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Dick was good at taking rest days. Yes, he still pushed himself when a case demanded it, even if he was injured, but all in all if he decided that his day would be dedicated to sitting in front of the tv and eating takeout then he was damn good at going through with his decision.
That’s why he wasn’t prepared for a knock at his door in the middle of the afternoon while The Office was playing in the background.
He stood up and went towards his door, already ready to send away whoever was at the other side of it. Still, nothing could have prepared him for the sight of a wayward robin aka -his younger brother- standing there in his school uniform, looking like a lost child from a Dickens book. Which, come to think of it, is not such a bad description for him if Dick took into account his upbringing.
“What are you doing here?”
This probably sounded harsher than he intended. He is just very surprised to see him at his apartment. It’s not as if they have a bad relationship or anything, it’s more like…they don’t have a relationship at all, or at least not a strong one. Sure, they’ve patrolled together a couple of times, but overall Dick had already left the nest by the time Jason came around. Not only that, but he has been much too busy with the Titans these past years, his job and just making a name for himself outside of Bruce’s shadow, to form a strong relationship with the new Robin. He didn’t want anything to do with the Great Big Bad Batman or anything adjacent to him.
Jason has still not responded though and that is kind of worrisome. He takes a better look at the fifteen year old boy in front of him. His eyes are puffy and tired, but they are not red. He’s been crying, that is certain, but it's probably been many hours since he last cried. Other than that, he carries his school bag with him, although it does seem heavier than a school bag is supposed to be. Most of all it is his gaze that worries him. Jason has always been easy to read, but now he is completely stone-faced, almost resigned in a way Dick can not explain yet.
“Jason, what happened?” he says a bit softer now.
This finally seems to bring him out of his stupor and he shakes for a second as if he just got goosebumps from the cold even if it's April and it’s not that cold outside anymore.
“Can I come in?”
Dick opens the door wider, ushering him inside, before he closes it behind him. He tries not to feel too embarrassed by the state of his living room. It’s certainly not as bad as it could have been, but something tells him that Jason has not even noticed it, let alone cared for something like that.
He goes and sits on his sofa expecting Jason to do the same. It’s only after some seconds have passed and he hears no footsteps that he turns around to look at him.
Jason stands in front of the door, exactly where he left him. He looks anxious now, fidgeting with the end of his shirt.
“Sorry, this was a bad idea. I’ll leave” he says and goes to turn around.
“Woah, wait a second.” Ok, whatever Dick thought may have happened, he now knows it's probably much worse. He stands up quickly and goes to his side.
“Let’s just go sit for a bit and you can tell me what Bruce did this time. Are you hungry?”
“No.”
Okay, Dick thinks. He can take care of this, whatever “this” is. What on earth could have happened for Jason to come all the way to Blud to see him. He isn’t even sure Jason likes him all that much to be honest.
After he deposits the kid on the couch, he goes to the kitchen and comes back with two glasses of water. One he leaves on the small table in front of them, sans coaster, and the other he gives to Jason, while turning off the TV with the other hand.
Jason is not particularly looking at anything, his gaze lost somewhere deep in his mind, as he grips the cold glass like a lifeline. God, he looks so young right now, Dick thinks. His serious expression makes him seem younger instead of older. He looks like one of those children who act like adults to be taken seriously and only succeed in looking more like children in the process.
“Ok, you really need to tell me what happened. I can’t send you back to Bruce like this.”
From Jason’s tiny flinch he realizes that this was probably the wrong thing to say.
“Bruce does not want me anymore.”
Dick stills at that. There is no way that’s true. Yes, Bruce may have kind of thrown him out when he was seventeen, but he had already finished school by then. Plus, they had been fighting for months and it didn’t help that he didn’t want to go to college. All in all, things had been heading there for a long time.
But Jason is the opposite. From what he hears, mostly from Alfred, Jason and Bruce’s relationship is really good. They don’t fight all that much, Jason loves school and reads all the time. He is the perfect child, Dick thinks and unfortunately that thought still makes a little jealousy spring inside him even if he’s always quick to snuff it out. Bruce is not his whole life anymore, such matters don’t concern him.
