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“There’s no way you’re taller than I am!”
Damian, Cassandra, and Brown are in the middle of the cave, having returned first from a long patrol. As Damian began to go about his usual post-patrol routine, his sister and Brown had gotten into yet another inane argument. He’s trying to tune them out, but Brown’s indignant squawk catches his attention.
“Yes. Two inches,” Cassandra tells Brown, a hint of a smirk playing across her face.
“That’s so not fair. Also, how do you even know that off the top of your head?”
Damian sighs, turning to the Batcomputer to log a report. It had been an easy night, but they’d made good progress on a case, and he wants to put that information into the system before it slips his mind. His companions are still going, and, listening with one ear, he hears them compare his brothers as well. Todd is the tallest, followed by Richard. Cassandra is the taller of the two girls. Brown is next, and Drake is the shortest of his siblings. Drake likes to complain that he just hasn’t reached his growth spurt yet and his height- or lack thereof- cannot be held against him, citing malnutrition. Damian always scoffs at that. He was malnourished too, and he never uses that as an excuse. This argument never really goes on long, because it makes Father sad every time, so they’ve yet to come to a conclusion.
Damian hears Brown say his name and turns around expectantly, only to realize she’s just pulling his height into the ranking as well. He sighs and begins to go back to his work before Brown’s loud comment stops him.
“But of course, Dami is tiny, so it’s not really fair to comment on him.”
Damian growls under his breath. She did that on purpose, knowing he can’t resist bait like that. To fall into her trap, or to be productive, like Father would want from him? His honor or his work? Brown throws an obvious wink, and he makes up his mind.
“Brown, I would refrain from making comments about my height. It serves to make me just the right level to properly deconstruct your kneecaps,” Damian says primly. A nice threat should show her her place. Instead, she and Cassandra burst into loud gales of laughter. He scowls.
“Little brother,” Cassandra grins at him, and he frowns at her.
“Habibi,” Brown laughs. Damian freezes, staring up at her with wide eyes. She notices, furrowing her eyebrows at him and exchanging a glance with Cassandra, who shrugs. “Um… Dami? You okay?”
“I am fine,” he says stiffly, turning and making his way quickly out of the room. He’s not running. He’s not. He’s simply making… a tactical retreat. His report is pretty much done, Father can parse out the details from there, so it’s safe for him to take a shower now. Yes. He’s just being productive.
The last thing he hears before he enters the changing room is Brown asking, “What was that about?”
“Seriously,” Steph continues, “What did I say?”
Cass looks at the door their little brother had just vanished behind and shrugs again. “Not sure. Ask?”
Steph snorts. “Nah, I’ll leave the stabby child alone for now. I guess I could ask Dick though?”
Cass considers, then says, “Yes. Dick might know.”
“Alrighty, I’ll ask him when he gets back.”
Cass nods at her and leaves to take a shower. Steph sighs, walking over the Batcomputer and sitting in the chair, spinning it around as she thinks. She doesn’t understand what she said to make Damian react like that. Maybe it was being teased about his height? But he’s never showed any sign of caring beyond his usual annoyance, and he didn’t react until she called him a baby. Part of her thinks it’s because she laughed at him, but she does that literally all the time, and he’s stopped trying to stab her for it, so it’s probably not that. On that topic, why didn’t he try to stab her? Not that she’s complaining, she likes her body intact, but usually when he’s upset he falls back on his instincts and attacks. Damian’s improved since he joined the family, but not that much. Steph sighs and puts the topic aside for now, deciding to finish the report Damian had started. She’ll just wait for Dick to get back.
It doesn’t take very long for him to return, which is good, because she’s just finishing up the report. At some point Damian had snuck up the stairs, with him trying not to be noticed and her pretending to not see him. Tim and Dick enter on their respective bikes, and she waits impatiently for Dick to finish his conversation with Tim.
“Dick!” she calls when it seems like there’s a pause. “I need your advice.”
He beams at her, skipping over. “Oh, I love giving out big brother advice!”
“Mhm. It’s about Dami,” she explains, and he immediately grows more serious.
“Did he stab someone again?” he guesses.
“No-”
“Try to?”
“No! I said something to him tonight, and he reacted… weird,” Steph says, biting her lip.
Dick squints at her. He says, “Weird how? You’ve got to be more specific,” and yeah, that’s fair. Their little brother is constantly weird.
“He got really stiff and, like, ran out of the room. I don’t even know why. We were teasing him about being the shortest one and he just bolted.”
“But you call him the shortest all the time.” Dick looks about as confused as Steph feels, which makes her feel a little better.
“Yeah, I know!” Steph agrees, waving her hands around. Dick ducks to avoid contact. “That’s why I think this is weird. I laughed and called him a baby, as is my older sister rights, and he froze.”
“What did you say, exactly?” he asks, brow furrowed. He’s almost a dead ringer for Bruce when he’s thinking, she notices idly. They have the same crease in their foreheads.
