Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alfred Pennyworth is not a perfect man.  

Others may not see it that way, with his pressed clothes and his carefully chosen words and his smooth posture. He’s fit himself into the idea, finding it easier to keep the act than argue, especially when it means most listen to him. He’s found it simpler to let them keep their notions by tweaking his own behaviour.  

He does, of course, know better. He knows that he is just as imperfect as the rest of them.  

Martha’s diamond earrings have gone warm in his fingers. Thomas’ watch lay in his opposite hand, rhythmically ticking. The sheets he generally attempts to keep straight have wrinkled under his trousers.  

The light glints off of the diamond and the gold as he traces the cut and curve with the pads of his thumbs. The room no longer smells like them; their scents left years ago. He can only hold on to half-empty bottles of perfume and cologne. They still sit in the bathroom. He hasn’t found it in himself to clear their room yet. He knows Bruce picks out of the closet occasionally, and he hasn’t gotten any criticism yet. So all has remained as it was since that night.  

The anniversary of Thomas and Martha’s deaths was two weeks ago.  

They had been close friends. He misses them, of course. Very much so.  

He is still of the opinion that their son could do with less time in the Manor; he could have said it a bit kinder.  

(He’s uncertain of the exact time he began thinking of their son as his own; He knows it only as a truth now, and guilt over it doesn’t even cross his mind.) 

Bruce shut himself in his room four hours ago. Alfred thought it best to give him a bit of time. Perhaps a night of sleep before he brought up the conversation again, in a new, heavily edited light. He hasn’t heard Bruce’s door open again and therefore hasn’t moved.  

The pipes in the Manor walls rattle. Bruce has somehow made his way into the kitchen. Likely grabbing a glass of water. Alfred chooses to let it sit; Bruce has left his room, and therefore should still have his door unlocked in fifteen minutes.  

Again, he doesn't hear any doors open or close. He places the jewelry back in its place and pulls himself from their room. When he knocks on the door, he hears Bruce clear his throat, and guiltily, suspiciously, say, “Nothing happened.”  

Alfred sighs. It seems he’s in for a ride. When he pushes open the door, it is to Bruce scrambling to hide something, sitting in front of his mirror. He, instead, freezes as he realizes he’s been caught.  

“Indeed.” Alfred raises an eyebrow, eyeing him.  

An ice cube sits melting in his fingertips, hovering near his earlobe. Bruce’s laptop is open in front of him to a wikiHow article. There is a very clear image of a woman holding a safety pin to her ear on the screen; in Bruce’s other hand is also a safety pin. His expression is twisted into the grimace he makes when he knows he’s in trouble.  

Alfred sighs again, stepping swiftly to his side. Bruce retracts his hands defensively, his eyes narrowing. “Young man. Must I tell you of the dangers of a dirty needle again?”  

“It’s not a needle,” Bruce says.  

“Disregarding linguistics, it still carries risk of infection,” Alfred says, holding out his hand and letting a little bit of admonishment creep into his tone, “if not properly cleaned. Did you sterilize it?”  

Bruce’s lips press together, tight. “No.”  

“I don’t suppose you’d like to deal with an infection from an unprofessional piercing,” Alfred says dryly. 

Bruce doesn’t answer, only averts his eyes. After a moment, he reaches out and drops the pin into Alfred’s outstretched palm.  

“Now,” Alfred says, lowering himself to sit beside him, “I’m going to ask, and I want you to answer honestly with the knowledge that I do not judge either way. Is this something you genuinely want, or is this rash action to spite me?”  

Bruce turns his stony expression to the floor. His eyebrows draw together a little more as time passes. Finally, he says, “Bit of both, I suppose. I’ve wanted to since three months and five days ago.”  

“Why haven’t you spoken to me about it?”  

Bruce shrugs. His eyes trace the lines of the floorboards.  

“You’ve thought about it thoroughly?”  

“Yes.”  

Alfred nods. “Very well. I’m sure it’ll be easier for the healing process if you are not getting infections from a safety pin.”  

Bruce turns his head sharply. He regards Alfred carefully for a moment. “Are you serious?”  

“I am always serious,” he replies, completely straight-faced.  

Bruce’s eyebrow twitches doubtfully, and he stays silent for a second. Alfred rises again, and offers a hand; Bruce accepts and lets himself be pulled to his feet. “Have you made any considerations regarding professional appointments?”  

“A few…” Bruce looks down at his laptop.  

“Do you have a preference?”  

“Only one that takes walk-ins.”  

“Very well. We can go once the ice cube tray is returned.”  

Bruce winces a little, and scoops up said tray. Alfred follows him back to the kitchen, then leads the way to the garage. He enters the driver’s side of one of the lesser conspicuous vehicles, and Bruce slips into the passenger beside him. He silently shows an address on the phone screen; Alfred commits it to his memory long enough to get there.  

He starts the engine, but before he pulls out, he asks, “What earrings were you planning to put in?”  

Bruce grimaces and looks away. “I was going to find something.”  

“Ah. A little rasher than I had first assumed.” Alfred raises an eyebrow. Bruce frowns and ducks his head.  

On the road, Alfred decides to bring back the topic that’s caused the current tension between them. “I apologize,” he says. Bruce shifts beside him. “While I do maintain my argument, I understand that you are grieving still and I overstepped in my words.”  

Bruce scoffs. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Alfred hums.

He huffs again. “It’s… fine. I’m… I’m sorry too. It was rude to yell.”

Alfred gives him a small smile. Bruce still does not meet his eyes, but his shoulders loosen by quite a bit.  

The address works just fine. Bruce gets an appointment. He wants one piercing, a diamond stud with a gold post in his right earlobe. His eyebrows pinch as the woman doing the job dots the spot with a marker; in a surprising act, he reaches out as she prepares the gun.  

Alfred holds his hand as he takes the piercing with a stony expression.  

Later, after the recommended six weeks have passed, Bruce exchanges the original stud with a small black hoop; he includes two small silver beads hanging on it, engraved with the initials of his mother and his father. A week after that and Bruce includes a third bead with the letters A and P on it; when questioned, he only responds that he felt something was missing.  

Chapter Text

Bruce has had custody of a child for just over a year.  

He’s not sure how he hasn’t ruined it yet. This child is smart and warm and enthusiastic about all of his life. Bruce took him in because he saw the similarities between them; now that he knows this child, he also knows that they are opposites. His shadows haven’t infected Dick Grayson’s light yet. He doesn’t know why, but he will always be grateful for whatever outside force is preventing it.  

Bruce lays in his bed, unsleeping. His body is exhausted, as is his mind; he knows Alfred will know if he leaves his room, but he desperately wants to get up and do something that will distract him from his thoughts. He doesn’t have the energy to do much more than shift position every few seconds. There’s not even anything specifically wrong; his thoughts are just too loud. He has to shut his eyes against invasive comments every few seconds. He wishes he could just sleep to escape but he knows it won’t happen yet.  

His door creaks open.  

It takes a second to be able to drag his head from the bed. When he looks up, he sees a pair of blue eyes flash in the darkness of his room for barely a split second. Then all he sees is a mass of messy black hair bobbing towards him. Bruce traces its movement as it circles around his bed like a shark; then there are a set of small hands reaching up to claw at his covers, and his ward, his responsibility, is dragging himself onto the mattress like a cat that embodies everything he now fears in life. Dick’s eyes flash again as he pulls all of his limbs up on the other side of the bed.  

Bruce is unbelievably soft for this kid.  

“Hello,” he finds himself murmuring. “Are you okay?”  

“I’m okay,” Dick confirms. He doesn’t look upset. Bruce can usually tell, not because he has any semblance of skills regarding emotions or identifying them, but because when Dick is upset he cries and he does not do it quietly. “No nightmares this time.”  

“Good,” Bruce says, a tiny questioning lilt at the end. He grunts when Dick hits a bruise as he climbs over his arm to fit himself next to his body. Dick throws an arm on top of his chest and thumps his head down onto his shoulder.  

“You’re not asleep.”  

“No,” Bruce agrees. Regardless, he’s not coherent enough to form longer sentences.  

“Are you having nightmares?”  

“No.”  

Dick hums. He squirms, then wriggles around until he’s flipped onto his back. His heat seeps into Bruce’s side. After a full thirty seconds of being still, he wriggles again; his hand reaches around to grab Bruce’s arm, and he tugs it closer, over him. Bruce takes the hint and rolls onto his side, tugging Dick into his chest.  

“Just couldn’t sleep?” he hums.  

Bruce nods lightly. “Yeah.”  

“Me neither.” His ward clutches at his shirt; it’s a print, something they saw at a mall and Dick made him buy. It has a Spongebob design on it. Bruce hates the show, but Dick was very insistent. A second later, and the child’s attention is caught; he reaches over and takes Bruce’s hoop earring between his thumb and forefinger. He spins the beads on the metal, his other fingers brushing against Bruce’s neck. He closes his eyes and stays still. It’s something he does often. “How long ago did you get this?”  

“When I was…” Bruce pauses to think. “Fourteen.”  

“Oh. Is there a age limit?”  

“An,” Bruce corrects. “And for some. I think cartilage piercings need to be thirteen.”  

“What about this one?” Dick taps his earlobe.  

“I’m not sure. Why?”  

“Yours is cool.”  

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”  

“Yeah.”  

“And you want one.”  

Dick is quiet for a minute. “…Maybe.”  

Bruce sighs to himself, nodding. “Okay. You know the risks of a piercing, right? There could be scarring if it doesn’t heal right, or infection.”  

“It’s not that bad,” Dick defends. “Daniel got his ear pierced and it was fine. So did Tiffany.”  

“But it could happen.”  

Bruce can practically see the pout on Dick’s face as he thumps his head on his chest. He smiles, raising a hand to the child's hair. “That doesn’t mean no.”  

“Sure sounded like no,” Dick whines.  

“Hm.” Bruce brushes his hair behind his ear. “If you think about it. For two days. And you decide you still want it, I’ll take you to get your ears pierced.”  

“Really?” Dick shoots up, a huge grin on his face.  

“Yes.” Bruce pulls him back down. “You have school in five hours. Sleep.”  

Two days later, and Dick tells him he still wants it.  

The one Alfred took him to is still open. There’s not been many bad reviews of the place, and he couldn’t care less about the price.  

“You want both lobes, still?” Bruce asks him as they sit outside in the car. Bruce insisted on driving, but Alfred sits in his passenger seat with a fond look on his face.  

“Yeah.”  

Something in Dick’s voice causes Bruce to turn in his seat and look at him head-on. Dick doesn’t meet his eyes. The corners of his mouth are tight. Bruce stretches out his hand. “Hey.”  

Dick flickers his eyes up and attempts at a smile. “Yeah?”  

“Are you still sure you want to do this?”  

Dick nods, and Bruce believes him. “Yeah, I do, I want it.”  

“But?”  

“But…” He glances away again. “But… it’s dumb, but I’m… a little scared?”  

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” Bruce reassures gently.  

“I know, you said. It’s just- No, I want it. Sorry.”  

Bruce shares a glance with Alfred. The older man twitches an eyebrow at him. “They take walk-ins.”  

“They do,” Bruce says, “but I told him to think for a few days.”  

“And how long have you thought of getting another?” Alfred full-on raises an eyebrow at him.  

Bruce sighs. He turns back to his ward. “They take walk-ins. I could get a second one at the same time as you. If you want.”  

“Really?” Dick says, eyes wide.  

“Yes.”  

“You’ll hold my hand?”  

“Yes.”  

“Can I pick your earring?”  

Bruce gives him a look. “As long as it’s not something that’ll get me in trouble at the next gala.”  

Dick gives him a shark grin and Bruce sighs.  

The lady that takes them back to do it gets an earful of Dick’s charm, and she ends up calling over two of her coworkers to get all three piercings done at the very same time. Dick ends up picking a set of black-jeweled studs with white gold posts for both of them, exclaiming something about being ‘twinsies’. Bruce tolerates it because it’s not the pink flowers he caught him eyeing that definitely wouldn’t have gone with any of his suits.  

Six weeks later and the black studs come out.  

Bruce replaces his with another black hoop. Dick notices immediately the day he adds a small, initialed bead to the hoop and transfers Alfred’s. The grin on his face is worth every single night of anxiety he’s ever had about raising a kid.  

Dick himself replaces his earrings with the brightest pair of dangling fluffy red feather earrings Bruce has ever seen in his life, and he knows he didn’t buy those. Dick continues to show up in the oddest things someone could fit on a wire. A pair of rubber ducks. Spools of thread. Empty soda cans. There was plastic forks, once. A pair of realistic tiny human hands – Bruce made sure the press didn’t see that one. He has an increasing collection of road signs. More often than not, a set or two of earrings representing whatever he’s interested in at the time shows up. On the plus side, any whacky sets he sees make for good presents. Dick always seems to love the ones he buys for him. He finds that, whenever they need to show up to an official event, Dick always wears the black studs.  

Chapter Text

They’ve had a rocky start.  

Dick knows it’s mostly his fault; He’s not really been nice to the kid, but he gives himself a little bit of a pass because he came home for the first time in two years to see another kid in his colours. He’s still absolutely pissed off at Bruce; that hasn’t changed since he stalked right back out the door and didn’t pick up Bruce’s calls for a week. He really missed Gotham, though, so he did eventually come back; he still refuses to go up in the Manor when Bruce is there, but he goes out on patrol with him and Robin every weekend. Maybe not with them with them; he stays on the comm link but he’s done his own thing until about three weeks ago. Three weeks ago because Alfred gave him an earful about being kind to new family members. He wasn’t happy about Bruce picking up a new kid before even trying to repair his relationship with his first one, but he knows none of that is Jason’s fault even though the kid is incredibly difficult, all the time. It’s very easy to take Jason’s shots and fire right back, but Alfred reminded him that Jason is an Alley kid and taking shots at others is all he knows how to do to protect himself. So Dick’s sucked it up and stopped engaging with his verbal abuse. It’s worked wonders after Jason pushed hard enough to get a lecture from Bruce and realize that nothing is going to work on him anymore.  

So now, Dick sits as Nightwing on a roof in Gotham, watching Robin try a handstand. This is their second patrol together where they’ve remained entirely civil.  

“You’re overcorrecting,” Dick says as Jason wobbles on his hands and falls over forwards. He tries to keep the attitude out of his voice but he’s not entirely sure it’s worked when Jason whips around and glares at him.  

“Do it again,” he spits.  

“No.” Dick raises an eyebrow. Jason bares his teeth and flips him off. “Look, watching me isn’t going to help. You’re doing fine, you’re just overcorrecting once you actually get up there. You’ve gotta find the balance.”  

“My balance is fucking fine,” Jason snarls.  

“Just- Do you want me to hold you up? I can help you find the point.”  

“Touch me and I bite you,” Jason sneers, even though Dick hasn’t moved. He picks himself off the ground and drops himself next to Dick with a very frustrated huff. He jabs Dick with an elbow even though he hasn’t said anything.  

Nightwing doesn’t have quite the amount of armour Robin does, so Jason’s stupid little extra pads on his elbows digs right through his suit. Dick winces and rubs at his arm. “You’ll get it. You’ve only started tonight and you’re still impressively close.”  

“Die,” Jason says, about half the bite leaking out of his tone. “Don’t we have a crime to go stop or somethin’?”  

“Not yet, as far as I know. Why don’t you ask?” Dick gives him a smile.  

Jason lifts a lip at him but clicks on his comm. “Oracle?”  

“Hm?” Barbara says into their ears. Jason rolls his eyes at the obvious smug edge to her tone.  

“Can you please check the police scanners again?” he asks, drawing out every word.  

“Nothing yet, Robin. Sorry.”  

Jason sighs. He turns around, kicking his legs out over the roof and swinging them in the empty air. “Why’s it so quiet tonight?”  

“It’s been half an hour, Robin,” Dick says with an amused smile. “We have lulls sometimes.”  

