Chapter Text
“High blood pressure is a killer, Robin. Maybe if you weren’t so angry all the time, you’d live past thirty,” Tim quipped, swinging his bo staff like a baseball bat and cracking it against the skull of one of Penguin’s unlucky henchmen. He suppressed a laugh as Damian’s face scowled with disdain from beneath his domino mask.
“At least I would succumb to natural causes instead of my own stupidity,” Damian spat while unsheathing his katana, yellow light from the nearby street lamp glinting off the steel. “Which is what your fate will be.”
Static hissed through the comm nestled in Tim’s ear, and Dick’s voice filled his head.
“Hey, guys? A little less bickering and a lot more beating people up, please?”
“Thanks for the advice, Nightwing,” Tim muttered, ducking as a fist whizzed over his head. “Never asked for and never appreciated.” His eyes narrowed at the glaring absence of Damian’s insufferably grating voice, which would have snapped a slew of insults into the comm by this point. Tim expertly swept the last goon off his feet, knocking him out with a swift blow to the head. “Where are you, Robin?” he growled, scanning the abandoned alleyway, but all he found was a dozen unconscious henchmen under a thick blanket of darkness. Suddenly, the night’s quiet was shattered by the Demon Brat’s obnoxious voice, echoing from the rooftop of a nearby building, because, of course, he had to be on the rooftop of a nearby building. Tim scrambled up the nearest fire escape and had barely reached the top before the goon that Damian was chasing grabbed for his holster, the gun’s barrel glinting in the moonlight.
“Drop your weapon,” Damian sneered, his back to Tim, showing not an ounce of hesitation as he sprinted toward the man, whose finger was wrapped tightly on the trigger. Tim sprang into action, tackling Damian just as a bullet whirled past, missing his shoulder by mere inches. Damian and Tim tumbled onto the rooftop’s asphalt as the man sprinted away, leaving a single shell in his wake. “What the hell, Drake?” Damian hissed, twisting away from his older brother and scrambling to his feet. “He was an imbecilic street thug! I almost had him!” He spat on the ground in frustration, his white-knuckled fists baring their ugly teeth.
Tim rolled his eyes, even though he knew Damian couldn’t see his face. I should have just let the kid get shot. “All you were going to have was a bullet to the fucking brain if I didn’t stop you,” Tim said, brushing the dirt off his Red Robin uniform. Even through the domino mask, Tim could picture Damian’s emerald green eyes blazing with prideful fury as he strode toward him, chest heaving.
“I refuse to believe that pathetic excuse for a henchman got away,” Damian breathed, tangling his green-gloved hands through his mop of black hair, frustration so palpable Tim could almost taste it. “This was my fight, and you interfered. Because of you, he escaped!”
Tim threw his head back, scoffing in incredulous disbelief. “Because of me, you’re alive! You should be thanking me, you ungrateful brat.”
“Thanking you? I should—” Damian’s threat of violence died in his throat as Nightwing emerged from the rooftop’s shadows with a grin on his face.
“So,” Dick said, leaning casually on Tim’s shoulder, “how’d it go?”
“He’s an egotistical, narcissistic murderer.”
“Timmy.”
“No, a bloodthirsty psychopath with an insatiable taste for violence.”
“Tim, he’s—”
“Just an insufferable, arrogant brat suffering from a glorified god-complex.”
“Tim.”
Dick’s sudden change in tone forced Tim to look up from furiously typing on the Batcomputer. He swiveled his chair, pale blue eyes adjusting to the cave’s dim light after hours of staring at the illuminating screen. Still in his bloodied Red Robin uniform, Tim studied his brother, subconsciously noting how different Dick’s jet-black hair looked after being freshly damp from a post-patrol shower.
“Damian’s just an 11-year-old kid,” Dick said as he leaned back and pressed his palms against the edge of Tim’s desk. “No matter how hard he tries to convince people otherwise.” Tim scoffed, feeling a painful twinge of indignation and betrayal bubbling up from deep inside.
“How can you possibly defend him? He tried to kill me a year and a half ago,” he spat, gathering up the slew of paper coffee cups littered across his desk. Dick dragged his hands across his face with an audible groan.
“Come on, Timmy. You know how he was raised. Any one of us could have ended up the same way.” Dick rested his hand on Tim’s shoulder and pulled him closer. Tim put down the cups, stacked absurdly high, and sighed in exasperation.
“No, I don’t know. All the files that Bruce does have on Damian’s history with the League are encrypted, and it’s not like he’s eager to talk about any of his past trauma.” Tim muttered, leaning into Dick’s touch. Silence lingered in the air for just a few short moments before he added, “But I don’t trust him, not in the field, not in the manor. He’s too violent. Too hot-tempered. Too impulsive. And all the bullshit that happened tonight proves that he hasn’t changed. I want to understand Damian, I do. But he makes it so hard.”
“I know,” Dick said gently, rubbing his thumb in slow circles on Tim’s tense shoulder, coaxing the tight muscles to relax.
“And Bruce needs to come back. He’s been off-world with the League for, like, a month.”
“I know,” Dick murmured, pressing his cheek into Tim’s tangled black hair, savoring the moment with his little brother before breaking the news that would surely ruin the rest of the night. “You two just need more time in the field together. I’m headed to Blüdhaven with Jason on a drug bust tomorrow, so you’re on patrol with Dami. Please try not to kill each other…unless one of you actually deserves it.”
Tim scowled, eyebrows furrowing as he shoved Dick back and snatched the stack of cups off his desk.
“I’m not the one who needs reminding.”