Chapter Text
Where did it all go wrong? Isn’t that a reoccuring question in Damian's quite short life.
It started during a night in Gotham because it’s always Gotham. All of Damian’s fortune and misfortune stems from the city his father swore to protect and through birthright (love) the city that Damian too will protect.
It was a slow patrol, a stakeout waiting for something bigger to happen. Through arduous detective work and hours spent both on field and After hours of fieldwork and even more spent hunched over the Batcomputer (Father and Drake with their atrocious posture—a part of Damian’s soul died with that sight) they had uncovered the problem.
But this time it wasn’t drugs, or some sort of poor attempt to run a crime empire (leave that to Todd), no it was messing with universes, dimension travel. If Damian had a penny for every egotistical, suicidal fool who thought they could outsmart the laws of the universe, he’d rival the Al Ghul fortune, which was built for centuries mind you.
Seriously, what was his mother thinking when she dropped him in Gotham of all places. And as much as Damian hates to admit it, he wouldn’t trade it for the world. Which is why he was now shoulder to shoulder with Richard, a rare moment spent together after months of separation.
They had gathered a considerable portion of Father’s associates—the Batfamily, as the media insisted on calling them. Drake. Brown. Father, of course. Even Todd had appeared, which meant trouble was guaranteed.
Cain would have been there too but…she hadn’t been seen in some time.
That alone was unsettling.
Disappearances weren’t unusual among them—least of all for Cain, who could dissolve into shadow better than anyone. But she loved this family fiercely. She would not vanish without reason. She wasn’t Damian, attempting to prove something by throwing himself into a Lazarus Tournament.
Father was investigating. They all were. It was rare to see them this aligned, this in sync. It almost justified the word family.
Nevermind that currently their focus had shifted. Interdimensional breaches were not something to approach lightly after all.
Lord knows what these people are planning. They do not have the leisure to figure that out just yet, they first need to shut down this whole operation. Sometimes even the tactical Batman needs to act first, ask questions later.
Damian exhaled quietly, resting his head against the cement lip of the rooftop. The structure’s attempt at a safety barrier was laughable—a railing would have been more efficient—but for now, he was content to sit slumped against it.
He’s fairly certain he once complained about this. Back when Richard was Batman.
(He always will be.)
Gods. He needs to stop drifting into memories that cannot be replicated. If he could just focus, perhaps he would hear—
“Dami.”
A poke to his shoulder.
“Dames. Baby Bat.”
“Names, Nightwing,” Damian corrected, though he didn’t swat the hand away like he once would have. He supposed he could be generous. It had been a while since they’d spoken properly.
“Don’t disappear into your head and leave me alone up here,” Richard said with an easy smile. “I’m going to die of boredom.”
Damian scoffed. As if. Richard had endured far longer stretches of silence. Sometimes he preferred them. Damian knew that. He knew his brother well enough to recognize when he was trying to lighten the mood—even if Damian didn’t need lightening.
“Then speak,” Damian replied dryly. “Surely some unfortunate soul will hear you and bless you with their company.”
“I don’t want some unfortunate soul,” Richard shot back. “I want you. Is it so terrible to talk to me, Robin?”
Damian sighed. For once, he couldn’t summon his usual retort about preferring to eat cement.
Richard’s grin widened at the sound, hearing the concession in it. Years of training assuring that he never accepts defeat easily, and yet here was Damian, undone and utterly defeated. “How’s school?” Richard asked, shameless.
“Seriously?”
“Well, forgive me for caring about the one normal part of your life.”
“It is fine,” Damian said. Which was technically true. The persistent attempts by his classmates to provoke him bordered on what others might call bullying—but they lacked skill, effort, and creativity. It was hardly worth both his attention and Richard’s attention.
Still, Richard would want details. He would want to intervene. Offer advice. Hell, perhaps he’d want to visit the school himself.
“Just fine?” Richard tilted his head. “Any friends? Drama? I remember being your age—we were dramatic.”
