Work Text:
“Oh dear,” Alfred says, pulling Dick’s attention away from the photo album all of the kids are gathered around, which is filled with pictures from Dick’s years at the manor.
It’s a photo album that Alfred had put together in his free time, one that Dick had never seen before. He’d dug through old boxes of photos and recognized several of the ones in the album from the times he chose to reminisce on his childhood, but he’d never had anyone make an entire album of his memories before. Maybe he would have gotten around to it, eventually, but Alfred had beaten him to it.
It made Dick’s chest feel warm when Alfred had set it on the table in front of the whole family, and the warmth only grew more intense as all of his siblings gathered around to flip through it, teasing Dick for his fashion taste and giggling at the numerous photos of him hanging upside down from the ballroom’s chandelier.
Alfred had mentioned that he’d also made one for Jason, but he was politely turned down. Jason wasn’t quite there, yet. He didn’t like to look at most pictures of himself from his childhood. Dick had learned that about him early on in their reconnection when Jason had gone uncomfortably silent after Dick showed him that his lock screen was a photo of the two of them from before Jason had died.
It’s one of Dick’s favorite photos: a grainy selfie taken at a stoplight, probably while Dick was taking Jason to go pick up some fast food together, something that was only just starting to become a regularity in the months before Jason’s death, and Jason looked happy. Apprehensive, guarded, but happy. They hadn’t ever really gotten past that stage, back then, when they were still strangers and every interaction felt awkward and delicate. They still aren’t really past that stage now, but Dick could not be more grateful to be back at square one.
Dick had changed his lock screen, opting to keep the photo saved to his favorites instead.
“Is something wrong, Alfie?” Dick asks, peering through the doorway connecting the dining room and kitchen to see Alfred staring down at the sink. It looks like it is filled halfway up with soapy water. Alfred glances his way briefly, before shaking his head. “The sink is no longer draining. It’s been acting up for the past few weeks and I have tried every remedy I can think of. I’m afraid I’ll have to disassemble the pipe to clear out the blockage.”
As Alfred opens the cabinets underneath the sink, Dick glances around the kitchen. There are still so many dishes left to be washed, and Alfred has already cooked dinner for a much larger party than normal, given that everyone, even Steph and Jason, have joined them tonight.
“Oh my god!” Steph shrieks, picking the photo album up off of the table and turning it to face Dick. Duke curves his upper body around the book to peer at the picture Steph is enthusiastically pointing to. “Look at how young Alfred is here!”
The photo is hard for Dick to see very clearly from this distance, but it appears to be Dick and Alfred standing side by side, rolling globs of cookie dough into balls to be baked.
Alfred turns over his shoulder to look at the photo she’s referencing. “Yes, Miss Brown. Astoundingly enough, I have not always been as old as I am now.” With how close Dick is to him, though, he can see that his mild annoyance is actually masking an emotion much more sincere. Alfred is a bit flustered at the commotion over what is almost certainly the one photo of him in the entire album. Alfred has never been interested in the spotlight, and it likely took a great deal of indecisive back-and-forth for him to even choose to put one of the rare photos of the two of them into the photo album.
Dick feels, embarrassingly enough, choked up at this sudden realization.
“I love that photo,” Dick says, looking at Steph but directing his words entirely to Alfred. He really does love the photo, and he’s struck by how few photos of Alfred he has to love. This is one of the men who helped raise him, and he has maybe a handful of photos to show for it. Bruce probably has even less from his own childhood, given Alfred’s aversion to photos of himself and that no one else was around then to take them.
He’ll make sure to have Bruce and Alfred stand in front of the tree later, or maybe he’ll be able to sneak in some candids. He’ll make it happen.
“I thought you said you trusted no one but me to cook in your kitchen.” Jason glares accusingly at the photo.
“Master Dick is the reason that rule exists.” Alfred turns away from the dining area entirely to direct his attention toward the kitchen sink once more.
Alfred has always been spry, able to do things most older men can’t, but his age still shows as he bends his knees and slowly begins to lower himself to the ground.
