Chapter Text
There was a kid staring up at him from the bushes.
"Hi." The kid said, waving his hands slightly.
"Hello." Damian said, completely perplexed, lowering his sword, which he had been using to expertly cut the bushes into little pieces.
The kid took the acknowledgment of his existence as an invitation into the garden, as he wormed his way through the bushes, coming out on the other side with only a few scratches on his face and a big grin.
Before Damian could even open his mouth and say something smart like: What are you doing here? Or get off my property, the kid had already opened his mouth and started talking.
Damian had over the years learned to let kids talk, they oftentimes knew more than adults wanted to consider, but that was mostly on his own terms and not in his garden while he was trying to work out frustration with his sword.
“I am Tim.” The kid said, “You guys have such a big garden,” the kid, Tim, started walking around, “I thought our garden was huge, but yours is like at least twice the size, our previous house had like an itty bitty garden, mom says we might need to hire a gardener.”
“Okay,” Damian said, “What are you doing here.”
“We moved there.” Tim pointed at the bushes he came through.
“The bushes.” Damian raised an eyebrow.
Tim laughed, “No, the house.”
“Ah, yes, of course.” Damian looked back at the bushes he hadn't known they had neighbours.
"Can I touch your sword." Tim interrupted his contemplation.
"No." Damian said resolutely.
"Oh," Tim pouted for a few seconds before going right back to the conversation, "what were you doing?"
Damian looked back to the remnants of the bushes he had been demolishing just a few minutes prior, "practicing my sword skills."
Tim nodded, "My mom won’t let me do sword fighting because she is convinced that the teacher is part of the mafia, which is so stupid because she made me take these self-defense courses and everyone knows that that guy is a part of the mob, and when I told her that, she just laughed. I did learn a lot, though.” Tim punched the air a couple of times to demonstrate his skills. "But I always wanted to learn sword fighting."
"Alright," Damian said, mentally taking note to later research if there really was a self-defense teacher that was part of the mob.
Tim picked up a stick from the ground, "Maybe you can teach me."
“No.” Damian said.
“Why not.” Tim said.
"You don’t know me." Damian said reasonably
Tim opened his mouth for a few seconds, clearly attempted by Damian’s excellent rebuttal. Before frowning for a few seconds, "I guess."
Without a goal, Tim just stood there for a few seconds, kicking the ground, before his name got called through the garden next to his. "Guess, I’ve gotta go anyway, bye." Tim turned back around, disappearing in the bushes leaving Damian standing before he too decided to just go home.
Damian quickly forgot about the interaction and turned to more important manners, which namely involved working on cases, ignoring his father and very much ignoring the fact that school would start up again in a few weeks. Some might say that avoiding a problem would not solve it, but Damian found it high time to test that hypothesis.
School itself wasn’t really the problem, most of the time it was useless dribble, but Damian managed fine. It was the fact that it was the last year of high school, the last year of mandatory education. After this, the real adult life began and slowly was approaching that time that Damian had to answer the question, What does he want to do with the rest of his life?
It was clear to Damian what Bruce would want from him, either go to college and get a degree that would either help keep his secret identity or get a degree that would help him with Robin, preferably one that does both. He could also skip college all together and continue being Robin.
The truth was, Damian didn’t know if he wanted to continue being Robin. When he was younger, it had all been clear who he was supposed to be—the heir, the grandson of the great Ra’s al Ghul. Then, when he had gotten to Gotham, Robin had been a lifebuoy in the sea. It had saved him in more ways than he could count, it had given him something only he could do.
Damian had always been sure in what he wanted, he didn’t mull over every single option, he trusted his instincts and went for it. Whatever it may be. But now he just didn’t know what he wanted. So he avoided any mention of the topic as well as he could.
His father, on the other hand, was all for talking about the future. What college Damian should go to, what he should study, all that fun stuff.
Damian was staring angrily at his food. His father was watching him, “Damian, I think we should talk about yesterday.”
“Nothing happened yesterday.” Damian said. Mushing some peas together (he did not like peas).
“Some bushes do tell me a different tale.”
Damian rolled his eyes.
“I get that you are scared about the future, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Damian said, feeling slightly annoyed, he wondered if he could fake illness to get out of this conversation. The one good thing about school is that Damian could always fake a project he had to work on to get out of dinner conversations.
His father opened his mouth, probably to start a tirade about how, college could broaden your horizons or something equally lame, even though Damian knew for a fact that his father dropped out after two months.
To say that he was glad that Alfred walked in the room to announce they had visitors would be an understatement.
