A few times, he called over his shoulder for his brothers to pipe down, belatedly realizing he sounded a bit too much like Bruce. Of all the times the man had to be away on a WE trip, it had to be when the trio of vigilanties were butting heads. Typical. Only once was Dick’s request for quiet actually acknowledged: his other attempts had been drowned out by their heated discussion. 

“Look, we apologized for going into your territory, Jason. The point is that Riddler’s escape was tied to a larger crime, and taking him down was a higher priority-”

“Apology accepted, whatever, but I called dibs for a beat down on that guy last month. The Baby Assassin does not get to overrule that claim cause he got there first!”

“Imbellic and irrelevant, Todd, I handled it much more effectively than you could’ve hoped to.”

“Have both of you forgotten that I invoked ‘Call Dibs’ three months ago on Mr. Freeze, and you two teamed up to take him down before I could, just to spite me?”

A loud scoff. “I hardly needed Todd’s assistance in a matter so trivial, Drake. He was lucky I didn’t impale him as well just for getting in my way.”

“Oh, bite me, Demon Brat-”

The sudden flurry of rolling wheels scrapes against the floor as Dick stands. He shouts quite abruptly, “One!” 

Jason and Tim freeze immediately. Damian’s mouth has parted, a retort loaded in the barrel and waiting to be fired, but the sudden bellow and locked-up state of his brothers give him pause. He turns to where the twin pairs of wide eyes have locked onto the Bat Computer. Dick’s form is silhouetted in blue light. He’s hauntingly still. The sudden lack of voices echoing through the cave makes for a horror-esque scene, serendaded by the muffled squeaking of bats from deeper into the enclaves of the rocky space. 

“Dick, we’re sorry.” Tim quickly starts bargaining. Goosebumps prickle along his skin as a nervous flutter starts up in his gut, the feeling tugging his lips up into a weak grin. “We’ll pipe down, it was a dumb argument anyway. S-So, just go back to your work, yeah? There's no need for this-” 

The fool. 

Instinctual fight or flight having Jason and Tim’s feet backing up, arms beginning to raise to their sides defensively. As if that would save them from the monster they've created. Damian stares, completely baffled, as the two boys edge towards the elevator while Tim rambles endlessly like an auctioneer on crack cocaine. In hindsight, he should’ve immediately followed their lead with the slow retreat.

“Two.” Dick turns off the computer, still facing away from his brothers but holding an unfathomable amount of power. 

Jason is cussing under his breath now. His stomach is in knots with little jolts of nerves heightening his anticipation for what's to come. He hates how easily this game can make him go from a fully grown adult to thirteen again in seconds. He growls for Dick to “Cut it with the freaky shit”, but the wobbly smile trying to take over his face is winning this battle. 

Hearing Jason sound so highly strung finally makes Damian take a few wary steps back from the computer. Grayson had never laid a hand on him with the intention to hurt, even when sparring, he heavily pulled his punches. This menacing aura protruding from his still form raises the hairs on the back of Damian’s neck, a small thrill zinging through his stomach. Was this to be similar to Grandfather’s tests? A training exercise? Or was it more akin to a punishment? Drake and Todd seemed jumpy, but not fearful, instead giddy for some bizarre reason. What on earth-?

Finally, Dick turns, an evil grin on his face. “Three.” 

“SACRIFICE THE CHILD!” Tim shrieks, abandoning the elevator in a mad dash and instead flies up the stairwell. Without question, Jason grabs Damian and throws him at Dick, scrambling after his younger brother a half step later. 

Damian barely gets out an undignified yell before arms are encircling him like an octopus, and he’s staring up at the predatory gleam of Dick Grayson’s eyes. “The first victim,” he hums, something menacing in his voice that Damian can’t place. The pounding of footsteps fades up the stairs. No help is coming.

“What the hell is happening?” He demands, gripping onto the arm that’s swept him against Grayson’s chest and mentally running through all the ways he can break the limb should he have to. 

Grayson chuckles, and Damian can feel it with how closely pressed he is to his brother. He looms over the boy as he says, “Karma”, with a toothy smile.

Fingers delve into the exposed flank not tucked against Grayson’s torso, wriggling around the skin with careful precision. Despite his arm being looped under Damian’s legs to keep him close, his hand doesn't falter in its path to tickle him to bits. Damian gasps sharply, a leg kicking out on reflex as he scrunches further into Grayson’s arms, trying to curl into himself as his nervous system goes haywire. 

“GRAHahahaysohohon!” He’s giggling. Giggling. Like some helpless child, as the older boy scopes out his torso for places to tickle with an inane accuracy. Grayson has tickled him before - one does not gain Dick Grayson as an older sibling and expect to evade his playful mannerisms - but this time, it feels more intentional than just messing around. Grayson’s nails are scuttling over his neck with a speed that has the boy squeaking with laughter, trained hands reduced to smacking at the spidering digits. His method is usually to just jump his hands around, lean into the silliness of this bonding activity, but this is precise. Honing in on the spots that send Damian up the wall. 

Grayson proves Damian’s hunch when he starts speaking, something resigned yet amused about his tone. “Five times I asked you guys to pipe down, or move to a different area of the house, or godforbid stop arguing entirely, but did you listen? No, of course not. So now I have to leave my very important work to teach you all a lesson.” 

Damian tries to argue his case. “Thehey wehehere beheing peheverse!”

Grayson apparently took that as a challenge. 

Fingers slip from his neck to under his shirt suddenly, spidering around Damian’s bellybutton and causing the kid to toss his head back with the force of his cackles. He tries to remove the offending digits from his sensitive skin, but Grayson is annoyingly good at this and uses a dirty tactic of blowing in Damian’s ears to make him scrunch away with a giggly whine - a hand pawing at his ears to ward off the feeling.

“Stohohopihihit!” 

Grayson flashes his canines in a grin, though thankfully, he relents the attack on Damian’s ears. He settles for tracing patterns across Damian’s abdomen, letting the kid calm down from the sensations buzzing through his nervous system.

“This is a generational game, Dami,” Grayson says conversationally, like there isn’t a snickering child being held prisoner in his unrelenting arms. “Jason and Tim have both been subjected to it through Bruce and me over the years. You push enough buttons, and you’ll earn yourself a Countdown, and if you’re caught, you’re tickled. Those traitors had the right instinct in bolting, but assuming I’ll be slowed down or swayed off by giving me the youngest first? Poor judgment on their part. Their punishment is gonna be twice as bad for that little act of cowardice.”

Despite giggling his head off, Damian felt a wave of satisfaction knowing Grayson also saw the injustice of throwing him to the lions. Those two royally screwed themselves over with that play. 

Grayson hums, contemplative. “Seeing as it’s your first time with this game, it’s probably fair to keep your sentence short and hunt down the other two. But first…”

The hold around Damian’s thighs tighten, keeping his legs pinned as Grayson removes his arm from the boy’s back. Damian yelps, swinging from being upright to being a victim of gravity, dangling from an unfairly strong grip. He doesn't even get a chance to growl a half-hearted threat before his knees are being scratched and spidered over by light fingernails, completely free to torment him now that they aren’t holding precious cargo. 

“RIHIHICHARD! NOHOHOHO!” Damian’s shriek echoes through the cavern, youthful laughter flowing freely from his lungs in unstoppable waves. He twists around from his upside-down position as he cackles, wrapping his arms around his stomach when a few fingers slink down to skitter over his stretched torso. It wasn’t long before he was snorting.

“There we go,” Dick chuckles, “was wondering when my favourite sound was gonna make an appearance tonight. Thank you for joining us, Piglet.”

Damian didn’t have the brain capacity, nor the air to protest the nickname; his voice had disappeared within his tumbling cackles. He’s stuck in a loop of tensing and untensing his knees in quick succession as Dick’s fingers scribble behind them. Occasionally, they’ll skitter to the boy’s calves before swiping back to their original target, a pattern Dick kept up until Damian’s cheeks were flushed pink. He wasn’t sure he could plead with his brother, the air in his lungs too busy keeping his laughter running a mile a minute.

Thankfully, Dick has other victims to claim this night. 

Damian feels his centre of gravity shift again, swinging him upright and tucked into a pair of strong arms once more. He tenses instinctively, hands covering his stomach and knees as he whines out, “Rihihihichard.”

“I’m not tickling anymore, Dames,” Dick chuckles warmly, watching Damian giggle himself silly. He firmly rubs at the boy’s arm, patting his knee and suppressing an amused snort when the boy squeaks in giddy panic. 

Cute, he thinks, shifting Damian to one arm so he could rub the boy’s back unimpeded. The kid really needed to eat more; he was way too easy to just pick up and hold. That, or Dick and the rest of his family were vigilantes with Herculean strength, that was also an option. 

“Learned your lesson, then?” Dick raises a brow, shifting to tame the wild bird's nest that’s become of Damian’s hair throughout the ordeal.

“Yehes… I apologize for disruhuhupting you, Rihihichard." Damian hates that giggles still demand to intertwine with his voice, but the endeared look sent his way makes up for the embarrassment a bit. 

“It’s alright, I kind of needed the break anyway.” As he speaks, Dick walks through the cave and enters the elevator. 

Hitting some buttons and ascending to the manor, his mind begins mapping out the possible hiding places or routes his brothers may have taken in hopes of evading their retribution. Those muppets. Did they forget who they’d been messing with? The elevator dings suddenly, and Dick steps out into the warmer air with Damian still in his arms. Alfred wanders around the corner with a glass, a placid yet amused quirk to his lips. 

“Is there a reason, Master Dick, that your two brothers almost shattered four antiques while rampaging the halls like a pair of hooligans?” He asks, handing the cup of water in his hands to Damian, who takes it with a surprised, yet grateful smile. 

Dick snickers, setting the boy down and gently ruffling his hair. “They invoked the Countdown.” 

Alfred’s eyebrows raise as his smile widens. “Ah, I see.” He tilts his head slightly behind him. “The drawing rooms might require your attention then, Master Dick.”

