Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s been exactly a year since Dick’s heart had stopped and started again, around a month and a half since he got back from Spyral, and a very long time since he’s felt alright.

Every morning he wakes up alone in his new apartment in Blüdhaven (his old one was rented to new tenets after his death) with an aching back and a persistent headache that never seems to go away, despite his newfound habit of going through a small pill bottle of Tylenol each week. In the back of his mind, he can almost hear Alfred’s scolding voice each time he reaches for the cupboard.

He might not be “alright”, but he’s fine, not that anyone was asking. He tells himself so repeatedly.

He’s fine when he can’t eat much because he’s nauseous half the time, fine when he barely gets any sleep because every time he closes his eyes he sees the corpses that have been added to his ledger, and he’s fine when he comes crawling back to the cave in an utterly pathetic manner each time Bruce calls on him.

Like this morning, for example, when he wakes up to a summoning text that reads Work in Gotham today. Rumor of new drugs on the South End. from Bruce.

He had been looking forward to sleeping in. His clock tells him it’s 5:00 in the morning, meaning he totaled a grand two hours rather than his usual four.

On his way to the manor, he stops for coffee. He buys Tim one too, just in case. He probably (hopefully) wasn’t awake, but you never know with Tim. Even if he is awake, it’s nearly a given that the younger won’t even look at him and will probably ignore him as much as he can within professional capacity. Dick will still offer. Maybe, just maybe, if Tim is awake, and desperate enough for the caffeine, he might take it.

It might be wishful thinking. Dick figures that if Tim doesn’t want it he can probably drink both anyways.

The cave is empty when Dick arrives, aside from Bruce. He begins to inform Dick about the case and what to look out for, and as always the two of them ignore the scathing fight that had occurred a few days prior.

It wasn’t anything new, just the consistent cycle that had been happening for years. Dick comes from Blüdhaven to help with a mission and see the kids. They complete said mission. Dick hangs around until his presence is no longer tolerated. Bruce and Dick fight, exchange words that they would never aim at anybody but one another. Dick once again flips his bike’s kickstand, and drives out of the cave in an act of preservation for both himself and Bruce.

Dick knows he’s not supposed to bring it up. If he does, he’ll find that his welcome is overstayed far sooner. He’s become good at reading when it’s getting close to his time to leave. Bruce has only officially kicked him out twice, but the only difference between now and then is that now Dick knows how to keep that number where it’s at.

All in all, it’s a good system.

Bruce gets his anger out, Dick gets to come back and see his siblings, with the added bonus of being able to negotiate (read: argue) with Bruce when he’s being too hard on them, putting too much pressure or assigning too much work.

This is why, despite Dick having called Bruce a “Heartless man who doesn’t give a damn about his children,” and Bruce having called Dick a “Worthless coddler who was going to get another one of my sons killed, just like you did to Jason!” the last time they saw each other, Dick doesn’t want to bring any of it up.

This time, however, he needs to. He’s seen the patrol schedule, knows that Bruce didn’t cut back on Damian’s late night hours as Robin. How was he supposed to go to school when the rest of his day consisted of only Robin and a mere nine hours to sleep and eat? He needed to have friends, hobbies!

“Listen, Bruce…” Dick starts, cutting Bruce off from his monotone explanation of the new case, “I saw that Damian is scheduled for the next three days.”

Bruce frowns, and sighs in disappointment, “Dick, I thought we had gone over this. I am not going to raise him all soft like you seem to want me to. You know what that does in this line of work.”

“He needs time to be a kid, Bruce! He shouldn’t have to work, he’s in middle school!” Dick’s voice is raised now, and normally he’s not the one to be escalating like this but Bruce wasn’t listening.

“I am preparing them,” Bruce snarls, “They need to be ready to face the real world. I’m protecting them!”

Any other day, this is where Dick takes a deep breath and placates Bruce, tells him that he knows the man only wants the best for all of them, but that he isn’t expressing it correctly.

Today, Dick is too fed up. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he registers that he shouldn’t have come in to work today.

“I told you from the start that if you ever even began to train Jason the same way you trained me, I’d take him away. Then I told you the same about Tim, then Damian, and every other kid you ever brought into this household. Yet I’m still back here every few days reminding you that if you give Tim three case files he’ll stay up all night working on them or Damian needs time to eat between school and training,” Dick is fully yelling by the end of the sentence, pushing his pointer finger into the chest of the Batman suit.

“Coming from you?” Bruce meets Dick’s volume, “Don’t forget that at Damian’s age you threw a pathetic little fit when I took Robin from you! God knows why I didn’t do it sooner.”

Dick recoils in shock, disbelieving that Bruce could be so cruel as to say such a thing. To take Robin away sooner?

Robin, after everything, was still his symbol. One of the last things he had left of his parents.

He thought Bruce regretted taking it. He thought… well, he thought that Bruce cared about him still, even just a little. But to take Robin, to send him to Spyral, to turn him into an outcast in every way possible from the one thing that mattered the most to him - his family - meant that Bruce might not have ever cared in the first place.

All at once, everything is too much. The lights are too bright, his head is hurting, and Dick has nothing.

It’s the truth.

Here he is, in the Batcave, yelling in a futile attempt to convince a man that he’s sure doesn’t hold even a shred of love for him that his siblings, of which two out of three hate Dick’s guts, deserve to have some semblance of a normal childhood.

To his horror, he feels the telltale lump in his throat and stinging in his eyes that signifies the threat of tears.

He hasn’t cried in a long time, and he isn’t about to start now.

So, just as Dick has been taught to do all his life, he throws up his walls.

“I’m not asking you to make Damian give up Robin, I’m only telling you that you need to stop raising fucking child soldiers! Is that all we are to you?! Pawns in your screwed up fucking mission? You don’t deserve to call yourself a father, in fact, you don’t even deserve to call yourself human you-!”

Bruce’s fist makes a resounding crack! as it hits Dick’s face.

Dick topples to the ground, and is left to stare up at Bruce while the man towers over him.

“You have no right to have any say in how I parent my sons. Or have you forgotten that you’re not even one of them?”

…

…

…

Now Dick is crying, his tears mixing in with the blood that drips from his nose. There is silence, filled only by heavy breathing, as they remain frozen like that - Bruce with clenched fists, and Dick, slumped over miserably.

Bruce seems to register that he has gone too far. Regret fills his eyes, and Dick can tell that he is going to say something more. Not an apology, but maybe an offer to help Dick up, or a few words on whether or not the first aid kit has been restocked before he leaves.

He opens his mouth to say whatever it is, but doesn’t get a chance to. At that moment, Tim enters the Batcave.

Dick knows who it is without looking, would know any of his siblings the bats by the sound of their footsteps. He doesn’t raise his eyes any higher than Tim’s shoes, looking at the ratty sneakers through the dark hair that sweeps across his vision and trying to regain control of the tears.

He is struck by gut wrenching shame, strong enough to make him wish he hadn’t returned from Spyral, hadn’t been born-

“What the fuck?” Tim says, tone cold and utterly unreadable.

Dick breathes. In. Out.

He smiles.

Raises an arm, wipes the blood away from under his nose with a sleeve and a sniffle.

“Hey Timmy! Good morning, or at least it better be. Did you sleep?” Dick asks with a wide and happy as he can muster grin.

“What the fuck?” Tim asks again, and Dicks smile falters a bit before he pushes an even brighter one onto his face.

He raises himself off the ground shakily, trying not to sway when he stands. Both Tim and Bruce watch him the whole way.

“Want coffee? I brought you coffee,” Dick makes his way over to the table he had set the drinks on when he entered. “Black, double shot espresso,” he pauses, because taking a hit to the head definitely didn’t help his headache nor his sense of balance. He plays it off as concern, “only if you actually did sleep though.”

“Dick, stop. Stop,” Tim says his hands hovering outstretched in the air in front of Dick like he’s not quite sure what to do with them. Dick doesn’t stop, presses the cup into Tim’s hand and holds it there for a moment to make sure Tim has a hold on it.

“Why don’t we go upstairs?” Dick asks, doing damage control as always, “Alfred’s probably not awake yet, but we can see what I can do about breakfast?”

Tim’s gaze flickers up and over Dick’s shoulder almost imperceptibly to where Bruce is still standing in the middle of the room.

“Yeah, okay,” Tim says, then sets the coffee right back on the table where it came from in favor of grabbing Dick’s shoulders and steering him towards the exit. This, to Dick’s horror, is a completely transparent method of placing himself between the two of them.

Tim wasn’t going to let this go. The shame and guilt returns twofold as they leave Bruce in the Batcave. Neither of them speak as Dick leads them to the kitchen, and Dick immediately sets to work grabbing pancake mix when they enter to avoid facing Tim.

Surprisingly, Tim takes a seat at the island table and allows Dick to rush around the room making food for the two of them. Something in the way Dick looked or held himself up must have told Tim that he needed a minute to recollect himself.

As he stirs the batter, he momentarily pauses to sneak a glance at himself in the reflection of the microwave, grabbing a napkin to clear the new blood off his face. His nose has stopped bleeding fully now, and the red on his cheek has begun to bloom into a deep and angry purple.

Bruce hadn’t held back. From the look of it, there would be a mark for a while. The positioning could easily be explained away - some crook in Blüdhaven got a lucky swing.

Again, not that anyone was asking where his bruises were coming from these days.

To Dick’s chagrin, his time seemed to be up after the pancakes had been cooked and passed down the table to Tim.

“Has he hit you before?” Tim begins by asking.

Dick purses his lips and prods his food with a fork.

“Jesus, Dick. How often?”

“Very, very rarely. Only when I push him, alright? You caught us on a bad day. I… oh god, I said he wasn’t human,” Dick buries his head in his hands a moment, the familiar horror and regret already starting to plant itself in his stomach as a toiling nausea, “Listen, me and Bruce will sort this out, just like we always do. It’s not worth mentioning to Damian or Jason, okay?”

“Just like you always do? What the hell does that mean, Dick? That you always argue like this before you leave?” Tim is getting louder now, and Dick shushes him gently, worried that someone else might come through the door at any minute.

“No. Look, I knew that he wasn’t ready to talk this morning, and I still brought things up,” Dick admits, and then shoves a bite of pancake in his mouth to make it clear he wasn’t going to say anything else on the matter.

“Dick…” Tim says, voice dripping with pity, “You know that there’s nothing that you could have brought up that should have resulted in what I just saw.”

And Dick knows that family aren’t supposed to hit one another. He knows, but Bruce had made it abundantly clear that Dick wasn’t a part of the family.

He’d been avoiding the implications of not being adopted for years, telling himself that Bruce forgot, or that it didn’t really matter because he was an adult. Stupid, because of course it mattered. Dick wasn’t a son, or a brother, or wanted. He was a leech, worth only as much to them when he was in his Nightwing suit.

It was true. Both Jason and Tim could barely stand to be in the same room as Dick these days. Actually, Dick was pretty sure this was the first time that Tim and Dick had actually sat down and talked since he got back. In any other circumstance, Dick would have been thrilled! His brother- Tim talking to him for longer than a snide remark or an instruction of some sort? Yesterday, it was his dream. Today, all he wants to do is go back to Tim dodging him.

“Just like when Jason hit me?” Dick snaps at Tim, without really meaning to. Shock spreads across the younger’s face, and Dick winces.

Tim hadn’t done anything to warrant the bitter tone in his voice. Neither had Jason, for that matter. It had been a bad time for all of them, right after he had returned from Spyral. Dick hadn’t been able to give them the explanation they deserved, the wounds from his mission still fresh in his mind, and neither of them had been interested in hearing it after the fact - which was perfectly reasonable.

Even if he hadn’t wanted to, even if Bruce had made it clear that it was either Dick went to Spyral or he went into the dirt where everyone already thought he was, he had still eventually agreed, knowing the hurt it would cause.

(He didn’t want to. He begged. Pleaded. Prayed, even. Bruce’s fists were unforgiving. Did he really have a choice?)

Jason had been justified in taking a swing. Tim had been justified for his cold words, for thinking nothing more of it.

“That’s- that was different, and you know it, Dick,” Tim says sharply, and Dick sees a flash of the anger that he knows Tim’s been hiding for months under all the cold and uncaring demeanor.

He’s making the exact same mistake he had with Bruce. - making Tim angry. He hadn’t meant it to sound the way it did. Really, he must have a talent for always saying the wrong thing. No matter how much or how little he plans his words before he says them, he never conveys what he wants to.

This conversation is barreling towards an argument, and it’s the last thing Dick can handle right now. He backtracks as quickly as he can.

“What if it wasn’t different? You don’t know what happened. It was the exact same. I messed up, I learn. It’s okay, Tim. Just… forget about it, okay?” Dick sighs, defeated and done.

He deposits his plate into the fridge, with only the single bite of the pancake he’d eaten gone. He’d known when he was making them he wouldn’t be able to stomach them, his nausea rearing its head at the smell. They’d been more for Tim anyways.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Dick says, grabbing his keys off the counter, knowing that by then, things would be back to normal.

Tim would go back to his detached and harsh attitude. Bruce would probably cut back on Robin’s hours just enough such that Dick would accept it in his version of reconciliation, and Dick would give him a nod and a smile of appreciation. They would all be civil.

They still needed him. He was Nightwing. As long as he dawned a mask, they needed him.

The drug case could a few hours.

The next time Dick woke up, he was actually feeling a bit better. After retreating back to Blüdhaven to lick his wounds, he’d collapsed back into his bed, pathetically exhausted despite having done nothing.

He’d justified it in his head by telling himself that since this was the first time he had pushed Bruce too far since Spyral, he needed to take time to reflect.

Maybe, he thought, if he hadn’t been so off his game, it wouldn’t have ended like that in the first place. Maybe he would have noticed Tim entering the Batcave sooner, and could have avoided the horribly awkward conversation that ensued.

Turning over, his eyes widened when he saw the time, and he shot out of bed.

12 hours!

He’d intended to take a half-hour nap, not to sleep the entire day away!

He hopped around the room a bit as he pulled his Nightwing suit on in a hurry - he’d been scheduled for patrol a few hours ago.

Flicking on his comms, he announced his presence.

“Look who finally decided to show up,” Jason remarks, voice dripping with contempt. Dick cringes at the thinly veiled anger.

“Nightwing, report,” Bruce demands, and Dick bites his cheek harshly.

What was he supposed to say? I fell asleep without an alarm set because I haven’t slept more than five hours a day in the past week, and I already had two this morning so I thought I’d be good?

“I was held up with civilian responsibilities,” Dick says instead, and he knows that normally such a vague response wouldn’t fly with Bruce, but that he won’t demand answers this very minute since they are in masks. Jason’s comm picks up his scoff.

“Go handle the planned route you were assigned. Robin and Red Robin have been covering for you,” Bruce says, and Dick blinks in surprise.

Tim had been covering? Damian wasn’t a surprise - the youngest had never held a grudge about Spyral. But Tim?

Tim borderline despised Dick, which leaves Dick to address the only possible reason why: his argument with Bruce and subsequent talk with Tim.

It was pity.

Tim pitied Dick for being such a screw up that Bruce didn’t want any claim over him.

Chapter Text

Dick reaches the agreed meet-up point, a rooftop between where the three of them are supposed to be patrolling, as quickly as he is able to.

It’s almost pointless, arriving this late, because there’s really only an hour left on the schedule before they were off-duty. He won’t have time to investigate that drug claim that Bruce had told him about.

