02:

i'll be your flowers, your pouring rain

SEPTEMBER

"Hey, Damian!" Danny slips into his seat in their shared mythology class a few minutes earlier than he normally does. There's an energetic pep to his step, despite the deep eye bags. It might have to do with the decently sized travel cup of coffee in one hand. "Your dad is having one of those galas this weekend, isn't he?"

"Yes." As much as Damian detests the constant galas his father hosts, he knows how important they are. Brucie Wayne, the persona Father puts on in the public eye, is known to enjoy parties. It would be odd for Brucie Wayne to not host a gala or some sort of rich get together at least once a month, sans the times he has faked illness or injury (or actually did have one from patrols or missions as Batman) to get a break from it all.

As much as Damian hates having to get dressed up for them, they serve a greater purpose. Identity, persona, prestige.

"Cool! I think my guardian got invited to it, cause he mentioned it to me this morning before we left." Danny explains, taking a sip of his coffee.

Damian feels his face pale, a bit. His stomach sinks. If Danny's guardian– Vlad Masters, if he calls correctly– was invited to the gala, so were his children. So were… Dan and Ellie.

Danny seems to read Damian's mind. "Oh, don't worry about it. Dan and Ellie wouldn't be coming. I'm the only one of the three "mentally stable" enough to go. I'm the least likely to accidentally set something on fire or attack someone." Danny adds, with a nervous wave of their hand and a shrug. "Will you be there, too?"

When all of Damian's siblings are required to go– usually for birthday galas or the like, where their complete attendance is mandatory for the public– that is usually how they end. Something gets set on fire, or someone tries to attack someone else, or Grayson ends up drinking too much "punch" and ends up on the chandeliers again.

Not everyone is required to be in full attendance for this one. Damian is; due to the fact it is being held in the manor, and he is one of the few full-time residents there. As is Drake. Damian knows it's for a Wayne Enterprise deal, or something along the lines. Or perhaps some sort of goal was met? He didn't pay attention to the why of the gala when Father explained it to him earlier that week, only that he had to go. It might have been important to learn why, but to be fair, Damian's had a lot on his plate for the last two weeks since the previous gala, both academically, socially, and vigilante-wise.

His thoughts wander to Danny's words. An image of Ellie, surrounded by flames comes to mind. He shudders slightly at the thought.

"Yes, I will." Damian replies, shaking the horrifying image of Ellie out of his head. If Danny will be there, maybe it won't be too bad.

"Awesome! Then I won't be as lonely, then." Danny smiles. His teeth have always been a little too sharp, in a way that Damian struggles to describe, but they're not bared threateningly. They never have been. "I-If you don't mind, I mean."

"Your company will also be appreciated." Even though Damian has only known the other student for a little more than a month, he would aim to consider Danny an acquaintance. Perhaps even on a friend level.

Just Danny, however. He's definitely, totally, not partial to any of his siblings. Not at all.

As their classmates begin to file into their class following the five-minute bell; Danny starts to pull out his own notebooks and pencils.

The class goes by as it usually does. They're nearing the end of their first mythology unit, focused on Ancient Greece, when Mr. Meyers gets to the end of his lecture on Jason and the Argonauts, when something Damian quite despises happens.

He is great at tests. Studying comes easily to Damian, after all. He was fully prepared to relieve a study guide and fly through the text the next week.

But instead of just a test, Mr. Meyers does a rather democratic thing, and puts up a vote.

Unit Test or Final Project?

And, to his dismay, final project wins by a majority vote.

"Because this is your first final project in my class, I'm going to be nice and let you pair up with whoever you see fit." Mr. Meyers explains, as he wipes away the talley marks from the whiteboard. "If you all do good on your projects, I might not pair you up myself next time. Sound good?"

A few of the louder students in class choir an agreement. Mr. Meyers messes with the projector again, before pulling up the prompt for their project. He also pulls out a bucket from behind his desk, full of tiny slips of paper, and sets a packet of papers next to it.

At the very least, the project is incredibly simple. Create a biography for one of the twelve big Olympian gods (and Hades, to even it out).

"Pair up with someone you'd like to work with, and then come get a slip for your project!"

The class erupts into a cacophony of noise, and Damian resists the urge to sink down into his seat. He is fine with working on projects, of course. And he's always managed to get his group an A on their projects, naturally. But that is because the groups he found himself in did lackluster work in comparison to himself. The worst groups were the ones where Damian was left all the work.

