Damian stalked into the cave with a smirk on his face, making quite sure he was heard as he strode forward, stopped to peer at the specimen analyst table for no reason in particular, then casually wandered his way over to lean against his father's seat before the computer.
"So," he said, and the feigned indifference was so painfully obvious that he might as well have been pointedly inspecting his nails, "I suppose you're aware that I will be...unavailable, this weekend?"
More than happy to indulge his son, Bruce bowed his head in a nod. "Cassandra notified me, yes."
"Will you be all right on your own?"
Coming from any of his other sons (well, Jason excluded), Bruce might take this as a genuine expression of concern. But it had only been a few months since Bruce returned to Gotham permanently to be the Batman to his son's Robin, and Damian was still eager to prove his worth and his dominance; the question, coming from him, was something more like a power play. From the mouth of an eleven-year-old, however, it did not burn Bruce: on the contrary, it was amusing, if not straight-up adorable. Not that he would ever dare to admit that to his son. "I think I'll manage," he replied coolly. "Nightwing should be here soon, if you'd like to wait to see him. He might like that."
Bruce suspected that Damian still hadn't quite forgiven Dick for hanging up the cowl, and he would like to speed that process along as much as possible because he felt partly responsible; they had agreed not to tell Daiman, but Dick had resisted furiously against Bruce's wish for him to leave Gotham, citing the fragility of his bond with the new Robin. "He's not there yet," Dick had pleaded. "I'm doing my best, but the best thing you can do for him right now is give him some stability, not tear his world apart-"
In the end, Dick had only acquiesced after Bruce tried his very hardest to convey the depth of his guilt where his son's upbringing was concerned. Bruce also may have posed a slight ultimatum regarding tech and security clearance privileges in the Bunker, but Dick probably knew that that had all been for show. Of all the children, Dick was the one who at once most understood and most resented Bruce's difficulty when it came to expressing his feelings.
So Bruce could not help but feel a little culpable about the anger Damian harbored for his former mentor. Even still, it was clear Damian wasn't picking up on those signals, despite his great intellect. Scornfully, he said, "Black Bat has important business to attend to, Batman." Damian still, it seemed, had not quite gotten used to calling Bruce 'Father' - and yet Bruce could sense a slight twinge of discomfort every time he used 'Batman,' clearly associating the name with someone else. Some remote part of Bruce wanted to somehow indicate to his son that it was all right to call him by his first name if it felt more comfortable; and yet Bruce never said this aloud, never materialized the thought into something real. Damian continued, "It would be irresponsible to keep her waiting."
This was a sound argument. Three weeks ago, Cassandra Cain (who technically might be Cassandra Wayne, but Bruce had carefully and deliberately avoided saying her full name around her, unsure which she preferred) showed up in Gotham, joined Robin on his regular patrol route and, to his utter delight, completely destroyed a ring of high-profile arms traffickers which Bruce had specifically assigned to his son in order to test his abilities.
Bruce hadn't been too mad. It was always a pleasure and an honor to have Cass at home, and he was pleased to see that Damian, far from disliking her, had been absolutely starstruck at her presence. Obliquely, as she was wont to be, she had asked Damian to accompany her on a coming trip. Glowing with pride, he had of course accepted her offer, surely imagining some fantastic neo-assassin adventure in which he might, if he was lucky, be free to release the fullest extent of what he had been trained to do. For the past week Damian had been getting steadily more and more excited for the coming outing with his sister ("Sister?" he had asked suspiciously, the first time Bruce had referred to her as such; Damian had been so skeptical that Bruce had ended up pulling her original adoption papers out of the safe in his study, which Damian had studied intensely. Afterwards he had seemed somewhat glum and put-out for a day or so, and it had suddenly and abruptly occurred to Bruce that his son had been nursing a bit of a crush on the girl). After Damian had finally recovered from this news, he'd spent every moment at home and on patrol attempting to wheedle Cass's plans out of his father, but Bruce had said nothing.
The simple truth was that Bruce actually, really, truly had no idea what his adopted daughter was planning. Despite this, he made no attempt to find out. Bruce knew her well enough to trust her.
Although he had double-checked to make sure that Damian's subdermal tracer was still functional. He trusted her, but he didn't trust anybody that much.
