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Tweak says, "Geeks in love!"

dick grayson. (blackandblue) wrote in chances_rpg,
@ 2023-12-22 22:10:00

Entry tags:

dc: dick grayson (comics), dc: jason todd (comics)

LOG: DICK & JASON

Who. Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
When. December 19
Where. The Station
Warnings. references to canon death

Home sweet home, little wing.

Dick stared at his phone. All he’d been able to come up with, the lightest humor injected into the moment, had been exCUSE me. In reality, the floor had dropped out from under him and his heart slammed desperately in his chest. Jason wasn’t an uncommon first name, Todd wasn’t a rare surname. Surely there were plenty of Jason Todd people out there, especially when one brought a whole-ass multiverse into play.

But, really, was his luck that kind? Dick hesitated a moment over that thought. Either Jason was back from the dead (or had never died in the first place but that didn’t make sense, given the government-issued photo on the network) or the new person just happened to share a name. And he wasn’t sure which option was kindest because it all had varying degrees of… something that Dick couldn’t place. Emotions.

Regardless, he spun on a heel and started heading back toward home base: The Station.

No. Well. That wasn’t an acceptable reply, now was it? Dick frowned at his phone and typed a reply but doubled his pace. And then… and then that next reply just felt too right. Dick ran.

For Jason, there was no doubt in his mind that he was talking to the 'right' Dick Grayson. A younger Dick than the last time he'd seen him, maybe from not long after Jason had died, but that was definitely at least a version of the Dick he knew.

After his taunt about tracking him down, Jason waited a moment to see if he'd reply before figuring that Dick was doing just that. Tracking him down. Which meant that Jason had a choice: he could make it easy on him and stay in the lobby of the apartment building, or he could go find somewhere a little harder to get to and lurk there until Dick found him. For once, though, Jason didn't choose war. He was... just glad to see a familiar face, honestly. Next time, he'd make it harder on him.

Jason found a wall to lean against; on the surface he knew he looked effortlessly nonchalant, but his heart was racing. It was Dick, who he'd spent years both resenting and hero worshiping. He was always worried about what he thought.

Dick slid a little on the sidewalk as he adjusted his run to pull at the lobby doors; his movement was always so sure, so certain of how it moved and where it moved within the space. But as he stepped into the lobby with the expectation of getting ready to take the stairs two and three at a time as he went floor by floor--there was Jason.

Only... not.

Still, there was a certain level of confidence and arrogance that had to come with being a Robin at any point in time and Dick's missed stride lasted only a moment before he continued his approach. He didn't need to sprint across the lobby; the large man was waiting for him, that much was clear, and Dick took a moment to appreciate the thought put into that decision. He could have been a little shit about it. Dick cocked his head to the side a little, assessing, and stopped just within the edge of Jason's personal space. God, he knew those eyes. He had so many questions. So many. Questions, apologies, the list went on. Instead: "Fuck you for getting taller than me."

Jason's reply was a smirk. "I ate my veggies."

Actually, he was a little surprised he's grown as much as he has. He'd thought that early malnutrition screwed you over for life on that one. Or, alternatively, who knew how much larger he would have gotten if he'd had regular meals as a kid? Either way, taller than Dick was just fine.

If there had been any question before that moment, that particular brand of snark (even with the much deeper voice) was all Jason. Dick looked him over and then propped his hands on his hips. "Did you turn into a vegetarian?" he asked, dryly, and still only barely managed to ask the most pressing question: How?

He rocked back that step that had put him in Jason's space, just to give them both a little more breathing room. It had been a small test in and of itself. The average person wouldn't have appreciated a stranger coming up like that but Jason clearly trusted him enough to let it happen. They could shift into 'comfortable' instead.

"God no, give me a burger any day. But right now, I'm craving french toast. Come on, we've got a breakfast invite." With that, Jason breezed past him and started heading toward where he figured May's apartment would be.

Man he was going to look stupid if he was wrong.

Breakfast passed in a sort of a haze. They were on their best behavior, at least half because the situation was so bizarre. The other half, of course, was that Alfred had drilled manners into Jason whether he liked it or not, and when someone invited you into their home you used those manners. When they left with a final 'thank you' to their hostess, Jason's shoulders tensed.

