Chapter Text
“Dick.”
The voice was deeper than he remembered, than he was used to. But he’d recognize it anywhere, especially with that tone, choked and full of tears.
Regardless, only one person called him on the super phone that Vic had made. It had been four years since Jason’s death, and when he saw that phone ring, Dick sighed as he realised his one-and-a-half month streak of not hallucinating Jason was broken. It was the longest he’d ever gone.
“Hush, Little Wing. What’s wrong, what happened?” He didn’t stumble over his words even though saying them burned like opening an old wound that never really healed.
“The Joker he’s… he’s still alive? Why? He- he killed me, Dick! He tortured me and he-” The voice broke into sobs and Dick’s heart ached. “I died and the Joker’s still alive and Bruce left him alive and- and… Did I even matter to him?” The voice grew quieter as it asked, “Did I matter to you ?”
“Of course you did!” Dick refuted without hesitation. He could feel himself tearing up. “I tried, Jay. I swear I tried to kill him. Bruce brought him back but I swear on everything that I tried to kill him. You matter so much to me. I couldn’t do it again, I- I didn’t try again. But if it would bring you back, I swear I’d kill that clown a hundred times over, Little Wing.”
Dick didn’t know why he was having this conversation with the hallucination. He thought his subconscious would have gone over this enough times by now. He thought he’d learned not to respond. But there was a distinct lack of drip, drip, drip, that made Dick falter a little. The voice felt oddly clear, too.
“ Bruce brought him back!? That son of a bitch ! How the fuck could he-” The righteous anger mixed with unbelievable pain was a combination he’d only ever heard from Jason, it was rare that his mind could come up with something that accurate, that it didn’t distort his little brother horribly.
Dick took in a shuddering breath, and let his tears fall. “I miss you, Little Wing. I wish you were still here,” he whispered.
The voice’s stream of cursing cut off, and it grew quiet for a bit. “I want to come back… I’d come back for you,” it said, with a different kind of hurt in its tone. Dick felt a blossom of confusion.
“Talia’s stupid . It doesn’t matter– I don’t care if I’m unavenged or whatever. I wanna come home. ” The last bit was said in a mixture of a whine and a whimper.
Dick’s confusion took on a slightly manic tinge. “ Jason? ”, he asked hysterically.
The voice sniffled and answered curiously, “Yeah?”
Dick didn’t know what he expected as an answer, but before he could come up with a response, there was some kind of a bang from the other end of the line. There was some overlapping shouting and panic rushed through Dick.
The call got cut just as Jason shouted something like “Tell her to leave me the fuck alone!” , and Dick was running out of the house without a second thought.
He sped his bike to the Batcave, breaking at least 10 traffic laws, and barely skidded to a halt inside.
“Dick! What happened?” Tim asked in concern.
Dick was dizzy with fear, with hope, with adrenaline, with so much else, and didn’t bother answering. He plugged his phone into the Batcomputer and worked as fast as he could to trace the call.
In his periphery, he could see Tim look a mix of worried and confused. His youngest brother then gained a determined expression and began helping out.
Together, they traced the call to some rural village in France, and Dick began muttering under his breath, “Fuck, fuck, Wally is on a mission somewhere , Clark is off-world, do we have any Zeta Tubes to that area? Fuck –”
“Kon’s free. I– I could get him to take us…?” Dick turned jerkily and looked at Tim properly for the first time that day. His youngest brother looked resolved, but Dick could see the worry tracing every line of his face. “Dick, what is going on?”
Dick swallowed dryly, and forced himself to say the words he hoped, with all of his soul, were true.
“I think Jason’s alive.”
Tim’s eyes widened as he inhaled sharply, and at least 50 different emotions passed across his face, before he settled again on pure determination, and nodded.
Kon-El had answered Tim immediately, and looked similarly determined when he learned the situation. After suiting up, the three of them were flying at top speed to the area the call was from.
Dick had managed to keep from spiraling through the sheer adrenaline of needing to find out where Jason might be, but now, he couldn’t help but wonder, what was going on?
Had Jason never died at all, was it all some cover-up? Had he been revived by someone? Jason had mentioned Talia, so a Lazaurus Pit could be involved. How long had Jason been alive, if he was revived? Was it Talia who revived him, or had she gotten involved in this after someone else had done so?
(He avoided the part of him that asked if it was really Jason at all. If this was all some ploy.)
They began slowing, and then touched down in the older looking village. The trio immediately started running to the inn they’d located the call from. It had been about an hour since the violent sounding end of the call, so Dick didn’t hope much that Jason was still there.
