After the tape ended, the sound echoed through the still and silent air around him. He held the device in his hands, staring unseeingly down at it, and suddenly he was back there.
Dick's scream resounded in his head and harmonized with his own. He remembered his own screaming, his own pleas, his own begging explicitly, vividly. He remembered the crowbar, and the pain. The agony of his own bones being broken and ground to dust, and the detached, disinterested feeling of watching his own blood ooze out from his wounds onto the cold, impassive concrete floor of the warehouse.
(A cackle of laughter and, "This is going to hurt you a lot more than it does me!", before a raised arm, and he hears the faint whistle of passing air before-)
He snarled, thumping his forehead with the heel of his hand. Phantom pains constantly haunted him, and the Pit had cursed him, but it was that laugh that resonated within him. In his nightmares, the sound crawled between his ribs and slithered through his veins. The lips painted a crimson red, the giggles and pure glee that the man – that sadist – had radiated tormented him, day and night.
He growled and threw the device to the ground, grinding it beneath his foot until it was indistinguishable. He felt sympathy for Dick – being captured was no joke, he knew - but he wasn't going to risk his own neck, nor Richie, to save the man.
Suddenly, the wind shifted, and with it, a pair of feet in front of him. The knife was up and out of his boot before he had given it any conscious thought. He surged from his seat and swiftly brought his weapon to the throat of the boy in front of him. The boy raised his hands, unfazed, and smirked.
He was taller than Jason remembered, but still short, barely chest-height, and, to his surprise, the boy wasn't wearing his costume. Jason could begrudgingly understand his reasoning. The clothes he wore now – an unbuttoned, black blouson jacket and grey shirt – were probably more discreet than the almost glaring crimson of the boy's suit.
"What are you doing here?" Jason said, his grip in the boy's shirt tightening in anger, "How did you know where I was?"
"Drake's boomer has GPS."
He paused, before throwing the boy back, watching emotionless as he stumbled before straightening, accusingly dusting off his jacket. Jason sighed. "What is it with people following me?"
"Well, it's not like you keep a phone on you," the boy smirked, and added, "And even if you did, you wouldn't have given us the number."
"Damn right," Jason scoffed. He kept his knife held loosely in front of him, ready to strike. He turned and snorted, gesturing to the crushed gadget behind him. "He calls that thing a boomer?"
"Father calls his weapons batarangs, and Grayson calls his wingdings," the other vigilante snorted, nonchalant, "It must run in the family."
"I just have guns and bullets. Must mean I'm not family, right?" Jason shrugged, mocking. Damian didn't bother replying. It didn't matter – he had his own family now. It was still, and hushed, before he spoke once more. "So, you here to ask me to help you find Dick's body or-?"
"Grayson's alive," Damian snapped, unhesitating, and so loud that it echoed in the suddenly tense night air. The boy's face had tightened, hard and focused, and he had tensed so quickly that Jason was surprised he hadn't pulled anything. He smirked – obviously a sore spot.
"Yeah, I noticed that you were still using the present tense when you talked about him, Damian," he observed, a sly gleam in his eye, "You're still hopeful, even after two months? Thought you were more realistic than that, kid."
"I'm not a kid."
"Your age is still on the clock."
"And yours is on the digital clock."
Jason smirked as Damian snarled at him childishly. As much as he loathed the boy, he could understand, and relate, to that seething rage – it was almost refreshing to find someone that matched his own emotional stability, and he couldn't help but wonder what the kid had seen – or did – with Talia and Ra's to have him in this state. The boy had a strong hatred of having his age brought up in conversation. He deemed his age irrelevant, that other children were irresponsible and careless, needing to be protected – but not him.
Damian gathered himself, smirked and retorted, sharp and biting, "Anyway, from what I've heard, your boy is younger than me."
Jason froze, and stood up straighter, all traces of humour gone. The papers knew that Red Tyro was young, undeniably so, but it was hard to tell the difference between a twelve-year-old and a nine-year-old, especially when they are leaping about, avoiding being hit. But Damian was certain that he was older, and Jason wanted to know how. "How do you know that?"
