Damian hated socializing nights at the Wayne manor. Whenever a party started, all of the other once-Robins retreated into the batcave to play cards and squabble, and Damian Wayne jerked on a tuxedo and gelled down his spiky hair. He and Father did nothing but loiter and indulge in pointless small-talk for the next several hours. The servants cooked, Pennyworth became the most Pennyworth he could, and Wayne manor lit up in a swirl of food, cocktail lights, and chatter. It was the perfect smokescreen for an assassination. If Father wasn't capable, it would've driven Damian mad.

He never gained anything of worth from the parties. Sometimes he did, but most of it was sandwiched between gritting his perfect teeth into a smile and tolerating idiocies from everyone. Civilian rich people, Damian thought, were listless. Even Drake stuffing his face at the hors d'oeuvres table and feigning interest in this prattle would've been a welcome sight. Drake might've been one of these people deep down-he grew up with money in the bloodline, after all. But at least Damian wouldn't have suffered alone.

"What a handsome boy," the older woman said. Her sequin-slicked dress glimmered like the champagne glass in her hand. She looked capable of tearing out someone's jugular with her manicured nails. Not that she could, Damian thought. They needed to be more reinforced than that and her wobbly, powdered arms had no strength. But the illusion was there. "He takes after you, Mr. Wayne. Which school does he attend? There are some fine private establishments in north Gotham. I know my grandnephew goes to one."

Her eyelashes were twice the average length and twice as black. The ermine stole around her neck stared at the walls with dead eyes. Damian felt a kinship with it. The smell of hairspray overwhelmed him.

"I have private tutoring here for him," Father said. "I wanted to stay close to my son, but I wanted to make sure he got the best education available. You never know what's in a curriculum now."

He cut an elegant figure in his suit and it was absolutely ridiculous. Damian hated the foolish way he held himself. He knew a disguise was necessary, but he still wanted to wrinkle his nose at his Father's tomfoolery. Father enjoyed it too much at times.

"Too true," the older woman said, placing her red, manicured claws at her droopy throat, and Damian wondered if she was a vulture in human skin. "You do never know what they're teaching nowadays, or what the quality is! What do you think of being taught at home, Mr. Wayne Jr?"

Damian wanted to tell her she was the most frightening thing he'd ever seen and she'd catch alight if she ventured five feet from a flame.

"I enjoy the experience," he said. Father patted him on the head.

She sent him a treat basket after the party. It included candied fruit, a bowtie, and a 3DS with Animal Crossing.

Damian sampled a fruit, fed the rest to Bat-Cow, gave the bowtie to Pennyworth for ironing, and scrutinized the console. At any other time, if he'd been in a different mood, he would've thrown the game away. His inspecting it came down to a matter of mood and chance. But the day was favorable, and Todd stubbed his foot on the door and put Damian in a good mood, so he turned on the DS.

The opening to the game consisted of cheery visuals plastered on a country home. Further ventures after the customization screen revealed a village populated with animals. Damian immediately felt patronized.

"Wow, she really mistook you for being eleven," Drake said through a mouthful of cereal. Damian made a face at his avatar. "I remember when the first one of those came out."

"Mistook being the key word, Drake," Damian said. He prodded at a dog villager named Isabelle. She looked like one of Father's secretaries in animal form, but more competent. A stream of conversation bubbles began. Damian mashed A and skipped more than half of them. "It doesn't surprise me this drivel entertained you."

Drake shrugged. "It was something to do. I got my village to city size before I lost the cartridge. The villagers are probably all living in the neighboring town, now, instead of overgrown mini-Gotham. I'd have moved too."

If younger Drake had liked this game it meant it was nerdy nonsense. Damian didn't steal Todd's terminology too often, but that one was accurate. Even Grayson applied it sometimes. Damian made up his mind to let the game molder under his bed until Pennyworth threw it away. He and the butler knew that Damian leaving something under his bed meant it wasn't desirable. Pennyworth always asked before he threw things away, of course-for all Pennyworth's verbal savagery, he was a butler-and Damian never reconsidered.