“Hey, Alf,” Dick interrupts. He can’t sit by and watch Alfred cook, clean, and work on the plumbing, especially not after giving him the gift of watching all of his siblings fawn over his childhood photos. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it.”
Dick bends down onto his own knees next to him.
“I assure you, Master Dick, I have it handled.” Alfred’s expression is unwavering poise as he kneels in front of the pipes.
“Ah, come on. I’ve been working on my own stuff around the apartment, I swear. Let me give it a shot,” Dick tries.
“Respectfully,” Alfred begins, one eyebrow raised. “I’m not sure I want anyone experimenting on these pipes while I still have unwashed dishes to clean.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” comes Jason’s voice, suddenly much closer than it had been moments ago. He must’ve gotten tired of looking through the photo album. Dick pushes down the unpleasant feeling in his chest that he missed Jason taking part in family activities. He has to do that a lot now that Jason is around them more and patiently tries to remind himself that there will be more opportunities in the future for him to spend time with Jason. He just has to be careful in moments like this to not smother him with attention.
Jason’s eyes bounce back and forth between the two of them when Dick leans back to look up at him.
“I do actually know how to fix a clogged pipe, unlike Goldie here.”
“Hey!” Dick protests at the same time Alfred sighs reluctantly.
“It’s pointless. I will not have anything else to do to fill my time while I wait for it to be done. I’ll still have to clean the remaining dishes afterward.”
“We’ll clean the dishes for you, too,” Jason counters. “Merry Christmas.”
“It’s Christmas Eve, Master Jason,” Alfred reminds him as if it matters.
“Merry Christmas Eve, then. Better yet, Happy Hanukkah.” Jason nods his head towards the menorah they can see faintly glowing from the hallway to the main room. Alfred looks unimpressed.
Jason sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s so clearly a gesture he picked up from Alfred that Dick can’t help the way his lips quirk up.
“You’re going to be cooking us all a big meal tomorrow. Let us thank you for it. ‘Sides, it’ll be fun for me. I can boss these morons around, you know. It’ll be funny to see Bruce washing a dish for the first time in, what, at least a decade?”
“I’ve definitely never seen him wash one,” Dick contributes.
“We can even teach the kid how to wash dishes.”
“Which one?” Dick asks curiously.
“You better not be talking about me,” Tim calls out from the other room. Had they really been talking that loudly? “I know how to wash dishes.”
The tone of his voice implies he’s directing some kind of look or gesture at Damian. Dick cringes, waiting to hear a yelp from Tim in response to Damian’s retaliating blow, but nothing comes.
Instead, “Washing dishes cannot be that difficult,” Damian huffs, but he sounds distracted. “Richard, did all boys dress the way you did, or was that a personal choice?” he calls snootily. Dick twists to try and see if they are holding up the album so he can answer the question properly, but instead, he can see that it’s flat on the table, all of the other kids peering down at it.
“Let me see,” Tim says, crowding forward to look. “That’s a color-block jacket. Those are still in!”
Dick has seen Tim wearing color-block clothing from time to time.
“Are they?” Damian answers, not even glancing up from the photo. Tim rolls his eyes, but he presses against Damian’s side, peering at the page.
Dick smiles, unable to help himself.
“What do you say?” Jason asks Alfred, who stares at the sink with doubt in his eyes.
“If the sink is inoperable when I start Christmas dinner, I will make you all suffer through pizza for the occasion,” he remarks, pulling himself up from the floor.
Dick brightens. “I don’t mind piz—” he begins before he’s cut off by a sharp smack to the head from Jason.
“We wouldn’t dare ruin one of your Christmas dinners,” Jason answers, sounding just pointed enough that Dick gets the hint. He grins up at Alfred from where he’s seated cross-legged on the floor.
“We’ve got it handled,” he reassures him. “Jay, find me a bucket.”
Alfred and Jason leave the room together, leaving Dick seated on the kitchen tile to listen to the chatter from the dining room.
“That’s the ballroom, isn’t it?” Duke asks, pointing to a photo.
