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Tim Drake-Wayne, according to the flight code he had supplied them with, was due to have arrived back in Gotham by 8am that morning.
However, despite nothing being marked on the Shared Family Calendar, on any of the times that Damian had checked it, Drake didn’t return to the manor until shortly after midday.
Damian was eating a sandwich in the kitchen when Tim slipped in through the back door and past him.
“Hi, Damian.” Tim greeted, sounding far more awake than the bags under his eyes would indicate.
“Drake.” He responded, cordially.
“Bye Damian,” Tim said, immediately afterwards, voiding his greeting only a few seconds before completely void, as he left the kitchen into the greater house.
Damian scoffed, returning to his food.
Tim was wearing a loose hoodie, somewhat too big for him, with a few small circular bruises on his neck.
Drake must have lost a fight or something. That must’ve been why he didn’t arrive back to the manor immediately, he was too ashamed to show his face when more people would have been in earlier in the day.
Greyson was always telling him he had to be more understanding of Drake. He understood perfectly well that Drake wouldn’t want to display his weakness in losing a battle and the subsequent disrespect to the family that showed. He was learning.
Drake returned through as Damian was midway through eating his yoghurt, this time in a suit.
He was pleased to see that Drake’s new choice of clothing covered up what he had arrived with.
It would never do for the boardroom to think that Drake was weak enough to be injured by an attack that would leave such marks.
“I hate suits so much,” Tim announced, as if Damian cared about such things.
“Why do you insist on wearing on then?”
“Damien, you’re the one who cares about responsibility,” Tim grumbled, as he filled a glass with water from the tap. “… I have lunch meeting. Who the hell schedules meeting for lunchtime?”
“According to your schedule, you did.”
Tim sighed with what sounded like years’ worth of internalised disappointment. “I… I did…. Goodbye, Damian.”
Drake promptly glugged the water in one go, before speed-walking out of the door.
---
“Tim says he won’t be back until after 9, so we shouldn’t feed him dinner,” Duke announced to the room, after reading a message off his phone.
“What the hell could he be doing, replacement’s never free,” Jason grumbled.
“Is he avoiding us? Did we do something wrong?” Dick worried.
“He is avoiding us.” Damian said.
“He is? Why? Wait, how do you know, Damian?”
“I have been learning detective skills as the Blood Son. He arrived at lunchtime looking as though he’d had a fight, and left with clothes that covered the marks. He must want to not shame the family in public, or let us know he had had an opponent that was able to leave a mark.” He sounded very proud of himself as he announced this.
“Tim was in a fight? Oh no!”
Cass let out a laugh.
Jason looked at Cass curiously for a second, before realisation dawned on his face.
“Hey. What did these marks look like, and where were they, demon?”
“On his neck.”
“Oh.” Duke gasped from across the room.
“Are you trying to figure out who Tim fought, Jason?” Dick asked.
“No, no, Dickhead. Demon, what were these marks like?”
“Circular bruises, around the size of a coin, without a particular pattern. More on the left side and-“
“Oh no!” Dick let out, “Damian! Tim!”
“What?”
Jason began to laugh. “Tim wasn’t in a fight. Those were hickies. Replacement is getting some.”
“Oh no no no, Baby Bird is not allowed to be doing any of that?”
“What’s a hickey?” Damian asked sullenly.
The others turned towards him.
“I’m not explaining.” Duke said.
“Wait- since when was Tim in a relationship-“
“Shit.”
---
Bruce Wayne heard a minor commotion going on the main sitting room, or as Alfred and Damian insisted on calling it the Second Sitting Room, and popped his head in through the door to see what was going on.
All but one of his children were in there, and the furniture was in the process of being rearranged.
In the centre of the room sat one of the battered chairs that used to be dinner chairs before Dick had fallen on them one too many times, and Duke was standing over at the edge looking down at a length of rope in his hands with a look of concern on his face.
“Do I want to know?” Bruce asked.
Dick and Jason looked at each other, and Cass shook her head.
“No.” Dick said. “You don’t.”
“Oh!” Duke said, looking up from what he was holding, “If we’re doing what they’ve suggested and I can’t get out of it-“
“You can’t.” the others chorused.
“We won’t be free for patrol in an hour. Well… I don’t patrol at night anyway, but-“
“You won’t have Drake either.” Damian interrupted.
Bruce sighed, deciding he didn’t want to know whatever was happening this time. “I’ll call Kate and make sure she’s heading out tonight. Have fun.”
As he closed the door behind him, a few responses and goodbyes called back through.
