Chapter Text
Damian Hartfield had a pretty good day. That is, until someone tried to kill him.
Or maybe until he punched Xander in the face. That may have or may not have been related. The details were still unclear. Everything happened so fast–
The classes just finished. They had a theatre rehearsal in half an hour, and it was pleasant outside despite the grey clouds gathering at the horizon, golden leaves making up for the missing sun rays. He was perching against the low stone wall with Zoe, between the parking lot and the football pitch.
“The Batman one did not come out as good as the other ones,” he admitted, his cheeks flushed. On the laminated paper, the cowl ears were comically long, and the background paint was all messed up, making the skies of Gotham appear to be more purple than midnight blue.
“What are you saying! It’s so cool!”
She was inspecting the hand-painted deck of cards one by one, asking about each. Damian was not too into superheroes – well, he had to admit that they made for fun drawings, and who would he be if he could not recognise most of the members of the JLA? There was no escaping their faces (or masks) with how often they appeared on the TV. And of course, there was also the current Titans roster, because everyone in fifth grade and the year above was obsessed with them. Zoe was obsessed too.
“Wonder Girl! You picked my favourite costume!” She nearly squealed. Damian had to admit, it might have been just the best one. He spent nearly two hours attaching glitter to the stars on Troia’s jumpsuit.
“Oh, you like it? If you like it, you can have it!” He said quickly.
“What? But it’s a set, I–” She stuttered, flinching.
A ball came flying at them from the pitch, so quick it was a blur, nearly hitting her in the face.
“Hey! Throw it back!” Xander, Blonde hair and stupid LED trainers that made it easy to recognise him, was jogging in their direction. Damian clenched his fists.
Zoe visibly tensed, before scrambling up to reach for it. Yet before she could grasp it, he yelled again:
“Not you! Dirty hands!”
“Let’s go,” Damian urged. There was no reason to talk to that asshole. He scrambled to pick up the cards that were still laid out between them, and Zoe moved to help too.
“Hey! Did I not ask you to throw it back?”
Damian wanted to ignore him, but Xander had already approached, and was now so close he was practically breathing in Damian’s face. And then he said something mean about Zoe – whatever it was, Damian will not recall. The jerk was always mean to Zoe, whatever his problem was.
So Damian punched him, dropping everything he was holding in his hands – his smartphone and the sole Batman card included, on the concrete. He punched Xander straight in that ridiculous smile.
This is when it all happened.
A black car drove up into the parking lot, but they did not spare it any thought - why would they?
The window of the school building behind them opened, and Miss Dahlia, their homeroom teacher, leaned out of it, scolding: “Hey! What is going on there?” as Xander staggered to his feet. But before any of them could reply, she swayed too, her plump body suddenly dropping to the window sill, like some inert human-sized doll.
Damian wanted to call out. Or just scream, maybe, even an unidentifiable screech would do. No sound came, frozen the same way his legs were. It was Zoe who leaped at both him and Xander, pushing them to the ground.
“There!” She yelled, pointing at the BMW. A man in sunglasses came out, and now they could see the gun– Or was it a gun? There was no blood on Miss Dahlia to be seen, her face hanging above them with eyes closed and moth open, while they sprawled on the grass like a collapsed row of dominoes.
The man who tried to kill him— that must have been some deadly poison darts, were they not?
“It wouldn’t kill you,” says the woman, who is driving the car. “They want you alive.”
Right. The woman. And the car, not the one from before, another– Because before the menacing character could make another step in their direction– That was hard to explain. Swoosh, bam! Damian now understood the comics onomatopeias he always deemed unrealistic; the black-clothed figure that came flying (alright, jumping – it did seem like they were flying, though!) at the shades guy swooshed for sure. And the body falling definitely bammed. Or perhaps it was just the cacophony of the blood pulsing in his ears. He tried to lift himself up.
This is where she came in, a woman with black silk hair and a denim on denim outfit, looking straight at him.
“Here!” She yelled from a distance.
Damian did not know why he trusted her at that moment. Maybe it was denim on denim which seemed less threatening than the attire of the other figures that surrounded him. Though on second thought, he should have sprang in any other direction – try to get back into school. Barge into the Dominoes across the street. Not grasp at both Zoe’s and Xander’s hands to lead them toward some lady he has never seen in his life.
Especially given that the instant they got to her and her SUV, she yanked Damian toward her, and shoved the other two at some other– to some ninja who was standing behind the car.
“Zoe!” This time his voice came out.
“She’s safe, they’re not here for her– we need to split up,” the woman exclaimed, pushing him into the passenger’s seat. She was still talking when Damian yanked at the closed door. Calm down. Something something. Don’t worry, I’m here to protect you. Something something.
The words are mangling themselves in his head.
“You need to breathe.”
They drive through a red light. He is not breathing.
“Breathe, Damian.”
He does not want to breathe, he wants to scream. But did he not read somewhere that when kidnapped, you need to stay calm? To preserve your energy? That was surely something that he read somewhere.
“This is a kidnapping,” he states, just to make sure.
“I contacted your parents.”
“To what, ask for ransom? Lady– Ma’am?” Damian corrects himself, because he cannot be sure how old she is, but one thing is for sure – he was raised to be a polite young man. The fact that the words are almost cried out irregardless.
“Duck!”