“Exactly? Um. I’m not really sure. Something like ‘ha, you’re a baby,’ I think?” Steph says, trying to recall what the words she used were.
He gets a funny expression on his face. “I think I get it. Did you maybe say, ‘ha, baby?’” The way he says baby is weird, closer to bee-bee, which… probably is the tone she used, actually. It’s very funny to see how scrunched up Damian’s face gets when she uses a sugary tone, she’s not ashamed of that.
“Yeah, probably. Why does that matter?”
“It sounds like habibi,” he explains, which clears up nothing at all. “H-A-B-I-B-I. It’s an Arabic term of endearment, one that his mother and Bruce both use for him. I do it too sometimes, but I try to do it in private so he’s not super uncomfortable. You know how he gets with public displays of affection.” She does know how he gets. It’s often stabby.
“What’s it mean, exactly?”
“Usually ‘beloved’ or ‘my love.’ It’s for family members or romantic partners. It’s very… tender, carries a great deal of meaning.”
Steph feels her mouth make an ‘O’ shape as she understands. That makes a lot of sense. If she was teasing Damian and out of nowhere dropped this huge term of affection… Yeah. Of course he ran, he probably didn’t know how to process that. “Shit. Okay, I need to talk to him. I’m going to shower first and then hunt him down upstairs.”
Dick nods at her, and she turns to head the showers.
“Steph,” he calls. She turns. He looks incredibly serious, and she feels her back straighten automatically in response. “Do you mean it?”
“What?”
“To him, you called him habibi. Do you mean it?”
She hesitates, but she knows her answer. “Yes.”
He relaxes, and she goes to shower.
Damian hears a knock on his door. He puts his book down, staring at the door. Maybe it’s Father or Richard. That would be preferable, but maybe Cassandra would be okay as well, so long as it’s not-
Brown’s voice sounds through the wood. “Dami? Can we talk?”
This is not ideal. He opens his mouth to come up with some excuse, but instead he hears himself saying, “Come in.” Not ideal.
She opens the door. She’s in her pajamas and her hair is wet, so he assumes she must have just taken a shower. “I finished the report.”
That’s nice, but- “I don’t think you actually doing your job is worth disturbing my reading time.”
Damian tries to sound scathing, but she just smiles at him. He narrows his eyes, but it must have no effect, because she’s coming across the room to sit in his desk chair. Why is it that everyone in Gotham is afraid of him when he tries to be nice, but his own family ignores it when he tries to be threatening?
“I talked to Dick,” she starts, and he feels his scowl set further. She leans back and holds her hands up. “Look, you worried me! I wanted to go check in with our resident expert to make sure everything was okay.”
“And what did Richard say?” Damian forces out through gritted teeth.
Brown hesitates. “He explained what habibi means.”
Damian feels his heart rake spike at hearing the word again. “I don’t see why this is relevant.”
“I didn’t mean to call you that,” Brown says, and Damian feels like he’s drowning. His eyes well up with tears, and he blinks quickly to try to hide them. He will not show her his weakness.
“Okay,” he says stiffly, and Brown’s eyes widen with panic.
“Dami, I didn’t mean-”
“Please leave,” he requests, and she doesn’t move.
“Damian-”
“I am asking you to leave. I will call Father if you don’t comply.”
“Listen-”
“You have three seconds.”
“Habibi.”
Time stills, and they stare at each other. She takes the silence and continues.
“I didn’t know what it meant, but I do now. And I mean it. I mean it. I see you as my little brother, Dami. You’re my Robin. I know we don’t have emotions in this family and we just bottle it up and don’t say a word, but I love you. I love you and your stupid swords-” Damian mumbles ‘katanas’ and is ignored. “-and your farmyard of animals and the way you try to stab literally everyone you meet. You’re my family. You are very dear to me.”
Damian only realizes he’s crying when she leans over and wipes a tear from his eyes. He bats at her hands, pushing her away, which makes her snort through her own tears.
“You’re my family too,” and he might have mumbled it, but he knows she understood it, even though she gives him a shit eating grin and goes, “Sorry, what did you say?”
Brown huffs and wipes away the last of her tears. “Okay, Dami. Any other huge emotional conversations you want to have tonight?” His answer is a solid no, and it must show on his face, because she laughs at him. She sobers up quickly, though, and her voice is soft when she asks, “Would you mind if I did start calling you habibi?”
Damian takes a moment to think about it. The only people who have called him that have been his parental figures. However, he does… Brown is… He doesn’t really know how to admit it, but she’s a sister to him. He cares for her. “No,” he answers slowly, “I don’t think I’d mind.”
Brown beams at him. “Okay, habibi. I’ll leave you alone now to get back to your book. I know you’re about to have an allergic reaction to all these emotions.”
He scowls at her, and she laughs, standing up and crossing to the door. “Dami, before I leave,” she begins seriously, “I just want to make one thing clear. You still are, and always will be, the baby of the family.” Laughing, she leaves before he can throw something at her.
Damian, in the privacy of his own room, thinks about Stephanie calling him family, and smiles.