It's mostly the fault of poor editorial practices that B&R is so heavily misaligned continuity-wise w/ the main batman book. But walk with me for a minute:
You are Damian Wayne. You are 14 years old and have had one of the worst years of your life last year. Which is saying a lot.
Your brother, one of the people you were closest to, got shot in the head and forgot who you were. Your best friend went to space for a week and came back 3/4 years older than you, taking away your previously established dynamic and leaving you to have to bond all over again w/ a new one. You may or may not have gone wayyy too far with your new superhero team, who now all hate you, because you fucked up big time*
And worst of all, when you do try to do the right thing, you end up forced to watch Alfred, a father figure to you, the only one at your birthday that year, the person who has been so patient, loving and trusting with you, even when you probably didnt deserve it...die. you watch him die, and feel it's all your fault.
And your dad never corrects you on that last point. So you run away.
First to your mom who can tell something's up with you, she knows you don't give up that easy, you decide not to stay with her because you remembered how actually, neither of your parents are good at communicating with you despite their best efforts, so now you're 14 and flying solo.
And you do fly solo. For a while. Make new friends, new enemies. You think you're better off for it. You've got your best friend and your brother back. They're not around as much. It's fine.
And eventually your dad tells you that it's not your fault that Alfred died. Bit late but it's appreciated. Really. There's a bit of a hiccup where you get possessed by a demon and wage war against your father but after that, all in all, you two are...together again.
You start to think maybe you want to give him another chance, for the two of you to be father and son.
And in a change of pace, it works out! It's going good, mostly. He insists you go to highschool, you resist, feel like he wants you to be something that you're not (wants you to be normal), but eventually you acquiesce for your own reasons. He cheers you on at soccer and nosies around at your fundraising events with the other parents and gives you a stern talking to about your choice of girlfriend. Because he cares.
Except all the while this is going on, your dad is currently having his brain slowly taken over by an evil version of himself that he created and every time you look away he's slowly tearing your family apart (your brothers are just barely keeping it together. The ones who didn't get lobotmized that is Jesus Christ). You keep taking his side in these conflicts, for whatever reason. Maybe because he promised it would be different this time, and it isn't** and you're going to stick with him until he keeps his word for once.
But at the end of the day?
It's like your brother says. You're not the one who saves him. Broadly speaking, you've made things worse and needed others to come save you. And what else is Robin really for? You thought it was about redemption and teamwork but guess you're wrong. It's about saving your self destructive, apparently two-faced and erratic father. And you can't even do that right.
* TT (2016) by Adam Glass is a racist ooc mess, but unfortunately it's still canon so I'm referencing here, though like a lot of works authors clearly wish weren't canon but are, it's been subsequently glossed over. Win? Maybe? Or not?
** again Zdarky's characterization of Damian is so outdated as to be ooc, and considering the way he constantly and explicitly uses it to illustrate Tim's strengths as robin, I'd argue there's. Also implications there. But the batshit insanity of the main batbook compared to B&R rn is crucial for this post, so I'm attempting to justify it. This time..
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The Number You Have Called Cannot Be Reached 7
Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6
Ship: Dead on Main (Danny/Jason)
Warnings: angst/depression and canon typical violence
I had wanted to do some tag appreciation for the previous part before uploading this but well stuff happened and I need to leave for work soon, so priorities and all that, and I bet ya'll rather want the update than my chatter XD But know that I really appreciate the comments and tags you guys leave me <3
Damian sat in a corner of the library, knees drawn up to his chest. The crumbled up piece of paper burned in his left hand. It shouldn’t. He’d had a hunch and he’d followed it. He’d been right! This was pertinent information. He should have informed Father immediately and yet… He breathed slowly out his nose. He turned his hand around palm up so he could glare at the offending ball of paper resting there.
He was right, but then why was he so uncertain? Why was he hesitating? He was Damian Wayne! Son of the Batman! He should not dawdle, that is not how he was trained!
No matter how much his so called siblings would tease him for his height, there were advantages. Like how when Todd had pulled the dazed Ghost to his feet, the short man had never really looked up which meant that Damian who was shorter had seen the way his eyes glowed green, unlike his father. Because a short while later, when he pushed away from Todd his eyes had been blue. Father would assume the ghost’s eyes were blue, because he hadn’t seen the green. Father would have no idea to look into what Damian had, because he’d missed a vital clue. A clue Damian had been withholding. Damian let his head fall down onto the arm holding the paper and sighed. He was withholding far worse than a clue now:
There were traces of Lazarus Water in the blood sample.
