He pursues her, the next time they meet. The night after their first kiss Damian can still feel the buzz through his veins as he sprints across the rooftops to where he last tracked her; on the radio tower.

Sure enough he sees her sitting on the edge of its highest point, swinging her legs happily.

Basic training on controlling anxiety and nerves is a part of being in the Batfamily. So before he approaches, he does a few of the exercises to calm himself before their next interaction. Two deep breaths steady his heartbeat. He squeezes his fists to gain control of his shaking hands. Then he closes his eyes and attempts to scramble together a decent greeting, as well as a compliment. Girls like it when you tell them how pretty they are, right?

And she's definitely pretty.

In his mind he can see her smiling at him, glistening snow making her cosmetic cheek glitter sparkle all the more. The longer he pictures her the more he can hear her giggles, until he realises that it's not in his head and actually right beside him.

"It's cute you have to mentally prepare yourself before you see me."

He turns to look at Klavdiya. She's right there, beside him, staring out at the city with a cute little smile.

"You must really like me."

Whatever scoff or nasty comment he would normally snap dies in his throat when she leans up and kisses his cheek. She retracts almost straight away and he finds himself disappointed.

Say something, he tells himself. She might leave if he bores her. Compliment her.

"Your hair is extra purple today," he suddenly blurts out in a rush of words that are nearly lost in the wind.

Did he really just say that? About the colour of her hair, of all things? It could have been the sparkle in her eyes or the softness of her skin but he goes with the lamest compliment of all?

Grayson is right. He's terrible at this.

It's only made worse when she begins laughing, covering her mouth with her hand. Just as he considers fleeing, she grabs his wrist.

"Thank you," she says, giving him a sweeter smile than usual. He knows his face is bright red. "You're doing fine, milashka."

He allows her to keep hold of his wrist as she slowly strides long the edge of the rooftop. He follows, mesmerised.

Doing fine. In what? Courting her? He can admit that is something he wants to do, there's no point in lying to himself. They live similar lives, but are also very different, perhaps enough to work. He had once been told that opposites attract.

Who could be more suited to him?

He wants to ask her what they are when alarm bells ring in the distance. They both stop and turn towards the noise.

"That's Gotham Royal Bank," Robin murmurs, reaching up and taking his bo staff in hand. Klavdiya rests a hand over the handle of her whip. "Stay here."

She laughs, "Nyet, milashka. We go together." Before Damian can protest Klavdiya grabs his wrist and speeds away, dragging him through the air once again, to a building across from the bank.

Damian catches himself when they stop, balancing on his feet before glaring down at her. She smiles knowingly, aware of the look, but focuses on the problem at hand. She clicks a button on the side of her goggles.

"What can you see?" He asks, deciding to move on.

"The ice one."

"Freeze?"

"No. With the gun."

"Captain Cold," he confirms nervously, kneeling down to her level. "He has the weapons to stop speedsters. He's an enemy of the Flash."

"I know this, milashka," she sings, finding it amusing he believes she knows so little. Klavdiya looks at him from the corner of her eye.

"Have you read my file?" She asks lightly. Damian shakes his head.

"Only the Twisted Twelve file. I was...going to ask if I could read yours."

The speedster laughs softly, "You have to ask him for permission to read stuff like that?"

A truck turns onto the surveyed road and heads down the street slowly. When it reaches the bank it stops.

"I didn't mean Batman. I meant you," he says, looking away to hide his uneasy expression. "I wanted to ask if reading your file was okay with you."

The words hang in the air. When she doesn't say anything, Damian turns to look at her. He realises the trap when he's suddenly being kissed. He recovers quicker than Klavdiya had predicted, shifting his position so that he looms over her, hands moving to cradle her face.

If it were not for the half-wall the entire squadron of villainous henchmen robbing the bank would be able to see the two teenagers acting like...teenagers.

They only pull apart when they remember the situation at hand. Damian realises he's smiling at her. Even better, she returns the gesture in her own daze-inducing way.

"I wonder...will you come to my apartment, after this?" She asks impulsively. He sees the slightest doubt in her eyes, like the question was unplanned and worse, likely to be answered with a no.

"Yes," he says, the word feeling as if it has opened a thousand doors.

Her smile is warm, "Good."

The sparkling moment passes like a wave, shrinking until it blends in with everything else. The two simultaneously peek over the wall again.

"Allow me to take out those guarding the front and the truck?" She asks simply. Tempted to see her in action and knowing it's a good plan, Damian agrees.

