"But Father—"
"If you are incapable of evading Stephanie's movie nights without resorting to lethal measures, you deserve every Technicolor moment, Damian," Bruce refuted, still too busy scowling at the most recent offending article to even pretend sympathy.
Tim wished that Bruce wouldn't provoke Damian when the little demon was sitting next to Tim in the limo. Tim had vulnerable organs in this suit.
Dick sighed, resting a hand on Damian's knee like the pint-sized former assassin didn't have knives on his person capable of removing the offending limb. "Look, kiddo, we don't want you out on the streets and drawing attention right now. The girls and I have been benched too, and … well, sometimes somebody has gotta take one for the team …"
… and in the form of twelve hour movie marathons.
"It's not fair," Damian scowled, pulling away from their older brother and curling up like a particularly put-out porcupine.
It wasn't fair, but they were all on edge tonight. No one was happy with the current state of things.
Tim had known that Bruce's friendly overtures with Vicki Vale would come back to haunt them, and now a rival reporter was using Ms. Vale's research as a stepping stone to uncover the secret of Batman. Apparently Ms. Vale's former-photographer put two-and-two together when she stopped her crusade, and promptly recruited Gossip Gerty.
Outing the Waynes' secret night-lives as vigilante would revitalize her gossip column in the age of growing digital media.
Tim sighed, and reached across Damian for his crutches. "If you don't like it, find a way to fix the reporter problem," he hissed as the others got out of the limo, "without 'terminating' anyone."
"Spoilsport," Damian muttered back, shoving none too lightly as Dick half-lifted Tim from the vehicle.
Tim pasted on a bright smile and ignored both of his brothers' respective gestures. Dick would never try this on Babs, but they were still attempting to convince the media that poor, delicate Tim Drake—although formidable in character—was physically incapable of being the rooftop hero, Red Robin.
Damian settled himself at Bruce's side—the very picture of an adorable child on a Father-Son outing at the charity auction. Dick ruffled their little brother's hair and waved for the camera while keeping one hand steady on Tim's shoulder as they moved inside.
They settled Tim in one of the best seats, watching as the other socialites swirl in complicated patterns while conversations rose and fell around them. Bruce successfully dodged Gossip Gerty's grasp, and let Lucius draw him away into a business discussion with a few prominent investors.
Tim fully expected to field the columnist or at least her photographer's interest—sitting target that he currently played and all—but she had disappeared back into the crowd. Still after Bruce perhaps?
"What did you say to Damian?" Dick murmured quietly, playing the attentive older brother and passing Tim a glass of non-alcoholic champagne.
"I offered him a challenge," Tim shrugged lightly. "Something to keep him busy and out of our hair."
"Like stalking Gerty?" Dick returned downing a glass of his own, and flicking his gaze slightly to the left.
Sure enough, there was Damian at the writer's side.
"Is he trying to annoy her to death?" Tim frowned, craning his neck slightly to follow the unlikely pair's progress across the floor.
The League training showed in times like these—or maybe Cass was giving their little brother a refresher course in reading people. Whatever the case, Damian was expertly herding Gerty to the center of the room.
The untrained eye would assume the woman was pursuing Damian.
Dick shrugged. "He said that he would handle it."
"By being a vaguely threatening leech all night?" Tim snorted, but Damian's prey was following him willingly now, clearly hanging off Damian's every word.
Anything could happen in the next five minutes.
"You might want some plausible deniability, Dick," Tim warned with a grimace, digging his fingertips into his temples in a futile attempt to ward off the approaching headache.
"Understood. There's a gorgeous redhead in blue contemplating the watercolors," Dick winked. "You know how much I love blue."
"And redheads," Tim muttered, but Dick didn't even have the decency to be offended. The older man just beamed down at him.
"Lucky for me, she's a real genius too," Dick teased before darting away to join Barbara. "Good with computers!"
Tim just sighed at his big brother's antics and watched warily as the reporter leaned in closer and closer to the ten year old vigilante. He couldn't make out the words from here, but the obvious interest on the older woman's face made him nervous.
