Work Text:
God, there were so many better ways Tim could have spent his Friday night. He should have gone to the opening of “Out & About” with Stephanie, getting drunk with his best friend for the first time in months. Sure, nightlife had never really been his thing, but it was hard to imagine anything worse than being locked in a Chipotle bathroom, trying to wash the red out of his sleeves. Even Barbara, stuck at home with the flu, had ended up luckier than him. Served him right, for trying to be a good brother.
He was pretty sure he was wasting his time. It wasn’t the first time he had tried to wash Damian’s blood out of his clothes, but the stains had already dried, and there wasn’t a trace of soap left in the dispensers. There was no way he was taking his shirt off in a public restroom, and no matter how much he scrubbed, he knew he wouldn’t get far with just water. The only thing he had accomplished so far was soaking the cuffs, which he really could have gone without.
He tried wringing the excess water from the fabric, then tapped at his phone screen a couple of times. He’d been in the restroom for fifteen minutes already and, most likely, their food had been ready for a while. It was late as hell and Tim was starting to starve. He rinsed his hands one last time in the sink, held them under the hand-dryer longer than was remotely comfortable, then grabbed his phone and shoved it into his pocket.
The restaurant was pretty crowded, though most of the customers seemed more interested in takeout, which wasn’t exactly surprising given the neighborhood. Dick and Jason had claimed one of the more secluded tables, tucked away in the corner by the windows. He could see Dick methodically rearranging their food from one tray to another, a habit he’d picked up over the past few years, while Jason reached over to steal one of the chips, a smug grin pulling at his lips. He knew just how much their eldest brother hated their habit of starting to eat before the food had even hit the table.
Tim dropped onto the seat beside Dick, making sure to shoulder him hard enough to force him over. He heard him sigh far louder than necessary, but Dick still shifted to the left to make room, and honestly, that already counted as a victory. They were all exhausted anyway and none of them seemed remotely interested in starting some pointless conversation right away.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. The first bite of his burrito was enough to drag Tim’s day back into an acceptable territory, even when Jason reached across and stole another chip, his own portion still untouched. His brother didn’t even blink when Tim returned the favor. He watched Jason wipe the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, set his burrito down, and lean back against the seat.
“So… do y’all think dad’s gonna sue?” He asked casually, like they were betting on tomorrow morning’s weather forecast. Tim swallowed his last bite and paused to think.
“The kid or Gotham Academy?”
“The Academy, obviously.”
“Oh, yeah. We’re never hearing the end of this.” Before they’d even left the school, Bruce had already looked like he was using every ounce of self-control not to make a public scene, his gaze snapping furiously toward every teacher in sight. He’d probably call the lawyers the second he got home, armed with all the documentation of Damian’s injury.
“Guys, seriously. Stop. This is gonna turn into a legal nightmare, it’s not a game.” Dick grunted, setting his phone down on the table. It didn’t matter what Barbara said, his brothers regressed every single time they were together. She only defended them because it annoyed him, and by now he’d learned to accept it.
“I mean, duh? You’re not the one who looks like he walked out of a horror movie.” Tim nearly punched him in the face just to force one of his stained sleeves into his line of sight. The blood, dried and slightly faded, reached all the way to his elbow crease. Dick gave him a tiny smile, the kind people used when they were obviously trying to downplay something.
“It’s not that bad.”
“It is, dude. We need to burn that shirt.” Jason snorted teasingly before biting back into his burrito. Tim groaned. His clothes weren’t the only ones that would be labeled as a biohazard.
“I still have no idea where all that blood came from. The cut didn’t look that big.” Not that he’d gotten a good look at it, but he didn’t think it could’ve been more than an inch long. Hopefully. He wasn’t actually sure how long an inch was.
“Head wounds always look worse than they are. It was probably just a shallow cut, and they’ll send him home with a band-aid and a pat on the shoulder.” In theory, Jason was completely right, but at the same time, Tim wasn’t convinced he really understood the state they’d left the backstage in.
It had been pure chance that he’d been the only one of the three brothers to see Damian before Bruce arrived and escorted the youngest into the ambulance. He would’ve gladly handed the responsibility off to either of the other two if he’d known what he was walking into, but at the time he hadn’t exactly had the chance to think.
Tim had arrived at the auditorium later than the rest of his family and, without giving it much thought, he had taken the seat at the very edge of the row. The play was nearly over when one of the teachers appeared beside him, tapping him lightly on the shoulder to get his attention. It took him a few seconds to process what was being asked of him, but, despite his confusion, he had motioned to Jason and followed the man out of the seating area.
The teacher had offered plenty of apologies and absolutely no explanations while hurrying him backstage. It hadn’t been hard to figure out that something was wrong with his brother, but he was still missing the final piece that would explain what had happened. Damian commanded the stage as naturally as he breathed, so it was difficult to imagine some sudden panic attack. Maybe he’d gotten sick? Fainted after walking off the stage?
“Oh, come on, he got hit with a gun. That’s not a shallow cut and you both know it.”
