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It wasn’t often that Dick found himself wondering why he did this. He chose this mostly on his own accord, after all. And he didn’t regret it, he really didn’t…
He enjoyed being Nightwing, liked helping people and protecting Blüdhaven.
But right now- crawling through his window in the early morning hours, thoroughly beaten up and sore, although victorious…
Well, he still doesn’t regret his choice. Adrenaline is slowly leaving his veins, but on top of his typical angst he feels accomplished. It’s a good and grounding feeling. It’s why he goes out even on the bad days, when eating feels like a chore and sleeping is impossible. It’s an escape of sorts, he’s well aware of that. An especially unhealthy coping mechanism that he recognizes Bruce in- he tries not to think about that too much.
So no, it’s not the beatings and wounds he gets on patrols that makes him question how he got here. Nor is it the empty feeling that’s creeping back in while Dick pushes some scrambled eggs around the pan.
There aren’t many things that make Dick question being a hero, but the figure in his peripheral never fails to do the trick.
It’s small, so tiny, more than he remembers it being. All its “skin” is covered by shadows, just like the features he no longer remembers from the top of his head. It creates a sickening contrast with the yellow, red and green of his costume. Of Dick’s old costume.
“Of course it’s you”
He greets his little brother. He knows he’s not supposed to talk to the hallucination, that he should just ignore it. He was never able to do that for long, whether it showed up sad, playful, angry- Dick wanted to talk to it. To talk to him, no matter how unreal it was.
His eyes briefly drift to the orange bottle on his kitchen shelf. They’re surely expired by now, but there’s plenty of them. After all, he only took them until the first time they worked.
It wasn’t long after the first time he hallucinated Jason that Dick visited a therapist. Yes, Richard Grayson had therapy. Just few sessions, it wasn’t hard to convince her to send him to a psychologist and then to a psychiatrist. It’s pretty easy to get antipsychotics prescribed when you are actually seeing your dead brother, although he did manage to see Jason a few more times in the process.
Dick was freaked out then, he was already feeling like he was going insane with everything happening around him and hallucinations… it was too much. It had to stop. He had to fix himself. He couldn’t afford this level of fucked up.
He paces the kitchen few times, waiting for his brother the hallucination to appear despite the Quetiapine in his system, which he was slowly starting to lose faith in. One minute, then another. From the stove to the dining table.
Ten minutes, another ten minutes. He started leaving the kitchen, from the stove to the couch. The hallucination liked to climb the back of it, just like Dick imagines real Jason might have. Which makes sense- after all, this is not his little brother, just his fucked-up mind.
Half an hour, Dick starts making circles through his whole apartment.
An hour. His eyes sting and when he raises a hand to rub at one, he realizes his cheeks are wet. He ignores the tears and keeps pacing. He can’t stop, not until he finds…Jason? Is that what he’s looking for? But his brother is dead and the ghost… Dick chased it away.
He sinks down to the floor, his back hitting something when he leans back.
He’s been seeing Jason again. He got a second chance. His brother even helped him and Dick takes pills to get rid of him? Chases him out of his life. Again.
A little part of Jason returned to the world, even if just through his head and he removed him again. What if it’s forever and he’ll never see his little wing again.
Sob tears from his throat, followed by another. In that moment, Dick hates himself almost as much as he hates Joker for killing Jason in the first place.
He falls asleep like that, leaning against his bed, shedding tears and wailing until the very moment his consciousness gets swept away.
The next day, he doesn’t take his meds. Not in the morning, or noon or evening. Or the day after.
If Dick hadn’t stopped visiting his psychiatrist the moment he got his hands on the meds, he would know that quitting Quetiapine from day to day is a bad idea. He learned this anyway, after multiple days of the worst sickness of his life.
Still, after the first day, the hallucination re-appeared, watching Dick every moment of the day. Smiling as Dick emptied his stomach, or curled up in pain or struggled to breath. It didn’t speak, but the presence was comforting enough. He didn’t lose his brother again. He could still see him, even if just as a shadow in a uniform.
On the third day, Jason wasn’t smiling. He stared at Dick from a corner, seeming almost… sad or scared. Both even.
Dick’s not supposed to talk to his hallucinations, but he can’t take that look on his little brother’s face. He looks away, only for his head to snap back when the apparition finally speaks again.
“Dick” it calls out to him and Dick’s always been vulnerable to those puppy eyes. Fuck this.
“Yes, Jay?”
“Don’t take them anymore. Please don’t make me go away again”
Oh god. His voice is so small, he is so small. Just an abandoned child and it makes Dick want to cry all over again. He chokes on the feeling a little, but Jason seems to take the silence as rejection.
“You still want me around, don’t you?” He asks, sounding so scared
“Of course I do, little wing, it’s you”
The hallucination doesn’t comment on the bottle, but Dick looks away regardless. It wasn’t really an option anyway.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again, since you’re… you know, alive.” And running around killing criminals. It’s not like Dick can judge, is it?
The illusion tilts its head. “Am I?”
Dick doesn’t bother dignifying that with a response. It’s his brain, it knows what he knows.
“I’ve changed” fake Jason continues.
“You’ve grown up”
The excuse sounds stupid even to Dick, but he’s alone here, talking to a figment of his imagination, he doesn’t have to own up to shit.
“Clearly it doesn’t matter much that he’s alive, if you’re still seeing me.”
Ouch, Dick’s brain is feeling mean today.
He turns off the stove with a sigh and finally ceases burning his dinner- or is it breakfast at this point?
Fake Jason huffs at him. Seems like he still doesn’t like being ignored.
“He doesn’t like you very much, does he?”
Dick sits pulls out a spoon and starts eating straight from the pan. Alfred would kill him if he saw this. “Thankfully” he’s alone with the little shit his mind conjured up. He sits down and resigns to talking to the fake Jason before he starts blaming Dick for his death again.
“No, no he doesn’t. I don’t think he wants anything to do with me. I don’t think he’s coming back”
The hallucination grins widely.
“Good thing I’m here then, isn’t it? You really are pathetic- you miss him so you’ll just hallucinate me again, talk to me instead of him. And you’ll throw away those pills, won’t you? You can just pretend I’m enough, can’t you?”
Dick doesn’t bother looking up from his plate, he knows Jason’s not going anywhere.
“Of course, Jay, it’s you”