the boy wonder!

Jason on the other hand, preferred working alone, at least these days. He’d grown tired of having partner after partner die or get sucked into some alternate dimension or cross-galaxy endeavor. He was tired of being left behind. At least on his own, he only had himself to lose. Jason had already lost himself once, what was one more time?

Maybe that’s why the people he tried to help always ended up screaming in terror. Maybe they could tell he was living his life dangerously and rebelliously and it frightened them. Not that Jason would blame them, but he wasn’t suicidal. He’d call it boldness, even if the people close to him would call it stupidity. Oh well, at least he’d always have the feeling of being able to punch some thugs around whenever he was in a bad mood. There was definitely no shortage of those.

Red Hood looked up at the voice, eyebrows twitching at the familiarity. “i didn’t know we were competing. adding my two cents, though, a pint-sized punk prowling the streets isn’t something you see every night, either.” Behind his mask, he met that sneer with a smug grin of his own. But before he could turn his full attention to his brother, Red Hood had something else to take care of. 

He leaned down closer to the thug and spoke in a hushed tone, one of many scare tactics he’d picked up from his dear old dad. “mess around on my streets again, and next time it’ll be more than just your ego that i shatter.” After kicking the guy hard enough in the face to knock him out, Red Hood tossed the woman her purse and watched as she ran off, still whimpering. “yeah, you’re welcome!” Calling off after her wouldn’t do any good, but Jason always had to have the last word.

“so.” And now for the whole… family reunion thing he sucked so much at. “…you been here long?” God, can they just go back to picking on each other?

   His boots made not even a whisper of sound as Damian took a few steps into the alley proper, becoming less of a back-lit silhouette and more of a flesh and blood boy. He barely gave the woman a glance as she fled, and deigned the man sprawled on the ground even less attention, merely stepping on his fingers as he passed. The action elicited a small groan from the thug’s mouth, however, and Damian half-turned to nonchalantly kick him in the head as well; not with as much force as his brother, but with just as much intention.

   Only a few steps away now, Damian had to tilt his head back to stare up at Jason, his arms crossed and eyes narrowed. ❝ I wouldn’t call your pathetic attempts at rebellion a competition. More like a cry for my father’s attention. ❞ His tone was dismissive, a hand waved vaguely to punctuate the point. ❝ And let’s not forget who the superior Robin is here, Todd. ❞ The sneer that had twisted his mouth before had slid into a thin-lipped and unamused line. Damian would not have Jason thinking his arrival was anything more than a nuisance to him.

   At his question, however, Robin tilted his head ever so slightly, eyes slipping to the side for a moment. It was not an easy one to answer. His time in the Hive had seemed to stretch almost endlessly, a year piling on top of another and forming the building blocks for yet another. And though he had not been in Radiale long, it did not erase the many months he had been trapped in a different city. He had been away from Gotham long enough that he sometimes strained to remember the view from the top of Wayne Tower, or the way the city’s polluted smog had made the rain taste.

      She had been ready for a fight, ready to take a few hits herself with the promise that she would be free to walk. A hand closed around a homemade chemball, the delicate glass fitting easily into the palm of her hand, but before she could launch it, they were thankfully interrupted. Honey Lemon let out a surprised little gasp, her eyes trained on the strange beeping device, and if she had less presence of mind than she did, she might have reached out to inspect it. Instead, she crouched with her arms over her head as a form of protection. Uncertainty kept her in place as pandemonium erupted around her, as silence befell the visually obstructed night but the gloved hand felt comforting. IT was confident but not controlling, and Honey allowed herself to be lead.

      Honey, now safe, finally got a good look at her savior and in an instant - in one brilliant squee of happiness - Honey threw her arms around the young vigilante, now looking a million times better than the last time she’d seen him.

      ❝ Thank you, thank you, thank yoou~!!! ❞ She vaguely heard his comment, understood the implication that he’d felt indebted to her, but honestly, she felt as if he did more for her than she had done for him.  ❝ How are you!? It’s been so sooo long! What did you throw? Can I see one?! ❞ She loosened her grip, but kept her arms at his shoulders, her eyes analyzing him, making absolutely certain that he was in good health.

