Who: Damian and Iris Where: DREAM LAND When: Last nightish What: A shared dream Warnings: Some violent imagery.
The crater was wide and held a gently cupped plain, the center the lowest part of the depression save for a small, circular peak of land, several paces in diameter and ringed by a knee-high border of wickedly sharp branches and vines. The sky overhead seemed to mirror the shape of the crater itself, the deep almost oppressive blue of a southern summer afternoon, streaked through with red and domed close over the crater. The edges of the bowl of land were aflame, the fire stitching together land and sky, and from within or beyond those flames came quiet but disturbing echoes of screams and sobs.
The air was mostly still, smelling of charred flesh and copper blood hanging heavy and overwhelming, enough to choke with its stench. When the breeze did blow, it carried a green humidity tinged with ripe peaches and sharp hospital antiseptic. On the central peak, a man’s height above the floor of the basin, stood the angel. It lifted eyes to the sky that were a deep black slicked with a petroleum rainbow swirl, and watched the swirling specks that betrayed the circling vultures there. Surrounding it on the ground was a dark circle of black feathers and blood, the color on its hands no longer simply stains, but now slicked with wet red.
Damian was in full costume and for once he was wearing his old yellow cape. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he would always have a soft spot for the thing. Part of him looked forward to passing it down to the next Robin when he went off to be something more. For now, though, it surrounded him with a protective golden glow. It’s all anyone would see standing a couple yards away in this rusted darkness. And, the only alarming thing about it is that he seems like easy prey.
He doesn’t know where he’s going, but something tells him he’s here to investigate. Not one of his stronger traits, not what makes him a good Robin, but something he has to learn how to do. Part of being a good detective included an interest in detail. Damian had no patience for that, though he would have to learn if he ever expected to wear the cowl. A small hum escaped the back of his throat. Becoming Batman wasn’t something he had thought of doing in a long time, even if it was the natural progression of things. Was it okay to be a different sort of Batman the same way Grayson was? Or did Damian have more to live up to than just brutality?
There was no wind when Damian arrived at this place, but suddenly a small, dry breeze picked up around his feet and sailed a single black feather into his hand. He looks up to see an angel. Was it the fallen from the party? Damian suddenly feels exposed and he desperately wants to change back into that carefree demon hunter. Holding the feather in his hand, he begins to trek up towards it. “Angel.” Damian says with a straightforwardness that is distinctly Wayne. “Is that you?”
Eyes shifted from whatever it watched in the distance that was visible only from the flat peak, moving slow as cold syrup and finding the owner of the voice. Its gaze found its own feather first, then traced the rest of the figure, taking in the costume, the cape, the curious blue eyes. This was a strange addition to the usual landscape, one that held mirage shimmers of past memories, but never anything quite so solid or present as Damian was. It looked down on him from the center of the raised area, and finally moved toward the edge, carefully keeping its distance from the wicked branches that fenced it in. The steps it took were precise and measured, neither rushed nor lingering, feet always covered by the same simply draped shift that it had worn the night of the Masquerade. Inexplicably, the landscape itself shivered in recognition. “You don’t belong here,” it said, certainty firming the edges of its voice, just as straightforward as Damian had been.
The statement hung in the air, joining the vultures and the copper scent there, but after a long pause, the peach and antiseptic scented breeze moved past them again, catching in the long shift and Damian’s cape and tugging at them for a moment. The breeze also brought a softening of the angel’s posture, shoulders easing and eyes, always black to this point, glazing across for just a moment with a lightening to blue. The change in color was gone almost as soon as it had arrived, but the softness remained and stole into its voice. “Your face is different here.” A pause then, the slightest tilt to its head, eyes fixed back on the feather. “You carry another token. Will you keep this as well? Tuck it away, a secret to hide?”
