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An incessant knocking at his door wakes Dick from what is a disturbed slumber at best, passed out on his couch and only just out of his Nightwing uniform, the costume spread out on his apartment’s floor like the world’s worst kept secret.
Dick blinks at it groggily as he tries to process who could possibly be trying to get his attention at — he looks at his phone, battery at a low three percent with twenty-seven unread text messages and three missed calls — eleven in the morning. Which isn’t actually an unreasonable time, but Dick hadn’t gotten back from patrol until close to five, and his body is desperate for the sleep.
The only reason he doesn’t go back to sleep is because it seems like his visitor has no intentions of going away, the knocking having not let up once, and that now that Dick is more awake, he can hear the young voice calling his name through the door.
“Dick! It’s Tim! Open up! I will open these locks myself if I have to!”
Jesus, this kid. “I'm coming!” He yells back, reluctantly pulling himself up off his couch. He stares at his suit for a second, decides it’s out of the way of the door enough for any inquisitive neighbors, pulls on the Superman hoodie hanging over the back of the couch, and makes his way over to the front of his apartment.
It only takes him a couple of seconds to disable his security system before he undoes the four manual locks keeping his door closed on top of it. The door opens on squeaky hinges, and then Dick is staring down at a five-foot-nothing Tim Drake looking back at him with harried impatience.
“Well? Are you going to let me in or just keep staring at me all day?” Tim raises his eyebrow as if to further state his point. Considering Tim is thirteen, it’s not quite as effective as Tim probably thinks it should be.
Dick refrains from sighing, and backs up into his apartment, holding the door open for Tim as he makes his way in.
He’s resetting all his locks as Tim takes a look around, clearing choosing not to comment on the atrocious state of Dick’s unwashed, overrun apartment, and says, “You weren’t answering your phone. Something really important happened, and nobody told me, and considering you aren’t already in Gotham, I assumed nobody told you, and, well, then you weren’t answering your phone, so I figured my best bet was just to come here, so—”
“Tim,” Dick states, cutting him off as he turns around. He takes the kid in properly. Despite the impatience that is obviously resting just under his skin, Tim actually looks— nervous. Nervous, in the way he’s biting at his lips, but also— hopeful, too. Giddy, even. He’s bouncing on his heels, and there’s a certain light to his eyes that Dick’s never seen before. And it makes his chest clench because Tim— Tim is looking at him like he can share that joy with Dick. “What happened?”
The kid blinks rapidly at him, all of a sudden looking unsure. “I— I promise what I’m about to say is not a joke. Maybe you should sit down? That’s what people usually say when they’re delivering life-breaking news, right? I mean—”
“Tim,” Dick says again, slower. He’s trying for patience, here, because the kid is clearly excited and Dick is trying to do better this go-around. But he’s exhausted; it’s been a trying few months with no signs of letting up, and Dick doesn’t have very much patience to spare, even for kids who have wiggled their way into his life via Bruce and the Batcave.
“Right.” Tim looks at him, nods once, sets his shoulders, and declares, “Jason’s alive.”
It hits him, like a blow to the chest, and before thinking, he snaps back, “That’s not funny.”
Tim crosses his arms. “I told you, I’m not joking.”
“That’s— No,” Dick shakes his head and scoffs, “Stop it. Someone would have told me.”
“I tried calling you,” Tim replies, voice and gaze both unfairly even, “I even overrode your do-not-disturb, but you didn’t answer, so…” He waves his hand a little as if that explains everything.
Dick shakes his head again, harder. He ignores the fact that Tim would never lie about this, that he’s too young, too good to do something so unfairly cruel. “No. No. Bruce would have— Alfred even—”
“Like they did last time?” Tim retorts pointedly, before wincing. “Sorry. But he’s been back at least three days. Bruce won’t let me in the Cave, and I got shuffled out of the Manor before I could so much as blink. I heard him, though. And saw him, through a window. I wouldn’t come here without proof.”
Tim pulls out his phone and taps at it, before shoving it at Dick’s face. And—
Dick sucks in a breath. There, right through the window of the Manor’s kitchen, is unmistakably his little brother. Jason looks almost exactly like the last time Dick saw him, hair maybe a little longer, a crescent scar on his hairline that wasn’t there before, but it’s him.
