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Dick, age 12
The gala is noisy and bright in all the wrong ways, and Dick knows noisy and bright, but the kind that comes with the smell of cotton candy in the air and the excited murmurs of the awaiting crowd behind a red and white curtain. This air smells like expensive perfume and the only curtains here hang lush and heavy by the floor to ceiling windows of one of Wayne Manor’s many ballrooms.
Dick is wearing a suit, classic black and white, it’s missing the colors of his Robin suit and all the comfort of it. He’s twelve now, has more galas than he can count under his belt, yet he’s never gotten used to the chill of ballroom lights, the way Gotham’s richest talk, speaking in convoluted rehearsed politeness.
Stanford, one of the clowns in Haly’s circus, used to tell Dick riddles. He’d give him one and Dick would think about it long and hard and come back to him, hazarding an answer or begging for another hint, and Stanford would laugh and tell him and send him along his way until he inevitably returned again, seeking a new riddle or the answer to the old one.
It would be laughable to imagine Gotham’s elites telling the kinds of jokes Stanford did, but they speak in riddles nonetheless, all convoluted turns of phrase to hint at things they won’t say, jabs and backhand compliments Dick never realizes until hours later.
He doesn’t enjoy the way these people speak about him.
Speak to him now, for he’s old enough now for nosy socialites to direct questions at him instead of to Bruce about him while he stays tucked under Bruce’s arm until it’s late enough for Alfred to come pick him up to put him to bed.
There’s an old countess speaking to him right now and Dick wants Bruce but Bruce is across the room right now. Dick lost him earlier and his guardian is too swarmed with people to be able to dismiss them all politely and come back to him. As Dick watches, another couple, an elegantly dressed man with his arm around a tall woman, float across the ballroom to merge with the crowd around him.
There’s always a sort of convergence around Bruce. The Wayne name carries that kind of draw, and Dick can barely see Bruce between the bodies of the people crowding him.
Dick knows how much Bruce hates the attention, though he never says it, the off handed remarks he makes to Dick about getting these events over with, the tiredness around his eyes the mornings after late night events that are so different from the fatigue of staying up all night pouring over a case, the way he argues over public appearances with Lucius Fox when he thinks Dick can’t hear them.
Dick hates this kind of attention too, it’s clinical and wrong just as all the lights and sounds are, but he hates seeing Bruce like this just as much.
At night, they’re Batman and Robin. They communicate almost instinctively, often without words. Here, Bruce is vulnerable in a way Batman isn’t, in a way Dick doesn’t understand.
Dick doesn’t know what to do. He’s supposed to be his partner, Bruce has told Dick that himself. How can he be Robin’s Batman if Dick Grayson can’t even help Bruce Wayne?
The old countess is gone now, and for a heartbeat Dick is alone in the ballroom.
The crowd around Bruce moves and shifts.
Jason, age 19, present day
Dick Grayson is light in the way he brightens a room, all laughter and jokes and casual conversation.
Jason is crammed into a corner of said room between a wall and Roy Harper’s side, a stray arrow digging into his arm. His legs are a few minutes away from cramping, but he knows better than to complain. All hands on deck events. Getting more common than anyone is comfortable with. His guns are heavy at his sides, he’s ready, and his job right now is to stay out of the way of the ones who aren’t until it’s his turn to join the fray. Every big name vigilante and superhero is here, from the Justice League to the Titans to barely pardoned rogues like himself.
There are people running intel on their enemies, coordinating civilian evacuations, moving injured to infirmary areas. Some people are still suiting up, some engaged in quiet conversation, in the middle of it all, Dick Grayson. He’s one of the nodes of the operation, the man tying everything together. He’s the reason Jason is here in the first place.
Even as Jason watches, he checks up on Robin, the little brat scowling in the corner, pauses to talk to Troia with a smile, listens as a man Jason doesn't recognize approaches him, putting a hand on his shoulder in support.
Sociable, always the golden boy.
