Chapter Text
The commotion outside of Peter’s office only grew, which, honestly, Dick rather expected. Dick resisted closing his eyes by breathing in time with the sound of heavy footfalls on the stairs. When Jason’s large frame finally filled the doorway, he was bracketed by an exasperated Diana and a cautious Jones.
Dick was already standing, which meant Tim was too since he hadn’t let go of Dick’s hand. Or his arm. Tim was really giving his best impression of an octopus and Dick couldn’t bring himself to protest (he maybe loved it, just a little).
“Dickface.”
“Jaybird.” Dick didn’t know if he should step forward or not.
Jason slid his eyes over the agents in the room, assessing, before returning to Tim and the way he was firmly wrapped around his brother’s arm. “Good work, Replacement.”
Tim just nodded, firmly.
Opening his mouth to speak, though what exactly he was planning to say Dick certainly had no idea, Dick was interrupted by a large calloused hand.
“Shut up, Dickie.”
The agents and Peter in particular bristled, but Dick waved them off with his free hand. Jason’s tone was quiet and serious, contained in a way that he very rarely was, even before the Pit.
“I’ve been wanting to say this to you for years, and I just, I need you to listen.”
Dick nodded, still unable to speak past the warm weight on his lower face. He wondered if Jason could feel the tremble in Dick’s bones, but then realized that was a stupid question.
Jason let out a breath that wasn’t shaky but was certainly a shade of relieved. “Alright. Okay.” He slid the hand around to the back of Dick’s neck, placing just the slightest bit of pressure to guide Dick’s head upwards and squarely meet Jason’s gaze. “It counts.”
Dick felt his muscles tense at the acknowledgement of his death, brief as it had been. Jason clearly felt the motion because his tightened his grip before continuing.
“It wasn’t fake because it still happened. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t months or weeks or days. It counts. And fucking hell, you should have told us but I get why you didn’t and also B was a fucking asshole who took advantage and- crap.”
Jason closed slightly glowing eyes and lowered his forehead to press into Dick’s. “This isn’t about B. I’ll trash talk him later. Just. You’re stupid but not entirely useless and being the big brother is hard and not my job.”
Jason slid his hands down to just below Dicks shoulders in what Dick imagined Jay would never admit doubled as a check for injuries. Then he shook Dick firmly.
“It’s not my job. I. Don’t. Want. It.”
Dick smiled. He was literally incapable of doing anything else. He wasn’t exactly sure what kind of smile he was giving, but Jason’s expression did something odd before he reached out and wrapped two massive arms around Dick’s neck and dragged him into an equally large chest.
“One. You get one of these, Dickhead.”
Dick was too busy to reply, since Jason had, contrary to popular perception, always given really great hugs. They were just a touch possessive with the conscious edge of knowing there might not be another. They were all-encompassing.
Burrowing deeper and letting Jason’s burning warmth sear into his skin, Dick let out a little hum of contentment. The noise was little, he was sure, but Jason and probably Tim caught the sound anyways.
“You’re such an embarrassment.” But the arms tightened so Dick felt completely justified in wrapping his own arms around Jason’s waist and slipping his hands under the ever-present leather jacket.
“So we’re just going to let our conman get smothered by the man who looks like he could murder a bear with his hands alone?” Diana asked.
“That’s the conman’s super power.” Tim threw out before Dick could decide if he wanted to surface long enough to speak. Tim had released Dick’s arm to allow for the hug, but had resorted to holding onto the edge of Dick’s severely rumpled suit jacket. “Dick can hug the murder out of almost anyone.”
Jason made a sound at the back of his throat and raised one arm to point at Diana. Dick whined loud enough that he could feel the stares of the entire room, but the arm returned to drape along his shoulders so the stares didn’t matter.
“For fucks sake, Dickie, really?”
Dick rested his chin on Jason’s chest to look up at his brother through slitted eyes. “You said one. It’s not over yet.”
“Fucking fine. But that,“ he nodded over to Diana by the door, “is exactly my point. Murder, I can do. Intimidating a racist teacher who doesn’t understand the meaning of trauma response? Sure. Scaring off a socialite who doesn’t know the meaning of ‘no’ and is rapidly entering stalker territory? Got it. Drawing attention and taking hits so the squirts are safe? Absolutely. Waging a war of strategy, attrition, and pranks against friends and family going through a particularly bad bout of stupidity? Count me fucking in. Emotions and talking through shit? Nope. No. Absolutely not.”
“You say that like you’ve ever won a prank war against me,” Dick mumbled into Jason’s shirt.
Jones and Tim chuckled, Jones’s sounding a little more surprised and little more apologetic. Tim’s was brief so he could cut Jason’s, surely scathing, response off. “Jay’s right, though. He’s really bad at emotions and shit.”
Dick could feel Jason’s glare in the tensing of muscle and heard the shifting of fabric that meant Tim was holding his hands up. “I mean, I appreciate the attempt, I really do. Much better than before, ten out of ten, solid improvement. But, yeah, we all suck at emotions in general and healthy communication in particular.”
Dick sighed, but stepped slightly out of the hug for a return of the eyebrow of judgement. “I literally ran away instead of talking things through and you think I’m better?”
Tim blinked. “Okay, but you tried, first. Once we’d calmed down and gotten out of our own heads, we did realize that. And you know. Many of your attempts were caught on video.”
