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If asked later, Dick will say that he sent the concert ticket to Jason on a whim, but the truth is that it was very planned.
It’s the old saying, “keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer”—well, not that old, considering it’s literally from The Godfather —that motivated Dick to send the ticket.
He’s not entirely sure where in the spectrum of enemy and friend (ally would be the best word, really) Jason falls. Most of the family sees Jason as an enemy, even if they won’t outright say it, and Dick follows that most of the time, but sometimes, when the memories of the bloodbath in Gotham, or the memories of Jason killing people in the Nightwing suit aren’t the most prominent ones, Dick begrudgingly categorizes Jason as an “ally”. He’s read Bruce’s meticulous reports of the times Red Hood’s help was necessary, and if Jason really isn’t a threat, then he’s good to have around in Gotham.
Either way, it makes sense to approach Jason, even if the idea of doing something nice for him isn’t something that Dick’s particularly concerned with. He wants to say that Jason doesn’t deserve that, and maybe that’s a bit too judgmental, but Bruce taught Dick to be practical, and that line of thinking is the easier, safer one when it comes to Jason.
He buys two tickets, because giving Jason one ticket is the bit about keeping an ally close, nurturing relationships, so that the next time Dick’s family need help in Gotham, they won’t have to bargain that much for Red Hood’s help.
The second ticket is to keep enemies closer. Dick isn’t sure if he’ll actually go to the concert with Jason, but if circumstances allow it, he will. It will be a chance to maybe get Jason to let his guard down, assess if he’s really not a threat anymore—it’s not that he doesn’t trust Bruce’s judgment most of the time, but when it comes to Jason Todd, Bruce’s entirely too compromised by guilt and hope and whatever else, even if he will never acknowledge or much less admit it. As much as Jason and Bruce seem to be always fighting, Bruce is always the one person in the family who refuses to just… let Jason go, to accept that the boy who died is, well… dead, that a mass murderer came back in his place.
Batman needs a Robin, and Dick will never stop being Robin, so the responsibility falls to him.
He buys the tickets and sends Jason a text on the personal number that he had to beg from Barbara.
do u still like that band?
the italian one?
It’s late, which means that Jason will likely not reply soon, since he’ll be either patrolling Gotham or doing his drug lord thing—maybe both—and thus not carrying his personal phone.
And then Dick goes off to patrol Blüdhaven. It’s a strangely calm night, and he just has to stop two muggings and some guys trying to break into a hardware store.
When he comes back home, there’s a message from Jason.
Do you have any idea how much “Italian band” doesn’t narrow it down?
And why the fuck are you asking me that, Dick?
Dick first sends an attachment with the ticket QR code, and then he types the explanation, trying to keep it normal, not to seem overly excited or anything—Jason probably would see right through him if he did that.
i just remembered you used to have their poster in your bedroom
and i saw they’d be around, just pure coincidence. I thought you would like to go
The part about it being a coincidence is true, at least. Dick was looking for tickets for another artist’s concert in the same venue in New York when he saw the ad for a Lacuna Coil concert, and just the name took him back to years ago, to a poster that Jason had in his room in the manor—Dick just remembered it because he’d found the design of a diamond grenade very distinctive.
(And maybe those memories also make him think of Jason as less of an enemy, but that’s not a weakness he can allow. Jason made it very clear that their past wouldn’t stop him from doing horrible, unjustifiable things.)
What are you playing at?
What will happen in Gotham on this night, Dickface? Is that why you want me out?
Did he tell you to do this?
Fuck you.
????
I’m not playing at anything
and *he* didn’t tell me to do anything
i just remembered you had their poster in your room
if you don’t like them anymore just tell me and i’ll give the ticket to someone else
or you do it yourself
Maybe it isn’t fair, all things considered, but the suspicion makes him bristle a little. As if Jason has the right to be suspicious of him. While Dick’s intentions might not be exactly innocent from Jason’s perspective, they are still completely reasonable, he’s just trying to see if he needs to worry about Jason coming for their blood again, and it’s not like he’s out to hurt Jason, anyway.
It takes a while for Jason to reply.
Still listen to them.
I’ll keep the ticket.
