Really, this whole thing was Bruce’s fault.  Not only had he replaced Dick, he’d replaced him with a demon.  A baby incubus that Dick was supposed to call brother.  Dick was justifiably wary of humanity’s greatest predators, never mind that his little brother had chubby little cheeks and an adorable scowl and a pout that Dick had to resist cooing at.  He was dangerous.

And doubly so under the influence of mind tampering chemicals.

Incubi under fear toxin could induce a heart attack with a touch, overloading people’s minds with fear until they died.  Dick had never met an incubus under the use of cuddle pollen, since Ivy mainly reserved that for the Bats, but he shuddered to think of what an emotion-sensitive demon would do when faced with the draining hunger for succor.

Luckily, Dick had met enough villains with mental manipulation to develop strong mental shields.  They’d snapped into place the moment he’d felt Robin’s clumsy grab for his mind, protecting him from mental intrusion.  He could’ve gotten Robin back to the Batcave and in a containment cell with no one—especially Bruce—the wiser.

Instead, Robin had bolted the moment Dick had cut him free of Ivy’s vines and Dick had no idea how to find him.  It was becoming increasingly likely that he’d have to call Bruce from his shift on the Watchtower and deal with the Disappointed Look that still made Dick cringe.

He could already hear Bruce now.  I asked you to watch over Gotham for one night, but I see that was beyond your capabilities.  The sneer was clearly visible in Dick’s mind.  I should’ve never called you back—you’re useless, pathetic, weak—

Dick froze.  “Robin?” he called out, barely a whisper.  The dread and terror hanging over his head weren’t his own.  The fear of being kicked out wasn’t his.  “Robin, are you there?”

The feeling of dread intensified.  Lurking behind it was hurt, a miasma that seemed to grow with every breath.  Pain and fear and abandonment and loneliness, all of it battling together in a spiral that tightened around Dick’s chest and sunk deep.

“Robin?” Dick called out again.  It was an old-fashioned game of hot-and-cold.  The thicker the emotions were, the closer he was getting.  Dick kept the mental block and slipped further into the warehouse.

The darkness seemed especially concentrated in the shadows behind an old conveyor belt.  Dick rounded the edge and headed for the corners, feeling the ache as the emotions pressed against his barrier.

He caught sight of the cape as the emotions solidified into specifics.

hates me hates me can’t stand the sight of me no one can they all hate me

I don’t want to be a demon I don’t want to be alone I just want to be loved why is it so hard why why

please please please please please please please it hurts please it hurts make it stop please please it hurts make it stop I can’t breathe please please please

I’m so hungry

it’s so cold

please help help please it hurts please please please please

“Oh, kid,” Dick breathed, crouching as he crept closer.  Robin was huddled into a tiny ball, cape tucked around him, shuddering violently.  “It’s okay.  It’s going to be okay.  C’mere.”

Robin didn’t move, but he didn’t jerk away at Dick’s careful touch at his shoulder, and Dick moved to envelop him in a hug.  He used slow, cautious movements and only relaxed when the kid was tucked up in his lap.

Robin was still rigid, not bending the slightest amount, breaths harsh and shaky.  Before Dick could figure out a more comfortable position for them both, something poked at his mental barrier.

Dick mentally reared back, reinforcing the block.  But it wasn’t an attack, it was…questing?  It slunk forward again, a wary little thread reaching out.  For an instant, Dick felt hurt please help big brother please?

Then the thread curled away, sagging at a lack of response, and the feeling of abandonment surged.

It was a stupid idea.  Dick was just compounding the bad decisions that had led them to this point.  He could already imagine Bruce’s lecture—did you seriously allow a demon access to your mind because you felt sorry for it—but he’d already made the decision.

Dick dropped the mental barrier.

It felt like cracking open a door he was trying to hold shut, warring with his own instincts as he deliberately lowered his guard.  The thread came back and, upon finding an open path, slithered inside.  Dick resisted the urge to kick it back out.

Dickie? came an inquisitive thought—it didn’t feel like a word mentally spoken, it felt like an impression, and when Dick reached out it, it was accompanied by a dazzling network of memories and emotions.  He was looking at himself from the outside, from the point of view of a little boy that wanted nothing more than his approval, that had placed Dick on a pedestal so high Dick was getting dizzy just experiencing it.

Jaybird, Dick tried crafting his own impression in response, shoving the resentment and irritation as far down as he could in the hopes that Jason couldn’t find it.  He bundled up all his hopes and wishes for a baby brother and flung it across the mental space.

One moment Jason was on the outside, peering in, asking for entry—and the next he was in, tangled up thoroughly with Dick’s emotions, rifling through his head like it was a flipbook.  Confusion and panic and fear flitted across Dick’s mind, slow like molasses, and were easily batted aside.  Comfort rose out of the tangle, and contentment, the lazy purr of a cat slumbering in a sunspot.

