projecting onto dick grayson again teehee

Dick gets absorbed entirely by some cases. It doesn't happen often, probably once every couple of months. Each time it happens, there's more concern for his dwindling mental health. He won't sleep, he'll barely eat and the only thing he can reliably get himself is coffee with a stupid amount of sugar. He'll turn his flat into a pig stye and he won't reply to a single soul despite the constant pings of text messages. 

Admittedly, Jason wasn't around enough to know that the habit was well and truly alive. He had brief memories of hearing Barbara fuss over it and Bruce saying he couldn't do anything anymore. So when he was ignored for the fourth day in a row, he assumed Dick was doing it on purpose for some unknown reason. He couldn't think of any laws he'd broken recently or any particularly nasty arguments he'd had so he decided to go find out himself. He'd decidedly spent too long pushing everyone away and he wasn't going to throw the baby out with the bathtub over a couple of unread texts. Plus, Bludhaven coffee was sometimes better than Gotham coffee so it wouldn't be a total loss.

He drove over to Dick's apartment, bringing a coffee as a peace offering if peace needed to be made. Jason always liked this place. Far enough from town to not worry about someone sneaking a pic of Nightwing climbing out the apartment but close enough to get to work quickly. It wasn't too flashy, the neighbours didn't care about the other neighbours and he knew the rent had to be good value if a cheapskate like Dick lived there. Nice place aside, he came here for a reason. 

He knocked on the door, waited and then knocked again. On his third round of knocking, the door finally swung open to reveal Dick Grayson. He was dressed in a severely wrinkled shirt and a pair of well-loved sweatpants. His hair was messy, tied up in a bun that had been slept in at least twice. He stared at Jason for a few moments before leaving the door open and turning around. 

"Hello to you too," Jason muttered before walking inside and closing the door. It was as good of an invitation as any. The apartment was just as messy as the acrobat looked. Papers were thrown about, there was a laptop upturned and making a horrible grating noise so it was definitely overheating, and photos were pinned to any free space where files weren't already stuck there. It looked like a terrible escape room. "I'm guessing this is why you're ignoring me."

Dick didn't reply or maybe he did. He was muttering to himself over and over, just low enough that the words couldn't be made out. He tapped his chin a few times as he thought and his eyes darted over the buckets of evidence. 

"Dick? C'mon man, you can take a second to look at me," Jason huffed. 

"Hi," he said distantly, glancing at him. 

"What's with the new decore?" That seemed to spark Dick's attention. 

"It's a case I've been working on. Ten dead, killed similarly, in the same area, all have brothers but here's the kicker, no evidence left over from the murderer. This person is somehow getting into these people's homes, stabbing and strangling, but isn't seen leaving, isn't seen entering, isn't suspected and there's not even a hair or skin underneath the victim's nails." The younger nodded, feeling like a parent listening to their kid explain the latest convoluted anime they were watching.

"Right and, just out of interest, when did you last sleep or ingest anything other than coffee?" Instead, Dick started pacing as he spouted out more information. 

"I have three suspects. Well, two names and one idea. The landlord, the drug dealer that lives on the top floor has been known to be kind to those who don't snitch but has a hefty rap sheet for those who do or a brother-themed serial killer. Maybe they lost their brother or have a hatred of brothers. I don't know but I know there's a theme there."

"And what about my question?"

"Y'know, the brother thing could be a coincidence since a lot of people in that area have two children or more. Weird coincidence maybe?" His pacing was irritating. It wasn't a full pace, it was a couple of steps more or less in either direction which annoyed Jason to no end. If you're going to pace then at least do it evenly. He didn't have an answer to his question either although he could take an educated guess. He sighed to himself and reached out.

"Dude, will you just-" as soon as his hand hit the acrobat's shoulder, he was thrown onto his back and hit the paper-covered floor with a muffled thump. The worst part was that Dick seemingly didn't even notice what he'd done. He continued to babble in whispered sentences under his breath as he made random connections to pictures. "Oh, so you are aware in your little trance," Jason grumbled as he got back on his feet and cracked his back. "I'd love to walk out right now but I have a list of people as long as my arm that would kill me if I did that."

