Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It starts with the exhibit.

The whole family goes. They’re a little late—Waynes of all flavors are always late, it seems—but they do get there with plenty of time left to explore. Plenty of time to find Damian’s large showcase, with more space and more pieces than anyone else.

He didn’t look surprised to see them, per se, but he also didn’t look smug. Maybe…relieved.

Well, in any case. They’re here. Damian had left the manor early, demanding that not even Dick arrive with him. Tim thinks it was a sort of test, however soft and childish it seems. Like letting Dick out of an obligation, to see if he would still come. To see if he really wanted to. And he clearly had; Dick was first through the door, speeding by Bruce’s side, looking through the exhibit with shining eyes as they landed on Damian.

Damian, who’d been glaring at nothing, arms behind his back, hiding the twist of his fingers that Tim knows he does when he’s nervous. Damian, seeing them rushing for him, his face not brightening, not judging, just…relaxing. Shoulders slumping, just a bit, as if he’d been holding them too tight without knowing.

Dick and Bruce reached him first, then Cass and Alfred. Duke, Tim, Jason, and Steph all lazily followed, browsing the art on the way. When they finally arrived at Damian’s showcase, the boy still wasn’t smiling but it was something very close. Like he had to work to swallow it. Tim warmed, because Damian looked more like a kid than he usually did. Of course he would, surrounded by his classmates and other school district students, of whom he was one of the youngest.

Looking at the varieties of artwork that surrounded them, then at last reaching his brother’s, Tim found himself shocked that Damian’s work had only been selected for something so small. Surely there was some sort of higher level competition for this? His paintings were leagues ahead of everyone else, the careful strokes and colors making everyone else’s pieces look like they’d been completed in the dark.

“It’s beautiful,” Dick said on a soft exhale as he looked at a watercolor of Gotham’s skyline from above one of its busy streets, voice surprised because he hadn’t seen it yet. None of them had. Damian had been very adamant that no-one look at any of the pieces he planned to enter into the showcase. Even before that, he’d always been secretive, protective over them; getting the chance to look at anything he created was always a rare opportunity.

Damian rolled his eyes. “That is easily the worst of them,” he frowned.

“That’s stupid,” Jason mumbled, eyes frantically looking between each of Damian’s pieces. “These are perfect.”

Damian’s eyes go wide, a reaction he can’t quite hide in time. Tim smiled as the rest of the family began to sing their praises, which only made Damian go more and more red.

“Oh, oh, Dick!” Tim exclaimed, “This is you!” It’s a portrait, a shadow of a man in an empty room, the only light casting it coming from the busy street outside. Tim had never seen anything like it.

Isn’t this what museums are for?

“How could you possibly know that?” Damian demanded, stepping closer, eyes glancing over his work like it had changed. “I was careful not to include any recognizable details of him.” Tim looked over it again too, realizing belatedly that the man was indeed too dark to see, more an outline than anything else. But it was so vivid, so perfectly captured, that it could be a photograph, and Tim knows a photo of his brother when he sees one. He told Damian this, only for the boy to huff, and reassure that it is not a photo. He proved this by going into detail on which brushes he used and how he chose the colors and maybe seven minutes in, Tim realized that Damian is opening up in a way he so rarely does, especially to him. The family always counted themselves lucky when Damian felt proud enough of a piece to show them; to Tim’s knowledge, they had never heard his artistic process, or told his thoughts on his own art beyond a simple judgement.

It felt oddly like a gift, and Tim was enraptured by his speech. When Damian finished talking, looking more embarrassed than anything else, Tim just nodded seriously, and pointed to the work next to it. “What about this one?”

Damian launched into another rant, then another and another. Jason and Steph wandered off somewhere through explanation number four, and Duke disappeared about five minutes after that. Several onlookers did the opposite, inching closer to hear more. But Damian never seemed to mind either way. In fact, he looked almost exclusively at Tim, gauging only his face for reactions.

Eventually all thirteen of his pieces were accounted for, and Tim was nearly out of follow-up questions. He stepped back, a little, which at last gave Bruce more room to look closer, lean into the paintings with a soft look on his face. Damian monitored him carefully, that glare from earlier returning to his face at last.

“When can we have them?” He asked at last. “The school doesn’t get to keep them, right?”

“You…want them?” Damian questioned carefully, with something that sounded a lot like hope littering his voice.

“Of course,” Bruce replied easily, tearing his gaze away from the art at last, looking down to Damian instead. “We have to have them, for the manor.”

Damian preened.

And suddenly all that soft pride inside Tim turned to something ugly. That glowing joy for his brother darkened, like something worse was overshadowing it. Something that felt a lot like jealousy.

Which wasn’t fair.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t be, when they all agreed they’d come tonight, which wasn’t hard. He reminded himself he wouldn’t be, on the ride over, which was only a little bit harder. And he’d thought, as he scoured over these beautiful pieces, as he had the privilege of hearing Damian’s thoughts—he’d thought it had gone away completely. That he wasn’t jealous at all. But he is. And it’s not fair to Damian, who is smiling properly and openly even though there are strangers all around them.

Damian began to explain to Bruce the process of how the exhibit works, and Tim slipped away like the rest of his siblings—except Cass and Dick, who are still quietly exchanging commentary over each of Damian’s paintings.

Tim wanders around the exhibit aimlessly, a little too glad that he doesn’t run into the others. And it’s weird, because he’s still so, so proud, when he realizes that Damian’s art has blown the rest out of the water. They're good, he supposes, but Damian has a finesse, a talent that the others just can’t seem to master. Tim is proud of him.

And he’s sad.

He finds himself on a balcony, the cold night welcoming him easily. The party, the echoes of the showcase, still beckons, but a moment to catch his breath is hard to turn down and Tim tries very hard to remember when it was that he’d stopped breathing.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been out there, but when he hears the squeak of the door behind him opening, he realizes that it has certainly been too long.

“Timothy,” Damian greets.

Tim's voice is calm, thought he's more than a little surprised. "Hey, Dami."

It’s cool, that he can call Damian that now. That maybe sometimes Damian even hides a smile when he hears Tim say it.

He’s not hiding one now, though. HIs brows are furrowed, and he stalks out onto the balcony.

“You alright?” Tim asks. Damian raises a brow, clearly returning the sentiment. Neither boy speaks, and eventually Tim resumes his pose, leaning his forearms on the railing again.

“You like photography.”

Tim blinks. Of all the possible things for Damian to say, Tim hadn’t expected that to be one of them.

“Uh, I guess.” Damian crosses his arms, facing him even though Tim only glances in return.

“I know you like taking photographs,” he pushes, as if that explains anything at all. Tim huffs a half-laugh, because…well. Because some sad, selfish part of him wishes he’d never liked taking photos at all.

“I used to,” Tim corrects coolly.

“You don’t anymore?”

“Not really?”

“Why?” Damian demands. Tim furrows his brows looking him over.

“I dunno,” Tim replies mildly. “I guess I just got…busy. You’ll understand, when you’re old like me.” Usually a similar sentiment makes Damian roll his eyes, but this time, Damian barely blinks.

“Why,” he pushes, and it’s not a question anymore.

“I dunno, Dami.”

Damian seems to be waiting for him to say something. But Tim doesn’t, looking over the edge of the balcony instead.

Eventually, it’s Damian that breaks the creeping silence between them. “Your photographs are still hanging, put up all around the school. I see them all the time.” Tim looks at him at last. “There are ten of them. That is more than any one student has ever had showcased. Your photography is, legally, record-breaking.” Something in Tim tightens, the way it always does when he thinks about this for too long.

“So?”

“You must have had exhibits,” Damian continues, ignoring him entirely. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“What, you want the year?”

“How old were you?” Damian corrects. Tim sighs.

“Uh…” He trails off, trying to remember exact dates, even though Damian hadn’t been asking. “I was nine, during the first one.”

“Until?”

“I stopped when I was thirteen.”

“And?” Damian pushes. Tim doesn’t know what he’s asking for. That’s it. He was thirteen when he put the camera down. “They have two exhibits a year. That is a total of nine, maybe ten, events. Based on the ten photos around the school, I would put a firm estimate on the latter.” Damian counts aloud. Tim nods slowly, trying to follow along. “And you knew Father starting at age twelve, yes?”

“Yes,” Tim grits out. This conversation has been off-putting from the start. But now it’s making his chest hurt, his shoulders tighten. It feels like he’s preparing for battle.

“Why is your work not displayed around the manor?”

Tim blinks, face turning out toward the rail again, away from Damian’s confused face. It’s not an interrogation, Tim realizes. It’s genuine curiosity, confusion. He is looking for the answer to a puzzle he can’t solve.

“My original theory was that Father did not entertain these events,” Damian admits, “but after speaking with Richard weeks ago in a moment of—uncertainty,” Tim can picture Damian shyly asking Dick to come to the exhibit and wondering if he should ask Bruce, too. “I was informed that he attended gymnastic events for Richard and school theatrics for Todd. He would even go to multiple showings. Which seems ridiculous to me.” Tim nods. That sounds like Bruce. “So, I then theorized that he simply did not appreciate nor hang outside art, or perhaps work created by those that are not yet at a mastery level.”

“You’re at a mastery level,” Tim interrupts, a reassurance he hadn’t even meant to say.

“So are you,” Damian waves him off, like neither sentence meant anything. Like Tim hadn’t been waiting to hear that for his whole life. There must be something showing in his face, though, because Damian scowls. “Oh, please, Timothy. You know this already. Your work has been regarded in this school for longer than any other student. It has won several awards.” Damian pauses, looking down, face scrunched. “But Father is already picking out frames for my artwork. So, I don’t understand,” Damian admits at last. When he speaks again, it’s younger, and Tim knows they’ve reached the end of his possibly practiced speech. His voice is softer, as if talking to himself, and he doesn’t monitor his words nearly as much. “I don’t get it. Anyone who sees your photographs wants to have them, to hang them. Myself included. But they’re not even displayed in your room! You don’t take pictures anymore. You don’t even reach for the camera when you are on a stakeout. You always let whoever you’re partnered with take any incriminating photos.”

“Stalker,” Tim mutters, more than a little annoyed at how easily he’s been seen through. Damian just glares at him.

“I give up. I don’t get it. Explain it to me. Why aren’t your photographs displayed around the manor?”

This hurts the most out of anything, because when Damian admits he needs help, you help. It’s the rules. Because what if he asks, and no-one helps, and next time he doesn’t ask at all? So when Damian asks for help understanding, Tim has to help him understand.

But there’s a problem with this, because—“I don’t know.” It’s a hard admission. “I don’t know.” His voice is soft, a self-depreciating joke hidden somewhere in there.

Why isn’t his work displayed around the manor?

He doesn’t know.

Tim wants to say it’s because it’s not very good. But there’s statistical, physical proof that that’s not true. Tim wants to say it’s because Bruce had never seen it, but Tim knows for a fact he has, because with every invitation Tim extended he would attach a photo of one of the pieces he’d be entering. He did the same with his parents’ invitations. He’d thought of it like a ‘where’s waldo’ kind of situation. As if the people holding the invitations would come just to spot in real life the one they’d been given. Tim wants to say it’s because he’s never offered. Like, maybe, if Tim suggested it now, Bruce would swoop him up and agree and buy him a frame like Damian, and admit he’d been too nervous to ask. But now Bruce has offered it himself, unprompted, and there’s really only one real solution left.

Tim doesn’t want to say it. Especially not to Damian. But the words tumble from his lips too fast to be caught.

“It’s like you always used to say, Dami. You’re the blood son.”

“Blood has nothing to do with family, Timothy,” Damian replies haughtily. Tim thinks of the relationship Bruce has with Dick, and Jason, and Cass, and Steph, and Duke. He knows blood has nothing to do with it.

That’s why he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it. Is he not a part of this weirdo, stitched together, patchwork family? Is he not in the family portrait that gets updated every year to include each new member?

Is Tim the punchline in a joke he can’t see yet?

“Well,” Tim amends, “you’re his son.”

“You are, too,” Damian replies, confusion painting his voice.

“I guess,” Tim says. “But it’s just different, Damian. It always has been.”

And oh boy he should not have said that because Damian seems to have a whole new slew of questions.

“How so?” Damian demands. Tim shrugs. He stares out at the courtyard, only a few short floors below them. If he jumped he could totally make it, land it perfectly. And, bonus, he would get out of this conversation. “He…He went to your exhibits, yes?”

Tim looks down at that courtyard, and wonders how many of Damian’s questions he’d be answering by trying to avoid them.

“Did you invite him?” Damian asks, but his voice sounds smaller, more scared. Tim looks at him, checking him over for injuries out of habit. He doesn’t dive off the balcony. He doesn’t answer the question. But Damian seems to know the answer anyway. “And he didn’t come?”

Tim closes his eyes, more embarrassed than he means to be. He sighs.

“That’s not—that’s not right,” Damian decides, shaking his head rapidly. “He hasn’t seen them! We must rectify this immediately—” Tim lightly grabs his wrist, gentle as he can be while stopping him.

“He has, Dami. I’ve shown him.”

“When?” Damian demands.

“Every exhibit, I’d,” Tim swallows, shame lumping at the back of his throat. “I’d attach a copy of my favorite piece to his invitation.” He chuckles, self-conscious at the memory, dropping Damian’s wrist. “It was dumb.”

“It wasn’t dumb,” Damian’s voice is something soft, reassuring and gentle in a way that Tim has only heard him use on his cat when no-one is around. “I don’t understand.”

Objectively, Tim knows the man was grieving. He knows Bruce saw a boy in his dead son’s colors and was afraid of growing attached. He knows Bruce would stare at the invitation for a long time, like he was holding a memory, and at the very least promise to try to make it. He knows Bruce was trying to be kind as he lied for the first three of Tim’s missed exhibits.

