Stephanie's playing with the cars again.
Damian watches her dubiously, as she takes one of the miniature Hot Wheels and rolls it over the great expanse of her stomach. She pushes it slowly, pressing the little tires down into her shirt, so that she can feel them against her skin. Damian knows this, because she never stops babbling about how funny it would be if the baby could hear the sound of tires running over top of her.
"I need a shirt," Stephanie contemplates, as she chases a Corvette up and over her belly. "One that has a racecar track on it. Like those mats that toddlers play with? I need one of those. Just in shirt form."
"Mmhmm. I'll get right on that," Damian replies dryly, scrolling through several different feeds on his laptop. He rests his cheek on his elbow, propped up on the hospital nightstand.
It's a grey, usual morning, dotted with storm clouds that won't ever release their burden. Damian's looking at crime statistics, bothered that he can't be back home, at the Cave. He doesn't like being away for this long. It's been three days, stuck in a tiny hospital that smells like antiseptic and urine, an odd and unappetizing combination.
"I'm just sayin'," Stephanie replies, shrugging.
"Yes, you 'just say' quite a bit."
She stops driving the car along the fold of her blouse and gives him a look. "Oh, great, you're grumpy. It must be Monday. Or Thursday." She holds up a hand and starts counting off the fingers. "Or I guess it could be Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Christmas, Halloween, perhaps even Easter—"
"You're downright hilarious," he cuts in sarcastically, tapping the space bar and then closing the laptop. He turns to her, his hands in his sweatpants pockets.
Only in a hospital would he allow himself to look this casual. And only for Stephanie. For some reason, she likes his ruffled hair and t-shirt, the slight smudge of her lipstick against the dark-toned skin of his cheek. It's something he'll never fully understand. But she's easier to be around when she's happy. Mood swings are, unfortunately, a far too common occurrence with the pregnant klutz of a Bat.
"Move," he tells her, and she begrudgingly adjusts her enormous frame, allowing him room on the bed.
He climbs in, gently putting an arm around her shoulders as she lets out a relaxed sigh. He cranes his neck, lets her move her head so that it rests against his chest.
"How are you feeling?" he asks, his voice muffled by her thick, messy hair.
"Just fine and dandy," she replies cheerfully, placing the Hot Wheels to the side and welcoming his presence. "Hotshot here," she jerks her head towards her stomach, "decided it might be a good idea to settle down."
"She's a girl, Stephanie," he reminds her, as if she weren't aware of her own child's gender. "You can't keep calling her 'hotshot'."
"Sure I can. 'Specially if she turns out half as badass as I think she'll be."
Damian snorts in spite of himself. Of course Stephanie would call their unborn daughter, of whom they've only seen ultrasounds and sonograms, a badass.
It is a somewhat accurate title, however. The little girl hasn't even been born yet and she's caused as much trouble as a kid in their Terrible Twos.
There were the obvious, beginning problems—announcing Stephanie's pregnancy, confirming the relationship between her and Damian, explaining it all to the rest of the Bat family.
But then there were the unforeseen complications. Stephanie going into premature labor, calling Damian from halfway around the world—where he was attempting to settle business with his mother—telling him to come, media and paparazzi interference, so on and so forth that led them to this dinky Gotham hospital. After some magnesium sulfate and other medications that Damian wasn't allowed to monitor, Stephanie was ordered to bed rest at the hospital until she could go home again.
Damian is no pregnancy expert and doesn't particularly want to be one. But the whole thing makes him uneasy, lying in a too-hard bed with his pregnant partner and too many possibilities, too many fears, too many factors out of his control.
And the tiny object in his right pocket keeps burning against his leg, a nagging reminder. I'm still here, you know. Don't you dare forget about me. This is important.
He instinctively places a hand over the small lump, pushing it to the back of his mind. Best not worry about it now, he thinks. There are other concerns—greater concerns—at the moment. Gotham, his father, Stephanie, the baby. The baby that's been making his sleep even more restless than usual.
There are very few things that Damian actively worries about, because Damian's been trained like a machine. A machine is automatic, controlled. It knows just what to do with the parts it's been assigned. So when Damian's thrown an extra part or two, things start going haywire.
A baby, a little girl who he'll have the pressure of cleaning, feeding, changing, walking, teaching, and talking to. A little girl who he will have to raise, and raise well. And, God knows, Damian's never even dreamed of being a father before all this. It's not like he's had the best role model.
