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Rain pelts against the window loud enough that Jason doesn’t notice it at first. Not until it’s too late.
He’s halfway to the kind of sleep bred from a long satisfying night of work when he finally notices the scratch of the window being pulled up in the bedroom down the hall.
Jason is off the couch, gun in hand, in less than an instant. No one knows about this safe house. Not after he’d found Bruce lurking unsubtlely on the fire escape five buildings down from the last one. The bastard.
Jason creeps down the hall, listening to the sound of the window being pulled back down. Well, at least the intruder is polite enough not to leave it open and drench his bedroom.
There’s a long moment of silence during which Jason waits in the hall, body tense. Silence stretches long enough that Jason debates if he’s just been hearing things when there’s a strained sound followed by a loud thump.
Jason disengages the safety on instinct and steps into the doorway, gun out towards the sound.
The pile of blue and gray on his bedroom floor shuffles.
“Already been shot at once today, Little Wing. So please refrain.”
Jason groans, redoing the safety and dropping the gun.
“What the hell, Dick.”
Dick just turns over slowly and sends him a wide Grayson patented grin.
Jason hates him.
But not enough to kick him out, apparently. Instead, Jason finds himself crouching down next to Dick, inspecting his blood stained thigh.
It doesn’t look awful, more of a graze than anything else. But it is bleeding quite a lot.
“Might need stitches,” Jason mumbles, ripping away the portion of Dick’s suit blocking his vision of the wound.
“Jason,” Dick whines, in a distinctly not adult way, “this is my favorite suit!”
Jason rolls his eyes, pulling his first aid kit from under his bed and snapping on some gloves so he doesn’t contaminate the wound more than it already has been.
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to bleed all over my rug.”
“Oh excuse me for trying to get medical aid,” Dick grumbles, pushing onto his forearms so he can watch Jason work.
Jason decides to ignore that, wiping away some of the excess blood so he can get a better look at the actual injury. Yeah, he decides. Definitely needs stitches.
He stands and looks down at Dick expectantly. He’s not stitching a wound up on his bedroom floor. He’s already going to have to buy a new rug. He doesn't want Dick to bleed all over anything else.
“C’mon,” Jason gestures behind him,” bathroom.”
If he was nicer, Jason would offer a hand. But his and Dick’s relationship has always been tumultuous, even if it is starting to get better recently.
All the same, he does keep an eye on Dick as he slowly stands. He sways once and Jason is by his side in an instant even as Dick manages to steady himself on his own.
Jason swallows down his concern as Dick limps towards the bathroom. He tells himself it’s just because he doesn’t want Bruce to tear him a new one for anything happening to his golden boy.
He doesn’t know if he fully believes himself.
They make it to the bathroom without any more incidents and Jason manhandles Dick onto the edge of the tub. His dark uniform and hair are stark against the dirty white tiles.
“Do you need to say a proper goodbye to this suit?” Jason asks, not giving Dick enough time to reply before fully cutting the fabric away from his still bleeding thigh.
“Awe c’mon,” Dick mutters, but he doesn’t stop Jason.
It’s silent while Jason cleans away the rest of the blood and gets to work stiching the cut back together.
“Why didn’t you just go to the manor,” Jason blurts when the silence becomes too thick. He’s been wondering since Dick climbed through his window.
They’re in Gotham so the cave couldn’t have been that far from where Dick had been and he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out. It was common knowledge Alfred could stitch up a wound better than Jason by a long shot. So why was Dick here?
The silence stretches on for long enough that Jason is about to grumble about ungratefulness when Dick heaves a long sigh.
“I didn’t want to.”
Jason stares at him a long moment.
“And you wanted to come here?”
Dick won’t meet his eyes and Jason is suddenly worried he’s said something horribly wrong.
“Contrary to what you might think, Jay, you don’t have the monopoly on avoiding Bruce. As I recall, I was actually the one who originated that particular role in the family.”
Dick says it with so much bitterness, Jason startles and jostles the wound causing Dick to flinch.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mutters, righting himself.
