Prologue: Zero Day
He arrived in Gotham dressed in solid black, as though mourning the day he was to meet the man who fathered him. The black line of Lincolns drove along the city streets, as if a funeral procession delivering him to his final destination, deep within the earth. The people of the city watched the peculiar, but impressive site. Unbeknownst to them, their once lost prince had returned, hidden just out of sight beyond the darkened glass. His face was heavy, as though he'd been dragged to America in chains, leaving behind the life he'd known somewhere in the east: leaving behind the only father he'd known. Damian was regarded as the Son of the Demon's Head, after all. His only heir, but far too young to sit atop his throne.
Damian al' Ghul was born the son of Ra's al Ghul's only legitimate and favorite daughter, Talia. A woman of great status, bred from a long line of warriors and noble blood. She was formidable in combat and remarkably intuitive: As deadly as she was beautiful, and beautiful she was. Damian inherited many of her finest qualities. He was a brilliant fighter, his keen senses lending themselves to his ability to strategize, his sharpened wit ever at work playing through scenarios and sequences of battle. But it was unknowingly his father's obsessive nature that absolutely made him such an accomplished young swordsman.
Damian, though pleased with the treatment and training of his beloved grandfather, would have been lying if he said the identity of whom his true father never crossed his young mind. He'd suspected, based on his proper Christian name and some of his features, that his father was of western descent. There were also a few rumors among the servants as to whom the boy's father may have been: Mainly several of his mother's past lovers, or more disturbingly, Ra's himself. Damian found that little more than shallow gossip. There was only one name he felt had any real standing: A Mercenary, well known and well trained. A commemorated war hero, notably respected and possessed many of the qualities that Damian was so fortunate to inherit. It made sense, but in the end, maybe it didn't? Nor did it fully matter to anyone but Damian. So it appeared no one truly knew his parentage. Every man was a story or conquest, passed down second hand by the cleverness of their servants. Until the day his mother told him she would take him to America.
The cars travelled beyond the heart of Gotham and entered its outskirts, heading towards Wayne Manor just off the coast. Damian watched as this new world rolled by, the trees grey through the light fog and drizzling rain. It was nothing like he'd imagined it, not that he'd imagined it much at all. Still, he expected more from what they called the land of promises .
"You'll have to get used to rain," his mother said, seated beside him. She too dressed as if she'd flee this world.
"Why are you doing this?" Damian asked from stormy eyes, still making sense of his grandfather's death.
"Because it is what is best for you now," she reasoned through her thick accent, "it's what he would have wanted."
"Why?"
"Because, Damian, you're not just an al' Ghul, but a Wayne. And you're about to find out how impressive that is."
Damian glanced away, unable to bear the weight of one crown, let alone the second now bestowed upon him. He felt the cars slow as they came upon a mammoth cast iron gate, its thorny spikes rising toward the dresden sky. The gate opened without command and they drove up the lane, its bends narrow as they curved through the thick sheath of sheltering trees. The drive was quite long, the manor not even within sight. Until the trees that kept it hidden grew sparse, and the old home materialized before the boy's very eyes. The car stopped, and the boy stepped out upon the cobblestone drive, glaring up at the monumental Gothic structure before him, calmly impressed.
"It's almost as impressive as our palace stronghold," the boy said, bemused.
"You do not know, my son," his mother replied with a smirk on her face.
The boy peered over to notice her smile seemed fond; the sight of an expensively dressed man emerged from the manor, set to greet them. He stood tall and proud, his shoulders broad amid the soft falling rain. It merely took one look upon the man's face to see his paternity was true.
The man visibly froze at the sight of the boy in black. He too realized that God had given upon him a son. With a sense of pride and prodigal fear, he approached the boy, followed closely by a servant man. The man first paused and greeted the lad's mother, her face filled with her usual flirtatious nature, which Damian admittedly found rather annoying. The sight of his mother indulging in her bedfellows something that unpleasantly repulsed him.
"This must be Damian?" the man acknowledged, shrugging off Damian's mother, and placed his attention on the boy, not so in question.
"I am," he replied, not allowing his mother to answer on his behalf.
"Well, it's good to meet you, finally." the man replied, "I'm Bruce..."