Tim had only truly understood the situation the moment he saw the boy sitting in a chair, head tilted back, face drenched in blood, with two girls standing around him, clutching blood-soaked tissues. Running to his side and pressing down on the wound himself had come instinctively.
The scene they’d just finished — the last one Damian had appeared in — had seemed to go perfectly. They’d staged a struggle, Damian and an older boy fighting over the gun, until the other actor made a sudden, clumsy movement, followed immediately by darkness and a loud bang blasting through the speakers. For a few seconds, the audience was left wondering whether the gun had actually gone off and one of the characters had died.
Instead, Damian had risen to his feet, face streaked red, and Tim hadn’t thought for a single second that the blood might be real. It wouldn’t have been hard to smear fake blood on himself while the lights were out, and his brother had finished the scene without the slightest hesitation. Maybe, if he’d paid more attention to the expressions on the other actors’ faces, he would’ve realized sooner that something had gone wrong.
“It was a prop, Dick. How much damage could a toy gun even do?” Jason’s voice was exasperated, though quickly muffled by another bite of burrito. His judgmental stare would probably have been more effective, if he hadn’t been chewing at the same time.
“It looked pretty realistic. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was heavy, too.” Maybe Tim should’ve asked to see the gun. He was pretty sure it had been fake, but a plastic replica would definitely leave different injuries than a metal one. Was this the first accident they’d had? Or had Damian already been hit by some temporary stage prop before?
“With all the money B gives them, they could’ve monitored the theater department purchases a little better.” Jason sounded especially irritated by that detail, and honestly, it was hard to blame him. Bruce had started donating back when he adopted Dick, twenty-two years ago, and he’d never really stopped.
“Well, now they can kiss those donations goodbye. This is definitely the time Day finally talks dad into letting him go back to homeschooling.” It was a battle that had been going on for two years now. When Damian started high school, Bruce had decided he needed to attend a real school, somewhere he could meet kids his own age and make friends. Tim had witnessed arguments about it almost daily, and no matter how many compromises he tried suggesting, father and son had stayed stubbornly entrenched in their positions.
After tonight, though, he had the feeling Bruce would finally relent, if only by enrolling Damian in an acting program outside the school and ensuring the boy never attended another class with the Academy’s theater company. Maybe Tim could even speed up the process by starting the search himself.
“You guys are taking this way too lightly. He could actually be hurt.” Dick leaned across the table, waving his wooden fork dangerously close to Jason’s face. Apparently, the safety of Jason’s eyes mattered less than their little brother’s eyebrow.
“What do you want us to do? The doctor’s seeing him and dad’s with him. Honestly, he’s probably calmer than we are right now.” Jason turned toward him, looking for some kind of validation, but Tim stayed still, eyes fixed on his phone screen.
“Oh, shit.”
“I should really learn to keep my mouth shut.” He heard his brother sigh, rubbing his fingers over his closed eyelids. Honestly, if something could go wrong, it would go wrong, and maybe they should’ve expected that.
“Is that dad? What’d he say?”
“Apparently, they’re calling in an aesthetic surgeon.”
“Okay, I’ll admit that’s not great.” Jason raised his hands in surrender. If they needed someone else to handle the stitches, the situation must have looked pretty delicate. There’d be a scar.
“Told you so, asshole.” Dick quickly kicked Jason under the table, and Jason was more than happy to retaliate with equal force. They probably could’ve gone on like that all night, if Dick hadn’t settled for shooting him a glare and continuing the conversation. “Did he say anything else?”
“Just that Damian’s pissed off and can’t wait to go home.” Those hadn’t been Bruce’s exact words, but it wasn’t fair for their dad to censor what was very obviously Damian’s true emotional state. He’d looked irritated even before they loaded him into the ambulance and Tim seriously doubted things had improved since then.
“When are we picking them up?” Dick had leaned sideways in a clumsy attempt to see what had been written, despite the awkward angle. He did it every single time.
“No idea, but we should probably bring him some dinner.” Without another word, Tim handed over the phone and turned his attention back to the last of his chips. Sometimes it was easier to just let Dick read the texts himself, even if all the important information had already been said out loud and Dick’s own phone was sitting right there beside the tray.
“Oh, I’m sure the thing Damian wants most after a night like this is Chipotle.” The sarcasm in Jason’s voice was impossible to miss, as he dragged tired hands down his face. It was already past midnight and they had no clue how long it would take before Damian got discharged: whatever they got, it would have all the time in the world to cool down and get soggy.
“Actually, I was talking about dad. I don’t think he’s eaten at the hospital.” Tim stole a sip from Jason’s Coke and shrugged.
“I’ll go order for both of them. We can probably just ask them to put the bowl ingredients into separate containers.” Tim grunted in acknowledgment but cooperated when Dick nudged him aside, to clear a path and stand up. He watched his brother walk away, phone still in hand, then slumped back into the booth and fixed his blue eyes on Jason’s teal ones.
“Wanna split whatever Damian doesn’t eat?”
“I mean, better than letting it go to waste, huh?”