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Damian had always considered himself the most capable among them. The sharpest mind, the most honed instincts, the most disciplined hand. The others might be older, taller, louder—but none of them had been trained from birth to be perfect. None of them had his pedigree.
And yet.
He watched from the upper railing of the Cave, masked in shadow as Drake moved through his cooldown routine. Tired, bruised, but moving with that irritating precision of his—stripped-down, mechanical, efficient. Nothing wasted. No flair. No hesitation.
There had been hesitation once. Back when Damian had first returned to Gotham, Drake had been a shadow of himself—frayed, aimless, still pretending he hadn’t lost everything. But now?
Now there was something dangerous under the surface. A quietness Damian didn’t trust.
He’d seen it during the Joker incident that night. Everyone had seen it. Drake had gone into that warehouse alone, outnumbered, outgunned, and somehow still walked out with half the gang unconscious and the Joker zip-tied at his feet. He hadn’t spoken much after—just handed off the scene to Gordon, checked in with Oracle, and vanished before anyone could thank him.
Jason had called it badass. Richard had called it “mature.”
Damian had called it suspicious.
He couldn’t shake the image: blood on Drake’s gloves, that blank, calculating expression on his face. Not angry. Not smug. Just… cold. Like he’d flipped a switch and shut the rest of himself off.
It wasn’t the fight that bothered Damian—it was how good he’d been.
Better than before. Better than him.
And that wasn’t acceptable.
He clenched his fists at his sides, watching as Drake pulled his hoodie on and slung his bag over one shoulder. No limping. No wincing. He’d taken a beating and barely flinched.
Something had changed in him. Damian could feel it.
He didn’t know what Drake had gone through during that absurd “timestream crusade,” but it had altered him—sharpened him into something leaner, darker, and more unpredictable.
That made him a threat.
Not to the city.
To them.
Drake was too self-contained now, too unreadable. He didn’t flinch when Jason teased him, didn’t react when Father criticized him, didn’t even rise to Damian’s bait anymore. He just took it all in stride. Calm. Distant. Strategic.
That wasn’t the Drake Damian remembered.
Which meant either he’d grown up—or he was planning something.
And Damian refused to be caught unaware.
Not again.
Not by him.
Damian landed in front of him without warning, staff extended and eyes narrowed.
Drake didn’t even flinch.
“Tense today, are we?” he asked mildly, flipping a page in the little notebook he’d been scribbling in. He was sitting on the rooftop edge, legs dangling over the side like he hadn’t a care in the world. He barely even glanced up.
That only made Damian more irritated.
“We haven’t sparred in weeks,” Damian said. “Are you afraid you’ll embarrass yourself?”
That got a look. Barely. Drake glanced up with a raised brow, like he was watching a dog bark from behind glass.
“I’m exhausted, Damian,” he said, closing the notebook without fanfare. “Can this wait?”
“You went after the Joker on no sleep and ten broken ribs. What’s one spar?”
“You sound like Bruce,” Drake said, yawning. “It’s unsettling.”
That should have made Damian feel triumphant. Even Drake recognized him as the Rightful Wayne Heir. It didn’t. The easy tone, the lack of heat—it wasn’t deflection. It was honesty. Drake wasn’t ruffled, wasn’t amused, wasn’t even annoyed.
He was calm.
Damian didn’t trust it. Drake had always been guarded and quick-tempered, the kind of person who snapped under pressure and refused to share the weight. This new version? This serene, unbothered imposter?
Unsettling didn’t begin to cover it.
When Timothy stood and brushed himself off, Damian didn’t move. He let the other boy walk right past him, silent and without resistance. But the moment Timothy was out of sight—
He followed.
Drake didn’t take the bike.
Interesting.
Instead, he walked three blocks east, cutting through a construction zone and ducking into an alley behind a closed bodega. He wasn’t wearing his suit anymore—just jeans, an old Red Robin hoodie, and sneakers like some lazy college student. No cape. No gadgets. No tension in his shoulders.
Damian crouched behind the edge of the roof, eyes narrowed.
Then he saw him.
Kon-El—Superboy, walking toward Drake with that easy, lopsided smile and a paper bag in one hand. Timothy perked up immediately, smile blooming across his face.
Smile?
They met halfway and embraced like they hadn’t seen each other in years, Kon’s arms wrapping around Tim’s shoulders and tugging him in close. They stood like that for a moment, talking quietly.
Drake laughed.
Damian blinked.
Drake doesn’t laugh.
He didn’t even smile around the family. He smirked, maybe. Snorted at Jason’s jokes when he thought no one was listening. But this? This was a full-body laugh, head thrown back, eyes crinkling, leaning into Kon like he couldn’t help himself.
Damian felt… unmoored.
“I’m serious,” Kon was saying now, his voice drifting just enough to catch. “You should tell them. They deserve to know.”
Drake immediately stepped back, face pinching. “Why?”
