damian wayne x freshman it-girl!reader .𖥔 ݁ ˖🦇 ݁˖ ݁𖥔 . fluff
It doesn’t happen all at once.
There’s no cinematic shift, no confession pinned between lockers, no sudden downpour that forces you under the same awning. If anyone were looking for a moment to point at — there, that’s when it changed — they wouldn’t find one.
It’s quieter than that. Softer. The kind of change that only reveals itself in hindsight, when you realise something has been different for weeks and you never noticed the exact day it began.
You start stopping by his table at lunch.
Not every day. You couldn’t, even if you wanted to. Your life moves in bright, overlapping circles: club meetings and cheer practice and birthday dinners and someone else’s crisis that requires your presence and your patience and your perfectly timed reassurance. Your calendar is a living organism. People rely on you to be visible.
But sometimes, weaving through the cafeteria with your tray balanced expertly on one hand and your friends in orbit around you, you slow down.
Same table. Same seat. Back straight. Lunch arranged with almost ceremonial precision. A book open beside him. Philosophy one week, a weathered novel the next, once a slim translated poetry collection that made three sophomore girls whisper about him like he’d stepped out of a foreign film.
He doesn’t try to be seen, and that's exactly why you see him.
The first time you stop, it feels incidental. You’re mid-story, animated, gesturing with your fork as you recount a chemistry catastrophe.
“And she really thought sodium was a gas,” you’re saying, half-laughing. “Like—confidently. She said it with her whole chest.”
You’re already angling toward his table without consciously deciding to. Already slowing.
There’s that flicker again — the one from the art room months ago, when you’d held his gaze too long. The one from your bedroom, when fairy lights reflected in his eyes and he’d pretended not to notice the Dr Pepper.
You blink. “Wait. No, it’s not.”
“Sodium is a soft alkali metal,” he replies, calm as ever. “But under certain conditions—”
“Okay, nerd,” you cut in, laughing.
A few nearby students glance over. Not because he spoke. Most of them don’t register that. But because you’re standing there. Because you’re laughing. Because you, with your glossy hair and your impossible social gravity, have paused at Damian Wayne’s table.
You don’t. You’re looking at him.
“You’re so annoying,” you tell him, smiling like you mean something softer.
Then you drift back to your friends as if nothing unusual happened.
The next week, you do it again. This time you sit.
Not across from him — that would feel too deliberate — but beside him, perching on the edge of the bench with your tray balanced on your knees. Your friends freeze three tables away, mid-conversation, watching like you’ve just walked into a lion enclosure for sport.
You don’t seem to notice.
“What did you get on the history test?” you ask casually.
He closes his book before answering. He always does that now when you approach. It’s subtle, but it’s intentional; your presence merits full attention.
“A ninety-eight,” he says.
“You received a ninety-one.”
Your eyes narrow. “How do you know that?”
“I saw it under mine. You looked dissatisfied when Ms. Keating returned it.”
You stare at him for a moment, something shifting in your expression.
You grin, tilting your head. “It’s kind of cute, actually.”
The sound startles you for half a second before you dissolve into laughter. Bright, unfiltered and impossible to ignore. Across the cafeteria, your best friend grips someone’s arm hard enough to bruise.
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “She’s flirting.”
You stay for maybe seven minutes. You complain about a group chat imploding over Spring Fling dress colors. You rant about someone accusing someone else of copying a Pinterest aesthetic. He doesn’t follow all of it, but he listens to the cadence of your voice, the way your nose scrunches when you’re annoyed.
And then, almost absently, you say, “I kinda hate that everyone assumes I’m running for Spring Fling Court. Like… what if I don’t want to?”
That’s not cafeteria-you. Not hallway-you. That’s something quieter.
“What do you want?” he asks.
You blink at him, caught off guard.
You recover quickly, smiling. “Something low-key. For once.”
He nods as if that makes perfect sense. As if it isn’t a contradiction for the most socially magnetic person in the building to crave invisibility.
When you stand to leave, you hesitate just long enough to soften your voice.
You don’t call him Damian anymore.
Weeks fold into a rhythm.
You still move through school like sunlight. People still make space for you without realising they’re doing it. But now, sometimes, you lean toward him too.
