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Damian is not sulking. He is sitting at the top of the stairs with his arms crossed because he is dignified. He is guarding the door. Titus is asleep a few feet away, so obviously someone has to do it.
He’s guarding the door, which is why he definitely does not startle when a key rattles in the lock and it swings open.
“I’m home! Here, whatever,” Timothy calls from the foyer. He pauses for a second, and then calls out again, “Alfred? Bruce? Hello!”
Damian narrows his eyes, listening for the second person. Conner or Cassie or Bart, or any of the other numerous friends Timothy keeps around. When he hears no one but Tim, his lips quirk up into a smile.
“Really? No one in this house talks to me. I swear. Guess I’ll just wait around until they get back from whatever family trip they’re at,” Timothy continues, only a little bitter. His voice brightens when Titus perks up at his voice and bounds down the stairs, “Titus! I knew you wouldn’t leave me hanging. Good boy.”
Jumping up, Damian manages to save his dignity by walking calmly down the steps, but the smile on his face stays. “Timothy.”
“Hey!” Timothy says, looking up from where he’s squishing Titus’ face between his hands, grin widening. “You’re here!”
The familiar dark circles are under his eyes, though they look just a little darker than usual. One of his hands taps absently at his side when he drops Titus’ face. Damian carefully masks his concern. If there’s one thing he’d learned about Timothy over the years, it’s that he responds better to help when it’s given without consent. At least, he has less time to turn it down.
“It’s good to see you,” Damian says, cut off at the end as the air is knocked out of him. He sighs, but returns Timothy’s hug.
“You too! I swear you get taller every time,” Tim comments, like an old man.
“Hmph. Taller than you, at least.”
“You are such a brat.”
“The door is behind you, if you’d like me to show you out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tim waves a hand, the smile still on his face, just softer now. He gestures to the foyer, “Where is everyone? Bruce doesn’t have any meeting today, Dick’s even off work, and no one called me about an emergency.”
Damian raises an eyebrow as he steps further back from the hug, “Stalker habits die hard, I suppose.”
“Shut up.”
“There was an impromptu Justice League meeting. Alfred went along to… babysit.”
“Everyone went with them?”
“Jason and Richard decided to see a movie. Cassandra and Stephanie took Duke shopping.”
Timothy frowns, and he sounds a little put out when he says, “That’s fun for them.”
Damian rolls his eyes, “I believe their convenient disappearance was purposeful. Father probably knew you’d be stopping by.”
With a laugh, Timothy kicks the door shut, reaching down to unlace his shoes. “Okay, who’s expected to give the brotherly lecture this time, me or you?”
“You,” Damian says grudgingly. “I am grounded.”
Timothy blinks at him, and his jaw twitches like he’s holding back a smile. “Grounded, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Did you steal the batplane to race Jon again?”
Damian shoves his shoulder, turning away from him to head towards the kitchen. Odds are, Timothy hasn’t eaten. “No, and for the last time, that was purely for research.”
“Come on, Damian. You can admit it was for fun.”
“It was research,” Damian insists, and then, after a pause, “that happened to be fun.”
Timothy laughs behind him.
The kitchen is already flooded with sunlight from the large windows before Damian flicks the light on. He pauses in the middle of the room, frowning. Right. No Alfred here to make a meal. He’s pushed lightly towards a stool as Timothy scoffs affectionately, opening the fridge.
“I know Duke and Jason make fun of us for being helpless rich kids, but damn.”
“I could list seventeen different ways to break someone’s finger.”
“And yet,” Timothy says wistfully, pulling things out of the fridge, “you can’t make yourself lunch. Also, you should probably leave that fun fact out of your valedictorian speech.”
Damian, very innocently, says, “What speech?”
Timothy doesn’t even look up from where he’s squatting in front of the open fridge. “Oh, you know, at your graduation.”
Composure breaking, Damian drops his forehead onto the counter and groans. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”
“Stalking habits die hard, remember?” Timothy says smugly. “Besides, you’re graduating high school, something like, half of us never actually did, not to mention giving the valedictorian speech, and you expect me not to show up?”
