how obvious is it that i dislike tim lmao. beep boop drama time, because angst is important to me and also i am five.

X~X~X

Steph woke up to the sound of drills.

Confused and scared, she trashed her head wildly side to side and fell off her couch. She scanned her apartment, hypervigilant, until she realized it was coming from the floor below her. Her neighbor Frank, then. Grumpy and breathing far too hard, the blonde pounded on the carpet, which released a giant cloud of dust. "Shut up, Frank!" 'Who even does home repairs this close to Christmas, anyways?'

At the answering revv of the drill, Steph sighed and ran her hand through her tangled hair. That fall had seemed to wake up all the bruises from the past week and they were throbbing angrily at her. Wait... "I definitely don't remember falling asleep on the couch." She looked at her shirt and panties. "I definitely don't remember wearing these either."

What had she been doing last night?

"Your snoring could wake a coma patient."

Ah, yes., that was what she had been doing last night. Or who. She shook her head again as the memories of her late night flooded back. Gratefully, she accepted the tea Damian offered her, and made a happy noise as the earl grey soothed her rough throat. Steph glanced at him as she chugged the drink- her boyfriend looked pretty put together, even if he was only wearing a Gotham U t-shirt and grey sweatpants. Still, Steph could tell he wasn't all there. He had plum-purple bruises under his blue eyes, darker than usual, and his perfect hair was ever so slightly messed up on one side like he had been clutching it. To a trained eye, Damian Wayne was most definitely hurting, and in a rare moment of introspectiveness Steph was grateful she was trusted enough to be shown this. Their relationship was still in its fledgling stages, and Waynes were nothing if not immensely put together.

"How're you holding up?" Steph asked quietly, setting aside her empty mug. She got off the floor and sat criss-cross-applesauce on the couch, which whined ominously in response.

"I don't need your concern, Brown," Damian said. He was staring somewhere near her toe, and his usual frown looked more like a pained grimace.

"Hey, you don't get to do this to me." Steph glared, then thought of something. "What time is it?" Shit, was she late for work?

"The roads downtown are closed because of the snowfall."

"Oh, well..." Steph took one of Damian's hands between her mug-warmed fingers and turned it over, taking in the bruised knuckles and cuts and burns. Occupational hazard. "I was gonna take the day off anyways."

"Why?" he said. His fingers twitched in Steph's grip, and he finally met her eyes. He looked exhausted and angry.

Steph shook her hair out of her face (damn, she needed a haircut). "Because I hate Christmas parties? C'mon, you know why."

Damian glowered at her, and she glowered back. "Tt. Are you deaf, woman? I don't need your pity or your worry. I'm not a child, and I'm not fragile." He tried to tug his hand away but Steph crushed it between hers.

"Your mom is dead, Damian," she stated bluntly. "It's okay to let other people help you when someone you know has died. Especially, y'know, your girlfriend. Grief doesn't make you weak."

Damian wrenched himself free. "My mother was a terrible person and a criminal. I cared nothing for her, and I'm not grieving." He walked into the kitchen. Exasperated, Steph wrapped herself in a blanket and followed. The room was surprisingly clean- the dishes had been done and the magnets on the fridge straightened. The usual pile of bills was suspiciously absent. Steph had never really pegged Damian for a grief cleaner (or someone who actually knew how to clean) but maybe Alfred had rubbed off on him. Probably had something to do with that Wayne need for perfection.

"Don't pull that crap with me, dude. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but don't lie to me." Damian just stared at her. Steph sighed and put a hand to her shoulder. She totally sucked at this stuff this early in the morning. "Just... just stay here, okay? I'm going to go clean up, so we can have this argument while I look semi-decent. Stay here." She pointed at a chair like he was an errant cat. "Right there."

Damian's sneer deepened, and he crossed his arms. Steph blew away a sidebang. "Fine, stand there then. Whatever." She made to leave the kitchen, but before she went she laid a hand on Damian's arm. He tensed, but she just rubbed his bicep once and left.

Steph was pulling her hair up when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" she called. She quickly finished a messy bun and padded to the door. It was probably Lydia, the Gotham U student across the hall. She had called yesterday to say she would stop by today and drop off Steph's "Amazon package". Steph mentally applauded Batman Inc. for disguising their weapon shipments in a way that could be so easily misdirected or stolen (that was supposed to be a temporary cover, but for an organization run by the most efficient man in the world it sure was slow about finding a replacement).