You ask what he’s reading. You borrow a book once just to prove you will. You return it with pastel sticky notes tucked between pages. He pretends to be irritated. He keeps every note.
And then one night, bored and sprawled across your bed under the golden haze of fairy lights, you send him an 8-ball game with no explanation.
The next morning in Math, your phone buzzes quietly from your cardigan pocket. You glance down.
He’s sunk the eight ball.
You have to bite the inside of your cheek to stop from laughing out loud.
Three rows over, he sits perfectly composed, pen moving in steady strokes. But when his eyes flick up and catch you shaking with silent laughter, something in his expression shifts.
You tilt your phone just slightly so he can see.
He checks his own screen.
You watch realisation dawn.
His gaze snaps back to you — not angry, not embarrassed. Just narrow-eyed in accusation.
You completely lose it, ducking your head to disguise the laugh.
No words. Just a silent escalation.
For the rest of the lesson, you play. Subtle glances. Hidden smiles. The low hum of fluorescent lights overhead and the electric awareness that he is on the other end of something meant only for the two of you.
At one point, the teacher calls on him. He stands, answers flawlessly, sits.
His phone buzzes almost immediately after.
He doesn’t look at you this time, but you see it. The faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
When the bell rings, chairs scrape and backpacks zip. You pass his desk on your way out and lean down just enough to murmur, “You’re really bad at this.”
“I was assessing your strategy,” he replies smoothly.
You grin, straightening. “See you next period, pool shark.”
This time, when he looks up at you, the warmth isn’t hidden quite as carefully.
And as you step into the hallway, your phone buzzes again.
It doesn’t happen all at once.
But somewhere between a cafeteria bench and a vibrating phone beneath a math desk, the space between you shifts — quietly, steadily — into something that belongs to both of you.
Your friends notice before you do.
They notice the shift in your trajectory first. The subtle change in angle. For months, your path through the cafeteria has been muscle memory. Straight past the vending machines. Slight right toward the long table by the windows. Sunlight catching in your hair like it’s part of the school’s interior design.
Now, sometimes, you veer left.
The first few times, they assume it’s temporary. A curiosity. You sampling something new the way you sample lip gloss shades or extracurriculars — trying it on, seeing how it fits.
You don’t hesitate anymore when you see him. You don’t glance back to make sure your friends are following. You just pivot, like gravity adjusted without asking anyone’s permission, and slide onto the bench beside him as if the social hierarchy of the cafeteria is theoretical at best.
And they notice him, too.
The first week you started doing this, he’d gone rigid every time you approached. Shoulders squared. Jaw tight. Like he was preparing for impact. Like attention was something to withstand rather than welcome.
Now he looks up before you even say his name.
Now he closes his book the second you reach the table, a quiet, deliberate motion that feels suspiciously like prioritisation.
Now he shifts. It’s barely noticeable unless you’re watching for it, but he’s making space for you before you have to ask.
“Oh my God,” Harper breathes one afternoon, fingers digging into Ava’s wrist as they watch from a safe observational distance. “She’s doing it again.”
“Doing what?” Ava whispers back, even though she hasn’t looked away.
Across the cafeteria, you’re animatedly complaining about a Spring Fling rumor, completely oblivious to the documentary-style commentary unfolding three tables over.
“I am not taming him,” you insist later when they corner you by the lockers, eyes bright with accusation.
“He did,” Harper says, like she’s presenting courtroom evidence. “Tiny. But it was there.”
“It was, like, a quarter of a smile,” Ava adds.
Heat creeps up your neck before you can stop it.
“It wasn’t a smile,” you mutter, adjusting the books in your arms. “It was probably a facial twitch.”
“You’re blushing,” Harper says.
“You are literally pink.”
You slam your locker shut harder than necessary. “You’re being dramatic.”
They exchange a look that says we’ll revisit this.
The escalation is gradual. So gradual he almost doesn’t notice it happening.
Until one day he walks into English, scans the room on instinct, and feels something settle in his chest when he finds you.
Third row from the back. By the window. Sunlight catches in your hair, turning the edges gold. You’re half-turned in your seat, laughing at something the girl behind you said, your hand moving as you talk like the air itself belongs to you.
He looks away first. He always does.
