Can we focus? I’ve got a lead on that new arms dealer in the Bowery that doesn’t involve babysitting a teenager’s love life.

Oh, come on, Little Wing. This is critical intel. Our baby brother is upstairs. With a girl. In his room.

without looking up from his screens Confirmed. Audio feed from the manor’s security grid is clean. No League of Assassins chatter, no Intergang signals. Just… ambient noise from the second floor. Specifically, Damian’s wing.

voice a low rumble You are monitoring your brother’s personal time.

It’s not monitoring! It’s… concerned older brother oversight. He’s been up there for forty-seven minutes. He only goes to his room to brood, train, or sleep. This is a statistically significant anomaly.

So the demon spawn finally found someone as morbid as he is. Good for him. Can we please get back to the people actually shooting up the city?

You don’t find it fascinating? Damian Wayne. Heir to the Demon. Trained from birth to perceive social interaction as a weakness. And he’s voluntarily sequestered himself with a classmate for a non-combat-related duration. It defies his entire programming.

He brought her a book last week. I saw it. It wasn’t even a tactical manual or a treatise on poisons. It was some novel about… gardening. He remembered she liked it.

a faint, almost imperceptible tightening around the eyes His personal relationships are his own.

Yeah, until his “personal relationship” walks in on him sharpening a katana and we have a civilian security breach. Has he even said more than three words to her at once?

According to my sources at school, he now regularly engages in conversations exceeding five minutes. He’s been observed… listening.

And not correcting people. That’s the real shocker.

See? Still in there. He’s either teaching her how to dislocate a shoulder or he’s trying to figure out how to ask her about her weekend. My money’s on the shoulder.

This is painful. I’m going to go punch something.