   What he expected was a somewhat shaken, frightened girl. A hasty thank you and a retreat back to the safety of the brightly-lit streets. He expected hurried looks back and a lowered head as she walked as fast as she could. The usual civilian act that played out whenever Damian saved someone. What he did not expect was an ear-splitting squeal, and the sudden pressure of two arms wrapped around his shoulders. A strangled noise escaped from Damian’s mouth at the sudden contact, his muscles tensing as his entire body became rigid. Affection was a fleeting thing for him; to have it be given so freely by anyone except his eldest brother was a shock to Damian’s system.

   As soon as she loosened her grip, he pulled back, cheeks flushed high with embarrassment. He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders, clearly uncomfortable with even her hands resting lightly on his arms.

   ❝ I was only repaying a debt. ❞ His voice was rough, but not hostile, a rare thing for the Boy Wonder. ❝ It requires no thanks. ❞ As Honey Lemon inquired after his health, speaking rapid fire, Damian took another step back to put more space between them, mouth quirked. ❝ I have been adequate. I have no complaints. ❞

Upon passing by both owner and pet, albeit unseen, Jack acted first and thought second. The dog was so cute, that was all her lack of impulse control needed in order to move. She just wanted to pet it, what was so wrong with that.

She paused, looking up at him, clearly surprised.

“We don’t.” Jack blinked, slowly reaching her hands back out to pet the dog. Not once did the Servant consider that the dog might bite; he looked nice enough to her…

“… Why? Is your dog not allowed to be touched?”

Maybe the dog was sensitive. That made sense to Jack, rather than the notion of personal space.

   The Dane’s tail thump thump thumped against the cold concrete as the girl continued to pet him despite Damian’s obvious disapproval. He tugged on the leash again, but Titus only gave him a baleful look, content to be scratched behind the ears. The dog’s disobedience only made Damian narrow his eyes even further at the girl, arms crossed in front of his chest as he held the leash’s handle tightly.

   It was not as if the boy was against others petting his dog; this was not the first time someone had tangled their fingers into Titus’s fur without permission, and Damian was sure it would not be the last. No, that wasn’t the issue here. The problem was that this girl had managed to sneak up on him, and she had simultaneously set off every assassin’s instinct that had kept him alive since birth. She looked harmless, but the prickle down his spine said otherwise.

         AN ADVENTUROUS FRISSON CALLS HIM FORTH: nighttime escapades do not whisper him into a lull, latterly. The moon rises with the tide of his blood, and the gusts of the biting-chill sweep across from the west, shrinking the hides of man and beast comparably. Marrow-deep, Atreus reminds the fount of shadow welling from his stomach that his memory of sacred forested paths and consciousness that all auguries, ill-fated or vouchsafe, are his. There are no foreboding, eldritch, all-seeing corvids recording his every movement (they don’t swoop down upon opportunity like avaricious shadows), here; but he doesn’t feel absolved of his fate.

         —it’s the outlanders, those straying too far from their origination (like he, he infers; but, he adds: he knows how to assess his error-prone ways), that dishearten him. He molds his heart not by clay, but by fire and iron: yet, he cannot dispel that recapture of heaviness; of inescapability; of his fingernails, filthy with gravel and ash and mortal blood (and how it rained down to sheen his wolf pelt, like muffled weeping), digging into Midgard’s soil as he squirmed to flee (the cadaver atop him filled to the brim with the heavy weight of living).

         The manner of killing was obtuse syntax to his child-mind.

         —and it’s why, as his midnight reverie and a few strands of its despondency are shattered, he untangles from the fellow boy with much swiftness, unshouldering his bow (fingers tightening around it) and removing an arrow from his quiver, notching it in place. The arrow’s feathers tickle his cheek as he aims to threaten and intimidate.

         “You ran into me, you bastard!” Any remaining ghostly-pains, the rest of his words—whisper-speech; are lost in a swell of thunder that would’ve shaken the ground as it filled their ears (the gods’ command, however, is that he be deprived of this).

         Darkness has fully shown its teeth tonight, and he knows how near he can be to danger without feeling the grip of its bite. Curiosity rampant, he wills himself to take a breath; but his longbow remains taut. “—who? Who is getting away?”