"Quietly," he nods. She mirrors the gesture, before disappearing in a flash of violet sparks.

It's almost comical. He doesn't even see her, just a flash before the first two perps are jerked to the side, hit and dragged away. She has her whip in hand when she returns and grapples the last two together with it, before either can alert the others.

They disappear and before Damian knows it, she's right next to him again.

Four seconds.

"That was tiring," she huffs, just a little out of breath. She slumps back against the wall with a hand over her chest.

"Where did you take them?" He asks, trying to mask the deep concern he has for her well-being. Although at this point he doesn't know why.

"Bound a block over," she says.

Damian draws his weapon, "Stay here. Only Cold and his men remain. How many?"

"Four more and himself. You don't want me to help?" She asks, moving to stand up. Damian shakes his head and gently guides her back down with a hand on her shoulder.

"I think you should take a break," he tells her, before taking out his grapple and firing it at the bank, landing on top of the truck backed into the main doors.

Cold and two men can be heard further into the building, but closer are two men standing guard on either side of the truck. Robin scolds their stupid tactics before taking down the left guard with absolutely no sound, trained hands making it quick work.

He rolls under the truck and scales along the floor to where the second guard stands. He kicks the man's legs out from underneath him. When the guard falls to the floor he brings his bo staff down on his head with a sickening crack.

A crack that echoes.

Damian sees the last two henchmen and Captain Cold emerge from further inside the bank, clearly armed.

"W-Who? Batman?" One of the henchman whispers. It annoys him.

Cold replies confidently, "Not likely. He's still distracted with Dollmaker in the city's East. We planned this perfectly. I'd say it's one of the brats."

Damian scolds himself for two reasons; he turned his radio off the moment he saw Klavdiya and he failed to consider calling in backup.

The again, he has backup.

Cold sends one man to the truck with the rest of the bags whilst he and the other trembling fiend watch the ceiling and vantage points.

"So, which brat do we have the pleasure of entertaining tonight?" Cold begins a terrible impersonation of someone actually worth the Bat's time- such as Two-Face or Ivy or the like. He's pacing somewhere in the distance so Damian focuses the man with the bags on approach. "The blonde bat? The Red brat?... Or perhaps just a tiny little Robin?"

"That kid ain't tiny no more boss."

"Shut it."

The carrier reaches him and Damian automatically takes out the man's ankles with his staff. When he falls to the ground he drags him under and chokes him out. The combination of stress and force puts him out in less than a minute. Once his body is limp he kicks it away carelessly and crawls back to the front of the truck, still protruding out of the front of the bank.

He catches Klavdiya's eye. Her elbow is on the wall where she rests her chin on her palm, observing with a smile. She waves and he returns it without thinking. He has never felt so safe.

Reluctantly, he turns away and this time goes topside by climbing the bonnet onto the roof. He heads back into the bank that way. Cold storms right passed him, towards his fallen man. The other takes cautious steps down the side behind him.

That's Damian's time to strike. He swings himself off of the truck and lands behind the man. He can see his gun shaking in nervous palms; that will only add to his soon-to-be unconscious state, just like his friend.

Damian reaches out and covers his mouth from behind, locking his neck in the crook of his elbow, cutting off air.

Of course, he struggles, but the sounds are nothing suspicious.

Until the man grunts and groans.

How could he be so stupid?

"O'neill?" Cold calls out, sounding panicked. Damian hears the heavy footfalls just as 'O'neill' stops struggling. He prepares to duck under the coming ice blast.

The familiar dash sound rings throughout the bank, followed by something heavy collapsing on the ground and Cold shouting in pain.

Robin jumps back onto the truck, flipping over the roof to it's other side where he finds Rapid pointing Cold's own gun at him, the unofficial Captain on the floor with a bleeding nose.

Sirens in the distance give closure to this situation.

Rapid and Robin smile at each other.

◊◊

Damian did worry that he'd run into Vermillion again when he entered Klavdiya's apartment.

"She has returned to Russia, for only a few days. My sister needed her for something," the violet speedster explains, dashing off right after.

In a second she returns, wearing a dress this time. Damian watches the way it moves on her before jerking his head away to stare out the window and control his thoughts.

"Don't ignore me," she whines.

The pretty teen comes to stand behind him. It forces the young man to turn back around and face his fears; the object of his affections looking very alluring in a pale pink dress far too short to be appropriate even for home. Her hair is in a lower ponytail, not a single hair out of place and the sparkles sill shining on her cheeks. Damian can not possibly explain how she looks completely normal after the night they've had. On a quiet patrol he comes in looking ragged still. And it's not a girl thing because Brown and Cain have the same issue.

