Surprise husbands + "How are you real?" ; requested by @vehan-tikkun-olam-and-stuff!
They may not have planned to get married, or even wanted it all too much at the beginning, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to treat each other right. It was rough going, with both of them coming out of relationships and having secret identities, but time had softened the hurt feelings and allowed them to actually get to know each other.
And Danny, Duke has discovered, is a really good husband.
Neither of them ever saw themselves as married at 20, but sometimes life throws horrible curses at you and the embodiment of balance and life and death swoops in to save your life. Via marriage.
His life is weird, okay? Duke has made his peace with it.
The thing is, if they had met naturally and started off as friends, Duke could see himself falling for Danny and asking him to marry him in a far off future. Instead, they’re doing everything backwards: married, then going on dates to know each other, and finally feeling close enough to be friends.
It helps that Danny does his best to communicate and that helps Duke find the words he needs as well.
He’s sweet, too, so kind and doting and affectionate. Like a really lovable cat, honestly. Duke’s never been cuddled so much in his life and he’s loving every minute of it.
He… might be falling in love with his husband. What a revelation.
“Duke?”
He blinks, looking up from his half-empty plate, pulled out of his thoughts suddenly. Tim and Dick stare at him, concerned, and he realizes he’s missed the entire conversation because he was so preoccupied thinking about Danny. In his defense, it was their one year anniversary the night before and Danny had kissed him for the first time after a date night spent playing video games and talking shit about their respective rogues.
Tim snaps a finger in front of his face, and Duke startles. He got distracted by his Danny Thoughts again.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“You okay? You’ve been out of it all day,” Dick says, clearly concerned.
“Oh, uh, yeah, it’s all good. Just… adjusting.”
“To what? Did something happen?”
Duke shrugs, scooping up another forkful of pasta to shove in his mouth. “Yeah, I… this is going to sound kind of stupid, but I think I’m in love with my husband.”
Tim, taking an ill-timed drink, chokes and spits out his Zesti. Dick springs back, trying to get out of the spray zone but doesn’t move far, shocked still by Duke’s words.
“Oh, yeah,” Duke realizes, “I didn’t tell you guys, did I?”
“You’re married?!” Tim shrieks as Dick clutches at his chest, eyes wide.
“You didn’t tell me?” Dick asks, offended.
“Seriously? That’s what you focus on?”
Duke smiles as they begin to bicker. They do it constantly, but this time it’s halfhearted, as if they’re just going through the motions of something familiar to distract themselves from the bomb he’s dropped on them.
In all fairness, Duke did forget that he didn’t tell them that he’s married to Danny. He’s also only mentioned Danny once or twice and heavily implied that Danny was just a classmate at GCU. And then forgot that he didn’t tell them, assuming that they’d figure it out eventually being Batman trained detectives, after all.
Well.
Oops.
Clearly that is not the case. Duke hurries to finish his pasta before Tim and Dick finish their joint freak out and get their senses back together enough to interrogate him. He can’t escape it, but he refuses to have this discussion with an empty stomach.
He just barely manages to scrape the last mouthful off the plate when his fork is being yanked out of his hands. Tim and Dick close in on him, standing to either side of him, trapping him in place, and look at him with knife-sharp smiles.
Here we go, Duke thinks tiredly, and resigns himself to clearing up this misunderstanding.
Somehow, he manages to explain the situation (I got cursed, he saved my life, we ended up married because magic is bullshit, he treats me so well) and Tim and Dick both agree to not hunt down Danny to show him the wrath of older brothers on one condition: Danny has to join them for a family dinner.
“Don’t worry, we’ll catch everyone up on your… situation,” Dick says, pulling on his jacket to head out. Tim is already on his phone, no doubt telling someone already.
“Great,” Duke says, unenthused. “You’ll also be answering all the questions because I’m not in the mood. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to figure out a day that works for all of us, and then I’m going to kick my husband’s ass in Mario Cart.”
He walks out the door, grinning as he hears them scramble after him, then twists the ring on his finger (not a wedding ring, but a magic portal making gift) and steps into the portal. It closes quietly behind him, leaving him in Danny’s lair, a comfortable, spacious house with high ceilings and little bits of his personality scattered about. There are soft rugs with geometric patterns on them, star maps on the wall, stained glass windows that throw colors across the floor, and a giant couch and pillow pit in the living room.
Danny’s asleep in it, curled up and looking completely at peace. Duke toes off his shoes and carefully makes his way over, footsteps silent so he doesn’t wake him up, all plans of Mario Cart fading away instantly.
Danny doesn’t get much sleep, with the stress of school and an internship and ghost fights to worry about. It’s why his lair is so quiet and comfortable; it’s what he needs, and he doesn’t let anyone else in without invitation, rare as it is.
Duke is allowed to waltz right in thanks to the ring Danny gave him. It never stops making him feel overwhelmed by how much trust Danny puts in him to allow him unlimited access to what is his only true sanctuary, letting his lair be a place of safety and respite for Duke as well.
