A/N: Happy... 7 year anniversary of this fic! Holy shit, what am I still doing here? Here's some Dick and Damian like you were all asking for 5 years ago. Sorry for the wait. hopefully someone is still around to appreciate this...

If you're still out there, PLEASE leave a review and tell me how you are just as excited about the return of Young Justice as I am. We did it, we brought it back! *happy tears*

The fire crackled softly from beside the armchair Damian was perched in, one hand wrapped around a hot mug and the other scrolling through the document on his computer screen. He was home from school for winter break and was working on editing an essay written by one of his classmates in his professional communications class. The essay was absolutely atrocious; Damian only cared to fix it because the kid who wrote it was regrettably part of his group for the final project in the second semester.

Dick was sitting in another soft chair at a large wooden desk, a piece of paper in front of him and a laptop open as well. He was sitting muttering to himself, occasionally scrawling something down on the piece of paper before returning his attention to the laptop screen. A string of unintelligible words streamed from the younger boy's mouth, followed by loud exclamations in a language Damian was only vaguely familiar with, but knew enough to recognize a few prominent curse words.

"Grayson!"

"No, no, no! Delete, delete, delete. I did not want to record that part…."

"Grayson," Damian repeated, impatiently turning his attention to his brother.

"Hm?" Dick looked up, a slightly puzzled look on his face.

"What are you working on?"

"History paper." Dick wrinkled his nose in displeasure. "It's due tomorrow, but I've been so busy with the Team, I haven't had to time to work on it…."

Scowling at the mention of the "Team", the band of superpowered children Dick had managed to get himself caught up with, Damian set his own laptop down. "Should you really be galivanting around with those miscreants when you have important work to do?"

"I know you don't like them, Dami," Dick muttered, setting his pencil down and resting his chin on his hand. "But we've been in the middle of a string of very important investigations for the League involving the shipment of illegal chemicals that are being used to modify the meta-gene in kids around the world-"

Damian interrupted the boy with a scoff. "The Justice League."

"What do you have against teams?" Dick demanded, looking disgruntled at being interrupted in his explanation. "We are a team here in Gotham too, you know."

"I have nothing against partnerships," Damian retorted. "It's the people involved in said partnerships I dislike."

Dick rolled his eyes. "Don't you ever get lonely, Dami?"

"No."

Even a few years ago, Damian would have followed such a pronouncement with some comment about the League of Shadows and their teachings, and Dick considered it such an improvement that he decided to drop the subject.

"'Kay, fine, well…. Any chance you want to help me with this?" He fixed the older boy with a hopeful look.

Damian gazed at Dick for a long moment. He could see the dark circles under the kid's eyes from many sleepless nights over the past week, as well as the tension in his shoulders hidden beneath the hoodie, speaking of muscles tight and sore from supporting a heavy metal appendage during that time as well. Dick hadn't asked Damian for help with school since the older boy had moved away to University.

"Alright." Damian stood and moved to sit closer to his little brother. "How far are you?"

"Umm…."

Damian peered at Dick's screen and quickly turned to him with a scowl. "You have a title?"

"Well to be honest I don't really like it, I think I'm gonna go with something a little more subtle…."

"And nothing else?!"

"I told you!" Dick exclaimed, perking up, his eyes burning brightly. "I've been busy!"

"Are you typing this?" Damian asked finally, trying to control his frustration with his brother's lack of progress.

"No, I was gonna dictate it cuz I'm running out of time and it'll take me twice as long to type and-"

"Alright, alright!" Damian cut the boy off before he could ramble on again. "I will type. Where are your sources?"

"I… well…."

oOo

Four hours later, Dick was curled up in the chair, asleep, his history paper finally complete, shining proudly on the page in front of him. Damian rubbed his eyes, thinking longingly of his bed upstairs. Quickly saving the file, the older boy reached to shut the laptop as the door to the study suddenly swung open. An exhausted looking Jason stumbled in, hair mussed up and eyes blinking blearily.

"Todd."

"'S Dick in here?" The boy mumbled, glancing around sluggishly.

"He's asleep." Damian nodded at the chair to his left.

"Oh." Jason moved quickly across the room and Damian barely caught his hand before it touched Dick's shoulder.

"What are you doing, Todd?"

"Need to talk to him. 'S'bout the Team…."

"No. He's exhausted and so are you. It can wait until the morning."

