Chapter Text
During Jason’s time in the League, they left him alone in his room a lot.
It wasn’t until later that he realized this was entirely intentional.
Obviously, it was still the League of fucking Shadows—they had him on a training regimen that bordered on torture. They worked him until exhaustion, until collapse, until his body gave out and vision turned white and then black.
Afterward, they always brought him back to his room. And then they’d just…leave him there. Alone.
His “room” was six feet by six feet. A cell. The walls were sandstone and the floors were dusty. He had a basin, a narrow bed that quickly became much too small, and a single slit of window he had to stand on his tiptoes to see through. Nothing else.
So Jason—confused, sore, and anxious—paced like a caged animal. Back and forth, back and forth, until the soles of his tabi boots wore faint grooves into the gritty floor.
One, two, three, turn.
One, two, three, turn.
One, two, three, turn.
The sun would dip low after the final meal and brush the compound in bronze. Then the moon would rise, pulling an indigo sheet of twinkling stars across the sky. Still, Jason would be pacing.
In the beginning, he always thought they’d at least test him—catch him at his most vulnerable, dragging him from his bed in the middle of the night to fight five assassins in the dark or something equally as batshit—but they never did.
If Jason wasn’t training, eating, or bathing, he was in his room. Alone. Where there was nothing to do but pace. Nothing to do but think.
And by god, think Jason did.
At first, he thought about home. He mourned Alfred’s cooking and the Manor’s warmth. He longed for Dick’s hugs, his freely given tactile love.
He ached for his dad. For Bruce.
Jason trained, ate, slept, bathed, paced. All the while, the Manor was a foothold in his mind, one he clung to with white knuckles. Home. He just has to find a way to get back home.
When he finally settled back into his own mind after a dip in the Lazarus Pit sent him stark raving mad for a week, Talia started telling him things. She fed him information about the outside world and everything he’d missed during his time in the ground.
“Your killer walks free. You remain unavenged,” was the first thing she told him.
Jason didn’t believe her for a second. I am vengeance was literally part of Batman’s fucking catchphrase. Bruce had caught the Joker—of course he had. He wouldn’t let the man who killed his son simply walk away. He wouldn’t let that monster hurt anyone else. He wouldn’t.
Later, Talia said, “Dick Grayson did not attend your funeral.”
At that, Jason laughed in her face. He was promptly smacked for the insolence, but he didn’t care. That was simply absurd. If anyone loved him, it was Dick. They were brothers; Dick said so himself when he’d given Jason his Robin suit. They were family. Sure, he’d missed Jason’s last phone call before he’d gotten on that plane, but Jason didn’t blame him for not being there when he died. He knew his big brother cared about him; there was no truer fact in the world.
Then Talia told him, “There is another in your suit.”
Jason scoffed. Bruce would never do that. He was smart enough to know that Robin should be retired. He would never risk letting another child get killed in those colors.
Bruce loved Jason. One argument didn’t change that. A single bad night didn’t crumble everything they’d built together. What happened on that balcony…it didn’t erase who Jason was. Besides, Dick would never replace him. Jason just had to get back.
That was all. He just had to get back home.
So he paced. He trained. He ignored Talia’s words and held fast to his certainty. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. And slowly, that certainty began to rot.
Talia never argued with him. She never gave him the satisfaction of debating the information she presented. She simply planted the thought and let him sit with it. Alone. His mind was fresh soil; Talia held the seeds. She curated the garden. She pruned the vines.
Jason wasn’t allowed to go anywhere else on the compound. He had nowhere but his room.
Your killer walks free.
Dick Grayson did not attend your funeral.
There is another in your suit.
Yeah, right. Talia obviously had no idea what she was talking about.
(…Right?)
(Right. Bruce loved him. Dick loved him more. Jason knew this. Jason was certain of this.)
Then one evening, she came into his room carrying a small bundle. She set it on the floor and left. Curious, Jason pulled on the twine. Inside the cloth was a stack of newspapers. Pictures. Proof.
JOKER KILLS DOZENS IN HALLOWEEN BOMBING
DICK GRAYSON RETURNS TO GOTHAM MONTHS AFTER TODD’S DEATH
ROBIN REVIVED: BOY WONDER BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER
Jason read them again. And again. And again. Until the words burned themselves into his corneas and the world stopped lurching beneath his feet.
It was…undeniable. It was everything Talia had been telling him for months. Fucking undeniable proof.
Your killer walks free. You remain unavenged.
Dick Grayson did not attend your funeral.
There is another in your suit.
One by one, Talia’s words settled into place inside him like puzzle pieces snapping together. He could finally see the big picture.
So Jason—left alone with nothing to do but train and pace and think, train and pace and think, train and pace and think—finally stopped pacing.
And he began to plan.
Jason landed silently on the roof. He knew, without a doubt, that Dick would sense his presence whether he made any sound or not. His body thrummed, nerves alight.
Oh, had Jason been looking forward to this.
Despite what people may think, Jason was a planner, not some brute who thought every problem could be solved with a gun (that’s why he carried two). He was meticulous. Dedicated. Pissed. Anger was a great motivator, after all, and Jason had had three long years to sharpen his into the perfect blade.
The night was warm and humid. A light mist fell, coating Jason’s hair in a fine layer of moisture and blurring the lights of the city beyond like wet paint. A faint breeze carried the smell of damp concrete, worms, and wet trash up from the alleyways below.
Dick Grayson—Jason’s former big brother, the person who used to mean everything to him, the shining gold bar to which Jason could never measure up—sat with his back to Jason at the edge of the roof. His legs dangled over the side, the blue stripes of the Nightwing suit bright against the darkness. His hair was wet.
The breeze blew again, whispering across Jason’s bare face. He shoved down the unwelcome feeling of nakedness itching at his skull. It had to be this way. Ditching his helmet and Red Hood gear by his bike a few streets over was all part of the plan.
Because for the past few months, Jason had been so patient.
After months of scheming, killing, conning, dancing just out of reach of the Bats—Phase One of his plan was finally complete.
