Batman didn't take the news first with any more than a small grunt.

Raven and Robin knew the whirring machine of emotions that they'd stirred up.

"When do you think you two will be returning- to the Tower." Batman said, looking over the Gotham skyline.

Robin eased himself down besides Dick's old favourite gargoyle, legs hanging over the edge of the building. Raven crossed her legs next to him.

"Soon." Damian sighed, breathing in the damp air. "We've been away for long enough."

Raven looked up at the formidable Dark Knight and saw a forlorn father. She had sometimes seen that look on Nightwing's face, speaking to the Titans or any younger heroes. He'd evidently learnt it from Batman. The masked man looked down at her and she found those sentiments directed to her as much as they were to Damian. It touched the part of her soul that Trigon had left barren.

"We owe it to them." She said.

"The Titans are family, father. Our team."

Bruce marvelled at how his son had grown. To think, all those years ago when he'd first arrived, clad in assassin's garbs and brimming with unbridled contempt and insecurity, Damian had been but a child- scarred, broken, skilled, perhaps, but a child all the same. And he had changed, gradually, painfully... he had changed. Loss and teamwork and love and a bit of godly possession along the way- they'd all chipped and honed and his rough, uncut stone.

Now look at the gem before Batman. A young man he was as proud to call his son and his partner in the field. One who loved fiercely, who fought with the instinct beyond a bat and an assassin, who'd learned to protect first and attack second. Yes, he was proud indeed.

"I understand." Batman said, and he did.

"We will return to Gotham, frequently." Damian added, hastily.

Raven swore to it as well, nodding her head.

Batman gave a smile rarely seen in his cowl, "I will hold you to that- the both of you."

Then alarms beeped on Batman and Robin's suits and Raven stood up. One last crime alert, for now.
***

"Raven! Damian!" Koriand'r's voice was muffled behind the door. "Are you ready yet?"

Damian adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, "TT. Almost!"

Standing in front of her floor-length mirror, Raven spun, attempting to see the back of her hair. She huffed, unsuccessful. Having fixed his collar and sleeves, Damian came up behind Raven and wrapped his arms comfortably around her middle, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"What's the matter?" He asked her.

The demon humphed, "My hair! I don't know if it's neat." She gestured towards the crown of little white flowers that delicately threaded through her dark tresses. "They're a lovely touch but- I don't think they're in properly."

Damian sighed and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Hands gloved with lilac lace clasped over his and Raven's tense features relaxed.

"I'll make sure the flowers are neat." He resolved, and pulled back to adjust the train of jasmines. Oh-so-delicate, Damian pressed the clipped end of the chain beneath a curtain of Raven's waved, dark hair.

"There- done." He said.

She spun and the skirt of her dress (just kissing her knees) flowed with the graceful movement. The material made her skin feel holy. The silver chain that adorned her neck dipped in to her sweetheart neckline- she wore earrings of the same fine floral design. Raven's shoulders were left bare by pleated short sleeves. Oh it was an outfit worthy of the wedding of someone as rich as Bruce Wayne- worthy for the bridesmaids of such a wedding.

Raven was used to wearing gloves, but not ones as dear as these. She pressed her hands to Damian's cheeks and kissed him softly.

He hummed, "It's a beautiful colour on you." And kissed her again but lamented.  "I don't want to ruin your makeup- Kyle will kill me."

Raven laughed, "Fair enough. Go put your waistcoat on, you've been holding it off for long enough."

He groaned but followed her command. The light grey, richly textured waistcoat was removed from its hanger- suspended from the door of a wardrobe- and Damian slipped it on. The buttons were stiff but he managed them alright, observing himself in the mirror. He stood besides Raven.

"Huh, they're the same colour." She said, looking between her dress and his waistcoat. "I hadn't realised."

Damian channelled her pride and raised his eyebrows, saying, "We look good."

Raven smiled and hooked her arm around his, "We do, don't we? Lilac is definitely your colour."

"Do you think?"

"I know."

Their conversation was interrupted by a violent rapping followed by a loud, "Come on lovebirds! Damian let Raven go! We need to get the bride ready!"

Stephanie's summons was met with sighs and the tightening of Raven's grip on her boyfriend.

"You'll have to suffer being apart from me for half an hour. How will you survive?" Damian smirked.

She rolled her eyes, "You think you'reso funny don't you."

"TT. I'm hilarious." Damian said, adjusting his tie.

