Snow
Damian huffs, eyes narrowed and swollen almost shut as he wanders the darkened streets of Gotham. The winter air biting into his damaged side and turning his blood into dark red sharpnels pulling and cutting at his skin, making each and every step an agonizing process.
It didn't matter, however, the pain, the hunger, the way his bare feet were slowly losing color. He is free of his mother's stone-cold eyes and his grandfather's lawless expectations. He will decide his own fate, live his own life, de his own death without fearing The League will come to bath him in the Lazarus.
Even the thought of dying a frozen corpse in this foreign city is a glorious prospect while compared to the path laid out for him by his family.
He grins as he lets himself fall face-first into the snowy pathway of a house, letting the cold soak him into near unconsciousness.
Suddenly, there are warm fingers preventing his numbness, trailing over his hair, his cheekbones, around his left ear and finally resting over his neck, feeling his pulse.
"You are not dead," a soft voice whispers in mild surprise. "Mrs. Mac! Call an ambulance, please!"
Damian opens one eye to stare at the teen carefully pressing an expensive looking cashmere sweater into his wounded side.
"I'm Tim," the teen whispers. "Don't close your eyes, please. Talk to me. What's your name?"
"I… Damian…" he struggles to reply, hissing in half pain, half pleasure when Tim's hands touch his forehead.
Hours later, as he lays in a hospital bed and stares into the teen's pale blue eyes, he can't help but compare his expectations with his new reality. He was saved by a civilian. A bright eyed boy who is smiling at him as he tells Captain Gordon how the he, poor thing, was babbling about a car accident while Tim looked after him and that it must have been the collision in 4th street and Main.
When he asks Tim why he has come up with such deceit, the other teen explains how he has heard of a car accident between a car and a truck filled to the brim with illegal immigrants.
"I guessed you didn't want people finding out your origins while you were unconscious," Tim explains, tracing the League's tattoo on Damian's foot. "An accident survivor is easily dismissed, plus it makes Black Mask's human trade front page and therefore, no one would have the heart to force you back to your own country without facing public outrage."
At this, the teen smiles a barely-there-smile that makes something in Damian's frozen body warm up.
"That is brilliant," he whispers.
"You are welcome."
They stop their conversation the moment the hospital's main benefactor, Mr. Thomas Wayne enters the room, informing Damian grimly that he is the only survivor of the group of immigrants and if he would like to come live with him and his wife Martha at Wayne Manor. Mr. Wayne is a good man, Tim will explain later, a man of honor that has never been blessed with children of his own.
"Will you be close?" he asks Tim, hesitant.
He nods.
"Then, thank you, Mr. Wayne," Damian says, his cheeks flushing lightly.
Bus Stop.
Tim holds Damian's hand as Mr. and Mrs. Wayne are lowered to the ground, both dressed impeccably in black. Mr. Pennyworth, the Waynes' butler is resting a hand on Damian's shoulder as tears slide silently down the boy's cheeks.
Reporters are not allowed at the funeral, but they are all waiting for them outside of the chapel, ready to snap a picture of the new Wayne millionaire.
They all heard the story.
How Mr. Wayne wanted to celebrate the second anniversary of the adoption of his new son and had dragged the whole family to watch a movie at the theater, Damian's favorite, only to find themselves victims to a crazed robber and gunned instantly. Headlines have been written already:
'CHILD SURVIVOR OF THE 4TH AND MAIN TRAGEDY AN ORPHAN AGAIN.'
'THE IRANI CURSE STRIKES WAYNE AND HIS WIFE, CHILD SURVIVOR INHERITS FORTUNE.'
'THE BOY SURVIVOR'
Damian wants to kill them all, just like he wants to follow the man that stole his new-found family from him and rip his head from his shoulders with his bare hands, he wants him to go to hell while he begs for mercy that will never come, for a second chance he doesn't deserve.
Tim tugs his hand gently, guides him to the other side of the chapel to sit in an abandoned bus stop.
"Talk to me," he begs, his hands wiping Damian's tears. "Please."
"I'm going to kill that man," Damian whispers, his hands clenching until his knuckles turn white and there is a faint trail of blood spilling from his palms. Tim wraps his arms around him and forces his head to rest on his slender shoulder, shaking.
"Don't, please don't."
"He killed them, he took them from me."
Never again will he hear Martha, mother, singing as she arranges the flowers in the dining table. Her musical laughter as she mock-hits Thomas, father, for his smart mouth. He won't feel her hands caressing his forehead as they lay him down to sleep, her soft kisses on his cheeks before Alfred drives him to school.
'Be good, darling,' he believes he can still hear her.
'We're proud of you, son,' Thomas' voice joins hers inside his head.
"You won't be better than him," Tim argues, his pale pink lips twisting as tears start falling from his eyes. "You won't be better than your grandfather."
"But he deserves it!" Damian protests, struggling with Tim's embrace. If he wanted to, he would easily release himself from the other teen, the other boy who has shared this wonderful second chance with him. But to do so would harm him, he could break Tim's arm if he is not careful, therefore he doesn't move as much as he could. He pretends to fight something he cannot.
