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Damian stares at his gloves.
The previously green fabric is stained red, red, red. Soaked in blood and practically dripping. He can feel it on his skin, cold without a body to warm it, sticky and clinging to him, the familiar bitter taste of death. His hands tremble as they tug on the gloves, pulling, ripping, clawing, it off his skin, tossed to a dark corner. They don't shake - that was trained out of him. But they tremble, ever so slightly, tanned skin bronze. No red on skin.
His weapons, the claw-like devices previously attached to his knuckles have been discarded next to him. The sharp surface, once bronze, is coated in scarlet. They lie in a pool of sticky crimson, slick and slippery. The golden powder has been dissolved. He has no eyes for them.
Instead, they stray to what is next to them.
The body.
Dark skin that's gone pale with the night's cold. Glassy brown eyes that he had seen filled with life, staring at the Gotham smog. Unmoving chest, claw marks slashed across his midsection, orange shirt ripped to shreds. The pegasus in the middle of it has its wings missing and the Ancient Greek text faces down in the blood, orange turning red. There's a bite mark on his leg. It looks mangled, twisted at an unnatural angle, put in a blender, and then tried to be reassembled. The skin is twisted and torn, revealing muscle and flesh that's been carved out like a spoon. The cracks in ebony white bone.
He's propped up against the alley wall. Damian supposes he must not have been comfortable, rough brick against his back. His only weapon is still clutched in a lifeless hand, a long dagger that was useless.
Damian is knelt beside him. Has been knelt beside him for the past ten minutes. Pressing his hands to the wounds, but there were too many, and they were so deep. The laboured breaths he heard have faded into the cool air. The rise and fall of lungs stilled.
Just to check, Damian presses two fingers beneath his chin.
Nothing.
He withdraws his hand, swallows. He can feel the blood soaking into his knees. Creeping up his ankles.
He knows this face. This craftmanship. Those beads, lying against his collarbone.
Jake Mason.
Damian has no idea why he was in Gotham.
Was, because before Damian could get to him, a hellhound got there first.
He'd found it growling at a wall and taken it out in a swoop, revealing the body leaning against brick in front of it. Head tilted up, gritted teeth muffling screams, one hand gripping the hilt of his blade like his life depended on it and the other going to hover above his leg. Damian had leapt down.
He'd been too late. Even as he tried to help. Too late.
He exhales through his nose.
Too late.
It's why he doesn't hear Batman behind him, too focused on the screams embedded into his brain as he pressed on the wounds to try to stop the bleeding. It's why he doesn't see the shadows elongate and stretch, leaving behind a bat in the form of a man, too busy remembering how Mason had pleaded for him to bring his body back, give me the burial rights -
It's why he can't say anything, the words stuck in his throat, the last wish of Jake Mason, son of Hephaestus stuck in his head.
"Robin." The deep, gravelly tone of Batman is full of unrestrained fury. Damian doesn't turn, can't. His cape is splattered in red, his gloves are red, his boots are red, and it's all he can see. "What is the meaning of this?"
He should explain himself. Say, this isn't what it looks like.
The slash marks on his chest, the weapons beside him that his family knows he uses. The perfectly clean hands as he kneels in the blood of the victim. The position in a dark alley, perfect for an ambush.
It isn't what it looks like.
He opens his mouth. The words don't come out, so he closes it. Closes his eyes, and all he can see is red again, so he opens them and stares resolutely at the brick wall. Knows that his hands are still shaking.
He can feel the presence of Spoiler and Nightwing. Maybe someone else.
His brain feels like it's shutting down, no matter what he screams. Just giving him forewarning. He can't think, can barely form coherent thoughts. His breaths become shallower, in an entirely too similar pattern as how Mason was breathing before he died, but Damian can't slow his breathing either.
For a moment, that's all it is. Silence, around him. The stares of his family on him, on his knees next to a body.
Then Batman moves, and so does Damian.
He nearly trips over himself to get back, escape - stumbles into the brick wall right next to Mason and holds the dagger up, rational part of him screaming that it will do nothing against mortals. The edge glints red. "I - "
"It's okay," Nightwing says soothingly, but there's an edge there too, like a double-headed viper. It's worry and it's confusion and Damian just can't. "It's okay, Robin. Let's go back to the cave - "
He can't leave the body alone, can't let them take him -
Damian gestures wildly with the blade that Mason made, that Mason used, as Nightwing comes closer. He looks crazed. He feels crazed.
There's no movement.
Then they leap.
