14 Days Until The Wedding

The penthouse apartment stood fourteen floors above ground level, and its ceiling spanned at least two. The walls and floors were black as ebony, tiles that reflected the fluorescent light from the modern chandeliers that hung above. Cain's bed was a white plane with messed sheets he'd probably never folded a day in his life, left side pressed to the north wall, a window with white pane that overlooked Gotham. It was a nice view in the daytime, and he mused that it was a sight to behold when the blue sky fell. He'd seen his fair share of Gotham's beauty from where he'd spent his nights- rooftops and city bridges. The lights of the city shined like nowhere else, but he imagined that they'd shine all the brighter with somebody to share it with. He glanced at Cain and ran one reverent finger over his ring. "Not bad."

"Oh, My Love," Cain laughed, strutting forward with open arms, spread to the sky with a wide smile, backed by the sun and the great blue sky as he presented his home away from home. "You expected anything less?" No, of course not, especially after he'd visited the Barnett family estate. He'd just expected something less modern, sleek. Cain's sense of home decor lined up inexplicably well with the tastes of, say, his father. The bathroom was a rectangular shutaway off to the side, and smaller than Bruce Wayne would ever stand for, but it fit the feel of the penthouse, fit the feel of Cain with its gold bar handles and knobs, just fine. Cain quirked an eyebrow at him, then twisted around to face the window, taking in the glory of Gotham's newest day. "Of course, once we tie the knot, I'll move us somewhere nicer. With a yard, for our children." He whipped around again, and Damian blinked at the positively giddy smile lighting up his face. "Oooh! And a dog! A horse?" His heart skipped a beat, against his will, and he resisted the urge to pinch himself. This perverted fool, with wide eyes and a sunny smile, who talked like a lord and walked like a purebred golden retriever, the thought of a future with him , it delighted this absolute child of a man. Of course he wanted a dog, and a horse, a family, everything he'd ever wanted, too. Of course, some stupid thread of gold had linked him to this idiot, and he was starting to find that the thought of forever with him, while still not pleasant, wasn't the sentence he'd anticipated.

He could see not a farm, but a plantation or homestead, wide open fields for miles. Maybe an old home he and his lover would refashion, repaint the walls to be white, or light blue, with casement windows, glass blocks. He could see small children riding horses in the back, curly black hair and pink lips with big smiles. He couldn't count them, too many, too little, they faded in and out depending on where he turned his head. He could see a dog, a border collie, brown and white with its tongue hanging from its jaws, lapping at and nipping at the ankles of the smaller children, leading them home to where he stood at a white table with a striped umbrella overhead. Beside him, a grill and a man with an apron on. The smell of burgers and veggies wafted through the air, and the turned back and focused, lightly strained muscles of the chef over the fire made his heart salivate just as well. (He tried not to pay any mind to the blue in the eyes of the six or so children that wandered the yard with the stead, or the way the sun hit raven hair on that turned back). His lips quirked up in a smile.

"Whatever you want, Ameli ."

An uncharacteristic flush passed Cain's cheeks, almost as though he hadn't expected that response, and that would have been fair. The flustered curve of his lips turned into a jubilant beam that felt like a dog wagging its tail, and when Cain threw himself into his arms and nuzzled into his neck and laughed, it felt like a dog's paws and claws at his chest. He sputtered as Cain spun them around from the sheer force of it, surprised by the affection, unsure what to say. Cain said it for him, toothy smile against the crook of his neck as he bent forward to better gather him in his arms. "Damian! I'm so happy!"

He didn't want to admit that there was a new heat under his collar, on his face, but it was there. He smiled to himself, in the moment that nobody could see him, then turned his head to nestle against his fiance's mane of yellow.

Todd was whistling at him. He rolled his eyes as he stepped out of the changing room and onto the small podium, sparing himself a glance at the three-way mirror that curved to show him every angle, even the ones he preferred not to see. "Hey, hey, hey! Not lookin' bad, Demon Brat!"