Damian snorted. "It's hard to believe, I know, but I do have people skills, Todd. One of the homeless told me, said the boy looked around the age of their kid, and she's ten."
"Looks like I'll be having some words around here-"
"Jason," Damian cut him off, although Jason stopped more in shock at the use of his first name, "Let me see him."
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
Jason paused. "He's sleeping."
"Bless him," Damian said, mockingly endearing.
Jason levelled the kid with an unimpressed stare, and let the silence express his annoyance. He scoffed and snuffed out the dying fire with his foot before snapping, "Just leave, Damian."
He headed back into the trailer, and when he turned to shut the doors, the boy was gone.
Another month passed, and he saw no hide nor hair of either Damian or Tim. Jason couldn't have brought himself to care. It felt like Richie had been with Jason forever, but there were times that Jason would move too fast, or say something too sharply, and Richie would flinch, or curl in on himself, and Jason would be reminded that Richie had lived on the streets before he came along. He never asked, he never pried, but he was slightly wary around the boy, as if he were a wild animal, waiting for him to snap.
It wasn't as if the kid would hurt him, but more because Richie could hurt himself. Jason knew how repressed emotions fucked with the mind, and unproductive it was to keep it bottled up. He had seen how it had festered in Bruce, and had experienced himself first-hand after the Pit had amplified his resentment into the seething wrath that consumed him. Like hell he would let Richie go through that by himself.
"Steel, and the strings on a cello."
The kid sat up, spinning around on the mattress, and wrapped his arms around his knees, chin resting delicately on the top of his knees. Lying on their bed, Jason stared up at the boy who was directly above his head. He smiled lazily. "Really? That's very specific."
Richie nodded vigorously. "Yeah, definitely."
"Okay, and what about sounds?"
Richie paused, brows furrowed in concentration, and Jason chuckled lightly at how serious the boy looked. The kid's face suddenly cleared, and Jason raised his eyebrows expectantly. Richie grinned. "The sound of a train pulling into a station."
Jason thought of the shunting trains, the rumbling and faint thuds as they rolled over the bumps in the track. The ringing sound of the high whistle as the train pulled up into the station, almost melodic in its own right, and he found himself agreeing.
He was pulled from his musings by a small thump on his shoulder. He looked up accusingly, and Richie grinned happily above him. Perhaps if he had been a few years younger, he would have been beaming, mirroring the smile, but, as it were, only a ghost of a smile graced his lips. "Yes?"
Richie shrugged his shoulders. "Do me. What do you think of when you think of me?"
"Blueberries and puddles," he said, without hesitation. It was a stupid game, even he had to admit, but there was nothing to do, and whoever was above had decided to open their heavens, attempting to drown Gotham like a rat it was.
"What else?"
"The feeling of a cool breeze on your skin when it's a hot day."
Richie snorted. "Very poetic, dude."
"Hey, you asked," Jason defended himself half-heartedly. He folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. For the first time in a long time, his shoulders slumped, relaxed, and he scratched idly at his own scalp. He often found himself doing it, and it reminded him of Alfred, who used to cup his head gently and run his fingers through his hair comfortingly.
Richie spoke up, sounding thoughtful, if a little quiet. "You know, you're actually kind of nice."
Jason snorted, and rolled his eyes. He threw himself forward and heaved himself up, fetching his guns from the holsters in his suit, before sitting cross-legged on the mattress with a rag in one hand, and his glock in another. "Thanks - I think."
Richie observed him dissemble the gun silently, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Then the kid looked down, watching his own hands, almost despairingly.
He eyed the boy out of the corner of his eye. The atmosphere in the trailer had changed from light and clear to stuffed and not-quite tense. Jason didn't remember when it had turned, but he found himself shifting uncomfortably. He said, easy and gentle, "Kid, if I'm your idea of nice, then who had you been around before me?"
Quietly, and to Jason's surprise, Richie answered. "On the street, I was always so hungry…"
He trailed off. Jason shifted closer and nudged him with his elbow, lips quirking encouragingly when the kid reluctantly met his gaze. "Yeah?"
