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Jason cupped the phone to his ear. “Ok, Bruce. Yeah, we’re fine. No, everything’s good.”
Then he cast a nervous glance at Dick, like he was afraid Dick was going to call his bluff.
Dick seriously considered it.
Technically, they were fine. Trapped in the Manor as a hurricane raged up the coast, with all the zeta tubes also down because of a quote-unquote “outer space situation” that Batman refused to let Nightwing in on, and without even Superman to fly them somewhere else because Superman was also in outer space dealing with the same dumb situation – but fine.
Hell, they were trapped in Wayne Manor, home of both Gotham’s Richest Man and Gotham’s Most Paranoid Man (spoiler alert: they were the same man), so they had enough emergency food supplies to last for weeks. They had backup generators for their backup generators. They had subscriptions to every single streaming service, and a home movie theater to watch them in. Technically – technically – they were more than fine.
It also just so happened that, with Bruce currently stuck on the Watchtower and Alfred’s flight home from England delayed by the storm, they were trapped there alone. Just the two of them.
Just the estranged ward of Bruce Wayne, and Bruce Wayne’s shiny new son.
Dick took a deep breath, turned on his heel, and stalked out of the room.
Jason’s voice faltered on the phone, but Dick could barely hear it over the sound of the door slamming shut behind him.
===
Dick hadn’t even planned to be in Gotham that weekend.
Right now, he should be in his own apartment in Bludhaven, frantically moving buckets around to catch the rain coming through the ceiling and praying that the dead tree behind the building didn’t blow right through his window from the headwinds as the storm churned into Maryland. It would be cold and dark, with no electricity and no generators. It would be, somehow, both stressful and boring.
It would be a hell of a lot better than being here.
“Um,” the kid’s voice said from the door of the yellow sitting room. “Dick?” Dick didn’t respond.
“I’m gonna warm up some of the soup Alfred left,” Jason continued, seemingly unfazed by Dick’s stony silence. “You want any?”
“Fuck off,” Dick said shortly. He waited until he heard footsteps receding down the hall before sitting up. The pillow that had been over his face fell off onto the floor.
“Fuck,” he said quietly. He was hungry. He did want some of Alfred’s soup. Being offered some by Jason, though, like it was his house and Dick was just a guest –
It is his house, said a small, reasonable voice in his mind that sounded infuriatingly like Bruce. He lives here now. You don’t.
Dick picked up the pillow and threw it across the room.
===
Dick could feel Jason’s wary eyes on him as he stalked into the kitchen.
The younger boy was sitting at the table Alfred usually reserved for breakfasts, a bowl of soup in front of him and a hunk of bread sitting next to it. The bread wasn’t even on a plate, just sitting directly on the table. Dick felt a breathtaking surge of irritation.
“You’re going to get crumbs all over Alfred’s table,” he bit out, crossing to the fridge and taking out one of the Tupperware containers labeled Winter Squash Soup. “If he comes back and finds ants, he’s gonna kill you.”
Without breaking eye contact, Jason grabbed the bread off the table, dunked it into his soup, and took a huge bite. Crumbs and droplets of soup scattered across the wood in front of him.
“Jesus, Grandpa,” he said once he’d swallowed. “I’ll fucking clean it up.”
“You’d better,” Dick said, and slammed the microwave door closed. There was a stretching silence, broken only by the whirring of the microwave, then its high-pitched beeping.
“I would have warmed up soup for you on the stove, you know,” Jason said as Dick pulled out the bowl and slid a spoon out of the silverware drawer. “Microwaves are shit, it’ll be cold in the middle.”
“Oh my!” Dick said. “I had no idea I was in the presence of the expert on warming up soup! What an honor! I wish I’d known, I would have dressed up, or prepared a speech, or brought along a solid gold soup bowl to shove –”
“Dude,” Jason said loudly, cutting him off. “What the fuck is your problem with me?”
“I don’t have a problem with you,” Dick shot back, and stormed out of the kitchen.