Then, a few minutes later, there’s one last message from Jason.
Thanks.
If you’re fucking with me I’ll break your legs.
Dick smiles. He’s got this.
*
Fortunately, Dick makes it to New York the day of the concert. When he gets to the venue, there’s already a line of people waiting outside, and it takes him some time until he spots Jason standing there.
He watches from afar for a bit, and it’s truly, well, weird, because he’s seeing Jason without that ugly red helmet for the first time in a very, very long time. And Jason seems… relaxed. He doesn’t look the part of someone who once killed eight people, severed their heads, and put said heads in a duffle bag and used it to terrorize people, or the person who still controls half of the drug dealing in Gotham. He’s wearing pants that aren’t all that different from his Red Hood attire, but he’s also wearing a Lacuna Coil t-shirt, and Dick kind of wants to make fun of him for wearing a band t-shirt—one with a sunflower of all things, it’s not very drug lordy of him—except that maybe it is appropriate if he’s going to the band’s concert.
Jason just looks like a guy who’s waiting for a concert of a band he likes, not like a murderer, and Dick feels a pang in his chest, because that’s close to what he remembers of the Jason from before, and if Joker hadn’t murdered that kid, then—Dick cuts that line of thought. It happened, there’s no changing that, or the fact that Jason came back and chose to do all the things he did. Maybe Dick doesn’t know how it feels to die and come back, but dying and coming back doesn’t justify the things Jason did—well, not most of it, at least.
He can tell the exact second Jason notices him, because he becomes tense, hand going to a thigh holster that isn’t there—and Dick is surprised that Jason really didn’t bring a gun. He turns to fully face Dick and the movement exposes his other side and what the hell?
Dick doesn’t remember Jason having a huge scar on his neck—but then again, he hasn’t seen Jason without his helmet for ages, and even when did see, he had a high collar…
The sight stuns Dick for a second, and then, before he can think of it, he’s already going in Jason’s direction.
Jason, for his part, is moving to leave.
“Hey, Jay!” Dick says, putting on a smile—it won’t really work on Jason, he knows, but he’s acting a bit, for the people around. Maybe Jason won’t want to cause a scene, at least.
“What are you doing here?” Jason practically growls when Dick gets closer. It’s a bit reminiscent of Bruce—not that he’ll point that out.
“I came to watch the concert?” Dick replies, maybe playing a little too much into the confused act.
“What the fuck?” Jason mutters. “Okay, I’m leaving.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Jason repeats, looking at Dick with barely contained fury. “I only accepted the ticket because I thought—nevermind.”
Jason starts to walk away, so Dick runs and stops in front of him, raising his hands and then thinking better than to touch Jason. He doesn’t want to fight.
“Come on Jason, I thought we could do this together. Spend some time catching up.”
Jason snorts and says, sarcasm dripping from his voice, “yeah, right.”
Dick knows that the fact that they weren’t really close before Jason’s death isn’t helping him. Besides a few times they hang out together, there isn’t a lot of nostalgia or reminiscing to soften Jason now. Even if Dick had completely starightforward intentions today, it would make sense for Jason to doubt him.
“Come on, Jason. Please. Let’s try this.”
Jason looks away, seeming to be in an intense internal debate for a moment, before he says, “don’t fuck this up for me, Dickface,” before returning to the spot where he was in line before.
*
Lacuna Coil is a bit too heavy for Dick’s taste, if he’s completely honest. Distorted guitars were never really his thing. There are two singers in the band—well, a female singer who is actually singing and a guy who just… kind of screams?
Good thing he’s not here for the music, but his “Jason watching” thing isn’t really working.
Jason mostly ignores his presence during the concert, and Dick starts to regret having come. It’s clear that even though he got Jason to accept the ticket and even his presence, the part about getting the man to drop his guard isn’t really working, and Dick is weirdly feeling like an intruder, and the guilt that he’s been keeping just at the edge of awareness since he started this whole thing rears its ugly head. Jason’s wearing the band’s t-shirt, and he’d been one of the first people waiting in line outside the venue, but he doesn’t seem to be enjoying the concert, and it’s not difficult to guess why.
It wasn’t supposed to be about this.
