Chapter Text
‘It’s no wonder your mother didn’t want you anymore’. The words still rattle in Damian’s head hours later as he lays in bed trying to fall asleep. He knows, he knows that Mother, despite her questionable actions and cold exterior, loves him.
But.
But he still remembers the day she left him with Father, the almost dismissive way she’d sauntered off. It was of course meant to be taunting towards her ex, but Damian still wishes that she’d done otherwise. Wonders if he’d struggled less in adjusting to his family if she’d said goodbye with a hug rather than an order to be the best. If she’d been honest about his brothers and sister wanting to be his older siblings rather than his competitors as an heir.
Damian’s door opens and closes silently. The softest rustle of socked feet on carpet is a courtesy offering Damian a heads up as well as time to reject the other’s presence in his room. He says nothing.
Timothy slides under Damian’s covers on the other side of the bed. Damian is on his side facing away.
“I can hear you thinking from across the Manor,” his older brother grumbles.
“Then go back to your apartment,” Damian says back. His voice is miraculously steady. “Maybe then you’ll be useful for once and distract Father and Alfred with trying to scold you rather than coddle me.”
Damian again regrets his words as soon as they fall from his lips. He hates himself for the automatic prickly response. He hates himself for being unable to apologize.
Timothy sighs.
Damian screws his eyes shut, waiting for the older boy to get up, to leave. He clenches his fingers into the sheets to stop himself from scrubbing away the dampness on his cheeks.
Arms, warm and strong, wrap around Damian’s waist and drag him backwards into the steady cradle of Timothy’s bigger body.
“Ah, Baby Bat, what am I going to do with you?” Timothy murmurs the words into the crown of Damian’s head. His breath rustles spikey black locks. His arms squeeze tighter against Damian’s stomach.
Damian stays carefully still. “I do not understand,” he says. He doesn’t. Timothy should be angry- furious- at Damian for interrupting, for making things worse and ultimately cutting the party (the networking) short. He should not be doing… this.
His brother hums and the vibration of his chest rumbles soothingly against Damian’s back.
“You never met my parents, did you?”
The non-sequiter is confusing, but the youngest Wayne answers with a headshake anyway.
“Well you didn’t miss much. They were gone a lot, on archaeology digs around the world. They were hardly ever in Gotham, and when they were they had so many events to attend. Some were work, some were social. If they were alive to meet you, they would have hardly given you the time of day with all they had going on.”
The words are rehearsed, practiced. Like they were a fact that Timothy had accepted and learned long ago. Damian does not like the implications it gives.
“They were gone for long periods of time, but sometimes they’d bring me back things from their trips. Instruments, artwork, food….”
Damian musters his courage and twists in his brother’s embrace so they’re chest to chest. He peers up and meets blue eyes glowing faintly with the moonlight. Timothy gives him a wry smile.
“There you are,” he says. He sounds like he is talking to Father, or Richard, or Kon-El. He sounds… fond.
Damian blushes furiously and shoves his face into the soft cradle of Timothy’s neck to hide it. He ignores the fact that the room is dark enough for that already and stays where he is.
“Finish your story,” he grumbles. “Get to your point.”
Timothy rumbles a laugh, but obliges.
“My parents were socialites,” he says. “They grew up in this world. I learned all this from them, not Bruce. They knew how to use words and actions to get closer to other adults. It was mostly to expand their company and social status, but it was something they- Mom especially- excelled at. But they didn’t know how to do that with me. I was their son, but I was more of a stranger to them than the few neighbors we saw once or twice a year. They loved me, I don’t doubt that. But sometimes the people who love you, who you love, can hurt you the most. Even when they don’t mean to.”
Timothy pulls back, his thumbs rubbing comfortingly against Damian’s back when he is unable to smother his whine of protest. The older boy ducks his head down and catches the other’s eyes. Timothy says, soft but serious, “Sometimes parents are not meant to be parents.”
Damian swallows. “Mother is amazing. She taught me how to be the best.”
Timothy stays quiet.
“She loved me, loves me” Damian insists, because it’s true. “She just wanted- I needed to be good, the best because that’s what would keep me safe. She was proud of me when I was the best, when I beat my peers, when I was perfect.”
His breath is rattling. His eyes are stinging. He shoves at Timothy’s chest, angry now.
“I did everything she asked, everything she wanted and she still-” something raging, howling claws at Damian’s heart. “She still sent me away. I know it was for me to learn, to get me away from Grandfather, but- but-”
Since coming to Gotham, Damian has heard the word ‘goodbye’ often, always paired with the phrase ‘I love you’. Even for the most simple of partings, like leaving for school or the Kent farm.
And yet he had not heard that from Mother when they had parted ways for the final time. If goodbye’s were so easy for loved ones, then why, why hadn’t Mother said hers? Why did she make it seem like one-upping Father was more important than her final moments with her son?
Maybe Luthor’s words are stinging so much, because while Damian is sure that Mother loves him, he is not sure that she wants him.
Like Janet and Jack Drake with Timothy.
“It hurts,” Damian chokes out, throwing himself back into Timothy’s warm embrace. “It hurts so much, does it ever stop?”
