"I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back

The less I give, the more I get back

Oh, your hands can heal, your hands can bruise

I don't have a choice, but I still choose you"

The Civil Wars, "Poison and Wine"

MIDNIGHT

We were all asleep when the firehouse got even more crowded. It was a week after the fallout in the family. I swayed in the hammock, while Roy slept on the floor by his daughter, who took the bed nestled into a mattress I'd stolen for her. But when I heard a car stop outside the engine bay, yanking me from sleep, my hand was already on my gun and I was out of the dorms by the time Roy groggily sat up. He reached under Lian's bed for his bow and followed me down the staircase with a yawn, the paint chips stuck to our bare feet at the bottom.

The hole in the engine bay that Tim still owed me a fix job for allowed in a chilling breeze that made Roy shiver next to me. But I smacked his arm to be quiet as I listened to the footsteps. I squinted into the dark, and when they reached the door, they didn't halt like any burglar or arson might when they found it locked. The metal knocking of a key into the lock had me straighten from my stance.

When a toned, pale man with black hair and blue eyes rounded the door, I almost unloaded it on him. But then I saw the smile lines on either side of a frowning mouth and realized it wasn't the old man.

"Dick?" I shook my head, and Roy stiffened beside me. "What're you doing here?"

Dick Grayson shifted a duffel higher on his shoulder, and sighed. "Kori threw me out. Literally. Didn't feel right sleeping in the Clocktower, so...I figured this was neutral territory." He glanced at the ginger at my side, and waved. "Hey Roy."

"Nightwing," Roy muttered, and my eyes flashed over to him at the code name. Dick looked even more uncomfortable. The archer turned and went back up the stairs. "Checking on Lian and then heading back to bed. Night, Jay."

"Night…"

I put the safety on my gun and tucked it into the waistband of my lounge pants. I crossed my arms, and began the interrogation, my eyes feeling sticky with sleep. "Kori threw you out?"

"Yeah." Dick clutched the strap of his duffel with white hands, white knuckles. "Broke up with me. Said that betrayal on her world is met with an execution and I was being let off easy." He glanced up at me, and then reached into his back pocket for his wallet. "Listen, if rent's going to be a problem, I can compensate you for what I use and-"

I took the wallet from him mid-sentence, and chucked it across the engine bay. "Don't want your money." I scrubbed a hand down my face, and felt the stubble pick at my palm. "You're my brother. My couch is technically half yours, anyway. Joint custody, I believe you put it...You're always welcome here."

Dick forced a smile, which signalled to me that he really was out of it. He nodded, and started to walk past me to go upstairs, but my hand went to his forearm to stop him. He glanced sideways at me, and I remembered the morning after she learned I was the Arkham Knight. I remembered what he said when he came by, how he called me 'Jaybird' and how tight he hugged me - a time when I'd forgotten what a hug felt like.

His eyes were darker up close, and so were the hollows beneath them. He hadn't taken a bus or flown here from Bludhaven. He drove. He kept himself awake, and he was so tired. I remembered thinking, that morning over a year ago, that while I couldn't hide my fatigue, he hid his perfectly, but right now, it was written all over his face.

"If you go to bed right now, are you really going to sleep?"

He pressed his lips together at my question, and then he shook his head.

I checked the roof of the engine bay to make sure the vent at the very apex of the ceiling was open, and it was. I held up a finger for him to wait. I went to grab the rusted barrel I used for quenching forged metal, and dragged it to just under that vent. I had newspaper and wood stacked in the corner to make fires, and I'd been on the street enough as a kid to know how to make a quick hobo fire.

I grabbed a couple of lawn chairs and put them to one side of the fire. When I looked back to Dick, I saw his cheeks red and the fire played off his eyes as they welled with tears. I'd forgotten how to do my impression of his million watt grin, but I did my best.

"Wanna get shitfaced and talk about girls?"

