Chapter Text
He knew something was happening when the old man in the fancy suit came to his sentencing.
The man sat in the second row in the otherwise empty audience seating, right on the edge of the bench at the aisle. He said nothing the whole time, not when the ADA hurried down the aisle only to stop two steps past him and snap his head back around and stare, not when the ADA announced the state would be seeking a life sentence due to the unusual circumstances, not even when the judge agreed and smashed the gavel and sealed Dick’s fate.
“What’s wrong with him,” Dick said at one point, more to himself than anyone else. The man sat, unflinching, possibly unblinking. Just waiting.
“What makes you think there’s something wrong with him?” the bailiff standing at Dick’s elbow asked, although she was also uneasy and kept looking over at him as well. She had been Dick’s courtroom keeper from start to finish for this trial, and she knew Dick had no one who would be here for him for any of this. Dick, unable to put it into words, just shook his head and looked away.
And then the judge decided, and court was adjourned, and the ADA turned and beelined back over to the man, who rose to speak with him. Dick, chained and stuck where he was until someone took possession of him, could only watch, barely able to hear the ADA’s voice over the shuffling of other people and hearing nothing at all from the stranger. He looked at the bailiff again and got a shrug before they both turned to watch.
A moment later, the ADA turned away, looking distinctly unhappy, and came over.
“Congratulations, Mister Grayson,” he said, nodding to the court officers to come over. Two sets of hands landed on him, firm and pulling, not even giving him the chance to protest.
“For what?” Dick asked, but the ADA was already turned away again, and beyond him the stranger was gone, the door to the courtroom slowly swinging shut behind him. And then Dick was pulled away, jerking unhappily against the chains that shortened his stride, head down and fists clenched as he was led through the hallways and to the elevator that would take them to the parking garage. He tried to enjoy it while it lasted. It was, after all, the closest thing he would come to freedom for a very long time.
And then the elevator doors opened, and there was a car next to the prison bus.
Dick stared for a moment. He had never, in his months of being shuffled around, seen a regular car be allowed to park next to prisoner transport. And the guards on the bus weren’t coming out to take possession of him- in fact, one of the court officers went ahead as soon as they reached the parking garage and was standing in the bus’ open door, talking to the guards, all of them looking between Dick and the car. The officer still holding onto Dick took him on a line aimed vaguely between the two vehicles, as if undecided where he was taking him.
And then the car’s driver’s door opened, and- somehow, completely unsurprisingly- the overdressed man from the sentencing got out.
“Mister Grayson,” he said.
“Uh.” Dick stared, caught off-guard enough that his usual flippancy failed him. “Yes?”
“I am Alfred Pennyworth,” the man continued, with such a perfect English accent that Dick almost laughed. And now that he was looking- that wasn’t just a suit, it was a butler’s suit, like the man himself was ripped right out of those old black-and-white Agatha Christie movies Dick would watch late at night when his brain wouldn’t shut off and let him sleep. Pennyworth stepped forward and opened the car’s rear door and made a gesture like he expected Dick to get in. “You are to come with me.”
The officer’s grip on Dick’s bicep was bruisingly tight. Pennyworth had yet to even acknowledge him. “I’d love to,” Dick said, recovered enough to have found his footing. “Unfortunately I have a prior commitment, unless you know how to get me out of it…?”
“It’s been seen to.” Pennyworth finally looked at the officer. “The shackles will not be necessary.”
The expressions on all of their faces were probably works of art. Dick glanced at the officer holding him and caught a glimpse of a cocktail of impotent anger and utter confusion.
“You are aware what he was just on trial for,” the officer said. Pennyworth shifted his gaze to him, and his expression somehow shifted minutely, going from professionally blank to icy.
“I am. I am also confident that Mister Grayson will behave himself.”
Dick hardly dared breathe in the silence that followed. Pennyworth stared down the officer and arched one eyebrow in scathing expectation.
The officer caved first, though not without a long look at his partner near the bus. He produced a key and unlocked the shackles around Dick’s wrists and ankles, letting the chains clatter to the pavement. Dick tensed with the sudden freedom, then forced himself to relax, quashing the urge to rub at his chafed wrists.
