As always, I own nothing!

One of the downsides to heroism: the pain when the adrenaline wears off.

"Fuck I hurt." Tim grumbled with a pinched face as he eased himself into the soothing heat of the bathtub. He leaned his head back against the cool tiled wall behind him once he was comfortably situated, heaving a sigh.

His knuckles, bloody and cracked, stung when he submerged his right hand to grab the pesky bar of soap (damn thing never stayed in its designated area no matter what shape the bowl was). He raised his hand above water level, half-heartedly examining and willing the stinging burn away. The skin had split open and was slowly peeling off. He clenched and unclenched his fist slowly, watching as the broken skin pulled away from the top of his knuckles. The pain was bearable, he just wished he could make it through an assignment without obtaining some sort of bodily harm.

The apartment was quiet without the television on, although the streets of Gotham refused to quiet down, filling his home with the shrieks and cries of the city. (The streets often made enough noise at night to rival Las Vegas).

He noted a tender spot just about the size of a large fist on his ribs as he began cataloging all the damage underneath all the body armor and spandex. Bad guys were definitely learning to hit harder.

Washing up proved difficult with all the sore spots (knuckles definitely stung, ribs hurt, might have a broken toe, was that a tooth stuck in his forearm?). To top it off Tim had also forlornly realized a bit of his bangs had been chopped off during all the commotion. Dick had only snickered at the loss, giggling something about how Tim needed a haircut anyway.

"Dick can be such a...a dick sometimes."

He really could have thought of a better insult, but alas, he couldn't find the energy in his aching body to care anymore. Tim carefully stretched out the best he could, propping the foot with a possible broken toe up on the ring of the tub. He sighed deeply, ignoring the prickling pain in his ribs when his lungs expanded too widely.

The room slowly started tilting backward as he dunked his head underneath the steamy surface. And in that moment Tim thought, aside from all the sore spots and bruises he could definitely fall asleep right there in that bathtub. So relaxing.

That was until he was being pelted with ice cubes and shivering under the downpour of freezing water. An admittedly short downpour but a downpour all the same.

He didn't have time to react before the smug and demonic face of Damian Wayne swam into view above him, clutching a bucket in front of himself with the distinct look of triumph. Tim silently seethed in his now lukewarm bath, squinting up at the young Wayne with the same enthusiasm as a wet cat.

"You little-" He had to actively remind himself not to stoop down to the hell spawn's low, low, low level, opting to glare quietly instead.

"It isn't my fault you let your guard down, Drake."

"Of course not."

Damian's mouth twitched, something Tim ordinarily found endearing. At that moment however, it just meant he was about to do something (else) that would make Tim want to punch him in the face twice as hard as he normally wanted to.

After a few beats of silence Damian set the empty bucket on the toilet and knelt down to apparently invade Tim's personal space.

He leaned away warily, tensing out of reflex. "What do you want, Damian?"

Damian remained stubbornly silent for a few moments more as he looked Tim over. It was a look that did a perfect job of concealing what the other boy was looking for. Often used during any sort of card game. It was a look that among other things, really pissed Tim off.

As far as he could tell Damian wasn't looking his body up and down for pleasure (he was fairly sure he would know how to recognize that look, even if it was on a Wayne).

"Did you have a run in with Killer Croc?"

"No. Why?"

"Bane?"

"Huh?"

"Did you fight Bane?"

"No."

"Clayface?"

"Nope."

"An enemy of that size in general?"

"Uh. No. Again, why do you ask?"

Damian jabbed the bruise on his ribs, earning a hiss and his hand slapped away too late.

"What was that for?"

"Just answer my questions, you fool."

"Why should I?"

The glower he received looked eerily similar to Bruce's, and in that moment Tim really didn't want to test how much those two had become alike, so he complied. "No it wasn't anyone like that."

A flash of confusion on the other boy's face had Tim's head scrambling. He hardly thought of himself as one who would be privy to such a sight. However marvelous the sight might have been, it was over so quickly he thought he might have just imagined the whole thing. Maybe he ought to add concussion to the long list of minor injuries. "So…you gonna tell me why you care?"

"I don't." Damian flicked a bruise on Tim's collarbone next.