Early Saturday morning – Damian had not gone on patrol, wisely and loudly noting that it was perhaps best if he reserved his energy, although he had been awake since four AM – Alfred shuffled down to the Cave to inform Bruce that Miss Cassandra had arrived. By the time he made it out the front door to where Cass leaned against her motorcycle, the early dawn light clear and sweet-smelling, Damian was already out there, cataloging everything he was bringing to her. "I thought it might be wise to bring my winter uniform, since I don't know where we'll be headed, but if you think it unnecessary then…" he trailed off as she shrugged. "You're right," he said, nodding vigorously, kneeling down to tear his uniform out of the duffel bag he was bringing. "Even if we are in subzero conditions, I have been trained to withstand freezing cold and it would shame my teachers if I disrespected myself with something as menial as snow gear. You're right, that's just foolish-"
Hurriedly, he excused himself and ran back into the house, no doubt to unpack and repack his entire duffel bag. Meanwhile Cass smiled at Bruce, and moved forward to greet him with an embrace. She patted him genially on the cheek, then asked, "How is he?"
"Very young," answered Bruce; from inside the house, they could both hear Damian shouting for Alfred. "Very smart. And very reckless." Eyeing her strictly, he asked, "You'll keep him safe?"
She grinned at him slyly, then shrugged. "Can he…keep himself safe?"
No doubt she meant this as a joke, but the question tugged at Bruce's stomach. Quietly, he watched the open door of the Manor and he said, "I hope so."
A few minutes later Damian returned, breathless and with a slight flush coloring his cheeks, nothing more than a small knapsack slung across his back. "All right," he announced. "Black Bat, whenever you're ready."
"Call me Cass," she said, then she slipped onto her motorcycle and glanced at him expectantly.
Quickly, he began, "I'll get my bike from the Cave-" but Bruce reached out and gently took his son's shoulder.
"I'm not having you riding a motorcycle in civilian wear," he said pointedly. "You're eleven years old. What would the tabloids say?"
Damian shook him off and began gruffly, "I don't care about the tabloids-" but then Cass spoke, interrupting him.
"Twelve," she said.
Bruce glanced up at her. She grinned, then held up her hands, flashed ten fingers at him, then another two. Patiently, he said, "I know how many twelve is, Cassandra-" but then he stopped short, an odd, striking freezing sort of feeling constricting his chest as he realized the date. It was September the fourth; Damian's birthday, which Bruce had not even known until came back from the dead and Dick had informed him that they had forged a birth certificate for the kid, was September fifth. This was a birthday present.
There was an awkward pause as it became clear that Bruce had forgotten Damian's birthday. This was promptly broken when Alfred appeared behind Damian and tucked something into his knapsack, then patted it sincerely. "I do hope you enjoy your trip, Master Damian," he said. "You may open your gift as soon as you reach your destination, but not a moment before." Turning sternly towards Cass, he added, "I expect you to ensure his honesty, Miss Cassandra."
She nodded, then patted the motorcycle's seat behind her. Damian seemed reluctant to sit behind her at first, until she asked innocently, "Can you…climb up OK?" at which point he glared at her and defiantly swung his leg over the motorcycle, despite looking comically undersized on it.
"Be safe," said Bruce, although he knew he did not need to say it. Still, he did not quite know what else to say; Damian wouldn't look at him, and Bruce was not great at reading emotions but he suspected the boy was injured by Bruce's uncharacteristic lapse in memory. "And," he finished rather lamely, as Cass turned and tugged a helmet over Damian's head, despite his protests; "have fun."
"We will," said Cass, and then the engine revved, and they were off.
Bruce stood there, Alfred beside him.
"You know, sir," began Alfred, "the calendar is in fact marked in very, very bright colors, in order to avoid this specific predicament-"
Heading straight back towards the Cave, Bruce grunted, "Put it on the computer next time, Alfred," then said no more.
In a sleek black car driven by a burly Secret Service-type, Cass and Damian rolled down the city streets in the cool, dewy morning. Peering up at the palm trees lining the lanes, Damian asked, "What is this place? We flew due west, but flight time wasn't nearly long enough to cross the Pacific."
"Right," said Cass. "Welcome," she said, "to Anaheim."
