Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The night was alive with static, though there were no storm clouds lying bruised over Gotham. Voices hovered on the wind with no one there to say them. His skin felt too small, his chest wrapped tight with something almost like panic. The jolt of his feet landing on rooftops, the scrape of grit was loud, louder even than the pounding of his heart. 

Damian was beginning to regret not saying anything. 

Something had felt off for days, lingering in the back of his mind—but not like this. Not this constricting pressure, the sense of something burning around him. Light flashed in the corner of his eyes, not bright enough, big enough for lightning, but just as jolting. 

His vision almost seemed sideways, or overlaid with a different image. He couldn't make sense of either, his body moving on instinct and training. 

A voice broke over comms, familiar but unurgent. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t tell who was speaking or what they were saying over the roaring in his head. 

The roar of grandfather’s voice, the cold fire in his eyes, the promise of punishment. 

Damian landed again, rolling, bleeding off momentum. He kept moving, the pounding of his heart, the emotion rolling through him demanding it. Gotham at night glittered through the smog, pinpricks of light that poked and blinded. He was on the trail of something, some one. He saw the silhouette in front of him. He knew he had to report, knew he had to keep up, but it felt so—Unimportant. His mouth moved automatically. He called in the sighting, updated his location, all purely by rote. The world felt far away, distant and faded. 

His hand, gripping a katana that was almost as big as he was, looking across the sparring mats to see his own face mirrored back. 

He took another leap, body automatically braced for impact, calculating angles and where to cut off his target. He hit the arc of his jump—and choked on a scream, eyes blind with the sudden shock of pain and panic. His nerves shattered with abrupt agony. He couldn't breathe. His left arm spasmed as what felt like fire climbed it, cracking his chest open wide. It didn't stop, the pain marching on past his chest and through the rest of his body. No nerve left untouched, no torment left unknown. 

Gotham faded and green filled his vision. The toxic brightness of Lazarus nearly blinded him, the scent, familiar and hated, flared like acid in his nose. He was a live wire, and there was nothing to ground himself with. 

Damian felt the air rushing past, felt the stomach twisting sense of falling. Instinct warring with pain, with the scream that he could hear echoing in his head. He shifted, braced for impact. 

The crashing burn reached a high, and emotion scraped itself into the wailing hollow of his chest. Fear, shock, confusion. He couldn't stop the scream that ripped up his throat, and it joined the one in his head, bouncing off brick and mortar. 

More voices, unfamiliar and frantic, joined the ones on his comm. Damian managed to pull in more air, but couldn’t manage words. The scream bursted out again—the green crashed around him and it was cold fire. He landed, bounced—and still he fell into the green. 

The green snapped, crashing into pitch blackness without warning, and he slid helplessly into it. 

An echo lingered in Danny’s ears. It had for days, a wavering, distant note with no speaker to carry the sound. It rode under each word, haunting every syllable. Danny couldn’t make it out, no matter how hard he strained his ears to listen to the steadily rising pitch.

It was familiar, like the clipped notes of a song he knew too well.

Choked gasps of pain, muffled sobs. Moving forward, in spite of aches and bruises.

Dread followed the sound, just as haunting. It ghosted along his skin, settling uncomfortably in the center of his chest where it hummed and thrummed a discordant melody. 

It was fear without purpose, without target. 

An echo with no clear source.

Danny’s head was stuffed with cotton, his ears dulled with the echo. He could hardly focus, could hardly think as he dodged the flash of claws and the snap of sharp teeth. He grit his own fangs in defiance of it all, braced against the onslaught with everything he had.

Everything, despite the fatigue slowly squeezing at his chest. Despite the sound rising in his ears— a roar, the garble of static—

A scream.

A scream, sharp and shrill, cutting through the night. Danny tore his eyes from the panther just long enough to scan the nearest buildings. His vision tunneled, the pitches of the roofs all jagged, wavering points silhouetted against the night sky. Too tall, too sharp— more skyscraper and spire than townhouse and garage. He tried to make sense of it, as if enough staring might sharpen his surroundings into answers.

A jolt tore through Danny’s arm, fire racing whitehot along the course of his veins. He shot high into the sky, clutching his arm tight as he inspected it for damage, expecting to find the puncture of fangs and the ooze of ectoplasm. 

Blisters on his hands, red and raw. Gripping a sword against thin bandages.

His glove brushed smooth, intact fabric. There was no blemish, no tear…

The fire in his veins spread all the same, prickling tendrils of flame pooling in the palm of his hand. It crackled, electric and sharp. The echo in his ears grew with it, a cadence rising higher and higher with the flames kindling beneath his skin.

The searing, hot fire of punishment, the taste of failure and loss.

His breaths came ragged and quick, the world a haze of screams, too familiar and too near. The fire raced through wires as much as Danny’s veins, the bite of electricity and the whir of machines. A pressure settled beneath his hand, digging into the center of his palm—

It burst.

The tunnel of his vision stained green, the light as sudden and piercing as quick flashes of lightning driving towards the earth. The scream that echoed in Danny’s ears had a voice now, drawn ragged from his own throat. It tore through him, unmade him— the unbearable magma of the earth’s core and the frigid ice of the endless sky, each fighting to carve a place at the center of his being. 

It should have been him. It always should have been him.

The echo was more memory than sound now. Snaking wires, a tunnel through the earth. The nervous beat of his own heart, thumping, thumping, thumping —

Stopping, as abruptly as the shock.

The green left just as quickly, the world seeming to shift on its axis in a rush of falling, fading stars as Danny slid into the inky black.

Chapter Text

It was meant to be a quiet night, but Bruce should have known better. There were never quiet nights in Gotham. The scream that filled the comms and echoed throughout the city would forever haunt him, as the ghosts of failures past that kept tormenting him at every possible turn crawled from the darkest depths of his mind.

The Dark Knight didn’t think, his instincts and years of answering distress calls taking over as he rushed to the source of his worries. That was Damian. That was his son. Screeching in an agonized way as if his very soul was being ripped in two.

His answers became automatic, a confirmation here, an order there, a reply from Barbara and Tim, both monitoring the situation from their respective roles. His peripheral vision soon caught sight of Red Robin jumping across the rooftops, catching up with him on his mission to reach Damian.

"You’re just one block away,” Oracle’s voice crackled into his ear. There. Down in that alley. Tim noticed the slumped silhouette of Damian first, between dumpsters and crates. A fall, from the looks of it.

He shouldn’t have made Damian come on tonight’s patrol.

As he reached the unconscious body of his youngest son, Bruce cursed himself for not being prepared enough to prevent this situation. He knew Damian had been distracted in the past few days, he knew something was bothering him. And he just allowed it to pass, knowing that Damian would never stop if he was told to stay.

“It’s not like Damian to miss a jump,” Tim muttered as he checked for any signs of injury. 

Bruce had trained most of his life to remain calm and focused. It was the only way he had managed to fight his inner demons into submission when he needed to compartmentalize, to keep his eyes on the mission. But all sense of auto-imposed peace faltered as he heard Tim’s next words.

