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It's just past two a.m. Her window is cracked open, letting in the chilled scent of dew soaked pavement and dandelions from the outside. The room is cloaked in shadows. The only way Veronica can make out his face is by the way her eyes have adjusted to the dark, every line of him is etched by greyscale.
They lie facing each other, side by side, so close their foreheads could touch if either of them moved an inch. She’s been watching him sleep for over thirty minutes now.
There’s a peacefulness in him she’s not used to. A stillness that only appears when his mind is finally quiet with no expectations. Just Damian, breathing.
Then a subtle twitch happens. His fingers jerk near his cheek, like they’re gripping something imaginary. A sword, maybe. Like a reflex, something he must do in sleep the way he does it in life, by instinct.
Her eyes scan him closely. The occasional clench of his jaw, the slight flare of his nostrils, and the twitches of muscles that look like they have never seen rest. His eyebrows begin to pull together and release, over and over, a small rhythm of unrest. Furrow, release. Furrow again. But this time, the furrow stays. His whole body tenses and his shoulders tighten. His breathing picks up with sharp exhales through his nose. His fingers resting near his head ball into fists and seize the sheets.
Veronica’s eyes widen. Her heartbeat skitters in her chest. She doesn’t know if she should wake him, but without thinking, she reaches forward. Her hands move carefully to his hair, fingers combing softly through it, smoothing back the stray curls damp with sweat. She brings her hand to his forehead. Gently, she traces the creases between his brows with her thumb. His face responds slowly, but surely. The tension melts from his expression. His breathing slows down once more and goes calm. The balled fists unclench. His shoulders lower and loosen up.
She lets out a breath of air from deep within her lungs. Her hand lingers for a few seconds longer before pulling back. Her eyes stay on his face, on the scars, jagged and some faint, that mark his cheekbones and jaw. She’s never asked where they came from. It’s something she always felt was private. You wait for someone to offer these stories. Scars are never just skin.
Her gaze trails down to where his shirt had ridden up in his sleep. Just above his hip bone, lit up by the moonlight, there’s a thick, rigged scar. It tells of something serious, something that didn’t heal right. She reaches out and tentatively traces her finger over it. His abdomen flinches, a ticklish reflex, and she snatches her hand back, eyes wide, breath caught in her throat.
When he doesn’t wake, she stares at the scar again with parted lips. She had no idea he had more of them, deeper ones. She wonders what had led him to earn it. Or who. She wonders if it hurt. Maybe he’s secretly in some underground fight club, she thinks to herself jokingly, biting back a small smile. Gotham’s broodiest boy by day, underground champion by night.
The smile fades as quickly as it came. Because the scar isn’t funny and neither is how quietly he suffers. He doesn’t tell her these things, doesn’t let her into this part of his life. And she doesn’t push because she doesn’t know if she can handle it, the reasons he has these scars, so she lets herself stay oblivious.
She watches him for another few moments, the rise and fall of his chest, the slight crease between his brows that never fully left. Veronica knows that if he ever asked her to keep him safe, she would. If he asked her to never tell a soul about this night, she wouldn’t. But she’d remember it for the rest of her life.
Finally, she rolls onto her back, still beside him, and inches her hand toward his beneath the sheets. She doesn’t hold it, but leaves it there, just close enough to say I’m here.