“It has been quite some time since you were my age,” Damian replied. “Are you certain your memory remains intact?”
“Alright buddy,” Richard said in mock offense, moving his hand to ruin Damian’s hair anyway. “Seriously. Nothing?”
“Unless you want to hear about how a classmate of mine dated a girl and then proceeded to break up with him over her liking Taylor Swift then—”
“Robin and Nightwing, report.”
Ah, just when the boat was floating.
Richard’s hand dropped as he tapped his communicator. “Nothing on this end.”
“Target group confirmed entering through the East Wing. Be prepared to move.”
“Copy that, B.”
Richard rolled his shoulders, then looked at Damian with an almost sheepish smile.
Ridiculous. He had nothing to apologize for. It was the circumstances. It was always the circumstances.
“Tell me more after we kick some ass?” Richard asked, just slightly tentative.
Damian tilted his head as if considering a difficult offer.
“Perhaps.”
He placed his hands against the low cement barrier and vaulted over it in one fluid motion, dropping from the rooftop.
Richard’s laughter followed him down.
Moments later, he felt it—that familiar presence at his back despite the distance between them.
He always could.
༺｡° .ᘛ𓆩♡𓆪ᘚ. °｡༻
You know what would’ve really helped in this situation? Perhaps the very familiar presence that he would always feel. Okay. Fine. That’s not fair. Damian knows he’s cranky. It’s been a night. It’s been a life. God forbid a kid be a little sarcastic and a little done with everything. He was dragged to Gotham after spending years under clear skies and cleaner air—
Whatever.
The point is, things took a turn the moment they entered the building. Or perhaps his life had soured the second he was born. Take your pick.
The minute they had entered, they knew something was wrong. The warehouse was too empty, too still for it to spell anything but trouble.
“We sure this is the right place?” Todd muttered behind them. Damian was tempted to hiss at him to shut up but…he did agree with the sentiment.
“Let’s scout the area,” Father said, not gracing Todd with a retort. “Split up in your stakeout groups. Me and Red Robin will take the bottom three floors, Hood and Spoiler take the middle three floors and Nightwing and Robin—”
“Top three floors, got it B.” Richard cut him off, wrapping an arm around Damian’s shoulder, once again something Damian allowed him to do. He’d been…touchier since his death. Damian could understand the unspoken…feelings.
“Maintain comms,” Father said, already moving for the fire exit.
That left the regular stairwell for them.
They climbed in silence. The mundane thud of boots on concrete felt almost surreal. Patrol was usually rooftops and grapples, broken glass and shadows. Stairs felt civilian. Ordinary. Damian always felt surreal despite doing “civilian” things on patrol on a regular basis. Perhaps he just used too many…creative approaches of entrance during his time in the League.
The building itself was rotting—water damage, peeling paint, graffiti layered over brick. Some of the artwork was almost impressive. Paper banners hung limp from railings, stained with something brown Damian had no interest in identifying.
They cleared the seventh floor. Nothing but abandoned furniture and useless paperwork. The eighth was the same.
The ninth, however—
“Robin reporting. Attic access.” Damian touched the comm in his ear as he stood atop a rickety ladder. A small trapdoor stared back at him. “Ninth floor. Third room.”
“Copy. Do not enter alone,” Father replied.
Damian clicked his tongue. He hadn’t been planning to…mostly.
“You think that’s our jackpot?” Richard asked lightly.
“Unless they’re hosting their dimension-tearing soirée in the supply closet, yes.”
Richard smiled faintly, fingers twitching the way they did when he wanted to say something but hesitated.
Damian looked up at him properly then. Richard looked… nervous. He hadn’t looked like that in a long time. Not since the early days—when things between them were still uncertain, when Richard had asked, tentative and awkward, if Damian wanted to attend a museum exhibit together.
“Baby Bat, I was just wondering if—”
A heavy thump cut him off.
The floor trembled.
Then the entire building began to shake.
“Nightwing reporting,” Richard said sharply into his comm. “You might need to find your own way up.”
“Approved.”
