all this hard metal sure is giving his feet blisters. From the heavy sigh over on the other side of the room, he can tell Jason is thinking the same thing.

“It’s not that bad, you know,” Dick says conversationally, flipping through the pages. “Reminds me of the olden days, when criminals were stupider, and staring at the screen of the computer terminal used to give me a headache, I had to print them out on those dotted continuous feed paper.”

When Jason doesn’t answer or look up, he continues, “Come on, you’ve done it before. Remember how B used to make us go through those ledgers before accounting software became a thing?” 

“I don’t,” Jason says stiffly. “And I don’t want to.”

Dick clamps his mouth shut, and turns his attention back to the shipment log. A few minutes pass, and silence threatens to crush the room in half. He doesn’t need to look across to feel Jason’s eyes on him.

“What’s wrong?”

There’s a regretful look on his face that he quickly covers up with a shrug. He ducks his head, then raises it back up. “Just checking the progress on your stacks,” Jason says nonchalantly. “Wanna see who can finish faster?”

Dick snorts. “No.”

“You need to be incentivized, is that it?” A smirk plays across Jason’s face. “How about loser cooks dinner and washes the dishes?”

Dick closes the logbook, tosses it aside and watches it land perfectly on top of the pile. “You’re on.”

In the address books, he recognizes names that belong to dead and disappeared men, men that were seen on the seven o’clock news and men that are currently rotting in jail cells. Maybe the world is just a small place, no matter how boundless it can sometimes seem. Maybe it’s because of the six degrees of separation, the network theory that connects everything and everyone.

How the deceased man has managed to slip through the cracks of justice for a ridiculous number of times is frankly beyond belief. He was good at his job, with just the right amount of mediocrity—not too incompetent to not know what he was doing, and not too efficient to attract jealousy and unwanted attention. He had little ambition for greater things, but was gifted with the intuition to know when to switch boats. He may not have picked up a gun in his life and shot someone, but the harm he has done through his lifelong accumulation of direct and indirect actions is impossible to be quantified and not to be overlooked.

Jason leans forward from his chair to hand him a plastic sleeve containing some sheets of paper.

“You found it?”

“No.”

Dick takes out the content inside. It’s a copy of a life insurance policy. He folds the yellow papers and puts it in his suit’s pocket.

Jason throws another stack in the corner of the room designated for records more than ten years old, sighing heavily. The decade old pile is growing taller and taller, while the within three months pile remains frustratingly low.

“Giving up?”

“Baby, I ain’t no quitter.”

“What,” Dick smirks, dropping off another expanding folder in the box. “You think I am?”

It takes them a while, but not as long as they believe it to be—theory of relativity and all that—to finally locate the most recent logbook and pinpoint the last shipment.

“Freight class is for electronics. Does the name of the client look familiar to you?”

“Yeah. You think he played us?”

“It’s due to arrive in an hour. He’s about to be very surprised.”

Dick watches Jason load the last box of paperwork into the trunk of the car. “Guess you won. You’re getting pot noodles for dinner. That’s the best I can offer.”

“Aw, what about your baked tuna pasta?”

“You crazy? I’m not cooking and scrubbing the oven tray.”

Jason chuckles, “You don’t have to. I’ll soak it.” His hand touches Dick’s lower back briefly as he passes him to move to the driver’s side. “Now come on.”

The port district encompasses a 25-mile radius area. It’s practically a small city by itself, with waterways, airports, warehouses, and mountains upon mountains of shipping containers parked in the terminals. Thankfully, it isn’t too hard to find what you’re looking for if you know where you’re going.

“Gentlemen,” Other Dick acknowledges them with a slight tip of his head. He stands next to the container with an impassive, disinterested look. He also doesn’t appear very surprised by their arrival.

“I can only assume you put some kind of tracker on when you grabbed me,” he says as a way of explaining his placidness.

“You assumed correctly,” Jason unholsters his gun. “Now pull back the damn curtains already.”

“There’s no need for that. Here,” the man unlocks the double door. “Feel free to inspect them yourself.”

Inside the container, fiberboard boxes are stacked on top of pallets, wrapped in layers of stretch film. Inside the boxes, various electronic parts are packed with air pillows and bubble wraps.

“Told you I sell computer parts,” Other Dick says drily. “Mostly hardware. I also do customised parts,” he pauses. “You should ask me about that.”

“Why don’t you cut the bullshit and save us some time,” Dick says.

The man studies him for a moment, then begins, “Couple months back, I was approached by a client about a hardware customization job. It seemed pretty standard at the start—performance improvement, feature upgrade—that kind of thing. Then the client kept coming back asking about for more—more devices, expanded modules, better security—hanging around asking me other dodgy questions. I know this business. I know how it all works. It’s only a matter of time before they come back again asking for more.”

Dick shoots a glance back at the container. “By the looks of it, you’re planning on letting them have it.”

