Chapter Text
Damian stared at the dark rafters looking for the tale tell signs of a vigilante. He was certain he'd given his family enough time to find them. The Academy's art department offered an opt-in field trip to the Gotham Museum of Modern Art. Damian had loved it despite his annoying classmates and teachers; art was something no one could ruin for him and he even got a few good conversations about art from a few people. But on their way home, several armed men in robes and skull masks forced their way onto the bus and kicked the adults off. Damian immediately sent word to his family, but it was literally the middle of the day – they all either had day jobs or were off on "more important" business. He didn't expect them there immediately, but he expected them soon. And of course his phone, along with everyone else's, was confiscated and thrown out of the bus.
Damian and his classmates were driven to a dirtier part of town where few people visited if they had the option. Even during Damian's nightly patrols, this particular area was empty save for the desperately homeless. Even criminals found the old buildings too dangerous or dirty to use, a few were even considered cursed. The one they stopped at was considered cursed.
The students were corralled into the derelict cathedral at gun point, several wanting to complain but not daring to. Damian tried to find a moment to slip away, but the space was too open and either a classmate or cult member would see him. The cathedral was in a forever state of being half restored. By the state of it, the project lost funding halfway through, filled with scaffolding and tarps but cleared of equipment and covered in dust. The space at the crossing had been cleaned and cleared of construction debris and the students were made to sit in the front rows of benches.
“Welcome children!” A man said, his mask more intricate and detailed than the others, matched by a black stole with green skulls embroidered onto it and a belt with several unsettling items, including what had to be a spellbook of some kind, an ornate dagger, and a severed human hand. He was on the dais at the cathedral's crossing in front of an alter. He was far too excited. “Rejoice! For you are going to be part of bringing in the New World! It is your blood that will bring Our Lord and Master to this world. You will be scarified to the Ghost King! The Bloody Tyrant Pariah Dark! May his great and terrible power cleanse this world of the living and enter onto us a New World to reign over.”
Yeah, this is exactly what Damian wanted to do after a wonderful day at the museum. Stall a mad man for time so his family can come save him. It's not like he couldn't beat a bunch of untrained, brainwashed civilians, but to do so without the subsequent lecture about secret identities and playing his part as a civilian... and the possibility of his classmates getting harmed ~ ugh. Damian raised his hand, to the horror of the other students.
“Are you volunteering?” The leader excitedly asked, leaning towards Damian.
“No, I have some questions, if you don't mind answering.” Damian stated and didn't wait for the man to respond before asking. “Why did you kidnap us? I'm assuming you have to use children, but surely there are others who wouldn't get so much attention?”
Some of Damian's more reputable classmates sneered at him. He wasn't trying to imply or suggest anything about kidnapping “lesser” children, but he was going to do whatever kept the man talking and that heavily decorated dagger in it's sheath.
“Ah, yes, while that would have been easier, it wouldn't have been as efficient and I do expect it will take most of all the blood in you children to equal the power of the Bloody Tyrant. Even considering...” The man began his rant about what makes blood valuable. Socially important people had “better” blood – the more power a person had within society, as well as fame and public adoration, transferred to magical power somehow – sorry, “spiritual” power. Virgin blood, not the blood of a virgin but blood that hadn't been used in a ritual before, was better than non-virgin blood. Virgin blood, the blood of a virgin, was also better because sex was considered a ritual in some circumstances and blood was sometimes an aspect of it - particularly ritual marriage sex – the discussion of which made many of the minors in the room uncomfortable. But again, whatever kept the man talking and not sacrificing. There was also something about how young blood was better than old blood, not only because it was more likely to be both kinds of virgin, but by taking the potential from a young life and converting it into magical – sorry, spiritual power.
“What is the difference between magical and spiritual anyway? You've corrected it several times now, surely it must be important.” Damian said, hoping to get the man to run his mouth again.
The man looked like he would for a second, then paused. He suddenly burst out laughing, “Oh my! You had me going there! Very clever, very clever children indeed. Proof that you are in fact, the best and brightest of Gotham City's elite. But I wont get distracted again. Since you raised your hand and started this, you'll go first. Come on, come on up now. Time for the great terror that drowns the world in blood to being!”
