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There's a cat in the penthouse.
It had started long after midnight. Dick had just returned from a harrowing patrol, too tired to care he wasn’t supposed to climb through the window in full costume.
Someone was already in the kitchen.
Damian froze when he saw Dick, a sealed jug of milk clutched in his hands. It was a school night, which meant Robin hadn’t joined Batman on patrol.
They stared at each other. Dick in the cowl, Damian in his pyjamas. The open fridge was their only source of light, long shadows cutting through the room.
This was the first time he'd caught the boy wandering after bedtime.
Damian closed the fridge and cast both of them in darkness.
Silence.
“Don’t you, uh— don’t you need a mug?” Dick asked.
Damian's silhouette tensed.
Dick cringed. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Curse the League for making a ten-year-old expect punishment for something like that. He took off his cowl, hoping the moonlight would catch his smile, and tried to make his voice sound gentle. “Don’t tell Alfred, but I drink from the jug sometimes, too. Milk just tastes better with a dash of rebellion.”
Damian’s form shifted in the darkness. “I expected nothing less from a disgrace like you,” he spat. Then he turned and left, taking the entire gallon of milk with him.
Dick pushed a hand through his hair as he watched the boy retreat. Sometimes, talking to Damian was like trying to solve a puzzle with pieces that wouldn’t stop changing shape.
The strangeness of the interaction had stuck with him. Why had Damian been awake? Had he had trouble sleeping, or had he had a nightmare?
With Alfred running the comms from the Bunker and Dick patrolling, the boy spent a lot of nights alone in the penthouse. Who knew how many of them he spent awake like this?
He could’ve just been thirsty, but what if there was more to it?
What if he'd needed him?
The thought consumed him as he peeled off his suit. Ate him as he stepped into the shower. Burned until he turned up the heat, skin scorching as he tried to wash away the guilt.
Afterwards, he grabbed a mug from the kitchen and marched straight back to Damian’s room. He raised his fist to knock, then faltered.
He wanted to do right by the kid, but what was right in this situation? There wasn’t exactly a guidebook on how to simultaneously be Batman and raise a ten-year-old assassin, especially when he’d been thrust into both roles against his will. He loved kids, but at twenty-two, he felt way too immature to raise one.
But Damian had been hurt by too many adults for him to stop trying.
After five minutes of failing to knock, he sighed and brought the mug back to the kitchen, the cartoon cat on its side judging him heavily as he closed the cabinet.
He found the empty milk jug in the garbage the following morning.
The second incident happened soon after. They were working on a case, files scattered over the dining table. It wasn’t protocol, but Dick had quickly shut down Damian’s ‘Father never would’ve’. No way was he spending his afternoon hidden in the Bunker just to read some files.
That he’d taken over Bruce’s cowl didn’t mean he had to develop his paranoia.
“You missed something,” Damian said. He shoved a piece of paper under Dick’s nose. “This date does not correlate—”
Thunder came from the boy’s room. Wood splintering and glass breaking, something heavy falling over.
They both jumped up at the same time, but Damian beat Dick to the door by a hair and slammed it shut in his face.
Dick's hand went to the handle, but then that little shit turned the key and locked himself in.
“Why did you—” The door didn’t budge when he tugged it. “What happened? Answer me!” He rattled the handle a couple more times, then took a deep breath to compose himself. This wasn’t the way forward.
Clearly, something was wrong.
And clearly, Damian thought he’d get punished much harsher for whatever it was than he would be for hiding it.
“Dami?” he asked much quieter.
Nothing.
“I’m sorry for yelling,” he said. “Please, just tell me what’s going on. I promise I won’t get mad. You know everything’s fine as long as you use your words.”
The door groaned like someone pushed against the wood.
“I failed to return the last book I read properly,” Damian said with a tense voice. “As a result, the bookcase fell over. I will fix it.”
Lie.
One so blatant he must know Dick would see right through it.
No way would a single book make his bookcase fall over. That would be a stretch even if it had been broken beforehand, which it most definitely wasn’t—Damian had ‘stress tested’ most of their furniture when they first moved in, which had basically come down to him hacking away with his katana and then complaining about ‘America’s subpar standards’ when it left marks.
Alfred still hadn’t forgiven him for that one.