“Yes and no,” the older man says, taking a USB drive out of his coat pocket and handing it to him.

“What is it?”

“Call it a proof of concept,” the man replies. “I took a precaution when I accepted the job. And let’s just say my intuition is right. You have the proof right here.”

“What exactly should I expect?”

“Organized crime. Counterfeit traffickers. Very lucrative. And you should know with that kind of money, they must be tied to other groups. More information would be helpful.”

“You’re gonna bug every device you sell to them?” Dick raises his eyebrows. “That’s not—”

“Legal?” A hint of smile appears on the man’s face. That’s a first. “Of course, none of this is legal.”

“And you want our help?”

“Depends—if you think it will help,” the man responds calmly. “I don’t like to tell people how to do their jobs.”

Dick ignores the manipulative tactic read between the lines. “And One Lung? What does any of this have to do with him?”

“He didn’t know anything,” Other Dick says. “I asked for his help with a particular supplier. It was a one-time thing. I didn’t want it on the book. There’s no further connection beyond that. I didn’t lie to you.”

“Of course not. You just didn’t tell us the full story and gave us the runaround. Why?”

“But you did find something at his apartment, did you not?”

Dick curls his lips. “You weren’t sure if his old clients had figured out who he was and put eyes on his apartment,” he states. “So you sent us in to assess the risks.”

“You’re better equipped to handle thugs, no?” the man says.

“A warning would’ve been nice,” Dick pauses. “But no, I don’t think anyone from his work knew who he was.”

Other Dick nods. “For the best, I suppose.”

There’s not a lot of empty space inside the container, with the boxes stacked so closely together. It makes him want to whip around and go home—if he sees any more boxes or folders or word scribbles on pieces of paper for the night, he thinks he will actually take that sabbatical that Donna has always suggested, somewhere far away from civilization so he can reset all his knowledge of the modern office supplies.

Jason has completed a thorough check for powdery stowaways, and the result returns negative.

“Safe to say it never made it to the state.”

“Looks that way. That’s good, I guess.” Jason sighs, “Doesn’t feel like a closed case, though.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Dick agrees, handing him the thumb drive. More work to be done, just the way things are.

“You think we can trust him?”

“I don’t know,” Dick admits. “Probably not. I think it’s worth looking into. But it’s your case. Do your cost-benefit thing then decide.”

“My cost-benefit thing, right,” Jason mutters. He looks around inside the container, then down at a crate filled with portable hard drives. “You know, it’s one-fifth of a person.”

“What?”

Jason kicks the crate mildly. “Human memory can hold 2.5 petabytes of information—that’s 2500 terabytes or a million gigabytes. There are about five hundreds of these drives here. That’s one-fifth of a person. That’s what human beings are.”

Dick raises his eyebrows. “People are not hard drives.”

“Course we are. Memory hard drives.”

“Hm,” Dick nods thoughtfully. “Well, okay.” He drums his hands on top of the boxes. “What do you need me for? Just spend the night with your hard drives then. I’m going.”

He steps out of the container, leaving Jason’s plead behind stacks of fiberboard boxes. “No babe come back! I love all 2500 of your hard drives—”

Dick doesn’t stop walking, but he does turns around with a wide grin. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

Turning a few corners, he finds the Other Dick smoking at the end of the pier. Near the water, the sounds of the harbor are reduced to a low, rhythmic rumble behind them.

Wordlessly, Dick hands him the insurance paper from his pocket.

“Thanks,” Other Dick folds it back in a neat little square after reading it, and puts it in his breast pocket. “I’ll pass it on.”

Beneath him, littered cigarette stubs have stained the concrete ground into a darker color in two patches.

“Told him to quit smoking. He never listened. Stubborn old fool.”

“Sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah,” the man blows the smoke out. “Me too.”

Dick watches him flick the short cigarette over the water, and the last bit of ash falls in from the tip, disappears under the murky waves.

“You could’ve told us he was your brother-in-law.”

“What good would that do?” the man shrugs. “You’d only think I’m just as crooked. And the man hadn’t been my brother-in-law for fifteen years. He wasn’t exactly family. A friend, maybe. Funny how that happened when you knew someone for three decades.”

“Why are you doing all this? Why not simply take it to the police?”

“It’s a long story. You got two hours?”

“No, not really.”

“Didn’t think so,” the man drops the cigarette stub, stamping it with his foot before turning away. “I’ll see you around, Nightwing.”

—

Dick finishes patrol a little later. On his way back home, he spots the light on in his workshop.

Instead of going through the front gate, he finds the hole tucked away discretely in the wire fence and climbs through it. The backyard is overgrown with weeds. The taller ones, combined with the wild vines that cover the fence obstruct the view of the building inside from street level.

He runs directly into Jason, who’s sitting in one of the two lawn chairs, with a beer in his hand, looking straight at him.