It grates on Jason, and he makes a few undeserved snipes about it to Roy, who just frowns at him disappointedly.
Natural born leader, commanding attention even without meaning to.
“Hood? Arsenal?” Dick approaches the two of them. “You two are out with the next group.”
Jason pushes the wave of age old resentment away. He has to focus on the matter at hand.
Dick, age 13
The Wayne name carries a certain draw to it, and Dick isn’t a Wayne yet, won’t ever be in name, not even after his adoption, but technicalities like that don’t matter to those who want to do Bruce Wayne harm. It’s not all fun and games, growing up as the only child under the richest man in the city’s tutelage. As the first child.
Dick learns to grow up in a very different kind of spotlight.
Not the literal one that beams on him and his parents high above the ground, rendering him protagonist for twenty minutes or so, before fading out, their fame carried out by word of mouth and the loopy “The Flying Graysons” script on faded circus posters.
This kind of spotlight is backed by fame and power and roots that sink deep below the rotten ground Gotham has to offer, strengthened by time. This is the kind of spotlight that makes you a target. It’s the kind of spotlight that gets you kidnapped.
He learns quickly not to fight when he’s taken as Dick Grayson. Bruce is quick to teach him this, after the first time it happens, lest he blow his cover, and Dick understands this, and the ones who want Dick Grayson are less violent, only after money, but he can’t do anything to rescue himself, and the helplessness of it suffocates him.
Being kidnapped as Robin is still worse. People who kidnap Dick Grayson are desperate, people who kidnap Robin are madmen.
In both cases, Batman comes to the rescue.
It’s Robin, not Dick Grayson that Batman rescues this time, bleeding and bound. Batman gathers him up in his arms.
“Stay with me, Robin.”
Jason, 19, present day
Tim Drake waits till he’s behind closed doors, leaving the flashing cameras behind before dropping the dazed, grateful smile that’ll most likely be on the front of every newspaper tomorrow, probably titled with something like “Nightwing rescues Tim Drake-Wayne from kidnappers”.
Absently rubbing the chafed skin at his wrists, held together for too long by knots he could have undone in seconds, he asks. “What took you guys so long?” I was bored to death in there.”
“Sorry for the delay, your Highness,” Jason says dryly. He’s leaning against the wall in the semi-darkness, having chosen to stay away from the cameras and let Nightwing take all the credit for Tim’s rescue. Tim’s kidnapping had intersected with an extortion scheme he’d been involved in, and it had taken long delicate planning to come up with a plan that left no loose ends.
He’s not particularly sorry about how long it took. Tim could handle himself.
The boy in question pulled off his jacket, tossing it onto a nearby empty chair, and loosened his shoulders. “I was seriously half about to break myself out,”
“You know the protocol-” Dick begins.
“I know, don’t worry Dick. It’s still annoying though.”
Jason is glad his legal death means he doesn’t have to deal with what has disparagingly been nicknamed the “Damsel in Distress” protocol. Watching Tim’s annoyance at his increasing kidnapping rate is just a bonus.
“Stop smirking Jason, I can see you.” Tim runs a hand through his hair. “My Neon Knights charity foundation going global isn’t doing me any favours. I’m more in the public eye than ever. I can’t go three months without someone trying to put a hit on my public persona.”
Dick tilts his head. “Is once every three months a lot?”
Jason snorts. “Uh, yea? I think I only got kidnapped like twice in my entire time as Bruce Wayne’s ward. Once every three months sounds like a pain.” He can’t quite keep the amusement out of his voice, and Tim flips him off.
Dick is quiet for a second. “That’s nice,” he says, and he sounds genuine.
Jason shoots him a look. Why, how often did you get kidnapped?”
“As Robin or as me?”
“Both, I guess.”
He’s not really sure why he asked either, but Dick’s reaction, his “Is once every three months a lot?” strikes him as odd.
“A few hundred, I think? I was actually kidnapped by a second set of kidnappers out of the place where the first were holding me once, I’ve never known whether to count that as a single or double kidnapping. That was pretty memorable, the rest are mostly a blur. I never counted. B probably has the exact number.”