Jason must take his silence as acceptance though, cause he continues talking.
“I knew this was coming. It’s alright, it wasn’t gonna last forever anyway. I shouldn’t even be here. I just needed a little bit of time to-”
“Hold on. What are you talking about? Bruce adores you.”
Jason shakes his head. There are no tears, no sadness present in his expression, nothing. As if it is a fact, as if he is certain Bruce wants him gone and he has already come to terms with it. It is this that scares him more than anything. No child should appear this composed when they think they are being kicked out.
“Look, whatever has happened has clearly shaken you, but I can assure you Bruce would never throw you out. He can’t even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t. You are legally his son, and you are still in school.”
Something brief flashes in Jason’s eyes at that, but Dick does not know what it means.
“I don’t stay where I’m not wanted.” he says, resigned. “I just need one day to get some things sorted out and then I’ll leave, I promise.”
“And go where?” Dick can’t believe what he is hearing. “Back to the streets? You think Bruce would ever- forget Bruce, you think I would ever let you go back to the streets!”
Jason turns to look at him for the first time since he arrived and his expression makes something crack inside him.
“You don’t owe me anything, and neither do I want to owe you anything, so stop with whatever you’re trying to do cause it’s not gonna work.”
Dick doesn’t know if he should feel heartbroken or offended that the kid thinks he would want to be owed anything by Jason of all people. This is just a reminder that he does not know the teenager in front of him at all and whatever he thought he knew should probably be reevaluated.
“Whatever happened he’ll forgive you.”
“Oh really, you think he’ll forgive murder?” he yells.
Dick feels as if a bucket of iced water just fell on his head.
“What am I even doing here? You’re even more likely to send me to juvie than him.” Jason says more to himself than to him and as if remembering himself takes his bag and rushes towards the door. Dick is faster though and catches him by the arm to which Jason yanks it back with more force than Dick expected, sending them both to the floor.
“Wait a damn second Jason! I’m not taking you anywhere okay?”
He waits a few seconds, watching the teenager in front of him who is looking significantly less composed now that both of them are sprawled on the floor. He nods and that is all the confirmation Dick needs.
He gets up and helps Jason stand as well. He is surprised when he doesn’t yank his hand away. They make their way to the couch.
When they’ve finally sat down and Jason has taken the glass to his hands again, even if he hasn’t drunk from it at all, Dick says,
“I swear I’m not taking you anywhere. Not even to Bruce, but you need to tell me what happened.” he still cannot get out of his head the fact that he just admitted to murdering someone.
His stony expression falters slowly and it is being replaced with red, glazed eyes and trembling hands which only grip the glass of water tighter, as if needing the glass shards to break into his skin.
“I- she didn’t deserve that.” he says, his lips wobbling.“He was a monster! He raped her and then when he got caught he called her just to taunt her even more and she took her own life because of that scum and I was too late!” His breaths are coming faster now and Dick’s afraid of what he is gonna hear next, because this is worse, much worse than whatever he had in mind and Jason is absolutely not okay.
“And then he was at the balcony” he continues, the water ready to fall from the glass he’s holding. “And I found him and I spooked him and he fell an- and I-I didn’t do anything. I-I didn’t even do anything! I just let him fall and Bruce thinks I pushed him! And I might as well have, because I wanted to- I really wanted to.” he tries to breathe, but the breath gets lodged in his throat and he speaks again stronger this time. “He didn’t deserve to live when he had taken her life! He wasn’t even gonna go to prison, cause he’s the son of a fucking diplomat! He was just gonna get away with it and he almost did, but then he fell and I didn’t catch him!”
Jason is full on crying now. Sobbing and breathing hard as if the room does not have enough oxygen. Dick takes the glass from his hand and turns his body towards him before he does the one thing he is very good at. He hugs him.