"This is important!" Jason was waking up now and his eyes were catching fire. "Miss Martian and Superboy uncovered important intel on the origin of the product and we need Robin to get into the League's files to see if there's a match."

"No." Damian tightened his grip on Jason's wrist. "Dick needs to sleep. No Robin."

"I know you have a beef with the League and the Team, and basically any sort of partnership whatsoever, but this is important. Dick can sleep once we get the League's database files."

"He's running himself into the ground," the ex-assassin growled. "You both are. I will not allow some petty teenage drama to play a detrimental roll in Grayson's health-"

"You're not his father, Damian!"

"You're right." Damian was practically hissing now, his voice low and dangerous. "His real father is dead, and his surrogate seems to be doing a pretty poor job at managing his wellbeing-"

"Dick's fine! I've been just as involved in this case as he is and I'm okay, just a little tired."

"Grayson's health is more fragile than your own, Todd-"

"I can hear you, you know."

Both older boys froze, gaze going to rest on the small boy in the chair, eyes now open and narrowed angrily.

Jason sighed roughly. "Dick, he didn't mean anything by that." He shot Damian the dirtiest glare he could muster.

"I was merely trying to allow you the rest your body requires in order to properly carry out the particular functions which are required of it…."

Dick sat up straighter. "Jason's right, we've all been working hard on this case, and we'll continue working on it, together, because that's what teams do. So if they need my help, then I'll help." He stood, brushing past Damian. "Thanks for the help, Dami, but I can take care of myself."

Damian watched in silence as his younger brothers wordlessly moved towards the door, a slight catch in Dick's step outside his normal limp.

"You're right," Dick hissed as he slowly closed the study door behind him. "My father is dead – and you're not his replacement."

oOo

Jason stifled a yawn as he continued to stare at the large monitor in front of him. Dick's fingers flew across the keys in front of him as he continued his relentless barrage on the League's computer's security system. They were in the Batcave, alone, as Bruce and Barbara were on patrol and Tim was asleep upstairs.

Damian was right. They were both exhausted and it showed in both boys' posture. Jason was slumped wearily against his chair, one hand propping up his head. Dick was hunched in on himself slightly, eyes squeezed into slits as he fought to keep himself awake. The older boy hadn't missed the grimace caressing his little brother's face as he'd reattached the robotic arm to his shoulder when they'd entered the cave. Or the way he hadn't even given the matching leg a single glance, instead limping around the cave on his civilian prosthetic.

If Damian's words had bothered the younger boy, he hadn't said anything to Jason and Jason, being as emotionally stunted as he was, hadn't tried to broach the subject. The only thing on the Hood's mind was getting in, getting the info, and going back to bed.

"Batman's triple encrypted these files," Dick muttered, running a hand through his hair as he hit a few keys. "Taking me twice as long as the others. On the bright side, these are probably what we're looking for…."

"Mph," Jason grunted.

"I wish you bothered to pay attention to what I was doing," Dick sighed. "Then next time you wouldn't have to wake me up 'cause you could do it myself."

"I offered to give you my old assignment!" Jason spluttered, remembering that Dick had been up working on a history essay.

"I can only use your stuff so often before Ms. M starts questioning why half my work is shit and the other half is an A plus."

"Hey!" Jason shouted, reaching forward and flicking the boy's ear. "Last time I ever give you help."

"You owe me."

"For what?!"

Dick smirked, turning to look at Jason. "Do you really need me to remind you about that little edit I made to your trig grade last year? Or your calculus final last week?"

"You little-"

"I'm in!" Four little green Robin heads appeared on the screen as the file was finally opened.

"Thank god," Jason groaned, forgetting about any and all near math-disasters.

"This is exactly what Wally's looking for," the hacker mumbled, clicking rapidly through a series of photos and documents. "I'm sending it his way right now."

"Good. I'll tell M'gann we've got what we need. Then I'm going back to bed."

Dick only mumbled something unintelligible, his attention once again focused on the screen. Within five minutes, he'd closed all the programs and deleted any traces of his existent in the system, before logging out of the computer and shutting it down.

"Bats'll never know."

"Great. Now let's go."

Within minutes they were back in the locker room, Dick making a beeline for the area he kept his Robin prosthetics. The boy wasted no time in pulling the quick release on his arm and letting the circuits disconnect from his nerves. What Jason wasn't expecting was the short yelp that followed the procedure.

"Are you okay?" Jason was standing next to the boy in a second, his drowsiness momentarily forgotten.

