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Patrol had began the same as every night.
Stopping a few robberies, punching multiple muggers, intervening in the occasional jewel heist, blah blah blah.
Then, the Scarecrow happened. Although his plans had not made it very far, his toxins did. Amongst the brawl, that idiot, Drake, got the pleasure of having his anti-toxin mask broken via a strong blow to his face from the floor he had been smashed into. Nightwing made way with the Scarecrows’ minions very rapidly while Robin himself had lunged at the Scarecrow.
At the end of it all, the thugs and Crane were zip-tied and toxin-stripped. The Red Hood had noticed the commotion and had entered to see his Replacement kneeling on the floor head in his hands with the most painful expression Jason had ever seen.
For Red Robin’s physical safety it was deemed that he was to be knocked out until they could get back to the cave so that they could analyze the new toxin and create an anti-toxin-antidote.
All four former Robins crowded into the Batmobile. Dick decided to drive. Jason called shotgun, simply because Timmers needs that extra space to thrash so that he doesn’t hit anything too damaging. Damian was clearly to be put in the back because he is the smallest of the three still currently awake.
The duration of the trip back to the Batcave is stressed to say the least.
To start, Damian was extremely annoyed. Not because of Dick’s ridiculous antics earlier, during the patrol. Not because of Todd’s inability to function properly. Oh no. Yet again this annoyance stemmed from Drake.
Drake is immensely aggravating to Damian in every way. From how he walks to how ignorant his speech is. His whole face makes Damian want to punch him and then eviscerate him. However that goes against Father’s rules. Instead he settles with fuming in his seat as the flying monkey attempts to drive without falling prey to his impulse of smothering Drake in a ridiculously tight embrace. Todd is surprisingly quiet throughout this whole thing. Which is really putting Damian on edge.
However as mentioned, Damian’s annoyance came from the fact that these fear-toxin-induced nightmares had the same effect on Drake’s sleep as his not-fear-toxin-induced nightmares did. His thrashing, whimpering, and silent screams were of a typical occurrence for Drake.
Damian had discovered Drake’s issue one night as the mumbles became louder and turned into shouts for someone to stop pushing him away.
Damian got out of his bed and quickly went to Drake’s room, slamming his own room’s door closed. No one was in the mansion aside from the two of them. Even Alfred had plans for the night.
His purpose of moving to Drake’s room was to wake him to stop the shouts that were interfering with his sleep.
Once he entered he looked at the bed where he saw Drake, soaked in his own sweat. The shaking and idiotic mumblings ( slightly disturbing mumblings) were the obvious signs that the youngest Robin used to clue into the fact that Drake was having a nightmare of all things.
At first Damian had thought to go and find duct tape to shut Drake up only to realize that Drake himself had hidden the duct tape from him. That annoying plebeian.
Damian then realized that he had to figure out another way to silence him.
Damian considered permanently silencing him but that would go as well as trying to skip out on Alfred’s planned bat family dinners every month.
Perhaps, Damian had thought, I could use Grayson’s method of calming one of us down. The whole wrapping your arms around a body to give comfort to another was a ridiculous concept to him but it should calm Drake enough for sleep to be a conceivable thought.
For a while Damian had simply stood in Drake’s doorway watching him pant and cry out for people to come back, to not leave. But when Drake started spewing off some nonsense about how the Demon was right and how he was truly not good enough to be a Robin, Damian realized that Drake, the fool, had taken every insult slung at him during a strife to heart, even the greatest hyperboles.
The little Demon (As Timmers would often call Damian just to annoy him) silently stalked up to Drake’s bed and put one hand on the still twitching young man. There was a moment where his hand had seemed to calm him down enough that he could get some sleep in his own room. Up until he had retracted his hand so that he could exit the room.
When he did so, the nightmare-stricken boy started thrashing so immensely that Damian had to involve himself so that Drake would not injure himself pathetically against a bed.
He surged forwards and trapped Drake’s wrists against the bed and sat atop him. “Wake up from your unconsciously foolish drovel.” and “ stop your struggling this instant, or do you intend to throw us both off this bed?” were two of the many things Damian had spoken to the un-peacefully slumbering Robin.
Sometime during Damian’s insistent bitching, Tim had woken up to the Demon’s voice in his ear contradicting dream Damian's words, every insult he flung.
Before he could stop himself, his tired body had betrayed him and sunk into the youngest Robin’s hold.