But now he knows where you are. And that knowledge has weight.
You start smiling at him in class. Not just looking. Smiling. Not constantly, not theatrically — just sometimes. When the teacher says something particularly absurd. When someone answers a question with catastrophic confidence. Your eyes find his across the room like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
The first time it happens, he freezes. It feels like being singled out beneath a spotlight, like everyone must be able to see the invisible thread stretching from your desk to his.
You tilt your head slightly, amused.
The second time, he tries. It’s stiff, controlled. More a softening than a smile. A subtle easing at the edges of his expression.
You beam at him like he’s just handed you something precious.
After that, he adjusts. Not in front of a mirror — he would never admit to something so absurd — but he studies the mechanics. The faint lift at one corner of his mouth. The quiet shift in his eyes. The difference between guarded and open.
It’s never wide. Never obvious.
At lunch one Thursday, you appear without warning and set something beside his tray. Cold plastic. Familiar red label.
He looks at it. Then at you.
“I noticed you didn’t have one today,” you say lightly, already unwrapping your sandwich. “The vending machine actually worked for once.”
You don’t linger on it. You don’t watch for his reaction. You just start talking about a quiz you bombed and how it feels like a personal betrayal.
He stares at the Dr Pepper for a second longer than necessary.
“You did not need to do this,” he says.
“Thank you,” he adds, quieter.
You shrug like it’s nothing.
Two weeks later, he sets a book down between you during study hall.
You raise an eyebrow. “What’s this?”
“A recommendation,” he replies, opening his notebook as though this were incidental. “You expressed interest in character-driven narratives with unreliable narrators.”
You stare at him. “I said I liked messy main characters.”
You flip the book over, skim the summary. “You brought this for me?”
“You put it in your bag for me.”
He finally glances at you. “It is coincidental.”
You smile slowly. “Sure it is.”
He pretends not to hear the warmth in your voice.
One afternoon, your friends are gone — cheer practice ran late, lacrosse meet, dentist appointment. The usual orbit has scattered, leaving you standing alone in the hallway during free period with nowhere particular to go.
You hesitate for half a second.
Then you turn left instead of right.
He’s in the library, of course. Corner table. Back to the wall. Book open. Highlighter aligned perfectly parallel to the desk’s edge.
He looks up when your shadow falls across the page. There’s no surprise in his expression. Just awareness.
“Your entourage is absent,” he observes.
“Rude,” you reply, sliding into the chair across from him. “They have lives.”
The answer is immediate. It makes you smile.
You sit in companionable quiet for a moment. You scroll through your phone; he reads. The library hums softly around you, fluorescent lights steady overhead.
Then you sigh. “Do you ever get tired of being the composed one?”
He looks up slowly. “Clarify.”
“Like… people just assume you’re fine. Or that you don’t care. Or that you’ve got everything handled.”
You hadn’t expected that.
You lean back in your chair. “Everyone thinks I’m confident all the time.”
“Not always.” You hesitate. “I get scared before presentations. Even though everyone thinks I love attention.”
“You perform well regardless.”
He considers that, then nods once. “No. I suppose it’s not.”
The conversation drifts after that; from school to books to whether pineapple on pizza is morally indefensible. From future plans to places you’d travel to if you could. You talk about nothing, and somehow everything.
He listens. Not waiting for his turn. Not distracted. When you say something small and vulnerable, he doesn’t rush past it. He holds it carefully, like it matters.
At some point, you realise you’ve been there almost the entire period. Your phone buzzes — Harper asking where you are.
You glance at the time. “Oh my God.”
You gather your things quickly. “I didn’t mean to hijack your whole free period.”
You pause, softer now. “I like sitting with you.”
He doesn’t answer immediately, but something in his expression shifts.
You smile like it’s the simplest truth in the world.
And when you leave, he watches you go. Not out of suspicion, not out of habit, but because he wants to.
Somewhere along the way, the space between you has changed. It’s no longer curiosity. No longer novelty. It’s steadier than that. Quieter.
You seek him out without thinking. He looks for you without meaning to.
And in the stillness of the library, beneath fluorescent lights and the soft thud of closing books, it settles into something heavier. Something that feels less like a passing orbit and more like gravity.