The kid is trembling in his arms. Those full on body-trembles where it feels as if each sob is getting pushed out of you and the crying is less crying and more trying to get a breath into your lungs. His unfeeling expression makes so much sense now, if that was what he was holding inside.
Jason continues to cry and cry and cry. He can’t even tell him anything. That whole protocol about how to cure a panic attack or calm down, the one Jason knows as well, does not even enter his mind. No wonder he ran away if that’s what he thinks. Bruce’s rule about killing is absolute, it is like law, worse than law, it is something his Robins should not even think about, just mindlessly follow. And now Jason thinks he’s killed someone and in a way he may have and Bruce thinks that as well. He rubs his back and hugs him tighter, hoping the physical touch will make him feel more grounded.
He wants to know more about the case, but there is no way in hell he’s gonna ask that Jason tell him anything else in his current state. He is lucky enough that he came to find him and did not go back to the streets. He really wants to call Bruce. Yell at him for a good ten minutes and then demand that he not only explains to him what happened, but makes sure Jason knows that he’s not being thrown out. He’s not gonna do that now though. Perhaps after the kid goes to sleep.
Many minutes pass before Jason seems to finally stop crying. He does not let go. His heart breaks when he realizes how strongly Jason is holding him as well, how much he needed this. They have never hugged like this before, they’ve never been this vulnerable with each other. This is perhaps the first time he feels so protective over him, as if that really is his little brother who he trully sees as one and doesn’t just say so for the public's eyes.
“It’s alright Jay. It’s going to be okay.” he tells him softly and slowly caresses his hair as he remembers his mother doing, and that is a whole other rabbit hole he does not want to fall in right now. He tries not to think of her, even if he almost feels her presence in this room. She could never bear it when children cried.
Finally, after what feels like hours, Jason lets him go. Dick almost misses the warmth, but he understands that Jason needs to compose himself after all this emotional turmoil.
He looks so lost, as if he doesn’t know what he is doing here. His eyes are almost closed from all the crying, his eyelashes glued together from the tears and no matter how much he tries to blink them away he can’t.
Dick stands up quickly and goes to the kitchen, feeling a certain urgency he cannot explain. He wets a small towel and goes back to their couch, almost bumping his knee on the table in the process. He sits next to Jason and begins wiping the tear tracks from his face as smoothly as he can, so he does not irritate his skin. Then he moves on to his eyes and he expects Jason to take the towel from him and do it himself, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t move at all, only sits there as Dick wipes away the sticky tears from his eyelashes, while Dick feels his own eyes start glistening a bit at the expression on Jason’s face. He looks done with life and that thought scares him. He remembers what it feels like to be fifteen. Not yet an adult, but not a child either. Having the world at your feet while simultaneously keeping yourself from falling, desperate to get away from a world you don’t agree with, one that would sooner see you dead than see you happy. He remembers the day Bruce stopped being infallible in his eyes, he remembers the anger and betrayal that sprung inside of him at that realization. The day Bruce stopped being his inspiration, his hero, his god and everything in between.
When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.
That paragraph is still highlighted at least five times in his copy of East of Eden. Jason might be considered the reader of the family, but Dick also knows what it feels like to be understood and seen by the pages of a book. To find a couple of words organized in such a perfect way, such that you would have never been able to manage yourself, and yet it is as if they have been taken out of some deep intricate tendrils of your soul. A part of you that perhaps you’d never even been aware existed, but now stands naked before you like a long awaited truth that has finally been revealed.
Perhaps that is what Jason’s going through right now, along with everything else that has happened these days. Perhaps he’s only now seeing Bruce for what he is; a small boy in the streets of Crime Alley with specks of blood all over his expensive clothes. A boy that knows he’ll never be happy again.
Or, perhaps Jason has never seen Bruce as anything other than what he is. Perhaps it was only Dick who fell for the lie and wore it like armor, until that armour rusted and fell apart on him. Perhaps Jason is used to adults letting him down and that is why he keeps a full bag under his bed, ready to leave before the lie has time to rust and shatter in front of him. I do not stay where I’m not wanted. Jason’s words ring in his ears.
