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Jason stood outside Dick’s bedroom door in the Manor, his fist poised over the wood as if to knock. Instead, he stood stock still, suspended as if a sketch of himself, straining to hear anything from the other side. Anything that would assure him everything would be okay, that they could cope with this development and adapt to what happened without splintering the fissures that already webbed across the family’s dynamic. Or, if not, definitive evidence that nothing would be okay again, at which point Jason could make a plan to save himself. The door swung open, and Alfred’s lined face glanced wearily at Jason’s raised fist. Jason dropped his arm and swallowed hard. He met Alfred’s gaze and refused to look beyond it, his conviction not nearly as sturdy as he’d believed. Alfred’s eyes softened, despite their red rims and heavy bags. “Is he....” Jason rasped, before clearing his throat and trying again. “How is he?”“Alive,” Alfred promised. “Stable. The seizures appear to have subsided, I’m unsure as to the state of his mental constitution. Master Bruce requested his sedation after... after we initially discovered him, and I’ve kept him under while we’ve evaluated his condition. I administered enough that he should sleep through the night, and well into tomorrow.”“You’re not—” Jason swallowed, hard. His eyes burned. “You’re not supposed to sedate epileptics,” he whispered, eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide. “Why would Bruce— he could....” Jason trailed off, unsure of where he was going, of what possible alternative he could offer that Batman and Penny One hadn’t already considered and rejected. “I’m well aware, Master Jason, but circumstance left little choice. Master Bruce is still in the Cave’s medical wing with Dr. Thompson for injuries sustained while subduing Master Dick, and sedation was the only fashion in which I could approach him without risking personal injury or death,” Alfred said sourly, tightly, brusquely. Coarse in a way he usually wasn’t with Jason. Jason was reminded that no matter how tenderly Alfred cared for himself and the others, Bruce was always his first and most treasured. Bruce was his oath as much as Batman was Bruce’s. “Alright. Yeah, sorry,” Jason muttered, blinking at Alfred’s pinched expression and steeling himself for the logical progression of this visit. “Can I, uh. Can I see him?”Alfred’s shoulders slumped and the hard line of his mouth softened into a smile. “Of course. I’m sure what pieces of him that remain would like that very much.” Jason flinched at the implication that Dick was permanently fractured and suppressed, but if Alfred noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it. “He’s asleep and restrained. I ask that you not touch or adjust his restraints, they are for our safety as well as Master Dick’s.” With that, Alfred took his leave and Jason was left alone in the threshold of Hades, afraid to step forward and afraid to look at the prone body laid out in the bed beneath the Haley’s Circus poster Jason knew to be there, lest his gaze shatter the possibility that it really could be Dick, tucked into a blue duvet and asleep. Instead of glassy-eyed and skewered, such as how his run-in with Deathstroke could have ended. And although their struggle hadn’t taken place in an alley (Slade and Dick were in a warehouse when Huntress stumbled onto Slade’s activities), that’s where Jason saw Dick when he thought him dead, before the situation had been clarified, when Jason was scrambling to the Manor on next to no intel. The alley in which he’s pictured Dick’s corpse looked a lot like Crime Alley, but Jason wasn’t interested in unpacking that. Jason breathed like Talia had taught him, training his eyes on a chip in the paint on Dick’s bedroom window, safely across the room from where Dick slept. He still couldn’t look, not yet.He knew Dick wasn’t dead. Alfred said so. Tim had promised Jason that much when Jason had arrived in the Cave, after the fact and while thunderously demanding details on a distress signal he’d received. According to Tim, one of Nightwing’s standard trafficking busts tangled up against one of Slade’s contracts. Except, rather than their usual tussle, Slade simply took Dick from the site and moved him to a secondary location, where he injected Dick with an imitation super soldier serum that Slade has apparently been concocting from his own altered DNA. That’s when Huntress found them. Huntress had called in the Birds of Prey, who had helped to retrieve Dick. Tim and Kate were working together in the Cave when Dick was brought in, improperly sedated and in the midst of a