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This whole situation is fundamentally wrong, but Tim couldn't let go the feeling that they're missing something more.
From the very morning, from the very moment Superman returned, carrying the wounded - literally exhausted - unconscious body of his younger version in his arms, accompanied by terribly scared mini versions of Dick and Jason, nervousness reigns in the manor. They're all on edge, and that gives them some excuse for their behavior, but Tim doesn't want to excuse them.
Damian said right. Tim doesn't really want to admit it, but it's more a petty reluctance of all Older Brother Thing, to admit that his younger brother is right, than something serious, and it doesn't stop him from acknowledging the simple facts. Like..
Damian did nothing to deserve such an attitude. He's trying, he's trying very hard, and he's grown so much. He may still be that little shit, and he still has some unresolved conflict with Tim, but he's the first to admit that their demon's spawn has changed a lot as a person. And even if this growth wasn't so noticeable, Tim still admits that he's not a bad person at the start.
Underneath all this arrogance, audacity, anger, and anxiety lies a child with a big heart.
He doesn't deserve to be treated like a bomb, no matter how violent his alternate version may be.
Maybe Tim is just projecting. He has a lot of versions that have gone down a villainous path, which he is afraid to become. Maybe it's how he was left all alone, trying to excuse the people who called themselves his family, that they were having a bad time. That they're all grieving, and it's okay that they don't notice him. Don't help him. Don't listen him.
He was sure that his resentment against Dick was long gone, but when the oldest of them doesn't go, as usual, to talk to Damian after his outburst, Tim decides that he's had enough. The boy can spit venom at him all he wants, but Tim knows how much he needs someone to watch his back. If Dick has other priorities, Tim will do it. After all, even if Damian al Ghul-Wayne doesn't consider him as family, Tim considers him as his little brother, and that's more important.
«Because I know what you're capable of!»
Well, that complete nonsense, because in the heat of panic they all obviously forgot what Damian was really capable of.
His little trip is interrupted by accident in the hallway. He only manages to make it to the middle of situation, but it's enough for the itch of wrongness to intensify to a physically tangible level.
The way the younger Tim looks at the back of Damian leaving - who doesn't even look up at Tim himself - and his jaw clenches, as if he wants to object. The way he pales noticeably, coming to some terrible conclusion.
Dick, walking out of the library, doesn't even notice him - he doesn't notice anything at all, walking through the open door with all of Grayson's energy.
Tim wonders what he would say if he saw how the children treated Damian. Especially when Dick assures them that their Damian won't get to them, and doesn't notice how little Tim bites his tongue again, how Dickie's face darkens.
Younger Tim looks like something incredibly valuable has been forcibly taken away from him. Tim swallows, looking at this about fourteen-year-old boy - he probably looked the same when Dick took Robin's mantle from him. Surrendering without a fight, realizing that he would never win.
Maybe it's some form of Stockholm syndrome - these kids obviously care about Damian. Tim doesn't understand how others can ignore this.
He takes two steps back, hiding in the dark corner as Bruce, Dick, and Alfred walk toward the kitchen. They still don't notice him.
Tim takes one last look at the children's bedroom door before continuing on his way. But first, he also run into the second kitchen to make hot chocolate. All these nerves are starting to make his hands slightly cold.
Damian doesn't respond to him with anything but an irritated grunt, but Tim didn't expect anything else. He goes inside anyway, trying not to spill drinks on the tray.
The boy looks at him sullenly, but puts the notebook aside when he smells the spices. Tim learned this little trick a long time ago - Damian can't stay angry in front of the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. Based on Tim's own experience in the League, it probably reminds him of his mother, but he won't risk asking, so as not to spoil the magic of the trick.
«What do you need, Drake? If you think you can use bribes to persuade me to–»
«Oh, so hot chocolate is enough to be considered a bribe? I'll keep it in mind»,
Damian's jaw is barely clenching, he's trying to hide it behind his Batman mug, and Tim realizes that he's not in the mood for their usual light bickering. Good. So, straight to the point.
«I would like to apologize to you. For what happened at the dinner».