“I found my mother.” Jason says softly and it is so quiet he almost didn’t hear it at all, as if both of them are not yet ready to disturb the silence. That old neutral expression is back on his face, but it looks fake with how red his eyes are.
“Your mother?” he asks and Dick really hopes he is not going through a dissociative episode and he’ll have to explain to him that his mother died years ago.
“My biological mother.”
So Catherine was not his biological mother. From the way Jason says it he assumes he also hadn’t known that was the case. This is a whole other can of worms.
“She’s in Ethiopia. I’m gonna go find her.”
“Wait, what?” that escalated very quickly. “You can’t go all the way to Ethiopia.”
“After everything that happened? Of course I can.”
“No you can’t, especially not after everything that happened!”
Jason’s hurt look shouldn’t affect him as much as it does. He looks angry and betrayed at the same time and Dick knows that if he doesn’t fix it, Jason will just run away again. He softens his gaze.
“Look, I’m not trying to keep you away from her, but we know nothing of this woman and it is too dangerous to go all alone to the other side of the world. You can meet her some other way, or-or I can come with you so you’re not alone. Or- I don’t know… anything.”
God, now he’s just throwing words out like an anxious school boy, but it’s because he knows Jason is one second away from bolting out the door and flying to another continent. Thank god he hurt his leg and didn’t go to that space mission with the Titans. He doesn’t even want to imagine what would have happened if he had not been there and Jason had simply left on his own, fueled by spite, sadness and unstable teenage hormones.
More than anything he’s grateful that Jason chose to come to him despite Dick’s minimal efforts to build a relationship with him. He does not know who he has to thank for this gift. It suddenly crosses his mind that the kid does not dislike him as much as Dick believed until now. That perhaps Jason had wanted a brother, had wanted Dick as a brother but had also learnt from a very young age to not burden the adults around him, to leave the moment he suspects he is unwanted, to see people and assume the worst not only about them, but also about how they perceive him.
How could he have been so stupid? It is like a dam has broken and he’s having realization after realization. Jason has barely spoken since he came and still he feels as if he finally understands him, as if this is the first time he sees him as his own entity and not as a reflection of Bruce. It is the first time he realizes how fucked up it was to treat a kid like Bruce’s lackey, to see him and care for him superficially because he represents everything that he has left behind and everything that he partly wishes he still had.
Perhaps this is his only chance to fix this mistake, because something tells him things are not going to go back to how they were and that scares him more than he is willing to admit. This is deeper than the case with the diplomat. That was simply the last drop that overfilled the glass and made it spill all over the floor, but the water has been filling up the glass for ages now and no one noticed.
“Please, just stay here for a week until everything calms down. As for Bruce I can assure you he’s not throwing you out, nor does he want to throw you out. I can call him later so that he confirms it if you lik-”
“No” Jason cuts him off before he can even finish that sentence.
“Alright, that’s fine, whatever you want. I won’t call him.” he swallows through a burning in his throat, but only succeeds in making it relocate to his chest. It is finally very tight and he puts one hand over it to rub it and loosen it up. He’s afraid, but he’s not sure why. Just a feeling that something bad is going to happen and he needs to prevent it. It is so irrational and yet so real at the same time, he does not know if he should trust it or not.
“You’ll stay with me for a week right?” he says as softly as he can, not wanting to drive Jason away with his desperation. God knows what the kid is thinking right now. This whole visit is equally tragic and surreal.
Jason looks at him with those big blue eyes of his, but it is almost as if he is looking through him. He turns his gaze away to look at the glass of water on the table. It looks as if he is thinking of holding it again, but decides against it. It must be all warm now.
The reddish hue that the room is being painted with reminds him that the day is ending. It is not often that they get sunsets in Blud or in Gotham. Still, it is a reminder that the night is coming, that Batman is coming and when that happens they’ll need to figure out what to do.
