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Dick is 28 years old. He feels like he knows nothing. He feels like he’s always scrambling, always desperate to get anything together.
When Bruce was his age, he was parenting Dick. Dick thinks about this a lot more than he wants to. Because when he was a kid, he’d thought that Bruce knew everything, that Bruce was perfect, that he was incapable of mistakes. He’d grown out of that, of course, well aware of Bruce’s fallibility by the time Jason showed up. It haunts him, though. How old he’d thought Bruce was. How confident Bruce seemed at his age. How lost Dick feels, every single day.
Damian is 13 now, almost the same age Dick was when Bruce was his age. He tries to imagine it sometimes—taking Damian in on his own, having Damian totally depend on him. He would do it, of course, if needed. He would do anything for Damian—for any of his family. But he tries to imagine it, what it must have been like for Bruce. He hates thinking about it.
Because here’s the thing: Dick is 28, and Jason is 23, and Dick can’t do a single thing right by him. And he’s never been able to. And it’s destroying him.
xxx
When Jason is 13, he’s like this angry little mangy gremlin. To be honest, he’s actually terrifying. He wants to be Robin so badly, it pervades everything he does. And it makes it really, really hard for Dick to talk to him.
Because he created Robin. It was his, it was his parents’, it was a part of him. He’d had no idea it was something that could be passed down, that some say another kid could put on that R and use Dick’s name. And maybe—he hates to even think it, but maybe he’d thought he’d be Bruce’s only kid, too.
“How’d you even find this kid?” Dick says one night, arms crossed tightly over his chest.
Bruce smiles, almost to himself. “He was stealing my tires.”
“The Lambo?”
Bruce’s smile grows. “No. The Batmobile.”
Dick gapes at him. “Oh my god.”
“I know.”
“That’s…Bruce, how has no one ever thought of doing that before?”
Bruce shrugs. “A gross oversight on my part. Lucius has corrected it, obviously.”
“Still, though. That’s… that’s ballsy as fuck.”
“Not the language I would use, but yes.” Bruce smiles again. He’s doing a lot of smiling, these days. “He’s got a fearless streak.”
Dick nods. He’s noticed that. It had only taken Jason a few days to mouth off to him, and not many people take Nightwing that lightly. But… “he’s terrified of you, though.” He pauses, licking his lips. He knows Bruce has to have noticed. “I mean, I think he likes you, but… he watches you, B. Every time you’re in the room.”
“I know,” Bruce says quietly, something dark washing over his face. “It will take time, I think. His father is in prison, on a variety of charges.” He taps his fingers on his knee. “Worked with Two Face, at some point. Has a long list of past charges.”
Dick can read between the lines, there. “He’s skinny, too. And I know… I know 13 year olds are generally skinny, sometimes, but he’s…”
“He’s too skinny,” Bruce fills in, still quiet. “He’s hungry. I think he’s…he’s been hungry for awhile, now.”
Dick nods, already feeling something unwelcome blooming in his chest. “He’s not…Bruce, what the fuck did you do? He’s not… you can’t just take in every orphan that LOOKS LIKE ME and let them BE ME, Bruce. He- that kid needs HELP, okay? We’re not…”
“I can help him,” Bruce says firmly. “I can. I will. He’s…he’s supposed to be a part of this family.”
“You’ve known him for two weeks,” Dick says, and Bruce sends him a look that he rarely uses with Dick, one full of rage and righteous fury.
“You weren’t there, Dick. You didn’t see him. Don’t dare… I will NOT hear you act like he’s not… I SAW him, Dick. You weren’t there.”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve help, Bruce! I’m saying maybe indoctrinating him into vigilantism isn’t the best-“
“Remember who you were,” Bruce hisses.
“HE’S NOT ME!” Dick yells, standing, and Bruce stands just as quickly.
“I KNOW THAT!” Bruce takes a big breath, and then closes his eyes, running a hand over his face. “I know that,” he repeats. “You weren’t there, Dick. He…he’s supposed to be here.”
“You’re gonna fuck that kid up,” Dick whispers, because it’s the cruelest thing he can think of and sometimes even he wants Batman to bleed.