3 AM

"And then," Dick's bare feet slipped out of his shoes to warm themselves as he lifted them, giggling with the red cup in his hand. "Barb puts her feet out on either side of her cycle, right? I'm holding on for dear life, and she just cranks back the throttle so hard, I thought I was gonna lose my lunch right on her cape."

"Jesus," I sipped from my cup around my smile, sitting sideways in my chair with a leg over the other arm. I took one of Roy's spare arrows and stoked the fire, "You two were somethin' else."

"What about you and Abigail, huh?" Dick was drunk, but I was just reaching the buzzed zone, and it still hurt to hear her name.

"What about us?" I sat up in the chair, and stretched out my arms, felt my shoulders click. I shot back the rest of my cup and refilled it with whiskey from the bottle at my feet.

"You know what…" He said, nudging me with his elbow. "...Year ago, I'd helped you through the...raw period, but you didn't actually talk about her, y'know? You never really talked, just drank and slept. I understood what she meant t'you, always did, but I never heard from your p'spective. And it isn't like you're playing the field."

I shrugged, and rubbed the back of my neck. I drank my alcohol, all of that liquid courage nonsense running through the back of my mind. And maybe it was courage that led me to finally concede. "W-Well, y'know those novels that Alfred had us read when we were Robins? Those Austen novels and the books by the Bronte sisters?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dick nodded, lazily slouching in his chair. "Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre, all them. Loved 'em. Yeah? What about it?"

"She was like those…" I hummed, and tilted my head back. I watched the smoke swirl higher and higher until it escaped through the vent. "That first morning you picked me up from her place, I was already convincin' myself that I shouldn't be her friend, her anything really. And every time I'd need to talk to her or I'd run into her, or she'd run into me...it was like that. The whole time we were apart, I was dead-set on never seeing her again and really being somewhat okay with that. Because we barely knew each other, y'know?"

"Yeah, man…" Dick searched my face as I spoke, listened to me with a big smile on his face. He loved this, even if he might not remember it in the morning.

"But when I did see her…" I shook my head, and whistled. I could see a little strip of sky through the vent, the stars. "...I completely forgot whatever excuse I made, and just...was, with her. Half of the time I didn't know what to say or what to do, and I almost always did it wrong, whatever I decided might be right. And I got to know her, and Jesus Christ, I...After she found out who I'd been, who I still sort of was, and she left? I realized I didn't like goodbyes much if I was saying goodbye to her."

"Jason…" Dick said it so softly that I turned my eyes to him, and when I did, the tear slipped out to roll down my cheek. He reached out and swiped it away. He smiled again. "I'm not hurtin' alone, am I?"

"Hell no," I sniffed, and rose my cup in a toast. "Women."

"Women." He tapped his cup against mine, and this time, the whiskey tasted bitter instead of warm. He put his cup on the ground, and then drew his arms back into his hoodie out of his sleeves. He wrapped them around himself, and then asked me, "...She ever know how you feel?"

"Sort of…" I croaked, and cleared my throat. It took a few tries before I could speak again. "...I didn't say it in person, I...wrote it down. I wrote her a letter. Something she'd find if I ever...died, or if the fight with Falcone finished up. When I wrote it, it was just after she'd fallen asleep on me. We were laying in the room upstairs that has all of her records, and I was sitting up, her head on my lap. And she fell asleep and I started composing this letter in my head. Wrote it out later. Told her I wanted to be a…" I sighed, a shaky crooked sound. "...I wanted to be a better man for her, Dick. A better person. How did I put it? It went something like…'If I'm half the man that deserves you when I finally die, it'll be worth it.'"

He pushed his arms into his sleeves, his hand clasped around my shoulder, and he stood. He tugged me out of my seat and wrapped his arms around me as tight as that first time. But I didn't hug him back. I tried to push him off, sniffing, and protesting. "H-Hey, no, no, I'm sorry. I did this for you, you're the one who just got dumped. I'm here bitching about a girl I didn't even date, and shit, I'm such a fucking asshole. I'm sorry, man-"

"-shut up and hug me," He ordered, and only closed his grip on me. "Maybe I need one too."

