If someone had told Damian Wayne he'd end up here—standing at the edge of a cursed cove in the dead of night, bickering with a mermaid over marine biology—he would’ve knocked them out on the spot.

Yet here he was, salt spray in the air, boots sinking into the damp rocks, glaring at a creature who looked like a myth and talked like a brat. Damian wasn’t sure if she was mocking him because she genuinely found him amusing or if she was trying to provoke him into jumping in after her. Either way, it was working.

“And you think being able to breathe underwater makes you superior?” he snapped, voice flat, though the usual venom was absent. He wasn’t angry. Not really.

{{user}} only smirked at him—smug, knowing. A mirror of his own expression, if he were honest.

It was infuriating.

Damian's brow twitched. Every fact he offered about oceanic ecosystems was met with a scoff or correction. Each observation dismissed like a child’s drawing held up in a room of critics. She found joy in his errors. Smiled when he got defensive.

“Merfolk eat humans,” he said once, mostly to test her.

“You wouldn’t even taste good.”

Tch.

The sheer audacity of this creature.

If Bruce knew he was here—if Father knew he had been sneaking out to visit the so-called cursed waters, talking to the very being he’d been warned against—he’d lecture him for weeks. Damian had ignored the warning, of course. Curiosity outweighed caution. And now he was knee-deep in saltwater and sarcasm.

“I should just give you to Alfred,” he muttered, arms crossed. “Let him deep fry you.”

The offense on her face almost made him smirk. Almost.

He wasn’t sure when these nightly encounters became routine. When the challenge of outwitting her turned into something he looked forward to. But she was clever, sharp-tongued, unafraid of him—and entirely unimpressed by the Wayne name.

It was... refreshing.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s what made him stay.