Frowning, he watches as Stephanie leans over him and grabs at her backpack, which is several inches out of her reach. After a few moments of struggling—where she whips her arm around like a noodle and strains her fingers forward—she throws him a nasty look.
"Care to help your pregnant lady friend?" she asks, her voice dripping sarcasm that challenges even his own.
He can't keep a small smirk from erasing the frown on his lips. Damian's always found Stephanie impeccably entertaining when she's irritable. Which is perhaps why he called her "Fatgirl" for so long. Of course, that nickname dropped after he found out she was pregnant—now that she was actually going to be "fat", or at least quite a bit bigger, the joke didn't seem appropriate. But that didn't mean he stopped getting a kick out of her midnight snack trips. She would lean over the refrigerator drawer and snarl about how cheese was too damn addicting, while he tried desperately not to grin.
He reaches over, lifting the pack with one arm and bringing it over to her side of the bed. Snatching it out of his hand—or rather, trying to snatch it (his grip is a little stronger than her noodle-armed pull)—she starts digging through the front pocket. After a moment, she pulls out a slender disk in a plain manila envelope, and holds it with her lips while she repacks and re-zips the bag.
"What's that?" Damian asks.
"It's a DVD. Put it in," she orders, but she's smiling.
"Excellent," he mutters, as he slowly lifts himself out of the bed and walks to the hospital room TV set. A lousy DVD player sits on one of the coffee-stained shelves, next to a wadded-up newspaper and a pair of Stephanie's socks.
He rolls his eyes. The ridiculous woman has been here less than three days, and she's already turned it into her personal trash yard.
He slips the disk out of the envelope and finds that it's unlabeled, looking like a typical blank CD. He looks back over his shoulder at Stephanie and asks, "What is this?"
She winks.
His eyes narrow. "Another one of your torturous romantic comedies? Where the man and woman spend the entire movie loathing one another, but, after some witty banter, decide upon sexual intercourse in the end?"
His partner throws her head back and laughs. "Nah, not quite. Just put it in, D."
Fighting the urge to sigh or make another rude comment, he puts the disc in the player and walks back to the bed.
"I will never know why I allow you to do this," he tells her, punching the power button on the remote. "I don't believe I have ever decided what movie we are to watch. Instead, I let you manipulate me into watching Scarlett O'Hara chase an unattractive man about the Southern plantations, when we could easily be watching something with a far greater educational value to our future."
"What, like The Godfather?" Stephanie asks dryly. "I know what you men are like with your movies. And don't hate on Gone With the Wind, it's a classic." She takes a self-satisfied bite of the apple she's pulled out of her bag, another one of her pregnancy snacks.
Damian snorts. "Classic or no classic, it took the God-forsaken woman an entire 3 hour and 44 minute movie to figure out the 'right' man was the one she'd been married to for years. Why you women find that 'romantic', I will never understand."
"You're a guy, you're not supposed to understand," she points out. She shows no hint of surprise that he remembers exactly how long the movie was. Instead, she throws a pillow at his face before he can say another word. "Now. Shut up and watch the pretty animated coral."
"Pretty animated what?" He moves the pillow out of his way and lets his eyes find the television screen, where an all-too-familiar Disney castle is lighting up in front of a blue background.
Ohh, no.
Damian remembers this Disney castle, alighting before a different movie. In this movie, there was a little baby lion, with startling yellow eyes, nudging the corpse of his dead father. Begging dear old Dad to "wake up." Wake up and smell the coffee, Dad, you're supposed to be teaching me things. Helping me. Not lying here in the middle of a gorge, your chest frozen in place, no longer lifting and falling with the rhythm of your heartbeat.
You said you'd always be there for me. But you're not. And it's my fault.
It's my fault.
The movie was The Lion King, a ridiculous number about talking lions that sang and danced and acted like real people with real feelings. Stephanie had shown the movie to Damian on one of their nights at home, probably trying to get a reaction out of him. Trying to teach him something about his own relationship with his father. His father, the all-powerful, eminent teacher, the great and wise sage. The Batman. Who was taken down by a single bullet.
Such a simple, almost pathetic death. Over in an instant.
An instant that shook Damian to the bone, rattled him to the core, surprising him with how much it hurt.
