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Dick sighs blissfully into his triple shot espresso and allows it to soothe the war drums in his skull, beating so hard he can feel them in his teeth. He needs sleep — he hasn't slept in almost two days now, too busy working with Peter in the day and helping figure out who stole an entire case of Scarecrow’s fear toxin at night to get anything more than a few scattered hours — but that isn’t an option right now, so he’ll take exorbitant quantities of caffeine instead.
He chugs a third of the coffee in seconds; the heat traces its way down through his esophagus and buries itself between his ribs, settling into a pleasant warmth just behind his sternum before it fades away into nothing.
He takes another sip, embracing the flavor and warmth for another minute before he forces himself back to focus, back to reality. Back to Neal.
“What?” He asks.
“I asked if you’re okay.” Peter eyes him, unable to hide the concern he feels for his CI.
He’s a good man.
Neal gives him a half-hearted smile, tilting his head back and staring at the sky. It's that astoundingly clear blue that seems to make it's appearances only when the air is crisp and cool, one or two clouds with nothing better to do drifting lazily across.
“I’m fine. Just tired.”
It’s true.
Not only is he incredibly sleep-deprived, he misses his family. He wants a hug, or to wrap Tim up tight in his arms and never let go.
Times like these, he really wants this op to be over so he can just go home.
He gives himself another ten seconds of self-pity before he pulls himself together and shoves all the exhaustion and miserable thoughts into a well-used box in the corner of his mind’s attic, to be unpacked at some later date when he inevitably stumbles upon it without intending to.
For now, the sun is shining, people are chattering happily on the sidewalks around him while others shout angrily from their cars, and Jason is humming behind them while Peter explains the jewel heists they’ll be investigating today.
Neal’s brain does the mental equivalent of a cartoon character running off a cliff and then only realizing when it’s too late, his feet slowing to a stop as his brain actually registers Jason.
He glances behind him.
Yep, it’s Jason standing behind there, lips quirked with amusement.
Neal opens his mouth and finds himself unable to speak. He closes it after a minute and stares suspiciously at his coffee instead. “Did they give me fucking decaf?”
“Neal?”
He shakes off the sight of his brother, with a height and strength that a childhood of malnutrition almost certainly would have kept him from reaching if he’d gotten to gr— he cuts himself off with another shake of his head and a deep, shuddering breath.
It doesn't matter if it's decaf or not. If he's hallucinating, either he’s way more desperate for sleep than he'd thought or he's about to have a nasty fever.
“Sorry, it’s nothing. So, the Mayweathers were planning on donating several pieces to the auction next week?”
Peter gives him a considering look, but shrugs. “Yes. It’s supposed to support—”
“Nothing, huh?” Jason asks, the sweetness in his voice a jarring contrast to the ugly look in his eyes. Dick flinches. “Yeah, makes sense you’d say that. I always was nothing to you.”
Dick flinches again, and he’s sure Peter catches the old grief that slips out from his guard, refusing to be hidden.
"Nevermind," Dick says hoarsely, "Peter, I think I need to take a sick day. You mind dropping me off back home?"
Peter frowns deeply. "You look fine to me."
"Dude, you're banging a Fed? What the fuck?" Jason inputs, and suddenly it’s too much, he can’t deal with this right now, and his grief turns into fury at himself, at the world, at Bruce and the Joker and everyone else involved in the tragedy Dick wasn’t even on the planet for, and at the apparition mocking his pain.
Dick snaps, turning to his brother with a fierce glare. "You are a product of my grief. You will either be nice to me for once, shut the hell up, or pay for the psychiatric appointments I will be scheduling because of this."
His anger fades, gone into the wind as Jason laughs and pulls a crisp hundred-dollar bill from his wallet. He tucks it into Dick's numb fingers with a smirk and leans back.
Dick stares blankly at the bill. It feels real.
He turns slowly to face Peter. "Am I having a stroke right now?"
Peter blinks at him, squinting the way he does when he's faced with a tricky puzzle. "I don't think so. Your — friend? — definitely seems to be enjoying this, though. Whatever ‘this’ is, anyway."
