hey look it's an arc! anyways this is jason and dick's first meeting.
Bruce Wayne was, by many accounts, an absolute cockbiting dickhead of epic proportions. (Bab's words, not his.)
Nobody knew this more than the very first Robin, who retired due to circumstances involving an one-eyed man and nanobots, and also weird obligations involving his (dead) family and some (equally dead) owls.
Dick's life was fucking weird, which was something Jason could comfortably and non-hypocritically say at that stage in his life. That was going to change really soon but for now, Jason could be judgmental.
But, regardless of circumstances, Dick had retired. Or, moved on at least. Nightwing in Blüdhaven, which, he could not say was particularly a step in the "up" direction. Because, you know, Gotham was crazy, but Blüdhaven was just straight up evil. And smelled bad.
Especially Dick's apartment building. It was stale cigarettes and a little iron-y scented, like old blood was spilled there. Which, yeah, Blüdhaven. Despite all that, Jason couldn't help but feel just a little excited. Even Batman hadn't been able to figure out where the golden boy was now.
(This probably had more to do with not wanting to see Dick in the least, but we'll let Jason have this one.)
There was only one lock in place on the door, which took Jason all of half a minute to pick. It almost made him wonder if he was even in the right place. If he was about to mistakenly walk in on a naked old man, he'd like a warning.
He swung the door open and narrowly missed hitting a kitchen knife with his nose.
He was in the right place.
"Jesus," he said, prying the offending projectile out of the door frame, "you do that to everybody?" Probably. There were many marks on that frame, all bearing a resemblance to the gouge left behind by utensil in his hand. See, he could be a detective too.
Dick, for the most part, just kind of watched. His irises were incongruously pale compared to his black hair and brown skin, a few too many shades apart to be overlooked. Instead, it was striking and gave the slight air of supernatural to him. Combined with his silence, it was unnerving and gave Jason the irrepressible urge to ramble to help fill the empty space. He probably learned that from Batman.
Dick was leaning against his kitchen counter, arms crossed and in surprisingly casual clothes. Jason wasn't sure what he had expected, but T-shirt and sweatpants was not it. It seemed too human for someone who existed solely in Bruce's stories.
Jason decided to take some initiative and walked into the small apartment. Then, for lack of things to do, he sat on the couch, viciously ignoring the spring that very suddenly began digging into his side. Also, he was still holding the knife. It seemed a bit silly, but he couldn't just drop it on the floor now, because that would be awkward.
Dick turned back to whatever he was working on at the counter. Dinner, probably.
"Close the door," he finally said, not even making eye contact.
Jason got up and closed the door. "So," he said, arms folded while clutching the knife ridiculously. "You're probably wondering how I found you. And maybe who I am."
"Not really. Give me the knife," Dick said.
"What?! No way! You threw this at my head! I need it to defend myself."
"It's meant for cutting fruit. What could you possibly do with it that you can't with the batarang in your back pocket?"
Oh shit, he noticed that.
"What are you gonna do with it?" Jason said instead.
"Well, ideally, cut fruit," Dick responded, voice dripping with sarcasm. Yeah, he can see why Bruce fired him.
Grudgingly, he left the stupid fruit knife on the counter, a good seven steps away from Dick's position. Make the bastard work for it.
Jason retreated, walking all the way back over to the couch and flopping on it. You'd think a former billionaire's child would be able to afford better couches.
"Are you just gonna sit there, or are you gonna help me?" Dick finally asked after a few minutes filled with the scrape of spoons on cheap ceramic.
"Help with what?" Jason asked intelligently. Dick Grayson was not at all what he'd expected, and it was throwing him off his game.
"Dinner," Dick answered simply. "You're hungry, aren't you?"
"Not really," Jason said, ignoring Dick's responding scoff.
"Cereal's in the second cupboard to the left, if you change your mind."
"It's like, 8 in the evening. If I'm having anything," Jason asserted, "it won't be cereal."
"Time is an immaterial concept, and your stomach just growled."
Jason didn't have a response to that. He got out a bowl.
After a brief argument -it turned out Dick had neither a kitchen table, nor milk- they both sat on opposite counters on the kitchen, eating out of bowls.
Jason poked dubiously at his dry cereal. He hadn't had any food since breakfast that day, and he was starving, but this was also really not what he came here for.
Honestly, he wasn't sure what he came here for.
"If you're not going to start talking, I will. I've been told I'm good at that," Dick finally said. Jason absently noted the lack of accent in his speech, clean and unprocessed. Nothing in his generically pronounced syllables tied him to any place.
"You're probably here because of Bruce. Besides Babs, he's the only thing we have in common, and let's face it- he's an enormous asshole. You're here because he fucked up somehow."
Jason picked at his cereal, laboriously chewing and then swallowing.
"You live alone," he said finally.
Well, no fucking shit, genius.
"And, like," Jason struggled to articulate, "you work alone?"
Dick slowly nodded, for the first time in the interaction unsure of where it was going.
"So I was wondering if you would mind me helping you 'cause Bruce is shutting me out and you live in Blüdhaven there's no way you don't have seven hundred cases open and you know what, fuck Bruce anyways!"
"What? No!" Dick said, confused. He also realized at that exact moment how many homicide reports were splayed out on the counter behind Jason. Something Jason had noticed three dialogue tags ago. "Don't touch those!"
Jason flipped open a police report anyways. "Ooh, look. Murder."
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