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The reason Jason rushes straight over to the Manor is because Bruce uses the word please.
By the time he arrives, his chest feels a little like someone has parked a motorcycle on top of it, certain that someone is either dead or about to be.
Bruce meets him in the cave. He's not dressed in the suit. Instead, he looks startlingly misplaced in sweatshirt and soft fleece pants, as physically harmless as a billionaire should be and almost as guilty.
"No one is hurt," he says, as soon as Jason stumbles off his bike and over to him, his knees numb. "I didn't realize I never said so until after you hung up. Everyone's okay."
Jason fights the urge to sit down and put his head between his knees. He takes three deep breaths, and, instead of socking him in the face, spits out, "Oh, fuck you," with all the venom he can muster. He runs a rough hand through his windswept hair - he'd forgotten his helmet without even noticing. "Everyone's okay? Alfie? The kids?"
"Everyone is fine," Bruce says quietly.
But something painful flickers across his face.
He keeps looking at Jason, taking him in in a way that makes him feel like a spooked deer.
So Jason responds in kind. And nothing he finds in Bruce's weary, stubbled face makes him any less uneasy.
"B?" he says uncertainly. "Are you okay?"
Bruce sighs. "We need to talk."
***
It's not cancer - the first, terrified certainty that had flashed through Jason's head at the ominous pronouncement.
Bruce is, like everyone else, just fine.
Almost everyone else.
"You put him in a cell?" Jason hisses. His gaze keeps flitting to the glass walls, currently turned opaque for privacy, and then away again, curious and terrified at once. "The fuck, Bruce?"
"Jason," Bruce says. Both of them keep their voices down, even though Jason knows the cells are so soundproofed that Superman himself wouldn't be able to hear them. "Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. A man who looks exactly like the man who —" he swallows, sharp and hard. "Who kidnapped you has brought you back to his universe. He puts you in a normal bedroom and tells you to make yourself at home." His lips twist up without any humor. "How would you respond?"
Jason would like to respond by throwing something, or perhaps putting a nice, satisfying bullet in it.
He settles for grinding his teeth until his jaw aches. "I'd have thrown myself out the window if I couldn't find a way to climb down," he grits out.
Bruce nods. It helps that for once, he doesn't look particularly satisfied about being right. "I couldn't leave him there," he says softly, almost pleading - like there's something he's begging for Jason to understand. "I needed him somewhere safe."
And experience has taught him not to trust his own ability to keep Jason from finding some dumb way to kill himself. Go figure.
Jason tugs on his bangs between his fingers, blowing out a careful breath, imagining the green at the back of his lids fading as he breathes out. Mind over matter, the therapy videos he's been listening to like to say. "How bad is it?" he asks gruffly.
Bruce's gaze shutters. "I'm still assessing," he grunts, which means bad. His hands flex into fists, release again. "He's… quiet."
Terrified. Jason snorts, sets his jaw as he meets Bruce's gaze, letting him see the pit simmering in his eyes. "And the other you?"
If Jason's gaze burns, Bruce's is cold enough to sear. "The Justice League has him in custody," he growls. "He'll face due consequences."
Jason doubts that. He's not sure even he himself is capable of delivering the kind of justice the other Bruce is due — but he thinks he could get a lot closer than the League, if they ever allowed it.
But he sets that aside for now, accepting that the threat is at least contained.
He moves towards the containment cells. Stops. "You wanna give me any warning what I'm walking into here?" he says, trying for wry and landing on weary. "Is he pissed? Panicking?"
Bruce just looks at him for a long moment. "I think he'll be relieved to see you," is all he offers.
Jason, pointedly, does not scoff.
He hesitates at the door to the cell, then raises his hand and knocks twice in warning, shooting a glance back towards Bruce as he punches in the code. Ideally, it would probably be best for Bruce to leave the cave altogether, but there's no way he was ever going to do that.
"Hey," Jason says, poking his head in through the door, making sure his body is angled so that there's no way the boy inside will be able to see Bruce.
That's as far as he gets before he falters.
