Archive of Our Own ^beta

—

Kyle hadn’t been to Gotham in years and he couldn’t say that he was awfully upset about that. To be frank, Gotham was a bit of a shithole and he didn’t fully understand why people lived there. That being said, it was excellent for blowing off steam as a vigilante. He’d just saved the entire Earth from ending. Again. He deserved to deal with some small-time bank robbers, as a treat.

Gotham was a shithole, but petty criminals, even ones in crazy outfits with various gadgets, were a lot easier to deal with than the planet-destroying Lovecraftian bullshit that the Lanterns got thrown at them most of the time, so, when Kyle landed in a dark alleyway in the middle of the night and heard gunfire, he was almost excited.

Then he rounded the corner and saw a man in a red hood and wanted to leave Earth again.

Red Hood was in the middle of mowing down a pack of about thirty clowns. Of course he was. Jason had made some alterations to the suit since Kyle last saw him, the main one being more guns. How many guns did one guy need, really? It couldn’t be more than two. Kyle counted at least eight on Red Hood.

Kyle was about to offer his help when an arrow was fired from a nearby roof into the middle of the two dozen clowns who hadn’t gotten shot by Jason’s ostentatious gun collection. He got a second to wonder if the archer missed before the arrow exploded, downing most of the remaining clowns.

Only one stumbled up, coughing out dust, and tried to run away. Kyle didn’t really think before he threw up a construct to block the man’s way.

The clown screamed and then Red Hood shot him in the back of the head. Kyle saw the blood splatter on his construct before he let it disappear.

“Didn’t need your help,” Red Hood muttered, putting his guns away.

Kyle looked around the alleyway of dead bodies. “You sure? You were clearly losing before I got here.”

“I got one more than you!” someone yelled from the roof a second before a man in red jumped down. It took a second for Kyle to place him, but he was almost certain it was the same ginger archer he met ages ago with the Justice League.

Arsenal looked between Red Hood and Kyle. “You two know each other?”

“You could say that,” Jason replied. “We went on an intergalactic field trip together a while back.”

“Oh, so you’re friends?”

“No,” Kyle and Jason said at the same time.

Arsenal put his hands up. “Damn, okay, didn’t mean to–”

“What are you doing here?” Jason cut him off. Kyle could feel him glaring through the helmet.

So, of course, Kyle plastered on his most annoying smile. “I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d help out.”

“We’ve got this covered. Go back to punching aliens or whatever it is you people do.”

Arsenal said. “‘You people’. Why do you sound like you’re homophobic against Lanterns?”

Jason sighed and headed out of the alleyway. Arsenal fell into step with him. Kyle followed a few steps behind, saying, “I just got back from punching aliens, actually. Wanted to do something easy for a change, so I thought I’d try out your job.”

The expressionless hood somehow managed to convey how unimpressed Jason felt.

Arsenal laughed. “Never thought I’d hear Gotham described as ‘easy’.”

“What’s with all the clowns?” Kyle asked.

“Age-old question,” Jason muttered.

“Leftover friends of Hood’s,” Arsenal explained. “Most of them used to work for one of the eight heads in a particular duffel bag a while ago.”

“When are you gonna stop bringing up the duffel bag?” Jason asked.

“When it stops being funny.”

The two started bickering in a way that was entirely devoid of malice. Arsenal moved his bow onto his back so he could use both hands to act something out. Red Hood kept one hand on his holster, but still seemed to relax as he listened to his friend. From behind them, Kyle watched the conversation play out. They weren’t talking about anything specific, just ribbing each other, but it seemed comfortable in a way. Both of them had just killed a dozen people each and now they were having fun with their inside jokes.

Kyle felt a pang of…something. He didn’t think too closely about it.

Arsenal turned around to walk backwards. “Hey, Lantern. I don’t actually know your name. Wanna patrol with us for the rest of the night?”

Kyle frowns. “It’s three in the morning.”

“No rest for the wicked.”

Jason put out a hand to stop Arsenal from running into a pole. “Rayner’s too good for the likes of us. Patrolling neighborhoods and stopping muggers is beneath him. Guy’s been to space, haven’t you heard?”

That made up Kyle’s mind. Spite was a powerful motivator and Green Lanterns had it in buckets. “I’ll come with you.”

Jason started to protest and got drowned out by Arsenal cheerfully saying, “Great! We’ll show you around! You ever been to Crime Alley?”

“No,” Kyle deadpans. “Is there a lot of crime there?”

“I grew up there,” Jason said.

“Is that where you picked up the eight-gun technique? That looks like it takes a lot of finesse. Some of those guys back there were over ten feet away from you, that was impressive.”

“Not all of us can project shit from our mind, Rayner.”

“Yeah, those are the only two options. Lantern Corps or eight guns.”

“What the fuck am I, a fucking sandwich?” Arsenal muttered.

“You wouldn’t last an hour in Crime Alley,” Jason said, completely ignoring his partner.

“Oh yeah?” Kyle replied. “Wanna bet?”

“Sure. Why don’t you come on patrols with us for a month and then see if you still think Gotham is easy?”

“Sure. The hardest part is gonna be putting up with you for a month.” Jason held out his hand. Kyle shook it.

They reached Crime Alley.

By the time the sun came up, Kyle’s arms and legs were aching and he had a tension headache from holding onto constructs. He leaned against a wall, no longer caring about getting his suit dirty, and held back a sigh.

Arsenal was somehow more hyper than he had been four hours ago. “Want some coffee? There’s a couple places around here that give us discounts.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“That’s fine, Jaybird can pay.”

“Jaybird?” Kyle looked up at Jason. “That’s adorable, I’m sorry, Jaybird?”

“I’ll kill you,” Jason said. “They’ll never find the body.”

“Which one of us?”

“Both of you. I like how you’re volunteering my money despite the fact that we have a joint bank account, Arsenal.”

Arsenal just grinned.

“Are you guys like…together?” Kyle asked. Joint bank account, pet names, it seemed like a logical conclusion.

Jason snorted. “Yeah, right. My standards are higher than that.”

“Ouch,” Arsenal replied, putting a hand to his chest. “Is it because of the substance abuse?”

“It’s because you keep stealing my money and using it to make bombs that you then test on me.”

“If you loved me, you’d look past that.”

“Lucky that I don’t.”

“That’s what they all say, but deep down–”

“Deep down I hate you even more. Coffee?”

“Coffee, let’s go, Lantern.”

Feeling like he’d just gotten hit over the head by a brick from the break-neck pace of the conversation, Kyle followed the two across the street to a hole-in-the-wall diner. A faded sign boasted, ‘Best Coffee in Gotham’. That seemed like a low bar.

“It’s Kyle, by the way,” he said, belatedly.

“Nice to meet you.” Arsenal clapped him on the shoulder, worsening his headache. “I’m Roy, you know Little Miss Sunshine over there.”

Jason had sat down at the counter. He flipped Roy off without turning around.

Roy pushed Kyle forward and Kyle somehow found himself seated next to Jason Todd, with Roy on his other side.

Once their coffee arrived, Jason pulled off his hood to reveal the domino mask. His hair had gotten mussed. He pushed it back with one hand, making the white streak more visible. Kyle couldn’t see his eyes under the mask, but he remembered the mismatched colors. Jason was such a terrifying person that Kyle forgot how attractive he was every time he put the hood on and then had to remember all over again.

Jason looked up at him. “Can I help you?” he asked, flat.

“Nothing,” Kyle replied, stupidly, as he looked back down at his own coffee. A sip proved that being the best coffee in Gotham was in fact surpassing a low bar.

Kyle tried to ignore the burning in his face. Fuck Jason Todd. Fuck Gotham. Fuck their coffee.

This was going to be a long month.

—

The patrols weren’t really what Kyle had expected. Nothing about Red Hood and Arsenal was what he’d expected, if he was being honest with himself, but the main purpose of patrols, in his mind, had been to prevent crimes and beat up criminals. Red Hood and Arsenal did that, of course, but, along the way, they did a lot more community service than Kyle would have thought.

‘Community service’ was the only term he could think of to describe it. It was a very violent kind of service, but, nevertheless, the people of Crime Alley and Gotham’s many other bad neighborhoods would yell out greetings and occasionally cheer when they saw Red Hood and that had to count for something.

By the end of Kyle’s first week patrolling Gotham, the three of them had busted up a drug ring. They’d also walked a dozen people (mostly women) home at late hours of the night.

Jason would walk home with anybody who asked, Kyle had learned. He’d pointed out how sweet it was the first time they did it and Jason had called him twenty different swear words.

The sun was rising and the three of them were taking another lap around the neighborhood before calling it a night. This had become part of their routine, too. In a few minutes, Roy and Jason would go to one of their safehouses (a different one every night, Kyle thought, Jason was nothing if not paranoid) and Kyle would fly back to New York alone. He rolled his shoulders and sighed at the thought. He was getting tired of flying back and forth every morning. Not that he’d ever admit that his powers were taking a toll on him while Jason was within earshot.

“Jay?” Roy asked, pulling Kyle’s attention back. “I think we’ve got a tail.”

Jason glanced over his shoulder, making it look like he was saying something to Kyle. “I count two.”

“Who do you think it is?” Kyle asked.

Jason turned back around and started walking faster. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“It’s not like the whole city hates us or anything,” Roy added.

“Not the whole city.”

“No, just the important people.”

