Chapter Text
The knife is razor-sharp where it bites into Dick’s skin, so sharp that he feels the trickle of blood before the pain even registers.
“You know the Joker did this to me,” Jason says conversationally. With Jason’s knife at his throat and his whole body bearing down on Dick’s, Dick can barely breathe, let alone respond. “He had a straight blade, like the ones that barbers use. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t have the courtesy to keep his blades as sharp as this one.” This close, Dick can see the ugly mess of scar tissue on Jason’s throat, just over the carotid. It’s anyone’s guess as to how he made it out alive.
Jason turns the knife in his hand, drawing the flat of the blade over Dick’s throat. “Maybe I should give you a souvenir of your own, and then we can match.”
Dick swallows, forcing more blood to ooze out of the wound.
“Jason—”
Jason hits him across the face with the hilt of the knife. Dick winces as pain blooms brightly across his cheekbone.
“How could you ally with him?” Jason shouts, his tone turning vicious. The knife is back at Dick’s throat, an ever-present threat in his periphery. “How can you wear his sign? How can you fight in his name?”
Dick gets his hands over Jason’s and tries to pry the blade away from his skin, but Jason’s stronger than him and his pin leaves no room to manoeuvre. He closes his eyes and wills himself to stay calm. “The Joker has been—”
“Do not tell me he’s reformed.”
Dick’s eyes fly open as Jason braces his forearm across Dick’s throat, right beneath the blade. A dizzying panic sets in when Dick tries to take a breath and finds that he can’t.
“How can you defend him? After all the people he’s killed, all the lives he’s destroyed. How can you stand with him?”
A thousand excuses surface in Dick’s mind, but there’s only one truth among them. Dick grimaces, writhing against Jason’s pin, but it’s no use. Dick’s pulse is pounding in his ears. He blinks rapidly against the black spots forming in his vision. There’s no stalling Jason, no escaping his questions.
“Well? Tell me!”
Dick takes a shaky breath, feeling blood pool into the dip of his collarbone, and shouts—
“Because it was the only way to stop Bruce!”
*
Jason’s apartment is sparse, utilitarian. An unmade bed in one corner, and a precarious bookshelf stuffed with novels in another. Mismatched dining table set, battered couch. All of it over shabby carpet, singed with cigarette burns and stained with god knows what.
Jason himself is sitting at the rickety kitchen table, his gaze sharp as he studies Dick.
Dick studies him right back.
There is exactly one photo of Jason Todd in Wayne Manor, and it sits on the mantle in Bruce’s study. The boy in the photo smiling wide, holding a melting ice-cream cone like a trophy. Bruce is standing slightly behind him, his face shrouded in shadow and his hand resting on Jason’s shoulder.
Dick studies the man who sits before him, compares him to the boy in the photo, and finds the two images utterly irreconcilable. The Jason in front of him bears no resemblance to that boy; all of his childlike joy is gone, replaced by a harshness that’s painfully reminiscent of Bruce. Jason’s mouth is set in a firm line, his chin raised in defiance—as if he’s daring Dick to take his best shot. Jason is big, almost as big as Bruce, and Dick knows that if it comes to blows, he’s going to have a hard time holding his own.
It’s Jason who first breaks the silence. “You wanted to talk. So talk.”
Dick’s played out this conversation a hundred times in his head, has it scripted down to the last word. He has a strategy: avoid all mentions of Bruce, stick to logistics. Jason is a hostile witness, and Dick is going to do everything in his power to avoid provoking him.
“How did you escape the Joker?”
Jason laughs, a hollow sound that’s dredged from the depths of his throat. Dick can already tell Jason has no intention on making this easy for him.
“You track down your long lost brother who’s been dead since you were a child, and that’s what you want to talk about?” Jason’s grin is savage. He pushes back from the table to lazily swing on his chair with a forced casualness that has Dick gritting his teeth. “How about we start with you answering one of my questions: why are you here?”
