"Tell me, Richard, have you ever seen Tweety and Sylvester?"
"Nuh, uh. Who are they?"
"Bird and cat. Sylvester tries to eat Tweety, Tweety gets away every time. You like it."
"If you say so! ...Damian?"
Damian turned from selecting the Blue-ray. "Yes?"
"I was wondering… do you think Tim will be very mad at me if I try to get him to sleep? Daddy never wanted me to make him do anything. Jason says it's okay but… I guess I just wanna be double sure."
"Tell Drake to do whatever you want. More sleep would be good for him and you could use the practice."
Dick's face scrunched up inquisitively. "Practice telling people what to do. Especially imbeciles you happen to be related to."
"Tim isn't an imbecile! Neither is Jason! The only im-"
"Richard, the next words out of your mouth had better not be 'the only imbecile here is me' because I will be forced to wage war for your honor and you will be both my enemy and defendant which is not a good position to be in."
"Sorry."
"Do not be sorry. Make progress. You must now say the truth. Say: 'I am not an imbecile'."
"Um…"
"Say it."
"I am not an imbecile!"
"Good. And do not forget it, either."
"...Okay."
Damian nodded, and turned back to pulling the case off the shelf and popping the disk out of it's bearings.
"Damian, is it okay if I ask you a question?"
"Just assume you are always allowed. Usually."
"Is now usually?"
Sigh. "Yes, Richard."
"Okay. How do you… how do you know what to do. You said your Mother said… not-nice things about you. And then you met your Father and he said nice things. How did you know who was right? And… when you met your brothers… if your Mother made you think the mean things about yourself, then you must've… maybe…" Dick's eyes seemed rooted in his lap. "Maybe you thought things about yourself and your brothers… maybe you thought… 'I'm not special but they are so… so they're more… maybe you thought things and didn't know… what to think… when nothing used to be allowed and then everything was? How do you know what to do when you've never… been a person before?"
Damian stilled, and Dick could only see his back.
Damian set everything down and sat beside Dick. "You decide who to trust. You find a person, one good person, or maybe more if you are blessed, and you let them guide you. You see what kind of person they set you on the path to become and then you look at yourself and see… see if you can live with that. Being that. And you decide what you cannot compromise on, and when you learn what your foundations are, you break away, a little bit at a time, and build your own person."
"But what if… you don't know how to choose?"
"You know. Everyone knows, if they look hard enough. A very… very smart man told me that. Every person has the ability to choose who they want to be and to discern right from wrong. No one can steal it from you. You simply cannot let fear hold you back from your decision. Even if that means rebuilding everything you know."
"Jason doesn't let anyone make him do things. I think… Jason makes Jason do things, he just lets people give him ideas sometimes. And it's based on… the stuff he wants…" Dick trailed off helplessly.
"Todd is guided by his values. And his actions fall into line with them."
"Yeah! That's it. But he… he knows that he's awesome and he doesn't, he won't unders… will he be mad that I talked to you?"
"No. What you said before. About me and our brothers. There are feelings that… do not go away, as far as I know. They get better but… there's not a magical cure-all. Even for us. But just because you know there will be a war is no excuse to hold back from fighting in it. Sometimes wars need to be fought if anything is going to change for the better."
Damian shoved forward, pushed the blueray into the player, and stalked out of the room. Dick wished he would stay and watch something with him for once. But… OH, there he was asking for things without permission again. He'd been bad too much lately. Maybe (the tiniest bit maybe) he could maybe change a little bit of his rules for while he was with his super awesome but weird older brothers. But not that much. He'd been bad, and he knew it. So if none of them wanted to punish him, he'd have to do it himself.