Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was supposed to be easy. Constantine had lost track of a magical artifact but after some unexplainable crimes and a report of an inexplicably flying cat a few days back, he had traced it to Gotham. All Tim had to do was hunt down whatever gang had gotten ahold of it, take them down, and give the artifact back to Constantine before it could cause any more trouble.

Easy.

Almost routine at this point.

He was banking on organized crime, not a teenager that just happened to be in the right place at the right time to get her hands on an immensely powerful magical staff.

Tim's first sign that something was bound to go horribly wrong should have been the fact Robin was tagging along, but Damian had been slightly less demon-ish recently (mainly due to Dick's influence), so he was cautiously optimistic that the night wouldn't end with that sword plunged through his chest.

His second sign should have been crossing paths and subsequently joining forces with Nightwing himself, who had traced the teenage girl and magical artifact across the river from Blüdhaven.

The nail in the coffin really should have been when they traced a shadowy figure for a few blocks before realizing it was Red Hood, also searching for said girl because she'd caused some issues for the kids in Crime Alley earlier that night.

Scratch that, the final nail was the moment right before they realized it was Hood, when Robin tackled him. An event which the two were still arguing about as the group climbed through a broken window and into the rafters of an abandoned warehouse at the docs.

“I wear a goddamn bright red helmet, demon. How fucking hard is it to recognize me?” Red Hood hissed, carefully making his way across the narrow support beams.

Robin clicked his tongue. “Obviously I recognized you. You just deserve to get tackled sometimes,” he scoffed.

“Maybe sneaking through an abandoned warehouse is not the best time to be arguing,” Nightwing whispered, carefully grabbing the back of Robin's cape to stop him from lunging at Red Hood again.

Robin tugged at his cape, indignant. “I am not a dog, I do not need to be leashed.”

“You do bite,” Tim noted.

Nightwing sighed. “Robin, we talked about the biting.”

“He deserved it. If he didn’t want to get bitten, he shouldn’t have—”

“Guys,” Red Hood hissed, “shut the fuck up.” He jerked his head down towards the warehouse floor.

Knelt next to a pile of old crates was the girl they had been chasing all night. From what Tim could see, she had tangled red hair and wore a worn gray hoodie with holes in it. Agewise, he’d guess she was somewhere between him and Damian, maybe fourteen. She wouldn’t be a threat if not for the gnarled wooden staff clutched in her hands, topped with a blue gem that glowed with otherworldly light.

A gem that she was currently hitting against the ground. “Work you stupid—gahhhhh!” she yelled, bashing the top of the staff against the ground as the light flickered.

Nightwing winced. “That’s…not going to end well. For her or for us. You think we could talk to her?”

“She’s too dangerous with that staff. I say we take her out.” Robin’s hand tried to go to his sword’s hilt, but Nightwing grabbed his wrist. Tim couldn’t help but think that if he tried that, he would get bitten.

“She’s young, Robin. And she’s angry. We don’t want to hurt her. Or scare her.” Nightwing released Robin’s wrist and crept further across the support beam they were balanced on.

“Red Robin, you and Robin climb down there, hide behind those crates.” He pointed towards a shadowy wall that led down behind where the girl was. “You two need to have our backs in case anything goes wrong. Hood, you and I will repel down on either side of her and try to talk her down.”

Tim cocked his head to the side, staring at his oldest brother the best he could in the shadows. “You want Hood on your side for a diplomatic attempt instead of me?”

“He deals with children far more often than you do.”

Red Hood looked torn between disagreeing with Nightwing on principle and tearing Tim down. Eventually, he went with. “Yeah, replacement. I think you can stand to sit this one out.”

Tim resisted the urge to roll his eyes, knowing that Hood wouldn’t see it anyway through his mask and the darkness. He did as he was told, climbing across the support beams with Robin and repelling down in the shadows, then creeping up behind the stack of hold crates near the girl. Up close, he could hear her cursing under her breath.

On either side of the girl, Nightwing and Red Hood repelled down from the support beams above. Nightwing severed his line early and hit the ground with a roll, landing on his feet with his hands out in front of him as though he were calming a frightened animal. Hood landed more simply, detaching his grapple when his combat boots hit the warehouse’s dusty floor.

The girl stiffened up, holding the staff out in front of her in a defensive position, but unable to decide whether she should face Nightwing or Red Hood. Eventually, she decided on whirling back and forth between the two of them.

“Stay back!” She yelled. “I’m not afraid of using this thing!”

“We don’t want to hurt you.” Nightwing held his hands up higher, as though in surrender. Tim knew that showing the girl he wasn’t armed meant nothing, and that having his hands up higher actually put him in a better position to grab his escrima sticks if need be. “We just don't want you to hurt yourself or anyone else with that staff.”

“It's not yours,” Red Hood added. “We need to get it back to someone who can lock it up and keep everyone safe.”

“No!” the girl screeched, clutching the staff in a white knuckle grip and swinging it towards Red Hood. He easily dodged her desperate attack and Nightwing used the distraction to take a few silent steps closer to her.

“I need this staff,” she continued, holding it closer to her chest. “I found it, now it's mine. You can't have it.”

“I know it's tempting, magic and all that.” When Nightwing spoke, the girl whipped towards him, brandishing her staff, which Red Hood took as an opportunity to advance towards her. “But we don't want anyone to get hurt. Just give us the staff and we’ll pretend this never happened. We’ll find you somewhere warm to stay too, how about that?”

“And food,” Red Hood added, and just as before, when the girl turned to him, Nightwing stepped closer. “A nice, warm meal. Multiple even. Just hand it over.”

For a moment, it looked like the girl might actually take the offer, her grip loosening on the gnarled wood, but then her face changed, twisting into fearful desperation. “No, no, no! Adults lie. They always do! You don’t remember what it’s like to be small, to be powerless! So you lie, and you take, and you don’t really care!”

Tim had just enough time to think that, against all odds, it might have actually gone better if he and Robin had tried to talk her down given their ages, when the girl lunged with her staff. Both Hood and Nightwing grabbed for her, but she hadn’t aimed for them. Instead, she had twisted the staff around and aimed the gemstone at the top squarely at the ground. It connected with the concrete floor with the sound of a thousand glass panes shattering, and then Tim’s world turned white.

...

When his vision cleared, Tim found himself curled around Robin, instinctively using his body and cape to protect him, as if it would have done anything against a magical blast like that. He quickly scrambled backwards, feeling dazed but knowing he didn’t want to get bitten again.

He thought Damian would yell at him, something about not needing his protection, but the young vigilante seemed just as dazed as he was from the blast. All he managed to mumble was “...Night…Nightwing…”

“Shit,” Tim hissed, clamoring to his feet and vaulting himself over the stack of crates they had been hiding behind. The girl and magic staff were nowhere to be seen, instead a fine layer of blue, shimmering dust covered the ground. In the center, where Red Hood and Nightwing should have been, was what looked like a pile of yellow and black fabric until it started shifting and moving, revealing itself to be two human forms.