“No.” Cass shakes her head. “Wrong windows.”
Tim squints at the photo. “B, where was this taken?”
Bruce’s head comes into view. He’d been seated off to the side, waiting for the kids to show him the photos they deemed the most entertaining. Dick has a sneaking suspicion, though, that Bruce will be taking the photo album with him up to his room after everyone else goes to bed.
“I’m not sure.” Bruce tilts his head at the photo. “It was an event with a photographer. I didn’t take the photo. I hadn’t even known Dick had fallen asleep for a portion of the event until afterward when the hosts sent me this picture.”
Dick doesn’t remember the photo or the event he’s talking about. It probably wasn’t the only fancy party he fell asleep at over the years, but maybe the only one where he’d been caught. Bruce probably preferred those nights over the ones where Dick was caught sliding down banisters or sneaking into closed-off rooms.
The kids start making a commotion about the next photo in the album, but Bruce doesn’t move on from the last photo just yet. Dick watches as his thumb comes down to rest atop the plastic layer protecting the picture, and even with the way Bruce is backlit by the bright dining room chandelier, Dick can still make out the hint of a smile on his face.
“I thought sentimentality would be beneath you, B,” Jason says as he returns with the bucket, settling down right next to Dick on the ground. The opening of the cabinet is small, but Jason is bossy, so he pushes his weight against Dick’s side until Dick shifts over to give him more room.
Bruce doesn’t answer Jason’s quip, but Dick can hear him giving answers to the kids as they ask more questions about the photos. Jason tucks the bucket up under the pipes.
“Do you actually know what you’re doing, or were we both lying to Alfred?” Dick asks him, keeping his voice hushed like Alfred might pop out of the shadows with a disappointed look on his face.
Jason does what Dick has come to know as his equivalent of an amused chuckle. It’s not really a laugh, it’s hardly a smile, but it’s something. The boy Dick had just been getting to know when he passed had been much more free with his laughter, though still somewhat reserved. Nowadays, Dick takes any hint of amusement as a win.
“Just let me handle it,” he tells Dick, leaning forward to start the process.
“Hey, wait,” Dick interrupts, reaching out to stop Jason’s hand. “I bet it’s easy. I can figure it out. Go hang out with the kids. You’re missing baby photos.”
“You’re missing baby photos,” Jason says knowingly, and Dick’s cheeks grow warm. “Go.” He tips his head in the direction of the dining room.
Dick glances over at the group again, watching them fawn over what must be a particularly cute photograph. Even Damian looks endeared.
It’s true that Dick has longed for moments like these for a long time, starting from being a lonely kid in a big house, desperately wondering if little siblings would fill the familial void in him. Had Dick allowed himself to, he would have fantasized about a moment just like this one, with all of the family under one roof, looking at his childhood photos, laughing and asking him questions.
Jason is seated next to him, though, shoulder-to-shoulder, knowing him so well that he’s telling him to go enjoy it, and Dick has spent a long time longing for this, too. The yearning for family has been decades long, but the yearning for Jason to be here to enjoy it, too, has been immeasurably painful and unbearably out of reach.
“I have to learn sometime. Who else is going to fix my plumbing?” Dick grins, and Jason gives him an annoyed look.
“Your landlord,” he says dryly. “You’ve lived in an apartment your entire adult life.”
“What if I decide to buy a house one day?” Dick asks, gesturing at the sink. “Am I just supposed to call you then?”
Jason scoffs indignantly. “I’m not driving all the way to Bludhaven just to fix your plumbing.”
“What if it was to fix my plumbing and have dinner?”
Jason wrinkles his nose. “Just the two of us?”
Dick feels his heart clench briefly in his chest. Of course he’d meant just the two of them, but they hadn’t ever intentionally spent time together, just the two of them, since Jason came back. They are brothers, but they haven’t had much time to actually be brothers, and pushing for one-on-one time with Jason is not going to make him feel comfortable enough to hang out at the manor like this. He isn’t supposed to smother.
