Uncertain Beyond
By TwinEnigma
Warnings: Character Deaths, timey whimey shenanigans; Spoilers for Batman #666.
2.
"The victory is in the preparation," his father used to say.
Damian knows he hasn't been the best of sons, nor the most obedient, but that's one lesson of his father's he's revered above all else. Some call it cheating, others call it psychotic, but it works for him, for Neo Gotham, like nothing else can.
He's not the Batman Neo Gotham wants, he knows that. He's not his father. He's not Grayson. Hell, Gordon rubs that in every chance she gets – not that he can blame her. She loved his dad in her own way and holds him responsible for his death. And, in a way, he is.
This suit, Batman, his father's legacy and the promises he'd made his father that night are his penance. And everything he's done now is a means towards fulfilling that promise, even if it meant selling his soul at the crossroads to the Devil himself. There's a spot in hell waiting for him, carved with the names of everyone he's destroyed.
The hot summer air tastes of sulfur and blood and, licking his lips, he can almost taste the black emptiness in his heart.
The Apocalypse is coming. He can feel it in his bones.
Damian breathes out, rising from his position.
He's not going to let it happen. He's got a plan. It's taken years to pull together in secret, years, and he can't wait to see the look on the Old Dragon's face when he drags him kicking and screaming back to hell.
It'll be a suicide mission. He's got no illusions about that. The Dragon will get what it wants, in the end. The Batman will die.
But Damian's been planning for this since he was fourteen and he knows truths that even the Devil ignores: the Batman cannot die, not so long as his city needs him. When one dies, another will rise to fill his place. It is the way of things and the ultimate triumph of his father, this legacy which survived his death and will continue to survive into the beyond.
Damian's cheated death long enough. He's just been waiting now, waiting for the right one, delaying the Apocalypse until he finds a worthy successor.
And here, on this street, he thinks he's found that successor.
He's been watching this gang for a while, but it's the boy that doesn't fit. Of all the candidates he's considered, he likes this one best. The boy's new, from a decent home with recently divorced parents, and he's obviously a little leery of what he's doing, but so desperate to impress the big kids that he's willing to accept the position of lookout. The boy is fast, agile, and there's something about his face, something of Damian's own self, that is jarringly reflected in his eyes and bone structure. It's almost eerie.
He reaches down, grabs the boy by the shoulder and tugs him up, ignoring the squeal of terror from the preteen. The boy's scream for help alerts the older delinquents and they scatter immediately, stolen goods forgotten. He will attend to them later.
"Let me go! Who are you?" the boy shrieks, beating his small fist against Damian's arm uselessly.
"I'm your new best friend," he says, shifting into the light.
The boy's face pales considerably, fresh horror washing over his face. "Oh slag me."
It's June, the summer heat unusually high, and there's something wrong with the way the air tastes, the way it seems to choke and suffocate him. It makes Terry's skin crawl.
In the distance, lighting crackles, but promises no release from the broiling heat – it's just heat lightning.
Something strange, animal, runs down his spine, telling him to run. It's weird, reminds him of that incident from a few years ago, the one that put him on the straight and narrow and landed him in the Boss's employ.
As if summoned by the very thought of him, Terry's cell sputters to life: "Boss calling."
He accepts the call.
"There's armor in your cycle. Change and bring the Sword to 5th and Main."
"Be right there," Terry says.
He's been asked to wear armor before, but the Sword wasn't standard equip. It's special, something about sealing light and heaven, and he's been hanging onto it for the Boss. He guesses whatever dreg it's needed for just strolled along into town.
He opens the cycle's secret compartment and pauses, foreboding curdling in his gut as the black material spills into his hands, red bat triumphantly blazing across the breast. This is not his normal armor. This is the Boss's prototype armor.
It's not like him, but the Boss always has his reasons and Terry's learned not to ask. The Boss knows what he's doing, even if he can be slagging annoying about it, and he's never let him down.
And yet…
Terry's worried.
There's something about the way the suit was given to him, the way it conforms so easily to his body, and the way the bat settles across his chest that makes his guts clench in fear, as if there was more to this than just asking him to armor up. Maybe his Boss, the great invulnerable Damian, is not coming back this time.
He streaks across the city in the armor, cowl down and the Sword ready. Flames and lightning lick across his armor as he draws close to 5th and Main and when he finally bursts through, it is into a warzone, the very picture of hell itself. And there, wrestling a howling beast of something nightmarish and ever-shifting to a standstill within a circle of glowing salt and painted runes, stands the Boss.
"Now, Kid," the Boss growls across the comms. "End it. Use the Sword."
The air is filled with sulfurous fumes and voices, hissing of hell and that the Bat is no longer invulnerable, that he will die.
Terry hesitates.
"Focus, Kid! Tune them out," the Boss says. "Demons lie. I'll be fine. Protect the city."
The whispers increase in volume and desperation, wailing that this Batman lies and cheats and is a horrible monster, a killer.
Terry grips the sword tightly and plunges forward on rocket propelled boots, ignoring the voices of the demons and of his horrified Boss. His Boss lies. He knows that. But the Boss is no monster and there's a demon to stop. The white-hot, glowing Sword slides through his Boss, through the thing, and, around them, the runes and salt turn white as well, the glow increasing in intensity.
Terry hangs on to the burning Sword, closing his eyes as the explosion starts, and wishes.
Years ago, Damian has an odd sense of foreboding, as if a strange hand has just brushed his neck, and suggests that they try another entrance. His father gives the fourteen-year-old a questioning look, but doesn't say anything. Later, neither mentions the sniper they subdue or that the sniper had his gear aimed at their previous entry point.
AN:
And Batman #666's Badfuture here, where Bruce died when Damian was 14 and Damian sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads to become invulnerable so he could survive being Batman in Nightmare Fuel Gotham Gone Mad. This is the same Damian that announced to Barbara Gordon that the Apocalypse is cancelled until he says so.
Damn it, Terry, Damian wanted you to help him seal the Devil and himself into hell and have you become Batman, not retcon the timeline and inadvertently save your gene-donor dad's life and prevent Damian's soul from being sold. You rascal, you. Making things better.