dami can't (leavethenest) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-31 19:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | damian wayne, stephanie brown |
Who: Damian and Steph
When: Christmas night
Where: Wayne Manor
What: Drunk batkids talkin about the party
Warnings: Just cuteness.
As the Wayne dinner started to die down, Damian collected a bottle of whiskey from the den, his dirty moose mug that had been full of eggnog and booze all night and stumbled up to his room. Overall, it had been a pretty successful Christmas. No serious fighting, Lois only shot him down once or twice and there wasn’t any talk about cowls or cats or vigilantes. Just family time. It was so unusual for the little bird, but it was a thing that he craved more than the rest of them. His mother showed him love as a child, but it wasn’t anything like the batfamily. Even when they were at each other’s throats. Even when he wasn’t sure how long the peace between them was going to last. Damian knew he could always fall back on them.
That said, Damian was ready for some quiet time on his own. He decided it was a good time to drink himself stupid, pass out on his floor and wake up with Bandit perched on his back waiting for him to feed him breakfast. He pushed his bedroom door open and stumbled over to sit on the floor against his bed, poured himself a little whiskey, put the bottle next to his legs and made some vague meowing noises to see if Bandit was around.
Christmas had been hit or miss in the Brown house for years, and Steph had taught herself not to expect much from the holiday season. But this year, well, she couldn't complain, could she? Despite the circumstances of late, the holidays shaped up better than most years combined. Though that hotel party on Christmas Eve attempted to throw she and Eddie though a loop, they emerged through the fire unscathed. Or, actually better than before. Way better than before. And the Wayne family dinner went well, too. No talk of her chasm from the family or slipping back into the cowl or her ties to Riddler. Just good food, good times, and plenty of booze between them all.
Steph spotted Damian slip off upstairs with a bottle of whiskey just as she was debating whether or not to ditch the place and ping Eddie on their comm. Instead, she ducked upstairs as well, snatching her half-empty glass of eggnog and rum to down as she searched for the little bird. They hadn't spoken much since their fight and his subsequent move-out, and she missed him more than she wanted to admit. She kicked at the open door of his bedroom, where she suspected he snuck off to, but didn't wait to be acknowledged before swaying inside. "Hiya, little bird," Steph said, or rather almost slurred, with a smile. "Sneaking away so soon?"
Damian was in the middle of trying to talk Bandit down from her sleeping perch on the bed when Stephanie kicked the door open and startled the both of them. “H-hey.” Damian said smirking a little and then scooting over so she could sit down, too. “Yeah, I’m pretty-” He paused, squinting at his socks. “Drunk. So, I thought before I strike out with Lois again, I’d hang out up here with Bandit and give her presents.” Damian looked up at the cat who was now uncurling from her sleeping ball position and walking over his shoulder and lap to greet Stephanie. “Oh so you’ll get up for her.” The little bird frowned.
Through the drunken grumpiness, it was clear that Damian was happy Stephanie was there. When he wasn’t finding new disapproving looks for Grayson or goofing off with Hels, he was trying to be nice to Steph. He’d fill up her cup when she was running low or pass her an extra bread roll before Grayson could eat them all. Little brother things to show her that he wasn’t mad anymore, even if he didn’t really know how to say he was sorry. A moment passed and then Damian looked up at Stephanie. “Drink with me?”
Steph stooped down to scoop Bandit up. "Hi, girl. I missed you." She scratched behind her ear and pressed a kiss to her fur. Not only did she lose a roommate when Damian moves out, but she lost her adorable kitten niece, too. She had a special attachment to Bandit from the beginning, after all. She looked at the youngest Wayne on the floor with an amused glint in her eyes and a smile crawling up her lips. "Yeah, okay," she said as she shuffled over to sit next to him, stocking-clad legs stretched out and cat in her lap. She toed off her shoes, too, and held out her cup for him. "You're more than pretty drunk, mister." She knew in the way that only other drunk people could understand. "And I could pay to watch you come on to Lois all night."
Damian barely laughed, popping open the bottle and pouring her a good helping of whiskey so she could catch up. “Lois wants this. I can tell. She’s just making it difficult on herself.” He shrugged, setting the bottle down and taking a sip from his own cup. Maybe it wasn’t an easy transition from ten to eighteen, but booze helped. So did going to school. After just a month in college, Damian looked like he was finally getting used to his own skin. Yeah, Selina would still make him nervous, but a lot of other things in his life felt better adjusted.
“How did last night go?” He asked, something in his eyes telling her that something weird happened to him. It wasn’t bad, just weird.
