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wildest dreams

say you’ll remember me...

on their 5th wedding anniversary, damian and ellen answer a barrage of questions about their relationship from their curious and inquisitive 8yo daughter. this fic is a retrospective on their relationship from the very first time they saw each other til they’re like....probably approaching 40 i think.

ellen and damian fell in love when they were around 20, got engaged, ended their engagement, went almost a decade without seeing each other again, and upon finally reconnecting, both simultaneously realized, oh, shit, i still love her

they are the Rock and Foundation of e28 tbh. i will probably go back and do some serious revisions (i wasn’t sure how to end it so i just emphasized my fav part of their relationship: that their Family becomes the most important thing, at the end of the day) but for now!!!!! here take it. also this includes a ton of things i’ve wanted to make canon for Years as well as just general Hints at larger plots (on that note expect a dick/leviathan/spyral fic soon to tie shit together!!!)

HERE U GO IM DONE THIS IS FUCKING 23K. will clean it up b4 posting on ao3

“That’s you,” said Ellen, pointing to a photograph. In her lap her daughter peered down at it, her mouth a small O. The book Ellen held in her hands was beautifully bound and carefully curated, a gift from Damian’s father for his and Ellen’s fifth wedding anniversary. Though Bruce could not visit – Damian and Ellen were in Singapore, living abroad now for several years – he had sent the photo album with a short but loving letter, asking them as always, not-so-subtly, if they wouldn’t consider visiting home.

Ellen and Damian didn’t even need to discuss it. No. Not yet.

As Ellen leafed through the pages with their daughter, Damian in an adjacent armchair, his three and a half year old laying against his chest. Damian would’ve thought he was asleep if his eyes weren’t open, watching his sister silently. Tom was quiet for his age, and lacked the social graces of his sister Tallie. Recently Damian and Ellen had taken him on a slew of pediatric visits, wondering if his reluctance to engage with others might be early signs of autism or some other developmental disorder. All the doctors said to give him time: without other classic diagnostic criteria, most of which Tom passed without a problem, he might just grow into a naturally introverted personality. “It’s certainly not uncommon,” one doctor told them, after handing off lollipops to both Tom and Tallie, “particularly when there’s a more aggressively social older sibling in the mix.”

Though this seemed reasonable enough, Damian still found himself troubled, worried for his son. Ellen reminded him that was natural, merely part of being a parent. That didn’t mean Damian had to like it.

“Wow,” laughed Tallie. She was about eight, though when she was adopted there had been no record of her official date of birth, so they merely guesstimated and celebrated her birthday on the day of her adoption – homecoming, they called it, instead of birthday. She pointed down at the photo, at her three-year-old self sitting on her grandfather’s lap, dressed in red and scowling. “I was there when you and Daddy got married?”

“Yes, you were,” answered Ellen, her fingers trailing along the other photos.

“Well,” said Damian fairly, “the second time.”

“The legal time,” replied Ellen, with a grin at him. Some time before their actual wedding in the backyard of Wayne Manor – around the time they found a little girl in an orphanage in Tamil Nadu, and stayed there longer than they’d stayed in any place in the years they’d lived abroad, working up the courage to settle down – they’d made a commitment, put rings on one another’s fingers. The decision to adopt Tallie was easier after that, even if they’d technically postponed the legal paperwork until their return to Gotham.

On Damian’s lap, Tom sat up and reached his little arms across the side of the armchair, reaching towards his sister. He gave a wordless noise of want, stretching his pudgy hands out towards the book. Damian took his son around the middle and reminded him gently, “Use your words, Tom. Do you want Tallie to show you the pictures?”

Again Tom made another noise, this one more like a cry. Tallie took the photo album from her mother and held it up to him. “Come see the book Tom,” she said, encouragingly. “You wanna see me when I was a baby?” She pointed to herself in one of the photos. “That’s me! When I was little as you!”

Without ever verbalizing sounds into words, Tom struggled against Damian’s hold. Damian let him go. Tom crawled across the armchair and the couch to settle down close to his sister, leaning into her, snuggling up close. Ellen exchanged a weary look with her husband, not happy with Tom’s refusal to say what he wanted, as Tallie put the photo album back down on their laps. “Look,” she said, pointing to the photos. Tom peered down, but didn’t seem as interested in the images as his sister was. “That’s Mommy and Daddy when they got married. Look how pretty Mommy was.”

“Your mother’s still very pretty,” said Damian, before Ellen could say anything. She cast a wry smile his way, which he returned. “Not that being pretty is the most important thing,” he added, on second thought. “Your mother’s also very smart, and very strong. Those things matter more.”

But Tallie had already moved on. On the next page, there was a photo Ellen could only assume had been taken by Wayne Industries’ PR team, though for obvious reasons it had never run. In it, Damian held Ellen’s hand on the steps of a ballroom, dressed to the nines and announcing their engagement. Fortunately, there were no accompanying photos of the disaster which immediately followed, which had seen Damian removed from the building in handcuffs.

The photo was almost twenty years old. “Look at Daddy,” laughed Tallie, poking her brother then looking up at her father with a grin on her face. “You look really different!”

“Daddy was much younger then,” Ellen told her, gazing fondly at the photo. At Damian’s questioning look, she explained, “When you proposed. Twenty-one or so?”

“Ah,” said Damian, inclining his head in a nod. “Somewhere thereabouts, yes.”

“That’s not young,” said Tallie firmly, glancing between her parents. As she returned to scrutinizing the photos, Damian laughed. He supposed it was fair: to an eight-year-old, twenty-one was a lifetime away.

When Tallie took the corner of the page to turn it over, Tom landed his tiny palm flat against the photos covered in plastic film. He said something that came out in the garbled, stumbling language of toddlers. “Mommy says,” he began, “Mommy said when, shz’lil Daddy wasn, wasn’t nice like Tallie being mean to me too.”

It was a relief to hear Tom say so much at once and, being his parents, neither Damian nor Ellen had much trouble interpreting this. “Mean to you?” repeated Damian, with a soft smile at his wife. “That’s purely false. I may have been coarse at times, but I was hardly ever mean.”

Ellen was impressed Tom remembered her mentioning this in passing. Both she and Damian had been encouraged to speak to him as much as possible, constantly talking, explaining, engaging. After a while Ellen, who was not by nature as loquacious as her husband, struggled to find things to verbalize to her son. Somehow she’d started talking to Tom about his father, thinking about what Damian had been like when she met him all those years ago, when they’d both still been children. She didn’t recall using the word mean, though it was true enough that she might’ve compared it to the gentle ribbing Tallie teased her brother with.

“My friend Nina says if a boy is mean to you that means he likes you,” said Tallie.

“No,” said Ellen, at the same time that Damian said, “That’s wrong.” Ellen tucked her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and added, “If a boy is mean to you, then that means he’s being mean to you and that isn’t nice. If that ever happens to you, you need to tell a teacher, and then when you get home tell it to us too. OK?”

“OK,” said Tallie, looking up at her mother. “If a boy kicks me, before I tell the teacher can I kick him back?”

“No,” Ellen said, though the amused look on Damian’s face suggested he disagreed. “It’s not good to hurt people, even if they hurt you first.”

Thoughtfully, Tallie asked, “What if they kick Tom? Can I kick them back then?”

At the beat of pause before Ellen responded, a grin broke out on Damian’s face. He leaned his face onto his hand, trying to disguise his obvious pride. “No,” she said once more, ignoring him. “But if anyone ever hurts your little brother…” she trailed off, then finished, “maybe we can talk about that when you’re older. Then there might be room for discretion.”

“What’s discretion?” asked Tallie, reaching up twisting her fingers through her mother’s braid.

Pulling her braid out to lay on her shoulder, allowing her daughter better access, Ellen replied mildly, “Discretion is…when you choose to do something, or not to do something, based on the circumstances. You have to use good judgment and make the decision for yourself.”

“Even if it’s not following the rules?”

They were starting to go down a rabbit hole Tallie was too young to fully grasp, so Ellen pulled up. “No,” she said simply. “Discretion is just about understanding the rules the right way, so that you can always follow them in the best way.”

From his seat in the armchair, Damian commented, “How diplomatic.” “I’m a diplomat,” responded Ellen, without blinking an eye. She looked up and offered him another wry smile. “How do you think I got my seat on the UN Commission for Women?”

A fair point. More and more lately Ellen had been busy with her various commitments, prompting Damian to take a leave of absence from his work with the company so he could stay home during the day with Tom. As Ellen rose up the ranks of advocacy and philanthropy, Damian transitioned to the life of a stay-at-home father to a quiet son who continued to lag behind his peers, despite Damian’s best efforts.

“Daddy,” insisted Tom, his palm still splayed out over the photo. “Mommy, an’, Mommy said, was said that he’s, was mean.”

Before either Damian or Ellen could reply to this frankly troubling persistence, Tallie batted her brother’s hand away and said, “Daddy’s not mean, knucklehead.” They’d been trying to steer her away from her more favored insults, dummy and dumbo and a Chinese term she’d picked up at school, shǎguā. Its literal translation was dumb melon. Knucklehead was technically better, though still not ideal.

Damian and Ellen exchanged looks, neither completely sure how to handle this. Though he seemed bothered by his son’s insistence, Damian gave a small bow of his head, deferring to his wife. “Your father was never mean to me,” she said, firmly. ‘He’s a good man. Though, I guess when I met him, he was still just a good boy.”

Tallie grinned up at her mother then her father, then turned to tickle her brother’s tummy. He curled up, laughing – a response that filled Damian with another wave of relief. “A good boy!” she echoed, as her brother shrieked. “A good boy!” She grinned and wrapped her arms around her brother’s midsection, squeezing him close to her. “Daddy, were you a little tiny baby good boy like Tom when you met Mommy?”

With a small, easy laugh, Damian answered, “We were a few years older than you, Tallie.”

“A few years,” echoed Ellen, skeptically. “Maybe for you. I was all graduated from high school and everything.”

“So was I,” countered Damian.

“You never went to high school,” she pointed out, which was true.

“That’s because I was homeschooled,” Damian explained to his kids, always taking care to make sure they understood. “Not because I dropped out like your uncle Tim.” Though it was hard to use Tim as a cautionary tale, given that he ended up running a multi-billion dollar company. “But no, I didn’t meet your mother until I was,” he thought about this, “I don’t know. Sixteen or so? Uncle Colin introduced us.”

“No,” said Ellen, again.

Damian looked around at her. She smiled back, her arm still tucked around her daughter, genuinely entertained by the look of confusion on his face. “You don’t remember?” she asked, teasing him. “The very, very first day we met.” When he didn’t immediately light up with recognition, she added, “It was in the summertime, during that hellish heat wave. Your father was there.” Approaching disbelief, she asked, “You really don’t remember?”

“If you’re talking about the first time Colin brought you over for training,” he began, “then that wasn’t the first time-”

“I’m not talking about that,” she said shortly, shaking her head. “Really, Damian, this isn’t like you.”

“I wanna know, I wanna know!” sang Tallie, bouncing next to her mother, jostling Tom around. “Mommy! Tell me tell me tell me!”

Ellen smiled down at her daughter, holding her close. “Well,” she began, “I was trying to find Baba, actually, because there was something I had to talk to him.” To Damian, she added, “Wasn’t even looking for you at all – I’m not sure I even knew who you were at that point. But it was important to me, so I had to try. It was very difficult to speak to Bruce Wayne back then,” she told her children. “And I didn’t know him. I was just some eighteen-year-old trying to find someone who could help.”

Tom’s little hand reached out, grasping for his mother’s braid. She caught his hand before he reached her hair, knowing his tendency to tug on it. Sounding surprisingly caught up in the story, Tom asked, “Helping, you needed help with what Mommy?”

Not an easy question to answer. Damian didn’t fully expect Ellen to provide an answer. It had been two years since her mother passed; when they got word, Ellen flew back to Gotham alone to take care of the arrangements. Damian had asked to come with her, that perhaps it would be easier if they were all there together. Ellen declined. Apart from a brief explanation the first time Tallie asked about the scar on her face, Ellen had rarely spoken to her children of her mother, and Damian got the feeling that wouldn’t change anytime soon.

So it surprised him when Ellen thought about this for a moment, then answered, “When I was young, my mommy was sick. Baba’s company opened up a hospital for people who were sick like her, but when I tried to see her, I found out it wasn’t like a hospital. It was more like a prison.”

“That’s not good,” said Tallie. Then she got on her knees, and she gently reached out to take hold of her mother’s face, tracing the faded scar there with her forefinger. “People can’t get better if they’re in jail,” she said.

Damian felt another bolt of pride for his daughter. “It was all a big mix-up, in the end,” he added. This was true enough, as the specialty addiction program launched in Arkham had gone quickly downhill, under the supervision of corrupt stakeholders more who cared more about statistics and results than the actual people under their care. Not that Damian or his father ever would’ve looked into it in the first place, had it not been for a determined and enterprising young girl knocking on the front gates of Wayne Manor.

The memory came to Damian like warm water, a rising tide in the back of his mind.

----

Late on Sunday afternoon, a van drove up to the gates of Wayne Manor. In the midst of a very important case, Bruce was tucked away in the artificially-lit Cave, his son training in the gym buried in the bowels of the Cave below. Alfred, on the other hand, sat in the kitchen with the French doors propped open, enjoying the early summertime heat. An obnoxiously loud ringing sounded, harsh and high-pitched, which heralded someone buzzing in at the tall iron gates of the property. Wayne Manor rarely saw unscheduled guests, but Alfred tended not to turn them away due to the fact that they usually dropped some variant of, I know Bruce Wayne is Batman and I’ve been sent here from Ra’s al Ghul.

Getting up out of his comfortable armchair, setting aside the Sunday Gazette, Alfred made his way to a small screen above the counter. The vehicle was a large van, and the camera only picked up the bottom half of the driver’s side window. Picking up the telecom, he answered, “Who’s calling?”

“Hello,” said the driver; as they leaned down, Alfred caught a better view of them. Dark skin, long hair braided out of their face, and what seemed to be some kind of disfigurement across their face, a scar maybe – but perhaps that was just the poor quality of the security camera. “I’m with Chadhar Cleaning Services, we’d like to talk to you about our housekeeping services.”

“Thank you,” replied Alfred, “but that will not be necessary. This home is kept by myself and I do not require assistance.”

“If you could maybe just let me in-”

“Thank you,” repeated Alfred, “but no.”

He began to put down the telecom, but the driver seemed to panic slightly. She broke out into stumbling Punjabi, gesturing wildly as if to indicate her confusion.

Responding in near-perfect Punjabi (it would have been perfect, if not for the accent), Alfred said, “No thank you, we do not need your services. Have a good day.”