“I can’t find a heartbeat.”

A roar began to take over the walls he built inside his mind, making them crumble, threatening to let all hell break loose. With the remaining ounce of self-control he had left in his body, Bruce adjusted Damian’s position and began to prepare to administer CPR on his son. He couldn’t let him go without at least trying to bring him back, without a fight, or even without an explanation.

But then Damian’s chest rose without any intervention.

“Oh,” Tim said, taking a gloveless hand to the younger boy’s neck to find a pulse. “There it is now. It’s—I swear it wasn’t there a second ago.”

Bruce knew the words were sincere; the first assessment hadn’t been wrong. It only meant Damian was not out of the woods yet. He could still have broken something during the fall, something his scanners hadn’t been able to detect. A concussion, even. Bruce’s eyes traced the distance between the nearest roof and the ground.

“We need to take him to the medbay,” he said out loud, aware that both Tim and Barbara heard and understood what needed to be done. A remote command for the Batmobile to reach their destination, a call to Alfred to get the medical area ready for Damian, an alert for everyone on patrol to keep an eye on the situation.

As careful as he could, Bruce carried his son in his arms. Silent promises went through his head. The vigilante in him made a vow to get to the bottom of this. The father, however, knew he should’ve seen the warning signs. Whether this was caused by burnout, something troubling Damian, or a rogue taking a stealthy approach, Bruce would not let his son face this alone.

Despite how hard he tried to keep his promises, sometimes he was just destined to break them.

This was meant to be a fun night and, oh, she was going to enjoy this taunting game until the very last drop of panic. Amity Park was always a promise of delicious treats at every turn. Her core thrummed predatorily as she imagined the five-star banquet waiting for her as long as they timed this just right.

Playing with her meal was the most important part of feeding, after all. The spike of adrenaline, the jolt of fear, and the way something as fascinating as the amygdala displayed its full power in response, going into overdrive when they pressed the buttons she knew all too well, with just the right whispers, the right taunts.

But now it was time to tire her prey, to make him erratic, prone to mistakes, showing the catastrophic extent of his failures first, before telling him all the ways he had made a mess of things and how he would fail again and again and again.

Spectra always knew the exact moment her words would make his resolve crumble.

Bertrand was already doing a wonderful job getting the ghost boy ready, his panther claws relentless and sharp as they aimed to leave a mark on his half-dead skin. The boy felt more desperate with each passing second, choking on air, his dread filling her senses as a tingling wave of fear rose in his whole being. 

And the scream, oh, that exquisite scream that tore through the night, filling it with sweet, sweet agony, making his focus falter and her hunger increase.

The angst-ridden boy grabbed his arm in pain, although Bertrand’s threatening jaw hadn’t yet been able to tear through its skin, long fangs only hovering, waiting for the opportunity to strike.

They had worked so hard trying to find the right moment, they were so close to their endgame.

The scream that filled the air felt electric and the wave of horror reaching her core felt blinding, overwhelming. Too much she couldn’t even savor anything beyond the unmistakable taste of death that made every inch of her spectral existence curl, the need to get far away itching under all of her smoke and mirrors.

Drat! The timing hadn’t been right.

She recovered enough to notice Bertrand lose his form and the boy that had been moments ago under his grasp falling, plummeting. They stared frozen in place as Phantom crashed in a nearby alley, surrounded by trash and filth. The telltale bright light sparked around his waist; his black-and-white suit and ghostly appearance were soon replaced by dark hair and the pajamas he must've worn as he prepared to drift off to sleep in whatever peace he naïvely thought he had.

Spectra’s shadowy form slithered towards the crumpled and pathetic boy. Bertrand joined soon after, a formless blob of green to hide the worry for the repercussions he would face from his companion. He always seemed to forget how well she could read him, without even stretching her senses in his direction.

So, when she shot an unimpressed glare in his direction, he dissolved into a bumbling mess. “I-I… I thought we had another hour,” the ineffective assistant managed to say.

Spectra rolled her eyes. “You lost track of time again,” she growled. Her red eyes landed on the boy and tsked. “He’s even more worthless unconscious. Such a waste of effort.”

Both spirits shifted until they settled for a more human-looking appearance. Penelope patted her clothes to dispel any sensation of grime or dust, feeling it cling to her from just staring at the alley’s foul, reeking mess.

“We could still haunt that cheerleader you love to torment so much,” the gray-haired man suggested, an adoring look on his face, already groveling. Good.

“It’s not the feast I was promised,” Spectra mumbled, weighing their options.

She was promised they would paint the town red, but now she was left with this unsatiated craving for misery, the taste of the boy’s last echoes of regret and nostalgia still lingering in the air despite the abrupt blackout.

“I guess that’ll have to do for now,” she begrudgingly agreed as she allowed Bertrand to hold her hand and whisk her away into the night. They could always try to break the boy some other time. For now, he was where he should rightfully belong. 

The trash.

Chapter Text

Beep, beep, beep. 

The steady, persistent sound rang in Danny’s ears. He grimaced, turning his head away from the noise. When had Jazz gotten him a new alarm clock? His old one was in about a thousand blackened pieces, smashed after a particularly bad night and an even worse morning. 

Beep, beep, beep. 

Each note washed over him, rhythmic and strange. It followed in a constant, droning pattern that he couldn’t place.

Danny tossed his head again, feeling the soft press of his pillow. Softer than usual, like a warm cloud. Danny burrowed his nose into the pillowcase, half-expecting to smell Sam’s lavender shampoo.

He wrinkled his nose at the sharp bite of antiseptic instead.

Beep, beep, beep. 

Danny’s heartbeat picked up, and the pace of the beeping rose with it, the pattern as consistent as the thump against his ribs. Too consistent— too fast, after months of its slow, languid crawl. It was the beating of a healthy heart, foreign to him since the shock of the portal ripped through his being and left a persistent hum at his center.

The hum— the shock.

Danny’s eyes flew open as he remembered the shock tearing through him anew. He scrambled to clutch at his left hand, his breaths coming quick and ragged as that damned beeping pitched, accompanied by a shrill alarm. His vision was all hazy colors and shadowed shapes. Danny’s feet kicked against soft sheets as he tried to pull himself up into a sitting position, wincing when something tugged at his left arm.

He’d been fighting. He’d been in the air, fighting, but someone had screamed— it might’ve been him, for all the dry roughness of his throat. For all the fire he remembered rushing under his skin, blooming from his palm like, like…

Danny tried to blink away the bleariness in his eyes, to make sense of where he was. He pulled his left arm protectively to his chest, heaving in deep lungfuls of air as he squinted, searching his surroundings. The beeping persisted, and Danny could just make out a familiar, wavering line. It rose in little peaks with each beep, following the tattoo of his heart. 

He clutched his shirt tightly, pressing his aching left hand close to his chest. The material was wrong, and the thud beneath his fingers even more so. Too fast, too human—

There was no hum. There should have been a hum.

