Chapter Text
It was daytime, and Damian was pursuing a magician across Gotham. Again.
Why are there so many magicians crossing the city these days? he thought as he grappled between buildings. Especially during the day, when Bruce was at work for his company, Timothy had been with the Titans for weeks, and Jason and Richard were both still at school. Damian should have been at work too, but there were no other daytime vigilantes available at the moment. So Nightwing had to patrol alone.
He'd been chasing this particular magician for the past few hours. This one was fast. It has been the same story every time lately: a magician comes to Gotham, messes with something that triggers the city's alarm system, Nightwing goes out to arrest them, and then calls either Zatanna or Constantine to clean up the mess.
While he was in his thoughts, the magician whirled around and hurled something at him –a small, jagged object that glinted unnaturally in the afternoon light.
Damian's instincts took over. He threw himself to the side, rolling across the rooftop gravel, expecting the object to sail past him harmlessly.
But it didn't.
The moment the object hit the ground, it erupted –a blinding detonation of pure white light that swallowed the entire rooftop. No sound. No heat. Just light. So bright it seared through his closed eyelids, through his hands thrown up to shield his face, through every attempt his body made to protect itself.
Damian stumbled backward, disoriented, his vision bleached into nothing. He blinked rapidly, but the world refused to come back into focus. For a terrifying few seconds, he was completely blind.
When his vision finally returned - patchy and blurred at the edges - the rooftop was empty.
The magician was gone.
Damian spun around, scanning the rooftop, the fire escapes, the alleys below, the surrounding buildings. Nothing. No footsteps. No grappling hook. No shimmer of a disappearing portal. Just the ordinary, frustrating silence of a Gotham afternoon.
He escaped.
Damian clicked his tongue in frustration, his heart still pounding from the explosion. He searched for another ten minutes –checking every possible hiding spot, every shadow, every ledge– but there was no sign of the magician anywhere.
Eventually, he conceded defeat and grappled back toward the manor, the memory of that strange white light lingering uneasily in the back of his mind.
—
He entered the manor through the side entrance, as always, and found Alfred polishing a silver tray in the foyer.
"Alfred," Damian said, pulling off his gloves. "Is Richard back from school yet? And Jason, is he still at his lecture club?"
Alfred froze mid-polish. The cloth in his hand stopped moving. He looked at Damian with an expression that wasn't quite confusion, but something closer to careful assessment –the kind of look Alfred usually reserved for unexpected guests who showed up at odd hours with questionable intentions.
"I beg your pardon, Mister...?" Alfred said slowly, tilting his head slightly.
Damian frowned. "Alfred? Are you feeling alright?"
Before he could ask what was wrong, footsteps echoed from the hallway.
Timothy appeared, shuffling toward the kitchen in search of a snack. He wore casual clothes –loose shirt, dark pants– hair sticking up in the back like he'd just woken from a nap.
Damian blinked. Wasn't he supposed to be with the titans ? Also, Tim's hair was shorter than he remembered. Much shorter. And he looked... younger. Not by much –maybe a year or two– but enough to notice. Enough to make something in Damian's chest feel slightly off-center.
But he was too exhausted to fully process the situation. The boy seemed uninjured and that was all that mattered at the moment. Too tired to do anything but accept what was in front of him, he just shrugged and said, "Ah, I see you decided to cut your hair, Timothy. It looks nice."
Before Tim could respond –before he could even close his mouth– Damian reached out and ruffled his hair as he passed him on the way to the fridge.
Tim stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen doorway, mouth half-open, hand hovering uselessly where his hair had just been touched.
Damian opened the fridge and grabbed a protein yogurt with a fruit. At least something was normal. He'd just popped the lid off when he heard more footsteps in the hallway. Two sets. Ah! Richard and Jason must finally be home, he thought, eating his yogurt.
Then voices.
" –I'm just saying, if you'd actually listened to Bruce when he said—"
"I did listen, you menace, I just don’t care what he has to say—"
Damian's shoulders tensed. These weren’t Richard and Jason's voices. They were deep voices, too deep to be his younger brother’s. He turned toward the doorway.