“Whoa.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I know your schedule, dummy.”

“Right,” Dick catches the beer taken out from the cooler and thrown in his direction. Then he flops down on the other lawn chair next to him.

“I know people are not hard drives, Dick.”

“What?” Dick swallows a gulp of beer, and frowns at him. “I know you do. Jason, I never doubted it.”

Jason sighs, rubbing at his eye. “You remember those corny speeches you used to give me? With those stupid analogies?”

“What? Analogies aren’t stupid. They’re a great way to underline the point of the matter—”

“Uh huh. Used moderately, maybe,” Jason makes a face. “Anyway, the one I remember—cause you bet your ass I forgot most of your do-gooder speeches—you said, the world is a stupid, stupid place, and it only gets stupider every year. It's so unfair that we have to give up pieces of ourselves just to continue living in it, when it never returns an equal amount of grace. You told me that the world is not black and white. It’s not even shades of grey. It’s the whole electromagnetic spectrum—there’s so much we don’t see, and the part that we do see—it’s colorful, messy, seizure-inducing, but it’s also beautiful.”

Dick goes blank for a second. “Okay, I see what you meant by the analogy being a little extra.”

Jason stares down at the beer bottle, peeling at the label. “You said, being human—being a decent human has two parts to it—to know how to do good, and to recognize that you’re fallible, just like everybody else. The second part is so much harder, and you have to move past your own pride, your own biases, sometimes even to break down a part of your own identity before you can rebuild it—all to accept that you’re no exception to this defect that makes us human. So when you face a decision with irreversible result, you have to choose the more merciful action, in order to fulfil our responsibility to ourselves and to each other.

“You said, there is evil in the world, and we will deal with it when we come across it, but most people come from a similar place like you and me. You don’t need to understand everyone, but knowing how people can make bad decisions when they’re trying to survive, you’ll find that they’re capable of making good ones too given the opportunity.

The beer label comes clean off the side of the bottle, and Jason folds it in half. “You know, I always wonder about how you do it—the way you see this world, how you can feel so acutely of the people around you—of friends, family, strangers. How you can live through all this shit, and still only want to give out more of yourself. I didn’t understand it. I used to think it was annoying, then stupid, then endearing, and now—“

He clears his throat, looking down. “What I’m trying to say here is, I don't know if I'm ever capable of seeing the world the same way you do. Maybe I'm just too broken, I don’t know. I just don't want you to wake up one day and realize I'm not the person that you thought I had become, and you just couldn’t see it before because we’re sleeping together.”

Silently, he takes a swing of his beer, and returns his gaze to the ground. Dick studies him, observes how his features have become sharper over the years, his jaw more angled, eyes set deeper, and mouth a firmer line. Even with all these differences, there are times when Dick still can’t see past him as the boy who carried on his legacy and ended up dead, the boy he failed to save, just as how Jason sometimes can still only see him as this perfect idol that he couldn’t quite measure up to despite his best effort.

It’s done neither of them any good. But they could walk miles and miles, far away from here, hand in hand to the end of the Earth, and half a foot will still be stuck in the past. 

“Jason, I wasn’t trying to—” Dick starts, only to stop himself short. “There's no moral lesson to be learned here.”

There is the moral, then there is the lesson. The moral part is fine. The moral part they carry with themselves, living with the consequences of each decision made, past and present. There’s a form of judgement contained inherently in actions and counteractions, and there’s no deadline on it—a sort of everyday reckoning, so to speak. But the lesson is the history of lessons that only seem to be taught in bloodshed, in broken bones and shattered hearts, and he’s left those in the past too, somewhere between ‘yeah, a lot has happened’ and ‘god, what hasn’t happened yet’.

His dated speech comes from a time when he was so desperate to save the soul of someone he loved, from a time when there was only this half-understanding between them, which somehow felt even worse than having no understanding at all. The more he had pushed, the harder Jason had pushed back. The law of action and reaction—as two bodies collide, the forces to one another propel them to travel in the opposite direction, and it was the last thing he could have wanted.

If time has given him any wisdom, it’s to know when to hold on and when to let go—to learn when they need to travel in their independent orbits, and when to become one body, so no forces applied externally through the laws of physics can distinguish them as two.

Dick closes the gap between the two armrests, his arm extended and his fingers wrapping around Jason’s wrist. “I think all we have for guidance is our own self-knowledge and each other. And I trust you to have good judgement. That’s all that matters. Jason—I don’t care if you're a good person or not by whatever definitions other people have. All I want—is for you to keep making good decisions.”

Jason glances at his hand on his wrist, then up at him. “Okay,” he says after a few moments. “Dick, I—”

Dick’s forearm beeps, a noise that startles them both.

“Sorry, I gotta go,” Dick checks the alarm and stands up. “I’m going to Gotham for a few days to help Tim. I’ve got to go back home and shower before I leave. You’ll finish up here?”

