Chapter Text
There was a certain darkness that people never talked about when your body is doing everything in its power to survive.
Damian had felt his fair share of this darkness, after all he was Robin.
But fading in and out of existence and feeling that darkness lift and fall repeatedly is different.
He couldn’t think. Thinking hurt. Everything hurt. The dark was lifting and that was more excruciating than the silence and the black.
He heard a voice. He couldn’t understand it. Was it English? Arabic? French?
He tried to identify the words, but the dull throbbing of thinking made him wince. The jumbled voice spoke again, and there was darkness again.
The dark lifted again. Later. How much later? Where was he? He wasn’t dead, he didn’t feel dead.
The throbbing attacked again, and he felt himself succumb to the darkness again. The darkness was easier.
The next time the veil lifted, his eyes flickered open. He remembered seeing blue until the light felt blinding. His chest hurt. His arms hurt. He couldn’t move his leg.
He saw a white movement besides the blue. A jumbled voice. And the dark returned. He wanted the dark to return. He didn’t like the light.
It lifted again, he wanted to recoil. Bring back the darkness please, Damian begged. His subconscious obeyed and he slipped again.
He was tired of this routine. He felt tired. And something else. He felt…Angry. Wait. Angry at what? What did he have to be angry about?
He couldn’t remember.
So he did the only thing he remembered doing.
He fought.
He fought his own mind. His pain. The dark. He didn’t want to, but he knew he had to.
When the dark returned, he screamed at himself. He yelled, kicked, and struggled. And it worked. The dark kept receding. Not as strong with each return.
But when the dark would leave, everything burned. Everything hurt. And he didn’t know why.
So he fought for the memories. And after fighting, biting, and scratching for even just a semblance of his memory, he could only remember two sounds. A timer going off, and a bloodcurdling laugh.
He came to the conclusion very quickly that the two sounds shouldn’t mix. When he first found the noises, the timer and the laugh were one and the same. They meant death.
But the sound of the timer began to change. Damian’s warped thoughts started thinking of the timer as light. As hope.
And that confused him even more. How did the sound of a timer change from death to life?
So he kept fighting. He kept fighting the dark. He fought for the memories. And he fought to feel something again that wasn’t pain or anger.
And he fought until the darkness became a light fog around the corners of his mind.
But getting rid of the darkness didn’t prepare him for the pain of waking up.
—-
Damian groaned as he tried to open his eyes, the bright light attacking his will to come back into this world.
He tried to sit up and block the light with his hand, but for some reason he couldn’t sit up or move his arm very well. Blinking, he looked down to see himself in a hospital bed, covered with bandages and a thin blanket.
He winced as his arm complained at the movement of slowly lifting the blanket to see the neon pink cast covering his entire leg,
“What the…” he mumbled, his jaw aching at the small movement.
A familiar voice broke his confusion, “Damian?”
He looked up at the sound, ignoring his head’s protests at the motion, and stopped.
His hospital room was completely full.
Bruce and Jason were reading in the visitor chairs. Cass was leaning against a vaguely familiar girl in a wheelchair, both sound asleep. Duke was draped across one of the chairs in a state of sleep while a movie on his phone played, faint music could be heard through his airpods.
Wait.
Damian stopped in his scan of the room and looked back at the wheelchair girl with Cass. Who was she? Why was she in his hospital room and why did she look familiar? The memory of the timer rang in his mind and that confused him even more.
She seemed younger than Barbara, but Barbara was the only wheelchair bound person he knew well enough to be here. So who was she??
The same voice from earlier loudly interrupted Damian’s thoughts, “Oh my stARS, HE’S AWAKE GUYS”
Which brought Damian to look at Dick, who seemed to have been playing cards with Tim on the floor. The overly enthusiastic man jumped up and rushed to the side of the hospital bed, practically screaming, “HE'S ACTUALLY AWAKE!”
