Archive of Our Own ^beta

THEN

Later, much later, Jason will think It should have been funny.

It’s fucking hysterical when it happens to Bruce. One second, Batman, the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, the World’s Greatest Detective, the next ... a baby. An actual literal baby, in a teeny-tiny Batman suit that, somehow, had shrunk down with Bruce instead of smothering him in Kevlar. Well, that’s magic for you. It literally doesn’t have to make sense.

It’s possible, possible, that Jason uselessly gapes at Baby Bruce for a good five seconds while their villain of the week—some wannabe Glinda type, dressed in an ungodly amount of baby pink tulle—and her army of color-matching goons attack. But then Evil Glinda tries to brain the kid with her magic scepter—brain Bruce with her magic scepter, Christ—and Jason swears, brain clicking back online as he dives forward. And then. He’s just. Holding Baby Bruce, as Baby Bruce blinks up at him with very, very wide eyes. And then Jason’s rushing Baby Bruce back to the relative safety of the Batmobile backseat, and refusing, absolutely refusing, to have any feelings about this situation whatsoever.

So. That part’s ... weird. But then, maybe ten minutes later into the battle, Damian also gets hit with a de-aging spell, only instead of transforming into a helpless infant, he transforms into a helpless toddler happily playing with his teeny tiny sword—and at that point, it becomes too absurd not to laugh, especially as Dick rushes to disarm Baby Damian before the kid can stab himself. (Baby Damian bursts into tears before viciously biting Dick’s arm. Well, at least they can be sure it really is Damian in the tiny yellow cape.)

“Ooh, do Baby Red Hood next!” Steph suggests to Evil Glinda as she throws a goon into another goon. “He’d be so cuuute!” Which means Jason has to threaten Stephanie with death, naturally, and argue that if anyone else is gonna get de-aged, it should obviously be (“Don’t say it,” Tim groans) Tiny Tim, and over the comm, Barbie snorts and says, “Wow, Nightwing called, and he wants his pun back.” And Dick—still struggling to get a feisty toddler into the Batmobile—yells out, “Wait! Wait! Are people punning without me?” So Jason, obviously, is forced to threaten death upon Barbie, too.

At this point, Evil Glinda clearly realizes her evil cackling isn’t getting enough attention and redoubles her efforts, only to hit one of her own henchmen with her apparent favorite spell. (Another infant this time, even smaller than Baby Bruce.) This prompts Dick to rescue yet another small child; it also prompts Tim—who had to nearly fling himself into a wall to avoid stepping on Baby Goon—into criticizing Evil Glinda for her clear lack of imagination. (“Okay, but is that really the only magic spell you know? You seriously can’t turn people into anything else?”) Which leads to Duke groaning (“Man, come on”) and Cass punching Tim in the shoulder (“for jinxing us”), and the only next logical step: betting on what Evil Glinda is going to transform Tim into as punishment. (“Sentient conspiracy board” and “coffee cup with legs” are early front runners.) And then Dick, ever the peacemaker and just returning from stashing both Baby Goon in the Batmobile with Baby Bruce and Baby Damian, refuses to bet; instead, he distracts Evil Glinda by earnestly telling her, “So, I’m not feeling the diapers, myself, but if you are taking requests, I wouldn’t mind being a bunny again! I was adorable!”

—And then Cass finally knocks Evil Glinda out, the remaining adult henchmen are quickly corralled, and everyone heads back to the Cave to debrief and decompress (and gawk).

Here, with the help of Alfred, the Bat Computer, and an emergency call to Zatanna, they discover a few things pretty quickly:

Baby Bruce is roughly around six months old, while Baby Damian is maybe two years, or just shy. (Baby Goon is about three months old and safely in custody at Gotham General, where he’ll be well-cared for until he’s an adult again—and then, of course, promptly arrested.)

The spell will wear off on its own, but could take around two weeks to do so, give or take.

Babies Bruce, Damian, and Goon are, indeed, the younger version of themselves and not robots, changelings, etc. The DNA is a perfect match. None of them appear to have any memory or knowledge of their older selves, or at least that’s what they’re gleaning from Baby Damian, who doesn’t seem to recognize anyone and often cries for his mother. (Talia is on some deep cover League of Assassins mission, unfortunately, and is currently unreachable.) Otherwise, however, the babies are all in perfect health. They’re just ... babies.

Jason also soon discovers something else: this family is made up of fucking traitors.

Cass is fascinated by Baby Bruce and Baby Damian, often staring at them, studying their ... baby body language, or whatever, but the second one of them starts wailing or needs a diaper change? Nowhere to be found.

Tim is fascinated by the spell on Baby Bruce and Baby Damian (“—because it’s actually two spells, really: the organic material becomes younger, but the inorganic material only becomes smaller—") but otherwise seems hilariously terrified of being responsible for small children, at least outside the usual “saving kid from immediate danger” duty. Suddenly, Tim is suspiciously busy “researching” and “fighting crime” and “covering for Bruce at Wayne Enterprises.” (The fact that Tim that is, in fact, actually doing all those things is entirely inconsequential.)

Babs flatly says, “Nope, don’t do kids,” and refuses to come to Wayne Manor at all, although she does keep monitoring the situation from the Clocktower, ostensibly in case of emergencies, but mostly so she can provide commentary. (Sometimes, Jason can literally hear her eating popcorn.)

Duke actually does help out because he’s obviously the nicest and most well-adjusted of the family—but he, too, suddenly has to go back to school (“It’s six in the evening, Duke!”) whenever a diaper needs changing.

Stephanie literally points over Jason’s shoulder, yells, “Look out, it’s Condiment King!” and then immediately runs away.

“I will destroy you piece by piece!” Jason yells after her, but is completely ignored because none of his threats are taken seriously anymore. This must be how Damian feels all of the time. Speaking of—oh, for fuck’s—

Jason catches Baby Damian before he can trail his stinky diaper all over the Cave—would it have killed Talia to toilet train her child a little earlier—and sets him on the makeshift changing table next to an equally stinky Bruce. Because this is Jason’s life now, apparently. Christ, he should’ve run with Stephanie. Does he look like the kind of guy who should be running a nursery? Hell, any other day, Jason would’ve been first out the door.

But he couldn’t just ditch Alfred like that. The others hadn’t seen the look on Alfred’s face when he first saw Baby Bruce, but Jason did—surprise, and wonder, and something much more complicated: love and grief knotted together, something painfully bittersweet. It had only been a flash, gone in an instant, but Jason had seen it, and—it had to be weird for Alfred, right, seeing Bruce so young again, remembering the happier and simpler times that only he’d been there to witness. Jason can’t do much to ease Alfred’s quiet sorrow, but he can at least suck it up and play goddamn nanny—while plotting revenge against all his siblings, obviously.

—almost all of his siblings, anyway.

“Babysitting!” Dick says, bumping Jason’s shoulder with his own. “Should be fun!”

Jason shakes his head in disgust. “This is my return to villainy origin story,” he tells the babies, who are predictably unmoved by his plight.

But although Jason would deny it to his dying day, Dick—for once—isn’t entirely wrong: babysitting actually is kind of fun. Is it still fucking bizarre to watch The Goddamn Batman focusing all his little baby attention on rolling over in his crib? Jesus Christ, yes. But also:

Baby Bruce spends a lot of time staring suspiciously at literally everything around him, but then he giggles, actually giggles, at his new bat-themed crib mobile (“Jay, I had to,” Dick says), and the absurdity of this has Jason and Dick meeting each other’s eyes and promptly cracking up. Baby Bruce will not, for love or money, eat his mashed veggies. Baby Bruce has adorably chubby cheeks. Baby Bruce recognizes his own name, but also happily gurgles when called other things, like “B-Man” or “Baby Bat.”

Baby Damian, meanwhile, is a lot more trouble: crawling and running everywhere and somehow always finding sharp things, no matter where Jason and Dick hide them. He also cries a lot, for the usual baby reasons, but also because he misses his mom. Still, Dick can nearly always make Baby Damian laugh again by swinging him up in the air (“Up! Up!” Damian keeps saying whenever Dick is near), and he loves each and every one of his pets, especially Alfred the Cat. Baby Damian refuses to do absolutely anything without wearing his tiny Robin cape, and he likes it at night when Jason reads to him. (Jane Austen, obviously. Baby Damian has taste.)

Jason is still gonna be extremely relieved when this spell finally wears off, but this is maybe, kind of, okay. For now. Besides, Jason has so many blackmail photos now.

But then—the big crisis: Arkham breakout, multiple criminals missing. It’s all hands on deck, and could Jason and Dick have run into the Penguin? Two Face? Even, God help him, Condiment King?

No. No, of course they run into Evil Glinda again, chasing her and her stupid magic scepter across rooftops in the Bowery until one extremely lucky shot—or unlucky, depending on your point of view—hits Dick. And unfortunately for everyone, Evil Glinda apparently does not take requests: there are no cute bunny transformations today.

It should have been funny, Jason thinks later: another tiny, brown-haired baby to throw into the playpen, this one no doubt climbing everything in sight and cheerfully babbling nonstop. Barely discernible from Dick today, really. It should’ve been exasperating, but funny—

But Jason isn’t staring at a clueless, happy baby or a cheerful, rambunctious toddler. Instead, he’s looking down at a tiny, badly bruised child (six years old? seven?), shaking in his little Nightwing suit and staring up at Jason with poorly concealed terror.

#

NOW

Dick is not avoiding the Manor. He’s not avoiding his family, and he’s definitely not avoiding Jason in particular. It’s just that Gotham doesn’t need him right now, has a whole other brood of Bats to look after it. Bludhaven, on the other hand ...

... doesn’t really need him, either; it’s actually been pretty q-word tonight, and Dick probably shouldn’t jinx that just because he’s itchy for a distraction from his thoughts. He can’t even pretend that Nightwing needs to make an appearance because Tim had worn the suit a few times while Dick had been ... indisposed? Is indisposed the right word for being transformed into your recently orphaned, grieving inner child? Sure, he’ll go with that.

Dick sighs and gives up on his plan to therapeutically punch crime in the face; instead, he starts taking the rooftops back to his apartment. He knows everyone’s worried. Some of them have been more direct about it (dude I’m worried, Steph had texted), and some of them have been ... well, Bruce. (Three straight minutes of disappearing and reappearing “...” before finally saying Nightwing, report.) Once upon a time, Dick might’ve taken that sort of thing as vindication, as proof that Bruce only ever cared about him as a vigilante, not as a person—or a son. Now, he mostly finds Bruce’s awkwardness endearing. B tends to overcorrect, trying to come up with the right words and landing on literally the worst ones he could’ve said, but he overthinks because he cares. Really, that’s all Dick has ever wanted from him.

Besides, this time, Dick is the one who needs to apologize.

(He will, of course. Probably by text. He’ll do it in person, too, but he’s not sure if he can face Bruce quite yet, and anyway, B will probably appreciate the lack of eye contact.)

Dick makes it back to his place, gives Haley a good head-scritching, and forces himself to take a shower, even though all he wants to do is collapse on the couch and sulk. He still does that too, of course, but he’s clean and cozy while he does it, wearing his favorite pajama pants and softest Superman hoodie. (Dick knows he should make himself something to eat, too—he didn’t grab dinner before going out on patrol—but that sounds like far too much effort right now, and anyway, there’s a half-empty bag of stale chips right here. He’s not really hungry, anyway. He’ll eat something better tomorrow.)