The and not Bruce hangs in the silence.
Dick carefully considers his response. “I know that Bruce didn’t always do right by you. What he did was—”
“Indefensible? Deplorable?”
Dick’s temper flares. “You’re not the only one who was hurt by him.”
“Really? You look like you got out okay.” As Jason says that, he tilts his head, baring his throat. The movement is slight, but Dick’s been trained in picking up on subtle cues. He doesn’t miss the way Jason’s calling attention to the scar on his throat. Dick doesn’t know how he got it, but he has an inkling. “Tell me something, Dick. After I disappeared, how long did he wait before offering you the suit? One month? Two?”
Dick flinches. It’s minute, but Jason would notice. “It wasn’t like that.”
“He didn’t even have a body to bury. How long did he look for me before he had me declared dead?”
Jason lets his chair fall back to the ground, and a second later he’s leaning across the table, close enough that Dick can feel his breath on his face. “If it were him who disappeared, I would have searched to the ends of the earth, I would have beaten up every crook to find out exactly what happened to him. But hey, why bother with any of that? Not when he already had my replacement lined up. Another good soldier, ready to march to their death.”
“I said it wasn’t like that. I had to beg to become Robin, Bruce refused me for months. Jason, you have no idea, he mourned you, he never fully recovered after—”
“Aw, I didn’t know he cared,” Jason says, and there it is again: that forced carelessness, that faux nonchalance. Something about it gets under Dick’s skin. “He did well with you, though,” Jason continues. “Look at us. We even look the same. Blue eyes. Black hair. Just like Bruce. You may go by a different name these days. But you and I both know you’re just a carbon copy. Except unlike me, you weren’t smart enough to get out when you still could.”
Dick clenches his jaw. He knows he’s giving himself away, projecting his emotions as clearly as if he were shouting, but the time for civility has long since passed. “I got out,” he says curtly.
“Oh?” Jason asks with a quirk of his eyebrow. “Is that why you’re here then, running his errands for him?”
Dick already knows there will be no walking away from this without a fight; the only question is who will draw first blood. Jason looks tough, but Dick has no doubt he’s out of practice. And Dick’s never been one to shy away from a challenge.
“Bruce didn’t send me,” Dick says, rising from the table. The way Jason’s face twists tells him that the blow lands exactly as he intended. “I reached out to you because I cared, but now I see I shouldn’t have wasted my time.”
Dick turns slowly, listening out for the sound of Jason’s chair scuffing the cheap linoleum. The hand on his shoulder is completely expected, and when Jason yanks him backwards, Dick’s already turning to tackle him with his whole body.
Dick can already tell that Jason’s instincts haven’t dulled over the years, because he seems to have anticipated the attack. When Dick charges at him, Jason bows under the pressure, using Dick’s momentum to flip them around again until he’s pressing Dick into the floor with all of his weight. It’s a familiar tactic, one that Dick had learned as Robin too. A distant part of him realises Bruce must have taught Jason that same manoeuvre, just as he’d taught Dick all those years ago.
Dick finds himself knocked on his ass with Jason on top of him, pressing him into the floor. Within seconds Jason has Dick’s wrists pinned above his head, effectively immobilising him. Dick thrashes wildly for endless seconds, seeking out weakness in Jason’s pin.
But then Jason presses a knife to his throat, and Dick’s whole world becomes very still.
*
Jason Peter Todd disappeared on the 27th of April 2008, and was declared dead not two months later. His guardian Bruce Wayne held a private ceremony on the grounds of Wayne Manor, and an empty casket was lowered into the ground in a plot next to his parents’.
There has been no record of Jason’s existence since he was declared dead, no trace of Bruce Wayne’s adopted son since he disappeared under suspicious circumstances a decade ago.
Until now.