Damian watches Dick’s grin expose more teeth and tries to ignore the giddy, nervous swoop his stomach gives, despite it not being directed towards him. 

“Thanks, Alfie. If you hear screaming, everything’s probably fine.” He’s off like a rocket in half a second, footsteps practically silent despite the flat-out sprint he’s broken into.

Damian feels absolutely no remorse for what is barreling his brothers’ way. He sips his water. “How did you know what the Countdown was, Pennyworth?” He asks curiously, looking to the butler who’s straighening a rug that was scuffed up - Drake’s clumsiness probably. That boy could never keep his feet when he was panicking. 

“Who do you think invented it?” Alfred’s eyes twinkle with a conspiratorial gleam, taking pride in the floored look Damian sends him. He chuckles. “It may have been passed down the generations, but it had to start somewhere, Master Damian. Afterall, I needed to keep young Master Bruce in line somehow.” 

Jason’s feet pound against the carpet of the manor, wheezing for breath. Look, he’s fit, but he’s also psyched out of his mind right now, and not being able to catch his breath seems fair considering the position he’s in. Tim isn’t doing much better, but he’s got a case of the giggles hindering his air capacity, sending glances over his shoulder, and almost slamming into walls because of it. They’ve been running the halls of the manor like some kind of horror house maze, hoping to either escape Dick entirely or confuse the man so much he spends the rest of his days trailing the halls looking for his brothers like some kind of ghost story. That works out in their favour in the end. 

Suddenly, an unmistakable, gleeful cackle echoes through the halls of the manor.

It’s almost comedic how Jason and Tim stop dead in their tracks, twisting their heads left and right down the halls in thinly veiled panic. They’d been moving nonstop for ages. How the hell did their oldest brother catch up so fast?!

“This way,” Jason yanks Tim’s arm away from the drawing rooms as they’d planned, and instead speed through an adjacent door that leads to Bruce’s study. They only make it down two more corridors before that same eerie cackle rings out, somehow sounding closer. 

“Oh god, he’s hunting us. He’s actually hunting us,” Tim hisses somewhat hysterically, turning in place to locate the sound. 

“Shut up, Timmers,” Jason growls, though he’d be lying if he says that sound isn’t making him nervous. He suddenly feels bad for the criminals Dick pursued as a kid. It was everywhere, completely surrounding them. He backs up a few steps, then motions hurriedly down the hall. “We should be able to make it to the bedrooms; there are locks on those doors.” 

Jason shoots down the hall again with a sputtering Tim right behind him. Fucking Giggles Mcgee back there, unable to control the nervous titters spilling out. It made Jason’s lips subconsciously twitch into a grin of his own. They’re so close, just a few more halls, a flight of stairs, and they’re home free-

Dick suddenly skids around the end of the hall with a loud, victorious crow.

Tim yelps, backpedaling on his heels straight into Jason. He darts to the side, aiming to use his brother as a human shield, when an arm suddenly slings around his middle. 

“Sorry Timbit, it’s every man for himself.” Jason hoists him up, and the teenager immediately knows how Damian felt hurtling towards certain doom. 

“JASON!” Tim shrieks, intercepted by Dick’s arms in a reliable catch, but he feels anything but safe right now. He twists to face his traitorous brother, a hand outstretched like some melodramatic horror movie. 

The man is already sprinting down the halls, not looking back once. The bastard.

Tim doesn't even get the chance to use his silver tongue before Dick’s fingers are skittering and spidering inside that unprotected hollow, making the boy slam his arm down, but it’s too late. 

“Dihihihick! Ohohoho gohohod- plehehease! Nohohot thehehere!” Tim squirms, and though it's a valiant effort, this isn’t Dick’s first rodeo in dealing with wriggly brothers. 

“No, no, I think I will actually,” Dick tuts, his arms like iron bands around his little brother, who’s a mess of shrieks and snorts. 

“Ihihi sahahaid sohohorry!” 

“Yes, but you also said ‘sacrifice the child.’” Dick echoes the earlier statement, removing his hand from the sensitive hollow. “‘Sacrifice the child’, Tim? Really? That was uncalled for; it’s Damian’s first Countdown. The little guy had no idea what he was in for.” 

Dick drops the boy’s legs and leaves him dangling from one arm that’s tightly wrapped around his ribs, his toes just barely brushing the floor. He felt like some overgrown, misbehaving cat from this undignified position. The free hand takes advantage of the stretched out torso and crawls across Tim’s ribs, relishing in the wild squeal that’s let out. 

“NOHOHOT THAHAT!”

“‘Not there’, ‘not that’, if you didn’t want to be tickled, you shouldn’t have annoyed me and gotten caught.” Dick hikes Tim up further to properly stretch out his ribcage and scribbles into the sensitive grooves, amused when Tim’s legs fling around, but he couldn’t seem to coordinate them in an effective way to escape. 

Tim’s hands hung on to the one encircling his chest, gripping the limb as a lifeline while he lost himself to unbridled hysterics. It was no secret his ribcage was ticklish - Bruce even messed around sometimes during injury checks just to see if Tim still squeaks, spoiler, he does - but having his upperbody stretched like this made the tickling so much worse. He felt every wiggle, scratch, and jab Dick mercilessly piled onto his nervous system, sending his stomach swooping with giddiness and laughter pouring free. 

“DIHIHICK IHIHIM SOHOHORRY!” 

“Heard your apology the first time, bud, you know the rules though. You pushed my buttons, so I’m pushing yours.” As he spoke, he prodded up and down Tim’s ribs, drilling into the bottom set and earning himself a high-pitched yelp. “It’s only fair afterall.”

“NOHOHO IHIHIT IHIHISN’T!”

Dick chuckles. “Argue with the guy who made this up, I’m just following the set regulations, Timmy. If the rules get updated, please let me know.”

“DIHIHIHICK! Dihihihick- wahahait, hahahang ohohon- nononononohohoho- dohOHOhon’t! Cuhuhut thahat shihihit ohout!” 

Those devilish fingers have finally abandoned his lower ribs, only to begin crawling upwards agonizingly slow. Tim giggles and stammers out half-baked protests as his nerves tingle at the intentionally leisurely movement, only making his brain even more keyed up. The octaves of his voice mirror the climbing digits, as it only becomes higher the closer they get to that accursed spot on his upper ribs. He’s stumbling over his words so much that it doesn't even sound like English anymore. When those fingers are a single set of bones away, they pause, tapping idly on them. Tim holds his breath, chest stuttering with flustered, anticipatory giggles. 

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Timmy,” Dick purrs gleefully, sending the boy cringing away as his breath curls at his ear, a stray snicker leaking through. “But did you just say, ‘don’t cut that shit out?’”

Tim scrabbles at the arm clinging tight to him. He’s giggling like mad, and Dick hasn’t even begun. “Nohohoho! No- Ihihihi dihihidn’t!”

“I think you did~” Dick singsongs gleefully, “And who am I to refuse my baby brother?”

He wraps both arms around Tim and hoists him up higher, his forearms now coiled around the boy’s stomach. Ducking around the arm that’s flailing in a panic, Dick plants his lips on the side of his ribs and blows the biggest raspberry he could into that damning spot.

You’d think the boy was being murdered. The scream Tim let out was shrill and panicked, laughter chasing the sound in endless waves. He goes slack in Dick’s grip, gasping and wheezing while his eyes squint with the size of his exhilarated grin. Dick has the good grace to let Tim gain his breath back before plunging his head in once more and blowing another raspberry. 

Tim’s stuck there, shrieking, cackling, and hiccuping with laughter. The fight is gone from his body, snatched away by the relentless ticklish buzzing flying through his nervous system. His stomach feels filled with that fizzy energy, expecting another wave of merciless tickling on his upper ribs. That expectancy keeps his giggles constant despite Dick giving him a break.

The older boy chuckles, squeezing Tim in more of a hug than a restrictive hold. “You still with me, Baby Bird?” He asks.

“Mehehean,” Tim presses out, completely spent as he becomes dead weight in the embrace. “Thahat was a mehean tactic.”

“I know, I’m gonna do the same to Jason.”

Tim snorts. “Good. Bastard gave me up.” 

“That he did.” Dick gently lowers Tim’s feet down to the ground, though his hands stay on the boy’s shoulders when he sways. “Tired?”

“What do you think?” Tim snarks, only to immediately cringe and giggle helplessly, bracing into a feeble defense.

The Pavlovian response causes a bark of laughter to leave Dick. “I’m done,” he promises, gently mussing up Tim’s hair. “Any idea where your brother was heading?” 

“Aiming for the bedrooms, but he might try and play it smarter after abandoning me,” Tim answers immediately, feeling no guilt. “Go get his ass.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” 

He gives an exaggerated salute, Tim blinks, and suddenly Dick is gone. A gust of wind teases at Tim’s bangs, and he scoffs a laugh. Definitely Batman’s kid, he’s mastered that disappearing trick perfectly.

Jason knows he’s fucked. 

He sacrificed both brothers to this tyrannical nightmare, and he knows it doesn't matter where he hides, or runs, or prays to. He’s fucked, with a capital F. 

Hearing Tim’s faint screams minutes ago only doubled the butterflies in his stomach, doubtless Dick would find a way to do the same to him. There wasn’t a way out of this that didn’t leave him gasping with laughter and entirely at his older brother’s mercy. Unless…

Jason pauses his jog towards his bedroom. The bedroom. That’s what Dick would expect, the same tactic Jason used when he was thirteen and didn’t think things through. Hiding under the covers and muffling his giggles, only for Dick to pounce on him and tickle him to tears. 

Jason spins on his heel and hauls ass towards the library. He never hid here when he was a kid - the quiet in the library was to never be forsaken, he’d been icily resolute on that when he was a kid - so Dick would never look here, cause Jason would never break his own rules. Perfect. 

