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Chapter Text

They layer him in casual clothes, a baseball cap, and sunglasses. Tim tries to refuse the wheelchair. He’s as successful as always, and scowls as Bruce pushes him into the elevator and through the parking garage. But when Bruce eyes him like he means to lift Tim directly into the car, Tim draws the line. Hobbling, with dignity, he slumps into the backseat.

Bruce stands in the car’s open door, hovering. His hands are outstretched like he’s not sure if he should be doing anything further. 

Tim raises an eyebrow. “The door?”

“Right.” 

Bruce closes him in and packs the wheelchair, comes around to the other side, and then they’re off. Slipping out the hospital parking garage and taking side routes to ignore the straggling journalist presence hovering at the main entrance like gnats. Leaking a fake release date for the next week seems to have thinned them out anyway. 

Tim stares out the window, watching Gotham streets roll by. Homeless under overhangs, a little girl with pigtails steering her dad toward a popcorn stand, every kind of fashion and hour in the people mingling across sidewalks and jaywalking across traffic. The smell of the car is clean and expensive, but Tim imagines the myre smell of food, exhaust, the byproduct of human crowd, shifting and layering with each step.

It’s different from the tang of hospital antiseptics. The plastic coverings and barriers on every surface. The eye-piercing lights and dim corners. 

The blur of his eyeline allows his thoughts to shift. The memory of last night lingers. Jason’s visit is reminiscent of a fever dream, but Tim knows it’s truly a fog of exhaustion, sleep deprivation. In the seat beside him is his bag, packed with the laptop Jason had dropped off. After the handover, Jason had rapped him on the forehead, shockingly gentle, even considering Tim’s condition and concussion.

“Get some sleep, Timmy-Tot,” he’d ordered, a two finger salute preluding his exit. Swinging himself out the cracked window in an ungrateful arch. Six foot frame vs one-on-one teaching from acrobat Dick Grayson.

Tim had turned to the laptop immediately, Jason’s intel guiding his fingertips. After spending the aftermath, his recovery, holed up in bed, or taking short spins around the VIP section of the hospital, frazzled billionaire Bruce, sibling, or nurse on an arm, Tim was ready to return to what he knew.

He pulled up social media, the cave and manor’s surveillance, patrol reports—every and any piece of intel he could dig up. The Gotham night seeping through the cracked window was chilled, moonless, shadowed. But as the hours passed, light bled, gray, over where Tim sat thoroughly tangled in his chase and bedclothes.

It was morning by the time he put the laptop to the side, but Tim felt like he had grappled an edge together. He dug up what information he needed for the next day—today—for meeting the others. 

For meeting Damian. 

Tim was ready. Is ready. Because as long as he’s sat, stir-crazy, having Steph dropping by with knobby elbows and brain-rot media reels, or Dick piling on enough anti-anxiety coloring books to drive him crazy, in the back of his mind, he’s stood still. The blur of memories, slipping by like an uncontrollable reel. 

“Let’s see how the little man’s doing.”

“He was uncooperative.”

“I will take a piece of him as payment for the delay.”

“The next bullet goes in his son. His real son.”

Gunshot. 

Tim clears his throat, clears his head. He shifts the seatbelt digging near his neck. Bruce looks over. 

“Alright?” he asks. “We’re almost there.”

Tim nods. “Uhuh.”

“You sure? Does your leg hurt? Are you nauseous? Thirsty—”

“You sound like Dick,” Tim interrupts, the tone of his voice making it clear how he feels about this impersonation. 

“...let me know,” Bruce says. 

They lapse into silence, listening to engine purr and the staccato pulse of car horns in traffic bleeding through closed windows. Tim itches at the edges of his midriff bandage. 

Gunshot. 

There’s something about being Red Robin, and Robin before him. Chasing leads, catching criminals, patrolling streets into long, cold, hungry hours that consume your every thought, and focus. It sucks up every piece of Tim and freezes it. Keeps him from looking too closely at the pain, his and theirs. The fear. Tim needs the distraction—it’s what yanks him through one year to the next. A blinder for the unspeakable things he sees, does. The things done to him. Them. 

Gunshot. 

Tim watches the turn from Gotham downtown to treeline. Long, winding driveways branching into magnanimous estates. Drake’s manor to come up soon. Wayne to follow. Right where they’ve been his whole life. The familiar gated properties float through his vision, detached. Overlaid by balaclava masks and spittle on threats.

Red Robin is a distraction…but sometimes, there come the in between moments. The kind of traumas that wiggle through the shields, the fleeting diversions. And it’s not usually the injuries, the pain. It’s the other side of it. The kind of grim, molded happenings that creep into brain tissue and take hold and fester.

Tim dealt with it, as a boy. Home without his parents for seasons at a time, Janet offering brief skype calls, Jack in the backdrop with fleeting ‘How are the studies, Timothy?’. Better, every time, than the Janet who holed up in her office at home, or the Jack who banged fists on the dinner table, who pushed Tim away when he tripped underfoot…

Tim dealt with it as Robin—chasing the thin-lipped smiles and the bottled emotions Bruce could manage, microdoses. The Gotham Rogues, pumping him full of toxins, molding daylight into nightmares. The ones who were stronger, who caught him, subjected him, to the agony of waiting. Chains around ankles, wire around wrists. Pain, again, again, again. 

And as Red Robin—losing the mantle. Throwing himself into the deep end of case after case. Dick in one ear— slow down, I’m sorry . Jason with edged jokes— Replacement. Damian pinning him with a sneer—unworthy. Day in day out, caffeine, bloody bandages, hazy vision and gritted teeth. 

