What is Normal?

Tim had a long list of things he had come to expect over his years, with the members of what he fondly (sometimes not so fondly) thought of as the Bat family. None of them were normal things. So when the youngest member of their crime fighting brigade stood affront the mirror in Tim's bathroom (the fact that the little demon had come into his room at all was already alarming) scowling at the reflective surface, (Tim knew how that felt, poor mirror) he was more surprised by how normal it was for a kid to be doing his hair in the morning rather than the fact that it was Damian Wayne being the normal kid doing his hair in Tim's bathroom in the morning.

"Can I…help you?" He was hesitant to ask only because this whole situation was bemusing enough. The small hiss he received in response should have deterred him, but it didn't.

It became predictably clear predictably quickly he wasn't going to be getting an actual answer any time soon, so Tim walked passed the younger boy and plucked his toothbrush out of the white mug sporting a mustache on his countertop to brush his teeth.

Damian, for the most part ignored him, completely and totally enraptured by his own image while his hands hovered around his awkwardly spiked head. His hair was mussed and weird and from what Tim could tell either extremely wet or full of gel. He chuckled under his breath.

Ah. Now he knew what was going on.

Despite the theory that Damian was believed to be either the spawn of Satan (no offense to Bruce), some part imp, or more likely (in Tim's opinion) an alien and/or robot constructed to observe normal human beings (though who among the Wayne-Drake-Grayson-Todd-Gordon-Pennyworth family was really normal?) he did, on extremely rare occasion, act almost like a typical teenage boy.

"Bad hair day?"

The way the muscles in the other boy's naked back tensed was nearly imperceptible, but Tim caught it none the less. His eyebrow twitched, clearly in annoyance, and suddenly Tim felt the urge to catch the small child in a headlock for the arrogance in said child's next statement; "Feeling self-conscious?"

That was the last time he tried to start a casual conversation with the demon child from hell.

(It wasn't really the last time but Tim wasn't ready to admit that yet.)

Petty retort accomplished, Damian immediately returned to tending to his mess of hair all round strange styling. Tim tried not to laugh at the serious expression stuck on the kid's face the whole time. He had to vigorously brush his teeth just to keep his face from betraying his struggle to not blatantly laugh at the kid for being so childish. It was actually pretty adorable if he thought about it. Then he tried to think of the last time he had seen Damian acting his age and came the sad conclusion that the chance of actually getting to see Damian acting the way a fifteen year old should act was so incredibly unlikely you would have a better chance of witnessing a meteor taking out the Gotham Bank during the afternoon. And that made Tim pause.

Damian meanwhile, was still completely lost in his own world of confusing complexities that involved insulting virtually every person he spoke to and trying to sound ridiculously smart all the time while simultaneously being one of the most (unfairly) attractive young men Tim Drake had ever met. The hard life of a young Wayne. Obviously doing his hair was more interesting than the rest of the world.

As the cool top of the mug touched his lips, Tim found himself attempting to discern what the hell kind of look the little brat was going for. He tried to picture what sort of image the other boy could have seen that would inspire such…unusualness. (It was all Tim could do to keep his brow from furrowing when he pictured the type of reading material that would create an urge to do one's hair in such an abstract way.) Lithe fingers dragged through his dark, thickly gelled locks in hurried, rough strokes that were starting to make Tim's mind wander to places it probably shouldn't. He chided himself. Why was it he found so many things Damian did attractive?

He sighed, which oddly enough, caught said attractive boy's attention. Tim should feel so honored. "What are you harping about now , Drake?"

Tim spat his effectively gurgled water into the sink and quickly took a big swig of more water to refrain from responding with something he would regret later. Damian squinted at him like a wet cat. Tim set his mug down again with a satisfied grin.

Under normal circumstances, he would have done one of two things next.

One; verbally engage in a battle of wits with this brat until the dawn of three days from now.

Two; turn on his heel and walk right out of there before he decked said brat right in the nose (which he had done a few times before)

Or if Tim was feeling really crazy, he would go for option three; just deck the kid without a second thought for good measure.

Fortunately for Damian, Tim wasn't feeling any of the above choices.

In fact, Tim was feeling a bit of option four.

And Damian made the most hilarious noise when Tim's arm encircled his neck. It was even funnier how the younger boy instantly started squirming as Tim pivoted and proceeded to rub his knuckles none too gently through the over gelled spikey hair.

"Drake! If you do not relinquish your hold on me within five seconds I will break every single bone in your body."

"Oh? So your plan is to put your hands all over me?" Playing coy was always fun when Damian was least expecting it.

The falter in his voice was acute, and it was downright precious. "W-what? Don't be an idiot. I wouldn't-" Some more struggling followed by several strings of a foreign language that Tim assumed consisted of many, many curse words.