The two made a sharp turn. Kyle followed on instinct. Jason and Roy pressed themselves flat to the wall.

It didn’t take long for two small figures in hoodies to reach the turn.

The first one cried out as Jason grabbed them by their shoulders and pushed them into the wall.

The second tried to run. They made it all of three feet before Roy grabbed their arm. “Kinda shitty sportsmanship to leave your friend behind, you know?” he said, twisting their arm behind their back. “Isn’t that the first thing they teach you at Bad Guy Camp?”

Jason pulled the hood off of the face of the first guy and– oh that was a kid. That was fully a child. They were trying to put on a scowl, but they were obviously a terrified little kid, no older than fifteen.

Kyle could see that Jason and Roy realized it at the same time as him. Roy let go of the second figure and Jason took a step back.

The first kid continued to scowl and their friend who– shit, they were even smaller now that Kyle got a good look at them– huddled close to them. They were both bristling, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The older one looked like a girl, dark hair hanging tangled around her shoulders. She had pale skin covered in grime with spots that could have been either bruises or more dirt.

The younger one was a boy. With blond hair cropped close to his head, he didn’t look much like the girl, but he had the same wide-eyed, suspicious look and the same bruises.

They were so young. Fuck, they were so young.

Jason sighed. “Why were you following us?” he asked, tone much less intimidating than the one Kyle had seen him use on criminals before.

The boy opened his mouth and the girl elbowed him, hissing, “Don’t snitch, he’s gonna fucking kill us.”

“Who’s he?” Jason asked.

Her eyes widened as she realized her mistake. That time, she stayed silent.

“Look, we’re not gonna hurt you, alright? And you two don’t look like hardened criminals, so I’m guessing some guy told you and a bunch of other kids that whoever figured out where we go would get paid. You’re not gonna get in trouble if you don’t deliver, they don’t know your faces.”

She stared at Jason for a bit, considering. Finally, she asked, “So why should I tell you? If you’re not gonna hurt us anyway.”

“How much were they gonna give you?”

“Fifty.” And that was something, wasn’t it? These kids were willing to stalk vigilantes known for killing in exchange for fifty bucks.

“I’ll give you a hundred if you tell me who hired you.”

The girl was still obviously hesitant. As she stared down the Red Hood, brown hair in her face, Kyle thought that must have been what Jason would have looked like as a kid growing up in this same neighborhood. Skinny, malnourished, dirty, stubborn as hell. Jason was an asshole, one of the most irritating people Kyle had ever met, but seeing up close what Gotham was like made Kyle feel…not pity, but just sorrow. He was sorry Jason grew up in a place where kids this young were out on the streets getting involved with gangs because they had no other way of making money. Other big cities had problems, sure, but Gotham was on another level. Jason had lived here by himself before Batman found him. He didn’t know much about Roy, but something in the man’s face made him think he had a similar story.

That wasn’t an excuse for all the shit Kyle had seen or heard about Red Hood and Arsenal, but seeing just how shitty their childhoods must have been did help him understand the fervor with which they, and Jason specifically, were trying to clean up Gotham. They really were trying to help, in their own fucked up way.

That realization hit him harder than it should have.

The boy spoke up, “He had a fancy suit on. He was talking to a bunch of people near the soup kitchen over there,” they pointed in a vague direction, “and he said whoever told him where Red Hood and Arsenal and the Lantern guy live would get fifty bucks.” He added, “It wasn’t nothing personal.”

Jason and Roy exchanged a look. Roy crouched down in front of the boy. “Do you know who the guy in the suit worked for?”

He looked up at his friend. The girl sighed and said, “Penguin, probably. Most of the mafia suits work for Penguin these days.”

“What do you have a bow for?” the boy asked.

“To shoot people,” Roy replied, smiling.

“Are you good?”

“The best.” He held out one of his arrows for him to touch, carefully.

Jason pulled a wad of crumpled bills out of his jacket. Before giving them to the girl, he said, “Don’t get involved with this kinda shit again, you hear me?”

She nodded and grabbed the money. Her lips moved as she counted it out. “This is more than a hundred.”

“You complaining?”

“No.”

“Good. You got somewhere to go?”

She looked down at the ground, fidgeting. “We got a foster home.”

Jason was silent for a second. “There’s a community center a few blocks from here. The Lucius Fox one. If you ever don’t wanna go home, they’ll help you figure shit out.”

She nodded and, as she pocketed the cash, her face showed something closer to a smile.

As Kyle looked at the two kids talking to Red Hood and Arsenal, he could almost forget that the two men he was with were both on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. That he’d seen them kill more people within the past week than some Lanterns killed within a year. He’d heard many rumors over the years of how deadly Red Hood was, how unnecessarily brutal, what a hold these two had over Gotham.

The girl, with her bruises and her suspicion and her fist was still clenched over the bills in her pocket, smiled at Jason.

Kyle couldn’t reconcile everything he knew about the two most feared vigilantes in the city with the two guys who’d just given money to some kids hired to stalk them.

His headache suddenly felt completely unrelated to his powers.

“Get the fuck out,” Jason said. “You never saw us.”

She nodded again and grabbed the other kid’s hand. As they ran off, Kyle heard the boy say, “Can I shoot arrows when I grow up?”

Roy got up. “That was adorable, Jay. Look at you, you’re basically an afterschool special.”

Jason scoffed. “Like you were any better.”

“We’re going soft in our old age.”

“How did you know about the community center?” Kyle asked.

Jason didn’t look at him. “What do you think, Rayner?”

Roy replied for both of them, “We grew up around here. We know everybody and everything.”

“Yeah, let’s just hope those kids end up better than us,” Jason muttered as he left the alleyway.

Roy hung behind to walk next to Kyle. “Ignore him,” he said. “He has to act real edgy now to make up for doing a good thing. If he spent too long without brooding, he’d explode.”

“I can fucking hear you,” Jason said.

Ignoring him, Roy continued, “You can stay over with us, by the way. I dunno how flying works, but I figure your arms gotta be getting tired.”

Kyle laughed, despite himself. “Not my arms, but…my head does start hurting after a bit.”

“See? It’s fine, then, just stay with us at the safehouse.”

Jason grumbled, “It’s my fucking safehouse and I don’t get a say in it?”

“You’d say no.” “So you’re just not asking? Very ethical.”

“Yeah, that’s the least ethical thing I’ve done all night. Forget the people I killed, how dare I invite the guy who’s working with us back to our place?”

“It’s fine,” Kyle said. “If you don’t want me to that badly, I won’t go. I can fly back.”

Jason sighed loudly. “Jesus Christ. Of course you’re staying.”

“You just said–”

“I don’t wanna listen to you whining about having a migraine tomorrow night.”

“I don’t whine,” Kyle started to say and then closed his mouth when he realized that he was about to see one of the places Jason Todd lived. He was too curious to complain about it.

The first rays of sunlight broke over the Gotham skyline as the three of them walked up the four flights of stairs to one of Jason and Roy’s many safehouses, bickering in a way that felt a lot less heated than it had a week ago.

—

In the next few days, Kyle learned that Jason and Roy’s safehouses were awful. Oh, they were functional, of course, Jason made sure of that. Each apartment had running water, heating, electricity, and WiFi. Functionally, they were great.

However, they each only had a bed, a sofa, and a table. Bare walls. No hint of color. Jason and Roy carried most of the things they needed for everyday use with them, from place to place. The safehouses looked like what would happen if someone were to draw the most generic idea of what an apartment should look like, with the addition of mechanical bits and different bomb prototypes left lying around everywhere by Roy.

Roy was always making something. More often than not, it was deadly and, almost always, nobody, including him, could remember where he left it, meaning that each generic, lifeless apartment was also a minefield.

Kyle lasted through four different safehouses with them, a different one each night (Jason was paranoid if nothing else), before he broke.

Waking up in the afternoon after a night of patrolling, he rubbed a hand over his face. “If I get up, is something going to explode?” he asked without opening his eyes.

“Probably not,” Roy replied from somewhere in the living room.

“Probably? How sure are you?”

“70%.”

That was good enough for him. Kyle got up and went to the kitchen. ‘The kitchen’ was a series of unpainted cabinets, a fridge, and a counter. He opened the fridge and was greeted by an ice cube tray, several packs of frozen peas, and a single carrot. “How have you not starved to death yet?”

“We eat out every night,” came the reply from where Roy had roughly two hundred different gears spread out on the living room carpet. “The real question is how haven’t we gotten scurvy?”

“I thought Jason was responsible.”

“Yeah, he is. He keeps everything neat around here. Or he tries. With me around, it’s kind of ‘unstoppable force versus immovable object’, you know?”

Kyle did know. Kyle knew that all too well, having been stuck between the two for the past week and a half. Roy left things everywhere and Jason picked them up, grumbling along the way. “Where is he?”

“He went out to ask some of his contacts what Penguin’s been up to and why he’s got a problem with us. I mean, other than the usual shit.”

“What’s the usual shit?”

“Oh, we interrupt his business proceedings and ruin his reputation among his coworkers,” Roy said, putting on a voice with a thick accent that Kyle guessed was supposed to sound like Penguin.

Kyle snorted. “But Jason hasn’t killed him yet?”

To his surprise, Roy answered seriously, “He doesn’t kill everybody, you know. He kills people when he’s got a reason to.”

“Like what?”

“Like when there’s no other way to stop them.”