The Red Hood ruled Crime Alley with a leather fist and a smoking barrel. The drug trade was his. The sex work was his. The weapons trade, the docks, the gambling—his. And the Bats hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. It only took eight heads—among others—and a lifetime of knowing exactly how the Batman thought.
They never stood a chance.
Now it was time for Phase Two. And oh, did Phase Two make Jason giddy.
(Jason was also very excited for Phase Three—which involved, ah, acquainting himself with the pretender—but that came later.)
Across the rooftop, Dick stiffened.
Satisfaction curled in Jason’s gut.
He knows.
A smile tugged at Jason’s scarred lips. He could almost taste the moment. He was going to dismantle them all—starting with their precious golden boy.
Dick’s head snapped to his right. He paused, frowning. Then he stood, slowly, pea gravel crunching beneath his boots as he got to his feet. Every line of his lithe body was pulled taut as strung wire. His hands were…shaking?
Jason pushed the observation away. Dick had replaced him. He had discarded Jason like the alley trash everyone always knew he was. Dick didn’t change, Bruce didn’t change—Jason’s death had meant nothing.
He’d been so fucking stupid. He’d believed Dick loved him—he’d believed all of them had loved him. He’d fallen for it. Gotten played, duped, led down the primrose path with eager steps and blind eyes.
Jason had been eight, starving, and so, so naive. Robin had been a god, the sun, a green-gloved hand reaching out to him of all people and pulling him into the light. And Bruce—well, Bruce had been the first stable adult figure in his life.
What chance did Jason have against that?
But now, however, he knew the truth.
He watched Dick’s back expand with a deep breath. Dark, wet hair clung to the nape of his neck, longer than Jason ever remembered it being. He needed to get it cut.
Then, finally, Dick turned around.
Jason’s breath caught in his chest at the sight of his brother. Jason kept his face twisted into a sneer, forcing every unwanted emotion back down where it fucking belonged. Now was not the time for—
Older, poked through his bubbling anger. Oh my god, he looks older.
Even with the domino and the dim light, Jason could see it. He looked thinner. The Nightwing suit looked different; thicker, more padded. There were changes around his mouth, his eyes, the set of his jaw, his fucking hair. Subtle things which Jason had no right to notice.
Of course Dick looked older. He was older. That’s what happens when time passes. The realization lodged itself inside Jason like a splinter; the only way to get it out was to dig down deep and root around in the softest parts of himself. He thoroughly refused to do any of that.
Jason straightened his shoulders and drew up to his full height. He didn’t do all this for nothing. He didn’t suffer death and resurrection and all that god damn loneliness for nothing.
Dick Grayson did not attend your funeral.
Talia had been right; he hadn’t. Now it was time to make Dick fucking pay for it.
Jason opened his mouth, a scathing remark burning its way up his throat, and spread his arms out wide as if to say here I am as he watched Dick’s face crumple—
“Are you serious?” Dick said, low and…defeated?
Jason smiled like a knife, slow and knowing, letting the reality of the moment sink in like a blade through soft flesh.
“As a heart attack, Dickie,” he drawled.
A moment of tense silence hung between them. Jason waited for Dick to say something, the fever of anticipation crawling across his skin. He could feel his heart beat in his fingertips.
Then, just when Jason considered fucking lunging at him to break the oppressive quiet pushing its way down his throat, Dick’s entire body just…deflated.
His head dropped as though it suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. His shoulders sagged so low they nearly brushed the gravel rooftop. Air left him in a long, heavy sigh. He brought up a gloved hand and pushed his fingers against his temple, hard.
Jason stared. What…?
“Okay,” Dick said softly, hoarse. His throat bobbed as he swallowed thickly. “I…okay. That’s—this is fine.”
Fine? Fine?? Fine wasn’t anywhere close to what Dick owed him!
“Fine,” Jason repeated; the word tasted sour in his mouth. He let his lips curl. “You’re just perfectly fine, aren’t ya, Dickiebird. Once you stopped pretending to be sad, of course. You put on quite the show—though, you did skip my funeral. Too busy hanging out with the new one?”
Dick’s chest stuttered. For a second, something flashed across his face that looked almost like the reaction Jason had been starving for—hurt. Real, honest-to-god pain.
Good. Good. This was going fucking perfect.
“I used to think about you,” Jason said, stepping closer, “down there, in the dark.” He tilted his head. “You know what’s funny? Absolutely hilarious? I used to think you’d be the one who came looking. Not even B. You. I used to think if anyone was gonna dig me up themselves, bare-handed in the pouring rain, it would’ve been you.”
Dick’s expression cracked. “Jason—”
But Jason ruthlessly barreled on. He was enjoying this all too much.
“I had nothing—nothing to think about but every stupid thing you ever told me. Every lie you spun to keep stringing me along.” Jason’s voice threatened to waver, and he papered over it with a sneer. “You must’ve enjoyed yourself, seeming as you picked up another as soon as I was gone.” He huffed a short, bitter laugh. “Tell me, have you called Tim Little Wing yet?”
A flinching, pained expression crossed Dick’s face, but that wasn’t all it was. There was something strange there; unmoored, like he was hearing an echo of something instead of the thing itself. His eyes darted right again. His mouth moved silently.
Jason barely registered it. He was too busy chasing the delicious high of finally, finally saying all the things he’d rehearsed in that six-by-six cell a hundred nights running. It made him feel so right. He didn’t even feel the chill of the rain anymore; his body felt light, his heart beating fast against his ribcage, the whole world in sharp clarity.
“You replaced me,” he spat, hurling the words at Dick and wishing they could physically hit him (by the way Dick flinched and nearly stumbled backward, he suspected they had). “He even looks like me! Tell me, Dickie, were you just waiting for me to get killed? Finally get me out of the way?” Jason scoffed. “Did I really mean that little to you? Even after all those years we spent together, I was just another soldier. I go down, another one takes my place. Easy come, easy—”
“Stop.” Dick’s voice broke clean in half. He sounded wrecked—which was absolutely not fair.