Narrowing his eyes, Damian takes the offered bag of grapes Tim holds up blindly, “Who else knows?”
“Literally everyone. We’re detectives.” Timothy stands and pops a grape in his mouth, “Plus, Bruce sent out a mass text. I think he recruited Stephanie to teach him how.”
“Is that why he’s been using emoticons in the group chat lately?”
“Yes. And because Cass told him she likes them.” Tim regards him critically, grabbing a butter knife to spread mayo on a piece of bread. “Does that have something to do with why you’re grounded?”
Damian drops his forehead back on the table again. “No.”
To his credit, Timothy drops it. Damian tips his head up just enough to watch him make sandwiches, picking up every ingredient and scanning the nutritional facts before he adds them to Damian’s, likely checking to make sure they’re vegetarian.
His cheeks are more sunken than the last time Damian saw him, and that observation comes with the jarring realization that the last time he saw him was a month ago. His brother is smart, he’d sent messages to the group chat and updated them on cases often enough to stay off their concern radar, but he hadn’t actually been at the manor or even in the field with any of them in weeks.
“Where have you been?”
“Around.”
“Timothy.”
The knife spreading mustard clatters louder than it needs to as Tim sets it down. His eyes stay on the counter in front of him, and he takes a slow, steady breath. “It’s nothing. Just one of those patrols.”
“A child?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“A couple weeks ago. Right after your drug bust with Dick down in Bludhaven.”
Damian scowls, “It’s been that long and you never told anyone? Never reached out?”
“I was--” Timothy stops, and sighs. “Actually, I used up all my arguments on Steph already. She barged into my apartment two nights ago, said if I didn’t show up in the next week she’d tell Bruce I died or something.”
Damian smirks. Good for Stephanie. The smiles slides off his face as Tim passes him his sandwich. “How bad?”
“On what scale?”
“Movie night with Jason and Harper,” Damian starts, and then grimaces, “to the Bludhaven Brass investigation.”
Timothy grimaces too, and then says, “Scarecrow and the daycare.”
So, bad. Damian stifles the immediate anger that flares up in his chest and takes a vicious bite of his sandwich. It’s not as good as Alfred’s, but Timothy did put cucumbers and peppers on to replace the meat. “I see.”
“Hey, remember how I am a full grown legal adult, drinking age and everything?”
“Remember how the court gave you legal permission to take care of yourself when you were sixteen and you still sucked at it?”
Timothy rolls his eyes, leaning with his hip against the counter. “I’m serious, Damian. It was bad, and I wasn’t handling it great, but I was fine. I even talked to Dinah a few times.”
Damian narrows his eyes at his older brother, and after swallowing his bite, inclines his head in concession, “Very well. I trust you.”
“Thank you. Now that we’ve aired out all of my dirty laundry, your turn.”
“Laundry day is Wednesday. It is Friday.”
“Oh, he’s got jokes, then?” Timothy teases, but once again, he drops it, setting his sandwich down to put the condiments and cheese away.
As Damian watches him, humming absently as he cleans up, he wonders how he ever hated him. His shoulders have filled out more in the past years, his hair is long but not unkempt, and he’s grown, even if it was only an inch. He’s mellower now, too, but Damian supposes they all are. Where it counts, though, he’s still the same Timothy Drake Damian met all those years ago.
A threat, a pretender, a nobody.
Now, a foundation, a hero, a brother.
Has it been so many years now, that he separates the two of them? Has it been so long he can’t find a spark of that old resentment inside him? More than that, Damian wonders if these are the golden years, or if those started the day he apologized to Tim, and are ending now.
Because of him.
“Well,” Damian says, picking at the crust on his sandwich, “the others won’t be back for hours, and I assumed you meant to see all of us, so… will you be staying the night?”
Timothy smiles at that, bright and happy and almost proud. Damian’s gut twists, but Tim doesn’t notice, probably because he can’t see the inside of Damian’s gut, and even if he could Damian doubts he’d see anything but muscles clenching slightly, but that’s besides the point. Whatever.
“Sure thing, bud. Maybe the whole weekend,” he says, and then looks down at Damian’s sandwich in amusement. “Eight years and you still don’t like crusts, huh?”
