Chapter Text
The study door opened with such precise, measured control that Dick knew immediately something was up. Damian didn't do anything by halves, he either burst through doors during emergencies or ignored them entirely in favor of windows. This careful, deliberate entrance meant only one thing: Damian was about to be formal.
Dick looked up from his laptop, where he'd been reviewing patrol routes, and couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. Damian stood in the doorway wearing what could only be described as his "business face"; jaw set, shoulders squared, a manila folder tucked under one arm like he was about to present quarterly earnings to the board.
"Richard," Damian said, his tone as serious as a five-year-old could manage.
"Oh no, it's 'Richard' today?" Dick spun his chair around to face his youngest brother fully. "What happened to 'Grayson' when you're annoyed or 'Dick' when you're in a good mood?"
"This is a 'ficial matter." Damian crossed the room, his little legs taking careful steps like he'd seen Bruce do. He stopped in front of Dick's chair, standing up as straight and tall as he could. The kid had definitely been watching too many of Bruce's board meetings.
"Official, huh?" Dick leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Did Alfred finally agree to let you reorganize the kitchen by weapon accessibility?"
"This is not about the kitchen!" Damian's voice went up a little. "And you being... being diss-miss-ive about my kitchen idea is one of the reasons I gotta do this!" He opened the manila folder with both hands, struggling a bit with the clasp. He pulled out a single sheet of paper and held it out to Dick, his arms stretched as far as they could go.
Dick took it, and had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
The paper was clearly from Damian's art supplies, thick cardstock with a slightly textured finish. Across the top, in bold red crayon (the fancy kind, probably from the 64-pack with the built-in sharpener), someone had written "TERMINATED" in wobbly block letters, some backwards. Below that was what appeared to be a stick figure with black hair doing a flip, with a large red X drawn over it. The X went outside the lines.
At the bottom, in Damian's careful five year old handwriting: Effektiv immediatly. Signed, Damian Wayne, Robin.
There was even an official looking stamp. Dick recognized it as the one from Damian's detective kit, the one that said "CONFIDENTIAL" in smudged ink. It was stamped three times, at different angles.
"Damian," Dick said slowly, fighting to keep his voice steady. "Did you just... fire me?"
"Yes! I am term-in-ating you from all the Wayne family oper-ations!" Damian pulled out a second sheet, this one appeared to be a list with crayon scribbles and drawings all over it. "I maked a big list of all the bad things you do!"
"Grievances." Dick looked at the termination notice again, noting the little crayon bats drawn in the corners. Some of them looked more like blobs with ears. "You drew bats on my pink slip."
"They hafta match!" Damian said, completely missing the amusement in Dick's voice. "Now you gotta look at the 'portant stuff—"
"Oh, there are important things?"
"—I putted them in order!" Damian held up his list, and Dick could see it was color-coded, though the colors didn't seem to follow any particular pattern. Some words were in green, some in purple, one was in orange. "The first bad thing is: you play too much when we're doing missions!"
Dick raised an eyebrow. "Playing too much?"
"Last week with the Riddler man," Damian said, his little face scrunching up seriously. "You maked jokes about riddles when he was shooting the gun at us! Three times!"
"They were good jokes, Damian."
"They was distracting!" Damian stomped his foot. "And you did a big flip off his question mark stick and you said it was 'too good to not do it'!"
"It was too good to pass up! The height, the angle, the dramatic irony—"
"See! You're doing it again!" Damian waved his arms around, his folder flapping. "You think every mission is like the circus! You do flips and stuff when you should be doing the serious work!"
"First of all, Haly's Circus had excellent safety standards," Dick said, holding up a finger. "Second, I got the job done, didn't I? Riddler's in Arkham, nobody got hurt—"
"You maked my heart go really really fast and it hurted!"
"You're five, you don't have heart palpitations."
"I'm five and a half, and you maked my heart go boom-boom-boom really scary!" Damian took a big breath, his little chest puffing up. He tried to smooth down his list with both hands, but it crinkled. "Now the second bad thing is: you got too many feelings."
Dick tilted his head. "Too many feelings?"
"Yeah. Too many." Damian said it very seriously, nodding. "You cry at the TV and stuff."
"It was a sad commercial, Damian! The puppy found his way home!"
"We was on a stake-out!"
"The puppy was lost!"
"That's what I mean!" Damian's voice went higher and he jumped a little. "You get all weird and cry-y about stuff! You hug the bad guys after you catch them—"
"Only if they're having a bad day—"
"—and you stopped chasing a bad guy to help a old lady walk across the street—"
"She had groceries!"
"—and yesterday you talked to the plant lady for forever and ever about flowers and dreams and stuff!"
"She has a real talent, Damian. It's wasted on crime."
Damian made a frustrated noise and rubbed his face with both hands, smudging crayon on his cheek. "And now the third bad thing is: you do too much flipping around and it's not... not reg-u-lated!"