He knows that on the fourth one, the final one, Tim found his invitation, and the attached picture, wrinkled and in the trash, not an hour after Bruce had sworn he’d check his schedule.

He doesn’t know why Bruce never asked again, after he’d had more healing and time to deal with his grief. He doesn’t know why Bruce never apologized for not coming, years later, now that the family is possibly as happy as they’ll ever be. He doesn’t know why Bruce jumping up and smiling and hugging Damian as he white-fisted his invitation and promising to be there before Damian had even said the date, had made his lungs feel like they were on fire.

“Neither do I,” Tim replies at last.

Silence stretches. Damian’s hands are behind his back. Tim wonders if he’s tangling his fingers again.

“I want to see them,” Damian decides eventually, voice back to its usual stern demeanor.

“See what?”

“Your photographs. I would like to see them.” Tim huffs a surprised laugh.

“Sorry, Dames. Can’t,” Tim replies, still smiling a little though he can’t fathom why.

“I demand—”

“They’re gone,” Tim cuts him off. “I threw them out.” Damian looks so hurt at the thought of this that Tim wants to go digging through the trash to find them. “I only had a couple left when I moved into the manor, anyway. I figured it wasn’t really worth packing them up.”

“What about the rest?” Damian asks, sounding desperate. Tim could swear he doesn’t usually sound or look this expressive. “You said you only had a couple left—where did the rest of them go?”

He’d thrown out almost every single photo when he found his invitation in the trash.

He’d kept the Robin ones, though. But then Jason returned, and when Tim could walk again, he threw out most of those, too.

He had a few photos he’d prized too much to throw out in his defeat, though. And that’s what it was, wasn't it? Both times, just...utter defeat. Disappointment in the heroes he’d grown up worshipping, failure in himself. Moments piling up of his apparently inability to make the people he loved, love him back.

He had a few, much less skilled pictures of Dick as Robin, from way back when Tim had first begun taking photos. He had a few of his parents, a couple of his house, one of Mrs. Mac. He’d kept those, alongside a rare few of Jason’s that survived his original devastation.

And then his parents died.

They’d never gone to one of his exhibits, either. Always promised they’d try.

When he packed up his whole life, what was left of his photos stayed behind, thrown like the trash everyone else seemed to think they were.

Tim wishes now he’d kept them. Not a lot, not all of them. At least one of Jason, and Dick. Of his parents. Mrs. Mac is gone now, and he would have liked to have kept the one of her. And his skyline photos, oh, how he remembers photographing buildings that are gone now…

“Photos are like these moments, these memories, coming to life,” Tim murmurs to himself. “I always liked to pretend I was a superhero. I couldn’t fight the bad guys, like Robin. But I could freeze time itself. Pretty cool power, I thought.”

“But you were Robin,” Damian points out, and Tim flinches, because he’d genuinely forgotten the boy was there.

“I guess,” Tim replies.

“...Why did you stop taking photographs?”

Tim is not going to tell him about the invitation in the trash. That couldn’t be tortured out of him. In no world would he let Damian think there was a chance of one of his exhibit invites being thrown away.

So Tim shrugs. “I just got busy.”

Damian glares at him. But it’s the only answer he’d get.

“You’re not busy now,” Damian points out, and Tim can see where this is going.

“I’m always busy,” Tim counters with a half-forced laugh, booping him on the nose as he all but runs from the balcony. “Now, I’m off to go see if I can steal one of your paintings before Bruce hogs them all. You coming or what?”

Damian comes. They don’t talk about photography again. Tim thinks that this is the end of it.

It’s not.

Chapter Text

The next time it happens, it’s during breakfast, not a month later.

Breakfast could never be a solemn affair, because everyone has survived another night and is well enough to be eating. But it has always been a silent affair, because everyone is exhausted. Who would have guessed that protecting an entire city every night is a difficult job? And waking up at ten the following morning doubly so.

Almost everyone is there. It's a Sunday, which means Jason joins in, if only to satisfy Alfred. Dick drove up the night before, sleeping over to spend his Sunday with Damian like he always does. Cass lives in the manor, which means Steph practically does too. Duke is always the first to wake up, and everyone knew better than to tease him because he’s a day shift, so he does not wake up with aching muscles and headaches—and he was never afraid to use that against them.

And Tim?

Tim lives at the manor, too.

He has an apartment. He’s just refusing to use it until someone explicitly tells him to. He knows if he runs now he’ll never ever stop. Actually, Tim is starting to have a creeping feeling that he’s overstaying his welcome. But no-one’s said it, so here he stays until they’re brave enough to. So. Here’s hoping he’s surrounded by cowards.

Tim goes down to breakfast with half-lidded eyes and the headache he’d fallen asleep with, sitting at his usual spot at the table. There were never assigned seats, really, but everyone always sat in the same place anyway.

Duke gives him a quick greeting, and Jason ignores him completely in favor of glaring down at the table like it had personally offended him. Cass waves and Steph throws a grape. Alfred is quick with his breakfast—Tim never could figure out how he always manages to start making each personalized meal so they came out just as the person it was meant for sat down.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Tim mumbles, wiping his eyes as he tries, impossibly, to wake up. Slowly but surely the remaining members of the family trickle in. Dick first, then Bruce, who sits in his chair with a huff and barely manages a smile to each of his kids. But he does. So overall, a huge win for the guy.

By the time Damian saunters in, later than usual, Tim feels a little less dead.

“Morning,” he greets the boy softly, wary of both his own headache and the others’. Damian nods at him, taking his seat across from Tim like always. They used to kick each other under the table, but now they just…eat. Occasionally, they’d playfully throw food if Alfred was looking away. Breakfast tastes a lot like progress.

Tim looks up from his plate just as Alfred places Damian’s breakfast in front of him, then promptly freezes as he at last catches sight of the picture behind the boy.

Tim’s picture.

It’s large. Framed and large and definitely, definitely his.

“I…” he begins, but trails off. I’m sorry? Thank you? Do you like it?

He has no idea what to say. Bruce reacts, a little, confused eyes landing on Tim as he tilts his head.

Damian says nothing, which of course says everything. And Tim’s theories are all but confirmed by the miniscule smirk Damian can’t seem to tuck away in time.

“You,” Tim decides aloud. Damian’s smirk grows, a little.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re referencing.”

“Liar,” Tim replies, his brother’s cool demeanor only upsetting him more.

“Boys,” Bruce interrupts. “What’s the problem?”

Tim says nothing. How can he?

His picture is right there on the wall, and everyone is acting like nothing is different, and slowly eating their food like half-dead zombies, and Damian is still smirking, and his picture is right there on the wall.

“Nothing, Father,” Damian replies, the hint of a proud laugh on his breath, which of course only troubles Bruce further. But Tim ignores the man in favor of glaring at Damian, which is hard because Tim’s eyes won’t stop glancing up at the picture above Damian’s head.

Tim’s picture.

It’s the old abandoned movie theatre on Main Street, overgrown with vibes from an ivy attack that no one had ever bothered to tame back down. Surrounded by perfect, crisp skyscrapers it looks out of place, like an old memory hogging up reality.

Tim remembers taking the photo. He had still been new to the bat-watching game; he hadn’t even known their patrol routes yet. So he’d get there early, wait in spots where they were likely to pass. It was still daytime when the photo was taken, and Tim recalls nearly falling off of the gargoyle he’d been sitting on trying to keep the glare of the sun from ruining the picture.

Tim remembers submitting the photo a few years later for an exhibit; he’d been too busy with his new Robin title and felt that he didn’t have enough to fill out his showcase, so he submitted that old one. It won first place.

“Where. Did you. Get it.” Tim’s teeth are clenched, his words tasting like an anxiety he hasn’t felt since he was twelve and trying to work up the courage to ask his mentor to come to his showcase.

Damian at last looks up from his food fully, eyes shining with something unrecognizable. “I borrowed it.”

“Borrowed,” Tim repeats incredulously.

“Oh, the school won’t miss it. They have plenty, yes?”

“Why?” Tim pivots.

“Why do you think?” Damian replies, his unusual soft eyes shifting into his familiar, defensive glare. A beat passes, though, and the boy seems to settle. When he speaks again, his voice is soft, younger. “You really don’t like it?”

Dick looks up from his food at last, probably catching the insecurity in Damian’s voice but utterly lost on the context of why it’s there.

“I don’t understand why it’s here,” Tim responds, ignoring Dick’s questioning glances.

Damian shrugs like the answer is simple. “It deserves to be.”

Between one blink and the next, tears are forming in Tim’s eyes, which is ridiculous. He shouldn’t care about this. It’s just one stupid picture.

Except that it’s his picture.

Hanging like it matters, framed like it’s wanted. Did Damian pick out the frame? Did he go around searching for a spare in the manor? Did he manage to buy one when no-one was looking?

“Thank you,” Tim whispers softly, at last, quiet enough for only Damian to hear. His brother looks mollified, and gives a curt nod.

“Eat your breakfast,” he challenges haughtily, and the air between them shifts to something more familiar; less scary and important.

“Is anyone gonna explain what the fuck you two are going on about?” Jason interrupts, an exasperated look replacing his usual morning exhaustion.

“No,” Damian replies, and then he smiles.

He fucking smiles.

Every face at the table morphs from confusion to genuine horror. Except Tim, who can’t help his snort.

“You are loving this, aren’t you?” Tim half-teases, and Damian is still smiling but it’s less evil and more soft, and Tim’s picture is still on the wall. What’s funny is that this was clearly Damian’s master plan. He purposefully waited for a Sunday morning, when everyone would be gathered but exhausted. A room full of detectives, and everyone’s too out of it to notice that there’s a framed picture on the wall that wasn’t there before.

Just as Tim opens his mouth to compliment the boy, a voice to his right interrupts.

“What’s that?” Duke asks, pointing vaguely at Tim’s photo.

Damian’s smile fades, a little, and his eyes widen.

“Forgot to account for Duke, did you?” Tim mutters, raising a brow. Damian glares, then pointedly shifts his focus away from Tim.

“What’s what?” Damian asks Duke calmly, who’s still casually pointing at Tim’s picture. By now, the rest of the family have followed Duke’s gaze—and everyone is looking at Tim’s picture.

Dick’s never even seen them, let alone everyone else. Only Damian and Bruce. And now everyone Tim loves is looking at his photo. For the first time. Ever.

Tim locks his gaze on Bruce without even meaning to. And he knows, without looking, that Damian is doing the same.

“Is that new?” Jason questions, and Tim thinks he sees him tilt his head from the corner of his eye, but he can’t be sure because he genuinely cannot stop staring at Bruce.

“Yes,” Cass confirms.

Bruce’s brows furrow, looking the picture over carefully.

“It’s not new,” he replies at last. “It must have come from the attic—I’ve seen it before. Can’t quite place where…”

“No, ‘cause, hold on,” Steph says, breaking Tim away from the horrible spiral that Bruce’s very bad guess sent him on. “Damian said he borrowed it from school.”

“That was something else,” Tim says quickly, forcing his gaze away from Bruce and attempting to look more normal than he feels. Although he’s sure that the many detectives around him are awake enough now to see right through him.

“Alfred,” Bruce begins, “did you move this here?”

Alfred steps forward, not bothering to glance at the picture that he no doubt already noticed, and flicks his eyes to Tim. He’s so quick and subtle about it that Tim doubts anyone else noticed.

“The kitchen needed some sprucing up, don’t you agree?” Alfred replies carefully.

“Well, it’s a sick pic,” Steph decides. Something in Tim’s stomach flips.

“Are you kidding?” Dick asks, “it’s gorgeous. B, I can’t believe you’ve been hiding this in your attic!”

“Just goes to show that money really can’t buy taste,” Jason chimes in. “Otherwise you’d have replaced your old boring shit with stuff like this.”

Tim’s stomach flips so many times that he might throw up. Or cry.

“It’s…” Bruce trails off, and Tim manages to look away from the man long enough to see Damian’s content smile slip, his brows dipping into something that looks like worry. “Familiar.”

Of course it would be, for him. Tim always attached his favorite pieces to Bruce invitations, and this was the photo on Bruce’s very first invite.

Apparently that’s all he has to say on the matter, and everyone else just shrugs off the conversation and moves on. And Tim’s picture is still hanging right there.

“So, Dami,” Dick is the first to change the topic between bites, “what did you borrow from school?” Tim looks over at his brother to see a now rare fury taking over his face, glaring down at his plate like it’s betrayed him. “Dami?”

But Damian doesn’t reply. He lurches from the table, throwing his napkin on his nearly untouched food, and stomping away.

“I’d better—” Bruce begins, and Tim wonders if his embarrassing memories are now becoming a secret he has to hide as he interrupts.

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m already done eating. I’ll go.”

It’s kind of cool that no-one shoots him a cursory glance, no one thinks he’s up to something or that he’s about to get himself killed. Bruce just flashes a small, grateful smile, and Tim thinks breakfast feels a lot like growth.

It takes a while to track down his brother. Damian didn’t run to his room.

He ran to the attic.

“Hey, Dami,” Tim says softly, approaching the boy. He’s sitting back to a wall, knees pulled to his chest, staring at nothing with those ever-furrowed brows of his. “Is it okay if I sit here?” Damian doesn’t respond, though, so Tim sits.

“He’s already seen that one before,” Damian decides aloud.

“Guess so,” Tim replies, aiming for nonchalant.

“You know the answer,” Damian huffs. Tim nods, mouth sewn shut. “He has, yes?”

Tom sighs, a long, aching thing. “Yes. He has.”

Damian stares at nothing with even more vitriol than before.

“He didn’t even say he liked it. He didn’t even comment on it at all. He wouldn’t shut up at my exhibit, but he wouldn’t even go to yours, and everyone else loved it but he didn’t say a word and I don’t understand.”

Tim is very aware that Cass and Duke had not said a word about his photo, either. But probably that’s just his insecurities projecting.

“I’m sorry, Dames,” he tries, and Damian all but recoils from him.

