bassically by tei shi

There's a funeral. They bury him. Jon is distraught and doesn't want to stay on a planet that has no Damian on it, eventually leading him to joining the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st century. Batman is without a partner for the first time in years and is utterly lost and grieving, regretting now how little he actually knew his son outside the job. But he's lost Damian who was as trained and prepared as any child could possibly be, and Batman has no plans to ever have a partner again. Especially not a child.

Tim Drake disagrees, because Gotham is suffering and Batman clearly needs a "Robin"(Damian wouldn't have called himself that, but whatever his equivalent of Robin was), so he takes it upon himself to fill the role. The thing is, he knows Damian wouldn't want him to take over. Damian noticed Tim and his camera following them on patrol before and made it very clear what he thought about civilian kids running into danger, but Damian isn't around and Batman needs help. So Tim blackmails Batman into letting him do it.

Some time later the wheels of the batmobile get stolen, and they meet Jason Todd. He is too young to be a vigilante, but after Damian's death and spending time with Tim, Bruce is determined not to repeat the mistake he made with his blood son, and makes an effort to be more open and fatherly with the sudden influx of kids in his life.

Damian is believed to be dead for years. In reality he was resurrected and taken back to the League shortly after his death, where the Lazarus pit and the manipulations of his mother and grandfather slowly turn him against Batman. After all, Batman didn't save him. Batman never prioritised him. And now Batman has replaced him, and taken everything that was meant to be Damian's by right of blood and given it to lesser children. Damian was a fool to let himself be swayed by Batman's short-sighted goals and childish no-killing rules in the first place.

The thing is that Damian isn't stupid. He is very aware his family is manipulating him, and he understands why his Father has replaced him. He resents it, but he understands. After all, he's known all his life that if he isn't exceptional, he is replaceable. And he died, he failed. And Father replaced him. So now Damian has to prove that he is better than all of them, including his father.

The Pit is in his system now, and there is a madness to it that runs cold. Eventually he escapes the League and returns to Gotham. He doesn't contact his family, instead descending upon the criminal underworld like a shadow, killing villains silently and leaving no trace behind. He specifically targets people Batman has fought and had arrested before, living proofs that Batman's methods do not work, that people don't change even if you give them the chance.

Just like Damian himself couldn't change in the end. He is, and will always be, a monster.

Batman and his new family try to figure out who this new silent killer is, but although Batman suspect's League involvement the truth doesn't even occur to him.

In the end, it's Jon who finds Damian first. He rushed back from the future after stumbling on historical evidence suggesting Damian Wayne was active even after his death, and he is stunned to see Damian in front of him, living and breathing and killing again. Damian is too hurt and traumatised and convinced he is in the right to hear anything Jon tells him, and Tim later finds Jon alone on a Gotham rooftop, handcuffed with kryptonite cuffs. Jon doesn't give up, however, because Damian could have killed him and chose not to.

Now knowing Damian is alive, the Bats try to bring him back to the family, but Damian refuses any attempt to communicate. Things don't change until he finds a document referring the Flying Graysons in the possession of a Court of Owls member he just killed. Mild curiosity leads him to investigate Haly's Circus the same night the Graysons fall to their death, and Damian sees their young son being taken away by social workers.

It's not that he feels guilty that he couldn't save the parents, of course, but he decides to keep an eye on the orphanage where Richard Grayson ends up anyway, and sure enough a Talon tries to kidnap the boy during the night. Damian manages to stop it, but it's clear the boy isn't safe in the orphanage, and maybe there is just enough of Batman's and Superboy's partner left in him to care about that.

But Damian can't take care of the boy and protect him from the Court of Owls by himself. And he isn't going to take this boy, who just lost his parents but still offers to juggle for him to cheer Damian up cause he looked sad, to the League of Assassins. Which only leaves him with one option.