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Damian’s first day of American middle school is everything he was told it was going to be. In an itching polo shirt that Dick had shoved his arms into and a pair of khakis that made crunching sounds when he walked, Gotham Academy looks like any other building out there. Like Wayne Enterprises’ offices or Wayne manor. It occurs to him that he doesn’t really have a point of reference to how schools should look, but it looks natural enough to him that he gets out of the car with only a mildly displeased grunt, nodding towards Alfred.
“Thank you.” He says to Alfred, because the silence he’d given him prior to must’ve been uncomfortable, but it had remained unbroken. Leaving him to his thoughts. “I can manage from here.”
Alfred snorts at him, something he did whenever Damian said something to that degree of childish insufferability. “Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you to the front doors, Master Damian?” Somewhat of a tease, somewhat in earnest. The fact that Damian had never attended formal schooling had occurred to him just a little before he’d sat down in the driver’s seat- the fact that Damian was so learned was a byproduct of Ra’s al Ghul’s harsh training and mentors, not a traditional school setting.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you. Goodbye.” Back to curt and somewhat blunt formality, but not outright rudeness, Damian pulls his backpack onto his shoulder, stare out into the courtyard like it’s a battlefield he’s seizing up. Like he was steeling himself up for a mission. It wasn’t too far off of a comparison.
Alfred starts to watch him disappear into the school, but the traffic-control policeman ushers him forward, blowing a whistle. Damian’s black backpack blending into a sea of other children. He’s certain, if he was allowed to sit there, he could’ve picked him out just as easily as if he were his own blood. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and wonders if he should embellish the story of Damian’s first day at school, if only for Bruce’s sake.
And, well, the thought of Damian not wanting to leave the car was equally amusing, in it’s own right.
-
Despite his attitude, Damian is not quite used to being the center of attention. Or, at the very least, in Gotham. His father had introduced him into high society as his proud son, back from “international schooling” for the majority of his years, and he had acclimated seamlessly. The Gotham elite weren’t so different from the League of Assassins, in the way that their eyes seemed to always look for mistakes, their feigned disinterest while remaining vigilant.
He’s reminded of those parties, standing in the middle of an overcrowded hallway. Everyone attempting to look like something they’re not, all while keeping a hawk’s eye over the others’ flaws. He tells himself not to let it get to him, that the blue and green eyes on him are curious because he’s a new face, joining in the middle of the semester. It doesn’t get to him.
It takes him the whole walk to first period to realize that his jaw has been clenched since he walked in the door.
The woman in the classroom (the teacher, he realizes, only after seeing her name tag) stares at him just as hard as the seated students. She starts to speak, her mouth going too wide, and he braces himself before he notices that he’s doing it. Forces his shoulders to move down from their halfway point to his ears. “Damien al Jewel Wayne, right?” She has a smudge of red lipstick on her front tooth, and he is stuck staring at it. She repeats his name, which he doesn’t recognize as his name, then sticks her hand out. The only familiar word was ‘Wayne’.
Everyone is staring at him.
“You speak English, right?” She speaks slowly, like that would help him understand. Her lips pout out in a pitying gesture, and he quickly nods.
“Yes, I can speak English.” And, somewhat nervous for some reason he can’t quite understand, he repeats how his name should’ve been pronounced. “Dami-an al Ghul Wayne.” He puts his hand in her’s, with a firm handshake, but she stares at him like that was the wrong social cue. He doesn’t know why his father listed ‘al Ghul’ as part of his surname. Familiarity? A reminder of where he came from? An indication of his status? It meant nothing to the middle school students.
“Ah, I wish these things really came with pronunciation guides beside these things!” Her attempt at being friendly is transparent. She’s uncomfortable with the way he called her out. “Well, Damien, my name is Missus Moraglia, and I’ll be your math teacher.” He wants this conversation to be over already. “Did you take math classes, where you’re from?”
“Damian.” He corrects her, but her mispronunciation makes a knot in his stomach. It’s bait, and he sees that it’s a lure to get him to say where he’s from, but he still takes it. He doesn’t know why. Thirty eyes burn holes in the back of his pressed polo shirt. “Yes, we had maths in Pakistan.” He turns, just slightly, to look over his shoulder, to see if everyone really was looking at him, or if it was just some adolescent instinct.
Yes, they really were.