He pokes his head through a crack in the door, but the room is silent. No sign of his brothers anywhere, older or otherwise. He approaches the closest couch facing from the door and slumps down the back of it, taking in deep heaves of air to recover from the laps he’s been doing around the manor. Having to double back and take the long way to the bedrooms after Dick intercepted him and Tim had wasted time and energy. For now, though, he was safe, if only to think of a better strategy and recover the oxygen lost on this wild goose chase. 

“This is a good hiding spot, he’ll never find us in here.”

Jason freezes. Oh, no. Please, no. 

Dick’s wide grin pops up from the couch Jason’s hiding behind, something chaotic and menacing. “Scream and run.” He assumes, tilting his head. 

Jason bolts with a yelled curse, but Dick’s been an older brother for years and practically predicted that move. He tackles Jason to the floor, rolling across the plush rugs and pinning him face down to the carpet. 

“Now, Jason. Jason, Jason, Jason,” Dick leers, tutting like a disappointed mother. His fingers tap idly on the man’s wrists, sending jolts through his nerves and having him fight not to curl in on himself. “Sacrificing, what was it, both of your brothers today? Not even fifteen minutes apart, either. That is low, Little Wing.”

“It was Tim’s idea!” Jason argues, trying to ignore the wobbly grin spreading over his face as he pushes his feet into the rug to get some leverage. No such luck.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve made sure he’s learned not to suggest that again. But you… You actually threw them, so I think I’ve got to make this lesson stick. Don’t you think?”

“I’ll- I’ll kihill you.”

“Say that without laughing, and maybe I’ll believe you.” 

Jason opens his mouth, and Dick’s fingers drop his wrists to claw at his hips, sending the boy into fits of loud laughter and wildly scrabbling for purchase on the library floor. It was very reminiscent of Jason’s reaction as a kid. All the years passed, changes came and went, and yet some things stayed the same. It pulled a smile from Dick despite the ‘menacing, evil older brother’ shtick he was trying to create. He probably looked like a Wish version of a villainous fiend. 

The problem was, he loved his brothers too much to really act minacious, even when they were being annoying. “Having fun?” He asks Jason, just to be annoying right back.

“Gehehehet fUHUhuhucked!” 

“Kori handles that, don’t you worry.” 

Before Jason can roll his eyes or fake-gag at the joke, Dick is jabbing and prodding along the back of his ribcage, putting his attention towards not hitting the ceiling with how hard he jolts. “GOHOHohod, Dihihick!”

“Still ticklish on your back then?” Dick hums merrily, knowing all too well the extent of his little brother’s sensitivities. Seeing Bruce do back scratches on Jason when he was a kid was absolutely golden. Arguments or not at the time, they could both agree it was cute as hell. 

Jason tries to swing an arm backwards to hit Dick, but the guy simply weaves around it and jams his fingers into the newly exposed area, delighting in the garbled shriek Jason gives and crumpling of his body as he gives in to the sensations. All tumbling giggles and wheezes galore. 

“Right, so I want a couple of apologies from you, Mister,” Dick says conversationally, using the hand not crushed in an armpit to spider delicately along Jason’s shoulder blades. He has to stifle his own giggle as Jason whines through his laughter, shifting around to dislodge the pesky little digits with no success. “One for throwing Damian. One for throwing Tim. One for disrupting me when I asked you to be quiet. And one for flipping me the bird when I asked you guys to be quiet- don’t think I didn’t see that, Little Wing. You’re not slick.” 

“Thohought yohou’d appreheheciate a bihird, Nihihightwing,” Jason snarks through his titters. Well, his mouth always did work faster than his brain. 

Dick doesn't even give him a response, simply slips his hand free from the hollow and scribbles down Jason’s back in its entirety. His nails skip and jump across bones and delve into the gaps between ribs, skittering down to the next target with a keen eye for Jason’s reactions. And boy, did he react. 

“DIHIHIHIHIHICK! FUHUHU- OHOHO MIIHIHIY GOHOHOHOD! WAIT, WAIT, WAHAHAHAIT!” 

Jason’s fist slams against the carpet as he buries his face into the crook of his free arm, red face warm against his skin and muffling the boisterous cackles he was sure could be heard throughout the whole manor. Lazarus pit or not, it seems his body reacted the exact same to tickling as when he was a boy, sapping his strength and making him useless. He isn’t sure how long he lies there, testing the range of his voice box under Dick’s fingers which wouldn’t give his damn back a break, but when they did eventually lift from his skin, his nerves were shot to hell. The giggling stuck around despite nothing touching him, fizzing and sparking throughout his body from his clothes shifting around was enough to keep him in a delirious state of mirth. 

Dick’s hands return to his back, but instead of scribbling, they press firmly and rub down his spine. “Easy there, Snickerdoodle,” he says gently, but no less playful. “I forget how ticklish your back is.” The guy probably deserved a break from the tickling. Dick wanted his apologies, but he wasn’t a monster. 

Jason does take a minute to calm down, and then turns his head to look up at his big brother, flushed cheeks and hair mussed. “Get bent,” he wheezes out, his grin voluntary and goading. 

Dick’s hands pause in their soothing ministrations, and his eye twitches. 

Ah. Damn. Jason may have made a miscalculation on that onE- OH JESUS CHRIST STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP-

Jason’s screams of laughter may have included his mental chant, but he has no idea, too caught up in his shrieking as Dick presses a raspberry into his shoulder blades. And he didn’t stop at one. Or two. Three. Four. Five. Jason was going to leave a dent in the floor if this kept up, coping with the incessant buzzing in his skin by slamming his fist down. 

“Four apologies, Little Wing.” God, you could hear the smirk in that smug bastard’s voice. “Better hop to before I start again.” 

Part of Jason wanted to keep being defiant, but the other, younger, wiser part of himself was strangling that thought and shouting to just give up. “Alrihihihihihight,” Jason conceded, wiping a stray tear from his eye as he sat up on his forearms. “I’m sor-EHEHEHEHE! DIHIHIHICK!” He body slams into the carpet once more and kicks out.

“Hm?” Dick pops his head back up from where he’d been buzzing another raspberry into Jason’s shoulder blades, “Were you saying something, Little Wing?”

“YOU FUCKWIT!” Jason roars through his lingering cackles, desperately trying to turn over to block that horribly ticklish spot. Dick has him firmly pinned with his thighs, and his strength is just gone; there’s nowhere to hide.

“Not hearing my apologies, Jason,” Dick smirks, poking incessantly at his spine with merry little taps, causing the boy to flinch and groan his annoyance through his giggling. 

“Ihihi trihihihied!”

“Try harder.”

God, Jason was going to kill this man. 

He does attempt though, yet every time he gets out one syllable, Dick’s either blowing another raspberry or raking his fingers across those hypersensitive shoulder bones. Jason is lost in laughter, cheeks flushed brightly, and a smile starting to ache on his face. He didn’t think he’d laughed like this since… well, since before everything went to shit. 

It felt weirdly nice, though a little overwhelming. 

It was when Dick blew three mini rasberries across his ribcage that he finally worked up the air capacity to shriek. “I’M SOHOHOHORRY! DIHIHICK PLEHEHEASE!” He slaps the carpet twice, a little desperate as he crumbles into a ball of laughter. He wasn’t sure if he preferred dying to this or a crowbar; at least the latter wasn’t embarrassing.  

A firm pressure immediately rubs down his back, hard enough to avoid tickling and getting rid of those ghastly aftershocks. Jason slumps to the floor, muffling his titters into the carpet and trying to remember what it’s like to breathe properly. The second Dick’s weight leaves his hips, he’s rolling into a ball. A hand touches his head, and he can’t stop the preemptive jolt and small hiccup of laughter. 

There’s a soft laugh above him. “No more, Little Wing. You’ve had enough.” A hand deftly shifts through his messy hair, correcting the little floof of white back into a dignified state. Jason allows it. Not cause he can’t move or he enjoys the feeling, but as a way for Dick to make up for the torture he put him through. He lets his eyes slip closed, going boneless into the floor.

“Did you break him?” 

Glee is evident in Tim’s voice, footsteps shuffling over to where Jason is doing his best impression of a blob fish. Jason rolls his eyes at Dick’s prideful chuckle. 

“F’ck off, Timbit,” Jason grumbles, shoving his face into his arms and willing away the pink he knew was still staining his cheeks. 

“Tt, you deserved that, Todd. After giving up not only myself, but Drake as well?” Damian’s playfully haughty remark made the vigilante look up with a glare. The kid looked far too smug. Dick mustn’t have gone very hard on him. That would need to change in the future.

Alfred walks over with three water bottles in hand, passing one to Tim, to Dick, and setting the third by Jason’s side. “Are you alright, Master Jason?” He asks, and the look he’s giving the boys is nothing short of amused.

Jason can’t help the fond twitch of his lips despite his embarrassment, giving a small nod to the butler. “I’m good.” He fumbles with the chilled water and drags himself up to uncap it. “Bruce raised a monster.”

Dick, who’s chugging his water after having to hunt down three brothers, grins around the neck of the bottle. “I learned from the best,” he claims after swallowing. “It’s a generational game.”

“It’s generational trauma,” Jason mutters. 

Dick raises one hand and wiggles his fingers, utterly delighted and wheezing with laughter when all three brothers leap away from him with wide eyes. 

“I believe you are quite right, Master Jason,” Alfred hums, though the small chuckle he lets out escapes none of them. “Master Bruce will be delighted that something of his family was passed down.”

“Happy to carry on the tradition,” Dick grins, taking another victorious swig of his water. His brothers shoot him identical glares, but Dick notes that each of them is still flushed with smiles on their faces. The boys all looked content, tired of course, but happy. 

And it had! It had gone great. So great that Tim had somehow managed to relax into his home self, so when Dick had come around to say hi and do some obligatory messing around, Tim had been more than happy to duck away from his outstretched hand and snap out something like “Hey, I hate it when you tickle me, cut it out!” He’d fully expected Dick to give him That Look™ with one of his eyebrows raised and that smirk that only ever meant trouble, then tackle him to the carpet. 

