Work Text:
xx
Man's days are like those of grass;
like a flower of the field he blooms;
The wind sweeps over him and he is gone,
and his place knows him no more.
xx
Psalm 103: 15-16
✰
“And you just wear it?” Damian’s nose is so scrunched up, he looks like an incredulous puppy dog, and Colin can’t help but laugh.
He picks up a small, red rubber band and flicks it at the boy beside him, laughing harder as Damian scowls even harder, scooching away on the concrete. “I mean, yeah. You wear it until it gives out or you make another one.”
He watches the other boy examine the Rainbow Loom bracelet, touching and prodding with nimble, scar-flecked fingers. “This is highly childish.”
“ Duh,” Colin rolls his eyes, unable to help himself. “We are kids, y’know. It’s not weird to be doing kid things.”
Damian sniffs, almost haughtily. Like a prince, Colin thinks. “I am not a child.”
Yet, underneath all of the sneering and superficialness, Colin thinks that he can hear what Damian’s actually trying to say.
I am not a child. I am not weak. I have lived and survived more than you can imagine.
And, y’know.
Colin can work with that.
Cruel, Damian is not.
Sarcastic and awkward, thy name is Damian.
He hasn’t really had anyone before, just the nuns and the social workers and the random kids who decided that they needed a friend. Then he got kidnapped and changed and became Abuse, and it seemed like the world changed for him.
And then Damian came along, scowling and haughty, and Colin decided that yes, this angry, vengeful murder-child will be my best friend.
In his defense, it’s worked out really well.
Damian’s nice-even when he seems like he’s not. He cares about things and people-his Batman, the alley cats, the random street kids who want to see Robin-and Colin just feels lucky that Damian chose him to be included into that group of things.
Colin flicks a rubber band at him, this one green in color. “Yeah, yeah. Heir to the League of Assassins, Son of the Batman, no fun for you, boo-hoo-”
Damian snatches the loom with frightening speed, scowling harder. His hair isn’t gelled for once, so it hangs over his eyes and curls at the sides like a halo.
A tiny angel, Colin amuses himself.
Damian examines the half-finished bracelet, scowling all the while with his eyes alighting with a challenge. “I can have fun.”
He says it like-well, Colin doesn’t know what he’s saying it like, but he knows that you probably shouldn’t say it like that.
So Colin stretches himself out on the ground. Made himself comfortable, and closed his eyes.
Prove it, he had said.
Colin gained a red and green bracelet from Damian’s efforts, worn only once and kept safe underneath the locked wooden box under his bed. He kept a few things there. A photo. A candle. A few notes. A drawing. A dried flower. Nothing of value, but infinitely precious.
Damian made a black and sky-blue one for himself.
Colin doesn’t know what happened to it.
✮
Colin Wilkes believes in fate.
“Glory be to the Father, to the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Father Romero bows his head, and the rest of the small mass follows. Colin does as well, folding his hands and lacing his fingers together so tight, the skin goes pale. There’s a scab on the back of his ring finger, and he picks at it, drawing blood.
Sometimes he wonders if he’ll have these powers forever, if this poison will always be in these veins.
He wonders if his powers will fade, and all he’ll have left are these scars and stories.
A faded scar, pink and shallow, stretches from his shoulder to his neck, and he finds himself rubbing often.
“As it was in the beginning, is now-”
He doesn’t particularly like rosary, or the people that usually show up. The ones that pinch his cheeks or stare at him or give him dirty looks like he’s not supposed to be here, it’s all the same. He’s the youngest there, if you don’t count the infant that usually shows up with the grandmother, swaddled up and happily sucking a pacifier as her grandmother prays over her.
He doesn’t want to be here, but he doesn’t know where else to go.
He’s squashed up in a pew toward the back, sitting on a bench, slipping the stones of the rosary he borrowed from Sister Katherine through bandaged fingers. Stretch marks dance from the back of his hand to to his arms, faint white traces marking his arms. Shifting between a muscle-bound giant and a scrawny child, as he found out, left its mark.
“-and ever shall be-”
Religion is a funny thing. Damnation and redemption and falling angels and all that. Colin’s never really been into it. Just mouthed the words, knelt and stood, and did as the nuns asked. Church was just another thing he did on Sundays, and rosary was something he did with Sister Addison to keep her company.
He’s never been religious. Yeah, he’s always thought something was up there, but he’s never really thought about it before. About what determines life and what causes death and who goes where.
