Long Overdue
She sighed, “I’m sor—” and then winced, because really, hadn’t that been just what he’d told her to stop doing? She really needed to start listening and stop running her mouth off. It would certainly get her into less trouble.
So, choosing to focus on something else than her mouth, with a mind of it’s own, she crawled across the hall to sit beside him, resting her head on the wall and offering him a small smile. “Everyone makes mistakes, Dami. Take it from me, who’s pretty much the queen of them. Y’know, at breaking things,” she laughed, trying to make a joke out of his previously jarring stab at her relationships. “Which is why I’d understand if you wanted to blame me. I pretty much thought you had, the night that we—um—y’know, and you walked away from me. And stopped talking to me. Aaaaand pretty much started ignoring my existence.”
She played with the hem of her sleeve, nervous. “But like you said, blame’s for two. Takes two to tango. A pair of—” she realized that rambling on and on was one of her finest flaws, and likely the one he hated the most, so she cut it short, moving on. Especially when he apologized.
When Damian Wayne apologized to Stephanie Brown about feelings. And then said they were friends.
What in the crap was the world coming to?
Whatever it was, she was damn well getting steady footing in it before it flew away on her. So she oustretched her arms, and grinned brightly. “Friends. I think I can manage that one, kid.” She did not miss the way she hesitated, leaving it open-ended, before continuing. “Celebratory friend hugs are in order. And I’m sure as crap not taking no for an answer. So c’mere, before I bug out and head home, Dami.”
A crease formed between his brows at her outstretched arms, and he resisted the urge to fall back a step, his heart lurching in a panic. Hugs were… unfamiliar and far, far too close. His dignified personal bubble, the arms-length at which he kept most of the world restrained him from such a gesture. Hugs were for… Grayson, at times, when needed, but from Brown… the idea was uncomfortable.
The surprised hopefulness in her face reassured him, that for once, he had done well with his words, and he was grateful that he needn’t try again, or expose anymore of his softer side, but physical contact seemed to undo the right they had just began.
He opened his mouth to declare so, but suddenly her cheeky grin was much closer than it had been a breath ago. He inhaled sharply, arms too slow to defend himself, and she pounced.
A faint flush of anger lit up his dark cheeks. Anger. A flush of anger, goddammit.
His growl of protest was muffled into obscurity against her collarbone, and half of his face was blinded by ridiculously potently scented curls. She giggled, the tremors bubbling from her core and landing in warm breath on the back of his neck.
“Brrwwnnn,” he complained, locked against her chest and unable to even make the choice to pull away or return the embrace. “Br - pbt, thh - Brown!”
She expects him to punch and kick or something, honestly. She expects him to do everything he can to avoid physical affection—to avoid a simple, harmless hug, because that’s against his rules of not being a real boy and stuff.
So she grins wider when he doesn’t pull away, but simply groans at her and mumbles and makes a fuss. But doesn’t try to pull away. And that? That speaks far louder than anything in their entire conversation so far. Makes her feel that maybe putting her foot in her mouth—or, well, the other things that happened when she was magicked into being eleven for awhile—were actually a good thing, in the end.
That it might just have helped them, in the end. And really, she can wait to see how it plays out. She really can.
“Yeeeeeees?” she hums, finally letting him go and sitting back, shit-eating grin on her lips.
