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Tim’s eyes are bloodshot, which isn’t new, but Dick knows it’s been a rough night, and Tim’s off work, and Dick’s also checked on his brother every night for the past week, and Tim hasn’t been sleeping. So Dick--who didn’t sleep last night, either, but at least he tries to--finds a more or less empty room and throws all sorts of pillows and blankets on the floor, then goes to find Tim.
“Hey,” Dick says casually. Tim’s drinking coffee, and reading the Gotham Gazette, and he glares at Dick from over the top of the newspaper. It makes him look like Bruce, and Dick has to stifle laughter.
(He knows Bruce doesn’t sleep either, but that’s a cause for another day.)
“What do you want, Dick?” Tim asks without breaking his glare. Jesus, Bruce needs to stop glaring at them all because Dick’s pretty sure that every single one of the Batkids can replicate it perfectly, so it has lost all the fear it’s supposed to inflict. For the family, anyway.
“Do I have to want something?” Dick asks innocently, coming around to stand behind Tim.
“You have that expression,” Tim says, his head following his brother, eyes narrow. “You’re planning something.”
“Bats always have a plan,” Dick says, because he’d rather have Tim go in circles then figure out his plan and run away to spike his coffee with Redbull or something.
Tim gives him an unimpressed look, so Dick reaches around him to remove the coffee from his hands and fold the newspaper.
“Just come with me, okay?” Dick says. “I promise that this will be painless.”
“I don’t believe you,” Tim says, but he stands up anyway. Dick links his arm through Tim’s--loosely, but he can and will tighten it if he tries to escape. He whistles merrily as he leads Tim through the manor. Tim’s practically radiating confusion.
“Almost there, Timmy,” Dick sings.
“Almost where?” Tim asks, then Dick opens the door to the chosen room and shoves Tim in, stepping in and locking the door behind him. Tim looks at it all, and then looks back at Dick. Dick shuts off the lights.
“What are you trying to accomplish?”
“Sleep,” Dick says. “I didn’t sleep last night, and you didn’t sleep last night, so I thought it would be convenient. To sleep.”
“And you had to trick me to get me to come?” Tim snorts. “Yeah right. I’m leaving.” He goes for the door--but it’s locked, and before Tim can unlock it Dick grabs his arm and spins him around, using the momentum to shove him down. Tim falls, and Dick knows Tim is very, very tried. Tim starts to get up, but Dick collapses on top of him.
“Hey--no...get off,” Tim protests, but Dick wraps his arms around him and shifts so Tim’s face is pressed to Dick’s chest and Dick’s chin is resting on Tim’s head. He tightens his hold on Tim, and extracts a hand to bring a blanket to cover them. Tim squirms all the while.
“Goodnight, Timmers,” Dick says happily. Tim gives up, and sags into his chest. Dick smiles into the room.
“Night,” Tim grumbles, but his breath evens out quickly, and Dick’s eyes drop closed soon after.
---
Dick hears voices. They seem to be arguing.
“I am not jealous, ” a voice Dick identifies as Damian hisses.
“Sure you aren’t,” Stephanie's voice says cheerfully. Dick can picture her smirk. “Bet if you joined them, they wouldn’t protest.”
“Tt. I would never want to--to snuggle or whatever that infernal thing they are doing is.” Dick opens his eyes, and he’s still in the dark, with Tim clinging to him in their nest. He looks up without moving his head, and Steph is standing there with her arms crossed, and there’s that smirk, and Damian is scowling, as usual. The door is open a crack, and Dick wonders why they picked the lock and came in here in the first place. He meets Steph’s eye, moving his head as little as possible, and her smirk deepens. Damian doesn’t notice, he’s too busy listing off all the ways why snuggling is a weakness and should never be done. Steph wordlessly wraps her arms around Damian, and miraculously he shuts up. He stares at Tim and Dick and almost, almost, leans into Steph’s embrace.
“Let’s go,” she whispers into his ear, but Dick can still hear it over the sound of Tim’s breathing. Damian nods, and Steph stands up again, grabbing his hand and leading him out of the room. Before she leaves, she turns back and winks at Dick. Then she closes the door, and Dick finds himself stumbling back into dreamland, sort of wondering if he had even been awake at all.
---
Cursing wakes him up the second time, but he’s only half-awake. He opens his eyes a little.
“Why the hell am I here,” Jason grumbles. Dick can fuzzily see him shucking off his leather jacket and his boots.
“Why wouldn’t you be here, Jay?” Steph asks brightly. She shoves the bigger man on top of Dick, and he lets out a surprised gasp, but Jason rolls off of him quickly, although he doesn’t get up. Dick feels Steph worm her way in between Dick’s back and Jason, and he realizes blearily that somehow he is holding Damian in his arms, and Tim is still there, still asleep, just at Duke's (when did he get here?) back now, and Duke is curled around Damian. He tunes back into Steph and Jason’s conversation.
“I mean, you I can believe, but how you got the Demon to come is a mystery beyond me,” Jason grumbled.
“I’m very magic,” Steph says brightly. “I got you here, didn’t I? Now go to sleep.” Jason grumbles some more, and Damian’s breath evens out, and Dick falls asleep to the sound of Steph’s soft snores.
-------
Bruce stalks the halls of the manor. Where is Dick? And Damian and Tim? And wasn’t Steph here, at one point? He can’t find any of them, and Alfred says it’s time for dinner. Bruce shoves open doors, even though he’s sure they aren’t anywhere on this side of the manor. He pushes open the door to the guest sitting room, a room that hasn’t been used since his parents were alive, and stops. There is no light on, but there is sunlight coming in through the curtains, so Bruce can see the impossible thing in front of him. There’s a bunch of pillows and blankets on the ground, forming a sort of nest. There’s combat boots and a leather jacket and Damian’s shoes and a purple hoodie on the floor near the door. And in the nest, there are six people. Five Robins, Bruce realizes. All five, plus Duke, if he counts as a Robin. He wonders what Jason’s doing here, then why Damian’s curled up in Dick’s arms, then how they convinced Duke to join them, then what Steph is doing here, draped over all the boys, and then he realizes that Tim’s asleep, that they’re all asleep. It’s kind of sweet, actually. Bruce isn’t sure what the proper procedure for this is, so he backs out of the room awkwardly and leaves the door open a crack and heads down to ask Alfred.
---
Somehow, a week later Dick finds himself back in that area of the manor, and he pushes open the door to that room, and he finds Damian curled up alone on the floor, surrounded by the same amount of blankets and pillows. Dick coos softly, and he goes and sits by his brother.
He only meant to watch for a second, he swears, but he wakes up three hours later with a heavy arm flung over him and Jason’s breath in his ear and when he sits up he sees Tim on Jason’s other side and Steph curled up next to Damian and Cass is behind Steph, and Duke is behind Cass, and oh. This is a thing now.