[ And there it is.

I wouldn't have stopped them if it wasn't for Kara. But she was there. And with her help and her influence, he went back in spite of the steep cost.

There's a brief quiet, Stephen's gaze sliding away. Then, and without looking back: ]

We can't always act alone, or expect ourselves to be able to take huge steps without first having to learn. Without support.

[ Damian had Dick's. Kara's. People aren't solitary creatures - he learned from them how to be better. Just as he'd learned from his family, from his circumstances, how to be worse.

Which is to say... ]

I think the more accurate phrasing would be that you haven't always been a good man.

[ There's no such thing as redemption, not really. People who were hurt in times when you weren't kind will always have been hurt, no matter what reparations are made. But people are not without the capacity to change state.

And perhaps he's not a shining beacon of goodness, but the preface of this whole conversation? I'm not a good man? He's too young to deny himself the possibility of progress. It's too final, when he's already made a change.

Stephen turns his head to look at Damian again. Gaze firm. Tone steady. ]

You acted. It matters.