What.
Dick looks uncertainly between Peter and Jason, squinting between one and the other. A small, strangled sound escapes his mouth.
“Neal? Are you okay?”
“Peter,” Dick says slowly, “Is there a person standing next to us right now?”
Jason’s grin widens.
Peter’s brow furrows in concern. “Yes. Neal, are you okay?”
Dick holds up a hand to stop him and points at Jason. “Him. Black hair with a white streak, blue eyes, six foot?”
Peter glances at Jason and nods warily.
Dick considers this new development.
“Okay,” he says, “So either we’re both hallucinating, my brother has come back from the dead, or I was lied to."
He thinks for a moment longer. He had a mental breakdown just last year, so it probably isn’t that. Peter is visibly alarmed and Jason looks surprised and a tiny bit conflicted, which means Dick probably said that bit out loud. Oops. Better move on and hope Peter will at least table that particular conversation for later. Jason looks like he wants to say something now, too.
“I doubt you’re hallucinating my dead brother though, so that leaves the other two.”
“Someone lied about your brother dying?” Peter asks, appalled, and Dick hums thoughtfully.
“If they did, it wasn’t Br— our dad. He wouldn’t have come as close to committing suicide as he did if he thought there was even a chance Jason was still alive.”
Jason’s eyebrows skyrocket at that and he laughs again, incredulously this time. “The fuck are you talking about, Dickhead? B didn’t give a shit about me. He ran off and found a replacement before the dust was even fucking settled over my grave.”
“Uh, no?” Dick says, bewildered. “Tim noticed B spiraling and started coming over to keep an eye on him before he succeeded in killing himself. You can see the spreadsheets later if you want.”
Jason jerks in place, eyes widening in shock. The hostility from before vanishes as suddenly as Batman when he’s in the mood to mess with Commissioner Gordon’s head.
“B… didn’t replace me?” Jason asks in a small, vulnerable voice that makes Dick want to wrap him up in a hug and never, ever let him go.
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait—
Dick can wrap him up in a hug and never ever let him go.
“What the fuck!” Jason yelps when Dick launches himself at his brother, latching on as tightly as he can, though he does make sure Jason can still breathe reasonably well. He notes absently that there’s coffee soaking his pants.
“Language,” Dick mumbles, voice muffled against Jason’s shoulder because his baby brother is so fucking tall now, when did that even happen?
“What the fuck.” Jason says again.
It’s kind of funny — Jason is holding his arms out awkwardly where he’d lifted them instinctively when Dick lunged at him, and he can only imagine what Peter’s face looks like.
Jason slowly lowers his hands to pat Dick’s back, clearly uncomfortable. He never did like hugs all that much, too nervous from years of abuse to be completely comfortable with people in his personal space except when he was initiating contact with Bruce or Alfred.
And then, of course, the Joker had gone and ruined it all, just when Dick had finally managed to pull his head out of his ass and started to get over his jealousy.
Fucking Joker. Dick kind of wants to kill him again, but make it stick this time.
“You what?” Jason chokes. Shit, right, he isn’t supposed to admit to that sort of thing, is he? He’s supposed to be non- violent. Dick feels high, the world bright and strange around him; he tightens his grip on Jason to keep his balance.
Peter swears from behind him and tugs ineffectually on Dick’s arm to try to pull him away from Jason.
Joke’s on him, though — nobody can escape Dick’s hugs. It’s his superpower.
…What if Jason doesn’t want a murderer hugging him?
“Okay,” Peter interrupts his spiraling thoughts with the voice he uses when he’s keeping a very tight leash on his emotions and Dick takes a moment to be grateful for his friend-slash-handler, “We need to move somewhere private and you need to not admit to any more felonies in front of me. You can resume hugging the life out of your brother once we’re inside, while you explain what you just said.”
Dick pulls away reluctantly, but latches onto Jason’s hand instead and looks at his face again.