Danny had no idea what truly caused that sensation in his chest, other than it was him. The mark of ectoplasm— his ectoplasm. A source, or an anchor, or simply where it pooled and radiated. It had been a strange, foreign presence when Danny first stepped foot from the portal, changed and wrong in too many ways. The hum nestled alongside his slow heartbeat— replacing it entirely whenever the rings swept over his body.

He’d grown so used to it now that its absence yawned, vast and empty.

Danny tried to reach for his center, nails digging against the fabric of his shirt until they dug crescents into the skin underneath. Maybe if he burrowed deep enough he’d find it— feel it. The hum, his ectoplasm, anything resembling his ghost half. 

It wasn’t there. The heart monitor beside him beeped, his breaths nearly as quick as the incessant sound, but Danny couldn’t feel any presence of the ectoplasm that hummed and thrummed under his skin.

Something settled on Danny’s shoulder and he jumped violently, that tug on his arm protesting as he scrambled back against the pillows, eyes wide and searching. He hadn’t noticed anyone entering the room, but there was suddenly a figure standing beside him, their hand held out awkwardly, pulling away. Their lips moved as though they were speaking, but it was all static roaring in Danny’s ears. He stiffened, jaw clamped tight and shoulders tense, trying to swallow down the wash of panic and adrenaline still coursing through him in quick, shallow breaths. 

Eyes flickering about the room, Danny took in his surroundings, feeling a swooping sense of dread as he noticed only one doorway and an assortment of sterile equipment. The heart monitor, an IV, a table with vials and a microscope. The bed he was lying on, despite its softness, bore a striking resemblance to a hospital cot. Danny’s eyes locked onto the joint of his elbow, noticing a tube taped down to his skin. A shiver ran the course of his spine and it took everything in him not to grasp hold and tear the thing away.

The figure shifted beside him and Danny’s focus snapped back to them, every inch of his body tense. It was a man, perhaps around the same age as his father, with broad shoulders and pale blue eyes. His short black hair was rumpled up at the bangs, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes that reminded Danny of his own. His long-sleeve shirt was as unkempt as his hair, wrinkled with lines and untucked from his belt on one side as though he’d been in a hurry to dress. The clothes reminded Danny of the sort of thing Vlad might wear around his mansion, and it did nothing to unsettle his frayed nerves.

A thousand questions teetered on Danny’s tongue, but he bit them back, focusing on his breathing instead. Without the thrum of ectoplasm in his system, without even knowing where he was or why, Danny decided to watch and wait, letting the man make the first move. He counted his breaths, slow and steady, fists clenching the sheet covering him to disguise the tremor in his hands. 

A frown tugged at the man’s lips, his head tilting slightly like a perplexed dog. He glanced to the side and Danny had to resist the urge to lean away as the man’s hand swung back to grab something beside the bed. Craning his head to see, Danny watched him grab a desk chair and pull it closer, wheels gliding across the linoleum floor. The man sank into the chair with a slight huff, scooting still closer until he was right beside the bed.

Sounds were slowly coming back to Danny, the ring of static pushed back by his slowing, measured breaths. All of his senses felt amplified— the sheet scratching against sensitive skin, the lights overhead too bright, the acrid scent of antiseptic too biting. Panic left him raw, far too aware of the man’s piercing gaze and his inability to hide from it. 

Danny couldn’t help but glance back at the door, wondering if there was any possible way he could reach it if need be.

“...Alright?” 

Danny took in a sharp breath of air as the man spoke again, his ears finally making sense of the sound. His voice was deep and gravelly, hushed as though he were speaking to a scared little kid or animal. 

Danny tried to ignore the taunting voice in his head telling him he was just that.

The man frowned when he did not immediately respond to the question. He leaned in, face pinched with what Danny might hesitantly call concern. “Do you feel alright?” he asked more sternly. “Do you remember what happened?”

It was a loaded question, one Danny neither felt he could answer in earnest, nor lie around without extreme caution. He racked his brain for any semblance of a trail that would have led to the hospital bed he now occupied. Danny remembered waking up to his ghost sense, groggy and bleary-eyed after too little sleep. Even before then, he’d been restless.

Restless. On edge. Off , in some way. Danny remembered that creeping sense of dread, the echo in his ears—

A scream that settled into his lungs with a swift shock. 

Danny found himself slowly shaking his head, that panic rising like a steady tide in his chest as he wondered what became of the ghost he’d been fighting just outside of FentonWorks.

He’d been fighting, high in the air…

He’d fallen .

A hand settled on Danny’s forehead and he stiffened like a statue, eyes wide and breath held. The man made a thoughtful hum, his other hand reaching out to grab Danny’s wrist and press against his pulse point. Everything in Danny told him to jerk out of the grip, but he felt like a startled deer staring down the headlights of a fast-moving car. 

“Son, are you alright? You’ve been out for a few hours now after that fall.”

The fall… The man had seen him fall. Danny’s blood ran cold, ice through his veins at the mere thought. His eyes flickered to his bare, human arms, free of the suit and gloves that covered his ghost form. Had he seen him transform? Did he know?

“I…” 

No sooner had the word left his mouth when the door behind the man slid open again. Danny’s eyes locked onto the sudden movement, cautiously watching an older gentleman step through. He balanced a silver tray with a kettle and several teacups on one hand, and deftly shut the door behind him with the other. He strode across the room, back straight in a formal posture. A small, warm smile quirked his lips as he met Danny’s eyes. 

“Sirs,” the gentleman— a butler, if he had to guess by his state of dress— said, nodding to them in greeting. Then, addressing Danny directly, he added, “I am pleased to see you are awake, Master Damian.”

The name shot through Danny’s chest, hitching his breath. It echoed in his ears, a taunting chorus of a long-dead memory. The name was hard-earned calluses and cold nights spent beneath tall mountains. The shade of soft shadows and the glow of unreachable stars. It was comfort, and trust, and regret in equal measure. 

It was family, lost and gone.

Though Danny’s shaking had subsided, it redoubled in the wake of hearing that name spoken aloud. In hearing it thrown at him, as though he could ever wear it with anything other than grief. He sank against the pillows on the bed, eyes flickering between both men as he wondered if it was coincidence or cruelty that carried the name from their lips.

“Master Damian?” the gentleman repeated, his tone soft and gentle, though the words floated a thousand miles above, slowly sinking down and settling poorly in Danny’s mind. The butler had moved beside the bed, setting the silver tray down on the end table beside it. There was concern etched into every line of his weathered face.

It didn’t seem fake. 

Yet there was that name again. Once could be coincidence, but twice was… Danny couldn’t be sure. It had to be some sick joke, some eldritch god of the Zone that had come to toy with his mind in the worst ways possible. The name he carried in memory and soul thrown before him like bait, and Danny a hapless fish deciding how best to skirt around the hook attached.