They both lapse into a heavy silence while Jason finishes off the stitches. He is cutting the last of the thread when he finally catches Dick’s eye.
“I forget sometimes that you guys used to fight all the time,” Jason admits and watches Dick’s eyes soften slightly, “I just— I came back and it looked like you guys had somehow become one big happy family. It felt like I was the problem.”
“Oh Jay,” Dick says softly, reaching a hand up to brush the hair from his forehead in a way that reminds Jason so much of Bruce it almost hurts, “Bruce and I still fight. We just learned not to do it in front of impressionable teenagers anymore.”
“I’m nineteen. That’s hardly an impressionable teen,” Jason argues, trying to lighten the mood.
Dick huffs a soft laugh. His hand slides to rest on Jason’s shoulder.
“You remember when I found you hiding behind the stairs in the cave after that one fight Bruce and I had?” he muses.
Jason grimaces, “I can’t believe I tried to defend the old man.”
It is one of the things Jason remembers clearly. Back when Jason had been young and Bruce had been his everything.
Jason and Bruce had just gotten back to the manor after a relatively quiet night of patrol and Jason had been looking forward to Bruce not sending him straight to bed for once. He had even been contemplating if he’d be able to convince Bruce to read to him before bed.
That dream had been shattered when they’d found Dick, still in his Nightwing gear, seated in Bruce’s chair. Jason remembers the brief second of startled brightness in Bruce’s eyes when they had landed on Dick. And then Dick had turned around, expression thunderous and the look had been gone so fast Jason hadn’t even been sure if it had been real
Bruce had immediately sent Jason up to his room. He hadn’t been exactly sure what the two of them had been arguing about but he’d changed as fast as he could and snuck back down into the cave.
Hiding behind the stairs didn’t give him a very good vantage point but he’d seen the look on Bruce’s face as Dick had walked away, something like a mix of hurt and regret. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from stepping out from his hiding spot to tear Dick a new one.
“You were pretty scary for a twelve year old,” Dick says, “I thought you were going to try and punch me.”
Jason can’t quite meet Dick’s eyes. Something about talking about the before has a lump lodged in his throat.
He silently puts away the first aid kit and then settles next to Dick on the edge of the tub.
“Sorry,” Jason says quietly, “in retrospect Bruce probably deserved whatever the hell you said to him.”
“It’s okay,” Dick says simply, “Are you really even brothers if you haven't threatened to punch each other at least once?”
Dick smiles but Jason can’t bring himself to attempt a smile back.
Brothers. Jason doesn’t remember the last time Dick called him his brother. It had to have been pre-resurrection. In that short amount of time in which Dick had finally come around to Jason and Jason had his number saved in his phone. When Jason had finally started to feel hope at being accepted by his older brother. Then, of course, Jason had gone and gotten himself killed and ruined that too.
Brothers. No they weren’t brothers anymore. He’s not sure if they ever were. No matter how much he had wanted it as a kid.
“Hey,” Dick bumps their shoulders lightly and then waits until Jason meets his eyes, “we are brothers, Jason.”
Jason just scoffs.
“I don’t want to be a part of Bruce’s stupid attempt at a family.”
Dick sighs deeply, “This isn’t about Bruce. We’d still be family if you never spoke to Bruce again. You're my first baby brother. And I know I really fucked it up the first time around but I care about you and always will. You’re stuck with me, Jay. Bruce or no Bruce.” He smiles tentatively, “If you’ll have me that is.”
Jason can’t exactly say no to Dick Grayson when he’s looking at him so fucking earnestly. It’s a little annoying how easily Dick is able to do that. Make people not want to let him down.
So Jason doesn’t disagree but he doesn’t agree either. He bumps his own shoulder with Dicks and stands up from the tub.
“C’mon Dickhead,” he mutters, “we should get at least a few hours of sleep before the sun comes up. You can take the bed.”
It’s not an answer but Dick is smiling so brightly it may well have been.
“Okay, but only if we can share the bed.”
Jason groans, rolling his eyes. But he’s smiling too as they both collapse into Jason’s too small bed and fall asleep next to each other.