Dick eats a few of the stale chips and stares up at the ceiling, hoping the dark spot he sees isn’t a water stain—he does not have the energy to deal with mold right now. He’s just ... tired. A little embarrassed, a little sad. It’s not like he’d forgotten the grief of losing his parents; it still sneaks up him, usually whenever he's least expecting it, a sucker punch right to the throat. But this, reliving their murder all over again as if it had literally happened only days ago ... even now, the grief feels too big for his body. It doesn’t linger. It flattens; it drowns him; it suffocates—

But he’ll shake it off. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again: Dick just—he needs a little more time. A little more space, and if there’s a part of him that doesn’t want space, a part of him that wants to pick up the phone and text Jay, you busy—that’s the voice he should ignore. Dick needs to get his head on straight, and Jason doesn’t need to see him like this. Jay wasn’t even supposed to see him like that; none of them were. Dick is their big brother, not the other way around. He’s supposed to be there for them.

He is. He will. He just needs a minute alone to catch his breath, and then—then, he’ll be fine.

#

THEN

Jason doesn’t even try to stop Evil Glinda from making her escape, his whole attention on the kid—on Dick. Pale and bruised beneath the domino mask, Dick visibly panics as he takes in his surroundings: the skyline, the Nightwing suit, the stranger with the red helmet looming over him.

Jason makes it as far as “Okay, let’s—” before Dick bolts.

Cursing, Jason runs after him. Dick is fast, faster than he’d expect from an untrained kid who just found himself on some random rooftop in Gotham. Is he already Robin? That could explain the speed, the bruises—but he can’t be, not yet, he’s so small.

Dick might be fast, but Jason’s got over two feet on him, and there’s not a lot of room to run up here. He corners Dick pretty quickly, which—while necessary—immediately makes Jason feel like an asshole. He puts his hands up in the universal gesture of I come in peace while backing off a little, giving Dick some breathing room. (And also, thankfully, coaxing Dick away from the very edge of the building. No one that small should be up this high—even Damian isn’t that small. It does bullshit things to Jason’s heart.)

Over the comm, Babs is asks questions about Dick’s vitals, Dick’s lack of response, what the hell is going on, etc. They’re all extremely legitimate questions, but they’re also very distracting, so Jason turns off his comm, knowing he’ll pay for that later. “Let’s try this again,” he says to Dick, taking off his helmet to look a little less intimidating. “I’m not—”

—And that’s when pint-sized Dick, rather than listening, curling up in defeat, or trying to make it past Jason for the stairwell door, turns and makes a running leap off the five-story building to the next roof.

Jason’s goddamn heart stops.

It’s not a huge jump. Barely more than a hop for an adult Dick Grayson, but for this tiny ass child, with his tiny little legs, doing the absolute tiniest of run-ups before launching his tiny fucking body through the open air and—and—

Making it. Barely. A half-inch shorter, just a half-inch, and he would’ve—

But he didn’t. Instead, Dick sticks the landing like the little circus brat he is and immediately starts running again, no looking back, no hesitation. Jason, gaping uselessly, finally manages to unfreeze and jumps to the next rooftop after Dick, catching up before he can jump again. This time, Jason grabs Dick by both arms before the reckless little shit can make another break for it.

Dick struggles, frantically looking around. At first, Jason thinks he’s desperately looking for help, which makes sense, but ... no, there’s something else. A panicked search for something Dick can hear but can’t see, something like ...

Shit. Poor kid’s trying to figure out where the voices are coming from.

Jason turns his comm back on to find everyone shouting: questions about what’s going on (Barbie, Duke), arguing about what’s going on (Steph, Tim), threats of imminent violence if Jason and Dick don’t immediately explain what’s going on (also Steph, presumably because Damian isn’t here to do it himself), and matter-of-factly reporting that Scarecrow has been apprehended, now in route to figure out what’s going on (Cass).

“Shut up,” Jason tells them all, which works for exactly .04 seconds before everyone starts going off again. He talks over them: “Evil Glinda escaped, N got hit with the spell, he’s not a baby, he’s a kid, and you’re all freaking him the hell out. Oracle, turn off his comm.”

“Acknowledged,” Barbie says, terse, a forced calm. There’s a bit of warning in her voice when she says, “Report back, Hood.”

“Nah,” Jason says. “I was gonna—”

She cuts the line before he can finish the snark—already paying for hanging up on her, Jason sees—leaving him and Dick, staring at one another.

Dick immediately tries to squirm free again.

“Stop it,” Jason snaps, trying and mostly failing to keep the anger out of his voice—his heart still feels all wrong in his chest. “I’m not going to hurt you, Dickie, but I can’t let you get yourself killed, either. Okay?”

Dick’s eyes widen.

Well. Shit.

“Sure,” Dick says, a little shaky. He sounds so different when he speaks: higher-pitched, of course, a child’s voice, but also with a shifting accent that Jason can’t quite pinpoint—although the sass, at least, is recognizable when Dick adds, “Super convincing, Mr. Weirdo Kidnapper who somehow knows my name. I believe you.”

Jason sighs. Fair.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, he is, normally, actually pretty good with kids. But Jason’s mouth tastes of metal and adrenaline, and anyway, nothing about this is normal. Dick has always been older than Jason, the person to beat or resent (or look up to—maybe). Jason has never really thought of Dick as young before. Sure, he’s seen pictures around the Manor, heard the endless stories, who hasn’t? Big grin, mischievous eyes. The Destroyer of Chandeliers everywhere. But ... that’s all they are: pictures, stories. They’ve never been real to Jason before.

Besides, this Dick looks different than the pictures, and not just because he’s afraid. He’s holding himself all wrong, hunched and hurting. The bruises—the ones Jason can see, anyway—are ugly: black and purple down the side of his face, fresh and slightly swollen, and also a flush of green and yellow emerging from the left side of Dick’s domino, evidence of an older, hidden black eye. There’s a gauntness to Dick’s face, too, that Jason recognizes and doesn’t like: a kid who’s not eating regularly, or maybe just isn’t eating enough. Dick doesn’t look sick, exactly, and he's not so injured that he can’t throw himself off buildings like a reckless squirrel—but he doesn’t look well, either.

It ... rattles Jason. Pisses him off, too. Who the hell did this to his brother? If Bruce let—

(the Joker)

—some villain hurt Dick, at this age (whatever the hell age it is), so help him, Christ—

Jason squats down to meet Dick’s eyes. “Look, this is hard to explain, but you do know me, I promise. You—what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Bus station,” Dick says promptly, obviously lying. “My parents are probably still there, waiting for me. I should really get going—”

“Not a chance,” Jason tells Dick, gripping his arms a little tighter. See if he ever lets go of this goddamn kid again. He can’t exactly blame Dick for being suspicious—God knows he would be—but Dick’s wariness isn’t helping, either, because Jason can’t exactly ask do you know your parents are dead yet? (Well, Jason could, but he won’t. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not a monster.) “Listen, do you ... do you know who Batman is?”

Dick scoffs. “Batman’s famous. People in Napoli know him.”

Idly, Jason wonders if Naples is the furthest place Dick could think, or if it had actually been somewhere on the circus route. There might be some Italian in that accent. Jason isn’t sure; he’s a boy from Gotham, born and bred. Dick is a boy from everywhere.

Dick, looking skeptically at the red bat on Jason’s chest, says, “I know you’re not Batman.”

Jason laughs; he can’t help it. “I’m not,” he says. “I’m absolutely not. But I do work with him.”

Dick frowns. “Batman works alone. Everyone knows that.”

So, no Robin yet. Shit. On one hand, Jason absolutely does not want this little suspicious child to be a masked vigilante, not yet, because look at him. On the other hand, Dick being Robin would 100% make this situation easier to explain, especially if he’d already gone up against other magic users before. “Batman actually has a whole team now,” Jason tells Dick, annoyed that this sounds like a desperate lie despite being the literal truth. “You heard them before; they were all the loudmouths freaking out over the radio.”

Dick’s quirked mouth and raised eyebrows scream not buying it, but he seems intrigued, anyway. At the very least, he’s not actively trying to wriggle free anymore. “So, who are you? Batguy? Red Bat?”

Jason snorts. “Red Hood, at your service.”

“But ... you’re wearing a helmet.”

Jason sighs. This again. “It used to—ugh, it doesn’t matter. It’s Red Hood, okay?”

Dick thinks about this. “I’m going to call you Red Helmet,” he informs Jason, and yep, there’s the brother Jason knows and wants to smother with a pillow. “Why are you and the Batpeople after me, anyway?”

“We’re not after you. It’s—it’s complicated.”

“Honesty is the best policy,” Dick says obnoxiously.

“If I’m honest, you’re not going to believe me,” Jason tells him. But ... to hell with it. It’s not like Jason’s gonna come up with a good lie to explain why Dick’s wearing a literal superhero suit, anyway. “You’re one of us. You work with Batman, too.”

Dick stares at him. “I don’t believe you.”

“Shocking.”

“It’s a really weird lie, though.” Dick eyes him thoughtfully. “Did I hit my head or something? Forget everything?”

“No—”

“Oh, is it time travel?” Dick lights up, bouncing a little in Jason’s grasp, excitement clearly overriding his skepticism and fear (and good sense). “Am I in the future?”

Well. Sort of.

“Sort of,” Jason says. “But you didn’t travel here, you ... okay. Okay, did you see that woman running away before?”

Dick makes a face. “Prison clothes and magic stick?”

“That’s the one,” Jason says, absolutely thrilled he doesn’t have to say the word ‘magic’ first. “Magic Stick Lady put a spell on you. It turned you into a kid again, but ... you grew up, Dick. You’re. You’re my brother.”

Even as he says it, Jason doesn’t know why. Dick didn’t want a brother when he was a teenager, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when his whole face closes off now.

(It’s not a surprise, actually. Maybe it still hurts, stupidly, but it’s not a surprise.)

“I don’t have a brother,” Dick snaps. “I won’t ever have a brother. My parents are dead.”

He doesn’t cry when he says it. He looks angry, like maybe it’s Jason’s fault Dick’s parents are dead, and Dick should kick him in the nuts about it. Jason might even let him, if he thought it would help at all.

“I know,” Jason says quietly. “It’s—we’re adopted, Dickie. Bruce adopted us both.”

“Bruce?”

Christ, what a question. Not one that makes sense, either: if Dick’s parents are dead, then he should already be living at the Manor. Jason knows this story, too: Bruce went to the circus, saw the Flying Graysons murdered, and adopted the little boy who mirrored his own pain. That’s how the story of Dick Grayson goes. That’s always how he’s told it before.

But Jason knows his literary devices, and he’s beginning to suspect his brother might be one goddamn unreliable narrator.

“You’re a liar,” Dick says, struggling again, when Jason waits too long to answer. He kicks Jason as hard as he can; it would definitely leave a bruise if Jason wasn’t already wearing shin guards. “No one’s going to adopt me. No one’s going to adopt circus trash. Everyone knows that.”

“Who said that shit to you?” Jason demands, because those words have the bitter cadence of something people have told you, time and again. “Other kids? They put you in a foster home first, is that it?” It could explain the bruises, if one of the older kids beat up Dick, or—oh, if it was the foster parents, if Jason finds out their goddamn names—he doesn’t care if it’s been twenty years, he will track them down and—

But Dick shakes his head. “The youth center,” he says, clearly trying to sound tough about it. But he’s a little boy, and there are bruises on his face, and he holds himself like he’s afraid of getting more.

“They put you,” Jason says slowly, “in juvie.” Dick was, what, eight when his parents died? Eight?

Jason has known kids who’ve gone to that youth center, have done anything to avoid it. Jason avoided it, for Christ’s sake. It’s a bad place to be.

