Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Dick didn’t expect to return to the Manor in defeat. When he had established the challenge with the others and Tim, he had expected an easy win. Dick honestly hadn’t thought Tim could pull it off. That kid had to be the most socially awkward person Dick had ever met, and Dick had been to alternate universes. There should have been nothing but assured victory and yet, here he was, slumping into the dining room in defeat.

Still, the night hadn’t been a total loss. Dick had met the most beautiful woman in the multiverse and even danced with her. Dick did have to admit that her more profound interest in Jason had been somewhat unexpected. Not that he would ever tell Jason that, mostly because it was likely to hurt Jason’s feelings, and when Jason’s feelings got hurt, he tended to punch people or stab them, and Dick was not in the mood for either.

Dick knew that Jason was attractive, all of Bruce’s children, biological and adopted, were. But Dick could admit that he wasn’t used to not being at the top of that food chain. Either way, Dick had gone home with a new friend and the knowledge that his little brother was going to have a very, very good night if he was reading Andromache’s cues right.

Which was why Dick was standing in the doorway to the dining room staring at his little brother in blatant surprise.

Jason was seated at the table chatting animatedly with Tim, who looked like he had gotten zero sleep last night, not that that was a new look for the younger man. But what was shocking was the Tim and Jason were moving around each other with an ease and familiarity that they had not previously had.

“Are you planning to linger long in the doorway? Some of us would like to eat sometime this morning.” Damian said, his voice lacking his usual bite and venom.

Dick wasn’t surprised by that, given the way Damian had left the gala last night. Embarrassed was no doubt a kind word for what Damian was feeling. Humiliation was probably closer to the truth. At least Damian’s first boner was for a beautiful, exotic model. It could have been so much worse.

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Dick had ended up getting his first boner during training…with Bruce. Bruce had been shirtless and sweaty at the time and Dick’s teenage hormones had suddenly decided that Bruce was the sexiest thing in the entire world. That moment also provided the entirely unwelcome, at the moment, knowledge that both genders appealed to Dick. Dick, at that moment, had prayed for death to come take him before he utterly died of embarrassment.

Dick and Bruce hadn’t been able to look at each other for weeks after that. To this day when the subject came up, Dick still wasn’t able to look Bruce in the eye.

Jason on the other hand had gotten his first mid-spar with Dick. Jason being Jason had just laid back with a cocky smile on his face and blatantly propositioned Dick. Dick was man enough to admit that his brain completely shut down before restarting. Dick had practically screamed “No!” at the poor kid before blundering his way through the most awkward explanation for his reaction ever.

Dick had never known how Tim had gotten his first and he didn’t think he wanted to know. Tim tended to have disturbing and alarming answers to questions like that. Answers that tended to involve people like Ra’s Al Ghul and other known, and extremely terrifying, supervillains. Like when they all found out that Tim had lost his spleen and his answer had been that he’d gotten shanked in the side by some asshole from the Council of Spiders while in the middle of the Iraqi desert. There had also been one time that an answer in that general vein of sex questions had involved Slade Wilson and Lex Luthor’s incredibly dubious morality when it came to underage drinking. After that, they didn’t ask those kinds of questions anymore.

Dick stepped to the side and allowed Damian through before following after and seating himself at the table. Tim looked over and beamed up at them. Dick blinked a few times at the wide smile on his little brother’s face. Dick couldn’t remember the last time Tim had looked so happy or smiled so widely.

“Did you have fun last night?” Tim asked.

“As a matter of fact, I did. I met a woman last night who was surprisingly educated given her chosen profession. She was also quite beautiful.” Damian informed him without any trace of shame.

“Morning boys,” Bruce grunted, stumbling in and aiming for the coffee pot like it held all the answers to life. Which, in this household, it kind of did.

Halfway there Bruce froze, backed up a few steps, and stared at Jason who was smirking.

“Jaylad, it’s good to see you,” Bruce said in something like surprise.

“Yes, yes, it is, isn’t it?” There was something knowing in Jason’s voice that had both Dick and Damian bristling slightly.

That tone never boded well for anyone and tended to be followed by things like severed heads in dirty duffle bags.

“Well, Timmy, I have to admit. You beat us last night. I didn’t recognize you at all, hell I don’t even think I met you last night. I will say though, I thought you’d be a little more upset about losing the challenge, Jay. But then again, you did go home with Andromache last night.” Dick said with a leering smile.

Dick and Damian turned to stare at Bruce as the man promptly spewed his boiling hot coffee all over the countertop at Dick’s words. Damian looked disgusted and Dick merely raised an eyebrow.

“Alfie is going to kill you for making a mess all over his clean counter.” Dick pointed out.

Interestingly enough, both Jason and Tim went red, while Bruce, uncaring of the scalding coffee dripping down his bare chest, stared at both boys in horror.

“Indeed, Drake, as much as it pains me to say this. You won the challenge. Though I still don’t believe you were even there last night.” Damian said going for a sneer but not quite managing it.

No doubt he was still riding the high from last night's meeting with Andromache.

Tim looked over at Jason who shrugged at him before smirking. This resulted in a pained whimper from Bruce who had apparently crashed all systems at the moment and did not look like he was going to be restarting anytime soon.

Tim smoothly stood from his seat and settled on the table between Damian and Dick. Both boys eyed him warily. Tim turned to Damian and lifted a hand daintily and lightly caressed Damian’s cheek before smiling softly.

“Of course, I was there, Damian, and I did so enjoy our dance.”

