Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Damian clambered off his bike down in the motor pool of the Batcave while Jason stared at the lump under his bound-up cape. Robin had tied his cape across his chest to form a sort of sling and something was wriggling around inside of it.

“Uhhh… Dames, you didn’t bring home another litter of kittens, didja?”

Damian tsked and began fumbling with the knots that tied into ends of the cape into his belt. “Don’t be absurd, Todd. I didn’t push Father to set up a fund for local shelters just so I could steal all the eligible animals away from them-”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot all about your little pet project.”

Damian met Jason’s overly antagonizing grin with an equally icy glare. “Richard would be proud. No. There was another run in with a magic-wielder tonight.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “Wait. So who is that under your…”

Dick had come in just after Jason had, he’d heard Bruce call in to the Cave not five minutes earlier, and the girls weren’t out tonight so…

“Is that Tim? Oh man, what’d he get turned into this time? It’s gotta be something cute if you’re taking pity on-”

Damian loosened the final knot, slipped a hand under the cape, and revealed…

Jason burst out laughing.

“Oh my god! Timmyyyyy. A duck? They turned you into a duck?” He wiped away a tear as the boy-turned-water-fowl in question fluttered down to the floor with a put-out quack.

“A drake to be precise,” Damian snapped, looking uncomfortable. “This magic- user has discerned too much about us for my comfort - I suspect telepathy - and they share too similar a sense of humor to Richard’s for my taste. They need to be dealt with swiftly before anymore unfortunate transformations, or worse, a leak of sensitive information, occurs.”

Jason chuckled under his breath and shook his head. “So this is the same magic user that turned you into a literal infant fruit bat a week and a half ago, then, baby bat?”

Damian’s frown deepened, but he didn’t rise to Jason’s baiting. “Yes. They are most troublesome.”

Jason nodded. “I guess that explains why you were kind enough to give the ‘Drake’ a lift home; as I recall, Red Robin did you a solid by shielding your adorable little self from a lot of big Bat scrutiny and over-enthusiastic Nightwing cuddles last time,” he teased.

Damian’s icy composure shattered and he threw his recently removed gauntlets at Jason’s head. “Idiot Todd! Kindness has nothing to do with it. I wouldn’t leave a teammate out on the street in such a weak, pathetic form” - the drake on the floor between them chattered a stream of indignant quacks - “Don’t argue with me, Drake, you were what Richard would call a 'literal sitting duck’ out on those streets” - Jason choked back more laughter - “But I would never leave an ally out on their own in such a vulnerable position,” Damian argued haughtily. “Even if that ally is Drake.” Damian turned his heated gaze back to Jason. “Even if that ally were you.”

Jason smirked. “Good to know you wouldn’t leave a guy high and dry, Dameo.” He ignored Damian’s huff of disgust at the new nickname and squatted down beside the bird toddling uncertainly at their feet. “And how about you, babybird? You’d have my back, too, if some wackjob decided to turn me into a jaybird or somethin’, right?”

Tim turned his head to glare at Jason with one perfectly round, piercing duck eye and Jason sniggered as a new thought occurred him. “I guess we gotta call you something other than 'babybird’, now, huh? How about 'duckybird’? Or, hmmm, if that is too close to 'dickiebird’, how about 'duckling’?”

Jason’s laughter cut off abruptly when Tim launched himself forward with flurry of wings to snap at Jason’s face. Tim kept up the barrage of attacks even after Jason began waving his arms around wildly in a vain attempt to slap the foul-playing fowl out of the air.

Dick re-entered the cave five minutes later to the sight of Jason running around, laughing his ass off, as a duck attacked his head from behind and Damian watched on in the background.

“Ummm…”

Jason threw himself behind Dick and shoved the older man into the path of the enraged bird. The duck bounced off Dick’s chest with an indignant squawk, then waddled away, preening angrily.

“Why is there a duck in the cave?” Dick asked in a long-suffering tone. “Damian?” He turned his questioning gaze toward the most likely suspect.

“It’s a drake, to be precise, Dickiebird. The drake, actually,” Jason answered. Tim quacked forlornly. Damian shook his head mutely and continued stripping out of his gear. Dick blinked blankly.

“Uhhh…”

Damiam sighed. “We had another encounter with the magic-wielder from last week. I was the victim previously, if you recall; this time it was Drake who was the least fortunate of us.”

Dick’s eyes widened and Jason cackled. Dick stepped forward and knelt down beside the bird, eyeing it cautiously. The drake lifted his head and met Dick’s stare with a slow blink of his beady eye. “Tim?”

“-quack-”

“Oh, Timmy…”

Chapter Text

“So, when Damian got transformed it only took about a day for the curse to wear off, right?”

Dick squinted at a police report he had pulled up on the Batcomputer, then turned his gaze to cross reference it with another on a different screen. “Yeah, Jay,” he responded absently. “It was pretty much twenty four hours on the nose according to what Tim logged in his report. Why?”

Silence.

“Jay? Jason?”

Dick turned away from the computer to find the cave completely empty. He knew Damian had stalked off to his room as soon as he had finished showering, but Tim the duck had been sleeping in the center of the worktable - probably waiting for Alfred to come down and take pity on him - and Jason had briefly left to change then returned to continue quietly pestering the poor boy-turned-bird. Dick swept his befuddled gaze around the empty space for a long moment before the significance of Jason’s question finally registered.

“Jaaaaaaaaasooooooon!”

Dick sprinted up the stairs and through the secret entrance, barely avoiding the clock as it slid out of the way. He paused and listened, straining for any sign of where Jason might have taken Tim. Nothing. He wandered through the house on silent feet until the sound of muted quacking from outside drew him to the windows. Dick took one look out at the lawns surrounding their infrequently used swimming pool then ran into the next room, dashed out the french doors, and streaked across the patio.

“-quack-quack-quack-qua-QUACK-QUACK-QUACK-QUACK!”

Timmy’s distressed chatter had taken on desperate volume as Jason dragged him, upside down, by his feet, toward the poolside. Tim flapped frantically as he tried to shake his webbed feet out of Jason’s one-handed grip.

“JASON! PUT THAT DUCK DOWN THIS INSTANT!” Dick bellowed, sprinting across the lawn, closing the distance quickly. Not quickly enough, however.

Jason shot a shit-eating smirk over his shoulder and gave a thumbs up. “Aye, aye, Captain D.” Then he tossed Tim, head first, into the pool.

“TIM!”

The duck plopped into the pool with a fluttering splash but quickly righted himself and instinctively began paddling around the pool, shooting several beady-eyed stink eyes over his shoulder at his tormentor. Jason howled with mirth.

