Chapter 16

December 22nd, 2017. 7:44 PM.

Damian stood looking out his bedroom window at the city outside, now blanketed in a white powder. When Damian came to America, he was under the impression that snow simply wasn't something that happened in California. But, lo and behold, the forecast was calling for a White Christmas. Unbelievable. This, unfortunately, put a halt to his holiday plans. Damian's father had been planning on bringing Alfred up to the Tower to visit the boy, and Jon had hoped he'd be able to bring his family back to Jump, and the six of them could spend Christmas together… or rather, the seven of them. But when snow falls in Jump City, it apparently is enough to warrant a total shutdown of all the airports until weather conditions are clear again. So now, since his father didn't want him driving anywhere by himself, Damian was stuck in Titans Tower.

On Christmas.

Alone.

… Or at least, he would be alone if not for Raven. Though her aunt in New York had invited "Rachel" to spend the holidays with them, Raven decided to stay behind and join the Kents and Waynes in their celebration. Kori offered to bring Raven with her to Blüdhaven to visit Dick and Barbara, but still the girl insisted on staying behind. Truth be told, Damian had mixed feelings about it; on one hand, he would give anything for her to be there with him on Christmas. But on the other hand, it made Damian even more disappointed that their plans had fallen through. He felt as if, even though it was beyond his control, he'd let her down somehow.

Raven walked into Damian's room, wrapping her arms around him from behind and nuzzling his cheek. Damian's face turned just the slightest tint of red. Maybe it wasn't all bad; having the Tower to themselves for a week was nice, Damian had to admit. But still, the dissatisfaction was there.

"Damian," Raven spoke softly into Damian's ear. "It's alright. I don't mind spending Christmas with just you and me."

Damian turned his head towards the girl, touching his nose to hers. "I know you don't…" he sighed, putting his arms over hers. "But I wanted this to be special. I wanted you to feel like part of the family."

"I do," Raven assured him before pressing her lips to his cheek. "But sometimes things just happen that we can't fix. It's okay."

Damian turned around in Raven's arms, his own arms sliding around Raven's waist. "I promise, I'll make it up to you. I'll come up with something."

"Damian…" Raven held her forehead to his, and moved one hand onto the back of his neck. "I don't need you to make it up to me. You've given me so much more than I could ever ask of you."

Damian smiled at the wonderful girl in his arms. For being together for so long, it's actually rather curious that they never…

Oh… There's an idea.

"Grab a coat," Damian said as he stepped back and rushed over to his closet, pulling out a pair of regular, non-superheroic boots.

"What?" Raven cocked her head to the side just slightly. "Why? Where are we going?"

"Nowhere in particular," Damian said smiling. "I just feel like going for a walk."

…

If Autumn is the best time to be in Gotham, then Winter is the best time to be in Jump City. As Damian and Raven walked through Central Park, the snow falling all around them, Raven couldn't help noticing that they were the only ones out. Upon taking a second look around, Damian realized that, yes, everyone else was gone.

Raven shrugged, turning back to look at Damian. "Guess everyone else thinks it's too cold to be outside."

"What about you?" Damian asked. "Are you cold?"

Raven shrugged. "Demons are better at maintaining their body temperature. I'm not quite as gifted, given that I'm only a half-demon, but I can still stand the cold better than most. They call it the 'Vein-Fire'…" Raven glanced back at Damian. "What about you? Are you cold?"

"I'm used to extreme temperatures like this…" Damian explained. "First time I ever saw snow, I was four years old. Had to climb a mountain. Broke my wrist… but I made it to the top anyway."

"They made you keep going?" Raven looked at the boy with pity. Damian shook his head.

"I just… did. It was what was expected of me. It's what I expected of myself…" Damian kept his eyes to the ground. "I mean… from day one I was, above all things else, the grandson of Ra's al Ghul. It was my duty to be the absolute best, whatever the cost."

Raven stopped walking for a moment , staring at him. He turned back to face her, his face glum.

"… Raven, that's not me anymore. You know that's not me."

"I know it's not you," Raven took Damian's face in her hands, looking into his icy blue eyes. "You're a good man, Damian. You're ten times the man your grandfather was."

Damian smiled. "I wish I'd realized then how wrong I was. I had no idea…"

"You were a child," Raven went on. "You could never have known, because they never allowed you to learn any differently." She slid her hands down onto the boy's shoulders.

