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Damian snapped his gaze to the door when the knock came. The dream so fresh in his mind that hearing Drake's voice made his body tense up. It was just a dream though, wasn't it? Drake hadn't... really seen all that had he?

It all felt so real though, he could almost still feel his mother's coiled grasp trying to smother him and smell the gunfire from the ships. Really though, Drake's death shouldn't have stood out for him so much, it was just another life snuffed out. He'd taken plenty of his own, not that he was very proud of that anymore.

Just how many fathers, mothers or even children of people had he killed under his family's orders? Or even for his own survival... and at times for just amusement. It was a question that had been weighing on his mind ever since he came back from the dead. All through his attempt at redemption. So why did Drake's weigh on his mind at all? He hadn't even been responsible for it...

"What?" He growled out when he realized he hadn't answered.

Edited 2018-02-21 04:59 (UTC)

"Just wanted to talk." Tim let himself in, pausing a little before sitting down on a desk chair. Ok Tim, time to work that ex-Robin friendliness.

"So. I just had the strangest dream..." He trailed off, keeping his eyes on Damian to check for any reaction. "I don't usually remember dreams a whole lot, but this one was pretty clear. I saw you in it, and... I saw the Tim from your world."

Damian looked away quickly at Drake's story. So much for keeping this all contained, but how did they share a dream in the first place? "Did you now?" He thought to fake ignorance, he really did, but the question of how was nagging him enough not to.

"Seems you’re intrusive behaviors have now pushed into other people's dreams. Congratulations, Drake." Yes, this insulting people until they go away thing just always worked so flawlessly for him. A clearly uncomfortable look on his normally impassive face is starting to peak out. He had managed to keep this to himself and having it ripped out and displayed like this was just so unexpected.

His dreams were his own dark little secrets and to have them shared with Drake of all people? "I suppose there isn't a way for you to forget what you've just seen is there?" Damn photographic memories.

"That's detective life for you: poking your nose into other people's business." The chair creaked as Tim shifted so he was straddling it backwards. "If it helps, it wasn't something I planned on doing tonight." He hesitated. Did it count as 'voluntay' when he'd purposely gone towards Damian's dream? Probably best not to mention it.

He couldn't really blame Damian for the hostility. Voluntarily talking to him was a little surreal, still. He could barely stand to look at Damian before he left Gotham. Going through hell on his trip and having to befriend his would-be assassins had given him some perspective. The new name helped, too. But that Damian had been... another Damian. At least this one was trying to be good.

Now it was just-- they were starting to get used to eachother, if nothing else. At least, he hoped so.

"Nope. I'm not exactly great at this 'talking about your feelings' thing, either, but I figured we should anyway." If Dick were here, he might've just let him deal with it. But he wasn't.

"I know you don't want to talk about it, so I'll start. ...Were you there when he died?"

Having Drake seek him out and speak to him was most definitely out of the norm. Though, it had been longer than he cared to admit since he bickered with the other. Still, right now, Damian didn't have it in him to bicker or even lightly insult.

"It's more I wouldn't know where to begin." This wasn't really a subject he had to deal with before, but without work to take up his time and a Drake pretender living in his house? The subject of the latest lost member of the bat-family was weighing harder on his mind. Still, if Drake thought he knew where to start from, he would for once allow the other teen to lead this one.

"I was not..."

So that meant it had been an unusually vivid reimagination. That was odd. He'd have understood if the impact of seeing someone you knew die would've retriggered some kind of trauma in Damian's short but efficient life as an assassin. But this...

"...When my dad died, I wasn't there, either. I just saw... what was left." Tim began slowly. Of all the things he thought he'd be talking to Damian about, this was definitely not one. "I still dreamed about it, though. A lot. What if I'd been sooner. What if I hadn't left him alone? There's no easy answer. If I hadn't been Robin, he would never have been a target. If I hadn't been Robin, then he would've died a lot sooner than that."