Jason scoffed from behind his book, “Yeah right, if that gremlin was awake he would have insulted me or Tim by now”
Damian rolled his eyes and coughed, “oh shut the hell up, you sluggish zombie bitch”
There was a moment of silence where Tim, Bruce, and Jason all looked up at the hospital bed. Jason was the first to speak, “Holy guano, he’s awake y’all”
To say the next few moments were absolute chaos would be an understatement. Damian watched as Jason all but tackled Duke to get his attention, which in turn woke up Cass who punched Duke’s arm in pure reflex, which made the mystery girl in the wheelchair startle awake from the movement. Tim stood up and tried to walk forward but slipped on the playing cards on the ground, which made Bruce instinctively lurch forward to stop Tim from hitting his head on the edge of the hospital bed.
The room was suddenly filled with yelling, apologies, and random quips at each other, until finally the mystery girl put a hand to her mouth and whistled, silencing the entire room.
Damian looked at her in horror, the only person capable of shutting the bats up like that was Alfred. Who on earth was this girl?
She spoke up in a calming voice with a faint accent and a small smile, “If you do not stop your babbling and fighting, I will make sure each one of you wakes up with a broken pinky toe every other month”
Jason and Tim elbowed each other and grumbled in remorse as the mystery girl made eye contact with each Bat. Damian would have been impressed if he wasn’t in shock.
This girl was capable of silencing the Bats.
And she had THREATENED them.
SUCCESSFULLY.
And judging from everyone’s reactions it wasn’t an empty threat?? What???
Cass patted the girl's head, to which the girl giggled, “Except you Cass, you’re the only innocent one here.”
Damian knew his jaw was wide open, because he couldn’t have been knocked out for that long right? Cass usually took a month to open up to people, but touch took her at least four months to become comfortable with (if you were lucky). Everyone knew Cass was an absolute cuddler once she was comfortable, but she had been ASLEEP by this girl. Not only was Cass able to touch her, she was comfortable enough to SLEEP? And let her guard down?
Damian’s eyes widened further when Jason mumbled a quick apology to the mystery girl.
JASON?! AN APOLOGY?!
Who the hell was this chick??
“Oh my stars, he’s speechless. Look at him.”
Damian moved his head as quickly as he could to look at Dick, who was grinning idiotically, “Our little birdie is growing up so quick,” he said as he wiped away fake tears.
Damian growled, “what are you babbling about, Grayson”
Dick pranced over, “Oh my wonderfully dense little brother, were you not just admiring your soulmate?”
Damian felt part of his soul leave
His WHAT?!?!?
Damian sat there, jaw open, gawking.
The mystery girl rolled her wheelchair over and put a hand on Damians hospital bed, “I think it would be better if I explained.”
She looked Damian in the eyes, “about two weeks ago, Joker kidnapped you while you were patrolling. He knocked you out and then proceeded to brutally beat you to near death. Quite honestly, we think you only lived out of pure spite,”
She took a shaky breath and continued, “and then I came in. I had the day off work because I was expecting to meet my soulmate, and as I was riding my bike through the city I crashed through the window. And because I am the luckiest person on this planet, I met you right as Joker was trying to kill both of us. I got pretty banged up but so did Joker. And then Batman arrived.”
Damian blinked rapidly, the memories were starting to come back. The immense pain. Her crashing into the room. The timer ringing simultaneously with the gunshot. Being helpless as she was shot and injured. And then the laughs.
He grimaced, and he must have started shaking because Jason came over and put his hand on Damian’s shoulder as he started talking with a haunted tilt to his voice, “Hey, he’s not here, you’re safe” he shuddered as he also thought of his experiences with the madman, Jason looked back up to meet Damian’s eyes and whispered, “but let me know if the nightmares start, you made it out alive but it's still traumatic…I would know”
Damian looked at Jason, the genuine concern and love of an older brother was evident, no matter how much they acted like they hated each other.
He then looked at the girl, “How bad were your injuries?” he asked gently, not fully sure if he even wanted to know.
