Chapter Text
Damian spends the entirety of breakfast coughing and sneezing and trying to convince everyone he’s not sick. But when he throws up his food and Alfred forces him to let Bruce take his temperature—which is 102—they make him go back to bed. He rolls his eyes and huffs and stomps all the way upstairs, and everyone, Tim included, has to try not to awe and coo.
Alfred makes his famous, magical homemade soup for his lunch. It can cure anything. Tim’s had it twice before, and poof, he was back on his feet in no time. Although admittedly his were in tupperware containers and warmed in his microwave—not that he’d ever admit that last part to Alfred.
But Damian sleeps right through lunch. The soup goes cold on his nightstand. Everyone tries not to worry.
Jason comes over to cook with Alfred—the only one allowed to do so. It’s a good plan on Alfred’s part, outside of Sunday brunch it’s one of the only reasons Jason comes to the upper part of the manor at all, and usually the only time he stays for dinner. As Alfred and Jason cook, moving around each other like some sort of complicated dance, Tim sits at the breakfast bar, watching silently and working on a project for WE. He’s not the CEO anymore, thank God for Lucious, but Tim is still a major shareholder and prominent figure. He still has meetings and presentations and a whole list of ways to prove he’s more than just a nepo baby.
All this to say, he has some Excel charts to finish.
“Whatcha workin’ on, little bird?” Jason asks, tossing the vegetables in his pan without using a spatula. It’s all in the wrist, he always says.
“The Family Finders Foundation. A couple of the assholes at work think it doesn’t have a good enough cost-benefit. Firstly, it’s a charity, you fucking idiots. Secondly—”
“Master Timothy,” Alfred interrupts softly, placing a cup of tea in front of him. “Perhaps we should calm, have a bit more decorum in the face of idiocy?”
Tim blushes. He hadn’t even meant to swear. It’s the first time anyone’s asked about what’s going on at WE in a while, and he maybe has a little unresolved anger at a few of his fellow board members. But they really are such jerks! They treat him like he’s stupid, and he is not stupid.
“Sorry, Alfie,” he replies. He sips a bit of his tea, and the headache that's been bothering him all day eases a bit. Alfred is magic. He returns his gaze to Jason, who’s mostly more focused on stirring some sort of sauce. “Just some spreadsheets,” he finishes quickly to Jason, suddenly keenly aware that he’d been about to rant, which Jason hadn’t asked for and no one would want.
“Family Finders—that’s the one that reunites people, uh, families, right?” Jason asks. It’s not often, but Jason is one of the few people in the family that really asks about and understands the premise of each charity that Wayne Enterprises funds. And one of the few that sometimes asks about Tim’s work.
It’s kind of nice.
Tim nods. “And we cover the medical bills of anyone who’s lost their memory, and try to help them recover it.” He tilts his head. “Happens more than it should.”
“We live in Gotham,” Jason reminds him, and yeah, that’s a pretty good explanation. He chuckles and gets back to work and enjoys being with family. He could almost swear that he feels Jason’s heavy gaze on him, sometimes, but whenever he looks up at him he’s clearly focused on whatever they’re making.
Damian finally wakes up for dinner, and Tim shares a relieved look with Dick as they sit down at the table. Dinners are always a light affair, roughly three hours before patrol it has to be mostly full of carbs and proteins—heavy foods could slow them down, make them groggy. They certainly aren’t supposed to have soup. Of course, this doesn’t matter to Damian, who insists he isn’t sick and firmly refuses to eat anything made special. He wants what everyone else is eating.
So everyone shrugs and switches to the soup.
Checkmate, Damian.
After dinner, Alfred checks his temperature again. It’s gone down, but not by much. And Tim easily catches the worry that furrows onto Bruce’s brow, the thin lips as he looks over his son.
“You all go ahead without me.” Only Duke looks surprised. Tim certainly isn’t.
“Of course,” Jason is teasing, rolling his eyes.
“He can’t help it!” Dick giggles. “Worrywort.”
“He’s staying home?” Duke clarifies.
“Always,” Cass supplies.
“If the fever is a hundred or above, he stays,” Steph explains. “It is deeply annoying.”
“It is deeply unwanted,” Damian growls, but the intimidation factor is undercut but his tiny head looks too heavy for his neck, desperately held up by his hands, and also Tim’s fairly sure Damian doesn’t know that his eyes are closed.
“It’s the rules,” Dick replies. “B just can’t leave his kids alone when they’re sick.” Everyone nods solemnly, and Duke seems to realize that the only reason he hasn’t seen this himself is that he hasn’t been sick yet since staying at the manor.