He glanced over his shoulder to find that Todd was indeed wearing a shit-eating grin, while Grayson's smile was small, warm, unassuming. Drake was raising an eyebrow, but he could see there was a small smile threatening to tug at the corner of his mouth. His father , though, his father who was lounged in a loveseat with his arm at the rest, his eyes were so much softer than they normally were when he was looking at his only blood son, at him. He wasn't trying to hide that smile, not because he wasn't putting up barriers, but because he almost appeared to have no clue of the countenance that came upon his face at all. Batman never looked at him like that, and Bruce Wayne was a facade, but the eyes that were looking at him then- they were the eyes of a father , his father . It made his cheeks burn.

The whole family was strewn about the personal fitting room, despite the fact that he had explicitly told them all that their presence was not needed at a simple tux fitting. Grayson had argued it was the tux they'd see him get married in, it was important, and to Damian's never-ending surprise, both Drake and Father agreed. Less to his surprise, Pennyworth was quick to usher them all out to the car. So as he pranced around, undressing and adorning his body with what the seamstress assured him was the finest silk and sew, Todd and Grayson lounged at a loveseat, Drake took a seat at the lawson-style chair while Father took the wingback. Pennyworth stood at Father's side, the ever-present butler and companion. It was such a hassle, having a handful of eyes on him as the woman he'd never met felt him up with pins. (He was thankful for it, for the interest, though the reasoning eluded him. He'd take the engagement for what it was worth to him.)

"Perfect! You look simply perfect! The very ideal of a modern groom!" The Barnett family's personal seamstress beamed up at him with clasped hands, eyes alight with her design on his body, looking up at him like Helen of Troy with sparkles behind her thick-rimmed glasses, like she was the goddess of love, herself. She turned to his family while he turned to face himself in the mirror. "You Waynes just make the prettiest babies, don't you?"

His father laughed, the laugh he rarely heard, the one that wasn't Bruce Wayne, the one that was him . He'd heard it only a few times in the past, the chime of his father's low chuckle, and usually it was that Kyle woman who drew it out of him. "He's the spitting image of my father at that age."

Pennyworth cleared his throat into his fist, eyeing Father from the side with a sly smile Damian couldn't dissect. "Spitting image of you, actually."

Damian glanced at his father in the mirror and found his smile grew all the more fond.

He glanced down at the lapels of his suit, giving them a tug. "My fiance won't be pleased it's not white, but I told him I wouldn't wear it." It was instead a rose beige, champagne button-up adorned with damask print at the not-yet fitted sleeves. The vest of the same pattern sat buttoned at his chest. It was a far cry from the virginal white Cain seemed somehow set on dressing him in, and that was in and of itself enough to color him pleased with the suit. Drake laughed out loud.

"You sure he didn't wanna put you in an actual wedding dress?"

Damian turned over his shoulder and glared at him. "I've been likened to a bride much too often recently for my liking."

"It's 'cause you're so pretty, Demon Brat." He whipped around and glared at him, and Todd found that all the more amusing because the grin on his face grew thrice as wide, not at all concerned with the death he was trying to promise with his eyes. Todd snickered into his hand, but he wasn't trying to hide it, no. Damian knew his brother too well.

His father laughed, again, an oddly contemplative look falling over his face As though he was remembering something, a fond memory, though it might have been. He glanced to his father, and their eyes met, and he seemed to almost come to his conclusion at that very moment. "There are a few features he definitely gets from his mother…"

No, it couldn't be! He whipped around, jaw askew, eye twitching. " Father ," he admonished. "Not you too!"

"I mean," Grayson raised one flat hand and tipped it from side to side, noncommitted, on the surface at least. His smile told Damian exactly what he was thinking, that he actually had the audacity to agree with the rest of these… these hooligans ! "If we put a wig on you…"

"Cut it out! I am a man !" The sting in his vocal chords indicated that the hitch in his voice probably wasn't doing him any favors, the collective laughter of his father and brothers doubly indicated so. The seamstress reached up and stuck pins at his collar, his only saving grace in the torment of his sudden stint as a jester.

"A very handsome one, at that. The Young Master is a lucky man, if I do say so myself!"