Jason’s face is a collage of conflicting emotions — bewilderment, amusement, confusion, stunned disbelief — as he stares at Dick like this is an outcome he’d never even considered as a possibility. Silly little brother; Dick will burn the world down for his family, even if he’d fallen short on making it clear that Jason was — is — a part of that family.
Dick leads the way back to June’s apartment impatiently, towing Jason along behind him while Peter follows grimly behind. It takes entirely too long to sequester themselves away in his lovely penthouse, waving a distracted hello to June while Peter calls the office in the background to let them know something came up.
Inside, Dick ushers Jason over to the couch where he promptly resumes what Tim refers to as his “weirdly accurate impression of an octopus opening a jar of fish, given that you have actual bones.”
“Neil,” Peter says once the door is closed and locked, “Please explain what’s going on here.”
Right. He admitted to beating the Joker to death, didn’t he? Dick snarls without meaning to, the Joker far too sensitive a topic for him to restrain himself.
“I know we aren’t supposed to, but he was bragging about killing you,” He spits venomously. He’s loathed himself for it since, and loathed B for resuscitating the Joker, and loathed himself more still for that. He’s supposed to be more than his anger, to resist the darkness that’s already swallowed most of Gotham, but he’s never been able to stay objective when it comes to Jason. Not about his jealousy, not about his grief, and certainly not about his murder . “I snapped and I’m not sorry I did it and I’ll do it again if he ever fucking touches you again. Besides, it’s not like B hasn’t tried to do it once or twice.”
It’s not entirely true that he’s not sorry. He is sorry he lost sight of himself long enough to kill a man. He’s not sorry he avenged his brother’s murder.
“B tried to kill the Joker?” Jason reels back — or tries to, anyway — to gape at Dick. “Bullshit. B wouldn’t kill someone if the fate of the world depended on it.”
Peter chokes — Dick ignores him and shrugs.
“The world, maybe not, but Superman had to pull him off the Joker to stop him and then B left him in a helicopter crashing over the Atlantic. Next time B saw him, he broke so many bones the Joker was in traction for six weeks. I saw the file when I was trying to figure out what happened, because nobody was willing to talk about it.”
Vicious satisfaction thrums in his veins at the pain the Joker suffered, the memory of photos of his bloodied face when B had put him in the hospital combining with the crunch Joker’s nose and cheekbones had made against his fist the only satisfaction he’d ever been able to get after Jason’s death.
It wasn’t enough.
Nothing ever will be for someone that mad, that cruel, but he’ll take what he can get.
“Shit,” Jason mutters, stunned. “He really tried to kill the Joker?”
Dick hums an affirmative. He pauses, frowning. “Hey, this isn’t like — an alternate dimension thing, right? You’re not gonna just disappear on me?”
“That happens often enough for you to need to ask?” Jason’s face twists incredulously and he lets out a startled bark of laughter. “Nah, I’m back.”
“Good. Do you — can I ask what happened? After, I mean. Have you really been alive all this time?”
Jason shakes his head.
“Nah, the Joker offed me. Fuck if I know what happened, but the LOA found me wandering around Gotham something like six months later? Dunno, I don’t actually remember much of anything after I woke up in my coffin. I wasn’t really coherent until the Pit; if you can call that coherent, anyway. After that—”
Dick’s brain whites out in horror and he jerks back to stare at Jason.
“The Pit?” He interrupts, “They put you in the Pit?”
“Yeah. Zero out of ten, would not recommend.” Jason pauses to reconsider and then shrugs. “Okay, it gave me back higher brain function so like, four out of ten, but the side of murderous rage isn’t worth it.”
Some odd sound that Dick can’t identify forces its way out of his throat while he latches back onto Jason. Something about that strikes him as wrong, but it takes him a second to figure out what, given the way his mind is at least forty percent occupied with a constant stream of Jason-Jason-Jason-Jason’s alive!
“Wait, what murderous rage? You don’t seem very murderous to me.”
Jason shrugs, eyebrows furrowing. “Yeah, I dunno. I was planning on — uh — well, nevermind, and then you turned around and told me you killed the fucking Joker.” His voice turns hard and angry. “Explain that, by the way. Because last I checked, the fucker’s still running around killing people.”
