Chapter Text
Dick hadn’t answered the last three texts Jason sent.
If it were anyone else, Jason would probably have been relieved. He didn’t like conversations over text any more than he liked them in person. It just took too much energy to think. But because Jason was the one instigating the conversation, three texts meant almost two weeks.
The last text he sent, almost four days ago, was an invite to meet up at a new food truck Jason had passed during patrol. Jason didn’t invite his siblings out. They came to him. Or he made shit at his apartment and texted them if there was too much to eat. Usually, with an indication that they should come around when he was not there, because he didn’t want to put up with any bullshit.
All but Tim. Tim, he would cook for. That kid could talk anyone’s ear off once he felt safe and comfortable, sure, but all it took was a hefty case file, and he turned into a silent companion with an occasional helpful insight when Jason needed someone to bounce something off of.
Point being, Dick wouldn’t have ignored an invite from Jason. They were too rare, and Dick was a stage four clinger with MAJOR guilt about missing calls and texts, especially in regard to Jason.
Nightwing had been spotted in Blud. And Bruce had gotten him on coms a few times. So at least his big brother wasn’t lying dead in some warehouse somewhere.
Still… it was concerning.
That’s how Jason ended up on his bike, wincing against the cold, late autumn rain, with a cooler full of Tikka Masala and a Tupperware full of the Paczi Dick liked so much, pulling up to Dick’s apartment just as the sun started going down.
Their nights off didn’t intersect often… particularly because bats were so great at TAKING nights off… but Bruce had thrown a whole mama-bear fit at Jason for sneaking out during his last night off, so Jason was playing nice.
He didn’t have a day job like most of the family. He didn’t get why it was such a big deal that he worked every night. But no one else was going to take that line of reasoning.
Jason tucked his bike against the wall, engaged the anti-theft measures for all they were worth, and stomped up the exterior stairwell with bags balanced in his hand.
Dick had done this twice before, that he remembered. Or… he didn’t even remember the first time. That was more hearsay.
Apparently, Dick had a three-month-long depression slump that required Bruce to step in and physically cart him to the doctors for medication after Jason came back to Gotham in a rage. Tim had been the one to tell Jason, and he’d scampered off to hide when Jason had a little bit of a hissy fit over the thought that anyone could care enough about him to get depressed.
Jason had grown since then. And Tim had gotten a bit more used to Jason’s temper.
Then there was an instance about a year ago when Dick did this. He just disappeared for a couple of weeks, and when he showed back up, it was at a bar surrounded by a ring of empty beer bottles and shot glasses.
Jason had noped out. He was a bit ashamed of that now. It had been a joint effort between Barbara and Wally West that had pieced Dick back together so he could show his face in public again.
Dick had depression. He hit slumps. It was usually not very noticeable. Partially because Jason hadn’t known him in his childhood, when that wasn’t so much an issue, so he didn’t have a baseline to compare it to. Partially because Dick with depression looked just about the same as Dick at a Gala, or Dick on a date, or Dick doing just about anything. He had that big, goofy grin on and a stubborn insistence that it was his job to fix anyone else.
Then Dick had what Tim referred to as Dick’s ‘resets’, where the smile disappeared and he turned into, as Tim had described it, a hollow echo of himself.
“He just needs a few weeks to work through it,” Tim said. “Then he’ll pop back up as happy as ever.”
Jason had only witnessed a little bit of one, and he HATED it. It gave him flashbacks to Catherine, and it was frankly terrifying to see his big brother, who took care of everyone else, reduced to that.
Maybe that wasn’t happening, though. It could just be a really big case. Or he’d dropped his phone in the toilet again.
Unlike most of the Bats, Jason had the good sense to send a text before driving an hour out to Bludhaven and interrupting Dick’s day. He hoped that would mean someone would answer when he knocked heavily on the too-thin door.
