It was unusually warm outside, considering the fact it was in the middle of the February. Snow still remained on the top of the bushes, but otherwise it seemed all of the this year´s snow was gone.
Yesterday the pond in the garden was covered with thin layer of ice, today´s high above zero temperatures caused it to melt, leaving only few lonely ice floes floating on the surface.
Damian Wayne was sitting on the blanket he laid on the stone seat. He might be trained to endure all possible vagaries of weather, yet he didn´t intend to catch cold in vain.
He wrapped himself in his dark woolen coat and tightened his scarf. It wasn´t that warm after all, also the sun began to set.
Damian sat there for what could be a good hour. After he returned home from school, he just dropped his bag in the hallway and grabbed something to sit on. He didn´t linger in the Manor, he had no reason to. Father was on some super-secret mission and refused to take him with. Grayson of course stayed in Blüdhaven, Damian hadn´t seen him for some weeks. Todd was… well, doing whatever Todd was doing. And Drake was hanging around with Titans somewhere. With a sting of remorse he briefly thought about Pennyworth, but he waved it away.
The thing was, it was just today he thought they would be around.
He frowned and angrily wiped the unexpected and unwanted tears off his eyes with the back of has hand.
Birthday? -TT!- He didn´t have any while with the League, and why would he, it was just like any other day. It was only here with those nuisances, who insisted he had a "decent party" he really didn´t care about. In the past years he was persuaded to participate solely by Grayson´s stupid puppy-eyed look anyway.
Remembering (his friend? brother?) this particular nuisance brought the tears back into his eyes.
Distinguished "ahem" sounded behind his back. Damian flinched, angry at himself. His instincts of a trained assassin have to be ceasing due to constant contact with that bunch of idiots.
Pennyworth stood behind him, with calm and professional expression on his face as always.
"If I may, young master, the dinner will be served in a moment."
When he got no answer, Pennyworth made a few steps toward Damian, now standing right behind the bench, at Damian´s right shoulder.
Damian had his eyes back on the pond, under its surface were clearly visible white and red backs of decorative fish.
After a while the boy broke the silence. "Did you know that every koi fish has its unique color pattern? Or at least they say so."
"I think I may have heard this information before, young master," the butler answered, his eyebrow cocked.
"I gave them names," said Damian almost inaudibly after another moment. "This one with wave on his back is Grayson. The white with red blot on his head is Todd. And the spotted one is Drake."
He groaned inwardly. This was downright so lame, so pathetic. And why is he blabbering about all of this in the first place…
Damian felt older man´s hand gently squeezing his shoulder. "The rest of the family is truly very sorry they can´t be here today, young master. But at least I dared myself to prepare your favourite dish. And I am sure we will find some desert after dinner, too."
Damian would usually shake Pennyworth´s hand off of his shoulder, followed by some rude retort, perhaps enhanced by few juicy arabic swearwords. (He doesn´t know why, but he suspects that Pennyworth can speak arabic as good as father…) He was already taking breath in to answer, but then he just resignedly dropped his shoulders, waved his hand and headed back to the Manor without a word.
"I will serve your dinner in the dining room, if I may ask you to wash your hand before, it will be prepared in a minute." Answering with a growl, Damian moved off to the bathroom. He have learned a long time ago, that some things have no point of arguing over.
He walked through dimmed corridor to the dining room and without any enthusiasm he flung the door open. And he stopped there, completely unable to speak.
On the table there was a giant cake with thirteen lit candles, and around it… Everybody was there.
Father smiling at him warmly. Grayson grinning widely, almost bouncing up and down. Drake winked at him amusedly. Even Todd had the corners of his mouth pulled up a little.
"Mission accomplished, Alfred!" beamed Grayson. "He had no clue, had he?"
"I am an excellent actor, master Dick," answered Pennyworth placidly.
"You didn´t think we would leave you all alone on your own birthday, did you?" smiled father.
"Happy birthday, Demon," said Drake dryly.
"OK, OK, and can we eat now? I´m starving," growled Todd.
Author´s note: Since I've read somewhere today is Damian´s bithday, I decided to prepare a small surprise for him ;)
As I am not aquainted with Steph and Cass, I decided to not include them.
I also hope this wasn´t too out-of-character, still getting to know Damian ;)
Hope you liked it, feel free to comment ;)