“I’m gonna go grab a beer,” Dick says, but there’s another song starting, and it’s clear that Jason doesn’t hear him, so Dick just waves and then starts to walk towards the bar. He isn’t actually going to drink, he just needs a little distance.
This new song beginning—the female singer is singing so high, it’s kind of impressive, and yeah, her voice is actually very nice—and Dick thinks the lyrics are in Latin, but then the guy starts to sing in his kind-of-screaming-style, and the weird thing is that it’s all actually understandable (Dick still would prefer if the woman was singing by herself, though). From the point where he’s at, he can see Jason in the crowd, and he thinks that now Jason joined the other people, singing.
By himself, Dick takes some time to pay attention to the lyrics of the song and… huh.
Are all their lyrics like that? Because paying attention to them is doing nothing to ease the guilt he’s feeling. The lines “we looked up from the clouds, thought that we would never fall” just make him think of Robin—of the Robin that fell…
And when he sees Jason singing along the next line of “was it harder to fight than to let me go?”, Dick is sure that Jason, too, is thinking of something similar.
Then there are more Latin lyrics, which Jason also seems to know, and Dick grins when he thinks of Jason, Red Hood, pulling the lyrics of a song in Latin and memorizing them.
In all honesty, Dick doesn’t really like that, because it’s easy to simply think of Jason as another person altogether from the boy he was when he died, but here they are, in the concert of a band he used to listen to before. It’s evidence that the Jason of now and the Jason of before are, well, not the same person (but then again, are any of them?) but the Jason of now is a continuation of the Jason of before. Recognizing that complicates things.
But now it’s not the time to dwell on that. Dick puts all those realizations and thoughts into the box where he keeps all “to think about later” things and focuses his attention on the show going on.
Still, his eyes every now and then end up on Jason, and gone is the tense man, and Jason is actually moving with the song, just like everyone else around, headbanging when the breakdown of the song starts—this is some really heavy stuff?
On the stage, the female singer—Cristina, isn’t it?—is announcing that they will sing a very old song, and the crowd goes absolutely crazy, some people shouting the names of different songs, trying to guess the next track.
“—and this song is called Comalies, ” the singer announces, and the crowd screams louder.
Ah, the album from Jason’s t-shirt with the sunflower picture.
The song is beautiful, a bit lighter than the rest of the setlist, and Dick kind of enjoys it, even if the melody is kind of sad.
Another couple of songs are played–there’s one about an “immortality spell and blood, tears and dust” that he can see Jason enthusiastically singing, it makes Dick wonder about things more than he would like—and then soon the singers start to say their goodbyes, announcing that they will play the last song.
“And with this one, we say goodbye, but until then… remember that Nothing. Stands. In. Our. way!”
And then a melody that honestly sounds kind of evil starts, and Dick decides to go back to where Jason is. He glides through the crowd, and it’s a bit difficult with the people jumping in sync with the music, but eventually he makes it.
When Jason sees him, he stops jumping and though Dick can’t exactly hear him, he knows Jason just called his name. Then he says something else.
“What?” Dick asks—shouts.
“I thought you’d left,” Jason shouts back.
Oh.
Dick wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye, unless there was an emergency, and for some reason he needs Jason to know that, but the loud sound doesn’t really make for a good conversation background.
Jason is once again rooted on the spot, whereas before he was jumping just like the rest of the people, and Dick feels the guilt flare again. Sure, Jason’s happiness was not what he had in mind when he planned this, but now… well, now Dick feels horrible to see how much he’s getting in the way of that. Thankfully, the singers on the stage start to lead the crowd, telling them to repeat the phrase “we fear nothing,” what Dick assumes is a line from the lyrics.
“Come on!” Dick shouts, elbowing Jason lightly, and shouting “we fear nothing” with the crowd.
After a second of hesitation, Jason says something that Dick can’t hear, but from reading his lips seems to be “fucking hell”, and then raises his hands and starts to shout “we fear nothing!”
And those words, they are big words, but they aren’t true for Dick. He fears a lot of things, so much that sometimes it can be paralyzing. He wonders if they are ture to Jason; maybe coming back from death makes one lose their fears.
