#aftermathofdeath

Dick

“Dick.”

His name, someone was calling his name. Breath flooded Dick’s lungs and he opened his eyes, jumping back at the sight in front of him. Batman...er, Bruce in the lightest layer of the batman suit, leaning only a few inches away from his face.

“Bruce?” His brain could not process… why was Bruce in his apartment? What time was it?

“Jason...” Bruce’s lower lip started to quiver. It never quivered. Something was very, very wrong.

“Bruce, I’m Dick, not Jason.” Definitely something wrong with his brain. Maybe a new strain of fear toxin? But then why would he be here and not the cave? And where was Jason anyway? Weren’t the two of them supposed to be in Africa or something?

“No, Jason, he’s…” Tears actually started flowing down Bruce’s face. Dick had never seen Bruce cry, not even once. This wasn’t fear toxin, this was real. That could only mean one thing… no. No, Jason couldn’t be.

“Bruce, where’s Jason?” Despite how much he tried to keep it steady, his voice still shook at the name, his brother’s name.

“Gone.”

Gone. The unspoken word followed without pause. Dead. Taken from the world, never to be seen again. Jason. His brother. He couldn’t… he couldn’t do this. First his parents, now his brother? The brother he had just started to get to know. The brother who relentlessly teased him about every little thing. The brother who always wore that baggy red hoodie no matter what the temperature was like outside. The brother he would never see smile again.

Unbidden tears started to flow down his face. He stared at a blank space on the wall in front of him and tried to slow his breathing. It helped, a little. As soon as the world slowed down it’s spinning he turned to look at Bruce, who was now kneeling on the floor next to Dick’s bed, with his head in his arms. He’d gone catatonic. Dick had only ever seen him this way once before,  when affected by one of scarecrow’s fear toxins he had yet to build an immunity to. He and Alfred had been able to calm him down, but only after they had shot him with an extra dose of antitoxin and Dick accidentally caught a punch with his face. But this time was different, there wasn’t a cure for this because it wasn’t drug induced. Jason was really gone, and Bruce was going to snap, if he hadn’t already.

Dick cautiously reached out to touch Bruce’s arm. His head snapped up instantly, and it took everything in Dick’s power to not reach for the knife concealed right behind his nightstand. That is, until he looked in Bruce’s eyes. The man couldn’t stop crying. He was broken. Bruce reached up to touch Dick’s face, and after initially pulling back, Dick eventually leaned forward and let his former guardian touch him.

“It’s okay Bruce.” he cooed, trying to keep his tone steady, “I’m still here.”

That must’ve sunk in, because Bruce started to take some deep breaths, calming himself down, just like he taught Dick to do in emergency situations. Pretty soon, he was able to stand up on his own. At which point he kind of awkwardly leaned against the wall in the bedroom. Dick took the chance to glance down at his clock, 3:00 AM. Well, there went any hope he had for sleep before work in the morning. He grudgingly climbed off the end of his bed, so as to not disturb Bruce, and shuffled his way into the kitchen. Coffee. He needed coffee, and maybe a drink. Bruce probably did too.

“I-I should go.” Bruce mumbled, from his position in the bedroom.

“No way.” Dick said, a lot more coherently than he felt, “You don’t get to break into my apartment and wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me terrible news with no explanation and then ditch me after having a come-apart on my bedroom floor. Not gonna happen. So, do you want coffee or bourbon or both?”

Bruce just grunted and made his way over to the small, cluttered table that was the closest thing to a dining room Dick had in his tiny apartment. The two of them just stood there in silence for a few minutes while the water got heated. Jason, dead. That couldn’t be possible. He’d just seen him like, what, a week ago? He had just helped dismantle a drug ring that was terrorizing the city, most of the guys hadn’t even been prosecuted yet. How could he be gone? Dick didn’t notice the stray tear falling down his face until the coffee pot started making that screeching noise that indicated it was almost done. He wiped it off his face before getting down two mugs and pulling the milk and sugar from his fridge.

Bruce always said he liked his coffee black, but Dick knew that he secretly preferred a small splash of milk to dull some of the coffee’s sharper tastes. He poured the black liquid into the two cups then took down the bourbon and splashed a bit in as well. This was going to be a long night (morning?), whatever.

“Here.” The force with which Dick set the mug on the table made a little of the hot liquid splash onto some stray papers.

Bruce stayed leaning up against the wall, looking at the open window like a bird, or a bat, ready to take flight.

“Sit down and tell me what happened.”

Bruce simply glared at him.

“Bruce,” Dick chided, “how did he… what went wrong?”

Bruce still stood aloof next to the window, but decided to reach for the coffee and took a sip.

“If you aren’t here to talk, why did you come?”

He put the mug down, “I need you to stop.”

Dick raised his eyebrows in confusion, “Stop what?”

“Nightwing.”

Dick’s jaw clenched automatically. His head shook a little with the effort it took to contain his ever amounting rage. Hadn’t they already had this conversation before? Didn’t Bruce remember where this conversation got them last time?

“Will you ever stop...” he began, but couldn’t finish. Treating me like a child ...or... being batman … Dick couldn’t decide which would be the more fitting end to the question. Somehow, Bruce knew exactly what he meant. The answer to both questions forming in his mind was answered in a simple,

“No.”

The rest of the morning was spent in relative silence. Bruce had made it fairly clear that he would not tell Dick about what had happened with Jason, and Dick was honestly too tired to press. He figured he’d just hack into the batcomputer next chance he got and find out what happened for himself. Bruce would eventually need to answer his questions, but Dick figured they could remain unanswered until Bruce got his head back on straight. Besides, his mind was too full of all the memories and emotion that he didn’t think he would really hear Bruce even if he did explain himself.

Fifteen minutes until five and Dick finally broke the silence, “Look, I have a meeting with the Titans in a couple minutes and you need some sleep. There are some sheets in the nightstand by my bed and the couch is pretty comfortable, so crash there if you need to.”

Bruce lifted his head up in slight acknowledgement of what Dick had said, but quickly regained his brooding stature. Standing there in the dim morning light he looked more like a gargoyle than a real person. For once, Dick thought he could understand why Bruce chose to name himself after a bat, the two creatures shared an eerie similarity; the natural ability to strike terror into the heart of a bystander.

Dick eventually left to go get ready for his meeting. By the time he came out of the bathroom, he found that Bruce had pulled the sheets out of the drawer and laid them on the sofa. He also noticed half of his bottle of bourbon was gone. Dick couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Bruce drink. What could have gone so wrong? But there was no time to pry answers out of the stubborn bat, they would just have to wait.

So as Dick turned to leave for the day he looked at Bruce for just a moment and said, “I expect you’ll be ready to actually talk to me when I return.”

With that, he left.

---

Dick came back to an empty apartment. It looked exactly as he had left it, not a trace of Bruce anywhere, save the unlocked window and the empty bottle of bourbon in the trash. Dick could almost pretend it was a dream, just another bad nightmare. But deep down he knew Bruce had told the truth. Jason was dead.

The weight of it all slammed into him at once, and he found himself crouched on the ground gasping for air through tear soaked sobs. Jason was dead. He couldn’t move, so he didn’t. Dick stayed there, frozen on the ground, paralyzed in sadness until dawn rose to greet him once more.

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