Kon tilted his head. “Because they think you just disappeared. Like you gave up. You didn’t.”
“They’re fine not knowing,” Timothy muttered. “Why dig up old crap?”
“Because it’s not crap, Tim. You told us. Tell them.”
“I told you because you wouldn’t stop hovering,” Drake said, voice going up half an octave.
Was that a whine? Damian’s brain short-circuited. Did Drake just whine?
Kon snorted. “You needed someone to hover. You still do.”
“Not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“I don’t want to get into it with Bruce. Or Dick. Or—God, Jason’ll monologue—”
Kon leaned in, gentling. “I’ll go with you.”
Timothy hesitated.
Damian stared harder, as if squinting would make the pieces align. None of this made sense. Drake didn’t laugh. He didn’t whine. And he certainly didn’t let himself be comforted.
What the hell was he hiding?
And why did it look like he was afraid?
Kon brushed Tim’s cheek with his thumb before they started walking, still talking low.
Damian didn’t move from the shadows.
His fists clenched at his sides, heart thudding faster than he liked.
Whatever this was—he was going to find out.
Damian kept to the shadows, silent as breath, as Kon and Drake made their way back to the Manor.
He expected at least some paranoia from Drake. A flicker of wariness. A glance over the shoulder. But nothing.
Worse—Drake knew he was there. He knew, and he didn’t care.
Kon made it obvious, glancing backward once with that smug farm-boy grin and raising an eyebrow like he could see straight through the stone gargoyle Damian had crouched behind. And Drake?
Drake just said, “Don’t,” without even turning his head.
“I didn’t say anything,” Kon replied.
“You were about to.”
Kon shrugged, smile tugging at his mouth. “It’s not my fault your little brother’s in stealth goblin mode.”
Drake didn’t even break stride. “He’s always in stealth goblin mode.”
They didn’t speak again until they reached the Manor.
Damian stayed on the roof.
He expected them to enter quietly, maybe head for the kitchen. But instead, Kon pulled out his phone and dialed—and when Pennyworth picked up, Damian’s ears nearly perked like a cat’s.
“Yes, sir,” Kon said. “It’s Kon-El. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Pause.
A smile from Kon.
“Thank you. Yeah, they’ve been good. I actually got to help with the goats. And they're all healthy too, thank god. Actually, I wanted to ask if you could call a family meeting. Today. Tonight. As soon as possible.”
Another pause. Longer this time. Kon’s eyes flicked toward the house like he was scanning the interior.
And then—
“Yes, sir. We’ll be inside shortly.”
He hung up.
Drake groaned like his spine had given out. “Kon.”
“No,” Kon said, turning to face him. “You said if they asked, you’d tell them.”
“Yeah, if they asked. Not if you dragged me in by my ears.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I am being sane. There’s a difference.”
“There really isn’t.”
Drake pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is a bad idea.”
Kon crossed his arms, smiling faintly. “You said that about putting mustard on pancakes, too, and I was right then.”
“That’s not even the same category!”
Damian, clinging to the roof like a feral cat, was experiencing something close to vertigo. Timothy arguing—petulantly—with anyone was strange enough. But the casual way they bickered, the ease between them… it felt practiced. Lived-in.
Intimate.
And worse: Alfred had agreed. Without hesitation.
Of course Pennyworth had met the clone. Of course he liked him.
Damian narrowed his eyes. He didn’t trust him. Not Kon, not his stupid red jacket, not the way he touched Drake like it was second nature. He was too clean, too calm, too… comfortable here.
Clones weren’t supposed to be comfortable.
Timothy leaned back against the exterior wall, exhaling slowly.
“You’re sure about this?”
Kon stepped closer, resting a hand on Tim’s arm.
“You told us, Tim. Told me .” His voice dropped to something quieter, gentler. “They need to hear it from you. And you need to tell them.”
“I don’t need them to know,” Timothy muttered.
Kon raised an eyebrow. “Then why haven’t you told me to stop?”
Timothy said nothing.
And that was all the answer Damian needed.
The two of them headed inside without looking back.
They didn’t speak his name. Didn’t call him out. Didn’t even glance up.
They knew he’d followed.
And they simply didn’t care.
Damian stayed where he was, blood humming, throat tight.
Alfred was already paging the others.
Whatever this was—it was already in motion.
And he was still the one being left behind.
Damian reentered the Manor with all the ease of a returning soldier, hands in his pockets and suspicion in his eyes.
The family was gathering in the theater room. Jason had commandeered an entire loveseat, Brown was curled up in one of the corner armchairs like it was her throne, and Cassandra sat cross-legged on the carpet without hesitation, expression neutral as always.
Richard, of course, was pacing near the screen like he wanted to host the meeting, which was entirely on brand.
Damian ignored them all and took the end of the couch nearest the door.
Father was already seated, arms folded, gaze unreadable.
“Anyone want to explain what we’re doing?” Jason asked. “All Alfred said was ‘urgent family business.’ Which sounds like either someone’s dead or someone’s pregnant.”
