The night passed. Bruce slept little. As soon as Damian fell asleep, his trembling became more pronounced, occasionally making small noises, no rest even in slumber. Dark thunderclouds rolled their way, and it was gray, misty early morning when Bruce awoke, jolted awake by drops of rain on his face.

He blinked, looking around, taking a deep breath and feeling a spike of panic in his chest as he did so. He crossed the smoldering fire and knelt beside his son instantly. "Damian," he said roughly, putting a firm hand on his son's shoulder, to wake him up.

Damian responded by deftly, instinctually jabbing his elbow up, below his father's jaw, but Bruce deflected it easily; blinking, Damian looked up at his father. "Sorry," he breathed. "What is it?"

"Are you hurt?" he asked. "Are you bleeding?"

"No," said Damian, sitting up, rubbing the drowsiness from his eyes. "What are you talking about? I'm-"

He stopped, sniffing the air.

"Męka," he said, and he was instantly on his feet, sprinting to where the woman who had attacked them was lying on the beach, bound around her wrists and ankles. Her head was tucked into her chest, facing away from them. Damian knelt down beside her, gently pulling her body back, only to reveal a muddy patch of black sand beneath her, dark grains mixed with blood. Her throat was slit.

Damian swore and let go of the body, pulling back in revulsion. Bruce knelt by her other side, inspecting the wound and the thick, mucky sand beneath the body. "There's someone else on the island," said Bruce lowly. "Someone with considerable skill; I can't find any evidence, any trace of a mistake here. It couldn't have been more than an hour ago."

"We were asleep," said Damian, sounding distraught. "We thought it was over. Why didn't they just kill us as well?"

"That's a good question," said Bruce. "Stay alert. We're not done yet."

There was a silence between them, and then Damian reached out and gently, bitterly, passed his hand across the woman's face, closing her eyes.

"We should bury her," said Damian. "When we can. I didn't know her or her husband in any meaningful capacity, but they were still my teachers. I owe them that dignity, at the very least."

Bruce watched his son. "Do you have any idea who might have done this?"

Damian didn't respect immediately. And then: "When they taught me…I was told they had a daughter. I never met her, but they assured me I would someday."

Bruce looked at him. "What was her name?"

Damian stared down at the woman before him, his hand hovering just above her body. "Kostucha," he said. "…Death."

They stayed close to the dying embers of the fire, leaving the woman's body far enough away that the stench of blood was carried away on the ocean breeze. They spoke in quiet, hushed tones; Damian related to his father everything he knew about this deadly family, which was not much. They said very little after that.

A cold wind swept from the water, bringing with it a sheet of rain, turning the low drizzling into a full storm. The final glow of the fire went out. Bruce and Damian did not glance at each other; they did not exchange glances.

It must have been morning, but the clouds were so heavy and black that they blotted out the sun. They were silent; Damian's jaw was clenched, every muscle in his body tensed. He scanned the beach, his eyes finally coming to rest on his father, visibility poor in the darkness and the heavy rain. A vein of blue-white lightning pulsed in the sky, lighting up the shore like day; Damian's eyes widened and as he instantly opened his mouth to shout, thunder clapped high above them, drowning out his urgent cry of alarm; although he could not hear Damian, Bruce spun around, dropping to a crouch, leg shooting out to catch the ankle of whoever it was approaching them. There, in the pouring, storming rain, was a young woman, with skin a pale, translucent white, like the peel of an onion, and hair so blonde it was practically ivory. The whites of her eyes seemed to pulse and glow in the darkness, and she moved so quickly, she was like a strike of lightning herself.

She easily avoided Bruce's blow and – impossibly, Damian thought – she struck the older man in the neck with her elbow, then brought a knee forcefully into his gut. So quick it was unbelievable, she flung him to the soft sand beneath them. Bruce's reflexes were perfect, but he seemed to be moving in slow motion compared to her.

The girl looked up at Damian, the shining whites of her eyes reflecting impossibly from nothing. She did not move for long enough to Bruce to recover and then-

She darted out towards Damian; he evaded her at first, watching the way she moved, her feet – bare, he saw – light and agile on the sand. It took only moments for him to understand that he could not match her, if this came down to speed; she was smaller, lighter, moved with more grace than he did.

Abruptly, instead of trying to dodge, Damian threw himself forward with all his might, trying to knock her off her feet; he collided with her body, but she was already half out from under him as they hit the sand. She hooked a leg around his neck, squeezing his throat, her other knee pressed firmly into his back. He made a defiant choking sound, his hands scratching at her skin, drawing blood.