“Why? Why is it always you that has to be sorry? Why is it you that has to bend? Why is it you that had to step aside, for Todd, for Stephanie, for me?”

“I didn’t step aside,” Tim rolls his eyes, but Damian is too fired up to catch it.

“But you did! Todd attacked you, twice—”

“I really, really egged him on,” Tim tries.

“And you let Stephanie take Robin from you—”

“I had to stop being Robin because of my dad,” he attempts.

“And I tried to kill you! And then I took Robin, too!”

“You were just a kid,” Tim replies firmly. Damian looks at him with wide, wet eyes.

“So were you,” he whispers.

A beat of silence passes as they both size each other up, and maybe Damian is remembering, like Tim is, exactly how hard they had to fight to get here. And when Tim opens his arms, a silent offering, Damian burrows into him, hugging tightly, wrapping his arms around Tim’s torso.

Neither boy actually cries. But it feels like a sort of self expression that they haven’t done in a very long time. Maybe ever.

“I still don’t understand.”

“Me either, babybird.”

They sit like that for a while. Until breakfast is far behind them and Dick starts calling out through the manor for the youngest of the two boys. And when Damian asks why Dick is only calling for him, well. Tim doesn’t have an answer for that, either.

Chapter Text

Ice cream has become something Tim dreads. It’s a weird thing, in concept, to cringe away from. And really, it is all Tim’s fault.

Technically, the ice cream in question is not just something general—though the apprehension Tim feels about it is leaking into his opinions on ice cream in general. No, the ice cream in question is technically Bat Protocol: Post-Patrol Scoops. Most nights are busy, difficult and exhausting. On those nights, the streets are crowded with crooks and goons, or there’s an Arkham breakout, or a near-death scare from someone in the family. On those nights, everyone returns home with bruises and aching bones, collapsing into bed and praying for no nightmares.

But some nights, usually a few times a month, there are good nights. Still busy, always busy, but busy in the way of movement rather than in fighting. Petty theft instead of overwhelming violent crime. Instead of spotting bodies, they point to the stars, fighting about the constellations. (Jason always argues that they should be named after famous authors and philosophers, Steph is convinced there aren’t nearly enough women in that list, Dick is busy loudly yawning by the third or fourth name, and Damian eventually interrupts that he doesn’t see the point in squabbling over stars, anyway. Cass seems as content as Tim to just…admire them, and listen to the others squabble.) After patrol, when they’re tired but happy, bickering but bonding, the family goes out for a very old, very exclusive Bat Protocol: Post-Patrol Ice Cream. Though they call it ‘Scoops’ for short because it makes Damian mad.

It’s a decade old tradition, one that started during Dick’s tenure as Robin. The exact timeline isn’t clear, but one day it was just…something. And, like all good traditions, it lasted through the ages.

Well. Almost.

Unfortunately, Tim has begun to hate it. In fact, he’s taken to scheming, finding ways to get away without raising suspicion. He could do it, maybe, but the problem is that he doesn’t actually want to get away; he actually likes the bonding part, just sitting and being with the others. Oh, how he wishes it was tacos they ate, or hot dogs, or brownies! But it’s not. He’s stuck with the ice cream.

More specifically, Tim is stuck with black cherry ice cream. Which again, is completely his fault.

“Scoops?” Dick is suggesting, a relaxed, tired smile dancing across his face.

“Scoops!” Steph chants, the name making Damian roll his eyes as always. Jason grumbles about being tired, but he’s the one to lead the way as Tim desperately tries to think of a way out—how to get away without leaving? But three blocks over arrives too fast, and soon they’re at the familiar, forever standing, ice cream staple of Gotham.

Bat-Cream, it’s called. The worst name ever, really. Which was why Dick chose it all those years ago, pointing and laughing and forcing an exhausted Batman to take his Robin out for dessert. All of the flavors are, naturally, bat-themed. And now that there are many, many more bats, there are many new flavors. No-one ever orders ones that weren’t around during their tenure, though. Traditions aren’t meant to be changed.

Dick steps up to the window, full Nightwing uniform, and orders eight ice creams without hesitation. Choco-bat for himself, Bat-ter Pecan for Barbara, StRobinberry for Jason, NeaWingitan for Damian, Batgirlday Cake for Steph, Red Hood Road for Cass.

And Tim is always handed his Bat Cherry.

It’s a pun on black cherry.

Which might possibly be the worst ice cream in the entire world. And, seemingly, his permanent order. Hence why he hates the Scoops tradition so much.

Dick hands him the ice cream cup with a huge smile, paying the quiet, chuckling man behind the register far more than the price he’d given. Then the group of vigilantes return to the roofs, sitting side by side, legs kicking over the ledge.

“Chocolate is obviously the best one,” Dick argues as he licks at his cone. Damian scoffs.

“Neapolitan is the only correct choice.” Damian’s favorite flavor makes sense, to Tim. Neapolitan, a mix of choices, and named after Nightwing. It’s like it was put on the menu just for the kid.

“Basic,” Steph replies coolly.

“No, no, no, we are not listening to a word you say while you eat that rainbow-throwup-in-a-cup,” Jason interrupts.

“It’s birthday cake, and it’s delicious.” Everyone gives nearly unanimous ‘ewws’ as she continues defending the Barbara-themed dessert.

“Rocky Road,” Cass chimes in, eating her triple scoop with the tiny tasting spoon because she likes when it lasts longer.

“Gotta say, that one is definitely the coolest name,” Jason agrees. Dick audibly groans.

“Why’d you get your full name and I only got Neo-Wing? That’s horrible!”

“StRobinberry was also technically named after you,” Babs points out over their comms, probably counting the minutes until she receives her insane, butter pecan milkshake.

“Strawberry is the best one,” Jason says, nodding. “Nice and simple.”

“What about you, Timothy?” Damian asks, seemingly out of nowhere. “How could black cherry possibly be your favorite?”

It’s not. It’s really, really not.

How could anyone put up with eating it? How does it stay in store? Tim is convinced he is single-handedly stopping the rotten ice cream flavor from being thrown into the dumpster in entirety. Tim hates the little chunks interrupting the simple, nice texture that ice cream is supposed to be, sitting awkward in his mouth and making him cringe. It’s the worst sensation—ice cream is supposed to be smooth! The best Tim can do is separate the cream from the fake cherries, pushing the fruit to the side to force down his throat later. He always ends up missing a few of the tinier pieces, and it’s the worst kind of surprise when they pop up in his bites. The flavor is too sweet, too, like cough syrup. Probably Tim would go for something easier, like Vanilla Bat, which is really just vanilla bean. Maybe Mint Choco-bat Chip, like Duke prefers. At least those pieces would melt, rather than just get stuck in Tim’s teeth.

But it’s too late. He’s stuck eating stupid horrible Bat Cherry ice cream forever with no clear escape. And it’s all his own fault.

“Uh, cause it’s the best,” Tim replies like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Meanwhile, his mouth is full of the horrible, fruity flavor. Who looks at ice cream and thinks, ‘oh, let’s make this taste more like fake fruit’?

The banter moves on, consisting of the same arguments there always are. Eventually the conversation drifts, and Dick talks about work, Cass about school. Jason gives updates on his team, and Damian does too. Steph tells whatever new weird story she has—this one is about a squirrel she saw who was apparently chasing a bird. Tim opens his mouth when Cass looks his way, his turn, apparently—but the ice cream in Dick’s cone begins to drip down faster than he can lick it, thoroughly ruining the gloves of his suit, like always.

“Don’t come near me!” Jason cries out, when Dick reaches sticky-fingered, threatening to ruffle his hair. Tim laughs with everyone else.

That’s the tradition. And, bonus, it’s pretty funny.

Eventually Bruce appears behind them, and Damian hands him his single scoop of Vanilla Bat, the lucky bastard.

Batman hums his thank-you, and Tim catches the tiny uptick in the corner of his mouth as he watches his children argue and talk over each other. Dick isn’t always able to join, often too busy in Blud. And sometimes Jason is stiff, distant in the way that can only fade with time and time and time, and he stays deep in crime alley, away from the rest of the bats.

It’s not rare to see everyone together for Scoops, per se. But it’s few and far between enough that everyone feels a little compelled to take a moment to revel in it.

“Home?” Cass questions, standing and stretching. Everyone nods, and Jason splits off to return to his apartment after shoving Dick and ruffling Steph’s hair. Tim follows the others—he still refuses to return to his apartment. He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, though he has no doubt that it will. The question is only when.

Dick’s staying over for Sunday brunch the following morning, and when they reach the cave he’s the first to change into one of his big, oversized sweatshirts. Everyone follows suit, tiredly heading up to bed. Tim notices just as he’s about to follow that, sneakily, Damian is staying behind.

“Dames,” Tim scolds once the cave is empty. “Surely you know it’s too late for casework.”

“Yes,” is the only response the boy offers, sitting at the Batcomputer and typing furiously at it.

“Damian,” Tim pushes. “We gotta get to bed.”

“Soon,” Damian lies. Tim sighs, stomping over.

“What are you doing, then? Maybe I could help get it done faster.”

“Reviewing Batman’s cowl footage,” Damian replies, not bothering to even glance from the screen.

“What?” Tim asks, surprised. “What for?” No response. “What, you’re just scrolling through cowl footage?”

“No.” Damian answers. “I’m cross-referencing, of course.”

“With what?”

At last, Damian stops typing and scrolling, hands going eerily still as he slowly turns. There’s a strange glint in his eye, one that’s becoming worryingly familiar.

“Ice cream shops. Any will do.”

“Ice cream? Wha—why?” Tim wonders aloud.

Damian glares.

A long silence passes. It feels like Damian is waiting for him to say something, but Tim still doesn’t entirely understand the topic of conversation. Eventually, Damian sighs, crossing his arms.

“You don’t like black cherry ice cream,” he decides. It’s such a surprising statement, after all this time of Scoops nights, that Tim finds himself caught off guard.

“Wha—”

“Don’t bother denying it,” Damian interrupts haughtily. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a theory to confirm.”

“What theory?” Tim can’t help but ask, because he would actually die of embarrassment if anyone found out the secret behind his Scoops Ice Cream choice.

Damian eyes him once more. “If you tell me the truth, you would save me hours of work,” he thinks aloud, then nods once, as if solidifying his decision to share. “You don’t like black cherry ice cream, but you’ve been pretending to like it, all this time. I think it’s because you didn’t have a favorite, when asked.”

“Evidence?” Tim asks with narrowed eyes, knowing his defensiveness is only proving Damian’s point.

“None, yet,” Damian replies, nose in the air. “But once I finish looking through the footage, I’ll have plenty.”

“What could you possibly hope to find in cowl footage?” Tim questions incredulously, still not getting it.

Oddly, Damian stands up. His movements are slow, deliberate, as he walks toward Tim, as if approaching a skittish animal. There’s something soft in his eyes, something worried. “I don’t think I’ll find anything in the footage,” he mumbles. “That is the problem.”

“What are you—” Tim cuts himself off as Damian reaches for his hand, his grip firm and surprising.

“You didn’t have a favorite flavor, that first time. When we all went out for Post-Patrol Ice Cream together. You didn’t have a favorite, because you’d never been there before.” His voice is soft, a frown taking root on his face. “The lack of footage would confirm my theory.”

He’s right, of course. He is a detective, after all. And, much like the month prior during brunch, and the exhibit before that, he seems set on solving the case of Tim Drake. It’s a boring case, and Tim doesn’t understand why Damian keeps getting so caught up on it.

Tim sighs. “Does this matter?” He asks helplessly.

“Very much,” Damian replies.

They’re still holding hands. Tim grips it like a lifeline.

“No,” Tim admits at long last, “I’d never been there before.”

“Did you…” Damian seems almost nervous to ask his next question. “Did Father take you anywhere, after any patrol? Anywhere at all?”

Tim can’t answer, because the answer is humiliating.

The truth is, Dick and Jason had announced it was time for ice cream after a slow patrol night, for the very first time. They’d shared this bizarre child-like excitement about it, and raced to the ice cream shop, the rest of the crew in tow. Tim had been…near it, before. When he’d been taking photos of Batman and Robin. He’d watched from afar, through the lens of his camera, as they bought their ice cream and ate it together on a rooftop nearby. Dick would always have a chocolate cone. Jason would have a strawberry double scoop with sprinkles. Bruce would have vanilla.

Then Tim was Robin.

Then Tim wasn’t. Steph filled in, donned the costume when Tim’s dad made him stop, and she mentioned off-handedly about an ice cream store with a birthday cake flavored ice cream that was a perfect pastel blue.

Then Tim was Robin again.

Then Tim wasn’t. Bruce returned from the time stream, and Tim caught sight of Bruce and Damian on that familiar rooftop, specks in the distance on his own solo patrol route.

Then Duke came down for dinner one day, mumbling about his new favorite flavor—mint better than any he’d ever had. And somewhere in between, Cass had crept in with the mention of a rocky road ice cream that she would die for.

And Tim…

Well.

Dick had turned, that first time, and asked everyone’s orders.

Tim had never been close enough to hear the names. No-one had ever explained the joke to him. Every other bat seemed to speak gibberish as their order, and Tim didn’t recognize a single name. “Just…plain?” Tim had said unsurely, stupidly.

“That’s not a name,” Dick had teased, and Tim freaked out, frantically searching the menu for some sort of a simple, vanilla option. “What’s your usual, silly?”

“Oh—um,” Tim stuttered. “Oh! Sorry! I thought you meant random flavor in general!” He covered quickly, and Jason chuckled, and the first words Tim saw on the menu—“Bat Cherry,” he’d said quickly. “That’s it, for sure.”

He regretted his choice the minute the uneven cherries hit his tongue, but it hadn’t seemed like a huge deal. He was fine with waiting, and getting a new flavor next time.