It’s Jason. It has to be, if Bruce is letting him walk freely around the Manor.
And, yet again, nobody told Dick.
He swallows down the hurt that crawls up his throat like ugly, viscous thorns. It’s surprising, actually, how much the single, dismissive action of Bruce’s hurts, even if the action itself fits the man to a tee. Dick closes his eyes and takes in a deep, calming breath, counting his inhale, hold, exhale. He doesn’t think about the fact that Tim almost certainly recognizes what he’s doing.
Tim’s a smart kid. He won’t mention it. Unless he’s feeling nosy, anyways.
Dick opens his eyes to find Tim staring back at him, eyes furrowed just a little, like he’s trying to figure out exactly what’s going on in Dick’s mind. It’s honestly quite a frightening level of intelligence and curiosity for a thirteen-year-old. Then again, Dick remembers what he was doing at thirteen. If anything, he should be grateful Tim isn’t younger— that he’s still training, not out on the streets as Robin quite yet.
Of course, if Jason’s back, then—
Jason’s back. Alive. His baby brother is alive. Holy Kryptonian hells, his baby brother is alive. That’s—
“I need to sit down.”
“I told you so,” Tim retorts, although he’s a little wide-eyed himself. Somehow, this is actually reassuring.
Dick finds himself leading them both further into the apartment, head light and legs weak as his heart pounds desperately in his chest. He waves Tim over towards the couch, but doesn’t take a seat himself. Instead, he begins desperately searching his apartment, tearing through his room for something slightly more fitting to wear.
“Socks. Where are my socks? Should I change my pants? Holy shit, Jason, Jason’s alive. Jason is alive.”
Saying it out loud only serves to make it more real, and it actually takes his breath away. Dick drops to the corner of his bed. There’s a dirty pair of jeans in one hand and two different socks in the other. He can’t find it in himself to care.
Tim snorts from the doorway to his bedroom. He’s still got that starry-eyed look, watching Dick with some odd mixture of sheer elation and crushing nervousness.
Dick blinks, takes a look at the kid again, and slightly reassesses. “And how are you, Tim? With all this? I mean, how did you get here, even? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“Robin’s back,” Tim replies, shrugging, the very image of forced teenage indifference as he glances away. “He’s back. I can catch a train and call out sick for that, Dick.”
Which is a fair point but doesn’t actually answer Dick’s question. Or, maybe it does. Tim is obviously happy Jason is back — JasonisbackJasonisback — but— Ah. Robin is back. And Tim is training to be Robin.
Dick sees the problem now.
He’s not entirely sure how to address it, though. There’s no telling how the situation is going to go, how Bruce will react, how Tim will, how Jason will. The mantle of Robin floats in the air, unmoored to one singular owner and yet now tied to three. Despite that, though, there is one thing Dick knows:
“We’re not going to get rid of you, baby bird.”
Tim blinks at him, eyes wide. Dick can clearly see the disbelief, now that he’s looking for it, and his heart aches. Tim shrugs, jerky and awkward.
“You’ve got Jason now.”
Dick tilts his head, letting out a careful, considering hum. “We’ve got Jason now. You’re not going to get rid of us so easily.”
“...If you say so,” Tim replies, obviously doubtful. He chews on his bottom lip for a second before rocking back on his heels, quickly letting out a, “I’ll let you finish changing.”
He shuts the door closed behind him before Dick can muster a response.
Dick sighs. Still, despite the looming problem, he can’t help but grin. His baby brother is back.
Jason is back.
— — | — —
Dick makes it back to the Manor in record time. There are hugs (Dick’s, at Jason). There are tears (Dick’s and also Jason’s and also everyone’s). There is one punch thrown (Jason’s, at Dick). (It lands on his chest before the hugs and tears and is half-done at best). There are several loud conversations (Dick and Bruce, mainly, but also Jason). (It certainly does not count as arguing). (It does).
All in all, it is everything Dick would expect from a family member coming back to life in the Wayne household.
(Dick makes sure to drag Tim into all the chaos).
— — | — —
Dick finds Jason later, on the rooftop.
His brother has his legs pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped loosely around them, with his chin resting on his knees. Jason stares unseeingly out into the Gotham night, the city barely visible in the distance. It glitters like a blanket of stars, a tapestry of buildings and streetlights woven together in lieu of the actual sky.
