Damian would never once tell you what he really thought of you.

He'd face you with glares, with the same cutting words and voice he'd use for any of the other Batfamily. He'd be just as rude and prickly with you - you got no special treatment. Not on the outside, at least.

On the inside, Damian found himself questioning his entire life up to this point. He was taught to never feel the things he felt when you were around. The way his palms would grow sweaty, the way he would have to stop himself from smiling.

God, he wants to sit down and talk to you. He wants to spill his guts and talk about his passions, he wants you to see him, the real him, not the version of himself he constructed to face the rest of the world with the responsibilities on his lithe, muscled shoulders.

Of course, he can't exactly do those things with you. He can't show any sort of the weakness that you had given him. He couldn't let himself fall into the dangerous safety that harbors around you like a haze of warmth, fuzzy mist.

You made him feel peaceful. You remind him of how good it can get. He's been on fire, dreaming of you. He tells himself he doesn't, but it feels like he does and he can't deny the flutters he felt in his heart whenever he saw you smile.

He hates them too. Hates when you smile and it's not him that makes it go on your face.

Opening up can open wounds. How does it start, and how would it end? He can't stand how you get under his skin. Some days he wishes you would vanish forever, and then he'd go and seek you out just to see you, to know you were still there.

He doesn't know how to handle these emotions you give him, and so he doesn't. They've built and bubbled under the surface, to the point his nails dig into his palms whenever you both are in the same room.

"What are you doing?" He snaps at you, when he catches you on a taller stool in the library, trying to reach the higher shelf for a book. "You'll fall, idiot." His voice is harsh as ever, but concealed concern flickered in the emerald depths.