Chapter Text
"What's the consensus, Dickie? Am I a real boy?"
Dick breathed. He looked down at the impossible from that towering cliff.
And then he leapt to meet it.
Jason only had a split second to brace himself, as Dick leapt fully from the couch, knocking over his IV stand in his haste to get to him. Dick slammed into his chest, uninjured shoulder first like a linebacker. Even with his body armor, Jason felt the impact diffuse through him and he went over with the momentum, pinned flat on his back. All his carefully-honed instincts screamed at him that this position was dangerous, that he needed to be evading or retaliating, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to move.
He should be surprised by this display of grief, he realized, lying there on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling, but he wasn’t. And that in itself was surprising. He found that it was acceptable, if not easy, to believe that Dick had mourned him. That he’d cared at all. Watching Tim Drake, he had wondered. Wondered, and obsessed, and hated. But the second he’d seen Nightwing desperately boost a flailing Robin out of that third story window, flames and smoke licking out into the night, watched the kid grapple sloppily to the ground then turn, screaming Nightwing’s name…
There’d been an overlay, of sorts. That’s all he could think to call it. A new moment superimposed over old, worry-stone-worn memories of pain and fear, blood and fire.
He wasn’t proud of it. And things hadn’t changed, per se. But in that instant, his objective got, well. Murkier. Fuck up the bats turned into fuck up the bats, tomorrow.
Just this once, he’d promised himself, diving through the warehouse window, tucking and rolling and springing up to immediately clock a passed-out Nightwing. He’ll never know it was you, he told himself, hauling Nightwing up into his arms and then hauling ass three blocks over to wait out the aftermath. Can’t fuckin’ leave him here, he’d thought, fuming, once Nightwing had passed out again, pissed off to high heaven but unwilling to just abandon the man there for anyone to find, if Batman and the Replacement were too damn slow to retrieve him.
But then, Dick had woken up, and jumped straight into withholding any useful information like the uptight, goody two-shoes he was. “You weren’t there when it happened,” he’d said, and Jason’s vision had gone blinding acid green. The Pit roared in his ears, fury searing through his veins. Shooting Dick had felt, if not good, then right. Righteous. Correct, like receiving something he was owed. The Pit had purred in his blood, satisfied. But in the wake of that adrenaline spike came clarity, and Dick saying exactly what he’d wanted to hear for so long. Then, Dick roaring at him, wild-eyed and haunted.
His brain had been quiet, then. No bargaining, no promises, no reasoning, no Pit. Too busy witnessing a man who’d been his brother falling apart right in front of him.
And abruptly he was tired, so tired, of all of it. The lies and the subterfuge and even the rage left him exhausted. He’d felt unmoored, unsteady, seconds away from leaving the room, leaving the building, leaving Gotham, but then Dick was fading, and for a while it was just the autopilot of wound cleaning and stabilizing and monitoring vitals.
And now this: Dick waking from a screaming nightmare into a world where Jason was alive. He guessed he couldn’t blame the guy for freaking.
“Dick, hey,” Jason said, reaching up to take hold of Dick’s arm just above his elbow. He rattled him gently, wanting to see eyes, but Dick’s head was bowed, his dark hair hiding his face. He was shaking, Jason realized, body tense and vibrating like a plucked wire.
“This is impossible,” Dick said, low and rough.
Jason sighed, gearing up for another round of convincing, but Dick wasn’t done.
“You were dead, and now you’re alive, and this is impossible.” Finally, he looked up, meeting Jason’s eyes.
Jason read a lot. Before he died, he’d had a pretty impressive collection at the manor; novels, nonfiction, poetry, plays, even old dictionaries and encyclopedias. Reading had been both a comfort and a hobby, as well as a point of bonding between himself and Alfred—and Bruce, to a lesser extent. And Jason didn’t just read; he was well read. He knew all the classics, texts which might become relevant to a case one day. Recognizing patterns, as well as bolstering his vocabulary and his ability to describe something down to its minorest of details, had been invaluable in the field as Robin. It had all stuck with him into this second life. There wasn’t much that Jason couldn’t put words to these days.
But there were no words, in any language, to adequately describe what he was seeing in Dick’s face right now.
