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Dick has only been asleep for thirty minutes when his phone starts buzzing on the nightstand.
Brrrrr. Brrrrrrrrr.
For a second, he thinks about throwing it. He’s fresh off a long day of class, which had been fresh off a lengthy patrol, and his body has only just begun to register what a pistol-whipping the last eighteen hours have been for him. Dick has an allotted six hours to catch up on sleep before he starts on a paper that’s due in two days, with patrol after. The blackout curtains are drawn, the room is dark and cool, he even washed his sheets. He can probably ignore it if he wants to.
Brrrrr. Brrrrrrrrrr.
Ignoring. He is ignoring it. Dick pulls his pillow over his head and makes an angry, guttural sound into the mattress.
Brrrrr. Brrrrrrrrrr.
It’s so loud.
Brrrrr. Brrrrrrrrrr.
God damn it—
He pulls himself free from beneath the pillow. “Someone,” Dick says to the room, wearily and bitchily all at once, “Better be fucking dying.”
He snatches the phone off the nightstand and hits the Accept button.
“Grayson,” Dick spits out.
For a moment, there’s only silence, before the other end of the line inhales sharply. “Did I wake you?” The voice asks, and there’s something thick to it. “I’b so sorry.”
Dick blinks as it takes a second for him to place the voice. Jason.
He had given him his number a month ago. A token of goodwill, of letting Jason know he wasn’t on a path Dick hadn’t been down before already, because god knows the big man in the Manor was not the patron saint of talking things out.
Dick couldn’t be around much, hadn’t been around much, even if the reasons why were shifting less from punishing Bruce’s hardheadedness to just… life. The Titans took up a lot of Dick’s time, and so did the balance act of civilian and vigilante life in Bludhaven, but Dick hadn’t wanted Jason to think that any of his ire was directed specifically at the kid. The number had seemed like a decent compromise.
Still is, it seems.
“It’s alright,” Dick says, scrubbing at his eyes with his free hand as he sits up. “What’s up?”
“Go ba’ to sleep,” Jason says quickly. Dick’s brow knits together at the dulled enunciation; it sounds like he’s got something shoved up his nose, or talking around a cotton-filled head. “I’b fine. Sorry.”
“I’m already up,” Dick argues, resting his elbows on his knees. “Like I said. It’s alright. You sick? You sound a little stuffy.”
Jason waffles on the other end of the line -- he’s thirteen, Dick reminds himself, be patient, he’s only thirteen -- before he mutters something garbled, followed by a sniff. Dick tilts his head.
“Come again?”
“I…” Now, the tone is sullen, even in hesitation. “I got into a fight.”
Dick knows, both from news outlets and from whatever Alfred provides by osmosis and long phone calls, that Jason has been doing pretty alright as Robin so far. He’s a quick study. Still a rookie, still training hard to keep up with the mantle Dick left him, sure, but -- doing well. Dick glances at his far wall, still a little sleep-hazed as he puzzles together what exactly about a scrap requires a phone call.
“With Bruce?” Dick asks tentatively.
“At school,” Jason clarifies, and oh, yep, there’s the difference. That one’s a no-no.
Dick remembers the very, very few times he got into it with some of the other boys at Gotham Academy. There had been a pack of bullies, mean-spirited only for the sake of emotional power, and Dick had been the wrong person to bear witness to one too many jabs at a mathlete.
The only reason he hadn’t faced expulsion was by the accounts of other kids. The fact that Brucie Wayne was very, very charming when he wanted to be didn’t hurt — and the generous donation to the Academics Club didn’t either.
Dick knows he should probably be feeling a lot more serious about this. Are you okay? He should ask. Are you in trouble?
But if Jason — Robin the Second, Batman’s second boy on a barely contained leash — was sporting a busted up nose…
What falls out of Dick’s mouth is: “Did you win?”
Thankfully, Jason’s laugh when he’s surprised makes Dick grin with self-satisfaction. It takes all the apprehension out of his voice when he says, “Wha’ do you think?”
“I think I’m talking to a kid with a bloody nose,” Dick fires back. “You sound rough. You alright?”
“Lucky shot,” Jason grouses, sniffing again. “ He’s way worse.”