“Come along then, Mister Grayson,” Pennyworth said without missing a beat, once again gesturing towards the open car door. Dick moved away from the officer, glancing back a couple of times, almost hesitant. With the officers, at least, he knew what to expect. With Pennyworth- not a clue.
“Is this legal?” he asked when he was close enough that their audience likely wouldn’t overhear. It wasn’t like he thought the old man was somehow blackmailing the officers, or holding some sort of active threat against them, but if this somehow went wrong, or was wrong from the start, it would land hardest on Dick himself.
“Of course. I have the paperwork, signed by the defense attorney himself, if you would like to peruse it.” Pennyworth pinned Dick this time with the expectant eyebrow arch, and Dick ducked down and slid into the car. The door snapped shut after him, and a moment later Pennyworth slid back into the driver’s seat and closed his own door, and the echoing emptiness of the parking garage was cut off.
Dick slid over to the middle of the back seat, leaning forward a little to get a better look at Pennyworth. That sense of wrong had only grown, temporarily muted by the unexpected rescue but now returned in full force, and it was bothering Dick that he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Here.” Pennyworth handed a small stack of heavy-stock papers back to Dick. He glanced it over, and none of it meant anything to him, but- there, on the signature line on the bottom of the second page, Harvey Dent.
“Okay,” Dick said. “What the actual fuck is going on?”
Pennyworth made a quiet, disapproving noise. “You will see soon enough,” he said, already pulling out of the parking spot, the car started so quietly Dick hadn’t even heard it.
Dick handed the papers back after a moment’s thought- if they were his get-out-of-jail-free card, did he really want to give them up?- then slid over against the passenger door and buckled in as an alert politely dinged at him from up front. “Any clues where we’re going?”
“You’ll see,” Pennyworth said again.
The weirdness of it all was enough to have Dick flopping back in his seat. After a long moment of watching Gotham traffic crawl by outside the heavily tinted windows, he felt compelled to say, “Well, thanks anyway. For- whatever this is.”
He looked over in time to catch Pennyworth studying him in the rearview mirror, something in his expression softening just a little.
“You are quite welcome, Mister Grayson,” he said, and looked away again. Dick turned his own gaze back out the window, hungry to be amongst the city again, and allowed himself a small smile.
The drive wasn’t particularly long, only artificially lengthened by the late afternoon traffic, but still far longer than Dick expected. Every time they slowed down, every time the turn signal started clicking away, he sat up and looked around- and every time, they continued on. They made their way out of downtown, and then out of the city proper, and then the crowded suburbs clinging to Gotham started falling away as well, and Dick was looking around in bafflement. There were proper fields around them, artfully rolling hills and manicured lawns behind tall gates and impressive walls, glimpses of increasingly large houses through the artfully arranged screen of trees. If Dick rolled the window down, he could probably smell the old money and blue blood in the air.
“Should’ve asked who you work for,” he said in between his gawking.
“You probably should have,” Pennyworth agreed, a hair smugly, and said nothing else.
And then they were slowing again, the gate already swinging open as the car pulled up to it. Dick leaned forward and caught a glimpse of a stylized W set in the gate before it was angled too far for him to see it anymore, and then they were past it, tires crunching quietly over gravel as they approached the house- mansion- freaking castle.
They parked in the arch of the driveway that led past the front door to the- manor, Dick supposed they called it, to sound properly pretentious- and Pennyworth climbed out while Dick was still gaping. “Come along, Mister Grayson,” he ordered crisply, and Dick scrambled after him.
The manor was three stories, all red brick front and shingled roof tiles and shockingly white trim. Dick followed Pennyworth to the front door, which he opened without needing to unlock. This took them to a small mudroom with an umbrella stand near the door and the scent of pine cleaner faint in the air.
“Shoes off, please.” Pennyworth gestured to indicate the small rug off to the side with a small row of shoes already on it. Dick toed off his prison-issued slip-ons and left them in a sloppy pile on the rug, not caring if he never saw them again.
And then he followed the old man into the foyer, and had to stop again for a minute.
