#pt6

“—anyone, come in! I’ve got a situation at the docks, Smuggler’s Cove, warehouse seven.” It was Nightwing’s voice, tight with exertion and layered with the distinct, shrieking whine of overstressed electronics in the background. “They’re not just smugglers—they’ve got some kind of advanced sonic cannon. It’s frying my comms, my escrima sticks are about to short out, and it feels like my teeth are going to vibrate out of my skull.”

A brief burst of static, followed by the sound of grunting effort and a metallic clang. “I’ve managed to disable one emitter, but there are two more. I’m pinned down. Batman’s off-world, Oracle and Spoiler are neck-deep in that meta-human riot at Blackgate. Red Robin’s in the Bowery, twenty minutes out at best. Is anyone closer?”

A map of the city automatically superimposed on Jason’s HUD, his location and Dick’s flashing. He was, indeed, the closest. The old, ingrained instinct was a cold, immediate reflex: ‘Not my problem’. Let the perfect little acrobat untangle his own mess. Their carefully coordinated world can save itself.

But another instinct, newer and quieter, woven from late-night talks and the shared silence of a safehouse, whispered something else. He didn’t issue a challenge. He didn’t make a demand. He asked for help. He’s out of options, and he asked.

The internal war lasted only a second. With a grunt that was equal parts profound annoyance and weary resignation, Jason gunned his bike’s engine, swerving towards the docks. He keyed his comm, his voice a low growl.

“Hood. Four minutes out. Try not to get your eardrums ruptured before I get there.”

He made it in three.

The scene inside the warehouse was chaotic. The air itself seemed to be vibrating, a high-frequency whine that made Jason’s teeth ache the moment he kicked in a side door. Two large, dish-like emitters were mounted on crates, pulsing with visible waves of distorted air. In the center of it all, Nightwing was a blur of blue and black, but a slowed one. He moved like he was fighting through water, his movements slightly off-rhythm as the sonic waves disrupted his equilibrium. A hulking thug with a crowbar was capitalizing on it, swinging wildly as Dick barely managed to dodge.

Jason didn’t shout a warning. He just moved.

As the crowbar descended toward the back of Dick’s unguarded head, Jason crossed the distance in a few swift strides. He didn’t draw a gun. Instead, his armored forearm snapped up, blocking the metal bar with a sharp clang that cut through the sonic drone. The thug staggered back, shock on his face.

“You’re late,” Dick gasped, spinning around, his relief palpable even through his mask.

“You’re welcome,” Jason retorted, shoving the thug back with a grunt. “Now, which of these ugly satellite dishes is pissing you off the most?”

“The one on the left! Its resonance is linked to the other! Take it out and the whole system might cascade!”

“Finally, some useful intel.” Jason drew a pistol—not his usual lethal caliber, but a heavy-duty tranquilizer gun. “Cover me. Your sticks might be toast, but I doubt your pretty-boy flips are.”

“They’re called acrobatics,” Dick shot back, but a grin was already spreading on his face. He launched himself at two other advancing thugs, his movements becoming fluid and precise again now that he wasn’t fighting the sonic assault alone. “And you’re one to talk about pretty!”

Jason ignored him, lining up his shot. The sonic waves battered against him, but his heavier armor and helmet dampened the worst of it. He fired. The tranquilizer dart, weighted for penetration, slammed into the central power core of the left emitter. It sparked, fizzled, and died with a pathetic squeal.

Immediately, the remaining emitter’s whine became erratic, overloading without its partner. A moment later, it exploded in a shower of sparks, plunging the warehouse into a sudden, blessed silence that felt louder than the noise had.

In the new quiet, the remaining thugs were easy work. Jason provided brute-force takedowns—a disarming shove, a precise blow to a nerve cluster—while Dick flowed around him, using their momentum against them. It was over in less than a minute.

Dick leaned against a crate, catching his breath. “Okay, that was… surprisingly smooth.”

Jason holstered his weapon. “Don’t get used to it. I just didn’t feel like listening to your whining on the comms all night if you got your head bashed in.”

“Right. Because you’re all about peace and quiet,” Dick said, the grin back in his voice. He smiled, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “Seriously, Jay. Thanks.”

Jason just grunted, the sound non-committal, but he didn’t correct him. He didn't put his helmet back on, a small but significant concession. 

Dick, ever the optimist, saw the opening. And with a slow, genuine smile spreading across his face, he seized it. “I’m starving. Batburger? My treat.”

Jason eyed him, a familiar skepticism in his gaze. This was the part where things usually fell apart—where an offered olive branch was misinterpreted as pity or condescension. But the fight had been clean, and the backup had been… logical. And the gnawing hunger in his gut was real.

“Fine,” he bit out, as if doing Dick a favor. “But I’m getting the double deluxe with extra bacon. And a large chili fry.”

Dick’s smile widened. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

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Twenty minutes later, they were seated on the ledge of a rooftop overlooking the grimy, glittering artery of the Dixon Docks. The garish neon sign of the Batburger joint cast a pulsating, pink and yellow glow over them, a bizarrely cheerful bubble in the Gotham night. The greasy paper bags sat between them, the rich, greasy scent of fries and seared meat cutting through the city's familiar cocktail of exhaust and decay.

They ate in a silence that was, for the first time in memory, not fraught with animosity or the threat of violence. It was just… quiet. Comfortable.

Dick watched him. He couldn’t help it. He saw the way Jason just… sat. He wasn’t coiled like a spring, his shoulders weren’t hunched up around his ears as if waiting for a blow from any direction. He’d taken off his helmet, setting it carefully beside him, and was just eating his burger, his gaze scanning the streets and waterways below with a calm, analytical focus instead of a frown and pursed lips.