At the thought of Cain's parakeet eyes and his mischievous smile, he felt his body relax, sooth. That was the idiot he was marrying, the stupid face he was going to see at the end of the aisle. One day, one day soon, when this wedding was over, he would no longer be a Wayne, perhaps no longer be Robin. He'd be a Barnett, and he'd have a mother with a loud mouth, a father who rarely spoke, and a sister with whom he could spar, could teach to use the very sword she'd kept by the head of his first kill all these years. He could help her find a more suitable match, a man who would love her as fiercely as he was aware her brother did. He'd have a husband who couldn't seem to keep his hands to himself, and though Cain would likely lose a hand by the end of their honeymoon (he hadn't even thought of that, hadn't let it cross his mind because he and Cain were yet to so much as kiss ), it was leagues better than the family who always felt at the brink of disowning him. It wouldn't have been the first time. Even now, how was he meant to feel when they were being so warm, so jovial? Perhaps, he pondered, they were as relieved at the thought of him leaving as he was. His stomach churned achingly. He whispered more to himself: "I'd think myself the lucky one."

The seamstress smiled, but the laughter over his turned back drowned out, choked by a sudden silence, by disorientation. He could see Drake and Todd looking at each other, gears in their stupid little minds already turning, as slow as they usually were, with blatant bewilderment. Their eyes traveled between each other and his back, he could see it in the mirror. Todd gave an awkward smile, leaned back against his seat on the fancy little yellow couch and threw his arm over the back of it. "Wait a minute… Demon Brat, do you like him?"

And just like that, Damian decided he didn't like the suit. It was much too tight, too hot, and the wedding festivities would be held outside in the garden- the damn collar would be much too stuffy! He scoffed. "N-No! Don't be ludicrous!"

Drake raised an eyebrow, less out of his typical know-it-all poindexter attitude that he so greatly detested, and more out of… genuine curiosity? Concern? No, that couldn't have been right. Drake would never worry about him, and what would he worry for anyway? Damian was fine. He was just fine. "I mean, Damian, you're marrying the guy, is it really so bad to admit that maybe you-?"

" He is my fiance and nothing more, I will hear nothing else of it! " He crossed his arms over his chest pointedly, scowling (not pouting ) into the mirror as the seamstress hummed and continued her work. He wondered if she spoke to the Barnetts, if word would get back to Aiden, back to Cain, but the concern was foolish. Cain knew as well as he did that this whole arrangement was for financial and political prosperity, for power. Whatever it was Cain felt for him, he had to understand that it was… impossible for him to return those feelings. He'd made as such clear from Day One, hadn't he? He twisted the ring at his finger.

(Bruce's palm clenched over the arm of the chair, eyes narrowing at nothing. Jason and Tim glanced at each other, doubt in their eyes, and they weren't trying to hide that from each other. They felt the same way- Bruce and Alfred felt the same way. Dick glared at the ring Damian so longingly toyed with at his finger.)

Tonight would have been one of the nights Robin and Superboy patrolled together. He should have gotten used to the new normal by now, shouldn't have still anticipated Robin showing up at his bedroom's window, tapping away with that cocky grin on his face, the way things had been since he was ten. But they weren't like that anymore. No, nowadays Superboy left the farm and flew around Metropolis seeking comfort in the moonlight, in the stars and the way they still shined even when Robin wasn't there to overshadow them. Usually they were the backdrop, usually he could just tell they were there, beyond the shoulder straps of Robin's cape, beyond that scowl he always wore that had lost its biting edge over each passing year. They played a chorus to Robin's solo, he was the moon, they were the underlining stars- Superboy was an underlining star, Superboy was the bottomless sea. And how was he supposed to shine when there was no moon to push and pull him like a tide? The stars looked so close when he knew they were so far, and sure he could fly out to them if he wanted, but that felt so wrong.

He couldn't move if the moon wouldn't guide him.

Superboy paused in the hot summer of Metropolis's sky, raising one hand to caress the sea above where he could see the little lights glistening against bluish black, like he could touch them if he tried, like he could feel skin under his hand, (like he could feel lips, taste mint), but then he opened his hand, and there was nothing there. And that hurt. He shut his eyes tight and pretended there were yellow-gloved hands in his own. "I wish I never kissed you," a partial lie, only a quarter way the truth, but if it meant his nights would taste the same again, look the same as they did on Gotham's high towers over city nightlife, then he'd tell as many as he had to, "...then we wouldn't be here right now, would we, D?"

