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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 9 months

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Into the Unknown, Part 54

First

Marinette tipped her head back to rest against the couch, groaning. Damian had started crying for seemingly no reason, and none of the usual methods were working. Checking him over for boo-boos revealed nothing of note. Cuddles were accepted but did nothing to quell his complaints. Even offering him ice cream wasn’t stopping his reign of terror.

And, yes, she did try asking what was wrong, and Damian did try and answer, but he couldn’t seem to articulate exactly what was wrong. All he would do was say that “Tim’s mad!” which…

For one, unlikely.

For another, what was she supposed to do about that?

She closed her eyes. She had to write an essay explaining the difference between the chemical makeup and properties of hydrophobic and hydrophilic cell walls. The difference is very obvious, she had no clue how she was supposed to make this explanation three pages long. She was so very tired. “Dami, please.”

Damian started crying harder. Fuck.

She groaned and snatched up her phone. Her beloved husband was currently doing unimportant things, like ‘work’ and ‘making money so they didn’t starve’ and ‘probably illegal experimentation on motorcycles’. He could take a day off.

She clicked the call button, and was almost amused when Tim answered instantaneously.

“What’s wrong?”

Marinette put the phone on speaker to make sure that Tim could hear Damian crying.

And then she pulled it off speaker and put the phone to her ear. She was unsurprised to hear a quiet rustling coming from the other end as her boyfriend/husband started rushing, gathering his things in case he needed to sprint to the nearest hospital.

“That’s answered nothing! What’s wrong with him? Is he hurt?!”

“Don’t know what’s going on. Not hurt. He said you’re ‘mad’ at him, but… I don’t know. Nothing I do is helping. My essay is due at midnight and I have to deal with fucking Lex Luthor tomorrow and Frank keeps looking at me for help and I don’t know and I still haven’t made dinner –.”

“Alright,” said Tim, trying to be calming even though it was pretty clear that he himself was not calm either. “Alright. I’ll be home soon, okay?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Okay.”

An engine revved in the background. “I’ll be there in… a legal amount of time. See you then.”

Marinette laughed a little, rolling her eyes.

The line clicked, and she sighed, setting the phone down. Damian was still, predictably, crying.

And was he avoiding her eyes?

Maybe she would have assumed that Damian was just looking down because he was embarrassed about crying in front of someone. But she knew her kid better than that. When he cried nowadays, he preferred tipping his head back and wailing his problems for everyone in the apartment complex to hear. He had been doing so just a moment prior. But now he was looking away, rubbing at his eyes frantically and trying to stiffle his sobs and...

Oh.

He thought she was mad at him, too.

Was she mad at him?

She… wasn’t sure.

No. She was… frustrated. And not even, really, at Damian. She just had a lot to deal with.

Right?

Yeah, that sounded right.

She groaned, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes.

Damn. Can she go back to just shoving down all of her emotions again? That was way easier than trying to pick apart her mental state.

But… it wasn’t good for her. It wasn’t good for Damian, either. Not dealing with all of the things that were frustrating her was exactly why the kid currently thought she was mad at him. Kids are a little self-centered and tend to blame themselves for things they really play little to no part in, and now Damian thought she was mad at him for crying when, really, she just had a lot of stuff on her plate.

Would he get it if she explained all of that to him?

Maybe. She wasn’t sure.

She could, at the very least, explain that she wasn’t mad at him.

She removed her hands from her face and then looked down at Damian. She sighed and walked over, kneeling beside him. “Hey, I’m not upset with you, promise. I just… you know how sometimes, when you’re really tired and want to go to bed, everything makes you angry? And so, sometimes, you want to yell at everyone to go away? And it’s not because you really want us gone or hate us, you’re just tired?”

Damian sniffled and nodded, still rubbing beneath his eyes.

“Well, I need a little nap. Kind of.”

Damian hesitated before slowly getting to his feet. She watched as he shuffled about, clearly looking for something, but when she moved to help him, he waved her off vaguely. She raised an eyebrow and shifted to sit cross-legged on the floor, because kneeling tended to suck after a while.

Eventually, Damian must have found it, because he made a sound of vague triumph.

She blinked as Cat was thrust into her hands. A tiny smile crept across her face. He wanted to make sleeping easier for her.

Of course, the problem wasn’t that she needed a stuffed animal to sleep. The problem was that she had a lot to do. But she appreciated the attempt.

“... thank you, Dami.”

He gave a watery smile.

She sighed and leaned to scoop him up and press a kiss to his nose. “How about we watch some TV together while we wait for Tim to get here, hm? Your choice, as always.”

Damian lit up.

So, that was how she found herself on the couch, a slightly clingier than usual kid in her lap, watching a strange cat-fairy hybrid compete in a baking competition or something. It was very inaccurate. Fairies were not this nice. But Damian liked the show, and she liked spending time with him, so it was all good.

It wasn’t long after that Tim was rushing inside.

He blinked upon realizing that Damian was no longer crying, but the kid was still tense, watching Tim warily.

Tim looked at Damian for a long time, thinking hard.

He sighed.

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a crisp one-dollar bill for the boy.

Damian instantly relaxed. He hugged the dollar to his chest like it was his new favorite toy.

Marinette stared for a moment.

And then she sighed.

“We’ve really got to find a way to communicate that we love him in a way that doesn’t involve giving him things or doing things for him.”

“What other ways are there?” Tim asked, his eyebrows knitting.

Marinette opened her mouth.

Then closed it.

“You know, I’m not really sure. I’m willing to learn, though. We’re going to go broke at this rate.”

Tim grinned. “I’d be perfectly willing to go broke for either of you.”

“Cheesy,” she said, rolling her eyes. As if that would distract him from the reddening of her face.