Something buzzed in the back of my mind, something she said about my honesty about my feelings only coming when no one can watch my face. I curled my fists in his shirt, and asked him, "...Do you love Barbara?"

He pulled back, his arms still around me, to look at me with eyes full of questions. I repeated mine, shaking him in an attempt to dislodge some answers. Dick's hair fell in his eyes as he said, his chin tucked. "I've loved her since I was thirteen, Jay."

Over a decade. He'd loved her for over a decade, from afar. I nodded, staring at him hard. "Then love her."

"But Tim…" Dick sighed, pushing his palm against his eye. "Jason, I hate that I hurt them both. I don't regret kissing Barbara, Lord knows I don't, but…"

"You wish it hadn't happened like it did." I turned and collapsed back into the lawn chair. He stayed standing. "Sure, she waited a year to do it, but...the truth was eating Babs alive. She couldn't hold that in for much longer, even I could see it. Alfred was worried about her too. He told me that she forgets to eat sometimes...Dick, she forgets to eat."

Dick lowered into his chair and put his head in his hands. A memory floated to the top of my inebriated mind. His car parked here, us in the front seats, his head against the steering wheel. He was beating himself up over not believing in Bruce. I wouldn't let him do it then, and I won't let him do it now.

"It's not your fault…" I poured myself another glass of whiskey and shot it back, the alcohol warming its way to my stomach. "...Girl's been through a lot. Remember those first few months I rejoined the family? She called me every morning to check on me, but the truth? She was scared that I was going to disappear again, she told me so. She thought I was a dream, that I was still dead and one day she'd wake up and I'd be gone. Dead or disappeared." I leaned forward and pulled his hands away, until I saw the blue eyes. "She cares. She fights, she cares, and she saves us all…But when her heart's involved, her first instinct is to analyze and overthink. And that isn't always the best way to do it."

I shrugged, and refilled his glass too. "You want my advice? Wait it out a month, and then go see her. Be honest and clear. It's going to be okay."

"And if it isn't?" I saw that one coming. You're nothing if not consistent, Grayson.

"There's always eHarmony."

That earned me the laugh I'd been waiting for all night.

3 AM - SOMEWHERE ELSE

"Master Timothy?"

Alfred's voice reverberated in the small apartment as he shut the door behind him. The dim stove light was the only illumination, and something told the old butler that the walls hadn't seen the sun in days. Four coats hung over the back of the couch as he moved past the kitchenette, the coffee table drowned in a swamp of papers, towers of books, and a map of Gotham was pinned to the bare wall in front of it, red threads connecting dots across the districts.

It wasn't until he moved closer to the couch that he found Tim at last. Bare-chested and wearing only a pair of Gotham U sweats, Tim was draped across the cushions face-down. He snored softly into the corner of the armrest, his hair was messy from the growth and because it looked like he hadn't combed it in days. Alfred sighed, relief washing over him. He put the slow cooker meal he had brought over on the kitchen counter; he had a feeling Tim wasn't taking care of himself after the fallout between he and Richard. His instincts, as they had been with all the Robins, Barbara and Bruce, weren't wrong.

"Let's go, Master Timothy…" He muttered as he sat on the edge of the couch, using the metal hand as an anchor around his shoulder. The butler was not the youngest of gentlemen, but he still held the muscles of his prime. He hoisted Tim to standing gently, all the care of a father coaxing his son into bed.

The young man stiffened as he was righted, and he mumbled, blinking into the darkness. "Alfred?"

"When was the last time you got sleep?" Alfred asked, a scolding note in his voice but one of affection, same as if any of the others were in Tim's position.

"'proximately, ten seconds ago."

"Timothy Jackson Drake, I am perfectly serious. You were drooling, your living quarters look a mess," Alfred's nose wrinkled, leading the stumbling boy into his bedroom across the way. "And your personal hygiene leaves something to be desired."

"Sorry…" He coughed, turning his head away. "Before that nap, I hadn't gotten sleep in fifty hours."