The changes were subtle but, Dick could see them as clear as water. The perpetual, bruised shadows that had lived under his eyes since his return had lightened. The gaunt, hollowed-out look that spoke of too many nightmares, too much rage, and not nearly enough peace, was gone. His face had more color, more life. He didn’t look happy, not in a way anyone else would recognize. But the crushing gloom that had clung to him like a second skin had lifted. He looked… present. Grounded. Lighter.

The hope in Dick’s chest, the one he’d been nursing since the clinic, swelled until it felt like it might choke him. It was real. This wasn't a fluke or a tactical feint.

“What?” Jason’s voice was flat, but not angry. He’d caught Dick staring, a single eyebrow raised over a bite of his burger.

Dick took a breath, and swallowed hard to get rid of the knot in his throat. “You just… you look good, Jason. Really.” He gestured vaguely with a fry. “You seem… lighter. I haven’t seen you this relaxed since… I don’t even know when.” He said awed with a slightly quivering whisper.

Jason froze, the burger halfway to his mouth. The observation shouldn’t have hit him that hard, but it did. Because it was true. The constant, screaming static in his head, the ever-present hum of the Pit’s rage that had been the soundtrack to his existence for years… it was quiet. The tension that had been his default state since long before the crowbar—a product of a life spent fighting for every breath—was just… gone. He felt settled in his own skin in a way he hadn’t since he was a child, before crime ridden alleys and Batman and dying. The realization was so shocking, so profound, it bypassed all his defenses.

He looked down at the burger in his hands, his brow furrowed as if it held the answers. “I, uh…” He trailed off, the automatic denial—I’m fine, nothing’s different, screw off—dying in his throat. He couldn’t lie. Not about this. Not when the evidence was a feeling of peace so foreign and solid it was unmistakable.

He gave a short, almost imperceptible nod, his eyes still fixed on the cityscape below. “Yeah,” he muttered, the word quiet, rough with a vulnerability he never showed. “I… feel better.”

The simple admission hung in the neon-lit air between them, more powerful than any declaration. Dick didn’t push. He didn’t crow in victory. He just nodded back, his own heart feeling too big for his chest.

“Good,” Dick said softly, turning his gaze back to the sprawling, wounded city they both called home. “That’s… that’s really good, Jay.”

And for once, sitting in the electric glow of a tacky fast-food sign, the greasy remains of their meal between them, it felt like it was.

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The Batcave’s usual silence was shattered by the sound of a bike retracting and a triumphant, whooping laugh.

Tim, who had been halfway through a report, nearly jumped out of his chair. He spun around to see Dick Grayson practically vibrating with energy, his Nightwing suit unzipped to the waist, hair a mess, and a grin so wide it looked like it might split his face.

“He said yes!” Dick announced to the cavernous space, his voice echoing.

Tim blinked, lowering his noise-canceling headphones. “To what?” he asked puzzled.

“To Batburger, Timmy! To Batburger!” Dick strode over, grabbing the back of Tim’s chair and spinning him away from the monitors. “And he talked! He actually talked!”

“Who… Jason?” Tim asked, the pieces clicking into place. He’d seen the alert about the docks situation but had been too buried in his own work to listen in.

“Yes, Jason! Who else?” Dick began pacing in front of the main computer, replaying the entire event with sweeping hand gestures. “I called for backup, he was the only one close, and he came. He didn’t just come, he blocked a crowbar meant for my head with this really cool, heroic forearm block—very classic superhero—and then we did the thing, you know, the thing where we banter and fight at the same time? It was like old times, but better! Because he wasn’t trying to kill me!”

Tim watched the performance, a faint smile touching his lips despite his best efforts to remain skeptical. “And this led to fast food how?”

“I asked him! I said, ‘I’m starving, Batburger?’ and he grunted, which is Jason for ‘I would be delighted, dear brother!’ and then he ordered the most cholesterol-packed item on the menu, just to bankrupt me, I think.” Dick stopped his pacing, his expression turning earnest. “But that’s not the important part, Tim. We sat on a roof. And we ate. And he was… calm.”

Dick leaned in, his voice dropping to a confidential whisper. “He took his helmet off. He just sat there, eating, watching the city. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look like he was five seconds from exploding. He looked… like he was okay with just being there. With me.” Dick’s lip quivered a bit, but it didn't stop the smile from stamping on his face.

Tim’s analytical mind, which had been running probability scans on the situation, finally quieted. He couldn’t algorithm his way around the raw, genuine hope on Dick’s face.

“So I told him he looked good. Lighter. And he…” Dick’s voice actually wavered a little with emotion. “He didn’t deny it. He got all quiet, and then he looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Yeah. I feel better.’” Dick eyes were misty, but his smile was as brilliant as the sun.

The data points were aligning. The reduced aggression stats, the tactical shifts, and now this—a verbal, conscious admission from the source himself. Tim let out a slow breath, the last of his resistance crumbling.

“He actually said that?” Tim asked, his voice soft. Hopeful.

“Word for word.” Dick nodded. “See? I told you. I told you it was the kid. It’s real, Tim. It’s actually real.”

Tim swiveled back to his keyboard for a moment, not to look at the screens, but to give himself a second to compose his face. When he looked back at Dick, he was offering a small, genuine smile of his own.

“Okay,” Tim said. “Okay. You were right.”

Dick’s triumphant whoop echoed through the Cave once more, and this time, Tim didn’t even flinch. For the first time in a long time, the sound of unfiltered hope in the Batcave didn’t feel like a prelude to disaster. It just felt good.

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This took a bit, but I like how it turned out. If there's questions about Bruce being off world, he was at the watchtower. He still has his own pack of unruly co-workers to tame, my man can't get a break fr.