There was a grand staircase leading up to the third floor, of course there was, each side of the set of stairs a concave arch and the railings shiny and clean and begging for a good slide down. Some elaborate symbols had been set in pale wood into the dark wood flooring, and through doorways scattered in every direction Dick could see artwork in heavy frames on the walls, the occasional piece of statuary or expensive-looking vase on a plinth, a mile-long table already set for dinner that wasn’t for at least a couple hours yet, a grand piano, a grandfather clock taller than Dick with elaborate scrolling on the glass inset in its body.
“Come along, Richard,” Pennyworth called, already halfway up the stairs to the third floor, and Dick darted after him, observing but not commenting on the sudden switch on names.
He followed Pennyworth- Alfred, he supposed- down the hallway to the left. The carpet was soft and springy under his feet, and rare Gotham sunlight poured in through windows with curtains pulled wide open in the rooms they passed. It helped to balance against the dark wood walls and the stern faces scowling at them from the portraits dotting the walls of the hall. Dick ducked his head and was careful not to meet any of their gazes, as if it mattered.
Alfred stopped at the very end of the hall and knocked once on the closed door, a single short rap of his knuckles. “Enter,” someone called from inside, and Alfred turned and stared at Dick until he approached and opened the door himself and went into the room beyond.
There was a man sitting at a desk, eyes focused on the tablet in his hands. Dick came over to stand before him and said, utterly unsurprised, “Bruce Wayne.”
Wayne actually looked up at that, studying Dick in turn, peering at him over the frames of his reading glasses. “And you,” he said evenly as he set his tablet aside, “are Richard Grayson, just declared guilty of the murder of the man who allegedly killed your parents.”
Irritation washed away the quiet numbness that had settled in when Dick had recognized his benefactor. The allegedly had him bristling, the way it always did- the ADA had even had mention of it banned in his trial so he couldn’t even defend himself and explain why Zucco had deserved to die. Worse than that- he bit his tongue, swallowing down the acidic words- how’s that any different from what you did to the man who killed yours- except it was very different, because Wayne had money and Dick didn’t, and also Wayne had the power to-
“Sit.” Wayne gestured to the chair across the desk from him, a simple expectation that he would be obeyed.
Dick turned away instead. He wandered the room for a moment, studying it- dark wood, leather, heavy books the the wall shelf behind Wayne, their spines creased like they had actually been opened at some point. There was a simple crystal vase of strange, spidery-looking red flowers on the shelf behind Wayne, what looked like a mouse skeleton mounted in a small glass display box on his desk, half-melted candles with elaborate symbols carved into the wax, detailed charts of human anatomy with handwritten notes tacked up on the walls. Dick studied it all before he turned away, wandering over to the windows.
He could see Gotham in the distance, faint and ugly on the smoggy horizon. In earlier days, this place would have had a great view of the city’s skyline, but these days there was too much pollution even when the weather cooperated.
“Why am I here?” he asked, still looking out the window, measuring the open area between trees on the grounds below, trying to calculate how tall the surrounding walls had been.
“I had your sentence commuted,” Wayne said, as if it were that simple, and maybe for him it was. For Dick, it was a year’s worth of trouble- drama and emotional rollercoasters, stern voices and firm hands, bars and cuffs and hearings and the jury foreman’s voice echoing in his ears for nights on end, guilty guilty guilty- and Wayne had just dismissed it all with the wave of his hand. “I am offering you short-term employment.”
Dick turned at that, and even came back over to the desk in order to stare down at Wayne. He was a big man, big enough to feel as though he were towering over Dick even while still seated. Dick, who had been introduced to genpop after only two weeks of protective custody and left to sink or swim on his own, leaned forward and said sweetly, “If this is about your little hobby, then I’ll be going back to my cell now.”
“That is always an option,” Wayne said, like he thought it would scare Dick even a little. “For now, yes, it has something to do with my hobby, but not the way you’re thinking.” He gestured again, aimlessly, and then steepled his fingers together in front of his face. “Tell me, Richard, what do you know about necromancy?”
For a moment Dick hesitated- should he know something about it? was he more useful if he had some base knowledge of Wayne’s art, or was he currently ignorant of some terrible secret that his knowing would require silencing him for?- but then the questions chasing each other in his mind went still, movement in his peripheral vision catching his attention and his gaze snapping over on instinct.