But what else could have happened? What could possibly be bad enough to make Damian feel like he had to cover it up with such a shoddy lie? Dick didn’t go into his room often, since he didn’t want to disturb the boy’s privacy without reason or permission, but whenever he did the room was always tidier than Alfred would’ve left it.
“It’s okay,” Dick said. “Things like this just happen sometimes. I don’t mind helping you clean.”
“No,” came from the other side.
“It’s really no big deal—”
“I will fix this myself.”
Dick opened his mouth, then closed it.
Sure, he could force Damian to open the door, but what would that accomplish? All it would do was break the tiny shard of trust he’d nurtured between them. Dick had promised him the room was his, and that he’d always have a say in who was allowed inside. That’s why he’d given him the key.
Just one last question for his peace of mind.
“And you’re not hurt?”
A tiny huff came from the other side. “No.”
Dick let out a breath. Good. That was good.
Or it was something, at least.
He wouldn’t have believed any other kid without laying eyes on them, but Damian didn’t lie about things like that. Not when Batman had made it very clear that hiding even a single injury meant permanent retirement for Robin.
Dick sighed. Bruce would’ve just barged in on him if he’d tried something like this, but—
He wasn’t Bruce.
So all he said was: “I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Thank you,” Damian whispered from the other side.
And it was so stupid. So dumb. So irrational, but watching that door stay closed for the entire afternoon hurt worse than any insult the boy could’ve thrown at him.
He had felt extremely stupid when he finally figured it out. They’d been patrolling Crime Alley when something had flickered at the edge of his vision. He'd turned his head mid-swing to see a pair of yellow eyes staring back at him.
He'd almost let go of his grappling gun, then messed up his landing by tripping over his own boots.
The cat blinked at him, then slunk away in the moonlight.
“Everything alright, Sir?” Alfred asked through the comms.
The milk. The noise. The secrecy.
“It’s a cat,” Dick said. It made so much sense—even if he wouldn’t get mad, Damian would still risk having to get rid of it if he told. The kid loved animals—it was about the only thing he wasn’t shy to admit.
And the weight that fell off his shoulders. The relief he felt.
Damian was just hiding a stowaway.
Robin landed next to him on the rooftop. “Of course it was a cat,” he said with the same tone he’d use on a toddler. “Did you fail preschool?”
Oh, Dami.
Bless his heart, but Alfred was going to eat that cat alive.
“Do you young sirs perhaps know where yesterday’s leftovers went?” Alfred asked. He’d been peering inside the fridge for almost a full minute before looking up at the two of them. They both had their laptops open on the table, Damian doing his homework while Dick filed cases for the BPD.
Damian couldn’t help but glance at his door before forcing his eyes back to his laptop.
Lucky cat. They’d had salmon last night.
Alfred closed the fridge. “Well? I was hoping to whip up a quick lunch without doing groceries.”
Damian stopped typing. He clenched his hands above the keys, set his jaw, then straightened his back like he was on trial. “I—”
“I’m sorry,” Dick interrupted. “I got peckish after patrol last night.”
Alfred pursed his lips, then stepped away from the fridge. “I suppose lunch will have to wait until after groceries, after all.”
Dick rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, Alfie. I thought it was fine since it wasn’t labelled.”
“That’s quite alright, Sir.”
And as Alfred left the room, Damian had turned to stare at Dick like he'd grown a second head.
Dick smiled back at him. Last night, he’d decided he wasn’t going to to be a snitch.
A little harmless rebellion might just be what the kid needed. The League might’ve tried to beat it out of him, but there was a child below the soldier, and what child hadn’t tried to hide a pet? This was a step in the right direction—a step away from mindless discipline, and towards being an actual ten-year-old.
And for that, Dick would gladly invoke a healthy dose of Alfred’s ire.
Because as lenient as the butler was, there weren’t many things he despised as much as cleaning up after pets. He’d fed Bruce nothing but scraps for a whole year after he’d brought Ace home. The German Shepard had been an impulse buy, Bruce’s next attempt at ‘fixing’ Dick’s loneliness without having to spend time with him.
He’d only spoken broken English at that point, the other kids at Gotham Academy giving him a wide berth while whispering things like ‘boy toy’ and ‘gypsy’.
Ace had helped.
Ace had helped a lot.
