Chapter Text
I enjoy patrolling with Grayson.
Allow me to amend that for the purposes of clarity; I enjoy patrolling with Nightwing. While I would not say that I dislike patrolling with Nightstar, enjoy is certainly not the right word.
Allow me to amend my initial statement a final time; I used to enjoy patrolling with Grayson.
Invariably, he asks me how his daughter is doing. And invariably, I assure him that she is fine. Using that exact phrase.
The situation, as I understand it, is that Nightwing wants to check on his daughter often, however, because Grayson is often times over emotional, rash, and stubborn, she becomes offended at his insistence and this is what Nightwing is attempting to avoid by inquiring about her health or mood or the quality of the day to me, even if more often than not I have no real knowledge of the state of any of these things.
I doubt he hardly realizes he does this. The amount of time it takes for him to say 'How is she?' and for me to say 'Fine' is hardly worth fretting over.
Lately, however, this two-sentence exchange has been wearing on my nerves. The nature of my relationship with Grayson has been changing. I have come to reluctant terms with the fact that I may be harboring a small crush on the idiotic woman.
There is nothing wrong with that, not really. It's healthy. It's normal. However, I wish that Grayson–Nightwing, proper Grayson–did not make me feel so guilty about it.
This is a difficult situation. Grayson has been a surrogate father figure for me since I first came to Gotham. And a brother, I suppose, but moreover a very close friend. By extension, Mar'i should feel like a sister or relative, or at the very least the daughter of a friend. But she does not.
Mrs. Grayson was never fond of Gotham, or of the network of vigilantes we created. And so, for most of my childhood, I did not associate Nightstar with Nightwing. Until late in her high school years, Grayson lived in Bludhaven, even after Mrs. Grayson left and it would have been much simpler to move to Gotham. Dick did not want to uproot her life, so he commuted to Gotham from Bludhaven for years. I grew up seeing her approximately as often as I saw Harper, and she certainly did not feel like a sister.
"Look alive, Robin," Nightwing calls through the rain over his shoulder, and I realize that I have been letting my thoughts distract me. He's pointing to one of the alleys several stories below us. "You okay?"
"Completely fine, yes." I palm the grappling hook gun from a pocket in my belt and I jump off the ledge of the building we are standing on.
Using the jumpline to slow and control my descent, I kick one of the men in the back as I land.
There's a ring of men, all dressed in black, and there's a woman being held by two of them. That tells me enough. They're attacking now. Being wary of guns, I finish off my side quickly. The woman begins screaming, and Nightwing and I have our hands full.
All that I see is a flash of the light from the street reflecting off metal in the corner of my eye. A man we'd punched to the ground is leaning against the alley wall, aiming for Grayson, who is tending to the woman with his back to the gunman.
I can't do anything helpful. I should be taking the bullet–Grayson is notorious for not wearing enough Kevlar with his suit. I simply don't have the time for anything else.
Normally I would take the bullet. But I freeze. I never freeze. I never find myself so unable to make a decision or lack the dedication it takes to make a move.
I have been shot before, and worse. I'm not afraid. But there's a flash of something in the unfamiliar panic that hits my chest so hard that I can't breathe–a flash of green and pink. It's distracting. It's dangerous.
The gun is not silenced. The sound is very loud, but it's not as loud as the woman's screams. With all that noise, the police will be here soon. It's protocol for them to take us to Mercy West if they find an injured vigilante, but there is no time for that.
I pull the gunman into a sitting position and punch the underside of his jaw. I'm very angry. I don't have time to be angry, however.
Grayson is clutching his arm. His neck and back are undamaged. I shred a piece of my cape and tie a largely ineffective tourniquet around his arm.
Crystal Brown is working, and when I haul Nighting, fainted from blood loss, into her wing of the hospital, she gets him a stretcher and a swarm of people with masks over their faces and nets over their hair surround him.
"He'll be okay," she tells me. She moves to put her hand on my shoulder, but I am dripping wet from the rain outside so she lets her arm drop to her side. "If you got him here much later, he wouldn't be. But you did good."
No. No, I did not. I did horribly. I let down my best friend because I was afraid.
And what was I afraid of? Never seeing his daughter again. This has gone too far too quickly and I don't know what to do about it. But I'll get my wish, at any rate.
