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starwrighter · 6 months

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Dude, get a restraining order

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(Chappy #4)

The incompetence he bore witness to today rivaled that of which you’d see at an underfunded public school. This is a private school funded to the highest caliber! Damian hadn’t missed the dramatic increase in budget around the time Father enrolled him in the school. He’d been there when the press hounded him about it! The point was, that he knew for a fact that the school had the resources to accommodate a single transfer student!

With how poorly Daniel had been equipped to traverse the halls, one could only question if it were intentional. There was sure to be the inevitable mix-up with a student actually showing up for the transfer program. Usually, all they got was an announcement over the PA that all the potential transfers had not so politely declined the invitation. No rational parent would send their child to Gotham alone unless they were truly desperate, ignorant, or neglectful.

Nothing could ever excuse what he’d seen today. You don’t hand a half-blind student a schedule with braille so radically different from the actual print by accident. It was a bat burger menu for gods sake! Someone had to have noticed when they handed it to him. In lieu of a recent spike of impairments involving vision and or hearing, every schedule had braille on it! Both sign language and braille had become their own optional after-school courses that upon completion, awarded a more than generous amount of extra credit. One didn’t even have to complete the course, all you had to do was pass multiple fluency tests, and then you were finished.

Most teachers knew either Braille or some form of sign language, and they all damn well would’ve known that the map was outdated! Fifty years outdated, you’d have to be a moron to hand that out by mistake. Though with what he was seeing now, he’s not quite sure the facility wasn’t primarily composed of scrambling idiots.

Mr. Rivers, ever the annoyance, had taken to only approaching Daniel from his blind side. It became more and more infuriating as class ticked by. The teacher shoved his body between the two of them, violating any semblance of personal space for the sole purpose of inconveniencing Daniel. Every time Mr. Rivers encroached on their personal space, Damian sharpened his pencil. Every time he made the other boy flinch, the idea of launching the pencil like one of his throwing knives became more and more appealing. No harm would’ve come to the teacher, the sight of a wooden pencil embedding itself in the wall mere inches away from his left eye would be more than enough to frighten the man.

He’d face detention or possibly even suspension, but he’d take the punishment with pride. A smirk played on his lips as he tapped his pencil against his desk.

His smirk soon shifted into a scowl as yet another work packet was piled onto his desk. It was irritating, everything about this class was irritating. Daniel let out a dramatic groan beside him, the other boy slumping back in his chair. Worksheets were piled high on the boy's desk, some completed while most remained unfinished.

A ruler snapped down onto Daniel’s desk, a loud thwack! Startling the boy into sitting up straight.

“I guess I deserved that one,” Daniel shrugged.

“No you didn’t,” Damian replied flatly, but Daniel just shrugged it off. Most of the school facility were what most Gothamites would consider normal. Mr. River just had a generally detestable personality.

The man hated teenagers, often spewing complaints of their “rowdy behavior” and “lack of dedication,”. Damian might’ve agreed with those statements if it weren’t for the blatant lies in every word the man said. His classmates were…noisy and rather unpleasant for him to mingle with, but they were far from the “Lazy entitled brats” Mr. Rivers had painted them as. It’d be hypocritical for him of all people to judge the teacher based on being “mean” but the two of them couldn’t be farther apart.

Damian was a hostile presence in the classroom, but he didn’t go out of his way to target and harass people for things they couldn’t control. People could choose to stay out of his personal space, and they could choose to not say dumb shit to his face. A mental or physical condition wasn’t something they could change, nor were they things that verbal and physical abuse would fix. This should've been common sense to anyone with two brain cells to strike together, but apparently, Darwinism had failed once again.

Mr. Rivers targeted Daniel based on his visual impairment. Every question was targeted at Daniel regardless if his had been raised or not. The man punctuated each sentence with a loud headache-inducing smack to his desk. He always struck on the boy’s blindside, never where he could see the ruler come down. Aside from the occasional flinch, Daniel took the abhorrent behavior in stride.

Concerning… It was one word he could use to describe Daniel's indifference. Completely unbothered, like this was just a typical Monday in class for him. Maybe his previous statement rang true, and he soulfully had experienced worse. That in itself was a concerning statement but made sense considering the context to that worse was engraved on his face. Everything the teacher did just seemed to roll off the other boy’s shoulders like water off a swan's back. A muttered comment of “his school counselor being worse than this teacher ever could be,” only serving to exasperate his concerns.

It was distracting… Every time Daniel gave him a reassuring smile, his heart pounded like hummingbird wings. Blood rushed to his cheeks, warming them like he’d just sat in front of a fireplace. As big of a deal as his siblings made of his apparent social ineptitude, Damian wasn’t an idiot.

How was he supposed to read people if he didn’t understand the emotions that drove their behavior? He’s a vigilante! He couldn’t be walking around uninformed about the basic spectrum of human emotion!

This was obviously what people would call a crush.

Grayson had been the one to attempt explaining crushes and relationships to him. It was a painfully awkward conversation to sit through. His brother spoke of love like a romcom, both cheesy and highly unrealistic. It was by sheer dumb luck Grayson had entered any form of relationship before, and a miracle any of them had lasted more than a week. Anyone with a dash of common sense could tell Grayson’s advice wasn’t a viable source of information. The number of times he’d been pulled aside by someone within earshot of conversation was enough for him to conclude his brother's brain was diluted by hallmark specials and fairytales.

Regardless of his elder brother's delusion, the conversation itself had been unnecessary. Romantic feelings had been explained to him from a very young age. From learning how these emotions could affect one's behavior to understanding not all people felt those feelings, and that was normal too. It was crucial for detective work to recognize the entire range of human emotions.