In walked, his snot-nosed neighbor, Tim, with a woman who was clearly his mother, the woman stuck out her hand, Bruce stood up from the table slightly confused and shook her hand, "Janet," the woman introduced herself, "we moved in next door, and Tim here told me that he already met your son. My Timmy told me that your son is a prolific sword fighter and that he was willing to teach my son?”
“He is?” Bruce looked surprised at Damian.
Tim looked quite pleased with himself even though Damian knew he had been lying since he promised nothing of the sort, but on the other hand, this did mean that if he played his cards right, he could get out of this conversation without having to fake an illness.
"Ah yes, Damian has been training with the sword from a very young age, but I didn’t know that he had promised to teach your son." Bruce looked at Damian, a question clearly written on his face. Damian knew he wasn’t the kind of person to normally promise to teach someone sword fighting.
"I completely forgot to tell you." Damian said, smiling sweetly at his father, “Do you mind if I excuse myself.” He said, motioning towards Tim.
His father looked at him puzzling, “Okay, you can go.” Damian knew that look meant something along the lines of we will talk about this later, but that is a problem for future him, as Maps would say.
Not long after, he stood with Tim in one of the gyms in the manor, both with practice swords in their hands. Damian expertly, having escaped the dinner table.
"I never promised to teach you." Damian said, feeling like he should at least mention it.
"You said that you wouldn’t teach me because I didn’t know you, and now I do, so you will." Tim said
Damian raised an eyebrow, staring Tim down.
“I accidentally said that to my mom, and I couldn’t back out. I didn’t want her to know I lied."
Damian nodded, satisfied with the answer, "Okay, let’s start."
Tim straightened, upholding the sword completely wrong, in a way that he obviously thought that was the way to hold it.
Damian sighed internally. This was going to take a while.
Damian had never formally taught someone anything really, and the way the league taught was probably the incorrect way to teach young kids things, add to that the fact that he, at Tim’s age, was already an expert in the blade, Damian didn’t really know where to start. Still he had been a beginner at some point, so he could probably figure it out.
The first steps were surprisingly easy, Tim, despite his nerdy demeanor, who was actually quite athletic, Which was a pleasant surprise. If Damian had been a normal teacher, Tim could have probably become pretty good at the sport. Only Tim didn’t have some average sword fighter as a teacher, so one thing Damian was certain of was that if he wanted to, he could make Tim great.
To Damian’s annoyance, the school year started. The end of summer meant the beginning of his last year in high school.
Before school started, they got to an agreement for Tim to spend two days a week after school at the Wayne Manor, where Damian would train him. Despite it still being the beginning of the year, the teachers all had gotten the drift that it really was the last year, and to celebrate this special occasion, they decided to give every single student massive amounts of homework.
Damian was furiously working through his math homework when Tim entered his room.
Tim looked over Damian’s shoulder, “What are you doing?”
“My homework.” Damian said, while glaring at the math problem that just wouldn’t let itself be solved. Damian looked at the clock, “Aren’t you a bit early.”
Tim shrugged.
“You did do your homework, right.” Damian narrowed his eyes.
“I did.” Tim said.
Damian narrowed his eyes a bit more.
“Okay, fine, don’t tell mom.”
“Sure, but only if you do your homework now. In silence.”
“Fine.” Tim plopped down on the ground and opened his back, Damian had an acute sense that this was somehow exactly what he wanted. He ignored that feeling and turned back to his work.
Tim used this first invitation to show up earlier and earlier, with supposed homework. Damian just let the kid sit, as long as he wasn’t making a ruckus.
Every day, like clockwork after about 15 minutes, Tim would silently put his pen away and start to observe Damian instead. After a few weeks of this, Damian had enough.
“Are you already finished?”
Tim shrugged, “It isn’t very hard.” He said matter-of-factly.
Damian nodded. Primary school wasn’t very hard. He turned back to his homework.
Tim apparently saw his acknowledgment of doneness as an invitation to talk to Damian and he pushed himself up on Damian’s chair to look at Damian’s homework, "can I help you?"
"Do you know how to integrate?" He said
Tim shook his head.
“Well, then no, you can’t.”
“What is that integrate?”
"A way to calculate an area of two points using equations."
Tim gave him a blank stare, "Ah, I see." Then he smiled proudly, “I can calculate the area of a square, we learned that last week.”
“Well, that is good.” Damian said.
Tim nodded enthusiastically.
Damian tried to turn back to his homework, but Tim continued to stare confused over his shoulder, as if he were trying to figure out the math on Damian’s worksheet. "Wait a second." Damian said before getting up and rummaging through his old school supplies until he found an old book of the first year of middle school math before giving it to Tim, "Maybe you can try this."
Tim nodded and opened the book.
