meadowlark | @hafid.alghul

[ It's a good question. There's a solid chance he can break out if he plays dirty. Kara is back there, Kara needs him. The one he knows there is so much less worldly, still learning and doing her best to figure herself out.

But they also don't need him. Diana and Black Adam can handle it. With a Kryptonian on their side they can bust Clark out of prison and reorder the world. They don't need him. ]

I haven't decided. [ He takes a sip of tea. ] But I suppose someone has to organize these bozos.

[ A huff of voiced laughter. Good to see not too much has changed, despite the looming sentence. ]

You're not wrong there.

[ Somebody will need to hold the fort once the dust is finally allowed to settle. The idea of Damian and Clarke left running a community of out-of-universe settlers once the choice is theirs to make leaves him smiling over the rim of his cup as he takes a sip. ]

Though things have been quieter lately. Amongst us. I'm not sure if it's a consequence of Zerzura or just the combination of people who are still here.

[ Zezura.

Right.

Stephen Strange had literally been his father. Better than any he'd actually had. Weird as it had been to have people in his life he couldn't shove away, or who weren't offput by all his sharp edges, it had been nice. ]

That did change things, didn't it.

[ That's certainly one thing to say about it. The hovering memory of the tie between them sits in his pause. ]

It had an impact.

[ Personally, and on a larger scale. It's difficult to know which is the better to comment on now. The Stephen Strange of Zerzura was a man he never gave himself the chance to be. It's hard to reconcile. And yet the people were real, most of them. Not changed so much as to be be unrecognisable.

Damian, Daisy. Both the same more or less. He'll have to reach out to the other kid sooner or later, Akechi, to find out whether or not the same can be said of him. Seems wrong to leave him adrift now. ]

I'd say you've got another name for the alias list, only it's not particularly effective as a disguise.

[ Until you've got a doctorate and a reputation, walking into any room with Strange on your nametag doesn't do you any favors if you're trying to avoid attention. ]

[ ... ]

It wasn't a bad name to have. Better than Wayne or al Ghul at any rate.

[ Much better. So much more than he honestly could have ever imagined. Damian had no real family until that moment, and even if it was all fake... it was better than what he'd known before. ]

[ An unexpected tightness in his chest, clenching only to expand, full up of something intangible. Like for a moment he can once again bridge dimensions and something from some opalescent place has crossed the divide and made a den of his ribcage.

He casts a look at Damian. It's too raw a sentiment to smile over. For Stephen Strange to be a better parent than any other is not a happy state of affairs, however much strangled pride it fills him with.

He's going to miss this boy turned man when it all finally comes to an end. ]

You were welcome to it.

[ You were welcome to it.

Damian doesn't think he's ever had a single person want him in their family for the sake of simply having him there. Talia wanted an heir and a puppet. Ra's wanted the ultimate solider. Bruce had wanted a ward, and a sidekick, but never a son. Clark had wanted a right hand man.

The familial connection had been incidental. Something by biology, or convenience - never because he was actually wanted.

Dick had been the closest thing to a real father he'd ever had, after Clark. ]

I'm not a good man. [ he doesn't trust himself to add a name to the end of that. not certain if it would come out as 'strange' or 'stephen' or 'dad'. his gaze drops. ] I believed the ends justified the means. And I think I got lost somewhere along the way.

[ Stephen's quiet for a moment, letting his thoughts take shape after what he's heard.

There's no use in trying to place patches over the parts of himself that Damian doesn't like. Telling him that the things he's done are forgivable no matter what they are isn't kindness. (It certainly isn't love.)

Lies beget lies. Trust is too hard earned to kill it off that carelessly. ]

It happens.

[ Getting lost. Wrapping yourself up so tightly in your life that you don't realise what you're smothering and at what cost. Being someone you'll look back on with a sick feeling.

Stephen's been that man. A man who deserved what he got when the consequences came knocking. And although he doesn't know how far down that path Damian's gone walking, he can at least share what he's learned. ]

You'll carry it with you, and it'll keep you on track.

I know that better than most.

[ Damian's quiet a moment longer. No more secrets, right? No more stupid fucking secrets. He kept so many things from the people closest to him. He takes in a deep breath. If he doesn't say it, he never will. ]

My grandfather is an immortal assassin that verges on being an eco-terrorist who believes the world would be better off without humanity. He's also a short-sighted fool, but that's beside the point.

