He'd been a fool, a fool for ever thinking Jon felt the same way.

He'd been a fool to fall in love in the first place, he'd never meant to, but he couldn't have helped it. How stupid, he thought as he tore his tie from his throat- how stupid to think Jon was going to be the one. He'd let himself think what they'd had was real, that Jon meant what he said. He'd thought Jon had wanted him. His mistake.

And now he saw his face in every goddamn girl that came around, batting her eyes at him like the rich kid he was. None of them would taste the same if he kissed them, none of them would hold him the same way, not that he was interested in any of them to begin with. He wasn't supposed to, because he was not yet the age Gotham stipulated, but he'd stolen an abandoned champagne glass at the bar and took it with him. It was bubbly, made him nearly choke as he sucked it all down, and it tasted bitter in the fleeting moments the nectar sweeped over his tongue. God help him if a reporter saw that. The last thing he needed was a Gotham City News scandal and the ensuing scolding of his father. The thought made him flinch. Stupid, stupid boy he was, thinking he could be loved. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

His fist clenched at the stem of the glass, enough that he was tiptoeing the edge of snapping it in half. He wanted to, wanted to shatter the glass in his hand and feel it break. He wanted to feel his skin sting and watch the blood gather and slither like the sick blackness in his stomach down his palm. Love. What a fucking joke. Before he could stop himself, he turned and threw the damn glass at the stone wall of the manor, watched it shatter and turn to glittering dust and edges as it hit the ground. Jon would never touch him again, never see him again, not if he could help it. Best friend , he'd called him, like he hadn't tossed him to the curb like garbage, like he hadn't played with him , like he hadn't made a toy of Damian until he found more interest in the space between Iris Allen's legs. He could go to hell. He could fucking burn and die without Damian at his side, because they weren't friends anymore. If he couldn't be everything to Jon, then they would be nothing . Strangers. He didn't know him anymore. He'd do whatever he had to do to skin himself of the memory of Jon's hands anywhere near him.

"My, my… what a temper."

A boy his age appeared on the other side of the closed french doors, glancing down at the shattered champagne glass with what few could read as amusement. Most would have thought him irritated, disgusted, but there was a mirth in the curve of his lip that Damian had been trained from a young age to gauge. Blonde hair that fell in a wisp by his eyes, green, hungry, he moved like a leopard. The way the Al Ghul family moved. At once, Damian tensed. "You are unfamiliar, is this your first time attending a Wayne Fundraiser?"

"Hah, yes, I'm afraid so. Regrettably, if this is the sort of action I've been missing." He gestured to the broken glass on his way past it, strutting smoothly to the fence of the balcony where he settled, resting his arms in a cross over the edge. Damian watched him, unsure, because he truly hadn't seen his face before. He'd have remembered it. Boyish, sculpted but still childish, alight with innocence despite the suggestive nature of his body and the way he moved. It was like he was putting on an act, trying to come off more mature than he really was. His breathing was stable, but there was a tenseness in his shoulders that told Damian he was not as confident as he presented.

Damian turned his nose to the air, but offered a polite handshake, the way he'd been taught as Bruce Wayne's youngest. "Damian Wayne."

"No, no," The stranger took his hand and shook it once, squeezing, firm. Damian glanced up to see that his confidence was reaching his eyes again, and there was a damning smirk on his lips. "Damian Al Ghul." Damian pulled back with a hiss, but the stranger only laughed. "Don't be alarmed, please, I'm a family friend."

"I've never met you."

"Talia sent you away before you'd come of the age to, to my understanding." He sighed, pouting, and he looked so much more like a child, then. "I've been rude. I am Cain Barnett. My sister is Abele Barnett, if you remember the name?"

Barnett… yes, he'd heard the name a few times, whispered on his mother's tongue, but never around his grandfather. Aiden Barnett, a confidant in England, head of a black market family who hired a good number of Assassins from the League, powerful, rich, but inconspicuous and scarcely known. He'd never met either of the Barnett family children, though he gathered he'd been meant to, eventually, when he'd come of the age where the League would be his to take. That age would have been now, at 17, nearing 18. But, in light of his departure from the Al Ghul family, in light of the fact that he'd be considered an enemy should he step anywhere near the premises of the land he'd once called home, it seemed unlikely his mother would still want to introduce him. "I do."

