Into The Unknown, Part 37
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Marinette sighed quietly when she felt a tiny hand pulling at her nightshirt (it was really just a hoodie she had stolen from Tim, but calling it a nightshirt sounded less like bullying). She managed to crack an eye open just enough to look at Damian and then, careful not to disturb Tim, she shifted to make room for Damian.
And, to his credit, the kid didn’t complain in the slightest, settling down in his usual spot between them with his favorite Cat plush in his arms. But, after a few minutes of her kid shifting around over and over again trying to get comfortable, she rubbed her face sleepily and sat up again. Damian’s eyes instantly snapped open and he looked up at her. His eyebrows slowly started to furrow in the way Tim’s did when he was confused – though it seemed like Damian was consciously making an effort to make this face, if the concentration lining his gaze meant anything – and she gave him the slightest of smiles.
“You can tell me if you’re not sleepy,” she murmured.
Damian looked up at her for a moment longer before nodding. “'ana last muteaban,” he confirmed quietly.
She had figured. “You should tell me when that happens.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You can try again next time,” she said, unconcerned as she ruffled his bangs. Then, she shifted out of the blankets and, after he had given Tim his plush to cuddle with in favor of them, she took Damian in her arms. “Wanna do something until you’re sleepy?”
Instead of giving a proper answer, Damian wriggled until he could wrap his arms and legs around her. She appreciated the movement regardless, she was hardly as strong as she used to be and the fact that he was growing was not helping her ability to pick him up…
She hummed lightly as she thought, just barely bouncing on the balls of her feet, before she sighed.
“How about you help me bake?” she decided. Baking always helped when she was feeling down, it was repetitive and soothing, and it would end in something sweet to eat even if Damian didn’t particularly enjoy baking.
“Bake?” Damian gasped. “Cookies?”
“Sure, Dami, we can bake cookies,” she said, kissing the top of his head and making her way over to the kitchen. She sat him down on the counter and then tipped her head to the side thoughtfully. “Got anything you want in particular?”
“Cookies!”
“... right,” she sighed. She rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes and headed over to the pantry for inspiration. After a moment, she pulled out the peanut butter.
She took out an egg and some sugar. Behold. All the ingredients for peanut butter cookies. Easy and cheap – perfect for baking with a kid in the middle of the night.
After flicking on the oven, Marinette measured out the ingredients as carefully as any trained baker would (which is to say she just kinda eyeballed it) and then handed the bowl over to Damian to mix.
But he just looked up at her blankly.
She returned the look.
“More?” He asked, sticking out his lower lip in a pout.
Her willpower crumbled after approximately seventeen seconds. No sign of the girl that had once resisted Hawkmoth’s influence in sight. A single sad look from her kid and suddenly she was weak.
She sighed deeply as a kind of complaint, but took the bowl back and doubled the amount. This time, when she handed the bowl over for the kid to stir, he gladly did so. She smiled and started getting out pans.
When she had finished spraying them she glanced over and found that Damian was struggling a little with the batter. Which she had expected. His upper body strength needed work and mixing was hard when you aren’t used to doing it. She tried to take it back… only for Damian to whine and hug the bowl closer to himself.
“Dami… I’m just gonna finish mixing it.”
“Me! I can do it!”
She sighed a little but let go and leaned against the counter with her phone in hand. Either he would give up eventually or he would have some sort of insane breakthrough. The batter would be fine no matter what.
And, hey, after a while, the batter was somewhat usable. He held it out to her proudly and she couldn’t help but smile, pushing his bangs back to press a kiss to his forehead before turning to start spooning the mixture onto the greased pans.
(If she mixed the batter a little more under the guise of doling out servings… Damian didn’t need to know.)
After setting the trays in the oven she turned on Damian’s newest favorite show. The man on the screen’s too high-pitched voice filled the kitchen and she suppressed a cringe.
She felt someone sidle up next to her and breathed a sigh of relief as Tim wrapped his arms around her. Not because of the affection, but because the blanket draped around him like a cape was now blocking Damian’s view of her phone. How sad. The guy with the weird orange and purple hat was just about to talk to children. She clicked off the phone and gave Damian a look that said ‘oh no I have no clue what happened!’
Damian pouted but was quickly sated when she handed him the bowl, which still had tiny bits of batter stuck to the sides.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” she chided Tim quietly.
“So’re you.”
“Touche.”
He rested his chin on her shoulder. “Smells good.”
“Me or the cookies?” she teased, pressing a kiss to his nose.
He buried his face in her neck with a tiny yawn. “Foooooood.”
“You didn’t even hesitate. I’m hurt.”