   Damian lashed out with gloved hands and booted feet, narrowly missing striking the other boy as for a moment they simply struggled to be free of the other. The seconds were ticking past, seconds Robin couldn’t afford to lose, and he could feel the frustration welling up in the back of his throat and they finally untangled, springing apart. The irritation only violently spiked as Damian found himself suddenly facing down an arrow, the other boy’s face a mirror of his own anger as he brought the bowstring taught against the corner of his mouth. For most, fear would follow the sight of that cold, glinting steel, but for Damian there was only spitting wrath.

   A swift movement almost too fast to follow made it seem as though the batarang simply appeared in his hand as Damian drew his arm back, ready to counterattack if he should see so much as a twitch from the other’s bow fingers. Batarangs found themselves in his other hand as well, clutched between his fingers like steel claws thirsty for blood. His whole body had become taught with adrenaline and anger, ready to fight with everything he had.

   A hissing sound seeped through Damian’s clenched teeth as the other boy spoke, the insult rolling off him in a way that only stoked his fury even more. ❝ You’re blaming me? ❞ Robin’s voice was colored with outraged disbelief, the words turned ugly as he curled his lips in a vicious snarl. ❝ You’re the one standing in an alley in the middle of the night! What were you even doing?! ❞ The demand was only half-hearted in its desire for an answer, though the biting edge to his voice wasn’t diminished in the least.

Before them lay a platter of food. A giant turkey leg, a gyro over-stuffed with lamb and absolutely no veggies, chicken kabob with extra meat to replace a lack of veggies, four corn dogs sitting in a try - along with all that meat there was a cup of fried pickles and a plate of funnel cake that was caked in chocolate syrup. Venom expressed interest in the smells coming from the boardwalk, and while this food was dead they agreed to try it based on the scent alone. 

Eddie went for a fried pickle, it had been something he enjoyed eating before and they didn’t eat much beyond meat and chocolate lately. However the moment he bit down on it, Venom expressed their distaste. [Disgusting!] The pickle was spit out and the cup of fried pickles dumped to the side of where they sat. “Hey! We paid for that.” [Why would you pay to put that in our body?] Holding the empty cup, Eddie frowned at the smile pile of fried pickles on the ground. “Cause I like eating those.” [No, we don’t.]

With a sigh he simply accepted this, for now. At least they weren’t eating a pile of heads today. [Try that one, it’s smells good.] All of it smelled delicious in Eddie’s opinion, but he went in for the turkey leg, taking a massive messy bite as the meat practically fell right off the bone. The bone. They devoured the meat off that bone in an instant and bite on the bone. Eddie’s teeth weren’t exactly strong enough, so subtly and swiftly those jagged fangs bit down and crunched the bone easily- like biting through butter. 

Do you …mind?

Eddie almost choked on the bone in his throat, swallowing hard he covered his mouth and met a judgmental stare with confusion. This kid was watching them? Clearing his throat, he sat up and wiped the mess on his mouth with a napkin wad. “Uh.. you talking to me?” There really wasn’t anyone else around them.

   Green eyes were narrowed in clear judgement as the stranger picked at the food laid before him haphazardly, the process seemingly complicated and apparently conflicted as one of the cups was simply upended, scattering its contents onto the wooden boards beneath their feet. The constant chatter the man seemed to be keeping up with himself didn’t help to give him any guise of sanity, either, and Damian felt his irritation rise with each new infraction. He gritted his teeth as he straightened, hot chocolate forgotten on the railing as the full force of his thirteen-year-old wrath was turned on the stranger. Unfortunately, he’d caught the Boy Wonder at a stunningly bad time.

   ❝ Do you see anyone else? ❞ An arm was flung out to indicate the empty boardwalk around them, quiet beyond the faint shouts and laughs from the amusement park proper, as well as the lapping of ocean waves beneath them. ❝ Or are you blind as well as mad? ❞ Damian’s mouth, twisted into a sneer, seemed to spit poison as he took a few steps towards the other, narrow shoulders hunched as he worked himself into a rage.

