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The shivers began on the third day. Before that, he’d almost believed that the witch had been bluffing or that her curse had somehow not affected him. The only signs of anything unusual had been the tingling in his fingers and toes and a sharp ache in his chest if he moved too fast.
But a frozen heart is not without its complications, and they are finally beginning to catch up with Damian.
That third day had begun with small shivers, a trembling in his hands and a wobble of his jaw that barely even rattled his teeth. He’d wrapped himself up in three layers of sweaters and two pairs of socks and that had been enough.
For a while.
By the end of that third day following the curse that had struck Robin in the chest, knocking him embarrassingly flat on his ass with the sound of the witch’s laugh ringing in his ears, the three sweaters were not enough, nor were the gloves tugged onto shaking hands or the layers of blankets he’d buried himself under. Nothing he did seemed to affect the cold emanating from deep within him, pumped sluggishly through his veins, making him stiff and achy.
Pennyworth found him on the fifth day, unwilling or unable to get out of bed. The idea of sticking even a single limb out from under the blankets and into the cold air had filled him with dread, and just the thought alone made it feel as though there were a thousand needles raking across his skin. Pennyworth had called in Father, and Father had apparently deemed it bad enough to call in Drake to help him run tests. It was Drake who had called in Grayson. Damian only knows this because Father had told him.
Grayson had been there by the end of day five. Damian had been asleep when he arrived, buried down in his useless cocoon, hair a mess and feeling disgusting. He hadn’t left his bed in days now and he loathed it more than anything, feeling and looking and acting so weak, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Besides, there was little point in trying anymore. The witch had said he had a week. One week, seven days of suffering, before his heart froze completely solid and Damian would die.
He does not want to die, not again. Please, not again. He has not had enough time yet. There is still so much to do, and he is scared. Scared of what comes after, scared of what he would leave behind.
His own thoughts are echoed in Grayson’s words, whispered pleas when he thinks Damian is asleep. Damian refuses to sleep. He is afraid that if he truly loses consciousness, he will not regain it again, that he will only succumb to the cold faster.
And he does not want to miss a single moment he has left with Grayson. His oldest brother is seemingly refusing to leave his side, his warmth a constant comfort as Damian shivers and withers away pitifully. Damian cannot sleep and miss out on a single moment of Grayson’s fingers carding through his hair or holding him through the violent, painful shivers.
He is curled up half in Grayson’s lap, strong arms wrapped around him. Somehow, even though nothing else works, Grayson’s hold keeps the cold relatively at bay, and Damian is almost comfortable.
“Are you sure you don’t remember anything else about her? The witch?” Grayson asks, and if it were anyone else, Damian would feel insulted that they were questioning him. But his oldest brother is merely scared. He sounds even more terrified than Damian feels, but perhaps the physical numbness is beginning to affect his emotions as well.
Damian shakes his head against Grayson’s chest, the effort exhausting. “No. Just that she said my heart was cold, and she wanted to freeze it physically, so it would match.” His eyes prickle, stomach heavy with guilt, but he swallows both feelings down.
The sound that shakes free from Grayson’s throat is half sob, half painfully bitter laugh. He holds Damian tighter, and Damian can’t help but burrow further into that warmth. Grayson’s face is pressed to his hair, and Damian startles at the feeling of tears slipping against his scalp.
“She was a blind idiot, then,” Grayson whispers. “She didn’t know you one bit, Dames. She didn’t know how special you are, how incredible. How massive your heart is.”
Damian doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t argue either. He has less than twenty-four hours left on this earth, and he does not want to spend them fighting. He has no energy for anything but familiar fingers combing through his hair as he counts the steady heartbeats beneath his ear. And anyway, Grayson’s words are even warmer than his hold, and Damian swears he feels his heart physically warm just slightly as they sink into his skin. He burrows within the lies he wants so desperately to believe in, lets them cover him like a weighted blanket.
He clings to them, and ignores the guilt at his own lies.
