Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The horizon is bleeding pink, announcing a new day.

Bruce Wayne curses the dawn. It means he was away from his sons all night, again. He knows his sons had seen the news, a shootout in the bowery, and they would have understood he wasn’t going to make it to dinner. And Bruce hadn’t, having spent all night patching up bullet wounds at the clinic.

When he makes it home, he is handed a steaming cup of coffee by Alfred. It’s like Alfred knew what Bruce wanted before Bruce had even known. Alfred always knows.

“How was your night, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks.

“Hmm…” Bruce grunts as he collapses at the dining table. The table still holds the utter destruction of his four sons having breakfast on a weekday. There’s a fair chance that Stephanie and Barbara may have joined them as well. It certainly isn’t uncommon and Bruce doesn’t mind. The more the merrier.

“Eloquent as ever, Master Bruce.”

Alfred brings Bruce some buttered toast, clearly not trusting Bruce to stay awake long enough to wait for anything more complex to be prepared.

“Master Damian is concerned you may have forgotten his art-showcase on Friday evening,” Alfred says as he begins to clear the table around Bruce.

Bruce grunts around a mouthful of toast. He had forgotten. He hadn’t forgotten that Damian had an upcoming showcase, just that it was happening on Friday, as in two-days-away-Friday. Bruce will be there. He doesn’t care if he has to move heaven and earth, but he will be there for his youngest son.

“And I’m certain you remember the Wayne Enterprises board meeting tomorrow?”

Bruce grunts again, thinking he’ll take Timothy. Tim will enjoy it. Or at least he’ll enjoy terrorising the board executives, anyway. Timothy probably knows more about the business that anyone in that boardroom and he isn’t afraid to show it. Tim is a genius.

“Get some sleep, Master Wayne,” Alfred says.

“Thank you, Alfred,” Bruce manages.

He stumbles up the stairs to his room.

He passes Dick’s bedroom, door left open to reveal the complete disaster of his oldest son’s room. The hardwood floor has disappeared under a layer of discarded clothes, magazines and sweet-wrappers. The king size four-poster’s sheets are rumpled and twisted, covered in smears of gold body-glitter. The giant framed poster advertising Haly’s Circus hangs on a wall otherwise plastered with pictures of Dick and his friends alongside the odd softcore pornography poster of bikini-clad woman on motorcycles.

Dick’s room looks just like it did when he was a teenager, only even more photos on the walls and different clothes on the floor. This room has never been tidy for more than five minutes. Alfred has long since given up this particular fight, only instructing the maids to regularly change Dick’s bedsheets and clean his ensuite, and leaving the rest as is.

Bruce is just glad Dick is back in Gotham, messy room and all.

The door to Jason’s door is firmly shut. Jason keeps his door shut, both when he is at home and isn’t. Bruce knows Jason is at work. Bruce knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t resist opening the door and taking a peek. Even empty of Jason, the room is reassuring in it’s…lived-in-ness. A person lives here, a living person is here. Bruce’s son is alive and well.

The small signs of an ongoing life are everywhere. Novels, bookmarked with scraps of paper, are stacked on the bedside table. The armchair next to Jason’s haphazardly made bed holds a few errant pieces of clothing, probably not clean enough for the cupboard nor dirty enough for the hamper yet. Dirty coffee mugs sit on Jason’s desk, neon post-it-notes stuck around the computer screen and papers scattered over the desk. It’s all there, waiting for Jason to get back this evening.

Bruce’s children are okay.

The kids are alright.

Chapter Text

Tim Drake has no spleen. He had lost it in The Accident. The doctors had said it was miracle that he had survived and was (mostly) intact.

Miracle or not, it is something he only really thinks about when other people are sick. An example being now, as his lecturer blows their nose for the third time in as many minutes. Tim is very glad that he kept his mask on.