The silver lining to this whole situation is that it gives Dick an excuse to take one of Damian’s shifts sometime soon, to reduce the workload. Damian won’t allow Dick to take any regularity, the idea that taking help from Dick was showing some form of weakness stuck in his head. Dick had been working on convincing him otherwise, but Bruce certainly wasn’t helping on that front.

If Damian would have let Dick silently take a few of his patrol hours each day, then Dick would have been able to justify the amount of time that the kid was spending on Robin. Bruce would have been none the wiser - but Damian was stubborn. Now, here Damian was, taking part of Dick’s patrol area. If Dick pushed enough he bets that Damian would relinquish at least a few days worth of work to him, which was great. It might give him the opportunity to negotiate further in the future.

Dick really doesn’t have anything better to be doing at the moment, considering all the time he spends rolling around in bed trying to fall asleep on a regular basis.

By the time he arrives, Robin and Red Robin are both already there. Damian has his arms crossed as he regards Tim with a mildly frustrated look from the corner of his eye. Tim, on the other hand, is looking out at the rooftops, and hones in on Dick the moment he sees the two of them.

“Nightwing, I do not know why Red Robin has insisted on helping cover your ground. Tell him that I am perfectly capable of doing it on my own,” Damian says when Dick lands. Dick’s smile is strained as he avoids eye contact with Tim, instead placing a gentle hand on Damian’s shoulder.

“It isn’t because Red thinks you’re incapable,” Dick tells the youngest, “It was my fault. You shouldn’t have had to deal with the extra territory anyways. Red Robin was just divvying the job up in a way that made the most sense.”

Tim still doesn’t pitch in, simply watching as Dick diffuses the situation. It’s obvious that Tim hasn’t said anything to Damian, which meant that the sum of the earlier events was what Dick was expecting - nothing. Tim’s silence spoke volumes. Everything was the same as yesterday, albeit with the new addition of pity from Tim considering the patrol cover. Apparently it wasn’t enough to get Tim talking again.

Which, Dick reminds himself, was perfectly reasonable considering the way he had left Tim in the kitchen. Really, what was he thinking, treating his brother like that?

Damian interrupts him from spiralling into regret.

He’s obviously not satisfied by Dick’s earlier response, but he abandons the line of thought in favour of questioning, “And where were you?”

“I… fell asleep by accident,” Dick says, unwilling to lie to Damian. He’d done enough lying to all of them.

“That is below you, Nightwing. You are not normally so careless,” Damian scolds in a way that, to most people, would sound unnecessarily harsh. Dick, however, knows that is Damian’s way of probing for information as to why Dick had let that happen, so he tries his best to ignore the mean words and focus on the thoughts behind them instead.

“I know. It’s a one-off occurrence. Won’t happen again, promise,” Dick holds up his pinky, and Damian loops his own around it to seal the promise, “Thank you for taking care of my section while I was gone.”

Damian hmphs, and quietly tells him, “I will hold you to your word, Richard,” before vaulting off the roof.

For Damian, that had been essentially a heartfelt declaration of worry, and Dick finds himself smiling goofily for the first time in a long while.

He’d almost forgotten about Tim’s presence until he spoke.

“We need to talk.”

Dick muffles his response to the startle, proud that the only visible reaction is the slight twitch of his shoulders. Tim was talking to him again. He very nearly wants to scan the roof to see if there’s another person besides the two of them that Tim might be speaking to, but he knows he would have heard them if there was.

Dick doesn’t turn around, instead continuing to watch Robin slowly become smaller in the distance as he moved across the rooftops.

He almost tells Tim that No, they don’t need to. What more is there to say? out of fear, because he knows that this is still about Bruce and the fight (why else would Tim bother to talk to the likes of him?). He stops himself.

This was what he had been hoping for, praying for. Tim was talking to him, looking at him, so Dick forces himself out of his cowardice to make eye contact.

“Alright. Now, or later?” Dick asks.

“Now,” Tim says, and Dick supposes that here is as good of a place as any. They evidently weren’t going to have this conversation in the Batcave, and this was a tall enough building with no roof access and enough vantage that they would see if anyone was approaching.

“Alright,” Dick says again, at a loss for what to say.

He’d imagined this moment many times, the day that Tim would finally start speaking to him again. What Dick might say to him, and what Tim might say in return. Now that it was happening, Dick couldn’t think of anything beyond a myriad of pathetic sorries and excuses that Tim probably didn’t want to hear.

He thinks that maybe this is when he should crack a joke of some sort or at least do something to cut the tension, but his mind is blank. Tim starts talking before he can come up with anything.

“I wanted to give you a chance to tell me everything yourself before I start going through the Batcave footage,” Tim says, arms crossed and expression blank. “If you lie to me again I’ll know.”

Dick winces at the accusation and leans himself against one of the concrete extrusions of the building, elbows propped up behind him in faux casualty.

“There’s not much to tell, really,” Dick tells him unconvincingly, a hint of uncertainty in his voice that he didn’t suppress as well as he had intended.

Tim’s eyes trace around the bruise that had now fully developed, a hint of… some emotion that Dick wasn’t able to identify entering his expression.

The careful studying made Dick want to cover his cheek with a hand, but he suppressed the urge knowing how it would appear.

“I’m pretty sure there is, actually,” Tim moves to stand beside Dick and look out at the city instead, letting out a loud sigh before continuing, “How many times has he hit you?”

“I don’t know,” slips out of Dick’s mouth before he can think better of it, and instantly he is stumbling to correct himself, “-well okay, so there’s been a lot of extenuating circumstances and out of context I know that sounds really bad but you know Bruce… he always has good reasons for… like… you know how he is, Tim.”

Dick trails off as a hint of pleading enters his tone, figuring that he wasn’t going to be able to salvage that one much further.

Tim takes it in stride, not remarking on Dick’s verbal car-crash of an explanation. His face has returned to its initial carefully blank state as he continues questioning. “Okay then, when was the last time before this one?”

Dick bites his inner lip nervously, fully aware that Tim had to be cataloging every reaction but unable to stop regardless.

“Come on, Dick,” Tim says, “If you want to have this conversation then it needs to be a two-way street.”

Dick doesn’t want to have this conversation, but quite frankly he was surprised they were having it. It’s not like he’s about to say so and ruin the first civil talk that the two of them have had in months, so he steels himself and mumbles out the answer.

“What?” Tim asks, leaning in closer to hear.

“Before my heart stopped,” Dick says a little louder.

“Oh my god,” Tim says, and for a moment Dick thinks that Tim finally gets it, might understand the impact that it had on Dick’s life. Then, Tim throws his hands up in annoyance, “I can’t believe you! I thought we were finally going to have an honest conversation and you’re still caught up lying to me!”

“Timmy, wait,” Dick says as Tim starts to storm off angrily, but Dick’s hand shoots out to wrap around Tim’s wrist - not harshly enough that Tim couldn’t easily tear himself away, but enough to get him to turn back around.

“What?” Tim snaps, and Dick falters in the midst of the uncharacteristic yell. He wants to shy away and let Tim leave, let him think whatever he wanted - but this was the first time Tim had spoke to him in months.

Dick had to make him understand somehow that he wasn’t trying to screw this up.

“Look, I didn’t say I died, okay? I get that it doesn’t count now, I realize it was insensitive of me to refer to it that way, and I’m sorry,” he tries to put as much emphasis on his words as he can, to show Tim that he really means it, “but I’m not lying anymore. I didn’t ever want to and I’m sorry I’m just-,” his voice cracks, and all the while he holds Tim’s wrist, “-I’m sorry! Please just talk to me!”

There is a sobering moment of silence after Dick’s outburst, in which Dick lets go of Tim. He’s ashamed and embarrassed, almost certain that Tim wouldn’t ever utter another syllable in his direction ever again.

Tim’s eyes are wide, evaluating. Trying to pick out the lies in Dick’s words, “What do you mean ‘It doesn’t count’?”

“My heart stopping. I know-,” Dick starts.

“You actually died?!” Tim says, as though it’s a revelation, something he didn’t know.

“Well, no, I get that it’s-,” Dick tries to explain. He’s heard enough of Jason’s yelling by now to know that what happened to him and what happened to Jason were different. Jason had died. Dick merely had a few minutes of suffocation.

Then, Tim says something that Dick had never expected in a million years:

“That is the literal definition of death, Dick!”

Dick stands flabbergasted. Wasn’t that the opposite of everything that he’d been told since he got back? Hadn’t Tim and Jason both been on his case for months telling him that he had been a complete liar, that everything was fake? It got to the point that Dick just wished that Luthor didn’t have that adrenaline shot waiting for him. It would have made everything easier.

And now, here was Tim, telling him all of this like it was new information.

Dick honestly doesn’t know what Tim wants from him anymore.

“I’m sorry, okay? I died, I didn’t die, I don’t even care anymore! Whichever one you want just-”

“Stop apologizing!” Tim screams.

Dick’s mouth slams shut, and on instinct he backs himself into the concrete wall, watching Tim take heaving breaths.

“I didn’t mean for it to come out like that,” Tim says after a moment, remorse colouring his face as he takes in Dick’s posture. “I’m going about this all wrong. Just- how about this? You tell me about this, you… dying, Bruce hitting you, everything, and I’m going to shut up and listen like I should have in the first place.”

Dick wishes he could melt away into the ground and disappear. For all he had pleaded Tim to stay, he really wasn’t ready to have this conversation, and, more importantly, he wasn’t supposed to have this conversation. Bruce and him had decided a long time ago to not talk about what had happened before Spyral.

He knows he has to tell Tim something, so he sticks to the basics.

“That bomb was wired up to my heart, and Lex Luthor killed me to diffuse it. Then he gave me an adrenaline shot, and that was that.”

“And Bruce?” Tim inquires.

“Forced Luthor to revive me,” Dick answers, even though he knows it’s not the one that Tim is looking for.

“Okay,” Tim says, processing, “okay. I won’t make you talk about it if you don’t want to. But we need to tell the others.”

“What? No we don’t,” he protests, pulling himself back upright and regaining his posture after realizing that he is still partially attempting to blend into the wall.

“Yes we do. Jason’s been borderline tormenting you about your own death for months,” Tim explains.

“I was at Spyral,” Dick claims a bit weakly.

Tim’s eyes scrunch up in sadness as he searches Dick’s face once more. Whatever it is that he sees makes him move closer, laying a too-gentle hand on Dick’s shoulder that has Dick leaning toward Tim before he thinks about it.

“Dick…” Tim says quietly, “You don’t honestly believe he would still be saying those things if he knew.”

“I thought Bruce showed you the video when I went undercover,” Dick says, slowly coming to the correct conclusion.

“He did. After you came back, we assumed it was all fake - that the death was orchestrated by Bruce and you to help with your cover. We didn’t know,” Tim’s hand drops away from Dick’s shoulder, and Dick takes note of the disappearing warmth despite himself.

Did Jason and Tim really not realize? Tim was the best detective Dick knew, and Dick had been under the impression that Jason was using the knowledge to tease and prod where it hurt. It had been near cruelty, the snide remarks and insults (not that Dick wasn’t aware that he’d merited them), and the endless silence that lay where the insults ended.

To think that maybe all this time, Jason didn’t realize what he was doing… Dick feels his hope building like a twisted noose, taking his breath away. It was pointless to let himself imagine for a moment that Jason cared about that.

This doesn’t change anything. Jason would still be angry, and the last thing that Dick wants to do is guilt trip him on top of everything else.

It takes him awhile to realize that Tim is still waiting for a reaction or response of some sort. He takes awhile to mull over his answer and organize his thoughts before replying.

“You still shouldn’t tell Jason. Just because the video was a little more real than you thought it was, it doesn’t really change much. I don’t want to make a big deal over something like this. All I want is for things to go back to normal.” The normal before Spyral, Dick thinks but doesn’t say.

“If this isn’t a big deal, and Bruce hitting you isn’t a big deal,” Dick cringes at Tim’s blunt wording, “then what other things aren’t a big deal? I’m learning a lot about you today, Dick, but the biggest thing I’ve learned is that you’re hiding a lot, and that you’re obviously not going to tell me. I want to be angry at you for it. I am angry at you for it! You died and you were alive and you didn’t tell me!”

Tim is a looming presence now, a threatening imposition that would instil fright into anyone with any common sense. Under the mask was a viciously calm stare despite the volume and intensity of his words.

He’s trying to start a fight, shifting his feet into a subtle ready stance - fists clenched so tightly by his sides that they were trembling and white from the loss of circulation.

Dick knows Tim better than that. He sees it in Tim’s eyes, that he’s trying to hold in everything that’s been festering all this time, that it’s about to boil over.

This.

This right here was the exact reason why Dick doesn’t tell anybody things like this. Not because wanted to avoid this, in fact, it was quite the opposite.

If Dick told Tim or anyone else about Spyral they would blow it out of proportion and do something stupid like start to worry about Dick.

And you don’t tell people you’re worried about your problems.

Tim, Damian, Jason, and hell, even Bruce - they all needed healthy outlets to talk, get upset, release their anger. Dick was the only option, and he understands this so clearly that he doesn’t allow himself to be upset at all when they use him for his intended purpose.

That’s the way it had been since the beginning, even when it was just Dick and Bruce. Dick was never Bruce’s son, he was his partner.

His job hadn’t included much of the talking part recently, more of the whole anger thing (everyone excluding Damian, of course), but Dick’s realizing that might be changing soon.

Slowly, unsure if he was allowed to, Dick raised his arms. Immediately Tim came crashing into them, Dick raising one hand to cup the back of his head and lean into the first hug he’s had in months.

Somehow, Tim crying was the thing that Dick needed to pull himself together. Having Tim in his arms made every worry that Dick had for himself disappear as he focused completely on Tim. This was familiar, and it was as easy as breathing to slot back into the role of caring older brother.

There was no room for both of them to be breaking down. He takes the part of him that whispers You can’t do this forever. How is it that you’ve become the therapist again? and shoves it into a small dark corner in the back of his mind.

“I don’t get it,” Tim sniffles, and Dick’s heart aches as he feels the small pool of tears gather on his shirt where Tim’s head is tilted, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s okay,” Dick murmurs, recognizing the rhetorical question. He runns his hand over Tim’s head in a repetitive motion, “I know.”

“Why are you comforting me?” Tim says through his tears, “I just yelled at you. I’ve been ignoring you for so long when I’m only now just realizing I should have listened to you when you came back. You… there was a reason you lied, wasn’t there? You were going to tell me, before Jason…,” Tim swallows before continuing almost unwillingly, “Before Jason hit you. Weren’t you?”

Dick closes his eyes, imagines a world where Spyral had never happened.

“Yes, but Tim, it doesn’t matter now, okay? You can be sad, or angry, or anything you need. You’re allowed to be, you should be! But I need you to remember one thing,” Dick says gently, maneuvering Tim to be able to look him in the eyes, “I’ll always be here for you, and I’ll always love you so, so much.”

The words make a fresh set of tears well up, and Tim wipes them away quickly, “I love you too.”

Dick practically feels his heart stutter as he inhales sharply.

Agony writes itself across Tim’s features, “You know I love you. Dick, you know that.”

“Yeah. Yeah… I know,” Dick says. He just wasn’t sure he was ever going to be hearing it again.

“God. We really messed up, didn’t we? What happened to you?” Tim asks.

“Nothing,” Dick says, and it’s a blatant lie.

Chapter Text

Tim doesn’t sleep.

He spends his night in the Batcave, surrounded by discarded coffee cups and the glow of his computer in the otherwise dark room.

Taking a long drink and emptying another mug, he watches the way the remnants of liquid coat the pure white ceramic under the dim lighting.