Dick’s gone unnaturally still again, eyeing him warily, and Jason—by sheer force of fucking will—forces himself to calm down. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “Just—fuck, I didn’t know. No one told me you went there before the Manor, I thought—it doesn’t matter what I thought, okay? Just—look, if I let go of you, will you promise not to run? I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to take you back there, Christ. I would never.”

Dick silently watches Jason for another few seconds before, slowly, nodding.

Jason lets go of Dick, although he stays close, ready to spring if necessary.

Dick—for once in his life—stays put. “If you really work with Batman,” he says suddenly. “Prove it. Call him.”

Jason opens his mouth, then closes it. “Fuck.”

Dick crosses his arms. “You’re a really bad liar, Red Helmet.”

“Red Hood,” Jason corrects, testy, “and I’m not.”

“Not lying?” Dick asks. “Or not a bad liar?”

“Both,” Jason says flatly, and to hell with what anyone else (Tim) thinks. (“You are the actual worst liar in the family,” Tim once told him, then reevaluated. “Next to Damian, at least.”) Jason feels no need to admit this supposed failing to a small child, and anyway, you don’t have to be a great liar if you have great plans, and if you punch hard enough. “I can’t get Batman on the phone,” Jason explain, “because he got hit with the same spell you did, only he’s an actual baby now. One of our other brothers—"

“There’s more?”

“—got hit, too,” Jason finishes, then snorts. “Sorry, kid. You’re up to your ass in siblings now, whether you want them or not.”

Dick’s arms remain crossed. “Prove it.”

“Ugh, how am I supposed to—” Jason stops. “The blackmail!”

Dick frowns. “What?”

Jason pulls out his phone and, triumphantly, scrolls back through his album labeled Incriminating Evidence. “Look,” Jason says, showing Dick the first picture he took of Baby Bruce, still wearing his baby batsuit because there hadn’t been any actual baby clothes at the Manor. (Steph had offered—far too cheerfully—to buy some, which is why Baby Bruce has been wearing purple onesies to sleep ever since.) Of course, this doesn’t prove much: to Dick, this is just some random kid. But also, who just happens to have pictures of a baby dressed up in black baby armor on their cell phone?

“This one,” Jason says, swiping the screen, “is of Damian, our youngest brother—”

Dick leans in, a little wide-eyed. It takes Jason a minute to figure out why: Dick adores Damian, but there’s no reason he should recognize Baby Damian when he doesn’t recognize Bruce or Jason or anyone else. (Not that Jason’s jealous. That would be ridiculous.) Only Dick isn’t really looking at Damian’s face: he’s looking at Damian’s tiny Robin uniform, so clearly modeled after the original Robin costume, which was obviously inspired by Dick’s life at the circus.

“That’s—” Dick shakes his head. “Show me more.”

So, Jason obliges: Alfred the Cat inspecting Baby Damian, Baby Bruce in the kitchen sink, covered up to his neck in bubbles, and then—

Dick stops breathing for a second, then snatches the phone right out of Jason’s hand.

“Hey—” Jason says, then sees what Dick’s staring at.

Oh.

Adult Dick is laughing, trying (and predictably failing) to get Baby Bruce to eat some mashed carrots via the choo-choo train. Baby Bruce’s face is like a storm cloud, not having any of it. Dick—this Dick—is pale, frozen, staring at Adult Dick’s face like he’s staring at a ghost. Which he isn’t, but in a way ...

Jason has obviously seen pictures of the Flying Graysons before, but he’s never bothered to commit their faces to memory. He doesn’t know exactly what Dick’s dad looked like.

He can guess, though.

Dick’s knees go, and Jason catches him before he hits the ground. “Hey,” Jason says. “Hey, you’re okay.”

Dick is shaking. He doesn’t say anything.

“You’re okay,” Jason says again, helplessly, uselessly. “You’re okay, Dickie. I got you. I got you.”

#

NOW

He’s tired. Dick can’t deny that, not to himself, anyway. It gets like this sometimes: everything a little gray, a little flat; everything heavy, like the sky itself is pressing down on him. He’ll push through it; he always does, but—it’s been a while since it’s been this bad. Each morning it’s a little harder to wake up, to will himself to roll out of bed—or roll off the couch, honestly, because the last few nights Dick hasn’t actually made it to bed, just collapsed on the couch, out of energy to even make the few additional steps to his bedroom. It’s hard to make himself leave the apartment, too, although he does: by day, working with kids at the gym and volunteering at the shelter; by night, catching violent criminals and making fun of their poor life choices. The banter doesn’t come as easily as normal, but that’s fine: it’s not like these guys are known for their sparkling wit, either. (Babs, on comms, definitely notices when Dick uses one quip instead of three, but she only asks, “Anything on your mind, Boy Wonder?” and seems to accept it when he says no—seem being the operative word, of course. Always is in a family of detectives.)

It's just ... it’s hard to feel the joy in flying when he’s like this. And Dick hates that more than anything because he loves flying, down to his bones: there’s a relief that comes from weightlessness, of easily soaring through the air, just him and the stars. (Admittedly, Dick generally has to imagine the stars—city lights and pollution and all—but he’s always had a good imagination, and anyway, Dick knows the stars are still out there. That’s usually enough for him.)

The way his parents died ... it could’ve gone a different way for Dick. There are parallel worlds out there where he never got up off the mat, where aerial work—of any kind—hurt too much to continue. (Literally! Dick’s been to a few of those worlds!) But Bruce found Dick and gave him the night sky, and Dick—he feels connected to his parents up there. He can remember them the way they were—warm and funny, their gentle, mischievous love—instead of the broken bodies they became, twisted and bloody on the circus tent floor.

Right now, Dick can’t feel any of it. He soars through the air and only hears the twin thuds.

So. It’s not great, lately, and Dick would like nothing more than to just ... give himself the week. No day job, no night job, no family or friends. He just wants to sleep, and maybe catch up on some terrible TV, and then probably sleep some more. He could ask Babs to watch Haley for a while; they do share custody, after all—but Babs will have questions, and Dick is trying to avoid questions. The neighbor kids love Haley, though; he could pay them to dog-sit. And Dick could just order in instead of cooking. (Not because he can’t cook! Despite popular opinion, Dick is not a bad cook; he just ... he gets distracted, sometimes, and cereal is so much faster, anyway, and always delicious.) Dick could eat cereal and takeout and wouldn’t have to make anything at all. He wouldn’t have to take care of anything. He wouldn’t have to do anything.

It sounds fantastic, frankly. But Dick specifically said he needed a minute, and that minute has absolutely passed. Any longer, and he’s gonna have Bruce bugging his apartment and Babs hacking his phone (assuming they haven’t already), and Tim swinging by, pretending to need advice on a case, and Steph and Cass swinging by for an impromptu movie night, and Damian, he’d probably just show up out of nowhere and say, “Something is wrong, and I insist you let me help.” And Jason ... well, Jason’s probably sick of Dick by now, but he might come over and say something like, “All right, get up, you sack of shit. Let’s go catch some bad guys.” (Or maybe he’d carefully ask how Dick is doing, while making an aggressive lack of eye contact. It’s hard to tell with Jason sometimes, especially after ... everything.)

The point is, Dick doesn’t want any of that. (Probably doesn’t want any of that. Mostly. Shouldn’t.) The point is, Dick doesn’t need any of that. He’s taken his minute. He doesn’t get another one.

It’s time for Operation Damage Control.

Dick heads back to Gotham—Bruce invited him to family dinner, obviously a test—and goes around to everyone, offering apologies for making them worry (“please forgive this humble Nightwing for depriving you of his awesome presence”), explanations for temporarily running away (“I just ... had to get my head on straight, the whole thing was ... kind of a trip”), and of course, hugs (except to Jason because Jason definitely, probably doesn’t want that—but Dick flicks him in the forehead and, cackling, runs away, which is almost as good, really). It’s all true; the closest Dick comes to lying is calling the experience a “trip,” when he definitely means “a mindfuck worthy of Scarecrow,” but that’s only because Damian is in the room at the same time. (Later, when Steph cusses Babs out for snagging the last of Alfred’s pie, Dick leaps up to put his hands over B’s ears. “Not in front of the baby!” he insists, and Bruce sighs deeply.)

(Neither bring up the apology Dick texted two days ago, or Bruce’s response: I’m sorry, too.)

After dinner, Dick does cartwheels in the Bat Cave just because he can and patiently answers all of B and Tim’s questions, since Dick hightailed it out of the Manor before he could do a proper debrief: no, he hasn’t experienced any strange side effects since the transformation; yes, he’s been sleeping enough; yes, unlike Bruce and Damian, Dick remembers everything that happened. (Bruce has absolutely no memory of the experience, while Damian only has vague ones, mostly colors and moods and sounds.) Dick isn’t lying about any of that, either; sadness isn’t strange or a side effect (if anything, it’s a direct effect), and he’s actually sleeping too much—which is definitely better than not sleeping enough. Not a problem at all, really.

Once the debrief is finally over, Dick plays rooftop tag with his siblings (he wins!), and tells everyone, repeatedly, how nice it is to be tall again. (Jason’s replies to this are predictable. Sunnily, Dick ignores them.) He makes everyone rate his child self 1-10 on the Adorableness Scale. (Cass gives Dick the highest score and is his new favorite sibling; Damian, meanwhile, insists that Dick was a “3 at best," which means that Dick no longer has any obligation to convince Bruce to buy Damian a pet hawk, or possibly a ferret.) Dick even gets to give Damian an additional hug—longer than two seconds, even—when Damian quietly, awkwardly admits that he’s been worried about Dick. (“Richard, you ... are all right, aren’t you?” Dick is. Of course he is. And fine, maybe Dick will help convince B that Damian needs more pets for his own personal zoo, after all.)

By the end of the night, Dick thinks that everyone is relatively satisfied with what’s clearly Operation Confirm Dick Grayson’s Mental Status. Mostly everyone, at least: Cass must be able to read the exhaustion in his body, the weight of the sky bearing down on him—but Cass won’t say anything unless she has to, and she won’t have to; Dick will make sure. And Jason ... Jason’s still watching him, too. A lingering protectiveness, maybe; this wasn’t just a mindfuck for Dick, after all. But that’s okay: Dick will find a way to fix it. Jason shouldn’t be worried about him. No one should.

He cheerfully waves goodbye to everyone. (“Can’t stay, got a shift in the morning, hey, are there any more of Alfred’s cookies?”) He rides his motorcycle back to his apartment. He locks the door behind him.

He collapses.

#

THEN

Dick doesn’t say a word the entire way back to the Manor.

It makes sense. He’s a traumatized kid, one who just saw his parents get murdered ... days ago? Weeks ago? However long, the wound is obviously still fresh, open and bleeding—and that’s before taking everything else about this screwed up situation into account. Sure, Dick normally can’t sit still for more than two minutes unless he absolutely has to, and yeah, Jason’s never seen Dick stay quiet this long unless he was literally unconscious, but Jason can’t expect this tiny, grieving version of him to be the same. Of course Dick’s not up for talking. Who the hell would be, in his shoes?

Jason is definitely not silently freaking out about it.

They abandon Jason’s motorcycle (Tim promises he’ll come back for it—and Jason’s helmet—once he’s finished returning Riddler to Arkham) and take the Batmobile back to the Cave. (“No arguments,” Barbie had said when she’d sent it over, like Jason might actually want to navigate Gotham by motorcycle with a tiny child strapped to his back.) Silently, Jason was hoping that Dick’s first ride in the Batmobile might cheer him up a little; instead, Dick barely reacts, feet up on the seat and arms wrapped tightly around his legs, face tilted toward the window. Doesn’t seem like he’s actually seeing anything outside it.

