Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Stop,” Tim says, except his voice is all wrong. It’s hard, serious, and displaced from the groggy, bored tone he’d adopted the entire time he and Damian sat perched in front of the Batcomputer.

Sleuthing through old case files in search of a lead for whoever is behind a string of violent gang activity shouldn’t have caused that voice. And it shouldn’t have caused Tim’s hand to jump out, to snatch Damian’s wrist, keeping it from steering the mouse. 

Damian narrows his eyes. “Unhand me,” he hisses, jerking his arm away. “I am perfectly capable of navigating Father’s files—”

“Not there,” Tim says. 

Damian’s gaze flits to the screen, where their search had tread back several years. Old case files are meticulously ordered and labeled, by date and affiliations. Damian’s attention had snagged on a file with an inconspicuously labeled date, followed by a mere ‘JX3’. Damian’s curiosity had prompted him to click into the file—it was unlike Batman, or any of those he trained, to improperly sort information in the Batcomputer. 

But here, someone had done so anyway.

“I am merely doing due diligence,” Damian says, reaching for the mouse between them. Tim’s hand jumps out to cover it first. For a moment, Damian’s filled with an urge to cut it off at the wrist. He swallows that impulse down. 

“Explain yourself, Drake,” Damian hisses instead, eyes narrowed, fingers itching toward one of the knives concealed on his person. 

Damian is prepared for Tim to deflect, a useless attempt to redirect Damian from whatever is within the file. Damian is prepared to rip through his excuses. But they don’t come. 

Tim merely sighs instead. His hand comes unlaced where it’s closed over the top of the mouse. His voice changes again, not hard, not groggy, but still serious and tired. “Listen, Dames,” Tim says. “I’m not trying to fight with you—just, not that file. That doesn’t have anything to do with this case. It’s…it’s something else. You don't need to see it.” 

“You’ve seen it.” 

Tim sighs again. He blinks hard, the way he does when he’s working to keep a neutral face. “Yeah, I have.” 

Damian scowls, a swell of irritation filling him. He had thought he and Drake had improved from the hostile relationship they shared when Damian first came to Gotham. He had thought that they had become something…more. Had quietly become closer to the brothers Richard insisted they were. But clearly, Drake continues not to trust him, to hold him at arms length, like Damian is an intruder, prodding at their defenses. 

Disappointment, anger, and something Damian quietly recognizes as hurt courses through him. 

Damian draws the knife. 

“Damian!” Tim yelps, nearly falling as the rolling chair beneath him skids back—he’s nearly too slow. But Damian knew he would dodge the blade—sleep deprived or not, Damian must grudgingly accept Tim to be Father’s disciple, and also a recipient of Richard’s training. Not to mention the…other mentors. It would take more than a mere knife attack to incapacitate him. “What are you doing?”

Damian lashes again, this time toward the soft weakness of the back of Tim’s knee. He dodges again, but snatches at Damian’s wrist in the process. It’s with ease that Damian pulls away, but to do so also removes him from within knife-range. He settles quickly into a defensive crouch in case Tim reaches for his Bo Staff, which will give him the advantage of reach. Tim doesn't reach for the staff, and remains unarmed. 

“Damian, stop,” Tim says.

But Damian is coiled. For a moment, his eyes track the pump of tension beneath Tim’s jawline, the arch of his too-skinny ribcage beneath the loose layers of Richard’s sweatshirt. His gaze finds each lethal point and lack of defense. It would be so easy to kill, paralyze, injure. 

“Dami,” Tim says, crossing his arms. 

He's...he's not fighting back. 

And at that realization, Damian feels the tension melt. Huffing, he twists away, knife slipping within the folds of his pants. The nickname, the detested endearment the others insist on bestowing on him, brings him back to Richard’s words, soft and soothing like the hand he rubs in long circles over Damian’s back and shoulders. Richard begging him to use his words, to talk with them—to try. 

Damian would rather wield the knife—that is what he knows. What he knew. But…things are different. Now, even as Tim spars, trading blow back, Damian always expects Tim to dodge the knife, he wants him to. But if Tim won't play his part...

Damian drops himself back into his chair. He hates how small it makes him feel, his toes dipping to trail against the ground, the seat raised to accommodate another family member—Jason, if he had to guess. Slowly, with almost comical care, Tim drops back into his own seat. The look he gives Damian is different that the animosity Damian expects, and maybe that’s why it’s so easy to say something. 

Damian’s gaze flits to the screen, the mockingly present JX3. 

“Why?” Damian asks. “Why can’t I click into it?”

’Why don’t you trust me?’

Tim eyes him wearily, silence begins to stretch. “You’re eleven,” he says finally.

“I am aware of my age.” 

“Shut up for a second,” Tim says. “You might have had an…unusual upbringing, but you’re still eleven. And our family…” Tim seems to be having trouble ordering the words, nervous about lining them up the way he needs. Finally he shrugs. “Our family’s pretty fucked up.” 

“Undoubtedly,” Damian agrees. 

“And Bruce,” Tim says, like Damian didn’t interrupt. “Probably needs like, ten kinds of therapy.” 

“Father is the strongest man in Gotham,” Damian says immediately. “He is the most capable—”

“He’s capable,” Tim cuts him off. “But he makes mistakes. He does things that the rest of us…that not all of us would do.” 

“Spit it out, Drake,” Damian says, because his stomach is twisting at the round-about allusions Tim is making about Father. He wants to know what is behind the file, why he can’t see it, and he doesn’t like the sickening anxiety that’s crawling into place the longer Tim takes to explain it. 

“The X’s on the computer are bad things,” Tim says simply. “They’re files about things that happen to us— the Robins, the Batgirls, Signal—all of us. Sometimes as heroes, sometimes as civilians. Bruce keeps records. It’s like regular cases—there’s mask recordings, first-person accounts, photos…I think it’s a cathartic thing, for him. Something he needs to compartmentalize all the shitty things that happen to us…” Tim blinks hard. “Because there’s a lot of shitty things that happen to us.” 

Damian looks at the JX3, seeing the bold, sharp letters and numbers a little differently. “But you’ve seen them.” 

Tim swallows. “He never told me what they were,” Tim explains. “Just that I shouldn’t go into them. I…I got curious. I broke through his security protocols and watched a couple one night. Not all of them. They were…there’s a reason Bruce said not to look at them.” 

Tim blinks hard, hands squeezing together.

Damian nods slowly, because Tim’s explanation hasn’t included anything about not trusting Damian. “You didn’t want me to see because…” 

“You’re eleven,” Tim repeats, when Damian trails off. “There’s some things I just…I don’t think you should see.” 

“I’m not a child,” Damian says, on instinct. “I’ve killed, I’ve tortured, I've—I’m not innocent, Timothy.” 