He’s still not religious.
Sister Rose says that God loves everyone and cares for everything, but that can’t be true.
Because if he did, if God actually did love everyone, then someone would be right at Colin’s side, making snide comments under his breath and generally upsetting the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church, Damian would say, Do as I say, not do as I do for nearly 2000 years.
Damian never cared much for religion.
“-world without end, Amen.”
Damian told him once, after he had died, that he had gone to Hell. That his soul had been damned and he had paid the price for it. For the souls he had reaped, for the blood on hands, and the pain he had caused along the way.
Colin really hadn’t believed him. After all, how could a child be beyond redemption? How could someone like Damian, who was trying to do the right thing and had died protecting his family, be worthy of the pits of Hell?
That was never taught in his CCD classes on Sundays.
Less coloring books and more information on how a soul gets judged, please.
He hadn’t prayed the first time. Maybe that’s another sin, but Colin hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t been feeling particularly pleasant to any sort of primordial being up above.
But now?
Now he needs an answer.
He needs something.
How does someone die twice?
How does that happen?
God is supposed to hold the answers. He’s supposed to have a hand in everything. So maybe this is just the world’s way of saying what’s dead should stay dead. That humans are nothing but dust and bones and every attempt to stop it will be met with resistance.
But Colin doesn’t want that answer.
He doesn’t want to be told that his best friend was always meant to die.
Colin does not believe in God.
Colin believes in fate.
He believes there is a plan, and there is something after, but now-
How could this be a plan?
What kind of cruelty is this?
There haven't been any sightings of Abuse for months.
The streets are too empty, and Colin feels too old.
Father Romero finishes announcing the second mystery. It’s a tuesday, so it's Sorrowful. Then the prayer starts again.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven-”
His phone buzzes, silent to everyone but him. He knows without looking at it that it’s Maps, and he needs to answer it before he gets the entire Detective Society called on him.
She’s fun like that.
Colin slips another bead through his fingers as he walks out of the church, mouthing the prayer the whole while. He’ll probably keep saying the entire rosary till he gets back to the orphanage, praying for lost souls.
He prays for answers too, but he never gets them.
✮
Maps is not, and will not ever be, religious.
Her faith is logic and facts, and it has not been shaken. Every action has a consequence that can be predicted and recorded, and is equal in measure. Fate is not something determined by beings higher than themselves, it is not something that can’t be explained, and it is not something that they are not able to control.
Every experience has an answer and this will frustrate her to no end.
“Mia,” Olive says gently, her white hair tucked behind her ear. “Mia, we’ve got to go to class.”
Maps raises her head, cheek sticky with drool from where she was sleeping with her face against a book. Her mouth feels fuzzy and she barely stops herself from drifting off again. “Mmmm.”
Olive runs her hand through Maps’ hair, face pinched in concern. The tips of her fingers are sticky, probably from the peanut-butter and honey sandwich she had. Olive always eats a PB&H on a Tuesday. It’s a regular schedule Maps can always expect from her, no matter the circumstances.
Maps sleeping through her third period? Not so much.
She’s more likely to just skip it, just another regular fact of the world.
It was something to always depend on.
Just like-
Maps was too busy to sleep.
Olive liked PB with anything but Jelly, but she always ate one on fridays.
Colton secretly loved soap operas, and would cry when they came on, sniffles and everything.
Pomeline’s darkest secret was that she used to be a horse girl, and would ritually burn whatever she found lying around collecting dust in her closet.
Kyle would whistle when he was nervous, but could only whistle ‘Hot-Crossed Buns’.
Colin adored pickles and could lift things ten times his weight and enjoyed her ghost-hunting adventures.
Damian despised pickles and was secretly an assassin/vigilante/superhero that hated her ghost-hunting adventures, because no, we are not talking with the dead, are you stupid Mizoguchi .
It was normal.
It made sense.
This-
This doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t have any logic.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” Maps mumbles, shoving her head into her elbow. “Hold on.”
Olive sighs, full of worry and pity that makes Maps’ gut churn. “It’s not-I already told the teachers you were sick. They’ve already excused you.”
Maps stays silent, hidden by her arm and elbow.
“I’m worried about you,” Olive stressed, taking a seat next to Maps on her bed. “You’re sleeping at odd hours, you’re not talking as much, you barely seem to want to do anything. Your friend-Colin-he came by and you guys barely talked.”
