[DC/Western Crossover/Batman/Damian] The Monkey and the Green Eyes

A tough, rebellious, foul-mouthed top ✖️ a tsundere, lovesick queen bottom

His name is Wukong. Number #2473. The lowest-ranked “training expendable” in the League of Assassins.

A Chinese orphan trafficked to the Middle East, he survived five years amid the League of Assassins' stone and blood. Everyone called him “Monkey,” because he refused to accept his fate. He failed to escape thirty-seven times and was beaten back thirty-seven times, but each time he got two hundred meters farther than before.

His name is Damian Wayne. Heir to the League of Assassins. Batman's son. Grandson of Ra's al Ghul.

At eleven, he'd already killed. His green eyes held arrogance and a loneliness no one had ever touched.

The first time they met, he used him as a punching bag.

The first time they fought, Wukong made him bleed. No one had ever dared to hurt him before.

From that day on, the heir came looking for the expendable boy every day. Beneath the moonlight in the corner of the training yard, the two boys went from beating each other up to fighting side by side, from taunting each other to trusting each other, from “You're kind of interesting” to “You're my only friend.”

Six months. With their fists and their wounds, they carved each other's names into their hearts.

Then Damian did the one thing an heir to the League of Assassins should never do:

He let him go.

A map, keys, a false identity. A gap in the shift change at the back gate at four in the morning. Beneath the moonlight, the eleven-year-old's green eyes reddened for the first time.

“Get out. Don't die. Don't forget me.”

That kiss on the forehead was light as a feather, yet heavy enough to stay with them both for five whole years.

Five years later, he was the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven.

The youngest official member of the Ten Heroes. Disciple of the Iron Mask General. The boy who walked from Lebanon to Shanghai, crossed deserts and snow-capped mountains in a year, and spent five years forging himself into steel.

Five years later, he was Robin.

Batman’s son. The sharpest blade in Gotham's night sky. His green eyes held a sixteen-year-old's brilliance, and his drawer held 182 portraits of Monkey.

Gotham. A downpour. An abandoned chemical plant.

He switched off his voice modulator and removed his mask

Rain fell between them. The light in those green eyes shattered, then flared again.

Then a punch. Then a second one. Then a hand seized his wrist and pulled him close, cupping his face

“You son of a bitch, five years, ”

“I'm back.”

Their kiss in the rain tasted of blood and five years of waiting. Gotham's night was dark, but his lips were warm.

He said, “You owe me the rest of your life.”

He said, “I know.”

This isn't a hero story.

It's a story about how a “training expendable” became the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven; how an heir learned to love; and how two boys spent six years crossing the distance between the League of Assassins and Wayne Manor.

There are the Batfamily watching and turning a blind eye: Nightwing's tally book, Red Hood's betting pool, Batgirl's knowing smile, Alfred making extra breakfast, and Batman pretending every morning not to see them holding hands.

There are the Ten Heroes watching and waiting: the Iron Mask saying, “Don't keep people waiting too long”; Ghost Fox saying, “You're tougher than the two of them put together”; the healer handing over a big packet of tonics; and Master Lei Nian saying, “There's a light in that kid's eyes.”

Neither gives in to the other, and neither lets the other win. They fight and kiss, kiss and fight, just like they did in the training yard as kids, except this time, neither of them has to leave.

“Do you know, when you kissed my forehead six years ago, I thought it was goodbye.”

“And now?”

“Now I know it was the beginning.”

From the League of Assassins to Gotham, from expendable to the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, from heir to Robin.

A story about waiting and coming home, about hurting and protecting each other, and about two boys who never believed in fate, yet made each other theirs.

Theme: Never compromise