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“I’ll call you,” Tim lies as he steps out of the Rolls with a quick hop. “Yeah… of course. I remember. I’ll have the paperwork in the system by next Monday, but it’s—mmhmmm.”
Bruce flashes him a raised eyebrow as he pulls his briefcase from the backseat. Andrew? he mouths.
Tim grimaces in confirmation before following his father out of the garage and through the covered walkways into the main building. The foyer is blessedly empty. He seizes the quiet to wrap up the call with Architecture.
“Yes. I completely understand the--Yes, the code freeze is…” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose before straightening his shoulders and forcing some steel into his voice. “Andrew. I understand the concern. I agree we need Megan and Sophia to clarify this before the 12th. But they’re both off for the long weekend and as of…” he glances at Bruce’s watch, “forty minutes ago, so am I.”
Bruce toes off his shoes and takes Tim’s coat and bag to the closet, lingering in the hall with a vaguely amused tilt to his eyebrows.
Tim rolls his eyes and silently shoos him toward the kitchen. When Bruce still doesn’t move, Tim huffs and cuts in, “Andrew, my father is waiting. I do have to go. Send me an email and I’ll get back to you Monday morning.”
He ends the call a little too quickly, cutting off Andrew’s protests, and slips his phone into his back pocket.
“You have to stop picking up when he calls,” Bruce nags as they head from the foyer to the family kitchen. “He has too much free time.”
Tim snorts, dragging a hand through his hair, feeling the distinct ache of sitting for eight hours catching up with him. “Damn, Bruce. I think that’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Meaner than when I called the Riddler’s last plot boring?” he teases, glancing down at Tim with a slight quirk to his lips.
Tim rolls his eyes, trying for exasperated but falling short somewhere in amusement. “Yeah, actually. Riddler can take it. Andrew’s just a man with a color-coded spreadsheet and a dream.”
“Listen,” Bruce pretends to pout, an iconic Brucie Wayne pull of his lips. “At least Riddler doesn’t weaponize meeting requests.”
“People can’t weaponize meeting requests,” Tim fires back as they pass the last of the public rooms and enter the servant quarters they use to live their day-to-day lives. “You can’t be harmed by meeting requests.”
“When you get to my age, you will come to realize how damaging meeting requests are,” Bruce counters, dropping the pout to hit him with a Batman-inspiring gravitas, voice heavy with the weight of the city, or in this case, the horrors of bureaucracy.
Tim laughs, feeling the weight of the workday fall away as he opens the kitchen door. “Drama queen.”
“—regardless of precedent, Master Damian, the school is obligated to report repeated absences.”
Tim and Bruce pause at the threshold.
“I was not absent,” Damian snaps. “I was elsewhere.”
Tim watches Bruce catalog and asses: Damian’s defensiveness as obvious as a bristling cat; Alfred’s quiet fatigue just visible around the edges; the stove turned off and the oven door cracked, dinner long since finished. Clearly, this argument has been going on for a while.
Practically tasting the tension beginning to radiate off of Bruce, Tim decides to take the initiative, stepping forward with a half-smile. “Oof. That’s some phrasing. What you in for, Batbrat?”
Neither startle at his entrance.
“They accused me of truancy,” Damian sneers, chin lifted, every bit his father’s son. “As though I simply wandered off.”
“They reported that you skipped three afternoon classes today,” Alfred corrects, voice carefully controlled, which, with Alfred, always indicates a loosening of control. “Without any notification to myself or the faculty."
“I have completed the material.” Damian defends. “And I did not think you needed notification if I arrived in time for my pick up, as usual.”
Bruce exhales slowly, setting his bag down and entering the kitchen to stand next to his son. “Damian.”
No good. Tim can already taste the screaming match. Forcing normalcy, Tim drops into a chair and cuts in before Bruce can go off. “Okay, but, just for the record, I skipped all the time.”
Both Bruce and Alfred turn to look at him.
“What?” Tim shrugs, reaching over to grab an apple. He won’t eat it. No reason to welcome more trouble by “ruining his dinner” but normalcy needs a prop. “Skipping class is basically a Wayne family tradition. Dick and Jason skipped. I skipped. Cass is ‘homeschooled’ whatever that means.”
“Timothy,” Alfred says, warningly.
Bruce rubs at his temple. “This is not helping.”
“I’m just saying,” Tim rambles, undeterred, “I skipped chem to work on crime pattern modeling. I skipped English to audit college lectures. Once I skipped an entire week because Gotham PD had bad data hygiene.”
That does it. Bruce stares at him. “…You skipped school to clean up police spreadsheets.”
Tim grins as he watches Damian take a deep breath now that the attention has shifted for at least a moment. “In my defense, they were really bad.”
Bruce sighs, deep and weary, but there’s no real heat in it. He turns back to Damian. “Why did you skip class?”
Damian’s lips are pressed tight. He doesn’t answer.
The silence stretches.
Tim looks to Alfred.
Alfred looks back and huffs. “After dinner then.” Alfred accepts defeat graciously, right before the silence could stretch past funny and into awkward. “When tempers are cooler.”