"Is it safe to assume that this has something to do with Miss Gordon?" Alfred hated to inquire, and rather was disappointed in himself that he hadn't been present to quell the discord. "Master Timothy, I have never seen you in such a state and to be frank, it worries me, sir."

Tim managed to gain his footing, and unwrapped his arm from the butler's shoulders. He stood, bracing a hand against his bedroom door. He kept his eyes on the floor. "I'm alright...I am. Really. Wasn't like I hadn't seen this coming. I always...knew, you know?"

He rose his gaze to Alfred's, his dark circles hollowed. "Like when you know something bad's going to happen, deep in your gut and you go on like nothing's wrong. You try to convince yourself every time you wake up and every time you go to sleep that it's going to work out, that the girl you've been thinking about for years is thinking about you too. But inside, where you know so much better than to ignore coincidence and instinct, you know that the unpleasant thing is true. And you prepare yourself to deal with it after a while. You prepare for everything, really…"

Alfred understood. He understood perfectly. He had a similar feeling when Bruce first told him about what he wanted to do with his family's fortune and what exactly they were going to do with the caves beneath Wayne Manor.

"Is that what...all this is?" Alfred swept his arm to indicate the books, papers, and the annotated map. "Preparation?"

"Some of it, yes," Tim admitted. "Most of it is just work. Burying myself in it helps. Keeps me distracted."

Alfred sighed with a huff and moved to the piles. He stripped off his coat and added it to the collection on the back of the couch. He rolled up his sleeves, and produced his reading glasses from his breast pocket.

"What are you doing?"

"Keeping an eye on you, and keeping you company. I brought you food."

"Why?" Tim didn't ask it like an accusation, but with more genuine curiosity. He was rubbing the back of his neck when Alfred glanced at him with a flat look.

"You're acting far too much like Master Bruce."

I pulled the chain curtain back on the lift and stepped into Barbara's personal living space in the Clocktower. It was midday, right after my morning English class, and autumn showers were introducing a level of damp cold that Gotham hadn't seen in over a year. I shook the rain out of my hair, and when the quiet finally got to me, I called out for her.

"Barb?" No answer. "Barbara?"

As with pretty much every other room in the top four floors of the Clocktower, there was a computer in the corner. On the screen was a paused video from the news and the headline made me roll my eyes.

LEX LUTHOR PLACES BOUNTY ON RED HOOD'S CAPTURE

"Cute." I didn't bother to wait for the price on my head. Didn't matter what it was- it'd be too cheap.

I reached out to shut off the monitor so it wouldn't be kept burning there. I called her name again to no answer, but it wasn't until I rounded the corner and came to her bedroom that I heard it. Harsh sniffs, watery coughs, and sounds I hadn't heard Barbara make in a long time.

Her back was to me when I entered her bedroom, and the headphones over her ears were probably why she didn't hear me. Her wheelchair sat by her bed, her hair damp, and she had her blanket tugged tightly around herself like a cocoon. A bundle to keep her warm and safe.

I shrugged off my raincoat and hung it on the back of her wheelchair. I closed the bedroom door. I knew she liked to be enclosed, protected by walls and shut doors and latched windows. It's the only thing that unwound the spring between her shoulders, the one she kept ready in case someone might once again come to her door with a gun.

Her sobs ate at me, the noises she was making were the kind that only came from nightmares and heartache. I understood the type. It wasn't just Dick, it wasn't just Tim. Barbara hurt just as badly as the other two, if not more. There was no fallback plan for ruined relationships, not at first.

I sat on the edge of her bed, and she jumped, her hand under her pillow, but when she saw it was me, she froze. No glasses. Her tears glittered on her cheeks, and she flushed, ashamed. I frowned, and met her eyes. She took off the headphones. Nothing had been playing on them. Maybe she wanted the silence.

After a minute of stiff limbs and looking at me without barriers, she groaned a weak noise and crawled her way to me. I shifted closer, and put my arms around her, a hand rubbing her back and the other holding her shoulder. She tangled her fingers in my shirt, and she cried even harder.

