Work Text:
Damian scowled as his teacher made the announcement of another useless project they would be doing. It was always like this, every once in a while the teacher would sign them up for impractical things that weren't needed, and a waste of time. So far the only thing he enjoyed was the art piece they had to recreate in their own style. This time, though, the teacher had told them that they would be assigned random pen pals from around the world. In the end, they were to tell the whole class some things about their partner. The aim of the entire thing was to get students to improve their communication skills, their language skills, and to gain a new friend.
'Friends' to Damian were a waste of time, he thought they would just be after his father's money, or just for their own personal power gain. He didn't need friends, Jon is and always will be the exception. He was just an acquaintance anyway.
Damian had nearly zoned the teacher out, but then they mentioned that they would be giving them the contact details for their pen pals. He blinked and a piece of paper was placed on his desk. He picked it up and scanned it over, he got a girl his age from Paris, France. The paper also provided what he had to learn about his partner, Damian thought it was unnecessary and an invasion of privacy. He'd probably lie, for her sake, and so that he could avoid talking with her entirely.
"Some of you will be able to contact your pen pal, make sure to be mindful of the time difference. To those whose pen pals who you will not contact, I have an activity for you that I shall place on your desk now." Damian stopped himself from visibly sulking, he'd have to contact the girl now. He opened his computer and emailed the given address.
Surprisingly, he got an email back straight away. Damian blinked, taken off guard for a moment. What time would it be in France right now? She was probably still in school. He sent another email, asking if her own teacher had told them to do this out of the blue, and the email he got back confirmed that they were all set this at the same time, in their own respective time zones of course.
He started chatting with her, their emails swiftly moving to text messages. Damian himself was surprised when he allowed this to happen. He had gotten carried away with talking with her that he forgot to write down what he was supposed to find about. Damian looked over at the sheet again, he was apparently to find her full name, her birthday, her interests, her favourite colour, her hobbies, and other generic things that seemed, in Damian's opinion, borderline stalker-ish. He decided to ignore his assignment and he stuffed it at the back of his bag when the bell rang.
His eyes stayed on his phone while he went out for break. He knew Jon had sat down next to him, but he was busy texting his pen pal. "I heard your class has a pen pal assignment, how's yours going?"
"Fine." Damian answered quickly, not looking up rom his phone. Jon raised one of his eyebrows and smiled.
"What's your pen pal's name?" The boy asked his friend.
"Her name is Marinette." Damian told him.
"What's she like? Is she nice?" Jon questioned the boy, being much like his parents.
"I've only begun messaging her this morning, and I can't learn anything about her personality over text, Kent." Damian deadpanned, looking up from his phone to give the boy an unimpressed expression.
"Do you have a picture of her at least?" He tried, tilting his head. Damian paused.
"No, I don't." He murmured after a moment of silence.
"Well one of the requirements of the task is to have a picture of your pen pal, from what I've heard." Jon muttered the last part.
Damian hummed. "I'll ask her later." As he finished, the bell rang. He waved a goodbye to Jon as he walked to his next class.
Throughout the day, Damian kept texting Marinette, whether that be in between classes or while he was supposed to do work, he finished all the work anyway. Marinette had left school and was now at her house which is, from what she's told him, above her parents' bakery.
He was in mathematics when it said she had gone offline, without warning too, and he doubt she did it on purpose as she was in the middle of telling him about how she went out of her way to steal to try and get her classmate on the class photo. Without anything to do, Damian tucked his phone away and asked for extension work, he had completed the three pages they had been given. All the work was easy, he had learnt all this at six.
The rest of the school day couldn't have gone by any slower. The minutes seemed to drag on, Damian realised just how boring school days were. He couldn't have been more grateful when he saw the familiar black car.
"Good afternoon, Master Damian." Alfred said as Damian got in. "Your day was good, I hope?"
"As mediocre as it always has been, Pennyworth." Damian replied in response. He stared out the window, the surroundings being the only thing worth while. Then, a ping from his phone. Damian took his phone out straight away, it was a message from Marinette. He looked up to see a glimpse of Alfred's knowing expression. Damian took a breath through his nose, ignoring the older man and instead choosing to read the message.
Marinette: Je suis désolé, j'ai dû m'occuper de quelque chose.
Marinette: Nous pouvons faire des appels vidéo, si vous le souhaitez.
He blinked, reading the message again. He took a small breath and typed out his reply.
Me: Sure, let me return home first
Marinette: Envoyez-moi un message quand vous êtes prêt.
Damian let the faintest of smiles appear on his face, before covering it up with a stone cold expression again. Marinette was very much a good acquaintance. He went back to staring out the window, wanting to return home as soon as he could. Luckily for him, Alfred managed to arrive at the manor a few minutes earlier than he usually did. Giving his thanks, Damian stopped himself from sprinting up the stairs and gently closed his bedroom door behind him. Sitting down at his desk, Damian sent a message to the girl before opening his computer. A video call request quickly came through, and he quickly accepted.
A girl with inky-black appeared on the screen, twiddling her thumbs in what seemed like nervousness. She then stood up straight in her seat after she realised that her request had been accepted. "Hello, Damian." She waved sheepishly at him, a small dusting of pink on her smiling face.
He didn't bother to hide the small smile on his own face. "Hello, Marinette." Damian replied.
Perhaps this project wasn't so useless after all.