Next time came, and Tim was ready. He’d scoured the whole menu ahead of time, deciding at last on the simplicity of Vanilla Bat.

“Ooo, I’ll take Vanilla Bat,” Tim had said, just like he practiced.

Every single other person had stared at him.

“You’re—you’re switching flavors?” Jason asked, eyes wide, and Tim had folded like a cheap suit.

“Kidding!” He exclaimed quickly. And people laughed.

Someone ordered for everyone. The exact flavors as before.

And the next time.

And the next.

That’s the point of Scoops, it seems. Traditions aren’t meant to be changed. And now Tim is stuck with Bat Cherry, because to admit it isn’t his favorite flavor is to admit he never had a flavor is to admit he isn’t actually a part of the tradition at all.

Tim hates Scoops. But if he stops going—if he stops being invited—if they all figure out he doesn’t belong, that’s a slope that never ever ends. He knows the end is coming for him. He knows he’s an extra, overstaying his welcome both in the team and in the manor. But he’s in no rush to get to the bottom of that slope.

Tim looks down at his feet, his hand loosening from Damian’s and dropping to his side.

“No,” he admits softly, feeling prickly and defensive and more embarrassed than he thought he’d be.

“Why not.” It’s not a question. It’s a demand, seething between clenched teeth. Tim reigns his emotions in, because an angry Damian is never the best idea. So Tim sighs, a deep, resigned thing.

“Dami, it’s not a big deal.”

“Yes, it is!” He argues indignantly. “Why? Why didn’t you go out for ice cream?”

It was different. That’s the answer, the only answer, the forever answer. Tim’s tenure of being Robin was just…different. Tim blinks at the boy, and something in Damian’s furrowed expression just shatters.

“No. No, that’s not fair. That’s not fair!”

It’s so child-like, the whine in his voice, the words themselves, that for the second time during the conversation Tim finds himself off-footed. “What’s not?”

“This, all of this! Why didn’t you get to go out for ice cream? Why have you not said anything? Why don’t you take photos, why won’t Bruce just compliment them? Why are you so—so fine with this?!” Damian is half yelling by the end, talking with tense hands, waving them like he’s rearing to attack something. “This should make you angry! This should make you furious! I am furious!”

“I can tell,” Tim teases, a chuckle hiding at the back of his throat. Damian glares at him. “It’s called being the bigger person,” Tim calmly tries to teach the boy. “Especially with small stuff, like this. It’s about—”

“Why is it always you that has to be the bigger person, Timothy?”

Tim opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Damian takes advantage of his frozen state. “This is not okay. It’s not. It never has been. And I don’t think you’re okay, either.”

“I’m fine,” Tim reassures. Damian shakes his head.

“You are not.”

“I’m fine, Damian,” he repeats, voice harsher. Colder. Damian must hear the warning in his tone because he pauses, mouth open, argument on his tongue. His mouth closes, and his gaze leaves Timothy’s face and lands instead on his shoes.

“You should get ice cream that you actually enjoy,” Damian whispers. “It’s supposed to be a reward.”

“It’s supposed to be a tradition,” Tim corrects.

“...Is that not the same thing?” Damian asks, unsure. The same confusion in his voice from the exhibit and the attic.

“No,” he sighs. Because if it was a reward, Tim could order his stupid, simple vanilla ice cream. He could talk as much as he wanted, talk about Kon or Bart or how he’s maybe possibly debating going back for his GED. But it’s a tradition. And traditions are not meant to be changed. So he takes small bites of a flavor he hates, and swallows the disappointment when he gets talked over.

Damian pouts, brows furrowed, thinking.

“We should start a new tradition, then,” he decides.

“What?”

“Yes. Come along, Timothy.”

“What?” Tim repeats, watching as Damian mounts Tim’s civvy motorcycle.

“If you don’t get on now, I will leave and disappear into Gotham by myself.”

Tim knows a threat when he hears one, and hops on. “Where are we going, then?” Tim half-whines, probably not nearly as upset as he should be. But Damian doesn’t answer. He just tells Tim when to turn. Eventually they reach a small, twenty-four hour hot dog cart. Possibly one of the few left in Gotham.

“Aren’t you full?” Tim asks as they approach. Damian just narrows his eyes at him in lieu of a response.

“One vegetarian ‘dog with ketchup,” the man behind the cart says, with a small nod toward Damian. Tim wonders how often the kid has been here that the man knows his order. “And for you?”

Damian turns to him. The man looks at him.

They wait.

“Oh,” Tim mumbles, a half-sigh, something in his stomach settling for the first time all night. “I’ll have…a regular hot dog. New York style. Please.” The man nods, and tells them the price. Tim realizes he hadn’t thought to grab his wallet—they’re in their comfortable, pajama civvies. But Damian is already reaching down, pulling cash out of his shoe. A fifty dollar bill, when the price had been five bucks total. No wonder the man remembers him.

“There ya go,” he says, handing them their orders, "pleasure as always.” Damian replies only with a single half-nod and silence.

It’s difficult, they find, climbing up a fire escape with hands full of hot dogs and napkins. But they manage it, because it’s the tallest building on the street.

“I’m paying you back,” Tim says, as they get settled. Damian rolls his eyes, looking at him like he’s stupid.

“You can just pay for it next time.”

“Next time?” Tim questions, and something odd bubbles in his chest.

“Obviously,” Damian replies, taking a bite of his meal. “Traditions need to happen more than once to make it so.” Tim nods, but doesn’t speak because suddenly he’s afraid he’ll do something stupid like cry. “I think next time, I’ll order it with a soda-pop,” Damian finishes.

It’s subtle. A reminder that this tradition, they can shape however they want. That Tim doesn’t always have to get the bitterness of sauerkraut on his hotdog. The thing that bubbled up in his chest feels a lot like hope, and the thing that settled in his stomach feels a lot like relief. Like maybe he’s allowed to relax. Around Damian.

"Sprite?" He questions, the words too shaky from his gratitude to sound like the teasing it was meant to be.

"Obviously."

“So then,” Tim asks, once he’s sure he won’t cry when he tries to speak. “How’d you find that spot?”

All the bats have secret spots, Tim is sure. He has a few of his own—the library on First, the morning donut shop behind a trashy bar, the best soft tacos in this city right beside the age-old laundromat.

“I was having trouble sleeping,” Damian replies easily, voice open in a way it rarely is, even now. “After we thought Father passed. Pennyworth would often put too much salt, or accidentally use sugar, in his meals—I’m not sure he ever knew. Grayson and myself swallowed it down just the same. But I would wake in the early hours of the morning, starving and desperate to escape the suddenly too-empty manor.” Damian looks away from Tim, over the skyline, eyes looking older now that Tim remembered them being. “I ended up here.”

Tim follows his gaze, focusing on the view properly for the first time. He inhales sharply when he realizes—“This is the view from your painting! The one at the exhibit!” Tim glances back at Damian to see him nodding, and can just barely make out the blush dotting his cheeks.

“You’re the first to see it,” Damian admits softly. Tim looks back out to their view, and quickly decides this might be the most special spot in Gotham.

“It’s beautiful. You captured it perfectly.”

“I…I think it was my worst painting,” he mutters. “I should have chosen a different medium. Watercolor was not a correct fit, the lines were too blended.”

“Hm,” Tim nods along, considering this new information. “Why’d you choose it then?”

“It was better than the other choices, for submission—”

“No, no,” Tim interrupts. “What made you choose to bring your watercolors here, in the first place? If watercolors don’t give you exact lines for a cityscape?” Damian’s brows furrow. His hotdog is balanced on his legs, and his fingers twist in his lap.

“I’m not sure…” Damian trails off, looking over the view that must be so familiar to him. “Watercolor has a fluidity to it that no other medium of art can capture. Mistakes can be made on any painting, of course, but watercolors are not so forgiving of those mistakes. The transparency behind the layers, like the people below the smog, are more than just imprints. They are tangible, loud and unyielding. It takes a higher degree of control, and practice, and acceptance of unpredictability.” He pauses, but Tim senses he isn’t finished. So he waits, and is eventually rewarded with more. “I was still new to Robin, when I discovered this place. It was another reason for my lack of sleep, I believe. Robin is like a living watercolor. I needed to be precise and in control—especially over my anger. And I needed to practice, to unlearn old rules and memorize your strange societal norms. And...I had to accept that Gotham is unyielding, and absolutely unpredictable.”

“Gotham is annoying that way,” Tim agrees. Damian huffs a laugh.

“Yes. Like watercolor.”

A beat of silence passes as they drink in the skyline together.

“I think you picked the right medium, Dami.”

Damian’s brows had become more and more furrowed as the conversation progressed, but now they smooth out as he returns his gaze to Tim.

“I…I think so, too,” he says softly, and a soft smile graces his face. The boys take another bite of their meals, watching two birds land on a telephone wire a little below them. “How are your friends? The speedster, and Jon’s brother.”

“Oh, come on, Dami, you know their names!” Tim complains.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

“Jon is your best friend!”

“Yes.”

“His brother’s name literally rhymes with his!”

“Hm. Dawn? Fawn? Pawn?”

“You’re the worst,” Tim complains, even though he feels so light in this moment that he could explode from it. Damian flashes him one of his evil smiles, but it fades into something familiar and gentle.

“What of the speedster, then? Burnt?”

“Yes, Burnt is fine,” Tim settles, rolling his eyes. “I’ll tell him you said hi.”

“You will do no such thing.”

Tim snorts. “We were thinking of doing a movie night, soon,” he says, without really meaning to. “Bart and Kon and me. Things have been weird, I guess, since we all got back.”

“How so?” Damian questions. It’s no small thing to Tim, that Damian is asking this. That someone cares enough to ask.

“I don’t know. It was hard, losing Bart. For me and Kon. But then Kon was gone, too. And then we all lost Bruce. And somewhere in there I lost both my parents, and I’m just…I’m not the same person I used to be.”

“I’ve noticed,” Damian replies.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Tim asks, suddenly defensive. But when Damian shifts to look at him, there’s no judgement in his eyes. Not even grief, or pity. Just patience and kindness and perhaps curiosity.

“You used to be loud. Annoying, to me. But you were lighter. You were so snarky. I remember trying to replicate how you sounded, as Robin.” Tim definitely never knew that. “I did not succeed.”

“I was just trying to sound like Jason,” Tim admits, though it’s a half-truth.

“And perhaps he was trying to sound like the Robin before him?” Damian wonders, and Tim wonders too. “I like knowing you, now,” he admits softly. “I would not trade it for anything. But sometimes I think…you do not seem as light as you used to be.”

“Heavier shoulders, and all that,” Tim jokes, though it comes off stilted enough that Damian throws him a confused look. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Damian rolls his eyes. “What do you like to do in your free time?”

“What free time?” Tim jokes, but Damian doesn’t laugh. He waits. He waits. He waits. “I dunno,” Tim says at last. “I usually just work on cases. Or something for WE.”

“That’s not free time. That’s work.” Tim doesn’t really have a response to that. Damian seems to predict that, though, and pivots. “It will be good to be with your friends. That is not work, and they seem worthy of you.” Tim smiles without really meaning to, and finishes swallowing the last of his hotdog.

“Ready to head back?” He asks. “It really is late.” Damian nods, and they scale down the building together. “Wanna drive?” Tim questions once they reach the bike, just to see Damian light up. Tim pretends to scream the whole way back, though, because that’s what annoying older brothers are built for. Especially when even more annoying younger brothers keep elbowing him for it.

Chapter Text

The walls of the manor go from Old to New seemingly overnight. The exhibit had at last released all of its pieces, and two of Damian’s had won first place in different categories—not a surprise in the slightest. Anyway, one morning everyone wakes up, and boom: Damian’s thirteen pieces are everywhere, framed and scattered around the manor.

It’s fun, on Tim’s way to the kitchen table, to play a solo game of I-Spy, looking for where the new additions are displayed. It’s significantly less fun when he reaches the dining table, and his own framed photograph is missing, replaced by the painting of Dick, the shadowed figure beside a lit up window.

Tim doesn’t mean to freeze.

It’s a silly thing to care about, isn’t it?

It’s just a photo. It shouldn’t matter. It’s just…for one, shining moment, it was there. His photograph was hanging right there.

And now Damian’s painting has replaced it. Tim is still frozen. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Except Bruce only went to Damian’s showcase and not Tim’s. Except Dick never called or cared for Tim the way he does for Damian. Except Tim’s art ended up wrinkled and in the trash and Damian’s is framed on the wall.

It shouldn’t matter. Except it isn’t fair.

“Tim? Everything okay?” Dick asks. Tim nods, but he doesn’t move. His feet are still frozen to the floor. He’s staring at nothing, glaring at the table like it’s the problem. Even though it’s not. Tim’s the problem. Tim is the piece that doesn’t fit.

Damian stumbles into the kitchen, then, and he pushes past Tim, looking down at his feet. But Tim can spot the secret, barely-there smile.

And then Damian looks up from the floor. And he freezes too.

“What is this?” Damian grits out between clenched teeth, his prideful smile dropping in a heartbeat.

“We hung all your paintings!”

“There was already art here,” Damian annunciates, carefully and too strict to be an accident. It’s the voice he used to use before he tried to kill somebody.

“Well, yeah,” Dick shrugs, “but it was just something from the attic, right? It was just a placeholder anyway.” Damian turns on his heel, slowly and pointedly, toward Dick. There’s a snarl on his lip.

Tim doesn’t stick around to hear more.

“Not feeling well,” he mutters, as he passes Bruce coming down the hall.

It shouldn’t matter.

None of this should matter.

But it does.

Placeholder. Placeholder. Placeholder.

He’s certainly been called that before. But somehow it feels more true now than it ever did then. He wasn’t chosen, like the others. He’s not the Robin who grew into his wings. He’s the Robin that squeezed into a costume two sizes too small, with leftover feathers gathered in his hands as tried desperately to grasp onto a family that wasn’t—isn’t—his. He’s a placeholder. A band-aid on Batman’s wounds. But those scars are healed now and Bruce has long since moved on. Tim was the stepping stone, between the first Robins and the real one. Tim is just the snake in bat’s clothing, slithering in through the cracks and forcing his way into a family that never asked for him.