She smiled, “They could have been worse, the bullets were fairly easy to remove, but the laughing gas almost killed me. I’m forced to be on this thing,” she gestured to the wheelchair, “until my stitches on my…well…everything…are fully healed. But hey Babs is teaching me some cool wheelchair tricks!” She grinned with the last sentence.
Damian looked at her again, “but what about your hand?” he whispered.
Her smile lowered, “ah…that…” she looked up at Bruce, who gave her a nod.
She lifted up her arm and pulled the sleeve of her sweatshirt up to show her left arm abruptly end with bandages where her hand should have been. She smiled again with more pain hidden behind it, “Some things can’t be saved,” she looked down with a deep sadness entering her frame, “the acid ate through my palm and damaged the nerves beyond repair” she took a deep breath, “so they had to amputate it. This is all I have for now until Cyborg can finish working on my replacement hand”
Damian glanced at his Father, “How bad is the damage on my end?”
Bruce sighed, “That's a good question, Joker really did a number on you.”
Damian raised an eyebrow, the older man sighed deeper this time and grabbed a sheet of paper.
“This is the list of your injuries, do you want it or do you want me to read it?” Bruce asked
Damian really didn’t want to try to read right now, his head was aching enough, “Please, read it”
Bruce started, “Alright. Well you were nearly beaten to death, and we figured it would be best to say that Damian, not Robin, was attacked so you could get proper professional medical care. You have three broken ribs, your clavicle was fractured, you have severe bruising in your arms, your wrists are seriously messed up due to how tight the zip ties were, your femur was broken, and you had multiple broken bones in your ankle-”
Bruce was interrupted as Tim started to beatbox to the list. Bruce took a deep sigh, rubbed his temples, and looked at the young man, “Timothy, please don’t make a rap out of your brother’s medical condition”
Bruce ignored the fistbump between Jason and Tim, and continued to read the list, “You have a concussion, which might lead to some memory problems in the near future, your nose was broken, you have a black eye, there was a gash on your forehead, and your cheekbone was fractured.”
Damian blinked a few times, the list was quite impressive.
Cass broke the silence of the room, “Marinette saved your life,” she whispered, “You should be very grateful to her”
Marinette. So that was her name.
Damian looked at Marinette, her cheeks pink, “I’m just glad you’re alive” The girl muttered.
Bruce cleared his throat, “You’ll be discharged from the hospital soon enough, but you’ll be on bedrest with Alfred taking constant care of you. Not to mention the physical therapy.”
Damian huffed, his current situation was not an ideal one. Especially the bedrest. But it made sense.
Marinette smiled gently, “Don’t worry, we can help each other recover. I have the feeling we’re about to spend a lot of time together.”
He looked at the girl, some foreign instinct within him wanted to hug her. To hug the girl that shouldn’t have been in his life. To share something with her, to share something that wasn’t a near death experience with Joker.
He, instead, looked away and scoffed.
He pretended not to see the glares from his family at his behavior. Every single one of them had a deathly look, all of their eyes screaming ‘COWARD’.
If looks could kill, they would be preparing his funeral. He wouldn’t put it past them if they were.
—
A couple weeks passed and the hospital gave him the choice to stay there or to start his recovery at home.
He trusted Alfred a whole lot more than these hooligans, so he took the latter. He was also sick of the food.
What he didn’t realize was that Marinette wasn’t kidding when she said they would spend a lot of time together. Her room was right next to his. And Alfred refused to let the young man eat his meals alone.
The first week he didn’t speak to her much. His cheek bone was still healing was his main excuse and he also was very perplexed by her existence. But they ate together everyday. She would try to ask him questions, and she ended up telling him random stories from her life.
He was already losing a lot of muscle definition, and he was not happy about it. So he did as much physical therapy as possible in the shortest amount of time as possible. As he recovered, he started to realize that Marinette was becoming a part of his daily schedule. They ate breakfast together. While he did physical therapy, she would practice simple tasks to adjust to life without a hand. They would eat lunch with whoever was in the manor at the time. Then he would play fetch with Titus. Sometimes Marinette joined for that, but whenever she didn’t Damian wished she was there. He started to expect her to be in his day, even if he didn’t say anything. Listening was just as engaging as a full conversation when it came to Marinette.