“It’s the weekend. Shots go off nonstop in the Alley on the weekend,” Jason scoffs.  

“It’s probably because of the Arkham scare,” Dick suggests. “The police are out on the streets more and everyone but the petty and desperate have stayed in for the night.”  

Jason groans. “This city is bullshit.”  

Dick shoots him a dangerous smirk. “I’m sure we could find something to start if you’re looking for some real life-endangering stuff tonight.”  

Jason catches his gaze and droops his shoulders, sighing reluctantly. “Sorry. It’s- I really want to just hit someone.”  

“You’ll get someone eventually. For now, enjoy it.” Dick shrugs. He hesitates a second, then says, “You know, once, I was complaining about a boring night, and then- I got shot at by some guy with a gun and two pounds of weed.”  

Jason looks at him, interest instead of scorn on his face. “Oh? How did that end for ya?”  

“A couple bruises. Scared me, though.”  

“Is this a caution story?”  

Dick shrugs, a smirk laying on his lips. “I’m sharing my tales. You can take it however you want to.”  

“So… you’re saying if I complain loudly enough, somethin’ll happen.”  

“You missed the mark,” Dick says, making him snort. It makes him smile for real.  

After a second, Jason asks, “Is B still at Arkham?”  

“Yeah.”  

The kid groans, slumping over backward. “Rock paper scissors?”  

“Absolutely not,” Dick snorts. Jason scowls at him. “That’s boring. Pick something else.”

Jason gains a wicked grin. “We could play chicken.”  

Dick gives him a look. “What’s that?”  

“It’s like Truth or Dare ‘cept it’s just the dare part and we see who backs out first.”  

“That sounds like something B wouldn’t want me to do,” he comments.  

Jason’s grin widens. “Yup.”  

“I’m supposed to be the responsible one here,” Dick fake-sighs.  

“Jump off this building right now and do a flip.”  

Dick shrugs with an answering grin and pushes himself to his feet. He does a double flip instead.  

Later, when Robin and Nightwing tie up a couple of thugs that tried to make a drug run while their buddies kept the police distracted, Robin asks, “So what’s up with the piercings?”  

Dick shoots him a look. “What do you mean?”  

“When’d you get them done?” Jason’s going for casual, but there’s something in his voice that’s a little weird.  

“I was ten,” Dick tells him. The guys aren’t paying attention so he doesn’t worry about it.  

“B let you?” Jason asks.  

“Yeah. Why?” 

He shrugs. “I didn’t think he’d approve of the ones you wear.”  

Dick huffs in amusement. “I’m sure you saw my worms on strings yesterday.”  

“Yeah.”  

“B bought me those.”  

Jason turns his gaze on him, mouth open disbelievingly. “No way. They’re too obnoxious.”  

“Yes way. You know the small milk cartons?”  

“Yeah?”  

“And the suckers?”  

“Yeah.”  

“And the kinky lettering?”   

“No. No, you’re lying, there’s no way B bought those for you.”  

Dick smirks. “You’re right. He didn’t. I was just proving you pay attention to them. I’ve caught you looking at them a lot.”  

Jason shoots him the dirtiest look Dick’s seen from him tonight and shoots up to the rooftops. Dick follows after he makes sure the police know the location.  

“Can I ask why?” he says, much gentler.  

“They’re kind of- kind of cool,” Jason admits with a scowl, and jumps to another rooftop. Dick decides to drop it for a minute and chases after him, eventually turning into a race in which they see how far they can get between buildings.  

When they turn in for the night, in the Cave, Dick asks out of earshot, “Do you want some?”  

“A bunch of holes in my ears?” Jason snorts. “No thanks.”  

“You don’t have to get more than one,” Dick tells him. “And if you don’t like it, it’ll close up if you leave it long enough.”  

Jason is silent as he folds his uniform. Dick figures he’s not getting an answer and drops it as he changes. Just when he turns out to leave, Jason, with a scowl, catches his arm. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he says, then storms out first.  

Two weeks later, when drives in from Bludhaven, Jason is sitting on the couch of the apartment he’s renting in lieu of the Manor with an angsty expression on his face and his arms crossed.  

“Hi,” Dick says, an eyebrow raised. “…How did you find this address?”  

“I don’t like needles,” Jason says abruptly, scowling.  

“Yeah,” Dick says, cautiously moving in to set his bags down. “I know.”  

“That’s how they do piercings. They stick needles in you. I don’t like it.”  

“They’re not needles like shot needles,” Dick says. “They're just piercing needles. They're thicker, but they go through, not in. They do have a little hole to put the earring through, though." 

“Ew,” Jason makes a face.  

“You won’t have to look at it,” Dick reassures.  

Jason’s face dissolves into something more thoughtful. Dick goes to his room to start unpacking his things. He’s found it’s easier to pack certain things and take them with him than buy a second set. Not stuff like shampoo, though; he’s tried it and he cannot for the life of him remember to take it. As such, he doesn’t have that much to unpack.  

When he comes back out, Jason is leaned back into the cushions. “How much does it hurt?”  

“Not much,” Dick says honestly, “at least not for me. It was a little sharp for like an hour after I did it, and it does hurt if it gets infected, but some of the bruises I’ve gotten on patrol have been worse.”  

Jason worries his lip between his teeth with furrowed eyebrows. Dick sits beside him. “Have you eaten yet?” he asks. 

“No,” Jason says.

Dick hums. “How long has it been since you’ve had pizza?”  

The other looks at him. “Too long,” he says, dead serious.  

Dick laughs. “I’ll order if you don’t tell Al,” he says. “You tell him I gave you vegetables or something.”  

“Deal.” Jason smirks.  

After Dick makes the call, he says, “I’ve been thinking about getting another one.”  

“Another piercing?” Jason narrows his eyes.  

“Yeah. I would get one with you. If you wanted.”  

“What?” He makes a face. 

Dick eyes him, then decides it’s probably safe to go on. “When Bruce first took me in,” he starts, “he had the right hoop. I thought it was really cool, and I asked him for my own. He said yes. Right before, I got scared, and he offered to get another piercing at the same time I was. It’s… It was nice. He let me pick out the earrings. I don’t know. It was bonding. That’s the idea. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. If you just want to come with me when I get another one to see if you want it, then that’d be okay too.”  

Jason thinks a second; then he scowls, but Dick knows it’s not real. He doesn’t say anything more about it, so Dick drops the subject; the pizza shows up and Dick manages to con Jason into watching a movie with him before Bruce finally calls asking if he has Jason.  

Jason rolls his eyes when Bruce asks him to come back to the Manor, but picks himself up to leave. Dick knows better than to try a hug yet - that’s like, step seven of the plan, and he’s only on step two - but he does take the chance to ruffle his hair. Jason scowls at him, of course; then he hesitates before he actually steps out.  

“I think I want it,” he says.  

Dick nods slowly. “Okay. We can talk to Bruce tomorrow, if you want?”  

“Do we have to?” Jason grimaces.  

“To get it professionally done, yes. You’ll need signed off. And if we do it professionally then there’s less risk of infection.”  

“Fine.”  

The next day, Dick sucks it up and goes up to the Manor with Jason.  

“I want to get my ears pierced,” Jason says, shoulders square, jaw set, expression confrontational. Dick thinks that’s not the best way to get something you want out of someone, but he doesn’t interfere.  

“Okay,” Bruce says. His eyes are lingering on Dick, leaning against the wall with a carefully blank expression, but he focuses entirely on Jason after a moment’s hesitation. “Do you know how to get it done safely?”  

“Clean equipment, proper after care. That dickhead made a PowerPoint.” Jason rolls his eyes, throwing a thumb back at Dick.  

“It was five slides,” Dick mutters.  

“Okay. Good,” Bruce says, eyeing Dick carefully. He doesn’t meet his eyes. “How long have you thought about it?”  

“He mentioned it to me two weeks ago,” Dick cuts in.  

Bruce nods. “Alright.”  

“I’m going to get another one.”  

Bruce gives him an unexpectedly soft look. “At the same place?”  

“Yeah.”  

“Okay. Well, I believe you can sign for Jason, as an adult, but if they question you, you can call me.”  

Dick nods. Jason stares. “Just like that?” he says incredulously.  

“Just like that,” Bruce agrees. “You’ve thought about it, and I assume Dick already told you about the risks.”  

Jason nods. “Yeah. But- I thought you’d, like… I don’t know.”  

“It’s your body, Jay,” Bruce tells him. “I’d rather you tell me than try to do it yourself, with… well, with an ice cube and a safety pin.”  

Alfred suddenly passes through the room with a very convenient throw blanket to lay back in place. “Not one of your smarter ideas, Master Bruce,” he comments dryly, an eyebrow raised. Bruce winces. On his way back out the door, he lays a hand on Dick’s arm, and says lowly, “I expect you for dinner, Master Dick; surely the pain will be too great for you to cook your own food.” Then he’s gone.

Dick stares after him, expression stretched with bewilderment. “I think I just got hustled.”  

“Like it's hard.” Jason smirks. “Come on.”  

Dick lets him yank him towards his car outside.  

They walk-in. Jason asks what he’s getting; he says a helix piercing, on his cartilage. Jason decides that’s what he wants too, in favour of a lobe piercing, and the place does end up having to call Bruce for age and consent confirmation. Jason chooses a flat, silver stud – when later pressed, he’ll say it’s because they’re less likely to get pulled on – and he tells Dick that he should pick those, too, so he does.  

Dick knows better than to even offer a hand, but they do get it at the same time. When they get home and Jason runs to the mirror, the proud smirk on his face is well worth it.  

He doesn’t change it very often, usually rotating through a set of studs Dick buys him; Dick himself continues to find ‘whack-ass shit’ to wear, and Jason manages to get him a large number of vulgar earrings, of which Bruce makes him swear to never wear in public or where the media would get ahold of it.  

When Jason dies, Dick cuts himself off again and puts the original flat stud back into the piercing without intention to change it.  

When Jason comes back, he doesn’t know what to do.  

Chapter Text

“This ends tonight. All of it.”  

“Nobody knows that better than me.”  

When Batman picks him up by the collar of his jacket, Jason yanks the cowl from his head. Bruce Wayne stares stoically back at him.  

“Look at you,” he chuckles, flipping his knife. Bruce catches the cowl when he throws it back at him. “I guess we should keep it even.”  

His helmet drops to the floor. Jason Todd smirks unhidden.  

“Jason,” Bruce says, eyes flickering.  

Lightning flashes in the dark sky above them. Rain trickles down his face.  

Bruce’s small hoops glitter.  

Jason’s eyes catch on them. Bruce always wore both hoops under the cowl; said the cowl protected that information. On the left hoop are two beads; One he knows is Alfred’s, and one he knows is Dick’s. He almost scoffs at it. So sentimental when he couldn’t care less about the kid he picked up off the streets. Then he sees the other hoop, and its beads.  

Martha’s. Thomas’. And his.  

The weird feelings crashing around in his chest dissolve the moment Bruce opens his mouth.  

“I don’t want to fight you.”  

“All evidence to the contrary,” Jason says smoothly, even over the familiar anger rising. 

The night goes as planned.  

Bruce doesn’t kill that fucking clown. And Jason doesn’t have the balls to do it himself.  

The bomb goes off. It doesn’t get him, or Batman, or that goddamn clown.  

Jason drags himself to a safehouse feeling empty.  

And he can’t quit thinking about those fucking beads.  

They stay in his mind when he finally finds the motivation to wrap his hand. They stay in his mind when he forces himself to cook. They stay in his mind when he pulls up in his gear for the first time in three weeks to have a meeting with his men. They stay in his mind when Jason tracks Batman’s movements so he can stay away from him on patrol.  

Then, a month after the confrontation, Jason finds himself stretched out on the roof of the Manor. He’s been here for two hours already. The cold of the night has already settled into his bones. It makes it hard for him to want to move. He’s not wearing any of his gear; his jacket is layered with Kevlar, but he knows Bruce won’t be shooting at him. He doesn’t have anything else. Not even he was sure what his plan was. He just knows he’s tired.  

He doesn’t twitch when he hears footsteps behind him. He’s barely moving, just the slight rise and fall of his chest and the barest flicker of his eyes.  

“Jason?” Bruce asks softly, and Jason almost chokes on how different Batman and Bruce sound.  

“You still have the bead.”  

He can hear Bruce’s long, even breathing, and he can hear him stepping closer. He lets his eyes fall shut before Bruce can step into his field of vision. He’s not sure he’ll be able to take it.  

There’s a hesitant hand on his neck; Bruce tips his jaw to the side, and Jason lets him. He doesn’t have the energy not to. Bruce’s fingers are warm against his skin. Right against his pulse. Jason can feel his gaze rake over him. “Are you injured?” 

“No.”  

“Then why are you here?” Bruce’s voice gains a dangerous tone to it. He supposes it’s fair. Especially after all Jason’s done.  

“Why do you still have the bead?”  

“Jason.”  

“You know I’m unarmed, asshole, just answer the question.”  

There’s a fat second of silence; then Bruce takes a long, deep breath in, and lets it out just as slow. Jason hears his clothes shift and then his voice is suddenly so much closer. “Why wouldn’t I?”  

Jason turns to glare at him, snarling, “You don't get to ask that.”  

“Why not?” Bruce asks softly. He’s sat next to Jason, hands in his lap, relaxed like Jason hasn't tried to tear him apart, hasn't tried to tear his family apart.  

“You know what I've done. You know why not,” he spits. “I tried to kill Robin. I've killed so many other people. I brought you to Crime Alley, I took over the drug trade, you have every reason to throw me in Arkham right here right now, so tell me why you don’t. Tell me why you’re hanging on to the kid who died.”  

Bruce doesn’t answer for a minute. Looking at him hurts, so Jason drops his eyelids again and turns away. Eventually, Bruce says, “Is your name Jason Todd?”  

“Yes.”  

“Then you are my son. If I wanted you in Arkham, you would be in Arkham. You’ve made a lot of bad choices but I meant what I said; I can help you. You just have to let me. I believe you have that capacity. I think you’re angry, and spiraling. But you don’t have to keep being this person. I think you can change. That’s why.”  

Jason feels like crying. “Cute speech. It’s a dream. This idealized version of me doesn’t exist.”  

“Why not?” Bruce asks softly. “Why doesn’t it? Why do you think it can’t?”  

“I don’t know how to do anything else,” Jason spits. “I had a plan, it failed, and I’ve done absolutely nothing since. I heard you when you said that I would’ve grown up just another criminal without you and you were right. I can’t be anything else.”  

Silence falls again. Water gathers under his eyelids, and he throws his arms over his face in retaliation. Eventually, Bruce says, “Nothing is unfixable. You are not unredeemable. That’s why I still have your bead. I have hope. Nothing you could do would take it away. Maybe that makes me stupid, but that’s why.”  

He’s too tired to keep holding his emotions any more. Bruce doesn’t say anything as he shakes but he knows he doesn’t leave.  

His skin is numb by the time Bruce shifts beside him. “It’s cold out here,” he says.  

Jason knows full well how cold it is, but he stopped feeling it a while ago. “Hm,” is all he responds with.  

“You should come inside.”  

There it is. “You're insane. I'm a murderer. Call the police or something like a normal person,” he says roughly.  

“You're going to get hypothermia if you stay out here much longer. I can take you in.”  

“What if this is all a ploy to get to your baby bird again?”  

“I didn't say I'd leave you unsupervised,” Bruce counters.  

Jason takes an uneven breath in. “Do whatever the hell you want,” he says eventually.  

When he said that, he did not think that he would get picked up like a child. Easily.  

He hisses as Bruce maneuvers Jason’s arms around his own neck. Bruce pays him no mind.  

The Manor is warm.  

Two months later, Jason's on the path to coming back home.  

The first time he comes back for a meal at the Manor, Bruce greets him at the door; and there, on his left hoop, are two more beads. One is Tim's, he's sure, but the other is his, moved back over from his right. It's like a jab in the chest with a sword; Sure, Tim is there, but Bruce added them at the same time. He hasn't been replaced. He hasn't even been removed.  

