Chapter Text
Everyone is born into this universe for a reason.
Perhaps it's to fight evil and protect the weak.
Maybe it's to put on a show and make the world smile.
Or maybe it's to find peace within oneself.
Finding the people one belongs to?
Or maybe it's to save a world to meet you again.
Damian was lacing up his boots when he heard the soft tap of Nightwing's shoes on the ground beside him. Most people would have heard nothing at all, but the entire family had been trained to be silent and to listen for the softest sounds. Nightwing stopped behind him just as he finished double knotting the boots.
"Are you feeling better, Little D?"
"Never better, Grayson," Damian frowned as he put on the domino mask. His outfit was complete and he stood up from the bottom steps of the Batcave. "Why do you ask? I don't recall being sick."
"...Really?" Nightwing was frowning now. "Last night you took five steps into Gotham and said you had a stomachache and begged to go home."
"Begged?" Robin snorted, "Very funny, Grayson."
"Why did you think I was concerned?" Nightwing shot back.
"Why would I ever beg?" Robin deadpanned, "I don't remember any of this happening. Yesterday, I--" he stopped. What did he do yesterday? Yesterday was a long time away, wasn't it? The soft whirring of machines suddenly got louder in Robin's ears and the cave seemed to grow dimmer.
(He looked out from a building high in the air at a red sunset. No, wait, that couldn't be a sunset! That's not west!
Damian quickly looked at his surroundings. He was in a bed-- not his own. This room wasn't his own. Frantically, Damian rushed to the window and pressed his hands against the glass. Its shape was like that of a church window-- what an awfully strange shape in this day and age.
Where was he?
Who had taken him?
The questions faded from his mind as he looked outside, though. The architecture of the city outside was like nothing he had seen before and he had studied his history and geography intensively under both Ra's and Batman's tutelage.
"...I must be dreaming," he whispered.)
Robin could only recall bits and pieces of that dream now, each moment fading away with every second he spent awake. Strange. If he remembered correctly, the dream had phased through a whole day. ...But it was still a dream. He shouldn't be confusing dreams with reality.
"Yesterday, I got into an argument with Father," Robin finally declared. Yes, it took a while, but he finally got it! Now Grayson can stop this ridiculous story and they'll get back to starting their patrol. It's a quarter past nine and they still haven't made it out of the cave yet.
Nightwing's expression scrunched up slightly, before returning to the same frown he was wearing prior. "No. You didn't," his voice was calm and steady. And, honestly, that was enough to put Robin on a slight edge. Grayson wasn't playing around. Something was missing or disconnected here and he couldn't put his finger on it. "That was the day before yesterday," Nightwing looked away and walked over to the main computer, "Robin, maybe you should stay back tonight."
"Preposterous! I am perfectly fine--"
"Memory problems are not fine. We should run a scan on you. Check your brain out, maybe see if that accident two nights ago affected you more than we thought."
"Grayson! I am. Fine," Robin nearly hissed out the last word, "Let's just get on with patrol." He flipped his cape once and started stalking towards where the Batmobile and other vehicles were parked.
"Little D, wait! I really don't think you should go on patrol tonight--"
"You can think whatever you like, Grayson! That won't stop me from patrolling when I want to!"
"Robin!" that was the Batman voice, "Stop. Stay home for tonight. Recall what you can about the last two days. Red Robin can cover for you tonight."
"Grayson, I--"
"Will let you patrol when you're better," Nightwing's expression soften as he went over to ruffle Robin's hair, "I just want you to be safe."
"Do not coddle me, I am not a child."
"...Except you are."
"Tt."
"When we patrol next time, we can go for milkshakes afterwards."
"With five toppings?"
"...With five toppings," Nightwing agreed, then mumbled, "my poor wallet..."
"Okay," Robin agreed and Nightwing gave him another hair ruffle before watching him retreat back to the inner parts of the cave.