“Only for you,” he said, leaning to press a quick kiss to her lips. And then, after a second’s thought, he pressed a kiss into Damian’s hair, too. “And you.”

Damian giggled. He reached for Tim, who obliged in allowing the kid to drag him into the cuddle.

“Pizza?” Tim asked, tugging the both of them close, winding his arms around them in a way that suggested he wasn’t going to let go until he absolutely had to.

Marinette gave a tiny, relieved sigh. She buried her face in his shoulder. “Definitely.”

Tim hummed as he turned off the sink. Damian had passed out around eight, their leftover pizza was safely stored away, and he had made sure to take Frank out for a walk just in case…

He glanced into the living room. Marinette and Damian were both fast asleep on the couch, the TV casting colors over their sleeping faces. Marinette’s computer lay open in her lap, the screen that slightly lighter shade of black that meant that it hadn’t been turned off properly.

He toweled off his hands on his pants and walked over, carefully pulling the computer from her lap and checking to make sure she had remembered to submit her assignment.

A quick check revealed that she had, and he breathed a tiny sigh of relief. He wasn't shocked, but he knew she would have been devastated if the unlikely happened and she missed an assignment accidentally. He manually turned off the computer (which you should always do, else your computer will start acting weird) and then set it on the coffee table.

The pair were… cute. Damian had burrowed himself into Marinette’s side, Cat held limp in his hand, the stuffed animal resting in Marinette’s lap because the boy had insisted that she needed to use him to sleep but was also unused to sleeping without it himself. Marinette’s hand was in Damian’s hair, cradling the kid close. The blanket was pooled around their feet uselessly.

Tim quietly picked up the blanket and tucked it around them again. He flicked off the TV.

He bit his lip, looking at them for just a moment longer.

Even asleep, Marinette looked just vaguely stressed. Tiny wrinkles made themselves known on her forehead.

He pressed a small kiss to them, and then turned to lean back against her. Hand shielding some of the light away from them, he took out his phone.

Marinette had never really… actively called him for help before.

So, he would make sure that he actually could help.

If she had too much on her plate, then Tim could take some of it off for her.

He didn’t really have set hours, so squeezing something in wasn’t a big deal, and, with Damian’s new gymnastics club, a couple of hours of his week had opened up. He enrolled himself in a cooking class.

(And, if Marinette cried a little out of relief when she came home to see dinner, however simple, already prepared… well, Tim just so happened to be looking in the opposite direction at the time.)

Marinette had honestly forgotten about her birthday. As had Tim. Between a busy schedule and the fact that adults just, typically, don’t care all that much about their birthdays, it had simply slipped their minds.

And they might have gone about their day none the wiser.

But, instead, they were woken up by Damian, who wasted no time in shoving a plastic bag into their hands.

Tim’s ‘sleep mask’ shifted into glasses, and he tipped his head to the side as Marinette carefully unraveled the plastic with the hand that wasn’t rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

They both went very still when the realized what it was.

It was a vase that Damian must have made in school.

To be honest, the vase was a little bit scuffed. The boy was good with a paintbrush, and the flowery designs on the vase were gorgeous, but it was very clear that this was Damian’s first time attempting pottery. It was slightly lopsided, and a tiny chunk was missing from the top.

Regardless, they proudly displayed in the living room.

Tim leaned against a lamppost, his tongue between his teeth to stop them from grinding and causing a very unfortunate dentist bill, watching everyone fight over him.

You may be wondering how he got into this situation.

Well, you see.

He didn’t know either.

It was a Bit, for the most part. It had started with Marinette and Steph messing around about who got to have the ‘government-appointed introvert’ for the day. But then Bernard had called to ask where Tim’s favorite places to eat were, because his anniversary with Worse!Tim was coming up. And then the rest of the gang (well, Terry and Miranda, at least) decided to join in for the fun of it.

It was all jokes.

But Tim… really wasn't in the mood. He’d just gotten off his real, legal job after dealing with a KarenTM for a good hour and a half and his social battery was hopelessly drained.

He wanted to scream.

He really shouldn’t. They weren’t trying to upset him.

He pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to ward off an impending headache.

“Guys, can we not right now?” He asked, struggling to keep his voice level. “I really need some time to recharge.”

There was a beat of silence. They were all looking at him with wide eyes. Even Bernard had gone silent over the phone.

He bristled, waiting for them to ignore him, a curse already on the tip of his tongue.

“I guess it was kind of cheating to ask you, anyways. I’ll figure it out myself. Thanks, Tim. Feel free to call later if you want,” Bernard said before hanging up.

“Sorry, man,” said Terry, backing up a step.

Miranda nodded her agreement. “We were just messing around. Didn’t mean to go overboard.”

“Alrighty,” said Steph, holding her hands up in mock surrender. “I guess I’ll have to settle for taking your wife out for a date instead.”

Marinette snorted and punched her in the shoulder, but sent Tim a tiny smile. “See you at home?”

Oh.

That worked.

Tim nodded wordlessly, pressing a hand to his chest where he felt a tiny ball of warmth starting to form.

~~~~~

@unoriginalmess @hammalammadamdam @astrynyx @laurcad123 @927roses-and-stuff @toodaloo-kangaroo @queenz-z @imarivers8 @jeminiikrystal @adrestar @twsssmlmaa @literaryhiraeth @trippingovermyfeet @ev-cupcake @its-maemain

#local author has carpal tunnel #be nice to me #timari #maribat #timinette #timmari #shutterbug #ladybug #red robin #tim drake #marinette dupain cheng #mari 'acts of service' dupain cheng #and tim 'gift giving' drake #have accidentally raised their kid to be just as unable to verbally express himself as they are

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