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The silence between all three barely lasts a second long worth of the video playing before them.
“Uh, should we call child services?” Tim asks, wincing with sympathy at a particular hard punch that has Damian crying out in both pain and surprise. “Or should we just, down right kidnap the kid and figure something out on the go?”
Next to him, Jason clicks his tongue, arms crossed as he watches the fight unfold on the big screen of the batcomputer.
“Nah, this is probably just another Batman versus Robin shenanigan thing. We all had, like, four of those during our time as Robin.”
“I didn't.” Tim scrunches his nose, bewildered.
“And that's why you are called ‘faker’, Faker.”
Dick sighs and opts to stay out of the argument as Tim delivers his counter attack in the form of a punch. Instead, he zooms in the video recording he managed to extract from the batcave security footage.
It hadn’t been odd when they came back from their annual survival training across the globe in a goddamn remote island to a silent batcave, even less to a quiet manor upstairs.
Heck, it hadn’t even been odd to see the damage on several areas of the batcave, knowing how competitive their youngest brother gets during training, especially when paired with Bruce.
The alarm in their head had gone off the moment they saw several marks of dried blood splattered all over the floor. Small and uneven portions but blood nonetheless.
That’s how they knew the batcave, and at least two of their family members, had been compromised in some way, since Bruce always draws back at the first sight of blood during their training or sparring sessions, something that never fails to rile Damian up.
Which is why Dick can’t look away from the video and the man he watches beat his baby brother as if he was a parasite to be disposed of. He refuses to believe the man on the screen is the same man that raised him as his own and became his another father to him.
Dick is trying to put together the pieces by analyzing every move from both Damian and Bruce. He hadn’t been able to see clearly what Bruce had tried to do to Damian when he had sneaked on the kid from behind but it hardly mattered when the next second Bruce had gone all out and started to treat Damian like a rag doll.
Once the star-shaped parasite crawls out of Bruce's mouth, though, it's easy to piece it all together.
Jason makes a gagging noise behind Dick, dry heaving as he covers his mouth and looks away from the screen.
“That’s disgusting.” He spats, nose scrunched as the starfish-like alien nests itself and covers Bruce’s entire face. “Puaj, that’s one of the grossest things I have ever seen and I’ve seen Timbo after a week with no sleep.”
“Stop making that noise, you’re gonna make me hurl.” Tim complains, grunting and cursing under his breath as he tries to break free from Jason’s hold around his neck. “Jason! Let go of me already!”
“Is this what happens when we take a vacation?” Jason asks, bluntly ignoring Tim and tightening his hold instead.
“It wasn’t a vacation; it was a rigorous isolated training.” Dick reminds him without looking away from the screen.
“That's a vacation in our vocabulary.”
“This is what happens when we are deprived of technology.” Tim huffs, finally gathering the right angle to break himself free from his brother’s hold.
He limits himself to flip his brother off as vengeance in favor of gathering more data on the issue at hand.
“I told you all it wasn’t a good idea but did anyone listen to Tim? No and here we are.”
“You’ve got to admit it’s hilarious the way that the one time we take a vacation, aliens decide to invade us.” Jason hums, sparing a quick glance at the several muted videos from news channels and articles in every language related to the star-shaped crawler Tim managed to pull up within seconds.
Dick looks away from the recording for the first time to read from the article’s headlines, the knot inside his chest tightening at the blurry images of the watchtower’s structure falling from the sky.
“Oh, shit.” Jason hisses behind him and Dick barely has time to glance back at the video and see the moment a very much controlled-by-an-alien-parasite-Bruce throws their brother off the batcave’s lowest platform before the video is cut off with parasite-Bruce walking away.
Dick’s breath hitches, fingers twitching anxiously as he stares before he whips his head towards the ledge his baby brother had been thrown off, merely a few feet from where he stands.
All three race towards it in record time.
“Damian¡?” Dick calls, swallowing down his panic as he reminds himself his brother is no ordinary twelve-years-old. Still. That’s his brother.
“Yo, Damian! Are you alive down there!?” Jason shouts next to him, leaning over the edge as he cups his hands on either side of his mouth and peers down. “Tater-tot, shouts back if you’re alive because I refuse to make a trip to hell’s living room only to be for nothing and find out you had been dead all along.”
A deadpanned ‘I’m fine’ answers him and the three of them whip their heads towards the other side of the batcave, one platform above theirs, where the sight of a big towering figure hovers over a small limping one greets them anticlimactically.
