The rooftop was relatively normal except for the flick of a lighter sparking to life. Diсk watched as the cigarette between his teammate’s fingers caught flame, the ember burning an unhealthy orange. He wrinkled his nose.

“You should quit those,” he remarked, arms folded over his chest. “Lung cancer isn’t a good look for you.”

He had a love-hate relationship with the smoke curling in the cold night air, like phantom fingers reaching for him. Diсk held his breath, turning his head slightly as if that would help him escape the scent that desperately clung on. It didn't. It never did. He had seen the other vigilante do this a hundred times, cigarette resting lazily against lips he wondered about at night, the practiced way fingers moved to flick away the ash before it had the chance to fall. It was effortless, something ingrained. Just another part of who he was dealing with. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? It was a part that he would never understand, unless...

He reached out. Diсk hesitated for half a second before pinching it between his fingers, testing the weight of something he had always seen as reckless and self-destructive. He had spent years avoiding vices like these.

The filter was warm against his lips, and the taste was immediate.

It was a bitter, acrid burn that seized his throat the second he dared to inhale. His entire body rejected it on instinct, and he choked, doubling over in an attempt not to cough. His ribs ached. “God,” he wheezed, voice pathetically raw. “That’s disgusting. How do you—?”

This was a terrible idea. Awful. He could fight supervillains and psychopaths, could jump from rooftops without hesitation, but one drag of a cigarette had him gasping like he’d been sucker-punched. The Boy Wonder had a lot to learn.