The hit lands, he can see that. Bruce shudders, and then, silently, he leaves the room, leaving Dick behind. Probably, he thinks, to go check on Jason.
xxx
Dick is 28, and when Bruce gets back from whatever secret Jason mission he was on, he’s angry. Angrier than usual. And this is fine, because Dick is angry, too.
“What the absolute fuck is wrong with you?” Dick demands the second he’s alone in a room with Bruce. “We LOOKED for you, Bruce. We thought—we didn’t even know what to think. And you—what the FUCK is wrong with you?”
Bruce looks at him calmly. He’s pissed, though, Dick can tell. “Dick,” he says, “I didn’t mean to alarm you, but-“
“Oh, fuck that,” Dick snaps back. “If one of us was suddenly unaccounted for you’d probably commit a war crime. You KNEW-“
“DICK,” Bruce says again, the rage almost seeing through, “this wasn’t about you.”
“But it was, wasn’t it? Because I had to haul ass looking for you, and-“
“Jesus Christ, Dick, there’s a reason I didn’t tell you, is that what you want me to say?”
The thing is, Dick’s always been been able to goad Bruce into a fight. It’s one of the skills the other kids never got quite at good at, because Bruce expanded his patience by the time he got to them. But Dick can make Bruce fight, still. And in moments like this, it works. Dick breathes through his nose. “What’s the reason, Bruce?”
Bruce takes a breath, too, deep enough to drastically move his chest. “Because I trained you, Dick, and I trained all of you. And if I had given you notice that I was leaving, it would have given you enough time to find me.”
Dick probably could have figured that out, if he wanted to. “Why didn’t you want us to find you?”
Bruce stands up. “This conversation is over,” he says, striding out of the room. And Dick wants him to come back, wants to keep yelling at him. But he can’t stop thinking about Jason, holed up in a safe house, cocky and obnoxious and clearly waiting for his dad to come back home for him before he left.
xxx
Jason is 14, and he’s finally Robin, and he is very, very good. He and Dick fight every time they see each other, and Dick and Bruce are still fighting constantly, but when the three of them are on patrol, it…. Well, sometimes, it’s almost something like fun.
Every once in a while, when they’re training, he’ll catch Jason watching him perform some sophisticated move, and then, minutes later, Jason will be trying to do the same thing, as if somehow Dick won’t notice. He wants to be annoyed by this, but somehow—well, it’s almost endearing.
“Your balance is off,” he calls out one day absentmindedly, after pretending not to notice Jason fall six times in a row. “You’re trying to balance on just your right side, and that’s why you’re not landing that.”
“Am not,” Jason shoots back, but, sure enough, on the next one, he corrects it and makes the landing, even if it’s a little wobbly. Jason is bigger than Dick was at 14, all wide shoulders and developing quads. He must take after Bruce, Dick thinks, before remembering with a start that they’re not actually related.
Jason sticks the landing again, this time barely wobbling at all, but he’s gritting his teeth together and he looks a little pale. On his next step, he winces, before slapping his own left thigh and taking a few steps with a determined face. Dick frowns. What the fuck.
“Hey, Jay,” -“DON’T CALL ME THAT”- “are you hurt?”
Jason gives him a death glare. “No.”
Dick clicks his tongue. “Dude.”
Now that he’s looking for the signs, it’s obvious. Jason is leaning, almost imperceptibly, on his right leg, so that it looks like he’s putting weight on his left but he isn’t, actually. He’s sweating, more than he should. And, of course, he looks pissed that Dick would even suggest an injury, which is the dead give away.
“I’m not hurt,” Jason insists, taking a step back as Dick approaches.
Dick shakes his head. “You gotta tell someone—me, Alfred, or B. Or we won’t know to tell you to rest.”
“I don’t need to rest,” Jason insists. “I’m fine. I Can still be Robin.”
Dick makes a face. “Yeah. I know that. Now show me your leg, dude, or I’m gonna call Bruce down here.”
Jason seems to weigh these options in his head, and then, very, very slowly, he lifts the hem of his too baggy gym shorts up to his mid thigh.
Dick tells himself not to have a reaction, but he can’t help the wince. “Jay,” he says, ignoring the “Don’t call me that,” “that looks infected.”