Tim lands on his bed, sliding under his covers.

He remembers now, why he threw out all those photos. In hindsight he kept regretting it, wondering why he didn’t just keep a few. But this feeling in the pit of his stomach, this is that same one, strong and overwhelming and utterly soul crushing and Tim wishes so badly he had a camera to crush, pictures to throw away.

He wishes he had a hobby just so he could quit it.

(Tim wonders absently when exactly he’d become such a shell that he can’t think of a single hobby to give up on. Damian had asked him a week ago, now, what he does in his free time and he has yet to come up with an answer.)

He buries himself under his blankets, letting them suffocate him a bit, hiding even his face until his breath becomes less ragged and uneven.

A tiny, quiet knock sounds at his door.

“Can I come in?” Damian's soft voice carries, unsure and gentle.

“'kay.”

Damian doesn’t say anything when he opens the door, nor when he closes it behind him. He doesn’t say anything as he approaches the bed. He doesn’t say anything as he climbs on top of it.

“Hi,” he whispers at last, after he’s settled, laying beside Tim.

Tim just shrugs under the blankets.

It shouldn’t matter. He shouldn’t feel upset. But he does, and for some reason, he really doesn’t mind that Damian is the one to see it.

“I’m sorry,” Damian mumbles, when at last Tim pokes his head up from under his blankets. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Not your fault,” Tim replies, because it’s true. “Doesn’t matter,” he continues, but it feels a lot less true.

“Yes it does!” Damian shoots upright from where he’d been lying, beside Tim. “Timothy,” he says seriously, “this matters. This matters.”

Seconds tick by, and they feel like hours.

“Okay,” Tim says eventually.

Damian lays back down. “Can I…can we…” Damian trails off. It’s rare that he sounds so unsure, rare that he starts a sentence and trails off. “May we hug?” He finishes at last.

Tim is so surprised by the offer that he doesn’t even register his arms opening until Damian is already curled up into his side. Tim locks his arms around the kid, burying his face into his hair. It smells oddly of strawberries, like one of those cuddle-bears Tim had wished for as a kid.

“I am furious,” Damian decides, the seriousness in his tone undercut by the way it’s muffled in Tim’s shirt. “Your photograph deserves to be displayed.”

Does it?

“It was. At the school. With the others,” Tim remembers aloud. His photos must deserve to be displayed, because they already are. Just not…here. Not in the manor. Not where it would matter.

Tim’s just a placeholder, after all.

“That’s not enough,” Damian huffs.

“I’m proud of you,” Tim changes the subject, resting his chin atop Damian’s head. “It was nice, seeing your work hung up all around the manor.” Damian shifts, but doesn’t speak. “This isn’t your fault, Dami.” And it doesn’t even matter, Tim wants to say. But he swallows it because he doesn’t want to make the boy upset again.

“I will enact revenge,” Damian decides, a few minutes later. Tim can’t help the chuckle that escapes him.

“No you will not,” Tim forbids. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. We can just be mad today, if you want, and then it will be over and we move on.”

“I hate that plan,” Damian half-growls.

“You hate all my plans,” Tim teases into his hair.

“Have you ever considered that it is because all of your plans are terrible?”

“Nope,” Tim chirps quietly. Then, for the first time in their history, he places a kiss onto the top of his little brother’s head. A comfort that he always dreamed of receiving from a brother or a parent when he was younger. “It’s okay, babybird,” he soothes. “Everything’s okay.”

Damian doesn’t respond. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes into hours. When Tim finally shifts to check, his guess is confirmed; Damian has fallen asleep in their hug—another first.

Not a bad day.

At some point Tim must drift off too, because when he opens his eyes, he’s alone. And it’s not that he minds, really, but he is realizing that outside of Damian, it’s been a while since he’s had any long contact. There’s a myth about Dick Grayson, that he’s an unstoppable hugging octopus. And while the octopus part is true, the rest is far from it. All it took was Tim being bad at hugs a few times in the beginning of their already shaky partnership, and now Dick rarely reaches for him at all; he’s the same with Jason. But at least Jason knows how to initiate hugs, when he wants them. Tim…doesn’t.

He supposes he’s still bad at them.

Probably he should ask Bart and Kon for some when he gets to the movie night tonight. They’re cuddlers, and they are a lot less difficult to talk to than Dick. Kon and Bart can’t politely ask him to move out of his home if he oversteps. But things have been slanted, there, awkward in a way it never used to be.

When did everything Tim love so dearly manage to slip through his fingers?

He takes a deep breath, turning over onto his other side to face the window, surprised to see the sun setting. Surely he hadn’t slept that long?

Tim forces himself from the bed, purposefully leaving any and all overdramatic thoughts from this morning in his now too-empty room.

Down the hallway, he hears distant whispers, which is odd for the manor. So, naturally, he goes to spy. What other choice does he have?

Three doors down, the voices are soft, just loud enough that Tim can hear when he inches closer.

“Your side of the manor?” Duke is saying.

“Done,” Cass replies. “You?”

“Yep.”

“Perfect,” Damian compliments, sounding a little too much like a rogue on a throne.

The odd trio giggles, and just as Tim decides to scare them, something catches his eye. There’s a mirror at the end of the hallway, and reflected in it, placed behind Tim, is a picture on the wall.

Tim’s picture on the wall.

Even stranger, it’s a different picture than the one that had been removed from the kitchen this morning. Tim tilts his head, walking slowly toward it as if pulled by an invisible string. Or a rope. Or a—

“Feeling any better, Timmy?”

Noose.

Tim forces his eyes away from the photo to see Dick’s casual smile. “B said you weren’t feeling so hot this morning,” Dick continues. Tim hands itches as if to reach for something, though he’s not sure what for.

“Stomach ache,” Tim lies coolly. Dick nods, but seems to be hesitating instead of walking away. Tim arches a brow. “You good?”

“Oh, yeah, no, yeah,” Dick half-stutters, shoving his hands into his pockets. He sighs. “Look,” his voice drops to a whisper, “I’m a little worried about Damian.”

Tim furrows his brows, a silent question asking Dick to continue. Damian has seemed fine to him. More than fine. He seems like he’s doing really well, and for the first time ever, Tim is fairly sure that if Damian wasn’t, he’d tell him.

“He just seems angrier, lately. Especially this morning. I thought he’d be excited that B and I hung everything, but he was really weird and cagey about it.” Tim wonders why he’s being told this—or at least, being told privately. Usually when Dick is concerned about Damian he makes an announcement to everyone with ideas on how to adapt and check on him. Tim must be conveying this with his face accidentally, because Dick sighs again. “I know you two went out the other night,” he says, “after patrol. I just wanna make sure you aren’t maybe, accidentally, doing something to upset him?”

“What?” Tim questions, feeling perhaps more defensive than he should.

“It’s not a reflection on you at all!” Dick rushes to say. “I know you’re a good kid, and a really good influence on him. He’s just been a little off lately, and I am just, you know…” Dick trails off, like Tim will finish his sentence for him. Tim doesn’t. “Making sure.”

“Of what,” Tim grits out, annoyed.

“Just…that you two are getting along, is all.” Dick pauses, thinking. “And you went after him last month, when he ran off from breakfast.”

“So?”

“So, just, please, just…be wary of how you’re acting with him. He’s just a kid.” Tim blinks at the man in front of him. Takes in the assumptions he’s making. Tim is the piece that doesn’t fit, and Dick knows that it’s his jagged edges affecting Damian.

The worst part is that he’s right, Tim realizes belatedly. As nice as it’s been, getting closer with Dami, feeling seen and heard, holding someone in this family close like the precious thing his little brother is…Damian is getting worse because of it. He hasn’t had spouts of anger like this in a while, and now every time he discovers something new about Tim he practically burns red.

It’s the most Tim thing in the world, to hold too tightly to something even as he knows it's hurting it.

Tim nods, eyes falling to the ground but head unmoved. Oddly, he’s frozen, and he worries that if he thaws now he might cry. He can’t imagine crying in front of Dick.

“I’ll back off,” Tim promises, when he’s sure his voice won’t betray him and crack.

Instead of looking appeased, though, Dick’s brows furrow. “I didn’t say that, Tim; I want you guys to get along. But I also know you have a…complicated history.” And it’s not that Tim is jealous of Damian—he’s not. It’s just that he can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be someone’s favorite. It’s something Damian has managed to grasp so easily. It’s something Tim has been reaching for, forever.

“Yeah,” Tim agrees. “I get it.”

Dick nods at last, a soft, natural smile gracing his face. “Thanks, Timmy,” he says, and disappears downstairs.

Tim goes back to staring at the picture. It doesn’t really fit with the decor of the rest of the hall. But what else is new?

Eventually Tim’s feet unglue from the floor and he wanders downstairs, hoping to find one of his hidden Zestis before his hangout with Kon and Bart. Of course, he’s constantly having to find new spots to put them because Alfred doesn’t like ‘junk food’ in the house and keeps stealing it. He says Tim has enough energy as it is, and then offers to make tea. Not that Tim doesn’t like Alfred’s tea. But sometimes he just wants a Zesti, alright?

Except Tim quickly becomes distracted on his search, because his photographs are everywhere. All over the manor! All of the photos the school had hung up, now scattered around the manor. Framed. Hung.

…Wanted.

He’s so distracted by this that he doesn’t even hear Cass sneaking up beside him until her hand slips into his.

“Yours,” she says softly.

Tim startles, but manages not to jump. He does jump a moment later, though, when Duke appears on the other side of him.

“I knew I recognized it from somewhere,” he says gently, “the photo in the kitchen the other day.” Tim turns his head slowly, eyes wide. “I never realized it was your name posted underneath them, at school.”

Cass gives his hand a squeeze. “Beautiful.”

Tim can’t really explain why he’s breathing so heavily, why his shoulders are rising up and down like he’s about to cry, why his eyes keep shifting and blinking fast.

“Okay,” he whispers, unable to form any other word.

“They really are good,” Duke confirms. “I can’t believe I never noticed.” He shoves Tim lightly, shoulder to shoulder. “Or that you never said. If I had talent like this, I’d be bragging to everybody.”

Tim snorts at this, and catches the smile on Cass’ face.

“Can I ask, though,” Duke continues, “is there a reason they weren’t hung up before?” It’s an interesting question because Tim had assumed that Damian had explained the situation to them, and pointed out the photos at school. But if Duke is asking, then Tim is forced to question how much he was involved at all.

Tim shrugs. “Why’d you hang ‘em now?” He asks, dodging the question.

“Oh, it was Cass’ idea. After this morning, we realized Damian already knew what was going on so we roped him in too. Figured pictures like these belonged here, at,” Duke swallows, “at home.” His pause mid-sentence reminds Tim that he might not be the only one who feels out of place here. But at least Duke is constantly reminded that he’s wanted. Since Tim is not wanted, he gets no such thing. Duke’s hesitance will fade with time, he’s sure.

Tim nods.

“It looks good here,” Duke finishes. “Kinda ties the room together.”

It’s a funny thing to say, considering Tim had been thinking the exact opposite. Something in him softens, and he doesn’t feel like crying anymore. Instead he feels sort of warm and floaty, and craves a hug.

Cass, as always, somehow reads his mind, and twists her body to his front, wrapping her arms around him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, but Tim doesn’t have time to ask why before Duke is joining, wrapping his arms around them both.

Then a warmth appears behind him, littler arms wrapping around his torso, and Tim instantly knows it’s Damian.

Dami. In a group hug.

So maybe Tim isn’t the poison, the problem, the placeholder he is supposed to be. But he also doesn’t entirely feel like he belongs. So maybe he’s some secret, third thing. The thought makes a hopeful something buzz under his skin.

Eventually they break apart, and if Damian is the last to pull away, well, nobody comments on it.

And later that night, when Tim sees Bart and Kon, he somehow finds the courage to ask for the hugs and cuddles he craves. And apparently he hadn’t been the only one longing for it, because they smile something that looks like relief, and pile onto the couch. The odd distance that had festered between them fades at last, and for the first time since their return Tim feels like he has his best friends back.

Chapter Text

Damian spends the entirety of breakfast coughing and sneezing and trying to convince everyone he’s not sick. But when he throws up his food and Alfred forces him to let Bruce take his temperature—which is 102—they make him go back to bed. He rolls his eyes and huffs and stomps all the way upstairs, and everyone, Tim included, has to try not to awe and coo.

Alfred makes his famous, magical homemade soup for his lunch. It can cure anything. Tim’s had it twice before, and poof, he was back on his feet in no time. Although admittedly his were in tupperware containers and warmed in his microwave—not that he’d ever admit that last part to Alfred.

But Damian sleeps right through lunch. The soup goes cold on his nightstand. Everyone tries not to worry.

Jason comes over to cook with Alfred—the only one allowed to do so. It’s a good plan on Alfred’s part, outside of Sunday brunch it’s one of the only reasons Jason comes to the upper part of the manor at all, and usually the only time he stays for dinner. As Alfred and Jason cook, moving around each other like some sort of complicated dance, Tim sits at the breakfast bar, watching silently and working on a project for WE. He’s not the CEO anymore, thank God for Lucious, but Tim is still a major shareholder and prominent figure. He still has meetings and presentations and a whole list of ways to prove he’s more than just a nepo baby.

All this to say, he has some Excel charts to finish.

“Whatcha workin’ on, little bird?” Jason asks, tossing the vegetables in his pan without using a spatula. It’s all in the wrist, he always says.