Neither of them broke the silence when Alfred left for groceries. Damian didn’t ask why he’d lied about the leftovers. Dick didn’t ask about the cat.
The clock ticked. Their fingers tapped the keys. Outside, muffled car-horns and pigeon roos. He knew Damian wasn’t going to just tell him after the hoops he’d jumped through to hide this cat, but—
“You know I’d help you with anything, right?” he asked.
Damian didn’t look up from his screen. “If you’re going to be distracting, I will relocate to my room.”
“You do, right?”
“I am perfectly capable of solving my own issues.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to. I’ll always be here to help you—ask, and I’ll move a mountain.”
That finally made Damian look up. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I know,” he said.
No sneer. No insult. No threat.
Just ‘I know.’
Damian frowned. “Wipe that moronic smile off your face. Of course I would know how much of a pushover you are when you won’t stop reminding me.” He stood, chair scraping across the floor. “Now excuse me, but I cannot work in this environment.”
God, how he wanted to give the kid a hug, to hold this prickly kitten that couldn’t stop baring his claws. Three months it had taken to get here, two of which he’d had to sleep with one eye open in fear of a blade against his throat. They’d come so far.
“Love you,” he said without thinking.
And as he watched Damian freeze at the confession, Dick realised he meant it.
He did love this kid.
It was a scary thought at twenty-two.
Turned out Damian couldn’t have chosen a worse week to hide a stray.
“Tomorrow we start spring cleaning,” Alfred said as he served them lunch the next day. “Every bookcase, cabinet and closet will be cleared out, cleaned and sorted. Private ones included.”
Oh boy.
“It’s unnecessary,” Damian said. “I tidy my room every morning.”
Alfred raised his eyebrow. “And you suppose I should take your word for it?”
Damian scoffed. “Unlike Grayson, I clean up after myself.”
Dick couldn’t even fault him for the jab—he’d lost his right to privacy a long time ago. Alfred had needed only one peek inside his room to decide he’d rather ruffle some feathers than attract roaches. Dick could probably make him stop if he’d ask, but…
Then he'd have to deal with the roaches.
“And you are free to prove it tomorrow, young sir,” Alfred said. He flashed a ghost of a smile. “I dare say I’m looking forward to seeing the inside of that room again.”
Checkmate. There was no arguing with Alfred once he got like this.
Damian must’ve come to the same conclusion, because he stopped talking back and frowned at his plate. It was a Saturday, which meant Robin got to join Batman on patrol.
Damian loved being Robin. Saturdays were his best days, his frown a ditch instead of a canyon, his insults slaps instead of gunshots. And if Dick was lucky, he could even catch the boy hiding a smile when he suggested they end the night with a game of rooftop tag.
But today?
Alfred's announcement had hit his mood like a sledgehammer.
The boy cut into his sandwich the same way he always did, hands steady and elbows hovering above the table, but his eyes were so, so far away. Dick could almost hear him thinking: What was he going to do about the cat? Alfred was going to run errands after lunch, but Dick was going to be around all day, they would be patrolling all night, and then it would already be tomorrow.
Maybe Dick could fake an emergency? Just something that would give Damian some time alone in the penthouse to figure this out?
But would leaving the boy alone to panic really be the right thing to do? Knowing Damian, he would think an offense like this deserved harsh punishment. Maybe he would even afraid Dick or Alfred would hurt the cat, or would throw it out even if it was injured and would die if they did so.
The League wouldn’t have had any mercy for animals—not when their morals were so skewed they thought it was okay to let a ten-year-old do their dirty work.
So to Damian, this secret might as well be life or death.
God. He should’ve told the boy he knew the moment he found out, shouldn't he? Maybe then Damian wouldn’t look so torn between panic and grief as he cut into his sandwich. Who knew what terrible things he'd told himself these last few days?
Dick had supposed to have been the adult.
He put down his coffee. “How about this afternoon we do some brainwork instead of working out? We could bring the files upstairs again—the weather’s too nice to run drills in the bunker.”
Damian gave him a confused expression. Dick had never been shy about his hatred for paperwork—normally he’d never suggest swapping sparring for more of it, even if it got him out of the gloomy bunker. But today, ‘brainwork’ had nothing to do with paperwork. No, they were going to figure out exactly what to do about their little stowaway while Alfred was running his errands.
“Fine,” Damian said.
