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“He’s not going to eat you, you know,” Dick said. Jason, unswayed, continued to glare out at him from beneath the four-poster. When he spoke, his tone was more biting than Dick was in bed.
“Oh yeah, I’m sure you have such a good incentive to tell me the truth about that. What’re you really doing here? You want a piece too?”
Dick sighed. Maybe showing up in the kid’s room unannounced hadn’t been the best idea. Not if he wanted him to trust him, anyway. Jason was already skittish enough; Dick really should’ve waited to introduce himself until after he stopped hiding in his room. But, well, he hadn’t expected Jason to still be awake this late at night, and he’d thought there wouldn’t be any harm in sneaking a peek at his new little brother.
He’d been wrong.
“I’m not going to eat you either,” Dick began, “You’re safe here. I promise.”
He offered his most award-winning smile, but rather than being charmed, Jason just snorted and retreated a little further under the bed.
“A promise from a bloodsucker that he’s not gonna suck my blood. You got a bridge to sell me too, Tresemmé?”
“Ouch. Never heard that one before.”
Dick was starting to get tired of craning his neck to see Jason, so he rolled over into a handstand. Jason’s upside-down eyes narrowed at the movement, but when Dick didn’t try anything else, he seemed to relax.
“What, you telling me that I’m not the first person to make fun of your hair? I’m shocked. Guessing you picked that look after you stopped being able to see your own reflection, huh.”
He was making a good show of it, bravado and bluster in spades, but Dick could hear his heart skipping and stuttering along in fear. No wonder he’d still been awake when Dick arrived– the kid was terrified.
He wondered if he’d been like this since Bruce picked him up. What he’d tried to calm him down. Bruce, despite his reputation and whatever problems he and Dick had had in the past, was good with kids. Either there had been extenuating circumstances that had pulled him away, or he’d been trying to give Jason some space to process everything.
And Dick had interrupted that.
Oops.
“The reflection thing isn’t true,” Dick said, instead of voicing his thoughts. From the way Jason was glaring at him, bringing up his obvious fear would be the opposite of helpful.
“What about a stake through the heart?” Jason muttered. For the good of them both, Dick decided to pretend he’d missed that.
“Look, I dunno what you’ve heard, but Bruce is a big ol’ softie, especially when it comes to kids. He’s not going to hurt you. Neither of us are.”
It was a bit hard to tell, what with the upside-down thing, but Jason seemed to be having trouble processing the words Bruce and softie being part of the same sentence.
“The Batman. The Batman. Not going to hurt me. Sure. So I’m here for, what, a sleepover in the mansion of death?”
“We don’t kill,” Dick said automatically. Jason pursed his lips. “We don’t,” he insisted, “That’s like, rule number one right there. No killing.”
Then the rest of what Jason had said registered.
“Wait, did he not tell you why you’re here?”
The kid’s gaze dropped. He seemed very interested in the floorboards suddenly, which was surprising considering the laser-guided focus he’d had pinned on Dick’s movements ever since he’d climbed in through the window.
“He did say some bullshit about taking me in,” Jason mumbled, “But I know what that means.”
“Uh. Do tell, because apparently I don’t.”
And the glare was back, boring into Dick’s skull. Forget stakes through the heart, maybe the kid was onto something with his deadly eye rays.
“Don’t lie to me,” he snapped, “I’m not fucking stupid. I know he’s gonna do the same thing to me that he did to you! Make me his fucking blood slave until I’m too old to taste good anymore, then turn me into one of you.”
Dick stared. Jason glared. He looked completely sincere. Fear and anger mingled in his eyes, kindling a fire in his voice, and conviction poured off of him in waves. He actually, genuinely thought Bruce was going to spend the next however-many years treating him as his personal blood bag, that he’d done the same to Dick.
He started to laugh. He couldn’t help it. He knew it was insensitive, that Jason was absolutely petrified, but he still cracked up so hard that he fell out of his handstand, landing on the floor with a thud he barely felt. The thought of Bruce doing that –
When he managed to get his laugher under control, he opened his eyes to see Jason still glaring at him, but his eyebrows had drawn together in confusion. It was the least scared he’d looked since Dick had crept into his room.
“What,” he said, flatly enough that it wasn’t a question, and Dick felt another burst of giggles bubble up. He propped himself up on an elbow and brushed his hair out of his eyes, grinning up at Jason.
“Sorry, sorry, just– I thought I’d heard everything. Are people really saying that?”
“Are you trying to tell me it’s not true?” A moment ago, that would probably have been an accusation. Now, Jason’s tone was a bit less aggressive. A bit. Not much.
