Chapter Text
It was first day of school, after the summer break, and there was meant to be a whole gaggle of new kids coming into as part of an exchange program. Not only that but most were Midlle Eastern so he would finally have people who he could trash talk with without having to look around for anyone listening in.
Damian never had a problem making friends in school. By the time he started he was 13 and had been in this country for more than a year. He still went to a normal school back when he was with his mother, and he was popular as hell. He played football (not American) and hung out with everyone, and finally his best friend, Malik, was moving here. His dad has work here, so he’s moving here from the Middle East.
First he would like to point out that he was only in Nanda Parbat for school year breaks so his training was done mostly with his mother and Jason in whatever mansion they lived in. Then he’d go to schools all over the Middle East new ones whenever they wanted to move. And he would get to move mid year and meet new people and friends.
He was in Egypt, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Yemen, Saudi, Iraq and Iran for half a year each(the same year), Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, and Bahrain. Over that time, he made hundreds of friends and he was one of the most popular people in all schools. He made friends in every school and kept in touch with all of them.
Even after making all these friends, he still only had one bestfriend, his homeboy, his twin, his brother from another mother. Malik, his mother was super understanding and his father was even more rich, so they’d let him travel alone wherever and whenever. They met on one of his trips and once they exchanged contact information they never faded. Malik would fly out once a month to visit him wherever he was and he’d stay for 3 days-a week. And then got back to Qatar, or the UAE or wherever he was at the time. Maybe it was for school maybe for vacation. His parents lived in Egypt so he speaks mostly Egyptian dialects, but he first started traveling at 7 and met Damian 2 years later when he was 9. Damian’s mother knew Malik’s mother so they’d let him come to the USA when he moved here for his dad. They weren’t that reckless, they knew their son shouldn’t leave the Middle East without them, then Damian moved here and now he can go there and to Europe, the rest of Asian, and Africa. Until now because his dad decided to take his company completely international and not just the Middle East and he decided to make his base in The USA.
Anyway back to first day of school prep, Damian was wearing a t-shirt and jeans because he was not about to rock sweats in 40 degree weather, he didn’t understand how it could be this hot, he hasn’t felt this heat since being in Qatar. He put on a chain on his neck then went downstairs and through the door without anyone seeing him (they were all asleep, like always) and got into his uber.
The drive was… boring. He used to go with a specific driver (not Alfred) and his full time job (paid by Talia) was to take him everywhere. Parties, school, bars, Moscow, Milan, Egypt (sometimes he’d go back with Malik and be back by the end of the day (or week)). His dad noticed, of course, but he’d just say he was with his Mother or wherever. But he wanted to go to get a donut before going to school so he went there with an uber and then when Yusef woke up he told him to take him to school.
What will never cease to amaze him is that his family doesn’t know, or even suspect, any of this, the only person that knows how he truly acts is Jason, and that’s only because he was there, and Duke, because he lives at the manor and is awake and hanging out with his friends at the same time as Damian and he also goes to the same school so… yeah.
When he’d arrived at the manor his mother told him to prove himself, so he acted like the other people at the compound, and they just believed that’s how he was. The only person who ever got close to figuring it out was Tim, that’s why he’s hurt him so much. He honestly feels bad, but he just panics sometimes and does dumb stuff.
Finally, he got to school and there he was, his bestfriend, and a lot more people he knows than he thought would transfer but that just means he gets to hangout with them more. Yay, totally a win.
“Damian!” He heard Malik yell from across the courtyard once he saw him.
“Malik!” He yelled back. Hey they hadn’t seen each other in a month, they miss each other. “So how’d you like it?” He asked once he got to him and dabbed him up.
“I like that I don’t have to wear an ugly uniform to school anymore,” yeah all schools in the Middle East are like that, he was glad for that too.
“Bro, those things were UGLYYYYY. I still have that snap you sent me of it the one time last year you weren’t on vacation.”
“Yeah oh my god I remember that!”
“Wanna skip today boys?” He heard a voice from behind him, and low and behold, Jenna, Malik’s twin sister. The one he was crazy overprotective of. The one who was never allowed to travel or any of that stuff because Malik never let her. She did anyway because Malik was 20 minutes younger so he had no authority over her. But it was always to his dismay.
He’s met her multiple times on his or her trips but only a few times with Malik.
“Yeah how bout it?” He turned to Malik and surprisingly he didn’t look angry or even that annoyed and nodded his head in agreement.
“But,” ah there it was, he was his bestfriend but even he had to admit he was kinda insane when it came to Jenna, “we get to skip and see (Arabic) el watwat 3ar (the bat cave),” he whispered the last part cause there is still Arabs around just a lot less that white people.