That, and he hadn’t so much as touched a single person other than Jason.  He kept painful distance between himself and everyone, stiffening the slightest bit when someone—even Alfred or Bruce—got too close.  He remembered them, that much was clear, but his memory was spotty, and they’d been beginning to suspect it might’ve been tampered with.  But with Jason, it was different.  With Jason, Dick was his usual tactile self.  He leaped off the banister into Jason’s arms, he climbed around onto his shoulders, he even held Jason’s hand sometimes.  It had weirded Jason out at first, but he’d gotten used to it quickly.  Truth be told, Jason himself was a tactile person, it had just been so long since he’d allowed himself such easy contact with another person.

Speak of the devil, Jason felt a light weight slam into his back and wrap tiny, undersized eleven year old arms around his neck.  

“Jaybird!” Dick exclaimed, clinging to his back like a spider-monkey.

“Watcha doin’ there, buddy?” Jason asked, pausing from the sandwich he was making.  Another strange thing: apparently now he talked to Dick as if he were a child.  Dick was a child, but he was still technically Jason’s older brother, and that was still a trip.

Dick hooked his chin over Jason’s shoulder.  “I dunno.  Do you wanna play a game?”

“Sure, kiddo,” Jason said.  He didn’t call Damian “buddy” or “kiddo,” despite Dick and Damian being the same age.  Technically.  “Just give me a second to eat this.”

“One Mississippi!  Your second’s over, let’s go!”  Dick tugged on Jason’s neck, trying to get him to start moving.

“Asshole,” Jason laughed.  Dick didn’t stop tugging as Jason shoved his sandwich in his mouth.  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said, mouth full.  He carried Dick into the living room, where Dick jumped off of his back and went running to the cabinet under the tv that they kept all their boardgames in.  In finding what he wanted, Dick pulled every single other game out of the cabinet as he went, tossing them beside him carelessly.

“Tt.  I hope you’re planning on putting that back.”  Jason almost (almost) jumped.  He hadn’t noticed Damian, buried in an armchair with a sketchbook in his hand.  

Dick didn’t even look up, and Jason suspected he’d clocked Damian immediately.  “Do you want to play, Dami?” he asked, now with a deck of ratty old Batman cards in hand.

Damian glanced imperiously down at where Dick was kneeling on the floor.  “Play what?”

“Go Fish!”

“Go…what?”

Dick was scandalized.  “You don’t know what Go Fish is?”  At Damian’s continued confusion, he turned to Jason.  “He doesn’t know what Go Fish is?”

“Don’t look at me,” Jason said, shoving aside some games to make room for him to sit, perfectly aware Dick would not be putting them away anytime soon.  “He came like that.”

Dick pursed his lips and looked at Damian.  Since Dick had come home (after nearly killing Damian, Jason should probably add), Jason honestly couldn’t tell if he and Damian were best friends, or if they hated each other.

Damian glared at Jason.  “Whatever the game is, I’m sure I can beat you, Todd.”

“It’s a luck game, Damian.”

“No it’s not!” Dick exclaimed.  “It’s skill!”

“Sure it is, buddy,” Jason said.  He and Dick, back when they were both kids, would play an inordinate amount of card games.  They definitely played Go Fish the most (funnily enough, Dick did win most often, which Jason supposed would lend credence to his idea that it was about ‘skill’), but they’d generally played a lot of different card games.  Jason had come to find Dick couldn’t remember how to play anything but Go Fish.  “Damian, are you playing or not?”

Damian slunk down from the chair, closing his notebook as he went.  “I’ll play, only so I can beat you.”

Jason rolled his eyes, and decided to pick his battles carefully.

“Yay!  I’ll explain how.”  Explaining Go Fish was more of a joint-effort.  As Dick fumbled with the cards he was attempted to shuffle (which was so unlike his usual grace), he attempted to explain, only he frequently lost track of what he was saying, and Jason had to jump in.  It was...a little concerning, to Jason, and it confirmed his suspicion that most of Dick’s ability to do things like play Go Fish relied on muscle memory.  Once he was required to think it though and explain it to someone else, he faltered.

“Go Fish!” Damian declared smugly, towards the end of their second round.  He had one card in his hand, and was taking far too much pleasure in repeatedly saying “Go Fish!” when anybody asked for a card.

Jason sighed and grabbed a card from the pile.  “Oh,” he said.  “I’m out.”  He laid down his new pair of eights along with his other pairs.  Damian leaned over and Jason had to hold back a laugh to see him counting under his breath.  “And I win,” he said with a smirk, knowing Damian had just come to the same conclusion.