The screen in front of him displays lengthy strings of characters, ever evolving and changing as a visual for the brute force attack that Tim was running against a section of the Batcave’s access that he didn’t even know existed prior to a few hours ago.

Tim had never bothered to look to closely into hacking the system that relates to the Batcave’s camera footage - logically, it would be less protected than other digital domains such as case files, contingency plans, and other documents that very nearly included step by steps on how to take down the Justice League. Those were where the real sensitive information lay, beyond footage of the Bats’ identities. There was data on every known hero in the world, including weaknesses and names.

The camera footage was locked down by the same security protocols as the rest of the data stored in the Batcave, anyways. All of this is to say, Tim had been expecting some additional security preventing just anyone from viewing whatever they wanted (although everyone knew this was more effective on Damian and Jason than on Tim).

The sounds of Tim typing override and clicking confirm are the only noises in the oppressive quiet.

What he hadn’t been expecting was a proprietary security layer belonging exclusively to the cameras. It was overkill, even for Bruce.

It was practically an admission of guilt, as far as Tim was concerned. To what, Tim wasn’t exactly sure, but there was absolutely no reason to set up such a system, or at least there shouldn’t have been.

It was a system that had Tim resorting to brute forcing about an eighth of it (not using a dictionary attack, Tim knows Bruce isn’t stupid), which was saying something. Normally Tim had a bit more tact. Not that bypassing the security would take longer than a few hours, of course, but it was supposed to take minutes.

If nothing else, it gives Tim time to prepare himself. He sighs, spinning around in the office chair that Dick had bought him a few years ago ("If you're going to be down there for so long then you at least need something to help with your posture," he had claimed).

The thought makes the ever-growing nervousness that had been building return from its brief pause, manifesting itself as a slight tightness in his chest. He'd treated Dick horribly.

Sure, Dick did lie about his death, which was what Tim had been telling himself every time he'd turned away Dick's attempts at making it up to him - organizing Tim's casework, cleaning up his desk, bringing him coffee - all with a ceaseless smile like nothing was wrong. As though he hadn't turned everyone's world upside down by leaving.

The Batcave blurs together into a gray collection of horizontal lines, slowly coming to a halt as the ground tilts a bit before Tim spins the chair again.

What were all Dick's attempts in comparison to the wrongdoing, the hurt that he had caused? Each time Jason would make a remark that was a bit too far, one less on the side of malicious and leaning more toward hateful, Tim would remind himself that Dick had lied. When Dick would try to speak to him and Tim would look off into some far place in the background, not even deigning to respond, Tim would tell himself that Dick had chose this.

Except, apparently Dick didn't lie.

Come to think of it, every word of Dick's death had come from Bruce. Dick himself had never told them anything, which Tim had perceived as lying by omission. The only times that Dick ever even spoke about Spyral were to make vague remarks about his death, which both Tim and Jason had scorned, believing it to be false.

Dick's words from yesterday ring in Tim's ears.

"I get that it doesn’t count now."

They had told him that his death wasn't real to the point that Dick himself no longer recognized it as something he was allowed to be upset about.

"But I’m not lying anymore. I didn’t ever want to and I'm sorry, I'm just- I'm sorry!"

Tim wasn’t even sure that Dick had lied in the first place. He saw it now. How easily Dick bends to fit other’s expectations.

He hadn’t fought back against Bruce yesterday, at least not after Bruce had made it clear he wasn’t supposed to.

Jason would have hit back. Tim would have walked out of the Batcave the moment Bruce raised his hand. Damian… Tim wasn’t sure what Damian would have done, but he hopes that Damian wouldn’t just take it.

Dick was borderline subservient - so quick to pull himself together and attempt to convince Tim that everything was fine and perfect.

Then on the roof, he’d done exactly the same thing, and Tim had let him.

Whatever was hiding in the footage was bound to be bad if Bruce was protecting it so fiercely. Granted, it was always possible that the extra security had nothing to do with Dick at all. It could be some other event or occurrence that was tucked away somewhere among years of records, but it was unlikely. It’s not that Tim was disregarding the possibility, he just couldn’t think of anything else that would merit all of this.

The computer blinks, closing its console tab and opening a newly accessible directory. Tim nearly falls off the chair as he struggles to put his feet on the ground and halt his rotations.

Years of footage are sorted neatly into folders. Tim runs them through a locally processed AI, instructing it to seek out footage including both Dick and Bruce with some form of altercation.

What shows up is a horrifying number of results, over eight hundred instances all neatly packaged into the returned zip file.

By Tim's math, that was an average of an argument every four days, every day since Dick was 8.

He would have thought that most of it would be recent, but the earliest date was one from only a month after Dick had become Robin.

Tim clicks on it.

"Don't you remember what I told you about protecting your face as you punch?" Bruce asks in a condescending tone.

A small Dick Grayson, clad in the Robin costume, is seated on a med bay cot. His head is hung low in dismay.

"I know. I just... forgot," Dick says in a small voice.

"There's no room to just forget on the field. You need to be better than this!" Bruce snarls, grabbing Dick's chin and tilting it to the side harshly, Dick full-body wincing at the treatment. His face is tilted at just the right angle that his black eye is displayed to the camera.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"We'll train again tomorrow. You're better than this."

The clip cuts, signaling the end of what the algorithm had flagged. Tim bites the inside of his cheek, considering. It wasn't exactly a surprising clip - Bruce had always been a little rough around the edges. But Dick was so young, and the way Bruce had yanked Dick's face, knowing Dick was injured... he wouldn't have done that to Tim or Damian.

He narrows down his search, looking for instances of physical fights (excluding clips from the camera that is angled toward the sparring mats).

As it loads, Tim closes his eyes.

Let it be one. Just one result from yesterday, Tim thinks, knowing full well that it was an unrealistic hope.

The progress bar fills and disappears, replaced by the zip folder. He holds his breath as he checks its properties.

It contains 56 files.

He swallows, numbly staring at the search as the reality set in. 56 was a pattern.

Without much further thought, scrolls to the bottom and clicks on the first one.

The worst part.., Tim thinks, an hour and about a third of the way through the footage as he watches a furious Dick yell at Bruce not to treat a newly moved in Jason the same way he treats Dick, The worst part is that Dick barely ever advocates for himself.

He's watched Bruce slap and hit Dick around over disobeying him, getting hurt, standing up for his siblings. He's watched Bruce kick Dick out of the manor and strip away the Robin costume, bestowing what Tim now recognizes to be the Flying Grayson's colours and his mother's nickname for him to a stranger. All Tim can think, with a sickening sense of horror, is I didn't know.

He remembers how furious he was when Dick had passed on Robin to Damian, how confused he was at how his older brother could treat him like that. Learned behavior.

But Dick, at every turn, was fighting for Jason. Then Tim. Then Damian.

Tim keeps moving through the footage without pause, glued to the screen and the horrid narrative it displayed. He ignores it when his eyes begin to sting from watching for too long, pleading for another light in the room or a break. On the screen is years of abuse bundled into one long montage that had all been occurring right under Tim's nose for so long.

One of the clips, Bruce storms out of the Batcave and Dick shuffles backward on his hands and knees into a corner, curling himself into a ball around where Bruce had fucking liver punched him.

Tim retches, only barely making it to the trash can before he is throwing up. He was accustomed to violence - they all were. It wasn’t that. It was the way that Dick folded himself to take up less space, how utterly unsurprised he had looked when Bruce had landed the hit.

The trash bag rustles where his hands grasp, only barely covering up the sound of the video still playing a few feet away.

As he looks up from the bin nauseously, Tim wonders how he missed the signs. He knew that Bruce and Dick had a rocky relationship at best, but he never could have imagined... Tim had been turning a blind eye to their fights for as long as he could recall, under the impression that Dick was just more prone to clashing with Bruce.

After each one, Dick would leave, come back, defend Bruce and tell the rest of them that they shouldn't be angry. It was practically a poster for victim behavior.

At least, Tim tells himself, searching for practically anything to make the situation better, Bruce hitting Dick is usually triggered by something.

Situations like the one yesterday, where Bruce escalated the fight to a physical one nearly unprovoked by anything (aside from Dick’s words) were less common - although they increased vastly in their frequency after Jason’s death.

Grimly, he concludes that didn’t make it much better considering there was barely ever a time that something emotionally taxing wasn’t going on within their family.

Eventually Tim reaches a video that makes him straighten in his seat and pause to see if he had read correctly.

The timestamp is dated right after Dick’s death (Tim had the date burned into his mind).

The heavy feeling in his stomach worsening, Tim hits play and watches as a nightmare comes to life.

“How many times have we done this? How many rules have I given you?” Bruce’s voice asks, reverberating through the Batcave for a second time as Tim hears it for the first, “Where you fight. How you fight. We’ve done this so many times. We’ve had so many rules.”

Dick, on the screen, is wrapping his hands slowly, prolonging the action as long as possible. He is still groggy, recovering from Luthor.

“We need to do it again, you and me,” Batman continues, “I need to see if they broke you. I need to see if you still have the heart you once had.”

Tim physically recoils in his seat at the words. This… this was Bruce, blaming Dick for his own death. He may as well have called Dick weak and spat on all of the training Dick had ever done.

Dick puts his mask onto his face, widening his stance and raising his guard.

“So one more time, Dick. But now there’s only one rule… you have to win.”

With that, Bruce attacks.

“Jason!” Tim pounds on the door to one of Jason’s safe houses, “JASON! I know you’re in there!”

It was the only safe house near where his brother had ended his patrol last night, and Tim knew that Jason tended to get lazy about his location that late at night.

Plus, Tim was probably the only one who knew the exact address of this one - a fluke, he had needed some medical attention awhile ago and this was the closest place at the time.

“Jason!” He knocks again, “It’s important-!”

“What?” Jason snaps at him through the newly open doorway. His hair is tussled and a small section fluffed upright on one side. It’s obvious that Tim has just woken him up.

“You need to check on Dick later today,” Tim tells him, fully prepared for the snarl that appears on Jason’s face at the idea, quickly continuing before Jason can interrupt, “And I have a lot to tell you, so let me in.”

Jason still looks like he wants to say something, but he gives Tim a once-over and instead settles for, “Jesus, you look like shit. Didn’t sleep?”

Bruce swings at Dick, over and over, relentlessly and with no remorse. Dick dodges remarkably, flipping and soaring away from each lunge, but never hits back - doesn’t want to hit back.

“You let the crime syndicate capture you. You let them give your secrets to the world. You let them turn you into a bomb. You let them kill you. Before Luthor rescued you, you let everyone watch you die! I trained you to live, and I watched you die!” Bruce yells, finally landing the first elbow to Dick’s jaw with a thundering crack.

Tim blinks, clearing the images that flashed behind his eyes.

“No. I couldn’t sleep,” Tim tells him, more honest than he would be on any other day.

Jason moves out of the doorway, gesturing for Tim to enter and then guides him to a slightly ratty couch that’s been pushed to the corner of the room.

He flops down without a care, and Jason takes a seat across from him.

Tim brings a hand to his forehead, pulling it worriedly down his face. Then he looks at Jason, utterly silent.

Him and Tim had grown closer after Dick’s death. Jason, without ever really saying anything about it, had lost his resentment for Tim somewhere between mourning and redirecting it toward Dick.

Some of their first civil conversations had been sharing memories about Dick, talking about how there was never any of Jason’s favourite hot chocolate mix around (he never knew that it was Dick that was the one buying it for him until it was gone) or how Tim caught Alfred sitting in Dick’s old bedroom, just staring at the bare wall with a hauntingly empty expression.

Then, later, they talked about how angry they were. How unfair it was that Dick had abandoned them to think him dead, and how Damian would understand their anger if only he was a little older.

Dick’s death, as painful as it was, had brought them together. They had both thought they knew everything.

They’d let the hurt build and fester, and it had led them to basically scorn and alienate their older brother to the point that he wasn’t sure that Tim still loved him.

It seems that at every turn, Tim finds out a new way that Dick had been wronged by their family for years.

Bruce elbows Dick, punches, kicks him. Sends him flying through the Robin display case, shards of glass flying everywhere. Still, Dick does not retaliate until Bruce tells him, “Everyone thinks you’re dead. I need you to stay dead.”

“No!” Dick yells, finally swinging his foot into Bruce’s chest, “I won’t do it. I can’t stay dead- I won’t do it to them!”

Bruce explains the mission without even an acknowledgement to Dick’s protests, only continuing to beat him into the ground relentlessly.

Tim should have known that Dick never would have let them think that. He nearly chokes up as Dick asks, “But… Tim? Jason? Alfred? Barbara? They’re my family, Bruce.”

… Even before Dick died, when was the last time Tim told him he loved him?

“Spit it out already, replacement,” Jason says with no real malice. The irony was almost laughable, if it wasn’t so depressing. Jason was the replacement.

“Dick actually died,” Tim begins with, because he’s worried that starting anywhere else would have Jason brushing him off.

Maybe it was a mistake to begin with that, specifically, because when he meets Jason’s eyes he sees that all of the blood has drained from his face, leaving him a pale white.

“That’s not funny,” Jason says, “You can’t say shit like that.”

He watches Tim, waits for him to take the words back. When Tim doesn’t, he blinks slowly and clasps a hand over his mouth in a mixture of thought and shock.

“He… you’re being serious. He died. When?” Jason asks, and Tim opens his mouth to respond but Jason continues faster than he can, “When Luthor gave him the pill. The video was real. And I…”

Lazarus green flickers throughout the blues of his eyes, as though it’s unsure of what to do with itself. Tim waits for Jason to explode, but Jason just looks sick.

Tim knows the feeling.

“Jason,” Tim says, doing his best to keep his voice even, “I need you to take the day to process, and then I need you to check on him. I… made a really bad mistake last night.”

Green-blue eyes snap to him faster than should have been possible, and then Jason is asking accusatorially, “What did you do? What’s wrong with him? Why does he need to be checked on?”

”How can you ask me to do this, Bruce?” Dick asks, “How can you do this to me?”

Bruce only sends another fist toward Dick’s face.

Tim nearly tells him about Bruce, about the abuse, but he’s a little scared of what Jason might do, where the green might turn. He needed Jason in his right mind. Dick needed Jason.

As much as Dick said he didn’t want Jason to know, Tim could see the precious hope, the momentary light in his eyes when he considered telling that quickly dimmed back into the crushing dejection Dick seemed to carry with him all of the time.

It couldn’t be Tim to check up on him. He had messed up even more last night, had approached Dick in a far more ruthless manner than he should have. He borderline yelled at Dick, didn’t even give him the chance to speak - and then when he did, he broke down and Dick ended up comforting him, just like he always did.

Tim had demanded trust, gotten angry with Dick for not confiding in him. In the same breath, he had proved that he wasn’t someone that Dick could rely on by letting his emotions get the better of him.

Dick made it so easy. Even when he had to have been hurting, he still knew exactly what Tim was feeling and how to make it better. He’d thrown himself aside in favour of Tim, had ignored his own feelings so readily.

Tim wonders how often he had done that without anybody realizing.

Because by the time Dick brought him back to the manor, it was as though Tim had fallen into some kind of trance.

He’d been so swept up by Dick’s gentle reassurances and smiles that he’d almost forgotten that anything was even wrong until he snapped back to reality, remembering just where, exactly, the bruise on his cheek had come from. The loud crack that Bruce’s fist had made as it collided.

It was why Tim couldn’t be the one to check up on him today. Dick didn’t trust him to listen (rightfully so) and his going there would only mean that Dick would plaster a smile on his face again and pretend that he was fine.