Jason did not stop. Rage had lit a fire in his blood and he could feel the heat in every muscle in his body. It felt good. It felt right. He was right. “Aww, was that too close to home? Does it bother you, hearing it out loud? Or does it only count when you’re the one saying it to yourself at three in the morning all alone—”
“Please stop,” Dick’s hands flew up and pressed hard against his temples. “I can’t—not both of you, please, I can’t do both of you at once, I don’t—”
Jason’s mouth snapped shut.
Both of you.
Now what in the wild blue fuck could that mean? The words didn’t fit anywhere in the daydreams he’d imagined in a tiny cell in Nanda Parbat. He turned them over in his mind; they grated against the rage like rough stones.
“…The fuck are you talking about?”
Dick didn’t answer. He was looking at the empty rooftop. The silence was heavy and tense; for a second, Jason worried it might suffocate him. Dick’s jaw worked, and when he finally spoke, it wasn’t to Jason at all.
“I heard you,” he murmured, rubbing at his temples again with rough fingers. “I heard you, okay, just—give me a second—”
Jason’s stomach plummeted eight floors and six feet.
“Who are you talking to?” he demanded. He looked where Dick was looking—there was nothing there. Nothing but gravel and the ledge of the rooftop. No larger-than-life shadow, no traffic-colored child. “Dick. Dick. Who the hell are you talking to?”
Dick blinked hard and turned back to Jason. His face had gone gray under the domino.
“I—you know I love you, right?” he said.
Jason’s mouth fell open. He’d meant to laugh. Hell, he could feel the reflexive scoff building in his chest—yeah, right, Dickface, then why don’t you fucking act like it—but it sputtered out and died before ever making it out his mouth.
“But…” Dick continued, soft and broken and gentle, like Jason might dissipate into the wind if he spoke any louder, “Tim and B are in there.” He inclined his head toward the warehouse below. “Can we just—um, can we maybe…wait?”
“What,” Jason said flatly. He had nothing else. Every fantasy he’d rehearsed assumed Dick would be defending himself, explaining himself, justifying himself. Equal parts self-righteous and guilty. Maybe willing to fight Jason, maybe willing to grovel for forgiveness at his feet. Not…whatever the fuck this was.
“Then you can stay!” Words tumbled out of Dick in a messy rush, and Jason nearly flinched. Dick stepped forward and Jason fought every instinct begging him to step back. “Then you can stay, I promise.” Behind the domino, his eyes searched Jason’s face, frantic. “As long as you like. Forever, if you want. I just…I can only handle one of you at a time.”
There it was again. One of you at a time.
Jason’s anger, so carefully honed, so patiently kept boiling hot and wicked sharp for months, had nowhere to go. He stood there with all his pain locked and loaded into a bullet, ready to fire, only he no longer had a target.
“What,” Jason said, low, “does that. mean.”
Dick shook his head so violently Jason wondered if it hurt.
“But! But I—I’ll figure it out,” he amended quickly, placating. Something slimy and thoroughly unwelcome moved through Jason’s gut at the desperation in his voice. “You don’t have to go forever. You can stay, I promise, I promise, Jace—you can stay. I’d like to see…”
Dick trailed off. His eyes drank in Jason’s towering frame like he was memorizing every atom. In his defense, he’d never gotten the chance to see Jason grow up—and yet, here Jason was. All grown up.
“I’ve never seen you older before,” he said, mostly to himself. He huffed a tiny, wet laugh, half-turning toward that empty patch of rooftop that Jason was now coming to hate.
“Look how big you are,” he said to the nothingness.
Jason’s eyes snapped to the empty air that Dick was regarding with a wry, sad smile. He searched the vacant space, trying to see whatever it was Dick was so fixated on—but there was nothing to find.
It was empty air. Empty fucking air.
The rage that had so fueled Jason, that had carried him through the darkest, loneliest nights in that stupid fucking desert, stuttered and cracked. What filled in the hairline fractures was not nearly as satisfying: panic.
“Dick.” Jason heard his own voice from a distance, belonging to someone behind him. He could hardly believe this was real. “There’s nothing there.”
“Be nice, Jay,” Dick said; not to Jason, but to the empty air. Jason’s stomach turned. Dick's familiarity with it all made his skin crawl straight off his bones. “I don’t exactly know what’s going on with your hair either. I think my subconscious took some creative liberties—”
My subconscious.
Jason’s mouth went bone dry.
Alright. No. Nope. That’s enough. Jason needed to fucking leave. He needed to leave right now. He was pissed and confused and incredibly disturbed and Dick just looked so—
So—
Broken.
It scared the shit out of Jason, quite frankly, in ways he was not expecting.
Dick had always been light. His stupid cheeriness, his annoying optimism, the way he made Jason feel like the fucking sun was shining on him every time he so much as glanced his way—that was who Dick Grayson was.
Jason had been so angry. He’d been so right. He’d spent months imagining this moment. Picturing Dick’s horror, his rage. Fantasizing about the satisfaction of finally standing in front of his brother and watching the realization dawn.
Jason Todd is alive.
But Dick wasn’t horrified. He wasn’t even surprised.
He was just…broken. Acting like death was nothing at all; Jason had only slipped away into the next room to return momentarily.
But Jason was dead. He had been dead.
Dick knew that. He was the one who moved on from Jason! Got a new little brother and everything! And as much as it pained Jason to consider, he probably didn’t even actually care, in the end. That dick didn’t have the right to be so devastated. It wasn’t fair.
So why—
Why is he acting like this?
…What happened?
Dick had stopped mid-sentence and tilted his head, listening to something Jason couldn’t hear. Comm, Jason registered distantly. He felt like he was floating. He was surprised he was still standing. He was getting cold; his socks were getting wet and his fingers were going numb. He was shaking, and he didn’t think it was from the rage.
Every muscle in Dick’s body suddenly went rigid. His eyes went wide behind the lenses of the domino. He quickly started moving toward the edge of the roof.
“Sorry, Jace,” he said. Jason honestly couldn’t tell anymore which Jason he meant, and trying to decipher that made his chest feel like it went ten rounds with a crowbar and lost every single one. Dick pulled his grapple from his belt. “I gotta go. Timmy’s down with some fear gas. Nothing bad, thankfully.”