“It’s not,” Jason says, but there’s a waver in his voice.
He’s got a huge gash in his leg, a couple inches wide and visibly deep, tinged with green and yellow. After he’s gotten a look, Jason drops the pant leg, glaring at him again.
“You need to let Alfred dress that,” he says, trying to remain calm, and Jason shakes his head.
“It’s fine,” he says, and Dick can’t hold back all of his annoyance at once.
“Are you stupid? You’re hurt, man, and we-“
“Are you going to tell Batman?” Jason says in a rush, and Dick stares at him. Jason looks pale, again, and he visibly swallows. “Because I- I can still be Robin. He doesn’t- he doesn’t need to know. It won’t slow me down. It won’t. So it—don’t tell him. Don’t be a dick.”
Dick feels a very specific rage, white hot and almost calming, wash over him. He tries to swallow it back, at least in front of Jason. “Jason, you gotta treat that. Or it will get worse. Do you…do you wanna tell Alfred? Or do you want me to?”
Jason considers this, and, for a second, he looks just as young as he did when he first got to the Manor. “You can,” he finally says, and Dick nods. “I’ll call him down now.”
Later that day, when Jason is taken care of and Bruce is just getting home from some escapade with Selina, Dick corners him.
“There is something seriously wrong with you,” he says, finally spilling the rage he’s been holding in.
Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Okay.”
“He’s a KID, Bruce. You can’t treat him like he’s some sort of utilitarian soldier. You said you were adopting him, right? So be a FUCKING PARENT instead of a DRILL SERGEANT-“
“What are you talking about?”
Dick takes a breath. “Why do you get mad at Jason for being injured?”
Something awful passes over Bruce’s face. “I don’t,” he says, too nakedly upset to be lying.
“Then why the fuck doesn’t Jason know that?”
“Oh, god,” Bruce whispers, “he’s hurt?”
Dick nods. He’s never had Bruce back down from a fight so shamelessly. “You should’ve known,” he says. “And you should’ve told him that…that recovering is more important than being Robin every night.”
“Dick, I…thank you for telling me. I have- I have to go talk to him. Now.”
Dick nods and moves aside for Bruce. Jason is still afraid of Bruce. They both know that. And now, Dick is starting to worry it may be permanent.
xxx
Dick is 28, and Bruce has been back for five days, and he’s still in an awful mood. Whatever happened on that mission really messed with him, that much is clear.
What’s worse than Bruce being angry and cryptic, though, is that Tim has suddenly been arrested by a sense of deliberate peace. It’s not that Dick is against Tim being okay—he’s actually spent a lot of time hoping Tim would be okay. It’s just the abruptness of it.
For the few days Bruce was gone, Tim has seemed near the edge of despair. He almost refused to talk to Dick or Stephanie, and he wasn’t sleeping. Then, like the rest of them, he realized all clues pointed to Jason, and ended up at Jason’s safe house. After that, he suddenly seemed…calm.
Calm may be too strong a word for someone like Tim. But he stops wincing whenever Jason’s name is brought up, and he stops avoiding eye contact with Bruce, and he seems to be somewhat speaking to Stephanie again. These are all things Dick wants, of course. He feels like he can breathe more when he knows Tim is no longer in panic mode.
The kicker, though, is that one day he and Tim are working with Bruce in the cave when Jason comes by to grab something for his bike. Jason walks in and doesn’t roll his eyes when he sees them, and at one point he actually swings by where they’re working and asks a question. And Tim answers the question. And no one makes any comments and no one snipes and when Jason leaves, Tim doesn’t look disturbed.
And that’s how Dick knows he’s missing something big.
Oddly enough, the first person he talks to about it is Stephanie. He finds her in the kitchen, sitting on the counter, eating cereal out of a mug.
“You know we have chairs, right? And bowls?”
She raises one eyebrow—a skill she’s perfected. “You? Are talking to me? About appropriate seating? Buddy, I saw you sit on top of a filing cabinet in Gordon’s office one time.”
“Fair enough,” he says, climbing next to her and peering into the mug. “I didn’t even know Alfred bought Reese’s Puffs.”