“When I learned about his death, I made it about myself,” Tim tells Jason, because he knows it’s the truth. As much as he wants to be the one that Dick could trust, he wasn’t. “He needs help. It’s… he misses you.”

Jason’s lips thin into a tight line as he opens and closes his hands slowly, tendons flexed.

“I’m. I- I need a few hours,” he grits out suddenly, abruptly standing up and leaving the room, the door slamming behind him.

Tim puts his head in his hands, and stays like that for a long while.

”It’s never enough,” Dick sits down beside Bruce, the statement falling flat. The words couldn’t even begin to encompass the crushing weight of Bruce’s expectations. Dick’s breathing is heavy with exertion as he repeats Bruce’s earlier words, “One rule.”

Bruce looks up, blood still dripping from his nose from Dick’s final hit.

“I win,” Dick claims.

But he hadn’t won.

Bruce had cornered him, exploited and prodded at him until he was forced to fight back. He’d made Dick abandon his ability to decide whether or not to take the mission, had provided no alternative. Dick was bending under Bruce’s pressure, endlessly willing to give himself up for everyone else.

Dick had woke up with his family believing him gone, and no way to tell them otherwise without the weight of damning so many heroes on his shoulders. It was his responsibility, now, to take the mission.

He’d already lost everything.

“Good,” Bruce says, slinging an arm around Dick’s shoulders almost lovingly.

As always, Dick pushes aside his feelings (his grievances, his disagreement, his hurt), accepting that it was the only way that he would ever have that love.

He tries to ignore the taste of iron in his mouth and the stinging of his knuckles. Tries to ignore the thought that he is merely a tool - a means to an end rather than a person in Bruce’s eyes.

Leaning into Bruce’s touch, he accepts it for as long as it will last.

Chapter Text

Jason was barely aware of the sound of the cars on the road beside him, the early morning rush of traffic as most of Gotham tried to reach work.

He could only think of one foot in front of the other, and his brother.

Dick was murdered, and Jason had mocked him for it. Called him a faker, a liar, and so many worse names that he can’t even think of without becoming more enraged with himself.

He should have been able to figure out that this was exactly the kind of thing that Dick would do: sit back and let the whole family think that he was the asshole instead of telling them all something that he thought would hurt them to hear.

He’d left before Tim had noticed the pit rage chipping away at his control. By now he was able to recognize when he needed a walk, he knew how to do his best to dampen the fury when it threatened to take over.

His quick departure had left him with a lot of questions. How had Tim even figured this out? Why now? Why had he been so insistent that Jason check on Dick?

It was worrying. So, as Jason walked there was only one destination in mind: Dick’s apartment.

The plan was to walk partway and then catch the train to Blüdhaven, which would give him enough time to get his emotions in check. The last thing Dick needed right now was to be dealing with Jason’s emotions on top of his own.

Jason needed to screw his head on right and apologize immediately, and damn him if he wasn’t going to show Dick that he meant it.

Dick was in his room, staring blankly at the phone that lay on the bed in front of him. The screen was black, and he could see his reflection in the dark space.

The curtains were all drawn shut to keep the light out, and he was under his covers, enjoying the small comfort that the warmth provided under the impending threat of a headache.

He’d been like this for hours, debating whether or not it was acceptable to call Tim.

A long time ago, whenever Dick had bad days he used to just call Jason or Tim and ask whether they wanted to go get ice cream with him, or if they wanted to do a movie night. Being around them calmed his thoughts, and neither of them ever caught on to the difference between Dick calling just for fun versus when Dick was calling because he simply couldn’t stand to be alone in his apartment for another moment, so he figured it was fine. Plus, it was a way to check in on them, to make sure Bruce was being reasonable.

But that was then, and this was now. Jason and Tim weren’t kids anymore, and things had changed. Dick wonders how he had gone so long without realizing it. Even before Spyral, did they really want to hang out with him? He wasn’t even their brother, but he had always been pestering them to spend time with him. They were probably so annoyed with him. Did they sound annoyed, when Dick called them? He can’t remember.

He reaches for the phone, clicking Tim’s contact and hovering his finger over the call button.

Tim had seemed happy yesterday, after the rooftop, at least.

That doesn’t mean he wants to go back to the way things were, Dick reminds himself firmly, He probably just wanted closure after seeing the argument.

He sighs, letting the phone slip from his hand and back onto the blanket defeatedly. His apartment was too quiet, with nothing but the low hum of electricity and his own mind to keep him company.

This was a good thing, he tries to convince himself. He can feel his head getting a little worse. Going outside would probably hurt anyways.

Still, he tries to imagine a scenario where he, Damian, Tim, Jason, and Bruce were all happy - wants to lose himself in it, but the whole idea is so unrealistic that he’s unable to even begin to imagine what they might be doing or where they might be. Instead, he finds himself thinking about what would have happened if Bruce had taken Robin from him earlier, or if Bruce had just left him to rot in juvie like he probably should have.

From the corner of his eye, he sees his phone light up.

Practically scrambling to pick it up, Dick nearly gets his hands tangled in the sheets trying to reach it.

Wincing a bit at the way the light creates a flash of pain in his head, he sees the ID shows that the call is from Jason.

He tries his best to ignore the way his heart skips a beat with nervousness. Jason could only be calling for one reason. Tim told him. Dick should have known that last night wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Tim, but foolishly Dick had thought that he let the whole thing go based on how he’d let Dick change the topic after the roof. He hadn’t considered that Tim might put in the effort to follow up in any way.

Realizing he had been letting it ring for too long, Dick hesitantly accepts the call and brings it up to his ear. A half a second later he holds it a bit away from his head, realizing he might be about to get an earful of yelling.

“Hey, Jason! What can I do for ya?” Dick asks, trying to keep his voice light. There is a pause long enough that Dick wonders if maybe Jason called him by accident. Finally, Jason speaks.

“Hi. Where are you at right now?” He asks, and the lack of venom in his voice surprises Dick.

“At my apartment,” Dick tells him, looking around the small, sad room. “Why?”

Another pause, then Jason says, “That’s not tru-… I just rung your doorbell.”

Dick hadn’t heard anything. It takes him a moment, but finally he realizes, “Oh. I moved apartments.”

“You moved?” Jason asks incredulously. It was strange to think that Jason hadn’t actually seen his new apartment, although now that Dick thinks about it, he supposes that none of them have.

“Yeah. New tenants moved in while I was at Spyral,” Dick says, feeling a need to explain himself. He’s expecting some sort of verbal retaliation, arming himself for when Jason begins to question it.

To his surprise, Jason doesn’t say anything about it other than, “Bruce let that happen?”

He can hear Jason moving around through the phone, walking somewhere.

“Well, it would have been a little suspicious if I was still paying rent every month,” Dick laughs a little at the thought. Jason makes a dissatisfied noise, and the smile on his face tapers away as he realizes that Jason doesn’t think it’s funny.

“Where do you live now?” Jason asks, “Can you send me the address?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dick agrees, trying not to sound nervous. He looks around, as though seeing the state of his apartment for the first time. “Are you… coming over?”

“Yeah, if that’s fine?” Jason says a bit stiltedly, almost sounding unsure.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great,” Dick is quick to reassure, already up from the bed and grabbing dirty clothes off the ground to throw in the laundry bin, “I’ll send you the address.”

“Thanks.”

Dick figures he can get the apartment relatively clean by the time he arrives. It was a pretty big mess at the moment (Dick barely had the energy to eat most days, much less pick up the things he was leaving around), but it sounded like Jason was on foot which would give him 20 minutes or so to get things in order.

“Okay, perfect. See you soon,” Dick hangs up before Jason can respond, then freaks out about it a moment later when he realizes how rude that was.

There wasn’t anything to be done about it now, though, and he figured it would be better to divert his attention to the cleaning.

It’s only now that the threat of someone coming over is occurring that Dick sees through new eyes what a mess his place is. Clothes are scattered all around, there is a pile of unwashed dishes in his kitchen (although not as many as there should be considering the last time he did a round of washing), and a lot of the surfaces around the apartment are covered in piles of random items that were never returned to their places properly.

Logically, he had known before now that it was pretty bad, but it was really difficult to care enough to fix it. Regularly Dick was one of the neatest out of the Bats, and had built up a bit of a reputation from picking up mugs around the manor and keeping the cave quite organized so that everyone was able to find things. He used to help Alfred with dishes and sweeping or other small tasks sometimes, despite the man’s protests.

All of this was to say, a certain sort of incorrigible shame filled him at the thought of how bad he had let things get.

He would have to settle for the best he could do at the moment. The clothes are off the floor by now, and Dick has taken to moving some of the piles into the corners of the counters to make the space appear less cluttered. There was a lot, so there wasn’t much time to focus on other jobs.

Sooner than Dick would have liked, there is a knock at the door. After putting one last stack of papers into a desk drawer, he goes to greet Jason.

As the door swings open, Dick realizes that he barely even thought about what Jason might be here to say in his panic to get the place in order.

“Hi, Dickie,” Jason greets, the nickname like a gentle song that he hadn’t heard in forever. The name, combined with the lack of a mocking tone, was also a sign that something was very, very different.

Despite this, Dick allows himself to revel in the novelty of Jason smiling at him.

Because he was smiling. A small smile, perhaps tinged with a bit of sadness, but it was still a welcome change.

“Hi,” Dick smiles back a bit, for once mostly genuine.

He supposes this means Jason had taken the news of his death the better of the two ways, with the other option being that Jason grew even more angry with him over withholding another piece of information.

Dick lets Jason in quickly, eager to close the door and stop the bright hallway lights from beaming through despite the worries about what Jason might think.

Jason, to Dick’s relief, doesn’t seem to care much about the mess that was still around, instead opting to orient himself with the new space.

“Want to give me a tour?” Jason asks mildly.

“There’s really not much to see,” Dick says abashedly, lips thinning a bit as he realizes the way that the apartment must compare to some of Jason’s nicer safe houses - not to mention where Jason actually was living currently, which he doubts he’ll ever be allowed to know.

Jason is still looking around from where he stands, so Dick takes it upon himself to at least let him know where most things are.

“Here’s the living room. Kitchen is there,” he points to the nearly unused kitchen that is in the same room, “Bathroom is that door, and my bedroom’s there,” he finishes, gesturing to the respective doors.

“Nice,” Jason nods at the explanation, and then, to Dick’s growing horror, doesn’t say anything else.

Where the two of them used to be able to uphold comfortable silence, Dick couldn’t help but perceive the space between sentences now as strained and awkward.

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Dick asks a little too loudly, biting his lip as it makes it feel as though his head’s been run over by a semi-truck. Plus, he figures that was probably just about the worst thing he could have asked.

Jason’s eyes widen a bit at the bluntness, but after a moment’s contemplation he says, “You probably figured this out, but Tim talked to me.”

“Yeah,” Dick admits with a small exhale. He squints at Jason, trying to discern what his point was. Figuring it was time to stop beating around the bush he asks, “And you’re here because…?”

“I want to apologize.”

Dick could be dead, right now. That would perhaps be more believable than the rapid succession of events that were occurring. Tim had talked to him (Dick was still not over that) and now Jason was apologizing. Maybe he’d really fallen asleep imagining how the beginning of that perfect world might look.

“I’ve been horrible to you recently, Dick. And I’m not just saying this because I only just learned about your death, although that was the wake up I needed. Some of the things I said and did were… unjustifiable no matter the reason. I hurt you,” Dick opens his mouth to protest but Jason shakes his head, “No. I did. My actions are inexcusable. You don’t have to forgive me, but I truly am sorry.”

Dick is stunned. This was more than he could have ever hoped for, and miles away from the scenarios that Dick had dreamt up where Jason forgave Dick after he grovelled hard enough.

Ignoring the way it made the headache flare, Dick smiles wide and incredibly joyful.

“Of course I forgive you, Jason! Although there isn’t much to forgive,” Dick feels like he’s flying, can’t even explain that really everything was his fault because he is too caught up in the moment.

Jason grimaces, face twisting into something uneasy.

“No, no. Dick, slow down,” Jason raises his hands, palms open and motioning to stop, “That’s not what I’m saying. You’re allowed to be angry. You should be angry.”

“I don’t have a reason to be,” Dick explains, confused at what Jason was trying to imply. It occurs to him faintly that Jason could be waiting for Dick to admit that he was the one who had messed up so he continues with, “I know I fucked up. Everything was my fault. I’m sorry too.”

Jason is staring a bit slack-jawed, “No, it certainly wasn’t. You can’t forgive me yet. And that’s- you might have lied, but you’re my brother. My first reaction upon seeing you were alive shouldn’t have been hostility.”

Dick frowns, looking up at Jason (wow, he was taller now. When did that happen?) and puts a hand on one hip resolutely. “Well, you can’t control when I do or don’t forgive you. So you’re forgiven.”

He can tell Jason wants to protest, but Dick could be stubborn when it came to things like this. From his posture to the fervour with which he made his statement, he was telling Jason not to argue with him.

Jason doesn’t.

“Okay. We’re going to revisit that at some point, but not right now. Right now I have to ask… is your head hurting? You keep wincing every time one of us speaks too loudly, and your face…” Jason gestures to the bruise that Dick had almost forgotten.

Dick debates trying to dodge the question, but decides that Jason might appreciate his honesty more (despite the way that the idea of admitting weakness makes his stomach knot).

“Yeah,” he admits, “Just a small headache.”

“Riiight…” Jason says doubtfully, “Have you taken a Tylenol yet?”

“No,” Dick says, despite the fact that he had one a few hours ago. He moves toward the kitchen, but Jason stops him.

“You go sit down on the couch. I’ll get it, alright?”

Dick wants to protest, but… it is getting worse, and the movement certainly isn’t helping. So, despite the hit to his pride, he drags himself over to the couch and drops down into it unceremoniously, rubbing circles into his temples.

“Thank you.”

Jason stares at the small, slumped over figure of his brother the moment that it’s obvious Dick won’t pick up on it.

He was thin, unhealthily so, and the dark bags under his eyes made him look borderline sickly. The paleness of his face contrasted terribly with the purple and yellowing bruise that arched along his jaw and up to his cheek.

The apartment itself was messy in a way that was entirely uncharacteristic for Dick, and altogether painted a very worrisome picture.

Jason had picked up on all of these things the moment he had entered, but had kept silent and tried to keep his eyes from wandering too much as he and Dick had talked.

How had he not noticed this?

His brother appeared as though a strong gust of wind could knock him down. Holy shit, Tim had been right when he said that Dick needed someone to check on him.

No matter how angry Jason had been, he still can’t believe that he had been blinded by it to the point that he had missed whatever led up to this.

He goes through each cupboard in search of the medication cabinet, feeling his stomach sink as time after time again he opens them to find barely any food whatsoever.

Eventually, he finds a white bin with the tops of small bottles peeking out, and he pulls it off the shelf to find the red Tylenol.

Unscrewing the lid, he dumps a capsule into his hand and prepares a large glass of water from where he had seen the cups earlier during his search.

Before he goes out to give the items to Dick, he also takes the time to DoorDash some soup and sandwiches from a restaurant a few blocks away.

“Alright, here you go,” Jason sets the pill and glass on the table in front of the couch. Dick raises his head, and instantly Jason can tell that something is off by the way he inhales a shaky breath. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dick is completely unconvincing despite his best efforts.

“Dick. It’s fine. Just tell me, please,” Jason implores, purposefully softening his voice, seeing contemplation that he was impervious to go on behind Dick’s eyes.

He was so, so unsure of himself. When had that happened?