The pain, the injuries, are bad. 

But the things you can’t see are worse. 

And Tim knows he’s not alone—trauma is a prerequisite to the Bats, to Gotham in general. All of them have a chip on their shoulder and skeletons in their closets. Tim has it as Robin, as Red Robin, in the before. 

And…as Tim Wayne-Drake. 

Surprises during interviews, smiles stretched wide for the cameras. Cuffs on his forearms, tile puddled beneath him, ropes winding. The media, the news, the passerbyes—staring and writing and saving, downloaded, remembered, permanent. 

Tim, Red Robin. He’s used to the acerbic grip of both lifestyles—creeping in corners, worming into waking thoughts. The toll. He’s learned it. He can handle it. 

They all can. 

But…

Damian. 

Tim scrubs a hand over his face, ends the movement with a locked wrist to prop his head up, eyes closed. He’s feigning sleep—or maybe he practically is asleep, eyelids itching and cold. But his thoughts still work. Still turn. 

Damian is a brat. A pain in Tim’s ass. A thorn that wheedled its way into their dysfunctional approximation of a family—the blood son. The superior son. The rightful heir. 

Damian barges into Tim’s room without knocking. He takes Tim’s gear without asking. He’s more likely to greet Tim with a blade, or a bat-a-rang, than a simple ‘hello’. Damian logs into Tim’s files, stealing the information he needs without proper documentation. He lets Titus or any other member of his growing menagerie into Tim’s room, into Tim’s things, and doesn’t care when the less house-broken members rip apart meeting notes or suit ties. Bruce’s always needing Tim to drive him to this place or that. Damian looks down his nose at Tim. Looks at him like the dirt he steps on. Damian…

Damian wrinkles his nose when he draws. He sprawls out, hogging the length of a full couch so no one can peek over his shoulder at his work. He names animals after his family. He brings Tim coffee as bribes to ‘assist’ him in tracking down leads. He slumps onto Tim’s side during rare movie nights. 

Damian’s a pain. But he’s Tim’s little brother too…and maybe Tim finally has an idea of what it means when Jason’s shoving him off a roof one week, and forcing tylenol and muscle relaxers down his throat the next. 

Because Damian knows the blood, and the pain, and in the injuries, better than anyone else. He was raised by assassins. Tim’s seen the scars, the fleeting instincts that tighten his frame. He can handle more than Tim would want to admit. 

But…Damian didn’t grow up with it, public eye. It’s one thing to bear the brunt of world-wide scrutiny holding katanas and clad in masks. It’s another to take a seat in geometry and have gunfire crawl through the door and blood stains smear along school-floor tile. Tied up, threatened, watching as one bullet, two, blew apart Tim’s body. Waiting for the next to burrow itself in his forehead as his classmates watched.

And now…what? He goes back to school? Walks down the street? Eats breakfast at the table with his family, like one of them isn't missing, bed-ridden in a hospital dorm?

Tim glances toward Bruce. 

He loves them, in his awkward, withdrawn way. And something split open after Jason’s death has scarred over enough to allow the tentative doting Damian lets him deliver. But Bruce has been a vigilante a life-time. He’s separated Brucie Wayne and Batman and been both sides of the masks for so many years, Tim doubts he remembers the way to feel either persona as Bruce. 

Damian wouldn’t be caught dead approaching Jason for any kind of comfort. Cass would notice something is wrong, deliver wordless support—snacks at his door, hair ruffles he’s too smart to duck. Duke still hasn’t found his footing with the complex, ever degrading mental health of the Bats. Damian wouldn’t take any attempts at consolation from Steph seriously. Alfred is too disconnected—a final line of tough love. And Dick…he thinks too highly of Dick. Damian wouldn’t sit at the foot of his pedestal and unload what’s wrong to his Batman. 

And that leaves…

Tim. 

Tired, sore. Juggling overstimulation from nights of hospital staff and family members. Following along with the pain-in-the ass requirement of things like healing, and recovering, and whatever else Bruce stresses in narrow-eyed conversations when he discovers Tim taking trips to the bathroom without a nurse hovering in the doorway. He’s not on the top of his game. 

But thanks to last night’s scramble to track down every goddamn article, picture, video, interview, and analysis of anything to do with the shooting that he can get his hands on, Tim’s prepared. 

“Almost there,” Bruce says, and Tim lifts his head from where it leans, vibrating painfully against his hand and car window. “You can head to your room and rest when we get home. The others promised not to bother you.”

Tim gives a little huff of disbelief. “Is it a blue moon?”

“They mean well,” Bruce says. 

Tim shrugs. Maybe they do, but that doesn’t change the fact they’ve accumulated enough family members to make any kind of homecoming a blur of hair ruffles and blood loss jokes and analytical, dime-a-dozen detective eyes. It’s a chaotic, encompassing mess where Tim usually grits his teeth and squeezes his hands into fists and muscles his way through. But this time…

Tim will just have to pull away. 

There’s another minute or two of driving, and then they’re parking. Bruce comes around, angling for the trunk, but Tim is opening the door and diving onto his own two feet before he can make attempts to extricate the wheelchair. 

Bruce hurries to his side. “You’re not supposed to be on your feet,” he says, a near growl.

“Hypocrite,” Tim returns. 

Bruce grabs under his elbow, practically forcing Tim to lever about half his weight onto him. “Go slow.”

Tim bites back about having approximately two speeds at the moment—absolute stillness, and hobbling—and then they’re making their way inside. His middle aches. His leg threatens to crumple. He works rested facial muscles, pulling an eased but tired smile into place.