It is a Klavdiya thing.

He expects to be kissed when she leans towards him, but instead her arms go behind him, where she slides the window shut.

"It's cold," she explains, arms retracting. Her right hands slides down his bicep, something they both enjoy. The beastly part of Damian hopes she can feel the muscle there.

"Maybe you should put on more clothes?" He quickly suggests. Anything cold and far away from what he wants to say.

"You know you don't want that," she says nonchalantly.

When she grabs his hand, he lets her lead him towards the living room. In that moment she could have lead him to the gallows and he wouldn't know.

"Sit down," she says, looking from him to the plush sofa. She turns to the kitchen when he speaks.

"I should-"

"You're cut, you know? Here," she explains, pointing to her own hair. Damian touches that section of his head, to the right above his ear, where he finally feels pain.

Drawing his hand away, there is a bit off blood on the tip of his gloves. Ah, the struggle under the truck.

She's like morphine, he tells himself. With her he can't even feel a gash in his head until she points it out.

As she searches through the cupboards for something, he decides to sit down. He doesn't even notice the remote until he accidentally sits on it and switches the TV on.

It opens to a paused screen of a show Damian recognises as one of Tim's favourites. As he believes, it depicts the struggle for power in medieval-fantasy world. He knows there is nudity and gore galore, that there are dragons and often profanity.

"You watch it?" Klavdiya asks, moving around him to sit at his side. His hands fiddle nervously.

"My adoptive brother does," he answers.

"I like it. I have only watched the first two episodes and started the third before I left. English and American shows are entertaining to me," she explains. Damian realises she has a medical kit in her lap.

Deep down he knows Alfred could fix him up, but as he watches her small, somewhat gentle hands take out a swab and disinfectant, he leans towards her.

"You know medical procedure?" He asks, impressed.

"Well people like us should, right?" She smiles. He knows that she understands what he is asking. With the softest touch Damian has ever experienced to a wound, she begins dabbing at the blood. "Where I grew up...how, I needed to patch up a lot of people."

Damian wishes he could look at her.

"The Twisted Twelve?" he asks, trying to figure her out.

"Yes," she says slowly, "and no."

Well that's no help at all. They both go quiet but it's good for concentration. Klavdiya cleans up the cut, revealing that it really is just a scratch.

"You don't need anything extreme. If you're going straight home you'll be fine, no more fighting." Suddenly, when she finishes that sentence she revokes to Russian, "Ostan'sya so mnoy."

"What?" Damian asks, looking at her when she draws back.

"Nothing," she smiles. Immediately with every fibre of detective memory he has, he tries to remember the sound of the phrase. Ostan'sya so mnoy. Ostan'sya so mnoy

She begins cleaning up the supplies and Damian decides to turn his radio back on. Within around thirty seconds, Batman's voice is in there.

"Home. Now."

The tone could strike fear into the heart of Zeus.

Not Damian.

"You have to go, da?" Klavdiya asks as she places the kit away. Damian doesn't even want to stand, but he does, the possibilities of their goodbye his motivation.

"Batman's orders," he explains. What are the right words to say goodbye? He can think of none, and he certainly has no desire to make a fool of himself again.

Klavdiya slowly walks around the kitchen island, a bounce in her paced steps.

"I will see you tomorrow?" She asks lightly, hope clear in her voice. Damian turns to her, fully, making the choice in his mind quickly.

He supposes it's his turn to be the one to initiate it, not her.

In three strides he hovers over her, before leaning down. Without a fibre of regret that he is keeping is father waiting, he kisses the violet speedster. It's very gentle and very sweet.

Regretfully, he draws back, allowing her to lower down from standing on her tippy-toes. Without her uniform she seems shorter.

"Tomorrow," he agrees, arm still looped around her waist. She nods, pressing her lips together for a moment, before they're suddenly kissing again.

She smiles against his lips and he feels it, leading to him doing the same.

"You better go," she laughs breathlessly, pulling away. "Now, or you'll never escape."

Smiling more than he ever has in front of her, he begins backing towards the window. She doesn't follow, so she does not jeopardise his leave.

"Bye Damian," she says, giving a little wave as he opens the window with one hand, still watching her.

"Bye Klavdiya," he replies quietly. He steps out into the night. It's a struggle to pull himself away, but he does, turning around and grappling up to the next building.

He's going home to watch Game of Thrones.