Barbara’s been developing a programme, she calls it Oracle. With the right subroutines, she tells Dick, it’s possible to piggyback off the state surveillance system, using everything from CCTV to traffic cameras to scan and track an individual. Jason’s details don’t exist in the GCPD database—Bruce would have seen to that. Dick knows that Bruce would have kept Jason’s prints and DNA on file, but whatever identifying information Bruce has retained is so thoroughly encrypted, even Barbara’s software can’t break it.
All Dick has to go off is a single photograph, thirteen years out of date. The smiling boy with the ice-cream cone.
All things considered, the search is pathetically easy.
Robbie Peters. DOB: April 27th 1993. Occupation: mechanic. Last known residence is an address in the Narrows.
Dick stares at the screen, his heart in his throat. He thinks of Jason’s alias, his date of birth. Thinks of the fact that he never left Gotham. Dick wonders if all this time, Jason has been hiding in plain sight, just waiting to be found.
*
Bruce says, “There’s something you need to know.”
Bruce’s face is grave, his mouth a thin line. They’re in the Cave, and although Bruce had finished patrol hours ago, he’s still in the suit. The fact that he hasn’t removed the cowl doesn’t escape Dick’s attention.
“Jason’s alive,” Bruce says finally.
Dick’s stomach somersaults. He’s hit by a strange swooping sensation in his gut, the kind he gets when he throws himself off a skyscraper before firing off his grapple. His head fills with an incessant buzzing, and when he speaks it sounds as though it’s coming from a great distance.
“What do you mean?” he says quickly. Then, “How do you know?”
“I spoke to the Joker and he told me what happened the night he kidnapped Jason. He says he released Jason, injured but alive.” Bruce voice is inflectionless, as if he were giving a witness testimony for a case three times removed. Dick wonders how many times he’s rehearsed this.
“When did Joker tell you this?”
A beat. “The night he was arrested.”
Two months ago. Bruce waited two months before telling him this.
Dick swallows hard. “And you believe him?”
It’s the wrong question, Dick realises. Bruce would never believe the Joker based on his word alone. Bruce is a detective, and detectives deal in evidence. If Bruce believes Jason’s alive, that would mean that Bruce has proof, means that he would have tracked Jason down himself and—
“I do,” Bruce says evenly.
Dick bites the inside of his mouth, forces his hands to relax at his sides. “Where is he, then? Have you spoken to—”
“Jason has made it clear that he doesn’t want to be found.”
For a long moment Dick can barely speak, his incredulity leaving him spluttering.
“Bruce. He’s your son.”
But Bruce is already turning back to the computer. “He knows where to find me,” he says in a voice of measured calm.
Dick can only stare at Bruce’s head as he pulls up this evening’s mission report. For a long time there’s nothing but the ambient sounds of the Cave: the whirl of a centrifuge, the hum of the computers, and then, from somewhere deeper, the sound of bats. But when the clack of Bruce’s typing adds to the chorus, Dick knows that sound is louder than any dismissal.
*
The cemetery at Wayne Manor is familiar in a way that Dick would prefer to ignore.
After Alfred’s funeral, Barbara stays back with Dick. He swipes a bottle of whiskey from the wake and they pass it back and forth for a while, although it quickly becomes clear that Dick’s taking the lion’s share. Alfred’s headstone is carved of white marble, standing next to three others. Two of them are for Bruce’s parents, and the third is—
“Jason Todd?” Barbara murmurs. “Who’s that?”
Dick feels a familiar hollowness in his chest, the same feeling he gets when he thinks of his parents. There’s something encroaching about it; mourning a boy he’d never met, as if that’s something he’s even entitled to. If he were honest with himself, he would question how much of his preoccupation is grief, and how much of it is the disquieting thought of that could have been me. But then Dick thinks of Barbara’s tight smile and Batman’s bloody gauntlets, and realises he hasn’t been honest with himself in a while.
“Jason was Robin before I was. Supposedly killed by the Joker”—Dick swallows around the lump in his throat—“but they never found the body.”
Barbara pales. “Why didn’t Bruce ever tell me?”