Devastation, disbelief, hope, guilt, joy, concern, exhaustion, affection, heartbreak, anger, relief, and more all flickered and flared in his expression. Jason stared, stunned, lost in tracking the glints of emotion as they turned and twisted like facets in a cut gemstone catching the light.
“Jason.” Dick said his name like it was the only word he knew.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Jason said. “I know, it’s kind of a lot.”
“Jason.”
“Yeah?”
“Jason.”
“‘M not fuckin’ Beetlejuice, dude.”
Dick huffed a laugh, shaking his head a little too hard. There were tears in his eyes, Jason realized. “God, I. God. I don’t…what is there to even say right now?”
Jason let go of Dick’s arm to lace his fingers behind his own head. “Happy Easter?”
That scored an even bigger laugh, and Jason smirked.
Dick reached up to wipe his eyes. “Blasphemer.” Then he sobered. “Jason. How did this happen? When did you come back, how long has it been? It must’ve been years, why didn’t you contact us? Does anyone else know? And why the Red Hood persona, the guns? Why are you—”
Jason’s gut went cold. It figured. Fucking Batman and his fucking training. “Gonna stop you right there, Dickiebird. I’m not in the mood for interrogations, ‘specially not from a bat.”
“But you—”
“Nope, não, nyet, nein.” Jason flipped neatly sideways, displacing Dick, who caught himself on his good hand. “My house, my rules. No questions.” Jason stood, towering over Dick, still crouched on the floor. “Come on, dumbass, up and at ‘em. If you ripped out your IV I’m gonna be pissed as fuck.”
Dick had not, it turned out, ripped out his IV. Jason helped him to his feet and pressed him back down onto the couch. He felt Dick’s eyes on him as he moved around the room, putting away the first aid kit, cleaning up the puddle of sick, and dragging one of the chairs over to the side of the couch. The gaze burned twin holes in him like Dick suddenly had Superman’s heat vision. Jason could tell that the wheels were turning in his brain, but he was fresh out of ideas for how to halt them. There was only so much foresight associated with revealing one’s identity after coming back from the dead, and this situation had definitely not been part of his grand plan.
Once Dick had settled back against the cushions, he said quietly, “it was a Lazarus Pit, wasn’t it.”
“I said no questions.” Jason plunked himself down in the chair by the couch and glared.
“Not a question.” Dick gestured vaguely at his own face. “It’s your eyes. They weren’t that color before you...before.”
“Somebody give this guy a medal,” Jason said bitterly. “You’re right, and you’re also wrong, and I don’t feel like elaborating, so zip it.”
“My tracker,” Dick said, switching topics easily. “Tim and Bruce should have been able to find me by now.”
“What do I look like, a rookie? I left it at the warehouse.”
Dick’s eyes widened. “You left it…wait, in the fire? Shit, I have to—” He threw off the blanket and made to swing his legs back off the couch. Jason rolled his eyes and put a hand on his chest, keeping him pinned.
“Stay down, asshole, I’m not that sadistic,” he said. “The other warehouse. The un-exploded one.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay then!” Dick’s voice was going slightly manic. “I’m sure there’s not too much of my blood left in there next to the tracker that was cut out of my suit to be concerning to people who care about my overall well-being!”
“Jesus, calm the fuck down, huh?” Jason said. “Wasn’t that much blood anyway. At least the replacement Robin knows you weren’t ex-Boy Wonder barbecue.”
Dick honest-to-God winced. “I need to check in. Just so they know.”
“Not while you’re still in my safehouse, you’re not.”
“Jason, please. I can’t leave them thinking the worst.”
“Since when do you care what the Bat thinks?” Jason snarled. “I thought you were on the outs with the old man.” Dick opened his mouth, but Jason ignored him. “I don’t wanna hear it. Let him squirm, serves him right. Anyway, I’m not about to just hand over my safehouse location on a silver platter. ‘S bad enough you being here.”
“You brought me here.”
Jason gritted his teeth so hard they squeaked. “Would you rather I’d left you there, passed out and concussed as fuck?”
Dick’s voice was quiet as he stared at the ceiling. “They’re going to think I’ve been kidnapped. Or worse.”
“Maybe you were!” Too late, Jason realized the petulance in his tone. Arguing with Dick felt too natural, too easy. It was like he was being slotted back into playing a part, completely without his permission. The script was there, and he was reading right from it.