"So..." He didn't quite look at Dick as they walked. "I guess I need to figure out where I'm supposed to be crashing."

There were so many things Jason needed to do. He needed to reacquire weapons, and some version of body armor even if it was just a leather jacket to start with. He needed safehouses and he needed a computer and he needed contacts, everything he'd been building up since he'd come back.

"The Hell you do," Dick scoffed. "And how is it fair that you get offered a home-cooked meal while I get Chinese recommendations? Okay, to be fair, the request was part of the list I started with but still." There wasn't a question of taking the stairs; an elevator was a kill box unless you already knew you could control the situation and this was still unsteady. "Whatever apartment they put you in I'll just break into as often as I need to until you get it that I'm not leaving you alone. So you might as well come with me anyway."

He sighed, raking his fingers through his hair before climbing the flight of stairs that would bring them to the floor his apartment was on. His assigned apartment. Dick hadn't bothered to lock the door because, one, he didn't have anything to steal and, two, he welcomed the attempt since it would have given him something to do. "Home sweet home, little wing," Dick murmured as he walked in. He turned, the questions still just barely being restrained.

Yeah. Yeah, this Dick had definitely never met the resurrected Jason before, or he wouldn't have been talking to him so fondly. Like he was still that angry (angrier) kid that Dick had cared about, once upon a time.

Maybe it was that fondness that made him actually consider. Maybe it was knowing that he'd probably end up with a roommate anyway, so it may as well be one that wouldn't get suspicious of any of Jason's activities. If they were going to be living together, though...

Jason sighed. "Just ask. Before you hurt yourself."

"How?" The question was simple and out before he could even consider a better way to ask it. Dick stared (up!) at Jason and his hands came out in a helpless gesture. "I don't- How? And when?" Which also made it crystal clear that Dick had no idea it had even been possible in the first place.

"Talia Al Ghul. Lazarus Pit. About six...ish?.. months after I died." Jason shrugged broad shoulders. "I was a little... messed up. At first. It's mostly under control, now."

A very brief synopsis of years of history that Dick didn't have with him yet. It was fine. Jason didn't have to give him a blow-by-blow.

Way too much of that information made sense but Dick found himself almost-flinching. He couldn't put an accurate term on the movement he made. "Six months?" Dick repeated, a little more loudly than strictly necessary. And then there was a wordless gesture with a hand that encompassed... all of that which was apparently Jason Todd.

Dick paced away, clearly just needing to move while his brain worked overtime and trying to fit pieces together that were missing entire swaths of other pieces. An interrogation wasn't going to go over well, not that he could even try to force the issue, and Dick spun on his heel to face Jason again. He began to tick off points on his fingers. "We're in San Francisco, there is no Gotham, they've never heard of Batman or Superman here, Bludhaven and Metropolis don't exist, none of our contacts are here, and we're starting from scratch." He needed an extra thumb for that last point." He blew out a breath and his head tilted with a small look of concession. "There's a Batmobile here, though, so there's that. And I've got my Nightwing suit. The, uh, the new one."

"I'd already changed," Jason complained. Street clothes were much easier to replace than body armor, after all. If he was going to get dropped in some weird alternate universe, he'd rather have done it in costume.

With a heavy sigh, he rolled his neck and shoulders, trying to work out a stubborn kink in his spine. "So we start from scratch. I've done it before. I know..."

Before he could launch a verbal barb about daddy's money in Dick's direction, Jason stopped and took a deep breath. He just... it was nice, okay? Getting a fresh start with Dick.

"We start from scratch. We'll be fine."

Blue eyes had darkened only briefly as he knew exactly where Jason was about to go and then felt his shoulders loosen as the other man--man!--changed tactics mid-sentence. Everything still felt so completely off-kilter.

Still, even that felt somewhat... normal. Dick blew out another breath that sounded frustrated and exhausted all at once. There were chasms worth of information that he was missing. He moved to the countertop where his freshly-gifted laptop sat and opened it up. Thank you, government liaison Angie Smith. "We can get jobs while we sort this out and get our feet under us. We've started with worse," Dick said quietly as he entered in a too-complicated password. "In the meantime? I've got Netflix and you're getting your own account because you aren't messing up my to-watch list. I need to catch up." Another point in the column for how behind Dick was. But his back was to Jason and the tension returned to his shoulders. "Does Bruce know?" he asked in a low voice.