   Damian had, for nearly all his time in the Hive, been mostly alone; one or two of his family members had sometimes appeared, but never for long. By extension, he expected it to be no different here. He had become almost too used to being the only bat to prowl the streets, to come home to a mostly silent house, to bandage his wounds himself and fall asleep with only Titus and Lucius for company. This reality had become only more stark upon his arrival to Radiale, a place where he was yet unsure if Rey even lived and existed. And yet, despite the solidarity, Damian continued as he always had: occupying his days in preparation for night patrols. He was a soldier, after all.

   It was for this reason, perhaps, that Damian was so unprepared to suddenly come face-to-face with one of his brothers. The terrified scream that had brought Robin to the back alley suddenly seemed insignificant compared to the scene before him: a young woman, clutching desperately to her purse, frightened eyes fixed on the thug who had just tried to tear it from her. Or, more specifically, at the boot pressed to his neck, and the man the boot was attached to. That man being the Red Hood, outlaw extreme.

   Or, at least, it looked like the Red Hood. The crimson bat symbol still blazed across his chest, but the hooded vest, the half-mask, the crowbar, the buzzed head: those were new. The outfit was more raw than the old one (edgy, Beast Boy would have called it), all sharp edges and attitude. And yet, it was still clearly the Red Hood. Jason Todd. Damian’s so-called brother. Here, in Radiale. Something like relief, or comfort, twinged in Damian’s chest. But, he was Damian, and so the warm feeling lost its shape somewhere on the way to his face, curling his mouth into a condescending sneer instead of a smile.

   Radiale, Damian had come to realize, was very different from the Hive. Different overlords (probably), different places, different streets and buildings and rules. And yet it was the same, too, in many ways: the most obvious being its occupants. Damian had seen many new faces since his arrival, and seen many old ones as well. Some he liked, some he disliked, some he felt neutral to. There weren’t many, however, that he went out of his way to interact with.

        Except.

   Seeing that impish grin, that flyaway blonde hair, staff held confidently by her side. It immediately sent a spike of irritation through Damian to see Stargirl suddenly standing before him yet again, just as infuriating as she was in the Hive. Even the memory of their close tie during the shopping cart race all those months ago was enough to curl his mouth into a sneer, a finger pointing accusingly at the other hero.

   In the League of Assassins, Damian had been trained for subtly, for silence, for concealing his present. It was teachings that only were only furthered by being with his father, and by being Robin. It was a fundamental part of the job, and Damian was an expert. And yet. There were times when this just wasn’t possible. Like when a giant, car-sized dragon bat was involved. Like when that dragon bat was running headlong down the mostly deserted street, half-galloping and half-gliding on outstretched wings. His tongue lolled, nose sniffing intently, heedless to the shouts of the boy chasing him. That was definitely one of those times.

   Finally, however, the creature skidded to a stop before the only other person on the semi-lit street, claws scrabbling on the asphalt for a moment before finally finding purchase. A great huff of breath left the dragon bat’s mouth as he leaned down, staring at the man for a moment with intent yellow eyes before lazily running a huge tongue up the entire length of the stranger’s body.

   Cities at night were dangerous places, no matter where one might be. Gotham, the Hive, Spirale—they were all the same. It was one of the reasons Damian now skulked across the tangled landscape of the Fibonacci Ward, determined to memorize its nooks and crannies, its back alleys and shady streets. It was the reason that Robin, with his alert senses and sharp eyes, spotted the scene in the dark shadow of a building. A woman with long blonde hair, cornered by a handful of grimy men. A sneer curled the boy’s mouth as he approached from above, a flash of steel the only warning the men got before he rained hell down upon them.

   The batarang lodged itself in the brick next to the lead man’s face, a sudden and foreign object, and the man barely had time to make a surprised noise before three red lights counted up on the side of the steel wings, a faint beep the only warning before the batarang exploded. A loud bang!, bright light, small pieces of brick flying and smoke hissing from a second batarang as the thugs shouted and grunted, assailed by something unseen. Within moments, a gloved hand was slipped into the woman’s, leading her away swiftly until the smoke and the shouting had faded away.

