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They slip into Dick’s apartment just as the Blüdhaven sky starts to lighten. Blood drips onto the laminate floor from the stab wound in Dick’s side. It’s not deep, not life-threatening, but it hurts like a bitch. Jason looms behind him, like Dick might suddenly drop at any moment and need his little brother to save him.
Dick is already peeling out of the top half of his Nightwing suit as he staggers toward the bathroom, hissing softly as the fabric pulls at the torn flesh, stuck on with combination of fresh and drying blood. Jason trails behind him. “That’s gonna need stitches,” the younger man notes, pulling off his red mask and tossing it on the couch as they pass.
“Really? Hadn’t noticed,” Dick grits out. He’s had worse – way worse. He’ll live.
Jason shoulders him out of the way when they get into the bathroom, leaving Dick little choice but to sit on the toilet while his brother starts rooting through the first aid kit tucked under the sink. He tosses Dick a bottle of disinfectant before washing his hands and pulling on a pair of latex gloves. Dick grabs a clean hand towel, douses it in the disinfectant, and starts dabbing the wound. He’s used to the sharp sting and grits his teeth through it. The towel comes away stained red, but when he examines the wound, the bleeding is sluggish.
Jason turns toward him with a needle and suture clasped in his gloved fingers. “I can do that,” Dick grumbles as his brother kneels next to him. Despite his weak protest, he turns his body to give Jason a better angle. His fingers are gentle but sure.
“Your hands are shaking from the blood loss,” Jason says blandly, a simple fact. “Mine are steady.”
“I’ve stitched myself up plenty of times,” he laughs.
He doesn’t flinch as the needle pushes through his skin. “What, don’t you trust me to sew you up pretty?”
Of course he does. He’d trust any of them with more than that. But being on his own more often than not, in Blüdhaven instead of Gotham, Dick’s just gotten used to managing on his own. He watches Jason work in silence. His stitches are pretty. Well, as pretty as you can reasonably call sewing torn flesh closed. Neat, deliberate. He takes his time, the tip of his tongue sticking out past his lips, brow knitted in concentration.
Jason reaches the end of the wound and ties the suture off. Dick’s side burns, the puckered line angry, but he figures it will heal just fine as long as he takes it easy for a few days and doesn’t rip the stitches. Jason stands, rolling his shoulders and stretching his back from the awkward position before he starts cleaning up.
Dick turns to start running the shower. He’s sweaty and caked in blood. “Need anything else?” Jason asks, rolling the bloody gloves off his hands and dropping them in the little trash can that sits between the sink and the toilet. “Pain killers?”
“There should be some in the medicine cabinet.”
Jason pulls on the little mirror above the sink, revealing the clutter that Dick’s never really bothered to clean out. “Jesus Christ, dude,” Jason chides, “do you ever throw anything away?”
“Sure, when I finish something.”
His brother shakes his head, starting to rifle through the assortment of prescription bottles that Dick’s kept squirreled away since he first moved here. He picks one up, examining the label. “This amoxicillin is four years old.” Dick shrugs, running his hand under the water. Still cold. It takes forever to heat up. “You know you’re supposed to finish these, right? Do you want antibiotic-resistant bacteria?”
“Okay, Mom,” he scoffs.
“There are five different antibiotic prescriptions.”
“What do you want from me?” Dick sighs. “I feel better and forget to take the rest.”
Shaking his head, Jason keeps digging. “Oxy, vicodin, oxy, oxy, Percocet… What the fuck, dude?”
Dick throws his hands up in exasperation. “I get hurt and get prescribed painkillers. The fact that I never finish them should tell you that I don’t have a problem.” Jason shoots him a flat look. “Gimme the bottle of vicodin.” Not looking impressed, Jason tosses it to him – it’s been in the cabinet for two years, and there are only two pills left in the bottle – and stares while Dick dry-swallows both. “What?”
“You know what,” Jason grumbles, but he turns back to the cabinet like he’s now on a vendetta to snoop through what’s left inside. “Prednisone?”
“Corticosteroid,” Dick explains blandly. “I had bronchitis.”
He picks up another bottle, brow furrowed. “Zoloft?” Jason glances over at Dick. “Isn’t that an antidepressant? And this prescription is only a month old.”
Dick rubs the back of his neck, and turns back to the water to shield his discomfort. “Yeah… I’ve been on it for a few years.”
The bottle clicks against the counter as Jason sets it aside. “Hydroxyzine, prescribed at the same time?”
Dick is quiet for a moment. “Anxiety.”