But Dick had just smiled and pulled back, apologizing, then wandered back upstairs. 

The thing was, Tim couldn’t sleep, which meant that his brain was churning along at a million miles an hour on tracks of questionable integrity. Normally he’d go find Dick, who’d said –and Tim believed him– that Tim could come find him any time. 

Now, though – Tim wasn’t sure. He’d been about to get up when the memory of Dick going “sorry, Baby Bird” and retracting his hand hit, and Tim’s already racing thoughts had plunged over the cliffside into a spiral that he was definitely, totally overthinking. 

“This is dumb, right?” he muttered, staring up at his ceiling. “I’m being dumb.”

The tiny glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up there didn’t offer any response, but that twitchy feeling in his legs was becoming unbearable. Okay, fine. 

Tim’s sigh echoed into his empty room as he heaved himself up and swung his legs to the side of his mattress. The sudden rush of chilly air sent waves of prickles up his arms, so he snatched a random sweatshirt off the clothes pile beside his door, then ventured out into the comforting, warm hallway light. 

He paused for a few seconds that felt like a subjective ten minutes and stared at Dick’s closed door, diagonally across from his own. The five or so feet between him and the doorway might as well have been a mile. Yeah, he’d been kind of an asshole earlier, but Dick wouldn’t – wouldn’t really be mad at him, right? Dick had seemed fine, but then again, he usually did, so…

More of those uncomfortable, anxious feelings twisted together somewhere in the pit of Tim’s stomach as he stood there, frozen in the hall. He hadn’t meant to be rude, he’d just been so caught up in the game with Kon and Bart, in the high of having friends over who were there to see him – on purpose, not just because he was someone’s tag-along little brother. And, sure, he’d had a flare of irrational panic when Dick had started joking around with his friends, like maybe they’d suddenly realize that Dick was way more funny and interesting than Tim could ever be, and then he’d lose this little space that he’d worked hard to carve out for just himself. 

The grown-up rational brain knew that wouldn’t happen. 

Unless – 

No, no. Shut up. 

Tim balled his hands into fists at his side and took a deep breath. Even if Dick didn’t want to spend time with him, Tim could at least apologize for snapping at him earlier. The odds were good that Dick would forgive him. Right? 

Before he could keep overthinking it, Tim crossed the hall in two big strides and knocked twice on his older brother’s door. 

“Come in!” Dick called. 

Well, he didn’t sound mad. He had to know that Tim was the only one around who could show up at this hour, too, so that was a good sign.

Still, that tight, anxious shyness settled in his stomach as Tim shuffled through the doorway, and he fought back the sudden urge to wrap his arms around his middle.  

Dick was lounging sideways on his bed, both his legs propped up on the wall. He flashed Tim a bright, upside-down smile. “Hey, Timmy. What’s up?”

Tim managed to return the smile even though his face felt stiff. “Hi.” He paused for a second to search for the right words. It was like when he’d first met Dick, he felt all clumsy and awkward again. 

The bedframe squeaked when Dick did some combination of a flip and a backwards roll and came up sitting on the edge of his bed. He combed his hair out of his eyes, giving Tim another one of those warm smiles. “Can’t sleep?” 

That, Tim could answer even though his words still felt stuck in his throat. He shook his head. 

Something achingly gentle flickered through Dick’s eyes that made Tim feel a little too perceived. Before he had the chance to fixate on that, though, Dick scooted backwards and patted the mattress in front of him. 

“There’s room for ya in the nest if you want it, Baby Bird.” 

The wave of relief that crashed over Tim nearly made his knees weak. Okay, Dick wasn’t mad at him, wasn’t going to send him away. Acting on pure instinct, he scurried over to the bed and flopped down facefirst into the pillows. 

Dick chuckled, and suddenly a hand was running through Tim’s hair, gently tugging every now and then to send pleasant shivers racing down his spine. Between the dizzying relief that the entirely made-up scenario that Tim’s brain had concocted was, indeed, not real, and the head scritches, Tim went limp against the mattress. He still wasn’t tired, tired, but he sure did feel more relaxed. 

What had he even come in here for, again? Oh, right. 

Tim pushed himself up on his elbows and turned his head so he wasn’t talking directly into the pillows. “I’m sorry ‘bout earlier.” 

The hand in his hair slowed, faltering in its rhythm, and Tim butted his head against it with a displeased sound. Bad hand. Those were his head scritches, thank you very much. 

“Sorry, bud,” Dick said, and his voice sounded strained, like he was trying not to laugh as he resumed carding through Tim’s hair and scratching over his scalp. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re apologizing for.” 

Was he serious? Tim scowled at him. “For snapping at you while we were gaming.”

“Oh. Tim,” Okay, Dick was definitely holding back laughter, and Tim found himself with the growing feeling that he’d misunderstood the situation. “It’s fine. I wasn’t upset, I just wanted to give you space to be with your friends.” 

Tim smashed his face back into the pillow and wondered if maybe his high IQ came at the cost of utterly nerfed emotional intelligence scores. “Hn.” 

“You sound like B.” 

“Hnn.” 

Dick snorted. Then, softer, he asked, “Have you been twisting yourself up about this, Baby Bird?” 

Tim frowned into the memory foam beneath his face. Not…not really? Not in the sense that Dick probably thought, anyways. It hadn’t even occurred to him to be stressed until he was lying there staring at his ceiling, unable to sleep. 

“I don’t think so,” he muttered after a few moments. He knew he was probably muffled by the pillow, so he rolled over onto his back. Dick’s ceiling also had an array of glow-in-the-dark stars pasted onto it. Some of the patterns were different then Tim’s, but they both had a couple of the more recognizable constellations. Jason did, too. “I got up because I can’t sleep.” 

“Ah.” Blankets rustled as Dick shifted around to wrap his free arm around Tim’s shoulders, warm and solid and safe. Tim leaned into him, and immediately some of the restless feelings that had been gnawing at the back of his mind quieted down. 

“‘M restless,” Tim added. He couldn’t possibly make it clearer, right? Those were practically Dick’s own words, back when he’d scoop Tim up into his arms and tickle his sides and coo about “aw, are you a little restless tonight, Timmy?”  

With an understanding hum, Dick squeezed Tim a little tighter. “Is there anything I can do to help you, or do you just want to sleep?” 

He had to be kidding. As if Dick didn’t take any possible chance to – to tickle his little brothers and, god, just thinking about it was making Tim’s face heat up – and here Tim was, offering himself up on a platter – 

“Huh?” 

Dick winked down at him. “If there’s something you want, Timmy, you just have to ask.” 

Oh, fuck that. Absolutely not. Tim couldn’t – he wouldn’t – oh god, his face was burning now. 

“Dick.” 

“Yeah?” The corners of Dick’s eyes crinkled as he looked at Tim with a teasing, mischievous grin playing at his mouth. That particular look never boded well. “I’m not mad at you, I just wanna respect your boundaries. If you really hate it when I tickle you–”

Tim yelped and promptly tried to bury his face in the pillows again, only for Dick to drag him back with the arm still tucked around his shoulders. 

“Nuh huh, Timmy, don’t burrow away from me. Whatcha after?” 

Maybe this was how Tim would die, spontaneous combustion from sheer, overwhelming embarrassment. Now that his earlier burst of anxiety had dissipated, it was easy to recognize that, no, Dick wasn’t mad at him, he was just teasing, sort of like he’d tease Jason whenever he’d snark at Dick. Tim just didn’t usually give Dick that amount of snappiness or snark, so this was a little new for him. Okay. He was Robin, he could adapt – 

Except adapting meant asking for – for – for tickles, and not just any tickles, but the cozy, spidering scribbles over his stomach that Dick had long-ago christened as Timmy tummy tickles, and the thought of saying any of those words out loud did in fact make Tim want to explode into flames on the spot. 

He groaned and thunked his head into Dick’s shoulders. “Di–ick.” 

“Yeah?” 

Tim didn’t have to look to know that Dick had an entirely guileless expression pasted on to hide the fact that he was an evil, evil person who just wanted Tim to spend the rest of his life as a puddle of embarrassment underneath his covers. 

“Just do it.” Okay, yeah, Tim knew he was whining, he heard the way he sounded, but he couldn’t help it. “C’mon!” 

Dick let out a low, teasing chuckle and pulled Tim against his chest, pressing a kiss to the side of his head. “I need you to be specific, Timmy, I’m not sure what you want.” He patted Tim’s stomach, but didn’t move his hand otherwise.

Supposedly, Slovenia was lovely this time of year. Maybe Tim could just move there – it wouldn’t be too hard to change his name, and he could always dye his hair. His knowledge of Slavic languages was…pedestrian, but he could learn! He was good at learning. That was, like, part of his whole thing. 

But, as tempting as that plan sounded, he was getting twitchy. It was the same kind of wound-up giggly feeling he’d get when one of his brothers had him pinned but, rather than just getting it over with, would just sit there wriggling their fingers half an inch above his skin. That tactic never failed to make Tim’s brain completely short-circuit, and they knew it. 

“Please,” he muttered through gritted teeth, trying to rip the bandaid off. Then, for emphasis, he tapped the back of Dick’s hand that was still resting on torso. “Onmystomach.”

Dick hummed again, considering. “I guess that does narrow it down.” 

Oh, thank god. 

“...But I’m gonna need you to use the technical term.” 

  Tim felt the weight of Dick’s teasing words as his face blazed with all the warmth of a firework. “Dee, you’re just – I’m sorry I snapped at you, I–” he was never ever ever going to snark at Dick ever again, no matter who else was around. Not if this was his payback.

“None of those are the right words, bud.” 

“I hate you,” Tim muttered. “You’re so, so so mean to me and nobody would ever believe it.” Belying his own words, he smashed his face against Dick’s chest since his stupid older brother wouldn’t let him hide in the pillows. 

Dick laughed again, and it resonated through his whole body, vibrating through Tim’s ears in a way that almost, almost made him forget how much Dick was teasing him. “Aw, you’re cranky when you’re flustered.” 