Damian didn’t believe in love at first sight. He believed one could feel physical attraction for a person minutes or merely seconds after meeting, but love? How could you love someone you’ve only spent a minute with. Rushing in with that mindset was how you ended up courting someone you’d despise in the end. Outward appearances could tell you plenty about a person, but it wasn’t often you could read out someone’s entire character by reading their shirt. It could happen, but this wasn’t one of those cases.

He hadn’t even had a proper conversation with his seatmate yet. Rushing in at the first sign of attraction was an idiotic way to hurt himself emotionally. He’d need to tread through this carefully, learn more about Daniel, and proceed accordingly with the information he received.

Glancing up at the clock, he scowled. Students discreetly packed their bags, fidgeting in their seats as they waited for the bell. Nobody liked being in Mr. Rivers's class. He was the type of teacher to pile a month's worth of homework onto any student unfortunate enough to have gotten their work done in a timely matter. Needless to say, Damian found himself with a thick stack of worksheets on his desk every class. Maybe if he were a little less spiteful, he would slack and draw out the original worksheet like everyone else did, but that would imply Mr. Rivers had gotten under his skin.

Daniel tapped a thick stack of papers on his desk. His name scrawled shakily in graphite on each sheet. Much to his surprise, Daniel had completed every single worksheet their teacher had thrown at him. How he’d managed to do so in such a short amount of time was a mystery, but Damian was delighted nonetheless.

The boy grinned, pride and a dash of spite written clear on his face. Damian had watched, enraptured at the subtle wilting of Mr.River’s face with every sheet he completed. The teacher had been far too dull to print out random worksheets for Daniel like he had with Damian. No, every single one of those pages was a part of the required curriculum assigned to transfer students. Work required to be graded and submitted no more than a week after submission.

“Impressive,” Damian commented.

Daniel beamed, foxlike and giddy as he neatened the pile of paper.

“If all that doesn’t go in the grade book, I’m starting a riot,” Daniel muttered. Damian didn’t doubt him. Tomorrow, Daniel would likely be piled with the same worksheets Damian was stuck with, papers that weren’t graded outside the original worksheet.

“I’ll join you,” Planning a riot together would be the perfect activity for him to get to know Daniel more. One's true self tended to be clearer in times of war.

“Hell yeah! Nothing like a less than peaceful protest to bring people together,” Daniel laughed, the bell rang and Daniel’s expression shifted to one of dread.

“I can walk you to your next class if you’d like,” He offered.

"That would be helpful,” A nervous but exasperated smile had wormed it’s way onto Daniel’s face, the other boy subconsciously running a hand through locks of black hair. "I don't think my map would've been all that helpful," He laughed.

Damian inspected their schedules. They shared lunch and a fourth-hour history class, but that was it. Daniel had earth science third hour while he had an art class. A disappointment, but an expected one.

“Since you don’t have a valid map, I’ll come to pick you up around lunchtime,” He proclaimed as they rounded the corner.

“Sounds good,” With that they parted ways, Daniel giving him a quick wave paired with a smile that made his heart thrum before he stepped into the classroom.

With a sigh, Damian headed down to the first floor. Vibrant paintings and impossibly detailed pencil drawings lined the halls surrounding the art rooms. A giant mural around twelve feet across was the art students' prized project. Massive mountains and towering trees for everyone to see. An outdoor landscape painted with warm colors shifted to the cold colors of city skyscrapers and roads dimly illuminated by street lights. The mural itself took up almost the entire hallway. Not an inch of the remaining space remained bare. Overall, the first floor had more color than all the other floors combined.

Stepping into class, the smell of paint filled his nostrils. Watercolor stained the wooden tables, cracking paint and charcoal smears scattered across the workspace. Conversations from the previous classes were scrawled onto tables. A collaborative drawing between several students having been scribbled over with a conglomerate of charcoal and colored pencils.

The seats were the only part of the table that was mostly bare. Only a few pencil scribbles and scratches. Too many students' uniforms had been stained with dusty patches of charcoal and paint before drawing on the chairs was prohibited, and tarps were placed over them.

Art was the one class students were mostly left to their own devices. Given full access to the entire range of supplies, with a vague instruction of showing off their progress at the end of class. A giant bookshelf was set up next to a metal wire shelf carrying baskets of various types of paper. The bookshelf was filled to the brim with any and all books art-related. From beginner to expert, sculpting to painting, realism to cartoonism, a book was there to teach you about it. It was against the rules to draw inside any of the books, but post-it notes were stuck to every page of every book.

Students filtered in like blood slowly oozing from a paper cut. Quiet chatter filled the room, their teacher sitting calmly at his desk. Damian sat with his new sketchbook, staring daggers at the plethora of empty pages. Sounds of cabinets opening and paintbrushes clinking against glass mugs were his background noise. Pencils scratched against paper, soft searching lines filling a blank page, slowly shaping Daniels's features.

From his sharpened canines to the dimples on his cheeks. To the messy way he swept his hair to the side to the light freckles dusted across his face. Drawing Daniel’s scarring proved to be quite difficult. Intricate branches of scar tissue never seemed to look right when he had them on paper, and it frustrated him to no end. When he finally got it right, he could’ve collapsed right there. It was far from the perfection he was aiming for, but he’d have a reference photo by the end of the day to solve that plight.

This drawing would be more than enough if Daniel turned out to be an… unpleasant individual.

#dcxdp #dp x dc #dpxdc #dc x dp #deadserious #deadseriousship #danny x damian #Damian isn't dumb he knows what romantic feeling are #Does he know how to deal with them?#No #but he knows they exists #I've had plenty of teachers who you could just tell hated children

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