"Okay now that just isn't fair," Dick groaned, tossing his handful of cards onto the coffee table with a scowl.

Damian had won. Again. Somehow, he was the best player out of all the bat-boys at Uno. And it was both surprising and frustrating at the same time.

Damian shrugged apathetically at his fourth win of the night. We were only about an hour into "family game night", and still had an assortment of other board games to play. Bruce hadn't yet joined us yet due to a business call of some sort, though I was pretty certain he was trying to find a lead on some new drug-trading gang that had recently surfaced.

Okay, so maybe I'd eavesdropped on my way to the bathroom. So what? I was a curious person.

Alfred entered the living room with an assortment of snacks and food, which seemed to ease some of the tension between the boys. They were all growing sick of Damian winning so much. So was I, to be fair.

"I bet you're cheating," I said, shoving some chips into my mouth as Tim reshuffled the deck.

Damian leaned back into the sofa and smirked at me, those emerald eyes of his glistening. "Please enlighten me on how I could possibly be doing that."

Feeling challenged now, I sat up straighter and swallowed my food. "Well, you could, uh, be looking at everyone's cards," I suggested rather unconvincingly, earning an eye roll from his direction.

I crossed my arms at that. I'll prove you wrong, asshole, I muttered internally, my brain whirring with other ways he could be cheating the game.

Then an idea came to me, and I threw a pointed finger into his face. "You shuffled all the good cards into the deck at the exact position where it would be handed to you. Boom, case solved. You're welcome, guys."

Then I smiled and threw my hands into the air as if confetti was being thrown down on me.

"Yeah!" Dick agreed, high-fiving me and sending a glare Damian's way. "You little cheater, you."

Damian looked like he had just heard the dumbest thing in the entire world. He blinked twice, his face twisted into disbelief.

"But how could I do that if I haven't shuffled the cards once this entire evening?"

I was about to come up with an awesome retaliation, but then Bruce walked in, startling us all.

"Sorry about the delay, I'm here now. What are we playing?" He questioned, lowering himself into the huge armchair across from the sofa.

Tim spoke up immediately and explained what was happening, handing Bruce a set of cards. It was interesting to see how he was so eager to talk to Bruce, to be the one to tell him about the game and give him the first cards. It was like he was trying desperately to please him, for some reason.

I'd noticed that a lot when it came to Tim. Although he talked a big game and never seemed to shut up about how being a vigilante sucked and had made him super dysfunctional, the amount of respect and admiration he had for Bruce was evident and incredible. It was quite contradicting, considering he seemed to "hate" his life so much.

Alfred joined in on the next round, as well as Bruce. Jason yelled out something about waiting for him to get there before everyone started because he wanted to kick our asses. Then his face paled at the sight of Bruce sitting there, staring at the young man barging into the room who happened to be holding a bottle of beer.

Jason quickly downed the remaining drops of liquid and tossed the bottle to the side. "It was only one drink," he muttered at Bruce's disapproving glare, snatching up some cards and taking a seat.

After half an hour of intense yelling, cheering, swearing and fighting went past, Damian ended up winning again for the sixth time. Everyone was practically rolling around on the floor and groaning about how it was so unfair and that he was definitely cheating. The boy himself just sat smugly in his seat and sipped on his can of coke.

"I have an idea," Bruce suddenly suggested, snapping us from our tantrums.

Dick was still so angry he looked like he was about to kill someone, his eyes wide and savage. He grabbed Bruce's shoulders and said, "Please, anything. I'm about to lose it."

Bruce guided his hands away from him and stood up. "Alfred," he began, glancing at the butler perched on the end of the sofa. "Where did you store my father's chess set?"

That got everyone excited, because it could only mean one thing: there was about to be a father-son match that would determine just how good Damian was.

"Two psycho's versing each other in chess? This is what I signed up for," Jason announced, voicing exactly what everyone else was thinking.

I mean, no offense to Bruce or anything, but we all knew just how crazy Batman was. And the apple definitely didn't fall far from the tree, either. Just look at Damian.

Alfred shuffled off and returned minutes later with an old, wooden box. I could hear the chess pieces rattling around inside of it as he sat it down on the table and Bruce undid the clasp, folding it out to reveal that the box was in fact also the board.

"What, so the rest of us just have to sit here and watch?" Tim muttered. It was clear that he was not on board with this. Yet again, I found myself observing him, the way he had sunk into the sofa cushions a little, a frown on his lips and something else in his eyes that I couldn't quite describe.

