Who: Damian and Selina Where: Jimmy's Diner When: recently! What: Showdown, but not in the way you might think. Warnings: Get out your umbrella, it's time for the feels rain.
There were a dozen good reasons Selina shouldn't meet Damian at the diner, the first being that she didn't want to fight him. She hadn't ever wanted to fight him. Her comment at him on the journals had been her attempt at peace; it wasn't supposed to end up like this. But she would have to go back to Gotham eventually, which meant she couldn't let him get away with publicly threatening to curbstomp her, not when she had already soundly lost her place among Gotham's villains and given up that same place within the Batfamily. Whether she wanted it to happen or not, one of them had to bleed. She would have settled for setting the diner on fire, breaking some windows or stealing the day's earnings, but even she knew that was taking the weak way out. She wouldn't have even thought to let him off that easy in Gotham, and she couldn't allow herself that leniency in the desert. Sure, Eddie's advice that she try something new and blame it on Las Vegas could apply here, but that still wouldn't help her save face. No, she had no choice, and that was that.
She showed up at the end of the night, before the drunks filed in, but after the regular crowd, and she spent a few minutes across the street looking for quick exits and things she could use to her advantage in a brawl. She hadn't done much fighting since she'd found herself in Blondie's life, not unless whipping moaning men counted, and if her fighting skills disappeared like her ability to climb a building without feeling gravity? Well, she would appreciate the advance planning.
It was worth mentioning that Selina never planned anything in advance.
But that was what she did, and she gave herself one last chance to turn away, despite knowing she wouldn't take said chance. She believed what she'd told Jason - that Damian had to get this out of his system somehow. Gotham or no Gotham, she was tired of letting this fester, and this had been festering well before Oracle's unnecessary meddling about security footage.
Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt over a thin bulletproof that she'd borrowed from the antihero's closet, heavy boots with a knife tucked in, and a whip around her waist beneath the bulky grey fabric, she walked into the diner like any college kid ready to study for a final exam. She pushed her undershirt's hoodie back, and she scanned the place with eyes gone sage instead of their vibrant Pit green, somehow less Cat because of that one, tiny thing.
"Damian," she called out; no point in postponing the inevitable.
Damian was back in the diner kitchen, standing over the massive, greasy grill that was sectioned off into burgers, pancakes and whatever other meat he could cook up. Honestly, he was getting really good at this. He made perfect pancakes. Not just good pancakes. Not just great pancakes. Perfect pancakes. It wasn’t due to his superior breeding or his ninja training, but a sort of hard headed determination that even some magic door couldn’t take away from him. He spent days behind that grill putting all his focus on making breakfast slams that were strictly taste tested by Lily. By the end of the week with guidance, perseverance and Lily’s help, Damian’s pancakes were perfection. It was one of the only things that made him happy in this waste of a city. That and the older, moody cat watching him from a shelf across the room. Sure it wasn’t “sanitary” to have a cat in the kitchen, but no one came to Jim’s Diner because they were looking for anything clean.
He didn’t completely expect Selina to show up. After his family gave him hell for threatening her on the journals and walked him through what was important, he wasn’t as angry. Just hurt. The kind of hurt that felt a little like when he parted ways with his mother for good, but twisted into something he still didn’t understand. The cat was a lot like his mother, he decided. Cruel, uncompromising and affectionate when it got her what she wanted. Damian didn’t have the patience for that anymore, especially after she had already picked his father over him. All he really wanted was for her to just leave him alone. For now, maybe for good. He didn’t really know. So, when he heard her voice sound through the otherwise quiet diner, his grip tightened around the spatula handle and he just kept his gaze on the grill for a little while until he mustered up a loose plan of what he was going to do.
Handing grill duties off to one of the other cooks, he took a deep breath and stepped out of the kitchen so that he was behind the main counter. He gave her a look that was exhausted, stern and boyishly sad in a way that was completely Damian. Hands reached into the dirty apron he was wearing (which made the fearsome little bird look his age more than anything he wore in Gotham) and pulled out a notepad before reaching for the pencil behind his ear. “What can I get you.” Damian walked towards her, flipping through the notepad until he found a clean page. Voice dry and flat like he didn’t know her. Didn’t want to know her.
Her first thought was that Las Vegas made them all younger somehow. Maybe it was the lack of villains, maybe it was gravity, maybe it was just the loss of purpose that made them all older than their years in Gotham. The look, though, that was all Damian. There was some anger missing, but there was something intangible missing with her too. She figured that was just Las Vegas too, since she hadn't been part of all those heart-to-hearts.
Whatever she expected from him, it wasn't that calm turning of the notebook pages, and for a second the record skipped. She stared, and unlike the impulsive Cat, there was a moment of hesitation before action. Part of being her was not hesitating, not thinking, not considering. It was a tiny slip, and she pushed her way through it quicker than anyone else could, but it was still there. Her lips turned up in that smile that was all Gotham kitten, and her eyes (paler, but no less capable of brightening in the face of the unexpected) gleamed. Oh, she knew he wasn't going to make it easy, but she actually appreciated that. Everything had been easy since arriving here, and she was dying for something to shake it up.
