#damirey

Blue-collar workers roamed about, practically strutting around in their grease-stained denim and trucker caps. Even Irey herself was dressed for the occasion, rocking a patch on her second-hand ill-fitting jacket that read ‘Keystone City Motors.’

It made Damian wonder if he stood out too much, as he was still clad in his Gotham Academy uniform.

Irey led Damian to a more industrialized part of the city, moving past a railyard with barely a vehicle on the tracks. Soon they arrived at what looked like an abandoned garage. The doors were boarded up and most of the windows were covered in plywood, yet Irey approached it like it was a second home.

The way to get in was as peculiar as the rest of the place — the main garage door could be lifted up by about a foot, giving the pair of thirteen-year-olds enough room to slip underneath.

Once inside Damian got a better look at the place. It was cleaner than he expected.

Little bits of grime were scattered on some of the surfaces, but most of it had been scrubbed off. The windows were either boarded up or translucent, but they let in enough ambient light to make the place seem welcoming. The shelves and tables seemed ancient from their years of use, but sitting on them were various toys and knick-knacks and children’s books. The walls had hand-drawn pictures taped on, which did wonders to make the place seem more lively. There was even a stack of board games in the corner.

“We’re here!” Irey announced, beaming. She pulled a rusty lever on the wall, which turned on the lights.

Damian raises an eyebrow. “What exactly is here?”

“The Keystone Elementary clubhouse!” exclaimed the speedster, wiggling her arms in the air like she just didn’t care.

Irey put her knapsack down. She pulled off her jacket and placed it on the back of an armchair — said armchair was large and most definitely second-hand, but Irey sat on it as if it were a throne.

“I mean, it’s not our official clubhouse,” she continued to explain. “But it does all the same stuff. C’mon, sit down.”

Damian scrunched his nose, but did as he was told. He situated himself on a chair by the table. As he looked around the place, he started to see the appeal in it. His bedroom at every piece of Wayne-owned property was prim and proper, to hang out in a place like this — let alone thrive in it — seemed like a small bit of rebellion if there was one.

Certainly, willingly putting oneself at risk of tetanus was the best way to stick it to the man.

But as much as he loved to judge, Damian acknowledged that the alleyways of Gotham that he felt comfortable in were no cleaner than Keystone’s little clubhouse.

Irey dug through her backpack and pulled out a bag of chocolate covered peanuts. Damian was used to seeing her constantly snacking, as most speedsters ate like the entire Bat clan combined.

“Our teachers told us to stop coming here,” Irey said as she popped a peanut into her mouth. “Not ever since Wade Markson got that strap infection.”

Damian gave her a quizzical eye. “You mean a staph infection?”

Irey shrugged and ate another peanut. “Yeah, that. But, y’know, we didn’t listen.” She held the bag of candy up. “Want one?”

The Gothamite shook his head. “I’ll pass, you speedsters need all you can get.”

Irey gave him a confused look, seemingly trying to decipher whether or not that was an insult. With a shrug, Damian ignored that look and took off his coat. He placed it on another chair nearby and noted that the grime on his Armani peacoat would probably alert his father as to where he had been all day.

“What do you even do in here?” he asked snidely. He gestured to the half set-up Scrabble board on the table. “Besides playing children’s games, that is.”

“Just hang out,” Irey replied casually. “Or read. Or chat. Or smash things.”

Once more, Damian scrunched his nose. “Is there nothing better to do in the midwest?”

“Hey, not everyone gets to eat gold and ride a pony, Rich Boy,” Irey said sharply, the signature ‘West Snark’ seeping into her words. “Dad doesn’t let me join every mission thingy, so I’m stuck here most of the time.”

In a flash she sped around the room. In a second she was beside Damian, holding an aluminum baseball bat in her hand.

“Wanna go smash some light bulbs I found in a dumpster?” she asked as if it was the most typical thing in the world.

For a moment Damian wondered what exactly he had gotten himself into. In Titans Tower back on the west coast, Irey was a proud hero-in-training. Over here she was some bored kid trying to pass the time like only midwestern hicks could.

Somehow, it made him more curious to see what else Keystone had to offer.

           She kissed the top of his head. “I know,” she replied, sympathetically. “This is a lot easier at the Tower, huh?”

           Still pressed against her shoulder he let out a small sigh, and a moment later she vanished, leaving his arms empty and his bed cold. Damian rolled over once more, drawing the covers up around his bare chest, and went back to sleep.

           An hour or so later – Damian always slept fitfully in the mornings after Irey left – he got out of bed, heading first to the bathroom. After his shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and then carefully inspected the very obvious marks along his neck and collarbone. He took a few selfies on Snapchat and sent them to Irey, captioned, Today’s damage.

           Her reply consisted mainly of a number of emojis and lots of exclamation points. A little later she sent a selfie of herself in the bathroom mirror, her own towel wrapped around her waist. One arm draped across her chest to preserve her modesty (not that it was difficult; Iris had very little to show in that department), the photo was captioned, Im clean…try harder next time.