The mouse- the skeleton mouse in its glass display cage- stretched its way off the supports holding it up, toes flexing and legs shifting and tail uncurling to hold suspended in a straight line behind it. It sat up on its hind legs for a moment, skull turning from one man to the other, empty eye sockets regarding them as closely as living eyes would. When neither moved, it dropped to all four and scurried over to the wall of the display box, pushing its nose at the glass like it was sniffing, standing to press a front foot to the glass so it could poke at the top corners. Its bony nose tapped faintly against the case, its naked phalanges scraping quietly against the glass wall.
Dick returned his gaze to Wayne, who was watching him, expression mild. It felt like a test.
What did he know about necromancy? Well, he knew necromancers had been flocking to Gotham for thirty-five years now, seeking a safe haven in a society that despised them. He knew Gotham had that reputation because a teenaged Bruce Wayne had murdered his parents’ killer and then successfully argued in court that it couldn’t technically be considered murder when he had the skills to bring the man back to life, thus tunneling a great big loophole through Gotham’s entire legal system that no law could completely patch up. He knew that the rest of the world still considered necromancy to be an unspeakable horror, the blackest of arts that even being suspected of using could be a death sentence- but here in Gotham, it was a marketable skill.
What did he know about actual necromancy, though? “Not a thing,” he admitted as he finally came around and sat in the indicated chair, meeting Wayne’s gaze without flinching. It wasn’t like he could bullshit this man about that.
Wayne didn’t seem bothered by that answer. “That’s fine, it’s not necessary for the job I’m offering you.”
Like it was an employment interview, and not Wayne holding him firmly over a barrel. “Which is?” Dick prompted. He could hear the man out, see what he wanted. If it was something too unreasonable or disturbing, then he could go back to prison- or better yet, wait until Wayne took eyes off of him and make use of the nearest exit. So far the closest thing he’d seen to any sort of security was the distant wall at the edge of the property.
“All you need to know is someone is killing necromancers, and your job is to not let it happen here,” Wayne said.
Dick took a moment to process that. “A bodyguard?” he asked finally, feeling like he’d missed something, like he’d somehow tuned out some vital part of the conversation. “You want a bodyguard- there are whole companies for things like this, why are you asking me?”
“I looked into them.” Wayne was surprisingly patient for someone unsubtly accused of being an idiot. “They didn’t have what I needed.”
Dick let that bait dangle between them for a moment, although he already knew he wasn’t going to outwait or outstubborn Wayne. The man was putting on a good show- takes one to know one; Dick has been a showman his whole life, only the stage has changed- but something about him felt firmly settled. It would be easier to win an argument with one of Gotham’s infamous gargoyles.
“What are the terms, then? I screw up and I’m back in Blackgate?”
“Yes,” Wayne said, like it was obvious, and in fairness to him it probably sounded like a good deal. “You will live expense-free here at the manor until the killer is caught, at which point your sentence will be considered served and you will be free to leave.”
“Is there something special about this guy?” Dick asked, almost rhetorical. Necromancers had been the victims of hate crimes before, even here in Gotham, and there would be at least rumors of it if Wayne’s regular response to such things was to outsource special protection.
“Yes,” Wayne said again, simply, and offered no further explanation. “Is that acceptable, or should I send you back to your cell now?”
Dick bit back his scoff. How could it be acceptable when Wayne hadn’t really told him anything yet? But it was decided already, had been from the start. “Fine. On two conditions.”
“You have conditions?” Wayne echoed, eyebrow raising. He looked- not rattled, that was going too far, maybe just a bit shifted, like the ground wasn’t one hundred percent steady beneath his feet- for the first time. LIke it genuinely never occurred to him that Dick might want to actually have a say in his own life, even with as severely limited as his options currently were.
“Call it if you think I’m bluffing,” Dick said, and it was a good thing Wayne didn’t, because he wasn’t. “One, I don’t want anything to do with your necromancy. I’m not holding books or lighting candles or digging up graves for you, none of it. I’ll stay in the room if I have to, but that’s it.”
“Not interested in violating the natural order of things?” Wayne must have really been thrown off his stride by Dick’s demand for conditions- his tone was curious and his face expressionless but that was the most obvious trap yet. That, there, was a dealbreaker.
“No, it just smells bad,” Dick countered instantly.