A beat passed where Dick just stood by the ledge. Silhouetted by the drizzly neon glow, he looked every bit the Nightwing that Jason had spent his life looking up to. It made Jason’s stomach flip-flop, how Dick could just become someone else entirely while Jason was staring right at him.
Finally, Dick sighed. “You’d like him, I think,” he said softly. “I—I know you think I—” his voice broke off and he swallowed. He took a steadying breath that didn’t really do anything for him. “I really think you’d like him,” he finished.
In light of recent events, Jason had too much shit on his plate to deal with the pretender. If he opened that can of worms it was going to blow up in his fucking face and he seriously could not handle that right now. Dick’s face was unbearably tender despite what Jason had just spent the last ten minutes trying to do to him.
“You…you can come, if you want,” Dick whispered, guilty, as if giving in to something he knew he shouldn’t. “Just—I have to help Tim and B, okay?”
Jason had no idea what the fuck to say to that. His whole body felt like TV static, but the static was bees. Or yellowjackets.
When it was clear Jason wasn’t going to answer, Dick nodded once, resigned, and fired his grapple. He landed on the roof of the warehouse, then disappeared around one of the huge chimneys.
The silence he left behind felt like a hand reaching down Jason’s throat and gripping his lungs. He stood there, frozen and stupid on the roof, for one…two…five minutes. He wasn’t real. This wasn’t real. What just happened isn't fucking real.
Then—
Sensation rushed back into Jason like a train slamming into a car stuck on the tracks. In one sudden, jerky motion, he tore his boots from the roof and scrambled down the fire escape, trembling hands nearly losing their grip. He landed hard on the concrete below. He wove through the alleys until he got back to his bike and his blessed helmet.
Something is wrong. Something is really, really wrong with Dick Grayson.
This was definitely a new low for Dick.
He landed on the warehouse rooftop a little harder than he’d intended. The thud rocked his joints. He stumbled, boots skidding on the wet surface as he rounded a massive chimney.
He scanned the wide expanse of roof for any kind of access. There had to be something. Tim was down with a face full of fear gas and only god knew what he was seeing right now; that mattered more than anything else. More than what happened on the last roof and more than the panic expanding in Dick’s chest like a balloon.
“Careful there, Big Bird. You almost ate sheet metal.”
Dick’s heart stuttered painfully. He did not look. He could not look. He had been fine. It had been a good night. There was only one Robin that Dick was concerned about that evening, and he was currently fighting his worst nightmares somewhere beneath Dick’s feet, where the fuck was a skylight—
Dick yanked his rebreather from his belt and hastily secured it to his face without breaking stride with trembling, clumsy fingers. He needed to stop shaking.
Not now. Not now not now not now.
He pushed his wet hair off his forehead and tried to breathe around the iron bands on his lungs. Tim needed him. He had to pull it to-fukcing-gether, despite how badly his heart wanted to punch through his ribcage.
I used to think if anyone was gonna dig me up themselves, bare-handed in the pouring rain, it would’ve been you.
Dick would have. God, Dick would have. He would have done anything to get Jason back. Bargained with any god, sacrificed any limb, dug through any grave.
(Followed Jason, if anyone had let him.)
(Heaven knows he tried).
Dick staggered but quickly righted himself. The roof was slick, that was why. That was why. He couldn’t do any of that right now. There wasn’t any room, especially not for two—
Dick had never seen him that old before. And the second he had shown up, so had…
Dick didn’t have to turn his head to know exactly who was in his peripheral. He could feel it, instinctively, the small figure following along at his heel. But he…he’d never split before. There was never two before, ever.
Despite the smoggy night sky, his eyes caught the silvery handle of what might’ve been an access hatch. Relief soared in his chest and he broke into a sprint. His boots kicked up water as he bounded through small puddles; it had been raining nonstop for days, and it wasn’t supposed to let up any time soon. He felt shaky and light, and not in a good way.
He arrived at the hatch, eternally grateful there was no deadbolt. He reached for the handle—
“I don’t like him.”
Dick stopped dead. His chest heaved with exertion, breath sawing in and out of the rebreather. He really shouldn’t be breathing this hard. His heart was pounding, the cavity feeling too small for the organ.
His body moved without him—both because he could never deny Jason anything, and because his limbs acted before he could think it through. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers from the handle and turned to face his little brother.
Jason was maybe twelve, with a head full of messy, dark curls, the white lenses of the domino bright against the clouded night. His face was adorably pouty as he soundlessly scuffed a green boot on the rooftop.
A vicious, humiliating relief seeped through Dick’s body. He’s whole, little, not scarred and all grown up and so, so angry—
He hated himself for it instantly. That wasn’t fair; he’d always wondered what Jason would’ve looked like all grown up—once he’d finally started actually growing after getting real, consistent nutrition. Dick remembered eating so much peanut butter with him. Anything to get more calories into little brother’s tiny body.
Dick swallowed hard and felt like he was choking down shards of glass.
“Well,” he said, slightly breathless and muffled through the rebreather, “he’s you.”
Both of you are.
Jason didn’t say anything to that. Dick was secretly glad for it. He was already exhausted, grief bubbling up inside him faster than he could outrun it. Because two. There were fucking two of them now. Fully formed, completely separate, standing in different places and saying different things like they were different people. That wasn’t how it had worked before and what if he kept splitting—
Maybe, Dick thought, a little hysterical for some reason. Maybe I should start—
“Please don’t, Dickie,” Jason said, suddenly desperate. Dear God, he sounded so little. He stepped closer. Dick’s fingers twitched at his sides, useless, because Dick couldn’t touch him. He met Dick’s gaze through the domino; Dick wished he’d remove the mask so he could see his eyes. “Please…don’t.” His lower lip wobbled. “Because then you don’t get to see me.”
Dick bit down on his lip until he tasted copper.
There it was. The whole rotten trade laid bare: his sanity, or his little brother.
Dick hadn’t chosen Jason, once. It had cost him everything.
“Okay,” he said. The surrender came easy. It’s fine. I’ll start again a little later. This is a break. One more break. “I—I’ll wait, Jay.”
