Warmth Part 5
Title: Warmth Part 5
Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson
Rating: R
Warnings: references to rape, mature themes
Summary: "due to the sudden appearance of an angel on his shoulder, an angel that looked and sounded suspiciously like Dick."
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The next few days were an exercise in frustration for Jason Todd.
He was used to anger, he was used to it simmering under the surface of his skin like venom, the sensation had become nearly masochistically pleasurable. But Dick had managed to get far enough under his skin to leech the poison out and now he was left with dull frustration that didn’t fulfill the pain he’d grown used to.
His frustration was amplified at that moment and was apparently due to the sudden appearance of an angel on his shoulder, an angel that looked and sounded suspiciously like Dick.
The angel whispered to him in seductive tones.
Use the tranquilizers tonight. It said.
Rubber bullets will be just as effective for what you’re going for. It said.
He doesn’t need to die. They don’t need to die. It said.
He couldn’t seem to will it away. The damn voice dogged him everywhere he went. And with that damn invisible angel’s eyes watching his every move he couldn’t bring himself to kill, couldn’t summon the rage that made him ruthless.
So, the score was currently sitting at a few drug dealers and their bosses taken care of, trussed up for the cops, with barely any blood spilt.
It was painfully nostalgic, this accomplished feeling he got as he saw the police cart off the villains. It brought him back to days of careless laughter and running at Batman’s side. Those days when he’d done backflips because, hell, back flips were fun. And because Dick had been the one to show him how. And even back then, Dick had been… the core, the heart, the center. Everything.
His chest hurt as he headed in through the window of his latest shithole apartment. He hadn’t gone to see Dick again… He felt like he should. He glanced at the clock. 3:30. Still early for their lot… But, no. Not yet. He wasn’t ready to see the face behind the voice that had been whispering morality to him, sucking the poison out of his soul.
He would have called it an early night, would have crawled into bed and had another all-too vivid dream of Dick’s body pressed against his, but then his phone rang.
He pulled it out of his pocket and frowned at the unknown number. He’d gotten this disposable cell so that his contacts could reach him, so that the information network he’d established could get to him as easily as possible, but he hadn’t expected anything this quickly…
He decided answering was better than hoping they would leave a message.
He pressed the button and held it to his ear, silent and waiting.
“Hello? Jason?” The voice on the other end was young, but serious, totally new to him. But he could certainly guess who it belonged to.
“This is Rob-… Tim Drake.” The voice continued and Jason smirked a little. He’d guessed right.
“Ah, if it isn’t the Baby Bird. How did you get this number?” he demanded coolly.
“That doesn’t matter.” Tim said quickly, tone Bat-serious and edged with concern. “I need you to go to Dick’s apartment.”
Jason blinked. He hadn’t known what to expect from this, but that definitely hadn’t been it.
“What?”
There was a sigh on the other end. “Look, no one has been able to get any contact with Nightwing for the past few days, not even Oracle. We’re worried. But every time someone goes to his place he’s nowhere to be found. I think we can both agree that he won’t be found unless he wants to be… Bruce seems to think that he’ll want to be found by you.”
Jason had to scowl at that. Since when was Bruce encouraging that?
“I doubt he’ll see me, but I’ll see what I can do.” He said gruffly. He scowled as he reminded himself to get a new phone, a.s.a.p.
He hung up without another word and turned back to the window. He only hesitated a moment before he headed back out into the dark. He didn’t like helping out his replacement, in fact the sound of the kid’s voice alone was setting that simmering feeling under his skin to boil once again. But Dick was the focus here, and Dick would be upset if he hurt Tim. Dick liked Tim, for whatever ungodly reason. Jason suspected that it had something to do with Dick’s whole ‘big happy batfamily’ ideal that he tried to keep alive. He wanted to play big brother, he enjoyed it. He entirely overcompensated for Batman’s lack of contact, emotional or physical.
By the time he arrived at Dick’s apartment in Bludhaven he was already thinking that this wouldn’t be a fruitful search. All of the lights were out in the windows and when he peeked inside the bedroom one, he didn’t see the silhouette of a figure on the bed. When Dick was awake he liked the light, he turned every one on in the apartment and wandered from room to room in that endlessly energetic way of his, like he couldn’t possibly hold still.
Jason decided to step inside anyway.
It took him awhile to get past the security on the window, Bats always had tougher places to get into then damn bank vaults, but he managed it after a while, sliding into Dick’s bedroom. His boots were silent on the plush carpet. He was still in full Red Hood gear, which he figured probably wasn’t the best way to come in, but he’d wanted to get here fast and he hadn’t really thought before he’d headed out. He pulled his helmet off and shook off the helmet hair, looking around the room for a few moments before stepping out into the hall.
He looked one way then the other, surprised when he saw a light down the hall, too dim for him to have seen out the windows. He followed the faint glow towards what appeared to be a bathroom with the door cracked open and the light shining out. He could hear the sound of the shower spray from outside the door and couldn’t help a small smirk. He’d get to tease Dick forever if he actually managed to sneak up on him in the shower. So he quickly unlaced his boots and slipped out of them, inching the door open and stepping in silently.
