Chapter Text
Damian always thought that the whole "New kid is revealed to be hiding something sinister" trope was a sham. It seemed interesting on the surface, but in his opinion, it just seemed too...generic. Boring, if you will.
He barely notices her when she walks into the room, only looking up to catch a glimpse of her bright yellow jacket, strands of black hair peeking through a white, skull-patterned beanie. He looks back down at his own desk as soon as she turns, his eyes skimming over the notes he had made yesterday. Damian taps his pen on the table with a hum; Biology wasn't tough, in fact — he felt right at home with it — many of these passages and more had been a common sight in his childhood, surely it wouldn't be too difficult. A quick skim through his syllabus and a few early readings should catch him up, which meant he could allocate even more time to his comics –
Until his professor had decided he wasn’t "challenged" enough.
Damian glares at the message on screen. ‘Canvas inbox: BIOLOGY ASSIGNMENT 1A’. He sets his phone down on the table in fear of cracking the screen out of irritation and sets it beside his plate, his gaze cold and distant as he stared out into the cafeteria. It had only been what? The second week? And already the new biology professor was getting on his nerves. A true ‘wrench in his plan’ as one would say.
His frown deepens when Mia pokes at his arm, her voice clear despite the blaring noise of the other students. "Your burgers gonna get cold." The corner of Damians lips almost quirk up as he picks the burger up from the plate, his finger pinching the corner of its wrapping and pulling. "Let me sulk in peace." He mutters as he takes a bite out of it, his face scrunching up for a moment at the slightly wilted lettuce. Eugh.
"After I had to hop the fence just to get our food? Yeah, sure." Colton laughs as he adjusts his shades, picking a fry off of Pomelines tray with a grin. "I dont get why they don't allow food deliveries on campus." Damian comments, pausing for a moment to pick at a piece of the veggie patty that was stuck between his teeth. "It's food. Why must they be so strict about it?" He knows the answer, but he figures he should make conversation with the club more often.
"So the cafeteria earns more." Pomeline snorts, shooing Colton away from taking more of her fries, her newly manicured fingers wrapped tight around the thin cardboard. "And it's a safety thing too, since a lot of us here are, well — you know—" She shrugs, and Damian could hear Mia's hum of assent as she chowed down on her rice meal. His eyes wander around the hall, letting the others conversation continue on in the background as he started to ruminate on his week.
When Olive finally comes around — fresh from resigning from her position as a campus guide — Damian scoots to the side to make room for her as she sat in between him and Maps. "Olive." He greets her with a nod, lightly snorting at Maps' enthusiasm as she hugged Olive tightly. She waves to everyone, eagerly reaching for the brown paper bag that Damian hands over to her. "Second week, and we're already doing so much." She laughs as she stabs the end of her straw through the plastic lid of a soda cup. "Wheres Kyle?" She asks, the ends of her hair tickling Maps' nose and making her face scrunch up with a smile. "Practice." Maps replies with an exaggerated frown that Damian laughs at.
"How'd the resignation go?" He decides to ask, bringing the straw of his cup to his lips and biting down on it. Olive sighs and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Not too bad — they had me do a last minute tour." She explains, and Damians eyebrows raise in intrigue.
The new girl. He thinks, his mind conjuring up the image of her with her back turned, the only unique thing about her being her skull-patterned beanie.
Curious, he makes a quick scan of the other tables, he wouldn't expect her to have a circle so soon, but with how easy it was to please the people in his class, it wasn't impossible. When he doesn't find that nor her jacket, he glances at the line of students, his shoulders hunching slightly in disappointment at his fruitless search.
He grabs his phone and turns it on, scrolling through his scarce notifications and shooting a quick message to his mother. 'I'm thinking of joining the soccer team.'He texts back to her before putting his focus back towards the group again. Without missing a beat, Colton leans forward, eager to pull Damian back into the thick of the conversation. "Y'still planning to leave?" He asks, his grin softer this time.
"Yes. I'm afraid I can't take too many clubs on at once," he chuckles, and Mia can only sigh, readjusting the flower clip on her hair and clipping it back into place. "Why our club though? You're a great detective! And you contribute so much to DnD night!" Damian shakes his head and purses his lips. "I'm still allowing all of you to use my house as a meeting place." He averts his gaze and clicks his tongue, "It's not like I won't talk to any of you either." Maps rolls her eyes and lightly shoos Olive to the side, resting her hands on Damian's shoulders and lightly shaking him.
"It's not the same without you!" She insists, her voice dropping to a groan to stress how dire it was. The others start to chime in, eager to change his mind. The conversation moves on like that, and Damian ends the discussion just as the bell rings, his decision final.
"I'm leaving the detective club." His voice is firm, the groans and protests of the others cutting through his declaration; all he does is laugh at them and roll his eyes.
All of them stand up to leave, making sure to pile up the trash on their trays and making a beeline towards the bins. Damian drops his trash into the biodegradable bin, careful to drop the plastic utensils in the nonbiodegradable one. He lags behind the rest of the detective club, stretching back with a yawn. When they all separate and return to their respective classes, Damian takes his seat close to the wall.
He reaches behind him, unzipping his backpack that was slung over the back of his chair. Damian rummages through the items, pulling out his notebook and his pencil case, turning back around to set them on his desk. He looks around the room, surveying his classmates. A few sat by themselves, minding their business, but many gathered at desks that weren't even theirs, locked in conversation with their friends.
