BAD HABIT → DICK GRAYSON

misc | sorry the old augustine can't come to the phone rn

"But you want to know why we're fighting?" Augustine finished his statement for him while pouring the boiling water into two mugs and placing a tea bag into each of them. Drizzling honey into hers, she constructed her next statement carefully, "There's a lot of reasons why, I guess. It's a lot harder to have a long distance relationship than we thought it would be."

"Why doesn't he just move here?"

Augustine sipped on her tea, "That would mean uprooting Lian's entire life, it's not fair to her. Especially if we're not going to stay together."

Jason put his mug down onto the counter, worry covering his features, "It's that serious?"

"Like I said, lots of reasons, Jay."

"This is almost as heartbreaking as finding out that Dick and Kory broke up."

"I haven't broken up with him yet," Augustine side-eyed the young adult, watching as he huffed a breath. She didn't even need to use her powers to know what he was thinking, "Stop with that train of thought."

Jason turned to look at her, leaning all of his weight into just one of his elbows. With his chin propped up, he spoke, "Did you know that Babs and Dick broke up about eight months ago?"

"I had heard."

"No one really knew why," Jason mumbled. "Neither one of them would say anything about it. But then, one night, Babs told me it was because he had feelings for someone else." Augustine felt her heart beat faster at that addition. "Said she couldn't stick it out with him knowing his heart wasn't even his anymore. That it might not have been hers to begin with."

Augustine looked down at the mug in her hands, fingers toying with the branded tag at the end of the tea bag. Somehow the basis of Dick's break-up sounded eerily similar to the arguments brought up by Roy — though, despite all rational reason, Augustine liked to believe the thought that they weren't on their deathbed. Realistically, she knew there was only so much more than they could do before saying enough was enough. When they would both throw in the towel because it became too much to handle. Too much to worry over. Too much to deal with. Augustine wasn't ready for that day to come, she knew it was. It was a weird internal sensor she had — she was always good at knowing when things were going to end. Dick never failed to be wondered by her ability to know when things went bad. It normally helped her more when she was talking about him. She knew him like the back of her hand, like the two of them had been created from the same fabric cut in different ways. Jason watched her as she battled her own thoughts, "Roy's fighting you with something similar, isn't he?"

Augustine looked up, unsurprised at Jason's words. He had always been able to figure out the root of her problem, he was exceptionally good at reading situations. At reading people. He always had been — it's why she had taken to him when he was a teenager and she was barely an adult. She felt akin to him, in a way that an older sister feels for their younger brother. Like a sense of protectiveness went through her as a sense of understanding went through him — they both knew they would do anything to protect each other. Augustine tried not to think about the day that he died, how she wasn't even in the states when it happened (not that he was either but, she wouldn't have been able to do anything anyways), how she couldn't do anything. If she moved one step out of like Bruce would have had her thrown in Arkham, even if it was something that was twenty years in the making. Augustine still had yet to kill on purpose (there have been times that death was a side effect of the things that happened at her hand, but they were never on purpose), but she would if given the chance and five minute alone with the Joker. She would do anything she had to do in order to make sure he would never see the light of day again — he didn't deserve to be above ground anymore.