Damian sticks to the wall, stalking across the ledge in the dead of night.
I can do it.
Night is his domain. His family's domain. The shadows are their place. There is no way she can best him when he is in his prime setting.
Then again, it was just like this the last time they faced.
Batman is on the other side of the building on the same mission; approach the target with the utmost caution. She is sitting on the adjacent ledge eating a bag of candy with headphones on. They have eyes on her via Oracle.
A month ago, the pretty girl had shown up. And by 'shown up' Damian means he was surveying a building site from the roof of a hotel when a flash of purple lighting blinded him, kissed his lips, laughed and then ran away.
There is also something his father is not revealing about her. The files on the batcomputer she features in are locked away, with only her basic information available to him. She was once a protege of the Flash, having appeared out of nowhere with the abilities of a speedster. His father avoids any questions. Damian tried asking her why during one of their 'fights' but she just ran away.
For those reasons, she- Rapid -sets Damian on edge. She has only been in Gotham for a month and already he can not stand the Violet Speed Hellion. A name she disputes, apparently.
From the stupidly visible violet shade of her hair and odd golden colour of her eyes to her irritating laugh and ridiculous grin. There is absolutely nothing endearing or intriguing about it at all.
At least that's what he tells himself.
Also, she doesn't plague his every thought. Her scent isn't sweet and she absolutely has no bearing on his patrol route. Nope. Not at all.
"Dobriy vyecher, milashka."
Damian freezes on the spot, sure that just a second ago he had been behind the anti-hero. Now it sounds as if she is behind him.
He pivots on the edge of the building and finds himself facing the purple-haired girl leaning on the wall beside him. She looks irritatingly calm, tapping her fingers together, watching him with amused golden eyes and her normal smile.
"Hello," she says.
An uncommon feeling blooms in his chest. He grinds his teeth to expel it before taking as best a stance as he can being on such short ground.
"I know he's there," she continues brightly, ignoring his caution, "but he won't get here fast enough."
"I don't need him," Damian snaps. He moves to grab his staff.
She smiles.
She smiles. Damian does not like how the blood in his veins reacts. That irritating smile always catches him off guard and he hates it.
Sure enough, before he can even realise that he's already lost the battle, Rapid seizes his arm when he reaches for his weapon.
"We'll look back at this one day and laugh," she chirps. Damian grunts and tries to escape, but it is too late as the Violet Speedster races off along the edge of the roof-tops with Damian dangling over the side.
Nothing but her grip on his hand keeps him from plummeting to the ground.
"Unhand me!"
"'Unhand'? I don't know that one," she yells back.
Despite that, she lets go and Damian feels a whole other feeling inside of him as he plunges towards the ground. Beneath him, cars and pedestrians go on with their nightly business, unaware of the danger above.
Just as he begins fumbling for his grapple gun, something hits him from the side. He pulls back, expecting to find either Rapid or another villain, but is instead looking at the cowl of Batman.
Father and son land on the roof of another building.
"I had it!" Damian growls ungratefully. He cares little that he sounds like the child he was several years ago. Batman remains stoic, looking down at his sidekick through the darkness.
"Time to go," is all he says, before reporting the same to Black Bat and Spoiler on the other side of the city.
"You always act this way after a battle with her!"
"Battle? You couldn't even pull your weapon," Batman responds. Damian chokes on his words as he watches his father walk away. "You should head back."
The teen grumbles to himself but Bruce disappears before he can say anything. He heads back to where his bike is without detouring, determined to get back to the safety of his room before he can make anymore embarrassing mistakes.
On his way he begins internally scolding himself for his own stupidity. Letting females get the best of you is a Grayson thing, not a Wayne thing.
At least they'll never know...
The thought of Grayson, Brown, Todd, Cain, Gordon, Drake and Pennyworth finding out makes him shiver. That can only go downhill. He hopes his father says nothing of it.
He finds his bike where he left it and looks around suspiciously. There is no sugary scent in the wind and no telling dash, so he picks his helmet up and climbs on.
Facing women and girls has never been a problem for him before. Quite honestly Damian had begun to think people like Grayson and Logan, who seem to be unable to fight women without flirting, are the ones with the problems.
Not that I'm flirting!
The thought combined with burning sugar seems to drain his energy entirely.
"You survived!"
He tries to maintain an emotionless exterior.
"I could have died," he snaps irritably. Rage and embarrassment prod at the cracks that begin to show when she speeds in front of him in a second.
"Now, do you really think I would have dropped you if I thought you were going to die?" She asks, grinning.
Damian squeezes his fists, trying to look anywhere but at her face. His gaze falls to her uniform (not her lean body); different from the single picture in her file.
"You changed your attire," he blurts out. No, no, Damian Wayne does not do small talk.
Rapid looks down at her clothes, before glancing back at him with a smirk. Damian feels his mind quake.
Okay, maybe Robin small talks.