The boy inside the dim-lit cell is tucked as far back into the corner of the cot as he can get, scrawny limbs wrapped around himself like the curled husk of a spider. His teal eyes are locked on Jason, but he doesn't move — not even a flinch.
He's as perfectly frozen as a bird in the brush as a hound sniffs closer.
Jason swallows, his throat abruptly so tight it's hard to breath. He's not sure either of them are.
The boy's eyes flick just a fraction past him, to the open cave beyond. One of them is surrounded by a dark bruise.
Jason steps cautiously into the cell, closing the door behind him, and watches his own eyes dim as his escape route closes.
"Hey," he says again, quieter this time and yet deafening in the silent little room. He winces at his own voice's hoarseness, clearing his throat. "Hey, kid."
He's looming. He can feel it. He can see it, watching his younger self tighten his body like he's trying to subtly disappear into his own ribcage, no recognition in his wary eyes.
So much for being a familiar face.
He wavers, knowing himself well enough to know that even in his youth, he probably would have taken any opportunity to try and draw some blood from one of his captors if the chance arose, even if he knew it wouldn't get him free.
But the kid's so… small.
Jason's sure that he wasn't that small. He can't even imagine this little shrimp swinging a tire iron.
Besides, this place is about as secure and free of weapons as you can get without straight up being a padded cell.
He lowers himself down to sit cross-legged on the floor, grunting as his eternally bruised ribs protest. Like this, he's about eye-level with the kid instead of looming like —
Well. Like Bruce would.
The smaller him — Jay, he decides, in his head — tracks his movements with wide eyes.
Jason lets out a slow breath. "Alright," he says softly. "I'm betting you have a fuckton of questions, huh?"
***
When Jason gets mad, he gets loud.
He's been like this for as far back as he can remember. Used to pick fights with Willis and even his mom over the stupid shit that kids think is a hill worth dying on, explosive hissy fits that probably annoyed the hell out of the neighbors.
It's deeply unsettling to see a version of himself that's so quiet.
The questions come in a soft, tentative trickle. The boy's voice is rusty - Jason doesn't know which cause is worse, lack of use or too much.
Where's Bruce?
Where's his Bruce?
Who are you?
The answer to that one goes down like a lead balloon.
"You're not," mini-him says, for the first time agitated in the way Jason had been anticipating from the start. His fingers twist together — Jason can see crooked knobs where they've broken in places his never have. "You're not me. You can't be me. You're…"
"S'okay," Jason says, when he doesn't finish. "I know we ain't got the prettiest mugshot in town, but beauty pageants were never on the to-do list anyway." He smiles. The scar on his cheek feels tight.
Jay's expression flickers — shock, disbelief, suspicion, niggling, reaching hope.
Jeez, was he always this much of an open book?
He can see the exact moment it twists into enraged despair.
"You're working with him?" Jay croaks. He blinks furiously. The lights in the cell have been dimmed to avoid hurting his eyes, but even in the low light Jason can see the way they shine with tears that don't fall.
"Hell no," Jason says reflexively, and then, "Shit, I mean — yeah, okay, sometimes. But, listen — things with me and him are complicated, okay? But he's not… he's not like the Bruce where you came from. He's… he's a fuckin' moron a lot of the time, but he's not a monster."
Jay scowls at him. He looks betrayed. "You can lie to yourself, but you ain't gonna lie to me," he bares his teeth, still crooked, untouched by the braces Jason had had by that age. "You got big and you stayed because you're - you're just a big, dumb, chickenshit."
"I didn't stay," Jason insists. "I mean, I could've, because like I told you, B's not a fuckin' monster." He wants to chew his tongue as soon as he says it — he promised himself he wasn't going to lie and the idea that he could have stayed is absolutely a lie. But he thinks that conversation is way beyond what Jay needs to hear right now. "I don't even live here. I just came because B thought —" He struggles to think of a way to phrase it that doesn't sound like Bruce is using Jason to try and lull Jay into a false sense of security. "B didn't think you'd believe him if you couldn't see it for yourself."