Christ. Jason didn’t think it’d be like this.

What he really wants to do is drop Dick off in Alfred’s much more capable hands and then go back out on the streets and punch some goons until he feels better. What he actually does is drive to the Cave, introduce Dick to Alfred, and stick around the Manor to be absolutely useless instead. (Only because Dick looks at him, wide eyed, when Jason takes two steps back towards the Batmobile. Just because Dick is visibly holding his breath and only exhales when Jason comes to stand by him again, and if that does something to Jason’s heart, too—well, it doesn’t mean anything. Dick will imprint on someone else as soon as he realizes there are so many better options, like literally any of his siblings, or—the best and most obvious choice—Alfred.)

Alfred, bless his goddamn heart, already has hot chocolate and peanut butter sandwiches and clean clothes ready in the Bat Cave when they arrive. Dick doesn’t eat the sandwiches or drink the hot chocolate or say anything when Alfred greets him, but he does wave, a little, and change into Damian’s clothes without a fight. (They’re at least a size too big, but that’s still better than sleeping in the Nightwing suit.) Dick silently lets Alfred treat his injuries, too. There are more bruises up and down his arms, scrapes on his knuckles, the still-healing black eye. An ugly dark shoeprint on his back where some kid with a bigger foot must’ve stepped on Dick’s spine, must’ve held him down, must’ve—

“—ster Jason,” Alfred is saying, bringing Jason back. “The band-aids, if you’d be so kind. I seem to be out, I’m afraid.”

There is exactly zero chance that Alfred hasn’t properly restocked the first aid kit, but Jason takes the out, anyway. “On it,” he says to Alfred, and then disappears upstairs so he can punch the wall and scream into his (now possibly) broken hand. By the time Jason comes back down (Dick visibly exhales again), the others have started filtering back in, and it becomes very clear that Jason isn’t the only one thrown by this small, silent version of their goofy big brother.

Tim looks the least surprised but the most stricken, like he knew what to expect but not how much it would hurt to see. Steph and Duke gently try to engage Dick in conversation (Dick mostly refuses to be engaged), staring a little too hard as they introduce themselves and point out neat things in the Bat Cave. (Babies Bruce and Damian in their makeshift nursery seem to intrigue Dick, and the T-Rex definitely catches his interest; unfortunately, the trapeze only makes Dick sink into himself again, curling up into a ball, eyes on the ground.) Cass doesn’t say much except to introduce herself, but she somehow gets Dick to eat a few bites of his peanut butter sandwich. (She also flicks Jason on the head, hard, when Dick isn’t looking, discreetly signing stop punching walls—which officially gets Jason a Disappointed Look from Alfred; so, thanks a lot, Cass.) And when Dick starts looking drowsy enough that he might fall asleep, Cass is the one to show him upstairs, out of the Cave and into his room. (Dick doesn’t look at Jason this time, which is probably for the best. The kid deserves someone who can help him, and Jason has exactly no idea how to do that. Fuck. Fuck.)

Alfred very pointedly clears his throat, and Jason sighs, dragging himself over and dropping onto the medical bed that Dick had just been sitting on. Dick, eight years old and absolutely beat to hell and silent and withdrawn and grieving—

“God, Alfred,” Jason says, hanging his head.

Alfred rests a hand on Jason’s shoulder, silently squeezing, and Jason reaches up and squeezes Alfred’s hand back.

Then Alfred lets go so he can peel the glove back from Jason’s already swollen fist, and Jason takes a shuddering breath, trying not to feel like everyone’s staring at him. They are, but it’s not actually him they’re worried about—or at least, not who they’re most worried about.

“He was talking a little more before,” Jason tells them, and doesn’t say why Dick stopped. “He doesn’t know who Bruce is. He said—he said they dumped him at juvie.”

Everyone looks shocked except Tim, although he’s still clearly upset, jaw clenched. Maybe Dick told Tim this part of his tragic backstory before, or—more likely—Tim, the best stalker in the family (next to Barbie and Bruce) somehow found out on his own. Tim doesn’t say anything now, just shakes his head, while Stephanie all but explodes: “How could they? He’s just a kid!”

But that’s what being a kid is like in Gotham. She knows it. Everyone here knows it.

“How long was he there?” Duke asks.

“Some time, I’m afraid,” Alfred says carefully, inspecting Jason’s hand. “No foster homes were readily available, and the circus’s petition for custody was denied. It quickly became apparent that Master Dick’s time in the Center had been ... difficult.”

Sure. Difficult. That was a fucking word for it.

“Master Dick was never one for cages,” Alfred continues, fond and sad at the same time. “He soon escaped on his own. After Master Bruce found Master Dick and returned him—"

“He what?” Jason and Stephanie say—okay, yell—but for fuck’s sake—

Alfred holds up a hand. “When it became clear that Master Dick wouldn’t be safe in that abhorrent place—or anywhere else—Master Bruce took him in as his ward, and this house has been brighter for it ever since.”

Well, it sure doesn’t feel bright now. “He’s so ...”

“Quiet,” Steph says, a little quiet herself.

“Still,” Tim says at the same time.

“Sad,” Duke says, then visibly shakes himself. “Of course he’s sad: he just lost his parents. It’s just ...”

It’s just that Dick is their ridiculous big brother, optimistic to a fault. They’ve all seen him sad before; they’ve all seen him quiet and still (if rarely). But none of them have ever seen him so small, so vulnerable. Dick hadn’t just been orphaned; he’d been thrown to the wolves. He’d been hurt, and none of them had known.

(Jason hadn’t known. Jason had never thought to ask.)

“Master Dick,” Alfred says, “has always proven to be remarkably resilient. But he has been through some very hard times—as have you all. He will need all our understanding right now if we are to help him, as he has so often helped us.”

Decisive nods all around as discussion slowly shifts from Dick’s de-aging to the Arkham breakout. Nearly everyone has been apprehended, including Evil Glinda. (Taken down by Duke this time, which is good—God knows what Jason would do if he saw her again right now.) Only Two-Face remains, and Tim heads to the Bat Computer to track him down, coordinating with Babs, who’s still at the Clocktower. (Babs, who knows Dick best, or at least has known him the longest—save Alfred and Bruce, of course. Babs, who’s been listening this whole time, but hasn’t said a word about Dick—or to him—since they hit the Cave.) Meanwhile, Duke and Steph take Baby Bruce and Baby Damian from their makeshift nursery to their actual nursery upstairs. (Baby Damian immediately starts start sleep-chewing on Stephanie’s hair. She sighs dramatically as they disappear.)

That leaves Jason with Alfred, who diagnoses that Jason has “by some miracle” avoided breaking his own hand. Alfred finishes wrapping it but doesn’t immediately let go. “This is not what I meant,” he says severely, “by fetching the bandages.”

“I know,” Jason says, and—only because it’s Alfred— “I’m sorry.”

Alfred shakes his head. “You must take better care of yourself, dear boy. This family needs you well.”

“No one needs me,” Jason mutters. He’d spent ten minutes with Dick, and the kid had both gone non-verbal and jumped off a roof. No one’s better with him here.

“Forgive me, Master Jason,” Alfred says dryly, “but you’re usually much brighter than that.”

Before Jason can figure out how to respond, Cass comes back downstairs and beelines for him. He thinks maybe she’s going to flick him in the head again—Jason edges away cautiously, her flicks hurt—but instead Cass says, “He wants you.”

Jason blinks. “Did he say that?”

“Didn’t need to.”

With anyone else, Jason would scoff. But with Cass ...

Alfred raises a very pointed eyebrow at Jason, and Jason admits defeat and heads upstairs.

He finds Dick in his old bedroom, still drowning in Damian’s green hoodie, staring up at the framed poster of the Flying Graysons on the wall. Dick isn’t crying, and he doesn’t look angry, either. He looks empty, somehow, pale and exhausted. All wrung out.

“Hey,” Jason says, leaning in the doorway. “Getting pretty late. Want to try and get some rest?”

He half-expects Dick to fight him about it, but Dick just nods silently and lies down on his bed. He doesn’t close his eyes, though, just stares up at the ceiling, or through it.

Jason sits at the foot of the bed, nods at the poster of Dick’s parents. “I know we aren’t them,” Jason says. “We’ll never be them. But the others—Alfred, Cass, everyone here—they’re good people. They’re good people, and they love you a lot. We—we all do.”

Dick doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at him, and Jason exhales, standing back up. He’s almost at the door when Dick finally asks, “What’s my superhero name?”

Well, that’s a loaded question. “You’ve had a couple of them,” Jason says, sidestepping the Robin drama. “But right now you go by Nightwing. Have for a long time.”

“Nightwing,” Dick murmurs to himself, testing out the word. “Sounds cool, I guess.”

“It is pretty cool,” Jason agrees honestly, not that he would ever admit this to Adult Dick. (Jason wonders, not for the first time, if Dick is going to remember any of this when he’s back to his old self again. God, he hopes not.) “It comes from some Kryptonian myth, I guess. Clark must have told it to you.”

Dick eyes him. “Is Clark another brother?”

Jason barks a laugh before he can stop himself. “More like an uncle,” he corrects. “Clark is Superman—"

And Dick sits up straight in bed, eyes huge. “I know Superman?”

And then, for the first time since his big brother turned into a small, terrified child and jumped off a roof—Jason feels like maybe they’ve got a handle on this; maybe, things are going to be okay.

For a while, he’s even right.

#

NOW

Dick can’t move.

That’s a lie. He can, and he should; for one thing, that dark spot on his ceiling is definitely looking more suspicious; for another, he’s all out of groceries (even cereal), and he can’t just keep ordering takeout forever. (Not that he’s been ordering takeout so much, lately. He just—he hasn’t been hungry.) But to get groceries, Dick needs to take a shower, needs to do laundry, needs to actually leave his apartment and talk to people—something he normally loves doing because people are so interesting; they have so many stories inside, just waiting for someone to come up and ask about them. Right now, though, Dick just isn’t up for anyone else’s stories, doesn’t have the energy to be charming and witty and kind. He feels like he’s constantly on stage these days, and while it’s true he was born to perform—nobody can perform forever without time to decompress, to take off the costume and wash off the makeup and just ... be. Be yourself and not the character, be yourself with no one watching. That’s all he’s trying to do, decompress, shake out of this ... this funk he’s in. He’s done it before, so he knows he can do it again; that’s how Dick knows he’s fine, really. He just isn’t up for an audience right now, and lately—lately, everyone feels like an audience. His family most of all.

It'd be a lot easier if Dick could avoid them, too, but that would be what people in the vigilante-detective business refer to as a clue, the kind of thing that would definitely restart Operation Confirm Dick Grayson’s Mental Status. Dick doesn’t want that; everyone already has enough to worry about without throwing him into the mix. It doesn’t even make sense, why he’s still feeling like this. Sure, it’d been ... A Lot, but it’s always A Lot, and Dick doesn’t usually react this badly. Nobody was hurt. Nobody even died. Not recently, anyway; the tragedy was twenty years gone now. Old news.

(But even now, Dick can still hear it so clearly: the snap of the ropes, the gasp of the crowd, his parents screaming, landing. THUD-THUD.)

Dick inhales, unsteady. Exhales. Unsteady, too.

