Damian Wayne (grownup_robin) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-01-31 00:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, damian wayne (robin), stephanie brown (batgirl) |
Who: Damian Wayne and Stephanie Brown
What: Some awkawrd conversation and sparring
When: Backdated: Wednesday, January 29th. Late Afternoon
Where: Stark Manor
Rating: Mostly Family Friendly
Status: Complete
Damian had been having a pretty tough last couple of days. Alyssa was sleeping with or had slept with some random older guy and Stephanie was dating a porn star. It seemed like he just couldn’t catch a break. He’d lost the girl he’d loved and the girl he had a crush on. At this rate, he didn’t think that his luck would ever turn around. He’d met up with Dick a few days earlier, hoping that meeting his dream brother would help and he’d be able to talk to someone about everything that was going on and while he’d done that, he didn’t feel much better about the situation.
He had made plans to spar with Stephanie again on Wednesday, but before she arrived, he’d decided to get some practice in. After meditating for a little while, he’d started a series of martial arts techniques and flips, which worked up quite a sweat. Stopping to drink some water, Damian took off his shirt before he went into another set of techniques. It might not have been as hot outside as in the summer months, but it was warm enough to he wouldn’t get too cold while practicing.
When Eddard met her at the door Stephanie’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor. She had delivered a package to the house with his name on it last month but it didn’t register with her at the time, after all it had been Damian who greeted her and the address mentioned nothing about Westeros or Winterfell. But now that Ned Stark was standing there in front of her it all hit her. It didn’t make sense at all of course, Game of Thrones was a TV show as far as she was concerned, Ned was Sean Bean, a man who was constantly getting killed in his movies. It was her trying to work it out that caused her to studder and eventually blurt out that she was there to see Damian.
She squeaked a ‘thank you’ when he showed her to the backyard and once he had gone she turned to make a comment to Damian about the insanity of him living with Lord Stark. And she would have had Damian not been practicing with his shirt off. He certainly looked like he got a lot of practice and while she shouldn’t have been surprised she found she couldn’t say anything, only smirk at him and put her hands on her hips. “Well, look who’s clearly not a ten year old boy anymore.”
Damian had no idea that the Starks were anything other than his best friend’s family and if Stephanie had commented on him living with Lord Stark, he wouldn’t have seen what was so ironic about it since in the waking world Ned Stark was also a Lord in England, hence the money to have such a big house in Orange County. He knew about some of Bran’s dreams, but that was as much as he knew about the world they were from in the dreams. When Stephanie arrived in the back yard, Damian was so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t even realize she was there until she spoke. Hearing her voice, caused him to stop and run a hand through his hair, heart racing a little bit, “Yeah….I would have thought that was obvious before.”
“Well, the whole height thing did kinda give it away, sure. But, you know seeing more kinda helps.” Even to her that sounded funny. “Wait, I mean, you look more like a man with your shirt- No! Uh, er.” She sighed heavily and brought a hand to her forehead. “I didn’t mean it like that. I swear to god it sounds like I’m standing in front of a judge trying to explain that I’m not some kind of pedo. You weren’t there, judge, he looked all manly and legal when he took his shirt off. I swear, I don’t have a thing for underage boys. He just didn’t look like one. I mean, check out those abs.”
She sighed again, shaking her head, “You do have nice abs, now can we please get to it before somebody calls the cops and I get put on some sort of registry for being wildly inappropriate?” She knew she was being silly, getting flustered over him having his shirt off, but at least she wasn’t blushing. That was all she would have needed.
Damian hadn’t expected any of the things that had just come out of Stephanie’s mouth, but he couldn’t help but smile as she continued talking. He wasn’t as crazy muscular as say, his father was in the dreams and in fact he was still pretty skinny, but the training he’d done with Alyssa and Kitty plus the stuff he did on his own had helped to tone his muscles over the last year and he had to admit, he did have pretty nice abs now. The newly formed muscles also helped to take the focus off the various scars he had all over his back and torso as a result of the injuries he’d sustained from the dreams. He’d been blown up, which resulted in a multi organ transplant, shot in the back, which resulted in temporary paralysis and a spinal transplant and had been shot a few other times. Come to think of it, for a costume that was supposed to have kevlar in it, his Robin costume did a lousy job at keeping him from getting shot.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be eighteen in April.” He quirked a brow then turned to retrieve his shirt, which gave Stephanie a view of the scar on his back.
