"Our little baby bird is going on a blind date!" Dick Grayson wiped a tear from his eye.
"Tt, how many times must I tell you that it is not a date?" Damian Wayne straightened his green necktie. "I am simply attending a dinner arranged between father and his old friend. And it's not as if the girl and I will even be eating alone! Father and Jagged Stone are also attending the dinner with us."
"I'm so freaking jealous." Tim Drake complained as he buried his head under a pillow from the sofa in the center of the Wayne Manor living room. "You're going on a date with Jagged Stone's honorary niece! Do you have any idea how lucky you are? You get to meet my favorite rock musician Jagged Stone AND my favorite anonymous fashion designer MDC! You're going on a freaking DINNER DATE with MDC!"
"A dinner which I am only attending because father requested it," Damian pointed out.
"EXACTLY!" Tim groaned and chucked the pillow in Damian's direction. "WHY DO YOU GET TO GO ON THE DATE AND NOT ME? THEY'RE MY IDOLS AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEIR NAMES LAST NIGHT!"
Damian easily sidestepped and avoided the flying pillow.
"Calm down, Tim," warned Dick. "Don't start throwing pillows around. You of all people should know what a mistake it is to start a fight with Damian."
Damian smirked.
"I know, I know!" Tim scooted to the other side of the sofa, as far away from Damian as possible. "But what if Damian actually falls in love with MDC tonight and they start dating? And then when they break up in the future, since no sane human could ever deal with Damian's personality, and she wants nothing to do with anything that reminds her of him... including his family, which I am a member of! I'D RATHER PULL 3 ALL-NIGHTERS THAN HAVE MDC HATE ME—"
"Drake, you are acting ridiculous yet again." Damian pushed his arms through the sleeves of his classy black wool coat. "I have no intention of pursuing a relationship with this girl. I will meet her this evening, as father requested, and then never see or speak to her again."
"But what if—"
"I will NOT fall in love with her." Damian's green eyes narrowed as he glared at Tim. "Do you really believe me to be so shallow as to fall in love with a woman at first sight? I have no desire for a romantic relationship. My mind will not be changed."
Tim hid behind the sofa, using it to shield himself from Damian's deadly glare. "Okay, I believe you!"
"Tt, good." Damian swung open the Manor's front door and stepped outside into the cold Gotham winter air. "I'll take my leave now. I wouldn't want to disappoint father and arrive late."
"Have fun!" Dick called out with an annoying grin on his face.
"Fun?" Damian muttered as he slammed the door shut behind him. "How could a tedious hassle such as this be considered fun?"
Damian entered the white Porsche electric car that had been gifted to him this year for his 23rd birthday. He fastened his seat belt, used the touch screen panel to start the engine, and pulled out of the Wayne Manor driveway. He didn't bother using the GPS. Every area of Gotham City was memorized in Damian's mind, thanks to the countless nights he had spent patrolling it under the mask of the vigilante known as Robin.
And being a vigilante was one of the most important aspects of Damian's current life.
He would not allow something as pointless as love or romance hinder his ability to protect Gotham.
Damian was aware of why his father had arranged tonight's dinner with Jagged Stone's honorary niece. Bruce Wayne was worried about his youngest son, who had never shown even the slightest interest in dating. He didn't want Damian to spend the rest of his life alone.
But Damian didn't care if he never found true love. Romance was unrealistic and annoying. Dating was unnecessary. All that mattered to Damian was that he could continue to fight crime during the night, create paintings as an artist during the day, and make his father proud—
Crash.
Damian's train of thought was interrupted when he was forced to slam the brakes of his electric car. The tires squealed as he skidded for a few feet on the ice-slicked pavement. He was lucky that the impact hadn't been hard enough to make the car's interior airbags go off.
After exhaling a long breath of air, Damian unbuckled his seat belt and threw open the white car door. A large dent was now visible in the side of his car. Snowflakes clung to Damian's black wool coat as he stomped towards the vehicle that had just hit him: a red Bugatti Chiron Sport car.
An attractive young woman with a dark twin ponytail hairstyle stepped out of the red car.
"What is wrong with you?" Damian shot his most deadly glare at her. "The traffic light was clearly red! Are you color blind? How did you fail to see the red light?"