Tim stopped dead in his tracks, nearly slipping in the dust, causing Robin — who was apparently right behind him — to crash into his back.

Robin mumbled a few curse words directed at him, but stopped short when he saw what was in front of them.

It was two young boys, both with messy black hair, both covered in a fine layer of glittering blue dust, and both wearing the old Robin costume. It was Dick's design, the brighter one, closer in color to what the Flying Graysons had worn, and with a startling lack of pants. But it was the one that Jason had worn too.

As the two Robins got to their feet, each seemed to notice Tim and Damian before they noticed each other.

The Robin on the right regarded Tim with a hesitant curiosity, tilting his head to the side and rocking back and forth on his heels as a small, confused smile flickered at the corner of his mouth.

The Robin on the left snapped himself into a defensive position the moment he gained his bearings, glaring at Tim as though he were ready to tear his head off.
Tim had seen photos — hell, he’d taken photos — of Dick and Jason in their Robin days, but it hadn’t occurred to him how truly identical they looked in costume until they were standing right next to each other. Because that’s what this was standing in front of him, wasn’t it? Dick and Jason in their early Robin days. He knew there were tells, signs, small things that should set them apart. Things that he’d studied. But that had been a long time ago, and Dick was older by the time he really looked into him. Right now, he thanked the powers that be for differing temperaments, because his brain was working overtime trying to process and problem solve what was happening directly in front of him, he didn’t need to be mixing them up too.

“Who are you?” the one on the left — angry, defensive, Jason — growled, surprisingly intimidating for a boy in a leotard that looked about eleven years old.

At the same time, the one on the right — curious, wide-eyed even under the mask, Dick — said, “Hello?”

That was when the two Robins noticed each other. They both took several steps away from each other, looking the other over in detail. After a few tense moments, they both said, “...You’re not me.” The one on the right — nice Robin — Dick — phrased it as more of a question, while the one on the left — angry Robin — Jason — phrased it as an accusation.

Tim opened his mouth, as though he could explain and just make everything better, but his brain was still trying to catch up. Before he could say anything at all, Jason lept at Dick and the two went rolling, one over the other, across the warehouse floor. Damian reacted faster than he did, sprinting after them and joining the Robin fray. For a moment, all Tim could see was a blur of Robin colors — both the bright old ones and Damian’s more muted tones — until Damian came out of it restraining a struggling, thrashing…Jason? Jason.

“Let go of me you creep!” he screamed, trying every maneuver in the book to get out of Damian’s grasp. Damian managed to keep a good grip on him, until Jason suddenly reared back and clamped his teeth down hard on Damian’s wrist. That had to hurt, even through his costume.

“What the fuck!?” Damian yelled, momentarily losing his grasp. Luckily, Jason didn’t run to pounce on Dick again. Rather, he climbed on top of the same pile of crates that Damian and Tim had hid behind earlier.

“Who are you? Where am I? Where is Batman?” Jason growled.

“I’m Robin, that’s Red Robin, you’re in an old abandoned warehouse near Gotham harbor, he’s probably back at the cave by now, and you just bit me,” Damian hissed, rubbing his wrist.

Jason looked like he wanted to take Damian’s head off, which wasn’t too different from how normal, adult Jason usually looked. “I’m Robin. I don’t care who you are or who that imposter over there is, Robin is my name. What do you know about the cave?”

“We know where it is, for one thing,” Tim sighed. “Look, I know this is confusing, and probably scary, but work with us here, please. We got wrapped up in something we shouldn’t have gotten wrapped up in, and now the two of you—” he looked back over at Dick, and saw that Damian was helping him off the ground, doing his best to brush some of the blue dust off of his costume “—are here. And you’re really, really not supposed to be here. But if we go back to the cave, then B will hopefully know what to do. Or, at least, he’ll know how to call someone that can fix this.”

“You’ve given us no real reason to trust you.” It was Dick that spoke, hesitantly stepping towards the pile or crates that Jason was balanced on.

“There’s no us in this situation, imposter.”

“But we’re both—”

“No, you’re nothing but a mockingbird in my colors.”

Tim couldn’t help but think that his tone was achingly similar to Damian’s, but the current Robin probably wouldn’t enjoy that comparison. “Look, if I prove to you I’m one of Batman’s allies, will you come back to the cave with us?”

Dick nodded.

Jason perched himself closer to the edge of the crates. “Batman doesn’t have allies. Just a partner. Just me. This better be good.”

Tim looked around the abandoned warehouse, as though there were someone there to listen into this conversation at nearly four in the morning. “The Batman is Bruce Wayne. Happy now?”

Dick took a step back, hitting the pile of crates behind him.

Jason leapt down from his perch, still regarding Tim and Damian skeptically. “Fine. Lead the way.”

Tim took one last long look at the two Robins standing before him. His older brothers. He’d never actually known them like this. Studied them, sure, but that was from afar. By the time he was really around, Jason was dead and Dick was gone, leaving Bruce broken in the process. He really, really needed to see what Bruce’s reaction to all of this was going to be.

Finally, he turned away and went about exciting the warehouse to return home, hoping that neither Robin would try to make a run for it between the harbor and the cave.
As they climbed through a broken window, Tim heard Damian mumble to himself, “He bit me.”

Chapter Text

Tim kept checking his comms intermittently, trying to see if he could contact Oracle to warn her and Bruce of the situation at hand. Unfortunately, the magical blast seemed to have knocked out those and some of his other electronic gadgets as well. Neither young Robin attempted to run off, though Jason seemed like he wanted to. He stuck to shadows even more than the rest of the group, always a few steps behind, keeping a suspicious eye on everyone.

Dick, meanwhile, bobbed about next to Tim, carefully observing Gotham’s skyline. “It’s…different,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Almost the same but…different signs, new buildings. What…what happened to us?”

Tim sighed. “As far as you’re concerned, you’re—” he paused, trying to do mental math to account for how long it had been since Dick’s first days as Robin “—fourteen years in the future, give or take. I know it might seem hard to believe, especially considering that I don’t think you were dealing with magic too often back then, but…we know you. Older you. Both of you. We were trying to get a magic item back, and it obviously went very, very wrong.”

“Cool,” Dick exclaimed, as the group jumped to the next rooftop. It wasn’t that far back to the cave now.

When they landed on the other side, Jason seemed to materialize on Damian’s left, making the current Robin jump, which was an impressive feat. “So what are you two, anyway? More wannabe Gotham vigilantes? Copycats? Imposter birds? Taking names that don’t belong to you.” Tim didn’t miss the way he eyed the R insignia on Damian’s chest with disdain.

