Chapter Text
The first time was less than unexpected, considering the army of ninja that had just been defeated. Damian cornered him later in the week, when Tim was feeling better, but was still confined to the mansion.
Cornered was, perhaps, the wrong word, considering that Damian was ten, and tiny, and looked like a hissing cat. Any other kid and it might have been cute.
Then again, any other kid wasn’t an ex-assassin wearing a Robin suit.
“Drake. What does grandfather want with you?” The words were angry. Accusatory. As if how dare Tim garner the attention of an Al Ghul.
Tim shrugged and didn’t look at Damian. Looking still hurt. “Pretty sure he wants me dead, Damian.”
Damian sneered and stalked away.
—-
The second time was a few months later. Cassandra and Dick had talked.
Damian had appeared suddenly while Tim was patrolling. Unable to disdainfully use Tim’s last name, he just stood there and glared.
“Where’s Batman,” Tim asked, wary.
“Tt. Monitering.”
And he wasn’t going to get more then that. Fine. “What is it. Robin.”
Damian’s lip curled. “What does Grandfather want with you?” It wasn’t hard to guess what he meant.
Tim let out a bitter laugh. “Wish I knew. I’d have it removed.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed, but he stayed silent. Tim had nothing to add, so he just left. He didn’t need this.
He felt Damian’s eyes on him, left alone and so small on the rooftop, watching as he flew.
—-
It was a year later when Ra’s decided to loudly remind Tim that he hadn’t been forgotten. And if Tim was honest, the fact that he was surviving the month was a little surprising. Constant, brutal attacks twisted with puzzles wore him down too quickly. By the third week, sleep deprived, wired on adrenaline and paranoia, and battered, he gave up and retreated to the cave.
At least if he was attacked here, he thought, as he dropped onto a gurney, there would be a greater buffer zone than his apartment had. There was only so much security one could stuff into a building that had other tenants.
He woke up to the sound of a body falling heavily to the floor, and jerked upright to see Damian glaring at him. Tim’s first instinct was to glance down at the felled assassin.
“She’s breathing,” Damian snapped, sounding insulted and just this side of mulish. “And you’re welcome, Drake. Don’t expect it again.”
“Thanks, Damian,” he said tiredly, scrubbing at his face. “Where’s—“
“Out,” Damian spat. “A function. I wasn’t required to attend.”
Tim nodded, then blinked. “You’re in uniform.”
“Tt. How astute. I was training.”
“…here?”
Damian rolled his eyes and turned away, grabbing the assassin’s leg to drag her out of the cave.
Tim shook his head to clear it. He’d gotten an hour of sleep, and that would have to be good enough. But that he’d gotten that hour…
Damian’s uniforms were kept down here. And he’d been training. Meaning that Damian and come to the cave, found Tim sleeping, and had made a conscious effort to be silent.
Well. Maybe he looked at it as training. Certainly it hadn’t been for Tim’s benefit.
Damian returned, holding a white piece of fabric between two fingers, nose wrinkled in distaste. “She was carrying this,” he said, dropping it into Tim’s lap. “I assume it’s for you.”
Gauntlets on, Tim gingerly unfolded the fabric. It was a linen handkerchief. Two opposing corners were embroidered, a different monogram for each. RAG in the top left, a simple T in the bottom right.
He stared at it, eyes wide, before snarling and crumpling it into a ball and throwing it in the trash. Damian’s eyes tracked its path.
“What does he want with you?” the words were hissed, angry. Hurt.
Tim let out a hiss of his own. “He just wants to play with his food.”
—-
On Tim’s twenty-first birthday, two beautifully wrapped bottles of wine arrived addressed to him, sent anonymously. Suspicious, Tim immediately ran them through every test he could at his apartment, and when that didn’t allay his suspicions, he took them to the cave for a full analysis. Bruce and Damian were there training; both paused to nod in greeting, then let him work.
Many tests later revealed that neither bottle’s contents were harmful, but that the bottles themselves were deadly. Somehow the wine inside remained untainted, and Tim didn’t really care that it did. He disposed of the ‘gift’ like the hazardous waste it was and went back to his apartment.
He arrived to the security disabled, and an open bottle of wine on his kitchen table, two crystal glasses next to it. One was filled with the same wine from the bottle. The other glass had just a few shimmering droplets in it, as if it had already been toasted and drained.
Tim stepped warily up to the table. A small white card hung from the bottle’s neck. He read it without touching it.
Happy birthday, Detective.
He scowled, bagged the bottle and glasses, and left them on the table to deal with later while he went to get his laptop. This was ridiculous, and it had gone on much too long.
Several hours later, however, he was no closer to a solution, and he was tired, annoyed, and frustrated. Okay, yes, he’d managed to be a thorn in Ra’s Al Ghul’s side. But he was pretty sure other people had done that in the past, and least some of them had to survive it.
Right?
He was sick and tired of being worthy of the Demon Head’s attention.