"Good! That is good news. I worried you'd doubt my sincerity."

"And I do." His eyes narrowed. There were about three different escape routes he could use in the event that this turned into a bloodbath, and his father was only a few feet away, right through the balcony's french doors. He'd draw attention if he tried to fight back. Damian Al Ghul knew how to kill, Damian Wayne should- and would- not kill. "You must be aware I have no intention to take my grandfather's throne. The League is under my mother's control, and it shall stay there until she relinquishes the role, herself."

"Oh, no!" Cain laughed, damn well giggled, and waved a hand as if to bat away the suggestion. "I'm not here about your role as the head of the League, I'm here simply about your role as an Al Ghul." Damian raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure how those two did not pertain to each other. Surely, his blood meant nothing if he were not to inherit the throne. Cain set his chin at the knuckle of his curled fist, smiling, green eyes light like emeralds and shining in mirth. "You see, a long, long time ago, my father promised you my sister's hand in marriage."

What?

Damian's heart skidded to a sudden halt, a skip. A fiance? But- "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I can't honor this arrangement."

"Because you're gay." A laugh bubbled up in Cain's throat as Damian pressed his forearm to his throat, bracing himself against the balcony's fence. "Your mother wasn't keen on revealing details, but I have my ways." Cain raised an eyebrow, mockingly, a corner of his lips raising to show off a thin trail of pearly white teeth, single fang that looked sharper than it probably was. "My sister was always so excited about marrying you. She'd seen your portraits, heard about your first trophy. I believe Talia even sent us the head. She keeps it in a jar, you know, says that your ruthless nature is what draws her to you."

"I'm not like that anymore."

"I'm not sure I believe that." Cain shook his head, but made no moves to pull away from Damian's pressing arm, no matter the force he used against his throat. The only sign that he felt it at all was the light red dusting his cheeks, but that could have just as well been from the alcohol he could smell on his breath. "Look what you're doing to me, Damian, you've still got Al Ghul blood in your veins, and my father still finds you a good fit for our family."

"I am not. Interested. "

"You misunderstand, Damian." Cain lifted his hands, delicately brushed them against the arm of his tailored suit. His fingers were lithe, brushed against the small sliver of skin that inched out from under his flexing arm. Those green eyes were just as alight as they had been moments before, but shimmered in the moon's glow, so different from Jon, who was brightest in the company of the sun. Cain was a wolf where Jon had been a bird, alive in the night, like him. Like his father. His hold slackened, the memory of Jon's smile coming unbidden. It hurt, it hurt, it burned and so did his eyes and he wanted it to stop. Jon had never loved him, and they could never go back to the way things had been before, and he was alone, as he always was. He didn't want to think about that with his arm at some stranger's throat, even if his smile looked the same, even if his hands felt like Jon's against his wrist. Cain squeezed back. "I'm not here to force my sister's hand, I'm here to force mine, my dear fiance ."

He hadn't seen Damian in weeks, hadn't heard a word from him. Maybe he shouldn't have expected to after they'd last met, maybe he should have focused more on Iris, but it'd been so hard. Every moment of every day, he struggled to keep himself from calling again, from leaving another message when he knew Damian wouldn't listen to it. He messed up, he knew he did. He'd hurt Damian, hurt him horribly, then rubbed it in his face because he'd been so stupidly excited to show off his first girlfriend -! He should have never kissed him, should have never told Damian he wanted him, should have thought things through before he crossed that bridge… but instead, he'd burnt it the moment Damian had gone to follow him. He'd tried to be as kind as he could have, tried to tell Damian that he'd been wrong about what he'd wanted, and he was sorry, and he'd tried to convey that, but he knew it must not have hurt any less.

