Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Two Birds Meet
Jason had been gone for three months before any of them said the D-word aloud.
Tim had been the first to break. Dick guessed it made sense for it to be him. Tim was the realist. He was the logical one. He was the one that brought up probabilities and statistics and could whittle their chances of survival down to math.
It was useful in the field sometimes to know that your survival chances were above 70%. It could be comfortable, and a lot of time it acted as Tim’s round-about way of saying they would be okay.
But now, hearing it applied to Jason’s life somehow made everything incredibly real and incredibly worse.
Tim had said it quietly over breakfast when all of them were gathered around the kitchen island. They used to eat at the dining room table, but since Jason’s disappearance, even the mahogany table felt like too far of a distance between them.
“I got a call yesterday,” Tim said slowly, like a storm moving into a harbour. “Commissioner Gordon told me that he’s going to call off the search for Jason. He’s sorry for our loss.”
Everything froze. Dick couldn’t even draw in a breath. His body wouldn’t listen to him anymore. The only thing he could move were his eyes and they were wide and unseeing as he felt something inside him begin to crumble. He wanted to say something, but the words just clogged in his throat and he couldn’t force them to come out.
He wasn’t the only one either. No one at the island dared to speak.
He thought maybe no one would speak. They might just continue their breakfast as if Tim hadn’t spoken and go about their hollow lives. Almost like Jason wasn’t gone. He just wasn’t here at the moment, maybe he’d come home tomorrow.
But the moment was shattered when Bruce slammed his fist on the marble. “Dammit,” he whispered, hard and angry before whipping around to face Tim. He was furious and as fast as a snake and the boy flinched back at his glare.
“Did you offer him more money? What does he need? I’ll give him anything he wants.” He growled, but Dick could hear the edge of panic on his voice.
Tim nodded his head frantically, putting his arms up. “Of course, I did, B, but…” his voice became impossibly small. “He wouldn’t accept it. He said that it’s more than likely that Jason’s dead.”
Dead.
There it was. That one single horrifying word.
Dick was sure that they all had thought it. How could they have not?
Jason’s disappearance weighed on all of them and as time passed it became more and more likely.
Jason was always one to be independent, but he never went dark so suddenly. He was there one day, and then in the next, he was gone as if he never existed. At first, they had thought that maybe he was just getting some space, which wasn’t uncommon for him… but when weeks passed with no word.
When they realised he had missed appointments, that none of his friends knew where he was, that his apartment hadn’t been prepped as if he was going to leave it for a while, the horror of the situation all became startlingly clear.
They had searched, gods, they had searched, but it became clear…
That Jason was likely…
He was likely…
He was probably dead.
But none of them had dared to say. It was almost like a curse as if admitting the probability would somehow put the final nail into the coffin and damn Jason forever.
As if their silence might be enough to keep him alive.
“No,” said Bruce, and his shoulders shook with the force of the word.
“No?” Tim repeated, cocking his head to the side.
“I’ll call the Commissioner. I’ll talk to him and get the search running again.” Bruce stood and was about to rush out of the room, only to be stopped by Tim’s thin hand.
“Bruce, I think we should consider…” Tim trailed off but met Bruce’s gaze evenly. Bruce hardly blinked, almost as if he was daring Tim to say it. “I think we should also call off our search.”
He said it. Another thing they had all thought but didn’t dare say.
Bruce froze, his eyes icy and dangerous. “No,” he insisted, “I’m not going to give up on him. He could be out there. He could be trying to come home.”
“Or he could be dead.” The words tumbled out of Dick’s mouth without his permission and he desperately wished he could put them back in.
The room was absolutely silent again. Silent. Silent like a grave.
Dick curled his hands around his coffee mug, trying to force its warmth to fill that empty, cold, Jason-shaped part of his heart. All eyes were on him, he could feel their weight on his back.
He sighed and made himself turn to look at his family. All of them were pale with dark circles under their eyes and exhaustion written into their faces. They had all been pulling extra hours since Jason disappeared in an attempt to search for him in addition to their usual crime-fighting.
But it didn’t take a detective to see that they were cracking and barely keeping themselves together.
“We have to start considering the possibility, B. I don’t want to admit it as much as you, but we’re running ourselves ragged. If we keep going like this, we’re going to start putting ourselves in useless danger.”
He had already seen them do it. Bruce was reckless, throwing himself in front of every bit of danger like he was trying to tempt fate herself. He was losing himself, just like he had when Jason had first died, and Dick wasn’t sure that all of them were enough to pull him back.
