In his arguably short time alive Damian had faced highly trained assassins, hordes of undead warriors that reeked of long forgotten battlefields, monstrous clowns and deranged serial killers all without batting an eye.

But a faint scent of rosewater and lavender was all the warning he got before the arrival of something more dread-inducing and disturbing than any of those things. Stephanie Brown had become one of the most consistent and reliable people in his young life, in that she consistently and reliably tormented and nagged him on a daily basis. A thousand and one insults sprang instantly to mind at her approach, but he forced himself to swallow them all for the sake of appearances though he didn't stop faintly scowling. After all, today he was supposed to be a 'normal' child, or as normal as the formerly-secret-or-unknown biological child of billionaire Bruce Wayne was expected to be, at least. Casually threatening to find his knives and stab the Brown girl if she started up on her nonsense again would likely ruin the illusion. Besides, for whatever reason she tended to brush off his threats with infuriating non-chalance and continue whatever idiotic thing she was doing. Once she had even had the nerve to [i]laugh[/i] in response, as if he'd said something FUNNY.

For similar reasons he didn't bother resisting for more than a few fractions of a second when she ordered him to stand up in that bizarre tone of voice she always used. Long, painful experience had taught him that she would merely continue annoying him until he gave in or left violently and either way causing a scene now would jeopardize his cover. He wasn't sure how to respond when she moved to properly tie his neck-tie, though fortunately it was over before he even had the chance. He didn't think to hide the drawings from her either but was distracted from the thought as the blonde Batgirl commented on the suit.

James Bonde was a ridiculously bad spy from the movies Damian had seen, but the man was effective enough as a killer and a life among assassins and (necessary) doomsday plots with a (falsely maligned) global terrorist organization made the films strangely, familiarly appealing. More importantly the idea that he could at least manage to still look dangerous in a suit even if he didn't feel like it was...acceptable for now even if they still seemed idiotic. 

For the sake of his cover he had to bite back an insult about lacking a girl to escort when she brought it up, then scowled even more when she ordered him to leave his sketchpad behind though he made no move to pick it up. Less than a year ago anyone foolish or arrogant enough to give him orders without backing it up via skill or blood would face immediate retribution. 'No' of any sort had not been a word he'd heard often. Now though oddly enough, he found himself going along with her now without thinking. The prospect of it allowing him to see Drake in an even more miserable state than himself likely did a lot to mitigate his pride. He even allowed her to put an arm around his shoulders and instead focused all of his pent up irritation and annoyance at a photographer, making a face that made arsenic-laced lemons seem sweet. Even the public knew he despised media circuses and he took a certain amount of enjoyment out of making the man squirm.

His rage at the picture potentially ending up in another one of those vapid periodicals on celebrity children evaporated as Batgirl pointed out Kate Kane and how likely it was that she and her aging grandmother could beat Drake in a fight. Nobody was ever sure he had actually smiled in a truly happy, non-predatory way but in the moment he visibly almost laughed, decided it would be too out of place and undignified and suppressed it while settling for a casual smirk.

As they waited for Kate and company to approach he tried to remember to put on his best 'normal child' impression while remembering how he had acted around her in their few previous high society meetings. He hated acting for strangers but it was necessary, of course. He projected a cheerful, jokey smile that was surprisingly, purposefully similar to Grayson's on a good day and said with full, precociously happy mockery:

"Hi Miss Kane! If Tim's your date to the wedding, shouldn't he be wearing a dress that goes with your suit?"

sometimes having to act childish out of necessity had its advantages.