Dick gave a helpless little shrug. He couldn’t stop smiling. “I mean, yeah? I know you don’t know him, but if you did, you’d get how. . . ridiculous that idea is. He’s captain self-control, he wouldn’t go in for something so hedonistic even if it wasn’t morally reprehensible.”
Jason was leaning forward slightly, a little tilt that brought him a whisper closer to emerging from under the bed. His expression, though, retained its skepticism.
“But I’m a criminal. He slakes his bloodlust on sinners. It’s what he does.”
“Is it just me, or do you sound a little disappointed, kid?”
Jason bristled, but he didn’t pull back. If anything he edged even further towards Dick so he could more effectively apply his glare.
“Don’t call me kid.”
“Fine, fine.” Dick held up a hand in mock-surrender. “Anyway, there’s a lot of campfire stories about the Batman, he’s not going to fit them all. But trust me when I say he lives up to the hype, even if it’s not how you might expect.”
He got his legs underneath himself, sitting cross-legged on the floor. He held out a hand to Jason, loose and inviting, and after a moment of scrutinizing both his face and the hand itself Jason took it. He was warm, like all humans were to him now. He could feel Jason’s pulse in his fingertips, the way his hand shook slightly in Dick’s own. Still scared, then, but comfortable enough for a handshake.
“Dick,” Dick said.
Jason scoffed. “I know you are, but what am I?”
“No, my name. It’s Dick. Short for Richard. And you’re Jason, Alfred told me.”
“Alfred,” Jason mumbled. He took his hand back and started to twist his fingers together. “Is he. . ?”
“No,” Dick said, then, “Well, yes, but not how you’re thinking. Have you ever heard of brùnaidh?” Alfred had insisted he know, and could pronounce, the proper name. English he might be, but he grudgingly admitted that the Scots had gotten it the closest. The closest it could be in a human tongue, anyway.
Jason, predictably, shook his head.
“Figured. He can explain it later.” Dick shrugged. “Besides, I think a lecturer's the last thing you want right now.”
Jason made a sound that could be agreement, or could just be a noncommittal hum. For a moment, he didn’t say anything else, and Dick was content to let the silence settle comfortably between them, punctuated only by the soft thud of Jason’s heart. It was slower now. Steadier. Dick found himself remembering that, though it wasn’t late for him, Jason must be exhausted.
“. . .is he really not gonna eat me?” Jason asked, voice quiet. Dick couldn’t help it, he reached out to ruffle the kid’s hair. Jason twitched, but didn’t push him away.
“Promise,” Dick said. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
There was another moment of silence, then–
“Hey. Do you wanna see something cool?”
Upon reflection, giving a human a piggyback ride across the rooftops of Gotham probably wasn’t the safest thing for him to do.
But Jason loved it, whooping into the wind that buffeted them both, head whipping back and forth as he tried to take in everything at once. When they stopped for a rest atop one of the less well-lit buildings downtown– not that any building in Gotham was especially well-lit– Dick set Jason down and watched the kid take a few wobbly steps before abruptly landing on his ass. Dick chuckled and sat down next to him.
“It’s a lot, right?”
Jason huffed. He didn’t look at Dick, too absorbed in his starry-eyed ogling of the city.
“You are fast,” he said, slightly out of breath. Dick shrugged. He couldn’t stop smiling.
“Gotta be some perks to the whole undead thing, right?”
The city lights reflected in Jason’s eyes, kissed the planes of his face. He looked so much younger lit up like this, like the beaming face of a circusgoer caring only for the spectacle in front of them.
Dick had always loved seeing that look in people’s eyes.
He stretched out an arm, wrapping it around Jason’s shoulders, and the kid didn’t so much as shy away. He went so far as to lean into Dick, curling up against his side, eyes still on the skyline of Gotham.
“I’ve never seen the city like this,” Jason breathed, “And I’ve been living on its streets since. . .”
He trailed off, and Dick nodded. He didn’t need to say any more. Bruce had taken him in when he had nowhere to go; he’d figured things had been bad for Jason for a while.
“It’s really something, isn’t it?” He said.
Jason smiled. It was a small thing, weak from disuse, but genuine.
“Like this. . . I can kinda see why you’d wanna protect it.”
Dawn was starting to flirt with the horizon when they made it back to the manor. Jason had fallen asleep on Dick’s shoulder halfway through the trip, and he had to ease himself through the window with the utmost care to avoid waking his snoozing passenger. He closed the window behind them, tucked Jason into bed, and slunk out the door.
Bruce was waiting for him out in the hallway. Of course he was. His gaze traveled over Dick, taking in his windswept hair and lack of suit. He raised a single, sharp eyebrow.
Dick offered up a sheepish smile.
“Can we keep him?”