"Hey-" Steph began as she swung open the door. Instead of seeing the redhead she was expecting, a frowning boy in a reindeer sweater greeted her. "Oh. Uh."

"You weren't answering your phone or your comm," Tim said by way of greeting. he looked down, and his eyes widened slightly. "Also, you're not wearing pants."

Steph blinked rapidly. Oh shit, Damian was in the kitchen! Tim was here and Damian was in the kitchen and Tim didn't know Damian was in the kitchen! "But... the roads are closed."

Her ex just sighed at her and raised an eyebrow. Right. Red Robin. Steph shook herself and crossed her fingers. 'Don't come out, oh boyfriend of mine. Use your big Wayne brain and don't come out,' she prayed. Closing the door a little, she said wryly, "I didn't answer because I was sleeping. Y'know, that thing that normal people do. Usually not upside-down. And hi too, Tim, is that a light-up reindeer sweater you're wearing?"

Tim blushed his little Tim not-blush and said, "Cass made me."

"Oh, Cass is home from Hong Kong already?"

"Yeah, for the Wayne Christmas banquet." The one that Steph was definitely not invited to? Ah, great.

They were silent for a few moments. Tugging on her shirt, Steph groaned internally. Tim may have gotten less awkward with age, but only by a microscopic amount. She plastered on a patented Steph-smile (all rights reserved) and asked, "Sooo... what's up, Timster? What's so important you just had to call me, beep me?"

Tim looked pained. "It's about Damian."

Steph schooled her expression into a blank one. "What about him?" Oh shitty, shit shitty shit. 'Deep breaths, Steph.'

"Can we talk inside?"

"Uhhhh..." Dammit, Steph was a Bat! Her snarky comments were legendary! On a regular day, she could totally make up an excuse to keep her ex-boyfriend out of the apartment her current boyfriend was in in five seconds flat. Steph cursed her tiredness and her preoccupied mind. "Are you sure you can't just whisper it in my ear?"

"Steph, this is serious," Tim deadpanned.

"Okay, yeah, it's just my apartment is really messy, so..." Steph reluctantly opened the door enough that Tim could slip in, and then dashed to the window, picked up Damian's Nightwing stuff (oh, so Damian hadn't snuck out), and lobbed it into the kitchen. Tim, who thankfully had been looking at Steph's '90s era TV like it was an offense to his eyeballs, turned around at the clang of metal and kevlar against the fridge and looked at her questioningly. "Sex outfit. It's laundry day." She shrugged, and she could tell Tim was fighting not to roll his eyes. "So what about our resident BabyBat?"

"He's missing." At Steph's raised eyebrow, Tim explained, "Apparently he got some news yesterday and just took off. Bruce thought we should just leave him alone, that he'd come back in time for the party, but Alfred told Dick and you know how he gets. Damian didn't even patrol last night, so we know it's bad, and we don't need him hurting himself or others."

'Ouch Tim, way to be worried.' "Wait, what do you mean he didn't patrol? Seriously? What exactly was this news?" Had Damian just waited outside her window until she got home? Steph's heart fluttered, then clenched.

"No, he didn't. Babs was pissed." Tim stood straighter. "About the news… according to some of Bruce's sources, Talia was killed two days ago in an explosion. It was a weapons trade gone wrong."

Steph couldn't help but subtly snoop for more info. "But she's Talia. Her dad is Ra's al Ghul. Can't she, y'know, pop into a Lazarus Pit and be on her merry way?"

"The thing that went off was a small, botched-up hydrogen bomb. Everything in the blast radius was obliterated." Tim rubbed his eyes. "You can't use the Lazarus Pit if you don't have a body to regenerate from." Steph's heart sank to her toes. That explained that. "We have to find him now, today. The Waynes need to show up at the banquet tonight. We could explain away maybe Cass's absence or Jason's, but Bruce was supposed to make some sort of important announcement about the future of Wayne Enterprises, so all his, uh, heirs are supposed to show. And since Damian is the only non-adopted one... Worst case scenario, we'll call up M'gann or J'onn or just lie, but we'd prefer the real thing."

Steph bit her lip to keep her sudden anger from bubbling over. Her stomach felt like she had just eaten stones. "Okay. I'll go look for him. You need to go be a Wayne."