Dick sighs. “You know what he’s like. He’s so closed-off and Jason—Jason was like a son to him. Closer to him than I ever was.”
Barbara’s face softens. “You don’t know that. Bruce loves you like a son, too.”
Dick laughs, the sound rising acrid in his throat. “When I got older, I started reminding him more and more of Jason.” Reminding him of everything he lost, is what he doesn’t say. Dick swallows down the thought with a swig of whiskey. “Now all we do is fight—it’s the only thing we have in common anymore.”
“Dick,” Barbara says quietly, and Dick already knows what’s coming next. He lets his gaze fall to Alfred’s headstone so he doesn’t have to meet her eyes. “We need to stop him. He’s going over the edge. I need your help on this one.”
Dick closes his eyes. Thinks of the dismissive way Bruce had said I did what I had to do, and gives into that familiar anger. “I’m not a part of this anymore, I only came here for Alfred. If there’s a fight, then you know you can count on me. But otherwise? I’m leaving.”
Barbara grabs him by the front of his suit and shouts, “It’s a fight between us and Bruce!” Her grip is firm on his tie as she yanks him forwards, pulling him towards her so she can scream in his face. Dick’s stunned, drunk and disoriented, and he can only flounder as she draws him closer. “Alfred was Bruce’s moral bearing and without him, there’s nothing protecting the city from Batman.”
Barbara releases Dick’s tie and pushes him with so much force that he actually stumbles. Dick’s thoughts scramble to catch up with what she’s saying, the gears slowly turning as the final piece clicks into place.
“Except for us,” Dick hears himself say.
Barbara is as determined as Dick’s ever seen her. “Yeah,” she says, a little breathless. “Except for us,”
*
The Batmobile’s tyres screech through the streets as Bruce drives at breakneck speed. Dick trails him on his bike, fury coursing through his veins and settling hot in his gut, spurring him on at every turn. Bruce is being careless, reckless, and Dick realises he’s put this off for far too long.
Bruce is already at the computer by the time Dick arrives at the Cave, cowl up and gloves off. For a second Dick can barely make out Bruce under all the kevlar, just sees the huge hulking figure that the criminals, and more recently, civilians of Gotham have come to fear.
“What the hell was that?” Dick shouts.
Bruce doesn’t flinch and he doesn’t still, his fingers flying over the keys without pause. He’s entering the mission report for tonight, and Dick has a funny feeling the words grievous bodily harm will be absent from his entry.
Bruce’s silence has Dick’s fury intensifying until it’s bursting out of him. “Hey, I’m talking to you!” Dick yells as he charges across the room.
Dick’s just about to grab Bruce by the shoulder, to force Bruce to look him in the eye, when Bruce finally answers. “The same thing that we’ve been doing for years,” he says shortly. “We detained a known criminal, and now Gotham is safer for it.”
Dick splutters. “Detained? You nearly put Nygma in a body bag.”
“Edward Nygma has been involved in countless acts of terrorism, culminating in harm to civilians, destruction of public property—”
“Wow, that sounds familiar.”
Bruce falls still, his hands frozen over the keypad. Dick notes the minute twitching in his fingers, as if he’s fighting the urge to ball his hands into fists. When Bruce finally speaks, it’s in a voice of forced calm.
“I did what I had to do to neutralise a threat to the city.”
“No what you did was put Nygma in a full body cast for six months. I overheard the paramedics as I was leaving the scene, they’re not even sure he’ll walk again.”
“Good,” Bruce says, and Dick feels his rage reach its peak.
“Fuck Bruce, would you just—can you at least look at me?”
Bruce lets Dick grab him by the shoulder and swing his chair around so they’re facing each other. Bruce is docile, complicit, and Dick hates himself for being disappointed that he’s not fighting back. Dick takes a deep breath through his teeth, and for a second it feels like he’s jaw is clenched so hard it’s wired shut. “Bruce,” he finally manages. “Bruce, this can’t go on.”