Meanwhile, something Dick has said must have startled Damian, because his eyes are open now and he looks more alert than he has all day.
“It is…tradition, yes?” He realized aloud slowly. Dick thinks this over, tilting his head.
“Yeah,” he chuckles after a moment. “Guess so.” Bruce grumbles at the teasing but doesn’t disagree. Damian, eyes wide and very lucid, shifts his gaze to Tim. He has a question on his face and Tim knows what it is.
He looks away.
Because Tim doesn’t need anyone looking after him when he’s sick. He’s fine on his own, always has been. He’s only ever been sick a few times anyway, and maybe they were poorly timed because it always seemed to be when his parents were away. But he’d made do. No, more than made do. He was more than fine. And he had Alfred’s soup the two times he’d been sick since knowing Bruce, even if it had been microwaved later and eaten on the floor of a dark kitchen, too tired to sit at the table and with too much of a headache to bother turning on the lights.
“No,” Damian growls, crossing his arms. “I don’t want you here,” he insists to Bruce, firmer than he had been before.
“Tough,” Jason answers. “That’s never worked with any of us.”
“Please, you are not included on that list,” Dick teases, turning to Jason, who is quickly turning red. “You would beg and beg for him to stay home with you!”
“Because I was dying, dickhead. Would you not stay with your own dying child?!”
“It was a minor cold.”
“My brain was leaking out of my ears!”
“Enough,” Damian cuts in, voice that strange calm that makes him seem years older. “I want everyone to stay.” He glances at Tim, then looks away quickly. Tim wonders what his end goal could possibly be.
“Everyone?” Bruce asks.
Damian gives a stiff nod. “Jon, and his brother and father, would be more than fine with keeping an eye on the city.” Bruce’s brow furrows more. “I want everyone here, with me.” Then, he tacks on at the end: “Or else.”
Every person in the room softens, Tim included. They all hear themselves agreeing because if the littlest brother wants the entire family home when he’s sick then of course they are going to do it.
So they stay. Uncle Clark puts on the batsuit and is firmly told not to interfere with the city he’s watching unless absolutely necessary. Damian leads the herd to the family room, sitting on the couch without hesitation. Bruce takes the spot right next to him, but when Dick tries to steal his other side Damian honest to god whines and pulls Tim by the wrist to his side.
“I demand answers,” he whispers as everyone else settles into their spots. Jason is on the floor with Steph, fighting over popcorn. Duke and Babs—who comes over for dinner seemingly at random—are arguing about what to watch from either armchair. Cass is already half-asleep and sprawled across Dick’s lap, who is now sitting beside Tim. And Tim? Tim relaxes completely when Damian shifts so his head rests on Tim’s shoulder.
“Why’d you have everyone stay?” Tim whispers back, ignoring his interrogation, very aware that Bruce and Dick are near enough that he can hear every word.
Damian must be thinking the same thing, because he only says, “I wanted to.”
Duke and Babs finally agree on Scooby-Doo, and they all laugh and tease each other, half chatting loudly, the rest enjoying their night off with their eyes closed. Tim sits as still as he can, hoping the sicko next to him sleeps like the others to heal sooner from his bad cold.
Somewhere around two in the morning Tim himself begins to drift off, and just as his eyes flutter closed he feels nimble fingers threading through his ever-growing hair. It’s not an entirely unfamiliar sensation, but rare enough that it manages to startle him a bit.
“Shh,” Dick says softly. “I’ve got you, Timmy. Go back to sleep.”
He’s far enough away that their bodies aren’t touching—probably because of how bad Tim was at hugs when they first met—but Dick’s hands are in his hair and Damian is curled up into his other side and he’s so warm and happy that he’s pretty sure that he falls asleep with a genuine smile on his face.
Tim wonders, just as he begins to drift off completely, if Damian had planned this. If Damian wanted Tim to know what it was like to be taken care of on a night nobody should have off. It’s a nice gesture. And even though Tim’s not actually sick, he can almost taste the memory of something that never was.
He wakes up again when the sun begins lighting up the room, looking around to see Jason still sprawled on the floor, surrounded by pillows, including one that he’s hugging—which Tim takes a picture of, obviously. Steph is asleep parallel to him, her feet nearly in his face. Barbara, Dick, Damian, and Bruce have disappeared. Duke has too, but Tim is fairly sure he’s getting ready for patrol. Cass is sitting cross legged, doing a puzzle on the floor, looking up at Tim as he sits up.