The lecturer coughs mid-sentence, spittle flying everywhere. Tim decides a boring lecture (that Tim has already mostly covered by reading ahead) is not worth the risk of getting sick. Especially because it might be Covid-19. Tim closes his laptop, gathers his things and leaves.

Tim is relieved to be out in the fresh air, speeding down the street on his skateboard. He just manages to swerve a group of students, probably freshman, that have gathered to chat in the road.

As he enters the parking lot, he spots Jason getting onto his bike. He guesses Jason was on campus to speak to his supervisor. Between Jason’s Masters and his internship, the family doesn’t see him much. Tim feels a bit like he’s spotted a celebrity.

Jason clearly spots Tim as well, flipping Tim the bird. Tim chooses to believe it’s a sign of affection. Tim flips it right back at Jason.

Tim gets into his own car as Jason speeds off. Tim loves driving the Lamborghini, thrilled at the sheer amount of power at his command. The only thing that stops Tim from just flooring it everywhere, all the time, is he knows Bruce is one more speeding ticket away from grounding Tim for the rest of Tim’s natural life.

As Tim is driving home, his phone rings. His car’s Bluetooth system tells him it’s Steph. Tim lets it ring. He doesn’t know what to say to Steph at the moment.

Steph is one of Tim’s best friends, regardless of if they’re together or not. He’s always loved her and always will. And, right now, that’s part of the problem. Tim feels like he’s lying to Steph. Okay, not lying exactly. But…they know everything about each other and he hasn’t told her about…well…he isn’t even sure how to put it into words yet.

Being a person is just so complicated sometimes. Tim thinks he’d prefer to be some algae, the pretty bioluminescent kind. It seems far simpler.

Chapter Text

Father was not there. Everyone but father seemed to make it to Damian’s art show. Even Drake and Brown made it. Although the two of the were acting a little peculiar, even by Drake’s non-existent standards. They did not talk to each other. Brown socialized with Todd while Drake lurked around Grayson and Gordon.

Aside from Father’s absence, it had been quite an enjoyable evening. Damian refuses to let anything ruin that, especially something as juvenile as wanting his father. He knows Father would have been there if he could. And that’s enough. It has to be.

On nights like tonight, Damian misses his mother. Mother always kept her word. He wonders, not for the first time, how it would have been if Damian had been allowed to stay with Mother. Logically, he knows it’s an impossibility. Mother had to send him away for his safety. But he still wonders sometimes.

Things could have been different.

But pondering does little to change the facts. And these are the simple facts; Mother met Father in Switzerland. Mother was there for a diplomatic conference and Father was there for a medical conference. They became…close. And then Damian was born. Mother claims that Damian was her baby, not Father’s, and so she did not tell Father about Damian.

And then, when Damian was ten, rebels tried to murder his family. It was a mockery of a coup, staged by a tiny faction of insurrectionists. Despite their incompetence, it spooked Mother. She decided Damian would come and live with his Father in Gotham, at least until Damian was old enough to rule in his own right.

And America...was a very long way from home.

So, late that night, Damian does what he does when he misses his mother. He prepares Chai the way his mother does, brewing a mix of black tea, spices and milk in a pot on the stove. He’s never seen his mother cook but she used to make tea, just like this, for Damian. Mother had learnt to make it as a child from her favourite nanny, her aya.
Pennyworth comes down to the kitchen in his dressing down. He seems entirely unsurprised to find Damian here. Pennyworth seems to have a sixth sense for when people are in his kitchen.

Just like the first time Pennyworth found Damian brewing tea in the kitchen, Pennyworth quietly sits with him and they drink tea together. Damian hadn’t expected Alfred to like it, thinking of all the Earl Grey the old butler drunk. When asked, Pennyworth explained he had spent some time in both Kenya and India as a young man. In both countries, according to Pennyworth, people drink a brew not dissimilar from the one Damian had made.

Drinking tea with Pennyworth always makes it feel like, just maybe, Damian can actually survive this obnoxious, strange country. Damian doesn’t know what he would do without Pennyworth.