Tim is silent.
“What the fuck?” Jason says.
His kidnappings as Robin had been more frequent than the ones as Jason Todd, and admittedly, Dick had been Robin longer than either he or Tim had, but triple digits? That was absolutely ridiculous, and judging from Tim’s silence, he wasn’t the only one to think so.
Dick shrugs. “I’m glad Bruce has gotten better at protecting his Robins. And his kids.”
Dick, age 15
Dick isn’t used to the way Slade Wilson moves. It’s heavier than Batman’s motions, an arrogance to it that comes with skill and experience, and he struggles to keep up sometimes.
“You’re too slow, Apprentice. I’d advise you to hurry up.”
He’s not used to the way Deathstroke expects him to move, how he’s supposed to stand with his back straight and hands clasped and ready to obey whatever Deathstroke is about to say.
“Your parents are dead, Apprentice. Stop moving like you’re still in the circus.”
He’s doing this for his friends, he reminds himself. For Kory. For Donna. For Roy. He runs through all his friends’ names, repeats them like a mantra.
He hasn’t seen them, or Bruce, in two very, very long months.
“Move faster, Apprentice,” Deathstroke says again.
Dick swallows.
He moves.
Dick, present day
The man laughs and calls the bartender over to buy them both another drink, but his gaze is flitting around, not quite as focused on Dick as it had been, and his chest tightens all while he smiles at the man. Dennis Noecker. Human trafficker.
“He can call in even more men at any time if he suspects something is wrong. I’m not risking that with so many kids’ lives at stake. I’ve seen how these people shoot. Reckless. Careless,” Jason had said. “One of us can distract him, while the other secures the kids. We can deal with him and his goons after they’re all safe.”
“I can do the distracting,” Dick had offered immediately. “You get the kids.”
Jason had snorted, accepting it easily. “If you’re dying to go in there and flutter your eyelashes at this asshole, be my guest.”
The mission required delicacy, one not accomplished by their usual methods of hanging people by their ankles outside windows.
Dick is good at engaging people. He knows he’s good at it. But Noecker is losing interest, the lure of his job more important than that of a boy in a bar, and Dick has gotten him to ignore his phone so far, but it’s not going to last. He doesn’t know how far through with his part of the mission is Jason is. Their comms cut out ten minutes ago, and he has no idea if his brother is done already and on his way back to beat the shit out of Noecker, or still in the process of getting the trafficked children out. His phone rings, and Dick’s not taking the chance. Dick needs to do more.
He puts on a smile and leans in closer.
Jason, age 19, present day
Dick is pressed against Noecker when Jason reenters the bar, and the scene throws him off enough that he misses a step. He stops away from the two of them, staring just long enough to catch Dick’s eye over Noecker’s shoulder, before whipping around and exiting again. He’d dropped off the kids at a local police station, one with two or three cops he’s vetted.
There’s no point in making a scene now, they’ll nab Noecker when he leaves the bar later.
What he witnessed makes him uncomfortable in a way he doesn’t understand, and he waits for Dick to join him outside before speaking.
“You didn't have to do that,”
“Do what?”
“I know B has a terrible habit of hooking up with his villains, but I didn’t think you’d picked it up.”
It’s an unfair statement to make, especially given the situation, but Dick doesn’t take offense, just wipes one sleeve over his mouth again, like he’s been doing for the past five minutes. Jason doesn’t think he’s doing it consciously.
“He was going for his phone again. I didn’t want to lose him. Comms were down.”
“You shouldn’t have had to do that.” Jason repeats.
“It doesn’t matter. We got the kids out.”
Jason had had a chance to hear the first part of the conversation before they’d lost contact, and had personally observed the last part when he’d come to give Dick the all clear.
Dick attracts crowds, usually, but he’d blended into the crowd in the bar easily. Sidled up to Noecker and started a conversation. Laughed at all the right times and said all the right things and it had been smooth, too smooth.