Silence hung heavy in the air. Jason frowned up at the lingering gray clouds and their threat of sleet. He felt eight years old again. Watching the worst months of the year bear down on their flimsy little apartment like a train down the train track where he and some of the other kids used to put their pennies, before Jason was saving every last one of them. It was funny how those days seemed like they were a lifetime ago and just yesterday all at once. How he hadn’t seen Catherine since he was a snot-nosed nine-year-old, and he was somehow still expecting to open the door and see her draped over the couch, or curled up on her mattress on the floor, with distant eyes.
It was a potent enough feeling that Jason literally jumped when the door finally opened.
“Little Wing!” Dick said with a clearly false warmth. Jason wrinkled his nose at the scent of alcohol rolling off him. He’d spritzed something cheap and potent on, clearly attempting to hide the scent, but all it did was add to the din.
Dick had always been a pretty boy. How he managed to avoid accumulating more than the thinnest, silvery scars on his face, Jason would never know. There was one that you would never know about if you didn’t know where to look, bisecting the growth of several days that darkened his jaw.
He was the farthest thing from pretty today. His oversized sweater was crusted with something that had once been edible and stained. So at least he had eaten something. His pants were sagging where the elastic was broken, and it looked like he had been unraveling the thread on one of the pockets. His blue eyes were, for once, dull.
“Food,” Jason held up the cooler.
“Oh. You didn’t have to do that. Did you come all the way out here just to drop off dinner?”
Jason tilted his head. “You didn’t see the text.”
Dick’s face screwed up a little. “Ummmm. No. My phone’s… um… plugged in.”
“You don’t need to lie.”
“I’m not lying, Little –“
“Dick. Stop. It’s worse when you lie about it.” Jason didn’t mean to snap at him. Probably wasn’t much good for depression and all that. But he kept hearing Catherine’s slurred words in his head. ‘I’m just tired today, baby. I told you I wasn’t going to have any more medicine, right? Just tired.’
The façade of a smile dropped away, and Dick sagged into the door frame. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “If I’d known you were coming, I would never have drunk anything. I know it bothers you.”
Jason snorted. “I'm not a wilting flower, Dickface. It’s not a big deal. Just… quit trying to take care of me.”
Dick tried another watery smile.
“Okay. I’m pulling rank here.” Jason shoved the door in, grabbing Dick’s sweater before he fell back. His older brother let out a squawk. “You don’t have to talk to me. And you are allowed to get pissed, cause I know I would, but you aren’t taking care of yourself, so someone has to.”
“Jay…”
“Give me an hour and I’ll get out of your hair.” Jason paused as the smell hit him in the face. “Scratch that. Two.”
“I’m fine, Jason. You don’t need to take care of me.” Dick protested. It was a pretty pathetic protest. Almost as pathetic as the disaster in the tiny apartment. Dishes spilled out of the sink, taking on that distinctive, and all too familiar, scent of rot. There were drifts of takeout containers and donut boxes forming a sort of castle wall around the little towers of brown-glass beer bottles and a single, half-full, Crown Royal. Pollyanna was playing on the TV.
“When’s the last time someone took care of you?” Jason asked.
Dick looked like Jason had just taken a swipe at him. “What?”
“When is the last time you let someone take care of you?” Jason said again, annunciating each word carefully.
Sudden tears sprang into Dicks eyes and he ducked his head to avoid Jason’s gaze. “I don’t know. I don’t… I can’t remember.”
“I get it that you aren’t in a mood for people, or whatever,” Jason said. “And you don’t have to put in effort, I’m gonna judge you either way.”
“You know, that’s not what you are supposed to say.”
“I don’t follow social conventions.” Jason shoved some empty Fireball bottles and several still-full prescriptions over so he could fit the cooler onto the counter. “My point is, I won’t be overbearing or any of that shit. I’m only going to make you do one thing, and then I’ll feed you and fuck off.”
Dick looked almost sad at that.
“Unless you don’t want me to.”
“No. You have like… patrol. Right?”
“Not tonight,” Jason grabbed Dick’s shoulders, and he started to lean in automatically for a hug. “Uh uh.” Jason twisted him around. “Hugs are for good little vigilantes. Shower, eat, and then you’ll get your prize, huh?”