Maps doesn’t say anything, just scowls with her eyes up at Olive.
It’s not like Olive deserves it-
But-
Y’know, like, when someone’s just so tired and angry and confused, they just want the world to be quiet for a few minutes?
Just for a few minutes.
That’s all.
“Is this about Damian?”
Maps lowers her head.
Olive may not know who Damian actually is, but she knows what he means. Meant.
Whatever tense it is now.
Olive’s hand rubs her shoulder, comfortingly. Damian’s death was a fairly private thing, not as blown up in the newspapers as Maps thought it might be. That’s what had happened with Jason Todd, after all. Jason had died in mysterious circumstances, and the media had gone nuts.
But it was different this time. Less newspapers reported on it, and it was in a respectful way. Not the conspiracy, rude sort of way. Just a passing mention and a quiet apology.
But people knew. Everyone knew.
Maps curls herself into Olive’s side, leaning her head against her shoulder. “I’ll-I’ll go tomorrow. I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” Olive cuts her off softly, “You don’t need to apologize. You were there for me through the whole Calamity ordeal. I’ll be there for you through this.”
don’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcrydon’tcry
Maps sniffs, tears welling up, and Olive pulls her in tighter, till she’s squashed up against their shoulder. “I’m sorry, Mia. I know he meant alot to you, and I know this just seems like a slap in the face.”
“Everybody keeps saying that it’s an accident,” Maps whispers, faint as a hummingbird’s heart. “But that doesn’t make sense. How could something like this just be an accident?”
Olive rests her head on top of Maps’. “I don’t know, Mia. Maybe this is just how the world works.”
Taking things, people, away just because?
“Well, I don’t like it,” Maps turns completely into Olive’s side, smearing her tears onto the other girl’s shirt. “If that’s the world we live in, I want another.”
Olive huffs out a laugh. “I know, Mia. Believe me, I know.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Maps insists, almost doggedly. “He was supposed to come back. He promised.”
Olive presses her lips to Maps’ forehead, best friend and big sister personified, and doesn’t say anything.
They stay there, maybe for hours, maybe for minutes, wrapped up on the soft linen blankets on Maps’ bed, holding each other while Maps tries not to sob onto Olive’s shoulder. She succeeds, but at the price of not being able to speak without her lips trembling like they’re about to fall off.
Small victories.
Then the bell rings, chiming its irritatingly cheerful sound, and the moment is broken. Olive sighs, pulling back. “I have to go, or I’m going to be late again. Talk later? Promise?”
Maps draws back and nods, a little warmer than she was before Olive came in. “Promise.”
Olive smiles, and gives her one last hug before leaving, shutting the door softly behind her.
Maps flops back against the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Nothing really made sense anymore, did it?
Maybe if-
“Excuse me, ma’am. You’re Mia Mizoguchi right?”
The bell rings.
Maps shrieks.
And the primary-colored, black-haired boy waved to her from outside her window, hovering twenty feet above the ground.
✮
Jonathan Kent believes in people.
And-
But-
Jon’s not human.
Well, he is, but he can also light things on fire with a single glance and can lift more than two tons over his head, so he’s also sort of…not?
It’s weird.
Kon just tells him not to think about it too much, and Kon’s been doing this for much longer than Jon has, so Jon usually listens to him.
Usually.
Because-
Well, he can’t really get into it right now.
But the point is: Jon may not classify as human to some folks, but he was definitely raised as human, from his dirt-smudged sneakers to the tips of his unruly hair.
And sometimes he wonders, when Kon gets too silent sometimes, or when Pop’s smiles seem just a little too fake or when Mom taps her fingers against the table, lips tight and fingers white, he wonders what’s after for them.
Do Kryptonians go to the same afterlife humans do?
Is their concept of a soul the same?
If they don’t, where does Jon stand?
Is he too human? Or not human enough?
What makes a soul a soul?
“You’re quiet.”
He looks down, almost surprised.
The two children, around his age, look up too.
One redheaded, with freckles as numerous as the stars and eyes gold like honey, with a big sweatshirt that felt and smelled like comfort and lilacs.
One dark-haired, with a flower in her hair and the expression of someone who would and could take on the world.
“Sorry,” Jon apologizes, “Usually, when I’m flying someone, they’re doing all the talking. It’s….different.”