It was rippling too. Tim constantly looked like he was about to collapse. Damian was losing his self-control, hitting too hard and aiming to hurt instead of to disable. Dick himself had nearly slipped off the edge of a building the other night, a mistake that never would have usually happened.
They were getting reckless and in this line of work, reckless often ended up with someone killed.
Someone else killed, his mind added, another dead Robin put in a grave.
His dad rounded on him, betrayal etching into his face like a scar. “Dick, we can’t,” Bruce said, aghast and as broken as Dick felt. The man scrubbed at his eyes, trying to wipe the grief off his face. There was a second, in which Bruce looked utterly lost before that loss turned into anger.
“I’m not going to give up on him. Maybe you can, Dick, but I can’t. I’m not letting him die again.”
Dick flinched and the words hurt more than any blow. Didn’t Bruce see? Bruce couldn’t be this blind?
Jason’s disappearance was tearing him apart. It was tearing all of them apart and that was the problem.
They couldn’t keep going like this and their hope wasn’t enough to keep Jason alive.
Dick’s fury, in which had been pent up instead him like a coiled snake, reared and struck. He snarled, hurling his plate to the ground and let it shatter into a hundred pieces. The sound rang through the air like a death knell.
Broken.
Broken like Jason’s body and Dick’s heart and the fragile bonds that were keeping this family together.
“Don’t you dare say I’m giving up on him.” Dick growled, his tone deadly and dangerous. His rage simmered under his skin, rising into an engulfing inferno. He had kept all this pain bottled for so long, a treacherous part of him wished he could just let it all go and punch Bruce in the face. Maybe then, Bruce would see how blind he was being to how terribly they all were doing.
But, instead of fighting, he swallowed down all the rage again. Ever the good boy. Ever the one to keep it together. Ever the damn golden boy doing exactly what he was supposed to do. He forced it all down, and the fury returned to the pit of his stomach.
“I’m not giving up on him,” Dick said, his voice steady and hollowly calm, even as the anger bubbled in him. It was fake. They all knew it. But going through the motions were all they had right now. “He’s my little brother. I would never give up on him.”
“Then don’t say that he’s dead,” Bruce snarled, equally as dark as his son.
There was a tense moment between them, carefully perched on the cliff between keeping it together and utter destruction.
“Go, Bruce.” Dick finally relented with a heavy sigh. The exhaustion sunk into his bones. “You’re going to do whatever you want anyways. Just don’t get yourself killed while you’re at it.”
He heard Bruce’s chair scrape against the floor and his father’s steps away from them.
It felt like a defeat, but Dick wasn’t even sure who won. Bruce hesitated in the doorway, looking back at his ragged family. Dick prayed that he was going to see what was weighing on them, that he wouldn’t leave them to chase ghosts. They needed him here. He was one of the only things keeping them together.
But Bruce didn’t stay. He turned and was swallowed by the dark hallway.
***
Everything collapsed on a night that should have been normal.
Dick was patrolling solo on the east side, covering his area, and would have been Jason’s if Jason was still…
No. Now wasn’t the time for that. He was already running on barely enough sleep to keep him upright. He couldn’t allow phantom screams of his little brother and the chill of his absence to draw him further into the dark.
There were people who needed him.
Even if he had failed Jason when he had needed him the most. Twice.
“Nightwing? Come in, Nightwing.” Tim’s voice came in through the comms, jerking Dick out of his own head.
“Yeah, I’m here, Red.”
“Wing, please, you need to…” Tim trailed off and all the warning bells began to ring in Dick’s head. “Batman and I are going back to the cave. Please just…” His voice was distant, watery, and as fragile as glass. It scared more than Dick thought possible.
“Be there when we get home.”
Dick had never gone home so quickly in his life, but Tim and Bruce had already beaten him to it.
He expected to find blood. Blood and maybe a corpse, their numbers shrunk again. But instead, all he saw was Bruce sitting on a chair and slumped forward on the table. He had pulled the cowl back and was staring listlessly into the back of the cave.
Tim stood beside him, caught somewhere between flight and loyalty. He hadn’t changed out of his suit yet but had ditched the domino mask.
Nightwing froze, every breath feeling heavy. There wasn’t blood on the floor, but the pain in the room was palpable.
“What happened?”
All a sudden, Tim was running forward and collapsing against him in a hug. Dick rushed to catch him in it, holding his little brother close to his chest. Tim wasn’t really one to initiate physical contact. He enjoyed it, but his upbringing of being constantly alone made him wary of asking too much, like they would stop touching him altogether if an invisible line was crossed.