He's here. He's here, and he'll stay here.

Chapter Text

Things are still rocky between them.  

He knows it’s his fault. He's trying to fix it. It's hard when you don't know exactly what'll help. He's constantly afraid of making things worse. He apologized a long time ago, swore he wouldn't hurt Tim again, and kept away until – if ever – Tim was ready to forgive him.  

Then Tim reached out to him. Offered to help him on one of his cases like he owes Jason anything, like Jason even deserves his help. He accepted with the thought of reciprocating tenfold.  

And he did. He could tell Tim was suspicious every time he offered something, unconvinced of the ‘no strings attached' bit of the offer, but Jason would never pull the rug out from under him. Enough time, and Tim got a bit more comfortable around him than he had been. Jason still made absolutely sure he never seemed anywhere near threatening. It had worked out pretty well so far.  

Tonight, he's undercover; Tim offered to be his backup. Barbara is, of course, monitoring the comms, but she's doing so passively, letting Tim do most of the work. He appreciates it.  

“All good?” Jason asks after tapping his comm all the way on.  

“All good,” Tim confirms. “Are you sure this is gonna work?” 

“It better. I spent a lot of time prepping for this. Why, are y’worried about somethin'?” 

“I'm not sure you're going to pass as harmless as well as you think. You're kind of built like a tank.”  

“You think I can't pull off a himbo? I’ve known Dick for six years.”  

Tim snorts suddenly, stifling it quickly. Jason grins. “It’s- I think you’re more bimbo at the moment.”  

Jason heads out the door. “I can pull off bimbo, too.”  

“Sure.”  

“Hey. I’ll find a camera and I’ll show you.”  

“Mhm.”  

He finds the closest camera he can – it’s harder than it should be, all the cameras are private because no one else invests in them in Crime Alley – and he strikes the dumbest pose he’s seen Dick do. Tim cracks up immediately, gasping, “I recognize that one!”  

Jason laughs a little too, sending a wink at the camera. That one’s meant for Babs. “Alright, I’m going in.”  

The mission goes pretty well, actually. Jason’s cover is that he’s the son of one of the older assholes he manipulated into sneaking him into the meeting; his job was to get in, act like he had absolutely nothing between the eyes, and ask a few questions to get them to spill their secrets without being too obvious about it. He gets what he needs and he gets out.

Tim has been hesitantly making jokes in his ear the whole time; Jason’s had to turn his laughs into random giggles. At least it helped his cover. Tim got more confident through the night. Jason’s on his way back home, and Tim hasn’t checked out for the night yet.  

“That guy with the high-pitched voice was annoying. Who was he?”  

Jason scoffs. “Jackass named Ronnie Bochner. He’s an asshole.”  

“He sounds like Snow White.”  

Jason has to quickly try to stifle a laugh. “Kid, you can't just- say things like that,” he coughs.  

“Why not?” He can hear the grin in Tim's voice.  

“Because I'm going to get tackled on suspicion of Joker toxin if I keep laughing at nothing.”  

Tim snorts. “Sorry. I'll save it ‘til you get home.”  

When Jason gets to his safehouse, he starts his after-mission routine. Currently, food takes precedence over a shower.  

That reminds him. “Hey, have you eaten yet?”  

The silence on the other end is telling.  

“Tim.”  

“You haven't eaten either.”  

“I was on a mission. And I'm making food, right now.”  

“I'll go look through the fridge later, okay?” 

“Nope. Right now. Just take your comm with you if that's the problem. I'm already home, you don't haveta be on the computer.”  

“Okay, okay,” Tim huffs.  

Sounds of rummaging through the kitchens fill the link. Barbara quietly tells them that she’s going to sign off. Jason doesn’t feel like he deserves that trust, but he appreciates it anyway.  

Tim complains about there being nothing good in the fridge, and Jason teases him for not being able to cook for himself. Tim makes a sly comment about how if Jason lived with them then he could just cook for him, and instead of picking apart the feelings he gets from that, he just says he enjoys living alone. He pulls out a bag of chips that Alfred never would’ve allowed and crunches on them into the mic just to prove his point. Tim hesitates a little before whining about it.  

Their banter is stilted and jerky, with Tim constantly testing the waters before he says something. Which is fair. But he is funny, and he’s a cute kid, and Jason can’t believe he ever wanted to hurt him.  

“Where did you get those hoops from, by the way?” Tim asks him.  

“Walmart.” Jason smirks, swirling his ramen. He likes noodles. Sue him.  

“What- Actually?”  

“Yeah. Why?”  

Tim snickers, but Jason can still hear him hesitate. Then, he says, “They’re ridiculous. Why are they so big? That’s the silliest pair of hoops I’ve ever seen. And I live with Dick.”  

Jason scoffs at him, making sure to keep his tone good-natured. “That was harsh.”  

“It’s true.”  

“Oh, yeah? Well, at least I was mildly proportional. I bet you’d look weirder. Shortstack.”  

Tim snorts at him. “Yeah, you tell me when you find magnetic hoops and then we’ll see.”  

Tim thought he was joking. And he was. But that comment made him think about it. Like, an unreasonable amount.  

Which is how he ends up in Tim’s room two weeks later, waiting for him to come home from school.  

The door’s open; Jason left it, so that Tim would have a bit of a warning. It works, because Tim pokes his head in suspiciously instead of startling. And he actually relaxes when he sees it’s just Jason sitting on his bed, which loosens his muscles a little bit.  

“Are you… like, good?” Tim asks him with a raised eyebrow, slowly stepping into his room.  

“Fine,” Jason says. Then he jumps right into it. “How do you feel about piercings?”  

“Uh,” Tim relaxes into pure confusion, dropping his backpack on the ground. “What do you mean?”  

“Like Dick’s. Or Bruce’s.”  

Tim’s eyebrows furrow further. “Mm… Well- I think they’re cool, I guess? They look good. Dick’s earrings get pretty funny.”  

“Do you want any?”  

He shrugs carefully. “Maybe. I don’t know. Uh… why…?” 

“Was wondering,” Jason hums. “Have you ever thought about it?”  

Tim looks down at his chair as he pulls it out and collapses into it. His legs stretch out to rest on top of his desk, and he drapes the upper half of his body over the back of his chair, twisted to look at Jason. “Yeah, I have. My parents would never let me, though. I wouldn’t even mention it to them.”  

“We don’t need your parents’ permission. They haven’t seen you for four months.” 

“I think they’d murder me if they ever saw me.”  

“I think they’re lucky they still have custody of you. You literally go out as a vigilante every night. Is that what’s stopping you?”  

Tim hesitates. “I don’t- I don’t know. It’s- There’s a chance of scarring, and infection.”  

“Gonna point to the vigilante thing again.”

“Okay, why are you asking?” There’s a tinge of something hostile in his voice, letting Jason know he should stop pushing, but most of his tone is just genuine curiosity.  

Jason takes a deep breath. He’s been stalling. “There is… a tradition, of sorts,” he starts. “I think Dick started it. Two of us get piercings together. He told me that he wanted piercings when he was younger, and Bruce got another with him. He said it was a bonding thing, but I think it was also a little bit of an apology to me. He was kind of an asshole when I first got there, but he got… better. After that.”  

Tim’s face has gone carefully blank; he controls his reaction with a measured amount of calmness. “Okay.”  

Jason meets his eyes. “Okay, look. I’ve been shit to you. I know I already apologized, but I’ve been trying to put my money where my mouth is. I’ve been trying to be better. I was fully prepared to leave you alone, but you reached out to me, you’re giving me a chance, and I want to try a bit harder to be a better brother to you. And I’m not pressuring you in any way, you can say no and I won’t care. Do you want to get a piercing with me?”  

Tim’s eyes blow wide. His gaze shifts away, staring at the blankets of his bed.  

“You don’t have to. We could wait, if you wanted. I’d wait for you.”  

“No, it’s-” Tim waves a hand in the air, blinking like that’ll clear the confusion. “It’s just- brother?”  

Jason softens a little. “Well, that’s what you are, isn’t it? We’re both Dick’s brothers, which makes us brothers too.”  

“I am not Dick’s brother,” Tim scoffs disbelievingly.  

“You’re gonna have a fun time trying to convince him that.”  

“Fuck,” Tim says softly. He leans his forehead down on the back of his chair. “Fucking hell.”  

“Watch your mouth,” Jason teases lightly.  

“And what if Dick wasn’t a part of it?” Tim demands suddenly.  

Jason hums. “Well, I’d just claim you for myself.”  

“And you’d want that?” he asks quietly.  

“Yes. You don’t have to, but I do.”  

“I do. I think I really do.” Tim lifts his head, and his eyes are wide and hopeful.  

Jason smiles at him. Fuck, he’s soft. Fuck. “Okay.”  

Tim lays his head on his arms on top of his chair. Jason picks at the scabs on his knuckles. After a few minutes of silence, Tim asks, “How much does it hurt?”  

Jason can’t help but smile. “Not much. It stings a little bit, and it hurts if you touch it after that, but it’s not bad at all. Not compared to other things.”  

Tim smiles back at him. “Okay. I- I want to do some research. Is that okay?”  

Jason wouldn’t laugh at him. He knows this is how Tim is. This is probably him convincing himself that he won’t regret it, but fuck if it isn’t such a Tim thing to do. “Yeah, of course. Want some help?”  

Two weeks more and they catch Bruce after he’s gotten back from work.  

Tim presents him with a thick manilla folder. “I want to get an ear piercing,” he says. “That contains the safety precautions I’ll take, my arguments against getting my parent’s permission over yours, and my reasons for wanting it, along with all previous research.”  

Bruce accepts the folder with a sparkle in his eye and a well-hidden smile. Jason knows he would say yes right now. He flips through the papers anyway.  

He takes a genuine look at all the stuff Tim’s put together, skimming the pages quickly. They all know he’s retaining just the same. When he’s done, he closes the folder, holding it at his side; He says, “This is very impressive. I can see it’s important to you. You have my permission, I’ll sign for you.”  

Tim takes a breath in, nodding. A genuine grin grows on his face. “Thank you, Bruce.”  

“Of course,” Bruce says softly. “Have you decided what you want yet?”  

“I think I want a tragus piercing,” Tim tells him. “The industrial looks cool but I don’t want it for the first, not when it’s supposed to be painful. And I think I could reasonably cover the tragus during patrol, even during the longer healing time.”  

“Sounds good,” Bruce tells him. 

Jason opens his mouth. Bruce’s gaze flickers to him questioningly.  

“I’m getting another one too,” he says.  

Bruce looks between him and Tim, a real smile growing. “Okay,” he says again.  

Jason gives him a small returned smile. “They’re going to ask me for ID,” he says tentatively.  

“You don’t have a real one,” Bruce realizes.  

“No,” Jason raises an eyebrow. “It’ll have to be a fake one. It’s illegal.”  

“Only a little. You’re of age. Don’t let me catch you using that ID for anything else.”  

“Deal.” Jason grins.  

Jason takes him to the same place Dick took him. They make a call to Bruce, just like they did with Jason, even though Tim shows up with signed paperwork.  

He tells Tim he’ll let him pick for them both. Tim picks pink flower studs the moment they show him the selection and he laughs hard enough that his stomach hurts at Jason’s expression. It’s worth the stupid little pink flower he gets in his helix, right below the empty one he got with Dick.  

It’s also a good thing his helmet hides the thing until he can change it.  

When he does change it, he puts in a silver skull he bought at a thrift store. Tim calls him edgy, but Jason thinks it’s cool. When Tim is finally ready to change it, Jason gifts him the other skull in the pair. The silver will help prevent irritation, he says. A week later and Jason receives this pair of black skulls with black spikes hanging beneath them. He knows Tim is making fun of him. He wears them anyway.  

Chapter Text

“Please, Jason. Please give me one chance. I’ll do it your way, whatever you want. I want to fix it, please let me fix it. One chance. If you don’t want to talk to me ever again after that, I’ll respect it. Please.”  

“Fine. One patrol. You show up outside Crime Alley tomorrow night and you stay there until I come to get you.”  

He’s begged and begged Jason to let him try. He’s pretty sure Jason only agreed to let him come along on his patrol to get him to shut up. That’s okay. Being annoying is not a problem for him.  

Jason’s set them up for a drug bust; he found a storage base a week ago and he’s letting Dick come along.  

This is his one shot. Jason’s made it clear he didn’t want to talk to him, so Dick’s tried to stay out of his way, but the second Jason stopped leaving the Manor the moment he got there was the second Dick started trying to mend their relationship. And this is his chance. He’s not sure he’s going to get another one.  

“Hold back,” Jason hisses into his comms. “There’s more people than we thought.”  

“Think we can take them?” he asks, flashing barely in the light just so Jason can see him from across the property.  

“…Maybe. You got any pellets?”  

Smoke rises. Jason takes his shots, and Dick is sorely tempted to ask him to keep it non-lethal, but he agreed to do it Jason’s way and he’s not fucking up his chance by suggesting something he wouldn’t listen to anyway. So Dick just takes his own shots.  

It goes well. Until it doesn’t. 

He fails to predict one of the guys charging at him, and fails to block the knife that comes at his throat. He does manage to move, so the slice ends up thin instead of deadly. He only barely registers the tingling of drugs before he’s feeling every sensation under the sun all at once and he loses his conscious thought to the pain that eclipses his body.  

Dick doesn’t know how long it is that he’s stuck in this all-encompassing excruciating hell, but eventually his nerves settle down and the pain trickles out of his skin like syrup, leaving his exhausted mind to check back in to his exhausted body.  

The first thing he registers is that he’s not in his suit anymore. His skin is still overstimulated, but most of it is covered in either loose clothing or none at all.  

The second thing he registers is that he is laying on something soft.  

Scratch that; only half of him is laying on something soft. His chest is rising and falling to the beat of someone else’s breathing.  

His scalp tingles against the feeling of someone brushing back his hair, and the hand’s callouses leave shivering trails against his skin. He decides he’s probably not in any danger.  

Dick breathes in and opens his eyes, curling in on himself a little further; he takes stock of everything around him. The air smells stale and musty; an image of dirty, smoke- and water-stained walls presents itself in front of him; loose clothes shift against his body, soft fabric of a couch beneath his legs, and whoever he’s laying on immediately draws away from his hair.  

He turns his head a little to look up at Jason, without a mask but still avoiding his eyes. Jason’s jaw is tight, his eyebrows drawn together.  

Jason is tucked into the corner of the couch, diagonal to it. Dick is laying parallel over the couch, his body slightly elevated against Jason’s torso, his head resting against his shoulder with Jason’s elbow propped against Dick’s shoulder and his hand curled into his chest.  

Dick can feel his other hand at his ear, twisting the flat stud in his fingers, twirling the post over and over.  

He doesn’t stop, not even when Dick says, “Hey.” His throat is really fucking dry.  

“You’re an asshole,” is all Jason responds with, frowning a little harder. He looks like he’s trying to scowl, but his eyebrows won’t stay in place.  

Dick hums. “What happened?”  

“Laced knife,” Jason grunts. “I’ve seen it before. Fuckers on the street took inspiration from Ivy and Scarecrow. Causes hypersensitivity and leads to overstimulation.”  

Dick eyes him. “Are you okay?” he asks.  

“Am I okay?” Jason laughs incredulously. “Yeah, I guess I’m fine. But you- You were screaming. And-” He cuts himself off, his expression deepening that much more.  

Dick sucks in a breath. “Sorry,” he says. He wants to take Jason’s hand. That must’ve scared him. Dick knows they’re not nearly there yet, though, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t, even though he itches to.  

“Shut the fuck up.”  

He’s still twisting the post.  

Dick doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now.  

He doesn’t know how to continue.  

This was supposed to be him trying to make Jason warm up to him, and he went and fucked it up by getting stabbed.  

“Did you get them?”  

“My men did.”  