“Oh, he’s alive then.” Jason hums, hands on his hips. His shoulders, along Dick and Tim’s, sagging with relief. “Hey, B, still got Patrick star inside you?”
Tim scrunches his nose. “That sounds so wrong.”
“No, Jason.” Bruce deadpans, his voice hoarse and low.
“Are you guys okay?” Dick asks, jogging to catch up with the pair as they make their way towards the med-bay, both Jason and Tim not far behind him.
Already with the cowl down, Bruce grunts and grimaces when Damian stumbles on a step, hands anxiously hovering over his youngest since the kid continues to swat them away with a glare.
“I’m perfectly fine.” Damian answers for his part, inhaling sharply as he misses another step and almost topples over.
Four different pairs of arms dart out to reach him but only one of them catches him, being ready for the job hours ago.
“Perfectly fine.” Damian insists nonchalantly even as he’s, finally, cradled carefully in his father’s arms.
Three pairs of eyes stare blankly at him and immediately turn to lock eyes with Bruce, who welcomes them with a small sigh before he starts listing the injuries on their youngest.
The start of the list has Tim hissing in sympathy. Halfway through the list has Dick hovering over Damian, a worried and concerned frown on his lips as he gently peels the kid’s domino mask off his face.
By the end of it, Jason is the one that lets out a long low whistle while crossing his arms, giving Damian’s injuries a brief look of his own over Dick’s shoulder.
“Mostly perfectly fine.” Damian amends begrudgingly, a light embarrassed flush on his cheeks as he’s carefully placed in one of the medbay’s cots.
“Did Starfish-Bruce do all of that then?” Jason asks, looking at Bruce while pointing at Damian.
Bruce grimaces painfully and all three of them are able to see the already rooted guilt that has claimed its place in Bruce’s chest in the way his gaze grows dark.
“Regretfully.” Bruce grunts through tight lips and sighs when Damian scoffs.
“There’s hardly a bruise from you from all this, Father, cease your unrequired guilt,” he says, sparing his father an exasperated look. “This is nothing any of us wouldn’t come out with from a typical training session.”
“I would agree, kid, if we were in the League of Shadows,” Jason says, hands on his hips. “Which we — and that includes you — are not.”
Damian pauses, the reminder of such a simple fact throwing him out of the loop for the briefest moment before he snaps himself off it and clicks his tongue.
“My point stands,” he says, stubborn to admit defeat of any form. The rest of them let him have it this time. Damian turns to Bruce as he adds, “I still believe we should upgrade Superman’s contingency plan, Father. He is quite the adversary and the kryptonite ring narrowly made due.”
“Hold on, what does that mean?” Tim asks, holding up his hand. Bruce sighs and pinches the bridge between his eyes.
“Superman was also infected as I was —” Bruce starts to explain but he’s cut off by Jason.
“Hold up there. Kid, you got your ass kicked by this guy,” Jason says, looking at Damian while pointing at Bruce with his thumb. “How the hell did you fight Superman?”
Damian tilts his head back, a smug smirk on his lips. “What? Like it’s hard?”
“Is this his concussion talking?” Tim enquires doubtfully, eyebrow arched in both worry and surprise. “No way he fought against the Superman.”
“Of course I did. Jon was barely a match for him so we had to switch adversaries. “
“Who the fuck is Jon?”
Jasons’s question is ignored. “And besides, Jon was useless since he couldn’t hold the kryptonite, for obvious reasons I believe I won’t have to explain —”
“No, seriously, who the fuck is Jon?” Jason asks in a whisper, leaning close to Tim’s side as they let their youngest continue his rant.
“Wasn’t that the turkey’s name?” Tim answers just as quietly, narrowing his eyes at his little brother who throws them a glare in return.
“No, that’s Jerry.” Dick tells them, pushing himself into their sudden investigation while crouching down next to Damian when the kid hops off the cot with a huff, despite Bruce and Dick’s clear and loud disapproval.
Jason arches an eyebrow. “The cow?”
“Batcow.” Tim replies.
“The cat?”
“Alfred.”
“The ferret then?”
Bruce lifts his head up, his frown confused. “We don’t have a ferret.”
“Todd, you insufferable buffon, shut up!” Damian hisses. Jason takes it as a ‘no’.
“Imaginary friend, then?” He arches an eyebrow.
“As if!” Damian scoffs loudly, throwing his shoulders back to stand straighter but the illusion breaks as soon as he gasps in pain and curls over himself, right arm hugging his middle.