And, when it was all said and done, they were who they were. Some people could sit down and have a chat over coffee. But her relationship with Damian had been forged on rooftops and with fists. It didn't mean they didn't talk while they fought, but things had gotten a lot more complicated since they stopped talking in the only way they knew how.
She slid up onto a booth table before he made it all the way to where she was, making the patrons gasp, but she didn't much care. For the first time in a week, she felt alive. She went from sitting on the table's top to standing in two seconds flat (slow, for her), and she looked down at him from her great height. "You," was her challenging response, and (god help her) she actually felt a flutter of concern that he'd just tell her to leave and not be willing to play this out at all.
Damian tilted his head down as if he were really intent on writing down whatever the kitty cat would have ordered. He had to hide the small, nagging smirk that always crept up during some of her antics. She couldn’t know he was even remotely amused by her. Selina needed to be shut down in order to get the message. The little bird was sure he still hated her, but it was a concept that was hard to hold onto when she still had a taste of who she was in Gotham. He finally looked up to Selina, amusement snapping from his gaze as he reached for a menu and walked over to her. “That’s not on the menu.” He slapped the plastic, sticky thing against her hands lightly for her to take. “And, don’t stand on the tables. Jim just replaced them.” Damian told her like he was talking to a child, though really he gave a lot more respect to Lily than any tone Selina had received since she sauntered in.
He didn’t let himself look at her for very long, turning with a shrug like what was happening in the diner was completely normal and went back to managing the place. He stopped by another table and asked them if they wanted refills, cleaned off another booth with a rag and with an almost challenging look back at Selina, went back behind the counter to busy himself with water glasses and the coffee machine.
She dropped the menu.
It landed on the table patron's soup, which caused a slosh and the start of some angry protesting, and she felt alive. She couldn't tell if she was managing to claw beneath his skin (Gotham had taken that too), but it didn't matter. She let herself believe she was, and she went with it, all that confidence too natural to be handed over to Blondie, of all people. She stepped off the table she was on, heavy black boots surprisingly steady on the back of the booth seats. Balance, and she hopped from one table to the next, stopping intentionally at whichever one he was pretending to care about at the time.
When he disappeared behind the counter, she sat on the table she was at, and she looked over at the tourists who were sitting there. The booth was four deep, college boys, and they certainly weren't going to ask her to go anywhere. She crossed her legs at the thigh, and she whistled loudly at the baby not-bird. She didn't actually need to get anyone's attention. They were the center of attention without anyone's help by that point.
"What would you do if a pretty girl wanted to talk to you?" she asked the jock at the outermost booth seat. Her fingertips played under his chin as she directed his attention toward her face. "Would you ignore her?"
Damian’s temper boiled a little under his skin, serious blue eyes flicking just enough to show she was clawing him up even though he was actively working to keep her out. As the son of Bruce and Talia, he could be naturally cold and indifferent if the time called for it, but all of that was put to the test with Selina. He couldn’t remember the last time he tried to be indifferent towards her. No, Damian was the little bird who kept flapping his wings and perching even after she got her claws in him. It was from across the room that he could see the effect she was having on the whole diner. People in Vegas were used to a little crazy, but they didn’t necessarily go to Jimmy’s Diner off the strip for something like that. He couldn’t keep raising the stakes with her until she started knocking things over like a bored cat looking for attention. If she was going to make him uncomfortable, he’d have to make it even worse for her.
At the booth, the four college boys literally gawked at her, one of the smaller ones with his mouth actually hanging open like he had never seen a woman before. Selina was just a shadow of the cat she was in Gotham, but she could still grab any man’s attention just by sitting down and purring a little. “I uh-” The jock gave her a dumbfounded grin and just as he was about to say something predictably douchebaggish, Damian slammed a coffee cup down on the table out of no where. “Selina.” He said, trying not to grit his teeth. Trying not to flex his fingers into fists. “Either order something or let’s talk.” And, it almost sounded like let’s beat the crap out of each other, but he really didn’t have any intention of doing that. Even if he wanted to. And, Damian didn’t care if they were going to have the conversation right in front of these guys, right in front of the whole diner, but he moved like he was letting her pick where to go.
Oh, see, that little flicker of blue just fed into whatever had been missing since she'd ended up in this miserable place. She had no idea that he was getting his feathers all ruffled because he couldn't be indifferent to her. No one ever managed indifference; she just took it as a given. The only difference with him was that he knew when she was playing, and he knew when there was something more beneath the kitty cat wiles. Or, he had, once, but she wasn't sure that was the case anymore. She'd been doing a lot of thinking, trying to figure out when things changed between them, but it was hard to put her finger on it. Too many feelings got in the way, and she didn't thank Las Vegas for that particular development. The last thing she wanted was to be turned inside out. But this, this was familiar. It almost made her purr.