Bruce leapt towards her; she slipped, as easily as the sun disappears behind the horizon, underneath him, wrenching Damian's leg unnaturally outwards as she did so, and then she was gone.

The rain pounded on. Damian let out more choking coughs, then pulled himself up to his hands and knees; peering around, searching for the girl, Bruce glanced down at Damian, then fell to a knee. "Son," he said. "Damian. Are you all right?"

Damian's cough transformed into a furious, primal shout. Like a wounded animal, more fearsome than ever, he screamed out at the beach – he attempted to stand, but Bruce held him down, saying his name.

"You're hurt," said Bruce. "Don't move."

Damian swung around to look at his father, fury and hate mingling in his eyes. When he saw the expression on Bruce's face, his anger faltered. Finally, he relented, sitting down on the sand, leg splayed out at an awkward angle. Rain plastered his dark hair to his forehead.

"I knew I should have built shelter," he said, loudly, to be heard over the storm.

"It's not broken," said Bruce, his hands on Damian's knee. "Can you walk?"

"Yes," replied Damian, annoyed. "Just help me up."

The rain bearing down on them, making the sand beneath them sink like mud, Bruce took strong hold of Damian's side and lifted him up. As he tried to put weight on his injured leg, he let out a howling scream, more out of anger and defiance than pain. Supporting his son heavily, Bruce guided them to the dense edge of the jungle; as they continued in, much of the rain seemed caught by the canopy above them. Bruce did not stop after a few minutes; he continued on determinedly, following some invisible path that Damian could not discern. At long last, he reached up and pulled down a huge palm frond, revealing what looked like the entrance to a cave. Once they were inside, sheltered from the rain, Bruce gently helped Damian sit down, then went further inside, as if searching for something.

"How did you know this was here?" asked Damian, clutching his knee.

"Reconnaissance before we arrived," replied Bruce; he retrieved two large duffel bags, weighed down with their contents, and placed them before Damian, opening them both. He glanced at Damian, something not quite like a smile on his face. "You didn't think I'd go in completelyunprepared, did you?"

Damian took a small towel that his father offered, pressing it against his face, head, and neck. "No," he said. "You always cheat."

"That's right," said Bruce contentedly. "Your injury. Ruptured medial collateral ligament. You need a knee brace, at the very least."

"And," said Damian, watching as Bruce dug through one of the duffel bags, something like admiration in his voice, "naturally, you have one."

"What kind of father would I be," said Bruce, "if I wasn't prepared for every single different potential injury you could possibly face?"

Damian shook his head, but he no longer looked so unhappy. He took the brace, tugging it on to his leg, grunting slightly in pain when it pressed against the soreness in his knee. "When did you hide this here?" he asked. "You said you'd never been here before."

"I hadn't," replied Bruce. "That isn't to say I don't have friends gifted with the very valuable powers of superspeed and flight."

Damian watched his father for a moment, then let out an oddly sincere laugh. "You madeSuperman place emergency supplies on a deserted island?" he asked sounding impressed. "On the off-chance we might need them?"

"He was happy to oblige," replied Bruce, examining Damian's knee, adjusting the brace to the correct place. "He thinks very highly of father-son camping trips."

"That's because Chris is a Boy Scout," said Damian, shaking his head, grinning slightly.

"I believe he's an Eagle Scout now," said Bruce dryly. "Clark's very proud."

Damian let out a little laugh. In a conspiratorial tone, his voice lowered slightly, as if someone could hear them, he asked, sounding slightly in awe, "Do you know how many merit badges he has?"

Glancing up, raising an eyebrow, Bruce asked, "Is that envy in your voice?"

"Shock and disgust, more like."

Bruce let out a rumbling chuckle. Damian watched him, something in his eyes like fascination. The other man went back to the duffel bag, removing a reinforced vest, light but strong enough to protect against low-caliber bullets. "Put this on," said Bruce.

"I don't need it," said Damian.

"I know," said Bruce. "But you're going to wear it anyway."

Damian watched his father for a moment, then took the vest. "You really think I'm going to be shot at?"

"No," replied Bruce. "But you don't get a say in this."

"What about you?"

"If, by some grotesque twist of fate," said Bruce, with an odd sort of sigh, "one of us has to die today-"

Rolling his eyes, Damian began, "Father-" but Bruce did not stop.

"-it's going to be me. Is that clear?"