“Oh, I’m glad- I didn’t want to offend and start teaching you something you didn’t already know. Well, you can just have a seat-” She pauses, then points at a blond boy, making a flicking gesture. “Matthew, go to that empty seat in the middle, so Damien can sit up front.” Damian doesn’t correct her, and Matthew moves to the middle, throwing sour looks over his shoulder at Damian the whole time.
Somewhat stunned into silence, Damian takes his seat in the front, his knuckles bright with the bones showing just under the skin, gripping onto his backpack. He has to use his other hand to pry his fingers off of it. He wants to tell Matthew that it wasn’t his fault he was moved, that he doesn’t see the big deal, but he’s distracted by the way Missus Moraglia looks at him.
He’s seen the look before. When his mother presented him to his father, her nails tight on his shoulder, and Bruce was waiting for him to do something that proved he was an al Ghul. Something barbaric and violent. The expectation of disappointment, failing to meet unknown requirements.
Damian doesn’t slump into his seat, no matter how desperately he wants to disappear. His posture is rigid as the teacher goes to talking about ratios and comparisons, and he already knows everything she’s teaching. He doesn’t write in his notebook, though his hand reminds clutched on his pencil, sharpened the night before.
In every period he comes to, he’s moved to the front of the class, and he doesn’t know why.
-
Bruce picks him up, hiding his eyes from the sun with his hand, squinting out into the gathering of kids, all waiting outside for their rides. Damian comes into the car like he was returning from war, his mouth pursed and his eyes nearly unblinking. He throws his backpack into the car hard enough for it to land on the other side of the backseat, before buckling himself in. Distancing himself from the thought of school.
“So, how was your day?” Bruce smiles at him, one side higher than the other, the genuine type that he hid from the paparazzi. He remembers taking Dick to school, hearing a barrage of anecdotes from the backseat, not even having to turn down the radio because his voice was so excited and loud.
“It was fine.” He’s even more clipped than this morning, each word oddly enunciated. “I’ve learned most of the subjects already. Your school system is a joke.”
It was in third period English class that he’d realized how different he sounded. It was difficult to twist his tongue around an American accent, even more difficult around a Gothamite one, but even when he faked it, he attracted stares. He wondered if it was his clothes, though Gotham Academy enforced a dress code and had uniforms. Then he wondered if it was his backpack.
Bruce notices, but doesn’t mention it. It wasn’t unlike Damian to try and perfect some random skill, and he’d affected different accents in front of him before. To be honest, the British one (“Yorkshire.” Damian had told him, specifically, having modelled it from someone he’d seen on TV) had always gotten a laugh out of him. “Alright.” A long pause. He wasn’t exactly giving him anything to go off of. “Did you make any friends?”
“No.” Damian’s staring out the window, feeling the tips of his ears burn. He doesn’t remember ever feeling ashamed for no discernable reason. He’d read the psychology books on his father’s shelf, recognized it as an adolescent thing, but that didn’t make it any more manageable.
“Any enemies?” He’s joking, sure, but Damian’s silence is unnerving. He was a quiet kid (copying his father), but he usually had something to say to him. Even if it was just about the stock market.
The pause is longer, to the point where Bruce very quickly glances over his shoulder at him to see if he’s alright. Damian simply looks contemplative, squinting out over the trees. “Hopefully not.” He says in a vague non-answer. He’s reviewing his day, remembering the amateur Spanish lesson and the way his classmates’ eyes stuck to him as he walked. The constant mispronunciation of his name. He turns away from the window, looks at Bruce through the reflection in the rearview mirror. “Did you list my name with a double surname?”
Bruce’s eyebrows crease. “I listed Talia as your mother, but I didn’t write ‘al Ghul’ down as your name.” Talia wasn’t listed on any formal documents, so he hadn’t thought it would’ve been anything other than a name on a paper. He makes eye contact in the rearview mirror. “Why? Did something happen?”
Damian is quiet again. “Nothing to worry yourself over.”
When they get back to the Manor (Damian still hasn’t associated it with ‘home’ just yet), he quickly excuses himself to his room (which he has claimed as his own space). He sits, cross-legged, and stares at his backpack. There must’ve been something wrong with how he presented himself.
