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Day 7 - 23.07.2023

Free day | Forbidden love | Moving in together

Weighing operational risk is tricky when your life is on one side of the scale. It's even worse when your Beloved teleports next to you.

“What's it going be? After a career spent doing bad things for so-called good reasons, it's hard to say exactly where you draw the line.”

“I’m here,” is all Jason says.

Batman grunts.

Damian'd had enough hours ago. He raised a fist to rest his head, and was not at all tempted to puch the table. Just for something interesting to do. But he put up with the bureaucracy of the Justice League, joined by the LD: Dark, Raven’s NightForce, the Outlaws, because after his rant about how they would ”together” a couple of nights ago, he felt he couldn't complain. Well not too much.

Raven, speaking with the Zataras’ threw a quick smirk his way. Beloved probably got feedback from their bond, making his expression of polite disinterest as Batman and RedHood gripped at each other over logistics, useless.

Damian had always known that father loved Todd. You don't react the way father did when Jason died if you are indifferent. His father would have committed murder, taken a life which was so against his principles, his trauma that obviously Damien knew his father felt the loss of someone he loved deeply. Someone who was family.

Similarly, you don't become the Red Hood and use guns, the very weapon that killed your mentor's parents, if you yourself didn't feel too much. But now that he shared Raven's empathy, Damian glimpsed the purple within the red of hate and anger, and whiere is lightned to blue and lilac. He experienced what the hurt meant. How Jason Todd the street rat orphan felt about his city, and how the Multi-billionaire orphan felt. And how they both were desperately trying but failing to meet in the middle.

Specifically, today sitting beside his father and across from his brother is all but blood, Damian was forced to observe and perceive everything from their aura to their mood, their words gave to the overtone and undertone. Between the lines of what was being said by his brother and his father.

And now, as he had a better understanding of their dynamic and history, Damien was forced to contend with what Raven lived every single second of her life. He had to grapple with the fact that she may never take anyone's side because after you literally walked a mile and somebody else issues, all the presumptions and assumptions were useless. There could be no judgement, only empathy and compassion.

Maybe exasperated!

The months after he and Raven became one, Damien would get impressions of magic. He could send something that he couldn't before. That dimmed to some extent when Raven was captured. His extra sensory perception was dampened and he could only get impressions of Raven's feelings and emotions. Everything changed when Raven and Damien promised to be together. It was implied forever and always. a vow that was more than words. it had intent. And now these last few days Damien had a better understanding on what it meant to be Raven. Other peoples aura, moods was one thing, but sometimes there was a tactile sense involved. This morning he punched Donna and it was as if he had punched himself. He was so surprised that he actually took Donna's knee to his abdomen, not being fast enough to block it! and then to add insult to injury, he felt Donna's second-hand embarrassment for him at not deflecting her!

So, even though he was hurt Raven'd hesitated. The gut punch when he saw in his Beloved’s eyes the need to flee. The need to shut down. To leave everything behind, including him! Damien, who had been frantic with worry, but had controlled it, so as not to be useless when it came time to find her! fight for her!

Him, who had worked to master the magical bond between them so that he may actually find her.

And then finally, after dealing with the Outlaws and the NightForce and the worst one Constantine, and after fighting monsters that would give any sane person nightmares, when Damian reached his beloved, his precious one, she all but flinched. Raven was conflicted about Damian. The home they built with each other. She looked at her captor, the man-child Klarion as if he understood her better than Damien did. These last few days had been an experience in humility. He thought he understood how Raven an empath half-deamon walked lived. Just like he judged the dynamic between his brother and his father. So now he had to grapple with the fact that even the things he knew were actually those he only presumed to know.

Under the conference table, a soft hand covered his clenched fist. He got the impression of the heat of his wrist clasped in as if his own much smaller hand, while also the sense of the actual touch of Raven on him.

The dual perceptions while not entirely new were nonetheless, jarring.

Slowly, with each breath all extra sensory perception reseeded. And he was alone in his head. He breathed a sigh of relief. To be himself again. Atlast. Then instantly Damian felt ashamed.

