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"Hhhn. An assassin is somebody who takes on the task. The assignment. She doesn't." There is a difference.

Damian huffs out a breath. "Of course I have been using knowledge as I have been taught to. Only not to the same extent and for the same reason. It's what I am, Rayner. Words, fists, blades, what I do is hurt people, with what I know. The only difference is that I don't hurt people merely because I want to, or because somebody told me to. But to protect other people. What do you think I have been doing as Robin?"

Only the difference is Damian continues to use it to demean himself, but Kyle will keep pushing, slowly.

'Who you are isn't set in stone. Robin is a hero, my hero. He saves people, gives them hope. That's what you do, for me. That is one person you will never hurt. Never.'

It's fact. Damian didn't consider it demeaning until Dick made him reconsider a lot of things. But it's still what he is, so Kyle keeping on pushing...

... well.

The boy actually shudders a little at those words, mouth turning down a little.

And what if I do?

Instead, he lets them float in silence (a little tense, a little angry) for a while.

"Once, while Father was... missing. The Alien had brought in his body, verified that it was genetically him, after the battle. And Grayson wanted him back. Wanted not to have to be Batman anymore. So he took the body to a Lazarus Pit in England. I told him not to, well, I had told him, before I'd had to leave, go get my spine replaced. But just as I was returning, he went and did it anyway."

Damian was on a wheelchair, with a neck cast, when the crazed thing, smelling of rot, had arrived at the Wayne Tower penthouse. It hadn't mattered.

"It turned out the body wasn't Father's, it was a clone that had already been killed, at the battle. A flawed clone - bun one who'd had a transfer of Father's memories. His thoughts. It... we fought. It's the one that confirmed that Father had run a DNA analysis on me, though that was hardly surprising. And it said... that Mother had created me and sent me over to tear apart all that Father has worked and fought for. That is... what the person who is best fitted to gauge Mother's intentions and abilities thinks I am. Probably why he did not consent to making me Robin."

Which - he's allowing him to remain Robin, now, both here and back home. And, yet.

"And I can't say it is not the truth."

He takes a deep breath, which works out strangely choppily, so he takes another, forcing himself to be smoother.

"But I won't help her, even if that is the intention, my actual purpose. I am Robin, and I won't let that go unless somebody makes me. It is only that I am also the - the rest, too. I can't stop it. I'm..."

Words. How do they work. "It is good that you see what I act on, because it means I'm not failing at it. But - you also see the rest." Or you should. "Don't turn a blind eye on it. Don't let me catch you by surprise if something does go wrong."

Edited 2013-07-13 16:33 (UTC)

There are times, when one stops fighting the current, and lets it carry them, or they sink.

Kyle sinks. The water flows over him and he can barely see the light, his fists are clenched, and the nails are digging into his palm. The words don't mean much to him as much as the tone does, the maelstrom of emotion Damian is holding back, and letting loose in small waves (because there's so much of it, nothing else can be done or the listener will drown. Like Kyle is drowning.)

The first thing he says is the first thought that came into his mind when he was listening.

'You shouldn't have told me this.'

His voice is quiet, and... brutally honest. He worked with Bruce, he wasn't supposed to get involved with family business like this. It was unprofessional, and he wasn't one of their people like the Arrows were. Yet Damian doesn't have anyone. Kyle wonders if he's even told Dick about this, that the reason he thinks he'll snap is because some undead Bruce clone (it would a funny phrase in any other scenario) told him he would destroy everything - that he was only meant to burn. A flawed clone, but Damian wasn't going to believe the thoughts were flawed. All children had to reach the point where they realised their parents were fallible by themselves.

He collects himself, and speaks. Still honest, but less brutal.

'He didn't consent to making you Robin because he didn't want the same life for you. The others, they all had a choice,' maybe not a very informed one, but they'd known, 'you had none. You were made to look at a field of poppies so you only saw red, and then taken to a field where everything was green, and expected to live there.'

A pause.

'I know because I don't want any child of mine to receive a ring.' I don't want any of my children, or any child at all, to have to live with the burden that their father will not come home. He would be proud, yes, but he would also be so angry. 'I know because... I saw one I trained...' he lapses into silence. Sodam Yat was burning inside the Daxam sun.

'Sorry, it. This is difficult.'

Another pause, and he exhales. There was the truth, and then there was what people wanted to see. Both of us think we are monsters, had been in their very first conversation. Had it only been a few months? It seemed an eon ago.

'I don't believe in destiny. Many Lanterns think they're born for the ring, because it comes to choose them, but the truth of the matter is we are all made, and we decide what we are, or change what we are into something else. Your purpose is what you define it as, no one else. You're Robin; that's yours. That's not going to stop being part of you unless you voluntarily let it go.'