"Lois has a brain, okay? So she's smart enough not to want all this," she said, finger waving over Damian before poking his side to let her know she was kidding. Well, at least in implying that a woman would be stupid to be with him. Definitely not Lois though. "You need someone our age. We're making you an OKCupid account if you can't find any girls at Gotham U." Which she knew he probably couldn't. He would get too bored too quickly with most girls around their age. Rubbing Bandit with one hand, she took a healthy drink from her cup and shuddered as the alcohol burned down her throat.
"The hotel party?" she asked as she licked the excess liquor from her lips. "It was...good. Nice." She scrutinized Damian through narrowed eyes. "What happened there with you?"
Damian rolled his eyes at her. Girls their age were just that: girls. He didn’t have the patience for their insecurities, the attention span for the dumb stuff they liked to talk about and frankly most of them had high-pitched annoying voices that gave him a headache. “I’ll stab you.” He said simply about the OKCupid profile, though he wasn’t completely sure what that even was. A stupid internet social media thing for pathetic lonely people, probably.
“Nice? Are you joking?” Damian gaped at her. “Mine was a nightmare. I lost my cool in front of Jason and within ten minutes of being at that idiotic party it became alarmingly clear that both of us are severely messed up.” He inhaled deeply, trying to think of how to even tell this story without sounding insane. “I was studying at school and the hotel picks me up and drops me off in front of this forest. Jason’s there because of course he is and we go looking for a way out. Three steps into the woods and suddenly we’re in future Gotham. And, it’s on fire. Chaos everywhere. Todd and I go in to try and stop it, but guess who’s sucking down Lazarus Pit samples and killing goons?” Damian double thumbed towards himself. “This guy.”
"I'll just have to do it in secret then." Steph grinned then, tongue sticking out ever so slightly from between her teeth. She wouldn't do it, but maybe she needed to find someone to distract him a little bit, the grump that he was. But Damian Wayne was complicated, just like his father and mother, and most collegiate girl could not deal with complicated. Especially Wayne complicated. Whatever. That would be her project for the new year.
She nearly opened her mouth to argue and say yes, it was nice but Damian rattled off before she could. And as he went on, her mouth fell open anyway. "Hooooooooly shit, Damian." She managed to snap her mouth shut and pursed her lips in concern. "Holy shit," she repeated, but then she shook her head violently. "Gotham without someone makes you pit crazy?" Because in the woods they showed worlds of people missing and how things were better or worse. "Without Jason?" Steph watched to see how upset Damian was, taking the time to sip from her drink. Oh yeah she needed to be drunk for this. "It was a visiony thing. I had a few too. They aren't real or they won't be."
Damian still hadn’t put the whole theme of the night together, but it did make perfect sense that he’d turn out like that without Jason to keep him in line. “I’ve already considered healing some wounds with it, Stephanie.” He looked embarrassed to admit it, but the little bird thought he could handle whatever crazy the Pit threw at him. After all, when he made this Pit, it just tried to suck him in, not turn him into some raving lunatic. “Jason wants me to shut down the Pits and without him I wouldn’t. I might have started experimenting with them to see if they’d help me.” It sounded nuts saying it aloud, but the little bird did love gadgets and anything that got him a technical advantage over an opponent.
“I was going to-” Damian started and then decided he needed another gulp of whiskey before he could continue. “Selina and I still wanted a Plan B. The plan was to build a hidden Pit that Jason wouldn’t know about and then if someone died we’d throw them in there. Now- after seeing that thing- I don’t think I can do it anymore.” He sighed and reached out to touch Bandit’s tail to get her attention. “Selina is going to be so pissed, but I can’t carry it around with me anymore. Not after last night. So, no, it wasn’t nice.” Damian rolled his eyes at her.
Steph shot him a look that was sympathy mixed with overwhelming concern because just the idea of anyone using the pit like that made her sick with worry. She had seen what happened to Jason. Even a taste on the tip of the tongue could do horrible things, no doubt. She wanted to swat him for even considering it, and he did earn a sharp "Damian!" before she could help herself. She grabbed his shirtsleeve and tugged hard. "Don't--don't you even think--Damian Wayne, you promise me you'll never even think about--." And she could not even finish that thought.
She gripped his shirt so hard her fingers hurt, and then she let go, choosing to drink more whiskey instead. Her cheeks had that tell-tale pink hue of drunken buzz already. "Selina will get over it." And of that she was sure. Selina cared for Damian the most out of this hodgepodge family, and she would respect his decision. She was sure. "If you need me to--y'know, just ask. And," she continued, "for your information, my night turned out nice." He earned a pointed look like he didn't know about everything ever.