The sight that greeted him was not what he’d been expecting.
Instead of an innocently showering Nightwing, possibly in the middle of his nightly routine after patrol, he got a very disheveled, very drunk Dick Grayson, fully clothed in the bottom of the tub with an arm hanging off the side still holding a mostly empty bottle of vodka.
“Dick?” Jason said, looking a little scandalized. Dick rarely drank, and when he did he never got really drunk. It clouded the judgment too much, it made you weak. It was something they all avoided. It was one of those damn unwritten Bat Laws that Dick was always so careful to follow.
Not tonight apparently.
Dick didn’t even look at him, just staring blankly ahead of himself and taking another pull from his bottle, laying there as the water soaked through his clothes.
“Hey, Jay.” He murmured in a hoarse voice, sliding back further into the tub.
“You look like hell.” Jay murmured back, frowning and moving to the tub side. He was right, Dick looked like he hadn’t slept in at least 24 hours, and like all of his meals in that time had been of the alcoholic variety.
It couldn’t have just been the disk. There was no way something like that could bring Dick down this hard. He was way too strong for that. Jason didn’t know what had happened since he left but he wasn’t about to leave his brother this way.
“Hey, c’mon, pretty boy. You’re going to lose all that boyish charm if you keep this up.” He said, offering a hand to help Dick sit up so that maybe he could at least get him out of his soaked clothes. All he got was a grunt in response.
He sighed, taking the bottle away from Dick, and sliding it away from them both, glaring a little at the older man. “Alright, Dick, what the hell is going on?” he said. He was bad at this whole sympathetic thing.
Dick looked murderous when Jay took the bottle, growling and swinging an arm at him and even drunk off his ass he was still fast as hell and before Jason was really aware of what was happening he was being hauled into the tub, leather and all.
“Agh! Dammit, Dick! You’re going to owe me a new jacket after this!” he said, looking down at the man currently under him in the water. “What the hell is wrong? Just tell me!”
Dick was staring at him, his eyes somewhere between angry and kicked-puppy sad. The expression hit Jason somewhere deep and he stared back at him. “Jesus, Dick. Tell me… Please.”
Dick was still looking at him when he spoke, and something seemed to crack in his eyes. He buried his face in Jason’s armoured neck and shuddered with something that was almost like a sob. He smelled strongly of vodka, but the scent was already fading in the wake of the water splashing over them. Jason wrapped his arms around him, feeling the shaking of his shoulders. Dick felt smaller than he should… It was mind boggling to think that time had grown him enough to be able to hold the older man this way.
“The pictures…” Dick murmured against him, prompting Jason to pet his hair slowly.
“Pictures?” Jason asked carefully. Dick seemed so fragile all of a sudden, clinging to him like a child, sopping wet with their clothes hanging heavy on their bodies.
“I think they’ve been sending them since the disk was left at the manor… There’s a new one every morning…” he murmured, voice cracking and his hands clinging harder to Jason, nearly bruising even through the armor.
The disk? Jason’s back stiffened. “Dick, what pictures?” he asked, voice rough. He had suspicions, even from just the few slurred words Dick had given him, and they all spelled out bad.
“I think they’re from the video… or maybe someone had another camera there, I don’t know…” Dick murmured. “I tried to figure out who sent them. I tried. But there was nothing. No return address, no fingerprints, not an ounce of trace. The paper, the envelopes, the pictures everything was all so generic, you could get it anywhere. There was nothing I could use. They just come in the general mail, every morning there’s a new one…”
“Fuck…” Jason cursed, holding Dick tighter. This was more than harassment or blackmail, this was fucking psychological torture. Who the hell was doing this?
Dick was trembling harder, his voice bitter and a little hysterical. “New one every morning, a new picture of me bent over like a bitch while they hold me down…”
Jason squeezed him. “Don’t talk like that.” He murmured.
“Why not?” Dick asked him, laughing humorlessly and shaking his head. “I didn’t want it then. I would have given anything to make it stop, to make it never happen. But what have I done in recent years but prove that I’m just a bitch?” he said, holding on to Jason tighter, there were definitely going to be bruises. “Sex is easier than thinking. And I’ve been used like that. Pinned down, taken. I wanted it that way, to take it like a whore. It makes me remember I’m alive, it’s the easy way for me to forget.” He pressed his nose to Jason’s jawline, breathing hitching on a sob or a laugh, Jason wasn’t sure. “I wanted to do it when I saw them. I wanted to lose myself in it and not remember what they did to me. But you weren’t here… so I drank instead.”
“Dick, stop talking like that.” Jason growled. “You shouldn’t talk about yourself this way.”
Dick took a shuddering breath, “Why not? It’s true.” He said. His hands released their hold on Jason a little, legs sliding up, around Jason’s waist. “You could do that for me, you know. Use me. Make me forget. Drown my sorrows… Just like those girls you pick up at bars.”
Jason’s breath hitched and he stared at Dick, wide eyed and stricken. He stopped stroking Dick’s hair and pulled his legs off of him. “No.” he said firmly.