“It’s not me,” Stephanie said, mouth full of a granola bar.
“Tt,” Damian muttered. “We know it’s not you.”
Before Brown could lob a shoe at him, the door opened.
Drake walked in like a man being led to the gallows.
The Clone followed, casual and unbothered, carrying a thumb drive and the air of someone far too comfortable in his house.
Drake rubbed his face as he approached the screen. “Okay. Due to persistent, aggravating, relentless nagging—” he cut a pointed look at Kon, “—I will now be walking you through the events surrounding my retrieval of Bruce Wayne from a temporal displacement, why Ra’s al Ghul keeps sending me flowers as part of a murder-proposal pact, and why I am, as of last quarter, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises.”
There was a beat of stunned silence.
“All of which,” Drake added dryly, “are, somehow, related.”
“Wait—flowers?” Richard said. “From Ra’s?”
“What the hell is this timeline?” Stephanie mumbled.
Kon said nothing, just gave Timothy a supportive nudge and plugged in the drive.
The screen blinked to life.
And then—
Colors.
Bright, clashing, candy-colored graphics lit up the projector screen, accompanied by a custom transition jingle and an animated gif of a smiling hourglass.
“Drake! Is that Comic Sans?” Damian hissed.
“Yes,” Kon said, grinning.
“No,” Drake groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I forgot this was the Young Justice version. I made it for Bart. Oh well, I don’t have a second version.”
The title card read:
“ Tim Drake’s Big Dumb Time Trauma Adventure ”
(subtitle: what you should’ve asked me three months ago)
Father’s eye twitched.
“You briefed Young Justice before us?”
“I was dying in space and needed help!” Timothy snapped. “They were around during all the panic attacks and shit.”
Cain raised a hand and signed, Love you, brother.
Drake blinked. “Thanks, Cass.”
Damian side-eyed her. “You can’t just say that before we know if he committed war crimes.”
Cassandra shrugged.
Jason kicked his feet up. “This is already better than the last five board meetings I’ve been forced into.”
Pennyworth entered then, with all the elegance of a man arriving at the opera, not a crisis intervention. He placed a silver tray on the side table with perfect precision—scones, jam, a steaming pot of tea—and seated himself beside Father as if preparing for a symphony.
Drake clicked to the first slide.
“Okay. So. A while back, we thought Bruce died. He didn’t. He was displaced in time by Darkseid’s Omega Sanction. The ‘death’ was a cover for what was essentially… a cosmic eject button.”
Richard shifted slightly.
Timothy didn’t look at him.
“I ran the autopsy myself and realized the body wasn’t Bruce’s. Everyone thought I was losing it. No one wanted to hear me out.”
“Because you were a teenager yelling at everyone in a cape, man,” Stephanie said. “You were scary.”
“I was right,” Timothy said tightly. “But yeah. I probably didn’t… present that well.”
“Understatement,” Jason muttered.
Kon leaned forward, arms crossed over the back of Cassandra’s chair. “He started investigating. Alone. Built his own intel network, hacked half the Watchtower’s archives, traced cosmic energy back to Vanishing Point.”
“Isn’t that the place that doesn’t exist?” Damian asked.
“Yes,” Drake said, flipping to a slide that featured an actual Bart-drawn cartoon of him being crushed by time debris. “Thanks for noticing.”
He moved briskly through the timeline—how he chased ghost signatures of Father through fractured pockets of reality. How each jump got more unstable. How he took hits no one could’ve prepared for, physically and mentally.
He didn’t mention when he left Gotham. Or why.
But everyone felt the gap.
Jason leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. “You left without a word.”
“I was on a time limit,” Timothy said.
“You also left your communicator behind.”
Timothy hesitated. “It felt easier.”
“Easier,” Brown echoed. “To disappear?”
“It wasn’t Dick’s fault,” Timothy said immediately, like the defense was preloaded. “He was doing his best. Everyone was. I just—wasn’t what Gotham needed anymore.”
He didn’t look at Richard.
Richard looked devastated anyway.
Cassandra reached over and took Tim’s hand. He squeezed hers gratefully.
Damian sat back, uneasy.
None of this was what he’d expected.
And for the first time since this began… he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what came next.
Timothy didn’t make eye contact with anyone as he flipped to the next slide.
It was darker—less Bart-style chaos, more red pins and mission photos. The logo of the League of Assassins sat dead center. Damian frowned immediately.
“So,” Timothy said flatly, “I had limited support. Most of the people I trusted were busy. Or… didn’t trust me. Which is fair. But I was on my own. And then Ra’s al Ghul showed up.”
Father tensed beside Alfred.
Stephanie and Jason said, in eerie sync:
“You made a deal with Ra’s?”
Timothy didn’t even flinch. “I didn’t have options. I needed tech. Transport. Intelligence. I wasn’t going to beg the Justice League. So I… accepted a few strategic offers.”