"So, we're gonna work together, right?" Danny's nice voice breaks through Damian's sulking.

"Only if you want to." He's more than able to pair up with another classmate. Though, it looks like most others have paired up already. A few have even received their assignment, and two guys groan as they get Aphrodite and beg Mr. Meyers to pull a different one.

He knows Danny does good work on his own. He's seen the homework passed back out many times, and despite their strangely illegible handwriting, they always get above a ninety on homework. Danny's grades are probably the best after Damian, at least in this class.

"Sure! I'll go get the stuff." Danny grins at him again, before pushing out his chair and standing up. He nearly trips over air walking up to the front, and pulls out a small slip of paper from the bucket, and grabs their project instruction sheets, before making it back to their shared table.

He had a strange sort of smile on his face. It isn't unsettling, by any means. It looks more like he heard a joke that Damiam doesn't know about, or is reacting to some sort of inside joke shared with his siblings.

"Well, we got Hades." Danny says, with a smirk, passing over the slip of paper.

Hades. God of the Dead. King of the Underworld. Something about that resonated with Damian, a bit; and it seemed something resonated with Danny as well.

Death follows Damian around like a shadow. He has spilled blood and ended countless lives before he was even trained to ride a bicycle. The guilt picks odd times to manifest sometimes, but Damian is getting better with it. Slowly.

But there's something about Danny's reaction that seems to mirror his own. Similar, but not quite the same.

He thinks of the scarring on Danny's right arm. They always wear long sleeves, even on the hottest days, but once, at lunch, the sleeve had fallen loose enough for Damian to get a glimpse of them.

Their shape was undeniably unique. Lichtenberg scarring, from electricity, an old wound that seems to be taking a while to heal. It explained a lot– why Danny favors their left over their right, and writes with his left hand as well. Perhaps that is why his handwriting is so bad?

He wonders what that is. Unlike his siblings, though, he doesn't have the patience to do a complete background check of anyone he interacts with at school. While his curiosity is piqued, he also doesn't want to go behind Danny's back, and look up information about his friend without permission.

Oh. Huh.

Danny is a friend, isn't he?

"This will be easy." Damian says. The rubric from Mr. Meyers is thick, and their project seems to have a lot of different optional ways to go about it. Creative prompts, such as creating videos or visual artwork, or even poetry or prose, are required for the project. Interesting.

They would be given time in class to work on their projects for the next week, but were also encouraged to work on the project outside of class. Working on it outside of class would allow them to finish it faster.

Unfortunately, the bell rings before Damian can even ask Danny about ideas. They did have their shared earth science class after this one, but their teacher had switched up the seating about two weeks in after one of their classmates had somehow managed to start a fire by accident.

"Oh! Here." Before he puts his pencils away, Danny grabs the small slip of paper and scribbles something on the flip side of it before passing it to Damian. "It's my phone number! Maybe we could hang out outside of school, sometime, too?"

Damian looks down at the phone number, hastily scribbled on a torn piece of paper that has HADES bleeding through backwards in bright red ink, and something almost stutters in his heart. Even though it's for a project, there's something that feels more intimate than Damian was expecting about this.

"Thank you. I will text you as soon as I can." He pauses. "And yes. I would not mind that at all."

It's roughly two days later before they're able to get a chance to see each other outside of school, and it's merely only directly outside. Danny invites Damian over to their house to work on the project after school. Father allowed it, of course.

But the first step was getting there. And Damian didn't know what to expect. While Danny's guardian, Vlad Masters, was pretty wealthy in his own right, Danny still bounced around the school with a bag and school supplies of a lower status. In fact, all three of the siblings, in one way or another, didn't appear at first glance to come from wealth.

Dan was… well, Dan. Damian doesn't interact with him as much as the other two, even though Dan is usually present. He's tall, gruff, and looks like a delinquent, and when he speaks, talks like one, too.

Ellie is something else as well. While he could admire her… tenacity, with some aspects, her stubbornness felt like something that would rival his own father. And while she wore the typical uniform of Gotham Academy, accessories were allowed, and most of them were proudly hand-made from previous pieces that she had picked up here and there.

Damian only knew that because Ellie didn't shut up about it.

