Archive of Our Own ^beta

He never meant for it to go this far. On that fateful day, when he decided to befriend this beautiful boy, he never realised how hard he was going to fall for him. The worst part of it all was that this love had now become tainted, stained with blood. That was what Damian did. It was his greatest fault, the very reason he put up an arrogant front to keep people away. He was too afraid of growing attached, only to be left with a corpse and the shattered pieces of his heart. Now, his worst nightmare was his reality. The invincible boy was dying in his arms. And all Damian could do was sob and cradle his greatest love. Six years of fondness and love, all one sided. Six years of patience and now, regret. Only for it to all come crashing down, Damian's mistakes swiping at him like shards of glass. He was the strong one, but he was still crumbling as his darling's blood stained his fingernails.

"Dami...", he said, his voice weak and frail. This was wrong, wrong, wrong. The boy in his arms wasn't weak, he was the happy, bubbly, nincompoop who Damian had fallen in love with, the boy who like to talk while shoving popcorn into his mouth, who Damian had laughed at as he made ridiculous faces. The boy who had taught him to love. "I love you.", said this stranger in his lover's body. Something deep inside Damian snapped, and he became even more of a mess, gasping out the same three words as he choked and gasped on his own tears. Three words which carried the weight of Damian's world. "I love you."

He kept saying those same three words, the tears never stopping, until they came to take him away. He didn't know who they were, superheroes or villains, and he didn't care. They were trying to take him away from the love of his life.. It hurt so much because the fact that this man in a cowl was taking him away--in some strange way, it made this real. Jon had taken his last breath, and he would never smile at Damian again, he would never sneak out to get ice cream with him, he would never tell Damian that he loved him ever again. Because just one I love you wouldn't , couldn't be enough. They would never walk the earth, hand in hand. He didn't want to believe it, but death had parted them, now and forever. Still, just because he knew this, he did not accept it.

He screamed, and he thrashed, until the heroes had to sedate him. When he woke up, he would be but half a person, his soul dying the second Jon Kent did.