“He doesn’t,” she said, talking with her mouth full. Ever the lady, their Stephanie. “I keep us stocked, though, don’t worry.”
“Well, that’s a fucking relief.” She looks so relaxed right now, swinging her legs and humming to herself. She’s 22, right now. Bruce’s age when-
“Do you think you could parent an 8 year old right now?”
Stephanie makes a face. “Why? You got one you’re trying to pawn off?”
He smiles. “No, I just…I’ve been thinking lately and… Bruce was 22, when he took me in.”
“Oh, damn,” she says. “That’s like…that’s like if Tim was Batman. Alone. And there was just…a kid running around.”
“A kid gymnast.”
“My god, that’s dark. Can you imagine? I’m pretty sure Tim would have just given you a gun and called it a day.”
He chuckles at that, touching the bridge of his nose. “I think I always thought that he was an adult, ya know? And now I look at you and Tim, and… look, Steph, you know I respect the hell out of you. And you’re my equal. But sometimes it’s like…I look at you guys and think you’re just kids.”
“Yeah, you were raised by someone without a full developed brain. At least for a few years.”
“Explains a lot, right?”
“I wish I could say yes, Dick, but…dude, you’re kind of perfect.” She says it so sincerely that he’s a little taken aback, and she sets the mug down and pulls her feet up on the counter. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah?”
“You good? Because you’ve seemed a little…off, ever since…”
“Since Jason got shot?”
“Holy shit, I was going to say since Bruce got back.” Her jaw is dropped. “My man, Jason got shot months ago.”
“Steph,” he says slowly, shaking his head, “I do not feel like my 20s are going well.”
She bumps her shoulder into his, an oddly touching comfort. “You’re handling it great, bud.” He has so few of these moments with Stephanie, and some part of him wonders if this is how she and Jason talk, if she’s as comforting to him. Dick hopes she is, hopes violently that Jason is receiving this kind of support. “So I take it you’re not good?”
He shakes his head, already trying to convince himself to leave. “This isn’t fair of me, to put this on you, Steph. You’re not—I’M the older one.”
“Oh my god, we’re not twelve, Dick. You’re allowed to talk to us about stuff.”
“Yeah, I just… you and Jason seem really good since Bruce got back. And Jason and Tim seem good. And Jason and Bruce seem good. And I don’t… I don’t… I want to be good with Jason. And I know that’s selfish. And I’m so glad he’s good with everyone else. But I-“
“Jason cares about you so much,” Stephanie murmurs, and Dick laughs.
“You don’t have to lie. I know he and I aren’t good—we had this fight, in the library, and I realized that he thinks that—we’ve NEVER been good, not even when we were kids, and I know I deserve that, but…”
“No, Dick, listen to me.” She shifts again so that her whole body is facing him. “He cares about you SO MUCH. Like your opinion might be the most important one to him.”
He scoffs. “He told you that?”
“What? No, obviously not.” She wrinkles her nose. “Have you met Jason? But he…he watches you, when you’re in a room with him. He… you’re his big brother. I know he’s… ya know, Jason, but he wants to be good with you, too. I just don’t know if he knows how.”
Dick wants this to be true. He wants it to be true so badly that his stomach hurts a little, but Stephanie has never been one for false words. “You went to see him, right? When Bruce was gone?”
“Yeah. After you did.”
“What’d he say to you?”
“Not much.”
“Did he let you in the apartment?”
“Yeah, and he gave me some coffee.” She pauses. “I’m gathering from the look on your face that he didn’t let you in.”
“No. I asked, and he said no. And I know…Tim was there for awhile. So I know he let Tim in. And Alfred. And you…and I…I asked him if he was okay. And…fuck.”
“Dick,” she says, and she reaches out to touch his arm. “You gotta listen to me. We all knew he was holed up there, right? Did it ever occur to you that… your opinion matters to him, okay? He doesn’t…I think it’s easier for him to tell me stuff because I wasn’t there when he was a kid. He never looked up to me. It’s different.”
“I wish you had been there,” Dick says, and he means it. “‘Cause I fucked it up. Every time. He would’ve…you would’ve gotten along as kids.”
She sighs. “Yeah, it would’ve been fun. Bruce couldn’t have handled it, though. Gotham would’ve crumbled.”
xxx
Dick is 20, Jason dies.
