AN: It's only denial if you have nothing to back up your theory.
Treasure Island
"Nah, I like it fine. Mother usually gets me something—jetliner, hydrofoil, I got a private island last year—"
The sun rose quick in these parts of the earth. One moment it was dark night, the next a blinding light went up over the horizon, bathing everything – the palm trees, the beaches, the scattered functional houses in their sleek, modern design – in warm golden light. Every single day, at every single time was picture-perfect as in a postcard.
What postcards never showed, however, where the troubles a tropical climate brought along, like the gigantic swarms of mosquitoes buzzing underneath the trees, the poisonous animals that had made the island their home long before the people joined them, or the humidity that, despite the early morning hours, already was so high it only took seconds outside for your shirt to be sticking to your body.
Nevertheless, today the island's human inhabitants were already up and gathered in the central plaza, eagerly awaiting the small procession slowly making their way up from the harbor. Men and women stood by the fountain; some stuck to the shadier places by the walls, but they all had come.
Considering the occasion it was no surprise.
Their leader sat on the stairs leading to the main house, hidden in the shadows, his face expressionless. But the occasional slight nervous shift of his jaw told more than a thousand words.
Finally, after what seemed like endless waiting, an alarm bell signaled the huge gate in the electric fence that surrounded the entire living complex opening. The effect was immediate: all conversation was silenced; everybody, including the leader, stood up and straightened in tight anticipation.
In the sudden silence, which was only broken by the last tones of the alarm, they heard them before they saw them; they were eight in total, three women and five men, four at a time carrying a casket. Both coffins had stains of dirt and soil on them, one a little more than the other. The one that appeared more worn was frighteningly small. Too small.
The carriers slowly, almost ceremoniously, made their way to the center of the square, round the fountain and towards the main house, people parting for them in silence. They entered the spacious vestibule of the house through the wide open glass doors, where they carefully set down both coffins parallel to each other. With a bow directed at both the caskets and the leader, who had entered right after them, all but two of the men stepped back into the group of people that had followed inside as well.
Suddenly, all eyes were on the young boy they had accepted as the person in charge. He gave a short nod at the carriers, the air-conditioning already drying the sweat on his forehead and under his simple white linen clothes. Damian Wayne-al Ghul gulped uncomfortably as he focused on the two expensive looking coffins in front of him. He stuck out his chin. The steps he took towards them were slow, but not in any way hesitant. He ignored the glances the two assassins who had brought in the caskets were giving him from the side.
Damian had his arms crossed behind his back; he looked from one coffin to the other, searching for any sign indicating that they were indeed the ones he had sent them to get. It was impossible for him not to let his eyes rest a little longer on the smaller one.
"Open them," he ordered the last two carriers with a firm voice.
The men did not hesitate. The smaller one was opened first; they used nothing but their bare hands. Damian noticed how the nails had apparently not been pushed in very firmly – someone stuck inside this coffin would have had no problem pushing off the lid by themselves, probably not even someone his own size and with six feet of earth above them.
The men let the lid slid down the side of the coffin and it landed on the stone floor with an echoing 'clang'. Damian still stood a little too far away to get a good look, but he focused his eyes firmly on an imaginary point on the glass door leading to the gardens at the other side of the house.
The second coffin was more secured: not only was it nailed shut, but there was actually even a lock installed. The boy frowned at it in irritation, but his assassins broke it open with no more than two well-aimed sword strokes. Both men averted their eyes from the casket's content when the second lid also fell to the floor noisily, but with a sound a bit deeper than the first. Then, the two assassins too stepped back into the rows of people now gathered along the walls.
Damian looked back over his shoulder at his followers, searching for a familiar face in the crowd. When he saw her his eye and the corner of his mouth briefly twitched and he signaled her with a glance to come join him by the coffins. The old woman limped toward him, supported by her equally wrinkled looking wooden cane. Despite the ever-present heat she was wearing a dark dress and a loose headscarf of the same color, which was decorated with gold embroidery around the edges. Regardless of her age and disability she walked as straight and with her chin stuck out as far as Damian himself. When she was before him, standing maybe a foot higher than the 10-year-old, she did not bow her head to him, but only lowered the gaze from her almond-shaped eyes for a moment as a sign of respect. Damian's eyes twitched for the same matter.
