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Birds and Bees	By : defying3reason Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2564 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, or any aspect of the broader DC Universe, and I make no money from my fanfiction

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
Chapter 11
Lian leaned out her bedroom window and watched in dismay as Dick got into his car and drove off. She bit back a wail of displeasure (not to mention some cursing her father certainly wouldn't want to hear coming from her). After a few minutes she caught sight of her dad running out onto the lawn to go after Dick, just barely too late to catch up.
Any hopes of Roy going after him or even just trying to call him on his cell were dashed as the man dejectedly walked back into the house. A few minutes after that he started blasting a Grateful Dead record (Roy still clung to vinyl whenever he could; he preferred the sound quality, much to the annoyance of his daughter, who thought the space taken up by his bulky record collection would be better repurposed for her growing collection of equally bulky books).
"Oh hell no."
Lian charged downstairs and ran into the living room. Roy was sitting on the couch with his head in his hand, clearly in the throes of self-pity. Lian killed the music, then stood in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest.
"I don't wanna talk about it," Roy groaned without looking up.
"I don't care," Lian snapped at him. "We need to get something clear Daddy. You will not be using me as an excuse to hold yourself back from things that scare you, you got that? I want you to date Uncle Dick. I don't know how much more obvious I can make it, so what the hell was that?"
"Peanut, you wouldn't understa-"
"Try me."
"It's complica-"
"Try me."
Sighing, Roy finally looked up. "I do love him, but we're not good together. We always end up hurting each other, and I just don't want to do that anymore."
"Well I think you're being a chicken."
Roy shrugged. "Think whatever you want Peanut. I'm still the adult here and it's my love life we're talking about."
Lian frowned at the valid point. Well, it's not like her dad being a complete and utter coward was the only thing bothering her about the fight she'd overheard. "Did you mean what you said about Damian?"
"I..." Roy looked down at his feet. "I shouldn't have said it like that, but the kid does bother me."
"Why?" Lian asked. She sat down next to her father and eyed him with innocent confusion. As far as she could tell, Roy's accusations about Damian were completely unfounded. "I know he's a little cold, but he's really nice under it all. And besides, he brought me back to life."
Roy nodded. "Yeah, he's great with you, but not so much with, well...the rest of humanity. And actually, that really bothers me too. You're twelve. A seventeen year old should not be looking at you like that."
Lian knew he had a point about that, but she still didn't want to hear it. Whatever the thing was that was going on between her and the broody teenager, she felt with her whole being that it was something special and deeply real, and she wished the complicating factor of their ages would stop being mentioned. Once she was just a few years older, their age gap would become irrelevant anyway. As long as neither of them did anything until then, it was fine.
God she hoped Damian would be interested in her when she was old enough to date. Considering the way he'd reacted to the painting, she wasn't nearly as sure of his feelings as her dad seemed to be. Lian knew her own heart though, and Damian had staked a pretty sizable claim on it, rivaling only her father, her Grandpa Ollie and Dinah.
"You know Daddy," Lian began after a moment of careful reflection, "if you were married to Uncle Dick and I started dating Damian, it'd be awfully convenient for holidays."
Roy laughed. "I'll keep that in mind."

Placing-Bow Pharmaceuticals all but disappeared overnight, amidst much scandal. Bruce took off again, determined to hunt down whatever board members and executives he could, and bring them to justice for the wrongs inflicted on X'hawn and the other Tamaranian refugees.
X'hawn appreciated the commitment, but of all the strange humans to disappear for a long stretch of time he was glad that it was the Batman. The man was...unsettling, if not outright scary, even though he was obviously noble and good. His unusual (to a Tamaranian anyway) blue eyes weren't as warm as Tim or Dick's.
He didn't much care for the younger human with the brown coloring either, and wasn't surprised to learn that he was the Batman's son, despite the difference in their complexion and eye color (their build was pretty much the same though). Thankfully, Damian was content to avoid him, which left X'hawn mostly in Tim's company (Dick occasionally dropped in for a quick hello, but he wasn't really around that much). However, Tim didn't live at the manor, so generally X'hawn had a lot of time to himself.