Damian Wayne was a man generally unsusceptible to pain—he took bullet wounds and gashes like they came with his breakfast. But watching his father bleed to death—because of a .308 Winchester bullet—snapped something inside of him, something he hadn't known existed. It wasn't like a bone fracture or a torn ligament. Ligaments and fractures could be mended physically, with tools and careful instruction. But this new pain was something Damian couldn't locate, something he couldn't fix. He just had to deal with it.
And, for that reason, Damian understood little Simba better than he cared to admit.
So when the Disney logo appears on the hospital room's television screen, he can't help a creeping sense of dread from plucking at his spine.
Not again. Not more psychological analogies provided by meerkats that walk on two feet and warthogs with immature flatulence issues.
But when he glances over at Stephanie, she's smiling at him. An odd smile, full of a gentle fondness. Like she's looking at a child. It warms her face and makes her pallid skin look a little rosier, so he decides not to say anything. If she's happy, he can at least try to be.
"So what is this one about?" he asks. "I've seen talking lions, talking dogs—"
"Talking fish," Stephanie interrupts happily, and hugs a pillow to her chest. "Now shh."
"Oh, talking fish. Much better. Perfectly reasonable," Damian says, but he leans against the headboard and lets her rest against his side again.
The movie starts simply enough. A deep blue ocean spotted by groups of, as Stephanie put it, "pretty animated coral."
The camera flows through this scene, capturing little fish that zip through bright flashes of color. Eventually, it settles upon a little blob of pink, a group of coral that sways back and forth with the tide. Out of this blob of pink comes a pair of clownfish. And, as Damian expected, they start talking.
The female clownfish is, creatively enough, named "Coral." She has no defining female characteristics that Damian can see—besides an overly annoyed tone of voice that may hint she's pre-menstrual—but Damian decides he'd better not mention it. Coral's mate has been blessed with the ever-so-masculine title of "Marlin," and is trying to convince Coral that "the drop-off" is the perfect home. Damian sees little appeal in it himself—it's far too open and flamboyant for a reasonable Bat abode—but Marlin seems perfectly pleased with it.
After some pointless dialogue, Coral and Marlin swim down to a little sea cave, in which about four hundred tiny red eggs are settled, each one touching another and quivering in the dim lighting. The clown fish coo over these dots for several minutes, fantasizing about their future parenthood. In the midst of this, Damian can't help but glance down at Stephanie.
She's watching the movie with her lips pressed in a tight smile. She's planning something with this, testing the waters a bit; he knows it. Just like she did with The Lion King.
His eyes waver over the balloon of her stomach.
There's a little fighter in there. A bouncing baby girl, who shares his DNA and his characteristics, shares his blood and his secrets.
A bouncing baby girl who is only human, just like Damian's father. Just like Damian himself.
This thought brings an unwelcome flash of pain through his chest. He forces it away with a considerable amount of effort—it's like he has to literally lift a weight off his heart.
Pathetic.
His attention is called away from Stephanie's pregnant belly by an abrupt silence, courtesy of the movie. The clownfish duo have suddenly stopped talking, and are sitting motionless in the water.
It's at this point that Damian starts to actually pay attention. He isn't sure why exactly—why should he care about the emotional preoccupations of anthropomorphic sea creatures?—but something tells him it's time to listen up. Indulge Stephanie.
This is important.
The slender object in Damian's pocket brushes against his leg again, as he focuses in on the television screen.
Don't miss this chance.
There's a barracuda. It's lurking in the open water, staring back at the clownfish with teeth like knives and cold-blooded killer's eyes.
Damian knows those eyes. He's seen them a million times before, on the face of the Joker, Bane, Kobra, Scarecrow, Penguin, Croc, Black Mask, Zsasz. His own mother was a murderess, and she had often encouraged him to be the same.
Death came to him so naturally. It was an aspect of his life that he accepted without question, without challenge. He took it as one takes a bittersweet pill every morning, knowing that another day of training with his mother would bring newly spilled blood and freshly burned tissue. First was Sunnat, his young Middle Eastern friend, who was Damian's beginning test. It was absolutely vulgar, forcing Damian to kill the first true acquaintance of his childhood. But it got easier after that time. Slashing throats and breaking bones became second-nature, and devilish tendencies seemed like good instincts to follow.
But Stephanie changed that. She caught him one night, many years later, after he'd killed a man in cold blood. He hated her at the time, as he hated most people who got in his way and made life more of a challenge than it already was. But Batwoman slowly showed him a different path. A path filled with cheap, store-bought ice cream and Oreos dunked in 2% milk. A path overflowing with irksome quips and galling explanations, self-control and foolish kisses. A path that didn't belong to Batman or the Al Ghul heir, but it belonged to Damian and Stephanie and that was what mattered.