“Oh yeah, perving on somebody who will be legal soon is still perving though. Not that I’m, you know, actively perving on you. I just… You’re cute for nearly legal but I am very, very happy in my current relationship and don’t go around looking to oggle guys. Not that I was ogling you, just… Yeah. Okay then.” she folded her arms under her breasts, trying desperately hard and failing at trying not to frown at the condition of his body. Probably from the dreams, she decided as she had woken up with a few fresh scars and bruises too. But when she considered that he was supposed to still be a child in his dreams made the whole thing sort of heartbreaking. That poor boy he dreamed of being, even if he was a brat, a life that caused such scars must have been awful.
And there it was, the reminder that she had a boyfriend and he had no chance, even if he was almost eighteen. “Right. The porn star.” It slipped out before he could stop himself and he was glad that he was pulling his shirt over his head as he said it, because he had an excuse not to look at Stephanie for a few moments. “So, um….yeah...sorry about that.” He ran a hand through his hair, scratching the back of his neck as he tried to look sheepish, but at the same time he wasn’t really sorry about what he’d said. He just didn’t get it.
“Danny. His name is Danny and he’s more than just a porn star.” her hands dropped to her hips. “What? You’re not still upset about what he said in that post of yours, are you? He didn’t mean anything by it really, he’s just… Passionate when he gets going.” She had never seen him act like that before though. If she hadn’t seen his name herself she would have sworn it was someone else, though she knew he could be ornery when he wanted. She was only happy he didn’t know where Damian lived otherwise something of his probably would have been full of or covered in dog shit. “It’s not going to happen again.”
“No, it’s fine. I mean, he gets all up in arms about dream me having a crush on you, but he’s the one having sex with other people for work.” He managed to restrain himself from using air quotes, instead, picking up his water bottle, but not actually taking a drink. “So, no, I’m not still upset.” Damian knew that he could get jealous, because he’d been jealous of Logan for quite awhile, but in that case, Alyssa had actually slept with Logan before her and Damian had started dating, but as far as Danny knew, it was just Damian’s dream counterpart who had a crush on Stephanie and in the dreams he was ten, for crying out loud.
Stephanie felt as if she had just been slapped hard in the face and her expression showed her surprise that Damian had ever thought something like that, much less had been able to say it to her. “Excuse me, what? No. No. That’s completely… It isn’t like that at all. Danny loves me and whatever we do together has absolutely nothing to do with what he does for work. He isn’t like cheating on me, it’s just a job. He doesn’t have any feelings for the people he works with but when it comes to me he feels like he has to protect what we have be it from something real or imaginary. And. And you’re being really unfair.” She wasn’t sure where she was going with that last bit but she couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy. She didn’t want to think for a moment that Damian had a somewhat valid point.
Almost immediately, Damian wished he could have taken it back, because he hated the expression on Stephanie’s face and hated even more that it was because of him. Sighing, he put the bottle back down, “Look, I’m sorry….I….” He didn’t really know what to say, because it was how he felt and how could he properly apologize for something that he didn’t really feel like he needed to apologize for? “I guess I just don’t get it. I’d get way too jealous, even if it was just a job. I wouldn’t want to share my significant other with anyone else in that way.” It was the best he could do and he hoped that Stephanie wasn’t mad at him.
She looked at the ground with a sigh and shrugged her shoulders. “I know people don’t get it, my mother still won’t speak to me, I’m asked a lot why I would want to be with him, and I can understand that. Really, I wasn’t at all happy when he told me about his job, and yeah, sometimes I think about what he does and that there are other people touching him and using his body and I still get angry. But what no one seems to see is that he makes me happy, we make each other happy and if I have to accept that I will have to share parts of him to hang on to that then I will.”
Maybe he was a little selfish, but part of Damian wished that Danny’s job was a deal breaker for her, but from the sounds of it, that didn’t seem like it was going to happen. “I guess not everyone is gonna understand it, but….I shouldn’t act like an ass to you just cause I don’t get it. That’s not fair to you.” And no matter what he didn’t want to lose whatever he did have with Stephanie.
