A/N: A review that I received stated that it seemed hurtful that Tim keeps repeating about Dick being his biological brother. First hand it's something NEW to them both. He doesn't mean to be hurtful, which he doesn't realize he's being. He and Damian will forget all about it because they will be sharing something they have in common, a love of Art, and not just any art either. This story though is going to continue for quite some time with two or even three more sequels. There are more surprises in store for the Bat Boys.

Brothers, Portraits, and Messages.

By

AJ

Part 10

'I should have used the ladder . . . Thought I could reach it.' Tim felt foolish. He should have asked Damian to reach it for him. Tim started to feel light headed and he lay back on the couch waiting for Damian to return with Alfred.

"Master Damian, we do not go around shouting at the top of our lungs."

"But Tim's bleeding.," Damian lowered his voice.

"What? Go get Master Richard immediately. He is still in the kitchen." Alfred headed to the library. He found Timothy lying on the library's single couch. A few books surrounded him. His left hip on his sweats was stained with blood. "How did this happen?"

Damian padded his way down to the kitchen where Dick was still sitting. He was texting some one on his phone. "Come on Dick, Tim is bleeding, he pulled his stitches, again."

"Doing what?" Dick asked trying not to panic and acting like it was not all that serious.

"Trying to get a book off of a shelf in the library."

'Oh just a little accident. Nothing to fret over,' Dick thought. "I'll be there in a minute. Just need to finish this text."

"Let me take a look." Alfred pulled on the material. "It seems to be a partial tear. We better get you to your room and I shall suture it back up."

"Why am I sweating?' Tim nodded and started to stand then almost collapse. "Where's Bruce?"

"Master Bruce is not home. He had an emergency meeting at Wayne Enterprises. Lean on me Master Timothy."

Tim did as Alfred said, letting him take a lot of my weight. Tim realized that Alfred was stronger than he looked. Where's Damian? He went to get Dick, but they're not back yet. Jason couldn't help because of his leg. "Just sedate me . . . " Tim's words were coming out slurred. "Sedate me . . . "

"And why ever for?"

"So, I can heal," said Tim, dizziness overtaking him. "Oh wait . . . I don't think . . . I'm . . . going to . . . need it after all . . ."

"Master Timothy? Master Timothy!"

Tim passed out, causing Alfred to lower him to the floor.

"Alfred, what's going on with Timmy?" Dick asked as he came upon Alfred and saw Tim lying on the floor.

"Quick Master Richard, he's torn his stitches in his hip. It was the worst of the gunshot wounds, he's passed out, and I cannot carry him."

Dick saw just how much blood had soaked through Tim's sweats. He could feel the panic rising and he tried to tamp it down. "Where to? His room?" Dick asked as he lifted Tim in his arms, being careful so as not to tear Tim's stitches further.

"Yes, please . . . I shall get my suture kit. He has asked me to sedate him so he can rest and heal. I believe he has been realizing the gravity of his situation."

Dick took Tim to his room and laid him down on his bed. 'I will not panic. He will be fine.'

Alfred went to the cave and grabbed a suture kit then grabbed a test tube and syringe. 'My hunch tells me that Master Timothy may still need blood. His energy is not returning as it should.' Alfred returned to Tim's room to repair the tear in his stitches. 'He will have some nasty scarring from this second tear. He did not tear it completely, but it was enough. I must take a blood sample.'

Dick watched silently as Alfred repaired the tear in Tim's stitches. Scars were reminders of what caused the pain. 'We all have them. Some more than others.'

After suturing the wound a second time, Alfred took a blood sample. "I am going to test his blood levels. He was sweating profusely. I do not suspect another infection. Something else may be going on."

Dick nodded, but didn't say a word. He left Tim's room to go find something to occupy his troubled mind.

Damian followed in silence. He did not like his older brother's reaction. It was out of character for who Dick was as a person. He hoped Dick would snap out of it.

Alfred left Tim's room to do his analysis. The butler took the blood sample to the machine. He placed a few drops of Tim's blood on a slide and slipped it into the machine. The machine will take thirty minutes. When the machine chimed and printed out its findings, Alfred read the printout. He went over to the cold storage where the blood supply was kept and grabbed a pint of blood and a bottle of iron from the vitamin supplies. He returned to Master Timothy's room. He set the bottle of iron on Tim's desk. 'Master Timothy will need to start taking Iron for several weeks.' Alfred set up the IV and started Tim on the blood.