"Yeah," Dick breathed, setting the arm down and immediately reaching up to massage his shoulder. "Just sore…. Ah!" He gasped again as his hand hit a point up near his neck. "Really sore," he laughed, the sound breathy and tight with lingering pain.

Jason felt his face twist downwards in a frown, Damian's admonishments coming unbidden to his mind.

The younger boy seemed to sense exactly what Jason was thinking and gave his brother a look. "Don't start thinking like Dami, Jay. Please." He added, in a quieter voice.

"He means well."

"I know. But he's not on my team. I need people on my team to trust me and what I can do."

"We all trust you, Dick."

"I don't need you doubting my limits."

Jason was silent for a few minutes. "I just want you to know your limits."

They took the elevator out of the Batcave, Jason not even hesitating to lead the way away from the stairs and towards the lift. Damian was nowhere in sight when the two boys emerged from behind the clock. Jason forced himself to walk slowly as they climbed the stairs to their rooms, Dick's face steeled in an unreadable expression as he forced his aching left leg through the torture of the hike.

"'Night, Jay," Dick barely breathed when they reached his room, disappearing quickly behind the door.

"'Night."

Jason hurried to his own room, crossing the hall in near darkness, only to nearly run into the younger Wayne's chest.

"Todd, we need to talk."

"No can do, Demon. I'm going to bed."

Damian's hand caught Jason's arm, stopping him in his tracks. "Now."

"If this about the Team, then drop it. Your just butthurt 'cause you didn't have anything when you were younger and were stuck in Bats' shadow."

"This is about Grayson."

"Yeah, Dick and the Team. Still not interested." Jason attempted to extricate himself from Damian's grip, but was met with even more resistance.

"I know you know I've been doubtful about this 'Junior Justice League' since its inception-"

Jason snorted.

"But I will admit, it has performed admirably in a few select circumstances over the past few months. However, I think that Grayson's involvement in a cult of super-powered children-"

"It's not a cult!" Jason growled, twisting his arm free, but remaining standing in front of his eldest brother. "And we're not children."

Damian continued as though Jason hadn't said anything. "-Is unwise, given his physical… limitations. As Robin he is very powerful, yes," the older boy plowed forward, before Jason could interject again. "But surrounding him with other young… heroes, older and stronger and more dangerous than he is… it is foolish and unsafe."

"Oh yeah, but it's fine for me." Jason finally cut in, crossing his arms and glaring at the taller man.

"You know Grayson is different. These… younger heroes don't know his weaknesses-"

"Exactly."

"If something were to happen to him on a mission, there would be no one there to help him. No one who understood."

"What am I then?" Jason nearly raised his voice but caught himself last second. "And Wally's on the Team too."

"West has shown questionable judgement regarding Grayson's limitations in the past."

"Why, because he treats him like a person?"

"I don't know what you are insinuating, Todd."

"I don't know if this is your shitty way of showing you care for Dick or what, but I'm done talking about. Robin is a valuable asset to the Team – we need him." Jason paused, shooting a quick glance at the hallway where he knew Dick's door was. "And he needs us. He needs people that don't know what happened to him and treat him like… everyone else. Who trust him." Jason spat the last sentence at Damian before turning into his room, slamming the door behind him.

oOo

"And you are Mr….?"

"Wayne."

"Ah, Bruce's son." The woman behind the desk looked over her papers and smiled. Her hair was falling gently out of a bun held up high on her head and Damian would have thought her rather attractive, were he a few years older.

"And where is Mr. Wayne, senior?"

"My father was regrettably… detained this afternoon."

"So he sent you."

"Yes."

"And your relationship to Mr. Grayson?"

"He's my… younger brother. Father's ward."

In the chair next to Damian, Dick stiffened ever so slightly at the word.

"I am heir to my father's company and his entire fortune. I have express permission to speak on his behalf," Damian continued, hands folding neatly in his lap.

"Ah, yes, very well then." The principal looked slightly flustered and made a small show of shuffling the papers in her hands before finally setting them down on her desk and looking Damian in the eyes.

"I called you, or Mr. Wayne, here today to discuss Mr. Grayson's behavior these past two weeks. Normally Richard is a wonderful student and all of the teachers I have talked to have said he is a joy to have in the classroom…."

Damian chanced a glance at Dick and saw the boy rolling his eyes slightly, slouching a bit deeper in his chair.

