I can feel us enter Gotham's airspace.
The air feels different. Saturated in dark emotions trying to latch onto me. Trying to spread the city's madness. Heavy clouds cover the sky, blocking the sunset. Looking as if it's ready to pour ink-stained rain onto the smogging city below.
This is the city my brother loves.
Already at this point, I can tell it's different from Amity. It being a small town in the middle of Illinois where everybody knows everyone. The same kids you went to kindergarten with are going to be the ones who you graduate with. The ones you will be fighting among for a date or a job, and smile and act politely when you see them at church on Sunday. There was hardly any light pollution, and the night sky was filled with stars. While with this one, you're lucky to see an inch of blue once in your life.
I hear a beep from the overhead, signaling it's time to buckle up and get ready for our descent. I buckle up, and look around the compartment, feeling others' eyes on me. They're all doing it, besides Mr. Lawrence, whispering to one another, clutching their valuables. As if, somehow, just being near them would make them go missing. The rest of the passengers are dressed nicely, each wearing expensive clothes. Why did Father have to pay for the expensive tickets? Amongst the rest, I stick out, wearing threadbare clothing covered in stains, holes, and weird fluids. I watched them as we land, scurrying to get their things and leave the plane. Only a few are left when Mr. Lawrence signals me to get up.
" Welcome to Gotham," he says with a large smile as he hands me a bag, "Come on, let's get you home."
"Thanks," I say as I hike the bag up on my shoulder. I'll be going straight to Father's tonight. Between the time it took for the paperwork to be finished, get my documents, and wait for the flight, all the paperwork had been faxed and verified. Under normal circumstances, it would take longer to go home, but CPS had shown up recently to check out the house because of Tim, so they deemed it safe for me to go straight home.
No waiting in whatever weird foster home they'd put me in.
Lucky me.
The airport is packed full– I can easily understand how you'd lose somebody here, " Hey," I say, calling out to Mr. Lawrence, " how are we supposed to get to the house? I mean, we weren't supposed to be coming this early."
He places a hand on my shoulder, steering me towards baggage claim, " Everything is taken care of. I got in touch with your father, and he is sending someone for you."
" For me? What about you?"
He laughs and points out my bags, " Of course, your father wouldn't leave you stranded here."
" Stranded?" I ask as I grab my bags from the conveyor belt, " aren't you coming with me?"
He shakes his head as we make our way toward one of the lounges by the front door, " I have to get back to the office. just to make sure everything went through okay," his phone buzzes in his pocket. He checks it and says under his breath, " huh, my rides here," and collects his things. Lastly, he sticks out his hand for me to shake, which I do, " it was great meeting you, Danyal," and starts walking away.
" Do they know where to pick me up at?" I asked, raising my voice, but he left without answering. Sure, father won't leave me stranded, but apparently, you will.
Great, just great.
I drag myself over to a chair, annoyed. I'm in a new city, a crime-ridden city, with no knowledge of who it is exactly that I'm supposed to be looking out for. This is how you get people kidnapped, I swear to God. I don't have father's phone number, Damian's, or any of the others, and I can't pull out a communicator here. I pinch my eyes and groan, asking myself, 'what the hell am I supposed to do?' Then, with nothing better to do, I wait. Watching the steady flow of people coming in and out as the dark sky spills, creating large puddles that fill potholes with dirty water like used paint.
I just want to go home to a hug and a star-filled sky. At this point, it doesn't matter who's there; I'm tired. Since Mr. Lawrence showed up, it's been one thing right after another, with no time to stop. I'm tired of looking over my shoulder, watching strangers stare, some out of concern and some with other intentions gleaming in their eyes. It's close to midnight when I hear "Danyal" called out. I stretch and twist around in my seat, my eyes wide at the familiar man. He's dressed in an impeccable suit, followed by a long black overcoat, and In his hand is a long umbrella. Worry is adorned on his face as he calls out again, " Danyal,"
" Gramps," I yell to get his attention, causing him to whip around in my direction. The tension on his face vanishes once he sees me. He takes long, fast strides crossing the room in an instant. On his way, I can see his eyes studying me, gaining another look of worry. I understand I do. I haven't been looking my best lately. My clothes are bigger than they're supposed to be, dwarfing me and making my thin bony body look even worse.
