Chapter Text
He’s done it a thousand times now:
One hand over the other, one foot over the other. The climbing gloves Jason had stitched for him for his last birthday remain snugly fitted over his palms as he hauls himself up the fishing wire, one steady tug at a time.
“C’mon, Dami,” he huffs as loudly as he dares, shooting a glance downwards towards his littlest brother who is climbing a rope of his own beside Dick’s. Dick has had years of practice at this, but Damian is just starting out—he can’t say it doesn’t make him nervous, watching his baby brother carefully crawl up the line, but Damian has taken to borrowing like a fish to the water.
Dick hauls himself over the edge of the shelf, perching at the edge and offering a hand to Damian when he arrives moments later, but Damian bats his hand away. “I can do it,” he declares, huffing and puffing slightly from exertion.
Dick takes an obliging step back, unable to help a small grin. Damian has always been so determined to be independent, to prove he can contribute to his family. He’s always been like Tim in that regard (as loathe as Damian would be to admit he’s anything like Tim).
Damian manages to make his way onto the surface of the shelf, and Dick can’t help reaching out to ruffle his hair, a giggle escaping him at the way his little brother puffs his cheeks out angrily. Damian bats his hand away and begins to smooth his dark, spiky hair back down as Dick begins to survey the pantry around them.
Wayne Manor is far from the ideal place for borrowers to live, for all of its enormity: the butler is meticulous about keeping the grounds clean and well-organized, meaning they have to be especially cautious about borrowing food. They have to be careful to leave everything exactly as it was, with not even a single crumb left behind.
“Why don’t we start there?” Dick finally suggests, pointing towards an open box of crackers. “The humans will be unlikely to notice one missing, so long as there’s a lot in there. And it’s easy to open and close.”
Damian nods eagerly, already retrieving his length of fishing wire. A quick throw and a few experimental tugs later, he’s carefully scaling the side of the box, with Dick hovering near the bottom on lookout duty.
Overhead, Damian carefully pries the cardboard flaps open, peeking inside.
“It’s about three-quarters full,” he reports in a severe tone.
Dick nods. “Perfect. Do you feel okay to grab one?”
Damian nods again, and Dick watches as his brother vanishes into the box. After a couple moments of rustling, he pops back up, hoisting up a cracker with both arms. Dick holds out his hands wordlessly, and his brother takes that for the signal it is, releases it down into his arms.
“Great job, kiddo,” Dick praises as he begins to break the cracker up into smaller pieces he can easily store in his bag. “Next we’ll grab—”
Before he can finish, however, his ears pick up the telltale rumbling of footsteps—human footsteps. Mumbling a curse under his breath, he glances up to meet his brother’s wide-eyed gaze.
“Hide. Now,” he hisses out, urgency sharpening his voice, and he dives behind the box. Damian fully leaps over the edge of the box, forgoing his rope altogether, and Dick scrambles to catch him—but Damian simply executes a perfect duck-and-roll, and despite the harrowing situation, pride blooms within him. He ushers Damian behind a few soup cans near the back, an unlikely quarry this late at night, and the two of them crouch and listen intently.
The hinges creak slightly as the cupboard door opens. They can hear soft breathing, and the sound of a hand carefully rummaging through boxes, and Dick forces himself to keep his breathing measured and even. His heart is racing wildly in his chest—and he knows, logically, that the human isn’t able to hear it, but even so he tries to gulp in quiet lungfuls of air in hopes of slowing it down. Besides him, Damian is tense, every muscle drawn tight like a bowstring.
A moment passes. The human makes a faint nose when he presumably finds what he’s been looking for, withdrawing a box from the cupboard, and the hinges squeak as the door shuts.
Dick forces them to wait a moment, then another, listening as the footsteps recede, before he straightens up. “Okay, Dames?” he whispers, kneeling down to put his hands on Damian’s shoulders. Damian doesn’t move to shrug them off, like he might have when he first came to them, too-sharp and still untrusting even of his own kind, and it prompts something warm to unfold within Dick.
“I am fine,” Damian assures him. Then, after a moment, he adds in a much softer tone, “Did you see how I rolled?”
Dick lets out a chuckle, surprised, and tousles Damian’s hair. Damian’s face screws up into an expression of annoyance as Dick straightens up, slinging an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “I sure did. I’m impressed—you’ll be giving me a run for my money before long.”
Damian doesn’t respond, but he can feel the way his little brother straightens minutely, clearly pleased at the praise.
“Now, c’mon. We’re not done for the night—there’s a bowl of sugar cubes somewhere around here with our names on it.”
The two of them move forwards, silent figures amidst the shadows, and after a few seconds Dick feels a much smaller hand slip into his. He offers Damian a gentle squeeze as he guides his brother forwards through the cupboard, a wordless comfort in the darkness of the pantry.