That wasn’t really what he was expecting, given Jason’s reputation. Then again, nothing about Jason had been what he was expecting. “That’s it?”

“Well, there’s special cases.” Roy grinned. “Like if somebody killed me, Jay would kill them. And vice versa.”

“Is that the kind of thing you two talk about?”

“Every night, after we braid each other’s hair.”

There was a series of three knocks on the door.

“It’s open!” Roy yelled.

Jason came in, pulling off his hood. “Fuck are you doing, not locking the door behind me? Do you wanna die?”

“I’d love to, is it fun?”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Jason muttered, amiably. “Good morning, Kyle.”

“Morning.” Kyle was never going to get used to the sight of Jason without his hood. It felt inappropriate to see his bare face. He needed to get more sleep, he was losing his mind. He shut his eyes and changed the topic, “How many safehouses do you have, exactly?”

“I guess you’ll find out. Why?”

Kyle opened his eyes and Jason was just a few feet away from him. It was past noon and still too early to deal with that. “Do all of them look…like this?”

“What does that mean?” Jason leaned against the wall, staring at Kyle.

“It’s, uh…spartan.”

“He means it’s shitty,” Roy called out.

Jason shot back, “I know what it means, I have an English degree.”

“Since when?” Kyle asked. He felt like every time he thought he’d gotten a grasp on Jason Todd, some new fact surfaced that made him rethink his entire worldview.

“Since I went to online college. What’s the problem with the safehouses?”

Kyle took a breath and tried to figure out how to word this so he and Jason didn’t end up having a fight. They ended up doing that most of the time they had a conversation. “Well, I was just wondering if you had one you used more permanently. You know, as a place to live. It doesn’t seem like you could live in any of these apartments.”

Jason’s brows furrowed. “Why does that matter? They’re safe.”

“Yeah, obviously, and that’s important, but don’t you ever want to have one apartment where you could actually relax? Keep things without packing them up every time you leave? Where you could actually put some food in the fridge?”

“He was really disappointed by the fridge,” Roy added, as if that explained everything.

Jason’s expression went from annoyed to the blank one that Kyle thought meant he was pissed. It was hard to tell with Jason. “If you don’t like the apartments, you could always fly to New York. We can’t stay in one place too long, it isn’t safe. You saw we have people who are hiring goddamn orphans to figure out where we live.”

Kyle put his hands up in surrender. “You’re right, you’re right. Sorry.” He’d come back to this. Willpower was the Green Lantern trait for a reason.

Roy hummed, not looking up from the…metal…thing he was making. “There’s the apartment outside Crime Alley. Remember? That one’s probably the nicest.”

Jason turned to him. “Whose side are you on, exactly?”

Roy still didn’t look up. “What can I say, man? I like having shit in the fridge.”

Jason sighed, loud and drawn out. “I’ll fucking think about it.”

He flopped down onto the couch, taking his boots off to stretch out. The Red Hood outfit without the hood and the boots looked part ridiculous and part almost domestic.

Kyle gently banged his head into the empty fridge.

“What’d you find out?” Roy asked.

“Penguin’s pissed at us for fucking up the drug thing. That was his guys, apparently,” Jason replied. “He’ll get over it in a few weeks. I’ll let him get away with dealing drugs as long as it’s not around schools.” He turned onto his side to look at Roy. “Whatcha making, Harper?”

“A bomb,” Roy said innocently.

“Yeah? Are you gonna test it out on me again?”

“Maybe.”

“Just think,” Kyle interrupted. “If we had a nicer apartment, he could get his own room to contain his bomb-creation to.”

“No I wouldn’t–” Roy saw Kyle’s ‘don’t fuck this up’ expression and caught on. “Yeah, I would, you’d never trip over one of my bombs again, Jaybird, I’d put them all in a nice little pile in my very own room.”

Jason threw an arm over his face. “Jesus Christ, I feel like I’ve been married to the two of you for forty years. I come home from work and I immediately get attacked. It wasn’t this bad when it was just Roy.”

Kyle smiled. “So you’ll–”

“I’ll fucking see what I can do, Rayner!”

Roy held out a fist. Kyle came over to bump knuckles with him.

“They’re fucking conspiring against me,” Jason muttered.

For once, neither of them contradicted him.

Kyle didn’t point out that the three of them picking out a nice place to live shouldn’t have mattered at all if he was only going to be in Gotham for the month. Either the others hadn’t caught on or they were ignoring it too. He wasn’t quite sure what that meant and he really didn’t want to find out.

—

Roy had ordered a beer, placed it on the other side of the table from him, and folded his arms to put his head on them. He stared at it, unblinking. It was eerie to see the usually restless man so still.

The patrol that night had gone fine, by Jason’s standards. Crime Alley was still the worst part of Gotham and that wouldn’t change anytime soon, but nothing egregiously terrible had happened and he’d call that a win.

Roy had been cracking jokes with his usual abandon. Jason was used to listening to his partner talking about nothing and everything by his side by now, so he’d noticed about an hour ago when the chatter had suddenly stopped.

He’d looked back to where Roy and Kyle were walking. Roy had stopped and was staring at his phone.

“What is it?” Jason had asked. His heartbeat was picking up and he had to remind himself to breathe. It was fine, everything was fine, it was probably nothing.

Roy had put his phone away quickly and forced a smile. “Just Ollie. Heard about the breakup.”

Kyle had frowned. “What breakup?”

“Oh, me and Kori.” Roy was doing the chipper voice he always put on whenever he wanted someone to ignore how depressing what he was saying was. “He’s kind of assuming that I’ve relapsed. Which is a fair assumption to make, I suppose.”

Then he’d gone ahead, leaving Jason and Kyle to follow him. And now he was staring at the bottle.

“Do you think you’re going to relapse?” Kyle asked, finally.

“I don’t know,” Roy replied, not moving his gaze. “I want to make sure I don’t. This is just something I do from time to time to test myself. I’ve been sober for about a year now, but you know what they say, you never really get sober, you just get longer intervals between fucking up and relapsing.”

Jason opened his mouth to tell his friend to stop being an idiot, but Kyle beat him to it, saying, “That’s not true. A year is really impressive.”

Roy looked up at him, then, and…god, he looked so surprised that someone wouldn’t take his self-deprecating jokes at face value. “It’s really not, I mean–”, he started to say.

Kyle cut him off, “It is, that’s a really long time. I’m proud of you.”

Roy sat up and Jason would have laughed at how uncomfortable he looked if it wasn’t sad. “...alright, thanks.”

Kyle continued, “And I’m never going to find it funny when you put yourself down for a joke, just so you know.” He picked the bottle up. “Are you done testing yourself?”

“Yeah,” Roy replied, seemingly shellshocked.

Kyle went to throw the bottle away.

Roy turned to Jason, eyes wide. “What the fuck was that?”

“I would have done the same thing,” Jason said. “He beat me to it.”

Roy rubbed his face, which was rapidly turning the same shade as his hair. “Jesus Christ, it was just a joke, you don’t need to go all group therapy on me.”

“I’m proud of you too, you know.”

Roy groaned. Jason laughed.

Roy put his face down on the table, mumbling, “What the fuck? Why is he being nice?”

Jason reached over to ruffle his hair. “That’s just who he is. Not everyone’s an asshole like us.”

“No, most people are worse. How the hell did we get him?” Roy smacked his hand away.

“We didn’t get him. He’s only here for a month.”

Roy lifted his head and gave him an unimpressed look. “Oh yeah, Jaybird? Then why are we taking him to the nice apartment?”

Jason scoffed and kicked Roy under the table and Roy opened his mouth to retaliate as Kyle came back to the table.

Kyle looked between the two of them. “Did I miss something?” he asked.

“No,” they replied, in unison.

Jason ignored Roy’s meaningful stare. He knew what Roy was saying and he was not going to deal with it. It wasn’t his problem.

“Right,” Kyle said, awkwardly. “Did I overstep?”

“No, no.” Roy waved his hand around like that’d dispel the thought. “It was nice of you. Thanks.”

“Roy was just amazed at how nice you are,” Jason added. He made his voice sound as dry as possible. The only way to be normal around Kyle was to fall back into their dynamic of bitching at each other. That was fine. Jason was good at that.

Proving his point, Kyle bristled immediately. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, you know. Your whole vibe. You’re very…” He searched for the right words. “‘I’ll have your daughter home by ten’. Very wholesome.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Not all of us can be edgelords.”

“Come on now, that was a compliment.”

“You’ve got a funny way of making compliments sound like insults.”

“That doesn’t sound like my problem.”

Roy put his hands up. “Stop it! Jesus, I feel like my parents are getting divorced! Can you two just have a civil conversation? Just once! We had a good moment, stop snapping at each other!” With that, he left the table and headed for the door.

Jason pointedly didn’t look at Kyle as he followed his friend, jogging to catch up. “It’s not my fault he keeps getting mad at everything I say,” he muttered, feeling childish. “Ever since we met, he’s been hell-bent on getting pissed at me, I don’t know why.”

Roy scoffed. “You don’t know why?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t know what about me personally offends him, but–”

Roy cut him off, “You don’t know why a guy who’s nice to everyone only gets annoyed at you? You haven’t noticed the fact that he goes red every time you take your hood off?” He sighed.