“Well, there you go.” Dick kicks aside his comforter and stands with a wince as his back twinges a little. He’d had his own lucky shot the night prior, and it was starting to make itself known. Coffee. Maybe he’ll make a pot, actually start on this stupid paper. Dick’s not wide awake, but knows thyself; his window for sleeping is woefully closing. “Now, the real question, unfortunate as it is to ask: how much deep shit are you in?”
The tense, uncomfortable silence follows, as Dick expected it would. Facing the consequences of actions is never fun, at its simplest way of parsing it, but the downside of pulling a stunt like that in civvies is it tends to have a lot more consequences than the mask ever does. Pity bleeds into Dick’s chest like dye into a fishbowl; he doesn’t envy Jason. And if he’s calling Dick of all people…
“Bruce doesn’t know yet,” Dick guesses.
“...No.” Jason shuffles on the other end of the line, and then a weak, “ Fuck, ” follows.
Dick slides open the door to his closet, ruffles for something to wear. “You’re alright,” He says evenly, all prior experience of talking to terrified people being put to work as he pulls a shirt off a coat hanger. “It’s okay. It’s fixable.”
“He’s goib to kill be,” Jason says, the panic in his tone making his nasally accent worse. Dick doesn’t ever think he’s heard anything close to the ballpark of panic fall out of Jason’s mouth before. “I’b so dead. I’b goib to be expelled. ”
“You’re not going to be expelled.”
“ Fuck, ” Jason repeats.
“You’re not, ” Dick insists, swapping the phone from one ear to another as he changes. “Breathe, Little Wing. I didn’t get expelled for getting into a fight, you won’t get expelled. Bruce didn’t kill me, he won’t kill you. Just -- where are you right now? Still at the school?”
“I --” Jason pauses, “I bailed.”
Dick’s turn to pause.
“You bailed. ”
“I’b on 82nd.”
“You’re -- okay. Okay. ” Dick exhales through his nose. Thirteen, thirteen, thirteen. Dick cannot explain the full slew of reasons of why being on 82nd as a Wayne heir in a Gotham Academy uniform is a bad idea , not on a phone call where Jason is already somewhat proving himself to be a flight risk. If Alf hasn’t already had a call from the school, he’s going to once the school admins swallow their pride and admit they lost Jason. “ Please find a coffee shop to sit in. I’m on my way.”
“What -- no! I’mb fine! ”
“I told you to give me a call, right?” Dick ducks his head into the bathroom, checks himself in the mirror. Not too bad -- he can comb his hair down with his fingers and make it work. He just looks about on par with every other college student staring down the barrel of impending finals. “I gave you my number for a reason, Jay. This is what it’s for.”
“You’re s’pose to be sleebing,” Jason miserates.
“You think I’m going back to bed now? ” Dick says, stuffing his keys into his pocket as he fights to shove his feet into his shoes. “I wasn’t going to say this, but I’m actually procrastinating on my Poli-Sci term paper. You just gave me the perfect out.”
Jason sniffs again, and it sounds a little wetter than before. “Well, if it’s for that, ” He says, as if he couldn’t possibly bear to be the sole source for the inconvenience, and something in Dick’s ribs fractures a little.
“You’re stuck with me, kid,” Dick says, locking the door behind him. “Actually — 82nd — go to Bretta’s. They have good scones there.”
Late-afternoon is a shit time to have to navigate the highway out of Bludhaven and into Gotham City, even without rogue interference, but Dick makes it to the closest parking garage with three minutes left to spare on his original ETA.
Jason is exactly where Dick told him to go: when the door jingles at Bretta’s, and all the baristas call various welcome! s, Jason is tucked in one of the little booths at the back with a haphazardly wrapped bag of ice in his hands. Dick makes a beeline for him, and decidedly rips the bandaid off first.
“I called the school,” He says, standing in front of the booth so Jason can’t make a break for it. By the way Jason’s face gets impossibly paler, Dick knows it was the correct choice for the next hit coming. “ And I called Alfred.”
The singing look of betrayal could melt him if Jason had powers, he’s sure of it. Jason recoils from Dick, baring his teeth like a dog in the ring. “Wha-- why?! ”
“ Because,” Dick says, leaning in to get a better look at the bruising on Jason’s face and frowning, “The school knows you’re with family now, so they only read me the riot act, and then I had to call Alfred, because he would have shown up to pick you up otherwise, and then Bruce would really panic.”