Practiced.
Dick’s ability to engage people isn’t effortless. It’s calculated.
Nothing about Dick Grayson is unpracticed. Everything he does is with a purpose, and Jason would be a fool to think otherwise.
Dick, age 19
Dick is woken up out of fitful sleep by a ringing phone. He raises his left arm to grab it, abandoning the idea immediately as pain laces through it. By the time he leans over with his other arm, the phone has gone silent. Turning it on reveals fifteen missed calls, all from the same person, along with a single message, sent by a contact Dick has saved simply as ‘B’.
‘We need to talk’
He lays it back down gently on the infirmary room nightstand and lays one bandaged hand over his eyes.
They gather in the living room, and the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. A chair has been brought over for Dick to sit, but he’s too wound up to do so.
The TV’s on in the background, its large screen so convenient for watching movies together now switched to a news channel, and Dick watches himself on the screen, flying through the air. Everyone winces. He forces himself to look away. Garth had muted it to keep people from getting too distracted, but everyone’s gaze keeps flitting to it.
They had fucked up.
Donna is the first to speak. “They’ve been showing those clips for hours now. It’s on every news channel.”
“We made mistakes. People got hurt for it. People died for them.”
Dick watches the subtitles in the muted TV.
Teen Titans mess up a rescue- six civilian deaths. Can these heroes be trusted, after all?
Donna switches the TV off.
“The public backlash right now is insane,” Wally is saying.
“Nothing they are saying is wrong,” Kory adds, her eyes sad. “We made mistakes, and we must be held responsible for them.”
Now, out of all times. Just as they’d proven their capabilities to the Justice League.
This was Dick’s fault.
“Forget the media. The League is going to have our asses.”
Dick has no doubt all the others are receiving the same calls and berates from their mentors. He himself hasn’t answered Bruce’s messages yet. He can’t stop that. But he can stop them from getting scrutinized further by the public. What kind of leader is he if he can’t protect his teammates?
“I’ll talk to them,” he says, and all eyes swivel to him.
“The media or the League?” Roy asks.
“Both.” He’s already pulling up plans, discarding them, making a list of everything that needs to be done. Go through all the footage of the fight. All of it. As many times as needed, figure out what went wrong and where and how to prevent it from happening again. Talk to their mentors, take any advice and criticism they may have. And hold themselves publicly accountable.
“I’ll hold a press conference with some of the major news reporters. They’re all buzzing for comments. Like Kory said, we need to own up to it. I need to own up to it.”
“Do you want us there?” Kory asks.
“No,” Dick says firmly.
The others exchange a glance.
“We are a team, Dick,” Garth says carefully.
“I know. I trust you guys. But there’s no point in all of us going out there and facing their anger. I need you guys to focus on other things. Reviewing the footage. Finding out what went wrong.”
Donna is quiet while she rewraps the gash on his arm. Dick is making a public statement in half an hour, on behalf of the Teen Titans to address what happened. What went wrong. How he’d failed.
“It’s not your fault, Dick,” Donna tells him.
“It’s my responsibility.”
“Are you sure you want to do this alone?” Donna asks him again.
Dick knows the others aren’t happy about this, but they’d relented in the end, to his relief.
He knows, better than most of them, how brutal the court of public opinion can be. It would do none of them favours to be subjected to it directly.
“Yes.”
Donna finishes wrapping his arm, collecting all her supplies neatly back into the first aid kit, and steps back.
“Go get them, Rob.”
He hasn’t been Robin for a while now, but the nickname is old and worn with affection, and he smiles. “Thanks Donna.”
He walks out, and the media tears Nightwing apart.
Jason, age 19, present day
“It’s my fault,” Dick says, and Jason opens his mouth to say what the fuck, that’s not true, but Dick give him the quickest of glances, furious and desperate in its’ brevity.