prolonged seizure. Damian was with the Teen Titans, and Bruce deigned to alert Koriand’r along with a request that she keep Damian unaware and occupied while the family evaluated. Jason had only been alerted via a failsafe in Dick’s suit when they’d removed it to restrain him.So, Dick was alive, but for how long and at what cost still hung thick and suffocating in the Manor’s already stale air. “Jason?” Dick’s thin, but stable, voice chirped. Broken from his fearful reverie, Jason whipped his attention towards Dick and tried not to choke. He looked fine, even with his wrists and ankles manacled to his bed, which either Bruce or Alfred had reinforced with titanium beams. He looked great. Tired, confused, but even the weariness appeared to shed as he curiously tugged at his leather-lined-metal restraints. There was no gusto, just his cocked head and quirked eyebrows.But it was his hair that sucker punched the breath from Jason’s lungs. Dick’s hair had always been black, blacker than even Jason’s. There were no natural highlights, there wasn’t nuance to the color. It had always been raven black, blackest black, suited to the nightscapes he occupied. Now, shocking white strands lay stark amid his natural color. And even then, swaths of his natural color had grown dull, as if he were graying from the roots to the tip. Jason wanted to quip about Dick stealing his style, about Dick being an old man, about Dick’s bad bleach job. Jason’s mouth was too dry for any of that.Dick frowned and wiggled as he attempted to sit up with his limbs chained as they were. “Stop looking at me like that,” he chided, growing restless in his bonds. Jason could hear the titanium whine as Dick lifted an arm in an unconscious attempt to scratch his nose. Titanium wasn’t supposed to whine. When the restraint proved too short, he gave a tug and the chains snapped as easily as a cheap necklace clasp. Dick scratched his nose, satisfied.“What’s up with the flimsy bondage, Little Wing?” Dick’s voice was casual, but his flickering eyes belied unease. Jason tried to smooth out his own grimace, to offer a calming front. Judging by Dick’s furrowed brows, Jason wasn’t successful. “Jason, seriously. Why am I tied to the bed? What happened?”Jason cleared his throat. And then he cleared it again, so Dick threw a pillow at him so hard that Jason fell backward and landed flat on his back against the hardwood floor. “Oh fuck,” Jason wheezed. “Looks like someone finally learned how to throw overhand.” The bed creaked and then cracked in a cacophony of groans and scraping metal and snapping wood as Dick lunged from the bed to leap to Jason’s side. Except he misjudged the force he needed for the distance, and instead tumbled over and past Jason in a tangle of limbs that had Jason bursting into laughter despite himself. There was a crash, and so Jason sat up, saw Dick in a disgruntled heap amid the rubbed of what was once a dresser, and burst in a fresh wave of laughter. And, despite his obvious confusion and distress, Dick lit up at Jason’s mirth and relaxed into his own wave of giggles. “My parents would kill me if they saw that landing,” Dick snickered. “‘You’re an acrobat, not a linebacker,’” he quoted. Jason snorted. “You’ve got to actually tackle someone to be a linebacker. You may have a future in demolitions. As a wrecking ball.”Dick stuck his tongue out at Jason. Then he frowned and chewed his lip instead. “What’s happening to me, Jason?” he asked, looking around himself at the splintered wood. “I can smell everything. I can smell the wood and the metal and I can hear Alfred downstairs and Tim’s wearing that awful cologne that Stephanie got him, and it’s always been pungent, but it’s not that pungent.”“You, uh,” Jason stood, striding over and holding a hand out to Dick. Dick reached for him, and that’s when they both noticed the wooden shrapnel embedded through his hand. Jason watched as Dick, alarmed, yanked out the shard. And then they watched as Dick’s skin stitched itself back together. “You were compromised,” Jason finished. “Oh,” Dick frowned, looking his hand over. There wasn’t so much as a mark. “The last thing I remember, I was fighting Slade. Was this... this his doing?” Dick asked, looking up at Jason with wide eyes. Jason wanted to drop to his knees and cradle him and shield him and promise him that this wasn’t so bad; that it’s possible to still be good after having your body ripped from you and reshaped for someone else’s intrigue. Instead, Jason plucked out his cellphone, opened the front-facing camera, and passed it to Dick. Dick frowned and pulled at his hair, which Jason swore was even whiter than before. “Oh,” Dick said. “Oh. He. He