A League assassin makes the same deal with temperature as he does with pain. Which is to say, he'd never show it outwardly, but he is, of course, still very much aware of it.
So, even though he's alone, Damian keeps the following thought to himself:
Damn, it's cold.
He shoves his leather-gloved hands into the pockets of his wool coat and buries his face in his soft scarf. He can get away with it, because he isn't on this train platform in Gotham as a League assassin. He's here as Damian Lance, "long lost son" of Bruce Wayne, and damn, Gotham is cold.
Bruce offered to fly Damian to Starling City, either in the Bat Plane (which Soraya will probably kill him for declining) or on a Wayne private jet. But in the six years since Damian learned about Bruce's existence in the worst way possible, Damian has liked to keep Bruce far from his family. He still comes to visit, voluntarily, because it means a lot to Bruce, and Damian likes what Habibti calls "the Batkids" well enough. It's nice to see where certain of his features originate and learn the other half of his medical history.
And score Soraya the occasional chance to drive (and once, rather memorably, crash) the various Bat modes of transportation.
But Damian comes before Christmas, not for it. For it, he is awaiting a train to a (rare these days) American Christmas in Starling City.
The lights of Gotham illuminate the sky behind Damian as he pulls his knit hat down lowers over his ears. There are twice as many lights this time of year. Yes, he has spent about half of his life high in the Himalayas, but city-cold is different, he'd bet his life on it.
The train creaks and squeals its way into the station – good old-fashioned American infrastructure. Aunt Felicity finally got the plans for an electric high-speed rail pushed through that useless Congress a few years back, but even the new trains still manage to sound old, even if they're no longer spewing exhaust.
Damian happily makes his way into the arm, waiting train car, bright and inviting after half an hour outside, clouds heavy with unfallen snow overhead, near frozen moisture filling the air and clinging to everything around. He finds an empty row, easily tosses his suitcase on the rack overhead, and sinks into the soft window seat.
It's still several days before Christmas, and Damian purposefully chose an overnight train, so the car is sparsely occupied and blissfully quiet. Damian is no stranger to crowded tables, but the "Batkids" are a boisterous bunch who put even Soraya to shame in the sheer amount of chaos they can create. That, of course, was better than the awkward dinners alone with Bruce, where they struggled to find safe topics in common and his genetic father looked at him with such painful longing.
Damian knows Bruce wants him to have regrets. Damian knows Bruce dreams of what it would have been like to raise Damian in Wayne Manor, knows he desperately wants the two of them to be close.
But Damian's childhood lacked for nothing. The revelation six years ago about his paternity had brought with it a few harder truths. That Damian's League name, Faris, or Knight, had been given to him by his grandfather more to goad his genetic mother than any qualities Ra's al Ghul had seen in him. That Talia, said mother, was more complicated than the distant, cold figure of Damian's preteen years. That Bruce and Talia, decades into their dance, twenty years into Damian's life, still had an unhealthy pull on each other they never managed to get right.
The revelation did not, however, change anything meaningful about Damian's life. He'd been raised by two parents whose love for him and for each other had always been bright and pure and sure. His sisters, likewise born to different parents but raised by the Heir and her Beloved, are the most important people in his life, even if he quite regularly wants to hurl them off the fortress at Nanda Parbat. His grandfather finds him worthy, showers on him attention and gentle affection that Bruce could never comprehend from the Head of the Demon. His extended Lance family, for whom he is now bound, gives him a taste of the exact "real world" Bruce desperately wanted Damian raised in, with more openness and understanding that Bruce, try as he might, has ever been able to muster. Enough of the alleged "real world" that when Damian chose the League, he did it with eyes open.
Damian rests his forehead against the cold window as the train pulls out of the station.
He's being unfair to Bruce. He really does enjoy many parts of their visits – that's why he keeps coming back. But by the end, Damian is always exhausted. Their values are fundamentally different, and Bruce has never managed to truly be neutral about that.
He's happy to be bound for real family. For sprinkle donuts (and the attendant teasing), silly hats, Christmas carols, big meals, and laughter. Though he's the eldest of his Lance cousins by a bit, he still likes hanging out with them when they visit, teenage everything and all. That chaos is home for him, and he finds himself eager to get to Starling.
