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Winter was harsh in Gotham, but this year that godforsaken city had outdone itself. Damian was pretty used to the cold, having been raised at the foot of the Himalayas, but he never enjoyed its frosty bite. He would die before admitting it to anyone, but he enjoyed being warm. In a night like this, with snow piling up on Gotham’s rooftops, and icy wind slashing at skin like harsh sandpaper, he would like nothing more than curl up with a book, his animals piled up all around him, the soft heavy blanket Grayson got him for his birthday two years before on his lap and a steaming mug of Alfred’s famous jasmine tea.
He had none of those things at the moment, however, and as he hugged himself a little to protect from the cold, he wondered if he would ever have them again.
Alfred was gone, his home was his no more and had been abandoned to remain empty and cold. His animals… he shook his head, trying to focus back on what he should be doing.
It was the night before Christmas, and Gotham was as crazy as ever. Even crazier, lately, with his father having to fight against the rising antihero sentiment and the batfamily scattered and broken, after having lost their cornerstone.
The old clock in the main plaza stroke Half to midnight. On the previous years, at this time, they would be getting ready to head out for patrol after Christmas dinner. It was a tradition, to reunite all together for Christmas, one that even father and Todd tried to respect. He wondered if the rest of the family had respected it this year as well.
Without him.
“Focus, Damian” he said under his breath, looking out to the city. Getting lost into useless feelings would take him nowhere. He had decided on this path and he should do his best to follow it, no matter how lonely it was.
He fired his grapple gun and swung away from the quiet neighborhood, heading for the seedier parts of town, being careful to avoid his father’s usual patrol routes.
As he got closer to the docks he picked up some movement. A group of men was dragging a small struggling form on the plank of a ship.
The ship was unnamed and looked one blown from sinking. Saying it looked suspicious was a dire understatement.
He dropped silently behind a container nearby and posed to listen, ready to strike.
“Move, you little witch!” one of the tugs said, shoving the little form so hard they fell on their knees.
The little form -no bigger than a kid, noted Damian biting his cheek in anger- turned on their aggressors with a snap of teeth, like a cornered animal. They had a matted, unruly mass of black hair that almost hid their small, dirty face, but Damian managed to see a pair of fierce, almost grey eyes burning with fury.
It was a little girl, younger than him from the looks of it, barely dressed and definitely underfed, sporting a big metal collar around her neck with a bright red light in the middle.
A dampening collar.
Meta-trafficking.
Right under his father's nose.
He cursed, trying to rein in the absolute disgust rising in his throat like foul tasting bile. He had to think. He was extremely outnumbered and had to move fast. The ship looked ready to sail. Were there more captives abroad?
...should he call his father…? This looked too important to let something as petty as a fight put innocents lives in danger.
No. There was no time, he told himself, as the three men managed to get a hold on the feral girl, and successfully carried her on board.
He braced himself. He needed to be perfect.
And perfect...he was not, he thought bitterly, as one of the tugs got a lucky shot and managed to get a lucky blow, smashing something hard and broad on the back of his head.
It hurt like a motherfucker, and threw him forward against a hard metal wall.
Things had seemed to go smooth at first, as he stealthily got into the vessel, located the girl sitting in a cage and started working at ridding her of her collar.
She didn’t even seem startled to see him, looking at him with a glassy stare that seemed to go straight through him.
They had probably drugged her with something. It was when he was about to cut the last wire that was keeping the damned thing active that they found him, and in the small cramped cell he could do nothing but take it, being as it was that moving would have meant the blow hit the girl straight in the face.
His ears rang and vertigo assaulted him, as he fell hard on his back. This was bad. He could feel his consciousness leaving him, the edge of his vision blackening.
The finishing blow he expected, however, didn’t come. He heard something clutter to the ground by his head, men grouting, someone screaming. The lights all around them started to flicker, the pavement he was laying on rippled, adding to his nausea and he closed his eyes tight, feeling like he was lost in a maelstrom. Was this how he was going to die? He didn’t want to die. He had so many things he regretted. So many things he had been wrong about. He wanted to see his father, he wanted to see Grayson. he wanted to ask for forgiveness from Alfred. From Tim. From Jason. From…
...Jon.
He hadn’t even said goodbye to Jon. He had been too afraid of his judgment. But now he would give anything to see him again. One last time.
With that thought in mind he forced himself to roll to his front, even as his head felt ready to break in two and warm blood cascaded from his probably broken nose. He felt the storm pick up around him and he tried to open his eyes a crack to find a most unlikely scene in front of him. The girl, floating in midair, a hurricane of lightnings dancing all around her, men screaming, running, abandoning ship, as the sea swallowed them with waves like the tentacles of monsters.
His breath hitched and the girl turned towards him, her eyes white and luminous.
She cocked her head, and her feet came back to the ground.
She smiled.
Damian just gaped as the storm quieted down and the ship stopped rocking.
The girl hopped up to him and crouched down, her face level with his.
She extended one hand toward his head and Damian flinched back.
“No…” she said, as her thick eyebrows knitted in worry “ouchie”
Damian did his best to stay still, letting her pet him. He had to gain her trust if they were getting out of here alive.
“You…” he croaked “you alright?”