"… You're right… I'm sorry, let's just keep walking." Damian took Raven by the hand, and they continued walking along the pathway. "There's actually something I've been wondering about for awhile now."

Raven sighed, letting the focus shift away. "What's that?"

"In all the time we've known each other…" Damian cracked a half-smile as he spoke. "I've never actually heard you listen to music."

"Really?" Raven cocked an eyebrow in surprise. "I actually… well, no. I don't guess I do it that often." They both laughed as they came to a frozen puddle in the center of the park.

"… Hey, Damian. I have an idea." Raven started walking out into the snow, headed for the edge of the park. She had gone about ten paces before she realized Damian wasn't following her. She turned to see him, staring thoughtfully back at her.

"Damian?" She called out to him before coming back and taking his hands in hers. "What's the matter?"

Damian looked into her eyes, and saw something resembling a flash in the clouds of her irises. "Nothing, I just…" He smiled. "… I wanna remember this moment."

Raven's face turned red as a smile spread across her face. "C'mon. I wanna show you something."

…

"Alright… we're here."

Damian looked back to find that, much to his surprise, Raven had taken him all the way outside the city limits. If it had been anyone else, Damian would have been vastly more reluctant to come so far out without knowing what exactly he was getting into… but of course, this wasn't anyone else. This was Raven. She was the moon that brought the tides of his soul into balance. For her, he'd travel around the world a thousand times over on naught but a rumor. So instead he found himself sitting under a lone pine tree at the edge of this frozen pond, covered in snow, watching his Raven dig around underneath the powder beside him, searching for something of great importance. Her sudden jump, followed by frantic digging, (which inadvertently covered him deeper in the snow) indicated that she had found what she was looking for.

"Kori brought me here my first winter on the team," Raven explained. "She made me promise I'd use these one day if it ever got cold enough for the pond to freeze over."

She turned to Damian and, after holding back a laugh at seeing him nearly covered in snow, handed him a pair of ice skates. "Here, put these on." Damian smiled, seeing something akin to excitement behind Raven's eyes, and did as she said while Raven pulled out her phone.

"Wait… let me grab something right quick," Raven said before melding into the shadows. Damian sighed, brushing the snow from his coat while he waited. Just as he shook the rest of the cold powder from his person, Raven reemerged from the shadows, this time holding what looked to be a wireless speaker.

"I'm sure Garfield won't mind if we borrow this." The mage girl winked, and set the speaker down on the root Damian had been sitting on before fiddling around with her phone for a moment.

"Ah, is see what you have in mind!" Damian exclaimed. "This oughta be interesting. What might you listen to?"

Raven smiled back at the boy as she set her phone down by the speaker and took to the ice.

"I just hope it's better than that awful stuff Tim listens to," Damian went on sarcastically. "That pounding electric nonsense just gives me a–"

Damian fell silent as the calming sounds of an acoustic guitar began to fill the air.

"I hope this is okay," Raven said as she slowed her glide around the pond, gracefully approaching Damian with her hand outstretched. "This one helps me get to sleep at night." Damian offered a look of contentment as he took her hand, joining her on the frozen pond.

There on their own little stage, Damian and Raven began their secret performance. Raven slid across the frozen pond with a grace and elegance Damian was unaccustomed to. Damian, while not quite as graceful, still managed to keep steady as he moved across the ice. After a few circles around the pond, the two began to throw little twirls and such into their motions, and slowly they began to move in unison with the music. As the woman on the other end of the speaker wove a melancholy tale of fast cars and starting over, Damian and Raven danced around one another on the pond, slowly coming closer together in the center of the ice. As the music began to build, the two began to glide faster, and their circles around their stage drew in tighter. By the time the music was nearing its climax, the pair had come to the very center, and wet now spinning around and around, hand-in-hand, and pulled each other into an embrace just as the song playing around them reached its peak, slowing their rotations down gradually as the soft, dulcet tones of the guitar brought the song to an end. As the couple slowly spun in the center of the pond, Damian looked into Raven's eyes with a look of adoration and bliss– something he'd never shown anyone before.

"Damian…" Raven's face turned a bright vermilion, her lips pulled into a bashful smile as she met her Damian's gaze. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Damian gently pressed his forehead to hers as the next song began, a man going on over the sound of his guitar strings about showing your loved ones affection. "I just…" he spoke just softly enough that she could hear him. "… I'm going to remember this evening."