There are moments when Sara pauses and thinks this isn't normal. When she pokes her head into the cockpit to check on twelve-year-old Soraya flying their plane, she has one of those moments.
But Soraya has applied herself to the study of flight with a level of dedication and focus above even what she brings to the rest of her physical League training, and Sara feels completely at ease with her at the controls.
And obviously, so does Nyssa, who sits in the co-pilot's seat with her nose buried in a tablet.
Sara winks at Soraya, who rolls her eyes, and takes another minute to admire her beloved (mostly) unobserved. The years have been kind, even without the special assistance that Ra's (and Rocket) have been partaking in: yes, Nyssa's using reading glasses, has soft lines at her mouth and eyes, and her black hair is elegantly streaked with white, but Sara still think she's the most beautiful person she's ever seen.
"Ugh, take the heart eyes to the cabin. I'm trying to cross the Atlantic here," Soraya interrupts with a groan, and Nyssa's eyes snap up to meet Sara's. Sara gives her an impish grin.
"The autopilot is on, and your focus should be on the instruments, not terrorizing your mother."
"Not terrorizing," Soraya says, small hand tucking a strand of silky hair behind her ear. "She's got no shame."
Sara laughs. "She's got me there. How long 'til Starling, darling?"
Both Soraya's and Nyssa's eyes roll this time.
"We've got half an hour until we even enter US airspace," Soraya answers, fingers drumming lightly on the control panel, eyes moving from display to display.
"Great. Close enough."
Sara plops a Santa hat each on Soraya's and Nyssa's heads and then flips the only switch in the cockpit that she knows.
Mariah Carey starts to fill the cockpit.
Soraya squeals in delight. Nyssa actually groans.
"You will pay for this, habibti."
"Oh, I hope so."
"Gross. I don't wanna hear that," Soraya complains.
Sara laughs.
"Have fun," she says brightly, headed back to the main cabin. "I'm gonna text Azra, see if she and Sar'ab are still on time."
The familiar voice echoes through the train station.
"You're too damn tall."
Damian laughs.
"Hi, Aunt Sin."
He looks them over, tiny and cooler than he could ever be, permanently attached to a leather jacket that will never go out of style, hair salt and pepper on the shaved sides, bright purple down the middle. He notes:
"You know, I haven't grown at all since you last saw me."
"Doesn't change the fact you're too damn tall."
Damian slings his duffle over one shoulder and uses the other arm to pull his aunt into a one-armed bear hug, which they return with equal fervor.
"Merry Christmas, kid. Got your favorite donut in the car, but Thea says you gotta promise not to puke," Sin grins as they release him, nodding towards the parking garage.
Damian sighs. He knew it was coming.
"I haven't puked on Christmas since-"
He stops and inwardly curses.
"That time in Tahiti two years ago when we decided to turn A Muppet Christmas Carol into a drinking game and freaking Vibe drank us all under the table?" Sin grins, bumping his elbow with their shoulder.
"Well, I'm teetotaling this year," Damian says. "Ma's punishment was not something I want to repeat."
He shudders, remembering the four days of drills run by Soraya.
"Fair enough. You were way too young, and we're way too old, to drink like that."
They get to Sin's fancy black electric SUV, and Damian tosses his duffle into the back.
"The rest of my family make it in yet?"
"Azra is due this afternoon, your moms and So' around the same time – depends on whether their plane can break the sound barrier."
"Nah, she's not allowed to do that over any populated areas. Gotta go to the Gobi for it," Damian chuckles.
"Most times I hear about UFO sightings these days, I just assume it's Soraya breaking a rule."
"Oh, c'mon. How do you know it's not Santa?"
"I can't believe they beat us here," Soraya is complaining as she runs through all the plane's shut down procedures, hands flying over the buttons and switches.
"You're too competitive," Nyssa complains.
They're both still wearing their Santa hats.
"They were in Mexico City, So'. It's way closer," Sara consoles. She kisses them each on the cheek, then leaps back out the bulkhead door to grab Rocket and meet Azra on the tarmac.