"Your Tim was better equipped, better trained, and better prepared-- there's no telling when you'll die in our line of work. He would've made it count. And he would've wanted it to count for all of you."

The boy listens silently, mostly because he is stunned to have Drake actually talking to him about something so personal. He couldn't imagine walking into his father in such a state. The very idea of it made him feel so anxious and angry, but he has killed to protect his father... and though he promised never again. He can't really say that he wouldn't again. "Did you ever find the person who did it...?" He asks softly. 'Make them pay...'

"Tim Drake died with honor protecting the city we all swore to keep safe." He said, keeping his gaze downcast. "It does count." He said even softer. "All of our deaths count..." For that city father seemed to love even more than them.

"Of couse I did. He wasn't even a supervillain, just some B-grade crook for hire- now he's in prison. Lucky him." Tim hadn't gone to visit. He wasn't sure he could.

That was... "And if he's anything like me, it was worth it." He reached out to touch Damian's shoulder, a bit unsure if he'd be rebuffed.

"It's not your fault, alright? Even if it feels like we should be able to save the people who matter most, we can't save everyone. Not even Superman can. We live. We push through. We fight. We save more to make up for what we lost." That was all they could do.

It was how he'd ended up here in the first place. At first, he'd thought maybe he'd died. That he'd calculated too optimistically, after all.

Edited (format) 2018-03-06 05:06 (UTC)

To lose one's parents was one thing, but to lose them to some B-lister? Well, that was just fate making it personal. That bitch.

Damian sharply turned to look at the hand on his shoulder, narrowing his eyes in suspicion but doesn't remove it. "Tt, I never said his death was my fault." It was Father's if anything for not keeping a better eye on him, but in this life of work, things happened. "Even Superman doesn't save everyone." But he got what Drake meant.

"Of course if I was there I probably could've done... I don't know, something. It's been months and it still doesn't feel completely real to me." He admitted, sounding kind of lost. Having lost family was still a hard thing to swallow for him, especially when you come from a family that has a nasty habit of coming back.

Edited 2018-03-09 00:50 (UTC)

Tim kept the hand on, though it felt a lot like putting it in the mouth of an alligator. "Maybe. Sometimes you can't. This time you couldn't. That just means you learn from it." The dark time when he hadn't been sure what to do and everyone had died- he supposed he had Bruce and Dick both to thank for not losing himself to it. But it never took away that they were gone- even when his friends came back.

"Anyone who passes on leaves something behind. Loved ones. Memories. And lessons. I like to think a little of everyone can always live on through me."

Damian didn't know cliche sayings or he might've accused Drake of stealing that line from a 'Sorry for your loss' card one would get at a funeral. He instead takes a moment to think about what Drake has said.

Loved ones? Drake left plenty behind. Same with memories. He made an impression even if Damian liked to tell him he was the 'Easy to forget Robin'. Truth was that it was more Damian trying to make his predecessor forgettable by pushing himself to do more. To overshadow him... or at least try to.

Lessons learned from this? Drake's death has taught him that perhaps he didn't hate Drake as much as he thought. Too bad he had to die for Damian to figure that out. It also reminded him of just how easily his family could come and go. Father, Grayson, Todd and now Drake? They've all died at least once and he just wasn't learning how to stop it from happening. "It has taught me something... I need to keep a closer eye on you lot because you all keep dying when I'm not looking." He said moodily.

First thing. Get more material to make more trackers. There were no Lazarus pits here... if they die here that was it. That wasn't going to happen now that he was here to watch you all.

Edited 2018-03-13 19:37 (UTC)

"From the sounds of it, I'm not the only one," Tim said drily. Which definitely was something they should talk about at some point. Sure their mortality rate in this job wasn't great, but it wasn't like Batman was operating alone anymore.

"We'll be okay, we don't really have a target on our backs here, for once." No Jokers or Ra's or any of the usual crazies that followed the Bats around. It was almost paradise, aside the crippling boredom and niggling sense that he could be doing something more. But... what was he really needed for, back home? Nothing in particular. Maybe he should consider this just a very weird afterlife.