"What are you talking about?" The Asian and Caucasian mixed young woman spoke with a slight French accent. "The light turned green!"
"While I was still in the middle of the intersection!" Damian's spat back.
"How was I supposed to see you?" The woman released a storm of frustration by swinging her hands in the air above her head. "Your car blended in with the snow! What kind of idiot drives a white car during the winter while it is snowing?"
"Did you just call me an idiot?" Damian stared at the woman in shock.
No one had ever dared to call him that before. No one had ever been stupid enough to call him that. What was wrong with this young woman?
"Yes, I called you an idiot." The young woman crossed her arms. "Is there another word that I should use to describe an idiot?"
Damian gritted his teeth and stomped back towards his car.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" The woman shouted. "Thanks to you, there's a huge dent in the front of my car!"
"Tt, likewise." Damian gestured towards the dent in the side of his own car. "But I care more about getting away from an obnoxious person like you than I care about the reparations for the damages."
"WHAT?! How dare you!"
Damian entered his car and slammed the door shut. He sped down the icy snow-dusted street before the woman had a chance to approach his car. It was only after he had driven down a block that he remembered to fasten his seatbelt.
"What an infuriating woman," he mumbled to himself.
And Damian continued to think about how infuriating she was until he arrived at the high-class restaurant, parked in the VIP parking lot, entered the building, and was escorted by the staff into the reserved private dining room.
Bruce Wayne was waiting for him there, seated at the table.
"I apologize for not arriving sooner, father." Damian bowed his head slightly. "I encountered an unpleasant... situation on my drive here."
"Damian, come take a seat." Bruce Wayne gestured for his son to sit in the chair beside him. "There's no need to apologize. Considering your typical punctual nature, I figured that there was a good reason for your delay. But don't worry. Jagged's niece hasn't arrived yet, and Jagged is waiting for her downstairs in the lobby."
"I see." Damian nodded his head as he took off his wool coat and sat down.
"Do you want to elaborate on the unpleasant situation you encountered?" Bruce asked with a raised eyebrow. "Is it something that we'll need to look into tonight during... you know."
Damian's father was referring to tonight's patrol. This was his covert way of asking if the situation had involved one of Gotham's notorious criminals.
"It was nothing of that sort." Damian shook his head. "Simply a case of reckless driving which resulted in a major dent in the side of my Porsche car."
"I see... well that's unfortunate nonetheless." Bruce picked up his glass of water off the table and took a sip. "Will the Wayne Legal Team need to be involved?"
"Tt, it's not worth the trouble," said Damian. "I didn't even bother writing down her license plate number or asking for her contact information. What an annoying woman..."
"Damian, you say that everyone is annoying." Bruce silently laughed.
"But she was especially annoying!" Damian slammed his hand on the table, causing the glasses and silverware to shake. "I've never met such an unpleasant person! I can only hope that I am never so unlucky as to see her again—"
Damian was interrupted as the door to the private dining room swung open.
"Bruice! How've you been?" Jagged Stone called out as he entered the room.
"I've been well, Jagged." Bruce's usual expressionless face twitched with the slightest smile.
"Is this your youngest?" Jagged held out his hand for Damian to shake.
Damian shook it. "Yes, I am Damian Wayne."
"Wow!" Jagged whistled. "Looks like the broody dark apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Freaky! He's like a little Brucie clone. Nettie! Come meet Brucie Junior."
Damian turned his attention towards the young woman who was still standing in the doorway.
His body froze.
She stared at him with a look of pure disgust.
"IT'S YOU!" Damian and Jagged Stone's honorary niece shouted at the exact same moment.
"Uhhh... yes?" Jagged glanced between them with a confused look. "This is my niece that I told Brucie about: Marinette Dupain-Cheng, also known as MDC."
[Ch 1 - 1,625 words]
Thanks for reading! Guess who started writing another Marinette x Damian fanfic when she hasn't even finished writing her other 2 stories? Lol... I have way too many WIPs. But it's an enemies-to-lovers story so I couldn't resist posting this chapter as soon as I finished editing it!
Thank you to @Jenijeno for suggesting/requesting this story! I'm falling in love with this story idea and I might already have an outline planned for 20 more chapters... hehe.