One day after dinner, he was reading in the craft room. It used to be his art room, but when Marinette came to the manor for recovery, she had brought her large variety of craft related hobbies turning the art room into the more general craft room. Marinette sat in the corner of said craft room, working on a sewing project of hers.
She groaned and slammed her head on the table, to which Damian looked up from his book inquisitively. He realized quickly that she didn’t see his expression as her face was on the table, so he cleared his throat to prompt her.
She looked over to him, a sad smile on her face, “Sewing is much harder with one hand”
He nodded, not quite sure what to say from there.
She leaned back in her chair exasperated, “I mean I’m grateful my hand was the only thing I lost, but I can’t help but feel like it should still be there.” She paused and held up her arm, almost as if she was watching her nonexistent hand move.
“I’m grateful,” She whispered, almost as if she was convincing herself.
Damian spoke before he could stop himself, “I’m sorry”. He didn’t quite know why he said that, he had done nothing wrong in the situation but he knew that often people would express their sympathy through the phrase. So maybe he wasn’t surprised by the fact that he said the phrase, and maybe more surprised that he wanted her to know that he cared.
She looked at him with an unreadable expression, “It wasn’t your fault, no need to be sorry”.
He looked at her arm and a small twinge of guilt flashed through him. While he wasn’t the one who had hurt her, his timer linked to hers was the reason she had been put in the situation in the first place. So maybe he did need to be sorry.
“No, I didn’t do it but I still feel responsible for the outcome. So yes I am sorry that you had the rotten luck to be stuck with me on the other end of your timer” Damian sighed, “and I am sorry that we had to meet that way” he stated and quickly went back to his book.
The silence that followed his statement forced him to track what he had just said.
It was the first time either of them had mentioned the timers. They had almost been ignoring the twist of fate that led to their meeting (and to their painful recoveries), or at least Damian was ignoring it. He didn’t know how to approach the subject, and assuming from the fact that Marinette had also not brought it up, she probably didn’t know how to either.
Silence cut through the room as he tried to ignore what he had brought up, his eyes refusing to move from his book.
“I don’t think it was rotten luck”
Damian looked up at the almost whispered sentence.
Marinette was staring at him, her brow furrowed, “Just because I’m struggling to find the brightside in the loss of my hand, doesn’t mean I wish it hadn’t happened.” she said, her voice filled with steely resolve.
Damian took a breath to speak but she cut him off before he could start, “So no, there is nothing to apologize for. Yes it's hard to adjust to this,” She gestured to her arm, “yes I’m looking forward to receiving my prosthetic, but if I hadn’t crashed into that window you would have died.”
She was looking him dead in the eye now, “I don’t regret saving your life, Damian. Not only that, if I hadn’t crashed through that window, I wouldn’t have met your family who are some of the most amazing people that I’ve ever had the privilege of getting to know.”
Her tone softened a bit as she continued, “so I wouldn’t call our timers rotten luck,” she paused, searching for the next words, “I would call them perfectly timed devices of future happiness” she said brightly, her smile beaming.
Damian had never considered the timers as something that could inspire happiness. He had never thought they were positive at all. To see this girl, who was suffering and struggling as she healed, talk about the timers with such brightness was….odd.
“Happiness?” He couldn’t stop himself from inquiring further.
Marinette smiled and moved from her chair to sit next to him, “Yeah. At the moment having the timer go off kind of sucked, I definitely thought for a few seconds that I was actually going to die. But I didn’t and since meeting you and your family, I’ve been really happy!”
Damian closed his book but didn’t lift his gaze to meet Marinette’s, “I never thought my timer was for my soulmate” he admitted, “I’ve always assumed I was going to die when it rang. And then it did ring. But it was you”, He glanced towards her before going back to staring at the book cover, “And then I thought you died. And I thought that the universe hated me even more than I originally thought it did. I was going to be forced to accept my fate, see my soulmate, watch her die, and then die myself.”
