Verse: Headcanon verse, which is to say it's an AU but none in particular, at least none I've written or really posted before, unless you count a small one-shot AU idea from Irey's point of view here
Disclaimer: I do not own anything but my own ideas, and really, they kind of own me. Irey and Damian and anyone else mentioned in pretty much all of my stuff, unless expressly stated, belongs to someone else. No profit is made, and no copy-right infringement is intended. All good, yes? Then on with the show.
Irey sat across from him, laughing so hard she snorted, her various mountains of food surrounding her on several plate, each piled higher than his one. Her scarlet hair was pulled back in a messy french twist, small curling locks falling out around her face, eyes, and the back of her neck. Her large green eyes were dancing, and her smile was alternately bright and wide between bites, and soft and small when her family, large and loud, launched into a conversation and gave her an opportunity to watch. She was wearing a comfortable autumn dress, done in a leafy pattern of reds, golds, burnt oranges and freckles of fresh green, a soft, utterly Irey creation that fell in loose folds to her knees, a sweetheart neckline and short, loose sleeves, with a thin green ribbon cinching it around her waist, and green flats with good traction.
No earings, because the holes healed instantly, she said, but a golden charm bracelet he gave her for her birthday a few years ago, that they kept adding memories to, a small, graceful necklace made of gold, hand made, with a small, dazzling emerald in the center of a gold lightning bolt he'd gotten her for their anniversary last year, and of course, her wedding ring-a breathtaking creation of carved gold, emeralds, and diamonds, with the date of their very first date carved into the bottom, and a few heartfelt words known only to the two of them-something he knew she only too off to fight, cook, shower, and for undercover missions. To Damian, she was the most beautiful girl in the room.
They'd both grown up, from the small, bickering children who'd pulled each others hair, and never agreed on anything, and had to be physically separated lest he murder her-literally-or she maimed him-surprisingly, also literally. They'd met when they were twelve-well, he was twelve, and she looked it-in the middle of a world-wide invasion of Earth, after both had been sent to the Watchtower, for fear they'd get themselves, or someone else, killed. If someone had told Damian then that he'd someday fall in love with, and marry, the infuriating, annoying, stupid, hyperactive young speedster, he'd have scoffed, before attempting to murder them. But he had, and he'd even come to a point where he would honestly admit it. He hadn't asked her father's permission before he asked her to marry him, or actually did it. That would have been possibly the one thing he could have done to get her to say no. Iris was too empowered, too strong and smart and independent, to ever want to be 'given away like property' as she had once said about the tradition.
But she was his, and he was hers, and she had held his heart since they were seventeen(though probably longer, he admits, but that was when he first realized) and she was his undercover date to a Wayne charity gala looking for evidence on a rich tycoon suspected by the JLA as an accomplice in a string of apparently money-motivated murders going on at the time, and he saw her dressed up and flirting subtly and more elegantly than he'd ever seen to get information. She had been colder, and while she appeared completely at ease he saw the tension in her neck and shoulders in her silky, expensive green dress, and she had been funny, charming and engaging and confidant, almost arrogant, with the proper, stiff speech of a born and bred aristocrat, the instant favorite of all she met. And so utterly not her that it burned. He had been furious when they got back to the hotel, short and rude to her, and he remembered she had been so confused and hurt, refusing to talk to him for three days before suddenly laughing and joking and pretending it didn't happen, while ignoring his every attempt to talk with her about it.
He had no good excuse, had simply known that he hated her acting like that, so not her that it burned, not blunt and fast and funny and smart, her eyes so empty of the joy and laughter he hadn't even noticed before it was suddenly gone, hidden by the graceful, uppity facade of the proper socialite heiress she was pretending to be for the night. Her posture was suddenly straight and proper, the way she moved more elegant and smooth, her expressions fixed, colder, serious, a thin veneer of propriety over bad jokes and talking too fast and tripping over everything when not running, and a complete inability to cook, over a hatred of shopping and fancy dresses and exact manners, over the highest test scores he'd ever seen, even rivaling Tim's, Barbara's, and her cousin Bart's. She was the most real, down to earth, blunt, infuriating, self-sacrificing, annoying, fast talking, un-gold-digging girl he'd ever met, and his date that night was everything he'd hated about her when they first met, with none of the good he'd come to appreciate. She had been everything he loathed about the girls of his 'social class', and he hated it.