"Jesus!" Tim's jaw clenched and he swatted at the younger boy, groaning when he missed and received another harsh jab for his trouble. He pushed himself to the far side of the tub, gingerly rubbing the jab site on his chest and muttering something about how evil the other boy was.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I didn't say anything."

"That's what I thought."

"Can I please just take my bath in peace?"

Damian gave him another once over, and Tim cursed himself for feeling suddenly exposed under the attention. As far as he was concerned it was the tub's heat-well lukewarm heat—that made his skin flush red and definitely not Damian. For christ's sake. Someone his age shouldn't be blushing over someone like Damian, hell spawn and known brat of the household.

Tim flinched when the other boy snatched one of his hands out from under the water to examine his knuckles. He didn't have the energy to keep up with this conversation for much longer. So he unceremoniously scrubbed soap into his skin with his one free hand while the other boy remained fixated on his captive one.

"It must have been an ambush..."

"Hm?"

Damian glared at him as if he were an imbecile making random noises. Tim crinkled his nose as if the expression gave off a stench, deciding he wasn't in the mood to deal with the demon spawn's sass. "Never mind."

He jerked his hand away from the other boy with more force than he needed to and moved to pull the plug from the drain. He was in such a hurry to get out of the cold water and away from Damian that he took one slippery step around the other boy—missed the mat Damian had so rudely taken a seat on—and stepped straight on the tile. In any other bathroom, this wouldn't have mattered. The tile in Tim's bathroom unfortunately, was forged of some Vaseline enriched material, and adding water only turned into the slipperiest surface imaginable.

The floor had never lunged toward Tim's face so quickly before, all he had time to do was close his eyes and pray he didn't break his nose. He felt his face smack against something mildly hard—"God damn it Drake!"—before Damian's fist uppercut his ribs. Something definitely popped—or cracked, he wasn't sure which. But all the sudden they were starring in some violent musical number with Tim scrambling to defend himself—ignoring the dull throb in his face and the sharp bolts of pain in any of the body parts Damian's limbs came in contact with. Theirs was a chorus of curses ("I can feel your goddamn teeth!", "Get off!", "I can't. Ow! You little shit!"), punches (something definitely go dislocated), and kicks ("I think you just chipped my tooth!"). At one point Tim heard more than felt a rib crack and managed wiggling around enough to pin Damian's arms above his head and then kept his legs to the floor by pressing his knees into the other boy's thighs.

With Damian panting underneath him, Tim pressed his face into the surprisingly soft and unbruised flesh in front of him. "Fuck this floor."

Somehow the little shit managed giving him a haughty little huff, to which Tim responded to by biting at his neck hard enough to bruise. He picked his head up in time for the other boy to hiss in his face.

"The only thing at fault here is your own clumsiness."

Tim rolled his eyes and released the scrawny wrists, easing his knees off of the smaller thighs and onto the floor to frame them instead. He watched Damian rub the skin of one wrist with his thumb, and then the other, soothing the reddened skin. Their eyes remained locked, carefully waiting for the other to accidentally strike again.

Eventually the older boy found himself relaxing as the boy underneath him began tracing intricate patterns-probably computer codes or something ridiculously pretentious like that-up his sides, methodically curving around the bruises and scratches.

But letting your guard down around Damian was always a mistake. He hooked his smaller limbs around Tim, reminding him vaguely of a monkey, and pushed. The world took another spin and when his vision cleared, those icy gems set in bronze skin were staring down at him. It would have been easy to mistake the triumph in his eyes for affection—but Tim knew better. Damian wasn't one to openly express himself like that. He was all action and pretense. He could never just talk. That was more of Grayson's territory. Regardless, the tides had apparently turned now, with Damian riding comfortably on top.

Blunt nails dug into the skin around one of the probably-broken ribs, but the material of the sweat pants he wore was like velvet against his skin, soothing the ebbing pain, and when that small body rocked—oh god—the friction was a sweet enough pleasure to make his non-broken toes curl. It was a blend of pain and pleasure, something so sickeningly familiar, something so Damian. The pleasure coiled within him, unfurling and stretching, bubbling up his throat and tumbling passed his lips as a groan. He seemed content to continue on like that, rolling his hips while Tim squirmed.