“The Family Finders Foundation. A couple of the assholes at work think it doesn’t have a good enough cost-benefit. Firstly, it’s a charity, you fucking idiots. Secondly—”

“Master Timothy,” Alfred interrupts softly, placing a cup of tea in front of him. “Perhaps we should calm, have a bit more decorum in the face of idiocy?”

Tim blushes. He hadn’t even meant to swear. It’s the first time anyone’s asked about what’s going on at WE in a while, and he maybe has a little unresolved anger at a few of his fellow board members. But they really are such jerks! They treat him like he’s stupid, and he is not stupid.

“Sorry, Alfie,” he replies. He sips a bit of his tea, and the headache that's been bothering him all day eases a bit. Alfred is magic. He returns his gaze to Jason, who’s mostly more focused on stirring some sort of sauce. “Just some spreadsheets,” he finishes quickly to Jason, suddenly keenly aware that he’d been about to rant, which Jason hadn’t asked for and no one would want.

“Family Finders—that’s the one that reunites people, uh, families, right?” Jason asks. It’s not often, but Jason is one of the few people in the family that really asks about and understands the premise of each charity that Wayne Enterprises funds. And one of the few that sometimes asks about Tim’s work.

It’s kind of nice.

Tim nods. “And we cover the medical bills of anyone who’s lost their memory, and try to help them recover it.” He tilts his head. “Happens more than it should.”

“We live in Gotham,” Jason reminds him, and yeah, that’s a pretty good explanation. He chuckles and gets back to work and enjoys being with family. He could almost swear that he feels Jason’s heavy gaze on him, sometimes, but whenever he looks up at him he’s clearly focused on whatever they’re making.

Damian finally wakes up for dinner, and Tim shares a relieved look with Dick as they sit down at the table. Dinners are always a light affair, roughly three hours before patrol it has to be mostly full of carbs and proteins—heavy foods could slow them down, make them groggy. They certainly aren’t supposed to have soup. Of course, this doesn’t matter to Damian, who insists he isn’t sick and firmly refuses to eat anything made special. He wants what everyone else is eating.

So everyone shrugs and switches to the soup.

Checkmate, Damian.

After dinner, Alfred checks his temperature again. It’s gone down, but not by much. And Tim easily catches the worry that furrows onto Bruce’s brow, the thin lips as he looks over his son.

“You all go ahead without me.” Only Duke looks surprised. Tim certainly isn’t.

“Of course,” Jason is teasing, rolling his eyes.

“He can’t help it!” Dick giggles. “Worrywort.”

“He’s staying home?” Duke clarifies.

“Always,” Cass supplies.

“If the fever is a hundred or above, he stays,” Steph explains. “It is deeply annoying.”

“It is deeply unwanted,” Damian growls, but the intimidation factor is undercut but his tiny head looks too heavy for his neck, desperately held up by his hands, and also Tim’s fairly sure Damian doesn’t know that his eyes are closed.

“It’s the rules,” Dick replies. “B just can’t leave his kids alone when they’re sick.” Everyone nods solemnly, and Duke seems to realize that the only reason he hasn’t seen this himself is that he hasn’t been sick yet since staying at the manor.

Meanwhile, something Dick has said must have startled Damian, because his eyes are open now and he looks more alert than he has all day.

“It is…tradition, yes?” He realized aloud slowly. Dick thinks this over, tilting his head.

“Yeah,” he chuckles after a moment. “Guess so.” Bruce grumbles at the teasing but doesn’t disagree. Damian, eyes wide and very lucid, shifts his gaze to Tim. He has a question on his face and Tim knows what it is.

He looks away.

Because Tim doesn’t need anyone looking after him when he’s sick. He’s fine on his own, always has been. He’s only ever been sick a few times anyway, and maybe they were poorly timed because it always seemed to be when his parents were away. But he’d made do. No, more than made do. He was more than fine. And he had Alfred’s soup the two times he’d been sick since knowing Bruce, even if it had been microwaved later and eaten on the floor of a dark kitchen, too tired to sit at the table and with too much of a headache to bother turning on the lights.

“No,” Damian growls, crossing his arms. “I don’t want you here,” he insists to Bruce, firmer than he had been before.

“Tough,” Jason answers. “That’s never worked with any of us.”

“Please, you are not included on that list,” Dick teases, turning to Jason, who is quickly turning red. “You would beg and beg for him to stay home with you!”

“Because I was dying, dickhead. Would you not stay with your own dying child?!”

“It was a minor cold.”

“My brain was leaking out of my ears!”

“Enough,” Damian cuts in, voice that strange calm that makes him seem years older. “I want everyone to stay.” He glances at Tim, then looks away quickly. Tim wonders what his end goal could possibly be.

“Everyone?” Bruce asks.

Damian gives a stiff nod. “Jon, and his brother and father, would be more than fine with keeping an eye on the city.” Bruce’s brow furrows more. “I want everyone here, with me.” Then, he tacks on at the end: “Or else.”

Every person in the room softens, Tim included. They all hear themselves agreeing because if the littlest brother wants the entire family home when he’s sick then of course they are going to do it.

So they stay. Uncle Clark puts on the batsuit and is firmly told not to interfere with the city he’s watching unless absolutely necessary. Damian leads the herd to the family room, sitting on the couch without hesitation. Bruce takes the spot right next to him, but when Dick tries to steal his other side Damian honest to god whines and pulls Tim by the wrist to his side.

“I demand answers,” he whispers as everyone else settles into their spots. Jason is on the floor with Steph, fighting over popcorn. Duke and Babs—who comes over for dinner seemingly at random—are arguing about what to watch from either armchair. Cass is already half-asleep and sprawled across Dick’s lap, who is now sitting beside Tim. And Tim? Tim relaxes completely when Damian shifts so his head rests on Tim’s shoulder.

“Why’d you have everyone stay?” Tim whispers back, ignoring his interrogation, very aware that Bruce and Dick are near enough that he can hear every word.

Damian must be thinking the same thing, because he only says, “I wanted to.”

Duke and Babs finally agree on Scooby-Doo, and they all laugh and tease each other, half chatting loudly, the rest enjoying their night off with their eyes closed. Tim sits as still as he can, hoping the sicko next to him sleeps like the others to heal sooner from his bad cold.

Somewhere around two in the morning Tim himself begins to drift off, and just as his eyes flutter closed he feels nimble fingers threading through his ever-growing hair. It’s not an entirely unfamiliar sensation, but rare enough that it manages to startle him a bit.

“Shh,” Dick says softly. “I’ve got you, Timmy. Go back to sleep.”

He’s far enough away that their bodies aren’t touching—probably because of how bad Tim was at hugs when they first met—but Dick’s hands are in his hair and Damian is curled up into his other side and he’s so warm and happy that he’s pretty sure that he falls asleep with a genuine smile on his face.

Tim wonders, just as he begins to drift off completely, if Damian had planned this. If Damian wanted Tim to know what it was like to be taken care of on a night nobody should have off. It’s a nice gesture. And even though Tim’s not actually sick, he can almost taste the memory of something that never was.

He wakes up again when the sun begins lighting up the room, looking around to see Jason still sprawled on the floor, surrounded by pillows, including one that he’s hugging—which Tim takes a picture of, obviously. Steph is asleep parallel to him, her feet nearly in his face. Barbara, Dick, Damian, and Bruce have disappeared. Duke has too, but Tim is fairly sure he’s getting ready for patrol. Cass is sitting cross legged, doing a puzzle on the floor, looking up at Tim as he sits up.

“G’morning,” he whispers, and she smiles softly at him.

“Hi,” she says, ever quiet. Surprisingly, she abandons her puzzle entirely in favor of sitting beside Tim, steps impossibly quiet on the way. She stares at him for a long minute, eyes gentle but brows furrowed.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Tim shoots her a confused look. He knows by now not to try interrupting until it’s clear Cass is done. Sometimes she still has trouble finding the right words, but she says more in her short sentences than most people can communicate in paragraphs. She huffs, glancing at the stairs, a strange anger crossing her face. “I am not mindreader.”

“I know,” Tim assures, and her face softens into something grateful.

“I did not…I am not…” She huffs again, tucking her hair behind one ear. “If there is no difference, if it is always, I…” She swallows.

Tim tilts his head and waits.

Something like regret crosses her face. “I didn’t know that always sad…means always sad.”

“I’m not always sad,” Tim replies, surprised. She gives him a disbelieving look. “I’m not!”

“Since we met,” she argues. Tim tries to dispute it again, but…stops. Her reasoning is more sound than his own denial. Technically they met before Bruce’s disappearance, but it was within the walls of the League of Assassins’ base that they actually, properly trusted and got to know each other. And he knows instinctively that this is the time she is referencing. And, yes, okay he was a little stressed. And alone. And, alright, he’ll admit it, afraid. He was the only person in the whole world who knew that his adoptive dad was alive, and he finally had proof, and he was so scared he’d die with it in his pocket. But Cass had been there, and it’s the forever sort of trust, now. She’d more than earned it.

And, fine, maybe things have been…hard, since then. He came home and he never got Robin back, which was fine. And the Justice League ended up being the real ones to save Bruce, and Tim never gave a full report, so no-one really knew what had happened…which was fine. And he had to emancipate himself to protect his family and Bruce’s company, which—it was—that one was…And he had to get his own apartment, too, and that’s. Fine. As well. But he’s still living here, technically. Kind of.

So, really—

He’s not fine at all.

He hasn’t been for a while.

No wonder Cass didn’t see it. That’s what she’s apologizing for—the human lie detector failing to notice his unhappiness—but if he’s been holding himself the same way for their entire relationship, there was no baseline of comparison. There was nothing for her to notice. He doesn’t hate Bat Cherry ice cream, what she sees is that he never liked any ice cream at all. He’s not close with Dick, or Bruce, but as far as she’s seen, he never has been. He doesn’t take photos, but as far as she was concerned, he never had—actually, maybe that was what tipped her off. She only goes to Gotham Academy in person twice a week, the rest she’s tutored at the manor, but spotting his name in fine print in the hallways isn’t hard to do if you have a reason to look. Suddenly Damian puts a familiar photograph in the kitchen, the only other two students that had gone to Gotham Academy after Tim had graduated scratched their heads until they’d figured out where they’d seen it before. And boom—suddenly Cass had the baseline she’d always been missing.

He’s always sad, Cass says.

He has no hobbies, Damian says.

He isn’t proud of his work, Duke says.

And Tim finally reaches the conclusion, maybe a year or so late, that he’s probably a little depressed. Probably more than just a little.

“Oh,” is all he says, rather than voicing this realization out loud. Cass can probably read it all on his face, anyway.

So, apparently he’s depressed. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s supposed to do with that.

You are not alone, Cass signs quickly. She actually knows English pretty well now, though it’s harder when she’s stressed. But her hands are her favorite way to communicate, and obviously Tim doesn’t mind using it for her. Both languages are still a little broken due to the unreasonable difficulty that is English grammar, but overall sign language seems a little easier. I can’t understand why you never said anything, but I try to understand, now. You are funny and smart and clever and good and we like having you around. All of us. Everyone.

He nods like he believes her.

He wonders if he should.

He’s too reckless in the field, Bruce has been saying. And that’s a lot scarier of a sentence when it’s paired with everything else, and suddenly that, too, has a reason. But…it’s not like he’s suicidal. He’s just been a little careless. That’s all. Isn’t it? Is it? He opens his mouth to ask Cass, but shuts it closed when he realizes that he maybe doesn’t want an answer. Cass can’t do much about his inner turmoil, but she holds his hand as he processes that yeah, something is really, really wrong.

“I’m…not happy,” he whispers, more for himself than for Cass.

She nods. She doesn’t let go of his hand.

For now, it’s enough.

Chapter Text

The realization that Tim is depressed is both helpful, and horrifically overwhelming and scary. Okay, fine. Mostly just the second thing.

So, naturally, he buries himself in work for WE. He has three meetings today and Tim jumps into them like nothing has changed. And in a lot of ways, nothing has changed. And for the stuff that has changed…well. Like almost everything else, Tim is just going to repress the hell out of it.

He doesn’t wonder when exactly it started. He doesn’t wonder what parts of his personality are normal behavior and the rest messy and wrong and broken. He doesn’t wonder if everyone has noticed and just isn’t saying anything. He doesn’t wonder, because he doesn’t have time to.

The first meeting passes far too quickly, just Tim and a potential investor for one of Wayne Enterprises’ main partners. No worries—there’s plenty of things to do before the next one. So he updates the quarterly report; it’s two weeks early, but what’s a bit of unnecessary busywork between friends? Then he cross-references their spending, versus what the costs actually are. Wayne Enterprises is notoriously reliable and honest, but this is Gotham. Every once in a while, someone tries embezzlement. So it’s Tim’s job to look through those accounts and find any discrepancies. It has to be Tim’s job. He’s the only one he can trust.

He finds a new one today, which isn’t exactly rare but it is surprising. It takes a while to backtrack it, figure out which department it came from and how it flew under the radar. The spreadsheets won’t tell him exactly who committed the crime, but no worries. That’s what personnel files are for. He’s a detective, after all. Investigating is practically all Tim is good for.

He does have to pause his search, briefly, for the next meeting, which is far more important than the one previous. It’s with the rest of the board members, and Tim is going to have to convince those assholes not to cut funding to that project he’d mentioned to Jason—the one he’s been making spreadsheets and building arguments for.

These meetings don’t make Tim nervous so much anymore, but there will probably always be something about seeing all of the board members at once that makes his skin crawl. And it takes a lot, to be able to ignore the subtle jabs that they are all so good at.

“Family Finders is an absolute necessity in Gotham,” Tim is arguing, leaning forward from where he sits at the head of the table. “These projections,” he motions down to the large booklet he’d passed out, “prove that this is a reliable way to not only help the people of Gotham, reduce homelessness, and reconnect families, but it is also one of the best ways for us to find employees for this company.”

“Look,” Frank sighs, taking off his glasses and wiping at the lenses with his pocket handkerchief. Tim hates Frank. “It’s just not a viable use of Wayne Enterprises’ money.”