Dick was looking at him now, damn him, eyes clear and focused. Just like before, when he’d had his Nightwing face on. “Why did you bring me here, Jason?” He asked softly. “All this—” he gestured between them— “clearly wasn’t your intention when you saw the fire. When you got me out. So why am I here?” And what happens next went unsaid, but Jason heard it as clearly as if Dick had shouted it at him.
“Where else was I s’posed to take your sorry ass?” Jason bit back. His heart was racing. Too close. This was all much too close.
Dick hummed. “Maybe that’s not the right question,” he said. “Rephrase: saving me clearly disrupted things for you. So, what did you stand to gain from doing it?”
Jason felt the teeth of a trap he hadn’t realized he’d stepped into sinking into him. His blood was too hot and too cold in turns. He said nothing.
“Jay.” It was gentle, so gentle. Jason braced his whole self against that gentleness like a stone against rushing water. “Please, just. It’s not that I’m not grateful, because I am. I’m, well, I’m pretty thrown by all this,” Dick said, uncharacteristically hesitant. He’d dropped Nightwing, Jason noted, and this now, this was all Dick Grayson. Not the Golden Boy persona he put on for parties and the press, but the Dick Jason had known, the one who’d given him pointers on his more gymnastics-heavy moves as Robin, who’d listened to him wax poetic about English essays and gush over plans for the new gadgets he and Bruce were drafting, who’d occasionally taken him out for ice cream, a Knights game, a movie. This was the Dick from his memory, the one who’d cared.
Jason forced himself to focus. Dick was still talking. “I need you to know, aside from everything else, that I’m so, so happy you’re alive. I don’t need to know how it happened.” Dick paused, considering. “Scratch that, I want to know how you came back, and I’m not going to stop trying to figure it out. I can’t. It’s not something I can just let go of, it’s not in me. But for right now, I’m just glad you’re alive. And I’m grateful. That you saved me back there.”
And then Jason had threatened and intimidated and shot him. No mention of that, though. Knowing Dick, he probably felt like he deserved it somehow, the goddamn martyr. All that talk about negotiating a better torment for Nightwing was still fresh in his mind. Unbidden came the thought, I was gone too long. He shook it out of his head.
The silence was dragging. Jason had to say something to end this. He had to.
“Yeah, whatever. Just forget it.” His mouth was too dry. He couldn’t look up, though he could sense Dick trying to catch his eye. He was reeling; what was this wild reversal of their roles from barely fifteen minutes ago? How had Dick already pushed him so far off balance?
“Forget it?” Dick echoed, incredulous. “How could I? Jason, you’re alive. You saved me. And you’re still here.” He reached out, hesitated, then touched the tips of his fingers to the back of Jason’s hand where it rested on his knee. Jason could feel the slight drag of his calluses. He dug his fingers into his kneecap, hard, the ache keeping him grounded.
“Enough already. I get it.”
Dick withdrew his hand and sighed heavily. “I don’t think you do,” he said, and the mournfulness, the pity in his voice was what did it.
Jason snapped.
“Fuck you,” he spat, jolting up from the chair. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me, so you can piss right off with that sanctimonious bullshit. I’m not a kid anymore, I’m not gonna fawn over your every word just ‘cause it’s you that’s sayin’ it.” He aimed a finger at Dick. “Look, you heal up enough to leave, and you’re gone. I’m burnin’ this safehouse after anyway, won’t be nothin’ to trace. You and the Bat and the Replacement can all go straight to hell for all I care. Tell ‘em it’s me or don’t, but this?” He gestured sharply between the two of them. “This is over. I’m done.”
He turned his back on Dick and stomped into the bedroom to retrieve the rest of his gear.
“Jason, wait!” Dick called, but Jason kept going.
His blood rushed in his ears as he mechanically took stock and suited back up. This had all been a mistake. His revenge plans were shot to hell and it was only a matter of time before he had Batman breathing down his neck. Stupid, stupid. He couldn’t afford this whatever-it-was, this attachment. He had to cut it off here and now, no matter what Dick had been to him in the past.