Chapter Text

Jason Todd showers in the dark. He doesn’t like to be naked. The scars on his skin remind him that he shouldn’t be alive.

After the explosion, he flat-lined in the ambulance. A paramedic defied death with nothing but determination and a defibrillator. Then doctors fought for Jason’s life on an operating table. Jason fought just as hard and, impossibly, he survived.

Jason tries not to think about it but he still relives it all in his dreams. Bruce and Jason were in Qurac for a medical convention (Qurac was pioneering a revolutionary neurosurgical procedure). Jason had stayed behind at the hotel that day, wanting to sleep in before spending the day reading at the pool. Unfortunately, terrorists had picked that same day for their recently planted bomb to go off.

Twenty-seven members of hotel staff, three German tourists, six British students, a Kenyan celebrity (along with their accompanying entourage) and a fourteen-year-old American boy were found in the rubble of the hotel.

The fourteen-year-old American boy, Jason Todd, spent years recovering. He had to learn how to do everything again, everything from swallowing his food to reading and writing.

And when Jason came home…there was a skinny, paper-white kid sprawled across Jason’s favourite reading chair. It had taken Jason a second to recognise Tim Drake, who seemed to have made himself more than at home.

It turns out that instead of visiting Jason at the hospital (only Alfred had visited Jason), Bruce had gone and adopted another child. (A new one to replace the broken one, a nasty voice chanted in the back of Jason’s head).

And, of all the kids, of course it just had to be Timothy fucking Drake.

Jason remembers Tim from Before. He was a pale, silent kid who used to follow Dick and Jason around at galas. The weirdo wouldn’t say a word, he was just there. Jason is also almost certain he spotted the kid following Bruce, Dick and Jason around town. Dick and Bruce didn't take Jason seriously. But Jason knows what he saw.

Dick used to say that Tim was harmless, just lonely. Jason struggled to feel any sympathy for the kid when his parents were mega-loaded. Jason figured the weirdo should just go make some friends, it wasn’t hard. And Jason did feel a little empathy when he heard that Tim’s parents died. But then again, Bruce had signed the adoption papers before the bodies were even cold.

Everyone was congregated around Tim in the lounge like this was part of their usual routine. Dick was plonking at the piano, doing a rather optimistic rendition of Hot Cross Buns while Babs flicked through a magazine.

When Alfred came in with a tea tray, they finally noticed Jason standing in the doorway, leaning on his crutch, and looked at Jason like he was the stranger.

For weeks, both Dick and Babs were awkward around Jason, not quite meeting his eyes and making stilted small talk. There weren’t any witty quips from Dick. Jason would have given his left leg (it was the worse of the two) for Dick to make just one shitty pun and flip out of smacking range like he used to. Instead, Dick kept offering to go and get him things like juice, books and blankets.

Bruce was somehow never around, always working at the clinic whenever Jason was awake. Tim, however, was always around. Tim was everywhere. Despite living in a literal mansion, Tim seemed to be around every goddamned corner.

Jason had finally exploded at Dick, hoping to get a rise out of him. Anything to just have Dick not treat him like some kind of estranged, fragile relative. Jason had called Dick a string of colourful adjectives. And Dick just looked helpless, like a kicked puppy before apologizing and retreating to his pigsty of a room.

Unsatisfied, Jason picked a fight with Tim next. He knows it wasn’t fair, or kind or even rational. But Jason was so goddamn angry. He wanted everything to be like it used to be. He wanted this kid out of his house. Jason told him as much, before throwing a pillow at the kid. And then another one. When he was out of pillows he threw the fancy shit on the sideboard.

He expects Tim, vampire pale and born with a silver spoon up his ass, to be precious about it; maybe swear, or threaten to tell or even cry. Instead this tiny scrap of a teenager told him where he can stick it and starts swinging. They fight.