When Jason dies, they don’t wait for Dick to do the funeral. Dick returns home and his little brother is buried in a grave and no one is allowed in his room and Bruce will hardly say his name. And all Dick can think of is all the things he ever did wrong—all the times he let Jason goad him into a fight, all the times he yelled at Jason. Some of the memories are awful. Things that keep him awake in bed, things he’s pretty sure he’ll think about on his deathbed. Jason curled up in his room screaming for Dick not to touch him. Jason tearing out of the cave because Dick had said he was from the streets.
And all those times he has laid awake, knowing he had done something horrible, he had hoped there’d be some kind of future redemption. That he’d get to do the right thing, next time. That one day, it would be him and Jason against the world.
And that’s been taken from him. And he deserves that.
But Jason didn’t.
There’s a million things Dick wants to say to Bruce, and there’s a hundred things he actually does say. And Bruce doesn’t respond to any of it, because this isn’t Bruce, anymore, this is some empty, hollowed out version of Bruce.
And when Dick gets tired of yelling at a shell, he says, in a near whisper:
“I told you.” His voice cracks, and suddenly, he’s crying. Bruce isn’t looking at him. “I told you you’d fuck him up.”
Bruce finally looks at him with glassy eyes. “Are you happy to be right?” He asks, in a broken voice.
It’s the cruelest thing Bruce has ever said to him. And, for a moment, Dick feels something like relief. Because now, he and Bruce have said the worst things there are to say. There can’t be anything left.
xxx
Tim finds him. Tim, who’s only 22, who could, in theory, raise a child acrobat on his own right now if he wanted to.
“Stephanie says you may be spiraling, just a bit,” Tim says, climbing into a chair so that he’s sitting with his feet over an arm. Dick makes a mental note—is it possible that none of them know how to sit normally? “Which, to be clear, I’ve flagged you as spiraling for months, now, but Jason keeps shutting me down.”
“You talk to Jason about me?” Dick says, eyebrows raised. “How does that go?”
“I think we both know the answer to that.” Tim taps his knee. “That is what’s up, right? Jason?”
“It’s not Jason,” Dick says, and he means it. “It’s everything. It’s all of it. I—do you know that my parents didn’t plan on having other kids?”
“What?”
“I was the only kid. And I was always going to be the only kid. And then it was just me and Bruce, for so long. And now, I…there’s so many of you. And all of you matter so much. And I don’t know…I don’t know how to make sure that all of you are okay. Forever. And I’m…I’m so bad at it.”
Tim stares at him for a moment, still tapping his knee. And then he swings into a sitting position, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Dick,” he says softly, “we’re all adults. Except for Damian, and he’s…well, you know, that’s Damian. We don’t need you to be the one that takes care of all of us.”
“I know that. I just….something happened to Jason. I know it. And you know it. And I hate…I hate not being able to… I just want to be his brother, man.”
A million things flicker over Tim’s face, and then he says, quietly: “I think he wants that, too.”
xxx
When Dick is 21, there’s a new kid. Again.
And this time, the kid comes to him, and he says things Dick already knows. That Jason is dead. That Batman has changed, that he’s angrier and darker and that Gotham needs him back.
There’s some things the kid doesn’t know, of course. He doesn’t know about the cans of pinto beans they found stuffed under Jason’s bed. He doesn’t know that Bruce doesn’t eat meals with them anymore. He doesn’t know that they’re the reason Jason died, that he was let down by the people who were supposed to give him a better life.
But he looks at this kid, who is so resolute in his wishes to become Robin that Dick just knows he’s going to make himself Robin, with or without their allowing it, and he thinks about all the horrible things he’s ever done and all the times he fucked it up and all the things that killed his little brother.
This time, Dick decides, he’s going to do it right. This time, he’s going to be a good brother. This time, no one dies.
xxx
Jason hasn’t been patrolling with them since Bruce came back. He’s made a few appearances in the Cave, and every once in a while he’ll hop on the comms, but he’s been keeping his distance.
That’s why it’s such a big surprise when, one night, as Dick is loitering on a rooftop, waiting for some sign of trouble, Red Hood shows up beside him.