Damian, obviously still mad from having gotten bitten earlier (though, Tim would definitely be tucking that memory into a special box in his head), sneered “Official birds. Better than you ever were, in any case. At least I didn’t get myself ki—”

“Robin,” Tim chastised, “maybe don’t antagonize him.” And maybe don’t tell the eleven year old that he’s going to die young. “The nicer answer, and the more truthful one, is we’re…brothers.” He hesitated to use the word, wondering how accurate it was to describe his relationship with Jason. “Family. There’s more of us too. Another brother, a handful of sisters, some family friends…depends on if you only count the ones on paper.”

Dick looked pleased, his face brightening into an actual grin, but Jason seemed conflicted for a moment before his face set even further into a scowl. They traveled in relative silence after that, only punctuated by Dick’s occasional questions. Do we all live in the manor? Are all of our siblings heroes too? Did B ever let us get a pet?

Tim did his best to answer all of his questions in a way that didn’t require too much information or lead to more questions (No, that would be chaos. We all have masks, if that’s what you’re asking. “Let” might be a strong word, we’ve definitely acquired some animals though.). He also didn’t fail to notice that Damian seemed to be in an increasingly bad mood. Well, he was always in a bad mood, but this specific one caught Tim’s attention, especially because his eyes turned sad whenever he stole a glance at the nice, exuberant Robin bobbing along next to Tim. Tim got it, in a way, or at least, he thought he did. For whatever reason, it was Dick that had gotten through to Damian, even if Damian refused to admit it. If that little demon even had the capacity for love, it was Dick, and only Dick, that he cared for. And it must hurt, knowing that the only person you love doesn’t know you, even if it is most likely temporary.

Tim actively decided that he wasn’t going to devote anymore of his brainpower to Damian’s emotions.

…

Back at the cave, Tim left all three Robins outside as he crept slowly and reluctantly inside. He wanted to prep Bruce before he was actually confronted with the bizarre sight of his first two Robins young again. He didn’t know what that would do to him, especially seeing Jason.

When he reached the central hub area, he saw Bruce, still in his Batman costume but with his cowl pulled down off of his face. He was typing something, mumbling to himself, then suddenly cursed and hit his fist against the desk. “Oracle, do you have anything?”

“All four of them just seemed to have poof, blipped out of existence. No trackers, no comms, it’s all just gone.” Oracle's voice came, slightly mechanized, through the screen.
Bruce cursed again. “I’m going back out there then. There’s no reason why all of their tech would just—”

Tim took a single step into the light and Bruce whirled around on him, ready for a fight, but his face relaxed as soon as he saw who it was. “Red Robin,” he sighed. “Tim. Mission report.”

Tim thought that was his way of asking What the fuck happened? and Where on earth are the rest of you? “We’re all fine,” Tim assured. “Mostly.”

“Mostly does not reassure me, Timothy,” Barbara said through the computer. “What happened to your trackers and where are the others?”

Tim winced, scratching the back of his neck and racking his brain for an explanation that didn’t make what happened sound insane. Then he realized that their whole lives were a series of insane events and decided just to go for it. “Right. So, that’s where the problem is. We were tracking down that staff for Constantine, and there was this girl, and she yelled something about ‘not remembering what it’s like to be small’ and then—”

“Father! The feral one is attempting to maul me!” Damian yelled suddenly from somewhere else in the cave, followed by a loud crashing noise, then Damian and Jason spilling into the light. Damian had Jason’s arms locked behind his back, carefully keeping out of reach of his mouth, but Jason was still doing his level best to kick Damian’s legs out from under him. Meanwhile, Dick trailed behind, keeping a hesitant distance from the two struggling Robins.

In the midst of his thrashing, Jason caught sight of Bruce, and he suddenly stilled, dropping into dead weight to break out of Damian’s grasp, then tucked himself into a summersualt and came up on his feet. He stood with his arms folded, and his face set into a scowl.

Bruce stared, eyes flicking back and forth between the two young Robins, mouth slightly open. He tried to form words, but now sound came out.

Damian broke the tense silence that fell over them, stepping up to Bruce in a huff. “Father, Todd bit me. I demand you lock him in a holding cell.”

Before Bruce could respond, a hesitant voice piped up from behind them. “I didn’t bite anybody.”

Damian and Tim both turned their attention to Dick, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Of course you didn’t, it was that feral creature that—”

“I’ll do it again,” Jason warned, before trying to leap at Damian.

Damian scrambled backwards as Bruce grabbed the back of Jason’s cape, much as Dick had done to Damian earlier. If this sitatuion wasn’t breaking Tim’s brain, he would be having a field day with Damian getting a taste of his own medicine for once.

Bruce sighed, using the hand that wasn’t currently restraining the wayward Robin to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I haven’t had to say this to you in over a decade. Dick, don’t bite anyone unless absolutely nessisary.”

“Well, it’s a bit too late for that sentiment, he already—” Damian stopped his tirade short, fully processing what Bruce just said. “Wait. That thing—” he jabbed his finger at the Robin Bruce was restraining “—is not Grayson.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed, those pieces were falling into place even as he did. “That one—” he pointed at the Robin that, until a few seconds ago, he was absolutely convinces was his oldest brother “—is Dick.”

The Robin Tim was pointing at cocked his head sideways, raising an eyebrow. “No. Dick’s away. Off with the Titans. My name is Jason.”

Bruce sighed, sounding done with the entire situation. “I see what’s happened. Dick—” he released Dick’s cape, placing a hand on his shoulder instead “—and Jason—” he beckoned the other Robin towards him, letting him take his place on his other side “—please take off your masks.”

Both young boys reached up to remove their dominos and…oh, yeah, now that Tim was looking for it, it was a lot more obvious. Both boys had blue eyes, but Dick’s were lighter. Jason was taller, if only by an inch, and thinking about it now, Dick had always been small for his age. Jason’s nose was longer, and Dick wore his expressions crooked. It was glaringly, confusingly obvious that the angry little boy on Bruce’s right had features that would mature into Nightwing’s easygoing smile, while the smiling, wide-eyed boy on the left had features that would get twisted by the lazarus pit into an everpresent scowl and then hidden under Red Hood’s mask. Looking at them now, Tim had the startling realiztation that he’d seen the ghosts of these little boys in his brothers’ expressions before.

Barbara’s laughter though the speakers broke the silence. “Well, I’m holding this over your heads forever. How about I call Constantine and Zatanna so we can get this all squared away, yeah? It might be a few hours until they can pop by. Or days. You might want to get comfortable with having three Robins for a while.” Oracle’s line went mute and they were left with their own thoughts, struggling to think of what to do next.

Damian was staring with wide, troubled eyes at Dick, who glared back with an ever more intense fury. Tim wanted to point out how startlingly similar this version of Dick and Damian actually were. Biting aside, the two of them carried the same sense that there was too much anger in their eyes for someone so young. They stood tense and wound up, always ready to attack, even without probable cause. But maybe Damian had already realized that. And maybe that was the problem.

