Prompt: "My body is one big ache"

if i have to have fibromyalgia and be hypermobile then dick has to have fibromyalgia and be hypermobile those are the rules

notice how these are getting shorter? yeah im getting my ass beat by this challenge

Jason wasn't the best mathematician out there but he knew when things didn't add up. If Dick had come into the cave without a limp, done nothing but typing for the last hour then when he got up, he shouldn't suddenly have a limp. It could be pins and needles but Dick looked in pain. His face was twisted up and he leaned on the table for dear life. 

Now, he didn't particularly care if Dick was hiding an injury or not. If the acrobat wanted to give himself several types of sepsis and a trip to the hospital so be it. It's a free country. He personally didn't see the point in it when they weren't in the middle of a fight but to each their own. He would usually leave it alone but Bruce was right there and it'd been a little too peaceful in the cave until now.

"That chair beat your ass when I wasn't looking?" he asked from across the room. Dick glanced up from the papers he collected and raised an eyebrow. "You're limping."

"Why are you limping? You weren't limping before," Bruce inquired without missing a beat. 

"I'm having a flare-up."

"You got shot in your left knee. You're favouring the wrong side," Jason pointed out, adding some fuel to the fire. If only he had marshmallows.

"It's not that," the acrobat snapped. "And it's nothing to do with you. I'm fine." Colour Jason curious. Again, he couldn't care less what it was. He was curious simply because he wasn't immediately getting an answer. It could be something embarrassing which he really hoped it was. He also really hoped it was caught on camera somewhere. Seeing someone so graceful absolutely eat dirt was a sight to behold. 

"Don't start," Tim warned from where he'd scrunched up into an office chair. If he didn't get some sort of back issue by twenty it would be a miracle. Unfortunately, he'd unknowingly got the opposite reaction to the one he was looking for.

"Do you know?" The younger clicked his tongue and focused his attention on his phone. He definitely knew.

"It's not my business."

"That's not a no."

"Yeah, it's a not telling you," Tim snarked with a smirk.

"Since when was being curious a crime?"

"Jay, if you were curious, you wouldn't still be using a flip phone."

"Do you want help back to your seat?" Bruce asked, getting ready to get up. 

"I'm fine."

"You're not. C'mon Dickie, you can tell us. We're family."

"I'm not entertaining this."

"Do you need a cane? I think-"

"I don't need anything. Fucking leave it alone, will you?" he snarled. He rubbed his temples with a sigh, immediately regretting being too sharp. "Sorry. I just- I'm just going to lay down." They silently watched him look between the stairs and the elevator then hesitantly taking the second. 

"Nice going, Jason."

"Yeah yeah, I'll fix it later."

After an hour, Jason deemed it had been enough time to go apologise. Well, apologies was the wrong word. He wasn't saying sorry. He didn't say sorry unless he well and truly fucked up and he didn't see this as a total fuck up. He just poked the bear a bit too much and it bit back with a lot more force than he'd intended. It wasn't that he was averse to apologising. He could do it if he thought it was needed but it hardly ever was when it came to Dick. Maybe because Bruce also used unspoken apologies to say sorry for all the horrible things he did.

He knocked on Dick's door but didn't bother waiting for a reply before opening the door. There was no point because he knew Dick would say come in although as he assessed what was in front of him, he couldn't be so sure. Dick was in bed which was expected but he was curled up and had the covers in a death grip. The pain he'd noticed before was clearly worse now. Surely Dick wasn't stupid enough to hide an injury to this point of pain. He was certainly stupid enough to hide it in the first place even in a place full of detectives but he wasn't that stupid.

"What do you want?" Dick asked through gritted teeth. It took a second for the question to register but when it did, Jason ignored it altogether.

"What is happening to you?" he asked back. 

"Why do you care?"

"I don't."

"Then why ask?"

"Because you look like you're getting your leg sawn off in the battle of Gettysburg." Despite the pain, Dick chuckled under his breath. "Seriously Goldie. What's happening?"

