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Jason groaned as he rolled over in bed. He cracked open one eye and kicked a lazy, muscular leg out to the side from beneath his blankets. Toes outstretched, he nudged the heavy black-out curtains just out of the way enough to peek out of the window from where he lay.
It was light out, albeit raining cats and dogs in pure miserable Gotham City fashion. The groggy hero stretched out and grabbed his phone to check for any new messages.
Jason sat up in bed when he saw the time on his phone; Dick was supposed to wake him up to train and then spar together, but it was getting close to the time he and Dick had planned to meet up in the gym downstairs.
He and Dick had patrolled together in Gotham last night and called it a night quite early due to a lack of action on the streets. They both agreed to crash at the manor and train early in the morning.
Correction. More like Dick whined incessantly and practically begged Jason during their entire patrol until an exasperated Jason finally agreed to stay at the manor and hang out the next day.
Jason would never admit it but he kind of, sort of, didn’t hate the idea of spending a day with his older (but physically smaller than him) brother. It had been a while since they had chilled.
Jason caught himself smiling at the memory of Dick grinning like a complete idiot after Jason relented to the idea of a hangout. Sometimes, a needy Dick Grayson had a way of making his younger brother feel pretty wanted. Heck knows Bruce and the others never bothered to do the same.
Jason threw on some casual clothes and set off to return the favour of being obnoxious by waking up his over sleeping brother.
Jason flung the door to Dick’s bedroom open and yelled out,
“Rise and shine, Dickiebird!!!”
He frowned when he was greeted by the sight of an empty bed with a mess of rumpled blankets piled on top.
Jason went to call his absent brother but noticed Dick’s cell phone atop the nightstand (complete with colourful stickers adorning the phone case- yup, that was Dickie’s phone alright).
Jason sauntered over to the washroom and found that it was empty as well.
Jason simply shrugged it off as he figured that his hyperactive brother probably decided not to wake him; maybe Dickiebird went down to the kitchen to stuff his goofy face full of that gross sugar filled cereal he loved so much.
In the kitchen, Jason found Bruce and Tim finishing up their breakfasts. Both of them were clad in exquisitely tailored and, no doubt, stupidly expensive business suits. Jason had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from spitting an unprovoked insult at the duo.
Alfred was notably absent, as he had left to drive Damian to school.
“Good morning, Jason.” Bruce greeted with a curt nod.
Jason ignored the greeting and asked the pair, “have you seen Dick?”
Tim shrugged his shoulders and carried on reading the newspaper in front of him.
Bruce was a little more responsive,
“No, he hasn’t been down yet. He must still be sleeping,”
Clearly Bruce had no idea. Jason could have argued that Dick was most certainly not asleep, but chose not to waste his breath on the clueless billionaire.
“Well, Tim, we’d better be off if we want to make it to that budget proposal meeting on time.”
Tim stuffed the last of his oatmeal into his mouth and nodded as he pushed himself up from the table. Bruce grabbed his and Tim’s empty plates and placed the dishes into the kitchen sink for Alfred to deal with later.
“See you here this evening for dinner?” Bruce asked hopefully,
“We’ll see,” Jason answered noncommittally.
“Enjoy your day, Jay,” Bruce extended the kind words as he walked out of the room.
Jason rolled his eyes, and stuck out his foot as Tim walked by. Tim easily sidestepped the massive boot in his path and flipped Jason off as he passed.
Jason resumed his search for his missing sibling.
Jason wondered for a split second if Dick set him up to stay at the manor so he would be forced to deal with Bruce and the others. Had Dick really just manipulated him to stay and then simply fucked off back to his own crap-hole apartment?
Anger brewed within Jason as he tore down to the gym and also found that space to be Dick-less.
Jason stomped back upstairs and ran into Alfred who had just returned from driving the Demon brat to school,
“Alfred, have you fucking seen Dickface?! I’m going to kill him when I find him!”
“Good heavens. Language, Master Jason.”
“Sorry, Alfie. It’s just that the airhead basically forced me to stay here in order to train together and now he’s nowhere to be found.”
Alfred furrowed his brow and offered,
“If he’s not anywhere in the manor, have you checked the manor grounds? Master Dick often visits with his parents when he spends time at the manor.”
Jason blinked in surprise, “he does?”
Alfred smiled softly and walked off to the kitchen sink in order to deal with the dirty dishes from breakfast.