Jason was silently glad they were working fast enough to be (hopefully) out of Kyle’s earshot. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re the smartest guy I know, Jay, so stop acting like an idiot.” With that, Roy stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and waited for Kyle to catch up.

Kyle looked genuinely apologetic as he said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make that a big deal.”

“It’s fine, Jay was being a dick for no reason,” Roy replied. Jason opened his mouth to protest and Roy continued, “He does that a lot. Let’s just agree you’re both gonna stop being stupid, so I don’t have to be the reasonable one anymore, okay? I’m not used to it. I don’t like being reasonable. One of you’s gonna have to get your shit together and be civil because if I seem smart compared to you, there’s a fucking problem.”

Kyle sighed. “You are smart, though. Nobody who spends all of his time building gadgets is dumb. But I get your point,” he added when Roy kept glaring at him. “I’ll be civil.”

“Jay?”

“Yeah, sure, fine,” Jason grumbled.

Roy put on an exaggerated smile. “Great! Children cheer in the streets! Criminals take a day off! Peace and love in Gotham! Let’s go see the less shitty apartment now, shall we?” With that, he was off again.

Kyle and Jason could only stare after him for a moment. “Is he always like that?” Kyle asked.

“No,” Jason replied. “He gets more…like that when he’s pissed.”

They started walking. There was an awkward silence long enough that Jason was starting to debate shooting something just to make some noise.

“I did mean what I said, about the sober thing,” Kyle spoke up, suddenly.

Jason blinked. “I know you did.” He took a breath and tried to figure out how to phrase his thoughts. He’d known Roy for a long time and he’d found that other people’s perceptions of the man were usually completely wrong. He was hard to explain, but… “Roy’s had a lot of people think he’s just a fuckup. All the jokes he makes about being dumb or about his drinking, I think that’s his way of putting himself down so nobody else gets a chance to. Like if he jokes about it first, it’ll hurt less if other people joke about it later.”

There was silence again until Kyle said, “You know him really well.”

Jason huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, he’s put up with me the longest out of most people I know.”

“You’re not nearly as much of an asshole as you want people to think you are,” Kyle said.

And with that, they rejoined Roy at the door to yet another apartment building and Jason had to unlock it and then they were heading up the stairs and Jason would just ignore the way he felt because of a guy saying he wasn’t ‘that much of an asshole’. That wasn’t romantic, that was the bare minimum. That was barely civil. He shook his head, trying to physically get rid of the thought.

The apartment was on the fifth floor. He tossed Roy the keys to unlock it and as soon as he did, the man ran inside and jumped onto the couch in his dirty vigilante gear. Jason yelled, “Get off the fucking furniture, you’re like a dog!” and then what Kyle said got forgotten as he scolded his friend, who was laughing like a child, about not putting his muddy boots on Jason’s couch because when did Roy ever clean up after himself and then they were bickering again, like they always did, while Jason ordered food because they’d forgotten to actually eat at the diner because they were a mess and by the time he looked up at Kyle, who’d taken off his mask by then, Kyle smiled at him.

Kyle smiled at him.

Ah, fuck.

—

Jason had known he was queer as long as he could remember. When he was growing up, he’d just assumed that everyone was attracted to everyone. Gender didn’t really seem to matter.

That being said, growing up, he hadn’t really had time for a crisis about his sexuality. Growing up in Crime Alley, he’d had enough things to worry about. Then, after getting ‘adopted’ by Bruce, his main focus had turned to missions. And then, of course, he’d died.

It was hard to worry about whether you liked guys when you knew what dying felt like.

By the time he’d gotten to this point, eight heads in a duffel bag and plenty of scars later, he had way too many other things to worry about. He was queer. He’d always known he was queer. It wasn’t a big deal.

And, growing up around Dick Grayson, he’d really thought nobody had a hard time coming to terms with it. Dick had been very open about it for as long as Jason had known him. Even Roy had told him about figuring it out when he was a teenager. That was one of the few things about him Ollie respected, he’d said, which…was its own can of worms in and of itself, but nonetheless, Jason had grown up believing that being queer was something relatively easy for people to come to terms with.

Then he met Kyle Rayner.

Look, Jason could handle having a crush on his best friend. Plenty of people had crushes on their best friends. Roy was annoying and headstrong and tested out flamethrowers on Jason while he was in the shower and Jason would have burned Gotham to the ground in an instant if anything happened to him. He loved him as a friend and liked him quite a lot in a romantic way. He’d come to terms with that. It was fine. It was manageable.

Then he met Kyle Rayner.

Kyle, who took offense at every single thing Jason said (and Jason was only being purposefully offensive half the time). Kyle, who went red every time Jason took his hood off. Kyle, who’d dated only women as far as Jason knew and who had never mentioned anything about being queer.

Kyle was so repressed that it hurt to look at him.

And fuck, Jason really liked him. He really fucking did. But making Kyle confront whatever feelings he was so desperately repressing would be an undertaking Jason did not have the energy or time for and, frankly, he wasn’t sure it was worth it when the guy had been nothing but a dick to him. Until recently. Until the three weeks they’d been living together in the same apartment, which Kyle had moved more and more of his stuff into. Recently, Jason had been finding himself waking up to notice more and more new things around the place. Kyle’s sketchbook on the coffee table. Some fridge magnets Kyle had put up. Kyle’s clothes laying on every flat surface.

It was nice. It was borderline domestic. Jason had realized, somewhat against his will, that he didn’t mind. He could tell Roy didn’t either.

Things had been nowhere near this complicated when it had just been him and Roy. The two of them knew each other perfectly, they could read each other’s minds at this point. But it hadn’t been as nice with just the two of them, either, Jason had to admit. Neither of them would have even thought about staying in one apartment for more than a few nights. Neither of them were good at bringing up emotional shit as anything other than a joke. Kyle was. Kyle was very functional in that particular way. It was good to have him. It worked.

But he’d be damned if he’d be the one to bring up their communal living situation and what that meant for their relationship. Kyle was the one who couldn’t accept his emotions. Kyle could be the one to talk to the two of them.

Jason finished taking off his uniform (hood, mask, jacket, boots) and sat down on the couch. There were usually a few minor injuries after a full night of patrolling and tonight was no exception. Across the room, Roy had gotten the first aid kit and was cleaning up a spot along his forearm where he’d gotten grazed by a bullet.

Kyle just lay down on the living room floor as soon as he came in, breathing hard. “I’m so sick…of Gotham,” he gasped out. “What kind of petty criminals have a grenade launcher?”

“Our kind,” Jason replied, aiming a light kick at Kyle’s ribs. “What happened to Gotham being easy?”

Kyle just flipped him off, still trying to catch his breath.

Jason leaned his head back on the couch, letting himself get as relaxed as he ever got. “You good, Harper?”

Roy had finished cleaning the wound with rubbing alcohol, all without making a sound. His pain tolerance was impressive and that was coming from Jason, who’d been raised by the ‘using fighting as a coping mechanism’ vigilante. Roy nodded. “It’s fine, just another scar for the collection.”

“That’s disturbing,” Kyle muttered. He sat up and took his mask off, apparently breathing again.

Roy laughed. “Nah, you should see Jason’s, he’s got me beat.”

Jason scoffed. “Yeah, like the arrow wound on my shoulder. How’d I get that one again?”

Roy didn’t even look ashamed of himself. “You were falling off a skyscraper. I shot you with an arrow that had a rope tied to it. You didn’t die. Again. I don’t see what the problem is.”

Kyle did. “You shot him!?”

“Yeah, that’s what friends are for.”

Jason looked at Kyle, critically for the first time since they’d gotten home. The mask had been covering most of his face, and now that it was off Jason saw he had an impressive bruise spreading along his cheekbone.

“Rayner, did you get hit in the face?” he asked. He went over and knelt next to where Kyle was sitting on the floor. Jason put a hand under Kyle’s chin to tip it up into the light. Kyle’s face went red under the bruise. Jason very carefully pretended not to notice.

“I guess I must have. I didn’t notice,” Kyle said, his voice hoarse. Weird, since he didn’t seem to be out of breath anymore.

Jason pressed his fingers along the cheekbone, lightly. Kyle hissed in pain, but didn’t flinch away. “I don’t think it’s broken, at least. But you’re gonna have an impressive shiner for a few weeks.” He looked up. “Roy, could you get the–”

Roy tossed him the bag of frozen peas from the freezer (the first thing they got every time they moved to a new safehouse). Jason caught it with one hand and, this wasn’t strictly necessary, but he put it on Kyle’s bruise for him. Kyle put his hand up to hang onto it and if their hands touched, whose fault was that? Jason was just being a good friend.

“What’s on your throat?” Kyle asked and just like that, the moment of being a shithead was over.

Jason’s hand came up to cover the scar tissue at his throat on reflex. “Nothing. Just a scar. I’ve got a lot of those.” He got up. “From what? Your death?” Kyle asked, either oblivious or determined to make Jason feel uncomfortable, which…fair play, that’d make them even.

“No. Not this one.”

“What’s it from again? A fight with the Joker?” Roy asked.

He’d told Roy some version of the truth when he’d asked. Truth be told, he didn’t like talking about it and he wasn’t going to tonight. “Yeah, something like that. Look, sun’s coming up, we should go to bed. Ice your bruise, Kyle, don’t wanna fuck up your pretty face.”

With that, he left, ignoring Roy’s grumbled comment about keeping secrets.

