Archive of Our Own ^beta

Look, on any other day, Tim could deal with Damian and his bad attitude. Any other day.

But not today.

His insomnia had been particularly bad recently, he’d barely slept more than three hours a night in the last week, and when he did sleep he was plagued by nightmares that he woke up from sweaty and drained.

As a result, his processing and reaction time were slower than usual and he couldn’t concentrate on anything; he’d zoned out in at least thirteen Wayne Enterprise meetings this week and it was only Thursday. He felt generally jittery all over, like he had ants crawling all over his body, and his paranoia had skyrocketed. He was constantly on edge, it was exhausting.

Yesterday he’d flipped Jason over his shoulder when the man had approached him from behind and accidentally scared him; Jason wasn't even trying to be quiet. After he had flipped him, Jason had just laid on his back on the floor blinking up at him as Tim stared owlishly back, his brain slowly catching up to reality. He just judo-flipped Jason, oh my God he’s going to kill me.

Under normal circumstances Tim wouldn’t have been able to bring Jason down. It had only worked because Tim was in Jason’s safehouse and looked dead on his feet so his guard had been completely down.

Jason had been unimpressed to say the least. Tim was too embarrassed to make eye contact with him for the rest of the night.

He just kept messing everything up.

Case in point.

They were in the Batcave. Damian stood in front of him still dressed in his Robin suit, although it was dirty and bloody (the blood wasn’t his own). His arms were crossed and his body language tense. Tim was sagged in a chair before him, dressed in his Red Robin suit, although he wasn’t wearing the cowl or a domino mask, a mug of steaming coffee nursed in his hands (thank God for that coffee machine he insisted be installed in the cave last year, much to Alfred’s horror and disdain). Similarly to Damian, his suit was also covered in dirt and blood (some of it was his own, some of it wasn’t).

Jason stood off to their right half in his Red Hood outfit and half in his civilian clothes. He was arguing with Bruce (no one had been injured yet, so the argument didn’t seem to have any real heat behind it), who was still in his Batman gear, cowl clutched tightly in his right hand. Steph and Cass were lingering near the training mats with Duke, all three were tense, their eyes flickering between Tim and Damian, Jason and Bruce, and a bloodied Nightwing. Dick had the upper half of his suit rolled down around his waist, his domino mask lying next to him, and he was currently covering the wound in his side with a shaky hand while Alfred readied the medical equipment needed to treat it. 

Which brings us back to Tim and Damian.

Nightwing had gotten hurt during patrol. It had been Red Robin’s fault, and now, Robin was pissed .

“What is wrong with you Drake? What the hell were you thinking?” Damian spat, his tone hard and face stone-cold with fury.

Tim poorly suppressed a flinch.

(What is wrong with you Timothy? What were you thinking, acting like that towards Mrs Albrecht? We worked for weeks, weeks to get that dinner, to make that deal! And you ruined it with your stupid little tantrum! How dare you insult the Albrechts in this way-)

He stayed silent, staring blankly at his coffee.

“Why didn’t you move when Nightwing told you to, he would not have rushed in to save you if you just listened for once!”

(Red Robin was tired, so so tired. He really shouldn’t have come out on patrol. Orphan was the only one who had noticed his exhaustion but she hadn’t done more than quirk an eyebrow at him before they all left the cave. The eyebrow spoke volumes.

He shouldn’t have come out, especially as patrol was very quickly shifting from a stop-some-muggings-and-nothing-super-dangerous-happens patrol to an it’s-all-going-to-shit-quick-call-backup patrol.

They’d stumbled across the main storage warehouse of the drugs operation that Hood had been tracking. That’s when it all went terribly wrong.

Red Robin downed another opponent with his bo staff, twirling out of reach of a gun and straight into the knife of the teenager behind him. He hissed as it sliced into his arm and spun, grabbing the teen’s wrist and squeezing his pressure point until he dropped the knife. He opened his mouth, about to talk the kid down from attacking him again when a shout from above startled him.

“RED! MOVE” he heard Nightwing scream, his voice cracking in panic.

By the time his brain had processed the words there was already a lithe body tackling him to the ground as a gun went off.

Nightwing let out a choked gasp. Nightwing, who was lying on top of him, who just jumped in front of a gun for him because Red Robin just stood there, like an idiot , who almost got shot because he was so damn tired and didn’t react fast enough. Wait. Oh no no no, oh my God, Nightwing just got shot-)

Tim still didn’t reply, lifting one hand from his coffee to rub his temples in an attempt to soothe his aching head. He already had a headache, his arm was throbbing where he was stabbed, it was now thoroughly disinfected and wrapped, and his vision was swimming (probably the sleep deprivation). Damian’s voice was grating on his already fried nerves.

Jason and Bruce were still arguing in the background, something about Batman intruding on Red Hood’s territory. Apparently Jason had been using that drug operation to track down the big boss and Bruce had just ruined that by sanctioning the raid. Bruce was looking sheepish, like he knew he should have consulted Red Hood before sending his team in. Despite this, he was still arguing, because Jason was Jason and Bruce was Bruce and the two only knew how to communicate through arguing.