"He knows," Jason said. "We work together, sometimes. As long as I'm willing to be a good boy."

They'd get there. Bruce would figure out that he needed Jason, needed someone willing to cross the lines that he never would. That Dick never would, either, because he was and always would be the golden child.

"I'm not actually sure what work skills I even have," he admitted as an afterthought. "Not like I've ever held a real job before."

At that, Dick snorted. It was hard to tell which part he found amusing. Jason being a good boy, maybe, but he turned and looked over the too-big man with a raised eyebrow. "Security," he said, simply. "Easy to do at nights. Bodyguard. Things that don't require police or military credentials."

He leaned against the counter and folded his arms against his chest. "Supposedly our baseline credentials here are above-board but it's not like we can't forge our own," Dick pointed out. Golden child was a very specific category and lying to be able to slip in amongst the civilians wasn't exactly frowned upon in their circle. His smile sort of... twitched into place. "Apparently there's a circus."

"Oh, well, problem solved." Jason snorted. Actually, not the worst of options for Dick, if he couldn't get a gig in security... but there was no reason they shouldn't be able to make that work, right? Unless there was a shortage of jobs in the city... but Jason wasn't ready to borrow trouble yet. That was more of a day two kind of thing.

Just standing around awkwardly in the middle of the apartment felt... yeah, okay, awkward was the only word that he was coming up with right then. He followed Dick toward the kitchen, put his back against a walk and mirrored Dick's arm cross without even thinking about it. "Ben's taking me to the store tomorrow. I won't be able to get more than the basics there, but the basics is more than I have right now. Other things are going to take more time to establish."

Weapons. He was talking about weapons, mostly, and other supplies for their... volunteer work. "I'll look around for abandoned warehouses, the usual. Somewhere to set up a base of operations that won't be traceable to us."

It felt a little better, starting to get his plans together. Figuring out where to at least start. Jason felt a little less adrift when he had something to do. He felt even better when he had asses to kick, but that was going to have to wait for a little while, at least.

Dick took a moment to rub the index and middle fingers of one hand between his eyebrows. "One warehouse is already accounted for," he muttered; habit was habit, after all. Considering the time of day he'd shown up, Dick had three and and a half days worth of lead time on Jason. He'd been off to his next task when Jason had posted. "And you won't fit into anything I got at the thrift store the first day I was here so, yeah, take Ben up on it." There was a surprising tone just under the name and Dick huffed out a sigh. He pushed off the counter and stalked back toward Jason but this time didn't stop.

He hugged Jason, dragging the man down enough so Dick could get a proper arm around his neck while the other looped from under Jason's arm to press into his shoulder. Forget the manly pats on the back. Jason had died. Jason had been gone. It was a weight that Dick felt, acutely, and couldn't talk about. Ever.

Jason froze, startled, not reacting at all to the hug for a moment. Then, with a long sigh, tension leaking out of him like air out of a balloon, he wrapped his arms around Dick as well.

There hadn't been many hugs in his life. Jason just didn't attract huggers, he guessed. He'd always been a little too sharp to be huggable anyway. He held himself back a little from it, just in case he slipped and cut one of them somewhere vital. Part of him wanted to curl into the hug and soak it up for as long as he could, but this was one area where his head prevailed.

"God, I'm glad you're here," he admitted. It was the first time he'd ever said that to Dick, as far as he could remember; having to start from scratch alone would have been doable too, but to have someone to split the workload with? Someone he knew he could count on in a fight? Even just speaking practically, his chances were better with Dick than without him.

Dick felt the tension diminish and couldn't help the small smile, though it got smothered against Jason's shoulder. Their size difference was going to take some getting used to; he and Bruce didn't exactly hug it out with any real frequency.

"Hey," Dick said quietly as he (reluctantly) pulled back. "Same. The first day is a doozy, especially when you realize the only leg up you have is a generic welcome package and five grand. Which, admittedly, is more than most people get." Considering it was a one-time handout, one could get a lot started if they were any kind of smart. Dick liked to believe he wasn't an idiot. Now if he could just feel like he was on steady ground... Dick flicked Jason's ear as he drew backward and danced just out of reach should the man want to retaliate. "Between us we've got a generous eight to nine grand to feel solid-" in their line of work, just getting started, "-and we can pick up work quickly. We've got this." And maybe his bravado was a little false but Dick needed it just as much as Jason did. "So focus on civilian first. We work up to..."

