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Damian was in a swamp.
It wasn’t the best place to be. The mosquitos were terrible (that’s what he gets for not bringing bug spray), but he was lucky enough that his suit covered up most of his skin. The only skin exposed was his face, and so Damian spent a lot of time waving away the blood-sucking vampire wannabes.
It’s hard to focus when you’re trying to banish mosquitoes to the sixth dimension (the first five were where other unwanted creatures probably went).
There’s still light out which is nice. Damian considers that, optimistically, he might be able to find a nearby town. He wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere. He’d heard a couple of cars somewhere on what he assumed was a street, and now he was following the origin of noise with a dead-set resolve.
Damian was the most recent addition to the Teen Titans. He didn’t know much about them, and he felt painfully shy when his father had introduced him to them. He wasn’t one to be shy, not really, but the Teen Titans were a group his dad himself had founded. He wanted Damian to be a part of it, and Damian thought it a great honor. He just didn’t want to mess up. He didn’t want to say something that’d ruin making a good first impression. It was probably because of this poor decision that Damian had been deserted by his team.
This was supposed to be his first mission with them, the one where he thought he could prove himself, but nothing much had happened. They received a false set of information about an eco-terrorist villain, and when they couldn’t find anything the team all fought to return to the ship.
Damian didn’t have a comm. He left his stupid distress signal on the ship, and now he was the only supposed ‘Titan’ left in Australia. Perhaps his sudden selective mutism had given them reason to believe he was already accounted for because they didn’t seem to have a problem slamming the ship closed on Damian’s face. It nearly scraped his nose off. If he hadn’t been paying attention, that might have just happened.
Regardless, they were most likely off in air-space half-way back to the tower, and now Damian needed to find a cellphone to call his dad to come pick him up.
Damian’s boots were a murky mess. He had mud caked up to his ankles, and he’d nearly tripped several times sinking into mud patches.
It was hot. The sun beat down onto Damian’s brow with no mercy in her rays, and bringing up his hood only seemed to help a little bit. His uniform felt like he was wearing prison clothes. He couldn’t give up some of his gear, not if he wanted to keep it from getting lost, and so sweat was building up underneath the protective layers of his outfit. His body was working overtime to keep him cooled off, but in the process Damian was getting thirsty.
He wasn’t stupid enough to drink swamp water. That’d get him sick in a heartbeat. He’d rather be free of possible vomiting, dehydrated, with a pounding headache than swamp-ridden because he thought it was a good idea to drink dirt-caked water.
Damian’s physical exhaust was only amplified by his emotions. He felt completely defeated as he tried to make his way for the sound of vehicles. He had wanted to make a good impression, he had wanted to show the Teen Titans he was worth something, but they’d left him in the dust instead. He knew they didn’t know him, he knew that they weren’t used to him being around, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
He refused to get mopey about it.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t upset.
He wasn’t sure if he was going to join the Teen Titans after this. His dad might have been excited about it, Damian might’ve been excited at some point, too, but Damian wasn’t keen on facing the people who were supposed to eventually become his comrades.
Damian drags his feet through untamed brush. It’s hard to navigate over wild bushes, huge puddles of still water, and literal swarms of mosquitoes.
Damian ended up walking through a swarm against his better judgment.
That wasn’t the greatest idea. Now he had dead mosquitoes all over his face on red slap marks, and to his utter disgust he found some in his teeth.
His teeth.
His teeth!
Damian didn’t need swamp water to feel nauseous. The mosquitoes were enough to make him want to puke out his guts.
Damian keeps going forward despite the environmental setbacks.
He doesn’t find a road.
Damian’s eyes catch onto a circle of vehicles with expensive top-lights narrowed in on a singular spot in swamp water. Their tires were all coated in the same mud that caked Damian’s boots, and Damian’s vision catches sight of a few people with cameras on their shoulders.
Is this a movie?
Damian feels a bit of hope as he continues forward. He realizes that he’s in costume, understands that it’s not the best idea to expose himself to a bunch of strangers, but he’d rather take his chances instead of staying stuck in the wilderness.
Damian creeps closer. His attention lands on a singular man crouched in the water with his arms held out wide.
“Now, to catch a genuine crocodile, we need to act like a wounded gazelle.”
Damian pauses in his journey. He feels dumbfounded as he watches the man lift his legs in such a strange manner, one at a time, hopping in the water that reaches his knees.
Damian is so stunned that he barely notices the frightened shouts of the crew. It takes him a minute for his mind to start running again, and when it does start running he sees the peeking head of a slinking green chomper in the water.