Damian ducks, barely registering the reason – an elderly woman, positively a senior citizen, leaning out of an oldsmobile on the opposite lane and pointing a gun at them. And this time it is just a regular gun, with regular ammunition; that much is clear given that the bullet hits the back window. It shatters only after a moment, like an after-thought, glass falling in silently.
The car swings what must be a full 360 degrees. He wonders when it was that he fastened the seatbelt that digs into the skin of his belly, or if Talia did it for him, because if not for that, he would probably have ended up splattered on the windshield.
In the rear view, the oldsmobile, now crashed into a building – a Wendy’s- becomes smaller and smaller, along with a string of other vehicles stuck behind.
“Y-you? You said they want me alive!”
“They want both of us alive,” the denim lady says calmly, but does not sound so sure herself anymore.
Police sirens reverberate in the distance.
She turns on the radio – not a secret communication channel that could be expected but some fairly obnoxious 80s song instead. After a bout of silence that was somehow louder than music:
“Just call me Talia.”
Talia – if this is what the woman’s name truly is–starts talking maybe fifteen minutes into the ride, during all of which Damian was stuck in a catatonic-like state. Her voice is smooth, holding a trace of an indescribable accent and a charming lilt that makes her sound like the narrator of some ancient fairytale. But her question is fairly straight-forward:
“How was school?”
This is hysterical.
“Good. I got an A for my project on endangered wolves. We made it with Zoe–” His breath hitches. Zoe. Zoe!
“Zoe is fine. She’s safe, I promise. I told you, they do not want anything from her.”
“And what– what do they want–” Anxiety vibrates in his chest and throat, clenching it up. He stops a sob from escaping his mouth by biting his tongue and does not even attempt to finish the question. It is all useless.
“You can cry.” She says slowly. “You boys… I don’t like this silence. You will get a headache.”
He does not care what she likes or does not like. He shouts out as much, wincing at his own outburst.
“Good,” she says, smiling faintly.
What he cares about is answers. Zoe. Xander even. Was it about Xander–? It is like she can read his thoughts:
“The blonde child? He’s fine too.” Putting whatever the consequence of Damian’s mean punch was aside, that goes unsaid. Damian once trained in judo, before he got bored with it. Before the first training session started, sensei said there was one rule for outside the class only: they were not allowed to fight. They held more responsibility since they actually knew what they were doing when they struck, which made them more dangerous. If a student ever hurt a peer in a petty fight, they would not be let back into the dojo. Not that Damian cared about the dojo anymore.
Xander had what he had coming.
And if it’s not about Zoe or Xander, or even Miss Dahlia – poor Miss Dahlia! -- then it is all about Damian. Whatever all is.
The dam in his mind breaks. Damian wails.
Damian is not sure how many minutes passed this time, but enough for him to lose all the water in his organism that could be spared for tears. His eyes are red and dry when he buries his face into a tissue Talia gave him. She comments something about dehydration, and passes him a bottle of water. He does not open it.
The sun is already setting when the car stops. They are just beyond the borders of the city; Damian had looked out like a hawk the whole journey, counting turns and trying to memorise the exact route taken. They are in another parking lot, strangely silent, with some massive garage beyond, and another building next to it. It might be an auto shop, but the lettering above the doors is too rundown to decipher. The only other identifiable location is a gas station across the street, its sign flickering red and blue against the orange horizon.
Talia gets out without a word, and then opens the door for him.
Damian jumps out, kicking at her. If it will not be strong enough of a kick to overpower her, then maybe enough to disorient her.
She grabs him, holding his arms steadily.
“Damian,” she says softly.
Damian considers biting her hand. He sobs again, and is just handed in another tissue, and perhaps he could attempt to run again now, before this crazy kidnapper murders him and sells him for parts. He has heard stories like that. Not in his neighbourhood, but in the city centre; even around his school there were unsavoury characters wandering around sometimes.
“Lady Talia.” A voice comes from somewhere behind them.
So it might really be her name.
“Fauna.” Or not, given she calls her associate by a moniker. And a stupid one, at that. They turn around. Fauna clearly does not even keep to the theme of the nickname, with her plain white hair and a suit. It is a bit disappointing.
“And little Damian.”
“Who are you?” Damian manages to ask.
“FBI,” the other woman states with a slight smile. Talia glances at her sharply. So this is his chance.
“Will you bring me home now?”
Fauna seems to hesitate, looking at his kidnapper instead. He cannot see Talia’s reaction like that, her arms still steadily wrapped around his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Fauna answers finally. “There are some very dangerous people out there. People who want to take you away from your family.”
“Yeah, like you!”
“No,” Talia cuts in. “What I want is to deliver you back to your family as fast as possible. In one piece.”
As fast as possible did not sound fast at all.
The grasp on his shoulders falls loose. There is little use in trying to run again, and his limbs all feel heavy, or the opposite of that, soft like cotton, too pliable to move. The advice to rest when kidnapped rings true after all.
Talia moves in front of him, kneeling down to his level. She takes her sunglasses off. Her face is now unobstructed, but he lacks courage to even take a glimpse, suddenly scared as if her expression was to reveal some vile intentions, as if he was about to confront some demon. Though maybe humans are scarier than that – so far his day proves there is no less to be wary of.
“Look at me. I really need you to trust me now. Do you think you can trust me?”
He glances up, into her eyes. They are hazel – the type of hazel that seems olive green, just to shift into amber in the yellow light, like now, when the sun sets behind them.
They are a mirror of his own.
He takes a shaky breath.
Is it a choice at all?
“Yes,” he decides.