Dick had his eyes closed, trying to hide his winces of pain as Alfred dealt with his bullet wound. It wasn’t life threatening (not anymore), it could have been much worse. The bullet had grazed his side rather than pierced his abdomen, bad enough to take a chunk out of him but not bad enough that Dick would be permanently impeded by it. It was going to leave a nasty scar.

No doubt Dick would be getting one of Bruce’s patented self-preservation talks later (with the slideshow and everything), to which he would argue back that Tim could be dead if he hadn’t acted the way he did. Dick would claim that jumping in front of a bullet to save Tim’s life should be high on Bruce’s list of exceptions to the Self-preservation Slideshow Refresher Talk Punishment™. Bruce would give him an unimpressed look and bring up his PowerPoint on the batcomputer. 

Of course, then Tim would be subjected to the slideshow too, and before he could begin to process what was happening, Bruce would decide that everyone needed a refresher; then everyone would be pissed at Tim because Bruce’s slideshows were notoriously boring (seriously, ask anyone who had been subjected to one of his talks and they’d confirm), and the only reason they were all being subjected to the refresher is because Tim had gotten Dick shot.

“Are you listening to me Drake?” Damian hissed, stepping towards Tim and grabbing his wrist, startling him and causing him to drop his coffee.

The mug seemed to fall in slow motion as Tim stared at it mourning the loss of his caffeine boost (and his favourite mug). 

His mug hit the floor, smashing and spilling coffee everywhere. The sound echoed loudly in the cave, causing Dick’s eyes to snap open, Alfred’s hand to jump slightly where he was currently applying a bandage over Dick’s wound, and all other conversations to stop as everyone turned to face the confrontation happening between Tim and Damian.

Tim stared at his now empty hand and the hand gripping his wrist tightly. Absent-mindedly he noticed that his already pale skin looked corpse-like when compared to Damian’s darker colour. Although, maybe he just hadn’t been outside enough recently.

The skin on his fingers was burning where some of the scalding coffee had spilled as it fell – already turning red and raw. His pain was nothing compared to Dick’s bullet wound though, and that was Tim’s fault so he couldn’t complain over something as minor as a mild burn.

Damian’s nails were digging into his skin, no doubt creating half-crescent moon shaped indents in his arm.

“Drake!” Damian snapped.

Tim dragged his eyes up to meet the younger boy’s. It took much more effort than it should’ve done and his vision swam even more, his eyes straining and aching at the movement. His sleep deprivation and minor injuries were finally catching up to him.

At some point Damian had taken off his domino mask, and now Tim was staring at his furious dark eyes.

“What?” Tim sighed, resignation clear in his tone. Exhausted, he curled into himself even more, drawing his legs up to his chest. He was too tired for this, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too.

Damian looked disgusted at his display of weakness. He rolled his eyes, air whistling through his teeth. “Tt.”

Tim flinched at the derisive sound. It reminded him of his Mother’s disdain whenever he had acted his age in front of her. His eyes slid over to the others. He found Jason watching them with a carefully blank expression. Dick's face was scrunched in worry as his eyes flickered between the pair; Tim was certain he would have already approached to diffuse the situation if Alfred wasn't currently securing his bandage in place.

Damian continued on. Whether he was ignoring or genuinely oblivious to Tim’s distress he was uncertain. Probably the first. “I cannot believe you. Must you seek attention all the time? It is unbecoming of you to sabotage fellow teammates in this way-“

Tim’s mouth fell open, gaze finding Damian’s again. A half-hysterical laugh escaped his lips despite his best efforts to maintain a facade of calm. 

Jason flinched violently. 

Bruce reached a hand out towards him, as if to comfort him, before remembering that the young man standing next to him was Jason and not one of his other children. He let his hand fall back to his side, expression pinched. 

“Me? Sabotaging teammates? Wow.” Tim knew that he sounded unhinged, knew that it would trigger Jason, but he couldn’t help it – he genuinely couldn't believe that Damian had just said that to him. The audacity . “You’re one to talk about sabotaging teammates, Damian.”

This time it was Damian who flinched, something like regret briefly causing his expression to become pinched (it was the same expression Bruce got when he knew he messed up) before his rage took over again, somehow even more intense than before, “That was a mistake Drake-“

Tim snorted again, “A mistake? A mistake that almost cost me my life! You cut my fucking line!”

Damian flinched back like he’d been struck, letting go of Tim’s wrist as a fearful expression appeared on his face like none Tim had ever seen before. His eyes immediately snapped towards Bruce and Dick, attempting to gauge their reaction to Tim’s announcement. 

The silence in the cave was suffocating.

“What?” Dick rasped. He looked confused, eyebrows drawn together and brow furrowed as he attempted to process this new information.

Bruce’s face was unreadable, Jason looked like he was considering murder as he glared at Damian (hypocritical Tim thought, considering his own struggles with the try-not-to-murder-Tim club), and Alfred’s expression was carefully neutral. 

