A short but sweetie

6:45. Early. Certainly by teenage standards. Any normal teenager would be fast asleep right now, or maybe even just going to bed. But Dick was no teenager, he could easily be up early. And Damian… Damian was anything but a normal teenager.

"If he's gonna be somewhere, it's the training hall." Dick thought as he made his way around Titans Tower, foam coffee cup in hand. He and Kori had talked, and after the couch event of last night, it was time for Dick to do what he really came here to do: talk to Damian. What a treat.

"It's starting to affect the team's cohesion Dick, who knows when the mockery will result in a physical response Dick, it's the real reason you came Dick, it's not my place to talk to him Dick." Kori's voice rang in his head constantly, and more than once he audibly groaned in annoyance. She was completely right. And a great team leader who made the right call. But the right call was Dick having a heart-to-heart with Damian.

"Ughhhh. Fuck." Dick was too distracted to plan what he was going to say. Not like there was some kind of brother-to-brother feelings script to read off either. "Fuck it, gonna have to wing it." Dick entered the training room and, sure enough, Damian was there running a training simulation. Slashing, thrusting, throwing knives, he was really pushing himself. It took him almost 30 seconds to see Dick standing in the doorway. Damian didn't stop training, didn't miss a beat.

"What?" Damian, trademarkedly, asked the man in the doorway, noticing he was wearing his Nightwing uniform.

"Nothing, nothing at all." Dick responded before throwing his coffee cup at Damian. Without hesitation, Damian turned and slashed the cup out of the air before flipping his sword backwards and stabbing a training hologram behind him.

"Next time try something odourless." Dick said as he entered the training room twirling his batons. Stopping just short of the area Damian was using.

"This tower isn't exactly the League of Assassins apothecary, if I had those kinds of resources, the odour would be the least of your problems." Two more holograms came at Damian, he quickly parried a strike then jumped over another. He spun in the air with his sword extended, cutting down both attackers.

"You didn't actually try to poison me did you?" Dick asked as he watched Damian expertly dispatched two holograms in a single slash.

"No Grayson, I didn't try to kill you. The mixture would've just given you an obvious rash over a majority of your body." Damian answered. A flurry of movements and 3 more holograms disappeared out of existence.

"So you did try to poison me. Are you out of your goddamn— Forget it, that's not why I'm here. We need to talk." Dick said.

"About what?" Damian moved to block an attack coming from his right.

"You and Raven."

Damian froze, not long, but long enough to mistime his block. He was hit by a hologram's holospear and collapsed on the ground as he was electrocuted.

"Aha! I knew it! I'm right!" Dick cried in joy. "You might be able to hide behind your stoic, bullshit attitude. But you can't stop your body from giving you away. Some assassin you are."

"Grrr, shut up Grayson!" Was all Damian could get out before lunging at Dick. Dick completely expected this, and had his batons ready to block the barrage of angry attacks.

"Grow. Up. Damian." Dick said between blocks, but he wasn't fast enough to catch everything when Damian was this mad. Damian side-kicked suddenly and caught Dick in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him backwards.

"Damian! Swallow your stupid pride for just one second! We need to talk about this, for real!" Dick yelled as he caught his breath. Damian thought for a moment, and realized it would be to his benefit to figure out what was going on in his head, because he sure as hell didn't know himself. And this was the second time now that thinking of Raven had caused him to screw up, thankfully only in training. But if he froze on a mission, it might have deadly consequences. Damian lowered his guard and walked to the training computer. He reset the simulation and took his fighting stance, steadying his base and putting both hands on his sword.

"Fine, can it wait till after training?" Damian asked. Dick knew he wasn't going to get anywhere meaningful at the moment, and made a mental note to hold back on the jokes for a while.

"If you say so, but I'm joining you." Dick replied as he got to his feet and stretched. Getting ready to fight the horde of incoming holograms.

"Just don't get in my way Grayson."

Boom Shaboom