Her smile widened “I free! I thanks” she simply answered, and cocked her head again.
“How?”
“...what?” he answered, confused, feeling not at all brilliant.
She touched his forehead with her pointy finger, seemed to think a little and then brightened “Jon!”
“...WHAT?”
“You go see him now” she stated happily, and her hand came to rest on his forehead covering his eyes.
“What…? UNHAND ME ME GI-”
Then a blinding pain erupted behind his eyelids, and his vision went white.
Unconsciousness finally came, as some old clock far away struck the first chime to midnight.
“...an”
“...AMIAN”
“DAMIAN”
A voice was calling him.
Even more, a hand was on his shoulder, shaking him.
Annoying.
“Would you just wake up, you lazy bum?? We only have 30 minutes for lunch and I’m hungry!”
Very annoying.
Just as annoying as…
He opened his eyes abruptly, and shot up in his seat.
His seat, as in he was seated on a chair, his arms resting on a small wooden desk.
A school desk.
He was at West Reeves, in what he recognized as his biology class.
In front of him, arms crossed, stood one very pissed Jonathan Kent.
“Well? Are you back with the living? Miss Garrot wasn’t impressed, by the way”
“I...Jon?”
“Who else should I be? Queen Elsa from Arendell?”
Damian slowly stood up, to find his eyes just one inch below Jon’s.
“This can’t be real”
Jon’s anger morphed into worry.
“Dami…? Are you ok?”
Damian extended a hand -which he realized in shame, was trembling- toward Jon’s face, but he managed to stop himself a few millimeters from actually touching him.
“How can this be real?” He muttered to himself, but of course his friend heard him.
“Ok, now you are scaring me. Are you feeling bad? Should I call Alfred to come pick you up?”
Damian flinched at the mention of the beloved butler.
“...Alfred?” he asked.
“Yeah, you know...your butler? Omg, have you lost your memory? Do you know who you are? WAIT. DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” Jon half yelled, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him like a doll.
Annoyance won over bewilderment and he pushed Jon off himself.
“Alas, I do, jonathan Kent, stop fretting”
“Oh, phew! You scared me! You were acting all weird!”
“And you are twelve” he muttered again.
“Ehi! You look ten yourself, so we’re even! I’m taller anyway!” Jon protested, his tongue jutting out..
“and I’m….older” he said, more to himself than to Jon, which seemed not to notice, as he fell back into their usual banter.
“yeah, yeah, and I’m starving. Can we please move on? We lost ten minutes to your nonsense already”.
For lack of a better option, and needing to gather intel on the situation, Damian followed after Jon in the familiar, and yet completely unsettling routine they used to follow every day in the year they attended school together.
He must be dreaming, he reasoned with himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he dreamt of being back with Jon, back to happier times. His latest nights, the ones when he actually managed to sleep, were usually plagued with dreams, dreams of his past days as Robin, soaring through Gotham with his father, dreams of late winter nights playing chess with Alfred, and warm spring afternoons at the farm with Jon. This fitted right in. And yet he couldn’t remember falling asleep. He couldn’t remember anything from the previous night...and it all felt so real…
“Hey! Earth to Damian Wayne!” Jon called him, startling him away from his thoughts.
“You gonna pick your food or what? Jeez, where are you today?”
“I….yeah, sorry”
“You, apologizing? Ok, I need to call our dads. You’ve clearly been replaced”
“Shut up”
“Now that’s more like it”
Damian grabbed what used to be his usual veggie sandwich and paid for it with his school card, coming to sit with Jon at their old spot by the entrance.
“So, what’s up with you?” Jon asked, peering at him over his ridiculous glasses.
Damian frowned at him.
Was this a dream? If it wasn’t, was it some kind of time travel? Or maybe a toxin induced vision. It didn’t feel like it. And he felt like he was forgetting something important.
“Nothing. I just had a weird dream”
“A dream? What was it about?”
Damian bit his lip. Did he dare?
“Well… I dreamed you had gotten lost in space and came back 6 years older after just three weeks of being away”
Jon stared at him frozen in mid-bite “...what”
“And when you can back you left right after to join a legion of superheroes 3000 years into the future”
Jon swallowed wrong and had to grab his bottle of water with super-speed. Damian was so intent on gauging his reaction that he didn’t even reprimanded him for using his powers in public.
After coughing his way through the whole bottle, Jon looked back at him.
“Well, that sounds stupid”
“Why? Wouldn’t you want to join such a team?”
“Were you there with me?”
“I...no”
“Than thanks, but no thanks. I have a team already. Also jeez, D. How the heck did I manage to get old in three weeks? Omg, did I have a belly like that weird old version of you in the parallel dimension?” Jon asked with dread.
Damian huffed “ I said 6 years older, not 60. and no, you had no belly” You looked all kind of amazing -he didn’t add- Like a real superhero.
“Well, either way. Sounds stupid. I would never leave you behind to join some weird team in the future. I wanna stay in the present. With you”
Damian felt a pang in his chest.
This wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare. Some twisted game of his mind, or maybe some kind of specific hell made just for him. Was he dead? Was that what he couldn’t remember?
“Sap” he said in disdain, turning his face to hide his uneasiness.
