It's my birthday today.
Damian watches Dick bent over the Batmobile, completely absorbed in rubbing the shining surface- polishing the red glass.
It's my birthday, Damian doesn't say again.
Dick turns around, as if on cue, and waves. He looks stupid, Damian thinks. Stupid because it's like he can never close his mouth, even when he's grinning so stupidly like that. Stupid Grayson.
Dick trots over, throwing the washcloth over his shoulder. Even the washcloth is stupid pink with stupid duckies.
"Didn't your momma ever tell you that if you keep making that face, it'll get stuck?" Dick shifts his weight onto his right foot- Damian notices this because Damian's looking at the floor, and there's silence. "Hey...Somethin' wrong, kiddo?"
Damian hates that stupid name. It sounds stupid and is even stupider because he heard Dick using it on that prick Drake once. If anything, Damian wants a special nickname. But all nicknames are stupid, he decides.
Dick's still waiting.
Damian glances up- Dick's stupid grin is fading with every second and- Ha. There, it's gone.
"You missed a spot." The man's expression relaxes- he's so transparent and it's stupid. There's really no other way to describe it. How does he do it? Every thought that passes through Dick's mind can be read like a book from the way he stands, smiles, or presses his lips together and- Or maybe Damian's just had practice.
"You want to help me get it?" There's no spot, they both know. Damian doesn't know why they have these stupid interactions. They're completely pointless. Stupid. Everything about Dick is stupid. Damian rolls his eyes.
Damian doesn't miss his mom. And he certainly doesn't miss the big parties, and the fancy presents (though they were nice sometimes), or even all the attention.
Damian just misses the...predictability- remembering how easy it was to wake up on the morning of his birthday and sit, dazzled, by the stack of presents. Now it's nothing like that. Dick always forgets the most important things-
-Or maybe they're not important to him at all? Damian scowls at the panic that shoots through his chest. Stupid. He shouldn't care.
"Damian?" Dick puts a hand on his shoulder. "Is brooding a genetic thing?" More stupid jokes.
"If you're just gonna stand there, I'm going to go grab something to eat." Dick gives his shoulder a squeeze and pats the top of his head before Damian can snap at him- and like that, he's gone.
"It's my birthday, you jerk." Damian says to no one in particular. He looks at the cieling, then at the floor.
Somehow, despite all the training he's had since the day he was born, Damian always ends up being one step behind everything. Everyone. Always moving too slow, missing chances that seem so trivial at the time, but...Damian always ends up remorseful. And Damian hates feeling remorseful. Remorse is stupid, he concludes.
He spins around and punches the wall- his face is warming up quickly and he feels tears- NO NO NO- Damian growls and vaults over a railing, landing too forcefully and- crashes into a stack of boxes.
"Stupid boxes," Damian hisses. He screws up his face tightly and pulls his knees up to his chest. He doesn't need this. Doesn't need to be weak and cry- on his birthday no less. He's Damian fucking Wayne and he's eleven years old now. Too old to cry.
Sometimes he feels five years old again.
Deplorable. Damian laughs once. "Mommy, for my birthday, I want to be important." His voice seems so small- the walls of the Batbunker swallow it up. Damian feels...alone.
He blinks away more tears- He feels alone.