Tim shrugs. “You’re not innocent,” he agrees, sadly. “But there’s things in those files, about our family, that hurt. I don’t want you to know about them if you don’t have to, okay?”

Damian thinks about it. Part of him wants to take the mouse anyway, to dive into the files. Because Damian’s ruined, in a way. He’s not someone to be protected from the ugly, dark side of things. There’s no point. But Tim is here, preventing him from seeing the files anyway. Not because he doesn’t trust Damian, but because he wants to protect him.

“Okay?” Tim asks again. 

Damian trails his toe against the cave’s floor, gaze rolling there too. Finally, he nods. “…Okay.”

Tim sighs again, but this time, it’s one of relief. When he speaks again, his voice has dipped closer to the familiar, groggy tone Damian’s come to expect when working with him on cases. 

“Alright,” Tim says, reaching out with a hair ruffle that Damian does not allow. “I think you had the dates about right anyway—what about this case?”

The case, Damian has to admit, appears correct. 

His feet trail the floor, Tim navigates to a new screen, and together they go back to work. 

For now, Damian puts the JX3 file out of his head.

Chapter Text

Damian makes it two days before rolling out of bed. His mind is made-up. He’s no longer upset that Tim’s prevented him from looking at Father’s more cynical files—he understands that his reasoning didn’t come from a place of mistrust. But that doesn’t stop Damian from slipping his shoes on and leaving his room in the quiet dark of the manor at night.

He’s silent, treading across the house, bypassing the security measures to get to the cave. The lights buzz overhead, prominent in the silence, as he approaches the Batcomputer. Damian doesn’t allow himself to hesitate as he sits in front of it. 

As…difficult as Tim made it seem to view those files, Damian has a responsibility to be aware of everything Father finds pertinent enough to keep track of. He’s constantly lecturing each of them of the importance of noting the most scrupulous detail in their case reports. Why would this be any different?

Clinically, Damian repeats the steps from earlier in the week. In moments, he’s back at that same page—staring at those same, forbidding letters. 

JX3. 

Damian grabs the mouse. This time, Tim isn’t there to pull it away. He can’t help a quick glance over his shoulder—scanning the shadows of the cave, like his most detested sibling will spring from their ink and interfere with his plans. But Tim doesn’t materialize. There’s no one stopping Damian from clicking in. 

Immediately, he’s affronted by further security measures. But Damian prepared for this. He plugs in a drive procured earlier that day from Gordan. Damian must defer to her technical prowess—he watches with grudging respect as her program makes progress against the firewalls Father installed. He’ll have to thank her for help with his latest ‘case’.

When the program finally finishes, it’s anticlimactic. One moment code scrawls across the screen, and the next, a video is present.

Damian is trained to take in vast amounts of information, to categorize a scene and react immediately. 

But there’s no reacting to this. 

The video is corrupted, but the gargle of laughter that rings out is unmistakingly violent and cruel. Sinister, red liquid is smeared across concrete in a dark, murky mess. The warehouse depicted is filled with cold shadows and lights that gleam and ache. 

And in the middle of it all. 

Damian’s brother. 

But it’s not Jason how Damian ever knew him—this is Jason before. 

No, Damian thinks, stomach twisted, sourly. This is Jason during. 

His finger twitches—a part of Damian wants to turn the video off. He hasn't expected this. Jason wouldn't want him to watch it, would be furious that Damian is. But Damian's attention is frozen. He watches, heart sinking, as the video rolls on.

Clearly, the footage only covers part of the ordeal. Jason is already covered in blood, bound arms and legs mangled and twisted with broken bones. His bruised skin is swollen and bloody and unrecognizable. The mop of hair that falls over his red eyes is snarled and matted with grease and blood and interior fluids. 

He’s ruined. 

That doesn’t stop the Joker—the clown’s red maw of a mouth tilts viciously as hysterical laughter grates free. His gloved hands, wrapped around the blood-slick expanse of a crowbar, rise into the air. 

Forehand? Or backhand!

Again and again Jason jerks and screams and thrashes against the unforgiving onslaught. The bar falls across the softness of his skin and stomach, the weakness of his ankles and shins, whipping a long cut under his chin in a vicious hit that sends him teetering to the side with a cry Jason barely catches in his teeth. 

The teenager sags. His eyes loll into white and his breaths stutter. He jerks involuntarily at the next several hits until Joker gets tired of the bar.

He circles through other methods of torture. Damian’s seen worse—he’s seen the depravity humans can inflict on each other, the pain. In search of answers, in attempts for retribution. Damian’s contributed to it. 

But there’s something so nauseating about seeing it happen to his family. 

Damian bows over the keyboard, eyes stinging from lack of sleep and the unforgiving brightness of the Batcomputer screen. He takes slow breaths to control his heartbeat. 

Finally, the Joker flings aside a knife—his newest implement of pain. But it’s too late. Jason is gone. Damian knows with certainty, even if Father burst into the warehouse then, at that moment, that the damage would have been too extreme. Jason's life had been forfeit long before it was lost.

Even still, the teenager clings to consciousness with the fight Jason always musters. His eyelashes flutter. A groan crawls free of his mouth, slipping around broken teeth and shattered bone. 

No beauty sleep yet, Robbie! You’re the star of this show…and it’s time for the main event!

Damian’s hands ball into fists. The rise of emotion that crawls up his throat threatens to overwhelm him—all of his training fades away at the sight of the ticking clock. 

The clown leaves, but Damian’s rage outlives his departure. 

On screen, Jason makes heart-breaking progress across the cold emptiness of the warehouse floor. The noises that squeeze out of him are inhuman, unrecognizable. Damian clenches his teeth and watches the painful progress. Finally, Jason reaches the door. He sags against the barrier like a puppet with cut strings.

Damian finds himself hoping, even as an awful understanding and anticipation fill in. If Jason just opens that door, if he just makes it outside—

The door shakes on its hinges, closed. 

Locked. 

The clock clicks down. The ticking is prominent, even over the horrible rattle of Jason’s breathing and the shifting quality of the footage’s audio. 

Ten. Nine. Eight. 

Damian’s heartbeat skips—he can’t help it—and then he’s blinking hard and wrapping his arms around himself and wanting to look away, but he can’t—

Seven. Six. Five. 

Jason’s eyes move. Blink, find the clock. And the fight—the fight he’s always had, even in the League, always at Damian’s side, solid, strong, protection itself—leaves. 

Four. Three.

Damian watches as a horrible acceptance causes Jason’s battered and broken body, and expression, to relax. 

He knew what was going to happen.

Damian inhales, so sharp.

Two—

The video cuts out. 

For a moment, the cave is silent, as frozen as the black screen that encompasses the Batcomputer.

