The first night out with Robin goes exactly how Dick hoped it would.

Okay, he knows it's not Damian's first night out – there was his short experience before Jason shot him in the chest, and Damian must have seriously expected Dick to have neglected all of his detective skills if he didn't notice the paper towels in the Batbunker's trash can or a trace of splinters on the floor – but Dick didn't confront him about any of that. What would've been the point? Damian seemed uninjured at breakfast. As far as he can tell, there was no harm, no foul – and besides, he remembers being Robin and sneaking out to do his own thing. Bruce confronting him about it never made him stop, it only made him resolve to hide it better next time. No, instead he just hoped that now that Damian had gotten a last shot at some rebellion, he'd follow orders in the field tonight.

Which, he did. He was honestly in top form. He upgraded the Batmobile. He didn't injure anyone too badly. And he spent a good chunk of the night in the zone Dick had mentally nicknamed the "trouble bubble" – the three foot on his side, two foot on Damian's side semi-circle that kept Batman and Robin in the prime opportunity to step back-to-back or defend each other – though mostly, for Batman to defend Robin – if the need arose. When Dick had told Bruce his nickname for the zone – after Dick had found out its purpose, and why Bruce kept him in his shadow like that – Bruce smiled slightly and gave a faint chuckle, giving him a hint that maybe even as Batman, he's not as dour and serious as he seems all the time. However, Dick already knows what Damian would say ("Are you insinuating I'll get in trouble and need you, Grayson? I don't get in trouble; I am the trouble!") so he kept the name to himself.

"How was it?" Dick asks Damian as he's taking off the cowl and putting Batman's uniform away. He turns around and expects to see Damian similarly getting changed out of Robin, but the kid is just pacing antsily, like he's still full of energy, like they hadn't just been all over Gotham for a couple hours.

Or, of course, it could be the adrenaline. Dick's not really tired yet, either; he just knows that staying in costume won't help him get to sleep any time ever.

"What do you mean 'how was it?'" Damian says. "You were right there. You saw my performance."

"Uh… How did you like it, I mean?"

Damian makes that clicking noise Dick still has no clue what means. "Better than sitting around and doing nothing. I told you I heal fast."

Dick resists the temptation to roll his eyes (This again? he thinks. Seriously?). Instead, he just finished taking off Batman's kevlar chestplate and putting it back in his locker. "Aren't you getting changed?" Dick asks.

Damian shrugs, but does take his domino mask off. Underneath the mask, his eyebrows were pulled together in an angry hard line, like he's still ready to fight. "I'm going to train some more," he says. "Set up the holo-room before you go to bed."

Dick sighs and walks over to the computer console to get it set up. "You know," Dick says. "You're already Robin. You don't have to prove anything."

Damian gives Dick a skeptical look from the side of his eye. "I don't have to prove anything to you," he says.

"Okay, but there's no one else around."

Damian grunts. "Don't remind me."

Dick shrugs and decides to leave well-enough alone. He doesn't really have the patience to deal with whatever's putting Damian in a sour mood, but he doesn't want to lose his patience and yell at him, because Damian actually did everything right today. So he figures he'll leave the kid alone, since he's been dropping hints he wants to be left alone, anyway.

Still, he remembers being an eleven-year-old desperate for approval from a seemingly impassive Batman, so he figures he might as well tell Damian what he's thinking. "You did good out there tonight," he says.

"Tt. I know," Damian says, vocally unaffected by the praise. But his shoulders to drop a hair; a little bit of tension slips out of his stance.

"I'm going to go watch TV," Dick says. "You're welcome to join me when you're done training."

"Tt," Damian says again. And he's off to the holo-room to train.

Dick wakes up the next afternoon, still on the couch, with the TV still turned on to the nature channel. Damian's sitting at his feet, legs tucked underneath him in a compact little ball, and sketching. Dick shifts to check the time – only 3 p.m., still early for him – and Damian doesn't really jump when Dick moves, but does quickly shut his sketchbook.