[ Damian meets Strange's gaze. ]

I've killed more people than you've probably ever met. And you know [ he shakes hies head slowly. ] I never felt remorse for it until I met Dick. Not once. I razed villages to the ground and left blood in my wake and slept like a baby, but he taught me compassion and had me going back to those places to make amends.

And then the second I have the leeway, it was gone. I was just a soldier taking orders.I didn't do anything, but I didn't stop them. I wouldn't have stopped them if it wasn't for Kara...

[ An immortal assassin that verges on being an eco-terrorist who believes the world would be better off without humanity. Well, that's familiar territory. Stephen does his best to keep it off his face as Damian goes on.

And he does go on. On to things Stephen may have been able to guess at the nature of, but not the scale. The difficulty in having lived life at the size they have, suspended away from normality, is that their pasts take on a scope that's near incomprehensible. Their truths are so vast as to be stories, to be fictions.

Attributing deaths and heartlessness to Damian is easy in one sense - Stephen knows what people are capable of, has witnessed it, the acts he describes have been committed by someone somewhere and why not him? - but impossible in another.

He knows who Damian is now. His past is important here only as context for his present. And Stephen will have something to say when the story's all told, but it isn't finished yet.

Stephen's steady in meeting Damian's gaze. There's no hint of distress or discontent in his expression, no signs of an internal reassessment of him following what he's heard. When Damian trails off, it's a leading question and not some resolute answer that follows. ]

What did happen?

My mother and sister are the ones who broke me out of prison.

[ his gaze breaks, glancing down at the cup as he tries to gather up his words. ]

They took me to my grandfather, and he said he had a plan to take care of the damage being done to the oceans and forests and I went along with it. I knew how he intended to go about it, but not what he was doing.

[ but he was an idiot for buying into it. damian was leverage - with alfred as the insurance if bruce truly hadn't cared. ]

I turned a blind eye and let him do what he wanted, I obeyed his orders, and in exchange, I got to bring someone back from the dead. [ No lies, but he's not going to get into Alfred's value to him. He's not sure he can. ] My father showed up. Broke my arm. I arrived here.

[ And that brings him up to speed on what it should have known. Not - not everything. But the Regime was an open secret at this point. Stephen had seen his dreams. ]

Do you remember how I told you I was a diplomat?

[ It all goes in, but he doesn't interrupt. Barely moves, attention intent on the story and its teller.

A nod of his head. It would be a difficult detail to forget, given how it factored into his evident experience and Stephen's willingness to support the systems for organisation that he'd tried to bring to the Displaced. Stephen had seen the way his diplomacy had been shaped by his world during that process. ]

I do.

[ The next part is harder to explain. Easier in many ways, but so.. so much more difficult. ]

So because of that I was allied with the King of a hidden nation. Since I was injured, Mother sent me to request his assistance with what they were planning. Instead, I discovered he'd found Kara and was hiding her from the rest of the world. I stayed with - [ her ] them. Kara reminded me of why I joined the Regime in the first place. To protect people.

[ ... ]

Ra's developed a killer machine that would target humans but leave wildlife and animals alone. I went back. I betrayed him.

[ 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.

Edited 2019-10-23 16:54 (UTC)

I'm a good man when I have someone to hold me accountable

[ He'd told Markus that. When he'd first conceived of the whole thing - Markus was the kind of person who would hold him accountable, corral him when he got out of line.

He isn't sure that he's a good person. He's pretty sure you're disqualified from being one if you never stop plotting to use the people around you, or if you don't regret murdering helpless men in revenge.]

I'm self-aware enough to admit that.

[ It's an honest assessment. Honest enough that Stephen doesn't fight it, mouth hitching briefly at one corner before he reaches for his tea.

A decent spot for a breather. ]

I'll drink to that.

[ He's young. He's got years of learning to do before he'll be able to do for himself what others can do for him now. But he's willing to listen. He wants to listen, knows how to identify beliefs that resonate with the kind of person he'd rather be and allow himself to be guided by them.

It's a solid foundation. Stephen has faith that he'll find his way to being his own moral compass one day, acting in ways he won't regret when he looks at them through the lens of somebody else's point of view. ]

[ Other's faith in him comes easier than his own. Damian knew too well what he was capable of, how often he careered headlong into violence as if alternatives don't exist.

How he'll meet soldiers carrying out orders and hate them for not questioning. Almost as much as he hates himself. ]

So... What do we do now?

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