The point is, Dick doesn’t want anyone to worry about him, so he never ignores his family’s texts no matter how tired he is; never passes up an invitation, even if he all he wants to do is sleep. He last went back to Gotham ... three days ago now? Four? (The days have been blending together lately, especially since he took a few more unpaid sick days at the gym and told the shelter that he’d needed a break for the next ... while. “More health stuff,” he’d lied, since that’s what Tim had gone with to explain his two-week absence before. Dick had felt like crap about it, especially since they were both so nice and understanding—even the gym, which realistically should just fire him for being a flake. Dick doesn’t deserve their kindness, but that hadn’t stopped him from taking advantage of it, anyway.)

But Gotham—he'd gone back for Damian’s big art show at school. Dick couldn’t miss that, obviously, even if he’d been feeling particularly gray that day. He’d gone and kept an easy grin on his face, making small talk, shooting the shit with his siblings, telling Damian how proud he is of him. And Dick had meant it: he is proud of Damian—that kid has come so far and works so hard, and he really is a ridiculously talented artist for his age. Dick had meant it, but it’d been so hard to feel it—everything’s been distant lately, faraway, the world behind a display glass: look, don’t touch.

God, Dick is a terrible brother. Damian had been nervous as he led Dick over, showing off his work. It’d been a drawing of the two of them sitting on the grass, and Dick had recognized it instantly: Damian had drawn the afternoon where he’d confided his doubts to Dick, and Dick had tried to talk some sense into him, to show Damian that he was a good person, that Dick trusted him with his life. Had quite literally trusted him with his life, in fact, and always would. “We were a pretty good team,” Damian had said that day, and Dick had agreed, “The best.”

And all the haughty disdain in the world couldn’t hide how Damian’s eyes had slid to the side. “The assignment’s theme was embarrassingly sentimental,” he’d said, glancing uncertainly at Dick. “As you’re embarrassingly sentimental as well, I thought ... you might like it.” It was so sweet and so wary, so incredibly Damian, and Dick had looked at the picture, and he’d felt nothing.

Dick didn’t say that, of course. He was horrified with himself—still is—but he’d kept it all on the inside and told Damian that he loved the picture, hugging the kid until he started hissing death threats. (“There are people watching, Richard!”) At least Damian hadn’t noticed anything wrong, but what kind of person has to pretend to be moved by something so lovely? A good brother wouldn’t have to pretend at all. Damian deserves so much more than Dick. They all do. He has to do better.

He will. Dick pushes himself up off the couch, even though he doesn’t want to, and slowly heads for the shower. The groceries will have to wait again—time has flown while he’s done absolutely nothing, and Dick needs to get ready for his night job. That, he isn’t taking a break from. People could be in trouble. People could need him. And Babs, who’s been checking in more and more lately, will definitely notice if he takes the night off.

He’d been sickeningly grateful that Babs couldn’t make the art show. Crime never stops, after all, not even on a school night, and some of them have to stay out and work. Dick loves Babs, but she knows him too well; he’s not sure he could’ve fooled her, not when he was already feeling so low. Maybe not Jason, either, but he’d been off fighting crime, too. Dick had been so relieved about that.

(Mostly. Mostly, he’d been relieved.)

That had left Bruce and Cass as the main challenges—and Bruce had been surprisingly easy to evade. Normally, B is nearly impossible to lie to—but clearly, he’s still second-guessing himself because of The Incident, and that had made it easier for Dick to deflect, to laugh off any worry. To make Bruce second guess himself even more.

God, who thinks like that? It’s obvious Bruce needs to talk this out with somebody. Normally, Dick would be the one making him, or at least trying to. That’s who he is. That’s what he’s for.

But instead Dick had done nothing.

He has to do better. He will.

(Later at the art show, Cass, frowning, had come right up to Dick, tapped him on the head and shoulders, and said, “Heavy.” Dick could’ve made some obvious, easy jokes, but he hadn’t, known that they wouldn’t move her. “I’m fine,” he’d promised, and that hadn’t moved her, either. “I just need a little more time.”

Cass eyed him for a long moment. Said, “No. That’s not what you need.”

Dick had run away before she could tell him what he did need.)

#

THEN

It doesn’t happen all at once or in a clear, recognizable pattern, but over the next several days, Dick seems ... well, a little more like Dick.

He’s still quieter than Jason is used to, and sometimes a little less present, disappearing inside himself, impossible to reach. The triggers aren’t always clear. He definitely has a Reaction to all the photo albums and scrapbooks that Alfred dug out. Everyone thought it might be a good idea to show Dick some actual evidence that not only had he grown up here, but that he’d been happy, that he’s safe with them. And Dick had been entranced at first, looking at the most recent scrapbook with genuine interest. (He seems particularly amused by the snowball fight, completely unbothered by how badly that had ended for him.) But Dick had also grown increasingly pensive as he switched to the oldest books, when it was only him and Bruce, or—when they could actually get him in the picture—him and Bruce and Alfred. His little hands had turned into strained fists as he’d stared at one disgustingly sweet picture of Bruce (in a Santa hat) giving Dick (in an Elf hat) a piggyback ride—and then Dick had slammed the book shut, refused to look at any more of the pictures, and stopped talking for the rest of the day.

(Jason, hesitating a moment longer, briefly glanced at one of the scrapbooks that Dick hadn’t gotten to yet, one that Jason hasn’t seen in a long, long time. And then, when he forced himself to close the book and figure out where Dick had gotten off too, Alfred had gently suggested that he might keep the photo albums in the den for a while, should anyone wish to peruse them further at their own leisure.

And Jason hadn’t argued.)

Other times, though, Dick is a ball of energy. Even when he’s quiet, he’s in constant motion: bouncing his leg, climbing anything he can find, walking on his hands for absolutely no reason. He particularly seems to enjoy exploring the Manor (and the Cave and the grounds) with his very favorite reluctant tour guide: Jason.

Literally anyone in the house would make a better babysitter. Cass, who can read what Dick needs when he doesn’t have the words to ask for it. Alfred, who actually remembers Dick at this age and is otherwise kind, gentle, trustworthy. Barbie, who’s also known Dick a long time and has broken her own “no kids” rule in order to drop off supplies, including some clothes in his actual size (Dick loves the bat pajamas with matching nightcap), an old toy elephant (“Zitka!” Dick says, lighting up), and—goddamnit—Bitewing. (Look, the dog is cute, okay? She’s cute. But now Jason is on dog duty and kid duty, so thanks a lot, Barbara.)

But for whatever reason—presumably, because Dick had the bad luck to meet him first—Dick sticks to Jason like glue, apparently the most comfortable in the presence of a gun-toting ex-crime lord. So, it’s Jason who mostly chases Dick (and Bitewing) around, while the others pick up the slack on everything else: changing Baby Bruce and Baby Damian’s diapers, dragging Two-Face back to Arkham, and otherwise keeping both Gotham and Bludhaven safe.

And it’s not all bad. Dick might be a hyperactive little shit (predictable) who likes to call Jason “Red Helmet” to annoy him (also predictable), but Jason would rather spend the next five years doing nothing but suffering calf cramps from chasing Dick around the house (and getting his revenge by holding Dick upside down by the ankles—Dick giggles every time, the little weirdo), than to watch him ... shut down again, wrung out and empty. Dick, this Dick, he’s a good kid, goddamnit, and Jason just wants him to have a few good days before this is all over. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

It's Gotham, so. Of course it fucking is.

It starts going wrong the day Bruce and Damian transform back in their older selves. That, more than anything, is what surprises Jason. It’s not when Dick asks about the man who killed his parents, even though Jason is more than a little taken aback by how furious Dick gets, learning that Tony Zucco is still alive. (Does Jason delight in that fury, or does he feel an unexpected surge of bitterness, or does he just ... fail to get his head around the idea of Dick “Goodie Two Shoes” Grayson wanting to murder someone with his own two hands? Yes, yes, and yes. Look, introspection is for chumps. Jason has enough problems as it is.) It’s pretty touch-and-go there for a minute, Dick silently and viciously kicking everything in sight—but he does eventually calm down after Jason says, “Pretty sure you’re the one who picked jail over a grave, kid. But tell you what: if you turn back into an adult and still want Zucco dead? I’ll help you break in and do it, no questions asked.)

(Dick will never want that, of course. But Jason means every word.)

It’s not even the Robin talk two days later—a talk which Jason heavily simplifies by explaining that Dick was the first Robin before, eventually, passing the name down to Damian. (Jason leaves himself out of it, and Tim, too. No need to go into all that drama.) Considering what a goddamn fuss Dick made the first time someone else became Robin, Jason steels himself for another tantrum—but Dick only looks thoughtfully at Baby Damian (currently trying to eat his baby blanket) and says, “I must love him a lot.”

Jason doesn’t know what the hell kind of face he makes at that, but then Dick explains in his smallest voice, “That’s what my mom calls me—called me. Robin.”

—which, holy shit, Jason did not know? And now he’s replaying the disaster that was meeting Dick with this new perspective in mind, and fuck, why didn’t Bruce ever tell him? Why didn’t Dick ever tell him?

Well, he can’t ask either of them now. But Jason definitely plans to yell at Bruce in the face for ten straight minutes when he eventually transforms back.

He doesn’t, though. Mostly, because Jason is too relieved: Zatanna had predicted Bruce and Damian would transform back in two weeks’ time—only that came and went three days ago, so everyone’s been antsy as shit about it. When it finally does happen, almost everyone’s out of the Manor. Alfred’s upstairs, working on dinner, and only Jason is in the Cave with the kids, waiting for the computer to finish running diagnostics on a cold case, while also keeping an eye on Dick (working out all that energy on the gymnastics equipment) and reading to Baby Bruce and Baby Damian. (Jane Eyre this time. It can’t always be Austen.)

“I am no bird,” Jason reads, not without irony, “and no net ensnares me—”

—and then a strange sort of POP—

And suddenly, the makeshift playpen is absolutely demolished by a 6’2” and fully adult Bruce Wayne, who’d been in the middle of rolling onto his tummy when he’d transformed back into himself. (Damian, still an infant beside him, is miraculously not crushed in the process.) Bruce is also now wearing an adult sized purple onesie which reads MY FAVORITE SUPERHERO IS SPOILER, and Jason—having taken a moment to silently acknowledge and process the immense relief that Bruce is back and okay—howls with laughter as Bruce, bewildered, blinks up at him.

“Jason?” Bruce asks, sitting up and then immediately freezing upon spotting the baby next to him.

“Meet your son,” Jason says, wiping tears out of his eyes. “Again.”

Bruce blinks at Baby Damian, who solemnly stares back.

“Jason?” Bruce asks again, faintly, a plea.

Jason takes pity on him. “You both got whammied back to babyland for the past two weeks,” he explains. “Blackmail photos are incoming. Also, Damian got hit with the spell maybe ten minutes after you did, so if you wanna hold him while he’s still this tiny, now’s your—”

Bruce is already carefully scooping Baby Damian up in his arms, staring at him in wonder. There’s more love in that look than Jason knows what to do with, and he finds himself turning away, trying to push past the sudden bitterness, the sudden wanting. If Jason had—would Bruce—would he even want Bruce to—

Jason exhales. It doesn’t matter. He gives Bruce shit any day of the week, every day of the week—but their relationship is in a much better place than it used to be, and the way Bruce is looking at Damian right now, it doesn’t really have anything to do with Jason. Bruce’s love for his kid-by-blood doesn’t mean he doesn’t also—whatever, yeah. That’s not how love works, anyway. It’s not a finite resource. Besides, that dopey expression on B’s face? What else can Jason expect from a guy who has like 50 kids but has never been able to hold any of them as babies before?