“(Arabic) hader bas lazem aghayar el hoodur (ok but I need to change the attendance),” Damian responded.
“Ok go do that and we’ll be here waiting for you,” of course Jenna is then only one white washed enough to not speak in Arabic at this time. I meant she always looked the least white, tan skin, long curls, and today she’s wearing a blue abaya over her blue jeans and white tee. Alas she’s still white washed as hell.
“Lemme just…” they watch Damian hack the attendance records from his phone so at the end of each lesson they are marked in and any alerts to search for them don’t go through, but for the people marking them in it shows they’ve been absent all day except for the end of the day. “Ok done we can go now, Yousef is waiting down there.” The driver.
“How bout we walk around Gotham first, see the place, go to a bar,” Malik suggested.
“Then later we go to the bat cave.” Jenna continues for him, he swears that they rehearsed this. No way they didn’t.
20 minutes later they ‘run into’ (like Jenna and Malik didn’t call them to tell them their skipping) 5 people their age, Mia, Leah, Gabe, Leo, and Ariana, who they all met the first time Malik brought Jenna to Gotham, and they join the walk around Gotham. They were on their way to crime alley to go to a bar, because where else would sell them drinks, when they had a little run in with the cops. That would be no problem, if any of the were all; white adults males, who weren’t in crime alley, but no, just their luck. They, kinda, fit none of the criteria.
“Why the hell are yall not in school,” a male voice yelled out the window of the car.
“Just our luck, the day we decided to go to crime alley is the only day there are ever cops,” Jenna commented, very loudly too so they got the message that they weren’t from here and didn’t want trouble.
“Oh so I’m just meant to believe you don’t live here and aren’t going to rob that place over there,” another voice chimed in, “it’s always the same with your kind. Rude and obnoxious, you probably have bombs on you don’t yall.”
“The audacity you have is crazy!” Jenna retorted, “do you even know who we are?!”
“Does it look like i ca-” Damian cut him off.
“Well you should,” by this point the cops were out of the car and approaching them not so slowly.
“Thats it, hands on your head, get on your knees all of you,” they all looked at each other for a second “NOW!” The cop yelled again.
And ran, all of them, at the same time. Damian, Jenna, Malik and Leo were all running towards a safe house he has nearby, and he pulled out his phone to text the rest the coordinators of it because they ran in two different directions, probably to one of Jason’s places. Or as they would know him, the Red Hood. He has a lot of places around Gotham where kids can go to be safe and it’s guarded so they don’t need to hide where they’re going.
They round the corner and dip into a narrow alley and waste no time to start climbing up the fire escape. Once they reach the safe house, Mia, Gabe, Leo, Ariana, and Leah, who probably met up mid street, burst through the door and lock it behind them.
“Okay, I don’t think they saw us entering this apartment, or even building so we should be safe,” Leo says. He has experience running from racist cops, they always judge him for being obviously Brazilian, tan with dark curls, he looks very similar to Jenna, even more so than her own twin, who’s is literally an abadony (light skin Arab in Egyptian) with straight brown hair and FRECKLES!
Leah and Ariana are both black, they have matching braids in right now because they wanted to go to the salon together and get butterfly braids in so they can match. They’re both around 5’4 but don’t have a similar style. Gabe is a Mexican light skin and grew up in some other city in New Jersey but moved here 7 years ago so he isn’t really in touch with his roots much but he look Mexican despite his skin color and Mia it also Mexican but she’s fully dark and grew up in Gotham,
Damian met them before becoming Robin so when he did the found out pretty quick with him always disappearing and then Robin appearing and weird stuff like that but these are his closest friends, so he probably would have just told them in he end anyway.
They decided to order some food while waiting for the cops to give up and leave crime alley entirely which won’t be for another hour.
“Hey guys! I have some uno here somewhere wanna play?” Damian remembered and started towards the bedroom.
“Yessss! Finally something to do!” Jenna exclaimed ready for her boredom to end.
“Okay, Ima go get it.” He walked into the bedroom, which he hadn’t seen in 3 months, and started going through the drawers to find the uno. He always kept some sorta game in his safe house to keep him sane. “Okayyyyy I got it.”
When they got to the apartment, at 9:30, it was neat and tidy and had some sort of organization, now it’s almost 10:30 and the apartment has food wrappers everywhere. Burger wrappers, fry boxes and there was popcorn everywhere too, because they decided to make some and everyone was just throwing them at each other when they used a +2 or +4 or skip or reverse, or any action card to be honest. It was super fun, but also really messy and he would have to clean it up later, or just get someone to do it for him. It so nice being rich.