Dick suspected that maybe that’s exactly what had happened. Tim had mentioned once or twice how his parents thought affection was reserved for the weak and the young. The comments painted a startling picture in Dick’s head.
How many times had Tim asked for a hug and been brushed off? How many times did it take to get him to stop asking? How long until he started thinking he deserved to grow up in a cold, lonely manor?
“Tim?” he asked delicately and ran a hand through his brother’s hair. Suddenly, his brother was small again, the tiny child that Dick didn’t have the privilege to know. “What’s wrong?”
Tim was shivering and a cold, sinking worry fell into the pit of his stomach. “He didn’t move, Dick. There was a bullet, and he didn’t move. It would have… it would have…” his voice trailed off and became empty.
The cold in Dick’s stomach started to spread through his veins and sink claws into his spine.
“I pushed him,” Tim said, his tone listless, “but if I didn’t, he would have…”
Tim doesn’t say the D-word this time and Dick is glad for it. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to bear it. Not with Jason still haunting his mind.
In his arms, Tim was beginning to ramble, repeating the same lines and going over what could have happened (what would have happened) until Dick hushed him. He guided Tim’s face into the crook of his neck and rubbed his brother’s back until the trembling became less noticeable.
It had probably only been a couple of minutes, but they felt like hours. Hours for Tim’s terror to roll into him, coating his skin like oil. He risked looking over Tim’s shoulder and their father beyond them. He half expected for Bruce to have disappeared also, gone to be a ghost like Jason.
The man was blessedly still there, even if he was unmoving and silent, hunched with his head in his hands.
Dick wondered in that moment whether he should say something. Whether he should roar to his brother’s defense or whether he should break down into tears also. If he was honest, he felt like doing both.
He didn’t though because he had something more important bundled up in his arms. An important thing that needed to be bullied into bed so he could sleep off some of the horrible possibilities.
He needed to bring Tim up into the manor. He just had to wait until his own legs stopped shaking. Their hug had long ago turned into clutching each other for balance.
Eventually, when both of them were able to stand, Dick began to lead Tim up the stairs and into the light of the main manor.
Part of him wanted to pause and ask if Bruce was going to be coming up too. A greater part of him wanted Bruce to walk over here and support them like the fucking parent he was supposed to be. But neither of them moved, and the cave began to feel more and more like a cemetery.
A chill ran down his spine, ice sliding between his bones. Why did living in the manor continually felt like begin dead?
He closed the door and left Bruce in the cave that had become a crypt without looking back.
***
Dick didn’t allow any of his siblings to patrol with Bruce from that point on. His judgment had been swift and didn’t allow room for argument. He was going to be Bruce’s only partner and the rest of them would be paired off together. When he told his siblings, he thought that he would be met with objections, but they all silently accepted his decision.
Perhaps that was a sign of how splintered his family had become. Dick didn’t care, though, he wasn’t going to let his siblings see their father die when Jason was still so fresh in their heads.
They were all so broken, so distant…
And Dick didn’t know how to fix it.
He didn’t know whether it was even possible to fix this.
Dick sighed, running a hand through his hair. The warm summer air of Gotham at night blew against his face, and he tried to breathe it in. His muscles stuttered in his chest and he didn’t think he could get a full breath in.
He was patrolling solo tonight. Damian and Tim were both home and safe, doing the homework and paperwork respectively. Cass and Stephanie were having a ‘girl’s night’. Bruce was out chasing something that he was insisting was a lead on Jason’s disappearance.
Dick didn’t have much hope for it, but then again, he didn’t have much hope left.
The last little bit of it was reserved for hoping that Bruce would come back alive and in one piece.
The evening was almost peaceful until it was broken up by a ding from his pocket.
He reached for it immediately, expected that it was Tim or Damian asking him a homework question, and instead got a message from an unknown number.
It read: “I lived bitch” and under it was a grainy photo of something that might have been a human face.
Dick tilted his head, trying to make out the photo. It was too dark to see any of the features, but something in Dick’s head pushed him to keep searching. He narrowed his eyes, catching on the white strip among what might be hair.
He was still scrutinising the photo when another message came through, a string of numbers that Dick recognised as coordinates.
“What?” he whispered to himself as he tried to figure you who could possibly be texting him. This was his personal phone. All of his contacts were saved under their names, and he hadn’t given his number out to anyone recently.