"But you don't deserve to darken your soul anymore," Tim whispers, sobs, cries, there is a roar echoing in Damian's ears that make Tim's voice harder to hear. "Thomas and Martha would be sad to see you take that road."
The roaring stops, the struggling stops.
The world itself stops.
"I want justice," he whispers, his arms coming around Tim's back. "I want justice."
"Then we'll get justice," Tim sooths. "I swear I'll help you until justice has been served."
Mr. Pennyworth appears besides them, eyes dull with sorrow, and wraps them both in a tight embrace.
"Let's go back home, Master Damian," he says, his usually stoic voice cracking.
Damian understands Alfred has lost his family as well, and that he is the only one remaining to him as well.
"Please, Alfred," he whispers. "Let's."
Band
Damian parks the car in the band and ignores the he is slowly turning towards the entrance, ready for another outing in Gotham's night. There is no reason for celebration tonight as he remembers the madman he has helped to create, the deformed man laughing like a maniac and claiming he has given him a new chance.
He shakes his head, turning when Alfred places a steaming mug of tea in his hand without uttering a word. Old, reliable Alfred, always there to make sure he doesn't fall apart.
"Master Timothy is waiting for you in the computer room, Master Damian," he says gently, his wrinkling hands removing the cowl from Damian's face.
He smiles a little at his grandfather figure, nodding.
"Did you call him, Pennyworth?" he asks, sipping the tea and feeling it warm his throat.
"I did not, Master Damian," the old man shakes his head. "He appeared out of thin air in front of the computer two hours ago."
"It's a cold night outside," Damian mutters, taking off his gauntlets.
"I have already procured Master Timothy's usual blanket and soup, of course," the Englishman says, nodding.
"He bullied me until I drank it all, actually," Tim chirps from the doorway, still wrapped around the woolen blanket Damian had exported from the Andes just for him.
"Excellent job, then, Pennyworth," Damian smiles lightly, nodding when Alfred pats his shoulder before bowing.
"Always a pleasure."
"Bullies, the two of you," Tim sighs, wrapping his blanketed arms around Damian's waist.
Damian responds in kind, wrapping his larger arms around Tim's shoulders.
"I'm here," Tim whispers.
"I know," Damian replies, letting the weariness of the night, the cackling laughter of his new rouge, the stench of chemicals, fall away from his shoulders as he sinks his nose on Tim's neck. "Stay tonight?"
Tim kisses his hair.
"Always."
Railway.
Batman finds Tim sitting on one of Gotham's many abandoned train stations, his globed hands tight around his arms and his hair wet by the rain.
"Did you catch him?" he asks, as he wraps his arm and his cape around Tim's trembling back.
Tim shakes his head.
"Boomerang will be back for sure," Damian whispers, pulling the smaller man into his arms. "Your father will be avenged, Timothy. I swear this to you."
"I want to be the one to do it, Batman," Tim whispers hoarsely, his teeth clenched so tight they turn Tim's lips an even paler shade of pink. "I want to be the one to put him down like the dog he is. That he knows for certain it was me who sent him to jail to rot."
"As a civilian?"
"As an avenger," Tim whispers. "I need to go, I need to train."
"I can train you," Damian offers but Tim shakes his head. "Timothy."
"Damian," Tim says, and his ale eyes are devoid of any emotion. "You have a duty here, I would only hinder you."
"You said you would always stay with me."
"And that promise alone will make me come back, always."
Damian has no heart to stop Tim as he starts walking under the rain over the rusty railroads. He doesn't call out to him or say another word. Tim will come back, he swore.
But loneliness is something Batman, for all his pose and growls, cannot bear.
When two years later the dark figure of Nemesis makes its name known among the Gotham scum, Damian can't help but smile and watch as the slender man lands in front of him, all black and red and glorious in his form.
"Took you a long time to come back," he says, arms crossed.
"I had a terrible teacher that didn't want to let me go," Nemesis replies, his own smile sardonic as he shakes his head, black hair dancing against the wind.
"Welcome home."
The two of them walk back towards the car in comfortable silence, their fingers brushing against eachother in a ridiculous attempt to resist the urge to hold hands as they did during their youth. Damian will hold himself back, though, because his Tim is back, his anchor to the world is back and nothing will spoil the reunion he is mentally planning between the sheets of his bed, back in the Manor. He knows Alfred won't mind the mess when he sees his small Master Timothy wrapped in his blanket once more.
His plans, however, do become ruined when they find a ten year old trying to steal the tires of the batmobile with dexterous little hands and intelligent green eyes.
"I wasn't doing anything!" the boy cries, frightened as he recognizes both masked vigilantes.
Damian wants to growl but Tim is smiling, mirth shaking his shoulders.
"Of course you weren't," Nemesis says softly, offering his hand to the child.
Damian knows he will regret this, but he has missed Tim's almost silent laughter as much as he has missed the rest of him.