Grown-up Damian in the moment he realizes he admires and values Tim. Unironically and without caveat or fine print. Tim’s victories make Damian feel victorious.
And for whatever reason today is the day Damian ran out of rationalizations for why that feeling has nothing to do with Tim. If someone asked him right now, he probably couldn’t believably claim he’d throw Tim off a building without a grappling hook given the chance. In fact, things might be even more dire than “admires and values”.
In other words, Damian has made a huge, huge mistake and should probably flee Gotham and rejoin the League ASAP.
And I don’t even care if you go gen or ship here, because the delicious part of this relationship is that if Damian admits that Tim is great, amazing, brilliant, then he’s de facto accepting that his dad and his grandfather were right to choose Tim over Damian – to choose Tim but get ‘stuck with’ Damian, every time. Damian has to believe Tim is so deserving of respect and recognition that it’s worth sacrificing Damian’s belief in his own self worth.
Bonus points: you know he’s never going to say a word about it.
And that’s an emotional predicament I can get behind, make outs or no make outs. *fans self* Oh yeah, that’s the good drama. Mmm, more please.