Jay suddenly unfurls, leaning towards him across the cot. "So you're leaving," he says breathlessly. Before Jason can answer, he says, "Take me with you."
Oh, Bruce is going to kill him.
"You're right, I don't believe you," Jay hisses. "So if you're not a big dumb chicken, and you really can leave whenever you want, take me with you."
"Okay," Jason says, and sets his jaw. "Okay. You're coming with me."
***
Bruce would like to kill him. "No," he snarls.
"I'm not asking." Jason's a brick wall in between Bruce and the now-open cell behind him. He doesn't look back, but he can sense the small figure peeking out, big eyes watching this confrontation take place.
Bruce looks back past him, and the scowl on his face deepens in the way that Jason knows means he's feeling big emotions right now. "It's not safe," he insists, dropping his voice to a growl. "I understand that this is a stressful environment for him, but he needs time before I can just — turn him loose —"
"You're not dumping him in the park, B, I'm taking him," Jason hisses right back. He leans in closer. "You don't exactly have a track record of keeping me safely locked up if I don't wanna be."
Bruce flinches like he's been slapped. Later, maybe the guilt will slither in, when it's late at night and Jason has nothing better to do but stare at the ceiling and think of all the things he's ever fucked up in his life.
For now, he just bares his teeth, daring him to try and tell him he's not the person best qualified to take care of himself.
Just for a moment, there's an overlay in Jason's brain.
A different Bruce behind the eyes of his own — the monster he'd feared when Bruce first brought him home, harsh hands and dark, cruel eyes hidden behind the lenses of his cowl.
And then, after a long, painful stretch in which Jason can't even hear his smaller self breathing, Bruce lets out a sigh, and the other him fades from sight. He rubs a thumb against the bridge of his nose, stubbornness dissolving into something tired and unhappy. "Would you be willing to stay at the penthouse?" he asks quietly. "I can have Alfred stock the fridge."
It's an olive branch. Not one Jason is willing to accept, but one he'll acknowledge. "I'm taking him to my place on 42nd," he returns gruffly - his own compromise. He hates telling Bruce where he's staying. "It's got a guest bedroom and a market two doors down. We'll be fine."
Bruce's mouth tightens, no happier. But he nods. And then he steps back. "Take one of the cars," he says, tone making it clear that this is not up for negotiation.
Jason nods - he'd planned on it anyway. God knows he isn't sticking a baby on the back of his bike.
Jay is standing at the very edge of the cell, watching Jason with huge eyes, bare toes resting on the threshold. Jason's going to have to find him some shoes before they leave.
For some reason, that's the thought that makes the commitment he's just made real.
He blows out a breath. "You wanna come with me to find you some clothes, or do you wanna stay down here until it's time to go?"
Jay sucks in a tiny gasp. He steps tentatively out of the cell. "I wanna come with you."
And so Jason goes upstairs with a shadow in tow.
He is once again reminded that this version of himself is tiny, and the process of finding him some clothes to wear only confirms that he definitely wasn't this small. The box of his old clothes that Alfred drags down from the attic hangs loose on the boy's tiny frame, the eight months of cold and hunger and want that Jason knew stretched out along fragile bones to the length of years.
"How old are you, kid?" he asks, and Jay blinks at him.
"I'm… fourteen, I think," he says, and Jason doesn't dare ask him any more questions.
He gives him a battered old red hoodie, and pretends he can't see the way Jay furiously wipes at his eyes when he thinks he isn't looking.
He's never been embarrassed of any of his safe houses before. They're safe houses. They're basically a fancy linen closet but for storing a person.
For the first time, he feels like he needs to defend himself.
"Sorry if shit's a little dusty," he says, kicking off his boots by the door, hoping the gesture will make the kid's rigid body loosen. "I, uh. I don't come to this place super often."
Jay frowns. "You said you didn't live at the Manor," he says accusatorially.