Dick finishes pulling himself out of the attic’s window, crossing quietly across the dark shingles to drop himself down beside him. His legs fold themselves into something vaguely resembling a criss-cross, and he gently taps his shoulder against Jason’s as he stares out into the night with him.
Jason startles, like he hadn’t noticed Dick approach, and he glances at him briefly before looking back out over Gotham.
“Can you tell me what’s going on in that big ole beautiful mind of yours?”
Jason doesn’t respond, gaze locked onto the city’s lights. He doesn’t seem to be ignoring Dick, exactly, thoughtful in his silence. Dick doesn’t push.
They sit there for long enough that he has resigned himself to trying again another day when Jason says carefully, “Bruce was going to give Tim Robin.”
Dick hums and considers that, thinks about how he felt when he learned Bruce had given Jason the role, when Tim asked him to take it back, when the kid went out there and took it anyways. There’s no good response, really. No bad one, either, but there’s certainly a good or bad way to phrase it.
“Do you want him to?” Dick responds slowly.
Jason’s the age now Dick had been when he took up Nightwing. When he had Robin taken from him, benched for months after his disastrous incident with Dent. After argument after argument with Bruce that he’s still never really resolved or recovered from, anger a festering wound on both sides. When Robin became a leash, a job, rather than freedom and a role.
“I was dead,” Jason states bluntly, and not without a hint of heat, “and not more than six months later, he’s about to put another kid in the costume I died in. I died in that uniform, Dick. It should have ended with me.” Jason’s voice wobbles at the end, but his tone holds firm. There’s a sort of steely resolve in his eyes that Dick can recognize from the mirror.
It hurts. It hurts to hear Jason speak, words cleaving so cleanly through his chest, an unintentional weapon. Dick can hear what Jason’s not saying. It clogs his throat, and it takes a long moment for him to regain the ability to speak.
Jason beats him to it. “A good soldier,” he scoffs. “What a load of shit.”
Dick winces. He had told Bruce the display was in poor taste. Yelled at him about it, actually. It was the last time the two of them had talked face to face until Tim entered the picture.
“I told him you’d hate that.”
Jason side-eyes him, assessing. Dick can see the moment he decides to believe him— his shoulders slump, and he looks back out at Gotham. “Not even six months. At least let my body go cold first.” There’s a raw quality to Jason’s voice, a thinness that wasn’t there before. He sounds less angry now, more… tired.
Dick kind of wants to cry.
But this isn’t about him. It’s about Jason, about Robin and all that entails. Dick wonders if the truth will make the situation better or worse— if it comes off like Dick is defending Bruce, Jason will shut down the conversation. Dick doesn’t even really want to defend Bruce, and he’s not because that’s not what this is, but he does want to explain Tim because, well. Tim was right. Dick hates it, but it’s true. And the kid doesn’t deserve Jason’s ire for a situation that was in some ways inevitable.
“Bruce was going to kill himself.”
There’s no other way to say it, really.
Dick can see Jason’s face go pale, brows furrowed with something Dick can’t quite identify and he hastens to continue— “You— Robin—” Dick swallows, unable to say it. Carefully, he restarts, laying it out in his head. “Who even is Batman without Robin, nowadays? But I remember how he was, in the beginning. Batman was grief personified, weaponized into vengeance. So after… He went out. Every night. And everyone was guilty. Petty thieves, drug dealers, murderers, it didn’t matter. And Batman stopped pulling his punches. He—” Dick lets out a shaky breath, “He stopped dodging, too. The way he was going…”
Dick shakes his head. For all of his and Bruce’s disagreement’s, this isn’t anything he’d ever wish on the man. It sits like a lead weight on his chest, familiar to the heaviness that’s made itself home there over the past few months.
“He wouldn’t have made it,” Dicks says, finally, the words curdling on his tongue. “Either he would have died out on the streets, or he’d have lost himself to them. And for Bruce… that’s the same thing.
“Tim apparently figured out our identities years ago.” Dick chuckles wryly. “Apparently he saw me do a quadruple somersault, and the Flying Graysons are the only people in the world that know how. And so who could Robin be but me? And Tim he— He took all the evidence that Batman was getting worse, all the proof that Robin made Batman better, and he demanded that someone step up. I couldn’t do it. I told him no, flat out. That’s not… The mantle wasn’t mine, not anymore. The shoes no longer fit.”