“G’morning,” he whispers, and she smiles softly at him.
“Hi,” she says, ever quiet. Surprisingly, she abandons her puzzle entirely in favor of sitting beside Tim, steps impossibly quiet on the way. She stares at him for a long minute, eyes gentle but brows furrowed.
“I’m sorry,” she says. Tim shoots her a confused look. He knows by now not to try interrupting until it’s clear Cass is done. Sometimes she still has trouble finding the right words, but she says more in her short sentences than most people can communicate in paragraphs. She huffs, glancing at the stairs, a strange anger crossing her face. “I am not mindreader.”
“I know,” Tim assures, and her face softens into something grateful.
“I did not…I am not…” She huffs again, tucking her hair behind one ear. “If there is no difference, if it is always, I…” She swallows.
Tim tilts his head and waits.
Something like regret crosses her face. “I didn’t know that always sad…means always sad.”
“I’m not always sad,” Tim replies, surprised. She gives him a disbelieving look. “I’m not!”
“Since we met,” she argues. Tim tries to dispute it again, but…stops. Her reasoning is more sound than his own denial. Technically they met before Bruce’s disappearance, but it was within the walls of the League of Assassins’ base that they actually, properly trusted and got to know each other. And he knows instinctively that this is the time she is referencing. And, yes, okay he was a little stressed. And alone. And, alright, he’ll admit it, afraid. He was the only person in the whole world who knew that his adoptive dad was alive, and he finally had proof, and he was so scared he’d die with it in his pocket. But Cass had been there, and it’s the forever sort of trust, now. She’d more than earned it.
And, fine, maybe things have been…hard, since then. He came home and he never got Robin back, which was fine. And the Justice League ended up being the real ones to save Bruce, and Tim never gave a full report, so no-one really knew what had happened…which was fine. And he had to emancipate himself to protect his family and Bruce’s company, which—it was—that one was…And he had to get his own apartment, too, and that’s. Fine. As well. But he’s still living here, technically. Kind of.
So, really—
He’s not fine at all.
He hasn’t been for a while.
No wonder Cass didn’t see it. That’s what she’s apologizing for—the human lie detector failing to notice his unhappiness—but if he’s been holding himself the same way for their entire relationship, there was no baseline of comparison. There was nothing for her to notice. He doesn’t hate Bat Cherry ice cream, what she sees is that he never liked any ice cream at all. He’s not close with Dick, or Bruce, but as far as she’s seen, he never has been. He doesn’t take photos, but as far as she was concerned, he never had—actually, maybe that was what tipped her off. She only goes to Gotham Academy in person twice a week, the rest she’s tutored at the manor, but spotting his name in fine print in the hallways isn’t hard to do if you have a reason to look. Suddenly Damian puts a familiar photograph in the kitchen, the only other two students that had gone to Gotham Academy after Tim had graduated scratched their heads until they’d figured out where they’d seen it before. And boom—suddenly Cass had the baseline she’d always been missing.
He’s always sad, Cass says.
He has no hobbies, Damian says.
He isn’t proud of his work, Duke says.
And Tim finally reaches the conclusion, maybe a year or so late, that he’s probably a little depressed. Probably more than just a little.
“Oh,” is all he says, rather than voicing this realization out loud. Cass can probably read it all on his face, anyway.
So, apparently he’s depressed. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s supposed to do with that.
You are not alone, Cass signs quickly. She actually knows English pretty well now, though it’s harder when she’s stressed. But her hands are her favorite way to communicate, and obviously Tim doesn’t mind using it for her. Both languages are still a little broken due to the unreasonable difficulty that is English grammar, but overall sign language seems a little easier. I can’t understand why you never said anything, but I try to understand, now. You are funny and smart and clever and good and we like having you around. All of us. Everyone.
He nods like he believes her.
He wonders if he should.
He’s too reckless in the field, Bruce has been saying. And that’s a lot scarier of a sentence when it’s paired with everything else, and suddenly that, too, has a reason. But…it’s not like he’s suicidal. He’s just been a little careless. That’s all. Isn’t it? Is it? He opens his mouth to ask Cass, but shuts it closed when he realizes that he maybe doesn’t want an answer. Cass can’t do much about his inner turmoil, but she holds his hand as he processes that yeah, something is really, really wrong.
“I’m…not happy,” he whispers, more for himself than for Cass.
She nods. She doesn’t let go of his hand.
For now, it’s enough.