“Wait!” she called. She sounded frantic.

Alfred paused.

“I’m not actually here from a cleaning service,” she admitted, a little shamefacedly. “This is my cousin’s van. My name is Ellen Nayar, and I need to speak to Bruce Wayne.”

Alfred raised an eyebrow. “And what is this regarding?”

“There’s a problem,” she said bluntly, “with the Wayne Drug Rehabilitation Campaign? There’s a big problem and I need to talk to him specifically about it.”

“Mister Wayne does not handle company matters directly,” answered Alfred. “Allow me to direct you to the Wayne Foundation Board instead-”

“They won’t listen to me,” she said. “I tried talking to them. And the people at Arkham. And the people at Neon Knights. Please, no one else will talk to me and I need help.”

Alfred said nothing for a moment. Before him on the screen was a child. She could not have been more than a few years older than Damian. There were, of course, children, like Damian, who could be dangerous. But she did not seem dangerous: she seemed desperate.

Before Ellen, the Manor’s gates began to automatically clang open. Her heart rose into her throat, and she called, “Thank you,” then drove the big van onto the Manor grounds. By the time she stopped the car and got out, Alfred was already opening the door, smiling at her pleasantly. She paused, touched her hair, running her fingers down the frizzy, imperfect braid - it was humid out, and a wave of self-consciousness hit her as she realized she was in capris and sandals and a tank top, whereas the butler before her was immaculately groomed.

Still, he did not seem unkind. “Welcome,” he said, standing aside and gesturing for her to come in. He led her into an elegant sitting room and continued, “Master Bruce is otherwise engaged at the moment, but he should be with you shortly. Would you like something to drink?”

The old man gestured for her to sit on one of the fine sofas, which she did. She showed him a mostly-full water bottle she’d had in the bag slung over her shoulder. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“Of course. Allow me one moment.” Seamlessly, something which impressed her coming from an old white guy as he was, he asked, “And, do you prefer ‘Miss’?”

“Ms., actually,” she replied. Though she couldn’t tell for sure, it felt like a discreet way to ask about gender pronouns. She appreciated it, though with it came another painful reminder that she didn’t fully pass, no matter how polite he was trying to be. The butler excused himself and left the room.

It was a nice day out, and the windows were drawn open. Ellen fanned herself for a moment, glancing around her at the opulent furniture and the painting hung on the wall and the marble fireplace. All of this seemed so far removed from the city only a few miles away. How do people live like this? Do they not know what it’s like for normal people?

On the small table before her, there was a bowl full of fruit. Suspiciously she reached out and took one, and then realized it was real, which she had not expected. Who puts real fruit out for decoration? And those bananas were ridiculously perfect. Not a spot of brown anywhere on the peel. Wait, were they real, or just very convincing plastic? She squeezed the end suspiciously, and the peel split and she blinked at it and held it before her between her thumb and forefinger, unsure what to do-

“Would you like some?” came a voice from the door; instantly she dropped the fruit as if she’d been burned, and whipped around. Bruce Wayne lingered in the doorway, grinning gently at her. He looked amused, which made her feel both embarrassed and for some reason angry.

She began, “Sorry, I was just-”

Sauntering towards the sofa across from her, Bruce waved his hand nonchalantly. “You should have it,” he said. “My son likes to garden, and we are finally reaping the fruits of his labor. Literally.” A small chuckle at his own joke. He took a seat, gesturing to the bowl before her. “We donate what we can. It’s good produce, organically grown and everything. Unfortunately it just doesn’t bloom – sprout? – until it’s practically tropical outside. That is to say, for only a few weeks in summer.”

He leaned forward and smiled at her, disarmingly sincere.

“What can I help you with, Miss Nayar?”

What the fuck?

She didn’t say that. “Hi,” she began. “I’m sorry to bother you at home-”

Another wave of his hand. “Absolutely fine.”

“-but I’m here because of your Drug Rehabilitation Program?”

“Right,” said Bruce, meeting her gaze. He took an orange from the bowl and began to peel it. “Alfred mentioned that. You should know I’m hardly involved with our programs in Gotham, my son Tim deals with all the-”

“I know,” she interrupted him. “But I couldn’t find him. I tried to get an appointment in his office but they wouldn’t even let me schedule one.”

“Well,” began Bruce fairly, “he is a busy man.”

“And he has no time for the citizens of Gotham he’s trying so hard to help,” she said coldly. “Fine. I don’t really care. I just need somebody to listen to me.”

Bruce said nothing. Something in his eyes seemed to flicker and change, harden slightly.

“A few weeks ago my mother was moved from a facility in Star City to the rehab ward here in Gotham through your program,” she said. “We didn’t apply.”

“Qualification for the program was based on need-” began Bruce, but she just shook her head and interrupted him once more.

“She was almost at the end of her care,” said Ellen, her voice stony. “She was getting out in a month and she was going to turn her life around. And now she’s in Arkham, and they won’t even let me see her. Something’s wrong.”

Bruce didn’t answer immediately, watching the girl before him carefully. Then he placed a segment of his orange into his mouth and said, “I understand that the first phase of the rehabilitation program is strict detoxification. Restricting outside contact is not an uncommon part of that.”

“She’d already-”

But Bruce interrupted. “You said your mother was at a facility in Star City?”

Defiantly, Ellen nodded.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Ellen’s jaw clenched slightly, because she knew what he was getting at. “She wasn’t using again.”

Mildly, Bruce asked, “How old are you, Ms. Nayar?”

This grated against her. “Nineteen in August.”

“And you are your mother’s legal caretaker?” “No,” said Ellen, “but-”

“Then perhaps,” said Bruce coolly, and it infuriated Ellen that he wouldn’t even let her speak, “you do not know all the details.”

“Perhaps you don’t,” she spat back, angry. “Mr. Wayne, believe me, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think things were seriously messed up or if there was any other way of getting someone to listen to me. I guess I should’ve known better, huh, ‘cause you’re not listening to me either.”

Bruce watched her for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze and popped another segment of orange into his mouth. “I’ll talk to my son Tim. What’s your mother’s name again?”

“Divya,” answered Ellen. “Divya Nayar.” Bruce glanced over Ellen’s shoulder, and Ellen looked around to find the butler holding a tablet, typing in a name. He nodded at Bruce.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” said Bruce, leaning back in his seat. “Take some fruit, won’t you? We have far too much.”

“No thanks,” replied Ellen, who knew better than to accept gifts from rich white men. She got to her feet, holding her bag over his shoulder. “I’m sorry to have barged in like this,” she said. “I really didn’t want to do this, but you have to understand. Something really, really bad is happening in Arkham. I need your help to stop it.”

Bruce nodded his head. “Of course.”

She hesitated, then added quickly, “Also, I know this is your son again and not actually you, but you do know that Neon Knights is building another community center in Gotham Heights, right, just past 42nd? That’s my neighborhood, and to be honest I really don’t think cooking classes are going to be any use to anybody who lives there when we’ve got one of the highest youth homelessness rates in the country. Also why do you guys hire corporate contractors? You’re taking business away from independent businesses in Gotham struggling to stay on their feet. Like, Mr. Wayne, I know that you and your family think you’re helping this city but you’re suffocating it with resources. I’m sure you’ll pass this along to your son too, but just – stop coming into our neighborhoods and thinking you know how to make us better. You don’t.”

Bruce Wayne stared at Ellen, his eyebrows slightly raised. Then he ate another slice of orange.

Ellen grimaced. “Sorry,” she said. “Wow. I didn’t mean to – I’ll go now.”

She turned to leave, but as she did so the sounds of someone else approaching came bounding down the hallway, and she was stopped short at the entrance as a boy entered the room, calling before him, “Father, I’m going out to see Colin today, so don’t-”

He came to an abrupt stop, almost running into Ellen. “Oh,” he said, blinking at her.

He was just a hair’s breadth shorter than Ellen, leaner than Colin, dressed at the moment in what were obviously work-out clothes. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow, and his hair curled with the moisture. This, Ellen realized, must be Bruce Wayne’s youngest son, whom she knew to be about her age, in university already. He looked younger. He was also somehow browner than she had expected, as if his pictures in the papers and gossip rags were always just a little bit lightened.

It was not apparently her scar that caught his attention but rather everything else; she caught his glance up and down her body, with a sort of detached curiosity. Under his gaze, she felt herself flush, but it was more out of indignation than anything else.

“Damian,” said Bruce, from the couch. “This is Ms. Ellen Nayar.”

Before anything, Damian gave a confused glance towards his father; Ellen did not turn around to follow his gaze, but apparently he found a satisfactory answer on his father’s face, for he immediately extended his hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Ellen took his hand. His handshake was much firmer than hers, which she resented. “I was just leaving,” she said.

“Here on business?”

Something in the tone of Damian’s voice irritated Ellen. “I was,” she said shortly, “but now my business has concluded, so I am going to leave now.”

Damian seemed to realize she had taken this badly, so he quickly tried to reverse the situation. “Of course,” he said, stepping out of her way. “I’m not planning on sticking around for much longer either.” He gave her a generous grin. “I’m sure you noticed how boring my father can be.”

Ellen wasn’t planning on replying to this, and then she stopped. When he walked into the room, he’d said something about going to see Colin; it occurred to her for the first time that Colin’s rich friend, the one he constantly talked about, bragging about all the expensive things said friend has given him, might be Damian Wayne himself. He was at Brentwood on a Wayne Enterprises grant, after all.

So Ellen glanced back at Bruce, then, voice low enough it was clear she intended this comment for Damian alone, she asked: “You don’t by any chance know Colin Wilkes, do you?”

Damian blinked at Ellen with some surprise. She could’ve sworn a glimpse of something like suspicion crossed his face, but it passed quickly. “Yes,” he said simply. “I know him.”

“Oh,” said Ellen. Now that she’d said it, she felt kind of stupid for not having anything to follow it up with. “Well. He’s my friend, I’ve known him for a couple years. I don’t know if he’s ever mentioned me?”

“No,” said Damian. “He hasn’t.”

There was an awkward pause. Then Ellen turned to Bruce and said, “Thank you again,” and she headed out of the room. Alfred was instantly behind her, escorting her towards the front door.

Behind her, as they reached the entrance hall, Ellen distinctly heard Bruce Wayne say to his son, “Very smooth,” to which the boy replied, “Tt. Shut up.”

----

Frowning, Tallie asked, “Did your Momma get better, Mommy?”

“She did,” answered Ellen, running her fingers through her daughter’s hair affectionately. Damian thought this was disingenuous at best, but he didn’t say anything. “Baba helped me.”

“Did Daddy help?”

She looked up at him, and he gave a shrug. “Not particularly, as I recall,” he admitted, with a gentle smile towards his daughter. “But we certainly started see more of each other after that.”

Once Ellen helped the Batman discover a deep vein of corruption in his own company, he had offered her training, a suit, and a place at the table. Damian wound up taking over the brunt of her training, teaching her and Colin everything they needed to join the team. At that time, neither of them had been remotely thinking about romance: Damian was still on the Teen Titans, dating one young Iris West, and as for Ellen – she was more focused on making ends meet. Not to mention that, when they started to get to know each other, she’d been nineteen and Damian had been sixteen. Still a kid.

Tom looked over at his father. “Da-da,” he said, sinking down so he was laying on the couch, rolling over to the edge. Damian reached out and tickled at Tom’s feet, catching his little ankles like a monster in a B-movie. Tom did not laugh, but rather peered up at Damian in curiosity. “Daddy,” he said, reaching down to push his father’s hands away. “When you, when Mommy saw you, you did, you loved and Mommy right away?”

Tallie gave a very dramatic sigh, collapsing next to her mother. “Love at first sight!” she declared. “It’s beautiful!”

It was a very romantic idea, but Damian tipped his head back and forth, considering this. “Not quite,” he admitted. “Second sight, maybe.”

“Third or fourth,” Ellen amended.

“A number of sights in, yes,” said Damian, with a small laugh. “But in the end, that’s the kind of love that lasts.” To Tallie, who watched him steadily, he explained, “You always want to be friends first, before you fall in love with someone. It builds a better foundation.”

Fair as this may be, Ellen wasn’t completely convinced they’d been friends before they started inching towards love. Something more like coworkers, really – teammates, colleagues. Though she supposed there wasn’t much of a difference in the big picture, and besides, they’d agreed not to discuss that particular facet of their lives with their children. At least, not yet.

“But,” began Tallie, thoughtfully, “if somebody’s already your best friend, then how do you know if you just like them, or if you like-like them.”

“A good question,” said Ellen, thinking of her husband’s relationship with a certain Lian Harper. She shot him a knowing grin, then asked, “Care to tackle that one?”

Damian took this graciously. “That’s an easy one, Tallie,” he replied, with a shrug. “Not easy to explain, but easy to know when it comes. There are people you love,” he said, with confidence, “and then there are the people you want to spend the rest of your life with. Sometimes other circumstances gets in the way of that; but it will bring you back to them, in the end.”

Ellen watched her husband for a moment, then lowered her lips to her daughter’s hair, kissing her head. Tom, still laying on the couch next to his sister, yawned.

Stubbornly, Tallie asked, “But how did you know?”

This was very much like Tallie, to want to know all the specifics, to keep asking questions until she understood something – even if it was something as abstract as falling in love. “It doesn’t happen all at once,” Ellen told her. “It comes slowly.”

Tallie gave a very impatient sigh. “OK,” she said, giving an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Then when did it start, though?”

Ellen and Damian looked at each other.

“Well,” began Ellen. “There was our first date, if that counts…”

----

In the Haven, Ember sat before the big computer, monitoring threats as dawn began to break outside. There was a buzz of static, then Jabberwock’s voice came over the computer’s radio. “I’m going to head home,” she said. “See you later, Ember.”

“Goodnight,” said Ember, though nighttime was already beginning to fade. “Did Seraph get home safe?”

“Yeah, I just dropped her off.”

Someone else leaned forward, over the control panel on Ember’s side. “You should be more cautious about that kind of thing, Jabberwock,” said Robin. “You don’t want to be seen in the suburbs. People will notice.”

“They might,” Jabberwock replied, scorn evident in her voice. “But everyone was fucking asleep, so I wasn’t really worried.”

Ember said, “Watch your language on patrol. Good work. I’ll see you tonight.”

With a half-hearted grumble, Jabberwock signed off. On the map of the city above them, the final blinking red light went out, indicating that all of Ember’s team were out of the field.

----

“Team?” asked Tallie, confused.

“Friends,” corrected Damian, without hesitation. “All of our friends had already gone home. So it was only the two of us left.”