His brow furrowed in confusion. "Anaheim?" he repeated, tasting the name in his mouth as if it were foreign and strange. "I don't think my father has ever briefed me on-"
"That's OK," Cass told him, taking a sip of strawberry-flavored Ramune soda, which she had come to dearly love in the past year or so. "You'll learn."
You'll learn was a humbling set of words for Damian, and the brevity of Cass's speech was something he highly respected. So he took her at her word and said no more, knowing that he would get his chance to impress her with his considerable skill soon enough.
It only took another ten minutes or so for his hopes to be completely crushed.
"Disneyland?" he asked doubtfully, genuine injury in his voice. "What are we doing here? Please tell me there's been a grisly murder."
"No murder," Cass told him, handing him a prepaid ticket she had printed at the library. "Just fun."
Suspiciously, Damian inspected the printed ticket. Even despite his obvious disappointment, he dutifully followed Cass as they headed to the lines at the entrance. "Isn't there a Disneyland in Florida?" he asked. "Why didn't we go to that one?" Cass was happy to hear this; he had, at least, heard of the place before. Glancing up he explained this by adding, "Dick wanted to take me there, but I said no," which was not surprising.
Cass shrugged, stopping to wait in line. "I've been to Disney World," she said. "Never been to Disneyland."
Rolling his eyes, Damian began, "It's only a hundred and sixty acres. I could have Disneyland built in my backyard-"
Quick as lightning, Cass reached out and rapped him sharply on the forehead. Bewildered, he glanced up at her, clutching his head. Pointedly she said: "Our backyard."
It was violence, but not quite: it was physical admonition, but it was gentle, and the touch seemed somehow as intimate as a kiss but in the language of a blow - a language they both understand. A language in which they were raised, their speech before they possessed the power to speak. And yet Cass used the touch so casually, so easily, in a way that did not mean much more than it indicated (which might have been, although Damian would eat glass rather than admit it, Don't be such a brat).
Cass grinned widely when they scanned her ticket and welcomed her to the Happiest Place on Earth. When Damian handed his ticket over, she pointed at him and said: "It's his birthday."
Damian began, "No, actually it's-" but the cast member was already beaming at him, retrieving a roll of stickers from their fanny pack. They asked him how old he was turning, and he told them twelve but also added, "But my birthday's actually tomorrow," and the cast member chuckled and winked and wished him a happy un-birthday, which was a concept of which Damian had never before heard. Writing '12' on the sticker in big, curly letters, they smacked it onto Damian's chest and wished him a wonderful birthday weekend. Before Damian could protest any further, the cast member moved on to the next guest in line. Grinning, Cass grabbed him by the hand and pulled him over to stand before the Mickey Mouse head made out of flowers on the gentle sloping lawn before them.
"This is humiliating," he began. He tried to take off the sticker but Cass slapped her palm flat against it, refusing to let him remove it. "It really isn't even my birthday today," he protested, but she ignored him and turned him around, then dug for something in the knapsack he still wore. Retrieving the wrapped present that Alfred had tucked away in there, she held it out to Damian, who took it cautiously. Under her delighted gaze, he unwrapped the thing, then stared at it disbelievingly.
"I'm not wearing this," he said, holding up a Mickey Mouse hat, complete with two round little ears.
She nodded, then pulled something out of her own bag. "We match," she said. Hers had a red polka-dotted bow between the ears, which Damian found obnoxiously gendered, but he didn't point that out.
Instead he looked down at his own hat miserably, even as she placed hers carefully onto her head and retrieved something else from her bag; when she extended the pole, Damian thought at first it was a weapon and felt a rush of real, pure joy - and then she grabbed him, held up the stick and threw up a peace sign. Horrified, Damian asked, "Is that a selfie stick-?"
But Cass only giggled and nodded. "Welcome!" she shouted, throwing her hands up triumphantly in the air. "To the happiest place on Earth!"
The general crowd around them started to cheer a little bit, obviously entertained by the open expression of joy. Damian didn't quite budge, eyes flicking through the mess of people suspiciously. As she once more took tight hold of his wrist and dragged him underneath a brick arch to enter the amusement park, he finally relented, smashing the hat onto his head and scowling.
