B'shert

And loving in return.

On the outside, in public they don't seem at all like a couple. They barely talk (out loud) when they're next to each other (and they really need to work on that). They don't really show too much affection save for a few fleeting glances that pass so quickly that no one can really identify the emotions behind them.

At the tower they seem like just friends who give each other space but are there when it counts and on missions they seem cold and focused (and they try to be). They to separate personal and professional because they don't want innocent people to get hurt, for their friends to get hurt because they let their emotions get in the way. It usually works. They can put up this wall like one puts on a coat, and they fling it away behind closed doors. (It should worry both of them, how easy it is to throw away that metaphorical coat.) How Raven can let Damian in so freely, how she lets him see the darkest parts of her mind. And how Damian's let Raven become his heart, his whole world (-'your weakness, your compromise' his mother's voice hisses.) It could hurt both of them which is, in the end their reasoning for keeping it secret. Because the more of their friends who know, the more that carefully drawn line between being objective and subjective will blur and the harder it will be. (It'll catch up to them later but for now they go with it.)

-But of course the team is not stupid. Possibly a little dense but definitely not stupid. At least not stupid enough to not realize that Damian and Raven have feelings for each other. It's very obvious to people who've known them for a while, but they don't push or try to get them together, because meddling in DAMIAN and RAVEN's love life was probably not a very good idea.-

And now it's Christmas, and it's been a year since they got together (not that anyone knows that) but it's still been a year. They've worked out most of their bond (for now, Raven says that from what she knows it changes again when they're older) Learning to control a magical link when one is not magical themselves is a tedious complicated task but Damian's a quick study and has always loved a challenge.

But anyway, it's Christmas and this is the first one that Raven will NOT be spending in a temple, in hell, hauled up inside her room or fighting a bunch of extremist super villains. . The people of Azarath didn't HAVE Christmas and needless to say the birth of Jesus Christ was not celebrated in hell, and during her first Christmas as a titan though everyone had offered to have her some over to theirs she hadn't really felt too comfortable with the idea so had stayed in the tower (Jaime had been there too so it hadn't been lonely). The second Christmas, there had been a global crisis. This year she was being dragged along to a manor to spend Christmas with the bat family.

'Don't call us the Bat family,' Damien says, glancing over at her. They were both in the back seat of Dick's car. Said man was driving with Kori in the front passenger seat, the both of them were singing the Christmas songs that were playing on the radio and Raven and Damian had long since given up on pleading for mercy.

'I'm just calling it as it is,' the sixteen, going on seventeen year old girl says. 'It makes us sound like we're something out of one of those Sunday morning cartoons that Gar watches.' 'Hmm...you know you could be' Raven muses. Damian raises an eyebrow. 'What?' he asks, because that's really all he can manage. Raven giggles at the image of some kid watching a show about Bat man and his legion of robins and their crime fighting in Gotham city. They bicker about that all the way to the manor and Kori and Dick look at them worried when the both of them repeatedly make a few aborted hand movements but AGAIN that's something that they are seen doing once in a while so they don't question it.

Wayne Manor is everything and nothing that Raven expected it to be.

And Damians family is interesting, Bruce shifting between moments of batman and someone she's not yet familiar with, Selina Kyle ever witty and sharp with her sense of humor, Tim Drake is nice and so is his girlfriend Stephanie, Cassie is funny and Barbra is a big sister (and her and Kori get along real well), Jason Todd is...a bit on the violent side but is the tough big brother, Alfred is a kind sweet but stern Englishman and how she'd always imagined a good grandfather would be and Dick and Kori are Dick and Kori. It's a sense of family that's different from the Titans, but equal in its love warmth and sense of wonderful.

But while the big family is fun and all they're very talkative and active and demanding and crowd around Raven and make her feel like one of them while asking her question after question. The first day is EXHUASTING. (As are the following which she spends alternatively with whoever manages to grab her before someone else does.) (She gets time with everyone but Damian, but then again he's always with her complaining consistently about one thing or the other, and she lets him because while his voice lists off his grievances in her head she senses the fondness and love behind the words and it makes her feel warm and a part of something) But, as Damian honestly forgot to mention, his family weren't the only people she'd have to deal with as a result of residing at Wayne manor for the holiday.

AN:Soooo like no I didn't die if anyone was wondering?? (No I tots dies, I have exams and I fucked up my civics paper but any whooo) I'll try update again before my internet gets taken away from me! Please tell me what u think; good, bad ok, awful????