It took them both several minutes to adjust to the fact that they were in physical contact with each other and not in a way that is aimed to murder or inflict injury.
Eventually Damian let himself fall atop of good ol’ Timmy. “tt, Do you wish for me to ..” Little D looked slightly uncomfortable “stay and participate in this hugging-for-comfort-ritual that Grayson has brought into this manor?”
Tim looked up and just breathed out a sigh, “ I think it would benefit you to fall asleep in your own room, after all we do have school in the morning.” Dami understood and so he stood up and took his exit in a stiff fashion.
Damian is jolted out of his memory. When in the world did I become so unobservant? I'll need to remedy that.
The Batmobile had been parked in the Bat cave. Dick is standing by the monitor and Todd is exiting the car to walk upstairs, presumably to his once occupied room, all the while looking sleepy as fuck because who even has the time to sleep these days?
While leaving, Todd explains to Dick, “ I ain’t gonna be able to help you worth shit with the chemistry bullcrap, so why stay down here? Baby bird is in good hands.” Jaybird motions in the general area of Damian, who was now calming Timmy down by sitting on Tim holding his wrists down and sitting on him.
Kinky shit is what Todd thought but that is not for here or now.
Dick sat down after listening to what Jay had to say. He opened up the toxin decoder on the computer. Oh I’m sorry. The batcomputer~ (because everything has to be a bird down here.) He placed the sample of toxin from the Scarecrow’s suit into the slot of the com--- BATcomputer so that it could start pulling apart the makeup of the toxin and create a counter serum.
Time ticked by in quiet moments with only Drake’s labored breath audible. The tension was palpable. The more time that passed, Dick noticed Little D sliding into more suitable positions for holding someone down with all of their might. Timmers is getting worse. Tim’s thrashing was literally starting to scare Dick; he never knew Tim has so many painful memories to be twisted.
Dick flicks his eyes back to the screen, off of his two youngest brothers. There was a formula ready for the antitoxin but it’s going to take more time to synthesize it. Dick gets up and starts to put the correct elements into a tube to boil. Then he waits.
Damian, on the other hand, looks only at Drake, contemplating searching the entire house for that darned duct tape; the tape will hold Drake to the ground, immobilizing him, keeping those stupid limbs still. The fabric of the Robin suit rustles as Dami stretches.
Moments later a scream the sound of a dying cat rings out from Drake. It morphs into sounding like he’d just seen his whole family murdered in front of his eyes. Honestly, he probably just did.
The yell doesn’t stop and Dick’s trying to ignore it so he can correctly finish the antidote, though if you spared a glance longer than 2 seconds at him, you could tell he's extremely worried.
Damian just frowns and thinks of a way to silence him so that Grayson can finish that anti-toxin already.
With the large lack of duct tape, Dami thinks over his options and remembers that one show that Todd had forced him to sit through. Perhaps.
Damian leans forward. His hand cards through Drake’s hair as he picks him up to hold against his chest. Embraces Drake to calm him and then brashly pushes his lips to Drake’s to keep the noise from continuing.
Ah Blessed Silence.
The lips slide away when Dami hears the wheels of Dick’s chair swiveling as he jumps out of it, antitoxin in hand.
The arms around Drake relinquish him enough so that Grayson can move around him and give Drake the anti-toxin.
Drake slumps peacefully against that small chest, boldly holding the Robin symbol.
Dami leans forward once again and leans his head over Drake’s shoulder, his hair falling a bit. Damain is too tired to move and besides, Drake is surprisingly warm.
There’s a flash and in the low light of the bat cave, one can see the most heartfelt smile on Dick’s face as he’s snapping pictures of little Dami hugging Timmers to his chest, both of them smiling the most genuine smile he’s ever seen on their faces.
Little did they know that Jason never made it to his room.
The next morning was filled with scathing remarks and witty comebacks as the younger two brothers woke up in the position they fell asleep in. Neither one willing say that they enjoyed the hug.
As they walked into the kitchen they saw Jason smiling at them in a slightly insane manner. They were suspicious, but that lasted all of two seconds until Dick skidded in, holding up copies of those pictures he took last night. The youngest two exchanged a look and then attacked Dick to destroy that picture and to murder that photographer.
Due to this distraction, they forgot all about Jason who was now looking at his phone. "Oh, this is going to be the best fucking blackmail ever!” He cackles maniacally.
On the screen of his phone, a picture of Damian and Tim kissing from last night is shown.
Jason snickers “ I betcha Baby bird doesn’t even know about this.”