“Seriously, Jason, what has gotten into you? Give Tim a break already,” Dick pleaded wearily as he stepped up beside him.

“What’re you talkin’ about, Dickie?” Jason wiped a stray tear of mirth from the corner of his eye.  “It’s been my sacred mission since I came back to mess with my ‘Replacement’, you know that,” he laughed out.

“But you guys have been so much better together lately. I thought you were almost friends n- Why are you stripping?!” Dick interrupted himself, voice going shrill toward the end. Jason had already pulled his shirt off and was now working on tugging the sweatpants off his legs.

“We’ve only got another eighteen hours or so left to enjoy our very own pet Drake, so I wanna make the most of it,” Jason explained, as he turned and began running around the rim of the pool, chasing after Tim. The duck zoomed from one corner to the other, occasionally dipping his head under then shaking energetically as if to communicate that yes, in fact, he was enjoying his impromptu bath, thank you, so, yeah, fuck you, Jason. Dick shook his head at the two of them.

“It’s six in the morning, Jay. Put your pants on and go to bed like a normal per- like everyone else in this family.”

“Stay still, Timmy!” Jason shouted, ignoring Dick and laughing maniacally as he gave chase in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.

The duck gave a few disgruntled-sounding quacks then moved to the center of the pool, ignoring Jason and turning his attention instead to picking and preening his feathers, instinctively cleaning and oiling-up his insulated waterproof exterior. Out of his line of sight Jason began backing away from the pool, moving further and further back until his back was nearly up against the side of the house.

“Jay…” Dick began in a cautioning tone.

“BELLYFLOOOOOOOP!”

Jason sprinted the distance back to the pool and threw himself face first toward the duck in the center. By the time Tim heard his shout the best he could do was quack in terror and flutter helplessly as the six-foot man barely missed crashing down right on top of him.

The shock wave crashed over Tim instead, sending the poor duck under in a flurry of thrashing wings and gurgling quacks. Dick sprinted around the rim of the pool, trying to catch sight of Tim and preparing to jump in for the save - Nightwing suit and all - but true to form, the buoyant water fowl popped up the the surface again like a cork and just as quickly shook off the water and zoomed away to the farthest corner of the pool.

Jason popped up to the surface shortly thereafter and Dick immediately ripped into him. “Jason! You could have crushed him! You could have killed him!  Hell, you could have killed yourself jumping in head first like that!”

“Psh, take it easy, I couldn’t have leapt that far even if I’d had another ten yards running start. Besides, I’m an expert bellyflopper, I’ll have you know,” Jason responded cheekily. He lunged for the duck, spurred on rather than deterred by the constant stream of irate quacks that were shot back at him. Dick was sure that if they had a translator for Duck, Tim would have filled up Alfred’s swear jar three times in just the past five minutes alone.

“Noooooo, come back, Tim, I’ve always wanted to swim with a duck!” Jason whined. They circled each other like that for a few minutes - Tim zooming along and Jason struggling to keep up, occasionally throwing himself at Tim at random moments to keep him on his toes.

Eventually Dick sat down at the edge of the pool, content to supervise until Jason grew bored of his game, which he did, eventually. He paddled over and pulled himself up to sit on the side next to Dick, his legs dangling in the water, kicking idly.

“You had enough?,” Dick asked drily.

“Hell. No,” Jason responded breathlessly, winded by his mad chase. “There’s still. So much. I want. To try.” He paused to cough then raised his voice to carry across the pool. “How about we try the bathtub next? Who needs a rubber ducky when you’ve got yourself a real live Timmy du-? Ow-ow-ow!”

Tim viciously attacked Jason’s feet with his bill, snapping rapidly until his provoker finally withdrew his feet from the water. Tim gave a single satisfied quack then resumed gliding placidly across the water’s surface. Dick fell over onto his side laughing.

“Y-yeah, Jaybird. Good luck with that. You’ll be lucky if Tim doesn’t poop in your bath, not to mention nip you in the ass while he’s at it.”

“Nah,” Jason replied absently, eyes fixed on his moving target, “Timmy’s too classy for that, but…” - Jason dipped his feet back into the water and slowly scooted forward -  “…if you’re gonna be like that… HA!”

Jason lunged abruptly when Tim carelessly swam just a little too close to their side, catching the duck in both hands and pinning his wings. Tim trumpeted in terror as Jason whooped in triumph then ran awkwardly through the water to the opposite side of the pool, holding the duck over his head like a trophy.

Dick expected Tim to make his escape when Jason reached the other side and had to let go with at least one hand to climb out, but Jason deftly snatched both of Tim’s frantically paddling feet with one hand, again, and pushed himself out of the water with the other. Dick shot to his feet and sprinted around the pool just as Jason took off at a run.

“Jason! Put him down!”

The man streaked over the grounds, his prey molting feathers left and right as he towed him along over his shoulder like some bizarre banner. Dick followed, unsure of Jason’s destination until he saw him veer off toward their little ‘duck’ pond - a pond that had rarely harbored any ducks in all the years Dick had lived at the manor.

“Jason you’re hurting him! Put him down NOW!”

“Okay!” Jason shouted back cheerily. And then, for the second time in less than an hour, he threw the duck, upside down and flailing, into the water.

By the time Dick made it to the edge of the pond Tim had righted himself and straightened out his feathers, but unlike earlier, this time he didn’t take to the water like… well… a duck. Instead he bobbed in place like one of those kitschy wooden decoys and stared Jason down with one beady, unblinking eye. If looks could kill…

“Well, would you look at that,” Jason commented airily, gesturing grandly toward the pond and its single occupant. “We have a duck in our duck pond.”

“TODD!”

He and Jason turned to see Damian stalk across the lawn, in his pyjamas, looking positively thunderous.

“I fully expect the first light of dawn to keep me up at six-thirty in the morning,” Damian began sharply, biting off each word. Jason, paying more attention to the duck than to Damian, snickered at Tim’s stare, earning himself a murderous glare from Damian. “But to be kept up by the sound of Grayson screaming bloody murder over a duck is something else entirely,” Damian finished acidly.

He stomped over to them and placed himself in front of Jason, blocking Tim from his line of sight. “Stop tormenting Drake while he’s more useless and pathetic than he usually-”

Tim launched himself from the water and fluttered over their heads for a moment before landing at Damian’s feet and letting loose a flurry of incensed quacks while he glared up at the boy.

“-Tt- No, you’re not just as capable of defending yourself as a duck, much the less as a 'Robin’, so don’t even-”

“-quack-quack-quack-quack-QUACK-quack-QUACK-quack-quack-”

“-have you heard of the expression 'lame duck’?! Because, as a 'Robin’, that’s what you- Ugh! Enough.” Damian broke off arguing with the duck and turned to Jason, pinning him with a dark glower. “Desist at once, Todd, and give the drake - nay, all of us - a break.”