Tim just pushed his face further into Dick’s fleecy pullover. After what was approximately a hundred years, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the inevitable wave of embarrassment and gritted out, “I want – Ti – Timmytummytickles, there!” 

“Oh!” Dick said with an entirely fake amount of surprise that made Tim want to smack him upside the head. “You should have just said, Baby Bird.” 

All thoughts of wrangling one of his arms free to bat at Dick’s wavy hair flew away when the hand on Tim’s stomach started digging in, fingers wiggling into his belly with a rhythmic precision that had him choking on a sudden wave of giggles. 

“Aww, there’s my Timmy,” Dick cooed, leaning down to nuzzle against the top of Tim’s head. “I thought I had a ticklish, giggly baby brother somewhere in there.” 

“No mohore teheheheasing!” squawked Tim as he let his head fall back against Dick’s shoulder, grinning through his laughter. No matter how old he got, Dick’s particular brand of older-brother teasing would never not burrow under his skin and make him squirm.

“No teasing? Not even about this ticklish tummy right here?” Dick made a line of pokes across Tim’s lower stomach, just above the waistline of his pajama pants, for emphasis. 

Case in point – Tim would’ve sworn his brain started to give off steam like a Looney Tunes character. “Nooo!” 

Dick tsked, his smirk barely concealing the well of affection that showed through in his gaze. “Okay, bud, if you insist.” 

He brought both hands up to make light scribbles over Tim’s stomach with just his nails. It – god, it tickled, all Tim could do was let himself laugh as his mind drowned in the overwhelming tingly prickles. His face rubbed against Dick’s smooth pullover as he tried to hide again, but the quick fluttering of fingertips across his collarbones made him squeak and snap his head back around. 

“Nuh uh, no hiding,” Dick scolded. He used each of his index fingers to tap on the twin giggle spots on either side of Tim’s bellybutton. “Don’t wanna make these tickly-tickle-tickle spots lonely, hm?” 

God, he was really going all-in on the teasing, and Tim couldn’t stop the giggly whine that welled up in the back of his throat. “Dee!” 

Dick was alternating between light tapping over those particularly ticklish places and scribbling his index fingers over them, occasionally pinching at the squishy spots. “That is my name, Tim, great job.”  

Tim tried to channel some of Jason’s blustering defiance by telling Dick to shut the fuck up, but then Dick started using all the fingers of each hand to scribble over his giggle spots and Tim collapsed back into fits of squeaky laughter, shaking his head. 

“It–it tihihic–it tihihickles!” 

Dick hummed. “Yeah, it sounds like it does, Squeakers.” 

The nickname sent a fresh wave of little brother feelings rolling through Tim’s thoughts as he tried to wrangle the peals of giggles under control long enough to say something else – he didn’t know what, but it’d come to him. 

Or maybe it wouldn’t. When he felt Dick’s hands slowly crawling outwards towards his lower ribs, Tim started squirming even more. He was expecting Dick to poke and prod at his ribcage, so when Dick stopped and suddenly vibrated each of his hands into Tim’s upper stomach, he startled and squeaked around a cackle.

“Y’know,” Dick said like he was having an epiphany in the middle of digging wiggling, prodding fingers into Tim’s abdominal muscles. “You don’t actually hate it when I tickle you, do you?” 

That was one of the worst, easiest things he could’ve said and Tim’s wriggling increased as he tried to shield himself from whatever else Dick was about to say. “I – nahahaha!” 

“Aaw. In fact…” 

The tickling fingers suddenly jumped down to the outer parts of his stomach, close to his sides, and dug in with a series of nibbling pinches. 

“These are your favorite tickles, aren’t they, Baby Bird?” 

Actually, maybe that was the worst thing Dick had ever said. Tim could hardly think but he knew he was more scarlet than the fever itself, drowning in his own ticklishness. His hands came up on instinct to try and push Dick’s away, but he’d been so weakened by all his previous laughter that he just latched onto Dick’s wrists and held tightly, not actually pushing against him. 

“You – you’re – tihihickling!” Tim gasped out, slamming his eyes shut when Dick cooed again. 

“Yeah, I am,” Dick replied, his voice a couple notches removed from the one he used to talk to babies and toddlers. “Glad you’ve recognized that, Timmy.” 

The voice made everything tickle more – well, either that, or Dick had magic tickle powers that, hey, for all Tim knew were totally a thing that existed – and Tim gasped, managing to flip onto one of his sides, facing Dick. 

Rather than shielding his stomach from questing, tickling fingers, his new position just meant that one of Dick’s hands went back to niggling around his bellybutton and the other started squeezing up and down his newly-exposed side. Tim collapsed into waves of helpless giggles, hiding his face in Dick’s chest. He could smell traces of the cedar cologne that Dick usually preferred, a scent that Tim had long ago learned to associate with brother, love, hugs. 

“C’mon out, Tim,” Dick teased, the words gently cajoling. “Don’t let the tickles get lonely, or they’re all going to start hanging out here.” His fingers migrated towards the back of Tim’s lower ribs on that side, fluttering over one of his worst tickle spots. 

Tim made a muffled, strangled yell and frantically shook his head, helplessly trying to use his elbow to push Dick’s hands away. 

“Hmmm. Well, maybe there’s another way to get you back out of hiding.” 

Suddenly, Dick was nuzzling a flurry of raspberries and nibbles against Tim’s neck and chin and collarbone while his fingers squeezed and scrabbled across Tim’s stomach. 

“Hey!” Tim shrieked, then promptly snorted with laughter as he tried to cringe away from the raspberries and nibbles. “Do nohohot–Deehehehe!” 

Dick’s only response was a long raspberry right at the crook between his neck and shoulder that made Tim flinch hard enough that he kicked his legs out, heels uselessly drumming against the bedsheets. 

“How’s your restlessness?” Dick asked as Tim’s laughter began to settle down again. 

“It’s– it’s gohohone!” Tim giggled, barely keeping himself from instinctively trying to roll all the way onto his stomach. He didn’t think he could stand it if Dick decided to tease at the kill spots on his lower ribs.  

“Do you think you can sleep now?” 

“IdoIdoIdohoho!” 

Dick gave him one more raspberry paired with a burst of featherlight scribbles over his giggle spots, and Tim melted back against him as his laughter weakened into wheezy, high-pitched giggles. 

“And you’re going to stay here?” Dick checked. 

A burst of warm happy feeling fizzled in Tim’s gut, right where his earlier anxious dread had been. “I will!” 

“And you’re going to remember not to sass me in front of your friends?” 

“Said–said you weren’t mad!” 

Dick laughed, low and fond. “That’s true, Baby Bird, and I’m not. But –” he nudged the side of his head against Tim’s for emphasis. “I gotta uphold my own older brother cred, which means the next time you snap at me in front of Kon and Bart, they’re gonna learn how to tickle those ribs of yours until you’re all hazy and wheezy and tapping out.” 

Just the thought of that sent sympathetic ticklish sparks running up and down Tim’s ribcage, and he let go of Dick’s wrists to wrap his arms around his middle, nodding quickly against Dick’s chest. “Ok, ok!” 

“Good!” And, man, did Dick sound way too chipper for someone who’d just taken his younger brother to pieces in the early hours of the morning. He finally stopped scribbling over Tim’s stomach, instead flattening his palm to rub slow, wide circles to chase away the leftover ticklish feelings – not that it stopped Tim from periodically falling back into fits of giggles, those tickles had somehow sunk into his nerves and made a home for themselves there. After the second or third time it happened, Dick gathered Tim up in a hug and kissed the top of his head. 

“Still giggly, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Tim said, unable to wipe the grin off his face. “Jus’ a little.”

Dick huffed a small, amused laugh. “Adorable.”

Tim didn’t know what to do with that, so he squeezed his eyes shut again. “Hn.” 

Dick adjusted his hold to nestle Tim more firmly against him, and Tim didn’t even put up a token struggle – he wasn’t Jason, he adored getting pressganged into Dick’s so-called octopus hugs. “And, hey. I’m glad you had your friends over today, you should do that again. They think you’re great.” 

Ah. So Dick had clocked some of the underlying reasons between Tim’s earlier words, even if they hadn’t been beyond the bounds of normal brotherly snark. Once again, Tim found himself feeling a tad too perceived, but that came with the territory in a family of detectives, even if the emotional intelligence wasn’t always a ….visible trait, for some of them. 

“Y’think?” he asked Dick’s shoulder. 

“I do,” Dick replied, the affirmation rumbling through his chest and into Tim’s ears. “And so do I.” 

Tim made an acknowledging sound and finally burrowed himself into Dick’s arms, stubbornly ignoring the voice in the back of his mind muttering about burrowing gremlins that sounded suspiciously similar to Jason. When Dick pulled the absurdly thick comforter up over both of them, Tim would have purred if he could. 

“Th’nks,” he murmured instead. 

He felt Dick press another kiss to the top of his head. “Of course. I told you to come find me if you have trouble falling asleep, and I’m glad you did.” 

Tim came to the kitchen only planning to check the calendar.

He’d also just woken up from a seven hour long nap, and could hardly walk in a straight line. Now, kitchen meant caffeine. Damian looked on in disgust and vague fascination when he tore apart the cabinet, unearthing a box of the powdered energy drink mixture. It must have been a secret from Alfred, Damian didn’t think he would like that.

Tim poured a generous helping of the powder into his mouth, washing it down with water.

He was going to have a stomachache later. Would it have really been that much harder to use the product as it's intended? Damian wasn’t sure how he was surviving while living everyday with these animals.

He chose not to say that. “…I see you have decided to join us again in the world of the living, Drake.”

Tim was coughing and heaving over the sink. It was almost as if what he had done was an unwise decision. When Damian slowly rose from his seat, his older brother waved his very much quaking hand. I’m fine, go away.

Damian tutted. He was hesitant to sit back down. That was a pretty incredible display of stupidity just now, but Tim was under Bruce’s care. He had more than enough insurance for his bad choices.

