Chapter Text
Tim hadn’t meant anything by it, honestly. He just happened to stumble into the kid while having a camera in his hands, and that was all. It hadn’t been his fault if Damian was too busy drawing and didn't notice him: the brat was supposed to be a baby ninja, after all. Another thing he was not responsible for was Damian being... photogenic. He would never use the word cute, not even to save his own life.
Point is, the kid was sitting there, under a tree, surrounded by his pets - Titus' big head on his leg, Alfred the cat curled up by his feet - his head bent over an old sketchbook, and a look of total focus on his face, and Tim didn’t even think about it, he raised the camera to his eye and took the photo.
Click.
Damian lifted his head, looking annoyed but not surprised. So maybe he had known about Tim being there. Maybe he just hadn’t care enough.
“Taking photos of people without their explicit consent is a felony, Drake”, he said, narrowing his eyes at Tim. “I could report you and have you arrested.”
Tim snorted and plopped down on the grass in front of the kid.
It was such a beautiful day. The sun was warm over the skin and the wind was like a gentle caress on the face. Even the colors looked like they were happy to exist; they were so intense they seemed to vibrate under his stare: the blue was so blue the sky could’ve very well been the ocean, the green was so green the whole garden could’ve been just one, giant new leaf of a young tree.
And Damian, Damian was a spot of red and black in all that green, like a tiny ladybug resting in the grass, and his eyes were also the greenest green Tim had seen for a while. He had smiled at the kid with a contented heart.
“You happen to be a minor, brat”, he reminded him with a bit of teasing in his voice. “And I'm listed as one of your legal guardians. That means that, until you're eighteen, I can pretty much do whatever I want with you.”
Damian looked up from his sketchbook to squint at him. His cheeks were sun-kissed and his nose was getting too red under the warm light of the afternoon, and Tim remembers how in that moment he had the sudden, shattering realization that he felt a not insignificant amount of affection for his brother. And that had not been the only time he’s ever felt that way, but it had perhaps been the first one.
Damian had dismissed him without a second thought.
“You are not my legal guardian.”
“I am too.”
The words stayed there for a moment, lingering between them, then Damian had frowned at him, out of curiosity more than outrage, Tim thought, as he choose to believe him.
“Why?”, he asked.
Tim turned his eyes away, lifting his face to observe the branches of the tree above them swaying slowly in the wind. He didn’t want to ruin the quiet.
“Because this family is a mess and Bruce wants to be sure that, if he decides to go take another stroll in the past again, you won't be left on your own”, he explained anyway. It was both a surreal and a serious affair, and they both knew it.
Damian had considered it for a moment, gnawing pensively at the tip of his pencil.
“I won't be left with you anyway”, he decided with a shrug. “You would have to go through Grayson's body to get me.”
Tim remembers how he had laughed at that.
“Yeah, that's true”, he had said. “Neither of us need to worry about it.”
*
Tim stares at the ceiling of his own bedroom like he expects some kind of answer coming down from there, along with a few friendly spiders he’s never had the time to chase away.
That afternoon used to be a good memory, once upon a time. Now it comes at him at night, haunting him with its bitter taste of unforeseen omen, and Tim wonders if Damian ever thinks about it, if he remembers it as clearly as he does.
He hopes not. He hopes that, at least for the kid, it’s not ruined.
There’s still some good stuff attached to that memory, though. Damian had wanted that photo, marched down to this very apartment to get it. And Tim had developed the film just for him, showed him how to do it and pretended not to notice how invested Damian was. That had been nice too: teaching the kid something new, something harmless they both enjoyed. Damian had let Tim guide his hands through the various proceedings, he had even obeyed every instruction with a minimum amount of huffs and scoffs. That had been another good day.
Fast forward, Tim hadn’t been there for Damian’s eleventh birthday, but he had bought him a camera and asked Alfred to pack it up in the most childish, colourful wrapping paper he could find, and to give it to the brat when he looked less willingly to throw it away without even bothering to unwrap it. And of course he hadn’t expected much in return, but to his surprise Damian had actually texted him a short and very formal thank you. That meant the little gremlin had loved the gift. Tim had been happy about it.
Those memories still makes him smile, even if now they leave a bitter aftertaste on his lips. Nice moments like those had been a rare thing, little pearls lost in the sand of the constant fights, the misunderstandings, and the mutual disinterest.
And now the world was all chaos and fragile things, and none of them really know what to do. Not Damian, freshly deprived of the only two father figures he had ever known; not Tim, who had found himself responsible for him; and sure enough not Jason, who had just got himself trapped in the whole mess.
Tim sighs and gets out of bed. The clock radio on the nightstand marks four o'clock in the morning, but there's no way he’s going back to sleep tonight, he's sure of that. Better to make some tea and keep working on tomorrow’s case. At least that’s the plan when he gets into the kitchen.
He goes as far as to put some water on the heat, then the memories of that afternoon comes back to needle him. There must be a box somewhere, filled with the photos from the first film he had developed for Damian, the first photos the kid had ever took in his life, as far as Tim knows. And e hadn't told Damian this - of course he hadn’t - but he'd made copies for himself. At the time he hadn't even ask himself why: he had just wanted to do it, so he had gone and done it.
He finds the box tucked away on the highest shelf of his library, covered by a thin layer of dust. Housekeeping’s never been his strongest suit.