That guy is going to get himself killed!
Damian’s fishing for his grappling hook before his mind starts catching up to his body.
The camera crew is freaking out. It was understandable. Their main actor was about to feed himself to the wild, and return himself to the great green earth that gave him life.
Damian’s boots hit water.
“Get away out of the water, you fool!” He shouts, terrified for this stupid man.
The man turns to look at him. The crocodile is shooting through the water, and Damian aims his grappling hook for where he assumed the crocodile was going to leap for his kill. Damian shoots just a second prior to the alligator’s opening his jaw, and it punts the alligator straight in the mouth.
Damian starts directing the man out of the water with a firm hand squeezing the man’s muscular, blonde fuzzed, arm. The crocodile looked rightfully stunned as Damian withdraws the grapple slowly back to his person.
“You are an absolute-”
Tim had been having an average day for a man who liked to call himself a vigilante. He’d been lounging around in the manor with Jason as they killed time watching television. They didn’t have anything planned until the evening, and so they were waiting for the day to pass them by.
Tim’s hanging upside down on the couch when he switches the channel from cooking, to a documentary about the Beatles, and he keeps flipping for something interesting until-
Tim pauses with his thumb hovering over the channel button on the remote. Jason’s head is on his stomach facing the television, and he seemed to be having the same crisis that Tim was having at the moment.
“Is that-” Jason begins, pulling his head up.
“You are an absolute idiot! You don’t just leave yourself out in the open for a crocodile to kill you! What were you thinking?”
Damian was jabbing a man on the chest with a scolding finger. He looked absolutely horrible. It looked like he’d become one with the wilderness because his entire uniform was a filthy mess. His face was red with sweat, dead bugs, and anger.
The man didn’t seem perturbed at all. In fact, he seemed absolutely delighted, and Damian releases a yelp as the man slings an arm around his shoulder.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome our guest-star, Robin!”
“I am not a guest-”
“Together we will hunt for crocodile in the wild, and observe their natural behavior in interacting with humans!”
“I have agreed to no such thing!”
Tim falls over himself on the ground.
“Dick!” Jason shouts, terrified.
Dick doesn’t show up immediately, but after a few more shouts the man pops his head into the living room.
“What’s wrong?”
Jason points at the television.
Damian’s hope of rescue quickly becomes an absolute nightmare as the man who called himself Alex Goodman pulls him through another giant collection of swamp water where there was a high-concentration of crocodiles.
“This’ll be good for the ratings,” Alex tells him. “Thanks for showing! We were having some trouble getting viewers.”
“Let me go you imbecile,” Damian yowls.
“Where’s Batman? Shouldn’t he be with you?” Alex asks.
“Shouldn’t your common sense be with you?” Damian retorts. He’s already planning to draw out his R shaped batarangs to defend himself against a horde of wild, hungry, crocodiles. “Aren’t you worried about getting hurt?”
Alex looks him dead in the eye. They both halt.
“I want to get hurt,” he tells Damian.
Damian doesn’t know how to take that.
“Uh-”
Damian tugs his arm out of the man’s grip. They both stare at each other as the camera crew catches up to them.
“I’ve been wanting to die some time now,” Alex tells him, honestly, “but if you can manage to fight off all of the crocodiles we can find… isn’t that a sign from God that he actually cares? He sent me a hero. Someone to stop me.”
"Assuming that’s the case,” Damian says, “I don’t see why he’d want me to fight off crocodiles for you. I'd just stop you if that's what he wanted.”
“Isn’t that what you do?” Alex asks. “Don’t you fight off villains, save the day, and protect the people?”
“Yes…” Damian answers warily. He crosses his arms against his chest.
“Can’t you do that for me, too?” Alex whispers, voice full of emotion, and tired.
Damian wasn’t prepared for this, but he’s not one to leave this man in the dust.
“I’ll tell you what I can do,” Damian says, in an attempt to convince, “we can turn right around from this whole thing. We don’t have to do things this way. We can talk this through. I can listen. I’m good at it. It’s what I do. What do you say?”
“How is that better?” Alex asks, genuine.
“We don’t have to put your life in mortal danger?”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
Dick nearly crushes the phone held up against his ear with furious strength as he waits for Starfire to pick up. He loved Starfire, he really did, but did she seriously leave his son in the middle of the wild!?