Jason stomped away in search of a higher vantage point, hoping that Alfred’s suggestion was the right one.
~o~
Jason squinted out into the far distance from his high vantage point up in the manor’s attic.
Jason reflected on the fact that Dick’s parents had been exhumed, transported and finally re-buried on the vast Manor grounds once the orphaned acrobat had been taken in by Bruce. Jason conceded that it was actually a kind and decent gesture by the billionaire he loved to try and hate.
From his current observation point, it was quite difficult to make out any significant details, especially given the heavy rain pelting the attic’s tiny window, however Jason was sure he could spot a shadowy silhouette resembling a person within the small family cemetery located on the grounds of the manor.
Jason wasn’t sure how much longer Dick would be out there, but his patience was now about as threadbare as his oldest pair of boxer shorts.
Jason descended from the attic back to the ground floor of the manor. The large vigilante punched his arms into his leather jacket and yanked his hood up onto his head. He grabbed an umbrella out of the entryway closet for his idiotic brother and trudged out of the manor doors. Time to go and get the moron to come inside before he caught a cold.
“I’m not staying to take care of his ass if he gets sick, he can go fuck himself for all I care,”
Jason muttered as he clomped off.
~o~
Jason approached the cemetery a little, or rather a lot, grumpier than his usual standard level of grumpiness since it was still pouring out and he had been instantly soaked to the bones through his clothing from the moment he stepped outside.
The frigid (and very likely acidic) rainwater of Gotham dripped down the large hero’s neck sending a chill through his entire body.
He forced himself to calm down and reminded himself that Dickie was visiting his parents’ graves. Obviously he would need to exercise more sensitivity towards the guy’s feelings right now than his usual gruff self tended to exhibit.
Jason finally reached the rod iron gates of the cemetery and approached Dick. Dick was on his knees and facing away from Jason.
As Jason neared his older brother he heard the elder muttering,
“I’m so sorry, Little Wing, I’ll do better. I hope you forgive me for everything. I’m trying to be a better brother,”
As it turned out, Dick wasn’t at his parents’ headstones at all, but rather kneeling at the gravesite of ....Jason Peter Todd?
‘For fuck’s sake’,
Jason always cringed at the thought of his tombstone still being there but Bruce insisted it remain in place for now since they hadn’t yet thought of a convincing ‘return from the dead’ story for Jason Todd-Wayne yet.
“What in the actual fuck, Dickface?!” Jason practically exploded.
Dick startled and whipped around in silent horror at being discovered. Jason felt his rain drenched face grow hot as his vision blurred with green rage. His steaming breath was visible in the very chilly air, and grew thicker as Jason breathed harder due to his utter fury.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?! Is this why you wanted me to stay at the manor? So I could watch you fantasize about me being fucking dead like it’s some sort of a goddamn joke to you?!!”
“Jay, it’s not like tha-“
“What’s it like then, Dick?! You beg me to stay and instead of spending time with the real me, you come out here and talk to my non-fucking-existent corpse... yeah...nice. Really fucking nice, man.”
Dick looked up at Jason with red, bloodshot eyes. Jason knew the tears weren’t fake, but still fumed at Dick regardless.
Jason went to storm away when he felt a gentle tug on his arm. He turned and shoved Dick backwards; the elder stumbled slightly before recovering his footing. Jason fumbled angrily with the umbrella in his hands. When he noticed the monogrammed, ‘BW’ on the handle he flew into even more of a rage and smashed Bruce’s fancy pants umbrella into the pristine granite tombstone... the handle shattered into shards all over the empty grave.
“Jason, please... please let me explain,”
“Fuck off! I’m out of here. Have a good life amongst the dead, Dick.”
Jason felt an instant pang of regret at his final words. Dick’s parents were also buried there and he felt sort of guilty at his disrespectful comment.
Jason also tried to ignore a second little pang of guilt as he looked back slightly to see Dick on his knees picking up the shards of the broken umbrella from the ground.
Big Bird looked almost as broken as the umbrella, however, Jason was still too infuriated to even try and reason with his own blinding rage right now much less try to deal with whatever issues Dick was having.
Jason stormed off back to the manor’s garage and sped off on his bike back to his own apartment with the feeling that he should’ve done this in the first place instead of listening to Dick, that stupid asshole.
