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He doesn’t really know how it happens. They’re at the Manor, sometime after dinner, everyone napping, chatting, snacking, or working.
Somehow, a book ends up in his hands, and Jason sprawls out on the couch like a lazing cat, the setting sun casting a dusty glow and a smile Dick thinks he might be imagining.
Anxiety’s already simmering, crawling, fighting to escape his skin.
“Read,” Jason says, and Dick’s stomach clenches.
Because he can’t. Can’t read more than a sentence per five minutes, painfully sounding it out and stumbling over words. And that isn't pleasant to listen to, trust him, he knows.
Between his mother and his father, stories were strictly oral, and the spoken word was more important than anything.
Sure, he spoke Romani, and French and Russian and— and nearly twelve languages in all by the time he was thirteen. But between Robin and his teams, skipping school and self-study, reading was never really a necessity. Assigned reading had audiobooks, homework could be pored over…and numbers were different.
Dick couldn’t read, and he couldn’t admit that.
“Well, Jay, I—” It was just like that, that the moment was gone.
Jason didn’t stop smiling; on the contrary, he smiled wider, mean and sharp, and hurt if you knew where to look, “And we were having such a nice time.”
“Jason, it’s not like that,” he pleaded.
“Tell me what it’s like then Dickhead,” He snapped, still sprawled on the couch, but noticeably tenser, eyes up on the ceiling.
“I—” He started, sucking in a breath, elbows on his knees, head in his hands like it was time for confession. Then Tim walked past, into the kitchen, now within hearing distance, and Dick choked. “I’m not a nice reader,” he finished lamely, and he could see Tim scrunch his eyebrows from where he was standing, listening while pretending he wasn’t.
“The fuck does that even mean?” Jason hissed, “Seriously, whoever fucking heard of a nice reader? If you don’t want to, then just say that, Jesus.”
Except he did.
“Why don’t you read?” He was grasping at straws now, desperately trying to make sure this interaction, this night, didn’t end up on Jason's long list of ‘Older Brother Failures—Shitty Things Dick did that put the Dick in Dick’
Jason was quieter now, confusion taking over in place of anger, soft now, he says, “Listen Grayson, I’m serious, we don’t have to do this if you—”
“But I do.” And he says it with all the firmness he can manage in this moment.
Then Jason silently takes the book, flipping the first page of an incredibly worn spine open, before promptly flipping past the next ten or twenty.
“Hey! What— What! You can’t do that, you’re just skipping through the book!” Dick squawks, because you can’t, right? You don’t just skip chapters because you want to.
Jason huffed. “That was the introduction, dipshit, unless you wanna sit through twenty-three pages of useless personal anecdotes and a summary of the book.” Then he narrowed his eyes, and Dick could practically see the suspicion brewing, “Have you never read this copy of Pride and Prejudice…?”
Dick had two options here: a, tell him he read it, risk questions; b, tell him he didn't, risk fire of hell.”Isn't that by Jane Austen? The lady you really like?” Evade. He panicked.
“That lady you really like,” Jason mimicked, “She’s the only redeeming factor of the 18th century; if any sibling of mine is uninformed, I consider that a failure of my teaching.”
Dick grimaced, then gave him one of those… well, hate to break it to you, brother dear grins, which only caused to deepen Jasons scowl.
“Don't tell me you haven't read Pride and Prejudice, period.”
Dick hummed noncommittally.
“You, Dick!” He screeched, “I got you a copy for Christmas!”
Dick rolled his eyes. “You got everyone a copy, even Alfred the cat.”
“There’s within felines an intelligence you've yet to comprehend.” Jason shot back thickly.
“Would you just read already, asshole,” he whined, and he could almost feel Jason's satisfaction as he turned the page.
“Chapter One. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife…”
And so it went, and it was peaceful, for a while.
Then Jason yawned and closed his eyes, folding their spot in the book between a finger and stretching it over to Dick.
“Read,” he implored for the second time that day, “‘m falling ‘sleep.”
And Dick took the book. Because he didn't know what else to do.
He just stared at the letters as they gradually came into focus, then danced away from him, and Jason's breath went quiet; he thought he might’ve fallen asleep.
“Now, Dick,” and his heart jumped back into his throat.
He took a breath, then with as much casualness as he could express, began.
“‘Th-they h-have no—none of th-em m-mu-ch to reco-m—m-mend,” His cheeks were so flushed he could feel them burning, embarrassment running thick and hot and twisting, but Jason hadn't said anything, hadn't moved, eyes still closed and breath still even; he might as well be fast asleep.
So he kept going, not exactly knowing why. “Recom-mend them,’ repli-ed he: ‘th-ey are al-l silly and ig-nor-ant, li-ke oth—er g-irls; b-ut L-izzy h-has some-thi-ng m—ore of a qu-i-ck-n—ess th-an her s-iste-rs.’” He ended the paragraph with a sigh, long and suffering. Face burning, eyes squeezed shut.
Jason cracked one eye open, “That’s it?”
Dick sighed again, “I told you I was a bad reader.”
“Not bad,” Jason told him, with a small smile, “just inexperienced.” Then, turning slightly, “How come?”
And wasn’t that the question? You would think Bruce, with his thousand-dollar tutors, laser-focus, and arguably genius detective skills, would realize his Robin was illiterate.
He rubbed furiously at his face, “Nobody ever taught me.”
“Bruce?” Just one carefully worded inquiry that Dick didn't know how to answer.
So he shrugged, and written in the lines of his shoulders were bitterly expressed accusations: ‘didn’t notice’, ‘didn’t care’, ‘didn’t pay enough attention’.
And Jason sighed, so Dick looked up from the dark red-black blot he’d reserved on the carpet for his staring, and he found something inexplicably sad and confusing he couldn’t quite comprehend.
“Jay?” A question, a query, a waiting game. And then Jason says the last thing he’d ever expect.
“I’m sorry.” In many ways, it was a confirmation of everything Dick had ever feared; he had lost something, been cheated, stolen from.
In many ways, it was a heartwarming avowal that he wasn’t tying himself up in knots over nothing. That he had been disadvantaged, and it did matter. He mattered at least to his brother.
Dick smiled at him, an open admission of love, “Thanks.”
Jason just rolled his eyes, stifling a smirk, “That’s the part where you’re supposed to say, ‘it’s not your fault’, jackass.”
“Oh yeah, maybe I blame you—” Dick barely makes out before he’s dodging a pillow, which he takes in the face, much to Jason's amusement and evil cackles.
“Now read!” Jason intones, commanding in some theatrical way Dick’s sure must be a reference to something but doesn’t quite catch, “Read my angel of Literacy, read for me.”
He rolls his eyes, “Whatever weirdo,” but does as he’s told.
And if, when Alred announces there are warm cookies, and neither of them gets up, they don’t mention it, and if they keep reading all through the chatter of their family crowding the room, they don’t bring it up, and if they don’t stop until even Dick’s dozing off, they don’t talk about it, and if Dick keeps reading to Jason, every night after dinners, nobody says a thing.
And if Dick’s first book finished is Pride and Prejudice, you can guarantee there isn’t anyone prouder than Jason Todd.