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Dick had gotten pretty good at pretending he was actually Neal Caffrey. The charm was automatic, the smiles fit like a glove and the relationships he’d made really did mean a lot to him. It probably helped that Caffrey wasn’t far from his natural personality, with some added flair and an extra tablespoon or two of flirting. Point being, Dick kinda liked the thing he had going for him as Neal and he was good at it. Good enough, in fact, that when his Batcommunicator went off in the middle of a debriefing, he didn’t falter. He fetched it out from under his fedora without looking and silenced it. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t that important.
(Okay, and maybe he was still a little pissed at Bruce but that was irrelevant. No, really. It didn’t have anything to do with it. He wasn’t that childish.)
Peter paused, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Neal, what is that?”
“What is what?” Dick tilted his head, the picture of innocence. It might’ve even worked too if his Batcommunicator hadn’t started to ring again.
At the time, setting his ringtone to the Batman theme song was hilarious but now, listening to it chime out, “Da da da da da da da da Batman!” he realized it wasn’t exactly a great way to go incognito.
“Answer it,” Peter demanded, crossing his arms. Dick considered for a second, eyes trailing over the curious faces of Jones and Diana. It was just the four of them in the room, everyone else having been dismissed earlier. Peter had said that they should stay behind to go over it once more because Dick was admittedly completely zoned out during the first one. With a shrug, Dick made his decision and reached over to hit accept.
“This better be quick, B. I’m at work,” Dick said before Bruce could get in a word. There was no response other than the sound of heavy breathing. The noise (or lack thereof) had Dick sitting up straight. Bruce was never shy to jump right into conversation. He was an old man that way, didn’t like texting all that much and never called without a clear reason.
Dick’s sudden movement had Peter shooting him a look, but he ignored it.
“B? You there?”
Something shuffled on the other end and then a raspy voice said, “Dick?”
It took a moment for Dick to realize that it was Bruce. He sounded… he sounded wrecked. Worse than Dick had ever heard him, even that time he was caught in fear gas. Something cold wrapped itself around Dick’s heart in a vice-like grip.
“B?” He ventured cautiously. “What happened?”
He could see Jones, Diana and Peter exchanging looks but he was too distracted to care. What had happened? Why did Bruce sound so bad? Was he hurt? Was… Was someone else hurt? Someone else like…
“Is Alfred okay?” Dick jumped to, abandoning all subtlety as panic ran through his veins like a drug. “Barbara? Jason?”
Bruce made a noise, pained and low like he’d been physically attacked. Dick froze.
“Bruce? Bruce, what happened to Jason? Is he okay? Is he hurt? What did Leslie say? How many… how many months of bedrest?” Dick persisted, because that had to be it. Jason had to have gotten hurt, badly enough to have to step away from Robin. That’s why Bruce sounded so bad. That’s it. Nothing worse, just injuries. Injuries that Jason could heal from. Injuries that Dick could help Jason come back from.
“Okay, B, don’t worry. I’ll be home in a couple of hours, okay? I can help out. I won’t cook because we all know how well I am at that but I can, um, I can clean and I’ll look after Jason. You must be tired, huh? Probably a long night. Should I pick up any painkillers? I’ll grab some markers so I can vandalize Jason’s cast while he’s sleeping. Does he want anything?” Dick rambled, fighting to think positively because Bruce wasn’t saying anything, why wasn’t he saying anything, what happened?
“Dick,” Bruce said and that’s all it took. Dick shook his head, eyes stinging so badly he closed them. “Dick, Jason--“
“Is fine!” Dick cut in desperately. “Jason is fine because we haven’t gone on that skiing trip I promised him and I swore that I’d bring him into work to prank Peter one day and he was just starting to accept my hugs so he can’t be gone. He can’t-- Bruce, he can’t…”
It felt like something inside of him was breaking. He could feel a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes but he blinked them back because Jason was fine. He had to be. He… he had to be. He couldn’t be…
“He’s dead, Dick.”
A sob ripped from his throat, just as painful as it sounded because that couldn’t be true. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter make an aborted move towards him but he paid it no mind. Bruce was lying. His baby brother wasn’t…
“Dick, listen to me, I--“
Dick hung up, couldn’t bear the sound of Bruce’s voice right then. Tears poured from his eyes like rivers and he was choking with how much his throat had closed up. Bruce was lying. Jason wasn’t dead.
“It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true,” he told himself, head in his hands and back pressed against the wall. He didn’t remember hitting the ground but it was under him and his legs weren’t. “It isn’t true, it isn’t true, it isn’t…”
Except that it was. It was. Jason was dead. Jason was dead. When? How? Who? The last one filled him with a fury unlike any other but it faded just as quick as it had come. There was no room for anger in the pool of grief he was drowning in. There was no room for anything. Not for Peter’s voice or Diana’s hands or Jones’ stare. There was no room for any of it.
”Jason,” he whispered, broken, but there was no one to answer. Jason was gone and so was his smile and his laugh and his sass and his voice and his eyes and his temper.
Jason was gone, and he took a piece of Dick’s heart with him.