Dick closes his eyes, and he leans back into Jason’s chest. He’s surprised he hasn’t shoved him off yet, surprised that he arranged them like this in the first place, so he’s not going to push his luck.  

Jason’s still twisting the post.  

“You still have it.”  

It’s a statement, not a question. It’s… a confusing statement. “Yeah? Of course I do.”  

“Why?” Before Dick can open his mouth, Jason adds, “And don’t give me the bullshit Bruce gave me. Tell me why you kept a piercing you got with a dead kid. Tell me why you kept the fucking stud he chose.”  

“Because I love that dead kid.”  

“And he’s dead. The kid you love didn’t come back.”  

“Stop,” Dick says, finally giving in and reaching up to curl his fingers around Jason’s wrist. His other hand stutters in its turning of the earring. “You asked me to not bullshit you. I’m not, but you have to let me talk if you want the truth.”  

Jason twitches like he’s gonna break Dick’s hold, but he doesn’t. “Fine,” he says. “Talk.”  

“I kept the piercing because I love you, Jason,” Dick says. “I got that piercing with an amazing kid who still wanted to give me a chance after I was such an asshole to him. I kept the piercing because it reminded me of you. It was a physical thing, something I could look at, could feel, and it was the last thing I had that connected me to you. You picked out that stud, so I kept it in in your memory. Bruce has that thing with his parents, and he did it with you, and I always thought it was sweet and it made me feel better about your death. That’s why I kept it after you died.  

“That kid never left, though. I still have it because now it reminds me that you’re back. I don’t keep it in memory of a dead kid, I keep it so that every time I think about you I can remind myself that you’re alive. I keep it to remind myself that I have another chance. You let me try to mend what I did once before, it’s hope that you’ll let me do it again. If I let the piercing close it would’ve felt like forgetting you, and then it would’ve felt like giving up on you. And I’m not willing to do that.”  

“You have every reason to. I came back a murderer. I became everything you ever tried to keep me away from, I took everything you ever taught me and I turned it against you. I am the people you hate, I am the people you take down.”  

Dick taps his wrist. “You know,” he hums, “I don’t think the Scarecrow ever cared about the people on the streets who got caught in his crossfire. I don’t think Two-Face ever gave a thought about the people in this city, never cared about who was homeless or who didn’t have protection from people who were stronger than them. And, please don’t hit me for this, I don’t think the Joker ever didn’t think about dragging civilians into his schemes to get to Batman. The baselines are still there, Jay, you care about people no matter how bad you’ve been treated and that’s what I’ve always loved about you. And I have never thought for a second that was worth giving up on.”  

Jason’s breathing shudders beneath him, shaking and uneven. Dick turns his head to look up at him, and his eyes are closed, his head turned away like it’s helping hide the tear dripping down his cheek. Dick squeezes his wrist.  

“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go, you cunt,” Jason says lowly, voice pitching with emotion. He takes his hand from Dick’s earring to drag his palm across his eyes. “You know I’ve killed people, right? I have so many bodies on my hands. You’ve seen the aftermath.”  

“Every man has his quirks,” Dick says, raising a teasing eyebrow. Jason scoffs. “That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Jason. That’s kind of the thing about love. It’s not gonna go away. I think you could probably slaughter the universe and I would still love you. I’d never approve, I don’t approve, but I still love you. And I know you’re trying so hard. That only makes me love you more.”  

Jason growls, “God, I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.” He breaks Dick’s hold, then, and he reverses it, his calloused fingers closing around Dick’s wrist. He pulls his hand up, dipping his head and guiding his fingers to the cartilage of his ear. He presses Dick’s thumb above the skull earring he has in the piercing he got with Tim; his fingers hang loosely as Dick brushes over a second piercing that’s still there, even without an earring.  

“Oh,” he says, his throat suddenly tightening.  

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t let it close,” Jason says. “I tried. I tried so hard, but I could never leave it for more than a few days. Because you’re a fucking bastard.”  

Dick lets his fingers slip down into Jason’s, squeezing his hand. “Jay.”  

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Say another word and I’m sedating you.” 

Jason shifts them, wrapping his arms around Dick’s torso and pulling him further up, swinging his legs up underneath him and stretching out. Then he drags Dick into his chest, pressing his forehead into his shoulder. “You’re a mushy, soft little nerd fuckhead and I should’ve just shot you that night you intercepted Amazo.”  

Dick smiles softly and takes the chance to tuck himself further into his brother’s arms.  

“You scared me. Don’t ever let yourself get stabbed again. And go to sleep.”  

It’s not that hard with his little brother warm and alive next to him.  

Jason kicks him out the very second he wakes up in the morning, but he gets it. Jason’s always had a limit to how much time he can spend vulnerable with them, and the conversation they had the night before definitely shortened his tolerance.  

The next time Dick sees him, it’s when he actually shows up to the Saturday family meal, and there’s his flat stud back, right above the skull.  

After that, Dick changes his own to a heart stud embedded with pink crystals.  

When Jason sees it he tells him he’s never, ever talking to him ever again.  

Dick can’t help but pull him into a hug.  

Chapter Text

Dick has a new little brother.  

His little brother is Bruce’s biological son, and Talia al Ghul is his mother.  

His little brother doesn’t really like him. Or any of them, really.  

Damian has respect for Bruce, sure, but that doesn’t extend very far past what he’s been taught in the League. Bruce has been able to get one rule stuck in his head: No killing.  

The rest is… not going very well.  

Two months, and Damian is constantly fighting them, constantly pushing, constantly asserting his dominance or whatever and Dick’s not sure how much of it Bruce is going to be able to take.  

He’s not sure how much more of it any of them are going to be able to take.  

Damian was not in a good mood that morning - Dick had been able to tell from the moment he stepped out of his room with a snarl - and despite his best efforts the day had still ended in serrated words and drawn knives and his older two brothers leaving the house in a storm of anger.  

Dick sits outside Damian’s door deep into the night, head tipped back against the wood, rolling Damian’s actions around his mind over and over again.  

He’s lashing out. That’s what it is. It’s hard to tell under the air of entitlement and violence and daggers, but he’s lashing out.  

Dick doesn’t know why. He’s not sure how to fix it. He doesn’t know how he can make Damian understand.  

He’s trying, but it’s hard.  

Damian’s grounded, so it’s not hard to find him, even if he has most of the manor to wander around in. He greets Dick the next day with a sneer and a primly upturned nose.  

“What do you want?” he says, arms crossed.  

“I just talked to Bruce,” Dick tells him quietly. “He said that I could bring you with me downtown as long as you behave yourself.”  

Damian considers him. “Why?” he asks.  

“I want to talk to you.”  

“And if I say no?”  

Dick gives him an easy smile. “Then you’re stuck in the house for the next two weeks.”  

Damian only continues to eye him. Dick shrugs, and turns towards the door.  

“What would we do?” Damian asks. He knows the kid wants him to turn around and speak back to him, so that’s what he doesn’t do. The kid has to huff and stroll to his side.  

“I need to pick something up. Then, after we’re done talking, we can go wherever you want until dinnertime.”  

Damian doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t drop off from Dick’s side, so he shoots Bruce a quick text and leads his little brother to his car and opens the back door for him. Damian looks disgruntled every time Dick shoots a look at the rearview mirror.  

Dick does his task and Damian doesn’t say a word. He does level a sneer at the ice cream shop Dick brings him to, though, and Dick has to wait for him to get over himself and walk through the door.  

“I’m in the mood,” Dick tells him with a shrug when he shoots him a judgmental glare. “I’m getting a cone. Do you want one?”  

“This is childish,” Damian sniffs, staring at the candy toppings laid out on the other side of the glass.  

“Maybe.” Dick shrugs again. “But it tastes good. Decide quick, this line’s pretty short.”  

When Dick makes his order, he gives a charming smile and piles on enough candy to definitely earn him a smack over the head via Alfred later, picking a strawberry-chocolate ice cream mix base. Damian lifts a lip at the mix, a high tower of colourful sugar, but when Dick prods him he orders French-vanilla with chocolate chunks and salted caramel on top.  

“This is a bribe,” Damian says, staring at his cup because he didn’t want a cone.  

“Maybe,” Dick smirks, picking off a gummy worm and offering it out. Damian recoils with a twisted expression, so he pops it into his mouth. “It’s actually more of a way to give you something else to focus on. If it works as a bribe, it works. Now, what I want you to note is that we are in a public space, there are a lot of people around, and you were announced a month ago, meaning if you draw attention to yourself people are going to start to notice. Which means no yelling, no threatening, and no knives. Yeah?”  

Damian looks around with narrowed eyes, taking in the family in the corner who is already eyeing them. Dick gives him a charming smile when he turns back, and he sniffs begrudgingly. “Smart. Fine.”  

“Good,” Dick says, and immediately tests him by flicking a marshmallow at his nose, hitting him dead-on. Damian only snarls and grips his fork, so Dick picks the marshmallow up and places it atop his ice cream. “I’m about to psychoanalyze you. Are you prepared?”  

Damian straightens, sending him a challenging look. “Try me.”  

“You don’t think you belong here. In this family.”  

Damian bares his teeth, glaring. “I belong more than you. I'm Father’s blood son, his real son, and I'm the only one who should be here.”  

“You keep talking about that, about the blood connection you have, but you’ve found that blood doesn’t matter in this family nearly as much as you want it to and that scares you. Bruce cares about me and Jason and Tim just as much as he does you, and you know that. You feel threatened by them, by me. That’s why you’ve been acting as you have. You think we’re stealing away his affection because we’ve managed to get him to care about us through a method unknown to you, even though we don’t have the connection you have, the claim as a biological child.”  

The way Damian grinds his teeth tells him he’s right. Dick takes a breath and continues. “Bruce bases his connection based on how we act, Damian, not which one of us is truly his. If you want to have the relationship with him that we have, you’re going to have to play by his rules.”  

“And what are those?” Damian asks stiffly.  

“Well, what’s he been trying to teach you? That whole conversation you had yesterday? He’s been trying to tell you, you just aren’t listening. And you’re going to have to start.”  

Damian stares at his ice cream, finally dipping his spoon into it. He holds up the scoop, marshmallow on top, eyes fixed on it. “What are you gaining? Why are you telling me all this?” His face is blank except for his piercing eyes as the spoon goes in his mouth. 

“I don’t want anything,” Dick tells him. “I’m offering my guidance. I can help you, I can tell you about how we’ve done it, if you want. But you have to be willing to listen to me.”  

Damian doesn’t respond, and Dick doesn’t ask for an answer. When they’re done, Dick brings them outside, says they have an hour until they have to be back, and asks Damian where he’d like to go; Damian doesn’t pick anything, so Dick takes them to the bookstore because he’s noticed one or two finding their way to Damian’s bedside table. After that, they hit a few other shops, and then Dick finally notices how Damian’s been eyeing people’s dogs as they walk past, and brings him to the pet shop.  

He puts a pet on a mental list, for a later idea when he gets an idea of how responsible Damian is and he earns his trust. And Bruce’s, of course.  

When the time runs out, they head back to the car; Dick doesn’t start it, just twists around so he can meet Damian’s eye. Damian lifts his chin, eyeing him suspiciously.  

“The thing is, though, Damian,” he says softly, “you’re already part of this family. The rest of us are only waiting for you to act like it.”  

Damian doesn’t talk to him again the whole way home, but when Bruce is able to get Tim and Jason back to the Manor for dinner, Damian ignores them entirely, which is a step up.  

There is a day, a week later, when Dick gets to Gotham from Bludhaven, and when he opens the door, Damian is sitting on his bed and staring expectantly.  

“Hi,” he says dryly, raising an eyebrow. “What’s up?”  

“I accept,” Damian says.

It does, of course, take Dick a minute to remember what he’s talking about, but when he does, he grins, wide. “Good.”  

He begins unloading his things, and Damian stares at him. “Is that all?”  

“For now, yeah.” Dick smiles at him. “I’ll start later. Right now, I’m unpacking.”  

Damian’s lips twist downward in disapproval as he continues to watch.  

Dick doesn’t have to go find him later, because the kid’s been trailing after him all day long.  

It’s finally hit bedtime, and even after he changes to his pajamas, Damian gravitates right back to Dick’s room, where he’s also changing.  

“I’ll come talk to you when I’m ready, kiddo,” Dick tells him, amused. Damian clicks his teeth, and turns to leave. “There was something else I wanted to ask you about, though.”  

His little brother twitches an eyebrow up, but moves smoothly further into the room.  

“Have you noticed Bruce’s hoops?” Dick asks mildly.  

“Yes,” Damian says cautiously.  

“What do you think of them?”  

Damian narrows his eyes. After a second, he says, “They're a weakness. They could be easily pulled on.”  

Dick laughs. “He’s Batman. No one’s ever getting that close. Besides, you know he only really fights as Batman, and then he has the cowl on.”  

“Maybe,” Damian says, meaning he disagrees but isn’t willing to voice it.  

“What do you think of mine?”  

“I think they're childish and even more disadvantageous.”  

Dick sends him a smile. “Maybe. But I take them out when I’m on patrol. And I like my earrings. I think they look cool.”  

“They look dumb,” Damian says, gesturing at the geese currently hanging from his earlobes.  

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” he says cheekily. “And I keep these ones pretty tame.” He points at his cartilage piercing.  

“I guess. Those are way more respectable. Why are you asking?”  

Dick takes a breath, and sits down next to his little brother, crossing his legs beneath him. “There is a sort of… tradition, here. You know Jason and Tim both have piercings. When I got these two lobe piercings,” he says, pointing, “it was with Bruce, at the same time he got his second hoop in. You probably noticed the beads he has on his hoops. They’re initialed, one for each of us, as well as his parents. I know yours is on there, he put yours on there a while ago and I know you’ve seen it. That was him claiming you as his kid, emotionally. He’s done it for all of us. But there’s a different kind of thing we like to do. Me and Jason, Jason and Tim, me and Bruce, we’ve all gone and gotten ours pierced together, as a sort of bonding thing. It’s like a- like a ritual of sorts, it’s how we show we’re connected to each other, through the piercings and through the earrings we buy for each other. If you wanted that, a physical way to show you’re part of us, then I would be willing to get a piercing with you. I want to.”  

Damian looks at him, expression thoughtful, eyes calculating. “Is it necessary?”  

“No. You’re family with or without the piercing, and whether you like it or not. I just wanted to offer, to make sure you knew you could get a- a physical reminder.” Dick nudges his shoulder, about as far as he’s willing to go for now so he doesn’t get stabbed. “You deserve it, though. If you want it.”  

Damian is quiet for a moment. “Would it be okay with Father?” he asks quietly.  

“Yes, he would. You don’t even have to ask him about it if you don’t want to, just tell him you want a piercing and he’d sign you off and then we’d go.”  

Damian’s eyes are narrowed so far he’s practically squinting at the floor.  

“Alright, bedtime, kiddo, you’ve been up too long already,” Dick tells him softly. “Bruce is probably looking for you already. You think about it, okay? Come find me if you want it. Offer will remain open.”  

The very next day has Damian asking him about it. He does so in a way that makes it clear that he’s not admitting to not knowing everything, but it’s still a start.  He asks about options and consequences. Dick answers with perfect patience.  

Then Damian drops it for a week, and Dick takes it as a no.  

Then – because no one in this family is capable of being normal – Dick drops his bag in the dark of his room in the Manor and is almost startled by Damian’s voice behind him.  

“I'll get the piercing with you if you choose something that isn't stupid,” Damian says, glaring from the top of his bed.  

“Jesus, Damian,” Dick says, dramatically clutching at his heart. “Warn a guy.”  

Damian sneers. “If that really scared you, then you're a disappointment to this family. Shut up and pick up the pace. I want to spar.”  

Dick helps him prepare the ‘statement’ he wants to make to Bruce; he knows it’s unnecessary, but he thinks maybe the kid knows that and it’s really more for his own comfort, so he leaves it be. Dick lets him choose the date; he picks that Sunday, which was much earlier than he was expecting. He figures Damian’s probably excited, so he doesn’t complain too much.  

