Brothers To The Bitter End

38

It had been three days since Dick had gotten the Lazarus fluid injected into him, and already Jason was wishing he could see this side of his brother more often. Dick hadn't been content with laying in bed while recovering, so he was currently coaching spars between Damian and the various Titans.

"Good work, Dami! Nice hit! Hey, Blue Boy! Get your defense up for the next strike!"

Jason and the others in Dick's posse (who had effectively moved to Titans Tower during the recovery; no worries though because Alfred was in charge of the kids) were sitting on a conveniently placed rafter some forty feet off the ground and laughing their heads off. It wasn't just the fact that the Titans were so woefully unprepared for Damian's superior training but it was also the fact that Dick was being downright snarky to most of them. Dick had always been a sarcastic guy but had tried to curb it around others. With the Lazarus Pit in full effect, however, there was no curbing his Romanian sarcasm. Damian was only exempt because he was doing infinitely better than the Titans.

Blue Beetle tried, and failed miserably, to block Damian's next attack. The reason he couldn't block anything was because his "bug" had gotten mad that he couldn't just liquefy Damian.

"Time!" Dick hollered as Blue Beetle dropped.

Damian immediately sheathed his katana and offered his hand to Jaime. Looking a little perplexed, he accepted the proffered hand and climbed to his feet.

"Thanks," Jaime said curtly. Damian gave a sharp nod in reply before making his way over to Dick.

"I like you like this." Damian appraised Dick with a smirk. His brother was dressed in a modified version of his Nightwing suit (seeing as how his old one had been cut apart during surgery and Alfred hadn't sent him one of his backup suits) and it suited him well. The bird symbol on his chest had been modified into a streak of blue across his chest and shoulders, and the rest of the suit was the deepest black Damian had ever seen, which was saying something since he'd grown up around Talia's soul.

Dick allowed a slight smile to cross his features. Even the effects of the Lazarus Pit couldn't stop him from being sort of kind to Damian. "I like it too. But all good things must come to an end, unfortunately." Dick paused and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes.

Damian frowned. "Are you ok?"

Dick nodded, sighing heavily. "I think I overextended myself a little. I'm going to go take a nap," Dick's voice was so low and quiet that even Damian had to strain to hear it. Jason up on the rafters, however, had brilliant hearing. He flipped off the rafters and landed neatly next to Dick.

"Come on, Dickiebird, I'll show you to the fridge." Jason gently escorted Dick out of the training room.

Dick smiled slightly at Jason. "The fridge? Really? That's the best you could come up with?"

Jason grinned. "Hey, I'm going to go raid the fridge after I get you to bed. I'm pretty sure that those brownies Roy made yesterday are still in there."

Dick smiled even wider, though he leaned quite heavily on Jason as they got in the elevator. "Unless Kid Mouth got to it first."

Jason winced. "Let's get you to bed quicker."

Once in Dick's room, Jason darkened the glass walls to the outside and tucked Dick into bed. He chuckled to himself and took a picture of Dick all snuggled up in the pillows and covers, cuddling his stuffed elephant toy that was the spitting image of Sitka.

"'Night, Momma," Dick murmured as Jasom left the room. Jason grinned, glad the cameras were still rolling. On the way down to the fridge, Jason pulled the audio off the video and set Dick's quiet "'Night, Momma" as his ringtone.

Wally met him coming off the elevator. "How is he?"

Jason grinned sadistically and played Dick's "'Night, Momma" for Wally. Wally burst into laughter.

"Send that to me! That's going to be my new alarm!"

Artemis poked her head out of the training room, shook her head at the two dorks, and stayed exactly where she was.

Damian, knowing Jason had things under control in his lead then capable hands, was already in the midst of another fighting bout with Rachel.

He easily knocked her off her feet and scored a win. She accepted his proffered hand with a smile. "Someday I'll find out how you do that."

Damian shrugged. "No need. I'll be more than happy to teach you when we don't have a huge crowd." Rachel blushed a little.

Starfire floated over to both of the teens. "Well done, both of you!" She gently placed a hand on Rachel's shoulder. "It looks like we all have quite a bit of work to do to come up to Damian's level."

"Artie could help you with that!" Roy hollered from the rafters where he was playing, and losing, Uno with himself.

Damian nodded in immediate agreement. "She's highly competent in many forms of combat."

Artemis's jaw dropped. "What?! First of all, since when do you compliment anyone, Damian? And what makes you guys think that I would even want this job? This is exactly what Wally and I had issues over last time!"

Roy shrugged. "Yeah, but you guys are all here together right now, so it'll be fine."

Damian snickered. "Translation: right now Wally is more interested in having gossip and movie nights with Dick right now than whatever you're doing."

Artemis went from looking shocked to amused at Damian's comment. "True that."

Wally poked his head into the training room. "I thought I heard my name."

Damian snorted. "I doubt you could hear anything over the sound of your chewing." He motioned to the bag of potato chips Wally was holding.

"Ok, fine. I was down in the kitchen eating with Jason, and he told me that you guys were talking about me."

Starfire gaped. "The kitchen is five floors below us! How good is his hearing?"

Damian's phone pinged. "He says better than Supes."

Rachel frowned. "He's probably standing right outside the door."

Damian shook his head and showed everyone the picture of Jason in the kitchen that he had received on Snapchat. "And believe me, he's not smart enough to take a photo in advance."

"Ok, that is creepy," Jaime commented from the back of the room.

"Yeah, Todd tends to be that way." Damian rolled his eyes.

"Uh, no I meant the fact that you have Snapchat." Jaime looked dumbfounded.

"And the fact that you haven't added me!" Gar sounded offended.

Damian rolled his eyes again. "I only have it for the Batfam group chat. And because Dick likes pictures."

"There's a Batfam group chat?!" Wally shrieked. "And I'm not a part of it?"

"Were you raised, trained, saved, and/or related to Batman?" Damian's face was so disgusted, it was the definition of disgust.

"No," Wally retorted, "but I'm his first son's best friend. That makes me practically part of the Batfam."

"What's the Batfam?" Gar asked almost at the same time Kory did.

Uneasy looks were exchanged between Roy, Wally, and Artemis. Another ping sounded on Damian's phone. He glanced at it and rolled his eyes. It was a picture of Jason grinning with the chocolate cake with the caption "nice going, Demon! Dick is going to love this!"

Damian rolled his eyes, snapped a quick picture of his disgusted face, and captioned it "Dick won't have to explain it. Father will."

Seconds later uproarious laughter was heard through the entire tower.

"I love you, Demon! Best. Gift. Ever!"