And then Tim’s hands are falling to seize the handrests of the Batchair, spinning it around. Bent over, his face, furious and openly agonized, is right in front of Damian's. 

“What,” Tim says, voice dangerous, shaking in an effort to stay calm. “Are you doing.”

Chapter Text

“I—” Damian begins, only for words to escape him. He remains silent. 

Slowly, Tim peels his hands away from the chair arms. He stays looming over Damian, expression melting into something more controlled. Damian reads the disappointment and uncertainty present in the place of raw feeling, and doesn’t know how to react. His gaze drops to somewhere near Tim’s neck.

“I told you not to watch those,” Tim says. 

Damian crosses his arms. “I remember.” 

“Then why—” Tim cuts out, shakes his head, steps away. He’s slightly turned, one hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Jason wouldn’t have wanted you to see that.”

And Damian knows he’s right. Jason would have hated for anyone to see that footage, much less one of the bats, much less Damian. Damian—who Jason had no problem shoving off of two-story buildings, or smacking on the back of the head, or pinning to a training mat with bruising efficiency—but still interceded in each and every outside attack made against him. Always irritating in his commitment to shielding him. Protecting him. 

“I was well aware of what occurred between Todd and the Joker,” Damian says, not as sharply as he might have mustered on a different occasion. 

“Shut up,” Tim tells him. “You know exactly why this is different.” 

Damian sucks on his teeth. His fingers curl into the fabric of his nightshirt, digging and twisting. There’s a rare sickness penetrating his stomach, turning it. Tightness squeezes his throat. He feels flushed, he feels like he missed a step on the stairs, he feels small. 

He keeps an apology shoved deep inside and pastes a scowl into place instead. 

“Will you inform Todd?” Damian asks. 

Tim lets out a breath. “No,” he says finally. “I don’t know if that would help anything.” 

Damian nods. He doesn’t particularly want to inform Jason either, that he had seen the things the Joker, that monster, had done to his brother. When Damian blinks, he can see red painted across concrete, crowbars catching flickering light, clenched, red-stained teeth and a throat working against animalistic pain. Damian will never admit to Tim that he was right, but in that moment, Damian wishes he had heeded his advice. Had left the video untouched, the way it was meant. 

“You saw the whole thing?” Tim asks. 

“Yes,” Damian says. His fingers dig further into his sleeves, his socked toes run anxiously over the intricacies of the chair’s castors. 

“...you okay?” Tim asks. 

“I am fine,” Damian says, immediately. There can be no question. He forces his toes to still, his hands to release the folds of fabric, even if his fingers itch with the purposeless empty of cold, cave air. 

Tim's eyes run over Damian, too calculating, but he doesn't press. He just shakes his head. “We should get back to bed—you have school in the morning.” Tim's gaze cuts to his watch. With a sigh he rephrases. “In a couple of hours.”

Damian is hit with a nonsensical detachment from his academics. Suddenly, the idea of returning to that building full of children and pretending to engross himself in studies and extracurriculars is an alien expectation. How can he return to that normalcy with what he’s just witnessed? It doesn’t match up. 

But Damian is nothing if not committed. And right now, he needs Tim to believe that Damian remains unaffected by tonight’s experience. He gets up from the chair as Tim’s fingers return to the mouse and keyboard. He properly shuts down the computer, removing the drive Damian inserted to gain access with a twisted frown and disapproving look in his direction. Damian is unworried—if Tim does not intend to inform Jason, the odds of him doing so with Gordan are much smaller. 

Tim pockets the drive and then places a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “C’mon,” he mumbles. 

Magnanimously, Damian allows Tim to steer him into and through the manor. Tim’s hands are warmer than usual, which makes the decision easier. In moments they reach Damian’s door. 

Damian expects Tim to leave him there, to return to his own room, probably to engage in work instead of much needed sleep. But Tim surprised him. He shoves himself right into Damian’s bedroom like his entrance isn’t a question. Here, Damian considers snapping. He’s well aware he made several transgressions tonight—actions he’d prefer Tim keep between the two of them—but Damian is almost prepared for Father and Jason and the rest to find out if it means Tim leaves him alone. 

Ultimately, another flicker of memory shoots through him as the shadows of his bedroom morph into different silhouettes—bent and broken limbs, metal and sharp edges, organic mess. The bedside alarm clock oozing red numbers has never looked so ominous. Tim's presence becomes less intrusive and more warranted.

Damian does not interfere when Tim turns back the duvet. He just drops himself into the welcoming fold of comforters and sheets and pretends like it isn’t warmth and safety that enwraps him when Tim starts dragging the bedclothes into place. 

Damian doesn’t mention when Tim dallies, tucking in his toes, tipping the pillow more ergonomically centered. It’s not something Tim does. Before Damian, he had no younger siblings. But here he is, tucking Damian in like he’s someone who needs it. 

The sensation is both demeaning and…softer. 

Damian doesn't know what to say, or do, and there's a kind of awkwardness to how Tim maneuvers, but when Damian doesn't complain or pull away, the ministrations continue. 

Finally, Tim’s hands fall away. It’s past time for him to return to his own room, both are well aware. 

But Tim waits.

“...are you going to be okay?” he says eventually. Very carefully, he’s not looking at Damian’s face, mostly obscured by the rather thorough tuck-in job. 

“Yes,” Damian says immediately. But then he realizes this response will cause Tim to leave. Leave him alone with dark shadows and memories and this sick, twisted inside that Damian doesn’t know how to unwind. “I just…” he trails off, because Damian doesn’t know what this feeling is, just that he doesn’t like it. Suddenly, Damian's commitment to convincing Tim of his well-being shifts. “I didn’t realize what the video would entail,” he finally offers. “It was…uncomfortable.” 

Tim nods. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Mostly, no, Damian thinks. But he also has a theory that remaining silent about the event will not assist him into removing the horrible twisting to his person. Again, Dick rolls into his consciousness, with soft circles on his back and carefully looking eyes and gentle prodding. Opening Damian’s barriers one by one until Damian shares quiet, heavy things.

Tim is nothing like Dick. But…there’s something about Tim that feels just as sturdy. 

“I think I understand,” Damian says. “Why Todd…why he wanted Father to kill the Joker.” 

“Yeah,” Tim agrees.

“I think…” Damian almost doesn’t say it, because the League assassin, Heir to the Demon, that Mother first placed with Father and Gotham, is long sense repurposed. But tonight has dragged up intentions he remembers. Urges he’s dulled. “I think I would like the Joker dead too.” 

Tim leans back, resting against the bed. One hand subtly rubs Damian’s shin through the layers of blankets. Damian expects admonishment, he expects Tim to remind him of the rule, Bats don’t kill. It wouldn’t be right. But Tim doesn’t. He nods instead. “That’s fair,” he says. 