Jason’s irritation at being treated as a child, at the indignity of being called here for a reprimand for the handling of a mission Bruce has nothing to do with, goes out like a candle in water at Dick’s words, replaced by surprise. Dick had messed up, but so had Jason, to not talk about Tim and Steph. With Bruce’s anger climbing in that silent way it did, as offensive as it was to be getting a dressing down from him in the first place, the blame was to be shared equally.
Before he can get a word in edgewise, Bruce turns the full force of his disapproval onto Dick.
Tim, Steph and Damian are behind Dick, looking hesitant. Jason himself is behind Dick, he realizes, when did that happen? He doesn’t recall Dick stepping forward.
Bruce’s tone is glacial. “All of you out. I need to speak to Nightwing alone.”
Nightwing, not Dick. Bruce is pissed.
“It’s my fault,” Dick says again. The look on his face is resigned. “The others listened to me. I’m the most experienced here. It’s not on them.”
Bruce says his name again, and Jason realizes he’s the only one left besides Dick and Bruce. “Jason. Out. We’ll talk later.”
Jason glares at Bruce, then at Dick. “So will we."
The address Dick gives Jason to pick him up at is that of a gym, nestled between a small coffee shop and a long abandoned office building. High ceilings give Jason an inkling of what’s inside, but it’s not until he steps inside that his suspicions are confirmed. The lesson’s not over yet, and he sits on a bench, craning his neck up to look at the figures up in the air on the trapeze, swinging over the nets stretched out over the ground.
Dick is the easiest to pick out, taller and more confident than the small group of young teens he’s teaching, and as Jason watches, he demonstrates a move, swinging easily from one trapeze to the other, landing lightly on his feet and motioning for his students to try it out.
Dick has never been the tank Bruce has always been and Jason now is. Jason probably outweighs him by at least fifty pounds, and even Damian loves to insist he will one day too, to which Dick always laughs and ruffles his hair. An acrobat’s build, appropriate given his upbringing and fighting style.
An acrobat’s way of moving, flourishes and a swagger that draws the eye. The way he was raised is one for someone being watched. It's probably second nature for him, to be in the spotlight.
It's not that he can't be quiet, Dick is one of the lightest people on his feet that Jason knows. Jason remembers the terrible period in which he became renegade, the eerie silence so different from his usual quips.
Dick knows when to shut up and when to talk.
But when he does, all eyes are on him.
“They’re improving so fast,” Dick says, pushing open the door to the parking lot. The air outside is a lot cooler than the inside of the gym, and he’s pulled on a jacket over his shirt and leggings, but he must still be freezing. “Some of the more experienced kids are putting on a show for friends and family next week, they’re really excited for it.”
“I hope it goes well,” Jason says, out of lack of better things to say.
“So do I. I’m sure it’ll be fine. But it’s my responsibility as their coach to make it all works out smoothly.”
“It’s always your responsibility, isn’t it.” Jason says neutrally. “If any of them mess up during the show, are you planning on going to their parents and telling them how it’s all your fault for not teaching them better?”
Jason reaches his motorcycle, tossing a helmet backwards at Dick. He can tell even without looking that Dick is frowning at him.
Done with his helmet, Jason swings a leg over the motorcycle, plugging the key in the ignition. “How long did Bruce yell at you for?”
“Twenty minutes? Give or take a few minutes.”
“Give or take? Surely Bruce taught you to be more precise than that.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“You’re not doing any of us any favours, you know.” Jason says. “If you cover for Tim and Steph, for me- which, I’m not fucking five by the way, I can handle myself, they’re never going to learn from their mistakes.”
“They can learn from their mistakes without having to bear the full weight of Batman’s disapproval.”
Dick, age 12
Robin’s job is to catch attention.
He thinks he figures it out in the air, as he does often, leaping from rooftop to the next as he shadows Batman. There’s something about the cold air of the night that allows him to reason in a way he hadn’t been able to at the gala just two weeks ago, caught up in his inability to do anything. It’s written into the colors of his costume, the brightly saturated reds and greens and yellows, they themselves modeled off the colors of the costumes he and his parents would wear in the air.