Dick swallowed, “Tim what do you mean he cu–”

“Shut up Drake! Shut up!” Damian screeched before Tim could answer, his voice shrill and panicked.

Tim felt ice-cold rage flood him. He stood, letting his aching wrist fall to his side from where it had been resting on his knees. There were curved dents in his skin where Damian had gripped him earlier.

He glowered at him and Damian glared back, eyes flashing with poorly contained rage and distress.

“I had to! You put me on your Active Threats List!” Damian squeaked.

“And you cut my wire. You proved me right.” Tim hissed back through clenched teeth. 

Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t murder the child. 

Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t murder the child.

Dick would be sad if he murdered Damian. Tim hated seeing Dick sad. It was like kicking a puppy. Dick being sad was just wrong.

Breathe in, breathe out. 

Breathe in, breathe out.

Breathe in. Stop imagining choking Damian to death. Breathe out.

Plus, Bruce was quite fond of his only biological son, even if said biological son had tried to kill Tim several times. But that was fine because Tim was Tim and Damian was Damian and it was all fine. Everything is fine!

(“He’s still adjusting Tim, cut him some slack.” 

“I know he stabbed you in training today but he said it was an accident and he even apologised, Tim. That’s progress! He’s trying his best, you’ve just got to give him some time.” 

“Damian had a complicated upbringing Tim, he’s still learning that throwing knives at people because they took the last cookie isn’t an appropriate or rational response to the situation. Why don’t you go help Damian and Alfred make another batch?”)

Yeah, Bruce definitely wouldn’t be happy if Tim murdered Damian. And after all these years Tim still craved Bruce’s approval, even if he hated that he needed it. Even if he refused to acknowledge that he needed it.

Breathe in, breathe out. Don’t murder the child.

Breathe in–

“Shut up!" Damian shrieked. If he had been anyone but Damian, Tim would have said he sounded like he was about to cry. "You’re wrong! I’m not a threat!” He sniffed and rubbed a hand over his eyes, “You are self-centred and selfish and you make everything about you, Drake! Everything!” 

–breathe out.

If Tim had been thinking more clearly, it might have registered in his brain that Damian was lashing out. Lashing out at him for exposing a secret he felt might threaten his place in the family he’d finally found. Not that it would. Many people in this family had tried to kill Tim over the years in one way or another, usually multiple times (hi Jason) and they were still here. But as it was, Tim was on the brink of a mental breakdown, almost completely hysterical, and currently incapable of thinking clearly and therefore didn’t realise any of this.

Selfish? Selfish ? Tim had sacrificed everything for everyone, his entire life. 

Always expendable. The “easy” child, or friend, or partner. The one who caused no fuss about anything. The one who could solve all your problems with a wave of his hand. 

The one who laid down so others could cross the ravine using his back as a bridge without them even noticing .

Tim felt his eyes sting and blinked rapidly. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t.

Breathe in. 

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out–

Nope. Not working.

“Selfish?” His voice had taken on a dangerous edge. The tension in the cave racketed up another notch. Bruce took an uncertain step towards them but Jason grabbed his arm, shaking his head slightly, eyes fixed on the duo and a furrow in his brow. “I’ve been stuck being perfect. My entire life!”

Damian rolled his eyes scornfully. It was clear that he thought Tim had never experienced any sort of true hardship. To most it wouldn’t be an unfair assumption considering that the general public thought Timothy Drake was a privileged rich kid who had been sheltered from the real world his entire life. 

But Damian should know better. He did know better. Even if he didn’t know everything, he knew enough to know that Tim had suffered, and that he had suffered more than any person should ever have to.

Tim broke. 

His chest ached. It felt like someone was digging their hand between his ribs and squeezing his heart. 

Oh God he can’t breathe.  

It felt like someone (Damian) was pummelling the inside of his chest repeatedly. 

Tim hadn’t felt this way since his parents died.

No one was defending him. Why was no one defending him?  

Did they all agree with Damian? 

He couldn’t do this anymore.

“I've sacrificed everything for everyone my whole life! For my parents, my friends, Bruce. Hell, even you.” 

Tim sucked in a wobbly breath before continuing. 

“Not that you did anything to deserve it.” He’d probably regret this later. “Literally, the only thing you ever did for me, is mess. Things. UP!! ” He felt lightheaded and his vision was blurry from the hot, unshed tears in his eyes. He refused to cry, he wasn’t going to cry. Not here. Not in front of everyone because of Damian, of all things. 

He wasn’t going to cry. 

Steph’s hand was covering her mouth, her expression filled with horror as they all watched Tim fall apart in front of them. Duke’s eyes were watery and he was gripping Cass’ hand tightly. The girl in question looked abnormally grim.

“You have everything!” Damian yelled back. He was displaying unusual amounts of emotion and Tim almost forgot to scream back because... were those tears in Damian’s eyes? “Everything! The incredible Timothy Drake who can do no wrong. Who always knows what to do, who has the perfect plan and the perfect timing, who saves the day every time. I had to take action! You are– were a threat to my place as Father’s rightful heir! It was the only way!”