"Oh, child, are you alright," he asks, finishing up his look-through, though looking for what I'm not sure about.
" I'm okay," I tell him trying to be reassuring.
" I'm so sorry," he says, sighing, " We didn't know you were here. No one told us you got the early flight. We assumed you'd be here tomorrow. Master Bruce only got in touch with Mr. Lawrence about an hour ago."
I pick up my bags, and he tries to take them, but I hike them up onto my shoulder and follow him out into the parking lot, " but he said that you all knew I was coming?"
He shakes his head, his eyes looking cold, " It seems there was some kind of miscommunication on his end then because, I assure you, Young Master, we were unaware of your arrival," I place my bags in the trunk and plop down into the back seat.
We make eye contact through the rearview mirror, " now then, let's get you home," and he takes off down the street. We ride in silence until my stomach starts to grumble. Gramps looks back at me, " have you eaten yet?"
" No, sir. "
He lets out a light hum and changes direction. A little less than ten minutes after, we arrived at Batburger. Gramps parks the car and hands me a twenty, " They have vegetarian and vegan options."
I don't take the money but instead, take out my wallet, " It's okay. I can pay for it. Do you want anything?"
Gramps places the money in my hand, " there is no need for that; I shall pay. Thank you for the offer Master Danyal, but I have already eaten."
We had a short battle of wills, but Gramps won out. So I end up with a combo meal with " jokerized" fries. Hopefully, they taste good. Unwilling to let Gramps go without, I buy him a sprite and head back to the car. " Thank you," I say as I enter, " am I allowed to eat now, or should I wait until we get there?" and hand him his drink.
Surprise flickers in his eyes, " You may eat now, Master Danyal, Wayne Manor is further out. We shall be home in about thirty minutes." The food is good, but I still prefer the Nasty BurgerI tell Gramps, and he chuckles, " best not to tell your brothers. They are incredibly fond of it" The rest of the ride is ridden in relative silence until Gramps says, " Master Damien assisted me in readying your room. He insisted on it being adorned with stars, said you would want it that way."
I can't help but smile and say wistfully, " he remembers that? What kind of stars did he add?"
" Master Bruce put a stop to him adding any without you, but Master Damien has left a pack of ceiling stars for you on the dresser."
Before I know it, we are approaching the Mannor, " is everyone out?"
" No, Master Bruce is home along with Master Damien."
My eyes narrow in thought, " Then what about Batman? Won't people notice that he's not out tonight?"
We pull up the driveway, " Master Dick is filling in for him tonight."
"I meant to ask about that. I heard Damian refer to him as Richard, but the media always has called him Dick, so which one does he prefer?"
"Master Dicks Biological family didn't speak English as a first language, and they were unaware of the connotations the nickname has in English, but it's the name he was used to, so he continues to go by 'Dick.'"
Gramps, parks, and turns off the car. I turn my arm, intangible, and drag my bags through the seat, not wanting Gramps to trouble himself with trying to get them. I exit the car with my bags in hand, getting a questioning glance, but all he says is, " Welcome home."
I follow him up the stairs with ectoblobs fluttering in my stomach in worry. It's been so long since I've last seen Damien in person. Over video wasn't enough. Is he taller than me now? He looked pail over the video, and with Gotham, that's to be expected, but is he too pail? Is he healthy? All my worries wash away as Gramps leads me into the house. Rushing down the foyer is Damien, a few inches taller than me, thanks to my treatment with the Fentons and portal incident ( I haven't grown much, if at all, since). He's not as pail as the video made him look, and looks healthy. He's about an arm's length away when he reaches behind his back, rushes behind me, and pulls out a kunai, ready to slice my jugular.
