A/N: This came from a request I had.
So, please enjoy this one-shot about Damian and Tim. :)
There are many things Red Robin can't stand.
Stupidity, a mess in his room, someone not following his orders, and tardiness are among many other things that get under the young hero's skin.
But if he must pick something that bothers him more than anything else in this world, then he wouldn't even hesitate before picking out that one thing that grates on his nerves like nothing else.
The demon spawn.
Damian.
He absolutely cannot stand his adopted father's son. Not in the least. The two didn't exactly get off to a good start, what with Damian trying to kill him and all. The two can barely be in the same room for 5 minutes without being at each other's throats.
So it's just his luck that the two of them are stuck patrolling together while Batman and Nightwing investigate a major drug deal going down. Batman sent the two of them off to deal with some of the thugs that will be left over prowling around the city while he and his oldest protégé deal with the problem more directly.
Of course, both Red Robin and the demon brat put up quite the fight. Neither wanted to be stuck on patrol with the person they hate most. Some words were exchanged when Batman informed them of the plan, and long story short, they're most likely both grounded when they get home.
The teen turns over and looks at the ten year old sulking next to him. They're supposed to be on the look-out for any suspicious activity, but he highly doubts they'll see anything if they're too busy glaring at the each other when the object of their hatred isn't looking.
"See anything?" Red Robin asks.
"No," Robin snaps back, sounding annoyed.
Great. He has an annoyed demon spawn on his hands. It's bad enough he has to spend some quality alone time with him in a setting where his death could easily be framed to look accidental, but on top of that, the kid is pissed.
Joy.
"Why don't you make yourself useful and look harder?" Robin suggests condescendingly, smirking arrogantly at his adopted brother. Red Robin feels his blood boil. He doesn't know why everything the boy says gets to him so much. But he just feels like reaching out and punching him in his smug little face.
"Focus on the scene," Red Robin hisses, turning away from the infuriating ten year old next to him. He rolls his eyes and tries his hardest to focus on the task at hand. Damian is aggravating, but Tim won't let him distract him from his job. He was given a task, and some kid isn't going to make him sloppy.
A figure passes through Tim's peripheral vision, skating by and then vanishing. He turns to the source of the vision, narrowing his eyes. What was that? It looked suspiciously like a human form…
"What is it?" Robin asks, elbowing Red Robin in the stomach.
"I thought I saw something…" he answers absentmindedly. Whoever it was, they're gone now. He shakes his head. Turning his head around slowly.
"We should get off this roof so we can better –,"
He stops cold, standing up with one hand on his utility belt. Robin looks at him oddly, turning around himself.
A haggard, unkempt looking man stands pointing a gun at the two with a twitching hand, flipping back and forth between the two young sidekicks.
"Stay still," the man orders shakily. Red Robin slowly takes his hand away from his belt, sensing the man's jumpiness and anxiety. Any sudden or even slight movements might cause him to pull the trigger.
"Just calm down," Red Robin says quietly. Subtly, he scoots towards Robin, intending to shield him should worst come to worst. He can't be responsible for the death of the demon brat, no matter how much he hates him. So he'll just keep Robin covered while he swiftly disarms the criminal. Simple.
But Robin has different plans.
Out of nowhere, a batarang goes flying at the assailants face, just barely brushing his cheek. He lowers the gun, cursing silently, before turning and fleeing down the roof's ladder, escaping from the two heroes.
Red Robin turns to glare at his younger 'brother'. How impulsive and idiotic can the kid be?
"Don't do that again," he growls, turning to run after the fleeing criminal. He hears Robin's footsteps following behind as he climbs down the ladder.
"Don't tell me what to do!" Robin snaps back. Tim ignores him, sprinting in the direction that the armed man took. He wishes more than anything that Robin wouldn't follow, but the stubborn kid is running with him, taking out another batarang and gripping it tightly as they go.
"If this is gonna work, you're gonna have to do what I say!" Tim yells at him while running. "You're one stupid decision away from getting yourself killed."