"You passed out on the couch like a drunken vagrant," Damian says. "Pennyworth said not to disturb you."

"If I was passing out drunkenly, there'd be some beer bottles lying around," Dick says. He sits up and rubs his lower back a little. It's a little sore from the position, not helped by the weird rounded couch, but it'll pass quickly. At least, it always has in the past. "What are you drawing, anyway?"

Damian almost imperceptibly pulls his notebook closer to his chest protectively, but then opens it up, rips out a page, and hands it over.

Which… Dick didn't mean to make him rip out a page, but he figures he'll take it while it's offered.

There are multiple sketches on the page, some just the barest outlines of a shape – one of those being a cheetah with its legs extended as it runs at full speed – but there's also a pretty detailed lioness face in the bottom left corner, like he spent more time on it. It's actually really good – which Dick doesn't say, because "it's actually really good" makes it sound like he expected it to not be.

"You're a pretty talented artist," Dick says, once he's formulated a nice-sounding compliment.

"I know."

Dick grins a little. He figures this might be a good opportunity to hook Damian into some normal kid rituals, since Damian seemed so acutely aware of how non-normal-kid-y he was earlier. "Hey, you wanna hang it on the fridge – ?"

Dick's barely gotten the sentence out before Damian's yanked the paper from his hands and crumpled it into a ball.

"What?"

"Don't mock me, Grayson." Damian's scowl is real enough that Dick has no option but to assume he's genuinely offended, even though Dick has no clue how or why.

"Uh…"

Damian quickly retreats with his sketchbook to his room and Dick slumps on the couch. The day just started and Damian's already ticked at him for some reason.

There are some light footsteps and a gurgle of the coffee maker from the kitchen, and Dick assumes that means Alfred must have heard him wake up. "How was it last night?" Alfred asks from behind him. "You fell asleep before I could ask."

Dick shrugs and rotates around on the couch so he can see Alfie's face. "Did you ask Damian?"

"He said your performance as Batman was 'not so bad as to alert all the criminals of the ruse', but you could still use some tips on your interrogation techniques."

Dick rubs his face and groans. Is he the one being judged here? And seriously – "the ruse "? Damian's still going on that "you're not my father; you don't deserve to be Batman you imposter" thing? Like Dick's not way too aware of that already?

"Was his assessment not entirely accurate?"

"Oh it was accurate," Dick says. "He's just being a dick about it." Dick wonders if it's a little petty to refer to a ten-year-old as a dick, but he hasn't really met any ten-year-olds as aggravating as Damian. And besides, the kid's not even in the room. He can't even hear it to get offended about it.

"And how was Master Damian?"

"He was good. Following orders and my lead, the whole shebang."

"I do hope you told him he did well."

"Of course I did; I'm not Bruce." Dick cringes the instant the words are out of his mouth.

If it brought up any bad feelings in Alfred, though, he doesn't let it show on his face. He merely nods and says, "Then it sounds like you did the right thing."

Dick frowns.

"Do you… not agree?"

"I do," Dick says. Well, he wouldn't try to do not the right thing. But something still sits wrong with him. After a minute, he has it. "Did Bruce ever do this?" he asks.

"Do what, Master Richard?"

Dick shrugs. "You know. 'Am I doing the right thing with this kid'?" Which isn't exactly what he means, but coming out and saying it would just sound petty –

Well, Alfred always liked to mediate – or maybe Bruce and Dick just were at each other's throats enough later on that he had to. But Dick's suddenly struck by an image of him of Alfred assuring Damian he's doing the right thing to comfort him. Or of a teenage version of himself running to Alfred for comfort, to receive assurances that he was in the right and Bruce was in the wrong, and then Bruce immediately doing the same thing, but with the positions reversed.

And well, he's suddenly wondering if the reassurances mean less that way, even though it's stupid and petty.

Alfred of course doesn't know any of that. He just says, "You are aware of my position on your involvement when you were a child, Master Richard." Again, it's impossible to tell what he's really thinking.