“That’s what we’re calling it now?” Jason muttered. “Strategic offers?”
“He had satellites,” Timothy snapped. “I needed global tracking.”
“HE EATS PEOPLE.”
“I wasn’t dining with him, Jason. I was using him.”
Damian crossed his arms and scowled. “That was still monumentally stupid.”
Timothy rubbed his forehead. “Yes, thank you, everyone. I was aware.”
Kon stayed quiet, standing behind him like a stone wall.
The next slide came up—three faces in low-res grain: a tall woman with a long knife, a lean black man with a broad, curved short swodr, and a paler skinned man holding a rifle.
“These three were originally sent to kill me. I made them rethink it.”
Jason snorted. “The hell’d you do, bake them cookies?”
Timothy gave him a tired look. “I beat two of them, out-thought the third, and offered them something better than dying for Ra’s.”
Their names appeared on screen.
“Zed. Owens. Pru.”
Damian’s head tilted. That name…
“I remember Prudence,” he muttered. “She was League. Quiet. Precise. She once poisoned a general with powder hidden in her fingernails.”
“Yeah, that tracks,” Timothy said softly. “She nearly cut my hamstring the first night we met.”
Cassandra smiled faintly.
The next slide showed a jagged black silhouette: The Widower . The image looked corrupted, flickering like a glitch.
“We tried to cross the Mohenjo Desert,” Timothy said. “We needed to find a ripple point. The League of Spiders was guarding it.”
Damian’s eyes sharpened. “The League of Spiders is a myth.”
“Yeah,” Timothy said quietly. “I wish it was.”
He clicked forward.
The screen flashed red.
“Z and Owens died fighting the Widower,” he said. “I don’t know what it was. It moved like ink and cut like wire. They didn’t scream. They didn’t have time to.”
Everyone went still.
“I carried Prudence out,” Timothy said, softer now. “She had no voice left. Her larynx was stabbed. I called in a medevac I wasn’t sure would come.”
He looked down at the floor.
“I think about that a lot. I lost them. This trip wasn’t all shits and giggles.”
Damian watched him carefully. Tim’s shoulders were tight, his voice not shaking, but close. His hand was clenched around the clicker like it was a lifeline.
He clicked again—trying to move on.
Pennyworth cleared his throat gently.
“And Master Timothy,” he said, voice calm but unyielding, “lost his spleen in the same encounter.”
The theater erupted. Timothy groaned loudly.
“WHAT?” Stephanie shrieked.
“YOU LOST A WHAT?” Jason choked.
“HOW ARE YOU—?” Richard started.
“It’s fine!” Timothy yelled. “It was just the spleen!”
Kon muttered, “It was not fine.”
Father‘s mouth opened, then closed again like the words were malfunctioning.
“Does Grandfather have it?” Damian demanded. “He has your spleen in some kind of box, doesn’t he?”
Timothy waved a hand. “Probably. I think he keeps it on one of his island bases in a jar. He said something about honoring the ‘piece of me he claimed.’”
Jason made a full-body shudder. “God, I hate that guy.”
“He’s courting you?” Stephanie cried. “With what, organ removal and spa coupons?”
Cass signed, Very bad man. Pretty good taste. Probably ate it.
Damian scowled harder. “So now this Prudence owes you a life debt?”
“She shows up sometimes,” Timothy said. “Leaves notes. Watches my apartment. Not creepy. Just… very ninja. She stabbed Joker last week.”
“You keep drawing the weirdest people,” Stephanie muttered.
Timothy didn’t disagree.
He brought up another slide, this one marked with a spider insignia etched in blood.
“Anyway. Ra’s wanted me to track and eliminate the League of Spiders. Said they were a threat to his order. I wasn’t going to, but…”
He clicked.
Next image: a snapshot of Tim’s body, unconscious and covered in venomous scars. The League had struck first.
“They tried to kill me. So, I retaliated.”
“Of course you did,” Father muttered.
Damian watched his brother carefully.
His posture hadn’t shifted.
His tone hadn’t changed.
But something about the photo—about the resigned way Timothy looked at it—made Damian’s stomach twist.
Because the others were horrified.
But Timothy?
Timothy had already made peace with it.
Timothy clicked to the next slide, but didn’t start speaking immediately.
He rubbed the back of his neck, gaze flicking away from the screen for the first time in a while.
“This part might be out of chronological order,” he said. “Things got… fuzzy. Time displacement, sleep deprivation, losing a major organ, you know how it is.”
“No,” Damian said flatly, “we don’t know how it is, Drake.”
Timothy waved a hand as if brushing that off. “Okay, so—after I pulled Prudence out, and after Ra’s realized I wasn’t going to be his obedient little errand boy, I started targeting his safehouses. Intelligence caches, comms stations. Ghost accounts. I hit hard and fast.”
Jason gave an approving grunt. “Terrorize the terrorist. Nice.”