He overhears it by accident.
He is not eavesdropping; he has no need to. People speak at full volume in hallways as if privacy has become a historical concept. He’s at his locker, exchanging textbooks with mechanical precision, when your voice carries clearly around the corner.
“I just… don’t know if I’m going.”
There’s a sharp inhale from one of your friends. “You have to go.”
It’s light. Casual. But there’s something thinner beneath it, stretched tight under the surface of your usual confidence. The question lingers in the air a beat too long.
He does not intend to listen.
“You don’t have a date?” someone demands, scandalised.
You laugh, but it isn’t the laugh you use in the cafeteria. Not the bright, unbothered one that fills space without effort.
“No,” you say. “It’s fine. I don’t need one.”
He finds himself staring at the inside of his locker door.
You could have anyone. He has seen the way boys orbit you — the way they straighten when you walk past, the way they calibrate their tone as if speaking to someone just slightly out of reach. You move through the school like gravity has a preference.
He shuts his locker quietly just before you round the corner, your group dissolving into a storm of opinions and theatrical outrage. You don’t see him. You’re mid-gesture, shaking your head, but he catches the slight lift of your shoulders.
Later that afternoon, the classroom is half-empty, sunlight slanting low and warm through the windows. You’re at your desk stacking books into a neat pile, movements precise, composed. He is about to leave when your voice stops him.
“Are you going to the Spring Fling?”
Your tone is neutral. Almost offhand.
You pause. He doesn’t look at you, but he feels it — the disruption in rhythm, the fraction of a second that stretches too long.
“It does not interest me.”
That is the truth. Or at least, it has always been the truth. A crowded gymnasium, loud music, ritualised social performance. None of it appeals to him.
You say it easily. Too easily.
You slide your bag onto your shoulder. Your expression is polished, composed, but something lingers in your eyes when you glance at him. Expectation.
Or perhaps that is projection.
“Are you going?” he asks before he can stop himself.
That is not what you said in the hallway.
“You do not have a date,” he says, the thought escaping unfiltered.
Your lips press together in surprise. “Wow. Word travels fast.”
You tilt your head slightly. “And?”
You look away as you adjust the strap of your bag. “It’s fine,” you repeat. “I don’t need one.”
You always say fine when the truth is more complicated.
He studies you with a focus he usually reserves for strategy. You do not need a date. That is objectively true. You do not need anyone.
But that is not the same as wanting.
The bell rings in the distance, voices rising in the hallway like a tide coming in. You step around him toward the door.
“I’ll probably just go with my friends,” you add lightly. “Or not go at all. It’s not that deep.”
You say it like you’re trying to convince yourself.
You offer him a small smile — quieter than the ones you send across classrooms, softer than the ones in the cafeteria — then you leave.
He remains where he is for several seconds after the room empties.
It isn’t you who tells him.
It happens after school, when the building has emptied into that strange, echoing quiet that follows the final bell. Lockers slam distantly. Sneakers squeak against polished floors. Late afternoon sunlight spills through the high windows, cutting the stairwell into bands of gold and shadow.
He’s halfway down the staircase when he hears quick footsteps behind him.
He pauses and turns slightly.
It’s Harper. Arms crossed. Expression sharp enough to cut glass.
“You’re so stupid,” she says flatly.
He blinks once. “I beg your pardon?”
She exhales like she’s been holding this in for weeks. “She’s been waiting for you to ask her.”
The words don’t register at first. They land near him, heavy and indistinct.
“For the Spring Fling,” Harper clarifies, as if he’s the one struggling to keep up. “She hasn’t said yes to anyone. Because she thought you would.”
The stairwell feels abruptly smaller.
You, the girl who moves through school like gravity bends around you. You, who could have any boy in the building with half a smile and a slightly tilted head.
“For me,” he repeats, because the sentence still feels incorrectly assembled.
“Yes. For you.” She throws her hands up. “Bradley asked her. Dejon asked her. That sophomore from soccer asked her. She said no to all of them.”
He tries to reconstruct the last few weeks with this new information inserted, and the memories shift under the weight of it. You asking him, almost casually, if he was going. The pause after he said no. The hallway conversation he wasn’t meant to hear — I just… don’t know if I’m going.