"I've only got three murder suspects," Dick said as if in response but it was too coincidental to tell. 

"Great, but I think it's time you get to bed. You look like you're about to collapse." He stood in front of Dick this time and tried again to put his hand on his shoulder. This time, he didn't get flung to the floor. "Progress." He moved his hand to the crook of Dick's arm and held it tightly before tugging him along to his bedroom. Well, he attempted to. Dick stood firm and remained in the same place, sliding a little from his spot but always returning to it. "You're such hard work," Jason huffed. 

It was like he'd uttered the magic words because Dick froze in his tracks and his mouth clamped shut. His once unfocused eyes now focused wholly on his younger brother. 

"Leave then," he said. His voice was forced to sound plain but the hurt was clear on his face. 

"What?"

"You should go. Actually, I'm saying you need to go. Can't work with you here, you're just slowing me down." He grabbed Jason by the bicep and started marching him out with much more success than his brother had when trying to move him. 

"Get off-" The door opened and no sooner had it opened, he was pushed out and it slammed in his face. A series of clicks could be heard, presumably the locks on the door, and he would be concerned by the number of them if he wasn't from Gotham. He stood stunned for a moment as he registered what happened and then banged on the door. "Oi!" He didn't even do anything! All he said was that Dick was hard work whilst actively trying to help him, surely he was allowed to complain a little if he was still helping, right? 

When no reply graced him, he decided he needed some guidance or preferably some backup for his next attempt. Usually, he didn't try half as hard as this but Dick didn't look well. The man was born with a metabolism that could rival a speedster so he had very little doubt that his body was happy with the lack of food. He already looked like he was losing weight even if this case was only a few days old. Jason supposed he forgot to eat well beforehand. He was probably a minute away from collapsing at any moment too. The last thing he wanted was for the acrobat to drop dead in there and for everyone to point a finger at him since he was the last to see him. 

From his short list of contacts, he decided Barbara was the best one to go to. She'd been with Dick long enough to figure out how to break through his stubbornness with a level of patience Jason could only dream of. 

"I need your help."

"I won't tell you again, I'm not erasing evidence of your dance recital. You looked adorable as a flower," Barbara greeted. He groaned irritably. He hated that stupid video and he still couldn't find the original copy, he was just destroying copies.

"It's not about that. It's Dick. He's on a bender to finish this case and he looks like utter shit. I tried to get him to stop but he just kicked me out and I'd rather have some game plan in mind before I try going through a window. He might just throw me out of it if I don't."

"Wait, why did he throw you out in the first place? When he's like that, he doesn't even notice other people exist unless you ask about the case."

"That's the thing, all I said was that he was hard work and then I'm kicked out." There was a short sigh on the other end of the phone. 

"Yeah, he's uh, he's not fond of the term."

"Touched a nerve?"

"I'm not fond of it either."

"Lover's tiff?"

"Something like that."

--- Flashback --- aka I wrote the bit above and wanted to write the scene instead of explain it ---

Barbara, for lack of a better term, was struggling. She knew she was struggling and if she were a little less prideful, she would tell someone before it got to this point. Dick was struggling too and when she once found empathy, she could only find irritation. 

Her relationship with Dick had always been give and take even in their worst moments. She could never say that he didn't give just as much as she did but some days, it was hard to say she gave him everything back. Some days, she just couldn't find it in herself to find the patience she once had for him and she hated herself for that yet couldn't bring up what she had before.

Perhaps it was because she was relying on him more as she came to terms with her life in a wheelchair. She knew she could do just as much good behind a computer as she could out as a vigilante but now she was waking up in pain every day, she couldn't shower on her own and it was a God knows the world wasn't accommodating to anyone different. 