Shoulders curling in on himself, Dick finally says, “Could you just… maybe bring the bottle to me?”

The image of Luthor pressing a hand over Dick’s mouth and nose, slipping the pill into his mouth despite Dick writhing in his restraints surfaces to Jason’s mind. Jesus.

“Yeah, of course,” Jason smiles gently, careful to keep any anger at the memory off his face while he was around Dick. Returning to the kitchen, he trashes the pill and grabs the bottle instead. When he turns back around, he is saddened (but unsurprised) to note that Dick had been watching him the whole time.

His shoulders drop in relief once the bottle is delivered to him, and he thanks Jason profusely in a near whisper.

He seats himself down next to Dick, who tenses up beside him. He’s almost ready to get back up again, worried that he’d crossed some sort of boundary, but then Dick hesitantly scoots a bit closer, stopping himself when their arms touched.

Dick’s eyes flutter closed in pain, and Jason figures oh, what the hell.

He grasps Dick’s shoulders lightly, guiding his head down to Jason’s lap. Dick opens his eyes again in surprise, soon closing them in relief when Jason begins to massage his temples like he’d seen Dick doing to himself earlier.

He practically melts into the touch, and Jason is glad that him initiating seemed to have been the right move.

As he runs his hands across Dick’s forehead and through his hair, careful not to go near the area where the bruise crept up, he has time to reflect.

Any negative feelings he had towards Dick had all but dissipated upon seeing him in this state. The way that Dick hadn’t even been protesting Jason’s help was further evidence that he really did need it, and by god if Jason wasn’t going to try his best to provide. It was the least he could do after months of harm.

That was another thing… Dick had been far too eager to forgive. He’d brushed it all off like it was nothing. Jason expected that he would have to earn his forgiveness - the way it should be.

But here Dick was, so ready to let Jason into his space and so happy that Jason was here. It was like he didn’t even care that Jason had been yelling at him, taunting him for so long.

Jason had known it was wrong while he was doing it, but had a difficult time seeing how bad some of the things he was saying were whilst under the impression that Dick was basically flaunting the idea of death - demeaning Jason’s own experiences.

Which obviously wasn’t what he was doing. In fact, that was more along the lines of what Jason had done to Dick.

When the bell rings to signify that the food Jason had ordered arrived and Dick’s face screws up in pain as he tries to force himself up to get to the door (the headache only seemed to be getting worse), Jason is quick to tell him to sit and go himself.

He thanks the food delivery employee in a whisper, then brings the items to the kitchen and begins pulling them out of the bag.

“Who was it?” Dick asks, voice croaky.

“Just food. I got us soup and sandwiches,” easy on the stomach, Jason hopes.

“Oh, thank you,” Dick cranes his neck to see the food, “You didn’t have to do that.”

It’s far too polite - miles away from when Dick used to grumble out a halfhearted “thanks” before stuffing his face with food. All of a sudden, Jason can’t help but wonder if they’d ever recover from this.

He grabs the plastic bowls and sandwich boxes, bringing them over to the table in front of the couch so they didn’t have to move.

Dick takes them and pulls the flimsy lid of the soup away, looking at the steam drifting upward as it slowly curls through the air and disperses away.

“I actually… already ate…,” Dick says, lips thinning as he watches the soup with a look Jason can’t quite identify.

Jason doesn’t call him out on the lie, even though he knows for certain that there’s nothing in this apartment aside from non-perishables.

He wonders whether he’s even in a place to encourage Dick to eat, if that would do more harm than good. He feels entirely out of his depth. This was something he wasn’t sure how to help with, whether he even could help.

He has to say something.

“Well, there’s way too much for me, so do what you want with it. I can put it in your fridge after. Oh man, this soup is pretty good actually,” Jason says, feeling like an absolute idiot and utterly unequipped to do anything whatsoever.

He lowers his head to his own soup, almost certain that the true meaning behind his words was utterly transparent.

When he raises it again, he has to suppress a sigh of relief at the sight of Dick picking up the spoon.

He finishes the soup, and gets through a small portion of the sandwich. Jason considers it a win.

Afterward, Dick tries to tell Jason that he can go home. Jason levels Dick with a look that says I’m not doing that and tells him so.

He settles down on the couch instead, only lending half an ear to Dick’s protests to make sure Dick didn’t actually want him gone. Jason was honestly glad to just be around him. He hadn’t realized how much he missed his brother, and he felt stupid for not having done this the moment that Dick returned.

Eventually, Dick seems to realize that Jason was genuine in his intents to stay, and waveringly asks whether Jason wants the bed instead.

Jason remembers how tactile Dick used to be, how easily he would have pulled Jason into a comfortable embrace to watch a movie or spend the night a long time ago. This Dick doesn’t even seem to consider the idea, is fully prepared to sleep on the couch in his own apartment. Earlier, he’d been so happy at even the smallest amount of affection when Jason had taken the time to help with his head.

With that in mind, Jason steamrolls over Dick’s actual meaning and purposefully misinterprets the offer. To leave him with a way out if he wants, Jason says, “If there’s room for two then yeah.”

Dick bites his lip, hiding his surprised joy at the statement with a thin veil.

“Oh, um, yeah,” he says, and Jason knows he had made the right choice.

He doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around Dick, pulling him closer and enjoying the warmth, the proof that Jason hadn’t ruined everything.

Tucking Dick’s head in toward his chest in the way that he remembers Dick used to do for him when he was younger, the way that made him feel so safe in his brother’s arms, Dick’s breath is a reminder that they are both alive and here.

It takes a long time for Dick’s breathing to even out and his body to relax. Jason stays awake even longer after that, thinking of everything he needed to tell him in the morning.

Looking down at his soft, dark hair, Jason realizes it’s grown out a lot.

In the dark of the room, he silently swears to himself.

He’ll never, ever, let this happen again.

Chapter Text

When Dick wakes up, he immediately turns around to find only an empty bed beside him. It takes him awhile to come to the conclusion that he hadn’t dreamt up Jason’s presence - that had really happened. Dick was often tired nowadays (and some may infer not in the best state of mind) but he wasn’t so tired as to imagine an entire night like that.

He tosses around a bit, enjoying the warmth of the bed and noting that this was the best sleep he’s had in quite a long time if the lack of stinging eyes and general fatigue is anything to go by.

His headache is gone, too. Rolling over in bed he sees that he’s managed to sleep for a full seven hours, which is shocking enough that he has to do a double take of the alarm clock. The red numbers don’t change.

As much as he wants to be in the moment and enjoy the refreshing feeling of a good night’s rest, his mind drifts to the open case. It’s been two nights now, since Bruce assigned it to him. It won’t be long before he tries to check in, demanding Dick’s progress where there is none.

No doubt he’s still angry, too. Dick hasn’t muttered nor texted a word of apology since their yelling match, and if they wanted their strained-at-best relations to remain in tact it certainly wasn’t going to be Bruce to initiate any sort of civil conversation about it.

As much as Dick would like to sweep it under the rug like normal, he’d gone too far this time to do so. Bruce’s resentment would only fester, and Dick would inevitably deal with the consequences to his own actions whether it was now or later. Waiting would just make it worse.

Additionally, Dick might need to mediate between Bruce and Tim. He has no doubt that Tim’s been fine the past 48 hours, but if he knew either of them they probably hadn’t even stood in the same room since the Batcave. They were both very avoidant personalities.

Well, Bruce was avoidant when it was anyone other than Dick, at least. Normally Dick is pretty good dealing with that, but he’d really slipped up on this one.

He wasn’t even sure what he had been thinking, saying those things, but he supposed he had just been too caught up in the moment.

Dick resolves to go to the manor today to make amends.

It’s after he’s decided this that he notices the faint smell of eggs and bacon, going through a myriad of emotions. A wobbly smile spreads softly across his face as he feels tears prick at his eyes.

Well, there was certainly one consolation to this whole ordeal.

Jason hadn’t left.

He knew it was a stupid thing to be so happy about, but the thought that Jason would willingly spend more time with him after so long… he was practically over the moon. Not to mention that he was going to get some of Jason’s cooking!

He blinks away the liquid, a bit sheepishly knowing that it was an overreaction. With no need for convincing himself knowing that Jason was out in the kitchen, he springs out of bed and leaves his room.

“Good morning,” Jason says, pushing the scrambled eggs around the pan. He’s changed into some of Dick’s clothes and opened the blinds.

The dishes are done, and Dick’s fairly certain he didn’t have any eggs in his fridge.

“Morning,” Dick squints at the pan, “Did you go shopping?”

“Yeah, I was wanting sausage this morning,” Jason gestures to the plate of freshly cooked meat, “That good with you?”

“Yeah, perfect,” Dick takes a seat at the table, “Thank you.”

Jason busies himself with the cooking again, and Dick allows himself to just sit and enjoy the presence of another person nearby. For the first time since he’d returned from Spyral, Dick isn’t afraid to drink in the sight of Jason - observing small differences and, most importantly, the overwhelming relief of familiarity.

The sounds of the spatula against the pan and the soft glow of the morning light are peaceful and calming. Jason, every once and awhile, will look towards Dick and Dick will look away, unwilling to make eye contact until Jason catches his gaze again and smiles reassuringly.

When he’s finished, Jason fills two glasses with water and carries the plates out to the table.

Dick’s breath catches momentarily. One of the plates has two eggs perfectly cooked sunny side up, separately from the scrambled. Dick’s favourite.

It makes his heart squeeze a bit. Jason remembered.

Jason sits down beside him, digging in to his own eggs.

“You sleep well?” Dick asks, dishing himself some of the sausages to go with the meal. It looked delicious.

“Yeah, great. Hey, I was thinking. Want some help with that drug case Bruce has you on? I think I got a tip off through one of my informants the other day. It’s about recirculated Joker venom, right?”

“Yeah!” Dick exclaims eagerly, “It’s, um, being used as a stimulant in a new strain of recreational pills; being mixed with MDMA. They’re calling it Rapture. I could, uh, send you the case file Bruce gave me?”

Dick rambles over his usually concise and straightforward explanation, unable to slow down in his excitement. Jason wanted to join him on a case, just like old times!

Although he knows it’s a bit silly and it’s not the reason that Jason stopped hanging out with him, Dick can’t help but think that this is a wonderful chance to show Jason that he can still be useful. It would be better if they were doing one of Jason’s cases rather than his own, but he figures that this could be a perfect excuse to help out Jason with one of his (and spend more time with him!) in the future.

“Yeah. Send that over sometime today. I’ll follow up,” Jason says.

“Oh,” Dick is unable to keep the disappointment from showing. Sounded like Jason wanted to go alone. “Yeah, just send me the info when you’re done.”

“No, that’s- I didn’t mean-,” Jason stumbles over his words, trying to find the right ones, “Ugh. Just come with me.”

“You sure?” Dick’s stomach sinks. Pity. Trying to give Jason an excuse, he asks skeptically, “Won’t that look a little strange? Nightwing and Red Hood working together? I wouldn’t want to ruin your street cred.”

“It’s fine. They already saw me out with Tim the other day. I hang out with who I want to,” Jason takes another sausage and Dick runs a smoothing hand over his tablecloth nervously before he bites the bullet.

He doesn’t want to bring it up, but Dick just knows the horrible guilty feeling won’t go away until he does. He drags the fork across the yolk of the egg, watching the yellow liquid slowly spread across the perfect white of the albumen and plate.

“You didn’t have to do all this, Little Wing,” Dick says, the nickname slipping out without him even realizing in the depth of his thoughts, “Just because Tim told you about my ugly mug.”

“Huh?” Jason says through a mouthful of food, reaching out for the pepper.

Dick laughs dryly, gesturing to his face, “It’s fine, see? Barely any damage, Bruce doesn’t hit very accurately when he’s actually angry.”

Jason stills entirely, except for his hand slowly placing the fork back down.

Oblivious to the blank look that Jason was giving him, Dick continues conversationally, “Which, like, you would think that after years of being a vigilante he would have that figured out. I suppose it’s not too big of an issue as long as he never actually gets angry out on the job, you know?”

“What?” Jason asks, barely breathing.

“Like, as long as he doesn’t get super mad and suddenly this is the best he can do to the Joker,” Dick points at his cheek and huffs out another laugh, completely flat and unhumorous.

Jason doesn’t laugh along and wow, Dick is starting to think Jason doesn’t like his sense of humour.

“Bruce did that to you?” Jason demands, the cutlery rattling as his fist descends on the table hard enough to shake it.

Dick blinks, not having expected the reaction. Confused, he intones, “Well, yeah. I thought Tim told you?”

“No,” Jason squeezes his eyes shut, eyebrows moving downward as he took a deep breath in and out, “No, Tim did not tell me that, actually.”

Oh. Whoops.

Dick is starting to realize he might be making a bad habit of rocking the boat these days, especially if Jason’s reaction to the news was anything like Tim’s.

This was a major miscalculation. Dick had assumed that Jason was here because he heard everything, not because Tim had half-assed it and only told him the death part.

Fuck, he was really messing this up. They could’ve just had a nice breakfast, but Dick had to go and ruin it with a horrible attempt at easing his anxiety.

He bites the inside of his lip while Jason continues to breathe deliberately, forcing his fingers to unclench and clasping his hands together instead, bowing his head.

“Oh,” Dick says in a small voice. “Well. Uh, can I do anything for you?”

There is a long bout of silence, during which Dick begins to regret the lame response. He wonders if maybe he should be doing something to help Jason with the pit rage… or maybe if he ought to just leave for a bit so Jason didn’t have to deal with him.

Jason takes another measured breath and raises his head again.

“No, I’m fine.” There is no sign of the telltale green in his eyes, and he is perfectly calm as he tells Dick, “I’m not mad at you. Promise.”

“Okay. It would be okay if... if you still were,” Dick says slowly, attempting to feel out where Jason was at. There were two possibilities here. It was either Jason was going to be angry at Bruce, or… well. They might not be working that case together after all.

Selfishly, he hopes that it’s the first option. He’d be able to deal with that - he can plead Bruce’s case pretty well (Jason would definitely get why Bruce hit him once Dick explained the way he’d spoke to him, all of the terrible things he’d said) but if Jason saw right through it to where the blame lies (Dick’s fault. All his fault) Dick is ashamed to admit that he doesn’t know how he would explain himself.

What was he supposed to say? Bruce shouldn’t have hit me, even though I was mouthing off and saying every possible thing I could to hurt him?

Even he doesn’t believe that.

The silence has stretched on long enough that Dick starts to push his chair back and get up, but Jason reaches out to stop him, regarding him with a look that Dick would almost call sadness.

“I’m not mad at you,” he repeats, “I’m just- God, Dick.”

Jason reaches a hand up to Dick’s chin, fingers ghosting over the purpled skin.

“It’s fine,” Dick says, internally letting out a sigh of relief that Jason didn’t look like he wanted to bruise up the other side of his face to match.

He’s weak, to look at Jason’s concern, his pity and consider it better than his anger. The thought of Jason finding that out makes his face warm in embarrassment.

“Why’d he do it?”

“I, uh, told him he didn’t deserve to be called a father or human,” Dick explains, not able to meet Jason’s eye as the shame doubles.

Jason hums, drawing his hand away as though burned when Dick’s eyebrow twitches ever so slightly in pain despite his best efforts. From Dick, it may as well have been a full blown flinch.

“And why did you say that?” Jason prods, tone still gentle and understanding and god Dick doesn’t deserve the level of care his voice betrays.

“He said he wished he’d taken Robin away from me earlier,” the words practically spill from Dick’s mouth, the sheer compassion Jason was displaying removing every vice Dick had towards laying out his secrets bare for him to see.

