Jason ran down the stairs as fast as he could, hoping that Dick would be okay. Yes, he'd been shot and then fallen thirty feet through the rotted floor, but he had a healing factor now, he could survive anything. If he'd survived being in the center of an explosion, surely he could survive this.

He had to survive this.

There was no movement on the ground floor, but there was a pile of broken wood where Dick would have fallen. As Jason got closer, he saw a body wearing black and blue, sprawled limply across the ground. As he got even closer, he saw that Dick's neck was twisted at an impossible angle.

"No," Jason whispered, "no, no-"

But Dick was breathing, he realized; too quick and too shallow, but breathing nonetheless. Jason rushed to his brother's side.

"'Wing? Nightwing, can you hear me?"

Dick's face was tight with panic, but he blinked and slowly focused on Jason. "Hood," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Can you turn my head so my neck is back in place?"

Jason stared at Dick in horror. "Shouldn't I wait until B gets here? I don't want to make things worse."

"It's already broken," Dick said, his voice somewhere between harsh and desperate. He took a deep breath and visibly controlled himself before adding, "Please, Hood, it'll help it heal faster."

"You're sure it'll heal?" Jason asked.

Dick's mouth twisted. "Positive."

Jason knew what that meant, and momentary fury rose up in him, but he shoved it aside. Dick needed him. He could be angry about Deathstroke later.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Let me know if this hurts."

"I can't feel anything below my neck, so it probably won't," Dick said, the trembling in his voice betraying his attempt at flippancy.

Carefully, Jason lifted his brother's head and turned it so it was facing the right way. "Is this okay?" he asked.

"That's better," Dick said. "I need you to gag me."

"You need me to what?"

"When the nerves reconnect, it burns," Dick said, and Jason hated that he was clearly speaking from experience. "We don't know if there are more gang members nearby, and I don't know if I can stay silent. I need you to gag me."

"Are you sure?" Jason asked tentatively. Dick already looked like he was staying on this side of a panic attack by sheer force of will. Jason didn't want to do anything that would make it worse.

"I'm sure," Dick said. "Please."

Jason reached slowly into his belt and pulled out a small roll of duct tape. He ripped off a strip and, after a moment of hesitation, pressed it against Dick's mouth. He could feel Dick's breathing quicken and assumed his heart was jackrabbiting, but there was gratitude in Dick's eyes when Jason looked in them. He hated that Dick was grateful to be gagged, but he wasn't wrong in his assessment of the situation. If someone heard Dick screaming, it could very easily go wrong.

After a moment, Dick's face tensed. He winced, and then his head twitched slightly. His spine had to be repairing itself, Jason figured, and while his main emotion was relief, he knew the painful part had to be coming.

Sure enough, Dick made a soft whimpering noise behind the tape a moment later. His legs twitched, then his arms jerked, and then suddenly he was seizing on the ground. Jason fought the urge to hold him down. Dick could hurt himself on the rubble around him, but Jason could also hurt him if he tried to keep him still. He'd heal either way, but selfishly, Jason would prefer if the rubble hurt him instead of Jason himself.

The seizing seemed to last forever, even though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes at most. Finally, Dick relaxed, limp and trembling. He slowly reached up with one hand - Jason was so glad to see him using his limbs - and tried to rip the tape off of his face, but his hands were shaking too badly for him to get a proper grip.

"Let me," Jason said, and he grabbed the tape and ripped it off as quickly as he could. It would hurt, he knew, but it would hurt more if he did it slowly.

"Thanks," Dick rasped. He tried to push himself into a sitting position, but his arms wouldn't support him and he nearly crashed back down to the ground. Luckily, Jason caught him before he could, and he shuffled over so Dick could sit up and lean against him.

They sat quietly for a few moments, Jason wondering if he should speak. Before he could, Dick said quietly, "I hate falling."

Jason winced. He'd been so focused on how this played into Dick's recent, Deathstroke-related trauma that he hadn't even thought about how it played into Dick's earliest trauma. He thought about Dick's body, twisted and spread-eagled on the floor, and wondered if John and Mary Grayson had looked like that too.

"I hated it when I was with Deathstroke too," Dick added, and Jason immediately focused on his words. Dick rarely talked about anything with Deathstroke without prompting, especially not things that he knew were bad. Occasionally, he'd mention things that he seemed to have normalized and then try to walk them back when everyone looked at him in horror, but moments like this were rare.