Father comes from down the hall and looks at Damien with wide eyes, looking at Gramps, unsure what to do when Ahki asks, " What happened on 11/07/20XX," startling a laugh out of me.
" That is need-to-know information," I say, humor laced into my voice.
" The Manor is secure," he says insistently.
I eye our audience, " fine, On–."
He cuts me off and looks at Father and Gramps, " you will not speak of this to the others," trying to be threatening. They give their assurances, and Damien taps my chin with the kunai, signaling me to get started.
" Mother and Grandfather had left Nanda Parbat; something needed both of their attention, they didn't tell us what. We were seven and still trying out new weapons. We had a tutor who specialized in the rope dart come in and teach us," I tried to look back at Damien to see if he wanted me to continue, but he didn't move his hand.
I tapped on it, and he moved to the side to see my face. I gave him a look, and he said, "all of that is common knowledge."
" I wasn't sure if you wanted me to continue, you never liked talking about it."
He grunts, " Which is why–"
" We use it for identification," I say, finishing his sentence. " We continued training it while they were away. I found it easy to use; Ahki did not." I make eye contact with Father, " when trying new weapons, we were supposed to be supervised, but Dami wanted more practice. We couldn't sleep, and he dragged me to the training room." Damien lowers his hand but still watches me intently, " He was practicing with the rope dart, but his aim was off. It hit the wall, ricocheted off it, and... landed in my pelvis," my hand instinctively going to the spot.
Damien puts away the kunai and comes in close, making me drop my bags, and In cases me in a hug and says softly, " It really is you."
My hands slip around him, and my eyes well up with tears, " Of course you, Idiot; who else would use that communicator." We stay like that for a few minutes, just holding each other, reassuring ourselves that the other is there. " It's good to see you."
We break our hold at father's muffled cough. His eyes are wet, and Gramps doesn't look too much better. " Are you okay? What happened afterward?" Father asked.
Damian stops me before I can get a word out, " don't you dare."
His look challenging me to do otherwise, but I ignored it, " He freaked out."
" Oh, did he?" Father says with an eyebrow raised.
" Yep, we weren't supposed to be there in the first place, and I got hurt. He didn't want to get in trouble, so we had to hide it."
" It was an accident," Dami cuts in.
" I know that," pushing any blame away from him, " we were little kids. Nothing like that had ever happened before, and you tried to take care of it."
"Tried to take care of it," Gramps asks, " what did he do?"
"He stole supplies out of the med bay and tried to fix me up. He did a good job, for it being his first time. The worst part of it all was hiding it from mother."
" Talia doesn't know?" Father asks.
Damien and I both shake our heads. " I pretended I had the stomach flu until it got well enough for me to move around and train again. we were old enough to care for ourselves, so she never saw it scar."
" So is that–" Father gets cut off by the sound of a Charming clock. My attention shifts, and I see that it's 2 a.m.
" I think it's time for Master Danyal to be shown to his room," says Gramps.
Both father and Damian looked as if they had forgotten the time. " I'll show him," says Damian. He grabs a bag from me and leads me upstairs to my room. " at the end of the hall is Father's room, and on the left is Richard's and Drakes', while mine is over on the right. You'll be next to mine."
"Why do you call all of them but Dick by their last name?" I can't help but ask.
His steps falter at my question, " at first, it was due to lack of familiarity. Now it's more of a habit."
He opens the door to my room and lays my bag on the bed. The room is large, coated with fresh paint, and full of the necessities but bare of personal touches. As I walk in, I see a large pack of ceiling stars on the dresser. I can feel his eyes linger on me as I take in the room, " would you like to help me put up the stars? I have a chart."
" I would like that," he says as he slowly makes his way to the door, " I'll see you in the morning,"
" Night, Dami."
" Yes, good night Danny," I say and shut the door behind him.