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It's a couple months after Damian's 14th birthday that Damian actively observes Drake being more careless than usual with his self care.
Drake is hunched over the batcomputer for what he is fairly sure is the 7th hour straight (Damian had seen him come down directly after work at WE, and hadn't seen him go out on patrol or get dinner) with and empty cup of nitro coffee from the shop by Wayne Enterprises that Drake prefers. Glancing at the screens, Damian can see several reports pulled up, as well as 3 different layered maps of Gotham and 16 dossiers.
"Tt. You look like a frozen shrimp, have you moved even once since we left on patrol?" Damian sneers with one eyebrow delicately raised. When Damian doesn't even get a grumble in response, let alone the sharp comeback he'd been expecting, he inches closer. Coming around the side, he can see that Drake's head is carefully balanced between his knees, which are tucked up on the chair. His closed eyes are shifting slightly, like he's still scanning information even in sleep, with dark eye bags almost like bruises. "Oh," Damian breathes.
It would appear that Drake passed out while working on a major case, he must have been awake for at least 50 hours. Damian quietly retrieves one of the blankets stached by the lockers before carefully draping it over Timothy. Damian glances up at the large screens of the batcomputer, skimming through the available information. Drake's notes are scattered and difficult to follow but Damian recognizes the case as a new trafficking ring that has been particularly difficult to nail down. He takes one last glance at Timothy's sleeping form before bringing the case information onto a tablet for himself to review.
8 hours later, Tim wakes up with an awful crick in his neck but warmer than he expected to be considering where he had passed out. As he rolls his shoulders, the blanket tucked around him falls, but he's too busy staring at the tablet in front of him showing the final piece he'd been too tired to catch for solving the Florantine Trafficking case he'd been working on.
---
Damian is 15 and wrapping up patrol with his Father when the crackling of their comms is the only warning before, "Reroute, Red Robin is in trouble. Last known location is 11 blocks East of you," Oracle cuts in. "There appears to be League activity around where Red's signal went out. Spoiler is also enroute, an EMP signal took out the cameras in the area, I'm working on getting eyes on the scene." Oracle sounds faintly irritated even through the comms device.
The knowledge that this was most likely another attempt by Grandfather to forcefully take Drake under his wing makes something in Damian's gut burn. Damian pushes himself to go faster. "Tt."
"I've got eyes, RR is holding out for now but there's at least 20 of them. Hang left, you're almost there." Oracle directs them, until they can see Timothy and Brown fighting back to back against a sizable crowd of assassins. Batman and Robin sweep in, helping clear the remaining ninja. "Why can't Ra's just take a hint," Damian can't see her eyes but can feel the annoyed eye roll Brown gives. "He's such a creeper."
Tim's hand ghosts over his abdomen where Damian knows his unplanned splenectomy scar resides, "I think he genuinely believes he'll convince me one day." Timothy sounds irritated and Damian can picture the specific eye twitch that can't be seen beneath his domino. Drake shifts slightly, beginning to favor his right side as Damian catches sight of a gash along his leg. Ignoring Batman brooding and analyzing besides him, Damian strides forward towards Drake.
"Tt, you could have avoided that would had you been more careful," Damian thrusts the bandages he'd pulled from his utility belt at Timothy, carefully not looking at his face.
"...thanks demon brat." Tim sounds vaguely amused, before taking the bandages from his outstretched hand.
Stephanie looks incredulously between the 2 of them. "Where's my bandages huh? I thought we had something baby bat," Brown pouts at him. Damian sniffs haughtily, "Maybe you should hone your skills as to not get injured, Brown." He hears a snicker from in front of him.
"I'm pretty sure he just told you to get good," There's laughter in Timothy's voice and Damian flushes lightly at the sound.
---
Damian knew things had been picking up at WE, there was a major acquisition in the works as well as the launch of a new line of Wayne Tech ventilators that had a much lower materials cost.
As such, Damian had been carefully monitoring Drake's food intake. Drake was incredibly neglectful of his self on a good day, let alone a week like this. By Wednesday, Damian could tell Timothy was running on nitro coffee, protein bars, and pure spite. Damian also knew that in his limited free time, Damian has been honing his baking skills with Pennyworth. Usually they baked cookies, lemon bars, or the occasional pie, but today Damian wanted to experiment with something more savory. Specifically, adjaran khachapuri, a filling comforting bread bowl filled with farmers cheese and an egg yolk originating from Georgia.
Damian brings the dough together, kneading roughly before covering it with a damp cloth to rise. He pauses for a brief second before hesitantly, "Pennyworth, could you assist me in making a secondary filling? Perhaps an eggplant sautè?"