Damian was different. There wasn’t a laugh that echoed through the Angel’s accusations and horror show movements. No waft of smoke to keep him safe. He rolled his shoulders back, hand clutching the feather in his hand until it turned into black, rubbery water. “I didn’t hide it.” A sneer and then a step closer, the yellow cape billowing around him. “I kept it safe.” The dark ooze in his hand changed to a strange green, balled up into tiny little lights and flew off behind him. Damian could see the gravestones, the streams of light, the sadistic eyes in the dark. He knew what happened after betraying his father, but not by memory. He had to read the murder through pages. Had to sit with a choice he never thought he’d make.
“And, I don’t belong anywhere.” Damian whispered, a fierceness in his voice like it was someone else’s mistake. He barely belonged back in his Gotham and this new one was less inviting. Mother always told him his destiny was to be a king, the best and Damian threw it all away. For what? To wander from place to place until he found something worth sticking around for?
The angel’s gaze followed the green lights far into the distance, silence hanging before the sharp attention returned to Damian, needles beginning to burrow under skin with a gaze that brought a prickle along the spine. “It is closed away and trapped. You keep it safe by jailing it in the dark of a drawer.” The angel’s voice tightened, raised in pitch if not volume, pulling on emotion it rarely showed. “You took a piece of me and locked it away.” It made it sound as if the location of a single feather was the deepest insult to itself, and for a moment, the air behind it bent, hinting at rage and the breadth of wings that had once spread from its back. But in the next second it was gone, along with the angel’s anger, and it only appeared tired. Even its height seemed less, closer to Damian’s own than it had been.
“Many of us don’t,” the angel replied, voice fallen to a whisper that matched Damian’s in volume, if not the tone. “You think there is a true place for one such as me? ...I assure you there is not.” As it spoke, the hair that had been so clearly silver-white had begun to darken to a light gold, a slow shift that was subtle enough to be nearly unnoticeable at first. “That is when you find the others that have nowhere, make a place that is your own.” It took a moment to gaze past him, eyes on the fiery horizon. “But here. Here is a place no one else ever comes, save memories. And you are not a memory.” Eyes that were still black shifted to his face, accusing.
“If I wore the feather as a pin, it’d quickly disintegrate. Would you then accuse me of mishandling it? I can’t win with anything that fragile.” Damian spoke the truth like a child. His cold logic both judgemental and accusing, though the Angel hadn’t done anything but challenge him in ways he didn’t know how to fight. He rubbed his nose, finding this dry world was so different from Gotham. They were both places of darkness, but this one didn’t have the damp footprints of a city street. The haze of fog mixed with pollution.
“Show me a memory, then.” Damian demanded, more curious than confrontational this time. He knew this Angel was someone at the party and he wanted to know who. Even if it happened to be a stranger or someone from a different world, he found himself curious anyway.
The sharpness of Damian’s tone seemed to move around the angel like air over a rock, causing no damage or effect along the way other than a quick shiver of absent wings that sent another feather drifting to the ground. At the demand, there was a slow-passing moment of hesitation and inward debate before the figure stepped forward, hints of curve to the body beneath the fabric where there had been no curve before. “As you request.” With the ominous tone to its words, it drew as near to the low branch barrier as it could, and reached out, hand laying flat against Damian’s chest, palm to sternum through the vigilante costume.
At the contact, the strange world fell away. And even more than that, sight itself fled until there was not even darkness, just a lack of anything that could be considered vision. Other senses rushed to fill the void, sound first, then scent, then finally the taste of the air itself. The scent of burning thickened until it was nearly solid in the throat, accompanied by copper tang of blood, overwhelming individually and eventually combining to sizzle close to the ear as the blood itself burned and popped. Past the desire to retch and vomit, sobs attempt to escape the throat in reaction to the bone deep fear and sorrow and (above all else) desperation. Hands sting with the blistering of burns, the skin gone red and tight even without the vision to see them, and they’re covered in something that is slick between fingers and sticky under nails. The body beneath them is still, no breath moving the chest, no heart thumping within. Shut up... What the hell do you know about dishonor? You’re crying over a monster, you know that? Maybe you just don’t give a damn... The voices filter in, vicious and angry, cut off by gunshots and the continuing crackle of flame. ...He is gone. You are alone.