…

Raven sat by the window in the livingroom of the Tower, looking out as the snow continued to fall upon the city. This night started out on such a low note; Damian had been crushed when he realized his father wouldn't be there to join them. But by the time the two of them came home, Raven knew it had been the happiest Damian had felt in years… possibly his entire life. Raven knew they were young, that they both had many years of growing to do. But this… Raven knew in her heart, this feeling was real. This feeling, being with Damian, the way her heart fluttered when she looked into his eyes… that was all she wanted. He was hers, and she was his, and she couldn't stop the way she felt for her Damian any more than she could stop her heart from beating.

"Raven," she heard Damian call from the hallway. She turned back to see him carrying several things into the livingroom; in one hand he carried a blanket, and in the other he dragged a large bean bag chair behind him.

"Jonathan shouldn't mind us borrowing this," Damian said with a wink. Raven let out a laugh as she rose to greet him. Damian paused for a moment, then slowly pulled a small package out of the blanket, wrapped in snowflake wrapping paper.

"I know it's a few days early, but…" Damian looked deep into Raven's eyes as he spoke. "I couldn't think of a better way to top off the evening you gave me."

"Damian, you don't have to get me anything," the girl smiled back at him, holding the present to her chest.

"Well, you gave me something wonderful last year." Damian smirked. "I have to get even, you understand."

Raven just smiled and shook her head, carefully tearing away the wrapping paper to reveal…

"… what…?"

In Raven's hands was a handwritten letter in a frame. It showed signs of significant wear, but not necessarily from age. Raven held the letter carefully in her hands as she read it…

My sweet Damian,

I pray that your father sees fit to give you this letter someday. We may very well never meet again, and I need you to hear these words.

It will always be a burden on my heart that we cannot all be together. I know that your father will never share my beliefs about the League. I will always uphold the ideals of your grandfather, and I will guide his people to his vision now that he is gone… but I realize now that, as hard as it is to admit, this is not the life I want for you. As a member of your grandfather's League, you would lose that which makes you even better than myself or your grandfather: your spirit. You are but a boy now, but someday, when you have learned well from your father, you will become what I can never be: hope. A man born of greatness, raised as a member of this world, able to give strength to those who have to strength left.

It breaks my heart to know that we fight on opposite sides, but I know that, no matter what time has in store for us, you will achieve wonders.

Stay strong, my son. I will love you always, to the very last beat of my heart.

Mother

In the bottom-left corner of the frame accompanying the letter was a small photograph. In the photograph was a beautiful young woman with long brown hair and vivid jade eyes. She looked down at a baby in her arms, with his first tufts of black hair growing in. Raven would know the child's icy blue eyes anywhere… the baby was wrapped not in a blanket, but what Raven could very clearly see was the tattered remnants of a scalloped black cape.

"You shared a little bit about your mother with me last year…" Damian spoke gently as he placed a hand on Raven's shoulder. "… I wanted to return the favor."

Raven gently set the gift down on the floor beside the bean bag chair, before turning back to her Damian, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She threw her arms around his neck as her emotions overflowed, surrounding them again in a brilliant amethyst light. Damian held her tightly, both of them closing their eyes and feeling the other's presence complete them.

Slowly, as the two pulled each other in closer, they began to lean in. This was it; this was their moment. His knees trembling, Damian gently pressed his lips to hers…

All at once, the both of them felt a wave of passion course through their entire bodies. The brilliant light emanating from Raven came to life, erupting into flashes and sparks that illuminated the whole floor of the tower like…

Fireworks.

As they pulled slowly away, Damian and Raven both found themselves trembling uncontrollably. Everything about it was perfect. They locked eyes, both of them turning the deepest shade of scarlet, smiles of pure warmth and love on both of their faces.

As the clock on the wall displayed 1:30 in the morning, the young Titans agreed that it was time to call this day complete. After turning out the lights around them, Damian and Raven curled up together in the bean bag chair, sharing the blanket. Raven continued to gaze out the window as the snow continued to fall, until she glanced over to see her Damian smiling back at her.

"Are you going to remember?" Raven whispered, a gentle smile on her face.

"Raven…" Damian whispered in reply. "… to the very last beat of my heart… I'll never forget this feeling."