“You do have a problem with me,” Jason said, following at his heels. “You were being nice to me and now you’re not. And listen, whatever, man, you don’t have to like me –”
“Oh, thank you, Your Majesty,” Dick hissed, turning into the blue living room at random and making for the opposite door. “I’m so grateful for your permission to –”
“But I’d appreciate knowing what the fuck I did to make you treat me like this,” Jason said, pitching his voice louder. “Also, by the way, if you get soup on Alfred’s white couch, he’s going to kill both of us and I’d rather not have that happen, thanks.”
Dick shot up from where he’d been settling onto the sofa in the white drawing room and spun to face Jason. The younger boy’s face was flushed, his eyes were wild, and his hands were clenched into fists.
“Don’t tell me what Alfred’s going to do,” Dick yelled. “I know him better than you, ok? This is my house, and my family, and Bruce should never have –”
“Never have what? Brought me here?” Jason was shouting now, too. “Fuck you, dick, I didn’t ask him to, he just fucking picked me up like a stray dog and shoved me into this fucking Manor, I never asked for any of this –”
“Well you sure didn’t say no,” Dick spoke over him. “You didn’t say no when he gave you my old room, you didn’t say no when he adopted you –”
“Oh my god,” Jason said loudly. “That’s what this is about? The adoption hasn’t even been finalized yet and I thought Bruce had already told you, that’s the only reason I mentioned it –”
Dick was breathing hard. He’d been breathing hard earlier that evening, too, but for a different reason. He’d been so excited to talk to Bruce, he’d run all the way up the driveway and into the Manor after parking his car. The darkly ominous clouds on the horizon hadn’t even worried him.
The Manor had been eerily quiet. Dick had followed the sound of explosions and tinny music to the game room. Jason had looked up from where he’d been playing a video game that Dick didn’t recognize and smiled brightly.
“Hey, Dick,” Jason had said, pausing the game. “Didn’t know you were stopping by.”
“Hey,” Dick replied easily. It was getting easier to be friendly with Jason. He was a good kid. “Yeah, I didn’t either, really. Just wanted to...to run something by Bruce. Is he back yet?”
Even having to ask Bruce’s replacement son if Bruce was back yet wasn’t enough to dampen Dick’s spirits. Not when Dick had finally made the decision he’d been struggling with for...years, really. Not when he was just about to share it with his second father, who he hoped would be really happy about it.
Jason shook his head, though. “No, he’s still at the Watchtower – the galactic battle’s causing all kinds of shit and the zetas are down. Alfred was supposed to get home this evening, but there’s some kinda big storm coming, so he said he might be delayed too.” The younger boy had smiled brightly at Dick. “They’ll both be back by Thursday, though, for sure. You gonna be able to stay?”
“For what?” Dick had asked, the joy in his chest dimming only slightly at having to delay his news.
“For my adoption,” Jason said, like it was obvious.
When the hurricane alert sound started blaring from both his and Jason’s phones, Dick couldn’t tell where the screeching of the phones stopped and where the screeching in his head began.
===
“And I didn’t take your old room,” Jason added, still loud. His eyes were wild around the edges. “This is a goddamn manor, there are like a thousand bedrooms, that would be insane.”
Rain was starting to patter against the glass of the drawing room windows. In the distance, thunder rumbled, slightly closer than it had been last time.
“That’s not the point,” Dick said sharply. “It’s the principle of the thing.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Jason shot back.
“It means that I was coming here this weekend to tell Bruce I want him to officially adopt me,” Dick yelled. “And instead you’re here telling me he’s adopting you on Thursday after only a few months when it’s taken years for me to get to this point with him.”
He broke off, fists clenched. There was a long moment of silence, broken only by the increasingly frantic tempo of the rain and another, louder, rumble of thunder.
“Let me make sure I have this right,” Jason began, his voice gone low. “You’re mad because it took you years to get over yourself and finally admit that Bruce is your dad, whereas I didn’t have to throw a huge temper tantrum and move to a different city and generally be a fucking asshole drama queen about it all before I realized what was already true to begin with?”