He sounded almost as broken as Tim did. Almost.

“You’re jealous.” Tim rasped in the silent room, suddenly too emotionally exhausted to shout. “You ruined my life. You ruined. My. Life!” He felt like laughing hysterically again but just barely managed to hold back, if only for Jason’s sake. “Because you were jealous?”

Damian’s face reddened and in a childish attempt to divert their fight back to the original catalyst he snapped, “Well where was the great Timothy Drake today? Where was the last minute plan to save the day? Your foolish actions almost got Richard killed. Instead you gravely injured him! If he had died it would have been your fault.”

As he stepped forwards and aggressively poked Tim in the chest on those last few words, a few things happened.

The first was that the tears he’d been just barely holding back finally fell from Tim’s eyes as something inside him crumbled. White static buzzed in his ears, all other sounds fading. Damian’s words echoed inside his brain over and over. 

His fault.  

He was right, if Dick had died it would have been his fault. And it was his fault that Dick was hurt. Tim sobbed harder. His tears shocked many of the family members witnessing the disaster that had just occurred, most of them had never actually seen Tim cry before.

The second was that Dick made a wounded sound that made everyone in his general vicinity’s hearts hurt. His expression crumpled as all the pieces finally slotted together in his brain and he watched the tentative relationship his two younger brothers had managed to build fracture into so many tiny pieces that he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to fix it.

The third and final thing was that Alfred finally stepped forwards, medical equipment safely packed away, hands washed clean from Dick’s blood, and put a stop to the confrontation.

“Master Damian, Master Timothy. That is enough.” The tension seeped out of the air a little. “It would do both of you good to calm down.” He said in that special authoritative tone he reserved for when people (usually Bruce) really fucked up.

Tim breathed deeply, closing his eyes and taking a minute to collect himself.

His heart hurt.

His head hurt. From both his sleep deprivation and all the shouting.

His arm hurt where it had been stabbed and his body was bruised all over.

Tim wiped the back of his arm over his face and took another steadying breath.

When he opened his eyes again, the rest of the cave’s inhabitants were disturbed to find that his tears had all but vanished. The only sign of how broken Tim felt was the tear tracks on his face and the slight slump of his shoulders.

Without saying a word to any of them, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the cave.

Dick reached out a hand to him as he passed but let it drop when his little brother flinched out of his reach.

The door slammed closed, echoing loudly throughout the cave.

All eyes turned to Damian, who now had panicked tears streaming down his face.

“Dami…” Dick murmured, face sad as he held his arms open for a hug. Damian looked so small, so young. If Dick couldn’t comfort Tim right now then he was damn well going to comfort Damian in the meantime. 

Damian stared at him for a second as several different emotions flickered across his face too fast for any of them to comprehend. 

He burst into tears, startling them all, and fled the cave in a similar fashion to Tim. The door to the batcave closed softly behind him.

The rest of them were left in stunned silence.

Dick dropped his arms to his lap and put his head in his hands, ignoring how hunching over tugged at his wound. The pain was grounding anyway.

“What the fuck.” Jason muttered.

What the fuck indeed.

Tim was on the roof.

He was lying on his back using one arm as a pillow with the other thrown over his stomach. 

It was raining. Tim didn’t mind. The cold raindrops on his face were refreshing. They were washing away the residue from the breakdown he’d had after leaving the cave.

Plus, when one of his family members inevitably tracked him down they wouldn’t be able to tell what was rain and what was tears. Unless it was Cass. She’d be able to tell. And probably also Dick, because the man was like an emotion sponge. And maybe Jason too, because despite what the man claimed, he was much more emotionally competent than he liked them all to believe (apart from when it came to Bruce, Bruce was always the exception). And maybe also Duke, because he was just good at that stuff…

Okay yeah, he lived with a family of detectives. They’d all be able to tell that he was crying.

The sun was starting to rise and the dreary grey sky was starting to lighten ever so slightly. 

Tim was lost in his own head, thoughts swirling loudly and brow furrowed as he stared up at the sky. He wasn’t so lost in thought, however, to miss the almost-silent sound of the skylight he had used to access the roof creaking open behind him. 

Tim, who had thought he had longer until someone found him, turned to face the intruder with a frown on his face, although it immediately flattened into a neutral expression upon finding Duke’s somehow both sheepish-and-worried face peeking out of the skylight. Out of all the family members who he didn’t want to see right now, Duke wasn’t on the list.

He had one arm bracing the window open above him and the other keeping himself up with only his head sticking out into the air above so he could talk to Tim face-to-face without getting wet.

Tim knew damn well there was nothing beneath Duke for him to stand on. That’s why he’d chosen this hideout spot, hoping they’d check other places first because this was one of his ever so slightly more difficult hiding spots to get to than some of the others in the manor. This meant that Duke was currently performing a one-armed pull up to talk to him and looked completely normal about the whole thing.

Damn Duke for knowing him so well. And damn him even more for being such a show off.

“Hey Tim.” Duke grinned, “You want to come inside where it’s not cold and wet?”