He crawls into the pillow pit, There’s no way to do this without waking Danny up since he can’t fly, so he isn’t surprised to see Danny blink his eyes open, still looking soft and content. He smiles when he sees Duke, reaching a hand out to him that Duke gladly takes, bringing it up to his mouth to kiss his palm.
Sitting up, Danny tilts his head up in a silent request. Duke happily obliges, still reeling over the fact that he’s allowed to do this! He can kiss his husband whenever he wants!
Yeah, he’s going to be riding that high for a while.
“Hey,” Danny murmurs, sleepy and quietly pleased to see him.
“Hi honey,” Duke returns fondly, “Have a nice nap?”
Danny nods, leaning into Duke and closing his eyes again. “Mhm. How long are you staying? I wanna cuddle.”
“I got nothing going on today. I’m all yours, baby.”
“C’mon,” Danny tries to tug him down. Duke goes slowly, covering Danny’s body with his own, but holds himself with one hand before he blankets his husband completely.
“Wait. There’s something we need to talk about.”
Immediately, the sleepy haze is fading from Danny’s eyes, leaving him alert. “What’s up? Is something wrong?”
“Not really? You know how we agreed to keep our marriage a secret until we weren’t in danger anymore and all those cultists and sorcerers were taken care of?”
“...Yes?”
“Well.” Duke sucks in a breath and offers a bashful smile. “Guess who forgot to tell people we were married after that whole mess was dealt with?”
The nervousness clears from Danny’s gaze as he stares up at Duke with incredulous amusement. “No. No way.”
“Yeah. Kinda dropped a bomb on them and they started freaking out over me being married. Anyways, they want you to come to dinner?”
“When?”
Duke leans back, sitting on his heels. “Let me check.” He pulls out his phone and sends a quick text to the group chat asking for a day they could have a family meal to meet his husband.
His phone is bombarded with texts and calls immediately until Barbara, bless her entire soul, forcibly mutes all of them and puts in a poll with a few dates, setting the poll to close in 24 hours.
“Okay, well, they’re deciding now, but probably soon.”
Danny nods. “Alright. I know these aren’t normal circumstances at all, but I’m so excited to meet the Bats.”
“You do not mean that after hearing all my stories about them.”
“No, I do!” Danny laughs, surging up to wrap his arms around Duke and pull him back down to lay among the giant pillows with him. “They sound nice!”
“The Bats sound nice?!” Duke repeats in horror. “Did you hit your head?”
“They do sound nice! You talk about them so fondly, and yeah they have problems and are dysfunctional, but they’re heroes. Of course they have problems. Even with all their baggage, they’re kind. And you clearly love them, so I do too.”
It’s hard to resist the urge to hug Danny tight enough to make him squeak while peppering his face with kisses, so Duke doesn’t. He just goes and does it, because he’s allowed to shower his husband (!) with affection (!!!) as much as he pleases.
“How are you real?” he says against the corner of Danny’s lips. “How are you so perfect! To me specifically! Honey, if we weren’t already married, I’d be going down on one knee right now.”
“I mean, you still can. We never got a proper wedding either. Think if we offer them a chance to help plan our wedding, they’ll forgive us for secretly being married for so long?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Duke says. He’s already giddy, just imagining what their wedding will look like, what song they’ll play for their first dance, where they’ll have the ceremony… He should create a Pinterest account to start putting ideas together.
Later, though. He wants to woo Danny properly and take him on so many dates.
Dates which include dinner with the Waynes and Wayne-adjacents, apparently.
“You sure you’re okay with meeting them over dinner?” he asks, just to be sure. He knows how intense they can be, even when pretending to be normal civilians. It took him years to get used to them, himself, and he doesn’t want to push Danny into doing something he’s not ready to do.
Danny cups Duke’s face in his hands and gives him a quick, reassuring kiss. “I’m sure. If nothing else, it’ll be fun to see how long it takes for them to realize I’m not fully human.”
“I really am glad it’s you.”
“Yeah, me too. I’d choose you all over again if given the choice.”
“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Duke laughs, wrapping an arm around Danny’s waist.
“Can we nap now? Now that you’re here and holding me, it’s taking everything I’ve got to stay awake.”
“Yeah, we can nap now.” Duke settles into the pillows, Danny cradled in his arms and closes his eyes to bask in the quiet easiness of it all.
He really couldn’t ask for a better husband, unexpected as he was. The others will see that too, once they meet him. It’s impossible to not love Danny once you meet him; Duke knows this all too well.
He loves his husband.
And his husband loves him back.
Duke is fully prepared to keep making that choice for the rest of his life.
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hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?
hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].
but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.
it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.
and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.
the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.
an emptiness, like you said.
but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.
you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.
he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.
but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.
how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.
the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.
think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.
i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.
but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one.
wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.
as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛
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