~o~
Jason spent the next bunch of days alone and he actively ignored every stupid jerk in his family, especially Dick.
Dick had attempted to reach out to Jason by calling him and by sending him a bunch of text messages every damn day. Dick was nothing if not persistent. He continued to apologize and asked if they could meet up to talk, but Jason ignored the apologetic messages and was glad when he woke up one day to find that his phone was finally undisturbed.
Jason stumbled out of bed groggily and flipped on his kettle to boil water for some tea.
Phone in hand, he waited for the usual barrage of messages to flood in for the day. This would be day 5 of Dick trying to make amends.
Jason scrambled a few eggs for himself and tossed in some veggies and cheese as well. As he ate, he scrolled through his phone just to make sure Dick hadn’t called or texted.
After breakfast and washing up, Jason paced his apartment waiting for something... anything from his pesky brother.
Did his anticipation for Dick’s message mean he would actually respond if his older brother sent him a message?
Hell no.
But still... that didn’t mean that Jason wanted Goldie to stop trying, especially when Jason was feeling like he might nearly be ready, maybe after a couple more days, to crack and talk to the doofus. Maybe he would sock him one in his pretty boy face first, but after that Jason might really try to talk or listen afterwards.
That was reasonable, he thought.
Jason flipped on his TV in order to distract himself from his phone for a few minutes. He made sure to turn up the volume on his ringer so that he wouldn’t miss any incoming calls or texts.
After an hour or so of absentmindedly watching tv and waffling through the pages of a book he had already read at least 50 times over, Jason debated whether he should just get it over with by calling and yelling at the acrobat himself.
Ultimately, he decided against initiating contact and grew upset at the fact that his brother had supposedly given up on him already. Jason fell back into his defensive mindset of anger and refused to acknowledge that he truly felt hurt by Dick giving up on him after barely a week, and that the real underlying feeling that started all of this mess to begin with, was pain.
’Not even a week and that’s it, eh? I guess that’s all an ‘alive and well’ Jaybird means to the bright and shiny Golden Boy.’
Jason lumbered off to the washroom and hopped into the shower. The large vigilante startled slightly when he heard his phone go off. He wasn’t close to finished showering but he didn’t want to miss the chance to tear Dick a new one...
He quickly turned off the water, dried one hand on a towel and reached out to put his phone on speaker; answering without bothering to look at his call display first.
“What the fuck do you want, Dickhead?!” Jason practically yelled out.
The deep voice that replied was not one he expected to hear,
“Jason-“
“Bruce?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your day, but this is concerning Dick. He didn’t check in after patrol last night. Damian and Tim searched his apartment but he didn’t make it back there either.”
“What?- “ Jason tried to process the information that was being fed to him,
“I wanted to see if you had heard from him at all,”
“No. Nothing from him today. His last message came in yesterday evening.” Jason gritted out,
“Ok. We’ll continue our search.”
“What were his last known coordinates?”
“...sorry?”
“Where the fuck was he last? I’m gonna help look for his ass,” Jason snapped back. He grabbed his towel and started to dry himself off roughly.
“I’ll message the coordinates over to you via your secured line,”
Jason hung up and tried to ignore the serious tone of concern that he could sense in Bruce’s voice.
~o~
Red Hood rolled up to the spot where Bruce’s confidential message indicated that Dick, as Nightwing, had been last.
Jason recognized this district and was well aware of the bastard in charge of this territory. The guy, who went by the lame ass nickname, “The Iceman” was a minor criminal, and supposedly dumb as shit, but he was still a dangerous enough adversary with enough henchmen to cause a lone vigilante some trouble.
Red Hood recalled that Iceman’s operation specialized in cooking and trafficking various forms of Methamphetamines, and other similar concoctions of stimulant drugs.
Red Hood drove offsite to another location a few miles away. Hood had heard past rumblings of a literal underground drug manufacturing operation in this area. The knowledge of this rumoured drug hideout plus its close proximity to Dick’s last known whereabouts was too strong a lead not to follow up on.
The hooded vigilante kept to the shadows as he crept up to the concealed entrance which would lead to the underground warehouse.
Jason had deduced that Dick was likely underground given that the signal from his skimpy Nightwing suit was probably being blocked by the solid concrete walls underground. A few armoured vehicles were above ground as well and Nightwing could have been nabbed and transported inside one of those thickly-walled metal trucks, further blocking his suit’s tracking device.