As he headed out of the house shortly after as Batman, he saw Tim’s car pull up to the house.
He really didn’t want to know what would happen.
---
It was late and after a boring dinner with boring business people, and frankly Tim Drake was exhausted.
Unfortunately, as he opened the door, Jason, the tallest and strongest of their siblings, was at the door, and promptly picked him up, flinging him over his shoulder with a “Hi, Replacement,”, and whistling as he walked with him over to one of the sitting rooms.
He was placed on a surprisingly comfortable wooden chair, and looked around to the entire room.
“What’s this about?” He asked, tiredness already in his voice.
“You know the rules, Tim. This is obviously a Wayne Family Interrogation, we tell you what you’re here for after you’re secure.”
Tim sighed and accepted his fate. “Fine.”
“Sit still so I can tie you up, Drake.” Damian said, as he went to take a bunch of rope from Duke, who was sitting next to Cass in the corner looking like he’d joined a cult and was heavily regretting it.
“Wait, it’s Duke’s first one of these since he properly joined us, right?” Tim realised. “If we’re doing this, at least let him practise his knots.”
“You’re right.” Dick nodded. “Duke, come over and tie Tim up.”
“What? Um.. you know what, I’ve done weirder things, sure.”
The room was silent other than Cass’s popcorn crunches as she watched with amusement, as Duke used the ropes.
“Is that good enough?” Duke asked.
“Tim, struggle a bit please,” Jason ordered.
Tim glared at Jason, then smiled at Duke. “You need to practise more complicated knots, but otherwise very good. Have you done this before?”
“When would I have ever tied someone up before now?”
“I don’t know. So, now you’ve got me, are you going to tell me what this Interrogation is for? I have no idea why I’m here.” He grumbled.
Jason was about to open his mouth to start, but Dick basically pushed him out of the way of Tim’s sights, and started.
“Well, you’ve traumatised, traumatised we say, Damian-“
“Hey!” Damian interrupted, “I am not traumatised.”
“Thanks, Damian. How the hell did I traumatise Damian apparently then this time?”
“Well you- wait, this time? Have you traumatised our brother before now?”
Tim sighed. “Cass? Any help? Any back up?”
Cass responded with the very unhelpful mixed signal of a thumbs up and a shake of her head.
“Duke?”
“I’m sitting this out.” Duke claimed.
“Duke, you literally tied me up. You’re still in the room.”
“Well, I’m tapping out now. But I’m morbidly curious, so I’m staying to watch.”
“But-“
“You,” Dick declared, “Traumatised Damian by walking around with hickies on your neck around him.”
“I did what what now?”
“I was not traumatised by this! And even if I was, which I wasn’t, it would be Todd’s fault! He explained it! I just thought Drake was in a fight!” Damian burst out in what was only not shouting by technicality.
Tim mumbled under his breath, “those idiots I swear to god.”
“Do we even know he has hickies?” Duke hazarded from the corner. “We’re taking Jason’s word that Damian’s description is that.”
The group looked at each for a minute.
“Duke’s right.” Dick sighed. “We might’ve gone too far.”
“Only one way to find out!” Jason said with glee. “Replacement, unbutton the top of your shirt so we can check if you have hickies.”
“Jason. I’m literally tied to a chair right now. Do I look like I have free hands to show you my neck?”
“I would be able to escape those bonds in seconds, Drake.” Damian sneered. “Are you not able to?”
“I’m trying to be nice to Duke, here, Damian.”
“Right, right. I’ll do it myself then.” Jason said, walking forward and grabbing Tim’s clothes to start.
“Jason! In front of Damian?”
“What, Dickhead? Just undoing the top couple, and,” Jason pulled the collar to the side. “See. He does in fact have hickies. A collection of hickies.”
Dick let out a strangled sound, and half-fell-half-sat onto the sofa behind him.
“Damn, Tim. You wear clothes like this to work all the time, you dress specifically to cover this up.”
Tim huffed. “Of course not. It’s Tuesday. All of my Tuesday Work Clothes have high necks.”
“Why the fuck do you have work clothes sorted by days of the week?”
“B’s stylist made me. I don’t want to meet her again until I have to so I obey the instructions I’ve been left with. Plus, do you think I’m someone who can bothered to check in the mirrors if I have hickies or not?”
“He doesn’t even own a mirror.” Dick added, sounding morose, from the sofa.
“What?”
“I didn’t see I had hickies in the mirror. If I had, I would not have had Damian of all people leak this information.”
Damian snarled almost instinctively at hearing the tone Tim said his name in.
“Wait so how did you not notice you were getting a hickey?”