Without warning, Damian turned on his heel and sprinted off into the darker parts of the cave. Usually, this would be where Dick ran after him. He always seemed to know where Damian hid, and despite having a family of detectives, he was the only one that could find him. Of course, that didn’t happen now. However, when Tim turned back to the rest of the group, he saw the boy looking far more thoughtful than angry.

“Should somebody go after him?” Dick asked in a far softer tone than Tim had heard from him as of yet.

“He’ll be fine,” Bruce said, turning back to the computer. He started typing, but to Tim, it looked like he was just trying not to look at either Robin. “We have to deal with the two of you first. Alfred, I’m sure, has been listening in, and he’ll leave clothes on your beds. Your rooms are in the same location. Don’t be surprised by the dog.”

Both boys seemed to brighten up at the mentioned of Alfred, and maybe Ace too.

“That one—” Jason pointed at Tim “—said we have more siblings. Where are they?”

“Cassandra is tying up some loose ends in on a mission in out of the country, Duke is currently at a friend’s house, probably asleep, and as much as they like to insist Stephanie is my daughter, she isn’t and a I don’t keep tabs on her. However, she is currently out of town on a fieldtrip. I believe her environmental science class is testing water at a lake somewhere.” He was still resolutely not looking in their direction. “Zatanna and Constantine will know how to fix this, I’m sure. Until then, you know your way around the manor for the most part. It hasn’t changed that much, I assure you.”

The two boys looked at each other, then Dick snapped his gaze back to the ground and Jason walked up to Bruce and tugged on his cape.

When Bruce turned towards him, Jason wrapped his small arms around his waist and said, “G’night, Bruce!” before running off in the direction of the stairs up to the manor. Bruce’s body tensed and remained rigid as he watched the second Robin run away. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost, which Tim supposed, he had.

Dick had also winced at this interaction, squaring his shoulders and staring at the ground. He mumbled, “Goodnight, Mr. Wayne.” Then followed after Jason with his head down.

Bruce stared after them, shellshocked and pale. Usually, Bruce hid reactions like this well, but Tim couldn’t even imagine what was going through his head. He’d never heard Jason sound so kind, nor Dick sound so formal and stiff. He’d never seen Jason willingly hug somebody, much less Bruce, and he’d never heard any of his siblings, much less Dick, call Bruce ‘Mr. Wayne’.

"Right." Bruce cleared his throat and turned back to the computer, facing away from Tim. “You should get some sleep too, Tim. You’ve had a long night.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “Really long.”

Chapter Text

Damian hid himself far back in the outreaches of the cave, tucked in a small alcove naturally occurring in the rocks that he found himself in quite often. It was cold, and the only sound that reached him was the occasional screeches of the bats, but his Robin uniform kept him warm enough, and he had long since made his peace with the bats. He tucked his knees up against his and staunchly, stubbornly refused to cry. He refused to show that weakness. He refused to lose it over something he couldn’t control.

He beat away Grayson’s voice in his head saying, Crying is natural, Dami. When things hurt, or you’re scared…it’s really okay. I’ll be here to hold you, alright? He’d heard that sentiment over and over when he awoke from nightmares, just to find Grayson sitting at the edge of his bed.

It was useless sentimentality. The kind that Grayson was good at. Besides, he wasn’t here anyway. Instead, he’d been replaced by that overwhelming suspicion, that crushing anger, that creature, that…reflection. He’d thought it was Todd, and it was easier to conceptualize then. Of course he was angry, and bitter, and mean. Of course he insulted Damian, attacked him, and glared at the Robin insignia he wore on his chest like he didn’t deserve it. Todd would do all of those things now. Damian…Damian would also do all of those things now if he saw someone else taking what was rightfully his. He’d done as much to Drake and that was before he even technically held the mantle. But Grayson was supposed to be better than that.

Damian had always assumed that, considering the circumstances, Grayson had been a happy child. His father talked fondly of their days at Batman and Robin. And though he’d never admit it, there was a part of him that was always trying to live up to what he assumed his brother had been like. That part of himself that preened at Grayson’s affection and praise — that awful, sentimental part of himself that he tried to shove away — wanted this version of Grayson to like him too. He wanted the first boy wonder to look at him and think that his title had ended up in good hands.

That was an unfair expectation. The boy was confused, ripped from his own time with no explanation. But, still…it was Grayson, and Grayson was supposed to make everything better. And yes, that was too much responsibility to place on a confused child, but it was Grayson, and Grayson was good, and Grayson wasn’t like Damian.

Lost in his thoughts, Damian didn’t hear the nearly imperceptible footfalls outside of his alcove, nor the small hands expertly grasping at rocks to pull themselves up. He didn’t notice anything amiss until suddenly, there was a small boy perched like a frog on his hands and feet on the lip of the alcove, staring at Damian with his head cocked to the side, nearly completely hidden in the shadows. Actually, he was there for quite a few minutes before Damian noticed him, but he wasn’t sure if this was due to his general state of mind, or a testament to the former Robin’s stealth ability.

“What the fuck!?” Damian yelled, scrambling backwards until his back hit the rocks.

Grayson — no, Damian refused to call this thing his brother’s name — Robin didn’t respond. He stayed still, perched exactly as he was, staring at him with an unparseable expression. He didn’t have the Robin suit on anymore, and instead he had on a slightly too big black t-shirt and gray pajama bottoms that Damian was actually pretty sure were his.

“You’re creepy, anyone ever tell you that?” Damian mumbled, feeling uncomfortable under his gaze.

“Mr. Wayne says it all the time.”

Damian recoiled. “Do not call him that. It’s weird.”

“You called him ‘father’.” Robin’s expression finally broke from unparseable to displeased. “Why?”

That wasn’t a question Damian had anticipated, and it took him a few seconds to answer. “Of everyone that inhabits this cave, my relationship to him is the least complicated.”
Robin didn’t seem to grasp what that meant.

Damian sighed. “We share genetics. He’s my biological father.”

For a split second, Robin looked as though he had been slapped, but the expression was gone as it came, replaced by the blank look from before. “Right. Of course. You look like him. Then again, people say I look like him.”

Damian had witnessed that before. Sometimes, at his father’s charity galas, the older members of Gotham’s elite forgot that Grayson was adopted and showered him with compliments about how he’d inherited Bruce’s eyes, or his jawline, or something of the like. Grayson always just grinned through the interaction and laughed about it later. He was pretty sure that Drake, and even Brown, had also been caught in this mixup.

When Robin did nothing else but stare at him, Damian asked, “What do you want?”

Robin continued staring at him wordlessly, but his brow furrowed, making him look slightly troubled.

“How did you even find me?”

“I hide here,” he answered simply, shrugging.

Of course he does, Damian thought to himself. Grayson was always the best at finding Damian when he hid. He’d never considered that it might be because he had used the hiding places himself.