"Of course Master Damian, we can prepare both fillings while the bread bakes." Alfred smiles gently at Damian before sweeping the excess flour off the counter into his hand then nearly into the compost. After everything is finished cooking, Damian carefully carves out the centers of each eye shaped loaf, before scooping in a portion of each filling in. He gently tops each with an egg yolk before wrapping them in foil and placing them in a glass container.
~
Tim is exhausted but not letting it show as he trudges out of yet another meeting. He can feel the emails and expectations and paperwork weighing him down with each step closer to his office he gets. He knows he doesn't have time to leave and get food, if he's lucky Tam will be able to sneak him a sandwich and nitro from Steamworks around the corner.
Tim enters his office, slumping against the door briefly. He takes in a deep steadying breath through his nose before approaching his penitentiary (his desk). There was something on his desk however that hadn't been there before he went into his meeting. Tim carefully opened the fogged up glass, getting a strong whiff of warm cheese and spicy eggplant.
Tim skims the soft green sticky note on the lid.
'Drake, your performance will plummet if you do not adhere to proper maintenance of your body. There is a second khachapuri waiting for you at the manor for later.
- D'
Tim supposes he can spare 5 minutes to eat before returning to the drudgery.
---
When Damian turned 16 he was finally allowed to assist with Wayne Enterprises. Tim still held some reservations regarding Damian's ability to not maim someone, but Damian has been developing the skills necessary for helping at WE for years now.
Honestly, Tim isn't quite sure what is it, but whenever Damian has been in the office he's noticed a significant decrease in the number of irritating board membershanging around. Tim has some suspicions but nothing he's been able to confirm.
~
When Damian was first ghosting Timothy as an 'intern' he quickly noticed the numerous peons that would interrupt Timothy the second he tried to get anywhere. Not to mention the emails asking inane questions that had no right to be making it all the way to the CEO.
Damian began to implement what he called 'Operation: Crocodile' which would utilize a combination of tactics to reduce the number of imbeciles impinging on Timothy's time. Step one, Timothy's assistant. Damian closes his laptop and tucks it under his arm before heading to the desk in front of Timothy's office. "Fox, I have... A proposition for you" Damian carefully straightens his blazer before forcibly relaxing.
"Timothy is forced to wrangle an inane amount of oafish fools when his time is better spent on other things. I propose that we implement a filter on his work emails as such to limit these superfluous distractions." Damian takes a breath, "I have prepared a program that would work as such but require your assistance in implementing it without attracting Timothy's undue attentions."
Damian watches as Tamara Fox's face transitions from curious to pensive as he continues his prepared speech. She's stares at him intently before, "Let me take a look? Who do you currently have in mind to reroute emails from?"
With a small exhale of relief Damian untucks his laptop from under his arm and slides next to Fox, anticipating hashing out the finer details.
~
Step two entails a more active component on Damian's part however. Specifically, shadowing Timothy whenever he needs to go to a meeting in person or is making rounds of various departments. Damian's self appointed role is to glare at anyone attempting to approach out of turn as well redirecting as soon as meetings end.
Timothy is packing the last of his things away after another unnecessarily long board meeting that could've been resolved via email if half of them had bothered to read the finance documents that Damian knows Tim sent them. Instead, Mark Gladwell (always sits on the 4th chair, left side. Divorced twice, currently married with 2 daughters, and only on the board thanks to his Father) is attempting to approach to doubtlessly start (another) conversation about the upcoming Gotham Knights game this weekend.
Turning to Tim, Damian begins to pointedly discuss their next appointment, "Timothy, did you review the documents for the R&D proposal we're looking at in 5 minutes?" Damian carefully angles his body between Gladwell and Tim, trying not to be too obvious about it.
"Of course Dames, I reviewed them last night. Did you get the chance to review the update from John Connell he sent two hours ago?" Timothy stands up as he slings his computer bag over his shoulder. "Oh, Mark! I didn't see you there, can I help you with something?"
Damian gives Gladwell an unfriendly look before pointed looking at his wristwatch. "Oh, it was nothing ha ha! I just remembered I need to go handle something back in my office! I'll see you around." With that, Gladwell scurries off.
"See you around....?" Tim looks mildly confused before rolling his shoulders and sinking back into his calm, cold professional persona. "Let's get to R&D then."
Damian gives him a short nod, smiling sharply once he turns around. Mission accomplished.
---
Tim has been crouched on a stakeout at the docks for 7 hours waiting for a shipment to show up. He shifts slightly, trying to encourage blood flow back into his stiff legs.
There's a slight crunch of gravel and Tim barely has time to lurch sideways before he's being attacked. Tim throws himself into a roll, snapping out his staff as he comes up. He blocks a blow from his right and ducks another from behind, sweeping his leg to knock one of the ninja down.
Tim launches himself past an oncoming attacker, spinning to land a punishing blow against their back with his staff. He has 2 seconds to breathe, taking in the current situation. 3 ninja on the far side of the room, 2 downed, and 1 coming trying to circle around him to the left.