Together they braced themselves for the sight in the coffins before them.
Surprisingly, the stench of decay was not particularly strong. The earthen smell from the soil on the exterior surface was much more persistent. 'Is that incense?' Damian thought to himself at the faint familiar scent, and indeed, there was a tiny patterned cotton bag full of incense on the chest of the body in the smaller coffin. He avoided looking at the little grey face at first, instead staring at the various objects accompanying the remains.
There was a dried dark-red rose stuck through a buttonhole of the black suite and Damian knew where the bush it had come from was. Both hands of the body were placed on the chest; the left was holding the handle of a sword; clutched between the dry, skeletal fingers of the right hand was a bright red batarang. On the left elbow lay a small blue porcelain elephant that he remembered standing on the chimney ledge in Dick Grayson's room at Wayne Manor. A book with an old turquoise linen cover was wedged between the body and the coffin wall on its right side – Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson; it was the book Damian had been reading all those weeks ago and that he had always left on his bedside table. Stuck under the sword's blade was a thick envelope, white with a few dirt stains on it. Damian let his eyes rest on it for a long time before carefully pulling it free.
He turned it around, feeling several folded pages inside the envelope. Not a single word was written on the expensive looking paper. The lid was only stuck inside and had not been fixed with the self-adhesive strap. For a moment he hesitated, but then he opened it and took out the pages of notepaper. There were apparently four pages and they had been folded as one. Unlike the envelope they were clean, two of a snow-white color, one ivory-colored and one a very light shade of blue. On the topmost sheet Damian could make out his father's not-so-neat handwriting. When he attempted to straighten the pages, a small rectangular picture slid out from between them and sailed to the floor.
Damian squatted down to pick it up before it touched the ground. He looked at it expressionless as he got up again: the subject of the picture was a huge black dog, a Great Dane with gentle, curious brown eyes and an enormous pink tongue hanging out of his mouth. Kneeling in the grass behind the dog, his left arm in a sling, his right arm around the animal's neck, was a young boy in a dark jacket, with bruises and band-aids on his face. Unlike the dog, he was not looking at the camera, unaware of the picture being taken. A rare, carefree smile was on the boy's face. Damian remembered that day well. He felt his bottom lip quiver faintly. He clenched his teeth angrily to make it stop.
When he looked up from the picture it was as if his eyes were inescapably drawn to the face of the corpse in the coffin. Damian breathed in deeply.
A mirror – he was staring at a dark, shattered mirror. The boy in the coffin was him, his own spitting image. Though, actually he looked a lot more like the boy in the picture with the dog, sans the smile, but the bruises were equally bad, probably worse. His skin hardly showed signs of decay, surprisingly so, considering how he had been buried for weeks now.
'They must have taken means to preserve the body as long as possible,' Damian thought to himself, eyes wandering over the ashen face, the bloodless lips, the dull black hair. The soberness of his own thoughts took him by surprise. But the shock was there too, preventing him from taking his gaze off the dead child.
Only when the old woman's wrinkled hand touched his shoulder did he turn away. Their eyes met. Damian's face might have been expressionless, but his eyes were full of emotions he was unable to hide, telling her everything she needed to know. She gave him a serious but reassuring glance and together they turned their attention to the second coffin and the woman inside.
Damian had never seen the black dress his mother was dressed in and he instinctively wondered if his father had bought it just for the occasion of her funeral. It was made of silk and it was long, reaching all the way down to her ankles – she was wearing simple black high-heels. The dress had long sleeves and a slit up the side of her left leg and Damian remembered well that she had actually liked wearing dresses like this. On the left side of her torso flowers were embroidered in shiny black; scattered white pearls had been sewed into the embroidery.
No last gifts had been buried with Talia al Ghul, not even a single rose.
While he was still staring at the dress and his mother's hands, so neatly folded over her chest, the woman next to him took a shaky breath only he could hear. He frowned at her, then followed her shocked gaze.
