Dinner and a Drama


Peter took Damian back to his place, under the pretence that El had cooked for him and would be sad if Neal didn't go. Damian went because he was hoping to avoid a confrontation. At least Peter understood that Damian had done what he did in order to save Kate and had no intention of running.

Red Robin didn't care about that. He would be chasing Damian down for messing with the plan.

Also because Mar'i had been pulled in. Neither of them wanted to have an angry Nightwing on their doorstep.

El opened the door and greeted him happily. "I'm so glad you didn't leave, now maybe Peter will lighten up about checking your anklet every few hours."

"He'll probably go back to checking every hour for a while," Damian countered. "Since I managed to give him the slip today."

"He's not wrong," Peter pointed out. He sounded grumpy but it was play grumpiness. If he was truly grumpy, he wouldn't have brought Damian over. "And yet, checking the anklet won't give me the same feeling of certainty anymore."

Damian shrugged nonchalantly. The less said about that, the better.

El sighed with a smile. It was good to see them interacting lightheartedly. It meant that the take down had gone well. Peter told her about Fowler's arrest and how they had enough to keep him out of the FBI at the very least.

"Sometimes it's good to work with vigilantes then?" El suggested with a wink in Damian's direction.

His heart skipped a beat. What exactly did El suspect?

"Still not worth the paperwork. I'm going to make Neal suffer through it all."

Damian had seen the pile. "Peter, no!"

"It's the price you pay to have Kate safe," El said sympathetically to Damian.

Damian huffed, right as the doorbell rang.

"Who could be visiting?" El questioned as she walked over to answer it. "Oh!"

Red Robin regally walked in. His head moved across the room as he scanned for his target. Somehow, Damian was unsurprised to see that Red Robin followed him here.

"Neal," he said flatly. "We need to talk."

"No, we don't."

Red Robin motioned for him to go outside.

Neal shook his head.

"Red Robin, what is going on?" Peter demanded to know, stepping between them with his hands on his hips. "I've been accepting of your acquaintance with my CI so far but not when you're taking him, when he clearly doesn't want to go."

Red Robin glared, his voice hard as he continued as if Peter wasn't there. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? Nightstar wasn't supposed to be part of this plan!"

"And yet, she was. She saved Kate."

"Who's Nightstar?" El asked. Peter didn't approve of her getting between this but he needed to form a united front with his wife right now.

"She's the daughter of Nightwing and Starfire. She's good at what she does but a lot of heroes don't involve her in case she gets hurt. Those who aren't afraid of making Nightwing angry, don't want to make Starfire angry."

"Which one is Red Robin?"

"Neither!"

"Make neither of them angry."

Red Robin huffed. "Neal! You can't tell them all of this!"

"Why not? They're not going to go to the press."

"We're really not," Peter sighed.

Red Robin had to give Damian that. "Fine. I'll ignore that. But I don't want to involve more people, namely Nightstar, in what is already a messy situation. A messy situation that you created when you started doing crimes!"

"So who was Neal then?" El asked. "He had to be someone for you to talk about this so openly and trust his word like that."

Neal gave her a wide-eyed look. There was no way Red Robin would answer that.

"He was Robin at one point. Now he goes by Red Bird if he goes out."

"Robin!" El sounded impressed.

Peter was less impressed. "Surprisingly, that actually makes sense."

"Why did you-"

"It's not like they're going to go to the press."

Of course Tim would do the annoying thing and turn his words back on him. Even though Nightstar's involvement and Damian's identity were different subjects.

"I wonder what father would think if I told him?"

Red Robin waved him off. "You haven't spoken to him for more than an update in years."

"This counts as an update."

Red Robin still didn't seem to care. "I do my own thing. If you think he has any power over me, you'd be wrong."

Peter was amazed. This information actually brought Neal more in line with one of the behaviour analysis which had been done back when he was committing crimes. And not the analysis that called him a sociopath.

He was just following a pattern of behaviour he had been exposed to when younger.


"We still need to talk about your involving Nightstar," Red Robin said as he cut into the vegetables on his plate. They had shelved the topic until dinner, which El had just served.

"Uh-huh."

"And also how you apparently haven't told these two that you prefer to eat vegetarian."

El gasped. "You do? Neal, I'm sorry-"

"It's fine, I never told you. But, now you know, so I'm not going to eat this," Damian pointed at the meat. "And just load up on vegetables."

Red Robin groaned and rubbed his face. "You're a nightmare."

"Thank you."

"While I agree," Peter said with a pointed look at Damian. "I don't see why Nightstar's inclusion is an issue."

"Because her father will be mad. Except he really can't say anything if he doesn't want Nightstar to disown him and run off to live with another hero."

"Which hero could possibly-"

"Mary." Chuck's sister would be very willing to have an extra hand around the house, since she was expecting a baby.

Red Robin deflated and Damian enjoyed every short second of it. "Oh."

"Who's Mary?"

"She's the sister of a hero and a hero herself. She's part of a big hero family which is pretty independent and so she'd not only be willing to let Nightstar stay with her but also stand up to her father about his slightly overbearing ways."

"This isn't over," Red Robin muttered. He got confused glances from Peter and El for that comment but they didn't say anything as Damian seemed completely unconcerned.


Escape to Burbank


Chuck spent a lot of time lying around and missing Sarah these days. She was deep undercover, the kind where she could only get out deeply coded messages on rare occasions.

She was working side-by-side with Frost, Chuck's absent mother, in order to close her decades-long mission.

Chuck had already had an argument about that with his father. The console beeped as Damian came online. He started a chat with Chuck.

"Aren't you working today?" Damian asked.

Chuck sighed into his mic. "Day off. And ever since Sarah went off on her mission, we've been seeing less thrown our way. I think Casey's beginning to go stir crazy."

"Sarah's on a mission, huh?"

"Don't you keep track?"

"Not really. It's been crazy over here. We saved Kate and dumped her somewhere. At least I didn't have to tell her that George was dead."

"Didn't she know?"

"Not for certain. I'm very good at faking deaths."

"Yet some of those faked deaths are real."

Damian was silent and Chuck shook his head fondly. It was easier to think back to the first time Damian had 'died'. It had been as real as could be and Batman had bent time and space to bring his son back.

"So who broke the news?"

"Mar'i. She's much better at it than I am."

"Not going to disagree there buddy. You're terrible at emotions and stuff."

"I'm fine with the civilians."

"Except Kate is a little beyond that. She was kind of your partner in crime. Yours, Mozzie's and George's."

"Yeah," Damian sighed. "Everything's a little depressing right now. Want to game to take our minds off it?"

"Nah. I'm just going to veg out with guitar hero." There was no online play for that.

Damian logged off. Chuck sighed and got right back to just staring at the screen, trying to decide what to play.

Sometime later, there was a knock at the door. Then the door opened when Chuck didn't answer.

"Do you always get so pathetic when your girlfriend isn't around?" Damian demanded to know. He stood in front of Chuck with a frown.

"How did you get here?"

"Batmobile. Flies fast. Now let's game." Damian grabbed the controller from Chuck's hands and selected a song.