He glanced coyly at her and they shared one last peck before Lois Lane threw Raven's room door open and declared, "That's enough now kids- we've got to get this moving- pronto!" And off she and Raven went to join the bride and the rest of the bridesmaids.
***

Cowl-less, exposed, Batman stood beneath an arch of eternal spring, as ephemeral autumn swept the distant trees. Selina had wanted flowers, and outside, and lilac; he'd knelt before her and kissed her hands a promise for whatever she cared for. He may as well have married her in the puddles of Gotham's slums for all it mattered to him.

His sons were abreast of him. Batman leant on to Dick Grayson- he knew he did. And to the other side of him, between the stoic, terrified groom and line of formidable, elegant bridesmaids, were the officiators of the ceremony.

One wore a suit, plain, unassuming, much like the other attendants of the wedding: they made up a small pond of jubilant faces, sat upon white chairs in the grass. Clark Kent's glasses, however, did not sit on his face. This was a gathering of family- he had none to hide from.

The other was a deity, dripping gold in to the plainness of the Earth. Holy serenity, she proceeded over the warm gathering like Justice herself. And yet, Diana was not imposing. She balanced the scales of the officiating duo. Deities did not compete with mortals; she would consecrate the ceremony in her divinity, not take the place of those being blessed.

Batman would have had none other swear his love into eternity.

A twinkling bell sounded The Arrival and he couldn't get the breath out of his chest.

They rounded the evergreen hedge and walked up the aisle.

He didn't know what he was. Not a beast. Not a man. Nothing so physical as that. Oh in that moment, he was pure devotion. The instant he saw her in the sunlight, passing through the world like a being beyond it, he felt the very beatings of his heart as he'd never heard them before.

And at her arm- oh!

An unashamed tear spilled down his cheek and such a smile as had never been seen became his face.

Walking her down the aisle, moustache stiff and barely containing the beam of a father's love, was Alfred Pennyworth. 

Selina walked like the grass was a blanket of clouds. Her legs moved as if sentient, taking the reigns from her entirely captivated mind. Bruce- Batman- all others, loving faces certainly, melted in to the background. He was every part the man she'd encountered first against that dark Gotham skyline so long ago. But wasn't he beautiful?-Sharp, clear eyes; his frame as imposing as a mountain but agile as a winding stream.

Selina had loved the chase. But now they had caught one another...and she loved that even more. No more confused feelings and clandestine meetings. In truth, that had begun to wear the both of them out. Her heart had craved stability and they'd finally found it, together.

She blinked and found herself at the flowered arch, the black lace trim and white undercoat of her sleek train cascading over the altar and resting on the grass. Bruce was at her side and she wanted nothing more than to throw herself in to his arms. But this was their time, their cherished memories to make, so all of that could wait for a moment.

The ceremony was of their own devising: Bruce as Selina had sat at the kitchen table a few nights before, with Alfred Pennyworth giving his fair (and appreciated) advice, and mulled over the intricacies of their wedding. They had both grimaced at the thought of long, winding vows, but agreed to keep theirs short, and sweet, and their very own. Wayne Manor's library had a section for cultural traditions- they'd poured over old books in search of rites to call their own. And their friends of Magic and other planets had sat with them and spoken of the rituals of the all manner of nations. Selina and Bruce had selected with care.

The one person that had been missing from their ranks of family walked the same path that Selina and Alfred had. Damian walked with an unreadable expression- Raven dissected it at a glance and loved him all the more for his aura, alive and warm with love. He held not a ring on the black pillow he balanced, but a coiled ribbon of purple silk. He saw the watery joy in the eyes of his father as he turned to look at the boy, and then saw the same in Selina's.

Clark met Damian in between the bride and groom. He took the ribbon from Damian. Before the boy could escape, his father had ambushed him with affection and pushed his hair back, kissing his forehead and whispering, "Thank you."

They were met with hushed 'aw's. Before Damian could escape to stand besides his grinning brothers and Alfred, Selina sprung a kiss on his cheek and he flushed adorably. Raven's gentle laughter at his embarrassment met his ears and the boy smiled in spite of himself, hastening to Timothy's side.

"Ehem- let's get this started, shall we?" Clark said. "Join hands if you please."

The bride and groom obeyed.

Clark had absorbed all he could about Kryptonian marriage rites, and sought Kara's knowledge too. He had delivered that to the engaged couple and been more than happy to oblige them in blessing the wedding in Kryptonian fashion.

He declared in the tongue of his mother planet: "May the stars shine upon this ceremony." As all Kryptonian wedding began with.

"Selina Kyle," he looked to the woman, who would go first, as was the Kryptonian custom for heterosexual marriages,"please say your prepared vows of marriage."