Jason shut his bedroom door and leaned against it. He realized his hand was still at his throat and removed it. It shouldn’t have this much of an effect on him, still, after all this time. It was over and done with. His relationship with Bruce would probably never recover, but it was done. Not that Bruce had apologized.

Not tonight. He wasn’t going to think about the scar on his throat tonight. And he definitely wasn’t going to tell the other two about it.

—

He’d vastly underestimated how stubborn both of these idiots were.

A few nights later, Kyle brought it up again. The patrol had gone worse than usual, with all three of them needing bandages. Jason pulled his shirt off and sat down in front of the couch. Roy sat behind him and started cleaning the cuts.

They’d done this a million times before. They’d done it often enough that Jason could handle Roy touching him without flinching or having any thoughts in particular. Roy had seen him shirtless, it was fine.

Kyle hadn’t. Jason could have ignored that except for the fact that Kyle was staring and…yes, Jason had a lot of scars. Most people who’d been vigilantes since they were children did. The Lazarus Pit had changed him and erased a lot of them, but he’d kept himself busy since then. Kyle had been on missions, he’d fought people, he shouldn’t be that shocked.

Roy finished applying the latest bandage and patted Jason on the shoulder. Jason pulled his shirt back on, faster than usual, still aware of Kyle’s stare on him.

“Are you gonna tell us what the scar on your neck’s about?” Kyle asked.

Fucking Christ. “Is it any of your business?”

“We’re friends,” Roy said, ruffling Jason’s hair. “You know what all my scars are from.”

Jason pushed him off. “Yeah, because you never shut up. I’ve never asked about them.”

Kyle persisted. “It looks really bad. How did you survive that?”

What happened to you, Jason? Bruce had asked, like he didn’t know. Like he hadn’t been there in the aftermath.

“I’ve survived worse,” Jason replied, quietly. Maybe ‘survived’ was the wrong word. He hadn’t exactly lived through it.

This is me trying to help you, Bruce had said.

Jason heard himself say, “It was a couple months after I came back to the city as Red Hood. I’d captured the Joker and I had a gun to his head. Batman showed up. I said, he could shoot me or he could shoot the Joker. So either he’d kill me or the Joker would die.” He shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see their reactions. “He threw a batarang at me and it slit my throat. The Joker got away alive.”

It was silent for a few long moments.

Then, Roy said, “What the fuck.”

“Batman did that?” Kyle asked. “Why would he do that?”

Jason opened his eyes. Kyle looked shocked. Upset. On his behalf, Jason realized belatedly. Fuck. “The no-killing rule’s pretty inflexible.”

“Fuck the no-killing rule,” Roy said, getting up. “I should have decked Bruce last time I saw him. Who the fuck does that? You’re his kid. He could’ve killed you! He picked the fucking Joker over you?”

“Yeah, Roy, I know, I was there.” Jason’s voice broke, only a little.

“Jesus fuck.” Roy started pacing around the room, all thought of cleaning up after patrol apparently abandoned. “What the fuck is wrong with him?”

“Say fuck a few more times, I think that’ll help.”

Kyle just stayed where he was, looking at the floor with an expression that was a bit too close to pity for Jason’s liking.

Jason said, “It’s fine. It was a long time ago.”

Roy scoffed. “It is not–”

“It is! Look, you don’t have to get mad for me, I can handle myself–”

“Of course I’m getting mad for you, Jay!” Roy threw his hands up, like this was the most obvious thing in the world and Jason was an idiot for not understanding. “Fuck, you’re my best friend! He slit your throat over the fucking Joker!? That’s such bullshit–”

“Roy,” Kyle said, quietly. “I don’t think you’re helping.”

“Yes, thank you,” Jason said.

Kyle continued, “But it’s not fine, Jason. It’s not fine, that shouldn’t have happened to you. He should never have done that to you. You know that, right?”

There was blood running down Jason’s hands. He was falling to his knees. He was staring at his father’s face as he bled out.

“It was a long time ago,” he repeated. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Doesn’t matter– I’m gonna fucking kill him–”

“Roy,” Kyle said, again.

Roy laughed bitterly. “He just said he thinks it doesn’t matter that his father slit his throat!”

“What do you want me to say, Roy?” Jason snapped. He got up. He could feel a burning in his head, one of the side effects of the Pit.

“Does Dick know?”

Of course. Of course that was the question for him. Dick, Roy’s teammate, his good friend, his ex. Of course if Dick knew, he’d put a stop to it. Dick was the perfect teammate, perfect friend, better than Jason, a better Robin, better son, why wouldn’t Roy be asking about him–

Jason forced himself to take a breath. Getting pissed wouldn’t help the situation. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Do any of the others?”

“No.”

“Why the fuck–”

“Because they wouldn’t believe me!” he yelled. And that was that. The reason he hadn’t told anyone about the scar, about what happened. He hadn’t realized it before, but he knew he was right.

Roy stopped pacing and just stared at him. That was somehow worse. When he spoke again, he was quiet. “Jay.”

“Who would I tell? Dick? Dick’s been with Bruce the longest, he’s the first Robin, Bruce is his dad. Who else? Tim? My fucking replacement?” He was going to cry. Fuck, he was going to cry and then they’d feel sorry for him and that would be more than he could handle. “Why would I ruin their relationships with him? He’s been fine to them. He’s done his best, he’s a decent father to everybody but me. Why would I ruin that?”

“I’m sorry,” Kyle said. “I’m sorry that happened to you. You didn’t deserve that.”

That was the thing that broke him. He could be angry at Roy, with Roy for hours. Anger was easy. All he’d had after the Pit was anger, but this? Kyle saying he was sorry for him? That was too much.

Jason grabbed his jacket, pushed past Roy, and left.

—

By the time Jason came back, it was noon and Roy had paced the length of the entire apartment. If there was any alcohol in the place, he would have relapsed. Luckily, there wasn’t. Jason trusted him, but not that much, which was fair. Roy didn’t trust himself that much either.

Kyle, on the other hand, was annoyingly still on the couch. He’d taken out his sketchbook and started drawing…something. Roy didn’t think to ask.

The air of tension in the room kept getting worse. Neither of them spoke to the other, but neither of them suggested going to bed, even though they’d all been on patrol the night before. On some unspoken agreement, they waited for Jason to come back.

Roy wondered, briefly, when it had become the two of them instead of just him. He knew, of course. About three weeks ago, when he’d suggested that Kyle stay the night, but the actual sensation of it being the three of them against the world instead of just him and Jason had come on gradually.

The hours ticked by. Roy kept pacing. He wished he could get away with shooting arrows into the wall, but if Jason didn’t hate him already, he would, just for that. Roy kept pacing and tried to ignore the fact that Jason had yelled back at him, like he always did, like they both always did when they fought because anger was easy, but when Kyle had said three sentences, that had been too much. Jason had left rather than yelling at Kyle. When had that happened? Didn’t they hate each other?

The part of Roy’s brain that was still, after all this time, telling him to get drunk, whispered that maybe Jason just liked Kyle better. After three weeks, maybe he’d finally come to terms with whatever the attraction was between the two of them, maybe they’d just live together and Roy would find another place, he always found another place, it’d be just like after Kori and–

He shook his head. He’d gotten better at ignoring the shit his brain told him, but goddamn if it didn’t still sting. Jason wasn’t Kori. Jason was his best friend. They’d had fights before. He’d be back.

He couldn’t get the scar out of his head. A thick, white line of tissue across Jason’s neck. Roy felt a cold kind of certainty settle over him that he’d never be able to talk to Bruce in a civil way without lunging at him. He’d never win in a fight against Batman, but he could fucking well try. He’d do some damage.

He shook his head again. Beating up Jason’s father figure wouldn’t fix anything. It’d make Roy feel a hell of a lot better, but it wouldn’t fix anything.

He was aware that he was a little bit in love with Jason. He had been for a while, it had always been just a fact of life that he was not going to act on under any circumstances because this friendship was all that was keeping him from getting drunk some days. Not that he’d tell Jason that, that was a shitty thing to put on someone and way too much pressure, but they had to stay friends. They would have just stayed friends if it wasn’t for Kyle and, yes, maybe Roy was a jealous person, but that was far from his worst quality, so he thought he was allowed to be a little jealous when his best friend who he was a little bit in love with yelled at him and left rather than yelling at the guy he was supposed to hate–

“You’re beating yourself up,” Kyle said, gently, still drawing. “I can hear you thinking shitty things that aren’t true.”

Roy was too surprised to come up with something clever. “Is that a Lantern power?”

Kyle snorted. “No, you just think very loudly. He’ll come back.”

“Yeah? How do you know?” It came out more bitter than he’d intended.

Kyle looked up at that. His expression was unreadable. “You’re his best friend. He’s not gonna stay mad at you for long.”

Roy felt something in his throat. What was it with Kyle and almost making people cry? “Shouldn’t have pushed him. It was none of our business.”

“When he comes back, we’ll apologize.”

He made it sound so easy. “We?”

“Yeah. We both fucked up.”

Roy heard himself say, “He didn’t yell at you.”

Kyle smiled. “He’s yelled at me plenty of times. When we first met–”

Roy cut him off, “But it’s different now. You two are…closer,” he finished lamely.

“Yeah, all three of us are.”

For someone whose whole thing was being in touch with his emotions, Kyle was pretty fucking oblivious. “If we had alcohol in this place, I would have relapsed,” Roy said, for no particular reason. He just wanted to get it out of his head.