Dick had figured out a battle plan while he'd cleaned up after lunch:
Step one. Wait for Alfred to leave.
Step two. Make sure Damian knew he wasn’t mad.
Step three. Tell him he knew about the cat.
Step four. Make extra, extra sure Damian knew he wasn’t mad.
Step five. Figure out what to do before Alfred came back.
Step six. Maybe pet the cat.
It was a solid plan. Simple, but that’s how you kept things from going out of control. Bruce had always been so anal about the details, which meant his plan A's had always needed a plan B, C and D.
Dick much preferred to improvise.
Alfred buttoned his coat and stepped towards the front door. “Have a pleasant afternoon, young sirs.”
“Bye, Alfie,” Dick said from the couch.
Damian nodded from over at the dining table. “Pennyworth.”
The butler gave the apartment one last look, then disappeared.
Dick stood up from the couch. Showtime.
“I have something—”
“I need—”
Both of them shut their mouths.
Silence.
“You, uh— you can go first,” Dick said.
The boy sighed. He looked down, fingers tracing the grains of the wooden table. “I might’ve had an error in judgement.”
Dick blinked. “You have?” Wait, was Damian going to tell him? Just like that? He hadn’t even entertained that possibility.
Damian swallowed. “Yes.” Then, after another silence, “There’s someone in my room. Someone Pennyworth will not be happy to see tomorrow.” He looked up, eyes way too fearful for the fierce boy he was. “You have to promise not to hurt her.”
Oh, Dami. Dick wished he hadn’t been right about the boy's fears.
He sat down in the chair next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Of course I won't.”
And with no one there to watch, Damian dared to lean into his touch. “She needed help.”
“You could’ve brought her to a shelter.”
Damian grimaced. “They wouldn’t take her. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It’s okay. I wish you hadn’t tried to hide it, but—” Dick sighed. “I don’t blame you. The League wasn’t very nice to animals, huh?”
Damian didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
He gave the kid’s shoulder one final squeeze, then let go. Even if his arms ached for a hug, Damian wouldn’t appreciate it. Not when a simple touch was still such a big deal to him.
“I figured it out a while ago,” Dick said.
“The leftovers?”
Dick smiled. “Last night’s patrol, actually.”
“The cat.”
Dick nodded. “The cat.”
Damian looked down at the table. “And I suppose Pennyworth has been informed?”
Dick grinned. “You calling me a snitch?”
Damian’s head whipped up. “You mean you haven’t—”
“I haven’t. Wanna know why?” He made a show of looking around the room, then leaned in close and whispered, “Because Alfred isn’t always right.”
Damian’s expression turned to thunder in an instant. He pushed Dick away, almost making him fall from his chair.
Dick laughed as he caught himself. “I know! It’s blasphemy! I might as well speak ill of the pope, but someone has to say it!”
“This is serious, Grayson!”
“We’re Batman and Robin,” Dick said. “I’m sure we can figure it out.”
And even if Damian sputtered and cursed at him, his posture betrayed his true feeling:
Relief.
Damian’s room wasn’t as tidy as the last time he’d been in here. It wasn’t very surprising considering that crash yesterday, but the mess still felt out of character.
The boy had put his bookcase back in place but hadn’t yet bothered reorganising the cubicles, books stacked on their side to be sorted, loose papers kept in place by pens and pencils. A little ceramic statue lay on his desk, breaklines crisscrossing where it’d been glued back together.
That one must’ve hurt—it was one of the few trinkets Damian had taken with him from the League.
Damian strode towards his closet. “I thought her condition would be enough to keep her from roaming the room. Clearly I underestimated her.”
“Cats are stubborn creatures,” Dick said as he followed.
Damian pulled open the closet, then frowned. “Cats?”
Dick looked over his shoulder.
And.
That…
Was not a cat.
Damian had turned one of the drawers into a makeshift bed, dumping out his clothes and fitting it with towels.
And what was inside the drawer, you ask?
Why, a quaint little family of seven raccoons.
Mom raccoon lay on her side, hind leg held in place by an ankle splint Damian must’ve taken from their kit down in the bunker. Her babies were packed against her like Tetris blocks, hairy jellybeans with their eyes still closed.
The Mom hissed, whiskers twitching and mouth full of tiny razors.