Damian was not sure what caused the sudden shivers down his spine: the gaping hole in the middle of his mother's forehead, which had not been covered up with make-up, or the strange expression on her face: she looked relaxed, carefree. At peace.
Her wounds had all been cleaned and it seemed someone had applied fresh lipstick to her lips. But the bullet hole had been left for the world to see, a gruesome dark warning sign on her cold pale skin.
Before the arrival of the coffins, Damian had wondered how he would feel seeing his mother's corpse with his own eyes. Would it fill him with satisfaction that the villain who had brought so much pain to his father, his city, his brothers was no more? Would he be devastated that his mother, his Mama, who had raised him for years, who had trained him in the very beginning, had told him bedtime stories and held him in her arms, was gone?
Looking at her lifeless face now, her high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes and full lips still so untouchably beautiful in death, all Damian did feel was indifference. It was like standing over the coffin of a stranger.
The eyes of his elderly companion glistened and he noticed how tense her features had gone.
"It is really her, isn't it?" Damian asked in a whisper, still starring at the dead body in the black dress. "It's not an illusion or some other magic trick, am I right, Melisande?"
At his voice the muscles around her jaw relaxed again and the wise old woman gave him a small sad smile. "Yes, it is Talia," she said with an equally quiet voice with the hint of an exotic accent not unlike the one sometimes slipping into Damian's speech.
The boy lowered his eyes, nodding silently. His face remained emotionless and did not betray any of his thoughts.
Then he turned towards a group of his medically-specialized assassins and firmly told them, "I want you to take her body and take x-rays of it. Then compare it with all pre-existent ones we have of her. Also, blood tests. Check everything. We need to be one hundred percent certain that this is my mother and that she is dead."
The assassins bowed and then began to scatter and take preparations to move Talia's body from the casket. Among themselves they organized for a stretcher and a shroud to cover her.
The rest of Damian's followers, who had been so eager to get a look at the body of their former mistress, also started to leave and continue with their daily duties. Their 10-year-old leader shot one last glance at the two coffins before also walking away.
"What about the second body?" one man with dark skin and without a shirt wanted to know. "Do you wish us to dispose of it?"
Damian considered the question for a moment and shook his head. "No," he replied, "Cover him up and… leave him here for now." Once more he turned to the coffin and his eyes found his own dead face. For a split-second his expression showed the sorrow he felt, but he caught himself quickly. "Benjamin will get his own proper funeral."
He ignored the funny look the assassin gave him and walked past him in the direction of the living quarters.
Melisande, however, was lost in memory, watching the dead woman in the casket with a loving glance. She raised one wrinkled hand and let it rest on the side of the coffin. "My daughter…" she voiced inaudibly.
"Benjamin?" the girl asked curiously. She had entered without a sound.
Damian stopped beating the training dummy, realizing with great surprise that the sun had already passed its zenith and that he had been hitting the silly training device for hours. His clothes were soaked with sweat. Startled, he turned to look at his visitor.
Cassandra stood by his bed, completely still and with a smile shining in her brown almond-eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless black cotton shirt and long pants made of the same fabric.
Remembering her question, he looked away, searching for a towel to wipe away the sweat on his skin.
"He needed a name," he mumbled a little defiantly. "Benjamin is as good a name as any other." He found the towel slung over the open door of the closet; he had to stand on his toes to get it down and rub his hair and face dry with it.
"It is a nice name," she agreed, the smile almost reaching her mouth.
Damian glanced at her over the rim of the towel, not quite sure what to read in her approval. He saw her eyes had wandered to the four pages and the little picture lying on the bed. She picked up the photograph of the dog and the injured boy and eyed it with great curiosity. The thought of the picture suddenly made Damian think of another child with bruises and broken bones, who was now lying way too still under a shroud in the entrance hall.
"NYYAAAAH!"
With an angry battle-cry Damian's fist hit the training dummy dead-center and the wood cracked. Damian's hand throbbed in the same rhythm as the knot in his chest. His jaw tightened and he breathed in deeply, fighting down the anger.