actually did it. He always told me he would but....” Dick shrugged helplessly. He returned Jason’s phone to him and then looked at his healed hand again. “I just never believed him,” he whispered. Jason never liked to be touched. He showed affection in other ways, with his presence, with favors. But Dick thrived off touch, and so Jason swallowed down his discomfort, sunk to his knees, and pulled Dick close. Jason didn’t hear Dick cry, but he could feel his shoulders shake. Jason murmured sweet nothings like, “this doesn’t make you bad,” and, “you were violated, this was a violation and now you have duty to use it the same as you’ve used everything else you’ve been dealt,” and, “I’m going to pluck out his other eye and give it to his ex-wife as a gift,” and, “I’ll call Rose, and she can teach you how to match white.”Dick’s shoulders only shook harder and Jason was beginning to panic, but then he heard Dick’s damp, muffled chuckling. “You’re such an ass,” Jason muttered, rubbing circles into Dick’s back. “I’m over here offering to re-circumcise an old man, and you’re laughing.” At that, Dick rolled back and began laughing so hard that his tear logged throat couldn’t take it, and he started choking, and Jason would have tackled him and made a Heimlich joke if not for the fact he was actually worried that Dick was going to hyperventilate. Eventually, Dick’s breathing regulated and he shuffled so close he was nearly in Jason’s lap. Jason could smell his hair and his skin and through the sweat and stress. He still smelled like Dick. Relief nearly floored Jason, and he buried his face in Dick’s hair. “You scared me, you dick. Thought you were dead,” Jason growled. Dick patted his arm consolingly. “Well. I’m a lot harder to kill today than I was yesterday,” he offered. “So don’t worry about me. You should never have to worry about me, but now you really shouldn’t. I saw Slade lift half a car once to pick up a grenade he dropped. If I got even a fraction of what he did, my high kicks just got a lot meaner.”“We don’t know how your body metabolized the serum yet,” Jason chided. “You were supposed to be nice and unconscious all night, they’re going to run tests.” His voice got quieter. “He’s going to treat you like a lab rat.”“Sh, hey. It’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. We don’t have to tell them I’m awake yet, not until you’re ready.” Jason wanted to laugh. Dick would get injected with a concoction against his will, fall into prolonged seizures, and be forced to relearn how to fight with a new condition only to then turn around and console the nearest bystander. Residual jealously and irritation at Dick’s selective empathy stirred, but Jason tamped it down.“Alright,” Jason said. “What do you want to do then?”Dick scowled. “Dye my hair.” His stomach growled. “And probably address that.”And so, Jason left, assuring Alfred that Dick was still at rest, and avoiding the rest of the household by borrowing one of Bruce’s cars from the garage. Then he returned through the window with a plastic bag from a drugstore filled with hair dye, cereal, and several, several protein bars. As he massaged the black saturated chemicals into Dick’s scalp, he commented, “You know, if that serum made you anymore flexible than you already are, you will be an affront to God, and I will have to kill you.” Dick pouted for 20 minutes.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
"We'll have it fixed," Bruce said, his lip curled as he appraised Jason's dye job from the bathroom threshold. Jason didn't care; he'd managed to stain Dick's bathroom sink into perpetuity, and if Bruce was forced to remodel the sink then his compulsions would compel him to remodel the entire bathroom. If Jason were lucky, Bruce's neuroses would last until the entirety of the Manor's left wing was refurbished, enough time to shelter Dick from Bruce's grief. Then again, Jason was never very lucky, and there was no god nor meta nor man capable of shielding Dick from Bruce. "It's not so bad," Dick offered from where he perched cross-legged on the toilet seat. His voice was a shallow imitation of his usual mirth, and he tugged at his hair fretfully. His gaze was trained past Bruce, at the wreckage of his room. "Not that bad," Dick murmured again, quietly this time, still watching the fruit of his first conscious steps with an attentive ferocity. He hadn't blinked since they'd first heard Bruce enter, Jason was beginning to wonder if Dick'd gotten nictitating membranes with his enhanced strength. That was a quip for later, for the next time they went on a stakeout or spent the sunrise watching Tombstone after patrol. Like before, Dick would squawk