Red Hood managed to hack into the electrical keypad easily and successfully unlocked the door. The former Robin sent out a quick message providing his location and requested back up from the rest of the Bats.
He didn’t bother waiting for an ETA from the others as he knew they wouldn’t be long. Obviously they would be rushing over immediately to save their precious Goldie. This was the meagre excuse he gave himself before he proceeded solo down the dark, unlit stairway leading into the underground bunker.
The fact that he hurried along had absolutely nothing.. zip...nada... to do with him being worried about Dickhead’s safety... no way...
~o~
Using the night vision settings in his helmet, Jason travelled through and explored the network of underground tunnels. Guns drawn, he peered through the windows on various doors which lined the halls; ready to burst in at the first sign of Nightwing.
Most rooms Red Hood peeked into seemed to be empty. Some rooms appeared to contain large shipping boxes which likely either held drugs or supplies for manufacturing drugs.
Jason noticed that the deeper in he was getting, the more ‘lived in’ the rooms started to look. He even spied a few laboratory style rooms where drugs were definitely in the process of being cooked up. Eerily, he had yet to run across any actual people.
As Red Hood rounded another corner, he began to hear sounds of aggravated screaming. He heard some angry shouts and some more frantic shouts as well.
Jason abandoned all stealth and started running to try and pinpoint the exact location of the screams within the clusterfucky maze of hallways surrounding him. A small resounding voice inside his head yelled in panic for his oldest brother’s wellbeing as he ran into a dead end with no sign of Nightwing.
The last thing Jason remembered as he ran through another corridor was a white-hot blinding pain that coursed through his back and flowed through his entire body. This sensation was followed by a heavy blow to the back of his helmet and the last thing Jason recalled was falling forward and slipping into dark and silent nothingness as he hit the ground.
~o~
‘......underground ...stairs... warehouse... hallways... rooms.... drugs... I... I was looking for something? ... no ... someone .....screaming... he’s screaming...’
“Nightwing!”
Jason startled and jolted up when he realized that he hadn’t fulfilled his rescue mission yet and that he still had to find his older brother and that-
“Whoa, Hood. Chill!” A not yet deep enough voice attempted to calm a frantic Red Hood. The slender hand pushed on Jason’s chest to get him to lay back in his seat again.
“Replacement! We have to go ...”
“Hey, it’s alright, we got ‘Wing, too. Or I should technically say, he got you,”
Jason glanced around and discovered that they were inside the moving Batmobile. Behind Tim, Jason noticed Dick curled up in a ball on the floor of the vehicle clutching his chest.
The Demon Brat was hovering over his favourite brother protectively, smoothing Dick’s disheveled hair back in a very caring and un-Demon-like way.
Batman was driving with his usual white knuckled death grip on the steering wheel; his usual demeanour whenever any one of his kids was hurt on a mission.
Jason turned his head back towards Tim, suddenly feeling very disoriented and a little nauseous, “what? ...fuck, what happened!?”
“Relax, Jay. Seems like you have a concussion. We ... ah...uhh Dick was the one who did everything,”
“... start fucking explaining,”
“K. Well you were already pretty much rescued before we arrived. Uh... when we reached you all of the captors had already been knocked out and zip tied. Then we found Dick dragging you, unconscious, through the place,”
“How in the fuck?”
Tim smirked, “I hacked into the hideout’s security cams while we were en route based on the coordinates you sent. I saw Dick get injected with something and a few seconds later he was flipping out... like... I dunno... let’s say... a possessed ninja? Big D slipped his bonds, disarmed and cuffed everyone in the blink of an eye. Like seriously, he was practically a blur on my screen. They didn’t stand a chance even with their weapons!”
Tim finished excitedly and added,
“Guess they didn’t realize they shouldn’t inject an upper into a hyperactive guy with ADHD, huh?”
Jason grunted in response not sharing Tim’s enthusiasm. Hood recognized those must have been some strong drugs or a massive dose to get such a wild and instant reaction out of Nightwing,
“then what happened?”
“Once Dick kicked all of the asses around him, he rushed out of that room and I lost visual on him for a bit. I had to hack into a different camera feed to find him. When I did, I could see he had knocked out a couple of guys who were tailing you in the tunnels. Wing managed to sneak up behind you and tased you with an escrima stick right to your back, he also kicked you in the back of the head and dropped you.”
