Chapter Text
Damian was waiting for him outside his room.
Tim pulled to an abrupt stop, all sleep suddenly cleared from his mind. He was painfully aware that he was wearing nothing but boxers and one of his Superboy t-shirts. Damian was just standing there in a sweater and cargo pants, holding a mug clasped in both hands which meant he wasn’t holding any weapons. Always a good sign. The kid hadn’t tried anything since cutting his line a couple weeks ago - which Tim was pretty sure had mostly just been a temper tantrum and not an actual attempt to kill him - but Tim wasn’t sure he trusted that to continue.
But he also wasn’t going to be the one to break whatever tentative truce there was. Not when Bruce had just gotten back, not when he and Dick were settling back into each other, not when Alfred looked so happy every time he walked into a room and Damian and Tim were somehow managing to exist in each other’s presence without destroying half the manor.
“Good morning,” he said, because that was probably unobjectionable, right?
The kid scowled at him like Tim had just insulted his mother. “Here,” he said, and he shoved the mug of coffee at Tim’s stomach.
Tim scrambled to take it before the hot liquid splashed all over him. “What?”
“It’s coffee,” Damian said, like that wasn’t obvious. “Pennyworth instructed me on the process of brewing a pot. He also told me how much milk and sugar you prefer.” The scowl deepened. “This is unhealthy.”
“Uh. Thanks?” Tim tried not to make it too obvious that he was watching Damian’s now unburdened hands, just in case this was all a distraction for something pointy. “What’s the occasion?”
“It has been brought to my attention that I have not abided by the rules of my father’s household,” Damian said, like that explained anything. The kid was glaring at Tim’s chest and not meeting his eyes. “A gesture of goodwill was suggested.”
Tim sighed and resisted the urge to rub his eyes. “Look. If Dick put you up to this, you don’t have to do it.”
“It was his suggestion. Though I believe he expected us to-” Damian lifted both hands and made exaggerated air quotes, “hug it out.”
“Let’s not,” Tim said.
“My thoughts precisely. The coffee was Pennyworth’s idea.” And the scowl faded for a moment, replaced with something that looked mostly confused. “He said my father used to prepare your coffee for you, on school days.”
Tim’s eyes burned at the reminder and he resolutely stared at the wall over Damian’s shoulder. Of the thousand griefs Bruce’s disappearance had wrought, their little morning coffee ritual was probably the least of them, but Tim still remembered walking into the kitchen the day after and realizing that he was going to have to make his own coffee from now on and just shattering into a thousand pieces. It was stupid, but it had been - Bruce didn’t tell them how he felt about them very often. He didn’t say the words much unless someone was hurt or he’d been scared he was losing them. But Bruce gave them things. Gifts, gear. He protected the people he loved. He took care of them in little ways. Trust funds that most of them never touched, but had if they needed it. New equipment and updated gear to keep them safe on patrol. He kept their favorite energy bars in one of his belt pouches, and if they were sick, he carried around an extra dose of whatever medication they were taking. He made Tim’s coffee just the way he liked it because he knew Tim wasn’t a morning person.
The first time Bruce had done that, handing him a mug as Tim stumbled into the kitchen, half asleep and exhausted down to his bones, had been right after his mother died, when Tim was living at the Manor as Bruce’s ward, and not just while his parents were traveling. It hadn’t made anything better, but in a way it had. Bruce was showing him he cared. And he’d done it every school day morning that Tim spent in the manor, barring injuries or intergalactic crises, right up until he went to fight Darkseid and never returned.
“Yeah,” Tim said finally. He took a deep breath and curled his fingers a little more tightly around the mug. Bruce hadn’t made him coffee since coming back, but he was still recovering, still weak. Tim hadn’t even thought about it, so relieved just to have him back, that he hadn’t realized he was still missing the little routine. He’s alive, he’s here, he’s back. “Yeah, I think he was afraid I’d hurt myself trying to operate the coffeemaker without caffeine. It’s a Catch-22.”
Damian eyed him with an expression Tim was going to graciously call doubtful. “Perhaps if you had been allowed to injure yourself, the lesson would have taught you to wake up properly.”
Tim eyed the little gremlin for a moment. The insult was barely there. In fact, by Damian standards, which Tim was slowly learning to parse, that was almost advice. “Bruce doesn’t want us getting hurt, though.”
“It’s unavoidable.” Damian’s face was getting that squished up constipated look that he got when he thought someone was being deliberately stupid. “My father’s mission all but demands that we place our bodies and lives in the line of fire to protect his domain.”
Tim decided he was going to assume that Damian constantly calling Bruce “my” father wasn’t a deliberate dig. Damian had considered himself an only child until he was ten, it was probably just habit. Sure. “But that doesn’t mean he wants it to happen. And he tries to avoid us getting hurt more than we have to when we’re training.” Honestly if every one of them decided to hang up the cape and tights and go to community college, Bruce would probably be pretty okay with that. Tim wasn’t dumb enough to say that to Damian though. “But look, thanks for the coffee. I appreciate the gesture.”
Damian narrowed his eyes and glared at Tim like he was waiting for the punchline. “I will not strike at you unless you strike at me first,” he said.
“Okay. That’s never going to happen, though.”
Damian blinked at him, then glowered. “As if anything you did could pose a threat to me,” he sniffed. “Pennyworth says breakfast is ready. Pants are required.” He spun on his heel and stalked off toward the stairs, uninterested in whether Tim followed him or not.
Tim watched him go for a minute, then stared at the coffee cup for a second. It might have been a nice gesture? Sure Dick had told him to do something, and Alfred would have had to tell Damian how to make it, but Damian still had to actually make the coffee and exert the energy and attention to make it the way Tim liked it. That wasn’t nothing.
Tim was aware that the bar was ridiculously low here. He was trying to give Damian credit. Dick had practically begged him to give Damian one more chance, and Tim had promised, more for his elder brother’s sake than out of any hope that he and Damian would ever have any kind of relationship.
Maybe he’d been wrong. Damian was just a kid, maybe all he needed was a clean slate and people who understood why he was so fucked in the head.
Tim held the mug up and inhaled the aroma for a moment.
There was something off about the scent. Something cloying behind the more bitter scent of the coffee itself. Something familiar.
Tim tightened his fingers on the mug of poisoned coffee, and went back into his room to get dressed for breakfast.