Damian is surprised. “But Father…”

“Bruce has his code,” Tim says. “And I’ll follow it—most of us do. But some things that people do…” Tim shrugs. “There’s some days where I would kill the Joker too. What he’s done to us, to Jason, to Barbara…he would deserve it.” Tim squeezes his shin. “You’re not the only one, who feels like that, Dames.”

Damian nods. Part of him is relieved, that Tim, one of Father’s more loyal disciples, strict in his adherence to Father’s code, feels similarly. It makes Damian feel less like his assassin background is snapping at his heels. Ready to leap into place like it belongs. 

“I know it was hard to see Jason like that,” Tim adds.

“I have seen worse,” Damian says, ever-reminding. 

Tim sighs. “Yeah. But it’s different.”

Damian has to admit to himself, it is.  But that layer hasn't been pushed open tonight, and Damian would rather not put into words what the worry and pain on Jason's behalf means. 

“Do you…” Tim looks hesitant, and Damian knows he’s about to push his luck. “Will you be alright? Being alone tonight?”

Damian stares at him. “I am not a child needing protection from the boogie-man, Drake.”

Tim has to snort. “Yeah, okay.”

He gets up, joints popping. Damian wrinkles his nose—the household’s entirety could benefit from chiropractic care. But Tim doesn’t seem bothered by the discomfort. He just steps closer to the bedside, and Damian narrows his eyes, but allows the brief hair ruffle Tim bestows. 

“Night, Demon,” Tim mumbles. “I’m down the hall if you need me.”

“Tch,” Damian hisses, twisting his head away and refraining from biting the fingers, withdrawing too-confidently close to his canines. “I will not require your assistance.”

“Course not,” Tim says, rolling his eyes. He goes to leave. 

And at first, Damian is prepared for him to go, to leave without another word, but just as Tim’s foot passed the doorway he’s seized by a tight, unexpected worry. 

“Tim!” he says. 

Tim freezes, twisting back around, eyebrows closing together in an unwelcome concern—

“The clock,” Damian mumbles, before he can lose his nerve. “Would you…?” 

And Tim is far from Dick, warm and soft and safe. But Tim is smart, and sturdy, and understands. He nods, not saying a word as he unplugs the device, freeing the bedroom of the painfully present red, shadowed by a memory of digital numbers clicking down. 

“I’ll wake you up in the morning,” is the last thing Tim says as he leaves. 

Damian rolls over several times after, alone in the room. 

But the twist to his stomach is lessened, and finally, he falls into sleep.

Chapter Text

Tim does as he promised and wakes Damian the next morning. Unfortunately, most of the goodwill he harnessed the night before has clearly evaporated. Damian jerks awake to the freezing chill of stolen blankets. 

“Drake!” Damian hisses, clawing himself out of bed and lunging in Tim’s direction, all signs of sleep lost. But Tim is gone, disappearing, with a grating burst of laughter, into the hall. Far too many vases and artifacts are displayed there. Even Damian doesn’t want to risk broken things and Alfred’s ire this early in the morning. Scowling, he abandons revenge and instead runs through the necessary steps to get ready for school. 

By the time he reaches the breakfast table, nose twisted at the way Duke is half-dressed and scarfing down food in a hurry, Damian’s mood has cooled. He plates his food and works his way through the fruit.

It’s as he’s sitting there, shooting Duke judgmental glances, that the previous night’s events start to infiltrate his thoughts. Damian’s starts to push the food on his plate this way and that, appetite abating. He swallows against memories of rent flesh and eyes that softened in the end. Nausea fills him. 

“Hurry up, dude,” Duke says, and it pulls Damian from his thoughts. “You’ll be late.” 

“As an expert in tardiness,” Damian says, a little harsher than necessary. “Your opinion is noted.”

Duke pauses. “Uh,” he says, but ultimately leaves it. “See you in the car.” 

Damian scowls. 

Damian is, as Richard would so irritatingly put it, ‘in a mood’ for the rest of the day. He stalks class to class, avoiding the teacher’s eyes as they scour for volunteers and answers to questions. He doesn’t engage with the few classmates he has a more positive rapport with. His thoughts wander further and further from the lessons with each passing period. By the end of the day, Damian is looking forward to patrol. He needs something to take his mind off of things—something with violence. 

“Careful, kiddo,” Brown says the first night, when Damian’s footing becomes unacceptably sloppy and his punch extends to a point that allows a thug one lucky hit to his side. 

Damian scowls at her. “Careful of who? The person responsible for your haircut? I’ll alert the authorities if they try to accost me also.” 

Brown narrows her eyes. “You’ve got a bad attitude tonight, Bat-Brat.” 

“At least my attitude can be fixed,” Damian says, with a rather pointed glance in the direction of her new, risky bangs. 

Brown tries to shove him off a roof.

Sunday, Cass’s hand closes around his upper arm at the breakfast table. Her eyebrows furrow into a question as she looks into his eyes. 

Damian has to turn away. He doesn’t want her analyzing, reading, realizing. But Cass must pick up on that sentiment. Her grasp falls away. 

“Okay?” she says instead. 

Damian nods. “I’m fine.” 

Cass doesn’t look convinced. She pours him more juice and loads extra syrup onto his pancakes. 

Which is sort of nice—but not a fix. 

“Dami,” Tim says, coming into his room a couple of days later. “You good?”

“Don’t you knock?” Damian scowls. 

Tim raises an eyebrow. “Why,” he says pointedly. “Are invasions of privacy important to you?”

Damian hates that he has a point. “Get out.” 

“Ugh,” Tim says, stepping inside instead. “Sorry,” he says briefly. “I’m not here to start something—it’s just, everyone’s kind of noticing something is wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong,” Damian has defensively.

Tim rolls his eyes. “Agree to disagree, “ he says, and Damian wants to feed him to Goliath. “I was just…I haven’t told anyone, you know, what happened. But if this is something that’s really bothering you—”

“I’m not bothered!” 

Tim crosses his arms. “Is it something else?”

“There is nothing wrong,” Damian growls. His arms fold together, like a shield. He’s not lying, he has no physical injury, and Damian doesn’t have a particular something that’s ‘bothering’ him, as Tim has put it. 

It’s just…Damian’s felt a little… off, since seeing the video. 

Which doesn’t make sense. Damian shouldn’t be affected—it’s been days, and it wasn’t even him in the video. He’s spoken about it with Tim even, and Dick is always reminding him about how helpful ‘talking through’ a problem can be. Damian’s tried! It should be fine. He should be fine. 

Tim eyes him. 

Like he doesn’t think Damian is fine. 

Finally, Tim sighs. “Okay,” he says. “I believe you.” Even though it sounds like he doesn’t. “Just…you know, if you do need anything you can tell one of us, okay? Doesn’t have to be me.”