Damian flung his hands in the air in a bratty attempt to get her to let him go. “Okay! OKAY JEEZ.” He frowned at her when she finally let go, sharply crossing his arms with a ttt. Yeah, Selina probably could get over it, but she was acting weird lately and he didn’t really feel like risking anything with her right now. Damian trusted her, but he couldn’t figure out what she was thinking most of the time and if she just up and left one day he wouldn’t be surprised. He didn’t even know if he’d actually try to stop her. “I know. I know.” He said when Stephanie offered to help with a tone like she was the first person he’d turn to anyway. This fighting thing they did for a couple days was stupid.
“Did Drake never exist in your reality?” Damian said in his deathly dry tone like he had been wishing for just that since forever. “I bet that was nice.”
"Shut up, little birdie," Steph snapped, inebriated anger bleeding through. After seeing how Jason had crawled out of the Lazarus Pit only a few weeks before, how could Damian even consider thinking about something like drinking the liquid from the pit. "I'll kick your ass so hard." But the anger was burned out by then, replaced by an exasperated worry, and all she wanted to do was help him figure it all out. Because that was what brothers and sisters did, fighting or not. It was easier, too, to keep up with Damian than other members of the family. He just got it.
Still, he could be a fricking brat sometimes. "No, that wasn't it," Steph replied, clearly annoyed. Why couldn't they get along for five seconds? "Be nice. No, that wasn't it at all. I just--it put things into perspective?" Yeah perspective. She definitely realized what she wanted the night before.
“I’d like to see you try.” Damian picked up Bandit and muttered into her fur, clearly annoying the no nonsense cat, but not enough for her to struggle free from his grasp. Eventually she settled on his chest, purring and looking at the both of them for attention. He was smiling though, a difficult thing to get out of Damian. Even if he and Steph fought and bickered like siblings, he knew there was a bond there that was similar to how he and Grayson were. That alone meant the world to this little bird.
“Perspective on what?” Damian raised his eyebrows cluelessly and took another giant gulp of whiskey. Was it the cowl? No, she wouldn’t be so happy if it had anything to do with being Batgirl. Damian lived with Stephanie for months, there wasn’t a whole lot else going on her life besides being a vigilante and school, right? Right?
She didn't respond to Damian's challenge, but the quirked eyebrow let him know enough: give her two minutes and she'd put his ass in line. Just like any sister would to a brother. Still, she was happy that they were speaking again. His raises eyebrows earned him a bemused look. Was he really that clueless? When the rest of the family was rallying and worrying over her ties to a certain Gotham rogue, did he really have no idea how serious it all was?
Maybe it was just the whiskey, or maybe it was the ridiculousness of it all, but Steph smiled at him all the same. "Me and...um, Eddie. Nigma," she said, licking her lips nervously and glancing away. She chugged the rest of the cup to steel herself for his reaction, shivering at the taste and burn.
Damian’s eyes widened and he spit out whiskey all over the cat and floor before launching into a coughing fit. “Wha-” He looked up at her and shook his head. Damian knew that Steph had been getting close to Riddler, which was why he asked the Cat to look into it for him, but was that why she was in such a good mood? Backup. Damian grabbed the edge of his bedsheets and started cleaning off the hissing Bandit. “You mean-” The little bird looked at Stephanie and shook his head. “You mean you realized he’s a crazy person and-” He let Bandit go and pulled a towel off his chair to mop up the floor.
But, Damian stopped trying to make sense of it. He just gave her a what the hell look that had just an ounce of hope that it wasn’t what it sounded like. After all, Damian wasn’t the detective bird out of the whole nest. Maybe Stephanie just wanted to take forensics lessons from the question marked man.
Well, she was expecting him to react dramatically but not like that. Leave it to Damian to take everything the extra mile, right? Steph yelped when he spit whiskey everywhere and pushed herself away all in one swift motion. "Jesus, Damian!" She wiped some rogue whiskey from her cheek with the back of her hand. She scooped up the pissed off Bandit and tried to soothe the beast as best she could. Okay, maybe she should have kept her mouth shut. "I mean that--," she started but cut herself off with a heavy sigh.
"The woods showed us how we make things better. For each other." She cleared her throat and leaned over to grab the bottle. Forgoing the glass all together, she took a swig from the mouth directly.
Damian hung the towel back on the back of his chair and rubbed the side of his face. He sat there, crouched in that Robin stance that was usually reserved for surveillance on top of a high Gotham building. He wasn’t exactly in the best condition to think, but he was coming to the realization that there was something in this particular super villain that no one else in the Batfamily could even wrap their heads around. Was it like Selina? Not really. But, that didn’t mean people in Gotham weren’t capable of changing. “He’s different?” Damian asked, finally crawling back over to where he was sitting before against the bed.