Cass didn't know anything about the place, which was evidence from her wide-eyed wandering, and her delighted laughter whenever she pointed out some new thing she hadn't seen earlier. Once they almost got lost and had to ask a vendor selling Queen Elsa backpacks and Rapunzel colored pencils which way the Star Wars ride was because, as Cass had said with her mouth stuffed full of sugar-powdered waffles, "Star Wards is...great!"
She had said it with such conviction, tears nearly springing to her eyes, that Damian could not object. Although he had never heard of this thing called 'Star Wars.' Maybe it would be like that one time Dick had allowed him to assist in an off-planet mission with the League?
It was not at all like that, but there was a lot of very violent movement and Damian found himself clutching the seat tightly, then feeling peculiarly queasy upon exiting. While he regained his bearings (Cass, bless her, didn't need to be told that his legs felt rather weak), they sat in the food court at Pizza Planet, which was a reference that neither of them understood. Damian managed to snag a map and was poring over it carefully.
Cass returned to the table with chili cheese fries. When she offered it to him, he only barely glanced up, then returned to the map. "I don't eat processed food."
"It's healthy," she said, holding up a French fry. "Potatoes."
"No," he said coolly.
"Eat it," she said, waving it in front of his face. "Eat it!"
"No," he said, this time more emphatically, batting her hand away.
She popped the French fry into her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. Then once more she raised a fry, laden with chili, up before Damian's face.
"Eat it," she said, "nerd."
For a long moment, he stared at her, jaw set, gaze hard. Then in defiance, unwilling to be mocked as only a sister can mock, he finally snatched the French fry from her hand and stuffed it in his mouth. "Are you happy," he asked, although it was not a question.
She laughed clear and loud, like the striking of a bell. "Yes," she told him, reaching out to pat him on the hand. "I'm happy. Are you?"
This was not a loaded question, not coming from her lips, but Damian still felt too self-conscious to answer honestly or no.
As she finished the fries by herself (Damian might have had one or two more - he was totally disgusted, but that cheese sauce was actually really, really good, he wondered if they'd give him the recipe if he asked at the counter), Damian charted out the most industrious path through the various Disney lands, according to the map. "So we're in Tomorrowland," he murmured thoughtfully. "We can visit the, the…Innoventions, if you want, it says they're going to have Thor there. He's just a movie character, right?" This was a real question; Damian was still not entirely confident about the status of those superheroes featured in Marvel movies, unsure if they were fictional or just loose adaptations of real figures, like the Batman comic books. Cass, who also did not know for sure, shrugged. "It looks like this is a racetrack here, it would be a bit of a relief to partake in something familiar, like driving an actual vehicle. There's a train stop right beside there." Almost shyly, he glanced up at her and added, "Locomotive engineering is a bit of a hobby of mine. I might like that."
"OK," she said, dragging her finger across the paper plate to pick up the dregs of chili.
Thoughtfully, he murmured, "New Orleans Square might be interesting, as well. Once I had a teacher from New Orleans, you know."
Cass didn't glance up. "Camus?"
He looked up at her, blinking. "Romain Camus," he said, nodding. "Do you know him?"
Cass nodded. "He trained me."
There was a long pause in which Cass's eyes flickered up to watch his expression, the tiny reverberations of emotion he could not repress. His face was a contradictory mess: he was at once unfairly angry that he was not special, that his own personal suffering was not limited only to him - and yet he also seemed relieved, almost glad. Someone understands, his expression said. She didn't smile at him, because it seemed very useless to smile over something as terrible as they had been through, not together but almost. He should not be glad that someone understood. Cass hoped that one day, there would be no children who understood what she had been through. Companionship and empathy was not worth knowing the brokenness behind Damian's eyes.
She hoped that he knew as well as she did that what they had been through had been terrible. Pride obscured the dark edges of where he had suffered, and although she could see that Talia al Ghul had certainly not been David Cain, in some way she thought this was worse. At least Cain never tried to pretend what he did to her was anything other than what it was.
Damian finally looked back down to the map, a flush once more rising to his cheeks. "We'll table that for now," he said. "And let's skip Frontierland entirely. I have no patience for expressions of American exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny masquerading as children's attractions."
