Night 3

When we woke up, it was Sunday, which meant that even I, scheduled up the ying-yang as I was, didn't have to work. My tailbone hurt from being pressed against a hardwood floor all night, my butt was numb, and my neck was cramped from being tilted for so long. The sun streaming through the large windows on either side of the living room at four-thirty in the morning did nothing to improve my temper. Damian and I looked at each other, and, in harmony for once, shuffled down the hallway to our respective bedrooms.

Damian hovered in my door for a second, watching me flop onto my bed, which was still in disarray from my hasty start the previous morning. He was sleepy-eyed and looked small, his personality dampered by a long day and equally long night. For a moment, I thought he would curl up next to me-he looked like he wanted to-but instead, he just said, "We need to patrol at noon. I arranged it with Drake.", and left. I fell back asleep, not bothering to try and analyze the part of me that had wanted him to curl up next to me, too.

I stumbled out of bed and into the shower around nine, not at all surprised to find that Damian had already been there and was no doubt in the Bat Cave right then, going through his morning training session. I dressed and went down, and, sure enough, he was performing a series of complicated flips and jumps, showing off, demolishing a series of creatively placed sandbags. The Jungle Gym, as I'd dubbed it, was Damian's baby; a large room that was full to the ceiling with metal, wood, cement, and steel structures, all designed to keep Damian busy in whatever way he came up with at the time. Today, apparently, was Take-Out-The-Bad-Guys practice. He vaulted over a cement blockade suspended by wires over ten feet above my head, caught hold of the top of a large wooden swingset, and used his momentum to cannonball himself into the side of a sandbag resting on a larger-than-life ball of steel wool. I kid you not.

The bag burst apart, showering sand all over the place. I'm sad to say, about 78% of it seemed to migrate to my hair, which was having a good deal of trouble staying clean those days. "Damian!" I shrieked, rightly outraged. Damian sprang off of the wool ball, slid down a pole designed to prop up a monster set of monkey bars, and flipped off of the low platform it rested on to land, in a crouch, at my feet.

"I just added that." he said, with some degree of pride, pointing at the monkey bars.

"Frankly, I'm scared to come in here." I replied. "Do you want breakfast, or no?"

Without replying, he started for the door, and I followed him out of the Cave and up into the kitchen. It was strange to enter the kitchen and not see Alfred there, whipping up a batch of eggs or some waffles(yum)for breakfast, which is really the only time we went into the kitchen. Not having Alfred around made me realize just how spoiled I was, in regards to the Manor; not only did I expect to be fed, but I also expected to have my food brought to me. Kind of like living with my mom, actually.

"Sooo-" I started rummaging through the cupboards. "Since I doubt Bruce would approve of us having leftover pizza and mac'n'cheese for breakfast, what do you want, Dami?"

No reply.

"Dami?" I turned around. He was rifling through something-mail?-and frowning. Damian didn't usually take an interest in mail. "Dami-Dami-Damian! Earth to Planet Assassin!" I sang out, and he blinked and looked up at me, his face blank. "What?" His tone was almost innocent.

"I asked what you wanted for breakfast." I prodded, a little annoyed by his lack of attention. It was seriously irritating, for a guy who wouldn't leave me alone just the past day.

"Anything's fine." Damian returned his gaze to the papers in his hand, and I propped my hands on my hips, suspicious. Damian Wayne, not speaking in full sentences? Not to mention passing up an opportunity to boss me around, make me feel inferior, and probably throw in a jibe about my cooking skills? Unusual, at best. "Okay, I was going to be the good babysitter, but I'll ask." I declared. "What on Earth are you looking at?"

Damian threw the entire stack in the trash, and made as if he was washing his hands of it. "Nothing." he said, in that almost-innocent tone. "It's simply a load of junk mail. I'm continually fascinated by the amount of money that companies throw into silly pamphlets and catalogs that no one ever looks at."

I brushed past him and fished the papers out of the stack. "NO!" Damian actually lost his cool, lunging at me; too late. I had already seen the logo on the top of the first page.

"These are the papers you had in the car yesterday!" I cried triumphantly, satisfied with my detective work, and grabbed the stack.

"Put them back." Damian demanded, still trying to take them from me. I dodged him while reading as much as I could, as fast as I could, with an eleven-year-old trying to body-slam me.