Bruce barely gets five minutes before there’s another strange POP, and then he’s holding Normal Sized Damian in his arms. Damian, who actually witnessed Bruce’s transformation before he, himself, got whammied, puts the pieces together much faster.

“Father,” Damian says severely. “This is undignified.” But he allows the hold for 30 seconds longer than Jason would’ve expected, and all in all, it’s a sweet little moment—

And then Jason’s brain kicks back online, and he turns around—

Dick is standing a few feet away, silent, staring at Bruce and Damian. No, Jason realizes; Dick barely seems to notice Damian. His eyes are all for B, and the look on his face ... it’s wary, mulish. Somewhere between frightened and angry.

“Hey,” Jason says softly, standing by him. “It’s just Bruce. We told you about him, remember? He won’t hurt you.”

Jason hears Bruce’s intake of breath behind him, hears Damian say, “Is that ... Richard?” Turns in time to see the look on Bruce’s face—that wonder again, that visible love, the hopeful ache of seeing someone you never thought you’d see again. A version of them, anyway.

“Dick,” Bruce says, voice warm—

And Dick flinches.

#

NOW

His ribs ache.

He’d hurt them a few hours ago, chasing a mob hitman down a fire escape. Falling down a fire escape, to be specific, and landing—as B might say—sub-optimally. Embarrassing for an acrobat and shameful for a vigilante, since the hitman had gotten away while Dick had been picking himself back up. He probably broke a couple of ribs, although he’d lied and told Babs that he’d only bruised them. Presumably, she’d been monitoring his vitals from the Clocktower, like she doesn’t already have enough to do watching over Gotham, like she should be wasting her time worrying about Dick at all. He can tell he’s worrying Babs by the number of times she’s checked in tonight, and he should care about that more than he actually does right now. There’s a lot of things Dick should be doing now, really: taking a shower, icing his ribs, grabbing some painkillers with something to eat. Ordering something to eat, specifically, because Dick is still all out of food. Working on a plan to track down that hitman, too, before he can hurt anyone else on Dick’s watch.

He doesn’t want to do any of it. He just wants to sleep.

Tomorrow, then. Not that it wouldn’t be easy, giving himself tomorrow night off, too. Dick could sheepishly tell Babs that his ribs are hurt a little worse than he thought, and that he should probably stay in for another day or so, just to be responsible, just to play it safe. Dick could do that, longs to do that—but if he skips out on Nightwing, just so he can laze around doing nothing ... people could get hurt. He can’t abide that. So long as he can get up, Dick can still help them. So long as he can get up, Dick is still doing okay.

(He might pay his neighbors for another day or two of watching Haley, though. Dick misses her, but he has so little energy. She’s probably happier with them, anyway.)

It’s Tuesday or Wednesday now. Dick can’t remember which and can’t check his phone; it’s all the way across the room, too far. It doesn’t matter: he doesn’t have any plans until Friday night. Dick has to be back in Gotham for Cass’s ballet recital, which—maybe it’d be better if he just didn’t go. What if he brings the mood down? What if everyone looks at him and knows? Dick can’t be selfish: Friday night is about Cass, not him. She shouldn’t worry about him. No one should worry about him.

But Dick promised Cass he’d be there. He won’t let her down, he won’t. He just ... he has to get his shit together. He can do that, has days to do that. Dick will do better tomorrow. Right now, he doesn’t have to do anything. Right now, he can just sleep—

But then there’s a knock at the door.

#

THEN

The next few days are weird.

Dick is ... normal, mostly. He still sticks closest to Jason, but he seems to genuinely like everyone else, too: plays Twister with Cass (why do they even have Twister?) and video games with Tim and Steph and Duke, and—unless he’s in a Quiet Mood—Dick will perform circus tricks for nearly anyone. Dick loves Silly Vigilante Storytime, too, especially as narrated by Babs or Jason. (The Condiment King is his favorite. The very idea of him cracks Dick up.) He always insists on helping Alfred with the dishes and especially gets along with Damian, either because Dick is happy to have another kid in the house, or because he’s clearly charmed by what an awkward, snobby weirdo Damian is. (For as strange and different as things are right now, Dick is still Dick—and Jason just doesn’t think Dick is actually capable of not loving Damian Wayne.)

Dick is a people person. He likes everyone. Everyone but Bruce.

No one understands it. It’s not like Bruce can’t be absolutely infuriating; it’s not like Jason wasn’t once the president of the I Hate Bruce Wayne fan club. (And vice president, and secretary, and treasurer.) Jason is well-versed in the art of blaming Bruce for all kinds of shit, some of it extremely well-deserved, some of it ... maybe less so. But for all of Bruce’s faults, he’s been very careful with Dick: politely introducing himself, never raising his voice, giving Dick plenty of space and telegraphing all his movements—instead of doing what Bruce clearly actually wants to do, which is to pick up the kid and hug the hell out of him.

None of it makes a difference: Dick isn’t outright rude to Bruce, but he is sullen, with monosyllabic answers and a clenched jaw and little to no eye contact. Jason would get it if Dick was afraid of Bruce, but he doesn’t seem scared anymore. Instead, he seems quietly furious, a bomb waiting to explode.

“Is this how it was?” Jason asks Alfred one afternoon, watching Dick give Bruce a wide berth as he walks to the kitchen. Bruce watches Dick go, looking a little lost. “With B, I mean. Was Dick always so ...”

“No,” Alfred says, looking troubled. “Master Dick has always had a temper—understandably so—but he took to Master Bruce immediately. If anything, Master Dick wanted him around more often. He was ... quite lonely, at this age.”

Jason can imagine. Parents dead, taken from the circus, thrown first into juvie and then here, a big house full of portraits instead of people. No wonder Dick ran amok; no wonder he ended up destroying the chandeliers. But if Dick wasn’t like this before ...

Had it been something Jason had said? Had he talked too much shit about Bruce, changing Dick’s perception of him? Admittedly, it sounds like the kind of thing Jason would do—but he really doesn’t think so. Honestly, he’s probably said more nice things about Bruce in the last two weeks than he has in the last two years. They all have; everyone’s been sharing the good memories to make sure Dick feels safe here, feels loved. And nothing else seems to fit, either: Dick could be angry about the Robin thing, but he’s been fine with Damian, not even a glimmer of hidden resentment. He could blame Bruce for not killing Tony Zucco—but that feels more like Jason’s damage than Dick’s, and anyway, Dick’s anger doesn’t feel ... vengeful, exactly. This feels like a different kind of rage.

It's only a matter of time before the rage boils over. It happens on Movie Night.

Everything goes fine at first. The atmosphere is a little off, maybe, more bittersweet than usual, and not just because of Dick’s weird animosity towards Bruce. (Although that’s a part of it, too: Bruce starts flipping through the photo albums that Alfred had left out, only to quietly put them aside when Dick started side-eyeing him with obvious fury.) It’s also because everyone knows that Dick’s due to transform back into his old self anytime now, and it’s maybe causing everyone to have a bad case of Feelings. Disgustingly, this includes Jason, who’ll be relieved to have Dick back to normal again, happy again—not to mention, relieved that Bruce will stop wandering around looking all forlorn and shit, like even for B, the brooding lately has been intense. But also .. Dick is an undeniably cute kid, and Jason—though he’ll never, ever, admit it out loud—has gotten used to him being underfoot, enjoys Dick being around more than he wants to admit. It’s a weird sort of sorrow, anticipating the loss that’s not even, strictly speaking, a loss.

Right now, with Dick half-curled against Jason’s side, having fallen asleep halfway through the movie ... it’s not terrible, is what Jason’s driving at. It’s not the absolute worst thing he’s ever experienced—although with Jason’s luck, Dick will probably transform any second now, waking up and immediately cooing that, aww, look, they’re hugging! (“We are not hugging!” Jason will tell him, shoving him off.) And maybe Dick will offer up a real hug, the way he always does, and maybe Jason will, for the very first time, take him up on it. Okay, probably not, but—it’s been a hell of a few weeks. Jason would consider the hug, at least, if Dick woke up right now and transformed back into the silly, steady brother who takes care of everything.

But none of that happens. Instead, Dick doesn’t wake up until the movie is almost over, when Bruce gets up to take the popcorn—well, what’s left of the popcorn—away from Damian. (He’s been throwing it at Tim—also asleep, having finally lost the battle after 41 hours awake—under the guise of “aerial bombardment training.”) Dick, eyes barely open and still half in a dream, reacts to Bruce’s voice, sleepily reaching out and murmuring, “Dad?” And Bruce—

Oh, he doesn’t mean to do it, even Jason can tell that—but it’s instinct, isn’t it, a parent responding to his child’s call. Bruce turns and reaches back, smiling softly. “Chum? You all right?”

Their fingers touch, and it breaks the spell.

Dick’s eyes fly open, and he scrambles off the couch so hard that Jason gets an elbow to the stomach. He looks panicky, too pale and breathing hard, as everyone, including Jason, freezes around him. Bruce, a few feet away, raises his hands in the air. “It’s okay, Dick,” Bruce says, voice so very careful. “It’s okay. You’re—”

Dick, not listening in the slightest, picks up one of the photo albums and hurls it at Bruce.

It’s a scrapbook, thrown by an athletic but tiny child: it obviously doesn’t hurt B, doesn’t even knock him back a step. It still hits him in the chest, though, because Bruce, clearly, is too stunned to even try and catch it. The second one hits him, too, as Dick starts launching anything he can gets his hands on: the second popcorn bowl, a couch pillow, one of Duke’s high school textbooks. “Shut up!” Dick yells, tears running down his face. “You’re not my dad! You’re not! You’re not!”

“Hey, hey,” Jason says, standing in front of Bruce when it becomes clear that Bruce isn’t going to do anything about getting assaulted with various household objects. “Calm down, it’s—”

Dick emphatically does not calm down, just throws another pillow (Jason catches it easily) and screams, “I have a dad! You can’t make me forget him! You can’t make me!”

“That’s not—” Jason tries, taking a cautious step towards him. But it’s at the same time that Babs also wheels forward, and Damian quietly says, “Richard,” and Alfred hastily walks into the room, his voice alarmed: “Master Dick—”

It’s too much at once, and Dick bolts, not past Alfred but out the goddamn window. Everyone stares at each other in shock as Alfred comes to stand by Bruce, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Master Bruce,” Alfred murmurs, while B just stands there, an awful blank look on his face. Tim, Steph, Babs, Duke, they all start talking at once, a buzz of worry and suggestions and disagreement, but Jason doesn’t hear a word of it. He looks at Cass. She nods.

Jason climbs out the window after Dick.

Most people, people who don’t actually know Dick, probably would’ve wasted a lot of time searching the grounds. Jason, who know better, scales the Manor and finds Dick on the roof, sobbing, arms wrapped tightly around his legs, fingers clenched around some crumpled paper.

“I wasn’t supposed to forget him,” Dick says, between big, choking breaths. “How—how could I—”

“Hey, no,” Jason says, squatting down in front of him. “That’s not what you did.”

Dick slams the crumpled paper down, and Jason realizes it’s the photo that had upset Dick so much before, the one of Bruce giving him a piggyback ride at Christmastime. Jason has no idea when Dick stole it from the album.

“I loved him,” Dick says, clearly disgusted with himself. It throws Jason at first: not the him in question—Dick is obviously talking about Bruce now —but the way he says "loved" like it’s dirty word. Like it’s a sin. “It’s—all the pictures, all the stories. It’s everywhere, I shouldn’t—I’m not supposed to. A—a—guardian, I can have a guardian, but I’m not supposed to love him. I had a dad, I shouldn’t, I should want another one. I—how could I do that? How could I do it? I wasn’t supposed to love him.”

