Rather Be On Top

chapter four

"That was pretty insane, wasn't it? Of course we couldn't just have a peaceful Christmas party for once. Joker had to go and ruin it."

Dick flopped onto one of the couches dramatically with his arms and legs sprawled out wildly. Jason grinned and dove towards him, landing on top. The eldest groaned but did nothing to move the anti-hero from his body. Tim tiredly tripped to the couch and climbed on top of the two oldest and plopped himself down on his stomach. Damian was left to stare at the tower of bodies. "If I poured fake blood on all of you and called the Gotham police, they'd think you'd all be dead and I'd probably be sent to jail." Tim stuck up his middle finger as a response making Damian grin and climb on top of the three to lay down on top, back to Tim's back.

Dick muttered a goodnight then fell asleep. Each one of them slept immediately in absolute warmth.

Bruce walked into the room moments after and stared at the pile of bodies. He was surprised the sofa was even able to take all of them. However, while they did weigh a lot, it wasn't really fat but more of pure muscle. Even then, the rule was three at a time on a single couch. Alfred stood next to Bruce with a smile. "Should we move them to their rooms, sir?"

Bruce shook his head. "No. Let them stay there. I want to see their reactions in the morning."

Damian was dreaming.

Not a dream, technically, more of a nightmare, dark and bloody and brutal everything he hoped for the future and more.

So, by definition, Damian was having a nightmare that to him was just another hope and dream.

At first, he opened his eyes in the dream world, nothing like before because it was the first time he glanced around to find absolutely nothing. It was a pitch black abyss that told him he was alone and that he needed to move forward and find himself. Because lost people were weak. The individuals that had no idea what they were going to do with their future bothered him dramatically. Made him sick. So he walked forward, even if it wasn't straight he moved his legs through the empty and unknowing.

Slowly, little by little, specs began to appear. They were small or large and floated aimlessly through the air as he passed them and as he found more and more appearing in a certain direction, he ran towards the source to find himself now standing in a city.

Gotham City to be precise.

Standing on the ground, Damian Wayne, dressed as the fourth Robin, wore chains on his wrists. More began to envelope his body and surround him on all sides as he was weighed down.

By burden.

And destiny.

An invisible force from behind him forced his head back and he could have sworn that pain was real because it felt so incredibly achingly brutal and forced.

His eyes were blinded by the moon closer to the city than it's ever been in all of history. Bright and brilliant and ingimidating, the full moon, blue and white, flashing how majestic it truly was to the people below that underestimated her beauty.

Standing upon a rooftop was a group of people, many people, all of them casting their shadows down at him.

For the first time since he was a villain, Damian finally realized that there were way more people above him that would haunt him for years to come.

Damian stood in the shadows.

Sadly, he was living in the shadows of the most important people of his life. It really hurt him now that he saw this in physical form.

It didn't occur to him how devastatingly painful ot was to just see them all now.

Standing there was his mother and father, his grandfather, Deathstroke, Jason and Tim. All of them had their backs turned even as he called out to them and sunk lower and into the ground, first his toes and then his ankles, soon enough his knees and then he was waist deep into the cold Gotham streets.