Jason snickered. “So you are protecting 'the Drake’ out of the kindness of your heart, after all, huh, baby bat?”

Damian huffed, then crouched down and scooped the drake into his arms. Tim flapped wildly for a moment until the boy gently tucked his webbed feet up into his feathered underbelly, carefully folded down his wings, and hugged him to his chest. Tim wriggled for a moment in a vain attempt to free his pinned legs and wings, but Damian absentmindedly smoothed his free hand over his glossy feathers and scratched lightly at the base of his long neck, his touch instantly soothing the tired-out bird. Tim looked surprised by his automatic response to the physical affection, but he didn’t fight it. Dick chuckled. Damian did have a way with animals, after all.

“Drake and I are going to bed,” Dami announced haughtily to no one in particular, then whirled on his heel and marched off toward the manor. Jason blinked, then threw his head back and laughed before walking after them. Dick worried for a moment that Jason might try to steal back the duck - his mind conjured a wild image of Jay tackling Dami for possession of the duck as if he were some kind of feathered football - but Dami tucked Tim under one arm and used a rope Dick hadn’t noticed trailing down from an open window to scale the side of the manor and retreat directly to his room, while Jason made a beeline for the french doors to the kitchen.

Dick shook his head and followed after Jay. He’d have to go up later to check on Tim and Dami, but for now he needed to finish up looking over those case notes he’d left open on the computer, get out of his gear, and take a shower. With any luck, no one one would kill their sibling(s) in the next half hour. Or throw them into a body of water…? Dick rolled his eyes and sighed. Maybe the shower could wait.

~*~

Dick stopped one step from the top of the stairs to listen carefully to the sound of raised voices from down the hall. After a moment he continued on toward the voices, suppressing a yawn and scrubbing a hand through damp hair - in the end he had decided to take the risk and shower before coming up to break up any arguments. Or worse, any fights to the death.

“Where is he, baby brat? I’ve looked everywhere except here. He in your room?”

Dick rounded the corner to find Jason confronting Damian outside the door to Damian’s room. The younger boy was sitting cross-legged on the rug, his back against the door, with his sheathed katana laying across his lap. He glared up at Jason.

“He is. And he’ll be staying there until he transforms back, well away from you, you overgrown miscreant,” Damian informed him tartly

Jason barked a laugh but didn’t back down. “I seem to recall Tim hiding you away in his room back when you turned itty bitty baby bat. I guess you’re really returning the favor, huh? Didn’t realized you cared, demon br-”

Damian smacked Jay in the shins with the flat of the blade, forcing the taller man back a step, and shot to his feet. “Fine. You want to hear me say it? Fine. I’ll admit it, I do care,” Damian hissed, narrowing his eyes at the same time Jason’s widened in shock and surprise.

“Drake did shield me during my weakness, and he did do me the considerable favor of redirecting Richard’s and Father’s well-intentioned, if overbearing expressions of concern. Drake ‘had my back’, so to speak, so it is upon my honor to have his back during his time of vulnerability.

"Moreover, he did me a kindness above and beyond what I would have expected of a rival by inviting me into his own room. Then, on top of that, he actively suppressed surveillance and media recordings of the event on my behalf while I was unable to do so.

"I am indebted to him for that kindness and I always honor a debt. You, however, can expect no such concern or regard from me,” Damian explained hotly. “I had originally decided that should any of us cross paths with that magician in the future, I would pay Drake’s good treatment forward to shield my comrades in the field and bring them home to safety. However, you can forget about such consideration for yourself. Should you ever cross paths with that accursed magic user, I will immediately deliver you directly to Drake and leave you at his mercy.”

Dick gaped. Proud tears had welled up in his eyes at Dami’s speech, and he was eventually forced to raise a hand to swipe them away before they trickled down his face. The motion caught Damian’s eye, and the younger boy sighed heavily. “Richar- Grayson, come drag this pest away from my door so Drake and I might sleep a few hours before lunch,” he demanded testily.

“Jay, leave them alone. We all need some sleep. Tim will still be a duck at dinnertime, you can tease him more about it then,” Dick chided wearily.

Jason grinned and put up fuss, but even if Damian thought it was genuine, Dick could tell it was for show. Jason allowed Damian to push him back to his room using the flat of the sheathed blade, all the while making over-the-top attempts to convince Damian to let Tim “out to play.”

Dick sighed but watched them go with a small smile. Jason still wasn’t comfortable spending time around the family - still wasn’t comfortable letting down his guard with them - and it showed in all the snark and bluster he put on around them, but this was still the closest to a “brother” he had acted since his return and reconciliation. A teasing, infuriating little/older brother with too much teenaged rebellion left in him to know when it was time to tone down the antics, maybe, but a brother nonetheless.

As soon as they were out of sight, he turned to the door, soundlessly cracked it open, and stuck his head into the room. He scanned the room anxiously for Tim, then felt a surge of relief and a wave of warmth when he spotted him nestled down on the bed. The bed was a rumpled mess, comforter pulled down and sheets twisted up as if Dami been sleeping then jumped out bed in a hurry. He’d later taken several blankets and formed a circular sort of nest near his pillow, and in that nest sat Tim, his head tucked under his wing, fast asleep.

“Grayson?”

Dick pulled his head out of the doorway and gingerly closed the door. Damian raised an eyebrow.

“I just wanted to check on Tim, make sure he was doing alright after earlier,” Dick explained quietly. Damian nodded and moved towards the door, but Dick stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Did you get Tim fed before you guys settled in?”

“Yes, and I assisted him in disposing of his waste as well,” Damian replied. His expression took on a wry cast. “It took quite a few tries before I convinced Drake that slipping into the toilet to defecate was an inappropriate course of action.”

A laughed slipped out before Dick stifle it and Damian’s eyes took on an amused gleam. “Oh my god… how…” he whispered.

“I held him over the toilet.”

Dick covered his mouth and shook his head. When he was sure he wouldn’t laugh, he removed his hand and replied, “Okay, now that is going to be hard not to tease him over.”

Damian nodded sagely. “But we will persevere,” he added, surprising Dick once again.

“We - I - owe him that much for his previous efforts on my part,” he intoned seriously. He squinted up at Dick. “I trust you won’t bandy about that story, Grayson?”

Dick nearly stumbled over his words. “Of course not, I would never!”

Damian studied at him for a long second then nodded in satisfaction. “Sleep well, Richard,” he murmured before giving Dick a brief hug then slipping through his door and latching it firmly.