“Arguably the worst part of bread.”
“You have a chicken, don’t you? Just cut it off and give it to them.”
“A turkey, and his name is Jerry, and he has far too refined a taste to eat table scraps.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your turkey. Jason made a Thanksgiving joke yet?”
“Once. I stabbed him with a fork.”
“Dude,” Timothy chastises, but he’s laughing.
Damian’s cheeks heat up, and he pulls his hands away from his sandwich, dropping them in his lap. His tongue tastes sour with the information sitting there, but he doesn’t share it. Timothy said he would stay the weekend. Maybe Damian can withhold, at the very least until father returns and brings it up himself.
He deserves that, doesn’t he? One last day of comfortable comradery.
The chair next to his squeaks against the floor, and then one of Tim’s knees is pressed against his, one of his hands on Damian’s shoulder. Damian doesn’t look up.
“You know you can talk to me about anything,” Timothy says softly, ducking his head until he’s in Damian’s line of sight. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles.
Damian nods, lifting his chin because he is a Wayne and Wayne’s do not cower. “Yes. But I’m alright.”
“Liar,” Timothy scoffs, but after squeezing his shoulder once, he lets it go for the third time, and Damian’s throat closes tighter. His brother taps his sandwich, “Finish that and we can find something to do. Paintball, or something.”
“Paintball,” Damian repeats incredulously.
“Yes.”
“Are you twelve?”
“Come on, Dick is years older than me and still gets excited about balloon animals.”
“You’re supposed to be the sensible one.”
“Smart,” Timothy corrects, taking a bite of his sandwich. “That doesn’t always equal sense. Ask Bruce, he’s given me enough lectures.”
Damian hums thoughtfully, rolling his eyes and biting into his own sandwich when Timothy gives him another pointed look. “So who is the sensible one?”
“Duke?”
“He once had a bounty on his head from the GPD.”
“Yeah, but like, compared to the rest of us?”
“Oh. Understandable.” Damian frowns, “I miss having him at the house.”
Timothy smiles softly, “What? Only having Cass around isn’t doing it for you?”
“Obviously out of all of you, I would rather have her here the most.”
“Understandable,” Timothy mimics him with a short laugh.
Damian sticks his tongue out at him, and then shoves the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. “Although it is rarely just Cassandra and I, with how often you all stop by.”
“You love us,” Timothy tells him sweetly, and Damian’s gut twists harder because yes, he does.
He doesn’t say that. He hasn’t come that far. Alright, maybe he has, because he smiles at Tim, and Tim grins back. Damian stands, setting his plate in the sink, “What would you like to do?”
“Chess?’ Timothy asks, stacking his plate on top of Damian’s with a clink.
“Only if I play white,” Damian replies, already heading into one of the main sitting rooms, dubbed the game room by Jason when he was still Robin.
Tim scoffs, sitting on one end of the small chess table, already set with the game. “Always.”
It’s true. It was an olive branch, back when Damian was thirteen. Playing chess together, but more than that, offering Damian the white pieces every time. Like Timothy was proving every time that Damian is good. As a hero and a brother.
As he moves the white pawn forward two places, that knowledge doesn’t make him warm inside like it used to.
“Mother asked me to go away with her,” he blurts.
Timothy doesn’t react outwardly, just lifts his own pawn and sets it down, humming softly, “Oh?”
It’s the same tactic father uses, silence to prompt more information. Damian doesn’t know if Timothy does it on purpose, but either way, it works. “She says she’s left the League, and that she wishes to reconnect.”
“So Bruce grounded you?” Timothy asks calmly, as he nods, prompting, until Damian moves a second pawn.
“I may have said some… less than favorable things while we argued. Threatened to run away.”
“You want to go?”
Damian looks up from the board, but Timothy doesn’t. After a few seconds, he says, “She’s my mother.”
“And?”
“Doesn’t that equate some sort of loyalty?” Damian asks, and it comes off snippish and defensive, but there’s a genuine question underneath.
“You know that my mom… wasn’t a good person,” Timothy says, and his hand shakes slightly as he sets his knight down.