More than once over the past few years Ellen had spoken about this with her husband. Unlike him, she didn’t fully see the point of keeping this from their children. But, also unlike him, she hadn’t been raised in it. So she didn’t argue – merely went back to the story, a little more cautious now with her wording.

----

Robin reached up and gently tugged his mask off of his face. He scrubbed at the ridge of his cheekbone for a moment, then Ellen glanced up at him.

“Why do you always do that?” she asked. She might’ve sounded annoyed, but there was a tinge of amusement there too, like she was genuinely curious.

He took off one glove, wiping delicately with his thumb beneath his left eye. This close to him, Ellen noticed a faint scar on his eyelid, hardly more than a slight discoloration. “Do what?” he asked blankly.

She gestured to the domino mask in his hand. “Wait to take off the mask until everyone else is out. You made it back here an hour ago, there’s no reason you couldn’t have just taken it off then.”

“I’m not off the clock until everyone else is,” answered Robin calmly. “And you don’t take your mask off in the field, Ember. You know that.”

Ellen rolled her eyes. “You’ve never been on the clock a day in your life,” she told him, turning back to the screen before her. “Besides, you’re here in the Haven, not in the field.”

“I’m still here to act as support for your team,” he pointed out. “So as long as they’re out, I’m out.”

Finishing a cursory inspection of the city, making sure there were no last-minute catastrophes, Ellen replied, “Thanks, Robin, but we don’t need babysitting.”

“All I’m doing is-”

“Besides,” she added, speaking over him. “I don’t think it’s about being ready to leap into action. I think it’s a power play kind of thing, in case any of them come back and catch you naked.”

Robin gave a shrug. “That’s fair. I have my own secrets to protect.”

“It’s dumb,” said Ellen, closing the computer programs and looking up at him. “It isn’t as if your secret identity is actually a secret. They all know.”

“I’d rather not dwell on that,” Robin replied, almost apologetically. “Sometimes when they have to stare reality in the face, it changes the way people see you, the way they interact. I wouldn’t want to distract your team.”

“They’re your team too,” Ellen said, rolling her eyes. “You’re not some professional vigilante lording above us all, you’re part of this too.”

Robin looked at her for a moment, as if trying to come up with a reply. Then he let out a little sigh and gave her a shrug. He tugged off his other glove.

After a longish pause, Robin asked, “Are you hungry?”

“No,” lied Ellen, out of habit. She would go home and eat leftovers her grandmother had covered for her in the fridge.

“Well,” continued Robin, “you should eat something protein-dense anyhow. Sleep deprivation causes your body to work extra hard to keep itself going, which means that your diet needs to be nutrient-rich. I know a nutritionist,” he remarked, casually, as if this wasn’t an absurd thing to say, “if you’re interested.”

In a way, his complete obliviousness to how ridiculous he was being was a little bit charming. “No thanks,” answered Ellen, still in her seat. Robin was leaning against the control panel, but even this didn’t detract from his obvious height, a solid few inches above six foot. Ellen hadn’t seen him side-by-side his father since the first time she met them, and Robin had been shorter then; now, she was certain he would be taller than his father. Good thing Batman wears lifts in his boots.

“Anyway,” he added, “I’m going to get something to eat. You’re welcome to join me, if you’d like.”

He paused just long enough to anticipate a response from Ellen. She didn’t exactly say anything at first, instead just narrowing her eyes at him, trying to tell what this was.

“Why?” she asked. “Is Nell busy?”

A tight smile flashed onto his lips, but he didn’t quite look at her. Instead he reached up to detach his cape and hood from his tunic. “Ouch,” he admitted, finally. “To be fair, you should know that she and I parted on mutual terms.”

“The way I heard it,” said Ellen smoothly, “you grew a conscience and figured out the whole Sugar Daddy scene wasn’t for you.”

“That’s not exactly how it went,” answered Robin frankly, finally removing the cape and draping it over one arm. This was not exactly how Nell had described the whole situation either, but Ellen thought fucking around with one of her team members behind everyone else’s back was kind of a dick move, and she didn’t want to let him off the hook. “I wouldn’t stay somewhere I’m unwelcome,” Robin added. He ran a hand through his hair. “If she’d asked me to leave, I would’ve. But she didn’t, so if she can live with my presence, I imagine you can too.”

“I can live with your presence, sure,” answered Ellen. “But does that make me want to go grab pancakes with you? Mmm.” She held up her hands, as if weighing two options against each other. “Jury’s still out on that one.”

Gesturing towards the door which led to the Haven’s personal quarters, Robin said, “I’m going to take a shower, but I’ll be back in a few minutes. Again, you’re welcome to join me. My treat.”

He began to stride away, then he stopped and turned around. There was a grimace on his face. He opened his mouth to correct himself, but Ellen assured him, “I know. You meant to breakfast.”

He stood there for a second like an idiot, then he nodded. “Unfortunate phrasing,” he said. “My apologies.”

Ellen gestured for him to keep walking. “Just go.”

Without another word, he gave her an unhappy nod, then turned around and swept away. For a moment Ellen hovered before the control panel, unmoving. Then she too headed into the personal quarters, towards the shower attached to what was meant to be her room. It was empty – she had not spent a single night in that bed – except for several sets of her uniform, and some other clothes she’d brought over. In the closet also hung an evening gown in a protective garment bag. Robin had supplied a set of formalwear for everyone (even Lucas, who didn’t exactly need help buying himself a nice suit). He’d claimed it was in case they ever needed to go undercover or work an investigative event, but Ellen thought secretly this was his way of working up to asking them all to accompany him to some boring party thrown by Wayne Enterprises. It was a sad little gesture of friendship, and she almost pitied him. Also, it was a really great dress.

She too showered, unraveling her long braid and dragging her fingers through her hair. She didn’t have the time to shave her legs or fully wash her hair, but it was nice to get the sweat and the grime of the city off her skin. All in all it was less than ten minutes, and then another couple to get dressed and towel her hair dry. She was still braiding it blind, her hands behind her head, when she headed back into the main computer hub.

Robin was sitting at the computer, playing – Minesweeper? Ellen hadn’t even known that game even existed anymore, much less that it was programmed onto the high-tech Batcomputer in the Haven. Obviously he heard her approach, though, because he quickly got up out of the seat, as if she’d just walked in on him in a compromising position.

She raised an eyebrow at him. He wore slacks and a button-up and a damn blazer. She wondered if he’d ever worn jeans and a t-shirt in his entire goddamn life. His hair was still damp, brushed back with a distinct lack of its usual gel. For the first time she noticed the little curls at his hairline, just barely long enough to be seen.

Ellen gestured at the screen. “Having fun?”

“Not really,” he replied, looking back at it. “I’m not very good at it.”

Arching a single eyebrow, Ellen feigned disbelief. “Did I hear that right? The great Robin, Boy Wonder, isn’t good at something?”

He placed a hand to his chest. “Please,” he said. “When we’re like this, it’s just Damian.” Then he gestured at the screen once more. “And it’s just that I can’t crack the algorithm. If I had another twenty minutes or so-”

“I’m suddenly starving,” said Ellen, approaching the computer, “so you don’t have twenty minutes. Besides, it doesn’t have anything to do with an algorithm, it’s just luck. Here.” She inspected the minefield carefully, her eyes glancing across the little gray squares. Then she hovered the pointer over a seemingly random square, and she clicked.

The square went red, revealing two dozen mines across the field. She looked up and grinned at Damian. “Come on,” she said, exiting the game. “Let’s go.”

When they got into the elevator that would bring them to street level, Damian glanced at the back of Ellen’s head. “I can fix your braid,” he offered, “if you’d like.”

She felt a brief but sudden wave of self-consciousness, reaching up to run her hand down her braid. It was off-kilter and wonky, strands of hair hanging out. “No thanks,” she said, glancing at him. “It’s fine. Besides,” she added, with the hint of a sly grin, “I doubt you could do a whole lot better.”

“All my training,” he responded, with a glint in his eye, “and you don’t think my father ever taught me how to braid a girl’s hair?” “Not really, no,” laughed Ellen. “Maybe the butler did, but I can’t exactly imagine Batman thinking that’s a vital skill for the field.”

As they approached ground level and exited through two sets of biometrics-encrypted doors, Damian gave a shrug. “You never know.”

They spilled out into a back alley. Hovering just above the horizon, the sun was not visible beyond the towering Gotham structures. Damian checked his watch. “Wayne Tower Grill doesn’t open for another hour or so,” he told her. “But I might be able to call the chef-”

“You’re not calling the chef of a Michelin Star restaurant just so we can have some coffee,” said Ellen, rolling her eyes again. She took hold of his arm, then tugged him the opposite direction, away from Wayne Tower. “Come on. I know a place.”

He followed her in the early dawn light, when the city was just beginning to stretch its sleepy limbs and come to life. Around them lights began to flicker on in buildings, and cars began to appear on the streets. Ellen was often awake at this time, and she’d more or less scoped out the city for the best twenty-four hour places, which was how they ended up at the door of a neon-signed diner. Inside it was old and greasy. A jukebox played “Layla” by Eric Clapton in the corner.

“Oh,” said Damian, as Ellen took a seat facing the door in a booth. This was good, because it allowed Damian the opportunity to survey the rest of the place, to case it and survey for any danger. It didn’t look like there was any reason to be alarmed. “I was half expecting you’d show me some Indian hole-in-the-wall.”

“Nothing’s open this early,” she replied, then she added, “And I’m not about to take you anywhere I actually like just yet. Maybe when you lead with something a little more authentic than your daddy’s restaurant, I’ll show you around. Though,” she said fairly, “up there in your little ivory tower, I probably know where to find the best Mexican food in Gotham better than you do.”

Damian frowned at her for a moment, until he realized what she was implying. A waitress bumbled over and offered them menus. Ellen asked for coffee, for Damian only water.

They looked at their menus. There was a distinct lack of vegetarian options. Incidentally, Damian said, “You know, I didn’t really take you for someone who’d take the tabloids seriously.”

“Damn,” said Ellen, without looking up from her menu. “And I was trying so hard to impress you.”

Damian lowered his menu to look at Ellen. “I hate the Cancún spring break theory,” he said, referring to one of many popular theories which the gossip rags liked the circulate about the circumstances of his birth. “It doesn’t even make sense. My father was well out of college by the time I was born.”

“Pretty sure Bruce Wayne never went to college,” Ellen pointed out. “But a rich guy like him doesn’t need to be in college to get a college girl knocked up.”

“I thought the prevailing theory was that my mother was a maid at the hotel.”

“Right. How could I forget.”

He watched her for a few moments. Then he returned to his menu.

“My mother is a businesswoman,” he said, quietly. “She’s Arab.”

At this admission, Ellen actually looked up at him. “No kidding?” He nodded. She paused for a moment, then asked, “You think your dad keeps that quiet on purpose?”

“It’s probably for the best,” answered Damian. To him, the issue in question was that his mother was Talia al Ghul; to Ellen, it seemed apparent that clocking Gotham’s most eligible young bachelor and heir to the Wayne throne as a brown Arab kid maybe wasn’t the best PR move for his family’s brand.

“Sorry,” said Ellen, because she suddenly felt like she should apologize for believing what the tabloids said about him. “I shouldn’t believe everything I read. I mean, it’s not like they ever get your dad right.”

For a second Damian didn’t answer. Then, still scanning the menu, he answered, “It’s all right. I used to have this masochistic impulse to keep up with everything the media was saying about my father and me, so I’ve heard worse.”

“Fame is such a burden.”

Damian glanced at her, a little smile tugging at his lips. “Heavy lies the crown.”

The waitress returned. Ellen ordered bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Damian ordered oatmeal with a side of fruit. She asked Ellen if she needed any more coffee, then refilled her mug.

Once she was gone, Ellen sipped at her coffee. “That’s kind of funny, actually,” she said. “My dad was Mexican. I always thought you and me kinda had that in common.”

Damian, who knew that Ellen lived with her grandparents, and knew the circumstances of how that came to be, just watched her. “Does your father – live in Gotham?”

“No,” answered Ellen. “I don’t really know where he is. I never really knew him, but I got stuck with his name after he ditched.” She gave Damian a knowing little smile, very aware that he was in on this next semi-secret. “Which I then got rid of as soon as I could.”

Damian’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, typed something in, then set it back down again. He didn’t really know what to say to Ellen, having very little literacy in this particular area, so he just gave her a nod. “For the best,” he said, again. “How long have you been in Gotham again?”

“Ten-ish years,” she answered, with a shrug. “It’s no Star City, but it’ll do.”

At the mention of a decade, Damian’s interest seemed to pique up. “Ten-ish,” he repeated. “Me too.”

Ellen grinned at him. “How old were you when you got here?” she asked. “Six?”

“Eleven,” he answered. “You?”

“You know how old I am,” she shot back, giving him a look. “As if Daddy doesn’t have extensive file on every member of the team.”

“I try not to read my father’s files on my teammates,” he admitted, which was only half true. Before they were his teammates, he had read their files so many times he’d practically memorized them. Since then he’d started compiling his own.

The jukebox was playing a Rolling Stones song. Wild, wild horses…

“I’m twenty-three in August,” said Ellen, running a hand down her braid again. “Graduating in May, which means I don’t really have time to go on dates with a college sophomore.”

Ignoring this, Damian asked, “Where do you go to school?”

“Gotham U.”

“My friend Stephanie went there,” he said. “I think you know her. She’s the one who showed Nell the ropes.”

“I know Steph,” replied Ellen. “No offense, but she was the you of the team before we had you.”

Damian bowed his head in a little shrug. “That’s fair.”

Their food arrived. After they assured the waitress they were fine and she departed from their table, Ellen pointed at his meal. “What happened to something ‘protein-rich?’”

Dipping a spoon into his oatmeal – it was sticky, clumping around the spoon – Damian replied, “There weren’t a whole lot of non-meat proteins on the menu. It’s fine.”

“You don’t eat meat?” He shook his head. “Any meat?”

“Fish is OK,” he said.

“Why?” asked Ellen, marveling slightly. “Weren’t you the one who was just lecturing me on nutrient-heavy foods?”

“Vegetarianism can be just as nutrient-heavy as any other diet,” he told her, sounding almost bored, as if this was something he regularly found himself defending. “You just have to eat the right things. It isn’t hard.”

“I guess not for someone like you. Don’t you have a whole farm setup in your backyard?”

“It’s a vegetable garden,” corrected Damian. “And I’ve been neglecting it lately anyway, so we haven’t been using it much.”

“What about the cow?”

A little laugh crossed Damian’s face; he seemed almost embarrassed. “Yes,” he said. “We still have the cow. Though she’s more of a pet.”