“You know,” Dick says with a small smile, “you’re awfully quiet for a guy with the body of a WWE wrestler dressed like a hell rider.”
“Well,” says Jason, still wearing the helmet, “I was taught by a bodybuilder dressed like a bat.”
He takes a seat next to Dick on the ledge, and Dick remembers a time when they did this and Jason was still Robin, a little kid. Now he’s bigger than Dick, though he’s not taller, thank god.
Jason takes a breath, loud enough to pick up the helmet mic. And then he says, quiet but monotone, “are your comms transmitting right now?”
“No,” Dick says, tapping his ear. “I Can hear them, but I’m not transmitting.”
“Okay,” Jason says with a nod, “good.” He takes off the helmet, and Dicks stomach clenches when he sees a bruise that’s sprawling up the side of his temple. They’re all bruised, all the time, of course. It’s the cost of the job. It always hurts Dick to see, though.
Jason sees his look and waves a hand dismissively. “Got into some shit with some Black Mask guys last night.”
“You weren’t wearing the helmet?”
Jason sighs. “I, um,” he licks his lips and then stops.
“You what?”
Jason gives him an almost embarrassed look. “I took it off to throw at someone.”
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah.”
“Did it work?”
“Oh yeah.”
Dick pictures it and can’t help but grin. “Shit. I wish I could’ve seen that.”
“It was fucking beautiful. But then, you know,” he gestures to his face, “I remembered why I generally don’t do that, so you probably won’t get a chance to see that move soon.”
“Huge bummer for me.”
“Agreed.”
There’s a reason that Jason is up here, and their comms are off, and Dick’s hoping that if he waits long enough, he’ll find out what the reason is.
Gotham is strangely quiet tonight—the Bat signal hasn’t even been fired up. Dicks wonders if this is the consequence of Bruce still being pissed—if he’s out there doing a one man show and releasing all his rage while the rest of them sit on their asses.
“I told Tim to stop trying to get you and me to talk,” Jason says, finally. “He wouldn’t stop trying to… I don’t even know what he was trying to do, actually. But once he finally listened to me, what do you know? Stephanie showed up. And it’s…”
“It’s a lot harder to be mad at Stephanie?”
“Yeah,” Jason says, working his jaw. “I think it’s the blonde thing. It makes her seem more earnest. Anyways, I…look. I’ve got some shit to say.”
“Oh, okay-“ Dick starts, and Jason cuts him off with a glare.
“No, for me to say this shit, I need you to not say shit. Okay? So. Listen. As I’m sure you’ve gathered. Some shit went down last week with Bruce. And he…oh my god, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he didn’t do anything wrong. But yeah. Some shit went down. And it…I’m sure you’ve noticed that he’s all fucked up about it. And I’m…I’m fine. But I know you… look, me and Bruce had a deal one time. From before. When I was a kid. And he wanted to know… and I couldn’t…look, here’s the deal. I’m asking you to not look into this, okay? I’m asking you to let it go. Right now. Just…I don’t want you to know yet. That’s the deal. Not yet. Okay?”
Dick wants to say no. He wants to say that Jason has to let him do what he’s supposed to do. He swallows. “Are you safe?”
Jason scoffs. “Dude, I’m a crime lord. And a vigilante. I mean, are YOU safe?”
“You know what I mean. Are you—the shit that went down. Is it interfering with your safety?”
Jason pauses, looking out on the city. He sighs. “Yeah, I’m safe.”
“And everyone else? Tim, Steph, Damian—they’re all good?”
“They’re all safe.” Jason snorts. “Even Tim.”
“Okay, then.” Dick says, looking out at the skyline, too.
He remembers the promise he made. This time, he’s going to do it right. This time, he’s going to be a good brother. This time, no one dies.
“Not yet,” he promises.
“Not yet,” Jason echoes.
There’s idle chatter in the comms—Tim and Steph are bored, and they’re racing each other in some alley somewhere. Damian and Barbara are quizzing each other on obscure facts. Jason and Dick sit quietly together, watching the car lights below and listening to their family on the comms. Everyone is safe. Everyone is fine. Dick is 28 years old, and everyone is going to be okay.