Damian awoke to the feeling of something curled at his back. The shape was just off enough that he knew it was not Titus, and he knew it could not be Stephanie as who or whatever was in his bed squirmed closer to him. As soon as they stopped moving, Damian quietly moved himself away. He sighed almost fondly as his eyes landed on Dick laying curled up in the blanket Damian had covered him on the couch earlier that night.
Laying back down, this time facing the boy, he noticed Alfred curled above the boy's head on the pillows, bright eyes opening with annoyance. The small cat looked at Damian before making a puffing sound and his head back down.
Dick seemed soundly asleep, curled in a small ball. In the dark room, Damian could not see the boy's face and wondered for a moment if he had woken from a bad dream. Carting a hand through the boy's hair, he relaxed back into his pillow. Dick squirmed closer to Damian, just barely pushing into his chest, letting out a content breath.
Damian shook his head, closing his eyes. He really could not find it in himself to make a fuss about Dick finding his way into a bed that was not his. At least for tonight he would let it slide.
Damian watched from the sitting room as his kitchen was invaded by Stephanie, the smell of waffles making it way through his loft. Jason was with Dick in loft petting Titus. The sounds of laughter made him smile, the moment making him think about how he could so easily forget they were all still so young.
"Boys, breakfast is ready!" Stephanie called out, a smudge of flour on her cheek. She smiled at Damian as she went turned back, presumably to get the food to the table.
Laughter made Damian look towards the stairway as Dick slid down the banister, Jason running after him. Titus barked happily behind the two boys, tail wagging in a way Damian had not seen in quite sometime from the older dog.
Dick jumped from the his perch with a natural grace before coming to Damian, now standing, grabbing his hand. "Come on Dami!" Damian allowed himself to be taken by the hand to his dining room table where a full breakfast was waiting for them; Stephanie plating a large serving of eggs on each plate, a pile of fresh waffles being set in the center of the table by Cassandra.
"Dig in, boys." Stephanie smiled, sitting down as the others joined her.
Jason was the first to grab a waffle, getting a second for Dick before pouring an unnecessarily large amount of syrup on his waffles. A strange serenity invading Damian's mind at the domestic scene, for the moment all of their problems were washed away by the overly sweet pastries. Grabbing his own food, he could not help but feel a sense of foreboding.
Jason had told him that Bruce was still looking for any answers, Alfred managing to get his father to sleep for a small while as test were running. Everything had come back inconclusive, every test that the Cave had access to ineffective to find anything more about the invaders or their home. Nothing more about the enigmatic enemy they now knew was truly the Court of Owls
Jason had been less than forthcoming, but he could only guess what Tim was doing. He only hoped that things had remained civil between his father and predecessor
Damian almost missed Dick sneaking a sausage link under the table to Titus.
"You look tired." Tim smirked from his chair, Alfred's orders that he could not move from his spot seeing how he refused to sleep. "Old age getting to you, Bruce?"
Bruce was still in the cape and cowl, though the cowl hung around his neck. Bruce certainly looked older, now that Tim allowed himself to observe the man he once stupidly called his partner. He had been so much younger when he had approached Blackbird, Damian, all those years ago. So naive and stupid when he thought that nothing could touch him so long as he had Batman at his back.
Bruce Wayne was just a human, and so was he. None of them were anything but, and to deny that as they faced megalomaniacs and madmen was madness beyond anything they could ever face. The hope that they brought was so easily beaten back into the darkness.
"If you have nothing productive to add," Bruce finally spoke, voice gravelly and oh so /tired/ that Tim wondered how the man still held together, "I would suggest following Alfred's suggestion at getting some sleep."
It was so strange, if Tim was honest with himself he would think that Bruce maybe still could find it in himself to care. It had been almost an hour since Stephanie and the others had left to Damian's. Tim was almost happy that nothing further had happened in the night, that the small boy who really should not be part of any of this was not put in any further pain because of this.
"Not a chance, B." Tim smiled, leaning forward on the arms of the chair to look at Bruce's screen. "If you haven't noticed, despite whatever these Talons want, I owe them a good sucker punch to the face for trying to kill me."
Bruce's hands clench, his lips forming a single line as he exhaled sharply. "That's another thing I want to understand. Why are you doing back in Gotham? I thought after the last time you were done here."
"I can never be done with Gotham." Tim found himself saying as he looked to the Cave's ceiling. "Not when you allow it's scum to run loose."
Bruce made a move to turn to Tim, eyes bright with so many emotions that Tim at one point knew so well and never fathom. He spoke before his former partner could say anything though, pale blue meeting crystalline eyes. "Ra's knew something was coming. He pulled almost all his operatives from Gotham and Bludhaven almost all at once."
The steel behind Bruce's eyes seemed to soften by the smallest measurement. "There's been a large decline in his global operations. I had suspected that you had some part to play in that."
Tim was silent for a moment before nodding, "We had a disagreement about some of his... Ideas on how to deal with those who he wanted out of the way."
Bruce simply nodded, turning back to the computer to run yet another analysis of the Talons' blood. It was silence once more, Tim's eyes following the lines of results that appeared as the test ran. Something did not seem right as the blood analysis gave readings of metals normally not found in the human body.
"I've never seen that alloy before." Tim mused, leaning forward. "Can you see what it's composed of?"
Bruce nodded, isolating the metal without a missed beat. Tim wondered if Bruce was somehow using the situation as a way to get Tim to think he belonged again; but that would have been too much for the ever stoic Batman. Or at least Tim told himself as the computer started to separate the alloy into its base elements. Gold, silver, faint traces of copper. "Why is there Electrum in their blood? Sure humans have traces of gold and silver in the body, but never in those concentrations."
Bruce shrugged, looking at the read out once more. "The alloy is in the same levels in each Talon. Whatever the reasons, it very could be what kept our attackers moving long after they should have gone down."
Tim nodded, running what information he knew through his head. "The Talons' blood also suggest that they share no common background, and are possibly even much older than they appear. The mineral build up, besides the shared Electrum, in their systems suggest the oldest could have been before the 17th century and the youngest in the early 19th century."
"Resurrection is not something we've haven't seen before." Was Bruce's pointed reply, running through the blood analysis once more. "But even the Lazarus Pit leaves this kind of mark in the blood. Whatever was used on these people no one has seen before, or at least has not been documented."
"Unless you want to count the idea of zombies." Tim said half joking as he looked at the results once more before sitting back in his chair. He definitely was not at one hundred percent yet, and sitting in the cave was just making him even more antsy than normal. The screaming of the Pit rising even more than he had since he last had confronted Bruce.
Bruce seemed to be ignoring his last statement as he sighed, hand rubbing down his face slowly. Tim's mind went back to thinking just how tired the Dark Knight looked.