So watching death yet again, even in the faded screen of a 20-year-old hospital television set, makes him clench his fists. Because he understands only too well.
In the movie, Marlin is desperately whispering to Coral, trying to get her back into the anemone-house, and out of harm's way. But Coral keeps glancing down at the eggs, keeps ignoring Marlin.
Then things move rather quickly. Damian isn't surprised—death is always so much faster than people expect.
Coral dives downward. The barracuda reacts, slicing after her through the open water, and Marlin charges forward, crying out. There are brief flashes of knocking skulls and striking fins, and then Marlin is thrown backward, stung by the anemone. All goes dark.
Silence.
Stephanie's hand is absently stroking Damian's knee. An ever-present comfort, even though he needs no comforting. This is obviously not his first experience with death, and Stephanie knows that even better than most people. And this is a child's film, for God's sake.
Still. He doesn't want her to stop.
Marlin wakes and it's just as Damian expects. The lighting is dark, the ocean quiet, softly drifting back and forth in a sad rhythm. Marlin is gasping for Coral, swimming in circles, but of course she's nowhere to be found. And the eggs are gone as well.
Marlin floats into the tiny cave, trembling with emotion, his breath coming out in ragged gulps. It's strange, how oddly natural these tremors look and sound, considering he's nothing more than a decrepit fish.
Stephanie's hand has stopped moving against Damian. But he can still feel its warmth, the soft skin of her palm, the calluses healed now that she's taken a maternity leave from crime-fighting. He breathes slowly, deeply, watching as Marlin starts to back out of the cave.
And then something catches the fish's eye.
It's just a glimmer. Could have been easily missed, really. A little speck of red hiding near a rock, partially buried in the sand.
Marlin drifts over to it, slowly takes it into his fins.
It's one of the eggs, of course. The only one left. A tiny thing, crimson, like blood, concealing and protecting the shaking shape of a premature fish. There's a jagged etch along the surface of the egg, scarring the translucence.
"It's okay," Marlin whispers. "Daddy's here, Daddy's got you. I promise I won't ever let anything happen to you. Nemo."
And, for a moment, Damian and Stephanie are again met by silence.
The rest of the movie passes by in a rush. It's an explosion of one-liners and stupid jokes and tugs at the heartstrings, provided by a neurotic father, a socially-reformed shark, and a mentally unstable Blue Tang. Stephanie smirks and giggles at all the right moments, chewing on her fingernails and smiling as she recognizes every heart-warming moment of the movie. Damian watches her face, as it melts from laughing to distraught, surprised to whimsical, in perfect timing with every second of every scene.
She's such a strange combination of woman and child. Both literally and figuratively.
He's enchanted by her. As if she isn't quite real. Like she's a storybook creature, a nymph or a princess or a talking fish in an animated feature. Something he can hear, taste, smell, but can't quite touch. Even if her hand is still resting against him—it feels separate, somehow. Special.
He takes a step back from his thoughts and nearly groans aloud. The insufferable wench is turning him into a right sap.
She falls asleep before the movie is over, right after Marlin is finally reunited with his son. Her breathing evens, her enormous stomach rising and falling gently, pulling the bed sheets up and down with it. Her lips are slightly open, her eyelashes brushing the skin beneath her eyes.
"Next time I'll have to show you Up," she mumbles, before she completely drifts off.
Before long, she's snoring like an old man.
He sits with her for the better half of two hours, sitting and thinking, his right hand absently moving through the great nest of her hair. He only stops when the laptop on the table stirs, beeping and coming automatically to life.
Slowly adjusting Stephanie's head, he slips off of the mattress and onto the cool linoleum.
He checks the time. 2 in the morning.
He isn't tired. Stephanie is asleep, Stephanie is safe, the baby is asleep, the baby is safe. The hospital, however dinky Damian finds it, is a good one. The nurses come at regular intervals, checking on any changed conditions. No one but Tim and Cass know that Stephanie is even here.
And Gotham is calling.
He has a decision to make. And, oddly, it feels like déjà vu.
When has he made this choice before? When did he make the wrong decision?
Go to Gotham, or Stay with Stephanie? It's like a reality TV show for lunatic vigilantes. Pick your best bet, folks! Give it a spin!