Jason lets out a quiet protest, “Hey.”
Dick quirks his lips. “And so Tim took it upon himself. In the tried and true method of all Robins before him, he snuck out and started taking action, causing trouble. When Bruce realized he wasn’t playing around, that he wasn’t going to back down… Well,” Dick shrugs. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” Jason repeats, barely a murmur. His head is tilted on his knees, attention long since shifted towards Dick’s semi-rambling.
Jason stays quiet for a long time. His gaze is distant, locked somewhere far away as his mind turns inwards, thoughtful. Dick doesn’t have anything more to say, and is happy to sit with his brother in the relative peace of one of Gotham’s more quiet nights.
It eases something in his chest, a thread untangled from a knot that grows larger and more impossible every year.
God, he’s missed his brother. Dick’s so grateful that he has Jason back that it physically hurts.
“I don’t think I can be Robin again.” Jason’s voice is small, wavering, but almost loud against the rustle of wind against the trees and rooftop tiles. There’s a thread of certainty underneath it, though, and Dick can tell that despite his hesitance in saying it aloud, Jason means it. “I don’t think anyone should be Robin again. I meant it, Dick. Robin should have died with me. But…”
Jason laughs, then. It’s not a laugh of genuine amusement, or a patented Robin cackle at a criminal’s misfortune, but something bitter, wry, knowing. “Short of death, nothing is going to stop anyone who has had the Robin name, is it? And Tim has that name, doesn’t he, even if he’s never officially been out by Batman’s side.”
Dick thinks about that. It’s true, in a sense. Dick and Jason and every other hero he knows is stubborn to a fault. It’s a way of life, not just a job. And Tim might never have been Robin if Jason hadn’t died, but he had still been out on the streets, a small kid with an obsession with the city’s vigilantes and was bound to run into them one way or another. Eventually, he would have been involved. Robin or not. At least this way, Tim’s protected and supervised; he has a support system.
“He does,” Dick agrees. “But he’s a good kid. He’ll do the role justice, Jason. Do you justice. You’re his favourite Robin, you know.”
Jason blinks. His face goes loose in shock, actually, and Dick watches it in amusement. “What— What?”
Dick shrugs his shoulder and nudges him. “Well, yeah. You were the one he grew up with. You were the one he chased across rooftops photographing, the one he looks up to. You’re his idol, Little Wing. Of course you’re his favourite.”
His little brother’s eyes go wide. “Huh,” he says faintly.
“You might have to convince him you don’t want the role back, though. He seems determined to believe now that you’re back that he has no place here.”
Jason scowls, indignant. “That’s bullshit. B could’ve maybe waited a minute longer, but now that he has the kid, he isn’t just going to kick him out. Even if he weren’t Robin, Bruce is attached now. That’s that.”
“We know that.” Dick mostly even believes it. “Tim doesn’t.”
Jason’s lips pinch. “He will.” It’s a promise.
That, Dick does believe.
Quiet settles around them once again. It’s a nice night in Gotham, all things considered. The rain has let up for a couple days now, and the air is chilly, but not so cold as to discourage Dick in just his hoodie to getting up off the roof. He’s warm enough, and the subtle warmth of Jason beside him more than makes up for the late fall air.
There’s something that nags at him, though. The air is comfortable enough that Dick almost hesitates at breaking the peace, but… Maybe that will actually make this easier. There’s an openness between them now that never existed previously, and that Dick doubts will exist anytime soon after they leave the roof.
“If not Robin, then…” Dick starts tentatively, feeling the words almost stick themselves on his tongue, “Then what are you going to do?”
Jason sucks in a breath. His gaze is locked far, far away. “I don’t know,” he murmurs quietly, “Nothing for a while, I think. Go to school. College, maybe. God, I’m so behind now. It’s going to take me forever to catch up. Eventually, though…” Jason trails off for a long moment. “I don’t think I can resist the call forever. I guess I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
“Any ideas for a name?”
“Not really.” There’s a hitch in Jason’s breath. “I haven’t had to choose something for myself. How— How did you choose Robin? Or Nightwing?”