He sees surprise on Damian's face, but only because he knows what to pay attention to. The demon's spawn always hid most of his emotions behind a mask of restraint or irritation, but next to Tim, it seemed that this determination to hide only grew. Tim understands that it because he was the main danger to Damian's position in the family. Now, that he is much more confident in his place, they have become better - they often even get along quite well, at least in Tim's opinion. Dick doesn't agree with him, but Tim has learned to mute Dick's voice in some situations after the whole Arkham and Bruce fiasco.
Unfortunately, whatever progress they have made, sometimes it disappears at all.
«As much as I'm pleased with your admiration, you haven't said anything that requires an apology, Drake», Damian narrows his eyes slightly. This is wariness, expectation - his younger brother is waiting for some kind of trick, a cruel joke. Tim holds back a tired sigh.
«Maybe, but I didn't tell them to shut up. I didn't support you, even though you were right. I didn't... I didn't try to convince them»
«Todd, Grayson, and Father are hard to convince when they're in this state. It would be easier for you to stop the bull with your semblance of a weapon, than to pacify them. It's not surprising that you backed off», Damian tries to distract his attention, ridicule him, but Tim sees how his grip on the mug relaxes slightly, how his shoulders hunch.
«Still, I should have intervened... Bruce shouldn't have said such things about you. Not like that. Not when it's ridiculous shit»
Damian doesn't say anything out loud, but raises an eyebrow expressively, taking a sip of now only warm drink. Tim's lip curls, but he came here to say exactly those words, and he won't back down.
«You're capable of a lot, Damian. You can be cruel. Cold, calculating, indifferent», — he sees boy's throat twitching slightly only because he doesn't dare look the younger one in the eye. It makes him speak more decisively: «But you're much more than just a knife, Damian. Bruce shouldn't forget that»
«Oh?»
«You're caring. You're attentive, and not just to the point of weakness. Or you're attentive to weaknesses, but to cover them up», — Tim allows himself a sad laugh, thinking about all those times when Robin, swearing, intervened in his battles, covering his rear, even if, as he claimed, Damian was going to celebrate the day of his death. «You're not a bad person, and you're going to be a great one. You have already traveled a great distance on the way to this, our little prince. There's so much love in you, even if you're trying to hide it»
For a couple of seconds, he thinks he sees a sparkle in those emerald eyes, but it's probably just a trick of the light. Damian never cried emotionally in front of him - he once shed a few tears when the mechanical door of the maze almost crushed his foot, and he looked so scared of his actions. As if he expected Tim to report him to Bruce and have him been sent off for being weak. It's likely that he really thought so.
Damian is silent for longer than he expected, hiding his gaze in his mug. Perhaps it's the nickname that Tim uses terribly rare, and only when they're alone - in rare moments of brotherly intimacy, like this. He didn't spend much time in the League, but it made him understand why Damian couldn't hate his cradle. The desert can be merciless, but it is breathtakingly beautiful at dawn. This is his home. His kingdom.
And, like a true prince, Damian will never forget the sparkle of his crown and the loyalty of his subjects.
«If I'm such a good person, as you say, then why can't this other Damian be like that?»
Tim bites his lip, rinsing his mouth with chocolate. He regrets that he didn't take the marshmallows - chewing them is preferable to his lips. Kon will grunt again.
«I do not know what to tell you, Dami. If I say I dont think he could be a bad person, I'd be lying. But I'm starting to doubt it, to be honest»
Even without looking at his younger brother, he sees how he freezes like a snake before an attack. His green eyes glow slightly in the twilight of the evening.
«The boys seem to miss him. It could be some form of Stockholm syndrome, but...», — Tim pauses, not knowing if he needs to say it out loud. Is it worth it. But, in the end, he came here to take care of his younger brother — and this older Damian is also his younger brother, even if he is as tall as Tim himself, if not taller. «But they look at you like that. Like someone you love. Someone important», — he hears Damian sigh lightly before he asks, defiantly, but not as harshly as he probably wanted; «What are you going to do about it, Drake?»