“Jerkface”
The rest of the morning went by without an itch, the weird dream-nightmare going on and on without a single glitch in the matrix. Apparently, it was late December, last day of school before winter break, as everyone kept talking excitedly about their holiday plans.
For whatever reason he had found himself in the period before Christmas last year. The second he ever spent knowing Jon, and, he realized with dread, the last one as well.
What had they done last year? He could barely remember, being as it was, mere weeks before the whole Bane mess and wedding fiasco -not to mention Alfred’s death- befall them.
This was, he realized, the day before the winter holidays Jon decided to spend with his cursed grandfather.
The holidays that took him away from Damian.
“Damiiiiiiii” Jon called from behind, his screaming voice getting closer and closer.
Damian had barely time to brace himself as his friend came careening down the stairs to loop himself all over his back.
“We are free!!!!!!” He screeched in his ear, lulling him left and right slightly.
“So did you give some thought to my offer? Are you gonna come?”
“I...what?”
“Ooooh, come on! Don’t you try that with me! I talked your ears off about you joining my family for our planned Christmas holiday skiing trip in Maine! Are you coming, yes or no?”
Damian blinked.
He remembered now.
Jon did indeed talk his ears off for weeks about it, back in the day.
And Damian had refused.
He had told him he had patrol to attend and that he had no time to waste, and missions with the teen titans to lead.
He had seen Jon’s heart break and he had not given it a second thought.
Jon, already heartbroken for the Titans refusal to let him join and the whole ordeal with the future Drake, had decided to forgo his holidays all together and go meet his kryptonian grandpa, while Damian had gone into an off space tragic mission that led to the disbandment of his first teen titans team.
That was the December he had lost all of his friends.
“Please say yes!” Jon added in a small voice, his hands coming together in prayer under Damian’s nose.
If this was indeed a dream, it was a cruel, wonderful one.
“Of course” he answered, his heart skipping a beat as Jon’s face lighted up in joy.
He even hugged back when Jon threw himself in his arms.
If this was a dream, Damian was going to take full advantage of it.
As they left the building and Jon talked incessantly about their upcoming holiday, something else occurred to Damian.
His heart sped up.
Jon, as always hyper aware of all of his reactions, stopped walking “ Dami?” he asked.
Damian felt his legs itch to run.
“I have to go”
“What?”
“Sorry, Jon, I have to go!”
"But-”
“I’ll call you later and I’ll see you tomorrow, 7 am sharp as you told me!”
“Alright! Don’t be late then! say hi to Alfie!”
Alfred.
Alfred Pennyworth.
He was alive.
He was waiting for him.
He must be.
He ran and ran, as fast as his legs could carry him, which was considerably so.
He usually didn’t show the full extent of his athletic abilities in public, but at that moment he didn’t care. This was but a dream anyway.
He tore through students, vaulted over fences and burst into the field Alfred would usually wait at with the chopper.
It was empty.
His stomach dropped.
It didn’t make sense. If this was a dream of the past, a play of his tired brain, why wouldn’t it give him Alfred? Was this actually hell after all?
His pocket buzzed.
He picked his phone up trying not to let his hope rise.
From: Pennyworth
Master Damian, good afternoon. I saw you speeding towards our usual meeting spot, but I must remind you that unfortunately today the chopper was not available and we had to opt for the longer route by car instead. I apologize again for this inconvenience”
He started running again, a smile taking hold of his face.
He burst into the parking lot, to find it almost empty.
There was only a black, shiny Rolls-Royce, the old butler standing in front of it, smiling at him.
“There you are” he greeted him kindly, opening the passenger door.
Damian didn’t know what to say. He just stared at the man, drinking him in.
His stark winter coat, the old fashioned hat, the gentle smell of cologne that always surrounded him.
The smell of home.
He stayed silent, as they crossed the school gate.
“I was wondering, young master, if you might like to accompany me on some errands today. I know you must be tired, but I need to make some purchases in Metropolis for the upcoming Christmas feast, and as we are here already…”
Damian had said no the first time around. He had huffed and grumbled, dragging his feet. Now he felt like the luckiest kid in the world.
“I do not mind, Pennyworth. I’d be happy to accompany you!” he said with a small smile.
The butler hid his surprise well, allowing only a smile in return to show his pleasure.
Some time later found them sitting at a quaint cafè. He had a big mug of hot chocolate and some cinnamon rolls, while Alfred was sipping Earl gray tea with some cookies.
“I’m glad you accepted master Jon’s offer, lad” Alfred was telling him, as Damian explained to him his plans for the following day “we shall begin preparation upon getting back to the house. Do you think we should buy some new winter gear? I think we still have your brothers’ old ones, but I bet you’d like your own”
Damian shook his head “No, I can use what we have. i don’t need anything new. We are only staying for 4 days after all. We’ll be back for the morning of the 25th”
“If you are sure”
Damain nodded, taking a slow sip of his warm drink.
Alfred put his own down instead, and Damian felt his grey eyes fix on him.
“My boy, can I ask you a question?” he asked, with the gentle tone he used to sport any time he wanted to have a serious talk.
“Of course” Damian replied, not wanting to deny the man anything.
“How are you?”