Damian corners his father after lunch that Saturday. Dick got Tim to come back to the table during meals a while ago – it’s helped that Damian’s stopped antagonizing him, at least during meals, and Dick’s working on everything else – but he’s had yet to get Jason to come any further than the Cave, of which Damian has been confined to silence under threat of his privileges of coming down at all being removed. Anyway, it means Tim slips out of the dining room as soon as he’s able, leaving them alone.  

“Father,” Damian starts. Dick gives him a reassuring smile, and he’s certain he sees it when he glances over. “I'd like to pierce my earlobes with Grayson.”  

Bruce’s eyes flicker up to Dick’s. He hasn’t mentioned it to him beforehand. “Okay,” he says, a clear prompt to continue.  

“Grayson has explained it tradition and a ritual, and I think it's my turn, as does Grayson.”  

Bruce raises an eyebrow at Dick, but only says, “Okay.”  

“I’ve been informed that I'll need your permission to get it done,” Damian says. He stands up a little straighter, meeting Bruce’s eyes. “That's what I'm asking for.”  

“Granted,” Bruce says with a smile. “Are you going to the same place?”  

The question is directed at Dick. “Yes,” he says.  

“Okay. He comes right back here when you’re done, he’s still grounded.”  

“I know.”  

“Did he tell you about the risks and care?” Bruce asks Damian.  

“Yes, Father.”  

“Good,” Bruce nods. “Go ahead, then.”  

Dick nudges Damian, who shoots him a dirty look, but says anyway, “Thank you, Father.”  

Dick’s already talked to him about their agreement, so Bruce shoots a knowing look at Dick. “You’re getting one, too?” he asks.  

“Yup,” Dick pops.  

“Have fun.”  

Damian doesn’t have near the nerves Dick did when he went that first time, or at least not for the pain. He does get a little stiff when the place calls Bruce before they’ll let them further than the desk, but Bruce gives consent like he said he would and a lady Dick recognizes takes them back. They all know him and Damian, too, despite not having seen Damian before; four Waynes walking into the place before him has stuck in their minds.  

Damian is getting his lobes done, so that’s what Dick decides on too; a second pair next to his current ones. Maybe he can finally wear matching sets all together. He has to take out his dangly trolls for the piercing, unfortunately.  

He tells Damian to pick the earrings. He chooses the pearls, calling them respectable with a wrinkled nose at the trolls in Dick’s hand, so that’s what they get done. The staff do all four at the same time – Dick doesn’t even have to prompt them. When they’re done, Dick takes Damian out for ice cream, despite Damian’s insistence that he isn’t in pain.  

When the pearls come out, Damian has already improved so much in reference to the family. Dick puts in a pair that Damian had stiffly handed him the day of; said that he’d been informed of the gifted earrings when the heal time was up, and that the pair of diamond studs on golden plates would be the only acceptable pair in his piercings. Dick has kept them in when he can.  

Damian likes anything fancy or that shows off his wealth, keeping towards the masculine side. He does let Dick buy him pairs of earrings, and Dick knows his lines. Damian’s favourite, though, are a pair of dangling golden rectangles framing green hanging gems, even though they’re very feminine. When Dick hands them to him he says quietly that they remind him of his mother; he wears them often after that.  

Chapter Text

Bruce dies.  

Dick is suddenly left with the weight of the world on his shoulders, the city of Gotham, and his grieving family who’ve been left without a dad. All the earrings he’s worn in that first pair of lobe piercings stay in his room, and he replaces them with the original black studs.  

Jason’s world is falling apart around him. Maybe if things were different, he’d pull away from his family, but he can’t bring himself to now. Besides, somebody’s got to look after them.  

Damian didn’t get that much time with his father. He’s still never felt grief like this before. He’s never seen grief like this before. He doesn’t like the way it weighs on Richard’s shoulders, the change he sees in his eyes every time he steps out as Batman. Richard still steps up as Damian’s mentor, and Damian can’t help but begin to care for him as such.  

Cassandra tries to help her family as much as she can. She has known grief like this before. That doesn’t mean she likes the way it changes her family. The way she can see that grief in every line of their bodies every single day. The way she can see grief stretched over her image in the mirror like canvas every time she looks.  

Stephanie can’t quite figure out how she feels. She feels the loss too but she’s not sure how she’s supposed to process it. And it’s not like Bruce was her dad . She has a dad, even though he was a shitty one. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it’s supposed to work, anyway.  

Tim knows Bruce is alive.  

No one else believes him.  

Robin is torn away from him and given to Damian, and he has to resort to teaming with Ra’s al Ghul to get Bruce back because his family calls him insane and delusional and acts like he’s looking for and finding clues that aren’t there due to his grief. Maybe he was, but he knows it’s real now.  

He feels... cut-off. Still, he can’t bring himself to ignore Jason’s calls and he can’t make himself lead Cass away from what he’s doing.  

They’re not able to stop him, though.  

Tim brings Bruce back, because he was right.  

He watches, hidden from sight, when Bruce steps out and meets his family – when Dick falls to his knees in front of him and breaks, when Alfred cries harder than any of them have ever seen, when Damian steps up stiffly and Bruce pulls him into a bear-hug first, when Cass and Steph both fall into his arms. Jason’s missing, and Tim is the one to shoot him a vaguely-threatening message, urging him to come find his father.  

Then, he picks himself up, and he leaves.  

Now he sits sprawled out on his couch, one hand splayed against the large and ugly scar against his stomach and the other barely holding a phone, trying to find the motivation to call a delivery place so he can order food.  

It’s been three days since Bruce came home. Longer since Tim has spoken to anyone but Jason. Even longer since he’s actually seen any of them.  

They’re busy with Bruce’s return. He knows that.  

He knows.  

He can’t take his eyes off his empty notification bar long enough to call the damn number for the delivery place.  

He’s not sure why it hurts so much.  

This is stupid. This is so fucking dumb. He knows it. He also knows he’s thinking too goddamn hard right now, so he just throws his phone face-down on the floor, curls up, and sinks into the cushions of his couch, hiding his watering eyes in a pillow cupped in his arms.  

There’s a knock on his door. Three raps, evenly spaced, then two, slower. It’s a pattern they all recognize. Used to let each other know it’s a Bat when they’re out in the field; when they’re not , they all know the individual patterns.  

Hope surges desperately in his chest. He really wants it to be someone who’s noticed his absence, who’s thought about him and realized he should be in Gotham again by now, who’s come to see him just because they want to. He knows it’s a dream, so he squashes that hope. It’s probably just one of them asking for his help, a favour or something. He hates that he’ll have to let them down.  

“Door’s open,” he calls.  

He doesn’t lift his head to look as he hears his door swing open.  

“A safety hazard,” Cass’s voice says softly, suddenly close to his head. He knows he only heard her earlier because she was deliberately forcing her actions to be louder.  

Well, shit.

It’s Cass. Cass knows what he’s thinking with a single glance, can probably see the pathetic longing like it’s dripping off of him, can probably see the unreasonable anger he holds towards his family. And he can’t expect her to take the time and energy to ask about it, he can’t think she’ll talk him through the emotions he has and tell him they’re valid like he has any right to be upset with everyone else just because they’re busy.  

He tries to convey that in the small smile he gives her, that he’s fine and that she doesn’t have to ask about it because he knows if he tried to pretend like he wasn’t upset she’d know he was a liar. “Hey, Cass,” he says, turning so one eye is exposed, and his voice is steady as it always is. “What do you need?”  

He tries to shove the spite down, the feeling that he doesn’t owe them anything, not after he just spent so much time bringing their father back when none of them could be bothered to help or even just check on him afterwards. He knows it’ll be more effective to banish the feeling entirely than to try to hide it in his body language.  

Cass is in civvies, black leggings and a deep purple loose shirt, a large jacket hanging off her shoulders. Her lips are pursed as she moves to his side, her eyes sweeping over him intensely. Her eyebrows furrow together, and he knows she’s seen him; he tries to put more I’m fine into his body language.  

“Why unlocked?” she asks softly, ignoring his question.  

Tim shrugs. “Why not? Anyone who wants in right now is going to be able to get in anyway.”  

Cass’s lips turn down into a small frown. “Like?”  

Tim shrugs. Assassins, but that’s not the point.  

Cass leans down, lifting his phone from the floor. “How long since you’ve eaten?” she asks, like she knows. She doesn’t, he has to tell himself, she’s just asking.  

Tim shrugs again.  

His sister eyes him for a minute. He’s waiting for her to let it go and just ask about what she’s here for, but she walks away, slipping out of his view. He waits for her to get back.  

A few minutes later there’s a hand on his head, fingers catching in the tangles in his hair as it’s swept to the side. It’s a gentle touch that sends shivers down his skin. Cass guides him to sit up with a soft hand on his chin; she scoops his pillow away from him, pushing it to the other side of the couch. His favourite blanket gets wrapped around his shoulders. Cass sets a glass of water in his hands and sinks into the couch next to him, hooking her head onto his shoulder.  

“Better,” she says, smiling. “Want to talk. I ordered food. After you eat.”  

Tim looks at her as she wraps her arms around his blanketed form. “Okay,” he says eventually, and his voice sounds impossibly small.  

The doorbell rings after a while, and Cass stands to answer it, pointing sternly at the water cup. She comes back with takeout from the exact restaurant he’d been trying to call earlier, and has all of his favourite stuff in hand – he almost feels nauseous at the thought, that she cared enough to remember and order them for him.  

Cass lays out the food on his coffee table; there’s a lot, enough that he has to guess that she means for there to be leftovers. Then she folds back into his side, dropping a plate in his lap. “Eat,” she says, and he knows by her narrowed eyes that he’s not getting out of it.  

She takes a good portion of the food herself – people often think she doesn’t eat much due to her small stature, but that is not true. She eats as much as Dick does. There is still food left when they’re done, though, and Cass leaves for a second to make sure it all gets put in his fridge.  

When she comes back, she pulls him into her side this time. Her touch is soft as always, and one of her hands goes up to his hair, brushing it out for real this time. He hasn’t been touched like this, hugged like this, since he left the Manor, and he can’t stop himself from curling into her side, tears pricking at his eyes.  

“You never came back,” Cass says quietly. “Bruce did, but you didn’t. Was worried.” 

“Sorry,” Tim says automatically, his voice cracking with emotion. “I didn’t want to intrude.”  

“Intrude,” Cass scoffs with venom. “Stupid. Never.”  

Tim doesn’t respond, because he’s not sure he’s going to be able to get anything past his closed throat. Cass drifts a hand down to press at the corner of his mouth, rubbing something she sees off of his expression. “You look sad,” she tells him quietly. “Tired. Upset. Hurt. Scared. Lots of things happened, while you were away. Tell me about it? Please?”  

Someone cares. Someone wants to know what happened. Someone’s willing to listen. Cass reached out specifically to take care of him and ask him about it.  

Fuck, that’s all he’s wanted.  

He can’t help himself. He spills everything. He tells her about what Dick did. He tells her about what made him believe Bruce was alive. He tells her about leaving to find him, about asking for support and getting refused, about teaming with Ra’s as a result. He talks about the Council of Spiders and Prudence, Z, and Owens and the day he lost his spleen. He dissolves into a mess of emotions at some point. All the pain, the fear, the longing, it all spills out of him.  

And Cass listens to him.  

She keeps her arms wrapped around him, even as he shakes apart against her. And it feels so good . He’s been alone for so long and now Cass is here and she’s here for him.  

When he’s done, he’s exhausted. Cass smiles at him like he’s worth the insane amount of love she’s showing him and she pins him to her side until he falls asleep. 

Cass manages to convince him that he should tell someone else about what happened. Not everything, not if he doesn’t want to, she says, but someone else needs to know about the important bits, especially about his missing spleen. He doesn’t even need to tell all of the rest of the family, just one more, she tells him.  

Tim considers Dick. He considers Bruce. But Jason is the one to break into his house at three in the morning two days later, not wake him up as he uses his kitchen to cook chicken pot pie, drag him out of bed to eat said chicken pot pie, and then pin him to the floor and ask where the fuck he’s been. So he sits Jason down with Cass – who knew he was there the whole time and did nothing about it – and spilled his guts again, with less emotion and mess than he had the first time.  

Jason does, of course, smack him over the head and call him a fucking idiot and then fuss over him for the rest of the night, especially when he learns the splenectomy scar isn’t even healed yet.  

After that, it becomes more frequent for Cass and Jason to come and check on him and make sure he’s eating and taking his antibiotics and showering, Cass the most frequent. She’s the one who makes the others remember he exists, she’s the one to convince him to show up at the Manor again, and she’s the one who stands up for him when they get mad about him teaming with Ra’s.  

Tim can’t bring himself to spend any casual time at the Manor, which means he’s usually at his house. So, that’s where Cass is too.  

He really appreciates the time and effort she’s putting into him. He knows it makes him sound pathetic, but she makes him feel loved again. Especially now, Tim can feel it, curled up on his couch with Cass at his back, her hand in his hair as she reads something from her phone, her English practice for the day. She doesn’t like speaking everything all the time, but she does like learning new words.  

The chapter of the book she’s found finishes – and she shifts beside him, her hand moving from his hair down to his ear.  

“What for?” she asks, gently tapping his tragus piercing.  

“What do you mean?” Tim asks, glancing up at her.  

“Why…” she says slowly. “Why did you get it?”  

“Oh. I got it with Jason a while ago,” he says.  

“Saw Jason’s.” Cass nods. “Two. Dick’s, five. Bruce’s, two. Yours… one.”  

Tim smiles ruefully. “Yeah. It’s kind of like a bonding thing, I guess. Bruce hasn’t really done it, he just does the bead thing, but Jason told me Dick got his helix piercing with him after being an asshole when they were younger. Jason got another helix piercing with me after he came back. It’s… yeah, it’s a bonding thing.”  

“What is helix?”  

Tim reaches up to her ear, drawing his finger over the curve at the top. “Helix is what they call the single piercing they put in your cartilage here, like what Jason and Dick have. Dick, Bruce, and Damian all have lobe piercings, down here,” he moves his fingers down to her lobe.  

“Yours?” she hums, moving his fingers up to the bit attached to the rest of her skin.  

“That’s called a tragus piercing,” he tells her.  

“And others?”  

Cass listens to him infodump about ear piercings for a while. He got unreasonably far down a rabbit hole when Jason had asked him. He even explains gauges to her and how they work.  

“Why tragus?” she asks. “Is there meaning…?”  

“Nope, I just thought it looked cool.” Tim shrugs. “I was considering an industrial piercing,” he points to the chart he’s pulled up, “but I thought it shouldn’t be my first.”  

“Only one, though,” she says, and the pointed way she says it means he didn’t give her the answer she wanted when she first said it.  

“Dick hasn’t offered yet,” Tim says, looking at the floor. He knows it’s not going to stop her from seeing it, so he doesn’t try to keep the bitter edge out of his voice. “You’d think he’d have done it in the years I was Robin, before Bruce disappeared. Apparently not. You’d think he wouldn’t do it with Damian after only knowing the kid for a few months.”  

Cass gives him a sympathetic look. She always manages to make it feel real – like she understands you, and it’s likely because she does. She makes it comforting. She dips down to press a kiss to his forehead, then snuggles into his shoulder.  

“Sorry,” she says. “You deserve his love.”  

Tim gives her a small half-smile, suddenly filled with gratitude that he has her. He makes sure she can see it.  

It’s about twenty minutes later when an idea hits him, and he smacks his hand to his forehead. When Cass gives him a questioning look, all he says is, “I’m an idiot.”  

He sits up more so he’s straight up, and grabs her arm gently. “Cass, do you want to get a piercing with me? I should have thought of it earlier. I would love to have that connection with you if you want it, and you deserve it way more than Dick does.”  

Cass lights up, smiling at him. “Very cool,” she admits. “I want it. Would Bruce say okay, though?”  