when Jason imitated Doc Holliday's stances by brandishing his own loaded gun, and then Jason would groan when Dick, sporting a grin as wide as his bright eyes, crooned, "'Tell 'em the law's coming. You tell 'em I'm coming, and hell's coming with me, you hear?'" And maybe by then both Bruce and Slade'd be dead, buried so deep it'd take a lot more than Superboy Prime to dig their way out. By then, Jason could relax muscles that ached from the weight of traumas not his own, and Dick could shed the chameleon's coat that sapped his empathy and urged him atop crucifixes. Jason swallowed when Dick pulled his fingers from his hair. "Oh," Dick announced as he observed his hand. Several strands of hair, stripped of their health by the boxed chemicals, had broken away to cling to his fingers. Dick huffed at them before unfolding himself to stand and shake the stray hair into the waste bin by the sink.Until Bruce strode forward and snatched Dick's wrist. Dick froze as Bruce lifted Dick wrist to pluck away a few of the remaining strands with a pair of tweezers that Jason swore Bruce hadn't had only seconds prior. Jason glanced at Dick's raised eyebrows and parted lips, but Dick remained stiff as Bruce squinted at the samples. "Brittle, as it should be after soaking in ammonia," Bruce concluded curtly. "As dead as anyone's. I'll run it through the Cave's lab anyway. No follicle, so I'll need a more formal sample, saliva will do. Afterward, we'll do a full metabolic panel, and I also want labs for your albumin and total protein. Prothrombin time, too." He procured a small, plastic bag from his suit pocket and slipped the hair into it, zipping it and pocketing it right after. Jason rolled his eyes so high he felt the strain in his sockets. Dick nodded. "You should look at my white cell count too. My platelets are included in the CBC, right?"Jason bit back a snide comment as he watched the two of them plan out a string of tests heavier than those implemented in experimental drug trials. Still, better Bruce occupy himself with samples rather than hasten the inevitable retraining he'll force Dick into. If Jason could find someone to gamble with, he'd bet Bruce would bring in Diana or Clark or some other meta of inordinate strength to throw Dick around a few times, and to tell Dick that he's dangerous and unpredictably harmful. Maybe he’d bring in the Hawks, Clark and Diana could be so easy on Dick, having watched him grow up and into himself. Then again, none of them liked Slade. Vigilantes, Justice Leaguers, multiple federal governments. Now, Dick had Slade's mark woven into a double helix within his cells, and love is easily lost amid disgust and fear. Jason caught the way Damian and Bruce eyed Jason when Jason fought, his style still peppered with disciplines Talia instilled during his time with her. He caught their scowls when they saw the white streak in his hair, a signature left by the Lazarus Pit. He let them stare and squirm. Jason was used to it. He could take it. There were worse, less powerful organizations than the League of Assassins, and he'd long since hardened himself to Bruce's disdain.But Dick didn't deserve the treatment his newfound association with Slade would garner. He'd internalize their distrust and withdrawals, it would isolate him from the only communities his lifestyle afforded him. Dick didn't cope with isolation well. Spyral was terrible enough, but this would be so much more intense than his experience with Spyral, where he at least could rely on the knowledge that he was publicly dead, not forsaken. Maybe Dick could shroud himself in the protective haze of anger, and then maybe Dick would understand why Jason acted the way he did for all of those years. They’d meet in the middle ground of their loneliness, and they’d share grief like they shared Roy and Kori. Dick grimaced. A few moments later, somewhere down the hall, there were crashes, and then shouting, and then simultaneous crashing and shouting. Dick's head was cocked, eyebrows furrowed as he attempted to sort and discern the sources of the cacophony that was no doubt overwhelming him. After only a few seconds, a grin lightened his expression. "Jason!" Bruce barked, head jerking in the direction of the ruckus. Jason shrugged, crossing his arms and leaning into the wall. If Dick wasn't concerned, neither was he. Against his own ethos, Jason considered how nifty Dick could be on a few of Red Hood's ongoing campaigns. He'd ask Dick later, after he had a chance to come down from the initial shock. When he remembered his own flexibility and propensity for flying without a net. "Jason," Bruce repeated, lowering his voice in a thin display of