"However, I have received reports over the past two weeks of Richard turning in three… rudimentary assignments. He received very poor grades on all three – two essays and one pre-calculus exam – and his teachers expressed concern over his substandard performance. Additionally," now the principal turned to Dick as well, her thin, pointed eyebrows drawing together in concern, "just today I received word from his physics teacher, Mr. Warren, that Richard fell asleep in class today, just fifteen minutes into the lecture." The woman, Ms. Roenneberg, Damian read on the plaque on the desk, shifted her attention back to Damian. "Let me assure you, Mr. Wayne, we do not tolerate such behavior here at Gotham Academy…."

"Yes, I remember as much," Damian nodded, eyes narrowing as he turned to look at Dick. "Care to explain yourself, Grayson?"

"No," Dick mumbled, moving to prop his head up on his hand.

"Now Mr. Wayne, due to Richard's exemplary academic performance thus far in his career here at Gotham Academy, I am willing to overlook these recent… pitfalls, but I must ask you…." Here Ms. Roenneberg paused, once again fiddling with the papers on her desk, before finally finishing: "Is everything alright at home?"

When Damian didn't immediately respond, the woman pressed on boldly. "Because I understand that Richard comes from a very… troubled background and has suffered severe trauma at a very young age. If perhaps he is struggling with some personal mental or… physical ailments, it could be impacting his performance in the classroom. Is his relationship with his father – your father – okay? Paternal relationships are very important for young boys around his age and-"

"He's not my father," Dick spoke suddenly, straightening in his chair. "And I don't appreciate being talked about like I'm not here. I told you everything is fine and I'm just a little tired, that's all. Classes are harder now and…." Dick suddenly trailed off and Damian assumed he was unable to find a suitable excuse for the fact that all of his free time was being taken up by superhero extracurriculars.

"I appreciate your concern," Damian spoke, staring intently at Ms. Roenneberg. "But everything at home is fine, like Grayson said. I will speak with him about this and ensure that my father knows as well." Damian stood, one hand going to rest on Dick's shoulder. "I will be taking him home now."

"Ah, yes, very well." Ms. Roenneberg looked slightly flustered and Damian wondered for a minute whether she was very new at the school. She certainly hadn't been principle when he had attended the Academy. "Have a good rest of your day Richard. Mr. Wayne."

Damian nodded curtly before guiding Dick to his feet and directing him towards the door. The two walked in silence until they were out of the building and into the near-deserted courtyard. Once the outside air hit their faces, Damian finally spoke.

"Falling asleep in class?!" His voice was harsh, but low, so as not to carry.

"Yeah, so? Jason does it all the time…."

"Todd is a juvenile delinquent, Grayson. He is destined for subservient minimum-wage work in his near and far future."

"Where's Bruce?" Dick demanded, limping down the front steps ahead of Damian, keeping his face resolutely turned away from his eldest brother.

"He's… otherwise disposed."

"Why'd he send you?"

"I volunteered."

Damian noted the way Dick was favoring his left leg more than usual and watched his unsteady progress across the courtyard before striding to catch up.

"Are you sore?" The older boy questioned, trying to catch Dick's eye.

"I'm fine."

"I know you were out late last night again."

"Yeah. So were you."

"I didn't fall asleep in class. Nor nearly fail my calculus final."

"You didn't have class today," Dick retorted, still avoiding eye contact.

"And when I do, I treat my body accordingly."

They had finally reached the car when Dick whirled around, small body taught and nearly shaking as he balled up his one fist, face twisted in a snarl as he faced Damian at last.

"You know what Dami? It's been a hard week. Two weeks, even, and you're not making it any better by attacking my every move, criticizing my Team. I know you think I'm weak and… damaged, but I can still fight. I'm still Robin and I can still help people, whether you believe in me or not."

Damian physically flinched when Dick let out the word 'damaged'. He could see the grimace flash across the boy's face even as forced out the term that Damian himself had used to label Dick all those years ago.

"Why did you choose this one?" A young fourteen-year-old Damian demanded of his father, crossing his arms and motioning to the file Bruce had lying open on his desk, detailing every known part of the young circus orphan's life.

"He needs me, Damian. Just like you needed me, and Jason, and Tim. He has no family, nowhere to go. They sent him to Juvenile Detention and he's only nine years old." Bruce thumbed through the file, stopping at one point to read something on a page.