Colin-that’s the redhead-snorts. “Believe me. I know what you mean.”
He would, wouldn’t he?
Jon’s never met Colin or Maps before. He knows about them, of course, but he’s never actually come face to face with them or talked to them, or known if they ever knew about him.
They had, apparently. And surprisingly, they had good opinions of him, considering all they knew about him was from Damian and the countless insurance cases filed against him.
And only him.
Like Damian hadn’t been responsible for the water fountain.
Jon tamps down on the grief that threatens to crawl back up his throat. “Really? I just thought that was me.”
Maps kicks one of her legs. “Well, it wasn’t for me. He just acted like a cryptid and gave me weapons till he finally decided to give me his name.”
Jon coughs, disguising a snort. Colin doesn’t bother, shoulders shaking with laughter. “Oh, he never told me that part. Do you remember-”
They lapse into conversation, talking with unhidden glee in their voices about their deceased friend, remembering all the times he slipped up or made a mistake or had done something that had gone in the blackmail folder, teasing him as if he was there.
Jon listens in, lips curling at some parts, but his attention is elsewhere, as he steers through the sky, searching for someone.
Some ones.
“Jon!” Maps kicks her feet out again, gaining his attention. “You got anything? I’m fresh out on cryptid stories.”
Jon hums, thinking. “Well, there was this one time, back on Ma and Pa’s farm, that he nearly got bit by a coyote.”
He actually did get bit, but he decided to walk it off and not tell anyone ‘cause he didn’t want to get in trouble.
And what a time that was.
Stephanie had taken Damian with her, on her trip to go see Kara. They had come in at noon, Stephanie playfully bickering with Damian, and Kara had given Damian a noogie with the smaller boy spluttering all the while.
Then they had left to go to do-something? Jon wasn’t sure-and he and Damian were left alone for the afternoon.
Mom had specifically told them not to go to that thatch of woods on the far side of the farm. There had been some coyote sightings, and she didn’t want anyone getting hurt.
Multiple times.
Multiple, multiple, times.
Damain disobeyed within the first half-hour.
It hadn’t even been his fault.
They had been out in the fields and Ranger took off when he had spotted a garter snake, and Damian had taken off after him, pursuing him to the edge of the woods.
Where he was immediately confronted by a coyote, who had apparently been quite used to humans for a while now and hadn’t taken well to another dog in his territory, as well as a pint-sized assassin wearing a XL Gotham Grizzlies shirt and grass-stained jeans.
Maybe he was a Knights fan.
Ranger had barked.
The coyote had snarled.
And then he attacked.
And Damian ended up with a shoulder bite, a scratch along his left leg, and “ the knowledge that dogs, though agreeable, were the stupidest creatures on the planet ”.
And then he had tried to hide it.
All day, it had been-
“Damian, are you bleeding?”
“Are you hallucinating, Kent?”
Or-
“ It looks like you’re hurt.”
“See, it might be hard with the fact that your skin can literally deflect bullets, but these things are called bruises, and when you punch a certain someone that enjoys riddles so much they have to kill people over it, they tend to appear.”
Or even-
“ Damian. I see the blood.”
“Do you want to have a matching one?”
And finally-
“Damian Whatever-Your-Middle-Name-Is Wayne. Get inside this house right now.”
“Kent, you’re a fucking snitch.”
Jon knew that Damian was weird about some things. Injuries, food, having his back to a door, sand.
(Damian hated sand.
It gets in your boots, he used to complain, Hides scorpions, and those bastards are a nuisance.)
Damian, down the core of his being, hated trusting people.
Jon believed in people.
He thinks that that’s what made them such a good team: Damian with his glass half-empty and Jon with his glass half-full.
You could learn to trust people, he had told Damian once. It won’t kill you.
“He got bit by a coyote?” Colin whistles, almost sounding impressed, if a little sad. “Damn.”
Jon smiles a little, almost out of his own volition. The grief is still there, still simmering, but he’s doing better, he thinks. He’s getting better.
Maybe it’s because Jon has people. He has Pops, and Mom, and Kon, and Kara, all of them people he can trust and love with all his heart. They’ve got his back and Jon trusts them with his life.
Just like-
Jon cranes his head.
There.
Jon doesn’t know all the details. Something about a cavern, a centuries old-feud, and an unknown grave.
He does know this:
There were people with Damian, people that he trusted. People that had fought with him. People that he wanted at his back.