Sighing deeply, Richie continued slowly. "I usually got by – you'd be amazed by the amount people just threw away – but I could never stay in one place. 'Cause, you know, I'm a kid – people get suspicious."
He paused, and dropped his eyes to the floor, as if ashamed. Jason felt something constrict in his chest at the sight. Richie said quietly, almost pleading, "I didn't know, Jason, I swear. But I went into this guy's territory, or something, looking for food, you know, but he caught me looking, and he got so angry-"
The kid suddenly stopped, blinking rapidly, and it was silent for a moment. Jason forgot the gun in his hands, and he asked quietly, "Did this guy hurt you, Rich?"
Richie nodded hesitantly. He rubbed his thumb over the faded pattern on the threadbare mattress idly. His eyes tracked the pointless movement.
Jason heard his jaw click audibly. Suddenly, all he could think about was the gun in his hands, and how fast he could assemble it – how fast he could fire it. "Kid?"
Richie hummed questioningly, looking up.
"Don't tell me anything about what the guy looked like, nothing particular or specific. Nothing that I could find him by."
"Why?"
Jason stared at Richie, unnervingly. "You know why, kid."
Richie searched his face before nodding, understanding. He continued, "He just sprained my arm – the right one."
Jason felt his chest vibrate with a growl, and he swallowed the snarl that had been swiftly rising up his throat. Distracting himself, he gestured to the kid's arm, his voice was tight, controlled. "It's obviously fine now, though. Did you do it yourself?"
He highly doubted it, and, as predicted, Richie shook his head. "Nope. I got a brace at that clinic? North-east of the river?"
"Leslie Thompkins?"
"Yeah."
And suddenly, all Jason can think of is of grey hair, and gentle wrinkles. A soft smile, caring and loving, and calloused fingertips tracing the bruise on his face, or stitching the wound on his side. He remembered a voice like a cascading waterfall, or a whispering meadow. Jason remembered Leslie, remembered how she was as close to a mother as he had ever had.
Richie seemed to realise that the mood had shifted subtly and asked tentatively, "Jay?"
"Yeah?" he croaked, after a moment. He cleared his throat, ridding it of a lump, and leaned back to rest against the trailer side, the springs creaking ominously beneath him.
"What did that guy with the mask want?" Richie asked, clarifying, "The guy that you used to know?"
Jason sighed heavily. The kid had been asking at irregular intervals over the past couple of weeks, not letting it drop, but not pressing the issue when Jason would brush him off, either. Although, seeing as they seemed to be in the sharing mood, Jason answered him willingly. "His name's Tim, and he told me that a guy I once knew has gone missing."
Richie seemed to be surprised that he had gotten an actual answer, instead of a half-hearted deflection. He recovered quickly, taking advantage of the situation, and followed up with another question. "What was the guy's name?" he paused, "The missing guy."
"Richard Grayson. Went by Dick, though," Jason snorted, "No clue why. I think it's too phallic, if you ask me."
At the sudden, heavy silence, he looked up. Richie had gone pale, and his eyes were wide, as if he had seen a phantom. He placed his hand on the kid's shoulder, trying to ground him as his brows furrowed in concern. "Rich? You good?"
There was no answer, but he could see the boy's hands trembling. He threw the barrel of the gun onto the mattress, and the boy flinched at the clanging sound it made as it struck the other parts. A sense of foreboding creeping up his spine, Jason turned to face Richie head on and put both of his hands on the kid's shoulders, shaking him slightly to draw his attention. "You're freaking me out, kid. What's up?"
"… How does he know?"
That wasn't what he had been expecting. It was said quietly, whispered, and Jason had had to strain to hear him. Bewildered, he shook his head, but the boy still wouldn't meet his eyes, staring fixedly at the space over Jason's shoulder. "What do you mean?" He shook him, and Richie's eyes snapped to his. "Answer me, kid."
"My- my name…"
He trailed off. Jason nodded. "Yeah, I know. It's Richie."
"No. I- It's Dick -"
Jason froze.
"- Grayson."