As Damian follows Danny out of the front of Gotham Academy and towards the parking lot, he doesn't know what to expect. Dan, apparently, is the one who drives the three to school, and Damian has seen some of his classmates own vehicles. Teslas, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, he's seen them all.

What he hasn't seen, evidently, is the beat-up truck hiding in the furthest reaches of the parking lot. It has definitely seen better days. The side is covered in dried mud and dirt, and one of the side mirrors is angled at a funny direction.

And Dan unlocks it. Ellie immediately calls for shotgun.

What .

"You got a problem with her?"

Her? Oh. The truck. "No, I do not." Damian shakes his head, following as Danny pulls open one of the back doors and climbs in. The inside is just as old as the outside, but there's something cozy about it. It smells of dirt, but not in a disgusting way.

Danny pushes a pile of gardening tools off the seat they climb to, and they clash at the bottom.

"Oh! My turn with the music, right?" Ellie asks, already pulling her phone out.

"As long as it's not that weird shit, whatever." Dan replies.

"Hey! Pirate metal isn't that weird!" Ellie retorts.

"Repeat those words again with a straight face, gremlin ."

"At least I don't listen to freestyle jazz when I'm driving!"

"You don't even have a license. Dad won't let you get one after you failed the test twelve times!"

"It was not twelve! It was six!"

Danny nudges Damian's arm, giving an apologetic smile as their two other siblings bicker in the front seat.

"Are they always like this?"

"Oh, yeah, every single time Ellie gets shotgun." Danny rolls his eyes, pulling out his phone and a set of earbuds. They're not even Bluetooth, like the ones that Damian and most of their classmates have. They're wired headphones, and have a thick wad of duct tape on the very end of the cord, where the wires have probably frayed.

Vlad Masters is a rich man, Damian thinks. Why do they have things this low in quality ?

Danny doesn't hesitate in offering one earbud over to Damian. Curiously, Damian takes it.

Damian wouldn't say he doesn't like music, but his tastes are more refined. He has vinyl records of various classical pieces in his bedroom that he plays when he studies or paints. The peaceful notes of that genre help him focus, on either his school work, his art, or even the training programs Father has installed in the batcave. It is much easier for him to disarm a digital opponent listening to Clair de lune than it is when any of Drake's music is on.

Or, heaven forbid, Richard's music. Too many pop songs from the 80s get stuck, looped in Damian's head after he spends a day with his eldest brother. How he manages to survive that, Damian doesn't understand.

But what plays over Danny's earbud is…

…Damian doesn't despise it.

I keep it easy, I keep it breezy

I wanna smile so hard that it chokes me

It's an enchanting melody, he can't deny it. Not quite pop; not quite rock– something else entirely. The two singers are clearly British, Damian can tell by the accents, but the music isn't the worst thing in the world. The lyrics, too, are written rather well. It is not often that he finds himself enjoying much music with the written word alongside it, but whoever writes the songs for this band, they are particularly gifted with it.

A lot of Danny's playlist on his phone is a similar caliber to this song. Light music, enchanting, almost whimsical, at some points. Most of the playlist is from the one band, but there are a few other songs mixed in, as well.

Whatever Ellie and Dan decide to play for music fades away in the background, as Danny glances over to Damian and smiles.

Damian is… content with it, despite everything. He's never felt content like this before, in the presence of someone else other than family. The chaos of the other siblings is familiar; but what he feels with Danny is… different.

Different, how? He ponders it through the entire drive to their own home.

It seems Vlad Masters has purchased a small estate in the rolling outskirt hills of Gotham. It isn't too far away from the manor itself, surprisingly; there are quite a few driveways and small, private roads, and they turn just three roads before the turn for Damian's own home. It isn't quite a walkable distance. but with a bicycle, or a small vehicle, it would be pretty doable.

The estate is much smaller than the manor, however. The acreage might have been the same, but the actual building was much smaller. Not quite as small as what Damian would expect a suburban house to be, not at all like any of Father's various safehouses throughout the city (covertly bought apartments that they all have keys to in case a patrol goes wrong), but small.

Made of brick, the home stands roughly two stories tall, with large windows in the front. There's a bit of a natural, cabin vibe to the home, too, though Damian can't point out exactly how he came to that conclusion. In front of the house is a large, sprawling vegetable garden, one that might even make Alfred jealous.