Tim came to and found Alfred standing there. "You going to sedate me? I . . . I just want to stay here . . . And heal . . . I don't want to . . . Deal with guilt . . . Or scaring the rest . . . Maybe if I'm asleep I can just . . ."

"Master Timothy, sedation to escape life's issues is not an appropriate choice."

"I'm tired . . . And unhappy," Tim cried. "I don't know what they expect of me . . . I was having fun with Damian starting to discover about Martha Wayne . . . But now . . . I'm stuck back in this bed . . . So sedate me . . ."

"I am sorry, Master Timothy, but you are going to have to deal with difficulties another way. I shall return with your lunch."

Tim continued to lie on his right side staring into space. 'If Alfred wasn't going to sedate me, I'll just lie here and do nothing. I'm not even hungry. And I don't feel like doing homework. Just let me lay here. It's all I'm good for anyway.'

Damian walked into Tim's room carrying several books. He placed them down on Tim's desk. He could tell Tim was still down and needed some kind of distraction. "Tim . . . wanna play a game with me?"

"Sure," Tim replied, less than enthusiastic, but curious. "What kind of game?"

"We could play something on my Xbox but I would have to move it into the room. Mind waiting?"

"No . . . Go right ahead . . . I'm not going anywhere," Tim replied.

Damian ran back to his room and unplugged his Xbox and then made his way back to Tim's room with the equipment. He quickly hooked it up and turned it on. "It's a trivia game. It's really funny."

"Sure." Tim needed something to occupy his mind and he was glad that Damian at least wasn't complaining about Tim getting himself hurt.

"I'm sorry about this morning . . . I really wanted to show you those paintings," Tim said apologizing.

"I brought some of the books into your room to look at later," Damian stated as he started the game. "Grandma wrote notes in some of them and I want to test some of them out."

"Sure . . . Hey maybe you can find one of her paintings. I know one of them is up on this level, but I don't remember which room. She mentioned in the book about painting a whole Muriel. She also mentions playing a game with Dad when he was little. She called it spot the picture."

"Spot the picture?" Damian asked. "Do you think we could play?" the ten year old suggested, losing interest in the Xbox game. "You could show me and I can go find them and take a picture of it to bring back to you."

"Yeah . . . That actually sounds fun . . . Give me one of her books. I can stay in bed and you can act as my eyes. I can let you know if you found the right one." Tim was getting more energized and less depressed as they agreed on how they would approach the hunt.

Placing the controller down, Damian grabbed the book on the top of the pile and handed it to Tim. He flipped through the pages and spotted one of the drawings that he knew he'd seen before. "Here see if you can find this one. It looks like a still life with flowers and there's a window behind it."

"Okay, " Damian looked at the drawing. 'I've seen that before, somewhere near the kitchen."

"Do you have something to take a picture?" Tim asked.

Damian held up his phone and raced out the door heading down the stairs and to the kitchen. He looked around until he spied what he was looking for.

Alfred saw Damian enter the kitchen while he was preparing lunch. He watched him looking around. He saw that Damian had spied what he was searching for and he took a picture of . . . A painting? Alfred walked over to the painting and looked at it. His eyes grew wide at the signature . . . Martha Wayne? 'I had no idea. This must have been during the time my father had been butler here. I never really noticed it.'

Damian raced back, entered Tim's room and bounced over to the bed. "I found it!"

"Let me take a look." Tim took Damian's phone and examined the image. "That's it! GREAT . . . let's find another one. There's an image she based the next one on. This one. It must have been when she travelled somewhere."

Damian looked. "That one . . . It's in some one's room . . . Fathers!"

"Hey, you're right . . . I remember that one too."

Alfred carried a tray up to Jason's room. He saw Damian running into Master Bruce's room and back out to Master Timothy's room. What are they up to?

"Here!" Damian handed over the phone again. 'Her paintings must be all around the house,' he thought.

Tim looked at the image and compared it with the one Damian took on his phone. "Look how she painted this. She painted the zebra, but not much behind the animal, just a few lines that were suggestive of something. It was on the tip of his tongue. "Do you recognize what she painted in the background? It's a little small on this screen."

Damian studies the background. "Is it a circus setting?"

"You could be right. The lines do look like they could be from a tent . . . Hey show that one to Dick . . . I bet he would remember."

"I'll show him later," Damian replied. "I want to keep finding pictures! Please?"