“Don’t loom over her,” Damian said. He stroked her back, and like a miracle, she calmed right down. “She’ll perceive it as a threat.”
Dick let himself fall into a squat.
“I think someone threw a brick at her,” Damian continued. His hand moved to the splint on her leg, tracing the bolts for any signs of coming loose. “She was trying to climb up to her nest but couldn’t. Her young were going to starve if I didn’t help.”
“A raccoon,” Dick murmured. “Seven raccoons.” No wonder the shelter had turned the boy away—they were going to have to drive to the wildlife center.
“Eight,” Damian said. He carefully pushed Mom’s fur aside to reveal another pup. The raccoon didn’t give a peep as Damian touched her, not a single sign of distress or discomfort under his gentle hand.
And.
The Damian Dick knew was sharp. His words cut diamonds and his hands cracked concrete. He always had this intense presence and never let his guard down.
“I think they’re about two weeks old,” Damian said as he stroked the pups with a single finger.
God. The boy looked so young when he forgot his frown. How lucky Dick was to finally be allowed to see this side of him.
“Can I pet them?”
Damian hesitated. “If you’re careful. And you have to stop if she tells you to.”
Dick held out his hand, letting the Mom sniff it like he would a dog. When she didn’t hiss, he raked his fingers through her fur. It was coarser than he’d imagined, thick hairs pricking his fingertips. “You shouldn’t have kept them with your clothes like this,” he said as he scratched her chin. “They could have flees or rabies.”
“I had no other choice but to confine them after she tipped the bookcase.”
“There’s a wildlife center about an hour away. We could probably—”
Both of them froze when they heared noise coming from the main room.
A door opening and closing. Footsteps.
“Young sirs?”
Oh, come on—he’d barely been gone ten minutes! That shouldn’t even be enough time to make it out the building!
Damian closed his closet, hiding his fuzzy stowaways. “Hide,” he hissed to Dick.
“Hide? Hide where?”
“Just—” Damian opened his window.
Oh, that was so not happening. He might not be afraid of heights, but that was a drop straight down to the sidewalk.
Damian pushed him towards the open window. “Move, Grayson! He’ll get suspicious if—.”
“Master Dick?” Alfred called from the other side of the door. “Master Damian? I seem to have misplaced the keys to the Bentley.”
Damian’s face morphed into horror.
Dick followed his gaze and— “Why do you have the keys to the car?!” he whisper-shouted. “You’re ten!”
Damian yanked the keys from his bedside table and pushed them into Dick’s hands. “I know how to drive,” He bit back. “Just tell Pennyworth you had them.”
“Why would I—”
A knock on the door. “Master Damian?” Then, without waiting for a reply, Alfred turned the handle. Curse his butler senses.
“Just act natural,” Damian ordered below his breath.
The door opened. Alfred blinked when he saw them, staring for just a second longer than was proper. “I apologise if I’m interrupting, but I seem to have—”
Dick held out the keys. “Here. I forgot I still had them.”
“Curious,” Alfred said as he took them. “As I can’t recall the last time you didn’t take your motorbike to work.”
“Ah, that’s—” Dick swallowed. “I changed out the oil for the Batmobile last night and I figured I might as well do the Bentley in one go.”
“I see,” Alfred said. “That’s very kind of you, sir.”
“It was no trouble, Alfie.”
Alfred hummed. “Well, I suppose I should get on before it gets too late. I’ll leave you young sirs to your…” He studied the room. “If I may ask, what were you lads doing?”
Dick gave Damian a look. The boy was going to have to speak if this was going to be convincing.
Alfred raised his eyebrow. “Well?”
“I was…” Damian looked around the room in a panic until his gaze settled on some loose pieces of paper. “I was showing Grayson his drawing.”
Alfred blinked. “Were you? Just this morning, you told me it needed another week.”
Damian grimaced. “The photographs I am using for reference are too grainy—I need his input on the details before I can finish.”
Dick stared at the boy standing next to him. “You drew me a picture?” He knew Damian had asked for art supplies the last time they’d been at the mall, but he’d never seen him put even a single line on paper.
Damian gave him an exasperated look. “I told you this mere minutes ago, Grayson. Did you have cotton in your ears?”
Right. Alfred. Raccoons.
“Sorry, I was just—” Dick rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think I slept very well.”
