Brothers To The Bitter End

34

"You agreed to what?!"

Damian cringed at the fury in Dick's voice. True to his word, Damian had made a habit of calling Dick every evening. Tonight, however, he rather wished he had made an exception.

"It's really not that big of a deal. She's not very good at fighting."

"But she is good at ripping up chunks of earth and squishing you with them!"

Damian winced and held the phone away from his ear. "She won't get that close."

He heard Jason chuckling in the background. "Cool it, Dickiebird. If Demon Spawn wants to get squished, that's his business."

"But it's my business because he's my kid!"

Damian sighed as he heard Dick and Jason begun squabbling, but the sound was quickly cut off as someone else grabbed the phone.

"Hi, Damian!" a perky voice came across the line.

"Hello, Brown." Damian could almost hear the energy emanating from the energetic blonde. Honestly, she was worse than Dick, not an easy feat. At least Dick could wind down. Damian was fairly certain that Stephanie was always on overdrive.

"Are you having fun? Making friends?"

"Of course not. That would be foolish of me. One of them has challenged me with a duel, however, but she is totally incompetent so I'm sure it won't last long."

"Sounds amazing! You must be having a great time!" A tapping sound came from the phone. "Cass says hi too!"

"Hello, Cassandra. How are you?" Cass was the only one Damian even remotely respected (well, except for Dick, but he wasn't about to admit that) so he was rather polite to her. In fact, he actually respected her enough that she was the only one in his phone that had her real name entered (first name only because he was no amateur).

He listened as Cass carefully tapped out her message to him in Morse code. What it contained almost made him faint. "Brown, did you and Drake really break up?"

"Hmmm, oh yeah, we did! No biggie."

"Quit telling everyone we broke up!" Tim's voice came faintly over the phone.

"Sometimes I can still hear his voice."

"Because I'm STILL HERE! And we didn't break up!" Tim's voice came much clearer over the phone now.

"You're interested in that Wonder Girl character. Never let it be said that I stand in the way of true love." Damian could almost picture the stubborn expression on Stephanie's face.

"I am NOT interested in her!"

"Then why were you kissing her?!"

"I didn't kiss her, she kissed me! It was not a mutual kiss!"

"Still counts."

Damian listened very closely, expecting Tim to retort with something, but instead only muffled sounds came over the phone.

"Ew, guys," Dick had obviously finished fighting with Jason and had reclaimed the phone, "PG rating please."

"What's going on?" Damian asked, though he already knew the answer.

"Tim and Stephanie are just kissing," Dick said airily.

"Uuh, sucking each other's faces off would be more appropriate," Jason chimed in. "I guess they're back together?"

Dick just sighed loudly. Several times in a row.

"Tt," Damian clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Tell them to quit. They're liable to get some kind of disease from it." Damian chuckled as he heard Stephanie and Tim hollering at him. Obviously he was back on speaker phone. He would've said more, but a knock sounded on his door. "Hang on a sec," he told Dick as he walked over to the door, flinging it open.

Rachel, who had been leaning against the door, fell in. "Hi, Damian!" She said perkily.

"Ugh," Damian groaned. "Go away."

"I wanted to see if you wanted to come down for dinner."

"Pass." He tried to push her out the door, but she refused to budge, even after she clambered to her feet.

"We were going to watch a movie after dinner."

"Ooh what movie?" Jason asked over the phone.

Rachel jumped slightly, peering at Damian's phone. "Hello?"

"Hello, Rachel Roth."

"Who are you?"

"The voice of your imminent death." Damian heard a faint thud and grinned. Dick had tackled Jason. He wondered who would get the phone.

"Hi, Rachel! I'm so glad to hear that Damian's been making friends!" Drat. Stephanie had gotten to it.

"No we're not!" Tim hollered. "Ooph." Stephanie's elbows were not to be messed with.

"Yes," Stephanie practically hissed, "we are. Damian, I hope you're going to go down and have dinner with your teammates."

"He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to!" Dick's voice shouted in the background.

Rachel was beginning to look extremely confused. "I also wanted to let you know that Batman will be coming in this Tuesday, so he'll see your fight with Tara."

Simultaneous shouts of "woohoo!" "No!" and "screw Bats!" came over the phone. Damian rolled his eyes so hard he actually thought they might pop out of his head.

"Alfred! I need you!" Why was Wally at the Robins' house? "The fridge broke!" Mystery solved.

"Ok, well this has been a blast, but I need to go." Damian held his finger over the end call button.

"Bye, Dami, love you!" Dick hollered.

"Don't kill anyone!" Tim and Wally chorused.

"Have fun!" Stephanie said in her upbeat manner.

"Tell B to jump off a cliff for me!" was Jason's final comment as Damian hung up.

"Shall we go to dinner?" Damian brushed past Rachel and Titus bounded after him.

"Who were those people?" Rachel managed to ask once they'd gotten in the elevator.

"Idiots mostly."

"No, I mean," Rachel paused, trying to collect her thoughts, "who are they to you? Your family?"

Damian thought for a long moment. Yes, most of them were his father's adopted children, so technically they were family. But what about Wally and Roy and Artemis? What were they to him? They were Dick's friends, but were they anything more? And even though Alfred was the hired help, was he more than that?

"Yes." Because they were. Family didn't just come from blood ties. The strongest family was the one that someone chose for themselves. And even though they were all idiots (Cass and Alfred excluded), they were still the family that cared and loved him even when he was being difficult.

"It must be nice, having a family," Rachel commented quietly.

"You don't have one?"

"No."

Damian paused for a moment. "They're not all that great. They're mostly loud and noisy and they eat all the strawberry jam."

Rachel laughed, though Damian couldn't fathom why. "Tell me more."

Damian thought. "My oldest brother is always singing and making lame jokes. He doesn't seem to have any taste when it comes to food, he eats anything and everything, but he's very smart."

Rachel looked like she wanted to know more, but they arrived on the main floor, and she seemed to understand that she wouldn't get any more answers to her questions.

As they walked into the dining room, Rachel stopped Damian. "Thanks."

He looked at her quizzically. "For what?"

"For letting down your wall. And for telling me about your family."

Damian smiled slightly and inclined his head slightly at her. And even though the food was bland as always (Kory could not cook), he still felt good as he ate. Even though he still wasn't sure he wanted one, it looked like he was on his way to making a friend.