Was it jealousy or something? Or was he annoyed that Damian, who had beaten him up only hours earlier, was getting all the attention? I supposed that made enough sense.

Bruce ignored his sulky words and instead peered at Damian, who had his arms crossed over his chest and a flat look on his face.

"What do you say, Damian," Bruce asked, a hint of competition in his voice. "Surely you won't mind a one-on-one with your dad."

Jason and Dick ooohed at that, enjoying the theatrics of the situation playing out before them.

Damian straightened in his seat, and I could see the way his eyes glittered at the thought of a challenge. At the thought of being able to prove himself a champion, to prove his brothers wrong.

"Are you sure you want to pick a fight you know you won't win, father?" The boy smirked, practically glowing with confidence as it oozed out of him.

This earned another oooh from Jason and Dick, and myself included. I was tempted to go heat up some popcorn just to watch this, but Dick was already one step ahead, leaping off the sofa and running toward the kitchen.

Bruce just smiled back at his son, though it wasn't really a friendly smile, it was more of a oh, I'll show you, you little punk kind of smile.

It almost felt like I was watching an intense football match or gladiator fight or something. Two of the smartest, most psychopathic men I knew were about to go head-to-head in a classic game of chess. And even better? They were father and son.

"Don't start without me!" Dick yelled, holding a bowl of popcorn above his head as he used one hand to flip himself over the couch and land perfectly between me and Jason. I chewed on a handful of the buttery goodness as Damian and Bruce positioned themselves on either side of the board and set up their pieces.

It was about to go down, and everyone knew it.

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

"The student has become the master!" Jason roared as we all jumped up and down chaotically, screaming and cheering at what had just played out before us.

Damian sat there, smug as ever, directly opposite his father, his eyes locked on Bruce's shocked features.

I'd never seen Bruce shocked before. Never.

And I doubted any of the other boys really had, either.

Still hyped up from the victory, I wrapped my arms around Damian and shook him violently. "Oh my god! You beat the Batman!" I practically shrieked, earning an "irritated" look from the boy, even though his lips were pulled into a smile.

Even Alfred was clapping and cheering beside us, Dick throwing himself on top of him into a celebratory hug. The only person who wasn't completely losing their mind was Tim, who had migrated somewhere else, probably to work on one of his cases like he always did.

Strange. I was still on to him.

Bruce was staring at the chess board like it might suddenly sprout wings and fly away. It was obvious that he was trying to figure out what he'd done wrong, skimming through the moves he'd executed and searching for a mistake. It was so very Batman-like.

"What did I say, father," Damian spoke, the rest of us still cheering and screaming around him in literal awe and amazement. "Don't pick fights you can't win."

And that was probably the coolest thing someone could say before walking away, leaving Dick and Jason to let out the world's loudest oh damnnn! as I followed after him, laughing.

"I did not see that coming," I said, catching up to Damian who was now heading up the stairs.

He was smiling, I saw, and even if it was quite cocky, he still looked happy. Damian hardly ever looked "happy", as such, the closest he usually got was calm, or peaceful. Seeing him like this made me smile even wider. It was cute, and he had earned it.

——————————

As we laid beside eachother on Damian's bed, his fingers tangling themselves in the ends of my blonde hair, I eventually asked, "Damian, why do you hate Tim so much?"

It was a very straight-forward question, I realized, and very blunt, too. But I needed to know what had happened between the two to cause so much tension. It was eating me up inside.

Damian just shrugged, his eyes drifting away from my face and his mood turning cold and distant again. I wanted to slap myself for dampening the mood, but I also desperately wanted to know the dynamic between the two and what had caused it.

"He's an imbecile, that's why," Damian muttered, and when he didn't explain any further, I figured he was done with the conversation.

But I wasn't.

"Please, you can tell me. I just want to know."

Damian stared at me for a long while, contemplating. I knew the answer was obviously going to be very emotion-filled, which was why he was uncomfortable sharing.

After what felt like ages, he finally said, "He's a thief, and an intruder. When I first arrived he didn't want me here, because he wanted my father to himself. He was the current Robin and he thought that granted him some kind of false title of being Bruce's son, when he's not."

Ah.

Jealousy seemed to be the main factor, then.

"So, he was upset when you came," I concluded carefully, hoping I wouldn't strike a nerve in any of my words, "Because you were Bruce's real son and he wasn't."

Damian had a bitter look in his eyes as he continued to play around with my hair, which was silently sending my heart into overdrive. He nodded in confirmation, giving me the answer I had been looking for.

