Chapter Text
It had officially been two whole weeks since he was grounded, that meant no patrol, no going out, and worst of all no Jon. It was torture, the only thing keeping him sane was the fact that as soon as this was over he would get to go on a real date. Just thinking about it made him smile, which was pretty rare for Damian.
Majority of the past two weeks had been spent brooding in his room (like he was doing now). The speaker on his nightstand blasted mitski while he aimlessly scrolled through his phone.
He heard a heavy knock on his door before it swung open. Bruce glared down at him "You've been in here all day, I was starting to think you might have snuck out again"
Damian's only response was rolling his eyes. His father had been acting like this ever since he was grounded. It was exhausting, the man was acting like hanging out with his friends was some kind of criminal offence.
It was Saturday again, just like always there was another stupid game night he didn't want to go to. He dragged himself out of bed and begrudgingly made his way to the door.
As he was being escorted to the living room his phone dinged, he looked down to see Jon was texting him, like he had been doing everyday since asking him out. He must have looked a little too happy because his jailer father said "No phones during family time, put it away"
"We're not even in the living room yet"
Bruce didn't respond, instead he snatched the phone placing it in his pocket.
"Ugh!" Damian angrily stomped into the living room plopping down in the corner of the couch with a scowl on his face.
It didn't take long for everyone to file in and sit around the table in the center of the room. Dick sat next to him pulling him into a hug.
"Grayson! Stop it!"
"Sorry little D, I just missed you"
"Tt”
The game night started out with monopoly, a huge mistake on their part. Barely 15 minutes passed before the board had been flipped for the second time, Tim and Cass were having the most intense, cut throat game of monopoly he’d ever seen and Jason had been put in jail again.
“I HATE YOU!”
“Well next time don’t steal my monopoly!”
“Stephanie, give Jason his $200, you landed on his property” Bruce tried his best to keep his voice level and calm.
“He’s in JAIL!!! I’m not going to give money to a criminal”
“THAT’S NOT HOW YOU PLAY” Steph stuck her tongue out at Jason when he said that.
“What are they screaming about now”
“Shut the fuck up Cass, you don’t get to talk after stealing my last railroad” Tim looked like he might burst a blood vessel.
Damian barely participated, he just observed the chaos with a scowl on his face. He just wanted this to be over so he could go back to quietly sulking in his room. A loud crash caught his attention, the board was on the floor and almost everyone was practically brawling. Dick and Bruce both had their full attention set on breaking it up, he could see his phone slowly slipping out of Bruce’s pocket. The opportunity was almost too perfect, he carefully took his phone and stalked out of the room, everyone was too busy to notice.
They’d notice he was gone eventually so he had to be quick. He quietly shut the door to the art room as he entered. He originally only planned to send Jon a short message about how awful monopoly was but it turned into a lengthy conversation. He hadn’t noticed that 30 minutes passed until Bruce walked in looking a bit disheveled (probably from the fight he’d just broken up) and very upset.
“I was going to let you go back on patrol tomorrow but since you still haven’t learned anything I guess not”
“How is that fair? I left for a few minutes, I didn’t even leave the manor!” Damian had originally not protested as much as he normally would about his punishment, but he was furious, his father had been nothing but unfair since that night and it was getting exhausting.
“Damian, that’s final” he was using his Batman voice.
“No, I hardly did anything wrong! If it was anyone else you wouldn’t-“
“Damian. Go.To.Your.Room” he wasn’t yelling but the sternness of his voice made it just as bad.
Bruce sat at his desk thinking about how he was going to apologize, he knew Damian was right, he wasn’t being fair. Damian had been wrong for sneaking out but that was never what he was really upset about, the more his youngest acted out and pulled away from him and the rest of the family the more the realization sank in. It was on his mind ever since Stephanie said it.
“he's a....teenager”
Bruce didn’t want to believe it, he could still remember when Damian had first arrived, he had still had that layer of baby fat on his face and an insane amount of audacity for someone who wasn’t even 5ft tall. Damian really hadn’t done anything that warranted his reaction but when he found him in the art room it reminded him of how 9 year old Damian used to hide in there. He got the worst déjà vu and he really saw how much he grew up.
He never liked it when any of his kids grew up, but knowing Damian was the last one he’d ever get to see grow up made him wish he could freeze time and stop him from getting any older. There was a light knock at the door and he looked up to see his first baby (yes he was still his baby no matter how old he got).
“I just talked to Dami, you know that was unfair right?” He raised an eyebrow.
Bruce let out a heavy sigh “I know, I’m just….not sure what to say”
“I have a revolutionary idea, talk about your feelings” Bruce visibly tensed at the word
“Look B, I know what this is actually about, please just talk to him” Dick was way too tired to deal with this, it was going to be resolved tonight whether Bruce liked it or not. “If you don’t do it right now I’ll just go get him and make you two talk”
He took Bruce’s grunt as an agreement.
“Perfect! Tell me how it goes!” He said with a bright smile as he left the room.
Bruce stood outside of Damian’s room with his hand hovering over the door. After a few moments he gained the courage to knock. The door swung open to reveal an angry Damian scowling up at him, his mind briefly flashed to the image of his son 5 years ago with the exact same look on his face.
“Uh-can we…talk?”
“No.”
The door was promptly slammed in his face. He almost lost what little composure he had left but took a deep breath in and slowly opened the door.
“Please Damian, I'm trying to apologize”
Damian didn't actually say anything, he just stood with his arms crossed and the same scowl on his face.
“I was….wrong, I shouldn't have extended your punishment for what you did”
“Are you done?” He raised an eyebrow
“I'm not-I uh” this was the part Bruce had been dreading, the emotions part. Getting the words out was a struggle and he was getting nervous “can we sit down for this?”
Damian rolled his eyes but sat down at the edge of the bed with his father.
“The reason I was upset is nothing you could control, and I'm sorry I handled it like that”
Damian dropped the serious exterior when he saw that his father was obviously sad.
“What were you upset about?”
Bruce let out a humourless chuckle and began to cup his son's face with his hands “You are growing up so fast, it's really not fair of me to try to stop you from growing. When you stopped spending time with us it just felt like you were slipping through my fingers. I'll try to do better next time something like this happens. I'm not going to try to stop you from growing up but no matter how old any of you get you're all still my babies.”
There were definitely not tears in Damian's eyes when he heard that last part.
Bruce pulled Damian into his side for a hug and they stayed like that for a while.
“Father”
“Yes Damian”
“What would you think if I started, um, dating?”
“Let's slow down, one conversation at a time” he could feel the gray hairs forming on his scalp already.