“Jay?” he asks again. No response.
“Can you at least tell me what you’re thinking?” he tries, a bit more softly.
Jason looks at him as if he doesn’t believe him at all.
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking.” he says so quietly he almost doesn’t hear him and if that doesn’t break his heart he does not know what will.
“I do Jay”
Jason looks at him once more, as if wanting to make sure. Dick does not know what Jason finds in his gaze, but he sighs before he turns around to look at the glass again.
“I’m thinking of my mom.”
That explains the sorrow he finds in his face. Still, whatever it is, it’s better to tell him that to keep it bottled inside. He nods once, prompting him to continue. He doesn’t know if Jason sees it, but he starts speaking anyway.
“Everyone likes to blame my mom for a lot of things. My real one, not the one I’m going to find. And yet everyone pities me when I say I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved her.”
He looks ready to cry again and it’s breaking Dick’s heart. He is sitting with his knees pulled up and his hands around them, his chin supported by the top of his knees. He looks even younger like that. It seems that mothers happen to be on the forefront of both their minds today. Perhaps his own mother is in the room listening, perhaps she wants to comfort the young boy just like she wants to comfort the young man sitting beside him.
“And she loved me too. She used to call me her little angel, because I would do anything to keep her alive, us, but mostly her. I was nine when I first went to the streets to find money whichever way I could. I did all sorts of things” his breath hitches and his gaze clouds over. “Disgusting things, that I- that were-”
Dick stays frozen in his place. He can’t mean… surely he can’t mean that. His eyes are watering again, but it is as if he can’t speak at all, as if there is something lodged into his throat and if he were to open his mouth it would come out like a flood and then he’d never stop crying. He doesn’t know if he wants to cry for Jason or start raging about the fact that some people did that to his brother, did that to a child. Does Bruce knows about this?
He looks at Jason through blurry eyes. He looks paler than he did a minute ago, but his eyes are determined around the edges, even if their core is oozing with sadness and regret.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jason continues and swallows. “She didn’t know about that of course, nor did she ever find out. I got us food and I got us money for her medicine. Or at least what she told me was her medicine. I’m embarrassed by how long it took me to realize that it wasn’t medicine at all and I was simply helping her ki-” he sucks another breath and Dick almost wants to tell him to stop talking, but he cannot make his mouth form the words. He can only sit there silently as his brother bears his soul out for the chance that… what? He’ll be comforted, understood, relieved? Whatever he wants, Dick swears he’ll give it to him.
“But despite all that, she was so good. She was the kindest person I’ve ever known. When she was lucid, she would always hug me and would never let me go, even if she was weak, even if she was hungry. It didn’t matter. She would ask me about my day, cause she still thought I was going to school. I’d tell her of my friends, who did not exist of course, and of everything we did together during the breaks. I would tell her that the school gave us some lunch so that she would stop refusing to eat because she wanted to give it to me. And then I would tell her of the books I was reading, which was not always a lie. The library was not far and I went there sometimes during winter because they had good heating.
Other times she would cry for hours while she hugged me, calling me her little angel again and again and then in those few moments of lucidity she would always pray with her mother’s rosary for me to have a good life, a happy life. She kept saying that she did not care about her own, but only wished her son to be well and happy. I always got a bit mad when she did that, wishing she would pray for herself as well. Then she would cry again and hug me and I would cry with her, shushing her and begging her to pray for her own life, even if she never did. When she finally fell asleep, I would take her rosary from her hand, hold it the way I had seen her do and pray to God not to take her from me, because I didn’t want to be alone. Dad was in prison at that time and I could never decide if that was a good or a bad thing. I still have her rosary by the way.”
Jason reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wooden rosary. Some of the beads look worn out, but the metal cross looks almost new and Dick thinks he might have asked Bruce to polish it.
“I don't use it anymore though.” he says and puts it back in his pocket, while Dick continues to remain frozen in his seat. His tears have been falling for some time now, but they have done it silently and Dick is grateful for that. He almost asks Jason not to continue, everything he says is more horrifying than the previous one.