Damian nods. He remembers the mornings he’d wake up to Timothy’s door cracked open, father inside with the boy curled against his chest, going downstairs to find Jason pacing, cursing Janet and Jackson Drake, while Richard sat sullenly on the couch.
He remembers going shopping, watching Timothy take an obvious liking to a pink and blue hoodie, only to put it back in the end, claiming it to be too colorful. He remembers Stephanie buying it anyway, saying “fuck your mom”, when Timothy questioned.
It was, in a way, something they shared when they were younger. Mother’s who didn’t know what that meant. But Damian never pushed for details, just as Timothy never asked after his time with the League.
When they were younger, after they made up, that is, they were each other’s escape. Heavy subjects fell to the shoulders of older brothers and father, even the occasional Kryptonian.
So they never talked about mothers, but Damian knows Janet Drake wasn’t a good one, because Timothy still shies away from shouting, and makes himself small and quiet in public settings.
“Yes,” he answers finally, eyes on the board as he moves his rook two spots.
Tim raises an eyebrow at the move, before taking the rook with his pawn. “I used to wonder what it would be like if she suddenly showed interest. I’d daydream about her calling me and telling me to pack a bag, because she was taking me to one of her digs. She died before it ever happened.”
“Would it have?”
“I don’t think so,” Timothy says with almost no hesitation.
Damian frowns. He thinks there’s supposed to be a helpful message in the story, but whatever it is goes straight over his head. He doesn’t like when that happens. “Helpful. Truly.”
Timothy rolls his eyes. “I’m trying to tell you that I get it, wanting that from your mom. I don’t blame you.”
“But you don’t think I should go.”
“What did the others say?”
Scowling, Damian drops his bishop onto the board harder than he needs to. “Richard voiced his concern sternly. As did Jason, except he yelled more. And swore.”
“That’s Jason for you.”
“Stephanie called me an “adorable, loyal idiot”, and Cassandra said it is dangerous, but she trusts me.” Damian sighs, “Alfred said he trusts me as well.”
“And Duke?”
“Asked if you all had done something wrong, to make me wish to leave.”
“Have we?” Timothy asks, his voice expertly controlled as he moves his knight, but Damian can hear the slight concern underneath.
His eyes widen. “No! No, of course not. The opposite, if anything. You’ve all given me everything I could ask for, been the best--” Damian stops, takes a deep breath. “I want to give my mother the chance to do the same.”
Still, Tim doesn’t offer his own opinion. Damian scowls at him as he taps his chin, contemplating the board. He glances up at Damian before he looks back down. “And Bruce said no.”
“Yes. Vehemently.” Damian taps his foot impatiently, whether he’s waiting for Tim to take a turn or lecture him, he’s not sure. “He doesn’t trust mother, and he doesn’t trust that I won’t fall down that same dark path I was on before--”
Those, apparently, are the words that do get a reaction out of Timothy. He sits up straighter, eyes wide. “Bruce trusts you, Damian. Of course he does.” Damian scowls at him harder, but Timothy just keeps talking, “You really think after everything we’d just go back to not trusting you? Dad-- dad’s just worried, bud.”
“I am perfectly capable.”
“I know that. So does he.” Timothy finally moves his queen, sitting back and regarding Damian carefully. “Think of it this way. He worried about Dick when he wanted to be a police officer, right? Even though our night job is probably way more dangerous. He worried about me, too, when I moved out on my own, even though I’ve been taking care of myself for years.”
“I see,” Damian says slowly.
“He just worries because he’s a father. It’s what good ones do.”
“I suppose.”
Timothy gives him a soft look that reminds Damian of Richard. He’s started to notice that more often now, how much of themselves they’ve molded after the people they love. “Damian… I think more than anything, he’s just worried Talia will break your heart.”
“Richard says loving someone is opening yourself to heartbreak.”
“That doesn’t mean you should open your heart expecting it.”
Damian looks back down at the board sullenly, pushing his rook forward with one finger. “You still haven’t told me what you think.”
“Do you want this, Damian?”
“I shouldn’t,” Damian tells him. “I have a family, I shouldn’t need to try and find one in my mother.”
“We can’t help who we love,” Tim says softly.