"I figured as much," Damian replied coldly, the pause in his father's voice unnerving in a way he found unexpected.
"Why don't you both come in out of the rain?" Bruce suggested, ignoring the boy's dismissive demeanor.
Damian shrugged with little feeling and followed, flanked by his mother. The butler opened the door as they entered the Manor, walking into the belly of the beast. Damian was thoroughly taken with bewilderment beneath the cathedral style ceiling and grand staircase of the foyer. Its grandeur unlike the world he knew, but elegant all the same.
"Welcome home, Damian" Bruce exhaled, the boy's expression cold and uncertain.
"Here," the servant man said in a rich British dialect, "let me take your coat, sir."
"Damian, this is Alfred," Bruce added, introducing the butler. "He's a close friend."
"You befriend the help?"
Bruce's brow knit, but explained to the boy, whose upbringing resembled something of an older time, that Alfred had raised him after the death of his parents. He also explained that he felt it necessary to treat those under his employment with dignity and respect.
"But aren't they beneath you?" Damian replied, as the concept of equality was lost on him. Due in part to the teaching of his grandfather and mother.
"People are more than their status, Damian," Bruce replied, and guided the boy by his shoulder. "Now I think it's time you meet your brothers."
"Mother said I was your only son?"
"They're adopted," Bruce clarified, "but they're still as much your family as you are mine."
He steered Damian out of the foyer and into the den just down the hall, the fawn and slate marble echoing beneath his feet as he followed. Upon entering the room, he was greeted with the sight of three young men, ranging from the ages of young teens to early twenties. Each one had dark hair a similar color, their skin tones varied. The eldest (Richard) was more olive and kinder looking of the three. The youngest one, Tim, was closest to Damian's age: his build was wiry, but not nearly as athletic as the elder two, Damian finding the boy seemingly unremarkable. But it was the middle one that struck him most. Bruce introduced him as Jason, his face fitted with an aged brow and greying hairline, much too mature for a boy in his late teens. As if he'd lived a life that aged him, leaving him the coldest of the trio.
The other two were cordial, though Damian wanted little to do with them, and made it abundantly clear. Richard didn't seem to take the boy's frigidness to heart. Understanding Damian was now a world away from his home. He felt sorry for this unusual child. Tim, however, took offense to his nature and quietly found the boy threatening.
Bruce observed their exchanges and dismissed his wards and Talia, wanting a word with his newfound son alone. Damian watched as Alfred ushered the boys out, though his mother remained paused, looking at her former lover the way a mother looks at the father of her child. Bruce looked back at her, silently requesting her leave, which she ultimately submitted to. The sight shocked Damian; he'd never seen his mother back down from any man, not even his grandfather.
Bruce waited till the door was closed and studied the boy further. He resembled his mother strongly, but was undoubtedly his father through the brow and jaw. But what struck Bruce the most was the look in Damian's green eyes. One his father's held when he thought he wouldn't see someone for a long time: The last look Bruce Wayne's father ever gave him. A reminiscent expression softened his face, and he noticed his mother about the nose. Even so, Bruce found the boy quite peculiar: He didn't speak like a child, nor did he act like one, his movements were smooth with the refined masculinity of a man twice his age, the confident look on his face unnatural for a boy hardly twelve.
He truly is my son, Bruce thought as he looked upon the boy's familiar face.
"I don't want you to take this the wrong way," Bruce began, "but I had your mother administer a paternity test."
"You don't trust Mother?" Damian questioned as he walked to the wall of books, reading the titles to himself.
"Unfortunately, no."
"That's smart of you," he agreed, liberally pulling a book from the shelf. "Were you disappointed in the results?"
Bruce furrowed his brow at the boy's words, a little saddened by his question. "No. Confused at first, yes, but disappointed, no."
"Why not?" Damian challenged. "I can't imagine a wealthy American, like yourself, wanting a bastard son like me?"
"I don't see you that way, Damian," Bruce reasoned, and looked down at the book in his hands. " Girolamo Cardano 's De Consolatione?"
"I've always wanted to read it," the boy reasoned. "Sadly, however, I do not speak Italian. Grandfather promised to teach me."