They hold down his arms and he screams, because he's pinned down and there's nowhere to go and it's exactly how Lee Fletcher died and Damian couldn't save him -
"JON!" he screams. The only name he hears in his brain other than the repeat of Jake Mason, Jake Mason, Jake Mason -
There's a blur of red and blue and then Superman is there. Nightwing lets out a soft oof as he straightens from a hit to his stomach, drawing his escrimas. Batman's hand strays to his utility belt. "Superman, it's not - " Nightwing tries to reason, but Damian moves.
He hooks a hand around Mason's shoulders, ignoring the cold that chills him to the bone, the lifelessness, and tugs on Jon's cape. The signal is still clear even after all these years of working separate.
Damian feels the rushing wind beneath his feet and he's in the air, supported by Jon. His gaze is steely, and it morphs into shock. "D, is that - "
"Please," Damian croaks. "Can't."
One thing Damian likes about Jon. He takes another look at Mason, looks away and nods decisively. The trust makes Damian's heart warm. "Where to?"
Damian looks at the horizon, the pace they're at steady and cruising. Damian doesn't want that. He wants the wind to tear away the feeling of death. "Long Island. New York."
Jon gives him just that.
***
Jon has so many questions.
Damian is carrying a body, and by extension Jon is, and Damian's heart was already going wild, but he called for Jon. Not Superboy. Not Superman. Jon. And Damian never uses names on the field.
There's something clearly wrong with him. Jon can't see his eyes under the domino, but if he had to bet, they would be unfocused. Nothing like the usually sharp emerald eyes that Jon knows. He isn't speaking at all, and he's limp when he's usually tense.
So yeah. Jon has questions.
When he gets to Long Island, Damian wordlessly points him in a direction, until he's pointing straight down. Jon tries but stops abruptly as a barrier of some sort repels him. Literally. He gets bounced back into the sky. He frowns down at fields.
"I, Damian Wayne, give Jonathan Samuel Kent permission to enter Camp," Damian murmurs, and an image unfolds beneath Jon's eyes as he starts to descend lightly. It's beautiful in a country sort of way, but also strangely sophisticated - the buildings glimmer with no light, huge and decorated, large structures that aren't fully built. Despite that, there's still netball courts, archery ranges, campfires.
There's several people watching him. He raises his hands as best he can, showing that he's no threat. A girl rushes up to him as soon as his feet touch the ground, dark hair and a scar on her chin, white against cocoa-brown skin. Surprisingly, or not, her hands, steady and sure, immediately go to Damian before they're withdrawn, leaving Damian to collapse to his knees on the grass.
"What - " Jon reaches for him, only to find a strong hand on his arm, holding him back. He glares at it. "Let me go."
The girl shakes her head. "It's a really bad idea to touch him while he's dissociating."
"Dissociating?" Jon echoes.
"He has PTSD. I'm guessing..." her eyes catch sight of the body and she inhales sharply, letting go of Jon in favour of kneeling next to him. "Oh no." Her voice lowers to murmuring, her hand ghosting over the face. It gives Jon chills. She closes the teenager's eyes, slowly letting out a breath. "Gods."
"Who is he?"
"My brother," she answers, staring at him.
Jon winces inwardly. Great, now he was a jerk to someone with a dead brother. "I'm sorry."
"So am I. Felicia, Mark, can you get Will and Connor? My siblings, Nico and Chiron too. Everyone necessary for the funeral rites. Thanks." The two other teenagers rush off. Jon watches them go. "Do you know what happened?"
He turns back to Damian, who is muttering, but has his hands tightly ensnared in long grass. The body is - there's a lot of blood. It's not the worst he's seen, and not the worst that Damian has seen, so why... "No," Jon replies. He recounts his side of things, hearing Damian's scream. He doesn't mention the panic. He explains how he found Damian, his family around him, the blood.
She's quiet for a long time, brow furrowed. Long enough for new people to come up behind them.
A blonde, tanned skin and a bag slung over his shoulder with a red cross on it. A black-haired pale teenager, looking at the body. Two other kids who look similar to the girl, brown-eyed and strong, hands callused and footsteps heavy as they approach. As well as a - a centaur? Half white stallion, half human, wearing a plaid jacket over a button down, goatee, tail swishing nervously. "Oh. Oh dear," the centaur mutters. They all have solemn looks, the shaggy haired boy that resembles Tim staring at something and the blonde with his eyes fixed on Damian.
"Damian?" the blonde calls, stepping closer. Damian jerks backwards, but his hands stay entangled in the grass. "It's me. Will."
