Chapter One
Damian couldn't help but twist his lips into a grimace.
The woman before him sat upright, her wide doleful eyes blinking hopefully. For some reason, she had elected to wear blood-red pumps and a shirt far too low-cut to be acceptable for an interview; as he pretended to skim through her resume, he didn't have to guess as to why. When Bruce had made the job opening public, everyone and their sister was clamouring to provide bedside manner in Wayne Manor.
Especially if it meant their charge's son was an available bachelor that stood to inherit millions.
This woman—Kelsey something or other, he read—was no exception. She tucked a chestnut curl behind her ear slowly, keeping her baby blues trained on him. In truth, her full lips and large eyes were attractive enough, same went for the curve of her hips and long legs.
But it was clear from the rubbish labelled a resume before him that she was anything but a good match to be a nurse for his father.
"Sorry," he said flatly, tossing the paper down beside him. Though he had the intent for it to land on the side table that held his coffee, he wasn't going to fret that it had made its way to the floor instead. "I'm not much of a reader. Why don't you just tell me your background in nurse. Hospice care—or whatever."
Blinking her long lashes once again—this time, he did little to hide the cringe it elicited; why did women think he liked that?—she cleared her throat. "Well," she began, her voice velvet, "I have two younger sisters that I've looked after since I was sixteen."
"And… that makes you think you're qualified to look after a senior?"
Though he had kept the venom from his tone, the question still kept her off-guard. A satisfactory smile crept up onto his lips, and he crossed his arms in wait of an answer.
Flustered, her words tumbled out of her mouth like a mess. "I—well, it's not exactly—but seniors, see they can talk, and kids can't!" she stumbled. "If anything, I'm—I'm way more qualified than—"
"Thanks, Kimmy," Damian cooed, not bothering to hide his smirk. "But I think we're done here."
Getting to his feet, he waited for her to do the same; her eyes glanced at his hand as though she had been expecting him to help her up. When he didn't, she pursed her lips and stood.
"It's Kelsey," she corrected him under her breath, avoiding his gaze.
"Doesn't really matter at this point, does it?"
She flushed a fierce crimson but didn't react to his comment. Instead, she strutted away from him toward the entrance hall. Her heels clacked ferociously on the marble floor, and he winced with every sound; Alfred would be rolling in his grave.
Out of habit, he followed her, making sure she made it all the way out of the door. Slinking parkway down the stairs, he watched as she approached the mahogany exit, her hand reaching for the pewter clutch.
Turning on her heel, her curls whipped out around her. "Did you ever have any intention of hiring me?" she asked, her perfect brows furrowed in confusion.
"No, not really," he admitted with a shrug.
"Asshole," she snarled before hurling the door open. It must have been heavier than she expected though, because it didn't swing back very far. Instead, she forced it open as she shoved herself through, allowing it to slam behind her.
With a heavy sigh, he made his way back up the first set of stairs, bypassing the sitting room and heaving for the next set. He ran his hand along the thick mahogany bannister that had gone longer than usual without being polished, each deep scuff a memory not his.
Settling on the fourth floor, he knocked on the door of the master bedroom. "Are you decent, old man?"
"Most people just ask if they can come in, Damian."
With a smirk, he opened the door and stepped into his father's bedroom. Bruce was perched in bed with a dog-eared book, the pile sitting on his bedside table overflowing. Taking a seat beside him on the bed, Damian nodded to the pile. "Want me to get you more?"
His father shook his head. "I'm perfectly capable of having A—getting them myself."
"Right," Damian supplied glumly. It was clear that, even after a year of him being buried deeply in the ground next to his parents, Bruce still couldn't utter the name of his butler. "Well, let me know if you change your mind. The last thing we need here is you getting even more senile than you already are."
"I may be senile, but I'm still far sharper than you'll ever hope to be," his father announced, doing little to hide the smirk that perforated his lips.
Damian rolled his eyes. "Ass."
"You don't get it from nowhere."
"Guess not."
"Speaking of senile though," Bruce began, his voice a little higher but more serious than it was before. It was a bad sign, one that told his son exactly what he was going to ask. "How did today's round of interviews go? Any good prospects?"
Once again, Damian was faced with the awkward question. On one hand, not bringing anyone in to care and manage his father made him look grossly incompetent; on the other, bringing in any of the people who had applied would make him look even more so.
"No," he finally sighed after a while. "As usual, just the usual gold diggers."
Bruce nodded; there was no doubt in his mind that it would have come to that. Even so, it was becoming increasingly obvious that his limited mobility and health would not fair well without a replacement for his previous caretaker.
"You have to sift through them better. Read resumes more."
"You really are the world's greatest detective," Damian oozed, the vitriol palpable. "Oh, but wait—people lie on resumes literally all the time to get what they want."