48 hours prior
The splatter of blood and the crunch of a broken nose felt so satisfying under his fists. Almost as good as when he first caught the fellow trying to run away. Upon catching up to the criminal in the shadows of a side street, Robin had put in several maneuvers to dislocate shoulders, crack ribs, and break wrists before punching his face in.
"Robin, stop!" Batman's voice came from above and he was pulled back by his cape.
"What?" Robin demanded as he was held in the air. If it was anyone other than his father (...and maybe Grayson), he would've kicked them in the teeth for attempting to manhandle him. "I didn't kill him and he's not going to die from a bloody nose!"
"Your violence was excessive," Batman's voice was calm and it only served to irritate Robin further.
"I gave him what he deserved for his crime!" he snapped back, then added, "Other than death, of course."
"That's not our decision to make," Batman decided to let Robin down onto his feet again. He had the boy's attention so it was unlikely that Robin would go back to beating the life out of the man on the floor.
"That's what you say every time!"
"And I'll continue to say it until you understand what it means."
"I understand perfectly what it means!" he had been raising his voice throughout the whole conversation and by the time he finished this last sentence, he was all but yelling. "See?!" he pointed at the man who had rolled onto his side and was grasping his chest trying to breathe, "I left him alive!"
"Leaving a criminal alive isn't all this means."
"Then what? To instill fear, I'm sure this man's terrified of me right now."
"Instilling fear isn't torture."
"I wasn't torturing--" the man let out a pained cough on the pavement below and Robin clenched his fists. It hadn't been torture. He hadn't enjoyed--
Robin drew a breath and grit his teeth. Without another word, he pulled out his grappling gun and shot it at the building above them. Robin was furious. He didn't hear the sound, but Batman did.
"Robin, wait--"
Robin clicked the trigger again to pull him up. Like hell he was going to stay here! He didn't want to and therefore, he'll leave--
SNAP!
Robin's eyes widened underneath the domino mask. He was halfway up the building when the line snapped and he was in free fall. He reached out to grab something, anything! Because although he knew he had enough armor on to survive this fall, it was still going to hurt like hell.
The fire escape, his hand reached out and-- missed!
"ROBIN!"
CRACK.
The world blacked out.
A soft breeze drifted in from outside the window. It felt like the chilly, crisp air of a spring morning. But the sun was a deep red and the sky was pink. Damian was sure that he had never seen the sun with such a red color. On top of that, was that a moon in the horizon? The night was disappearing quickly and the visibility of the moon leaving with it. Damian rubbed his eyes. He could make out what looked like a city on the moon. (Wait, how close was this moon?) He couldn't tell for sure, it was like a tiny, blurry view from an airplane's window.
The architecture below him was spectacular. He was on a multistory structure with bridges that connected to other, similar structures. Each one of them had heavily engraved spires reaching into the sky. The people below were like ants and-- oh!
Damian blinked, was that a flying car? It was a hovercraft of some sort.
I must be dreaming, he thought to himself again. The detail was amazing, but he was sure to forget by the time he woke up. "Since I'm dreaming, I must be royalty of this place," he declared with a smug grin as he looked away from the window and back into his room.
...It was surprisingly messy.
A number of items ranging from what appeared to be advanced electronic toys to workbooks were scattered on the floor. A number of articles of clothing were piled onto an armchair (? it looked sit-able, but... blobby) rather than the half empty closet.
"Tt," Damian made his way across the room to closet. He'll clean up later (or not at all because this was a dream). First, he had to change out of these silly looking pajamas.
This 'S' looks familiar, and he was sure the dreamscape was messing with him because he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
Damian pushed hangers over in the closet to search for something nice to wear. Strange. For royalty, he should had a lot of worn clothing in the closet. And... he made a face, what a strange style. Everything looked like cyberpunk...
He supposed he could chalk it up to the futuristic society itself.