He mostly spent it watching television and reading books, trying to familiarize himself with his new world. He was sitting in one of the manor's massive (and thus difficult to heat) rooms on one such day, wrapped in blankets and watching an animated program about a society of humans with significant deformities, including bizarre pigment conditions that rendered their skin yellow. The physical deformities weren't even discussed on the show, so he made a mental note to ask Tim or Alfred about it later.
The fire was starting to die down, and X'hawn felt a pang of unease. Even with the heating system turned to a level that made the humans perspire, X'hawn was still cold unless he sat near a fire. The Sh'okaah belt of Tamaran had been along the equator of the planet. He'd lived in a rainforest with dense tree cover and high humidity. X'hawn was used to two hundred plus degree weather, meaning space travel had almost killed him and if it hadn't been for the genetic tinkering performed on him by one of his former masters, Earth's temperatures would have done him in.
X'hawn glanced down at his left hand, currently obscured by something wonderful a Wayne family friend had knit for him called a mitten, and he thought back on the torturous genetic experimentation he'd been subjected to since being evacuated from Tamaran. He took off the mitten and pointed his hand towards the fireplace. X'hawn concentrated until he felt his strength gather and pulse in his fingertips, then gave it one last little push. A burst of orange light left his hand and burst into merry flames where a moment ago there had been nothing but dying coals.
X'hawn slipped his mitten back on, adjusted his blankets, and sat back to watch another episode of the physically deformed human show. He got engrossed in it, and didn't hear Tim approach until he was already sitting on the couch next to him.
"Hey X'hawn."
X'hawn smiled brightly at his friend, and quickly turned off the television. "Hello Tim! How were your classes?"
Tim groaned and rolled his eyes. "Brutal. Kinda making me reconsider whether I want to keep going and getting a PHd after this. But I can whine about that later. I've got some news."
"Batman found the bad guys?" he asked hopefully.
"He got one of them. They scattered, so it's going to take awhile longer than we wanted to get them all. But he will, don't worry about that. Anyway, that's only part of it. The real news is that the request he put through as Bruce Wayne to be your guardian was approved. So now you have a visa, a legal residence, and you're on your way to becoming a US citizen."
X'hawn smiled, but his joy was mixed with deep sorrow. He couldn't help but recall everything he'd lost. "I'll finally have a people again."
Tim gently gripped his shoulder through all the blankets. "I'm sorry. I can't begin to imagine everything you've gone through, but I do know what it's like to lose family and friends. Bruce helped me and Dick forge new roots and futures for ourselves when we needed it, and we're all here for you now."
X'hawn scooched over to Tim's cushion and gave him an awkward hug as best he could with all his layers. "Thank you so much Tim...I do appreciate everything you've all done for me."
"I know." Tim squeezed him back, then shifted back so they were looking each other in the eye again. "I talked to a buddy of mine who has some connections with a research lab. He's gonna see if he can hook you up with a suit that'll help you deal with Earth's comparitively cool climate. If it works out, I wanna bring you around town and show you some of my hangouts."
"That sounds wonderful! Tim...may I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Um...I know you said that Batman is to be my guardian...would it be possible for you to be my guardian instead? I-if it's a problem then forget I said anything."
Tim looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "So you're lonely?"
"A-a bit. I like talking to you. It's easier than talking to Batman or Robin."
"You know, Bruce isn't as scary as he'd have criminals believe. Damian's a pill though, you're right there. I'll see what I can do for you. I've gotta talk it over with my girlfriend first though."
"If it's a problem-"
Tim silenced him with a slightly exasperated looking smile. "X'hawn, don't worry. I'd love to have you come live with me and Tam. We have way too much space for just the two of us anyway, and we get lonely sometimes too. Company would be awesome."
X'hawn nodded, a wavery smile on his face, and looked down so Tim wouldn't see the tears shining in his large, orange eyes. After a moment, he trusted his voice to speak again without wavering. "I have another question."
"Alright..."
"What physical condition gives humans yellow skin and spiked or blue tinted hair? It seems unusual, except on this animated program that depicts it as the norm."
"Huh? Oh, X'hawn, that's just an artistic thing. Remember how I told you not everything on television is true?"
"Oh yeah. Blue hair would be pretty though."