Tim knows that tone. It's Robin's tone, teasing him before a dangerous Young Justice miission. It's Robin's tone when they get into the thick of things to save someone. This is Robin's tone when he trusts Tim's abilities, is ready to share responsibility with him, and to listen to him.
It was this tone that once made Tim turn around when he left the manor for the Nest. Where Dick awkwardly tried to act as if nothing had changed, Damian openly looked at him in a different way. With some kind of respect and increased alertness. It was as if he finally saw Tim as the danger, not because he was wearing Robin's mantle or was next in the line, but because he was Tim.
"I'm going to find out what's going on here, and then I'm going to talk to Dick and Bruce. And Jason," he adds hastily, but Damian is already smiling at him, barely noticeably, with the corners of his lips stained with chocolate. Tim licks his finger with a grin and wipes the spot, to which Damian screams furiously, putting his cup on the tray to hit him.
No one comes to the noise, although once upon a time Dick would have break into the room at the fifth second. Tim thinks it says a lot about how close he and the demon's spawn have become.
Tim throws Bruce new details about the case at the docks like a bone to the dog and verbally kicks him to talk to Damian. Bruce obviously doesn't do this, even though he looks like he really want to.
Tim rolls his eyes and says ostentatiously that he's tired and is going to bed early. It says a lot about Bruce's condition that he sincerely wishes him a good night.
Tim locks himself in his bedroom and turns on laptop. Right now, he can't go to the Cave for obvious reasons, but he has remote access to the Batcomputer. Barbara can be very generous when she wants to be.
Tim decides to start from the beginning and is very happy that Batman took the time to connect his suit to the computer. He opens the files for today and takes out a notebook to scribble on it every time Bruce behaves stupidly. It became his little hobby when watching video reports.
The first thing Tim notices is the fact that Batboy is not really trying to help his father. He lands a couple of weak punches, and that's it — it could be attributed to disorientation, but Tim knows his Damian — he would never allow such a thing. And this Damian is older. More experienced. But still, he freezes on the periphery of the fight, and the longer the two Batmen punch each other, the further he moves towards the detention cells where the kids were held, before he finds himself tied up, on his knees, in front of Superman.
Damian on the screen freeze, and Tim can almost hear alarm bells. He knows that look. He's a Robin with experience, he knows that look of prey caught in front of the predator's very nose. When Superman returns to battle, Damian looks genuinely shocked by this turn of events.
Tim tries to justify this reaction by saying that Batboy is assistant of Batman, a serial killer, and Superman, no matter how bright a man he is, does not tolerate such atrocities. But the longer he watches, the more he worries about how Damian continues to cast subtle glances over Batman's shoulder, registering Superman's every movements.
And then he says, «I'm ready to help you, too» and Tim sees with pain in his heart his Damian, who has just arrived at the manor, the eight-year difference does not matter. The child in front of him is desperately trying to make himself useful so that he won't be abandoned, because he is afraid of the consequences.
He looks and looks and looks. How much Damian is afraid, no matter how much he hides it. How he expects to be hit after each answer. Even their Damian didn't freeze like that in front of Bruce when he first arrived, and he was sure that Batman was punishing with pain, like in the League.
Obviously, even the League of Assassins treated their heir better than this bastard.
«Pull yourself together, soldier»
Tim frowns, not sure how to interpret this. Jason doesn't look scared, but he also looks relieved. Rather, he's resigned to what happens next. Maybe it's some kind of code, and Tim would like to know what it means.
He sees how Damian is trying to curry favor. How he understands that this is not enough. How he freezes when Bruce says he's going to hand him over to the Justice League.
From this distance, he's not entirely sure what he's seeing, but Tim thinks with a sinking heart that this is what an adult Damian looks like when he dissociates. It looks like he's ready to attack - Tim understands why Bruce might not be paying attention. It still terrifying.
This reaction to the League, combined with how much Batboy is wary of Superman, causes him an itch of anxiety.
He sees the moment when something clicks in Damian, as despair grows in him. His little monologue about his abilities, including keeping kids under control, disgusts him - but obviously not the same as Bruce's. He sees a scared child. Batman sees the murder's assistant.