She was petting the dumbfounded jock's chin when Damian spoke, and that felt like a tiny victory too. She didn't even stop to consider what that meant, that attention was something that made her want to purr, as opposed to cracking an uncrackable safe or stealing something shiny from under Gotham PD's noses. "I tried to order," she said, all faux pout and eyes that kept smiling throughout. "You wouldn't let me," she reminded him, and she left her jock friend behind with a kiss to his cheek, before jumping off the table and swaying her way to the counter Damian was hiding behind. Once there, she climbed up on a barstool, and she leaned her elbows on the countertop and stretched over it. "I tried to order you, remember?" she asked, gaze intense and piercing.
Unlike him, she really didn't want to do this with an audience, but she didn't want to risk progress made by walking him outside. So, instead, she climbed over the counter, all knees and hands, and she dropped down beside him. She was pretty sure she hadn't been this close to him in months, definitely since before almost dying, since the Pit and the tin man, since all the loss that reflected in her eyes from that; a new thing. She leaned back against the counter then, giving him a little space, but not much, all elbows on the surface and hips that wouldn't stop.
“Ordering something you don’t actually want is a waste of my time.” He told her, all grimace at her smile like someone had flipped their expressions on a coin. Damian’s voice was cold and cutting as it had always been, but just like the dullness of her eyes, it lacked that danger to it. Being aggressive over the journals was easy for any teenage boy, but in person it seemed kind of pointless. Maybe even a little ridiculous. Was this really how they solved problems in Gotham? Did it even work that well? He squinted a little, suspicious of their natural tendencies for a brief moment before focusing back on her.
The curves and the way she swayed her hips towards him always made the little bird panic. It used to be much worse, back when he was just trying to understand how going from ten to eighteen influenced his judgement, but there were still little signs of it. The way he jerked his shoulder away from her just enough that he had a tiny bit of personal space and glanced a couple barstools down like he didn’t even want to sit next to her for this. But, he settled next to her, turning towards the counter and slapping his notepad down with an exhausted sigh. “I’m not going to fight you.” He said frankly, unable to express himself any other way. “I just don’t want to be around you anymore.” Damian glanced up to her and then back down at the empty paper in front of him.
"Who said I didn't want it?" she'd asked, and she noticed that lack of danger. It made her wonder if everyone was less here. If they were entirely different people without Gotham their veins. For a moment, it made her really concerned. She wasn't sure she could fit in here, if she had to, forever. And despite all her pretense and playing, she didn't relish the thought of being alone. It was the thing that was eating at her back home; the loss. But she pushed past that, forced herself to hold onto that confidence and to make the question intentionally provocative. She didn't like feeling young. She didnt like feeling like she had before the Cat.
She would have kept it up, too, if not for the panic in his eyes. Not as bad as before, but still there. It was the whole reason she'd drawn back from him in that way, the fear that she'd spook him, lose him entirely because of it. Normally, she wouldn't admit that to herself, but there it was. She couldn't hide from anything now, it seemed. That jerk of his shoulder felt like claws, and she stepped back without any added prompting. She would have ended up dragging the baby bird into bed ages ago, of not for that. She didn't like how fear looked on him.
But that was nothing compared to his frank confession that he just didn't want to be around her anymore.
It showed on her face for a second, how much that stung. In Gotham, he was the only person she trusted and called a true friend. Bruce was different, and the others wanted to change her. No one understood her like he did. She didn't want them to. Maybe the Cat she was in Gotham would have pushed him, but the girl standing in the diner just wanted to keep herself from breaking down in front of him.
She considered throwing a punch, thought better of it, and turned so he didn't see the emotion on her face. She managed to recover once she was climbing over that counter again, a quip over her shoulder that didn't hold the tease or anger that it should. "Your loss."
Damian ran his hands through the nape of his neck, fingers closing together in the scruff of his hair as he bowed his head down and closed his eyes. He was sure this was what he wanted. Selina was just going to keep hurting him and Damian knew that keeping her around while she was off having sex with his father wouldn’t do anything but twist the knife more. It wasn’t about love or attraction for the little bird, it was about wondering if someone else knew her better than he did. Wondering that the more time she spent in his father’s arms meant her trust would shift to him as it naturally should. Robin was born to play second fiddle while he was still a teenager, but Damian was never really good at all that. Especially when it came to the first person he trusted in this Gotham.
But, she was right. He had family now. He was going to make peace with Bruce. Logically, he didn’t really need her like he used to. Damian knew being simply attracted to her wasn’t enough, either. There was no competing with Batman. Not when the little bird didn’t know the first thing about being a man. Turning his head a little to watch her hop over the counter, he waited for her to change her mind. To tell him no, she wasn’t going to just let him push her away. That’s how Damian knew someone cared about him, how he knew they accepted him for the little brat that he could be and kept him close anyway. But, she didn’t do that. She never did anything like that.
So, he let her go. There was no dramatic chirp for her to come back. No angrily rushing to the door to trap her in. Damian wandered back towards the kitchen, blank pad of paper in his hand with a look like he had just been dropped someplace he didn’t recognize. And, he just stood there in front of the grill for a couple minutes before picking up the spatula and getting back to frying burgers and flipping pancakes.