It was a Gotham area code, which probably meant it was just some city dweller with the wrong number. He was just about to delete it as spam when his eyes paused on the white strip of hair again. His gaze fell to the coordinates and he typed them into his GPS system.
If they were outside of Gotham, he wasn’t going to go, he told himself.
He waited as the phone scanned and they showed a location not 15 minutes away from him.
Crap, he hadn’t thought about what he was going to do if the coordinates were in Gotham. He sighed, already preparing himself to do something that was probably monumentally stupid. Alfred was going to kill him for this.
He ran across the rooftops, letting his phone guide him to the location. As he got closer, he realised that it was coming from a darkened alleyway, a bit away from the main city sidewalk. He dropped on a fire escape of an adjacent building, keeping himself hidden in the murk.
What was it? Friend? Enemy? Some random citizen who didn’t know they were texting one of the city’s vigilantes?
“I know you’re up there, Big Bird, just get down here already.”
The voice made Dick freeze because he hadn’t thought he’d ever hear it again. No, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t and yet…
“Jaybird?” He didn’t even try to mask the naked, vulnerable hope in his voice or the sob that threatened to tear it apart.
“Got it in one. Now, get down before I pass out and bite the pavement again.”
Dick was moving before Jason had even finished the sentence. He was scrambling, his movements jerky with disbelief and his chest filling with impossible hope.
He prayed to every god he knew that this wasn’t a hallucination of what Jason’s return could have been that hurt much more than it helped. Could his brain be that cruel when it turned on himself?
When he landed on the pavement, his feet nearly slipped out from under him and he desperately searched the alley.
For a crushing moment, he saw nothing and he began to feel his heart tear itself open again.
“Here,” said the voice again, and Dick couldn’t help the sob this time.
Because there was his little brother, curled into a dirty, brick wall, but alive and whole and alive.
“Took you long enough, Dickiebird,” Jason said with a toothy grin, even though there was a wince in the edges of it. “I even followed your stupid protocol and everything.”
Dick lunged, wrapping his little brother in a hug and ignoring Jason’s weak protests against it.
Jason was here. He was alive. Again. Dick hated that this was a pattern, but he would never end it if it brought Jason back to him each time. He just wished that his little brother didn’t have to go through it so much.
He clutched his little brother to his chest, feeling his heartbeat against his own. It was thunderous, strong and real between them. It almost seemed to repeat: alive, alive, alive, and it was the most beautiful sound that Dick had ever heard.
Jason huffed and the motion shook both of them, another sacred sign of how real this was. His little brother shifted and cautiously brought his arms up, as if he wasn’t exactly sure how to return Dick’s hug. Despite the clumsy attempt, Jason’s hands were warm and vibrant and alive, even though his worn gloves.
“Hey Jay,” Dick whispered, leaning his head on top of his brother’s. Jason’s hair was soft if a little sweaty and sticking up at all ends with that dumb rebellious streak in the middle of it. It always reminded Dick of baby bird fluff, though he wouldn’t dare tell Jason.
Jason was silent against him, and for a terrifying second, Dick worried that the silence meant this was a dream. Maybe he had passed out on a roof somewhere and his mind had conjured a ghost. Maybe the Jason he thought he was holding was just a shimmering oasis of what he would never have again. Maybe if he believed in it too much, Jason might slip through his fingers and disappear all over again.
Dick tightened his arms, and the unusually quiet Jason barked a curse but didn’t pull away.
Please be real, he begged. Please be real and be here and don’t leave.
A second passed… and then another… and Jason didn’t fade away.
If anything, he became more solid and started to shake out of the weird quietness that had suspended between them.
“Alright, Dickhead, that’s enough hugging. I need to breathe eventually.” Jason squirmed and Dick’s grip strengthened. He wasn’t going to let his almost-dead brother go anytime soon.
“Nope,” he said through a smile, laughing a little when Jason’s distress grew.
His brother might be bigger and bulky than he was, but Dick was built on pure determination and brotherly love. Really, if Jason had wanted to shove him off then he probably could have but he didn’t have his heart in the fight and only seemed to be doing it for show.
The small struggle actually comforted Dick and confirmed that it was really his brother here. Jason was a fighter, through and through, and even when he wanted the hug, he felt the need to fight against it a little. It had taken Dick a while to realise it, but that was Jason and that was how he showed he cared in a strange way.
“Seriously, Dick, I will punch you,” Jason’s voice was rising in exasperation and getting a dangerous edge to it. His crime alley accent came out a bit (it always did when he got angry), and Dick had to hold himself back from commenting on how adorable it was.
