#cerusee

And then he feels bad for hanging up. He shoots Dick a text and then hops in Bruce’s Toyota Camry that had cost way more than it should have and yet is probably mere pocket change compared to the other cars in the garage.

The drive is short, and Tim actually wishes that it were longer, and also that this whole thing would just be over with so he could go back to brooding over the case that had been bugging Bruce last night, and the sides of him war, even as he puts the car in park and sags in the seat.

The school bell rings, and kids start to pour out.

Tim watches as Damian walks out of the front doors, towards the parking lot. Sees the exact moment Damian catches sight of the Camry. Sees the upset in his eyes that rivals the upset in Tim’s stomach.

Damian and Tim. A volatile pair. Dick’s still Batman, and Bruce is still traveling around the world being Batman, Alfred tagging along with, and Jason’s sort of okay with them, sort of not, and Tim’s sort of okay with them, too.

Sort of not.

And Damian is the sort of not.

Regardless of how much Tim has been working with Dick and Barbara and Steph and Cass again, he hasn’t really been working with Damian. Him and Damian can’t seem to mesh, and usually it’s fine, but right now—

Right now, when there’s no one else around to mediate, and there’s no choice but for the two of them to be in the same place at the same time, it’s very much not fine.

Tim’s resigned himself to his fate, though. He’s not going to talk to Damian, he’s just going to be careful and tactfully ignore the kid.

Of course, that plan goes out the window the moment another kid walks up to Damian, the sneer on his face prominent enough to match Damian on a bad day. The kid says something, and Damian doesn’t respond other than a sharp glance of reprove. The kid says something else, Damian keeps walking.

The kid pushes Damian from behind.

Tim’s out of the car before he even realizes what he’s doing.

The thing is, Damian doesn’t fall. He doesn’t really even stumble. He just steps forward with the push and turns around with a smirk on his face, an eyebrow raised the same way it’s always raised at Tim, in a is that the best you got? kind of way.

The kid doesn’t look deterred. Just annoyed. Damian just turns around and starts walking towards the parking lot again. The kid pulls his hand back and throws a punch. Tim runs, grabs the lapels of Damian’s jacket, and pulls.

Damian, who apparently hadn’t noticed him, stumbles forward into Tim’s chest.

“Drake—” Damian squawks.

“Dylan Torres, right?” Tim cuts him off with a sickeningly sweet smile to the kid who’d just tried to deck the demon child still fighting Tim’s grip. Tim lets him go the moment he’s got the other kid’s attention. “Timothy Drake-Wayne. I’m meeting with your mother next week, I believe. It’d be such a shame if she were to hear you were starting fights at school, wouldn’t it?”

The Torres kid is wide-eyed. Doesn’t say anything. Runs away.

Good.

Tim doesn’t know if he was worried for the Torres kid or for Damian. If he was worried about what would happen if it had progressed past that initial something. Just knows that there’s a weird feeling settling in his bones as he pushes (a worryingly—no, not worryingly—quiet) Damian towards the car.

They both climb in. Neither says a word for a long six minutes and seventeen seconds.

Finally, Damian asks, “Where is Grayson?”

“Work.”

Damian scowls. “I could have handled that by myself.”

“I know,” Tim says, because he does.

And he doesn’t understand why he’d rushed in like that. He knows that Damian’s more than capable of handling other people pushing him around. Or maybe that’s what he’d been worried about. Maybe Damian would have gone too far.

But according to Dick, Damian hasn’t gone too far in a long time. And this hadn’t seemed like an isolated incident.

“Then why?” Damian grits out.

Tim thinks and thinks and thinks. They’re four stoplights away from when Damian asked the question when he finally answers truthfully, “I don’t know.”

Damian blinks at him. Then averts his gaze to the window. The rest of the drive is thoughtfully quiet, and the two of them just let each other be, for once not fighting or arguing.

For some reason, when they’re in the garage and Tim’s getting out of the car, Tim says, “You know, you could just tell a teacher. Or Dick. They could stop him from doing anything.”

Damian glances at him, wary. “That is exactly the reason I haven’t said anything. I’m handling it just fine on my own.”

Tim blinks, brow creasing before realization dawns on him. He grins. “So, school is that boring, huh?”

Damian snorts. “I already know everything the teachers are trying to educate me in,” he says. “I don’t understand the reason that Grayson and Father are so insistent on an education at a public school when I already have all the knowledge I need.”

Tim rolls his eyes and starts for the door that leads into the manor. “Try social skills.”

“Father doesn’t have social skills, and he gets along just fine.”

Tim chokes on a laugh and eyes Damian as they go through the kitchen. “Was that a joke? Who taught you how to joke?”

“You’ve been spending far too much time with Brown and Todd.”

“And you’ve been spending too much time with Dick.”

“Nonsense,” Damian says, his nose stuck in the air like he’s trying to look down on Tim. It doesn’t work. “Grayson is the only tolerable one of you all.”

“Sure,” Tim says placating. He grabs a tin from the cupboard and brings it over to Damian. “Cookie?”

Damian looks a little unsure at Tim’s change of attitude, and honestly Tim’s a little unsure about it, too, but he’s not up for being angry at the demon brat right now, even if he will probably be a little upset later. But there’s a calm right now, a truce in the wake of what had happened today, a ceasefire that neither of them are sure will last long enough for them to even finish their cookies.

Even still, Damian accepts the offer, and grabs a cookie.

They eat in silence, and it’s honestly the closest Tim’s ever felt to Damian.