Timothy makes a soft sort of cooing noise reminiscent of Richard. He further imitates their eldest brother by rolling, squashing Damian gently underneath him against the mattress. (“Pressure therapy!” Richard would crow before utterly smothering whichever misfortuned sibling he caught on whatever surface they were on.) The thought is not so amusing as Damian fails to silence his hitching cries.
“I have found,” Timothy says, “that while the hurt doesn’t go away completely, having family and friends who are open and caring does help it sting less. Helps soothe and fill the hole that would fester otherwise. You just have to be willing to let them in.”
‘What if they’re the same?’ Damian wants to ask. ‘What if they end up hurting me too?’ But as he has been learning tonight, Timothy is far more similar to him than he previously thought, and his brother knows his questions without hearing them. He probably had them at one point too.
“We can never really know if someone will succeed our expectations or disappoint them,” Timothy’s hand brushes through Damian’s hair with a tenderness that makes the younger boy shake. “But don’t you think it is worth it to try?”
They lay in silence with that statement. Timothy continues his soothing ministrations, and Damian allows himself to just feel. Time passes, enough that Timothy’s breath begins to slow and his hands fall back into a loose hug. Sleep is tugging at Damian as well, but the boy has to know, has to ask.
“Timothy?”
“Mmm?”
“I… I wish I had tried with you.” The question burns at the back of his throat. He just needs to swallow his pride, he just needs to open his mouth and-
Sleepy blue eyes open and blink at him knowingly. “You still can, if you want. I’ve always wanted a little brother.”
Shame and pleasure and embarrassment flow through Damian’s veins. He has his answer. He wriggles forward and his brother, his big brother, snuggles him back.
Damian wakes to Timothy hurtling a throwing star at Jason’s laughing face.
Father is facedown on Damian’s desk mumbling something that suspiciously sounds like ‘would anything that is holy please help me’. Cassandra is perched on Damian’s dresser and is filing her nails with his kit. Richard is making terrible squealing noises as he peers down at his phone, and Damian has the appalling intuition that there’s a picture (or a hundred) that he’ll need to dispose of later.
“Are we finally killing Todd?” he asks as the white streaked Wayne son narrowly dodges a knife then two more. He was not aware Timothy had such an arsenal on him.
“There will be no killing and or maiming at this hour,” Alfred sniffs as he walks in holding two mugs. Timothy sets down a set of teargas pellets and makes grabby hands at the one filled with coffee. Damian gratefully accepts the one with tea.
“There are other pressing matters to address,” the butler continues, fixing a scolding eye on the second youngest Wayne.
“Bluh?” Timothy asks, still in his non-verbal stage of awakeness.
Richard cackles, shoves himself onto the bed, and tugs them both back into his chest. Their drinks slosh with the movement.
“Your little speech last night is all over the internet,” Jason reports, flopping over their legs and grinning when the other three boys ‘oof!’ in response to his weight. “Mrs. Hargrove, bless her ancient soul, somehow managed to record and post the whole thing on her company’s social media accounts. My god, Baby Bird, I haven’t heard something so scathing since Alfred banned Wally from the Manor.”
“Bald man cried,” Cassandra says gleefully from her perch. “Took company and ran from Gotham.”
“Tim,” Father implores, still facedown on the desk. “Tim, honey, I know you have been heading Wayne Enterprises, and doing admirably at that. Far better than I would have at your age. But please don’t go verbally destroying competitors no matter how deserved.”
Timothy, vocal now but horrifyingly without a filter yet, says “But he made Damian cry.”
Five sets of eyes swivel to Damian. The youngest curls around his cup, defensive. Timothy slurps at his coffee.
“Huh,” says Jason.
Click goes Damian’s nail clippers against Cassandra’s toes.
“That, along with all the shit he put Connor through that I’ve yet to get him back for, means war.”
Damian blinks. One night of genuine intentional bonding and he is already on par with Timothy’s… friend. He inhales the aroma of his tea, pleased. (He’ll surpass the clone at some point.)
“Damian?” Father asks softly.
“I’m alright,” he answers, and it’s true. Father’s face turns into something tender and his gaze flicks between his sons in understanding. Damian grins. “Timothy has declared war, and as his brother I am obligated to help him obtain victory.”
It works. Until last night, neither of them have acknowledged out loud (much less in front of their family), their relationship. Father looks properly alarmed now. Cassandra and Jason look interested in joining the campaign. Alfred looks happy his youngest grandchildren have bonded. Richard is making worrying noises behind them.
“Baby Bird, Baby Bat. I love that you’re getting along but please don’t do something you’ll regret.”
“Who says we’ll regret this?” Timothy asks. He’s managed to procure a laptop without moving from his spot and is now researching… the technicalities regarding Geneva Convention war crimes? Whatever those are. His reply does nothing to soothe the eldest Wayne child’s worries.
“Our unique positions mean responsibilities and limits that…” Richard trails off. Realization dawns on his face. “Oh my god, I sound like B.”
“Every child should strive to emulate their parents,” Damian parrots.
“Not every parent,” Timothy hums. He glances at Damian.
“No,” Damian amends. “Not every parent.”
Timothy smiles, proud. Damian ducks his head.
“Oh my god,” Richard wails.