Damian's mood didn't improve much with a week's distance from Dick's announcement. After he'd heard some gossip on the Watchtower about Red Arrow and Nightwing having a fight, he hoped that Dick would change his mind about moving. However, the next time he'd visited the dense idiot half his possessions had been boxed up, dashing that hope to pieces.
He was really going through with it.
Damian was more than happy to take his anger out on the superstitious and cowardly. His patrol quickly devolved from looking for people who needed help to looking for people who needed a punch in the face. His father would have been angry with him, but his father was currently traveling to countries that refused to extradite for the sake of the alien whelp and so wasn't in a position to know. Besides, Damian wasn't the only Wayne who unleashed his temper on petty criminals.
After a few hours of this, Damian hopped onto a favorite perch of his atop the Gotham Art Museum for a breather. His comm went off, and against his better judgement he answered it. "Yes?"
"Hiya Robin!" Impulse chirped, overly loud and accompanied by the noise of rushing wind.
Damian suppressed a groan. Comms were supposed to be used for business, but he doubted very much that that's what Irey West was contacting him for. "What is it?" he snapped.
"I just need to talk to you for a quick minute. I'm already in Gotham. Where are you?"
Damian thought about it for half a minute and decided that it would be quicker to just see the girl rather than taking the time to deter her. Besides, on the occasions when he wasn't in a foul mood he almost enjoyed Impulse's company. "I'm at the art museum."
"Cool! Be there in a-"
And then she was standing in front of him. "Flash!"
He always forgot exactly how perky Irey was until actually faced with the girl.
Damian clipped his comm back into his belt and regarded her with some impatience. "Well? What did you wish to speak to me about?"
"Two things. Uh, I'll start with the business-y one since you look kinda cranky. I was thinking of trying to start up a Teen Titans group again."
Damian frowned, and Irey's face fell. Since Drake and his generation had hit their twenties and disbanded the group, there had been several attempts to restart the iconic superhero team with a new lineup. None had lasted more than a few weeks. "Who do you propose we put on the team?" Damian asked pointedly.
"Well, you and me obviously," Irey said. "But I was thinking that that Tamaranian kid you guys just rescued-"
"X'hawn may have powers, but at the moment he's a civilian. He doesn't know how to use them and requires some time to train."
"Oh. Well, well part of the purpose of the Teen Titans is to train."
Damian shook his head. "That stopped being true sometime during the previous generation's team. That generation saw a loss of life equal to the Justice League, and at some points even more severe. The Titans aren't a training team Impulse. They see too much action, and we cannot take on the burden of rookies. I'm sorry, but until there are more seasoned heroes our age I don't think it's going to happen."
Which was a shame. Damian desperately wanted the experience of leading a team of superheroes before he became an official memeber of the Justice League.
Irey looked disappointed, but she nodded. "I guess you're right. I just hoped...I wanna be on a team! I like working with my dad and my cousin and everything, but I'm sick of being talked down to just because I'm a kid. You only talk down to me because you do that with everyone, so I don't mind it as much."
Damian was taken aback by the oddly worded...come to think of it, he couldn't tell if that was a compliment or not. He did understand and sympathize with the emotion behind her words though. There weren't many heroes their age, and civilian agemates were incapable of empathizing with them over many things. In a very real sense he and Irey were alone.
Irey sighed loudly, bringing him out of his thoughts, and handed him an envelope she'd been fiddling with since the start of their conversation. "Okay, well here's the other thing. Me and Jai turn fifteen this weekend and you're invited to our party. I know you're probably not interested, but I just thought I'd ask."
Damian glanced down at the invitation. Since they'd known each other, he'd been to three of Irey and Jai's birthday parties. "Why wouldn't I be interested?"
"Because the wedding's the very next weekend, and I kinda figured two social events in one month would make your antisocial Robin-y head explode."
"Wedding?" he asked blankly.
Irey looked at him in some surprise. "Yeah...Wondergirl and Superboy are getting married. Didn't they invite you?"
"I'd known they were engaged, but I haven't heard anything about a wedding."