-
He hadn’t realized he’d slighted Matthew in some way until two weeks pass and, in fourth period, he sharpens his pencil, comes back, and his backpack is gone. Damian blinks, once, twice, and then looks around the room, his eyes squinted, his gaze sharp. It was less the backpack itself, but the principle behind it. It was his stuff, and someone had taken it.
The social studies teacher, whose name he doesn’t care to remember because most of his information was fraudulent, reminds everyone that there was an open-book quiz today. Damian does not have his book.
Were the questions not biased from the American and European standpoint, he would’ve done well. He knew America’s history, the genocide of the Native Americans, the ones they called ‘Indians’ for nothing other than the fact that one old man thought he’d made a right in the ocean. According to the textbook, he was the first person to discover the world was round.
According to actual history, Khalif El Ma’mun estimated the circumference of the Earth long before Columbus took his first breath. Before him, Eratosthenes. Before him, Aristotle.
When they’re dismissed to recess and lunch, Damian has finished the quiz and turned it in, knowing the answers are not the ones the teacher wants. He does not have his book to skew his answers to the American perspective. It’s the second week of school and, when he steps outside, he still doesn’t have any friends.
When he thinks on it, he decides he must look intimidating, which is alright with him. If it’s a quiet day, he meditates under the big oak tree by the outskirts of the field. The social studies teacher told him that he could sit out there if he brought a book to read, so he keeps a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica at his side, in case he hears footsteps. He’s not an avid reader (though he does enjoy learning for the sake of it) but it does give him alone time to sit and think. But he doesn’t have his book, so he doesn’t have an excuse to sit under the tree.
The tree.
He knew that someone had taken his bag, yes, but there was some form of resignation when he found it missing. Damian could practically close his eyes and hear Bruce chastising him for giving the slightest hint at his identity. No training in school, Damian. No fighting in school, Damian. Try not to attract too much attention- if someone could identify you as Robin from your height or facial features, it would difficult to persuade them to think otherwise, Damian. He could only assume that meant he couldn’t go around accusing people of being thieves and fighting them in order to get the pointed looks to stop.
But, the tree.
Even without his book, he’d gravitated to the tree (had dared to think of it as his tree) and, looking up, he sees where his bookbag went. Thrown haphazardly towards the center of the tree, fairly high up, his backpack, unzipped and books thrown about, papers along the ground. He feels his fingernails dig into his palms before he notices that his fists are clenched. Damian looks over his shoulder, surveys the open field and play area behind him. No one is looking.
He shimmies up the tree, glad that the branches are low-hanging and the foliage is thick. The zipper of his backpack is broken, and the entire thing is dirty, and the textbook has had a few pages torn out of it from being thrown about. He doesn’t find his encyclopedia but, finding nothing other than a few pages of math notes, climbs down the tree, his collected belongings packed into his torn-up backpack.
His foot is almost touching the ground when someone whoops out an ‘ee ee ee’. Damian freezes, turning around, his hand still holding onto the tree. Matthew scratches at his blond head in an exaggerated motion, the other digging at his under arm. “What’d I tell you? Just like a monkey!” He says to the boys beside him, their khakis pressed and clean.
Damian opens his mouth, feeling an angered flush pulse under his skin, up his neck and over his ears, but the shrill of monkey noises they make every time he begins to speak drown out any syllables. ‘You think this is funny?’ rests on his tongue. ‘You’re the monkeys, thinking these annoyances are anything close to the things I have suffered.’ rises in his throat.
But the shame of being cornered, of being likened to an animal, of being unable to retaliate cuffs his hands, keeps him complacent as one of them asks how many bananas he eats in a day. He understands the connotation and, when he shoves past them, breaking their shoulder-to-shoulder line up, he dodges a hand that grasps out for him, far too quickly.
The social studies teacher tells him he’s glad to see that Damian is making friends. Damian sees the pages of his encyclopedia underneath a mass of gum wrappers and used tissues in the trash beside his desk.
Bruce asks about his backpack and he tells him that one of the straps had broken by itself, and he’d dragged it in protest. He worries for his son, yes, but talking to his teachers gets nothing other than comments about how he’s at the top of the class, though he’s rather intimidating, don’t you think? No friends, no news every day from school. When Alfred picks him up, it’s the same story, though in fewer words.
It takes Damian three more weeks before they find a new word to call him, long enough for it to lose its sharp edge, but not enough to lose its meaning.
