Tuesday afternoon

When I got home after school, the first thing I was met with was a dagger spiralling toward my face at an incredible speed.

I reared back on instinct, but my body went too far and I toppled to the floor. I landed on the pavement that surrounded the courtyard outside of Wayne Manors front door. Alfred had just parked the limo in one of the many parking spaces and we were heading past the pretty rose bushes when the knife was thrown.

I sat in the floor dumbfounded, wondering what the fuck was going on. "Fucking hell," I cursed, attempting to lift myself off the floor.

"You should really watch where you're going."

I snapped my head up and there stood Damian, holding an assortment of throwing knives in his hand. I glanced opposite him and saw a dartboard perched up against one of the many decorative statues in the garden.

Of course he was doing knife throwing right out the front of Wayne Manors entrance, wasn't he?

I picked myself up off the floor. "Do you really have to do that right here?"

He just shrugged and plucked another knife from his collection. He lifted it above his head and threw it forward, the blade spinning and flying through the air. It landed directly in the centre of the dartboard. Admittedly, I was impressed.

I glanced at his face again and gave a small smirk. "Bored, were you?"

I knew that this suspension was probably killing him. Damian always needed to be doing something. He was not a time waster and he was always productive, it was probably the reasoning behind this odd activity.

He walked to the dartboard and yanked the dagger free. "Better then slaving away at school."

That I could not disagree with.

Damian carried the board and knives back inside and I trailed behind him. Immediately as I stepped forward into the Manor, someone cleared their throat loudly. My eyes searched for the noise and traced it to Bruce. He was standing at the top of the stair case on the landing. He wore a black button down shirt with dark pants, looking very handsome and expensive.

"Sasha, how was school?" He greeted with a dazzling smile.

I gazed up at him uneasily and shrugged. "It was fine, thank you."

He stepped away from the railing and made a gesturing movement. "Come to my office. I need to speak with you."

Although he said those words kindly, I still felt myself stiffen with fear. He wanted to talk about the party, didn't he? Probably about how i'd gotten so wasted that i'd fallen unconscious and had been dragged back inside the manor at 3 in the morning.

I was confused why he hadn't spoken to me earlier about it, though. But then again, he had been mostly absent from the house due to business events. I guessed today was the only day he had free.

I reluctantly made my way to his office. I'd forgotten how huge the room was since the last time i'd visited, which was when I first began living at the Manor. Such a fancy room it was, with the huge table and book cases. Lots of shelves and drawers containing so much information on Wayne Enterprises.

I couldn't help myself from thinking about how much intel could be gathered from here. In the old days with Slade, he would've gotten me to sneak in when Bruce was out and sift through all the countless papers. Then he would have made me hack into Bruce's databases and transfer hundreds and hundreds of banking details onto a flash drive for him to look at.

Why the hell am I thinking about this? I realized, much to my astonishment. I shouldn't be having these kinda of thoughts. Jesus, what has Slade done to me?

Bruce stood by his desk calmly, oblivious to the miniature panic attack I was experiencing under the surface. I folded my arms casually and pretended that I was fine. Maybe he wouldn't see right through my lies if I acted like I had nothing to hide?

"I wanted to talk to you about Saturday night. You and Damian went to a friend's party, correct?" he began.

I had an odd sensation that this was much too similar to that of an interrogation. "Yes," I replied nonchalantly. I was still trying to behave like nothing was wrong.

Bruce just nodded. "I understand that when you arrived back you were... well, a little disorientated. Care to explain why?"

The way he said all of that calmly like he wasn't even mad made me the most confused. Was he going to lash out eventually? Punish me? Yell at me? Send me back to the police station and have me put with another foster family?

I swallowed hard. "Uh, well, I might have... I might have had a little too much to drink," I muttered sheepishly.

I felt so horrible inside knowing how much of an embarrassment I'd been. I'd done some questionable things at that party, and I was utterly ashamed.

I continued quietly, "I've never been to a party before. I didn't know what I was doing."

Then, looking at the floor, I added, "I'm sorry."

Bruce didn't seem angry or even disappointed. He just nodded once more, giving me his celebrity-play-boy smile that was so different to his serious, brooding personality that I'd caught him wearing around the manor.

"You made a mistake, Sasha. We all do that."

He stepped away from his desk and moved toward me. I pulled back a little on instinct. Unfortunately, Bruce noticed this.

The man seemed to soften slightly. "I know you had a difficult upbringing. Believe me when I say that I understand what it's like to feel alone. I understand it a lot."

He looked me right in the eyes. "I want you to know that you can talk to people. Whether that be me, the boys, a friend at school or a counselor. You don't have to go through things by yourself. There will always be someone to help you when you need."

I refused to maintain the eye-contact. It seemed so unnatural that Bruce was talking to me about such a sensitive topic. He wasn't an emotional guy, much like Damian. He had never shown his feelings around me before, much less spoken to me about my own.

