Chapter Text
The evening's fight had been just like any other against Deathstroke. Grueling. High-stakes. Exhilarating. And of course, the sort that left Dick absolutely littered with bruises.
Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem. Dick—like any good vigilante—has enough concealer and foundation lying around to rival the average runway model. Unfortunately, all of that makeup is in his apartment. In Bludhaven. Where Dick is not. Because Slade just had to go and take a contract in Gotham. And Dick just had to follow him to the city to stop him. And when Damian looked up at Dick—with the same damn puppy dog eyes that Dick himself had taught him—and asked him to spend the night in the Manor, Dick had caved.
Dick sighs deeply, pondering the limited choices before him. None of them are his preferred brand or his shade. But at least he's able to get lighter, darker, yellower, and pinker if he grabs a collection. The last 24 hour drugstore had only had shades too light for him. This way, he can blend them until something works out.
A camera shutter sounds to Dick's right as he pays for the foundation. Tabloid reporter, probably. Apparently the years in Bludhaven have only increased the extent to which this city considers his very existence newsworthy. Dick just rolls his eyes. It's not as if him buying makeup is any sort of scandal these days.
The next morning—afternoon, Alfred chides them all—Dick realizes that maybe he should have paid more attention to that reporter after all.
Bruce Wayne's Eldest Hides Bruises. Clumsiness, or Dark Secret?
"Damn, Goldie," Jason laughs as he leans over Dick's shoulder to read the paper. Dick is tempted to shove him for being rude, but well… this easy affection from Jason is still so new and so rare. Dick would hate to discourage his brother in that, even if he is being an ass at the moment. "You're really selling the battered wife aesthetic."
A chill goes down Dick's spine. "You don't think…" he trails off, hesitant to even say it.
Jason has no such hesitations. "They'll blame the old man? Course they will." He rests his chin on Dick's shoulder, pressing into the base of the most damning bruise: an honest to god handprint around Dick's throat. "Chill out, Dick. You're an adult. There's fuck-all they can do about it, even if anyone is actually stupid enough to believe what they read in a Gotham tabloid."
Dick feels himself go very, very still. Behind him, Jason makes a soft, questioning sound.
"You're right, Jaybird." Dick does his best to keep his voice even. "I am an adult."
"But the demon brat isn't," Jason finishes. His voice is somber now, and his weight at Dick's back has shifted from an annoyance to a grounding point.
"How am I going to fix this?"
The soft inhale of Jason's breath as he opens his mouth to speak—then apparently decides against it—wouldn't even register were they not so close.
"Jay?" Dick questions. It's probably not a great plan if Jason discarded it without even suggesting it, but it still probably beats Dick's current plan: hoping Bruce has an applicable contingency that he'll reveal to them when he wakes up.
"How sure are you that this is the only pic they got?" Jason asks.
"Positive. I knew they took it, I just…"
"Didn't realize how it looked, I know." Jason sucks his teeth, hesitating. "The image quality's shit, and the only visible bruising is around your neck," he points out tentatively.
"Not a great look, I know." Dick can already see the statistics about domestic abuse and strangulation that the tabloids will oh-so-innocently mention in the same breath as his new bruising. The careful art of implying without ever accusing, of leading the public to a conclusion without ever touching the leash.
"Not if the resolution was high enough for them to make out Deathstroke's fingerprints, no. But with the image quality this shitty," Jason hesitates again, and then the words leave him in a rush, "you can probably convince the people of Gotham that you've picked up a very possessive lover."
Dick blinks. "You want me," he tilts his throat to better bare the purpling handprint to Jason's sight, "to pass this off as a hickey?"
Jason just huffs, tapping the grainy picture on the tabloid's cover. "No, Dick. I'm saying you could pass this off as a collection of hickeys. Unless you have a better idea, that is."
He doesn't, and Jason knows it.
By the time Bruce joins them, Dick is just putting the finishing touches on the makeup. Rather than the usual full coverage they use for bruises gained on patrol, spots bleed through across his neck and shoulder. With a little added yellowing to make some sections appear older than others, it looks like the work of an over-enthusiastic lover rather than a world renowned mercenary. He tilts his head to better see the last spot in the compact he swiped borrowed from Tim's room.
Bruce stares for a moment before taking his seat. "I hadn't realized you were seeing someone."
Still focused on feathering out the yellow-green edges, Dick replies absently, "No, this is just Slade's doing."
It takes a moment for Dick to register the unnatural silence that's taken over the room. When he sets down the brush and looks up from the compact, Bruce's jaw is clenched tight enough to crack a molar (if he still has any natural ones left, that is).
Dick just sighs, contemplating whether it's even worth the fight. He understands why Bruce feels the way he does about Dick fighting Deathstroke alone. Hell, Dick can even admit—in the privacy of his own mind, at least—that he'd probably be far, far worse if any of his younger brothers tried to do the same. (Frankly he'd be more worried about Slade than about Cass, should she ever set her sights on him). Still, after so many years with nothing worse than a broken collarbone to show for their fights, he would think that even Bruce—
"He thinks you and Wilson are fucking, Goldie," Jason comments, grinding Dick's internal rant to a halt.
While Dick is busy choking on his own saliva, Jason turns back to Bruce, sliding the tabloid across the table. "Your eldest got papped with a patrol injury. This is damage control."
Bruce looks between the tabloid and Dick's neck several times, humming consideringly. "And you're sure this was the only photo taken?"
"Positive," Dick confirms.
"You're prepared for the interest this will invite into your personal life?"
Unlike Tim, Dick's never been good at lying to Bruce directly. Instead, he deflects with a careless shrug. "Better than the alternative, isn't it?"
And really, there's no argument to be made against that.
The picture Dick uploads to his Instagram is an understated thing. He poses in his bedroom at the Manor several times before he gets it right. Bedhead, rumpled sheets, and his constellation of disguised bruising shown off at just the right angle to hide any evidence of alteration. He captions it, "Should've known I couldn't keep you a secret for long." The immediate flood of notifications nearly crashes his phone.
Three weeks into this little scheme, Dick is losing his fucking mind.
He'd thought—when he posted that picture—that all of this would die down within a matter of days. People would speculate about who he was with long enough for everyone to forget about the tabloids' earlier accusations. Loudly enough to drown out anyone who managed to notice that the bruises in his post didn't match the tabloid's grainy picture. But there's still paparazzi camped out front of his Bludhaven apartment, hoping to catch a glimpse of his secret lover. Still conspiracy theorists online comparing every photo they can find of him to try and catch discrepancies between the bruises.
Dick stares at his reflection in the mirror, now littered with taped-up Polaroids of each day's makeup application. A way to keep track of both progress and placement. It's not enough. Sooner or later, he's going to make a mistake.
And well… wouldn't it all be so much easier to keep track of if the hickeys were simply real?
Mind made up, Dick trades his brush for a phone. It's a bad idea. He knows it even as he types in the man's number. But when has that ever stopped him? He's speaking the moment he hears an intake of breath across the line.
"I need your help."