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Damian Wayne hated parties.
He hated the way his father told him to entertain guests as if he were some dancing monkey.
He hated the way the women tried to flirt with him in terrible ways.
He hated the people, he hated the activities, he hated the role he played in the whole charade.
The reason for the event, the charities, he did not hate.
He did not hate doing everything to help people.
But he did hate the course of action.
And tonight was no different.
Until it wasn’t.
“I bet you ten bucks you can’t do a backflip in that dress.” A woman behind him mumbled in french.
“Oh really, Bourgeois? You really want to go there?” Another woman responded to her in the same language.
He didn’t want to turn around.
He didn’t want to get his hopes up that there were un-stuffy people here.
He didn’t want to turn and be disappointed that there might actually be someone who wasn’t a total bore or an airhead in the place.
“Yup. I’m bored, you’re reckless, let's go. Backflip in a floor length gown. Do it or you're a pussy Dupain-Cheng.” The first girl, Bourgeois, challenged.
“Oh you are so on.” The second girl, apparently named Dupain-Cheng, accepted.
He heard heel clicking, and he caved.
He turned just in time to see a girl with midnight blue hair in a long blue-gray dress that had a deep v and snaked up around her neck throw her arms out and land a backflip.
In the middle of the dance floor.
In six inch heels.
And a floor length gown that had a slit in it.
She grinned.
“Pay up, bitch!” She grinned at a blond who must have been Bourgeois, who scowled as she dug into her purse and pulled out a dollar that wasn’t American.
It was a ten euro dollar.
The shorter one, Dupain-Cheng, immediately took the ten euro, and put it in the donation pile.
Thanks.
“What, you couldn’t have bought me ice cream with that, at least?” The tall blond smirked.
“Yeah, right, as if a Bourgeois couldn’t afford ice cream.” Dupain-Cheng rolled her eyes.
Huh.
He wondered if they had come together.
Dupain-Cheng made a face and started to talk in a mocking tone,
“Y es, hi, hello, my father is the mayor of Paris and my mother is the nasty owner of the famous magazine Style Queen could you donate a scoop of Moose Tracks to my tragic cause ?”
“Shut the fuck up.” The blond scoffed. “I do not sound like that Dupain-Cheng, you are ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.”
“You know you love me, Chloé.” The shorter girl grinned.
“Let me see if I can come up with some other challenge for you to stupidly take, see if this one is the one that kills you.” Bourgeois joked, and Dupain-Cheng feigned offense, but had a devilish look in her eyes like she had already accepted.
He made his presence known at this point.
“Fifty american dollars says you can’t do one of your well-formed backflips off that banister over there.” He spoke in perfect french, nodding at what he was referring to, and they both paled.
“You… you saw that?” Dupain-Cheng stuttered.
“It was in the middle of the floor, it was impossible not to notice.”
“No one else did.” Bourgeois pointed out, waving her champagne glass around a bit.
He wondered how she had got that.
She was clearly not legal.
“Huh.” He did seem to be the only person paying them any mind. “My offer still stands, though.”
Duapin-Cheng looked at him skeptically for a second before asking,
“Do you require I wear the heels?”
“No.” He offered instantly, worried she would say no if he made her wear them.
“Acceptable.” She nodded, and all three teens marched over to the staircase, where she promptly climbed over the side of the banister, and leaned back.
She arched her back, propelling herself only slightly, as she tumbled through the air and landed on her two feet.
“Good form.” He said again, and handed her the promised fifty. She peered at the donation pile, but it hada crowd.
“Ugh, I’ll have to go later.” She bit her lip, but he had a feeling she really would. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would keep it. “Maybe you can give me more things to do, and I’ll make one big trip over there later. Do it all in one go.”
“I only have a five and two one’s left.” Chloé shrugged.
“I got three twenty’s and another fifty, I’m sure we can put them to good use.” He offered.
He was not having fun.
No sir he was not.
He was merely enjoying having a good excuse to get rid of the cash in his wallet, and he could get more later.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where we could get a broom, would you?” Bourgeois asked him. He blinked.
“Why would you want a broom?”
“You wouldn’t seriously make me do a fucking pole vault, would you?”
“For seven dollars?” She offered.
Dupain-Cheng eyes the charity bowl.
“Fine.” She sighed, and they looked at him expectantly.
“Yeah.” He wondered why he was doing this.