“I wasn’t an angel.” he finally says and his voice sounds wobbly for the first time in a while. “If I was, I would have saved her.” he utters before a sob comes out of his chest, strong and desperate and tragic.
Dick can’t do anything but take him in his arms again, and he is so grateful Jason just falls in them without any prompting. He needs physical contact, closure. He thinks he’ll disintegrate without it. What the hell did he just hear? All of it, from start to finish. How can one person carry all that and yet it does not show anywhere. That is true for all of them, he thinks, but it is Jason who is still a kid, it is Jason who is ready to go to the other side of the world for a small chance that his so-called mother will be anything like the memory of the woman that raised him. All that while thinking that Bruce does not want anything to do with him.
Jason sobs again into his chest, but it is nothing like before, it is almost soundless and muffled from Dick’s shirt. His blue eyes are closed, as Dick puts his chin on top of his head, letting the black curls tickle his skin.
“When she died, it wasn’t sudden.” he continues, his voice sounding so small inside his embrace. Dick dreads what he’s going to say next, because he knows what a sudden death looks like and he does not know which one is worse.
“I knew it was coming and the dealer all but confirmed it. He was sad to be losing another client and tried to get me to start on drugs as well, but I didn’t want them anywhere near me.” he hiccups once and Dick tries to soothe him by rocking them slightly back and forth.
“I stayed in our apartment for three days after she died. I couldn’t carry her, I couldn’t ask anyone for help, because they would call social services on me, so I just stayed until it got too much and I fled through the window. I felt so guilty for leaving her there, I still do.” he sobs again and it sounds as if it is being ripped out of him.
“Shhh. It’s alright, she’s resting now.” Dick finally says his first words in what feels like hours and he does not recognise how broken his voice sounds. Jason sobs louder at that, so he softly rubs his back and holds him closer.
“Catherine was my mother, but what if she wants to be my mother as well?” he asks timidly. “Now that Bruce does not want me, perhaps she will and perhaps she’ll be kind like Catherine was. I do not care that she gave me up, she probably had her reasons, but she might want me now.”
God, he can’t take this, Dick thinks. He sounds so hopeful and so heartbroken at the same time. Does Bruce know about any of this, or has he lived with this boy for four years and is still not aware of the demons he carries. He knows Bruce would never throw him out, but if he dares, Dick swears he’s going to adopt Jason himself.
“Bruce loves you Jay.”
“No, he doesn’t”
“Yes little wing, he does.”
“No, he doesn’t!” he shouts and wrenches himself off Dick’s arms and Dick almost follows after him, surprised and heartbroken at the action. Jason goes and locks himself inside the bathroom and Dick is at his feet in a second.
“Jay.” he asks desperately, knocking at the door. “Little wing, please open the door.”
Dick’s full on trembling now. He doesn’t think Jason will do anything, but Jason’s also very emotionally vulnerable right now and people do stupid things when they are in that state.
“Jay, come on. Please” he almost yells through his tears. Jason should not be alone right now.
“Jay, come on, just open the door for me, I swear I won’t mention him again.” he stops for a second, to try and breathe, because it’s suddenly getting very hard to and he is getting more and more desperate.
“Jay, if you don’t open it, I’m breaking it down.”
“Please” he says more softly. “We’ll find a solution together okay, just open the door little wing, I’m begging you.” he asks and his voice breaks in the end.
There is a tiny click from the other side. The next time Dick uses the handle, the door opens and he can finally breathe again.
The sight that greets him will remain seared into his memory for a long time.
Jason’s sitting in front of the bathtub sobbing, his knees pulled close to him and his face buried in them. Dick goes to his side immediately, sitting next to him and putting a hand over his shoulder. He feels him shake beneath it every time his body flinches forward with each one of his sobs. Oh Jay, he thinks. He softly guides his brother’s torso sideways so that he is leaning onto him instead of on his legs and Jason goes and buries his face in Dick’s chest like he had done before.