"I don't," Jason says, with an uncomfortable shrug. His eyes skate across the barren apartment, abruptly very conscious of the fact that the place is only a little homier than the cell he pulled the kid out of. "I, uh. I've got a bunch of places like this. I just… kind of bounce around."
Jay looks at him. Jason has really no idea what he's thinking — but he decides for his own sake that if he'd found out as a kid that grown-up him had a bunch of apartments, he would probably have been impressed.
He checks the fridge, finds it — as expected — empty but for a jar of pickles and some condiments. The pantry is in better shape, as he keeps all his safehouses stocked with at least a few non-perishables — soups and granola bars and peanut butter and a few cans of dented, half-off shitty ravioli. He can definitely whip up what would have been a veritable feast for a street kid for dinner tonight.
But he finds himself antsy, eyeing the Chef Boyardee.
He doesn't want to give Jay a street kid feast. He wants to give him a real meal — something hearty and homecooked. The kind of thing he used to dream of when his stomach was a hard little hollow ball as he lay curled up under his hoodie for warmth. He should've really taken Alfred up on his offer to send them off with some soup — at the time, he was just trying to get them both out of the Manor as fast as possible without scaring the kid further.
The kid fucking deserves a homecooked meal for all the bullshit he's had to put up with.
He grabs a granola bar with chocolate chips, tosses it to Jay, who clutches it like he's been given a bar of solid gold. The hollows under his eyes are making Jason uncomfortable. "C'mere," he says, jerking his head towards the hallway. The bedroom door and the guest bedroom sit directly opposite each other, and he shuts his own door before opening the other, suddenly conscious of the fact that he has some very not-childsafe weaponry stashed in there. "This is going to be your room, at least for now," he says, clearing his throat. "Sorry, I know it's not as fancy as anything at the Manor, but, uh. It's yours."
Jay edges past him into the room, looking up at him like a wary cat expecting to be grabbed or kicked at any moment. He looks around the pathetically simple room — bed, tray table nightstand, laundry basket, designed not for guests but for Jason to have a backup bedroom if he happened to bleed all over the other mattress — with the same look of suspicious hope he gave the granola bar when Jason chucked it at him.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he points at the bathroom. "There's no shower in this one, but there is in mine — you're welcome to it, but, uh. I need to go grab some groceries for us, so hold off on that until I'm back, okay? I don't want you going in my room without me here."
Jay turns back to him. "You're leaving?" he asks, a nervous edge to his tone.
"Thirty minutes, tops," Jason promises. He'll rob the damn place if he needs to. "Just to get some food. You okay for that long?"
Jay twists the string of his hoodie around his finger, the cord already worn soft in the exact place he grabs it. "Course," he mutters. "You're supposed to be me. What do you think I'm gonna do, stick a fork in a light socket?"
It's the sharpest edge Jason has seen on the kid so far, and it comes as a relief.
He points out the books in the living room, the TV remote. Reminds him again not to go in his room. Promises, again, to be back in thirty minutes and not a damn second more.
It takes him fifteen to jog down to the twenty-four hour market just a couple buildings down, grab some fruits and veggies without bothering to stop and assess the quality, snag some chicken and pasta and chuck a hundred dollar bill at the teenage store clerk.
It takes him another forty-five seconds to walk past the alley next to his apartment building and look up to see a familiar little scrap of a kid crawling out of his window onto the fire escape.
As though sensing his presence, Jay looks down. Their eyes meet.
He freezes. Jason does not.
The groceries get abandoned right there on the sidewalk, Jason climbing the fire escape without taking his eyes off his target for a single second, ready to lunge and try to grab the kid if he at any moment decides the only way out of this situation is to jump.
Thankfully, Jay's survival instinct is apparently a little better than his own. He remains a statue, huddled with one arm still inside the window frame, right up until Jason grabs him by the scruff and bodily tosses him back into the kitchen.
"Are you stupid?" he snarls, surprised he can even get the words out around his heart where it's crawled up and lodged itself in his throat. "The hell are you doing? I told you I was coming right back."