“Who knew?” she replied mildly, breaking up her bacon into tiny pieces. “Damian Wayne is a vegan hippie. You know, I think you could give Green Arrow a run for his money.”

There was a smile on Damian’s face as he replied, his eyes gently focused on her hands. “I’m not vegan,” he said.

She scooted her plate of pancakes towards him. “Then you should share these with me.”

He didn’t object as she took a bottle of maple syrup and drenched the pancakes with it. Then they both simultaneously cut out a piece with their forks, and took a bite.

“They’re good,” said Damian.

“They’re not great,” said Ellen, making a face.

“Well, yes,” agreed Damian, with something almost like a giggle. “They’re mediocre. I didn’t want to be rude.”

Ellen watched him for a moment, trying to piece him together, turn him into something that was intelligible for her. She had known Damian Wayne for almost four years now, since Colin convinced Robin to train the both of them. Given that Colin had powers that Ellen did not, Robin had offered her extra training, which she had conditionally accepted. At some point he’d graduated to sparring with her, which was a weird kind of intimacy itself, two bodies hot with effort and sweat repeatedly throwing one another to the ground, pinning each other down in a hold, a crash course in hand-to-hand.

He had even designed her second uniform, including the pseudoderm she wore across her face now, to obscure the scar. But she had never called him by his given name, never called him Damian. In her mind he had always been Robin. A kid sidekick.

But then that had all abruptly ended, and for a year Ellen and the others had not seen Robin out on patrol at all, not once. When he eventually returned, he was taller, looked older, and had an air of caution around him that she had never known before. He’d been back for a year now, and while occasionally mouthy, he’d been an invaluable member of the team. There was something about Robin that Ellen could tell was different, more than Batgirl or Red Hood or Green Arrow, back in Star City. She might’ve caught a glimpse of it back when Black Bat was in Gotham, but Ellen had only ever seen her once so she could not say for sure.

There was an ease to Damian Wayne’s Robin, an effortlessness of which he didn’t even appear to be aware. Yes, he was cocky and arrogant about a lot of things, but the purity of action, the determination of a fight, the professionalism with which he secured his patrol route: that came to him as second nature. It was not something he could teach. During their training sessions, he had given her all the physical knowledge he could, but it had ended there. It had been an exchange of services. Ellen had not known him well enough to ask for more.

While Ellen struggled to figure out who exactly Damian Wayne was, he took another bite of her pancakes. “I’m not a sophomore,” he said.

She blinked at him, then frowned. “What?”

He scratched at his face. “You called me a college sophomore,” he explained. “I’m not.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “I graduated last year.” He gave her a bitter-ish smile. “With honors. From Princeton.”

Ellen put one hand to the bridge of her nose, massaging her forehead. “Didn’t we just establish you’re, like, sixteen?”

“Twenty-one in September,” he said, echoing her own admission of age. “But I was actually sixteen when I started, so it’s not that impressive.”

With both hands Ellen took her coffee cup, raising it to her lips suspiciously. “Do you hear yourself when you talk, or…?”

He let out another laugh. Under his skin tone it wasn’t easy to tell, but Ellen thought she caught a hint of pink rising into his face. Once more he ran his hand through his hair, then he said fairly, “Well, I do forget sometimes what my life must sound like to the common peasant folk.”

This time she returned his giggle, fork in hand. “What did you study?” she asked. “And I’ll be disappointed if it wasn’t something super obvious like criminal justice.”

“I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. Finance,” he told her, “and Architecture.”

“Architecture?”

He nodded. “You know the new Martha Wayne Building on Sixteenth?” She nodded. “Those are my designs. It’s taken them long enough to actually start building the damn thing but,” he held up his hands in a shrug, “what can you do?”

Ellen watched him, again trying to figure out what was happening here. It was like every time she thought she got a grasp on him, there was something else, something she didn’t expect, something she never would’ve guessed. “How is that possible?” she asked, seriously. “Bruce Wayne is smart, yeah, but you’re, like – unbelievable.” She watched him, a grin tugging at her lips, a glint in her eye. “What’s the secret?”

Damian shrugged. “I was homeschooled.”

They both laughed, Ellen because this probably actually was the best answer he could come up with, and Damian because he liked to hear her laugh. It relieved the tension in the pit of his stomach, the certainty that he was going to say something wrong and spell out an end to something before it even really had the chance to begin.

“How about you?” he asked. “What are you studying?”

“Engineering,” she answered. “I’m trying to get a job at this firm my grandmother used to work at.”

“Do you like it?”

She shrugged. “It’ll pay the bills.”

This didn’t seem to matter to Damian. “But do you like it?”

She watched him for a moment. “I like it fine,” she said coolly. “Did you like Finance?”

“Not really,” he answered fairly. “If I could do it again I would’ve just gone for Visual Arts or something. Maybe I’ll just do an MFA or something.”

“Are you planning on going back to school?”

Damian shook his head. “Not right now. My day job right now is with my brother, with the Neon Knights Organization. I expect to stay there for a while first.” “What do you do there?”

“I’m the Regional Finance Director,” he answered. “I run the budget, basically.”

“Your dad got you that job, huh?”

Damian considered this. “Technically my brother did,” he said, “but I imagine he would’ve been a little more reluctant had my father not asked him to do so, yes.”

Leaning back in her booth, Ellen said, “You know, Bruce Wayne offered me a job once, too.”

“I know,” said Damian. “You have a standing authorization for any entry-level position in the company. It’s in your file.”

Ellen watched him. “I thought you didn’t read your teammates’ files.”

“You weren’t always my teammate,” said Damian, bowing his head in acknowledgement that he did, in fact, say that. “And…I hope that’s not all you’ll be, in the future.”

Something about the whole encounter changed then, slowing down, coming back to Ellen and knocking her to her goddamn senses. This was Damian fucking Wayne she was talking to, a rich privileged vigilante who’d grown up with an inherent disdain for authority and an unquestionable ability to get whatever he wanted, including whoever he wanted, which just so happened to have included in the past not one but two of Ellen’s closest friends. Sitting across from him in a cheap and greasy diner in Midtown, he looked earnest and harmless; but she’d been with boys who were curious about her before, who wanted to get laid and then get high with her and then move on. She wasn’t about to risk being Ember for a boy, no matter how hot, how tempting he may be. No matter how good it made her feel, flattered and jittery, to know that he wanted her.

But she also knew that saying no to rich men who were used to getting what they wanted could be a potentially dangerous thing. In her heart she really did believe Damian was a good kid, but when he was looking at her like that it didn’t really matter. Either extreme could end badly for her or at least for her continued existence as Ember, so she didn’t want to push it.

“Then He Kissed Me” by The Crystals started to play on the jukebox, words obscured by the growing chatter from the early morning crowd.

She held her coffee mug in hand, swirling its low contents. “Oh?” she asked, her voice lowered. “And what is it that you hope I’ll be?”

His gaze returned to his oatmeal, which he pushed around the bowl, untouched. Then he looked back up at her. “A friend,” he said, “would be a good start.”

“Because it’s so hard for Damian Wayne to make friends, huh?”

He didn’t reply. He placed his oatmeal spoon down against the side of his bowl. Ellen’s heart seemed to slow down as she suddenly realized how badly her sarcasm had missed the mark. To his credit, he managed to give her a smile. “Well,” he began, “I already have four if you count my siblings, so I do have a bit of a head start.”

Ellen felt bad, but not that bad. Lonely little rich boy. She’d seen this before in plenty of shitty TV movies.

“To be fair,” she restarted, “you do spend all night wearing a silly costume and all day behind a desk at an office. So it’s not like you really have the time for a thriving social life.”

“Thanks,” he answered. The waitress returned to take their plates away. She asked if Damian was finished, and he said yes, though his oatmeal and his fruit was mostly untouched. There was a long moment of silence between the two of them.

Then Damian and Ellen both spoke at the same time. They both awkwardly stopped, and then Damian gestured for Ellen to continue. “Please.”

“I was just going to say,” she began, “don’t you need to get to work?”

“It’s a Saturday,” he replied.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “That would explain it.” There was a beat of silence. “What were you going to say?”

He waved this away. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I was just going to ask,” he said, relenting, “when your graduation date is.”

This sort of surprised Ellen. “Um, in May sometime. I can check.”

He nodded. “You’re on the Wayne Enterprises scholarship, yes?”

Growing slightly colder, Ellen watched Damian. She didn’t want to talk about money. It didn’t seem like a safe topic around the Waynes. “Yeah,” she said shortly. “Are you going to help me finish these pancakes, or not?”

“I’m fine,” he said. The waitress came by and dropped off their bill, telling them to take their time. Damian took out his wallet and dropped a silver credit card onto the receipt. Then, glancing at him, Ellen reached out and took the sheet of paper, leaving Damian’s card. She scanned the numbers there, then asked, “Can I Venmo you the nine dollars?”

“No,” he answered, reaching out to pluck the bill out of her hand. “Ellen, please, that’s absurd. What use is wealth if I don’t get to use it to pay for my new friend’s breakfast once in a while?”

“Don’t make me owe you.”

“What could you possibly owe me for nine dollars?” asks Damian, giving Ellen a look, and then handing his card to the waitress when she came around again. “That’s not even minimum wage in Gotham.”

“Like you know what minimum wage is in Gotham.”

“I’m a Finance Director,” Damian pointed out, “remember?”

“For a Fortune 500 company.”

“Neon Knights is a charitable organization, not a company.”

“So your charity has a lot of minimum wage workers, is that it?”

Damian watched her for a moment, himself trying to puzzle together what Ellen meant by this, what she meant by her sharpness and her hesitance and the ease with which she spoke to him. “No,” he said. “Most of our grants are income-based, and as part of that we’ve done research on the living wage in Gotham. It’s well above the current minimum wage, by at least a dollar and a half. We’ve submitted a proposal to City Hall.”

Ellen hated that Damian had an actual answer for this, and she hated even more how it was such a good answer.

The waitress returned with his card, thanking him. Damian scribbled a tip and his signature. Just as he was about to get up, his phone started to ring – but it was not a regular phone ring, but something else just as familiar. It was the default alarm clock ring. He slid his thumb across the base, silencing the alarm.

“Excuse me,” he said to Ellen. “I need to use the restroom.”

As he left, Ellen thought about ditching. But she hadn’t had a terrible time, and she’d appreciated breakfast. And at least – at least if Damian was interested in her, whether it was genuine or merely a carnal sort of interest, then he obviously hadn’t been put off by her going out bare-faced out of the shower, her braid shitty and twisted. It felt kind of good to be wanted without having to put all that extra effort in.

He returned not a minute later, offering his hand to Ellen. “Shall we go?”

She grinned up at him, then took his hand. “I guess so.”

In true gentlemanly fashion, he walked her back to the apartment she shared with her grandparents. When they arrived, Ellen pointed up at her unit. “This is me,” she said.

Awkwardly, he sort of hovered for a moment. “You were impressive tonight,” he said. “Your team performed well.”

“I assume you’re including yourself in that.”

A smile of relief blossomed across his lips. “Of course.”

Despite herself, she gave him a shy-ish smile. “Thanks for breakfast. How are you getting home?”

He jerked his thumb behind his shoulder. “I was going to drop by the Tower. I have some things to finish up there.”

“Oh,” said Ellen, raising her eyebrows. “So you are going into the office on a Saturday.”

“It’s not work stuff,” he assured her. “I told my father I’d get a jump on some of his case files before I got home, so. I’ll be taking care of that for a few hours.”

“Alright,” said Ellen. They were already standing fairly close, but somehow she found herself sidling up slightly, moving them closer. She had to look up to look him in the eye. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’d…” he paused, “like to see you again sometime, if you want.” “Oh, of course,” she said. She reached up and patted him on the chest, resting her hand just below his shoulder. She smiled at him. “I’ll see you on patrol tonight. OK?” She turned to head away, into her apartment building. Then, a few yards away, she came to a stop. Part of her was staunchly telling her to keep going, get into the building, take a nap before Nani came in to wake her up and accuse her of sleeping the day away.

Despite her better judgement, she turned around, intending to go back to Damian and grant him a simple kiss on the cheek. But by the time she looked back, Damian was already walking away, hands in his pockets, oblivious.

----

“And the rest,” said Damian, inclining his head, “is history.”

“But you didn’t get married,” said Tallie bluntly.

Damian raised his eyebrows, glancing at her. “We didn’t?” he asked, then he looked up at Ellen and told her, “We’ll have to send the photo album back to my father, in that case.”

Tallie didn’t laugh at this joke – she merely grabbed hold of the album and hopped off the couch, going to her father and climbing onto the armchair with him. She nestled in against his side, then opened the book, leafing through the pages full of photograph. Finally returning to the photo from that fateful night when Damian and Ellen announced their engagement, she pointed to his face. “You look so different,” she told him, looking up at him. Then she held up the entire book and said, “And Baba sent this for your ammi, for your anna-versary.”

“Anniversary,” Damian corrected. “He did.”

“For how many years?” she demanded.

He held up his hand. “Five years, sweet girl.”

Dropping the photo album, she took his other hand, straightening his middle three fingers and pushing down his thumb and pinky. “I’m eight,” she announced, then conceded, “probably,” as she always did when describing her imprecise age. “That’s three more than five. All this time, all this time that I knew you, Daddy, you always looked a lot older than that picture.”

“All the time you’ve known me,” he echoed, in good humor. “Can you remember when you were three, Tallie?”

“I remember a little bit of India, a little bit,” she said, with finality. “And I was three and even littler than that when I lived there.”

This much was true, though Damian wondered if she really remembered that, or had merely heard the story of her adoption enough times to think she did.

Still, there was no flaw in her logic. Damian and Ellen had been in their early twenties when they first planned to be married, but that engagement had come to an abrupt halt after the disastrous mission against Hush, when he’d cornered Damian into practically admitting his secret identity and cornered Ellen into reopening her scars. And gaining new ones, of course: in public Ellen always wore long sleeves now, covering up the ugly scars on the inside of her elbow, somehow even more unsettling than the faded scar across her face.

It took two decades, but upon their eventual reconnection they had eventually wound up tying the knot. Tallie watched her father, waiting for an explanation for this conundrum.

He merely kissed her on the forehead. “Your mother and I took our time,” he explained, quietly. “That’s all.”

Ellen sat watching them, her son leaning against her side.

This story, she did not share.