Their fourteen-year-old waits at perfect, casual attention at the bottom of the plane's steps. She's got a pretty red coat on, a fine, soft wool perfectly in line with their oil baron cover story, and a cashmere scarf artfully loose around her neck. Her grey eyes betray warmth when they meet Sara's, and when Sara meets her, she and Azra are eye to eye and shoulder to shoulder.
Yet another one of her kids likely to be taller than her.
Sara's got her hopes set on keeping a centimeter or two on Soraya.
"How was D.F.?" Sara asks, embracing her.
"Successful," is all Azra says. Sara kisses her cheek and places a Santa hat on her brown curls. "How was your flight?"
"Surprisingly smooth."
"Flying is the one thing she takes seriously," Azra says wryly.
That, and serving the Demon, Sara thinks, since Soraya is the only one of her children who has ever begged to go into the field early. The requests have been denied.
So far.
"Is the car here?" Sara asks.
"Waiting with a driver," Azra confirms. "Damian reports that the Bird's Nest is ready, and he has held all family members off for approximately-" She checks her watch. "Forty-seven minutes."
"Approximately," Sara laughs. "Okay. Enough time to get settled. Maybe even freshen up. He's a bit of a pushover, though; you probably could have gotten ninety-seven."
Azra grins a bit as Soraya spills out of the plane with Nyssa following at a more dignified pace.
Soraya jumps down the last few steps, lands with a flourish, and announces:
"Let's get this Christmas started!"
"I know Bruce is, like, Bruce, but do you think if you called him up right now and called him 'Dad' he'd let me run the Grand Canyon in the BatJet?" Soraya, perched on the dresser, ably tying her bow tie, asks.
"One, I'm not going to do that. And, two, no, he wouldn't," Damian answers, adjusting the cuffs on his own tux.
"Fine. I'll just call Diana."
Soraya hands him his cuff links.
"Wonder Woman isn't going to let you run the Grand Canyon in the Invisible Jet either."
"Why? It's invisible: who's gonna know?"
Damian sighs and looks around their shared room at the Bird's Nest. He's been tasked with making sure the two of them are ready on time for Aunt Felicity's fundraiser. They're basically ready to go, except-
There they are. He grabs the snowflake socks, Habibti's idea, his obviously much bigger than Soraya's.
"Why do you want to run the Grand Canyon in a jet?" Damian asks, tossing her her socks.
When they were younger, Azra and Soraya shared this room, one of three at the Bird's Nest. But Azra snores, and Soraya's energy drives Azra crazy. He and Al Ameerah get along much better. He can sleep through anything, and he does not snore, as far as Soraya has reported.
"Seems fun," Soraya shrugs.
Damian shrugs back.
"For you."
Soraya's face flashes a "duh". He laughs and resists the urge to ruffle her hair, which she has neatly braided into twin braids that brush the shoulders of her maroon tux. He wishes he could pull off a matching one, but he sticks with a more conservative black.
"You wanna go out on a mission, right?"
She nods earnestly, eyes wide.
"Then you've gotta cut back on the speed fiend showboating. Jeddy's letting Ma call the shots more and more, and showing that you're responsible is the only way she'd budge even an inch on that."
Soraya frowns thoughtfully, like that's never occurred to her.
"But going slow is boring."
"Sometimes you have to slow down to speed up, 'ukhti."
Soraya nods and hops down, sprinting for the door. She stops two strides into her run, then continues somewhat more sedately.
Damian rolls his eyes and follows after.
Felicity throws a big fundraiser every December for the Glades community work Sara and Nyssa started all those years ago. It is definitively winter– and not Christmas – themed, all blues and whites and flickering lights, not a red or green to be seen. Sara's heard all about them from her family, but she's never actually been here for one. It's a far cry from the homey Hanukkah parties she does remember attending (and which still happen, on the appropriate days).
But this year, the Lance-al Ghuls have made it, and it's nice. The Starling City Plaza Hotel glitters with the city's richest, all dolled up and vying to catch the attention of Smoak Industries' owner. (Felicity got the controlling interest in the divorce.)
Thinking of Felicity, who is still so gloriously herself on her annual visits to Paradise Island, as a kingmaker here in Starling does give Sara a hearty chuckle, which she stifles with her champagne glass.
