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"Blackbird?" Tim hears the younger man growl, perplexed. "Of all the obscure and-" he sighs, and Tim looks up to see his eyes pinched shut. He smirks, and if he could see it he would probably think it looked like Damian's.
Dick thought they were domestic and cute.
When Damian dropped him in the river later that night, Tim didn't even scold him.
"It's keeps with the family," Tim shrugs. Damian sigh, still looking over the suit Tim had tucked into one of the usually abandoned cases nearby.
Next to it was a new Robin uniform- less yellow than Damian's had been. They'd foregone the hood and cape, so other than the green accents it was all red emblems and black lines. Damian was still trying to impress the necessity of the cape on their newest family member. It wasn't working. Not with Dick and Jason hanging around to ruin ever soap box he got on.
"You started this when I asked you, didn't you," Damian asks suddenly smug and Tim laughs.
"Terry's ready," he says. "He's not perfect and he's no where near done, but he's ready to get his feet wet. I know it and Bruce knows it." He turns back to the cave computer and looks over the case files they'd been working on since the last time he'd come home.
Because this was home, Jason had been right when he told Kon that. But that didn't make it Jason's place to tell Kon. Tim sighs. Suddenly Damian is closer than expected and Tim nearly jumps when he rubs unexpected at the tense muscles along Tim's shoulders.
"What's wrong," he asks, voice soft and Tim sighs again.
"Jason said something to Kon," Tim answers him simply. Damian waits, still rubbing small soothing circles into his shoulders. "I'd been trying to keep them away from asking about Gotham, from asking too often anyway. I know they want to know. They're still my friends. But Kon turning into a time bomb and demanding answers isn't how I wanted to ween into that conversation."
"About how you almost died," Damian asks gruffly, that was obviously his favorite part. "Or about your suit? Or Brown and McGinnis?"
Tim smiles, turning the chair to look up at him. "I was actually talking about you."
Damian smirks and it's all smug and humor. "That's an interesting story too." Tim shoves him lightly in the shoulder and stand. He stops in front of the new Robin uniform. Damian takes his seat in front of the computer, but continues to watches him.
"What are you worried about them finding out," Damian asks suddenly. Tim meets his gaze, and wonders if Damian already knows his answer.
"It's not really them knowing anything that worries me," he says, "It's saying anything outside this cave and knowing how fast that will get to your mother. And I'm not worried," Tim laughs, "Don't put words in my mouth. Just not looking forward to having the team meet the league."
"Don't think they can win?"
Tim laughs again. "You know I can," when he meets Damian's eyes this time there's a spark of challenge behind them and a soft smile on his lips.
And there it is, the look that could define them. Because every soft and scathing edge either of them has, sits perfectly along the other's.
It's not that they don't fight anymore, contrary, they fight with every word. To be understood, to understand. The hard part is remembering that every scathing and wrongly worded question isn't a challenge, it's just a desire to know more.
Tim's has a lot of cases in his life. The first one of note was the death of Jason Todd. He thought he'd closed that case the day he became Robin, but reopened it a few years later, when Jason came back to Gotham. There were others, that ended with putting some of Gotham's biggest names in Arkham, or sending them back to their own cities. And then with the Titans where he'd learned completely different foes in completely different cities.
But the case Tim has been working longest is Damian. Trying to understand Damian had probably taken up a fair amount of his time and brain space in the last decade and a half and Tim knows he doesn't have it solved.
Every day Damian still does something to surprise him. Like almost a year ago, when in the middle of downtown Gotham, well passed the curfew, Damian had punched him in the face, and then kissed the snot out of him.
Maybe that was the day Tim realized he'd been looking at Damian's case all wrong.
Damian had worried about him, thought he'd gotten killed, and he hadn't known how to deal with that. So Damian's relief had worked itself out through his fist while his elation- Damian doesn't deal with happiness well- had made him do something 'rash and irresponsible'. At least that's how Damian had explained it, a few days later when Tim cornered him and made him.
The next time Damian kissed him, it was much less of a surprise but it wasn't a 'case solved' moment. Neither was when Damian first called him beloved, which is something he doesn't do often. Tim doubts it will be when Damian puts on the Blackbird suit, or when Talia undoubtedly shows up to complain about it.
But walking back to where Damian sits, the case has given Tim a solution to the smug smile still sitting on the younger mans lips.