Jay doesn't get up off the tile floor. He curls in on himself like a dying bug, skinny limbs a pathetic shield around his head. Jason has to move closer just to hear what he's saying past the sound of his own thundering pulse in his ears.
"Sorry, I'm sorry sir, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, I'm sorry."
Jason steps back. The lump he's choking on suddenly feels more like his stomach than his heart.
He runs hand through his hair, for the first time taking in the black backpack spilled next to the kid. His backpack, one of his gear kits that should be under his bed. The zipper's open a couple inches, just enough for him to see Chef Boyardee's stupid serene face smiling out at him.
"Fuck," Jasons hisses, stepping back away from the ball of trauma on his floor. "Fuck."
He pulls out his phone.
For a moment, he wavers over Bruce's contact.
He was right. He was fucking right, much as it pisses Jason off. The hell was he thinking, bringing a kid this traumatized out of that surveillance state of a house and thinking he could keep him safe in a fucking safe house that apparently doesn't even have a childproof lock on the window? Why the hell did he promise that?
He couldn't even keep himself alive the first time around.
But… Jesus.
He squeezes his eyes shut, wishing he could plug his ears to block out the string of apologies still spilling in an incoherent mumble from the kid on the floor.
There is no fucking way this kid is going to hear him calling for Bruce to come and get him and be okay.
He scrolls down.
"Dick," he says, as soon as the phone picks up, cutting off his greeting. "I need you to come to my place. Right now."
"Is the kid okay?" Dick asks instantly. In the background, he can hear the sound of traffic.
Jason says, honestly, "Not really. I need some help."
"I'm crossing the bridge into Gotham right now," Dick says. "Send me your location, I'll be there soon."
Easy as that.
Jason hangs up. Sends him his location.
Then he sits down on the floor, cross-legged, and talks to the kid. Anything he can think of, a constant low ramble to try and drown out the cracked apologies.
"I'll do another shop after my brother gets here. I was gonna do some chicken pasta, but that's actually probably gonna be pretty heavy on the stomach, so now I'm thinking maybe some salmon - I can do a garlic and honey sauce that whips up like no problem. Should probably keep it simple too, because my brother, Jesus he's a shit cook, can't even pull off pancakes without burning 'em, and I think even just having him in the kitchen might fuck something up, so you're gonna have to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't get too close —"
On and on.
His voice gets hoarse fast. He doesn't talk that often these days, never for this long. But he keeps it up until the kid's violent shaking dies down to just small tremors, and his younger self's terrified voice falls silent.
He keeps it up until he hears a knock on the door.
"Just… stay there," he tells the ball of tension that's just resumed itself in front of him. He's half afraid that the kid is going to make another bolt for the window as soon as he gets up.
But he doesn't. He stays there, one teal eye glazed with terror peeking out over his arm as Jason gets the door.
Dick's there. He's breathing a little hard, like he bolted up the stairs to get to Jason's apartment. "Hey," he says, as soon as he sees him, gaze running up and down him as though checking for injuries. "What's going on?"
Jason steps back to let him in.
Behind him, Jay gasps.
"Dickie?"
Jason turns around to see him sitting up, face wet and swollen. His gaze is fixed on Dick, expression twisted in grief, in hope.
"Hey," Dick says, cautiously eeling past Jason, one hand raised as though to reach out for the boy.
Before he can, Jay is scrambling to his feet. Jason tenses, preparing to grab him if he tries to make a break for it, but the kid comes tearing towards them, not away.
"Oomph," Dick says, staggering back a step as he crashes into him. His hands come to settle tentatively on his back, then more firmly when the kid only squeezes his waist tighter instead of flinching away, his face buried in Dick's shirt. "Whoa, hey. You're okay, it's okay."
His voice is so soft and gentle, falling immediately into the role of big brother as easy as breathing. Like it doesn't even matter how goddamn crazy it is that the kid clinging to him is from another dimension. Like it doesn't even matter that it's another version of Jason.
Jason can't exactly blame his younger self for the way he's visibly crying into Dick's stomach, shoulders shaking as he gasps for breath. He turns his own burning eyes away.
