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After leaving Stephanie’s hospital room, Damian boards the jet, and sets the course for Chicago. He’s grateful for the autopilot function. With the night sky spread out in front of him, he sits in the pilots seat and tries to steady his breathing.
By the time he needs to land, he is at equilibrium. Somewhat.
He grounds the jet. He hails a taxi. He gives the driver Lian’s address.
Now that his breathing has been conquered, he turns his attention to the rapidfire pace of his heart. In the moment, he had felt nothing but pure concentration, but it seems like the adrenaline has caught up to him all at once.
They pull up in front of Lian’s dark apartment building, and Damian is no calmer than he was.
He thanks the driver. He goes to leave.
The driver, who looks approximately ten, maybe fifteen years older than him, with kindness in their eyes, quietly asks him if he’s okay.
“Yes,” he replies. “Thank you.”
They don’t look convinced, but they’re given no more space to question it; Damian hands them the money, and opens the door.
Chicago bites in the night, without the sun to fend off the cold.
Pulling his coat around him a little tighter, Damian walks inside. He takes the stairs. The entire time, he wonders what he will say. What he will tell her.
He arrives in front of her doorstep, and he still does not have the words. He supposes it’s alright. He and Lian were not made for words.
He knocks on the door. He could break in, probably. He has his belt on. But instead, he knocks, and he waits.
He hears familiar, almost imperceptible in how light it is, shuffling from behind the door.
It opens.
Lian peers out from behind it. At first, cautious. Then, surprised. Then, and it’s something Damian is still not quite used to seeing on her features, concerned.
“Damian,” she says, soft and fond. Damian breathes out. Sucks the breath in back through his teeth.
He says, “Lian.”
Lian stares at him for a few moments. Then, she opens the door all the way, and steps aside to make space for him. “Come in,” she says. “Do you want chai?”
“Please,” Damian replies quietly. He enters her apartment, hanging his coat up on the rack.
I bought her that, he thinks. Four years ago. Lian’s favourite coat is hanging on it. Damian had bought her that too.
Despite all of their team’s best efforts, Lian’s apartment is still mostly sparse. It is a leftover from her previous lifestyle that they’ve been trying to push her out of.
He should take her to another art showing. They could find something to put on the wall next to the coat rack. He misses her. He misses her so much.
Lian moves into the kitchen, and Damian follows, aching quietly.
She directs him to a stool at the counter, and when he’s sitting down, she starts on the tea.
“I heard about Steph,” she says. “I’m a little cross I had to hear about it from Colin, by the way.”
Damian breathes in, and then out. “Sorry. I’ve been… preoccupied.”
“I know. That’s why I’m only a little,”
He watches her pull the spices out of her cabinet and the grinder from her cupboard, letting himself be lulled by the rhythm and power of all of her movements. Lian is one of the most controlled people he knows. In poor contrast, Damian feels like a boat in a storm.
She pulls out the pot and sets it on the stove.
“Can you get me the milk, please,” she asks.
He shuffles over to the fridge and locates the carton of milk. He places it in her outstretched arm.
“I killed somebody today,” says Damian. Lian’s kitchen is cozy, and the heat is up high; warmth has diffused all through the room. He feels very cold, and very small.
Lian looks at him. They stare at each other for a moment, and then Lian turns back to what she had been previously doing. She, very consciously, continues to grind up ginger.
The liquid reaches temperature, and Lian takes it off of the heat.
“Pass me the tea, please,” she asks. Damian pulls out the tea drawer, and hands her the bag of black tea.
Lian scrapes the ginger, the spices, and the tea into the liquid. She stirs.
“Two people,” Damian adds. The sound of stirring doesn’t stop, but he hears the spoon scrape against the bottom. “I killed two people.”
“Can you grab the cups,” says Lian, quiet and neutral.
Damian takes two mugs out of the dishwashing rack. He places them in front of Lian.
With a steady, assured hand, she pours the chai into the mugs. The smell makes Damian ache again, and then again, and all over. He taught her this recipe.
When she has finished, Lian places the pot in the sink. She wraps her hands around one of the mugs, and motions to the other.
Damian picks it up. Shudders at how warm it is in his hands.
Lian circles around, and sits on the stool next to Damian.
She takes in a deep breath. Lian Nguyen has never been one for gentleness, but Damian can tell that she’s trying. It hurts all over, to know that she’s being gentle with him.
“Who?” she asks, after sipping on her chai.
Damian watches the steam rise from his own cup. Wishes he could feel half as light.
“The Joker,” he replies. He pauses. He adds, “And Cluemaster.”
Lian breathes out. Damian syncs his breath up with hers, in an attempt at keeping himself grounded. She breathes in.
“Does Bruce know?”
Damian shrugs. “He will.”
Another breath in, and another breath out. It is a privilege and a gift, to breathe. Suffocation is one of the most effective methods of torture. There is no escape. There is nothing but the harrowing realization that sometime, it will be over: slow and drawn out and entirely hopeless.
Another breath in. Another breath out.
Lian says, “Because of Steph.” Not a question.
“Because of Steph,” Damian repeats weakly. He feels like a child. He feels like less than a child, because when he was a child, he wasn’t afraid of the things that go bump in the night or the ways everyone he loves could leave. It had been stamped out of him. Now, he is older, supposedly smarter, supposedly stronger, and the dark and the loneliness has never been more terrifying than it is now. “She said she couldn’t live in a world where both of them were still alive. And she is correct. She shouldn’t have to. She shouldn’t even have to live with the knowledge that they were still here when she was gone. We failed her.”