Damian stopped mid-drink, looking up from the brim of his mug.
“Why do you ask me that?”
Alfred sighed, squinting at him a bit “You look...pensive”.
Let it be known you can’t hide anything from Alfred Pennyworth.
He debated about what to tell him, rolling the mug in his hands and looking at the dark liquid slosh around.
“Can I ask you a question instead”
“but of course”
“If… if you ever...got the chance to fix your mistakes, would you take it?”
“Fix my mistakes?”
Damian shrugged his shoulders.
“Your regrets. If, by magic, you got transported back to the exact time you know you made the biggest mistake of your life, and got the chance to change your actions, would you take it?”
Alfred seemed to ponder it. It was one of the things Damian liked best about him. He always took him seriously.
“Well, I guess I would. Who wouldn’t want to fix their mistakes? I do think, however, that pinpointing what you might consider ‘your biggest mistake in life’ is hard. Life is a chain of events”
That was true. Even if for some miracle this wasn’t all a dream, even if he managed somehow to stop Jon from going on that trip, the teen titans might still leave. Bane might still happen, and Alfred might still die. Not to mention the paradox of it all. You don’t play with time travel.
“But- Alfred added, stopping his musing- if I did know for sure, and I could fix things, I would at least try. Fixing your mistakes, erasing your regrets, is something one so rarely gets to do. Most of the time we live with those scars all our life”.
“But...what if you don’t deserve it”
Alfred’s eyebrows pinched together at that.
In an unusual gesture of closeness, the old man grabbed his hand, and squeezed.
“Master Damian” the old butler said with gravitas “anyone deserves a second chance, and you most of all”
“But I had my second chance, and third! And I keep hurting everyone!” he retorted, feeling his eyes burning painfully “I don’t deserve anything! I ruin everything I touch!”
“You most certainly do not!” the butler stopped him, with unusual fervor “you got dealt a bad hand, my dear boy, that’s for certain. But no matter the circumstances, you keep trying to play it to the best of your abilities, and that in itself, is worth of praise”.
Damian felt the tears run hotly down his cheeks, but for once he did nothing to hide them.
Supremely proper as always, Alfred Pennyworth busied himself with asking for the bill and paying it, giving the boy the time to collect himself.
Damian had forgotten the last time he felt so light.
When he finally got home, he ran to his pets, and hugged each one of them long and hard.
Titus gave him a full faced lick session for his trouble. He went out to play with him until the sky turned dark.
As he got back in, he ran into his father. Uneasiness filled him, and he braced for the fight that would undoubtedly break out. It seems it was all he and his father could do now. Fight.
His father smiled at him instead.
He patted him on the head and Damian was too surprised to stop him.
“Alfred tells me you are joining the Kents in their skiing outing. I am glad”
“...you are?”
“Of course. You deserve a break”
“But...what about patrol…?”
“You don’t worry about that! I want you to have fun!”
“Plus" another voice called from behind his father as a pale arm snaked around his neck “I’m here to keep an eye on him, kid. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get into trouble” said Selina Kyle, gently kissing a huffing Bruce.
The next morning he waved goodbye to Alfred from the Kent’s car and he had to fight the lump in his throat.
He wondered if he would ever see the dear man again.
When they turned the corner Jon patted him on the arm making him turn “Come on. You’ll see him again in four days!”
“That’s right!” Lois added as cheery as her son “we are coming back with you to Gotham too! Bruce, invited us to lunch!”
“Really?” both boys exclaimed .
“Yup! but first, we have a mountain to conquer!”
Fifty minutes later found them already in Portland, which by normal driving standards would have taken them from 5 to 6 hours of highway, but since Clark Kent was a cheating cheater than cheats, as soon as they had driven out of the city limits and into a side street, he had picked up the car and super-sped it into the air.
“It’s like in Harry Potter and the chambers of secrets, we have a flying car!” Jon clapped his hands in glee.
You can actually fly, hayseed Damian didn’t say, opting instead to just shake his head fondly.
“Where do you put all that food?” he complained as Jon triple chocolate pancake rolled in, topped with a mountain of whipping cream, berries and marshmallows.
“I need to fuel up to snowboard later today! We have to hit all the black, most dangerous slopes! Or are you scared?”
“Me? Scared of black slopes? I learned how to ski on the Himalayas when I was three”
“Yeah, you seemed to have learned a lot of things when you were three. Except when to shut up”
“Boys” Clark reprimanded them with a smile.
“I’ll make you eat my dust Kent” Damian concluded under his breath as he stabbed into his avena pancakes with vigor.
It felt so weird to sit here with the Kents, like a normal family out during Christmas break. How long had it been since he had allowed himself normal? Last time he was with the Kents must have been the summer of the previous year, before that dreadful summer when they got kidnapped by a squad of children villain replicas.
It felt weird.
But good weird.
Two hours later -as they decided to cover the last strip of land actually driving, for some reasons- they parked their car in the Sugarloaf mountain hotel. It was a three stars hotel which normally would have caused Damian to wrinkle his nose. But the place looked cozy rather than shabby, and compared to his latest abode, in an abandoned drafty place with just a ratty blanket and only Alfred’s pictures for company… Yeah, he wasn’t going to think about that.