This bottle joins the Zoloft. Jason is quiet for a while, still shuffling through old prescription bottles. Dick could tell him to stop; he would. He could tell him to leave the bathroom so he can shower. Jason would go. He doesn’t, and Jason keeps looking.
He watches his brother pull out a bottle with a yellowed label from the very back. It’s half-full, the little orange pills clinking. Dick feels ice creep through his veins. He remembers this bottle.
“Seroquel.” Dick stands and gently pulls the bottle out of Jason’s hand, returning it to its spot banished to the back of the cabinet. “What’s that one for?”
Dick doesn’t answer immediately. If he doesn’t Jason will probably just google it. “It’s an antipsychotic,” he admits softly.
Jason blinks, clearly not expecting that. “Why were you on an antipsychotic?”
He looks down at the tile floor, no longer able to meet his brother’s gaze. He never told anyone about that time, not even Bruce – especially not Bruce – just handled his burdens on his own. But if anyone deserved to know…
“After you… died,” he says slowly, glancing back up in time to see Jason’s jaw go tight. He has to claw his voice out of his throat to get the words out. “After you died, I started having hallucinations.”
“Hallucinations.” Dick nods slowly. “Of what?”
He forces himself to meet his brother’s eyes. “Of you, Little Wing,” he breathes. “I wasn’t there for you. I wasn’t at your funeral. I didn’t even know.” His hand tears through his hair, putting to words the old ghosts that haunted him for so long. “It fucked me up for a while.”
Jason slumps back against the sink, looking like he’d been socked in the gut. “I never…”
Dick shakes his head, moving to lean next to him, their shoulders brushing. “No one did. I didn’t want to bother anyone with my… issues.”
Jason is quiet. Still. If not for the soft press of his shoulder, Dick’s brain could almost convince himself that this Jason was just one of his hallucination too. It’s been a long time since he’s had one, since he’s needed the medicine.
Finally, Jason pushes himself up. “You should take your shower.”
“Yeah.”
The door closes behind his brother, and Dick stands there, staring. Cold. It takes him a while to remember how to move his body. To strip out of his Nightwing suit and step into the water. It’s lukewarm. Running so long now that the hot water’s almost used up. He stands under it long after it’s gone cold.
Jason is on his couch when Dick, wrapped in a towel, finally drags himself out of the bathroom. The TV hums low in the background, and Jason’s leather jacket is slung over the back of the couch. His brother barely glances at him as he crosses to the bedroom. He changes into sweats and a t-shirt, hissing a little when the movement tugs at his stitches. Back in the living room, he takes a seat on the other side of the couch and stares at the TV.
“You could have told me,” Jason finally says. “When we started talking again.”
Dick shakes his head. “No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It would have felt like I was making your death about me.” The words are barely over a whisper. “You needed us to support you, not the other way around.”
Jason doesn’t speak for a minute. Chews over his thoughts before he tries to put them into words. “Sometimes it felt like… like I died and it wasn’t anything more than an inconvenience. I hate that it was so hard for you, but it kinda makes me feel like… like, like my death meant something to you.”
“Of course it did, Jaybird.” He finally looks over at him. So different from the plucky little kid who once wore his uniform. From the little ghost that haunted him after he'd died. Stern. Somber. Scarred. “I know I wasn’t the best brother, and I wasn’t there when you needed me. But losing you… It almost broke me. It did break me, in some ways, I think. And I’m so sorry that you ever felt like no one had cared that you died.”
Jason shrugs, but Dick can see the quiver of his jaw. “I guess I knew you guys did care. But it was hard to see that when I was so angry. You didn’t grieve the way I felt like I should have been grieved. Especially B. And that hurt.” A soft silence passes between them. “How long were you on the antipsychotics?”
“Until you came back…” Even on them, he’d still had the hallucinations. Not as frequently. Not as vividly. More like an echo in his peripheral vision. “I was put on the anxiety and depression meds at the same time, and… well, you saw that I’m still on those.”
Jason rubs his arms, like he’s trying to wrap himself up but doesn’t want to look like it. “Was it hard to admit you needed help?”
“Yeah.” He lets out a breathy, humorless laugh. “Struggling to admit you can’t handle everything on your own kinda comes with how we grew up, I think.”
“Yeah…”
“Have you thought about talking to someone?” His brother put on a brave face, but it it was clear sometimes that he still struggled.
Jason shrugs. “I guess I don’t know how someone is supposed to help with something like… that.”
“Well, even if it’s not a therapist or something, you can always talk to me.”
A small smile curls on his brother’s lips. “I know… and, you know that goes both ways.”
“I know, Little Wing.”