----

In the cold Gotham night, a quiet scuffle inside an abandoned apartment ended. Snow fell outside, lining the windowsills. The glass was broken in two of the windows, but not the third, and Ellen knew that it was technically safer to strategically break through a whole pane of glass than try to slip through the jagged shards of one already broken. So that was the direction she expected reinforcements to come through, if, indeed, reinforcements were coming at all. Her team was spread thin lately, after all the destruction Hush had rained down upon the city, buildings in rubble across town, including the iconic Wayne Tower. Quickly Wayne Industries had erected a high-beam spotlight over the debris of the Tower, heralding it as a symbol of Gotham’s unerring resilience. Ellen found the light, which shown every single night, outshining the Bat Signal itself, gaudy and polluting. But that may have had more to do with who it represented to her than what it represented to the city.

So she didn’t expect backup, not really. The last man standing wrapped his arm around her throat in a chokehold, but she just elbowed him sharply in the solar plexus and flipped him over onto his back. He released her throat on impact, and she gasped her air, massaging her neck.

The second blow came during that dangerous moment of relief, that traitorous false sense of safety. A board connected hard with the back of her skull, knocking her off her feet and slamming her face onto the floor. She felt her nose crack all wrong, the still-healing wounds across her face screaming in hot pain. Blood began to soak the scarlet pseudoderm mask she wore. Now, she thought, wearily eyeing that single unbroken window, would be a great time for those reinforcements.

The glass stayed still, unbroken. Ellen heaved a breath as best she could, then got to her feet to face her attacker, ready to fight.

For a second her brain didn’t register the sight before her. A tall, monstrous figure draped in black stared back at her. The man himself, in the flesh.

Of course he hadn’t come through the unbroken window. Batman never took the easiest route.

It took another moment to realize the man who’d hit her across the head was already on the ground, out cold. Ellen felt a burst of iciness, a freezing over. She took a ziptie from her belt and crouched down to secure the guy’s hands. “Thanks for the assist,” she said to Batman, stonily.

He didn’t answer.

Ellen took her zipties to the next unconscious goon. “Why the northwest window?” she asked, without looking up at Batman. “You’ve got the most light coming in from that direction, and the broken glass is an unnecessary risk.”

“It was the quickest,” said Batman.

“Right,” said Ellen, standing up to turn and look at him. Her head hurt badly, a concusion obviously hanging just behind her eyes. The stench of blood in her mask was overwhelming, making her woozy. “Because you didn’t want to waste a single second before coming to my rescue.”

Batman said nothing. Ellen finished what she was doing, handcuffing the men to a radiator like in a bad pulp film, and then she called it in. In the distance, sirens began to wail.

“Do you want to take that mask off?” asked Batman.

She did: she was suffocating under it, dizzy and light-headed. “No,” she said. “Not in the field.”

“You need medical attention.”

“Not from you,” she said icily. “My team takes care of me. And you’re not my team.”

For a long moment, Batman watched her. Then he turned and headed abck towards the window from whence he’d came. “I’ll take you back to the Haven,” he said, before disappearing.

Ellen didn’t move, clenching her jaw. She was in pain, and she did need help, but she hadn’t spoken directly to Batman since she walked away from his son. She didn’t want to give him an excuse to trap her in a confined space for the length of the ride for a heart-to-heart. Though, to be completely fair, if Damian was to be believed then the Batman didn’t even know what a heart-to-heart was, and he hated talking things out more than his son did, even more than Ellen did.

Reluctantly, she followed him. Once they were safely enclosed in the car, she finally removed her mask, heavy with blood. Without saying a word Batman offered her what appeared to be baby wipes, which, though incomparably useful in the field, seemed like a weird thing to keep in the glove compartment of the Batmobile. Nevertheless, she wiped at her face, grimacing at the sting when it touched her reopened scars.

“You need surgical glue for those,” grunted Batman, without glancing at her. “Too small for stitches.”

Ellen wiped away the last of the blood and discarded the dirty wipe, then pressed her head back against the seat, blinking, trying to focus. Then she turned her head to face him and asked, “Are you really telling that to me, Batman?”

Apparently he took her point, because he didn’t try to respond to that. After all, this wasn’t the first time Ellen Nayar had dealt with serious facial wounds. The car, completely electric, was almost silent as it raced down the city streets, navigating deftly through cordoned-off areas, evidence of Hush’s lingering destruction. Sort of like Ellen’s own injuries, like the constant pain along the tendons of her elbow where he dragged a scalpel through her flesh, Tommy Elliot’s parting gift to her. He was locked up somewhere far away from Gotham, the Waynes had made sure of that. But he was also still here, still lingering over the city like a great looming shadow on the horizon, and over Ellen like a reminder of what she’d lost.

Not lost. Given up, maybe. Lost implied it wasn’t on purpose.

Batman slowed the car as it approached the secret entrance to the Haven. “I heard,” he said, and his voice dropped the gravelly Batman tone a little bit, sounding more like the man beneath. Bruce Wayne sounded like his youngest son, that same deep, mellow chest voice, the stilted, overeducated accent, “that you’ve been recruited.”

Ellen didn’t answer right away. The car stopped in the Haven’s garage, and Ellen knew that if she wanted to, she could get out of the car and walk away.

But she didn’t do that. Turning to look at Bruce with her bleeding face and half-broken nose, she considered him for a moment. Then she gestured at the cowl. “Take it off,” she said.

He didn’t move.

“Take it off,” she repeated, simply. “Or you don’t get to hear what I have to say bout Sasha.”

There was a long, long pause. Ellen turned to open the car door, and then she heard the slip of reinforced Kevlar, and she turned back to find Bruce Wayne staring at her, his eyes hard and unreadable.

“It wasn’t Director Bordeaux, actually,” Ellen answered, with a jerk of her shoulder in a shrug. “The Wall tracked me down.”

“Why?” asked Bruce.

“You’d have to ask her. But it might’ve had something to do with the way my team and I saved this city a few weeks ago.”

“Or,” said Bruce, “something to do with the family secrets you could pass to Waller.”

“Family secrets?” echoed Ellen. “That’s weird. After the press outed me and my mother’s situation I didn’t realize I had any of those anymore.”

Bruce took this like a pro, without so much as a blink.

But then, to Ellen’s complete surprise, that changed. Bruce dropped his gaze, then he looked out the windshield of the car. He looked unusually vulnerable, unhappy. “You sound like him,” he said shortly.

Immediately, Ellen shook her head. She pressed her back straight up against the seat. Her stomach felt sick, but that was probably because of the concussion and the blood she’d accidentally swallowed. “Well,” she said fairly, “you have a habit of making young vigilantes very angry with you, Bruce. Don’t say we all sound the same. It makes you sound racist.”

Looking back at her, Bruce asked, “What did I do?”

“I’m not your counselor,” Ellen told him. “And I’m not just some reflection of your son either, I can’t tell you why he’s angry with you.”

“I’m not asking about him,” said Bruce. “I’m asking about you.”

Ellen stared at him. She gave a half-glance around, as if she thought this might not be serious, one big joke, a Batman episode of Candid Camera. Somehow even after all these years Bruce Wayne still had the ability to do this, to take her by surprise, to say the sort of thing she least expected. He reminded her, vaguely, of his son.

“I…don’t have the time,” she began, carefully, “to be patronized to by Gotham’s most powerful man, Bruce. I’m too busy for that, especially when the city’s in as bad a shape as it is now.”

He nodded, as if to agree that this was fair. “Ember,” he said, calling her by her vigilante name, a sign of respect, “I want you to remember how you started this. You saw something was wrong, and you were determined to fix it. All I did was provide you with the tools.” He paused, watching her. “And it had nothing to do with Damian. I considered you an indispensable part of my team before anything happened between you and him, and I will continue to consider you so now. If you don’t like that, fine. You don’t need to be friends with Bruce Wayne. But this is Batman’s city. And you know that.”

“What is that, Bruce?” asked Ellen, fire sparking behind her eyes. “A threat?”

“No,” he answered. “It’s an invitation.”

“To be part of your little cabal of Batman loyalists who report only to you?”

“No,” said Bruce. “To be part of the family.”

Ellen stared at him. Then she turned and opened the door, and got out of the car.

As she walked away, she heard Bruce too emerge. “Ember,” he called. “Ember, please.”

“No,” said Ellen, turning on her heels, stalking back up to the Batmobile. Across the top of the sleek black car, she pointed an accusatory finger at him and said, “No, Bruce, no. I left him. I knew the stakes and I walked away anyway. Don’t offer me this false pity or leverage_” God, what was it Damian always used to say? “-leverage your paternal concern as if it amounts to orders in the field. I’m not part of your family, I gave that ring back to him. I’m part of my team, and that’s it.”

Bruce waited for her to finish. Then, quietly, he said: “I’m sorry, Ellen.”

“Don’t say sorry to me,” she replied stonily, shaking her head. “I left him. He’s off licking his wounds somewhere across the country, while we’re here picking up the pieces. Of the city,” she added, because it was too left open to interpretation otherwise. “He’s just – gone. Out of my life. So, good. At least I don’t have to run into him on patrol.”

Though she still felt sick and injured, there was a familiar jittery sensation in her hands and running down her spine, aching for the relief of a cigarette. She’d been trying to quit for a while now, but had sort of fallen back into it following Damian’s departure from Gotham. One dependency after another, she figured.

Bruce only watched her.

“I’m glad he’s gone,” she told him plainly, sticking to her guns. “I’m glad. It would’ve been harder if he stayed.”

Blood dripped down from the reopened slashes on her face, trickling down her cheek. In a very Damian-like movement she wiped brutally at her cheeks, smearing scarlet across her face, refusing to wince at the pain.

“I miss him too,” Bruce said, quietly.

Ellen stood there across from him, in pain.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said, straightening up. “I’ll tell Amanda you said hi.”

She turned, and she walked away.

----

“So?” demanded Tallie impatiently. “How’d you meet?”

“Sweet girl,” said Damian gently, “we already told you that story.”

“No,” she replied stubbornly. “I mean the second time. After the first time, how’d you meet again. You did, didn’t you?” she asked, turning around to look at her mother as if asking for confirmation. “You must’a met again ‘cause you’re here now.” She looked back at her father. “Right?”

Damian looked his daughter in the eye for a moment. She looked back at him, inquisitive, unyielding, demanding.

“She’s not wrong,” Ellen pointed out.

He looked up at her, the memory surfacing in his mind.

----

Damian picked up a tail in Istanbul.

----

“Istanbul?” echoed Tallie, delighted. “Istanbul! İstanbul’u seviyorum, Türkiye’yi özlüyorum!”

----

Defectors, he realized, as he strolled through the Hagia Sophia, admiring the architecture. He wore reflective sunglasses and a polo shirt like every other twenty-something-year-old man in the vicinity. Here, far from home, his complexion made him blend in more than stand out, and it was easy to disappear into a crowd. Or it would’ve been, had it not been for the two lovebirds whose path he seemed to keep crossing as he wound his way through the museum. Frankly it would be more obvious if he tried to give them the slip, so he didn’t bother, merely took in the rich history surrounding him. Expertly, they never displayed any surprise or displeasure, but he got the feeling this was frustrating for them. The son of the Batman and the Demon’s Head. Surely they expected more.

Though he avoided getting a good look at them, he also didn’t think he would recognize them. They were around his age, both white, though upon a sideways glance he figured the man might be mixed, just very pale. Albino? It would certainly explain his role in Leviathan, under Talia’s hand: she held a soft spot for albinos (albinistic, Damian thought, isn’t that the more sensitive term?) given the fate of her brother, the pathetically loyal White Ghost. Raising a child-soldier in his name as tribute, or in memorial, or something else, seemed like something Talia would do.

Briefly, vaguely, Damian wondered when he stopped thinking of her as Mama.

----

“But where was Mommy?” asked Tallie, sounding distraught.

Tom stood up in his mother’s lap, burying his face in her shoulder.

“I was there,” said Ellen.

----

“They requested his file,” said Rose Wilson bluntly, standing before the White Queen’s desk. “Didn’t ask their endgame. Odds are good it involves getting rid of him for good.”

“They can certainly try,” replied Ellen, Sharpie in hand, scanning through the file to manually redact anything she felt was too important for the eyes of the two League defectors who’d come knocking at Checkmate’s door. Rose, Black Queen’s Knight, was technically their handler, but the White Queen was responsible for release of information. “He can be…slippery, when he wants to be.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Gross.”

Ellen grinned at her, then closed the folder and handed it back to her. “Tell them it’s eyes only,” she said, “and we’ll need it back once they’re done.”

“Oh, right,” responded Rose. “Nothing like a good ol’ warning right out the door to make sure they make copies.”

With a shrug, Ellen replied, “I redacted anything they could actually use. They’ll have to do the rest on their own. And we’ll be sure to keep an eye on them.”

With a nod, Rose asked, “You wanna talk to your team, or can I send my pawns?”

“I’ll go,” said Ellen simply.

Rose stared at her. “What do you mean, you’ll go?”

“I’ll go,” repeated Ellen, leaning back in her seat. “I haven’t been in the field for a while. Time for a change. Besides,” she added, “if they’re going after him, it’s two against one. That isn’t fair.”

Doubtfully, Rose said, “Director, this is Damian Wayne we’re talking about.”

“And they’re Leviathan,” Ellen replied mildly, her hands pleasantly clasped in her lap. “Born and bred by Talia to protect him, and so naturally taught all about his secret weak spots, all the chinks in the armor. His mother designed the perfect tool to keep him safe, and in doing so accidentally created his greatest threat. Though,” she added fairly, “that sounds about right for their relationship.” She watched Rose for a moment, the lightness evaporating from her face, her tone turning serious. “Those two are dangerous,” she said, quietly. “Now that they’re beyond Talia’s control, there’s no one on earth who knows how to take him down better than they do.

“Except for you,” said Rose, resignedly. “Which is why you gotta be the one to kick their asses, huh?”

Ellen didn’t reply to this, merely watched Rose coolly.

“You have kind of a personal stake in this,” Rose pointed out. “I think the technical term people use is, conflict of interest?”

“Knight,” began Ellen, “the fact is, we have no reason to waste resources on protecting someone like him, and the deal the Ghost and the Reaper made with us means they’re free to go. No trackers, no surveillance. So my thought,” she continued, cocking her head slightly, watching Rose, “is that I have five years’ worth of vacation time I haven’t touched, and a week in Istanbul sounds pretty good right now.”

For a moment, Rose said nothing. The harsh artificial lights of the Castle made her look awfully grim. “For a boy, Director,” she said flatly. “All this, for a boy.”

“He has something that belongs to me,” answered Ellen shortly. “Thank you, Rose. I’ll let the Black Queen know when I’ll be back.”

Knowing when she’d been dismissed, Rose nodded and exited the office.