The household has refrained from congregating in the entryway, thank god. But as Tim allows Bruce to help him further inside, he finds Dick idly braiding Steph’s hair on the couch, and Cass and Duke engaged in a serious match of Mario Kart. 

“Timmy!’ Dick says joyously, like he didn’t visit the hospital a day before.

The others crowd him, until Bruce actually comes in handy, fending them off with statements like ‘Tim needs to rest’ and ‘Stephanie, stop petting him’. Never mind that Tim’s gotten nothing but rest, and that Stephanie’s plucking around at his baseball cap isn’t really hurting anyone. Still, he’ll take the out. 

“I’m glad you’re back with us.” Dick sneaks in a hair ruffle. 

Steph winks. 

Duke offers a little wave. 

Cass signs, upturned lips to match. Welcome home.

And then they’re actually breaking away. Bruce’s helpfulness depletes following the extraction and assistance to Tim’s room, where he lingers all too long. Tim has less patience for it than normal. It takes Tim’s fourth, somewhat tense, “I’m fine” before Bruce finally leaves. 

And then, finally, Tim is alone. 

The quiet trickles into place. Tim leans against the headboard of his bed for a moment, catching his breath, eyeing the crisps folds of a newly made comforter. Surely smoothed carefully into place by Alfred’s practiced hands earlier that morning. Tim’s eyelids are heavy and drooping and he stares at his pillow like it’s paradise. He wants a nap so bad, bowled over by the always unprecedented effort of healing. Tim forces himself to take something else instead—a few minutes of deep breaths, letting the exertion prickling across his wounds recede to a baseline ache that the pain meds can’t mask. 

“Almost,” he mumbles to the bed, which doesn’t mean much. ‘Almost’ has been said before quick late night snacks and sixteen-hour stake-outs alike. 

Tim waits for about half-an hour, draping himself over the footrest of the bed and pulling up his email—intent on cutting down even a handful of the work that’s built up at Wayne Enterprises in his absence. Mostly, he ends up staring at a blur of words on the screen. Finally, he gauges enough time to have passed. 

Swallowing down a grown, Tim maneuvers to the door. He slides it open with steady ease, not for the first time mentally praising Alfred’s commitment to oiling each and every hinge on a clockwork rotation. Silently, he shuffles into the hall. 

A television drones a few doors over, and Tim knows it means at least one of the others has tucked themselves away in their room. Judging by how the sound carries, the bedroom door is open. Probably Steph then. Thankfully, Tim is heading in the other direction. His movements are more sluggish than his usual stealth, but he makes steady, quiet progress toward Damian’s room. He doesn’t need anyone else sticking their nose and interrupting. 

Tim reaches Damian’s door, and finds it slightly ajar. The interior is shadowed and empty. Tim can’t say he expected any different, but can’t help the surge of irritation. The pain in his middle and leg are starting to ebb incessantly, and his headache is crawling back with a vengeance. This family is so high maintenance. 

Part of Tim thinks of his bed again—but the rest of Tim knows, once he crawls under the covers, he won’t want to surface again. 

And he still has a job to do. 

The job that’s purely Tim’s…if Bruce’s job is gathering burnt-out broken things, and Dick’s is to hold them all together, Tim’s has always been to pierce them back the best he can.

But to that, first, he needs to find Damian. 

Tim could gallivant around looking in corners and closets for the little runt, but he decides to work differently. On his phone, he makes quick work of pulling up the mansion surveillance. In seconds, he has the device scrubbing through the footage surrounding Damian’s room. Nothing. 

He redirects, starting from the library. There’s no footage of the cave entrance, but Tim watches the library door like a hawk, and sure enough. Damian, time stamped early in the morning—or late at night, for Damian. 

In the video, Damian’s hair is damp and flattened from a post-patrol shower, and the sweatshirt he wears belongs to Dick, hanging halfway down his thigh. The quality of Bruce’s cameras are better than most, but zooming in only gives Tim a vague visual of Damian’s status. He’s walking stiffly, left arm held close to his middle, shoulders slumped forward minutely. The space under his eyes is darkened, but that could be excused by the lighting. Tim guesses that isn’t the case. 

He makes his way from the library, and Tim follows his progress through the manor. Stopping at the fridge for a snack, reclining with his sketch book in the nook of a sitting room for an hour or two. It’s when the house really begins to stir, Duke rolling by with a head nod, Cass showing up with a banana and yogurt for him to pick around, that Damian finally stands. Taking a throw blanket, he heads for a window. Tim watches him disengage security—more of a lazy obligation than a thorough job—and then drop onto the dew-licked lawn. 

“What…” Tim mumbles. 

But then Damian heads for the barn. Tim waits, but he doesn’t come back. 

Tim stifles a groan—of course Damian would pick to hide out there, of all places. The thought of the path out to the newly refurbished barn, and all of Damian’s critters, almost sends Tim back to his room. Eventually, Damian will come out from hiding. Tim could address this then—it’s not like he’s in any danger…

Your job, comes a voice that lives, hides, at the base of Tim’s skull. A wheedling, higher pitched version of himself. Thirteen and dragging stolen colors over his body and dogging unfillable shoes. Grabbing hold of Bruce, cowl and frown and bloody knuckles, and yanking him away from a fall. Robin is an extension of Batman. Damian, an extension of his father. Your responsibility. 

Tim grits his teeth and goes through the window. 

The grounds are still damp with morning dew, seeping through Tim’s house slippers and socks. He’s disabled the cameras, redirecting them from a path that hugs shadows and avoids windows. It wouldn’t hold up for over a second of scrutiny, but Tim knows Bruce, and the other meddlers, aren’t expecting him to have left his room. At least, not yet. He has time before they start poking not-so-subtle heads around corners and eyes on the crisp emptiness of his bed. Not long, but enough. Probably.