“Yeah,” Jason nods, standing up, “Be careful.”

“Don’t I always?” Dick grins. “I’ll see you later?”

Jason smiles back, takes the beer from his hand and kisses him briefly. “See you later.”

Later is a relative term. Later could mean in an hour, or the next day, or two months in the future. It’s not very useful for scheduling things, but there’s something nice about it, and he likes hearing it. It’s a promise. It’s something to look forward to.

“You’re late,” Tim states matter-of-factly as Dick lands beside him on the rooftop, the perfect vantage point for a drug lab with a very clear skylight and unobstructed view of some very illegal operation going on below. Some poor asshole has been cutting corners and skimming the budget for curtain purchase.

“I’m literally on the dot, Tim.”

“You’ve been dodging my calls.”

“We talked yesterday, Timmy.”

“Dodging B, then.”

“I just saw him last week.”

Tim puts down the binoculars and squints behind his domino mask. “What is it, then? There’s something different about you. You’re like, glowing or something.”

“Thanks. It’s called sex, Tim. And I’ve been having it.”

Tim almost drops his precious binoculars. Those things are surprisingly pricey, you know. He recovers quickly to scoff at him. “And they say you’re the classy one.”

“Oh I am.”

“So when do I get to meet the fortunate lady?” he pauses. “Or the lucky gentleman?”

“Soon, maybe,” Dick murmurs, looking through his binoculars and counting the hostiles. “We’ll see.”

Later, the police officers herd the perps into the squad cars. Three at a time, shoving them in the backseat. Can you squeeze in one more? No? Try the next car with the bigger trunk. Somebody tell Dispatch they should have sent a van! Dispatch said we’re all out of vans tonight—

“Have you given it a thought?”

“Hmm?”

“Dick,” Tim gives him a look. “You know what I’m talking about. Moving back to Gotham—have you made a decision yet?”

“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, Timmy,” Dick sighs, turning his head back to the street down below.

“We need you here,” Tim says. “New York is well-covered. I mean, you’ve got the JSA—and I heard they’re putting together another Teen Titans East again. It already has a bunch of superheroes there.”

“So does Gotham.”

“Yes, but you know how it is. It’s so much worse here,” Tim argues. “And you know how it is with him.”

“So me moving back, is this you asking, or him asking?”

“It’s me asking,” Tim replies, then falls silent for a moment. “But maybe I shouldn’t have. I mean, here I am asking you to give up your life in another city, just so I can get away once in a while. That’s a little hypocritical—”

“Tim,” Dick interrupts him. “You’re fine. Don’t overthink it. I’m glad you asked—I’d rather you ask than not ask at all.”

Tim meets his eyes and nods. “Yeah, okay.”

“Give me more time to think about it,” Dick says. “I promise you we’ll figure something out.”

Tim offers him a small smile. “Sure. Thanks.”

With the last suspect secured, the police cars drive off with whirling sirens.

“Have you talked to the Red Hood recently?”

“Jason?” Dick frowns under his mask. “No. Why?” He pauses, then adds out of necessity, “What did he do?”

“Nothing I know of. I think B is looking for him, though.”

“What does he want with him?”

“Just to talk, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Dick scoffs and turns away. “That’s always turned out well.”

The truth is that he has a lot to say to Bruce, about himself, about Jason, about Tim—everyone, actually. And not all of what he wants to say is going to sound pretty, so a lot of the time, he just doesn’t say anything at all, and sometimes, some of those things will spill out of him, spur-of-the-moment type of situation.

Still, he has a lot of leftovers. And he’s been trying to untangle it from all the other stuff on his mind, trying to condense everything into one speech, turning and tossing the words in his head like a runny omelet on a sticky and overheated pan.

Tim’s communicator goes off. His face drops as he reads the message.

“What is it?”

“You better get back to New York.”

—

[…Hello? Is this thing on? Is there anyone listening? I guess we wouldn’t know, would we. I don’t know why I asked. This isn’t what we wanted for you, but I guess that’s the best we could do. Still… damn those pseudoscientists with their monocles and their koffee machine. The best we could do, they said. Like that’s going to mean anything when the stake is this high. It’s never, ever good enough.

Oh, Planet Blue, you are so far away… Hey, you like the name? The gals in the lab came up with it. It’s the only thing they could see on their instrument—a little blue dot in a blanket of darkness. We are so very different from you, the way we see the world—quite literally, I might say. Of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to you, we can only perceive a fraction—the range of wavelengths for what you name the color blue. That’s the only thing we have in common, as far as we can tell. I gotta say—it’s beautiful, even from so far away.

