Work Text:
He's late. No, not late, late implies ten or fifteen minutes after your intended meeting time- not coming up to an hour. Your eyes flit up from the lightly glowing screen on your cell phone, only to see your waitress once more. She makes uncomfortable eye contact with you once more (for what must be the hundredth time in the past hour), causing you to breathe in shortly trying to keep the tears from flowing onto your face. You sigh quietly, searching out your bag from under the table before standing up, finally tired of the waiting that's become all too common to you. Looking around the restaurant, you pick up on the other patrons who's eyes are fixed onto the empty chair across the table from you. The restaurant had been his choice- the site of your first date together, an expensive and beautiful Italian restaurant with candlelit tables. But now, sat on the same table where the two of you had once been, it feels like every single person around you are judging you for having sat there all alone for almost an hour. You hope to god that they don't know who the hell you are, but know that you're hoping against hope. The pictures of you and him that have been plastered across the Gazette- ensuring that all of the people in Gotham know that you're Damian Wayne's girlfriend. And now all the people in the restaurant know that you're Damian Wayne's girlfriend waiting alone in a restaurant, dolled up but looking more and more like every second is drawing you closer and closer to tears. You keep a finger under your eye, hoping to catch any of the tears that slip down your cheeks and stare back down at your phone. No new messages, no missed calls, no voice mail. Not even a god damn snapchat or email from Damian to explain where the fuck he was. Your fingers dart across the screen, typing frantically and hoping that you could reach out to him.
[Y/N]: Dami?? Where are you?? Are you coming? It's been almost an hour.
[Y/N]: Damian?
No reply. What the hell were you supposed to expect? You try to reason with yourself that Damian must be still at work, that there was a meeting that was going on for too long. That Wayne Enterprises were just expecting too much of Damian now that he was in charge of the company, subconsciously cursing at Bruce for leaving the company to Damian for him and Selena to work on charity work throughout the city. This does little to calm you. Damian always messages you when he has to work late. Your thumb swipes up the screen, allowing you to see an older message on your phone from the last time that this happened to him.
Damian: Habibti, I will be working later tonight. Something has come up in the office. Please do not wait for me, I will be home before you wake up. Sleep well, my Beloved.
You reread that text message, feeling tears well up once more, breathe in sharply, then stand up. You walk calmly towards the door, breathing in deeply, but once you find yourself outside in the cold air of Gotham in mid-March the tears begin to fall freely.
At 8:50 in the evening in a place like Gotham, the night is almost pitch black and unbearably cold. Gotham is cold, despite it being mid May, and your shoulders shake through a mixture of cold and sadness. Without a jacket, or the person who almost always gave you his jacket, you can't help but sigh sadly, watching the puff of breath form a small cloud of steam in front of your face.
The long walk home through Gotham is hellish; cold and lonely in a way that feels strangely alien to you. You've lived in the city all of your life, a labyrinth of Gothic structures, apartment blocks and business buildings- and were sure you could live there all of your life without ever seeing all that the city had to bare. You've seen something sanitised, the things that your parents, teachers, friends, Damian, wanted you to see; something pleasant enough but not really Gotham. It feels like a mask. A facade. In all of your life in the city, You've never felt quite so isolated, like everything you've ever known has been a lie. This has never come to mind before, but now abandoned by the person who promised to be with you at this moment, you feel like a stranger in your own city, or like your own city is a stranger to you.
The fluorescent orange of the garish street lamps overhead light your way, casting harsh shadows both on both you and the street. The city feels strangely empty; there is no people around you, and the streets are lacking in the usually frequent passing cars as if everyone around you has disappeared- like the rest of the world was left behind in the restaurant with what remains of your happiness. The criminal aspect of the city means nothing to you as you find yourself walking near aimlessly, torn between walking home (the home you share with the one person who you really do not want to see right now) or making your way to one of your friends' houses and pleading to to stay the night. As much as you haven't really noticed the lack of criminality, you've never really been quite so grateful for the City's Criminal-Punching Furry, because Lord knows if some idiot lowlife tried to mug you right now, you don't know whether or not you'd kill them or bust into tears. After a few minutes of silent deliberation, you find yourself outside of your apartment building. The hotel attendant smiles reassuringly, calling over pleasantly to you to have a lovely night, and you force a smile back to him, letting out a quiet reply along the lines of the simple,
"Thanks, Mister Carter. You too." You walk aimlessly, pushing a hand through your hair as you find yourself pulled towards the elevator; cursing in your mind at the small cluster of people waiting for the lift. Of course you couldn't even go up to your apartment alone. Taking a deep breath and holding it until you feel lightheaded, you walk closer to the elevator, feeling people stare at you- a vision with nowhere to go but home, and home alone.