"You thought it was a terrible idea," Dick says.

Alfred nods.

"Do you still think it's a terrible idea?"

"Obviously not."

"Like with me, retroactively, or right now, with Damian?"

"Master Dick, could you tell me what this is all about?"

Just answer the question, Dick wants to say, but he doesn't. It's easier to just… not. "It's not about anything," Dick says. He stands up. "I was just thinking, is all."

Alfred raises an eyebrow, but doesn't respond.

"I'm taking advantage of waking up early," Dick says, "to go over what we got last night. Are you on Damian duty?"

"I'm on everything duty, Master Richard," Alfred says with a smile. "Your coffee is being made and I can start breakfast as soon as you wish."

Dick shakes his head. "I'll just get a bowl of cereal. But thanks."

Alfred shrugs. "If that's what you want," he says, "then I'm going to grade Damian's homework."

Dick's debating asking Alfred if the "I'm on everything duty" wasn't a hint, if despite the smile, he wasn't trying to subtly tell Dick that they should just hire a freaking tutor for Damian instead of giving him another full-time job. But he doesn't, partially because he's not sure Damian would get along with any civilian tutor, and also because he's worried Alfred will take offense. So he just trods over to the kitchen to get his cereal and start his day early.

.

.

.

Dick goes to the Batbunker at six, when sparring training is supposed to start, to find Damian already down there, slicing through dummies, with a sword in his hands.

Dick purses his lips. He knows having a sword doesn't mean you'll kill people – Donna gave him some basic swordsmanship lessons when they were bored in the Titans Tower, which he had to use to avoid getting skewered by Ra's Al Ghul – but he's also pretty sure Damian could be devoting his time to you know. Non-lethal weapons. So he says as much.

"I wasn't aware the new Robin came with a sword."

Damian grunts and beheads the dummy in front of him, so Dick adds, "Or that we had infinite combat dummies."

Damian pauses his training and rests the sword on one shoulder. "What do you want, Grayson?"

"You know, if you want to have a weapon while you're fighting, you could always get a bo staff – "

"Drake's toy," Damian says dismissively.

" – Or escrimas."

"Circus sticks."

"They're from the Phillipines. Not the circus."

"But you are."

"I just want to make sure that what you're practicing in here compliments what we're doing out there. If you're practicing beheading people – "

Damian rolls his eyes and makes a noise of visceral disgust.

Dick bites back a groan. He thought he was making a pretty reasonable suggestion. It's not like he never wants Damian to use his weapons, he just thought that making sure he develops some good non-lethal training instincts is important first. I mean, wasn't that what the last two weeks were about?

"You don't have to worry about me, Grayson," Damian says, putting a weird amount of emphasis on Dick's last name. "I've been training with this since I could stand. I've sparred my mother with bladed weapons. We're both alive. I have excellent control with it."

Which… Dick believes. As far as he could tell, the Al Ghuls were obsessed with swords. He guesses to the point of sparring children with sharp weaponry.

Before Dick can get into the inherent sketchiness of that topic, Damian adds, "I have no accidental deaths with it."

Man this kid is giving him sympathy-whiplash. "So all of the people you killed, you meant to?"

Damian lifts up his chin a little. Dick can't tell whether it's proudly or merely defiant of Dick's implicit judgment. "Yes," Damian says.

That's even worse Dick wants to say. But he doesn't. He just grimaces and inhales deeply.

"There's no winning with you," Damian says. He points his sword at Dick accusatorily. "If I didn't mean to do it, it's evidence I'm not in control of my actions and need to be contained. If I did, it's evidence I'm bad and need to be contained."

"No one's 'containing' you, Damian! You're Robin, if you weren't paying attention!"

"Then since my father trusted me in this role, maybe you should too," Damian says.

That fake letter is going to make Damian (more) unbearable isn't it? But Dick lets him have it. "Fine," he says. "We can spar like this if you want to. But you have to leave it in when we're going on patrol."