“It will not be you,” Damian says, adopting a haughty tone that he knows gets on Tim’s nerves. 

Tim releases a hard-done breath. “Alright, well, Alfred wants you down for dinner in half an hour.” 

“Fine,” Damian says. 

Tim leaves. 

Which is acceptable. Damian understands what he’s been told. He knows that he has to do better at hiding the strange, unprecedented effect the video has had on his mood. That continuous twist that ebbs and kinks his insides. 

Damian understands—he has to pretend.

The next week passes, and Damian does better. He doesn’t jump at every opportunity to argue with his siblings. He participates in class. He trades cordial greetings with other students, and Gala attendants, and workers at the patisserie Cass drags him to. Damian sinks into his usual self. 

And, it starts to work. 

He doesn’t jolt into awareness at odd hours of night, deranged laughter between his ears and the glaring of ticking numbers over the blackness of his closed eyelids. He doesn’t drift into the draft of a warehouse in the between moments of his day. It’s only occasionally that the blackness of the footage crawls over him, dampening his mood. 

And then the breakout happens.

It’s daylight on a Tuesday. Damian is in the lunchroom, sparing disdainful thoughts for the school lunches of the children around him—he’s thankful that Alfred has experimented, perfected, and packed one of his favored dishes from Nanda Parbat—when the chatter of voices grows, the room’s attention turning to the monitors. 

It’s breaking news. It’s a breakout at Arkham—high security, the monitor says. 

Damian ends up in the bathroom. 

He wastes time, pulling up his phone, opening one of the social media applications Stephanie created an account for him on. The Joker is everywhere—brief footage of rubble and smoke and prison garb that does little to hide the pale skin and dark-green hair and smile-scars. Somehow, he’s acquired red paint, smeared in a haphazard resemblance of his usually, broken grin. 

On the coms, orders are made clear—Father and Timothy would reschedule a meeting, Richard and Cass were both available. The four of them would lead the attempts to find and subdue Joker. 

Damian and Duke were to stay in class, Stephanie was to attend her lecture. 

But…Jason is not on the coms. 

So Damian opens a window. 

Chapter Text

Damian

Damian checks three safehouses before he finds the one with lights on. 

The blinds are drawn, but he spies the telling glow of occupation in the gap above the sill, even in the daylight. Damian wastes no time. 

The chill invades his eyes, red and stinging, as he flits between rooftops. Damian tugs the cuffs of his blazer down, covering half of his pale and stiff fingers. He scouts the surrounding area. Part of him expects to find shadowed figures in doorways, or bloody handprints on broken windows. But the block is free of danger—no smile-sporting clowns, no hired henchmen. 

Daman sniffles the cold in his nose. A prickle of alertness remains, gathering at the base of his skull and slipping down his limbs, like spiders. Like trapping webs. He knows, it won’t go away until he finds what he came for. Jason. 

Eyes narrowed, Damian uses a wrist computer to connect to Jason’s security system. He’s glad this safehouse is one of Jason’s ‘compromised’ places. That the Bats are aware of it. It means Gordan and Tim helped with coding the system—it means it’s easy for Damian to disable the security. Even as his wrist computer flashes green and the safeguards fall away, Damian drops to the casing of the lit window. The task of manually unlocking the window itself and sliding inside, silently, is even easier. 

Damian’s been to this safehouse once before, but he was bleeding then. Held, reluctantly, in Richard’s arms as crimson soaked through Robin yellow and Jason swept dishes off a kitchen counter and shepherded him onto the surface like a grocery bag. Twenty-eight stitches later, Damian was groggy and hurting and susceptible to the hug Richard used to sprawl him over Jason’s couch. 

Now, spaghetti boils on the stove, a candle is burning the scent of lilac in the air, and rosemary and thyme drifts from the rosy glow of an oven. A Christmas song spills out of an Alexa. Damian lets the window close, cheeks flushing red from the room’s warmth, and shuffles further inside. The movement settles like a misstep. Down the hall, comes the flush of a toilet. 

Damian’s fingertips, fissured by cold, twitch toward one of his knives. But sensibly, he doesn’t draw it. The click of an opening door. The shadow of a silhouette blooming onto scuffed hardwood. And then—

A sigh.

“Bat-Brat,” Jason says, looking unsurprised. His arms pull into a familiar cross. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

But Damian has arms of his own. He folds them, meeting all of Jason’s exasperation with the most stubborn genes he can drag into his furrowed eyebrows and narrowed eyes. “You did not answer your comm.”

Jason, drifting over to stir the pasta, pauses, shoulders straightening. “Something happened,” he says urgently, even as he’s spinning on his heel and ruffling through the crumpled form of a balled-up sweatshirt, discarded on a kitchen bar-stool, pulling out his comm—

“The Joker escaped from Arkham at 12:33 this afternoon,” Damian says, on his wrist computer, reenabling Jason’s security. Jason looks up in alarm, mouth open, but Damian plows on before he can interrupt. “Father, Drake, Cain, and Richard responded to the crisis. Drake is investigating the asylum as we speak. Father is collaborating with the Commissioner. Cain and Richard are interrogating underground contacts for information. Gordon is also assisting. There have been no indication of his whereabouts. And you,” Damian narrows his eyes. “Were not answering communications.” 

Jason raises an eyebrow. “I was in the shower,” he says. “Guess I forgot to grab the comm after.”

“Inexcusable,” Damian tells him. “Your negligence could have resulted in casualties. What if a distress beacon was activated?”

“I mean,” Jason says, voice trailing off as he heads toward his bedroom. “I think we’ve got bigger fish to fry here.”

Damian frowns and follows him, only to find Jason thumbling a combination lock on a trunk. It pops open to reveal a familiar, red helmet. “Todd,” Damian snaps, bristling. “What are your intentions?”

Jason just rolls his eyes, nodding down toward his pajama pants. “Well I’m not fighting crime in flannel.”

“You are not fighting crime at all!” Damian thrusts himself between Jason and the trunk, eyes narrowed, arms crossed, lips stretched with dangerous displeasure. “Father has the situation in hand.” 

“Damian, what the hell,” Jason says, the faintest sign of confusion in his furrowed eyebrows. “Clown means all hands on deck.” 

“Father has subdued this criminal long before Richard joined his crusade—”

“Yeah, but he has the help now,” Jason says, and then he’s batting Damian away. Damian allows himself to be nudged to the side, but very firmly slams the trunk’s lid back into place. 

“No,” Damian says again, the flicker of something other than disapproval in his voice. He grimaces internally, hoping Jason won’t notice the difference, but Jason was raised by the world’s greatest detective. He was mentored by Damian’s own mother, and learned to read Damian and his tells before Damian knew them himself. He zeroes in on the shake to Damian’s voice like a shark on chummed seas.