On the racetrack, he sped quickly past Cass but had to slow down when he started coughing, breathing in ugly diesel fumes from the small go-carts. By the time they boarded the train, he was furious. "That was awful," he said, shaking his head. "Do people really believe that's what it's like in a Formula-One race car?"
"No," answered Cass, slinging an arm behind him and peering inquisitively map in his hand. The train entered a dark tunnel, and Damian's interest piqued.
It quickly fell again, and he loudly complained about the anatomical inaccuracies of the plastic dinosaurs before them. In Critter Country, they waited for almost an hour to ride Splash Mountain - the final drop lifted their stomachs into their throats, but both of them wouldn't be who they were if they didn't love that feeling, and Cass was so pleased that she bought a deluxe set of the photo taken during the drop. As she carried that happily, Damian tried to tug her around towards Fantasyland, in a very efficient loop; she resisted, and they ended up passing through New Orleans and heading into Adventureland.
She made him climb into Tarzan's Treehouse, which he secretly loved but didn't say anything. At seemingly random moments she'd stop, grab him close, and pull out her selfie stick: once she did it in front of a blank wall with literally nothing but an exit sign behind them, which absolutely confounded Damian.
They rode the Indiana Jones ride and, Cass acknowledging Damian's pale death stare as they exited, both promptly agreed to never speak of his reaction to the giant animatronic snake ever again.
On the Jungle Cruise, Damian couldn't help himself: "That's racist," he said, in utter shock at the scene before him. "Is this the nineteenth century? How is that not racist?"
The cast member who had been narrating laughed uncomfortably, spotted the sticker on Damian's shirt, wished him a happy birthday, then continued.
Immediately after they disembarked the Jungle Cruise, Cass nodded in silent solidarity as Damian began to explain, point by point, exactly what had been wrong at every station on the Cruise. While he ranted on, he didn't seem to mind allowing her to lead. She ended up taking him to the Dole pineapple stand, where she bought a soft-serve for both of them. They sat down on the curb, and Damian fell silent as he ate his soft-serve.
Knowing Damian was unwilling to be the first to say this, Cass licked her spoon and said: "This is the best thing in the world."
When he spoke, Damian seemed oddly humbled. "I know," he uttered, staring down into his bright yellow dessert.
An entourage passed them, a number of cast members surrounding a pretty lady in blue in the middle. Eyes widening, Damian got to his feet and craned his neck to view her better. "Is that Jasmine," he said, breathlessly, to nobody in particular. Cass raised an eyebrow and looked after the princess. Again, looking around at her this time, Damian asked, "Is that Princess Jasmine?"
Cass shrugged, then she stood up and shouted, "Princess Jasmine!"
The woman looked around and beamed a disarmingly charming smile. She waved at them and Cass waved back, and Damian looked about ready to faint.
"Yes," said Cass, pausing the slurp the melted pineapple syrup from the bottom of her soft-serve, "that's Princess Jasmine."
This, of course, meant that they had to surreptitiously follow the princess to find out where she was going. As it turned out, she was making a surprise appearance in Adventureland, and due to Damian's skill at tailing a target, they were one of the first in line. As they waited, Damian mildly told her all the reasons why Aladdin was actually an awful film, and most of the reasons sounded pretty legit to Cass. Nodding to Jasmine, Cass said slyly, "You like her."
Damian apparently did not understand what she meant. "No, I hate what the story did to her," he sighed. "She deserved much more than to be reduced to a sexualized object under the Western gaze."
When they waved for him to approach Princess Jasmine, he glanced up at Cass nervously. She realized that he didn't know what to do.
Encouragingly, she nudged him forward, holding up her camera. "No photos," he said gravely, and she grinned and shook her head, then pushed him forward.
Awkwardly, he stumbled towards Jasmine. His face flushed darker than Cass had yet seen it today. He glanced back at Cass desperately, but was saved when the Princess spoke first.
"Hello," she said, and her voice was a perfect version of the animated princess's, "what's your name?"
He mumbled, "Damian."
"Nice to meet you, Damian," she said. "You know, for a second there I almost mistook you for my prince, Aladdin, but then I realized - you're much more handsome." She giggled, and Damian burned even deeper red. When she noticed his sticker, she conducted the entire waiting line in a lively rendition of "Happy Birthday," which absolutely mortified Damian. Noticing Cass with her camera, Jasmine reached out and said, "Would you like a picture with me?"