"I did last night, didn't I?"

Dick doesn't bother answering. He does get changed into his costume, though, because allegedly perfect control or not, Dick still wants armor when fighting someone who has a sword.

He could use his escrimas for the fight – they are just in training, no one's around to see Batman using weapons uncharacteristic of him – but he figures that practicing like this might actually be good. He's not used to fighting someone hand-to-hand when they have a sword, but Batman would be. And better to get all of the kinks out of his style when he's not at risk of dying.

Damian, however, didn't bother getting changed into Robin. He stays in his regular black sparring clothes, and spent pretty much the entire time Dick was getting changed practicing with his sword and decapitating more dummies.

"You don't want a weapon?" Damian asks when they line up across from each other.

Dick shakes his head.

" Tt . You'll need one."

And with that, Damian initiates the combat. A quick charge at Dick that would have straight up skewered an unarmored opponent had it connected. Dick didn't let it connect – he just jumped straight over Damian's head, which he'll confess, was maybe a little obnoxious and showy.

The instant he lands, he can already hear a whoosh of air and knows Damian's probably attacking his unguarded back, so he rolls away. As he does, the sword makes contact, but just as a glancing blow.

"Good," he says, once he's put two arm spans between them. "You're quick to adapt to a mobile opponent."

Damian scowls and begins circling Dick, looking for a weak spot. Dick thinks about coming in with a jab, but honestly, even with Damian's tiny frame, Dick's got a reach disadvantage when Damian has the sword. Damian makes a few glancing blows at Dick's arms, testing his guard. Dick backs out of this reach and deflects what he can with Batman's gauntlets. Dick's similarly looking for a weakness in Damian's guard, but he doesn't see any – yet.

Damian comes in again with a stab, and Dick spins out of the way. As he does so, there's a sudden yonk and he can't move, stopped at the neck, and he barely gets his arms up in time to stop an unarmed Damian from punching him in the chin. When he's trapped Damian's arm, the kid headbutts him in the teeth.

Damian steps back and walks behind Dick and withdraws his sword from the ground. Now, Dick can see the whole picture – while Batman's cape had been in motion from the spin, Damian had pinned it to the ground with his sword, which was honestly an inspired move on his part. And part of the evidence for why Nightwing doesn't wear capes.

"Good work," Dick says, and quickly runs his tongue over his teeth to make sure Damian didn't loosen any of them. "Using what's available to you to your advantage. Just as Robin should."

Damian rolls his eyes and raises his sword defensively in both hands, and Dick figures, what the hell, he might as well oblige the kid. However, he decides there's no reason to keep using hand-to-hand combat on an admittedly good swordsman, so he takes a batarang out from the utility belt and throws it in a way that would have made Damian drop his sword, had he not anticipated the move and repositioned himself. But it served the function Dick wanted – distracting Damian while Dick crossed some of the distance between them. Damian backs up, slashing at Dick's arms defensively.

"With the sword, your reach is longer than mine," Dick says. He smiles a little. "Using it to your advantage."

Damian's scowl seems to deepen with each new comment Dick makes. He telegraphs ever so slightly – elbow dropped, stance shifting, preparing to come at Dick with a stab again – and Dick takes advantage. He figures he might try something Batman could do that Nightwing couldn't – make the cape work for, instead of against him –

And grabs the edge of Batman's cape and wraps it around the sword as Damian comes in. When he's got it wrapped up, he pulls it away from Damian, and since Damian is unwilling to let go, knees the kid in the face when his face presents itself in knee range.

Damian sprawls backwards but quickly hops to his feet.

Dick digs the sword out of his cape and holds it in one hand. It fits perfectly – it clearly wasn't custom made for a kid. "Okay, now you show me," he says. "The situation's reversed. Against an armed opponent with a superior reach, what do you do?"