Now I have the unpleasant responsibility of finding Grayson and telling her that her father was shot because of me.
The pleasant thing about the windows on our apartment building is that they have ledges on them. It's a common design element for older buildings. After a moment of calculation, I find Grayson's and I land on it, rain pouring in rivulets down the front of my hood so that I can only see through a veil of water.
I tap on it, insistent but not panicked. I do not want to frighten her. She wakes easily and her room is illuminated by the pink glow that emanates from her hand. The duvet is thrown nearly across the room and she rushes over to the window. The screen pops out and she slides the window open and I land squarely on my feet. Rain drips from my uniform to the hardwood floors and I wonder if I should retrieve a towel to mop it up.
"What's the matter?" she asks, and she sounds so frightened.
I clench my jaw shut before I tell her, "It's your father. If you have an extra suit—"
She's already turning from me and she's rummaging through her dresser. I imagine she doesn't use the suit she has stored here very often—we're only supposed to use equipment stored in our dwellings in emergencies. Clothing litters the floor and I avert my eyes because I don't think she notices the articles of clothing she's dumped on the floor.
"Turn around," she commands, and her voice is short and clipped. I give an inaudible sigh. I wasn't looking, anyway. It's very inappropriate, but heat rushes to my face as I realize that she's undressing behind me and I tug my hood over my eyes as far as it will go.
I hear her zip up her costume and the mattress depresses and I assume that it is safe to turn around. She is sitting on her bed now, reaching under it and pulling out pairs of shoes before sliding her feet into them.
"Wrong shoes," I mutter as she pulls on a rain boot instead of the ones that go with her uniform.
"I don't care," she says and she stands up, but I move in front of the window to block her. We are vigilantes. It is difficult but we cannot do these kinds of things. I've already explained this to her. We must be calm. I realize that it must be difficult for her, as her powers are driven by emotions and she seems even more impulsive than Brown most days. But if she wants to wear the uniform she's got to play by the rules.
She tries to go through me toward the window, still wearing mismatched boots, and I push her with as much strength as I can without actually hurting her back onto her mattress. I put my hands by her elbows and I lean down, effectively pinning her beneath me, though I know that she could brush me away quite easily if she wished. Her superior strength is precisely why I have to be so commanding.
"Listen to me," I growl, putting as much authority behind my voice as I can. "You need to calm down."
"Stop it, Damian," she snarls, and she pushes me with such force that not only am I pushed completely away from her, but my back hits the wall painfully. She lunges for the window again but I grab her by the wrists and I push her up against the wall.
Our bodies are touching with my attempt to keep her still long enough to break through to her but I cannot think about that now. "Control yourself." If she does not calm down, I will have to restrain her. She cannot go to the hospital like this.
She doesn't struggle against me, even though she could toss me to the side with a flick of her wrist if she chose. When she looks up at me, her eyes are shining with tears and I vehemently wish she chose to fight me instead.
I did not mean to make her cry. I do not know what to do when people cry. Most people do not around me. It seems a very intimate gesture, and I am reminded again of our proximity. I swallow back what is best described as anxiety and I brush a piece of hair behind her ear, hoping that that sort of contact would comfort her.
"At least put on the correct pair of boots," I say softly. I step back, allowing her a clear path to her bed, and I cross my arms. My gloves absorb most of the heat from whatever I touch, but my fingers are hot. I could feel the heat from Mar'i's hair even through my glove, and that makes me want to touch it again. Half of it is curiosity, I suppose, but the other half is not nearly as innocent in nature.
"It is not fatal," I say, balling my fingers into a fist to get rid of the lingering warmth. "His arm will be in a sling. Nightwing will be out of commission."
"Do you think—" she begins, her voice watery. "Do you think if I were there—?"
She is sitting on the edge of her bed, perfectly framed by a rectangle of light cast by a streetlight through her window. Her back is hunched and her head is turned to the floor. She should not blame herself, especially when this is my fault.
I move in front of her but she doesn't look up, so I reach out and I cup her cheek. Heat floods through my fingers again and I cannot tell if all of it is from the physical contact or if it is from something else entirely. "You cannot think of it that way," I tell her when she finally looks at me.