The game never left the DS and Damian let it collect dust on his nightstand. He forgot about it for two weeks and returned to training, crime-fighting, and his tutoring. Damian did not expect to find himself sitting on his bed one evening and thumbing the console switch on. He walked around the village and found it more overgrown than the start. Already, the villagers ambled around their ugly town and trod on the weeds. Damian only spotted three inhabitants. Interesting, he thought. The game must've operated on a real-time system. He poked at a weed. His avatar pulled it up.

Weeding was part of this game. Weeding. Damian snorted to himself.

"This is pathetic," he said. He shut the DS off without saving and prepared to sleep. He had a training day with Grayson tomorrow.

For whatever reason, Damian did not throw the game away. He swept the dust from the DS, and the night after training with Grayson, he turned it on again. Maybe it was due to the conversation with Drake. Todd once said that Damian one of the "pettiest little fucks I've ever met" and Damian admitted he wasn't wrong. Wasting time on this game to spite Drake for-some reason was very petty.

But Damian felt the cheery game was challenging him. Most challenges didn't come in the form of swaying weeds and a virtual town for animals, but this one did. Todd loathed rubix cubes but he'd sink fifteen minutes into solving one. It was about besting an adversary because it was there, for whatever reason, and Damian always tied up loose strings. This concept was the same, he thought, plucking more weeds. It was more indirect. But this game was in the way of winning. Somehow.

Playing meant he hated himself but not playing meant he lost. Damian Wayne didn't tolerate losing.

Damian played the game in what bored spare time he had. He always made sure no one else was around, even Pennyworth, and settled into his room after a knife-throwing session or two. Sometimes he sat next to Bat-Cow. She continued chewing her cud and ignored the glowing screen.

The little animal people helped. They grated on Damian's nerves, but he felt less compelled to kill them than if they'd been people. The game mechanics didn't allow neck-snapping anyway. He'd checked. Damian arranged some houses, caught some bugs, and improved the local atmosphere. There. Adjustments done. If taking care of Gotham was this easy, he and the others would bore themselves to death.

Damian watched a stranger filter through his town. The noseless white cat wasn't a familiar resident. She'd likely snuck in when he'd left Isabelle in charge of proceedings.

"Who are you?" he demanded. He checked.

"Purrr," Olivia the cat said. "Oh hey! I've been hearing people talk about you. They're saying you don't speak politely."

Damian narrowed his eyes. "You don't know who you're speaking to." Bat-Cow lowed.

Olivia returned to her house. After invading it and examining it, a feat slightly easier in the game than in real life, Damian found he approved. The rude cat had decent taste. It seemed dismissive of his breaking and entering. As snooty as she was, he was cultivating an upscale neighborhood. He made his rounds and checked on the other residents.

"Master Wayne, dinner is ready."

"Coming, Pennyworth."

Damian saved and hated the fact he'd sank five hours total into this game.

Three weeks and fifteen hours of gameplay later, and Damian understood why children enjoyed this game, even if he hated it. He mashed a button and went about one chore after another with a sour look on his face. Children liked chores, variety, and bright colors. This game was nothing but those. The insipid thing had a night mode, too, and Damian wasted two hours of sleep examining the town and night villagers. Grayson didn't comment on his grumpy mood the next day.

"Who poisoned your cereal?" Todd said. He shoved Damian's cereal box out of the way and sat down.

"No one," Damian said. "If anyone's cereal is poisoned, it's yours. Not that you'd know with how fast you swallow it."

Todd gave him a look that appeared both half dead and dangerous. Damian wisely quieted. He reached for his milk and let Todd crunch his cereal in silence. A normal Todd was an irritable Todd, but in a familial manner. A Todd that had barely swallowed his too-strong antipsychotics and sensed a headache coming on was irritable and not in a familial way. Damian almost preferred unmedicated Todd. Medicated Todd looked like some of his more dead-eyed villagers.