Dick stood there, staring at the door in shock for half a minute, wondering what strange reality he’d been dropped into. Damian being nice to Tim and initiating a hug in the same morning? He yawned and scrubbed at his eyes, then stumbled away from the door. He desperately needed to go get some sleep, but maybe he was already in bed, because he must have dreamt up that whole encounter! Maybe when he woke up again Jason would apologize to Tim and Bruce would talk about feelings? Dick laughed to himself. Let’s take it one minor miracle at a time.

Chapter Text

There was a flash of purple light, a puff of green smoke, and a shower of orange and magenta sparks. When the smoke eventually cleared, it revealed yet another unfortunate transformation. Dick sighed and raised his escrima defensively as Red Robin and Robin tensed on either side of him.

The magician…Wizard? Witch? Magical girl? Magical person? Mage; that was a good word for whoever it was. The mage tapped one of their long ultraviolet fingernails against their aquamarine-tinted lips thoughtfully. “Hmmmm,” they hummed in a low melodious voice that Dick couldn’t distinguish as either male or female, but rather somewhere in between. “Well, the form fits the name but…”

Out of the shadows where Red Hood had once laid in wait with his sniper rifle - loaded up with heavy tranq darts to shoot down the slippery mage from behind while Nightwing, Red and Robin distracted them from the front and sides - sauntered a handsome fox, his orange fur fluffy and full. Dick might have been imagining it, but from the way the fox skipped toward them, he could have sworn he was gloating. He kept shooting glances toward Red Robin, in particular, all the while sweeping his tail about grandly. From the snarl Dick could see forming on the half of his face not covered by his cowl, Tim was clearly picking up the same vibes.

“Hmmmm, yes,” the mage sighed, setting both hands on their hips and leaningonto one leg. “The form fits the name, but perhaps, as with the littlest one, the character reveals a truer form.”

Dick didn’t know what the mage was going on about, but he was certain he didn’t want to stick around to find out. It was going to be bad enough keeping Damian and Tim from ganging up on Jason as soon as they were in the clear, the last thing they needed was another animal for the fox to chase around. No duck - or bat - dinners tonight, please and thank you.

Their vividly orange eyes flashed toward Dick and he tensed, sure it was his turn to feel the magic, but the mage simply grinned and waved a hand, enveloping the lot of them in magenta smoke. When it cleared, the mage was gone but so too was the fox.

“J-Hood! Red Robin, Robin, do you have eyes on Hood?!” Dick called out, scanning frantically.

“No, the mage seems to have-” Robin began, cutting off abruptly at a sound from Red Robin.

The laughter started low and sporadic but quickly escalated into a raucous fit of cackling, taking on a maniacal edge as the volume rose. For a wild moment Dick wondered if the mage had also conjured up Joker gas, then Red abruptly stopped, crouched down and picked up something about the size of his fist off the ground.

“A T-O-A-D, toad,” Red Robin laughed, brandishing the amphibian with one hand. “She-uh-they turned him into a toad!”

“Todd the toad,” Robin mused. “It does have a certain symmetry to it.”

Dick groaned internally and turned to Tim. “Yeah, ha ha, he got turned into a toad, warts and all, very funny, but I need you to hand him over to me,” he demanded seriously.

Robin tensed and moved to place himself between Red and Dick. “No. I told Todd the last time that if he were to be transformed in my presence, I would leave him to the mercy of Drake. I intend to keep that promise; I will not allow you to take the toad from him.”

“Names, Robin,” Red chided gently as he stepped around him. He unceremoniously dumped the toad into Dick’s hands, barely giving Dick enough time to bring them up to catch the poor little guy. “Take him.” Robin made a soft noise of protest, at which Red directed his next words over his shoulder. “It’s fine. The Toad will get what’s coming to him one way or another.”

Robinlooked uncertain but nodded. Dick felt a trickle of unease at Tim’s vague threat and made a mental note to keep a close eye on Jay once they’d made it back to the manor. There was no telling what sort of revenge Tim or Damian - or both - would cook up in the twenty-four hours Jason would soon endure in this squishy, vulnerable form.

Dick raised the humbled-looking toad up to eye level and shook his head. “I told you we shouldn’t mess with that guy-uhhh-person. You probably wanted to get transformed didn’t you? Just to rub it in when you got turned into something cooler than T or little D?”

“-peep-peep-peep-”^[1]

Dick’s eyebrows flew up into his hairline. “What the toad?”

~*~

Twenty-three hours in and still no one had launched an attack on Jason. Dick took a sip of his tea and glanced back at the toad, who sat on the worktable behind him looking bored. Jay blinked one eye glumly, then the other, then closed both. Exciting stuff.

Dick yawned and turned back to the comms, but there wasn’t much more excitement to be had there either; it had been a quiet night and now it sounded like everyone was on their way back. Dick taken the night off so he could keep an eye on Jason, a call Bruce had fully supported once he’d seen the glint in his youngest son’s eyes and the flat, unreadable look in his second-youngest’s whenever either turned his gaze on the unfortunate Todd the Toad, not to mention the immediate threats of Alfred the Cat and Titus, each of whom would surely try to snack on Jason if given half the chance.

The roar of a motorbike echoed through the cave, followed closely by another. A minute later Robin passed by the console, followed by Red Robin. The rumbling din of the Batmobile followed shortly after and Dick began wrapping up communications with Batgirl and Oracle.

Tim returned to the console a few minutes later, pulled up a chair at a side station, and began uploading in his nightly report.

“How was it out there tonight?” Dick asked casually as he worked on shutting down and re-routing surveillance programs and search routines.

“Quiet. We didn’t run across our magical friend again, but I can’t say we were looking for him-err-them in any case,” Tim replied. He stood up and stretched. “Okay, well I’m going to head up.”

“Cool. ‘Night, Tim,” he replied absently, his eyes glued to the screens and his attention fully focused getting his tasks done so he could call it a night. He continued tapping away for almost a half a minute more before it registered that he’d briefly heard Jason’s bizarrely cute, pipping cry what felt like only a few moments earlier. ^[1]

“Patience, Jay, it won’t be long now, less than an hour, and you’ll be human again.”

Instead of the quiet peeping he expected in reply, there was silence. He ripped his eyes away from the screen and glanced over his shoulder. “Jay? Jason?”

Then it occurred to him that the last time he’d seen or heard from Jason was right before Tim had gone up…

“Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim!”

Dick tore through the manor and skidded out onto the patio just as Tim disappeared down the lawn, headed straight for that damn duck pond. Dick sprinted out over the lawn but he doubted he’d make it in time to keep Tim from tossing the defenseless Jay into the murky water.