Tim temporarily puts down his laptop, getting up to do some stretching. He needs to vent his nervous energy somewhere before he runs further down the rabbit hole. He understands that he is being subjective: Damian is his younger brother, and Tim sympathizes him and his pain. But he has to stay focused. If he doesn't have hard evidence, he can release a dangerous snake from the terrarium. And if he is not scrupulous enough and cannot convince the others, then they will lose Damian forever. Maybe even both versions. Tim doesn't want to think about that option, so he climbs onto a rung against the wall and breathes the way the last of the Flying Graysons once taught him.
Somewhere in the next room, Damian is doing the same thing, trying to calm the cockroaches of thoughts. It shouldn't hurt him so much that only Drake of all people decided to apologize to him. It's pretty obvious. Drake saw him as a threat from the very beginning, and it's natural for him to notice when that threat is diminishing. Father and Grayson were blinded by sentiment or expectations.
It still warms up the tiniest part. Just like hot chocolate, even if Damian had to sneak into the kitchen to wash both of their cups, because Drake left with an impudent grin, leaving his on Damian's table, as if he didn't know that Alfred would look at him disapprovingly for dirty dishes in the room.
Damian's conversation with Dick in the Cave gives him about the same information.
Damian is tense because of Dick's words or movements. He's trying to curry favor with the man who has more power than him - even if it means addressing his youngest brother as "sir."
And Tim begins to believe that they really are brothers. He sees the urge to retreat on Damian's face when Dick stiffens in response to his question, but he asks again anyway. He wants to know if the children, whom, according to his own words, he tortured, are okay. It doesn't fit together a bit, but Tim is only convinced of this when Damian recoils slightly in response to Dick's sharpness.
He understands that Dick sees a willingness to fight. Tim sees only a willingness to take the hit - and a tired resignation when he is told that he will not see the boys again.
Little Tim had the same expression on his face when Dick told him that they won't see Damian anymore.
He looks at the record for the entire past day on acceleration.
Batman's interrogation is quite expected, although Damian's answers about the League only reinforce Tim's opinion that sending him back is a fucked up idea. They need to conduct an additional investigation first. Perhaps this League will release the serial killer's assistant back. But what, in his opinion, is much more likely, they will do something terrible to him - which the Justice League, based on the name, should not do. At least Tim is sure that their villainous henchmen don't react so fearfully to the announcement of the trial.
Apart from the interrogation, nothing interesting happens — Damian meditates, stretches, stares at the wall, sometimes so intently that Tim wonders how far into himself he goes at such moments. What does he think about when he is surrounded only by glass walls and his own thoughts.
He notices that Damian has not touched his food, but has drunk water from a sealed bottle. He makes a mental note to grab some bars from the pantry when he comes down. Obviously, kid expects them to poison him.
He switches from the cameras in the cave to the cameras around the manor. He missed most of what happened then, and he's interested in the details. Fortunately, the other Batman's threats have led Bruce to turn on the enhanced protection of the estate, and all the wall cameras and listening devices are working.
The sound is not very loud, but Batman's technique is one of the best, so Tim catches the moment when the boys realize who is hiding in the dark. He swirls a bottle of energy drink and adjusts his headphones, listening intently.
The shot, as luck would have it, isn't the best either — Tim is going to stick the cameras on the roof himself after that — but he sees enough to draw conclusions. Dickie is not afraid of Damian at all — he reaches out to him. Tim also seems to be more afraid of being punished for Dickie opening the window and getting out of the manor than the possibility of Damian pushing Dickie off the roof. Which Batman has repeatedly done as punishment. Punishments, for which, according to them, Damian was responsible.
The boys are afraid of Dick and Jason, and understandably afraid of Bruce. But they're not afraid of Damian at all. They trust Damian in a way they haven't even trusted Alfred yet, judging by the fact that Jason has had a minor panic attack in his presence.
Dickie stumbles, probably realizing who he's talking to, but he's not as worried as he could be, and Damian apologizes to the boy, even though it's not his fault, and Dickie understands it too. Tim is so proud of his grumpy little brother.