For centuries, our people believe that enlightenment resides only in failures. Progress of our society is measured by the magnitude of failed attempts. Everything is falsifiable, every hypothesis must be disproved, rejected, nullified. No generalization can be made. A civilization founded on disillusion. The more we fail, the closer we are to the truth. Through walking in the negative space, we trace the outline of true knowledge. To approach the world from outside in, rather than inside out. To begin at the end of the universe and move towards its birth—it’s the only way to counter the growing disorder.

For the first time in my life, I wonder if it’s worth it.  

They told me it wouldn’t be possible—the chance of you receiving this message and the chance of our translation matrix had finally worked after two decades of failed research—but it’s better to try than not try at all. I hope—I hope you survive. I hope we’ll meet one day, that I get to visit your home—to see what it’s like, walking down the streets of Radio City, hydrangeas blossoming on the sidewalk, the ringing call of the morning bugle and the sound of traffic, the birds singing—it’s impossible to tell them apart when there’s an orchestra of them, the ducks floating on the pond and preening their feathers on green grass under the summer sun—to feel the warm sunlight pouring over your skin, each and every inch…]

…

We watched the sunset together. It was a beautiful, devastating sight, but my eyes always drifted back to her. She smiled at me before returning her gaze back to the horizon. You’re gonna miss it, she said.

I won’t miss it, I replied, watching her sweet profile, seeing how the soft sunlight danced on her skin.

She shook her head, It’ll be over before you know it.

Beautiful as the sunset was, the night was even more breathtaking—the sky was beaming with possibilities, of something bigger and wilder. And beyond that, countless planets and stars for us to discover. An endless horizon.

Do you really think there’s someone out there? She turned to ask me. Do you believe that we’re not alone in this universe?

I told her I do.

What do you think?

Of what? I asked.

Of this. Of us. She smiled again, her eyes glinting with gold in the silver moonlight, the evening breeze ruffling slightly her auburn hair, the color made so much more vivid under the darkened sky.

If they were real, if they existed—what would the little green men in the sky say about our planetary love?

This was the moment, I knew with absolute certainty—the one to be forever etched in my mind, the moment that I would never forget—as I lay buried and rotting in the ground, as the flames of the crematorium eat away my every flesh, as the waves take me further from the shore, the planet pulling my body to its center, and down I go to the ocean floor—I will remember it. It will be the last piece of me this world can chip away.

I looked into her fond and curious eyes, and I took her hands in mine—they were warm, gentle. And I told her with my whole heart—still beating, in a night that would soon turn cold—

They will never know a love like this. So how could they have any say in it at all?

—

There’s something Dick hates himself for doing, but can’t help himself from stopping. And that something is to compare the scale of one disaster to another.

For instance, in his head, he would think, yes, things are bad, but the earthquake is no worse than the one preceding No Man’s Land, the flood is no more terrible than the one in ’02, and always: it’s never as bad as what happened to ‘Haven.

He hates himself for thinking it, because even though it is true in a macroscopic kind of way, lives are still lost, people are still forced to leave their homes, and the city still needs time to heal. As weeks turn into months turn into years, scars will blend in better with the skin tone, and the event will become a memory for some, a headline date for others.

No, but truthfully, it really isn’t that bad—

It isn’t that bad, because the Justice League has a contingency plan. They have long known that even with the world’s finest superheroes on call, there are still problems that even they cannot tackle. Sure, if a big asteroid comes a little too close to Earth, Superman will get a call and voilà, crisis averted. If a dam bursts, or a storm hits, it’s safe to assume someone like Aquaman or Green Lantern will come to the rescue. But tempering with the tectonic plates, changing geologic processes tends to be a little trickier when it could affect cities and continents of people. 

Knowing you can’t solve every problem with laser eyes and fancy gadgets, can’t punch an earthquake or stop one, then the best thing to do is to be prepared. One of the largest investments JLA has made is in the studies into disaster prevention and management. That covers a broad spectrum of research, and it supports the initiative to work with governing bodies on developing emergency response plans—to allocate and deploy physical and human resources, to mitigate risks and minimize damages.

It isn’t that bad, because the human mind has been tuned by evolution for hundreds of thousands of years—millions, counting our more ape-ish ancestors—to motivate ourselves that, yes, things are bad, but we’ve survived so much worse, so you’ll survive this one too, no problem. A little biology trick of pumping your brain full of chemicals that push you to keep going, benzene rings and peptide chains floating in your blood stream, waving their tiny arms—hey, psst, did you know that you come from a long line of survivors? That makes you one too, buddy.

And so it isn’t that bad, Dick thinks, as the first wave of earthquake hits, followed by the second, then the third. The ground collapses, hundreds of sinkholes appearing in one day, vanishing cars, streetlamps, a few unfortunate souls in the wrong place at the wrong time. Buildings shake, the city trembles, but it doesn’t fall.