Dick shivered and sounded desperate. “Please, Jay. It won’t be difficult. I need it.” He whispered, nuzzling Jason’s neck urgently.
“No.” Jason said again, voice hoarse. “No, Dick.”
Dick’s hands were on his face now, pulling back so that Jason could see the pain in his eyes. “Please! You can close your eyes and pretend it’s someone else, you can make me be whoever you want just don’t let me feel like this anymore!”
“NO!”
Jason nearly screamed it, shaking and pulling Dick tightly to his chest, face buried in Dick’s wet shoulder. “No…” he whispered, “I could never use you. I can’t… You deserve more.”
Dick made a pained noise against Jason’s neck. “No, I don’t. I’m not worth anything…” he murmured in a tormented voice. “I’m trash that they chewed up and threw away.”
“No, you’re not!” Jason said insistently. “God, Dick, stop it. How can you think of yourself this way?” he said, voice hoarse and strained. “Don’t you know that you’re everything?
“Where would we be without you? Any of us. God, if Bruce had found me first, or even Tim… He’d be dead or have broken down by now. You were the one who made him open up, you were the one that brought him back from the edge. I couldn’t have done it, no one else could have, just you. I would have died a lot sooner if you hadn’t been there, offering guidance, offering to listen when Bruce never could, being the one who always understood. You’re the warmth we’re all missing, you’re everything that keeps us all sane… Everything that keeps me sane…”
Dick was openly crying now, hot tears falling on Jason’s neck to mix with the lukewarm shower droplets. Jason could hear every wretched sob tearing through him.
“You’re the one who smiles, who makes everyone else smile when they really need to. You’re the only thing that keeps this damn stupid family together when we’re all too stubborn to admit that we even care. We’d be lost without you, dammit. Don’t ever sell yourself short like that… You’re no one’s bitch. The rest of us should be falling at your feet, not the other way around…”
“Jay…” Dick murmured, choking on sobs. “Stop it.”
“No.” Jason said again, giving Dick one last gentle squeeze before he pulled back. He reached out and turned the shower off, looking down at Dick’s swollen eyes and shivering body. “Let’s get you out of those clothes and into something warm. You’re going to sleep the alcohol out of your system.”
Dick reached out and grabbed him, voice high and thready. “Don’t go!”
Jason shook his head, “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. Help me out.” He reached for Dick’s shirt, pulling the clingy, sopping material off of him and tossing it to the opposite side of the tub before moving on to Dick’s pants. Once he had him stripped he reached out of the tub and pulled down a towel, wrapping Dick with it tightly and rubbing him through it. Dick cooperated somewhat, though he seemed reluctant to move at all and clung closely to Jason whenever he tried to move away. Jason awkwardly slipped out of his armor and uniform, shaking his wet hair a bit and reaching for another towel. Once they both had one he lifted Dick out of the tub and into his arms, causing the older man to squeak in surprise and hold on to his shoulders.
“Let’s get you into bed…” Jason said, walking quickly through the dark hallways and into Dick’s bedroom. The comforter was thick and warm when he pulled them both under it, settling into the darkness of the night. “You should have called me.” He murmured, kissing the crown of Dick’s head in a gesture he hoped was comforting rather than awkward. “I would have come, I would have been here.”
Dick shivered and pressed close to Jason’s chest. So much skin on skin should have felt erotic but it wasn’t. It was like they were kids again, back in those long forgotten days when the feel the touch of flesh was something warm and sweet, without the heat of adolescence and adulthood. The vodka smell was gone from Dick’s body, his hair smelling sweet and damp, like he’d been standing in the rain.
And Jason loved him.
He hurt when he hurt. He wanted to smile when he smiled. He hated him in so many ways and wanted to hit him most of the time. But he would die for him, in a heartbeat, in a millisecond, no second thoughts needed. That was love, wasn’t it? Or maybe just something close to it… Jason didn’t know what love felt like anymore. Giving or receiving. But he suspected that the warmth that Dick had shown him, the sweetness of it sinking into his skin like heat from the sun, he didn’t see how that could be anything else…
He smiled, just a little, against Dick’s hair. “Make me an offer again when you’re sober.” He said in a quiet, amused tone. “I’d be up for staying in bed all day.”
Dick made a sound that was almost a laugh and Jason could feel his small smile against his chest. Ah, and there was the warmth, back again, and Jay could relax now and the two of them could sleep.
They were two people, no pasts, no names, just two people, laying in a bed and being loved.
Jason didn’t realize how long it had been since what happened to him. That wound was already healing, a small miracle thanks to Dick’s attention, his devotion.
Dick slept peacefully for the first time in days, surrounded by Jason’s rugged, masculine scent. He didn’t think about what happened to him either. Things were alright. They would get through this. What could go wrong?
They were together.
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I'll confess, I struggled with this a little. I feel too badly for Dick and I feel like I made Jason too soft and fluffy... *sigh* I'll make him smash up somebody's face up later or something, to make up for it. Sorry it took so long to update, I know everyone's been waiting on it, but here it is! And it's even a longer chapter than the others so hopefully that makes up for the wait :D