But it works. Robin is the flashy one, the attention drawing one to Batman’s darkness and silence.
This is the first time they’re out as Batman and Robin in almost a week.
A scandal, one a little more serious than the usual celebrity gossip that circulated Bruce had erupted, with his company’s reputation and integrity also on the table. For all his grumbling that he doesn’t care about the public eye, Bruce had been forced to briefly make that a priority, and Dick can see how it bothered him.
Dick has always lived to put on a show, and though that has meant different things in different contexts, maybe that’s what he’s meant to do. He thinks back to that one gala just the previous month, where Dick had registered alternating moments of being with Bruce, left to interact with other people, and the sparing moments of being left alone.
Bruce hadn’t had that luxury.
Everyone just needs someone to focus on sometimes. Usually, it's Bruce. It's Bruce, it tends to be Bruce, but it doesn't have to be.
Maybe it’s not just Robin who can draw attention away to help Batman.
Dick, through the years
It takes a while for it to become a thing. Not flashy enough to make Gotham newspaper headlines, not with the sorts of things that go on in this town, not even when regarding such a famous child. But months later, on the sixth page of the Gotham Gazette sits an op-ed printed neatly in Times New Roman size 12, three columns, the middle one interrupted by a picture. ‘Gotham’s Darling: Richard “Dick” Grayson’ reads the headline.
Many such articles follow in the years to come. Dick grows taller, shoots up lanky first before filling in. If one picks up enough magazines in Gotham throughout the years, they’ll be able to see an almost seamless timelapse of him maturing into a young man with how many pictures there are always accompanying the articles.
“He is such an entertainer,” says a young, up and coming actress on a talk show one night. “When I was invited to the party, I was hoping to get to talk to Bruce Wayne, as most of us were, of course, but his ward ended up being the one charming me all night. I wasn’t even that disappointed I only caught a glimpse of Wayne himself!”
“The life of the party” is an odd term to pin on a boy barely in his teens, but it’s not inaccurate either.
Dick Grayson steps more and more into the spotlight, and maybe coincidentally, maybe as a result, Bruce looks lighter, and if this is what Dick can do to make him happy, he’s happy too.
Jason, 19, present day
It’s when Dick takes a hit to the back of the neck for him, bad enough for a crack to be heard, that Jason finally snaps. He pulls out a pistol and shoots their opponent in the shoulder (the only reason it wasn’t in the head was for the little respect Jason still had for the terms Dick had for them working together).
The man stumbles and falls backwards into the shitty water of Gotham’s pier, out of the picture for the time being. The sound of water lapping and splashing gives an odd stillness to the moment as Dick gets to his feet.
“I was fine , Nightwing,” Jason snaps. “Are you trying to get a spinal cord injury? Put yourself out of commission so I would have to clean up this mess alone?”
He waves his gun at the shithead in the water’s reinforcements approaching from further ahead.
“He was coming at you, Hood,”
“Yea, and I can handle myself. It would’ve been an arm injury, at worst. Not like that dive you took to block it with your fucking head ,”
“I’m fine”
“I don’t give a shit.” Jason snaps. “You had no reason to. No right to."
Dick flinches back, the bruise on his cheek making his wounded look even starker, and just serves to piss Jason off even more.
An odd, resigned look passes over Dick’s face again, and-
He’s doing it again. Centering the attention onto himself. He’s standing with his feet planted, braced, as if to take a punch.
Jason doesn’t know what to do with his anger anymore.
“We’ll talk about this later."
He finds Dick, the next morning, in his apartment. The room is shroud in darkness, pale light coming in through the window Dick is standing in front of. He’s nursing a broken rib, or at the very least, a bruised one, judging by how gingerly he’s moving. No broken neck, at least. It would have served the asshole right.
“You keep doing it.” Jason says.
Dick half turns, his face backlight. “Doing what?”
