⭐️ Eternal Shadow 🌙 Damian wayne ~~~~complete

Chapter 20: Shadows And Steel

⭐️🌑🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑⭐️

5 months later'

The training room smelled like old sweat and fresh polish. The air hung heavy with heat, the dim lighting reflecting off the scuffed floor and metal walls. Titans Tower had felt quieter lately. Quieter, but not emptier.

Marceline moved through her warm-up routine in steady, precise motions. Stretches, then kicks, her breath slow and measured. A faint shimmer of shadow clung to her skin, not quite as restless as it used to be — controlled now. Willing.

She didn't startle when Damian entered the room, though his silent arrival still sent a familiar ripple down her spine.

"You're late," she said without looking at him.

"Tt. I was here first."
The old smugness in his voice was softened by something less sharp, but the competitive edge was still there.

She turned, dark hair falling over one eye.
"Ready to get your ass kicked, Wayne?"

He smirked.
"In your dreams, Dawn."

The first hit came quick — a testing jab from Damian that Marceline blocked easily, her shadows curling reflexively around her wrist.

She answered with a swift kick to his side. He twisted, caught her ankle midair, and tugged, but she spun with the motion, landing lightly on the balls of her feet.

Their fights had always been like this: sharp, fast, brutal. A language neither of them spoke well outside the ring but one they both understood here.

The Tower's soft hum faded into the background, and all that existed was the scrape of shoes on the mat, the rush of breath, the pulse of power under her skin.

Damian lunged, feinting left before aiming a strike at her shoulder. She caught his wrist, twisting it until his knuckles whitened, and for a second — a split, breathless second — their eyes met.

And it was there again.
The unspoken ache. The ghosts between them.

But neither of them flinched.

"You're holding back," she murmured.

"So are you," he shot back, lips curling in a half-smile.

The tension snapped like a string.
They moved at once — Damian's foot sweeping low while Marceline's shadows shot forward, grazing his side. He grunted, dodging back, and she followed, fast and sharp as a storm front.

Strike, parry, dodge.
A dance written in old blood and new scars.

He managed to clip her jaw with a gloved fist, and she grinned, wiping a smear of blood from her lip with the back of her hand.
"Not bad, Batboy."

"I live to impress."

They both knew this wasn't just about practice. It was about rebuilding something neither of them knew how to name. About seeing if the pieces could still fit, if the damage could be undone — or if they could at least learn to carry it together.

And somewhere in the rhythm of fists and shadows, a truce began to form.

Marceline's next strike faltered for a half-second. Her hand brushed his, and the world didn't end.

Neither of them pulled away.

The sparring room was quiet now, save for the distant hum of the Tower's systems and the ragged sound of their breathing.

Marceline dropped to the mat beside Damian, sweat cooling against her skin, shadows flickering lazily around her wrists like half-tamed creatures. She didn't fight them anymore. Not tonight.