Chapter Text
While Tim seemed to be furiously working himself into a second grief-induced mental breakdown, Damian drifted through the manor listlessly, disappearing off into the far reaches of the manor, completely disregarding everyone he came across. Bruce, of course, was ignoring both of them in favor of figuring out exactly what Two-Face had planned that night, like the outstanding father he was.
Jason, on the other hand, was cooking up a storm in the kitchen. He had already made half a dozen dishes in the past few hours in the hopes that the smell would attract one of his siblings, but had only managed to fill the kitchen with the confusing smells of garlic bread, kimchi stew, and apple pie.
Surveying his feast, he sighed, and went upstairs to drag Tim and Damian down for a meal.
The next day went pretty much the same way, except Jason had so many leftovers he made a trip to his favorite orphanage and dropped off an obscene amount of food.
The kids, even the older ones, were all ridiculously happy to see him and his food, and listening to all their excited chatter made him feel sad, somehow.
Three days later, Jason, and Bruce, and the rest of Gotham figured out what Tim and Damian were doing all on their lonesome the whole time.
“Well.” Jason nudged the body of a very dead thug with his boot. “I assume you got all of them?”
Damian nodded silently, blood dripping off his sword. A few meters behind him, Tim paced frantically, poking at his wrist computer. He weaved between the copious amount of dead bodies without any regard for them, too wrapped up to even take notice.
“Jason,” Barbara said quietly from his comm, and a nearby security camera’s light blinked on and off. Jason huffed a breath into his helmet, and pried it off his head.
He kneeled down, reaching an arm out to Damian. “Hey, kiddo. Come here?”
Damian stared straight through him. “Why?”
“I could use a hug,” Jason said frankly, inching a little closer. “Come here? Please? For your brother?”
Damian didn’t respond.
“Please?”
Damian swayed on his feet, and Jason darted forward to catch him in a hug. Sweeping the kid off his feet into a bridal carry, he tucked Damian’s head under his chin. “It’s okay, kiddo. You’ve done well, alright?”
Damian wordlessly shook his head, and then turned his face into Jason’s collarbone and started to cry.
Rocking Damian like a baby, Jason tentatively approached Tim. “Hey, Timbo. Everything taken care of?”
He stalked up to Jason, pupils blown wide, and still stabbing at his wrist computer. “Their main command and communication structures have been disabled,” he snapped, “their top few tiers of lieutenants were holding most of the power and communications to lower factions, so without them the rest of Two-Face’s gang should fall apart pretty quickly. They have a few filing cabinets of stuff upstairs that might have some information about the things they’ve done and the agreements between different Rogues and gangs, but most of it is probably unnecessary at this point, since everyone’s probably going to steer clear of any major activity for a couple weeks. Also, since Two-Face deals more with arms dealing than anything else, none of his stores should be time-sensitive, which means— ”
“Kid,” Jason said, reaching out his free arm, “come’ere.”
Abruptly deflating, Tim stared up at Jason expressionlessly, his gaze darting between him and the back of Damian’s head.
Taking a step forward, Jason hesitantly wrapped an arm around the kid, letting him press his face into his free shoulder. Tim stood stock still, and silently trembled hard enough that Damian picked his head up to take notice.
“Timothy,” he croaked, reaching out to his least favorite brother, who immediately wrapped him up in a bone-crushing hug. Jason draped his arms around them, and they stayed that way until Bruce showed up, Spoiler in tow.