"That's funny...they invited all of us speedsters. You should ask your dad about that. I'da thought they'd invite all the Bats too. Well anyway, if you wanna come to our party you should. It'd be cool to hang out without costumes sometime. I guess I should let you get back to your patrol."
For a moment (a highly irrational moment) Damian was tempted to ask the girl to stay. Though her energy and chatter could be irksome, Damian generally liked Impulse; she was difficult to offend and laughed off his social awkwardness with gentle good humor. Still though, his instincts kicked in and he only curtly nodded. Impulse took off in a burst of red and white, and Damian spent the next ten minutes trying to puzzle out the uncomfortable lurching sensation in his stomach.
Eventually he realized he was lonely.

Dick spent some time on the Watchtower and consequently got in pretty late. He'd gotten pulled into back to back teamups, one with Superboy and Wondergirl (who had alternated between being sickeningly adorable about their upcoming wedding and trying to bleed him for gossip about his situation with Roy), and then with Donna, Vic, Grace and Thunder.
Thankfully, Grace and Thunder's blatant sexual tension drew more attention than the allure of discussing Dick's personal life. Grace still asked him what he'd done to fuck things up with a guy who'd been gagging for him since he was a teenager a couple times though. Dick had forgotten how much he disliked working with that harpy.
He teleported back to his apartment with the intention of curling up with a good book and passing out. Unfortunately, all of his books were already packed, which killed that plan. He really couldn't wait until he was settled into his new place.
Even though things hadn't worked out exactly as he'd hoped (in that Roy had been an enormous asshat about it), Dick was excited about moving back to New York. He didn't like sharing a city with Bruce, and the strain of helping the man regulate his relationship with his son was starting to grate on Dick. Bruce and Damian still hadn't learned how to communicate with each other; they'd learned how to rely on Dick to do the messy emotional work for them. They were both old enough to handle things on their own at this point, but they'd never bother learning how to work with each other if he stayed in the picture. He really wouldn't be doing either of them any favors if he stayed.
Dick peeled himself out of his sweaty costume, showered, and trudged into his room fully naked to grab pajama pants and fall into bed. To his annoyance (and an insult to his barely existant sense of modesty) there was already someone in his bed.
He pulled on the pajama pants and a sweatshirt as quickly as he could, then went over to his bed and gave the slumbering teen's shoulder a shake. "Damian...hey. What are you doing here? Besides breaking and entering, anyway."
Damian blinked at him sleepily, and for a moment he looked almost innocent. Then that hard look of defensiveness settled onto his face. He stiffly sat up while Dick settled down at the foot of the bed. "Hey."
"Hello," Damian answered in a low voice, thick from sleep. "What time is it?"
"Almost four. I was planning on going to bed..."
"Sorry. I'll go."
Dick grabbed his wrist. "That's not what I was saying. Just, if there's something you needed, can you tell me quickly?"
He watched as Damian struggled with some sort of inner conflict. Dick waited patiently, and after a moment Damian grimly pressed his lips together, amber eyes turned downwards. "Is there any chance you'd reconsider your decision to move?"
"Not really. I'm sorry Damian, but I need to do this for myself. I-" he stopped himself just before blurting out the truth; that he'd put his life on hold for Bruce and for Damian for almost seven years now. "I just need my own space. That doesn't mean I don't want to see you though. It's not that far away."
"I suppose not. But I still feel like we won't see each other nearly as frequently. I know it shouldn't bother me, but it still does and I'm having a difficult time making it stop."
Dick smiled sadly. "That's a good thing. I'm going to miss you too."
"Then you shouldn't leave," Damian said, some annoyance filtering into his tone.
"But I need to."
"Why? Harper rejected you. Moving to his former city won't change that."
Dick scowled. "I'm not moving just because-because I'd hoped it would help things with him-"
"I still don't get why you're trying so hard with that oaf. He's not deserving of your attention."
"Well who is?" Dick snapped, at the end of his patience. He'd been having this argument with Damian off and on since their Batman and Robin days, and frankly he was done with it.
Possibly because he wasn't fully awake, or because he was uncharacteristically emotional, or for a variety of reasons he couldn't name, Damian blurted out an answer. "Well what about me?"