Tim picked up Jason’s red helmet and rotated it to show Jason the impressive crack now running up the back of it,
“Well shit... Dickie owes me a new one now,”
“He must have been hallucinating to attack you in the first place, but I’m guessing he realized it was you afterwards, ‘cuz he grabbed your arm and started pulling your body along. That’s right around the time we pulled up.”
“When I located you two, Grayson was calling you, ‘Fire Head’”, Damian peeked over his shoulder and smirked smugly in a way that told Jason that the new nickname might end up sticking. He made a mental note to smack anyone who called him that in the near future to make sure the name didn’t catch on.
Even the corner of Batman’s mouth lifted a micro millimetre for the tiniest fraction of a second at that.
Jason scrunched up his face as much as his pounding headache would allow, “shut up, Brat,”
The smiles all vanished when a panicked Damian shouted out, “Richard!!”
Dick started convulsing without warning, and his breathing changed to short erratic bursts,
“Father! He’s having a seizure!” Damian yelled,
“Turn him onto his side! Tim grab the OD kit, give him the naloxone if needed”
Tim quickly grabbed the overdose kit and jabbed the syringe into his convulsing brother. To everyone’s immediate relief Dick’s breathing began to return to normal fairly quickly.
The seizure subsided although his mouth began to leak blood,
“Crap, he bit his tongue pretty bad,” Tim remarked,
Damian unclipped and rolled up the cape from his suit and wedged it under Dick’s head.
Amidst the chaos, Jason had wedged himself in between his younger brothers beside Dick and after a few minutes he shakily asked, “Dickie? You with us now?”
He held his breath until a shivering Dick finally nodded his head and choked out a, “‘M-m fffine, dd’nnt wrrry”
Jason was about to jokingly tell Dick to shut his bloody, slurring ass mouth, but decided to be sensible and said nothing. Instead, he slumped back into his seat in the Batmobile and kept a silent eye on his sweaty, bloodied and trembling Big Bird until they finally arrived at the cave.
Jason hadn’t even realized he had started to drift off until he heard Batman’s gravelly voice,
“Stay awake, Hood,”
~o~
For the remainder of the drive the familiar ache of remorse stabbed Jason in his gut, almost matching the physical pains in his head and back.
Jason imagined how things could have ended very badly for either himself or Dick, and the last prevailing memory between them would have been of giving Dickie the silent treatment after a really petty and unnecessary blowout.
“Jay? Are you alright?”
Bruce. Great. Jason pulled his head out of his hands to observe that they had arrived back at the cave. Dick had already been helped over to the med bay where Alfred, reliable as ever, was ready to help.
“Hey, lad?” Bruce prodded again, “It’s ok. You’re safe. Dick is safe,”
Jason resisted the urge to snap at Bruce for being so irritatingly gentle and for stating the obvious. He startled slightly when he felt Bruce’s rough hand softly wipe something wet off of his face.
Tears.
Jason wondered when had he started crying, but when he discovered it he quickly reigned himself back in.
“Jay, let’s get you checked out by Alfred too, ok? You did take a few hard hits tonight,”
Jason looked to Bruce -who had kneeled down to Jason’s eye level. Too exhausted physically and emotionally to carry on the pretence of being an asshole in that moment, Jason agreed to the assistance.
~o~
A full day and a half had passed since the incident with the drug traffickers.
Jason tried to keep himself busy, cleaning, cooking ... just anything to keep his mind occupied and off of Dickie and the others.
Jason had bolted from the Manor shortly after Alfred confirmed that he had a minor concussion, and a second degree burn to his back from the escrima stick, but was otherwise fine.
Jason had intended on staying and talking to Dick when he sobered up... he really did.
Talking seemed like a great idea ... until it suddenly didn’t. As the threat of having to deal with repressed pain, emotions, tears, and apologies loomed... Jason decided to flee instead of facing it all.
He also realized that he didn’t want to see Dick go through the possible ugly first stages of withdrawal if that occurred. Jason had been there, done that, with his mom far too many times when she had been alive and the notion of seeing his typically jovial brother forced to deal with the crash... Jason shuddered at the thought.
A phone call from Tim interrupted Jason’s cooking,
“What do you want?”
