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Grayson had lied to him. That was the only reason that he'd gotten Damian out of his Robin suit and into the club. He'd told him that it was a mission, and he'd supplied him with a fake ID. Damian had already had five such IDs, but he rarely found a reason to use them. Even at seventeen, he had little to no taste for clubs, much less drinking. He didn't like the unpredictability, the low vision, the loudness, and the obnoxious plebeians paying hand over fist for weak alcohol and simulated human contact. He was a good looking young man, so he had no reason to seek out companionship that came with a price tag; his father frowned upon drunkenness, so he had no reason to indulge in drunken debauchery.
But Dick felt it was his duty to force him into the club every once in a while. Perhaps he thought that if he endured the bonding nights enough times, he would learn to like them.
Damian would not like it. He drank what he had to, nose wrinkling at the taste of the alcohol, and waited until Dick had thoroughly exhausted his urge to socialize with nameless, sweaty women in next to nothing.
There was no mission, but he wouldn't leave Dick to fend for himself. He understood the reasons behind his insistence that they go together---they didn't see each other as much as they used to, and he feared them drifting apart now that Damian was almost an adult in his own right---so he begrudgingly accepted that to make him feel more secure in their relationship, he had to just grit his teeth and bear it.
But Damian would only bear it up to a certain point. That point was eight shots and "Circus" by Britney Spears.
As soon as the first bars of the song thrummed from the speakers, Dick lit up like the goddamn Bat Signal.
"Oh my god," he whisper-shouted, his volume control broken somewhere around the fifth shot. "I love this song! This is my song! C'mon, D. Time to dance."
"What?" Damian barked, shrinking away from his brother's grip on his wrist. "Unhand me!"
Dick shrugged, loose and fluid in the way of the exceptionally tipsy. "Fine. I'll just dance by myself."
"You'll do no such thing, Grayson!" Damian hissed, his voice tight with desperation. He wasn't meant to be the voice of reason, the voice of discretion. He couldn't tell if it was the stifling heat of the club or his burning shame, but his cheeks were on fire. His brother, his Batman slipped into the crowd like he hadn't heard him. He had no choice but to follow him. "Richard! Dick! Come back this instant!"
To his horror, he was making a beeline for the stage. Damian had at first been trying to avoid the dancers---and he used that term loosely, seeing as most of them were grinding like they had no problems with having intercourse right in front of strangers---but he didn't have the time to be polite. No, he had to intercept Dick before he reached the unoccupied pole, so he began leading with his elbows. He jostled without mercy, until hands grabbed him.
Had he not recognized the hands, he would have drawn one of the four knives on his person. But, Damian recognized the too-tight grip that Jason Todd used, as well as the size of Stephanie's hand. She had grabbed his right arm, and Jason had grabbed the other. They'd simply materialized out of the crowd---they hadn't known that he and Grayson would be there, had they?
"Let go!" Damian demanded, pulling against Jason's hold. He knew he could shrug off Steph---easily, seeing as his teenage growth spurts had left him much bigger than her---but Todd could prove problematic.
"No. Watch. Watch, and learn," Steph said reverently, gesturing at the stage. "This is going to be a thing of beauty."
"Don't ruin this for us," Jason said, frowning. "I bought too many shots tonight not to see it now. It took the DJ two hours to get to Britney Spears, so don't fuck this up."
"What are you---why are you---"
"Look, D, you haven't heard the stories," Stephanie said patiently, not letting go of his arm. "Probably because Alfred didn't want to give you another reason to scoff at Dick, but he…he has this…"
"Talent," Tim supplied from Steph's other side. Damian's stomach lurched.
"Talent," he growled, because being angry was much easier than being mortified.
"He's a natural," said Jason with a slow, full grin that made Damian unspeakably uncomfortable.
"A natural what?"
"You can take the boy away from the circus, but you can't take the circus out of the boy," said Tim. Drake had the good grace to look uncomfortable, at least. He kept leaning away from the bodies milling around them. "When Dick was a kid and Bruce was busy, he'd have to entertain himself."