“There is no cure,” he had whispered to Pennyworth, to Father, to Drake, to Grayson. “This is my punishment.” He’d kept his eyes cast low to avoid the sight of pale, sick faces. The lie might hurt, but it was surely better than false hope, which Damian loathes more than anything.
Because there is a cure, but there is no point in searching for it. It doesn’t exist, not for Damian, who is twelve years old and a former assassin with anger issues and blood on his hands and knives hidden beneath his pillow. His life is not a fairy tale or a silly animated movie, and he does not have a true love to kiss.
He will not send his family on a wild goose chase, searching for something that isn’t out there. Father and Drake may hide away in their lab as much as they want and call in as many magic consultants as they see fit, but Damian refuses to tell Grayson this last piece of information. He knows his Batman too well. Grayson’s heart is too big, and it bleeds too readily even for Damian. Grayson will leave the instant he learns that a cure exists, and he will refuse to come back empty handed. And if he leaves, then Damian will be alone again, cold and afraid and loathing himself.
No, if Damian has to die again, then he doesn’t want to be alone this time, and so Grayson cannot know that there is a cure, because then Grayson will leave, and Damian cannot accept that. He does not want to withhold information, but he has to. He has to.
He can’t die alone again.
Damian is only twelve years old. He’s twelve and he’s scared and he’s already died once. It doesn’t feel fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that he has to die. It’s not fair that he has to leave Grayson and Father and Titus and Alfred behind. It’s not fair and he’s terrified and so, so cold.
He curls his fingers tighter into the fabric of Grayson’s sweatshirt. The material is soft and worn, gentle against Damian’s cheek as Grayson carefully maneuvers him into a more comfortable position. They are both laying down now, Damian tucked beneath Grayson’s arm and curled into his side. He breathes, breathes in warmth and hates how it turns cold before it leaves his chest. Grayson must be cold too with Damian held so close the way he is, but if he is he doesn’t show it.
“I’m sorry,” Grayson whispers. “I should have been there, Dames. I’m so sorry.”
Damian shrugs jerkily. There is nothing else he can do. Despair sits heavy and numbing in his stomach. “You’re here now.” That’s all that matters to him anyway, even if Grayson still looks devastated. Damian hates to make him worry, but he can’t conjure up the energy to try to fix the furrow between his brother’s brows.
“And I’m not going anywhere, okay?” Grayson’s eyes are glassy. “I’ll be right here with you the whole time. I won’t leave you. You won’t be alone.”
And Damian clings. Holds onto the soft material of Grayson’s shirt as though he can white-knuckle his way into staying alive for even a few minutes more. He clings on as long as he can. Until he can’t anymore.
His eyes are closed, and he doesn’t know when he closed them, but they won’t open back up. His fingers are too numb to wrap around anything, and the only thing still holding him here are the arms curled around him, and even those soon retract. Damian would whine at the loss, but his lungs aren’t moving enough to produce any sound.
“Please, sunshine, wake up. Just open your eyes, baby. Come on. Please, please. Come on, Damian, please. ”
Someone is shaking him, making his head loll around painfully on his stiff neck. Hands cup his frozen cheeks, and he has barely enough feeling left in them to feel their warmth. Grayson, then, trying to rouse him. Damian struggles to pry his eyes open, but none of his muscles will cooperate with him. He weighs a thousand tons, muscles exhausted and sore from their days spent shaking and shivering, pushed beyond even his limits. His body freezing and shutting down.
The strong chest he is swiftly pressed against shakes and lurches with horrible sobs, and Damian tries with all his might to move his mouth, but try as he might, nothing comes of it. The helplessness of it all is worse than the cold or the pain. The sounds Grayson is making are worse than all of it put together.
Damian has been so selfish in keeping Grayson here to watch him die. If their places had been reversed, Damian thinks he would have hated his brother for doing this to him. He loves him. He loves him more than anything, and he would have hated him for doing this. The witch was right. Damian is cold and heartless and he does not think of others, not even the people he pretends to love.