The voices rounded the corner, still mid-argument, and stopped dead in their tracks.
The bigger man’s helmet slid off his hand and hit the floor with a heavy metallic thud.
The other froze mid-gesture, finger still raised from where he’d clearly been poking at his companion.
Damian stared at them.
They stared back.
Tim stared at everyone from the doorway.
Alfred, to his credit, merely raised one eyebrow and folded his hands behind his back.
And Damian, standing in what should have been his kitchen, holding his yogurt, surrounded by people who looked almost like his family but not quite, finally felt the first prickle of real alarm crawl up his spine.
"Who the hell are you?" the larger man demanded. His voice was low and dangerous. His hand was already drifting toward his belt, where Damian knew he must keep a weapon of some kind.
Damian looked down at his yogurt. Then back up at the taller stranger.
"...That's my line," he said.
Despite his exhaustion, Damian was Nightwing again in an instant –fully alert, every muscle taut and ready to strike.
He set the yogurt down slowly on the counter and shifted into a defensive stance.
At the same time, the larger man drew a gun and pointed it directly at him.
Damian moved immediately, sidestepping just enough to place himself between the weapon and Timothy, who was still frozen near the kitchen entrance behind him.
Whoever these two strangers are, he thought coldly, they will not lay a hand on my brother or Alfred.
The other man’s expression shifted slightly, his eyes narrowing as though he had just noticed something strange about Damian’s positioning.
Then he raised both hands carefully in appeasement.
“Okay,” he said slowly, “let’s all calm down here.”
His gaze flicked sideways toward the larger man.
“Jason, you know Alfred’s rules. No guns inside the house.”
The bigger man grumbled under his breath, but eventually lowered the weapon. His posture relaxed only marginally; his eyes never left Damian for a second.
Jason?
Damian frowned slightly.
So this man shared the same name as his younger brother.
An unpleasant coincidence.
Regardless, Damian did not lower his stance.
For several long seconds, nobody moved.
Then Alfred cleared his throat.
“Master Jason,” he said calmly, “while I appreciate your concern, pointing firearms at guests in the kitchen remains deeply uncivilized.”
“He broke into the manor,” Jason shot back without looking away from Damian.
“I used the door,” Damian replied flatly.
That seemed to momentarily derail everyone.
Tim blinked. “...Actually, he did.”
Jason looked personally offended by this information.
The other man –still with his hands half-raised– looked between them with growing confusion.
“Okay,” he said carefully, “either we all got hit with fear toxin at breakfast or something very weird is happening.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“You know Scarecrow?”
Now it was the stranger’s turn to stare.
“...You know Scarecrow?”
A tense silence settled over the kitchen.
Then Timothy, still partly hidden behind Damian, spoke carefully.
“You called me Timothy.”
Damian glanced back at him, confused by the question. “Yes?”
“Nobody calls me Timothy.”
Damian frowned slightly. “Explain.”
The room went still again.
The stranger lowered his hands slowly, making sure every movement remained visible.
“My name is Dick Grayson,” he said cautiously. “That’s Jason Todd. You already know Alfred. And unless I’m losing my mind...” His eyes flicked over Damian’s suit briefly. “You’re wearing my mantle though slightly different.”
Damian stared at him.
Richard Grayson was supposed to be ten.
Ten, loud, constantly sticky from stolen candy, and physically incapable of remaining still for longer than thirty seconds. Richard was all scraped knees, missing homework, dramatic sulking, and relentless attachment to Damian’s side whenever patrol ended late.
The man standing in front of him was none of those things.
“Well,” Jason muttered, still eyeing Damian suspiciously, “that expression isn’t reassuring.”
Damian ignored him completely.
Instead, he studied Richard carefully.
The posture was different. Older. Broader shoulders. More confidence in the way he carried himself. But now that Damian looked closer, he could still see traces of it –the familiar tilt of the head, the expressive hands, the same eyes.
