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“Drake.” Damian appears in the doorway. Tim briefly glances up from his laptop to acknowledge him. “You cannot be afraid of ducks.”
Tim sighs. “Sorry, Damian, but I
clearly
am,” he says, annoyed, and wishing his whole family would stop making the duck thing a big deal.
“No, that is not what I meant,” Damian snaps, frustrated. “You cannot continue to be afraid of ducks.”
“I can’t just stop being afraid of something, Damian.”
“There are therapies.”
“There are so many other things I need to go to therapy for. This isn’t a big deal.”
“Tt. Come with me.” Tim blinks as Damian pulls his laptop out of his hands and begins to tug on his arms.
“I– What?”
“Come with me,” Damian says, and pulls Tim out of the room.
Damian hadn’t thought his opinion of Drake could be lower than it already was, but then he found out that his predecessor was afraid of ducks , and that was just taking it too far. At first, he’d been planning to exploit the knowledge somehow, and while the idea of keeping an attack duck around to keep Drake in line was entertaining, the whole situation just didn’t sit right with him.
And in the end, it had come down to this: Drake is, to his consternation, a part of his family and team, and his fear of ducks reflects badly on the rest of them, Damian included.
So he’d started researching, lying in bed one night, looking at pages on exposure therapy and ornithophobia. Then, he’d gotten out his phone and reluctantly texted Brown.
Why is Drake afraid of ducks?
She replied almost immediately. Idk, ask him.
He won’t take it kindly coming from me.
Do you mean it kindly??? What are you planning
Tt. Just ask him, Brown.
Say please
…
Please.
Gimme a sec.
Damian waited, switching back to the webpage on keeping ducks as pets, and pondering the best way to spin his attack duck strategy to father and Alfred. When Brown did text him back, it was a screenshot of her and Drake’s message history.
Hey, Timbo, serious question.
Yes?
Why are you afraid of ducks?
Steph.
No, seriously, I’m curious. No ulterior motives, I swear.
You expect me to believe that?
It’s the truth!
… Ugh. Fine. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m afraid, I just always have been. They give me the creeps.
Huh. Thanks!
Should I be scared.
Smh, you have no faith in me. Relationships are meant to be based on trust, Tim!
The rest of their conversation was cut off, but Damian had enough information. Thank you , he texted her back.
Soooo, what are you planning???
Damian knew he wasn’t getting out of this one without telling her, so he screenshotted one of the pages he had open on exposure therapy and sent it her way.
OMG. that’s so sweet, dami.
Tt.
Tim stares blankly around him.
“This is the park,” he says.
“Yes, Drake, glad to see your observational skills are as keen as always.”
“You dragged me away from my casework… to go to the park.”
“We are here for a reason,” Damian says, leading him over towards the crest of a hill. “I have come to the conclusion that your fear of ducks is, quite frankly, a scar on our family’s honour.”
“Jeez, you don’t play nice, do you?”
“Tt.”
They come to the top of the hill and Tim stops as he stares down at the duck pond below.
“Damian…”
“So, until such a time as you can say that you are no longer afraid, we will be coming here once a week to expose you to the ducks.”
Tim stares at him, his brain struggling to comprehend what’s happening. “I… what?”
“It’s called exposure therapy, Drake, it is meant to lessen fear by familiarising yourself with the object of fear. Tt. I thought even you would be aware of it.”
“I am, I just...” Tim doesn’t know what to make of this. It’s not something that he would have ever, in a million years, expected from Damian of all people.
“Are you okay to move closer, or would you rather stay here for today?” Damian asks him, when it becomes apparent that he’s not going to finish his sentence. Tim glances down the hill at the ducks, who are far enough away that he can’t clearly make out their features.
“We can go closer,” he says. Damian nods.
“Lead the way, then. When you have gotten as far as you can, stop.”
What is happening? Tim asks himself, as he leads the way down the hill. Is he dreaming? He feels like he might be dreaming. He surreptitiously pinches the skin at the inside of his elbow, and, yep, definitely not dreaming. He keeps walking until they’re about 20 feet from the edge of the pond, and then stops.
“Here is good,” he says, trying not to let his nervousness show. The pond may be 20 feet away, but some of the ducks are much closer, clustered around the bank. Damian nods, reaching into his bag and pulling out a small picnic blanket, unfolding it on the ground, and then gesturing for him to sit. Not having anything better to do, Tim does.
“So we just… sit here?” he asks. Damian nods.