His ninja skills outclassed mine, and we ended up in a heap on the floor. I hit my head, and from the sound of it, Damian cracked his knee pretty badly, his not-quite-healed hands giving way as gravity took over. For a second, we lay on the floor, catching our breath.

"I would have just signed the forms." I said. "You didn't have to throw them in the trash."

"They weren't important." he said stiffly. His head was on my stomach, one of his thighs tangled around my leg. He tried to get up just as I flipped onto my side, and I accidentally kneed him in the stomach. He winced. "Sorry." I said automatically, and, gracelessly, we managed to get to our feet.

Damian stooped down and picked up the papers-consent forms for volunteering, a field trip, and a group trip at the end of the year. He went as if to throw them away again. I grabbed his wrist. "Damian,"

"I don't even want to go." he said stiffly. "I'm perfectly fine with staying at Wayne Manor by myself during the day. No one asked you to find me-"

I put my arm over his shoulders, squeezing him to me for a second. "Geez, you can be so stupid sometimes. If you want something, just ask."

Damian wriggled away, not meeting my eyes. "I don't want-" he started, but stopped. "It doesn't matter. Bruce is not here to sign."

I pulled the papers out of his hands, rummaged in the nearest drawer for a pen, and signed all three forms as quickly as I could, before he tried to tackle me again. "Technically, I'm your guardian for the next two weeks." I said. "So, technically, my permission is as good as Bruce's." Technically. Not really. But I'd learned that if you say something with enough bluster, it becomes believable.

Damian looked at me.

"See?" I asked brightly. "Big deal about nothing. Now what do you want for breakfast?" I stuffed the papers into his hands and turned back to the cupboards. "Maybe we should get you a backpack." I mused, then found the Bisquik mix and thought nothing more about it. I didn't notice, back then, Damian watching me, his dark eyes almost black under the weight of whatever was on his mind. I didn't see him rub his arms, as if remembering my touch.

At noon, Damian and I went on patrol, but other than a minor purse snatcher, nothing happened. The afternoon went quietly. Damian went back to doing his Damian thing, and I did mundane stuff like check my Facebook and dust shelves. I felt like I should be doing something more meaningful with my day off, but I couldn't think what. Usually my Sundays were spent visiting my mother, who worried incessantly about my living on my own, but I didn't want to leave Damian to his own devices, and I didn't want to have to drag a complaining eleven-year-old across Gotham for an hour-and-a-half visit. I called her, instead, something I got heck for, and then sat back twiddling my thumbs. Finally I gave in to curiosity and went in search of Damian.

He was playing a video game.

"I think we have to talk about this addiction to gore that you have." I said, sitting down next to him. "Leave me alone." he said. You just had to admire our beautiful relationship.

"No way. I love video games-what are we playing?"

He ignored me.

"Come on, D. I was super-good, back in the day." Could I sound any more ancient?

Nothing.

"I bet I could beat you." That did it.

He threw a controller at me, which I just barely caught. "I bet that you couldn't." was all he said, and we began. I had to keep myself from grinning-Damian couldn't resist a challenge of any kind.

Technically, the game was one of those capture-the-flag kind using guns, but all Damian and I were going after were each other. Our teammates yelled obscenities at us as we blatantly ignored the game being played and shot round after round of bullets at one another. Then we switched to wrestling; then cage fighting; then tennis.

After our sixth game of tennis, Damian threw down the controller and lunged at me. Startled, I caught him by the shoulders and flipped him over my head, somersaulting backwards to soak up his momentum and spring to my feet. He slammed into my back, and I met the carpet with a thud that would definitely leave burns.

"Okay, okay-uncle!" I shouted as best I could with a mouthful of rug.

"Why are you so good?" Damian hissed. I assumed he meant at the video games; in real-life fighting, I was practically dead right then. "It's a teenager thing." I mumbled. "Now let me up!"

For a second, I thought he wouldn't, and the pressure on my back-his full weight-was unbearable; but, I was shocked to find, not totally unwelcome. Because as his hot breath hit my ear, his body pressing down on mine, I felt a tremor go through my whole body-pleasure.

Damian's weight disappeared and I got up, gasping for breath and sanity. I thought that I must be more lonely than I'd realized, that an eleven-year-old's presence would-briefly-turn me on.

"It's time for supper." Damian announced, and I shook the incident from my head and ventured back into the kitchen.