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His heart pounded against his ribcage, threatening to bruise them with the force of each deafening pulse.
Why had they told him? They could have slipped him unconscious, had the entire procedure performed without his knowledge. At least then Damian would not have felt this inexplicable dread as the mage prepared a pair of iron scissors, blades inscribed with crimson runes that danced along the reflective surface. At least then he would have not known this encroaching horror as he turned to Damian, face shadowed by a hood. Damian could not see the face of the man who would haunt his nightmares for years to come.
One of the worst parts, maybe because he partially understood why it deepened the freezing in his lungs, was the evident grief on his mother’s face from where she stood just outside the doorway. Two League agents blocked the entrance. This had been purely his grandfather’s decision, regardless of his mother’s objections.
Horrifyingly, Damian resisted. He hadn’t meant to, but their intent had felt so wretchedly vile, had his lungs heaving and head spinning and stomach threatening to tear itself out through his throat.
He’d killed two men and one woman before they succeeded in holding him down. All the while his mother watched, statue-still outside the door, anguish colouring her face as if she was losing her son.
Damian couldn’t see it. He knew he couldn’t, yet he still imagined the red shimmer draping over gaunt fingers, extending taut as those brittle bones pinched and pulled away. He imagined the tug on his own finger as he fought to keep his hands clenched in tight balls. It lent him no aid, and he didn’t even register any pain in his palms as his nails dug into the skin. Silver blades approached, splayed apart an inch from his smallest finger. Damian thought he might pass out. He wished he had.
He’d never escape the sound of that snip and the world-ending emptiness that proceeded it.
Damian Al Ghul lost his soulmate when he was nine.
───
Damian had been eleven, one year into his stay with his father when the witch visited. She was supposedly a friend of Grayson's, but Damian was sure she had some wickedness planned for his elder brother.
She caught sight of him, face already pulled halfway into a smiley greeting when her expression froze. Damian's scowl deepened. She took a few steps forward, quick to make a recovery from whatever she saw that had caught her off guard. She was a witch, so who knew what it was. Maybe she saw all the ghosts of the people that Damian had killed floating around him.
“Damian,” she breathed, “who did that to do?” Her tone was pinched. Damian wanted to call it accusing. He bristled.
“Zatanna?” Grayson questioned, flicking concerned glances between the two of them.
She paid him no attention as she closed the distance between herself and Damian. He resisted the urge to take his own steps back. She knelt in front of him, telegraphing the intent to grab his left hand, but he yanked himself away and out of arm's reach.
“None of your business, witch.” He hoped it came out as the insult he meant it as.
“Damian!” Grayson scolded, but the magician lifted a hand to silence him, cyan eyes never breaking the concentrated gaze she held. What was she doing? Was she casting a spell on him? Should he run? He would suffer both being a coward and another scolding from Grayson if it meant just getting away.
“I see,” she said, and Damian very much did not see. Had she been reading his mind? Could magicians do that too? Had that man back then seen every traitorous thought in his head? Not that Damian hadn’t shown it outwardly enough. “It was another magician, wasn’t it?” She said it like she already knew the answer. Damian figured his feelings might have been too plainly displayed, and she didn’t need telepathy to come to the conclusion.
Damian pushed against the instinct to look down, to glance at his hand, his smallest finger. He would see nothing. He would see nothing, yet he would feel all the sorrow of that first night crashing back over him. Did she see nothing too?
“I’m so sorry, Damian.”
Familiar nausea clawed at his throat. Damian spun on his heel and left without a word.
───
Sometimes, Damian would catch Jon staring at his hands. It wasn’t critical or meant to imply any sort of meaning. His gaze spoke of a light curiosity, which never failed to morph into a small frown and tilted brows. Each time Damian caught him, Jon would apologize and look away guiltily.
Damian couldn’t remember when it started.
───
One night when he was sixteen, Damian studied his ruined hands, long lines painted across his palms, pale strips wrapping around his thumbs, light and raised skin along his knuckles, half buried by calluses that didn’t belong on that side of the hand. His hands were usually the only part of his scarred body he didn’t hide under long sleeves and high collars. There were only a couple cuts on his face that were too deep to heal over without a mark, but they were easily ignorable. Damian wasn’t ashamed of the history his body told. He only covered up to avoid the questions and glances of his classmates, teachers, and the press.
It never occurred to him that Jon, who knew very early on of the life Damian used to lead, would be so visibly bothered by the physical traces of it. Damian was not surprised by the gasp and worried rambles when Jon had first seen the lashes covering Damian’s back while changing at the Fortress (something he resolutely avoided even more now), but his hands? One instance Damian could understand, and it wasn’t often he caught it, but every several months, Jon’s gaze would wander back down to the ends of Damian’s sleeves, face growing ever more mournful the longer Damian let it persist.
It was always around people, or after the fact, like something he saw in the crowd reminded him of some long enduring curiosity, and his gaze would flit down, only to remember.
