I Pulled This Out Of My Ass - Tumblr Posts

Damian lost. Damian has never lost before. He never loses! Losing means you're weak, and Damian is not weak. He grew up fast and strong and is only ever getting stronger!

But he couldn't kill her.

Damian had been raised to think that love of any kind was a weakness. Grandfather did not love mother because he is not weak. Mother loved father and that made her weak. Damian could not love Danyal because that would make him weak. Grandfather expected great things from him. He could not afford to be weak.

Before they were set to leave Nanda Parbat to live and train with their father, Damian and Danyal had one final lesson with Grandfather. A fight, two versus one, on the edge of the Lazarus Pits.

Danyal did not survive. He did not resurface from the depths of the green water.

Grandfather called him weak. Mother said nothing. Damian was given no time to mourn before he was handed to his father with strict orders not to tell him about Danyal.

For all Grandfather and mother had done to him, Damian could not bring himself to kill either of them. His father had taught him to love, that it was a strength.

Damian loved his mother. He realized this as he stared into her eyes, his katana at her throat, his boot pinning her down. He could not kill her.

"You are foolish, habibi." she scolded, kneeing his back and sending him rolling forwards off of her and to the edge of the Pits. "You have discarded all I taught you."

"I have only added to those lessons," he faced her, "I remember everything you have taught me."

"You lie like your father. Obviously and bluntly."

"I have never lied to you."

"Then you have forgone my lessons!"

"Because you abandoned me!"

"I sent you away to learn. I came back for you. You abandoned me."

"A mother's role to teach her child just as the father's role is to protect." Damian leveled his weapon at her again. "You left me in the care of everyone but yourself, Talia Al Ghoul. You were only ever our mother in title, not name."

Talia lunged forward, meeting Damian's sword with her own. "You know not of what you speak, foolish child!"

"I know plenty!" He pushed back, forcing her back several feet. He followed if only to get away from the edge of the Pits. "No thanks to you."

"I gave you everything, Damian."

"No. You took everything from me. You held it all as a reward out of my reach."

"You wouldn't be where you are today if it wasn't for me and your Grandfather." she stated as though it were an undeniable truth, "Whether you acknowledge it or not, we raised you."

"I raised myself."

"We taught you everything you know."

"I taught myself!"

"We made you perfect!"

"You killed half of me!"

The silence overwhelmed the fighting in the tunnels, the shouting and running and bubbling of the Pits were all drowned out. Talia's sword lowered shakily. Damian's remained raised and steady.

"You allowed Grandfather to take Danyal from me. You forced me to forget him. You killed half of me."

"Habibi-"

"No!" He was shaking now. "He was my better half, just as I was his. And you took him from me."

"Damian-"

"You took my brother from me!" He charged madly at her, rage and grief overtaking him. "I will never forgive you for that!"

Talia matched him blow for blow. "Love is weakness, habibi. That is why he died. Danyal loved you and he paid his price for it."

With a scream, Damian doubled his efforts. His blows grew weak with rage as his mother pushed him back.

Damian knew he could not kill her. Some part of him still yearned for her approval. Some part of him still loved her.

Talia's sword impaled itself into the area below his sternum, piercing the armor and skin and muscle, stabbing through to the other side, the hilt stopping it from moving ant further.

Suddenly, the silence flooded over the cavern again. A shrill ringing filled Damian's ears as his grip weakened. His katana fell from his grasp, clattering to the floor so loudly, but so, so quietly. Blood spilled from Damian's mouth with a cough.

Talia drew her sword back, throwing it behind herself as she caught her son. Love is a weakness, but that had not stopped her before. Why hadn't it stopped her now?

"Damian? Habibi?" She cradled his body on her lap, her hand turning his face to her. "My darling?"

Damian's eyes were vacant, staring into a distance unseen. He heard nothing, felt nothing. He knows what was coming next. Sleep. Release. Soon, he'd be in his brother's arms again, just like when they were children. They'd have so long to catch up with each other.

Damian closed his eyes with a soft sigh.

