Bruce's heart could burst in happiness at the scene before him. His family was finally complete. Damian was talking with Tim about the upcoming art show he has with a worldwide-known photographer in Paris. Meanwhile, Cass and Dick were ballroom dancing, and Alfred was serving everyone tea and his famous cookies. Jason was chatting and chuckling with Steph, bruce had always known those two would get along. Barbara was smiling at the scene next to me, while she typed away on her computer. I was enjoying the quietness, watching my family with a full heart, when Barbara made a choked sound- we all turned to look at her worriedly. She wore a shocked expression, turning to look from her computer to Damian and back stunned.
"Oh! You finally found out! What do you think?" Damian smiled slyly at Barbara.
"What's going on?" Tim asked defensively.
"He bought Arkham," we all stared in stunned silence at Barbara, before turning to Damian and Jason in disbelief, both of them were wearing sly smirks. "Half of the staff has had their license revoked and were blacklisted to ever work in the psychiatrist, medicinal, and pharmaceutical areas."
"That's the surprise you were talking about Jay-lad?" I questioned my second oldest son... well, the third one now that he has Damian in the equation.
"Yep! Brilliant right? The place will no longer be a rotating door to criminals, they'll get the help they need and Rachel will have a place to hunt in peace," Jason answered with a smile.
"Hunt?" Cass asked, tilting her head confused. She did not read any danger from Jason's body language, but she was sure the word hunt was not harmless. "Hun what?"
"For madness," Damian sighed with a sad smile. "Rachel is not 100% human."
"Is she an alien?!" Steph inquired excitedly.
"No, she is half-demon," Jason replied. "We better explain things to them akhi," Jason turned to Damian, ignoring how their family was staring at them like hawks. "We've already told them the story of how we met and dealt with The Shadows, what's one more story?"
"You are right," Damian sighed. "It's not like we've got something to hide," he walked towards the fireplace and turned so he could face all of them. "After two-thirds of the league died, it was an all-out war for the access of resources, intel, and territory that The Shadows possessed. Especially, after The Light went down with them. No Savage, no Light. He was the only thing keeping the villains working together on the same objective. I... I was not in a good place back then. No matter my intentions, I indirectly caused a lot of deaths."
"They were already dead, can you be blamed for simply returning the balance between death and life?" Barbara commented.
"It's not those deaths that weigh on me," Damian confessed, expression closed off. "As you said they were already dead, and while the scene coming back of Nanda Parbat littered with corpses will forever haunt my dreams... it was my recklessness back then which I loath."
"What do you mean?" Steph asked confused.
"Before the situation got stabilized during the intelligence war, many innocents got caught in the cross-fire," Alfred answered solemnly. "Judges, cops, civilian bystanders, there was a sudden spike of kids with the meta-gene kidnapped."
"Those deaths will forever be in my hands," Damian growled punching the fireplace.
"Akhi," Jason murmured shaking his head, as Dick walked towards his lover and wrapped his arms around him.
"If I had thought out the repercussions of my actions or planned out contingency actions, things might have turned out better... maybe Mara would still be alive." Damian choked up.
"You can't think like that," Bruce spoke up. "If you do, you'll forever live in the past, regretting every decision you've made. Your actions were made with good intentions..."
"Good intentions do not equal good actions!" Damian barked, cutting him off, before taking a breath and continuing much calmer. "Sorry."
"You are right, they do not. But you can learn from your mistakes and do better next time," Bruce continued calmly, walking up towards his sons and hugging them both.
Bruce was truly showing off how much he had advanced in his sessions with Dinah, as once upon a time, he would have not seen this situation this way. Killing was wrong to him, no matter the situation. There was no excuse or explanation. Or at least, it was like that...
"Akhi, deployed what was left of The Shadows to keep the situation under check and have their violence directed at each other via manipulation from the shadows." Jason continued for Damian, as his brother clung to his lover and their father. "It took a while, but with Rose, Maya, and Jade in charge of the field, it only took a few months to stabilize the situation. It did help that no one tried to betray Damian, everyone was too afraid, still are," Jason chuckled. "Tara brought a whole new situation into our hands, but in the end, it was what we needed to bring them all down in one sweep. Plus it did give us the support of a whole nation, and got us three powerful allies."
"Tara came to us, after being trained by Wilson, she was very confused. Deathstroke had brainwashed her and used her as a weapon, well... it did a number on her." Damian picked up for Jason, though he remained between the embrace of Dick and Bruce. "We investigated the situation in Markovia and found out about the corruption and their link to The Light. With The Light weakened and we bringing back the missing princess, it was easy to infiltrate the palace and convince her brother to aid us. In between the whole situation we found Violet, who in reality ended up being the reanimated corpse of a girl via the power of a Mother Box, which created Halo." Damian chuckled at their stunned expressions. "I know, we could not believe it either. Violet's body was from a girl who did not possess the meta-human gene."
"Bastards! The whole of them!" Jason cursed angrily.
"They were also experimenting with a Mother Box, dissecting them, unfortunately, they killed her too... in the least leap to save herself, the Mother Box transferred what was left of her into the closest available body," Damian explained.
"Fascinating..." Tim murmured amazed, eyes shining with science!
"Bad for them, but incredible for us! Violet's power is incredible, united with Terra's and GeoForce's, they were able to stop the nuke that fucking hag Waller launched," Jason growled. "We were pushing her to act irrationally and finally catch her... however, we did not expect her to fucking launch a nuke!"
"But it did its work and the war was finally over," Damian sighed.
"But..." Cass pushed for an answer, being able to see more than the rest of her family.
"But that also had unexpected consequences..." Damian confessed. "The Light had ties with aliens, which got us hunted down by Granny and The Furies. While we were working with Constantine to have the information folders magically delivered to the reporters and lawyers, making sure no one would slip through the cracks, they were reigning mayhem on earth looking for us."
"They did find us," Jason chuckled without any humor. "John tried to get us to safety... but Granny messed up his portal, making us fall on Poison Ivy's fucking territory of all places!"
"That's a joke, right?" Babs inquired, not believing the ridiculous situation they had found themselves in.
"Nop," Jason deadpanned. "Harley was even paying her a visit."
"SHIT!" Steph cursed, ignoring Alfred's 'language' as Jason has been doing since the start.
"Once again John tried to get us away from Granny and The Furies, but they messed up the portal again, this time with another two crew members," Damian shook his head.
"Shit!" Now everyone was cursing, even Alfred did not scold them.
"Now you would think that the third time is the charm, wouldn't you?" Jason deadpanned. "We landed before Rachel this time, and when John tried to create another portal his magic reacted to hers and we ended up in a desolated landscape."
"The Furies and Granny were killed in one sweep, and we were faced against something much worse," Damian had to contain a shiver at the memory. "We were faced against Trigon..."