He pointed at Damian and a gun was brought inches from his face. Damian was escorted off the bench and up to the altar. How long had it been? Surely that rant lasted long enough for his family to get his message, check the city's security footage, and follow their kidnapped bus to this place. Sure, it would have been easier if he had a tracking device on him, but he was on the side of the family that wanted that kind of privacy. And, yes, it must be difficult to follow the bus through the rundown part of Gotham they were in, but Batman and all his associates were the best of the best. Surely they wouldn't need more time?
“I do have a final question.” Damian said and got hit across the face with a gun as an answer. But he continued as he was dragged onto and then held down on the altar, looking up into the rafters trying to spot a cape, mask, or any sign someone was there. “Are you certain this ghost king will spare you? Are you certain the Bloody Tyrant wont kill you alongside everything else?”
Damian could sense the smile under the man's mask as he stood over the alter, his knife in hand. It was well a taken care of blade – Damian likely wouldn't feel it until it was already in his skin. “I have faith in my god. What, exactly, do you have faith in?”
“My family,” Damian said and closed his eyes.
This body was dead.
Blood was – in his mouth – in his lungs.
He needed to make it alive, he can't let them die. He can't let anyone die. It's against his purpose.
Find the... Where was it... his neck!
He focused his power on his neck. He has to stop the blood from leaking out of him and get the air flowing. Stop the blood, get air in. Stop the blood, get air-
“No! Let me go!” He needed to save them. He can't let them die. He can't let anyone die.
He opened his eyes. He was in a dimly lit open space. Candles burned around him but there were lights far above casting bright light down in the center of the wide open space he was in and casting dark shadows in the corners and along the edges of the building. Something big fluttered in the dark rafters, but another terrified shout took his attention.
Two people, each with a skull mask, one with a gun, pushed a teenager towards him. Someone stood between them, half-turned, but he could see blood splattered down their clothes – they were dressed like a priest with a skull motif. The red blood sharply contrasting the green of the skulls. Blood – this body's blood, his blood. The priest had killed him.
He couldn't allow any more to be spilled, couldn't let anyone else get hurt.
He sat up and several people screamed. The priest turned to look at him but couldn't move more before he took the already bloody knife and turned it back on its owner. The body obeyed his orders, jump, grab, stab – as easy as if it were his original, as if it was already his. The priest fell silent on the ground beneath him, still alive but in too much pain to move. He's not here to kill, he's here to save. He must be here to save. To save is his purpose.
He darted towards the masked people and the teenager, one of them falling to their knees and bowing their head at him. He didn't care, kicking them in the head to knock them out and quickly driving the knife into the still standing masked person before throwing them to the floor as well. He grabbed the screaming teenager to pull them somewhere safe but...
His eyes flashed around the space. There wasn't a safe place. Not with the open hall of a cathedral and they were surrounded by more armed people in masks. There was an entire group of terrified teenagers, screaming and crying and staring at him with wide scared eyes. They can be scared, he was scary, as long as he saved them, as long as no one got hurt.
His need to save filled every inch of his body. His skin vibrated, trying to pull on power he couldn't reach. A familiar feeling, his power somehow locked away, too painful to touch. It will pass. He will have power again. But how long would that take? How was he meant to save them like this?
Several of the masked people started to move towards him, some lifting their guns and shouting at him – but he didn't understand it, his ears were filled with the pounding of blood and words were locked behind his instincts. He let go of the teen and darted at the nearest masked person, who shot their gun at him. He didn't let it slow him down. If he got shot he could heal it later, saving the scared and innocent was what was important right now. He stabbed the first cultist he got to, then used the momentum of pulling it out of them to slash at another one, and then kicking a third one in the gut. He turned and readied to pounce on the next target – but they suddenly collapsed.
He blinked, finding a man in a black jumpsuit with a blue bird symbol on it in front of him.
“Hey there, don't you know it's dangerous to play with knives?” The man was talking to him, but he doesn't quite what he's saying.
He bared his teeth and brandished the knife at him. He didn't know who this was or what he wanted.
“Fuck.” The man lifted his hands in surrender. “Damian, it's me, it's Nightwing. I'm here to save you.”