…No. Damian cannot imagine the man ever being jealous of anything. Perhaps, instead, he'd just like to talk about it. Nobody else in Damian's family knew how to garden much, aside from helping pull weeds or watering.

Dan and Ellie lead their small group to the front door, the truck parked out in front of the garage. The front foyer of the estate is rather quaint and homely. A lot of wooden furniture decorates the house, and its open floor plan allows Damian to easily get a grasp on where exactly everything is in this house. Escape routes jump to mind easily, along with the various ways that a person could easily break in.

The man that Damian had been expecting to meet today walks out of the left room, a living room, holding a laptop underneath his arm.

"AH! Hi, Dad!" Ellie doesn't hesitate to kick her sneakers off by the front door, and run and give the man a hug.

"Ellie! Welcome home." Vlad Masters says, and then turns to the other three teenagers (including Damian). "Dante, Daniel. Welcome back."

Dan grunts in response, kicking off his own shoes, before disappearing off into the house. Where exactly he's heading, Damian doesn't know. Nor, does he really care. He's not there to closely follow these triplets. He's here to work on a school project.

Danny– Daniel? No, that feels… wrong. - rolls his eyes.

" Vladimir ." Danny responds, back, though their tone is a bit more playful than deadpan. "This is Damian. A friend from school. We've gotta work on a project, so…"

"Of course. The study is open, if you'd prefer that. All my meetings for the day are done." Ellie has managed to keep herself hanging off Masters, which is rather unsurprising. Damian has seen the girl in their physical education class. He knows how strong she is underneath the layers of clothing.

"Nah, I think my room is good." Danny glances back at Damian, with a smile. "C'mon, this way."

Damian nods, following Danny through their modest house. There are rather luxurious pieces of furniture, mixed-in with the more hand-made looking pieces, as well. There are a lot of different pieces of memorabilia from a football team, as well.

"The Green Bay Packers?"

"Ah, yeah. Vlad's a bit… obsessed with them, you could say." Danny smirks, as if he's remembering an inside joke that Damian isn't a part of.

He follows Danny up the main staircase in the house, and down a long hallway. One door they pass is rather beat-up compared to the rest of them; Damian can only assume that it is Dan's room, but he could be wrong. Ellie could definitely beat up a door that much.

At the very end of the hallway, Danny opens a door to his own bedroom. It looks… Well, it looks much like Damian would expect a regular teen's bedroom to look.

Posters decorate the walls, taped up pretty chaotically. There are a few band posters mixed in with a lot of different posters relating to space. A photo of the moon, a poster of the solar system, one with a cartoon cat astronaut– it all screams Danny to him.

The ceiling is also decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars that Damian remembers Richard buying him as a present once, when he'd first come tot he manor claiming it was a childhood ritual to put the glow-in-the-dark stars up on one's room. He'd helped Damian put them up haphazardly in his room.

Damian had taken them down the previous year. They had all started falling down, and while, no, he was not startled every single time a star fell, not at all, they were rather worn down,

The stars on this ceiling, though, were neat and orderly, in proper placement for different constellations. The easiest one to make out was, naturally, Orion; but he saw a few more as well. Gemini, Andromeda, Cassiopeia…

"Those took forever to get up right." Danny says, when he notices Damian staring at them. They drop their school bag on their bed, which is nestled up in the corner of the room next to a large, open window. The bed is just a full-sized bed, with an old wooden bedframe, covered in stickers and with carvings in it. He could make out a Sam and a Tucker, along with the scrawl of Ellie's own handwriting. "Ellie kept getting the placement wrong, and we had to go to the store to get more putty halfway through it."

"It is done very well." Damian replies. He tries to give Danny a soft smile in response.

It's not that Damian doesn't know how to smile, of course; he has smiled before. He has felt joy before. But sharing that joy with others is difficult. Sometimes he doesn't have to think about it, sometimes it does come naturally, but he's been told by a lot of people, not just inside his family, that is "resting bitch face" can be rather intimidating, and, well. Damian doesn't want to intimidate Danny.

It seems to go well, because Danny smiles back.

They settle down on the carpeted floor of Danny's room, eventually. Time passes in peaceful silence, and it's nice. It's so nice. Damian can't believe how nice it is.