“B’s not my dad,” Dick snapped. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep his hands from shaking too much – and why on earth was he still holding the bowl of soup? Slowly, he turned and lowered it onto the end table next to the couch. When he straightened and turned back to face Jason, the younger boy’s face was livid.
“Make up your mind, asshole,” Jason hissed. “Is he your dad, or isn’t he? I don’t give two shits about it, but you have to figure it out; otherwise you’re just going to keep being confused and angry and taking it out on me – ”
“Oh, this is rich,” Dick snapped. “Free therapy from the street kid?” Jason’s eyes widened, then narrowed so quickly that Dick almost missed the flash of hurt. He realized that he felt bad, in a sort of numb, distant way. He decided he didn’t care. “Newsflash, Jason: you might be the favorite now, but you don’t know Bruce like I do. Just wait until you do something he doesn’t like.” The rain roared over their heads. “He’ll drop you so fast you’ll get whiplash, and he’ll tell you it’s your own fault for daring to try to do something on your own, and you won’t even have any friends or family to go back to because after I left, Bruce just ran right out and grabbed the first kid off the street who no one would miss to replace –”
Jason stepped forward and shoved Dick, hard, in the chest.
It wasn’t a forceful shove, not by vigilante standards. Dick had stood against far worse things as Nightwing and he’d never wavered.
Now, though, he was already off-balance, not expecting it. Dick stumbled back, his hands going down to brace himself against a fall.
His legs connected with something sharp. His fingertips brushed the side of something smooth and slightly warm.
Behind him, there was a soft thump, then a low splat.
Dick, still facing Jason, saw his eyes widen in unadulterated fear.
Slowly, Dick turned.
The bright yellow of winter squash soup was splashed magnificently over the formerly-white couch.
===
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jason muttered as he grabbed an armful of towels and raced back to the white drawing room.
Dick – hot on his heels and wielding a wet sponge, two bottles of stain remover, and a mop for the wood floor – didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if he could. All the anger seemed to have left him, splashed out of his body like the soup out of the bowl, and now he just felt incredibly tired.
“Fuck fuck shit fuck,” Jason said, dropping to his knees beside the couch and starting to dab desperately at the white upholstery. “Fuck, fuck, fuck –”
“Jeez, I had no idea you were such a goody-two-shoes,” Dick said, putting down the sponge and stain remover and splashing the mop down onto the floor. He softened his voice, not liking the way Jason’s shoulders had drawn up around his ears. “I know Alfred’s scary, but Bruce doesn’t actually let him kill. Anymore.”
The joke fell flat as Jason shot him a look of pure loathing.
“I’d really love to actually make it to my adoption, thanks, instead of getting kicked out with less than a week to go. Fuck,” he swore again, when he lifted the towel to reveal a cushion that still looked horribly yellow. He grabbed another towel.
“Here,” Dick said quickly, before Jason could start wiping again. “Let me.” He poured a generous amount of stain remover over the cushion and grasped the sponge. “This will work.” The upholstery made a little shush shush shush every time he passed the sponge over it. It was kind of soothing.
A huge crack of thunder outside broke Dick out of his half-reverie. He and Jason looked at the couch, which was a slightly darker yellow now. The stain itself, if possible, seemed even larger.
“That’s it,” Jason whispered, almost to himself. “I’m gone.”
“No, you’re not,” Dick said, serious now. “They might be mad, but they’re not going to kick you out over this.”
“You don’t know that,” Jason said. All of his anger seemed to have drained out, too. He was just sitting on the floor, staring at the couch like he could see his own death marked out in the stain. It was pretty depressing, actually, which was the only reason Dick said what he said next.
“I do know, actually. You know the chandelier in the front hall?”
Jason nodded without taking his eyes from the couch.
“It used to be a different chandelier,” Dick said. “It used to be crystal. It used to hang slightly lower, too – at just exactly the right height to jump onto if you stood halfway up the main staircase...”
Jason did look at him then, eyes going wide.