Damian said nothing, only watched Bruce. "Fine," he said, pausing, choosing his words with care. "But if that bitch kills you," he said, "then I'm going to kill her. Is that clear?"

Bruce went back to searching through the bags. "Fortunately," he murmured, "I don't think it will come to that."

There was more silence. Outside the cave, the storm raged. Father and son both donned thicker protective gear, mostly to shield from the elements, and then Bruce passed some food to Damian, who took it cautiously, then inspected it carefully. Turning the dry, brown strip over in his hands, he began, "You know I don't eat-"

"It's seitan," said Bruce, holding out the container to Damian. "No meat. I know."

Damian took the container, inspecting it suspiciously. Then, warily, he took a small bite.

There was silence between them.

And then, still slowly chewing the meatless jerky, Damian said soberly, "I didn't know she was so young."

Bruce glanced at his son.

"I didn't even believe she was real," continued Damian. "But she can't be older than I am."

"Maybe," said Bruce. "Appearances are deceptive."

Damian glanced at his father. "You don't agree?"

"She's clearly a metahuman of some kind," Bruce continued, analytically. "But I saw no indication that this was something either of her supposed parents was. Do you think so?"

"No," answered Damian. "But they could have been carriers."

"They could have been," answered Bruce. "But I doubt that she's related to them at all. She didn't move like a sixteen-year-old."

A short silence. Then Damian said: "You're saying she's better than me."

"She's older than you," said Bruce, with finality. "I can tell."

"How?"

"Because you don't have to identify with every young assassin you meet, Damian," said Bruce patiently. "That's why."

Damian's good humor seemed to evaporate. He jerked his gaze away from his father.

"You should get some sleep," said Bruce. "We should be safe here, for the time being." Damian said nothing. Bruce leaned over once more and held something out to him. "Take this," he said.

Damian regarded his father's outstretched hand with distaste. "What is it?"

"Pain reliever," replied Bruce. "It'll help with your knee."

For a moment, Damian didn't move. And then he took the pills from his father's hand, slipping them into his mouth, and leaned against the side of the cave, arms crossed, eyes closed, and allowed himself to, slowly, incrementally, drift to sleep.

It felt like mere seconds later that he awoke. He kept his eyes closed, sore all over his body. There was silence outside. The storm must have broken.

He felt unnaturally warm – not like there was a fire near him, but as if there were a body beside him, crowding him. Annoyed, he shifted slightly, prepared to push his father away – taking advantage of a moment of vulnerability to snuggle seemed something Dick would do, not his father, but-

Damian opened his eyes, and even the breath froze in his lungs.

So close to his face that he could feel her exhalations on his skin, face pale enough that he could see delicate veins of blue beneath her eyes, the girl stood before him. Kostucha: Death, Damian thought, and it seemed impossible to deny. Her eyes were dull and empty, and she crouched before him, unnervingly still. He did not dare to break her gaze, to look around for his father.

The little girl – and Damian could see now that he had been right, and not only was she painfully young, but there was no way she was even as old as he was – looked at him with eyes like oily black droplets in pure shining white and then, faster than he could even blink, her fingers clamped around his jaw, tilting his face up from the chin, forcing him to peer down slightly to meet her gaze.

She opened her mouth, and her teeth were pointed, and her tongue was blood red.

Strong hands clenched down hard on his shoulders, and he was shaking, and – "Damian!Damian!"

He awoke with his heart racing, the pain in his knee shooting up his body. In that first moment of waking, he gasped and struggled against the body before him, holding him tightly, and then his vision cleared and his heart slowed as he saw the man kneeling protectively before him, an anxious look of concern on his face.

Damian inhaled deeply, the image of the girl seared into his mind.

"She's a child," he breathed. "She's just a child."

Bruce watched him, holding his son tightly by the shoulders until Damian's breathing evened. Then, cautiously, he let go. Quietly, he said, "You were crying out." The rain was still pouring outside; Damian heard another clap of thunder. "What did you see?"

For a breathless moment, Damian looked up at his father, then away. "Nothing," he said. "How long did I sleep?"

"A few hours," replied Bruce. "How's your leg?"

"Fine," lied Damian, staring at the entrance to the cave. "Has she found us?"

"It's more than likely," said Bruce. "But we're both still breathing, so there's reason to be optimistic."

Damian didn't answer this, which surprised Bruce, who thought the boy would respond with typical irritation.

"I'm going to find her," said Damian, laboriously getting to his feet. Bruce was instantly by his side.

"You're injured," he said. "We'll wait her out."