Sure enough, by the time he got to the pond, there was a disgruntled looking toad perched precariously on a branch poking out of the water not far from the side. Tim stood guard at the edge, hands on his hips, staring Jason down. Dick sighed loudly.

“Tim, was this really necessary? It’s three AM. Couldn’t you save your revenge for once the sun comes up.”

“He won’t be a toad once the sun comes up. In fact he won’t be a toad in five minutes.”

“Toads don’t even like water; they mostly live on land after their juvenile phase,” he reminded Tim. He had done research, of course, after Jay had turned. It turned out there were a lot of things he didn’t know about toads before last night.

“Good. I bet naked Todds like it even less, and we both know Jason hasn’t left his juvenile, toss-your-brother-in-a-dirty-pond-at-six-AM phase.”

“Tim. Really?”

Tim shot him a piercing glare that was barely visibly the dim glow that made it down to them from house. “Yes, Dick. Really. I really want to see Jason change back in the middle of this stinking pond in the middle of the freaking night.”

“You planned this from the beginning.”

“No, but once I saw him sitting there on the table, looking bored and unaffected, I couldn’t help myself,” Tim admitted unapologetically. He rolled his eyes at the disapproving look Dick shot him. “Don’t even start. It’s not like I’d hurt him or let him drown. I just want him to realize that he can’t fuck with me then expect to just get away with it.”

Dick sighed and shook his head, but didn’t argue; at that point, he might as well let it play out, he reasoned. And so that was how they came to stand, two men in costumes and a toad on a log, staring each other down, in and beside that blasted duck pond, in the middle of the night. Waiting.

Minutes passed, but nothing happened. Eventually Tim pulled out his phone and checked the time. He frowned. “Hey, uhhh… Jason got turned at 3:47 right?”

“Yeah, Babs triple confirmed it on surveillance footage.”

“Well, it’s 4:02.”

They both turned to each other, then turned as one to stare at the toad.

“Well, shit.”

~*~

Days passed, but Jason didn’t change back. Bruce freaked out, of course, and called every magic user he knew. Most couldn’t make it out to look at Jason, but the few who did only shook their heads and said they couldn’t get involved.

The only person to say more than that was Zatana, who smirked when she looked over Jason and told them that she knew what it was - and was sure all the other magic users had known too - but wouldn’t do anything. The distinction wasn’t lost on Bruce and he all but raged to know why. Zatana merely answered that the issue would work itself out in time and that everything would “work out for the best” before poofing away.

Another week passed without any breakthroughs. Bruce called Zatana again, begging for anything, even a hint. The reply she sent back simply read: “What do you do with a man-turned-amphibian?” After that Bruce gave up on Zatana and turned his energy toward bringing in Dr. Fate to look at Jason.

In the meantime the boys had set up a “Toad Duty” rotation. Alfred looked after the vulnerable toad during the daytime, but someone had to sit with him at nights during patrol, and another person had to keep him in their room while everyone slept.

At first Dick took on all of those duties by himself, fearful for Jason’s health and safety if he left him in the clutches of Tim, or worse, Damian, but after a few days, Dami and Tim managed to convince him that their thirst for revenge had waned enough to be trusted with their amphibian brother. These days, Dick and Damian rotated who would stay home from patrol, while Tim hogged Jason in his room every night. Tim had even set up a tank in his room - a move Dick originally interpreted as a form of revenge until he observed the care and attention Tim had given to procuring bedding, food, and an environment tailored to making a toad comfortable.

Tim tried to confide in Dick that a large part of his desire to care for Jason the toad was motivated by guilt. They had suspected that the mage could read minds, so Tim blamed himself for thinking in the moment that Jason was more akin to a toad than to a todde - the old English for fox - under the assumption that that had encouraged the mage to make the switch.

However, in Dick’s mind, the greater part of Tim’s desire to care for Jason stemmed from his actual care for the man. The two of them had been cautious friends before all of this, and now Dick was sure that once this had all blown over, they’d be closer than ever. These days they were inseparable, whenever Tim was at home Jason was right there beside him - riding on his shoulder through the manor, sitting on his propped up knee while they watched a movie, even sitting on Tim’s head while he typed up reports.

Exactly one month to the night Jason had transformed, they all congregated in the cave and waited, hoping this would finally be the moment he would change back. Jason sat in the middle of the worktable while everyone - Stephanie, Babs, and Alfred included - watched. 3:47 AM came and went, but no transformation occurred. Bruce looked as if he was torn between wanting to cry or tear his hair out.

“What was that hint Zatana gave us? ‘What do you do with a man-turned-amphibian’?” Dick mused. Tim’s face lit up suddenly.

“Man-turned… the Frog Prince!”

Everyone turned to him incredulously. “What?”

Tim looked each person in the eye one at a time and slowly explained his revelation. “Zatana was referring to the Grimm’s fairy tale, the one about the man who was turned into a frog and then changed back by a princess.”

“So we have to throw him against a wall?”^[2] Damian asked incredulously at the same time Steph blurted out “I am not kissing that thing.” They looked at each other in confusion and Dick let out a weary laugh.

“Damian, I don’t know which version of the fairy tale you’re familiar with, but in this country the story is about a princess that kisses a frog and turns him into a handsome prince,” he explained.

Everyone turned aghast to Jason, who let out a sad series of peeps then turned to hop off the table in defeat. Tim caught him in mid-jump.

“He is not 'that thing’, Steph. Jason is a person,” Tim reminded them firmly. “And you,” he went on, giving the toad a little shake. “Don’t go giving up on yourself so easily.”

Tim glanced around the room, scanning each face briefly before his own set in determination. “If no one else can bring themselves to do what it takes, then I’ll do it,” he declared. He leaned in and kissed the amphibian on the top of his head before anyone could stop him.

A cloud of orange smoke and the overwhelming scent of maple syrup flooded over them, and when it cleared, there stood Jason, freshly transformed, except…

Tim crouched down beside Jason the fox in wonder and reached out a hesitant hand to stroke the fur on his head. “He…a fox… it was a transformation inside of a transformation? It’s like a function within a function… or a loop within a loop? We satisfied the exit condition and left the inner loop, but how do we exit the outer one? 'DO fox WHILE…’ what?” he rambled in shock.

“Drake, stop babbling in computer terms,” Damian snapped. “Clearly we’ve underestimated this magic user and-where are you going?!”

Tim had pulled up his cowl and jogged over to his bike before the family could intercept. Bruce ran for the security lock to seal the Cave, but Tim mounted and peeled out of the cave, without a word, before B had taken even three steps. It only took a look passed between the rest of them before everyone was hopping onto bikes and piling into cars to chase after him.

