30 Days of Demonfire

Kiss

When there's a knock on my seventeenth-floor window, I know that it can't be good. Never mind the fact that it's three in the morning. Never mind the fact that the weather is shitty as all hell, rain that's basically solidified cold pelting down out of the dark Gotham sky, where the clouds are so thick and so dark it looks like the rain is coming straight from space.

I take out the screen and open the window and Robin lands feet first on the floor, absolutely soaking, rain dripping off his cape and hood.

I'm supposed to start my second semester of classes tomorrow. I'm in my pajamas, which consist of Hello Kitty shorts and a ratty tank top that fits me stupidly, so the sleeves slide off my shoulders constantly. But I don't care about any of that because something is seriously wrong.

"What's the matter?" I ask, and I sound pitifully scared.

"It's your father," he says, and I sort of knew he was going to say that but my heart drops anyway. "If you have an extra suit—"

I'm already pulling out my drawers because I can't remember which one the Nightstar suit is stored in. Damian watches as I dump all my socks on the floor and I pull up the false bottom, revealing my suit. My dad helped me with that.

"Turn around," I snap, and he does and I know he won't peek because his hood is still up and he can't see peripherally.

It takes less than a minute for me to pull on my suit and I grab my boots from underneath my bed. I shove my feet in without even looking.

"Wrong shoes," he mutters.

"I don't care," I say and I stand up, but Robin blocks me from the window.

Roughly, he pushes me onto my mattress and he leans over me, trapping me there. "Listen to me," he growls very slowly. "You need to calm down."

"Stop it, Damian," I snarl. I push him, hard, and his back hits the wall next to the window he'd crawled through. I move to scramble out the window, but he grabs my wrists and pushes me up against the wall.

"Control yourself." His voice is dangerously even, like it's a warning, and I'm so mad at him and so worried about what happened that I can't even move.

Like a dam burst open, my eyes fill with tears. It's not even that I'm that upset over my dad; of course I'm worried, but I'm sure that if there was something really wrong, Damian wouldn't have left. But I feel so helpless.

I can't see his eyes through his mask, but he looks so somber. Gently, he tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, I guess as a comforting gesture. "At least put on the correct pair of boots."

I'm wearing one rain boot and one of my spiked bat-boots. Damian just crosses his arms as I sit on my bed and reach for the right boot.

"It is not a fatal wound," he says quietly. "His arm will be in a sling. Nightwing will be out of commission."

"Do you think—" I start, and I almost choke on the words and I try to blink back tears because I don't want Damian to see my cry. "Do you think if I were there—?"

Damian stands in front of me and, tentatively, he reaches out and he touches my cheek, pulling my head up so I have to look at him. He draws his hand back quickly. He's being very tactile, and it occurs to me that maybe he's upset, too. "You cannot think of it that way."

I swallow down my tears and I nod. "Okay. Let's go."

It became policy a few years ago, but whenever a vigilante needs to go to the hospital, we're taken to Mercy West. Crystal Brown heads a clinic for us, and we can get treated as our vigilante identities. Mrs. Brown knows all of our secret identities, anyway, but it's a no-questions-asked policy even when she's not there.

I can't remember if Steph's working, but between both of them working there, one of them has to be on.

I set off a smoke detector in the waiting room and they make us go outside. Robin could have stayed in the waiting room, but he came outside with me. He leans against a wall, tucked into his hood and his cape, and he glowers around. I pace. A lot.

When they finally let us back in, Robin has to promise that I won't set off any alarms. That makes me angry, I don't know what the fuck they think he'd do about it. But I don't make a big deal out of it because I already have enough going on and I don't want to talk to the doctors, anyway. I just want to see my dad.

He really is fine. His arm is bandaged and he sounds tired, but he's relatively unhurt. Robin draws the curtain and sort of lurks in the corner so we can talk.

After a while, the sun starts to come up and Robin and I need to go. My dad's gonna be able to leave this afternoon, and he's going to have to go to work tonight. There's no way he'd be able to ditch the same day Nightwing got shot.

We have to go change at Firewall. There's no way we'd be able to make it midtown with the sun coming up like this. I don't have winter clothes here and what's even worse is that I forgot my pendant in my room, so Damian has to give me his sweatshirt so I can turn the hood up. He tells me he's not cold on the walk home, but his breath fogs in front of him and he seems more tense than usual.

But that could be because he was actually there when my dad got shot. I realize that I've been kind of selfish the whole night. "Um… thanks," I say when we get to our doors.

"Are you… all right?" he asks, scrutinizing me.

"Yeah. Are you?"

He sighs heavily and he runs his fingers through his hair. He leans back on his door tiredly and he opens it, indicating that I should go in. I do, and he turns on the light and closes his door, still leaning on it. "It's my fault your father got shot," he admits, hanging his head.

I furrow my eyebrows at him. I really can't imagine what he means, because unless he's the one who shot my father, there are so many ways he could think it was his fault when it wasn't.

"I saw the gun but I didn't have time to disarm the gunman. I could have stepped in the bullet's path but… I didn't." He raises his head to look at me and, with the saddest look I've ever seen, he says, "I'm sorry."

"Wha—Damian, that's nothing to apologize for."

"It would have been entirely less stressful if it had been me." He sounds almost sulky now.

"For who?" I demand. I don't know why he thinks that would have been better.

He doesn't answer me for a long time. He's looking at the floor again, and he's still looking at it when he says, "For you."

My brain kicks into overdrive and I'm thinking way too many things at once. Mostly that that's stupid. But I also get this fuzzy, warm feeling. He's being so self-deprecatingly sweet and I'm not sure how to react. "I don't want you to get shot," I blurt, and he's still not looking at me so I touch his wrist to get his attention. His skin is still really cold from being outside in the rain in January without a jacket. "X'hal, you're freezing," I mutter, and I lift my hand to his cheek, which is also really cold.

"Grayson." He's looking at me so intently that all I can do is look back. "Mar'i," he says. And he moves his arm so that my hand that was on his wrist is on his hand now and—you're going to think I'm crazy—I stand up on my tiptoes and I kiss him.

And he kisses me back. And then I'm dizzy because I'm kissing Damian. Three months ago I would have been offended at the idea but here I am now, doing just that. It's a nice kiss. Slow. Soft. He's gripping my left hand and my right hand slid to the nape of his neck, and his other hand is balled in a tight fist, like he's afraid to touch me.

He leans his head against the door, breaking the kiss. And I take my hand away from his neck but he's still holding my other one and neither of us have any idea what to do now.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he says quietly, but he's still holding my hand.

"No," I agree.

His fingers tighten around mine and he says, "Not now. Not while your father—"

"I know," I interrupt him. I close my eyes and take my hand out of his. "Damian, I have to tell you something." He looks almost scared. He looks like he's bracing himself for something that's going to hurt. I take a deep breath, because saying this is going to be like tearing off a band-aid.

"I'm going to Tamaran," I say.