Damian felt the childish urge to scream, but he would not give in, he hadn’t fallen that far. It always came back to this, always; like a curse on Damian’s family, one thing after another and it always ended up back there - by the sickly green glow of the pits.
Father wasn’t always exactly rational when it came to the Lazarus Pits or the League of Assassins or Todd.
And maybe Damian had gotten a little bit used to Father looking at him like his son. Maybe he just wasn’t all that excited for Father to look at him like Ra’s Al Ghul’s grandson again…
Alfred, the cat, slinked around the door left open a crack, instantly drawing Damian’s eyes. The tuxedo cat padded silently over to him and stopped. He looked expectantly at Damian with the same unimpressed gaze of his namesake. Damian cracked a fragile smile, and uncurled into a crosslegged position.Satisfied Alfred jumped into his lap. He started batting at the paper ball and Damian quickly stuffed it into a pocket and acquiesced to the demand for pets. It was barely a moment before Damian’s effort was rewarded and the purring started. Slowly, Damian relaxed back against the wall and his shoulders gradually came down from their tensed position. Animals were so much easier to understand than people.
The Ghost had purred…
The sound had been just at the edge of his hearing, but it definitely had sounded like purring. Father hadn’t heard it. Damian had asked him if he’d heard the cat, but he’d dismissed him as if he thought Damian had heard a real cat. There was no way he would have done that if he’d actually heard. The sound… it had been something else; there had been this inherent happiness to it.
Damian would admit he’d been startled. He’d never heard a human purr before. Not even Catwoman, his father’s illicit paramour, actually purred, not really. She did something with her voice at times, probably the closest a human could come to a purr, but not like the almost continuous sound of a real cat. Humans just weren’t built for it.
Which pondered the question, what exactly was the Ghost?
He had reacted very oddly to Todd (Damian would admit in the privacy of his mind that he’d been alarmed to see the man nuzzle into Todd’s chest as if he was actually an overgrown cat in disguise). There was Lazarus in his blood, so maybe the reaction to Todd wasn’t so strange. He hadn’t reacted in any way special to Damian, but that wasn’t so odd either. Damian knew Todd was different. There was a reason Grandfather feared him. The Pits hadn’t revived him, they may have brought his mind back online and brought some lasting effects, but Todd had crawled out of his grave months before that; Todd was something else.
Maybe Todd and the Ghost were something similar?
Todd had definitely heard the purring. He had been completely unlike himself, there had been a complete lack of the usual hostility from him afterwards. Todd must have also seen the eyes, he had to have made the Lazarus connection. He hadn’t reported anything about it either. But again this was Todd, he wouldn’t share information with Father unless he thought someone’s life depended on it.
Whatever DNA had been in the blood sample was useless for analysis, it had been too damaged, so that didn’t bring them any closer to figuring out what he was.
Then there were the powers, Todd didn’t have those. Invisibility and intangibility… No, the Ghost couldn’t actually be a ghost, could he?
Alfred nudged the hand that had stopped the petting and Damian dutifully started back up again.
Richard often acted like he didn’t have two brain cells to rub together, something that fooled even Damian in the beginning, but he was surprisingly astute if he let you see if. Damian had presumed the Ghost codename had been merely a ploy to annoy Drake and Gordon, but Richard was not beneath hiding a theory as a joke. If he was correct, he would have all the power, if it wasn’t it was after all just a joke - it was a good strategy.
As if summoned, Richard stuck his head into the library and glanced around. He seemed just about leave when he caught sight of Damian’s nook.“There you are Dames-“ he strolled inside, “I wanted to say bye before heading home, so I’m glad I found you.” He crouched down next to him and smiled widely eyes crinkling with it. It was so effortless for him.
Damian frowned.
“Hey, you okay?”
Damian glanced up briefly. It wasn’t something he wanted to talk about, but maybe Richard could answer something else.
“Do you think the Ghost could actually be a ghost?”
And there was that sharpness behind the kindness, that moment of calculation of what might have brought this on, whether Damian knew something, before it was hidden behind a smile again.
