"phew... sorry, i tried to catch up to you guys as soon as i could— oh, bruce?"
"mama, you're here!"
"rhea. damian told me you're not coming today, that's why i'm here."
"i thought you told me you're handling a few clients for today."
"well, one of them changed our meet-up spot to be around where we're all supposed to be heading anyway—the change was so last minute ugh— but yeah, i suppose i will tag along for today after all."
"hm... i suppose, if that works. let's— get going, shall we...? ///"
tell me more abt the concept of damian's guilt due to the fact that he chose someone else be4 rhea as his s/o pls
omg anon..... ty.... for asking me this..... i will answer but ofc. warning for cc x oc. and some damin*ka stuff thats not so good but its not about them SO. anyway.........
back then damian has a very strained relationship with rhea since he came back from the lazarus tournament. why?
because of what ra's did to rhea. lemme explain.
so when damian was missing— ra's kinda manipulated his way to rhea's mind, making her into believing that "damian left her" as in. died. rhea was absolutely not having it about this subject bc hes like one of her only close friends and not to mention her grandfather died VERY recently. tbh there's a deeper context on why ra's even reaching out to rhea like a stalker but idk how to summarize it LMFAO but lmk if you want me to explain it to you.
so when she sees him coming back doing well and even has a girlfriend she lowkey mad. not really bc hes dating someone but its bc in her pov damian "lied" to her just to get away from her (ra's deception), and he KNEW her grandfather died too btw and she feels like he's just running away and messing around with her (for touch ups both alfred and rhea's grandpa are like friends so after alfred died her grandpa kinda joins him like soon after. he died due to his illness tho).
rhea made an antihero identity as kallen and lowk very passive aggressive with robin whenever they encounter each other (very brief interactions tho, but always memorable for robin. even tho he cant recognize her— kallen has quantum mask), whether as friends or foes.
kallen alone is not necessarily evil since the prime of this identity is for other things. crimefighting and saving gotham is not really what she does but i can say she does researching with this identity. like a lot. very sneaky too bc she lowk cant risk herself to be seen by the court of owls. or even worse, batman. (her civilian self is of course— unseen anywhere from the public atm.)
so like. after a few years of misunderstanding they kinda made up. he kinda cleared up stuff with rhea when hes late 16. i hc damian and n*ka broke up (mutual lost interest) when hes like 17. him and and rhea started to hang out again when hes 18 and theyre dating when hes 21 (rhea is a year older).
on why he feels guilty? most of it is regret.
he lowk blamed himself for letting the misunderstanding stretched for so long. 2-3 years is not really a short time for him. ntm hes even upset when he realized he temporarily forgotten her for 2-3 months (i hc him to have a brief amnesia specifically towards her whenever he got resurrected by the lazarus pit atm. this is lore related but i can explain it for the other day if you want). he had to learn the truth about how he allegedly "lied to her" via bruce— rhea told him (atm bruce already know kallen is rhea).
as on why damian was upset of rhea being not his first s/o. is bc. i believe its just like his internal spiral. thing. like yeah sure him and n*ka were together and they were in love and had fun but its lowk like. it feels like highschool crush. they were a pair build up on rush. youth. and its not what older damian wants to feel anymore. i hc older dami to quit almost fully from being batman and settle things with rhea. he lowk dont hate the idea of being a future malewife for her (NOT that kind of malewife)
hes still grateful he had a relationship with fl*tline but he lowk wishes to know abt rhea's state from the past few years much sooner. like it really was that bad for rhea and he didnt even bat an eye on her until its (almost) too late.
he believes he doesnt deserve rhea in any way almost specifically when theyre early dating. for all the things he did, he believes he couldnt make it up to her with anything at all. (rhea was losing weight and she looks fairly skinny when shes adapting as kallen. and also she sometimes does self harm out of frustration, but no one really know this ofc. well i mean until he saw the scars and yk. he gets sick. like technically hes one of the reasons on those "healed" scars even exist.)
rhea was awkward and upset about it too btw this is definitely not a one-sided thing they both lowk hated the fact the misunderstanding went for so long.
ok sorry for the long thank you for coming to my ted talk. feel free to ask everything.
※ fyi that rhea has history with mild ptsd with her parents' death when she's young, and her grandfather's death was like. her last straw of it. and damian being "dead" isn't really helping her case either; she developed co-ptsd after this and went fully out of public's view for the next view months. shes developing abandonment issue too. as well as OSFED and doing self harm.