“And you thinb Alb’s not gonna tell Bruce?” Jason says, scandalized and puffed up like a kitten.
“Alfred and I have an agreement,” Dick says tersely. Alfred may be Bruce’s most loyal -- and only -- household employee, but if Dick tells him to keep it between them, he’s not going to say shit to Bruce. Not when Dick has what amounts to first grandson privilege; not when Dick’s anger towards Bruce can so easily extend outwards, as it had once already. “Snitches get stitches. You’re so welcome. C’mere.”
It’s a little more than a lucky shot. Dick can’t tell if Jason’s nose is broken with all the swelling, not yet, but there’s already a bright red imprint of knuckles on the skin right beneath the corner of Jason’s left eye. The bleeding slowed, at least, but the bruising has only just begun to start. Black eyes suck. Dick sucks a breath through his teeth.
“ Yeah, he got the draw on you, huh?” He says, tone considerably more soft with sympathy. He slides into the seat opposite Jason. “Sheesh. What happened?”
He knows the Scholastic edition of what happened: Jason had picked a fight with a boy one grade above him, trying to impress the boy’s girlfriend. The headmaster had been insistent that that was the whole truth and nothing but, but Dick knew better. Jason was an explosive little hellion in the cape colors, sure, but Alfred also spoke often of all the help Jason was around the house.
Jason helped me bring in groceries, Jason helped plant the zinnias in the garden, my word, Jason scored perfectly on his English exam, Jason and… well, I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but I found Jason and Bruce reading in the library the other day. It was very sweet.
Dick doesn’t know much about Jason, that much is true. But he sure as hell knows Jason’s not the type to try and play middle-school homewrecker.
“This guy…” Jason sniffs again, and tilts his head back. Dick pulls a few napkins from the dispenser and places them in front of him as precaution. “His name ib Sam. His girlfriend Jamie broke up wib him, and he… he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Found theb arguing in a side hall, ib was getting bad. I told him to geb lost, and he swung.”
Dick says nothing. “I pummeled him. When a teacher heard the yelling, he started saying I attacked him, and then Jamie started crying, so,” Jason shrugs. “I ran.”
There’s a hard look in Jason’s eye for a kid so young, even if he won’t meet Dick’s gaze. I’d do it again, it says, challenging and full of conviction, even with the edge of his voice dulled by bloodied sinuses. There’s not an ounce of regret in the boy’s body.
Is this what Bruce saw? Dick wonders, slowly nodding as he processes the story. It occurs to him that he’s never actually seen much of Jason without Bruce present — in fact, the most time alone they’ve had is when Dick gave him his number.
He briefly tries to imagine Jason a year earlier, scrawnier without Alfred’s cooking but just as much fire in his eyes. Jason’s sense of justice feels like something tangible to be present for, so self-assured in his efforts to protect that it feels like Dick could see it on the color spectrum if he tried hard enough.
This kid is built for Robin, through and through.
Jason must mistake his silence for disapproval, because in the next second, he’s suddenly stumbling over his own words.
“ Dick, I had to do something ,” He snaps, shaking the ice pack in his hand a little. “I couldn’t just mind my own business. There’s no way. Just because Sam’s on the football team, doesn’t mean--”
“ Easy,” Dick says quickly, raising his hands in surrender. He knows Jason’s frustration. It was his word against the bullies back then, too. “I believe you, Jay. Absolutely , I do. I’m sorry, I was thinking.”
If Jason got out of it with busted up hands and a black eye, he can only imagine what Sam got. “Anybody else see it?”
Jason shakes his head, then winces. “Doesn’t matter, anyways.”
Dick frowns and Jason shoots him a look. “Who’re they gonna believe?” He asks, gingerly touching the ice pack to his face. “The star varsity player? Or the kid from Crime Alley?”
The kid from Crime Alley. Dick’s heart twists painfully at the sentiment, at how easily the words spit out of Jason’s mouth with self-depreciation. It’s a practiced notion; someone has said it to him before.
Parents, miffed that their silver-spoon children might mingle with someone from the bad side of town? Children, who learned spiteful language like that from those parents? What about the press? Dick’s no stranger to the thinly-veiled accusations of being a walking ulterior motive -- he’s learned to let it cast off of him. Years of being Bruce Wayne’s ward had leant themselves to that iron skin.