control. "Bruce," Jason said, mimicking Bruce's tone, still not moving. Bruce scowled. Dick snorted and, ever the meditator, strode towards the door to investigate. He hadn't made it to the bathroom threshold before Bruce grabbed his bicep to stop him. Jason pushed up from the wall, leaning towards them in interest. "Do not," Bruce growled. Dick blinked, raising his eyebrows. "Why?" Dick asked. "It's just Kori and Damian, I can hear them." At Damian's name, Bruce's knuckles grew white as his grip tightened. Dick's eyes widened with understanding. "You think I'm going to hurt him," Dick accused, stepping away and shedding Bruce's grasp with an easy shift of his arm. Outside, the noises increased so that Jason, too, could hear Damian's caterwauls, and then Kori's chastisements regarding appropriate displays of emotion, with a few apologies peppered in. Likely for Alfred, who Jason couldn't hear but who had no doubt attempted to call them to attention. Only Damian could make Kori out to be the picture of emotional restraint. “How dare you, Bruce,” Dick growled, shoulders squaring as if he anticipated a fight. “Both you and Jason have touched me, without any incident. Why do you think I’d treat Robin, my Robin, my name, and my partner, any differently?”Jason whistled low and long. It had been a while since Dick invoked his ownership over the mantle Robin. “You don’t know your own strength!” Bruce snarled, gesturing into the bedroom, towards the destroyed dresser. Dick’s eyes flicked towards his damage, and for a breath, Jason worried he’d concede. But then Damian rounded the corner, dodged Bruce, and threw himself against Dick, the force of which didn’t even budge Dick. Dick very carefully, so gingerly, placed a hand on Damian’s back. “Hey,” Dick cooed. “You’re supposed to be in San Francisco.”Damian pulled back, face blotchy and red, “You’re supposed to be dead,” he hissed. Then he hit Dick. And he kept hitting Dick and Dick just took it with a peace that Jason couldn’t fathom. “You’re supposed to be insane and dead and a chemical vegetable!” Damian shouted. “And I was going to never forgive you and you wouldn’t have even known because you’d be an insane, dead, chemical vegetable!”Jason glanced at Bruce. Bruce was pale and wide eyed, as if just remembering that his children tended to love each other. Behind him, Kori waved at Jason with a little smirk. Jason grinned and nodded back. “Princess,” he greeted. Bruce’s head turned, expecting Diana on reflex. He scowled at Kori.”Your orders were to keep him in Titans Tower,” Bruce snapped, “without disclosing the incident until we ordered otherwise.” Kori shrugged. And while Dick was crouched with his face buried in Damian’s hair, Jason caught the ghost of a smirk. “I decided that was unjust,” she said. “So I didn’t do it. I also wanted to see Dick, to gauge whether I should kill Slade Wilson or run fire through his veins into perpetuity.” She grinned her pretty grin at Dick. “Hello, Dick. How are you?””Hi, Kori,” Dick murmured. He’d wrapped his arms around Damian, but there wasn’t any pressure. A lax loop, just in case. Bruce had gotten into his head. “I’m a little unsure, but I think I’ll live. I’m glad you’re here.” “Of course,” Kori chided. “As if I wouldn’t be here for two of my favorite boys.” She winked at Jason. Bruce opened his mouth, but Jason quickly interjected, “Hey, Kor, arm wrestle Dick. I want to make sure you can still thoroughly embarrass him now that he’s a wannabe super soldier.””Oh, please,” Damian warbled, muffled, into Dick’s shoulder. “As if the alien stands a chance against Grayson.” “It has been a while since we held hands, Dick,” Kori cooed. “I wouldn’t mind a romp with you.” Bruce blanched and Jason laughed, which made Dick snicker, and Damian smile.”Your panels, Dick,” Bruce ground out. Dick raised his eyebrows at him. “We can so them in the Cave, and Kori and I can arm wrestle in the Cave. It’ll be a strength test.””I won’t go easy on you,” Kori warned him, floating a few inches from the ground in her anticipation. “I’d be disappointed if you did,” Dick shot back. Kori won the arm wrestling match, but Dick did have a needle in his other arm siphoning enough blood to make a grown man dizzy. “You don’t need that much blood,” Jason said to Bruce. Across the room, Kori was trying to rib Dick, but she was too fascinated by the stamina and strength that fueled the seven minute deadlock preceding her victory. “Maybe now we can finally try—“ She began, a salacious grin spreading across her face.”Hey, hey, hey,” Dick interrupted. “Not right now. Yes, but not right now,” he glanced over to Jason and Bruce. Jason opened his index and middle fingers