“Woah, easy, Tater-tot.” Jason hisses as he steps forwards but pauses when Dick and Bruce beat him to it and hold the kid up. Tim silently steps to the side to gather some medical supplies from the cabinets with a shake of his head.
“Jon’s Superman’s son.” Bruce explains bluntly, focusing on the matter at hand. There’ll be time to talk about the ferret later. “Damian met him yesterday and then this entire thing happened. Both Justice League and Teen Titans were involved and infected as well…”
Dick furrows his eyebrows in concern, filling in the gaps. “So it was only you and Jon against this entire invasion?”
Damian grunts, slowly righting himself between his brother and father’s arms. “Hn, we were more than enough.”
“Damian —“
“It’s fine. We’re fine.” Damian almost whines in exasperation before he takes a deep breath and tilts his head back as he tries to regulate his own pain by sheer will. “It’s — okay. We saved everyone. We saved the world.”
“By crashing the Watchtower into Earth with the two of them still inside.” Bruce supplies flatly, catching his eldest’s son’s gaze. Dick nods and takes on Damian’s entire weight easily, letting Bruce join Tim, helping with the supplies.
“What — that was you!?” Jason splutters, pointing at the still running but muted news shows on the several open windows in the computer that repeat the video of the watchtower going up in flames in the sky.
“You were inside that thing!?” Tim yelps bewildered, half of the medical drawers open next to him.
Damian smirks and pressing his hand on his uninjured hip and repeats his early statement, “I saved the world.”
All four pairs of eyes stare at him.
Tim sighs. “We’ve got to set your priorities straight, little D.”
“You’re, also, insane.”
“That’s what they usually call genuineness who are surrounded by idiots." Damian defends himself, trying to push his chest with pride but wincing mid action. Dick frowns in disapproval next to him.
“Stop that.” He scolds slightly, holding him closer from the side. “Damian, stop moving already.”
“I’m fine.” Damian grumbles.
“You’re not fine.” Dick tells him, unamused.
“I’m mostly fine!”
“You’re not mostly fine.” Jason deadpans.
“I’m basically —”
“Give it up already, you gremlin.” Time scoffs as he closes the drawers and steps closer, leaving most of the supplies on the table near the cot. He turns to Bruce as he does the same thing with the few extra supplies he gathered himself. “Do you want me to go get Alfred —?”
Damian inhales sharply, whipping his head towards Tim with wide eyes.
“Shiiit.” Damian mumbles to himself with a small wince. “Uh, Father? I might have…shoved Pennyworth inside our contingency reinforced safe room inside the library earlier on the day…”
“You what.” Jason yelps while Tim just walks towards the batcomputer while rubbing his temple. “First child abuse now elderly abuse? Is this a genetic thing?”
“It was a precaution!” Damian defends himself, words almost leaning towards a whine. “I couldn’t risk him getting infected as well!”
“Yup, there he is.” Tim smacks his lips together, pushing some few extra buttons on the keyboard to enlarge the live video with Alfred pacing in the middle of one of their many saferooms.
They cannot hear whatever the man’s saying but it’s clear he’s not happy if the heavy scowl on his usual passive face is anything to go by.
Damian sighs, dropping his shoulders in defeat. “How many essays will I have to write this time regarding good behavior?”
“I’m sure he’s just worried for you.” Bruce hums, gently cupping the back of his son’s head in reassurance. “I will still wager a deal for you, if the moment arises.”
Damian nods, grateful. “Very well. I mean, after all, I saved —”
“You saved the world, we get it.” Jason rolls his eyes with a smirk. “You ain’t getting a medal, stop beggin’ for it.”
Damian scrunches his nose. “I should.”
“I can 3D print you one later.” Tim waves him off and Damian relents with a roll of eyes.
“Real talk now,” Jason says with a grin. “Share with the class, how was your first alien invasion?”
Damian clicks his tongue. “Uneventful, truly,” he says, throwing a small but wicked grin back at his brothers who snort at the answer.
“That’s our baby bat!” Jason laughs victorious, softening his momentum when high fiving his kid brother, who reciprocates with a faux annoyed huff.
“What a daredevil.” Dick teases, shaking his head in faux exasperation before he kneels down and gently brings Damian into a hug. “I'm glad you’re okay, lil’ D. I’m sorry we couldn’t back you up when you needed us.”
Any other day, the kid would have made a boisterous declaration on how there’s no proven source whatsoever that shows he could ever need the help of the likes of any of them. In the past, present, or future.
However, the lack of response and the way Damian all but sags on Dick’s arms, tells them just how tired he must be to put up with the tough act he has kept on for who knows how long now.