Jon, of course, loved it. His enthusiasm reached max level when her mother handed them the cards to their very own room.
“No funny business tough” she admonished “no going out at night, or crime fighting, or staying up all night. behave, we are here to have fun”
“Yes ma’am” they intoned, and rushed off to find room 52.
“Can you believe this? We can stay up late watching movies, and oooh, we should totally stock on sweets and popcorn, AND NOODLES, DAMIAN WE HAVE TO FIND THE NOODLES, I CAN HEAT THE WATER UP WITH HEAT VISION AND-”
Damian slapped a hand on his mouth as an old couple passed them giving them odd looks “and you can shut up! Yes we can get your stupid noodles, but zip it!”
Jon laughed it off, throwing himself on the pristinely made bed as soon as they got in.
“This is the best Christmas ever!” He exclaimed.
Clark and Lois left them to go get their skii-passes and gear, leaving them to their own devices. Jon had a pretty clear idea of where to drag him to.
“They have Christmas markets! Look!” his eyes were shining.
Damian smiled in return. He couldn’t help it.
It was pretty crowded too, being lunch time, and at one point, he found his gloved hand clasped into another one. “You’re so small, I might lose you otherwise,” Jon joked.
“Shut up. You’re just stupidly tall” but he didn’t let go of Jon. He didn’t want to. Ever.
They got pretzels and warm apple juice, and Damian was even talked into getting small gifts for everyone at home, even Drake, for whom he got a knitted red mug warmer.
He ignored the ugly voice in his head telling him he’d never get to deliver those gifts. He relegated that voice to the back of his head, leaned into Jon’s warmth and decided to live in the moment, like he had never allowed himself to do.
When they came back from their first afternoon snowboarding on the best slopes, and Jon had his fill laughing when a man tried to stop Damian from getting on the ski lift cause “Small children aren’t allowed on the black slopes” they retired to their room, promising they would do as Lois had asked.
“Look what I got!” Jon exclaimed excitedly bringing a load of boxes inside “the hotel had table games you can borrow!”
“I’m gonna annihilate you, J”
Later they both fell asleep while watching a movie, and if Damian curled into Jon’s heat as close as he could, legs tangled with his, no one had to know.
It was just a dream after all.
He woke the next morning with his face pressed into a warm shoulder, Jon’s chin resting on top of his head.
His face lit up in shame. WHAT HAD HE BEEN THINKING THE PREVIOUS NIGHT?
He had never, in his life, slept so close to someone. And Jon, of all people! He had to get away! The other boy would be weirded out. He pulled back very slowly, using all of his ninja training to make sure Jon didn’t wake up to find him stuck to his side like a leech.
He failed of course. Jon’s eyes cracked open as Damian started to shift, and his hand automatically got a hold of Damian’s t-shirt, as if to keep him in place.
“tt- unhand me Kent”
Jon blinked a couple of times, looked down at his hand fisting Damian’s shirt, blushed redder that his cape and let go in haste.
“I...omg, sorry. Did I wake you? I tend to hug my pillow when I sleep and---I didn’t disturb your sleep did I…?” he asked, his voice getting smaller and smaller.
Damian had never slept better.
“I...no. Plus this is your bed. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep on it”
“I don’t mind” Jon smiled his 1000 megawatt smile “you’re warm”
Damian felt warm. Especially in the region around his cheeks.
“TT” he went to splash his face with freezing water. Get a hold of yourself, Damian Al Ghul Wayne. It might be all a dream, but you are a disgrace.
It was a weird few days for Damian. At first, his mind tried to force him to fall into his usual habits. Scanting remarks, sarcasm. But as the hours went on, he found out he didn’t want to resort to that. He allowed himself to be soft, to open up more. It was but a dream after all. He could do anything. Be anyone. His mind was a safe place where, for once, he could be free.
No one was there to judge him. To tell him he was less than adequate. No one would be surprised, if instead of scoffing at kindness, he would answer with equal kindness in return.
Jon seemed elated, answering to his change of pace with shining eyes and the biggest smiles. They seemed to be like two magnets, never wandering too far from each other, and when they were close, trying to get closer. He leaned into Jon more, holding his hands, sitting by his side, their knees touching, heads close to one another as they laughed at some funny video on Jon’s phone during breaks. Jon, in return, laughed into his shoulder, rested his legs on his lap, hooked his arm through his.
If Jon’s parents noticed the change, they said nothing. And why would they? This was Damian’s dream. Nothing could go wrong.
Which is why on the third day, he called back home.
His father answered at the second ring, and they talked of all and nothing.
He didn’t think he had ever called his father just to chat. He asked after his animals, about Alfred and the others. His dad told him Tim and Steph were coming back for Christmas, and so was Jason. He even added, quite hopefully, that Barbara had talked to Ric. That he was alright, and seemed less closed off. He joked about Selina wanting to give everyone a rescue cat for Christmas.
Hope sounded good on his father. He could almost see him in his mind, a slight smile turning one corner of his thin lips up more than the other, left eyebrow quirked up, a single dimple almost appearing on his cheek. The same dimple he himself had when he let himself smile.
On the morning of the fourth day Damian woke up with a mounting feeling of dread.