A final gasping breath resonated from across the kitchen. “Agh… geez.”

“‘Geez,’ indeed.” Damian echoed dryly.

“Whatever, alright? I’m awake now, it did what it was supposed to.” Tim scoffed, defending himself.

Damian shook his head, rubbing his hands over his eyes. Tim began to approach where he was working in the dining room. He was only allowed to do these things inside—in their nice rooms—because everyone could vouch for the fact that they had never seen Damian spill anything in all the time they’ve known him. He didn’t make messes. That must be what happens when you’re genetically engineered to be perfect.

Tim took in the array of supplies and materials organized on the table. When he walked into Bruce’s study to find Damian pressing autumn leaves, at the time, he just promised that he wouldn’t snitch, then chased him out with a clipboard.

Those big books Damian snuck out did their job well. With his now pressed leaves, Damian was making prints. That put a little twang in Tim’s chest, he liked these sorts of things.

“Neat.” He hummed. Damian curtly nodded, not looking up from the tabletop. There was a sizable stack situated on the end of the table, the ink already dried.

“What’s all this even for—?”

“It doesn’t concern you.” You would think the reply was waiting eagerly right on the tip of Damian’s tongue, like he’d been waiting for someone to pose that question all morning.

So that he could then go on to shut them down. Very Damian of him.

Tim clicked his tongue, slowly nodding along. “…Right.”

“Do you wanna take a break or something…? Alfred would make you tea if you asked.”

Damian paused, clearing his throat shortly after. “Fine. I will go wash my hands.”

Tim was already giving him a funny look. Any of that ink that could have potentially gone onto their fancy table went onto Damian’s person instead.

Damian’s head lifted, his face coming into view. He flinched when his brother doubled over, one hand stabilizing himself on the tabletop, the other muffling his high pitched cackles.

Damian grimaced. He didn’t need it to be explained to him—it didn’t look like Tim was calming down soon either way—he located the nearest mirror. There were smudges all up the sides of his neck where he would occasionally adjust the strap of his smock, his face wasn’t faring any better for similar reasons.

He’d been too careless, so absorbed in the repetition of it all that he failed to realize he too was getting printed on. It was on his nose, his cheeks, and the most ridiculous looking, around his eyes. You would think Robin forgot to take off his mask adhesive at the end of the night and rolled around in soot, he looked like a raccoon.

“Oh, god…” Sighing wistfully and still coming down from his fit of laughter, Tim came up behind Damian in the mirror.

“You look so funny, I wish I had my camera. Dick would get a kick out of this.” He had absolutely zero reason to be this slap happy about Damian’s predicament. That much showed on his little brother’s face.

“You will not be telling Grayson anything.” He spoke evenly, though his shoulders tensed.

Without a picture, Tim would have probably forgotten by the next time they saw him. Dick came and went as he liked. He eyed Damian, cutting his losses.

“If you will excuse me…” He muttered before he went zipping up the stairs. Damian was undoubtedly the fastest walker Tim had ever met, whether he was embarrassed or not.

With Damian not guarding his art project, Tim couldn’t help how he peered over each shoulder before strolling over to have a closer look.

The prints were small, a little larger than a post it note. This same week, from the extravagant window alcove in the library, he watched Damian flit about the expanse of their property. He must have been searching for the perfect specimens for his means.

Off to the side, twine and a hole puncher. No wonder he needed so many of these, he was making a decorative garland. Lastly, and the most telling, there sat Damian’s school bag on the ground below, leaned up against the dining room chair.

From that, Detective Tim Drake drew a handful of conclusions. This was for the school’s seasonal fair, Tim could remember it from when he was Damian’s age. The school would become all decorated and festive, families would bake, make all sorts of crafts, and a portion of the funds collected from the vendors would go to the local youth shelter. They wouldn’t stay warm in the up and coming winter for free.

That meant Damian was getting involved, in a sense. Cute. Good. It wasn’t like they were paying him to help. He was doing this out of the goodness of his heart because, believe it or not, it was in there somewhere.

Finally, Damian was trying to hide this from them. If he decided to pursue it, there was no reason for him to believe it was the wrong thing to do. Tim suspected that he was trying to avoid the opposite.

His heart wasn’t ready for the smile that Bruce would give him, for Dick to sweep him up in his arms and dote on him, how Cass and Jason would immediately want to know what they could do to help. They’d dedicate themselves to some pretty serious baking or crafting if it meant keeping even just one kid out of the cold.

And Tim guessed that now his job was to keep Damian’s secret. As much as he’d enjoy the youngest’s reaction to getting swamped by their overbearing family, it wasn’t his to tell.

A prickle went up his neck.

“Master Tim, you’re awake.” There were some people where secrets simply weren’t an option. If Tim let himself indulge the conspiracist lying dormant in him, he would say Alfred was some kind of ageless, omniscient being.

The butler came forward. He hummed. “Dear boy… he’s been hard at work.”

A majority of the time Tim couldn’t understand what it was about his little brother that Alfred found so endearing, but the second part added up.

“You never once attended any of these events. You said they were ‘bogus’ if I’m not mistaken.”

He gave Alfred a look. The look he got in return told him that he was only being teased. Any family member that was burdened with the task of watching, helping him grow up knew that Tim hated school.

He was too smart in the way he went about playing hooky for the administration to ever get him into trouble. Surely they knew, but they couldn’t prove it. To this day, he took pride in how clever he was for all the wrong reasons.

“This isn't really about me.” He wasn’t deflecting.

Alfred was scrutinizing him.

“Come. I insist you have something to eat before you collapse for another seven hours.” As he usually did, Alfred took a sharp turn on his heel, leaving for the kitchen.

Also not uncommon, Tim followed with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

* * *

The door to Damian’s bedroom was cracked. Tim pressed his head against it, pushing in unannounced.

“Excuse you.” Damian sniffed.

“I just need a pen, don’t throw a hissy fit.” Tim murmured. He at least mostly kept his hands to himself as he roamed around in search of the aforementioned pen.

Dick would have just started rummaging through the drawers, Jason would have tried to get away with theft, and Cass would get away with theft. Tim couldn’t tell you how many of his t-shirts suddenly vanished from his closet, all without him realizing for weeks.

His gaze eventually lifted. He squinted at Damian, and abandoned his search for a pen. The latter almost flinched when Tim began to charge towards where he was sitting on his bed.

“Damian, you didn’t even get all the ink off.”

Damian smacked away the pointer finger that was beginning to flutter towards him like an insect.

“Mind your own business. It would not come off…” He wouldn’t look at Tim.

“I can’t believe you just told me to mind my own business. If I have to see you walking around with those, it’s going to drive me insane.” Tim’s pointer finger managed to land on one of the many stains littering Damian’s neck. He scowled, shoulder hunching.

“Wait here. Don’t make me chase you.” After striking a very school-teacher-esque pose, Tim left even more ambitious than he’d come.

Damian wasn’t a child. He didn’t need nor want help, but if he wasn’t being given a choice, being petulant and running away felt even more undignified. He would have to entertain Tim.

***

The library was the last place anyone would think to do this, but upon Tim’s return, Damian declared that if he was going to have to sit through this, he got to choose where. If he wanted to sit in his favorite spot, Tim didn’t see why he should care.

They sat across from each other, Damian in his spot, Tim in line on the coffee table.

“Alright, so—“

“Is being your captive audience also not optional.”

Tim gave his brother the evil eye. “So, I’ve had these since I was, like, fourteen. I don’t know if Alfred buys them, where they come from, but anything I’ve ever needed to get off of me, they’ve scrubbed away.”

They looked like any other cleansing wipes. For whatever reason, Damian wasn’t as skeptical of this alleged miracle product as he should be.

“They smell like Dent’s chemical plant from last week…” He muttered. His expression strongly resembled that of a cat when they too smelled something they didn’t like.

“Did you think they would smell like roses?”

Damian sulked while Tim went to start chipping away at a spot on his forehead.

“Would you sit still?” The older Robin almost sounded smug.

“I am sitting still. Why are you so demanding?”

“I guess am pretty bossy.” Damian was surprised when Tim’s response wasn’t defensiveness, but a small smile and self deprecating joke.

“I guess…”

He was granted the mercy of a few minutes of silence. Tim worked diligently when he wasn’t being a smartass.

“Seems like it’s working at least. You’re not gonna like this next part.” Tim had gotten most of the outstanding spots left on Damian’s face, whose brow was now furrowed.

“You’re like Bruce, you get all touchy about your neck.” He clarified.

“Tt. How would you know that?” If he were Damian, Tim wouldn’t sound so confident.

“You aren’t denying it.” He pointed out.

Damian scoffed. “A moot point. I shouldn’t have to.”

Tim didn’t believe him for a second, but calling his bluff was pointless. Damian would argue up and down with him for as long as it took. “Well, fine. Good. We won’t have any issues, then.”

As he predicted, the second he went in to first wipe at the splotch on Damian’s neck, he jerked away. Tim gave him a look. The look.

Another one of his little tuts. “Don’t look so smug, Drake. It is simply cold.”

“Oh, of course.” Tim said dumbly, faux sympathy lacing his voice.

When his hand next drew closer and closer, he never even got the chance to touch down on Damian’s neck, who pulled back at the last second. He spoke before Tim could.

“Hurry up!” Damian spat. “You’re drawing this out on purpose!”

“Why would I do that?” Tim cocked his head. He was closing in, Damian could only ignore his questions for so long before he had to admit he was so much like his father.

His gaze was dark. Tim had a hard time keeping himself from laughing. A few years ago, a blood thirsty stare from Damian would have made him anxious. He’d gotten a little too comfortable with all the grumpy cat comparisons Dick made. Needless to say, that nerfed any intimidation factor.

“Go.” Damian commanded, turning his head to expose the smudge. “I’ll stay like this.”

No, you won’t, twerp. Tim didn’t say that. The shudder that overtook his little brother’s form when he began to wipe at the mark was ridiculous.