           Iris’s superspeed meant that any marks he left on her skin were gone before they even formed, but Damian liked the challenge. As they texted, Damian carefully dabbed concealer over the marks along his neck, though he didn’t bother with the one lower down his chest. Nobody would see it, anyway.

           This game he and Irey played would only continue to be fun if they could manage to keep it a secret, so Damian meticulously covered up any visible evidence of lovebites, careful to make it look as natural as possible. Not that it was likely his father would be suspicious – the Batman didn’t think any speedster could get past the sensors set up around Wayne Manor. He had no clue how fast Iris was. Apart from Damian nobody in the world knew how fast she was, and even Damian, constrained to the normal laws of physics, stranger to the Speed Force, could never fully comprehend her true power. Keeping a secret of this magnitude together was thrilling. The fact that it helped her sneak into the house so they could spend time together after hours was just a plus.

           Downstairs, Alfred was already preparing breakfast. Like he did on many mornings, Damian went about critiquing his choices. “I don’t like smoked salmon,” Damian insisted, standing in the refrigerator door, inspecting a package of the stuff. “I don’t know why you still insist on buying it.”

           “If I recall,” Alfred replied patiently, “last week you positively devoured it.”

           “That was lox,” Damian retorted. “Lox and smoked salmon are two completely different things.”

           “Are they really?” asked Alfred mildly, fully aware of the slight culinary differences between the two products, and also aware that Damian never seemed to notice unless he inspected the packaging before being served. “Why, I had no idea.”

           “Lox isn’t smoked at all,” continued Damian, digging his hand into the produce drawer to withdraw a handful of loose grapes. Popping one after the other into his mouth, he took a seat at the counter. “It’s cured, but not smoked. It’s saltier, and I don’t like that smoked taste, it makes it taste off.”

           Damian didn’t like a great many things, but it helped immensely when he could sit here, in the kitchen, and watch Alfred prepare his food. He even schmeared his own bagel, like a big boy. “Pineapple or kiwi?” asked Alfred, of Damian’s daily protein-boosted fruit smoothie.

           “Pineapple,” answered Damian, through a mouthful of bagel. His favorite lately. He swallowed the bagel, then added, “I don’t like kiwi, I’ve told you that.”

           He’d decided he hadn’t liked kiwi a few months ago, when Dick had visited for a few days and pushed Damian into near hysterics by taking a bite out of a kiwi whole, as if it were an apple. Dick insisted the fiber was good for you. Damian had countered that the fiber intake derived from kiwi skins was negligible at best, unless you ate about thirty kiwis at a time. Dick had taken that as a personal challenge.

           “I shall have to replace kiwi in our rotation, then,” agreed Alfred smoothly, as the blender whirred. “Perhaps something more exciting than oranges. Grapefruit?”

           “I can’t have grapefruit,” said Damian, scrolling through something on his phone.

           This wasn’t true, as Alfred was acutely aware of all the medications Damian was currently on, and all their various interactions. But he wouldn’t argue. “Papaya, perhaps?”

           “I like mango,” offered Damian, as Alfred placed his smoothie in front of him. “Iris’s mother makes incredible mango juice.” Iris’s mother bought mango juice in cartons from Whole Foods for $7.99, but Damian didn’t know that.

           As Alfred busied himself with making breakfast for himself – Bruce would not be up for another hour yet, at which time he could forage for his own meal – he asked, “And how is young Miss West, I might ask?”

           “She’s well,” answered Damian, taking an exploratory sip of the smoothie, then setting it down once more, apparently pleased. “Well,” he amended, “technically speaking, she’s grounded, so not as well as usual.”

           “Did something happened?”

           “She and her brother had an argument. I can sympathize, having argued with a fair number of brothers in my lifetime.” All sixteen years and three quarters of it.

           “Which resulted in her becoming grounded?” Alfred made a face, impressed. “Perhaps we should have tried that method with you, when you were younger.”

           “I believe you did,” Damian pointed out. “And as far as I recall, it didn’t work.”

           Alfred asked, “Does it work for her?”

           Damian didn’t answer. When Alfred turned around to breakfast with Damian, neither of them said anything. “Why wouldn’t it?” asked Damian, as Alfred took a sip of his own smoothie.

           “Merely a question,” Alfred murmured, turning to his bagel with a sigh.

           Later that day, Damian worked on an assignment from a teacher Bruce had commissioned with whom he communicated remotely – that is, he holed up in his room, door closed, music turned up just loud enough to drown out the noise from beyond his own space. Though by the nature of the computer networks in the house Bruce could at any moment peek at whatever internet activity his son was taking, he generally refrained from doing so. They had promised some years ago that they would try to set normal boundaries, even in such abnormal circumstances. So when an alert lit up that informed Bruce that Damian had enabled a rudimentary network masking program – a sort of glorified ‘Private Browser’ – Bruce just quietly silenced the notification, well aware that his son was, in fact, a normal teenager.