They sat in silence for a few moments and Robin’s frown deepened. Eventually, he said, “You looked…upset.”

“Why do you care?” Damian snapped, pulling his knees further against his chest.

Robin just shrugged. Slowly, he unfurled himself from his perch and moved silently into the small alcove next to Damian. They sat together in awkward silence again until Robin finally said, “You’re wearing my symbol.”

“Yes.”

“And my name.”

“Yes.” Damian’s jaw tightened. Usually, when he thought of himself as holding Grayson’s mantle, he felt a sense of pride. But not now. Now, this boy’s gaze made him feel like he’d stolen something that didn’t belong to him.

“Why?” The question was sharp and simple, yet the answer was anything but.

“By the time I came around, you had not been Robin in quite some time. I’m the fifth to hold the title, actually.”

Robin’s scowl hardened, causing Damian to attempt to retreat further away, but his back hit rock and there was nowhere else to go. He questioned whether or not some cosmic force was playing a joke on him and the boy sitting in front of him was Todd after all. He recalled the burning gaze that Todd sometimes fixed on Drake, and the way he spat Replacement like Drake had committed an unspeakable crime. But Grayson…well, it occurred to Damian that he wasn’t entirely sure how peacefully the title had been passed to Todd. He knew the gist, but not in detail. But Damian did know how he himself ended up with the title, and that had to mean something.

“For what it is worth,” Damian muttered, “I don’t think you had much of a choice with the other three. Todd, Drake, Brown…they were Father’s choices. But I was yours. You kept me around, at least. Helped train me. And…” Damian’s chest heaved in a shaky sigh. “Maybe it was all out of obligation to Father, I do not know, but I do know that I fought by your side as your Robin.”

Damian tensed his shoulders, trying to prepare himself for what he felt was the inevitable question of why it was Grayson’s side he had been brought up by and not his father’s. For a moment, it looked as though that was going to be what came out of his mouth, but then he stopped, shut his mouth, and scrunched up his eyebrows in thought.
Damian did his best not to shift uncomfortably under the unwavering gaze of the younger Robin as the pair fell back into tense silence.

Finally, Robin broke the silence. “The other one. Jason? You thought I was him. Why?”

Damian didn’t like this question any better. It was embarrassing, honestly, that he hadn’t put it together. He was a detective, for god’s sake, he was supposed to be the best. Yet, he hadn’t been able to recognize his own brother.

Still, answering was better than enduring Robin’s stare in silence for a moment longer. “I’ve only known you and Todd as adults. I suppose that much is obvious. Todd is…volatile, to say the least. His relationship with the rest of us is not always the best. If asked to imagine him as a child, I probably would have come up with an amalgamation of pent up anger and a barely contained urge to bite someone.”

“Social convention would demand that this is where I apologize for biting you.”

“And?”

“I refuse. You just called me an amalgamation of pent up anger.” Robin’s eyes somehow got wider and more scathing, and there was an agonizing few seconds of silence until he continued. “Am I then to take it that I am…different?”

Damian grimaced, trying to think of the best way to describe Richard Grayson as he knew him. “It is not that you never get angry. I’ve seen you angry, and it is…unpleasent. But you smile. Sometimes at truly absurd times. I think that’s what was missing.”

“I don’t find it easy to smile now.”

“I noticed.” Damian didn’t want talk to this version of his brother anymore. He didn’t like putting words to feelings, nor did he want to pick apart the psyche of this tiny, viscous version of the man he knew. He wanted Grayson back, and until that happened, he was perfectly willing to pretend this thing didn’t exist. Still, despite wanting to shut him out, Damian felt an annoying tugging in his chest that made him continue, “You really do hold us together though. Hold me together. The best you can, at least. As rough as Father can be, I do not want to imagine where he would be without you.”

Somehow, Robin’s scowl deepened. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“Father?” Damian scrunched his eyebrows together. “Of course he does. I mean, he’s not always the best at showing it, but—”

“No. I’ll always owe him, I guess. For picking me up off that circus floor. And it’s not that he’s mean, not really. But I don’t think he wants me around. Not as Dick Grayson, anyway. I’d rather be Robin all the time. At least then I’m in my family’s colors and he pays attention to me.”

Damian didn’t miss the way that his eyes drifted back to and subsequently narrowed at the Robin emblem still worn on his chest. Damian fought the urge to cover the emblem with his hand, as though that would ease the creeping feeling that he was wearing a stolen suit.

Damian finally tore his eyes away from the other Robin, staring down at his combat boots instead. He could leave, lock himself in his room, and let his father, or Drake, or Pennyworth deal with the creature until one of the magicians showed up to fix everything. Instead, he said, “Come with me. I have someththing to show you. I have to change out of my suit anyway.”

…

Robin followed Damian without complaint, terrifyingly silent across the hardwood floors of the manor. Damian supposed that the same complaints could be leveled at him, but he didn’t like being on the receiving end of it. He also refused to walk next to Damian, resolutely staying about five feet behind instead, presumably so he could keep Damian in his line of sight at all times.

On the way to their destination, they passed the archway leading into the library. Damian eyes idly passed over the room, then he did a double take when he actually saw someone in there. Todd, now visually distinct from Grayson without the mask and also wearing a pair of Damian’s pajamas, was passed out on the couch with a book on his chest. He hadn’t seen Todd ever look that comfortable in the manor. He’d seen Todd asleep in the cave, knocked out by pain meds after getting stabbed, and he’d even seen him passed in an arm chair in Grayson’s apartment after a truely bizarre set of circumstances, but not the manor. Never the manor.

Damian shook his head and continued on, up the stairs and to the wing of the house where most of them had claimed or been assigned bedrooms. Grayson’s door was first, his name on it in blue wooden letters from when he was little. The K had been knocked crooked at some point and never fixed. Todd’s was across the hall, door blank, and Damian wasn’t sure he’d ever seen it opened. Then Drake’s, Brown’s (which she swore was just a guest room, but literally had her name across the door in wooden letters, just like Grayson’s), and Cain’s. Damian’s was at the end, across from Thomas’s.

Damian was in his room before he realized that Robin was no longer behind him, even at his five foot distance. He briefly worried that he’d lost his magically compromised brother, mostly because he wouldn’t put it past him to run away, but he poked his head back out into the hallway and found him standing across from his own door, staring at it with something that looked like apprehension.

“Hey, kid, this way,” Damian snapped.

Robin blinked, shaking himself out of whatever daze he was in, this glared at Damian. “What are you? Two years older than me? I don’t think you can call me ‘kid’.” He huffed and headed towards Damian. Then, in the most Grayson-like thing he’d seen from him as of yet, did a cartwheel in the middle of the hallway, then continued on his path as though it hadn’t happened. He brushed past Damian and immediately perched himself on his desk chair with his knees pressed to his chest. He turned his back to Damian, and it almost looked like he was sulking.