   Turning sharply, Damian appraised the woman for a moment. Because of course he remembered her, how her face had tightened with concern after witnessing him near-fatally fall ten stories onto hard asphalt, how gentle she’d been when she’d cleansed and bandaged his scraped knees and sent him on his way.

   There are, in Damian’s experience, certain things that someone just doesn’t expect to happen. Even in his life as a vigilante, and as an assassin before that, there were still things that could surprise and startle him (not that he’d ever admit it, of course). Even Damian’s constant alert state couldn’t warn him of things like: what appeared to be a young girl seeming to almost materialize from thin air, tiny hands promptly buried in Titus’s wiry fur even as the Dane gave an indignant huff. But, though surprised, the boy didn’t let it slow him for a moment as he pulled the leash taught, drawing Titus back towards him even as the dog tipped his ears towards the strange child, obviously curious.

   There was, unfailingly, thrill in the hunt. In the panicked expression of your quarry as they looked furtively back, the uneven stumble of their steps as they fled, driven by primal fear. There was a rush of adrenaline in your veins, washing away the jarring sharpness in your knees and the dull ache of lactic acid building up in your arms. It was intent, purpose, a single-minded drive for your goal that left you unflinching, let you go unflagging for city block after city block as your prey grew tantalizingly close. There was simplicity in the chase, and on nights like this, Robin embraced it.

   Close now, whispered a voice that sounded a little like his mother’s as Damian locked eyes on the drug dealer in the alley below, taking note of his ragged gasps and the heave of his chest, the trembling of his limbs. The chase had lasted almost an hour, and Damian could feel that all his efforts would soon be rewarded; it was clear they were getting close to the drug smuggler’s home base: the intended prize all along. The faint curve of his lips was the ghost of a smile as Robin dropped, soundlessly, to the grimy asphalt moments after the dealer disappeared around a corner, intent on following.

   Except. Wheeling his body around the corner at breakneck speed, body pivoted on a single boot, Damian found not a drug nest, but a boy. A boy that was suddenly very close. A boy that he was unceremoniously crashing into with all the grace of a newborn colt. A swear ricocheted from his mouth as Damian went down, suddenly a tangled mess of arms and legs, boots and cape.

   Damian was, in every sense of the word, frustrated. It showed in the wrinkle between his eyebrows and in the way he hunched over the wooden railing overlooking the ocean, in the way he clutched the hot cup of chocolate in his gloved hands and stared into the distant horizon. He’d come to the Boardwalk for this scenery, skirting around the ever-present amusement park crowd to keep a solitary vigil by the ocean, just him and his thoughts. But. But. Fate (she could be just as moody as Catwoman, Damian thought bitterly) had had other ideas. As clearly present in the man sitting on a bench only a foot feet down the walk, noisily eating a strange amalgamation of food that made Damian’s vegetarian stomach churn uncomfortably.

   The gentle morning breeze that whispered through the trees touched Damian’s sweat-soaked forehead, cooling his hot skin as he continued through fluid movements. The hilt of the sword was a familiar and comforting feeling curled in his palm, as well as the grass beneath his bare feet. It was a routine he had done a hundred, a thousand, a million times before, rising before dawn and practicing his swordsmanship until the sun had cleared the horizon. Here, in his new home in the forest, had proven to be no different; he had woken while the house was still quiet and dark, and now, two hours later, he finally exhaled, slow and controlled, before carefully sliding the sword’s length back into its sheath.

   A towel was draped over his neck as Damian used it to dry his sweat-soaked hair as he crossed the lawn, his free hand quietly opening the door as he reached the house to slip back inside, already thinking of the shower that awaited him in his room. It was only when he closed the door behind him, however, that the boy realized he wasn’t alone.

   The young man stood by the kitchen counter, a bowl of cereal before him and a spoon half-raised to his mouth, his own surprised expression mirroring Damian’s own. For a moment, the vigilante simply returned the other’s gaze, somewhat wary. For though he knew of the others that shared Rey’s house, Damian had yet to speak to either of them, or even meet them beyond fleeting glances in the hallways. And so now, with just the two of them alone in the quiet kitchen while the rest of the house slumbered, Damian couldn’t help but raise his defenses.