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Dick is not feeling well. Which is a shame since he was supposed to teach gymnastics today. He loves working with the kids.
So here he is, lying in bed, hardly even able to get up. He’s already vomited and he’s pretty sure he has a fever, but he doesn’t have a thermometer to check. There were things he was supposed to do today. And he was going to look into the new smuggling ring in Bludhaven that he’s heard rumors of.
There was something else that he can’t quite remember. It was important. Or at least he thinks it was.
He groans, turning over in his bed. He can’t think anymore. He’ll deal with it all tomorrow.
For now, he’ll sleep.
Yes, sleep sounds good.
He’s just about to drift off when someone slams the door to his apartment open.
Dick jerks up and immediately has to cover his mouth to suppress the surge of nausea.
“Hey! Dickwing!”
Oh. He was supposed to meet with Jason today.
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Jason slams into Dick’s apartment. His brother’s been bugging him about hanging out. Jason had ignored him at first. Then refused. But every week, Dick would ask again.
Jason had finally agreed just to get the other man to drop it. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that hanging out with his older brother sounded nice. Not at all.
So, he had agreed to get coffee, as long as Dick paid. Jason had arrived at the coffee shop early, but then Dick had never shown up. He had waited twenty minutes past their meeting time and texted him, but Dick hadn’t answered.
Well, if Dick wasn’t going to show up then Jason would just have to go and bother the golden boy at his apartment.
He picked the lock and then slammed the door open.
“Hey! Dickwing!”
No one was in the living room, and Jason didn’t even bother going to the kitchen. He knew how Dick’s kitchen usually looked. And so he went to the idiot’s bedroom.
“What the heck, Dickwing! First, you go to all the trouble of getting me to agree to meet up, and then you don’t even show up?” Then Jason paused. Dick was trying to get out of bed, but there was obviously something wrong with him.
“Sorry. Just give me a moment.” Dick said, stumbling over to his closet. “Let me just… Let me just get changed.” He picked up a shirt, but it slipped to the ground. He went to pick it up, but then stumbled and Jason leapt forward to catch him.
Jason lowered his idiot of a brother to the ground. He was pale and his forehead was beaded with sweat and he was trembling.
“Sorry. Sorry.” Dick muttered.
“Shut up.” Jason said, scooping his brother up and depositing him back on the bed. “Why didn’t you just tell me you were sick?”
“Forgot.” Dick’s eyes were closed.
“Forgot you were sick, or forgot to let me know. Because with you it could go either way.”
“Forgot we were meeting. Sorry.”
Jason sighed. “Do you have a thermometer?”
“...No.”
Jason sighed again. He would probably be doing a lot of that today. “Why am I not surprised?” He muttered.
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.” he said, looking around the room. It was a mess. And there was Dick’s phone on his bedside. Jason picked it up. It was dead.
“Sorry.” Jason spun to face him and Dick smirking.
Jason scowled. “Well, I don’t need a thermometer to tell that you’ve got a fever.” Jason looked up. Was he really going to do this? He glanced back at Dick,
at his brother.
Fine. “You stay in bed. I’ll get you some water and see if I can scrounge up anything edible in your kitchen.”
“You don’t have to–”
“Would you rather I call Alfred? Because you know he’d come over and lecture you on proper self care and keeping your apartment clean.”
Dick didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought.” Jason muttered heading towards the kitchen. And yup. It was just as bad as he thought it would be. Take out containers littered the counters, and the only thing in the cupboards were cereal boxes. He opened the fridge and grimaced. There was only milk and what had maybe been more takeout. It was hard to tell.
“I’m going to get some groceries.” he called out. “You better still be in bed by the time I get back.” There was no answer from the bedroom, but whatever.
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After he came back the first thing he had to do was clean the counters. There was no way he’d make the food on those disgusting things. Once the kitchen was at least a little better, he settled into the relaxing process of chopping veggies and stirring together a warm chicken noodle soup. As it simmered he started cleaning up the apartment to give himself something to do. He picked up trash, cleaned the coffee table. There wasn’t a broom so he wouldn’t be able to sweep. And he tossed the dirty laundry in the washer.
The smell of soup had filled the apartment by the time he was done.
He turned off the heat and filled a bowl for himself and another for Dick.
He carried both to his brother’s room.
“Food’s ready.”
Dick blearily looked up.
“That smells good.”
Jason grunted, setting Dick’s bowl on the side table and sitting down in the room's other chair.
“Eat up.”
Dick smiled at him. “Thanks, Little Wing.”
“Whatever. I can’t have you keeling over and dying. The old man would be a pain to deal with.”
Dick chuckled, steading the bowl with his knees as he took his first spoonful. “This is incredible.”
Jason ignored him. Of course his soup was incredible.
They continued to eat in silence, Jason looking up occasionally to check on Dick. Not because he cared. He just didn’t want his soup to go to waste.
And if next week he agreed to go out to coffee with Dick, that was just because his brother owed him. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he may or may not care about his older brother. Not at all.