"No," said Damian quickly; Cass said, "Yes he does," and waited expectantly until Damian finally relented and moved forward, standing beside Jasmine as Cass snapped a dozen pictures in quick succession.
As they headed away, Damian tried to take the camera from her but she wouldn't let him. Holding the camera so he couldn't delete any of the photos she'd just taken, she allowed him to look at the pictures. "I like her," Cass told him. "She's cute."
"Not really," said Damian, but Cass didn't believe him.
Before Fantasyland, Cass asked a nice tourist to take their photo before Sleeping Beauty Castle. They took one picture, and then Cass held up a hand, sprinted past the bridge, bought a Mickey Mouse balloon and brought it back to Damian, shoving it in his hand, then posed for another few pictures. She made him go on every ride in Fantasyland: Peter Pan's Flight, Snow White's Scary Adventure, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (which had left him breathless and astonished, "Did we just die and go to Hell?"), Pinocchio's Daring Journey (the donkeys scared him very much – Cass could tell because he got very quiet and became very small sitting beside her in the little buggy), and, finally, she made him ride the King Arthur Carrousel. Damian chose a knighted horse with two scimitars lining the saddle. As they rode, Cass snapped pictures of the horses around them, then of Damian. He leaned against the pole protruding from the horse's back, and peered out into the warm autumn air. He wasn't smiling and he didn't look happy, per se, certainly not as delighted as Cass found herself, but there was no scowl on his face, no careful upkeep of a blankly telling expression. She wasn't sure, but maybe this is what he looked like when he was at peace.
At the Matterhorn, Damian begrudgingly consented to sitting in Cass's lap even though they were almost the same height. Halfway through, Cass grabbed him and, eyes glinting with mischief, asked, "Wanna jump out?" to which he replied with a half-confused half-horrified expression and said, "What? God, no."
In revenge for his lack of spontaneity, she made him go on It's a Small World twice. At the look on his face once they were done, however, she was not entirely convinced that he hadn't enjoyed it.
A parade interrupted their wanderings. Cass bought cotton candy for Damian and a large lollipop for herself. Halfway through they traded, but Damian only managed to gnaw off the outer ring of candy before he started looking a little queasy and had to throw the rest away.
Cass punched Damian in the shoulder and pointed atop a float. "Look," she said. "Jasmine."
He brightened, then crumpled in embarrassment. Still, Cass waved excitedly, and Damian managed to raise his hand just the tiniest bit. Jasmine spotted them, and she beamed down at them and waved.
By the time the parade was over, it was getting dark. They wandered back through Frontierland until they got to the waterfront, where people were already lining up for fireworks. Cass pulled him into the line for Pirates of the Caribbean, a franchise neither of them had ever heard of – so it was with a pre-film child's wonder that they wandered into the dark, pirate-themed attraction. While they waited in line, Cass leaned against the wall and Damian watched her.
"Why'd you decide to do this?" he asked her.
She glanced up at him, then shrugged. "It's your birthday," she said.
"Tomorrow," he said, "commemorates the first time I was removed from my biotube, or otherwise the ending of the genetic enhancements with which my mother had been experimenting. It was considerably more than nine months after my conception. I don't have a birthday."
Cass shrugged. "It's what you told Dick."
"I gave this date to Dick because we had to forge a birth certificate," answered Damian. "That's not my question."
Again, Cass shrugged.
Damian watched her for a moment later, then relented. They shuffled forward in line. "What are we doing tomorrow?" he asked.
She answered, "California Adventure."
"What's-?"
"It's the other park," she said. "And you'll have a birthday party."
Grimly, he began, "Please don't tell me you invited Dick."
"No," she said innocently. "Not Dick."
They waited in line for a while longer. Damian checked his watch, then remarked, "What happens if we miss the fireworks tonight?"
Once more, Cass shrugged. "We'll see some tomorrow."
Damian watched her. He had always held the notion of some vague kinship with the woman, but now this was being tested. He did not understand her, not at all.