He bites back the again.
“Drink your chai, Damian,” Lian instructs. Damian obliges.
It’s good. Warm. Familiar.
He swallows, and he says, “Father would never. And none of the others should have to. So I did. I did it instead.”
He hates the desperation, immature and afraid, that seeps into his voice at the end. He hates how the only thing stopping his hands from shaking is the cup he’s holding. He hates that, if he turned to look, he would surely see pity in Lian’s eyes.
Still. Pity better than disappointment.
Damian feels something tap against his foot, and then stay there. He looks down, and sees that Lian has reached her leg across to touch her foot to his. A point of contact. A point of reassurance.
“You remember that promise we made?” she asks him.
The fear pulls in like the tide to shore, and it covers everything, sweeping over his mouth and nose, blocking out his breathing.
He says, “Yes,” and grips the mug tighter.
“I broke it,” Lian says. “A year ago. He was Mia’s abuser. I came across him completely by chance, and it was just me and him. Nobody to see. And I—” she cuts herself off. Drinks some of the chai. Damian can see her fingers going white where she’s holding it. “I killed him.”
“You never told me,” he says. He already knows why. Already understands. He feels, briefly and with great regret, glad to hear it.
Lian shrugs. Honest, straightforward, firm, she says, “I was scared,” and Damian knows that this is the truth, that this is everything that currently lies between them. “We had a promise, and I broke it. Mia doesn’t even know. I didn’t even do it for her. I did it for me.”
Damian breathes in, and he breathes out.
“It’s terrifying,” he confesses.
Lian laughs weakly. “I know. I don’t know how you said it first. You’re so—you’re always like that, you know? So fucking brave. It’s fucking ridiculous. I don’t— I don’t know how you do it.”
“I’m not,” Damian says, because he does not know any way that a person can watch the life drain out of somebody and not be terrified of the world and all of its capacity for hurt afterwards. “I’m not at all.”
In another time and place, Lian would press the point, and continue the argument. But now, she just falls silent. She knows the feeling too well. They understand each other too well.
Damian drinks his chai. He thinks about Lian, carrying around that weight and that fear for so long. He drinks his chai and he hurts.
They’re silent.
What breaks the silence, a while later, is Lian asking, “Did it feel good?”
“No,” Damian answers, the most sure he’s been all night. “It felt awful.”
The silence smothers them.
Then, he says, “But it felt right.”
Lian breathes out.
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “It felt right. That’s what Bruce and Ollie don’t get, I think. Sometimes, it’s just right. Sometimes, prioritizing life doesn’t mean everyone lives.”
Damian knows that. He’s known it all along. What he never knew was how relieving it would be to hear somebody say it aloud.
He says, “I’m sorry you were carrying it alone for so long,” because even carrying it alone for a few hours had almost crushed him.
“It’s alright,” Lian replies, almost smiling. “It was self-inflicted.”
“Still,” Damian says. “It seems that promise did more harm than good, in the end.”
“We were children,” Lian replies, straightforward, matter-of-fact. “We did what we thought we could do.”
Damian almost smiles. “Shall we annul it, then? Since we’ve both already broken it?”
“Let’s make a new one,” Lian says. “Now that we’re at the wise and experienced age of 20.”
His almost smile grows bigger.
Lian holds out her pinky. There is a scar on her hand, from a blade sharp enough to slice hair. This is not a blood pact. This is not a loyalty test. This is a promise, between best friends.
“I, Lian Nguyen-Queen, promise to you, Damian Wayne-Al Ghul, that the next time I go to murder somebody, I will call you first, so that you may either convince me not to, or assist me so that I don’t feel so alone.”
Damian laughs. Lian’s kitchen is cozy, and still warm from the stove running before. He feels safe and contained, with his best friend next to him.
He wraps his pinky around hers. “Likewise, I, Damian Wayne-Al Ghul, promise to you, Lian Nguyen-Queen, that the next time I go to murder somebody, I will call you first as well.” He smiles at her, and adds, “Furthermore, I also promise that I will never keep a secret from you, no matter how terrified I am.”
Lian smiles back. “Good addition,” she replies. “No more killing on your own, and no more secrets. We tell each other everything. Even the ugly bits.”
“Pinky promise,” Damian intones seriously.
“Pinky promise,” Lian repeats.
They leave their fingers intertwined for a few moments longer. Just to make sure.
When they break apart, it feels as though all the tension in the air dissipates; Damian feels, for the first time today, calm. Steady.
They go back to drinking their chai. Maybe they will watch a film, and then in the morning, Damian will suggest they go to the markets. Maybe he will buy her a plant. Or a spice grinder. Sometimes, he gets scared—they all do, really, he and Iris and Colin and Jai and Mar’i—that Lian will silp away one day. Don the mask that they know she keeps in the back of her closet, and steal into the night. In the absence of any way to confront this problem, Damian decorates her house and endears the city to her, hoping that it’s enough to ground her.
Yes. The markets will be a good idea.
Out of nowhere, Lian says, “If you want, you can tell Bruce that I was the one who killed them. He hates me already, anyway.”
It startles a laugh out of Damian that he then eases into, grinning and feeling unbearably loved. Damian buys her things. Lian offers to piss off his father. Maybe he has nothing to be worried about at all.