He chuckled and squeezed her tighter before pulling away to lean over Damian. “Can I have some?”
Damian pouted but, however reluctantly, he gave Tim a tiny spoonful.
Marinette sighed and covered Tim’s mouth with her hand before he could eat it. “No. You’re immunocompromised. Salmonella is bad for you.”
He licked her hand. She grimaced and let go so she could wipe it off on his shirt… which, unfortunately, left him open to try and eat the cookie dough. But Marinette was not one to lose easily, so, out of options, she tackled her boyfriend/fake husband.
(Yes, officer, really, they were wrestling on the floor over a spoonful of peanut butter, sugar, and egg.)
Tim, of course, won – Marinette was severely out of practice. He held the spoon up victoriously.
Unfortunately for him, this was at the perfect level for Damian to eat it.
Tim had never looked so betrayed as he did when he found Damian’s mouth around his spoon.
~
Before this particular story begins, you must know: Tim tried. He really did.
Getting professional advice about children with trauma in Gotham was easy. No one really feels the need to ask why a kid has trauma in the first place, because, well, it’s Gotham.
The only information Tim had to give up was the fact that, hey, Damian’s original family wasn’t the best… and the therapist he had gone to had simply accepted this. There was no ‘could you go into more specific detail about this’ or ‘are you part of said original family’ or even ‘did you kidnap him, oh my god?!’.
The therapist simply looked him in the eye, smiled, and said, “Okay, let’s talk about solutions, then.”
The first option was therapy, obviously, and, despite the fact that this was probably the best one, Tim had to decline.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Er… you’d probably want plausible deniability,” Tim said carefully.
The therapist’s mouth made a little ‘o’ shape and then she nodded. “I see. Then I would suggest extra support at bedtime.”
His forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“Routines are particularly good,” the therapist explained easily enough. “Do something relaxing right before bed, every night, and make sure that he is always in bed at the same time. Be sure to be extra affectionate around that time, too, to put him in a good mood and remind him that he is loved.”
Tim glanced at Damian, who was sitting across the room with a coloring book, wondering what they should do to help relax him. He seemed to enjoy baking well enough, but sugar before bed was… not a great idea. Maybe they could move his bath time to nighttime? Or start doing bedtime stories?
“I would also suggest teaching him relaxation techniques and breathing exercises.”
Tim added that to his notes app. He knew quite a few of those. Who knew that being a vigilante could come in handy when dealing with your kid’s trauma? Wild.
“Sometimes journaling helps, but it depends on the person,” the therapist continued. “It could help him get his thoughts together and help him sort through complicated emotions, but it could also make him spiral. I would suggest that one as a last resort.”
Tim grimaced. He wasn’t one for huge risks like that. Forget ‘as a last resort’, he wasn’t going to be using that at all.
“You need to talk with him about his… events,” the therapist carefully stepped around asking what had happened once again. Tim appreciated it. They had come up with a story to tell, of course, but he would rather avoid going into all of the fake trauma surrounding the death of Marinette’s fake parents… especially since that might make the therapist question them about their mental health, and they didn’t really know how they were supposed to behave about their supposedly dead parents. “Only when he’s comfortable doing it, of course, but you need to validate how he’s feeling. Especially if emotional abuse was involved.”
Tim added to his notes app yet again, nodding thoughtfully. He was pretty sure he and Marinette were okay about that, but maybe he should be more careful about it. Writing it down should help him remember…
“You might also consider getting him an emotional support animal.”
And this was where the therapist made a mistake. Because she had incorrectly assumed that Tim was mature. He was only twenty-one. Having a kid and being a vigilante had somewhat sped up the aging process, but certainly not enough.
Because, the moment they realized this was their chance to get a dog, Damian and Tim both perked up and they were gone.
~
Marinette blinked as she received a text. She had wanted to go to the appointment but, alas, there was a charity gala going on that day. Bruce had tried to get her to go to the appointment regardless… but she couldn’t. If she left him alone there was a 98% chance he would try to poach the entirety of Lex Luthor’s entire labor force. Which, granted, would be good for the workers… but it would tank WE’s reputation immediately and would prevent them from ever having a successful charity gala again.
But she had kept her phone on, so she got to watch in real time as Tim freaked out.
She squinted at the string of emojis before, inevitably, sending a question mark, because that was incomprehensible. Even for him.
And then he sent a picture of a dog with a support animal vest on (from the internet, he hadn’t gone out and bought one quite yet, thank god)…
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had saved WE’s reputation, but at what cost? There really was no winning, was there?
She clicked off her phone. She would deal with this later. After she stopped Bruce from slapping Lex Luthor for being homophobic (again).
~~~
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