“I don’t understand what it is with you two and your necks.” He idly commented. Damian was stiff as a board.

“It… it has to be gone by now.” He shied away from the touch, uncharacteristically mild.

“Mm… I don’t know.”

“You’re just teasing me.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

Tim stared. “Yeah. And the sky is blue. Don’t you know somebody’s gotta do it?”

Indeed, somebody did. Which was why Tim threw himself at Damian, collapsing limply against his lap. He shuffled around, adjusting his posture until he was level.

“Hi.” He began with a smile. While it was both, the smile was more giddy than it was devilish.

“You’re going to suffocate me.” Damian seethed.

Tim shook his head around. “Nuh-uh, I’ve seen Jason do this with you before and he’s like, twice my size.”

He left Damian no choice but to resort to physical retaliation. Tim responded as he saw fit.

“Drahake—“ The trapped Robin choked out. For a moment, something flashed in his eyes. He was startled, but not entirely unpleasantly.

Damian would never forgive himself for letting Tim start to break him in. Blunt fingernails scuttled over the side of his neck, and no matter where he turned, he couldn’t shake them.

He twisted so that he at least didn’t have to face Tim. His head hid in his arm, burrowed into the sofa. The other pointlessly wandered, hardly even nudging at his attacker, who had never seen him so thoroughly incapacitated by something so minor. At least not at his hands.

“That was a horrible idea.” With Damian’s back to him, Tim found the nape of his neck, and concentrated small, quick scratches in what he knew was a sweet spot for most people. Let alone someone like Damian.

“Release me, you—!” A breathy hiccup took the place of whatever name he was going to call Tim. His hair scrubbed against the sofa, shoulders twitching all over. In this state, you would never guess that this kid knew a chokehold that would externally close your windpipe. Among other things.

“Why not just release yourself? I know you can do it.”

“You’re ti— mMMNGH!” You’re tickling me.

Damian didn’t normally have any trouble saying that word.

“Excellent observation.” Tim did. The fact that he couldn’t fill in the gap momentarily reminded him of his true nature.

Damian collapsed down onto his stomach when a pinch was delivered to a soft spot on his side that no amount of rigorous training could seem to get rid of. He’d lost himself to his laughter by this point. He was thankful that unlike most of his siblings, he was quiet by default.

He’d grown so used to being unfeeling that even now, whether he wanted it to or not, the sound tended to get caught in his throat. A strained, hum of a sound.

Tim lingered on that little soft spot for some time, he hadn’t seen Damian be ticklish on his sides since he was younger. It was his lucky day.

“I hate you more than anyone in this wORLD—!” Damian breathlessly stumbled through the sentence, it breaking off into a squeaky gasp at the end when both of Tim’s hands moved in to drag down either side of his back, staying confined towards the outside.

He felt like an idiot, but his feet began to scuffle frantically at the couch cushions when small nipping pinches between his mortal enemy’s pointer finger and thumb began to mercilessly fall on, now, the full real estate of his back.

You could hear Tim’s smile in his voice. “You can’t just get a sentence out, can you?”

His entertained, foxy titters mixed with the sound of Damian’s laughter as he continued intermittently. By the time he decided that Damian had finally given up, he was so disoriented that he didn’t think to fend Tim off when given the time to catch his breath, he just laid there.

The older brother took in the mess he was responsible for. It wasn’t a bad mess, the Batfamily’s little prince could use some mess in his life, if anything.

“You know, Alfred’s right. You do have Bruce’s smile.” He moved from where he’d been perched on Damian’s legs. Feeling the excess weight lift off, that was enough for Damian to look back and direct an exceptionally mediocre glare his way.

“…It’s true.” Tim grumbled in defense.

“I don’t understand why it matters so much for people to always have to say so.” The little Robin was beginning to attempt to straighten his ruffled feathers, coming to a seated position, fussing with his clothes and hair.

“He’s not the most eligible bachelor in Gotham for no reason.” Tim didn’t feel the need to say the quiet part out loud, that they were calling Damian handsome. As little as you would think he cared about his appearance, he could be vain.

He was given a judgemental stare that said, “Ew, don’t compliment me,” before Damian turned away.

“Why did you feel the need to do… that.” He similarly wasn’t as angry or uncomfortable with the situation as you would think, he just had an image to maintain.

“I didn’t need to, I wanted to.” Tim corrected.

Damian furrowed his brow at him.

“I will be telling Richard that you roughed me up the next time we see him.”

That drew a Cheshire grin from Tim. “Yeah, and who do you think he’s gonna believe?”

It was a close race. Damian was pouting. Alfred was right about most things— their youngest absolutely could be endearing.

“Well what? Do you want an apology?” Tim prodded.

Silent treatment.

“I’ll see if I can get Jason and Cass over here. We’ll throw something together for the fundraiser, you can say you made all of it.” How much the three of them would be able to get done in only a day, so long as Jason was supervising, was impressive on its own. Damian was only one person.

And he did like to humble brag.

“That is… fine, I guess. You don’t have to help.”

But he didn’t fight Tim on it when he insisted. They went on to spend more time together than they typically would over the next few days, Damian smiled at him more than usual. Tim wasn’t sure if it was just the proximity or if he’d actually done something right, but progress was progress.

Day one, 14 hours post encounter, 4:01 AM.

This was good. Tim was so good. Why hadn’t he saved himself the headache of scrawling out five separate contingencies when his way of life already put him at an advantage?

Dick was a boy scout. Everybody knew that. So, if it was up to him, he’d be in bed by ten most nights. Tim was nocturnal. Not even nocturnal, sleep simply evaded him. Maybe he evaded it. Everyone similarly knew that about him, but they should mind their own business.

No matter. All that it really meant was that Tim shouldn’t bump into Dick if he very carefully regimented his days, and he did that anyway. It wasn’t that he genuinely didn’t want to see Dick, but this was a game now. And Tim won all of the little games he created for himself. This was his mind field, and he was the lifelong champion.

The manor was quiet, and outside of the Batcave, the walls were relatively thin. It was an old home. So that had to mean he was the only one up. The kitchen light was on, but that didn’t have to mean anything, no cause for recourse yet. People accidentally left lights on all the time, and even if someone was there, it was a one in half a dozen chance it was Dick. He just needed a glass of water, maybe a sleeve of saltine crackers.

Tim could hardly believe his luck when he saw who was at the counter with a bowl of cereal. Maybe he could find a glass in someone else’s bedroom, sometimes Alfred would leave one for those who didn’t particularly like walking around in the dark. Even if they woke up and caught him, surely they’d understand. He was a goddamn hero, getting back at Dick in the way he did.

Dick perked up before Tim could slither back into his blind spot. He offered a small smile. He appeared sleepy and generally unthreatening. “Morning.”

Tim navigated the room along its perimeter, maintaining a distance from Dick that could compensate for any missteps and still give him a fighting chance at a tactical retreat. “Good morning.”

“Why’re you all the way over there…?” Not the confused puppy head tilt. Anything but that. Did Dick seriously not remember? He must have been very sleepy. As if Tim was going to fall for that.

“This is where the air vents on the floor are. My, um. My feet are cold.” Not entirely a lie. Tim did do that sometimes and had suggested it to anyone else who suffered from similar symptoms.

“Huh.” Dick’s clueless smile remained.

“‘Kay.”

Tim filled himself a glass of water. He knew what Dick was doing, acting all cutesy, and in a battle of wits and trickery, Tim would beat him every time. He took his eyes off his assailant for a fraction of a second, and the moment he saw the shadow on the wall, he swung around and clapped his hands together right next to Dick’s ear.

“AH! Jesus christ!” Dick hissed, bringing a hand up to said ear. “How do you know I wasn’t just going to get food from the fridge or something??”

Tim, blissfully unaware that he looked like the biggest dweeb in the world right now, tapped twice at his temple. “I got a SIXTH SENSE.”

“Sixth sense this!” Dick dove for him one more time and failed. Tim took off down the hallway, flying up the stairs and locking himself in his bedroom. He sunk down against the door, frantically giggling when Dick rattled it a few times. He’d just barely made it.

“You are so dead, Tim.”

All he could do was laugh a little louder.

Day two, 22 hours post encounter, 12:25 PM.

Tim spent most of his day at Wayne Enterprises, in and out of board rooms, at his desk arranging Power Points, staring dead eyed at the Keurig. Office things. It wasn’t that taxing for him anymore. It had been an adjustment, going from student to another cog in the corporate infrastructure. But vigilantism would always prove itself to be worse, no matter how bad a day he’d had.

He wasn’t entering the manor unarmed, of course. He’d prepared printed copies of the appropriate blackmail the night before in case of an emergency. He futzed with his keys for too long, they jingled too loudly. There was a chance Dick would be waiting for him when he came inside. He’d be ready.

He was greeted by Alfred The Cat first, the feline chittering at him and rubbing up against his shins. Tim couldn’t resist meowing back. Damian wasn’t far behind, which was to be expected.

“Are you and Grayson still at odds?” Tim would bet anything Dick had lost a couple of respect points when he tickled him in front of Damian. He’d been demoted from Richard to Grayson again. Tim couldn’t help the smug smile that twitched on his features at the thought.

“Your expression is unsettling.”

Tim gave a subtle roll of his eyes, beginning to loosen his tie. “I’m going to disregard that because it’s coming from you. And to answer your question, yes, we’re still going.”

“He will be waiting for you in the laundry closet.”

A muffled groan of, “Damiannnn-nuh!” could be made out from that general direction.

“As much as I would normally loathe to partake in your nonsense, this has been devastating for Grayson’s image, and it is long overdue.”

“Give me my cat.” With that, Damian lifted Alfred into his arms and marched away.

Tim had to admit, he felt ten feet tall with Damian’s support, of all people. And the rest of the day went off without a hitch. Because Dick knew that if he and Damian ever learned to get along, they’d be unstoppable. He wasn’t about to add fuel to the fire of their allyship.

Day three, 49 hours post encounter, 3:33 PM.