He could feel the Pit glowing like a banked fire, but the creaking of the leather and the lingering smell of Ballistol were familiar, steadying. He breathed, in and out, in and out, settling back into his own skin as he strapped on the body armor. He still had time to plan; Batman and the Replacement would be focused on Goldie for a while, and maybe if Dick…maybe Dick wouldn’t rat him out right away, given what he’d said about him and Bruce. He could salvage this. Just focus, he told himself. Focus on what you can do right now. He started running a mental checklist: Armor, gloves, jacket, grapple secure, guns loaded and in holsters, extra ammo, check, knives strapped in, helmet, where was—
The floorboards by the bedroom doorway creaked. He looked up.
Dick sagged against the doorframe, panting, one hand holding his IV stand, the other…
In his other hand he clutched the Red Hood helmet.
Fury poured through Jason, white hot and sudden. How dare he. His hands curled into fists. But before he could start yelling, Dick breathed, “please,” and his voice hitched. He was in obvious pain, not bothering to hide it. “Please don’t go.”
The great Nightwing, begging? Jason wanted to sneer, but something kept him from saying it. Instead, he steeled himself against caring. He could get his helmet back easily; Dick was injured and unarmed and clearly emotionally compromised. Jason was stone, cold stone against the rapids. “Sorry, Dickiebird,” he said casually. “Places to go, criminals to shoot, you know how it is.” He flicked his fingers. “Give it here, huh?”
Dick didn’t move, helmet shaking in his grasp. “Jason, I…I know I failed you, so many times and in so many ways. I’m so sorry, I’ll never forgive myself for that. But, please, don’t leave, let me make it up to you somehow, let me—”
Jason couldn’t listen to this.
“I ain’t coming with you to the pity party,” he drawled. “Not everything’s about you, y’know.”
“No, you’re right, it’s not, I know it’s not.” Dick was backtracking, looking more and more desperate. Oddly enough, Jason found that fascinating. He was so used to the great Dick Grayson never faltering; the man was a born performer. He always knew exactly what to say to get the reaction he wanted from his audience.
Jason crossed his arms, looming at his full height, and felt his shoulders settle into place. He had the power here. He’d gotten back control of the situation, and now Dick was the one floundering.
Good.
He stared at Dick impassively, eyebrow raised. The man was searching for words, opening his mouth, rethinking, and closing it again. Jason watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed convulsively. His hair was unkempt from sleep, pressed flat to his scalp in some places, wild and tangled in others. He was still Nightwing to the waist, and above that, his thin undershirt stuck to his chest with sweat. Moonlight pressed blue and silver into the lines of his face. Lines that hadn’t been there years ago.
Jason wouldn't be moved. He was stone. So Dick had gotten older, so what. So had he, despite everything, despite Joker and the Bat and the blank void that was death. They gave it their best shot, but he was alive, and he was a host unto himself now. Dick would not sway him.
Finally, Dick raised the hand holding the Red Hood helmet and scrubbed his forearm over his eyes. He chuckled, a few soft huffs of air. “I’m making a mess of this,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve rehearsed this conversation a thousand times, and I’m still screwing it up. Figures.”
Jason blinked. What? “You. Rehearsed a conversation you were gonna have with a dead person. After he came back to life and pulled your ass out of a literal fire.”
Dick shook his head, limp hair flopping against his forehead. He lowered his arm and looked down at Jason’s helmet, turning it so he could see the eye lenses. “Not the last part, obviously. But yeah, there were things I always wished I could have said to you. The apologizing stuff, mostly. I should’ve known you wouldn’t want to hear it, but. It’s all I’ve wanted to say, for years.” He sighed, absently running his thumb along the raised edge of the mouth seam. “It’s hard to let that go.”
“And what, you practiced on the training dummies in the cave? Talked to my old cape and mask like a goddamn Muppet?” Like he was talking to the helmet right now, the prick. Jason bristled. Annoyance could so easily be fanned into rage, and rage he could channel, use. He just had to keep it at a simmer.
Dick finally looked up at him, and again Jason was met with a kaleidoscope of emotions. Sorrow and grief were more prominent this time, terrible fish surfacing and resurfacing in his face. “I didn’t have to, Jay,” he said, voice brittle as pre-shattered glass. “I see you everywhere.”