“Jay…” Dick protested.
“Or no, forget that. Don’t shower. Fill up the tub with one of those stinky bath bombs you like and soak for a while. For a long while. I don’t entirely trust you not to fall and crack open your head.”
“I’m not THAT drunk.”
“Yeah, but I don’t see any empty water bottles in here, I know none of those Batburger bags included a green vegetable, and I’ll eat your dirty ass hoodie if you’ve taken any medication apart from Advil in the past three weeks.”
“Are you going to criticize me back to health?” Dick mumbled as Jason steered him toward the bathroom. He’d have to clean in there, too. It smelled likea teenage boy. And Dick was not a teenager anymore.
“Willis always said the best cure to a sour face is to slap it off.”
“Ever work for you?”
“Nah, I think he just rubbed it in, like a stain on the carpet. It’s permanent now. K. Shower. Food. Then you can decide if I’m sleeping on the couch or heading back home.”
Dick grumbled as he stepped into the bathroom, but some of the wrinkles over his eyes had smoothed.
“Leave the door open,” Jason yelled.
“What?”
“I don’t wanna cost you your deposit if I have to kick it down and save your sorry ass from drowning.”
“I’m not a child.” Dick grouched.
“No, cause a child can clean up after themselves. You’re like a shelter puppy.”
“Fuck you.”
Jason grinned at him, even if he knew it looked nasty. He didn’t feel it in his chest, which meant it was gonna look more like a wolf bearing its teeth than anything comforting. “There’s my brother.”
Dick rolled his eyes, and closed the door until there was just a sliver visible. Jason waited until he heard the sound of water running before he pulled out his phone.
He pulled up a text to Roy as he started into the kitchen and pulled open the door to the cupboard under the sink, scanning the available cleaning supplies. Dick wasn’t DIRTY. Not normally. He was about what someone could expect from an overworked bachelor who occasionally wanted to have a girl or a friend over. There were supplies, though they were all the knock-off stuff with chemicals that were just a step down from Joker venom. His trash bags were hanging out in multiple layers, and he had a couple years worth of crusty “microfiber” cleaning rags that he’d clearly bought and forgotten in favor of paper towels and magic erasers.
Jason pulled out the stuff he trusted not to kill anyone, stuffed a few garbage bags into the waist of his jeans, and pulled out Costco-size containers of baking soda and vinegar that were likely Alfred’s contribution. He busied himself emptying a plastic bottle of Windex knock-off that smelled so strongly of ammonia it could have passed for cat pee as he texted one-handed.
‘Need humaning advice. What do you have to do to get Dick out of a black hole?'
By the time Jason had made a vinegar cleaning solution, Roy had answered. ‘Depression?’
‘Yeah. Bad.’
The phone buzzed in Jason’s pocket several times as he filled what ended up being two garbage bags with the trash strewn around the room. He peeled the sweat-crusted sheets from Dick’s bed and shoved them into the wash before pulling the phone back out.
‘The obvious, you’ve probably figured out most of it. Wound check. Make him wash and shave. Hydrate. Feed him something thats not 90% sodium and sadness, and make sure he has a couple square feet to curl up without having to sleep in garbage.’
“Check and check,” Jason muttered, kicking the garbage bags toward the door. Dishes were next. He’d learned from many years of experience that you could go nose-blind to most things, but rotting food just stuck around. Maybe it was because human nature was to shy away from rot.
He’d have to do a wound check when Dick got out. Why hadn’t he thought about that?
He scanned the rest of the text stream. “You know how Dickiebird is. He needs his daily dose of snuggles and people. He might fight it a little, but if he’s alone, it gets bad. Wanna take shifts?”
Jason scowled. Shifts. Great. He could just set fire to the apartment, drag Dick back to his place, and call one of the bats to provide the requisite snuggles. Since it was Dick, Damian would probably be down for it.
Apparently, in Japan you could hire people out for shit like that.