"Then I stabbed him because he wanted my life for himself. He hated me after that, and he tried to kill me," Damian added with a scowl.

However there was a little less aggressiveness in his tone when he continued, "There were other things, too, like when father went missing. Drake thought I "stole" the Robin mantle from him. That's bullshit, I earned it from father when he realized I'd be a better Robin then Drake ever could. Then when Bruce disappeared, Grayson gave it to me indefinitely and that pissed him off even worse."

So things were starting to make a lot more sense now, it seemed. Tim thought of Bruce as his father, but when Damian came along, all that was taken from him, and rivalry set in between the boys.

"Do you think maybe he was just hurting because he didn't have a real father," I whispered, feeling the need to shed some perspective into the atmosphere. "It seems like Bruce was the closest thing he had."

Damian paused briefly, his face blank but in-thought as his fingers stopped fiddling with the ends of my locks.

He said, "Even if he was, it didn't give him a right to take what was mine. Bruce was all I had, too. My life had been a constant cycle of hell before I met my father."

Then, with a deep sense of hatred in his eyes, Damian added, "Tim was lucky. I would have preferred no family than the family that I grew up with. He hardly had it worse, Sasha. And I have the scars to prove that."

Okay, so he had a point. Damian had lived a terrible, horrible life, much like I had. And from what i'd been told, Tim's childhood wasn't half as bad.

But at the same time, he had his reasons to want to keep Bruce to himself, and knowing what Damian was like to people he didn't know, I was certain he hadn't exactly been the friendliest person to Tim during their first interaction .

"I get it, I really do," I told him, offering a small smile and hoping my next words wouldn't offend him too much. "But technically, if you look at it from Tim's view, you took his father and replaced him as Robin. You forced him out of his life whether you meant to or not. That's got to sting a little, don't you think?"

This time Damian looked really thoughtful, and it struck me that maybe I had gotten through to him a little bit. Maybe not a lot, but a little, which was more than enough.

Damian closed his eyes and sighed, his surprisingly long lashes fluttering against his cheeks and his soft lips parting slightly. "I... I suppose you are somewhat right."

Holy shit, it worked.

I frowned at him in doubt. "Really?"

He nodded ever so slightly, opening his eyes again and peering down at the tangled fingers in my hair. "Perhaps I was a little too... harsh, when I met him."

Oh my god, I had gotten through to Damian Wayne. He was actually reflecting on his actions, like a mentally healthy person might do.

I felt an overwhelming sense of pride surge through my blood. It was like I was a mother who'd just watched her baby take their first steps. Subconsciously, I lifted my fingers to Damian cheek and traced my thumb along his jaw, enjoying the tingling fling sensation I felt when our skin touched.

"I'm proud of you, Dami," I whispered, gazing into those beautiful eyes of his. "I'm really fucking proud of you, you know. You have been through more trauma at fourteen then a grown man would in his entire lifetime, yet you still manage to learn and grow. I don't know how you do it."

I wanted to kiss him again. We were so close, our faces inches apart and our bodies basking in each other's warmth. He smelt so good, too, and I was tempted to just snuggle into his arms and never leave.

"You really think that?" Damian asked softly. His voice was gentle, a rare kind of gentle that I'd hardly ever heard.

"Of course I think that," I answered, combing my fingers through his luscious locks and considering the possibility of kissing him again. Or simply just hugging him, or just lying next to him. Anything where he was close to me.

But then Damian's phone alerted rather loudly, and by the way he jolted up to check it, I knew it was something important.

"I have to go," he spoke firmly, all softness and emotion gone.

He moved to his Robin uniform and tugged off his shirt, revealing that fine set of abs I loved so much and tried not to drool over. Damian pulled his uniform in over his clothes lightning fast and then moved to the window sill, sliding the glass panels up.

But before he could disappear into the shadows again, I gripped his arm and stopped him, causing his head to turn to me in confusion.

"Take me with you," I said, pulling myself onto the ledge and wrapping my arms around his neck with a smile. "I promise not to save the day again. I'll step back and let you do all the work this time."

He rolled his eyes at my words, but nevertheless, he aimed his grappled gun to the trees and suddenly we were dropping from the window sill, a small equal escaping my lips.

yay i did the family game night scene, which i'm pretty sure someone requested but i'm not sure who. some of you have read the comics so you already know about the reasoning behind damian and tim whole hatred thing, but if u haven't then here u go.

love u guys and thanks for 42k reads!! i can't believe i have so many! and we have over 1k votes, too, so thank u ❤️❤️