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“I have called you all here for a mission,” Damian said seriously to the group gathered around one of the living rooms in Wayne Manor. “The mission in question: making Grayson sleep.”
Jason rolled his eyes so hard he almost saw the back of his head. “What is he, a toddler?”
“No, he’s right,” Duke said. “This morning I saw Dick pour soda into his cereal, and he didn’t notice until he was almost done eating it.”
“So?” Jason scoffed. “Sounds like something he’d do anyways.”
“I saw him trip down a few steps and just… lay there for a minute,” Cass added. “He’s been really spacy and uncoordinated. Definitely sleep deprived.”
“I don’t see why that should be our problem,” Jason said. Tim shot him a glare.
“Because we care about him?” Stephanie said. Damian cleared his throat before Jason could shoot back a snarky answer.
“I propose a plan: I will lie to Grayson and tell him my teacher wishes me to read with more inflection. I will then read my history textbook, which is one of the most boring books ever written, aloud to him.”
“And then he’ll wake up with some weird guilt complex about falling asleep while helping you read,” Jason pointed out. Damian scowled.
“Or he’ll stay awake by sheer willpower,” Duke added. “I think we should just tell Alfred. I don’t think anyone would dare to cross Alfred, especially Dick.”
“I don’t know,” Tim said doubtfully. “Common sense goes out the window when you’re sleep deprived.”
“Yeah, and Dick will follow it out that window as soon as possible,” Jason snarked.
“What if we just knock him out?” Cass suggested. Damian nodded thoughtfully.
“Unfortunately, Grayson’s an excellent fighter, even in this state. We risk injury to ourselves.”
“I don’t think we should knock him out,” Duke tried, alarmed, but Cass was already talking again.
“So we get someone to distract him, and then the other person comes up behind him and hits him.”
“I agree with Duke,” Stephanie broke in. “At least, let’s put that idea on the back burner for now.”
“But it is an effective one,” Damian protested.
“Let’s call it plan B,” Tim said. Jason snickered as Damian tisked irritatedly.
“I don’t see you offering any better ideas,” Cass accused him. Jason shrugged.
“Dick’s an adult, he can make his own stupid choices. Also, I don’t want to be here.”
“Well, no one’s leaving until we come up with a solution!” Stephanie declared. Jason rolled his eyes and slumped down in his chair.
“What if we hack his workplace and give him a day off?” Tim mused.
“I can’t even begin to list all the reasons why that wouldn’t work,” Jason said incredulously. “Starting with: he’d just take to opportunity to go on patrol, and ending with: he’d just take the opportunity to go on patrol. ”
Stephanie clapped her hands together triumphantly, startling Duke next to her.
“We invite him for a movie night, and put on the slowest documentary ever made!” she said. “He’ll be asleep in no time.”
“That’s practically the same as my idea!” Damian protested. “Except that mine was better.”
“I’ve seen him watching documentaries for fun,” Tim said doubtfully.
“Also, like Jason said, he’d get a weird guilt complex about it,” Cass added. Stephanie sighed and massaged her temples.
“Maybe we should think about Cass’s plan,” she relented.
“Bad idea,” Jason said.
“Why?” Cass demanded.
“Brain damage.”
“Oh,” Cass said. They all looked deep in thought.
“What if we take one of Bruce’s tranquilizers?” Duke suggested after a few minutes. Jason’s eyebrows shot up.
“Now you’re thinking!” Stephanie said proudly.
“I didn’t know it would take such a short time to corrupt you,” Tim added gleefully. “But we can’t. There’s a strict ‘no using the gadgets on each other’ rule.”
“Would we really be breaking the rule?” Cass mused. “It’s for his own good.”
Damian shook his head. “I agree with Drake. Father trusts us with his gadgets. We shouldn’t betray that trust.”
“Chloroform,” Cass offered thoughtfully. Jason rolled his eyes as the group broke into discussion and took the chance to slip out of the room. He dropped by the kitchen on his way out to search for cookies—childish, maybe, but Alfred’s cookies weren’t award winning for no reason.
Unfortunately, he managed to run into the person who was currently being discussed upstairs.
“Hey, Jason,” Dick greeted. Jason did a double take at the zombie that seemed to have replaced his brother. His face was pale and pinched, and dark circles hung under his eyes with such pigmentation that Jason almost wondered if he had gotten two black eyes. His staring thankfully went unnoticed as Dick beelined for the coffee maker.
“It’s been a while. How have you been?” he called over his shoulder. Jason shook himself.
“Uh, good, yeah,” he got out. “You?”
“The same,” Dick said, despite the fact that it was a blatant lie. “Are you sticking around this time?”
Jason couldn’t help the snort that left him. “No way. I’m just here to raid the pantry.”
“Oh.”
Dick clearly tried to cover up the disappointed tone in his voice, and Jason tried to pretend it didn’t affect him. His brother grabbed his now full coffee mug and stopped to look at Jason with an odd expression.