Jason’s big and Tim discovers the hard way that Jason has a nasty left hook. But, as Jason learns, the kid fights like a feral animal. It’s all claws and sharp edges with nothing held back. Tim’s also a biter (nearly ripping Jason’s ear off). They roll around, slamming each other onto walls and pummelling each other down the corridor. They knock over more expensive shit.

It turns out Tim’s just as angry as Jason (just way more repressed and probably even more deeply in need of therapy than Jason, which is impressive in its own fucked up way).

Something about the fight just…it’s like it let some steam out of the pressure cooker, it made things more bearable for Jason. It also helped seeing that Tim wasn’t a shiny, perfect replacement kid. The replacement was secretly fucking feral, desperate and vicious like the kids Jason had met on the street.

Jason redecorates his room. He finds a boxing gym downtown where he can put that right hook to use. And he throws himself back into academics. He pursues his passions, studying literature, law and Social Work at Gotham U. He goes on to get his Master’s degree in Social Work and interns (it’s really volunteering but with more credit) with the Martha Wayne Foundation.

He keeps himself busy and things get easier.

Then Bruce drops the bombshell of his bio kid. He does it in typical Bruce fashion, grunting a bit and leaving Alfred to do the explaining.

Jason was too busy to do more than trade the odd insult with the baby brat. The kid was clearly trying to get under everyone’s skin but Jason just didn’t have the time.

Tim on the other hand…one thing Jason can respect about Tim is that it’s On Sight with that kid. He and Damian have a vicious fight, Damian stabbing Tim (with a switch blade he found fuck knows where) and Tim nearly ripping out Damian’s jugular with his bare teeth. Unlike Jason and Tim, it doesn’t get better. Whenever left unsupervised, Tim and Damian will draw blood.

So, Dick supervises Damian. Dick stops taking Tim on their weekly trips to the arcade, instead spending every free moment taking Damian somewhere (probably in an effort to stop a double homicide). It’s after Dick blows Tim off for the third time in a week, changing plans yet again right at the last minute, that Jason caves.

Jason takes Tim boxing with him. And Tim takes to it like a fish to water. It becomes part of their routine. Although any new sparring partners of Tim’s have to be warned about his inclination to spit out his gum guard and bite anything in reach when he’s losing. (For a long time, Jason is the only one who will spar with Tim).

The boxing gym is where Tim meets Steph. Suddenly Tim doesn’t need Jason as a sparring partner, instead preferring to get his ass kicked by the pretty blonde. (Jason suspects there’s plenty of biting still going on, just not in the ring anymore).

Roy Harper comes to Gotham on a bender. Jason knows Roy needs serious help, like rehab-help. But Dick’s always been the serious-help-sibling. So, Jason keeps Roy company while he circles rock bottom.

Roy and Jason are out clubbing, at exactly the kind of place Dick would like. Jason is so busy keeping an eye out for his older brother that he nearly misses his younger one. Tim is in a dark corner, sucking face with a blonde. It is a blonde, but it isn’t the signature-purple-clad-tougher-than-hell Stephanie Brown. No, it’s some bland white boy that Jason has never seen before in his life.

Jason Todd decides it’s none of his business and gets back to his train wreck. Roy has just done a line of coke and looks ready to pick a fight with anything that has a pulse.

Roy disappears, reappears, does a stint in rehab, relapses and celebrates six months sober by accidentally setting his shitty apartment on fire. Jason’s familiar enough with addicts to just weather the ups and downs as best as he can. It also helps that Jason’s incredibly fond of this particular addict, with his tacky tattoos, ancient baseball cap and deeply misused genius level IQ.

Tim, unfortunately, makes the club incident Jason’s business. Tim and Jason are sparring on the home-gym matts when Tim suddenly blurts, “I’m Bi.”

“Congrats,” Jason says, before sucker punching the kid. It’s not Jason’s fault if the kid left himself open. Tim retaliates by jamming a sharp knee into Jason’s groin.