“She assumed you didn’t want to,” Harper continues, exasperation edging her voice. “Which, apparently, you don’t. But like obviously she would if you asked.”
There is nothing obvious about this.
He searches for the flaw in the logic, the exaggeration, the misinterpretation.
“She did not state this explicitly,” he says carefully.
Harper stares at him like he had just kicked a dog. “Jesus H. Christ, do you need her to submit it in writing?”
He just hadn’t allowed himself to consider it.
Harper shakes her head. “You’re both impossible,” she mutters, already turning away. “Five days, by the way.”
She leaves him there. Mid-staircase, sunlight stretching long across the floor, the building hollow and quiet around him.
The way you detoured to his table without hesitation. The Dr Pepper placed beside his tray without ceremony. The book he pretended was coincidental. The iMessage games during Math, the way you’d laughed and looked at him like he was in on something with you.
The free period in the library.
“I like sitting with you.”
Every smile across classrooms. Every text sent too late to be casual. Every time you chose him publicly, lightly, as if it weren’t a risk at all.
He had categorised it as curiosity.
But what if it wasn’t? What if it was deliberate? The realisation settles slowly, like a blade being drawn with deliberate care. You were not tolerating him. You were not studying him. You were choosing him.
And the terrifying part is not that you might want him.
Not abstractly. Not theoretically. Specifically.
He wants to stand beside you in a crowded gymnasium and know you are there because he asked. He wants to see you in whatever dress you would have worn for someone else. He wants to be the reason you said yes.
The thought tightens something in his chest.
He has faced assassins. He has faced expectations carved into him since childhood. He has faced rooms of men who underestimated him and lived to regret it.
This feels infinitely more precarious.
Because this requires vulnerability.
Because this requires asking and the possibility of rejection.
Five days. He has five days.
He can dismantle a security system in under three minutes. He can anticipate an opponent’s movement before it happens.
He does not know how to ask a girl to a dance.
Sunlight fades inch by inch along the stairwell as the afternoon wanes, shadows stretching, the building settling into evening quiet.
And for the first time in a very long while, Damian Wayne feels entirely, catastrophically unprepared.
He waits until he’s alone.
Not because this is classified information, and not because it requires operational secrecy, but because it is humiliating.
He stands in the middle of his room for a full minute with his phone in his hand, staring at the contact name as if it might rearrange itself into a better option. He considers texting. He considers abandoning the idea entirely.
Instead, he presses call.
“I require assistance. With a girl.”
Then, very softly, like someone who has just uncovered buried treasure, Dick Grayson breathes, “Oh my God.”
“It is absolutely the point.”
Damian pinches the bridge of his nose. He should hang up. He knows he should hang up.
Instead, stiffly, he says, “The Spring Fling is approaching.”
Dick gasps as though this is breaking news on national television. “No.”
“And it has come to my attention that a particular individual has declined other invitations under the assumption that I would extend one.”
Dick’s voice lowers into something dangerously delighted. “Let me get this straight. This girl has been waiting for you to ask her to the Spring Fling.”
The silence confirms everything.
“Buddy,” Dick says, awe creeping into his tone, “you are so gone.”
“I do not need commentary. And don’t call me buddy.”
“You absolutely need commentary. This is the best day of my life.”
Damian exhales sharply. “I require logistical guidance.”
There’s a pause, then an audible grin. “Oh, this is better than I thought. You’re asking for help.”
“You are calling me because you don’t know what to do,” Dick sings. “That is asking for help.”
Damian hates that this is accurate.
He moves to sit on the edge of his bed, posture rigid. “I am unfamiliar with the social protocol surrounding such events.”
Dick hums thoughtfully. “Translation: you have no idea how to ask her.”
“I could simply inquire.”
A snort echoes through the line. “You could. If you want her to think you’re inviting her to a board meeting.”
“There is nothing inherently wrong with directness.”
“There is when it’s the Spring Fling.”
Damian’s jaw tightens. “Explain.”
“A sign,” Damian repeats flatly.
“Yes. A poster. Something creative. Something that makes her smile.”
He can face down trained assassins without hesitation. He will not parade through a hallway holding construction paper.
“Do you want her to say yes?” Dick asks, suddenly serious.