"No," said Damian resolutely. "She's out there by herself. She could be dead from exposure by now."

"I doubt that," said Bruce. "Both she and her mother were equipped better than we were. I understand that you don't want her meeting the same fate as her parents-" Damian glanced at his father, who added emphatically, "I do understand that, believe me. But there's no reason to believe she's in any danger."

Damian pushed his father away aggressively. "She's a child," he said again. "A baby."

"That's not true," said Bruce pointedly, but Damian batted him away again. Sharply, he said, "Damian. Don't make me restrain you."

"Father," said Damian, limping towards the cave's entrance. "You could always try."

There was a moment of non-movement; even Damian stopped, pausing slightly, as if to see if his father would take him up on his dare.

And then Bruce moved forward, swiftly but not deceptively, reaching out a hand to place on Damian's shoulder; Damian took that hand and twisted his father's arm, slamming him down onto the cave's hard floor.

Bruce did not immediately get up. Looking down at his father, Damian said, his voice hushed, "I'm not a ten-year-old anymore. I have everything you have taught me, and everything my mother did. Which means," he continued, as Bruce got to his feet, his face hard, "that I have been trained by the same people as this girl."

"You don't know that," said Bruce.

"Yes," said Damian. "I do." He stared into his father's eyes. "I know that look," he said, "in her eyes. It doesn't come from any metagene, nor from any supernatural power. Those were the eyes of someone who's never been taught anything but how to harm. How to kill."

He paused.

"I know those eyes," he said. "They used to be mine."

He turned and limped out towards the mouth of the cave, pulling away the huge palm fronds, and then-

It was like an animal, like being caught in the jaws of some kind of giant hound, dragging him away mercilessly, sucking him into the jungle as if dropped into the middle of the ocean, with no idea which direction was up or down. Breath was hard to catch, and the pain in his leg shot up and down his body, causing spasms down his calf and up his thigh, muscles locking tightly, painfully, so badly he was left gasping, wind knocked far away from his lungs.

And then he was let go, lying on the soft silt of the ground. He groaned in pain and disorientation, and tried to sit up; a sharp blow to the side of the head. Kick to the solar plexus, then a stomping on his ribcage. Anticipating the final blow, he reached up, almost as quickly as the girl had moved, and took firm hold of her foot, tiny in his hands. He pushed his hands forcefully up, knocking her off her balance, then put a hand on her thigh and threw her down, hard onto the ground, although the blow was muted slightly by the soft ground.

Instantly coming down on top of her, he pinned one of her legs underneath her body, catching one of her wrists with each of his hands. His body was still wracked with pain, but he dulled himself to it; Męka's poison was still not fully gone from his system, and he imagined he could feel it in his veins, and he recalled the only lesson she ever taught him. Pain, she had said, her words thick with her heavy accent, exists only in the mind.

As Damian fought every nerve in his body screaming in protest, struggling to keep the girl pinned to the ground, he thought that was total bullshit, and the only place his pain existed was all the way up and down his frame, in his bones and blood and skin and muscles. It wasn't that it didn't exist, but instead that it didn't matter; it couldn't matter, not in this moment, not when the girl's eyes were wide, baring her teeth at him.

Something in the back of his mind registered that her mouth was not crimson; her teeth were not pointed; her irises weren't even black, but a pale, see-through silvery-gray. She dug her fingernails into his wrists, drawing beads of blood, and finally tugged her leg out from underneath her. She thrust upwards with her hips, disrupting his balance on her body, and then she wrapped her legs around his neck, squeezing just hard enough that he loosened his grip on her hands; she raked down her face with long, narrow fingernails, then threw him down into the dirt, leaping away. His hand shot out, as lightning-quick as hers but dark and covered in mud, unlike her pale body, and he held onto her ankle. She turned back, her face bloodless with rage, and raised her other foot high to stomp on his face-

The loud bang sounded despite the noise of the rain, and there was a sharp yelping sound, and then she was gone, disappeared into the black depths of the jungle.

Damian stared at the place where she had been, then wrenched around, clumsily getting to his feet. "What are you doing?" he hissed, livid.

Bruce held a firearm in one hand. "She's injured," he said. "She can't go far."

Damian seized the thing from his father's grip. "What is this?" he demanded.

"Nonlethal," Bruce replied coldly. "You should not have disobeyed me."

Ignoring his father's words, Damian threw the gun onto the ground. "That weapon," he growled, "is designed for adult males. Thugs. That girl," he gestured out at the forest at large, "is halfmy weight, if that. You could have killed her."