Against his better judgment, and mostly out of curiosity, Damian sighed and asked, “Alright, you’ve been generally upset this whole time, and I am beginning to think that is just your general state of being, but what specifically are you upset about now?”

Robin dropped his knees down and spun himself around in the chair a few times before facing Damian. “It’s stupid. Why did you bring me here?”

“Tell me what you’re thinking about first.”

“Why?”

“I do not need to explain myself to you. Besides, what do you have to lose? You do not even know me.”

“That feels like more of a reason to not tell you anything.”

Instead of responding, Damian crossed his arms and stared the boy down in silence.

Robin stared back with equal intensity for about a minute, until he frowned and broke their impromptu staring contest. “Fine. But only because I’m tired. It’s stupid anyway.” He paused, and he tried to disguise it, but his next breath was shaky. “The letters on my door. Alfred put them up. I took them down. I didn’t want the room to be mine. I didn’t want this to be permanent. I never thought I’d put them back up.”

“Oh.” Damian shifted his weight back and forth between his feet a few times, staring awkwardly at the floor. “Right.” Silence. Deep, awkward silence. “Anyway. The thing I was going to show you.” He walked over to his closet, then stopped. “If you tell anyone about this, I will gut you.”

Robin just crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

Sighing, Damian opened his closet enough that Robin could see the inside of the door. There, he had taped up various photographs, most of which Grayson (or occasionally Drake) had taken. A few of him and Jon, including a blurry selfie that Jon had taken by force, a single family portrait that they’d somehow managed to wrangle Todd into, and many photos of Damian’s animals, but the photo he was looking for was right in the center of the array. He plucked it off the wall and stared at it for a second, as he had done an embarrassing amount of times before.

It was a photo of Damian, his father, and Grayson on Damian’s birthday about a month ago. Grayson was in the middle, behind Damian with his arms wrapped around his shoulders — both an embrace and a way to keep Damian from running away from the camera, as he tried to do at least five times. His father was on Grayson’s right, watching on with an amused smile, and Damian himself had regretfully been wrestled into a smile of his own. Small, but there. Meanwhile, Grayson’s smile was wide, slightly crooked, and spread across his entire face.

He handed the photo over to Robin and waited for him to respond, not entirely sure what he was expecting.

Robin’s eyes scanned over the photograph, his eyebrows scrunching up in confusion as what he was seeing set in, then his expression suddenly went slack and he looked up at Damian. “That’s…me,” he said, and Damian couldn’t puzzle out what emotion was in his voice.

Damian shrugged vaguely. “It is.”

Robin looked back down, studying the photograph with a pensive frown. Then, the corner of his mouth hesitantly twitched upward in a hollow and unsteady mimic of the grin in the photograph. It fell as quickly as it appeared, leaving him scowling once more.

“You are…not good at that.”

Robin shoved the photograph back into Damian’s hands. “I can smile,” he claimed, indignant. To prove his point, he molded his face into a mischievous grin, more performance than joy. It was a Robin grin through and through; one that he’d level at a thug before knocking them over the head with his bo staff.

Damian was usually someone that picked every battle, but he decided to let that one lay. Instead, he took the photograph back to its rightful place and shut his photos back in his closet. Then, while still facing away, he said, “It is late. You should sleep.”

He expected Robin to leave, to slip out the door and down the hall to his own room. He’d made it clear that he wasn’t a particularly big fan of Damian’s, and he figured he’d be eager to get out of his presence. But the door didn’t open, and Robin remained where he was.

Damian turned back around to find Robin rooted in place, staring down at the floor. He rocked back and forth on his heels, fidgeting, before suddenly blurting, “Can I stay in here tonight?”

“What?”

“I don’t…I don’t want to stay in that room. Seeing how things change…it’s too much. And that room always feels too big. I’ll sleep on the floor, if you want. Just let me stay.”
Damian wanted to send him away. He didn’t like people in his room. He didn’t like having people around him while he slept. This boy unnerved him, and part of him still refused to believe this child held any resemblance to his older brother. But he still had Grayson’s eyes, and there was a part of Damian that recognized the rage.

“Fine. Sleeping on the floor is unnecessary, but if you leave your side of the bed, you will wake up with a knife in your hand.”

Chapter Text

When Tim stumbled into the kitchen to make his morning coffee, he was taken aback by finding Jason sitting on a stool by the kitchen island, swinging his feet and eating his breakfast. Even more disturbing, when the boy spotted him, he waved and pulled out the stool next to him, indicating towards Tim to sit. Unsure of what else to do, he took the offer and sat stiffly next to Jason. Alfred, who was hovering by the stove, turned around with another plate in his hand and a warm smile.

“Good morning, Master Timothy,” he said, placing the plate down in front of him.

“Thanks, Alfred,” Tim mumbled, still trying to rub sleep out of his eyes.

They ate in relative silence, with the only noise being Alfred cleaning dishes and Jason humming a song to himself (which Tim would file away for teasing purposes if he didn’t fear getting shot). Tim finally got up to actually get himself a cup of coffee when Bruce walked into the kitchen with a wide-eyed look of concern that Tim couldn’t remember before.
“G’morning, Bruce,” Jason chimed, his mouth full.

That briefly snapped Bruce out of his look of concern, into a fleeting look that Tim would describe as crushing sadness, before he schooled it into a wary smile directed at Jason. “Good morning, Jason, Tim, Alfred. I don’t suppose any of you have seen Dick around?”

“Oh, heavens,” Alfred exclaimed immediately. “Is he not in his room?”

Bruce shook his head, showing far more concern than Tim thought that notion warranted.

“I slept in the library,” Jason offered. “Maybe he’s just somewhere else in the manor. It’s a really big house, after all.”

“It is,” Alfred agreed. “However—”

“Dick used to have a habit of…let’s say attempting escapes,” Bruce sighed, using two fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Isn’t this house like, more secure than most prisons?” Jason asked, waving his fork around to emphasize his point. “Wouldn’t you know if he left?”

Tim wanted to point out that Jason himself bypassed both manor and cave security regularly as an adult, but he kept his mouth shut.

Bruce sighed again, sounding even more exasperated. “He was always…determined. He got out a few times before he was Robin, even. One thing that’s never changed about Dick is that he’s rather stubborn, and once he puts his mind to something…”

Tim nodded in agreement. “Well, even if he did get out, we could find him, right? I mean, you obviously kept track of him the first time around. And we know he can protect himself, especially in broad daylight. What harm could he do?”

Bruce and Alfred exchanged a quick glance before Alfred spoke. “As I am sure you noticed, when master Richard was younger, he didn’t have the best handle on his anger. Master Bruce tried to help channel that anger into something more productive with his work as Robin, however—”

“It didn’t always work,” Bruce grunted, frowning. “He could be more violent than I would have liked. As for finding him…we used to sew trackers into the lining of his clothing. They worked until he realized something was up, stole one of Alfred’s seam rippers, and tore them all out. Besides, unless he took his Robin suit, he’s in Damian’s clothes.”

