Side by side, the two of them passed through the glowing door, it swinging open at their approach, and in to the abyss beyond...

...landing with feet squarely planted on gravel. It was darker overhead than the sky over the motorway. Not a crisp, starry dark, but one with zeppelins dotting a murky, yellow-tinged fog. Damian looked up with all the bittersweet comfort of one returning home, but to a very shit home indeed.

Gotham. As unmistakeable as ever. And judging by the thick pollution in the clouds, Poison Ivy was still absent from the crime scene.

The moment she passed in to the realm, in to Gotham, Raven's demonic spirit settled in with all the satisfaction of easing oneself in to a warm bath. Sin. The air was made of the stuff. Whereas the motorway had been a tumultuous concoction of all sorts of vibes, Gotham faced no such identity crisis.

Unfortunately for Damian, his sentiment of reaching home was made all the more real the next second after he'd taken in the air. Home.

Wayne Manor stretched before them. And standing at it's steps, arms folded, were Zatanna Zatara and Bruce Wayne.

"Shit."

Raven gritted her teeth and glanced back at the air where the door had been.

"Lucifer you snake!" she seethed.

Zatanna walked towards them a few steps, black eyebrows raised accusatorily, "Come on you two- you've a lot of explaining to do."

Damian looked to his father, and the unmasked man looked away. Resigning himself to his fate, Damian approached the manor, Raven in pursuit. He had wondered at what point Zatanna would stop observing and actually intervene; this seemed to be it. Head to head with his father, the man stopped, forcing Bruce to meet his eye. For all the grand declarations of trust and understanding that world about in his head, words couldn't find their way out. If he'd solicited Raven's perspective, she might've told him that pride, very likely was the blockade over his mouth. That, or the suffocating swell of sentimentality and indignation clouding his mind.

Hell, what did it matter anyways?

After a prolonged stare at the blank wall behind his father's eyes, Damian walked past him and in to the Manor. Raven glanced at the Batman, who pinned her with a glare more formidable than without the cowl. She was the daughter of Trigon, a powerful enchantress in her own right, but catching the lethal watch of Batman...she might have fled had Zatanna not been behind her and Damian ahead.

The searing hostility of his eyes bore in to the back of Raven's head as she hastened after her companion.

***

Alfred supplied the cocoa. He was good at cocoa. And yet, accepting the mug from the butler, Raven couldn't help but feel a strong judgement swirling in the drink, fighting Alfred's innate paternalism.

Oh for Azar's sake he left on his own! Raven wanted to shout, staring about a room where Zatanna seemed just about the only person who didn't want her head on a spike. Damian entered the living room, cradling his own mug, and that brought the figure up to two. 

For his part, the man couldn't understand his father's motivation in discussing whatever they were going to discuss in the main sitting room. It wasn't Batman's way. He would know. Hoe many times had Damian fled from the Manor over the years? Always to return to the cool resignation of the Batcave. 

A fire roared in the hearth. It spluttered and fought with the logs it consumed. 

Standing the closest to it, Raven was comforted. Fire was her nature. Fire was her soul. She could depend on it's burning and draw from its strength. Her skin itched to reveal the red hue of a demon, but Raven thought that -as comfortable as she'd been in it with Damian- it would earn her no favours facing the wrath of the Batman...

The Batman who stood in the middle of two couches, facing the fire which heated her back. Damian passed the man to sit on the sofa, reclining with what she knew was a manufactured ease, in contempt of his father. The last to join them was a man in a t-shirt and jeans whose presence was an immediate comfort; Dick Grayson. He stood besides Alfred and passed Raven an unreadable look. His aura was just as uninterpretable. Great.

With all required parties present, the 'meeting' commenced.

Bruce moved to speak, but Damian overrode him.

"Do you trust me, father?" the icy fury in Damian's tone threw Bruce. "Have you ever trusted me?" the man's face gave no answer. "Because if you did, this" he nodded his head to the room, "wouldn't be happening."

Bruce said nothing, for a pause, then looked at Raven.

"Zatanna and Constantine said you were to be trusted. Then my son disappears and returns with you."

Dick winced.

Damian was incredulous.