Both of their textbooks are opened up to different myths related to their given god, Hades. Of course, the most popular myth regarding the God of Death is the story of the abduction of his wife, Persephone, to the underworld. Danny's textbook is open to the myth about that, and he scribbles notes down in a notebook while Damian reads through the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. While not a myth directly about Hades, it did feature the god, and it was thematically important as a "visit to the underworld" myth, which is common in many cultures.

Eventually, though, it's Damian who interrupts the silence of their research.

"Why did Ellie call Masters her father? I was under the belief that he was merely your guardian."

Danny hisses through clenched teeth. "Ugh... Yeah, that's… It's kinda... complicated ."

Damian resists rolling his eyes. "I am a Wayne. I am used to complicated family dynamics." I have adopted siblings, and semi-adopted siblings, and people in my family who have no set dynamic other than 'family', he wants to add, but he isn't sure how he can really describe it.

"Oh, right." Danny sets down their pen and notebook. "Well, uh. When we were born to our bio parents, they weren't expecting triplets. They just wanted one kid, but then three popped out! What a surprise. Anyway, Vlad was a college buddy of theirs, and he offered to help out where he could, and it kinda just worked out where he gained custody of Ellie and Dan, and just raised them." They sigh. "Then my parents and Vlad lost contact for a while, and I didn't even know I was a triplet until I was fourteen and they reconnected."

Oh. Wow. That is complicated . Damian doesn't know what to say, other than, "You didn't know you were a triplet?"

"Not until recently, no." Danny shrugs. "I mean, I already had an older sister, so getting two more surprise siblings wasn't too much of a shock, even when they eventually moved to Amity Park so they could be closer with me. We didn't interact as much at first. It's only when..." They trail off for a second, their voice dropping quietly. "Sorry. Uh-"

"Do not push yourself to talk about things you are uncomfortable with." Damian says. "I am sorry for asking, if I knew the memories were bad-"

"No! Don't apologize! My bio parents aren't dead." Danny pauses. "At least. They better not be. They're just... We don't know where they went. They went on a trip and never came back."

Oh . Damian files that fact away, mentally. "They are missing?"

"Yeah. Vlad's got, like, a million private investigators working on it. But they've been gone for a year now. When it was clear that they weren't gonna be back for the next school year, Vlad took me in. He was already planning on moving to Gotham with Dan and Ellie, and I just came with them."

"What of your older sister?"

"She's at Yale right now." Danny adds. "First-year. She comes by every few weekends to visit. Vlad helps pay for her apartment, but Jazz has always been pretty self-sufficient."

Hm. Well, the disappearance of Danny's biological parents is rather concerning. Of course, the complicated familial relationships were none of Damian's business, but he wonders if there's anything he could find, as Robin, that would help Danny out.

A knock on the door interrupts his thoughts. Ellie has changed out of their Gotham Academy uniforms, and is wearing an oversized green t-shirt and an ankle-length brown skirt. Her hair is still done up in the signature pigtails, though they're a bit messier now than they were in the morning. "Hey, Dami, quick question–"

"Do not call me that."

"- Do you plan on staying for dinner tonight?"

Dinner? Damian glances out Danny's window. Surely enough, the sun is beginning to set, the sky turning amber and warm. He didn't notice how fast time had been passing, in-between research and talking with Danny.

"What is for dinner?" Danny asks.

"Food." Ellie replies smarmily.

"You know that's not what I meant–"

Ellie hides her laughter behind her hands, before clearing her throat. "Salad, probably? Dan said he got a pretty good harvest from his garden today, so."

His garden? Damian nearly freezes at the thought of Dan taking care of the beautiful garden in front of the house. But the dirt-covered truck and gardening tools now make more sense.

"A salad sounds pretty good, actually." Danny replies. They glance over to Damian. "We'll definitely have plenty for you. That is, I mean, um–" They stammer, nervously, their cheeks flushing. "Only if you want to, of course!"

"I can ask my father." Alfred's dinners were always grand feasts, no matter how many members of the family were currently at the manor. As long as Damian is back for patrol that night, he is sure his Father wouldn't mind him staying a little longer.

And he doesn't. Especially when he learns that Damian is pretty close to the manor, in terms of rich people real estate, so Damian stays. The salad isn't grand, like Alfred's dinners.

But it is still very, very delicious.

"Oh! Damian! There you are!"

