Chapter Text
It was Dick who told him first.
Damian would later regret how he reacted, but in the moment he had felt vindicated.
Not afraid.
Not stressed.
Not worried.
Vindicated.
Tim didn't have what it took to stand beside them.
He'd been trained.
Taught.
Tutored.
He had talent, Damian would grant him that much, but as for the grit that it took to make it in Gotham?
Tim was soft.
So when Damian rolled into the cave after patrol, parked his motorcycle and headed to get changed out of his blood-stained suit only to be stopped by his father's latest kid asking him if he'd seen Tim, he'd scoffed.
“Damian, please. He just stopped answering me a few hours ago.”
“Dick, I had a long night already. I'm not going back out just because Drake wants attention.”
Mask, gloves, and boots were off, and Damian sighed in relief.
He was exhausted already, and he still had his end of case reports to fill out.
“Batman already headed out to go look for him.”
“That's fascinating, buddy.” Damian couldn't be less interested.
He'd always said that Drake wasn't cut out for their line of work, and he'd always known that when the brat finally decided to quit he'd want to leave them with some sort of mess or headache to clean up.
“Can I please go with you to find-,”
“Dick, enough. I'm tired, Drake's already got Batman chasing him instead of any actual criminals, and it's way past your bedtime.”
The eight year old glared heatedly at him.
Damian turned back to the civilian clothes he was getting changed into.
“What if he's hurt?” Dick demanded.
“Then he's got several trackers sewn into his suit. He pushes one, we get an alert with his location, and someone here heads out to go save his sorry ass.”
“Damian!”
“Dick, bedtime.”
“No! Something's wrong! Tim wouldn't just-,”
“I'm not having this conversation right now. Upstairs, brush your teeth, and get in bed.” Damian pointed up the large staircase.
Dick clenched his fists as tight as he could and stomped his foot. “Tim's missing!”
“Tim ran off. I'm not wasting my time giving him what he wants. He'll be back when he's hungry.”
“He wouldn't do that!” Dick defended, face growing red.
Damian heaved a sigh and shook his head.
He couldn't understand it, but Dick had grown particularly attached to Tim in the short time since he'd been adopted.
“Dick, I've been saying it for years. One day, Tim's going to wake up and realize that this isn't the life for him. Forgive me for saying this to an eight year old, but I called it. His work’s been suffering lately-,”
“Yeah, because you keep pushing him too hard!”
“If he can't handle the training, then he can't handle the job.”
“Rrgh.” Dick had a fury in his eyes the likes of which Damian had never seen in any other child. “Why do you hate him so much?!” He shouted.
“I don't hate him.” Damian replied evenly, taking a seat at the batcomputer. “But if I'm going to go out in a city like Gotham wearing the symbol of the bat, I need to know that the people on my side are people I can trust.”
“You can trust Tim!”
“No, Dick. You choose to trust him. My introduction to him was-,”
“Oh, my god! Not this again!”
“Dick.”
“You quit! You quit, Damian! You hung up your suit, and you quit! I have heard this story so many times! You quit being Robin, and you left to study with the league! Batman needed help, and Tim HELPED him because you! Quit!”
Damian turned the chair to face Dick and narrowed his eyes in warning, but Dick just marched closer to him.
“Somethings wrong! Tim talks to me when he's on patrol, and he wouldn't just cut contact unless something happened.”
“Dick, that's enough.”
Dick glared at him. “If something happens to Tim, I'll never forgive you.”
And then he turned on his heel and left the cave.
Damian would later regret not giving in, suiting up and joining his father in the search.
But in the moment, he'd believed himself to be right.
So he filled out his report, and went to bed.