His throat felt tight but he kept going, “but then we lived. And I didn’t remember what happened. And I almost gave up, I almost let myself give up. But something kept me going.” He was rambling now and he knew it, “and then I wake up, and I’m alive but barely. And I meet you and you’re real but if you’re real then I’ve been lying to myself all this time that I’m supposed to die,” He felt but didn’t process the tears on his cheeks, “But if I’ve been lying to myself this whole time then maybe the universe doesn’t hate me and if there is a God out there then maybe he actually wants me to be happy-” He cut himself off, his thoughts and heart racing.
Marinette didn’t say anything. She scooted closer to him, pulled herself into his side and rested her head on his shoulder.
Damian instinctively put his head on hers and tried to even out his ragged breathing. Her presence helped.
A couple of minutes passed before she spoke, “I don’t know anything about you,” she whispered, “I’ve heard stories from your siblings, I’ve figured some stuff out, I’ve talked with you, but-” she paused and took a deep breath, “but I want to get to know you for you. That doesn’t mean you just tell me about yourself, it means that I want to spend time with you. Real, actual, genuine time. I understand that I’m your soulmate, but that's just a title. I want to be your friend before anything else.”
Damian let her words sink in. The words started with his ears, listening. Then they moved to his thoughts, my friend before anything else . Next the words traveled to his heart, making it skip a beat. To his lungs, a deep breath. To his gut, she feels safe. When the words sank into his arms, he wrapped her into a tight hug.
She hugged him back, and there they sat. Clinging onto each other like lifelines.
—------
The following morning when he went to breakfast, Marinette wasn’t there. Alfred hadn’t even made breakfast. In fact, there was no one in the kitchen, or in their rooms.
“Marinette? Alfred? Grayson? Hello?” He called out, but didn’t receive a response. He had very stubbornly moved to using a singular crutch when walking around the manor, his injuries groaned at him a little but it had been two months since the Joker incident and his injuries could get over themselves.
He started to make his way to the main living room when he heard Dick scream. He went as fast as he could with his crutch hobble, “Grayson??” He called again as he entered the room, and he very quickly wished he hadn’t gone searching for his family. They were all there. And they were setting up for a party.
Dick was hanging from the chandelier holding streamers, Tim and Jason were underneath him with a mattress to catch the man when he dropped, and Bruce was in the corner probably nursing a migraine. Barbara was holding a clipboard and was yelling at the others in the room while Duke and Cass played chess in the middle of the floor.
Damian just stood in the door frame, ready to turn around before he got caught up in whatever was happening. However he had already announced his presence when he had called out for Dick.
“Damian! Get over here and help us” Barbara yelled, and with that his fate was sealed. He hobbled over, ignoring the twinge of pain in his ribs. Weak ribs.
Damian sighed, and gestured with his free arm, “What's all of this for?”
Barbara grinned, “Cyborg finished Marinette’s hand and we wanted to throw a party for her”
He looked over to see a neatly wrapped box on the couch, “But why a full party?” he asked.
Dick yelled from above, “Because we love her!”
Damian looked around the room and took in the fact that his full family was helping set this up. Clearly he wasn’t the only one that had started to accept Marinette into his routine.
Barbara nodded, “She’s with Alfred right now, they left early in the morning to go to a bakery and help her figure out some stuff with her job. Then I’m pretty sure Alfred promised to take her shopping for fabric so she can work on a project,” She looked at her watch, “We should have another hour and a half until guests start to arrive, and then thirty minutes after that until Marinette gets home”
Damian didn’t miss the fact that she referred to the manor as Marinette’s home. He didn’t mind it. He didn’t mind it at all.
He sat down and watched them set up as he processed the words Home and Marinette together.
He had seen her multiple times almost everyday for the last month while he had been discharged. While she may have been his soulmate, it really just felt like that title was simply an excuse for her to be in his life. Almost like the title was simply an introduction.