Damian tilts his chin so he can see Timothy, his eyes trained on the board but his shoulders slumped. He looks old and young all at once. “Did you love Janet?”
“Every day,” Timothy says, voice still quiet. “And I got burned for it.”
“So you agree with father.”
“Talia isn’t Janet.”
That isn’t helpful at all. Damian groans, rolling his head back to look at the ceiling and slumping back in his chair. “Why are you so difficult all the time?”
A pawn hits his cheek and falls into his lap. He starts, shifting forward again to glare at Timothy. His brother grins back, “Payback.”
“You know it was actually less frustrating being your enemy.”
Timothy’s grin softens as he takes his turn, sitting back again, eyes scanning Damian. “Why do you want to know what I think?”
“Because you are an admirable strategist and detective. If anyone can predict what may happen with my mother, it’s you.” Damian pauses, queen half raised in the air. He sets it down as he says, “And because you are my brother.”
“Do you think you’d recover, if she isn’t how you want her to be?”
Damian frowns. He hadn’t actually thought of that. After a few seconds, he nods. “Given time.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll back you.”
He almost knocks his cluster of pawns over. “Really? You’d help me convince father?”
“Everyone leaves the nest at some point,” Timothy says, a teasing lilt in his tone. “Besides, after graduation, you’ll be eighteen. Bruce can’t exactly stop you.”
Damian’s eyebrows lower. “But I would stay if he told me to.”
“I know. You’re good like that.”
Good. Not loyal, not brave, not devoted. Just good. Damian’s chest warms, and then a smile spreads across his face as he sets his queen down near Timothy’s king. “Check.”
Timothy laughs, looking down at the board. He squints, calculating. “You’ll have me in checkmate in three.”
Damian squints at the board too, with pretty much the same expression. “How?”
Moving pieces quickly, Timothy demonstrates, and then sits up, “Nice job. That’s what? One hundred twenty-three to twelve, me to you?”
“You’ve miscounted about one hundred on my part.”
“Are you sure? Pretty certain you just suck at chess.”
“It’s your job to be good at chess, it’s my job to know how to actually hold a sword.”
Timothy gasps, “Low blow! I can beat you with my staff any day.”
“I’m so impressed by your giant stick,” Damian says, deadpan. Timothy shoves him and he laughs, tipping sideways before he rights himself. He watches as Timothy starts to clean up chess pieces, pulling at his sleeve anxiously. He knows he should just ask, that Timothy has always told him to come to him with concerns.
The inkling of doubt tickles at his mind and he knows if he doesn’t ask now, it will be overridden with guilt and he never will.
“You aren’t helping me just because you want me gone, are you?” he blurts, and there’s the guilt, right after. He should have kept his mouth shut.
Timothy blinks at him, setting the last chess piece back down at its starting place. “If I could convince you to stay here, and know that not even a small piece of you would regret it, I would.”
Damian doesn’t know what that means. Every time he thinks he finally understands feelings, and he’s once again set back. It must show on his face, because Timothy circles the table, dragging his chair with him so he can sit beside him. Damian doesn’t look at him. “Explain?”
“I want you here, Damian, more than anything. I’m not as vocal about the whole protective sibling thing, not like Jason or Dick or Steph, but I am. Probably too much sometimes. I’ll admit that the last thing I want you to do is go off with Talia where none of us can be there to protect you, but…” Timothy pauses and reaches out to knock the back of his knuckles on the side of Damian’s jaw, prompting him to look him in the eye. “But I know you need this. For better or worse. You won’t forgive yourself if you don’t try, and a part of you will never move on.”
“Oh,” Damian says dumbly.
Timothy just smiles, apparently not needing anything more. He leans off his chair so he can tug Damian into a hug, one arm around his waist and the other one across his shoulders, hand cupping the back of his neck. “I’m proud of you.”
Slowly returning the hug, Damian can feel his throat close. The fabric of Timothy’s jacket feels nice when he gathers it in his hand.
“Why?” he all but whispers.
“Because,” Tim hums, “you’re growing.”
“Oh,” Damian says again.
Timothy huffs a laugh against his neck, “Checkmate.”