As he was going through the articles of clothing, he saw that a mirror was hung on the back of the closet door. He had been so focused on the contents of the closet that he hadn't thought to take a look--
"AHHH!!" Damian let out a yell and stumbled backwards just as the door to his room burst open.
"Jon-El?" a blue-eyed, blonde girl called in concern from the doorway.
"Who?!" Damian immediately blurted out as he jumped to his feet and took a defensive stance.
"Woah," the girl backed up slightly and put her hands up, "Um. It's me. Your sister? Lora-El?"
"...What?" Damian blinked. He didn't have a sister named Lora-El.
"Look, Jon," she rolled her eyes, "We've got to get to school in ten minutes and if you're not ready in two, I'm leaving you." The door was slammed shut and Damian relaxed his pose.
"School?"
Royalty went to school?
Damian's eyes flew back to the mirror and grimaced at what he was seeing-- not that the reflection was ugly or anything, but that wasn't him. His hair and eyes were the same color, but the face in the mirror was slightly rounder, with lips that looked like they were used to smiling. "Tt," what was going on? Why would he dream that he had a different appearance? Well, whatever. He could play this to the end.
School it was.
What the hell was his name again? James or something?
"Woah," Lora said as Damian walked into the dining room. "What are you wearing? And why the hair?"
"Huh?" Damian asked as he sat down on an empty gloopy looking chair (thank God it didn't feel gloopy) and looked at the bowl in front of him. More gloopy things. Why was this dream full of gloopy things?
"Why are you dressed like two centuries ago?"
"What?" Damian blinked and looked at his clothes. He had found a single white button up shirt in the back of the closet and pulled a sweater over it. The pants were... well, he found the least cybernetic looking pair in the closet. Perhaps a little nerdy, but it resembled his uniform in Gotham Academy. He figured it would be fine here too.
"Okay, first of all, what's with that hairstyle?"
He had pulled it back to make it neater. Damian wasn't sure why he looked like this in his dream, but for sure, he wasn't going to walk around with such a messy mop of hair. How did his dream-self even see through all this hair?
"And I know you like dressing sweats and t-shirts at home, but this is a new change for you. Besides, we have a uniform," Lora pulled at her own clothes to make the point.
Shit, what in that closet resembled Lora's clothes remotely?
"I'll... go change," Damian said as he stood up.
"Hurry up!" Lora said as she licked her eating utensil and pushed the empty bowl away. "What's the matter with you today, Jon?"
"Nothing's the matter with me," Damian shot back.
"Woah, okay. I'll wait outside."
Damian had changed into an absurd uniform that was a cross between militaristic and clerical. (He briefly wondered if there was a separation of church and government here.) He refused to un-do his hair, though. If this dream lasted any longer than the school day, he had every mind to go get a haircut.
After getting Lora to lead him to his classroom without seeming like too much of an idiot, Damian faced yet another dilemma. The classroom setting looked more or less like that of the waking world, save for the blobby chairs and glowing tables. Thankfully, none of the chairs actually felt sticky and gooey. It just looked that way for reasons Damian couldn't begin to imagine. Most of the class was already seated at their desks and as Damian made his way to through the aisles, everyone was giving him strange looks.
"Jon! Jon, where are you going?" a boy pulled at his arm and Damian reflexively twisted out of his hold. "-- Yeow! Ouch, stop! Jon, what are you doing?! You're hurting me!"
"Oh."
Jon. That's me. Right. Why couldn't his dream at least get his name right? He let go of the boy who quickly clutched his wrist to his chest. "What?" he demanded of the boy.
"I was just asking where you're going. Your seat's over there," the boy whimpered and pointed meekly at the seat he just passed.
"Hmph, of course."
Thankfully, the exchange had gone unnoticed by most of the class. Only a few heads turned to see what caused the other boy to yell. Everyone else was still engrossed in pre-class conversations.
But now, he had another problem.
The teacher had gotten the class to quiet down and start up the screens on their desks. (Damian just copied what the students to his left and right were doing and managed to open up the right application on the desk.) Then, she started writing across the electronic board in symbols Damian had never seen before.