Grasping on to the opportunity to explain himself as tightly as he can, Dick is still worried, anticipating the moment Jason might turn around and tell him he deserved it.

Jason, instead, raises his eyebrows in visible upset. “Bruce took Robin away from you?”

“Well, um,” Dick starts in a moment of clarity, trying to figure out how to get out of answering before he figures oh fuck it. He’s in too deep anyways. “Yeah. I failed a mission really badly so he kicked me out. Then you came.”

A moment of silence, then… “He kicked you out?!”

The chipped paint on the wall suddenly becomes very interesting to Dick.

He probably shouldn’t have admitted to that, but now he has no choice but to follow through.

Dick smiles, still unable to meet Jason’s gaze, “That’s when I found my place in Blüdhaven, so it all turned out for the best, really.”

“No it didn’t. He kicked you out. What the fuck Dick?” Jason says in disbelief, shaking his head, “This makes so much sense. That’s why you hated me at first. Because I was your… your… replacement,” he spits the word out as though it’s venom.

Dick’s head finally snaps up to take in Jason’s look of self-loathing as he exclaims, “No! No, Jason. I have not and will never hate you. What happened was between me and Bruce, and I was being stupid when I let that colour my opinion of you because it had nothing to do with you.”

Jason looks like he wants to say something more, but Dick see the moment he chooses to shelve it for later, deciding to push another point instead. “Okay. But you need to know that wasn’t okay.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let my relationship with Bruce affect the way I spoke and acted toward you-,” Dick starts before Jason cuts him off.

“No! Christ, Dick, not that. I’m saying Bruce shouldn’t have kicked you out!”

“Oh,” Dick fiddles with the sleeve of his shirt, all of his strength drained after the attempt at an apology, “Maybe not. But like, he wasn’t, you know. Responsible for me or anything. So it was fine.”

Jason is just looking at him by this point, completely and utterly baffled.

“That is really not what fine means,” he finally says, then offhandedly mumbles, “Next thing you know you’ll be telling me he didn’t adopt you or some shit.”

Dick is suspiciously silent.

“You’re kidding,” Jason says flatly, looking for all the world as though he’d been liver punched. Dick still doesn’t comment. “Of course you’re not. What the hell? He didn’t adopt you?”

Dick presses his lips together, pushing what’s left of his food around his plate mindlessly before he sets his utensils down and does what he does best - diverts. “Look, I think that’s enough emotionally charged breakfast talk, right? I’m sorry, I know this was a lot to dump on you all at once.”

Again, Jason appears as though he has a lot more to say on the subject, but he looks Dick up and down, then takes sighs and claims, “It’s not your fault.”

Dick disagrees, but he doesn’t protest, wanting to end the whole conversation as quickly as possible.

“Can you do me one favour?” He asks, a last minute thought, “Don’t tell Damian. He’s already had a hard enough time figuring out his place in the family, and I don’t want to confuse him or, you know, have him think that me not being his brother at all affects the love that I have for him.”

“Just because Bruce is an asshole, and a fucking-! That’s off topic. Just because Bruce is an asshole, doesn’t mean Damian isn’t your brother. Same goes for Tim,” Jason says adamantly.

It fills Dick with a sense of anticipation. For once, he doesn’t bite his tongue. “And you?”

Jason is full of intensity, comprehending Dick’s question at once without any further need for clarification. He reaches across the table, waving his hands to get Dick to make eye contact. Dick can see the honesty, the vulnerability in Jason’s expression as he declares: “Your brother. Always. Nothing ever changes that, no matter what.”

“Okay. Yeah,” Dick says a bit dumbly, unable to keep the giddy smile off his face, “Brothers.”

“Good,” Jason says decisively, “…Where are your napkins? I kind of, like, scrambled the eggs a little extra.”

Dick takes in Jason fully for the first time since he sat down, and lets out a snicker.

Jason’s fist happened to descend directly into the plate of eggs as he had slammed it down earlier, and Dick hadn’t even noticed in his overarching quest to avoid looking at his brother.

The giggles escalate into a full body laugh as Dick realizes that Jason’s been having this entire conversation with one hand completely smeared with egg.

Jason huffs, and soon is laughing alongside him.

It’s a breath of fresh air after suffocation; It’s water after drought. Jason, Tim, and Damian are his brothers - his family.

Dick is home.

Chapter Text

“I’m going to go pick up the case file,” Dick tells Jason, grabbing his keys from the table and a jacket off the coat rack.

Jason very nearly wishes Dick a good drive, but then it strikes him that the only place the file could be if not in Dick’s apartment was the Batcave.

“Uh, whoah,” Jason exclaims, raising his hands in the universal way of saying stop as he steps in the way of Dick’s path to his apartment door, “I think not.”

Dick crosses his arms over his chest almost petulantly, and Jason is struck by how put-together his brother manages to look despite everything Jason had just learned. Only a few hours after the fucking lore-dump of a breakfast and Dick was up and ready to start his day, talking about working his way around the North of Gotham to talk to informants.

Jason, by contrast, was basically still caught in a never-ending loop of looking at Dick’s bruise, looking away, looking back again. The process of reconciling Dick being hit by Bruce with the rest of what Jason knew about their relationship was stupefying.

Then there was Tim! The little shit had sent Jason here to take care of Dick without telling him anything about the situation!

At least Jason had the comfort of knowing that Tim was still locked away in Jason’s safe house. The motion sensor on the door had never been triggered, and none of his cameras had caught Tim leaving.

Damian was a different story. Jason will pick him up from the manor sometime today, get him away from Bruce. It sounded insane even as Jason thought it. A few days ago Jason was under the impression that Bruce was, admittedly, emotionally constipated but mostly well-intentioned toward his kids. He’s still fairly sure that holds true for most of the them, but 3/4 isn’t a passing grade when it comes to abuse.

Anyways, Jason planned to swing by the safe house sometime this morning to grab some clothes and have a much needed chat with Tim, because it was quite clear that he hadn’t been given the true scope of the situation. Jason wonders if Tim had known that Bruce stole Robin, that Dick wasn’t even adopted properly.

The last part didn’t matter in the way Dick thought it did, of course, but it changed a lot of things. It meant that Bruce wasn’t related to Dick, had not outright claimed him as his son. It was perplexing, and didn’t fit into the image that Jason had of the family at all. None of this did.

Dick was supposed to be the Golden Child; infallible and pristine to everyone on the outside. Tim and Damian were supposed to see him as the precedent, the same way that Jason did when he was younger.

And Jason… before Dick’s death, the two of them had always been the closest - closest in age, closest emotionally, just close. Jason had seen under the polished image that Dick presented to the world to the raw and insecure truth that lay underneath. Not often, but every once and awhile.

Nightwing is leaned heftily against a grimy alley wall, shudders wracking his body as he coughs. The few street lights that are not either burnt out or broken flicker in the night as though they may give out at any moment.

Jason, safely hidden by the hood, allows the concern to show on his face. Only because there is no audience.

“Not going to call dear old Bats back here?” Jason’s voice is sharp, inquisitive. He cocks his head, a gesture that might come across as a bit menacing in the dim gloom. Despite this, he knows that Dick could never perceive him as scary.

Even when the green pulsates through his veins like molten steel, rendering him hostile to nearly everything the world has to offer, Dick faces him fearlessly. Calls Jason his brother, opens his arms and offers safety even when he knows that Jason will decline.

So, he probably owes it to Dick to make sure he doesn’t pass the fuck out in this alley and get mugged or whatever.

But Jason’s puzzled. He’s unsure as to why Dick didn’t just own up to the fact that the latest villain had got in a few good hits, and even more unsure as to how Bruce didn’t notice.

“Hey, Nightwing,” Jason claps his hands loudly to garner Dick’s attention, “Still alive?”

“Yeah,” comes Dick’s raspy answer, accompanied by a loud hacking noise that sounds wet enough that Jason considers whether or not it’s worth it to even attempt at talking to him.

Another cough has him deciding it isn’t.

“Yeah, okay,” Jason says, annoyed, “Pass me your phone and I’ll call Daddy for you.”

Dick practically snarls in response, leaning away from Jason’s upturned and expectant hand. Jason raises an eyebrow.

Dick swallows, clearing his throat in a painful-looking manner before speaking.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

Jason is frustrated enough that he considers just calling Bruce anyways. The man couldn’t be more than fifteen minutes out; the fight had just ended a little while ago.

He barely even wants to know the reason why Dick was acting so childish anymore - Dick was being purposefully obtuse, and quite frankly Jason could care less what kind of spat the two of them had gotten into this time.

Reluctantly, though, he stops reaching for Dick’s phone. His brother was pretty banged up. Jason supposes that if he was willing to go to such lengths to conceal it from Bruce then it might be best to respect that, as dumb as it is.

“Fine,” Jason relents with an annoyed sigh, “Want to tell me why we’re keeping secrets here?”

“…Not… supposed to see me like… this,” Dick wheezes as Jason prods his ribcage methodically to make sure there’s no breaks. Nothing feels amiss so far, but based on Dick’s hissing likely some major bruising.

“Who, Bruce?” Jason asks when his mind catches up to Dick’s words.

“Yes, and… Tim. Damian.”

Jason pauses his search when he finds a tender spot with a bit of swelling, but upon further inspection is glad to find it doesn’t appear to be a break but rather just a fracture of some sort.

“And why’s that?” Jason asks, even though he’s pretty certain he can connect the dots well enough.

“Supposed to be better than this,” Dick claims, and bats Jason’s hands away from his chest. Jason allows him to.

“That’s dumb,” Jason speaks his mind. “You’re not perfect. Quit pretending.”

A look of wistfulness flashes across Dick’s face, gone in an instant before Jason can fully process it. Dick groans, pushing himself away from the wall and curling an arm around his side as though it would help.

“Can’t help it,” Dick says.

“Sure you can. You need to tell people when you’re about to keel over in an alley, idiot,” Jason picks up the escrima sticks from the cracked concrete, “Call them.”

Dick’s expression darkens into something unrecognizable, and Jason is thrown for a loop by the disdainful grimace.

“Never.”

The word is resolute, a decision in and of itself that has Jason cursing his brother’s stubbornness. He debates what to do with this, how to deal with the wounded and angry(?) Nightwing he has on his hands.

Unfortunately, Dick wouldn’t compromise, and Jason knows that fighting it is useless.

“Fine. Then call me next time, jeez.”

Dick is looking at Jason like he sprouted a second head. Obviously the idea hadn’t occurred to him.

With a roll of his eyes, Jason slings Dick’s arm over his shoulders slowly to support some of his weight and begins to drag him out of the alley.

Once they’re on the main road, he flags over a taxi. The driver does a double take when they get in, and Jason shoots her a dirty and unblinking look that has her shutting up.

Listing off the address of a safe house that he knows is stocked with medical supplies, Jason buckles Dick’s seatbelt, ignoring Dick’s protests at him performing the action on his behalf.

Dick did call him a few times after that, when he was in particularly bad shape and unable to drag himself back to his apartment on his own. He’d been proud that he was able to support his brother the same way that Dick supported him time and time again since he was little. The fact that Dick had chose him to lean on was something he’d honoured.

It had softened his despise toward the family, made him feel like he had a place in it again despite his replacement because Dick needed him. Bit by bit, he’d allowed Dick to pull him back into the patrol schedule, the group chats, family dinner.

Now, he just wonders how little of that burden Dick carried he’d even been allowed to see.

One particular instance stands out in Jason’s mind - Dick, not so badly injured that he wouldn’t normally just find his own way back, standing outside the manor in the pouring rain.

His brown hair had been pressed to his forehead messily, the droplets moving downward over his face where Dick hadn’t bothered to wipe them. Underneath was a pinkening welt spanning across his head.

At the time, Jason had guessed he’d just been too dizzy to drive back to his apartment after getting to the cave from a fight of some sort. Dick had been uncharacteristically quiet that night.

His mom used to look the same way - that empty, silent presence - after Willis would hit her around for whatever irrational reason he had concocted at any moment.

Whether or not Bruce had even caused that welt, he cannot help but project the image of his mother onto Dick in that moment, and in the present. Because god, Jason can imagine just the angle that Bruce’s fist swung to bloom purple across Dick’s cheek, sloppy and miles away from the trained hits he directed toward criminals because he had to have been angry when he did that.

He’d seen the same colours a dozen times, painted across his mother’s face in a way that made him wonder why on earth didn’t she leave him?

“Hey,” Dick says, snapping him out of it, “Are you okay?”

The pout is gone, his arms now uncrossed as his posture naturally becomes open and inviting in his concern.

“Yeah. Fine. You’re just not going back to the manor right now.”

“Jason,” Dick levels him with an unimpressed stare, “We need the file.”

Jason can’t believe that Dick is about to go back as though nothing had happened, as if this was normal. Maybe it was normal for him, which was a horrifying idea. Jason doesn’t know anymore. It didn’t even matter right now. The point was, Dick wasn’t going back.

“You can’t just walk back in there and pretend he didn’t do that to you!” Jason gestures wildly to Dick’s jaw.

Jason sees the moment Dick misunderstands something in his words in the way that suddenly, Dick refuses to meet his eyes again in the way that Jason is starting to hate.

“I- I know. I’m going to apologize, don’t worry. I know that- well. Yeah. I know,” Dick finishes lamely, kicking one of his feet over a bump in the floorboards (Man, does Jason want to get him out of this depressing apartment).

Jason is thinking about whether or not it would make sense to move Dick into one of his bases temporarily until they could find a better flat when Dick’s words register fully.

Dick was going to apologize to Bruce because Bruce hit him?

Dick kept managing to surprise him with how badly things had become. He was so sure that everything was his fault, that everything that had gone wrong was on him - from Jason and Tim’s scorn to Bruce’s wrath.

This was internalized victim blaming. Jason was sure of it, it was something they all saw frequently in their line of work - it felt impossible that Dick had fallen this far into it and not recognized.

How could it be that Dick would dawn his Nightwing suit, go out and encounter dozens of cases just like this, each time echoing all the right words (“It’s not your fault,” and “This isn’t okay.”) then turn around and accept that when it was him maybe he just deserved it?

Jason catches his heart rate spiking, his muscles tensing up. He’s angry, he’s furious, he’s ready to return Bruce the favour.

Not right now.

He breathes. Holds in. Breathes out.

Listens to the pounding of his heartbeat slow, recouping himself. The anger would do him no good. It never had in the past, only made everything millions of times worse. After the instant gratification of letting it take over came endless consequence and regret.

He looks back to Dick, standing quiet and still scuffing his shoe over the broken floor. He’s impervious to Jason’s struggle for control, still hasn’t seen the rage that flickers beneath his skin.

He is not angry at Dick.

All at once, the wrath drains from him - there is something more important.

“You’re not apologizing to Bruce, and you’re not going back to the Batcave,” Jason almost tells him that he should stay here and rest, take the time off that he needed, but stops himself. When he’d tried to take the case off Dick’s hands earlier, Jason was able to see his disappointment clear as day.

Really, what he wanted to do was tell Dick stay inside, take a nap, order in your favourite food, but he can’t bring himself to disappoint him. He obviously cared a lot about the case, and Jason couldn’t take away something that made him happy.

He relents, “I’ll go. I need to drop by my safe house anyways, I left something important there.”

He’s not really sure where Dick and Tim left off, only a vague remembrance of Tim expressing some sort of regret over selfishness? Jason isn’t really sure. The entirety of the conversation with Tim yesterday was a blur so he doesn’t bother to mention what, exactly, he left.