“That’s it?” Tim asks, slamming Jason into the matt.
“Dude, do you want a cake?” Jason suspects he’s fucking this up. But he doesn’t know what to say.

“You’re the first person I’ve told,” Tim says, as Jason gets up. “And I just want to make sure we’re cool.”

“Oh,” Jason says. And he pushes himself to try and convey his affection for Tim; “Yeah, Timbo, we’re good. Thanks for telling me. And it’s cool that you’re figuring yourself out, you know?”

“Okay,” Tim says. He seems satisfied enough as he blocks a string of Jason’s punches.

Jason thinks he maybe didn’t totally fuck it up. And that's all he really wants to do these days, is not make things worse for the people he's fond of.

Chapter Text

Dick Grayson wants to scream. He feels like he has had this scream building in him ever since he watched his parents fall. The scream is one of pure rage, of uncountable repetitions of it’s-not-fair, crammed so tightly together that it just sounds like a scream.

And there are all these great silences that he would like to fill up with that scream; the quiet of Wayne manner, the mute void left by the absence of all those loud circus performers who adored Dick, and the heavy silence around his parent’s death. Nobody talks about it. It’s like they died twice. They died once in the fall and then they died again when people stopped talking about them.

So Dick talks. Instead of screaming, he talks. He talks about his parents to his new family, he talks to his friends about the circus, and he talks to strangers about whatever they want to talk about. If he stops talking, the silence will devour him. He’d let that scream escape. And if he started screaming, he would never stop.

He also talks beautiful people into his bed. And it’s another way to fill the silence, seeing what sounds he can tease out of them on the sheets. Many of them come back for another round, some of them don’t, and the rest become some of his closest friends. (Although, for some reason, they all tell him to clean his room. It’s very un-sexy of them and super unnecessary. His room is fine. It just looks like that).

This is how things go until he meets Catalina, the zoologist who’s super into arachnids. She’s into some things that are even a little too much for Dick (and he’s kinky as hell). He changes his mind halfway through. She doesn’t stop. And there’s nothing he can do with his appendages tied to the bedposts.

Afterwards, he showers longer and more often. He doesn’t tell anyone. If he tells them, he knows what word he’ll have to use. He doesn’t want to. Because that’s not what happened to him. It was just a bad sexual experience, not the “R” word. Bad sexual experiences happen. But that other thing. How can he even try to equate his experience to the bleeding, terrified, and sometimes angry, survivors he sometimes helps at work?

As a paramedic, he always, always tells the survivors that it wasn’t their fault, no matter what. So, he tells himself the same thing, and he moves on. What else can he do?

Afterwards, he spends a lot of time in Gotham. He comes through whenever he has time off from work in Bludhaven. There is always noise in Gotham manner these days, nothing like when Dick was a kid. Between Tim and Damian fighting tooth and nail, or Jason and Tim playing too-loud video games, or Steph and Jason’s lively debates there is always somehow someone yelling their heads off. It’s perfect.

Well, just in terms of keeping Dick out of his own head, it’s perfect. He’d prefer it if he didn’t spend his weekends patching Tim and Damian up. He also can’t help but notice Tim seems to be avoiding Dick, which usually means Tim is keeping a secret. He just hopes Tim didn’t break any major laws this time. And Damian…

Damian is busy with his art and his chess-club, but he seems lonely. Damian’s best friend lives in Metropolis, and they only really see each other on long-weekends and holidays. Damian made a few more friends at camp last summer, but they mostly video call each other on the weekends.

Dick’s glad Damian at least made some friends, because the Titans summer camp had been a disaster. Dick, Tim, and, briefly, Jason had all gone at one point or another, and Dick had occasionally worked as a counsellor when he got older. The camp was not Damian’s idea of a good time. It didn’t help that Damian had been convinced it was some kind of punishment (it was only Bruce’s idea of a punishment; other kids were ready to sell off organs to be able to go again).