Across the room, dapper Soraya and the twins tear up the dance floor, Quint also in a maroon tux and Vivi in a matching velvet dress. Cisco, of course, joins them. The quieter Smoak-Queen siblings, Grace, ten, and Robbie, seven, sway in the trio's orbit.
Stella and Azra, looking way too grown up in evening wear, talk politics with Starling's mayor, Rayna Lopez, alongside Laurel. Damian laughs warmly with the Diggle kids, who are both as grown as he is, but will always be kids to her. Her son looks more relaxed than she's seen him recently: she keeps telling him he never has to see Bruce if he doesn't want to, but he keeps going.
And Nyssa keeps remind her he's a grown ass man. Sara is paraphrasing of course.
Speaking of that Heir to the Demon… Nyssa appears beside her, two fresh champagne glasses at the ready.
"Did you get to write the big check?" Sara grins, switching out her glass and taking a sip.
"Indeed."
"And shame all the old white guys into writing bigger checks?"
Nyssa smothers a grin.
"Aw, your favorite part," Sara laughs. "You see the check D brought from Gotham?"
"A guilt check, not a shame check," Nyssa clarifies.
"Separates and redistributes institutional wealth all the same," Sara says, clinking glasses with Nyssa.
They're the beneficiaries of plenty of that institutional wealth themselves, though assassination is a more honest way to come by it than most corporate heirs. And they spend a lot of time redistributing it.
"And isn't Starling better for it," Nyssa says lightly.
"Yeah, definitely way less Hellmouthy."
Nyssa's brow wrinkles in that adorable way she has when she's trying to place a reference. They're interrupted by their hostess before she can get there.
"So… how is Soraya at the, uh, clandestine part of the family business?" Felicity asks.
On the dance floor, over Felicity's shoulder, Soraya has started a break-dancing battle with Barry and Cisco that is garnering quite a bit of attention.
"Surprisingly good," Sara shrugs. "You know what she's like in sneak mode."
"Soraya has a formidable ability to compartmentalize," Nyssa notes. "And I believe the attention is part of her cover."
A trick Soraya often utilizes.
Felicity nods thoughtfully, giving Sara a sidelong look. "I know someone like that."
Nyssa gives her a knowing nod. Sara narrows her eyes at each of them, then switches the subject.
"So, what's the donation total?" she asks Felicity.
"They're still counting," Felicity answers. "It's so great to have you all here. Thanks for coming early this time."
"No prob-" Sara starts.
Nyssa's gaze snaps to the door.
The world explodes into white.
Soraya was Damian's warning. He and Michael were pointing out the kids to Sara Diggle when Soraya suddenly stopped mid-robot and pivoted to the front doorway. When Soraya dives and tackles the twins, Damian takes the cue and does the same thing to the Diggle siblings. They hit the ground as the eponymous bang of a flashbang rips through the room, which is already bright enough to sear through Damian's tightly closed eyes.
The gunshots come next – repeating. Machine guns. Upward to the ceiling based on the sound of bullets hitting plaster. Better than bodies.
Damian reaches up and pulls the table next to them down, a barrier between them and the bullets. He turns to Michael and Sara as he raises into a crouch. They're uninjured, obviously in some shock. Less than people not raised by superheroes, of course.
"Stay behind this. Stay low when you can make a break for it. I'm gonna go help, Soraya." He speaks firmly, intently, even though his ears ring. He doesn't know who threw the grenade and what they want, and right now, he doesn't care. He lets the mantle of Faris fall over him, even though he'd been fully Damian Lance only moments ago.
After getting a dazed nod from each of them, he ducks around the overturned table, still crouched low, hand reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket for the throwing knives tucked in there.
His path to the dance floor is against the tide of panicked partygoers, so he dodges black tie Starlingites, pushing them towards the exit. No sooner have his feet hit the parquet than Soraya is shoving Vivi and Quint at him. Vivi has a cut on her forehead, the blood caking her black curls; Quint seems okay except for the look of wide-eyed fear on his face.
"Barry and Tio Cisco are flanking the gunmen. Get them out of here," Soraya orders in fast, clipped village Pashto.
"You go," Damian argues, even as he's pulling his cousins in for a tight hug. "I'll-"
"Get them out," Soraya repeats, firmly. "Then you can come back. I gotta get the Queens."