He had done the right thing.
Hadn't he?
Cassandra watched him calmly, any hint of a smile gone from her face. Damian closed his eyes and massaged his temples, suddenly missing his violin. That single thought made his rage flare up again: this was not his home.
Though he legally owned the island, under the alias of Ibn al Xu'ffasch, none of the objects was his – not the room, not the bed or the clothes, not even the pencils he used for drawing! He had not been able to take anything along when he had left Gotham City. Pennyworth or his father would have noticed something missing and that would have endangered the plan.
His last conversation with the British butler flashed before his eyes. Damian remembered how it had taken all his acting skills, skills nobody had known he possessed, to keep Pennyworth in the dark. He had pretended to be heading out to help his father in battle, when he had known that fight was impossible to win – at least with how the odds had been at that time. They had needed Robin to even stand a chance. Though in the end it had been the rage Robin's death had sparked in them that had let them win.
But Damian had not planned to return from the fight.
And no matter what lines Carrie Kelley had made him read during the acting lessons he had taken, that role had been the most difficult Damian had ever played. But he had mastered it to the point where he had only slipped once in the conversation, telling Alfred, "Take care of my animals while I'm gone." Luckily, the butler had apparently not noticed that Damian would never have said that if he had expected to return victorious in only a few hours.
But he had needed to be sure his pets were properly cared for.
Just like he had had to leave the letter in his locker for his father to find. Their last conversation had not ended on the best terms. Damian had not wanted to leave it at that. He had kept the language neutral, not giving away his plan to 'die' in the battle with Leviathan, but still getting across what he wanted his father to know the most. Mother may have given me life, but you taught me how to live.
Suddenly Damian noticed he was biting his lip so hard it had started to bleed. Cassandra glanced at him from between strands of her messy black hair while still pretending to look at the photograph. Then she put it back down on the bed, next to the letters she did not even try to read – those words were not meant for her eyes. Damian was not sure if they had even been meant for his.
From behind her back Cassandra presented a bundle and also placed it on the bed, careful not to accidentally crease one of the pages. "I thought you want these," she said unfolding the cloth holding the other objects from the coffin. "The rose was too fragile," she added, "I left it with Benjamin."
Damian stared at the two weapons, the book and the porcelain elephant. He took the tiny blue elephant and turned it in his fingers. Something to remember Grayson by… as if I could ever forget the moron! A fond wry smile made its way on his face and he picked up the book and thought what an excellent clue Treasure Island would have been for Grayson to figure out his location.
He put both down on the bedside table and turned his attention to the sword and batarang. When Damian had become his father's Robin, Batman had taken his katana away. The perfectly balanced blade had known blood – that of the Spook – but he had not taken it to the battle with Leviathan.
"Put the sword back with Benjamin," Damian said quietly. Cassandra tilted her head questioningly and he added with irritation in his voice, "It's a warrior's weapon – Benjamin died a warrior's death! He should have it. He deserves it more than I do." The bitterness of these words surprised Damian himself, but only for a short moment.
With a frown he realized how his hands had started to quiver and before he could stop himself he was kneeling on the floor and Cassandra's hand was on his shaking shoulders. He flipped it away, angry at the hot tears suddenly running down his cheeks.
"It should have been me!" he exclaimed, his voice high-pitched but still fighting against the sobs. "I should have fought that battle!"
Cassandra sank down beside him. "You fought that battle, Damian," she said sadly.
He shifted and pulled his knees close to his body, burying his face between them and giving in to one shaky sob. The images in front of his eyes were so lively: leaving the Batcave with his jetpack, but stopping half-way to Gotham to meet on a ship with Cassandra and the assassins she had hand-picked for this single occasion. She had not asked him if he was sure he wanted to go through with their plan – they had both known it was too late to change his mind by then. He had quickly stripped off all his clothes and changed into what they had provided for him.
Then they had brought in the boy. Damian remembered the scared look on Benjamin's face, how his lips had quivered, ready to start crying any moment. He had been an infant in mind, only out of the artificial womb for a few hours. They had prepared him to appear exactly like Damian, even artificially growing his muscles and adding scars where necessary.