“Would you like to know how I got them?” Damian said when they had settled after a post-patrol meal, and Jon had yet to lose that horrible expression.
He didn’t believe that’s what Jon actually wanted, but he didn’t know how else to get him to stop. He figured requesting that he ceased would not solve it, especially with how little it occurred. It might even make him do it more. Damian didn’t mind the staring. He just hated the look Jon got when he did, slowly morphing into something dangerously close to pity. It frayed Damian’s nerves and threatened to rip apart the careful control he had built to avoid snapping at his friends whenever they did something he didn’t like. ‘Fostering relationships takes communication, patience, and understanding, Dami,’ Richard’s voice echoed in his head.
“What?” Jon asked after several seconds of confused gaping, pulled from whatever musings had gone on behind glassy, blue-violet eyes.
Damian narrowed his eyes, waiting for Jon’s reaction as he clarified, “The scars on my hands. You’re always staring at them.”
Jon’s eyes widened, a faint pink dusting his cheeks like it always did when he got embarrassed. He quickly fixed his expression as he composed himself, but the blush remained. “I’m not always staring!” he defended.
Damian rolled his eyes, more out of habit than anything else because it was true. It was a rare occurrence, but no less noticeable, and Jon still hadn’t answered the question, or given Damian any other hint towards what he might want. “You admit that you do though. Why? You’ve seen much worse.”
Jon hadn’t reacted well to the large, mutilated scar on Damian’s right ankle. The skin healed over purple, and the raised bump resembled untreated leather in both look and feel. It had been an attempt on his life in his sleep. When the knife had missed its target, the assailant dug and twisted and tore alongside his bone, dragging him back down the bed to try and reach his neck. Damian had reached for his own knife first.
“I uh…” Jon trailed off, finding their surroundings to be much more interesting than the conversation. He had the sense to look ashamed as he always did, but it only served to irritate Damian more. Damian snapped his fingers to draw Jon’s gaze back to him and his question. He’d been told before that the action was patronizing, but Jon had never seemed to mind (not that he minded many things Damian did that others might tell him off for), and frankly, he knew if Jon kept stalling, he was going to get more impolite as their conversation persisted. What Damian didn’t expect, was Jon’s eyes to latch onto Damian’s hand the moment he raised it.
“That!” Damian exclaimed, gesturing with said hand to emphasize his point. Jon trailed the movement before snapping back to stare right at Damian’s face, as if catching himself.
“Sorry, it’s uh– nothing. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I’ll stop.”
That hadn’t been Damian’s goal at all. He didn’t know if Jon would stop. He knew the other boy would surely try, but if he was actually capable was another thing entirely. Damian huffed and turned away. He stuck his hands in the crook of each elbow, but pulled them out again when he realized it made him look self-conscious. “I never said it made me uncomfortable,” Damian grumbled.
Jon looked at Damian’s hands again, but this time, he smiled. “Okay,” he said.
Their conversation topics shifted until Jon eventually dropped Damian off back home.
───
When Damian was nineteen, he had almost entirely forgotten. When he drew in only charcoal and specific shades of conté, when he avoided red paints that brought back the smell of copper-coated hands, and when green was what he saw the world through on the other side of the colour spectrum, Damian could forget. Sitting in his desk chair with an open sketchbook propped on his knees and a charcoal stick in hand, glancing up at Jon doing homework on the bed every so often, he didn’t even know there was anything to remember.
Jon placed his pencil down on his notebook but didn’t bother closing it or the textbook. He stared down at his scribbles for a long while, and Damian took advantage of the stillness to capture the pose of his hands. He’d moved on to curling his strokes around the sleeves of the plaid shirt that Damian didn’t bother patterning yet when Jon seemed to gather his thoughts.
“Are you familiar with the red string of fate?” Jon asked.
Damian pressed too hard with the charcoal. He pulled it away to find the fold of the sleeve was shadowed much too dark. It was hard to erase charcoal, and he would end up smearing it. He reached for his malleable eraser on the desk and willed his hands not to shake as Jon’s eyes followed the movement. He dabbed at the page carefully before he swallowed and spoke. “I've heard of it, yes. Why do you ask?” He didn't want to ask. He didn’t want to know.
Jon's cool gaze stayed on him for many moments before he spoke. “Would you believe me if I told you they were real? And that Kryptonians could see them?”
The charcoal stick slipped from Damian’s fingers. It slid down the page, producing a long textured path across the sketch of Jon’s lap. Jon sat up straight, concern painting his face.
“D?”
Damian cleared his throat, still not meeting blue-violet eyes because he feared seeing that reason-numbing pity reflected back at him. “Apologies. I simply did not expect that. What made you bring this up?”
“You believe me?” Jon asked, sounding genuinely confused.