People that had watched him die.
He doesn’t know why he wants to find them. Or what he’s going to do when he finds them.
He just wants to know.
And he couldn’t deny Colin and Maps that, either.
Jon trusted people.
Sometimes, he wished Damian hadn’t.
✮
Suren Darga believed in blood.
He believed in blind loyalty to a fault, in sacraments of violence, and baptism in steel and bone.
That was all he knew.
That was all he was taught.
Then he-died? was that what it was? it felt like a dream- and he came back and he had a new purpose. Cleanse the world. Bring back his Father. Avenge his bloodline and rid the world of the al Ghuls’. Bring the world into a better light.
And then the world turned inside out, and there was no purpose.
There was only a broken legacy, a bruise on his jaw, and two bleeding, exhausted child soldiers.
And they understood.
They understood the words that couldn’t form outside of his mind, and they accepted that.
And then his Father had come back, the world had been about to end and-
Suren lost someone.
No, not lost. Lost means something could be found, could be retrieved. It means something hidden, something waiting.
This is different.
This is something soft. Something bitter. Something heavy.
It tastes of sour wine on his tongue, acidic and never-ending.
This is why he is here, Suren supposes. To make good on a promise he gave to a dead boy. To prove that he was worthy of that second chance.
Maya finishes packing their bags, wiping the sweat from her brow. Goliath sits patiently as she lashes them to his side. “Okay. That’s everything. Goodbye, Danakil Desert. I hope we never meet again.”
Suren hums, clutching the jewel they came for closer in his hands. “It was not horrible. The guardian was actually quite kind.”
Maya glares at him, her face red from the heat. Suren suspects he looks much the same. “Was this before or after the giant acid lake serpent tried to drag us into the lake?”
“They were doing what they were instructed to do,” Suren insists, “I have been dead for hundreds of years. It is not their fault they failed to recognize my bloodline.”
Maya grumbles, and hoists herself onto Goliath’s back, extending an arm for Suren to grab. “I hope that jewel was worth it. I am never coming back here again.”
Goliath makes a purring noise of agreement. Maya gives him a neck rub.
The ruby in his arms, nearly the size of a coconut, glistens in the blinding light, almost the exact same shade of blood. “Then it will please you to know that the Sunfire Ruby belongs somewhere with a cooler climate.”
A bead of sweat runs down his face, salty and cold to his skin.
“Much, much cooler.”
“Thank god,” Maya mutters, sitting straight up in her seat. She’s ditched her suit, tucked in one of the bags, both her and Suren draped in loose, lightweight clothing to protect them from the sun. “Alright, we don’t have all day. Goliath?”
Goliath roared, a great echoing bellow that Suren knew would be heard for miles, a sound that shook the floor beneath them.
“Yeah, that’s right!” Maya cheered. “Show that ol’ slimeball who’s boss!”
Suren silently apologized to the centuries-old serpent who had wound up being the Lu’un Darga guardian for the ruby, and incidentally being smacked around by a humongous dragon bat and his twelve year-old master.
Goliath leaps and soars, flapping his wings as the hot gusty air whips through Suren’s hair, sending it flying in all directions. Maya’s hair doesn’t fare any better, but at least she has a hair band that keeps it out of her face.
He probably needs one too, Suren muses.
Goliath pushes east, the sun at their backs. The temperature drops the further he climbs through the atmosphere, and Suren feels the cool wind against his face. Maya feels it too, as she flops against Goliath.
“Now this is great,” she mutters, nearly half-asleep, “All I need is a nap and mayne a smoothie-”
Something hits them.
And Goliath goes down.
Spiraling through the air, Goliath bellows in alarm, Maya yelling with him. Clouds swirl in and out of Suren’s vision, a sick feeling spreading through his stomach. His hands scrabble for a hold in the saddle, the ruby flying out of his hands as he fumbles it.
Maya is holding on to him so tight it hurts, and he thinks he’ll have the imprints in his arms for the rest of his life.
Someone is screaming. Suren doesn’t think it’s him.
Then Goliath stretches his wings, steadying-
-and they glide, skidding to stop on the stretch of sandy beach below.
They’re somewhere on the coast of Somalia, Suren thinks blearily, as the pounding in his head starts to subside.
Maya swears when they slam to the ground, her head knocking against his own. “Sonova-!”
He’s lost the ruby a few thousand feet back.