Jason hated sleeping in other people’s spaces. Especially smaller ones like this. Dick knew about Jason’s nightmares and night terrors. He had a lot of his own. But that didn’t make it any more comfortable to know that if he woke up screaming, he’d have an audience.
But Dick had babysat him for worse shit. He could suck it up and be a decent brother for once.
He busied himself collecting laundry next, including a Nightwing uniform that was just draped over the easy chair, smelling like a month’s worth of patrols. Once Dick got out of the bath, he’d toss that in the tub with some baking soda to soak.
By the time Jason finished sweeping and mopping the laminate floors, and was eyeing the sparse offerings in the fridge when the phone buzzed in his pocket again.
‘Wally and I are coming,’ Roy had texted. ‘I’m assuming you made enough food for three and a speedster?”
Jason rolled his eyes. ‘It'll stretch. I’m sending you a list. Get groceries. And you get to explain to Dick why you are swarming his apartment.'
‘Lie to him.'
Jason searched through the cupboards for clean plates and pulled the last few from the drying rack. ‘I stopped lying the second I got big enough to beat people's asses if they don't like what I say.’
Roy was right that he had plenty of food, though. Jason hated throwing out food, but he’d learned that there was always someone who would eat leftovers around the Waynes. They just burned too many calories not to hoover down whatever was in eyesight. All but Damian, who adhered to his vegetarian diet with every bit of the tenacity trained into him by the League.
If something did manage to sit in the fridge for more than twenty-four hours, someone usually hauled it off to feed a friend, or hand it off to a homeless person, or a poor kid, or just a hungry neighbor. Tim and Dick were the worst about it, which Dick said was a side effect of having had Jason around, but Duke had nearly outpaced them in his first year in the Manor. He had his own history.
“Did you make me Paczi?” Dick’s voice was tear-laden, even if his still-pink face was dry.
“Don’t get too excited. I don’t think they will taste anything like your Mom’s.”
“And Tika Masala!” Dick leaned over the counter, breathing deep. He looked almost normal again. His face was still scruffy. Maybe he’d let Jason shave him after they ate. Dick liked being clean-shaven the same as Jason did.
“So,” Jason dropped a pile of rice onto a plate and raised his brow at Dick as he snuck a paczi from the box.
“Still warm,” Dick whispered happily.
“Roy and Wally are coming. Bringing groceries. You up to it, or am sending them packing.”
Dick froze with the paczi already in his mouth. Heathen. He hadn’t even had actual food yet. Jason shoved some veggies onto the plate, pointedly. At least the carbs might sop up some the alcohol that was still swimming around his system.
“But my apartment…” Dick paused and looked around. “…oh.”
“I’ll get the bathroom before they get here,” Jason said, snapping the lids back onto the different platters and testing the warmth of each item on the underside of the dish. Eh. A bit of time in the microwave wouldn’t hurt.
“Are you leaving?” Dick asked, through a giant-sized bite.
“Do you WANT me to leave?’
“No,” Dick said bluntly. “But you want to.”
“It's not so bad now that we’ve cleaned most of the stink out.”
Dick made a face at him that was more ‘little brother’ than ‘big brother’ and brushed the cinnamon and sugar from his fingers.
He stood for a moment, just studying the spread of food, looking around the kitchen with slowly reddening eyes. “I’ll… I’ll clean up here. You can go home.”
“Dick,” Jason pulled the plate from the microwave and, frowning at the heat on the bottom, ferried it to the coffee table. “You are not allowed to try and take care of me today.”
“I’m not…”
“Nope. No argument. I’ll stay if YOU want me to stay, I’ll go if you want me to go. Literally makes no difference to me. I just have to be a little bit of an asshole still, or you’ll get too clingy and I won’t be able to finish cleaning.”
Jason hated how absolutely wrecked Dick looked. “Would you stay?”
“Yep,” he said quickly. “Eat. Choose a movie or a game, or some shit. Whatever it is normies do. I’ll be back in like… twenty minutes.”
He ducked into the steamy bathroom, almost as eager to escape his abnormally mopey older brother as he was to clean the disaster he’d left behind.