"I didn't know why," Dick continued, staring off into middle space like he was alone. Maybe that helped him to speak. Jason kept quiet. "I just knew that I hated it. I hated to see other people fall too. One time, Deathstroke got shot and pushed off a building, and I had a panic attack so bad that I lost at least an hour." Dick pulled his legs in to his chest, the movements not quite as graceful as usual. "He must have known. He knew my identity, and it's still one of the first things that comes up if you google me. But he never said anything about it. He just told me to get over it and had me practice until I was desensitized enough to push through it."

Jason's stomach roiled, but he didn't ask for details about Deathstroke's practice. He didn't think he wanted to know, and he didn't think Dick wanted to relive it. He could imagine it, though, and the rage that filled him would have overtaken him if he wasn't uncomfortably aware that Dick still needed him to be present.

"He paralyzed me sometimes too," Dick breathed. "He had this knife, this thin knife, and he could slide it right between my vertebrae and through my spinal cord. Normally, he just severed the nerves to my legs, but one time, he left it in my neck, and I just-" Dick's voice broke off, and he buried his face in his knees. Jason hesitated for half a second, then he reached over and pulled Dick into a hug.

"I was helpless," Dick whispered. "I couldn't move. He could have done anything, and I wouldn't have been able to stop him."

Jason's stomach twisted. "Did he-"

"He didn't do anything," Dick said. "He just... kept going about his business like usual, with me on the floor. The anticipation almost made it worse. I didn't know what he'd do, or if he'd do anything, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop him if he did."

"You're not alone now," Jason promised. "If anything happens, we'll be here to help. We can protect you."

"I'm supposed to protect you," Dick protested quietly. "I'm the oldest, I've got a healing factor, I can- I'm supposed to protect you, I'm not supposed to be helpless."

"You're not helpless. You do protect me, all the time. You took that bullet for me earlier, don't think I didn't notice."

"And then I fell through the floor and broke my neck. If anything had happened to you after-"

"It wouldn't have been your fault," Jason interrupted. "And you know that, so tell me what's really bothering you."

Dick hesitated a moment, then he sighed and slumped in Jason's embrace. "I was gone for six months. And I've seen- I've noticed new scars. I know you were hurt. I couldn't protect you. And now I'm back, and I still can't protect you."

"Oh, this is about Tim's shoulder."

Dick flinched, which was as good as a confirmation. Jason didn't really need it; the second he put the pieces together in his head, he knew they were right.

Not long after Dick's supposed death, Tim dislocated his shoulder badly enough that Leslie had contemplated surgery. It had healed without it, but his shoulder was still weak, and he'd dislocated it again the other day. Dick hadn't been out with him and hadn't had anything to do with the situation, but Jason should have known he'd figure out a way to blame himself for it anyway.

"You can't seriously think that's your fault at all."

"If I'd been there when his shoulder first got hurt, maybe I could have helped," Dick said. "And if I'd gotten his distress call earlier this time, maybe I could have kept him from getting hurt again."

"No one got the distress call early enough. His comm was being blocked."

"If I'd been faster-"

"Dickhead, you really need to stop being so stupid, I'm serious."

Dick blinked. He didn't look offended, necessarily, but he did look surprised. "What?"

"Not everything is your fault," Jason said. "You're not to blame for literally everything that goes wrong. I know you've got your massive guilt complex and everything, but that doesn't mean it's right."

"I'm not-"

"You're being stupid," Jason declared. "There was nothing you could have done to help Tim. And he'll be fine. It's just his shoulder, and Leslie isn't threatening surgery this time, so it's not that bad. Knowing Tim, he won't let it stop him for long."

"Code names," Dick mumbled.

Jason rolled his eyes. "Fine. Knowing Red Robin, he'll be stupid. Just like you. Maybe he gets it from you."

"I feel like I should be offended," Dick said.

"No, you should listen to me and stop being so self-sacrificing, that's what you should do. And you should definitely stop feeling guilty about things that absolutely aren't your fault. And maybe also get a sense of self-preservation, although I'm not sure you actually ever had that."

There was a hint of amusement on Dick's face when he turned to Jason. "Anything else you think I should do, O Wise And Powerful One?"

"Keep calling me that, for one," Jason said, and Dick snorted. "And next time you start getting all guilty or sacrificial or whatever, think of how you'd feel if one of us came to you saying the same thing. Then give yourself the advice you'd give one of us."

Dick raised an eyebrow. "That's some pretty good advice yourself, actually."

"I had to be the oldest brother while you were gone," Jason said. "Didn't like it, but I learned how to give advice and sound wise and shit."

"Profound," Dick said dryly.

"I thought so too."

"I'll try not to leave again," Dick offered. "So you won't have to be the oldest brother anymore."

"Good, I hated it."

Jason hoped that Dick could read the unspoken words, that he knew Jason really hated it because he hated Dick being gone.

And, of course, Dick was the oldest brother. He could.