It took a second to register, but when it did, it landed like a punch, like freezing water over the Pit’s glowing coals. Air rushed into Jason’s lungs so fast he felt lightheaded. He stared at Dick, taking in a man who'd apparently been hashing out his guilt and grief by talking to hallucinations of him for literal years while he himself had been dead, then alive and Pit-mad, then alive and running around his city making his life miserable. It was absurd. It was laughable.
Jason wasn’t laughing.
It was Dick who broke the spell he’d just thrown them both under, starting forward haltingly, IV stand still clutched in one hand, helmet in the other. He stepped slowly around the bed and Jason watched him like an injured hiker watches an approaching panther. He was wary again, wrong footed, unsure. He wanted to run.
His feet wouldn’t move.
And then Dick was right in front of him, at arms-length, and Jason realized detachedly that he was looking down at him. He already had a good few inches on Dick, and with the added height from his boots, Dick had to angle his gaze up to catch his eyes. He was still shaking, whether from the exertion or the pain, Jason couldn’t be sure.
Dick gently set the helmet aside on the bed, then lifted his trembling hand and placed it, gentle as anything, on Jason’s shoulder. If Jason had to estimate, he’d say Dick’s thumb was resting somewhere in the very near vicinity of where he’d shot Dick earlier. He couldn’t really feel it through the armor and the jacket, but the spot seemed to grow warm regardless.
“I missed you, Little Wing,” Dick said roughly. “That’s the first thing. And, I’m sorry. That’s the second.” He squeezed Jason’s shoulder. “You’re my brother, and you deserved better. That’s three, or three and four, if you want to count them separately. Sometimes I do.” He closed his eyes and sucked a breath in through his nose, bowing his head. “There’s more than that, too, a whole list, but those are the most important. That’s all I wanted to say, and I wanted to say it in case, well. In case I don’t see you again, like this. I just wanted you to know. You can…you can leave now, if you need to go. I won’t try to stop you.”
Jason breathed in deeper than he had in what felt like months. Years, maybe. When he let it out again, the numbness lifted like a rolling fog. What was left was a kind of lightness—not relief, not hope, but something with a similar outline. He let the silence stretch, unconcerned, let the two of them breathe for a moment.
Then he lifted his own gloved hand and covered Dick’s on his shoulder. He patted it once, twice, then balled up his fist and thunked it right down on the crown of Dick’s stupid, sentimental head.
Dick, eyes still closed, had not been expecting this. “Ow, shit,” he hissed, taking his hand off Jason’s shoulder to rub at his scalp. “What the hell was that for?”
“‘Ah yes, the past can hurt,’” Jason quipped.
“Yeah, well, Simba didn’t have a concussion at the time, Rafiki, you bastard ape,” Dick grumbled. He tilted his head, looking at Jason with a spark of something different in his eyes, some emotion Jason hadn’t seen yet tonight.
“Mandrills are monkeys, Dickface, read a book,” Jason said primly. “Now sit down before you fall down.” He reached past them to lift his helmet off the bed.
“‘Lie down before you hurt yourself’?”
“You said it, not me.”
“You literally just said it,” Dick said, put-upon, but sat heavily on the end of the bed anyway. Jason watched him tip the rest of himself backwards in a controlled fall until he was completely horizontal. He was still tracking Jason, though, taking in every shift, every subtle movement. His eyes kept flicking to the helmet in Jason’s hand.
Jason rolled out his shoulders. “Look,” he started, then stopped. What was there to say? Stay out of my territory from now on and we’ll be square? Fuck Bruce and everything he stands for but you’re not actually that horrible to be around? Nothing fit. But he couldn’t just leave without a word, without putting a cap on whatever this had been. And he did have to go. It wasn’t as desperate a need as it had been mere moments ago, just an inevitability at this point. Nothing gold can stay, and all that. They were already on borrowed time; Jason wasn’t so cocky as to believe Batman wouldn’t have this place on lockdown within the next twelve hours. Probably more like a cool six and a half.
Dick had looked away, letting Jason have his space to think. He’d started picking idly at a loose thread in the blanket. “Hey,” he said after a minute or so. “Did you know that the first time I watched The Lion King, I had a full-on panic attack?”
Jason blinked, thrown. Dick took his silence as a no. “Yeah. I was ten. It was the, y’know. The falling part. And, well. Bruce had no earthly idea what to do.”
Jason stiffened at the name, but kept listening.
