Damian's POV:

"Do you think she'll ever be okay again?" Sasha whispered, her blonde hair whipping in the wind.

We were sitting out on one of the balconies, perched beside eachother in the huge mahogany chairs Bruce had bought from Montenegro. I fiddled with my palms, noticing the bruises and cuts they bore from the night's previous events.

"Probably not."

I didn't realise how depressing that sounded until the words left my mouth. Regret filled me, and I winced silently.

But what had Sasha expected, anyway? She had asked me, the assigned asshole of all the people in the Manor. I was rude, I was mean, I was negative and cynical.

Sasha pulled her legs to her chest and let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah, you're probably right. She hasn't learnt to deal with trauma like we have."

Her body tensed very suddenly and she looked at me. I felt myself grow stiff at those words.

We?

Shit, did she know?

Sasha frowned, seeming to doubt her own words even as she said, "I mean, like I have."

Her eyes were glued to me and I refused to meet them. I needed to conceal my emotions -- she couldn't know that that statement had caused a reaction in me. She would surely figure something out if she did. She was an assassin, she knew how to read people.

Sasha moved to a more upright position, still staring at me with those hard blue eyes. Her eyebrows were furrowed, her face a display of confusion and suspicion.

"But you've learnt how to do that, too, haven't you?"

I stared at the crescent moon high in the sky, willing myself not to crack my facade.

"What are you talking about," I said a little to harshly.

Fuck.

I stole a glance at her, her perfectly smooth skin appeared to be glowing under the moonlight. The shadows in her face were darker in contrast to the light, hiding some of her features from my sight. I couldn't read her face as clearly now.

Sasha said, "You tensed when I said that. I'm not an idiot, Damian, I know there's stuff about you that you're hiding from me."

She continued to stare at me. I felt my fists clenching against the hand rests of the chair, and my knuckles began to whiten. She needed to back off with the questions. Bruce would kill me if she found something out.

"You're not who you say you are," she continued. "I see the way you control your emotions like a light switch. One minute they're on, one minute they're off. Normal people don't do that, and I know that because that's what I was taught to do at Midnight. We both know that Midnight was far from normal."

"Just shut up, Sasha," I muttered, trying my hardest to contain myself. She was trying to get me to open up and it wasn't going to happen. I was frustrated enough, I didn't need her fishing around in my brain.

She wouldn't stop. "No, Damian, you need to tell me what's going on. I've known for a while that you and the other boy's get up to stuff behind my back. What the hell is making you like this? Like some kind of robotic double agent? Are you even related to Bruce? Do you even live here properly, or are you a spy sent here to watch me?"

Something seemed to click in her brain at that moment. Sasha stood up fast and backed away from me. "Did my father send you? Fuck, is that why you fight so well? You're an assassin, and he hired you, didn't he? Oh, god..." She was combing her fingers through her hair anxiously.

I couldn't believe she had come to that conclusion so quickly. I rolled my eyes.

"No, Sasha, I'm not a fucking spy. I don't work for your dad."

She looked at me in fear. "How can I trust you? Slade has done this before, he's always messing with me, he's always trying to control me."

Anger swelled inside my chest. "Is that really what you think of me? As someone who would fuck with your mind for the benefit of a serial killer? Wow, thanks, Sasha. That really means a lot."

She seemed so confused at disorientated at that moment. "Then tell me why you're so... secretive all the time, Damian. How the hell can I trust you when you won't fucking tell me anything? You know how to fight like a goddamn warrior at only fourteen, you have this weird amount of knowledge on literally everything. And you abseil off the side of the Manor like it's just a normal thing for teenage boy's to do! This isn't normal, you're not normal, you act like the assassins at Midnight yet you're meant to be a normal rich boy who practices like... football or something in his spare time, not archery and knife throwing!"

I didn't even know what to say. How was I meant to cover all of this up? Bruce had just expected Sasha not to care about our family's weird activities, he hadn't considered the fact that she might start asking questions.

Or maybe he had, but he hadn't informed me about it. He thought he would just let me figure out some kind of lie on my own, huh? Real smart of him.

"I'm just different, Sasha," I spoke through gritted teeth. "I like extreme sports, is that so hard to understand?"

She gazed at me like she couldn't believe I was still lying after all of that. "Yes, it is. You beat Drake to a literal pulp at school, and you weren't even fazed by it. Only assassins do that, Damian. Psychopaths or assassins, you decide which one you are."

I racked my brain for an excuse.

"Bruce is big on martial arts and boxing, he's been training me since I was young," I began. "Plus he has enough money to pay for some of the best instructors in the world. They've taught me everything they know, and I'm a fast learner."

Sasha threw her head forward, letting out a frustrated groan and wrapping her arms around her neck.

"Stop lying!" She growled, chest heaving as she glared at me with stone cold eyes. "Stop lying to me like I'm some dumb, naive child! I know you're hiding something from me. Maybe you're not a spy, or an assassin, but there is something fucked up that has made you like this. I'll find out eventually, Damian. I'll find out and then you'll wish you'd told me earlier."

With that, she stormed back in inside, hair trailing behind her like golden ribbons in the wind. I kicked my chair angrily, rage boiling in my veins once again.

Bruce isn't as fucking clever as he thinks, is he? She won't give up until she figures something out.

I doubted that Sasha would uncover every detail about my childhood, but I didn't doubt that she'd find something that would tell her enough. She was on to me now, and she wouldn't be backing off anytime soon.

I headed to my bedroom. I was tired, tired of fighting with everyone about everything. I'd argued with Bruce just hours earlier and now I was arguing with Sasha. There was too much anger flowing through me and I knew that it wasn't healthy.

I pummelled the punching bag beside my desk for a while, some of the anger evaporating. Then I laid on my bed, the moon from the window casting a soft light against my katana as I trailed my fingers against it's blade.

It was too dangerous for Sasha to know what Bruce and I really did most nights. What Todd and Grayson and Drake did, too. Sasha was Slade's daughter, and no matter how much she hated her father, there were some things that had been ingrained in her brain that would take years to remove.

She had been taught to hate the Bat, she had been taught to hate me. If she found out our true identities, what would stop her from running back and telling every assassin she knew that Bruce Wayne was Gotham's dark Knight?

It was a risk I wasn't willing to take.

hi again this is more of a filler chapter but i felt like writing about sasha's suspicions toward damian. i hope you enjoyed and please vote and comment. i love reading you're comments they make my day and i find it so sweet that people support my characters

oh and here's some damian pics i found