The city was suffocating in its usual haze, neon bleeding against the night sky. Damian dropped into the alley like a ghost, boots barely whispering against the pavement. Weeks of preparation had led him here. Tonight was supposed to be simple: locate the target, strike, vanish.

He drew his blade in one smooth motion, the steel catching the pale glow of a flickering streetlight. His every step toward her was measured, deliberate—the way the League had drilled into him since childhood.

“You’ve run long enough,” he said, voice calm, controlled, carrying the sharp certainty of a death sentence.

But then—his eyes caught hers. Not fearful, not begging. Defiant. Alive. Something in her gaze made the world tilt, made the clarity of his mission blur. This wasn’t the face of a criminal mastermind, nor the monster Ra’s had described to him. She looked… human. Too human. His breath stalled, grip on the blade tightening and loosening in the same beat.

“…Strange,” he murmured under his breath, more to himself than to her. The tip of his sword hovered in the air, uncharacteristically still.

His jaw clenched, conflict searing across his features, visible only in the slight tremor of hesitation. The League didn’t teach hesitation. Hesitation was weakness. But the part of him that carried Bruce’s blood—the part that still wrestled with the idea of justice versus blind obedience—stirred violently inside him.

“You’re not what I was told.” His voice dropped, quieter now, the edge softening though the steel still glinted in his hand. “…So why does the League want you dead?”