“You have,” Jason starts, “A really shitty habit-”
“That doesn't really narrow it down,” Dick says, but his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Shut up. Let me finish.”
There are images in Jason’s mind, ones he doesn't quite know how to put together yet. Dick stepping up and taking the blame for all of them in front of Bruce, making out with a stranger in a bar to buy Jason time, the way he had stood in front of Jason just hours ago, feet apart, braced, resigned.
“You deflect attention onto yourself. Put yourself in the spotlight.”
Once upon a time, Jason would have said that mockingly, mind flashing to the way the media is always talking about him, to all the times Dick has been the center of attention, in and out of costume, his casual fame.
It’s different now.
Making criminals focus on him so they wouldn’t on Robin. Taking the blame for all of them in front of Bruce.
Jason remembers, suddenly, vividly, an event that had happened when he had still been Robin, and Dick had been with the newly formed Titans. A mission of theirs had gone badly, resulting in civilian deaths, and the public backlash. Dick had faced the crowd alone, taking the blame. Refusing to let any of the blame fall on his friends.
The attention isn’t just casual as much as it is deliberate. Being in the spotlight isn’t exactly the right word for it, not in their line of business.
Jason reevaluates the term, mulls it over.
“You’re putting yourself in the line of fire,”
He thinks Dick is going to deny it, but instead he seems to reflect upon it before shrugging.
“That is one way to put it.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Better me than them.”
That wasn’t an answer, at least, not one Jason was satisfied with. He said as much.
“Listen, Jason,” Dick said wearily. “I’m the oldest.”
“Not within the Titans.”
“The one with the most experience in this, then. I was the only child sidekick for years before other heroes started doing the same thing. I know how to get people listen to me. I can draw their attention. If doing so means I deflect attention away from other people, attention that could get them hurt, I will do it.”
A few hundred kidnappings, he’d said time ago.
Jason knows how many articles of Dick Grayson there are around. It’s a lot more than the ones on him, that’s for sure. He’d hated the attention but also been insecure about it when he’d been younger, certain the reason he was left behind at home during parties was because Bruce was ashamed of him. He’s not so sure anymore.
A few hundred kidnappings.
“How did it start?” he asks.
“When I was younger? The circus did help. But things were different then, with Bruce. It was just the two of us, and he didn’t really know what he was doing yet? The playboy Bruce Wayne persona- that hasn’t always been a thing. Bruce was awkward, he hated the attention, and I hated seeing him struggle with it. Eventually I figured out that if the attention was on me, it wouldn’t be on him.”
“You shouldn’t have had to do that.” Jason is just repeating himself at this point.
“We were partners.”
Even as a kid, Dick has been perfect. Protecting Bruce. Jason wanted to laugh. Or punch him.
“Do you enjoy the attention?”
Dick had always been the extrovert of the family. Tim was too, to an extent, but he’d never mastered the charm and hold Dick had over Gotham’s elite. How much of it was an act?
“I don’t hate it. Most of the time.”
“That,” Jason says. “Is not what I asked.”
There is a tiredness in his eyes, and he just gazes at Jason.
“You are infuriating,” Jason tells him. “You are so hard to hate. And you don’t get to make these kinds of decisions for other people.”
I don’t care, Jason. I watched my parents die, you died and I didn’t find out until weeks later, I watched the Joker almost beat Tim to death, I watched Donna die, and if there was anyway I could have taken their place, done something so they took it out on me instead of on people I care about, I would make that choice every time.”
So very noble of you, Jason would sneer, but he knows it’s true. “So what? All of us have lost people, it’s not like you’re the only one.”
“I know.”
Jason is getting pissed, and while he still has a long way to go before anger stops being his default reaction to a situation he doesn’t like, he’s matured enough to oftentimes realize when to step out of a conversation. And right now, he has no interest in furthering this discussion.
He turns to walk out, throwing one last sentence out behind him. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
Dick sounds sardonic when he replies. “I’d still do it for you, Jay.”
The asshole.
Jason knows he would.