The memory ended, and vision returned like a wave of cold seawater breaking on the shore. The burning crater was gone, and in its place was the quiet wealth of Wayne Manor’s foyer. A figure stood on the bottom step of the stairs, no longer an angel, but a blonde woman dressed in subtly expensive clothing, eyes sad and shadowed, hands folded in front of herself. Iris studied Damian closely for his reaction, curious if he would somehow recognize her even though they’d never seen each other face to face.
Damian was the worst detective of all the Robins. It wasn’t that he was stupid, he just lacked a care for details. And, details solved cases. He couldn’t focus through the memory, feeling himself experience pain that wasn’t unfamiliar, but still managed to shake him to his core. He was a tough little beast, but a sensitive one that was willing to show pain just as quickly as anger. The yellow started to fade away as the memory persisted like it was being broken down piece by piece. Damian dropped to a knee, looking up at the Angel as the dying, glowing cape illuminated her face. He wasn’t surprised that she was someone who carried a great deal of pain around with her, but it also disappointed him. For once he’d like to find something that wasn’t so broken.
He closed his eyes until the burning stopped suddenly. Slowly, he looked up at the woman and seemed puzzled. Damian teetered to his feet, gaze squinted as he tried to understand what Iris was trying to show him. “I only know one blonde, and you aren’t her.” He wondered, though. Why here? Why the Wayne Manor? Was this just his dreams trying to find a familiar place to anchor, or something more?
Iris watched as Damian went to his knee, and the sadness in her eyes shifted to worry. She hadn’t thought it would hit him that hard, or she would have chosen another memory. Something less... traumatic. She thought about going over to help him up, but by the time she’d made the decision, he was already standing again, albeit unsteadily at first. “I’m sorry,” she apologized before he spoke. “I thought that one would be alright with you.” She stepped down as she spoke and once again closed the space between them. When she stopped close, she had to tip her head up slightly, much shorter than the angel had been. The angle of her head allowed a soft wave of hair to fall back from her face, and the smile she gave him was small but almost amused. “You obviously know more than just one, then.”
She saw the confusion race past his expression as he took in the changes to the scenery, and she took a guess at what he might be thinking. “It’s safe here. I thought this would be better than where we were before.”
“You do know who I am.” Damian nodded and looked around the mansion. “You’re right. This is a safe place. Even when there’s a threat of intruders or even a fire.” He crossed his arms like all the Robins did, staring up at the high ceilings. “The mansion always gets rebuilt. Always turns into a place we can rest.” That wasn’t to say there was much time spent at the mansion resting, but it was always there to be a comfort. To recharge and restart. Pennyworth was a little like that. Even if abused or forgotten on the sidelines, the butler was always there to help and provide insight.
Damian was quiet for a moment. His eyes narrowed behind the Robin mask as he tried to see what she was trying to tell him. She seemed suddenly much kinder, almost gentle and that rang a certain bell in his head. “Iris?” He tilted his head as the smile on his face betrayed him. If that was her, he was happy to see her. Sure, there was a lot of baggage that he clearly didn’t know anything about, but he considered her a friend. Someone that would talk to him honestly when everyone else had some kind of agenda.
Iris simply responded with another soft smile at first, which widened a bit more as the realization hit his eyes. It was a strange thing to watch behind his mask, and his own smile was unexpected, causing her to blink several times in surprise. After she regained her composure a bit, she nodded, eyes warm.
Damian stepped closer until he was about a foot away. “You were the fallen angel at the party.” His hands dropped to his sides, arms hanging boyishly. “You knew I was the demon hunter and you weren’t even mean to me about it.” Still, just moments earlier she had taken the form of the Angel and didn’t exactly give him the warmest reception. She was a hard person to read, which would usually have frustrated Damian, but he didn’t mind. Iris was so unwaveringly kind to him, even when she was scolding his actions. That made up for the mysteriousness.