“Guys I think we can go now,” Gabe said, but it was almost the end of the game, and he was losing.
“Pfft, you just want to go cause you have 10 cards and I have 3,” Jenna takes down his suggestion and he throws popcorn at her.
“Fine, wanna continue, we’ll continue.”
“Okay, good.”
Gabe puts down a skip then a reverse then a skip then a reverse then 2 +4s and if looks could kill Jennas glare would toast him. She draws 8 and throws a whole hand full of popcorn at him. Then he puts down a color card and picks yellow and Jenna draws again! And then he puts down a yellow 2 and she draws again! And boy the amount of popcorn thrown at him in those rounds was psychotic. Finally he puts down he second last card “uno” and it’s a skip. And he puts down yet another yellow 2!
“Maybe you should’ve just let him leave the game when he said it’s almost time to go,” Leah pats her back.
“Let’s just go.”
“Awwww, are you angry!” Gabe says with a mocking smirk on his face.
“Hey don’t be annoying,” Malik pushes him, “let’s go come on.”
And with that they all leave the apartment a complete mess without a care in the world. They decided to not go to the bar in case they get in trouble again, instead they go straight to the batcave, Yusef takes them of course. Once they’re there they go straight to the computer setup so that they can mess with the others’ attendance records. It wouldn’t take long just 5 or ten minutes.
“Uhm guys we have a problem…” Damian moved from in front of the screen and let them see…
“What is the problem?” Leo asked, it was just a picture of them from one of the cameras in the cave. What was the problem with that?
“I didn’t snap this! Duh!”
“Ok so what?” Malik joined in on the confusion.
“The only two ways for the batcomuter to show a snap from one of the batcave’s cameras is if 1 someone siting at the computer snapped it or if someone somewhere else did, and I didn’t, so a device connected to the cameras snapped this and displayed it on here.”
The realization that someone was watching them and knows there’re ditching school and are in the batcave without Batman’s knowledge or consent dawned on the rest of them.
“Oh we’re so cooked!” Leah panicked, “Batman’s watching and he is never going to let Damian see any of us again! Or even leave this cave!”
“Whoa let’s not jump to conclusions, maybe it’s Duke or Jason?” Mia was trying to calm her down.
“Duke is unlikely, he’s the type to do this kinda thing but; 1, he’s at school, 2, he has powers if he wanted us to think Batman has caught us then he would make a bat shape in the corner and make the eye areas glow.”
“YOU’RE NOT HELPING!!!” Now Mia was panicking and yelling too, just great.
“What about Jason!” Leo repeats.
“Oh my god YEAH Jason would so do this, it’s probably him, he might be asleep but we passed one of his safe house when we were running from the cops!” Damian yelled
“So he heard the commotion and saw us running!” Gabe continued.
“Then knew we’d be able to handle ourselves!” Malik joined in.
“And knew we’d come back to the cave!” Jenna read her twins mind, again!
“So he decided to prank us!” Leah kept it going.
“And waited till we were here to do the snap thing!” Mia finished it off just as a figure walked into the room. The dim lights in the cave didn’t allow them to see more than the silhouette from this far. I was about 6 foot max 6’4 had muscle ripping out of his (?) arms. He (?) was walking towards them slowly, while clapping along every step he (?) takes. Once he stepped into the light they saw… Jason?
“What’s with all the theatrics man!? You scared the hell outa us!” Malik was very familiar with Jason, he met him years back when Damian and him hung out for the first time. Jason’s like an older brother to him, and kinda to Jenna, at this point.
“To scare you into thinkin’ I was Bruce,” Jason said matter of factly, “duh!”
“You’re actually so annoying!” Damian yelled at him, “I thought the secret was out! What the hell man!?”
Most of them met and knew Jason but not that much, they’d met him here and there, knew he was Red Hood but not much more, Gabe had met him at a protest against ice in his civies, ironic right? Mia was there too but they got separated in the crowd so this was her first time meeting him. He was with Damian and that’s the reason they even met, because Damian was linking up with him but police came a while later so they didn’t really get to talk much. Leah and Ariana met him because they go to crime alley a lot, all of them are rich or ‘upper middle class’ or ‘comfortable’ but Leah and Ariana like to hang out there instead of with the ‘rich snobs’ like they weren’t rich too. They have friends there and the cops don’t really go there so they don’t really get racially profiled. Until now I guess, anyway Jason has saved them multiple times as Red Hood, but never officially met them as Jason or Damian’s older brother but they knew he was. Malik and Jenna knew him from their travel days obviously but Jenna sees him less as a brother than Malik. And Leo just never met him but he’s seen news stories about him, the duffel bag full of heads thing and all.