Wayne’s mask shifted again, allowing a startled flash of smile to cross his face before he ruthlessly suppressed it. He resettled- not physically, just metaphorically finding his feet again after that hitch in his stride- and nodded once. “And the second?”
“Why me,” Dick said. “For real this time, why me?”
Wayne leaned back in his chair, unfolding his hands and tapping briefly at his chin with one finger before he seemed to recognize it as a tell and stopped. Finally he said, “You were caught dumping Anthony Zucco’s head in the harbor. You would have most likely gotten away with his murder, but you stopped to make sure most necromancers wouldn’t be able to bring him back.”
It had been the theft of the boat that had gotten him caught, in the end. But he’d made sure to do what he came out there to do, even with harbor patrol shining spotlights on him in the little boat he’d borrowed and blaring orders at him over the loudest megaphone ever made. By the time they put all the pieces back together, assuming they even found them, it would have taken a heavy hitter like Wayne to bring Zucco back. Most necros either didn’t have the skill, the experience, or simply the incentive to deal with something like that, and Dick had known it.
Dick considered it for a long moment. If anyone would understand, if anyone ever could- Wayne had made his society-breaking argument based purely on the theoretical, he hadn’t actually brought his parents’ killer back to life- it would be Bruce Wayne.
“Couldn’t tolerate him still being in this world anymore, not even like that.”
It was worth it, he didn’t say, and Wayne smiled again, a darkly satisfied thing, like he’d heard the words anyway and wholeheartedly agreed.
“Let’s just say I see something I recognize in you,” Wayne said, and it didn’t really answer the question, but Dick hadn’t really expected an honest answer anyways.
Whatever; going over the wall was always an option. “All right, I’m in,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, I’m not remotely qualified for something like this, so when something goes wrong I don’t want anyone blaming me- but it’s better than Blackgate.”
Wayne hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Alfred will take you to the blue guest room, we have clothing in your size.” Wayne picked his tablet up again, clearly about to dismiss Dick. “You might want to get changed before you meet him.”
“Him who? Wait, I thought I was…” and he trailed off, and gestured helplessly to Wayne, not sure how to put it into words.
Wayne hesitated for a moment, his expression once again as smooth and neutral as a marble bust. “Unfortunately it’s not that simple,” he said, and looked away and made a gesture towards the door. Alfred had clearly been waiting for some kind of signal, because he opened the door and nodded once at Dick.
Dick stood and hesitated, and- unwilling, unable to not and not knowing why- looked at the mouse in the display case again, and shivered.
Then he followed Alfred out, the door shutting firmly behind him.
The blue guest room seemed named for the sky blue rug on the hardwood floor. Alfred led him in, indicated the dresser against the wall that apparently had all the clothes in it, and retreated and closed the door behind him as he left. Dick undressed slowly, touching his fingers gently to the color smudged over his wrists- he did not bruise easily, but he had under the cuffs, and probably other places due to rough handling.
The jumpsuit went on a pile on the chair, and Dick dug into the dresser drawers. He ended up with a plain grey t-shirt and suspiciously well-fitting jeans. He left the socks and the underwear and came out of the room to find Alfred across the hall patiently nudging a portrait into hanging straight.
“So do I get some kind of allowance or something for this?” Dick asked as Alfred turned away from the portrait and led him down the hall once more.
“Whatever you need, you may ask me for,” Alfred said primly, and Dick took it as the rebuke it was and left it at that.
They went downstairs again, back to the ground floor, and this time out the sliding glass doors in what Alfred referred to as the second sitting room and into the back yard. Alfred, shoes back on, followed the white stone path leading in a loop through the property- Dick, luxuriating in the feeling of bare feet on soft grass, stayed just off the path.
There was, tucked up lengthwise against the corner of the manor, a small greenhouse teeming with the same red flowers as had been in the vase in Wayne’s office. There was someone inside, Dick could see movement between the flowers as they worked, but the plants were arranged in staggered rows that ended well above head-height.
Alfred cleared his throat loudly, and the sound of running water cut off from inside the greenhouse and someone poked their head out the open door.
“Is that him?” he called.
“It is,” Alfred called back, and the gardener came out entirely and started pulling his work gloves off as he approached.