The doorbell rang, and Tim started in surprise; it was rare that he got visitors at his front door, especially recently. A glance at the video monitor he’d installed and then he was getting up to let in a glaring Damian, dressed in jeans and a hoodie. He was carrying a small white box, and this he thrust into Tim’s arms.
“Pennyworth sent me,” he sniffed. “This is for you. He expects you to make an appearance this evening as well.”
Tim stared down at the box in his hands. “Uh, thanks, Damian.” He paused. “Do you want to come in for a minute?”
“Tt. If I must.”
If Damian really wanted to leave, he’d go, so Tim figured there had to be a reason that he was willing to stick around. He watched Damian catalogue every inch of the apartment he could see, then shrugged and went to the kitchen to open the box. Damian followed him in, stopping short when he caught sight of the hazmat bags on the table.
Tim didn’t even glance up from the beautiful little cake in the box. “Another gift,” he said flatly. “I like Alfred’s much better.”
Damian stepped closer. “More wine?”
“Mm-hm. And it even had a note this time. I believe it was a congratulations that I survived another birthday.”
The teen’s entire face darkened. “Drake. I wish to borrow your computer.”
Tim rolled his eyes. Even at fourteen, Damian was as royal as he’d been at ten. “That’s great.”
“Tt. May I,” he gritted out, after a moment. “Please.”
Tim set the box on the counter and went to grab one of his more disposable models. He handed it to Damian, who took it with a nod and sat down, pulling a chair next to his; an obvious invitation-demand. Tim dropped into it and watched with curiosity as Damian opened several programs, along with the internet browser.
He worked silently for several minutes. “Drake, I assume this computer has a camera and speakers.”
“They’re built in,” Tim replied. He didn’t ask what Damian was doing.
“Good.” And suddenly a video screen was open, a man with glasses staring back at them.
Damian barked something rapidly in Arabic, along with what sounded suspiciously like both his and Tim’s full names. The man disappeared, the screen showing black.
Tim was patient, and waited, while Damian crossed his arms and glared at the screen. Before long, the man was back, this time with company. The person was cloaked, and the light wasn’t good enough for Tim to tell the gender.
“Speak,” the man with glasses said. Simple and slow enough for Tim to understand, “You have your audience.”
Damian focused his attention on the cloaked figure. “You will give this message verbatim,” he snarled in English. For Tim’s benefit? The figure inclined its head. “Tt.”
“Grandfather, I am extremely unamused,” Damian spat. “Whatever your opinions of Drake, he is not your toy, and I tire of your pitiful attempts to play with him. What exactly do you want with him?”
The figure went still, as if listening hard, and then replied in Arabic. Male, then. Damian’s face twisted into a dark scowl.
“You abhorrent—” He switched back to Arabic, practically spitting with distaste. Tim was torn between wishing he knew want was being said and being very grateful that he didn’t.
The cloaked man who was apparently speaking for Ra’s cut Damian off mid-rant with what is clearly a question, and, from the tone, a mocking one, at that.
“Tt. Hardly,” Damian sneered, switching back to English. “But some feel he is worth something, and you are acting as an amateurish distraction. If you continue doing things by half, I will be forced to believe you’ve become senile.”
The figure chuckled and replied in English, “Should I consider that a challenge?”
“Like it matters to me whatever you do,” Damian said hotly. “But it’s wasting my time as well as yours. Leave us alone.”
“Us?” Another chuckle, followed by a stream of Arabic.
“You try my patience, grandfather. And clearly for no good reason.” Damian frowned and shifted, his posture screaming his heritage. Both sides of it. The man in glasses actually took a small step back. “You’ve been warned. If you wish to interpret as a challenge, do. Look forward to being beaten.” He disconnected with a hiss, ripped the power cord out of the wall, and proceeded to completely clean the computer out.
“Feel free to just reformat the hard drive,” Tim said. “This one’s not so important.”
Damian looked at Tim wild-eyed, as if he’d forgotten he was there, and then sneered and broke the laptop in half over his knee.
Tim, for his part, barely reacted past narrowing his eyes. “I suppose you want to burn it, too?”
Growling, Damian said nothing, just pushed out of his chair, still holding the broken pieces of what used to be a laptop, and headed for the door.
“Feel free to disappoint Pennyworth,” he snarled, before letting himself out, the door shutting loudly behind him.
Tim blinked at his apartment in general and tried to parse what had just happened. Okay. By the look and sound of things, it certainly seemed as if Damian had pulled some strings to somehow get connected with Ra’s Al Ghul, for, apparently, the sole purpose of telling him to back off of Tim.
Something was wrong with this. Damian didn’t do him favors. Certainly not ones of this magnitude. Their relationship had gotten minutely better since the initial rocky start of Damian trying to kill him, but they had pretty much reached a plateau at barely-civil greetings and the occasional team-up that didn’t result in spilling each other’s blood more than the enemies. This was unprecedented. It was practically nice. Even including the fact that he was down a laptop.
He just…didn’t know what to make of it.