Chapter Text
The argument had been building for hours.
Tim could trace it back to the coffee cups first — the stack of them on his desk, cold and forgotten, three days' worth of caffeine and panic masquerading as productivity. Then the tremble in his hands, the way his vision blurred at the edges when he moved his head too fast, the constant low-grade hum of exhaustion that had stopped being a feeling and started being a permanent state of existence. The community week had to be perfect.
Every schedule slot filled.
Every supply list checked.
Every rotation confirmed and reconfirmed and checked again because if something went wrong — if Tim let something go wrong — then what was the point of him? What was the point of any of it?
Damian had noticed, of course. Damian always noticed.
"The rotation for Wednesday has an overlap," he'd said, quiet and precise, the way he said everything. "Two teams assigned to the same activity. It needs adjustment."
And Tim — sleep-deprived, stretched thin, already fraying at the edges — had snapped.
"I've handled logistics before," he'd said, not looking up from the tablet. "I don't need a fourteen-year-old auditing my work."
Damian's jaw had tightened. "I was trying to help."
"I didn't ask for help."
"You never do."
And that was when it started. The low, sharp exchange that escalated the way it always did between them — years of history compressing into ten minutes of ugliness, the kind of fight that only brothers who had once hated each other could have. The others filtered out one by one. Gar gave them a nervous look. Kon raised an eyebrow at Bart, who shrugged. Cassie just shook her head.
Childish fight, their expressions seemed to say. They'll work it out.
They didn't.
"—you think I don't know what this is?" Tim's voice was ragged, exhaustion bleeding through every syllable. "You hovering. Helping. Like you're waiting for me to fail so you can take over. That's what you do, isn't it? Position yourself. Wait for the opening."
"That's not—"
"You wanted Robin? You got it! You wanted the Titans' respect? You're honorary. What's next, Damian? My team? My place in the League? Just say it."
Damian stood very still.
Tim was pacing now, running on fumes and something darker. "You don't get to walk in here and fix things like you belong. You don't get to act like we're—like this is—" He stopped. Looked at Damian. And whatever he saw made him go quieter, which was worse. "You know what? Forget it. You want to help? Leave. Go back to the manor. Be Bruce's perfect little soldier. Because the only thing you've ever been good at is taking what isn't yours."
Silence.
Damian didn't argue. Didn't snarl. Didn't throw back a single insult about Tim's failures, his guilt, his desperate need to control everything because control was the only thing that kept the grief at bay.
He just… stopped.
His face went blank in that old, trained way—the one he'd learned before Bruce, before kindness, before anyone taught him that silence wasn't always a weapon. Sometimes it was armor.
"Okay," Damian said.
Tim blinked. "What?"
Damian walked to the closet. Pulled out his blanket—the worn one Alfred had hemmed twice—and gathered his pillows. He moved calmly. Deliberately. The way someone moves when they've already decided something.
"Damian, wait—"
But Damian didn't wait. He walked out, the door shutting softly behind him. No slam. No last word. Just the quiet click of someone who had nothing left to say.
Tim stood frozen in the middle of the room.
Oh no.
The anger drained out of him instantly, replaced by cold, sick recognition. He'd crossed a line. Not the usual back-and-forth. Not the bickering. Something real. Something that had landed exactly where Damian was weakest—the old fear that he didn't belong, that he was just taking space that wasn't his, that the family tolerated him out of obligation.
Tim put his head in his hands.
Tomorrow, he told himself. I'll apologize tomorrow. Fix it.
Down the hall, Damian walked past the common room without looking in. He heard Gar say, "Uh oh," and someone else shush him.
He didn't care.
He walked to the guest room—the one he'd used years ago, back when visits to Titans Tower meant a weekend at most, before Tim had cleared out a drawer, then half the closet, then finally just said stay in my room, it's easier. The room was clean. A bed made with military corners. An empty desk. A window facing east.
Damian shut the door. Locked it.
He made the bed with his own blanket on top, arranged his pillows, and sat on the edge. The room felt foreign. Sterile. He'd outgrown this space. Outgrown being a guest in Tim's world or maybe he'd never actually been anything else —just someone who always took from Tim— and tonight was just the night he finally understood it.
He's right, Damian thought. Not with anger. With something quieter, heavier.
He lay down without changing clothes. Stared at the ceiling.
He didn't cry. He'd stopped crying years ago.
But somewhere around 3 AM, he decided: he would finish the community week. He would be professional. He would not cause friction or draw attention. And when it was over, he would quietly remove himself from the Titans entirely. No confrontation. No letter explaining himself—why would he leave a trace for someone who didn't want him there?
Drake wanted him gone.
So Damian would go.
Tim woke up on his own bed—he'd crashed in his clothes, tablet still clutched to his chest—and the first thing he did was reach for his phone.
No messages from Damian.
"I messed up," he announced at the kitchen. "Bad."
Kon looked at him. "Yeah. We heard."
"Walls aren't that thick, dude." Bart appeared behind Kon, uncharacteristically subdued. "We thought you two would cool off. But he left for the orphanage an hour ago. Took the early transport. Wouldn't wait for anyone."
Cassie crossed her arms. "He looked right through me when I said good morning. Like I wasn't there."
Tim closed his eyes.
The week hadn't even started yet.