Tim had always believed three was his lucky number. Third time’s the charm, third in the Robin lineup, and it looked pretty okay when he looked up what the number three meant in angel numbers. Good stuff.

But now he was playing cat and mouse with his big brother in the dark theater room, biting down on his bunched up sleeve to stay quiet as he stalked through the rows of seats, singing at Tim to, “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Tim had wedged himself underneath the seats, and already watched Dick pass quite a few times. Maybe if he just waited it out for long enough, Dick would go look somewhere else, and that would give him a chance to get away.

“I expected you to start giggling like crazy by now. I guess you’ve toughenened up, little bird. You’ve certainly risen to the occasion, and it’s givin’ me a run for my money. It is not cool.”

Tim stifled a snort. Fortunately, Dick chose to sit on the arm of one of the squeaky old seats around the same time, so the sound was drowned out.

“Oh well! We’ve still got all week.” The door creaked. Tim went completely lax against the carpet.

That was when he heard it. “Robin, report.”

Dick’s impression was uncanny, he didn’t stand a chance. Tim’s brain flipped the override switch, any of his previous plans were sidelined, and could only think of one thing. Report to Batman. He sputtered out something resembling the response he always gave to Batman’s call, slamming his head against the bottom of the chair as he scrambled out from under it.

Dick’s following cackle couldn’t be described as evil, it was victorious. “I got you!” He leaped from chair to chair, and before Tim could even fully process what had happened, he’d been scruffed by the collar of his shirt.

He smiled very nicely.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” Dick wrangled his arms behind his back like he was actually arresting Tim.

“You can’t use your Batman voice! That’s so unfair!”

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Tim dug his heels into the carpet, pushing against Dick and straining back the tittering he felt itching in his throat. Dick’s pointer and middle finger ruthlessly wiggled into the softest part of his side, accompanied by a buzzing noise Dick made right by his ear. Tim’s self control caved in terribly, and he burst into silly sounding, high pitched giggles.

Well. Tim had lost. As he reveled in that, already laughing uncontrollably just knowing what was about to happen, Dick wrestled him onto the floor on his back like he’d done a million times before. Tim squirmed as much as he could, but by that point, his fate was more than sealed. Dick just sat, poised above him for a moment and watched. He pretended he was confused, but was loving every second of this.

“Man, I don’t even have to do anything. It looks like you’ve got a pretty bad case of the giggles.” Tim couldn’t respond.

“Calm down, baby bird! CALM DOWN!” Dick shook Tim around by his shoulders. That only made things a hundred times worse, and Tim knew that Dick knew it would. Tim was helpless to stop himself, and his sides were already starting to ache. Every time Dick so much as blinked his stomach would lurch and he’d crack all over again. Dick had to turn away a couple times and bring a hand to his mouth so he didn’t catch the giggles too.

“That’s alright, I can wait!” Dick said all too cheerily. His fingers tapped impatiently on the ground way too close to Tim’s hip. Tim let out another shrieking peal of laughter. “Oh my god…” Dick chuckled to himself.

A soft knock at the door was enough to suck all the air out of the room for a moment. Cool because now Tim wasn’t two hiccups away from tears, not cool because he had been loud enough to attract one or more persons’ attention. That never got any less embarrassing, somehow.

Dim, warm light flooded the room as the door opened to reveal Bruce and Alfred. Bruce was morally ambiguous in these situations, but Alfred was like a guardian angel. Unfortunately, he didn’t look too amused.

“PLEHEHEASE!” Tim squealed, frantically shifting as far as he could onto his side and waving his arms at them. Dick snorted and shoved him back down by the shoulder.

“Are you boys quite alright.” Alfred deadpanned. Bruce, over six feet and two hundred pounds of pure, concentrated vigilance, looked like he was going to wither away any moment now. At least as close as Batman got to looking like that.

“I haven’t even touched him, I swear. Timmy’s having the fits again.” Something in Dick’s expression must have made them believe him. Bruce and Alfred exchanged weary, but fond looks.

“Do please see that he makes a full recovery, Master Dick.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Officer Grayson, nohoho! I… eheheh! I’m really sohohorry!”

Alfred had vanished from the doorway. Bruce lingered, trying to get a good look at Tim before he decided it was okay to leave. Cass must have materialized behind him, and her presence was only made known when her head poked up, chin nestling onto Bruce’s shoulder.

“They’re having fun. Let them. Time to sleep for Batman.” Although still a little dazed, Bruce let Cass lead him away.

Tim had calmed down the littlest bit. In catching his breath, he’d thrown his arms out to either side of him. Bad idea. Dick’s clawed hands were raised menacingly almost all the way above him for dramatic effect. He didn’t waste any time, hands diving down and scribbling at Tim’s tummy with a, “Tickle, tickle, tickle!” that was typical of him. Tim threw his head back against the carpet, lost to silent laughter. His hands and feet scrabbled uselessly at the floor, taking him absolutely nowhere.

And then Dick stopped. Tim’s wheezing slowly subsided, and he stared rather awkwardly. That’s it? Dick snorted.

“I just wanted to scare ya a little bit. Even if it’s obviously the highlight of your day every time I do this, you’ve gotta breathe.”

“Oh. Yeah… I kinda do.” Tim lolled his head to the side. If Dick was just messing with him, he wouldn’t feel like a bug under a microscope right now. It wasn’t just the truth in Dick said, it was his tone. It was real. A little too real.

They sat in silence, and once enough time had passed, they were well within the threshold for Dick to feel like he did something wrong and say something cheesy. He softly sighed, shifting off of his perch on Tim’s hips to sit down next to him. Here we go again.

“It’s fine, you know. It would be a whole lot worse if we were tickling you all the time and you hated it. It’s fun. I tease you a lot because that’s standard procedure, but it’s genuinely something we’ve bonded over at this point.”

Tim kicked his legs out and hoisted himself into a sitting position. He had a difficult time lifting his gaze from his lap. It felt like no matter how many times someone told him that, it wasn’t ever enough. He’d still manage to convince himself that he was making people uncomfortable, that they felt some sort of obligation.

“I can hear you overthinking this. You just gotta trust me, alright? It never fails to make me smile when I hear your weird little squirrel laugh from halfway across the manor.”

Tim couldn’t help the grin that pulled at his features. “Weird little squirrel laugh.” Strangely accurate.

“I’ll still do it, if you want. You’ve probably suffered enough, and I don’t want you busting a lung. But I used to do this thing when you fell asleep next to me in the Batmobile,” He fluttered his pointer finger over the nape of Tim’s neck, smiling when Tim curled up in the same way he always did. “I liked to see how much I could get away with before you woke up and complained to B.” Dick had the post-cheesy-discussion smile on his face. Chances were, Tim did too. But it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as when Dick did it. It just wasn’t.

“Yeah. I think I remember that.” He definitely remembered. Half the time, he was pretending to be asleep just so that it would happen. Dick probably knew that, but he didn’t say anything, which Tim appreciated.

Dick hummed. He soon began to guide Tim onto his lap, laying sideways, back facing him. When Tim shimmied around to get comfortable, Dick took that as his green light. The touch ranged from barely there tracing or skittering along his back, ears, and neck, about as present when Alfred The Cat’s whiskers brushed your skin. That made him smile and shiver. To more playful plucking squeezes to his side, ribs, or shoulder blades. Those made Tim twitch, giggle, and look back to shoot Dick his best attempt at a dirty look.

Things ramped down naturally though when Tim’s breathing began to even and slow. His eyes had been fixated on the same spot on the floor for some time now, and they were drooping.

“I may fall asleep.” He admitted.

“Mhm, I noticed. Hallelujah.” Dick playfully replied. “Not here, though.” He moved to scoop Tim up, pausing when he felt his brother tense significantly.

“You… you don’t gotta carry me— it’s fine.”

The kicked puppy face. It was falling into place on Dick’s features. “If you get up to walk, you may get all restless again and try to find something to do. Sleep doesn’t come easy to you, Tim.”

Tim wasn’t reluctant because of Dick. Dick could carry him, Tim would probably melt into it like a total loser. He was reluctant because of who might see, what they may think. Dick sighed.

“If it makes you feel any better, I still jump on B’s back from time to time to be annoying.” Dick awkwardly smiled. “Sometimes he doesn’t let me get down.”

Tim returned a small smile of his own. It was a nice thought. A cute little anecdote. It didn’t fully quell his insecurities.

“Just… let me prove you wrong. I promise you’ll feel better.”

Let me prove you wrong. Did Dick even know him? Regardless, Tim found himself too pliant to argue. So, Dick lifted him up, and they left for the family room. Tim felt his heart rate increase in congruence with the sound of the family’s chatter, but there wasn’t some grand, silent moment of judgement when he knew they’d arrived.

Jason spoke first, Damian was sat next close to him, and didn’t speak, too engrossed in the book they’d been sharing. “You put Timmers through the wringer, didn’t you?”

Dick set Tim down in a large, cushy armchair they normally reserved for naps and tossed a blanket over him. He was fully submerged, the way he liked it. A sort of Tim shaped blanket now occupied the chair.

Dick joined him, sitting on the armrest. “You know me. Had to bust out the big guns.”

“So, basically, he laughed hard enough to make himself throw up. For, like, thirty minutes. At literally nothing.”

“Bingo!”

“I believe Drake sees spirits. Things we do not. There is no other logical explanation.” Damian murmured, snatching the book from Jason, who scoffed, but let their little brat have it.

Tim was briefly exposed to the outside world again when Cass lifted the blanket’s corner to peek at Tim. “Will you nap?”

Tim nodded. “Hopefully.” She smiled and carefully tucked the blanket back over Tim’s head.

“Lucky day.”

The hushed living room chatter acted as ambiance, the most comforting kind, and was quickly lulling Tim off to sleep. He’d been able to challenge Dick for about as long as he anticipated, so he hadn’t technically lost, right? The only thing he’d lost in all of this was the quiet ache of loneliness that still crept up on him from time to time.

Dick definitely scared that away, though.