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When Jason sees it he can’t believe it.
Jason had been walking down the hall when it happened. He was heading for his room to grab his laptop when Damian had waltzed past him. The amount of confidence he had made Jason think that nothing was particularly out-standing about the situation, but then he was thrown in for a loop as he realized something out of the ordinary.
“What the-”
Jason spins on his heels. He grabs Damian’s collar and tugs him backward.
Damian makes angry puppy noises, but Jason was ignoring it in favor of inspecting his pup’s person. He clamped his hands down on Damian’s shoulders, turned him around, and looked him straight in the eye.
“Todd,” Damian barks in warning.
“I - what - where’s Dick?” Jason asks.
Because, usually, Damian and Dick were attached to the hip. Dick snuggled the life out of Damian, carried him everywhere he went, and kept him in eye-sight at all times. It was strange to see Dick, their over-touchy brother, not following Damian around like a new father. Jason didn’t usually have to worry about Damian because Dick watched him like a hawk. Especially after that whole incident with the gala. Jason didn’t know Dick could be any more protective than he already was until they had rescued Damian from being kidnapped.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Damian claims. He lifts his chin up in the air with a show of pride, but Jason didn’t know what part of his sentence was something to be proud of.
Jason lifts Damian off of the ground. Damian yelps as Jason throws him over his shoulder, and spews all manner of curses Jason had heard many times.
“Todd! Unhand me!”
Jason missed the warm, cuddly, Damian who had sat in his lap during their scent-marking session. This Damian was a raging little gremlin who couldn’t sit still.
“No way,” Jason objects. “I haven’t been able to hang out with you once. We’ve got to do something together.”
“I don’t want to do anything with you!” Damian snarls.
Jason replies in mock-sadness, “Oh! You hurt my heart!”
And while Jason had meant it as a joke, Damian had actually tuned his temper down a little, and sounded less angry when he said, “Is your heart really hurting?”
“Yeah,” Jason plays along, “it hurts. A lot. I think the only way we can fix it is if you go on a ride with me.”
Jason had meant it all in good fun. He didn’t expect Damian to take him seriously.
“I see. We must remedy it,” Damian agrees.
And then Jason is blinking comically - his confident stride faltering - as they stop next to the giant car garage unattached to the batcave. He thinks about telling Damian the truth, but at the same time he didn’t want Damian to protest the entire time. It was kind of cute - really - that Damian wanted to help his heart ‘feel better.’ Jason wondered about what would make him even care about such a thing until he remembered that Damian had recently had experience with a scent-blocker, and usually scent-blockers ripped a giant hole in someone’s heart. Damian was worried because he had felt his own heart hurt, and he didn’t want Jason to feel the same thing.
Jason felt both flattered and furious at the same time.
It was a bad combo.
Jason picks up his feet again. He heads straight for his motorcycle, dumps Damian on it, and grabs the helmet hanging from the handle. In one movement he pulls the helmet down Damian’s head, slides down the black visor, and then goes to Dick’s motorcycle to steal his helmet for his own head.
Once he had his own helmet Jason swung his leg over his motorcycle. Without provocation his little pup leaned forward to wrap his tiny arms around his middle, and Jason found his heart warming at the small gesture of dependence.
“Thanks, kiddo,” Jason purrs happily. “I think I’ll be feeling better in no time.”
And, with all of his power, he’d make sure no one touched Damian again.
Not even if they wanted a missing limb.
Tim had been catching up on sleep when a heavy weight was dumped on top of him.
“Guh-”
He grunts as he opens his eyes wearily. He blinks them a couple of times to get the blur out of them, but even then his vision was still wobbling. The first feeling that he wakes up with is a burst of grumpiness, accompanied by frustration, because he deserved to sleep.
Tim catches a figure in the corner of his eyesight. He turns his head to look at the person, and recognizes the hulking form of his older brother. Jason.
Tim then looked at the snoozing weight that had toppled off of him, and was now resting at his side.
“I got things to do,” Jason tells Tim. He cracks his knuckles when he says it. Tim knew what it meant. It meant he was going to go out and bust some heads to take out his anger.
Tim grumbles something that even he didn’t know what it was supposed to mean, but he then wordlessly pulls Damian into his side. He keeps him close to his chest where he fits like a puzzle piece, and shuts his eyes once more.
He hears Jason walk out of the room with heavy steps. Tim is grateful when Jason closes the door behind him because Tim couldn’t count the amount of times his siblings left his door open.
Tim hums tiredly.
Then the darkness takes him once more.
Tim woke when something tugged at the pup in his arms.
Tim propped himself up with a low growl. It was a warning to whoever was trying to take away his cuddling time with his defenseless pup. He made sure to hover half of his body protectively over Damian who, despite the increase of noise, was knocked-out from a long day of hanging out with Jason.
“You’ve been sleeping for three hours,” the attacker complains.
Dick.
Tim growls, not having it, “Go away.”
“But-”
“ Go away!” Tim barks.
That should have been the end of it but then Dick pulled the kicked-puppy look. Tim was hit with a minute of turmoil as he was torn between comforting his older brother by letting him have what he wanted, or keeping Damian close to his side for some craved bonding time.
It didn’t help that he was severely moody and sleep-deprived. Those emotions didn’t mix well with making reasonable conclusions.
“You hang out with him all the time,” Tim complains.
“Not true! He ran away from me today!”
“He-”
Tim back-tracks.
“Huh? He ran away from you?”
That was just unheard of. Damian may like to pretend he didn’t like receiving affection from Dick, but the opposite was true in that case. He enjoyed his attention.
“C’mon, Timmy,” Dick says, playing the cute nickname card, “just let me take him.”
Tim wanted to snap no but Dick’s expression was getting to him.
“Ugh,” comes out Tim’s strangled groan.
Dick won.
It was known in Pack Dynamics 101 that when a new puppy was introduced to a pack there was a need to present him for showing-off. There was no logical science behind it. It was a fact of nature that Damian detested.
Damian felt betrayed.
“ He’s so cute!”
He’d tried to avoid Dick the entire day for this reason.
“What’s his name?”
“Robin,” Dick rumbles proudly.
Damian was trapped in Dick’s lap as multiple young adults, all who had faces he had never seen before in his life, admired him with soft coos. Damian had heard about Dick’s team, The Titans, but he had never wanted to meet them. The only reason Dick brought him to the Titans tower to begin with had more to do with showing him off than with being productive.
“He looks much like you, Nightwing,” Starfire says.
The only one who wasn’t grouped up with the rest of them, Cyborg, calls out, “ He looks angry!”
“He’s just grumpy,” Dick insists. “I woke him up from his nap.”
Damian didn’t appreciate being treated like a literal baby, so he spits, “I am not grumpy. I am livid!”
“Charming,” Raven remarks.
Dick nuzzles into Damian’s hair happily.
“He’s mine. Isn’t that awesome?”
“I enjoy all the puppies you bring to the tower,” Starfire tells him. Damian guessed she was talking about Jason and Tim.
Damian growls again,
Stupid brothers.