"Maybe it's your personality that's scaring them away."
"Tough shit. If they can't put up with it, there's no place for them here."
Bruce couldn't argue that he had a point.
•••••
The air was bitter cold against Damian's face, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. Winters in the batsuit, he could handle; it was the sweltering summers spent peeling his underclothes from his skin that bothered him. Thankfully, the autumn nights had been getting progressively cooler, slinking them into a biting winter.
Clouds hung low in the sky, though they remained free of the usual signal. One way or another, Gotham had always had something going on. Every piece of scum from an eccentrically gifted supervillain with the 'new' idea of taking over the city to the layman convenience store robber had a weird fetish with the metropolis, though he was never entirely sure why.
There were plenty of large cities asking to be shitholes; why Gotham? Especially when it was clear there was so much competition.
All said, Damian had to agree that tonight seemed particularly boring. Aside from interrupting the odd drug deal—a minor one consisting of kids, really—his night had largely consisted of hiding in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. An odd occurrence, he mused as he sat atop a building, but even more so a waste of time.
There was far more that could be done down in the Bat Cave instead of lazing about; he hadn't kept fresh tabs on where ever supervillain was recently, though he knew his father would have mentioned if one had broken out of a prison or two.
Even so, it still sounded better than sitting, biding his time, and waiting for something interesting to happen. Reaching for the communicator on his forearm, he hit the button that summoned his ride. It wasn't long before the Batmobile locked onto his location and found its way to the bottom of the Times building, its massive tires coming screeching to a halt despite the dampness of the road.
He leapt down, clamouring into it. As the roof closed above, locking him into the vehicle, he couldn't help but find his eyes locking onto the convenience store beside. It wasn't being robbed or anything—though at this point in his boredom, he almost found himself wanting it to be—but the flashy signs of cheap snacks grabbed his attention.
Stupid.
The word rang through his ears, even as he shifted the Batmobile into drive and shot off down the road. Stupid. How was it, he mused, that even after everything that happened with her, he couldn't look at a damn ice cream cone without thinking of her? Stupid.
'She had one that night, too,' he reminded himself, hanging a rather sharp right as he came to an intersection. The tires screeched against the road, burning the asphalt, but his mind was too far away to think about it.
His knuckles hardened against the steering wheel, his jaw locked. Months could have passed and her name wouldn't have crossed his mind at all, let alone her bright smile, the way she used to push her damn ice cream in his face—every goddamn time.
Stupid.
With a grunt, he finally pulled into the Bat Cave, setting the vehicle into park. He sat in there for a long while, his lip threatening to curl. The intoxicating smell of her hair. The way she'd sometimes snort when he made her laugh too hard. The damn ice cream squished between them as their lips locked, feeling the coolness as both of them heated up.
Stupid.
Jumping out of the Batmobile, he pulled his mask off, ignoring how matted to his skull his hair felt. He threw the mask into its place far harder than he intended; it slammed against the back wall, bouncing forward and falling to the ground just before his boots. With a snarl, he kicked it with an untethered amount of force that sent it flying across the cave, smashing against one of the keyboards of the minor computers.
"A bad night?" His father's voice echoed throughout the cave, cascading all around, though he knew exactly where it came from. Stalking his way up the metal stairs, Damian's eyes fell on Bruce.
He had managed to get himself into his wheelchair, and he sat patiently in front of the main computer with a coffee before him. "So?"
"Just boring," Damian spat. "Nothing interesting, so I came back here."
"Ah, yes. Who'd have thought that protecting a city was required to have a certain level of entertainment to be worthwhile?" Bruce droned, tilting his head to the side. "I should have known."
"Maybe it doesn't need it anymore," his son snarled, hitting the clasp that kept his armour in place. It gave him access to the zipper that allowed him to start taking it off. "Boring means it's cured, right? Right. Well, I'm going out."
Bruce cocked an eyebrow, eyeing his son as he threw the suit in a haphazard heap. "At this ungodly hour?"
"Very funny."
"Where to?"
Damian eyed him sharply. "Does it matter?"
A long silence grew between them; concerned blue eyes locking on sharp green ones. At thirty-two, Damian was every bit a responsible adult that he had been. A rather patchy childhood had thankfully given way to the mostly well-adjusted man that was his son, something he was quite proud of.
Even so, regression was expected after what happened with Bea.
"You… going to see her?" His voice was gentle, nowhere near accusing.
Pulling off his boots, sending one flying flying right after the other, Damian didn't answer right away. Instead, he adverted his gaze, focusing on something—anything—else. "Maybe."
"Well," his father sighed, "Say hello to her for me, I guess."
"Yeah."