“A big family dinner, like this,” Dick counters, gesturing towards the sound of laughter from the other room. “I’ll cook.”
“Alfie is the only one who can bribe me with food, even in hypothetical scenarios,” Jason answers, but he doesn’t sound too irritated, so Dick takes a breath of relief that he hadn’t screwed up too badly. Jason reaches forward, beginning to unscrew the connectors on the pipe. “Watch. I’ll teach you. I don’t want you to break the sink the night before Alfie’s Christmas dinner.”
Dick watches as he unscrews the connectors and pulls out the piece of pipe, the water from the sink draining down into the bucket.
“Ta-da,” Jason announces in a monotone, holding the pipe up in front of Dick.
Dick gapes. “That was it? How would I have possibly screwed that up?”
Jason shrugs. “You overthink things.”
“I do not—” Dick begins, cutting himself off when he realizes that Bruce is silently standing behind them. He doesn’t jump in surprise, but it’s a near thing. “Jesus. Hey, Dad.”
“Thank you for helping Alfred, boys,” Bruce says. He’s staring down at them, which makes the angle to look up at him a little strenuous on Dick’s neck, but he tries anyway.
“No problem,” Dick responds cheerfully, even as Jason makes a face.
Bruce crouches down beside them, staring ahead at the pipe.
“This is ridiculous,” Jason mutters. “We don’t need three people to clean a P-trap.”
“What’s a P-trap?” Dick asks.
Jason sighs. “This is.” He holds up the pipe once more.
“Why is it called that?”
“Because it’s shaped like the letter P,” Jason replies, sounding very close to hitting Dick over the head with it.
Dick cocks his head at it. “Not really.”
“What letter does it look like to you?”
“Does it have to look like a letter? It looks like a U-turn.”
“Why do you think it’s called a U-turn, you—” Jason cuts himself off, glaring at Dick. “You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?” Dick tries not to smile.
“He’s been doing that for as long as I can remember,” Bruce interjects. “Believe me, there’s no talking him out of it.”
A sudden shout comes from the dining room. “Jason, you have to come look at this picture of Bruce!” Steph calls, shaking the photo book.
“Be careful with that,” Bruce instructs tiredly.
Jason thrusts the pipe into Bruce’s hands, standing up with a sigh and crossing the kitchen into the dining room. He’s still wearing a scowl, but when he looks where Steph points, his face relaxes slightly. He says something to her and she giggles. Dick couldn’t quite hear what he said, but he smiles anyway.
When he turns back to Bruce he is startled to find him already looking back, watching him with an expression that Dick does not want to take the emotional energy to puzzle out.
“I’ve got it.” Dick takes the pipe, starts the water on the sink, and tries to flush the gunk inside of it out.
Bruce doesn’t return to the dining room, though. Instead, he chooses to awkwardly stand by as Dick clears out the pipe and sits back down to screw it in.
“I’d rather stay here. I think I’ve heard enough about how old I look now in comparison to those photos.”
Dick snorts. He can hear the shifting of Bruce’s loafers as he squats down next to him. How long will it be before Bruce takes as much time to lower himself down to the ground as Alfred did earlier?
“You’re not that old,” Dick tells him, but he knows it sounds less like a protest and more like a plea.
Bruce looks at him with eyes so soft that Dick’s throat burns. He swallows it down, staring at the hardware store logo on the bucket.
“I didn’t think so either until I saw those pictures. You used to only go up to my stomach.”
“Well, don’t worry. I don’t think I’ll ever be taller than you.” He can feel Bruce still watching the side of his face carefully.
“I’ve been told people get shorter as they get older. I’ve only got a few inches on you.”
Dick sniffs. “I’m holding you to that. I better be taller than you one day.”
Bruce nods. “Maybe you’ll even outgrow Jason. He might shrink faster than you do,” he jokes.
Dick shakes his head passionately. “No. No, I don’t want to outgrow Jay, I—”
Bruce places a hand on his shoulder, cutting him off. Dick props his elbow up onto his knee and presses the lower half of his face into his palm, looking as far away from Bruce as he can.
