Work Text:
To know (you)
Roy has always believed that changing was a difficult thing. As stubborn as he was, had been raised by circumstance, and he never considered his belief to be something he could be wrong about
Sure, it is a real thing. He knows how much a person can improve (or the opposite). With the world on the path of becoming something else, everything could and did shift by the minute. Change was as natural and unstoppable as life itself, and Roy knew it as he knew the path of his arrows. His work and his passion as an engineer, as a fighter, did not allow for stalling or relaxing as the present was made, and if anything was true, is that Roy was one hell of a worker.
But it was experience that had told him that his own life (Drenched in sharp, sharp pain, loneliness, and unrelenting loss) was meant to stay just like that, no matter what he did to make it better, to try to give himself a sheer moment of reprieve from the cruel hands of fate, palms above his shoulders and talons digging all the way into his heart. It was those vulnerable moments, when he couldn't lock his heart and mind shut no matter how hard or what he tried, when he hoped and not a single thing happened, that he understood this painful truth)
Change was simply not meant for him, an impossibility constantly tasted but never truly consumed. It followed him home to home, from the vague memory of his first home and Brave Bow's fading last moments to Oliver's sharp, painful abandonment. No matter where he went, like written on stone, it was always there, never acting, never helping. Along the way, Roy had simply had to accept that peace was never made for him, lest his denial drags him underwater to drown.
Or so he thought.
How foolish had he been, to believe that Jason Todd would bow to something just because it was impossible to overcome. Should have known better, really. At this point, stubbornness might as well be his brand. Those who tough Bruce Wayne to be the most hard-headed man on earth had for sure never met his son.
He still remembered like it was mere seconds ago, the moment he had truly seen him for the first time.
When the titles of Dick's sweet, little spitfire of a sibling, of the Bat adored and so, so incredibly grieved child ( And how distressing was, that had Life been any less merciful, Roy would merely ever have known him as that? A distant tragedy told by the tears of a brother and the blood of a father) became barely an afterthought. When that tangible distance of two people who had been merely rotating around each other, had vanished like sand between his fingers.
Just to leave a raw, passionate, intensely unapologetic Jason, bare before him. It was like staring up at the sun, as if he had been freezing all his life and Jason was a firestorm. Ignored by those who didn't know better, who didn't dare look past the image of a cold, cruel man and saw the one hidden within him.
(Jason, his sweet, loving Jason, could not see, could not notice the way even the coldest souls melted before his flame, thriving on his sheer presence. Cruely and pain had shaped him so that nothing could reach him in case it hurt, and at some point, the facade has become too real to the man behind it. Roy, at least, could promise to dig at it for the rest of his life, one day at a time. He would be dead and buried before he let the matter rest)
And Roy could only thank everything he knew that he had been lucky enough to, in a haze of numbness and poison, dare and truly look, and holding onto dear life (quite literally sometimes), promptly be swept off his feet by soft eyes and a hesitant smile.
He couldn't believe how different life was. When his friend, become lover, become moremoremore, chased away the dark, it was so fast had it not left marks, he would not remember it had even existed in the first place. The soft touches of the man molding him, as he stared at what his fate had been and, standing sure and strong as a tree, denied it. Who took Roy's hand with his and refused to let him go.
It was with him that he had frayed the string controlling him, with his shaking hand grasping his. When he allowed his own family of bats and birds entry, Roy found the strength to give forgiveness a chance. To truly believe he could have his own family back. It was his sharp, unforgiving eyes (Alfred would be so proud had he been there) towards Oliver, that gave him enough of a shield to not fear the fall. For he knew, in the deepest part of his soul, that no matter what Jason would be there to catch Roy. After years, it had only taken the soft but steady love of his partner to start to heal.
And sure, he had been the one leading his own steps, making decisions as he lay awake with the younger man's curls brushing his neck and warm body lulling him to sleep, but it was with Jason's palm, so stark it felt engraved at his back that he had felt like he was allowed to move forward. To watch a happy future in front of him and grasp it with both hands. And now, leaning into the doorway of his home, looking at his daughter's flushed cheeks as she danced with his Papa, the soft baritone of Jason's laugh and clinking bells of Lian's giggling echoing in his ears and crinkling the corner of his eyes, that Roy looked at his belief, and dared let go.
He had nothing to fear anymore, after all.