Damian noted the ease with which Tim worked through the book, of which the difficulty should still be a couple of years away from him. Tim had excellent logical reasoning and problem-solving skills, just like Damian had around that age. Damian patted himself on the back for finding and nurturing this talent.
Slowly the months flew past, as they tend to do, as September turned into October.
They were standing in the garden, it was a beautiful day, autumn, still quiet, Damian was teaching Tim a summersaultkick. That is when you kick someone while doing a somersault. Tim was still having trouble doing it he was almost doing the sault part of the summersaultkick, but he ended up face planting too often for Damian’s liking. He was pretty sure that when he learned it when he was Tim’s age, he didn’t have that much trouble, but no matter, he was sure that with him as a teacher, Tim would learn it in no time at all.
Damian was once again looking at Tim’s footwork, correcting it where it needed correcting when Bruce walked outside. Damian looked up and immediately glowered, but Bruce didn’t say anything, just waved at them. Tim looked up and waved back before he shouted,” Look what I can do.” He jumped up somersaulting forward, managing to not face-plant, (but just barely) before tripping up the landing and falling back on his but. He looked up with a blinding smile.
“Good job, Tim.” Bruce said.
“Yeah, I almost got it that time.” Tim said proudly.
Tim was sitting behind the computer, “So, this is my house.” Damian looked at the blocky screen where Tim was showing him the game of Minecraft on. Damian didn’t really get it, but he knew that some of his classmates played it in their free time, so admittedly he was curious.
Since Tim had sprained his wrist last week during one of their sessions, they couldn’t really continue their usual program, so Damian decided he would branch out and teach Tim some hacking skills; this had somehow dissolved into Tim showing Damian Minecraft.
“If you also buy a copy, we can play together.” Tim said.
It was probably a couple more hours before Tim had to go home, “Okay, why not.” Damian shrugged.
Not long after, they were sitting in the living room, both behind their laptops, Tim teaching Damian how to play the game. They already had built a house, and Tim was just showing him how to make a ‘nether portal’ when Bruce walked in.
“Sorry to spoil your boys’ fun, but Tim, your mom is here.”
Tim pouted but did grab his laptop, “You can continue finishing our house.” Tim said wisely, “I probably will not be allowed to continue gaming when I get home, to many hours behind screens make your eyes go square, my mom always says.”
The first day of December was met with a snowstorm. As school for the entire week was cancelled, Janet very gratefully left Tim at the manor, Damian wasn’t really sure if he too was happy with the development, as snow flew directly into Damian’s face. Luckily, Damian had fought doctor freeze many of times, so he could handle a little cold.
He grabbed some snow from the ground and threw it at Tim’s face.
Not a half-hour later they were completely soaked through the bone, but Tim had a gigantic smile on his face, and Damian was pretty sure that his face was contorting into something that Jon would call a smile .
Damian shook his hair to get most of the snow out, and Tim, who was watching him, immediately copied him, “Now what.” He said.
“Time to get back inside before you catch a cold.” Damian said.
Tim rolled his eyes, “I can handle some colds; my mom says I have a great immune system.”
“Well, mister great immune system, what do you suggest we do then.” Damian said dryly.
Tim’s eyes lit suddenly, “Let’s make a snow fort.”
The good thing was that they definitely made a snow fort; it was sturdy and would make any architecture proud. The bad news was that Tim’s great immune system was highly exaggerated, and Damian’s many fights against Doctor Freeze apparently did not hold a candle to one fight with Tim.
They both lay sick on the couch as a Disney movie played in the background. It was a movie about a mouse detective, which would feel ridiculous if it weren’t for the fact that Damian had met Detective Chimp. “This is just like the chimp.” Damian muttered.
Tim nodded miserably into his blanket.
He shivered; he finally didn’t feel like dead warmth over anymore, but patrol had been going on for way too long, but with the first dregs of winter rearing his head, a lot of nasties had decided to come out of the woodworks. He was taken a few minutes break, Batman was somewhere on the other side of the city.
A reddish shape was walking through the streets below. Damian frowned and got up slowly, following it for a few blocks.
Tim stood in front of him, shivering in the cold. He had a clearly homemade cape and mask on and he had the absolute gall to smile, “Hi.” He said, putting up a hand.
Damian really had to stop himself to not throttle the kid. What was Tim thinking, being out here by himself looking like that. Damian took a deep breath, Tim didn’t know that it was him in the suit, “Kid, what are you doing out here.”
Tim looked at him with big eyes, “uuhmm.”
“I am pretty sure it isn’t Halloween.” Damian continued getting closer to Tim. Damian made a motion to grab him and drag Tim home himself if he had to when he was suddenly lying on the ground. Tim looked shocked at him before booking it.