Richard let out a sigh. “Guess this patrol isn’t slow enough for conversations, huh?”
Damian could tell something was weighing down on Richard, he opened his mouth hesitantly and then closed it. “I suppose.”
“Let’s go, we’ll talk about it after.” Well Richard didn’t really need to announce that because Damian was already on the ladder by the time he said that, clearly that amused Richard as he started chuckling again.
Can he pick an emotion and stick to it?”
Damian punched the trapdoor up with enough force to break the thing. He wasn’t really bothered to find out if the thing was locked or not, either way these guys won’t be missing it after they stop their operations.
Placing his arms firmly against the floor, Damian pushes himself up, landing on the wooden flooring of the surprisingly spacious attic. The space stretched wide, renovated and reinforced.
Damian turned to see a group of at least twenty people, in white cloaks with green linings that reminded Damian of the Lazarus pits in the League. Clearly startled, they had stopped whatever they were doing and had turned to their intruder.
Richard vaulted up beside him and let out a low whistle. “Wow. Cult chic is really making a comeback.”
Damian barely had time to breathe before they charged.
Clearly these…”party holders” didn’t appreciate their company as without even a spoken word, they rushed at them with war cries.
Richard’s escrima sticks snapped into his palms with a familiar click. “Guess they’re not fans.”
“Tt.”
So much for subtlety.
The fight exploded.
Bodies collided. Cloaks snapped in the air. Damian moved instinctively—kick to the sternum, elbow to the jaw, pivot, duck. He felt Richard near him without looking, their movements orbiting one another in practiced synchronization. Not quite back to back, but close enough to sense shifts in air and motion. Once more Damian felt nostalgic.
Nostalgia was probably trying to get him killed because a man soon after grabbed Damian’s leg mid-kick and yanked him upward.
He didn’t hesitate.
He locked that captured leg around the man’s neck and twisted, slamming his fist down into the man’s skull. The grip loosened. Damian dropped, swept, and sent him crashing into another attacker.
The rest of their Bat entourage had joined them, beating up people in their usual fashion.
Good.
Seeing everyone else too occupied with fending off offenders, Damian took it on himself to approach the large machine that took up an entire wall—wires snaking like veins, levers jutting at odd angles, panels blinking with unstable light. At its center stood a massive frame humming with power. A single cloaked man frantically worked the controls.
Damian grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back hard enough to choke him. “What is this?”
The man was far more feeble than the rest of the members, clearly assigned to the machine for a reason as he floundered within Robin’s grasp, clumsily attempting to punch him. Damian quickly grabbed his wrist, twisting it behind the man’s back, he grabbed the other wrist too, holding them together in some sort of makeshift attempt of handcuffing the man as he forced him face first into the ground. The man let out a pained gasp, twisting and struggling much like a fish.
“What is this?” He growled again.
“I–I won’t tell, I won’t tell!” Fear practically dripped from the man’s voice, Damian clicked his tongue. He pressed his knee into the man’s back, a series of pained groans erupting from the man.
“What is this—” A fist swung toward Damian’s head. He ducked, grabbed the operator by the front of his robes, and hurled him bodily into the attacker. Okay, perhaps there were better weapons but instinct okay? Someone was trying to beat him up, he was holding something, 1 + 1 equal to 2, he threw the man at his attacker.
He didn’t get much time to watch the reactions of the two as he turned, feeling a presence behind him, and no not the warm familiar one. A punch hurled at him, seriously how do you do illegal activities and not carry weapons? He feels like he’s been a part of a boxing tournament the entire night.
He grabbed the man’s wrist, pulling him towards him as he sidestepped and kicked the man’s back. More people came at him and he turned his eyes towards his family members, they were all currently occupied by numerous aggressors of their own. So they hadn’t abandoned their previous fights to fight with him, no—more had come.
Damian cursed under his breath as he grabbed dual knives from his belt, slashing at the numerous men that attempted to hurl themselves at him at the same time. Tt, cowards. Damian abruptly squatted, slashing at their legs, bits of torn cloaks fell onto the ground and similar choruses of pain sung through the room.