“That memory you showed me- were you trying to scare me away?” Damian’s eyebrows raised in concern. The idea that she was being disingenuous would crush him a little, but he had handled much worse let downs.
People usually didn’t stand that close to Iris, not lately at least, and even in dreams it caused her to take half a step back, her weight rocking back onto her right foot. She retreated no farther than that, however, and at his question breathed out a quick, amused bit of air. It could barely be called a laugh by most. “Why would I be mean about that?” She was honestly puzzled; she couldn’t remember the demon hunter doing anything that would merit anything less than her usual civility.
His next question caused her expression to darken into something more serious, a flatness to it that even her usual calm expression didn’t hold. “No. You asked for a memory, and that one was closest. No one else knows--” She paused and swallowed, taking another step back to provide some distance, drawing her feet together again. “I thought you would be okay. With it.” Her entire demeanor began to close off to protect herself, hands folded in front of her again, shoulders set into something with defensive angles. This is where hints of the angel began to show again, untouchable, remote, the warmth and fondness being blockaded inside. It reflected in the building around them, bars on the windows of Wayne Manor, weapons visible by the door.
“As the demon hunter I didn’t hold back. At all.” Damian seemed to possess a mix of shame and embarrassment over that. Which, given his track record in the comics and even on the journals, seemed odd. “I don’t like treating you badly.” Of course, the extent of what the demon hunter did was no different from how Damian acted, just a touch more jovial. But, he was careful around Iris the same way he would be around an admired older sister or a mother. He’d never make that leap himself, due to the negative feelings he had toward even the word mother, but there was no denying his attempt at warmth.
“I wasn’t expecting an intense memory.” Damian straightened a little. “But, I’m not afraid. If you want to try again, I can handle it.” He thought maybe that would keep her from turning back into the angel. They’d likely never get to talk face to face again, so he wanted to use this time properly.
His almost humble tone drew her back out of her defensive posture, back into something warm. Her eyes had darkened to be black edge to edge again, a strange look when the rest of her features remained her own, but they so slowly began to lighten again to their normal blue. “You neither said nor did anything that I would ever consider being treated badly.” She almost wanted to reach out to touch his arm in reassurance, but her hands stayed clasped in front of herself for the moment.
“I should have warned you more. I’m sorry.” The lines around her eyes went sad, and for a moment she looked much older than she should, tired and weighed down and years added to her features. It wavered after a moment like water, returning her once again to her normal appearance. “I don’t have to again unless you wish. It seems cruel to show you a second time. No one should have to experience that.” She didn’t seem to realize the irony of that statement coming from someone that had experienced it, and as more than simply a memory.
Damian looked down, chin tucked to his chest as he thought back to the memory she showed him. He was aware Iris had a troubled history, but when it seemed like something he had experienced in his youth, it gave him a feeling of sympathy that was hard to come by. “Can you tell me what happened? In the memory?” If he knew what was going on beyond sounds, scents and that overwhelming sense of dread, he could understand it and her.
Iris spent a long, silent moment looking at Damian, trying to figure out how she should proceed. Showing him the memory again would be cruel; she truly believed that even with his own history there was no need for him to experience her memory more than once. But telling him - she could do that in a way that would cushion some of the actual events. Turning enough to angle around him, she took a step forward. As her foot hit the ground, it crunched into lush grass, somewhere near the edge of the Wayne property. Her steps continued, as if she simply expected Damian to follow. She sent words back over her shoulder like bait.