The social studies teacher (Mister Milligan, he notes, only because it’s written on the board every day) is talking about current events and, instead of discussing the most recent alien invasion (one week ago, and his father and Grayson had been out for a nail-biting three days while he and the others was forced to stay at home, just in case Gotham was invaded), the words turn to the ‘Middle East’. A kid named Chad (friends with Matthew only because they were the same brand of child- too much sports and anger) jabs him in the soft flesh between his shoulders with the point of his pencil and whispers “terrorist” into Damian’s ear.
Reflexively, his hands curl on the edge of the desk, eyes wide and frozen, staring straight ahead. The first thought that runs through his head is that the position Chad is holding, leaning over the back of his desk, makes him incredibly vulnerable. The second is that, if he turned around immediately, he could crack his hand down onto his head, giving him a dent in his forehead from the metal bar of the back of Damian’s chair.
The third is thoughtless shame, that his thoughts qualify him to be the terrorist he was just accused of being.
The warring thoughts and emotions under his skin, the burn of anger and shame in equal accounts behind his eyes until he thinks his blood vessels might pop. He wants to hurt him, hurt him so badly that his tongue couldn’t even form around these hateful words again, so that he couldn’t call anyone an animal or a war criminal when they were innocent.
Mister Milligan’s hands tap on his desk, his green eyes narrow under a balding head, above a large mustache. “I know it’s hard to talk about your people’s faults, Damien-” Because Damian had given up correcting his teachers three weeks ago. “These are tragedies felt all around the world.” He says something about refugees and terrorism, but Damian stops listening because it sounds less like information and more like he’s trying to force Damian to apologize for things other people have done.
Behind him, Chad grins, and he can feel it. He can feel the eyes on him whenever Saudi Arabia comes up, even though he’s made it clear he’s from Pakistan. He feels them long after the lesson, when the class spills out into the hallway and he’s stuck with a broken backpack and a head full of contradictions.
-
He’s patrolling with Dick on a slow night of purse-snatchers and attempted ATM scams when he thinks to ask a question. He knows Dick is Romani, had confused him for Indian in their first encounter (which had been an awkward conversation later when he’d tried to conversate in Urdu, in an attempt to make the both of them feel more comfortable when Bruce was out of the room), and he’s sure that he’d sympathize. “Grayson.” He looks over the edge of the building, the tips of his green boots far more engaging than looking Dick in the eyes. “Would my actions as a part of the League of Assassins qualify me as...”
The word sticks in his throat, but the sentence catches Dick’s immediate attention, and he shuffles closer to him, one blue-striped thigh knocking against Damian’s. “What you did while you were in the League of Assassins wasn’t your fault, Damian.” They’re far away from any cameras and security that they can say each other’s names freely.
It’s the answer to a question Damian hadn’t asked, hadn’t thought to ask, but now it bothers him. The idea that he had never been in control of his actions while in the League. “I am redeeming myself.” He answers, kicking his feet just slightly. It’s not really a response, more of an exclamation. He is being good, doing good, and that should be enough to separate him from the label of ‘terrorist’.
But Dick’s answer doesn’t satisfy him, and it’s apparent that Dick knows that as well. Damian is young, but not blind. He knows pity when he sees it.
-
There’s a girl in his social studies class that lets him eat beside her because she feels bad for him. She’s mousy and doesn’t contribute a lot to the conversations her and her friends have. She’s also really good about sneaking text messages during class, and she has a rabbit as her background. He told her that he likes rabbits too, the first time he sat next to her, and she seemed surprised. “I didn’t think they had bunnies in Pakistan.” It’s an ignorant statement, not an offensive one, and he tells her they have all sorts of animals in Pakistan.
She’s kind, but she told him she really likes curry on the third day they sat together and, when she saw he had a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, seemed incredibly disappointed. He clicks his tongue and, without having to ask, knows that she probably bought a Henna kit over the summer for the aesthetic appeal.
Her name was either Emily or Emmy, though he couldn’t really tell. Her friends alternated between the two names, and he wasn’t sure which one was correct. After the incident in social studies (to which he was ashamed to learn that the entire left portion of the class had heard Chad’s words), she’d tapped two bitten-down nails on his side of the table and, getting his attention, said, “There’s a strict no-tolerance bullying policy at this school, you know.”
