Work Text:
It’s one of those weeks - you know the ones.
It starts with three WE accountants turning rogue. It's honestly more annoying than surprising, since it’s almost Christmas and there are a lot of year-end financial statements to be done. And, still in the name of honesty, Tim’s already done enough of them to understand how someone could think that turning to crime would be a better life choice. By thursday the head of HR starts her own crime empire, and when they schedule a meeting about it everybody in the department claims that they knew she’d end up doing something like that, what with all the pictures of the Joker on her desk, and Tim has to make a tremendous effort not to point out that maybe, maybe, that issue should’ve been brought up before their boss started robbing banks.
Today is - thankgodforsmallmercies - friday, and in the morning someone in the technical department decided it was a good day to bring their expertise to Two Face’s business. Tim didn’t even ask about details, just marched into his own office, shut the door behind him, and let the police deal with it. In a few hours he’ll go home, put on the Red Robin costume and go help them anyway. "Don't you check these people background before hiring them?" Damian asks, sitting at Tim's desk, surrounded by piles of books taller than him. He looks like a baby accountant from hell, what with the suit and the scowl and his feet not reaching the floor and the embezzlement of everything Tim owns, but the desk and the computer and the pens really are a small price to pay for his help, as much as Tim hates to admit it.
And it’s not like he didn’t ask literally anyone else before deciding to put away both his pride and his survival instinct and recruit Damian to help him with this mess, but Bruce is in Hong Kong with Alfred and Cass, and Dick had smiled apologetically at him and said something like “sorry, I'm not so good with numbers, little bird” - and well, Tim knows it’s not really true but also true enough not to push. Jason could help - Tim knows he could, because as much as the bastard likes to play dumb they both know he’s really not - but when asked he just laughed to his face. Barbara didn't laugh but was already overwhelmed with her work, and Stephanie had blatantly thrown a piece of her waffle at him.
So yeah, his thirteen year old ex-assassin little brother was basically the most qualified and experienced of them, and the only one that actually agreed to help - although not without a little convincing and blackmailing, but yeah, Tim was borderline desperate there.
“You know we do”, he answers absent-mindedly, sitting on the floor with his laptop on his crossed legs and reaching for a book from one of his own piles. “We have one of the most strict job screening process in the city, as a matter of fact.”
“It’s obviously inefficient”, Damian retorts. And well, he’s not wrong. Then again, this is Gotham, and in Gotham sometimes perfectly normal people turn into criminals out of nowhere. It’s just a fact.
“So what do you propose? A trial by combat?”, Tim snaps, without really meaning it. He’s tired. Having to pull double shifts both at WE - to cover for the fugitive staff - and as Red Robin - to cover Batman’s absence - means that he’s getting so little sleep that he’s actually beginning to be affected by it, and since his sleeping schedule has never been anything less than disastrous, that’s literally saying something.
Damian shoots him a disdainful look but doesn’t start a fight like he would normally do, and Tim realizes with a pang of guilt that Damian and Robin are both pulling the same hours as he is, and if Tim is wrecked by it, than he can’t even begin to imagine how the brat’s still standing (or, well, still sitting straight at least).
He ventures an attentive glance in Damian’s direction for the first time today and, yeah, it’s not good. Chin resting on his hand and lips tightly pressed together, the kid has dark bags under his eyes, and despite the furrowed brow Tim can see his eyelashes dropping while he reads. Under them, his eyes are red and swollen, and that’s mostly Damian’s own fault because when Tim offered him his reading glasses not only had the demon spawn refused, but he’d been also very descriptive about what he would do with them if Tim had dared to insinuate doubts about his perfect vision again. Still, the pang of guilt becomes a stab wound and Tim clears his throat.
“I’m getting some coffee, you want something?”, he offers.
“Tt.”
“Tea it is, then”, Tim decides, standing up and sending his laptop crashing on the floor at the same time.
“Shit.”
Damian, never one to be too tired to mock one of his siblings when fair mocking is in order, snorts at him.
“Shut up!”, Tim shouts, kneeling down to pick the computer up, then he takes a look at the cracked screen and at the notifications that just popped up and swears again. “Shit, shit, shit!”
This time Damian only huffs.
“You have dozen of laptops laying around”, the brat reminds him. “Quit being a whiny baby about it and go back to work.”
“It’s not the computer, it’s the press conference”, Tim explains in a frustrated sigh. “The one we’re supposing to have right now. Jesus, why didn’t you remind me? Why nobody reminded me?”
“Do I look like your secretary, Drake?”, Damian asks, sounding genuinely offended, but Tim can see the guilt flashing behind his eyes. He forgot too. Good. One thing less the little demon will be able to use against him once Bruce comes back and asks for a report. “As for the last surviving minions you call staff, they called themselves sick right after the tech maniac burned half the computers as an homage to Two Faces.”
“Right. Okay. Fine”, Tim sighs. He takes a look at his watch, at the broken laptop, at Damian, and then at the watch again.