Damian wanted to break Animal Crossing in half and throw it in the garbage. Then he wanted to fume at himself for ever playing. But he couldn't break it: it was an investment now. He'd sank over fifteen valuable hours into tending his virtual village and pleasing villagers he wanted to strangle on principle. With every fuming stint of attention he dug his grave deeper.

Damian had a hate-hate relationship with everyone in Damian Manor. He seethed every time he saved and closed the game. Every in-game conversation tested his patience and each public works project made him fonder of the idea of mass murder-but then he came back. The residents of Damian Manor possessed a mayor who loathed them, but there wasn't a weed on the street.

"I'm watching you, Chadder," Damian said. "Don't you dare move out after I made arrangements for you."

The cheese-colored mouse bobbed around his porch before entering the house. Maybe he was a character, but he complimented Damian frequently, and Damian suspected ulterior motives lay beneath his mousy exterior. Chadder knew who the leader in power was. He groveled like any power-seeking snake. Damian an inch above tolerated him. Chadder knew how the world worked.

It was possible to teach the animal villagers different phrases and ways of addressing him. Besides teaching them "Todd sucks," "Drake is a twit," and "We meet again, Master Wayne!" Damian corrected his villagers to proper address one at a time. He had ten to educate. Isabelle became a great help when he reset several gibberish addresses.

(They were gibberish only because Grayson barely knocked and gave him no time to hide the DS and Damian crammed it into one of his pockets. Damian told Grayson he'd been meditating. Grayson bought it. Damian had to correct several villagers from greeting him with "We meet again, Masterr Wayunmf").

A white bear villager approached.

"What's up, Master Wayne?"

"Impudent," Damian said. "But good. You've learned. 'What's up' is your reward." He decided to reward Tutu by purchasing her favorite coffee. An obedient subordinate was important.

His watch beeped. Damian blinked. Four PM. He'd spent over an entire hour playing this game in one sitting, and while Drake, Grayson, Todd, and Father were off being productive. Damian hurried to the save menu and almost cracked the DS with the force he shoved it into a drawer. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What would Father think of his tardiness? No, he knew what Father would think. What would Grayson think? His strides to the training room grew swifter.

Criminals, highly-trained scum, and nuisances all plagued Gotham and Damian Wayne wasted time figuring out why other ten year olds enjoyed a game he didn't. "You should've thought this through," Grayson said in his mind, and Damian cursed and thought I know, Grayson, I know. He flew through the training room doors.

"I'm here," Damian said.

"You're late," Father said. The others already stood on the training mat. "I'm surprised at you, Damian. Go partner up with Tim."

"Yes, Father," Damian said.

The first pair on the mat were Grayson and Todd.

"Not a good idea," Drake said, his voice low. He had his hands wrapped after spraining a wrist during the last outing. Drake always reminded Damian of a muscular noodle. "Jason's meds have him half knocked out and Dick hasn't slept in 48 hours."

"48 hours is child's play," Damian said. "I'm surprised at you, Drake. Don't you spend twice as often obsessing over details?"

"Yeah, maybe," Drake said. "But I'm not the hardcore perfectionist fighting the irritated vigilante who's half ready to drop his medication, and I don't have a grudge against Dick either."

Damian almost laughed at Drake claiming that he wasn't a perfectionist, but he had a point. He assessed the fight again. The main issue here was Todd. If he felt his antipsychotics hindered his performance in any way, he'd drop them. It would return his vigilante edge to him. It would also return unmedicated Todd to them. Damian suddenly realized that no, he did not prefer unmedicated Todd at all.

"Should we intervene?"

"No," Drake said. "That might make it worse. Stretch and pretend we're not watching. You should be able to distract Dick at the end, and I'll distract Jason. We'll pair off with them instead."

Damian considered the plan and stretched to show his agreement. Tim stretched next to him without a word. Grayson and Todd began their spar, and Damian snuck a peek at Drake. They both had spiky black hair but Drake's managed to flop around twice as much. Sometimes, between all the wisecracks, Damian forgot that Drake disliked him more than he disliked Drake.