“Yes. My research says that exposure therapy usually begins with fantasizing, followed by exposure to photographs, but you don’t seem to have any issues with images of ducks, so I surmised it would be logical to skip straight to the real-life exposure. You don’t have to go any closer, and if a bird comes near you, you are welcome to walk away, but try and look at them and experience being near them.”
Tim nods, and sits, quietly, watching the ducks. He can’t explain why they scare him so much– he doesn’t remember any traumatic early childhood experiences with them, or anything like that. There’s just something about the way they move, about the curve of their beaks, that unnerves him, makes his skin crawl. He tries to ignore the clamminess of his hands and the unease settled on his shoulders as his gaze follows a duck at the edge of the crowd, closest to them.
Beside him, Damian pulls out a sketchbook and set of pencils from his bag, and starts drawing. Tim catches glimpses of studies of the ducks, and he’s always startled by just how good Damian is at art. The kid has real talent.
They spend the next half hour or so like that, Tim’s eyes flicking from Damian’s sketches to the ducks and back again, the warm summer sun beating down on his back, and he slowly feels himself relaxing as he realises the ducks aren’t planning on getting any closer.
Eventually, though, boredom sets in, and he fishes his phone out of his pocket, texting Steph.
I think Damian’s being nice to me??? Help???
???
He took me to the park to do exposure therapy at the duckpond
!!!
Steph what is happening. Should i be concerned??? Has he been replaced??? Is he sick???
He cares about you, fool
???? damian??? Are YOU sick???
Aw, cmon, tim. He’s a brat, yeah, but he DOES care
He LITERALLY tried to kill me
That was years ago, hold a grudge much?? Jason tried to kill you too, and you’re not nearly as hostile towards him
Because jason at least TRIES to be nice. Damian is nothing but rude n antagonistic.
Srsly, tim, just give him a chance. He’s a good kid
Well, if he’s going to be dragging me out here every week, i guess i’ll have no choice but to :/
Enjoy the ducks, tim!
Tim does not enjoy the ducks.
…But he does, maybe, enjoy the afternoon. After they’ve sat there for an hour and a half, Damian stands up, and starts to pack away his things. “How do you feel?” he asks Tim, zipping up his backpack. Tim shrugs.
“Fine, I guess.” Damian nods.
“Good. Let’s be heading home, then.”
Tim follows him back to the parking lot in silence, until he catches sight of something that gives him pause. “Hey, Damian, do you want ice cream?” he asks, pointing out the ice cream van.
“...No,” Damian says, but Tim can see his gaze lingering on the van with something other than his usual disdain. He smothers a smile, tugs on Damian’s arm.
“Well, I want ice cream. You made me sit out here for over an hour looking at ducks , I deserve it.”
“Tt.” Damian lets himself be led, however, and he lets Tim buy him an ice cream, so he counts it as a win.
True to Damian’s word, they return every week to the duck pond– not always on the same day, depending on the weather and their other commitments, but at some point Damian will appear in whatever room Tim is spending his time in, and announce that they are leaving, giving Tim no room to argue.
For the first couple of weeks, they sit at about the same spot, but then Tim concedes to sitting closer, and after that, they shift a couple of feet towards the pond with every visit. Damian always brings his sketchbook, though he’s transitioned from duck sketches to sketches of the surrounding nature over the weeks, which is fair, Tim supposes, there must be only so many times you can draw a duck before it becomes boring. Tim usually plays around on his phone when he isn’t watching the ducks. Sometimes, they bring lunch with them, and eat cucumber sandwiches and cookies on their blanket.
Steph joins them a couple times, and teaches them both how to make daisy chains. Then, Cass joins them, and the four of them work together to make her a flower crown, with Damian and Cass fetching flowers from across the park for Steph and Tim to weave together.
As they’re putting the final touches on he crown, a duck waddles up to the edge of the blanket, and Tim goes still, staring. Steph’s face lights up.
“Aww, cute!” she gushes, then catches sight of Tim’s face. “Tim? You good?”
Tim lets out a slow, shaky breath, and hesitantly nods, eyes fixed on the duck. Steph places a hand on his arm, reassuring. The duck quacks, and he flinches, and Steph stifles a laugh, but reaches out to make shooing motions towards the duck, anyway.
“Go on, go away,” she says. “I love you, and you’re very cute, but you’re scaring my boyfriend.” The duck quacks again, but waddles away, and Tim slumps in relief.
