Chapter Text
When Anya and Damian entered the house, Anya made a beeline for the living room. Damian rolled his eyes. Anya never wanted to study first thing. First, she always wanted to watch something on the TV. The one at her house was pretty much the smallest thing Damian had ever seen, so it made sense, but still.
Sometimes Damian missed living in the dorms. There weren’t many distractions from his studies there, even when it was full of people. And it was always full of people. Here, there were just a lot of empty rooms. When his aunt had asked him and his brother to move back in, she'd been trying to keep the family together. But Damian wasn’t sure there was anything left of the Desmond family. It was just empty rooms.
The only time living in the house felt fun was when Anya came over and messed up all the couch cushions.
They used to argue all the time over what to put on, but after one such fight had resulted in a broken remote, they’d both agreed to take turns. On Anya’s days they either watched her dumb spy show (which probably had like, 500 episodes by now), or whatever weird soap opera Becky was talking about that week.
Today was Damian’s day, though, so they were watching a movie. Anya didn’t like movies (she said they were too long), but this one was a really exciting one. It had a spy in it, and a girl with pink hair, so she’d probably love it. Damian had already watched it twice.
He turned it on and and sat down on the opposite side of the couch from Anya. She always complained that he sat too far away, but she changed position every three minutes, and tended to elbow anyone who was next to her.
Anya looked intrigued when the spy character was introduced. Damian smiled to himself.
In this movie, the spy wasn’t a good guy like Bond Man: he was working for the bad guys, which made him way cooler. His mission was to date the girl with pink hair and then steal the passwords for all big museums she owned. He glanced at Anya out of the corner of his eye when the pink hair lady came on screen, and he thought he saw her smile a little bit.
Just as the spy tricked the lady into spilling her coffee onto him, Damian heard the front door open and close. Heavy footsteps, coming toward the living room. Damian reacted on instinct, grabbing the remote from Anya’s hands and turning off the TV in one swift motion. He stood up and turned around, hands pasted to his sides, to see—
It was only Demetrius. He stood awkwardly in the doorway of the living room, like he couldn’t decide whether to enter or not. He gave a little smile in Damian’s direction. “I’m home,” he said. The smile looked terribly forced.
“Welcome home,” Damian said back. His throat felt dry.
“Hi Demetrius!” said Anya, waving from her spot on the couch.
“Hi Anya,” he replied. “Are you two…having fun?”
“We’re watching a movie,” said Anya.
Demetrius’s eyes flicked to the black screen, and then to the remote in Damian’s hand.
“Great,” he said finally. He gave a small nod and another stilted smile. “I’ll, uh, be upstairs if you need me.” He glanced at Damian again as he said this. Then he turned and headed down the hall, leaving the doorway empty.
Damian slowly sat back down. He let the tension drained from his shoulders sinking backward into the couch. He tried to will his heartbeat to slow back down to a normal speed.
It had been more than four years since his dad went to prison. When would Damian stop being afraid he was about to walk through the door?
He realized he was still holding the remote, and quickly turned the movie back on. Anya didn’t say anything about it. She never did.
She did say stuff about the movie. She said that everyone should get silencers on their guns (Damian pointed out that they didn’t need them because they were evil and they wanted people to know that and be scared). She asked why the pink haired girl didn’t recognize the spy when he was undercover at the masquerade ball, even though obviously it was because of his mask. Anya argued that she should have recognized his voice or hair, and Damian crossed his arms and didn’t say anything, because maybe she was possibly right.
Throughout the movie, she migrated positions until she was lying across the cushions with her legs dangling over the armrest. She kept glancing up at him whenever the spy and the pink hair girl were acting all mushy. It made Damian’s stomach feel weird.
Near the end of the movie, after the spy had resigned from his evil company, he took the pink haired woman on a walk and finally told her all about his original mission. She got really mad because she thought he didn’t love her, and then she slapped him and ran away. Then it started raining, and the spy got all wet because he just stood there like an idiot, probably waiting for her to come back.
Anya scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Why did he tell her all of that?” she said. “This movie’s stupid.”
Damian sat up straight. “No it’s not!” he protested. Spy Wars was way dumber than this, so he didn’t see why Anya was getting high and mighty. “He had to tell her the truth, otherwise he’d be a liar.”
Anya’s upper lip curled in disgust. “No he wouldn’t ,” she said. “He already quit his job, so it wasn’t even a lie anymore. He could have just kept it to himself and she wouldn’t have left.”
The movie was still playing—the spy’s old boss had just kidnapped pink hair girl—but neither of them were really paying attention anymore.
“Wouldn’t you wanna know if the guy you fell in love with started out by tricking you?” argued Damian.
“ No, ” Anya said, like it was obvious. “Because it wouldn’t matter, because he wasn’t tricking me anymore!” She sat up too, snatching the remote off the coffee table and pausing the movie. She turned and stared him right in the eye. Her brow was furrowed. She looked like she was trying to defuse a bomb.
“Would… you wanna know?” she asked.
Yes , Damian thought. Of course I would . Except, Anya was looking at him like this was life or death, like she was gonna turn off the TV and walk home if he gave the wrong answer. So instead he said, “Who cares? It’s just a movie, Anya.”
He turned back to the screen, but Anya kept staring at him for what felt like forever. Damian felt the tips of his ears grow warm.
“Are we gonna keep watching, or what?” he asked.
Slowly, Anya turned away, and unpaused the TV. She didn’t talk for the rest of the movie, even when pink hair girl forgave the spy and they kissed on the mouth. Damian thought it was super gross, and he wanted to see if Anya did, too, but she didn’t even react, like she wasn’t even really watching it anymore.
When the credits started to roll, she stood up. “I have to go home,” she said.
Damian stood too. “What? But we haven’t even studied yet.”
“I have to go help Mama cook dinner,” she said, but her voice was flat and she wasn’t looking at him. She was such a liar.
“You can pick what we watch next,” he offered, trailing her out of the living room. “We can watch your spy show!”
But Anya just shook her head and slipped on her shoes. “Thanks for having me,” she said as she opened the door. And then she was gone.
Damian stood in the entryway for a long time.
Like an idiot.