God, he'd been so worried about him when he left the tower that day, knew that waving Iris in his face was like another shot straight through his heart if Damian had been telling the truth (that he loved him). Damian had always been the type to cave in on himself, to work too hard and get hurt in the process, to throw himself into anything that kept his mind off of the thing that was hurting. Usually Jon was a safe place for him to come to, even if it always took a little prodding. Usually, he'd have already had Damian venting by now, talking with his hands as they hung around in his room for hours, until he got tired, until Jon forced him into a hug and made him spend the night. And he'd tried to do that, still be his safe place, was prepared to take every abusive word Damian might have had because he knew he kinda deserved it. But Damian had run from him, said mean things about Iris, who didn't deserve it, who'd done nothing but uh… rock his world, once (it hadn't happened again since). Damian had told him that looking at him made him feel sad , told him they couldn't be friends anymore, that things would never be the way they were before, and that killed him.

He loved Damian, as a friend, and he missed him so, so horribly. It felt like a piece of him was missing, it felt like he was in a nightmare he couldn't just blink and snap himself out of. Damian was his best friend, his soulmate (platonically, even if it took him a while to figure that out), the other half of his heart and his partner. Superboy and Robin, Superman eventually and whatever title Damian decided to take on. They were a pair, a team, inseparable, and now it was looking like he'd gone and ruined everything. Kori was still worried, everyone was. They all came to him for answers he couldn't give, because then he'd have to tell them… what he'd done. What they'd done. Even if it was all innocent, even if he'd figured himself out. He'd probably costed the Teen Titans a teammate in the process, and he didn't know how to fix it. He just wanted Damian back in his life, that was all he wanted.

It was a Monday, quiet, a summer morning. Nobody was around, with his dad at the Justice League Headquarters and his mom out late working on a report she swore up and down would win her another prize. He hadn't slept in three days, longer if you didn't count the hours he intermittently dozed off throughout the weeks he and Damian hadn't been on speaking terms. Sleep seemed to elude him since that night in Gotham, and when it didn't, his mind liked to haunt him with the image of Damian's turned back, the break in his voice as he called Iris a slut and ran away from him. He couldn't help but think that Damian had been close to crying, too, wanted to believe he wasn't the only one laying awake at night, biting down on his lips so his dad wouldn't hear him crying. Though maybe it was better if Damian hadn't been. The thought of being the reason somebody as strong as Damian cried sent sick shivers through him like he'd swallowed a string of seaweed whole. Jon carried himself out to his mailbox, thankful that he had no neighbors to judge him for the sweatpants and the three-week-old t-shirt that he was pretty sure he'd spilled lo mein on two days previous. He couldn't bring himself to care, not when he could hear Damian's low chuckle in his ear. You're getting sloppy, Superboy . He wanted to hear that voice, would take that sweet sound anywhere he could get it. He pulled open the lid, stuck his hand in and retrieved what was doubtlessly bills, bills, and more bills, maybe a college offer.

He slumped his way back into the house, sparing a passive pat at Krypto's head as he made his way to the kitchen.

Bank, bank, Metropolis University, Wayne Industrie- "Wayne Industries?"

A small envelope, not white, tinted red, and signed with the typical Wayne Industries stamp. It was impersonal, but he'd take it, anything, anything that Damian maybe had a hand in. He tore open the small envelope with such abandon that he'd nearly torn the card inside in half. It was smaller, square, and fit in the palm of his hand. On the front were two different names in cursive, one he didn't recognize and Damian's. Then there was a date between both, only a month in the future. An invitation, then. A fundraiser? Damian's birthday wasn't until Fall in November, not that he thought he'd get invited to that anyway with the way things were going. The card smelled of Damian's cologne, forest oak and mint, and the scent made tears come to his eyes. He missed it, missed that comforting, familiar smell, missed him. Rao, he felt weak in the knees.

He opened the small square.

Clark Kent

Lois Kent

Jonathan Samuel Kent

You're cordially invited to the wedding of

Damian Wayne & Cain Barnett

8/28/2020

It slipped from his fingers, fluttering to the ground until the words laid face down, and Jon could pretend, through his trembling fingertips and eyes filled with tears, that he hadn't read them.