Kyle tilted his head to the side, still wearing that neutral expression. “But you haven’t.”

“But I would have.”

“But you haven’t. Don’t worry about the hypotheticals so much. You’re having a shitty time and you haven’t relapsed. No point being mean to yourself about stuff that hasn’t happened.”

It’d be a lot easier to be jealous of Kyle if he stopped being so goddamn nice. Roy stopped pacing and sat down on the couch next to him. “What are you drawing?”

Kyle tried to slam the sketchbook shut immediately, but Roy hadn’t been developing vigilante reflexes all these years for nothing. He grabbed it out of Kyle’s hand, keeping one arm up to stop him from taking it back. On the page it was open to was a sketch of…a couple things actually.

Along the borders of the paper, there were various unformed lines and shapes. What looked like a mech stood in the corner. Roy had seen Kyle make a similar shape out of his constructs in a fight before. “Is that a Jaeger?”

“Give it back!” Kyle made a grab for it and Roy held it out of his reach.

“These are really good! What are you so worried about?”

“Just give it back, Roy!”

Roy turned so his back was facing Kyle and flipped the page and– Oh.

There were sketches of him. Him and Jason. Mostly half-finished drawings. There was Roy working on making a bomb on the floor. There was him and Jason asleep on the couch with their legs tangled together. The most finished-looking one was of them on a patrol, Roy standing up with an arrow drawn and Jason crouched in front of him, aiming a gun.

A green construct hand pulled the book away from Roy. He looked up.

Kyle grabbed the book out of the air and slammed it shut. “It’s nothing. Don’t tell him.”

“Kyle, those are cool as fuck! How are you actually good at art?” Roy asked. He was going to ignore the implications of those drawings of them. Let Kyle think he hadn’t caught on. It was usually easier for people to think of Roy as an overly hyper idiot.

Kyle opened his mouth and then closed it. He clearly hadn’t expected that. He finally said, “I went to art school, Roy.”

“Well, sure, but you’re like good-good.”

Kyle scoffed. He was hugging the book close to his chest now. Roy felt a little bad. “Can you just forget you saw any of it?” Kyle asked.

“Saw what?” Kyle rolled his eyes. “No, seriously, I’ve got the memory span of a fucking goldfish. I think it’s all the head trauma. I can’t remember shit.”

Kyle just stared at him again. “You know, no one who’s actually had a conversation with you is gonna fall for your whole ‘dumb’ act. I’ve seen you invent a dozen gadgets since I’ve moved in. You’re clearly very smart, Roy.”

And then, as proof that there was in fact a god, Jason came in and Roy was spared from replying to that.

He looked worse than Roy felt. He hadn’t thought that was possible.

Jason shut the door and leaned against it. For a moment, none of them said anything. Then, Jason started, “Can we just forget about–”

“I’m sorry,” Roy blurted out.

Jason’s eyes widened in a way that would have been really funnyt. “It’s–”

Roy couldn’t stop himself at this point, though. “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten mad, it’s your thing, I don’t have a right to get mad about it, I’m sorry I asked about it in the first place, I’ve felt fucking awful, and you absolutely have a right to be pissed at me, but please, please don’t be pissed at me because I am going to cry if you are.” He paused to take a breath and then added, “It’ll be embarrassing for all of us.”

Jason covered his mouth with his hand and his shoulders were shaking. Oh no. Oh no– oh yep, he was laughing. He was laughing at his best friend.

Roy would have been offended, but he was too fucking relieved.

Jason moved his hand, doubling over. “Roy, you absolute disaster,” he gasped out. “Did you think I was pissed at you?”

“No.” Yes. Yes, very much.

Jason straightened up and wiped his eyes. “Alright. Jesus. Kyle, you got a monologue prepared?”

“Me? Oh, no, I wasn’t that worried,” Kyle replied. Fucking traitor.

Jason sighed. The laughter was gone, but he was still smiling a bit. “If I ever want Bruce killed, I’ll ask you, alright?”

Roy found himself grinning. “Right.”

“And then I’ll ask Dick to hide nearby and film you getting your ass handed to you. He’s Batman, Roy! Are you insane? You think you could beat Batman?”

“I could try,” Roy said, feeling a bit insulted now. “I’ve beat you.”

Jason scoffed. “Oh please, when have you beat me?”

“In training.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I let you win.”

“What if it was me and Roy?” Kyle asked, suddenly.

Roy and Jason both stopped talking, presumably visualizing the fight. “Maybe,” Jason said, slowly.

“If I could booby-trap the place beforehand and Bruce didn’t know the terrain,” Roy put in.

“With Kyle’s powers? Yeah, I think so. It’d be a close one,” Jason agreed.

“It’s settled then,” Kyle said. “We’ve got a contingency plan for killing Batman.”

And then all three of them were laughing, the hysterical, relieved laughter of people who had all been worried about a friendship ending who were now contemplating the murder of one of their fathers.

By the time they calmed down, Jason was sprawled on the couch between the other two.

“Never leave like that again,” Roy muttered. “Scared the shit out of me.”

Jason grinned. “Yeah? I thought you weren’t worried?”

“Fuck off.”

A comfortable silence settled. The couch was just big enough to hold the three of them. Kyle had pulled back into the corner, but even so, he was almost pressed against Jason. Jason, of course, didn’t seem to mind. Roy put his legs up onto Jason’s lap and leaned against the back. No way was he getting up to go to bed. He’d sleep like this. He’d take the back pain.

Jason folded his arms over Roy’s legs. “Rayner, get the remote.”

The green hand appeared again, grabbing the remote from the coffee table.

“That has to be against some Corps rules,” Jason muttered as Kyle flicked through the channels.

“You’re the one who asked me to get it,” Kyle shot back. “Fuck was I supposed to do, get up?”

As Roy slowly fell asleep, exhausted from the pacing and the thinking and the urge to throw it all away and relapse, he listened to Kyle and Jason arguing and thought that he hadn’t been this happy since Kori left.

He didn’t have time to wonder what that meant before he drifted off.

—

It was the last day of Kyle’s one-month agreement when it happened.

In the coming weeks, he would analyze every moment leading up to it, going over them over and over. It had seemed so normal at the time.

They’d just gotten back from patrol, bickering as they climbed the stairs. Roy was in front, so Jason tossed him the apartment keys. Jason had his hood off already. Roy had pulled his mask off in the stairwell. They were all relaxed, on their way to the place where they wound down and patched up after missions. They’d come to think of it as a kind of home in the past few weeks. At least, Kyle had.

—

The night before, Roy had been laying on the couch tinkering with another project when he’d sat up suddenly. “Kyle, you worked with Hal Jordan, yeah?”

“Yeah?” Kyle replied from where he’d been sitting.

Roy laughed. “We’ve all been sidekicks then. This is like a goddamn rehab facility.”

Jason snorted and said, dry, “We should put a plaque on the door. ‘The Halfway Home for Washed Up Sidekicks’.”

They laughed.

—

Roy opened the door in a practiced motion and Kyle moved to go in, when Jason put out a hand to stop him.

“Something’s wrong,” Jason said.

Kyle scoffed. “You’re paranoid.”

Jason’s face hadn’t been funny. “No…no, something’s wrong, something isn’t– Roy, wait–”

Roy had gotten the door open and was a few steps inside when the apartment exploded.

It had been a matter of seconds at the time. Only in the coming weeks did Kyle piece together exactly what had happened.

When the blast hit, Roy got his bare arms up to cover his face on instinct as he was thrown backwards into Jason. The two of them hit the hallway wall. Roy’s arms and his front had severe burns. He and Jason both had broken ribs. One of Roy’s ribs had punctured a lung. The shock and pain had knocked him out.

Kyle hadn’t known any of that at the time. What he’d known was that there was a blast, Roy and Jason had been thrown back, and then, without even thinking about it, Kyle had crouched and thrown up a construct dome over the three of them, blocking out the fire and debris.

Their apartment was on the fifth floor. The building had twenty floors in total.

A dozen bombs had been planted, in addition to the prototypes Roy had had laying around. As a result, most of the building collapsed.

Kyle held it up off of them. He stayed there, holding it up with nothing but willpower, feeling his head begin to pound as the countless pounds of concrete pressed down around them. He was vaguely aware of Jason getting Roy down on his back, listening for breathing, checking for a pulse, muttering ‘no’ over and over under his breath as he checked. He was vaguely aware that his nose had started bleeding. He couldn’t get his hand up to wipe it away. All of his concentration was focused on keeping up the construct around them, the three of them, they had to be alright, they’d be alright, he’d make sure they were.

Kyle thought, feeling slightly insane, of the Greek myth of Atlas holding up the sky. So this is how he must have felt. The weight was unbearable.

“Kyle.”

He didn’t know how much longer he could hold it.

“Kyle, we need to get him out.” Jason’s voice was tight.

Kyle shut his eyes and focused on that. Jason was talking to him. That was important.

“Can you get us out of the rubble? He needs a doctor. I can get us there, just get us out. Please.”

In the coming weeks, Kyle couldn’t remember how exactly he’d gotten them out. He didn’t think he’d ever carried that much weight with his constructs before. He’d done it. That was the important part. He’d done it.

By the time they were outside, Roy was wheezing. That was the sound of his lung collapsing, Kyle learned later.