into a “V” and stuck his tongue between them to assure Dick that he did, in fact, catch that exchange. Dick’s cheeks burned a dusky rose. Damian looked between all three of them, at a loss for what had occurred. “Don’t make vulgar gestures in front of Damian,” Bruce huffed, furiously typing notes as some of the test results and vital measurements poured into the system. He’s already too old for his age.”Jason rolled his eyes. “Weren’t we all. So what, are you going to drink the spare blood because you really have been a vampire this whole time?” Bruce spared him a withering glare before returning his focus to the monitor. “His blood is replenishing itself rapidly, he can take the volume I’m withdrawing. I’m sending samples to the Watchtower and a select few STAR Labs locations. I want multiple metrics and multiple opinions, as well as comparisons to whatever samples we have from Slade Wilson.” “Do we even have any of those?” Dick called over while Damian used his outstretched arm, the one not hooked to a blood bag, as a pull-up bar. Bruce winced. He still wasn’t used to Dick’s enhanced senses, Jason noted with a smirk. “No,” Bruce admitted. “Every time I retrieve a sample it... disappears.””Nice,” Jason hissed gleefully. “I wonder if he takes contracts for that service.” Dick hummed. “I could always ask for one.” Damian fell off his arm and three pairs of eyes landed on Dick.”Absolutely not,” Jason, Bruce, and Kori said in unison, grimacing at each other afterwards. “Go run for me on the treadmill,” Bruce ordered. “I want to test your stamina and pacing.””Um,” Dick gestured to his blood letting set up. Bruce huffed and then made his way over to unhook him. Meanwhile, Jason pulled out his cellphone and scrolled until he found his contact for Slade Wilson. He hesitated. Dick needed to be kept as far away from Slade as possible. Slade had always harbored an unhealthy affection for Dick, and this was his magnum opus for shitty behavior towards Dick. But, a sample could fast track Dick’s time under a microscope. And while it was dangerous for Dick to interact with Slade, Slade never shared that affection with any of the subsequent Robins.With a shout to the others that he was headed to the bathroom, Jason disappeared up the elevator, and then tossed himself onto his motorcycle. He waited until he was at least fifteen miles out from Wayne Manor to make the call. The line rang once. Twice. Jason began tapping his foot and chewing his lip. Thrice. At the fourth ring, Jason considered giving up on the entire half cocked plan, but then— “Hello, Jason. How’s my little bird?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jason’s phone rang, the sound startling and loud as it cut through the silence of his bedroom. Anxiety thrust his heart into his throat and then buzzed incessantly in his ear as he accepted the call. Or maybe it was just Jason’s tinnitus. “Hey,” Dick’s voice was soft coming through the receiver, soft enough that Jason pressed his cellphone just a little closer against his ear, pressing himself closer to his window. “Hey,” Jason echoed, voice gruff. His throat burned when he swallowed to clear it.“Where’d you go?” Dick asked, as gentle as if he were coaxing a nervous dog. Jason swallowed again. “Couldn’t breathe, so I left. I meant to text you.” It wasn’t untrue , but it wasn’t sincere either, and Jason could just hear Roy’s voice: that evasiveness and omission could be deceit even if it weren’t an outright lie, and, ‘just come to one AA meeting, I know alcohol’s not your poison but maybe it’ll help,’ and— “You don’t have to check in with me, I know the Manor, as big as it is, can feel claustrophobic,” Dick assured him. “What’s it like on the outside?” There was an eager lilt to Dick’s voice and Jason flinched at the vicarious implication before shaking it off. Jason snorted (and then flinched again; every sound he made was exaggerated, his alibi felt paper thin.)“You could just leave. It’s not like he could stop you, not anymore. Not without trashing the place.” Jason meandered from the window to settle down on an overstuffed chair in his living room. He’d snagged it off someone’s curb, and it remained the coziest spot in his Gotham apartment. As silly as it was, the chair’s sinking springs and plush cushions made him feel a little less untethered. “It’s not just him,” Dick murmured, suddenly sounding very tired. “It’s him, Alfred, Tim, Damian. Even Duke and Babs have gotten involved. I thought Kori was going to have a conniption, but she got called back to San Francisco. Fuck, Jay, I can’t live like this.” Jason brought his knees to his chest, sinking further into the chair. He wiggled his toes