The Demigod and The Robin

Chapter 36

—————Percy's POV: —————

I could tell almost immediately that Damian was upset. His usual brooding look was amplified to the point where I swear he was going to mimic that super guy and blow holes into the walls with his eyes, maybe even massacre the school with the glares he was sending. When we got to the entrance I had to send small glances and sympathy waves to others passing by as a way to say sorry for Damian's death stares.

When we slipped into the car he didn't even look at me and instead focused on some homework that he wrote so hard on he broke the lead off his pencil three separate times.

Alfred hadn't even acknowledged Damian's mood, much less tried to cheer him up. As I glanced at Damian I figured I was the last resort and yet first line of defense here so with a deep breath I moved myself to sit closer to him and leaned over trying to catch his eye to talk to him. Instead all I really caught was the sight of the paper set out in front of him. The lines he'd created were so dark they nearly looked like black ink, and it was blocky like a child's writing. I'm not sure what had made him so mad, usually I heard rumors of Damian. It was an oddly commonplace thing within a school of people who were so rich it was almost dizzying, I mean seriously, didn't they have anything better to do? But back to the point, I did hear stuff, though it was never told directly to me because people caught onto the fact that we were friends, but I heard people with my Demi-senses as the stolls had called it and could usually pick out new rumors, including the ones that I was a leech who was only friends with Damian for his money and notoriety. I tried to ignore those ones. But today I heard nothing, not a single piece of drama or rumor or anything as to why he could be upset right now.

"Damian," my voice cut through the silence "are you okay?" Damian made no motion that he'd heard me, another snap coming from his pencil as the wood met the page.

I waited a moment for him to answer but when I received no response I tried placing a hand on his shoulder. I watched him flinch so violently my hand recoiled back as quickly as possible. His eyes snapped up in that instant and I could only describe his glare as murderous rage, though as quickly as it had appeared it softened into a slight annoyance though he tried to hide it.

"Sorry, what?" I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd held and continued.

"I'd asked if you were okay, though I think I know my answer." Damian shrugged, the pencil dancing in his hand as he forced it to twirl between his fingers.

"I'm..." he glanced at me, maybe he realized there was no use in lying because of what had happened, or maybe he felt bad but I believe he actually followed this with the truth. "I'm pretty pissed."

I gave him a half smile and raised an eyebrow. "You think?" His face eased a bit more as he brought up his freehand to his face to rub away his anger.

"I'm sorry, okay?" I shrugged.

"I'm not mad, I just wanna know what's wrong." Damian watched me for a moment before looking back to his paper. I thought he was going to go back to ignoring me again but he actually began telling me.

"We have a group project in one of my classes, I've known these kids for a while right? And I thought they'd all be super...super helpful, but instead I feel like I'm just continuing to put out fires and trying to do everything by myself. I mean no one believes me when I said that we need to start doing background checks-" he paused, looking over to me before sighing and looking back to his paper. When he continued he sounded a bit disappointed. "Just check the sources better. I mean, I was appointed group leader for a reason but it's like they don't even want to listen to me. I just don't know what to do." He didn't look back at me.