"Save you." He understands that but, no! He was here to save them – he was here to save... Who was he here to save? He suddenly remembered that this body was dead when he got there, dying again now that he'd gotten distracted. He opened his mouth to speak, but blood sprayed out of his mouth and the cut in his neck. Sure, he could heal it later, but running around fighting people wasn't good for a dying body, not to mention the new bullet wounds he'd just gotten. All the pain seemed to hit him at once, and he felt his knees give out. Gripping his throat, desperately concentrating – stop the blood, get air in, stop the blood, get air in.
The man in black and blue caught him, he was saying something, but again, there was too much blood to hear through. The need to save this body rising louder than the sounds outside of it. The world became fuzzy and dark – he needed to stop the bleeding and get air flowing. He needed to save this body and everyone who was in danger. He had to make sure everyone was safe!
He knew the arms around him, the body recognized them. They were strong and safe. It was safe and he didn't need to fight anymore. He let them take him while he pulled what little ectoplasm that still clung to the ritual air and used it to stitch the body back together.
Damian stared at his reflection in the window. He had pale skin, sunken blue eyes, a straight nose – everything felt off. He was truly at a loss for what was going on. When Damian had opened his eyes. He was not staring at the ceiling of an abandoned cathedral, he was staring at a floor. A very dirty floor he was lying face down on.
“Danny, dude, are you okay?” Damian looked over and saw a dark skinned teen dressed in Original Robin color scheme: green cargo shorts, yellow shirt, black glasses, and a red beret. The teen helped him up to his feet and Damian took in his surroundings. He was in a school, but not his school. Where Gotham Academy was pristine, Damian had seen schools like this, less funding, with paint cracking, off color tiles in the floor and ceiling, grime built up from not hiring enough cleaning staff. Where was he?
“Hello, Earth to Danny?” A girl, with dark makeup on her pale skin wearing all black with a singular purple bat in the center of her shirt, waved her hand in front of Damian's face.
“Sorry, I was – lost in thought?” Damian said.
“Well, get found, space boy.” The girl said and started pulling Damian along by the strap of a backpack he was wearing. “If we stick around here too much longer, Dash'll show up and try to steal your burger money again.”
Damian let the two pull him along, though not literally for any more than that initial few steps. He hadn't made up his mind as to what is going on yet. He was in an unknown location, with unknown individuals, for an unknown purpose, and - he was pretty sure he was shorter than he was meant to be. He didn't know if he wanted to play along and gather information stealthily or simply wait until he was alone to question his two apparent companions. The last thing he remembered was – choking on his own blood. Feeling his neck, there was no injury there. If a half-funded high school was the afterlife he'd earned, Damian was both disappointed and relieved. At least it wasn't hell.
He followed the two to a restaurant that he'd never enter of his own accord, and he let the girl, Sam as the boy called her, order one of the establishment's vegan option for him – to the apparent horror of the boy, Tucker as Sam called him.
Damian hadn't really wanted to eat something called a Nasty Burger, but he could feel the body he was in was desperate for food. He practically inhaled the burger the way he'd devour Pennyworth's baked goods after a long patrol. Luckily, it wasn't nasty at all. He kind of liked it... Why is it called Nasty Burger if the food is good? Or maybe it was the body that liked it? It tasted extremely familiar, though the “nasty” sauce was distinct enough Damian could guarantee he'd never eaten anything like it before.
Even after the burger and fries and coconut milkshake Sam insisted he get since he was willing to eat vegan with her this time – Damian couldn't help but worry about the integrity of his “new body” with how low-energy it still felt. And, staring into his reflection in the window, he worried even more about the constant dull aches and pains that Damian associated with the conclusion of a particularly harrowing mission. But there hadn't been a big, difficult mission. Not that he'd witnessed. When he'd appeared, they were in school, and it didn't look like it had been attacked. Neither of his companions looked as tired as he felt. He wondered if it was the natural state of the body or if it was this way because of - how Damian had gotten into it.
“Earth to Danny!” Tucker said and waved his hand at Damian for his attention. “Man, I knew that thing would make it worse. You should never have let her order for you.”
“Oh, grow up, Tuck.” Sam said and turned to Damian. “How late did you stay up last night?”
Damian shrugged, playing oblivious seemed to be getting him by well enough. “I wasn't paying attention.”
Sam's eyes narrowed, “Right. Were you studying for the math test or...”
“Yes.” Damian answered when it became clear she was wanting him to answer.