Damian has to face the reality of it: he has never known what love is. He thought he knew, before. Thought it was Mother’s gentle touches and the stolen quiet moments between training and fighting and bleeding. Then he had thought it was a father who was bound to him by blood but who too often seemed to want nothing to do with him. That was the fleeting type of love Damian had known before, the kind he’d felt he had to fight tooth and nail every moment of every day to earn and keep.
Grayson had been different. Maybe his wasn’t the first to be unconditional, but it was the first to feel that way. Damian loves his mother and he loves his father, but he would do anything for Grayson because he was sure, somehow, against all odds, despite everything that Damian is and does, that Grayson would do the same for him.
And so he knows that he is causing his brother the worst kind of pain in the world.
“Come on, sweetheart, please don’t do this.” Thumbs stroke at his cheeks, wiping away nonexistent tears. The hands holding him squeeze too tightly, but Damian does not blame them. If he could, he would cling back just as strongly. He does not want to die. He does not want to leave Grayson behind.
But he is so, so tired, and the cold filling his veins is agony. He cannot summon up the energy to pry his eyes open, can’t do anything but lie here and listen to his brother fall apart.
“I’m sorry,” Grayson murmurs, the words whispered against his forehead and followed by the press of a kiss to his hairline. Grayson holds himself there for a long time after, his own forehead pressed to Damian’s, and Damian can do nothing but feel him shake and cry.
He isn’t shivering anymore, doesn’t know what that stopped. But Grayson is still the warmest thing he knows, so Damian lets himself sink down. There is no more fight left in him. His time is up and he can’t even say goodbye, but at least he is not alone, and as painful as this may be for his brother he is selfishly glad for that.
Damian sinks, in the guilt and in the cold and in the hurt and in the love. Something cracks deep in his chest, and Damian lets it shatter him to pieces and wash away the shards.
It feels as though no time has passed when Damian blinks open his eyes, something he really never thought he’d do again. Every part of his body aches horribly, like white hot pins and needles stabbing at his muscles. He groans, shifting to try and find a more comfortable position.
Movement was a mistake, and Damian gasps as a wave of pain and debilitating bone-deep exhaustion hits him like a brick wall. His vision goes dark as he freezes, trying to breathe and concentrate on staying conscious.
“Easy, easy,” comes a voice to his left, gentle hands pressing him down against the pillows. Damian settles and waits for the black spots to clear from his vision before risking turning just his head. It’s hard, and makes him a little dizzy, but he manages it when he goes slow. It’s worth it too, to see Grayson beaming down at him.
“Grayson,” he croaks, voice embarrassingly shredded. It sounds like he’s been gargling shards of ice. Feels that way, too.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Grayson smiles, eyes shining. “I’m so glad you’re awake. You scared us all half to death.”
“What happened?” he asks blearily as Grayson helps him sit up. He leans half against the pillows and half slumped against Grayson’s side. Grayson wraps an arm around his shoulders and says nothing when Damian lets his head drop to rest on his collarbone, too tired to truly be embarrassed.
He didn’t think he would wake up again. He had fully believed that had been the end of it all, that he was taking his final breaths with his brother holding him close, so it’s enormously confusing to be here now, feeling like he’s been hit by a truck and then backed over just for good measure.
Fingers come up to scratch at his scalp, gentle and comfortable. “Honestly, I’m not sure,” Grayson admits. “Bruce doesn’t know either. You were severely hypothermic. Stopped shivering, heart shutting down, wouldn’t wake up, the whole nine yards. I—I couldn’t find a pulse anymore.” Damian tilts his head up at the sound of Grayson’s voice cracking. His brother’s gaze has gone somewhere far away, and Damian clumsily thumps his head against his shoulder to bring him back. “You were gone,” Grayson whispers, like those words are some cursed thing. “And then something happened, and you started breathing again and shivering eventually and you responded when we tried warming you up. Something must have broken the curse and we don’t know what it was but frankly I don’t care. Bruce can worry about it all he wants but the only thing that matters to me is that you’re alive.”
