[ Damian is just a little too smug when he answers. ]
What twelve-year-old has seen what I've seen, done what I've done? I'm a child in age only, but a soldier in everything else.
[ Proud of it, too; he's capable, independent, on equal footing with the adults around him. He doesn't need to be protected, or coddled.
And, when it comes to himself, he doesn't recognize the horror of it: innocence hollowed out by the time he should have been first setting foot in kindergarten. Doesn't understand why his own father finally looked at him on his return to Gotham and saw, with certainty, that he was broken. ]
no subject
[ Damian is just a little too smug when he answers. ]
What twelve-year-old has seen what I've seen, done what I've done? I'm a child in age only, but a soldier in everything else.
[ Proud of it, too; he's capable, independent, on equal footing with the adults around him. He doesn't need to be protected, or coddled.
And, when it comes to himself, he doesn't recognize the horror of it: innocence hollowed out by the time he should have been first setting foot in kindergarten. Doesn't understand why his own father finally looked at him on his return to Gotham and saw, with certainty, that he was broken. ]