Dick wasn’t ready to let go though. He wasn’t sure he could if he really wanted to. The wound of Jason’s disappearance was too fresh and still throbbed in Dick’s heart.
“We thought you were dead again, Little Wing…” his voice was almost too quiet to be heard, but it made Jason still. Dick felt his brother’s heartbeat begin to quicken.
“How long was I gone?”
This time Dick froze. That wasn’t the question he thought Jason was going to ask. He pulled back, not breaking the hug, but giving enough distance so he could see his brother’s face.
Jason looked lost and like he was the one seeing a ghost.
“Fuck, Dick.” His voice was going tight with anxiety. “They were keeping me hooked up on all these drugs and I was only awake sometimes, but even those times the world was blurry. Has it really been…”
Dick shifted uncomfortably. “You can’t remember?”
His frown was beginning to edge into a snarl. “How long, Dick?”
Everything on his face said angry, but his eyes said fear. His pupils were wide and frightened, skittering wildly over Dick’s face. Searching… searching for what?
Aging — Dick realised with a chill. In the absence of an answer, Jason must have been assuming the worst and trying to figure out how many years had passed.
“No, it’s not like that.” The words rushed out of Dick. “Three months. It’s been three months.”
Most of the tension immediately left Jason’s body and he let out a heavy sigh. “Good, good. Cause not much has changed with me and I would have been pissed if I came back and Tim was taller than me.”
Dick chuckled. The familiarity of Jason’s banter calming his frayed nerves. God, he had missed this. He had missed this so much.
“No, Tim is still an over-caffeinated shrimp. Damian’s katana is about the same size as him. Alfred is, of course, eternal.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “And B?”
“B is…” Dick let his voice trail off. He dropped his gaze, unable to keep Jason’s eyes. “B isn’t doing great. He really missed you.”
Dick heard Jason snort. “Really? I thought he would have been glad to get rid of me especially with how shitty my last resurrection was.”
He couldn’t help his flinch back. How could Jason think that? How could he ever possibly think that? Their family was torn in two by his disappearance, literally ripped in half and gushing blood. How could Jason dare say that they would be happy about it?
“Jason, I want you to listen to me right now.” Dick’s tone had gone hard and commanding. Tim had joking called it his “mom-voice” and it never failed to make each of his little brother’s straighten their spines in attention. “We have done nothing but mourn you for the last three months. We thought you were dead, and everyone was broken, literally broken, because of it. We haven’t been the same without you.”
“Bruce hasn’t even said the D-word. He can’t accept it. Jason, he … We think he tried to let himself get killed.” Dick didn’t miss the way that he said ‘tried to let himself get killed’ instead of ‘tried to kill himself’. But saying it in direct words felt too real, too direct, too close to actually happening.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “Bruce didn’t get out of the way of a bullet. He would have died if Tim hadn’t pushed him to the side.”
Jason shuddered and bowed his head, unable to say anything. Dick knew the feeling. Just thinking about losing their father scared the shit out of him, even if he was grown and independent.
“Fuck,” he said finally, and the word was chased by another sigh. “That bad?”
“Very bad, Jaybird. But it’s okay, you’re back and that means we can fix it.” Dick grinned unable to help himself because everything that he had been wishing for in the last three months was in his arms.
He was so happy, he almost missed the flash of hesitation that ran through Jason.
“What’s wrong?” he pressed immediately, alarm bells ringing in the back of his head.
Jason worried his lip, unwilling to let any more of the anxiety show. “Are you sure you really want me back? I could leave, you know. It could be easier on all of you. The Wayne family really doesn’t need a gutter-rat with an affinity for guns. I—”
“No, Jason.” Dick cut off, his brother before he could keep going. It was a knife to the heart to hear exactly how disposable Jason thought he was. “Please, just come home.”
Jason met his eyes and looked caught between cautious agreement and saying something completely heart-breaking about how he didn’t have a home. A few months ago, Jason wouldn’t have hesitated to spat abandonment in Dick’s face. But now, he could see his brother softening and beginning to find his place. Maybe Jason wouldn’t ever be completely comfortable with them, but now at least he didn’t completely shove them away.
It was slow, but it was an improvement and, at this point, Dick was going to take all the improvement he could get.
“Little Wing,” he said, soft like he was coaxing an animal out of a hiding hole. “Will you let me bring you home?”
Jason searched his face, trying to find a lie in Dick’s position. His little brother was always braced for a punch, even if it was only a figurative one.