Bruce grimaced as the boy's words withered to a virtually unnoticeable sadness, and he tucked the book back into the shelf. "Well then, it's your lucky day," he replied, and plucked a book from a higher shelf above him. "I have the Earl of Oxford's translation right here."
He held the book out, as if offering the boy an olive branch; he just hoped he'd take it. It wasn't a bond, but it was something. Damian took the book in his hand, but said nothing and changed the subject:
"This library is impressive?"
"Thank you," Bruce replied with a smile, "though you have my father and grandfather to thank."
"Men of great literature, but you not so much?"
"No, I've read every book in this library at least twice. I was merely lucky that most of this collection was already here. I hope you find yourself lucky."
"We'll see what the translation has to say."
"Yes, but this might help?" Bruce said, reaching up and taking hold of a titleless book. A doorway abruptly appeared, as if out of thin air. Damian in both shock and paused, glaring into the dark stairway that awaited him just beyond its mouth.
Bruce motioned for the boy to follow, stepping over the threshold and descending the long row of stairs that led them into the dark cavern below. Damian followed him, stepping into the chill, allowing himself to be swallowed by its darkness, and discovered the cave for the first time. He looked on with awe as he beheld the bewildering sights around him, perplexed by the very wonders and oddities of the one they called the Dark Knight.
"You're him ," Damian muttered before the great legend of the cowl, set to rest behind a pane of pressed glass.
Bruce hung his head humble, yet proudly, confirming the boy's discovery. "Guilty."
Damian turned, peering upon the torn grey and black uniform, and followed each one down the line, until his eyes fell upon colors of a Robin .
"What does The Dark Knight want with the blood of an al' Ghul? "
"You're also a Wayne," Bruce explained.
"Am I though?" Damian replied with an air of doubt, though he could see himself evidently in the Dark Knight's face. "Blood is not always thicker than water."
"But water is sometimes purer than blood," Bruce affirmed, stoically. "You were raised a world away from my own. I am as much a stranger as I am your father. I know I have to earn that title from you."
"Do you wish to do that?"
"In time."
"What if there isn't enough?"
"You're still very young."
"My grandfather spent his life out running time; in the end it eventually caught up with him, and you're not that young."
"Are you afraid of getting close to me because I might die?"
"That would require me to care."
"Damian," the man said, and placed a hand on his shoulder, though the young warrior shrugged away, despite that, Bruce tried, "I understand you've lost someone dear to you, someone I should have been, but sadly wasn't. I won't claim it wasn't my fault, that would be a waste of the time we're given, and you don't strike me as someone who entertains excuses. Now I do not expect you to abandon the memory of your grandfather, but I hope you can at least give me the chance to be the father you deserve and the father you have now."
Damian glared up at his father, his expression telling Bruce he was just out of reach. And yet, there was something beyond Damian's eyes that said he could be.
"What about the Batman ?" he asked, his eyes unmoved.
"What about the Batman ?"
"He is my father, is he not?"
"Only because I am the same man."
"And who are you to him?"
"Is that indeed a question?" Bruce replied, the boy not backing down from the challenge he'd put forth.
"I only ask, because to him would I be Robin ?"
"Possibly, when you're ready."
"And when would that be?"
"When it fits you."
Damian looked back at the legacy before him. His own image reflecting off the glass, his father in the distance looking on. "Alright," he agreed, though reluctantly.
Bruce nodded, hoping the boy's stubbornness was not as ingrained as his own. "I have something I want to give you?"
"What is it?" Damian questioned curiously as the man held forth yet another book. " Watership Down ?" the boy read aloud, perplexed.
"It was the book I read after my parents died. I thought maybe you'd find comfort in it."
"Why would I find comfort in a child's book about rabbits?"
"Because it's more than a book about rabbits," Bruce explained with a slight smirk. "It's a book about survival and loss, and overcoming that loss. It's rich in history and mythology. The rabbits are a kinder vehicle to tell such a complex story."
"I suppose I could give it a read?" Damian capitulated with slight intrigue. His childhood unfulfilled by such tales of wondrous worlds, where creatures spoke and lived lives filled with the entanglements of men.
"It may surprise you. You might like it more than you think? That's if your mother hasn't effectively stripped you of your childhood."