Tim waits a heartbeat and then another, debating, when finally, Bruce inclines his head just so, a passive acceptance.
Dinner is brief.
A credit to his training, Damian slips away before Bruce can pin him down. One moment, present, and glowering at his vegan enchilada, and the next, gone with the creaking of the manor. He even managed to avoid making the chair squeak as he slipped away.
Bruce is half out of his seat when Tim finishes his plate, “Let me handle this.”
Bruce frowns, eyeing the door. Tim knows he could find him. Bruce has gotten good at sussing out Damian’s hiding spots--just like he had with Tim and Cass and Dick (and probably Jason). But Tim is certain the last thing Damian wants is parental supervision. Especially if he’s gone where Tim thinks he has.
Bruce hesitates but takes a seat, powerful shoulders curled slightly in, the beginnings of a real pout on his lips. If given the chance, Bruce would relish the ability to be a helicopter parent. He’d just had the misfortune of adopting hyper-independent kids.
(Tim has it on good authority that he wouldn’t have it any other way.)
“I can help,” Bruce gives in.
“I know,” Tim consoles, rising out of his chair to place a hand on his adoptive father’s shoulder. “But he also won’t talk if you follow him.”
Bruce exhales, shoulders straightening as he reaches acceptance. “Fine.”
Tim offers a small, reassuring smile. “I’ll return with a status update.”
.
Tim finds Damian on the roof.
He’s perched near the edge, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around himself to ward off the cold. Bristol doesn’t have much of a view--just trees and grand houses as far as the eye can see--but the sky more than makes up for it, a sprinkling of stars on a near-cloudless night.
It is a long-held Robin tradition to make for the skies when you’re upset.
Damian doesn’t look back when Tim steps out through the access door.
“Go away,” Damian snaps. “This does not concern you.”
Tim closes the door behind him and sits down a few feet away anyway. “Pretty sure it does. You’re hiding something from B, which makes this a Robin thing.”
Damian scowls. “I am not Robin right now.”
“Sure you are.” Tim scootches closer, letting one leg dangle off the side. The spring winds cut this high up, but he knows better than to close off his body language right now. “Sulking on rooftops after dinner? Textbook.”
Damian’s shoulders tense. “Leave.”
“Nope.” Tim settles in, elbows resting on his knees. “I’m here to bother you into telling me the whole story. You’ll have to push me off to get me to go away.”
Damian sneers, but turns away, uncurling slightly.
Silence.
Tim waits. He’s used to waiting, watching. If Damian wants to sulk, Tim will sulk with him. If he wants to speak, Tim will listen. He’s no Dick, able to wrestle your secrets out with a few soft smiles and a warm hug, or Jason, with a brisk no-nonsense kind of gruff that stays charming even when it shouldn’t. But he knows he’s come a long way from dashing for an exit every time Damian enters the room. Their relationship is built on warm silences and close proximity, after all.
Finally, Damian mutters, “I skipped school to help someone.”
Tim hums an acknowledgement as Damian continues to talk to the sky.
“I have a…classmate. Her home situation is unacceptable. She needed her documents.” Damian continues, as he lets a hand loose to tap gently at the roof tile beneath them. “Her parents were withholding them. We retrieved them while they were at work and placed them in her aunt’s home for safe keeping.”
It is halfway between a report and a confession. Tim takes a moment to think, turning to face his own patch of stars. “Is she safe now?”
Damian grunts an affirmative.
“Then it sounds like you did the right thing,” Tim offers.
“It is not a permanent solution,” Damian counters.
“No,” Tim agrees.
“And she will, eventually, have to report her situation to the authorities.” Damian adds.
“But she’s not ready?” Tim guesses.
Damian turns to face him, eyes narrowed, “I do not want to involve Father.”
Tim can think of a few reasons why, but he wants to hear Damian’s thoughts. “Why?”
Damian sighs, “She is afraid.”
“Batman is good with kids,” Tim plays devil’s advocate, pushing.
“Father…Batman will see a child in need and step in accordingly. He will insist on his own approach. He will involve the authorities she is afraid of,” Damian explains, keeping his gaze steady and posture stiff. “I do not want this.”
“What do you want?”
Damian licks his lips, picking his words carefully. “I want her to feel safe. I want her to accept help on her own terms.”
Tim doesn’t need to think about it, but he waits a beat to let Damian process. “Okay.”
Damian blinks, glancing at him. “You are not going to argue?”
“Nope,” Tim grins, daring to reach out and tap a pattern on Damian’s unguarded hand, trust. “I’ll handle B.”
Damian’s shoulders slump. “You will?”
“Yeah,” Tim teases just to help the tension ease. “I know how to translate ‘I skipped class for a good reason’ into ‘please don’t go full Batdad.’”
Damian nods, relief flickering across his face before he turns away. But this time he shifts to lean against Tim.
They watch the stars, the rustle of wind through trees.
After a while, Damian whispers, “Thank you.”
Tim smiles, not looking at him. “Anytime.”