The answer sits in his chest, heavy and undeniable.
The word is quieter than he expects.
There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line — the kind that means Dick has registered the shift in tone.
“Then we’re making a sign,” Dick says gently.
Damian leans back against his pillows, staring at the ceiling.
“It will draw unnecessary attention.”
“You love me,” Dick replies cheerfully. “Now. Tell me about her.”
Because describing you feels exposing.
“She is,” he begins, then stops. The language refuses to cooperate.
“She is well-liked,” he settles on.
Dick laughs. “Wow. Poetry.”
“She commands attention without requesting it,” Damian continues, more controlled now. “She is frequently underestimated.”
“She pretends not to care about certain things. But she does.”
Dick is quiet again — listening this time, not teasing.
“And,” Damian adds, almost reluctantly, “she believes I did not wish to attend.”
Damian stares at the ceiling.
“I wish to attend with her.”
Dick exhales slowly. “Okay. Then we do this right.”
“I will not wear a costume,” Damian says immediately.
“No one said anything about a costume.”
“I will not dance in a public space while holding glitter.”
“No glitter,” Dick promises solemnly. “Probably.”
Damian doubts that reassurance.
“Tomorrow,” Dick continues, fully energised now. “You and me. Hobby Lobby. Poster board. Markers. Maybe a pun.”
“This,” Dick says, warmth threading through the teasing, “is you doing something scary because you care about someone.”
He has done countless dangerous things. He has risked physical harm without flinching, stepped into rooms designed to test him, to break him. But this? This feels like stepping into open air without armor.
“You’re sure she’ll say yes?” he asks before he can stop himself.
Dick’s answer is immediate. “If she’s been waiting? Yeah. I’m sure.”
Five days to construct something that will not make him want to disappear on contact.
Dick gasps dramatically. “Oh, we are so making this adorable.”
“It will not be adorable.”
The call ends with Dick still brainstorming slogans and color schemes as if planning a military operation.
Damian lowers the phone slowly.
He sits there for a long moment in the quiet of his room.
He thinks about you in the cafeteria, sunlight catching in your hair. About the way you laughed in Math when he lost at iMessage pool. About the softness in your voice when you’d asked if he was going.
He does not know how to do this.
But he knows one thing with startling clarity.
Damian Wayne has faced international assassins. He has disarmed explosives with seconds to spare, pulse steady, hands precise. He has interrogated men twice his size without raising his voice.
He has never, in his life, stood in the middle of a fluorescent-lit craft store staring at glitter glue with this level of dread.
The aisle is an assault on the senses. Neon poster boards. Foam letters. Heart-shaped stickers.
“This is ridiculous,” he mutters.
Beside him, Dick Grayson is vibrating with delight.
“This,” Dick says, gesturing broadly at the chaos of ribbon and cardstock, “is romance.”
Damian picks up a marker, examines the tip critically, and sets it back down. “Why is everything scented?”
“Because teenagers,” Dick replies.
They debate for twelve full minutes about color schemes. Dick suggests red. “Bold. Dramatic.”
They finally settle on something simple. Not over-the-top. Just enough. A black poster board. Clean. Sharp.
“Very you,” Dick says approvingly. “Broody but intentional.”
Back at the manor, they spread everything out across the kitchen island. Damian stands rigidly over the poster board like he’s preparing for surgery.
“Want me to write it?” Dick offers, reaching for a marker.
“It has to be mine,” Damian says, more quietly.
Dick’s expression softens before he lifts his hands in surrender. “All you.”
Damian exhales and lowers the gold paint marker to the board.
The first attempt is unacceptable. The lines are too tight. The spacing uneven. He stares at it for three seconds before sliding it aside.
“Perfectionism is very attractive,” Dick comments.
The second attempt is worse. His hand is steady — it always is — but this is different. There is no blueprint. No schematic. Just intention and ink.
He discards that one too.
By the third, he slows down. He stops trying to make it impressive. He focuses on clarity. On sincerity.
I would like for you to go to Spring Fling with me.
No puns. No glitter. No excessive decoration. Just gold lettering against black. Direct. Honest. Very him.
Dick leans back against the counter and wipes imaginary tears from his eyes. “Poetic. Mysterious. Vulnerable.”