Timothy nodded. “I wanted him off my back. Instead, I made him interested.”
Next slide: a portrait of Grandfather in grayscale, overlaid with the words “Proposal: Inheritance.”
Timothy gestured to it without looking. “So. Ra’s decided I’d make a good heir. He started sending me gifts. Letters. Blood-soaked poetry. Real Jane Austen behavior.”
“And that’s when you said no, right?” Richard asked. “Firm no. Full stop.”
“Oh, I said no,” Timothy said.
Slide change.
A new face: a woman in crimson robes. Serene. Pale. Eyes like knives.
“But consent is not a word in Ra’s dictionary. He sent his sister anyway. Said she was there to offer me ‘companionship’ and a ‘lineage.’”
Silence dropped like a guillotine.
“Her plan,” Timothy said grimly, “was to drug me and—well. You get the idea.”
“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK,” Stephanie yelled, leaping up from her chair.
Jason was already on his feet. “He sent his sister? Tim, she’s—how old was she? How old were you?”
“Sixteen,” Timothy said quietly.
Kon’s jaw was locked. His hands clenched into fists.
“She tried to get me alone,” Timothy said. “Almost succeeded. But Cass was shadowing me. She stepped in before anything happened. Shut it down before I even realized what was going on.”
Cass didn’t move, didn’t smile.
But she lifted one hand and signed, Always .
Timothy nodded once. “She saved my life.”
Father looked like he was about to implode.
“You should’ve told us,” he said, voice ragged.
“I couldn’t even process it,” Timothy said, still not meeting his eyes. “I had things to do.”
Damian was frozen.
He wanted to yell. He wanted to call this fabricated. Exaggerated. Stupid. But Timothy wasn’t posturing. He wasn’t asking for sympathy.
He was just explaining, like it was a meeting.
Like this had all become normal.
Timothy clicked forward.
A grainy surveillance still—Timothy and a girl standing on a balcony, caught in a kiss.
“She’s not his sister,” Jason muttered. “Please tell me that’s not the sister.”
“No,” Timothy said, rolling his eyes. “That’s Tamara Fox. Daughter of Lucius Fox, and my personal assistant."
“Oh my God,” Stephanie breathed. “She’s hot.”
“She is,” Timothy agreed. “And no, we weren’t dating. We kissed. Once. She’s hot. Sue me.”
“Who added this photo to the slideshow?” Damian asked, suspicious.
Timothy looked directly at Kon. “Not me.”
Kon coughed behind his hand.
“You’re jealous,” Brown sing-songed.
“I’m not,” Kon said flatly.
“Your aura just flared so green.”
“Shut up.”
Timothy kept going like nothing was happening.
“Ra’s thought Tam was my girlfriend, so when I didn’t comply, he kidnapped her.”
“Of course he did,” Father muttered. “Of course.”
“I got her back. But I realized he wasn’t just after me—he wanted control. And the fastest way to control me was through Wayne Enterprises.”
Next slide: several WE stock graphs, a timeline of sudden buyouts, and Grandfather’s symbol stamped on a document labeled “Shadow Holdings Ltd.”
“He was manipulating shell corporations. Trying to take over the company from underneath. So I sent Tam back to Gotham with instructions—legal emancipation, full guardianship reassignment, asset protections. In the end, she helped make me CEO.”
Jason blinked. “Wait, you’re the actual CEO? Not just like, in name?”
“I sign the checks,” Timothy said. “I’ve been running the company since Qadir retired.”
“How are you alive?” Stephanie whispered. “Just emotionally, like. In any way.”
Timothy shrugged, a sharp little motion.
“Wasn’t a lot of time to fall apart,” he said. “Kon and Bart were dead. Cassie and I weren’t talking. Y’all were gone. I had… work.”
Damian felt it again.
That creeping, unfamiliar thing.
Not pity.
Not even sympathy.
It was awe, tangled in dread.
Drake had always been dangerous.
But Damian was only just beginning to realize how alone he’d been.
And how far he’d gone to bring their father back.
Timothy stood at the projector like a man about to perform surgery on his own ghost.
“I found him,” he said, quiet now. “I found Bruce. The exact time signature, the window, the exit strategy. I built the coordinates into the Watchtower’s recovery system and activated it on a delay, just before I went back to Gotham.”
Next slide: a digital countdown interface. Tim’s name was encoded in the override signature.
“I had a narrow window. One shot to get Bruce back. And I knew Ra’s was going to move on Wayne Enterprises the moment I surfaced again.”
Jason frowned. “So you what? Flew in to fight Ra’s and pray everything else worked?”
Timothy clicked.
Surveillance footage lit the screen—grainy black-and-white angles from Wayne Tower security. Grandfather, unmistakable in flowing black, entered the penthouse boardroom with all the arrogance of a man who thought he’d already won.
And then Timothy stepped out of the shadows. Alone.
He looked impossibly thin. Bruised. Worn down to the bone.