Dick is so grateful he can give him any comfort at all after the nightmare he’s been through these past days. He wishes he could take it away. It seems so unfair for Jason to be crying like that. Jay, who has always been so brave and determined and happy even. He thinks of all the times they’ve met. He always thought he was a happy teen, at least since he got taken in by Bruce. It was the only thing that made the passing of his legacy to another kid more bearable. “I’m Robin, and being Robin gives me magic.” He tries to put these two versions of Jason side by side. He finds that he can’t. Not while Jason is crying his eyes out in his arms, ready to go to the other side of the world for the dream of a young boy that might not even exist.
But it seems there’s always been a certain alienation between the person and the mask. Perhaps even more for Jason than for him. He remembers putting on those colours like it was yesterday. How strong he felt, how infinite.
For Jason it must have also been an escape. When you’re trying to hide from your own skin, you cannot rip it out. But perhaps you can paint it, or wear a new one in its place and in that new skin be someone else entirely. This is a type of magic, Dick can’t help but think.
Jason is still crying when Dick starts humming an old Romani lullaby his mother used to sing to him to get him to sleep. He hasn’t thought about it in years, but it seems fitting that he remembers it now. He holds Jason closer as he is humming verse after verse after verse. He feels his mother’s warm hands in his hair, caressing them in an almost hypnotic motion. He tries to do the same to Jason, even though he is certain he does not do it as well.
Jason stops crying after a while, but Dick does not stop humming, nor does he stop the familiar motion in Jason’s curls. He feels completely drained, as if someone sucked the life force out of him. He does not have any more tears to cry and his eyes burn and throb at the same time with how much tears he’s shed today. He’s certain Jason feels the same.
He doesn’t hear Jason’s breathing as much as he feels it. The slight exhales tickle his exposed skin, right above his shirt. They are slow and steady, the way someone breathes when they are asleep. He stops humming and slowly stops the familiar motion as well. He waits a couple of seconds to make sure Jason is truly asleep before he picks him up as softly as he can so he does not wake him.
He takes him to his bedroom, Dick will take the couch. He is certain Jason would disagree and demand to take the couch instead, but he’s asleep and Dick wants him to rest well tonight.
After he puts him on his bed and pulls out the covers, he goes to the kitchen and fills up a glass of water before he brings it to the side table. He’ll need it in the morning. Probably some pain killers as well, but Dick prefers it if he asks him tomorrow for them instead of just finding them near the bed.
He looks at him for a few seconds. How can a couple of hours and some words change your whole perception of someone so drastically? At that moment Dick feels as if he would do anything for his little brother and he wishes so desperately that everything gets resolved and that he can be the brother Jason deserves from now on. He can take him on his motorcycle and then they can go for ice cream. He can even take him to the Titan’s tower if he wants to come. They can go skiing, they can go swimming, or train surfing. There are so many things they have yet to do. That bad feeling he felt earlier is not there anymore, but it’s not entirely gone either.
He brushes some soft curls out of Jason’s forehead. He remembers a thought he had a couple of hours ago. That he’d adopt him if Bruce was really ready to throw him out, that even if he wasnt…if Jason did not want to stay with Bruce anymore, then he would offer instead. It shocks him how determined he is in this decision, how right it feels.
He goes towards the couch, but leaves the door of his bedroom open in case something happens. He needs to talk to Bruce, but he does not have the energy right now. Besides, he promised Jason he wouldn’t and he is willing to keep his promise for another day, or until Bruce has grown enough grey hairs by worrying that he starts hunting them down. That thought brings a small smile to his face. Everything will be resolved, they must be. Perhaps they’ll even be stronger because of all this nightmare, closer, more like a family. For the first time in many years Dick does not dread that thought. He almost looks forward to it actually.
It is with these thoughts that he falls asleep that night, hoping no nightmares find them.
When he wakes up the next morning, Jason is gone.