He was, as he had gotten used to in the last three days, all tangled up in fluffy warm blankets, and Jon’s even warmer arms. The boy was a hot furnace. He didn’t know how he had never noticed it before. It was like he radiated heat. He wondered if it was a kryptonian thing.
The feeling constricting his chest only got stronger when he realized it was the 24th. The last day of their holiday. Was it going to be the last of his dream as well? What was going to happen after? Would all of this disappear, like a cloud of smoke, and leave him back in cold Gotham, all alone and broken? Or would this fantasy world go on forever? An endless dream. Should he want it to be one way, or the other?
If this was a dream, he didn’t want to wake up.
Maybe it was actually purgatory. Maybe he was dead again, but this time the heavens decided to give him one last gift for the few good deeds he managed to accomplish. If that was the case, he hoped that what waited from him on the other side was blissful nothing.
Strong arms tightened around him, and he felt a nose nuzzling his head, before a loud yawn broke the morning stillness.
“Good morning D” Jon muttered into his hair. “And happy Christmas eve”
“Happy Christmas eve to you” he muttered back into Jon’s t-shirt.
“Guess we should get up. Mom said they had a surprise for us today”
“A surprise?” Damian looked up “and when did she say that?”
“Well… at some point”
“You eavesdropped”
“...kinda? She wasn’t really trying to hide it”
“so what is it?”
“No idea. she didn’t say THAT aloud”
“TT. I don’t like surprises”
“Well, I do. So suck it up, as a Christmas present for me”
Their surprise was waiting for them in the clearing nearby the hotel when they came back from the slopes in the late afternoon, in the form of two big wooden sleighs. They were painted with bright reds and greens, decorated with garlands, and looked like they could sit about nine people each. In the front there were two beautiful chestnut horses, and Damian couldn’t help but run up to them to stroke their flanks.
“Do you want to feed them?” the men obviously in charge asked him, as he was giving small bits of carrots and sugar cubes to the children around to let the chestnuts eat from their hands.
Damian accepted gratefully, caressing the big head of the horse that was burying her nuzzle in his outstretched hand.
“The hotel organized this outing to go sleighing under the moonlight up to an historical wooden cabin and have our Christmas eve dinner up there!” Lois explained.
“It must be crazy expensive!” Jon exclaimed.
“Well, I wouldn’t know” Lois joked, and rested a hand on Damian’s shoulder “it was a gift from a very special pointy eared elf” she winked down at him.
His father.
This was his doing.
“Well? Which one do you choose?”
For once Damian didn’t mind being short. He and Jon got to sit at the very front, near the driver, who handed them a fluffy blanket for their legs with a kind smile.
He gently signaled to the horse to go and they started to glide over the snow as the sun lowered down the horizon.
Jon held his hand under the blanket the whole time, pointing to small animals he could spot all around with his superior eyesight and hearing. Damian looked around in wonder, his breath fogging the air in front of him. A lantern swayed in front of the horses, casting a faint orange light on the street, flanked by each side by magical looking trees, dripping with sparkling snow. As the night took hold of the sky the first twinkling stars started to dance in the sky, trembling as Jon’s giggling laughter.
This WAS a dream. And it was beautiful.
Damian wanted to paint it.
If he ever got to wake up, he would paint it before it faded from his memory, to keep it close to his heart forever.
The wooden cabin was cozy and homey, they sat at long tables with jolly strangers, among other kids. The atmosphere was so jovial Damian even exchanged a few words with them, surprised that for once the first reaction they had towards him was acceptance and curiosity instead of disdain and mistrust. For once, he was just Damian, a fourteen years old kid like any other, on Christmas night. The world was alight with possibilities.
Wanna go look at the stars with me, D? Can we go, mom?” Jon asked after dinner over their table.
“Sure, just be careful, and don’t wander too far!”
“Ooook” he sang-song, and presented his hand to Damian expectantly.
Damian took it gladly and together they walked outside.
The sky was a blanket of stars. you could have never seen so many in Gotham.
“Can you believe there are infinite worlds out there?” Jon asked in wonder.
The feeling of dread came back at full force, and he squeezed Jon’s hand as hard as he could.
“Do you… do you want to see them?”
Jon laughed “well, don’t you? Imagine that! So many incredible things! Of course I want to go adventuring through space! Like my dad”
Damian closed his eyes tight, and took a decision, he pulled at Jon’s hand to force him to face him, grabbing hold of Jon’s other hand as well.
“Don’t go without me!” he cried out.
Jon’s eyes widened at the strong sentiment behind his words.
“Dami…”
“No, you have to promise me, Jon!”
“I...of course. We are a team, right? I would never leave without you”
But he did. He DID, and Damian had let him go.
“Promise me” he repeated, hearing his voice break.
He didn’t care.
He was Damian Wayne. He was human, he wasn’t a robot.
He was made of flesh and blood, and he liked being warm.
He loved his pets, and family, and friends, and he had feelings.
So many of them.
He had feelings for Jon.
“Promise me! Promise you won’t go with your grandpa in space and get older than me. Promise you won’t leave to be the superman of the future. I need you Jon, I need you more than them! Your place is here, with us! WITH ME!”