Christ, Jason’s heart hurts. “Dick—"

“I’m bad,” Dick says, crying harder. “Jay, I—I think I’m bad—”

“You’re not,” Jason says firmly, grabbing Dick and tugging him closer. Dick goes willingly, crawling into his lap and sobbing into Jason’s shirt. “You’re literally the best person I know. You’re the best person anyone knows—except maybe Clark Kent, and even then it’s a toss-up. It’s annoying, actually, how good you are.”

It doesn’t make Dick laugh, like Jason was hoping. He barely seems to hear it at all. “It’s okay with you,” Dick says. “It’s—kind of nice, having a big brother.”

And Jason just sort of—stops.

Does Dick actually think—

Well, okay, that’s probably natural, given how much bigger Jason is, comparatively—but surely, they must have explained that Dick is the oldest. They did. Jason is sure they did. They told him Dick was adopted first, then Jason, then—

(But not their actual ages. Not the gap in their ages. Not that Jason became Robin after Dick, or was ever Robin at all. And Dick never looked at the photo albums that showed Jason as a child, never saw the few and far between photos of a teenaged Dick towering over him. Dick, this Dick, has only seen pictures of Jason from the last couple of years, and Jason looks older than his age, and Dick doesn’t, never has.)

“You’re funny,” Dick continues, entirely unaware that Jason’s whole being has stalled out. “And a little mean, too, but in a safe way. You’re safe. You’d beat up anyone who was mean to me, I bet—but no one is here. It’s—it’s not like the Center at all. Everyone’s so nice: Tim and Duke are cool, and Damian’s so funny; he’s like you, but smaller and all fancy. And Alfred—who even has a butler, that’s so weird—but Alf’s great, he’s so British and nice and funny, too, quiet-funny. And Cass and Steph are great; I’ve never had sisters before, but—but—"

But Dick had a dad. Jason isn’t replacing some long-lost brother, and Cass isn’t replacing a baby sister, and Alfred isn’t replacing the murdered Grayson family butler, but Bruce—

“I’m a bad son,” Dick whispers. “I’m bad. I. I should’ve—when they died, I should’ve—”

Nope. Jason refuses to hear the rest of that sentence. Because it can only mean one of two things: either Dick thinks he should’ve tried harder to be miserable—which is crap—or he means he should’ve died with his parents, which—no, absolutely the fuck not.

“You should’ve nothing,” Jason snaps. Probably a little too harsh, but goddamnit. “You’re a good son. A good kid, a good brother, okay? You—look, I didn’t know your parents, but it sounds like they were good people, like they loved you a lot. Right?”

Dick nods, crying silently.

“Right,” Jason says confidently. “Parents who love you like that, they only want you to be happy. They’d never want you to be sad all the time, to make yourself miserable. They’d be happy you found a home here, with us and Bruce, too. You can’t—I mean, you can be mad at Bruce if it helps. I’m mad at him all the time. Yelling at him is pretty fun, actually. But you can’t blame him for loving you because we—we all love you. We can’t help that, kid. You make everyone here better.”

Dick shakes his head.

“Are you arguing with your big brother?” Jason asks, which—okay, if Dick remembers any of this, Jason is gonna get so much shit from him, but—to hell with it. “I hope you’re not because I don’t wanna have to put you in a headlock, but I will.”

Dick doesn’t say anything, but at least he stops shaking his head. Jason takes the win.

“So you grow up to have two dads,” Jason says, shrugging. “Lots of people have two dads, you know. It doesn’t mean you stopped loving your first one. Come on, you could never do that. Not your style at all, and anyway—you know what a finite resource is?”

Dick shakes his head. Obviously. He’s eight.

“Well, love isn’t one,” Jason tells him. “Love doesn’t run out. Sometimes, we’re afraid it will, like we can only have so much, like we can only give so much—but that’s not how it works at all. And you ... you have so much love to give. It’s totally gross, actually, but also ... it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing, Dickie.”

Dick opens his mouth. “I—” he tries to say. “But I—"

In the end, he just starts weeping again.

Jason holds him close, rocks Dick back and forth until he finally tires himself out and falls asleep. Then—very carefully—Jason climbs down from the roof and back into the Manor, waving off everyone’s concerns and questions for now. He brings Dick back to his bedroom and lies down on the bed beside him, staring up at the ceiling. It’s hours before Jason, exhausted, finally falls asleep.

When he wakes up the following morning, Jason’s alone. There’s no trace of Dick at all except the note he left behind, three words and a fucking smiley face, written in familiar, sloppy penmanship, adult penmanship:

Thanks, Red Helmet :)

#

NOW

The knocking continues.

Dick should answer the door. He has no idea who could be on the other side of it. Maybe Babs checking up on him, worried he hadn’t been entirely truthful about the state of those ribs? (Which, fair.) But no, Babs should still be at the Clocktower, and Dick hasn’t given anyone else in the family reason to worry. Except Cass, maybe, but she definitely wouldn’t come through the front door. It must be one of his neighbors, needing help with something: getting directions, carrying a couch, borrowing sugar, something. (He ... probably has sugar, still? Sugar doesn’t expire, does it?)

Dick should get off the couch and answer the door; he knows that, but—he doesn’t want to. He’s supposed to have more time. Time to decompress, to sleep, to not be a person. Tomorrow, he can be a good neighbor and a kind face and a big brother and a hero and whatever else he needs to be, but right now—right now he’s just too tired; he’s just too tired to care. (Or—he does. Of course he does, but not enough. Never enough.)

More knocking on the door. Pounding, really. “I know you’re in there, Dickface!”

... that’s ... what the hell is Jason doing here?

Jason doesn’t really just drop by, is the thing. He might come needing first aid, or to discuss a case, maybe, but then he’s dropping by as Red Hood, and he’s definitely not coming through the front door, either. More reason to get up, though: if Jason wants in, he’ll get in. And he’ll see the state of this place, see Dick, and—

Nope, it’s definitely time for Operation Damage Control again. Dick should stall Jason at the door. He could yell, “Invaders! Encroachers!” and see if Jason gets the reference (or, more likely, bitches about the reference), giving Dick time to do ... something. Too late to take a shower, but he could speed-brush his teeth, maybe, pull a comb through his hair, clear off his coffee table and act like someone who remotely has their shit together—

—who is he kidding? It’s too late for any of it, all of it. It’s too late, and he just can’t.

Dick closes his eyes and hopes Jason goes away.

(Mostly. That’s mostly what he wants.)

Jason does not go away. Dick listens to Jason pick the lock, listens to him step inside and shut the door behind him. There’s a long moment of silence, and Dick imagines Jason standing there, scrutinizing the place, scrutinizing Dick.

Dick doesn’t open his eyes. “What do you want, Jason?”

“Sit up,” Jason says.

Dick ignores him.

“All right, then,” Jason says, and then Jason’s tugging at him (gently, far too gently), pulling until Dick is actually sitting up on the couch.

Dick hisses, ribs screaming at him despite Jason’s uncharacteristic gentleness, opening his eyes in time to see Jason sitting on the couch beside him. As expected, no helmet in sight, and the expression on Jason’s face is difficult to read. Serious. Watchful. Dick should feel guilty about that, and he does, distantly, but mostly he just feels ... worn out. Done. He’s just done.

“What do you want, Jason?” Dick asks again.

Jason shrugs. “You ran out on me.”

Jason hadn’t even been around the last time Dick was in Gotham, so he must mean when the spell had finally worn off a few weeks ago. Dick had fallen asleep on a rooftop, crying in his little brother’s arms, and woken up in his bedroom, Jason beside him, troubled even in his sleep. He must’ve been exhausted, hadn’t even stirred when Dick got up and crept out of the Manor, unable to face anyone. Like Jason, himself. Or Bruce.

“Told you,” Dick says. “Needed to get my head on straight, that’s all.”

“Yeah? That’s what you think you’re doing here?”

“I’m fine,” Dick tells him. “I’m just—"

“Really?” Jason interrupts, incredulous. “Look the fuck around, Dick.”

“I’ve seen it,” Dick says, closing his eyes again. “Not everyone meets your high standards, Red Helmet, but some of us—"

Jason all but growls at him. “No, I mean it. Look.”

Reluctantly, Dick opens his eyes, looks around, and—

Oh. It’s worse than he thought.

Dick’s apartment is always kind of a mess. He finds comfort in a bit of clutter; it makes a place feel lived in. But this ... this does not feel lived in so much as died in, maybe. The windows are all closed; Dick hasn’t bothered to open them for anything other than a quick entry or exit in God knows how long. His sink is full of unwashed dishes. The whole counter is too, and the bowls are probably growing something because he sure as hell hasn’t used them in at least a week. The ceiling sure as hell is growing something, anyway; that is pretty obviously mold up there, and Dick’s just been ... sleeping beneath it since he got back.

Also, garbage everywhere. Clothes, too, and his Nightwing suit is just on the ground in plain sight, crumpled where he left it earlier. Dick’s sweatpants are clean, probably, but the Superman hoodie he’s wearing isn’t. He’d known that when he’d put it on, but ... it was close, and soft, and warm, and he hadn’t cared if it was stained or smelly because it wasn’t supposed to matter, because nobody was supposed to see him like this. It hadn’t mattered if Dick had taken a shower after patrol or not, if he’d ever gotten ice for his ribs, if he’d bothered to shave in the past couple days—Nightwing could have stubble sometimes; it happened. None of it had mattered, so Dick just ... hadn’t done it.

Jason shouldn’t see him like this.

“You put on a good act,” Jason says. “I’ll give you that. Goofing around, teasing Bruce, admitting you were a little off at first. Best lies have a kernel of truth to them, right? And you’re apparently the best liar in the family.”

Okay, Dick might be worn out, but he can’t just let that stand. “Bruce,” he says, outraged.

Jason waves a hand, dismissive. “Everyone expects Bruce to lie to them at some point or another, especially about feelings shit. You, on the other hand, are the happy-go-lucky golden boy, perfect at everything. Your lies always sell better because people expect you to be honest—and because you apparently believe your own bullshit.”

Dick sighs, indignation draining out of him. Too bad; it had at least felt like something. “No one thinks I’m perfect, Jay,” Dick says, tired. “Least of all me.”

Jason opens his mouth, hesitates. “Agree to disagree,” he says finally. “But that’s not what I—when I said you believe your own bullshit. That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

Jason leans forward. “How are you, Dick? Really?”

“Really,” Dick says, “I’m okay.”

Jason shakes his head in disgust. “Seriously? You—that’s what I mean, Boy Martyr. Look around again and tell me what about—” He gestures at the room wildly “—any of this says okay to you.”

“You’re right,” Dick says, although he doesn’t look around this time. “I—it’s been a rough patch. It hit harder than I expected, but I’m still—it’s not that bad yet.”

“Not that—”

“It’s not,” Dick insists. “It’s—look, I’m functional, okay? I just—yeah, my place is kind of a wreck, and I need a little more time to recharge these days, but I’m—I’m going out as Nightwing, I’ve it made it to all the family stuff, I’ll be back in a few days for Cass’s recital, I’m—”

“Cass’s recital is tomorrow,” Jason says, frowning.

“What? No. No, it’s on Friday ...”

“Yeah,” Jason says, and then, a little softer. “It’s Thursday, Dick.”

No. No, it can’t be, not yet ... the days have been blurring together, sure, but ... Tuesday or maybe Wednesday ... he couldn’t ... he can’t have lost that much time ...