"No," said Bruce.

"Yes," said Damian, stomping hard on the weapon, pressing it into the wet ground.

"No," repeated Bruce. "It was loaded with a tranquilizer. A quarter dose from the usual. Even at her size, it couldn't keep her down for long, or do any serious damage."

The rain fell, dripping steadily down from the canopy above them. A sobering sense of self-consciousness pierced through Damian's anger, and he stepped off of the weapon.

"Regardless," he said. "We don't need it."

"You only say that because you weren't the one wielding it."

Damian didn't respond to this. He looked out at the jungle again. "She's still here," he said. "I can feel it."

"You're confused," said Bruce. "She took you by s-"

He let out a small breath, his hand instantly slapping to his neck; Damian looked at his father, alert and battle-ready, and Bruce produced a small dart from his neck. He held it in his palm, unspeaking for a moment.

And then, quietly, his eyes flickering up to Damian: "This," he said, "is what I just shot at her."

Damian's eyes widened, and he looked past his father, where the dart had come from; as if responding to some signal only visible to him, he shot through the trees, slowed considerably by his bad knee, but sprinting on it all the same, grimacing with the pain, nerves on fire, but unrelenting. He could still see her, though, white hair shining in the darkness – she moved slower too, he could tell, even with his hazy, sweat-filled vision. The tranquilizer had hit her, he realized, and she had wrenched it out of her skin to blow the needle into Bruce's neck – but she was slowing down, unsteady. It seemed that she was human, after all.

Rocketing through the dark jungle, wet organic matter squelching beneath his feet, the ground began to angle sharply upward, and it became an ascent; Damian was losing her now, he could see her gaining distance but he leg would not obey him and could not support him any longer; he fell, the dark mud clinging to his body, hands, and face, but – through the fog of pain, he could see his father continuing the pursuit, moving faster than Damian could – than the girl could, maybe, and Damian realized the ground below him was rockier than where he had been before, and he knew where they were climbing and that there would be no way to turn at the end of this stone outcrop, and suddenly an urgency rose within him, to get to the top, to catch her now before she reached it, because-

Ignoring the shooting, seizing agony in his leg, he pulled himself to his feet and moved forward, faster, focusing on the pounding of his blood to his injuries and back through his heart. He was catching up with his father, with speed and agility and endurance that should have been impossible, and never had he felt his body and self more intertwined with the girl's than when he reached the edge of the jungle and saw her body, brilliantly white even in the grayness of the storm, hover for just a moment above the top of the cliff at the peak of Devil's Rock, then fall, gracefully, almost as if floating, down to the black water below.

He heard his father's shout as she fell, and then the look of utter failure on his face. He stood, wind and rain whipping at his body at the edge of the rock, and said aloud, to Damian: "Dammit. She fell onto the rocks." He began to turn to look at his son. "There's no way she survi-"

But then his voice instantly became nothing more than a panicked shouting of his son's name as Damian threw himself off Devil's Rock, battered by the gales during his fall, then hit the icy water, crashing through it like concrete.

Bruce screamed his son's name, then scaled the side of the rock, dropping himself on the beach, wading out to the water at the base of the cliffs. His voice mingling with the unnatural, shrieking winds, he shouted for Damian, dipping beneath the waters, searching along the jagged rocks; he tore his hand open on a barnacle, black shell as sharp as steel and then, the breath in his lungs salty and dense like seawater, a small body, pale white in the dark sea, carried by the waves towards the shore. His heart frozen, the thought wildly ran through his head that if he found two corpses, then there would be three tonight, because he could vanish in this dark water, and there was nothing more he wanted to do in the world than breathe the ocean deep into his lungs, the ocean that had taken his son, his flesh-and-blood, away from him too young, too much, he has been stripped of too much in his life and what is one more life, especially, he thinks, when it is his own-

Dark arms grasp around the girl's white body, and a head emerges from the treacherous waters. Bruce's heart began to beat again, hard against his chest, as Damian spluttered and choked, eyes harder than Bruce had ever seen them, then began weakly swimming towards the shore, half his body no longer of any use.

When Damian saw his father, he did not acknowledge his presence, only allowed him to help, and together, they dragged the girl's tiny body onto the shore.

Bruce reached out to take hold of his son, relief pumping through his veins just as much as a rising fury for the boy's stupidity, but Damian threw him off, laying out the girl on her side, then to her back, on two knees beside her, two fingers below her chin and one hand on her forehead. He put his hands on top of each other and placed them directly on her chest, and began counting, grunting aloud.

