Honestly, it was a miracle anything got done. Two months into the Batman gig, that's what Dick was starting to realize— his pile of case files covered every inch of floorspace in front of him, and the stacks were only growing. He had thirty seven open cases. Thirty-seven.

And that, of course, was the easy part. Dick groaned in anticipation as the yelling started behind him. There they went again. He pulled his blanket back onto his shoulders and bent over his laptop, hoping that maybe, just this once, they would leave him out of it.

"Damian!" Tim voice was getting closer, maybe a hallway away. "I know you're around here somewhere!"

Well that sounded great— even better when Damian himself skidded into the room. He glanced around wildly for a place to hide, but there was nothing: just Dick sitting on the floor, covered in a blanket, in a pile of folders. Tim was probably right behind him.

"Damian!"

Damian strode over to Dick's corner and seized the edge of his blanket. "I'm not here," he hissed, and then he ducked underneath it, pressing himself against Dick's back. Dick straightened up in surprise.

"What are you—"

"Shhh!"

There were footsteps in the hallway, and then Tim stuck his head through the door. "Hey. Do you know where Damian is?"

"Haven't seen him." Dick went back to typing as casually as he could manage.

"Well if you do, tell him I'm looking for him."

"You got it."

Tim left without any other questions. Dick waited for Damian to crawl out and make his escape, but he didn't go for it. Maybe he figured Tim was still lurking outside.

"Alright," Dick asked, after a few seconds of silence. "What did you do?"

Damian's voice came out muffled from underneath the blanket. "I didn't do anything."

"You understand why that's hard for me to believe, right?"

"I didn't," Damian insisted. "Drake did."

"Okay, what did Drake do?" Nothing. "Damian?"

Damian shifted against Dick's back, slumping towards the floor. "He was on the phone with one of his teammates. They were talking about me."

Oh. Safely outside the blanket, Dick rolled his eyes to the heavens and asked them why they didn't give his little brother any common sense. Don't antagonize the ten year old assassin— really, Tim, it's not that hard.

"Does he know that you heard him?"

"Yes. I imagine he wants to apologize."

"But you're hiding."

Damian's voice was very quiet. "I don't want to talk to him right now."

Great. Dick glanced over his shoulder, but the lump in his blanket told him nothing— he couldn't get a read on how upset Damian was. Things like this got to him, Dick knew, pretty badly sometimes. He might be devastated. Alternatively, he might be plotting Tim's murder. You could never tell.

Dick picked through a couple of his files, waiting for some kind of indication. "Are you going to come out from under there?"

"No." Damian leaned back against him, pushing Dick forward a few inches. "It's warm."

"Alright." Upset, then. "Listen, I've got a bunch of work to do."

"Oh."

"I could use a hand, if you want to help." Dick lifted his laptop and set it down behind him, just outside the the circle of his blanket. "You're good at this kind of thing."

"Okay." Damian slid a hand out of the covers and pulled the laptop in with him. "Thanks."

"Yeah," Dick told him. He reached an arm behind his back and wrapped it briefly around the lump in his blanket, where he figured Damian's chest would be. "You're welcome."