where his socked feet hung off the edge. “It’s temporary,” Jason murmured, propping his chin on his knees. I know,” Dick sighed. There was rustling on the other end of the line as if Dick were shifting. “Sorry, it’s only been a day. It’s just. I have a life. I have my own city, my own apartment, my own mantle,” Dick’s breath was coming out faster, faster, faster; his voice cracked as he spoke, “I come back when I’m needed, and for the boys, I love the boys, I couldn’t leave them, but it’s not supposed to be like this! I’ve worked too hard for it to be like this! ” Jason recognized an impending panic attack when he heard one. Dick was feeling trapped, clipped. Like Jason, he could see the trajectory of Bruce’s paranoia, even so soon. “What if— what if we get that sample? From Slade?” Jason croaked, his throat now so tight and raw that speaking was like sandpaper. “Do you think they’d let up? Let you go home?” Dick paused. For a moment, Jason didn’t think he was going to respond. And then, Dick said, voice still quivering, “He’s a dead end. I reached out to Slade, earlier. After you left, while Bruce was looking over the data from my run. He didn’t respond, I’m not sure if he will. Don’t be mad.”Jason closed his eyes. He knew Dick would reach out to Slade. He knew Slade hadn’t responded. He’d asked Slade to not respond. “That was pretty stupid, Goldie. He wants you to reach out, he wants you isolated. You can’t give that to him, you give him an inch and he’ll take a mile.”“I know,” Dick groaned. “But you said it yourself, we-- I need something concrete. And I know about Slade, I don’t need you to tell me too. But, I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine, we don’t need him. I’m going to be fine.” Fine, he’ll be fine, like he was fine right then, caged like a lab animal. Jason scrubbed his face. “I’ll talk to Rose,” Jason said quickly. He’d wanted Dick to assure him that a sample from Slade was worth what Jason was going to do. It was just Jason’s lot to seek validation only to come away worse than before. “Just, don’t worry about it, okay? You’re going to make it worse on yourself if anyone else in the family hears you reached out, and you’re smarter than that. Okay?”“Yeah, okay,” Dick murmured wearily. “Am I going to ever see you again?”Jason sat up, dropping his feet to the ground. “What?” He spluttered. “I mean, are you ever going to come visit me? I know you don’t like coming to the Manor, especially not when everyone’s wired like this. It was different at my apartment, my apartment was...”Safer, kinder, easier—“... closer. More convenient. I just don’t want to go back to not seeing you for months at a time.” Jason suppressed a frustrated groan. Dick was downplaying it, and Jason couldn’t tell if Dick knew it or not. The apartment wasn’t just convenient, it was theirs . It was Dick’s, but it was theirs. Bruce refused to touch Bludhaven or the apartment there, and as such, it was free from his branding and his shadow. It was dirty and messy and lacked any cohesive decor and by the same virtue, it was a safe harbor. Dick wasn’t the poster child of perfection when surrounded by discarded laundry and soy sauce packets, he was just a stressed 20-something with terrible taste in movies. Likewise, Jason wasn’t a cautionary tale, he was a welcomed loiterer from whom Dick only expected company and takeout. The Manor had ghosts, the apartment just had loud plumbing. “I’ll be around, Dick,” Jason said. “But I think Alfred will kill me if I try to bring over congealed lo mein.” “It’s not congealed!” Dick squawked like Jason knew he would. “It’s a thicker sauce. I think they put cornstarch in it. I tried to imitate it, but I think I used too much honey.” “I remember,” Jason said. His phone vibrated and he put Dick on speaker to check the incoming message. Ice blossomed in his chest. “Dick, I’ve got to take care of something. I’ll talk to you later. Work on your lo mein recipe while you’re stuck there anyway.” “Okay, but Ja—” Dick began, but Jason furiously tapped End Call with a clammy fingertip that took a couple of tries to register on the touchscreen. The call screen faded, and in its place was Slade’s text message.
Blood work received. Find attached pre-serum diagnostics. File will self-delete.
Jason scowled, thinking back to their phone call.
“How’s my little bird?”
Jason had taken a breath. This wasn’t a personal call, this wasn’t personal, this couldn’t be personal. Burning this bridge with an acid tongue and unkempt anger wasn’t just unwise, it was damning.
"He’s fine. He’s himself. I need your notes on the serum. I can get your file from the source, but I want whatever you built around him.”