“What’s going on?” Jason asks him, and the forced ease and teasing confidence to his tone is gone, replaced by something tempered. “Damian, why are you here?”

“You were not answering your comms,” Damian says again. He is Grandson of the demon, heir of the Batman, so he does not lower his gaze, but he moves it lateral to Jason’s searching eyes. “The Joker is at large.”

Jason cuts to the quick of it. “Were you worried about me?”

Damian does not answer. 

“You were worried,” Jason sighs. He lowers a hand to Damian’s shoulder, squeezing cold muscle and rubbing circles with his thumb. “I’m fine, Dames.”

Damian fidgets. “The Joker is a capable adversary.” 

Jason huffs out a breath. “Yeah, he can get…” he shakes his head. His hand moves to Damian’s nape, running through his hair in a gesture that usually brings comfort—the kind of comfort once stolen in secret minutes outside the eye of servants and spies, which were often the same. “But I’m okay. And I need to go help the others now—the sooner we can get him back behind bars, the better. Okay?”

Damian follows his conclusion. There’s no reason for Jason not to put on the helmet and integrate his connections with Gotham’s vast criminal network. No reason for Jason not to help track down the Joker, the threat that he is. There are so many reasons in favor of Jason helping. 

….but Damian’s jaw aches as his teeth grind and his stomach squeezes and turns in the throes of queasy memories. The muted noises of sinew snapping and skin tearing and blood dropping to damp, cold concrete….the sound of a final exhale. The sound of Jason—

One of his hands jerks up before he can think to do anything different, clasping Jason’s wrist in a vice-like hold. His skin is so warm, Damian's fingers are purple and cold. The disparity only heightens the instinctive motion, and it’s give-aways.

 “No,” is all Damian can say.

And then there’s a moment of silence. Silence where Jason peers at him, closely, scanning. The confusion is blatant in his gaze now, and Damian avoids those eyes, blue, green like home. The quiet stretches. 

It’s Jason that breaks it. “Okay,” he says. “Come with me?”

Damian is hit with the implications of what he’s done. Jason realizes something is wrong, because why else would Damian be preventing him from doing his job? From helping to save the people of Gotham, from helping their family. Damian shouldn’t have said something. This was a mistake, he needs to retreat. Perhaps Jason will forget about the instance….

“I,” Damian says. “You should—the hood. You should assist….” 

“‘S’okay,” Jason says, dismissively. 

All attempts to don his Red Hood gear have disappeared. Replaced by fingers clasped lighting around Damian’s upper arm, tugging him out of the bedroom and toward the kitchen, which extends into a living area. Jason deposits Damian on the couch. Deftly, he drops a blanket over Damian’s head. 

“Todd!” Damian complains, pulling himself free, pops of static nipping around his ears. 

“One sec,” Jason says. “Gotta try to save this—”

He flits around the kitchen, stirring pasta with a discontent look, opening the oven for a check that lets seasoning and the hearty aroma of cooking meat billow through the apartment. The holiday music drones on, pattering through jubilant notes that fill the air. 

Damian clutches the blanket hesitantly. “Jason…?”

“One sec,” Jason says again. “You can find something to watch if you want—remotes on the table.” 

Damian stares. “But the Joker—”

“The others will handle it,” Jason says. He’s got a Red Arrow oven mitt on and is pulling racks out of the oven. “This is more important.” 

…Damian is not all too certain what this is. But he slowly pulls the blanket around his middle. It’s crochet, yarn woven together tightly. Wrapped around him, it traps heat and settles something bristly and uneven on Damian’s axis. The scent of lilac has permeated it. Damian settles, clicking on the television. He finds a show that occupies him well-enough, a reality show about the ongoings of a horse-farm. He watches the horses be led through a vet visit, interspaced with periodic glances toward Jason. 

It was meatballs, in the oven. Jason has them cooling as he strains slightly overcooked pasta and pulls another pan off a back burner, filled with red sauce that bubbles and steams and sloshes with the weight of onions and green peppers too. The music is turned down. Two bowls are procured, with forks to match. Jason pours water glasses and grabs napkins and walks the whole set-up into the living room, ignoring the way Damian’s gaze follows him. He pauses on his final pass, two glasses balanced in a hand, and uses the other to turn up the thermostat. 

Then he drops onto the couch at Damian’s side.

“Alright kiddo,” Jason says, turning toward him seriously. “Tell me the truth. You skip school?”

Damian was not quiet expecting this question. He shrugs. “I left,” he admits. “Early.” 

Jason nods. “I’ll call.” 

And he does. Dialing up Gotham Academy, Jason does a wonderful job of curving his words into the inconspicuous accent wealthier Gothamites use, removed from the twisted Crime City slant that helped teach a younger Damian English. He calls himself Richard Grayson, and winks at Damian when he was to give an authentication code, rattling it off with ease. 

“Timmy’s birthday,” Jason gives as an explanation when he’s done.

Damian did not ask, but nods. 

“Here,” Jason passes him a plate. “Dig in.” 

It’s not the first time Damian has tasted Jason’s cooking. His bowl is missing the meatballs, but the sauce looks delectable enough. He is happy to comply. For the next half an hour they sit in silence, broken by the noises of fork tines on ceramic and the bright sounds of day-time television. Damian is slightly on edge, more than thrown about how this visit has proceeded, but he pokes at nothing. 

Jason pulls out his phone again at one point, and Damian catches a glimpse of a text-message thread before Jason casually turns the screen outside of Damian’s view-point. He leaves that alone too.

The show finishes at the same time Jason stands. “Gimme,” he says, and then he’s taking both of their bowls back to the sink, washing and drying them. He packages up the leftovers. 

Damian has a bad feeling about the cleaning up, and it’s proven correct when Jason returns to the couch and immediately reaches for the remote. He mutes the volume and looks at Damian.

“So,” Jason says. “You wanna talk about it?”

“There is nothing to discuss,” Damian dismisses.

Jason rolls his eyes. “That is such bullshit.” 

Damian picks a bit of lint on his crochet blanket. 

“Damian,” Jason says. “C’mon, bud. I can’t help if I don’t know what’s up.”

And it’s true—Jason’s always been there to help. When Damian couldn’t quite perfect his aim in archery, Jason was there to show him how to adjust his grip. When Damian faltered on his first bare-handed scaling of a mountain top, Jason was there to catch him around the middle and hoist him to a sturdier ledge. When Damian arrived in Gotham, unfamiliar to his surroundings, Jason sat next him as he struggled through English homework, newfound etiquettes, new clothes, different fighting styles, changes in diet. Jason always helps. 

