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Alfred both loved and hated his granddaughter’s blue eyes, Thomas’ eyes.
He loved them because they reminded him of the man who once laughed through halls and who smiled like he held all the secrets of the universe.
He hated them for the same reason.
And now, they’re gone.
It should be a relief.
It is a relief.
But it’s also a wound.
Something sacred has vanished.
And Alfred is nothing but pain and reprieve held in the same trembling breath.
Because Thomas is gone.
Because Thomas will never really leave her (him).
Bruce loved his daughter’s eyes.
Those eyes that have always been as blue as his father’s.
It was a quiet comfort, looking into her face and finding echoes of the man who made him.
But now, they’re different.
And it hurts.
Because Thomas Wayne is gone forever, and without those eyes, the illusion that he ever lived is harder to maintain.
His daughter's eyes aren’t Wayne's eyes anymore.
But neither are they Al Ghul's.
And in that, Bruce finds strange solace.
His daughter's eyes are something left behind (just like her), unclaimed by legacy.
Jason loves his sister’s eyes.
Those eyes that have always been the kindest eyes in the world.
But the fact is, it is never gonna matter if those eyes are blue or golden or green,
Because in those eyes lives tenderness, forgiveness, warmth he didn’t think he deserved.
Their hue is a minor detail and nothing more.
It's irrelevant.
Those eyes are hers, and that is all that matters.
For Stephanie, it doesn’t matter either.
Her sister had blue, dry, vacant, eyes that night, on the balcony, their breaths reeking with whisky, their hands intertwined for the last time.
Her sister had blue eyes when she died.
And now they are different.
But she is alive.
And that’s all that ever mattered.
Slade sees her.
Eyes golden like his.
Skin paler than it ever was, ashen, closer to his own that ever before.
She looks like him now, more than she ever did before.
But she is not his daughter.
She will never be his daughter again.
Not after all they did.
Even if now she looks the part.
Even if her eyes mirror his own.
And in those golden eyes, Slade sees shame staring back at him.
His own sins, reflected.
Golden eyes.
Eyes of death (eyes of love too).
Tim likes Dixie’s new eyes.
Not because they’re gold.
Not because they’re beautiful, though they are (of course they are, they are still hers, after all).
But because they make her look less like a Wayne than she did before.
Less like him.
He can pretend their shared blood is a coincidence now, pretend that she is something separate.
Not quite family.
Not quite a reminder of his own shame.
Roy HATES Robbie’s blue eyes.
Because those eyes tore them apart.
He loves those blue eyes too, that are similar to the eyes of his daughter, Lian.
Because they always made him wonder, wonder about another world, another chance, another version of them where they stayed.
But now those eyes are gone.
Replaced by gold, by Deathstroke (by the nightmare that has haunted her ever since they were kids).
And it feels wrong.
So, so wrong.
Garth has always loved Robbie’s eyes, those eyes that have always been as blue as the sea.
Looking at her and not seeing his homeland reflected back at him is a loss he can’t name.
But he remembers:
the sea can shimmer gold beneath the setting sun.
And Robbie is still herself.
The ocean still dances in her soul, waves still lap at her bones.
The riptides are still there, just under her skin.
She is alive, at least in some ways.
And that is enough.
That is everything.
Donna always loved her twin’s eyes.
Because they were one of the few things that made them look alike.
A near-matching set, proof of a bond forged deeper than blood.
Now, that too is gone.
And the grief is sharper for it.
Another thread cut.
Another mirror broken.
Wally has always loved Dixie’s blue eyes.
But not because of their color (Wally's favourite color is blue, it has been ever since he was eighteen and she first took off her domino in front of him).
Because they were hers.
He knows those eyes.
He has seen them bared, naked, truly naked, beyond masks and facades.
Strength and fragility flickering in her irises in equal measure.
And even then, he could never find their bottom.
They were a mystery he never wanted to solve, only cherish.
So it doesn’t matter now.
He always loved Dixie's blue eyes, but he loved them because they belonged to Dixie.
Golden or blue or green…Dixie is with him again.
That’s all that matters.
Talia loves her daughter’s eyes.
Because they are hers.
And she loves everything that belongs to her daughter.
Because everything that belongs to her daughter, belongs to her.
And perhaps that’s the problem.
Or the point.
Still…still, the idea of changing them, of turning them green, her green, feels strangely nice.
An eternal reminder of herself etched onto her daughter’s face (everything she has always wanted, really, seeing herself in her beloved).
A final mark.
A final gift.
A legacy etched into the face of the only person she has ever truly loved (with the sole exception of Damian, of course, but Damian was born for her, and she loved him for her too).
She tells herself it’s not about control, not about ownership, not this time (she wonders if, after she'll have repeated it just one more time, she'll truly belive it).
It’s about love.
About second chances.
It’s about giving her daughter life, again.
Not just through blood, but through choice.
Through change.
To see her reborn in her image, whole and untouchable.
Unburnable.
Unbreakable.
And then life will hum in her green eyes and air will satiate her lungs and blood will sing in her veins.
And life will quicken in her womb, if she'll so choose, or it won't, if she won't care for it.
And she will live.
And nothing will hurt her, not ever again.
Not men.
Not the world.
Because Khaled Hosseini was right when he wrote: "Learn this once and learn it well, my daughter: Like a compass needle always points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman."
Her daughter is a woman.
Talia herself is a woman.
And she made her daughter into her image, all the while trying to save her from pain.
She was unsuccessful the first time around.
This time she won't be.
Damian knows that once upon a time he had blue eyes, like his sister.
Now hers are golden, foreign.
But not for long.
Once she enters the Pit, he expects them to change.
To go green.
Like Todd’s.
Like his.
Like they were always meant to be.
A matching set.
A shared fate.
But when she comes back, her eyes are blue.
Still blue.
Forever blue.
As if the gold and the green battled so fiercely they destroyed each other, leaving only what always was.
And so, her eyes remain hers.
Still different.
Still not his.
And yet…she is with him.
And that is enough.
Maybe it was always meant to be this way.