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Tim glared at the demon brat. No. It couldn’t be. He hadn’t slept in literal days and was, therefore, too tired for this shit. “Did you—did you grow?”
Damian frowned at Tim, then looked down at himself. “As I am at an age where such things are—”
“No,” Tim interrupted. “Absolutely not. You stop that right this fucking instant!” He took an outraged step back and, like a bird on the defensive, attempted to make himself look bigger with his body language. (Dick cooed in the background from his place on the balance beam.) “You’re not—are you taller than me, now?”
Damian frowned (down) at Tim, mouth turned down at the corners. Tim’s face grew blotchy and red. Damian leaned back. “Are you well, Drake? If not—”
“Bruce. Bruce!” Tim screeched.
Jason missed the target he was shooting at by a wide margin, Dick toppled off the balance beam, Cass almost fell from the uneven bars, and Steph clapped her hands over her ears. All of them turned to scowl in Tim’s direction, but Tim was already stomping up the stairs, to the study. Still shouting, “Bruce! Bruce!” like some kind of confused police siren.
All Tim had wanted was a midnight snack, but he’d walked down into the kitchen to find out it was noon and before he could make his escape back to his room and maybe get some sleep for the first time in, like, three days, Bruce saw him. Which meant he had to stay up (or admit he hadn’t slept yet, which was a total non-starter, since he’d have to withstand the Disappointed Look). So he went down into the Cave to get some work done. Only to be faced with this cosmic injustice as soon as he set foot in the Cave.
“Bruce!”
—
“I don’t even live here!”
“I’m twenty-seven!”
“This is ridiculous. What will this futile exercise accomplish, Father?”
“Measure the demon, Bruce! Measure him!”
“I have business on the Docks in like two hours, can’t we do this weird family shit later or something?”
“I said: get in line,” Bruce snapped. His children all grumbled, but did as they were told. Even Jason. “Oldest to youngest. No, Jason, Cass is still older than you, try again. Steph, your birthday is in August, Tim’s is in July, he’s older. Duke— where is Duke?”
“Here!” Duke groused and shoved back into place between Damian and Steph.
“Shouldn’t you be in between Tim and Jason?” Steph asked.
“I’m sixteen!”
“I can’t keep ages straight! There’s a bazillion people here!” Steph shoved Duke.
Jason reached over and flicked her ear. “Hey, don’t mess with the only decent sibling we have, Stuffy.”
Steph growled, gave a slow and dangerous turn, and looked like she was going to leap at Jason. Tim gave her such a poisonous look, though, that she begrudgingly settled back into place.
“Okay. Dick?” Bruce motioned to the doorway into the kitchen.
Dick groaned.
Bruce motioned again, more emphatically. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, chum.”
“‘m not fish food,” Dick mumbled.
“Stand straight, Dick.”
Someone (Jason) snickered. Someone else (Tim) elbowed them hard enough that there was audible pain and some doubling-over. Bruce glared over to find his children attempting to look innocent, but Duke’s sheer tiredness and exasperation told him that they were still messing around.
“Stand straight,” Bruce said again.
“I doubt that West would appreciate that.”
Everyone stopped and looked at Damian.
“Was that a… a joke?” Steph asked.
“It’s a sign of the apocalypse, folks. Time to buckle in and bunker down. Next stop: zombies,” Jason said. “Oh wait. Been there, done that.” He peaced out and tried to walk away.
Cass held him by the elbow and guided him back to his spot.
Bruce put a hand on Dick’s face — like some kind of parental face-hugger — and pushed him back until Dick’s head touched the doorframe. Dick squirmed and grumbled in protest. “Stand still,” Bruce said.
Alfred passed over the hardcover copy of Surviving Your Out-of-Control Teen from the other room’s side table. Bruce took a double-take, steeled himself, and set it against the doorframe and Dick’s head, then he nudged Dick away. Alfred then passed over a pencil and Bruce marked the underside of the book, indicating Dick’s height on the doorframe.