Instead of the old Purple outfit she once wore with a large Flash bolt across the torso, she wears long, black armoured leggings embellished with small metal lightning bolts, knee-high purple boots and an armoured black crop with a hood. Donned with purple goggles and gloves to match, it seems she has dumped the idea of being Flash's protege for being her own person.
That, Damian can respect.
"Still Rapid," she says, shrugging her shoulders, before ultimately disappearing, leaving behind a purple blur and the smell of marshmallows.
Marshmallows. Those insufferable snacks. That has to be her scent.
Damian realises he's still standing there dumbfounded like a teenaged boy, staring in the place where she was. He shakes his head tiredly and climbs back on his bike, determined to not crash on the way home because of her.
◊
◊
Walking into the cave is always a different experience. Sometimes Steph will glomp him, someone is hurt, Jason and his father are fighting or something else.
This time he enters to find Oracle and Spoiler whispering to each other at the computer, Batman nowhere to be seen. Damian is placing his weapons in their braces when two sets of eyes lock on to him.
"I assume the two of you were listening," he snaps irritably, not giving them the satisfaction of a glance.
"Us?" Says Steph innocently, grinning slyly by his guess. "We were just doing our jobs, babybat."
He ignores her, moving towards the showers. Maybe he can distract himself from thinking about marshmallows. He undresses and steps into a cubicle, turning the water on without any cold.
If there is one thing his mother never trained him for, it was women. Cassandra is easy to talk to of course, but Barbara has little patience for Damian and Stephanie annoys him more than anyone.
Almost.
A dazzling smile, golden eyes and lilac hair flash in his mind for a moment. Damian grinds his teeth, staring down at the water running into the drain.
She is not pretty. She is not pretty. He, under no circumstances, thinks she's pretty.
After his shower, he dresses and sprints up the stairs, trying to avoid his 'sisters' at all costs. He slips into his room and locks the door, turning around to slide down the mahogany wood.
Dammit. I can't stop thinking about her.
He has no idea that across the room, he is being watched through the window. Klavdiya smiles to herself as she rests on a tree rooted outside of Wayne Manor's grounds.
The teen knows Robin is too distracted by her to remove the tracker she had placed. Of course, she has no intentions of revealing his identity to anyone. That can be her little secret with him.
After all, she has always known.
When someone tells you who your soulmate is, you listen, you watch them like a hawk and you figure everything out; just like she did.
As the young speedster is ready to dash away, something attaches itself to her ankles, spinning around and around until it has her lassoed.
Before Klavdiya can think of shifting out of it, it tugs backwards, toppling her hard into the branch, bringing her to the ground.
The grass approaches fast. She readies herself to land on her hands and run.
But the rope falls taut and she is left dangling in mid-air.
"Kakogo cherta!" She shouts, struggling in her trap. She makes an attempt to vibrate out of the bonds, but curses upon realising they are immune to this.
"It has been a while, Miss Iskra," a voice states from the dark.
Klavdiya freezes immediately, recognising the Dark Knight for his terrifying growl and the knowledge of her name. However, she is not struck by fear. Instead she is happy to see her once-saviour.
"Well I've been busy courting your son," she replies jokingly, folding her arms as she watches Batman emerge from the shadows, his face level with hers. "He's pretty hot you know."
Though his face is obscured, Klavdiya sees the Bat's brows crease at her remark.
"Courting him? Why?"
"I just told you silly."
Bruce's lips form a tight line. He supposes that's true.
"How did you get here?" He asks, sounding more curious than concerned.
Klavdiya chuckles, "I simply placed tracker on Robin, moy milashka, and he lead me here. Can you blame me? You do know he's hot as sun, right?"
"Please stop saying that," he responds, pained. He reaches up and untangles the wire. Klavdiya is chuckling quietly when she lands on the floor.
Immediately she jumps on him with a hug, laughing all the way. It resembles a reunion of old friends and perhaps that's a kind way of describing their relationship. Bruce only pats her back as she squeezes his neck in her arms, before jumping back to continue gushing over Damian.
"I can't help it!" She exclaims, throwing her arms in the air, "He was so cute that when we first met, I kissed him."
"What?"
"He didn't tell you?... Well that's not surprising. He's a shy one."
"When it comes to such subjects, yes."
Like his father, Klavdiya wants to say. Instead she gives a little shrug and smiles wider at him.
"Did you ever think you would see me again?"
The brief image of the girl in his arms staring with wide innocent eyes as she is rescued from a cage flashes within his mind.
"I did, just not under these circumstances."
"What does this word mean?" She questions curiously.
Bruce nearly smiles as he gives her the Russian translation, her eyes lighting up.
"Oh! Like, like situation. Da?"
He nods, "I figured I'd meet you whilst you were under Flash's tutelage."
Klavdiya scoffs and waves her hand, "He and I did not get along, so I ended it. I'm just in Gotham because my friend Seer- you remember Seer, right? -said there was a boy here I should meet. And here I am!"
Right at the end of that sentence Rapid dashes off into the night, leaving the caped crusader standing there alone, completely bewildered by her statement.