But not afraid.
“Tim,” Richard breathed. “You went in by yourself?”
“I didn’t need to win,” Timothy said, voice calm. “I just had to buy time.”
The room watched as the two began to circle—Timothy with a collapsed staff in one hand, Grandfather with a ceremonial blade in his.
“He kept calling me beloved detective,” Timothy muttered. “Like I was his… spiritual rebound after Bruce.”
Father made a low, strangled noise of disgust.
“Yeah,” Timothy agreed, deadpan. “Exactly that noise.”
They watched the duel unfold—Grandfather sweeping in fast, brutal arcs, and Timothy dodging just barely, countering with precision and nerve. Every time Grandfather lunged, Timothy wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
Then came the sass.
The recording didn’t catch every word, but it didn’t need to. Grandfather's face twisted with fury each time Timothy spoke. And Timothy?
Timothy looked like he wanted him angry.
“Wait,” Stephanie whispered. “You were baiting him.”
“I needed him unbalanced,” Timothy said. “When Ra’s is angry, he gets theatrical. Sloppy. I couldn’t beat him outright, but I could keep him swinging at ghosts.”
Damian watched in absolute silence as Timothy ducked under a blade, jabbed Grandfather hard in the ribs, and then tripped him into the edge of the boardroom table.
That shouldn’t have been possible.
Grandfather trained the League. Grandfather trained Damian.
And yet.
Timothy Drake had bled him.
The fight stretched out—brutal, desperate, somehow beautiful.
Then the footage changed.
Grandfather’s foot struck Timothy full in the chest and launched him through the glass window.
The room gasped.
“Tim!” Stephanie yelped.
Jason surged halfway out of his seat.
Father went still as a statue.
“Wait, wait, it’s okay,” Timothy said, lifting his hands. “Don’t freak out. Dick caught me.”
Richard stared at him like he’d been shot.
“I what?”
“You were patrolling that night,” Timothy said quickly. “You had a grapnel up. I timed it.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be there,” Richard said, color draining from his face. “Tim—I rerouted. Last minute. You couldn’t have known I was there.”
Timothy opened his mouth. Closed it.
Then looked away.
“I… knew someone might be.”
Damian’s stomach twisted.
Richard stood slowly. “You let him kick you out of a window. You thought you were going to die.”
Timothy said nothing.
Kon looked like he was going to rip the arms off the chair.
“You were willing to die,” Jason said, flatly. “To take him down. For the plan to work.”
Timothy shrugged, like it was nothing. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Father whispered, “You thought no one would catch you.”
Timothy flinched.
The room went still.
No one moved.
Then Timothy finally said, softly, “Sometimes things you love are worth dying for.”
His voice didn’t shake. His hands didn’t tremble.
But Damian could see it—how deep that conviction ran. How unshakable it was.
Timothy looked at Father, then at the floor.
“My father is one of those.”
The words landed like a strike to the chest.
It was the first time he’d said it all briefing.
Even Father was stunned silent.
Cass reached over and touched Tim’s arm again, gently.
Alfred bowed his head, eyes soft.
Damian… said nothing.
Because he didn’t have anything to say.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t know who had the edge anymore.
The room had gone silent.
Not tense. Not awkward.
Shattered.
Timothy sat back down like the air had been pulled from his lungs. His fingers hovered loosely over the edge of the laptop, unmoving.
No one spoke for a full minute.
Even Alfred looked wrecked. The ever-composed butler—regal even in disaster—stood behind the family with tea cooling on the tray and the faintest tremor in his hand. His gaze never left Timothy.
Father was staring at the paused footage. At the grainy black-and-white still of his son being kicked through a window.
Richard’s hands were folded tight in his lap, white-knuckled. Jason was leaned forward like he was about to climb straight through the screen and back in time. Brown had one hand over her mouth.
Cass sat beside Timothy with her shoulder gently pressed against his. She hadn’t moved once.
Even Damian…
He sat frozen, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
It was too much.
It was too much.
You thought no one would catch you.
It echoed.
He wasn’t used to this kind of strength. Not the brute force of Grandfather or the cold detachment of Father. But the quiet, reckless conviction of someone who’d walked into death’s mouth on purpose just to buy his family a few more seconds.
Damian had never respected Drake less than when they first met.
Now, he didn’t know how to feel.
The silence stretched.
And then—because it was Gotham, and because the BatFamily couldn’t possibly handle anything sincerely for more than five consecutive minutes—Kon hugged Timothy from behind, pressed his mouth against his hair, and whispered something so soft and warm that Timothy actually smiled.
That broke the spell.
Richard‘s head snapped around.
“Wait—wait wait wait—wait a second, are you dating?”
Timothy blinked.
Then groaned.
“Oh no,” he muttered, as Kon grinned.
“You what?” Richard stood up like he’d been shot. “Are you telling me my baby brother is dating a Kryptonian—?!”