Tim mentally grouses over the longer path—his leg stings like cliff-side erosion, ebbing and flowing. His stomach is a different kind of a pain. A deep, sick ache. His head pounds. 

By the time he reaches the barn he’s soaked in sweat, despite the chilled air. He wicks his forehead, panting. Tim doesn’t bother hiding his approach, marching right through the barn door, left ajar. 

Inside is empty. Animals snuffle, making exclamations at Tim’s entrance. The itch of hay pierces his eyes. He smells feed, excrement, and animal dander. It’s an earthy, stuffed scent that comes rare in Gotham. Tim wrinkles his nose as dust and detriment stir in his nose and land on his eyelashes. He’ll need to find some benadryl before calling it a day.

“Damian?” Tim calls. “I know you’re in here.” 

Silence. 

Or at least, no human response. Batcow stirs in the corner, giving a hearty, welcoming snuffle. Tim pats her on the nose as he passes her stall. 

“Damian!” Tim calls. “C’mon dude. Don’t make me track you down.”

He listens for a moment, but the quiet remains. So Tim sets his eyes up, to the hayloft. A ladder, firmly bolted to the wall in the remodel (like Damian doesn’t trample around rooftops nightly) awaits.

“Goddamit,” Tim mumbles, staggering over to its base. His bad leg lets him know how unimpressed it is. Tim waits for a moment, like maybe Damian will realize he’s driving an invalid to scale a ladder and clamber into mounds of allergy-infested hay tucked very firmly on a second floor. Nothing. 

“You little…” Tim trails off with a string of mumbled expletives, practically channeling Jason as he heaves himself up, one rung at a time. His head pops into the loft.

And...

Damian hasn’t bothered to hide.

He’s barely bothered to wake up. 

The kid’s eyes are half-opened, lidded in a way it took years before he relaxed around them enough to allow. His hair is tufted, stray bits of hay tangled in his hair. Despite the muggy warmth of the loft, he’s still wrapped in Dick’s sweater, and it’s been near-destroyed by cat hair from Alfred—the feline curled up and exhaling soft snores in the crux of his elbow. Probably the reason Damian didn’t make a run for it. 

Tim is instantly hit by a wave of relief at the sight of him. He didn’t realize how the need to see Damian, see him alright, with his own two eyes, had lingered since he woke up. But now, images of him half-asleep in a hayloft overlap the remembrances of tape around lip corners and nail beds purple and white as he strains against bonds. Something bristles and heavy in Tim’s midsection settles. 

But the moment stretches, and less comforting notices make themselves known. The shadows under his eyes. The bruises peaking under the collar of his sweater. The chapping of his lip…shallow indents like teeth is a quiet, malicious detail. He stares at Tim’s hands, encroaching on the loft, without a word. 

“Hey,” Tim says, to break the silence. “You could’ve said something.” 

As Tim pulls himself up, grimacing at the violent pang in his stomach, he waits for Damian’s retort. Something to imply responding to Tim isn’t worth Damian’s time. It doesn’t come. 

Instead, Damian says, “Sorry.” 

And Tim, heaving himself to drop into a hay bale with his leg outstretched, pauses. Short of apologizing for nearly killing Tim that one time, Tim’s never heard the word ‘sorry’ come out of Damian’s mouth—not intended for Tim. But Tim recovers, because this is kind of what he was expecting…isn’t it?

“What’re you doing up here?” Tim asks carefully. 

Nothing. 

Tim tries again. “Saw you patrolled pretty late.”

Damian’s fingers, trailing lightly through Alfred’s fur, curl. He ignores the thread. “You should be abed.”

“In a bit.” 

Damian shakes his head. “Father informed us you would be staying in your room to recover your injuries.” 

“When do we ever actually do that?” Tim points out. “Besides, I’ve been resting…I hear you haven’t.”

“Go back to bed, Timothy.” 

Timothy.

Tim notes the use of his first name, and the absence of what should be there. A bite, something acerbic, some part of the feral little wild thing Damian is. Instead, his tone is flat. His eyes remain half-opened. He looks…quiet. Faded. 

“Not a chance,” Tim says. “It’s been weeks—we’re doing this now.”

“There is nothing that needs doing,” Damian doubles-down. “Go back to bed, before I remove you from the loft.”

A little bit there…a hint of grumpy, sharp-toothed preteen. But buried. 

“It didn’t have to be with me,” Tim says. “You could’ve talked with Dick, or one of the others. We could set you up with Dinah, if you wanted someone else. Still can.”

“I do not require Dinah’s services,” Damian insists. “And I do not welcome yours. Leave.” 

“There’s a lot that’s gone on in this family that wasn’t welcomed,” Tim says pointedly. “Not all of it was wrong.”

Damian rolls his eyes, the first hint of sass Tim’s seen out of him. He never thought he’d want to see it. “Did Richard send you?”

“I sent myself.”

With a push…a six-foot criminal crawling through a hospital window kind of push. Damian doesn’t say anything. He goes back to stroking Alfred’s spine, attention fixated on the cat. 

Tim shuffles a little, trying to arrange the hay to take some of the weight off his midsection. The allergens stir, and his eyes start to tear on the waterline. His nose runs. Tim swipes roughly with his wrist, scraping the skin of his upper lip.

“It’s been weeks,” Tim repeats. He’s not sure how to broach the topic, but he is broaching it. He’s not a therapist. He can’t quite smooth things into health, but honestly, Damian was pretty damaged when they got him. Tim will take normalcy at least. The little jabs, the overcurrent of exasperation and grouchiness. And the softer underbelly. 