“I don’t want to outgrow any of you either,” Bruce murmurs gently, squeezing the curve of his shoulder.
Dick puts a concentrated effort into breathing slowly the moment he feels his eyes start to sting. It’s not fair, is it? Bruce has had to carry on through the grief of losing so many people, even some of his children, and Dick is sniveling about the hypothetical concept of losing one of them. On top of that, he’s passing it all off onto Bruce, making him worry about it, too.
“I know.” Dick blinks hard, once. Bruce switches the placement of his hand to Dick’s other shoulder so that his arm is wrapped around him. It feels safe, the way Bruce always did growing up. He’s not sure when he stopped leaning into it the way he did back then.
Dick turns his whole body towards Bruce, pressing his nose into his shoulder and holding his breath for several long moments.
“I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, having your heart walking around outside of your body.” Bruce’s shoulder shifts under Dick’s cheek as he looks at the dining room. No one must be watching them, because he turns back after a moment.
“Why did you drag me into it then?” Dick laughs, his voice thick.
Bruce just shakes his head, sighing to himself. “You’ve kept this family together, even when I haven’t.”
Dick makes a protesting sound. “Not always.”
“The end result is the important part. This is the first Christmas I’ve had you all under the same roof.” He presses his cheek against Dick’s hair. “You gave me that.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Dick argues, pulling his head up to look at Bruce. He’s surprised to find his father’s eyes red-rimmed and undeniably fond.
“Yes, you did.” His tone is final. Screaming laughter erupts from the dining room. Bruce’s lip quirks up in response, just barely. “I want you to enjoy it. Even when I’m not around anymore.”
Dick inhales sharply, ducking his head back down. Bruce guides him forward, folding him into even more of a hug than their previous position.
“I may have built this family,” Bruce’s chest rumbles against Dick’s ear. “But you kept it together.”
Bruce doesn’t hug tightly, but he does hug with intention. He wraps his one arm around Dick easily given his broad frame, and with the other he keeps Dick’s head pressed against his chest. Dick knows he can feel the way his chest hitches with a near-silent sob, but he says nothing. He waits quietly for it to pass.
“Okay, okay,” Dick says wetly, pushing back from Bruce’s embrace when he’s pretty sure he’s cried out. “Stop making me cry on Christmas Eve, of all days,” he whines, sniffling and brushing the tears away from where they’re clinging to his eyelashes.
It’s true that Dick has tried so hard to keep them all together, but he’s not sure he’s done as good of a job as Bruce seems to think he has. He’s hurt every single one of them at one point or another, he holds grudges, and he clings too hard when he needs to let go.
They’re all still here, though, despite everything.
“Thank you,” Bruce murmurs, pulling his arm away.
Maybe Bruce is right. Maybe he did do something right.
He shifts the pipe in his grip, blinking quickly. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
Dick pulls the bucket out and ducks his head into the cabinet, slowly screwing on the connectors.
“Oh,” Dick says as he finishes the last couple of turns. “Now it looks like the letter P.”
Out of nowhere, Dick hears Jason bark a laugh, loud and free and so, so similar to the sound of a young Robin years ago. Dick’s head jerks up, slamming against the top of the cabinet, making all the dishes on the countertop rattle. He hisses, clutching at the spot as he properly removes his head from the cabinet.
“Dick—” Bruce starts, concerned, but Dick isn’t listening to him.
Jason is still laughing when he twists to look, a wide grin stretched across his face, but he isn’t even laughing at Dick. He’s staring down at another one of the photos in the album, eyes lit up with amusement.
“Dick.” Jason looks up and meets his eyes. “Come look at this one, come on.”
“Dick,” Bruce calls, sounding more exasperated this time.
Dick stands, body feeling a little numb, and drifts into the dining room. Jason picks up the book and tilts it toward him.
“Remember this?” he asks, a dimple Dick had forgotten about appearing on his cheek.