“Thanks, Steph,” he says.
“No problem.” She ruffles his hair. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the ducks.” She’s teasing, but it’s genuinely reassuring, and he leans his head against her shoulder.
He glances up and sees Cass and Damian watching them from atop the hill, a smile on Cass’ face. Noticing that he’s seen them, she leads the way down, and Damian nods at Tim.
“You did good, Drake,” he says, and Tim feels strangely warm at the praise. Steph takes the final flowers from Cass, and threads them into the flower crown, before placing it on Cass’ head.
“There we go,” she says, with a satisfied nod. “Now everyone knows that Cass is a queen.”
Tim snorts. “Oh, they know by just looking at her.”
Cass beams.
The next time they come to the duck pond, all four of them, Steph brings some stale bread from her cupboard to feed the ducks with.
“You’re not meant to feed them bread,” Damian says, perturbed. “It’s bad for them.”
“Oh.” Steph blinks. “What are we meant to feed them, then? I kind of only brought bread.”
“Tt. We may be able to purchase birdseed from the gift shop.”
Steph nods. “Alright!” she jumps to her feet. “C’mon, Dami, let’s go get some duck food.”
The two of them return fifteen minutes later with bags of birdseed, and hand them out to Cass and Tim. “Wanna come feed them?” Steph asks Tim. “I’ll protect you if they get too close, I promise.”
Tim hesitates, then nods, and allows Steph to pull him along. They stand closer to the edge of the pond than he’s ever been, just a foot away from the edge of the crowd of ducks, and he’s ashamed at the way he hovers behind Steph and Cass, neither of which seem to mind. Damian is crouched down, his hand filled with birdseed as he feeds a single duck that he seems to have picked out as his favourite, muttering something that Tim can’t quite here. Steph and Cass have opened their bags and are throwing the birdseed– away from Tim, thank god– and watching the birds rush after it with amusement.
“You gonna open that bag?” Steph asks him, after a while, and he nods, realising that he’d completely forgotten that he was meant to be helping. He pulls it open, takes a handful of seed, and throws it out with a shaking hand.
The ducks go crazy for it. Tim stands, stiff as a board, watching them, but then… it’s fine. They dive for the seed, and ignore him. Okay . Okay, Tim can do this. He takes another handful, throwing it, and Steph and Cass are watching him, with small smiles on their faces. He frowns at them.
“What?” he asks, it coming out more defensive than he’d intended.
“Nothing,” Steph says. “It’s just cute, watching you be all nervous over a duck.”
Tim scowls, reaching into his bag and throwing a pinch of birdseed in her face. She splutters, and Cass laughs. Steph glares.
“Traitor,” she mutters at Cass.
“Get kisses from ducks now,” Cass says. Steph grins, wiping the seed from her nose.
“Relationship ended with Tim, ducks are my boyfriends now,” she says. Tim rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling as he throws another handful of seed for the ducks.
Damian appears in the doorway. Tim glances up. “Are we going to the pond today?” he asks. Damian hesitates, before shaking his head.
“Not exactly,” he says. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
Curious, Tim follows him through the manor and out into the grounds. He slows as he sees the dog kennel and the four-foot-high chicken wire fence around it.
“Uhh, Damian?” he asks, but Damian ignores him, stopping at the edge of the fence and calling out softly in Arabic. From within the kennel, he hears a quack, and a small black duck waddles out. He stiffens.
“This is Batduck,” Damian tells Tim.
“You… You got a duck?” Tim asks. Damian shakes his head.
“Of course not, Drake. Ducks are social animals. I got two ducks.”
At that, a second duck waddles out of the kennel, its green head-feathers glinting in the sunlight. A drake .
“This one’s name is Timothy,” Damian informs him. “I figure helping me take care of these two, and keeping them company, will be the next stage in your therapy.”
He’s keeping an eye on Tim out of the corner of his eye, Tim realises, waiting for his reaction. Still frozen, he forces himself to relax, a little bit, and he can’t quite keep himself from smiling.
“Yeah, okay,” he says, and he thinks he sees Damian smile a little, too.
Tim doesn’t know how he got to this point, sitting on the lawn outside the manor with a duck on his lap, running his hand over its feathers as it preens. He hears the snap of a camera, and glances up to see Cass smiling at him.
“It is good,” she tells him, “That you are not afraid anymore.”
Tim nods, looking down at Tim-duck. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It is.”