Soft.

Tim’s hand trails to the edge of his shirtfront, fingertips finding bandage cloth. “You didn’t visit me in the hospital.”

Damian remains silent. 

“Everyone else did,” Tim says.

Damian shrugs. “I typically do not remand myself to your sickbed.”

“We got shot at,” Tim says bluntly. “Together. The circumstances weren’t normal.” 

Damian scratches away at his cat. The animal gives a languid flex, shifting in its sleep. One of the animals shuffles on the floor beneath them. Tim wrinkles his nose against a sneeze, the moment stretching. 

Damian breaks it. “We did not get shot at,” he mumbles. “You—”

 He pauses, shakes his head. 

“What?” Tim says, hoping. 

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

Tim sighs. “It does matter—it matters, because this is all still bothering you—”

“I am not bothered,” Damian interrupts. “I trained extensively to ensure control over my physical and mental state. I am not compromised in the field.”

Tim jerks his chin toward his cat-laden arm, where Dick’s sweatshirt sleeve has ridden up. ‘“Those bruises say otherwise,” Tim says. 

“Unworthy opponents,” Damian admits, a snarl underlying his words, something like frustration brimming in his eyes, but covered. Roiling ocean waves under lake-top ice. “And a lucky blow.”

“So you were distracted,” Tim says dryly. “Like, something was bothering you.”

Damian’s eyes narrow. “I know what you’re doing. You are trying to engage in a conversion about my feelings. Richard, and Brown, have both attempted this already. I do not need this. ”

Tim sighs, with emphasis. He sniffs, eyes watering, straw poking into his back. “You do.”

Soft things, Tim reminds himself. Soft things. 

“It bothers me too,” he offers, like shared vulnerability will coax them somewhere.

“You do have two bullet wounds,” Damian says. 

“And those contribute,” Tim says. “But it’s the other stuff that really sucks.”

Damian moves suddenly, shifting enough to dislodge Alfred the Cat. His eyes flicker toward the ladder, right to Tim’s side. “I do not want to do this.”

“You think I do? This sucks, Damian, I know. The last thing I want is to be sitting in this damn loft talking about this crap, but sometimes you have to. Something is bothering you, and we’re not leaving until we get to the bottom of it.”

“I could overpower you,” Damian says. “Easily. I could throw you off the loft.”

“You won’t.” Tim is at least sure his…not quite good-will, but, apathy, protects Tim from that. “So just relax.”

Damian stares at him for a moment, half-crouched, Alfred stirring at his heels. Hay stirs in the air, a fleck landing on his shoulder. If Tim were closer, he might even dare to brush it off. 

Slowly, Damian sits back. 

“You’ve been patrolling,” Tim redirects. “Too late. You’ve been distracted. You’re getting injured. You’re sneaking out—”

“I would not have to if Father would stop benching me.”

“You’re not yourself,” Tim says. “We’ve noticed.”

“I will amend my behavior.”

Tim waves it off. “You will,” he says. “But I don’t just want you to hide it. You have to…acknowledge…this stuff.”

“I do not see how complaining will help,” Damian says. 

“So,” Tim continues. “What’s been going on? How’s school? Any reporters? Any of the kids bothering you? What’s—”

“School remains as a futile distraction,” Damian says. 

“So no one’s bothering you?” Tim presses. 

Damian shakes his head. 

Tim frowns. He’s running on minimal sleep, pain meds, and no earthly idea how to help. “Then what’s the problem, Dames?” he asks, giving up on the go-around. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing is—”

“No,” Tim says. “There’s something off, and we’re going to fix it. I know you and me…I know it’s been rocky. But things have changed since you first got here. I’m not…I’m not going to make fun of you, or anything. Not over this. I just…I want to help.”

Damian is quiet for a long moment. The quiet between them is heavier than the ones before, no pretense of banter to weave between Tim’s attempts at communication. Tim swipes at his nose again, blinking rapidly to clear the itch of swelling eyes. He looks Damian over. The kid would look expressionless, but Tim has spent years picking apart faces for variations. His lips are slightly downturned, slightly pressed. His eyes have a degree of that half-lidded look he’s come to dislike. His fingers press against his palms, Alfred twining around his feet. 

His gaze trails in Tim’s direction, but can’t seem to rise to meet his gaze. 

Tim pauses. 

Has he looked at Tim? Really looked him in the eye? Tim runs through their interaction up to this point and frowns. 

He hasn’t. 

“C’mon,” Tim says, tone reminiscent of the gentle, calm voice he uses with victims. “Talk to me.” 

Damian takes his time. And finally, “You. You are what’s wrong.” 

Tim…was not expecting that. He frowns. “What?”

Damian shrugs. Color fills his face, just a dusting of pink on his cheekbones, but it’s something. 

“You behaved idiotically,” Damian says.

Tim stares at him. He expected to dig, like he was digging to Earth’s damn core, until Damian mumbled something about reporters dogging his steps, or classmates refusing to leave him alone. About seeing the news articles, the newspapers. The social media sites.

Maybe, Tim expected Damian to admit something else. About stepping into the hallway, about flashbacks. Maybe he didn’t want to see Tim, because he didn’t want to be reminded about that day. Being a normal kid in class one minute, and a billionaire’s son the next. Gun trained on him. 

And Tim wouldn’t have been surprised at Damian lashing out, picking apart Tim’s competency. That’s pretty much a Tuesday. But the timing. Why would he be saying it now? There’s no detest in his voice. There’s no defensiveness. It’s something…forced. Ice. And undercurrent. 