Robin responds by purposefully bumping Red Robin into the brick wall when they turn a sharp corner. Red Robin stumbles a bit before getting back on track, seething at Robin. He's always known that the kid was spiteful and vindictive, but he never thought he'd go so far as to shove him during a mission. It's unprofessional and childish.
That little brat.
Growling, Red Robin recovers quickly and follows their target, darting around the streets. Damn, he's fast for a common drug dealer. At least, that's what Tim is assuming. It could be an isolated incident, but he doubts it. The street is supposedly crawling with scum awaiting the arrival of Batman and Robin coming in to bust up their plan.
They follow the man into a decrepit, leaking alley way, leaving him cornered. Red Robin and Robin approach him as he backs up against the crumbling brick wall, looking around in a panic as he realizes he has nowhere to run. Red Robin smirks.
Hook, line, and sinker.
"Just come with us quietly and you won't be hurt in any way," Red Robin tells the criminal, walking towards him with Robin on his tail. He quietly prays that Robin will behave and not jump into anything, but he doubts he'll get his wish. The kid is infuriating. Why is he even here? Tim doesn't need him. Not at all.
The assailant steps forward, like he's giving up. Red Robin's head perks up. Was it really that easy?
Then, suddenly, he takes one step back and the entire shaky, nervous act drops. He stands up straight, his face looking smug with a smirk stretched across his lips.
"I won't be hurt, but I wouldn't be so sure about you," he declares, making a show of tilting his head over to look beyond Red Robin's head.
Tim turns around quickly, his hand on his utility belt, ready to pull out his collapsible bo staff.
But it's too late.
The whole thing seems to go in slow motion. Tim sees the man put his foot forward, like a pitcher about to throw a ball. He watches as the bullet rips out of the barrel of the gun. And he watches as it comes right at him, its course set on his head.
So this is it, he thinks in shock.
This is how I die.
The entire thing seems to take hours instead of a millisecond, Tim's thoughts being scattered everywhere. He closes his eyes and prepares to feel the bullet rip through his brain, killing him instantly.
When it doesn't come 3 seconds later, Tim knows something's terribly wrong.
Opening his eyes, he finds that the man who shot at him is still standing at the end of the alley way, but he's looking down at Tim's feet with a smug smirk on his face.
Tim's heart drops. If he wasn't shot, there's only one other explanation…
He looks down at his feet, nearly screaming in horror at the sight before him.
Damian lays at his feet, curled up into a painful ball, his hands pressed down on his stomach. The area he's pressing down on is soaked with dark red blood that grows larger by the second. His mouth is forming a small 'o' as he tries not to cry out from the pain, and his body is stiffer than a board. Tim gives a small yelp of surprise and kneels down to attend to the injured boy.
Damian took a bullet for him.
The person he hates most and who hates him most willingly risked his life for him.
He'd rather he had died than to see Damian die right in front of him. Especially from a bullet meant for him.
"Robin, Robin, stay with me!" he commands, desperately pressing down on the bloody wound. Robin grits his teeth in response and hisses at his concerned partner,
"T-Take c-care of t-the sc-scum."
Tim gets the message. And with the rage boiling in him, he's more than willing to break a few bones. Grabbing his bo staff out of his belt, he stretches it out and reaches out to knock first man's feet out from under him. He falls down with a thud, groaning and cursing. Hitting him a few more times for good measure, he decides to deal with the other one. The man who tried to kill him.
Before Tim can turn around, he hears the click of a bullet being locked into the chamber.
"Robin and Red Robin, together again in death," the man taunts. Tim glares at him, forming a protective shield around Damian's little body and awaiting the bullet that was meant for him in the first place.
"Stay away from them," a deep, gravelly voice booms.
Tim sighs in relief as a dark shadow descends upon the armed man, kicking him against a brick wall.
Batman has finally arrived.
Nightwing follows close behind, kicking the man in the side and sending him flying to the ground. Seeing that Nightwing has the situation handled, Batman turns his attention to his sons.
Then stops dead in his tracks when he sees the state Damian's in.