Wet fingers clamped onto thin hips, stilling the boy's movements. They stared at each other in silence for a solid thirty seconds. And then it was all a blur. A blur of lips and teeth smashing together in a violent, desperate need to conquer, flashes of pink tongues rolling over one another.

Damian's fingers skimmed one of the cracked ribs in his haste to knead the damp skin underneath him and the older boy gasped, unintentionally jerking his body against Damian's, in pain. This only encouraged the other boy, plunging his tongue further into Tim's mouth, nearly gagging him. Slim fingers gripped around his thin bronzed throat as Tim sat up and squeezed, the hand on Damian's hip slipping behind and dipping under the waistband of the old sweatpants. He wasn't sure what about this pain was so arousing—he knew he should slow down, cease immediately, stop, but the noises coming out of the younger boy when he pressed a finger against that tight ring of muscle, were too addictive.

The bathroom filled with a series of gasps, grunts, the slick sound of wet skin moving against tile and fabric. He was working the shirt up Damian's chest when the other boy elbowed him in the ribs again in attempt to lift his arms and knocked the air right of his stomach. They both froze, Tim with his face buried in the bunched up fabric on the other boy's chest and Damian patiently listening to the sound of the older boy's slow, ragged breaths.

"Never mind, Drake. I've lost interest."

Tim groaned, shifting the boy on his lap and leaning back to glare tiredly at the younger boy. "Oh really? Doesn't feel like you've lost interest."

The brat scowled at him. "Don't be a fool. My biological response has nothing to do with my mental desires." Damian shoved his shoulders back in an attempt to get up and away from him. The two heard a distinct pop and Tim was hunched over in pain again.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" He removed himself from the bathroom before it got any worse.

Now left naked and confused on the bathroom floor, Tim sat frozen in his spot as he replayed the last ten minutes over in his brain. Bath, ice, Damian, almost sex, pain. No. Bath, ice, pain, almost sex, pain. Bath, ice, pain—a towel thrown over his head derailed his train of thought. "Come on. Now I've got to fix your stupid shoulder."

With an eyebrow quirked he sarcastically remarked, "So you don't want sex…you just want to keep giving me miscellaneous injuries?"

He couldn't make out the Arabic grumbles Damian gave him in response. Tim only got as far as putting pants on because Damian wasn't the most patient of caregivers.

"Okay. Now be careful when you're putting it back into—ow!"

Apparently he wasn't one for giving warnings either.

"There. Fixed."

"You couldn't have given me a little warning?"

"What good would that have done?"

Tim was far too tired to try explaining the ethics involved here, so he didn't. "Never mind. Just turn off the lights and come to bed will you?"

"When did you get so fragile?" The sixteen year old flipped the lights off.

"About the same time you got so clumsy."

"Oh I'm the clumsy one?"

The bed barely creaked under Damian's added weight. Tim felt the warm mass to his left and instinctively flipped over to curl around it. Out of guilt or perhaps pity, Damian allowed him this liberty. He didn't even protest when Tim nuzzled the back of his neck and slid an arm around to twist their fingers together. This comfort lasted for all of ten minutes before Tim had to open his big mouth.

"What's with you today? You seem…off."

Damian stiffened and proceeded to extract himself from the warm embrace, shoving Tim to the edge of the bed. "Don't be such a woman."

Tim frowned at the loss, not that it was visible in the darkness. He shifted to make himself comfortable without the sixteen year old as a pillow. "More touchy than usual too."

"Shut up, Drake."

He pressed his lips together to keep from smiling, before he remembered the other boy couldn't see and grinned to himself freely.

"Stop grinning to yourself. You look like a ninny."

"A ninny? What the hell is that?"

"Take a look in the mirror and you'll find out."

Tim snorted. "So it's an intelligent, handsome, vigilante?"

He heard Damian flip over, and then felt him slap mercilessly at another bruise on his chest. "Don't be an idiot."

Dear god. The sting alone almost brought a tear to Tim's eye. He chewed on the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out. When the pain faded enough, he gingerly rubbed the inflamed skin and muttered, "Did something happen with Bruce today? Jesus."

He heard Damian inhale.

He blinked into the darkness and then closed his eyes. "I'm not expecting you to answer."