With a deep breath, Danny willed his worry back down. He focused on the concerned face of the gentleman, trying his best not to recoil when he stepped closer to gently take his arm and inspect the IV. 

“I–I’m fine,” Danny said, hoping the response did not seem too out of place. The men were speaking to each other, the name Damian ghosting through murmured sentences that tickled his ears. It was all Danny could do to drag himself from his mind and focus on the world around him.

He could think— could panic— later, when there were no prying eyes to witness his spiral. For now, he needed to gather himself into something resembling composure. 

Danny focused on the gentleman’s movements, watching with some measure of relief as he deftly removed the bandage over the IV and coaxed it out of his arm. The limb felt far too heavy, all buzzing static and stiff muscles. Danny flexed his hand gingerly as the butler let go, and reached for something on the table beside him, just out of view. When the man turned to face him once more, Danny noticed a small cylinder in his hand. 

“You do not appear to be fine, Master Damian,” the butler began, his tone stern, yet not unkind. “Your vitals appear to be in order, yet I daresay that a two-story tumble and several hours of unconsciousness following such a feat warrants concern. I am still rather worried about a possible head injury you might have sustained.”

All Danny could do was nod in assent, trying to ignore the swooping cold in his gut at the name. He braced himself as the gentleman came closer, one hand gently reaching to cup his chin and guide it upwards. The butler’s pale blue eyes flitted to and fro, searching his face. There was a small click and Danny saw a light burst in his periphery before it rose, falling into his right eye, blindingly sharp.

Danny flinched, letting out a hiss of pain as he yanked out of the butler’s grip and slammed his eyes shut. It was as though the light had flipped a switch inside his skull, igniting a ring of fire that licked behind his eyes and settled in his temples. A wave of nausea rolled in his belly and Danny bowed his head, teeth grit to force it down. He knew his body was sore, had felt an ache in his joints and along the course of his spine, but Danny had not realized how much pain throbbed between his ears until that light met his eye. 

“My apologies, Master Damian,” the butler said softly, a warm hand falling to pat Danny’s shoulder. “Your pupils are reacting as expected, though I do believe you might have a concussion yet. Does anything else pain you?”

Danny rubbed at his head with one hand, blinking the spots from his vision. He let the word concussion roll over him, considering it and all of the implications. Whether or not he was concussed really didn’t mean all that much to Danny, but the thought that he might be able to coast under the guise of one and hide his unease and confusion felt like some semblance of control falling back into his hands.

“Uh… No, it’s just my head… I think,” Danny said carefully, letting his spotty gaze wander from the gentleman to the man still sitting beside him. He’d been silent for a while, observing the pair of them with a critical eye, and somehow that silence put Danny at even more unease.

A soft sigh escaped the gentleman. He moved back to the table, setting the little flashlight down before grabbing the handle of the tea kettle. “I suppose we ought to count ourselves lucky, all things considered,” he said, bowing the kettle to pour into the cups. “Still, I would like to keep you here for monitoring, and I must insist that you get some proper rest in the meantime.”

The butler gave him a stern look and Danny nodded quickly— regretting the gesture as it made his head throb.

The butler frowned, yet gave a nod of his own. He set the tea kettle back down onto the tray with a soft clink and straightened up. “I shall bring something light for your stomach shortly. For now, I will leave you and Master Bruce to converse.”

“Thank you, Alfred,” the other man— Bruce, Danny supposed— finally spoke up as the butler turned to leave.

“Anytime, sir,” was Alfred’s reply, sending one last smile their way before he strode to the door. Danny noticed that it opened mechanically, sliding through the wall with a hiss before the foggy glass slid back into place. 

The silence Alfred left in his wake was deafening.

Danny could feel Bruce’s eyes on him, practically boring straight through skin and bone to the heart quickly beating against his ribs. The butler, however strange, had exuded an air of calm. His words were kind, his movements careful, and his hands gentle. Danny had never known a loving grandparent in his life, much too used to Grandfather’s biting tongue and striking hand, yet Alfred reminded him of Sam’s Ida, and Tucker’s Peepaw. What a grandparent was meant to be. 

Bruce exuded no such comfort. He was all hard lines and tense shoulders. Unease and discomfort written into every stiff movement as he reached for one of the cups of tea on the end table and awkwardly held it out to Danny. 

It took everything in him to meet the man’s eyes as he lifted his hands to take the cup with a mumbled thanks. Danny held the porcelain just as delicately as the gaze. Bruce’s eyes were a pale, icy blue, not unlike his own. Danny wondered if Bruce felt a fraction of his unease meeting them. 

With the small cup held between both of his hands, Danny felt remarkably like a small child. He wanted to curl in on himself, sink beneath the blankets on the bed and sleep until the world made sense again. The warmth of the cup soothed some discomfort, at least. He let it soak into his fingers and down his arms, banishing a fraction of the cold discomfort gripping at his center. Pulling it closer, Danny leaned forward, letting the steam roll over his face. He drank in the scent, wondering what sort of tea a butler with an English accent favored. He expected the sort of thing Vlad might drink, a bland black tea loaded with entirely too much milk and sugar. Or perhaps a green tea, something to calm the nerves. Instead, the rich, spicy scents of ginger and cinnamon wreathed through his sinuses, chased by the peppery aroma of cardamom.

The scent was more memory than anything. Danny’s hands bucked, the caramel liquid sloshing inside the cup as he looked down. He could practically see smaller hands gripping the sides, bandaged and bruised after long evenings spent with a sword in hand. He half expected to look up and find himself in a room lit by a flickering oil lamp, leant against his other half. The nights were often cold in Nanda Parbat, with the wind rushing over the mountains and the altitude calling snow down from its peaks. The scent meant warmth and comfort. Peace, however brief. 

“Is there something wrong with your tea?” Bruce asked, his low, deep voice enough to banish the image from Danny’s mind. It was all he could do to keep the cup steady in his hands.

“No, no— it’s fine,” he reassured with a slow shake of the head. “It’s just… my head, I guess.” 

Hopefully a supposed concussion was enough to hide every tripping step in their conversation. 

The man hummed thoughtfully, but was quiet as he lifted the second cup of tea to his lips. Danny focused on his own cup, weighing the scent of cardamom just as heavily in his mind as Damian’s name. 

Each felt like a warning.

Hesitantly, nervously, Danny brought the cup to his mouth. He wondered how the butler came to favor karak tea, and if it would taste anything like how Mother used to prepare it. He doubted it. She would always add saffron, enjoying its earthy notes. Danny never much liked saffron himself, finding it too bitter and floral, but… Damian enjoyed it and would prepare it the same way. 

The warm liquid hit his tongue in a mingle of spices Danny hadn’t tasted the likes of which in over seven years. Cardamom, ginger, cinnamon—

Saffron , just as bittersweet as the memories it brought. 

Danny pulled the cup away, staring without seeing. Coincidence, a warning— a cruel joke. He couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. 

He let out a long sigh.