"Unregulated acrobatic behavior?" Dick couldn't help it, he laughed. "Damian, I'm Nightwing. Acrobatics are kind of my thing."
"Your thing is bad!" Damian pulled out another sheet of paper, this one had a wobbly circle drawn on it, divided into sections with different colors. Some of the lines were very crooked. "I drawed all the times you did unnecessary flips! Seven-teen times!"
"Unnecessary?" Dick leaned forward to look at the chart. "Is that a pie chart?"
"It's a circle chart that shows your flips!" Damian pointed at the sections with a chubby finger. "This part is when you had to flip, this part is when flipping was good, and this big part—" he pointed to the largest, messiest section, "—is when you just wanted to look cool!"
"Style points are important!"
"Style points are dumb!" Damian was definitely getting more worked up now, his face turning red. "You don't gotta do three flips to kick somebody! One flip is enough! You're wasting your energy and making things more compli-cated!"
"But it looks cool."
"Cool doesn't catch bad guys!"
"It catches them stylishly."
Damian made a noise like a tea kettle and stomped both feet. He grabbed the termination notice and shoved it at Dick again, crumpling it a little. "This is why I gotta fire you! You're bad at being safe! Your methods are really really bad! You do vigilant-ism all wrong! So now you're fired from all the Wayne family stuff! That means patrol and missions and family meetings and—" Damian looked at his list, squinting at his own handwriting, "—and 'bro time' which I don't know what that is but you can't do it no more!"
Dick looked at the crayon drawing again, at the wobbly letters, at the little bats that were more like lumpy circles with triangles, at the "CONFIDENTIAL" stamp that was stamped over itself multiple times because Damian had probably gotten excited.
His little brother had made him a termination notice. With crayons. And he was five.
"Damian," Dick said, setting the paper down on his desk with exaggerated care. "I have some concerns about this termination."
"Your concerns don't matter—"
"First concern: I don't technically work for you."
Damian's eye twitched. "I'm Robin! We're partners!"
"I'm Nightwing. I work with Batman. You're Batman's partner. That makes us colleagues, not employer-employee."
"That's just word stuff—"
"Second concern:" Dick stood up, and Damian automatically took a step back, still clutching his folder to his chest. "I don't think you've really thought through the consequences of firing me."
"I thinked about all the stuff—"
"Really? So you've figured out who's going to drive you to the arcade on Saturdays?"
Damian's confident expression flickered. His bottom lip stuck out a tiny bit. "I can take the bus."
"Who's going to help you with your Spanish homework?"
"I can use the 'puter."
"Who's going to convince Alfred to make your favorite cookies?"
"I can—" Damian paused, his eyes getting a little watery. "That's not fair."
"Who's going to team up with you when Tim's being annoying?"
"I don't need help with Tim—"
"Who's going to spin you around until you laugh?"
"I don't— what?"
But Dick was already moving. In one fluid motion, unnecessary? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely. He closed the distance between them, scooped Damian up by the waist, and lifted him into the air.
"Grayson!" Damian's folder went flying, papers scattering across the study floor like confetti. "Put me down right now! This is— you gotta— Grayson!"
Dick spun in a circle, holding Damian at arm's length above his head. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my excessive playfulness!"
"This is the bad behavior I was— stop the spinning!"
Dick spun faster, Damian's little legs flying out from the centrifugal force. "What was that? Did you say spin more? Okay!"
"I said stop—" but there was something different in Damian's voice now, something that wasn't quite as angry.
Dick flipped him upside down, holding him by the ankles. "How's the view from down there, boss?"
"Grayson, I'm gonna—" Damian tried to keep scowling, but Dick could see his mouth doing that thing where it wanted to smile. His face was getting red from being upside down.
"Sorry, still can't hear you!" Dick started walking around the study, carrying Damian like a very indignant, upside-down briefcase. "Must be all that blood rushing to your head. Very unprofessional of you."
"You're being— this is—" Damian's face was really red now, and his hands were flailing around trying to grab something. "Stop it!"
"I'm being what? Emotionally unpredictable?" Dick spun again, and this time he definitely heard a snort-giggle from Damian. "A liability?"
"Yes!" But Damian's voice was all squeaky now.
"Unregulated?"
"Yes!" But he was definitely starting to giggle.
Dick flipped him right-side up and then immediately upside down again. "Are you sure? Because you sound like you might be having fun."
"I'm not—" Damian tried to cross his arms, which was really hard while upside down, and he just ended up flailing more. "This is not— stop making me—"
"Making you what?" Dick spun one more time, a big, sweeping circle that would have made his old circus partners proud.
And that's when it happened.
Damian laughed.