It isn’t that bad, he tells himself, after the seismic activity ceases, and the rescue and recovery mission begins. The League helps, coordinating its agents with the local and national emergency services. The mission only lasts for a few days, and after that, there’s the cleanup. Filling in the sinkholes, fixing up the infrastructure and restoring the power. Plus, many residents of the city need to be temporarily relocated, before the structural damages these buildings have sustained are properly inspected and deemed safe to live in. That means more crowd control, more distribution of relief supplies.

It isn’t that bad, but it is exhausting. Two weeks feel like two months with the shifts he’s been pulling night and day. And all that time, he hasn’t seen Jason once.

He knows he’s alive and breathing, and that’s the only reason he hasn’t searched for him, hasn’t issued a League-wide alert, hasn’t grabbed every passer-by and showed them a little picture of him, asking if they’ve seen anyone around that looks like him.

The Red Hood isn’t authorized for the JLA frequency, but he knows Jason has a one-way radio that can listen in on the communication. The cell service covering the area is still a little patchy. Luckily, Dick has an old emergency pager on him that uses the FM transmitters, and Jason does too.

It’s about four in the afternoon when he finally finishes helping a family reunite at the temporary shelter. As he steps outside the gym, he watches people unloading supplies from a truck. Food, water, warm clothes.

It’s still winter, and it’s not something he forgets anytime during the last two weeks. The low temperature has certainly made search and rescue more challenging. The only thing that could have made all of it worse, would be that it started snowing—the snow would have lowered road visibility, slowed the arrival of trucks carrying supplies, and exposing people to higher chance of hypothermia and infections, crippling the already overwhelmed emergency rooms.

The only precipitation the city has seen after the disaster hit, happened only a day ago. Drizzle of rain that lasted only an hour or two, in the warm and sunny afternoon. H was right—it was lovely. The city was quiet as people sat down and watched the clouds pass by. It felt strange to look up at the sky once again after days of focusing only on the ground.

His apartment is one of the buildings that have been evacuated, and not far from where he is right now. He walks a steady pace, past the quiet, familiar street, and lets himself into the building.

He doesn’t have a lot of fragile things stored in his apartment, but the effect of the quake is apparent in newly created clutters of objects lying on the ground.

In the bedroom, he almost walks into the small paddle of liquid—he forgot he does have one breakable thing.

Picking up the figurines, he lines them up on the nightstand—the boy, the dog, the house. Then he opens the drawer, and finds he doesn’t have any spare communicator left.

Taking off his glove, he tugs at his sleeve, until the inner lining reveals a tiny two-way radio device, a little tin can telephone. 

He switches it on. “B, come in.”

After a few seconds of silence, a familiar voice comes through in a small volume. “Nightwing. You missed your last check-in.”

How long has it been? Ten, twenty, thirty years? Time moves paradoxically when you’re living moment to moment. It always marvels him how little Bruce’s voice has changed on the radio over the years. Of course, part of it is because of the voice modulator sewn inside the cowl. But also because it’s Bruce.

“My communicator is busted.”

“Get a replacement at the mobile headquarters.”

“Yeah.”

A small pause on the other side of the line, then voice a tad gentler, “Dick—are you okay?”

He stares at the nanoradio, feeling clumsy and cumbersome compared to the minuscule, elegant piece of technology between the tips of his fingers. Out the window, a Northern Cardinal with puffy feathers perches on the bare branch and starts to whistle.

What Dick really wants to say to the radio piece at that moment, what he really wants to do, is to serve him that stupid omelet he’s been cooking in his head. The omelet that says—

“Bruce, I used to think happiness is something we have to earn, and maybe a small part of me still does. Everything you’ve taught me, I will never forget—it’s so deeply ingrained in me, I don’t think I’ll even be able to. It has kept me alive, and made me someone we can both be proud of, but it’s not enough. You once told me that doing what we do, satisfaction must come from within. Whenever something good happens in life, when something—when someone makes me happy, I can’t help but think that every shitty thing that happened to us, between us, had to unfold the way it did, in order to pave way for this happiness, this lightness that we now feel. It’s as they say, the answer is not written in the stars, but right in front of us this whole time. It’s only a matter of belief.”

And that’s what he has wanted to say.

What he ends up saying is, “I’m fine. B, I’ll talk to you later. Over and out.”

Outside on the street, it’s almost dark. City’s electricity hasn’t been fully restored yet, but he has a light source to follow. One that is very bright, and very green.

A whole construction crew made entirely of light construct is busy repairing the one of the larger sinkholes. It’s trickier than just pouring some dirt in, Dick has learned in the past few days. A lot of the areas where they occur, the soils underneath have lost its integrity, mainly due to the decayed underground infrastructure, weakened by years of neglect and the effect of the earthquake.     

“Hey Kyle,” approaching him from the side, Dick greets him when he’s still a few meters away, not wanting to startle someone controlling a giant excavator.

“Nightwing? Oh hey, Dick,” Kyle hovers closer to him rather courteously. It’s always good to see a familiar face in times like this.