“Tell me where to go,” Kyle said. “I can fly us there.”

“Kyle, your nose is bleeding,” Jason replied. His voice broke.

“I can do it. Let me do it.”

Jason looked at him for a second and Kyle’s head was hurting too much to figure out what the look meant. Kyle flew them there as Jason gave directions.

They landed at the doorway of the clinic. Kyle made it inside and over to a chair before he passed out.

—

The first thing Kyle thought when he woke up was that this was the worst headache he’d ever had.

The second thing Kyle thought was, Roy. Jason.

He opened his eyes, sat up, and immediately regretted it. He was in a bed. There was an IV in his arm. His head felt like it had been run over by a truck.

“Morning,” he heard from his right.

He opened his eyes, slowly, grimacing against the light. Jason was sitting in a chair next to his bed, holding an ice pack to his ribs. There were a variety of cuts along his face and a bandage around his head. A line of blood had dried along his temple.

“You look like shit,” Kyle said.

Jason smiled, but it looked hollow. What had happened to make him look like that? What had–

“Roy. Fuck. Is he okay? Is he–”

“He’s alive,” Jason replied. “One of his ribs went into his lung.”

“Fuck,” Kyle said, with feeling. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“He’s getting surgery. I know the doctor. She’s worked with all the bats.” He must have seen something on Kyle’s face because he added, “I wouldn’t have taken him here if I didn’t trust her.”

“I know.”

There was silence, tense and awkward like it hadn’t been in a month. “It’s been a month, you know,” Kyle said, just to say something.

Jason’s face went completely blank. “Right.”

“I can officially say being in Gotham is worse than being in space.” Kyle smiled.

Jason didn’t smile back. “You can leave, you know.”

Kyle’s head was hurting. He’d just woken up and his head was hurting and he didn’t want to deal with this. “What?”

“You can leave,” Jason repeated, still blank. “I’ll take care of him. Don’t feel obligated or anything. We agreed to a month, the month is over and, like you said, Gotham’s shit anyway. I wouldn’t want to force you to stay here.”

Kyle shut his eyes and covered them with his hands, trying to stop the light from making the throbbing in his head any worse. What was happening? They had been good. The night before, everything had been fine. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

Jason sighed. “Why are you here, Kyle?”

The answer came easily. “Because we’re friends.”

“Are we? You get annoyed at everything I say. You’re uncomfortable around me. You disagree with my methods–”

“That’s not true.” Kyle pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Maybe this was a dream. Maybe this was all just a nightmare and Roy was fine and he and Jason could be around each other without bringing this shit up again.

“Isn’t it?” How did he sound so calm about this? “How do you feel about me, Kyle? Because, from what I’ve seen, it looks like you’re only here because we agreed on it, because you’re too stubborn to go back on a dare. Is that it?”

Kyle uncovered his eyes to glare at Jason. “Why are you being like this!?”

“My best friend almost died!” Jason snapped and his voice broke with the first emotion he’d shown since Kyle woke up. Jason took a second to compose himself again, but the crack in his demeanor was still there when he continued, softer, “My best friend almost died in the same way I died and you…you’ve been repressing shit all month and I was happy to let you do it, but I can’t afford to wait for you anymore. I’ve got more important shit to worry about now, so…” He inhaled, like he was preparing to get hit. “Either you hate me and that’s fine and you can leave or…you own up to what you’re feeling, Kyle.”

Kyle thought he’d felt better when he was holding up a building. “Just like that? All or nothing?”

“All or nothing.” Jason met his gaze, unflinching. “Take us or leave us.”

Kyle felt a hysterical laugh bubbling up. “What, both of you? Shouldn’t you wait for Roy to be conscious before you give me an ultimatum on his behalf?”

Jason got up, ignoring the fact that his ribs were presumably at least bruised. “If this is a joke to you–”

“I like you!” Kyle yelled. “Okay? I really like you. Both of you. Fuck.” He pressed his hands into his eyes again. The pain was almost nice, now. He could focus on that and ignore the silence from the man next to him.

The silence stretched on for a while. Way longer than you really wanted it to after a confession, especially a borderline coerced one. Kyle was getting ready to say that it was all an elaborate bit when Jason said, finally, “Hey, look at me.”

Kyle debated not doing it, but that would make him seem even more childish than he did already. He moved his hands away again.

He had a second to register that Jason was closer than he’d been expecting and then Jason kissed him.

—

Roy woke up with a gasp and immediately regretted it. His whole chest was on fire.

He was in a bed he didn’t remember, staring up at fluorescent lights, and there was a needle in his arm.

There was a needle in his arm.

It hurt to hyperventilate, but he couldn’t control his breathing anymore. There was a needle (a voice that sounded like Ollie’s in his mind said, ‘it’s an IV, you’re being dramatic’) and he had to get it out–

He tried to push himself up onto his elbows and immediately fell back, crying out in pain. His arms…Jesus, his arms.

Kyle was there, holding Roy down, saying something…something.

“There’s a needle,” Roy tried. His voice was coming out wrong. Hoarse. “I need to…get it out.”

Kyle shook his head. “No, no, it’s just an IV, it’s alright.”

Kyle was leaning over the bed and his face was right in front of Roy. Roy focused on that, trying to forget about the sensation of metal in his arm. (‘You’ve been shot before, Roy, how is this worse?’) It was worse, Ollie, it was. “...where am I?”

“How much do you remember?”

Opening the door. Jason yelling for him to wait. The tell-tale click before a wave of heat. Throwing his arms up–

God, his arms.

Jason had been just behind him. He wouldn’t have been able to handle getting blown up again, he still woke up from nightmares. Roy tried to sit up again. “Jason–”

“He’s fine,” Kyle said, hurriedly, one hand on Roy’s shoulder keeping him down. Kyle nodded towards the other side of Roy’s bed.

Jason was slumped in a chair, asleep. Kyle’s jacket was thrown over him.

Kyle’s jacket–

Oh. Right.

“He stayed up as long as he could,” Kyle said and his voice held something that hadn’t been there before, not in the whole month of them living together. “Do you want me to wake him up?”

“No…it’s fine.” They got together while Roy was unconscious. He leaned his head back and shut his eyes. Of course they did. A month of being happy was too long for the constant, neverending shitshow that was Roy Harper’s life. He’d been wondering when God would kick him in the ribs. He didn’t think it’d be this literal, but.

Kyle’s hand was gone and Roy heard him go around the bed. “Jason,” he said softly. “Hey, wake up.”

Roy opened his eyes. Kyle’s hand was on Jason’s shoulder. This was normal. This was so normal. Roy was happy for them, really. He’d be happy when his ribs stopped being on fire.

Jason woke up in his unnerving way of sitting bolt upright. His eyes met Roy’s. He smiled.

Roy would be so happy for him once he was out of the hospital. “How do I look?” he rasped.

“Awful,” Jason replied. “Like something from a Goosebumps novel. How are you feeling?”

Roy made an all-encompassing noise that he hoped conveyed how much pain he was in. “There’s a needle in my arm.”

He expected Jason to make some sort of joke about that being Roy’s top concern, but Jason’s smile faded. “Shit, I’m sorry. Doctor Thompkins said you needed it, after the surgery.”

“I had surgery?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you had surgery.” Jason rubbed a hand over his face. He looked exhausted.

Trying to change the topic, Roy said, “Did you guys get together while I was in surgery?”

Jason looked up at him, then. Roy was too out of it to process what the look meant. “What do you mean, ‘you’?” Jason asked, slowly.

“Like, you two. You and Kyle.”

Jason looked at Kyle. “What did you tell him?”

“I didn’t tell him anything!” Kyle shot back. “I thought I’d wait for you since you basically coerced me into this.”

“I gave you options!”

“The options were ‘date us’ or ‘leave Gotham’!”

“And here you are, not leaving Gotham!”

Roy was having trouble following the argument, so he’d probably heard wrong. “Us? Date us?”

Jason sighed, loudly. “Yes, you idiot. It’s the three of us.”

Roy had misinterpreted something somewhere along the way. Things that were too good to be true never happened to him. Somewhere between the pain and the drugs going into his arm he must have misunderstood. “The three of us as in…”

Jason took his hand and said, in a very gentle tone, “Roy. You’re my best friend. I like you very, very much. But you’re such a fucking dumbass.”

Roy started to laugh, a sound that turned into a gasp of pain.

“Don’t laugh!” Kyle sounded horrified, which made Roy try laughing again, which hurt even worse.

He gasped out, “Oh, god…if this is a fever dream, I’m gonna be so pissed when I wake up.”

Jason scoffed. “Yeah, it’s not a fever dream. We’re all dating. Stop being stupid.”

Kyle said, “You can’t just tell him we’re dating, I think I read somewhere that you usually ask the person instead of just informing them.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jason replied, dripping with sarcasm. “Roy, would you like to date us?”

“Yeah,” Roy said. He was probably grinning like an idiot. He’d blame it on the drugs.

Jason laughed at the expression on his face. “Yeah? Okay. I feel like I’m gonna have to remind you about this conversation when you can stay conscious for longer than two minutes.”

“I can stay conscious fine,” Roy whispered before promptly passing out.

—

Jason waited a week.

Leslie had said he had a few cracked ribs that would heal on their own. With rest, she’d emphasized, looking at Jason like she knew exactly what he was thinking. She probably did. She’d known him since he was the new Robin, coming in with cuts and scrapes along with Bruce.