“Jeez, Jay. Nice to hear your voice too,”
Jason stayed silent and vigorously stirred his bubbling pasta sauce while waiting for Tim to spit out the reason for his call,
“He’s been asking for you,”
Jason stopped his stirring for a couple of seconds but then carried on in frustration, getting little red splashes all over his stovetop,
“Look, Jason, obviously something happened between you guys, but you know what Dick is like. He’s not going to just get over it even if it was something that seems unimportant. It’s going to keep eating him up inside until it’s resolved and that’s really not helping him right now.
Besides, B and I are going to be out tonight, and Alfred is taking Damian to his Art class so we need you to come and keep an eye on Dick to make sure he’ll be alright,”
An angry voice in the background yelled out,
“DRAKE!! You tell Todd, that if he doesn’t make amends with Grayson tonight I will have father cancel the order for Red Hood’s new helmet!!”
“Did you hear that?”
“Loud n’ clear. That little fucking brat,”
Jason sighed and flipped off the stove,
“Fine, I’m on my way. Tell Alfred I’m hungry.”
~o~
Jason let himself into the manor. It appeared as though Tim and Bruce had already left, and he passed Alfred and Damian just as they were headed out the door. Jason earned a cold glare from Damian when he snickered at the sight of the small framed squirt carrying a massive canvas and a huge bag of art supplies.
“There’s food on the counter, Master Jason,” Alfred informed as he walked by,
“You’re the best, Alfred.”
Jason found Dick curled up on a couch in front of the tv in the living room.
The recovering hero had fallen asleep watching some cartoons... typical Dick... Jason rolled his eyes.
Jason had grabbed his plate of food and sat beside Dick, on a neighbouring couch, to eat.
Alfred would not have approved of eating on the sofa, but Jason figured that Alfred would be none the wiser, so he ate there anyway. He also made sure to wipe the couch vigorously at the spot where he accidentally ended up dropping some food. Jason eventually gave up on cleaning the spillage and just flipped the cushion over to hide the newly formed stain. He did a silent prayer hoping that Alfred would never find out.
When he had finished eating, Jason looked over and took in his brother’s current state. Dark, heavy bags lined the bottom of Dick’s eyes and he looked tense and deep in worried thought even whilst sleeping.
Jason noticed that Dick would shiver or spasm involuntarily every so often and so Jason went and grabbed a comforter from his bedroom at the manor; this was the same blanket that Dick always loved to hog when he used to crawl into Jason’s bed after a nightmare.
The gruff hero was in the process of tucking the blanket around his sleeping brother when Dick stirred,
“Hey Dickie, it’s just me,”
Dick peered up and he shuffled to sit up; his eyes widened in disbelief.
“Jay... you came,”
“Yeah. I guess I did,” Jason shrugged awkwardly. Jason moved to sit down on the adjacent couch when a hand grabbed at his sleeve,
“Jay, please stay-“ Dick said quietly, “I’m sorry. Please don’t go.”
Jason pushed Dick over a bit and sat down beside him.
Dick desperately burrowed into Jason’s side and clung onto his arm.
“Yeah, I ‘ain’t goin’ anywhere,”
“I’m sorry, Little Wing. Really sorry,”
Jason could feel the familiar tremors of anxiety radiating off of Dick. Tremors which were made worse by the withdrawal symptoms that Jason knew were coursing through Dick’s body.
“Shh. Just relax, Dickiebird,”
Jason pulled Dick back down into a laying position with the elder’s head in Jason’s lap. Jason pulled the blanket over his recovering brother.
“They said they were gonna hurt Red Hood,” Dick whimpered,
“Huh? Who said?”
“Those guys. Before they injected me. They knew you were there and they sent some guys after you. I couldn’t lose you again.... I just-“
“That’s enough. Calm down, Dick, please,”
“But Jay, I couldn’t save you before, what if I had failed again?”
Jason brushed back Dick’s hair in an attempt to calm him. Jason recognized the nearing state of panic threatening to overtake the acrobat,
“Stop. Dick. It’s not your fault. Nothing is your fault, ok? Look, I’m really sorry about the other day as well. I was shocked to see you at my empty grave... it caught me off guard and I overreacted. I’m sorry I got so mad,”
“I.... I’m the one who should be sorry. I went to visit my parents graves that morning before we were supposed to train, but then I just felt so guilty when I saw it,”
“Saw what?”
“Your grave.”