Unlike Todd, Drake could hold a grudge and remain civil. It was a dangerous skill. Damian reminded himself how dangerous it was while Grayson and Todd brawled on the sparring mat. Kindness covered for a multitude of other motivations.

Twenty three hours on Animal Crossing. Damian wasn't sure how angry he was with himself. He settled for chewing on a cookie Pennyworth had made and gaining more bells. Damian watched his avatar amble through several jobs. This was another concept children probably liked.

Grayson was very big on self introspection, even if he never said it outright. Father brooded and went through the same motions. Damian didn't need to be on their level to know what he was doing. He crunched through the cookie and thumbed to another job.

"I'm glad you're being a child for once, Damian."

Father made the mistake of saying that once when Damian bought a bright piñata for training purposes and he'd never said it again. The extra layer of understanding and saddened amusement made Damian's skin crawl. Father said plenty without words in that sentence. Father would only look amused if he found about Damian's game. Everyone else would have no shortage of quips.

But that wasn't the problem either. Damian knew his thick skin rivaled Todd's. Father wasn't the issue here. On top of this being a thoroughly humiliating experience, Damian Wayne would not admit to anyone he wondered what being a child was like. He lived in the body of one, and the others commented on his lack of maturity, but Damian felt disconnected from the children he spied in the park. He was superior, of course. Yet superiority didn't close the gap.

He wasn't telling anyone. He definitely wasn't telling Grayson-if anything, telling Grayson or Drake would be far more humiliating than Todd. Because Todd would mock him, and then he could kick the shit out of him, as it were. Todd understood this and wouldn't care to probe the subject. Todd wouldn't look at him with misplaced pity.

Pity from Drake was the only thing worse than pity from Grayson, but the two were close. Damian gave up on his evening game. He shut it down without saving. The DS lid flipped closed with a clack, and Damian tossed it into a corner. Over a month and he still didn't feel the happiness he understood other children felt. The game couldn't do anything for him now. Maybe Drake wanted it.

"I really don't have the time to play this, and I haven't touched any of these games in years. But, uh, thanks, Damian."

"You're welcome, Drake." Damian grinned and took pleasure in Drake's squirm of discomfort.

Drake laughed, more nervous than he'd ever admit, and flipped the game box around. "Did you check it out?" he said. "That'd be a sight to see. You playing Animal Crossing."

"No, I did not," Damian said. He'd deleted his file before handing the game over. Drake would never know. It was a shame that some villagers didn't remember their catchphrases. He restrained a laugh.

Damian Wayne was a child without childhood. He could look at all the pictures from it and not find anything Grayson found in his memories or even Drake found in his. Everything looked like a bright, sugary, pixelated blur he couldn't experience. That was fine. Damian Wayne was also an extraordinary exception.

I intend to keep being one, Damian thought.

"Hey, Damian. Are you keeping the 3DS?"

"That depends."

Drake gestured the Animal Crossing box at him. "If you are, I could recommend a few games. I knew a few you'd like more than Animal Crossing."

Drake had that clever look on his face that reminded Damian why Father had ever made him a Robin. He also looked ready to beat Damian with the extended olive branch. Damian wasn't sure how, but he still looked ready. The youngest Robin narrowed his eyes. This was an offer of peacemaking at the most miniscule level: if you hate me slightly less, I'll hate you slightly less, and things will be easier. Of course. Even Isabelle would understand the situation.

Drake's smile faded as the silence plowed on. Damian tapped a finger on the table.

"Well?" he said. "I can't sit here all day waiting on your list, Drake."

Drake's smile returned, as if he'd never doubted anything, and Damian sat there while he rattled off titles. Sometimes Drake was less complicated than one of his villagers. Approaching him and pretending to listen raised his complacency. But some of these titles didn't sound bad.

Maybe Grayson was interested in multiplayer.