“You’re an adult. I’m emancipated. We don’t even have to tell him about it,” Tim tells her. At her hesitation, he says, “It’s your body, Cass, you get to have jurisdiction over it. Look, even if you don’t want to get it with me, we can still set up for you to get it.”  

“If I get it, I get it with you,” she reassures. “…Can I think?”  

Tim gives her a smile, a genuine one he’s sure is leaking the warmth inside him to her. “As long as you want,” he says. “I’ll wait. And it’ll be okay if you say no.”  

Cass pulls him in and kisses his forehead again.  

A week later, she drops in beside him – literally – while he’s finally doing his dishes, and he manages not to startle.  

“Hey,” he says. “All good?” He knows she’s probably just here to check on him, but he likes making sure anyway.  

“All good,” Cass says. “You?” 

“All good,” he confirms. He holds up a plate, giving her a small smile. “Finally found motivation.”  

“I see,” she says happily. She sidles up to his side, picking up a dish. “Thinking about earrings,” she says.  

“Yeah?” Tim prompts.  

“Mhm. I think I want. But I’m not sure.”  

“Okay,” Tim says, nodding. “Let me know when you decide. But, if you wanted, I was thinking we could go to the mall or something, and I can show you this one place I think you’d like.”  

“Yes,” Cass says, smiling. “Tomorrow?”  

“Tomorrow.” 

Tim takes her to Claire’s.  

He doesn’t come here often, but he can occasionally find some cute, simple sets there.  

Cass loves it.  

She’s always thought Dick’s earrings were funny, she tells him, but she wouldn’t like to wear them. She finds sets of dangly drinks, gummy bears, and various fruit slices. When she finds a pair of studs with coffee cups, she slyly slips it into his palm. She finds a set of small animal studs, including pandas and foxes and frogs. She finds a pair of dangling cartoon bananas. She finds a pair of yellow silhouette-cut pterodactyls. Tim absolutely loves the way her eyes light up, and every pair she holds for longer than a minute doesn’t go back on the shelf.  

Tim does manage to find a set himself – it's something Jason would make fun of him for being emo for, but honestly he’s not one to talk. Tim can’t help but buy every single set that ends up in his arms. They have to get a very big bag, but Cass’s smile is huge when they go to find lunch.  

“They’re yours,” Tim tells her. “For whenever you decide you want the piercings.” 

Cass hands him one of her fries. “I want it. With you. Soon.”  

Tim gives her a real, genuinely happy grin. Cass tells him it looks nice on him.  

He asks her to pick the date. She decides she wants it soon, so Tim drives her to the same place he and Jason went to as soon as they’re both free.  

The staff are all very chill. Cass reassures him that she’s not anything but excited, but she still consents to getting all the piercings at the same time. She picks their initial studs – blue-jewel encrusted sliver moons. She gets both her lobes pierced, while he just gets his other tragus done.  

Cass wrangles him into a long hug when they’re done.  

She’s very insistent about checking to make sure he’s taking care of his properly. The fact that she cares so much makes him soft.  

When her six weeks passes, she ends up cycling through all the sets Tim bought her from Claire’s. When Tim’s heals, he puts in that set he bought – he likes the aesthetic with his skull – as well as, occasionally, the coffee cups Cass had picked for him.  

If Cass flaunts their piercings a little in front of Dick, well, he doesn’t complain too much.  He didn’t know she could be so spiteful, though. He’ll have to watch out for that.  

Chapter Text

Bruce comes back from a trip in the timeline.  

Bruce comes back from his assumed death, and he comes back to his family in shambles.  

He never meant for this to happen. He never meant for Dick to carry what he had to as Batman. He never meant for Jason to take care of everyone all at the same time. He never meant to leave Alfred to deal with his grief while taking care of the rest of theirs, too. He never meant for Cass to juggle her travelling and the responsibilities he never meant for her to take on. He never meant to leave Damian to try to adjust to everything new that’s been pushed on him without him. He never meant to leave Steph without his support, and though he knows she’s not technically part of the family, she still didn’t deserve it. And Tim. He never meant for Tim to take his place in the company, to have to strike out by himself, to find him by himself.  

He didn’t mean to leave his kids without a father, the second time for all of them. 

He’s trying to fix it all, but he’s never been good at it, and there’s so much that happened. It’s a little overwhelming. 

Everything physical, technical, routine, he knows how to get back in place. 

He’s having a lot of trouble with his relationships, though. He’s not sure how to proceed with all the lingering grief and undefined emotions and Dick’s exhaustion and the way Jason’s been avoiding him or how Cass breaks into his room every night to check on him. He’s trying, of course he’s trying, but he’s not sure if he’s making any progress yet.  

A lot has changed.  

For instance, Damian is Robin now.  

Bruce wouldn’t have made that decision yet, but the boy has developed a better relationship with Dick, and people in general.  

At the moment, though, he cannot convince himself it was worth the way Damian ignores his orders and lashes out on patrol.  

Bruce feels like nothing has changed since those years when he only had Dick. He’s scared. Damian is an entirely different kind of challenging than Dick was, than Cass was, than even Jason was. He’s made a lot of mistakes as a father, and he’s always felt like his kids deserve better. Damian is pushing him far past his limits, and he genuinely cannot say that he’s making any progress. It’s not Damian’s fault, though.  

His son is difficult, and it scares the hell out of him. 

Bruce sits in the Cave, waiting for his Robin to get back. Damian cut his comms and his trackers a little under an hour ago, and he still hasn’t turned in. Bruce is trying, really trying to be patient, because he knows this is just Damian lashing out, but he’s about twenty more minutes from going back out to find him. He knows Damian can take care of himself, but he’s not confident that Damian would ask for help if he needed it. He can’t help but worry. Dick told him he’s done this before, though, and he should be back soon. 

Finally, his son emerges in the Cave. Bruce watches him as he makes his way over to the lockers, studiously ignoring him. There’s a deep scowl on his face, and he’s rolling his shoulder, but he looks fine otherwise. Bruce doesn’t get up to follow him until he’s already changed out of the suit. 

“Damian,” he starts. Damian straightens his spine and turns around to meet his eyes defiantly. He looks so challenging, like he knows Bruce is going to talk to him and is telling him now that he doesn’t regret his decisions. Bruce sighs, rubbing his forehead. “...We’re going out tomorrow. Please be up and ready by nine.” 

He can feel the confusion in Damian’s gaze following him as he walks away, but he’s much too tired to explain any further. 

The next morning, Damian joins him in the kitchen exactly ten minutes before nine. Bruce nods to the seat next to him, where he’s set out a second bowl of oatmeal. They eat in silence, but Bruce can tell by his tense shoulders that Damian is still expecting a lecture from him. 

“Where are we going?” Damian eventually asks, shooting him a suspicious sideways look. 

“To visit someone I know,” Bruce answers. “You’ll see when we get there.” 

“Is Richard coming with us?” he asks. 

Damian has developed a much closer relationship with Dick than any of the rest of them, including Bruce. Maybe even especially Bruce. It makes perfect sense, and Dick has been good with him. He tries not to let it hurt him. He’s more mature than that. He’s not sure how well it’s working. 

“I was planning on it just being you and I, but you can go get him if you want to,” Bruce says. Damian doesn’t physically react, but he doesn’t go get his brother before he follows Bruce out to their car. 

They’re silent on the drive to the place. It’s not a very long ride, and Bruce does his best to ignore the gap he feels between him. If he thinks about it too hard, it’ll feel like too much to build a bridge over it, and he can’t afford that. 

After maybe twenty minutes, they pull into a parking lot. Damian looks up at the sign next to the door, his interest sparking. “A pound?” he says curiously. 

Bruce cuts the engine, but instead of leaving the car, turns to his son. “It’s not a regular pound,” he says. “It’s more of a rehabilitative center. My friend Rebecca Piritta takes abused animals from other pounds and works with them so they can live with a real family. So when we go in, you have to follow her instructions regarding the animals at all times. Understand?” 

“Yes,” Damian says with the upmost sincerity. Bruce nods and steps out of the car to lead him inside. 

There’s no one at the desk in the reception room. It’s not too surprising to Bruce, and he pushes open the back door and holds it open for Damian, walking in behind him. Rebecca is there, sitting on the ground, two puppies and one older dog playing in front of her. The room is large and lined with fairly large cages, only a few animals in each of them. Bruce clears his throat softly to get her attention. 

“Bruce!” Rebecca grins as she looks up at him. “Right on time, my man. Come here, sit down. Just like last time.” 

Bruce smiles, very carefully stepping up to about a foot and a half away from her. The three dogs are play-fighting with a rope toy, and he only slowly sits down when they’re out of the way. He sits with his legs crossed the way Rebecca’s are, his posture loose and his hands resting against his knees. He turns around and looks at Damian, inclining his head to the space on the ground next to him. 

“Go slow. Sit like this,” he says. Damian approaches his side carefully, lowering himself into the same position. 

Rebecca turns to him, smiling warmly. “Hello,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’m Rebecca.” 

“Damian Wayne,” Damian says, shaking her hand firmly. Bruce can tell he already holds some respect for her. 

“Nice to meet you, Damian,” Rebecca says. “Has your father explained to you what I do yet?” 

“He said you rehabilitate animals,” Damian responds, his eyes tracking the dogs and getting a little softer every time they roll around. 

“Was that it?” she asks, unimpressed. When he shrugs and nods, she shoots Bruce a look. “Sounds just like him,” she teases. “Well, it’s not that simple, but yes. I do. A lot of pounds will take in abused, mistreated, or quote-unquote difficult animals and still have them available to families who will not know how to help or work with them. Their treatment might even get worse, and they get sent right back to the pound, or sometimes put down because they were put in a situation that made them act out. I am working to stop that from happening. I take the animals, and I help them so there’s a higher chance that both they and their eventual families will be safe.” 

“How's your success rate?” Damian asks curiously. 

“Satisfying,” she tells him. “We haven’t been open for very long, so I’ve only found forty-six of the animals that have been ready homes, and only two were sent back. I worked harder with both of them and made sure their next homes were perfect.” 

“Impressive,” Damian says, and he sounds genuine. “Do you have all the qualifications for this?” 

“I do, but you can check my certificates if you want to,” Rebecca says, smiling. 

“I’ve already checked her, Damian,” Bruce cuts in for a moment. Damian nods in satisfaction. 

“Would you like to meet them?” Rebecca asks him, watching the dogs with an amused gaze. At his eager nod, she says, “Cinnamon. Hey, Cinnamon, hey. Sit.” 

The older dog, their attention caught on her, reluctantly abandons the rope and sits down in front of her. “This is Cinnamon,” Rebecca says, holding her hand out to the little brown bichon frisé sitting in front of her – likely a mix, given the brown coloured fur. “He’s about four years old, and he was brought here a little over five months ago.” Cinnamon knocks his head into her palm, and only then does she pet him, very gently picking him up and turning him so he faces Damian. “Hold your hand out to him. He’ll smell you for a second, and don’t touch him if he decides he doesn’t want it.” 

Damian solemnly holds out a hand, stretching it out so the little dog can reach. Cinnamon sniffs at his fingers for a few seconds, then pokes his hand with his nose. Damian very carefully begins to pet the dog, gently running his fingers over his fur. 

“No one’s actually sure what Cinnamon’s situation was, but he ended up on the streets before the pound picked him up. I think he was abused. He didn’t like men, and he used to run and hide when new people or new dogs showed up, or even when someone he likes gets too loud. But since I’ve been working with him, he’s gotten a lot better. A few weeks ago, he would’ve run.” Rebecca grins proudly. “These two little guys-” she gestures to the puppies still wrestling with the rope, “-are actually my own dogs, sisters from my fiancé's mother’s dog. Cinnamon only met them yesterday, but he’s been playing with them just fine. I’m hoping to get him comfortable with bigger strange dogs soon. Then he’ll be ready to live with his own family, as long as they respect his willingness to be pet.” 

A smile pulls at Damian’s lips, and his expression is incredibly soft as Cinnamon pushes a little closer to him. “That sounds nice. He’s made a lot of progress.” 

“He has,” Rebecca says proudly. 

Bruce watches his son with what he’s sure is about the same expression that Damian has. After a few more moments, Bruce tells Rebecca, “I’d like to take him back to Mac.” 

She gives him a dubious look for a moment, but nods. “Just don’t go in,” she says. 

“Of course.” 

Bruce stands up carefully, gesturing for Damian to follow him. He heads through a door on the other side of the room, which leads out to the courtyard, lined with more open cages. “She only keeps the ones who can comfortably handle it inside,” he says. “She brings them out when she can, of course, but some of them can’t stand being inside at all.” 

He finds another door to a separate part of the original building, a much smaller room with larger, much more separated enclosures. Bruce leads his son to one corner, the largest one out of all of them. 

Inside is a single dog, an American pit bull terrier. “This is Mac,” Bruce says softly, approaching the wall. Mac is gnawing on a dog bone in the corner furthest from the wall. She barely spares Bruce a glance when she hears her name, but he knows she knows he’s there. 

Damian steps towards the wall carefully, sitting down when Bruce doesn’t say anything to stop him. He casts an eye over her body, frowning deeply. “They're scarred,” he states, clearly unhappy. 

Bruce lowers down next to him, nodding. “She used to be a fight dog,” he says. 

“I know. Her ears and tail are clipped." 

“Rebecca got her a little over a year ago, one of the first dogs she ever received. Mac was taken from a dog fighting ring, and Rebecca stopped her from being put down. She used to be very violent, especially towards other dogs.” 

“Used to?” Damian asks, turning furrowed eyebrows on him. “If she's been here so long, why's she still isolated?” 

Bruce looks back at her. “She’s been through a lot,” he says. “A lot of abuse. A lot of mistreatment. Her initial reactions to people and dogs were incredibly violent. Rebecca’s been working with her, and she’s doing a very good job, but Mac is still making slow progress. It’s not her fault, but she is still dangerous to other dogs. Rebecca thought she was ready to try interacting with other dogs, and introduced her to some of them recently. It was going fine for a while, but then something happened, and Mac injured another dog. Again, it's not her fault, but she's been separated to keep the other dogs safe.” 

Bruce gives him a little smile. “She’s been getting a lot better with people, though. I’ve even played with her recently. Rebecca doesn’t like even me to go in with her when she’s not present, but Mac still responds well when you talk to her. She'll show you her toys if you ask her to.” 

Damian sits with the dog for the next forty-five minutes, up until Rebecca comes back to get them. After that, they help her stock and organize her supplies. Then, she lets all the dogs she can into the pen outside, and tells Damian he can play with them. 

It’s nearing noon when they get back into the car to leave. As Bruce starts the engine, his son asks him, “Father, was that supposed to be a lesson? Was there a metaphor in there for me? I don't know what the point was.” 

Bruce shoots him a questioning look as he starts to back out of the lot. “No. I came here to spend time with you. Nothing else.” 

Damian frowns. “I broke the rules last night. I thought I'd get punishment. Or… a talk. Something.” 

“Being upset with you for breaking the rules won’t keep me from wanting to spend time with you, Damian,” Bruce says. “Though… I had meant to talk to you. I was going to wait until we got back home, but if you would prefer it, I could start now.” 

Damian clenches his jaw, silent for a moment. “Yes.” 

Bruce nods, taking a breath. “Alright. Can you tell me why you turned off your comms and tracker last night?” 

“Why?” Damian asks after a confused pause. “It wasn't time to go back yet.” 

“I asked you back.” 

“You asked us back early. We should've had another hour and fifteen minutes.” 

“I asked you back because you were already yawning.” 

“I wasn't tired,” Damian argues. “I didn't need to go back, and I was fine when I didn’t.” 

“You don’t have to work the entire night, even when you can,” Bruce tells him.  

“Richard never made me go back early,” Damian shoots back. 

“Would you have listened if it was Dick asking you to come back early?” Bruce asks. 

