Written for anonymous – "Damian snaps when his mother refuses to call off the clone and furiously yells at her for letting Nyssa Raatko destroy the woman his father had loved?"
Talia does not respond to what she assumes is her son's last request. The Fatherless raises his blade high, and Damian tenses at the last possible second, shouting up into his twin's face:
"So this is it, Mother? She wins? You've finally acknowledged that the only way you could possibly own Father is in breaking him! The way that Nyssa Raatko broke you!"
Her sharp intake of breath echoes in Talia's own ears, and her creation hesitates—too acutely attuned to his Maker to risk defying her wishes.
"How dare you?" Talia demands in a hushed voice, because it is not Robin who asks her this. It is not Damian Wayne.
It is her son, Damian al Ghul … Ibn al Xu-ffash, heir of the Demon. It is her son, brash and cruel, twisted up by Talia's doing and capable of anything by her own training. It is her son, the one that cannot be cloned or replicated, the boy who could one day rule the world and choses not to. It is her son, her Damian.
"You are not my mother; you are not the woman my father loved. You are Nyssa Raatko's toy … even now, long after she's dead!" Damian is edging back and away from the Fatherless, but he keeps talking, spilling all the hateful things that Talia has tried to hide. "She didn't love you! She didn't believe in love so she tried to take away everything you loved, and you let her! You're letting her now! You are just like her!"
"Finish this," Talia orders, her command ringing in such a way that not even the unfortunate experiment could misunderstand. "Now."
She cracks the closest scientist across the face with her open hand, throwing her comlink to the ground even as the Fatherless moves to obey her order. It is too late; Talia has already lost her clean victory. Damian is now out of reach, and the Batman has arrived. Even if by some chance Robin falls in the ensuing melee, it will not have the same, carefully-researched effect.
Her son had distracted her with his lies and machinations, Talia decides furiously as she cuts the power to the machine. Then she catches sight of her reflection in the empty vid-screen, and it is not Talia al Ghul who stares back at her.
It is Nyssa Raatko.
"She wasn't no match for such craft, you see?"
- Mrs. Lovett; Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street