Dick’s already running for the batwing. He’s intent on getting Damian back. Nothing would stop him. Not even Bruce’s queries about what the hell was freaking him out so bad. Jason stayed behind to explain the situation to Bruce, and Tim was already in the pilot’s seat ready for take-off.
“Dick?” Starfire answers.
“Kori,” Dick blurts out, angry, scared, all of the above, “I leave Damian with you guys for one day, and you desert him?”
He’s almost shrieking. It’s not his best look, but his boy was trapped in Australia!
“I don’t understand,” Star says.
“What do you mean?” Dick is furious. “You left him in Australia!”
There’s a long pause.
“I wasn’t a part of that mission but-”
That doesn’t make Dick feel any better.
“But I’m so sorry. I should have checked up with the Teen Titans. I should’ve made sure they were keeping watch over Damian.”
Dick knows he shouldn’t be angry at Starfire at this point but- what the hell? He’d been so positive that Damian would have a good experience with his new team. He’d been so certain that he’d like working with some other supers his age. He felt partly responsible that Damian was on international television instead of tucked safely back in the tower. If Dick hadn’t been so insistent- if maybe he’d just taken the time to get the team used to Damian- ugh. What had he been thinking?
“Do you want me to get him?” Starfire asks.
“No need,” Dick returns, coldly, “we’ve on our way.”
Dick can’t trust himself to keep talking without blowing a gasket off on Starfire, and so for both of their sakes he tosses the phone away from his ear. He can hear Starfire asking for him, can see the side-glance Tim gives him, but he can’t focus.
Tim’s fingers tighten around the Batwing’s yoke.
Dick flies out of the batwing the minute it hits the ground. He’s aware they’re in the middle of the day, and that people were shooting him weird looks. He couldn’t bother with it, though. He's got his domino mask on, his suit, so he's good in that department.
They had followed Damian’s tracker to the middle of a rural town at a slanted, brown wooden paneled building. Judging by the giant chicken mascot on the building’s front, Dick imagined the place had something to do with serving chicken-orientated dishes.
Dick busts into the building with eyes searching frantically for his boy. His baby. His son.
“I know it’s hard-”
Dick’s hearing narrows in on Damian’s voice. His vision lands on a huddled group surrounding a singular table. There were a lot of people standing silently, listening, but there were only two sitting.
“Sometimes it might feel like things will never get better, and I know my words don’t mean a whole lot-”
Dick feels his heart start to settle from its constant pounding. The atmosphere was so quiet. Reverent.
“But imagine the good you can do with your show. You could really make a difference with what you have right now. You don’t have to throw away your life just to call for help- you sitting here is proof of that-”
Tim follows in after Dick. He settles himself by Dick’s side.
Dick pays close attention to what Damian was saying. Pride soon pushes away the anger, all the fear, and Dick can’t believe how grown up Damian is.
“Tim,” Dick croaks.
“Yeah,” Tim says, as if he understood.
He might. Dick didn’t know.
It takes a while for the crowd to part. Alex hugs Damian with a bone-crushing embrace, and Damian returns the affection openly with his guard loose. Dick was watching just in case. He didn’t want this Alex fellow to suddenly take advantage of his kid all because Damian wanted him to feel better.
Damian catches Dick’s eye in the middle of Alex’s bear hug. His face brightens up somewhat, but he still looks like he’d been thrown through a dirt grinder.
Dick didn’t care. The minute Alex relinquishes his hug, Dick tugs Damian into his arm.
“Proud of you, sweetheart,” Dick whispers into his hair.
“Could we not do this here?” Damian complains.
Dick laughs. It made zero sense that his son was so willing to hug a complete stranger, but hugging his dad seemed to be where the line was drawn for public affection. He relents according to Damian’s wishes, but he keeps a hand on his shoulder.
The hand stays on his shoulder as Dick guides him back to the batwing.
Tim says, “We saw you on television.”
Damian groans as Dick sits him down in one of the batwing's passenger seats. He doesn’t allow Damian a lick of responsibility for buckling himself in. He does it for him.
Dick can’t help himself. He’s relieved. He’s so relieved that he bends down to put a sloppy kiss in Damian’s grimey hair.
“Could you not?” Damian huffs, swiping him away.
“I love you, kiddo,” Dick tells him.
Damian turns a bright red. He glances at Tim to gauge his reaction, and Tim just gives him a knowing smirk.
Dick eventually sits himself in the co-pilot’s chair. He straps himself in as Tim settles in the pilot’s seat. Dick glances back at Damian to make one thing straight. “You’re not going back to the Teen Titans for a while.”
Damian didn’t object.