Damian Wayne was dying. Correction, he amended silently. He thought he was dying. that this was what it would feel like if he was dying. Every inch of his body hurt. Even his hair hurt and man who was a really weird pain to feel he thought as he struggled to find a comfortable place to lay. In the quiet of his bedroom, his breathing was loud and raspy; his entire body shuddered with it. And he was hot... so very, very hot. He must have fidgeted or made some type of sound because suddenly a cool cloth was being laid across his forehead and a soft voice was whispering to him that he would, "Feel better in a few minutes."

That the owner of that voice was a woman that he pretended to barely tolerate when he was healthy was a fact not lost upon the boy known around the world as Robin. Having to remember to keep up his scornful pretense and disdain was forgotten in the instant that moist rag got set upon his overheated flesh. Damian let out a little moan at the momentary relief from the fires licking at his insides and was further rewarded when her cool hand cupped his cheek, thumb stroking gently, soothingly over his parched flesh. Then she set a cool rag on his aching belly and oh! she was his bestest friend in the whole wide world now! And he couldn't care less who knew it. He was simply too close to death to care if the world found out his dirty little secret. A moment later, the fire returned, raging hotter than before and igniting his vitriolic temper.

"Kean," he whispered, and the harsh, choking sound of his voice shocked him. "Go... away."

He didn't mean it and he, as well as the woman still stroking his cheek, knew it. A small part of Damian wished that it was his mother crooning softly to him. And her fingers skimming his cheek. And her whispering to him that the worst would "soon be over." Ah, but that was ridiculous! Frivolous! Preposterous even! His mother could never do those lowly things! Those were things designed for nurses or nannies. Not like his mother was that kind of mother, anyway. She wasn't the kind of person to notice when he needed cuddling and coddling.

She would never indulge him in such a childish want and need. Another part of Damian opted for honesty - cold, brutal honesty - and reminded him about how his mother only noticed him when he was part of the team threatening to stop one of her plans from coming to fruition. Hadn't she told him that she only needed him when it served to hurt or distract either his father or his new guardian, Dick Grayson?

Quite simply, his mother was not the kind of mother who would sit at his bedside and hold his hand while he battled an illness. His mother was not the kind of mother who'd run her fingers through his sweat-damp hair, or rub his back as he threw up the contents of his stomach for the millionth time. She wouldn't read him his favorite book or coax him into eating that god awful stuff Pennyworth called chicken-noodle soup by bringing him lime Jello. His mother would not have spent three days watching every Jet Li and Jackie Chan film, or... or... or... every thought fled the moment that soft lips brushed his forehead in a kiss that he didn't react to with his typical how-dare-you-touch-me-like-that-attitude.

His mother never kissed him like that, he thought, long-buried resentment and hurt raging with the illness for dominance over his body. She'd never thought it important to show her son any type of warmth or affection. And she'd only scoff if someone told her that he needed nurturing. She'd say he was an assassin, a élite specimen of genetic perfection and had no need for such trivial human emotions. His mother had no idea about the deep, almost drowning need he had for her love. Or how desperately he needed to know she wanted him. Not that she'd care even if she did know, the ten-year-old thought bitterly.

Again that honest side reared its ugly head and whispered to him about how his mother had never gone out of her way to actually understand the son she'd had her team of scientists and doctors create out of a mix of her genetic material, and the genetic material that she'd stolen from his father. She'd certainly not understood that his decision to stay with Grayson as his Robin was not an act of defiance or betrayal, but the only way in which he could still feel close to his father. And she certainly had not understood why her son preferred to wear the cape and mask of Robin over the spandex bodysuit of an Assassin.

And that, he realized as another round of nausea nearly overtook him, was because his mother never once saw that she had any type of responsibility towards him as his maternal parent. She didn't see she was both his Mom as well as his Mother. She absolved herself of any responsibility once she dumped him into his father's lap. She assumed her role was done once she finished grooming him and walked away without even a backward glance.