Jason smiled, and it felt like the sun.
Dick blinked sudden tears from his eyes (when had he…?) and cast another glance around the rooftop through the falling mist, looking, wondering if maybe the older version had followed—
“Nightwing. Status.”
Dick startled. Bruce’s voice crackled through the comm, his tone clipped in a way that betrayed his worry.
The sound of it snapped something back into place. Dick had to get fucking moving. He sucked in a breath through the rebreather and pushed it out slow, gripping the mess inside himself with both hands. He shoved it all in a box, prayed he had enough mental duct tape to keep that bitch shut, and pulled open the hatch.
“Found roof access,” he said, relieved that his voice came out marginally steady. “Entering now.”
“Ground level. No hostiles.”
“Copy.”
Dick swung down the ladder and landed silently on a catwalk. The hazy light cast long shadows across the floor. Rows upon rows of wooden crates lined the walls, metal shelving stacked nearly to the rafters. The smell of wet sawdust and something sickly sweet hung in the air.
Green mist lazily drifted past the yellowed lightbulbs scattered overhead. Fear gas.
Dick’s hands shot to the seals of his rebreather to confirm it was still in place. He paced along the catwalk, scanning the floor for—there. He spotted Bruce’s dark shape against the concrete, hunched over a much smaller one dressed in bright red, yellow, and green. Dick vaulted the railing and scaled down the shelves to the concrete in a blur, his mind a single, frantic loop of Tim Tim Tim get to Tim.
“Uh-oh.” Jason’s voice flitted about his head, sing-song. “He doesn’t look so good…”
Dick’s blood ran cold as he sprinted across the warehouse floor to where his baby brother laid. Not now. Not now not now not now.
(“Tell me, have you called Tim ‘Little Wing’ yet?”)
He stumbled just before he got to Tim, dropping to his knees harder than he planned. The concrete hitting his joints made his teeth rattle. He was absolutely going to have bruises there tomorrow. His hands hovered uselessly over Tim, not knowing where to touch, trying to catch his breath.
Tim’s eyes were blown wide behind the domino. They darted wildly from shadow to shadow, unseeing and frantic. His breaths hitched in painful, arrhythmic patterns. His legs kicked out weakly. Both hands were locked around Bruce’s arm, green-gloved fingers digging into the darker suit, clutching at Bruce like he was the only solid thing left in the world.
God, he looked so small lying there, terrified. He was fourteen. He looked like a child in the costume despite all the muscle he’d put on in the past two years. His face was white as a sheet and slick with sweat, dark hair plastered his forehead. His lips trembled, mouth opening and closing in silent, heartbreaking little pleas. Fear radiated off him so intensely Dick could fucking taste it.
He took a breath to steady himself and cleared his throat. Tim is what matters. Tim is all that matters.
“Hey, Timmy,” he said gently, easing himself closer. Bruce could have a stroke about codenames later. Tim needed love more than he needed protocol, and they’d already learned that damned lesson once.
Tim flinched violently at the movement, a painful whimper dragged out of his chest. Dick stilled instantly, fingers hovering mid-air. Guilt ate at him for scaring his baby brother more.
“Easy,” he said softly. “Easy, bud. It’s just me. It’s Dick.”
Dick waited another second, then carefully combed his fingers through his damp hair. Tim’s eyes darted toward the sound of his voice, but whatever he saw there didn’t seem to register at all.
“What happened?” Dick asked, looking up at Bruce. His rebreather covered the bottom half of his face. Dick didn’t like that—he needed that exposed patch of skin to help decipher Bruce’s various jaw clenches and grunts.
“One of the crates didn’t just have car parts,” Bruce said. “A canister detonated when he opened the lid. It was an old model, but not all the gas was inert. Any sign of Hood?”
Fuck Crane, Dick thought as he looked back down at his little brother. “Negative. No reported sightings of our newest friend.”
Bruce grunted. Dick really didn’t feel like dealing with that red-helmeted asshole right now. The warehouse floor was cold against his aching knees. He narrowed his whole world down to the boy in front of him, determined to relieve his little brother of at least some of his terror—and ignored, with everything he had, the second little brother crowding in at the edge of his vision. Tim is who’s important. Tim is here. Tim is rea—
“You’re doing great,” Dick murmured, thumb tracing the curve of Tim’s cheekbone; he could feel him shake beneath his touch, fine tremors like a struck tuning fork. “You’re being so brave, Timmy. Just hang in there a little longer. B ’n me’ll be here the whole time. We’re not going anywhere. You’re safe with us, okay? I promise.”
He kept his eyes on Tim’s face only and off the presence he could feel burning two holes into the side of his skull.
“I gave him one dose of antitoxin,” Bruce said gruffly, flat and devoid of emotion. “He needs more. And sedation.”
Dick hummed. It had to hurt, the way Tim’s fingers were digging into his arm, but Bruce didn’t say a word. Just laid his free hand over Tim’s knee, steadying the rogue leg that kept kicking out.
The gas must degrade with age, Dick thought, based on Tim’s bad, but not all-out panicked, reaction to the stuff. Not potent enough for the visions, but just enough to still be fucking terrified. It was times like this—among others—that made Dick hate their rogue gallery something fierce.
Beside him, Jason hummed too, thoughtful, light, and wholly out of place. “Let’s hope he makes it.”
Dick’s stomach dropped out from under him like a trapdoor. His fingers stopped moving in Tim’s hair. It took everything in him not to turn his head.
What?
He blinked hard, made his hand start moving again despite the tremor that crept into it. That’s insane, he thought. Absurd. Of course Tim’s gonna be perfectly fine. This is basic fear gas, and not even a strong compound. We have protocols upon protocols for this shit. Antidotes and antitoxins galore. It isn’t even a full dose. Tim is fine. He’ll be fine.
Jason was just—he was—
(“I go down, another one takes my place. Easy come, easy—”)
Tim’s breath hitched again, a full-body shudder. He turned his face away, screwing his eyes shut. Dick swallowed against the lump rising in his throat and pressed another strip of tape over the box in his mind.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, pushing back Tim’s hair and wiping the sweat from his forehead. “It’s okay, Timmy. B and I are right here. We’re going home right now.”