By the time the two assassins (ex-assassins?) tracked him down in Istanbul, Damian had been on his own for a little over two years. In the months after Lian’s wedding, when it became clear things weren’t going to go back to the way they were before, it had occurred to him that he’d never seen Michelangelo’s David, so he went first to Italy, trailing through the streets of Florence. He liked it there more than he’d anticipated, though he was surprised at how much he struggled with Italian. Damian could not remember learning the romance languages – it must have been nearly simultaneous with English and Arabic, because he knew he could speak Spanish and Romanian and French and Portuguese, but he couldn’t remember ever being taught. Either way, his Italian was out of practice, and he was pretty sure he kept accidentally borrowing words from Spanish. It was good enough to make himself understood, even if it made it very obvious he wasn’t a local.

From there Damian crossed the Mediterranean, landing in Libya. He knew faint stories of this country, passed down as legend from his mother: stories of his grandfather sweeping eastwards, toppling empires in his wake, his eldest daughter at his side. In a museum in Tripoli crowded with unsorted artifacts, he found a painting from the late 18th century of a woman he’d only ever seen in person once in his life, with dark hair and a complexion much lighter than his or his mother’s. Some years ago he had looked her up in his father’s database, discovered things she had done to her younger sister which left him furious, horrified. It had rekindled a brief bloom of sympathy for Talia al Ghul, prompting him to line up the sequence of events in his head and wonder, in the back of his mind, if being released from his mother’s care had been more of a complex decision for her than he’d always assumed. A woman reeling from a hundred deaths and a hundred resurrections in the fire of the Lazarus Pits is in no condition to raise a child. Not that she’d exactly been Mother of the Year to begin with.

But standing there before a portrait of his dead aunt, Damian somehow had difficulty recalling that fury, the revulsion. It was very difficult to hate a woman who’d been through the things she had. His father had not included that history in her file, but since then Damian had done some digging of his own.

He found records from the liberation of Ravensbrück. They turned his stomach, far more violently than he’d expected. Rarely did Damian consider his father’s Jewishness as a vital part of his identity, but it was impossible not to feel a deep tug of very personal grief as he sifted through everything he found. The worst were the photographs. Haunting, terrible photographs.

He stared up at the painting before him. In this depiction Nyssa Raatko was strong and powerful, aside a horse, sword at her side. Her eyes were the same, though. After two hundred years and enough horror and death for a thousand lifetimes, her eyes were still the same.

Following his grandfather’s path, he went east. Through Egypt, a brief detour to Medina, then back up into Jordan. He considered a trip to Jerusalem but ultimately decided against it, choosing Beirut instead.

Adam, Damian’s short-lived ill-fated law school romance, had been Lebanese. It was a strange comfort to speak Lebanese Arabic there, to eat the food and spend time with strangers who didn’t know anything about him. His heart hurt. He regretted leaving, regretted the panic, regretted walking away from yet another relationship. Damian had never been good at being alone, at spending time with himself rather than devoting it to someone else or some other larger cause. It cleaved at his insides, this sense of emptiness, of loss, out to sea with no direction.

He called Lian and asked if she wanted to meet him in Homs for some good old-fashioned superheroing. “Syria?” she asked, disbelieving. “That’s not a game, Damian.”

And then somehow from there he had wound up in Istanbul, walking slowly through the Hagia Sophia like any other tourist. Down the street from Damian’s hotel there was a building with broken windows on the fourth floor, which Damian assumed the assassins were using as their base. He only half-drew his blinds, allowing them to peek into his room. Nothing to hide. Besides, if they were who Damian thought they were – defectors, child soldiers never showered with the love and praise of being firstborn son to the Demon’s Head – then a small part of him decided he didn’t really want to give them the slip. Maybe a confrontation would be cathartic, for them and for him.

Maybe they’re here to kill me, he thought dimly, lying half-asleep in bed.

In the morning, he woke up unharmed.

That day he strolled slowly through the Grand Bazaar. It was too dense to follow him there, so for a while he shook his tail. He wondered vaguely if the two assassins had noticed yet that they’d picked up a tail of their own: a woman, and Damian thought he knew who, but he refused to believe it. All he’d caught was a single glance of the end of a slightly off-kilter braid slipping around a corner. That didn’t necessarily mean anything.

He bought a pack of cigarettes from a vendor, then found a nice spot along the Bosporus Strait, leaned agsint the railing, and tucked one into his mouth. Apart from a few experimental experiences with weed Damian had never really smoked, but he used to love someone who did, and the taste was still distantly familiar in his mouth. He blew smoke upwards in the sky, where it dissipated above him. He wondered if she was watching.

On his return to the hotel, he walked once more through the Bazaar. Light faded as dusk fell, and lanterns came out, illuminating the narrow alleyways.

Along the Kalpakçılar Caddesi, lined with jewelers and gold-sellers and filled to the brim with tourists in the last days of summer, a vendor pointed at the silver chain around Damian’s neck and asked if he was looking to pawn some merchandise. Unthinkingly Damian’s hand went to his chest, to the diamond hidden beneath his shirt. The taste of smoke still heavy on his lips, he declined.

He bought a single gold earring. These past few years his pierced ear had been left mostly unadorned, except for when Lian found him big tacky drop earrings for parties or as a joke. Iris had been the one to help him pierce his ear, almost a decade ago now; sometimes he missed the opal stud she’d given him, which he’d abandoned along with their relationship. Btu it had been long enough now, he figured to replace it with something else.

As he turned away from the vendor’s shop, slipping his wallet back into his pocket, he glanced up and was struck by lightning.

In slow motion he heart seemed to seize, stopping abruptly beneath his breast, then restarting with a fury. His lips felt numb as he opened his mouth to say something, all else gone silent and dark apart from the woman standing twenty feet away from him, the warm brown of her face beautifully marred by a jagged scar.

For a long, crashing moment, it felt like they were connected across the crowded bazaar by a bolt of pure electricity, a magnetic pull, shock that transmuted into terrifying lightheadedness, dizzy in the pit of their stomachs as it all came rushing back at once. The ring felt cold against Damian’s chest.

With a jerk of her head, Ellen mouthed, Go. She didn’t have to give him anything else. He nodded once, turned, and left. He went back to his hotel. In an hour it was empty and he was gone. She didn’t tell him where, and he didn’t try and communicate with her again, knowing she must be on some covert mission. He didn’t want to jeopardize that.

And he knew she’d find him.

----

“What’s it feel like?” asked Tallie, sitting up in her father’s lap.

Damian asked, “What does what feel like, sweet girl?”

“Being in love with mommy,” said Tallie simply. “Like when you saw her again. That feeling in your tummy, how’d you know it wasn’t just a tummyache?”

A smile tugged onto Ellen’s lips. “A good question,” she said, amused. To her husband she asked, “How does one differentiate between love and a tummyache?”

If Ellen was making fun of her husband for his historically delicate stomach – and she absolutely was – then Damian took it graciously, returning the grin. “Well,” he began, considering this carefully. “They can sometimes feel like the same thing.” Tapping his daughter’s stomach, he said, “A stomachache is telling you something’s wrong in your body, and you need to pay attention. Sometimes being in love is like that – something inside of you taking up space, crowding your insides. Very powerful. And if you’re anything like me, Tallie, then it can sometimes be overwhelming. But it’s just the same as a stomachache,” he continued, causing Ellen to raise an eyebrow, not sure where he was going with this. “That feeling you get is just your body trying to tell you something. It’s trying to tell you, I love this person, and I want you to go to them, because they’re important to you.” He shrugged. “And you have to listen. You have to respect those feelings, even if they don’t last forever. So that’s what it feels like,” he finished. “Like pressure in a bottle.”

“More like when you take the lid off,” Ellen added. “The important part is the relief. The important part, Tallie,” she told her daughter, “is that love’s supposed to make you feel good.”

“So?” demanded Tallie, looking at her father. “When you saw Mommy again, how’d you feel?”

----

On the gigantic bed in the presidential suit of the Pearl Continental Hotel Lahore, Damian ran his fingers through Ellen’s hair, her head on his lap. Untangling her braid, he said, “It hasn’t been that long, you know.”

Without opening her eyes, she asked, “Five years?”

“Closer to six.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “I heard you dated Lian?”

He made a face. “Not really.” Continuing to brush out her hair, he said, “I should…talk to you about that, actually.”

“Which part?”

It was hard to answer this. Outside rain battered against the hotel, the middle of monsoon season. Instead of saying it directly, he ran one of his hands down the side of her body, curling around her thigh. “You look beautiful,” he murmured. “You always did. But now you look more like yourself. I know how long you’d been waiting for that.”

Ellen opened her eyes, looking up at him. “Thank you,” she said. Then she held up her hands, gently taking hold of his face. Softly, she asked: “You know why I couldn’t take your money back then, right?”

“It wasn’t just money,” he muttered, but there was no real fight in his voice. “I wanted you to – I wanted to do it for you because I loved you.”

Neither of them said anything. Ellen dropped her hands.

“And because,” Damian continued slower now, tracing a tiny circle around and around on her hip with his finger, “I couldn’t quite connect the dots then, but…” He shook his head slightly. “This is what I wanted to tell you, Ellen,” he said. “I wanted to be a part of that so badly because I understood. Maybe a little more than I knew how to admit, back then.”

She looked up at him, watching him carefully for a moment. Then she reached upwards once more and slipped her arms around his neck, pulling him down towards her. Their noses touched and she tilted her face up to catch his lips. Her lips, she wondered, distantly, in the back of her mind.

“OK,” she said.

Damian looked down at her, glancing back and forth between her eyes. “OK?”

She nodded. “We’ll figure it out,” she said, simply.

We. Damian’s heart melted, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed her again and suddenly, all at once, for the first time in years, everything felt right.

----

Glancing up at his wife for confirmation, Damian said, “And I believe it was on to Goa, after that.”

“I think we took a pitstop in Nepal,” replied Ellen. Tom was curled up on her lap, almost asleep. “You wanted to see,” Nanda Parbat, where he’d almost wound up sacrificed for the sake of his grandfather, “Everest.”

Damian seemed to know what she was talking about, because he nodded. “Nepal first, then on to India.”

“India!” echoed Tallie, her eyes lighting up. “Is that where you got me?”

With a small laugh, Damian admitted, “I think it took a few years to find you, sweet girl. Your mother and I took our time.”

Eagerly Tallie said, “But you did find me, didn’t you?”

“We did,” said Ellen, nodding her head. “And I remember,” she continued, gently rocking her sleepy son back and forth in her arms, “the moment I saw Daddy hold you in his arms, I knew. I knew who you were. I knew that you were his daughter, and you were mine too.”

Beaming, delighted at the story, Tallie threw her arms around her father’s neck. “You got me!” she screeched, excited. “You found me! It’s me!” She pulled away slightly and tapped her little hand on Damian’s chest. “I was waiting for you that whole time, actually,” she told him wisely. “I knew you were gonna come.”

He kissed her on the nose. “Good,” he said, firmly. “We were waiting for you too, baby. We just didn’t know it until we found you.”

Her arms around her son, Ellen’s right hand found her wedding hand, twisting it around her ring finger.

----

“Here’s the thing,” said Barbara Gordon, her face illuminated on the tablet screen before Damian and Ellen. “International adoption is tricky enough as it stands.”

“We’re here, in India,” Damian pointed out. “Not currently international, technically speaking.”

“You’re US citizens,” Babs replied, dismissing this. “And I know you guys, you’re not gonna raise your baby in Tamil Nadu.”

Indignant, Damian protested, “We very well might,” but Ellen just leaned forward, making sure she was in view.

“What do we have to do?” she asked, seriously. “What if we donated to the orphanage or something, do you think that would speed things along?”

“We’ll look into that,” Babs promised them. “There’s a lot of factors at play here, so for right now my suggestion is just to make sure all your ducks are in order, so this works out as smoothly as possible.”

“Of course,” said Damian. “Anything.”

Babs asked, “You guys don’t have a marriage certificate, do you? At least one in India?”

“No,” said Ellen, as Damian stared at the screen, a little taken aback, “we don’t.”

“I’d recommend you start there,” she told them. “It simplifies the approval process. The financial part I wouldn’t worry about too much. It’ll take some time,” she said, fairly, “but we can make this happen. Congratulations, you two. You’re gonna be parents.”

Once the call ended, Ellen and Damian sat there for a moment in their temporary apartment, taking it all in. “We should go see her again,” said Damian, turning to look at her. “Tell her we’re going to take her home soon.”

“Soon,” said Ellen, “is a little presumptuous.”

“We can talk to the orphanage director as well,” he continued, without hesitation. “We’ll get her input, see if she can help smooth out the process for us get it going quickly.”

“Yeah,” said Ellen, with a nod. “We should. Damian?”

“Yes?”

She leaned forwards and kissed him, one hand curling around to brush her fingers back and forth on the back of his neck. Then she moved her other hand to press against his chest, catching something small just beneath his shirt.

He pulled away slightly, meeting her gaze. The ring pressed against his skin, just above his heart.

Quietly, Ellen asked, “How about we try this one more time?”

----

“And that’s how you got ME!” shrieked Tallie, delighted.

“It is,” laughed Damian, wrapping his arms around his daughter. “That’s how we did it. We were at the courthouse that weekend, and we took you home later that year.”

“On my Homecoming,” she said, happily.

“On your Homecoming, yes,” said Damian. “Tied for the best day of the entire year.”

Tallie’s eyebrows shot up. “Tied?”

Ellen came to the rescue, obviously on the same page as her husband. “With Tom’s birthday,” she told her daughter. “The two happiest days of our lives.”

“The wedding at home also ranks up there,” Damian added fairly. “That’s the one you were there for,” he told Tallie. “Five years ago today, in Baba’s backyard.”

Tom, who until now had appeared to be dozing off, blinked and opened his eyes. Looking at his father with a small frown clouding his baby face, he mumbled, “Baba, Baba’s when is going home t’there?”

Without so much as a pause, Damian answered, “We are home, Tom. We’ll try and visit Baba soon.”

This wasn’t entirely truthful, which Ellen knew. She didn’t think her husband any had intention to return home anytime in the foreseeable future. They hadn’t been back to Gotham as a family since Tom was still an infant. He only his grandfather at all through photographs and the occasional video call. Those calls were always very strange for Damian: he hardly recognized his father, old and gray and lined, with a soft smile on his face as he spoke with his grandchildren.

Baba had been Ellen’s idea. She’d been raised by her Punjabi-speaking grandparents and intended on passing that along to her children, so while her grandfather had been Nanaa, from the maternal side, Bruce got to be Baba, the term for a paternal grandfather. When she first brought it up it took Damian aback, a moment of surprise. In Arabic Baba meant father, dad, papa. Baba and Mama. Introducing the word felt strange to Damian at first, like breaking some kind of unspoken agreement he’d had with his father for a very long time. But the more he used it the more it grew on him, like a shadow of what life might’ve been like if things had turned out differently.