She points with her chin through the chaos of the dance floor, towards a mess of toppled speakers and cocktail tables. Grace and Robbie are huddled underneath.
"You climbing in there, gigantor?"
Damian sighs, then nods in acquiescence.
"Be careful."
Soraya rolls her eyes and uses the sleeve of her tux to wipe sweat from her brow. She looks over her shoulder briefly, then hands him a crumpled-up cocktail napkin.
"Ears. All of you. Now."
And then she's gone.
He almost gets all their ears stuffed before the next flashbang.
Sara gets Felicity into the arms of her security team, promising she will go get Robbie and Grace.
There are seventeen combatants and a gala in chaos. Barry has already engaged many, Speedster that he is, and Laurel, Cisco, and Nyssa are handling the rest. Before the second explosion, Sara sees Damian hurrying the twins towards an exit.
The second flashbang throws Sara off her feet, but eyes burning and ears ringing, she falls into a roll. She takes the brunt of the fall on her shoulder and comes up closer to the dance floor she was headed to anyway. She last saw the Queen kids here, so it's a good place to start.
She has a lot of good questions – who, why, how did they get past a dozen League assassins outside – but those are either for Nyssa to solve or for later. Right now, she has a rescue mission and an eye out of her girls, and those are the only things that matter.
Her comm crackles in her ear.
"Faris and I have secured most civilian survivors. Grace and Robert remain unaccounted for," Azra's, Al Thill's, voice cuts through. "Have I successfully restored comms?"
Village Pashto, still, for utmost security.
"Copy, Al Thill," Nyssa reports through grunts and punches. There's brief gunfire and Sara holds her breath, but Nyssa is right back on the line. "Iradat al Ghul?"
"Copy," Sara says, searching the remnants of the dance floor. "Looking for Queens now. Al Ameerah?"
No answer.
"Al Ameerah," Nyssa says more firmly. "Do you copy?"
Silence. Sara feels a spike of fear but sets it aside for now. Soraya knows how to handle herself.
"Last saw her going after the Queens, too," Damian says. "By the stage: it was a mess of furniture, and she was going to crawl in after them."
"On it." Sara scans the wreckage for the three kids.
"Should we-" Damian starts.
"Stay where you are," Nyssa orders. "Keep everyone safe."
Another abbreviated gunshot, then a groan as Nyssa finishes her attacker.
"I don't like this," Nyssa says.
"I know," Sara says. She rounds an overturned table and comes face to face with two armed, balaclava'd fighters… locked in battle with her twelve year old. "I've got eyes on her."
Soraya's tux is torn at the elbows and knees, hair halos her face, pulled free of her neat braids. Blood drips from a split lip, and she's got that look in her dark brown eyes.
Because that's really the wrinkle in the "Can Soraya go on a mission early?" argument. The usual logic doesn't necessarily apply.
Soraya has already killed, and she's about to do it again.
Spinning in her hands there is a long metal pole, likely taken from a mic stand, and two guns lay scattered out of reach. Soraya lashes out with a vicious hit under the chin of one assailant, snapping his head back as he hits the ground. She lets go of her makeshift bo with one hand and slips a knife into the other. With fluid grace, her youngest shatters her assailant's kneecap and then brings the knife up into his armpit, right through a sliver of unarmored space.
Sara taught her that.
It's over before Sara can even react, and then Soraya is back between two overturned speakers, helping Grace and Robbie out, speaking gently, reassuringly to them.
"Mom, good," Soraya grins when she sees her there, that grin revealing bloody teeth. "Take them."
Soraya is taking off her jacket, slipping it over ten-year-old Grace's slim shoulders, plucking out the black silk pocket square to wipe blood from little Robbie's left ear. Ruptured eardrum, Sara thinks, from the flashbang. Each Queen child has tear tracks on their cheeks, looking at Soraya with adoring awe.
"Ya binti," Sara says. She almost tells her to take the kids across the street, almost orders her to get out of here. But the look in Soraya's eyes says something else, and Sara nods, fishing her earbud out of her ear and slipping it into Soraya's. "Your comm is fried. Report in to your mother. Follow orders."