Tim stared at him. He was unimpressed. “No.”

Duke’s cheerful expression didn’t falter, “C’mon man, don’t make me come out there and get you. I don’t want to get wet.”

Tim rolled his eyes and shuffled a little further away from him, just to be mean. 

Duke’s face fell, although he maintained its playful expression and clearly wasn’t actually upset, “Man that’s just cruel.”

And then Tim was scooped up from behind and being thrown over a broad shoulder with a startled yelp.

What the hell? Duke was still in front of him so who the hell-

“Timbo acquired! Quick Duke, let us in before he makes his escape!” Laughed an annoyingly familiar voice just before Tim could perform a fancy escape manoeuvre to get out of the fireman's lift. 

“Not you. Why is it always you?” Tim groaned and flopped his forehead against his kidnapper’s back as hard as he could. Said kidnapper didn’t react at all beyond a quiet woosh of air leaving his lungs due to having his back thumped so hard.

His kidnapper, also known as Jason Todd, laughed at his obvious misery and then flipped him over his shoulder so Tim was no longer staring down at his ass and was instead staring up at his face. The man chucked him through the now open skylight, waving down at him as he did so with a smug smile on his face.

Tim flipped him off with both hands as he fell, which of course only made Jason laugh harder.

He landed safely in Duke’s waiting arms and was quickly set on his feet, although Duke didn’t let go of him and kept his arms wrapped tightly around him in a sort-of-hug but also sort-of-hold to stop him from running away from the inevitable talk about his emotions that was about to happen.

Tim groaned again, “Is this an intervention?”

Jason jumped through the skylight, closing it in the process so it slammed shut behind him as he landed gracefully on his feet. He gave Tim a crooked grin, teeth flashing in a feral way that would make any sane person shiver in fear. Tim wasn’t sane. Apparently, neither was Duke. “Sure is, Timberly. Now tell us about your problems! Emotional, physical, anything but sexual. If your problems are sex-related then go to Steph.”

Duke retracted his arms from around Tim and smacked his face with his hand, letting out a tired sigh. He was clearly starting to regret enlisting Jason’s help. 

Tim pretended not to sulk at the loss of physical contact.

“Look, clearly you’ve got some… issues you need to talk to someone about,” Duke interrupted. He sat down on the large bed in the middle of the room and tugged Tim gently so that he fell next to him. As soon as Tim sat next to him, he wrapped an arm around him in a side hug.

Tim ignored how much better that made him feel.

“And so here we are. A neutral party for you to talk to.” Duke gestured between himself and Jason. He paused, took in Jason’s smirk and rephrased his previous statement, “Well, mostly neutral. Jason is probably biased.”

Jason snorted. He settled himself on the floor across from them with his back against the cream-painted wall and one leg stretched out.

The trio waited in silence for one of them to speak. Jason and Duke seemed content to wait until Tim decided to open up, which could take a while but it was okay because both of them were stubborn bastards and would wait until he felt like he could talk to them.

Tim sighed and let his head fall against Duke’s shoulder. He was just so tired.

“I’m tired.” He eventually whispered, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to look at their faces. “All the time. I can’t sleep.”

Duke’s arm tightened around him.

“Your insomnia again?” Jason asked.

Tim nodded his head yes, “Yeah.”

“That sucks dude, I’m sorry.” Duke muttered.

Tim shrugged, “Nothing you can do about it, just gotta deal with it.”

Neither Duke nor Jason seemed to know what to say in response. 

“I just– I hate how slow it makes me.” Tim murmured. His cheeks went red with embarrassment and he resisted the urge to hide his face in the crook of Duke’s neck. “I can’t concentrate on anything and I zone out. I make dumb decisions and people get hurt and it’s my fault because I should be better than that. I am better than that.”

“Dick getting hurt wasn’t your fault Tim.” Duke frowned.

“It was. I knew I was tired, knew I shouldn’t be out and still went out anyway. I wasn’t honest with you guys, I should have told you.”

“You’re right.” Jason agreed.

Tim snapped his head up from Duke’s shoulder to stare at him, “What?”

Jason had literally never agreed with him before about anything, unless it was to spite Bruce or Dick. Neither were present right now. 

“Not all that bullshit about Dickie getting hurt being your fault, s’not like you pulled the trigger is it? I’m talking about you telling us when you’re struggling. We can’t help if we don’t know what’s wrong, which I’m sure is part of why you don’t tell us, and as much as I hate to admit it, you’re damn good at hiding when you’re not okay Timbo. It’s shitty and you need to stop doing it. For your own good.”

Duke nodded his agreement, gently guiding Tim’s head back onto his shoulder with one hand.

There was a brief quiet while Tim processed Jason’s words.

“I guess.” Is eventually what he came out with in response. 

Jason raised an eyebrow at him and Tim sighed loudly and dramatically, rolling his eyes, “Okay fine. I’ll try to be more open… it’s just… I–”

Duke hummed an encouragement. 

Tim took a deep breath and then laid his heart bare for them to see.

