Plan Awry

A Word: Request for Tim driving Damian back from some event and he's sulking because Tim didn't pay attention to him and he's jealous.

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Damian is sulking and Tim has half a dozen reasons for why he might be in such a foul mood, but, as usual, Dick's probably hit it on the head with his muttered aside that no one else had picked up on when Tim volunteered to take the teenager home.

"I think he got turned down."

Tim glances at the young man out of the corner of his eye and has to agree with Dick's assessment.

Jason had started a bet last month when the gala was only a blip on the calender for them all. Alerted that something was up by Damian's unusual interest in it. Jason had put money down on some elaborate assassination going down during it, Tim had put his on there being someone attending that the younger man wanted to destroy reputation-wise (because Damian has gained a rather frightening grasp of social standing and has used it to his advantage from seventeen on), but it was Dick who'd bet a large amount on Damian wanting to impress someone there. A wild and far fetched bet that they'd all watch slide closer to the truth as the gala came closer.

Damian had been precise in picking out and tailoring his clothing. He's always been rather fastidious but the level he took it to this last week had even made Alfred pause and arch an unamused eyebrow.

Dick had been grinning and exuberant when the flowers showed up just before they were all set to go to the event. A single rose that wasn't red so much as a deep burgundy that screamed how expensive it was. Tim and Jason had reluctantly forked over their cash to Dick as Damian stood in front of an ornate mirror in the foyer and fussed with a perfectly pressed and fitted suit. Looking every inch the dashing youngest son of Bruce Wayne. Right down to the determined gleam in his eyes as he turned away from it to face them. Cool and collected with a set to his jaw like he was going off on a challenging patrol.

What had happened between that moment and the one which saw him dragging the sulky teen to his car Tim doesn't know. He'd arrived at the gala and immediately been swept up by business partners and potentials faster than he could blink. Only learning of Damian's apparently less than stellar night when Dick cut in with a smile to 'borrow' him.

Damian has grown into his genetic promise and isn't the tiny boy with the foul mouth he once was. He's taller than any of them and almost as large as Jason. It turns the fact that he's pouting from something childish and bratty into something childish and amusing. Tim tamps down on the urge to laugh at the lower lip that's threatening to push out with each obvious grind of Damian's teeth.

"You alright?" Tim ventures cautiously when they're half way back to the manor and Damian hasn't said a single word. It's been years since Damian last made an honest try for Tim's life, and these days his sharpness around them all has been blunted by an obvious affection that he's no longer too proud to show. It doesn't mean he still won't lash out when he's hurt though. Physically or emotionally.

"I am fine," Damian says and the words are stiff and stilted. Accented more than usual in a way that shows how not fine he really is.

"Really," Tim continues because the lack of an immediate attack -verbal or otherwise- is a good sign. He can keep pressing and not fear for his safety. "Because you don't look fine at all. In fact you look-"

"I am fine!" Damian snaps and some of the fire from the words flows into his face. Breaking him from the almost wooden statue Tim had been fearing replaced him. "I miscalculated and my plans for the night did not turn out how I expected. That's all!"

"What plans?" Tim slips the question they've all been dying to figure out into the lull of Damian's outburst. Dick's predictions seem to be right, and he was charged with tagging after him to figure out the who of it. Tim wonders if he ever did, or if Damian's plans went so wrong because this person didn't show.

"That does not concern you yet!" Damian snaps and there's a hint of color in his face as he snaps his mouth shut with an audible click. Tim catches the brief second of Damian back pedaling fast only because he'd turned his head to look at him. "I mean-"

Tim turns back to look at the road and make sure he's not about to run anything over. He blinks once, twice, and tries to figure out what his mind is already processing and spitting out as one of those dead certain facts that he can never quite explain how he came to. Maybe if Damian hadn't said 'yet,' maybe if he hadn't so obviously wanted to take that word back Tim could have ignored it. Maybe.

"Oh," Tim glances down to the now ragged looking single rose that Damian's holding tight in his hand. The rose he'd left in Tim's car on 'accident' and that Tim had blithely returned to him just before entering the building. The stem is bent in places and every thorn has been snapped off. The petals look a little wilted on one side from being moved too much. He sure he caught sight of one of the debutantes trying to pull the rose from Damian's hand earlier. A sight he only saw because Damian was so very close to where Tim was fielding business inquiries. "Um."

They're stopped and it takes Tim a second to realize he's in front of the mansion. Foot on the break because he still has to go back for the company's sake. He has no idea what to say at all.

"Pah," Damian blows out a long breath on the annoyed sound. He twists in his seat and -with a determined set to his jaw that he got from Bruce- folds the long stem into one of Tim's lax hands. "I should know better than to have tried for your attention at an event filled with those sycophants you have to smile at. That is my misjudgment. I will not make it again next time."

Damian presses Tim's thumb over the flower before getting out with a kind of grace and composure that Tim's not really feeling himself as he gapes after the young man. The promise is vaguely threatening in a way that assures Tim the young man is serious, and also not possessed.

Tim waits until he's well out sight of the manor by eye and surveillance to let his head thunk back onto his seat. "Crap."

The flower lays on the passenger seat the whole way back.

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