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It’s only a matter of seconds.
Damian stares because he already knows who the man walking towards him is. His eyes are bright blue and each carries a sliver of ice inside, a sure sign of how dangerous it is, the thing lurking underneath.
The beard may trick others into thinking that he’s much older than he really is, but not Damian. The man is old, but not enough to keep the anger out of his face. The man is old, but only in the way some kids grow too soon.
The man stops as soon as he spots him. That proves it. This sense of familiarity pulling Damian’s most inner strings is not a one way road. They know each other. They shouldn’t, but they do.
The man stares and something in Damian’s stomach turns. There’s a hint of recognition, but nothing else. It reminds him of the way his father used to look at him, like he could spot some of his mother’s features in his face, yet that didn’t trigger any kind of emotion in him— and neither did the fact that Damian was his son by name and blood. It took him years to get over that.
But the disregard radiating from this stranger is not quite alike. It’s a worn out indifference, the kind you feel for an old scar that no longer holds any meaning. It’s a look that says: I’ve already lived all there was to live with you, and now I’m moving on. A spark of anger anchors him to the ground; burns the words in his mouth until he can taste ashes.
(How do you reclaim a memory you’ve never made?)
The man walks right past him and no matter how long Damian waits, he doesn’t turn once. It only serves to prove what Damian has always known: Tim Drake burned the brightest and so he was doomed to be the first of them to turn cold. In a way, that made him Bruce’s son more than any virtue he might have ever shown.
Damian’s initial anger makes a turn at that, a pang of sadness takes its place. If a great man has no right to live a happy life, then at least his ghost should be allowed the comfort of rest.
It seems like Tim got neither of them.