"You can relax a bit." Besides, he was already keepnig tabs on his little alternate universe family enough for them all.

"No, we've all passed in some way or another back in my home." Fake death. Real death. It's touched most everyone in their family. "We don't, but we still shouldn't let our guard down. The Joker was here right under our noses after all." He remind Drake, because this still didn't sit right with him, so not quite the perfect paradise.

Drake maybe keeping tabs, but that still slipped past their radar. Relax? Not a chance.

"...Wait, you all died? Dick and you too?"

That had been a chilling realization. Sure, the Joker had been lying low in unfamiliar territory, but the idea that any of Gotham's worst could get in here at any time as they could was disconcerting. You couldn't plan properly when you didn't know the variables. But he supposed if it were Bruce he'd just make a plan for all eventualities.

Still, there was time to think about that- and he had a sinking suspicion Damian's approach would be far more direct than would be approved of.

Edited 2018-03-18 06:39 (UTC)

"Grayson faked his death under Father's orders, but the rest of us, yes." Damian said casually but didn't meet Drake's gaze. He refused to let his own death hold him back. He is here now, Mother didn't win and that is all that mattered.

“Why? Has the Damian of your world not disappointed mother?” Was he disloyal to Father? Was he succeeding in ways he had failed in the quest for the cowl? That would explain why Drake was so hostile to him when he first came.

"...What happened?" Tim asked a bit awkwardly. No matter what, the idea that any Robin had died again- Bruce's own son at that- it was a tragedy. He wondered what Damian thought of it, if he did, still. Was it the reason why his nightmares were so vivid?

He wasn't actually sure what Damian's relationship with Talia was like, back home. He'd always been Bruce-centric, though. Or Cowl-centric, maybe, since he hadn't seemed all that worried when Bruce had died.

"I wouldn't be able to tell you- the Damian from my world was only kind of close to Dick. He kinda stepped in as your dad, too." The idea that Dick could fake his own death on Bruce's orders--- well, it wasn't surprising, but it was baffling.

"Mother couldn't get what she wanted from me or Father. She pitted me against my own brother ...and brother won."

Damian is a bit surprised by Drake's surprise. Did his Damian not have the same relationship with mother? Was her love not as fleeting and only present when Damian was doing right by her eyes? "You don't seem to know much at all about your Damian." Not surprising, he wasn't at all close to his Drake and now...

"That much hasn't changed. Grayson is still the preferable choice to all of you." Grayson was still the only one that thought to give Damian a chance, even when Father doubted him, Grayson seemed to always believe he could do good even when Damian was at his worse.

"Wha-- you have a brother? Biologically?" Holy heck. How many had Talia made? Did she have an army of baby Damian-to-bes? He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Still, it made a twisted kind of sense. The Al Ghul had always been all about Natural Selection. "Do you remember much of it?"

Tim rolled his eyes a bit at the 'Grayson' comment. Not like he could talk about favorites, but then again, he wasn't sure he had one anymore. Still, Damian could pick worse. "He's not perfect, but it's definitely easy to forget about his faults," he agreed.

Edited 2018-03-23 11:29 (UTC)

"Yes." And no. "He was a clone, so we're of the same blood which makes him my brother. As were the others." There was no question of this. They all suffered the same stolen childhoods and Al Ghul training. They were his brothers. There is some sadness in his tone as he remembered them. "Of my death? I remember every detail." Kind of hard to forget.

"Tt, never said he was perfect." Damian knew very well Grayson had his faults. You all did really, even Father, but Grayson's were just easier to forgive. "But he showed me what video games are. So he gets more leway." Okay, that wasn't the only thing, there was so much more, but to get into those kinds of details about how Grayson gave him a purpose. Showed him there was more to his skills than what mother told him. That he was the first to really treat Damian like family. He just wasn't ready to admit that out loud. Not even to Grayson himself...