Damian jolts at the sudden call of his name, but he turns, and finds Danny walking over to him. The gala that Father was holding was underway, and most guests had already arrived and introduced themselves to the Waynes already. He'd just snuck away to grab a drink (non-alcoholic, unfortunately) from the refreshments table when he'd heard his name.

He does need to take a brief second when he sees Danny approach. He doesn't know what he was expecting Danny to wear, but whatever it was, it wasn't this.

Danny is dressed in a light blue jumpsuit instead of a tuxedo. The top of the jumpsuit is flowy and ornate; the sleeves split in the middle, falling loose around the elbows and shoulders, and tight again at the wrists. The color fades into a deeper shade of blue down the legs.

"Hi!"

"Hello, Danny." Damian collects himself quickly. "You look nice tonight."

"Oh, thanks!" Danny's face flushes red, again, and he looks down at his outfit. He's not wearing high-heels– obviously, given the fact that Danny is just a short as ever– but has dark blue oxford loafers on instead. "Ellie says she might give the sleeves another go, but it was already too close to the gala to rework it."

"Ellie made this?"

"Yeah!" Danny nods. "It's kinda a thing in our house, I guess? Like, Vlad makes each of us take up an extracurricular or some kind of hobby. Dan's got his gardening, and I think he's trying out for the wrestling team next week. Ellie's got a lot of hobbies, but right now she's really into the ocean, fashion, and making clothes. She's trying to start a fashion club at school, I think, but she can't find anyone who looks at that stuff like she does."

While not a requirement for his family, Damian can relate to the necessity of extracurriculars, though Damian's is a bit more life-and-death than just a simple sport team. Despite the vigilantism, Father has been rather pushy about getting Damian involved in an after-school club recently.

"Why is she struggling?" Knowing Ellie, the girl could strongarm anyone into joining her club. He's surprised he hasn't gotten accosted yet to join.

"Ah, well. Most of the girls in our school see fashion as, like. Gucci and stuff. She's more into making stuff and the 'sustainability of the fashion market'." Danny adds, with air quotes. "She really talks to Sam too much about that stuff…"

Before Damian can ask who that is, they get interrupted.

Of course. Of course. Though he wasn't required to be there, Richard was around for the gala that night. And as he'd promised to be on his best behavior, Danny wouldn't witness a drunken Grayson swinging from the chandeliers for the fifteenth gala in a row. But he didn't promise to not be a snoop in Damian's life.

"Ah! Damian, there you are." He stops, looking over at Danny, and then smiles . Great . "Who is this?" The man asks.

Damian sighs. Over the last few days– since he had stayed for dinner at Danny's home– his siblings have become suddenly obsessed with his friendship. Of course, it was a little out-of-the-ordinary for Damian to have anyone he would consider a friend, but that was it with Danny. Just a friendship.

(...Right?)

"Richard. This is Danny Fenton. He is a ward of Vlad Masters. Danny, this is–"

"Richard Grayson, at your service. But you can call me Dick." Richard interrupts, swinging his hand out for Danny.

"You willingly let yourself get called that?" Danny asks, with a toothy smirk.

"Hey, it was different when I was younger!" Richard retorts, with just as much wit. "Good to meet you, Danny. We've heard a bit about you."

"Oh, have you ?"

Damian wishes he hadn't promised Father he would not stab anyone tonight. He hides his face and takes a sip of his water, noting exactly how many knives were easily within his reach. Feasibly, six of them were easily accessible, and he could grab nine if he really needed to. But he'd promised.

I will not give in. I will not give in. I will not give in.

"Yeah, you guys are in that mythology class at Gotham Academy, right? Man, I wish I had a cool class like that when I was going there."

"Yeah, it is pretty fun…"

As they're in the middle of talking, Damian can see someone else approaching, right in the corner of his eye. Drake. Of course.

This is an ambush. It was purposefully done, to check out Damian's so-called friend. He's surprised that nobody else is involved in this. Of course, Todd never attends galas unless he's absolutely required to, and Brown and Cain are out of town on missions, and Thomas has a large college exam to study for. But if they were available, he's sure they, too, would be involved in this.

He had nearly forgotten that Danny was even attending the gala that evening. How Drake and Richard had gotten this over him, he didn't know. But he would seek out revenge swiftly and accordingly. After the gala. With no knives.