Damian acts more consciously than half the adults in this house, not raising his voice, even when his tone becomes fiercer. Dickie doesn't look scared, just slightly alarmed - especially when Damian offers to pet Alfred. But fear quickly gives way to delight when he decides to reach out.
He mostly knows what's going to happen next, but Tim keeps listening to the tape anyway, in case he missed something. He purses his lips again when Bruce shoos Damian out of the room — at this stage, he's already sixty percent sure it's unnecessary. Obviously, the kids are not afraid of Damian. Neither small nor big.
When he hears Dickie muttering "Dami?" in a daze, Tim pauses the recording and closes the laptop. No one comes up with affectionate nicknames for their tormentor. No one uses affectionate nicknames in moments of vulnerability, calling out to the person who hurt you.
The corridors are silent and empty when he sneaks into the kitchen to get supplies. On the way to the Cave, he pulls off a soft blanket from movie room and a random stuffed toy that was lying there.
The cave is even more silent and empty, but Tim is used to this atmosphere after sleepless nights working on various cases. He tries not to walk silently, but also not too loudly, so that Damian has time to hear and understand who exactly is coming.
Damian still looks surprised when he sees him.
"Hi, Dami. I'm sorry it took so long, there were some issues that need to be resolved," he talks nonsense, folding the blanket so that it is easier to push it through the crack, just not to pay attention to how tired and pale his usually always collected and tanned younger brother looks. "I noticed that you didn't eat breakfast, and I thought maybe you'd like the bars. This is Jason's stash, so I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't hand me over to him."
He slips in the bars, more water, a blanket, and finally a stuffed squirrel. Damian is motionless, watching everything with a combination of surprise and wariness. A minute later, he coughs, clearing his throat, and Tim painfully realizes that he hasn't had anyone to talk to in over twelve hours.
"Thank you, sir, but I'm not hungry"
Tim holds back a tired sigh, assuming it will be a stressful reaction. He pulls a chair out of the medical corner and sees Damian tense up in response to this, understanding that it would be a long conversation.
"It's pretty cool in here, so feel free to use a blanket. My Damian doesn't want to admit it, but he's get cold faster then others after the League, and he's been getting used to the Gotham weather for a long time."
Damian doesn't react at all. About thirty more seconds pass, Tim smiles nervously, and Damian finally grabs a blanket to cover his legs. He doesn't take his eyes off Tim's hands. Okay. That's something.
"I don't want to delay, so I'll say it right away: I need to ask you a few questions. I would really appreciate it if you answered honestly and in detail," he doesn't add, "your future may depend on this" because it's a terrible phrase. Of course, he could kidnap this Damian and hide somewhere in the Altai Mountains, but that would be rather inconvenient. And, probably, Damian would have been the one blamed for it.
The boy nods numbly when Tim doesn't say anything else. Then, again, he agrees verbally: "I'll do my best"
Tim takes a deep breath, already knowing that this is not going to be an easy conversation.
"Are the Justice League villains in your world?"
Obviously, this is not exactly the question that Damian expected.
"I suppose, from the point of view of generally accepted morality, they can be considered as such," is vague, but generally enough. Batboy is, after all, the son of a serial killer. Although, on the other hand, it may be that…
"Has the Justice League harmed you or your younger brothers before?"
He sees a slight twitch of Adam's apple, betraying nervousness, and wonders if it's caused by memories, or by Tim calling the boys brothers. After all the promises Dick and Bruce had made that he wouldn't see them again, it must have been overwhelming for him.
Damian takes a moment to respond, but Tim knows how to be patient and stressed at the same time without breaking down or being distracted, and when, in the end, the kid nods, he does not look significantly more scared. At least not by Tim.
"Yes, it happened earlier," he pauses, and then adds, hush. "Repeatedly"
Well, he suspected it, but suspecting and hearing are different things. Tim exhales, clasping his hands in his lap. Bruce had fiercely promised this child that when he would be useless, he would return to the clutches of these monsters. Considering that they knew Batman was a serial killer and didn't do anything about it, he doesn't want to think about how disgusting they are. He'll figure it out later.