She knew he’d go out to get revenge and she knew better than to try and stop him. She’d just sighed and told him to make sure he didn’t make his ribs worse.

He wouldn’t. He had no intention of letting the other guy get a hit in.

Roy was still swimming in and out of consciousness, but the surgery had gone fine. He’d need rest, too. Jason shuddered to think what keeping fully conscious Roy in bed for even a couple weeks would take. They could always put him in a coma, but something told him Kyle would be against that.

He’d considered taking Kyle with him to do this, but…well. The way he got revenge had gotten even the people who supposedly loved him the most to turn on him. He didn’t want to risk freaking Kyle out.

He would’ve taken Roy. Roy was a very nice person, but there was something unflinching under that. They’d killed enough people together for him to not be worried about Roy balking at the worse parts of Jason’s vigilantism. But Kyle was just nice. Just a superhero, not a gun for hire. Why make him get his hands dirty?

Besides, Jason had lived with Bruce long enough to learn that asking for help was never worth it.

Which is why, when he put his mask on and left the building, he wasn’t expecting to see Kyle outside leaning against the wall, already in his uniform.

“Penguin, right?” Kyle said, like they’d already been in the middle of a conversation.

Jason stopped in his tracks. “You are not coming with me.”

“Of course not.”

“Kyle, I mean it. I’ve got this. Somebody should stay with him–”

“With who?” Kyle asked.

This was obviously a trap, but Jason couldn’t figure out how to avoid it. “Roy.”

“Roy, our boyfriend? The guy we’re both dating? You know, both of us, Jason? That one?” Kyle looked entirely too pleased with himself.

Goddamn Green Lanterns and their goddamn stubbornness. Jason started walking. “I don’t need your help.”

Kyle fell into step with him. “I know.”

“I can do this alone.”

“I know.” Then, Kyle added, “Did it ever occur to you that I might wanna kick this guy’s ass too? He would have killed us. He almost killed Roy. What makes you think you have a monopoly on revenge?”

Jason sighed. “You’re not gonna like the kind of revenge I take.”

Kyle snorted. “Oh yeah, you’re broody and mysterious. Jason, I’ve been going on patrol with you for a month. I know what you do. It’s fine. I’m not as nice as you both think I am.”

Jason put his hood on so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with the guy he was dating. “Let’s just get this over with.”

—

Finding the Penguin was easy. His security was pretty shit. Twenty armed men were stationed around the club where he spent his time. Enough to deter most people, sure, but Jason wasn’t most people. With all of Bruce’s flaws, he trained his kids well. It took Jason and Kyle ten minutes to work their way up to the second floor of the club.

When Red Hood kicked in his office door, Cobblepot had the decency to look surprised as he pulled out his pistol. He didn’t wait for Jason to move, firing off all six rounds as soon as he had it out.

They hadn’t planned it before, but as soon as Cobblepot started firing, Kyle threw up a construct in front of Jason. A green mech suit appeared, matching Jason’s movements as he approached Cobblepot’s desk. The bullets glinted off the surface.

The construct disappeared as Jason jumped over the desk in one motion, grabbed the man’s wrist, and twisted it. Cobblepot let the gun go with a yelp. Jason twisted his wrist further. There was an audible crack.

“You really shouldn’t have planted bombs in our apartment,” Jason said, over the man’s screaming. “That was rude. Finding real estate is hell these days, you know.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Hood,” Cobblepot hissed through his teeth. His wrist was bent so his fingers pointed at the floor.

Jason hummed, considering. “You don’t? That’s funny. I could’ve sworn I heard someone say you were paying people to stalk me. Didn’t we hear that somewhere?” he asked Kyle.

Kyle pretended to consider. “That does sound familiar.”

“But obviously it wasn’t Mister Cobblepot here,” Jason continued. “He wouldn’t be that stupid. Especially after I haven’t done anything to him except interrupt some of his people.” He turned his attention back to the man, who was now shaking in pain. “It’s not like I’m a superhero. All I ask is that you don’t sell drugs near schools. Reasonable enough, I’d think. I would’ve ignored you entirely if you hadn’t gone and made it personal.”

Cobblepot sneered. “I see there’s only two of you. Where’s Arsenal? Did he get burned by this bombing you speak of? How unfortunate. I’d heard he liked explosives.”

Jason didn’t even think about it before he grabbed the man by his lapels, picked him up, and shoved him into the wall. “You should be glad he’s alive,” he hissed. “If you’d killed him, you’d be much worse off than a broken wrist.”

The man laughed, an ugly sound. “You vigilantes are all bark and no bite. Even Batman only ever puts people in Arkham.”

Jason pulled him forward and slammed him back into the wall. The back of his head smacked into it. “I’m not Batman!” Jason heard his own voice rising and didn’t even try to stop it. His blood was turning hot and, for once, he let the Pit take over. He pulled Cobblepot forward again and slammed him into the wall, again and again, punctuating each of his phrases. “If you ever try to hurt us again. They’ll be scraping your blood out of the woodwork for days. I’ll put your head up on a fucking stick. I’ll–”

Kyle put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s enough,” he said softly. “I think he gets your point.”

Jason felt the rage receding, slowly. He let go of Cobblepot’s suit and the man slumped down to the floor, unconscious. There was a spot of red on the wall. Jason hadn’t realized he’d broken the skin.

Kyle had seen him do that.

Jason stared forward at the wall, not wanting to see the expression on Kyle’s face.

“Come on,” Kyle said, finally. “Let’s go. We’re done here.”

Jason followed him out, out of the club past the mostly unfazed patrons (it took more than a couple vigilantes busting heads to faze Gothamites) and onto the street.

They made it a block away before Kyle said, dry, “Well, that was fun.”

“I told you you wouldn’t like the way I take revenge,” Jason replied. “I told you. This is why I wanted to go alone.”

“If I’d let you go alone, you would have killed him.” Kyle said it as a fact.

He was probably right. “Since when do you have a problem with killing?”

When he finally did look up, Kyle’s expression was…not upset or disgusted or even judgmental. Just thoughtful. He looked the way he had on every other patrol. “I have a problem when it’d leave a power vacuum in your city’s already shitty mob hierarchy,” he said. “It’s better to leave him alive for now. He seems like a coward. You scared the shit out of him. He won’t bother us again for a while.”

Jason blinked. It wasn’t this easy. It was never this easy. “That’s it?” He tried to find the words. There was always an apology to be made after Jason lost his cool. Always some disbelief, some blame from people who thought they were better than him because they didn’t kill or at least not like he did, who never got that angry, who didn’t understand–

“Yeah, that’s it,” Kyle replied. “You lost your shit a little back there, but…he hurt Roy. He deserved it.”

That was…a much better reaction than Jason had been expecting. “Are you saying you would’ve done the same thing?”

“With a little more finesse, maybe. But I guess this shithole city rubbed off on you.” Kyle grinned and suddenly he was annoying again.

Jason scoffed. “If it’s that shitty, you should leave.”

Kyle opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by a young voice calling, “Mister Hood! Mister Hood, wait!”

Jason turned around. They were passing the community center. He hadn’t noticed.

The young girl they’d met a couple weeks before was running down the steps towards them. Her hair was tied back and her clothes were cleaner than the ones she’d had before. Her bruises seemed to be healing nicely.

She stopped in front of them, fidgeting with her hands. “I’ve been hoping I’d see you. I wanted to say thanks.”

Jason smiled, grateful for the hood again. “For what?”

“The money and the, uh…tip.” She gestured back at the center.

“Yeah? Has the center been working out for you alright?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it’s a lot better.” She kept fidgeting, obviously uncomfortable now that she’d actually decided to talk to them. “I, uh…we heard Penguin blew up your place. My brother was kinda worried. He’s gonna be happy you’re alright.” She looked up at Kyle, then, apparently realizing someone was missing. “Oh…is Arsenal–”

“He’s fine,” Kyle said. “He’ll be alright.”

“Alright.” She quickly looked back at her hands. “My brother likes him, that’s good.”

“We just came back from talking to the Penguin, actually,” Jason said.

She looked up at him again. “Did you kick his ass?”

“Of course we did.”

She grinned, then, and suddenly looked so much younger. “Good. I’ll, uh, see you around, then. Thanks again.” She took off running back up the stairs.

“Stay out of trouble!” Kyle called after her.

Jason started walking again. After a couple steps, he realized Kyle was staring at him. “What?” he snapped.

Kyle laughed. “That was adorable.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Kyle kept laughing for a second longer and then fell silent. A minute later, he said, “You know, the city is a shithole, but I’m glad I’m with the guys trying to make it better.”

The hood was excellent for hiding Jason’s face getting red. Not that it ever did. Of course not. “Who’s adorable now, Rayner?”

Kyle elbowed him in the ribs, lightly. “Shut up. Let’s head back, Roy might be waking up soon.”

“He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out we went out without him,” Jason said.

Kyle hummed, considering. “The three of us could do something else together once he’s out of the hospital, to make up for it.”

“Oh yeah? Something else? Like what, Kyle?”

Kyle turned red. “Like a patrol! I meant like we could go on– you know what, fuck you.”

“I mean, if you want to. We should probably wait until Roy’s out of the hospital though.”

Kyle covered his face with his hands and Jason laughed, putting an arm around him as they approached the hospital.

Behind them, the sun rose over Gotham.