Work Text:
Slowly Raising his sword towards the monster that brought Gotham to the rubbles and fires it was now. The screaming women and children, the rogues dead but other countless smaller criminals running rampant. He hated the person who did and caused all of this. His grandfather.
He was standing not five feet from him. Standing as proud as ever, head risen high. Even after losing his left arm in his great and grand plan to defeat Batman and recreate Gotham.
His hateful glare couldn’t be replaced with anything else; his father might have given his life to save what was left of Gotham, but he’ll give his to make sure something like this never happens again.
His hand tightening on the hilt and preparing himself into the now blood-etched perfect stance as the man begins to laugh.
“You always were more determined than just about anyone else, Damian Al Ghul.”
Even if he could never allow himself to become rash or irrational in a fight, he could only imagine him covered in blood in that moment.
“My name is Damian Wayne, as it is now and always will be.”
The fight was always skewed into his favor, he was barely even harmed in comparison in the destruction of Gotham, but it definitely didn’t stop him from obtaining his own injuries. It always terrified and awed him the sheer amount of power and technique he held. How he held it with so much instinctual grace as if it was etched into his bones.
That’s also why he could tell as their blades met for what felt like the hundredth time that he was holding back.
And for once maybe he was glad, he could move into the back of his mind, barely even remember that it was there. Because he didn’t know what it would mean if he wasn’t really trying to kill him as he was trying to kill him. And when the fight finally reached its end with him having cut off both of his grandfather's legs and him having a discarded arrow shoved into and through his lungs before he could even blink.
He held himself high as he held a blade to his throat and was holding down his only arm with his shoes covered in a cruel, brutal mix of blood and muddied soil.
He couldn’t decipher the look Ra’s Al Ghul held in that moment as before he could even properly commit to memory it vanished as if it was never really there.
“I always knew if anyone were to surpass me it’d either be your father-”
His blade inched closer to his throat, drawing a drop of blood as he continued to speak.
“Or you, Damian Al Ghul-Wayne.”
He couldn’t show his surprise, he wasn’t even sure if he could. But that couldn’t stop the heavy feeling from swirling in his heart. He wasn’t even confident of what else he had expected. What else could he have expected?
One thing that couldn’t have surprised him was the following laugh, Ra’s Al Ghul always the first to catch onto anything. It however, wasn’t a laugh that sounded even close to mockery, ridicule or from knowing or accomplishing something unexpected.
His last, and one and only arm finally moved. He found no reason to stop him, even the devil knew what he was capable of, but here he was, bleeding out and soon to die and nothing else to accomplish. He had finally gotten what he always wanted to achieve, the destruction of Gotham and the removal of the Batman to stop him from hindering his plans.
He just watched patiently to see what Ra’s Al Ghul would do right before his last moments before he had to face what he’d always feared too greatly. As he watched on with an immovable expression, one he made sure that he wouldn’t be able to read.
As the man's arm began to stiffen up and have difficulty with even the smallest movement he asked a singular question.
“What does the color green symbolize Damian?”
As his hand involuntarily grasped his now near broken sword and the place between his eyebrows and nose tightened, not bothering with the numbed-out sting and drop of blood that raced down his forehead. It had instead captured his attention as he watched it rolled down the side of his face and dropped between his still pinned down arm and torso. As he answered.
“If you think that any growth will come from the destruction and pain that you have caused you are sorely mistaken. As the only thing that will grow from this is more pain, destruction and bloodshed.”
He only gave a depreciating chuckle with a small smile and shake of his head.
“Perhaps you’re right.”
He answered with an unreadable expression, as if surprising him once wasn’t enough in this last exchange. And surprising him one last time as his head slowly began to lay down.
He wasn’t able to say anything as it slowly lowered until it reached the gravel, or as all and any muscles or tenseness he held disappeared. Unable to say anything as he threw his sword to the side, or as he scrambled off his dead body.
Kneeling down him as he gazed onto the empty eyes that no longer held anything, not even any faint sense or wisp of life. His own soul felt nearly just as empty as he couldn’t even feel a small tear rolled down, only watch as it temporarily darkened the gravel. He could remember the expression he wore just a few minutes ago with startling clarity as he realized.
‘Why did the look you gave me have to be fondness as you died by my hand?’
Only being spared by the hollow glass sphere that had begun rolling from the satchel his grandfather had finally opened in death. A hollow glass sphere that held the forever floating phoenix, delicately floating and fluttering in a wind that wasn’t there.
Moving more fluidly and gracefully than anything else that could never compare. An empty gaze staring at the emerald phoenix, unmovable, as he realized.
Realizing, as the emerald phoenix burst from the now shattered glass sphere and expanded all around him in a facsimile of the broken glass sphere, until the only thing visible was the timeless green what his grandfather really meant.
Watching as the extents of what the Lazarus pit could do was demonstrated using traitors of the League of Assassins. Ra’s Al Ghul stood beside him looking on.
“I dislike using such a wonderful, precious thing on such idiotic and useless people but it’s imperative that you understand the limits and capabilities of the Lazarus Pit, Damian Al Ghul.”
Straightening and righting himself as the use of his name caught his attention. Knowing a question would follow.
“What does the color green symbolize?”
He took a few seconds to think about it before giving his answer.
“Good health, vitality and nature.”
He gave nothing more than a simple nod, “You are correct.” Before he turned and faced towards him, looking down in a way that back then he was sure that he would always remember.
“However, it is also the color that symbolizes renewal and rebirth.”
Reflecting on those memories that he could now remember with clarity. All while he decided that he’d do everything possible to make sure that he and his family wouldn’t lose anyone again. Not if he could do anything to prevent it.
As he opened his eyes and came face to face to his father for the first time in this lifetime. As shocked and unbelieving eyes looked back on his own.
“Hello, Father.”