“Have you seen Jason?”

“What?” Kyle seems taken aback by the question. “Jason? Jason Todd?”

“Yes,” Dick says patiently.

“Um, no. I didn’t even know he’s in New York.”

“You have a spare communicator?”

“No, I can charge it for you if you like?”

“I mean, if you just walk two kilometers that way, and dive right under, you might still find a couple pieces—”

“Ah, I see. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dick tells him. “I’m heading to HQ.”

“Sure,” Kyle nods. “Hey, you wanna hear something weird?”

“What?”

“So a couple months back, the League started to receive this really weird radio transmission from the deep space. The message was all fragmented, and we couldn’t even pinpoint where it was sent from, but weirdly, the message was written in English, as in, Earth English. We weren’t even sure if it was a message—it could have been just some junk radio signal that found its way to us. It took J’ohn and Terrific forever to figure out there’s some bizarre message subliminally encoded in it, and we used that to translate the rest of the message.”

Dick blinks. “Um, Kyle, not to be rude, but is this gonna take long? I kinda have somewhere else to be…”

“No I know, I promise it’ll be short!” Kyle continues, “Apparently, there’s this weird little planet somewhere outside all the known space sectors, and they’ve somehow received years of Earth’s radio programs, just by sheer accident, I think. You know those long-winded old time radio shows back in the day? Yeah, they must have thought that’s how we communicate. And their metaphysicists, pseudoscientists or whatever, had this paradigm of knowledge that could help them foretell part of the future, and they had been trying to warn us about the disaster in our own language. It’s a shame we couldn’t translate it in time. I mean, if they hadn’t over-engineered it—oh well.

“I guess they thought Earth was just one city or something. They didn’t know we had superheroes, or the emergency services. They probably thought we were all gonna die from an earthquake, those poor souls.”

Kyle’s voice trails off into a murmur. He raises his head to look at him. “It’s ridiculous, right? I mean, it’s a little sad, I guess. It’s also a little funny.”

Dick stares. “Yeah.” He repeats, “Funny.”

Kyle nods. “That’s it. Sorry to keep you.”

“Not a problem,” Dick turns around. “Hey, if you see Donna, could you tell her that I’m looking for Jason?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks, Kyle.”

He keeps walking until he finds a mobile HQ. Counterintuitively named, there are actually a few of them set up at different parts of the city. The second he boosts up and logs his ID on a functional communicator, a message from Donna comes through, telling him to go to the JSA Brownstone.

He doesn’t remember the trip that gets him there, knowing only the next minute, he’s standing in its arched doorway.

The Brownstone is one of the supply points and medical stations, plus a rest stop, an on-call room, somewhere you can take off your mask and take a nap between shifts without compromising your secret identity.

He observes that most rooms are currently occupied, as he travels down the hallway, moving towards where most of the voices are coming from—the main meeting hall.

It’s a big room—circular, high ceiling, with a giant roundtable in the center, surrounded by senate seats that look like stairs—designed to accommodate its numerous members. Currently, it’s filled with people. Maybe half of the JSA, half of the Titans, and a quarter of the JLA are here. He’s not really counting the exact figure, because as soon as he lays eyes on who’s leaning against one corner of the roundtable, the rest of the room seems to just blur into the background.

His brain has done a good job keeping certain intrusive thoughts at bay since he arrived back in New York. But at the sight of Jason across the room, with Donna leaning over him and putting a sling on his arm, they’re all rushing into his head now—namely one, and that thought is: they never did manage to change they emergency contacts.

All that careful planning, strategizing and obstacle hopping—all the while trying to justify it to himself that he’s protecting their own happiness by keeping it under wraps—and somehow he has forgotten the most important consideration: what if Jason got hurt and he wasn’t around? What if he was on the brink of death? What if he needed emergency surgeries, and the doctors needed someone close to him to make a decision? He wouldn’t be the first one to receive the call. It might be that he wouldn’t get a call at all. And what if the roles were reversed, and Jason was the one to bear the consequences of not knowing, of not making it in time? How could he allow this to happen?

Donna straightens up when she sees him across the room. She puts a hand on Jason’s shoulder before making her way to him.

“He’s fine. He broke his arm, that’s all,” Donna reassures him. “Refused to go to the hospital, said he didn’t want to swarm the emergency service. I had to drag him here myself. He’s all patched up, and I just gave him a painkiller.”

“So damn stubborn,” she shakes her head, then gives Dick a look. “You know who he reminds me of?”

Dick sighs. “Yeah alright, Donna.”

Donna’s expression softens, eyes scanning him with concern. “Are you okay? You hurt anywhere?”

“I’m good,” Dick says, trying to smile but not quite managing it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Donna nods. “I’ll check in with you later.”