“Are you saying you don’t keep trackers on Damian?” Tim asked, sipping his coffee.

“He doesn’t regularly try to sneak out.” Bruce’s nose scrunched up. “Anymore.”

“He tried to have you guys dog chipped, but I convinced him it was unethical.” This early in the morning, Barbra’s voice suddenly coming from Tim’s phone in his pocket scared him half to death.

He fumbled for the phone and put it face up on the counter, where Oracle’s emblem showed across the screen. “Babs, I’d wager that you hacking my phone and listening into our conversation also might be unethical.”

“I could have just called, but this seemed easier.” Tim could practically hear her shrugging. “I wanted to tell you that Zatanna is on her way to you; she thinks she has a way to undo that nasty little curse. Ha, little. Anyway, Constantine figured out what happened with the girl you were chasing. When the blast went off, she poofed about a mile away from the warehouse. He found her, but the staff’s busted, and without that, she’s just a normal kid, and he has no clue what to do with her. He was hoping you could help with that.”

Bruce thought for a few seconds before saying, “Track down any family she has. If that’s a no-go, send her to a home funded by the Wayne Foundation. At least we know she’ll be taken care of there.”

“On it.” The sound of a clattering keyboard immediately started coming through the speakers. “While I’m at it, do you want me to try to track down Dick?”

“That’s probably a good—” Bruce stopped short when Damian entered the kitchen, looking like he hadn’t slept at all, followed by a slightly less tired looking Dick at a five foot distance.

Bruce’s shoulders dropped and he looked relieved. “Oh thank god, you didn’t sneak out of the house and try to kill someone.”

Dick’s eyes narrowed and he turned away slightly, staying resolutely behind Damian.

Damian, meanwhile, looked scandalized. “Father, you are speaking in hyperbole, correct?”

Bruce promptly cleared his throat and ignored the question. “Right. Good. Now that you’re both here, there should be no hitches in returning you to normal. Barbara, what time will Zatanna be here?”

“‘Bout an hour. And believe me, I’m coming too. I gotta see this in person before everything’s fixed. I’ll focus on finding the girl a place to stay. See ya’ later. Sorry for hijacking your phone, Timmy.” With that, Tim’s phone screen went black and then turned back on to the photo of him, Steph, and Cass that he kept as a lock screen.

“The perfect amount of time for you all to eat breakfast, and for me to make scones for Miss Zatara.” Alfred set three more plates out on the kitchen island. Tim knew that he’d rather them eat in the proper dining room, but he’d given up that battle long ago, at least for breakfast.

Damian reluctantly sat down next to Tim, Bruce took his plate and ate standing, hovering behind all three of them, and Dick grabbed his plate, whispered a ‘thank you’ to Alfred, and retreated to the far corner of the room.

Jason, as he was the first one there, finished his food first and got up to carefully place his dishes in the sink. Then, he bounded over to Bruce, and — much as he had done last night — quickly wrapped his arms around him. “I’ll be in the library,” he said before letting go and continuing out the door.

Bruce looked after him, slack jawed, and Tim could tell that he was fighting not to let more emotions show on his face. He was distracted from staring at Bruce by the sound of Dick putting his place down forcefully on the counter. He stared at the floor, eyes brimming with an emotion that Tim first thought to describe as anger, but upon closer inspection, looked more like he was close to tears. After a few silent seconds of everybody staring at him, he ducked his head further and tried to make his escape out of the room, moving as fast as he could go without running.

Bruce stopped him with a hand on his shoulder before he made it out.

Dick stopped and his shoulders tensed. Still turned away, in a stiff voice he said, “I’m not running away. I’ll be in the cave. Let me go.”

For a moment, it looked like that was exactly what Bruce was going to do, but then his grip on Dick’s shoulder tightened and he used it to turn the boy around to face him. Wordlessly, he knelt down to be closer to Dick’s height and wrapped his arms around him, securing one hand around his back and the other at the back of his head. “I should have done this far more often when you were this age,” he whispered.

For a moment, Dick’s body remained rigid, then his shoulders sagged, his face crumbled, and he dropped like dead weight against Bruce, curling himself up into a tight ball in his guardian’s arms. Tim could no longer see his face, but after a few seconds, he heard a choking sob come from the little boy. It sounded like the cry was forcing its way out of him while he did everything in his power to stop it, so he choked, and sputtered, and coughed, but it still didn’t stop.

Once the crying started, it only took Bruce a few seconds to pick the sobbing boy up in his arms and carry him off down the hallway, presumably not wanting Dick to endure Damian and Tim’s staring. As the sound of crying faded off down the hallway, Tim and Damian both stared down at their plates, not knowing what to do now.

“The witch will be here soon, yes?” Damian asked sharply.

Tim nodded.

“Good.”

…

Almost exactly an hour later, all of them were back in their masks, and Zatanna was sitting in the cave and flipping through an ancient looking spellbook while eating one of Alfred’s scones. Barbara had shown up too with a domino mask over her own eyes, and cooed over both Robins. Well, mostly over Jason. Dick was still keeping to himself, sitting quite a distance away on a medical cot with his knees pulled up to his chest. Tim could see through the white lenses of his mask, but he’d imagine the boy’s eyes were still red and puffy. Damian was sitting at the other end of the same cot, in much the same position, resolutely not looking at Dick (just as Dick was refusing to look at him) but also refusing to move. Tim would never understand Damian, and young Dick was — quite startlingly — a lot like Damian, so the puzzlement doubled.

“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” Zatanna announced, standing up with her nose still buried in the book.

Damian hopped off the cot and made his way towards Zatanna with his eyes narrowed. “Think does not fill me with much confidence, witch.”

Zatanna waved him off. “I don’t think I can make it worse.”

“In my experience, magic can always make things worse,” Tim added nervously.

“Look, it’s not a professional curse. There were no walls or fail safes put around it. The object that cast it was powerful, yes, but the caster was a teenager with no magical experience. I think — I know I can undo it.” Zatanna thought for a moment, scrunching her eyebrows together. “Well, I know I won’t blow them up.”

“Um, was you blowing us up ever a possibility?” Jason asked, concerned. “Because if it is, I’d rather not.”

“I second that,” Dick said, having slowly crept up after Damian. “How closely you’re studying that book does not fill me with confidence.”

Zatanna finally pulled her face out of the book and grinned sheepishly. “I’m just double checking! Your father is very scary, and I’d rather not be on the Batman’s bad side because I screwed up a spell involving you two. Besides, I like Nightwing. So not messing this up is in my best interest all around.”

She tossed the book on a table behind her and pulled out her magician’s wand. “Alright. Tiny Robins to the center of the room, everyone else behind me.” They followed her instructions, separating out so that Jason and Dick were next to each other in a clear spot in the cave.