(He's still sinking. But the surface is getting brighter. Kyle reaches for it.)

'I know you are the rest too.' A soft, frustrated noise. 'That's also part of you, but it doesn't rule you, and when it tries, you fight it. Like breaking my fingers. Honestly, with all the power I have, why would that even be so effective? Not because of the pain. Because it's you on the other end, and because of that, I would stand and fight it, as hard as I could. I made a promise to protect those who could not defend themselves against people with power. That extends to me - or something that has a hold on me - attacking you.' I keep my promises.

And with a click, he knows Damian's worst nightmare. He's known for a while, he finally puts a name to it: Damian doesn't fear losing people. He fears being the one to hurt them, and make them lost to him.

Kyle looks up at the sky (still swimming).

'I know when what I see is the truth.' It's what all artists have.

Edited (typo!!) 2013-07-17 09:59 (UTC)

Damian actually flinches slightly, at the first words. He hears what is there - the anger, the protectiveness, the disagreement. The danger. The weight of knowledge settling on the older man; this one, he knows is not easy or simple.

But it is the you made a wrong judgment in telling me this which gets to him (of course). The message that he nearly apologizes for.

And it was not those words that made Damian think he will one day snap. Those words came before the final decision of what he wants to be; they came before he began to feel the tension of that decision. Those words, he took as a much less direct implication - Talia rarely worked that obviously.

Unless it's Man-Bats.

Or ninja.

Still. Those words made him think himself a mole.

The imminent break? That conclusion he reached all alone. When he comes out of a fight both invigorated and eased, and twice as tense, for the necessity to pull his punches back, to leave the conflicts incomplete, leave enemies alive behind his back who could (would) one day get back to him.

But the incipient apology gets cut down and Damian's lips curl back away from his teeth.

"I understand the analogy. I do. However, Father did not allow me to become Robin because I disappointed him, not because he did not want it for me. When I first arrived in Gotham and began figuring out how his household learned, I decided I wanted to be Robin." I made that choice. "Drake was Robin, at the time. So I struck him down. Nearly successfully, too."

There is... not exactly regret in his voice.

"Then I went out to do what Father had said we should be doing. Fighting crime. I brought the criminal's head back to the Cave. In a bag. I was not the son he wanted."

Though he tried his best.

But if Bruce Wayne thought he could shelter Damian from the kind of life a Robin led, it would be very difficult to tell what there was left for Damian to be sheltered against.

The boy takes a deep breath in the night air, then shakes his head.

"Those were my choices. Yes, I was seeing the poppies. But they were my choices all the same."

This is who I am.

Eyes out and away, beyond the edge of the construct, Damian sits quietly, letting the rest of the words go through him. Soothe hem, even, though he doesn't know why any of this, of remembering it, should need soothing.

But he doesn't argue with that one crucial bit. It doesn't rule you. It's what he's trying for, and if that is what Kyle sees... that's all right. It's how things are, right now.

Slowly, very slowly, he turns to look back down at the Lantern.

"You can disable me, if it becomes necessary, without resorting to something so crude. That is... good." He was going to ask what would happen if Damian had to be attacked, but, considering the reason he had come to him tonight (the reason why the hospital was in shambles), he thinks better of that. And turns it into a remark, instead.

It sounds too much like him, that he's momentarily stunned, and it takes a moment to gather his own thoughts. The metaphor wasn't working, he had to try something else. Bruce had to be the one to change Damian's perceptions, because without his father's explicit say-so, the child would keep believing.

He sighs, and looks up towards the sky. It's dark. Like space. Infinite, black, silent, and cold. Out there, the first thing people would see was a light, then how much darkness surrounded it. He and Damian both spoke the truth as they saw it, and Kyle couldn't help it if he saw the light first: it's how he's trained, and also how he wants it to be. There were monsters, and there were people who made mistakes and needed a few chances. He had to be able to tell the difference, or he'd have to strictly enforce a no-kill rule to ensure there were no mistakes in judgement (Power was a privilege, not a right).

He speaks after a very long time: 'Don't show me your worst, and expect me to believe it somehow lessens your best. It doesn't.'

He debates continuing, but it has more force left as-is.

And, suspicious as Damian is, Bruce explicitly saying so might not be nearly enough.

Damian doesn't have trouble waiting for the words when they come (he has things to think about). But then they do, and...

"That is usually how it works."

In fact, people seeing his worst generally don't even look anywhere else.