"I'm sure the Raven and Damian have a perfectly reasonable answer to-"

The bafflement on the younger man's face spoke volumes, "Raven? What does she have to do with this?"

"There's been a misunderstanding here..." the empath began, setting her mug on a coffee table. "It's not fair that you accuse me like this." Pride threatened to rise and Zatanna placed her hand on Raven's shoulder, sensing the tumultuous sea of anger rising. 

Damian sat forwards and frowned from his father to Zatanna, gesturing at the standing empath, "Raven...she has nothing to do with me leaving. That was done on my own accord."

"But you left together?" Dick narrowed his eyes.

"No." they both cried, nearing on outrage.

Damian threw his hands up, "I left to find Shiva! In the hopes that she knew why the Sons of Trigon are pursuing me."

The assassin's name provoked fear and confusion in the man's father. He stayed silent.

Raven continued, "And that's where I found Damian, in Lady Shiva's training guild. I sought him out after researching some information myself."

Batman had only one question and Dick Grayson voiced it: why?

Raven shrugged hopelessly, "I thought I could help. We're in a similar situation and since they're my brothers I feel...responsible somehow. Besides," she raised an eyebrow at the green-eyed man, "it's practically wildlife conservation considering how few Al Ghul's are left in the world: the sum total being-" 

Damian nodded graciously, "My most precious self."

Alfred's moustache twitched. Damian knew that was a little smile.

In the face of the shifting tides in the room, and the calculating confusion in Batman's eyes, Zatanna thought it about time to intervene.

"So, how did you end up with Lucifer Morningstar of all creatures?"

***

The dossier sat in the inside of Damian's top drawer. Raven had done well to hide it before they entered the manor. With it there, locked away as it was, Damian felt the room that he'd lived in for the best part of ten years turn foreign. 

He dried his face with a towel and made quick work of changing. The 'R' emblazoned uniform sitting at the bottom of his cupboard tore at him. Damian was Robin. He'd only gone away for a few weeks. But the weight of that costume once he'd taken it off... To put it back on again would be painful, he knew. 

Downstairs, his father was in conversation with someone (probably Alfred, maybe Dick) and Raven had parted with Zatanna an hour before. Damian had seen his own way upstairs once the 'meeting' had finished it's 'action plan stage'. He would deal with his father when his father was ready to deal with him. Later in the night, Damian didn't doubt that Dick would come along, rapping on his door to have a heart-to-heart. The man was tired. So very, very tired. He would've liked nothing more than to throw himself on to hiss bed and drift in to dreams of milkshakes and candyfloss and the soft soft lips of a purple-eyed demon. 

Her eyes weren't purple last night though- they were as black as her skin had been fiery. He abashed the thought as soon as it passed his mind, then stopped himself, a hand half-way through dragging down his face. It wasn't wrong- not at all. Damian sat on the bed and closed his eyes, deconstructing his thoughts. It was a process that had come to work in times like this.

The League of Assassins had taught him to hold in contempt any and all attraction and sentimentality.

He liked Raven. He had slept with her.

The principals of the League had long since shown themselves to be impractical and callous and largely not worthy of following.

He had no reason to feel guilty.

Damian exhaled and opened his eyes. He had no reason to feel guilty. When he was with her, this route of thinking was impossible. But alone...the shadow of a severe past hung over Damian's head. 

Sighing, he looked to the drawer and pinched the bridge of his nose. Lucifer's repayment...

They had lied. Or at least, equivocated. No mention of the deal had been made. Raven had begun that Lucifer had offered to retrieve the contracts for them out of pure sentiment; Damian had finished that the Devil had yet to do it, but would find them when he did. The others had bought it, they reckoned. 

Damian didn't want to keep Lucifer waiting...but sleep was a demanding mistress. Before he could extend a hand to dig the dossier out of the drawer, she'd already drawn him in to a heavy slumber.

A.N:

Hello my darlings, I'm so sorry to give you another chapter late but I hope this was a decent bit of compensation.

So, what do you guys think?? Impressions of Lucifer? Bruce's opinion of Raven?

I hope you've enjoyed yourselves this chapter! Stay tuned for the next one (hopefully next week if I'm not swamped by shite)!

Love you all!

-Bats