He pushed himself up, elbowing someone’s face as he twirled his knife to slash at the bicep of another.
“All is prepared.” He heard a voice behind him. Snapping his neck towards the source, it was the feeble man he had manhandled. The man’s hood had fallen back, revealing a gaunt face, long black hair plastered to sunken cheeks, glasses askew. If Gotham wasn’t full of them, he would call this man a stereotypical nerdy comic villain. Unfortunately those stereotypes are very much true in Gotham.
He slammed a button and wind roared through the attic, violent and blistering. Damian raised his arm as his cape snapped like a flag in a storm.
Energy crickled inside the frame, mere bursts of energy before it swirled into a dark green portal. Damian watched as the man walked towards the portal and alarm bells rung in his head.
He lunged against the gale, fingers catching fabric (seriously they need to stop with these cloaks, they’re too easy to grab), pulling the man back. The man yelped as Damian threw his body against the numerous buttons, his hands too unsteady due to harsh blows of wind.
Whatever the man’s back had made contact with changed the temperature, dropping it to chilling yet equally strong winds. Instead of feeling like his skin was going to burn off, he now felt chilling shards stab into them, great upgrade.
“What have you done!” The man hollered angrily as Damian grabbed the guy’s collar again.
“I asked you nicely three times,” Damian gritted. “You didn’t respond.”
“You—the portal—” The man gasped, making Damian look over to the portal once more. It…it had changed colours, turning a violent shade of blue. He loosened his grip on the man, panicked. He looked over to his family members, all of them there, still fighting against the numerous cloaked men who seemed to have tripled once more, far away enough to not be too impacted by the portal’s—-
Arms pushed him off with surprising amounts of strength and he staggered behind, unsteadily grounding himself.
“You’ve ruined everything!” The man hollered again, rushing towards him. Damian stepped back, readying himself in a fighting stance, yet his balance was all off. The stupid winds—
The man grabbed at his collar with such strength—what the fuck where was he hiding that?!
“Since you’ve ruined this for me, then you can be the one to take the trip!” The man hollered at him, throwing him towards the portal much like he’d thrown the man.
Is this his karma?
“Damian!” He heard familiar yells, watched as Richard ran at him despite the fact that he’s halfway across the room.
Too far.
Always just a little too far.
And as the cold blue swallowed him whole, Damian had one sharp, fleeting thought—
Guess we’re not having that conversation after all.
༺｡° .ᘛ𓆩♡𓆪ᘚ. °｡༻
Ugh, his whole body hurt.
Damian groaned softly, shifting against the sheets. The movement sent a dull ache through his limbs, but beneath him was something cool and impossibly smooth. Silk. The fabric slid against his skin like water, soothing where everything else throbbed.
He let out a hearty sigh, long and shaky, sinking deeper into the mattress. A quiet chuckle drifted through the room.
The sound felt like falling into clouds—soft, weightless, forgiving. For a moment, he let himself melt into it, letting the plush warmth cradle him while the silk cooled his overheated skin. The sound wrapped around him just as easily as the blankets did, warm and steady, and Damian felt himself relax further—body going loose, tension unwinding despite the lingering pain.
“Are you awake, Dami?” Someone asked.
“Five more minutes…” Damian mumbled under his breath, he felt hands card through his hair.
“Of course, sweetheart. Take all the time you need.”
༺｡° .ᘛ𓆩♡𓆪ᘚ. °｡༻
The next time Damian woke, the world felt steadier.
Not perfect, his eyelids were heavy and swollen in that way they were after too much sleep—but steadier. The fog had thinned. Unfortunately, clarity came with consequences. The moment he shifted, pain flared bright and insistent through his body.
He let out a small, wounded sound before he could stop himself, squeezing his eyes shut again.
“Damian?” a familiar voice asked gently. “Hey… are you awake?”
Drake.
Damian forced his eyes open, blinking through the light. His vision took a second to focus— and when it did, he frowned faintly.