Bruce is utterly impassive. Dick always used to say he could read Bruce, even behind the cowl. But these days, it’s getting harder. Bruce holds his gaze for several seconds, letting the tension stretch to breaking point. But Dick’s not a kid anymore; he’s past the point of being intimidated by Batman’s stern glare.
“It’s fine,” Bruce says, cold and curt and everything Dick’s come to hate about him. Bruce turns back to the computer, and Dick’s left staring foolishly at the back of his head.
“So what, that’s it? You’re just making an executive decision?”
“Yes.”
“That’s funny, because I thought you and I were supposed to be partners. Remember?”
Bruce has resumed typing, but Dick refuses to be dismissed so easily.
“No, we were never partners,” Dick continues. “I was just the kid you could count on to help clean up your mess for you. Someone who would follow you around and convince you that what you’re doing was right, that it was about justice.” Bruce’s fingers have stilled on the keypad, and Dick presses his advantage. “And now you’re just raising the stakes, making it more and more dangerous, until what? Until I end up like Jason?”
Bruce moves so quickly, the attack doesn’t even register. It’s not until pain is bursting bright along Dick’s jaw that he realises he’s been struck, a right hook that hits its target with brutal force. It’s too late to block the hit, too late to even catch himself before he’s falling to the floor. Bruce is towering above him, his chest rising and falling with—not exertion, with rage, Dick realises.
Bruce hauls him up by the front of his uniform, and Dick thinks Bruce is about to go for another hit when he abruptly stills and releases him. Dick stumbles but maintains his footing, all of his natural grace gone in the face of how stunned he is. He gingerly raises his hand to his lip, wincing when it comes away bloody.
“Dick—”
Bruce cuts himself off, and Dick can only laugh in response. Without a word, Dick raises his hand to his face and slowly pulls off his domino. Bruce’s eyes track the movement as Dick peels off the edge and tosses it at his feet.
“I deserve better than this,” he says, unfastening his cape. It falls to the floor like a curtain. “And so did Jason.”
Bruce flinches at the mention of Jason’s name, but says nothing. Dick is bitterly unsurprised.
“Good luck finding a new Robin.” Dick roughly shoulders past Bruce as he makes to leave the Cave, not daring to look back. On his way out, he passes the case that holds Jason’s Robin uniform, and thinks for the umpteenth time, that could have been me.
*
“—So then I said, shouldn’t we leave this for Commissioner Gordon? But Bruce didn’t listen to me. He just grabbed the bad guys and started hitting them, even though they said they would turn themselves in.”
Dick frowns, blinking against the bright morning sun. The gardenias he brought are still a little dewy from the rain last night, and the droplets catch the light like diamonds. Alfred would kill him if he knew he’d been taking flowers from the garden, but Dick thinks he’d probably forgive him if he knew they were for Jason.
“Anyway, when we got back to the Cave I tried to bring it up again. Because we’re partners, y’know? And we’ve gotta have each other’s backs. Not just in fights, but when it comes to keeping each other in line, too. But.” Dick grimaces. “Well, you know what B’s like.”
The sun is glancing off the headstone, casting the engraving into sharp relief. Dick reads the words again, even though he’s read them countless times before.
Jason Peter Todd. Beloved son.
Dick can’t explain why, but he much prefers beloved son to a good soldier. In fact, Jason’s memorial case in the Cave gives him the creeps, and he always does his best to avoid it. Maybe it’s because Jason was only two years older than Dick when he died, and he’s just beginning to understand how young Jason was. Maybe it’s because every time he looks at the case in the Cave, he sees his own reflection staring back at him.
Dick closes his eyes, and thinks instead of the picture in Bruce’s study. Jason looked so happy. Dick’s heart aches with a hollow sort of pain, like an old bruise that just won’t heal.
“I wish I could have met you.” The words come out as a quiet mumble, as if he’s ashamed to admit them out loud. Dick turns his eyes to the headstone once more and says, “I always wanted a brother.”