Father’s head jerked toward them like a weather vane in a storm. “One of the Kents?! Really?”
“Not technically a Kent,” Kon offered helpfully.
That did not help.
Jason let out a single bark of laughter and sat back with a whistle. “This is the best day of my life.”
Timothy slapped a hand over his face. “I wasn’t hiding it. I just didn’t tell you.”
“Same thing,” Stephanie coughed behind her fist.
Father turned, scandalized. “Alfred. Did you know?”
Alfred blinked once. Then raised a single, dignified brow. Father’s eye twitched. “I’m the world’s greatest detective. I solve crime in my sleep. HOW DID YOU NOTICE WHEN I DIDN’T???”
“Master Bruce, dear boy, at fourteen you broke your clavicle trying to jump from your terrace to the yard below and insisted for a week that your arm was merely ‘a bit numb.’ You’ve given me far too much practice at deducing when something is happening to my family.”
Father went red. Not flustered. Not annoyed. Red.
Timothy snorted.
Cass clapped once, delighted.
Richard clutched his chest like he was dying. “This is treason. My baby brother got a boyfriend and no one told me—”
“You were in Blüdhaven,” Timothy snapped, aiming a half-hearted smack at Kon’s shoulder. “You guys were dealing with a demon crocodile. What was I supposed to do, send a bouquet and an announcement card?”
“You could have told me,” Jason said, all smug and smugger. “I’d’ve sent matching t-shirts.”
“You still can,” Kon said brightly.
Timothy turned and smacked him in the head.
Kon didn’t even flinch. Just wrapped his arms tighter around Timothy’s shoulders, smug as sin.
Stephanie wiped away a tear. “I needed this.”
Father looked like he was experiencing cardiac arrest. “A Kryptonian—”
“—with a pierced tongue,” Jason added. “Hot.”
“Jason, I will murder you,” Timothy said.
“Boys,” Alfred warned, even as he set down the tea tray and took his seat like a battle-weary monarch. “Please do try not to destroy the furniture.”
Cass leaned in. “Love you, brother.”
Timothy paused.
Then smiled again.
“Love you too.”
Damian had no idea what was happening anymore.
But somehow, impossibly, he didn’t hate it.
The roof of Wayne Manor had always been one of Damian’s haunts—high, quiet, and overlooked.
Tonight, it belonged to Drake.
Timothy sat cross-legged on the northwestern ledge, the cape of his hoodie fluttering slightly in the breeze. He had his mask half-off, goggles pushed up into his hair. His legs were dangling over open air like he didn’t even care. Like the whole drop beneath him wasn’t real.
There was no drama to it. No grief pose, no rooftop brooding with gargoyle lighting.
He just… sat.
Damian approached carefully. Casually.
He meant to say something dismissive, something cold and superior.
But what came out was:
“…where’s the clone?”
Timothy didn’t look over. “Thailand.”
Damian blinked. “He left Gotham.”
“Mmhm.”
“To do what.”
“Pad Thai.”
Damian stared at him.
Timothy finally turned, face unreadable. “He insists the local stuff is ‘spiritually incorrect.’ He’ll be back in, like, forty minutes.”
“…Tt.”
They lapsed into silence.
Timothy didn’t move. Didn’t press. Just waited.
And somehow, that made it harder for Damian to keep his words sharp.
“…You shouldn’t have survived all that.”
Timothy gave a noncommittal shrug. “I wasn’t supposed to.”
“That isn’t—” Damian stopped. His jaw clicked. “I meant you should be—broken.”
Timothy looked down at the skyline. Gotham lights blinked through the dark like half-dead stars.
“I am,” he said softly. “Just not in a way that shows up on scans.”
Another silence.
Damian shifted beside him, sitting on the edge. Not close. Not touching. But there.
“…Why?” he asked, voice low. “Why would you… do all that? Everything with Grandfather. The desert. Your spleen. All of it.”
Timothy didn’t answer right away. He inhaled, exhaled.
And when he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet it almost got lost in the wind.
“When I was a kid, my parents used to promise me stuff all the time. They’d say they’d be home by Christmas, or they’d take me to the museum next week. That we’d go out for lunch when they got back.”
A pause.
“They’d always leave a note instead. Last-minute conference. Urgent trip to Nairobi. Delayed layover. Just one more week.”
Timothy’s hand flexed on the stone ledge.
“I used to ask Bruce for time off. I’d block out whole weekends. Wait by the window. Sometimes I’d even cancel patrols.” He laughed once, bitter. “And then, right before Friday, I’d get another message. ‘So sorry, sweetie. Just a few more days.’”
Damian felt something sharp in his throat.
“I started sneaking out at four. By midnight I’d be on a rooftop with binoculars. Watching Batman and Robin patrol. Trying to prove to myself that someone stayed. Even if it wasn’t for me.”
Timothy didn’t cry.
He just looked… empty.
“It was easier,” he murmured, “to pretend Bruce was mine.”