Damian said something that turned interest to hunger and took a calculated step back. That was where Gerty made her mistake. She grasped Damian's shoulder.
"I said that I don't want to talk about it!" Damian immediately shrieked, jerking free. "I don't—I don't …"
The kid looked to be on the verge of tears, and Tim found his feet a little too quickly even though he knew Damian's distress had to be faked. It was a good show, and Tim hobbled forward on the crutches, pushing determinedly through the masses.
Selina beat him to the center of the ring of gawking onlookers though, and that … that just made it better as she wrapped one arm protectively around Damian's shoulders, pulling the ten year old to her side.
"What's the matter, Kitten?" she murmured silkily in a low voice that somehow carried well in the shocked, whispery silence of the crowd.
"She said …" Damian shook his head fiercely, turning to bury his face in Selina's side. "It's not my fault!" he cried out, shoulders heaving in mock-distress as Selina stroked his hair with gloved fingertips and spared a disdainful glance for poor shell-shocked Gerty.
"Of course not, Kitten," she soothed, refocusing on the top of Damian's head, a sympathetic and richly arrayed Madonna figure. Damian continued to whimper appropriately emotional phrases into Selina's embrace as Tim fought his way through the crowd.
The clear mention of " … my mother …" was a particularly nice touch, giving Tim every excuse to push through the crowd with a little more force, a little more righteous wrath as he neared the scene.
He was beaten to the metaphorical punch once again—this time by Lois Lane, who could much more efficiently and professionally cripple the columnist than Tim. Damian chose his defenders well, having positioned himself squarely between their respective parties.
Tim slowed, reluctant to push through the last of the onlookers and break up the clever drama, but Bruce and Dick were already swooping down on the scene.
"Really, Bruce," Selina rebuked gently, still stroking Damian's hair like he was one of her cats. "Damian's much too young to attend parties like these. You know how they let in just anyone these days."
"I thought just this once … I thought he'd appreciate the art, since he likes to draw so much …" Bruce trailed off meaningfully as he reached for a perfectly pliant Damian. The ten year old smoothly shifted his face from Selina's side to his father's shoulder with red enough eyes to impress even Tim; his tiny red sneakers dangled pathetically as Bruce lifted him. "Son?"
"I want to go home," Damian sniffled into Bruce's lapel.
The kid was on the verge of over-doing it, but no one in this crowd will notice. By tomorrow, everyone in Gotham will know that Gossip Gerty harassed Bruce Wayne's youngest to the point of tears and never stop to consider why or how.
"Please," Damian whispered, clearly pulling out all the stops. "I want to go home."
"I can take him, Bruce," Dick offered promptly.
"No," Bruce frowned. "I'll take Damian home. You should stay and enjoy the party with Tim. Bid on something for me. It's going to a good cause after all."
"I believe that I shall retire early as well," Selina murmured, resting one hand gently against Damian's back and the other proprietarily on Bruce's arm. "Why don't I give you and Damian a ride so that Alfred can stay for the boys?"
With Damian still clutched protectively in his arms, Bruce allowed her to gently steer him through the recovering crowd, utterly ignoring Lois and Gerty's increasingly irate discussion on ethics in journalism while spouting the appropriate apologies and visible gratitude.
Dick made his way back to Tim, and neither dared to look the other in the eye or all sobriety would be lost.
"If Damian can't enjoy the party, then neither can I," Dick declared in a furious whisper that was in no way quiet, eyes fixed on the floor and Tim's immaculately polished shoes.
Tim kept his eyes firmly on the bemused Oracle over Dick's shoulder. "Let's just bid on the first thing we see and go home. We'll stop and get ice cream on the way for everyone."
Dick agreed, and the Wayne heirs split up to carry out the plan to the organizers' disappointment. Tim made a mental note to contribute a little extra next time, but the draw of a night on the rooftops overpowered Timothy Drake-Wayne's sense of civic responsibility.
Escape was imminent.
Tim's phone chimed before he made it back to the limo, and he juggled his crutches briefly to check the incoming text.
Consider it handled.
"What kind of movies has Steph got him watching anyway?" Tim muttered, letting Dick catch up.