"Lee?" Damian mutters, his voice soft and so, so, close to breaking. Everyone winces at this.
"No. It's, it's Will," the blonde tries again, voice softening.
Damian doesn't respond, this time. The dark-haired teenager walks up to Will, whispering something in his ear and pressing a kiss to his cheek. Will recollects himself and manages to hold his voice steady when he says, "Yeah, Dami. It's Lee.
"Lee." The sheer desperation in Damian's voice is enough to get Jon reeling. It's only as he releases the blades of grass that Jon notices his hands are full on shaking. "You're - you're dead."
"Yeah," Will agrees, the pain in his eyes visible. "But you're not." He gets close enough to hold Damian's shoulders as he practically falls onto the older boy, shifting his weight to his shoulder and prying off the domino. Damian's eyes are unfocused, shiny.
"I failed," Damian whispers, utterly broken.
Jon holds his breath. He feels like he's intruding into something private. The emo kid walks over to the body, sitting cross-legged next to it and simply...waiting.
"Don't say that," Will says, gently rocking Damian back and forth. "You did good."
"It's my fault you're dead."
"It's no one's fault," Will says firmly. "You survived."
"I shouldn't've."
"Yes, you should."
Jon feels his heart sinking to his stomach.
Their conversation turns to hushed tones. Jon's superhearing doesn't seem to be working, and for that he's eternally grateful. Instead, what takes his attention is the girl suddenly saying, "I think I know what happened."
Jon's eyes find her, still beside the body, but now her gaze is purely analytical. "It's - hellhound. The scratches, the bites, the mangled leg. He was in Gotham, trying to find his birth mom, monster attack. That dagger - " there is a dagger beside Damian, " - it's his craft. He must've gotten chased, tried to fight it but failed, and then Damian killed it but couldn't - "
The girl cuts herself off, swallows, and tries again. "He lost too much blood. Damian, he uses those - claw things?"
Jon does remember seeing something like that and nods his assent.
"His family was there, you said?"
Jon doesn't remember specifying that Batman was his family, but then again, Damian is in full Robin gear in front of them, so. "Yeah."
"They thought - " she breaks off again, this time going into an angry spiel in a language Jon doesn't recognise, but the tone indicates some heavy cursing. Jon gets it a second later and has to close his eyes to prevent his laser-vision from activating.
The black-haired kid holds up a finger, eyes now straying to above the body. The girl falls quiet. Jon hears more words in that language that sounds old as time, before the kid nods and stands. "It's done. He's on his way."
The girl exhales. "Okay. Okay. Thanks, Nico."
The kid, Nico, nods back. The other two kids carry the body between them, tears running down their faces, and they leave with the stallion. "What - what's going to happen to the body?"
The girl sighs. "We'll pay our respects first. Anyone who wants to will see the body first, say what they need to, then we'll give him the proper burial rites and shrouds. Then we burn the body." Her eyes are also shining and she swipes at the corners of her eyes.
"Damian?"
Her gaze goes to him. "Will will get him to the infirmary. Calm him down so that he can pay his own respects before we burn the shroud. It's not the first time he's dissociated, but it's..." her sigh is heavy, "when he mentions Lee, it's bad."
"Lee?"
"I wasn't around to meet him. Will's brother. There was a battle, he saved Damian's life, died in the process."
Jon frowns. "I never..."
"You wouldn't have. Our world is. Hidden. It's the most well-kept secret in the world. Maybe, in the past, we would've...I don't know, considered revealing ourselves. But now there's aliens and there's superheroes and..." she releases a long sigh, hand running through brown locks of hair and then tied back with a bandana. "It's a dangerous world out there. For all of us. We're not willing to take that risk, not when so many of us are already dying. Our parents agree. The existence of Greek gods isn't meant to be shared with mortals."
The world freezes. He stops. She stares at him, as if holding her breath. Waiting. Only for a second. Then everything comes rushing back.
"Greek gods," Jon repeats. She nods, tightly. "You're telling me they're real."
"The whole Greek patheon, as real as you and me," she replies, staring at the spot where her brother's body was. "Which, honestly, doesn't say much."
"That's..." Impossible? Absurd? Because it is. For Greek gods to exist is - it sounds like a hoax. How would they even exist?
"Unfortunately, they're real. Still messing things up. I wish I was joking."
"How - wha - " Jon can't form the words.
"Belief. As long as humans believe in them, they exist. It's a sort of weirdly unhealthy co-dependant relationship. Without humans, they can't survive, and without the gods, Western civilisation wouldn't exist. Which, in turn, lets them screw humans and create us."
