What If I Never Wanted To Leave Your Side?

***

(What If I Never Wanted To Leave Your Side?

...Would You Make Me Leave?)

***

Damian didn't know why he was going there. He wasn't supposed to be going to the dungeons. 

Yet, here he was, walking and walking, down long cold pathways to the long rows of barred rooms. 

His wrist jerked forward, an invisible hand pulling him along. 

It was tethered quite insistently to him, pulling and pulling no matter where he was. When he was sleeping it weighed heavily on him, like a shackle had been locked on it. When he was training it burned through his skin, leaving marks his mind could only conjure. 

He stopped. The door was thick, 6 solid inches of reinforced iron. Still, Damian gripped the handle and turned.

Water drips was the first thing he heard. Decisive plinks against the stone. Each breath was torture, hot stale air that couldn't rush out of his lungs fast enough. It was dark, the only light coming from the open doorway that let out a long rectangle of light. 

It didn't even reach 7 ft from the door. 

Damian closed the door with a resounding thud, turning toward the two rows of cells. 

Skeletons stared at him, some covered in leathery skin, others bare and cracked, and a few fresh and rotting.

He looked away and continued walking, letting his wrist lead him. It was tugging more insistently now, burning but not like the way it had been before. Excitement, maybe?

Damian came to a stop and stared. It was a cell, but why would he be looking at it? It was empty. Confused and irritated, he growled and took a step back. 

Just before he could turn, he saw. 

His breath caught. 

They were blue; they were blue like the sea; blue like sapphires; blue like iris in full bloom; blue like a dark bruise; blue like the sky; blue like none of those things because they were the purest form of blue that Damian could think of and they stole his breath-

"Who are you?" 

Blue - so blue - was staring at him and he forced his mind to reboot. 

"Damian." 

"Al ghul?" 

He hesitated before nodding. "Yes. How do you kn-" 

"Because your mother was the one that killed my parents. Your family is why I'm here." 

She was a prisoner. Spoils from a mission. 

Damian recoiled in disgust. 

"Why are you here?" He shook off her question. 

"It doesn't matter." 

She didn't matter. 

***

Damian found himself in front of her cell again, a little over a week later. 

"What did you do to me?" It was a demand.

Blue looked at him again. "Nothing; what is it you are under the assumption of?"