It started as a snort-giggle, then became a real giggle, and then turned into a full, loud laugh. The kind of laugh that little kids can't hold back no matter how hard they try. His carefully serious face disappeared completely as Dick spun him around one more time, and he just laughed and laughed.
"There it is!" Dick grinned triumphantly. "I knew it was in there somewhere!"
"Grayson—" Damian was still laughing, trying to sound mad and not being able to at all. "You're— this is—"
"Excessive? Unpredictable? Unregulated?"
"Ridiculous!" But Damian was smiling so big now, the kind of smile that made him look exactly like the five-year-old he was instead of a tiny, over-serious businessman.
Dick finally set him down, though he kept his hands on Damian's shoulders to make sure his little brother was steady. "You good?"
Damian wobbled, his face all flushed and his hair sticking up everywhere. He tried to glare at Dick, but he was still smiling too much. "That was... really really bad."
"Yep."
"Really un-pro-fessional."
"Absolutely."
"That's why I had to fire you."
"Mm-hmm."
Damian looked at the scattered papers on the floor, his carefully prepared documentation, his color-coded list, his crayon-decorated termination notice. Then he looked back at Dick, and his smile got softer and less giggly.
"I guess..." Damian said slowly, thinking hard about his words, "maybe your weird ways are... a little bit okay. Just a tiny little bit."
"A little bit okay?" Dick raised an eyebrow.
"A very tiny bit."
"Uh-huh."
"Like this much." Damian held his fingers up, pinched together to show the tiniest space.
"Right."
Damian bent down and started picking up his papers, trying to look serious again even though his hair was still all messy. "But I still think you're right about the stuff I said. You do play too much. And you do have too many feelings. And you do flip around too much."
"All true," Dick agreed cheerfully, crouching down to help collect the scattered documentation.
"And those things are bad for catching bad guys."
"If you say so."
"I do say so." Damian clutched his papers to his chest, crinkling them more. "But I guess... because we're family and stuff... I could maybe not fire you. For now."
"For now?"
"Yeah. I'll un-fire you."
"How generous of you."
"I'm very generous." Damian tried to straighten his shirt, but it was all twisted. He tried to pat his hair down but it just stuck up more. "But I'm gonna watch you really really close. If you play too much again, I'm gonna write it down and—"
Dick pulled him into a hug.
"Grayson!" Damian's protest was muffled against Dick's shoulder, and his papers crinkled between them. "We're in the middle of talking about 'portant stuff—"
"Case closed," Dick said, ruffling Damian's hair and making it even messier.
For a second, Damian stood all stiff, still holding his folder. Then, slowly, his little hand came up and grabbed the back of Dick's shirt.
"You're impossible," Damian muttered into Dick's shoulder.
"I know."
"Really really annoying."
"Yep."
"The worst big brother ever."
"Probably."
"...Don't tell Tim about this."
Dick grinned. "Wouldn't dream of it."
They stood there for a moment, surrounded by scattered papers and crayon drawings, before Damian finally pulled back. His face was still flushed, and his hair looked like a bird's nest, but he looked a lot less serious now.
"I'm keeping all my papers," Damian said, gathering the last of them and hugging them to his chest. "For later."
"Of course you are."
"And if you're really really bad again, I'm gonna fire you again."
"I'd expect nothing less."
Damian nodded, looking satisfied, and headed toward the door. He had to walk carefully because his papers kept trying to fall. He stopped at the door and looked back.
"Grayson?"
"Yeah?"
"...The arcade. On Saturday. You gotta come."
Dick's smile widened. "Wouldn't miss it."
After Damian left, Dick looked down at the termination notice still sitting on his desk. He picked it up, admiring the wobbly crayon work, the little blob-bats in the corners, the serious way Damian had tried to spell "TERMINATED" in block letters, getting some of them backwards.
He was definitely keeping this.
He pulled out his phone and took a picture, then carefully filed the original in his desk drawer, right next to the other treasures he'd collected over the years: Jason's first book report that didn't include any swear words, Tim's first successful coffee-free morning (documented with a photo), and a drawing Damian had made when he first came to the manor—a crayon sketch of the whole family, with Damian standing slightly apart from the others.
This would fit right in.
His phone buzzed with a text from Damian: This dosnt mean your methids are good.
Dick grinned at the spelling errors and typed back: Noted. See you Saturday.
A pause, then: ...Bring the moneys for the arcade masheens.
You got it, boss.
Another pause: Im not your boss.
Sure thing, boss.
GRAYSON.
Dick laughed and pocketed his phone. He looked at the photo of the termination notice one more time, at the careful way Damian had tried to make it official, at the crayon bats that betrayed how much thought his little brother had put into this.
Excessive playfulness? Guilty.
Emotional unpredictability? Absolutely.
Unregulated acrobatic behavior? One hundred percent.
But he'd gotten Damian to laugh, and in Dick's book, that was worth all the termination notices in the world.
Case closed.