"But he's so…." Damian struggled to find the words to convey how he was feeling. Over the past four years, Bruce and Alfred had been encouraging the boy to express his thoughts in a more sensitive manner, so as to not insult every person he came in contact with whom he saw a major flaw in. As this was nearly every person, the retraining of the assassin's vocabulary was extremely necessary.

"Richard Grayson is alone in the world. He watched his parents die – he nearly died himself. I can help him because I understand his pain."

"But Father," Damian continued, drawing himself to his full height. "We have a mission in this… family. A mission to protect Gotham; that is why we are here. How is he supposed to be a part of that mission when he is so… damaged."

"Damian, there is more to this family than protecting Gotham, and you know that…."

It wasn't until a year later when Dick started training to become Robin that he heard Damian utter those same words in his presence. Heard his supposed older brother claim he was too damaged, too weak, too crippled, to be of any help in Batman's mission. It wasn't until months after that that Damian learned how much his words had crushed Dick. How much they still haunted his little brother to this day.

"…. So get on board, or get out of the way."

Damian blinked, realizing Dick had suddenly delivered his ultimatum and was climbing in the car.

"Grayson," Damian nearly yelled, hurrying to position himself in the driver's seat. "I did not mean that. I know you are very capable of helping the mission in Gotham…."

"But apparently not anywhere else," Dick spat back.

"I-"

"Forget it. I want to go home."

They drove in silence. Dick gazing out the window, occasionally reaching up with his hand to rub at his right shoulder, fingers digging into the sore muscles around the empty metal port. Damian spared a few glances at the boy as he drove, trying to figure out how to amend the errors in his speech of the past twenty minutes. By the time they had reached the manor, Dick was beginning to nod off, face smooshed against the window, breathing slow and heavy as his eyelids drifted lower and lower.

Damian parked the car and then stopped moving, waiting for the younger boy to exit the car first. When Dick remained stationary, Damian sighed, reaching over nudging his brother's shoulder gently.

"Grayson. We are home now."

Dick blinked, looking up groggily, hand coming up to rub his eyes. "Mph," me mumbled, stretching a bit before undoing his seatbelt and opening the door. "Thanks for the ride Dami." And then he was gone.

oOo

Later that night found Damian pacing restlessly in the large sitting room, the fire barely smolders. The rest of the evening had consisted of a series of stilted conversation with his father about Dick's recent school performance and then an awkward dinner where Dick shot angry glances at Damian every few minutes and refused to meet Bruce's gaze.

Damian looked up as a figure entered the room. It was Jason, dressed in a heavy leather jacket and boots, cheeks pink from the cold. The boy had been at a friend's – a girl's – house after school and hadn't been home for dinner.

"Todd," Damian acknowledged, barely stopping in his pacing.

"You should really go talk to Dickhead," Jason replied, without preamble.

"How do you…?"

"He called me, said he was banned from the Mountain and the Cave until he retook his pre-calc final up and didn't fall asleep in class for the rest of the week. He's pissed."

"It is not my fault Father decided to punish him as such-"

"He's not pissed about that. He's pissed you treat him like a kid – like a frickin' piece of glass. Come to think of it, I kind of am too."

"I do not-"

"Talk to him." Jason growled, before turning around and leaving just as quickly as he'd come.

Damian watched him go, finally pausing in his well-worn tracks. After a minute, when he was sure Jason was at least out of the near vicinity, he left the room as well, feet carrying him without thought until he stood outside Dick's room. He paused a second, listening, before knocking softly on the door when there were no sounds to be heard in the room beyond. Perhaps the boy was already asleep….

Damian was about to turn and leave, assuming Dick was sleeping, when he noticed a thin crack of light visible underneath the doorway. He gently reached and turned the knob, letting the door fall slowly open. A quick glance around the room showed Dick to be nowhere in sight. The window, however, was open, and Damian strode resolutely across the room. Sticking his head out, he was only mildly surprised to see Dick sitting on the roof, wearing only a large sweatshirt, arm wrapped around one leg as he stared out over the darkened forest surrounding the manor.

Damian cleared his throat and Dick turned, face pale in the light from the quarter moon hanging overhead.

"It's dangerous to be out on the roof so late at night, in the cold…." Damian started, but at the words Dick turned abruptly away again.

With a small sigh, the ex-assassin planted his hands on the windowsill and smoothly pulled his body through the opening and into the frigid night air. He crawled careful over to where Dick was sitting and immediately noticed the small shivers running through the boy's scrawny frame.