“That’s not statistically correct,” Tim says slowly. “The money we are funneling into this program, and into these people, is ultimately coming full circle back to us.”

Robert flips through the packet, barely glancing at the pages before letting it fall closed. Tim hates Robert.

“You know what else would be a good way for us to have money?” He asks sarcastically, and Tim clenches a fist under the table. “If we stop giving it away!”

“Wayne Enterprises was not built to be just a business enterprise. Nor was it built to be just a charity. WE is the only corporation in all of Gotham to be doing what we do, and to be doing it so well.”

“Look, kiddo,” Benjamin speaks up, and oh, Tim hates Benjamin. His friends call him Benny. Tim, decidedly, does not. “I know you think helping people is all sunshine and rainbows, but we have a company to run.”

“It’s part of the Martha Wayne Foundation. You are trying to remove one of our most well known and profitable charities,” Tim replies. “Public opinion is on our side, but how quickly will those tables turn if we cut funding to important projects like this?”

“Who cares about public opinion?” Frank says.

“Gotham’s a shithole,” Henry agrees. Tim hates Henry. “The only thing worth anything here is the ability to turn a profit.” Tim opens his mouth, but Henry is faster. “A real profit, sport. Not the kind that is just handed to you. The kind you have to work for.”

Tim ignores the dig at his nepotism with as much grace as he can muster. Henry inherited his father’s shares and position in WE. People just forget that because he’s pushing fifty.

“I will not have this conversation with you again.” Tim’s reply is sharp and cold. No-one quite straightens up as he stands and looms over the table, but from the way people’s shoulders jerk back a bit and their eyes cast onto the table, Tim knows it’s a near thing. He borrows some intimidation tactics from Red Robin and speaks slowly, voice hard and sure. “And if I need to go to Mr. Fox and Mr. Wayne and get their approval on the matter, so be it. We are not cancelling this program. These,” he holds up the booklets he’d worked so hard on, hours upon hours upon hours of work gone unnoticed and unappreciated, “were for your benefit. Not mine.”

“See,” Michael starts, and oh, how Tim fucking hates Michael. “We’ve actually already discussed it with Lucius—the decision has been made. We’re cutting the program.”

Tim—well. Tim freezes. Lucius would have told him. He would have…wouldn’t he? Or does he feel the same casual nothingness for Tim that everyone seems to? That Tim himself feels?

But Lucius is a good man. He wouldn’t gut integral Gotham programs without reason, and his reason would never be ‘more money.’ But maybe he found a—

“In fact, kid,” Michael continues. “We’re changing things up around here. In case you forgot, you’re not CEO, anymore. You’re on the same board that we all are, with just as much pull as us.”

“Well, not quite as much,” Henry brags under his breath. Frank laughs.

Tim hates them all.

“I chose to step down as CEO,” Tim points out curtly, but it sounds weak, even to his own ears.

“To go back to school?” Benjamin asks, and it could sound like a genuine question if it weren’t for the awful glint in his eye, and that nearly hidden smirk, and the fact that each of these men know that he dropped out.

“It’s okay that you couldn’t crack it, kid,” Michael consoles him, even though Tim doesn’t need consoling. “You leave the big decisions to old timers like us, okay? You just worry about, uh, I dunno. Whatever new shopping mall is opening in Metropolis.”

“Oh, there’s a new mall in Metropolis?” Henry asks. “I swear, my daughter…”

And the conversation just moves on.

The decision has been made.

Tim couldn’t save the program.

Even if he could somehow get Lucius on his side, Tim would still need to go get Bruce’s approval, too, and the idea of that feels even more condescending in this moment than anything else these men have said to him.

Tim sits back down as the rich old white men around him complain about their wives and children and Metropolis.

The meeting ends eventually, and Tim locks himself in his office again.

Would Lucius really go behind his back, agree with those assholes? Tim isn’t sure. How much of his thoughts are real and accurate, and how much is just his stupid depression?

Seriously, what is he even supposed to do with the information that he is depressed? Go to therapy? No-one else is, and God knows they all need it. What would he even say? ‘Oh, hi, nice to meet you. I’m Tim and also a secret vigilante and two of my siblings have tried to kill me but we’re cool now. My dad died but I knew he wasn’t dead and everyone told me I was crazy so I spent months in my own personal Hell trying to save him. And I’m pretty sure my family doesn’t actually think of me as family. I didn’t graduate high school and it’s starting to feel like it’s too late for me. I’m failing at both my jobs and in almost every corner of my personal life. Also I’m horribly lonely and sad. Fix it.’ That’s simply unrealistic. There’s no one that could ever know—not only that he’s Red Robin, but also that the Eighteen Year Old Nepo Baby Billionaire is Sad. He can’t even imagine what might happen if the press somehow got ahold of that.

Fuck. He’s thinking about it. Tim had expressly decided earlier to not think about it. No worries, he will just have to dive back into the mystery of Who Is Embezzling Money. Tim asks his secretary for the personal records of all the people in both his accounting department and the department that has mismatching records—the biotech research department.

After a few hours of sifting, the puzzle is starting to come together. There’s a research developer named Kristoff Boln, who is currently dating an accountant. He’s going through a divorce, and in medical debt from a robbery gone wrong that he’d barely survived. Tim knows that it takes both opportunity, rationalization, and motivation to start to skim off the top, and that Kristoff has all three. On top of dating someone who would overlook his false financial claims, he also needs the money, and is probably upset enough at the company to think it worth it.

Stupid. It was not worth it. Even if he was overlooked for a promotion two months ago—just before the fraud began. And that’s another case solved. Tim wonders what Lucius will do about it when Tim finishes writing up his report.

He glances down at his watch as he hits send on the email. Forty minutes until his final meeting of the day. Surely he can’t just…be out of things to do?

…Tim could maybe get on medication? But isn’t that just for chemistry? Like, if the brain chemicals are feeding lies to the person, you get mood stabilizers. But Tim is depressed because of outside sources, right? It’s been a rough year—okay, fine, a rough couple years—okay, fine, kind of a rough life. Rough in the way that only bratty kids like him can complain about a so-called shitty childhood when he literally has a brother who grew up on the streets. And two siblings that were trained to fight since they could walk. But, sure, Tim has had it hard. Sure.

Fuck, what is he even thinking? Yeah, he’s unhappy, but isn’t that more his fault than anyone else’s? He’s the one still desperately clinging to people that don’t want him. He’s the one who is failing at work. He’s the one who overthinks, who doesn’t fit, who doesn’t belong.

So if it’s not outside forces, and it’s not brain chemicals…then the problem is just Tim. The problem is just who Tim is.

And he’s pretty sure there’s no fixing that. Doesn’t matter what he calls it. There’s no pretty bow that could tie all of his loose pieces back together.

Shit. He was thinking about it again. He’s not supposed to be doing that. Thankfully, a knock at his door announces Tim’s third meeting of the day. A beautiful young woman, about Tim’s age, opens the door when he calls for her to come in. She’s tall, poised and polite.

“Ms. Hann,” Tim greets, standing from his chair to shake her hand.

“Mr. Drake,” Tracy Hann replies with a nervous smile. He doesn’t correct her.

Technically she’s correct. He was a Drake-Wayne, briefly, for one, shining, second. But now he’s emancipated and he’s just…Drake.

“Please, sit,” he says. She complies, then launches into the reason for the meeting—she’d found a new way to run power generators, using algae. The research is amazing and final. “And—you were the lead on this discovery?”

“Oh,” she begins to shake her head, in that humble, self-deprecating way Tim has seen so many times before.

“Please,” he stops her with a hand. “Don’t be modest.”

She swallows, then a tiny, proud smile crosses her face. “It was me. And my sister, Mal. Er—Mallory.” He nods at her to continue, and her pride and joy at this discovery wins out over her nerves. It’s a fantastic story, the past year and a half spent with her and her sister—her best friend, she says—spending every day finishing their masters degrees in environmental science and chemistry, and every night working on samples straight from Gotham River. Dangerous work, but at the end she’d accomplished the impossible. Two young girls, discovering an entirely new renewable resource.

Tim buys the patent from her on the spot and promotes both girls.

Wayne Enterprises is full of cool people like that.

He reads her personnel file, after she leaves. Worked her way up from nothing. No mom, no dad, no handouts. Just her brain and twin sister. Just her, pulling herself up by her boot straps, graduating early from high school. Getting scholarships for college. Working three jobs for most of her life. Being elegant and clever and polite. Just her, with a sister that can stand not only working with her but living with her enough that they still consider each other best friends.

Just her, being everything Tim isn’t.

It’s not a competition. Except it kind of feels like one.

And he knows, Tim knows, he dropped out for a good reason. He saved his dad! He saved Bruce! He saved this company! He did that. He did something.

But now it’s…it’s…that part of his life is over. Forever.

Look at who Tracy Hann grew up to be.

Look at who Tim is.

He had every advantage. The wealth of his family, just enough neglect to get away with whatever he wanted. And he chose to go out, photographing bats. He whined, like a lonely, ungrateful, little brat, and instead of dedicating himself to computers or science or math he picked up a camera and photographed the one thing he could never share. And then he must have developed some sort of hero complex because Jason died and suddenly Tim really, actually, thought that he could fix it somehow. That he could make Batman stop.

And he did, he supposes. But a body is a body, and that’s all he had going for him. He’d thought he was the only one who could help—turns out he was just the first able-bodied volunteer. He’d inserted himself as a placeholder from moment one, and now, what, he’s sad because the title still fits? Because everyone else his age is successful and independent and he’s still a child grasping at the ankles of people who don’t want him? Because everyone else in his family is loved and important and he is the redundant extra with nothing interesting to say?

Work ends, and Tim returns to the manor and wonders if he’s still allowed to call it home.

He lets the final hours of the day pass by spending time in his study, pretending to do work even though he can’t focus. It’s mostly so that when everyone else is busy playing video games in the den, Tim can pretend their respect for his job is the reason he wasn’t invited.

Cass comes to visit for a while, and he allows it because she doesn’t try to talk. She just curls up on the chaíse in the corner and colors in some of Damian’s sketches. He makes them special for her on slow days.

It’s funny—Damian sort of does that for everyone. He does it quietly, and nobody ever really mentions it. Like how Damian is the one that leaves new books on Jason’s side of the table when they know he’s coming.

At nightfall, Tim purposefully picks a solo case to work on. Almost everyone else pairs up—Dick all but grabs Dami, and Steph and Cass are an obvious pair—but Tim is sort of glad to be alone. He just wants to get out of the house and think.

He’s just tracking shipments, anyway. The job isn’t all glamour and fighting—people forget that, sometimes. Weeks can go by when they just follow people around, learning names and patterns, figuring out who’s who and what’s what and why. Thugs lead to goons, goons lead to bosses, and usually there’s even a person or two ranked higher than that. Sure, the bats split things up so the streets are still covered and safe, stopping muggings and robberies and dirty cops. But Tim isn’t a gymnastic wonder, or a six foot tall zombie with perfect aim, or an assassin from birth, or a meta who can control real actual shadows, or—well, anyone, really. So often he’s on research and retcon.

Like tonight.

It’s quiet. Same four guys as the last couple nights, moving heavy boxes from the truck to the warehouse. They think no-one is noticing their midnight activities—What idiots. He’s actually pretty excited, probably only a few days left of surveillance needed before he can bust the whole operation. Not that Tim minds a bit of retcon work, but it’ll be nice to make the bust, catch the bad guys, and prove he’s good at that part of the job, too.

Tim sits on a rooftop, obscured from view and a little bored. But his brain is loud enough to keep him busy, so that’s a win, he supposes.

He lets his legs dangle over the edge of the building. They’re not supposed to, but everyone does it.

But then he leans a little further forward, until he’s just barely balancing, until his heart is louder and feeling and real.

He wonders absentmindedly if this is what Bruce means when he calls Tim reckless. And somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders if everyone else feels like an imposter, like Tim does, until they’re on the edge of a rooftop wondering what it would be like to actually hit the ground. He already knows what it’s like to fall. He wants to know what happens after.

Not that he’s going to jump off. Or let go. Or fall. He’s a trained vigilante—they don’t fall without catching themselves. And, more importantly, he’s not fucking suicidal. He’s barely even depressed.

Except he is, apparently, depressed.

Man. The knowing kind of really sucks.

Tim lowers himself safely back onto the edge, pulling his legs up to sit crisscross. Oddly, he wishes he could talk to Damian about this. But he’s just a kid, and suddenly this is too much, too big, too heavy to put on his little brother’s shoulders.

And yet Damian appears behind him anyway, footsteps soft but recognizable to a trained ear.

“Hey,” Tim says quietly without turning around. Damian doesn’t reply at first. He just sits down beside Tim, legs swinging over the ledge exactly like they’re not supposed to. They’re much shorter than Tim’s, he realizes, and it’s so adorable that he can’t help but thaw a little bit from the cold that’s followed him around since last night.

“I haven’t seen you all day,” Damian mumbles, fingers twisting in his lap. “…are you avoiding me?”

“What?” Tim asks, surprised. “No, Robin, of course not!” He sighs, a tired sound. “I’ve just been…I’m just having a hard time right now.” Damian nods and his shoulders drop in what seems like relief. “Aren’t you supposed to be on patrol with Nightwing?”

Damian leans back on his hands, looking up at the sky. Tim hadn’t noticed before, but his jaw line seems to be sharpening, a little. A sign of the growth spurt that Damian is surely about to have. Tim worries suddenly that his little brother will one day soon be taller than him.

“All we do is fight, lately,” Damian admits softly, and Tim really doesn’t know what to do with that information. “I demanded I patrol alone for a while.”

“You were literally sick yesterday. Agent A barely cleared you for the field.”