Tim only thrashed weakly, too exhausted and too scared to do much more. Dick would have given anything to reach inside his little brother’s skull and physically pull out whatever nightmare Crane had put in there.
One of Bruce’s gauntlets beeped. He looked down. “Car’s five minutes out.”
Dick nodded. He ran his thumb over Tim’s cheekbone again. “Hear that, Timmy? We’re leaving right now.”
At the edge of his vision, Jason leaned over Tim, curious. His hair looked soft in the grimy light. God, Dick wanted to reach out and touch it—ruffle it, hold his hand, anything. But he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t, not ever again. He’d known this for a while and yet it hurt in a different way each time he remembered. Grief was a sprained ankle: annoying, painful, and often returning without warning at the worst possible time. One wrong step and he was back to limping through his life again.
“Didja see all the scars on big me?” Jason asked, in the same tone of voice he used to ask if Dick had seen the flip he just did.
Dick’s jaw locked. Of course he’d seen them. How couldn’t he? It was the first thing he’d noticed, just after how big his little brother had gotten. He dug his teeth into his ruined lip hard enough to break it open again to stop himself from following where that thought led—to how Jason had gotten those scars in the first place.
“Nightwing, can you carry him?” Right—Bruce, warehouse, Tim, fear gas, the car was nearly here, where is Dick’s head at? “I need to drive.“
“The white hair looked weird,” Jason said. “I don’t like it.”
Dick had thought so too, if he was honest, but he really didn’t have time to have a crisis over that right now. His lip stung. He used to pain to ground himself.
“I can carry him,” he said. Of course. Of course I can carry him. There is no universe where I can’t.
One by one, Bruce carefully pried Tim’s fingers loose from his arm. Dick reached for his other hand, ready to loop it over his own shoulders and lift—
He froze.
Tim’s green-gloved hand was suddenly, horribly, awfully wrong. Blood dripped from the limb onto the concrete floor. Fingers were bent in sick, twisted angles. There were burns across the palm, fusing with the rubber and Dick blinked again and it it's still there, a little ruined hand—
“—Car’s here. We need to move—“
Dick’s stomach rolled with nausea. The smell of scorched flesh flooded his nose, thick and disgustingly acrid, even though there was no fire anywhere in this warehouse. He’d read the autopsy report. Even when Bruce had tried so hard to hide it, Dick had dug it up because he had to know. He just—he had to know what that monster had done to his little brother.
“Ouch,” Jason winced, almost sympathetic if it wasn’t for the blatant disdain with which he was regarding Tim’s ruined hand. The expression looked uncanny on his youthful face.
Dick’s heart crawled up into his throat. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. That’s not real. That is not real. None of this is—
Bruce was waiting. Tim needed to get home.
“Nightwing, if you can’t carry Robin—”
No. No, I can do it. I just—
“Can you, though?” Jason asked, venomously innocent. Dick hated him like this—sugar-sweet and cruel in the same breath, all at once. “I mean, you already failed me. What’s to say—”
Bruce’s voice came again, but farther away. “Nightwing. We need to leave. Now.”
“—if we see big-me again, we’ll have to ask how it happ—”
Dick couldn’t do this right now. His head was so crowded.
“Hush, Jay,” he breathed, barely a whisper, thin and pleading. He hoped to god Bruce hadn’t heard. “Please.”
Silence, for one terrible second. Then Bruce’s head snapped toward him.
Dick refused to meet his eyes. He couldn’t. Not when he was supposed to be getting better. Not after he’d promised them all, over and over and over, that he would get better.
Not when he’s still telling them that he is.
He forced his attention back to Tim. Steeled his stomach, reached for the hand again, and braced for the wrongness of broken bones and blistered skin—but the second his fingers brushed Tim’s, the poor kid latched on like a drowning thing to driftwood. He surged up into Dick’s arms, fisting the fabric of his suit, crying in soft, broken little gasps that cracked open Dick’s chest.
Dick wrapped him up immediately, sliding one arm beneath his shoulders and the other beneath his knees. Effortlessly—always, it would always be easy to carry his younger brother—he lifted Tim off the ground.
Tim went rigid for a second, then boneless, forehead dropping against Dick’s chest. Dick could feel every ragged breath travel down the kid’s spine.
“You’re doing great,” he murmured into Tim’s hair. “We’re headed home. Just a little longer, I promise.”
He turned and walked out of the warehouse to where the Batmobile was waiting. He didn’t look at Bruce once the entire way home. He kept his eyes down, fixed on the little brother trembling and real and alive in his arms. Because Tim is real. He is alive.
And Jason is n—
Dick stared down at Tim’s sleeping form.
He looked so small in the med cot, swallowed by an oversized t-shirt, an IV taped into the crook of his arm. The bruise-purple crescents sitting beneath his eyes stood out sharply against his pale skin. The heart monitor beeped a soft, steady rhythm, echoing faintly off the stone and metal of the Cave.
A chill wormed its way through Dick’s damp suit. It was starting to chafe. He needed to change—he’d needed to change for the past half hour—but the thought of leaving Tim’s, side even for a second, made his heart feel like it was going to explode. He brought an absent hand up, pressing around the uncomfortable pressure in his chest.
Everything was fine. Tim was perfectly fine. He’d probably wake up with nothing worse than a little nausea and a headache. This wasn’t even the worst fear gas attack they’d had this month. Tim hadn’t even gotten a full dose; just an unpleasant face full of an older compound.
Dick just—he—ugh. The anxiety usually wasn’t this bad. Sure, he always got wound up when one of his little brothers was hurt. That was just part of being a big brother. It was normal.
He just…also always got like this when he saw Jason, too.
Dick tore his eyes away from Tim and glanced around the Cave. The lights were low, casting long shadows along the walls. Stalactites glinted high above. The soft, ever-present chittering of bats came from somewhere in the far dark, a sound so familiar it should have been soothing. This was real. This was all real.
He scanned the wide, cavernous space.