Dick winces. “B maybe... resuscitated him a little bit?”
Oh, there’s the murderous rage.
Jason’s growl makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up at attention, his instincts screaming Danger! Danger! As loudly as they can. He ignores them, forcing himself not to let go of Jason while he keeps talking, explaining what happened.
“Okay, first the logical argument: we can’t kill anyone, or all of Gotham will be out for our heads. You know that. Second, the real argument, which is that I was — unstable. Very unstable. B was… concerned about my mental health for good reason, and that wasn’t going to help.”
“He killed me,” Jason snarls.
“Neal,” Peter interrupts calmly, voice grave, “Exactly how mentally unstable were you, if this ‘B’ would resuscitate a murderer? What was he afraid of?”
Dick hesitates, unwilling to answer until he sees the betrayal that hasn’t left Jason’s eyes. He looks away, unable to hold his brother’s gaze while he tells him why his murderer is still alive.
“I came… very close to committing suicide that year.”
It’s all he can choke out, but it’s enough: Jason stops growling to stare intently at him, eyes narrowed.
Dick looks away.
They sit there in uncomfortable silence for a long minute, until Jason blurts, “So do you wanna kill the Joker with me since you aren’t suicidal anymore? It’d be therapeutic. And we could bond or some shit. Wait, you aren’t suicidal anymore, right?”
Something eases in Jason’s expression when Dick shakes his head. He hasn’t been suicidal for a while; just depressed. It’s still a nightmare but less of one.
“Can you please stop discussing felonies in front of me?” Peter sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose wearily.
Jason stares at him, unimpressed. “It’s the fucking Joker. That’s not a felony, that’s a favor to humanity.”
“Jason’s not wrong,” Dick shrugs. “If we do, we should cremate him, though. Make it harder for him to come back.”
Peter groans.
Dick can’t help the sudden snicker at the song bit that pops into his head. Jason raises an eyebrow, so he grins and warbles, “Do you wanna kill the Joker? C’mon we’ll kill the clown. He won’t hurt us anymore—” He pauses, searching for the next line, but he has to shrug in defeat. “That’s all I’ve got, sorry.”
“Neal.” Peter frowns sternly at him, but Dick doesn’t miss the way his lips are twitching with badly-hidden amusement.
“Yes, Peter?” He asks innocently.
“You are not committing murder.”
Dick tilts his head, contemplating. “I think we could make a case for self defense.”
“How, Neal?” Peter demands, “How does going out and committing premeditated murder count as self defense?”
Jason snorts. “It’s the Joker. If you exist in the same hemisphere it counts as fucking self defense. What I don’t get is why there isn’t already a kill order out on the sick fuck.”
“It’s Gotham,” Dick shrugs, “They don’t do those except for the people trying to keep the city from being blown up.”
Peter sighs again, in defeat this time.
Dick’s lips twitch into a small smile — this is nice. He’s got his brother, his buddy, his cushy job with the FBI which he now needs to figure out what to do about, because he’s going to need to either fill Peter in on what he’s really doing here or he needs to get J’onn to wipe his memories.
Actually, he might need to call J’onn anyway. Shit, that’s probably step one.
“Hey, Jay,” He hesitates, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re going to have to verify you’re you. There’ve been some… issues.”
“You think I’m a fucking clone?” Jason catches on immediately. “Believe me, I’m not a fucking clone.”
Dick winces. “That’s what Arsenal thought, too.”
“What are you talking about?” Jason stares at him, eyes narrowed, until he gets an answer. Dick’s gaze flickers away and back again.
“He was a plant. Almost from the start, didn’t even know until his brain got hijacked. And then after everything with Superboy — we just need to have J’onn check for any subliminal programming, okay? And he can probably help with any… side effects.”
“What the hell happened while I was gone?” Jason asks uneasily.
Dick thinks bitterly about the clones who’d replaced his friends, about Mirror and Tarantula and Blockbuster, about how Wally hadn’t made it home one day. He closes his eyes for a moment in old, worn grief. “A lot.”