“Next.” Bruce wrote “DG, 27” next to Dick’s height, then turned to his kids, once more.
Cass glided over and stood against the door-frame without requiring any other guidance (unlike some people). He wrote “CC, 22” next to her height and motioned for Jason to walk over.
“I’m literally dead—well, not literally. I’m legally dead. It’s such a fucking bad idea to—”
“Jason,” Bruce ran a hand down his face.
“Yeah, no. This has been fun and all, but—”
“Master Jason,” Alfred levelled him with the dreaded Disappointed Look.
Jason flinched, then grumbled, then stomped over and slouched into place.
“Refrain from exhibiting the posture of a banana,” Alfred said.
Jason straightened, though not without all the attitude of a beleaguered teenager with authority issues. Bruce wrote “JT, 21” next to Jason’s height line.
Tim was already there, shoving Jason out of the way. “Come on, come on,” he hissed. “Let’s get this over with, Bruce! I need to know!”
“Tim—”
“I need to know,” Tim hissed.
Bruce glanced at the parenting book in hand and wished, not for the first time, that his children were just a little bit more normal and that parenting books were just a little bit more helpful. Then he measured Tim’s height and put “TD, 17” next to it.
Next was Steph with an “SB, 17.”
Then Duke with a “DT, 16.”
Then, finally. Damian. Tim vibrated in place, waiting for the moment of truth. Damian stood with perfect posture and—
“Shoes!” Tim shouted.
Everyone cringed away from him.
“What?” Bruce sighed. He turned to Tim and tried to hold in the amount of sheer anguish that this entire situation was suddenly giving him.
“Shoes. His shoes. Make him take his shoes off.”
Bruce blinked. Twice. “What?”
“Shoes, Bruce!”
“Tim. Shoes won’t—”
“Make him take off his shoes, Bruce!” screeched the pterodactyl that had suddenly replaced Tim. Or one would be led to believe as much, given the screeching Tim was doing, lately.
Bruce pressed his lips into a thin line.
Tim scrunched his nose and bared his teeth.
Damian bent down and untied his shoes, because unlike the rest of these idiots, he didn’t have time for this idiocy. Or Tim’s mental breakdown. He straightened, toed his shoes off, and waited — brow arched (he picked that up from Alfred) — for Bruce and Tim to finish their stare-off.
Bruce sighed and turned to Damian. “Son, would you—”
Damian motioned to his feet.
“Yes. Right. Very good.” Bruce measured him and wrote “DW, 13” next to it.
“Finally!” Tim said.
Tim moved toward the heights, but had his path intercepted by Dick. “Wait, B! We gotta do you and Alf, too!” he said.
Tim screamed.
This time, though, everyone ignored him.
Dick carefully measured Bruce, then forged Bruce’s handwriting so that the “BW, 42” looked like it had been written by the same person as all the other initials and ages. (Alfred got a classy “AP” and no age, of course.)
Finally, though. Finally. They were done. After Bruce wrote the date at the top of all the height entries, anyway. Tim had to wonder if there were just… random doorways with heights etched into them scattered throughout the Manor, if Bruce was going to date the whole list instead of the individual heights. But that was a mystery for another day.
“Who’s taller?” Tim demanded. “Bruce, give it to me straight!”
Damian side-eyed him. So did Jason. Then they glanced at each other over Tim’s head. Damian shrugged and looked away and Jason grinned maniacally and turned back to Tim. “That’s not what you said to Conner,” he sang.
Tim glared at him. “That’s not what you said to Conner, grow up,” he shot back.
Jason snorted. “Says the guy literally obsessing about whether or not the Demon Brat is taller than him or not.”
“Boys.” Bruce glared at Jason, then Tim.
Tim glared back. What a brave little soldier. And maybe a grounded one. Only time would tell.
Bruce turned to the heights. “It looks like the tallest person in the house is…” he took a double-take. “Jason, get back over here, and take off your boots, this time.”