He never did things like this.
He hated these events.
He hated being here and he hated talking to people.
But here was, trying to find a broom to make a girl do a pole vault with it.
What had his life come to.
“I’m pretty sure I can find a broom.”
“Cool.” Bourgeois grinned. Dupain-Cheng, he still didn’t know her whole name, just scowled at the floor.
He came back to them a few minutes later, with a mop.
“Sorry, this was the best I would do.”
“It’s fine.” Dupain-Cheng sighed as she tossed it between her hands a few times. “Where am I going, Chlo?”
“Over that fountain.” Bourgeois pointed, and Dupain-Cheng made a face
He had to admit, she was pretty cute.
Wait.
No.
No he didn’t.
He didn’t have to admit to anything.
What a ridiculous thought.
She was still a silly woman at the silly Gala same as any other awful socialite.
She just happened to be more entertaining than all the others.
“Seriously? The fucking fountain?” Duoain-Cheng asked.
“Yes.” Bourgeois smirked. “Or are you too scared of what these stuffy business people think of you to jump over a fountain?”
Damian snorted.
He completely agreed, these people were awful.
And apparently Dupain-Cheng agreed, because she slammed the mop into the floor before storming over, yet still bare-footed to get a running start.
She took only five quick steps before slamming the mop into the ground, throwing herself into the air with perfectly bent legs, sailing over the fountain, and sticking the landing.
Literally nobody noticed.
They all seemed to be too absorbed in their business talks to acknowledge a teenage girl jumping through the air.
It was amazing.
Well, all except for one.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Dick asked, looking at them all like they were crazy.
Which they were.
“You told me to make friends, Richard, so here I am. Making friends .” Damian said accusingly.
“What I meant when I-” He cut himself off. “You know what, I don’t even care anymore. Something interesting was bound to happen eventually, I’m just glad you're making friends. You need friends.” He noticed the two girls look at each other confusedly.
“Wait, Chloé, you know at least minimal english, right?” Dupain-Cheng asked as she walked back over to them.
Oh god she has no idea what I just said.
“Wait, I thought you knew good english? Mine is minimally terrible!”
“No! I take Spanish! How do you not know this?”
They really had no idea what was going on.
“Oh god. No wonder Mother has been exasperated with us this whole trip.”
He tried not to laugh at them, and turned back to his brother.
“So, are you going to leave us alone, or give us another dare to make Dupain-Cheng do?” Dick blinked at him.
“Uh, no. If I did, I think Bruce would kill us both.”
“Fine. Be on your way, then.”
He turned back to the two confused girls who were pretending to not have completely lost their chill.
Despite what he had told Dick, he did not consider them friends.
But he had said making friends.
He wondered if there would be a day he did consider them friends.
Two hours, all of their money, and many dares later, they all three sat on a balcony, looking out at the dark patio below them.
“So, Dupain-Cheng, never caught your first name.” He asked, leaning against a railing. She tipped her head back, and stared up at the sky.
“Marinette.”
Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Cute name.
Shut up.
“And you’re Chloé Bourgeois?”
“Yup.”
“Huh.”
“What about you, random boy we’ve been entertaining all night?” Dupain-Cheng asked.
“Huh?”
“What’s your name, dumbass.” Bourgeois threw a cracker at him.
“Oh. Damian.” Was all he offered.
It was quiet for another second.
When he had made friends with Jon, he had kidnapped him and then begrudgingly gone on a mission with him, to them emotionally bond over a split granola bar.
This was not the same thing.
Not even slightly.
“So, Bourgeois, how did you end up here?” He tried. He really did.
“My mom was invited, she brought me along. Figured it would do some good for me, or something. Teach me manners.”
“A lot of good that did.” Dupain-Cheng snorted. “We have been sooo well behaved tonight.”
“So if you came as a plus one, how did Dupain-Cheng here end up with you?”
“She was invited herself.”
“You were?”
“I was.” She nodded in agreement.
“How did you end up with one?”
“ Marinette did not get invited. Charme de Malchance got invited.” She popped a square of cheese in her mouth. “Who the hell invented square cheese? This shit is so much funnier in triangles. And easier to put on crackers when in triangles.”
“And you came to their place?” Tim had been looking into how to find them for a while, they were the one who made the suit he was wearing tonight. He had got to them first, and it pissed him off.