“Wait...what…?Dami? Are you crying?”
He was. He didn’t care. He had to fix this.
Alfred’s words echoed in his mind, as if he was speaking them right in front of him at that very moment.
“If I did know for sure, and I could fix things, I would at least try. Fixing your mistakes, erasing your regrets, is something one so rarely gets to do. Most of the time we live with those scars all our life”
And Damian’s scars were many and deep. But this one burned more than all the others.
“Please Jon,” he said through sobs.
Jon pulled him tight in a hug.
“Dami, that was just a dream. It wasn’t real! I would never leave you! I’m right here, see?” He pushed his forehead against Damian’s and smiled, though his eyes were getting lucid with unshed tears.
“Please don’t cry. I swear to you I am not going to leave you. Ever. I wouldn’t be able to bear it. We are Superboy and Robin, you and I, a match for the ages”
Damian hugged him back, burying his face in Jon’s furred hood.
“Yes” he said smiling through tears “That we are”
He pulled back, looked at Jon’s vivid eyes, they were so close, their fogging breaths were mingling.
A clock was chiming in the distance.
One chime, two, three.
Damian’s vision started to blacken around the edges.
He grabbed Jon’s face with urgency, carding his gloved fingers through his unruly curls.
“Jon, please listen to me”
“Hey, Dami, what..”
“No, don’t talk, LISTEN”
The clock chimed its seventh chime, and the world was crumbling all around them.
The stars had disappeared, the trees were vanishing like a mirage, behind Jon he could see only darkness.
“I care about you Jon. You mean the world to me. And if in the future I will do anything to push you away, know that I did it only cause I am a coward. I am a coward Jon, too afraid of getting hurt to let myself feel”
“Dami, you aren’t-”
Jon’s voice felt feeble, like he was listening to it through water.
And Damian felt cold, the only point of warm left were Jon’s hands covering his.
He had just three chimes left.
“I am Jon. I am. If I wasn’t, I would tell you-
two
“I…”
one.
He came back to himself as the Gotham clock struck the last chime, officially ending Christmas eve.
His head hurt, everything hurt, and he felt frozen stiff.
With difficulty he raised himself to a sitting position, he was at Gotham’s docks.
He blinked, and a tear fell out.
He raised his hand to brush it away, his gloves were warm.
“..what…”
He stood up and looked around, a dampening collar layed broken at his feet.
It all came back to him. The meta-human girl, the traffickers. The lighting storm. The girl coming up to him, touching her finger to his forehead. The pain, and then…
Jon.
He chuckled bitterly.
It had been a dream after all.
A vision, gifted to him by some kind of witchy girl.
This was his reality.
He should go look for her. Although with her powers she could have run off anywhere.
And he was so cold, and tired.
Hungry too.
He should call it a night.
Not that his abandoned warehouse had much to offer, but at least he could get out of the snow. His clothes were damp and frigid with ice.
“Merry Christmas to me” he whispered self-deprecatingly, as he limped back to his humble abode.
The streets were deserted, and he wondered idly if he should look for some food, somewhere.
Too much effort, he would worry about it the next day.
He thought back to that hearty, warm veggie soup they had given him at the cozy wooden cabin…
No. That wasn't real. And if he could still taste the spicy fragrance in his mouth, it was his stupid mind playing tricks.
He had let himself dream the impossible, and now he was paying the consequences.
He was fifteen after all. He should know better than to let himself dawdle in mindless fantasies.
Jon was gone, 3000 thousand years into the future, and he had pushed him there. He had let Alfred get killed and pushed the rest of his family and friends away too. He deserved to be alone.
He trudged up the steep stairs leading up to his refuge, slipping more than once on the icy metal.
When he finally rolled inside, he was quite ready to call it a day.
He turned towards his makeshift bed, wanting nothing more than to crush on it and to never wake up but…
The bed wasn’t there.
He rushed up to it, turning boxes this way and that, but nothing. Not a trace.
Did someone come to steal? HERE? And what about his father black casebook with Alfred’s pictures? That was gone too!
It must have been his father, who else would have the means or care to pull such a stunt?
But why steal Alfred’s pictures too? And his blanket? That was just petty.
He was cold.
He sat on a box, hugging himself, thinking about what to do.
Had his father done that to force him to go back home? Or just to spite him? Was he that petty?
How could he go back home? His mind drifted back to the call he had with his father in his dream.
Should he call his father…? He longed to do it. Hear his smiling voice telling him to come home to eat an Alfred made Christmas lunch. He wanted that so badly, to go home.
Couldn’t his dream have lasted one more day?
Maybe he should try to sleep, maybe he would dream up the rest. He would close his eyes and wake up in Jon’s arms. Then Clark would fly them back to Wayne manor, where his whole family would be waiting. And heck, it was his dream, so Dick would be there too, with his arms opened for a big hug.
He would then change into some inane Christmas sweater belonging to one of his brothers, too long on the shoulders and hanging past his hands, and curl up in the living room with his pets and Jon, watching some absurd holiday movie.
He wanted that. SO MUCH.
He looked at a spot on the floor, he had slept in worse. He could just curl up and…
…
No.
He was tired of running.
He couldn’t live in a fantasy.