Tim shifts again, one hand dropping to rub idly over his wounded thigh.

He needs to dig. 

“Idiotic,” Tim says slowly. His eyes say, Go on. 

“As always,” Damian confirms. “Your behavior was unnecessary." 

Tim stares at him. What is he talking about? 

“I did not require your assistance,” Damian says. And then he’s reaching down, wrapping hands around Alfred and guiding him into his lap. The cat headbutts him, and Damian gives him a gentle nuzzle back with his chin. As always, Tim is hit with confusion at how a kid can be so…gentle, cute, almost, with his pets, when Tim’s seen what pain and terror he can wreck in Gotham criminals—hell, what he’s done to Tim.

“If you had just remained in the car,” Damian says, the first hint of the hissing tone he usually directs Tim’s way. “None of that would have happened.”

Tim’s eyes narrow. Part of him is trying really hard to approach this situation like Damian is a traumatized kid working through some really heavy things. The rest of him is well aware that this is Damian he’s talking about. 

Feral little punk. 

And if there were any trace of the usual vitriol, Tim would probably jump up and try his hand at hoisting him off the loft and into a bucket of animal feed. 

But…

Undercurrent. 

“How so,” he says carefully, hiding gritted teeth. 

“I would have escaped—”

“And given up your identity?” 

Damian crosses his arms, except the way they fold around Alfred negates the defensiveness. “I would not have,” Damian insists. “And I would have solved the problem without getting riddled with bullets.”

Tim’s jaw drops a little. 

Ungrateful brat. Tim took two bullets for him and now he’s sitting there like—

Tim pauses. 

Not meeting Tim’s eye. Calling him by his first name. Apathetic and cold instead of grumbling and sharp. 

Sitting there. Like Tim took two bullets for him. 

Goddammit Tim didn’t even consider that Damian—who in every way seems to hate Tim—would feel bad about Tim taking a hit or two for him. But really, if Damian’s progressed from the leaching addition to the household he started as, to Tim’s brother, than maybe it has gone both ways. 

Tim’s been in his shoes. Jason knocking him out of the way, taking a shot to the shoulder. Dick jumping between him and the crack of a baseball bat. Cass stepping in front of a knife for him. Steph throwing herself at every scrap he stumbles into. Duke using unrefined powers as a shield against meta powers and failing. 

They all take hits for each other, it’s part of the job. But that doesn’t discount the curdle of guilt, and fear, and anger that twists up Tim’s middle every time he’s the one getting off scot-free. 

Is it really so crazy to think Damian might be having the same thoughts? Even over Tim?

“Damian,” Tim starts slowly. 

He’s interrupted. “Go away,” Damian says, but this time, his tone is shuttered.

“Is, are you…” Tim swallows. “Are you upset because I got hurt?”

“An inane conclusion,” Damian mumbles. 

But Tim watches his nails work carefully, pointedly, across Alfred’s fur. “You don’t need to feel bad for me—these things happen.” 

“It did not need to,” Damian insists. “I had it handled. I do not need your protection.”

“We all protect each other!” Tim says. 

Damian sits forward, a sudden kernel of his usual fire. “You almost died!”

Tim pauses. 

“You took two bullet wounds and you were goading him,” Damian hisses. “You were asking for another, in my place.” 

“Damian—”

“I can handle injuries,” Damian continues, pushing Alfred the cat to the side and shifting onto his feet. “I would have been fine, but you aggravated that man and you were this close to dying. And, and, it would have been my fault.” 

“Damian,” Tim says again, reaching a hand out, but Damian is already brushing past him, going down the ladder quickly. Alfred scales a post and barrel and is quickly plodding around at his heels. 

Tim watches him go. 

Dick finds him, a couple hours later, asleep in the loft. 

“C’mere,” he says. 

And then he’s helping Tim down the ladder, into the mansion, up to his room. Alfred stops in with allergy meds and tissues. Bruce lingers in the doorway with a scowl and several near-threats for if Tim finds himself anywhere that’s not the direct vicinity of a bed for the night. 

Tim placates him, and Steph, who pokes her head around the wall and tells him he’s an idiot on principle. 

And then, Tim is drifting off as directed. 

No sign of Damian. 

Tim goes to breakfast the next morning, and there’s a plate empty. No vegetarian option being plated alongside the rest of their foods. No sarcastic, spiny quips levered in Tim’s direction. 

Tim eyes the empty space, meets Duke’s gaze across the table. 

He shrugs, downs his coffee, and announces his plans to patrol. Vacates quickly. 

Tim watches him go. 

Steph tells him Dick’s taken Damian out for a ride on the motorcycle. To the beach, she says, and Tim instantly knows the stretch of private, gray sand Bruce owns. The season’s fading heat makes it too cold for swimming, and none of them are dumb enough to jump into Gotham’s water for leisure. But the ride might help as a distraction. At least, that’s what Tim assumes Dick’s up to. 

So Tim forces down half the soup Alfred brings him and commandeers the couch. He plays a movie, but goes to work catching up on correspondence for Wayne Enterprises. Bruce eyes him as he walks by, like he knows what Tim’s up to, but says nothing, obviously happy he’s at least halfway to resting. 

Tim checks on project delegation, wincing at some of the hurdles that have cropped up in his absence. 

The day crawls by. 

Dinner passes. 

Still, no Damian. 

The second day, Tim gets up early. He makes his way downstairs to the breakfast table, and finds success. 

“Morning,” Tim says, carefully sounding uncareful. 

Damian glances his way, turns away quickly. 

Tim sits, helps himself to some toast, some coffee, pretending like he can’t see the look of disapproval Alfred spares him from the kitchen. 