"You're not going back to them. Neither you nor your younger brothers. I'm not sure what's going to happen to you - but I can promise you this."
He recognizes the look of a man going through a flashback, even if Damian is pretty good at restraining the rest of his body's reactions. His exhalation is louder than he would like anyway.
"I am..Thank you very much for that, sir. How can I thank you for this?"
He looks both depressed and hopeful. Damian again looks like a dog that rushes at your feet so that you don't leave. Tim holds back the urge to open the door and rush inside to hug him. Not yet.
"It's okay, Damian. I don't need anything from you. Just answer my questions,"
Damian nods, fidgeting but not moving. It would look funny if it wasn't so sad.
"Of course, I'll tell you everything I know. But I've already told Batman everything I know about the League and from- from the other Batman, and I'm not-"
"It's okay. To be honest, I don't care about the League. We'll figure it out later, and maybe I can convince Bruce to let the chain dogs loose on them - I mean Dick, Jason, and their teams."
Damian looks like he doesn't know how to process this information. He blinks. Slightly wrinkles his nose. Uncertainly, he asks; "Richard and Jason have their own teams?"
Tim nods, grateful for the opportunity to temporarily change the subject: "Yes, Dick started leading the Young Titans at sixteen, still being Robin, and Jason gathered the Outlaws, uh, some time ago, after some events that I can't talk without his permission, or he'll wring my neck. Not literally, in a brotherly way," he adds, seeing the emptiness in Damian's gaze.
"The Young…Titans?"
"Yes. Kid Flash, Starfire, Raven, Beastboy, Cyborg, Aqualad, and many others… Maybe you've heard of them. Who are they in your universe?"
He's not sure he wants to know the answer, but when Damian pales even more, Tim realizes he needs to know the answer. They need to know how urgently they need to be saved.
"I... I'm sure I've heard that Konstantin picked up a girl named Raven, and... the Flashes never lingered too long."
Tim feels sick when he asks, "Do you know Bart Allen?" and Damian looks away. He covers his face with his hands.
"We'll figure it out. We'll.. We will save them. I promise we'll pick them up. Our League is much better- well, fuck, it's at least not made up of psychopaths and rapists. We'll get them all settled, Dami, I promise you,"
Damian nods like a dummy, probably not even hearing half of his words. He freezes anyway at the affectionate treatment, and then something in his posture changes. Once upon a time, Tim would have mistaken this for a willingness to attack.
"What's going to happen to me?"
He asks, not actually asking. There's no really questioning intonation. Tim knows this maneuver - the kid doesn't want to, but needs to know the answer. Need to know what to prepare for.
Tim takes a deep breath.
"The last two questions, Damian," he waits for a nod, and his face becomes serious. "What does the phrase «pull yourself together, soldier» mean?"
Damian visibly freezes. He was pretty still before, but right now he's freezing. His eyes go blank. He doesn't even swallow.
"It means: follow orders. Be careful. Take care of yourself,"
Tim smiles wryly, because that's exactly what his own Damian would say to a kid he would have to let go to an unfamiliar place where he can't protect him. A stern but thoughtful warning. Last attempt to secure.
"Very good, Damian. And one last thing: why did you volunteer to punish the boys yourself?"
"Because Batman won't stop even when they lose consciousness," Damian looks into his eyes, and his own are so dim, so strikingly different from the burning emeralds of his Damian. He looks so tired. It was as if he had no choice. Which, if you think about it, absolutely true.
"Because Batman doesn't care how fragile their bodies are. Because he would hurt them, and then again, and again, until they broke down. Because that's the only way I could take care of them, and even in that, I terribly failed."
Tim feels a lump in his throat, a burning sensation in his eyes, and a tremor in his fingers - but none of this stops him from hastily entering the code to the door and pushing it open, almost slamming against the next wall.
"Come out. Come out quickly, come on, Dami," he almost pulls out his stunned, almost crying brother by the hand. He's only holding back because he's afraid of making things worse, and yet–
"Can I hug you? You can say no, Damian. It's okay,"
He nods, stunned and still with tears in his eyes, and that's all the confirmation Tim needs.
