"Although I have estimated your weakness," Damian held the reins with one hand, dressed casually without wearing any protective gear, overlooking everyone from horseback, "I didn't expect even such idiots to trip you up."
Commoners, Baia read from Damian's gaze, he was disdainful of being angry with them.
Baia expressed her disagreement with hands on hips, "How could Max allow you to ride out?"
"I told your servants I was coming to pick up their boss," Damian said, "and I'm fulfilling that promise. Now, get on."
Though reluctantly, Damian reached out a hand, but Baia didn't pull him onto the horse. Chestnut's nostrils were wet, panting heavily. Despite being a high-priced, pedigreed horse that had won numerous awards, it hadn't been trained for a long time and its stamina was starting to decline.
"Chestnut needs to rest."
"It doesn't," Damian asserted confidently, patting Chestnut's neck, the chestnut horse shook its head, "I've tamed much more dangerous and unpredictable horses than it. I know its limits. Kenning and Blake's excessive pampering almost ruined it, I'll take it away from that life of idleness and restore its honor!"
Damian's declaration meant: I've taken a liking to this horse, from today onwards this horse will be called Robin Horse, and this square will be called Robin Square.
"Wait, you get down! Who gave you—"
As Damian's gaze fell on the boy who spoke, he fell silent.
The scrutiny of the Demon's Son made the assassins all shudder, but in order to disguise himself as a relatively ordinary boy, Damian's chilling gaze lasted less than a second before moving away, almost making the others think it was an illusion.
"Get down? No problem," Damian said, "as long as you can bear the consequences."
No one knew why a boy under 10 could exude such a strong sense of oppression, looking completely different from the civilian girl Baia. Because Baia never had any airs, Jennifer and her friends never thought they might face charges or the like, but now they were hesitating.
Damian wouldn't sue them; he would only give them an experience they would never forget.
And Baia definitely didn't want to see Damian beating anyone up, so she quickly grabbed Damian and, with a leap, mounted the horse. "Let's go!"
Because there were too many people around, Chestnut lowered its head, panting heavily, and scraped the ground with its front hooves, shaking its tail like an irritable bull, scaring the high school girls into a frenzy. The only one who noticed something was Vanessa. She noticed that when Baia mounted the horse, she didn't use the stirrup at all, she just lightly jumped and swung over.
Only those who had tried it knew how difficult it was. Either she was deeply passionate about horsemanship, or her agility and jumping ability far surpassed her peers'.
The latter basically meant she was quite capable of fighting.
Anyway, she watched Baia and Damian ride off into the distance, lost in thought.
Baia Wayne didn't seem to be what she appeared to be.
"You rode a horse on the road and no one stopped you?" Baia asked Damian.
"There were," Damian said indifferently, immersed in the joy of riding freely, "Metropolis PD."
"What?!"
"Superman."
"What?!"
Damian said nonchalantly, "Superman said he wanted to talk to me about traffic, but I confused him, so he didn't stop me. The traffic cops didn't dare to come over either."
Baia felt a headache coming on. "What are you doing in Metropolis?"
"Looking for you." Damian stopped Chestnut at the entrance of the complex, and the cooperation between Chestnut and the boy seemed rather authoritative, "Drake sent me."
"Tim?" Baia hadn't figured out the connection yet. Damian tied the horse downstairs, he would buy a place in the garden downstairs for Chestnut to stay, keeping large animals in a high-rise was too stifling.
Back home, Damian lounged in a chair and looked at Baia, legs crossed. "As the sole heir to the Wayne Group, I originally planned to take over the Wayne Group directly, but father has no such plans at the moment. I've guided Drake's work a few times, and he told me you're also starting a company."
"So," the young man stood up, hands behind his back, stopped in front of the huge French windows in the living room, overlooking the view of Metropolis, "I can offer you some help and take this opportunity to prove my abilities to father."
Baia understood, Timothy was annoyed by Damian, so he sent Damian to annoy her.
Damian's abilities were absolutely not a problem.
As the heir of the League of Assassins, Talia expected Damian to also become the controller of Wayne Enterprises. Therefore, commercial training was essential, and it was definitely better than her, who had stumbled into the business world without any prior experience.
She just feared that his personality wouldn't be able to get along with Max's group—no, Max was fine, Tony was the nightmare.
Baia covered her face with her hand, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay, I'll accept you then."
"Very well," Damian said proudly, "as the CEO of Stark Industries—"
"...Wait, how did you become CEO?!"
Currently, the CEO of Stark Industries in name and in reality was Tony Stark himself, with Caroline handling finances. Baia, strictly speaking, didn't hold any position, but as the second-largest shareholder, her words still carried weight.
"Let's discuss the division of roles in a meeting tonight," Caroline said, leaning against the bar, "Um, I've already rented office space, temporarily using BOSS's high-tech warehouse in Metropolis as a laboratory. Also, we have a few new departments, so there are some follow-up matters to be handled."