“What’s on the agenda today?” Tim asks. 

Damian looks his way, eyebrows furrowed together, eyes appraising. But he can’t hold the analysis for long, his eyes dropping to his plate in moments. “Brown is coming over to watch a movie. She has informed me it is a crime not to have seen a classic, imaginative narrative. It is called the Princess Bride.” 

Tim raises an eyebrow. “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen that one either.” 

There’s a long spell where neither of them speak. Tim houses his toast, but pokes at the eggs Alfred ladles pointedly onto his plate. Damian finishes and brings his plate to the sink, but on his way back, he hesitates. 

“We…will be in the sitting room,” Damian says, eyes jumping in the direction of the stairs, where the ‘family’ room—an entertainment space unpolluted by any of Bruce’s high society functions—is situated. 

Tim nods. “Okay.”

Tim takes the stairs with Steph, both of them pretending like she doesn’t hover behind him, one arm outstretched enough to grab hold if he falters. 

Damian is curled up on the couch when they enter. One of Cass’s sweatshirts today, blanket pulled up to his waist. Titus is on the floor, laying across his feet in a way that means Damian can’t fully recline into the couch's backrest—too short. 

Steph stuffs a throw pill behind him, delivers a hair ruffle. “Hey squirt.”

“Soon,” Damian says, a far cry from the near murder attempt he would usually try. “I will reach Father’s stature, and your insults will be outdated.” 

“That day has yet to reach us,” Steph says, sounding unbothered. She spills onto Damian’s other side, as Tim eases himself onto the closest cushion. 

She cues up the movie. 

“You aren’t supposed to be down here,” Damian says, descending into the cave. 

Tim swivels in the Batcomputer chair. “Says who?”

“You are still injured—”

“Hardly,” Tim says. And it’s true. The last couple of days have only seen improvement. He’s starting to feel more like himself, and that means making his way into the cave. He doesn’t dare patrol tonight, but maybe next week he can sneak out in the suit. At least get some reconnaissance under his belt. 

Wear the mask for a bit. 

“What are you doing?” Damian asks, apparently realizing he’s tred across an argument he doesn’t want to play out. 

“Trying to find evidence that links the Odessa’s to that firearm hijack two weeks ago.” 

Tim performs some keystrokes, zooming in on the shadows of surveillance footage, trying to find where pants ride up, or masks shift. All he needs is a tattoo…

“I can help,” Damian says, his version of asking. 

Tim glances his way, where Damian’s crept to his side. He pulls over a chair from a side desk and plops into place, looking expectant. 

Tim frowns. “...alright.” 

“Hold on,” Damian says. 

Tim pauses, half in the front door. “I’m going to be late for a meeting.”

“I brought you coffee.”

That gets Tim to stop. He lets the door close slightly, scanning Damian. The kid is dressed up, gel through his hair. Bruce Wayne’s son. Sure enough, he’s holding a thermos.

“Why?” Tim asks. 

Damian juts his chin, a hint of the proud boy Tim’s come to know. “I’m coming too.”

Tim can smell the coffee, brewed strong, seeping from the thermos Damian holds between them. A compromise. 

“Alright,” Tim says. 

They get in the car, and it’s quiet. Air conditioning blowing. Tim is unexpectedly hit with the realization that this is where they should have been, weeks ago. Tim behind the wheel, Damian in the passenger’s seat. Except that trip would have gone differently. Damian would have, of course, complained about whatever music choice Tim put on. He would have wanted the windows down. He would have begged Tim to stop and rescue whatever fading box of stray kittens he spied. He would have poked fun at Tim’s driving skills. He would have informed Tim, grandly, of his most recent conquests on patrol. And Tim would have kept it to himself that he always knows—that of course he keeps tabs on Robin’s comings and goings. 

Now, Damian is mostly quiet, even when Tim picks the most obnoxious song he can. 

“What’s the meeting for?” Damian asks eventually. 

Tim looks over, wheels spinning. The CEO of that company has a young daughter, doesn’t he? Maybe a year or two older than Damian. “Actually,” Tim says. “I might have a job for you.”

Damian crops up daily after that, multiple times. Sometimes he brings Tim coffee, or perches on this spot or that to tell him he’s overextending himself. Slowly but surely, those reminders become more barbed. 

Finally, one day, he drags out a knife, letting it thud between Tim’s fingers when Tim can’t quite grasp the location of his mug, with the way his vision blurs around the edges. 

Tim holds his hands up in surrender, hiding an accomplished smile. “You win,” he says, heading up for the night. 

Dick has to head out—something about meeting up with Wally and Donna for lunch. Tim glances at the sitting room he leaves, Damian left on the couch, controller in hand. Game cued up and unplayed. 

Tim enters the room. “Think you can take another loss?”

“Here,” Tim says, dropping one of Jason’s discarded sweatshirts on Damian’s head, hiding a sideways grin at the way he tears himself out of the excess fabric, hair standing on one end by the end. “You’ll catch a cold hanging around down here in a t-shirt.”

“That is not how a cold works,” Damian informs him, from where he wraps himself in the given article of clothing. 

“I’m coming with you.” 

Tim finishes pressing the mask into place, wrinkling his nose at the familiar feel of glue taking hold. He looks over at where Damian is decked out in full Robin regalia. His arms are crossed. 

“You’ll be bored,” Tim says. “I’m just doing some surveillance.”

“I’m coming.”

And, well, Tim can’t think of a good reason to send him away. It’s not like he’s operating on the top of his game yet, and it never hurts to have backup while suited up. Plus…Tim has a feeling this is about something else. 