Eventually, his tense muscles relaxed minutely, and Jason’s shoulders slumped against Dick’s. He felt Jason’s breath against his neck, and it tickled his skin. Dick hummed, rubbing up and down Jason’s back in lazy circles.
“Can you stand?”
Jason grunted and began to shuffle to his feet instead of answering. He was obviously unsteadily and favouring one leg over another, but he did not ask Dick for help.
Dick rolled his eyes. Jason would crawl home on broken legs before he dared ask Dick for help.
Without asking, Dick swooped under Jason’s arm and balanced his weight between them. Jason growled, momentarily tensing, before silently accepting the help. Wordlessly, he connected to the comms, hearing static before Tim’s tired voice came through.
“Nightwing?” he grumbled. Dick could just imagine Tim trying to drag himself awake from a nap against the Batcomputer.
“Hey, Red, could you send me a transport to bring me home?”
Tim’s breath caught and he instantly sounded worried. “Are you hurt? Do you need back-up?”
“No, no,” Dick assured before Tim could really begin spiraling. The kid had been so much jumpier since the incident with Bruce. “I just picked up something while I was on patrol and I really don’t want to lug it all the way back to the Manor.”
Beside him, Jason muttered something about not being a thing to be lugged, which Dick promptly ignored.
Tim hummed, sounding instantly more suspicious. “It better not be another dog, N, because Damian already tried that and Alfred was not happy.”
Dick huffed a chuckle. “No, it’s not a dog, though it kinda smells like one.”
“Fuck you,” Jason hissed, and he jabbed an elbow into Dick’s side. The hit wasn’t that hard, and the pain was sharp but fleeting.
“Alright, but Bruce isn’t going to like this,” Tim said wearily and confirmed that a vehicle was heading their way.
Dick smiled, tightening his arm around Jason and drawing him closer. “I don’t know,” he said through a smile, “I think he’s going to like this one.”
“Fine. Your funeral.”
Ah, Tim, he didn’t know how ironic he was being.
Dick shut off the comm and shifted closer to his little brother. Jason didn’t shy away and begrudging accepted Dick’s affection.
“I’m really happy that you came back, Jay,” Dick whispered, and the words were as soft as the warm night air.
His brother’s breath caught a little in his chest, almost imperceivable. He didn’t say anything, only stared out into the yawning, neon-splattered maw of Gotham City.
“Can you believe it?” Jason said finally, “Your stupid protocols actually worked.”
“Of course, they worked. That’s what they are for,” Dick insisted, “Us birds gotta stick together.” He tightened the arm swung around Jason and had to hold himself back from ruffling Jason’s hair.
Jason rolled his eyes. “But even you have to realise that they’re fucking ridiculous.”
“No, they aren’t. They are real, professional protocols that we need to follow.” Dick gasped in mock offense, which Jason met with a flat look.
“Your ‘professional’ binder had sparkles on it. Sparkles, which I’m 90% sure, you put on there.”
Dick shrugged. “I had Damian do the lettering. The sparkles were just an added touch.”
His brother snorted and the sound made a warm feeling light in Dick’s chest. God, he had missed this. He had missed this so much it had hurt. He couldn’t believe he had nearly convinced himself to think he would never hear it again.
Jason continued, not realising that he was putting Dick’s world back together and making him feel whole again, “Yes, because all of your ‘touches’ have ended up wonderfully, Discowing.”
Dick laughed, but some part of him still wanted to cry. “I was finding myself.”
“Yes and flashing your cleavage all over the place is finding yourself.”
“Aww, are you being protective?” Dick poked a finger into Jason’s cheek. “Are you trying to defend my honour?”
“You know what, never mind, go flash anyone you want to.”
Dick couldn’t help another smile and his cheeks were beginning to ache from the force of them. But he wouldn’t trade it for the world, because Jason was back and he was alive and for tonight, nothing else mattered.
Beyond them, the roar of a car came closer and eventually pulled up to bring them home. Dick ushered Jason inside before he swung around into the driver’s side and switched off the autopilot.
Right before he began to drive, Dick risked a glance at Jason, taking in his form crumpled up in the seat. Jason’s eyes were closed, and he looked like he was on the verge of nodding off if he hadn’t done so already. He looked incredibly smaller and younger with all his defences down, his hard edges becoming impossibly softer. All of the big brother protectiveness in him roared and he reached over to brush so of the hair out of Jason’s eyes.
Was this what Bruce felt like when he first brought Jason home?
Dick shifted the car into drive and began to guide the car towards the Manor, once again bringing Jason back.
He had never been so grateful that the protocols worked.