“A kiss of true love,” Damian echoes the distant words dumbly, his cheeks suddenly going warm. That’s what the witch had said, he just hadn’t realized that true love could be platonic. Once more, he continues to be confused by what love really is.
Grayson frowns down at him, confused. “What’s that, Dames?”
“The witch,” he explains. “She said that was the cure: a kiss of true love. I thought it was ridiculous.”
Grayson’s jaw twitches, expression suddenly closed off. Damian shifts nervously, wishing he could escape the intense gaze staring down at him, suddenly missing so much of its gentle warmth.
“You told us there wasn’t a cure,” Grayson says.
Damian ducks his head and squeezes his eyes shut in shame. “I didn’t think there would be, for me,” Damian says back. He stiffens, readies himself for Grayson to leave and work out his anger elsewhere. “I didn’t realize… I’m sorry.”
The silence that follows is thick and heavy and it squeezes at Damian’s already flayed and aching chest. He gasps, breathing suddenly so difficult, but before he can push away from Grayson, there are a strong pair of arms wrapping around him and tugging him close to a strong chest.
“Never do that to me again, okay?” Grayson whispers into his hair. “You scared the hell out of me. This has been quite possibly the worst twenty-four hours of my life.”
“I’m sorry.” Damian’s arms hurt too much to lift and wrap around Grayson’s neck the way he usually would, but he twists his fingers in the back of his shirt as tightly as he can manage. “I didn’t realize—”
“I know. I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t know you still felt that way. I’ll do better, okay?” Grayson murmurs. “I love you so much, Damian, and I’ll do whatever it takes to help you believe me.”
That makes it sound as though this is Grayson’s fault, and it’s not. Damian’s face twists in frustration. He hasn’t doubted Grayson’s love for some time now. It hadn’t occurred to him that that love would be so great as to be considered ‘true’ by the witch’s curse, but he hadn’t questioned that he was loved. Grayson has never once let him doubt that.
“Stop it, you idiot,” he grumbles, too weak to really snap. “It’s not like that. You have… you have done more than enough. I know, okay? I know and I… I feel the same way. It just never occurred to me that true love would be…”
“Platonic?” Grayson asks, pulling back slightly. The smile on his face is sad, but present, and he holds Damian’s face with one hand like he’s precious.
It is close enough to the truth that Damian nods, lets Grayson believe that. “It never occurred to me. Still, I’m sorry.”
“Just don’t ever do that again and we’ll call it even, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Grayson presses another kiss to the top of his head and Damian can’t keep himself from melting into his hold. He doesn’t exactly think that he’s deserving of having anyone love him so truly, and he won’t pretend like he fully understands what that even means, but he does know that there’s no denying that Grayson loves him, even if Damian thinks that makes him a fool. And, well, if he’s going to offer his love so freely, then Damian will do his best to feel worthy of it, no matter what Grayson says about love not having to be earned.
“Grayson?” he mutters, cheek pressed to Grayson’s shoulder. He gets a soft hum in response, as well as a hand in his hair. “I would like you to know that your feelings are reciprocated.”
“Aw, Dames,” Grayson says teasingly. “Are you saying you love me?”
“I suppose I am,” Damian says, tilting his chin to look up at Grayson, daring him to challenge his feelings. He’s met by a blinding smile that makes the raw feeling in his chest all worth it.
Grayson takes Damian’s face in his hands once more. Damian feels his face flush with embarrassment now that he’s not dying. “You have no idea how much you mean to me.”
“I think I do,” Damian says quietly. “And as I said, those feelings are reciprocated. You are… very important to me as well, Grayson.”
“I love you so much,” Grayson mumbles, holding Damian close once more, rocking them both just slightly. Just hours ago Damian was on the brink of death, and yet in this moment, he has never felt quite so safe in his entire life.
I love you too, he thinks, and lets himself bask in the warmth of being alive and loving and being loved.