He shrugs. “Grab your bike.”

They hit the streets, zipping along in silence until they hit the block Tim’s set on. They stow their bikes in the boarded basement of a dilapidated building and scale it, jumping over several rooftops until they reach one with an optimal sightline. Tim settles against a gargoyle. 

Damian perches on the lip of the roof next to him. In the balmy night, he sits on the cape instead of wrapping himself in it. Gotham skyline is smog and half-lite buildings, neon on its street-level. 

“There,” Tim says, nodding with his chin toward the autoshop across the street. He’s almost certain it’s a new front for the firearm trade. “Should get exciting in a couple of hours.”

Damian gives a little grunt of acknowledgment. Too much time with Bruce. 

They settle in for the wait. About half an hour creeps by without conversation, listening to the distant shouts of Gotham nightlife. It’s a quieter night. Batman and Spoiler are both spinning around on the other side of the city, cleaning up the minimal criminal activity. Unfortunately, that prevents Tim from ending up in any kind of altercation. The part of him that was slightly open to finding some trouble, jumping back into the thick of it, is disappointed. 

He’s half convinced the night will go by without any kind of excitement at all. 

And then Damian clears his throat. 

The kid’s gaze is set firmly on the autoshop window, but the half-lidded quiet sets back in. Tim’s stomach sinks. Breeze stirs the heat around them, with an air of seriousness. 

Tim exhales. “Go ahead,” he says. “What’s on your mind?”

“...You hesitated,” Damian says. 

Tim takes a minute. He knows exactly what Damian’s talking about. The small misstep as he shifted weight to his bad leg, dodging around an exterior window frame, the grimace he bit back. He hadn’t realized Damian had noticed, but he’s not surprised. Family of detectives—he’s used to it. 

“Yeah,” Tim admits. “But I’m fine.”

Damian won’t look at him. 

“Hey,” Tim says. “I’m fine. I’m healed.”  

Damian pulls up handfuls of his cape, and they go around his shoulders. Tim spares a thought for how he never seems to get hot. Mostly, Tim expects Damian to go ahead and mutter something derogatory, deflective. Maybe this will be the night he works his way up to feeling comfortable batting Tim off rooftops again. Tim tenses minutely just in case—

But then Damian’s expression shutters. Lip bitten, gaze dropping. His cape gets dragged tighter. He looks…sort of young. Sort of troubled. 

And Tim goes for it. 

“I don’t regret it,” he says firmly, reaching over to grab Damian’s ankle. The kid startles, or at least, blinks, the closest Tim gets to surprising him. Tim gives his foot a little shake, and then they’re picking up right where they left off. “I’d do it all the same way if we were back there, Damian.” 

“I don’t need protection,” Damian grumbles. 

“Yes you do,” Tim insists. “You did. We all do at times. None of us can be on our guard 24/7, and part of being in this family is picking up the slack sometimes. Even if…even if it means getting hurt in the process. I’ve been on the other side of this before. I know how much it sucks.”

“...you could have died,” Damian says. The same edge as weeks before. “I don’t…want that, Timothy.” 

Tim swallows. Coming from Damian, that’s almost an ‘I love you’. 

“I know you don’t,” he says. “I knew then too.” 

Damian’s knees come up, held to his chest in a way he wouldn’t have wrapped around them years ago. He’s really changed a lot, hasn’t he?

“I didn’t come to the hospital,” Damian says. “It wasn’t because of you.”

“I knew that too,” Tim says, even if it’s not entirely sure. Even if there’s a murmuring voice at the base of his skull that rears at anyone’s absence, always spinning things around, telling Tim it has something to do with him. It settles some, placated at Damian’s honesty. 

“I’m…” Damian shakes his head. His throat works up and down, his tone is barely audible when he finishes. “I’m sorry.”

Tim’s second apology from him….and it’s not even necessary.

“It’s okay,” Tim says, shifting closer, thigh hardly panging at the motion. The movement bearable in his center. His headache long abated. “C’mere.”

For a moment, he doesn’t think Damian will move. 

And then, he slumps into Tim’s side. 

“I’m sorry,” Tim says, and tries for some honesty of his own. “I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

Damian doesn’t say anything else, but turns so his nose digs into Tim’s shoulder. Tim reaches around him, dragging the cape to cover the sprawl of his body, even if city warmth—bodies and industry and heat-packed pavement—smothers him. Tim squeezes the arm wrapped around Damian, his hand reaching to brush hair from his forehead, thumb brushing where he has fractured memories of gashes and blood and frantic need. Need to be in front of Damian, between him and that gunman. Need to wrap him up in bandages and soft things and yank him away from danger. Off school tile and blood, away from phone cameras and zip ties. Into Tim’s arms, where he has him. Where he’s safe. 

They’ve got a long way to go. Tim’s skin has knitted together, his muscles answering the way they should. He’s well on his way to healing up, if with another few scars to show for it. It’s the other things they’re working through. The permanent videos and media presence. The guilt, the complex and awkward mess of emotions that comes with these kinds of slip ups. The hair-raising acknowledgement of a new miss. 

But…they’ll get there. 

“I know it sucks,” Tim says again. “But we got out. We’re okay.”

Damian nods. 

Tim holds him incrementally closer, for the first time, that instinct to pull him underwing, ruffled in the back of his mind, lies flat. Gotham smog settles like a blanket. Tim breathes in and out, gaze focused on the autoshop, but attention on the lapful of little brother, finally relaxed, finally turning so waterline-wet eyes are hidden into his uniform shirt. Crumbling…

“Got you,” Tim mumbles. 

He’s not pushed away.