Soraya nods, blows her a kiss, and vaults over a fallen table, headed towards the action.
Sara takes each Queen kid by the hand and leads them to safety.
Soraya's lip is already well on the way to healing; she's fast like that.
Damian finds her hanging upside down, holding her Santa hat in place with one hand, from the third-floor banister of Aunt Laurel and Tio Cisco's townhouse.
"Shh," she says. "I'm hiding from the Queens."
Robbie and Grace have been following her around ever since she pulled them from the ballroom – their tuxedoed savior. This Christmas Day, she is dressed in the same zip up, reindeer-themed onesie as he is. Habibti bought all Lances one.
"I promise not to reveal your location," Damian says, leaning against the stairway wall so that they're eye-to-eye. He gets it, but he wants to yell at her to get back downstairs and enjoy this American Christmas.
Because it's probably the last one.
Unlike Soraya, who cares little for the why or even much for the who she was fighting, Damian and Azra had been present while everyone debriefed the attacked on the gala. The assailants had a grudge against the League, a white supremacist gang from Europe (the League's deal with ARGUS kept them off US soil for mission, leaving the Justice League to handle the American domestic terrorism problem).
Damian and Azra had worked a mission with Khala the month before, striking a blow at this same organization. Not a fatal enough one, it seems, and they took particular umbrage at a bunch of polyglot, multiracial assassins taking a swipe at them.
They'd been tidily handled at Aunt Felicity's gala, not expecting two metas on top of League assassins. No civilians were killed. Five gang members were, including the two who came for Soraya.
Damian alone had been there for the conservation between their mothers. It was too great a risk now that Damian and Azra were out making enemies in their own right. Their US family could still visit them, certainly, but they'd never again come to Starling all together, especially at a predictable holiday time.
And while he completely understands the logic, he mourns it, too.
"You don't have to hide though," he gently prods his sister. "You can just ignore them."
Soraya shrugs, a funny gesture while upside down.
"I helped Vivi and Quint, too, and they aren't being weird."
Damian grins. "They're more used to you being heroic."
Soraya makes a face.
"Why don't you come down before Stella eats the last cookies?" Damian tries again.
Soraya's eyes widen.
"Oh hell no."
"Soraya."
"Heck, heck, whatever," Soraya grumbles, flipping down, landing easily on the uneven stairs. "Just words, akhi."
Damian laughs. "Merry Christmas, 'ukhti."
There's no miraculous snow on her last Christmas in Starling City. Snow is pretty rare here, and she's got plenty in Nanda Parbat, but she kinda thought there would be.
It rains instead.
Sara knows it isn't goodbye, either from her family or the city, just from this specific situation. They have had and will have a ton of great Christmases, all over the world. But she's still taking a moment to acknowledge the finality of something she once thought she'd just have one of, with a mischievous four-year-old boy, now turned grown man.
Felicity took her kids home after dinner, much to Soraya's relief, and Thea and Sin headed out soon after. The Ramon-Lance townhouse is cozy and warm while the rain pelts outside. Laurel's tree flickers with pretty lights and too many bird-themed ornaments. In the living room, Laurel, Nyssa, and their mini-mes drink tea and chat with Dinah over a Scrabble board. Cisco, Damian, and the younger ones build an epic train set all around the rest of the house. Her dad and Richard are "watching a movie" (asleep on the couch).
Sara sips at her hot cider, enjoying the moment, savoring the last of it. She catches Nyssa's eye. Nyssa gives a soft smile. She looks adorable – the Heir to the Demon in a onesie that makes her look like a reindeer. Sara can't wait to zip her out of it later.
Ahead lies revenge on some fucking Nazis and many more, different family holidays. She looks forward to both equally.
Also ahead lies figuring out how to balance maintaining Soraya's childhood and honoring the person she is, especially when the girl herself sees no contradiction between her gift for violence and her other, more age-appropriate pursuits.
That will be more complicated, but Sara is confident they can handle it. Together.
Speaking of more age-appropriate pursuits, Soraya has gained control of the sound system, and Sara feels a Christmas music dance party coming on. Sara finishes her cider in one last gulp, intent on making sure she gets Laurel's first dance.
fin