Standing there, in that crowd, shouting and singing, with Jason beside him, actually is nice, and Dick is surprised that his own smile, right then, is completely genuine. Maybe if Jason hadn’t died—hadn’t been killed , brutally, senselessly— they would have done this more times.
But that, too, goes into the “to think about later” box of his mind.
(The box is getting a bit too full.)
*
They are outside the venue already when Jason speaks.
“So… what did you think of the concert?” Jason asks, some awkwardness bleeding into his tone and posture. It’s clear that he wants to be away from here as soon as possible, but there’s also something keeping him here—what is it, Dick can’t fathom.
“It was very energetic, I liked that. But it was a bit too heavy for my taste.”
Jason snorts. “You think Lacuna Coil is heavy?” he asks, grinning—grinning like he’s not a mass murderer, like he’s that fifteen year old again, like he wasn’t murdered. “I’m gonna introduce you to the really heavy stuff, Dick. We’ll start with shit that isn’t super heavy, stuff like Bloodbath, or Death or My Dying Bride or—”
“Please tell me you’re making up those names,” Dick says, groaning. At Jason’s negative shake of his head, he goes on. “Someone named a band Bloodbath? That’s ridiculous!”
And My Dying Bride? What kind of dramatic person would name a band that?
Of course that’s the kind of artist Jason listens to.
“All of those are probably just incoherent screaming,” Dick says.
“That’s a very prejudiced view of metal, Dick,” Jason replies. “Chuck Schuldiner did not write Voice of the Soul for you to say shit like that. Metal isn’t about screaming and unintelligible music, it’s about using aggression to express so—”
Suddenly, Jason shakes his head and cuts himself off, and just that is enough to say that, just as Dick would have guessed, the subject is getting into personal territory. He got Jason’s guard down, after all, but he isn’t feeling victorious about it.
“Well,” Dick says, trying to salvage the conversation, “just like today—the songs would be much cooler if only the female singer sung, without that guy screaming—”
Jason dramatically covers his face. “You don’t get it, Dickface. It’s all about contrast. Softness and aggression. Dark and light. It’s what makes their music work, what makes their music great. You’re one of those people who goes on about how ‘yeah, the clean vocals are cool, but the growls Sound wrong’. Have some musical education.”
Dick snorts and then smiles, but the turmoil inside him is still there. Jesus. What the fuck was wrong with him? Writing off Jason as just some mindless killer? It’s hard and uncomfortable to remember that Jason is a killer—that he’s making Dick smile with a passionate rant about music, even if he did terrible things. But that’s, well… People.
Jason might still be dangerous, and one night isn’t enough to evaluate the extent of the danger, but Dick doesn’t think he’s as dangerous as to not deserve a second chance. Didn’t Bruce give the Joker —the man who murdered Jason, the man who shot Dick, paralyzed Barbara, tried to kill Tim, and who destroyed countless others lives—a second chance, so to speak? Why wouldn’t Jason deserve one?
“Uh, so, Dick,” Jason starts. “I was an asshole when you sent the concert ticket, but I wanted to thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, Jason. Just don’t break my legs.”
“Then keep your wrong music opinions to yourself,” Jason replies, but he’s smiling, and the words have no heat.
Jason’s gratitude and the banter makes something burn, and this time it’s not guilt, but shame, because Jason had been right when he suspected Dick, but…
Well, he doesn’t ever need to know that, right?
“Hey, do you wanna grab something to eat?” Dick asks, pointing at McDonald’s that’s a few blocks away, and where a lot of people who just left the concert are also going.
Jason does that thing again where he just stares at Dick, maybe assessing something, and it’s a bit unnerving.
“Okay,” he says, after some time. “But I’m paying, because you already bought the tickets, which were much more expensive—”
Dick rolls his eyes. “Jason, you know money is not a problem.”
“Yeah, but,” Jason stops and gives a tiny shrug, “okay, let’s go then.”
Dick doubts Jason would say what that was about, so he doesn’t ask.
Maybe with time they will get to a point like that, Dick considers fleetingly. It’s a weird thing to want that. He came here tonight to basically spy and analyze Jason, but he’s leaving with different data from what he expected.
Well, he’ll just have to actually open that box of things to think about later.