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Damian doesn’t know how to be happy, he’s tried, fuck has he tried, but his joy comes from the fights that get his adrenaline pumping, that surges his blood through his body.
Hell, the ones where he bleeds make him grin like a psychopath.
He holds no fear when he goes out for patrol, when a fight gets tense.
But sitting at a table with Raven does that too, just differently, in a way that- that scares the shit out of him. But it also makes him feel happy, just seeing her.
He knows what he feels for the woman across from him, knows it’s been building since they met, but sitting here with her after five years of not seeing her because she disappeared after her break-up with beast boy… it’s different.
He knows she already reached out to the other titan members of their team; knows she’d saved him for last. But he has no clue if it’s supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing and that has him tapping his fingers against the top of his thigh as he stares around the busy diner instead of looking at her.
“Damian, will you look at me?” asks Raven softly, her voice tugging on his attention easily.
That’s the problem.
He always looked at her.
He fell in love with her, and it never went away.
Damian’s heart shattered when she got with beast boy, then it shattered again when she disappeared, and it got worse when he discovered the timeline fix that destroyed a moment between them. He’d searched until he found out, and it all ached because he knows that it was reciprocated then.
That’s why Damian stopped trying to find her a year ago.
He needed to.
His green eyes lift and meet hers, swallowing hard as he sees the way her eyes trail over his face.
“I’m sorry that I was gone for so long without reaching out to tell you that I was at least okay,” murmurs Raven as she reaches a hand across the table, hesitantly.
It hovers over the only hand he’d left visible, and his eyes fall to it immediately before lifting his hand up on his fingertips. The second the back of his hand touches her palm, he drops it again and barely manages to stop the grin that wants to curve his lips when she rests her hand atop his.
“You don’t have to apologize for doing what you felt was right for you. We all understood that you needed something that we couldn’t provide,” murmurs Damian after he’s managed to school his expression back into indifference.
Though the way her fingertips are tracing random shapes into the back of his hand is making it hard to keep it there.
“Yeah, they said that too. And I’m certain they meant it, but Damian, I know it hurt you. So, let me apologize, please,” replies Raven softly, serious as she lets her fingers grasp his and hold for a moment before going back to tracing shapes. “I know they were fine with it, but I should’ve at least checked in with you. I know you were looking for me, Damian.”
His head snaps up from where he was staring hard at the soft hand on his to look her in the eyes with shock written all over his face.
She knew.
How..?
“If you know, then you understand why it took so long for me to make this meeting,” says Damian stiffly as he forces his eyes away from her, needing the reprieve from her searching looks.
“I do, which is why I didn’t push. Even though I really wanted to when it took two weeks to get another response from you only for it to be another push back. Damian, I truly am sorry for not at least sending word to you,” Her voice is so soft that he should’ve missed it in the bustling diner.
But, of course, he didn’t.
“You had no reason to, Raven, and truly, if this is all, why did you need to speak with me in person at all?” His voice is colder than he likes, not ever wanting to show Raven that he’s still the same as he used to be, but his frustration is leaking around the edges.
“Because I needed to see you, Damian, and I- I needed to say this in person. I know how ridiculous this may seem, but the reason I didn’t reach out to you, the reason I couldn’t, is because…. Well- I-" She’s stuttering, her fingers lifting from his hand and jerking back to her chest as she plays with a necklace around her neck that has an emerald stone settled next to a purple one in a heart.
Why didn’t he see that before?
That’s Beast Boy’s whole thing.
Green.
“Raven, I think we’ve talked enough. I need to go,” says Damian quietly, stiff as a board as he tugs out his wallet and pays for their meal before standing. “I’m glad you’re doing well.”
He moves to walk away from the booth, from the meal that he didn’t even touch, from her, but his wrist is grabbed in a tight grasp.
“Wait, Damian, please,” Raven’s voice is definitely louder than she meant for it to be, and he can see their waitress staring at them with narrowed eyes of suspicion and curiosity. “Just- please let me say what I need to say, then you can walk away forever if you want. But I need to say this.”
Damian wants to tug his wrist out of her hold, wants to keep moving until the diner door shuts behind him, wants to shut it all out and disappear, maybe go on patrol earlier and come too close to killing someone just to forget about this.
He wants to do all of that.
But Raven’s pleading for him to give her a chance to speak.
Raven’s asking him to stay and hear her out.
He can’t say no to her, only stall, and in person, stalling is a lot harder.
Damian drops his head forward with a put-out sigh before walking backwards carefully and settling himself back into his seat.
“Talk, and talk quickly because my patience is wearing thin, Raven,” Damian’s tired of being nice and indifferent and holding onto his feelings to keep her comfortable.
He’s tired of knowing she chose beastboy again when he’s been here this whole time.