I remembered the first time I saw Barbara cry. The sheer frustration of a failed mission can bring out the emotions you never thought could be reached, or amplified. The cool, level-headed Batgirl that helped train me reduced to angry tears and a utility belt chucked across the floor. I remembered how she paced in circles; walking had always helped in those days, until eventually she fell to her knees and I walked up to her.

I had asked her if she wanted to go for a run, promised her that I'd buy us hot dogs. Suggested that maybe we could catch that new horror flick and make fun of the teenagers that made the stupid choices, ran towards the danger, and ended up dead or deranged. And in the subtext, we promised to ignore how autobiographical those horror flicks were with us. And not to tell Bruce a word. I remembered how she smiled through the tears. Running had always helped her not to think, as did movies and food.

But now, she couldn't run. She didn't have time for movies, and I knew food would make her sick.

All I had to make her feel better was me.

I breathed in that crisp smell of her hair, kissed her forehead. I let her go to stand, and scooped her up, blanket and all. I cradled her against my chest as I carried her to the living room.

"Jason," She croaked, "What are you doing?"

"My job."

I laid her down on the couch, and positioned the ottoman under her feet. I grabbed the remote and sat next to her. She snuggled into the blanket as I flipped through Netflix to the horror category. Technically, the account was Alfred's, because the man was a sucker for a good period drama, but we all used it.

Barbara poked my elbow with a blanket paw. "Jay, my glasses…"

She slid them onto her face once I fetched them, and then scooted over once I sat back down. Her fingers wedged under my arm until I lifted it, and she settled into my side, her head on my chest. This wasn't like with Gail. There was no fluttering in my ribcage, no hot skin, and her hand snaking down my forearm to hold mine. No distraction in wondering if she was as nervous as I was, or if she was at home with me as I was with her.

Watching shitty horror movies with Barbara was as natural as water. She just laid against me, her hands tucked under her arms, one of my own draped over her shoulders. Nothing but shared company. Which was probably what we needed the most right now. Something familiar. Something simple. No unnecessary complications. No calculations either.

After a while, and about halfway through the snooze fest that was Evil Dead 2, Barbara's eyes closed and she fell asleep. I watched her chest rise and fall, her glasses askew as her face rested on me. I shifted her, slow and careful, and took her glasses off. I folded them up and set them next to me.

Somewhere between the end of the movie that came on next, one of the shittier Saw movies that was an insult to professional murderers like myself, and falling asleep, I came to a conclusion that had been eluding me for a while. Before I ever bled out in a parking garage, I had something already that I would have been completely content to have for the rest of my life: a family.

If I'd never have met the one person that ever made me want to hang up the hood, being with my family would have been enough. It's broken up right now, and everything's raw, but I guess it's when things fall apart that you realize what you had when everything held together. Barbara, my sister. Dick and Tim, my brothers. Even Alfred and if he'd have me, the old man.

I was okay before the heartbreak. I'll be okay again someday. I thought about what will be possible as I began to doze off, my eyes half-lidded as I listened to Babs breathe.

One day, the sunshine won't feel so cold. I'll be able to drive through Otisburg at a reasonable speed, and I won't be so eager to leave. I'll look Harvey Bullock in the eyes again. I'll stop visiting the cemetery, stop taking naps with my back against my epitaph or staring across the way to her mother's headstone.

I'll stop smoking, once and for all, and drinking, something that started when she left. Maybe when I put my mouth to the lips of the bottle, I won't cut myself on the sharp daydream of what hers might feel like. Someday it won't hurt to say her name. It won't hurt to think about her at all. I'll be able to look back, somewhere down the line - maybe when I'm gray, and see her for what she really was: the person I needed to heal, to teach me how to heal others, and the very best friend I ever had.

Someday, I'd go to Metropolis and see her again. From afar, just close enough to see her hair shine or hear her laugh. And that would be enough for me to go to my grave without any regrets about love.