No Jason—either of them. He hadn’t seen younger Jason since he’d climbed into the car, and he hadn’t seen bigger Jason since he’d left the roof.
It was only temporary, though. They’d be back. And Dick would…he’d just deal, same as he always did. Not that he was supposed to be dealing with it all all anymore—
“Dick.”
Bruce materialized at his shoulder without a sound, holding an empty syringe. His cowl was down, his mouth in a firm line. Despite not having said more than his name, Dick could feel the overbearing energy radiating off him.
Fuck, Dick was exhausted.
“No.”
Bruce frowned. “I haven’t even said anything yet.”
“You didn’t have to,” Dick said with a tired smile. “I know that face.”
Something flickered across Bruce’s expression. “I need to test you for fear gas.”
“I wasn’t hit. I had my rebreather sealed before I even entered.”
“Humor me. I need your blood pressure, at least. Or an EKG.” Bruce set the syringe on glass tray beside the cot with a quiet clink. “You haven’t had one in a while.”
“I’m fine,” Dick said again. “I promise, B. I’m gonna take a decon shower.”
Bruce gave him a look. “Dick.”
“I said I’m fine. I wasn’t hit. C’mon—don’t forget about our deal. I hold up my end and you back off, remember?” Dick gave a helpless shrug. “Now’s when you back off a little.”
Bruce stilled, and Dick could practically hear the gears in his head whirring. A frown creased his brows. For a minute, Batman was back in the driver’s seat. Dick suppressed a sigh and breathed through the annoyance prickling his skin.
“I’m not trying to push,” Bruce said slowly, turning his hands palms up.
“I know.” Dick meant it, mostly. They had been trying. He rubbed a hand over his face. “But you’re not exactly believing me, either. That’s—tell me you don’t see how that feels the same. I don’t need you to worry.”
“I’m allowed to worry,” Bruce said, “I’m your f—” he cleared his throat. “I’m allowed to worry.”
“I’m not saying you’re not,” Dick said evenly. “But you’ve gotta trust me.”
“Are you doing your stretches?”
“Yes, B.”
Bruce gave him a long, searching look. There was an argument there, sitting on his tongue. Dick knew it. It wouldn’t be a new one. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this circular fight, going around and around in some sick imitation of a dance that always left them both burnt, aching, and lonely.
Things had been tense between them long before Jason had died. His death had only widened the gap into something nearly unbridgeable. Grief was unreliable, in that way. When people didn’t share it there was a good chance that it would drive them apart instead.
Then Tim had happened. He’d come along come along and pulled (read: dragged) them back together, stubbornly refusing to take any kind of no for an answer. All of eleven years and kicking civility back into them like a scolding parent.
Dick even lived in Gotham now—Blüdhaven left in the capable hands of some friends—while he and Bruce tried to mend their fractured relationship and heal the hole Jason’s murder had torn in their lives.
For Tim. Obviously for Tim. Of course.
Deep down, some foolish part of Dick hopes Bruce has missed him, too.
And to Tim’s credit, it had been working…mostly. Better, since—
Dick did not finish that particular thought. He never let himself finish that particular thought. He gave it the landlord special: painted over it and forgot it existed. He unfortunately still carried the physical scar on his body—but he didn’t like to look at that, either, so he also pretended it didn’t exist. Worked great.
Bruce’s gaze dropped to Tim. He reached out to smooth a hand once through the boy’s dark hair before turning back to Dick. His mouth was pulled down at the corners, his brows drawn together, but something careful moved behind his eyes. It took Dick a minute to realize that he was stalling.
For what? For Dick to collapse so he could prove himself right? For Dick to give in? They have a deal.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Dick thought, annoyance rising, opening his mouth to speak again—because of all people, Dick knew better than anyone else that you could never wait Bruce out—but Bruce beat him to it.
“I’m not trying to renege on anything,” Bruce said, steadily, like he was navigating a minefield. Dick kind of hated the way it made him feel like a child. “I know what we agreed. I’m not—” He stopped and let out a breath, weighing his words. It was so unlike him to falter. When he spoke again, his voice was uncharacteristically soft. “I just need to know you’re still holding up your end. That’s all I’m asking, Dick. I…want to make sure you’re alright.”
“I am,” Dick lied, through his teeth and without hesitation.
Bruce gave him another look. “Dick, you know that I heard you talk to—”
“I said I am,” he snapped, along with whatever fragile thread of civility stretching between them. He wished Bruce would just drop it. Nobody in the world could get under his skin the way Bruce did, even when he wasn’t even trying. Even when they had been better for the past few months.
“You do this every time! You’ve already decided whatever the fuck I say is a lie because you know better. What’s the point of asking if you’re not even going to believe me?”
Bruce held his gaze, blue eyes searching in that infuriating way that always made Dick feel all of ten, fourteen, seventeen years old again. Dick was lying, and some part of Bruce clearly knew it. Probably. Maybe. Dick had always been a phenomenal liar—it was exactly what got him into so much trouble in the first place. It was why Bruce had to ask that question at all.
It was why he felt like he was in trouble right now, pinned under the weight of his father’s stare, worried the lie might not hold up against the light. If Bruce pulled on this thread even a little harder, the whole thing would unspool. There’d be no way Dick could keep going out at night. He wouldn’t be able to keep—
Bruce’s hands twitched at his sides like he wanted to reach out. They weren’t gloved anymore; Dick could see years of callouses and scars written across his skin. He knew they were warm and big.
Dick fought a shiver; he was freezing. His suit was still mildly damp from the mist and his skin was going to be rubbed raw if he didn’t get out of it soon.
“Dick,” Bruce said, softly but no less firm, something almost like pity in his steel blue eyes, and fuck, Dick wanted to throw something. “Son, I know that we had a deal. But I’m concerned that you—”
The cot squeaked faintly under Tim as he shifted in his sleep, snuffling a soft sound. His eyes moved behind closed lids, chasing something only he could see. The rest of whatever Bruce had been about to say never left his throat.
Dick reached down, gratefully seizing the excuse to look anywhere but Bruce. He smoothed a hand over Tim’s shoulder and through his hair until the small noises quieted and he settled again. Dick’s heart beat in his chest, riding the tail end of the near-fight.