"You wouldn't get it."

"Try me."

"Fine. Fibromyalgia." 

Jason, admittedly, didn't get it. He'd never heard it before but if that was the reason for the pain then it was at least a place to start. He decided to close the door behind him because this now felt like a conversation that required some privacy and took a seat in the armchair opposing the bed. Years ago it would've been where Bruce sat whenever Dick was sick or otherwise in a concerning state. There was a chair in every room just like it. One of the rare clear instances where Bruce showed his love for them. He thought through his response as he sat there. He knew now wasn't the time to joke or goad like he usually did but he was also unsure of where to go now. 

"I can hear the gears in your brain working overtime," Dick muttered. He hadn't moved from his position which struck Jason as odd. It wasn't obvious until now that he usually sat up no matter what when people spoke to him. He wasn't sure if it was a rule Bruce set that he never broke the habit of or if it was just an automatic thing. 

"I'm trying to think of what to say."

"Yeah, I was the same too." He hummed understandingly. So it was definitely bad. He pulled out his phone and flipped it open, the old hinges creaking rather than clicking. "Are you googling what it is?" the older asked with a smirk.

"I was answering a text."

"I know you weren't."

"Yeah, I wasn't. Could you give me the simple answer?"

"My body is one big ache," he answered. Very simple which he was thankful for but it also left a lot to be desired. "Some days the ache is worse."

"Like today?"

"Like today." Jason nodded. "You wanna talk about it, don't you?"

"I mean, a little."

Dick let out a long-suffering sigh and pushed himself up, putting a few pillows behind his back and another underneath his knees. He looked exhausted. Jason hadn't noticed it before but he could see it full force now. Sometimes the cave lighting was a saving grace when you looked like shit. 

"Go on then. I'll do an AMA just for you."

"I'm so lucky," Jason replied, rolling his eyes fondly. "So how come you were fine walking into the cave but when you got up, you were limping?"

"It just sorta happens sometimes when I sit down. It's like when you get a dead leg when you sit on it too long but for me, it's like walking on a twisted ankle even when I sit with perfect posture," he explained. 

"Why does Tim know?" He scrunched up his face at the question but still answered it.

"I cancelled a meet-up with him. Just some coffee but it hurt to just get to the bathroom and back so I knew I wouldn't be able to go. He came over with coffee and saw me death gripping everything in touching distance. I didn't tell him then but the little stalker went through my medical history. Found the diagnosis there." Figures. Someone really needed to talk to him about the stalking.

"So what exactly is the diagnosis? Other than your body being a big ouch."

"It's widespread chronic pain and chronic fatigue with a bunch of other stuff for shits and giggles."

"Can I be brutally honest?"

"When aren't you?"

"Fair point. It sounds like something that should be common knowledge with us. Like wouldn't it come in the way of work?"

"Not if I just work through it and feel absolutely awful the next day," Dick answered as though he were a genius. 

"Unhealthy."

"And being a vigilante isn't already?" He couldn't really argue with that. "It's not from work if you were wondering."

"What is it from?"

"Just sorta happens."

"This is a pretty big sorta just happens," Jason countered. The acrobat shrugged. "Okay so going back to my question, shouldn't we know this?"

"Like I've said before it's none of your business. I'll tell people when I need to and right now I don't. It's manageable."

"Yeah, it looks pretty manageable."

"It's a flare-up. Stress, work, weather. If Mercury is in fucking retrograde at this point," he joked.

"Is Tim the only one who knows?"

"Titans know. Kinda hard to sneak it past them since we lived together during the worst of it." That made sense. Still, it was odd that Bruce hadn't figured it out but for as much as he was a good detective he was pretty blind to what happened in his own home. Satisfied, Jason stood up. "Happy with your interrogation?"

"For now," he replied. "I'm guessing nothing leaves this room."

"You'll be the first to know when it becomes common knowledge." He made his way to the door before pausing. 

"Is there anything we can do? To make it easier?"

"Maybe don't point out when I'm limping."

"Noted."