Bruce watched him.

After fifteen compressions, Damian put his hands to her face again, lowered his mouth to hers, and forced breath into her lungs. He went back to her chest. Bruce said, "Damian."

Still dripping wet and hardly able to breathe himself, Damian only shook his head, eyes stinging with salt, welling up and spilling over. He put his mouth to hers again.

"Damian."

Bruce reached out, as if to take Damian's shoulders; Damian threw him off violently, hoarsely shouting, "No!" as he resumed chest compressions.

"Stop," said Bruce, physically taking hold of his son's arms; Damian struggled, and Bruce continued, louder, "Damian, look at her."

"No," screamed Damian, his whole body shaking, refusing to look at her pale, unmoving skin. Forcefully, Bruce took one of the boy's hands, and, despite Damian's weak fighting, he managed to press his son's fingers to just beneath the girl's jaw.

After a single moment, Damian stopped struggling. Bruce let him go. "Look," said Bruce heavily, gesturing to the girl's chest. "She's breathing."

Damian knelt before the girl, hands hovering helplessly above her. And then, exhaustion bleeding from him, draining him of every ounce of strength he still possessed, he collapsed across her body, and wept.

Bruce sat there, the chill of the ocean settling deep inside of him. He could think of so many reasons to be furious at his son, he could pinpoint every mistake the boy had made, every time he had disobeyed orders and every time he made a stupid decision, one that could have cost him his life and yet – Bruce did not speak. He did not move, except to, slowly, lift a strong hand, and place it on his son's back, in a silent gesture of unity and compassion.

They slept in the cave that night.

When Damian awoke, there was sunlight streaming in from the entrance, no longer obscured by vegetation.

Everything ached. He set it aside. He would deal with his pain in due time, but there were other matters.

He saw his father slept directly beside him. The position of his father's hand suggested he had fallen asleep holding his son protectively. Damian observed this dispassionately.

He looked around the cave.

A shadow fell across the entrance. He looked into the bright light, squinting against it. A pale white figure, like a ghost, stood there, watching him.

He did not move. He did not wake his father.

The girl met his gaze for a moment. There was something different about those eyes. She hesitated, and then, slowly, she bowed her head slightly, as if nodding at him. Then she disappeared.

Very carefully, Damian pulled away from his father, and headed into the sunlight. Although he could no longer see her, he instinctually knew where to go, and he limped slowly out to the beach where he and his father had made their first camp, the remains a fire beside the remains of a woman, already decaying in the wetness and warmth.

The girl knelt beside the woman for a moment, unmoving. And then, without glancing back towards the edge of the jungle, where Damian stood watching her warily, she headed into the ocean, diving underneath the waves. He watched her swim out to the huge, bare, rock, maybe a quarter mile out, and then disappear behind it. A moment later, he heard the telltale sounds of a motor engine revving, and then a small but powerful boat took off, appearing from behind the rock, and heading off, away from the island.

Damian watched her go.

It was a few moments later that he became aware that his father was behind him.

Bruce asked, "You let her go?"

Damian didn't respond to this immediately. He could think of nothing that would convince his father.

So he said: "Do you remember the day I told you not to give up on me, Father?"

Bruce looked at his son, but Damian did not return the gaze. "Yes."

Damian said nothing. Then: "Do you remember what I had done, just before?"

"Of course."

There was a silence. Damian watched a small boat in the distance, where the blue water met the blue sky.

He said quietly, "That was the day I started to live for myself. Not for Mother. Or you. Or Dick, or anyone. That was the first moment I saw who I was, and I did not flinch away from it. The first time I saw worth in myself, not just in relation to someone else."

Silence.

"There are too many children like me," he said, his voice hardly above a whisper.

Bruce did not say anything.

"We should bury her now," said Damian, his voice strong again. "Męka." He made his way onto the beach, towards the body. Calling back to his father, he said, "The woman was an evil, heinous creature, but she was a wife and a mother, and she had dignity of her own, and I must respect that." He glanced back at his father, a small smirk on his lips. "It's how I was raised."

They buried her on the beach near the edge of the jungle, where the dirt was harder and the walls of the shallow grave more solid. Damian dug some of it, but eventually claimed he was in too much pain to continue, and lounged on the beach while Bruce worked.

By the time the helicopter arrived to take them to the mainland, the sun was setting on the horizon, and the only indication that anyone had ever been there was a narrow rectangular patch of unearthed dirt, near where the white sand melted into dense, green foliage.