Jason looks at him intently for a long moment, searching his face for something. “Well, whatever, I guess. You wanna explain why you’re working for the feds now, by the way?”
This is the League’s version of an intervention, he doesn’t say. He might have admitted it earlier, but his little brother doesn’t need to know just how bad things have gotten in Dick’s head. Again, he’s not suicidal, but that’s very much an anymore.
“Oh, that? I needed a break and we needed someone to check them out. Peter’s cool.”
Peter goes stiff, eyes narrowing dangerously. “Neal. Explain. Now.”
He could make up a lie or use a cover story, but Peter’s a good man and he’s earned Dick’s trust half a dozen times over. Besides, if the League decides that Peter shouldn’t know the story, he won’t know for long.
He smiles brightly — his PR Darling-of-Gotham expression that makes him seem utterly guileless to anyone who doesn’t know him.
“The JLA is looking at expanding inter-agency cooperation and they want a liaison. I’m vetting you as a potential candidate for the position.”
Peter snorts doubtfully. “Right, and I’m the Queen of England.”
“Wow,” Dick marvels, stifling his laughter, “you’re looking really good for ninety-five, your Highness. What’ve you been doing in the States all this time?”
Jason snickers.
“Ha,” Peter’s expression flattens with irritation. “The truth, Neal.”
That is a significantly less amusing reaction than the one Dick had been going for, but at least Jason thinks it’s funny, judging by his inelegant snort.
Dick huffs. “I already told you. The Justice League of America has asked me to assess the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine the best candidate for an inter-agency liaison to increase cooperation and transparency in a time when increasing conflict makes that cooperation essential to reacting to emergencies in a timely manner so as to prevent casualties, property damage, and other consequences of the extraordinary events that have now become commonplace.”
It’s an irritating spiel he’s heard so many times he hears it in his sleep sometimes, but that’s apparently coming in handy now, because the rote, bored way he rattles the whole thing off speaks of nothing if not bureaucratic nonsense. He didn’t even have to stop for breath this time.
That might be what convinces Peter, actually, because he stares silently at Dick for a long second before he sinks back in his chair, eyebrows raised. “You’re serious.”
“Of course,” Dick says, humor dropping away. He would sit up straight and face Peter, use his body language to communicate just how little he’s joking, but that would require him to let go of Jason, which isn’t going to happen any time soon. “There’s information flowing between all the other agencies already. It’s past time the Justice League improved it’s communication beyond just emergency services and high-level politicians too, especially with disaster relief organizations.”
Peter nods slowly, processing. “Neal Caffrey doesn’t exist.”
An interesting first comment.
Dick shakes his head. “An alias for a number of undercover missions that required light fingers or someone with ties to the criminal underground.”
“So what you’re telling me is that I chased Neal Caffrey for three years for nothing.”
“Uh.” Oops? “It gave me something useful to do on psych leave?”
That was… probably not the best way to word it.
Peter scowls even harder, teeth gritted so hard Dick can almost hear them groaning under the pressure. “You’re going to make me need psych leave.”
Dick hums. “Honestly, I think I’m more likely to give you an ulcer. I don’t think I’ve ever actually driven anyone to psych leave before, but my old partner in the BPD swears she never would have gotten her ulcer if it weren’t for me.”
Peter drops his head into his hands. “Why did I decide to put up with you, again?”
Dick smiles brightly. “You love my sparkling wit and impeccable taste.”
“Impeccable taste my ass,” Jason snorts.
“Hurtful!” Dick protests, squeezing his brother a tiny bit harder in retaliation. “I’ll have you know my taste is fabulous.”
Jason’s eyebrows rise slowly, higher and higher until they can’t go any farther up on his forehead and every syllable is it’s own damnation when he says, with agonizing precision, “Discowing.”
“Disco-what?” Peter lifts his head out of his hands to eye them curiously and Dick cringes at the look on Jason’s face.
“I don’t usually talk to feds,” he says, smiling dangerously, “But I think I’ll make an exception for this.”
This, Dick realizes as he looks between his brother and his handler, may have been a mistake.