~*~

There was never any doubt in anyone's mind as to where Tim was headed. Dick brought his bike to stop next to Tim's, behind the tall fence bordering the back lot where Jason had been transformed, just as Tim made it to the corner of the building where it all had all gone down.

"I know you can hear me," Red Robin shouted to the rooftops. "We changed him back! I broke the second spell! How do we break the first one?"

The Batmobile pulled up behind Dick, and Steph rolled to a stop beside him. Dick dismounted and began scaling the fence.

"Answer me!" Red bellowed, scaring a handful of pigeons out of the eaves of another building. For a moment Dick thought Tim's desperate cries would go unanswered and that he could would make it to Tim before he could try another foolish call to summon the mage, but then the lights flickered, there was a whiff of cedar and sandalwood, and the mage appeared.

"Oh. So I see you two 'kissed and made up'," they teased lightly, orange eyes gleaming in the low light like a cat's.

"How do I change him back?!"

"Red, don't!" Dick called desperately, jumping down on the inside of the fence. He heard Bruce and Damian scrambling up the other side while Steph looked for a way to come in from another angle.

The mage tilted their head, as if listening to something no one else could hear. "How do you change him back? You don't change anything, little boy-duck. He'll change back on his own. Once the conditions are met."

"Which conditions? We alrea-"

"Same as before," they purred, waving their hand in a grand gesture.

Dick didn't even have a chance to call out a warning before a flash of light and the taste of honey hit them, and then in place of Red Robin there sat - surprise, surprise - a duck. A very shocked duck. The mage was nowhere to be found.

~*~

To everyone’s surprise Jason the Todde did not immediately attempt to eat Tim the Drake. In fact the fox didn’t even attempt to chase the duck.

Instead, when Batman stepped out of the Batmobile with the duck cradled in one arm, Jason the fox let out a whine so heart-wrenching that Dick worried that he had somehow injured himself while they were gone. The fox followed closely at Bruce’s heels, waiting until the man paused, at which point he rose up on his hind legs and nosed at his elbow. When Steph tried to chase him away from the trembling bird in B’s arms, Jason let out a screaming bark^[3] that made everyone, including Batman, jump.

Tim freed himself from B’s loosened grip and fluttered down to the floor. The fox slowly stepped forward and carefully sniffed the duck from head to tail, letting out a low whine as he did. The duck turned and began preening the fox’s fur, picking and pecking gently in obvious affection. Everyone stared.

When it came time for them to head up, Tim pointedly avoided being picked up by anyone - waddling away from Dick, flying away from Damian, and glaring threateningly at Bruce until he backed away slowly, both hands raised in surrender. Instead, Tim kept close to Jason, following him and Alfred into the elevator. Dick met them on the first floor and helped feed Tim strips of lettuce - bread is apparently very bad for ducks, come to find out - while Alfred shredded cooked chicken for Jason. They eventually gave Tim a bowl of peas in water to keep him from sneaking bites of Jason’s chicken.

Jason never once snapped or growled, instead gently nosing Tim away from his dish, eventually leaving a small pile of chewed-up chicken to one side for him to peck at. Tim brought over a few of his peas for Jason that the fox then chased around the kitchen gleefully. Dick’s eyes prickled with tears of pride for how brotherly they were to each other.

After that Dick and Alfred accompanied them out into the yard to do their business, then led them upstairs. When they made it to family wing, Tim turned toward his room while Jay loped past and scratched at the doorway to his. Alfred scolded him for his impatience - and the new scratches in the wood finish - but opened the door for him only for Tim to suddenly fly in out of nowhere, begin snapping at Jason’s feet - all the while quacking loudly and insistently - and effectively herd the fox back into the hallway.

Tim scuttled over to his door and began vigorously pecking the wood. Alfred sighed - more damage to the wood finish to worry about later - but opened it for him. As soon as the door opened, Tim circled around behind the fox and began herding him forward into his room. Once Jason picked up Tim’s intent, he eagerly trotted into the room and stood by the bed, waiting for Alfred or Dick to turn it down for them. Dick let Alfred handle the bed while he went in search of of a water dish for the two of them.

Dick returned a few minutes later to find the fox curled up loosely on Tim’s bed, in a nest of blankets, while the duck nestled down against his side, encircled securely by the pen formed by the fox’s legs. The fox cracked an eye, but the duck’s head was tucked snugly under his wing and the breaths that expanded his feathered body were slow and steady. Dick successfully resisted the urge to coo at sight, gently set their water dish down near the door, and quietly backed out of the room.

When he checked on them a few hours later - just to make extra sure the duck hadn’t become a snack or the fox hadn’t had his eyes pecked out - he was shocked to find human Tim and human Jason, fully dressed in ducky and fox footie pajamas, respectively, that he knew they hadn’t owned before all of this, curled up together in Tim’s bed. Jason was the bigger spoon, pressed closely against Tim’s back, legs curling around Tim’s protectively. Tim, in turn, hugged the arm Jason had slung around him tightly to chest.

Dick struggled valiantly against the urge to pull out his camera phone and snap a couple photos, but he did allow himself to stand there for a few minutes and stare, burning the image into his memory while internally “oooh"ing and "awww"ing and crying happy, older brother tears.

It hadn’t been more than five or six hours since Jason had reverted back to a fox and Tim had subsequently gone after the mage, he mused to himself once he finally managed to tear his eyes away from the touching scene. The only way they could have changed back so soon, he reasoned, was if they had satisfied the unspecified "conditions” the mage had mentioned earlier. Was this - Tim and Jason cuddling together in Tim’s bed - what the mage had been after all along?

The mage’s words echoed in his ears as he silently backed out of the room, locking the door from the inside on his way out. “So I see you two kissed and made up”. Yeah, Dick thought, smiling to himself, they really did.

Chapter Text

Jason turned at the sound of a single motorcycle entering the cave. He frowned as Red Robin clambered off the back of Robin’s bike and listened in nosily to the snatches of their conversation that drifted up to him after Dami had killed the engine.

“-ver would have happened if you had done a better job of talking sense into Grayson-”

“Me?! What about you? You could have spoken up at any time and backed me up, or would it have killed you to admit, for once, that I made a good point?”

“Your points are always weak and ineffective, as I already stated-”

“Then make a couple of your own!”

“Hey, uh, guys…” Jason began slowly, frown deepening as he noticed Tim carrying a balled up cape in his arms. He groaned and rubbed his temples; he had a pretty good idea of what, or rather who, was in that cape and a bad feeling as to why. He felt a headache coming on.