Damian puts his weight on the balls of his feet and bends his knees. His stance is more cautious, tentative, and he's poised like he wants to do something but isn't entirely sure of what.

Dick really feels unfair like this, considering he got changed into Batman and has a weapon and Damian didn't bother getting changed into Robin before sparring – so more than being reversed, the situation is now decidedly in Dick's favor. But he's also wondering if it won't be a good lesson. Unarmed combat against an armed opponent with superior reach and experience is something he might need in the future, even if Dick can tell that in the now, Damian is annoyed at himself.

"Come on," Dick says. "You can do it."

"Stop trying to distract me with all your incessant prattling," Damian snaps.

Or maybe he's annoyed at Dick. Heck, Dick doesn't blame him. He remembers being pretty ticked when it felt like he was being asked to fight a match he couldn't win in training.

Damian keeps glancing over Dick, and then quickly over the mostly empty sparring room, and Dick can just imagine the gears turning in his head. Unless Dick makes the first move and over extends himself in some way, Damian coming in at him is going to be really difficult. Dick will just be able to re-position himself and stab him and –

Dick realizes, he's surprised Damian hasn't taken advantage of the fact that Dick's not actually going to stab him. Damian doesn't have any armor on, after all. With a sword in his hands, Dick is more handicapped in this situation than he would be otherwise.

Damian quickly takes a couple more steps back, increasing the distance between them further, and then yanks his shirt off in one motion and twists it, treating it almost like a chain he's holding with both hands, one on each end. Some type of tool is better than none, Dick supposes, and he wonders if he's going to try to mimic the thing Dick did with the cape.

Damian tentatively approaches Dick, still out of reach of the sword. It would be easy to just come in with an attack now and hope Damian dodges it, but Dick really isn't wanting to bet on that, no matter how offended Damian would be at him playing it safe. Instead he waits with the sword raised defensively, letting himself seem way more patient than he feels.

Damian starts circling Dick, and Dick just rotates in his spot, not letting the kid get behind him. Eventually, Damian must have decided that one of them had to do something, because he runs in despite the reach disadvantage. Dick prepares a tentative blow at waist height and Damian drops to the ground and slides at Dick's knees like a baseball player, holding his make-shift tool up, preparing to catch Dick's sword arm when he swings.

It's still an extremely disadvantageous entrance on Damian's part, Dick knows. Dick changes the trajectory of the sword to bring it down near Damian but can't really follow through, and the kid slides between his legs, behind him, and elbows him hard in the back of the knee and a jolt of pain shoots up his leg, because the joins aren't really as armored as the rest and Damian did put a lot of force into that.

Dick falls to one knee to let the one that took the blow rest. He kind of expects Damian to be looking triumphant, but the kid is just scowling down at him, annoyed.

"I'm not an idiot," Damian says. He grabs his sword from where Dick dropped it and says, "I can tell when you're lining up for a blow and decide not to make it, you know."

"Yeah, well I wasn't going to stab a ten-year-old in a training situation," Dick says, trying to keep his voice light, like they're just bantering. "I'm not a monster."

Damian does not return the favor of lightness. He just looks at Dick from the corner of his eye and says, "My family aren't monsters."

"I didn't say they were."

"You were thinking it."

Dick wants to say that if he's not even allowed to internally judge the Al Ghuls, this is going to be a really stressful partnership. But he doesn't. He just says, "Look, my point is, I shouldn't have taken your sword. I wasn't going to use it, anyway." And then, he adds, unsure whether the assurance is necessary ("no one's going to hurt you, you don't have to follow assassin sparring rules"), or insulting (insinuating again that the people who raised him were monsters), "You're safe here."

Damian's knuckles whiten as he squeezes the hilt of the sword tighter. "Just stick to what you know, Grayson, and keep your nose out of things you don't. I don't have to respect your expertise if you don't demonstrate any."

Right then. Damian definitely decided to take offense to it, then. "Get into your Robin gear then," Dick says. "Because I know Robin a ton, and we're going out tonight."