"The story goes, he'd 'practice' some of his old acts on the pole in the cave," Steph said, her eyes glittering fever-brightly. The look was nearly predatory. "Not even knowing that what he called an 'act', most women ages eighteen through twenty-five called 'a well-paying night job.'"
"Alfie caught him once," Jason said, laughing. "Almost gave the old guy a heart attack. He had to explain to 'young master Richard' that he shouldn't let Bruce see him practicing his 'act'."
The beat was heavy enough to vibrate in his teeth, in his chest. Dick got up on the dais with the pole, and Damian swore his heart skipped several very necessary beats.
"Oh, no," Damian half-moaned before he could stop himself, a hand over his mouth. "He's going on stage. He's---why isn't anyone stopping him? Why are you all party to this indecency?" He whipped around to Tim, fists raised. "Goddamn you, Drake, you should be better than this!"
"It's---look, it's Dick," he said, half-helpless.
"Oh, of course!" Damian snapped, at his absolute limit. "You and your lurid fascination with watching him!"
Tim looked like he was going to work himself into a froth, but Stephanie put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed gently. She was eerily good at calming any and all male Robins.
"We've all wondered how true the story is, okay?" she said, and smiled reassuringly.
"It is his jam," Cassandra said quietly, placidly, sipping a fruity drink with an umbrella.
"What she said," Jason agreed, taking a swig of his beer as Dick started to circle the pole, hips swinging. The spinning colored lights made his grin electric-bright.
There was no stopping what was about to happen, Damian realized with a sick, sure clarity. What had been set in motion by his damnable 'siblings' would come to pass, even if he threw a smoke bomb and dragged Dick away until he sobered up.
Dick…looked like he was enjoying himself. He clearly knew the words to the song, and was mouthing them, his body buoyed by the currents of the beat. He shimmied up the pole with his hands alone, climbing to the top and standing on one hand, legs split in a wide v.
With his free hand, Dick took off his pants and discarded them with a flourish.
He was wearing bikini-cut underwear---blue, with a yellow bat's wings following the curves of his ass.
The crowd went wild, screaming and whistling and catcalling. Jackals and harlots all, Damian decided, wishing he could disappear. But Jason had one of his arms, Stephanie had the other, and shame had him frozen on the spot.
The spotlight snapped on, illuminating Dick in a harsh halo. The muscles in his arms stood out in hard bands as he twisted back down, moving with the pole and with the music in ways that were both impressive---it took strength, skill---and very sexual. He was eternally a showman, and instead of feeling the appropriate shame with so many eyes on him, he thrived. He fed on it, on the screams, and Damian suddenly understood.
What he did as Batman was not in his nature. He wasn't meant to be kept in the shadows, hovering around the edges of things. Dick was an exhibitionist, and for him this kind of uproarious attention was a release. This was him at his best, at his happiest, at his most natural.
"TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT ALL OFF!" Steph shrieked, shattering his thoughts and nearly deafening him in his right ear.
Dick---damn him---obliged. Thighs hugging the pole, he arched backward, hanging upside-down and pulling off his shirt in one smooth motion. His chest and back shone with sweat, the scarred skin and corded muscles shifting and rippling as he danced.
And it was a dance, too. An embarrassingly erotic one, but one all the same.
"Beautiful," Cassandra murmured.
"I think I'm going to cry," Jason said, a hand spread over his heart. "This is like watching a unicorn being born."
"The stories were true," Tim said, sounding like a kid who had stumbled upon a fat man in red emerging from the fireplace with festive bribes. "They were all true."
The song ended, and Dick slid leisurely down the pole again. He bowed, graciously accepting the single bills being tucked into his underwear, and grinned widely at the crowd.
"Hey, Damian!" Dick yelled over the screams, which meant that all eyes swiveled around to look at him. He didn't know when he'd started clawing at his face in mute horror, but all the looks he was getting made him very aware of that fact. "The next round's on me!"
Damian swore, right then and there, that he would not drink any alcohol purchased with money damp from ball sweat. The rest of his 'family' might have been daft and half-mad, but he had standards.