Re: babs/dami log: in front of the manor
The family was less of a concern for Damian. They were fragments when he had met them and they were fragments now, glinting, dangerous, and ugly in turn. If he wished for some bond with the others, he did not admit it to himself, nor to anyone else. In lieu of Father, who was, at the very least, unreliable and absent, Barbara was enough for Damian. He was not a very social person and his needs, as he saw them, were neither great nor manifold. Some small sliver of his soul, a soul he believed in only in the sense of a person's essence, did miss Greyson. They had not had much time to get to know one another, but of all the others, outside of Barbara, Damian had thought to like Greyson. Jason was a more complicated matter, as well as a much simpler one: he was stupid, but he was involved with the League. Damian knew more about that than he had admitted. He had been working with Barbara to take them down—Grandfather, Mother—but they—himself and Barbara—were as Musca domestica upon a windshield: insignificant. And, perhaps more than that, Damian was conflicted. His views were contrarian. It was all quite confusing. He hoped that would soon stop.
Barbara smiled with sincerity and it was enough to distract him from whatever muddled thoughts surged in his head. Her fingers picked something from the starless fabric of his hoodie, and he leaned unconsciously toward her touch. Barbara protested in such a way, he knew she was being sarcastic, before caving. Damian's expression was warm as she spoke of taking a class with the science experiment Jason wished to be physically intimate with.
"You do not need college classes," was his practical response. Barbara, he thought, was an accomplished autodidact. It would be but a waste of time, unless the purpose was not to learn, but companionship. He considered that as the redhead gazed up at the starborn sky, his own eyes the color of a stormy ocean following the line of her jaw, cheek, and nose. "Offer her something better, perhaps." He gestured a hand toward the towering mansion behind them. "She could stay here." There was room. "Does she know about the League? Their goals? Their ends for her, for her creation? That could sway her, as well."
Instead of returning his hand to his pocket, Damian let his fingers find the buttercream and yellow of Barbara's scarf. He brushed it idly against his own cheek, feeling the softness as he looked at her, before using it to tug at her, to pull her toward the porch. "You spoke with him? Jason?" Coldness leached into sea-gray gaze and Damian lifted his chin by simple reflex. "He is an idiot. He does not think. The girl, he is only involved for her sake, and to anger Father."