It takes Dick a second to realize that, no, Jason wouldn’t know where Robin comes from, would he? Bruce certainly wouldn’t have told him, and Dick had been too bitter to. Just another failure on their parts: Jason wears— wore —the Robin title so well, but he didn’t even know where it came from.
Well, that’s easy enough to change.
And, honestly, it should have probably been done years ago.
“Robin was my momma’s nickname for me. She called me her ‘little Robin.’” Dick smiles softly, and for a moment, it’s like he’s back in the big top. “After Bruce took me in… It was my way of carrying them with me.”
“Oh,” Jason says softly. “I didn’t know that.”
Dick hums. “No one told you. Bruce didn’t know, and I—” he lets out a sharp breath of air out his nose. “As much as I might like to lie to myself, I know how our relationship was. I don’t think I could have told you, not before.”
“Did I—” Jason cuts himself off, a look Dick can’t quite decipher passing briefly over his face. “What about Nightwing?”
Dick studies Jason for a moment, deciding whether or not to press. The diversion is blatant. Tentatively, gently, but surely, he says, “I am proud of you, you know. And—” Dick swallows, eyes suddenly stinging, “I would have answered your calls if I could have, Jay, I swear to God. I would have answered. I would have been there. I’ve never wished for more than anything in my life than to not have been on that damn space mission.”
The way Jason shoves his body into Dick’s should have maybe been expected, but it’s not. Throat tight and matching the shimmer in his brother’s eyes, Dick wraps an arm around Jason and hugs him against himself. Fingers twist themselves desperately into Dick’s hoodie, and he presses his face into Jason’s soft curls as Jason tucks himself against his side, nose tucked in close by his neck.
God, he had thought he had lost this forever. He had lost this forever. It’s pure fucking luck that Jason was brought back, that he ran into people that wanted to help and could rather than literally anyone else.
His chest aches, and he pulls Jason tighter against him. God. Dick might never let him go again.
Sometime later, Jason pulls away, rubbing at his eyes like Dick doesn’t have a new dark spot on his hoodie. He keeps one hand fisted in Dick’s clothes, though, and he’s grateful. Dick isn’t entirely sure he could have made himself part outside of an emergency. Regardless, he keeps an arm loosely wrapped around Jason’s torso, preventing him from straining very far.
“So, Nightwing?” Dick politely ignores the hoarseness in Jason’s voice. His brother clearly wants to move on from his moment of vulnerability, and Dick lets him.
Dick hums. “Well,” he starts. Hesitates. “I… I couldn’t be Robin anymore. I needed something— something separate from Batman. Something new, something my own. And— Uncle Clark told me a story.”
“Uncle Clark. Like Superman, Kal-El, Clark?”
“The very one,” Dick agrees. “Nightwing is from a Kryptonian legend. To cut a long story short, Nightwing is the protector in the shadows, he who hunts the evil down in the world. He put it a lot more eloquently, but the story… It resonated with me. It felt right. And thus…”
“…Nightwing was born,” Jason finishes. “Kryptonian. Crazy. I bet B loved that.”
“Oh, it pissed him right off. Once he found out, anyway. Clark told me the story a couple months before he published his book.”
Jason laughs. It’s different from any other sounds he’s made tonight. It’s real, honest, genuine laughter, a rough bark force out of his chest, light and clear with pure amusement. It eases something in Dick’s own chest, and he laughs softly along with him.
“Do you ever wonder how B landed on Batman?” Jason asks suddenly, voice still tinged with laughter. “Like, it’s gotta have something to do with the fact he grew up on top of a literal bat cave, right? There’s no way that’s not a coincidence.”
Dick hums, considers how this story is going to go. But— Maybe Jason needs to hear it, too. “I actually asked him once, you know.”
“Really? And?”
“And you’re not wrong. It has everything to do with the fact B grew up on top of a bat cave.” Dick pauses, and rocks on his haunches a little, the cold, hard grit of the rooftop’s shingles beneath him long grown uncomfortable. There’s something about this story, that he can feel in his gut, that will change something. What that could possibly be, he doesn’t know, but instinct has served him well thus far.
Acutely aware of the words coming out of his mouth, he takes a breath and continues, “And when he was a kid, fell into one. No one found him for hours. Just a little baby Bruce and the bats. Years later, he needed a name, and… Well. B said naming himself ‘Batman’ was a way of reclaiming that helplessness, that terror, and turning it into something to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, the same way the bats once evoked fear in him.”