He heard in the distance, a few miles away, a cry. A woman, probably young, early twenties, lost in the city. Not Metropolis, somewhere else, somewhere close (for him, anyway). Central City? He could hear the cars rushing by as her screams echoed over walls. An alleyway. How classic. He rolled his eyes and took the distraction for what it was. He could beg for forgiveness later for encroaching on another hero's turf.

And he'd been right. A girl, early twenties, maybe nineteen, clutching her purse to her chest with the fear of death, the fear of worse in her eyes as she stumbled away from the men that approached her. They all wore ski caps and grinning mugs, the kinda guys that thought Metropolis was their playground, that they could rise to the top with petty thievery, that they could do what no villain had ever done and take down the Man of Steel himself. Because that's what all the petty crooks thought, that it couldn't be that hard, that all the men who came before were exaggerating, were just a little too weak. Here, he knew, they thought they'd be dealing with The Flash- but Superboy had met The Flash, and if they thought he'd be any easier to take down, they were in for what was probably a very embarrassing wake-up call, probably strung upside down from the police station with their heart-printed boxers hanging out because Barry Allen was funny like that. He'd save them the embarrassment of that by showing up to clock them in the face before Uncle Barry even had the opportunity to.

"You owe our man Barney some big cash, baby girl."

"You had a lotta fun with 'is product, didn'tcha? He was real nice 'bout given' you that seed, wadn't he?" One of the crooks swung a small baggie around, presumably with the drugs he and his buddy were pedaling for Barney .

"Please," she sobbed, and her ankles wobbled in the heels she was probably already stumbling around in, judging by the height of them. A tight dress, meant for nightlife, for dark rooms with rainbows of lights that flashed, for hot bodies and dirty bathrooms. She didn't look addicted to anything, but he gathered what he'd needed to. Those men were drug dealers, she was a buyer. He'd take care of this quick, ask her if she wanted to talk to somebody, maybe swing her to Gotham where he knew Bruce Wayne had set up a rehabilitation center. She was a pretty girl with big innocent eyes, green (green like Christmas lights, like eyes in a dimly-lit restaurant, eyes in the citylights) and it broke his heart to think of anybody taking advantage of her. "Please, I just need another week, I won't ask for any more!"

"You won't have to." She gasped as he lowered himself a few feet ahead of her, between her and the goons that stood cracking their knuckles like mobsters in one of the bad black and white noir films he and Damian used to watch together. He crossed his arms and hovered a few inches off the ground. "Come on, guys, I don't want to have to hurt you. Just come down to the precinct with me, okay?" He could hear Robin clicking his tongue in his ear, when has that ever worked, Beloved? He flinched.

"Long way from Kansas, ain't ya?" One snickered, like it was funny, like he hadn't heard that one a million times before. Superboy rolled his eyes.

The man with the baggie stuck it in his pocket, but not before fingering at the substance and zipping it back up. He didn't sniff at it, didn't stick the tip of his finger in his mouth, which meant whatever that stuff was snuck into the skin- that was bad. "Let's make this quick, ay, Supes?"

Supes was his father, but he wasn't about to dignify that with a response. He dove forward, raised one fist to strike that smug little grin on that dirty face of Thug #1- only to find his fist was weaker than usual . The punch that should have knocked the man aways back, right to the mouth of the alley, only sent him falling on his back. Superboy choked, and he raised one hand to his throat and clawed at it. This wasn't right. This was like… an allergic reaction, almost? Like he was some human kid with a bad reaction to peanuts. Was it possible…?

An elbow came down over the back of his neck, and though it didn't hurt, didn't knock him to the ground, it still left him stumbling backwards, disoriented. He glared and gave his best snarl, the one he'd cultivated after years of interrogations with Robin at his side. Robin always laughed at him when he made that face, because he knew Jon would never ever raise a hand to him, but the bad guys in alleyways threatening impressionable girls should have had some fear.

But these men only stared at him, eyes wide, because the Boy of Steel was yielding to them, and he was sure that wasn't how they expected this to go, either. His heart thumped painfully in his chest, and he stumbled again, clutching at his hoodie, tangling the zipper in his fingers as he struggled to even his breathing. Searing pain, like a mist over his body, like a miasma choking him, sticking to his limbs and twisting them in eternal burns. Whatever that drug was, whatever was in it, it was bad, and it was very possible this was the last anybody was going to see Superboy. By the spine-twitching grins etching like knives to skin over their faces, the thugs were thinking the same thing.