He was correct not to.
They’d entered a room from its broken window, and saw it looking like a wreck. There were some unconcious bodies of what looked like League Assassins– that Dick and Tim quickly restrained– surrounded by broken furniture and newspaper clippings of the Joker scattered around the room.
“Jason escaped from the window– meaning he most likely didn’t loop around and go north– and he’s almost definitely injured. He couldn’t have gotten far. Our best bet is to split up and search the town,” Tim summarised rapidly.
The three of them broke off– Tim taking south, Kon taking east, and Dick taking west.
Dick searched around frantically. The sun was beginning to set, but that didn’t impair him in the slightest. His thoughts were racing and his lungs were burning.
Finally, near the edge of the village, Dick caught sight of a trail of blood, and his breath started coming in short bursts. He sprinted in the direction that the blood led, and saw that it trailed into something like a small shed.
Dick slowed down as he approached it, his heart beating wildly.
He pushed the door open carefully.
A figure was slumped across from him. They were large, far bigger than Jason had been when he died, and they were holding their stomach tightly.
Dick couldn’t see their face in the dim light, and their silhouette looked nothing like Jason, but he murmured softly, hesitantly, fearfully, hopefully, “ Little Wing? ”
Jason raised his head and groaned, “ Dickiebird? ”
Dick collapsed in front of his little brother, enveloping his middle in a suffocating embrace, hugging him for the first time in years.
His head rested on Jason’s chest now, his baby brother had grown up so much, he didn’t care.
“You’re alive. You’re alive. You survived, ” Dick sobbed.
“No I didn’… I ‘member dyin’... n’ diggin m’self out th’grave…” Jason was slurring his words, but Dick understood them nonetheless. He gave a strangled keening noise and squeezed Jason impossibly tighter.
Jason wrapped a sluggish arm around Dick loosely, muttering, “I called you. I c'lled you, and y'came. ‘M here, Dickieb’rd… H’re now n’ ain’t goin’ ‘nywh’re.”
Somehow, that was what it took. An indescribable weight lifted from his shoulders.
Dick lay there, shaking in his little brother’s arms, feeling like the whole world was wrapping around him instead.
Dick watched Jason sleep soundly in the medical bed, barely even taking time to blink.
Kon-El had found the two of them in that shed after hearing Jason’s name being said, and flew them back to the Batcave as fast as he could, upon seeing that Jason was bleeding heavily from his torso.
Dick had called Leslie and she had patched Jason up calmly, before bursting into tears immediately afterwards. Alfred and Bruce had similar reactions, after they’d finished confirming that Jason was who he claimed to be. Jason had a tearful reunion with Alfred and Leslie, but refused to acknowledge Bruce’s presence.
When Tim returned to the Cave, dressed in his Robin suit, a look of shocked anger and betrayal passed over Jason’s face. But then he’d glanced at Dick, and a complicated look replaced the anger and betrayal. Finally, he carefully said, “Glad that the Robin after me was sensible enough for pants.”
A few hours had passed since then. Alfred had made some food for Jason, and Jason had filled them in on what happened, and what he remembered. He’d started drifting off while they were asking clarifying questions, and everybody else had, one by one, drifted out of the room. Tim first, and Bruce last, though they’d all come back and just looked at Jason a bit, every so often.
Dick hadn’t left Jason’s side. He sat there, watching him sleep, watching the deeply scarred chest rise and fall steadily.
Suddenly, Jason’s eyes fluttered open.
He registered Dick staring at him, and his nose scrunched up slightly.
“What’re you doin’?”, he mumbled drowsily.
“Nothing,” Dick replied.
Jason’s nose scrunched up further.
“Y’r a liar, Dickiebird.” It was lighthearted and playful, Dick smiled shakily, and his brother smiled back.
Jason shuffled backwards a bit, then looked at Dick with a pout and a pleading expression.
When Dick didn’t move, Jason exagerated his pout and started making grabby hands. It looked comical coming from the hulking, scarred figure that Jason now had, and Dick couldn’t help huffing out a laugh.
He slid into the bed, trying to get comfortable. Jason hummed happily, sleepily, and hugged him, though it was more like sprawling on top of him.
He was heavier than Dick was used to, but Dick made no protest.
“Love you, Dickiebird,” Jason mumbled into his shoulder.
Miraculously, Dick didn’t choke as he softly said, “I love you too, Little Wing.”