“–I have this thing where I need everyone to think I’m the greatest. Quote unquote the incredible Timothy Drake, the invincible Red Robin. And if they aren’t completely knocked out and dazzled and slightly intimidated by me, I don’t feel good about myself.” Tim admitted, pulling his knees up to his chest and tucking his chin on the top of them. A stray tear made its way down his cheek, which was impressive considering he had thought he had no tears left to cry after his earlier breakdown. “I can’t talk to you guys about stuff because then you’d know I’m not perfect. And when I’m not perfect, stuff goes wrong. Like today.”

Jason stared at him with wide eyes. “Fuck, Timmy. That’s deep.”

“Jason!” Duke admonished.

“What?! It’s true.” Jason responded snappily, “Timbo gets more and more relatable as the days go on… he’s like a mini-me! Without all the death trauma.”

Tim let out a watery snort at Jason’s morbid joking and Duke’s scandalised tone. 

“I mean he’s sort of right, Duke… I stole Robin from him, Damian stole Robin from me. He has emotional issues with Bruce, I have emotional issues with Bruce. He adopted a new edgy identity with ‘red’ in the name, I adopted a much cooler identity with ‘red’ in the name. He–”

“Okay! Okay! We get it!” Jason interrupted before Tim could begin to really rip him to shreds with his psychoanalysis. 

Duke let out an undignified laugh that then caused the other two to laugh too. They descended into unhinged giggles, the emotion of the night finally catching up to them in the early hours of the morning. 

Duke was actually crying with laughter. Tim could feel his tears landing in his hair as the younger teen’s body shook so hard with laughter that the entire bed wobbled.

This continued for a concerning amount of time as every time they started to calm down again, one of them would make eye contact with another and be set off laughing again. It was the sort of ridiculous situation you could only truly experience with your siblings or closest friends.

Their laughing fit lasted so long that it actually attracted concern from nearby members of the family. Bruce cracked open the door, peaking in a little to make sure the Joker hadn’t broken in or something. An expression of complete confusion settled on his face upon finding three of his children in tears of laughter over seemingly nothing. 

He swiftly exited before he could be noticed. 

Nope. Not dealing with that. He’d hit his emotion-quota for the day. 

Someone else could deal with them if they got out of hand. 

Tim eventually calmed down enough to grin, “You guys are idiots.” 

“You love us.” Duke responded, clearly happy to see Tim laughing again instead of crying.

Tim grimaced in disgust, although the joy in his eyes gave him away, “Not really.”

When Tim eventually emerged from wherever he'd been hidden with Duke and Jason, Dick had managed to find Damian and even managed to get him to talk about his feelings (personally, Dick felt like he deserved an award for that, Damian was just as bad as Tim and Jason when it came to talking about emotions). The two were now sitting at the table in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate that Alfred had made for them. 

Dick’s mug was the one that Damian had shyly presented him with on his birthday. He’d made it in art class at school. It was Nightwing-blue and had a bat-symbol crudely scratched into the side. It was his favourite mug. 

Damian was using a red mug that had been Jason’s favourite mug when he was younger. It was cracked and chipped from one of the many breakdowns Dick had had upon hearing the news about his younger brother’s death. 

Not one of his finer moments he’ll admit. Smashing the mug had only made a mess he had then had to clean up (he refused to let Alfred do it).

Alfred had stayed up all night fixing it, painstakingly glueing the pieces back together, and then returned it to the cupboard the next day. Dick had promptly broken down into tears again at the sight of the mug when he went to make himself coffee the next morning.

Damian stiffened when Tim walked in flanked by Duke and Jason but wisely stayed silent.

Tim ignored the younger boy and beelined towards the cupboard where he kept his coffee stash.

Duke grabbed him by the back of his overly-large hoodie before he could get there and Tim made a disgruntled noise of annoyance; his legs were still attempting to walk forwards as his brain caught up with the fact he had been captured. 

At some point between the cave and entering the kitchen, Duke and Jason had managed to force Tim out of his Red Robin suit and into normal clothes. He was now wearing a large pink hoodie – Duke’s Wednesday hoodie, if Dick remembered correctly – and a pair of black sweatpants that were rolled up at the bottom because they were too long for him. They also weren’t Tim’s, probably Duke or Jason’s as well considering Tim was short and they were both much taller than him. 

Dick also noted that Tim was wearing mismatched socks. His right sock had bright red and yellow stripes while his left sock was pink with blue polka dots. Weird.

“Coffee.” Tim demanded like some sort of zombie. Which… fair. He hadn’t had his usual coffee fix yet due to the events of the night. Considering his usual caffeine intake he was probably experiencing major withdrawal symptoms right now. 

“Nope.” Duke said. He deposited Tim in the chair across from Dick and diagonal from Damian. Jason slid into the chair on his left. “No more caffeine until after you nap.”

“Don’t wanna nap.” Tim slurred, his eyes blinking sleepily and completely contradicting his statement.

He looked exhausted. Dick honestly thought he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“Tough shit Timmy.” Jason muttered, passing him the mug of hot chocolate that Alfred had just handed him.