The first thing you notice when you get to the door to your home is that the door is still locked, but when you open the door to the penthouse, all of the lights are on, despite the fact that you're certain that you turned all of them off before you left an hour and a half ago. Flicking the switch on and off for a few seconds, you narrow your eyes when the lights flicker off and on in time. The large window in the living room is slightly ajar, just to the side of the large television hanging on your wall, something you'd never do. Damian had drilled that into your head after you left it open once; that leaving it open is just going to lead to a break in. The cool breeze drifts in through the window, making you shiver once more. He's home. That much is sure, and the tears that had been filling your eyes are quashed by the overwhelming feeling of rage. Because if he's home, that means he deliberately didn't come to the restaurant, and that it's likely that he even saw your texts and ignored them. Your clench your fist but breathe in sharply and release the tension at the sound of scrabbling nails against the hardwood floors, the sight of your excited pug running and skidding towards you makes you relax slightly. From Brutus's trajectory path towards you, you know he's running to you from the bedroom, and the only person who lets Brutus onto the bed is Damian. Brutus barks excitedly as you walk to the bedroom, eerily silent in contrast with the puppy's excited yipping.
"Brutus, be quiet." Comes the weak, but familiar, call of Damian; his voice tinged with something similar to tiredness; and your heart wrenches. Was he overworked? Had he not come to the restaurant because he was just tired? He had been working late recently, and though you don't know much about Wayne Enterprise you know it has to be hard work. But why the hell didn't he just message you?
You shove the door to the room open, and your eyes widen in complete shock. Sat on your bed is Damian, clad in a Batman costume, hair plastered to his face with sweat, and a large gash cut into his stomach. He looks up at you, the dark skin of his jaw mottled black, blue and green with bruises while his shaking hand attempts to stitch up his wound; his bright jade eyes blown wide at the sight of you. On any ordinary day you probably would have screamed, but that blood- thick... viscous... clinging to the black fabric around Damian's abdomen and dripping towards the bed sheets kept you from screaming, and made you run towards him.
"...Hababti?" He whispers, eyes focused on your face as you gently touch the uneven stitching at the tip of the wound. "...You... Oh Beloved-"
"...Is this why you've been coming home late?" You whisper, tears dripping down your cheeks. "...This why you've been so busy?"
"...I... I'm sorry-" He began, hair hanging into his face, clearly expecting the worst. "...I never meant to deceive you, Hayati." He whispers but stiffens when you gently retrieve the needle from his hand. "...I understand if you wish to end our courtship-"
"...I'm not mad, Dami." You reply softly, gently rubbing your thumb across his jaw as you attempt to stitch him up as neatly as humanly possible. "...You... You've been running around saving people..."
Of all of the ideas that had filled your mind in the time it took you to travel home, you had gone through several ideas for why Damian may have not shown up, but none of them included his being Batman. The idea that Damian, you're boyfriend who hand feeds you Baklava after date night and once cried because he accidentally stood on his puppy's paw, is Batman never once entered your mind. And all at once you feel all of the rage that had accumulated over the evening fade away into an awed wonder, that you had been in love with someone who was willing to die to protect other people, and never even realised it.
"...I missed our engagement this evening." He mumbles, in the closest thing to shame you've ever heard him come to. "...I... I hadn't planned to."
"...Who did this to you Damian?" You whisper, and he shakes his head slowly.
"No one of importance. Not like you." He sighs softly, a hand sliding up from his knee to cup your chin, and run a thumb across your bottom lip. A small amount of blood is smeared across it from the pads of his glove, but you don't complain or make any moves to wipe it off as you continue your stitching. "...You aren't angry?"
"...I'm angry. I'm just not... mad." You sigh, and look up at him with a weak sigh. "I'm not about to berate you for being a crazy furry vigilante while you're bleeding out on our bed. Gimme like a week to let you heal and I'll give you a rant about being safe and lying to me and missing date night." He smiles at that, and leans down slightly to press his lips to your own. "And I'm sure as shit not about to break up with my crazy, fucking selfless boyfriend just cause he missed out on a date to save people." You mumble against his lips. He pulls back sharply as blood trickles down onto your fingers with sickening speed and your fingers instinctively pull back. The deep red substance clings to your fingers, and you grip the needle tighter.
"...No kissing until we finish your stitches."
"You strike a hard deal, Beloved." But he’s smiling, wide and beautiful and like home, and finally everything seems familiar again.