Damian would have been proud that Tim had finally pulled off that move (Damian knew for a fact that it was the first time that Tim had managed to do it since they had been working on it for the past few weeks) if he wasn’t so incredibly annoyed and also slightly embarrassed.
Damian quickly got up and sprinted after the boy. It didn’t take long before he had caught up to Tim, they really had to work on his getaways, and grabbed Tim by his cape, effectively scuffing him and lifting him up.
“Good afternoon.” Tim had the gall to say.
“What are you doing out here, kid.” Damian practically growled.
Tim hung there for a few seconds fidgeting, “So, uhm,” he started, and then in one breath, “my friend was teaching me how to hack and I was practicing it at home and then I was like, Hey, maybe I can test my skills on my mom's company, so if the security isn’t good I can also later improve it, but then I found all these sketchy things and I was like, This is not good, but I didn’t really have any evidence, and I couldn’t really go to my mom and say, Hey, I hacked your company, and I think something is really wrong, so I thought maybe if I did some detective work and gathered proof, I could give it to the police and then they could arrest the right people and stuff.”
“Tt” Damian pinched the bridge of his nose, “If I let you go, will you promise me not to run away.”
Tim’s head bobbed up and down.
Damian carefully placed him on the ground. Tim straightened his homemade cape, which Damian was sure was just a blanket fastened around his neck. Tim went through his pockets before he produced an usb stick. I’ve put my evidence on this. Damian grabbed it and put it in his belt.
Damian nodded, “I’ll look at it.” He promised.
“Really.” Tim said with a smile.
“Of course, but now it is time for you to go home.” Damian motioned for Tim to follow him to where he had parked his bike. He almost forgot to ask for Tim’s address, but after that he quickly brought Tim home.
Tim left the bike and stood nervously in front of the bike, ”Are you really going to look at it.”
Damian recognized that look, it was one of a child scared that they wouldn’t be taken seriously. Damian, being as he was, knew a lot about that. People weren’t used to the fact that a kid knew more than them, knew better than them, and although the younger version of him certainly had a lot to learn as he knew now it was always hard to listen to adults when you knew for sure that they would not extent the same courtesy to him, “I promise.”
Who he watched sneak back in through his window.
This really wasn’t good, Tim sneaking out like this, Luckily Damian had an excellent way of dealing with this, which was ignoring it and hoping it would go away.
When Damian got back to the cave, he immediately checked what was one the usb stick. Batman probably would have gotten a hernia if he saw how he put this unknown stick into his laptop without any precaution. It is overall a good rule not to do that, but Damian trusted Tim.
There wasn’t a lot of evidence, certainly not enough for any arrest, but there was something. Damian couldn’t help but be impressed with that Tim had found the links. Because there was something there—a lot of money going from one place to another using the company. Damian couldn’t immediately figure out where the money was coming from, he had no clue where it was going either. Damian frowned, he would have to look into it.
Over the next few months, Damian slowly started to gather evidence. While he also started to teach Tim how to sneak around more properly, which quickly became apparent he was a natural at. It probably also helped he wasn’t wearing a bright homemade costume while they practiced, but it was still too early to tell.
Damian was working on his homework alone in his room when there was a knock on his door.
“Sorry, to trouble you, but the young sir insisted on seeing you.” Alfred said.
“Thank you, Alfred.” Tim said.
Tim stood in the door opening, his hair was a complete mess, sticking slightly to his skin with sweat. As soon as Alfred left, Tim quickly closed the door and walked further into the room.
Tim stood nervously, bouncing from one leg to the other for a few seconds before shucking off his backpack and walking closer to where Damian was seated. “We have a problem.” He stated.
Damian raised his eyebrow.
Tim opened his bag, producing a map filled to the brim with paper. “Did you look at it?”
“Look at what?” Damian asked.
“What I asked you to,” Tim said, “a couple of months back, in my mom’s company, I found all those shady things?”
Damian almost said yes, but he caught himself at the last second, “What are you saying?”
Tim gave him a look, “I know that you are, Robin.” He said.
Damian could probably try to dissuade him, but he knew that it probably wouldn’t work, Bruce was going to be furious. Teaching Tim all the Robin moves probably wasn’t the best decision if he had wanted to keep the secret, secret. “When did you figure it out.”
A shy smile spread across Tim’s face, “When I was nine, I saw you as Robin on the television, and I connected the dots.”
“How?”
“This is a bit of a story,” Tim admitted, “ it started, ‘when I was three. My nanny kidnapped me, You helped rescue me, you weren’t Robin yet.”