But they were speaking English the entire time!
"Jon!" the teacher suddenly turned to the class.
"..." it took him a moment to remember that was him, "... Yes?"
"Read this sentence and identify the tense and subject of it."
Tense and subject? What grade was this? Third? That would be simple. If he could read it.
Every head was turned to look at him now as Damian weighed the options in his mind.
Well. To hell with it. This was just a dream! And dreams exist to amplify anxiety and stage fright anyways. "I cannot," he admitted.
"What?" the teacher screeched, "This is ridiculous! We spent half a day yesterday going over grammar structures when I realized that somehow this entire class of twelve year olds slept through the third grade when they taught it to you!"
Hmm. So he was twelve. Same age as when he was awake. That's good news, I suppose, Damian thought as the teacher continued to screech. The entire class appeared to be terrified, but Damian had been through a lot worse.
By lunchtime, Damian wasn't sure how he managed to get through his morning classes. "English" didn't work out well. Math was thankfully the same in the dream world as it was in the real world. He couldn't read any of the text during the history lesson.
"Jon, you're usually so good at English and History class!" one of the boys who sat near him said as the entire class arrived at the cafeteria. Damian ignored him as he spotted his sister already sitting at one of the tables with a group of girls. ...No matter, there was no point in joining them. "What's going on?!"
"Yea, why's your hair like this?" another boy asked and reached over to touch his hair. Damian reacted accordingly by twisting out of the way and kicking the boy's feet out from under him. "Ow! What gives?!"
"...Reflex," Damian mumbled.
"You start taking military training or something?"
"Anyways, we have a quiz in Old Tongue next class! You study hard this time, Jon?"
"Old Tongue?" Damian repeated.
"We all know it's your worst subject!"
Damian tutted in response as they approached the lunch line. Upon receiving his goopy meal, he frowned at the sight of it. It didn't look much better than breakfast. Was this stuff really edible?
After lunch, they returned to their classroom and Damian was greeted with the word "Quiz" spelled out on the board. "No way," he mumbled as he took his seat and his "friends" around him groaned at the inevitable.
"Okay, no complaining! I told you about this quiz a week ago, you all better have studied!" their teacher said as the screen on Damian's desk changed into a column of numbers from one to twenty. "Okay, spell the following words in Old Tongue. Let's get some of the hardest words out of the way first!" she paused for dramatic effect as the students pulled out their pens to write, "Desk."
There was a flurry of plastic tips hitting plastic desktops and Damian froze. Desk was a difficult word to spell??! Oh, geez. Just what has language evolved into in this world.
...Wait, evolved into?
The thought was a small odd blip in his mind. A possibility of what this place was, but no. Damian shooed the thought away as quickly as it had came. There was no way. This was a dream. He'll wake up any minute now.
The quiz was over and the application closed out on his desk automatically. The teacher declared that it was journal writing time in the Old Tongue while she graded the quizzes. Damian stared at the blank screen before him. It was lined as though to mimic loose-leaf pages.
With a sigh, he wrote down a few paragraphs. He noticed that the other students had dictionary applications opened up on the side to help them with the task. Curious, he opened the app as well and began to search for translations between the "Old Tongue" and "English."
After learning a few words, Damian noticed that the application in front of him was an actual journal. There were several entries before this one written in "Old Tongue." Flipping to yesterday's entry, he began to read.
I went to visit Uncle Jor and Anty
(Damian took a moment to correct that to Aunty in his mind.)
Lara yesterday. They showed me cool items. Uncle Jor tich (taught, Damian extrapolated) me about rockets. Him (he is) very good at science. I can not wait to revisit again. Another time, Lora can come too.
It was such a short entry compared to Damian's that he was a bit disappointed. He decided to flip a page back.
Rol-Zod caught I (me) in the play area during Lunch. He hit me and lied to ticher (teacher). Him (He) dos (does) anything him (he) want to be cause his Uncle if (is) the Ginral (General).