Storyboard Part 2

Danny couldn't tell you what he expected, but it most definitely wasn't this.

Time and Space were weird in the Infinite Realms, both bending to the will of their masters and no one all at once. They didn't follow a line or a path. Time and Space did as they wanted. Fitting, considering who their masters are.

The first time Danny was ten years old, his Grandfather killed him. He remembers that, in an effort to save him, his mother submerged his body in the Lazarus Pits he and his brother had been warned about ever going near.

As it was explained to him, the Infinite Realms has a base level of sentience at the very least. She allows herself to peak into the worlds She cradles to keep an eye on them. She found Danny when his mother had lowered him into the water and She claimed him as Her own. She bent Time to Her will, making Danny a toddler again, before bending Space to drop him in the world that would most allow him to grow. She promised that She would come back for him when the time was right.

The first time Danny was fourteen, after the second time he had been ten, he died. The parents he had learned to accept as his own tried to open an unnatural gateway into the Infinite Realms. He was the one to turn it on. The electricity of the mortal world killed him, but the energy from the Infinite Realms revived him.

He remembers the whispers barely heard under his own screams. Whispers and imprints of "I'm sorry" and "I do not mean to hurt you" and "You will only grow stronger" and "Welcome back, my champion".

Danny can count on one hand the number of times he's felt safe between the first time he was six and the first time his was fourteen. He can tell you the names of exactly two places he has never felt the need to hide from.

The day Danny turned fifteen for the first time, he told his parents what happened to him. He knew, instinctually, that they would not understand, that they are researchers before they are parents. But he held onto the hope that had been trained out of him when he was first four years old. He had hoped that they would go against all odds and accept and help him.

He shut down the portal the very next day. He destroyed it and all of his parents' lives work. He would not stand by and let them hurt his people when he could not be there to interfere. He escaped back into the embrace of the Infinite Realms through Vlad's portal, giving him the Order to destroy it. The only way for the citizens of the Realms to enter the mortal worlds was to use natural portals, as unstable and unpredictable as they are. He would not risk them again.

He finds himself wandering listlessly, letting the Realms take him where She wants him to go. Sometimes She takes him to places that are completely empty, places where he can mourn what he lost without anyone finding him. Sometimes She takes him to his mentors and friends. Sometimes She takes him where he needs to be.

Danny finds the boy just as the natural portal closes behind him, the sickly green and black oozing like a festering wound.

The boy looks similar to Danny. His hair is spiked, his clothing dulled shades of a hero's costume under a black cloak, a mask covering his eyes, his body being more filled out to match his age. But Danny, on every level of understanding that he is and ever will be capable of, knows that this is his brother.

"Damian?" he whispers. The Realms push him forward. "Damian!"

Danny cradles the body of his brother, slowly sinking to the ground the Realms produce for him to land on. He carefully peels the mask from his face and lays it beside the katana on the ground.

As expected of anyone who finds their way into the Infinite Realms without proper protections, Damian has no pulse. He is not breathing. He is cold. The wound under his sternum is not bleeding.

Danny brushed his thumbs under Damian's eyes, his hands on his cheeks. "What did they do to you, ahki?"

Despite having no mortal ability to do so, Damian's eyes opened. He started ahead, blinking when his green eyes met Danny's. "Danyal?"

Tears fell from his eyes as he nodded. "Hi, Damian. You're here early."

Tears fell from Damian's eyes as well. He knew where he was. There was only one explanation. He couldn't feel himself breathing, nor could he hear his heart beat or his blood flow. There was no pain from where his mother had run him through.

"She killed me!" Damian cried into his brother's shoulder.

Danny held him tighter. "I'm so sorry," No one should ever have to go like that.

"Father couldn't save me."

"It's okay."

"Dick and Tim and Jason and Cass-!"

"Shh, ahki. You will see them again. I'll make sure of it."

The brothers held each other as they cried. The Realms wrapped Herself around the boys, comforting them as she could. Her champion and his brother, both children She had claimed and would protect.

Part 1 Storyboard

@anarinette