“Tell me what happened.” The little bird demanded, grumpiness over his face that had a hint of judgemental passing that was all Wayne. He was trying, though. Stephanie wasn’t letting anyone pull her back into the family and if Nigma had something to do with it, he wanted to know why.
Bandit wriggled in Steph's grasp, but she didn't let the girl go, even while the cat tried to dig her claws into her arms. "He's different," she confirmed, and she left go of the cat then so she could bother Damian again. She didn't offer the bottle yet though, sipping at it instead while the little bird flapped his wings and demanded an explanation. "Ever since we really started talking he's been different. Since that Halloween party." Because that was where everything changed for the both of them, wasn't it? "Things have change with him."
She took one more sip before holding the bottle out for Damian. "We both saw Gothams where we didn't exist. The one where I wasn't there? Yeah he was totally crazy. Unhinged." She slurred her words a little, and it took her a moment of face-screwing frustration to continue. "And when he wasn't there, that night with Batman and Hood in Crime Alley would have turned out so much worse. Like, we were both dead, and your father was in jail, and Wayne Manor was soooo messed up." Her fingers absentmindedly tugged on the computer pendant Eddie gave her for Christmas. "We, uh, kinda made out on the floor of one of the rooms around here. Well. The fake Wayne Manor. Not the real one." She shook her head as if to reassure Damian that it wasn't just that though. "We get each other. I make him better and saner, and he understands me."
Damian blinked at her, beyond dumbfounded. “Made out?” Said like he almost didn’t think they had the same definition for the word. Like maybe she meant beat the crap out of or sent to Arkham in a straight jacket. “Wow.” He pawed at the bottle of whiskey and took a gulp, letting the fuzzy feeling in his toes and fingers bring a cool static over all of this. “So, you-” Damian tried not to visualize it. Riddler wasn’t just an escaped Arkham inmate that bashed Stephanie’s face in months ago. He wasn’t just some old idiot who tripped over his own shoelaces. No, he was supposed to be so far off into the darkness that there was no grey middle ground for Stephanie to meet him at.
“So you’re really into him.” Damian finished his thought, pulling his legs to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. “I get it now. Why you pushed us away. I mean, no one is going to understand. It doesn’t matter what he does, you get that right? It doesn’t matter.”
Steph stared at him for a long while, a little distraught that Damian was going to freak and cut her off completely. Or worse: snitch on her. "Yeah," she said simply, unable to quite find the words to shake him to let him know that this was all going to be okay. Did she know for sure that it would be? No, but she could hope, and Eddie wouldn't give up that easily either. Still, she frowned when he brought up the family, and she groaned, and she was suddenly too drunk for all of this. "I don't want to--you get that though. I don't want to give up anyone. Him or you guys. It's not fair. I--you can't tell them," she said suddenly, as if just realizing how bad that would be. "They're all squawking already. This'll make it worse."
She gave Damian an earnest look. "Trust me? He cares about me, and I care about him. He isn't the same--I know a couple months ago it was different, but a couple months is all it takes." She didn't want to talk about how frequently and easily things changed in Gotham, but they did.
Damian rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to tell anyone. I get it, okay. I’m just saying no one else is going to.” He seemed to calm down a little. Still not comfortable about the idea of Stephanie getting serious with someone like Nigma, but really who would he approve of? Damian knew what happened at the party and why she turned the cowl back in, so going off with Nigma and having feelings for him was just the last step of all of that. And, it was all going to make it even harder to get Steph back into being Batgirl again. Maybe she’d never actually do it.
“You’re not going to get pissed if I keep asking you for help with stuff, right?” Damian asked after a little while. “And, checking up on you or some crap.”
Steph sighed and wrinkled her nose. "I know no one is going to get it, okay? They're already all down my throat about it. This is only going to make things worse. Which is why the party stays between you and me." She flashed him a quick smile. "You're the only other person I can really rely on here, Damian." And it was true. She didn't think there was anyone in Gotham she could turn to as readily as him. Besides Eddie, of course. She hadn't thought about the cowl in the last few days either, and hanging out with Eddie wasn't going to help the family's case.
Still. "No, I won't get pissed." She leaned her head against his shoulder and puffed some air out of her cheeks. Yeaaaah she was drunk. "But you can't take my damn light bulbs again, little bird." She poked his side playfully.
Damian nodded, making a lazy cross over his heart though it actually looked more like a squiggly line thanks to his intoxicated state. The important thing was that Steph was back to trusting him and even if they weren’t going to live together anymore, at least they were back on speaking terms. “No promises on the lightbulbs.” He leaned his head on hers and closed his eyes. Just for a second, he thought. But, in minutes he was snoring loudly in a Christmas booze coma.