Dick was working a case and had gotten into that mode where he neglected everything but the investigation. Strangely, he still helped her. He couldn't stop long enough to ingest anything other than coffee but he could spend an hour on her PT although conversation was limited. He'd mumble different theories and then quickly strike them off. It was driving her mad. She knew in the past that she'd gently coax him to sit down somewhere comfortable and slowly talk him down until his brain finally decided to relax. She used to find it sort of adorable how blunt and truthful he got when he was sleep-deprived, she could look back on their conversations with fondness. 

Her final straw came when her wheelchair got caught on a large box of paper files. She guessed the chair nearly tipping over and the thought of her being on the floor, unable to get back up without help, put her on edge. Dick hadn't turned around at the noise but she knew for a fact he heard it because he was raised by Bruce. He was trained to hear every little change in his environment and it wasn't something you could turn off. That hadn't helped her foul mood either. 

"Dick, will you move that thing?"

"Move that thing?" he repeated in the same tone. Had she taken a second to calm down, she would have recognised that when he repeated her words, he was deep into sleep deprivation. She would remember that he hadn't come to bed in at least five days.

"Yeah, move the fucking thing," she snapped, thinking he'd been mocking her. He hummed distantly but he did end up moving it to underneath the coffee table. "Your shit is everywhere, do you know how hard it is to move around when you leave the place like this?"

"Place. Move," he echoed. 

"Will you go get some sleep? I can't deal with you like this."

"Go?" he questioned. Again, she didn't remember that he was just repeating her words and whatever he had meant by that had been lost in translation because she hadn't said enough for him to knit something together. 

"I'd fucking love to but I don't have anywhere do I? I'm stuck here with you and your stupid case. All you do is mutter random shit under your breath. Speaking of, your breath stinks of coffee. It's like I'm kissing a coffee grinder." He shrank in on himself. Distantly, she realised she'd broken through his haze faster than she'd ever done before through kindness. She thought she was getting somewhere and she needed to let off steam. 

"Love you," he said quietly. She hadn't said those words yet. That should've calmed her down. It should've made her pause. It didn't.

"I don't love you right now. You're such hard work and I'm really doubting if you're worth it. I've got to deal with enough right now, I don't need your clutter and that stupid thing you do when you're invested in a case. You're so difficult to be around, if I could leave I would." As soon as she said it, she knew she had gone too far. His eyes cleared momentarily only to fill with tears. He was extra sensitive when he was sleep-deprived. She may as well have said it was his fault Jason died. "Clean this up and get some sleep. You need it," she added to hopefully come across as showing some tough love not using him as a punching bag. He believed the act as much as she did...so not at all. 

"Some sleep," he mumbled. Barbara nodded and watched him carefully, part of her mind begging her to wipe that hurt look off his face and the other part just not having the energy to. "Clean first. Then sleep."

"Sure. Whatever."

Dick did sleep that night. On the couch. He'd spent the day cleaning, again not eating, and she thought for a second he might join her when he got changed into his pyjamas but he made a B-line right to the couch. Barbara got a little ahead of herself assuming things were fine when he came to bed the night after even if he did lie on the very edge of it.

Something came on TV one night when they were in bed together. She couldn't remember exactly what it was but she knew it would trigger Dick. She turned it off as soon as she realised and she turned to her boyfriend, ready for him to come to her for comfort but he just shut down. It was eerie. He had a habit of pinching the skin on his forearm when he felt overwhelmed. It started as a kid, he told her once that his mother had hated it, and that it had since lessened since they got together and trusted each other enough to talk about the things they kept inside. She was happy to see the habit go and hadn't seen it in years but she saw it now. Pinching. Hard enough to leave the skin red and likely hard enough to leave a bruise. 

She remembered reaching over to gently pry his hand away and he'd moved away. Dick, a man who craved any sort of physical attention, had actively denied her and went back to pinching. She frowned. Maybe she got the trigger wrong and this was something else. Something that touch wouldn't do much for. Barbara leaned over to her bedside table and pulled out a stress ball to give him instead. He did take it when it was offered but he got a weirdly guilty look on his face.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Thank you."