“He wouldn’t have had to. He understands a schedule.” 

“If he did, would you have listened?” 

Damian meets his eyes in the rearview mirror defiantly. “Yes.” 

“Would you rather be on patrol with him than me?”  

“Yes.” 

“Can you tell me why?” 

Damian scowls. “You weren’t there during my training with Richard. We worked well together, I was learning. He's taught me more than you ever tried to. Inside and outside the field. It's not fair, for you to come back like nothing happened and take over the training that's been working just fine with him. I didn't ask you to take over. I know he didn't, either.” 

Bruce nods, taking a few seconds of silence to think. “I guessed this might be the issue,” he says. “I’ve seen the progress you’ve made with him. I know you two have grown rather close. I… had hoped you wouldn’t be opposed to training under me again, but maybe I should have had this conversation with you already. I’m sorry for that. Given that you work well with Dick and prefer it, I will give your training back to him.” 

Damian’s eyebrow ticks up in surprise. “Really?” 

“Yes,” Bruce says, “but. It will have to be temporary. I’ve talked to Dick already, and his time as Batman took a lot out of him. As the time during my death did for all of you. He took on a lot of responsibilities for me during that time, and he’s told me it put a lot of pressure on him that he can’t take anymore. So, while I do think it would be good for you to continue under him, he needs to shoulder less responsibilities and get back to his life in Blüdhaven. I would like to give you a week or two full-time with Nightwing, but he’s going to go back to Blüdhaven soon and after that you will only work part-time with him. Probably only over the weekends, as he used to visit. The rest of the time, you will patrol with me. Or someone else on our team, if you would prefer.” 

Damian stays silent for a few seconds, seemingly waiting, but Bruce doesn't have anything else to give him. “What about punishment?” he asks suspiciously. 

“Do you think you need punishment?” Bruce asks him. 

The pause of silence tells him Damian’s not sure what Bruce wants him to respond with. Bruce turns around to look him in the eye at a red light. “I don’t think you do. When I asked you why you didn’t listen to me, you told me, and we made an arrangement to fix the root problem. That should mean you won’t be acting out anymore. Right?” 

Damian hesitates. “Right.” 

“Okay. Then you don’t need any right now. If you act out again, then you will receive punishment. But, I’d like you to come to me with the problem before it gets to that point in the future. Okay? Please consider coming to talk to me before you act out again. Because I was worried about you last night. When I came home and you didn’t, and I had no idea where you were and couldn’t talk to you, it worried me. Anything could have happened, and I wouldn’t have known or been close enough to you to stop it. I know you’re strong, and I know you can take care of yourself, but can you see how I was worried anyways?” 

Damian nods reluctantly, frowning. “Yes, Father.” 

“Okay. Please come talk to me before you run off again, alright?” 

“Yes, Father.” 

Bruce breathes out, nodding. “Good. Thank you. Now, the other thing I wanted to mention – I’m sending Dick on vacation soon. He needs it. I'm hoping I can get him to agree to a week. I don’t know when, but it’ll be soon. When that happens, you’ll have to choose who you want to patrol with.” 

Damian nods back. “Okay.” 

The arrangement works out pretty well. 

Over the next few weeks, Damian goes back to patrolling with Dick full-time. Then, the very last week before the vacation Bruce finally managed to convince Dick into, he starts moving back to Blüdhaven. And Bruce wasn’t expecting it, but instead of patrolling with someone else, or sitting out entirely, his son chooses to patrol with him again. 

It goes a lot better. Bruce wishes this was how it was when he first came back, but he’s grateful to have it now. The natural fall-in of Batman and Robin. It’s nice. 

“Time to head back, Robin,” Bruce says into his comms. 

Damian lets out a very put-upon sigh. “Fine,” he says, and within a minute or two Bruce can see him coming to join him. 

Instead of heading out, Bruce looks down at him. “I’d like to show you something.” 

After Damian nods his suspicious consent, Bruce heads distinctly not towards the Cave. Damian doesn’t say much as he follows, just stays close as they move across the city. Bruce takes him up to the top of Gotham City Cathedral, to one of the south-side towers. There sits what’s been dubbed his ‘brooding gargoyle’ by his kids. Ask any one of them, and they’ll say it’s where he works off his Catholic guilt. He’s not Catholic. He’s also never been here without one of them with him. 

Bruce sits down on the edge of the roof. After a hesitant second, Damian sits down next to him. “This is where my Robins and I sit sometimes,” Bruce says softly. “Just to wind down. Talk, sometimes.” 

Damian hums, turning narrowed eyes away from him and onto the city instead. 

“Father?” 

“Yes?” 

“I... I'm sorry for implying you left on purpose. I know it wasn't your fault, and if you had any control over the… well, not being around, it wouldn’t have happened. I know you didn't leave us on purpose.” 

Bruce shoots him a small smile. “It’s alright, Robin. Whether or not it was on purpose, I was still absent, and I know how that feels. I understand. I… appreciate that you were willing to give me a second chance so soon. I’m doing my best to make it worth it.” 

“Father…” Damian pauses, shaking his head. He must change his mind, because he doesn’t continue. 

Bruce lets it go. They sit for a minute, watching the streets below them. Then, after a while, Bruce is ready to drop his question on his son. 

“When you got your lobes done with Nightwing, he told you what the tradition has been for, right?” 

“Yes,” Damian responds, looking back at him. He inclines his head to the side a little, questioningly. He parroted it from Dick, he’s sure. He looks so much like the way his eldest did when Dick was Robin sometimes. It makes Bruce smile. 

“Good,” Bruce says. “So you know what it means when I ask if you would like to get a piercing with me?” 

“Yeah. I know what it means.” Damian pauses, then asks carefully, “Are you sure?” 

Bruce shakes his head, smiling. “Yes, I’m sure.” 

Damian doesn’t answer for a second, his attention drifting back towards the street. “You don’t have to answer right now,” he says gently. “I’d actually prefer if you thought about it first.” 

“No. I’d like to, Father,” he says firmly. “I’ve... I’ve thought about it, just... Nothing. Never mind. How quickly do you want it?” 

“Whenever you’re ready,” he answers. 

Some more time passes. When Bruce tells him they should probably head back, Damian accepts without even a hint of attitude. Then, back at the Cave, right before Bruce sends him up to bed, Damian tells him he’d like to get the piercings the day after Dick gets back from his vacation. Right before he turns to head up the stairs, Bruce swears he sees the flash of a smile. 

Dick gets back from his vacation. Despite being so reluctant to go, he comes back with less weight holding Bruce’s favourite parts of him down. He doesn’t look quite as tired. He expresses himself a little more freely. He accepts Bruce’s welcoming hug with a laugh, then runs off to find his siblings. As Bruce watches him go, he feels like a little bit of weight has lifted off himself, too. For the first time, the effects of his absence don’t feel quite so heavy. Quite so permanent. The vacation did exactly what it was supposed to – and now, he’s thinking maybe his other kids could use one for themselves. And Alfred. Definitely Alfred. 

With Dick’s return, Bruce schedules an appointment with the same piercing shop they’ve always used. They should probably just stop walking in all the time. When he tells Damian, the boy seems much more excited. He even gets impatient a few hours before the actual appointment. 

In the car, still a few minutes before, Bruce asks him, “What are you getting?” 

“A second set on my lobes,” he answers. “Are you going to get another hoop?” 

“Yes,” Bruce says, touching his left hoop. “This one has gotten crowded with all you kids on it. It’ll have to be a post, first, though. I’d like you to pick it.” 

Bruce sees his son smirk a little before quickly covering it. 

Inside, the two piercers that always get their family are waiting for them. Damian consents to getting their piercings at the same time. The older woman, the owner – her name is Ratu – leads Damian to their selection of earrings. Bruce tells him he can have whatever he wants. Even though he catches his son eyeing an obnoxiously bright orange pair, what he actually ends up picking are fairly large gold-coated diamond studs. They're respectable, he says, and fitting for their Wayne status. Bruce just smiles and buys the three earrings.  

The piercing itself goes smoothly. Damian lets him take him to a bakery afterwards for a treat. Bruce checks up on him for the next few weeks, making sure he cleans them properly and they don’t get infected. He makes sure to clean his own, careful to take care of it. 

Then, when it’s time for them to come out, Bruce replaces his stud with a hoop identical to his other two. The beads that have been piling up on his first left hoop are split nearly evenly between the two. It’s much less crowded with three and four instead of all seven on one. He bought a pair of thick gold hoops for Damian, still slightly small in the more masculine look he knows his son prefers most of the time. He doesn’t make much of an expression after Bruce gives them to him, just accepts them with a nod and carefully inspects them afterwards. His son must really take after him, though, because the very first hour of the very first day he’s allowed to change them, Damian switches to the gold hoops. They don’t come out very often, but when they do, they’re always the pair Damian switches back to. 

They get closer, too. More emotionally like father and son. Bruce starts really noticing the differences in his son’s behaviour – not only how much he’s changed in the time Bruce was gone, but also how much he’s changed since he got here. Dick helped with most of it, he’s sure. Not much of the work was his own. But Damian was the one who did all the real work – and Bruce is so, so proud of him for it. He’s even more proud of the fact that he feels like he can tell his son that he is proud and have him understand and believe it. 

He’s come a long way. 

Chapter Text

They’ve had a rough start. 

Damian knows it’s at least kind of mostly his fault; A little over half, perhaps. Perhaps a little more. The thing is, though, he has no idea how to fix it. 

Their relationship has changed, somehow. Damian, left without their usual routine, felt like a rug was pulled out from beneath him at first. 

Here's their usual routine: 

They ignore each other. They avoid each other. When forced to be within the other’s vicinity, they tend to try to piss each other off, shooting snarky comments and passive aggressive insults at each other until someone tells them to knock it off. Damian stays mad at Tim for constantly painting him as a threat – the enemy – someone to be evaluated on how to put down if need be. Tim stays mad at Damian for a few measly murder attempts that happened a long time ago. They don't call each other brothers. They don't even call each other friends. 

Yet, at some point, Damian noticed that Tim stopped rising to his bait. Stopped reacting at all. And that was what started the boulder rolling down the hill that Damian is currently at the bottom of, having been run over by said boulder. Because without a response, he’s just straight up being mean, and it feels- It feels mean. Every sly insult that doesn’t get a reaction and a retort just makes him uncomfortable. He used to be able to pass insults like salt, but lately it had been feeling more like passing kidney stones.  

He knows why he can't seem to do it anymore, though. It was Richard's fault. Richard was the one to instill within him the stupid empathy and care that has infected his actions. He feels a lot better blaming his brother for his subsequent bad feelings, anyway. 

He stopped the snide comments after Tim stopped responding. The guilt he felt for being mean without response was confusing, at first, but the bad way he’s feeling now is even more so. 

Because even if he’s stopped, his family still treats him like he’s only a second away from snapping. And it hurts.  

He’s never alone in a room with Tim. Someone always stays with them. Richard or Father or Alfred, someone else is always in the room. When it’s unavoidable that they have to leave – Tim himself exits. Damian never used to notice before, but now it upsets him. Don't they trust him? 

Sometimes, the things he says earn him a sharp look from others, even when he never puts any double meaning behind it. He’ll say something he meant genuinely, and Tim will stiffen like he used to. Don’t they know he’s stopped? 

When he gets angry – and he does, he always does, he can't help it – they get very careful around him. They watch him – study him – like he’s going to pull out his sword and charge. He stopped carrying his sword around with him a long time ago, and even now he only has one knife. And he’s never even thought about using it on his family. Don’t they know? Don’t they know he cares too much by now to hurt them?  

He supposes they must not. If they keep treating him like that, they must not. It hurts. 

When he breaks it down, he can see why. He knows he wants Richard to trust him. He knows he wants Father to trust him. He knows he wants Alfred to trust him. 

The most confusing, though, is he really, really wants Tim to trust him, too. He’s not sure why he wants it – or maybe just won’t admit it – until it hits him in the worst possible moment. 

His whole world falls apart with the ribs creaking underneath his shaking palms. 

He’s been here for hours, he thinks, working compressions into a heart that isn't beating. Too long, he thinks. He knows the numbers. He knows the statistics. He knows how unlikely it is for someone in cardiac arrest to pull through when not in a hospital. He knows that he might not be doing a damn thing to help. 

They brush death too often to keep getting away with it. 

Their luck can’t keep holding up forever. 

His brother is going to die underneath his palms. 

It’s probably good that his backup comes when it does, because as much as it scares him to switch out, he's not sure his hands are steady enough to be doing much good. Black Bat falls to the ground next to him. Spoiler pulls him off as she pushes him away and takes over the compressions. Arms cage him in, and the only reason he doesn’t fight is because Spoiler only pulls him out of reach, not out of sight. He clutches desperately at her arms, not registering the reassuring nothings she’s whispering to him. All he can do is stare with wide eyes and hope, pray, ask that his brother only starts breathing again. 

Their luck can’t keep holding like this – but this time, it does. 

Two weeks later, and Damian’s hands still begin to shake every time he thinks too hard about it. He’s found an easy solution, and it just involves keeping Tim where he can see him. Or it started out easy, at least. Ever since Red Robin was let back out on patrol, he hasn’t let Damian partner with him again. 

“I’m going with you,” Damian hisses, fully geared except for his domino. 

“No, you’re not,” Tim shoots back. “Dick is coming with me. You’re not even supposed to be on patrol right now.” 

Damian bares his teeth, glaring up at the irritating wall of black and blue in front of him. “Back off, Richard,” he sneers. Richard stands between him and Tim, still holding his arm out from where he just pushed Damian back. 

“Kid, you’re not supposed to be on patrol right now,” Richard tries. “I’m the one who’s paired with him tonight. Just- Can you wait for Bruce? Please?” 

“You haven’t let me go with him since last time! I’m not even group paired with him for the next two weeks!” Damian bursts. “Why not? Why won’t you just let me patrol with you? Is it because you don’t like me?” 

Tim almost looks like he startles. He blinks openly at Damian, his eyes not hidden by his cowl quite yet. “What?” he says, and he sounds genuinely confused. “Oh... No, Damian, that’s not why. Just...” He sighs, pushing Richard away so they’re looking directly at each other. “You’re barely a teenager, Damian. My life should never have been in your hands. Not because I don’t like you, but- but that’s just too young. If I’d died, and- I just really, really don’t want to put you in that position again. Especially if I don’t get so lucky next time. I know what it feels like to have someone’s livelihood under your control but having no one else to help you. I don’t want that for you. And I definitely don’t want to die and have you blame yourself.” 

A little ball slowly rolls from one side of Damian’s head to the other. “Oh,” he says, and he hates how small it sounds. 

There’s a few seconds of silence where Tim just looks at him. Then he glances over at Richard, and gives a small, tired sigh. “You can get on comms with us, if you like,” he says, “but I want you to stay here and wait for Bruce to patrol.” 

After a second’s hesitation, Damian gives him a stiff nod. 

It works. It works for a while. Every time Tim is out in the field and Damian isn’t, he runs his comms, and not once is he the only one keeping his brother alive. 

Still, even if it’s clear to him that he- that he cares, no one else seems to notice. Tim is still careful. They’re still never alone together. His genuine words are still never taken genuinely. And it still hurts. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to fix it. 

Well, the answer’s been right in front of him. And he ignored it – for a long time. Like a moron. He often is. 

"Question,” he says, stepping into Richard’s room. “The earring thing, it can fix relationships, right?” 

Richard tips his head, considering. “I don’t know about that,” he says. “It’s definitely happened. That’s why I got mine with Jason. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be about that.” 

“But it can be,” Damian presses. 

Richard shrugs. “Yes, it can. But I suppose whether it works or not depends on what you already have. It can help, but it can’t do anything without a foundation.” 

But he has a foundation. 

“Why?” Richard quirks an eyebrow. “You got someone in mind?” 

“No,” Damian lies unconvincingly. 

“Uh huh,” Richard says, clearly not believing him. “Tread carefully, okay?” 