'And anyone who thinks that is wrong,' he replies. 'Not because of faith, or hope, but simply acting on incomplete information like that - especially where people are concerned - is stupid.'

"You say that as though people being stupid is a rare or unusual thing."

Damian. Jaded. He doesn't even sound angry about it right now - other than the residual anger directed at Korra and Sadie, of course.

He sighs, heavily. This was where part of his anger came from, too, and he calms down.

'Point taken.'

A pause.

'I wish you'd met fewer stupid people.'

The boy's shoulders rise, and then fall.

"Many days, I attempt to ignore them." Not entirely successfully, but. Paying attention to them is a genuine waste of time.

A moment, and Damian deflects the topic.

"Do you still have difficulty sleeping?"

'Wish I could. Have to deal with them on the job all the time.' He sighs, and looks upwards.

'Not more than usual.' I have nightmares, but he doesn't need to state that. 'Your suggestion about the blankets helped.'

"You are more patient with them." It's not a criticism. Just a remark.

Then Damian smirks ever so faintly. (Nightmares. Turtle's head sleep... he might suggest that, if it is a problem.) "Of course it did."

'I've had to be,' he remarks, in return. He gestures down, to the ruin of the building. 'I'm going to get flack for that, I know, even if it was technically her fault.'

"I suppose you have." Damian shrugs, then his eyes follow the motion.

"You did what you had to do. If somebody chooses to ignore the truth, it is their problem. If they attempt to do something about it..." The boy's teeth gleam in the green glow of the construct. "You're not alone in knowing who's at fault."

Kyle is probably the only person on the turtle, or in the world in general, who can, without irony or mockery, say that Damian's words and presence were soothing to him.

'No, I'm not alone.' Whether he intends this as a statement referring to the incident, or in general, he doesn't specify. Instead, he lowers them both to the roof.

'Thanks for coming.'

Kyle is one of the few people who can tell what Damian means when even Damian's not aware that he means it. Just demonstrated.

The boy holds his breath for a moment, then manages a shrug. "It seemed more appropriate than dealing with--" the anger that he saw "-- this over the console."

This - any of this they talk about or do - is not for others to see. Nor is the acknowledgment of the anger. It simply is not.

"Do you want to resume some part of the practices in the mornings?" Not yet the actual sword work. But some of it might assist the rest of the recovery... and the working-out of some of the anger.

'You are the son of the World's Greatest Detective.' Yes, I feel better when you're here, rather than across a screen.

A lot of things now can go completely unspoken between them, but still perfectly understood. It's comfortable.

A pause, as he considers. 'Yes. I've found someone who can match me for strength: she's called Miria. It's time I matched her speed as much as I could. More training would help.'

"... I am." Of course you do, though Damian is torn between almost tempted to do something idiotic, like stick his tongue out, and dragged back by memories of people referring to his Father as the Detective.

But his eyebrows rise at the last part.

"How fast?"

'Uh - really fast. Like.. speedster fast.'

Damian considers that.

"That may take a while."

And it is not about the physical shape and reaction time, though that takes work, too. It is shifting one's mindset, dealing with speedsters. You have to ignore where they are and react to where they will be, instead.

'Well, it's not like we don't have time.'

The statement is wry, a little bitter. He's managed (or so he hopes) to establish some sort of balance between working and resting, but the lack of the Corps, and the unclear definition of duty (Salaak was always better at interpreting, Kyle had only to decide whether to obey or rebel) was another weight on his shoulders.

'Is it bad I occasionally wish for a squid monster just so I have something large enough to punch?'

He yearns to cut loose, when he can. This, he knows Damian understands.

... Damian tries to come up with an appropriate response to the first words... and fails. Because it tosses his mind right back towards thinking of how people can disappear with no warning, overnight. And so maybe they don't have time, and he - he opts to not answer, instead.

"I fought a squid monster. With Brown and several others. Well, a kedan in the shape of a squid monster, but there nonetheless."

What. He did.

But he also does understand, way too well, about needing to cut loose. Maybe one of these days they'll have something else to do that against.

He gives Damian a curious, questioning look. Was he about to say something in response to an innocuous statement? Well, Kyle won't press. When it's important and relevant, it'll be said, and not before. That's the way things are.

The other statement catches him off-guard. He frowns.

'When was this?'

Yeah, it's not something you want to be reminded about, Kyle. Though the other topic will hardly be any better.

"Shortly before Jackson made his announcement about the cloning facility. I suspect that is what the kedan was - were, I assume, though we only encountered one - protecting."

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CW: Damian Wayne's horrid past aspects. Resurrection, cloning, deaths...

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