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Dick Grayson was many things, but right now he was mainly tired. He had been running himself ragged with Titan’s missions, patrolling Blüdhaven, checking on Bruce, and main thing his job at the gym. He loved the Titan’s, they were always there for him. He loved his city, it needed his help and he was really starting to make a difference. Bruce was definitely a guy who needed him to check in on him. He loved his dad, he really did, but he was a disaster. It was part of why Dick had left the minute he turned 18, he wanted a chance to be his own person without Bruce checking to make sure he was safe all the time. Oh how the turns have tabled. He loved the gym, he had a class with the 4-6 crowd tomorrow and he could not wait to see how excited the kids got when they figured out how to do their somersaults.
He loved his life, honestly. He wouldn’t change it for anything. But, right now he was just grateful for a moment of peace. Tonight would be the first night in weeks that he was getting 6 hours of sleep. Again, he loved everything he did, but it didn’t stop this from being the highlight of his week, hell maybe even his month.
He could feel himself drifting off towards blissful nothingness when his phone started to ring. Motherfucker he recognized the stupid ringtone. Bruce better have a damn good reason for calling him.
Dick goes to answer the phone, taking a deep breath before answering. “Hello? Bruce, what’s going on?” He swore he could hear a chant of ‘pick up’ right before he started talking, but there is no way that’s right.
“Dick I need you to come home right now”
“What’s going on, is everything okay?”
“Yes, I just need you to come home.”
Typical, Bruce thought that at the drop of a hat he could run back to Gotham. Not this time. He had things going on and he’d let his pseudo father know that. “B, I can’t just come home I have work at the gym tomorrow and-”
“Holy fuck is that a dinosaur?!”
… Dick could’ve sworn that that was a child’s voice. A very loud child’s voice. Was that a child’s voice? “Was that a fucking child??”
There was a tension he could feel on the line as the silence dragged on. Dick was not going to beg. Bruce would tell him, or they’d both just sit there.
“Yes.”
With that Dick was out of his bed, running around his room in search of pants. Alfred was on vacation and there was no possible way Bruce was going to handle a child well without him, “What happened?”
Bruce’s words rushed together, betraying the anxiety the man obviously felt, “He stole the tires off of the Batmobile.”
He took a beat, letting the words process, “That doesn’t mean you can kidnap him!!”
“I couldn’t leave him. He was hungry. We got burgers.”
Oh god Dick was going to kill him. “Oh my god, okay, I’m on my way, have you called Alfred?”
Bruce didn’t even have to answer for Dick to already know what he was going to say, but hearing the soft, ‘no’ did nothing for his building anxiety. A part of him was kind of happy that Bruce was reaching out for help, another part of him could not possibly believe that this was happening.
“Bruce I swear to god you have to tell Alfred,” he knew he sounded out of breath, but running to your car would do that to someone.
“What if he’s mad at me?”
For the love of- “Holy child abduction Batman, you have to tell Alfred before he gets back. I’m not dealing with that.”
“Okay…”
Dick sighed in relief, buckling in and setting his phone up so he could continue the call. Everything would be fine, it’d all be okay. “Okay, I’ll be there in an hour, don’t let the kid die before I get there,” he joked, hoping for some levity would soothe both their nerves, “How’s he doing?”
Bruce took a minute before answering, only rocketing Dick’s anxiety back up to eleven.
“I don’t see him anymore.”
His brain was struggling to process, “You don’t-“ and then it hit him, “Bruce!”
“Gottogoseeyouwhenyougethere,” and then the call ended and it took all of Dick’s self control to not throw his phone out the window.
“He fucking hung up on me,” he muttered, taking a deep breath, “It’s fine, I’ll be there in an hour, it’ll be fine. He watched me all the time growing up…”
Suddenly, all he could think about was the several grease fires they started together due to the lack of Alfred level supervision.
“… Fuck”
**********
Dick sat across his new ‘brother’ trying to think of a way to talk to the kid. This should not be this hard, Dick was great with kids. It just had to be due to the fact that this scrawny little kid was about to be his brother. And probably also the fact that he would have to make sure Bruce didn’t do this again. Deep down, he knew that there wasn’t really anything else Bruce could do, but Dick didn’t want to have to deal with it again.
“So…” he started, looking up at the boy sitting on the counter watching him make soup. Jason really had the bat glare down already, that is, if he wasn’t 80 pounds soaking wet and short as all else. “You stole the tires off the Batmobile?”
Dick watched with a smile as Jason puffed his chest out, something like pride washing over his face before he locked it back behind a glare, “Yeah, what about it?” he spit out.
Dick couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face. He pulled Jason into a side hug, “I believe this is the start of a beautiful brotherhood.”
Bruce’s quiet, ‘oh no’ was drowned out by the sound of Jason’s laughter, but you could still see the smile on his face.