Jason takes that in, his face going pinched and pensive. There’s a sort of understanding in his eyes that feels important, a dawning clarity that feels familiar in a foreign way. A decision comes to focus on his brother’s features, in the set of his eyebrows and pull of his lips, and he nods. Then, “So Bruce is afraid of bats.”
Dick blinks. There’s absolutely no way that’s what Jason was thinking about. Something tells him not to ask, though. Jason will tell him when he needs to, if he needs to.
He lets it pass. “He was.”
“And decided to basically move into the Batcave.”
“Hey, you can’t deny his methods were effective.”
Jason’s gaze narrows, but he concedes with a tilt of his head. “I guess I don’t have to decide now. I’m not… not really looking to go out right now. And I don’t think I could convince Bruce to let me out for anything in the world. I think he would prefer it if I never became a vigilante again at all.”
Dick winces, both sympathetic to Jason’s plight and deeply understanding of Bruce’s overbearingness in a way he’s never been before. “He’s just—”
“---Worried, I know. I know,” Jason repeats, quieter. “It’s not exactly like the last time I went out went well.” Dick barely keeps from flinching. “It’s— Kind of nice, actually.”
“Really?”
Jason shrugs one shoulder, clearly trying to play it off as something less than it is. “He cares. It’s… hard to remember, sometimes. So the smothering— it’s been nice.”
That— That— It hits like a lead blow to Dick’s chest. It’s so simple, really, and yet something Dick never fails to forget. Bruce turns his fear into control. Unfortunately, he doesn’t just keep that to control over his own life, but everyone he cares for as well. It’s an endlessly frustrating fact about the man, but it helps a little to remember that it comes out of a place of care. Misplaced care, most of the time, but still.
“It’ll get old eventually, I’m sure,” Jason continues, “but for now… For now, it’s good. I’m honestly surprised he’s left us alone up here for as long as he has.”
“That’s probably my fault,” Dick admits, pushing aside all his own Bruce-related issues. “He knows I wanted to talk to you.”
Jason snorts. “After all the yelling you two did earlier, I bet he wanted to let the peace settle before he ran you out again.”
His brother is probably not wrong. Dick hasn’t been back to the Manor in months, not for any longer than to visit Tim, anyways. He and Bruce’s relationship has been rocky for a long time, even before Jason’s death. It’s really not gotten any better since. If Tim hadn’t entered the picture— well, Dick still hasn't forgiven Bruce for how he found out about Jason’s death, nor the funeral. He doubts he ever will, really. Tim being introduced into their lives is probably the only thing holding his and Bruce’s relationship together. Until now, that is.
This will be the first time Dick, Jason, and Tim will all spend the night under one roof. Dick can see Bruce not wanting to risk that.
“Eventually we’re gonna have to get down off this roof, you know.”
Jason sends him a look. “We’re bats. Roofs are basically our second home.”
Dick smiles. There’s a truth to that, afterall. Dick has always found that he’s had the clearest head the farther up he is.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Well, sure,” Jason agrees, “but I think B will be just fine if we stay up here a little while longer.”
“If you insist.” It’s not even an argument. Dick will stay out here for as long as Jason wants him.
God, and to think that he had lost this forever.
Dick leans his shoulder back into Jason’s, and wraps his arm more comfortably around him. His brother is a long line of warmth that sinks into him, and Dick can physically feel the last of his tension dissolve into the night’s air around them. God. He closes his eyes, tucked back in close against his younger brother.
They stay on that roof the entire night. Bruce finds them asleep there before the next morning, and all he does is place a blanket over them, and sit down beside them. Tim clambers up at some point and falls asleep against Bruce, a whole little row of bats atop Wayne Manor.
It’s the most content Dick can remember waking in a long, long while.
— — | — —
And, it's the most content Dick ends up being for a long, long while.
In the meantime, his apartment is blown up, Haly’s Circus burns to the ground and—
Well, this isn’t that story.
No, for now, Dick is surrounded by his family; he has his little brother back, a new baby brother to cherish, and, well, he’s mad at Bruce, but that’s never stopped either of them from caring about each other.
Really, for their lives, it can hardly get much better.