Tim looked at her almost gently. "Steph..." Steph wanted to punch him in his dumb puppy face.

"No, Tim. Go find him. He's gotta show for that party, right? Appearances are everything."

"Well, it's not like- it's not like that." Tim frowned, but when Steph calmly shook her head he backed off. "Can you check around here and the docks, then?"

"Okey-dokey, Timmy." Steph grinned and shooed him towards the door. "Just call if you need anything, okay? I promise i'll check my phone. Scout's honor."

At the threshold, Tim dug his heels in. "Steph, are you sure you haven't seen him? You know he's supposed to have a safehouse in this building. I was going to check after touching base with you, but-" Ah yes. That cover story, in case someone caught Nightwing sneaking into Batgirl's highrise.

"Nope, he hasn't been here, trust me. Now go away so I can go get my Batgirl on."

She managed to push him out into the hallway, and he turned to say goodbye. "You know, I could wait for you, and we could patrol together."

Steph laughed. It sounded like a mockery of her usual one, hollow and poisoned. "No, definitely not Tim. I wouldn't do that to Cass." Tim stared at her, puzzled, but she just smiled and waved. "Merry Christmas. I'll call you if I get anything."

"...Merry Christmas."

Steph waited until she saw Tim go around the corner, then shut the door with a click and ran into kitchen. Damian was leaning against the stove, arms crossed. From the murderous glint in his eye and the way his hands were clenched into tight fists, she could tell he hadn't miraculously become deaf in the past ten minutes. Steph slowly sank into a chair and curled up in it, her knees to her chest. She could tell Damian didn't want to be touched.

They stayed there in silence for what seemed like forever and a day. Steph was fighting down feelings of worry and hunger, not to mention the urge to talk, so she almost didn't catch it when Damian said, "My mother-"

Steph jerked her head around towards him. "My mother told me she was proud of me exactly once, before I was sent to Gotham." She waited for him to go on, but he didn't elaborate. Instead, he put his fists to his eyes, breathed once, then stood up straight. "I need to go back to the manor."

"Okay," Steph said. There was a growing knot in her throat, and she wanted to say, 'No, we still haven't talked about this, and if you leave now you're not going to talk about it, just chill out for a sec, and P.S. Tim was wrong.' "Okay."

Damian had already begun pulling off his university shirt. Steph got up and grabbed his uniform from where it was curled on the floor. The bolo sticks clacked together as she handed it to him, piece by piece. She made to turn away, like always, but Damian stopped her. "Don't."

"Okay," she repeated. Steph watched as Damian made quick work of his sweatpants, piling them on the chair. His tan skin had a Milky Way of scars and stitches and bruises and burn marks ingrained in it. She had traced them in the afterglow, sometimes, memorizing the way his constellations changed as his body transformed and healed after each new fight. Now, though, was not the afterglow. The Nightwing under armour came on, and then the suit itself, covering up the pockmark-stars with dark black. The outfit traveled up his body quickly and efficiently with the skilled hand of a person who wriggled into a skin-tight kevlar suit each night, every night.

After he was done pulling on his gloves, Steph made to hand him the domino. He stilled and let her stick it to his face, one hand on his cheek. Hopefully the glue was still strong enough from last night that it could stand a swing across the city. Damian looked at her, and she pressed an almost-undetectable button at the side that flipped down the red reflective lenses. Steph stared at Damian's blank face for a minute, then released him. They walked to the window together, not touching.

"Damian." He was half-way out, but he stopped for her, and right now that was the sweetest thing she had ever seen in her life. "If you, y'know, want to talk? I'll be here, in this apartment. I'm not going on patrol tonight, 'cause Cass is in town so she can just cover my shift. Even if you don't want to talk and you just need a booty call or whatever, I'll still be here. I am a stinkin' great shoulder to cry on."

"I have never cried," Damian told her.

"Okay, well, just in case you feel like breaking your streak." Steph was holding her breath, but she didn't know why.

"I won't," he said. He made to swing himself out the rest of the way, then, almost like he was forgetting something, gave her a faint nod. She closed her eyes for a couple seconds, and Damian was gone.

After a few seconds, Steph stuck her hand out the window to catch an errant snowflake, but the snow had finally stopped. She shook herself, straightened up, and shut the window with a bang. The basement washing machine was probably free right now.