But deep down, I had a feeling that this little heart-to-heart went further then the party. It went further than what Drake did to me, which I was pretty sure Bruce knew about somehow. It went further then the drinking, and it went further then the fight with flynn and how he'd exposed me to the school.

Bruce wanted me to be open with him because he didn't want me to become like Slade. He knew that my father's impression on me was still there. He knew that if he didn't keep a firm grasp on me, then I would slip into the world of crime just like my father had.

Was I really that susceptible to becoming like my dad? Did Bruce really think I was vulnerable enough to take that path?

A sudden burst of anger swelled inside of me at that thought.

"I'm not my father," I growled, fully aware that I was speaking to fucking Bruce Wayne, who was one of the scariest men alive when he was angry.

However, I didn't back down.

Bruce stiffened ever so slightly. He stared at me with those penetrating blue eyes of his, reading into my soul, probably uncovering all of my secrets while I fought to keep my wall up.

Suddenly, he said, "I know."

And to my surprised, he placed a hand on my shoulder.

I flinched at the movement, glancing warily at his strong yet gentle action. Bruce leaned down until he was eye-level with me.

"I know more than anyone, Sasha. You can trust me on that."

I didn't know what to do. The way he'd said that seemed so sincere, I almost began to feel emotional.

I let down my guard a little, speaking quietly, "I'm not as weak as they think I am, you know. I'm not going to let Slade control me. I'm not going to give in to him."

Bruce nodded along to my every word. As I gazed into those eyes of his, I almost felt... reassured. I felt like I was understood, in some sense. In some crazy way, I felt like this rich, famous, partying socialite of a man understood my deeply traumatizing past.

How could he understand? He'd never witnessed anything as tragic as I had. Yet here I was feeling as if he knew what I meant.

"You know, Sasha, you're probably one of the strongest kids I've ever met," Bruce told me, and he gave me another one of his smiles. This one, however, was different from the play-boy one. It was different from the handsome-celebrity one.

It was a real, authentic kind of smile that lasted only a second before it vanished. Only one second, yet it felt as if it had lasted a lifetime.

He stood up to leave, but before he walked away he added, "Don't ever doubt your ability. Your father has nothing over you."

And that thought stayed with me for the rest of the day.

---------------------------------------------

Damian's P.O.V

I had been spending majority of my suspension in the gym, considering I wasn't allowed to go anywhere.

Father was still mad at me, but I wasn't surprised. He'd set up hundreds of training exercises and courses for me to complete while he was out. He'd said, "You're not sitting around doing nothing, Damian. You're going to work off this suspension as a punishment."

It wasn't like I hated the training, anyway. The League of Assassins training courses were considerably worse and I'd endured that perfectly fine for ten years. I enjoyed strengthening myself; I enjoyed pushing my body to it's limits.

Father even doubled my patrols throughout the week. Due to school, Robin could only go out in the afternoons and evenings. But now that I was off for a week, Bruce had made sure I was keeping everyone safe in Gotham during the daytime hours when he was out.

So, in a way, I was enjoying my so-called "punishment" more than my normal life. I was pretty sure that this frustrated father even more. Not my problem, though.

I was in the gym doing push ups when Sasha arrived back from her talk with Bruce. I'd just returned from patrol an hour ago and was warming up for a training course. Glancing up, I saw her enter the room wearing bike shorts and a tank top with her blonde hair tied back.

She spotted me quickly and smiled that perfect smile of hers. "Hey, Dami."

I didn't know why, but I instantly felt the need to start doing one-handed push ups. I removed my left arm and grunted back, "Don't call me that."

Sasha moved toward me and perched down on a nearby mat. "Sure thing, Dami."

I ignored her and continued my warm ups, noticing that she was now doing the same. She held herself in plank and watched me change to sit-ups.

"So, how was your day at home?" She asked.

Obviously, I had to lie about what I'd done. "Boring," I simply replied.

Then I realized that it would be more socially acceptable if I asked her about her day, too. "How was school?"

She moved into a side-plank. "It was fine."

I couldn't stop myself from glaring the spot on her neck where I knew the hickeys were. She'd covered them with makeup, clearly, but I knew they were still there. It made my blood boil even thinking about them. I forced myself to look away.

ten minutes passed, and as I stood at the beginning of the training course, I noticed Sasha was practicing her martial arts with the sparring dummy. She sent a roundhouse kick to the dummy's face, a move she had delivered perfectly.

I felt a weird sensation in my gut as I watched her, so I tried to focus on the ninja course before me. I leaped from side to side on the first obstacle, then swung myself across the next one using the hanging rings.

The next obstacle consisted of a spinning cylinder that I had to run across fast enough in order to stay on top. I completed this with ease, of course, as did I with the parkour obstacles and the climbing obstacles.