“Should I not?” Damian raised an eyebrow as he stared solely at his sketchbook. He wouldn’t come back to this drawing. It would never be finished. He should burn it so that he wouldn’t have to be reminded of this conversation.
“N–no, I'm just a bit surprised you accepted it so easily. Most people think it's a myth.” Jon paused. “–and I'm not actually supposed to tell anyone that.”
Damian forced slow, even breaths through his nose. “I hear magicians can see them too.” A cold stone rolled around uncomfortably in his stomach, growing in mass like balled snow.
Jon perked up. “Wait, you knew they existed?!”
“I wouldn't say so.” He knew. He knew when he woke up from nightmares that had him gasping awake and trembling and clutching at his chest with numb fingers. He knew when his mind retreated into lightless, self-loathing pits and left his body impossibly heavy for how vast the void in him stretched. He knew so intimately that admitting this information would be like declaring his experience, and it would surely feel worse than tearing his intestines from his knotted torso to display in front of his best friend and say ‘These are all the ugly parts of me.’
Instead, he said, “I can hear things, but that doesn't mean I'm always inclined to believe them. I see no reason why you would lie to me about such a thing however.”
“Oh, right. That makes sense.”
Damian thought to divert the topic.
Jon continued before he could. “Kryptonians don't have red strings.”
“Is that so?” he prompted politely. Can you see the stars more closely with your micro-vision, he wanted to ask instead, direct his thoughts anywhere else. There was supposed to be a meteor shower tonight. Jon could take them out of the city to see them. He tried not to compare it to how his heart might feel burning up in the atmosphere.
“Mhm. I thought it was strange that we could see them when it's apparently a human thing. Dad said he guessed it had something to do with our ultraviolet vision.”
Damian mulled over that tidbit of information for a moment. He could focus on Kryptonian biology. He didn’t have to think about himself. This wasn’t about him. He asked, “Does that mean your mother has one even though your father doesn't?”
Jon smiled into his lap. Damian couldn't help but turn to it. It was so small and gentle, warm like a sliver of sunlight through a window. It was dark outside. Damian could breathe easier.
“People don't necessarily need to be connected by fate to be happy. Most couples aren't connected by the string.” He paused. “But it does make me happy to see when two ends meet.”
Then Jon's gaze slid over to Damian. His smile fell, and Damian froze. Jon was looking at his hands.
“Damian–”
He could feel his heart slamming against his ribs, clogging his throat, just like that night. Jon surely heard it too.
“You–”
Damian slapped his sketchbook closed, not caring about the charcoal now stuck between the pages and surely further coating the drawing. “I think I’ve finished sketching for the night. If you’ve completed your homework, you should head home, Jonathan.”
He hadn't meant to revert back to Jon's full name, but it seemed to drive home his words all the same. Several unspoken emotions flickered across Jon's face in the dark, none of which Damian felt inclined to decipher before they were gone and forgotten.
He'd see them all again when he closed his eyes later. He’d see it all again. He’d almost forgotten.
───
When Damian turned twenty, and he’d chased off the last of his siblings from his studio apartment, he took one glance at the mess in his kitchen and collapsed on his bed instead.
His window opened, and Damian peeked through one half-closed eyelid to see his best friend climbing over the sill. Without moving, Damian watched as Jon closed it again against the breeze and walked over to sit beside him on the bed. He placed a small, red box on Damian's chest.
“Happy birthday.” Jon smiled at him, warm and soft, cheeks tinged pink like he was already embarrassed by the gift.
Damian sat up slowly, letting the box slip onto his lap. He rubbed a thumb over the bottom seam. It wasn’t taped or tied shut, so he lifted the lid and–
Damian froze.
The small box was mostly empty, but stark against the white cardboard bottom was a single thread. Deep, crimson red.
Before Damian could even think of regaining control of his muscles, his breathing, his heart rate, Jon stuck his hand in and pulled out the string. It was about five inches in length, and Damian couldn’t stop staring at the way it draped over Jon’s fingers. He lifted Damian’s left hand in his own, singled out the smallest finger, and began to wrap the crimson thread around the base—first a half knot, then a bow.
For some reason, he thought about the expression his mother wore that night, eleven years ago. Maybe she had truly believed, understood on some level, that she was losing a child. One she would never know.
“You don’t need two ends to be happy,” Jon said. Damian tore his eyes away to look at him. Blue-violet instead of red. “But I thought you might still like to see it. Now your string connects right back to you. You’re in control of your own happiness, Damian. No one can take that away from you.”
Maybe Damian would never know either, but if Jon believed he could be whole as just one person, chest feeling like an infinite tangle of knots in a great, yawning void, maybe Damian could learn to fill up the space. Maybe Damian could ask him to help unravel the twine and tie them in nice, neat bows.
Damian closed the box and put it on his nightstand. He stared at the string on his finger, twirling the loops around his pointer and thumb. “Okay,” he said, then looked up at Jon. “Okay.”