They moved forward, and he shut his eyes, and despite himself, despite everything, he thought: Damian !

There was a boom, and a scream, and he felt the air rush by his face the same way the wind hit him when he was flying, and that was how he realized he was falling. Falling fast, with his knees in the cement, cement on his torn jeans, and his lungs squeezing him. He choked. "Hey, Hey Superboy!" There were arms on his waist, hoisting him up, easy like he was a little kid again. "Superboy! Hey!" He blinked and in the gaussian blur that was his stinging eyes, he saw red. Red and yellow.

"D...Dam...ian…" Though the stinging kept coming, though he felt his throat closing and his skin burning and his chest struggling to conceal his heart that was desperately beating in a last ditch attempt to live, that name alone, the arms around him, they were a comfort. Superboy blinked again and saw the symbol of a bolt, saw no green. He felt like throwing up.

Flash hoisted him over his shoulder. "Let's get you home, Superboy."

13 Days Until The Wedding

Being home, at the manor, it was odd. The red walls, the wood instead of tile, the company of the fireplace in every living room, it all felt… warmer than the Barnett Estate had, and he'd come to anticipate the opposite. He'd thought, all this time, that Wayne Manor lacked a certain homely quality to it, a quality he'd been swamped by every time he stepped through the front door of the Kent Farm, but he'd been wrong. He'd forgotten how cold Nanda Parbait had been, how expectations never stopped, how even though he could say the same of his company at the manor, he could also say he was taken care of. Well-fed, benched when injured instead of pushed. The Barnett Estate had the strikingly similar atmosphere of a war-torn city, split by ruler, drenched in blood, even though he doubted a single person in that house had ever raised a finger to kill.

He sat at the kitchen table sipping tea while Pennyworth prepared breakfast, with Todd and Drake on either side of him, and he felt home again.

"So," Drake started conversationally, like he was looking for something to say, like it was that difficult to just talk to his brother. He wondered if it was. "How was England?"

"It was nothing special." Aside from that first night, aside from Cain's smiling face, his hands on him as he lost sight and control. Aside from waking the next morning and finding Cain dressing himself. Details his family didn't need to know.

Drake seemed unappeased by his answer, raising an eyebrow at him over the rim of his batman coffee mug. He took a sip as the brown hit his lip. "What were the future in-laws like?"

Damian shrugged, unsure how to answer. They were okay, or perhaps a word that was slightly more neutral. Distant from their children, yet simultaneously hands-on, smothering-so. He didn't let himself think too much on it. "... They were fine. A bit eccentric, perhaps."

Todd choked on his orange juice as he laughed. Why was he even there? Didn't he have a safe house to return to? A girlfriend to ride like a prized mule? "Eccentric? As in they dress up as bats and run around beating in thug faces or…?"

Damian glared at him, setting his mug of tea at the table, warm between his palms. Todd stared back at him, amusement plain as day on that face, with his leg crossed over his knee, his arm slung back over the chair. He thought he was being funny . "I have reason to suspect there is some… mild dysfunction."

Drake blinked, but returned his gaze to the morning articles and tabloids he read from his tablet. "Mild how?"

"Cain's mother seems rather dependent on drink, and his father seems unbothered by that." The fact that the drink she was so bedeviled with was stronger than even the highest-proof vodka and carried three times the aphrodisiac of a normal wine was information his brothers need not be privy to. He himself hardly needed to concern himself with it. He was sure whatever Cain's father was doing was perfectly legal, or at the very least perfectly covert.

Todd and Drake looked at each other, and Todd laughed and threw his arms up and said "Sounds like a regular ol' rich family to me."

Drake, however, seemed less accepting of that answer, for one reason or another. He set his coffee down, turned his full attention on him, it was almost unnerving. "That's all? You didn't notice anything… weirder than that?"

Damian blinked, staring over his mug, into the distance where the rest of the long rectangular dining table sat empty, at nothing. He paused for a moment, then set his mug down. "What, exactly, are you implying?"