It made his stomach twist unpleasantly.
“You are Richard Grayson,” Damian said slowly.
“Uh. Usually people just call me Dick, but yeah.”
Damian looked faintly horrified.
Jason barked out a laugh before immediately coughing into his fist when Alfred shot him a look.
“No,” Damian said firmly. “I will not be calling you that.”
“Smart kid,” Jason muttered.
“I am definitely older than you.”
Jason looked delighted by that for some reason.
Dick, meanwhile, looked like he was trying very hard not to smile despite the situation.
“Okay,” he said, voice gentler now. “I think we should all sit down before somebody has an existential crisis.”
“I am not having an existential crisis,” Damian replied immediately.
“You’re standing like Batman five seconds away from throwing a batarang through my eye.”
Damian hesitated.
“…That is merely precaution.”
“Right,” Dick said. “Precaution. Sure.”
Tim, who had finally recovered enough to participate in reality again, slowly stepped around Damian.
“You really thought I was your little brother,” he said quietly.
Damian frowned at the strange phrasing. “You are my little brother.”
The entire room went silent.
Jason’s suspicion faltered.
Dick’s expression softened slightly.
And Tim–
Tim looked genuinely startled.
Damian seemed to realize, a second too late, how that statement had sounded in this universe. His shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Tim stared at him for another moment before speaking carefully.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
Jason choked.
Dick blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
Damian’s frown deepened immediately. “Why are you reacting like that?”
“You are definitely not twenty-three,” Jason said.
“I am.”
The realization settled over the room slowly, heavily, like fog creeping into every corner of the manor.
Dick was the first to recover enough to speak.
“Okay,” he said carefully, slipping into the same calm tone Damian recognized from hostage negotiations and panicked civilians. “Let’s start with something simple.”
Damian narrowed his eyes slightly but said nothing.
Dick pointed vaguely between them.
“We know our names. You know our names. But we still don’t know yours.”
The room went quiet again.
Tim looked curious now more than frightened. Jason still looked suspicious, though slightly less likely to shoot someone than before. Alfred simply waited patiently beside the counter as though accidental dimensional visitors were an everyday inconvenience.
Damian hesitated.
Giving his name to strangers went against instinct. But these were not entirely strangers either, and they already knew far too much. Finally, he straightened slightly.
“My name is Damian Wayne.”
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Dick blinked once.
Jason’s face went completely blank in the way people’s faces tended to do right before catastrophic emotional reactions.
Tim looked like someone had unplugged his brain entirely.
Damian frowned.
“Why are all of you reacting like this?”
Jason stared at him.
Then at Dick.
Then back at Damian again.
“Nope,” he said firmly. “Absolutely not. Bruce can deal with this one.”
“Jason– ”
“No, Dick. No.” Jason pointed accusingly at Damian like this was somehow his fault. “You are not seriously telling me the universe decided to make Demon Brat the responsible eldest sibling.”
Damian’s eye twitched.
“I do not know what a ‘Demon Brat’ is, but if you are attempting to insult me, you should at least try to be articulate.”
Jason looked personally attacked by that response.
Tim, meanwhile, was still staring.
“You’re Damian,” he repeated faintly.
“Yes,” Damian said slowly. “I already established that.”
“But you’re– ”
Tim gestured vaguely at all of him.
“ –like that.”
Damian looked down at himself briefly.
“I fail to see the issue.”
Dick made a strangled noise that sounded suspiciously like suppressed laughter.
“Oh, this is unbelievable,” he muttered, covering part of his face with one hand. “Bruce is never surviving this.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then Dick pointed at Damian with the slow, cautious energy of someone approaching a live explosive.
“Okay,” he said carefully. “Important question. Are you from the future?”
Damian blinked.
“What?”
“The future,” Jason repeated. “As in time travel. Evil speedsters. Weird chrono nonsense. We do this more often than normal people should.”
Damian stared at them.
Then his expression flattened.
“No.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “You answered that suspiciously fast.”
“Because it is a ridiculous question.”