Stephanie's fine, Damian tells himself. The baby isn't supposed to come for another few weeks, now that the preterm labor has been stopped. Stephanie will be allowed to come home in a few days, and all will be well.
He swallows, hating the creeping doubt, the unusual anxiety, the conflict caused by the angel on the mattress.
It's been three days since he last went on patrol. Gotham needs him. He can get out his impatience, his frustration, with a few quick snaps of the fist. Save a few lives while he's at it.
It's what his father would have done.
He nods. Yes. It's what Bruce would have done, and thus Damian should do it too. After all, he is the Bat now. The only real Bat left, the only one right for the job. Jason Todd is too unstable, Cassandra too unpredictable, Drake too much of an immature child, Barbara too insolent, and Dick too…gone. Disappeared into the winter wind.
Damian unfolds a small piece of stationary from the side pocket of his laptop case, and scrawls a letter to Stephanie.
I apologize for leaving without telling you, but I didn't wish to wake you. I should be back before 5 this morning, in case you wake before then. I highly doubt that, considering your usual habits, but I thought I would tell you nevertheless. Please alert me if anything is to go wrong; the comm link will be hooked up all night, should you need me.
He pauses, then adds:
I love you.
-D
He feels better. At least now she won't worry about him. And he will stay true to his word. Only a few hours of patrolling. And only simple things—no cracking a mob boss tonight. Maybe stop a few bar fights or a robbery. Check out the Hadler case, the ten-year-old girl who went missing two weeks ago. Keep it light.
He walks over to the corner of the hospital room and picks up the small duffel bag he uses for occasions such as these. He unzips the bag and pulls out Dick's old Batsuit—the light grey one with the thinner material, fitted specifically for Dick's agile figure. It's not nearly as reinforced as Damian's father's costume, but it'll do for a bit of low-tech reconnaissance work.
And, besides, it reminds Damian of Dick. Hell, it smells like Dick. Brand-name cologne, sweat, Men's Speed Stick deodorant (or something similar), lotion—Dick's hands always got cracked underneath the material of Bruce's gloves—and the sharp tang of the glue the men used to fixate their masks.
It's been years since Dick disappeared, and the suit still smells like him.
Thinking of Dick reminds Damian of the small object he left in his sweatpants pocket. Carefully, he steps around Stephanie's bed and grabs the pants, removing the object from the lint-free pocket (Damian does all the laundry in this family, not Stephanie) and secures it in his utility belt.
Much better. Dick would approve.
He leaves through the window, following Bat tradition, and stops to take one glance back at Stephanie. Her face is towards him—he can see the scar running up her left cheek, faintly illuminated by moonlight.
He breathes a sigh, and drops into the night.
It seems that, no matter how many years pass, Gotham never really changes. It was crisp last night, it's crisp tonight. Alive, and eating at its people with jaws that are never satisfied.
But Batman will keep feeding it. As per the orders of Bruce Wayne.
There's an unusual amount of adrenaline running through Damian's veins tonight, highlighting his muscles, striking a match to every nerve. He whips about the city like a spark from a lighter, a wisp through the trees, his every move picture perfect. The cape snaps behind him, following the shifts and changes of his body, as he moves from rooftop to wall to sky to street.
He is the spitting image of his father.
The city is a thrumming instrument beneath his feet, the cool September air a razor against his exposed skin. He flies over a flashing police car, a sight to see.
And then he stops.
He's in an alley, not unlike the one where his grandparents were shot and murdered. The cape settles around his feet as he takes quiet steps forward, surveying the area, which he knows to often be rigged with drug dealers and junkies searching for a late-night fix.
Instead, he finds a man sitting against a crate.
Damian stays in the shadows, as is only natural. He only recognizes the man after using his father's cowl to enlarge the man's face, peering at the scars which claw about his neck.
It's Zsasz.
Hot anger flashes through him like wildfire, while also cooling every tendon into something like metal, like steel.
And he doesn't know why.
Sure, Zsasz is a relentless, perverse, undeserving creature, belonging in Arkham with the rest of the insane animals, but no one incites this kind of reaction from Damian. No one. Not unless they've recently done something. And Damian hasn't seen Zsasz in months.
Still, every organ in his body screams at him to attack. No holds barred. Attack.
But, before he can, the man speaks.
"Batman. I was hoping you might come."
Zsasz sounds genuinely pleased, if it is possible for him to feel such emotion. How he knows that Damian is in the shadows is another question. It's as if he sensed him.
