Every week since Jason died and even after finding him alive, Dick went to his grave. He knew it wasn't particularly healthy when the person he was grieving was very much alive but he still did it. At the end of the day, the grave needed to be kept up even if the occupant was no longer there and it was therapeutic. In the early days, he'd used it to torture himself but over the years it had become a spot where he could just let out everything he'd been feeling and although there'd never been a reply, he felt lighter when he left. 

This visit had been brought on by the very person's grave he was visiting. Jason was going on and on about Joker, making joke after joke about his death whilst also making it clear he was displeased with how everything turned out. Dick got it. Well, not completely but he could understand as much as any other person with empathy could. He'd felt the same sort of anger before with Bruce and he'd definitely felt that angry with Joker before. Enough to beat the man to death. He shuddered at the memory. Usually, it didn't bother him any more than the other things he'd done in his past as a result of his anger. He'd worked hard to get it under control and he'd like to say it was better now. It was just that today, with the constant repetition of how Jason wanted the man dead, he couldn't take the memory of it. He could feel the impact of his fists on Joker's skin, his white face paint mixing with the crimson blood bursting out from split skin and staring as his eyes rolled back yet not feeling a thing until it was all over. 

So he was at Jason's grave with a bucket of cleaning supplies and the need to vent. The ground was dry this time of year aside from the layer of frost so he knelt down and got to work. He didn't say anything at first, simply losing himself in the motion of cleaning away the grime that collected every so often. Since the ritual was weekly to the best of his ability (he'd missed some over the years due to recovery, torture, kidnapping and the like) so there wasn't a lot to clean. It was just a good mindless activity. He replaced the old flowers with new ones and neatened up the displaced dirt that someone else had caused on their last visit. He never asked the others if they visited but every so often he found different flowers than the ones he'd left and sometimes a little keepsake that he made sure remained at the grave. 

When he was done, he sat back and got himself comfortable. He stared at the grave and it felt like the grave was staring back at him expectantly, waiting for whatever was troubling his mind. 

"This is weird isn't it?" he asked the stone. It was a question he'd asked a lot since the habit formed. It made sense to be so careful with the graves of his parents and use them as ways to keep him sane but he didn't often venture to that side of the graveyard. Only on a few occasions would he wander over, greet them and clean their graves too. He felt a little guilty about it. After all, he'd loved and known his parents far longer than he had Jason yet his grave felt better to sit at for hours even before he knew it was empty. He didn't know why. "Guess you're wondering what I'm doing here. I know I come on Fridays usually but I thought I'd give you a surprise visit." He was met with silence but he never expected a reply even when he hallucinated his fellow Robin. "You were making those jokes again. I get it, yknow, I'd be pretty pissed off if I were you. I want to laugh along sometimes because you're such a comedian when you wanna be but I can't. Not when I know what I've done." In the distance, he heard a twig crack but he didn't think much of it. He wasn't always alone in the graveyard so he just lowered his voice and carried on. "I'm glad you've found a way to cope and you know I'm always happy seeing Bruce gets thrown off his game like that. I'm happy you're around more now. You've made so much progress and I'm so proud of you for that. It's why I can't tell you what I did. If I did then it would ruin it all." He laughed softly at that. "When don't I ruin things?"

For a few minutes, he remained quiet and mindlessly picked at the few blades of grass that had fought through Gotham's harsh weather to grow. Maybe he should bring some grass seeds. Some flowers too. See what life could thrive in a place of death. "I've not thought about killing him in a while. Funny that. How I can just throw that to the back of my mind in a way I never could with you. Doesn't seem fair." He knotted the grass blades to keep his hands busy. "Don't get me wrong, unlike you, he deserved it. Hell, I hope he has nightmares about that day. I hope he remembers the only thing that kept him alive was Bruce's morals." He scowled at the ground. "I hope every time he sees me, he remembers when I beat him to death. I hope he knows if I had to, I'd kill him. But I know he doesn't think that. I bet he laughs about it. Thinks it's funny he got me that mad. Tim must've been so freaked out seeing me that mad. I can feel him pulling on my arm sometimes. I can hear that pitch in his voice telling me I went too far." He threw the knots of grass somewhere he didn't care to look. "I wish he hadn't been there to see me like that. I know I have issues with anger and I work on it so hard but you get it, don't you? How you can snap?" He sighed. "Joker should've stayed dead when I killed him and yet here I am regretting it."

"You killed Joker?" 

Dick whipped around to find Jason standing just a few feet away. He'd been too wrapped up to notice that someone was approaching him although he liked to think that somehow he'd known there was no threat. It was wishful thinking though. He opened his mouth and then snapped it closed, his eyes drifting over Jason's shoulder. Had he been followed? Was it Jason that visited his own grave?