Alfred and Jon might be gone, but his father was still there. And so were his brothers.
So were his pets.
He would be brave this time.
He would apologize.
He picked up his burner phone with trembling hands and dialed up a number he knew by heart.
A gruff voice answered after the first ring.
“Who is this?” it asked frantically.
It was his father.
“...father..?”
“DAMIAN? IS IT YOU? Where are you? Are you hurt? Guys, I found him!” he seemed to shout to someone else in the background.
“I… what?”
“Tell me where you are, so I can tell Jon to come pick you up! He had been searching for you all night long!”
“...Jon? Why…?”
“What do you mean why? Boy, talk to me, you seem confused! Are you hurt?”
“I… no. Well, I think I hit the back of my head”
“I’ll tell Alfred to ready the MRI machine down in the cave. Try not to move! Tell me where you are!”
“...Alfred??” he asked, his voice but a small whisper.
“Never mind, Barbara has tracked your phone. How one earth did he get to the abandoned trade center?” he seemed to ask himself.
“Stay put son, We’ll get you soon”
The line fell dead, and Damian let the phone fall to the ground.
What kind of sick joke was this? What was going on?
He curled on himself, laying his head on his folded knees, trying to regulate his breathing, calm his errant heart, assess the situation, and most of all, kill the hope rising in his chest.
A few minutes later, a gentle breeze ruffled his hair, and he felt another presence in the room.
“Dami, there you are” Jon’s gentle voice called.
Damian didn’t dare look up.
It was a bit different than the voice of the Jon of his dreams, but also not as deep as the voice of older Jon.
it was the voice of a boy, just starting to break.
He slowly lifted his head, to find Jon floating down to the ground in front of him, his ripped jeans leveled with his eyes.
Then he crouched down, removing his hoodie and draping it on Damian’s shoulders.
“You must be freezing,” he said with care.
Damian stared at him, drinking in the sparkling eyes, scarless face, and unruly curls.
It was Jon, his Jon. The one still younger than him. The one always by his side.
“Am I… am I still dreaming?” he asked breathless.
“Dreaming? Wow, D, how hard did you hit your head?” Jon joked, helping him to his feet.
“You… shouldn’t be here”
“Why? Wait, are we in danger? Are there enemies close by?” he asked in alarm, looking around scanning the place with infrareds.
“NO!” Damian said in frustration “ I mean, this can’t be real!”
“Why?”
“You left! One year ago you left and then grew up and then left again!”
“I… wait, did you have that nightmare again? The one you told me about during our holiday one year ago?”
“That...what?”
“I told you D. I’m not leaving you. Now can we please go? I know you don’t like to be carried like a princess, but I am starting to seriously worry! Let’s go, the others are all waiting for us!”
“The others?”
“Yes? And we are all starving too! I came up to your room to call you for dinner and you were nowhere to be found! I can’t believe you! First you insist on having a big Christmas celebration with everyone and then you leave for patrol alone? Get ready to have your ears chewed off. Dick is sick with worry, and also, what on earth are you wearing? What happened to your Robin uniform!?”
“...Dick…?R-robin?”
“Ok, Dami, you don’t have amnesia, do you?” Jon asked, picking him up and holding him close.
“I...don’t think so…”
“Well good. Cause I don’t think your family is ready for another amnesiac robin, now that they got back the first one”
This couldn’t be real. He was still dreaming. But if he was...then nothing could go wrong.
“Jon! Jon, stop! I need to tell you something, stop!”
Jon stopped abruptly in mid air, snow gently dancing all around them.
“Can’t it wait? You’ll freeze!”
it couldn’t though. And he felt so warm.
“Jon, I love you”
Jon blinked.
He smiled.
“I love you too, you silly bird. Can we go now?”
“No, I mean, I love, love you. I adore you. I don’t ever want to live without you”
Jon laughed and span them around a little.
“Well good, cause you’re stuck with me” he leaned down and his lips brushed Damian’s.
The other boy circled his neck with his arms in a death grip and crushed their lips back together, tangling his fingers in Jon’s hair, shifting to circle his legs around his waist to get as close as possible to him.
Then the strangest thing happened.
His memories started to change.
Like an unpaused movie, he watched, as things progressed from the end of his dream, as he kissed Jon’s cheek, they went back inside, went to sleep tangled up together.
Then the day after they spent Christmas with his family at Wayne manor, and then on and on. When Bane came, and Alfred got kidnapped, he watched himself kick a wall in frustration asking Timothy what they could do, but instead of walking in alone, he called Jon. And together, as a team, they saved Alfred. He watched his father marry Selina, and Jon drag him to Blüdhaven to talk to Ric. He watched the birth of the Teen Titans academy, and him and Jon walk through its doors, together with Kathy and Maya. When the Joker attacked, his family all together was stronger than any monster.
“So...can we go now? I don’t want a popsicle boyfriend. A concussed one is more than enough”
Damian laughed “yes please. I’m starving”
“Oh,YOU are? We all skipped dinner for your stunt, you brat!”
“Hey, I’m older than you”
“Pppf. I’m taller”
And so on and so forth they went, speeding into the night.
Their families were waiting, and Damian couldn’t wait to wish all of them a very merry Christmas.