He and his younger version are not much different in height - what a sad reality - but he is much more muscular and can hold this Damian to himself, hiding behind him, at least emotionally. The asshole is already ahead of him in terms of height at the age of sixteen.
Tim pretends not to hear the sobs, holding his palms on warm shoulder blades. He hopes it feels similar enough. That Damian can imagine being hugged by his own Tim. That Damian's Tim hugged his older brother often enough, that he knows how much his younger ones love him.
He really wants to hug his own Damian and tell the little bastard that he loves him, even if he knows that it will be met with extremely negative reactions.
"Come on, Dami. You have younger brothers who would really like to hug you right now"
He doesn't resist being led. Tim seems to hear the rustle of something falling from the rafters, but attributes it to emotional experiences.
He gets out to guard the door to the kid's bedroom from the outside, leaning so that it cannot be opened without waking him up. At some point during the night, he turns out to be covered with the same blanket he left in the cell.
In the morning the screaming starts, but Tim apparently looks angry enough to shut everyone up, including Bruce. He drags his family into the Cave, playing the same footage that hooked him yesterday. He doesn't have a blackboard or even a notebook with notes - except for a piece of paper that says "Bruce fucked up fourteen times" - but it seems his passionate speech is enough to keep them occupied.
Jason looks like he really wants to kill - Tim throws a phone at him with Roy's number already open and smiles in response to a wolfish grin when the Red Hood leaves to plan a rescue operation. Dick looks terribly guilty - Tim tries not to cross his arms over his chest, not to hide from this look. He just nods in the direction where Damian is hiding, hinting that they should talk later.
Bruce looks heartbroken. Angry. Tired. Guilty. Tim holds his gaze for a long moment, looking equally disappointed and supportive of the initiative to improve. He has honed this look on his team and is confident in it.
Alfred bends down to whisper to him where one of his energy drinks is stored. He could not have received better encouragement.
Damian appears last, when Tim has already sat down at the Batcomputer to start planning process documents for a dozen copies of legally existing people, but hey, that's not the craziest thing he's done.
"Drake," he doesn't jump up because he knows about the imp's location, but still cringes a little.
Damian looks…open - it's s the first thing Tim notices. That his younger brother isn't actively trying to hide his emotions from him. His heart melts.
"I'm surprised that you were able to figure out the problem so quickly, but I think the expression is appropriate here: once a year, even a stick shoots,"
Tim rolls his eyes irritably but cheerfully, getting out of the chair in three quick steps and stopping next to Damian to tousle his hair. The boy doesn't react at all to his rapid appearance - and this makes Tim's grin much softer.
"If you wanted to say thank you, just do it, Dami," he reaches out to tousle dark hair again, but Robin dodges in time. Damian looks at him annoyed, but there's no real malice in it.
"Perhaps I could be grateful to you for resolving this ridiculous misunderstanding with my alternative version," he pauses. "Although I don't quite understand why."
"Because believe it or not," he still manages to punch the boy in the nose, which is incredibly cute, "but I care about you. You're my little brother, my responsibility, and I have to cover for you. He may be older than you, but he's still my younger brother. This is a lifelong status, no returns"
Damian looks up at him, and there is something fragile in his eyes that reminds him of the elder Damian - and when, over the next few seconds, Damian turns around, checking if everyone has left the Cave, and then crashes into his torso, Tim realizes that he's right. His little Damian is still low enough to nuzzle Tim's solar plexus. Tim hugs him back, firmly, but not too tightly - he knows that Damian often feels "trapped" in Dick's arms, as if it were a punishment - and leaves his palms on his shoulder blades, allowing him to lean on himself if necessary.
Damian really relaxes his legs, butting him a little with his forehead from the pressure, and Tim laughs a little. He feels the answering laughter in the boy's shoulders and bends over to kiss the top of his head.
"It's okay, my prince," he whispers in the League dialect, the one he learned from the Demon's Daughter himself, "I'll always have your back."
When Damian is still in his arms twenty seconds later, Tim allows himself to hope that he believed him.
Yes, they will definitely do better. He'll make sure of it.