Damian’s eyes went wide in utter shock before his face went carefully blank. He calmly and silently stood from his seat and left the room. Dick was too busy gaping at Tim in horror to worry about Damian. Dick’s eyes were locked onto the long, scarlet-painted nails that Tim was sporting. Nails that Dick had seen on the hand of a particularly stunning model last night.

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It took about three seconds before it sank in and Dick made a wounded sound that had Tim chuckling in the same voice he had used for Andromache last night. Tim leaned in and lightly ran one long nail down Dick’s face.

“I think I win this one, Richard.” Tim breathed before sliding off the table in a move that was far too sensual for his little brother and plopping himself in Jason’s lap with a victorious grin.

Bruce.exe was still broken, though at least he now had Dick to stare in horror with.

Dick’s brain was still too busy trying to wrap itself around the fact that he actively hit on his little brother, there had been touching goddammit, to be overly concerned with Damian’s previous exit. Though Dick had a suspicion that Damian was probably experiencing some kind of sexual crisis. Not that Dick could blame him in the slightest because it just did not compute in Dick’s head that the most beautiful woman in the multiverse was, in fact, Dick’s socially awkward little brother.

Like, what the fuck was Dick supposed to do with that?

Bruce.exe finally rebooted. Silently Bruce refilled his coffee and trooped over to the table and sat down with the air of a condemned man. The look on his face said he had given up on life as a whole and for “Jesus to come take me now”. Distantly Dick thought to himself that he had never seen Bruce look this Done ™ ever, and Dick had managed some shit in his time. If he wasn’t still so horrified, Dick might have been impressed.

Bruce looked up and met Dick’s eyes with a dead, haunted look in his eyes.

“There was a reason I never allowed Tim to take too many of those missions which required crossdressing.” The statement was accompanied by a shudder.

Tim let out an evil cackle when he heard Bruce’s words.

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Dick had never managed to get out of Bruce what it was like working those kinds of missions with Tim and now Dick knew why. Tim made far too convincing of a girl. Bruce had always shut Dick down hard when he came to Gotham looking to borrow Tim for crossdressing missions. Dick couldn’t be anything but thankful for his father’s foresight. However, since Dick enjoyed the suffering of others in his family, he was going to ask. Dick really, really wanted to know what that first crossdressing mission was like and at what point Bruce realized he had made a horrible, terrible, awful mistake.

“Master Timothy, other people are not furniture, a chair if you please, at the table,” Alfred said walking in as if Tim hadn’t been making himself cozy in Jason’s lap.

To be honest, Alfred had probably known long before any of them that this is where Jason and Tim were going to end up.

Tim was still riding the high from traumatizing Dick, Bruce, and Damian that he didn’t even care that Alfred had set a carafe of hot chocolate on the table instead of coffee. Tim just happily poured himself a cup and snuggled into Jason’s side with a happy hum. Neither Bruce nor Dick had ever seen Alfred look so pleased. If that wasn’t a glowing recommendation for a relationship, then Dick didn’t know what was.

“While I am pleased by this development, Master Jason, Master Timothy, I still expect proper decorum in the public areas of the house. You will not be emulating Master Bruce and his varied partners, am I clear?” Alfred stated.

The horrified look was back on Bruce’s face while Tim, Jason, and Dick were all looking anywhere but at Bruce.

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It was unfortunate, to say the least, that all of them had caught Bruce and a partner at some point over the years, often more than once and Bruce was always appropriately horrified at those moments. Luckily, his thing with Selina meant that Damian had not been subjected to this, and hopefully, he never would be. Dick figured that Bruce’s look was more of the realization that he had not been as sneaky as he had thought, and Alfred had caught him in flagrante at some point.

“Understood, Alfred.” Tim choked out.

“Excellent. Should I expect Ms. Brown to join us for dinner?”

“Probably,” Jason admitted.

Steph had been making noises in that general direction as Tim and Jason had been leaving earlier that morning. Mostly they thought she wanted to see the fallout of the morning announcement.

She had elected to stay back this morning because she was worried that she would give it away before Tim told Dick and Damian. She probably would have because she was an unrepentant gossip and couldn’t keep her trap shut about something that juicy.

“Is that who you called last night on the way back to your penthouse?” Jason asked.

“Yeah. I told her she could hang out and I told her to clear out when I brought you back.”

“Wait, since when do you have a penthouse?” Dick asked.

“Since you don’t need to worry about it,” Tim answered.

The look on Bruce’s face said he felt otherwise about that.

Breakfast passed silently after that and when it was over Jason and Tim both stood. Dick and Bruce both looked up at them in question.

“We’re heading back to get some more sleep. We didn’t get much last night, plus I’ve got a little bit of work for WE to get done. We’ll see you later.” Tim said tossing a wave over his shoulder as they swept out of the room.

“Do you think Tim actually has WE work to do?” Dick couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t ask those kinds of questions because I don’t want to know the answers. If I did, I'd ask Clark.” Bruce answered.

It took a few seconds for Dick to realize what he meant and went bright red in response. Bruce was right, it was better to not ask those kinds of questions.

“Still, I bet you didn’t see that coming.” Dick pointed out.

“Did you?” Bruce shot back.

“No, but I never said it was a bad thing either,” Dick answered with a smile.

No, Dick didn’t think it was a bad thing, but rather he thought it was the beginning of something new, for all of them. Dick would enjoy watching this development and the twists and turns it was sure to take. Not to mention the reaction that would come of this carrying over into their nighttime identities from some of Tim’s more…ardent suitors.

Either way, it should prove to be very interesting, very interesting indeed.