It had all gone so fast: within a matter of seconds they had dressed his clone in the Robin uniform, protective gear and equipment Damian had been wearing when he had left the cave. Then the deception had been perfect and it had been time for the grand finale of their plan. But in a moment of compassion Damian had hugged Benjamin and whispered to him, "I'm sorry!"
From that moment on Damian had not allowed himself to think about what he was doing that night. He had stepped into the machine with complete indifference and had activated the spinal link. The machine had been built from his mother's plans and had been upgraded a little. Benjamin had provided no resistance at all, perhaps due to their shared genetic code, or the fact that he had never had the mental training Damian had had. Speaking through him had been no problem; every muscle had reacted as if it was Damian's own.
Then there had been that temporary high, at Wayne Tower, when 'he' and Grayson had successfully fought off Leviathan's people and, for a fleeting moment, Damian had truly believed they could win and faking his own death would not be necessary – that they could apprehend his mother and subdue her and end the war, and he would be able to return to the manor. With Benjamin.
But everything had turned out different and even though their initial plan had worked, Damian had not been happy with the outcome back then already.
"I should have died," he whispered to Cassandra with a shaky breath. "Instead I got Benjamin killed."
Cassandra did not reply, just sat close by and listened. So he went on, "I've killed before, often. But I had reasons! They were villains, evil people. Benjamin was innocent." The last part was almost inaudible and he sniffed before adding, "And his death was useless!"
Once again Cassandra tentatively put her hand on his shoulder and this time Damian could not fight it anymore and he curled up against her with a wet sob.
He had failed. He had messed up so badly.
"Why didn't she stop?" he asked nobody in particular. "I thought she would stop at my death! She sh-should have seen her ways were wrong… If she had just stopped she would still be alive and we could all be t-t-"
He was unable to finish the sentence and just cried while Cassandra gently stroked his shoulder.
AN 2: Batman and Nightwing comes out in less than 12 hours - if this is revealed to be what has happened (or a close variation of it) I'm standing a virtual round! If it is contradicted in a major way I will mark it AU. (August 20 2013, 21:42 GMT+1)
-Update-: Though I cried my heart out, Batman and Nightwing was incredibly great. I'm actually tempted to mark this AU because Tomasi's work on that last issue of his Five-Stages-of-Grief-Arch was perfect, but since I don't think that anything in there contradicts my theory, I will keep Treasure Island as my personal little headcanon. Feel free to join me in the land of Denial - we have cookies!
AN 3: Okay, I was heading to work when I posted this story and realized it's not as complete as I thought. I changed that now. Also, I included Cassandra in the character tags - I have never written her before and all I know about her is from Internet wikis and Gates of Gotham. I will try to write her like Pre-52 Cassandra and I will try to write her well, but changes in characterization and origin-story could be attributed to this pretty much being a New52 version of Cassandra (I'll try to keep her as close as possible - help with her characterization would be greatly appreciated!).
I based like 95% of this Damian-faked-his-own-death theory on canon:
1. Damian-clones exist, most recently presented in Batman Inc. (like Damian, the idea of them was created by Grant Morrison)
2. A spiral-link had been implanted in Damian's spine in Pre-52 Batman and Robin and had been used by Slade Wilson to remote-controll Damian (including speaking through him). (also Morrison's work)
3. Damian could totally pull off a plan like this, like he could organize the treasure hunt in the New52 Batman and Robin Annual without his father or Alfred realizing. (that's Tomasi's idea - but he pretty much knew what Morrison was planning all along)
4. Damian's private island is also canon - it was a Christmas present from his mother and he mentioned it to Dick Grayson in Streets of Gotham (written by Paul Dini)
Cassandra really is the critical part since I think Damian would have needed help, but apparently Grant Morrison himself claimed she would show up in the New52 at some point.
I will make some slight changes to this chapter probably today and will then write some follow-up chapters. I hope you liked my theory! Reviews are always appreciated! :)