“You didn’t.”
“About a month after Bruce brought me home,” Dick confirmed. “I was so excited to show him what I could do. I made him come and watch me do it, too, told him I had a surprise for him.” Dick huffed a laugh at the memory of Bruce’s face turning from polite interest to abject horror in the space of a heartbeat. “He caught me as I fell, got us both out of the way of the crystal, but I was so scared he was going to chuck me right back into juvie. He didn’t, though. He just put Band-Aids on my hands and told me to always ask him first before using the furniture for acrobatic practice.”
Jason was looking at him now, a strange expression on his face. “Did you?”
“Ha. No,” Dick said, and laughed again.
After a moment, Jason laughed, too.
“I didn’t know you’d been in juvie,” he said after a minute, once their laughter had died down. Dick shifted, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Everyone else looked at me and saw, like, a miniature criminal lashing out. Bruce saw a kid who needed a place to land. Then he didn’t rest until he’d given it to me.” He eyed Jason, who was back to staring at the couch. “He does that, you know. Sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Jason echoed. His shoulder slumped. “I guess.” He turned suddenly, making eye contact with Dick. “I’m sorry you feel like I replaced you,” he said. “I don’t want to replace you. I want –”
There was a terrific whooshing noise from outside, and Dick’s eyes flicked to the window of the drawing room. The tree just outside was bent nearly horizontal with the wind, its leaves in a frenzy as lightning and thunder crashed together almost simultaneously.
Dick looked back at Jason, who was also staring out the window. His eyes were wide again, but this time, they looked more awed than afraid.
“I hope people got to shelter,” he said slowly. “This would be a bitch to wait out under cardboard.”
Then he glanced at Dick furtively out of the corner of his eyes, as if he was worried Dick was going to call him a street kid again. Dick’s stomach twisted.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to put more in the words than their literal meaning. “It would.”
They sat together in silence, watching the rain pour down.
===
Dick got himself another bowl of soup to replace the spilled one. He also grabbed four of Alfred’s chocolate chip cookies on his way out of the kitchen.
“Think fast,” he said, and chucked a cookie at Jason’s head.
Jason, who was flicking through movie options on the huge home theater screen, brought a hand up in self-defense. The cookie smacked off his open palm and dropped to the floor.
“Shit!” Jason said, but he was laughing. “You owe me another one.”
“Get it yourself,” Dick retorted, grinning. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”
He made a big show of looking around at all the empty seats in the room before sitting down squarely on Jason’s lap.
“Get off, asshole.” Jason’s voice was slightly muffled. He shoved at Dick’s back.
“Careful!” Dick chirped. “Don’t spill the soup!”
Jason froze. Dick just had time to put the soup down on the chair in front of him before Jason dug his fingers into Dick’s midsection. Dick yelped and leapt up, twisting away.
“Oh, you’re on,” he growled, and Jason took off, his laughter ringing through the house as he darted down the hall toward the kitchen.
“I’m gonna take all the cookies,” Jason called in a sing-song voice. “And there won’t be any left for youuuuu!”
“You little shit,” Dick yelled, running just fast enough to keep up but not fast enough to catch up. “If you don’t give me at least four more cookies, I’ll –”
Jason darted down the East Hall, so Dick changed course. He would run through the foyer and cut Jason off right as he was coming out of the kitchen. That would show him –
The wind was still blowing hard, rain knocking on the windows. As Dick skidded through the entrance hall, though, he realized he could hear another kind of knocking coming from the front door. Almost like someone was out there, knocking to be let in.
More to see what the storm was doing than because he thought someone was actually at the door in this weather, Dick opened the door.
“Good evening,” said the extremely small, extremely wet child standing on the front stoop. “I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but a tree just fell on my house and I was wondering if I could use your phone?”
===
Bruce took the steps up from the Cave three at a time, his heart in his throat. He knew that Dick and Jason’s relationship was still somewhat rocky, which made sense. They both needed to get used to each other, and Bruce still needed to apologize to Dick for not telling him about Jason sooner. He needed to apologize to Dick for a lot of things, actually. This one, though, was top of mind at the moment.