But this…Damian’s done this to Jason. He’s watched something his older brother would never have wanted him to see, despite Timothy’s warning, and it can’t be unseen, or undone. If he tells Jason what he did, what he saw, it will change something. Not for the better. Damian doesn’t want it to change…

“Dami,” Jason says. “You’ve never come running when I didn’t answer comms before. What’s different? Why’d you leave school?”

Damian swallows. This…this he can say. “The Joker,” he says. “I was…wondering, if there was a connection between his disappearance and yours. I couldn’t…I needed to follow that lead. It was…”

“I can handle the Joker,” Jason says, but the assurance rings flat. It must show on Damian’s face. Jason frowns. “Damian, you don’t need to worry about me—I can handle myself.”

“You are a capable warrior,” Damian mumbles as an assurance.

“And yet you’re suddenly acting like I’m not,” Jason presses. Damian turns his face away, but Jason sits forward. “Damian,” he continues. “We’re sitting here until we get to the bottom of this, so you might as well just tell me.” 

Damian frowns. More, he can say just this much more. “It has…come to my attention,” Damian says carefully. “About your history, with the Joker.” 

“You mean that he blew me up?” 

Jason does a good job of keeping his tone light, in levity, but Damian hones in on the slight waver. Damian regrets again this entire conversation. He’s just…he’s pulling up the weeds of forgotten things, tangling Jason in old hurts for no good reason. Damian sees phantoms of gray bone in torn skin and red teeth behind split lips and then his throat tightens. He nods in answer. Hoping it’s enough, that Jason will take that, and it’s enough. 

But Jason just reaches out. His hand curls around Damian’s nape again and squeezes, blunt fingers carefully on short hair, scratching lightly. He knows, he’s always known. “What else?” Jason thumbs at his cheekbone like Damian is several feet shorter and looks at him with those green-home eyes and Damian…

Tells him everything. 

He lets the worlds tumble out—working on that case with Tim, seeing the unfamiliar file names, ignoring Tim’s warning. He knows Jason sees where the story is heading, because he tenses, but then his hand just falls to rub Damian’s back with side circles so Damian keeps going. 

Damian talk about what he saw, the cold, gray warehouse. The baredgrin, red lip-line and fractured, yellow teeth. About Jason, only a few years older than Damian now, sprawled on the ground, limbs twisting and pulling against unforgiving binds. Screaming, crying, begging. And there are things Damian doesn’t say. Things like how he can remember the exact sound a crowbar makes as it whips through a damaging descent. About how he’ll always recognized when Jason’s bones break because of the huff of stolen air and caught agony. About how Damian’s mind fills in the blanks of copper salt-sting and fear-sweat and burnt building husk. 

Jason drags him into his side half-way through, and Damian turns his face into his flank as he continues, mumbling out the horrible details, shoving them onto Jason’s lap beside him. 

By the time Damian’s telling him about easier things, like Tim finding him, sending him to bed, checking on him through the weeks because Damian can’t seem to move on, they’re both exhausted. 

“And then at lunch,” Damian says. “I saw the news coverage, about his escape. You weren’t answering your coms. I…I needed…” 

“Okay,” Jason says. “I get it, Dames.”

Damian’s run out of explanation. He sags under the weight of Jason’s arm and waits, sure that any moment he’ll be pushed away. This was a betrayal—Jason would be within his rights to cast Damian away, order him out of the apartment. To call one of the family to collect him like an awry child finding mischief. Damian wonders how long they will be damaged…how long until he might be reconciled with his first protector. His first older brother.

But Jason…hold him closer. 

“I’m sorry,” Jason says. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer the comms—I’m okay, I’m okay, I promise. You too—I won’t let him touch you. Ever.”

Damian opens his mouth to say he’s not scared of the Joker, but he pauses, because that’s not true, is it? He’s not worried for himself, but he can’t deny the slink of fear that fills him at the thought of Jason, of any of his siblings, or father, facing the deranged madman. 

So he stays quiet, and he lets Jason whisper platitudes and soft things, dropping them in his ear. They fill the space of fingernails breaking against concrete and dead weight slumping into raggedly broken crates. 

“You can stay here tonight, okay?” Jason is saying at one point. “I’ll call you out tomorrow too, if you want, or we can get an early start and I’ll drive you in—”

“What?” Damian says. 

“I’ll tell Alfred,” Jason says. “He’ll say yes. And then I’m sure the others will have the Joker picked up before the next day—”

Damian interrupts. “I can stay?" 

“Yeah,” Jason says. A hand pulls strands of Damian’s hair behind his ear. “You can hang out with me for a bit—that might make it easier, right? We can rent a movie, Cass dropped off some new snacks from Hong Kong that we can try—”

“You’re not. Mad.” Damian says, haltingly. 

The hand still rolling smooth circles on his back slows. “I’m…” Jason sighs. “You mean about you watching the file?”

Damian nods. 

“I mean,” Jason says. “I’m not…I’m not thrilled. I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t have wanted you to watch it.” His tone darkens. “I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to keep the footage. But….to begin with, you didn’t know what it was.”

“I could have stopped,” Damian reminds him. “I could have turned it off.” 

Jason nods. “That would have been better,” he agrees. “But honestly…I probably would have watched it too. If it was, one of you guys.” 

Damian shifts, and then his ear is right above Jason’s lung, hearing the thrum of his heartbeat resonating, strong, even, through his body cavity, ribs intact and organs whole. Vital. Alive. 

“I think…” Jason adds. “You might be pretty upset with yourself, as it is.” 

Damian thinks this is a true assumption. He nods against the cotton of Jason’s pajamas.

“Yeah,” Jason sighs. “Thought so…” 

And Damian doesn’t have anything to add, so he lets Jason get the final word in. 

“But what’s done is done,” Jason says. “All 0f it is done—the Joker, everything. You know what? He’ll never hurt me again. And he won’t hurt you, any of you, either. We all…there’s more of us now. To look out. There’s only one of him.” 

Jason pulls the crochet up to Damian’s chin, chuffing affectionately. “We can handle it.” 

Jason says other things, nonsense comforts that run together, but Damian mostly hangs onto the promise that he’s not mad, that things will be okay, and lets the rest flood over him as osmotic niceties. 

At some point, Jason puts the show back on. Damian’s eyelids have fluttered shut by then though, and then he’s being adjusted to lay more comfortably in Jason’s lap. The rise and fall of even respiration pushes against his shoulder, lilac fills his nose, the gentle chatter of television in in the air, and rosy heat of cooked food fills him. 

Damian finds dreamless sleep. 

Jason

Jason has a cramp in his leg from boney little brother sticking into the meat of his thighs for several hours, and he could really use a trip to the bathroom, but at this point he’s engrossed enough in the ongoings of the horse farm and doesn’t want to miss it. 

Also…

Jason looks down at Damian’s sleeping face with a sigh. His eyes are shadowed, too dark for someone his age. Even with his crime fighting activities, Dick has a strict bedtime in place, and Damian shouldn’t be as exhausted as he is. 