"Um okay. How about this one, it looks like a sketch of two bathrobes. But take my tablet, it has a larger screen."

"Okay," Damian took Tim's tablet off his desk and ran around looking through each of the bedrooms again.

Alfred came out of Jason's room with his tray and was heading to Tim's room with his lunch. He watched Damian running in and out of bedrooms . . . All 14 of them. "Master Damian what is going on?"

"I'm looking for something," Damian answered.

"May I be of assistance?"

"I'm looking for two bathrobes."

"I believe there are two bathrobes in the pool area," Alfred answered. "Do you wish to go for a swim?"

"No, no," Damian waved the question off. "Grandma drew them, but I can't find them."

"Check the pool area just the same. I remember seeing two robes that never move."

"Thanks Alfred." Damian ran down the stairs, camera in hand, right into the pool area.

While Damian was searching for the painting, Tim flipped through the pages again and found another image. 'I'll have to ask Alfred about that one.'

"Lunch Master Timothy," Alfred announced.

"Just set it down. I'm trying to find another image for Damian."

"I shall leave your lunch on your nightstand. Do not forget to eat it."

"I won't, thanks Alfred." Tim went back to flipping through Martha Wayne's books.

Damian went to the pool area and searched. He did find them. They were hanging up on a wall he'd never paid attention to. He moved closer and realized they were painted on the wall. On one it said Thomas and the other Martha. He took a picture of both and then one of each robe.

"Did you find them?" Tim asked as Damian came back. Tim could see there was a light smile on his face.

Damian made my way to the bed and showed Tim the pictures. "Yes I found them," displaying them on Tim's tablet.

Tim realized something that brought tears to his eyes. They were getting to know one of their grandparents. "You know what's happening . . . We're getting to know Martha . . . Grandma Wayne."

Damian realized that also. "It's nice that we are. Now if only we knew what Grandpa did."

"Bruce . . . I mean Dad told me . . . He was a Doctor; Chief surgeon in fact, at Gotham Memorial Hospital."

"Does Father have any of his surgical tools still? It would be nice look at them."

"I don't know," Tim responded. "Alfred might know about that. If I had my laptop, I could find out information on him."

"What do you think they would be like if they were still alive today?"

"Probably doting on all of us, especially you." Tim remembered his grandparents. 'My father's father so proud that he hoped if my Dad didn't take over Drake Industries, he hoped I would. He died a week before my tenth birthday.'

"No, I think they would love us all equally but differently. Yes, I'm Father's biological son, but you, Dick and Jason have earned that title, too."

Tim never would have expected Damian to speak like that. "I . . . Thanks . . . I guess I need to hear that."

"I only spoke the truth," Damian stated.

Tim opened his arms to receive his brother. Tim realized he was also missing Dick. He needed all of them, but Tim wanted them to help him heal, not constantly remind him that he almost died. 'I don't want to be smothered, I just want to be accepted and loved, just like Damian.'

Alfred brought up his phone and snapped a picture. 'Another picture for the Wayne family album.'

Neither of us heard the camera click. "I love you, Damian

You are doing more to help me heal right now."

"I love you too and you're welcome."

"Hey, how many paintings have we found so far?" Tim asked.

"Three believe," Damian answered.

"Here's one we haven't found . . . It's of a very young child . . . I say about three."

Damian studied the painting. "Is that Father?"

"You know . . . I think you're right." Tim looked again. Then looked at Damian. 'It's uncanny . . . He . . . He looks so much like him. I wonder if Talia realized that what she was creating was a child that looked more like Bruce. She may have added more Wayne qualities than al Ghul, which was her greatest mistake.'

"This one is in the dinning room. I'll be right back."

Tim wondered if Bruce even remembered these. Tim found one more. 'Oh my . . . That . . . That can't be . . . I know he wasn't even born yet. How could she know? I'll send Damian to find this one next when he comes back.'

Damian was studying the picture. 'Father and I do look a lot alike.' Damian snapped the picture and headed back to Tim.

Tim flipped back to that other picture of a child. It doesn't make sense. How did she know?

"What's got that frown on your face?" Damian asked.

"I think we have a mystery," Tim stated. "Take a look at this. It's obviously not Bruce."

"Is that me?" Damian looked closer. "That's not me. It can't be. Is that . . . How did she even—"

"—That's what I mean," Tim interrupted. "How could she have known?"

Continues with Part 11