“Language Master Jason.” Alfred reprimanded primly. He set down another mug of hot chocolate in front of the man and gave him a stern look.

“Sorry Alfie.” Jason grinned ruefully.

Duke slid into the chair on Tim’s other side and slid a plate towards him that was piled high with several slices of toast. He was nursing his own mug of hot chocolate. It was just one of those mornings. Alfred always made hot chocolate for everyone after particularly draining patrols or arguments.

An awkward silence fell over the table’s inhabitants. 

The only sound was the dishes clinking together as Alfred washed them and placed them in the drying rack next to the sink. He was humming to himself as he did so, seemingly unbothered by the tension in his kitchen.

Damian was staring intently at his drink.

Tim was picking at his nails and stealing glances at the other boy when he thought no one was looking.

Jason, Duke and Dick were watching the two of them with exasperation.

Tim wheezed as Jason elbowed him in the side. He almost choked on the bite of toast he was chewing. “Ow! What the fuck Jason! You have bony elbows!” 

“ Language Master Timothy.” Alfred sighed tiredly. 

“Sorry Alfred.” Tim muttered, glaring at Jason and rubbing his side.

“Talk to him.” Jason hissed back and very indiscreetly gestured towards Damian.

Damian’s staring got more intense. He was pointedly ignoring the whispered interaction happening just across the table from him.

Duke privately thought that if he stared at his mug like that much longer it might just explode. Like something from Matilda or Harry Potter. 

Has Damian seen either of those films? Duke knew that Dick and Damian had frequent Disney movie nights, having joined many of them himself, but he wasn’t sure if they’d expanded outside of Disney movies yet. He should suggest to Dick that they watch one of them on their next movie night.

Tim groaned and turned to Damian.

For a moment he seemed lost as to what to say and there was another awkward silence. He attempted to clear his throat but ended up choking on his own spit and began coughing loudly. Duke thumped him on the back. Tim felt like sinking to the floor and never getting up again. Instead, he compromised with a stilted, “Hey Damian.”

Damian looked up from his mug but kept his gaze fixed firmly on Tim’s hairline rather than his eyes. “Good morning Drake.”

“Uh…” Tim glanced at Jason, his eyes panicked as he silently begged for help. Jason shook his head no at him and widened his eyes. Talk to him! Tim widened his eyes back and tilted his head slightly. I don’t know what to say! Duke face-palmed again. These idiots.

Thankfully, Dick smoothly intervened before it could get anymore awkward, “Someone needs to patrol with Damian tonight. Bruce is leaving for JL business, Steph and Cass are having a girl’s night, I’m obviously out of commission for a while,” Tim winced and a guilty look flashed across his face so Dick added, “Which is not anyone’s fault but my own.”

Jason shrugged, “Can’t. Demon brat will have to patrol with one of them.” He jerked a thumb at Tim and Duke and stole the slice of toast that Tim had been about to bite into.

“We can both patrol with him.” Duke volunteered for both of them. Tim startled and turned to stare at him with wide eyes which clearly said what the fuck Duke. Duke ignored him and continued speaking, “Three is safer and more effective than two anyway.”

Tim looked apprehensive but stayed quiet. He stole his slice of toast back from Jason before the older man could finish it off. He blinked slowly and his head drooped slightly before he snapped it back up.

“Need I remind you all about the no-work-talk in the kitchen rule?” Alfred gently chastised. He placed a large plate in the middle of the table. It was piled high with freshly cooked chocolate chip cookies.

“Sorry Alfred,” Dick apologised, taking a cookie.

“Yeah, sorry Alfred.” Duke agreed.

The others stayed silent. Jason was trying to fit as many cookies into his mouth as possible while Damian and Tim watched him, both looking equally disgusted.

They continued to eat in silence until suddenly, Tim collapsed. He pitched forwards in his seat and if it wasn’t for Duke’s fast reflexes he would have face-planted right onto his plate of toast and cookies.

Dick made a noise of alarm as Duke caught his head, “What– is he okay?”

Jason made a noncommittal noise, “Is anyone okay in this godforsaken family?”

Duke rolled his eyes at Jason and answered Dick’s question, “Sort of. Yes and no. He’s not sleeping again and the argument drained what little energy he had left. Hence…” He shrugged, gesturing with his head to his armful of unconscious Tim. He had manoeuvred him so that he was leaning against him and his head was now lolling to the side on Duke’s chest.

“Oh.” Dick felt terrible. How had he not noticed that Tim wasn’t sleeping again? He used to be the first person Tim would come to when he couldn’t sleep, had they really grown apart that much?

“C’mon, let's get you to bed.” Duke murmured. He hoisted Tim into his arms so he didn’t have to wake him to get him upstairs.

Tim made a groggy noise of displeasure and scrunched his face at the movement.

Dick watched them go and couldn’t help but feel like he had failed Tim as an older brother. Again.