“Of course,” he says simply. 

Later that night, he finds his fingers clenching and unclenching rhythmically with nerves. He quietly clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth in an attempt to let out the rest of the nervous energy. He stores the last of his uniform away in its case. He takes a breath, straightening his back as he turns around to look his brother in the eye. “Timothy,” he says, and his brother startles like a surprised cat, “I’d like to have a conversation with you.” 

Tim, wide-eyed, shoots a glance at Jason, who has gone still next to him. Jason’s expression ticks into confusion, flickering between Damian and Tim. It lands on Damian for a second, scrutinizing him. Then he shrugs, inclining his head and turning back to wear he’s folding his own uniform and placing it into a bag. 

“Okay,” Tim says carefully. “Where do you want to talk?” 

“Your bedroom,” Damian says, waiting for Tim’s confirmation. 

Knowing full well Jason is likely to come check on them eventually, Damian follows Tim up to his room. His brother pushes his door open, hesitates after holding it for Damian, and then leaves it open. 

“So... What did you want to talk about?” he asks awkwardly, sitting down on his bed and folding his hands. 

Damian does his best to not seem as stiff, but he doesn’t quite end up calm. He lightly sits down at Tim’s desk chair. “I’m not very good at this,” he starts carefully, taking a breath, “so I'm sorry if this... comes out wrong. But I’m genuine.” 

Tim’s eyebrows shoot up with surprise. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “Okay.” 

Damian finds he can’t quite manage to look him in the eye, even if he’s rather good at it with people he’s close to. Instead, he looks down at Tim’s knees. “I’ve hurt you a lot,” he says. “I know that. I did a lot of things to you, and I know that there is a certain line where actions can’t be forgiven. I understand if I have passed that line. You didn't deserve it. I don’t want to go on like this.” 

Tim, who appears to have been holding his breath, lets the air out slowly. “Okay,” he says. He huffs a little, an amused look passing over his features for a moment. “Did you strain yourself? How difficult was that for you?” 

“Very,” Damian cracks, finally looking up. “I might throw up.” 

This gets his brother to lightly laugh, which sparks Damian’s chest with relief. “Not on my carpet, please,” he teases. Within a moment, he falls back into caution. “Do you think you can manage a real apology for me?” 

Damian only pauses for a second to breathe. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you, Timothy. You did not deserve it, what I've said and done. I was wrong.” 

Tim leans back with his words, like he’s still shocked. “Wow,” he says, sounding genuinely surprised. “Did Dick help you with that?” 

Damian shrugs and nods. “He did,” he admits. “He told me that it was best to say what I mean and to both apologize and mention what I apologize for. He told me to never say anything that I wasn’t prepared to back up, and to never apologize for anything I wasn’t prepared to mend.” 

A bout of silence falls between them as Tim seemingly contemplates. Damian gets more nervous as the gap stretches on; He worries that the conversation is meant to end here, and he is supposed to leave. Then, as he’s on the precipice of standing, Tim inclines his head. 

“I appreciate it, Damian,” he says. “Genuinely, that means a lot to me.” 

Damian dips his chin respectfully. “Good,” he says. “Richard also told me that forgiveness is not freely given. Is there... Can I earn yours?” 

Tim snorts. 

“Sorry.” 

Tim softens. “No, it’s- I can see you’re trying. I appreciate it.” 

Damian nods slowly. “There's something else,” he says after a minute. His fingers curl against the fabric of his pants, and he closes his eyes and lowers his head. “I don't want to fight anymore.” 

He waits for a response. He waits to be told too bad – he waits to be told that it's too late for that. 

Eventually, Tim says, “I don't, either.” 

Damian blinks his eyes open, looking up curiously. “Really?” he asks, mildly bewildered. 

“That's why I stopped responding to you when you were being an asshole to me,” he says. 

“Right,” he says, looking back down. 

“I noticed that you stopped, too,” Tim says gently. “And I appreciate it. I just wasn’t sure if… it was going to last forever.” 

“Oh,” Damian says, understanding. “Well, it will.” 

After a moment, Tim nods. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” 

He dips his head in acknowledgement. For a few minutes more, they sit together in silence, not quite looking at each other. Anticipation mounts between them, waiting for something more to be said – and Damian knows he has more to talk about, it’s just… hard. 

The tension makes him wiggle and bite his lip. He still doesn't quite know how to format his sentences, but he figures he should try before Tim gets tired and has him leave the room. “There was something else I was going to… ask you about. I just… I didn't really know how- how receptive you’d be.” 

“Okay,” Tim prompts. 

Damian takes another breath to help push the words past his throat. “I don't want to fight,” he says. “But I’d also like to… fix things, if that’s still possible. I don’t really like that you don’t trust me,” he mumbles. “I understand that it’s a lot to ask, and Richard told me that it can help mend things, but there usually has to be a foundation for it to be able to work, but… I thought we had it already.” He braces himself, and pushes the real question out. “So- So I was wondering if you’d like to get a piercing with me.” 

Silence stretches for way longer this time. This time, Damian breaks quicker, and he sneaks a glance back up at Tim. This time, Tim is frowning, and Damian’s hope is dashed like a bug hitting a car windshield. 

He grits his teeth against a wave of disappointment, resisting the reflex to curl in on himself. He doesn't want to look as if he’s garnering sympathy. “I understand if you say no,” he says solemnly. 

Tim shakes his head – but in disagreement, not in refusal. He still takes a few more seconds to respond, and during those few seconds, Damian’s throat tightens, his heartrate rising with the anticipation. He never usually reacts like this when no one is in real danger. There’s no one dying, no lives he’s responsible for, nothing real or tangible for him to lose. Still, his stomach twists, and he has to remind himself to breathe through it. Because there is something he could lose, isn’t there? A second chance. But he can manage if he does lose it. He steels himself and looks his brother in the eye with the respect he deserves. 

Tim takes a breath, and it comes back out nearly like a sigh. “You’re right, that is a lot to ask,” he says. “I... I don’t know. You had my back that patrol, and you kept me alive, and you’ve been making sure I stay alive on patrol since then. I appreciate that. But... I don’t know.” He hesitates for a second. “I’ll... think about it.” 

Damian’s throat loosens a little bit, even if, in his experience, ‘I’ll think about it’ usually means no. Still, it’s not a hard, immediate no. He nods gravely. “I understand.” 

Tim nods back, his lips pulling up a little. “Thank you. I... I appreciate what you said.” 

He dips his head in acknowledgement. 

There’s another few moments of silence, and while infinitely less tense, it’s still rather uncomfortable. Damian wishes, for a moment, that he were more like Richard, who either never seemed to have any awkward energy or was quick to fill the moments where he did. His brother saves him from having to think of something to say or do, though, clearing his throat. 

“Well, Jason’s due to check on us in about two more minutes,” Tim says. “Do you wanna... go back out? Save him the trouble? It’s probably bedtime, anyway.” 

Damian nods, and follows his brother out of the room. Jason doesn’t really look surprised when they both come out intact, but he still seems to relax a little. 

Some days later, Damian mentions to his father that he’d like to go to the park, but Father is busy for most of the afternoon. Tim offers to take him instead, jumping in over Alfred. They go alone, and spend three hours at the park alone – not saying much, but Damian brings his drawing pad and Tim brings his camera and after Damian shows him one of his drawings Tim shows him some of his pictures. He appreciates it a surprising amount. He also has a good time, and resolves to ask Tim directly someday. 

Then, the very next time Tim is set to partner patrol, Damian goes to get on comms like usual and Tim asks if he wants to patrol with him instead of Stephanie. Damian is, once again, on partner patrol with Red Robin, but this time, there’s no one checking in on them every thirty minutes or crossing paths with them. Damian has a good time then, too, and he’s thankful that he’s finally allowed a real partner patrol with his brother. 

Nearly two weeks after Damian asked, he assumes that the answer is no. It’s okay, though, because he’s pretty sure his brother is allowing him a second chance regardless. Then, one night after patrol, after Damian has put away his uniform, Tim inclines his head and asks to speak to him. 

That same nervous wriggling mass settles in his stomach, but he nods. “In your room?” he asks, and follows Tim up after he nods affirmatively. 

As Tim pushes the door open, Damian stifles a yawn. His brother steps in, pushes the door to a crack, then pulls himself onto his bed and crosses his legs beneath him. To Damian's surprise, he gestures to the space on the bed beside him, turning a little so he's facing toward Damian as he sits next to him, copying his pose. 

Damian waits patiently for Tim to start, watching with slightly furrowed eyebrows. Tim takes a breath and lets it out wearily, clasping his hands in his lap. “I’m not very good at this either,” he says slowly, “and I would like you to know that I am genuine.” 

Damian frowns a little, but nods. “Okay,” he says eventually. 

“I appreciate that you apologized to me,” Tim says. “I definitely owe you an apology, too. Because while you... instigated, most of the time, I reacted in kind even though I’m a lot older than you and I know better. I fought with you when I knew I shouldn’t. I was just as mean to you as you were to me. I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have put you on the contingency list just because I didn’t like you, and I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did when you were rightly upset about it. You haven’t deserved to be treated like you were still dangerous even after I’d noticed you’d stopped. It was wrong of me. I’m sorry.” 

Damian, his eyebrows already in the clouds by now, gapes at the admission. He- he never thought that he would get an apology. He never really thought he deserved one. But now that his brother is telling him he did – apologizing for all the hurt he’s been feeling the past few months – it makes him feel so much better about the whole thing. A swell of something expands within his chest, and he has to clench down hard on his teeth to stop it from expressing itself. “Thank you,” he says stiffly – not because he doesn’t appreciate it, but because he doesn’t want to appreciate it more than he should and appear... strange. “I... accept your apology.” 

Tim smiles at him, then, something he hasn’t seen on his brother’s expression for a very long time and never directed at him. “Thank you,” he says warmly. “For the record, I accepted your apology like six days ago.” 

The warmth seems infectious, because Damian’s lips begin to twitch up into an answering smile. “Thank you,” he says back, a little uncertainly, just to follow the format that Tim has set for him. 

Tim continues smiling, still looking at him with a soft expression. “The other thing I wanted to tell you,” he says, “was that I thought about… well, your offer to get piercings. And I’m- To be completely honest, I’m kind of worried about it. I think it’s just me still… harboring some anxiety that I need to work on, though. So I do think I’d like to get piercings with you, but- but I'm still a little worried.” 

Damian frowns a little again. After a second, he asks, “Why?” 

“I don’t think it’s a you problem,” Tim amends quickly. “It’s… difficult, for me, to trust people to keep their promises. Other people have broken them before. So it worries me, to put faith in you, because I don’t want to deal with the aftermath of you breaking your promise. I really do want a better relationship, so if you start being mean to me again, it’s going to hurt.” He pauses for a few seconds. An inhale follows. “But I still think you deserve that first chance to prove that you won’t. You haven’t even had the opportunity to break any trust yet, so it’s not fair to assume that you will. I’m sure it goes the same way for you, right? You’re probably scared that I won’t keep my word, either. So- So we’ll just have to trust each other, right?” 

An irritating sense of hope begins to pool at the top of his ribs. “So…” he says slowly, “you will?” 

“I will.” Tim smiles at him again, and it’s so much more satisfying than if Damian had earned a look of anger or irritation or- or hurt. “We’ll just have to tell your father and pick a time.” 

Damian can’t help the way a small smile pulls at his lips, a deep, content sense of warmth burning on its own within his chest. “Can we do it soon?” he asks before he realizes that might be a bit much. 

Tim doesn’t seem to think so, though, because he nods. “As soon as you want,” he offers. Then he winces. “Uh, actually, I have work the next few days. But if you wanted to go this Saturday?” 

“Yes,” Damian says immediately. 

“Okay,” Tim says, and he’s still smiling. “Sounds like a plan. It’s about bedtime now, you want to head to your room?” 

Damian nods, pushing to his feet. For a moment, he flounders for something to do, say – and when in doubt, imitate Richard, because things seem to go well for him all the time. So Damian places a hand on Tim’s knee – it makes the man startle – and says, “Thank you, Timothy,” he says. 

Tim clears his throat, nodding. “Yeah- Yeah. No problem, kid. Um, just Tim, if you want.” 

He’s too slow to stop the grin that splits his lips before Tim sees. “Alright. Cool.” At his door, Damian hesitates. He turns, looking back at his brother. “Our father,” he corrects firmly. 

An emotion Damian wouldn’t be able to name passes over his expression. “Sure,” he agrees easily, but he looks away. 

Damian frowns a little, but heads to his room. 

Then, that Friday, Tim comes with him to talk to their father as requested. “Father,” he starts, “I want another piercing.” 

Father’s eyes widen a little, his gaze flickering between him and Tim. “You do?” he says, surprised. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Damian sees Tim smile a little and give a slight nod. 

Father’s expression practically lights up. For him, anyway. “Okay,” he says. “Sounds good to me. I’ll sign for you, Damian. Tim... Do you...?” 

“I’m... technically emancipated,” Tim says, shifting. 

“Right,” Father confirms. “I can rectify that, if you want me to.” 

Shock slackens Tim’s expression. “...Can you?” 

“Of course. If you want.” 

Tim falls silent for a moment. Then he sucks in a sharp breath, looking away. “We’re going to go tomorrow.” 

“Good.” Father smiles. His gaze flickers back to Damian. “What are you getting?” 

“I don’t know yet,” Damian says. “But… the one Tim has looks interesting.” 

“The tragus? Really?” Tim says, surprised. Damian inclines his head. 

“What about you?” Father asks. 

“I want my lobes,” he says. 

Father smiles at him. At both of them. “Alright, boys. Have fun.” 

Tim gives him a medium-sized smile, now, inclining his head. “We will. I’m going to load him full of sugar before I give him back.” 

“Oh, great,” Father says, rolling his eyes. “Do that, and you get to keep him.” 

The next day, Damian is up and ready early in the morning – long before their appointment is set up. He’s excited, and it buzzes under his bones, but he’s afraid that doing something to help work through it a little will bring his brothers upon him like meat thrown in the water of hungry sharks. Luckily, though, Tim feels as restless as he does, and drives them both to the park for a few hours. 

When it gets closer to four in the afternoon, Tim takes him to the same place he went when he went with Richard and his father. The same women who he met last time work with them again. They ask if they want them at the same time, and Tim lets him decide. He says yes. Tim also asks him to choose their earrings, and after thoroughly looking over the options, he chooses the gold ball studs. The piercings go smoothly; The first thing Tim asks when they’re done is how he’s feeling. 

Then, when they walk back out of the place with four new piercings stinging, Tim throws an arm over his shoulders and takes him to an ice cream parlor to load him full of sugar like he promised. Damian doesn’t hide his smile anymore, not when it’s just them – because this was exactly what he wanted with his brother. 

Jason and Richard find out, of course, as does Stephanie. They make a lot less noise than he expected them to. He still gets teased, but there’s something soft about it. Something warm in their eyes when they ask him how his piercings are healing.  

He makes sure Tim keeps up with his cleaning, and asks to check for infection occasionally. When he does, Tim checks his, too. His brother seems happy about his piercings; There's no trace of the anxiety in his eyes that was there when he told Damian he was worried. Damian will admit that he’s not nearly as worried about their relationship, either. 

Then, around the time when he’d be allowed to change his earrings, three sets appear in a bag on his door handle. One, a pair of gold-coated diamond studs that match perfectly with his studs he has from his father. Another, a pair of gold-coated emerald studs that match with his favourite dangling pair he wears in his lobes. The third, a pair of small black cats. Damian is still a little unused to the warm feeling that gathers within his torso – because Tim has been paying attention to what he wears the most and what he likes. And, he realizes, his brother cares about him. He’s never seen it so plainly before. 

The diamond studs join him when he wears his diamond lobe studs to galas and parties. He wears the emerald studs when he wears his dangling pair. Every other time, he keeps his cat pair in. He likes the way Tim still smiles when he sees them.