The word doesn’t make sense to him. It’s not one that he knows, but he plays it off. He always had issues with words that had never come out of his mother or Ra’s’ mouth- no mental reference to English words he’d picked up when he was younger. “What are you talking about?” He responds, after popping a chip in his mouth. She blinks at him and blushes, like she didn’t really expect him to respond.
“The way those guys treat you- it’s not right.” With great conviction, nodding her head, she continues. “They’re not your friends.”
Damian chokes on a bites of his sandwich, coughing until the scratchiness of his throat fades into a tolerable zone. He’s laughing. “I know.” He laughs, shaking his head, unbelieving. “I know.” As if he had thought this was the American brand of friendship.
Emily doesn’t speak to him again.
-
The next round of patrol he has, he crosses paths with Jason. Jason had his own route of patrol that he did without running it by Bruce, and Bruce had never been able to figure it out. Tim, the last time Damian and he had been forced to patrol together, had told him it was literally based around all of chili dog stands.
Which, Damian agrees, is not that bad of a way to plan a route. Especially since most of them were parked in Crime Alley.
Jason’s breaking apart a petty theft, telling the kid about some grocery store down the road looking for workers (“Tell ‘em Hood sent you.” with a clap to the kid’s back) and returning a roasted chicken to the corner shop. It’s a coincidence, yes, but it’s not an unwelcome one. When he walks up to Jason’s side, he doesn’t act like anything different, just keeps going to the next chili dog stand and holds up two fingers.
“I don’t eat meat.” Damian says, in case one of those was meant for him. Jason wouldn’t know that, considering his sparse appearances around the Manor (but appearances nonetheless). The red helmet tilts in his direction, and he nods, dropping it down to one ‘dog. This isn’t the Jason he’d heard from Tim and Dick’s narrations, the snarky, sometimes brutish Jason, but he appreciates it, the quiet response and acknowledgement.
The stand owner refuses to take his money, gives him a pat on the shoulder and sends him on his way. Damian sees Jason sneak a twenty into the man’s back pocket, but stays quiet. When he starts walking again, he multitasks unwrapping the chilidog and speaking to Damian. “So, something on your mind, or you just wanted some big brother bonding?”
“If you were my big brother, I would be in serious trouble.” Damian snorts, looks away. “But, yes, I would like to talk to you. You’re more upfront than... Nightwing and Batman are.”
“I’ve never been called an asshole in such an indirect way.” He can’t read Jason’s facial expressions underneath the hood, but it sounds like he’s smiling. Or trying not to laugh. “C’mon, there’s an old warehouse around here that we can talk in.” Which was something that Gotham would never have a shortage of. He’s not sure why the city built so many, or who contracted them, but they’re awfully convenient for holing up whenever a vigilante needed some quiet space.
It all had to be from the same company, Damian thinks, because they look just about the same. He cranes his head, looking around for any wire taps or surveillance. It’s incredibly bare. There’s a threadbare couch in the middle of the floor which definitely looks like a trap and, when he reaches for a batarang in his belt, Jason bats at his arm. “I put it there- sometimes I take a mid-patrol nap.” Which was to say that he spent the majority of his time on that couch bleeding out, if the blood stains were any indication.
Jason sits on the far edge, giving him plenty of room on the other end, but Damian takes one look at the scattered blood stains (unsure if any were still wet) and opted for sitting on the couch’s arm. Jason shrugs and gets comfortable, popping the hood off of his head and setting it by his feet. “So, what’s the 4-1-1?” Damian gives him a blank look. “... What’s up?”
“Oh.” There’s a pause. He’d thought it was the emergency number. “I... have a question.” Suddenly hesitant now that he had his full attention, recognizing that they didn’t know each other that well, Damian’s lips purse like he’s eaten something sour.
“Alright.” Jason nods, slow. Behind the mesh of his domino mask, his eyes squint. “Is it something about me, or do you need advice? Because I’m sure Night-wonder is just waiting on standby for you to come to him for life lessons.”
“He didn’t understand.” Damian says before he thinks too hard on it. He lets out a soft hiss through his teeth when he processes what he’s said.
Jason’s eyebrows raise under the guard of his mask. Damian wishes there was some sort of conversational buffer, a tray of tea or food on a table to fill the quiet spaces.