"Grayson I… am sorry. For how I acted today. And for how I have been acting towards the… Young Justice League."

Dick made no sign he'd heard Damian, only huddling a bit further into his sweatshirt, tucking his chin up against his chest.

"I also would like to apologize for any slight I have made against you and your abilities over the past weeks. I do trust you and have faith in what you are capable of…."

"Only in Gotham, though," Dick interrupted, without moving his head. "One when I'm five feet away from you and you can watch my every move and dictate exactly what I can and cannot do."

"I will admit I do feel better when you are in Gotham and I am there to have your back, however-"

"However, Dick hissed, interrupting again, "I'm just as capable when I'm not with you. When I'm with the Team. We look out for each other."

"I am sure you all try to protect each other, but they do not understand the full extent of your identity."

"And so they treat me just like everyone else!" Now Dick let his eyes slide to meet Damian's. "To them I'm Batman's partner, someone they can respect because they know I have experience none of the rest of them do. To them, I'm the Boy Wonder. The need me. I'm not just an afterthought someone strapped a couple robot pieces to and sent out to do their dirty work…."

Dick turned away and Damian was shocked to hear the bitter tones in the boy's voice. "Grayson." He reached out and hesitantly laid a hand on his brother's shoulder, pretending he didn't notice the way the boy winced at the pressure on the sore muscles. "You're not an… afterthought."

A long minute passed and then Dick whispered: "I'll never be like you, Dami. I'll never be able to patrol every night, or go on long missions for weeks at a time – it hurts too much. I can't even sit at home and hack quick enough without my arm…. But on the Team, that stuff doesn't matter. On the Team, I'm just as good as everyone else. And I need to keep it that way."

Even more hesitantly than before, Damian found himself stretching his arm further until it was wrapped around both of the boy's shoulders. The ex-assassin did not do physical contact well, but he knew Dick thrived off of it.

"Grayson I… I am deeply sorry. I have acted out of line the past weeks and have spoken on things I did not truly understand, because I was worried for you." Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to be honest in an open way he rarely was, Damian continued. "I care about you, Grayson. More than I ever thought I would care about anyone. If something were to happen to you, I worry what I would do. What I could become." Finally: "I did not want to see you get hurt, but I realize now that it is I who hurt you."

In the silence, Damian heard Dick sniff softly and looked down at the boy's face, seeing the blue eyes scrunched tightly closed, forehead pressed into his knee.

"Though I do not deserve it, I ask that someday you find it in yourself to forgive me."

There was another long moment of silence. Damian forced himself to keep his arm around his brother, both as a sign of his repentance and as an attempt to keep the smaller boy warm in the chilly winter air. As Damian began to consider whether he should attempt to exit the situation and give the boy time to consider the apology, he felt a light shaking under his arm.

"Grayson, if you are cold, we should go indoors. I will leave you in peace if you so desire…."

What the eldest Wayne did not expect to see when Dick finally looked up, was a slowly forming grin on the thin, pointed face. He let out a small, breathy laugh and Damian realized what he had thought was shivering was actually Dick shaking in… laughter.

"I fail to see what is so funny, Grayson."

Dick let out another laugh. "Of course I forgive you, Dami! It won't take me the next ten years to get over you thinking with your assassin-brain instead of your brother-brain."

"My… what?"

"Never mind." Dick looked up at his older brother, snuggling a bit deeper into Damian's side. "Thanks for coming to apologize. I know I probably overreacted a bit and… you were just trying to help. But thanks…."

"Of course." Damian allowed himself to tighten his hold a bit, feeling a bit of the cold metal from Dick's shoulder brace seeping through the boy's sweatshirt into Damian's side. "Now, we should use this opportunity to extract ourselves from our current environment and go back inside where it is warm."

Laughing again, Dick nodded, letting Damian help him to his feet. The two boys carefully made their way back across the roof to the open window, Damian keeping one hand firmly fisted in his little brother's sweatshirt as Dick shuffled his prosthetic leg carefully across the slippery roof tiles.

Once they were both safely back inside, Damian closed the window and began heading towards the door. He was nearly to the hallway when a small bundle was forcefully rammed into his side, dark hair burying itself in his sweater. Damian quickly grabbed Dick's arm to keep him from toppling over from the force of the… hug. For that was what it was, as a singular skinny arm wrapped around Damian's middle.

"Thanks again," Dick murmured into the soft fabric enveloping his face. "For… everything."

"Always…. Richard."