“What about Baba?” asked Tallie, settling back down into her father’s lap. She looked up at him. “Was he happy ‘cause you found me? Did he want me too?”

“Of course he did,” answered Damian, without hesitation. “Everyone in the family loves you very much, Baba especially. Maybe almost as much as your mother and I love you.”

Ellen watched her husband, softness in her eyes.

----

“Father,” said Damian, bowing his head slightly as he followed Alfred into the kitchen and set down the bag he carried on his shoulder.

“Damian,” replied Bruce, already seated at the table.

“I’m sorry it’s been so long,” said Damian, joining him at the table. “I keep intending to come home, but I suppose I kept running into other things abroad.”

“Where have you been?” asked Bruce, watching his son.

Damian shrugged slightly. “North Africa, around the Mediterranean for a while. East into Pakistan and India, that’s where we’ve been for the past few years.”

“Quite the world traveler.”

“It’s been enlightening,” said Damian, with some discomfort. It was a strange thing, to come back home after years away, to suddenly feel like a younger man. “And enjoyable.”

There was a pause. Handing a glass of lemonade to Damian – who, Bruce thought, sincerely looked like he would have appreciated something stronger – Alfred paused, then asked lightly, “We?”

Damian nodded, glancing in between the two other men. “Ellen is with her grandmother right now. She’ll be joining us later tonight.”

“Damian,” said Bruce pointedly. Damian looked at his father, then followed Bruce’s gaze. His left hand, fingers curled around the cool glass before him. On his fourth finger, a simple golden band rested just above the knuckle.

Fondly and, maybe a tad self-consciously, he lifted his hand slightly, looking down at the ring. “Yes,” he said. “I have some news.”

When he said no more, Bruce prompted: “When did this happen?”

“A few months ago,” said Damian, which was lowballing it. “We were in India. Actually we ran into some of her family out there, it was really something.”

“Her family?” repeated Bruce, and he could not down stamp out the bitterness in his soul. “What, and you didn’t think to invite your own?”

“Oh, no,” said Damian quickly shaking his head. “It’s not as if we had a wedding. Not in the traditional sense. We simply…” he paused, considering this, “…did it. Committed to one another.” After another moment, he added, “In fact, that’s why we’re back here. As fulfilling as it is to wear a ring, we came back to the US to get all the legal documentation in order.”

“Congratulations,” said Alfred. “I had always hoped you and Miss Nayar would find each other, in the end.” Damian looked pleased with himself. “Or,” Alfred continued, “should I say, Mrs. Wayne?”

There was a sheepish smile on Damian’s face, which seemed curiously out of place. “She’s keeping her name,” he said. “Although I doubt she would object to Nayar-Wayne, if you feel it’s appropriate.”

“Will you have a ceremony here, then?” asked Bruce.

Damian considered this, then cocked his head slightly. “Maybe,” he said. “She’s not comfortable with turning it into a media spectacle.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” said Bruce, shaking his head. “Something small. With family present.” Damian looked uncertain, but Bruce added, “Dick will be devastated if he doesn’t get the chance to be your best man.”

At this, a smile broke Damian’s expression, and he grinned at them. “That’s true,” he said. “And it would be good to gather everyone together again. To celebrate.”

“It would be very good,” said Bruce, bowing his head slightly.

There was a silence. Damian paused, but looked as if he was not finished; there was hesitation in his expression. Bruce and Alfred dutifully waited for the younger man to speak again.

Abruptly, Damian said, “There’s something else you should know. If you haven’t heard about it already.”

He only had to look up at their faces to see that they had not. Knowing that he was not looking for a response, they said nothing.

“Good,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. “I contacted Oracle while abroad, but in confidence. I’m glad she kept her word.”

“I’ve never known her not to,” said Bruce. “Why did you need Barbara?”

“Paperwork,” answered Damian.

Before him, both men raised their eyebrows.

He reached into his inside jacket pocket, and took something out something small. Holding it with both hands, he began, “One of Ellen’s distant cousins is married to a woman who runs an unofficial business of sorts. Some corrupt officials were leaning on them, so I had Oracle legitimize the organization in the eyes of the law. We stayed with them for some time, and I ended up donating a considerable sum of money to their cause.”

Without malice, Bruce murmured, “Because investments abroad have never come back to haunt you in the past, have they?”

Damian didn’t answer that, but Alfred leaned in. “What kind of business was this, exactly,” he said, “if I may ask?”

A single beat of silence, and then Damian looked up at them resolutely, almost defiantly. “An orphanage,” he said simply, and then he placed the item he’d taken from his jacket pocket on the table between them. It was a rectangular photograph, as if printed from the film of a disposable camera. Dressed in a t-shirt that hung loosely on their small body, a child no older than three or four beamed up from the glossy surface, hair cut just above their shoulders.

Alfred was the one who took the photo, old, veined hands gently trembling.

“She was abandoned as a baby,” Damian told them quietly. “She’s about three, but they don’t know her precise birthdate. She’s been at the orphanage her whole life. They call her Tali, but she didn’t have any official documentation. That’s why we needed Oracle’s help.” He paused, then told them: “On the adoption papers, we named her Natalia Nayar Wayne. So we’ll keep calling her Tallie. And we’ll keep her connected to her culture, we’re staying in close contact with the orphanage. But they were happy that she would have a home, and a family of her own.” He paused, as if waiting for approval from the men before him. Quickly, he added, “I know international adoption is not necessarily a good idea but I just…” he paused, considering his next words, searching for something he could say to convey to them the depth of emotion he felt for this baby. “I…”

Bruce peered at the photograph, the child’s bright eyes.

As if in confession, Damian said simply, “I fell in love with this child. I saw – Ellen holding her, and then I… we couldn’t leave her.”

Bruce looked up from the image, only for a glance, only for a second. “You’re a father,” he murmured.

Damian took a long moment to let this soak in. “Yes,” he answered. “I suppose I am. I’d like to be. For Tallie.”

There was utter silence. Outside, birds chirped in the springtime air.

In an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, Damian said: “Please say something.”

No movement. Slowly, Alfred placed the photo back down on the table top. And then he said: “I am… so proud. And honored. And blessed, to welcome another child into this family.”

With ill-hidden anxiety in his eyes, Damian looked to Bruce.

The man’s gaze flickered from the photograph up to his son. “Really, Damian,” he said, voice extraordinarily easy, softer than his usual stoic tone. “You thought I would disapprove of a surprise adoption?”

At this, a massive smile of relief flooded onto Damian’s face. With a tender glance towards the photograph, he replied, “Yes, well. I never can predict anything, with you. But sometimes I do forget all the children you’ve raised as well.”

“She – Tallie,” said Alfred, saying the name with awe and with, Damian thought, profound adoration, “-is with her mother now?”

With a nod, Damian said, “I wanted to tell you face-to-face before I introduced her. And Ellen and her grandmother speak some Tamil, so we thought it best to start her out there. To try and reduce culture shock.”

“Does she speak any English?” asked Bruce.

It was Alfred who replied to this, dismissively. “The child is three years old,” he answered, glancing at Bruce. “I’m quite sure she doesn’t speak much of anything.”

“Actually,” offered Damian, a sheen of pride in his eyes, “she’s incredibly coherent for her age, in Tamil at least. And she’s already picking up English. Sheepishly, he added, “We watched an entire season of Sesame Street on the plane ride home.”

“Sesame Street?”

Misinterpreting Bruce’s incredulity, Damian clarified, “It’s a children’s show. Ellen says she grew up on it. Personally I find it fascinating that after all these years, there’s still so much pop culture I don’t know, but it was simple enough for Tallie to understand, I think.”

“Tallie,” repeated Alfred. “A very beautiful name. I am very happy for the three of you, Damian. It is high time you started a family of your own.” Taking the photo again, Alfred asked, “May I keep this? For her baby book, of course.”

With a laugh full of joy and relief, Damian asked, “Baby book? When was the last time you made a baby book?”

As if insulted, Alfred pocketed the photo neatly and replied pointedly, “For Allison, of course. And I will continue to add to it for many years to come.”

Trying to conceal the fact that he was very intrigued at this, Damian mentioned, “Really? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Al’s baby pictures.”

“I would gladly break out every album I have,” Alfred said, “including your father’s, mind – but alas, Jason is in possession of his daughter’s at the moment. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s trying his hand at scrapbooking.”

They laughed. There was an ease between the three men, a joyfulness that seemed at once tentative and yet overwhelming. Damian leaned back in his seat happily, and there was a natural, tranquil smile on his face. “You’ll be staying in Gotham for a while?” asked Bruce.

“Not the city, no,” answered Damian, taking a sip of his lemonade. “But we both thought it’d be best to stay close to home for a while.

“You must stay here,” insisted Alfred. “This home is wasted with vacancy.”

“Thank you,” said Damian. “I would like that.”

“And if you’d still like to have a wedding,” added Bruce, “have it here. We’ll keep it small. Friends and family.”

“Now,” said Alfred, leaning in impatiently. “When can we meet young Miss Tallie? I beg you, bring her home tonight if you can. I admit that I am not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to food of her native land, but perhaps Ellen’s grandmother – Kiran, yes? – would agree to teach me a few of her finest culinary tricks.”

“I suspect she would,” answered Damian. “She’s an excellent woman. I can only hope that she can impart to our daughter all the wisdom and grace she has provided for Ellen.”

His eyes lit up just the smallest bit when the word daughter came from his mouth. It was a new word to him, exciting, alarming, and, Bruce imagined, immensely frightening. Damian had never been one to easily show his love and tenderness, nor had he ever managed to treat vulnerable creatures, those most defenseless people – like babies – without a heavy sense of anxiety weighing him down. For this reason, Bruce felt caution in his happiness, but he also felt guilty for feeling as much. Damian would be a good father, Bruce was sure, in due time. But he suspected there would be a steep learning curve.

At least he would always have Ellen. If there was one person in the world who would go to all lengths to keep this child safe, it would be Ellen Nayar. Firm, solid, and obstinately stubborn sometimes, she was both Damian’s carbon copy and polar opposite. They balanced one another well. In the years in between her broken engagement with Damian and his reconnection with her abroad, Bruce had regretted many times that Damian had not settled down with her. It would have been good for both of them.

But life finds its ways. Now the man before him was both a son and a father. Bruce could think of no greater honor than this: to have family who has family of their own, to see their home grow and grow.

----

“And then,” sighed Tallie, leaning against her father’s chest, “happily ever after.”

She seemed sleepy now, curled up on Damian’s lap. He just put his arms around her, without looking up at his wife.

“Yes,” he said quietly, brushing his fingers through his daughter’s hair. “Happily ever after.”

----

It was cold outside, in the dead of Gotham winter. Snow blanketed the garden behind Wayne Manor, covering the flowers, the old vegetable garden, the broken-down old greenhouse at the far end of the yard. Outside, Ellen sat before a wrought-iron table, wrapped up warmly in sweaters and jackets, holding a cigarette at her mouth. Her hands were uncovered, and her knuckles were red and raw from the cold.

Behind her, the French doors opened. She glanced around to find Jason Todd closing them quietly, his breath visible in the cold.

He padded over to take a seat beside her, his footsteps crunching snow, hands tucked into his pockets.

Ellen took one glance at him, then took a box of cigarettes from the snow-covered table and offered it to him, popping the lid off with her thumb. “Nah,” he said, with a shake of his head. “I quit when Al was born.”

Without a response to that, Ellen lowered the carton back onto the table. It was going to get wet there, Jason thought, as the snow melted, and then all the smokes within would be ruined. But maybe Ellen didn’t mind about that.

She took a long drag on her cigarette, then mildly, as if commenting on the weather, she told him, “I’ve been saying I’m going to quit for years but I don’t really do it often enough to get into the weeds of the whole twelve-step process.”

“I just got some of that nicotine gum,” offered Jason. “Didn’t like the patches, but the gum was OK. Tam was happy about it.”

Ellen laid her hand on the table, tapping ash into snow. The sun peeked out from behind a cloud, casting a surreal, artificial light across the crystalline plain before them. It was blinding, dazzling, with a sheen of wetness that made it look somehow indecent. Bitterly, Ellen looked down at the carton of cigarettes. Jason waited, leaning slightly towards her expectantly.

But she just scratched her nose with her thumb. “Did you bring Al over?” she asked, looking up at him. “I’d like for her and Tallie to get to know each other better. I worry about her,” she said, her voice stark, “you know, all the social and emotional development she missed out on at the orphanage.”

“Al’s here,” said Jason, nodding. “They’re playing, Bruce is watching them.” He paused, shivering in the cold. “Are you two staying here for a while?”

“No,” replied Ellen shortly. “We’re still at the house. I just don’t like being there alone with her. She’s too smart for that. She’ll notice something’s wrong.”

There was a long silence. The cold nipped at Jason’s exposed ears and nose, and in such harsh cold his lips already felt chapped. Ellen, on the other hand, didn’t seem affected, sitting there dully with the cigarette burning down to a stub between her fingers. Uncomfortably – he did not like being in the middle of the situation, didn’t like being a part of it at all even though he knew he had to be there – he leaned across the table slightly and lowered his voice.

“I haven’t talked to him yet,” he told her. “I wanted to check in on you first, make sure everything’s OK.”

“Everything’s fine,” she said flatly, her expression as blank as the pseudoderm mask she used to wear.

The fact that this was a boldfaced lie was not under question, because obviously things were not fine. Last night Jay had finally gotten word that Damian and Ellen, who’d only been back in Gotham for a few months now, had somehow had some terrible fight which resulted in Damian moving out to the Penthouse – though the specifics of moved out or kicked out were still hazy. Either was unacceptable to Jason. Damian had a little daughter now, a baby girl, and his wife needed his help to raise her. And while yes, Jay knew he really shouldn’t throw stones given the glass house of his own reaction when he found out Tam was pregnant, Damian had always been better than him. Jay expected more.

Instead of heading straight to the Penthouse to yell at Damian, as was his first instinct, Tam had advised him to maybe check on Ellen and the kid first. Which was how he ended up at Wayne Manor, bringing his daughter with him, where he had found Bruce reading storybooks to his youngest granddaughter.

As Tallie and Allison played, Bruce sat with Jason in the living room and quietly explained that no, there had been no fight, no leaving, per se, no betrayal or catastrophic arguments or threats of divorce. In the months since their return to Gotham Damian’s OCD had been flaring up worse than it had been in years, triggered, perhaps, by the return to the familiar, to the home he had deliberately avoided for so long. He had hidden it until he could hide it no longer, and then he had insisted he didn’t want to go back on medication, and then he hadn’t been sleeping and he hadn’t been eating and he had been to stricken, too ruled by the illogic of his lying mind, to even hold his daughter in his arms. And that was about when Ellen put her foot down.