—————
Dick and Damian return home with a good haul: in addition to the cracker, they’d managed to grab a sugar cube, a tissue, some copper wire, and two grapes. Their borrowing bags are bulging as the two of them slip through the walls, down beneath the floorboards into the space they’d carved out into a home.
As Damian begins to unload and organize their findings, Dick grabs the length of copper wire and makes his way to Tim’s room, where he raps his knuckles against the wall beside the curtain-covered opening. There’s no response, but he can make out a faint snoring sound, so he draws the curtain back and peers in. Tim is sprawled out on the ground, fast asleep, surrounded by pieces of disassembled tech.
Borrowing technology was no easy feat: their way of life was dependent on only taking things the humans wouldn’t notice missing, but given that the younger of the two humans was constantly working with technology as part of his eccentric nightlife, it wasn’t unusual for one of them to find some discarded technology that had outlived its use. Tim was especially happy about this, as he had a penchant for tinkering in his spare time—it was because of him that they had managed to rig up an entire system of string lights to illuminate their home—so Dick always made an effort to look for things he might be interested in.
Smiling at the sight of Tim sleeping soundly—an unusual, but not unwelcome sight—he gently places the copper wire on the ground before moving onto the next room: Cass’s. Once again, he knocks on the wall besides the curtain acting as a makeshift door.
A soft pattering of footsteps sounds from the other side, and the curtain is swept aside to reveal his little sister. Cass’s eyes scan his form, no doubt analyzing and cataloging his body language, before her face breaks into a grin.
Dick envelops her in a quick hug, pressing a kiss to her temple. “There’s food in the common room. Fresh grapes.”
Cass lets out a happy noise before extricating herself from his grasp and sprinting towards the common room. Dick smiles fondly at her retreating form before moving onto Jason’s room, where he promptly knocks once more.
“Come in!”
Dick pushes the curtain to one side and pokes his head in. Jason is curled up on the ground, hastily closing his journal and setting a broken-off graphite tip down beside him.
The journal had been a joint gift from the other four of them for Jason’s last birthday: Dick had gone out of his way to borrow the materials, Tim and Cass had painstakingly sewn it together, and Damian had shaped and decorated the cover with skilled hands. It had since become Jason’s most prized possession, although he was fiercely secretive about its contents.
”Just wanted to let you know we made it back safely,” Dick responds, eyes lingering on a smudge of graphite on Jason’s face. “And we got some grapes, so come grab some if you’re hungry. They won’t be good for long.”
Jason’s eyes light up, and he pushes himself to his feet. “Yes, please!” he chirps happily. He carefully stows his journal under his bed before following Dick out into the hall, sparing a moment to cast a glance towards Tim’s room.
“Timber not joining us?” Jason asks, a faint frown flitting across his features.
“He’s fast asleep, for once. I didn’t want to wake him—goodness knows he needs it.”
Jason nods. When they get to the common room, Damian and Cass are already munching on slivers of grape, sitting side-by-side.
“Hang on.” Dick grabs Jason by the shoulder, turning his little brother around to face him. He licks his fingertips and rubs them carefully over the smudge on Jason’s face, unable to stop himself from laughing at the death glare Jason gives him in response.
“Ew, get off!” Jason complains, wriggling out of Dick’s grip. Dick only smiles wider at him as he removes the blade at his hip, a dagger that had once been the blade in a handheld pencil sharpener, and slices off a piece of grape. Jason snatches it from him before he can so much as put his knife away, sticking his tongue out at Dick before absconding to Damian’s side.
Dick merely rolls his eyes and cuts himself another piece. “Brat,” he says, but his tone is too full of affection for it to be any kind of insult. He sits on Jason’s other side, enjoying the companionable silence between them as he begins to munch on his own piece.
Life was…pretty good, all things considered. Years ago, when he’d stumbled out of a stranger’s bag into a cold and empty manor, parents’ deaths still freshly burned behind his eyelids, he’d never imagined that he would end up like this: surrounded by siblings, with enough to eat and plenty of supplies to go around.
Once the four of them finish eating, he stores the rest of the food away. The grapes won’t stay good for long, but he has every bit of confidence they’ll be gone by tomorrow night: all of his siblings are still growing, after all, and as such have appetites to match. He wipes the juice from his hands and face and bids each of his siblings a good night before retiring to his own room for some much-needed shuteye.
He slips into his matchbox bed, falling asleep almost immediately—borrowing trips always take a lot out of him—but it feels like only seconds later that a pair of hands are gripping his shoulders and shaking him awake.
He sits up, rubbing the grogginess from his eyes, but the sleepiness seems to drain from him in an instant when he catches sight of the terror clearly etched into Jason’s face. He’s as white as a sheet.
“Jason?” he croaks out, quickly scrambling out of bed. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Tim,” Jason whispers. “Something is really, really wrong.”
