Complicated

Lately aspects of Tim Drake's life were becoming horrendously complex. Aside from the whole "nerd by day and hero by night" thing he had going on with his nonexistent social life, the increasingly awkward tension with his father at home, and the irritating responsibility to remain in the top rankings of his academic life, his life was pretty decent. Mostly. He could handle all that balance between his vigilante life, home, and school stuff. What Tim Drake did have tremendous difficulty dealing with was his love life. Which to his great surprise actually did in fact exist.

It was here, in his "love" life, that things got…complicated. Abstruse to say the least. Tim didn't much care for the term "love life" because well…not every relationship had love in it. He thought of the specifics of how this troubling matter should be labeled, tugging absently on the tie of his uniform as he stepped onto the first step outside Wayne manor. Alfred greeted him with that all-knowing look the butler always possessed in the presence of the Wayne kids. Tim tried to ignore the way Alfred coughed discreetly when he glanced warily around the foyer. "Is there someone you wish to avoid, sir?"

"What makes you say that?" Tim kicked his shoes off with little grace, much to the butler's disappointment. Disappointment in the boy's lack of manners, not the lack of grace of course. Alas, the older man was use to it by now.

"Pardon the assumption, the wary glancing about must have thrown me off," How the butler managed to be so glib in such a polite tone still baffled Tim, but the boy chose not to comment on it. "Who is it you wish to find?"

"…" Tim didn't want to say it. The real reason he was there. 'I haven't seen him in days' Would have only received a scoff from the host in question and a door slammed in Tim's face. And 'I missed him' may as well have been proof he wasn't a man. "I…"

"The young master is in his room, if you wish to speak with him." Alfred offered, Tim pressed his lips together and gave a curt nod. Deliberately ignoring the small chuckle the old man hid under his breath, Tim fled down the directed hallway.

Speaking to Damian was always so…difficult. He could never just have a normal conversation-admittedly the two shared nothing in common that could constitute an actual "normal" conversation but still- he always, always, always had to be right. The little demon could give a bull a run for his money. Tim pushed open the bedroom door as quietly as he could, suppressing the sigh that threatened to surface lest he be scolded by the brat wonder.

Why?

Damian was evil. Plain and simple. That boy had a cold, hard, heart of stone with ice pumping through his veins. Tim tried not to dwell on the fact that, despite this, he was still very much attracted to said boy. Only made more evident by the intensity with which he watched aforementioned boy towel himself off.

Demon-Damian was in the process of drying himself after an extremely hot shower- judging by the reddened patches of skin on the boy's back-while Tim fought the urge to snatch him up and play with him like a toy. A chuckle escaped him at the thought, drawing Damian's attention, immediately earning Drake a scowl.

"Do you make a habit of watching half naked men, Drake?" Not as caustic as Tim had expected.

"I don't know about men," He taunted, "but you on the other hand…certainly." Damian's scowl grew impossibly larger.

"And your suggestive jokes amuse me even less than Grayson's do." Ah. There it was. The scathing remark that bit into Tim's confidence. Damian had to know the effect the…offhand comments had on him. Oh yes, he had meant the comment to shake Tim's confidence. His insides curled in, then twisted into a tight painful ball of jealousy. He was on his feet pacing toward Damian before he could stop himself.

Adding fuel to the fire, the sixteen year old smirked that devilishly handsome smirk. "Something wrong?" Oh that dream devouring, heart breaking, soul shattering, little imp of a boy. To his shame, Tim couldn't restrain the lunge he made for his prey. Damian wasn't surprised.

Tim often wondered why, why he kept crawling back to this brat, this boy, when it was obvious Damian couldn't care less than an inch about his feelings. Ironically, Damian held similar thoughts. How much would Tim let him get away with? He wondered, and pondered, and questioned Tim's reasoning as he was pushed into the wall. Molded against the older boy's weight, Damian wondered, why did Tim put up with him?

One night when the older boy lounged on the couch, flipping through schematics of a possible new bat-vehicle, Damian had entered. Quite abruptly, in a strange sort of haze. He looked frazzled to say the least.

Tim had stared quizzically, brow quirked on cue.

"You..." Damian began with an uncertainty that was so unlike him, Tim was almost sure the situation had to be happening in his imagination, "What do you know about my father?"

Tim was tempted to answer with, "What you can't ask him yourself?" or "Whoa I was the second adopted one, ask Grayson, he's the expert." But neither seemed as if they would be received well. Instead he tried setting the blue prints aside, and asking a question of his own. "What do you want to know about him?"

"He…isn't always clear when he speaks to me."

That was the big problem?

"Well, that's Bruce for you." When he only received a confounded look in reply, he went on. "What I mean is…Bruce has this way of talking-implying things. Most of the time he'll say one thing, but mean something completely different. You get use to deciphering everything he says eventually. Don't worry, you'll get use to it."

There was a moment of revolutionary silence, before the wall Damian set firmly in place returned. "I wasn't worried, merely curious. That is all."

Tim was certain he had never seen the younger boy flee so quickly in the time he had known him.

"Right…"