She nods softly and I remove my hand from her face, feeling very foolish for having done that. "Okay. Let's go."
Mar'i sets off a smoke detector in the waiting room and we are asked to wait outside in the rain. It is unfair, but not unreasonable, I suppose. I sit on a bench in the lee of the wall, with a ledge above me that blocks out the rain and wind, but Mar'i paces. Thick, living fire dances through the air in her wake, lazily consuming itself before she returns to that spot. It is quite mesmerizing to watch.
To clarify, the fire is mesmerizing. Not Grayson.
When we are let in again, Grayson is waiting for us in a bed. Mar'i speaks with him for a long time, and I make sure that Dr. Brown knows that he is to be released before this evening, as Officer Grayson is to report for duty and we cannot have him missing work the same say Nightwing was shot. She promises me she will take care of it.
I stay out of the way, mainly, as father and daughter talk, relieved to see each other. Grayson invites me to join in the conversation, but I do not wish to intrude. It is my fault that he is here, anyway, and I do not wish to burden them with my presence.
The sun begins to rise, and Gotham's vigilantes must make their exit. We are forced to go to the Firewall, as there is no feasible way we can get to our apartment building dressed as we are, and with Grayson lacking her hologram pendant. Unfortunately, Grayson has forgotten to update her civilian wardrobe here, and she has only summer clothing. This would not be a problem, except that without her pendant, her skin and eyes are quite noticeable. I give her my sweatshirt so she can turn the hood up. She frets over my health, which is unnecessary and undeserved; as I have mentioned, it is my fault that any of this happened.
When we finally reach our apartments after a long walk in the cold and the rain, she unzips the sweatshirt I gave her and she says, "Um… thanks."
"Are you… all right?" I ask.
"Yeah. Are you?" she returns, and it only makes my conscience weight heavier.
I sigh tiredly and I run my fingers through my hair—an anxious habit I picked up from by father—and I lean back on my door, opening it with enough room for her to pass through.
"It's my fault your father got shot," I admit, and I cannot look at her. Any semblance of trust built between us will be shattered. "I saw the gun but I did not have time to disarm the gunman. I could have stepped in the bullet's path but… I didn't." There is no need to go into those details. "I'm sorry," I tell her sincerely, raising my head to meet her gaze.
"Wha—Damian, that's nothing to apologize for."
"It would have been entirely less stressful if it had been me," I tell her, and she cannot deny that it would be true. Even as I think that, however, I want her to deny the truth of that statement.
"For who?" she demands, and she looks confused.
Annoyance at her lack of understanding and something else sweeps through me and I cannot speak for a moment. My gaze drops to the floor again, and I mutter, "For you."
"I don't want you to get shot," she says, and even though that is an entirely platonic thing to say, it makes me dizzy with a fierce rush of relief and joy. Her sneakers come into my line of vision and she wraps her fingers around my wrist.
I jerk my head up to look at her, but she's looking down at my hands. "X'hal, you're freezing," she murmurs, and with her other hand she touches my cheek.
The dizzy feeling has gotten much worse and I cannot think. Her hands are warm and I feel so much colder where she is not touching me.
"Grayson," I say, and she lifts her eyes to look at me. "Mar'i," I say softly, and the name feels hot in my mouth, but pleasant and sweet, like cocoa. I'm not thinking. I pull her closer, and I reach for her hand.
I am not sure who kisses whom, but we are kissing, and I could get lost in all the feelings. I have never been the type of person who analyzes these sorts of things. I am much too busy for that. But it is as though I have been seeing in black and white and Mar'i has shown me colors.
This is ridiculous. I cannot even bring myself to touch her, other than my fingers entwined with hers, because I fear I will be swept away in the torrent of emotion.
This is a bad idea. This is unhealthy.
I force myself to lean my head on the door behind us, gently breaking the kiss. "We shouldn't be doing this," I say quietly, and I almost wince at how full of regret my voice is.
"No," she agrees.
I tighten my fingers around hers, afraid she misunderstood. "Not now. Not while your father—"
"I know," she says calmly. "Damian, I have to tell you something."
I do not let go of her fingers. I imagine what it would be like, to have experienced that intense flood of emotion once in my entire life and never do it again, and I regret breaking that kiss.
"I'm going to Tamaran," she says.