A faint gurgling from the kitchen reminds him of the tea he was making. Tim retrieves it, pushes some jasmine leaves into the hot cup, then goes and sits on the couch. He shoots a quick look at Damian's room, but the door is closed and no light seeps from under it, no noise comes from the other side. The boy should be asleep.
For some reason he can’t explain, Tim feels a pang of guilt as he opens the box.
Damian’s photos are all there and Tim picks them up with a smile. It's funny looking at his family through the kid's eyes: everyone looks a lot taller, everything seems bigger. It's a bit of a déjà-vu, because Tim remembers well enough how the world looks like on a child scale.
The first bunch of photos are reserved to Damian's pet, of course. Here’s Titus, sleeping on the library’s rug or sitting at Damian’s feet, and Alfred the cat curled up on the windowsill. There’s Batcow eating some grass in the back of their courtyard, Goliath with its wings spread out, getting ready to fly. Tim knows Damian misses them. He wish he could at least give them back to him but he has no space for pets in his apartment, and they can’t go home anyway.
He puts those photos aside, and the next one hits him like a fist in the stomach. Here, in front of him, there’s Dick. He's smiling down, his lips upturned, the affection so clear in his eyes. Tim tries to imagine whatever absurd excuse Damian had tried to made up to justify his wish to have a picture of him, and he can’t think of anything, but it’s pretty obvious that Dick had seen right through the kid.
Damian is the subject of the next photo. Even if it hadn't came up right after Dick's one, Tim would've known anyway that Dick was the one who took it. It's the expression on Damian's face to give it away, that little not-really-annoyed-but-pretending-to-be-anyway scowl that holds the same affection of Dick's smile. He can see that moment so clearly in his mind. How Dick would’ve said something like you can take a picture of me only if I can take a picture of you, and Damian would’ve rolled his eyes and then indulge the blackmail with a secret happiness.
He laughs heartily at the following four photos. They are a set of unfocused, very awkward selfies of Damian and Stephanie, with her being the head of the operation, since Damian's arms would be too short to even attempt it. Damian’s glaring in the first photo and openly laughing in the last one, and Stephanie had been quick, albeit a little imprecise, at capturing that moment. The result is a blurry picture with a very strange angle, but it’s still one of Tim’s favorite.
There are a lot of pictures of Bruce. At first they were taken from a distance, and they portray him from behind, or busy doing something else: bending over his desk to write a letter, sitting in the armchair reading a book, standing in the kitchen with Alfred sipping a tea. They all give the idea of stolen moments, even if Bruce had probably known what the kid was doing. Tim could see him playing along, waiting for Damian to decide what worked best for him.
And of course Damian had eventually decided to make Bruce a part of the new hobby. The other shots still have a formal setting, very different from the spontaneity of the photos of Dick and Stephanie, but Bruce smiles in almost all of them and there’s a complicity and a quiet happiness that makes Tim’s heart ache. He misses Bruce. And he can only imagine how much Damian’s missing him too, how all this time apart is affecting him, his memories, his relationship with Bruce.
Tim brushes a cold fingertip over the pictures and wishes he could fix, if not everything, at least some of it. They can’t have Dick back, but Bruce is still there, still alive, and breathing, and living a life that doesn’t include them anymore, and if anything, it hurts almost as much as believing him to be dead.
He takes a quick look at all the photos again and he wonders how it is possible that none of them ever realized how important those moments were, how much they would have missed them once they were gone. For all the unspoken things and the cruel past, for all the miscommunications and the fights and the bickering, the truth of what there used to be between them as a family it’s just there in his hands: it was love, love and nothing else.
He hopes that Damian can see it too.
He flips through the pictures one last time, and this time he’s forced to notice how there are no photos of himself, or of Jason, for that matter. It shouldn't have been unexpected, but it stings anyway, even if only a little bit.
Tim’s considering what to do with the photos, if put them in their box and hide it again, or leave everything here on the coffee table for Damian to find, when he hears soft footsteps behind his back and the decision is taken out of his hands.
“Hey”, he says when the kid circumnavigates the couch to come standing in front of him.
“Want some tea?”, Tim offers, lifting his own cup.
Damian shakes his head no and curls up next to Tim, tucking his bare feet under him. He looks still half asleep, which is kind of a blessing right now. Tim has a good feeling about how Damian will take the news of the existence of those illegitimate copies of his pictures, but you never know.
“Mine are still in my room back at home, I believe”, Damian whispers, as he reaches out for the box. Tim lets him have it, and watches him closely as the boy collects all the pictures in his hands.
“Alfred would never let anyone touch your room while you’re away”, he reassures him, and since Damian’s just got to the picture of Dick, he slings an arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulls him closer.
“We’re going to need an album for them”, he says gently. “Like one of those Alfred has back home. We can make a new family album or something. Show it to him once everything goes back to normal, you know?”
Damian nods as he leans against Tim’s chest. He’s still warm from the bed, and his hair is a mess, but also soft under Tim’s chin. He’s wearing one of Jason’s old shirt because for the second week in a row Tim forgot to do the laundry, and he smells like Dick’s aftershave because that’s what Jason’s using now.
Tim holds Damian a bit closer. They are all trying to pick up the pieces as best as they can. It’s not easy.
“We could go to the park tomorrow”, he adds, because why not. “Bring Jason with us. Take some new photos for your album. What do you say?”
Damian moves closer to him, eyes still transfixed on Dick’s face.
“Yes”, he answers softly. “I would like that.”