The boys had been trapped together, alone, for going on forty-seven hours now, with neither himself nor Alfred to mediate. Bruce truly had no idea what he would find.
He pushed aside the clock and entered his study, already on high alert. No sounds of screaming, which was good. No sounds of crying. Stepping out into the hall, Bruce strained his ears, listening for any indication of where either of them might be.
Suddenly, a burst of laughter came from upstairs.
Bruce headed for the game room.
He had vivid memories of setting up this room; with Dick, actually, just a few months after Dick had come to live with him. He remembered Dick’s concentration as they debated where the TV should go and how many couches there should be.
They had settled on three couches arranged in a U, with a wide, low table in the middle for board games, and a video gaming set-up with a flat-screen TV on the far wall. Now, as he opened the door, Bruce could see what was on the TV: some sort of adventure-based video game he recognized as one of Dick’s favorites. Windows on either side of the TV were splattered with ongoing rain, which had lessened in intensity but hadn’t stopped since the hurricane had churned through. Two of the couches were empty.
Two dark-haired heads leaned against the back of the third couch, side by side.
Bruce’s shoulders felt like they dropped about three feet as Dick turned his head and shot him a lazy smile.
“Hey, B,” he said. “Good to see you.”
“Welcome home, old man,” Jason chimed in, beaming at Bruce over his shoulder before whipping his head back to the TV. “I’d get up but I’m just about to beat Tim’s score on this level and I have to see it through.”
“Good,” Bruce said dazedly, aware that this didn’t make much sense as a response but equally unable to come up with anything more coherent. He had been awake for most of the past seventy-two hours, wanting more than anything to be home and near his boys, and now his boys were here, and they were safe, and they were – apparently voluntarily? – spending time together. They were smiling at him. Dick was smiling at him. Dick’s hair looked mussed from sleep, tousled in the way it got when he hadn’t brushed it, when he was just going to stay home and be cozy in the Manor on a rainy day. Bruce could see, barely over the back of the couch, that Dick was still in his pajamas.
Bruce felt, all at once, completely and utterly at peace.
Then something pinged in his head. Who was... “Tim?”
“Yes?” piped up an unfamiliar voice, and a third dark head popped up from the couch. Bruce actually startled back at the sight of a small child, far too short to be visible from the door while sitting on the couch, but visible now that he was apparently standing on the couch between Dick and Jason, with a video game controller in one hand and a nervously excited expression on his face.
“Oh yeah, Bruce, this is Tim,” Dick said, waving a lazy hand at the small child. “He lives next door. A tree fell on his house during the storm last night and he was home all alone so he walked over here to see if he could borrow our phone to call his parents. Who are currently in Azerbaijan. For the summer.”
There was something extremely meaningful in Dick’s voice. Bruce was too tired to do more than nod.
“Nice to meet you, Tim,” he said. “Make yourself at home. And please excuse me, I haven’t had a shower in nearly a week and I’m going to go do that before coming back here and beating all three of you at whatever game that is.”
Dick barked a laugh. “Good luck with that, B,” he said, giving Bruce another gleaming smile. “Timmy here is pretty darn good.”
“Hey!” Jason said, his attention laser-focused on the screen. “I resent – shit!”
“Language,” Bruce said mildly as Dick crowed and Tim giggled. He turned to leave, then remembered something.
“Oh, boys?” he said, pausing.
“Yeah, B?” Dick said, his attention back on the screen as Jason handed over the controller.
“Don’t spill anything on the couch,” Bruce said. “Or Alfred will have my head.”
Dick looked at Jason. Jason looked at Dick. Tim just stared at Bruce, eyes wide.
“Ok,” Dick said. “We won’t.”
His voice sounded odd, Bruce thought as he headed to his room. Like he’d been trying not to laugh. But what was so funny about not spilling something on a couch?
Bruce shrugged and stepped into the bathroom. He would ask later.
With all of them here, together, there would be time.