He unrolled the ribbon and began to drape it loosely around their wrists in the technique he'd made sure to practice a thousand times.

Catwoman glanced at their joint hands, them up at Batman, and readied her breath. Short, and sweet, and her own.

"Home isn't a word I've known much, in a life this messy. But I understand it now, and I've learnt it in your love. You... have made sense of my chaos and turned it to order. Hell, for the black, the white, and all the strange grey inbetween, there will only ever be one, Bat. Until dust."

In the background, Dick might have sniffled- or perhaps Jason- it was hard to tell in the shuffling of sentimental sounds.

"Bruce Wayne," Clark said, "please say your prepared vows of marriage."

The man squeezed his fiancé's hand and remembered his words. Short, and sweet, and his own.

"Cat, I've loved you since that first rooftop." He exhaled a laugh, "Batarangs and bloody claws- we're quite the story, aren't we? But there's no one else that I would ever write it with- that I could ever write it with. I'm yours, if you'll have me."

Selina chuckled and he lay their foreheads together.

"I've already said yes, Bat. You can stop asking." She whispered dearly.

Those who heard laughed with them.

"With the tying of the hands, we will officiate this marriage." Clark said between laughs.

He handed the reigns over to Diana and stepped back.

She cleared her throat and smiled to the two of them. The demigod commanded peaceful quiet and prayed over the lilac ribbon. The lightening of Zeus filled her eyes, clear and holy.

Diana spoke an ancient poem of the Amazons for blessing their marriage ceremonies.

The translation of the Ancient Greek, declared in her high, proud voice, is as follows:

"By the glory of the gods,
And by the silver moon and her golden sister,
Betwixt Earth, Sky, and Sea,
And beyond the secrets of the Styx,
We tie these Strings of Fate;
We bind the souls as one."

She deemed the blessing finished with a sweet, "Okay you can kiss now."

And kiss they did, to cheers and wolf-whistles.

When they'd broken apart from their embrace, the ribbon was untied and snipped exactly in half by Alfred Pennyworth: one half was tied around Bruce's wrist, the other around Selina's, for the duration of the wedding. Two separate halves, divided by life, but originally created as one.

***

Damian and Raven ducked in to the orchard, hand in hand, and settled down against the largest of the trees that they found. Her dress puffed up and she sat and Damian helped her to smooth it down. He loosened the tie that was tucked in to his waistcoat and Raven lay her head back to touch the bark. She closed her eyes and exhaled.

"What is it?" Damian asked, turning to face her.

"Mmmn...nothing..." she smiled. "Everything just...seems to have fallen in to place..."

Damian thought of his father under the flowery arch with Selina, and the new ring on Dick's right hand.

"Yes...it has, hasn't it?"

He rested besides her and closed his eyes. His vision was warm and red and the sun broke through the foliage above to kiss them both gently. The birds chirped and the trees whispered. Damian had never felt a chest so light and began to hear the lullaby of sleep sing in his ears.

"I love you Damian," Raven said, and she rested her head against his," for ever- for always."

She made a soft noise like one settling in to sleep.

Damian hummed his reciprocation and locked his fingers in with hers.

"You know Raven, I've often thought of death and the afterwards." His words were spoken with all the air of nonchalant white horses dissolving peacefully against a shore. "How many afterlives we can choose from...the Duat- to see my dear Anubis again-... rebirth to try for Elysium...heaven itself, pure heaven... but I would accept nothingness. That I might have lived a life loving you, nothing after that could ever surmount it."

Raven picked up their joint hands and kissed his knuckles before letting them rest above her beating heart.

"Oh but think Damian," she murmured, "think of fading to nothingness together. All of our atoms releasing in to the world. The rest of eternity, resting together in the earth and the water and the breath of lovers. The fabric of the universe...we could make it..."

Damian sat up and raised, "Or we could refuse death. We could have immortality together- we could have eternity as we are."

Raven pressed forwards and kissed him sweetly.

"See the mountains crumble...the seas dry and freeze... the death of the stars- death of the sun..." she said against his lips. "Damian how would we bear it?"

"Love."

"Hmm...Love."

He kissed her. "I think I prefer your idea. Immortality is running from death."

"We have nothing to fear."

Damian pressed their foreheads together. Their noses touched. Raven smiled.

"So let's greet it when it comes; Anubis will be kind to us."

And you know, he was.

•••

A.N:

We have only the Epilogue left now. Our story has come to an end.
I'm in my feeeeeels! But we've the epilogue to come so I'll save my heartfelt words for then! And you'll get some updates on the next story I'm writing!

Thank you,

-Bats