“Buddy, you just walked into Wayne Manor claiming to be a twenty-three-year-old Damian Wayne wearing Nightwing colors. We passed ridiculous three exits ago.”
Tim, meanwhile, was studying Damian with unnerving intensity.
“You said Richard is ten in your world,” he said slowly. “And I’m with the Titans already.”
“Yes.”
“And Jason and Richard are still in school.”
“Yes.”
Tim’s eyes widened slightly as the pieces clicked together.
“Oh.”
Dick noticed immediately. “Oh what?”
Tim looked toward him.
“It’s not time travel.”
The kitchen went quiet again.
Jason frowned. “How’d you get there?”
“Because if it was the future, our ages would still line up relative to each other.” Tim gestured vaguely toward Damian. “But they don’t. Dick’s way younger there. Damian’s the oldest sibling.”
Then realization hit him all at once.
“Oh,” he said weakly.
Jason looked horrified.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
Dick stared blankly for a second.
Dick abruptly dragged a hand down his face.
“Okay,” he sighed. “Yep. Time travel or Multiverse. It’s definitely either time travel or a multiverse thing. Zatanna is going to laugh at us so hard.”
At the name, Damian’s attention sharpened instantly.
“You know Zatanna?”
Dick stared at him flatly.
“You know Zatanna too?”
Another pause.
Then, very slowly, everyone in the room seemed to arrive at the same horrible conclusion.
Jason was the first to say it aloud.
“Oh, this is absolutely a universe thing.”
Damian frowned at all of them. “Would someone care to explain why all of you keep reacting as though I personally orchestrated this?”
Jason pointed at him immediately.
“You’re tall.”
“…What?”
“You’re not supposed to be tall.”
Dick made another strangled noise and turned away, shoulders shaking suspiciously.
Tim looked deeply conflicted, like he was trying to process several years of emotional baggage simultaneously.
Alfred simply closed his eyes briefly, looking like a man silently reevaluating every life decision that had brought him to this exact kitchen.
Damian stared at all of them in increasing irritation.
“This is absurd.”
“You have no idea,” Jason muttered.
Dick finally managed to regain control of himself enough to speak again.
“So let me get this straight,” he said carefully. “In your universe, you’re the oldest.”
“Yes.”
“And you became Nightwing.”
“Yes.”
“And I’m ten?”
“Yes.”
Jason looked personally devastated by this information for reasons Damian could not begin to understand.
“Bruce is gonna have a stroke.”
Something cold suddenly twisted in Damian’s stomach.
The magician.
The rooftop.
The light.
Damian went very still.
Dick noticed immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
Damian’s mind raced rapidly through the sequence of events.
The object had exploded.
The magician disappeared.
And then Damian had returned here.
Not home.
Here.
His expression sharpened instantly.
“The magician.”
Jason blinked. “What magician?”
“The one I was pursuing before I arrived.” Damian straightened abruptly, thoughts snapping into place with terrifying clarity. “If I was displaced into another universe, then he may still be in mine.”
The atmosphere in the kitchen shifted immediately.
All humor vanished.
Dick’s expression became serious. “You think this was intentional?”
“I do not know.” Damian was already moving mentally through possibilities, contingencies, threat assessments. “But if he escaped after using an interdimensional artifact, then there is currently an unidentified magic user loose in Gotham without anyone tracking him.”
His jaw tightened sharply.
“And Richard and Jason– ” He cut himself off abruptly.
Dick exchanged a quick glance with Jason.
“They’re still kids in your world,” Tim realized quietly.
Damian did not answer immediately, which was answer enough. A heavy silence settled over the kitchen, because suddenly this was no longer strange, no longer fascinating, somewhere out there was a Gotham protected by children.
Children Damian had accidentally left alone.
“I have to go back immediately,” Damian said.
The words came out sharp and immediate, carrying a level of urgency that made the room fall silent again.
Dick straightened slightly. “Okay,” he said carefully. “Then we figure out how to get you back.”