"What're you doing here?" he decided to ask as though he had any right to the question. This was Jason's grave it wasn't like he had dibs on who could be here at what time. 

"My mum is buried here. Thought I'd visit her." So many people he was connected to had people buried here and yet he never thought to wonder where Jason's mum ended up when she died. He got up off the ground, dusting off the dirt and ignoring how his joints were stiff from the cold. 

"Uh, I have some cleaning supplies if you wanted to clean her stone up," he replied.

"You clean my stone?" Dick nodded. "Do you usually tell my stone how you killed Joker?" 

"No."

"So it's a special occasion."

"Talking about Joker is. I come here every week," he blurted out before he could think about how that sounded. Something in Jason's body language softened almost like he was pitying his older brother. Maybe he should. 

"So you grieve a person who lived?" He shook his head.

"It's the closest I've got to therapy. I can stop doing it. Your grave your rules."

"It's fine."

They stood in silence for an awkward amount of time. 

"You should be proud of it. You're better than Bruce," Jason said quietly. It seemed like an effort to make him feel better but it did nothing of the sort because he wasn't better than Bruce for losing control like that. 

"I'm not. When I killed him, it was from the anger I'd worked so hard to be in control of. You see what it's like now to have anger issues around Bruce. I've been trying to control it since my parents died. Fuck, you remember what I was like with Bruce when you became Robin," the acrobat explained. He paced as he did, his inability to keep skill something that Jason had gotten used to. It didn't make him any less annoyed when he was forced to constantly turn his head but now didn't seem to be the time to make the man stand in one place. "I killed him because I got so fucking angry I lost control and I hate that it was Joker who got that out of me. If I killed him that day, I mean like really killed him because Bruce didn't save him, he would've broken me. I know he deserved it and it's what you wanted now but Joker would've won by making me break the oath I made," Dick continued. "I understand if you're mad and I get that you wanted him dead, I do too but it couldn't be me who killed him." He sighed and sunk down to sit by the grave. "I'm sorry I couldn't take it."

"Don't say it like that," Jason muttered. 

"How am I supposed to say it? It's a fact that I couldn't handle Joker's blood on my hands."

"Because it's not your burden to shoulder!" he snapped back. "I wanted Bruce to kill him because I wanted him to show that I mattered. That my death did something because there's no fixing Joker. No amount of therapy will fix him and it doesn't matter if we lock him in Arkham because he'll break out just as bad as he went in." He sat beside the acrobat and glanced at the kit he'd brought to clean the gravestone. He wondered just how many times his grave had been visited. "When I died, I missed out on everything. I didn't get to finish high school, I didn't go to prom, I didn't get to learn how to drive or anything normal teenagers got to do. So when I came back to the man who took all that away from me still around, I was hurt. I was high off of the Lazurus Pit too and I've done things I regret. I don't want you to do that stupid shit you do where you blame yourself for everything."

"What else am I supposed to do?" Dick asked. "You deserve to feel like your death meant something and killing Joker would've given you that."

"Don't tell me how I'm supposed to feel about you killing him. If I say it's fine, then it's fine but you don't get to project your own shit onto me. I've got enough to deal with." The older nodded and deliberately set his gaze on anywhere but Jason. "I've worked through how I feel about you. Before I was so pissed off that people were seeing this amazing brother that I never had but now I've gone through being so mad, I get why you weren't always there. Bruce royally fucked up giving me Robin without telling you. It was your title."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You've more than made up for it. Knowing you killed Joker now, I gotta say, it's made me have a little more respect for you." He smiled sadly and shook his head. "What made you change?"

"You dying was what kicked me into gear. When Tim became Robin sure I was mad at being replaced again and you being replaced so soon after you died but that wouldn't stop him from being Robin. I had to realize that Bruce was never going to listen to me so the least I could do was be there for my next replacement."

"If you could go back, would you have been what you're like with them with me?"

"Jay, if could go back, you'd hate me more than you already do. You'd probably die just from being smothered by me." 

"I don't hate you."

"No?"

"No. You know what it's like when you say things in anger. You just yell whatever will hurt most half the time." He bumped Dick on the shoulder to get him to look at him. "We're good."

"Good because I'm over all my little brothers having their phase of hating me." Yeah, it was weird how that kept happening. Maybe it was teenage rebellion. "Let's get out of here. Kinda weird sitting by your grave when you're out of it."

"Weird in a good way?"

"Weird in the best way. I'm glad you're here."

"Glad enough to buy me lunch?" Dick cackled and got up before lending the younger a hand. 

"You're getting a happy meal at most."

"Only if I get the Red Hood toy."