He closes the door quietly behind them. Dick meets his eyes, checking in with a head tilt and a worried frown. Jason just jerks his head towards the couch. "I'm gonna make us some tea," he grunts, and Dick nods in acknowledgement.
He tries to nudge Jay gently towards the couch without dislodging him. "Hey, kiddo, why don't we sit down where it's comfy, huh?" he says softly, as Jason turns away.
He's promptly halted in his tracks by the tiny voice that croaks, "Batman killed you."
Dick sucks in a breath. Jason's chest does something sharp and painful — if Bruce knew that particular tidbit, he sure didn't share it.
"Oh, little wing," Dick chokes. He wears his heart on his sleeve, now as ever, and his voice is as soft with grief and sympathy as it is sharp with protective anger.
And Jason can't bear it. He can't bear the way Dick talks to this kid like he loves him.
"I'm going back to the store," he mutters, changing plans on a heel-turn back towards the door. "I'll get us some dinner."
If Dick feels any alarm at being left alone with little him, he doesn't show it. Just squeezes him that tiny bit tighter as Jason slides past him out the door.
He didn't even grab his jacket, he realizes, alone in the hallway. He doesn't go back for it.
This time, he takes his time shopping. He gets salmon, as he promised, and all the other kitchen staples he might need to feed three people.
He even grabs a box of the sugary, disgusting cereal Dick likes. Just in case he's still there by breakfast.
He has the briefest moment of panic when he opens the door to his apartment to find it quiet.
Then, he spots Dick, sitting on the couch and scrolling on his phone, Jay curled up with his head on his lap. "Hey," he says softly. "He's out cold."
Jason grunts, closing the door as quietly as possible.
Dick eels out from under the sleeping kid with the kind of grace that has always made Jason suspect his bones may not be entirely solid. He manages to do it without waking Jay up, tucking a throw pillow carefully under his head. Jason focuses on putting the groceries down without making too much noise instead of the way Dick brushes a hand across the boy's hair.
A memory flickers of Catherine doing the same thing, when he was very small and she was still healthy enough to tuck him into bed at night. He pushes it aside.
Dick joins him in the kitchen. "He didn't tell me much," he murmurs, without Jason needing to ask. "Just, uh. Just that I died, in his universe."
Jason grunts softly, passing him a bag to put away, which he does without comment. It's weird, having him in here, going through his cabinets and fridge, but not as skin-crawlingly intrusive as he'd feared.
"You talked to Bruce?" Jason asks. It's not really a question — Bruce obviously had called him and updated him, given that he clearly was already aware of Jay and on his way to Gotham when Jason had called him in a panic.
Dick hums. "He just gave me the rundown. I was still at work when he called. I told him he should call you."
Jason nearly drops the jug of milk. "The fuck did you do that for?" he hisses, barely catching himself in time to keep his voice quiet. He's not even really upset, just genuinely baffled.
Dick, in turn, looks at him like he's the freak for being confused. "Bruce called me up and told me he had a tiny baby version of you who'd been abused by an evil version of him in his house," he says, like maybe Jason just isn't up to date on the situation. "Did you really think I wouldn't also think about that for two seconds and realize someone needed to get him out of there so he'd feel safe?"
Part of Jason rankles at Dick's tone, like he's stupid. Part of Jason feels like he's walked into an algebra class before learning what numbers are.
He puts the milk away slowly in the fridge. "But why me?" Jason asks, and then starts to get rankled. "Did you just figure I was the best jackass to pawn him off on so you and B wouldn't have to worry about him? Oh, that's fucking rich —"
"Jason," Dick sighs, leaning his hip against the counter and turning to face him. And then, the nerve of him, he chuckles, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Talking to you is a little like trying to balance an egg on its head sometimes, you know that, right?"
Jason glowers, the righteous and satisfying anger he was building up to deflating and leaving him mostly just irritated.
He bites his tongue, watching Dick take a deep breath and shoot him a smile that, while tired, is mostly fond. "I said he should call you because you would keep him safe. And, as much as anyone's going to make him feel safe, you would."