Dick’s body twitched before he continued, “I want to be a better brother. Seeing that tombstone reminds me of how badly I’ve failed as a brother. I failed Timmy too, and I’m trying really hard not to mess up with Dami. I’m sorry for being so stupid, Little Wing,”
“Hey, that’s enough of that guilt and self-blame. You’re an annoyingly good brother, Goldie. You’re much better than we all deserve. Shit, your biggest fault is that you need to be good to yourself too instead of worrying about all of us all of the time,”
Jason stopped his self-care lecture,
“Dickie, forget about the past, all we can do is make sure we take care of each other now, alright?”
Dick’s brow furrowed as he considered his younger brother’s words,
“Stop overthinking it, Dick. Just accept it.”
“Mhm, only if you’re sure you forgive me,”
“Obviously I do. I wouldn’t be here otherwise,”
“...I love you, Little Wing,”
“You’re such a dork.”
Dick smiled and nuzzled into the hand that Jason was still raking through his hair.
“How are you feeling?” Jason asked,
“I’m fine,”
“Liar.”
“Ok, I feel like shit. Everything hurts. Just put me out of my misery already”
Jason smirked and reached over to grab a bottle of water from the coffee table,
“Here, Mr. Drama show. Drink a little. Stay hydrated and try to sleep it off a bit more. Just be glad you didn’t get tased and kicked in the back of the head,”
Dick handed the bottle back to Jason after taking a few small sips, and sheepishly rested his head back into Jason’s lap,
“Yeah... Timmy showed me the cctv footage ... sorry about that, Little Wing,”
“No apologies needed. I get an upgraded helmet paid for by B because of it. Get some rest, I’ll be here when you wake up.”
~o~
“Best 2 out of 3. I get your dagger if I win,”
“Tt, you could never best me, Drake,”
Jason discovered that he must have fallen asleep when he heard soft whispers and giggles nearby. He felt something small and soft smack against his cheek. Jason started to come to when he felt something fall into his mouth.
Jason spit out a mouthful of mini-marshmallows and looked around to find a bunch of little white
marshmallows scattered around his body.
Dick was still sleeping in Jason’s lap as well and he had a decent layer of marshmallows resting on top of him too.
Jason jumped up with an angry roar, causing Dick to fall to the floor with a startled yelp,
“I’m going to kill you pipsqueaks!!”
Tim and Damian took off running towards the kitchen, laughing hysterically as they retreated,
Jason caught up to them as they cowered behind Bruce and Alfred, the older two men did not look pleased at having their civilized conservation interrupted,
“Get out from behind there you little runts,”
“It was the Demon’s idea!!” Tim protested,
“Tt!! Drake handed me the bag of marshmallows and challenged me to throw them into your slack jawed mouth as you slept. Don’t lie, Drake! You have no integrity,”
Dick came up from behind Jason and wrapped his arms around his larger brother from behind,
“C’mon Jay, leave them alone,”
Jason glared hard at the two youngest boys, still tucked behind Bruce and Alfred’s legs,
“Guys, not in the kitchen,” Bruce scolded,
“Hey! Let’s have a marshmallow catching competition!” Dick exclaimed, “Me and Jay versus Timmy and Dami!!”
“Master Dick, should you not be resting?”
“Oh come on, Alfie, I’ve been sleeping all day. Let us have some fun!”
Alfred smiled, glad to see Dick behaving more like his impish self,
“Very well, then. But don’t spoil your appetites,”
With that, the brothers engaged in their friendly marshmallow competition, with the younger brothers winning in the end and rubbing it in for the rest of the night right up until bedtime.
“Yeah, yeah. When Dickie and I are back to 100% we demand a rematch,” Jason quipped as the younger two boys broke off to head up to bed,
“Hey Jay,” Dick turned to Jason,
“What’s up?”
“Will you stay the night at the manor tonight? Please?”
Jason pondered the question before answering, “only on one condition,”
“What’s the condition?”
“You come talk to the real me and not imaginary dead me if you want to talk, got it?”
“Got it.”
Dick grinned and hugged Jason before both men headed off to bed.
End notes:
PS. Jason had Dickie’s favourite blanket all prepared for him to hog when he sauntered into Jason’s bedroom and crawled into his younger brother’s bed in the middle of the night.
PPS. Alfred did discover the stain on the couch cushion. Alfred knows all.