Tim was in his Robin suit.
His gaze drifted past him, taking in the cavernous ceiling, the familiar glow of the Batcomputer casting its turquoise light across the cave walls. The hum of machinery. The cool air.
The Batcave.
“…Gosh,” Damian muttered hoarsely, rubbing at his face.
“Bruce!” Drake called over his shoulder, relief bleeding into his voice. “He’s awake!”
Footsteps echoed almost immediately.
“Are you okay?” Drake asked, leaning closer, his tone stripped of its usual teasing edge. It was soft, careful.
Damian shifted experimentally and instantly regretted it. Pain stabbed through him in protest.
“Feels like I’ve been hit by a bus,” he grumbled. After a beat, he amended, “Several buses.”
Drake huffed a quiet, almost fond sound. “Yeah. Your pain meds probably wore off. We’ll fix that now that you’re up.”
He reached out without hesitation, fingers combing gently through Damian’s hair—slow, grounding strokes. It was so uncharacteristically tender that, under different circumstances, Damian would have accused him of being replaced by an alien duplicate.
Instead, he found himself leaning, just slightly, into the touch.
Father stepped up beside him, silent at first.
Damian’s senses sharpened as the pain anchored him more firmly to the present. He studied his father’s face — and stilled.
Father looked…aggrieved.
Not the exhaustion of a long patrol. Not even the strain of a difficult mission. This was deeper. His eyes were rimmed faintly red, his expression fragile in a way Damian had only ever seen once before.
When they’d thought Richard was gone.
Father looked at him like he was something that might disappear if he blinked.
“Damian,” Father said quietly.
The softness in his voice made something in Damian’s chest tighten. They had argued before the mission. Harsh words. Sharp tones. He hadn’t expected gentleness so soon afterward.
Unless—
The portal.
He had been shoved through it. Torn from everything familiar. For all they knew, he could have been lost.
“Hello, I—” Damian began.
“Came from another dimension. Yeah, we figured,” Drake said gently, sparing him the effort. “We ran every test. That was the only explanation.”
“Ah.” Damian nodded faintly. Of course they had. Parallel universe or not, they were still his family. And his family was nothing if not resourceful and prepared.
Father rested a hand briefly against Damian’s shoulder—careful, grounding. “I’m sure you have questions,” he said, voice still low. “But right now, the priority is you recovering.”
Drake squeezed Damian’s hand before stepping back. “I’ll contact the others.”
Damian blinked after him, trying to piece everything together. It all felt unrea, that others were taking over, not in a frightening way, but in the way warmth can feel unfamiliar when you haven’t expected it.
No one was dismissing him. No one was commanding him.
They were hovering. Taking over to give him a chance to rest. Caring for him.
It had been a while since he’d felt that without having to fight for it.
“Would you like to go up to your room?” Bruce asked gently.
Damian hesitated, still recalibrating. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “That would be… preferable.”
Father nodded and stepped closer. His hands slid carefully beneath Damian’s knees and behind his back. Damian instinctively shifted to help, then let out a small gasp as Fatherlifted him with ease.
His face flushed instantly. “F-Father, that’s unnecessary—”
“You’re still weak,” Father said quietly. “You went through a lot.”
Damian blinked in surprise. There was no embarrassment in his tone. Nor any impatience. Bruce’s grip tightened slightly, protective rather than restrictive.
“I know this must feel strange,” he added softly. “I may not be your Father. Not exactly.”
He met Damian’s eyes, and there was no guardedness nor fatigue there. Just open, unfiltered affection with a tinge of...sadness?
“But I care about you,” he said. “Very much. And I would like to take care of you. May I carry you upstairs?”
The question, not an order, stunned him more than the lift had.
Damian stared for a heartbeat too long.
“Ah...okay,” he said finally, quieter than usual.
Father adjusted him gently, ensuring he was comfortable before beginning the slow ascent from the cave.
Damian rested, reluctantly but undeniably, against his father’s chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath the armor.
Where the hell has he ended up?