Drake jumped to his own defense. Typical. "Look, I'm just saying, they're friends with your mom, right? So it stands to reason-"

Drake was looking up at him with alarm, then, and he realized, with a start, that he'd stood up, that he'd slammed his hand on the dining table and made the delicate make of their dining ware shake. He felt foolish, because he shouldn't have been surprised. If Father thought it, surely his brothers did too, surely even Grayson. That's why they'd all left him there alone at the manor, because they'd had about enough of Batman, and Damian just wasn't enough to make them stay. How could he be? He wasn't one of them, wasn't c hosen . He was hoisted upon them by a woman they all spat the name of over the bodies of assassins. He was just like her, had her eyes, had her talk, her walk, of course- of course they all felt the way Father did. He was stupid to think those looks at the seamstress's shop had been real, that the cajoling he'd been the subject of had been those of teasing brothers and not insiders watching the outsider pack his bag. "So anybody affiliated with the Al Ghuls in the slightest must be damned, Drake? Suspicious? Guilty?"

Drake's face dropped, and he raised his hands defensively. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! I never said that!" And that only hurt more, because that look on his face meant he meant it, that those words were true and spoken with the accidental dismissal of a filter.

Todd didn't bother to spare him his ego, either. He chuckled and said "Ya gotta admit, Demon Brat, anybody your mom trusts couldn't exactly be squeaky clean."

"She trusted you!"

"And I extort king pins for a living, I'm not exactly a model citizen."

Drake clicked his tongue and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his eyes. Annoyed. Burdened. Just like he always was, like they all were when it came to him. "Damian, look, I'm just saying that maybe you should take a closer look at the family you're marrying into-"

No, he didn't want to hear anymore. They'd get into a fight, it would hurt, he'd be left feeling more eager than ever to hop in the getaway car with Cain and never look back, and he still had two weeks before he could do that. Unless he could convince Cain to elope? He shook his head, because that wasn't what had been agreed upon. Cain would want a big wedding, the least he could do for giving only himself was give him at least that. "I know what I must, and that is that I am welcomed and revered by the Barnetts and those who serve them. It will be quite the contrast to what I'm dealing with now!" He turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving his tea unfinished.

(Tim stared at the empty doorway and grimaced, sliding his head down onto the table between his arms as he moaned in irritation. Jason laughed to himself and shook his head. "So… were you trying to piss him off?"

Tim raised his head, setting his chin at his arm, and glared at him."I was just looking for information." Jason threw his head back and cackled.

"Where? In the ass he has bared for the pseudo-crime family he's marrying into?"

"Jason!"

"Replacement." Said with a shit-eating grin and a sip.

Tim sighed and pushed aside his half-full mug, thinking instead it looked more half-empty. "Maybe I overstepped. I'm just trying to help."

"I have a better way of doing that." To their never-ending surprise, Dick appeared in the doorway, and his face was devoid of the usual smile he wore when he was between the halls of Wayne Manor. In his hand was a manila folder, thick with papers. He threw it on the dining table. Jason reached for it first, and Tim looked up with furrowed brows. Dick looked between the two of them as Jason licked his finger and flipped over the first page, looking pale, looking so very tired, and Tim almost wondered if he'd looked this way for a while. "Kori and I have been looking into some things…" He said this as his body raised and fell against the wall, eyes fluttering shut before he opened them again, but they knew what Tired Dick looked like, and there was something aside from bat-invoked insomnia keeping him awake at night.)

When he finally opened his eyes, there was a ceiling over his head, and he didn't feel rested on the cold rainy ground of a Central City alley. It didn't take him long, between the smell of the sheets over his body, and the popcorn paint on the ceiling, for him to gather that he was in his room, in his bed. "You're finally up, Champ." Jon blinked.

