Three days later Roy and Kori were gone. They had each given Jason and Dick a hug and left while Bruce was on patrol. Both Arsenal and Starfire avoided him successfully the two and a half weeks they stayed in Gotham, not really sure why they wanted to. Dick hadn't asked and neither had Damian, or Tim when he had flown in that first week.
It seemed like it was a given in this household. If you were Jason's friend, you avoided Bruce Wayne. And, with his personality present or not, Roy and Koriand'r were friends of Jason.
"Take care of him," Roy said, and realized that Bruce probably would have said that to him if he had known Roy was running with Red Hood.
Dick smiled brightly. "We're going to go camping next Saturday. I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it last time."
Roy looked over at Jason, twenty-something year old Jason who looked as calm and indifferent as a sleeping toddler. And he thought to himself: I stayed, and I found out what was underneath, and it turns out that all Jason boils down to is a kid that likes to go camping.
"Where will you go?" Dick asked, and suddenly Jason looked up from his shoes and shoved a paper to Roy's chest. Kori smiled, confused but amused, and put her hand on his shoulder.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's a phone number," Roy said. He studied it for a second. "With a Star City area code." Roy held the paper tightly in his hand and remembered what Jason told him, before everything fell apart. He smiled. "Mind if we take a detour before hitting the safe house, Kori?"
"We'll go anywhere we desire," she answered, and joined Roy by the door. "Goodbye, Jason. Goodbye, Richard. Take care of each other." They walked out the door into the crisp Gotham night.
"We'll see you again soon!" Dick called as the two left, hopping onto Roy's bike and heading east towards the highway and Star City. Towards home, at least for one of them. Dick looked behind him, and Jason was watching them go as well, with glassy eyes and a small spark of recognition.
"Gotham gets kind of boring, doesn't it?" Dick asked Jason, who was following him to the kitchen. "I mean, you're more a child of Gotham than I am, and even you had the good sense to get some time away."
Jason sat down at the table showing toast in his mouth. Dick knew his brother had never gotten over his starving origins, and they stayed with him as instinct even when all else fell away. Child of Gotham indeed, Dick thought.
"Hey," he said loudly, and Jason's head snapped up a little. He was listening. "How about, when you get better, I run with the Outlaws for a month or something. You can handle not killing anyone for that long, right?"
Jason looked up, really looked up. Dick's breath caught in his throat. Mouth twitching, Jason formed a small smile. Then, he dropped the bread and took his brother's hand, staring into Dick's eyes the whole time, as if to say I'll remember that, I'll remember everything, and you should, too.
When Dick woke up the next morning at eleven and found that Jason was gone, along with some of the pantry and the emergency grocery money, he realized he really should have known this was coming.
He still put their camping trip on the calendar for next Saturday, though. He'd remember.