Sure Damian had stolen the keys to the Bentley and had been hiding raccoons in his room, but—
He’d drawn him a picture. It was so normal for a ten-year-old, and yet he’d never expected the boy to do something like this. Oh, he might actually cry if he thought about it too hard. Would Damian mind if he put it on the fridge? He definitely would, but would he care?
He couldn’t wait to see it.
Alfred gave the boy a fond smile. “I’m proud of you, Master Damian. It must’ve taken great courage to share something you worked so hard on.”
Damian stared at the ground with beet red ears. “Thank you, Pennyworth,” he whispered.
“You’re very welcome, young sir. And if I may make one last comment?” Alfred gestured towards the closet. “I suggest you lads get those raccoons out of the house before I return. I’m very glad neither of you lack the compassion to help a critter in need, but I would very much prefer you do so from a distance.”
He nodded a curt goodbye, then shut the door without waiting for a reply.
Silence.
Damian opened his mouth, then closed it.
They should’ve known.
It was Alfred, after all.
“Can I see that drawing?” Dick asked.
“Shut up, Grayson.”
They'd ended up going to the vet first. He'd confirmed the Mom’s femur had been broken, going as far as to make x-rays to check for pieces that might’ve splintered. Luckily, the break had been clean. The man had moved to replace the splint, but when he'd looked closer he'd blinked, had given Damian an odd look, and had declared it perfect.
The babies had all been perfectly healthy, so on their way they'd gone to the next stop—the wildlife center. It was right on the outskirts of town, an old farmhouse built against the treeline. The entire yard was filled with enclosures, some the size of a chicken coop, others ten times bigger.
Dick had called ahead, so a volunteer holding a crate stepped outside as soon as they pulled into the parking lot.
Damian had held onto the laundry basket they’d put the critters in the whole drive, quietly stroking the pups under their mother's watchful eye. Dick had turned on the radio and left the boy to his goodbyes—they were just raccoons, but nothing ever was ‘just something’ once you got attached.
If only they’d been cats. Then he might’ve been able to convince Alfred to keep them. Or he could’ve called around—between the Titans and the Justice League, there must’ve been more than enough people to find all of them a home. He hadn’t yet exposed Robin to much of the wider superhero community, so this would’ve been a wonderful opportunity to get him up to the watchtower without bloodshed.
But these weren’t cats. They were raccoons, wild animals that didn’t belong in a home no matter how cuddly they were.
The volunteer smiled and made eye contact through the windshield.
“I can tell her to wait,” Dick said as he cut the engine.
“No.” Damian gave the pups one last stroke, then unbuckled his seat belt. “They need to get somewhere warm.”
Oh, curse his bleeding heart. He was going to have to convince Alfred they needed a real pet, wasn’t he?
He put a hand on Damian’s shoulder and squeezed. “I know it hurts, but you’re doing the right thing, Dami. And I’m honored you trusted me enough to tell me.”
The boy opened the car door and stepped outside, basket clutched in his arms. Once he was outside he stopped and took a deep breath. “Of course,” he said without looking back.
Of course.
A few days later, Dick found a drawing on his nightstand. He’d thought it was a photograph until he’d looked closer, tiny pencil scratches marring the paper.
It was a bust of Ace. His muzzle and eyebrows were the fluffy grey they’d been in his last year, his fur a little duller, his eyes a little wiser. Just how Dick remembered him.
Ah, he missed that dog. Damian had caught his likeness with scary accuracy, especially for a ten-year-old. He should’ve known the boy didn’t do things halfway—hobbies included.
When he flipped the page over, there was a message on the back.
Grayson,
I needed to practise drawing fur, so I took some photos from the basement computer to use as a reference.
I hope the picture is adequate.
Damian Wayne.
Dick couldn’t stop from smiling. The words would’ve sounded short coming from anyone else, but from Damian?
This was as close to an ‘I love you, too.’ he was ever going to get.
Neither of them had wanted this in the beginning. Dick hadn’t wanted to move back to Gotham. Hadn’t wanted Bruce’s legacy. And Damian had come for his Father only to find a bastard in his place.
And yet.
Dick traced a finger over the drawing. Sure, he and Damian both had their rough edges, but they were trying, no matter how clumsy their attempts. His past self would call him crazy for saying so, but—
He couldn’t think of any place he’d rather be.