“Do you remember anything before you fell?” the man asked, seeming to take his sigh as an invitation to speak.

Frowning, Danny kept his eyes firmly on his tea as he shook his head. “N–not really,” he stammered. 

Danny wanted to elaborate, to conjure up some semblance of a convincing lie, but without knowing how much this man had seen, he wasn’t sure where to even begin. Danny had been in his ghost form when he’d fallen, after all. His only hope, it seemed, was that this Bruce hadn’t gotten a good look before he hit the ground.

Danny hated to even consider what dragged him down in the first place, let alone a convincing enough lie to hide the scream that still echoed in his ears. The shock that he could still feel tracing his veins. 

Now it was Bruce’s turn to sigh, the sound world-weary, reminding Danny entirely too much of Jazz. 

There was a creak and Danny’s eyes snapped to the man, watching nervously as he stood from his seat and set his teacup down on the table. Danny hadn’t noticed it when he first entered the room, but from his vantage point on the bed, Bruce towered tall and imposing. 

Considering his own less-than-tall stature, Danny doubted the man’s height would be any less intimidating even if he also stood up.

“Alfred’s right. I know you don’t like bedrest, Damian, but until we can be sure you’re feeling better, I’d like you to get some more rest,” Bruce said. His tone was much like Alfred’s, stern but not uncompassionate. There was worry there, Danny was sure.

“O–Okay,” he agreed easily, glad to see the man leave. “I will.”

A small smile curled Bruce’s lips. He pat Danny on the shoulder, the gesture as comforting as it was disconcerting, before turning to follow Alfred’s path. 

“I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” he said at the door. Danny couldn’t help but notice the thin smile slip from his lips as he walked through it.

Silence pressed against Danny’s ears the moment the door slid shut. He hadn’t noticed that the heart monitor had been turned off until then, its beeps still echoing somewhat in his head even as the quiet took over. 

It was too quiet, uncomfortably so without any humming. The familiar humming of electricity in the walls— the humming within the walls of his ribs. Both gone, worryingly so.

No less worrying than anything he’d seen or heard since waking.

Danny set his cup of tea down on the table next to Bruce’s, hardly drunk. The scent of it stuck in his nose, persistent and cloying. Part of Danny wanted to grab hold of the teapot and toss it as far as he could.

He doubted Bruce and Alfred would appreciate the gesture.

The ache in his skull made focusing a bit of a struggle, but Danny forced himself to take in as much of his surroundings as he could. Without panic choking at his senses— there still, but less— he noticed more details than before. There was a curtain to the side of his bed, drawn back almost all of the way, but unfurled enough to block his view. Danny pushed it back with his arm, tensed for anything that might be waiting on the other side… 

It was much the same— another hospital bed, a table with instruments, monitors. Nothing reassuring, not with the sterile scent of antiseptic mixing with cardamom. 

Not when the surfaces resembled the experimentation table in the lab a little too closely.

Shaking his head, trying not to dwell on it, Danny saw one other prominent feature of the room that he hadn’t noticed before: a second door, set into the wall between the two beds, with the curtain obscuring its position from where he lay. It was unassuming, probably leading to a closet or bathroom if Danny had to take a guess, but…

His eyes trailed back to the entrance the two men had gone through, fixing there as though they might return at any second. There was no telling how long either of them would take— or if anyone else would traipse into the room. Danny still didn’t know what sort of facility he was in, or if there was a doctor overseeing his care. 

In any case, something told him not to expect anyone familiar through that door. 

When nothing moved beyond the frosted glass, no hint of a soul, Danny hesitantly pulled himself upright off of the pillows and scooted to the edge of the bed. He moved stiffly, an ache running the course of his back. Danny rubbed at his side, wondering just how hard he’d hit the pavement. 

Taking further stock of his body, Danny noticed that he was wearing a loose t-shirt and shorts, neither recognizable from his wardrobe. Where there might normally be a star or band logo on the front of the graphic tee, there was instead a sort of winged yellow W. It seemed familiar, though Danny didn’t care enough to rack his aching head for a name. 

With one last, nervous glance to the front door, Danny pushed himself off of the bed. He wavered for a moment, head swimming as he grabbed the end table for purchase. The moment the world straightened out, Danny let go and headed for the second door between the beds. 

The floor was icy cold on Danny’s bare feet, and each step felt weighted with stone. His entire body felt too heavy, dragged down by gravity as if every inch of him wanted to sink to the ground and rest. He stumbled his way across the room regardless, determined to see what was on the other side of the second door. With any luck, Danny might find a room with a window that would help him get a better scope of his surroundings.  It would also give him a more private location to transform…

Danny tested the doorknob before bothering to phase his way through, finding that it was conveniently unlocked. He opened the door slowly, eyes flickering warily between the opening door and the entrance of the medical facility. The room inside was dark, though a light clicked on inside as the door swung open, motion-activated. Danny blinked in surprise, feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders at the sight of tile walls, a toilet, and a shower. 

Slowly stepping inside, Danny shut the door behind him with a soft click . There was nothing particularly interesting about the bathroom, though Danny felt his stomach sink a little when he noticed no windows along the walls. He wondered just how large the building was, and how many walls he’d have to phase through to reach the outside. It wouldn’t be a subtle exit, disappearing without any windows to mark a clear path of escape, but perhaps it would be best if they assumed he used the entrance anyway.

Assuming there were no cameras to prove the contrary. 

With a sigh, Danny wandered over to a sink in the corner. Maybe if he splashed enough cold water into his face, he’d wake up from this heavy, dragging dream and find himself under his starry comforter, with fading memories of butlers, tea, and Damian’s name slowly trickling away as he woke. He kept his eyes downcast, staring at the faucet as he turned it on. His eye bags were always so dark these days, and Danny wasn’t fond of staring into them. He still wasn’t sure how much of the dark bruises were fatigue, and how much were the mark of the ectoplasm under his skin. After all, Vlad’s eye bags, though he tried to hide them with expensive makeup, were nearly as dark. 

The water was heaven on Danny’s skin, cool and refreshing. He kept his eyes shut as it dripped down his chin, rubbing circles against them until he saw stars. All the while he kept his ears strained for any sounds from the other room, wondering just how much time he’d have before the butler made good on his promise and returned with food.

Angry claws of hunger gripped at his belly, but Danny wasn’t about to sit around and wait for a meal. With his luck— with the cruel, nagging reminders the universe seemed determined to dangle before him— Danny wouldn’t be surprised if this Alfred somehow conjured up Damian’s favorite dish, recreating the Haleem Mother’s servants prepared down to the lamb and fennel.

The man didn’t look much like a ghost, but Danny had to wonder.

(He’d been fooled more than once, after all.)

With another sigh, Danny bent his head low over the sink, running one hand through his messy hair while he braced himself on the basin of the sink with the other. He supposed standing around wouldn’t do him much favors. Wherever he was, whoever these people were, Danny needed to get out and find his way home before anyone noticed his absence.