Jason stomped back over. After a bit of erasing and re-measuring, Bruce relaxed and nodded.
“I am the tallest in the house,” he said. He was a damn liar, though, since he’d literally had Jason re-measured to make sure that Jason was shorter. “Followed by Jason.” Shocker. “And then Alfred, then Dick.”
“Wait, hold on. When did that happen?” Dick interrupted.
Tim shot him a poisonous glare.
“In the grave,” Jason snarked.
Dick put a hand over his heart and gasped. “Little Wing! You can’t say stuff like that!”
“Bite me!”
“Bruce! Did you hear that!”
“That’s a dollar for the death-reference jar, Jason,” Bruce said. “And two more for the other references. Don’t think I missed them.”
“Okay, Daddy,” Jason said.
A collective shudder ran through Bruce’s children. And Bruce. And then Jason, who immediately regretted saying that.
“Kill me now,” Steph muttered. “Oh. Wait.”
“Steph. Death-reference jar,” Bruce said.
“You’re not even my dad!”
“Steph.” Bruce levelled her with an unimpressed glare.
Stephanie dropped her gaze and scuffed her foot against the floor. “Yes, Dad.”
“Dick, Jason is only a few inches taller than you. It’s nothing to worry about,” Bruce said. Again, like a damn liar, given how he’d forcibly made himself the tallest, when Jason had clearly won that battle. Truth be told, though, the lines indicating Bruce, Jason, Alfred, and Dick’s heights were all pretty close together.
“After Dick, we have Duke,” Bruce said.
Jason snickered. “Duke, would you like the ball?” he intoned.
Duke scowled at him. “Weren’t you, like, dead when Vine was a thing?” he muttered.
Jason gasped. “Snarky! I have a new favourite.”
Duke drew back a little, clearly surprised. But happy to be, you know, praised instead of shot. Or stabbed. Or hit with a crowbar (yes, I went there).
Bruce, brave man that he was, soldiered on with his list. Well, tried. And made a valiant effort. He cleared his throat to get their attention back on him. “Then Steph—”
“What?” Tim gasped.
“—and then Cass—”
“Hold on! Wait! Steph? Seriously?” Tim motioned around the room helplessly. “Wait. No, this can’t—”
Steph ruffled his hair. “Come on, pip squeak. We always knew I was taller.”
“Hair. Hair! Re-measure! Make her un-big her hair, Bruce!”
“After Steph. Is Cass,” Bruce repeated. “And then Damian—”
Tim took a deep breath, then screamed, “No!” with all his might, dragging it out like a tiny (ha) version of Darth Vader as he fell to his knees.
Bruce sighed. But didn’t otherwise intervene.
“Why does God hate me?” Tim asked. “Is it because of the bacon? Bruce, do you think God would let me be tall if I stopped eating bacon? Fuck! I’m a horrible example of my religion! Bruce, I’m horrible at being Jewish! I knew it!”
Bruce ran a hand down his face and wondered why? Why on God’s Earth did he have to be the responsible parental figure in this familial relationship? He looked to Alfred for help, but found that Alfred had abandoned him to flounder through whatever this was.
“I suspect,” Damian said, “that, rather than bacon, the problem lies in copious caffeine, over-dependence on energy drinks, lack of sleep, irregular meal—”
“Looks like the Demon’s finally taken something else from you, Short Stuff,” Jason said, louder than Damian.
Tim gave a battlecry to end all battlecries and leapt at Jason. As per Jason’s apparent plan.
Like some kind of bad Dirty Dancing parody, Cass caught him midair and spun him around so that he was no longer facing Jason, making her the Patrick Swayze to Tim’s reluctant Jennifer Grey. When Tim’s feet were back on the ground, he crossed his arms and scowled poisonously, as if it weren’t Damian’s upbringing that had made him such a beastly child to deal with, but his proximity to the ground, which Tim now had the closest proximity to. Making Tim the new beastly child. Or something.
“Come on, Half Pint, lighten up,” Jason said.