Goliath whimpers when he stops, and for a few blissful moments, all Suren can hear is the sound of waves crashing into each other and their own heavy breathing.
Then something blue and red flutters into view, small yet commanding of all attention.
Then there is silence.
“What happened to Damian?”
✮
Maya Ducard believes in a cause.
Not a singular one; she’s had many in her twelve years of life.
There was her first, to make her father proud. To become a speck in the greater existence. To truly become no one at all.
Her second; to avenge his death. A bloody calling, it was, and it was one she answered, if only for a moment.
Her third; the year of atonement and what followed.
And her fourth; to give her brother’s sacrifice meaning.
She believes in having meaning in every single one of her actions, to not let a single moment of her life go wasted. She believes in everything she does in having a consequence that betters her for the future.
She wants to do good.
She wants to help.
She wants to be a hero.
And that was what she had been doing, before this absolute trainwreck of a superhuman plowed straight into their mission.
Return an ancient jewel the Lu’un Darga had stolen centuries ago, and try not to get mortally injured.
That was all.
Instead, they got Superman Jr. and his dumbassery.
What happened to Damian?
He’s dead, you idiot.
Sacrificed himself because that’s what he thought he had to do. Because no one else was there to help and he wouldn’t listen.
Because that’s what he thought he had to do to redeem himself.
But she doesn’t say any of that outloud.
No, instead she spits the blood out of her mouth and steadies herself on Goliath, soothing him with a gentle hand. “Who the hell are you people?”
Because he’s not alone.
Of course he’s not.
Standing maybe two hundred feet away from them, is a group of three people, all of them under the age of fifteen. A white boy with red hair and a brown plaid jacket, a generally neutral expression on his face as he looks across. A black-haired japanese girl with a school uniform and a yellow flower, the only one of them showing any hint of nerves. And trainwreck himself, with wind-swept black hair and blue eyes, and a superhero costume that looks like he made it from home.
He’s also hovering barely a foot off the ground, so Maya is pretty sure she knows who made that S-shaped jacket-cape for him.
“I’m Superboy,” Trainwreck introduces himself, “And this is-”
He trails off, face becoming questioning as he glances from side to side at his companions.
“Abuse,” the redhead supplies, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.
“Mia,” the girl chirps, but the tension is still there. “Mia Mizoguchi, of the Gotham Academy Detective Club.”
Gotham?
Maya exchanges a glance with Suren. He looks as shaken and on-edge as she feels, thrumming in her veins.
Superboy-real original-catches the look. “We just want to know what happened to Damian. That’s all.”
“What makes you think we know?” Maya slips off Goliath’s back, Suren trying and failing to pull her back. “How do you know that we’re the people you’re looking for?”
Maybe she’s being rude but-
There’s got to be another way!
Maya, go!
-at the same time, she really doesn’t care.
She has a mission.
Trainwreck’s getting in the way.
Superboy scratches at the back of his head. “If this is about the whole knocking you out of the sky thing, I’m sorry. I’m still getting a handle on my powers, but I’ve met Goliath before and I knew that you guys were with them-at least that’s what Red Robin said-and so I just tracked his heartbeat to here.”
Red Robin?
Met Goliath before?
Unstable powers?
Oh.
Oh.
This is Jon.
So that must be Colin.
And that must be Maps.
These are Damian’s friends. The ones he had both inside and outside of his life as Robin.
Suddenly, Maya wishes she was anywhere but here.
She could hardly do it the first time, with Red Robin, and that at least had come with the reassurance of someone older than her, someone who understood and was trusted. Someone that hadn’t blamed them, and had mourned with them.
So how is she supposed to do it with his friends, all of whom are definitely under the age of fifteen?
Superboy-Jon, she supposes-takes a step toward, taking her silence as a chance to speak. “We were his friends, back in the states. W-we went to his funeral a month ago. Back in February.”
Funeral?
“There wasn’t a body,” Jon says, almost nervously. The first emotion she’s seen from him. “And no one's telling us what happened to him, and there wasn’t a body and all we know is that he’s dead and that you guys were the last ones to see him alive.”
Maya doesn’t want to do this.
It’s not the sand underneath the floor anymore; it’s the rough cavern floor. It’s not the soft beach air in her air; it’s the stale cave that threatens to choke her. It’s not the salty taste of blood in her mouth; it’s the sweet, almost forgotten taste of butterscotch ice-cream.