Dick narrowed his eyes and watched Tim resist the urge to step back.
“Is there a giant cork board somewhere with all the details of my disappearance and the events leading up to it decked out in coloured string and cards?”
“No!”
“Not anymore,” Jason muttered, and deflected Tim’s betrayed look by stepping away from Dick and officially ending the hug. Dick pouted instead of whining again but allowed the retreat. He hadn’t seen Jason in years, but could still read his Little Wing, and Jason was reaching the end of the affection he could take in public.
Dick was also sure that there would be a spar at some point in their future. The near future when Tim or the FBI wasn’t watching.
Jason was Dick’s little brother, but he hadn’t raised Jason to the same extent as the others. Dick hadn’t reacted the best either, when he was young and insecure and Jason was Dick’s replacement. They’d gotten better, both before Jason’s death and after, the kind of better that only very hard work and complete dedication can make happen, but that wasn’t exactly reached by healthy communication.
Jason spoke in shades of violence, which was a language everyone seemed to forget Dick was more than capable of using. Their fights were brutal and sharp and allowed Jason to let go of the Lazarus Pit rage and Dick to let go of the Golden Child control. They fought under cloudy skies on broken rooftops and crumbling buildings by trading too-heavy blows that never crossed a set of rules only the two of them would ever know.
Dick missed those evenings, missed how they’d end up back to back, heaving for breath, just sitting in dirt and darkness together. He saw the same shade to Jason’s eyes now that he did on those nights, before Dick had fucked up and the Spyral and Bruce had changed everything. The bright poison green faded deep at the edges of Jay’s eyes, slumbering eddies instead of ripples recently disturbed.
“You ran, yeah. But.” Jason ran a hand though his hair, sending it into a greater state of mess. “But. That was still handing it better than I did.”
Dick lunged forward fast enough that he saw Jones flinch and Diana’s hand reflexively drop to hover slightly over her gun. Peter didn’t flinch. Peter frowned with the familiarity of a man who had spent years watching Dick move everywhere from on a con to moments when desperation and panic and fear tugged the mask lower (lower and lower and lower to the point where, sometimes, it was the aftermath of desperation and panic and fear and the warm light of Peter’s kitchen that tugged the mask down).
When Dick’s fingers latched onto Jason’s shirt, the man followed the pull down so he was hunched over and looking straight into Dick’s eyes. “That’s not the same thing,” Dick said quietly and fiercely without a trace of Neal in his tone.
Because Dick would never let Jason minimize what he went through, not just in the Pits and the direct aftermath but in actually having an after. It had taken so much work with himself, with the Outlaws, with those damn rooftop fights to get control of the rage and it still didn’t always work.
“I know,” Jason replied, because he did, because echoes of fists and words under dark skies had taught him that. But he also slid a hand, devastating in its gentleness, over Dick’s heart. Jason splayed open, burning fingers there, over the heart that Luther had stopped and started again. “But I don’t think you know that it’s also exactly the same.”
Jason stepped back, leaving Dick reeling with the efficiency of a man trained from very young to deal finishing blows, and threw himself down onto the couch. Tim got shoved with him, so it was Peter who grabbed Dick’s elbow and braced him with large, comforting hands.
“Neal?”
Dick snorted. “You might as well go with Dick.”
“Only if you want me to.”
Dick stepped forward slightly and rested his head on Peter’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“That’s fine too.”
In the background, Dick could hear his brothers and then Diana and Jones talking lowly. He wasn’t sure if they were deliberately giving him a moment to get himself together, but he was grateful all the same.
“So,” Tim pointed out, “we apparently like Peter.”
Jason hummed, jacket creaking as he leaned back. “I like lady cop. She acted like she was going to physically throw me out of the building.”
“I can still make that happen,” Diana pointed out.
Dick looked up when Peter shifted his shoulders. And that was Peter’s ‘I’ve had an important thought face.’
“Peter?” Dick made sure to use his ‘tell me or I will do something stupid’ tone. With his brothers here, there were even more options than usual.
Peter winced and glanced to the couch before looking back to Dick. “Just, you mentioned something about three brothers?”
Dick stiffened, completely blindsided though he really fucking shouldn’t have been (except he was always not-thinking about Damian), and stepped back to look at his brothers. Both tensed, but Tim was the one who showed weakness in the fidgeting of his tired hands.
“Tim.”
“Don’t look at me! I wasn’t in charge of Phase Three!”
Dick resisted pinching his nose by merit of his body still feeling like it was submerged in ice water. “And when, exactly, is Phase Three happening?”
Jason kicked one boot over the other. “Oh, any minute now.”
“I’m actually rather surprised we had so much time for Phase Two,” Tim mused.
“Nah, that was deliberate. I gave the kid the wrong floor number so I’d get to say my part.” Jason smirked. “Kid shouldn’t have been so desperate to run ahead.”
“He’s going to kill you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Drake. I have much more important concerns than Todd.”
All the agents jumped, even Peter, and Dick was pretty certain Tim also had to supress some sort of motion. Dick turned from the direction of the couch slowly. Glacially. He took one step forward, almost involuntarily, and stood unmoored in the center of Peter’s crowded office as he met Damian’s stare.
“Richard.”
Dick could barely breathe. He certainly couldn’t say a damn thing.