“More importantly, who left the hickies.”
A silence ran over the room while people thought. Tim looks exasperated, Damian looked pissed, Dick looked ready to cry, and everyone else was various levels and types of amusement.
“Hey replacement, you have a hook-up or a friends with benefits?”
“Why the hell do you assume that?”
“Well, you’re not exactly the kind of person I can see in a relationship-“
“Didn’t he date Steph once?” Duke questioned.
“Since Steph is with Cass now, Tim and Steph’s relationship is annulled and thus never happened. It doesn’t count.”
“It doesn’t… what?”
“So, hook-up or FWB?”
“Neither! I am in a relationship!”
“You are?”
“Yes! Is that really so hard to believe?”
No one replied.
Tim huffed, “Really guys?”
“So who is it then?” Jason bugged.
“Who do we need to talk to?” Dick added.
“I’m not saying.”
“You won’t- not even if-“
“Hey,” Jason said, “If he won’t tell us, it has to be a name we would recognise.”
“Jason, you’re a genius!” Dick exclaimed.
“He can occasionally have a decent idea.” Damian begrudgingly added.
“I’m still not telling.”
“Everyone announce who it is on the count of three then.” Jason decided. “One, Two, Three- I think Bernard.”
At the same time, Dick came out with “Impulse”, and Damian spat out the “The Clone.” Duke and Cass both had mouth’s too full of Cass’s popcorn to speak.
“Okay, so none of us agree.”
“It has to be the clone.” Damian insisted. “Jon is always talking about how Drake steals Kon’s jackets and t-shirts, because it means Jon can’t borrow them.”
“No, no. If it’s someone we know, it has to be Bart. I’m heard from Wally that Bart actually shared food with Tim- but I didn’t think about it that hard until now.” Dick argued. “But who the hell is Bernard, Jason?”
“Um, he was Tim’s friend in school?”
“You expect us to know the Imposter’s school friends?”
“Do you guys not pay attention? He hangs out with Bernard alone when he’s in Gotham all the time nowadays?”
“I did not know that.”
“Tim, which one are you dating.”
“No comment.”
“Oh.. Oh. Oh no.” Dick let out.
“What is it, Dick?”
“He’s dating all of them…. He’s triple timing and cheating on all of them. I have to tell Wally-“
“That’s really shitty of you, Replacement-“
“Um. No.”
“No, so you’re not then-“
Tim sighed, the kind of long suffering sigh that only comes from being a middle child. “I am dating all of the them.”
“That’s the issue, Tim, that’s called cheating-“
“They know I’m dating all of them. It’s not called cheating, it’s called poly.” Tim had freed his hands at some point no one had actually noticed, and was gesturing with his hands as he spoke.
“Oh. Oh.”
“So three boyfriends. That’s three shovel talks we need to give then.”
“Duke and Cass are being useless currently,” Jason said confidently, and Duke and Cass waved over at Tim as if entirely un-insulted by this, “So the three of us can lead one each.”
“I’ll take Bart.” Dick claimed.
“I will handle-“
“Wait. We need to know which one of the boyfriends left the hickies, so I as the family crime lord can talk to them.”
“Very fair, you are the scariest of us.”
“I’m more dangerous than Todd,” Damian said.
“Sure you are.”
“Tim, which boyfriend do I need to threaten with a gun?”
“Please don’t threaten them with a gun.”
“Which boyfriend, Tim?”
A sheepish expression came over Tim’s face. “Um. It could’ve been any of them?”
“What?”
“Or even a bit of all of them? I was a little distracted, okay? I don’t know!”
Dick let out a noise similar to that of a deflating balloon, and Damian looked in his direction with a small amount of concern.
“Really Tim? I guess that means I have to do all three of them then, these bastards wouldn’t manage to do enough.”
“Do. Not. Threaten. Them.”
“How recently have you seen them all that you don’t even know?”
“I was in San Francisco with Bart and Kon literally yesterday, and I saw Bernard this morning for… brunch.”
“Busy Schedule there, Tim.”
“Well.” Damian began, “I suppose I should wish you a congratulations on your acquisition of a Harem. No wonder grandfather is proud of you.”
Dick shot up almost immediately from where he was slumped with a “Damian! No!”
As Duke began to choke on his popcorn, and Cass tried to help, Jason just laughed.
After an entire minute, Tim spoke, “Are you done yet?”
“No shut up - Demon, you don’t know what a hickey is, but you know what a harem is?"
“I don’t have a harem, Damian.” Tim said, knowing that no matter he said, it would be called that by at least one of his siblings for the rest of his life.