“Wait, there is a math test?” Tucker said, worriedly looking between Damian and Sam.
Sam face-palmed and Damian instantly realized. The question had been a trap and he'd walked right into it. Before Damian could think of an excuse or escape plan, there was a sudden scream and distant crash.
The other two jumped up and Damian followed as they left the establishment. Down the street, a strange creature ungulated its way slowly closer to them. Tentacles grabbed cars and threw them into buildings, uprooted trees and bushes, tried to snatch up screaming humans. Damian eventually saw enough of it to recognize what it was; a giant squid.
A giant squid that was slithering along a street, causing chaos and destruction, looking more like it was crossing the bottom of the sea than actually on dry land. It's main body floating slightly as if in water as its tentacles dragged it down the street. It wasn't perturbed at all by its surroundings, save for whatever it happened to get its tentacles on. It barely looked like gravity was weighing on it at all, and that it could swim away up in the sky if it wanted.
“Damn, that thing again?” Sam said with annoyance, then looked at Damian. “Hey, Danny, maybe you should go hide.”
She put weird emphasis in the statement but in a way that Damian recognized. Father, Dick – everyone who knew he was Robin at some point said that exact sentence with the exact same emphasis, with the sole exception of the name. Damian looked at her shocked for a moment, how could she know he was a vigilante when he wasn't even him right now?
“For the love of-” She said and grabbed the backpack again and pulled it off of him. She then pulled a thermos out of it, threw the bag back at him, and ran off towards the giant squid shouting. “You two! Don't go anywhere!”
“What hey!” Tucker shouted then turned to Damian, expectantly and exasperatedly shouting. “Aren't you going to do anything?”
And you know what? Yes. This is what Damian was trained for. Even if he wasn't in his body, even if he didn't have his gear. Damian Wayne is Robin, the Blood Son of the Batman, Heir of the League of Shadows. He was going to do something and he was going to do everything he could to help.
He shoved past Tucker and followed Sam into the chaos, dodging tentacles and thrown objects. He rejoined her behind a car. She glared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping.” He said squarely. “How do we stop it?”
She hesitated, scrutinizing him with her eyes, then sighed. She held up the thermos she'd taken. “This is a containment device. All we have to do is get close enough to the squid's main body to suck it into it... Probably.”
“Probably?”
She cringed to confess. “We might also have to weaken it so it can't resist being sucked into it, but the only weapon I've got on me is the lipstick.”
Damian assumed that was some kind of code, then saw her literally pull a tube of lipstick from a pocket in her skirt. He huffed and nodded. “I will-”
A tentacle suddenly slammed onto the car between them, cutting it in half and knocking them both back in opposite directions. Sam had dropped the thermos, but it landed right in front of Damian. He snatched it up and started making his way to the squid's main body. The squid was more aware of what it touched than what it saw. It certainly tried to grab Damian with its tentacles, but it was easy to slide into the blind spots it made in adjusting its body to make the grab at him. Mostly. The closer he got, the more tentacles targeted him, the harder it was to dodge them.
He dodged one tentacle, had to flip under another, and use the momentum of his roll to dodge a third, but not enough momentum to get away from the fourth. The tentacle was seconds away from crushing him when a green light flashed against it, making the tentacle flinch back for Damian to get past. It was Sam; she also had some kind of laser pointer? It – was the lipstick... Alright.
It didn't seem to do any real damage, but it shocked the tentacles into flinching back. And that was enough. With Sam covering him, Damian got right under the squid's main body. He opened the thermos and pressed a button Sam had pointed to earlier. Light flashed from it and Damian could feel it drawing energy into it. But, “probably”.
Suddenly Damian was covered in glowing, dark green liquid. Damian had to spit and desperately wipe his eyes. He could just barely make out the form of the squid, flying off into the sky like it was swimming in the deep ocean. He went to rub his eyes again and accidentally pressed the button on the thermos, it quickly began sucking in the weird ink the squid discharged. While it looked like his clothes and some of the street were stained in splotches of phthalo green, the actual liquid of it got sucked up.
“Dude! You let it get away?” Tucker cried as he came up to Damian.
Sam was quickly by his side, she glared at him but nodded as she said, “Not the worst for your first ghost hunt.”
Tucker stared at her then at Damian. “What?”