Surprisingly, the patrol went well. Damian and Tim didn’t argue once. They in fact even spoke to each other civilly a few times. Granted it was simple stuff like “Stopped a mugging, need pick up for a man and three kids two alleys over” but Duke was impressed nonetheless. So was Dick when he relayed this to the man later that night.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the two started spending more time together. They would patrol together (always with a third person present, just in case). Dick had started inviting Tim to their movie nights and more surprisingly, Tim had accepted. They would sit at opposite ends of the couch with Dick and Duke in between them, but they were in the same room. More importantly, they were in the same room and not arguing or glaring at each other. Sometimes they’d both volunteer to help Alfred wash the dishes and then stand awkwardly on either side of Alfred, not talking as they dried the dishes.

They didn’t talk about the argument, but that was okay. 

Both parties had been subjected to long talks about their emotions with Dick (and also Bruce, whose talk had obviously included a PowerPoint with 56 slides) and had their skewed perspectives righted. 

Well… mostly righted. They were still proving to Tim that he didn’t have to be perfect all the time and that it was okay for him to not be okay. He was getting there. Slowly. Damian was still working on his jealousy issues, but he didn’t take it out on Tim anymore and that was progress.

The first time Robin and Red Robin went on patrol together without third party supervision, they didn’t tell anyone. Upon finding out who was currently patrolling together, Dick almost had a nervous breakdown and then proceeded to wait in the cave with an equally nervous Bruce until they returned. Hopefully they wouldn’t need the first aid kit to deal with any injuries that the two were probably-maybe-possibly currently inflicting on each other.

They’d been shocked to say the least when the duo walked into the cave a few hours later and nodded respectfully at each other before parting. No words were exchanged. Neither of them had injuries.

Bruce and Dick had been too shocked to do anything other than watch them exit the cave in silence.

The next major milestone happened on a random Saturday morning a few weeks later. They were having a family breakfast, because Bruce insisted on having one once a week (he was weird like that) and this time it had fallen on Saturday. Surprisingly, everyone was present.

Tim and Damian were sat opposite each other. Tim was talking to Steph about a true crime show he was currently watching. He was slandering the people who made it, complaining about their complete idiocracy when it came to respecting the victims and their families.

“Tim, pass the butter please?” Damian asked primly.

Tim choked on his scrambled eggs. Steph whacked his back.

“What?” He rasped when he had eventually stopped coughing, staring at Damian with wide eyes. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly.

Damian rolled his eyes, “Pass the butter Tim.”

Bruce dropped his coffee mug back onto the table, ignoring how its contents splashed slightly over the edges. Did Damian just call Tim by his first name?

“Okay.” Tim passed him the butter, several emotions flickering across his face before his lips curved into a small smile.

“Thank you Tim.” Damian replied, taking the butter from him.

Dick promptly burst into tears causing everyone to turn and look at him with bewildered and concerned expressions.

He waved a dismissive hand, “Nothing, it’s nothing. I’m fine really, it’s all good.”

After that, Damian made sure to use Tim’s name when talking to him as much as possible. Not because the surprised and joyful expression on his face every time he did so made him feel warm inside (it didn’t, shut the hell up), but because the shocked reactions of everyone around them when he did it made it worth it (yes. That’s definitely why he now called Tim by his name and not his last name). 

Tim and Damian even started a counter for the number of times Dick burst into tears (14) and Bruce dropped whatever he was holding (9).

Their third major milestone happened after a patrol where Red Robin had gotten injured.

It wasn’t too bad. He had taken a knife to his leg after he had moved in front of a weapon thrown at Robin, who had his back turned to his opponent and wouldn’t have moved in time. It was on a deadly trajectory and would have hit him right between his shoulder blades.

Tim had dropped down from the building above him and intercepted the weapon midair. With his leg. Ow. 

Damian was weirdly upset about it. He wasn’t crying, because Damian rarely ever cried, but he was damn close to it.

He hovered next to Tim the whole way back to the cave and then loomed behind Alfred as the man cleaned and wrapped the wound. 

Once Alfred stepped back, cleaned up his medical supplies and disappeared, he did something that shocked Tim and all the gathered bat-family. 

He hugged Tim. 

Voluntarily. 

Tim froze for a second, unused to the feeling of being hugged by someone so much smaller than him.

Damian’s face was pressed into his chest, hiding his face from view, and his arms were wrapped tightly around Tim’s lower back.

Slowly, Tim brought his arms up to hug Damian, resting his arms around the younger boy's shoulders, and relaxed slightly.

Ever so slowly his muscles untensed.

Okay, this was kind of nice. 

Somewhere behind them, he heard Dick burst into tears again and the sound of Duke shushing him.

A camera flashed.

Tim turned his head to glare at Jason, who had snapped a photo of the duo. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and his glare intensified.

Jason, who had just sent the photo to the family group chat, grinned mischievously. “Blackmail material.”

“Fuck off Jason.” Tim replied, turning back to Damian and burying his chin in his hair.

“Language Master Timothy!” Alfred’s voice echoed down the stairs of the batcave. 

Tim snorted. He felt Damian’s body shake a little as he giggled slightly.

Yeah, Tim thought to himself, maybe he could get used to this.