"Where I am from one's childhood ends upon their thirteen birthday," Damian stated, as if annoyed his father wasn't taking him more seriously.
"And how old are you now?"
"I'm more than twelve."
"Then there is still time for you," Bruce smiled, wanting to give his son the childhood he'd lost. Even if it was just a glimpse. "I want you to understand that even though you've been raised in a more — we'll call it a complex — environment, that you and I are not all that different. I know what it's like to live in the shadow of the man before you, and I know what it's like to lose him before you are ready to fill that shadow. I lost my father long before you'd have considered me a man; my childhood died with him — it died with them."
"I can't recall a time where I've ever known a childhood?" Damian said, in a moment of unbeknownst tragedy.
"Like I said, there's still time. Until then, I'd like to teach you what it means to be a Wayne."
"What about an al' Ghul? "
"That was your grandfather's legacy, not mine."
"So am I just supposed to forget all he taught me?"
"Only the parts that make you less of a man."
Damian recalled those words hitting him with disdain, as he inwardly revolted at the notion that his Demon Blood was less than the blood of a rich man. It was only now, as he stood at the foot of that rich man's grave, dressed in black once more, beneath the dull November sky, that he realized, his father only wished to have a hand in sculpting the man he'd become. Through trials and tribulations, the milestones of his youth, he honestly wanted his son to be given the life of which fleeced him. To spare him the slings and arrows of a life struck by fatherly loss and the empty nest of a mother's heart. To sleep, and sleep soundly, to dream… of a life far beyond the dark shadows that plagued Him . That chilled his own heart against the consorts of genuine love and forgiveness. He wanted Damian to be more than the monolith known to the world as the Batman . He wanted Damian to be whole, not severed at the soul and the bone. But free of the constraints dealt to the Dark Knight. Bruce wanted his true son to be the man he could never be. Yet was destined to.
Damian read the words carved deep into the stone ahead: Here doth the hero rest, his soul free beyond his earthy quest. And yet, let this age old question be said: If there is nothing truer than truth itself, then what is there to tell? He shuddered before the sight, struck still at the edge of his father's grave. He wanted to scream at the sky and cry into the cloud break above. To the God responsible for taking his father away… but he couldn't. Not before the masses and the "mourners" who only half heartedly mourned.
"Truth and beauty buried me," he managed with little more than a fist full of dirt and a freshly cut rose.
Raven ( his Raven ) glanced up at him, her heart bleeding for his despair. "Then here truth shall rest, and may beauty once find you again."
Damian swallowed his pain, his pride, and disdain. But his doubts, they laid bare, written in the lines of his young and disquieted face. He threw down his rose, and covered it with the dirt from his hand, whispering a prayer that his father quietly melt into the earth and breathe life once more. For the circle is king, and the circle is whole, but upon those that speak only science discerns, he thought in a wary daze.
He looked down into the hole in the ground, his hand bound within the raven girl's grasp.
"I fear without him I'll die," he confessed, just under his breath.
"Die, you will not on me," she breathed, her lips pressed close against his ear.
He gave her hand a tight squeeze, the press of her skin reminding Damian he was still alive when the breath in his lungs wasn't enough. He glanced at his mother: not far. Her demeanor too calm and unfitting for the window she'd become. Her face remained unmoved, as if her beauty were stone; it left him shuddering from the opposite side of the grave. Still, he shook off her stoic nature as normal. Her blood was al Ghul through and through.
Does she feel anything ? he thought, alone before the converted earth. She must… how could she not?
Sad music played, a song fashioned for tears and torn hearts. The girl named Raven tugged at his hand. Only the boy, barely a man, refused to go.
"Damian," she began, his brow sunken as he looked down, "I think it's time?"
He shuddered inwardly at the thought and waited a moment before he spoke sincerely, unwilling to leave. "Would it be wrong if I stayed?"
"I don't believe so…"
"Then I'll stay until he's buried."
"Then I'll stay too."
He gripped her entwined hand, holding it firm in a grateful embrace. He truly didn't want to be alone. Without her there was nothing, only silence and the gravedigger's song. But that was a moment in time. A moment in which there was still a future ahead: For the tomorrow that awaited him was one of betrayal, distrust, and a throne lost.