"Damn it Drake! Release me at once!" A sharp elbow to the stomach and Damian won his freedom.

Tim leaned back against the counter, absently rubbing the newly sore spot where the little demon attacked him. Though honestly, Tim really should have seen that one coming.

And if Tim thought Damian looked cranky before, he was damn near livid now.

The shove was abrupt, fingers digging into the top of Tim's shoulders as he forced the older boy to sit on the toilet (thank god he had made the habit of closing the lid or that could have gone horribly wrong). The porcelain's cool temperature would have bothered him if not for the thick sweats he'd been smart enough to wear, and yet he felt his body prickle against the other boy's touch. Tim wasn't normally submissive not by any means, his body just happened to be more compliant with Damian than he would have liked, but right now Tim was more focused on watching for any more surprise attacks that would leave him potentially impaired for the rest of his life.

For a few lingering moments, the only move Damian made was his slow, methodical breathing as if he were weighing the best means of retribution for Tim's playful apparently insulting antics. He thought things through when he wanted to, a trait eerily similar to Bruce and Dick-but Tim didn't want to think of either of those two right now. Not here. Not like this. Not when he was with Damian. The son and impressionable younger brother. Certainly not Tim's younger brother. You didn't grip a younger brother's hips the way he was now, or undress them with your eyes, and you definitely don't press an open mouth kiss on a younger brother's stomach.

Tim watched him closely, peeking up through thick lashes, eyes following the curve of bronze along the other boy's throat, how Damian swallowed under his watch. Was he nervous? Did he ever get nervous when they…?

Those slender fingers were still on his shoulders, uncharacteristically soft against a pale scar that stretched over Tim's right shoulder (as a result of one of the many sharp objects thrown his way, slicing his shoulder as it passed) tracing the length of the old blemish. He bent to kiss the scar with equal gentleness, fingers now inching toward the older teen's throat as his lips followed, teasing signs of a tell-tale grip around his neck. Tim inhaled cautiously (it wasn't like Damian would kill him for giving him a noogie…right?) when the younger boy suddenly pressed his lips to the inside of Tim's ear, it was all he could do to refrain from shuddering.

Damn him, damn his father, and damn his DNA for giving him all this damn charm.

"I feel like I should be in trouble…" Opening his mouth now was a very good way for Tim to get stabbed in the spleen or choked mercilessly by Damian. (He was surprised at himself for making the comment anyway.)

"Correct." Either Damian was aware of the effect whispering suggestively into Tim's ear had on him, or the boy was just a natural flirt, but he probably just liked torturing him with as little compassion as possible.

"But your actions-"Another wary inhale when he felt the younger boy pawing at his chest with one hand, other still lightly teasing his throat. Closer. Smaller space-less room for him to breathe. Here it was. The end was near. Damian was going to kill him while seducing him at the same time. Pure evil. God Tim hated how hot he was. "Damian-"

"Shut up, Drake."

Easy for him to say, he wasn't the one worrying about his impending doom. What a dumb thing to get killed over. If Tim had bothered to write a will, he would have insisted that no matter the real reason for his death, a cool story would be told in place of the original (because he always had a feeling when he finally did die the event would cause a gratuitous amount of damage to what little amount of "cool" rep he had to start with) to spare his soul the humiliation of getting bullied in the afterlife. Did he even believe in that sort of thing? Oh well.

When Damian only kissed him roughly on the mouth instead of ripping out his spleen as Tim had expected him to do, it was safe to say that the young Drake was a little more than surprised. And slightly appalled. But more surprised (but still, slightly appalled). His fingers were suddenly tangled in Tim's hair and he could really get use to the idea of making out with Damian every time he did something the other guy didn't like-

That's when he pulled. Hard.

Now, it all made sense.

Damian was yanking and pulling and just about ripping Tim's hair out while chomping on his bottom lip as if it were corn on the cob.

"Damn," He grinned against the teeth savagely attacking his mouth at that moment, "You sure are kinky."

"I told you to shut up, Drake."

"Hey Damian," A frustrated sigh as he leaned back to eye Tim with an air of superiority.

"What is it now?"

"I like your hair like that."

It might have been Tim's imagination, which was very likely when it came to Damian since the boy was always making him lose his mind, but he could have sworn that the compliment caused the smallest of blushes on the robot known as Damian Wayne's cheeks. He allowed Tim this sight for all of four seconds, before it was immediately replaced with his characteristic scowl.

"You are a complete imbecile."

Tim laughed all the same, stroking the younger boy's back affectionately. "I know, I know."

Funnily enough, though Damian would insist that styling his hair was too much trouble, Tim found the little brat doing the exact same thing in his bathroom the next morning.