Slade had sucked his teeth. “That’s no way to ask for proprietary information. Besides, he’s in the midst of a drug trial. The file is... lacking without updates on his condition. I have limited data to give you. Hardly seems worth sharing.”
Jason had closed his eyes. “Then would you be willing to sell instead?”
“It’s too early to accept a buy-out, boy,” Slade had murmured. “And if I wanted Black Mask’s pocket change, I’d take it from him himself.”
“What about an exchange of information?” Jason had blurted.
Dick was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a cold case file from the Bludhaven Police Department spread out before him. He couldn’t sift through the evidence locker or visit the scene holed up in the Manor as he was, but he could at least go over the interview transcripts, crime scene photos, and witness testimonies. There was a knock at his door. It was soft, soft enough that Dick would have mistaken it for Tim or Alfred if not for the distinct pattern. “I’m here,” Dick called towards the door. Then, he added, “You can come in.” The door swung open and Bruce skulked past the threshold. He closed the door and leaned against it, watching Dick work, as Dick shuffled some of the papers and reorganized his stacks. “Any leads?” Bruce asked, almost conversationally. Dick didn’t expect him to interfere or undermine his work on a Bludhaven case, but he doubted Bruce’s visit was to shoot shit either. “It was Mr. Peacock in the library with the candlestick,” Dick replied with a wry tilt to his mouth, sparing Bruce a glance through his disheveled, wrought bangs. Bruce pursed his lips in that way he did whenever Dick made a bad joke, and Dick smiled and returned to his task. “I’ve already figured out the perpetrator, but I found a loose end in the form of a potential accomplice.”“Ah,” Bruce said, still hovering by the door. Dick returned to the files when it appeared Bruce’s commentary ended there. But then Bruce cleared his throat and added, “You and Jason appear close lately.” Dick flicked his eyes up to meet Bruce’s, eyebrows furrowing and mouth twisting into a frown. “Yeah? And?”Bruce grimaced. “It was an observation, not a criticism.” Dick relaxed. “Oh. Yeah. He has operations out of Bludhaven now.” No need to share the extent of their relationship. That was for Jason and Dick alone. They lapsed into silence again. Dick moved a folder aside and gingerly unfolded a newspaper clipping.“Damian,” Bruce blurted. Dick looked up at him again. Bruce looked like he was sucking on a lemon. “Damian asked about you. How you were doing.”Dick cocked an eyebrow and scanned the newspaper article. “Oh? I saw him earlier, we talked. I didn’t think he’d need another update so soon.” Bruce glanced away, and Dick hid his smirk. “You can tell Damian I’ll be fine,” Dick assured Bruce. “That I’m still me, and that I haven’t forgotten how to roll with the punches. I know he loves me, and I know he’s scared, but I’ve seen worse and so has he.” Bruce grunted, still refusing to look at Dick.“He’s not scared,” Bruce asserted. “He recognizes the risk this poses. The unknown variables that you can’t speak to. The--”“If he can’t trust me, fine,” Dick snapped, looking up to glare at Bruce. Bruce, who finally turned to face him. “But he should know that I expect more from my Robin, and my partner than that.” Emboldened by his conversation with Jason, he added, “And that there’s no contingency plan keeping me here. You haven’t the time or the information. And that’s what’s actually got you, isn’t it?” For a brief moment, Bruce’s facade cracked, and Dick caught a glimpse of vulnerability. Furrowed brows, wet eyes, twitching lips. But then Bruce blinked and it was all gone, swept-back under his usual demeanor. “Leave if you want,” Bruce retorted stonily. “Keep any data you accumulate.” And then Bruce left, closing the door behind him.Dick huffed. He glanced at the door, and then at his window. He wiggled. He organized and then reorganized his cold case file. He glanced towards the window again. He attempted more work in his file. And then he fell back on his bed, sighed long and heavily, and picked up his cellphone. “Hey, Jason,” Dick said once the voicemail tone sounded. “Sorry about, uh, earlier. Hope I didn’t scare you, or anything. Just wanted to let you know that I’m fine, I was just stressed earlier. Um, just let me know you got this, I guess. And, uh, I miss you. Yeah. Alright, bye, Jay.”Dick ended the message and tossed his phone away. He settled into the sheets, pulled the blanket over his shoulders, and curled around a pillow. He didn’t take his eyes off the window.