Chapter 20 - College Students

"Wouldn't Bruce know? I mean, you don't have anything else you want to do-"

"Science." That stopped Dick dead in his tracks. She could see him struggle to comprehend.

"What?"

"I. Would Like. To do. Science," she repeated slowly. "Some kind of science degree. I've still got a year to go so I'll look into which sciences interest me next year but," she shrugged. Her point was made.

Her dad was staring at her with his mouth open and his eyes wide. It took him several moments to pull himself back together. She didn't think he would be so shocked to find out. Surely he didn't think all she had was being a vigilante? Even vigilantes needed day jobs!

"Science?" he questioned.

Her heart was thudding in her chest as she nodded in response. She had never mentioned this before and it felt like a strange kind of bearing of her soul. Her father's reaction was a complete unknown.

"Um... like biology or chemistry?" Dick asked.

"I do both at school," Mar'i pointed out.

"What about physics?"

"I don't really like physics. The maths part is nice but it's... a lot of paper, memorising and writing and very little experimenting. Most of it is theoretical and proving theories."

"Forensics?"

"Not going to be a cop, dad," Mar'i commented with a good-naturedly roll of her eyes and laugh.

"I see." Dick didn't know how to react to this. He had his hands folded on the table, fingers intertwined but twitching with nervous energy.

He should have known this about his daughter... right?

"Um... I never..." It felt like admitting defeat. "Where were you thinking of studying?"

Mar'i instantly answered, "where do you think? Gotham U. We just moved here and I'm not ready to leave yet."

"Oh." He felt like slapping himself. That did seem kind of obvious. He just hoped she didn't drop out of college the way he did. "Huh," he voiced as it felt like some kind of weight lifted from his chest. "So you've actually been thinking about what you want to do."

"Of course," Mar'i responded with a grin. Dick's hands had parted, no longer trembling with nervous energy. "And, even if I wasn't, high school teachers do encourage that line of thinking a lot."

Dick was reminded of why they were talking about this as he wondered if it was the same for Damian.

"I doubt Damian even spent enough time in class for those kind of discussions."

Mar'i gave him a bland look, showing him that she wasn't impressed with his attempt at humour that time.

Mar'i was reminded that Damian was staying when he walked through the door that evening. Unfortunately, she could curse his timing.

Dick was sitting at the table with his laptop in front of him, gushing at the screen.

"Science, she says! Isn't that adorable? She's so much like you," he was saying to the person on the other end.

"I should be saying that to you," Kori's smooth voice flowed out of the speakers. "She does want to study on Earth instead of with me."

"Here on Earth, you need to get a 'degree' thing if you want people to take you seriously and give you a job!" Mar'i called out from the couch. She ignored Damian's scrunched up little nose; he didn't seem to enjoy hearing Dick gush about his daughter with the ex.

"They still talk to each other? Like friends?" he questioned as he sat down next to her and clicked on the TV.

"Who?"

"Your parents."

"Yeah, of course," Mar'i responded, mouth moving faster than her thoughts. "They have me-" she stopped instantly as she recalled Damian's parental situation. A bit like hers, except his parents were almost mortal enemies and his mother would kill his father and anyone else who got in her way. Including Damian.

"They're both too forgiving for their own good," she responded with a shrug. "Although, there was a time where they could hardly bare to look at each other. But now, there's like no chance of them getting back together romantically so they settled into being friends."

Damian gave her a confused look and glanced over to where Dick was telling Kori about Mar'i's 'heroics' during the sinkhole incident. He was up to the part where she was evacuating an entire building by herself.

"You sure?" he questioned as they seemed quite friendly with each other.

Mar'i nodded.

"I think that's why they're still friends."

Damian pondered that for a few moments.

"And what was Dick saying about science before?"

"I finally told Dad about my aspirations for the future," she informed him with a lopsided grin. "I'm going to do something science related at Gotham U. He seems okay with it."

"-tt-. Well, their science division is good. Hopefully better than their business division."

Mar'i wondered where he heard that.

"Mar'i, come talk with your mother!" Dick called and waved, despite them being in the same area.

Mar'i was a little surprised that the first thing her mother pointed out was that experience was just as valuable as 'formal education'. Kori had a lot of knowledge in the sciences and made attempts to keep up with current Earth discoveries. Mar'i had to state that she wasn't going to be an astrophysicist at least twice when her mother started talking about taking her on field trips into space.

Mar'i kept half an ear on what was happening on the couch. Dick had taken her spot, sitting down next to Damian.

"Are you thinking about going to Gotham U?" Dick asked Damian. It was the most nonchalant way of trying to find answers he could think of.

It was either ask about college and a job or get Red Robin to look into it.

"Nope," Damian responded, pulling out a laptop. He started it up, staring at the screen instead of at Dick.

Fortunately, Dick didn't need someone to look at him in order to continue a conversation.

"Why not? Are you working too hard?"

Damian thought about this for a few moments, staring at the wall as he thought.

"-tt- I already said that Gotham U's business division is badly run, especially in comparison to other colleges. People tell me that the professors are being let go or sent to other locations, it's overcrowded and little to no money is spent on keeping the facilities neat. There's apparently a real push into moving the course completely online."

Dick looked mystified. This was a day of confusion for him. "How do you know that?"

"One of my team members for this group assignment we're working on used to go there."

"This group assignment you're working on?" Dick repeated in a high pitched voice. How was it these kids could run circles around him when one's supposed to be laid up in bed with injuries and the other wasn't around for most of the day?

"Yeah. It's due in two days but we're done so we spend our time just chatting," Damian said with a shrug. "Most of them know I live in Gotham and spent this morning asking about the sinkhole."

"Two days?" Dick questioned in a mystified tone.

"Didn't you hear me, Grayson? We finished already. It's submitted. And it was far too simple for someone like myself. I fear for the future of American businesses."

Dick shook his head. "I'm sorry, two days, as in, you're studying right now?"

"Right now? -tt- Of course not, I'm working on something for Timothy. I just came from watching an online lecture, which was boring by the way, what kind of idiot can't-"

"I mean, you're in college?" Dick quickly cut Damian off as he needed clarification on this.

"Yeah," Damian grumbled, rolling his eyes. "As your daughter eloquently put it, 'you need to get a 'degree' thing if you want people to take you seriously'. Besides, I took the Wayne scholarship offered to any employee of Wayne Enterprises."

"The- you mean Bruce is paying for it?" Dick questioned in shock, wondering how Bruce missed this.

"No. Wayne Enterprises is." Damian looked at him like he was stupid and that was supposed to be obvious.

Notes: Was supposed to post this chapter last night but I took the extra time to make sure to get it just right (failed on that but this is good at least). Some of the conversations here were difficult to write, especially Damian's and Dick's at the end (that went through three or four rewrites). Now, I don't know much about American schooling, being Australian and all, but I've done a few quick google searches to try and make sure everything at least sounds right. Although, the views expressed in this about the 'Business course' are based off my sister's own complaints with her university studies.

I have a headcanon for this fic that Gotham U is great for the sciences and philosophy and psychology courses but, even though it's home to Wayne Enterprises, it's business course has dropped in quality as focus is put on those 'great' courses. People come to Gotham to study science and the crazies, not to study business.