Their widened eyes locked, expressions both set in shock. Damian was the first to recover his senses, face haunted and caramel skin flushed. "I-I did not mean...that. That was rambling nonesense." He was across the room before Dick recovered enough to do more than gape at him in shock.
Damian all but fled the apartment.

"How did I not see it?" Dick asked hollowly, for possibly the hundredth time.
He was at Donna's house, and they were supposed to be wrapping presents for the West twins' birthday party and for Conner and Cassie's wedding. Donna had three beautifully wrapped gifts sitting in front of her so far, while Dick was still on his first one. Shaking her head, she got up and went to the kitchen to make him a mug of cocoa.
She should have known better. Whenever she tried to spend some time with one of the boys as friends, inevitably they had some sort of personal crisis to discuss with the Mother Hen of the Titans. At least Dick wasn't asking her for advice about Roy though.
"You didn't see it because this is completely unexpected Dick. From what you've said so far, Damian didn't even seem to be aware of his feelings until he spoke."
"He shuns self reflection. I still should have noticed. You just-I can't make you appreciate how awkward Damian is. And now he's going to shut down on me. By not nipping this in the bud years ago I've messed this up. I'm hurting him. He's going to withdraw more and more, and it'll be my fault."
With great restraint, Donna kept from rolling her eyes. "Sweetie, this is the reason you were leaving, remember? You know it's not fair for you to burden yourself with all the responsibility for Damian's social progress."
Dick followed her into the kitchen and paced while she made the cocoa. "Fuck puberty. It really ruins everything."
Donna laughed. "See, now I can't help but remember when you were Damian's age-"
Dick groaned. "Please don't bring that up-"
"And you thought that you were in love with-"
"Donna!"
"Bruce," she finished, speaking over him.
"I was infatuated, and I didn't know the difference. It was still painful, and he handled it like ass. It sucked."
"Mm hm. But did Bruce pulling away help or hurt? Don't you think that if he hadn't panicked when he found out, but continued supporting you until you got a better grip on your feelings...?"
Dick shook his head. "That may have worked for me, but it won't help with Damian. We're too different."
"Uh huh," Donna murmured. She poured hot water into each of their mugs and handed one off to him. "I think you just made a self fulfilling prophecy there buddy boy."

Dick moved to New York on Wednesday. Thursday night, Damian walked down to the Cave just before his first guranteed patrol with only his father for (theoretical) company. He found Bruce sitting at the computer, double checking intel in preparation.
"Father, I appear to be bisexual. Convention dictates I inform you. Therefore, consider me henceforth out of the pantry."
"Closet," Bruce corrected without diverting his eyes from the screen. "Duly noted. Are you ready to leave?"
"Yes."
"Alright, let's go."

Damian wasn't sure about attending the birthday party. He didn't want to run into Dick so soon and have the well intentioned doofus attempt a misguided heart to heart about Damian's slip up. He'd thought about it more, and it really had been poor impulse control combined with exhaustion and loneliness, but Grayson was an emotional sort of person and would be determined to read more into it than Damian had meant.
He wasn't in love with Dick, though he did have strong, familial type feelings for him.
Lust on the other hand...Damian hadn't thought about it much before, but now that he'd allowed himself to consider the possibility he realized he was physically attracted to Dick. He'd just never considered the possibility of desiring males before, since he intended to marry a woman and raise an heir and a traditional family once he was a bit older. He'd already picked out his intended bride, but since she was still rather young he knew better than to act on his plans until she was an age appropriate by American cultural standards. He would begin courting Lian when she turned sixteen, marry her by eighteen, and they could start their family shortly thereafter. Hopefully he'd begin training an acceptable heir before he turned thirty.
What Damian had never considered before was the possibility of having other partners during the four years he waited for Lian to grow up. Now that he was thinking about it, he realized that Jai West was reasonably age appropriate and quite attractive (a bit thin maybe, but there was a sort of beauty to his slender form). They had decent conversations, and he was pretty sure the other teen was also attracted to men and already interested in him. The next opportunity to test this was at Jai and his sister's birthday party.
After much internal struggle, Damian finally decided to go to the party, and was glad he did. Dick wasn't there. Coward (even if Damian had almost avoided the thing as well, Dick was still a coward).