The photo he’s directing Dick’s attention to is a memory that he hadn’t thought about in a long time. It’s Dick and Jason, sitting in front of the Christmas tree in the manor, wearing matching, horrifically ugly sweaters and looking deeply uncomfortable in them.
Dick laughs quietly, brushing his thumb over the photo. “This is from that year Alfred got really into crocheting.”
“Yeah,” Jason chuckles, nodding. He smiles down at the photo, his shoulder bumping into Dick’s as he holds it out for him to keep looking. “Remember the socks?”
“Oh, God, the socks.” Dick covers his mouth with his hand, giggling.
“Alfred has never made me socks,” Damian pipes up with an irritated frown.
“It was before your time, kid,” Jason responds. He’s still smiling.
“I’m sure if you ask nicely, Alfred will make you some socks,” Dick tells Damian, unable to stop the laughter bubbling out of him.
It bursts from him, uncontrollable and delighted. He presses closer to Jason, turning the page before tentatively wrapping his arm around Jason, half-expecting to be brushed off. Jason doesn’t do that, though.
“Did you get a rash from that sweater?” Jason asks. “Because I got a rash from that sweater.”
“I had hives for days after,” Dick bemoans, and Jason snorts in response.
“Look at this one, Dickie,” he says, tapping on the page, as Duke’s head pops up over Dick’s shoulder to look, too. Steph steps close to Jason’s other side, Cass following right behind.
“Are you…upside down on the couch?” Tim asks right into Dick’s ear, making him jolt.
“Richard still enjoys sleeping in precarious positions,” Damian notes, coming forward to stare down at the album with them.
“Well, I mean, he grew up with a dad who sleeps hanging upside down in a cave,” Jason says casually, turning the page once more.
Damian scoffs. “And how do you sleep, Todd? In a coffin?”
Jason laughs again, and this time it’s a more subdued, quiet sound. He shifts his grip on the book to ruffle Damian’s hair, which Damian narrowly dodges.
“C’mere, Little D.” Dick opens his other arm, his tricep pressing along Duke’s chest, and waits for Damian to duck under it. “I’ll keep you safe from your scary big brother,” he teases, resting his cheek on top of Damian’s head.
Steph sees another photo she likes, gasping and pointing at it, eliciting a round of chatter from the group gathered around them. Dick takes in a deep breath, his eyes drifting closed as he breathes back out. He listens to the sounds of their murmuring and tries to guess what photo they might be looking at just based on what they’re saying.
Damian stays very still, allowing Dick’s weight to stay on top of him, only contributing to the conversation every once in a while. Jason doesn’t pull away from his grip even once, only shifting to turn the pages as soon as they grow tired of the one they’re on.
Dick keeps his eyes closed and listens to the sounds of his home. He remembers the little boy who sat at the dining table in this room, often all alone, save for Alfred. How proud would he be, to know that this is how his life turned out?
Dick squeezes the two boys under his arms gently. He feels Duke’s arm come up behind him to squeeze at his shoulder, too.
This is his family, and he will enjoy it as long as they’ll have him.
“Dick,” Tim pipes up, carefully concerned. “Are you bleeding?”
Dick blinks his eyes open, his hand coming up to touch his head as Jason and Damian both twist under his arms.
“What the fuck did you do, Goldie?” Jason shouts, dismayed, just as Dick hears Bruce sigh behind him and feels one of his warm hands cup the curve of his jaw to press a towel-wrapped ice pack to his head with the other.
“I guess you were right to want to keep me from fixing the sink by myself, Little Wing,” Dick jokes. “Maybe I really will need you to fix the plumbing in my hypothetical house.”
Dick doesn’t have to be looking at Jason to know he rolls his eyes, but his voice is alarmingly soft when he replies, “Fuck, fine, but I don’t want to eat a dinner you’ve cooked.”
“We can get pizza?” Dick suggests, and he isn’t that surprised by the sound of the fond, quiet laugh from Jason.
“Sure, dipshit,” Jason answers.
“Hawaiian?” Dick tries.
When Jason reels back to punch him in the arm, Dick throws back his head and laughs.