I finished quickly and checked the timer to see how I'd done. I'd beaten my record time again, but that wasn't much of a shock. I'd beaten my previous times on each run of the course today. Bruce had forced me to complete it in under 45 seconds, which I'd achieved on only my second run.

"Shit," Sasha cursed from across the room. My ears picked up on her voice immediately. I jerked my head to the side and searched for where she was.

She was sitting on the floor holding her side. I knew something was wrong from where I stood on the top of 14 foot tall warped wall. I jumped down and headed toward her with a frown.

"Are you okay?" I questioned.

She was bent over and clutching at her a spot on her waist. "I'm fine," she snapped back quickly.

That was a lie.

I knelt down as I approached her. She wouldn't look me in the eyes, so I reached toward where she was clutching at with her hands. I managed to pry her fingers away, which was hard because she was reluctant to comply.

"I'm going to lift your shirt," I warned her.

Sasha continued to stare at the floor, loose strands of her hair falling across her face and masking her emotions. She didn't say a word as I tugged up the hem of her white tank and revealed a mass of ugly purple and red bruises all over her stomach.

I shouldn't have been surprised. Of course she'd been working out while injured, that was what Sasha always did. She denied all of her problems as if they weren't there, whether those problems were physical, mental or emotional.

It was infuriating to me that she would do that to herself. I couldn't control my anger as I said, "Why the fuck were you sparring with an injury?"

She still wouldn't look at me. I almost felt bad for yelling, but she needed to know that it was stupid for her to do that. When I was with the League of Assassins, they had forced me to push myself to the max while I was hurt and badly beaten. Sasha had probably done the same at Midnight, but this wasn't Midnight anymore.

When I moved in with Bruce, I learnt that rest was a valuable asset to combat and survival in general. Even after ten years with a league of ruthless psychopaths, I'd still managed to learn that. Sasha needed to as well, otherwise it would get her killed.

I made her stand up and move to the main living room to lie down. "I can walk," she had hissed, yet she still leaned on me for support.

When we reached the sofa she lowered herself down and I collected an ice pack from the freezer. "No more training," I ordered as I handed it to her. She just rolled her eyes and placed the ice on her skin.

"You should really work on your control issues," she said dryly.

I clenched my jaw. "I don't have control issues."

She shook her head disapprovingly, making eye-contact with me for the first time since her little accident. "Right, and I don't have several years worth of trauma."

I walked back to the kitchen bitterly, needing to get a drink of water. How dare she tell me what problems I had? She barely even knew me enough to make those kind of statements, it was ridiculous.

"Get me some food while you're there, too," Sasha called from the couch.

For a minute I thought she was messing with me. I stepped out of the kitchen and stared at her. "What?"

She stretched back into the pillows and gave me a smug smile. "I'm hungry and hurt, you have to bring me something to eat."

I could not believe she was doing this. Why on earth would I slave around for after that little insult?

I laughed without humor. "I don't think so."

As if on cue, Sasha winced and grasped at her side again. Staring at me with sad eyes, she whimpered, "Oh, god, it just hurts so bad."

I knew she was doing it on purpose, faking her pain so I would feel sorry for her. I didn't feel sorry in the slightest.

But the way she looked at me with those eyes made it hard for me to say no. It was utterly crazy that she had that kind of effect on me. I had killed hundreds of men with zero remorse and here I was feeling like I needed to help this irritating little girl. Why? I didn't even owe her anything, yet I still felt obliged to.

Annoyed with myself for bending to her will so easily, I ripped out a packet of doritos from the cupboard. I threw it at where she lay on the sofa, the flying object narrowly missing her face as she pulled up her arms up to block it.

Sasha growled, "Hey!"

I turned back toward the kitchen, sarcastically replying, "Oops."

I sensed something behind me seconds later. My reflexes made me duck on instinct as a pillow soared over my head, smacking against the wall in front of me. I whipped around to see Sasha now standing beside the couch with a smirk plastered on her lips.

"Did you seriously just do that?" I questioned in disbelief. It shocked me how immature she was behaving. I had never experienced anything like it.

Sasha rolled her eyes and her smirk grew wider. "What, did the big, bad Damian not like that?"

I picked up the pillow so quickly that Sasha screamed when I launched it at her. She threw herself out of the way, the pillow hitting the large window behind her instead.

"You asshole..." she gasped.

Before I knew it, we were having a pillow war right then and there in the living room. It might have seemed harmless, but when two assassins were play-fighting against eachother, it rarely was.

We were diving and commando-rolling all over the place, Sasha chucking all sorts of fancy decorative pillows at me while I did parkour across the huge couch and coffee table. I gathered up one of the fur blankets and tossed it over her head, temporarily blinding her as I escaped to the other side of the room. Sasha recovered quickly and untangled herself, her hair a frizzy mess when she emerged.