“It’s alright,” she finally looked up at him, letting her arms fall at her sides. “It’s just a sore subject. I’m just trying to accept it all and move past it, you know? But I figure that those who are upset by the whole thing are the ones who care and who want to look out for me. I mean, I wish I could have realized this through like happier circumstances, but at least I see it, you know. It’s nice to know that they care so much, and that you do too.”
Damian nodded, crossing his arms over his chest, “Yeah. It’d just suck if you ended up getting hurt in this situation.” He might have had a crush on Stephanie, but at the same time, she was still young and might have said she was okay with the situation, but how long would that last? He wasn’t going to get into all of that right now. “So, sparring?” The longer they talked about Danny the more chance there was of Damian saying something else that he might regret.
She wanted to say that there was a chance of getting hurt in any relationship. She knew it pretty well, after all, Danny was the first guy she had ever dated who treated her right and was a decent human being and she hadn’t exactly been lonely in her teens. Porn or not there was always a chance of getting hurt, it sounded good and right and true and she really did believe it, even if she didn’t want to believe Danny would ever hurt her. Still, it was best to just move on entirely. She gave him a forced but clearly trying to be genuine smile. “Sparring.”
“Have you been practicing?” Damian asked, moving away from the table and back to where he’d been practicing himself. He wasn’t sure how he was going to try and get over his crush, but as for right now, he just needed to push it all to the back of his mind and focus on what he was doing at the moment, which was continuing to train Stephanie until she acquired all of her abilities from the dreams.
“Yep.” she said, coming closer as she started a few stretches. “I’ve also been doing some free running, some strength training and a little bit of my old gymnastics stuff. Been kinda hard with classes starting back up but I’m managing. Feels good.” He really wasn’t going to be able to keep Steph away from ‘patrols’ once her fighting skills had improved, and she wasn’t trying at all to make a secret of it. The Stephanie of her dreams had found her true calling in crime fighting, here in the real world she had a hard time finding anything more worth-while to do with her time.
Damian had to admit, he was pretty impressed with everything that Stephanie was doing in addition to their training, “That’s pretty good. Where are you doing all that?” He asked as he too started stretching. If Stephanie wanted to go on patrols with him, Damian wouldn’t say no. Maybe it was a little selfish, but patrolling with Stephanie meant that it was time she was with him and not Danny, “So, I went and met Dick over the weekend.” He told her as he finished his stretching, He’d already been practicing so he didn’t need to do much stretching.
“The free running I do all over, usually around Granny’s is the best. For the rest of it there’s a gym not far from my place that is pretty nice. Pretty quiet. Usually older people, sometimes the older guys will stare but it’s so much better than going somewhere where there are a lot of guys under sixty.” Steph got comments no matter where she went sometimes, it was actually nice to be left alone to do her strength training, hell it was nice to just live her life without being harassed in one way or another. “Oh yeah?” she finished her stretching by doing a cartwheel and landing in the splits, then stretching to touch her toes. “How did that go?”
“It went pretty well. A little weird, cause I’m so used to looking up at him, but it was the same thing with you too. I mean, being ten in the dreams, I’m not even five feet tall, so I look up at pretty much everyone,” Damian said, moving into position where they were going to be practicing, “So looking straight at him was a lot different. He taught me to do the trapeze and stuff. It was pretty cool. I definitely have to do it again sometime.” Next time he was out in the city, patrolling, he’d try jumping from one building to another.
“Sounds awesome.” she grinned, hopping up to her feet again. She didn’t mention that she was a little conflicted about his height. On the one hand she was on the shorter side of average and would have enjoyed teasing him, but on the other he was practically a man now and his height suited him, nice abs and all. Those were not good thoughts to be having at the moment so she tried to move along. “Does he know about the whole dreams thing yet? I mean about who he is. I tried to explain the idea of dreams to him.”
“He doesn’t know who he is, but the last time I talked about my dreams on the net, he’d replied. I don’t know if he knows it’s him I was talking about exactly, but he’ll find out soon enough.” If Damian knew that Stephanie was still thinking about his abs he would have been a little smug, because, while he hadn’t ever seen any of Danny’s pornos, he couldn’t help but think that he had to have better abs than that kid. “Even when he starts dreaming though, it’ll be awhile till I actually come into the picture.”