“I’d run away with someone. A not very nice someone, if we’re being honest. It was after I’d begun to... fall apart, and everyone since has said he was using me. Like he used everyone else. ...like a novelty.” Her voice was thin, as she had to force it out from a throat gone tight and painful. She hadn’t spoken of Ian in a long time, and the conflicting feelings still twisted her stomach. “I didn’t care. He was offering me things - affection, freedom from a life I didn’t want to be in any more. But. ...his past caught up with him.” It was a simple statement, but it weighed heavy with the bits of the memory Damian had already experienced. The recitation died away as her steps continued, even and measured, and she finally found her voice again since she wasn’t sure how much detail he wanted. “They... shot him. More than once. And there was fire, but I’m not sure how that started...” The words finally stuck in her throat like limp, dead things, and she went silent as she watched the progress of her own feet in the grass. A breeze carried across the grass, but instead of bringing the smell of green growing things, it was heavy with the stench of the earlier crater.
Damian followed her like a dutiful child, his cape materializing through the darkness and returning to his costume as a faithful companion. He didn’t understand love, but he knew the need for affection. How someone could crave the first person who gave it to them. “Do you regret it?” He asked, eyes scanning the grounds for the very place he last remembered in his old Gotham. Between the graveyard, far away from the dog or the mansion. The glow of red eyes that beckoned him back into the life of a killer. He’d do it again and again. Play by his own rules to stop bad men. If his father kept on lying, then Damian would just have to keep lying right on back.
The crater was growing close, he could feel it, but Damian managed to insert relics of his own mind. A laboratory with futuristic devices and huge green tanks. The smell of sand and salt mixing with her burning world. Whenever Damian thought of who he was supposed to be, he thought of his mother who smelled like the ocean.
“No.” Her word dropped like a heavy stone in a very deep well. It was a truth she hadn’t admitted to anyone else. Ian had done awful things, she knew that, but there was something deep within her that still felt tied to him. Perhaps it was simply the nostalgia of first love, but it was something that would be dangerous, were he still alive. She felt like she could admit it to Damian though, and not have him judge her. “I regret the way it ended. But I don’t regret being with him.”
Watching the unfamiliar items materialize among the landscape, a soft sad sound escaped her throat. She knew the shreds of his history and knew what the laboratory was. Her own thoughts faded, his pushing forward to solidify around them. The scent of burning lingered, but it somehow merged with the technology that was visible, becoming scorched wiring and electricity. The ocean salt surprised her, reminded her of family as well, trips to the beach that were filled with that scent and the sound of waves. Her hand found his arm, slipping bird-light into the crook of his elbow, an action more suited to a casual stroll than facing horrors in their dreams. She felt like she should say more, something about his past, but the words wouldn’t come.
That’s what he wanted to hear. He didn’t believe in wishing away past choices, just how they turned out. He didn’t regret being conceived the way he was or joining the bat family, he just wished sometimes it turned out a little differently. “I carry around my mother’s laboratory everywhere I go. I have dreams of being in the tank. Even as an adult.” Damian placed a hand on nearby equipment, looking faintly at the buttons and circuits. “It’s supposed to make us strong. The memories of bad things. But, sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s just more temptation to fall deeper into a comfortable pit.” Damian looked down as she slipped her arm in his and smiled a little. Well, at least two messed up psychopaths had each other to keep them straight, right?
She returned his smile, a slight warming of her eyes, and the fingers tucked in his elbow tightened for just a moment. “I know.” Her words were soft, and she didn’t clarify what exactly it was that she knew, whether it was something about him or something about herself. She returned her attention to the tanks and technology that surrounded them, especially as one began to lighten, a strange green sunrise encased in glass and liquid. It took her a moment to realize what was happening, but as other things in the dream began to fade - the things that were solely hers - it made sense to her. She sighed and after a moment leaned up to press a kiss to Damian’s cheek. “Stay safe,” she whispered, a strange goodbye for most, but it was what she always said to the vigilantes in her life. “You know where to find me.” Her words faded as she did, pulled out of the dream by the waking world.
Damian gave a troubled look to the ground as he began to understand he was dreaming as he sometimes did right before he woke up. “You, too.” He replied softly as he smiled up at her moments before the No Man’s Land they were strolling through became so bright he lifted a hand to shield his eyes. And, then he was awake. Slowly at first, as he turned his head to look out to the seemingly peaceful Wayne garden.