As Donna steps away, Dick lifts his gaze back to Jason, who only just turns around and catches his eyes. His whole posture changes when he spots him, pushing himself up from the slouched position. He takes half a step forward, then stops, glancing uncertainly around the room then back at Dick.

It makes his stomach clench, seeing Jason’s hesitant expression, battered and exhausted, and still trying to—to do what? To protect him? To spare him? From what?

He wants to run to him, wants to tug him close, hands framing his face and making sure he’s safe and sound, inside and out. He wants to be able to kiss him whenever, wherever he wants and not let go of his hands. And he wants Jason to be able to do the same, to feel at ease, to feel loved, not just in the comfort of their apartment, in a few selected moments, but at every possible corner in the damn universe.

He crosses the distance between them and stops in front of him, putting one hand on Jason’s good shoulder, easing him to sit down on the table again.

“You okay?”

Jason nods. “You?”

Dick huffs. “I am now.”

“So corny.”

“Are you high right now? What did Donna give you? Morphine?”

“I’m not high. You’re high. She gave me ibuprofen.”

“How much pain are you in?”

“Dick,” Jason says. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse.”

Dick looks down at the table, counting the rolls of bandage on there, before looking up at him again, and finds it hasn’t really helped—oddly, as his eyes trace over him, the only thing in his head is not about the earthquake and the sinkholes, not about the room full of people, or even about Jason’s broken arm in a sling between them—all he can think about is kisses.

Thinking about the first time he kissed Jason. Thinking about the first time Jason kissed him. Thinking about their last kiss, two weeks ago, standing in the middle of a backyard that could desperately use a trim. Thinking about all the kisses before that. The best kiss—every kiss is the best kiss, each of them keeping him rooted in the present, in that perfect moment, the past and the future taken to the backstage, all the thoughts, the good and the bad, evaporating from his head, and the world finally falls quiet.

“Can I kiss you?” Dick leans a little closer and whispers.

“Here?” Jason’s eyes widen, caught off guard. “Now?”

It feels wrong. It’s too out in the open, too bright. There are too many people around. If you kiss him right now, a voice in his head says, you’re going to break reality.

I don’t care, he thinks, and, shut the hell up already.

“Yes,” Dick answers, hand coming up to his neck, thumb trailing gently over his jaw. “Please.”

Jason’s eyes dart to his lips and nods.

He tilts his head up and kisses him deeply. It’s really not a kiss that you should be doing in public. It’s not a kiss that you should be doing in the center of a grand hall, where all around you are your friends and colleagues. It is, however, a kiss that you should be doing when you haven’t seen each other, haven’t held each other for two terrible, horrible weeks.

Nothing will feel as good, as right as this.

When he eventually pulls back, he feels clear-headed, in a way that he hasn’t been for the longest time. Jason flutters his eyes open, watching him softly. So close together, Dick can see every tiny speck in his irises, same color as the sunlight scattered where it meets the air, the remaining wavelengths of light after the deepness of the water takes away all the others, giving the ocean its hue—like beautiful blue planet.

“Is this the moment?” Jason murmurs.

Dick knocks their foreheads gently together, hands cupping his face. “There’s no moment, Jason. It’s—all the time.”

“Yeah,” Jason squeezes his eyes shut, his throat bobbing. “Me too.”

Their breath evens out together, and Dick lets go of him. He doesn’t move too far back, after realizing Jason still has a firm grip on his side. There is now a serenity to him, a quietude in his presence as he watches Dick closely but without any intent.

The present, just as all the other moments in his life, seems like an unbelievable tale. Peace used to be something he can only envision—maybe when he is seventy, he’d get a suburban house just so he can sit on the front porch, drinking tea and flipping through the pages of a book. But now, it has a memory tied to the concept itself—a night where they’d settle down on the couch, watching whatever terrible program playing on the TV, and his arm would be around his waist, and his slumped over his shoulder. Comes morning, there will be coffee in the kitchen and sunlight will pour inside, smelling like the promises of a new day.

It’s sad that the universe isn’t constructed in a way where a nifty rainbow bridge could lead them out of this cosmic dark. But suppose it comes down to this: his day simply goes a little better, a bit more smoothly, knowing at the end of the night when he goes to bed, he will have Jason right next to him. And this feeling—it feels scalable. It feels sustainable.

“Jay. When we were in the car,” Dick starts, then stops. There is a question in there that goes unspoken, a question that’s almost too big, too impossible to ask—

If the world becomes too much, if the shadows of the past loom too close, the prospect of the future grows too slim, and the tyranny of the present boxes you in, if people talk, pointing their fingers and shaking their heads, if the universe decides to throw a fit, and the bitterness of life seems to outweigh its reward, would you bow your head, would you snip the cable, or run far away, would you throw a punch without looking, or let yourself bleed all over the place—more importantly, when you’re so desperate for answers, answers that you’re not sure even exist, would you know—

“Yes,” Jason takes his hand, holding on. “I know where to look.”