Damian took a deep breath, and let it out. Well, he’d promised her unfiltered Damian. Whether he liked it or not, he was glad to be himself again. Turning to face her, Damien waited for condemnation in her eyes. Superman commanded the room. Calling an end to the break and people started to trickle back to their seats. Many paused to speak with Raven, get her opinion on something, in sympathy or a clarification of some earlier discussion. Mostly, she got nods in support.

The meeting was called to order. To my relief and chagrin, now was not the time and place to have an honest personal discussion.

With a single gesture from Raven’s free hand, a little cloud of darkness, bound towards the centre of the table and with a flash of purple light, the darkness created a 3-D render of the caverns where Raven had been held.

Questions were asked. How many of the kidnapped were in the caves?

From the central cavern, where the ceiling was so high it had its own cloud system, the perspective zoomed and panned in till finally, it stopped, vaguely humanoid figures close to 100 in number, cowering under a low ceiling father into the earthen complex.

The Hawks inquired about the presence of Nth metal. To which Raven relayed the impressions, she was able to make out while incase in it, and the information relayed by the Cavern system itself.

“From what I understand, the metal has sense, an autonomy of sorts. Its properties such that it can restrict or disrupt magic or enhance.”

“The Metal decides?” Victor Stone his human brow raised.

Raven and everyone looked at the Hawks seated on the JL side of the table.

Hawkgirl nodded in grim fascination. As if to say that’s right, but these are secrets of my home world. Specific to Thanagar. Their crash in ancient Egypt was considered to be the only source on earth. The fact that the transuranic metal was naturally occurring and abundant on earth, confirmed by a second magician, added orange of mild alarm to the Hawk couple’s warrior-like aura.

And Damian could sense others’ emotions again. But with Raven holding his hand, literarily, the impressions were nebulous, not easily confused with his own feelings or opinions. Like reading micro-expressions or body language. One had to be careful not to mimic behaviour. Here too, he’d have learned to take in the information. Be aware of it, without internalising or rectory.

It was a wonder Raven mediated so much.

“Are their other cavern systems?” Batman asked.

“Ancient sites, co-opted by the agents of chaos? Yes. I have an impression of a few and so would everyone with me in the cavern.”

Constantine bobbed his ‘cigi’ in confirmation. Asshole ashed right on the state-of-the-art console.

The Zatara boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he squeaked a nervous yes.

In his peripheral, not vision, but a perception nonetheless, Raven was amused at his inner monologue. And Damian realised he’d instinctively reached for Raven, which opened their bond. A bond that created a private channel between just them. It was like passing notes in class. Under the teacher’s eyes, Damian was as if a backbencher, whispering a running commentary, while Raven tried hard to keep her face impassive.

Damian remembered days at Titans base during Grayson’s droning, Raven made astute humorous observations in his ears. And he’d quirk a brown in response.

Or how their eyes would meet across a battlefield, Raven go high and Damian going low, absolute clarity, a moment of connection, culminating into a perfect takedown.

He’d honed situational awareness from before he could walk. Being Talia Al- Ghul’s son he could do no less. Damian found that at some point his awareness included Raven’s position in real-time. An instinct, like sensing a throwing star even if he couldn’t see it. A strike beyond the 180º line of sight. While in combat, focused, where nothing could faze him, Damian realised he’d look for Raven.

When Father sent him off to the Titans, I don’t think he banked on me making a genuine emotional connection. He thought I’d make friends, sure. Even after the thing with Grayson and Kori, Father was rather short-sighted when it came to me. Now he was mildly nervous for his youngest, loving one of the most powerful beings on earth, with a complicated history to match his own. And it had been terrifying, looking at himself through his father's eyes. But, if the trade-off was being without Raven, being with her but only half-heartedly, then he would learn to handle it. Insignificant as a candle in a hurricane.

Yet this, this perfect understanding between them, sharing a whole conversation in a look, a shorthand developed over years of history and conflict and partnership. And now a tangible metaphysical bond, to know what he felt was returned! That was everything.

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