"We don't have to talk about it but I'd like to." That usually coaxed him to reveal small parts of how he felt but instead, it seemed to push him away further.

"No, I don't want to be a bother."

"You're not a bother."

"Just hard work," he muttered.

"I didn't mean-"

"It's okay, Babs. I know I'm a lot of work. I'm trying to be less of one. Again." She narrowed her eyes at that. Again. 

"What do you mean by that?" He smiled sadly.

"You're not the first to tell me that. You were the first to not tell me that but I guess it was a matter of time," he answered. "I'm gonna go lay down," he added as he started getting up.

"Where are you going?"

"To lay down?"

"We're in bed," she pointed out.

"On the couch. I'll have a nightmare," he said matter-of-factly before leaving. She didn't know it then but she knew it now. Their relationship wasn't the same and behind eyes that once looked at her with complete trust, was questioning if this was an act.

---End flashback---

"Ah," Jason said. It's all he could find to say. 

"Look, come pick me up and we'll try again together. He's still not completely comfortable with me but he's better with me over you."

"Gee, thanks."

"You're not exactly the warmest person around, Jay."

"Yeah, fair enough. I'll be there soon."

"Don't use the motorbike."

"I'm not an idiot, I'll get a van." He was very much going to use the motorbike. Now he had to steal a van. Dick better appreciate the effort he was going into.

Armed with Barbara by his side, Jason knocked on the door again. He didn't get a reply so he glanced at the ginger for help. She tutted and got out her spare key, opening the door but ultimately being stopped by the chains from the locks. Jason quickly undid them before she had to ask and they entered the apartment. In the short time it took to pick up Barbara, the apartment had somehow got messier and now Dick was half-dressed in his suit frantically looking around his apartment. 

"Hey pixie boots, what're we looking for?" Barbara asked. He glanced up at her and didn't seem to question what she was doing there. 

"Caffeine pills. Put 'em somewhere. Need to stay awake," he explained. 

"Why do you need to stay awake?" she inquired. He hesitated for a moment but when he saw her soft smile remain, he excitedly went over to his wall where tangled red yarn had been pinned into different pictures and bank statements.

"I figured it out. It's the landlord. All tenants were behind on rent but all have agreements with the previous landlord that they have a year to catch up. That agreement means they can't get kicked out because it's legally recognised so they're basically living rent-free. The landlord has debt, needs the money, so murder is the next viable option. The next person behind is Miss Taylor, she lost her job as a bank teller because she broke up with her boyfriend who was actually the boss-"

"Dick, take a breath," Barbara insisted.

"Judging by the rest of the murders, they're killed on the day the landlord has set for other tenants to be kicked out due to unpaid rent, so that means Miss Taylor will be murdered at 6 pm tonight so I've got to go-"

"Absolutely not," Jason stated. Dick pouted. A full-on pout as though he were five. 

"But she'll be murdered. This guy isn't even dangerous. I just need the pills."

"You've not slept, you haven't been eating and you've just calmed down enough to talk to us. Before, you hardly acknowledged what Jason was saying," she argued back. He raised an eyebrow.

"You guys just came over."

"I was here before. You threw me out, remember?" He furrowed his eyebrows in a scowl as he thought hard. 

"Oh, so you did. Sorry about that."

"It's fine but you're not going out. I'll go instead so nobody dies and you can get some rest."

"But-"

"The only but there's gonna be is your butt in bed," Barbara told him, gently reaching out and holding his hand despite the sternness in her voice.

"I came up with a pun and everything."

"With how sleep-deprived you are, it wouldn't have gotten a laugh anyway," Jason pointed out. He grumbled something under his breath and stared at the slender hand wrapped around his. He guessed he was a little tired. It would be nice to lay down for a little bit. 

"She's in apartment 12B. There's a south-facing window across the hall from her apartment that you can enter through."

"Thanks, Goldie. You okay holding down the fort, Babs?"

"Of course."