           Before patrol, Damian joined his father in the Batcave for some light training. In a specialized suit which recorded his every movement and vital signs, he executed maneuvers in the simulation room exquisitely, more perfect than any of the boys had ever been. More perfect than Bruce had ever been. Damian rivaled Cassandra in all ways except for his reliance on brute force, whereas Cass would always default towards the simplest option, the way to beat her opponent as easily and effortlessly as possible.

           The effort was part of the thrill, for Damian. When the sim dropped, Damian breathed ragged breaths, grinning up at the camera through which he knew his father was watching. “Is that all you’ve got?” he called, taunting.

           Bruce mic’d in. “Enough for tonight,” he said shortly. “You’re on patrol in an hour. Get some rest.”

           With a sigh, Damian exited the sim room. Before he went to shower or change his clothes, he picked up his phone, which had buzzed with several notifications whilst he was training. Bruce went back to work on the Batcomputer.

           After a few minutes, an alert popped up on the screen: Damian’s suit was registering a spike in heartrate.

           Bruce frowned, then clicked to open a camera feed to the place Damian had left his phone. And sure enough, Damian still stood there, his eyes glued to his phone, which he was very obviously trying to hide, to shield from whatever prying camera eyes may be found over the Cave.

           He lifted the phone in front of him, catching his face, tapping the screen. He opened his mouth. Bruce frowned again, then zoomed in with the security camera. On his son’s phone, two years and a doggy mouth were superimposed over his face, the tongue wagging when Damian opened his mouth.

           Damian then made a very crass gesture with two of his fingers, and Bruce turned the feed off very quickly. Raising a teenager was exhausting.

           Rather than the showers in the Cave, Damian generally prepared to venture back up into the house in his gear and use the shower in his own room. Bruce didn’t mind this; none of the boys had ever been as fastidious as Damian was about maintaining their identity and separating home life and Batcave life, and none had ever been as finicky about the hygiene of shared bathing spaces as Damian had, so no harm, no foul. In a very good mood, Damian came bounding downstairs with his hair still damp, ready for patrol.

           As the three of them gathered for the only shared meal of the day, something light but nutritious before patrol, Damian chatted excitably about his ongoing missions, the assignments he was working on, the Titans, the new designs he was work on. “Lian showed me how to cross stitch and now we’re all at it, all hours of the day,” he babbled, running his hand through his damp hair. “I can’t explain it, perhaps if it were knitting and we were – you know – creating something, it would make more sense for all of us to be so set upon it, but really we’re just making moons and flowers and things. I should speak to her about finding new designs,” he continued absently, rubbing at a sore spot on his neck. “Did you know, she says you can stitch them onto pillows, or something?” Distantly, he wondered, “Maybe Dick would like a pillow for his birthday.”

           “I’m sure he would,” agreed Alfred. Bruce grunted, scanning through the Gazette. “Damian,” added Alfred.

           Without looking up from his food, Damian answered, “Hn?”

           There was a pause. Alfred let out a gentle cough. Damian looked up.

           Alfred met his gaze. Then, pointedly, he glanced towards Damian’s neck, at the spot he’d just been rubbing. For a second Damian was confused, then he froze stock still. Slowly, he looked down at his hand – and saw a patch of concealer rubbed off on his fingers, which had not yet fully dried.

           Wide-eyed, Damian looked back up at Alfred, then, without turning his head, glanced sidelong at his father. Alfred offered him a little smile, then he held up his mug. “Would you mind terribly fetching me a spot of tea, Damian?”

           “Yes,” said Damian instantly, seizing the mug and the opportunity. “Of course. One moment.” Then, calmly, measuredly, he walked out of the dining room.

           Once past the threshold, he dashed up the stairs three at a time, sprinting to his bedroom to safely reapply concealer onto his neck.

           Bruce sipped his coffee, eyes still focused on the newspaper.

           “Bruise or a hickey?” he asked.

           Waiting for Damian to return with his tea, Alfred replied, “The latter, I’m afraid.”

           “I’ll need to speak to Wally about this, of course,” muttered Bruce, inspecting a particular article that caught his eye. “Can’t have her roughing him up too badly every night.”

           “Puppy love, sir. Happened to them all.”

           “Cassandra never gave me this trouble.”

           “Or, as we well know, she’s simply more competent than her brothers.”

           Finally Bruce looked up, frowning at Alfred as he sipped from his coffee mug.

           Then he sighed, returning to the newspaper. “Just as long as he’s using protection.”

           It was then that Damian returned, barreling into the room breathing far too evenly, his eyes too round and paranoid. “Here,” he said, setting the cup of tea down before Alfred. “With lemon, as you like it.”

           “Thank you,” said Alfred graciously.

           “You’ll be on your usual route tonight,” Bruce told Damian, setting the newspaper down. “I might have Spoiler join you.”

           “Isn’t Stephanie too busy for nightly patrol?”

           “Yes,” agreed Bruce. “But I’m sure she’ll make an exception.” He got to his feet, dishes in hand. “Understood?”

           “Yes,” said Damian immediately, with a nod. “Understood.”

           As Alfred watched his boys drive off into the night, he let out a quiet sigh.