Duke took the heavy, loaded silence as his cue to slink away.
“Tim, calm down,” Bruce said.
“Calm down? You want me to calm down?! Bruce!”
“It’s barely an inch.”
“A whole inch?!”
“Tim—”
“I can’t believe this!”
“Tim!”
“An inch!”
“Timothy Jackson!”
Tim quieted, begrudgingly. It was the power of the middle name at work.
Damian cleared his throat.
Bruce visibly died a little, inside. And Cass just wandered away, hand-in-hand with Steph (who seemed a bit reluctant to leave the drama, but followed Cass away, willingly) and humming to herself absently, as if Damian weren’t about to single-handedly spark World War III, outside the Wayne Manor kitchen.
“Father,” Damian clasped his hands behind his back. “Drake has not disavailed himself of his footwear. In all fairness, a further thirty-eight millimeters should be deducted from his height. That would be a further one and one half inches—”
Tim whipped around so fast that his hair whipped him in the eyeballs, just to mess with him. “How dare you,” Tim shot up with murderous intent, the only thing stopping him was Jason’s lightning-fast reflexes.
“Whoa, easy there, Little Bird,” Jason laughed. Because, apparently, attempted murder is funny.
“You’ll never take that inch from me,” Tim hissed. “It’s mine.”
Dick wrapped Damian up in an all-consuming octopus hug, practically oozing affection, and started to lead him away. All the while, Damian struggled against Dick’s hold, but Dick was accustomed to Damian’s squirming and easily adapted to each of Damian’s attempts to escape. “Let’s go take a walk, Baby Bat.”
“Unhand me, Grayson!”
“The gardens are lovely, this year! Alfred always handles the landscape design so well.”
“Grayson!”
“And the weather is just so nice, today.”
“Father!” Damian tried.
Bruce ignored him.
“And when was the last time we just went to the garden for a peaceful walk, anyway?”
Damian growled, but stopped his attempts at escape.
Tim waited until Dick and Damian had completely disappeared. He attempted (and failed) to shrug Jason off. Unfortunately, Jason was only half as dumb as he looked. “What did you feed him?” Tim glared at Bruce, attempting to see into the depths of his soul, to find out why Bruce would have betrayed him like this. But Bruce was too tall. If eyes were the windows to the soul… then Tim would never see into Bruce’s, because Bruce was just too much of a fucking skyscraper. Fuck! Wait! That was it! “Goddamn genetics,” Tim whispered to himself. “It’s the goddamn genetics.”
Bruce chuckled tiredly, ruffled Tim’s hair, then walked away.
Jason slowly let go of Tim, and Tim stood perfectly still until Jason's hands were a “good distance away” before he bolted in the direction of the brat and Dick.
Jason once again, the zombie asshole, grabbed him.
“Alrighty then,” Jason lifted and threw Tim over his shoulder and started away from the kitchen. “Someone needs a fucking nap. Hint: it’s actually me. But also maybe you.”
Tim huffed and propped his chin up in his hand. “I just want to chop off an inch or two. Then it’ll be fair again,” he mumbled.
“Yeah. No. We’re going to go to the library and, I dunno, read some shit. Maybe ask Alfred to bring us some tea—wherever it is he’s disappeared off to in the midst of all this. And then we’ll not murder people who, while definitely very murder-able, are part of our family.”
“Fuck you,” Tim muttered darkly. “And your books.”
“Wow, Baby needs a nap,” Jason laughed.
Tim dug his elbow into Jason’s shoulder.
Jason, being the awful brother he was (not really), just carried on to the library, used several cozy blankets to turn Tim into a Tim-shaped burrito (or a burrito-shaped Tim?), and tossed him on the nicest library couch. “Nap time, Timbit.”
“Fuck you,” Tim cuddled down into the blankets.
Jason cracked open a vintage copy of War of the Worlds and settled in to make sure Tim didn’t sneak away from his obligatory rest time (again). “Love you, too.”