“So she kicked him out?” asked Jason, concerned. The part of him that was forever Damian’s older brother felt a pang of indignance, even anger at Ellen: how could she do that to him, push him away when he needed her most? But this was, of course, quickly overwhelmed by the protective instincts of a parent, by the empathy and regret he harbored about Tam for all the ways he failed her as a partner and the father of her child. Ellen could not be expected to mother both her daughter and her husband, and she’d always had a particularly strict streak of tough love in her. If he wasn’t trying to get better, then that was his responsibility, not hers.

Either way, Bruce corrected, “She asked him to spend some time away for a few days. To get some rest.” Except by the time Jay heard, it had already been more than a few days, so this seemed disingenuous. Then again, Bruce could believe whatever he wanted to believe. Apart from the man himself no one knew the depth of Damian’s struggle with OCD like Bruce, who had been there every step of the way back when Damian had been a teenager and it first started getting out of hand. It couldn’t be easy, Jay figured, to watch your son fall victim to the same self-destructive cycle that had haunted him his whole life.

Saying no more, Ellen stubbed her cigarette out in the snow.

“Hey,” said Jay. “Bruce mentioned he’s been seeing some doctors.” He being Damian, of course. “Says he’s making some progress. So. That’s good.”

Without looking up at him, Ellen asked, “Since when do you listen to what Bruce has to say, Jason?”

“Since this is about my little brother,” Jay replied, without skipping a beat, “and my second-favorite sister.” She caught his gaze and cocked an eyebrow, so he amended, “Or, my first favorite sister-in-law, really.” Sorry Tiff. When Ellen did not reply, he watched her for a moment, then added, “I’m not – y’know – here on his behalf, I’m not gonna try and make things all better for you guys ‘cause that ain’t my business. I just wanted to see if there was anything you needed.”

She considered this. A frigid breeze swept in from the bay, and Jason shivered, sticking his hands back in his pockets once more.

“The bathroom sink,” she said, watching Jay with that scar across her face, faded after all these years, still stark against her brown skin, “in the master bedroom, at home. It’s leaking. I know, it’s a stereotype – can’t fix anything without a man in the house.” She cocked her head, as if considering this. “He isn’t good with that kind of thing either, though. I suppose he’d’ve called a handyman.”

“And you couldn’t?”

She looked away from him once more, out at the snow blanketing the wide backyard. It covered the garden Damian once more planned to cultivate, his plan for vegetables and produce, to plant plum trees when spring came. Out beyond there was the old broken-down greenhouse, which Damian told her he used to use as an art studio, said he’d like to fix up someday. There was so much of Damian here, surrounding her in this house as much as in their own home not a few miles away. His absence was heavy and sad, a weight she had to carry, a cross she had to bear. For the sake of their daughter, Ellen would do so without complaint. Damian could have fallen apart into Ellen’s arms any time in the past few years, and she would have caught him, because she loved him. But the difference now was the baby sleeping in the next room, three or four years old, asking where Daddy was.

So instead of falling to pieces in front of their daughter, Ellen had said, Get up, get some rest, and get better. We’ll be here waiting.

Ellen let out a long breath, her exhalation a puff of white smoke. Jason took something out of his jacket pocket and offered it to her: a pack of gum. Glumly she took it, popped a piece into her mouth, and handed it back to him.

“I was waiting for him to get back,” she told him, shortly. “But I’ve found waiting just makes it feel longer.”

Jason watched her, his heart aching dully. “He’s doing his best, Ellen.”

She barked a small, sad laugh. “That’s what scares me.”

“He’ll be back soon.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I know he’ll be back. I love him, so I want him back.” She glanced at Jay, offering him a tight, wry smile. “But I also want him to get better. And sometimes I’m afraid I can’t have it both ways.”

“He loves the shit out of that little girl, Ellen,” Jay told her, in all seriousness. “He loves her to death and back, and then over again. He’ll figure it out, for her.”

Ellen didn’t say anything to this. For a week before Ellen finally told him something had to change Damian had spent the nights sick and crying, possessed by the fear of becoming like his mother, terrified that every seemingly innocuous lesson he taught his daughter was secretly some lesson to make her stronger, better, smarter, more secretive, all the things that had torn him apart as a child. Yes, Damian loved Tallie more than anything in the world. That was almost the problem.

Gotham had triggered it, being back here so near to the big house, to the Cave, seeing the scars on his sister’s back – in Bruce’s retirement Cass had become the Batman, and she had taken on another young Robin too which, Ellen knew, turned Damian’s stomach. Duke Thomas was strong and smart and worked with Cass better than almost anyone she’d ever known – Bruce thought it had something to do with his deafness, how his communication with Cass transcended language into pure physical action – but he was still so damn young. For some absurd reason, Damian had always assumed the Robin mantle would end with him. Obviously it hadn’t, and that had hurt Damian far more than the rest of his family could’ve anticipated.

After a while, Jason went back inside. Ellen stayed out there in the cold until the sun began to set without shivering once, as if lit from burning coals within, warmed by the embers of her soul.

----

Growing sleepy in her father’s arms, Tallie said nothing for long enough that her parents thought she was asleep. Damian gently ran his hand over her hair, then met his wife’s gaze in a silent exchange that meant, Time for bed.

But then, just as Damian began to carefully lift Tallie off of him so he could get up, Tom spoke up.

“Wassa, wassa when I born been Mommy,” he said, patting his mother on her belly. “When I is born baby. Mommy?”

From her spot on Damian’s chest, Tallie piped up, “You’re adopted too Tom, remember?”

“Shh,” said Damian, brushing Tallie’s hair out of her face, a small frown creasing his brow. He didn’t think she was saying it with any derogatory intent, but something about bandying it about so casually seemed fundamentally troubling to him. “Tallie, that’s not a bad thing.”

She looked up at him and blinked with wide eyes. “I know it’s not a bad thing,” she said, as if talking to an infant. “It’s how you got me, Daddy.” She threw her arms around his neck. “And I’m the biggest good thing.”

Ellen stepped in then, taking Tom’s little hands with her own. “Me and Daddy were very happy when you were born, Tom,” she told him wisely. “You didn’t come out of my tummy because I can’t do that, but we loved you and wanted you very much, so even though you came out someone else’s tummy, you’ve always been our baby.” She kissed him on his forehead. “And I love you, and Daddy loves you very much.”

Tom gave a contented little sigh, settling into his mother’s arms.

----

“Oh, man,” said Dick, rocking the baby in his arms. “Oh, man, Damian. Look at him.”

Damian paused in his packing to glance around at his eldest brother, then went over to him and tipped the bottom of the bottle upwards a little so the baby could get at the rest of the milk. “Have you really never fed a baby before?” he asked, amused.

“Never one this little,” Dick replied, glancing up at him with a grin. “Tallie was a toddler by the time I met her, and I didn’t even get near Al for the first year.”

“How about Tommy?”

“Lian’s baby?”

Damian had been thinking of Mar’i rather than Lian, given her technical relation to Dick, though it was fair enough that Dick knew Lian better. “I take that as a no?”

Dick shook his head. “I don’t see Lian so much anymore. Kind of a shame.”

Watching his infant son in Dick’s arms, Damian gave half a shrug. “It happens.”

There was a short pause as Damian gazed down at his baby, who unlatched from the bottle and yawned, little milk bubbles popping around his tiny mouth. “What are you gonna call him?” asked Dick.

It took Damian a moment to catch up to the present. “What?”

He nodded down at the baby. “Li’l Richard Thomas Nayar Wayne over here. You can’t actually call him Dick, I can tell you from firsthand experience that’s a cruel thing to do to a child.”

With a small laugh, Damian reached out to take his baby out of Dick’s arms, hefting him up against his shoulder, gently patting on his back. Dick handed him a towel, which Damian slung over his shoulder. “I don’t know,” replied Damian thoughtfully. “Hadn’t really considered it. Just Richard, maybe.”

“Really?” asked Dick doubtfully, with a grin. “You’re just setting him up for those Richie Rich jokes, Dami.”

A very old nickname, one which inexplicably grated on Damian every time Dick used it. He didn’t say anything, though: his brother was getting older, and Damian was becoming more tolerant to the ways he needed to hold onto the family he had, as they all branched out to have families of their own. “Thomas?” suggested Damian, bouncing the baby gently as he patted his back.

“A little stuffy,” Dick pointed out.

“I can’t exactly pick Tommy,” Damian protested. “Lian and Mar’i are already using that.”

With a grin, Dick said, “That’s on you, you know. Could’ve picked something different, but you didn’t.”

“Tommy’s full name is Tomiand’r, Dick.”

“Too close for comfort,” Dick declared. Then he moved forward to pat the baby on the back, and leaned down to kiss him on his chubby little cheek. “How ‘bout just Tom?” he asked.

Damian considered this, looking at his tiny baby, merely weeks old. “Tom,” he repeated, tasting it out. He offered Dick a small grin. “It suits him, I think.”

“It definitely does,” said Dick, with finality. “He’s a cute one. Gonna be a real ladykiller one day, I can tell.”

If Damian had any small urge to remind Dick not to project heteronormative expectations onto his infant son, he suppressed it. He and Dick hadn’t seen each other often lately, had sort of grown apart in the past decade or so. Damian wasn’t going to push it.

There was a short silence, and then Dick asked, “So where’s Ellen?”

“She had some business in the city,” replied Damian, brushing a hand over his son’s tiny head, the wisps of hair there. “She dropped Tallie off with my father, thought it would be good to give me some time alone with the baby.”

“What kinda business?” asked Dick.

Damian shrugged. “Something to do with Tam, I think? She’ll be representing the Fox Consolidated brand abroad, as I understand.”

“Huh,” said Dick, sounding suspiciously innocent. Just when Damian opened his mouth to question this, Dick added, “You know…have you guys considered that it might be good to stick around Gotham for a little while longer?”

For a moment, Damian only looked at his brother, a slight frown on his face. Then he said: “Yes, Dick, we considered that. But while I have the opportunity to work with the company overseas, we thought it would be good for the children to experience life outside Gotham City.”

“Brentwood,” Dick said dubiously, “is pretty far removed from the city, Damian. It’s not really all that dangerous out here in the ultra-rich suburbs.”

“I know,” replied Damian, with maybe a little more defensiveness than was necessary. “It isn’t about that. Ellen and I want our children to grow up with an open mind and a world-class education.”

“Don’t you think they can get that here?”

“I think I’d rather see them get it somewhere they can experience new cultures and new languages in their everyday lives.”

Dick didn’t say anything for a moment, tickling Tom’s pudgy neck. Then he lowered his hand and he looked at Damian and he said, “You know I care about you, Damian, so that’s the only reason why I’m saying – don’t you think-”

Knowing where this was going and yet still somehow unable to believe his ears, Damian began, “Dick…”

“-don’t you think that it’d be good, just for – the first year or so, just in case, you know, something happens again?” He watched Damian, eyes flickering between his earnestly. “Listen, I believe in you, I really do, but – what would Ellen and Tallie have done if you guys had been on the other side of the globe when things started getting rough? What would you have done?”

“That’s not going to happen again,” said Damian, firmly.

“But if it does-”

“It isn’t going to,” repeated Damian. “Dick. It won’t get to that point again.” Insulted, Damian asked, “What do you think I’ve been doing these past few years, sitting around on my thumbs?”

“Damian, please,” said Dick, almost entreating him. “I know, and listen, I know you’ve been working really hard at your own health and that’s great, but I’m just saying-”

“No,” said Damian, twisting away from Dick slightly, pulling his son away from Dick’s touch. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that being back here is not easy for me, Dick. And I’m not some errant twelve-year-old looking for a home anymore, I have a home, and it’s with my wife and my children. Not in my father’s house.”

Dick watched him, a shadow of hurt behind his eyes. “Not even if I’m there?”

At this, through the fog of twenty years, Damian felt a stab of empathy for his brother. He softened slightly, then planted his lips on his son’s soft forehead. Quietly, he told Dick, “You’re always there, sort of. I know I wouldn’t be here like I am today if it hadn’t been for you, and – that does matter to me, you know. It’s everything to me. So.” He bowed his head slightly in gratitude. “For that, I’ll always owe you.”

“Nah,” said Dick, waving this away, then reaching out to take one of the baby’s tiny hands. “You named your kid after me. I think that officially clears up any outstanding debt.”

With a slight laugh, Damian nodded, looking back at his son, who was dozing gently on his shoulder. “Still leaving the country, though,” he said pointedly, taking the baby to the crib in the room, gently laying him down. “I don’t want to raise my children here, Dick, I never did. Not since I was a child myself.”

“Yeah, well,” said Dick, with a regretful sigh. “You did a lot of running away when you were a kid, Damian. I was really hoping you’d get over that someday.”

Damian said nothing for a long moment. Then, slowly, he turned around to face Dick, a little bit shocked at his words.

Dick did not stay long after that. Damian didn’t understand: his eldest brother had always been the most loving, the most understanding, the most proud of Damian’s successes and he who mourned most deeply at Damian’s failures. It was not, perhaps, surprising that Dick didn’t want Damian and his family to leave: but what was surprising was the lengths to which he seemed willing to go to convince Damian to stay.

When later Damian told this story to Ellen, she would lay in bed with him, arms wrapped around his shoulders, and reply with a very blank, well-practiced: “Hm.”

----

By this time, from the rhythm of her breath, Damian was certain Tallie was asleep. Tom watched his mother, playing with her hands but saying nothing. Quietly, as Damian got up, his daughter in his arms, Ellen recited a nursery rhyme to her son.

After both the kids were put to bed, Ellen met Damian in their bedroom. She held him, laying her head against his chest.

“I love you,” she said.

He reached around her, tugging the tie off the end of her braid, then untangling it with his fingers. “I love you too,” he murmured. “Happy anniversary.”

She laughed against his chest. “Happy anniversary of the wedding your father made us have because he was hurt we didn’t include him the first time.”

He inclined his head, conceding this. “The first time wasn’t all that romantic, if you recall. Standing on the steps of the courthouse in Madurai just for a certificate.”

She tilted her head upwards and kissed him on the lips, then pulled away slightly, meeting her deep brown eyes with his. “You remember why?” she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

Damian nodded. “For Tallie,” he said, simply.

She returned the nod. “For them both,” she murmured. “I love you, Damian. But I love them more.”

With a smile, he kissed her again. “I know,” he said. “Me too.”

#ellen nayar

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