@hafid.alghul

[batricide]

[ He's been gone... a while. And it's been a while back home. A lot has happened. Damian should be angry when he wakes up back here, but when the alternative is waiting to be executed? He'll takke. ]

I'm going to need someone to bring me up to speed on what I have missed.

Comments

[rehandle]

[ 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?

[batricide]

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?

[rehandle]

[ 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.

[batricide]

[ 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.

[rehandle]

[ 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.

[batricide]

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.

[rehandle]

[ 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. ]

[batricide]

[ 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?