His attention sharpens the moment his eyes meet hers. Bright, emerald green staring into an icy blue.
When he catches sight of her yellow jacket, he quickly looks away, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck with a gulp. His heartbeat feeling awfully loud. He bites his lip and stubbornly keeps his head down, refusing to look up unless needed. Damian is almost tempted to walk over to one of the gathered groups close to her, make it look like he hadn’t meant to look even if he did—
The professor enters the room, halting his plans to salvage his dignity. He tries not to look too gloomy during the period, his eyes periodically glancing over to the girl, his heart jumping with every move. Damian looks at the whiteboard, forcing his mind to work on the equations at hand. How he wishes he listened to Coltons ridiculous advice about wearing sunglasses. "It'd suit you," he mockingly whispers Coltons words beneath his breath, still seething at his blunder. Damian looks towards the board, watching as the professor wiped it clean and began to write questions for the class to solve up front.
Damian was quick to raise his hand, but someone had gotten to it before he did — "Nika." The professor smiles as she gestures for the student to walk up front. Damian, like many of the other students, turn to look at her.
Nika, or, skeleton-beanie – as Damian had been referring to her – quickly walks up front, her pale hand reaching for the marker offered to her. She goes to where the first question is, uncapping the marker and starting to write. The speed with which she went at was impressive, and Damian could spot the approving looks from his competitive classmates as she solved the problem. Nika boxes her answer, handing the marker back to the professor with a small smile.
When she walks back to her seat, Damian catches the momentary glance in his direction. His gut churns and he looks away with a frown, still feeling the embarrassment from earlier clawing at his chest. Should he approach her? Could he even approach her? Did she think he was weird? Was he weird, or—
The bell rung, and Damian was more than thankful for the reprieve from his mistake. He lagged behind, just to make sure he wouldn't be crossing paths with Nika. He walked alongside a few of his classmates, making idle chatter with them as they walked towards the art room, hoping he could take his mind off of that embarrassing mistake.
He clicks his tongue and mentally runs through his ever-growing list of nuisances today. Irritations that he hoped to relieve of once he got to the end of the day and was finally able to head towards the student affairs office and switch clubs. Damian easily slips out of the conversation as soon as they get to their classroom.
He makes a beeline for his seat, immediately setting his bag down on it, asserting his claim over the chair. To him, it was the perfect spot. When his eyes catch sight of a yellow jacket moving closer, he was quick to pick his bag up again, turning away to the seat on the other side of his. Only to have another put their claim over it.
Great, just great.
Damian can feel his palms itch and his throat burn from the internal, silent scream that he lets out. To his chagrin, he sets his bag beside his chair. Hurriedly taking out his supplies and refusing to ever let his gaze set upon where the girl would be. He hopes that the start of class would be enough to distract him, that today’s assignment would bother him just enough to outshine his shame. But of course, like many of his hopes for today, they were crushed.
Geometric forms. So painfully simple.
Damian grips the pencil in his hands tightly, thumb pressed against the wooden part of the pencils point as he stared down the page. Should he finish as soon as possible? Should he go slower? That all depended on how fast Nika would be drawing, but his ears are failing him today as well; unable to pinpoint the noise of her pencil scratching against paper amongst the similar echo of the all the others in the room with them. Damian bites his lip and begrudgingly starts to work, the lead tracing lightly on the page despite how much he wanted to drag a dark line down the sheet. It’d be foolish to look, to look would be to admit that he was interested — something he does not want to convey to the new kid.
In over his head, Damian fails to take into account how far back he's pushed his sketchbook past the edge of his table and it falls, hitting the ground with a thud, the pages rustling as he crouches down and fumbles to pick it back up.
A pale hand brushes against his and his heart leaps out of his chest. Damian fights down the furious flush of red that shines through the tip of his ears.
“You alright?” The thick russian accent is what he notices first, second was how low and smooth her voice was. Damian takes in a breath and nods, “Fine.” He responds, keeping his gaze down on his sketchbook as it was handed back to him, nipping at his bottom lip when he realizes that his own accent has slipped out. He wishes he didn’t have to stand so close to her any longer, but her outstretched hand opened up to offer him a handshake.
“I’m Nika.” She smiles, and Damian notices the small bit of black lipgloss smudged in the corner of her lip. Not wanting to be mistaken as a creep, he jerks his hand forward and eagerly takes the handshake.
On second thought, the subtle scrunch of her nose at the contact likely did the opposite. He fights back the urge to visibly cringe when he realizes this, and quickly pulls his clammy hand away. “Welcome.” He stiffly adds, a chill running down his spine at the awkward interaction, an emotion that increases tenfold when Nika simply gives him a nod in response before turning away and walking back to her seat.
Damian sets his sketchbook back on his desk, opening it up to the page he was working on. He could finish this in a matter of minutes, the figures being something he has worked with since he were a child — he figures he shouldn't be so meek when it was clear that no matter what he did, he’d look like an utter loser to the transferee.
Curious, he cocks his head a little to the side to catch a peek of Nika’s work. He’s taken aback by how good it looks at such a short time — scratchy, sure — but good nonetheless. Not as precise as his hand, but clearly she had a good grasp over basics. Self-taught, he deduces.
A thought in the back of his head nags him. Maybe this could work after all.