Luckily, Dick doesn’t seem to have any qualms with this plan - Jason had expected he would be arguing with his plan a lot.

Everyone knew that Dick had a protective streak a mile wide. It was a little terrifying how unconcerned he was with the whole thing, considering that as far as he knew Damian and Tim were still at the manor.

… It meant that Dick trusted Bruce not to hurt anyone else; meant that Bruce hurting Dick wasn’t difference enough that Dick felt the need to check in on the rest of the family.

“Okay,” Dick says, “But would you let Damian know that I’m picking up his shift Monday night? And if he argues it, tell him I say it’s for him covering me the other night. And because I know he has an English project due tomorrow. And tell him if he needs help to call me. And-,”

“Okay, okay!” Jason says, cutting off Dick’s ramble with a fond smile. Some things never changed, “I’ll let the kid know you’re going to unleash your inner mom if he doesn’t get an A.”

“Well, no, don’t say that. I don’t want him to feel pressure to..,” Dick trails off as he sees Jason’s growing grin and realizes he’s kidding. “Yeah, okay. I’ll admit that did sound a little overbearing.”

“Damian appreciates it, even though he doesn’t say so,” Jason reassures, grabbing his coat. Anyone with eyes could see the way Damian looked at Dick when he thought the eldest couldn’t see.

Jason used to find the hero-worship annoying but… he supposes maybe one of the reasons why it irked him so much was because he was probably the same way when he was newly Robin.

It was hard not to be when Dick was the perfect older brother - humorous, affectionate, and caring. He’d thought that the kiddie gloves Dick wore around Damian were dumb, but… hadn’t Dick done the same for Jason when he was Damian’s age?

Maybe kiddie gloves weren’t the right words.

He remembers being in school and seeing other kids have their parents gently apply bandages to scraped knees, hug their kids goodbye before they got on the school bus. His never did that, but Dick always made sure that Jason wasn’t hiding any injuries from being Robin, always smothered him with hugs and hair ruffles anytime he was in from Blüdhaven.

Wow, right now was not the right time to be having this revelation. Dick was looking up at him a little confused again. Jason shelves that line of thinking for another time, vowing to return to it at some point.

Dick repeats his question from earlier, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Was just thinking about where I left my keys last night,” Jason lies, grabbing his phone from the counter and slipping it into his pocket, “Okay, I’m gonna go now. I’ll probably be back in a couple hours, then we can read over the file before tonight. Sound good?”

“Yep, sounds perfect!” Dick says excitedly, before remembering, “Seriously, though, tell Damian to call if he needs to. He’s been having some issues with his English teacher, doesn’t really understand what she’s looking for while grading.”

He says the last part in a lower voice, as though Damian was around to hear it.

Jason hears Dick, years ago, telling Jason You have to remember to put the unit after the number. 1/8th what? 1/8th of an apple? 1/8th of Alfred’s best pie? and Jason giggling before turning to his math homework and writing down ¹⁄₈m².

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll let him know,” Jason says in an exasperated tone to hide the way he feels like his breath has just been siphoned away from him.

He rests a hand on the doorknob, hesitates.

Before he can second guess himself, he turns around and pulls Dick into a tight hug, then leaves quickly enough that Dick doesn’t have time to ask him for a third time if he’s alright.

He only gets about halfway down the street before he has to just pause and think.

Dick, from inside his apartment, puzzles at how spacey Jason had been for the entire day.

Concluding that he probably wasn’t going to get the answer, he decides to busy himself instead of thinking around in circles. Despite his vague worry about how long the decent state his relationships (with his brothers!) would last, he’s almost too content to consider it for too long.

For the first time in a while, he decides he could probably tolerate a shower.

He brushes his teeth well, combs his hair, chooses to drink a full glass of water when he notices his throat becoming dry instead of the usual preventative sip.

It leaves him feeling a lot better, actually.

He realizes that this is probably the closest he’s felt to healthy since… well. Long before Spyral, even.

When he sits down to start searching through recent news headlines and forums for mention of Rapture or Joker Venom, it doesn’t feel like a chore knowing that he’ll get to discuss the findings with Jason later.

He’s slept well. Ate Jason’s home cooked food. Hydrated. Showered. Cleaned. Spent time with both Jason and Tim recently.

Above all, he is happy.

And… maybe he’s alright.

Chapter Text

Tim didn’t bother to tell Bruce that he wasn’t coming home. The man really didn’t care where or what Tim was doing in any capacity, at least not outside of his Red Robin activities.

He used to tell himself it was something to be proud of - he was independent! Low maintenance, just like his parents always said. Mature.

He kept telling himself that for years, even when he knew it was a lie. Then, when he could no longer believe, he told himself it didn’t matter because that was just the way things were. That was a lie too.

Now he couldn’t care less what Bruce thought about his supposed “independence”.

Alfred needed to know that he didn’t have to make as large of a meal, however. Tim takes the time to send him a quick text saying that he was staying with Jason, which was stretching the truth a bit since Tim hadn’t seen Jason since he’d stormed out of the place, but whatever.

He was very worried about that, actually. Tim had intended to ensure that Jason was calm before he left (to give him a better chance at getting through to Dick) but when push came to shove he hadn’t done anything to stop him from leaving.

That being said, Jason had taken the news far better than Tim had expected him to. He hadn’t taken his motorcycle either, which left Tim to believe that at least he’d have time to let the information sit before he arrived. He had no doubt that this was intentional on Jason’s part, which showed that he was still in control of the pit rage for now and doing as well as possible considering the circumstances.

Despite knowing all of this, as time dragged on Tim began to doubt that he’d taken the correct course of action. Jason hadn’t said what he planned to do, only that he needed some time to process. Tim had assumed that meant Jason would be returning to the safe house at some point, but as the hours dragged on and day turned to night Tim became certain that Jason was either with Dick or… with Bruce.

Logically, Tim knows he should be hoping Jason was with Dick, but a small, vengeful part of him thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Jason paid Bruce a visit.

Following the line of thought that Jason was with Dick was far more worrisome, actually. Jason, despite the signs that he was still in the right mind when he left, might cause far more harm than good.

Tim hadn’t intended to fall asleep last night, but his body had betrayed him. He’d been waiting for Jason to return, then all of a sudden he opened his eyes and it was light out and Jason wasn’t back, which led to where he was currently.

The gamble was this: to the manor or to Dick’s apartment? If he goes to the wrong one, he would have to track Jason down to the other.

There were 3 variables: the distance, the urgency, and the likelihood that Jason had gone to each location.

Dick’s place was further, which meant that was a point towards Tim going to the manor. However, Tim was also far more concerned with Dick than Bruce at the moment (he reminds himself that Jason was quite likely to do far more damage to Bruce, but genuinely cannot bring himself to care enough to place that higher on his list of priorities) so that was a point toward going to Dick’s.

That left a tie, with the deterministic factor being Tim’s flimsy guess at where Jason had actually gone.

He couldn’t ignore Dick again. His mind tells him that Jason had probably gone to the manor, probably confronted Bruce already, but it occurs to him that even if that was the case it still meant that Dick was alone.

So, Tim decides to go against his nature for once, abandon his pros and cons. He’ll go to Dick’s apartment. Whether or not Jason was there that will be his destination, and he can-

Tim nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of the window beside him sliding open, the noise of the city abruptly less muffled as Jason hoists himself through the opening.

He covers up his startle quickly, but Jason still notices if the smirk and the brief amusement in his eyes are anything to go by.

“Something wrong with the door?” Tim asks sarcastically, hiding the relief at seeing him. He doesn’t actually expect a genuine answer.

“I set the motion sensor last night,” Jason says. Tim frowns in annoyance at the idea, but decides not to pursue that line of questioning.

“So, where were you?” He asks instead, almost dreading the answer. Jason’s knuckles weren’t scraped or red, and he didn’t look dishevelled or anything…

He was wearing Dick’s clothes. Tim blinks to confirm he was seeing correctly.

“Saw Dick. He’s… well, he’s not okay, but he was fine when I left him and I’m going back tonight. Came back here to check on you.”

“I don’t need to be checked up on,” is the first thing that is blurted out of his mouth, and it definitely did not have the intended effect. Tim mentally facepalms at how much he sounds like Damian. “But, how is Dick?”

“I just said he’s fine,” Jason says, irked. He closes the window behind him and walks over to the small electric kettle, flicking the on button. It’s old, the once pristine white faded into an ugly beige.

The water is under the minimum line.

Tim wants to shake Jason’s shoulders and demand he tell every detail about last night.

Instead he watches quietly as Jason waits for the water to boil and pours himself a solitary cup of tea, every second stretching until it feels like it’s been hours. Something tells Tim not to disturb.

Finally, Jason is ready. He pulls the string of the tea bag a few times, letting the dark flavouring disperse into the water, and turns to Tim.

“You didn’t tell me Bruce hit him,” Jason starts with, weighing Tim’s reaction to confirm that this wasn’t new information.

“No, I didn’t,” he agrees. He doesn’t regret it, either, so long as Dick was okay. Jason had obviously found out somehow, though, which meant that Dick had told him. It was surprising. It made Tim feel as though he made the right choice sending Jason. Tim thinks a moment, then asks, “Do you wish I had?”

“No,” Jason answers, and Tim knows what he means. He didn’t want to know, either. But he was glad he did.

“Do you want to know everything?”

“No. Tell me anyways.”

Tim is hesitant, but he feels the words bubble out of him anyways, almost against his will. It’s irrational. It’s a bad idea.

He is helpless to do anything but speak, because now that the dam has broken there can be nothing but flood. Tim has triggered a rapid succession of events, and there is no stopping it. Jason will find out, whether now or later, so Tim lets himself spill everything.

The meaning of Robin, the Flying Grayson’s colours.

Jason’s arrival and Dick’s forced departure.

The abuse that had been occurring since before any of them had even met Dick.

The brutal training schedule set for the earliest version of Robin.

The promise that Jason wouldn’t experience the same, and the subsequent renewal of that promise every time a new child entered the manor.

Dick’s death.

The beatdown, Dick’s pleading, Bruce forcing him to go anyways.

This time, Tim tries to stop Jason when he makes his way to the door. He places himself in front of it, steels himself.

“I am in control. Tim. Let me go,” Jason says, stone-faced and cold, “I need to pick Damian up. Right now.”

Tim looks into his eyes. Jason looks back.

“Come on, Tim,” Jason urges, “Just stay here. I’ll be back in an hour.”

He’s right. Someone does need to go get Damian. Tim can’t believe he’s considering this.

Jason gets fed up with waiting. He shoves his way past Tim, gentle but firm, and Tim doesn’t protest as much as he should.

It isn’t until a few minutes later that Tim realizes he’d left through the door, triggering whatever motion sensors he cared about enough to avoid earlier.

The pit rage is a roaring wave, an undeniable shoving beneath Jason’s skin, the true devil concealed beyond sight in human flesh and thrumming through his blood.

He is destruction incarnate. He is the start and end of all harm, the gruesome truth of cursedness.

Jason has been holding back the green, strangling it every time it threatened to make itself known. He understood it would overflow, that he would eventually appease the demon in the dark recesses of his mind that whispered to let it spread, let the rage overcome all else.

It was a torment unlike anything else, to feel the raw anguish and vile oppression.

Dick is not here anymore.

No reason to confine it, the voice insists, alluring. A tempt and a taunt all in one.

It was Bruce’s fault. He’d sent Dick to die.

No plan for reclaim after the impossibly vague mission was complete, no contingency.

Tim did not realize this as he relayed the details to Jason. Tim was fooling himself.

No back-up. No intention to pull Dick out if things went south.

It took every amount of self-restraint Jason had left to prevent himself from blowing up as Tim explained the circumstances of Dick’s experiences.

It was a suicide mission, one that could barely be said Dick even agreed to.

Jason was going to find Bruce.

He is in control, he tells himself.

He does not remember veering through traffic with reckless abandon, single minded whilst reaching his goal.

He is in control, he tells himself.

He slams the manor door open. Smashes a vase against a wall. Throws the table underneath with near subhuman strength.

He is in control.

Damian rushes out into the hall, brandishing his swords and yells, “Todd! Stop this at once!” as Jason pushes by without a second glance.

He is in control.

The blood is rushing to his head. Thrilling. Merciless. Vindictive.

Then he is there.

Bruce is unassuming. Dressed in civilian clothes. Hunched over lab work. Unprepared. It’s laughable.

Jason is on him in an instant.

Bruce responds with all of the speed and force that could only be honed with years of training. He twists away from Jason, but he is at a natural disadvantage, wedged between the chair and the table of samples that he likely did not want spilled.

Jason grabs him by his shoulder, pushes him to the ground, brutal and effective. He doesn’t give Bruce a moment to respond (that moment would be Jason’s downfall were it to pass, he knows full well that he is no match for Bruce without his current advantage).

He slams his body weight down onto Bruce, pressing his elbow between Bruce’s shoulder blades and revelling in the slight noise of pain and surprise he lets out involuntarily.

“Jason-,”

“Don’t.”

Bruce takes shallow breaths, ribs forced against the ground and unable to move upwards due to the looming pressure on his spine.

“You left Dick to die.”

Bruce is silent. Jason drives his elbow down further on the next exhale and Bruce twitches at the new weight.

“Yes,” he says, words taught and forced with no air behind them. Still, he is stoic in a way that makes Jason want to shatter his spine right then and there, “I did know there was a chance he would die.”

“THEN WHY DID YOU SEND HIM?!” Jason thunders, the scream ripping from his throat jagged and destructive. The pain was a second to the roaring in his skull.

The green was a consuming fire as his muscles burned, his grip on Bruce tightening.

He gets up, flipping Bruce around and throwing him back to the ground, holding him up only by the collar of his shirt.

His fist tightens. He raises it.

The green whispers have crescendoed into twisted shrieks for blood.

He imagines Dick, hurt and fearful in his own home. Imagines Bruce, hauling him up off the ground just like this, winding up just like Jason is now. Thinks about how Dick might have looked scared, might have begged Bruce to stop like Tim said he did.

He thinks about Bruce hitting anyways. The irreparable damage.

Always damage.

Bruce is utterly unreadable. Impassive.

He does not fear Jason, doesn’t find anything about the looming pain unreasonable or unjust.

He’s so apathetic toward it all, acting as though the threat of pain is not an odd thing to be held over his head by a family member. It’s despicable.

Jason hates him.

He spits, watching delighted as his aim is true and it lands perfectly in the center of Bruce’s face, the man’s eyes closing instinctively as they squeezed shut.

Jason lets go of the fabric in his hands, listens to the thud of Bruce falling back.

Pain is not the way to hurt Bruce.

He turns around, not looking back at the pathetic excuse of a father lying stunned and confused on the floor of the cave as he ascends back upstairs.

Jason intends to harm him in the most incorrigible way he can, beyond what the physical realm could even begin to offer. He’d do what Bruce did to Dick, the worst torment.

He would take away Bruce’s family.

It’s vengeful, done with purely selfish intent as Bruce calls after him, authoritarian and commanding, “Jason! Come back here now!”

Jason doesn’t spare him a glance, lets cool indifference settle over his face as he continues walking.

Damian is standing halfway up the steps, looking scared and shaken up in the small ways that only one of his siblings would notice.

Jason wraps a hand around him, turning him away from the view and putting in deliberate effort not to be too rough. Damian tucks himself against Jason’s side, and the warmth allows him to quell the anger slightly.

“Todd. Explain yourself,” Damian demands, trembling almost undetectably under Jason’s wing. “Did father really-?”