Even after Jason took the case, he still seemed antsy to work on it. It was almost like he was unsure of his conclusion and needed more proof. Barbara swiftly redirected him to the bedroom though. He was overthinking it, she'd seen it happen before. He got to the point of being so deep in a case that when he solved it, he assumed that he'd gotten the wrong answer. 

"It just seems too easy," Dick mumbled as he was ushered to his bedroom. He kept glancing back to his mess of a living room but Barbara persevered. She hummed along and helped him out of his suit. "Don't you think it's too easy?"

"I think you need some sleep."

"If it was the landlord then surely I would've figured it out days ago, right?"

"You probably had a good group of suspects. Did you sleep since you started?" He shook his head guiltily as he crawled into bed. "You might've gotten it if you let yourself rest. You get weird when you don't sleep." He pulled up the covers and stopped meeting her eyes when she spoke. "What?"

"I'm sorry you had to come over," he muttered. "I didn't mean to be a bother."

"You're not a bother."

"Don't lie." She sighed and pushed herself out of her chair so she could sit on the bed. Almost as though it were second nature, Dick helped her up the bed and sit against the headboard. Her heart stuttered when his hands held her hips but she swiftly shoved that feeling away. She knew their relationship was a shadow of what it once was with them now living separately so she desperately missed the smallest things like being able to touch him but that wasn't what she wanted to concentrate on right now. 

"Are we gonna talk about what I said? Because I think we need to talk about it."

"What's there to talk about? I did what I always did," he replied. 

"You didn't do anything you hadn't done before. I snapped and said something I don't believe."

"You do believe it. I know you do."

"Okay fine, I meant that you are hard work but so am I! I mean, just look at how I've handled this change. I've been snappy, we're living apart because I was pushing you away-"

"Wait, you asked me to leave because you were pushing me away?"

"Yeah. We were always so physical and I thought if I pushed you away first, it wouldn't hurt as much when you left me," she explained although he just seemed to stay confused. "Why do you think I asked you to move out?"

"I thought I got too much? It was so soon after our fight and when I slept on the couch a lot. I just assumed you didn't want me around anymore but still liked me enough to stay. Maybe it was a pity move, I didn't know." She stared at him. Fuck. 

"I should've explained."

"You didn't need to," he insisted. "You wanted me to move out and I agreed." He fiddled with the blanket. "I love you, Babs. As a friend first, I always have. 'Course, I like you like a girlfriend too. I just- well I understood that I'm better in small doses."

"No, you're better when you're with me all the time. Why do you think I still nagged you as Oracle even when we stopped living together? I love you, I just find it hard to express sometimes and I shouldn't have made you think it was because you were too much."

"That's what I'm saying, I am too much. Everyone has said it at one point."

"Then," she paused. "You're my too much. I love you. I love it when you get so sleepy you tell me I'm beautiful over and over, I love that even when you got absorbed by your cases you still looked out for me despite how I reacted and I love that you moved out because I asked you to without fighting me on it. I love the mess of you." She leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder. "I've got my own problems, especially with how my life has turned upside down and I took it out on you. I loved looking after you and I felt like I couldn't do that anymore."

"I loved it when you looked after me too," he admitted softly as though it were a secret. "You're the only one who made me feel like you did it because you wanted to, not because you had to. Then you said I was hard work and I felt like this really nice thing we had became another person looking out for me because they felt they had to."

"I got annoyed that our relationship changed, I think. We were always give and take so when it felt like I was just taking I got on edge. I thought you'd get sick of me."

"Can I say something I sorta hate myself for?"

"Sure."

"I liked that we weren't as physical. I didn't explain a lot about what happened with Blockbuster but I wasn't as comfortable with everything we did but I didn't know how to tell you. I like having sex, don't get me wrong, but I didn't like it as much back then."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why didn't you tell me why you wanted me to move out?"

"Touche," she grumbled, lightly swatting him on the shoulder. "We're gonna work on this. We'll communicate more."

"I'd like that."

"You should sleep first though."

"Will you stay?" She didn't miss a beat with her answer.

"Bold of you to assume I wouldn't."