“Batcave,” Jason said immediately.
Damian was already moving before the sentence fully ended.
Tim hurried after him, still looking slightly shell-shocked by the entire situation.
Behind them, Alfred calmly resumed picking up the fallen silver tray.
“I shall prepare tea,” he announced with the serenity of a man discussing the weather rather than accidental dimensional travel. “You all look moments away from developing migraines.”
Jason pointed toward Alfred as they walked.
“See? This is why he survives all of us.”
“I heard that, Master Jason.”
“Yeah, that was intentional.”
They descended toward the Batcave together.
The familiar sound of the clock passage opening sent an unexpected ache through Damian’s chest. Even the cave itself looked nearly identical — same platforms, same giant penny, same overwhelming atmosphere of controlled paranoia.
Just... shifted slightly.
Like looking at his own home through distorted glass.
Tim immediately moved toward the main computer once they reached the lower level, fingers already flying across the keyboard.
“I’m contacting Zatanna now.”
“If she does not answer, contact Constantine,” Damian said automatically.
Jason groaned instantly.
“Why does everybody always say Constantine second like it physically pains them?”
“Because it physically pains everyone to deal with Constantine,” Dick answered without hesitation.
Tim snorted quietly while typing rapidly into his phone.
“Zatanna’s probably easier to convince not to charge us emotional damages anyway.”
“Valid,” Jason admitted.
Damian ignored them, though the familiar rhythm of the exchange eased something tight in his chest despite himself.
Then his thoughts drifted back to his own universe.
Richard had probably noticed his absence by now.
The child would panic first and think later, especially if magical artifacts were involved. Jason would attempt to calm him while very obviously panicking himself. Timothy–
Damian exhaled slowly through his nose.
Timothy would blame himself somehow. He always did.
The thought made unease settle heavier in his stomach.
His gaze shifted absently toward this universe’s Timothy sitting at the computer.
Younger.
Smaller.
And from there, his thoughts wandered naturally toward the others.
This Richard was older, confident, relaxed in ways Damian struggled to associate with the tiny whirlwind currently existing back home.
Had his parents still died in the circus here?
Had Timothy still been abandoned by his parents?
His eyes drifted toward Jason standing nearby with his arms crossed.
And Jason...
Jason was alive here.
Not just alive –older. Adult. Loud. Annoying. Breathing.
Existing so casually that everyone else in the room treated it like the most normal thing in the world.
Something about that realization lodged strangely beneath Damian’s ribs.
Without realizing it, he found himself staring.
Jason noticed immediately.
“What,” he said flatly.
Damian blinked, pulled abruptly from his thoughts. The question escaped before he could stop it.
“Have you always been... alive here?”
Silence.
Complete silence.
Jason stared at him.
“…What?”
Damian froze.
Ah.
That had not sounded normal aloud.
“No,” he said immediately. “Nothing.”
But the damage was already done.
Tim had slowly stopped typing.
Dick had gone very still beside the computer.
And Jason–
Jason was looking at Damian very differently now.
Not suspicious.
Just quiet.
Careful.
Like he had suddenly realized there were parts of this conversation he did not actually want answers to. Jason tensed almost immediately. Not visibly enough for most people to notice, but Damian caught it anyway –the slight straightening of his shoulders, the way his arms uncrossed just slightly, the sharp alertness suddenly settling into his posture.
“What do you mean,” Jason asked slowly, “by alive?”
Damian immediately regretted speaking.
Not because the question itself had been unreasonable, but because every instinct he possessed was now screaming that he had just stepped directly onto some sort of emotional landmine.
He hesitated.
Jason noticed.
Dick noticed Jason noticing.
The entire atmosphere of the cave shifted into something tighter, quieter. Damian searched rapidly for a response that would not somehow make the situation worse and found absolutely nothing.
“I– ”
He stopped. Because what exactly was he supposed to say?
Oh yes, in my universe you died violently when you were a child, but don’t worry, you came back almost all right. I was merely wondering if the same happened to you in this universe already.