“Dami-“ he started and lovingly ruffled Damian’s hair. Damian quickly batted his hands away, before he got the misconception that he liked it; because he didn’t! Blue eyes crinkled further and then he continued, “we’ve seen stranger, haven’t we?”
And that brought Damian to a stop, hands still raised protectively over his head. Alfred looked between the two of them and gave an affronted mrauwp.
“So sorry Alfred, old boy, didn’t mean to disturb you.”
While Richard appeased Alfred, Damian slowly lowered his arms. Richard was right of course, but there was something else too, the assurance in the flippancy. Whatever the Ghost was, it didn’t really matter, they would deal with it, like they did everything; everything had some sort of weakness. And the Ghost hadn’t actually been hostile.
The core of the issue was the Lazarus Water. Lazarus Water didn’t enter people’s blood on their own and Grandfather kept a sharp watch on all the pools. There was a very big risk the Ghost was affiliated with the League. Coerced? Created? Murdered?
Damian narrowed his eyes, it was useless to ponder without more information, but the League at least was something Damian could look into discreetly. If there was increased activity in Gotham he would find it. He didn’t have to tell anyone yet.
“You work out what was bothering you?”“Tt.” He quickly looked away from Richard’s knowing eyes. Unfortunately that left him open for another hair ruffle. Richard laughed and jumped away and back to a standing position in one smooth motion, before Damian could retaliate somehow. Damian glared and only got a soft smile and wave in return.
“See you in some days, baby bat.”
Damian pressed his lips together and waved dismissively. “Go, before I decide revenge is worth removing Alfred.”
Richard’s laughter followed him out the door and down the hall. Damian finally allowed the small smile to form. Whatever happened, whatever Father may think of him keeping secrets, he could at least count on his big brother to stay the same.
Oo o oO
Tim had been reviewing the new proposals from R&D when Bruce had stopped by.
The spectral calibrator team had obviously been disappointed to learn they would be reassigned and that the larger project to tune into electromagnetic signals from other dimensions had been put on indefinite hold without the calibrator, but they were a professional bunch and they had quickly come up with some fresh ideas.
Tim really didn’t want to consider what use the thief would have had with the calibrator, but it was kinda his job. It was meant to help hone into the (for lack of better term) frequency of a given dimension and remove the noise from the various other planes of reality - he just really hoped they weren’t dealing with a science portal to Hell scenario. Magical portals were at least usually temporary in nature but most importantly they were the JLD’s problem, not Tim’s.
Maybe the thief just really wanted to listen to some alternate universe rock?
Yeah, fat chance.
Tim had not found signs of the stolen items being resold, which pointed towards the thief having specific buyers or he was building something himself. At least the spectral calibrator was safe in the Cave.
A small beep notified Tim that the decryption program had a match on the passcode for the phone Bruce had dropped off, and he rolled over to have a look. The phone was not a brand Tim recognized, it was from the pre-smartphone era and didn’t even have a camera. It had been easier for Tim to just take it apart and hook it to power to get it up and running - it was then he noticed that someone had modded the receiver and transmitter, it also didn’t have a sim card.
Despite the lack of sim-card, when Tim looked at the now open phone it claimed to have a full signal from the most prominent telecompany in the larger bay area. Tim raised an eyebrow - curious. The text messages were empty, and a root around in the settings found that read messages were automatically deleted after 24 hours - the thief were really keen on keeping his secrets.
In the “phone book” which was a rather quaint old school term for the contact list, Tim finally found something that alluded to a normal life. Something that could maybe give them some information: Dad, Jazz, Mom, Sam, Tuck, Val - pretty sparse contact list. All the numbers had the same area code, which put them somewhere in the Midwest, if Tim was remembering correctly.
Tim considered for a moment then pressed the up button until he reached “Mom” again and pressed enter. Butt calls had been a real problem with this phone type if people forgot to lock them, it wouldn’t be so strange if Tim didn’t say anything. With any luck they’d get confirmation on the name Danny.
There was a single dial tone then a feminine voice announced:
“The number you have called cannot be reached.”
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Woohooo yay, I think we're done with "the detectives detective-ing" for now which was the extend of my notes before writing the last two parts (parts 6 and 7 are going to be a single chapter once they go on Ao3). Hope you enjoyed, I got a serious case of Damian feels while rewriting chapter 1 for Ao3 (here's a link if you missed it), so that's the explanation for why Damian decided we needed his pov
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