Though Baia understood the theory, she was clueless about internal management and interpersonal relationships. "Since Damian is here, you can coordinate with him."
"This little baby?" Max, eating cornflakes, asked, "Speaking of which, did he come to pick you up? He kept pestering to ride Chestnut. I only agreed because he said he was coming to pick you up after school."
Damian scoffed at Max's suspicion. "Yeah, I wouldn't break such a promise."
Baia nodded. "He came. Oh, by the way, thank you, Damian."
"Huh?" Damian was taken aback.
The green-eyed girl smiled, "Thank you for helping me out of that situation."
"I didn't do anything," Damian said, looking away, "If you can't handle such small matters on your own, you might as well quit this family sooner rather than later."
Baia changed the subject. "Caroline, have the walker assembly line and Friday's marketing been settled?"
"Indeed," Caroline proudly puffed up her chest, though Max mocked her, saying it was useless. However, as the conversation progressed, her tone turned worried. "But the money is still owed. You know, tens of millions sound like a lot, but it's not nearly enough for this kind of investment."
Apart from medical devices, Tony also allocated one of Friday's servers to develop an app. Though it was operated by Friday, according to Tony, its functionality had gone from artificial intelligence to artificial idiocy, but it could still crush all AI software on the market.
"It's okay, the money will come," Baia reassured.
After all, now that Damian was here, investments from the League of Assassins wouldn't be far behind.
"And there's a product launch in half a month," Caroline checked the schedule, "Mr. Stark released a small-scale demo version of Friday, which caused a great response in the industry. Many tech companies want to know what we're doing... and there's also a tech expo next week, we hope to send a few representatives to attend. And you've received a reply from Professor Valerie whom you contacted."
"So many things to do," Baia rubbed her face.
"Forget about it," Max said cheerfully, "how about some cupcakes?"
"Oh, right," Damian's sharp gaze fell on Max, "What's Kenning's use? She didn't do anything?"
Caroline explained helplessly, "As you know, because of my father's fraud case, I have a serious credit problem."
"So?" Damian asked.
"It means," Baia realized the connection, "that Max was the one negotiating the contracts? The contracting party thought she was the one they were dealing with?"
"Yes, I posed as her assistant and handled things behind the scenes!"
"Haha," Max licked the cream off her fingers, "When the waves rise, who can resist?"
Baia immediately became alert. "We don't need anyone trading on their looks!"
"Don't worry," Caroline said, "she's just used to it. We have a few rules, the first of which is no sleeping with the contracting party."
Max's appearance and figure were impeccable, though her mouth lacked a filter, with Caroline keeping an eye on her, she seemed quite reliable. Even if she couldn't help but make a few lewd comments sometimes, it was considered part of her personal style.
Baia pulled out her phone and searched for two hashtags on Twitter: "#StarkIndustries" and "#Friday." The hashtag for Friday was slightly more popular, but overall, both tags only sparked a small response. However, she noticed a comment mentioning "Stark Industries having a 'strongly individualistic' female CEO."
The accompanying image depicted Max, standing tall on a red background, wearing professional attire with two buttons of her shirt undone, sporting sunglasses, and flaunting her wavy hair. Honestly, she looked both chic and sexy without any hint of vulgarity.
...Even though Max could arguably be considered the employee farthest from the "CEO" designation in the entire company.
"Speaking of which, does Damian count as child labor?" Baia asked.
"I'm just guessing it might not be appropriate for him to negotiate business deals," Caroline also glanced at Damian, who was currently earnestly reviewing the contracts and forms she had just given out, and he grunted lightly in response.
Damian lifted his head. "You have too many stray cats and dogs here. It's inconvenient for me to come over. You should get rid of them sooner rather than later."
The implication of his words was quite clear: Robin would come knocking at night, and there couldn't be any disturbances from miscellaneous people.
Max immediately declared, "I'm the stray cat."
"Also, shameless Todd clearly had ill intentions when he stayed here the other night," after Caroline and Max left, Damian informed Baia of another piece of news. He looked particularly angry as he spoke, "I told you that evil Red Hood wouldn't just do something nice out of the blue, that dishonorable—"
Baia interrupted him, "What did he do exactly?"
"He kidnapped Ace," Damian slammed his fist on the table.
"Oh, you mean he took Ace out to play," Baia said.
"Even you blindly trust that guy, as expected—"
After dinner, when Damian left, Baia stared at her phone for a long time. Then she opened a chat window and typed intermittently, deleting many times before finally hesitantly pressing send.
"Would you like to go to the Thursday Comic Expo with me when you're free?"
The response from the other side came quickly.
"I'm free."
Baia glanced at the message quickly, then placed her phone against her chest, humming happily as she lay back on her bed.