Of course, now Jason knows the reason for it. 

He sighs again, and can’t resist a gentle stroke through Damian’s hair. 

Jason didn’t expect any of this tonight—the Joker’s escape, the bomb of information that Damian’s seen his death in all its brutal, torturous glory—and goddamn Tim for, what, thinking he wouldn’t want to know that? Wouldn’t want to help?

Jason shakes his head…it’s not Tim’s fault. Brat probably thought he could figure it all out himself. Even though he doesn’t have to ….some habits can be too hard to break. 

Jason is just ruminating about him, when he hears hands on wood and sliding glass. 

His hand shoots to the side-table, where a gun is stored and loaded. But then he catches the site of familiar, knobby elbows and Robin red. 

Jason settles, checking his lap, but Damian remains undisturbed even as Tim clambers into the room, a blast of cold, evening air following him. 

“Jason,” Tim says. “Got your text.”

“You look like shit,” Jason says. 

“Shut up,” Tim says, folding the window back into place and stepping into the room. Grime is pasted across his skin and uniform, and his hair is a rat’s nest. His gaze drops to Damian, softens, and then he’s turning back to Jason. “We got him.” 

“You got him,” Jason repeats, as the relief starts to sink, permeating epithelial and connective tissue and weaving between muscles to soak his bones. He slumps. 

“Bruce and Dick are escorting Joker to Arkham,” Tim says. “I’ve got to head over in a few hours—we’ll take shifts for a couple nights, keep an eye on things.”

“Food’s in the fridge,” Jason says. “Why’d he break out?”

Tim crosses to the kitchen to rummage around quietly and make a plate. “Looks like it was an opportunity,” Tim says. “There was a power outage—footage shows him breaking out before the generator could get on board. He…he bit out the guards throat. Sent three more to the hospital—in critical condition, all of them.” 

“Damn,” Jason hisses. He feels the usual ache of absent scar tissue and tries not to imagine yellow canines ripping and tearing jugular anatomy. “Dunno how this keeps happening. It shouldn’t keep happening.” 

Tim pauses, filling a glass of water, with a hesitant look in Jason’s direction. Part of Jason wants to bristle, knowing the kid is searching for an eerie glow of green, but Jason’s vision is clear, and he doesn’t take the opportunity to delve into the well-trodden argument about Joker’s necessary death. He just shakes his head instead. 

“Towels in the cabinet under the sink,” he mumbles as an invitation. 

Tim nods. 

There’s another twenty minutes of Tim moving around. He grabs a shower, coming out in rolled up clothes of Jason without asking, and joins them on the couch to scarf down his plate of food. It’s kind of gross to watch when he goes for the meatballs whole, but Jason’s seen the kid without a shirt and his ribs are too visible for any reprimands. 

“He’s conked out,” Tim says after he’s scarfed down most of the bowl.

Jason nods. “He’s tired.” 

And then Jason pins Tim with a very firm look that tells him he knows. 

Tim pauses, and then slowly chews his mouthful. “Look,” he begins. 

“Why didn’t you tell me,” Jason says flatly. 

“Didn’t want to make things worse.” 

“Things are worse, Tim,” Jason says, nodding his chin at the bundle of preteen on his legs. 

“It hasn’t been…hasn’t been so bad,” Tim says. “I think the breakout just got to him.” 

Jason grumbles. “Still,” he says. “I should have known.” 

“You know now.” 

“Yeah,” Jason says.

Tim wipes his mouth. “Sorry,” he offers. “For…you know, not stopping him.” 

“You couldn’t have,” Jason mumbles. “He’s too stubborn.” 

“Mini-Bruce,” Tim says. 

Which, Jason isn’t quite sure if he would agree, because Damian has something so much kinder in him, buried under calcified layers—Jason can see it, when he’s caring for his animals, or allowing Dick to lift him onto his shoulders on the field of a concert, hen he snuggles into Cass’s side during a movie, or pulls careful stitches through a nervous Duke’s arm. 

But Damian does have that same streak of purpose. Of doing what he thinks is necessary—and that fortitude is hard to stop. Just like his father.

So Jason just gives a non-committal nod, but he spies a twisted quality to Tim’s face, so he offers up a hidden consolation. 

“We talked it out,” he mumbles. “Everything he saw.” 

Tim tenses. “...you okay?”

“Fine,” Jason waves away, even though there’s a fogginess to how he moves right now, a certain awareness of every working joint and painless stretch of skin, a comparison. “I think…I think it was a good thing, that he came here, saw me. I think it’ll help.” 

“Good,” Tim mumbles. “He’s been weird.”

“Pot, Kettle,” Jason says. 

Tim throws a wad of napkin, nailing him square on the nose. “Shut up.” 

Jason scowls at him, but can do little to retaliate. He glances down at Damian, then back at Tim. “Here,” he says. 

And then he’s ignoring the glint of alarm in Tim’s eyes and the way he pulls back to grab Damian under his back and knees and lift. Carefully, Jason makes the transition, so Damian is deposited, curled up against the legs Tim folds protectively to his chest. 

“Jason!” Tim hisses in whispered-complaint. “Take him back.” 

“You’re fine,” Jason says. He takes a quick picture of the two—Dick-face’ll enjoy it on a Christmas card or something. And then Jason needs to run to the bathroom. 

He turns deaf to Tim’s complaints behind him as he crosses to close the bathroom door. It’s as he’s washing his hands that he takes a second to breathe. He wouldn’t have let Damian know, especially after…everything…but knowing the Joker was loose? Well, Jason can’t quite shake the entirety of stiff concern. He runs a damp hair through his hair, waking himself from the groggy mindset hours of couch time will cause. And then he moves. 

Jason wipes down the sink—it’s soaked. He picks Tim’s towel up off the floor too. He heads to the kitchen to clean up after the mess that is Tornado-Tim, putting leftovers in the fridge, dropping a salt shaker back into its spot, cleaning a used serving spoon. Jason take’s Tim’s dirty towel to mop up the mess of melting snow by the window sill.

A little peeved, Jason goes to snarl a threat in Tim’s general direction about his welcome in Jason’s safehouses—he stops. 

Tim’s neck is at an awkward angle, his mouth dropped open. One of his arms is wrapped around Damian’s shoulders, fingers twisted in the couch blanket. 

Jason’s teeth click together. 

There’s no reputation at stake and no need to stifle upturned lips—Jason sighs indulgent and crosses to pull the blanket more securely over the two. In a gesture of goodwill, Jason even fixes a throw pillow under Tim’s listing head. Damian gets a soft look thrown in his direction. 

You two are such trouble, Jason thinks. 

It’s alright though—he’ll dig them out of it.