She threw more pillows at me as I ran for cover and crouched behind one end of the sofa. I picked up a nearby cushion and heard her heading toward me. When I knew she was near, I jumped up with a surprise attack and hit her before she could react.

Sasha let out a frustrated "ugh!" as I escaped once again. She tossed a heavy cushion at me and I pulled my arms up to protect myself from the blow.

"Hey, you can't do that!" I yelled as an unexpected laugh escaped my mouth.

She propelled another pillow at me, knocking me onto the carpet. Now she had the higher ground and held a cushion above her head as she stood on top of me, ready to whack it down on my defenceless body.

I threw my hands up in surrender. "Okay, you win."

Sasha laughed. "Damn right, I do."

But I hooked my right foot around her ankle and yanked it forward. Her foot gave out and she tripped, letting out a yelp at the sudden action. She landed beside me on the carpet and lost grip on her pillow. I picked it up quickly and scrambled to get on top of her, pinning her to the floor and holding the cushion high in the air.

"Oh, look at that," I smirked.

Sasha lay beneath me in a flustered heap, her face red and her hair sprawled across her face. She let out an annoyed groan again, but she was still smiling.

"Whatever, tough guy."

I smothered her with the pillow as she laughed, repeatedly crying, "Damian, stop!"

I shouted back, "Tell me that I won. I need to hear you say it."

"Okay, okay! You won! You won!"

I lifted the pillow, allowing her to somewhat recover. "Good," I said as she continued to laugh ridiculously.

Then, suddenly, she stopped.

"Ow, ow," Sasha hissed, hands flying to her waist. "Shit, Damian, get off."

I jumped off of her instantly, landing beside her on the carpet.

Sasha sat up and clutched at herself. She was bent over, breathing heavily and resting her head between her knees. Admittedly, I'd forgotten about the bruises while we were fighting. I felt a wave of guilt wash over me at the thought of hurting her.

"Sasha," I spoke cautiously, leaning closer.

"Sasha, did I hurt you?"

But suddenly she was grabbing the pillow beside her and sending it right to my face.

Ah, I should've known.

She was on top of me now, leaning against the pillow she had pressed to my chest. She erupted in a fit of giggles, choking on her own laughs as she said, "Oh my god, you actually fell for that."

I rolled my eyes at her words, letting her enjoy the situation as much as she wanted. Yes, maybe I had kind of believed her... but that was only because she had actually been injured just moments before. Those bruises were real and painful.

She eventually regained control of herself and calmed down. With yet another smug smile, she tilted her head to the side and said, "Wow, so you do really care."

Now my defence system was back up.

"No, I just didn't want Bruce angry at me again," I explained bluntly.

She lifted herself off of me and let me go. I scrambled to my feet quickly, making sure to keep a distance between us.

Sasha chuckled and shook her head. "Whatever you say."

She reached forward and patted the area on my chest above my heart. "I know you're a softy on the inside, Dami. Somewhere in that tiny heart of yours."

I grabbed her wrist on reflex. She flinched, and her gaze flickered to mine. We both stared into each others eyes, the lighthearted mood vanishing immediately. Our little episode of "fun" had ended now.

"Don't touch me," I said coldly, dropping her wrist and glaring.

Never once breaking eye contact, I backed away. I didn't trust her to not throw something at me as I left. When I reached the stair case, I turned around and headed up to my room.

What was I thinking, getting so close to her like that? Playing around with her like a stupid little kid?

I wasn't a little kid, I was the son of Batman and Talia Al Ghul. I was destined to rule the world, not fuck around like an imbecile with other children.

And Sasha Wilson, of all people? The daughter of Deathstroke, one of my most sworn enemies and an old friend of my grandfather's, Ra's. Deathstroke, who had abused my trust far too many times. Deathstroke, who had tried to force me to return to my old life of murder and misery.

Why was I even talking to his daughter? I should despise her, shouldn't I?

Yet I didn't. I knew that I didn't hate Sasha, I couldn't hate Sasha. Not now, probably not ever, and for reasons that I had no clue of.

She did something to me, and I didn't like it. I didn't like the power she had over me. She was messing with my head and causing me to lose focus on who I was.

I slammed my bedroom door shut and rubbed my hands around my neck. What the fuck was happening to me?

What the fuck was Sasha doing to me?

this has been more of a filler chapter so sorry guys but i'm having some writers block.

i am sooo bad at cute scenes but i hope u guys managed to enjoy the pillow fight without cringing or feeling like it wasn't enough or something. give me advice if u want cause i could rly use it when it comes to fluffy chapters i have no fucking clue what i'm doing

BRO WE ARE ON 10.5K READS I CANT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN HOW MUCH I LOVE U ALL THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️