Jason’s only been here for a year.
“We both know that you’re not just a kid from Crime Alley,” Dick says earnestly. When Jason glances at him, Dick leans his elbows on the table. “You know how I know?”
It’s not exactly Dick’s place to start professing all the ways Jason isn’t just some kid from Crime Alley. He can’t say in Bretta’s, “ Hey, chin up, you’re the kid who got real close to successfully stealing the Batman’s tires, that counts for something, ” and it’s not like he’s around enough to claim all the things Alfred’s told him like they’re his own brand of anecdotal evidence.
The biggest relationship he has with Jason is professional courtesy as Nightwing and Robin, not as the eldest to the youngest, and a pang of regret hits him sideways with all the subtlety of a brick through a window.
Jason watches him warily. It’s the same look Dick’s seen a handful of times now, the one that always gives him a mild discomfort: uneasy, as if Jason doesn’t know where he fits in Dick’s peripheral, but a desperate hopefulness simmering just beneath the surface. Jason’s about as good at hiding the heart on his sleeve as he is taking a punch to the face. It’s Dick’s approval Jason wants.
Dick doesn’t know how to tell him that Dick Grayson is nothing to be starry-eyed over. There’s so many layered reasons for why Dick can no longer be Robin that he could snuff out the magic of the first Robin name in an instant, if he wanted.
It’s hard to remember exactly how much influence Dick has in a life he’s not particularly involved in.
It’s also hard to realize how much Dick wants to be involved, suddenly and acutely.
“Bruce is an emotionally stunted boob,” Dick says, and that hopeful little look in Jason’s eye briefly morphs into amusement, “But not just anyone can watch his back. You’re whip smart. You’re compassionate. And you’ve clearly got a mean right hook. He made you a Wayne for a reason.”
There’s a lot to be said for a kid who carries the one thing that Dick does not have. Jason stares with raised brows and reddening cheeks that have nothing to do with the forming black eye.
“I also know Bruce will be so damn proud of you,” Dick adds, which gives Jason a start. “I mean it. I wasn’t just saying stuff on the phone. He won’t let Sam get away as a liar.”
Bruce was a stubborn, arrogant ass, who would rather fling himself off buildings into danger before ever saying exactly what he felt. Dick knows the man like the back of his hand -- supposes it could be part of the problem, even. Their shouting matches are always so evenly matched, either side of the coin holding fast to their respective views.
For all Dick’s ire and criticisms of Bruce, for all the laundry list of items they are, he can never take away the one thing he has to admit: regardless of who holds the name, Bruce is fiercely protective of his family. Jason is no exception.
If Dick wasn’t sure where the threshold for Jason’s emotions were before, he’s found it now. Jason ducks his head, colored with embarrassment, and pretends to check his watch as Dick leans back in his seat.
“Right, well, I’m getting us some scones,” Dick says, because he’s not about to come all the way to Bretta’s and not commit to his own recommendation, “And then after, we’re going to look and see what’s playing at the local theater. Because I was not kidding about my paper.”
That eeks out a bit of laughter from Jason, a sound that falls just on the side of goose honking, and it’s ridiculous enough that even with Dick trying to be suave about it, he still has to press his lips together to evade the smile from turning into a grin. He slides out of the booth and steps towards the storefront when Jason says his name.
Dick turns. There’s that look again, like Dick has always been infallible, like he hasn’t been falling down on the job for the last year.
“Thanks for picking up my call,” Jason says.
Dick has always been an only child.
“Call me anytime, Jay,” Dick answers. “I mean it.”
Later, when Dick finally drops Jason off at the Manor, he won’t speak to the man. He’ll give Alfred his warm regards, decline staying for dinner on account of his paper, make sure Jason gets up to his room alright, and he’ll make the near-fifty-minute drive from Bristol back to his apartment. He’ll add Jason’s number to his phone and check in in the morning, see what information he can glean from Robin II, and if they’re both lucky, Sam will indeed face consequences for Jason’s probably-broken nose and his unhealthy habit of lying.
And if Jason needs to call him out of a nap to tell him all about it, Dick doesn’t think he’d mind.