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Damian was attending his Gotham U courses when the call came. An emergency alert calling all hands on deck.
It was honestly a shame, the lecture on how biblical art changed people’s perceptions of their faith was down right fascinating, even as he didn’t share the Christian faith that his professor so clearly held. If anything her personal connection made the lecture all the better.
Duke didn’t usually call for help. He understood that most of their family did not like the day and those that did, generally himself and Timothy, were busy.
But they always went when he called, for Duke did not make his calls lightly.
“Give me the description,” Timothy was saying as Damian slipped his comm into his ear. “I’ll contact Zatanna and see if there’s anything we can dig up.”
“It’s a man with weird grayish skin. He’s riding on a motorcycle and has a sentient shadow. It’s unclear what kind of meta he is, but none of them seem to be able to interact with the physical,” Oracle reported and Damian felt his irritation grow, grabbing a thermos out of his backpack and clipping it onto his belt.
“They can definitely interact!” Duke shouted, not out of breath but clearly harried. “They can just choose.”
Damian was missing his lecture for 13? 13!? He was going to string the ghost up by his greasy fucking hair. He made sure to send his husband a quick text message. Danny had not been called for and he was in his own lecture, but he would want to be informed.
Damian hurried, because he was attempting to limit property damage and didn’t want to wear Duke out too much. Still, he didn’t break out into a worried run, he understood what was happening. Mostly.
The fight came into view before him and Damian sucked in an exhausted noise. Jason was shooting—unsuccessfully—at 13 who had clearly lost interest in Duke in favor of Jason, Jason who had died and who would smell and feel very, very interesting to a ghost.
A window blew out as a rubber bullet went right through it and Damian felt his eye twitch. “Enough.” The word was quiet, not shouted nor screamed nor even snarled, simply stated. It carried but only so much. But that was enough because 13 froze and turned slowly to Damian.
He turned his bike and idled closer to Damian, interest clear on his face. “What are you?”
“I am King Consort of the Infinite Realms and you are very far from Amity, 13.”
The ghost recoiled. “You! We all thought you were a ghost!” Damian had been aware of that. Technically he was one of four at least partially living beings to have a ghost form.
“I am not but you are currently in my haunt. So you will leave or I shall force you to.”
“Ah man, but Kitty-”
“Tt. I do not care for your tumultuous relationship, you will return to the realms or you shall spend quite a long time in liquid form until I can return you myself.”
13 pouted but did as Damian ordered and left.
Jason was left gapping and Duke was eyeing him like he looked like someone else. Considering his elder brother’s powerset, it made sense. Damian was certain he at the very least had the Crown of the Consort of the Infinite Realms above his head, invisible to the naked eye.
“Uh… Dami,” Richard began. “What was that?”
“Tt. I hardly see how it is any of your concern.”
“Uh, Demon Brat, you just declared yourself a king consort of another realm, that kinda requires a bit of explanation,” Jason hedged.
“Tt. My husband is the King of the Infinite Realms. You now know all you need to know.”
“Husband!?”
“Uh… guys, I just looked up on what we have on the Infinite Realms. All Zatanna said was that it wasn’t her specialty, Deadman man said he wasn’t talking to anyone alive about it, and Constanntine gave an empathic reminder to stay out of magic shit.” Gordon sounded distressingly concern with her utter lack of information.
Damian sighed internally and prepared for several months of Jason, Timothy, Richard, and his father hounding him for answers. Timothy and his father because of their incessant need to know absolutely everything there was to know about absolutely anything. Jason because of his whole dying business. And Richard because he was a nagging older brother who fancied himself the emotional rock of their family and would want to know everything about Damian being married.
Damian considered telling them all that he was on another solo trip around the global in order to “find himself” while in actuality he returned to the Ghost Zone like last time.
But that wouldn’t do. He had classes he couldn’t miss with his dual major and it would quite frankly only delay their badgering rather than side-step it.
That and none of them understood how to take proper care of Batcow or Goliath.
He would still need to call Constantine, Deadman, and Zatara to remind them to keep their fucking mouths shut.
They’d known, of course, Deadman was a ghost and Constantine was Danny’s mentor and anything that man knew, Zatarna eventually discovered. And to their credit, they had kept it to themselves, but under the direct pressure of his father when the man was seeking information about one of his children, they would likely need a reminder that they were all or would someday be, his subjects,
He could, of course, simply explain, but he didn’t feel like doing that.
He might still introduce Jason to Danny and let Danny make sense of Jason’s— everything. It was annoying and his brother reeked.
For the time he was returning to class in the hopes that it would be possible for him to make it there before the lecture was finished.