#this is sometimes

in short: slade would be dead.

damian bases his morality on his father's code because he believes in seeking the truth and he truly wants to believe in justice for all, even those who are damned. he struggles with this ideal constantly, especially in his earlier years. it eventually becomes the rift in his and bruce's relationship: damian will kill those who he believes are a detriment to society, especially any that pose a great threat to gotham (re: killing a joker wannabe because he posed the same threat as the original).

he breaks his word to his father moreso as an adult, the guilt no longer an issue. as a kid and into his teenage years, damian has a constant battle between his own sense of justice and his promise to be morally better -- to be more like his father than his mother (and co). his promise to his father is tied to his integrity and the young naivety of a child that has not grown into his own skin yet. when he comes into himself and picks up the batman mantle for the first time, this is no longer an issue: he has settled into his skin, made peace with who he truly is.

but talia? damian values his mother over literally every other person in the world. she raised him, she shielded him, she has killed for him. did she build him into a lethal weapon? absolutely. did she do it with the softest hand that she could despite her own treatment at her father's hands? absolutely. at age eight when damian demanded to meet his father, he had not spent the introspective time away from her side to understand this. he only thought she kept him from bruce out of selfishness or because she truly wanted him to beat her in a fight.

side note: it is ridiculous to pretend that damian beat her at age eight. talia is one of the best assassins the league has ever produced. when ra's is dead for the billionth time, talia takes hold of the league (we don't talk abt nyssa she's shoehorned into like 2 years in my timeline we'll come back to her). talia is a master tactician: she brought damian to bruce at a strategic time, not because her eight year old son bested her one on one (she let him win. he won't know until he is self-reflective enough to realize).

after living with bruce among the other bats, damian finally spent time around a diversity of wildly different humans which in turn forced him to begin defining himself outside of his al ghul legacy that he believes himself entitled to. in gotham, subordinates talked back. in gotham, there is a legal justice system that crime is subjected to --- it is not simply kill or be killed.

this finally gives him the space to reflect on where he came from and who was beside him. he gradually lets go of his entitled brat attitude, forced to reconcile that outside the league, he is not a prince: he is just another warm body in a city that eats and eats and eats its citizens. the doting he found annoying at a younger age, he now can look back on fondly. his memories of talia are brighter with every year as he becomes an adult: he begins to fathom the why of her each move rather than simply chalking it up to an insecurity that one's mother does not love her only son. she is more his blood than bruce or ra's ever could dream to be.

damian is only somewhat sadistic --- but that is his mother (it would be slow). killing slade would serve not only to satiate the fury at watching his mother die but also as his own way of processing it. slade would get a full villain soliloquy as damian breaks bone after bone. he has surgical accuracy in death, thanks to not only the tutoring talia ensured he had but her own experienced hand guided him more than he can count.

I have gone on for hundreds of days, in this toxic world, where you don’t even know if the water you drink is clean, or the food you eat has expired. I have ended countless lives, in order to save myself.

The bird in the cage; Will never take its rage; Out on any poor page; But, it will be in its own cage.