It was a simple little barbecue in the Wests' backyard. The twins' father served everyone charred hamburgers (Damian fed his to Krypto), and various superheroes and their spouses drifted around the yard, all in their civilian identities and freely socializing. Damian leaned against a tree and watched.
His eyes kept lingering on Lian, who was again wearing more makeup and jewelry than Damian preferred to see on girls, but he was almost sure at this point that it was an artistic affectation. She was also wearing a patterned scarf with an eccentric looking skirt, and her fingers were stained with oil pastels. She spent most of the party with Irey, laughing and telling stories, except for the few times she ran over to spontaneously tackle her father or gently tease him. Of course Harper would be there.
Maybe that's why Dick hadn't come.
Damian did notice though, that Jai's eyes kept finding their way over to Damian's tree.
The sulky looking teen didn't look overly entertained by the little barbecue. Damian approached him and quietly suggested they leave. At first Jai only stared at him, and Damian worried he'd somehow offended the other boy. Then after a few false starts Jai managed to choke out an answer. "S-sure. There's, um, there's a park up the street. We could take a walk, I guess. If you want to."
"That suits my intentions. Alright, let's walk."
Damian tried to engage Jai in conversation throughout their walk up the street, but Jai was proving to be worse of a conversationalist than he was. He kept staring at Damian and seemed to lose his sentences without really hearing them.
By the time they got to the park Damian decided to do what came natural and be blunt about it.
"You've been eyeing me in a provocative manner."
Jai's eyebrows shot up and he took a cautious step back. Damian wasn't very good at discerning the difference between certain subtly different emotional states (something he needed competent formal training on for the sake of interrogations; he just didn't believe Dick when he said normal social interactions would teach Damian what he wanted to know). From what he could tell, the boy was either nervous or experiencing a painful stomach cramp.
Considering what Damian had said, nervous was more likely. Damn. He'd only been trying to break the ice.
"I-I wasn't checking you out dude. Because that would be gay."
"Oh. Perhaps I've misread you then. I'd thought you were latently homosexual. My apologies." Damian started to walk away, intending to reassess the other guests at the party, but he turned around at Jai's next words.
"Wait…did you want me to be gay?"
Damian regarded him with some impatience. "This conversation serves no purpose if you're heterosexual. Now, are you or aren't you?"
Jai chewed his lip. "Yeah, I'm gay. You're, uh, not gonna tell anyone, are you?"
"You know, I came out to my father this week. It wasn't nearly as difficult as sources led me to believe."
Jai's eyes widened. "So you're really gay too?"
"No. I'm bisexual, and I've decided to engage in experimentation with an age appropriate partner to distract me from an inappropriate infatuation."
He wasn't entirely certain Jai was following him, but Damian honestly wasn't sure how to be more clear. "Uh…do you mean me?" the boy finally asked.
Damian wasn't sure how to answer in a way that would still make himself attractive to his potential partner, so he settled on the non-verbal and nodded.
A slow smile spread on Jai's very full lips, and for a moment he looked as attractive as Damian had found him before pursuing an extended private conversation with him. Then something troubled passed through those entrancing green flecked golden eyes. "Wait a minute, why me? You don't even like me."
"That's a bit overstated, but I would think my reasoning is fairly obvious," Damian said irritably.
Jai narrowed his eyes. "Well you're wrong, because I don't get it. Why me?"
"You're available, attractive, and seemed open to the idea," Damian explained.
For some reason, Jai seemed to take offense to his observations.
"Wow. You're actually even more of a jack ass than I'd heard." And that removed any ambiguity surrounding his response.
Damian started, regarding him in some surprise. "I've offended you? How?"
"You just called me a slut!"
"No I didn't. When did I say that?"
"Well you implied it!"
"How?"
"By assuming that I'd mess around with you just because I'm single! You know what? Fuck you! I'm not your god damn slut, and you know what else Wayne, you are not better than me, so don't try to do me any fucking favors, or take pity on me with a fling just because I was checking you out!" And then the other teen turned on his heel and left.
Damian stared after him in some surprise. "I really need to learn how to communicate more effectively."
- 10
- 11
- 12
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Birds and Bees