Tim shifts stances, catching a whisper of wind behind him but not fast enough. Fuck. Tim feels an arm wrap around his neck and the pinch of a needle. He stays conscious just long enough to activate the emergency beacon in his gloves before collapsing into the waiting embrace of the shadows.
~
Tim sits up with a groan, trying (and failing) to blink away the last dregs of whatever they drugged him with. Looking around he takes in the lavishly decorated room swathed in green silks and golden gauze, just high enough to be out of reach. Typical. Tim's been awake for maybe 5 minutes when the door opens. Unsurprisingly, it's Ra's al Ghul who walks in.
"Detective, I am glad you are finally awake. I have decided it is time for you to come to your senses." Ra's strides over to Tim's side with the easy gait of the arrogant and settles a hand on his shoulder, "Detective you cannot tell me that you do not feel underappreciated by your.... family." Ra's half sneers. "I know we have had these conversations over the years and yet you refuse to see how they overburden you, overwork you, and refuse to acknowledge all that you do for them."
Ra's voice settles into something firmer, "I have decided that it would be beneficial on all fronts for me to take this matter into my own hands, if you refuse to listen to reason I will simply make you." His grip on Tim's shoulder tightens, the sting helping him clear his head a bit more.
"I'm not going to join you Ra's. My family appreciate me plenty, besides, don't you recall what happened 4 years ago?" Tim is trying to subtly test his wrist bindings while Ra's is (hopefully) slightly distracted, but his hopes aren't high. After the last few attempts Ra's upgraded high tech cuffs that Tim needs eyes on in order to break out.
"I think you will find- " Ra's is cut off as the door to the room is locked down and a small swarm of people pour through, at the lead of which is Damian and Cass.
"Unhand my Brother!" Is shouted by who could have only been Damian before the cacophony of battle takes hold, with Cass fighting off the incoming flood of ninja while Dames fights his way towards Tim.
"Tsk. We best be leaving then, the artifact is ready." Ra's hauls him up by the scruff of his neck while Tim struggles weakly. Tim is dropped when Ra's has to dodge backwards, a familiar sword swinging down where Ra's' arm used to be. Doing his best to roll out of the way Tim watches Damian attack in a whirlwind of league and bat training.
"You have no chance grandson, the Detective will be mine." Tim focuses on getting his hands in front of him so he'll have a better chance at getting the cuffs off. Tucking his legs through the loop of his arms is trivial. He looks up just in time to see Ra's hovering over Damian, sword in hand. Tim throws himself forward trying to angle his handcuffs between Damian and the sword, earning a nasty gash down his back as he underestimated the distance. Between the rapid bloodloss and residual drugs in his system, the last thing Tim sees before his vision goes completely dark is Bruce in the doorway.
~
"Akhi!"
Damian manages to awkwardly catch Tim's limp body as he falls. Releasing a sharp his of breath through his teeth, Damian tries not to think about the blood soaking the crimson of Tim's uniform while he scrambles to get bandages out to staunch the bleeding. Damian feels more than sees Father rush past him towards where Grandfather left. Sitting up, Damian repositions Tim so that he can more readily pick him up once standing. "Black Bat! We need to get Timothy back to the cave!"
Standing up, Damian hauls Tim into a fireman's carry, trusting in Cassandra to clear the way out while Damian gets Tim to medical assistance.
Back in the cave, once he got Tim into Pennyworth's care Damian could admit to himself that he might have overreacted about the injury. Just a little. Akhi was slated to make a full recovery with minimum fuss, Ra's must've pulled back at the last minute so the wound itself was shallow. Damian had volunteered to keep an eye on Tim until he awoke as they were all nervous about the negative reaction whatever was in his system had with the paralytic coated on Damian's blade.
There's a groan from the medical and Damian sees Tim start to sit up, obviously groggy. "Careful, you still have an IV in," Damian helps prop him up.
"I feel like that cut shouldn't have knocked me out as fast or hard as it did," Tim rubs at his eyes blinking a bit before he seems to realize that it's Damian who is keeping him company. There's a quiet question in his eyes and Damian has been mulling over his long overdue apology for awhile now.
"Timothy, akhi, I know prior to this you have stated your forgiveness of my younger self's actions against you, however I wish to reiterate my apologies. I was foolish and naive, I did not appreciate the lengths you have gone to for the mission and the family." Damian fiddles with his sleeve, "You have proved time and time again your cleverness and adaptability, your intelligence and your resolve. Most critically to me, however much I did not realize it at the time, is that you showed me how to be Robin. I know that we cannot have fresh start but I hope that we can give a go at being brothers." Looking away shyly, Damian rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment.
There's a pause before Damian is pulled into a gentle hug and a hand ruffles his hair.
"We already were."