Jason is unable to answer, only getting out, “Pack a bag. I’ll take you to Dick.”

It was the only thing that would have Damian listen unquestionably, and so Damian ran off to his room, pulling a duffel and filling it with the things he would need for a few nights with great urgency.

Jason sees Alfred, face crumpled in grief as he leans against the countertop.

“Master Jason-,”

“Save it.” Jason snaps at him, unable to muster any sympathy.

Alfred had been here for forever, had seen more of Bruce and Dick than any of the others. Jason wasn’t sure which was worse - if Alfred had known, or been ignorant the whole time.

Another beat of watching Alfred shows the guilty tension running through his body, and Jason once again turns his back in a mixture of disbelief and disgust.

He decides that knowing and neglecting to do anything was, indeed, much worse.

Damian comes hurtling down the hallway again. This time not to stop Jason, but to meet him in stride as the two of them set off, leaving a quiet and shameful manor behind.

Jason steps over the broken glass near the grand entrance of the place, pointing it out to Damian so he, too, could carefully avoid hurting his feet.

Damian sits down to tie the laces of his runners, and Jason takes the time to look at the hollow shell of a household.

The depressing portraits that lined the walls stare back, unwelcoming as they had been the first time Jason had entered. Light from the chandelier shone down the same way it always did. From the red curtains to the patterned rug, not much had changed.

Suddenly, Jason is taken in by the small stain he had caused once, years ago, when he spilled chocolate milk all over the carpet. He’d expected Bruce to be mad at him. To his surprise the man hadn’t cared at all, simply calling Alfred to tidy it up.

He wonders how that could be right, when he has so many parallel memories of Bruce with a temper like a rope with only a single strand left, fraying and ready to break. He has these memories of locking himself in his room, pulling his knees to his chest and the headphones over his head to drown out the sounds of Dick and Bruce yelling.

As much as he wants to remember the good, the bad echoes louder.

Jason feels no regret as he swings open the manor doors for the last time, with no intention of ever returning.

Damian trails after him, struggling to keep pace under the weight of his duffle until Jason cools down enough to realize and slow his stride.

Dick is safe. Tim is safe. Damian is safe.

He’d never go back.

Chapter Text

Dick is thrilled to hear the doorbell of his apartment. He gets up, stretching his back a bit after being seated, and goes to let Jason in.

His hand is resting on the knob when he realized that Jason doesn’t typically opt for doorbells over knocking. Before he has time to process this, Damian is barreling through the doorway and into Dick’s arms. Dick looks down in bewilderment, utterly stunned by the open show of affection so uncharacteristic from his youngest brother (or any of them, really).

“Richard. Timothy has been telling me you require physical comfort.”

Dick wonders what else they had told him, to provoke such out of character behaviour. Typically Dick was the one initiating, whilst Damian pretended not to enjoy the contact despite Dick clearly being able to tell how it made him a bit more lively (and dare he say cheerful). Damian would normally never be caught hugging Dick in front of his siblings, though.

Dick throws a confused look over the mop of Damian’s hair at Jason, who enters the apartment second. Tim follows soon after, squeezing through the small space left by the door bouncing back to close.

Tim gives a small, and Dick might even claim hesitant, wave, which he returns from where his hands are still wrapped around Damian’s back.

“Hope you don’t mind I brought the brats,” Jason says, ignoring the annoyed noise that Tim makes at the name. Dick expects more, prepares himself to de-escalate whatever Tim is going to say in response, but Tim only elbows Jason playfully.

It’s a stark reminder of how much Dick has missed - they get along now Dick reminds himself, so he has no need to intervene.

No right to intervene.

He pushes that thought deep down, unwilling to face the jealous feeling coiling in his gut. Didn’t Jason just reassure him yesterday that they were still family?

Instead, he focuses on Jason’s words which really explain absolutely nothing to Dick about why they were here instead of at home, getting a good night’s sleep before they had school the next day (especially Damian, who still had that English project that Dick was certainly not going to forget about after the grief over the last report card).

Despite that, Dick is aware enough to know that there was no reason to express those concerns where Damian might misinterpret them as Dick not wanting him over - this was the first time Damian was at his apartment, as well as Tim. He can feel Damian’s head shifting slightly from over Dick’s shoulder to take in the room, no doubt thinking he was subtle.

Damian was the only one out of the three of them that had known Dick had a new place, although he guesses that Tim had probably been filled in since there weren’t any questions about it.

“Yeah, no problem,” Dick says easily, despite the fact that he was still very confused by the new appearance of three people in his small living room. “Thought we were gonna work the case?”

“Change of plans. Bruce said he’d work it alone for a bit. We’ll go out tomorrow,” Jason conveniently leaves out the part where he had completely forgot the purpose of his visit to the manor and not even thought about the files while he was there. Tim had texted Alfred very curtly that Bruce was on his own for hero-related endeavours for the next little while. “Right now we’re doing movie night instead.”

Dick’s eyebrows scrunch up a bit, sensing the withholding of information on Jason’s part, but he allows it. Damian shifts a bit, and Dick is suddenly reminded that he’s still holding him. He loosens his arms a bit and Damian draws back.

“I have heard good things about a movie called ‘Terminator’,” Damian claims, which immediately has Dick trying to figure out how he was supposed to get out of that one.

He knew it was a little stupid considering all of the nights that Damian spent out as Robin, seeing the worst that Gotham had to offer, but Dick still wanted to shield him from what little of that darkness he could.

“There was, uh, one I wanted to watch though,” Dick says, “Called Big Hero 6.”

Tim lets out a guffaw at Dick’s attempt, quickly stifling it when Damian turned to glare at him.

“We will watch that then,” he says, then with a hint of spite, “And Timothy will stop laughing at your choice.”

“Hey, I wasn’t-!” Tim cuts himself off at the meaningful look Dick gives him. Anything to get Damian off of the Terminator idea. “Ugh. Never mind.”

Damian sets off into the apartment, expressing interest in finding blankets for the couch. Jason follows, evidently with the intention of making sure that he wasn’t going to mess anything up in Dick’s room.

“Thanks. Can’t imagine having to watch that with him,” Dick turns to Tim. He doesn’t respond, so Dick asks, “Now, what’s this about me and ‘requiring physical comfort’?”

He says it with a grin, evidently teasing, but it’s wiped from his face as Tim’s own becomes grim.

“Dick, I’m sorry-,”

“No. Nope. Not you too,” Dick interrupts.

“Huh?”

“You’re not apologizing to me right now. I don’t know what you think you have to be sorry about, but you don’t. Have to be sorry, I mean. I’m fine. I forgive you. Whatever you need to hear,” Dick says, exasperated, “Can’t we just have, like, a non-emotional, focus-on-getting-Damian-to-do-homework night?”

Tim is about to protest, to push, to speak the truth and say that he does need to apologize because he somehow didn’t do that before between all his crying and forcing Dick back into the role of comforter, but…

Wouldn’t it be the same thing, to force him to talk about it now? An apology obviously wasn’t what Dick needed right now, and he had just told Tim that. Tim doubts that an apology would even get through to him - it’d be meaningless.

To have this conversation now would be only to Tim’s benefit, a way to relieve guilt. Dick needed to hear it at some point, but when that happened it needed to be genuine, not just in intent but also in the way it would be received.

“Yeah, okay,” Tim says. If Dick needed time, Tim would give it to him as best he could, “I think we have to lay down the law that the movie is after the homework.”

Tension drains from Dick’s shoulders, and Tim promises himself he’ll let Dick approach everything at his own pace. It was the kind of agency that he hadn’t been afforded in the past, and it saddens Tim to see the relief that the simple courtesy of that basic respect brings to him when it should be standard.

“I have a hard time saying no to him sometimes, especially when he wants to do activities that are so…,” Dick pauses, looking for the right word.

“Normal?” Tim fills in.

“Yeah,” Dick sighs, “Did he even bring his project?”

“I anticipated this,” Damian says from right behind Dick, startling him enough that he jolts, “Apologies, didn’t mean to alarm you. I did bring my project and I will finish it before the movie.”

“Oh, thank you Damian,” Dick exclaims, pleasantly surprised by the ease of convincing him, “Let’s do that now, then - how far in are you?”

“Yes. I’m about halfway done, but maybe your assistance would be appreciated for the last bit. I’m genuinely not sure what she wants from me when she says I am supposed to ‘explain my emotions relating to the book’. Have I not already done that?” Damian huffs, crossing his arms matter of factly, “And for the record, I am perfectly normal.”

Tim scoffs disbelievingly.

The sound of the movie in the background is soft. Blankets hang off of the small, ratty couch that the four of them had somehow managed to pile onto, pressed together in a mess of limbs. The warmth was nice, although Jason would never admit so.

Dick had been the first to fall asleep, somehow managing to drift off within the first half. The sight of him, mouth slightly ajar and expression smoothed over in sleep was a welcome relief from the worried and pained looks that he seemed to have so often now. His head was leaning on Tim’s shoulder, with Damian pressed into Dick’s other side.

Once it became obvious that Damian was asleep too, Jason reached over to grab the remote off the table and turn the volume down even further. Neither him nor Tim were really watching in the first place - Jason knew this because Tim was busy staring emptily at the wall beside the television, and Jason was busy staring at Tim and his other siblings.

Tim meets his eyes as Jason places the remote back to its place. Jason knows what his brother is about to say before the words have even started to leave his mouth; he can see the unsureness in his eyes.

“Where are we going to go?” Tim asks quietly, in a way that makes Jason want to reassure him that everything will be alright. He doesn’t, because he’s not sure it will be, and because he’s never been one for placating falsities.

“I don’t know. I think we have to tell the Justice League. Dick is… he’s just going to go back,” Jason swallows, the truth in his words heavy, “He doesn’t see the problem. But we can’t go back. He can’t go back.”

“But where do we go?” Tim whispers too loudly, urgently. Afraid. “Me and Damian, I mean.”

Jason runs his thumb over the seam of the couch, feeling the divots. Thinking over what he is about to say, he wonders how he got to this point. Was he really going to offer this? To Tim, of all people?

To his surprise, the answer was a resounding yes.

Tim was family. Damian was too.

“You could stay with me. It wouldn’t be all that different from living with Bruce in terms of how much you’d be responsible for on your own - you know me, I think you get what I’m saying. I’m not gonna, like, tell you to eat your vegetables or any of that shit, and we’ll definitely have to talk about some ground rules, but it’s a place to stay. I’m going to try to convince Dick to come over for a while, too. I think…. Think he actually does need someone to tell him to eat his vegetables at the moment,” he finishes the last part quieter, looking over to where Dick’s head was resting to watch for any indication the older might be awake.

He was still slumped against Tim, completely oblivious to the world. Jason can only be glad that he’s resting.

“Jason…,” Tim trails off, clearly shocked at his offer. His eyes are wide, and he’s biting the corner of his lip in thought. Jason can see his resolve harden when the surprise (gratitude) bleeds from his face, replaced with a look of determination, “Okay. Let’s tell the Justice League.”

“We should probably go in person. Sooner rather than later - otherwise Dick might return to the cave. Want to go tomorrow?” Jason asks.

“Wait, are we not telling Dick?” Tim frowns, “I think he should know. It doesn’t really feel like our place to share that stuff about him with other people without him knowing.”

“He’s going to try to stop us.”

It was an unfortunate reality, but based on the way that Dick had been describing the whole thing and how he received the bruise from Bruce, Jason knew there wasn’t a chance that Dick would want them to seek help on his behalf. He didn’t see that he needed it - didn’t truly categorize what Bruce was doing to him as abuse.

Years of categorical victim blaming and manipulation from Bruce ensured that Dick remained quick to shift the fault onto himself and direct any anger internally.

Placing him on such a pedestal in the minds of the other Robins was wickedly effective. Jason remembers Bruce telling him Dick was smarter, better, faster. Dick was always a step ahead, a distant goal that Jason would never be able to accomplish or measure up to.

On Dick’s end, it meant that he felt so pressured into being perfect that he hid any sign of the abuse from them, seeing it only as his own fault and as an imperfection that needed to be kept in the dark recesses of the family’s history that only Bruce and Dick himself knew of.

So the pattern would continue with Dick attempting to hide his perceived “failures” from the world, and Jason was viscerally aware that that would extend to the Justice League.

“Just because he’ll try to stop us, doesn’t mean we should go over his head about it,” Tim protests, and Jason sighs.

He knows that Tim’s right, even if the idea of having that conversation with Dick was the exact sort of thing that would make Jason’s blood boil. He wasn’t sure how much more he could listen to Dick downplay his experiences, his suffering, before he was ready to reconsider his decision to leave Bruce in one piece.

“I know,” Jason admits, “I didn’t mean that I wanted to lie to him, or anything. It’s just so difficult…”

“Seeing him like this?”

“Yeah.”

They lapse into silence, both looking at Dick once again. It was painful to break the illusion of calm they’d all been maintaining throughout the night - it had been perfect.

Jason keeps telling himself that after the League knows, after Dick and the rest of them are out, they’ll have the liberty of more nights like this. He can imagine the four of them at his place, because god knows he certainly had more than enough space.

And really, Dick needed out of here. A lot of the kitchen appliances were in varied states of brokenness (Jason would know, the oven almost overheated and burned the eggs yesterday), the floorboards were wildly uneven, and the wallpaper was peeling with the walls cracked in some places. He still can’t believe that Bruce let Dick lose his apartment on top of everything else.

Jason has his own ways of making money, ways that other members of the family have frowned upon in the past. Dick had never made any comments about it, but it was obvious that Jason was claiming money back from places that certainly shouldn’t have had it in the first place.

He’d never really thought about Dick’s funding - he sort of assumed that Bruce was helping since Dick still worked cases for him regularly enough. Since, well. Bruce was a millionaire.

But it was unlikely, looking at the place. Just another way Bruce was screwing Dick over, extorting him both emotionally and of literal labor. As much as heroism was not a job but a choice, the circumstances were different when Bruce was constantly reeling Dick in at his beck and call.

Wasn’t he doing the same to Tim and Damian, too? They had both chose vigilantism, but there was always the subtext that in order to live in the Wayne household you would work, and you would put the city above all else.

Jason is reluctantly glad that he had been the first to want to leave that lifestyle, not even entirely, but just to break free from the rules dictating the ways they operated in order to help Gotham. He’s slowly coming to the realization that although Tim and Damian are happy in their roles as Robins, if they weren’t he’s not really sure what Bruce would do. Even on principle, the idea that they were bound to work in order to maintain good relations with the man that was supposed to be their caretaker was inherently backwards and screwy.

So yes, Jason was eager to get the three of them away from everything as best as he could. The backing of the Justice League was the only way to actually change anything. Without them, it would be impossible to truly separate their lives from Bruce’s. He’d track them down.

It might also be difficult to get Damian to go along with everything. Tim was evidently on the same page - he’d seen the videos, seen how irredeemable the situation truly was. Damian, on the other hand, would probably prioritize Dick for certain but would also trust in his word blindly, meaning that he’d listen when Dick tried to shift the blame away from Bruce.

He was getting ahead of himself. One step at a time. First, Justice League. Then worry about everything else.

Jason shifts over on the couch to offer his own shoulder to Tim, leaning back. Tim rests his head, letting out a gentle breath as he relaxes.

They’d probably all have some pretty bad neck pain the next morning, but he couldn’t care less.

Closing his eyes, Jason lets himself drift off with the finalized ideas and plans floating around in his head, feeling a lot more prepared now that he knew Tim was ready to help.