“Grayson would not have listened-”

“What are you talking about? You’re his favorite! You were his Robin! Of course he would have-”

“ENOUGH!” Jason bellowed, silencing both boys. “Red, you look derpy in the cowl without the cape, and I’m guessing that that’s Dickie in there from all the whining baby brat was doing, right?” Tim and Damian turned away from glowering at each other and turned their heated glares on him instead, just as he’d hoped they would.

“What’d he get turned into and why the hell were you guys even messing with that asshole mage again anyway?” Jason asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I thought we’d made a sorta truce with the bastard?” It had been months since they’d last had any trouble with them; the last encounter had definitely established a “you don’t mess with me and I won’t mess around in your city” relationship between them.

Tim took on a long-suffering expression and rolled his eyes. “It was Dick’s idea. He gave some weak excuse that he’d heard some rumors that the mage was up to something again, then ran off before we could stop him,” he explained. “Robin and I essentially played rooftop tag with him trying to get him to slow down and talk to us, but you know Dick: when he really doesn’t want to be caught, he isn’t.”

“-Tt-” Damian tsked, shaking his head. “Grayson is never usually this foolhardy but before we could catch up to him - and I assure you I could have, no matter what Drake says” - Tim rolled his eyes again; Damian ignored him - “he called out for the mage, she- it- -Tt- they appeared out of nowhere and then didn’t didn’t bore us with their nonsense drivel, simply waved a hand, Grayson transformed, and then they popped away again.”

“It took us the better part of an hour to catch Dick and bring him back here,” Tim added, nodding down to the bundle in his arms. His anger dimmed into to concern as he added, “I know we three were aware of ourselves when we transformed, for the most part, but I’m not sure Dick is with us for this transformation. He didn’t seem to recognize us and didn’t respond by name.”

“Okay, well that answers the ‘why’ but not the 'what’. What is he?” Jason asked, curiosity winning out against exasperation for the moment.

Tim and Damian shared a look then looked back at him, all traces of anger gone. “Uhhhh… I dunno if it’s a good idea to let him out in here. It was hard enough trying to corral him into my cape when we were out on the street. Uhh…Damian! You’ve had a whole bunch of pets; do you have a cage that would work for him?”

“-Tt- I have a dog, a cat, and a cow; why in earth would I have a cage? Put him in one of the uniform cases, preferably his old Robin case. He can defecate all over his old uniform and then we’ll see what he thinks of running off on us like that.”

“No! Damian, jeez, he’d suffocate in there! There has to be…”

Jason sighed and stepped up to Tim, prodding at the bundled cape. Tim jumped back in alarm but not before the cape gave several loud chirps. Jason froze, eyes fixed on the bundle.

“Oh my… you’ve gotta be… of course he would!” Jason laughed, scrubbing his hands over his face.

Tim grimaced, but gingerly peeled one edge of the cape away from his body to reveal a greyish brown head, an orange beak, a beady eye and just the hint of a orange-red breast peeking out.

“A robin. Of course he is. Why would I think he’d get zapped into anything else?”

As soon as light hit the bird he started chirping and wriggling around in his impromptu straitjacket.

“Careful, Drake, he’ll get loose!”

“Like I don’t know that!”

“Wait, can he fly?” Jason asked suddenly.

“Not really,” Tim hedged, looking down at the cheerily chirping bird. “He was hopping and fluttering about a lot after he transformed - gave us a good run around - but I can’t imagine what we would have done if he had flown off.”

Jason hummed. “Yeah, but, I mean, you figured it out pretty quickly, 'Duckling’.”

“Yeah, but I never flew very far or very high.”

“Baby bat was flying around pretty well to avoid B, if I remember correctly,” Jason reminded them. Tim looked over at Damian who nodded seriously.

“Yes, it was instinctual, but I also never flew very far or very fast.”

“In any case, we shouldn’t risk it,” Jason declared, surprised when both of the younger boys nodded in agreement. It didn’t occur to him until that moment that with Dickie out of commission, it fell to Jason to be the responsible older brother. He snorted softly. “I’m sure if we ask Alfred we can rustle up a cage. Someone in this house must have kept a pet bird at some point and we all know the attic in this place is like Warehouse 13.”

Tim blinked. “Wait. Did you just make a sci-fi refere-”

“Hey, Alfie, you upstairs? Do you know if we have a bird cage lying around anywhere?” Jason called into the comm.

“Why ever would you need a bird cage, Master Jason?”

“Ehhhh, well, we might have a bit of a situation with Dickiebird… emphasis on the bird.”

“Oh dear, don’t tell me…”

“Yep.”

“Blast that mage. I’ll see what I can find in the attic. Goodness knows no Wayne has ever thrown a thing out so long as it still functioned. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found the Ark of the Covenant in a crate with swastikas all over it up there.”

“Alfred! Did you just make an Indiana Jones ref-”

“Thanks, Alfie, we’ll try to keep him occupied until then!”

~*~

It took a little while, but eventually Alfred located an old fashioned bird cage gathering dust in one forgotten corner of Wayne Manor’s massive attic and brought it down to the cave. That was the good news. However when they went to place Dick the literal robin in solitary confinement…

“-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-”

“Hold still, Grayson. Hold him, Drake, you imbecile!”

“I’ve got him, Damian just keep the cage steady! Jason grab the cape. On three, we’ll-”

“-chirp-chirp-chirp-”

“Don’t squeeze so hard, Babybird. You’re gonna squeeze all the crap outta little Dickie and then whose fault will it be that a bird pooped on your cape?”

“It’s not like I have much of a choice, if I let up he’ll wriggle out. You ready? On three. One, two - bring that cage up Damia-”

“DRAKE!!”

“Oh dear…” Alfred murmured, holding a hand to his mouth as Dick flew off, flapping his way up to the stalactites high above them before swooping around the top of the cave in wide arcs. They all watched in shock.

“This is all your fault, Drake. If you’d just held on bette-”

“YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE THE CAGE READY YOU LITTLE BRAT!”

“Boys, please!”

Damian opened his mouth angrily and sank into a fighting posture then nearly fell back onto his ass when Dick suddenly dive bombed his face. They all jumped apart and stared as he recovered altitude then came in for another pass, swooping in on Tim this time. He fluttered at eye level for a few seconds before alighting on Jason’s shoulder and giving a loud chirp.

Jason whirled and reached for him, but Dick took off before he even came close to grabbing him. He swooped around their heads for a few more seconds before he seemed to realize there was much more space to be explored outside of the main cavern and then flew into a deeper part of the cave. They ran after him in a panic, but the bird was out of sight, the only signs of him the faint chirps that echoed confusingly from every angle as sound bounced around the cave. All at once their annoyance with each other was long forgotten.

