#...........bitch

“You cut her off as soon as she started talking to me,” said Damian. “Why?”

“I had an opportunity to end the fight.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I don’t… trust you?” “You don’t trust me!” Damian insisted. He threw his boot to the ground loudly, for emphasis. “You thought she might convince me. You always think they might convince me.”

“Convince you…?”

“To join them! To betray you! To what— fulfill my destiny? Is that it?”

“Damian, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about— I’m talking because I know what everyone says about me. They all think I’m evil, no matter what I do. Everyone’s convinced that I’ll go back to the League or become a supervillain or— or some twisted Batman who ends the world, or, I don’t know what else. I do know that according to everyone else, there is no chance, no future, no universe where I stay a hero.”

“Damian.”

“And you can’t even let her ask because if you do, I’ll be gone after twenty seconds of a ‘join me and rule the world’ monologue!”

“Damian.” Bruce knelt down in front of Damian’s bench and put his hands on his son’s shoulders. “I did not think you were going to leave me.”

“Say you never worry about it.”

“I…”

“That’s what I thought.” Damian shrugged Bruce’s hands off his shoulders, bent over his second boot, and tugged violently at the laces. “You believed me when I pretended to join Nobody.”

` “That was a long time ago. I know better now. I know you better now.”

“But you still don’t trust me.”

“It’s not… a matter of trust. It’s a matter of fear.”

Damian looked up from his boot. “Explain.” 

“Fear can be irrational, right?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t expect to lose you, but I am afraid to lose you— more than I’m afraid of anything. Even if it’s irrational, even if I know it will never happen, I’m still going to worry.”

Damian thought about it. “Fine.”

“Can you forgive me for that?”

Damian sat back on his bench again and sighed. “But… you do trust me?”

“Yes. Always.”

“Then yes."

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