The previous day's events had introduced him to the idea of optimism. Not Grayson’s foolish “look at the brightside” optimism, but real genuine optimism. Just because life sucked, didn’t mean that the results (while painful) weren’t worth it. Damian liked Marinette’s optimism.
Damian felt himself slip into a daze as the rest of the party set up continued. When guests started to arrive, he talked to a few but he didn’t quite feel like he was present. Insane amounts of people were there, his family, the teen titans, some random people from france (presumably Marinette’s friends and potentially her family), various members of the Justice League, even Jon showed up.
He was so consumed in his thoughts, that when the lights turned out and everyone was hiding, Tim threw a blanket over him to disguise the injured young man. Normally he would have yelled at Tim for his insolence, but he didn’t know what other options he had for a hiding place when he had his crutch next to him.
He heard the door open, Marinette’s and Alfred’s footsteps entering the manor.
“Hey guys! We’re home!” Marinette’s voice chirped from the hallway.
She kept walking, “Guys? Where are you?” she called out.
Damian heard Dick’s voice from across the room, “In here, Marinette!”
She started giggling as she started walking to the living room, “Okay good! You’ll never believe some of the stuff we just picked up, there was just so much to look at!”
She entered the doorway, “I know you have the whole bat thing, but do you really need to act like vampires?” She deadpanned as she moved her hand across the wall to find the lightswitch.
The lights came on and she looked to the center of the room as everyone jumped out and yelled “SURPRISE!”
Pure elation was the only word that could describe Marinette’s smile. She started to jump up and down as she ran over to all of the people to hug them. She started laughing in disbelief as she ran to two of the French people, presumably her parents, and hugged them.
“What even, I mean, what-actually why? What's the occasion?” she asked as she looked around.
When Damian hadn’t been looking, someone had put the box with the prosthetic in it next to him. Someone shoved his shoulder to prompt him forward.
Damian grabbed the box and hobbled over to Marinette, “to celebrate this,” he said softly as she took the box. She looked at him perplexed but quickly started to tear the box open. Once the lid was removed, she gasped as she took out the prosthetic.
It was a simple white hand, the only color besides the white and a few silver joints was a pink cherry blossom on the palm.
She looked up at the group, tears in her eyes, “thank you” she breathed out, entranced by the simplistic beauty of the machinery.
Cyborg stepped forward, “Here let me help you” he offered as he started to show her how to attach the hand to her arm. Cyborg looked up at her, “this is going to hurt for just a second” he said as he pushed a button on the inside of the device.
She nodded and braced herself.
He pushed the hand onto her wrist and she took a sharp inhale as the machine started to attach itself to her nerves and skin.
The entire group of people silently watched in anticipation as she grimaced a few more times from the pain. Finally her shoulders relaxed and she lifted her hand. She moved her fingers and started to giggle wildly. She clenched and unclenched her hand and started to beam. She looked at her captive audience and waved while grinning ear to ear.
The room erupted into cheers and the party started.
Damian wasn’t super social but even he had to admit that it was a fun gathering. Everyone there cared about Marinette in some capacity, although he was very perplexed how she had already met half the Justice League.
The crowd started to die down after a couple of hours, until it was just Damian’s family and Marinette’s parents left. Damian could see where she got her enthusiasm when she told stories as he watched her dad talk to Dick. Damian had a small conversation with her mom at one point, but for the most part once the crowd had died down he simply sat and observed. And made snarky commentary whenever Jason breathed but that was besides the point.
As the sun set, Marinette’s parents left. They were going to be in town for a few more days, but they had a hotel nearby. Damian watched as Marinette said goodbye to them, and he watched as she tried to help clean up the living room (she was kicked out and banned from helping). She ended up grabbing the bags of whatever she had bought when she was with Alfred and headed up to her room with Cass, clearly excited to show the girl her loot.
Damian found himself wandering up to her room, only to stop himself and head to the craft room. She would know where to find him.
He simply read his book. He waited.
He didn’t know how much time had passed, but when Marinette entered the room, he found he didn’t really care. He could be patient for once in his life, she was worth the wait.