“I asked him about... my status in the League of Assassins.” When Jason doesn’t cut in, doesn’t rush to assure him nothing was his fault, he feels somewhat relieved. “He told me nothing was my fault, but that wasn’t the question. I want to know if my... place in the League...” He makes an open-handed gesture, struggling to articulate it. The shame is welling up in the pit of his stomach, like saying these words to Jason was making his situation real, the words his classmates called him is something tangible.
“Hey, kid, out with it. I’m the last person in this family that’d judge you for what you’ve done.” Damian hadn’t noticed that he’d moved, but Jason is considerably closer to him, close enough to reach out and pat him on the head. It’s reassuring, if only vaguely, to be reminded that he’s sitting next to someone that decapitated several people in a revenge scheme. To be reminded that they’re of similar cloth, both making attempts at redemption. Jason had been his second intuitive choice on this matter, having heard how Americans spoke about Mexicans, thinking he would understand his viewpoint.
“I want to know if I am a terrorist.” And he feels pinpricks behind his eyes, then the slosh of shame in his chest at admitting his thoughts, and for feeling like he might cry.
Jason reacts immediately, borderline violently. “What the fuck.” In one stream of air. He’d stood up, shoulders pushed back. Damian freezes, worrying over his reaction, unsure of whether it’s a confirmation or a denial. “Holy sh- kid, what the-” He’s very obviously trying to censor himself. He’s startled, obviously, and he turns away to let out a slew of very vulgar Spanish swears over his shoulder. Damian doesn’t remind him that he knows Spanish as well, and that he understands every word.
When he turns back, he has his hands held out straight, surprise evident on his face. “Who put that idea in your head?” Damian can see something under the surface, some protective instinct, a bear who sees her cub being prodded at. “Damian, listen. You’re not a terrorist. All the bull in the news and stuff you’ll hear on the street. Your past doesn’t mean you’re irredeemable and-” Jason shakes his head quickly, staring at Damian again, his jaw setting still. “You’re not a terrorist. Who- who said that shit to you?” He doesn’t hold his tongue, there, and Damian is stunned at the authority and the empathy in his voice.
“My classmates.” He says, in a tone that affected disinterest. He’s trying to play off his moment of weakness, turn his nose in the other direction. “It was just a question, Todd, you don’t-”
“Does Bruce know about this?” He says a quick ‘mierda’ under his breath, like he still can’t believe the situation.
“I didn’t think there was a ‘this’ to it.” Damian says, because it’s true. People were hateful in life. It was a fact. “No reason to alert him to it.”
“Wha-” In one swift motion, Jason rips off his own mask, shows his wide green eyes underneath, blinking so quickly that Damian’s movements must’ve seemed like a row of snapshots. The sincerity of his eyes looking right into Damian’s. “Kid-” Damian somehow can’t take offense to the nickname, despite his constant reminder that he is old enough to be in middle school. Not a child. “Kid, this is something your dad needs to know about. I mean, kids are mean, yeah, but you shouldn’t have to deal with that.”
“I...” He feels foolish for not having thought about it from that perspective. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that it felt deserved, like some sort of penance. He opens and closes his mouth several times, annoyed by how speechless he feels. He was far more comfortable when his silence was a choice. Quieter, “Please don’t tell my father.”
Jason stares at him, stunned again. “Are you... Are you ashamed of other people treating you like this?” He reaches out, like he might pull Damian towards him, but his hands falter back to his sides. “This isn’t on you, Damian- it’s them. You don’t...” His eyes open wider, if fractionally, coming to a realization. “The things you did when you were in the League of Assassins don’t mean that you don’t deserve to be treated like a human being, kid, shit.” Jason lets out a shuddering breath, and Damian wonders if the subject is getting personal. “You’re a superhero, kid. You’re good.”
Damian knows that Jason can’t see his eyes well up, that the only indication of tears is that the tacky substance holding his mask to his face comes loose and he has to hold it in place. He shuffles on his feet, unsure of what to say. “Thank you.” He says, because he isn’t sure if there are any other words to be said.
He lets out a huff of air, looking away from Damian for the first time of the night. “You don’t need to thank me.” But the tips of his brown ears are now a bright red, and Damian can’t help but smile at the fact that they share a tell. Both embarrassed by their show of emotions, they sit in silence until Jason breaks it again. “I know I’m not really around all that much- bad blood and all- but don’t be a stranger. You can come and bother me all you want- sometimes my safehouses get lonely, y’know.” Jason finally picks up his chilidog, rewrapped and placed on the floor the second Damian had gotten serious. “‘You mind me eating this?”
