#Box Lunch is mad she didn't get to join in when she finds out later and spends a week haunting the dudes

[esmeralda-anistasia]

#Tim: God those kids are weird#Random Person: because of *lists many many things that the kids do that aren’t normal or are outright impossible for children to do*#Tim: What? No that’s just how kids are#Tim: I'm talking about the fact that they can beat Bruce at a stare down *that’s* some freaky shit#not a single member of the batfam know what regular children are like#Would Jon be down for Elle & Billy to beat the shit out of some teenagers?#Probably not normally but they were being mean to his best friend#If Damian got involved someone would have ended up in the ICU rather than just the emergency room#and since Jon is the only one that can hold on to him/won't just let him go he has to be content with offering up cheers from the sideline#it's hard being the reasonable and grounded friend in a gang of feral raccoons#Box Lunch is mad she didn't get to join in when she finds out later and spends a week haunting the dudes#Tim is in awe of Jazz's ability to keep these demons more or less in line

Sorta sequel of this post (where Bruce is happy that Damian has totally and completely normal human friends). You don't have to read that one to get this one tho lol.

Slight Trigger Warning: minor description of injuries and blood, including injuries to ears and scalp. It's quick and not much detail on the injuries themselves, but I wanted to give a heads up.

Tim always thought his friend group was the most unhinged in the family.

Not anymore.

His friends at least had enough of a sense of self preservation to book it when Bruce caught them doing something they shouldn't and leveled them with A Look.

Tim's pretty sure Damian's friends call god a bitch to his face everyday and give him a wedgie in a Denny's parking at least twice a week. He's positive he saw them roast one of the League's S tier world ending threats to the point of tears last weekend. The footage was too badly corrupted to prove it, but he knows what he saw.

All of which to say, he's shouldn't be surprised when Bruce levels little Elle Nightingale and her cousin Billy Batson with his patented "You Are In So Much Trouble" BatDad Face (TM) and the little hellions just grin back at him, entirely unaffected. Shouldn't be but still is because holy fuck even Jason will still back off when Bruce levels him with that look. And these kids had the gaul to ask Bruce if they could go get ice cream after they were done here.

Bruce blinks first. It feels like an omen for the ends times.

Tim can't blame him though, you can’t look into the heart of insanity and chaos like that for too long without risking losing something in the process. Steph was right, they really are nightmare demons sent to feed on their fear and uncertainty.

Billy swipes a smear of blood away from his busted nose with the sleeve of his torn and dirty shirt. Elle's teeth are pink and red from blood - Tim isn't sure if it's better or worse that it's not her blood. Jon was bouncing between fussing over Damian - who Superboy had been mostly able to keep from joining the fight and thus probably saved a couple of lives - and casting worried looks at his two bloody friends as they stood lined up in front of Bruce. At least one of them had enough sense to be wary of that look.

Tim would say that Jon was the well behaved one of the bunch - and worryingly enough he might be - but he'd heard him yelling give em the chair at one of the two scrappers as he and Bruce came running over so he knows it's only the fact that a punch from even a baby Kryptonian would have killed a person that kept the littest Kent out of the fight rather than any idea that the fight itself was wrong. All four children look ruthlessly proud of each other.

The ones the hellions were fighting - a couple of guys Tim's age who had been stupid enough to try and bully Damian at all, let alone in front of his pack of feral raccoons - looked like they'd gone several rounds with Killer Croc before being thrown around by Bane and run over by a car. They deserved it- assholes - but they still looked rough.

One was bleeding from several bite wounds Elle had inflicted on him, earlobes a mess from where the little girl had torn his earrings out, both eyes blackened and swollen to the point he couldn't open them anymore. The other had a large red and bleeding bald spot from where Billy had ripped a good chunk of hair out, nose completely shattered- likely in retaliation for what had been done to Billy's - and elbow hanging at an odd angle. Tim's not sure which one of them had the chair - thankfully one of those fabric folding ones and not something more solid - broken over them, or which hellspawn had taken Jon's suggestion to heart, but either way he could see the twisted up remains of the item in question laying not too far away.

At least the EMTs were ushering the two weeping teens away into ambulances so they could get taken care of. Tim's pretty sure Elle and Billie would try and get a few more hits in otherwise and knowing them he doesn't doubt that at least one of the cops that had shown up on the scene would end up losing a finger or two in the process. Which normally Tim would be fine with - he has files on all of these guys and they deserve way worse than what a couple twelve year olds could do to them - but in this case he's already having a hard time convincing the officers that it's just a matter of some kids defending one of their friends from a couple of bullies.

Ugh. Some people just didn't understand children and it really showed. It was a public park, kids were gonna be kids. Just a normal childhood scrap. The real problem were the highschoolers who tried to start shit with a group of little kids.

Sure the hellions were feral and unhinged enough to be unbothered by Bruce trying to chide them about starting fights instead of getting an adult to help, but at the end of the day playground scuffles will happen and the kids were just defending themselves. Cops should be thankful that BL wasn't able to join them for the day or someone would have ended up shoved into a cooler or something.

Eh, whatever. He got them to drop the assault charges - which were ridiculous, Elle & Billie were normal twelve year olds getting into a fight, it wasn't like it was Damian with all his training and skills - and Bruce had given up on trying to be disapproving of them not reporting the attempted bullying to him instead of handling it themselves. Probably because at the end of the day he was a little proud of the little shits for defending Damian and standing up against some bullies. And really Tim was too. They might be vicious little hellspawns sent there to torment them all, but they were good kids at the end of the day and they cared about Damian enough to throw down with guys twice their size.

Tim pulled up a list of the nearest ice cream places on his phone, Bruce was totally going to cave on that front and even if he didn't Tim was willing to use his executive Big Brother privileges to get them ice cream anyway. He isn’t going to need to though. Jon had thrown his puppy dog eyes into the mix on that front and Tim knows from experience how much a kryptonian looking hopeful could get away with when it came to this family. Hell, Kon had probably taught his little brother that face for these exact kinds of situations because of how effective it was.

"I'm still going to have to tell Jazz about this." Bruce said as they shuffled off towards the restrooms to try and get everyone cleaned up, a parting shot to make up for his failure to cow them earlier.

"Please don't tell her! She’s gonna make us read articles about conflict resolution again!"

"B come on that's no fair! You said we did good not letting those assholes get away with their bullying shit!"

"Language!"

Huh, Tim thought with a grin. Maybe the little demons weren't as terrifyingly unstoppable as he thought.