Time loop x Dead Serious
Damian had been in a time loop for 99 days.
It had taken 40 loops for him to realize Phantom, the newest member of the Justice League, was looping as well. When he finally managed to corner him, Phantom was as confused as he was. Apparently, Phantom’s mentor, who was the embodiment of time, was unable to be contacted.
Damian found out about Phantom’s civilian identity in loop 45 after he joined Phantom on a patrol.
Loop 56 was when they started getting closer than just allies. That was the loop where they saw someone die for the first time.
(Damian was too distracted. He didn’t realize Timothy was behind him. He had forgotten about the goons behind him. He didn’t see the bullet coming.)
(He couldn’t meet Timothy’s eyes when he was at breakfast that morning.)
It was loop 85 when they finally found out that someone had apparently found clockwork summoning circle. It took 3 more days for them to locate the cult and discover the cult was working with the League of Assassins.
(Damian could feel the eyes of his family, but he wasn’t willing to pretend he was the same. He had seen each of them die on patrol and knew each of their deaths was due to his actions. He refused to act the same.)
They spent two loops doing reconnaissance, and eight days of planning.
(Damian and Daniel-Danny, he had asked to be called Danny, were becoming codependent. Damian knew the signs of it. Danny had even brought it up. Still, they both had seen their friends and family die and wake up in the morning without any recollection. They were the only other people who understood what they had seen, the changes that happened in their minds.)
Loop day 99 was their “purge day”as Danny called it. Danny had taken him for a day of freedom before the fight, somehow, knowing that Damian couldn’t bear to look at his family right now.(He knew Danny felt the same. Danny had been the one who called him in a haze on loop 62 when his parents discovered who he was and tried to kill him. Danny had apparently had that happen once before during this loop, and it happened one other time after Danny and Damien became allies. Both times ended with the two of them silently cuddling through the night.)
The fight had been remarkably easy. Undoing the summoning circle was… more complicated.
Clockwork looked genuinely sorry. He apologized to them, and gave them both necklaces of time medallions, so that things like this or like speedsters would leave them unchanged.(Danny laughed a little after that, though it seemed partially hysterical.)
Danny spent that night in Damian’s arms in silence. Damien couldn’t fathom letting him go.
(the loop was ending, but what did that mean for them? They couldn’t pretend to be strangers again tomorrow. Were they supposed to be back to normal? how could Damien scoff and call Timothy by his last name when he had seen Timothy die for him? How could Danny act as if he trusted his parents when he had seen them find out he was a ghost and try to murder him? How were they supposed to move on?)
As Damien awoke to the sound of his door being opened, his arms still wrapped around Danny’s sleeping figure, he slowly realized that he had gotten into the habit of not setting his alarm anymore.