His dad sat at his bedside, shirt in an unbuttoned mess, hair a little mussed, the signature curl on his head amiss in the rest of his hair. He'd been there awhile, that much was obvious. How long had he been out? His dad shot him a smile, and as if reading his mind, went to say "You were out all day. Doc says you'll be fine, that you probably wouldn't have been out this long if you were taking better care of yourself." If you'd been sleeping, were the implied words. If you'd been eating more than half your dinner and taking it easy on your chores and leaving the house to spend time with your friends like you normally would over summer . He wasn't sure how to tell his dad that he couldn't, that the thought of eating anything made his stomach feel heavy like a bag of rocks sat at the bottom where his hunger usually rumbled, that he couldn't sleep because he couldn't turn his brain off long enough to get lost, and when he did, Damian was there- smiling, laughing, holding his hand, kissing him. Because he didn't know how his dad would react. Because his dad was raised on a farm where the bulls liked the cows and the roosters liked the hens, and there was nothing else. Because the whole reason he hid himself and Damian that long was because-!

He grunted and tried to sit up. His dad reached out and helped him. "Barry took care of that young lady you tried to save. She's safe, for now. Bruce put her up at one of his rehabilitation centers." Exactly what he would have done, then, if he'd been more competent a voice that sounded painfully like Robin said. "We haven't figured out what those men had on them, but Barry's gonna run some tests on it." Silence overtook them, just for the moment, just for a small weasley little second. His body trembled. "Son, the moment you started feeling sick-"

"I should have called you, I know, but Dad-!" He winced. His throat still felt sore, and talking made the nausea that surprisingly hadn't gone away three times worse. "I-I didn't think…" He didn't think he'd needed to, because usually, when he was in trouble, when he was hurt… it wasn't Dad he was calling for. He grinded his teeth and shut his eyes, because they were burning and it hurt, and the nausea was nothing compared to the utter breaking of his heart in his war-torn chest. Damian. He'd called for Damian.

No matter what, when the chips are down, he always has my back. And he always takes care of me. I know I can trust him no matter what trouble we find ourselves in.

He whimpered, and his dad's hand was warm on his back. That still wasn't what he needed. The hand he needed was miles and miles away, and he hadn't been able to hold it for the longest time. Stupid , he shook his head, he was just so stupid . "Jon."

"Dad," He leaned into the touch, into his dad's chest, and he shut his eyes again and pretended for just one moment that the rest of the world didn't exist, that Superman and Superboy were infallible, and there was nothing anybody could do to break him- including his heart.

Her father's wine, there was nothing like it.

She didn't usually partake, but tonight was special, and she felt this particular moon to be an exception. Abele took a sip, let it drip down her throat, thick like the poison she'd never gotten to taste, the poison of a man. Heat pooled in her stomach, something hummed in her and she brushed her legs together to try and quell it. Even so, that made the urge stronger. She wondered how her mother did it every night, took bottles of the stuff and drove herself wild with hallucinations and fantasies she knew Father wasn't likely to humor. Every sip, every time of the few she sucked a glass dry, it was like a thousand hands, all kinds of skins, all varying in roughness, took her body and stroked it like it belonged to them, to nameless faces, to bodiless hands. The oddest part was that she wanted it, every bit of it, relished in the feeling of being taken so completely.

The realization scared her.

It was what she'd wanted all her life, of course, to belong to somebody, to him, to have him take her as he pleased when he pleased, to be the only woman in his bed lest he grow bored and add more hands, more legs, more corsets. Even then, she would have had to worry for nothing, want for nothing, fear for nothing. She would belong, mind, body, and soul, to him and him alone. That thought was comforting, but belonging to anyone else was terrifying. How was she to know she'd be taken care of? Spoiled? Dressed and propped on an arm like a man's cane to help move forward. She'd played the part the best she could, but it'd never been enough. The perfect woman, she thought, almost remarkably and humorously, a woman was the one thing her fiance didn't want.

And she'd been okay with that, despite her future becoming forfeit, despite her life drawing to one moment that would no longer exist, because he was still marrying to Cain. Damian would still be in her life, just under the arm of her dear brother, and that was okay, better than okay. The three of them, together, an unmarried aunt hoisting children on her shoulders and teaching them to fence, baking the way she and Cain used to do when Mother and Father were away, with flour on her nose and dough in the hair of any little one brave enough to dive for it uncooked. She would have been okay with that.

But that wasn't going to happen, either.

Because he hated her.

Her future had been an open adventure she didn't want before, an unwritten book she was much too scared to write the first words to, but she thought she'd still have his warm hand over hers, helping her, moving her along when she wasn't brave enough. She thought their shared pen would be his sword, and he'd cut down her fears as he always had, hold her as he always had, protect her. He was her dear older brother, but she was beginning to see now that she'd only ever been a burden. She'd been his enemy, too, all along.