“So I shouldn’t try to give him spoilers, right?” she smirked the way she always smirked at the word ‘spoiler’ these days. Really it was a good thing that she wasn’t concerned about trying to keep her identity secret here, she wouldn’t have managed it. “Though I’ve not really met him in my dreams but I’m really close to meeting Cass, looking forward to that.” she moved into a ready stance. “Of course I’m also looking forward when I get to smack ten year old you around, especially now that I know about the fatgirl comments.”
Damian couldn’t help but smirk a little at the way she said ‘spoilers’ now. He hoped it didn’t give away the fact that he had a crush on her, but he was pretty good at hiding things that he didn’t want anyone to know, which was probably a side effect of the dreams. “Yeah, you and Cass are real close in the dreams. You and Cass and you and Supergirl.” He wondered if Kara was real too. After all, if Dick, Stephanie and Cass were all real then everyone else from their dreams had to be too, right?
He knew that all this talking was going to lead nowhere as far as their sparring went, but Damian enjoyed talking to Stephanie, because it was one of the only times they got to spend together, “Okay, so show me what you’ve been learning.”
“You mean aside from you being really easy to tackle?” she teased, hopping up onto the balls of her feet. There was plenty of more grounded forms she could go for, she had done her homework and studied up on a few styles, but staying on her feet and keeping Damian guessing was probably her best strategy. She did a few of the punches like he had shown her last time, which were nothing for him to block as she was telegraphing her movements, or it seemed she was. With each strike she moved until she was in the proper position to aim a punch at his nose, at the same time she struck out with her right leg, her shin aiming at the back of his knee, a hit that would have knocked him off balance if he wasn’t quick enough to spot that her punch had been a feint and block it.
Damian blocked her punches easily, the whole time thinking about how she should had been doing more. Should have learned more by now. And in the moment when he wasn’t paying attention, she proved that she had learned more when her foot connected with the back of his knee and knocked it right out from under him, “Okay, that was good.” He laughed from where he’d landed on his back and quickly jumped up so he was on his feet again, brushing grass and dirt off his ass, “You really have learned a lot from the dreams and stuff, haven’t you?”
“The dreams, and training, and sparring, and maybe I’ve been watching some UFC in my spare time.” she smirked, not hiding at all how good it made her feel. She was constantly having to prove herself in her dreams, especially to Batman, so in her real life it felt amazing to earn a little recognition. On the whole Damian had been more willing to accept her than his dream father was, and she really was grateful. She was going to offer a hand to help him up but he was on his feet before she could extend a hand. “I’ve been trying to focus on misdirection and all that, figure it gives me the edge.”
“Only problem now, is that I’ll be watching for it,” Damian grinned and ran a hand through his hair then got back in position and without giving her any warning, because when you were attacked by someone in the real world, you rarely got any warning, he came at her, reaching for her arm, intending to spin around behind her and pin it to her back. He wanted to see if she would read his moves and dodge it and bring him down.
It was a move she had seen plenty of times coming at her in her dreams, criminals thought if they could grab and control Spoiler taking down Robin would be easy. This was never the case. Of course she didn’t expect it from Damian and only when he had a hold of her arm did she realize what he was going to do. When he tried to spin her around in one direction she ground her feet and turned the other way, bringing up her other hand to strike hard at his wrist holding her with the heel of her palm. If she was lucky it would cause him to let go, if not she had left herself wide open for whatever he thought to do next.
Damian had a pretty good hold on her arm, but because he didn’t want to actually hurt her it was looser than it would have been otherwise and the momentum of her body caused him to lose his grip and he lost his footing. As he fell, he rolled and pushed himself back up, “I feel sorry for anyone who actually tries to attack you.” Damian smirked and rolled his shoulders and neck.
“Me too.” she beamed. “And I’m not even armed. Suck on that, jerks who used to pick on me in high school. You’re very good at falling though,” she teased. “Perfect technique, ten out of ten stars all around, save the Canadian judge who has been bought off by the Germans, but ignore him, first time he’s actually seen real money.” She put her hands on her hips, “Come on, bird-boy, gimmie something hard.”
Damian laughed. He laughed until her last comment, which caused him to choke a little. There were so many responses to that and most of them would either get him slapped, punched or Stephanie would leave. He could feel his cheeks heat up, but he hoped that he was already flushed from the exertion of their sparring and she wouldn’t notice. “Right. Yeah. I can do that.” Being around Stephanie meant trying really hard to keep his mind out of the gutter; especially when she said things like that.