The words hit like a blow.
Damian looked down at his hands. He flexed his fingers once, then clenched them tight.
“…I’m sorry,” he said finally. “For the way I treated you. For the things I said. For… for turning the family against you.”
Timothy blinked at him, surprised.
“I’m sorry too,” he said, a little hoarse. “I should’ve made more space. Made you feel welcome. I know what it’s like to feel like the outsider.”
That’s when it happened.
Damian didn’t think about it.
He didn’t plan it.
He just surged forward and grabbed Timothy in a hug so tight it nearly knocked them both off the ledge.
Timothy made a startled noise—but then he wrapped his arms around Damian, hard, and held on like it mattered.
“I hated you,” Damian muttered into his hoodie. “I hated you.”
“I know,” Timothy whispered back.
“I thought you were trying to steal them from me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You didn’t even like me.”
“I was scared of you.”
Damian laughed once. It was wet and uneven. “Fair.”
They stayed there, tangled up and quiet. Damian refused to let go.
For once, Timothy didn’t make him.
Not yet.
***
Two weeks had passed since the rooftop.
Since the hug.
Since Timothy had let him in.
And now, apparently, this was Damian’s life.
“Dibs on Drake for patrol,” Damian declared the moment Father opened the mission chart.
Jason groaned from the other side of the Cave. “You can’t just call dibs like it’s a front seat.”
“I just did.”
Timothy didn’t even look up from his datapad. “I haven’t even accepted the patrol yet.”
“You will,” Damian said, like it was a fact. “I already adjusted your route and prepped your gear. I made you a banana protein bar. Eat it.”
Jason blinked. “Dude. Are you nesting?”
“He’s nesting,” Brown whispered from behind a crate of Batarangs.
Timothy sighed fondly and took the bar. “Thanks, Dames.”
Damian cleared his throat and looked away. “Of course.”
That night wasn’t unusual.
If Kon stopped by the Cave for a fly-in date, Damian was there—arms crossed, foot tapping, ready with exactly thirteen pointed questions.
If Timothy had an unexpected hour of free time? Damian would appear out of nowhere, sketchbook in hand, barking, “Art therapy. Now. I brought watercolors.”
If Timothy coughed once in a board meeting, Damian would personally deliver a humidifier, a scarf, and three varieties of imported tea, all hand-labeled with their origin countries and steeping times.
He insisted on accompanying Timothy everywhere—city galas, museum events, WE press conferences. Timothy eventually gave in and just started bringing him.
It was easier than arguing.
Also? Kind of sweet.
Damian never said it out loud, but Timothy knew. He was watching now. In all the ways Timothy had once watched Father. Just to be sure he was still there.
And Timothy didn’t mind.
Especially not when Damian threw himself into every lesson with startling intensity.
“This is called the ‘second laugh,’” Timothy explained one night, slipping cufflinks into place before a fundraiser. “You let the first person laugh, then you laugh a second after. It makes them feel clever.”
“Deceitful,” Damian muttered.
“Extremely.”
Timothy showed him how to choose suit fabrics based on lighting, how to fake enthusiasm with a crinkle of the eyes, how to angle his body to guide a conversation without ever speaking.
He taught him Janet Drake’s most brutal legacy: how to disarm a room with posture alone.
“You’re scaring me,” Damian said once, after watching Timothy smile at a GCPD commissioner until the man nearly handed over his badge.
Timothy only shrugged. “You’ll need it someday.”
He taught Damian which forks to use and when, how to lie without blinking, how to detect a family fortune built on war crimes, and when to leverage that over oysters.
Damian soaked up everything.
But what struck him most wasn’t the tactics—it was the gentleness.
Timothy never raised his voice. Never mocked him for forgetting a detail. Never lost patience, even when Damian refused to use the shrimp fork out of sheer spite.
He corrected softly. Encouraged easily. Let Damian stumble, then caught him before he hit the ground.
Jack and Janet Drake had left scars.
But somehow, Timothy had grown up kind.
And that, more than anything, broke something open in Damian’s chest.
“Why do you do all this?” Damian asked one night after a WE benefit, slipping off his borrowed blazer.
Timothy gave him a tired smile. “Because I didn’t have an older sibling who did. Not one that got it.”
Damian didn’t reply. Just nodded once.
He didn’t say thank you.
But he made Timothy tea the next morning at five a.m. with a post-it note that read:
“You missed your 4:30 alarm. I let you sleep. I did your morning reports. You’re welcome. Idiot.”
Timothy stuck the note in his planner.
By the end of the week, Damian had color-coded all of Tim’s appointments, set his patrol gear out with matching compression socks, and strong-armed three board members into resigning after they made veiled comments about Tim’s “extracurriculars.”
Damian denied it all.
But everyone knew.
The Little Demon had bonded.
And God help anyone who even thought about hurting Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne.
Because if Ra’s al Ghul didn’t finish the job—
Damian would.