“It is a sentence,” Damian says flatly.
“It is a sentence with emotional risk.”
Damian stares at the poster. He imagines holding it in the hallway. Imagines your friends’ faces. Imagines you reading it. He wants to disappear.
“This is ill-advised,” he mutters.
“And yet,” Dick says lightly, nudging the edge of the board closer to him, “you’re going to do it anyway.”
Damian grips the sides of the poster, jaw tight. He has faced down far worse. He tells himself that. He tells himself that walking into a crowded hallway with a sign is not equivalent to combat. His pulse does not seem convinced.
Dick claps him once on the shoulder. “She’s going to love it.”
Damian doesn’t trust his voice enough to respond. He only knows one thing with absolute certainty: he would rather face an army than watch you read that sign and hesitate.
And that, more than anything, is why his hands are not entirely steady.
It would be strategically unsound to do this in a hallway between classes. Too chaotic. Too rushed. He needs you stationary. Surrounded by your orbit. Exactly where you always are.
He spots you immediately. You’re perched on the low stone wall near the fountain, sunlight threading through your hair, one hand mid-gesture as you laugh at something your friend just said. There’s a circle around you, as there always is. Effortless. Magnetic.
For a moment, he considers retreat. This is absurd.
People notice when Damian Wayne moves with purpose. Conversations dim. Not completely, but enough. Heads turn. A subtle shift in atmosphere ripples outward ahead of him.
You feel it. You turn. You see him first. Then you see what he’s holding. Your eyes widen.
He keeps the poster steady, though his pulse is violent beneath his skin. He is acutely aware of every step he takes toward you. Of every pair of eyes tracking him. Of the weight of the gold lettering against black.
He stops a few feet away. Up close, you look stunned.
“You told me,” he says carefully, voice even through sheer force of will, “that you are without a date.”
“I have been informed that this was… intentional.”
Your friends have gone completely still. Harper’s hand is clamped over her mouth. Ava looks like she might faint. The courtyard might as well be frozen in glass.
“If that is accurate,” he continues, each word deliberate, “I would like to rectify the situation.”
He tilts the poster toward you. The gold catches in the sunlight.
I would like for you to go to Spring Fling with me.
Then, more plainly — because he refuses to hide behind ink —
“Go to Spring Fling with me.”
It stretches. A fraction of a second. But in that fraction, his mind races with catastrophic recalculations. Perhaps Harper was mistaken. Perhaps you had reconsidered. Perhaps—
Not slowly. Not delicately. You drop your bag without looking. It hits the pavement with a thud he barely registers. You step forward and throw your arms around him. Hard. Not polite. Not careful. Hard.
The impact knocks the air from his lungs. He stiffens in pure shock. Your sweater presses warm against his jacket. Your arms wrap around his shoulders with certainty, like you were always meant to stand this close. Your cheek brushes his collarbone.
You’re laughing. Bright. Breathless. Disbelieving.
“Oh my God,” you breathe against him. “Yes, Dami. Obviously yes.”
The courtyard explodes. There’s actual screaming. Applause. Someone wolf-whistles. Your friends are losing their minds at a volume that defies physics.
He doesn’t hear any of it. Because you’re hugging him.
And slowly he allows his arms to move. They come up around you. He could hold you lightly. He does not. He holds you back. Firm. Certain. One hand settling at the middle of your back, the other steady at your shoulder. Not tentative. Not unsure. Steady. Like this is something he intends to keep.
You pull back just enough to look at him, hands still gripping his jacket. Your eyes are bright. Almost shining.
“You were really not going to ask me?” you whisper, half-laughing.
“I was under the impression you preferred other options.”
“Idiot,” you say softly. But you’re smiling when you say it.
Around you, the courtyard is still buzzing. Phones are out. Your friends are sprinting toward you like this is the final scene of a sports movie.
Damian doesn’t care. Sunlight glints off the fountain. The gold lettering trembles slightly in his grip. Your hands are still on him.
In the collapse of every wall he ever built and every careful distance he maintained, he understands something with startling clarity. This was never a battle. It was never strategy. It was never about who would yield first. It was a choice.
And in front of everyone —
In front of the entire school —
And he chose you right back.