Dick frowned and eyed Jason again but from a new mental angle. "What exactly are you wearing these days, anyway?”

"I'm going by Red Hood," Jason told him. He didn't want to know what Dick thought of that one, not really. They both knew where he'd gotten it from and what state of mind he had to have been in when he'd decided to start using it. It was his now, but still. "Body armor, leather jacket, helmet."

Honestly? Kudos to Dick for pulling off the whole skintight costume look, because Jason was pretty sure the look would just be ridiculous on him.

"The jacket I can get at that thrift store. The body armor and helmet are going to be trickier." Jason needed the helmet, though, no matter what else he settled on for the moment. The helmet was the most important part of the whole thing. "I'll have to custom make most of it."

So... yeah, probably a good thing if he shared with Dick. He could work on it openly, when it was just the two of them there. He'd have to source the components... but now he was getting ahead of himself again. Civvies first. Legit job second. Everything else? A distant third.

To his credit, Dick didn't even blink at the mention of Red Hood. Not because he wasn't surprised but because the weight of that was not a conversation either of them were going to have just then. He did, however, hold his silence a little longer than strictly necessary. And then his expression shifted to something with attitude and disbelief. "How is that any kind of stealthy? Next you're going to tell me you're stomping around in shit-kicker boots," Dick said and his eyes immediately dropped to the boots Jason was currently wearing. And he sighed. "Kids these days," he muttered, without heat.

"Alright. We probably need to source from out of state. California isn't friendly toward what you want but we've got some borders not impossibly far. We'll figure it out," Dick went on. If that's what Jason was running around in, Dick was going to make damn well sure it wasn't secondhand nonsense. Body armor needed to hold up. Helmet couldn't be as easy as a motorcycle helmet being modified because that weight would be all sorts of wrong. He shook the thought process off. Don't get ahead of yourself, Dick, just worry about the jump right in front of you and plan for the next. No further.

"Look, when you're built like..." Jason gestured down at himself, the sheer bulk of him even without the armor on. "...you play to your strengths. We can't all be nimble, Jack."

One of the strengths that came with Jason's size was intimidation, and he used it extensively in his work. Even if he wasn't going to the lengths he once had, even if he was going to hobble himself to try to get along with Bruce (and now Dick), he could still be a scary son of a bitch. There was nothing morally wrong with that.

He couldn't really argue with that. Bruce had height on them both but there was still a level of stealth in the uniform and the cape had been proven to confuse enemies as to where his body actually was. And to, you know, scare them shitless when he decided to drop in from above. The shadow of the Bat was bad enough.

"Want to go see the first warehouse? Since you're here, I guess I can get your input. I also want to get a garage because like Hell I'm putting together something in the parking garage here. But that's all later. After I wrestle with how bad it might go if we start hacking our way into more funds for our little venture." He gestured to the space. "Already scoured this place for bugs, for the record and dropped my own surveillance in. We can do a tour of those, too." Which was really where the first grand had gone, after the clothes Dick needed to pass as normal for a good week before laundry would be needed.

"Yeah, I wanna take a look at them." It wasn't that Jason didn't trust Dick's work. If there was someone else whose work he'd trust as much as his own, it was his predecessor as Bruce's sidekick. And he guessed Tim, too, if you twisted his arm. "And the warehouse. Then we can start looking around for job postings, get some ideas on what's out there for us."

It would probably be great if Jason got some sleep in there, somewhere; he'd been up the entire night working his newest case, on top of keeping up his usual patrols. It was fine, though, Jason had gone longer than this without sleep. They all had. He knew what it felt like when it started getting to a dangerous level, and he wasn't even close to there yet. He could push through for another day or two before he was delirious from it.

Dick clapped Jason on the shoulder and didn't let it show how weird it was that the man didn't even so much as shift a centimeter under the touch. Jason Todd had been so small when he'd died. But he did what he did best: he put one foot in front of the next, both mentally and physically. "Let's get moving, then. No time like the present."