“We’re still in time to be fashionably late instead of just rude”, he decides, and in three swift motions he grabs his coat, Damian’s jacket and the brat’s hand and heads for the door. “Let’s go.”
Damian stumbles behind him, caught off guard by the sudden gesture, and they’re almost at the elevators before he regains enough composure to curse at him.
“Yeah, yeah”, Tim answers, completely unimpressed, and steps into the cabin. “Just put your coat on, it’s freezing outside and the last thing I need is for you to get sick.”
He listens to a quite imaginative - although pretty short for Damian’s standards - string of insults with one hear while trying to put in order the bunch of post-it that are supposed to be his speech for today (not an easy task, what with them being all sticky and clinging on his fingers and on his jacket and on about everything else near him, grumpy demon spawn included).
He fishes out the last of them from the back pocket of his pants, removes another from Damian’s shoulder and once they hit the ground floor he’s pretty confident on having them all collected (and if not, well, he’s very good at improvising).
The first thing he notices when he steps out of the elevator is that between the police, the journalists, the receptionists and the now officeless IT crew, the atrium is pretty much packed with people. The second thing he notices is that Damian’s not behind him anymore.
“Damian?”
He looks around and finds him still by the elevators, slouched against a wall, trying to support himself with one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other. Tim quickly retraces his steps and he’s already reaching out to him when Damian raises his head and shoots him a poisonous glare.
“I’m fine”, he growls, and immediately straightens himself up. “Let’s go.”
The brat stiffly walks past him, and Tim hesitates, torn between a rancorous whatever and a more indulgent understanding. Being a brother is not an easy job, but being Damian’s brother is something else entirely. And that means he needs to be smart about this.
Walking besides him, Tim lets the kid reach the entrance, then puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Put your coat on”, he repeats, and Damian turns around, probably to snap at him again, but Tim tilts his head in the direction of the crowd of journalists waiting beyond the glass doors and just a few feet from them.
Damian glares both at them and at him, for a few seconds seems to consider punching Tim anyway, then he growls and caves in and Tim feels himself frowning a bit more at the way the kid’s tired fingers fumble with the buttons of his coat.
Sighing, and praying Damian’s too tired to immediately react with the indignation he knows his gesture’s going to cause, Tim goes down on his knee in front of his younger brother.
“Here, I’ll zip you up”, he says out loud, for all the bystanders to hear (and also to remind Damian that there are bystanders).
Taken aback again - for the second time in less than ten minutes, Tim is definitely going to mark the day on his calendar - Damian only blinks and looks down at him.
“You do realize that my coat doesn’t have a zip, right?”
Tim scoffs, quickly finishes buttoning him up, then makes a show to adjust the collar of Damian’s jacket while grabbing it and pulling the kid closer to him.
“Shut it, baby Satan, and listen”, he retorts, lowering his voice to a conspiratory tone. “I’m stuck with this press bullshit thing but I need you to go back to my office and look at the surveillance videos from this morning. See if the tech psycho dropped any hint on where he was going to meet Two Faces. I forgot to do it and I don’t want the police to confiscate the videos before we look at them.”
“So you forgot to do your homework and I have to do it for you?”, Damian asks, raising an eyebrow, then he opens his mouth again to what Tim imagines is going to be a long, arrogant and contemptuous rant, and since he’s trying to be nice here and doesn’t want to have reasons to regret it, he cuts him off right away.
“You said you were going to help”, he reminds him. “And I still have that footage from the last time you snuck out with Jon. Bruce is not going to be happy about it.”
Damian closes his mouth and narrows his eyes in what he’d probably like to be another death glare, but truth to be told, he only looks sleepy as hell, with that frown and his puffy eyes and messy hair, and in a momentary lapse of reason Tim just really, really wants to hug him.
“Please”, he adds instead, and that kind of does the trick.
“You owe me, Drake”, Damian answers. “And I will collect.”
Tim solemnly nods and stands up again.
“I’ll be up in one hour top to help you, okay?”, he adds, just to steady his bluff.
As expected, Damian’s answer is less than polite.
-
The press conference ends two hours later, and when Tim finally goes back to his office he finds Damian exactly where he thought he’d be: asleep at his desk with the surveillance videos still running on the computer screen in front of him.
He weighs for a moment the idea of moving him from the desk to the couch - not because he cares about the demon spawn’s sleep but because his office chair is really comfy and he’d like to have it back after almost a week of sitting on the floor, thank you very much - but in the end he decides that it’s not really worth it. Damian deserves some sleep and Tim deserves some quiet.
So he walks towards the desk and just wraps his own coat around Damian’s shoulder. Noticing the pink flutter of one surviving post-it sticking from the back of his jacket, he picks it up, draws a smiley face on it and, after a moment of hesitation, gently pushes it against Damian’s forehead until it sticks there. Then, since the kid is still completely out of it and Tim’s tired and nowhere near a good night sleep, but mostly because whatever, he smiles too and ruffles his brother’s hair for good measure.