“I need to change,” Dick said, the fight bled out of his voice, replaced by dissimissiveness. He stepped back before Bruce got the idea in his head that they were going to continue this conversation. “I’ll stay down here with him tonight. And I’m staying tomorrow night in the Manor to make sure he’s okay.”
Bruce gave him one long look—and Dick refused, point blank, to acknowledge just how much older it made his father look.
He hadn’t looked that old when Jason had been around.
When Dick was younger and freshly Robin, Batman was indestructible. A monolith. A god. Nothing could hurt Bruce. There was nothing that Dick’s dad couldn’t make okay again. Bruce bent the world to his will—and Dick, being in his world, was also bent to that iron will. But there was only so much bending Dick could do before he snapped.
But sometimes, Dick just wants to run back into that veneer of safety, of untouchability. There’s nothing Bruce can’t chase out of the shadows. And right now, all Dick really wants is his dad to chase away his grief.
“I’ll let Alfred know.”
Dick nodded and headed to the showers before either of them could say anything else.
Twenty minutes later he was clean, hair slightly damp, dressed in soft sweatpants and worn t-shirt. He climbed into the cot beside Tim, ever careful of the IV line, and curled up close to his little brother, who wouldn’t stir for another six hours. Tim sighed in his sleep, content, and pressed into the warmth.
Dick buried his nose in the crown of Tim’s soft, dark hair, breathed in the artificially fruity smell of their decontamination shampoo—and did his best to ignore his other little brother flitting between the shadows of the Cave.
Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.
Dick’s apartment was surprisingly easy to break into.
Jason didn’t know how to feel about that.
To be frank, Jason didn’t know how to feel about a lot of shit right now.
He stumbled through the window, nearly eating cheap laminate flooring as he snuck in through the windowsill. Fuck, he shouldn’t be this rattled. This—it was a hiccup. A wrinkle. Nothing more.
That was why he was here, breaking into Dick’s apartment at the ungodly hour of three twenty-two a.m,: to iron that damn wrinkle out.
Despite knowing that Dick wasn’t home—he was tucked away in the Cave for the night, probably nursing poor Timmy Dwake back to health—Jason still crept through the space on silent feet. It was a habit that you couldn’t beat out of him. Trust, someone had tried.
Dick’s apartment looked exactly like Jason thought it would: a mess.
Dishes were stacked in the sink. Mail spilled off a little tray by the door. Blankets were thrown haphazardly over the couch. One sad, tiny houseplant sat nearly dead on the coffee table. There was no way sunlight even reached there. Poor thing.
But there were some odd things, too. The furniture was painfully plain. The building itself sat in a decent middle-class neighborhood—a far cry from the crumbling shithole that Dick barely scraped by for in Blüdhaven.
Oh. And the apartment was in Gotham.
A wave of bitterness rose in Jason like high tide. His lip curled at the sour taste the thought left in his mouth.
So Dick lives in Gotham now.
That was something even Jason himself couldn’t talk Dick into—not that he ever tried, or would ever ask. He’d had a front-row seat to the knock-down, drag-out fights Dick and Bruce used to get into. He’d seen exactly how much those fights hurt both of them, what it cost both of them, in the end.
…It hurt Jason, too, in that tiny, asinine part of him that just wished his dad and his brother would make up so they could all live together and be happy.
Jason had never been good enough to bring them back together. Maybe Tim was perfect enough to make them at least want to try—
He kicked over a metal trashcan with a clumsy boot and sent it clattering to the floor with a bang louder than a god damn cannon fire. He froze. His eyes darted to the front, the windows, both doors down the hall. His heartbeat pounded a kickdrum in his ears.
Ten seconds passed. Nothing. Twenty seconds passed. Still nothing. Not a swish of fabric or shuffling of footsteps. If this was the League, he’d be dead six ways to Sunday.
Jason silently pushed out the breath he’d unknowingly trapped in his lungs and looked down at the mess he’d made: trash was strewn about the floor, the garbage can lying on its side with the lid flung open. He carefully swept the garbage back into the bin and stood it upright. He hoped Dick wouldn’t notice his trash had shuffled around in his absence.
Jason huffed a frustrated sigh and suddenly fought the urge to kick the trashcan over again. He needed to get a hold of himself. Nothing had changed. His plan was still intact. He was still owed. Every last one of them was going to pay. Revenge was at his fingertips, and nothing was going to get in the way.
He just…needed to figure this one thing out first. Iron out this wrinkle. Nobody would ever know.
Jason pawed through the apartment, unsure of what he was even looking for. He would know when he found it. Or he’d never find “it” at all and go back to Crime Alley, plan re-railed and ready to go.
He finally reached the bathroom, stepping inside without turning the light on. For some reason, he didn’t want to see that damned white streak right now. Glancing around, he wrinkled his nose—this definitely looked like Dick.
A pink-stained towel was thrown haphazardly over the shower rod. Several bottles crowded around the lip of the tub. Clothes were shoved into one corner, and there was even a glob of toothpaste in the sink.
God, Jason used to hate it when Dick would do that.
He quickly shook the thought from his head. Whatever he and Dick had was dead—as dead as Jason. Or as dead as he had been. Verbiage and past participles, blah blah blah. Jason was dead and now he’s not. Suck it, grammar.
He reached out with one scarred hand to pull the mirror open. The medicine cabinet shelves were a mess. A can of shaving cream missing its cap, a razor that would most definitely give him tetanus, and a half-full jug of mouthwash stared back at Jason unceremoniously.
He sighed. This was an utter waste of fucking time. He was letting his emotions cloud his judgement. Talia—and Bruce—always loved to remind him that it would be his downfall. He turned to shut the cabinet, but something caught his eye: an orange bottle with a white cap, tucked behind a few boxes of allergy meds.
Compelled, Jason reached out and plucked the bottle out of the cabinet. Pills rattled faintly as he turned it over in his hands.
It was a prescription bottle. Dated months back. Completely full.
Jason leaned in, squinting at the label. And his mouth fell open.
Holy shit.
These are antipsychotics.