“He didn’t know much Disney back then, so he panicked and switched the tape out for Bambi instead,” Dick continued, quiet laughter in his voice. “Lots of baby animals, bright colors, springtime. Better for the traumatized kid, right? I shouldn't joke, it was so messed up, but that one I had seen before, and as soon as we got through the trailers and I realized which movie he’d put in, it snapped me right out of it because I knew what was going to happen. Man, you should’ve seen his face. I snatched the remote right out of his hand, hit the off button for the VCR and then chucked it so hard at the floor the batteries flew out. I think he thought I’d lost my mind.” Dick chuckled to himself. “I don’t think I ever did end up explaining. Huh.”
“Lion King’s based on Hamlet,” Jason said slowly, still not sure where Dick was going with all of this but cautiously willing to play along until he figured it out.
Dick flicked a glance over at him from the bed. “No kidding?”
“Alfred pointed it out to me when I was…before. He’d been helping me memorize the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy for class, so when we all watched the movie a few weeks later, he mentioned that. Made sense. Simba’s Hamlet, looking for revenge on his uncle Scar, Claudius, who murdered Mufasa, Old Hamlet. ‘S pretty self-explanatory, ‘cept the movie doesn’t kill off, like, every character by the end. Obviously. It’s Disney.”
Jason frowned, narrowing his eyes. “Hold up, is this you trying to get us to bond over stupid emotional shit to keep me from leaving?”
Dick put his hand over his collarbone, fake-shocked. Clutching invisible pearls. “Who, me?” He asked blandly, letting his hand flop back to the mattress. “Perish the thought.”
“You little weasel.”
“Hey, according to your rules I’m a Shakespearean cartoon lion, have some damn respect.”
Jason scanned him, noting the tremors still running through Dick’s body, his unnaturally careful breathing. The man needed water, food, painkillers, a good few hours of uninterrupted sleep, a second IV bag of fluids. A shower and another look at his various injuries, too, eventually. And right now, he was Jason’s responsibility, as infuriating as that was.
“Until morning,” he said, testing the words on his tongue and finding them not entirely horrible to say. “I’ll stay that long, no longer. After that you’re on your own.”
Dick’s smile was a bruised little thing, but it warmed his tired eyes. “Whatever you say, Little Wing.” He painstakingly shifted on the bed until he was only taking up half, eyelids drooping.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Don’t sleep yet, idiot. We need to get some food and fluids in you.”
Dick yawned. “Wake me when it’s ready, huh?”
“Don’t make me shoot you. Again.” Jason was already unholstering his guns and putting them, safeties on, on the small desk in the corner of the room. After a second of hesitation, he set the helmet down beside them.
“Empty threat. You didn’t mean it the first time, Jaybird.”
There was a smile in Dick’s voice. He’d turned his back to Jason, leaving himself open for anything. Jason swallowed, staring hard at the back of his head, at his dark hair fanning out over the pillow. It was a pretty blatant show of trust, or maybe, knowing his brother, just intense stupidity and a lack of self preservation instincts. The sound of Dick’s breathing, turning deep and even in sleep, followed him out the door as he made his way to the kitchen.
Wait. Brother? Jason stopped short, boots squeaking on the linoleum. Had he just…? Yes, he had. He had, but it was just a fluke, it didn’t need to mean anything. It was a remnant of the past, an old, submerged instinct that had just come up for air. That was all it was, all it needed to be.
Mechanically, Jason started gathering ingredients. Vegetables and leftover chicken in the fridge, rice and broth in the pantry, olive oil and spices in the cabinet over the stove. It didn’t need to mean anything if he didn’t want it to.
And yet, it didn’t feel wrong, not like he would’ve expected it to. It didn’t burn him, didn’t sear at his insides like memories of Br—of the Bat did. He turned the word over in his mind, worrying at it like grit in an oyster shell. Was that what Dick was to him now, again, after everything?
Jason shook himself, twitching the swirling thoughts out of his head like a horse with a biting fly. Later. That was for later. He wasn’t going to dwell on it, not now. There were more important things to be doing. He had plans to salvage, contingencies to craft, a safehouse to scrap, bat plans to foil.
He had chicken and rice soup to make, and a brother to bother into eating it.
Safe in the knowledge that he was alone, that no one was watching, Jason let the smile spread slowly over his face.