Chapter Text
There was a face staring back at Damian when he opened his eyes. A woman's pale face with red lipstick smeared all the way to her right cheek, thick brown hair sticking wetly to her forehead. She appeared almost gray in this dim light, and her expression portrayed an odd kind of pity, eyebrows drawn together, mouth slightly open and–
Drop.
Drop..
Drop…
–leaking blood.
For some reason his first thought was of Mother, not necessarily his own, but not necessarily someone else's. This woman just… looked like one, if that made sense. That thought quickly dissipated, replaced by a stinging sensation enveloping his left leg.
Damian was on a patrol even though Father prohibited him from going out alone after being benched due to a shoulder injury. He sneaked out anyway, and not even an hour later he heard a scream.
Terror is not unusual for Gotham, and usually perfect for nights such as these to start the crime fighting with a real kick of adrenaline, but something went wrong.
He didn't quite understand what at the moment, and that confusing loss of short term memory was more terrifying than the burning in his leg.
Terrifying.
That's quite the word, isn't it?
Robin shouldn't be terrified. He's Robin.
He's-
Drop.
Drop..
Drop…
Damian's hands are trembling.
This isn't a face staring at him.
Well– it is, technically, but… it isn't exactly attached to a body.
It's just a head.
A severed head with a blood trail that nearly reaches Damian's fingertips. He's laying on his side on the ground of a dark alley way, and it's just sitting there in the corner, clouded eyes staring deep into his soul.
The smell of it is fresh and potent, mixing with his own sweat and the moisture of rain.
He instinctively looks at his sword, its clean of blood still in its sheath. Damian hadn't caused this, he hadn't hurt anyone… so who did?
He lifts himself up into a sitting position and it feels like a thousand pins and needles stabbing his joints.
Robin needed to figure out what happened, If the attacker was still near, needed to move to assess the damage done to his leg.
The light of the lamp he's seated underneath flickers, and he finally gets an answers to the question of the woman's missing torso.
A drop of thick blood hits his cheek, the warmth of it sickens him, and only now he realizes that the rain had stopped some time ago, and the droplets he was hearing weren't coming from a soaking wet rooftop, but from the body skewered into the pointy decorative part of the lamp.
The heat in his leg increases, and Damian grabs at it with a hiss. His calf muscle is twitching like a dying fish, he looks down and finds four neat jokes in the black and thick fabric of his suit.
Damian remembers.
Twists and turns, lefts and rights.
Everything was melting, bending underneath his feet to the point he wasn't sure he had feet anymore.
He could still feel a phantom sensation of a clawed hand resting on his ankle, and wet mouth opening up to take a bite out of him. Damian doesn't know how he managed to run away; he was pretty sure the creature was capable enough to keep him in place.
Maybe It liked to chase, like a cat thrilled by the idea of the hunt knowing it will ultimately win. Beating down the target before releasing it for one final hunt.
Was this the thing he was reduced to? A mouse?
Something was wrong, his foot burned and a hot stream of blood flowing out of the bite mark started to cover his shoe.
His mind felt wrong, like it was melting just to be cured, and re-melted again.
He needs to call someone, he needs to ask for help. He needs Grayson– or Father to come, and–
Damian presses his cheek against the concrete and whines.
He starts hearing voices, but he manages to hold onto a part of his mind that knows they aren't real. Honestly he's not sure if even the concrete beneath his feet is real, but the pain he's experiencing definitely is.
Pain is grounding, pain is real, and Damian was going to use it. He was no mouse, he would never be a prey for a creature as primitive as this. It only knew how to bite and how to tear.
A stinging sensation assaults his leg, as if millions of ants are crawling inside his veins, then a memory hits him.
…
Robin came to a halt in one of the alleyways. What was he chasing again?
No.
He was the one being chased.
Why was he being chased? That didn't sound right, no– he should be the one chasing!– not the one hunted like a wild animal.
He stopped, looking around frantically trying to unsheathe his katanas with trembling fingers.
It was silent for a few long heartbeats, but then a clicking sound echoed from everywhere, bouncing off the walls in a way that made it impossible to pin point where it was coming from.
His leg hurt– a stinging pain in his left calf. Something bit him, right ? and it was making his brain fuzzy.
The same Something jumped from one wall to another, but Damian still couldn't see it well enough, only as a faint figure in the dark for a brief second before it was swallowed completely by the shadows.
Click.
He moved his head to the left, nothing.
Click.
He moved to the right, nothing.
Click, click, click.
He moved to look behind himself at the end of the alley.
Nothing.
The lamp above him let out a loud shriek, metal bending under pressure, he looked above towards the sky, but the sky was no more. Damian saw only red, and the red met his eye in turn as the blood flowing out of a lifeless corpse fell onto his mask.
It seemed to levitate above him at first, but then Damian saw the string stuck to the corpse's back. And above the string a slim body with dark almost human-like eyes blending into the starless abyss.
It was holding her, the string extending from its wrist. The body moved around and around, a fish on the rod; Damian thought. A fly in the grasp of a spider; that's more like it, he corrected himself.
Then she came falling onto the lamp post, the sharp part burrowing in the woman's stomach. Her head hung loosely, mostly disconnected from the rest of the body like a broken doll.
Damian was on the floor, his knees gave out and something had fallen onto him. Dark hair stuck to his face. Damian grabbed it and pushed it away from himself. It slid onto the pavement with a sickening wet sound.
The world spun, and suddenly everything went quiet.
So quiet.
He opened his eyes again at the memory of the chase. Still laying on his side, the severed head staring back at him too close for comfort, her eyes wide and lifeless, stripped of the color. And since he was already thinking about color– he briefly wondered If the woman knew how the lipstick matched the shade of her own blood.
He looked lower to her neck, but closed his eyes just before catching the shredded skin. it looked ripped off rather than cut through, and made his stomach curl even thinking about the force needed to do something like that.
He got up, moving his his body to rest against the wall, and looked up at the sky. Nothing, just darkness. It wasn't here anymore, for whatever reason it spared Damian.
His fingers started to feel numb, the burning in his leg turned into an unbearable coldness.
Footsteps.
Damian's body tensed as he tried to locate them. One pair of legs– no; it was more than that, and there was this thumping sound as If someone was using a cane, or two… what could possibly?– It wasn't coming from the ground but from the wall beside him!
He moved his head to look.
Darkness.
Two eyes opened up casting a green glow, then another one just above the left eyelid. It was smaller and rounder… then another appeared above the right eyelid, and another–
He tried to get his swords, but his limbs started feeling like rubber. It moved closer on the wall crawling towards Robin's head. Damian's lips opened up ready to call out for Jon, but he stopped himself. He really didn't want the other hero to see this. Or be too late to-
He felt a gasp of air on his cheek. It was sniffing him. He pressed his eyes shut, trying not to breathe.
It's not a dinosaur you idiot!; a bit of sanity left in his head scolded him.
A soft human shaped hand touched his hair, and the presence disappeared, leaving Damian gasping for air.
He slides down the wall, and loses consciousness before he can get the communicator from his belt and call for help.