“It’s good to see you, Little Wing,” he said softly, and with that, he left the room. Jason tried to ignore how unstable Dick seemed on his feet and how he ran into the doorframe because he didn’t care . Dick was an adult. It was his own job to take care of himself, not Jason’s.
That being said, Jason only made it as far as the front door before the nagging feeling that had set in when he arrived increased, and he let out a long groan.
“Fine,” he grumbled to no one in particular. “Fine. Whatever.”
A few minutes later, he was in the kitchen brewing another cup of coffee and carefully crushing up two or three sleeping pills he’d pilfered from Bruce’s bathroom. When the coffee was done, he carefully mixed the powder in and set off to find his brother.
He found Dick holed up in one of the studies, surrounded by at least half a dozen coffee mugs. In the light of the sun streaming through the windows, he looked absolutely horrendous. Jason cleared his throat and walked up to the desk.
“Here.” He shoved the mug at Dick. “Made you more coffee.”
“Thank you,” Dick said gratefully, and practically inhaled it; the mug he’d seen him with earlier was already drained. Jason kept a careful eye on him as he chugged the beverage despite the temperature.
“Been busy, huh?” he asked. Dick let out an affirmative hum.
“Busy like you wouldn’t believe—well, you would, but you know what I mean. I’ve barely had time to sit down.”
“Damian’s worried that you haven’t been sleeping,” Jason said, throwing his younger brother under the bus. Dick blinked a few times.
“Oh, well… you know how it is,” he said a bit awkwardly. “There’s no time, and then when there is…” he made a vague gesture that did nothing to cover up the shudder that wracked his frame.
“You been having nightmares?” Jason asked, cautiously curious. Dick shrugged and clicked around on his screen.
“Well, who doesn’t, in this line of work?” He glanced away from his screen for a moment to flash Jason a haunted, humorless smile. He turned back to the screen and took another sip of coffee.
“I just… need to…” his eyes narrowed, and then widened as he stared into the bottom of the mug.
“What’s this white stuff?” he asked suspiciously.
“Sugar?” Jason tried.
“Are you drugging me?”
“No,” Jason said instinctively. “Well, maybe a little. But don’t worry about it.”
“ What? ”
“It’s just a few of Bruce’s sleeping pills. Trust me, I’m saving you a huge headache by doing this. Literally.”
Dick staggered up from his desk and clumsily swung out at Jason. Jason easily dodged the punch and caught his brother around the waist.
“You can’t just… you can’t drug people!” Dick said weakly. Jason winced.
“In hindsight, yeah, this wasn’t the greatest idea,” he admitted. “But you need to sleep.”
Dick struggled weakly in Jason’s hold, but he soon went limp. Feeling a variety of complicated emotions, Jason scooped him up, bridal style.
“Jeez, either I’ve been getting stronger, or you’ve been getting lighter,” he muttered. “Eat a sandwich, or something.”
He kicked the door open and set off down the hallway with his brother. He didn’t make it very far before the living room door was flung open and six faces stared at him.
“What did you do?”
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine,” Jason said, and then after a beat: “I may have drugged him.”
“ What? ”
“That’s not okay!”
“You can’t drug people, Jason, what the hell —”
“You were going to hit him over the head! ” Jason protested. “That was literally your only plan! I think I did him a favor!”
“I… this feels weird. And wrong,” Tim said doubtfully. Jason huffed and shifted Dick in his arms.
“Well, Timmy, it’s happened, and there’s no going back,” he snapped. “Are you going to help me, or what?”
There was a moment of hesitation as they all exchanged uncertain glances, but they shuffled out of the room and silently continued to Dick’s room. Between the seven of them, Dick was comfortably tucked into bed with his curtains closed and his shoes off in no time. They all whispered goodnight to Dick under their breaths, even Damian, and slipped out of the room. Jason paused and glanced around once they’d left and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.
stop overworking yourself or I’ll drug you again
-J
He left the note on Dick’s nightstand. As he made to leave the room, Dick twitched and muttered in his sleep, clearly distressed. Jason froze awkwardly until Dick let out a soft cry, and then he found himself pulled to the side of the bed like a magnet, feeling helpless and rather like a child again, when he’d wake up to Dick screaming three or four times a week. After a few attempts, he reached out an ran a hand through his brother’s hair.
“You’re okay, Dickie,” he said as gently as he could muster. “You’re okay.”
Dick’s body relaxed almost instantaneously, and his features twitched and smoothed. Affection and something sad surged inside of Jason.
“You’re a good brother,” he muttered, feeling the stupid urge to say something. “Don’t expect me to say it to your face. But that’s more about me than it is you, I guess.”
He stood stroking Dick’s hair for an embarrassingly long time until he snapped out of his sentimental mood with a scowl.
“Goodnight, or whatever,” he grumbled, and he left the room.