But he knows he can’t be too bothered by that since she doesn’t know that.
He doesn’t think she does, anyway, but she might. It is Raven after all.
“-need you to know that I never meant to hurt you. It was never my intention to leave you the way that I did, I just- I needed to go. I had to. But Damian, I always intended to keep in contact with you. It just-" Raven’s voice is soft and desperate as Damian tunes back in, and his hackles rise immediately at her words. If it wasn’t her intention then why, but she’s staring at him with unshed tears in her eyes, so he listens. “Things got dicey while I was away, and- I tried to leave messages where I could, and I know you followed them until you didn’t. I just-"
She trails off, eyes flicking to the table as she seems to wince while her brows furrow.
“Stalling isn’t a good look on you, Raven,” mutters Damian with a huff through his nose before he reaches his own hand across the table to take hers, fingertips brushing across her palm as he slips under her hand. “You can tell me anything, you know that. Nothing changes just because you talk to me, it never has before, and it never will. So, curl up those fists if you have to, and spit it out already.”
Raven looks up at him, and his stomach lurches as he sees two glossy tears slipping down her cheeks. Her smile is broken as it curves, trembling enough that she has to press them together tightly.
“I’m sorry for all of this, for leaving like I did, for avoiding every possible interaction we could’ve had,” Raven’s voice cracks as more tears slip down her cheeks, and Damian has to dig his nails into his thigh to keep from rushing around the table to pull her close and wipe them away. Instead, he holds her hand tightly and listens intently, biting his tongue to let her get it all out before he reassures her. “I’m really sorry for only leaving crappy messages that really didn’t give anything to you. I’m sorry for just disappearing into thin air and thinking it wouldn’t matter when you proved it did not even two days later. I’m sorry for having to run in the first place because I couldn’t handle the feelings that were swelling within me and distracting me, for leaving because of my father’s threats that were never going to matter, especially once I finally handled him. I’m sorry for spending three and a half years with Beast Boy when my heart has only ever craved you. I’m just so sorry, Damian.”
Damian is stock still, uncertain that he’d just heard what she said, that he actually heard her. When her head falls forward and tears drip down, he moves around the table to her side so he can tug her into a hug, to hold her as she cries against his shoulder. Her hands twist in his shirt, and she lets out quiet sobs and whimpers as she buries her face in his shoulder, murmuring broken apologies into his shirt.
“Don’t apologize, Rae,” murmurs Damian as he rubs his hand up and down her spine gently, nose buried in her hair as her breaths stutter against his chest. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. You did what you thought you needed to know, and you followed your heart as well as your head. There’s nothing to apologize for when all you were doing was trying to make things right your way. As for that last bit, you followed your heart, and there is no blame to be pushed around for that. Don’t apologize for dating someone you really cared for, okay? Don’t apologize for leaving to handle something on your own, and don’t apologize for leaving us in the dark. You knew what you needed to do, and you did it. We— I understand.”
“But do you understand the most heartbreaking part?” asks Raven as she pulls away to look at him with tears sliding thickly down her cheeks. “Do you understand that I was with someone else when I craved you instead?”
“You really wanted me to pay attention to that,” murmurs Damian softly to himself, but Raven hears it, humming her agreement as she looks into his eyes. “I understand what you said, Rae. I definitely heard it clear as day. I might be confused about your heart somehow longing for me because it’s me, but I know my heart has longed for you for a very long time now. It doesn’t change the fact that you were with him because you wanted him too. Like I said before, pursuing that relationship doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you should apologize for it.”
“You–” Her eyes are wide, shock swirling through them in star galaxies as her jaw drops, words faltering instantly. “Do you mean that? All of that– Your heart, my–”
“Yes, my heart is yours, I already said that,” replies Damian amusedly, despite the way that heart is beating so hard in his chest that he can hear it.
“Oh, screw you,” grumbles Raven with an eye roll before she leans up and knocks her head into his chin as her lips curve into a pout. “I love you, Damian Wayne, my Robin.”
“And I love you my Raven,” replies Damian with a smirk before he tilts his head down and brushes his lips against her forehead. “Are you feeling better now, Beloved?”
He’s going all in because he can’t help it.
She loves him too, and he’s not going to go another second without showing that he loves her as much as he plans to say.
“Yeah, I really am, Love,” murmurs Raven as she leans up to brush her lips against his jaw before nuzzling into his neck as he holds her.
“Then that’s all that matters,” says Damian softly as he settles firmly in the booth and holds her tightly, leaning his head against hers.
Holding Raven in his arms, knowing she loves him back, knowing that she knows that he loves her… Damian never thought he’d see the day, but as he sits here with her in his arms, hiding a smile against his neck, he’s glad it happened today.