She looks at him expectantly. His brain is still on pause, but he swallows, faces her. "Demigods," he guesses, her nod confirming it. "You're demigods."
"A safe haven for us, from monsters. We don't survive long out there. My brother..." her voice fails her for a second time this night, nails making half-moons in her palm, a tear slipping out. She takes a few breaths, and she's young. Young, and she just saw her brother's dead body, not much older than her. All the questions die in Jon's throat.
He wraps his arms around her shoulders hesitantly. They start to shake, her hands going to hug him, knocking the wind out of his sails with the force of it. Her tears are silent as they stream down her face. "He was gonna go to college," she whispers, hiccupping. "NRU. Without monsters, no quests, nothing."
Jon can barely hear anything over the sound of his heart shattering.
***
Consciousness comes back to Damian slowly.
Well, less consciousness and more - perception? He settles back into his body, the feeling of being underwater never getting old, finally able to hear and to see everything but red. The infirmary, walls bright yellow, help. He exhales, sitting up in the cot and taking stock.
His boots have been removed, cape and utility belt put to the side. His skin is cold and clammy, expected after an attack. He gingerly steps into the shower off to the side, the only one with hot water, and proceeds to stand there for a good minute before he starts scrubbing.
The feeling of blood under his nails is nothing but a phantom. He feels it anyways.
When he steps out, his skin is red and irritated, blood scalding, but he doesn't care. He pulls on the familiar neon orange and loose jeans. Will peeks his head in. "How you feeling?"
He doesn't feel ready at all to face everyone. He feels guilty, horrified, angry. "Okay," he says instead, accepting the cup of water and downing it in one. "Are you - " he pauses, clears his throat. It's not the first time it's happened. It probably won't be the last. "Are you okay?"
Will smiles, only slightly strained. "I'm okay."
"You shouldn't have to go through that again."
"Neither should you," Will returns, and they both pretend that they're going to do something about it for a second before it melts away between them, forgotten, chased away by the warm touch of Apollo on his skin as the older boy hugs him. "It's good to see you," he whispers. The unsaid, I wish it was under better circumstances, hangs heavy in the air.
"Well, someone has to be the sensible one," Damian retorts, reluctantly pulling away. "Mason, he..."
"Normal room. I think Nyssa's in there right now."
"Okay." He doesn't feel prepared at all, but he forces his legs to move out of the door, down the hall. Most of the doors are open, except one, that is closed and has the smell of wine seeping through the crack at the bottom. Jon leans against the wall, pushing himself off the wood and enveloping Damian in his arms when he spots him.
"You're okay."
"Of course."
"You scared me."
"I'm. Sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry about." Jon releases him, takes in his appearance.
"You deserve an explanation."
"I don't need one right now," Jon says firmly. The door opens, interrupting them. Nyssa walks out of the room, bypassing them and out the Big House. Damian gently pushes Jon away, then to the door.
He feels the worry on his back. He opens the door.
Mason's body is covered with a cloth, except for his head. His eyes are closed. He could almost look at peace. His dagger and Camp necklace lie on a table holding candles beside him. Damian picks up a candle, touching the wick to another flame and then placing it back down. All the candles, lit, dance in the darkness of the room.
He stays there, counting the seconds. When it reaches three hundred, he blows the candles out in one swoop. The wind curls around him.
He exits.
Mason's siblings take his place. Jon opens his mouth. It falls close as Damian shakes his head.
The body is carried out, wrapped in cloth. They follow behind.
Carefully, they lay Mason's body in the funeral pyre, his face covered by the shroud. Valdez is here now. He lights the torch, closes his eyes. It's passed around the Hephaestus cabin, until it reaches Nyssa, the head of Cabin 9. She grips it tightly before relaxing.
The small brush of flame against cloth, and the flames leap up, red-hot.
Damian watches them dance.
***
A hand finds its way into Jon's. He almost startles, before squeezing Damian's fingers comfortingly. His eyes glimmer, reflecting the sparks in the air. It's a crowd around the flames, more than Jon thought there would be in a summer camp.
The phone call from Nightwing echoes in his head. Worried. An explanation that he doesn't care for right now, faced with the burning of a body and Damian nearly crying beside him.
He should tell Damian about it. He will. But not now. Damian doesn't need that right now, bullshit explanations. He feels Damian lean into him. Damian needs Jon right now.
And he'll be damned if Damian doesn't get what he needs.