Jason looked scared. Dick looked scared too, but he did a better job at hiding it. Jason hesitantly held out his hand for Dick to take, and after looking for a second like he would viciously attack him once again, Dick did actually take his hand.

Zatanna closed her eyes and took a breath, then began muttering an incantation that Tim couldn’t hope to understand. It took a few moments of her casting before she suddenly yelled and a bright white light emanated from the front of her wand, quickly spreading out a blinding everybody in the room.

…

The first thing Tim heard, even before his vision cleared was Jason — adult Jason — cursing, “Ow, fuck! Why the fuck does my head hurt so bad?” Followed very quickly by, “Why the fuck are you holding my hand, Dick-face? Get off!”

Tim blinked the spots out of his vision, and when it finally cleared, he saw Nightwing and Red Hood back in their proper adult bodies. Dick had very obviously just gotten shoved away and had his hands clamped on either side of his head, groaning. Jason frantically undid the latches on his helmet and pulled it off, revealing the domino underneath, then pressed his palm to his forehead.

“Headaches are a common side effect,” Zatanna said cheerfully, before collecting her book and bounding off towards the exit of the cave. “Thank you and goodnight.”

Dick squinted around the cave in pain. “Hey, how’d we get back to the—WOAH,” he yelped, as Damian suddenly leapt at him, wrapping his arms tight around Dick’s waist and pressing his face into his chest.

“Hey, baby bird, what’s up?” Dick mumbled weakly, gently stroking the back of Damian’s hair.

Damian quickly retreated from the embrace and schooled his face into its usual annoyed expression. “Tt, not important. You are back now.”

Dick looked puzzled. “Back? Dami, where was I?” When Damian just crossed his eyes and clicked his tongue, Dick turned to Tim. “Timmy, wanna give me the rundown?”

“What do you remember?”

Dick thought for a second. “Uhh. Girl. Magic staff. Then… poof.”

“Poof indeed,” Tim sighed. “You and Jason have been running around as your eleven-year-old selves since last night.”

Even through the masks, Tim could see both of their eyes widen comically. Jason cursed under his breath while Dick immediately looked over to Bruce.

Barbara laughed. “You didn’t even tell them the best part. Timmy and Damian mixed you two up. It took Bruce calling you by the right names to set them straight.”

“You thought I was Dick-face?” Jason cried incredulously, at the exact same time Dick said, “Tim, you literally stalked us.”

“In my defense, I didn’t meet either of you in person while you were still Robin. Watching shadowy figures and keeping up with news coverage of Brucie Wayne’s children doesn’t actually do justice to who you were,” Tim claimed. “You were feral, Dick.”

Dick looked sheepishly back over to Bruce. “I didn’t cause too much trouble, did I? Break any chandeliers?”

Before now, Bruce has a conflicted expression on his face, but he allowed that to fade into a slight smile as he pulled off his cowl. “No broken chandeliers, surprisingly. We did briefly think you ran away, but—”

“You bit me,” Damian interrupted, holding out his arm and pulling down his glove to show his wrist where Tim could now see that Dick had actually bit him hard enough to leave a crescent shaped series of bruises. It probably only hadn’t broken skin because of Damian’s gloves.

Dick’s face quickly twisted into mortification. “Oh, christ. I’m sorry, baby bird. Really. I’ll make it up to you.” He quickly pulled Damian back into his arms, who squirmed and protested, but Tim was almost certain that if he wasn’t enjoying himself, Dick would have at least lost a finger by this point.

“You abstain from scolding me when I attempt to bite Drake,” Damian suggested.

“How did I get dragged into this?” Tim cried.

“I cannot do that, Dami,” Dick laughed, ruffling Damian’s hair as if that was an amusing joke rather than Damian’s serious attempt to get away with biting Tim. “But I can watch a movie with you and let you sleep in my room tonight, deal?”

“Hmph. Deal,” Damian huffed.

“Unlike Dickie, I’d be glad if my tiny self caused you any issues,” Jason grumbled. “What did I get up to?”

Tim shrugged. “Nearly got beat up by Dick then spent the rest of your time reading books in the library.”

“Damnit,” Jason cursed, his face turning slightly pink. “We are never bringing this up again.”

“I second that,” Dick agreed, finally releasing his tight grip on Damian and wrapping an arm around his shoulder instead. “Let’s let our pasts live in the past, yeah? I don’t think eleven year old Dick Grayson needs to see the light of day ever again.”

“Agreed,” Damian said, voice flat.

“I don’t agree, this was hilarious,” Babs chuckled. “Should I save the manor and cave security footage from the last few hours? Who am I kidding? I already have.”

“Gordon, Bruce may have taken my live ammunition, but I have knives,” Jason threatened.

Babs just laughed at him. “It’s already saved to my phone. And Tim’s. This incident will live on in infamy.”

“Babs, stop messing with my phone.”

“No.”

“Maybe we should at least let it go for now,” Bruce said with a grimace. “Let Dick and Jason rest… it’s been an exhausting few hours.

“Rest sounds good. My head still hurts,” Dick groaned. “C’mon, Dami, movie time. Let’s change out of our suits.”

Before Dick could leave, Bruce caught his shoulder and pulled him into a hug. “Next time there’s magic involved, please do your best to stay out of it.”

Dick pulled out of the hug with a raised eyebrow, but didn’t question the embrace. “Right. I’ll do my best. Sorry if kid me was a menace.” He flashed a crooked grin at Bruce then bounded off to get changed with Damian following behind him at about a five foot distance.

Bruce turned back towards Jason. “Same goes for you.”

Jason glared. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I might as well encourage it, though.” Bruce turned back towards the bat computer and started typing, which Tim had learned was usually a method of distracting himself. “You know, Jason, your room is still intact if you wanted to rest here. Sleep off the magic headache.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, no. I’m out. I’ve spent enough time around you suckers, and I don’t even remember most of it. See ya’. Or not. Preferably not.” With that, he headed towards the exit of the cave, not looking back.

Bruce turned to watch him go with a pensive look on his face, then shook his head and went back to typing away on the batcomputer.

“I should probably head out too,” Babs said. “I have a little more digging to do on that girl’s family. Looks like she has an aunt on the other side of the country that’s been trying to find her since her parents died though, that’s promising. See you later, Bruce, Timmy.” She wheeled her way towards the elevator back up to the manor, waving over her shoulder as the doors closed.

Tim stayed where he was, watching Bruce’s back for a few awkward seconds before saying, “At least we don’t have two Damians running around anymore. I’ve grown accustomed to one, two pushes me over the edge.”

Bruce sighed and turned back around. “You saw that too? I should have realized how similar they were before, but with all the time that’s passed since Dick was that little…” he trailed off, shaking his head.

“I guess we know why they get on so well, at least.” Tim shrugged, leaning against the batcomputer’s desk. “Hey, Bruce?”

“Yeah?”

“Our lives are weird.”