Glancing up, Danny finally met his eyes in the large mirror set over the sink. For all the fatigue gnawing at him, the eye bags were honestly not as bad as he’d anticipated. Better than usual, even. What was more surprising, however, was the color. It wasn’t uncommon, looking in the mirror to find Phantom’s eyes staring back at him, but… the green…

The green was all wrong. 

Danny blinked, as though doing so might dispel the image. The green remained. It stared through his soul, lacking all of Phantom's toxic bite, but haunting all the same. 

Familiar. Too familiar.

Danny gripped at his cheek with his nails, leaning in closer to the mirror. It had to be a trick of the light, if not a nasty trick altogether. All of it had to be. The name, the tea, the eyes… 

Emerald eyes. They stared back at him, pupils constricted with fear. 

Slowly shaking his head, Danny staggered backwards. Never had he missed the glow of ectoplasm more— never had he wished to see that acid green, if only to chase away his waking nightmare. 

Danny couldn’t think— couldn’t understand what he was seeing. He needed to get away. Forget a window, just one quick flight through the ceiling and maybe the fresh air outside might clear up the haze clouding his mind with memories. 

Reaching for that chilly spot at his center (that normally hummed— why wasn’t it humming?), Danny braced himself to fly up through the ceiling. His knees were bent, just waiting for the cold wash of rings over his body.

…It didn’t come.

It didn’t come.

Anxiety prickled across his skin, the beat of his heart— still too fast— picking up as a fresh wave of fear gripped Danny’s chest. He could still see himself in the mirror, crouched and waiting for a power he couldn’t feel. 

The gleam of emerald taunted him.

Danny froze for a long moment, his predicament really sinking in for the first time since he woke. The walls seemed to close in. He felt too small, too heavy, too weighed down by a body betraying him at every step.

With one long, shaky breath, Danny bolted for the door.

The white walls of the medical facility gleamed too bright, the sharp smell of antiseptic spurning Danny forward as he hurried across the room. He couldn’t know what was on the other side of the entrance door. Couldn’t know where Alfred or Bruce were, or what they would do if they caught him trying to escape.

Running his hand over a button on the door, Danny found he didn’t care. He just needed out.

Mercifully, after a slight press, the door slid open without any resistance and Danny wasted no time leaving. He was prepared to race down hospital halls, to work himself through a maze of a facility and find the nearest window or stairwell to toss himself through—

Every half-formed plan came to a screeching halt with Danny’s feet as he took in his new surroundings. 

The space was much more open than he expected, a high, dark ceiling rising overhead with jagged points. It looked… It looked like a cave. The points were natural, made with stone and set with flood lights that illuminated the open space below. Danny could hardly take it all in. Everywhere he looked, he found stone meeting metal, steel platforms and structures illuminated by cool blue lights. 

Something moved and Danny whipped his head to the left, fists clenched and ready to fight. Even confused and powerless, he still knew how to throw a punch.

There was a large, circular platform nearby with a wall of bright monitors that stung Danny’s eyes. He blinked away the glare, trying to make sense of a figure silhouetted against the glow. They’d been sitting at a chair, but turned to stand once they noticed Danny. They drew closer now, footsteps echoing on the steel platform underfoot. 

Danny waited, frozen where he stood. The person came into focus, black bangs framing an angular face with blue eyes. He stared like a deer caught in the headlights, mouth dropping open in surprise. 

Of all the curveballs the universe had decided to toss his way— “Tim Drake?”

Consciousness trickled back slowly, the memory of agony in his limbs making itself known. He felt stiff, and the hard press of pavement did nothing to help. The stench reached him next, the quiet scent of rot, mixed with the acrid burn of trash. A car passed by, echoing. Alarms blared in his mind—he heard no voices, not in his comm, not around him. 

The stiffness in his body spoke of several hours spent unconscious, the general wrongness he could feel in his limbs spoke of injuries—or at least bruises. Where was father? Or even Drake? They had both been out with him, and despite the fact that he was perfectly capable of handling patrol on his own—and the injuries that might occur—he had never woken up alone. 

Nor had he ever woken up where he had fallen. 

A bit of worry wormed its way through him—had something happened to Drake and Father? His comm seemed to be down, but even if there was something distracting them, someone should have come for him. 

He shifted, disgust rising as he found himself in a pile of trash. The dumpster next to him had seen better days, with the dent in the top and the bags that spilled out of it. He barely made it to his hands and knees when the sense of wrong slammed forward, burying the confusion and aches. 

He— what was this? His body felt too light and his balance shifted, nearly sending him back down to pavement. 

He remembered the pain that had slammed into him, the sense he’d had for days that something was wrong. The sudden crest of agony, screaming—a sea of familiar, loathed, green. 

Fists curled, he gritted his teeth and fought his way to standing. If his grandfather had something to do with this—whatever this was—he refused to not face it standing. His pride would demand no less. 

His surroundings were odd—he did not recognize the alley. The buildings were too short to be the skyscrapers he’d been running across when he’d—fallen. He’d fallen. Slammed out of the air by something he couldn’t name. Shifting, he looked back at the dumpster. He didn’t recognize the name of the disposal company printed on the side, and the name of the city had been rubbed away from wear. 

Even the air was different; despite the trash he was surrounded by, the smog of Gotham was notably absent. 

He pressed a hand against the brick of the alley, the grit of it grounding. Something felt wrong, beyond the aches, beyond the stiffness, something felt wrong in his body. He looked at his hand, and the worry increased. The gloves of his Robin suit were gone, the reinforced tunic, the weight of his utility belt—all gone. The shirt he wore now was lightweight and worn in a way most of his clothing was not. He didn’t recognize the pajama bottoms. 

His feet were bare. 

Confusion rose—could this be some form of test? Father had long proven that he would not demand this of Damian. He had long stopped bracing for surprises like this—getting dumped in a random city and being expected to navigate and survive would not be unusual in the League. But his father didn’t operate this way. Could his grandfather have done something? But why leave him behind, even as a test? Surely, if grandfather had managed to capture him, he would have woken up locked up in a League base. He would not have woken alone, there would have been someone. Someone ready to reintroduce him to the League’s ideals, to ensure he would not stray again. 

Despite the wave of Lazarus Water he’d seen before he’d fallen, there was nothing to connect this to the League. 

And even the League wouldn’t explain the off feeling of his body. Too light, too energized. 

He pressed a hand on his chest, felt the slow beat of his heart— too slow. He knew the range of his vitals, knew what it should be. Despite the slow rate, nothing else seemed wrong. There were no major wounds, no deep ache that spoke of internal injury. 

Just a heart that beat too slow. 

And something thrumming beside it. 

He packed away the questions, the confusion, the curled fear in his gut. Speculating wouldn’t get him anywhere, he needed to gather more intel. It was inconvenient to be in flimsy pajamas as he did. It would also stand out. He needed to find something less conspicuous. He didn’t know the exact time, his internal clock felt as unsteady as the rest of him. But from the way the light was hitting the alley, it was early morning. Probably around six or seven. 