She wants to dig it out of her veins.
“Maya,” Suren says slowly, testing each syllable. “Maya, we should….”
We should what?
Run?
He’d just find them again.
Maya takes a step back, back toward Goliath. “There was a threat. We tried to stop it. He neutralized it. That’s it.”
She sounds a bit like Damian, Maya thinks to herself.
“But-” Jon tries again, but Maya is already moving back toward Goliath, back to Suren with his worried expression that makes her want to squish and squash every emotion inside her.
Repress.
Repress.
Say goodbye.
“Y’know, he took the blame for me the first time we met, back at the Academy. There was this magic spell, and a diary, and he stole my yearbook, but that’s not related. We got caught and he took the blame for it. Got expelled for it too.”
Maps’ voice keeps Maya from reaching for the saddle, foot pausing in the sand.
Colin adds, scratchy and rough. “He tried to-uh-knock me out the first time we met. We got kidnapped by Zsasz and he tried to keep me out of it by sticking me in a cage. Didn’t work, but I’ve always thought of it as a nice gesture.”
Maya’s hand tightens. Something burns in the corner of her eyes.
I have my family.
“Our dads kind of forced us to be friends, so I really don’t have any really good meeting stories,” Jon scratches his head, then perks up. “Oh! He got me bagels once, from that place down by Bludhaven. He was grounded, so y’know, also dangerous.”
Maya lets out a sob.
A horrific, wet-sounding, terror of a sob.
Everyone freezes.
“ I hate him,” Maya sobs, and there’s a hand on her shoulder and Goliath is pressing his fur into her face. “I hate him and his pretentiousness, and his hair and his stupid sword and his stupidity and his absolute worst trait of being such a hero-”
“He was pretty stupid,” someone comments, and Maya cries harder.
Jon gently pats her shoulder, which to him it might as well be, but to her it feels like a dull hammer slamming down on her arm. His face is stricken, like he didn’t expect this sort of reaction. “Okay, okay. Okay-”
“I tried to stop him,” Maya manages to breathe through her tears, though her throat feels like it’s on fire. “I tried to find another way, but there was no time and he wouldn’t let me get close and I tried to stop him I’m so sorry-”
Why did he have to die? Why did he have to do that?
Maya hates him, she thinks. She tries to, at least. She thinks it makes it easier.
“There was an artifact,” Suren explains, mostly due to the confusion of the other children, Maya assumes. “It was designed to scourge the world, as a backup in case the other plan failed.”
And it did, is what Suren doesn’t say.
Maya had thought that was it.
She had thought it was safe.
“Damian deactivated it, at the cost of his own life. But,” Suren hesitates, glancing at Maya. “We-”
“We called the wrong name,” Maya croaks, and god, does she feel awful. “We saw his soul, and we tried to call him back, but we called the wrong name.”
She can see it now.
A little golden outline, smiling at her.
Smiling and disappearing.
Off into forever.
If they had just been a few seconds quicker-
But it doesn’t do any good to dwell on lost things, does it?
Arms are thrown around her, both hesitantly and without caution, both pairs knocking the wind out of her.
She rests her head on someone's shoulder. “He was my brother.”
That is something that does not need to be dwelled on.
There is no paltry apologies exchanged, no half-hearted excuses, no pity.
Suren squeaks from somewhere-Maya hadn’t known he had come down-left of her ear. “You’ll have to excuse me, but we may have dropped a fairly priceless jewel when you people rammed into us and we do need to return that-”
Jon pulls back quickly, ears flushed red. “Yeah, I’ll fix that. Sorry about-”
He makes a hand gesture, still flushing red.
It’s cute.
Colin tells him as such, and Jon immediately takes off into the waves, ears still firetruck red.
Maps and Suren start talking, chattering as Goliath herds them away like rowdy schoolchildren, one paw cupped around each of them.
Maya falls in step with Colin. “Zsasz, huh?”
Colin gives her a grin, red hair in his eyes. “You got any stories? I’ll trade.”
Maya thinks of a plan she had made a long time ago, fueled by bitter rage and resentment, and a grudge she thought she would always have.
She thinks of who she was, and who she will become.
“Just a few. Did you know he still had baby teeth?”
✰
xx
So blind is life, so long at last is sleep,
And none but Love to bid us laugh or weep,
And none but Love,
And none but Love.
xx
Willa Cather