"Hey, Dick. Damian. And you must be Daniel Fenton, right?"

"Yeah, that's me. Just call me Danny, though." Danny replies, looking over at Tim curiously. "And you are…?"

"Uh, Timothy Drake-Wayne. CEO of Wayne Enterprises?"

"Oh! Sorry. You're a lot shorter than I was expecting."

It may have been an ambush, but it seems Danny did not come unprepared. Damian doubts that his friend was fully prepared for this, but he does send Drake sputtering a bit with his comment. He steps a bit closer to Danny, but Damian steps between them, slightly.

"Do not try to interrogate my friend." He says.

"I'm not going to interrogate him! I just wanted to ask–" Drake quickly collects himself. "-What designer did you get your outfit from? It doesn't look like anything I've seen."

Danny seems to buy the lie (a little bit), and he smiles. "Oh! My sister, Ellie, made it!"

"Ellie?"

"Yeah! She's, uh. Busy tonight, couldn't make it." They stutter over the lie, and it's definitely something that Damian can see Drake file away in his own mind. Richard, too, probably picked up on it as well.

"Well, let her know she's done an amazing job on it! I don't know specific techniques of fashion design, but the sleeves are made of chiffon, or something similar, right? That isn't easy to sew." Drake seems to have done his research on fashion. Damian doubts that it was a planned thing. He knows that his older brother tends to go on long research dives when he's working on cases, and ends up with too much information that he doesn't know what to do with relating to cases.

The victim is a well-known barista? Drake has learned 17 different ways to brew espresso. A few new goons of one of their rouges seem to have experience with pottery? Oh, Drake casually learned all about Ancient Greek pottery. It was his own way of taking breaks when he was on his 48-hour no-sleep research binges. Not really a break, given it was still related to work, but it was the best they've gotten aside from drugging him to get him to go to bed.

"Oh, sure. I'll let her know." Danny nervously clears their throat, before turning and looking at Damian. Despite the low lighting of the gala, their blue eyes were glowing brightly. "Actually, Damian, hey, I wanted to ask you about something… for our school project?"

"Sure. We can discuss the specifics of our project over here. Where we can be by ourselves ." He glares at his two brothers, before he takes Danny by the wrist and brings him through their ball room and towards one of the back hallways.

It's quieter, for one, in the back corner. They're the furthest from the food and drink tables, which is unfortunate, but Richard and Drake were shaken off them for now. An older lady familiar with Richard started a conversation with him, and Drake had been dragged away by a few board members to talk to someone.

They were both within sight of Damian, though. They were both keeping their eyes on him. And he would keep his eyes on them.

It's annoying. He understands a bit where they're coming from– but Damian can handle himself, thank you very much . He can certainly handle being with a friend like this.

"I apologize for my brothers. They can be a little overprotective, sometimes."

"Huh? Oh, Don't worry about it. I didn't even notice." Danny replies. "And I didn't have anything to ask about our project. I was just trying to get us away from them."

Oh. Huh, Damian hadn't even considered that. He genuinely thought that Danny had a question for him.

"I don't know how you do it."

"Do what?"

"These galas. The parties." Danny leans against the wall, and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jumpsuit. Pockets. "Too many people. I hate it."

"All of us tend to dislike these galas as well. But we must put up a front for the media and for our alliances with other Gotham elite."

"Alliances?"

"Yes." Damian lowers his voice. "These are more to Father than just parties. They are to secure business alliances and partnerships, and to keep in touch with the elite of Gotham."

"Oh. Huh. So it's like a spy mission?"

"...No. It's not."

"It's totally a spy mission. Got it." Danny winks dramatically at Damian. "Your secret is safe with me, Dami. Damian . Shit, sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

"Ellie calls you Dami a lot, and you always say you don't like it. Sorry."

It's true. Ellie has been persistent with his unfortunate nickname. While not the first and only time he's been called Dami, she seems to be stubborn about it. She doesn't seem to budge with it.

But hearing it out of Danny's mouth is different. Somehow. He doesn't know how to explain it, but it does make his heart feel a little lighter.

"I… I do not mind it from you, Danny." He says, tugging at the sleeve of his suit jacket. His stomach flips, a bit; a childish feeling he tries to ignore.

"Oh. Okay. As long as you're okay with it."

"I am."