Damian says nothing, but his lips stretch into a snarl. He has to squeeze his fingers into fists to keep them from reaching out and grabbing Zsasz, strangling him within an inch of his life.
It's been a while since this kind of violence has been desired by Damian, offspring of Talia, son of the Bat.
"So you made your decision." Zsasz's voice is a serpentine hiss, combined with the reasoning tone of a middle-aged man. "This is the second time in a row, Batman. History is repeating itself yet again, I'm sorry to say."
Silence. Damian has no idea what the maniac is talking about.
When Batman doesn't reply, Zsasz decides to give a hint. He continues to lean against the crate, staring at nothing in particular, but he raises an eyebrow. "The girl? This is the second time you've left the girl on her own, knowing that you should have stayed." He wags his finger mockingly. "You really should learn to follow gut instincts, Batman. They're a gift, trust me."
Damian allows a Batarang to slip into his glove.
Zsasz is talking about Stephanie. Zsasz knows about Stephanie.
But what is he talking about? When has Damian left Stephanie before? And how could Victor Zsasz know about it?
"Hush for a moment," Zsasz says ironically, seeing as Damian has yet to say a word. The man finally stands up, placing his hand on the crate. A sudden gust of wind blows the hat off of his head, and the bald skin underneath is revealed, lined with hatch marks. Slowly, he turns and points down the alleyway. "Now, tell me what you see."
Damian's eyes narrow, but he follows the line of Zsasz's arm across the street. There, leaning against a concrete wall, is a girl.
She's around 5'8", a pale Caucasian, medium build. Very American. Long blonde hair, neck hidden by a purple scarf—one that's wrapped just a little too tight, meaning it's hiding something. Grey, suede boots cover thin, muscular legs. Her arms are pressed around her body as she bundles against the slight chill of the evening.
Damian would recognize Stephanie anywhere.
A startled call rises up in his throat and he has to force it back down—he's in the field now, and can't risk revealing his identity or Stephanie's.
But what in the HELL is she doing out here?
"So, what do you see?" Zsasz asks calmly, his arm still raised and pointing, covered in its menagerie of hatch marks.
In his hysterics, Damian almost misses the fresh scab that's budding across Zsasz's forearm. A long, uneven one—cut with a bad knife, from the looks of it, but with a surprising amount of vigor.
Damian's eyes flash back to Stephanie and everything suddenly clicks. Zsasz, being here. Stephanie, standing in the street. The new hatch mark, with its thin line of blood trickling down like a sliver of canine drool.
"NO!" he bellows, losing every ounce of remaining power over his body.
Stephanie is the one constant in his life. And being the walking, breathing paradox she is, that constant has turned his life upside down. She's the one thing that breaks his control, that makes him feel something other than the iron-hide teachings of his father, his mother, his blood. Everything is so different with her.
And that's why he needs her.
He leaps at the exact moment Zsasz does. His legs propel him forward and he's slammed himself into Zsasz with absolutely no mercy. He hears the satisfying crack of rib beneath the arch of his foot. His fist brings blood on the first blow. Then he takes off.
He doesn't even turn to see if Zsasz is still running—the glint of a knife in the moonlight sends him into overdrive. Clipped thoughts now—only necessary ones.
Zsasz, knife. Stephanie, vulnerable.
Within thirty feet.
In the name of your father, RUN.
He roars Stephanie's name and she turns suddenly, staring at him with huge, turquoise eyes. Her arms are covering her core, protecting the swoop of her pregnant belly.
Damian's lips and throat go dry, as he sees the blood inching down from the corner of her mouth. It's shockingly crimson against the stark white pallor of her skin.
Zsasz laughs—a shrill sound that somehow reminds Damian of crunching bones.
"You left," Stephanie whispers as he reaches her, as he grabs both of her shoulders and stares at her with all the cool composure of a madman. He must be truly frightening, his eyes bloodshot and the cowl covering the majority of his facial features. But she doesn't look afraid of him—just sad.
"What are you DOING out here?" he demands of her, trying not to shake her, trying not to choke on his own words. Doesn't she understand what this does to him? Doesn't she understand how much this scares him, how much he's already been worried about her? And now she goes and practically throws herself in Crime Alley like an oblivious child?
"You left," she repeats, and now she looks accusing.