Dick’s eyes grow softer, if a little mournful, and meet both his brothers’ and dad’s gaze that share his turmoiled emotions.
“Would have been nice.” Damian admits quietly, pressing his forehead against Dick’s collarbone. “Had it handled but for a moment…”
“Yeah, we get it.” Jason sighs, crouching down next to the pair and brushing the kids hair back despite the remaining sticky slime on it. “Got you covered now, Dames. It's okay.”
“Let’s fix you up, yeah?” Dick asks softly, sharing a glance with Bruce who just nods.
“I’ll go get Alfred. Get your brother ready for him, please,” he says and pauses for a moment before he steps closer. “Damian, son?”
Damian looks up. “Yes, Father?”
Bruce crouches in front of him, carefully cupping his son’s face, mindful of the colorful bruises on it.
“I’m proud of you.” He reminds him quietly, making sure his son’s green meets his blue as he adds, “I’m sorry you had to experience all of this on your own, I’ll do better in the future.”
“I can give you a report with my feedback regarding your performance, Father.” Damian says faintly, blinking owlishly at the show of affection. Bruce smiles fondly.
“I would appreciate that, thank you.” He chuckles, caressing his son’s cheek. “And thank you for saving me, Habibi. I love you.”
Damian’s lips quiver for a brief heartbeat before he swallows thickly and replies with a quiet, “Y-yeah. Me…me too, Baba.”
Bruce’s smile grows wider, as does the guilt and pain in his gaze. All three older boys just know it will be a while, if ever, before their dad begins to forgive himself for this entire event.
Bruce drops a quick but solid kiss on Damian’s temple, mumbling a last ‘love you’ before he straightens up and heads towards the elevator. All four brothers watch him go until the door closes. The oldest three turn back to their youngest with a grin.
“Timbo and I will get the cinema room ready. Some videogames and movies will fix you right up,” Jason says, poking Damian on the cheek, carefully avoiding the growing bruise on the edge of his jaw Bruce has been caressing. “You got him, Dickiebird?”
Dick smiles, cradling Damian closer and smiling wider when the kid goes without complaint. “Yeah, I’ve got him.”
“Here, you can get started with the painkillers,” Tim says, dropping a few pills on Damian’s open palm before he nods to Dick, hands on his hips as points to the supplies stocked in the table with his chin. “Tell Alfred I already fixed up his anesthesia dose to numb the cuts that will need stitches; it’s the same one as last time since his pain tolerance is pretty high and he doesn’t like getting loopy. Oh, and also —”
Jason rolls his eyes and shoves Tim hard on the shoulder, making him squawk in surprise, efficiently shutting him off.
“Jason!”
“See you suckers then,” Jason says to Dick, saluting them mockingly as he grabs Tim by the arm and heads toward the elevator. “Howler if you need help with the little demon!”
“I claim the red control!” Damian calls after them, throwing a weak warning glare their way.
“Sure thing, kid!” Jason laughs. “You’ve earned it for tonight.”
“You saved the world, afterall.” Dick reminds him with a small laugh that has Damian smiling sheepishly now that it’s only the two of them.
“I had help.” He admits with a small shrug as he hops on the med-cot with Dick’s help. “It was…Jon was an admirable ally to have.”
“We call those ‘friends’,” Dick says softly, carefully undoing the laces on his brother’s boots. He takes both of them off before he adds, “Told you it would come to you eventually.”
“Yeah…” Damian trails off with a hum, a thoughtful look as a smile twitches on his lips. “Guess I’m not a lost cause, huh?”
“You never were, kid.” Dick reassures him, chest aching at the mere thought his brother could consider himself one. “Never.”
Damian’s eyes grow brighter and Dick manages to catch the growing dampness on them before the teen clicks his tongue en faux annoyance and turns his head with a not-so-subtle sniff.
“And for the record? I’m also so proud of you.” Dick tells him softly, rubbing his nose against his baby brother’s temple despite his grumbling. “Come on, let’s get this suit off you.”
“Richard?” Damian calls after a few minutes, the top of his uniform off. Dick’s carefully inspects every visible injury as he hums as an answer, which is enough for Damian to continue and says, “Hate to agree with Timothy on a good day but…do try to take with you at least one communicator next time you fools leave for a ‘vacation’.”
Dick sighs a small chuckle while grabbing his baby brother’s hand, squeezing it gently, both as reassurance to Damian and himself.
“Believe me, kiddo. Lesson learned.”