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Dick tried to keep the glare off of his face, knowing that he was doing a bad job of it. Bruce's back was turned to him, though, so he found himself caring less. He could hear Alfred's voice in the back of his head, though. Be careful making such an angry face, Master Grayson. It could get stuck like that. Dick would have argued that his scowl was warranted this time. Alfred for all of his lessons had not prepared him for this.
Bruce chuckled, warm and low, and Dick didn't want to ignore the little stab of betrayal that lodged between his ribs.
"No, don't touch that. Remember what I said, Jason?"
Dick's frown grew, and he stopped trying to hide it. He ignored Alfred's ghost in his head.
"Jason?" It came out as more than a sneer than Dick intended, but he tried not to show it when Bruce looked at him over his shoulder.
"Do you not like it?"
Does he not like it?
Does he not like it?
Dick's gaze went past Bruce to the abomination that he had found living in his house when he had come home for Christmas. The Creature was babbling, ugly little sounds rippling over each other like baby speak, and its eyes were locked on the candleflame that it had tried to touch only moments ago. It was dressed in one of Dick's one shirts, light cotton billowing around its small patchwork frame. Its skin was almost as pale as the cotton, with a deathly pallor that spoke to its origins, and cricc-crossed with the red lines of its stitches. Dick had seen the thing pick at those lines sometimes. Gnawing at them like a dog until Bruce had to come and distract it away from itself.
And Bruce wanted him to call this thing brother.
"No, I do not like it," Dick hissed. He watched the Creature's hand float towards the flame again while Bruce was distracted and he did not say anything.
"What would you like me to name him?"
"Does he really deserve a name?"
"Why wouldn't he?" Bruce gently argued back, not rising to Dick's anger. He was calmer than he had been when Dick had left him, more even tempered by the duty of care to his new charge. That also felt like a criticism of Dick in some way."
"He is not a person," Dick's voice was getting angrier the longer that Bruce stayed calm.
"Something does not have to be a person to deserve a name," Bruce said, standing. Jason's eyes immediately snapped onto the movement and he babbled a string of stupid sounds that grated against the ear. "Humans name animals all the time. We name lands and companies and kingdoms. I know that Oliver has even named one of his cars. The bar is actually rather low."
Dick didn't really have anything to say against that, so he just continued glaring towards the thing his father had created.
Jason seemed to notice his gaze and gave him a wide, toothy smile.
"I hoped that you would have been affectionate towards him," said Bruce, walking up to Dick and placing a hand on his shoulder. "He's meant to be another member of our family."
But why? Why did they need another member of the family? Because Alfred had died? Because Dick had gone to school?
He knew that Bruce was alone in this house, but he had thought maybe his family would have enjoyed some well-earned peace. Lord, knows their last few years had been nothing but chaotic and angry. He had thought Bruce would maybe get a dog. He hadn't expected his father to rewrite the rules of life and death.
It was unnatural, but Dick knew that that wasn't his true issue with Jason. He knows that he would have felt this same betrayed anger if Jason had been a whole boy, as natural as every other child in the world.
Dick had been chosen, plucked from obscurity to be Bruce's son, he thought that had made him special in Bruce's eyes. Irreplaceable.
But now looking at Jason, he realised that perhaps that wasn't case.
Perhaps he had just been convenient.