His irritation melts away too, because even his old standby coping mechanism of being pissed off likes to desert him in his time of need.
He quietly pulls out a pan from one of the cabinets, figuring he might as well get dinner cooking — god knows he needs something to do with his hands before he finds an excuse to punch Dick in his stupid warm face. "Well, you fucked up on that call," he mutters, focusing on his task so he doesn't have to look at Dick as he admits it. "He tried to bolt out the window as soon as I went out to get food."
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees him taking in the window — still cracked open where Jason didn't quite jam in closed after he climbed back in — and the backpack on the floor, canned food visible within.
"Well," he sighs, "At least we know you're consistent."
When Jason just grits his teeth at the garlic he's mincing, he moves closer, humor warming away. "Hey, he's scared of everything right now," he says gently. "He started clamming up again after you left, after the shock of seeing me wore off. The only thing you did wrong was that you didn't call for backup until you thought it was too late. And you did keep him safe - you brought him back, and you finally figured out you can't be in two places at once and you asked for help."
Jason snorts. The sound is shaky, his spoon rattling too loud against the little chipped bowl as stirs the sauce.
Dick notices. "No one's trying to make you feel trapped, here," he says quietly. "If it's really too much, I'll take him back to my place." There's no judgment in it, not even when Jason goes looking.
Jason's hands falter completely. He looks at Dick — meets his eyes, humiliated and prickly at the god-knows-what that Dick will be able to see looking back. "Seriously?" he whispers. "You'd take care of him? If, uh. If he just… didn't feel safe?"
"Oh, little wing," Dick says, so fucking kind it hurts. "In a heartbeat."
Jason turns his burning gaze down towards the cutting board, blinking furiously. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, Dickie," he admits to his still hands.
With the trepidation of someone reaching out to a snarling street cat, Dick lays a hand over his own. "You're doing your best," he says. "It's been a single crappy evening, dude. How about you cut yourself a break and let us figure this out together, huh?"
With the trepidation of a street cat snatching a treat from strange hand, Jason turns his palm, giving his brother's a hand a single, quick squeeze before he brushes it away and keeps working with a quiet sniff.
Without being asked, Dick passes him the bottle of honey as soon as he sees him look at it. "Can I help with dinner?"
"Stick your fingers anywhere near this food and I'm chopping them off." There's that uncomfortable swell of emotion again, pressing up against his jaw, and he has to fight to keep his breathing steady and slow, especially while trying to keep the rest of his movements to a whisper. He makes himself speak past it. "Do, uh. Do you think you could stay? After dinner, I mean. Maybe, uh. Maybe even for a couple days? Just, you know. While he's getting settled?" Quickly, he adds, "I think he really trusts you."
Dick snorts, leaning back and giving him some much appreciated space. "Oh dude, I already called out of work for the week," he says. "You think I'm missing my window to stake my big brother claim? Not a chance. I'm glad you asked me to stay, because otherwise I was going to have to figure out how to break in."
A laugh, quiet and rusty, claws its way out of his throat.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dick grin.
***
There's a TV playing quietly in the background. Jason becomes aware of it at the same time he becomes aware of the way his pillow is very warm under his cheek.
"They're fine, B," a soft voice that is not coming from the TV murmurs, just a few inches away from his ear. His pillow — which is definitely a shoulder — shifts. "There, see?"
He slits his eyes open, just a crack. In front and below him, Jay is tucked into Dick's lap, dark curls close enough to still brush Jason's hand where it's slipped from the boy's scalp. Their plates are still on the coffee table — someone should really get those soaking.
"Yeah, I'm staying for awhile." Dick hums. "I dunno. You'll have to ask Jason tomorrow if it's okay."
Secure in the knowledge that Dick will fend their father off if he tries to show up without permission, Jason shifts his stiff neck and allows himself to sink back down into the safe peace of sleep.
The last thing he hears is Dick's warm voice.
"Yeah. Don't worry, B. They're going to be okay."