Tim looks up at his adopted father, fear in his eyes. He just wants Batman to make this okay, to magically heal Damian and make it so it wasn't Tim's fault that this happened in the first place. He feels so stupid now. All that time he spent hating Damian and fighting with him, and for what? What if he dies tonight? What will Tim do then?
Who will he argue with? Who will he tease and roll his eyes at? Who will he exchange insults with?
Who will be his little brother?
Batman walks towards them slowly, reaching out to take his youngest son in his arms. The fear is obvious on his face, the age lines becoming more evident than ever from his worry. He always seems to be much older than he really is in situations like these, like he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He looks almost as afraid as Tim feels.
Tim's reluctant to release a heavily-breathing Damian into his father's arms. Batman has to practically pry his youngest son out of Tim's shaking arms to take a look at him. Tim looks down at his shaky hands. Covered in blood.
Damian's blood.
His hands start shaking even harder.
His brother's blood. It's on his hands in more ways than one.
He's unaware of when it is that Nightwing came up behind him and put his hands on his shoulders, but he doesn't care.
All he cares about is the fact that he's the reason Damian is lying in his father's arms, coughing up blood as backup is radioed in.
He may have caused his brother's death.
His brother.
Tim watches from a distance as Bruce sits at Damian's bedside, holding his hand and stroking his hair almost automatically. Like it's an instinct to him. He looks exhausted, his hair going every which way and his clothes wrinkled. He hasn't slept since it happened.
And Damian hasn't woken up since.
Doctor Tompkins said he'd be okay after she worked on him, but Tim still feel uneasy. He can't stop thinking about what happened. Every time he closes his eyes, he can hear the gunshot ring out and see Damian collapsed at his feet, a bullet in his stomach and his eyes wide with pain.
He can't stop thinking of all the things he never said to Damian. And all the things that have been said that he wishes he could take back.
He almost had that chance taken away from him.
If Damian had died, he would have never forgiven himself.
"Bruce, maybe you should take a shower or something," Tim suggests, rubbing at his tired eyes. He's tired too, but Bruce needs a break more than he does. He hasn't even eaten yet today.
Bruce looks back at Tim, his eyes seeming just a bit red. He nods reluctantly, almost robotically, letting go of Damian's hand and taking his hand off his son's head.
"I will…" Bruce agrees, mentally distracted. He nods and stands up, turning to Tim and gesturing to the empty seat.
"Will you take my place for a while?" he asks. Tim's tempted to say no, still feeling guilty about the events of the day before. How could he be there, right next to Damian, looking at him and knowing that he took his place on that bed? Knowing that he should be the one injured instead of his younger brother?
But, Tim finds himself nodding, slipping into Bruce's large, comfy rocking chair as Bruce leaves the room.
Now it's just Tim and an unconscious Damian in the room.
Tim looks down at the younger boy's limp form. His face is pale and his forehead is lightly beaded with sweat. His hair is matted and askew. In short, he looks terrible.
The guilt just piles on further. It should be Tim in that bed. He shouldn't have let Damian take that bullet for him. It was his fault for freezing and screwing up. He should have protected Damian. That's his job. Bruce and Dick appointed him as Damian's protector. They trusted him. They gave him a job to do.
It's his job to protect his family.
Slowly, almost hesitantly, he reaches out and brushes Damian's coal black hair out of his face, smoothing it back like a mother would do to a sick child. He wipes the sweat away from his forehead carefully, stroking his cheek with the back of his hand.
He smiles slightly, feeling just a bit better. He won't let this happen again.
"I'll keep you safe, Damian," he promises softly. "I promise."
He continues attending to Damian, wiping away the sweat on his face and sweeping his hair back. That is, until he hears a small voice peep up,
"Just like I did for you."
A/N: I have to admit, I love Tim and Damian bonding of any sort. I just can't get enough of those two.
I'm going to write some sort of continuation of the whole Dami and Irey thing sometime since it seems like that's what a lot of you want. Be patient with me; I'm in school, so I don't have a lot of time on my hands. :)