They slipped into the boats for the ride, which rocked gently in the low water. Damian began to scoot all the way down, but Cass stopped him. "Wait," she said, and he glanced around at her, then the raft rocked very violently as someone else jumped into it, from the other side.
"Hey, kiddo," said Jason Todd, taking a seat beside Damian on the damp boat.
Damian gaped at him, then at the other figure who followed him in. "Hey, boo," said Stephanie Brown, reaching across Jason to ruffle Damian's hair affectionately. The cast member released the boat, and it began to drift forward. The automated sounds of crickets echoed around them. "Sorry I haven't been around Gotham much," Stephanie said, as they floated through the bayou. "Been getting into the big leagues lately."
"She doesn't mean that literally," Jason assured Damian. "The Big Man would have an aneurysm if the League let her in."
Steph smacked Jason on the arm. Gesturing to the room at large – in the low light, beyond the limits of the water, diners sat at wrought-iron tables, never looking their way, as if the boats were invisible – Stephanie said, "Civvies, remember?" Leaning across Jason again, Stephanie continued, "Anyway, Damian, we heard you were coming out here for your birthday and we thought we'd stop by."
"And get shitfaced on Bruce's dime," Jason added, and Steph shot a glare at him.
"OK, maybe, but," she pointed at Damian, "that's gonna be after your bedtime kid, sorry, I don't make the rules."
Damian leaned across Jay and hissed, "I don't have a bedtime-" but was interrupting by Jason leaning forward and lowering his voice, croaking along in tune to the skull above the entrance, "Dead men tell no tales!"
He laughed and added, "'Cept for the obvious, of course."
When they got to the scene in the town, Jason stood up and placed one leg on the bench and sang heartily, "Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me-!" until Steph managed to claw him back down, almost toppling them both out of the raft while doing so. Damian knew if his father were here, or Tim or even Dick, they might get mad at Jason for misbehaving, might get nervous that they were attracting attention. Jason, Stephanie, and Cass all just laughed.
Once they debarked they headed, easy and happy and laughing, through the gift shop ("You want a plastic sword?" Jason asked Damian very seriously, when Damian paused before a collection of fake weapons. "I will buy you, like, twenty plastic swords,") and then into Café Orleans for dinner. At Stephanie's insistence, Damian got the clam chowder bread bowl, which was pretty good. When Cass tried to pay for their food, Jason slid in front of them. "Hey, hey, hey," he said, producing a wallet comically bursting full of bills. "What the point of being an internationally-feared drug lord if I can't buy dinner for my favorite bro and sis once in a while? Steph can pay for herself." He'd laughed, assured them all he was joking, and gallantly paid for the entire meal. It wasn't as if Cass was facing a shortage of funds, especially when Damian knew that, as a legal child of Bruce Wayne, her trust fund had to be one to rival his own, but for some reason Jason's gesture was very flattering.
They ate together on the patio in the nighttime air. Less than halfway through their meal, the Fantasia light show began. Jason and Steph kept talking and joking, ribbing at each other in a way that made Damian feel at once very comfortable and very, very envious.
Eyes locked on the incredible display of color projected onto fountains of water, Cass reached out and put an arm around Damian's shoulders. Then, gently, she pulled him in towards her. For a moment he was stiff and awkward, but then from somewhere deep inside of him instinct kicked in, and he leaned against her shoulder, watching the light show before them. He yawned.
The fireworks show played out behind them as they headed out of the park.
They stayed in the Grand Californian Hotel, and the next day Damian rode his first rollercoaster and tried not to be furious when Jason tried climbing out of the rocking Ferris wheel cabin, and at dinnertime Mickey, Minnie, and a whole host of princesses (Jasmine included – Jason roared with laughter and Cass snapped more photos as Damian buried his face in his hands, humiliated) brought out a cake with twelve candles on it, and they all sang for him. "What'd'ya wish for?" Steph asked, grinning at him. He hesitated a moment, but then she held out her hands and said, "Just kidding! Don't tell me, or it won't come true."
Then she kissed him on the cheek, which she liked to think might have been his wish. In reality, Damian hadn't made a wish when he blew out his candles. This was partly because wishing-when-you-blow-out-birthday-candles was one of those small cultural tics that did not yet come naturally to him, and partly because, in that moment, there was not a single thing he could think of that could possibly be better than what he already had.