Damian frowned. That entry didn't sound good. It was full of mistakes and only three sentences long. How pathetic. With a frustrated sigh, he quickly wrote a correct rendition of the entry below it. Then, he flipped to the beginning and started reading through. The entire class seemed preoccupied with the activity and the teacher was still grading anyways.
After fifteen minutes of reading (they were all short entries), Damian had discovered that his ... dream self? Can he still call himself that? Honestly, he seemed like a different person altogether.
... Damian had discovered that Jon-El was a twelve year old boy born and raised in this city. He lived with his parents and his sister and seemed to either like or spend more time (or both) with his Aunt and Uncle than his parents. His uncle was a scientist and his aunt had a nice political standing in the city.
He didn't learn much about the politics from Jon's entries. The information he managed to get was that it was ruled by a Council, but they weren't elected individuals. It was a monarchy of multiple houses. The House of El that Jon was from wasn't a member of the Council, but had high standing with them.
"I have finished grading your quizzes!" their teacher exclaimed, "Wow, I am impressed! One of you got a perfect score! Congratulations, Jon-El!"
"Tt. Of course."
"A perfect score in Old Tongue?! Crazy!" Lora exclaimed as the two of them walked home from school. They arrived at their apartment and although Lora was still talking excitedly, Damian ignored her. He was suddenly feeling so tired.
Strange.
Can you feel tired in a dream?
Without changing out of his uniform, Damian crawled into bed. Looking out the window, he remembered his first thought. The sun was red. It was still red. It had been red the entire day.
Tt.
The world blacked out for the second time in the last forty eight hours and Damian woke with a start.
His room was dark.
The sun was just barely passing over the horizon, making a blue glow in the distance. It took a moment to sink in. He had been dreaming and now he was finally awake. "...Of course," he mumbled with a soft chuckle, "None of that could've possibly been real." He blinked and looked around, immediately scrunching his face up in distaste. It was dark, but he knew someone had been in his room. "Drake!" he yelled as he kicked books and clothes across the floor and flung his bedroom door open, "Did you go into my room again?!"
It was during his morning routine that Damian saw a black smudge on his hand. It appeared to be a pentagon with a... swirl? It was horribly smudged, but there was something familiar about it. He had seen it recently. Yet, he didn't remember drawing it on himself.
"Morning, Damian!" Maps greeted Damian with a large grin as he walked into the school.
"Greetings, Mizoguchi," Damian returned and proceeded to walk past to his classroom. Maps blinked before hurrying after him.
"Damian?"
"What?"
"Oh... no... Nothing," she frowned, disappointed. Damian furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. What was she expecting? He greeted her like always.
The day passed by smoothly. Nothing strange or out of the ordinary. (What a miracle.) People reacted a little odd towards him, but nothing that caused Damian to feel anything more than a small itch he couldn't scratch. He could bear that.
Then the evening before his patrol shift happened. Grayson told him to reflect on the past forty-eight hours and he did. Yesterday he argued with Father, then he woke up in the morning in his room.
... In his room.
Why was he in his room? Surely Batman would've put him in the med bay in the cave until he first woke up. Why did they transport him into his room in the manor? Damian pulled his gauntlets off and rubbed his fingers over his left palm. The drawing on his hand was only a faded black smudge now.
He was forgetting something.
What did he dream about last night?
After changing out of his Robin costume, Damian made his way to his room. If he wasn't going on patrol tonight, he might as well work on some homework to pass the time. Opening up his notebook for English, he flipped to the back where he normally did the homework portion of the class.
"Huh?" Damian sat up straight as he found strange writing on the last written on page of the notebook.
The passage was only a few paragraphs long, but filled with spelling and grammar mistakes. The short sentences and the awkward repetitive structure was like that of a third grader or someone new to the language.
And at the very end, with every word spelled and used correctly--
Who are you?