Dick looked him over as the guy stopped a good half-dozen strides away. He looked rather unremarkable, for whatever he was to Wayne- a young man, perhaps a few years younger than Dick, skin pale save for a brush of freckles across the bridge of his nose, glass-green eyes narrowed in contemplation as he returned the scrutiny. A small scar nipped through the corner of his left eyebrow, and he had silver studs in his ears- he had a handsome face, thick black hair and broad shoulders and a great build, but he was by and large not what Dick had been half-expecting.
To be fair, Dick, half a head shorter and probably a good forty pounds lighter than him, probably wasn’t what this guy expected either.
“Richard, this is Jason Todd,” Alfred said. Todd pinned his gloves to his waist with his elbow as he shoved his sweaty hair out of his face.
“Bruce’s son, though he rarely bothers to mention that part,” he said with a knife-sharp smile.
That earned him an arched eyebrow from Alfred as Dick called up the recent memory of Wayne’s face. Certainly there were similarities, if superficial ones- skin tone, hair color, general physical presence, but the bone structure was all wrong, and the last name- but Alfred didn’t look set to begin explaining, so that one was probably going to go unanswered.
“Jason is whose safety you will be responsible for,” Alfred said.
“Still not interested,” Todd interjected before Dick could respond.
“I am afraid I do not care, Master Jason,” Alfred said loftily, and Todd’s smile softened a little, fondness creeping through the cracks before he ducked his head to hide it away. Alfred allowed himself his own almost-smile for another moment before smothering it under stiff professionalism again. “The manor doors close at ten p.m., it would be unwise to leave after that.”
He said it while looking directly at Todd, who huffed. “I get a curfew as well as a babysitter? I can see why he’s making you do this, if it’d been him we’d have tried to kill each other at least once by now.”
Alfred ignored that and turned to Dick. “While you are both in the manor, you are free to do as you wish, but while Master Jason is out on the grounds or in the city you are to accompany him at all times.”
“If I ask you why me, will I actually get an answer this time?” Dick asked.
“No,” Alfred said simply, and turned away again. “Master Bruce has already made the consequences of attempting to escape Richard amply clear, I assume?” he asked, and Todd, face tight and eyes dark, scowled and jerked his chin up in something like a reluctant nod. Alfred nodded as well in return and smoothed his hands down his jacket lapels. “Good. Now, if that is all either of you require, we should all return to our duties.”
And with that, he turned sharply on his heel and strode away, following the path back up to the house. Dick stared after him before turning his attention back to Todd- Jason, he supposed, since there was most likely a reason why they were already on a first-name basis.
Jason shoved his gloves into his jeans pocket and folded his arms across his chest, raking his gaze over Dick again. “So how much is he paying you?”
“Why, you want to double it?” Dick countered without missing a beat. He was still unsettled, still floundering a little like he was trying to find solid ground under his feet again, and snippy as always with the uncertainty. He had long perfected the art of defending himself by hitting back first, and this whole thing was putting him on the defensive.
Jason shook his head, clearly aware of the likelihood of that happening. “Just wondering if you’re going to be worth it.”
“Might help if I knew anything about what’s going on.”
“Someone’s killing necros,” Jason said carelessly. “Pretty sure Bruce told you that much.”
“And when you turn up one of the victims, I’ll be shit out of luck, but at least your worries will be over,” Dick said lightly, and Jason snorted. Hard to tell from his expression if he was amused or annoyed by the cheek, or possibly just irritated with the situation at large and determined to be an asshole about it the whole way through.
He was, Dick reminded himself, Bruce Wayne’s son. He didn’t look like any trust fund baby Dick had ever seen, but he still was one. They had a common enemy right now in the form of Wayne’s machinations, but the instant Dick overstepped in a way Jason didn’t like, that camaraderie would disappear.
“Any reason to think this guy is targeting you or is this just paranoia?” Dick asked.
“Just paranoia, Detective,” Jason drawled.
Dick gave up at that. He doubted that was true, but if Jason knew anything, he wasn’t interested in being helpful. He could try again later, when his presence wasn’t such a fresh wound.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m heading back inside.”
“Really?” Jason’s eyebrows rose in a challenge. “You’re supposed to stick by me when I’m outside the manor walls, remember?” He gestured broadly, indicating how he was very definitely not in the manor anymore.