He'd realized that night that he'd fallen in love with her, her, not the girl she was pretending to be that night, not even the confidant, silly girl she showed the world, but her, the girl who sometimes woke the whole tower up screaming in her sleep, who chose one of the highest rooms in the tower so she could she the sunrise of the golden gate bridge when she woke up before dawn with too much energy, the girl who boiled brownie mix, burned mac and cheese, and had only ever successfully made toast, because even she couldn't mess up using a toaster. The girl who wore layers and long sleeves and loose jeans and hoodies even in the summer, because at school she had to be as different from her superhero persona as she could be, and besides, she was nothing but skin and bones and muscle and scars, because six years of saving the world does that, even with increased healing.
The girl who got a perfect score on the SAT because she was trained by Justice League members, including her only family, to calculate trajectory, course, pilot space ships and planes and submarines, to go toe-to-toe with the most dangerous criminals in the world, and sometimes outside it, and come out on top. Because after saving the multiverse with an unsolvable math problem, and reading the Riverside Shakespeare and the Iliad and world wide poetry from different cultures throughout the ages as a hobby from the age of eleven, and then debating them loudly and frequently with Tim, Barbara, Bart, Alfred, and surprisingly Lian, it'd be pretty sad, she said, if she couldn't pass a standardized test.
The girl who planned to major in Fine Arts, but minor in Advanced Engineering. A series of contradictions, an absolute conundrum, the strongest girl he'd ever met, and she played the whole room for fools.
Almost a year later they'd gone out on their first date, and he was huffy and annoyed after a later-than-usual night protecting the streets the night before, but she somehow managed to charm him into holding her hand walking around the piers after the movie, dragging him around to see this and that, demanding he buy her cotton candy, so when he kissed her goodnight she tasted like caramel corn and sugar. So confidant, so at ease with him-he knew he better than to take her out to a fancy restaurant on a first date, and she knew him better than to expect it, so she was dressed simply in a pair of well-fitting faded on jeans, flared at the ends over her beat up velcro red sneakers, a pale gold hoodie tied around her waist and flapping as she jogged around sight-seeing, and a red tank top, her hair yanked back in a messy high pony tail, curls falling out and flying in the sea breeze, walking around the San Francisco piers.
Her favorite was Pier 31, where, she said, they had the aquarium and the best fresh-made mini donuts she'd ever had, along with a large carousel, which she insisted they ride, a Boudine restaurant she pointed out that she claimed had amazing bread bowls, which she said she always got the clam chowder in, a specialty sock shop where she got two pairs of knee-high socks, one of which said 'Naughty' on one leg, and 'Nice' on the other, and another pair which were white and red Impulse socks that amused her to no end, and a corner where she said sometimes had live music in the afternoons and evenings. She had also insisted on buying a pair of Batman ankle socks, which he had demanded she return, but she simply laughed and ran off to buy more donuts, and told him to come find her when he was ready to admit defeat.
And now here they were, seven years after that, twenty five and married for almost two years, now, at the Titans/JLA/JSA Thanksgiving, held on the Watchtower, those who insisted still wearing masks with their civvies, her laughing and reminiscing with the others, Lian, Chris, Jai, Milagro, Jamie, Tim, Dick, Kon, Cassie, Bart, Roy, her parents, her great-uncle and her namesake, and as Damian launched into a debate with his brother Jason, his sister-in-law Tamara, while Cass laughed at them a few seats away and Steph rolled her eyes, his father talking to Irey between his near-constant bickering with Dick, Damian knew he was the luckiest man in the world. He'd found everything he never knew he'd been looking for and more-a partner, a co-leader, an equal and a constant competitor, a best friend, a bitter rival, someone who never failed to intrigue, surprise, and challenge him to reach new limits, who picked him up by the scruff of his neck when he gave up, dared him to do better or he wasn't the man she thought he was, and then tossed him back into the ring, before jumping in at his side, the only one he knew he could always count on, all packaged up in the one person he didn't have a clue how to live without-his loving and brilliant wife, Iris West-Wayne, grown out of her childhood as Impulse and into a mature, well-known and respected hero as Velocity, co-leader of the Titans.