So, Dick is worried about Damian. And he’s worried about Tim. And he’s worried about Jason (but that’s just a given, really). Dick wonders if he needs to be worried about Steph. Surely not. Probably not. He should check in with her.

Chapter Text

Steph misses Cass. Cass is away at ballet school and, sure, Steph calls her nearly every day but she still misses Cass. Cass is, and always has been, her favorite Wayne. Jason is a close second.

Jason is staying up with her while she studies for tomorrow’s test. He’s working on his own coursework on the other sofa, papers and laptop balanced in his lap. The tv plays a bad soap opera in the background to keep them company. Steph has learnt that these are Jason’s ideal working conditions (companionship and background noise).

Steph likes studying at Wayne manor. They have good WiFi, plentiful snacks, and someone willing to be bullied-bribed into being a study-buddy or proof-reader. At home there are loud neighbors, noisy streets, and shitty WiFi stolen from the previously mentioned loud neighbors.

She likes the manor in general. She loves the quiet, the space and the occasional chaos. Tim never got how lucky he is to have a house full of people who love him. She tried explaining it to him when they started dating and she'd stay over, but he had pointed out that Bruce and Dick were never around, Jason enjoyed punching him, and Damian was actively trying to kill him. He may have had a point. But it still seemed way better than her house.

Tim shuffles into the family lounge, carrying his tablet and can of Monster. They look at each other for an awkward moment before Tim backs away.

“Wait,” Steph says. He shakes his head, walking away. She dumps her books and laptop onto the sofa and goes after Tim. They need to talk. They’ve been needing to talk for weeks. “Tim!”

He’s doing an awkward i’m-not-running-because-that-would-be-too-offensive-but-i-want-to walk. She scrambles after him, wanting him to stop but not actually wanting to manhandle him into stopping. For her trouble, Steph gets a bedroom door firmly shoved in her face.

“Tim,” she says to the bedroom door. “This isn’t fair.” And it isn’t. She’s trying to be the bigger person here. Tim is (was?) her best friend. She has a few class friends from college but it’s not enough to even come close to Tim and her friendship. She’s lonely.

She also doesn’t really want to fight. All they did for the last few weeks of their relationship was fight. They should have broken up way before they did. It might have been easier to salvage the friendship then. Instead it all curdled into resentment and frustration and screaming fights. She can already feel that old annoyance resurfacing.

“You don’t get to do this,” she shouts, hitting the door. ‘Don’t cut me off. It’s not fair that you’re making me feel like the bad guy. It’s hella manipulative.” What she says next is cruel, she knows, but she can’t seem to stop herself, “You’re just like your mom.”

And the door swings open, “What the fuck, Steph?”

She should apologize. Instead she says, “Why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not,” he picks at a thread coming off the oversized sweatshirt that looks suspiciously like Jason’s.

“So what were you doing just now?”

He sighs, pushing his too-long hair out of his face. Steph remembers when they followed a TikTok to cut each other’s bangs. He should do that again, he looked really good. “Steph…I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh,” Steph says. “Do I know her? Is that why you’re avoiding me?”

“Him,” Tim says. “And kind-of. It’s Bernard.”

“Like the one you went to high school with?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you guys start dating? Before or after the break up?”

“After, Steph. Very much so after.”

“And…” Steph finds herself pausing to try and figure out how to ask this. “...Are you…did you…you were into me right?”

“Super,” Tim says. “Well, maybe a little less so right at the end.”

“Samsies,” Steph says. And, because she knows she’s going to have to talk to someone about this, she asks, “Who else knows? About Bernard, I mean.”

“So far, just Jason,” Tim says. “But it’s not a secret. Well…I mean I don’t want Bruce to find out from someone else.”

“Okay,” Steph says.

“Are we okay?”

‘Always,” Steph says. Only after she says it does she realize that she’d lied. They’re not okay, but Steph doesn’t have a clue how to verbalize why.