“No.” Though he’s somewhat flattered that he asked. “... I was on my way out, anyways.” They nod at each other, silent again, some sort of Robin communication of parting and appreciation. The cold night air stings Damian’s warm cheeks when he swings out of the building, through the window instead of the front door, just in case someone might see.
-
In second period, Damian is called down to the office. His general sciences teacher raises one of her eyebrows, in the middle of a demonstration, but waves him out anyway. Another paper mache volcano and Damian thinks he might vomit, or do something equally as dramatic. He’s grateful for the break from class, though he can’t think of a reason for him to be called out. He drags his backpack by its one strap down the hall, until he reaches the double security doors.
The secretary ushers him directly into the headmaster’s office, and he’s beginning to worry that he may’ve tipped someone off to his secret identity. Or the bitter look on his face has finally got him into trouble. “Your brother is in there, waiting for you.” He can’t think of a reason for Dick to be at the school.
He did not expect to see Jason, cleanly-shaven and in a suit, sitting in a chair opposite to the headmaster. In his right hand is Dick Grayson’s driver’s license, his thumbnail obscuring the eye color portion of it. The second Damian is standing in front of him, the license disappears into his pocket, and he knows he was intended to see it.
“Hey, Dami, me and your principal here were just having a little chit-chat about the school’s harassment policies.” The headmaster is sweating and Damian can only imagine what Jason had said before he’d showed up. His green eyes glint with mischief, and the smirk on his face says it must’ve been something intimidating.
The headmaster stands up, quickly, “Well, this is about the time I go out to lunch-” And makes a very obvious attempt towards the open door. Casually, Jason leans back in the leather chair, tilting it on two legs, and closes the door just before he has one foot out of it. He swallows, audibly, when Jason lets his chair crash back onto the wood floor.
“Nah, we’re not done yet.” Jason’s eyes haven’t left Damian’s. He’s stunned by the authority Jason commands, the way his status as an adult (and a powerful, threatening one, at that) is so obviously recognized. “So, little brother, I think it’s a sweet turn of justice that that coterie of bastards that’ve been bothering you will be out on a li’l vacation. It’s funny how much the teachers pick up on but don’t act on.” He turns to the headmaster. “Right, teach?”
“Right.” The word is stuttered. He lists off seven names, beginning with Matthew, Chad included, and Damian hadn’t been aware that the crime was something that could be punished exclusively. It had seemed like something without a specific perpetrator, no one to blame. “These students are- are on a week’s suspension due to-” He swallows again. Damian wonders if he saw the glint of metal in Jason’s pocket. “To racial discrimination and harassment. This school has a no-bullying policy- that I am happy to enforce!” The words come out fake, like he’s putting on a show to save his skin.
“That good, Damian?” Jason asks, sitting up in his chair.
Damian doesn’t hide the fact that the thought of them receiving punishment (and setting an example for others) for their ‘bullying’ gives him a sadistic thrill. “Perfect, Grayson.” And he shows off every one of his pearly teeth in a too-wide smile.
“Then we’re gone.” Jason stands up, brushes his suit off, and grins at the headmaster. “I’m signing him out for today- I think the stress of it all is really getting to him.” He puts his hand on the small of Damian’s back, pushing him along. Once he’s done filling out the sign-out sheet, he catches the headmaster dialing the phone. With a grin to match Damian’s, he walks back over, in two quick strides, his voice falsely helpful. “My name’s not Richard Grayson, by the way. He’s currently at a charity event- check the news.” The smile goes blank, like a placeholder for real emotions. “I’m just the guy that got ahold of his driver’s license and made it through the school’s security. Take that with you to sleep tonight.” He clicks his tongue twice and makes a finger gun at him, imitating a gunshot sound.
“I take it back, Todd.” Damian says, his eyebrows raised high on his forehead. Impressed. “You make a decent big brother.”
Jason lets out a long snort. “Don’t hold your breath- I walked here. Which is to say that we’re going to have to walk all the way back to the house if you want to stay there.”
Damian thinks on this. “Is... There any form of a vegan chili hotdog?”
“‘Thought you’d never ask, chamaco.”