"I left—" He stops, as he remembers the scarf. An unknown compulsion—call it intuition, which Damian didn't believe in until tonight—makes him wrap his gloved fingers around it. And pull.
It falls away from her neck with ease, revealing what it was hiding.
A maze of intersecting and criss-crossed hatch marks—fresh ones—cover her neck and seep down towards her chest, overflowing onto her collar bones and scathing the swell of her breasts.
It's everything Damian can do not to vomit.
His throat works but nothing comes out of his lips. He can't think, can't process. It doesn't make any sense, none of this makes any—
"I'm sorry, D," she whispers, and this time her eyes are back to being sad. There's a glint of something else, but he doesn't know what.
And then she's gone.
One second, his fingers were wrapped around her biceps, and now she's gone. Just vanished, before his eyes.
He staggers backward, almost losing his footing, his mind racing and his breath working his diaphragm into something ridiculous. He whirls on Zsasz, his eyes livid and fists curled. The animal is sitting several feet away, wiping blood from his face and grinning at Damian with crooked teeth.
Damian grabs him by the collar and throws him against the wall, shoving his fist beneath the animal's chin and pressing against his windpipe. Enough to hurt, but not enough to prevent him from speaking.
"WHERE IS SHE?" The voice of Batman screams from the cowl, the deep reverberations of Bruce Wayne's vocal cords emitted from Damian's.
There is no control here.
"Find out for yourself," Zsasz says, his voice rough and hoarse but unmistakably gleeful. He points again. This time, he points behind Damian, beyond him.
Damian whirls around, a man on fire, stripped of his pragmatic sense of well-being and left only with the rusted interiors. This is ludicrous. This is unreal. Stephanie can't have been here, she was at the hospital, people don't just vanish into thin air—at least normal humans don't. Zsasz can't have carved her up so terribly, she would have fought back, she would have—this isn't—
It's a church. Zsasz is pointing at a church.
A haunting familiarity sends gooseflesh rippling down Damian's arms and legs.
The church is not particularly exceptional—it isn't the Sistine Chapel and it isn't even Gotham Evangelical. It's smaller, with long, stained glass windows, depicting Mary and Joseph and Noah and Moses and Daniel in the lion's den. It's dark-washed, with grey stone and granite, dotted with little statues, flooded with shadow. At the top, a cross stretches its tip towards the sky.
A cross that is illuminated by the BatSignal.
Damian, for one of the very few times in his life, ignores the signal. Whoever needs him right now can wait. Instead, he focuses on the light which skirts the edges of the cross, and finds what he knew the light would reveal: there's a door up there.
He charges forward for no reason—a reprehensible act, if he were in his right mind. But he isn't. He hasn't been in his right mind since he left the hospital, since he left Stephanie's side, and now he's only gone steadier downhill.
"I saved her!" Zsasz shouts as Damian throws him aside, kicks him in the gut and ties him to a light post with his line. "I SAVED HER! You tried to ruin her, Batman! But I saved her!" Then he's laughing—not a maniacal Joker laugh, but an exhausted, almost choking laugh. "I saved her. I did."
Damian thrusts the doors of the church open, finding them unlocked and the church deserted. The pews are empty, the hymnals all tucked into place like sleeping babies. Stephanie's in here. Zsasz sent her here, Damian knows it. God knows how he did it, but he did.
There's a lone candle sitting on the altar, and its tiny flame flips and curls as Batman rushes by, his cape trailing behind.
All he can think about are those hatch marks. There was blood dripping down her skin, flooding down her neck like a forsaken waterfall. Her lips were turning blue, her windpipe slashed, her throat disconnected. How could she talk? It wasn't scientifically possible, there was too much blood, too many cut muscles.
How did Zsasz get to her? She was lying in bed, as dead asleep as a teenager who just finished her last-minute finals study session. She had her utility belt with her—there were plenty of tools she could have used to defend herself. How could Zsasz tear her up so cruelly, without gaining a single scratch himself?
Just that awful, jagged gash along his forearm. And that one, Damian knew, was self-inflicted.
He can't breathe.
He takes the stairs three at a time, thankful for his long legs, and tackles the remaining staircase by using his grappling hook and flying up to the top level.
The door. There's a door here, he just—
There. It's three feet to his right, a giant oaken door with black metal hinges. His fingers reach for it as if drawn by magnetism, an invisible force, and he closes them around the doorknob.
There's a cry in the dark, as his fist crunches the iron.
He twists and pulls.