His family must have noticed his absence by now. He needed to lay low and find a way to contact them. Instinct and training had him moving to shadow, eyes peeled for people. It was the time of morning that people went to work, walked their dogs, and put out their trash. He needed to find a building to sneak into, less obvious clothing to borrow. At the mouth of the alley, it surprised him that there was little activity. 

There were some cars parked on the street, a few in residential driveways. People lived here, but it was either too early for them to be on the street or something made them stick to their houses. Something unpleasant curled in his gut at the thought, and his hand gripped the wall tightly. A need pounded in his chest, unknown and unnamed. 

He forced himself to breathe through it, forced his scattered thoughts back onto task. He needed to find an unoccupied house, he needed to figure out where he was. 

Nothing seemed familiar, nothing stood out. Just normal townhouses, on an everyday stre—he froze, gaze caught on the monstrosity before him. It was a townhouse, but there had obviously been some… additions. There was a large neon sign hanging on the front, loudly proclaiming FentonWorks. The top of the building was nearly indescribable. A large, oval structure dominated, heavily reinforced and covered in various antennas and arrays. 

Something warred inside him. Logic demanded he stay away, it was a huge unknown, too big of a risk to approach, let alone enter when so much uncertainty surrounded him and the circumstances that led to him being here. 

But another part of him felt suddenly hunted. He felt small and raw and alone. Pain sparked up his arm, pulsed in his chest. The thrum that lived next to his heart picked up its pace, chasing logic with deep, confounding emotion. 

The building called, even as everything else in him demanded he leave it be. He moved towards it, bare feet nearly soundless on concrete. He tried to stick to the shadows, to remain as unnoticed as possible. His body felt chilled, a slight tingle curled across his skin. The call pulled him forward, and it felt safe even as alarm blared in the back of his head. Everything felt—well, everything felt, loudly, constantly. It was another symptom, another thing that felt wrong. 

And yet right? 

He found himself next to the building in nearly no time at all, his mind at war with his emotions. The area that surrounded the building was quiet, the buildings on either side seemingly abandoned. Energy thrummed around the house, nearly matching the one that lived in his chest. Confused, curious, he pressed a hand on the side of the house, stretched upwards to look into a window. The house seemed quiet beside the energy that seemed so familiar.  

He barely had a chance to look in when the wall gave under his hand, the tingle that danced along his skin increased, prickling even as shock rose like a wave. There was a dizzying view of the inside of the wall—insulation, wire, and pipes—before he crashed to the floor, fully inside the house. 

 Something inside, some unknown tension, eased. The walls around him made the raw, hunted sense lie quiet. The tingle that nestled along his skin vanished, along with the stronger, prickling feeling. 

He lied there for a few moments, attempting to gather his wits. He had only been awake for less than half an hour, and everything he’d seen—and done—so far had only left him with more questions than answers. Nothing made sense. 

Nothing felt right.  

Damian had trained from a young age to know his body, to know limits and weakness. He knew his own faults, could map the weak points in his body like one planned a road trip. Nothing of the weaknesses he knew were present. There were new ones, and he couldn’t tell how many were from the fall. And how many were permanent, and yet unknown to him. 

He hated how foreign everything felt. 

Every emotion, every tensed muscle, every sense was unfamiliar. Like wearing an ill fit suit, every seam scraping across exposed skin. There was no relief from it, no way but forward. 

He stood much easier this time, moving to face the wall he’d fallen through. It looked normal. There was nothing to suggest any hidden technology. Indeed, his view of the inside of the wall had revealed nothing out of the ordinary. But he couldn’t deny the energy that curled around him, that almost welcomed him. 

He needed to start finding answers, before the questions buried him. 

His surroundings offered little help, but it appeared he was in a kitchen. Or at least, nearly. There was a small front hall, with just enough room to hang a couple coats and remove shoes before entering the main house. A key holder was next to the front door, a multitude of keys hung from it. From the shoes, it appeared a family lived here—two children, maybe three, and an adult male. He couldn’t quite tell if the one pair of shoes belonged to a wife or another child. 

He looked deeper into the house, past the kitchen he could see part of the living room. But that wasn’t what caught his attention. There was a large door to the left, about midway through the kitchen. Heavy and reinforced, it was vastly different from the much smaller door next to it. Nothing else seemed out of place. It looked like a normal American home, if one ignored the metal door plastered with warning signs. 

And the giant structure that lived on the roof. 

He was only here to find less obvious clothing—shoes that fit would be a bonus. 

And yet. 

The house was empty. He felt it, a well honed sense. One that hadn’t abandoned him after the fall. There was obviously something odd about this house—the link he felt to it was only the tip of the iceberg. The thrum in his chest nearly matched the hum of the energy in the house. 

And it lied beyond the thick door. 

The world tipped on its axis, and his vision blurred like a heat mirage. People, voices, shadowed movement. Hand on a door, heavy, so heavy—opened in spite of the warnings. Feet down stairs, multiple voices echoed, echoed down the metal that lined the walls, echoed from memory. 

Known faces, laughter. 

A scream—it echoed— pain unlike anything he’d ever known, worse than the whip, worse than any punishment he’d been subjected to. 

So much green. 

The world shifted back, his vision saw nothing but the normal kitchen before him. 

His breath stuttered in his chest, even as a hand locked on the fabric over the thrum. It was erratic, and he felt tired . Something like grief had settled over him, a cloak he couldn’t unclasp. 

He’d never felt so disconnected to his own body before—and yet so wired into emotion that stormed through him and left him quaking in its wake. Speculation swirled in his mind—was this some sort of spell? Something that shifted his location and left him vulnerable to emotional outbursts? To visions of things he’d never done? 

And why would it allow him to move through walls? Was this not a real reality? It felt real. Everything was solid under his hands, his feet. 

But the wall had been solid, until it wasn’t. 

He felt no closer to an answer. 

Or actual clothing. 

It was unlikely he’d find what he needed down here. He’d spent too much time here already, the house may be empty at present but it was unlikely to stay that way forever. He moved quickly, and made sure not to give the basement door a spare glance. The living room he’d glimpsed earlier was comfortably large, with what was probably a bathroom in the corner. He didn’t linger, heading upstairs to where the bedrooms were likely to be. 

It was unlikely that whatever family lived here would notice a few missing articles of clothing. Damian had no intention of greed, merely to blend in. The NASA t-shirt he wore was mostly unoffensive, but the accompanying sleep pants with the cartoon UFOs could not be born. 

And after patrolling Gotham for years, walking barefoot on city sidewalks was nearly enough to give him hives. He had walked barefoot through vast desert and dense forest, had suffered the consequences of stepping wrong, the blisters and cuts. He’d do that for a hundred miles before he’d willingly walk barefoot for half a city block. 

He glanced to the left when he noticed the family photographs that hung on the wall. He hoped one of the children was near his size, ill-fitted cloth—his breath stopped in his chest. 