That did not seem like an appropriate conversational topic.
The silence stretched painfully.
Jason’s expression had flattened into something unreadable now, though Damian could still see tension lingering beneath it.
Dick looked deeply concerned.
Even Alfred’s tea comment from earlier suddenly felt very far away.
Thankfully, before Damian could accidentally destroy the atmosphere even further, Tim abruptly straightened at the computer.
“Zatanna answered.”
The tension snapped instantly.
Dick turned toward him so fast Damian almost respected it.
“She did?”
Tim nodded quickly, already pulling up the communication line.
“She says she will call us now. She also wants us not to touch any suspicious glowing objects.”
Jason snorted. “That advice would’ve been useful like an hour ago.”
Tim ignored him and kept reading.
“And she says if Constantine is involved somehow, she’s leaving immediately.”
“That is also fair,” Damian admitted automatically.
Jason looked personally vindicated.
The oppressive silence dissolved just enough for everyone to breathe again.
Jason stayed where he was.
He still looked relaxed from a distance, but Damian could now recognize the tension underneath it –the deliberate stillness of someone pretending not to think too hard about something.
Damian looked away first.
A few seconds later, Zatanna’s holographic image flickered to life above the console.
She took one look at Damian and immediately swore.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
“Nice to see you too,” Jason muttered.
Zatanna ignored him completely, eyes fixed on Damian with sharp professional focus.
“You touched something magical.”
“It was thrown at me,” Damian corrected.
“That somehow makes this worse.”
She leaned closer toward the screen.
“Okay. Start from the beginning.”
Damian explained the rooftop encounter quickly and precisely –the magician, the artifact, the light, waking up here. Zatanna interrupted only occasionally to ask specific questions about symbols, colors, energy signatures, and whether anything had “screamed in Latin.”
“No,” Damian answered flatly.
“Good. That usually complicates things.”
Jason looked deeply tired. “Why is that a sentence you say often?”
“Because Constantine exists.”
“Again,” Jason said, pointing vindictively at the screen, “everyone hates Constantine.”
“I don’t hate him,” Zatanna replied.
Jason looked shocked.
“I just think he’s exhausting, irresponsible, manipulative, self-destructive, morally concerning, and impossible to trust for longer than fifteen consecutive minutes.”
“…That sounds like hate with extra syllables.”
“Focus,” Dick interrupted before the conversation could derail completely.
Zatanna sighed and folded her arms.
“Well,” she said, “the good news is that you’re probably not trapped permanently.”
Damian immediately straightened.
“And the bad news?”
Zatanna grimaced.
“Dimensional breaches are unstable. Reopening one safely takes time, especially if the original artifact is missing.”
“How much time?”
Zatanna hesitated.
Damian instantly disliked that hesitation.
“A few days,” she admitted finally. “Minimum.”
“A few days?” Damian repeated sharply.
“It could be longer if the dimensional imprint fades too much,” she warned. “But I’ll try to stabilize it before that happens.”
Damian’s jaw tightened immediately.
“No. I need to return now.”
“I know,” Zatanna said, gentler this time. “But forcing dimensional travel without proper calibration could scatter you across the multiverse.”
Jason grimaced. “That sounds unhealthy.”
“It is extremely unhealthy.”
Damian turned away abruptly, frustration flaring hot beneath his ribs.
A few days.
Richard was probably panicking already.
Jason would absolutely try to handle everything himself.
Timothy–
Damian closed his eyes briefly.
His brothers were alone.
And he was stuck here.
“You’ll be able to contact your universe eventually,” Zatanna continued. “But right now the dimensional connection is too unstable to risk opening communication.”
“That is unacceptable.”
“Yes,” she agreed calmly. “Unfortunately, magic does not particularly care about your opinion.”
Jason barked out a laugh before immediately pretending he had not.
Damian glared at him.
Jason wisely looked elsewhere.
Zatanna continued discussing magical logistics with Tim and Dick after that, but Damian heard very little of it. The reality of the situation settled over him completely.
He was trapped.