The Price of Resurrection”
After Peter’s death
The world was quieter without Peter’s laughter in it.
Damian stood over the edge of the Lazarus Pit, fists clenched so tightly the skin split at the knuckles. Below him, the waters glowed a sickly green, bubbling as if they knew what he was about to do.
He’d stolen Peter’s body from the ceremonial tomb. Hidden it in the dead of night, carrying him through secret corridors they used to sneak through as children.
The same corridors where Peter once said, “I bet the outside smells like rain.”
The same ones where they swore to escape. Together.
Now, only one of them remained.
“Please,” Damian muttered to the pit. “Just… bring him back.”
He cradled Peter’s pale, cold body. His face still looked like he might open his eyes and crack a joke.
He lowered Peter in.
The waters hissed and swallowed him whole.
Nothing happened.
Seconds stretched into minutes. Damian waited. He waited.
Until something surfaced — not Peter. Something twisted, something wrong.
Peter’s body jolted upright, eyes wide — but empty. His mouth opened, releasing an inhuman scream, a sound that scraped against reality itself.
Damian stumbled back. “No — no, that’s not him—!”
Peter lunged, clawing like an animal, snarling, feral.
Talia and the League’s elite guards were already there, as if they had been waiting.
“You should not have done this,” she said coldly.
Damian screamed as they dragged Peter back into the pit — not to revive, but to erase.
The guards incinerated what was left.
“No!” Damian howled, his voice breaking. “He was mine! You made me kill him, and now you won’t even let me save him!”
Talia approached, a rare flicker of sympathy in her eyes.
“You’ve learned your greatest lesson, my son. Grief is the price of greatness.”
Damian looked at her like she was poison.
“I’m done learning from you,” he said. His voice was hollow. Dead.
“You taught me to be a weapon. He taught me to be a person.”
He turned and walked away — not toward any exit. Just away.
Ra’s spoke from the shadows, watching him leave:
“He will return. They always do.”
But Damian didn’t.
Not for years. Not until the Bat found him.
And by then, the boy he had been — the boy who laughed, who had a brother — was long gone.