“I am aware,” he says haughtily. “He was following me anyway, thinking I wouldn’t notice.” Tim glances at Damian just in time to see an eyeroll. “I lost him a few streets ago.”

“He’ll find you eventually,” Tim reminds him.

“I know,” Damian agrees, nodding. “But I wanted to talk to you. I thought you might be upset. About last night.”

Tim shakes his head quickly, hoping to cut off Damian’s worries then and there. “Not at all. That was really sweet of you.”

“…yes?”

“Yes.” Tim says firmly. “Thank you, babybird.”

Damian shifts, tilting until his head leans on Tim’s shoulder. It’s out of character, for him, because he is so rarely anything but fully composed and alert on patrol.

“So…we are okay, yes?” Damian confirms, voice small and young.

“Definitely,” Tim promises. Damian exhales loudly a deep breath he’d clearly been holding. Tim is mostly just grateful that he’s somehow bonded with his brother enough that Damian is willing to admit his worry aloud, especially in public.

“N will find you pretty soon,” Tim reminds him. Damian sighs again, but this one is not nearly as pleased. In fact, it sounds closer to annoyance. Tim can’t help the arm that snakes around his brother, holding Damian closer as he asks a question he’s not entirely sure he wants the answer to. “Why have you guys been fighting?”

Damian's hands fidget in his lap again.

“He’s too controlling,” Damian says softly. “It’s like the more space I want, the tighter the leash becomes. I think it is out of love, and worry. But I’m nearly fourteen and I just need more space.” Tim nearly laughs from the irony. That was why Dick moved to Blud in the first place, when he was younger—to get space. “I…” Damian trails off, and Tim knows without looking that he is furrowing his brows and fidgeting once more. “I have a right to be mad, don’t I? On your behalf?”

“Oh,” Tim says without thinking, surprised at the sudden turn in the conversation. He shifts, accidentally bucking his little brother off his shoulder. Oddly, Damian just readjusts and lays his head back down again. Something warm and relieved blooms in his chest at the repeated physical affection. “You’re fighting because of me?”

“…Not just you,” Damian replies, after a few beats too long. “I meant what I said, before. I feel…suffocated by it all. Not just him—the capes, my name, school, even the manor itself. But, yes. It’s like they can’t stop doing things to disappoint me—things they’ve done to hurt you.”

“That isn’t your responsibility.” The words are firm but undercut by the emotion he feels by his brother’s statement.

Damian doesn’t respond to that. He just lifts his head from Tim’s shoulder. “Nightwing. I’d advise you not to attempt to spy on people when you are so clearly terrible at it.”

Tim turns around, surprised, and Dick steps out from the shadows. Shoot. Thank God for Damian—Tim hadn’t even noticed. “How long has he been there?” Tim whispers to Dami.

“Just your last sentence. I heard him land within earshot.”

“Nice,” Tim compliments quietly, and Damian smiles softly, fingers going still in his lap. Tim ruffles his hair as Dick steps closer. “Clever Robin.” Damian rolls his eyes and brushes his hand off, but even in the dark Tim can see he’s blushing.

“Sorry, Robin,” Dick apologizes good-naturedly. “Whatcha guys up to?”

“Just talking shit about you,” Tim teases, even though it’s a little bit true.

“Oh-ho, I see how it is!” Dick laughs, ruffling Tim’s hair on his way to sit by Damian. “Can I join?”

“If you guys stop distracting me from my stakeout,” Tim replies. Though he lightly shoves Damian's shoulder with his own to remind him that he’s just playing. Damian shoves him back, equally light, and Dick finally plops down beside the younger boy, so that Damian is in the middle.

“What’s the target?” Dick asks, and Tim quickly explains about the guys and the packages and how he’s been watching the chain of command. Dick nods along, watching the building more carefully now that he knows what to look for. Tim updates his report every night, but no-one reads another person’s report until they’re important, or at the very least, finished. Well, except Tim. Tim knows that Dick and Damian are on patrol tonight, Bruce is with the League, and Steph and Cass have been tracking an underground fighting ring, with up to three possible locations—only one of which they’ve found. Duke has been working undercover to spy on a college who seems to be donating large sums to unnamed groups on their payroll, though he still can’t find where exactly they’re going. Usually Tim has to hack Jason’s files to find out what he’s up to, but he was there at the cave today and had mentioned a new c-list rogue stirring up trouble just outside of Crime Alley.

Tim can’t explain why he has all that memorized. He just worries. He wants to know what each of his siblings are up to, in case they need help. In case they get lost. But they haven’t so far, so he just looks like a big weirdo loser.

“There,” Damian points, his entire posture shifting back into the true character of Robin, the softness he’d had disappearing in a moment.

“Is that Penguin?” Dick whispers. Tim furrows his brows.

“It can’t be,” he denies, but fuck, it really does look like him. “I’ve been tracking these people for days—Cobblepot should have nothing to do with this.”

“Well, he’s right there, kiddo,” Dick mumbles and something in Tim just tears. There’s no reason for him to feel so angry, but suddenly he is. Or, well, no, not angry. Defensive. He feels defensive. There’s no reason for it, because Dick is right, that definitely is Penguin. But Tim could have, if he’d just, if there had been more time…

“I’m not blind, Nightwing,” he bites out. “I can see that.”

Tim may be some stupid, ungrateful, depressed brat, but he’s not completely incompetent, okay? Not at this. Not at this.

He can solve it, he can figure out why Penguin is here, he can do it on his own. He just needs to get a closer—

“Maybe we should get a closer look?” Dick suggests.

And now it looks like Dick’s idea! But Tim had thought it first, but if he’d been faster, he could have said it, and now he looks like an idiot failing in his own case. He didn’t even know Penguin was involved! Tim should have guessed that, but he didn’t, and it doesn’t matter because Dick is here and he’ll just take care of everything.

The plan is to get closer. The vigilantes scale down the building, staying low and quiet.

The plan has a bit of a hitch when there is one, unavoidable spot, near the bottom, that each caped hero will have to stand and then jump across.

The plan is ruined when, in an unlucky moment, a gunman happens to look up and make direct eye contact with Tim, who was about to make his jump. Then the man spots two more shapes that look a little too much like more of Gotham’s nighttime protectors.

The plan goes to shit when the man screams out a warning and everyone open fires.

Tim jumps the gap and gets a bullet in the leg for his effort. He lands beside Damian and Nightwing, who have taken cover behind large stone pillars.

“Red!” Damian hisses, but, thank God, doesn’t inch from his spot. Tim lies flat on his stomach, covering his head best he can as he uses his elbows and toes to inch forward on the ground into cover. He grits his teeth, ignoring the pain shooting up his leg and spine like licks of fire. When Tim is close enough, Damian grabs his wrist and pulls him to safety.

“Fuck,” Tim swears, as Dick gets out a bandage large enough to wrap around his leg.

“Bullet’s too deep,” Dick decides, “We’ll fish it out at the cave, we need immediate evac.”

“No,” Tim argues. “It’s a minor wound and this entire operation is officially blown. I’ll call the Batmobile. You guys need to find a way in and arrest whoever you can. Call for backup, I don’t care. But don’t let them get away. It took me forever to find this warehouse, and I don’t want them getting another one.”

Dick looks over his leg, and Tim can practically hear him weighing the pros and cons. Risk and Worth.

“Okay. Fine. But I’m calling the car. And Hood.”

“Good,” Tim agrees.

“Good,” Dick says, already hitting the button and updating Alfred and Jason on comms.

“What?” Damian shakes his head. “No! He can’t walk. We can’t abandon him to wait, and be stranded.”

“He is not being abandoned,” Dick replies sternly, already checking over his gear and making an attack plan. “But he has a point. We need to take these guys down. It’s my fault that his cover is blown—I was the one to suggest moving. So now I’ve got to clean up my mess, and draw their fire away from Red Robin. And I’m sorry, Robin, but I need your help.”

Damian looks over Tim worriedly.

“If it was me…If I’d gotten shot instead…” Damian says slowly. “Would you leave me?”

“Damian,” Tim whispers sharply. “That is enough.”

“But—”

“Nightwing is right. Go with him.”

“But—”

“Now, Robin!” Tim demands, and at last Damian falls silent, mouth in a tight line.

“Batmobile is two minutes out,” Dick says. Then, with a teasing smile, “Don’t die.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Tim fake-glares. Nightwing laughs, a little, and motions for Damian to follow him.
And with one last look over his shoulder, Damian does.

And Tim hates himself for it, but he does wonder…would Dick have left Damian? Could Tim himself have left either of them?

Maybe to draw opponents’ fire away. Give him space to breathe, then circle back. Tim would ditch them in the car and then go back for the arrests. He’d miss a few, definitely, but his family would be safe and he would know that for sure.

But Dick’s family is safe, and he does know that for sure. Dick’s family is fighting by his side. Tim is just…

It doesn’t matter. Tim is the one that told them to go.

He swallows his pride and waits patiently as the guns shift to follow the two moving vigilantes. Once he’s in the clear, Tim uses the pillar behind him to shift up, balancing his weight on his one good leg. It better not have hit a bone. He’s gonna be so pissed if he has to take time off to heal.

“What do we got here?” A voice sounds from behind him. Tim turns, alarmed, then lunges to his left just in time to miss the shot the goon fires at him.

“Fuck,” Tim mumbles, landing hard on his side, behind a wall but only a few steps away from his new best friend. He scrambles to get back up, but much slower than he’d like.

By the time Tim is upright again, the guy is already throwing a punch.

“Motherf—” Tim manages to dodge, then throws a punch of his own right to the man’s neck. Winded, the guy stumbles back, but coughs and rights himself pretty quickly.

They exchange blows, but Tim’s lopsided and in a little more pain than he’d like. Eventually the idiot realizes he can just kick Tim’s bad leg and fuck, he collapses like a tower of Jenga with too many missing pieces. His opponent’s new nickname switches from ‘idiot’ to ‘motherfucking shithead asshole’ as he continues to quite literally kick Tim while he’s down. Then, naturally, Motherfucking Shithead Asshole pulls his handgun out.

He points it at Tim’s head.

Tim just stares up at him—there’s nothing he can do.

He’s going to die here.

And oddly, his last thought isn’t that he’s scared. Or sad. Or grieving of the life he never got to have. Tim thinks, knows with all his heart, that he’s letting Damian down. That he forced him to go, and make the arrests, and now his little brother will forever blame himself for leaving Tim behind.

He’s going to. He’s going to—

Until a different gunshot rings out first, and Motherfucking Shithead Asshole’s hand, the one holding Tim’s bloody finale, explodes. The goon, understandably, absolutely screams.

“That’s what you get, asshole.” Tim is smirking before he even turns to his savior.

“Thanks,” he says to Red Hood, who has arrived just in time. He still holds his gun out, one bullet fired, still pointing at the man now writhing and screeching on the ground about his blown up hand.

“Looks like you needed a hand,” Jason replies coolly, helmet tilted in that way that Tim knows means he’s smirking. “Pun intended.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “You’re the worst.”

“C’mon, whiner,” Jason says, deciding the guy is no longer a threat and pocketing his gun. He instead holds a hand out to Tim, helping lift him off the ground. “Stop laying down on the job.”

He tries to help Tim walk to the Batmobile, but he fights him just enough to lean down beside Motherfucking Shithead Asshole. “Gotta bandage him up,” Tim mumbles, reaching into his belt for some medical supplies.

”What?” Jason asks incredulously. Tim rolls his eyes.

“You blew up his wrist veins, dude! He’ll bleed out if we leave him like this.”

“He was gonna shoot my little b—” Jason cuts himself off, looking around in case someone was lurking to hear his words. “He’s lucky I didn’t aim for his head.”

“Yeah. And he’s lucky I’m here to patch him up until the police can arrest him.” Tim bandages him quick enough, but his leg is starting to go from a throbbing pain to a lightning of horror shooting up and down.

“What a hero,” Jason murmurs sarcastically, as he half-drags Tim back to the car.

“The others okay?”

“Should be about done with the arrests. No injuries.”

“One injury,” Tim mumbles. Jason chuckles.

“Yeah. One injury. C’mon there, broken bird. Back to the cave.” Jason lets Tim lean almost his entire weight on him, holding him steady. Like he’s something worth keeping safe.

Well. It’s a nice thought.

Chapter Text

Tim doesn’t notice he falls asleep in the car on the way home. He doesn’t wake when Jason carries him into the cave without hesitation, or when Alfred starts tending to his injuries, laying a gentle hand on Tim’s cheek as he looks him over.

No, Tim doesn’t catch any of that. Instead, he wakes slowly, foggy and a bit confused, to the sound of echoing voices from a far corner of the cave. They’re hushed, but Jason gets loud when he’s angry—and he’s clearly angry now.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t give a shit what you meant to do. I almost watched him die tonight.”

“We were trying to draw their fire,” Dick responds, voice much more gentle and wary. “I made the wrong call.”

“Oh my god.” Jason heaves one of his huge sighs, letting out a breath that sounds like disappointment. “We don’t leave Robins behind. Not ever. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that he was hurt, but not dead, and I was lucky he was fine with staying behind instead of trying to help with one working leg! The Batmobile was on the way. I was thinking that I was keeping him safe.”

“By abandoning him? We don’t. Leave. Robins. Behind.”

“He’s not technically Robin,” Dick corrects half-heartedly. Tim hears something like skin connecting with skin. Then: “Ow! I swear to God, Jay, if you broke my nose again—”

When Jason cuts him off, it’s with a growl. “Dick, for your own good, you had better start acting like you care about this. You almost got him killed. That matters.”

“I know,” Dick replies, at last dropping down to a whisper, something soft and hurt hiding behind his words. “Don’t you think I know?”

If they keep talking after that, Tim can’t tell. He falls back asleep, comfortable and possibly a bit high on whatever painkillers Alfred put him on. And he stays asleep, too, even when someone runs long, nimble fingers through his hair, sniffling and breathing a little too heavily.