“Oh honey.” Bourgeois rolled her eyes. “Oh dumb darling boy.”
“What? Why would they send in a teenage girl instead of-” He stopped mid sentence.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” The shorter girl smirked at him.
“Holy shit, you… You made an actual public appearance?”
“Not technically, seeing as no one has really paid me any mind despite the fact I’ve been climbing the goddamn walls around here.” She joked.
He tried not to laugh.
It had been pretty comical, how she had done all this shit and no one had noticed.
If they did, they hadn’t said anything.
“Wait, Damian what’s your last name?” She narrowed her eyes at him and the charade was up.
“Wayne.” He shrugged, and she slammed her fist into the balcony floor.
“ That’s why your suit looked so damn familiar. It’s fucking mine !” She laughed, and bonked her head on the railing as she threw her head back. “Ow.” She stopped laughing and rubbed her head. “Damn, I’m so stupid for not recognising my own damn work.” She giggled.
“Only you, Dupain-Cheng.” Bourgeois shook her head, and munched on another cracker.
“Wait, so how do you two know each other?” He hadn’t gotten past that point. They hadn’t come together, but they knew each other really well.
“We go to school together.” Dupain-Cheng said through a mouthful of cheese.
“Seriously?”
“No kidding.” Bourgeois nodded. “We used to hate each other, when we were younger, but… we got over it.”
“You just… got over it?”
“I was angry and jealous, she was willing to look past it.” She shrugged.
“Dupain-Cheng, you seriously just ignored the fact she hurt you and became her friend anyway?” The two shared a look, and he didn’t like it.
They were hiding something.
“She trusted me.” Bourgeois mumbled, and Dupain-Cheng bit her lip. “She trusted me over anyone else in a desperate time.” Dupain-Cheng seemed to be telling her to watch what she said.
It confused him, he would investigate them later.
He would have investigated them anyway.
To see if they would make suitable friends.
But now that he knew one of them could be used for leverage against Tim, he was certainly keeping her around.
“So, how long are you in Gotham for?”
“We go back to Paris tomorrow.” Bourgeois said, a little disappointed.
“Ugh, don’t remind me. This summer has been the absolute best, and we have to go back to that hell hole tomorrow.” Dupain-Cheng scowled.
“Wait, you’ve been here all summer?” And he hadn’t noticed?
“Yup. I hope we come back soon, though, you’re pretty cool.” She gave him a shy smile. “I bet we would hang out again some time.”
“Sure.” He shrugged.
He had been wondering how to ask her to see each other again, maybe come up with a way to flaunt the fact he knew her to Tim, but she just made it easier by doing it for him.
“Cool.” She smiled at the floor, and he wondered if she knew.
If she had figured out she was talking to the son of the man who had thrown this party, the teenager in charge of the entire financial branch of the business of the building she was sitting in.
If she had figured out he was the billionaires kid.
If that was the reason she was smiling at the floor.
Because she thought she had tricked him into thinking he had met someone who didn’t know who he was.
“I hope I get invited to another of these things at the same time as you. You seem cool.”
Nope.
She was that dumb.
She got up and excused herself, and he gave Bourgeois a look.
“No, she doesn’t know, no, I won’t tell her, and yes, it will take her stupid ass a really long time of your not blunt about it.” She answered all of his questions in seconds.
“She… she really doesn’t know?”
“When she met Adrien Agreste she called him a bunch of horrible names for like five minutes before someone pointed out he was a supermodel and then she called him names for being a stuck-up famous teen.” She looked him dead in the eyes. “If she knew who you were, you wouldn’t have lasted five seconds as our friend.”
“Huh. So will that-”
“Now that she knows you have a nice side to you, no, she won’t. But if she knew from the beginning she would have been much meaner.”
“Huh.” He thought about that for a second. She would have made assumptions just like everybody else does.
But she would have gone in the opposite direction.
Instead of trying to get something out of him, she would have accused him of something not nice.
He wasn’t sure if that made him like her more or less.
Maybe a little bit of both.
A little more because she wouldn’t have flirted with him if she knew.
A little less because an assumption is an assumption no matter what it is.
“But then again, she only yelled at him because she thought he was trying to gum her seat in class. Maybe she wouldn't be that mad actually…” He hesitated.
She was a suitable friend candidate, he decided.
Bourgeois was slightly acceptable as well.
He wondered when, if ever, he would see Marinette again.