“These caves are huge! We can’t let him get too far! Damian do you still have that net you were using to catch the injured bats?”

“I do. Drake, follow Grayson and try to use the aural recognition and sonar positioning software in your gear to get a fix on him. I’ll find you once I grab the net.”

“Good idea.”

“What can I do?”

“Jay…uhhh… Oh! Can you grab one of the cave blankets and dilute some knock out spray really fast? If we can get him into the net, then blocking out the light with the blanket will sedate him slightly, but we could use the knock out spray to calm him down enough to get him into the cage.”

“What should I do, Master Tim?”

“Alfred, could you grab some bird seed - oh, and some Crocky Crunch - from upstairs? Worse comes to worse we can always try to lure him out with food.”

“Good idea, sir.”

“Okay, everyone knows what they’re doing? Good. Everyone, GO!”

~*~

In the end, they never caught up to Dick the robin. They spotted him many times - swooping between stalactites, riling up the bats when they came back to sleep, and scaring the crap out of Batman when he came back at dawn - but he didn’t try to dive bomb them again, with the exception of B that one time, and he never landed anywhere within immediate reach. Any and all attempts to corner him up high or drive him into a sectioned off area such as the showers or the med bay were summarily frustrated.

After several hours of that, Dick went silent and disappeared into the deepest recesses of the cave. Worried that he might have tired out his small body and fallen into a deep crevice somewhere, Bruce pulled out his spelunking gear and went after him, while Alfred and the boys retreated upstairs to the kitchen to recharge. A few minutes later Nightwing strolled into the kitchen, sans mask, wearing a sweatshirt over his uniform.

“What the hell, you asshole!!!” was shouted at him from several directions in several variations all at once.

Dick winked and pulled Tim away from the fridge and into a hug that Tim probably should have thrown off instead leaning into, throwing his arms around Dick and holding on as if the man might transform and fly off again.

“Oof, you’re warm, Timmy. I’d forgotten how cold it is down in that cave, especially in the unfinished sections.”

“How come you got to keep your clothes? Have I mentioned how much I miss the leather jacket that the jackass mage poofed away? It was my favorite,” Jason complained good-naturedly, leaning over from his stool next to the island to slap Dick on his kevlar and spandex clad ass.

“Wait,” Tim blurted out, pulling back as something occurred to him. “Is Bruce still down there?”

Dick blinked. “Bruce was down there? Looking for me?”

“Yeah. You know how he gets. Last we saw of him, he’d loaded up all his gear and what looked like rations for days, then headed for the deepest crevice.”

“Oops. I’ll go looking for him in a minute, but before that I gotta grab something to eat. All that flying around running away from you guys burned a ton of energy. Not to mention how cold it is down there. You got any coffee brewed, Alfie?”

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I should be offering you any refreshment after the unfair runaround you just gave your family.”

“Wait. You remember flying around? ‘Running away'…you… you did that on purpose?!” Jason half-asked, half-bellowed angrily, throwing his hands into the air.

Dick laughed. “Tim, Dami, you guys should have seen your faces when you were chasing me around Gotham. And then when I dive bombed you guys later? Oh man that was sweet, sweet payback for all the stunts you guys have pulled since the transformations started.” He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye then caught Alfred’s glare and wilted slightly. “Sorry you got dragged into this too, Alfred. I didn’t mean to worry you guys.”

“Wait. Did you plan this all along?” Tim asked faintly. “Going after the mage, getting transformed… did you set us up!?”

Dick smiled and shrugged. Tim punched him in the shoulder. “Dick, you dick! We were worried about you!”

“I have to agree with Drake on this one. That was a ‘very dick thing to do’, Grayson,” Damian chimed in, his voice tight. He stood up from the kitchen table and walked over, stabbing two fingers into Dick’s breastbone pointedly. “It was also foolhardy. What if the mage had decided they’d had enough of games and party tricks? You could have gotten yourself killed. Or worse.”

Dick brushed off his hand and drifted over to the coffee pot. “Nah, Sage is actually really cool. Turns out he had noticed us bickering - first Tim and Dami, and then later Tim and Jason - so he thought he’d toss us into a few 'bonding scenarios’ to see how we’d do,” he explained as he poured himself a mug.

“B-bonding scenarios?” Jason stuttered out weakly. He glanced over at Tim. Damn it all, he was going to burn those damn fluffy, fuzzy magic fox footie pyjamas that were never too hot even under three blankets with the heat on. Stupid asshole mage. Stupid Dick!

Tim cocked his head. “The mage’s name is Sage? Sage the Mage? You’ve got to be kiddi-”

“Are you telling me I was turned into a fruit bat just so that I would be forced to bond with Drake?!” Damian screamed over him, voice cracking into a shrill shriek at the end. Tim covered a laugh with his hand.

“A baby fruit bat, to be precise,” Jason corrected in a snarky tone, taking a sip of his tea.

“I should have stepped on you when you were a toad, Todd,” Damian hissed back.

“Awww, I love you too, baby bat.”

“So Sage the Mage is a guy?” Tim asked curiously.

“Today he is,” Dick answered simply. Tim stared, then shook his head and returned to the table.

“I have not had enough coffee yet today to be dealing with this barrage of mind fuck.”

“Language, Master Timothy,” Alfred chided. He gave Dick one final disapproving stare, then sighed and moved over to the stove to begin loading up a plate for him.

Jason’s expression sobered and he turned to face Dick directly. “So, you really planned this? All of it?” he asked, reiterating Tim’s unanswered question. Dick shook his head.

“Not all of it. But after you and Tim changed back the last time, I got a hunch about the 'bonding’, so I tracked down Sage and we had a long talk about my suspicions, which turned out to be true. Then they came to me for a favor the other day, and when they offered one in return, it occurred to me that I was the only person who had never gotten a chance to try life as an animal. I also mentioned that you guys had started to drift apart again, so we came up with this plan.”

“All to get us to bond over your 'plight’? Jeez, Dickie, when did you get so manipulative?” Jason wondered quietly, shaking his head.

Dick hummed and tilted his head to the side. “Well, it wasn’t all about forcing you guys to band together. I’ve always wanted to know what it would feel like to actually fly, like a bird. Turning the transformation into a bigger plan was just a good excuse,” he admitted with a grin.

Jason grimaced in chagrin, but stood and slung and arm across Dick’s shoulder. “So how was it, Dickiebird?”

Dick grinned up at him, then glanced around the kitchen and beamed at the sight of Tim sitting elbow to elbow with Damian peacefully, at the image of Alfred looking over them happily, and then back at Jason’s friendly arm around his shoulder. “Better than I ever imagined.”