Iced shock spread like a glacier through his chest. The hand that had idly glided up the stair rail was locked around it. Emotion fluttered around him, reigniting an ache long forgotten. 

A family of four stood posed, but he didn’t register the parents, or the daughter. 

The son was all he could see. 

It—he—

No.

It was not. A coincidence. A happenstance. 

He turned away from it, locked down the old grief, the longing, the brief, idiotic flutter of hope.  

He kept heading up, even as his body shook from denied emotion. It was simply a thought he couldn’t entertain. 

And so he wouldn’t. 

He no longer paid attention once he reached the top. He kept his eyes off the photos that hung scattered on the walls, that lurked various end tables. It was idiotic, he knew. Not being aware was how people were killed. 

He couldn’t find it in him to care, not at that moment. 

If he allowed himself to think, to speculate, to even slightly entertain the possibility…it couldn’t be allowed. 

He found himself in front of a door and he opened it swiftly. Some part of him noted that there were signs on the door, but he didn’t allow himself to focus on it. 

Luckily, the inside of the room distracted him. 

Unluckily, he’d seen Drake keep a cleaner room. Truly, no one would notice a missing shirt. They may not notice if half the closet vanished. 

He refused to focus on the posters that dotted the walls, the things that might tell him what type of person lived here. It didn't matter. He stepped in, hoping that he might at least find clean clothes somewhere in the mess. It took a few minutes, but he managed to scrounge up jeans, an inoffensive T-shirt and a pair of socks. He would have to see if any of the shoes downstairs fit him on his way out. 

The thought of leaving the house put an unexpected twist in his gut. It was both safe and not here. He wanted to stay. 

He wanted to be a thousand miles away. 

He needed to get in contact with the Cave. He had no phone, and there had to be something wrong with his comm for no one to have spoken since he’d woken. He heard a chime, even as he lifted a hand to take out his comm. The sound came from the phone that he hadn’t noticed before, it was just visible in the tangled sheets on the bed. He stepped closer, pulled it out. It would work as a backup, if he couldn’t get his comm to function. 

He touched his ear, and shock rolled through him. There was nothing there. His comm was designed for his ear, and nearly invisible. Had whatever force that had transported him removed his comm along with his Robin suit? Did someone know his identity? 

He looked down at the phone, clicked the button to wake the screen. He had to check in. 

The screen had dozens of unread messages, and he barely had a chance to read names—Sam, Tucker, Jazz—before the screen changed. LOW BATTERY flashed, before it faded out. 

The snarl of frustration that left him was deeper than he was used to. The sound caught deep in his chest, much lower than what should be possible. The vibration startled him, and he nearly lost his grip on the dead phone. 

He couldn’t understand why everything felt so much bigger than it should. It was frustrating not to have communication. He was confused and concerned with the circumstances that had led him here, but it was no reason to feel so much. 

He was near to shaking. Over ridiculous setbacks. He was a Wayne. He was an Al Ghul. Emotions were not his ruler. He had been taught to master such things. 

And yet still he felt unbalanced, unmoored. Locked in an emotional loop that refused to break. The house was a cage, but the world outside was a hunter’s trap, set to spring. 

He distracted himself by searching for the phone’s charger. Physical movement helped keep things calm. It only helped for a moment. The frustration only built the longer he searched, unable to find the cord. Eventually, he had to step back and accept that there was no cord. Which left him with a dead phone, no comm, and a spinning flood of emotions. 

He had no answers either. The amount of questions he had kept building, and he hated not having a single solid theory. 

It was made worse by the ache of grief he couldn’t fully block. The face he couldn’t erase from his mind, his heart. 

His brother was dead. Anything he felt for the boy in the picture was merely an irrational reaction. Even thinking it felt hollow. 

It took him longer than he deemed necessary, but he pulled himself back together. He’d gotten what he needed from the house, and it was time to move on. 

He placed the phone on the nightstand. He hoped whoever it belonged to knew where the charger was, else they would be left with an expensive brick. 

(Nevermind that the phone looked several models out of date, that it had clearly been more than just dropped on several occasions, that it was heavier than it should be. Damian had enough questions, he couldn’t add anything pertaining to whomever the phone belonged to.) 

He left the room, and managed to power downstairs without letting anything stop him. 

He refused to look at a single photo the entire way down. 

It wasn’t until he returned to the kitchen that he paused. Between the ball of fear at the idea of leaving the house and the undeniable curiosity of the barred door, he found himself frozen. He could not get involved with this, not now, when he had so much to figure out on his own. He had too many questions just based on how he got here. He’d simply have to make note of the address, and when he returned home inform Father of the situation. 

He needed to see what shoes fit the best, and then locate a working form of communication. He couldn’t linger. 

And yet. 

The energy that lived in the house seemed to be concentrated past the door. It felt as familiar as breathing. Were the answers he sought beyond it? Was it worth the risk? 

He blinked. The door was open, metal walls visible, stairs leading down. He blinked. The door was shut and barred.

Blink. Open, a hand on a rail. 

Blink. Closed, whispered conversation flowed around him. 

Blink. Open, bright white light shining on metal. 

Blink. Closed, a flicker of green through the cracks. 

His heart pounded, and the counter pressed painfully against his back. Though the door stayed barred, the energy still called. His hands gripped the edge of the counter as he moved away from the door, hand sliding as he moved. Shoes. He needed shoes. 

And to get out of this house. 

He managed to reenter the front hall, but he felt unsteady. The thrum in the center of his chest was erratic, and a deep part of him just wanted to curl up and hide. He forced himself to look through the shoe rack, to pull off a pair of only mildly damaged sneakers. It was obvious they were close to needing replacement, but they were still serviceable. 

The galaxy print that covered them was unusual, but not intolerable. It took far too long to get them on, his entire being seemed to protest the idea of leaving. He couldn’t understand why. 

Once he had them on, the next challenge was actually leaving. He had to do so in a way that wouldn’t be suspicious. He wasn’t sure he could fall through the wall again—and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. But he also couldn’t simply walk out the front door with no means to relock it. He moved away from the door, his steps nearly silent. He went back to the window he’d tried looking into earlier. 

It was unlocked. 

He wasted no time, he pushed the window up, did the same with the screen and slipped out. It was child’s play to close them both behind him. He had to take a moment to breathe when he turned away from the house. There was still a storm in his chest and it didn’t help that there was a buzzing pain climbing his left hand. 

His mind swirled with thoughts—of glowing green, of a familiar face surrounded by strangers. The tight ball in his chest fluttered, the pulse of it faster than his heart. 

The first couple steps he took away from the house were shaky, but he was tired of being dictated by such unfounded emotion. He made it to the sidewalk and it was easier. He looked up and down the street, trying to determine the best direction. He needed a phone. Or a computer. Further up the street, to his right, looked like it connected to a bigger road. 

He nodded to himself, and began to make his way towards what he hoped was the center of town.  

He had calls to make. And questions to answer.