She'd certainly never thought about his needing her guidance and influence as much as he needed his father's. And she'd never anticipated that a woman, a longtime friend, and associate of Grayson's, would take one look at him and decide to take up that mantle that his mother was neglecting. And she took on that responsibility not because she had to, Damian knew now, but because she wanted to.

It had been Kean and not his own mother, who had been there for him in the year since Father's death. Kean was who helped him through every step of the grieving process. It was Kean, and not his mother, who fostered his want to find his identity as the son of Bruce Wayne and as Robin. And it had been Kean who encouraged him to spread his wings and try whatever things suited him. She convinced him that it was okay to explore the world around him. She took him to plays he told her that he wanted to see, signed him up for classes that he wanted to take, allowed him to go on solo missions much to the protestations and disapproval of both Grayson and that imbecilic moron, Drake.

Oh, it had infuriated his mother when she discovered someone of inferior breeding was helping raise her son. She had unleashed an army of her Man-Bats upon Gotham and sent some of her best Assassins to swarm Wayne Manor. And found herself at the tip of a sword wielded by the very woman she'd come to kill for having usurped her place as his mother.

His mother had more than met her match that day because the woman his mother claimed was inferior, had called a usurper, had fought like a female grizzly bear protecting her cub. Kean had point-blank told his mother that if she "ever came near her Robin again," that she'd "forget about her training and commitment to defending life" and "end her."

It was at the moment when his mother was at the point of Kean's sword - well, it was really Father's sword, but that wasn't important - that Damian learned that there was a difference between Mothers and Moms. Moms weren't created at the point of conception. Nor were they an occasional and disruptive intrusion in their child's life. Moms were a rare and special type of person. They stepped up and did what mothers either refused to do or could not do for one reason or another. They put the needs of their child ahead of their own and did what was necessary to protect their child from harm. They loved that child without attaching conditions to that love. Moms chose to be Moms. And they remained moms until the day they died. And for all that Talia al Ghul liked to think of herself as his mother, she was absolutely not his mom.

Because she wasn't the one who had fresh-baked peanut butter cookies waiting when he got home from a late-nightpatrol. And she didn't try to cheer him up when he was sad by telling him about one of Graysons's hilariously embarrassing mishaps as Robin. Nor did she try to tease him out of one of his black moods by telling him some lame joke that had him rolling his eyes more often than not. His mother would never put up with his surliness, or patiently wait until his temper tantrum was over before calmly asking him "what's wrong."

She wouldn't listen to his suggestions, or ask his advice, or include him in "family decisions." She certainly had never asked him what his hopes and dreams were. And knew nothing about his likes and dislikes. She didn't know that his favorite movie was Martian Child. Or that he loved chocolate ice cream with peanut butter cups crumbled on top. She didn't know that his least favorite season was winter and that he loved decorating for Halloween. She definitely didn't know about his secret obsession with cats. And she'd never have gone out of her way to track down that cat figurine he'd seen in a shop window when he was in Hong Kong two summers before and been too terrified to ask his father to buy for him.

And she wouldn't be looking down at him now, green eyes bright with concern as they took in his flushed features, his blue eyes dilated with fever. She would have left him in the care of whatever doctors and nurses she'd hired to take care of him, and gone about her own business as if she didn't have a care in the world beyond satisfying her own personal agenda. Nor would she, when he began to whimper from the pain, crawl into bed next to him and fold him in her arms. Or begin to sing that dumb song that he'd never admit out loud that he loved listening to her sing. Not that he needed to tell her he thought, burying his face in the curve of her shoulder. Moms, he'd discovered, just knew those kinds of things.

Yeah, Talia al Ghul may have been his mother, but she most definitely was not his mom. Because his mom was a warm and real woman who smelled like the air after a summer rainstorm. His mom was the one always waiting with a smile, with a hug that he'd feign disdain for of course, with a kind word. His mom was the one who would be there when he woke up in the morning. Just as she'd been there every morning for the last year. And as he began to drift slowly to sleep, lulled by her soft, bluesy voice and the feel of her curled around him, his last thought was: Grayson, you'd better not screw up what we have here.

A/N: This story is a what if, alternative universe take that builds upon the question of what if Bruce Wayne really died.

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