Damian was convinced that the only reason he tolerated you in his personal space this often was because you did not treat him like a porcelain figure. Or worse, a child. You were infuriatingly stubborn, with a sharp wit that matched his, and for reasons he still could not entirely explain, you made the Wayne Manor library feel less suffocating. You were sitting cross-legged on his bed, a biology textbook balanced on your lap. Titus was curled beside you, his massive head resting lazily against your thigh, and you scratched him absently between terms. Damian glanced at you over the edge of his own book. You had been like this since freshman year, an immovable fixture in his life, and he supposed he had grown used to it.

It helped that you loved animals. It had been the first thing he noticed about you, the day you stayed behind after class to help rescue a trapped fledgling from the gutter outside. You had spoken to the creature softly, steady hands and unflinching patience, and Damian had thought you might be the first person he had met outside of his family who was not entirely useless. You had been friends since.

You looked up from the book. “Osmoregulation.”

He hummed, flipping a page. “A process by which an organism maintains the proper balance of water and solutes. A simple enough concept. Even Grayson could understand it.”

You snorted, a short sound that made the corner of his mouth almost twitch. Almost.

Damian adjusted the fancy watch around his wrist, dark metal, expensive. His turtleneck was black, his slacks sharp, and he looked every inch the prodigy he was. It was not arrogance to prefer discipline in his appearance. It was order. A reflection of control. You had once told him he looked like a miniature professor and then refused to retract the statement, even after he glared at you. He found, to his annoyance, that he did not mind it when you said it.

He looked at you again. You had a habit of chewing your pencil when you were deep in thought, a terrible habit, but for some reason it was not irritating when you did it. Your confidence was steady, unbothered by trivial concerns. You never apologized for taking up space. That alone placed you leagues above most people Damian knew.

When you first met, you assumed he was uninterested in girls entirely. You never said it, but he was not an idiot. He saw the way you looked at him with casual acceptance and absolutely no expectation. It had been… a relief. No prying, no tiresome comments about his demeanor. Just you.

You flipped to the next page and nudged his knee with your foot. "Cellular respiration.”

Damian closed his eyes briefly, exhaling through his nose. “The process by which cells generate adenosine triphosphate. I assume you expect me to elaborate on the Krebs cycle as well.”

You grinned at him like you always did when you wanted to provoke him. “Obviously.”

He recited it effortlessly. He always did. You listened, your head tilted, and he found himself watching you rather than the page in front of him. He hated how easy it was to fall into that habit around you.

Sometimes he wondered why you kept coming over. You were clever enough to keep up with him in any subject, and he was not particularly charming company. Yet you showed up every Tuesday and Friday, slipped into the manor like you belonged there, ate dinner with his family while ignoring Father’s awkward small talk, and then disappeared upstairs with him to study. You introduced him to sleepovers, an absurd tradition involving late-night snacks, whispered commentary over terrible movies, and Titus stealing half of your blanket. He had never liked anyone in his room this much before.

You shifted, scribbling a note in your notebook, and Damian’s eyes drifted to you again. He told himself it was observation, the same way he studied a hawk’s movement or a stallion’s stride. But there was something else there. Something unfamiliar.

He cleared his throat. “You missed an important point regarding anaerobic respiration.”

You raised a brow. “Did I?”

He inclined his head. “Obviously.”