“Yeah,” Dick agreed. “I also remember that you’re the one who faces consequences if we get separated, which makes the whole where you go I follow thing a two-way street.”
It was a curious bluff- Wayne would probably know he was being lied to if Dick came to him over it, but would most likely take Dick’s side anyway, in order to not undermine his own bluff about said consequences. And Jason knew it, too, and he flushed deeply as his mouth opened and then snapped shut on nothing, words for once not coming to him. Dick, against his better judgment, took pity on him and closed the distance between them so they weren’t half-yelling anymore.
“What I’m worth, apparently, is cashing in a favor from the District Attorney,” he said in a lowered voice, and Jason’s eyes narrowed- he had been given a vital piece of information, all he had to do now was follow that thread and unravel the context. “I’m not any happier about this than you, so can we please just figure out how to get through this without killing each other?”
“Fine,” Jason said after a pause, eyes sharp and not quite focused on Dick as he did his own internal calculations. He glanced over his shoulder to the greenhouse, looking for- something. Dick knew basically nothing about flowers, and these ones weren’t the bog standard red rose or chrysanthemum. These were large clusters of small blooms on single long stalks, thin red stamens arching out from the center like spider legs, each cluster looking like a half-fizzled firework in the night sky.
“Now, inside?” Dick asked. An offer, instead of a demand; an olive branch.
“After you,” Jason said with a sweep of his arm. Dick debated with himself, decided it wasn’t worth caring, and turned and headed back to the manor, well aware of Jason half a step behind him the entire way.
Dick’s first port of call once he was back inside was a bathroom- specifically, the one attached to his room, which was less a guest room and more a proper suite. He wasn’t overly surprised to see Jason duck through the door just down the hall- it would figure Wayne would put them right next to each other- but no sound came through the shared wall. He closed his bedroom door and found no lock, headed into the bathroom and found a cheap lock there, which he used. He peeled his borrowed clothes off and climbed into the shower without bothering to wait for the water to come up to temp.
After weeks- months- of no privacy, no water pressure, no freedom, it was amazing. He stood under the shower head and let the water flow over him for a few good minutes, eyes closed and head tipped back, luxuriating in it. He could imagine the last few months, prison and courthouses and handcuffs, all accumulating like grime on his skin, now washing away. He would have to start his stretching routine again, now that he had the space and the security for it.
Maybe he wouldn’t go over the wall just yet, he told himself, and picked up the body wash to check the scent.
He had just turned the water off, guilt over the waste breaking through his pleasant haze, when someone knocked on the bedroom door, the sound of it muffled twice over. Dick wrapped the towel around his waist and opened the bathroom door and leaned against the jam. “Yeah?” he called over.
“Dinner in the manor is usually informal,” Alfred announced, the bedroom door still closed between them. “You may come to the kitchen at any time and help yourself.”
“Right,” Dick said. He was fairly sure he hadn’t seen a kitchen at any point during his abridged tour of the manor. “And the kitchen is…?”
“Downstairs, on the other side of the dining room.”
“Okay, thanks.” Dick hesitated awkwardly, listening for Alfred to either keep talking or walk away, and hearing nothing. Finally he stepped back into the bathroom and closed the door again, and caught his own gaze in the mirror as he turned.
He had lost weight, for sure. The heat from the shower had brought the bruises out in full force, thin bands on his wrists, a smear on his upper arm where the officer had been holding him. He had new lines in his face and bags under his eyes that would take more than a few good nights’ sleep to do something about. The jumpsuit had been gone from his room when he’d come back from meeting Jason, but it was impossible, looking at his own reflection, to believe that anyone could look at him and not simply know.
He dried off and left the towel in a rebellious heap on the bathroom floor and wandered naked through his room, digging into the dresser again until he came up with decent workout clothes- sweatpants and an oversized and well-loved University of Metropolis t-shirt that definitely didn’t seem like it belonged- and put them on and positioned himself in the clearest space in the room. He couldn’t risk overextending himself after months of limited movement, but he could at least do some basic yoga, test his new limits and figure out where he needed the most work.
He stretched, and listened, and the whole time heard nothing from the room next door.