Silently, Jason shows Dick his phone.

Dick swallows. All right, that’s ... not ideal, but ... “I didn’t miss it,” he says, and then—mostly to himself— “I haven’t let anyone down.”

(He has, though. He has, or Jason wouldn’t be here at all.)

“Christ, no one’s worried about that,” Jason says. “I’m saying—” He frowns suddenly. “Where’s your dog?”

“... Neighbor’s.”

“Uh-huh,” Jason says, like the judgy bastard he is. “And what about your job at the gym? Your volunteering gig? I noticed you didn’t mention going to those.”

“I needed a break,” Dick admits. “I told you, I’m—"

“You’re not recharging, Dick,” Jason says. “You’re spiraling, man. You’re drowning.”

It hits like a bag of bricks to the chest. Because that’s exactly how it feels when he’s like this: being drowned, being smothered. The water rising up, the sky falling down. That’s always how it feels, but—

“It’s a rough patch,” Dick says again. “I’ll get through it. I always do.”

“You always do,” Jason says softly. “So. You’ve felt like this before, then.”

It’s not a question. It is a trap, but sometimes the only thing you can do with a trap is walk into it. Dick even manages to smile a little when he says, “Hazards of the job. It happens, Little Wing. You don’t have to worry so much.”

Ideally, this is when Jason would insist he isn’t worried, gross, why would he worry about Dick? And then Dick could tease Jason about having Feelings, and Jason could throw a couch pillow at him before doing something kind, like making Dick dinner or cleaning his apartment. (All while pretending he’s only doing it for his own benefit, obviously.) And then Dick would tease him some more, and Jason would vanish into the night, and they’d both feel a little better while mutually pretending nothing had never happened.

Instead, Jason explodes, shooting up to his feet. “Now I’m worried more, you idiot! You’ve just been, what? Feeling like shit all these years and dealing with it all alone?”

“No,” Dick says. “Hey, no, that’s not what I—"

“You’re not okay,” Jason snaps. “None of this is okay, and literally the only person who doesn’t know that is you.”

Well, that’s not encouraging. That sounds like, maybe, Dick never threw off Operation Confirm Dick Grayson’s Mental Status at all. “Everyone, huh?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. “What happened to me being the best liar?”

Jason throws up his arms. “Family of detectives! What, you thought you hadn’t left any clues?”

“Well—"

“Your texts,” Jason says, cutting Dick off, “are all perfectly, annoying cheerful with a disproportionate amount of smiley faces—but you only ever reply. You don’t reach out, ever, not even to Babs or Damian. You came to the big family dinner-test, and you put on a good show, all your apologies and jokes and hugs—but not me. You didn’t hug me. You didn’t even try.”

“You’re complaining?” Dick asks, vaguely amused despite himself. “You don’t like hugs, Jay. Everyone knows that.”

“That,” Jason says flatly, “has literally never once stopped you from offering. You always offer, and you always play it off as a joke, partially because you think you’re significantly funnier than you actually are, but also—also, it’s not a joke because you know if I ever did need a hug, I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t be able to ask for it. And you always make sure I have the opportunity, just in case. I know that, okay? I’m not an idiot. I know.”

Dick ... isn’t sure what to say to that. It’s true. Of course it’s true.

“But you didn’t offer this time,” Jason says, “so yeah, Dick, that was a pretty big clue. Also? Of course you’re not okay, you perfectionist freak; who the hell would be? Even by our standards, that spell was all kinds of screwed up. Everyone knows, man; they just didn’t know what to do about it. Confront you? Back off a little longer? Start following your every move? Invent a case that would drag you back to Gotham, so you could investigate a trail of carefully laid out clues that would serve as a trigger for cathartic release?”

That’s a little too specific. Dick looks at him curiously. “Bruce,” he asks, “or Tim?”

“Both,” Jason says. “But Bruce is still at the conception stage. Tim’s already reached out to some hired goons for the job.”

“Kid’s gonna take over the world one day,” Dick says, half-admiring. He wonders if Tim tried his luck with Baby Goon yet. He’s gotta be an adult by now, and maybe cooperating with a vigilante’s manipulative but well-intentioned immersive therapy plan could get you time off your sentence; who knows? “I see you went for the confront option."

“Nah, I let Barbie stalk you first. That’s how I knew you weren’t going to work anymore. When she showed me the security footage of your little accident tonight, that’s how I knew it was time.” Jason looks around the apartment again, smirk fading. “I was wrong. I should’ve come sooner. We all should’ve come sooner.”

“It’s not that—”

“It is that bad, Dick.”

“It’s just my ribs,” Dick says, intentionally misunderstanding. “I fell. It happens.”

“It happens?” Jason scoffs. “To you?”

Dick looks at him bleakly. “Everyone falls, Jay.”

Jason opens his mouth, then closes it. “Yeah,” he says, after a minute, sitting back down on the couch. “Yeah, okay. I—I don’t think I've ever really said this to, you know, Adult You, but. I’m sorry about your parents.”

Dick shrugs, looks back up at the ceiling, at the mold growing there like a Rorschach test. Two broken bodies, leaking dark fluid. THUD-THUD. THUD-THUD. THUD-THUD. “Well. That’s what makes a vigilante, I guess: spandex and a little childhood trauma.”

“Don’t do that,” Jason says, angry again. “Don’t fucking do that.”

“Do what?” Dick asks, unblinking, numb. Waiting for Jason to get back up. Waiting for him to tap out, to realize Dick is a lost cause.

“Dick,” Jason says.

Dick glances at him.

“Don’t do that,” Jason says again, softer. “Okay? You can’t make me leave like that.”

Dick is pretty sure he could, is the thing. This is such a big Feelings talk for Jason, and on one hand, Dick is honestly proud of him: Jason can barely admit the feelings he has to himself, let alone to anyone else. Coming here ... that's such a big step for him.

On the other hand, Dick knows how to push Jason’s buttons, knows how to be cruel. If he wants Jason to leave, Dick’s pretty confident he could make it happen.

(He should want Jason to leave. He should.)

He doesn’t say anything.

“Tell me why you fell, Dick,” Jason says.

No point in that: Jason clearly already knows. Dick was chasing the hitman down the fire escape when he got dizzy. Tried to keep going. Did keep going—right over the railing, in fact. Lucky he only broke some ribs, instead of his legs, his skull, his neck. Lucky the hitman kept running instead of coming back for one more easy kill.

There are a hundred reasons why someone might get dizzy. Dick doesn’t say any of them.

“When was the last time you ate something?” Jason asks, and Dick honestly has no idea.

It must show on his face because Jason gets up and stomps over to the kitchen, opening the fridge, cursing, then opening cabinets and cursing some more. He finds a can of tomato soup eventually, then speed-washes a pot and puts the soup on the stove. Dick watches Jason do it while wishing he wouldn’t. (Mostly. Mostly, except—)

Jason plunks the bowl of soup on the coffee table, along with an icepack and some Ibuprofen. “Eat,” he snaps, when Dick just stares at the bowl and wills himself not to cry.

“It was just a stupid mistake,” Dick says to the soup. “I wasn’t trying to—I’ll do better, okay?”

“Ugh, no one’s asking you to do better,” Jason says. “No one’s worried you’ve let them down or whatever other bullshit your brain is telling you right now. We just want—why won’t you let us—”

Jason cuts himself off. In the silence, Dick forces himself to take a bite of the soup. It’s good. It’s just canned tomato soup with whatever dried herbs and spices that miraculously weren’t expired, but Jason made it for him, and. It’s good.

“You know,” Jason says quietly, “you thought I was your big brother before.”

Dick closes his eyes.

It’s not Dick’s fault, really. They said he was the first but not the oldest, never said how big of an age gap there was between Dick and Jason, between Dick and everyone else. And Dick, he’d just ... assumed. Assumed that Jason had been adopted while Dick was still living at the Manor, assumed that Jason was at least two or three years older than him. It’d been easy to, considering Jason was grumpy and protective and good with kids and, also, built like a brick wall. It’d been easy to feel safe with Jason, who let Dick follow him everywhere, who never chewed him out, never left him behind, who cussed and rolled his eyes and held Dick up by his ankles, who rocked Dick back and forth as Dick cried himself to sleep.

Is it any wonder Dick had thought, So, this is what having a big brother feels like?

“You can’t blame me,” Dick says, eyes still closed. “You’re big brother shaped.”

“I’m still big brother shaped,” Jason points out, and Dick smiles faintly because Jason literally never, ever gets tired of pointing out that he’s taller than Dick.

“We could,” Jason says. “You know. Hug.”

Dick opens his eyes.

Jason shifts uncomfortably, but his eyes are steady. He doesn’t look away when he says, “You took off on me. You didn’t offer me a hug. I think you were afraid I might take you up on it.”

“Jay—”

“You don’t have to have it together right now,” Jason says. “Okay? You don’t have to be the goofy, big brother right now. Let me wear it a little longer. I don’t mind.”

It’s a genuine offer, which is the worst thing. He’s also teeing it up so Dick can laugh at him—because no one in their right mind has ever, or will ever, describe Jason as “goofy.” Dick can’t laugh, though. It feels like it’s been a really long time since Dick actually laughed.

He looks back at the ceiling mold, tries to ignore the way his eyes are definitely stinging now. “You don’t need to do that,” he whispers. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“I. I will be. I just need—"

“Dick.”

“I don’t want you to take care of me,” Dick says, and it’s true because that’s his job; that’s what he’s meant for. That’s who he is. And he loves it, taking care of his family. Loves teasing his younger siblings and teasing Bruce, too. Loves being someone that everyone can rely on. But—

But it’s also not true at all because Jason wasn’t wrong: Dick is drowning. He’s drowning, and he’s afraid of taking anyone down with him—everyone down with him—

—but Dick, he still wants to breathe—

“I’m supposed to take care of you,” Dick says, still looking at the ceiling.

“We’re supposed to take care of each other,” Jason says. “You taught me that, come on.”

Dick inhales, shaky. Eyes burning, cheeks wet.

“How about this?” Jason says, when Dick can’t say anything. “One day a week, I get big brother privileges. Say ... Thursdays. I get to come over and be a nuisance: offer up hugs, offer totally unwanted advice, make fun of your sad ass kitchen, whatever. Every other day of the week, that shit’s on you. But Thursdays? That’s mine.”

Dick takes another breath, in and out. He looks over at Jason.

Jason’s biting his lip, eyes anxious. He doesn’t look anywhere near as confident as he sounds. But he still says, “Guess what today is, loser? Give me my damn hug already.”

—And so Dick hugs him, and falls apart, and maybe nobody drowns after all.

#

Hours later, when Dick wakes up in his actual bed, he finds that Jason—currently asleep beside him, face mashed into a pillow—has both cleaned Dick’s apartment and left him a note on the bedside table. It says Don’t run off this time, jerk. Also, you’re moving into my place until we get your little mold situation fixed. Christ alive, Dickie.

Dick snorts softly. Looks at the bedroom door, knows he could probably sneak out again if he really wanted. It’s not ... he isn’t fixed. He’s still so tired. Still so guilty he’s making this Jason’s problem at all. He could run away, if he wanted, even if running away didn’t solve anything before.

But that’s not really what Dick wants.

Instead, he picks up the note and writes back Thanks, Red Helmet :) Writes, I’m thinking of naming the mold Fred, actually. Writes, TGIF! Hallmark movie marathon at your place!

And then he falls back asleep, feeling a little lighter, a little safer, with his brother at his side.