Damian scowled.  “You probably cheated.”

Dick giggled, dropping his ten remaining cards, none of which were matches.  “Jay always cheats.”

“I played this one fair and square.  Like I play every game of Go Fish.”

“Whatever,” Damian said.  

Jason had absolutely no reason to antagonize Damian.  So, naturally, that was exactly what he did.  “Don’t be upset you lost to ‘the superior Robin.’”

“Tt.  You are not the superior Robin.  Only Robins that manage to stay alive can be superior.”

Jason happened to glance back at Dick to see the playful smile drop off his face.  Jason’s retort died on his tongue.

“What?”  He looked between Damian and Jason, eyes wide.

“Nothing,” Jason said, kicking Damian lightly to try and give him the message.

Damian kicked him back, much harder.  “Did Todd not tell you?  He managed to get himself killed.”

Dick was staring at Jason now like he’d never seen him before.  “What do you mean?” he asked, with a kind of dawning horror.

“Todd got tricked by the Joker and ended up exploding,” Damian said blithely.  

“Damian, shut the hell up,” Jason said.  Could the kid really not pick up on the mood, or was he, as always, being purposefully belligerent?

“He came back, eventually, but he’s the only one of us dumb enough to die for real.”

Dick stood suddenly.  Damian seemed surprised by the motion.

“Dick-” Jason began, but Dick took off running.  Jason glared at Damian.  “What the fuck did you say that for?”

Damian blinked quickly, trying to wipe the bewildered expression off his face.  “I didn’t do anything.”

“You know what you did,” he said, although in reality, he wasn’t sure that Damian did.  He stood up now too, and cast Damian one last angry look before leaving the room.  He jogged up the stairs, and stopped on the second floor instead of the third.  The third floor was where Dick’s current room was.  It was situated between Alfred’s and Bruce’s, with everyone else across the hall or not much further.  That wasn’t where Dick went.  Dick would have gone to the second floor, to his old room.  His old room was a mausoleum, completely untouched and exactly the same as Dick had left it.  After Dick’s “death,” no one could stand to look at it, but no one could bear to change it.  So everyone simply relocated to the third floor, leaving a messy eleven year old’s room like some kind of memorial no one had the heart to visit.

Jason stepped into the darkened room to the sound of sobbing.  Something tight in Jason’s chest tugged him over to the bed, and when he sat on the edge of it, Dick’s breathing hitched and his sobbing stopped suddenly.  He hadn’t moved, his face was still buried in the pillow he was gripping.

“Hey buddy,” Jason said.  Dick didn’t respond.  Jason couldn’t remember if Dick liked to be comforted when he cried, or if he would want to be left alone.  There were so many things he didn’t realized he’d forgotten about his brother, so many details the years had washed from his mind.  “Are you okay?” he asked, and hoped his voice didn’t betray just how lost he felt.

Dick shook his head, not looking up from the pillow.  For lack of anything to say, Jason slowly reached out a hand to place on Dick’s shoulder.  When he first made contact, Dick stiffened, just for a moment, before he relaxed and suddenly he was crying again.  

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Jason said desperately.  That wasn’t the affect he’d wanted.  “Is this about what Damian said?  Because I’m fine.  We’re all fine now.”

Dick clutched the pillow tighter and if anything, sobbed harder.

“Dick, please, I’m okay-”

“No!” Dick exclaimed, shoving himself upright violently.  His golden yellow eyes gleamed unnaturally in the low light, glistening with shedding tears.  “No, it’s not okay, you’re not okay!”

“Dick…”

“I was meant to protect you.  I was meant to keep you safe.  I was meant to!  And you—you died, for real.”

“I’m better now,” Jason tried.

“You died.  And—and I know you died in my colors.  You died in my colors with my name and I couldn’t keep you safe.”

Jason tried to swallow down the pit in his stomach.  He did die as Robin, but it wasn’t Dick’s fault.  It was Bruce’s fault, it was the Joker’s fault, it was Jason’s fault, not Dick’s.  “It wasn’t-”

“Now I get it.”  Tears started streaming down his face again, but this time, they were silent.  “Why you’re so different.  Why you’re not the same anymore, why you’re angry all the time.  You’re not my little brother.”

Jason stared, dumbly, mouth open, unable to formulate a response.  He wanted to say yes, yes I am, I’m still Jason, I’m still your little brother, but that wasn’t true?  Was it?  He wasn’t the same person anymore, and he certainly wasn’t Dick’s little brother.  They couldn’t be who they were before.  Time and circumstance irrevocably changed that, for both of them.

Dick’s breath hitched again, and he barely choked out his next words.  “My little brother died, and I didn’t save him.”