No exhale.

"Damian?"

"…"

Tim scooted closer warily, listening for the other boy's breathing. When he didn't hear it he reached over and pinched whatever flesh he found.

"What was that for?"

"Uh. You stopped breathing."

"It was…just a test."

"What to see if you needed air? You might be a demon but I'm pretty sure your mortal body still needs oxygen."

"Oh never mind it. Go to sleep you ninny." His words were corrosive, acid-like, but they didn't burn Tim like he had intended. It only made the older boy reach out and curl his arms around him, tugging him back until he was perfectly trapped in a tight hug, feeling irrationally happy when the other boy didn't resist.

"I know you don't care, or at least, you pretend not to, but I'm glad you're here." Damian almost shivered as the words were spoken into the back of his neck. He heard Tim inhale and felt himself flush.

"…Whatever."

xXx

The next morning Tim woke to the cushion of a feather pillow, the cool air, bits of sunshine speckling the walls of the room and the scowl of one very unhappy, black eyed Damian Wayne. There was no way of containing the burst of laughter that bubbled up even if he had wanted to. Unfortunately, with his ribs cracked every laugh came with a jolt of pain. Laugh, "ow", laugh, "ow", la—"Ow!."

It was a vicious cycle.

"Serves you right, Timothy."

Oh, shit.

Heaven help you should Damian ever use your given name. Slapping a hand over his mouth in a light hearted attempt to cage some of the giggles, Tim clutched his side with his free hand and tried to quell the laughter. "What…uh. What happened to your eye there, Damian?"

Damian jabbed him none too gently in the ribs. "You happened, you insufferable idiot!"

"Oh shit, really? I'm…" Tim had to think of a slew of depressing things to keep from laughing. "I'm sorry. What did I do?"

At first all he got in response was a growl. Then a death glare when Damian caught sight of Tim's grin returning. "It was a lucky shot! That's all."

"Was it? I didn't think anyone could manage getting a lucky shot on you."

Damian sat cross legged on the other side of the bed. Tim wondered if he was wary of being around him now that he had given him the black eye. The other boy glared at the plain bedspread beneath him. "Yes well…you caught me off guard."

Tim blinked. "I did? How?"

"You were…" He looked up with an odd expression, an odd blend of a pout and a glower. "Making weird noises." He threw a pillow at Tim's face in response to the lecherous look he gave him. "Not that kind of noise you fool."

Tim hugged the pillow in front of him, leaning down on it to get more comfortable. His forehead wrinkled. "What kind of noise then?"

"I don't know. You sounded like a girl with all your whining. I was just trying to wake you up and you attacked me like the heathen you are."

Then it dawned on him.

Nightmares. He had been having those a lot lately. Trouble was, he could never remember what they were about in the morning.

"Were you…"

Damian looked at him as if he were a freak in a tutu.

"Were you actually…" Tim's excitement clearly made the other boy uncomfortable.

"Don't. Go. ]There."

"You were worr-"

"I was not, nor will I ever be worried about someone like you, Drake."

Tim feigned horror, gasping dramatically. "No of course not. I'm a mere peasant. I'm sure someone like you has people to worry for you."

Damian shook his head as if he were truly done with the entire situation. Tim could hardly contain himself, as he launched ungracefully from his spot, and caught the other boy in another embrace. Damian actually squeaked in surprise.

"Did you just…?"

"No. I did not. It was just your imagination."

"Of course."

And despite the fact that Damian immediately elbowed his way to freedom and left Tim lying in bed as if he had no more use for him, the older boy found himself smiling. He watched the other boy walk out of the bedroom and into the hall before falling on his back, fully prepared to go back to sleep.

"By the way if anyone asks..." Tim picked his head up to look Damian in the eye (yep, it was still painfully funny) when the other boy ducked his head back in. "This black eye came from patrol. It did not come from you elbowing me in your sleep. Got it?"

"Aye, aye, captain."

Damian gave him a horrified look. Which, sort of made Tim feel accomplished. "And don't ever say that again."

"Yes, sir."

It's been awhile hasn't it? College has a funny way of consuming your life sometimes! So I haven't actually decided if this is a one shot or not but this spawned from a series of silly conversations. Anyway I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you think!