Mother choked mid-sip, hacked into her glass before she had the mind to hold a napkin to her shiny red lips. Father glanced up from his steak, raising one eyebrow as Mother's lungs shook, and her throat scratched, as the coughs became increasingly slick until they could see her pull the napkin away. "Dear, are you all right?"

Blood, clear even against the red of her makeup, a thick clot of it and more dripping down. Mother scoffed and folded it. "Some blood, darling, nothing to worry about."

Father seemed unfazed. "Perhaps we should get that cough examined."

Mother shook her head and raised her glass with a smile. "Already have. A minor case of Chondrosarcoma, that's all."

"Ah, is that all, then?" It wasn't a question, it was a dismissal.

Abele took one last bite of her steak and set her fork upon her plate. "Mother, Father? May I be excused?"

It was here, here that she hid away her treasure, where nobody looked. In her wardrobe, at the very back. She brushed away her dresses, the ones with frills at the neck, with flowers at the waist, with layered skirts and petticoats she'd so dearly loved. Behind them was a dress small, cream, and it'd used to be white. But it'd been so long since she'd worn it, and the sleeves were covered in blood, sleeves that used to reach her wrists, sleeves that would now only sit at the bend of her arm. The skirt was unsightly against her skin, used to sit at her ankles and now hardly reached the top of her legs, barely covered the place she'd been told to keep so sacred her whole life, the thing that she'd kept close like a budding flower with petals she'd hoped to gift her husband someday. Those thoughts seemed so silly, there, where her room and her bed were all empty and the night seemed darker than ever.

She stripped, slowly because she'd never before done so without the help of a maid, watched the sewn edges and sleeves and skirts fall from her body, and it felt so uncomfortable, to be without the frills, so be without the curls in her hair. She let them fall, took the dress from her wardrobe and pulled it with some difficulty over her body. She was much too big for it now, she supposed. Fair enough, she'd outgrown that childlike virtue.

It was with heavy feet that she carried herself through the halls, down to the garden, shivering in her too-small dress. The blood had long since dried, but she could still smell the copper, and it was a small comfort in the freezing night of London. She passed by the stalls, eyed the horses, eyed his horse, the one who would miss him until he came home.

She didn't need to lift her skirt as she trembled and crossed the wet grass to the paved path, she didn't need to, and one hand was full, behind her back.

Father had forbade her, and she'd disobeyed him more than once, and she couldn't begin to tell why.

It could have been the white roses and their beautiful thorns, the drops of blood they'd leave on her fingers when she pricked herself. It could have been the stream in which she'd laid in the slower days, when the water was relaxed, when she could feel fish under her body and her hair pool like a sylph around her as she floated at her back. Just breathed. On the best days, she was Ophelia, with a crown of petals in her hair, carried away by the waves of the river and swept away from the great trouble of life. She knew, now, that she would forever be Ophelia, forever losing her love to madness, forever losing herself chasing after him. Laertes, too, desired that great love from which Ophelia dragged the dagger into her heart and bled, for the same man, the same man…

She settled one foot in the freezing water, gasped and swallowed hard as her body shook with the frigidness, the distinct absence of warmth the waters she'd dipped into so many times had before. In one arm, she reached for the roses, took them in her arm and pulled them close. The pricks of the thorns made this feel normal, made this feel okay, it was familiar, and she was about to embark on the future she'd never thought to have.

For if she was forced to choose between suitor and brother, she'd rather not make the choice at all.

She whimpered and tried to catch herself as she laid back into the cold of the water, one hand full of roses, the other clutching to the old training blade Talia Al Ghul had gifted her in a box with a head so long ago. It was cold, so cold, and she desperately longed for her brother's warm embrace, the only man she'd ever loved more than the one she'd sought to marry. Tears welled in her eyes, but she couldn't taste the salt when she still tasted the wine, lust, desire. "But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven." As always, her hair pooled around her body as she floated, and the roses lifted from her grasp so quietly, like a blanket swept and divided her and the thorns. She took a steadying breath. "Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede." She lifted the dagger, and held it to her heart.