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Chapter Text

November 17 - Saturday - 6:57 PM

Yuki Sato was tall and had long limbs. These two qualities secured him the goalie spot despite his clear lack of talent for the position. He was on the team opposing Damian’s, so he held his critiques about his placement. Damian kept his eyes locked on the ball as it spun over the warm sand to shift ownership from Marco, a teammate, to Damian. The sun was low behind him, illuminating Yuki’s lightly tanned torso as he awkwardly shuffled in front of the goal he was meant to protect.

Damian blocked Henri’s attempt to steal the ball from him with a swift turn of his body, something he’d picked up from the times he’d played with Brother. Quickly noticing that he had a clear line to the goal, Damian shot the ball hard towards the net. Sato’s eyes went wide with a frightened shock as the ball barreled towards him, clearly in blocking distance. Instead of moving to block it, the boy flinched away, letting the ball slam into the net behind him.

“Sorry.” Sato mumbled to his teammates, lamely going to retrieve the ball from the net.

The boy he handed the ball to patted him on the shoulder consolingly. While the others moved to set the ball in the middle of their makeshift field, Damian wordlessly headed for where he’d left his rash guard and half-drained bottle of juice. The drink was uncomfortably warm now, so he ignored it and just reached for his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead before pulling it on over the sand that sprinkled his skin.

The action caught the attention of the other boys. “You’re going?” Marco asked. Damian and Drake agreed they would only stay long enough to get the information needed on the island. He’d noticed the older boy left their spot to wander to the water, an obvious sign that he’d accomplished his objective. 

Damian offered them a nod. “We had dinner plans. We should be making our way soon.” A lie, but a simple and easily believable excuse. He bent down to collect all the variations of empty drink containers he’d allotted to the group earlier and discarded them in a nearby recycling bin.

“You were not bad.” Henri offered teasingly, his words heavy with a French accent. “Next time I might allow you in my team.” It was unlikely there would be a next time, but Damian accepted the sentiment.

“You said you hadn’t played football before.” Porter accused, “But you scored the most points out of all of us.”

“I’d only played with my brother.” Damian explained, remembering the hours they’d spent in the manor gardens. “He taught me.” 

“Really?” Henri asked, looking over where Drake was humoring a pair of girls a distance away. “You should’ve told him to come play with us, then.”

Damian frowned. “Not him,” he corrected, annoyed at the recurring misunderstanding. “Daniel.”

“Wait,” Sato chimed in to ask, “He plays on that hockey team?” When Damian nodded, “I knew it. The clips are all over my feed.”

“Right!” Someone else recalled. “Number 17.” He said with a deeper voice than should be natural, clearly mimicking something, but Damian couldn’t tell what. Some of the other boys made remarks of recognition. “He plays football too?”

“He does.” Damian answered simply. He looked over to where Drake was, managing to meet his eyes for a short moment. Drake needed him to make an excuse for him to leave, apparently. “I should go now.” Damian began making his way to the beach.

“See you!”

“It was loads of fun.”

“Bye, Damian.”

Drake pretended not to notice Damian approaching where he stood in the middle of a circle of girls. In retort to that, he collected a notably large shell he noticed in the sand and shot it at Drake’s head.

“Ow!” Drake yelped, hand going to the shell’s landing site. It had been the dull side, so he wasn’t actually injured. “What the hell, dude?” He grumbled at Damian. The girls surrounding him turned their attention to him as well. 

“We need to go.” Damian said simply, crossing his arms.

Drake dragged a hand through his salt-soaked hair. “Sorry, ladies, I totally lost track of time with all the fun we were having.” He said apologetically to the small crowd, as he sluggishly made his way to Damian

“Aww.”

“Can’t you stay just a little bit more, Timmy?” They asked.

“Next time, I promise.” He waved behind him, smiling apologetically. He made a show of leaving, while Damian, no longer able to bear the sight, left to where their things had been left.

“You could’ve been nicer about it.” Drake complained once he managed to make it to where Damian was putting away their things.

“I was being nice.” Damian could’ve easily used the sharper side of the shell to leave a pleasantly sized open cut in his forehead right where the saltwater dripping from his wet hair was landing on his skin.

Drake gave him a seething look but had the mind to not retort. They called Carlos to come get them before heading to change in bathrooms.

Pulling out of the parking lot, “Would you like to have dinner at home, or should we stop somewhere?” Carlos asked, remembering yesterday’s arrangement.

Before Damian could answer, Drake did. “We can eat at the house.” He said with well-hidden urgency. He wanted them to get to their casework as soon as possible.

“Okay.” Carlos took the car to the road and drove in silence, while Drake shuffled through his bag for something. 

“Here.” He handed Damian half a set of earbuds.

Looking down at it, “I want the other ear.” Damian demanded, holding his hand out expectantly. 

“No.” Drake snapped, taking the more preferable earbud for himself, selfishly.

Begrudgingly, Damian put his earpiece in while Drake loaded up the footage from the drone. He was well versed in how the procedure went. They would first watch it all the way through in its entirety, then revisit the sections they needed more clarity on. The purpose of this drone’s expedition was to create a map for Robin and Red Robin’s upcoming infiltration, so Damian wasn’t expecting the footage to be particularly eventful.

The footage first showed the island in its entirety. Damian made an effort to commit the general placement of the small section of land to memory before more details were introduced. Once the drone closed into its first location, the greenhouse, Damian’s eyes immediately went wide in recognition of the flower he’d found. He looked over at Drake to make sure he’d noticed as well, and he nodded grimly at the screen for Damian to keep watching. There was a whole greenhouse dedicated to cultivating the peculiar plant, and it had an even more odd care procedure.

The main part of the laboratory building didn’t give any indications to take note of on the first watch, but the three sections that had been noticeable in the aerial view were a prime focus. One, the greenhouse of the red flowers; two, the warehouse-style lab with the strange and suspicious contraption. The third had been left unknown. Damian had seen the risk the drone faced of being caught and likely seized, and without first decoding the signs, it would be difficult to find how to get to the third sector to understand its significance.

The drone’s escape footage was cut short when they pulled up to the front of the house they were staying in. To resume the cover of civilian-hood, they couldn’t show any abnormal urgency to finish watching the recording. The servants came in to take their belongings to be appropriately stored without instruction. Drake kept a bag to himself and shooed away the servant that attempted to have it taken to his room.

“You’re back already.” Isabella greeted cheerfully, “Your food is ready for you once you are ready to eat.”

Drake nodded to her appreciatively. “I’ll be down after I get cleaned off.” He said, heading to the stairs.

“And what about you?” Isabella turned to Damian when he hadn’t left for his room. 

Unlike Drake, he’d stayed on land for the whole trip and had dusted the sand off before leaving. Would it be better if he ate now so that he could commit himself to his work while Drake took his meal, or should they eat together? Their regular meals together at the manor were a relatively new establishment, dating to Brother’s arrival in Gotham. There hardly seemed a point to it here, oceans apart, and with the child of Father’s he got historically along with the least.

Though, just because he wasn’t dirty with seawater didn’t negate the amount of sweat that had built up to make his skin feel clammy. “I’ll freshen up as well.” Damian decided.

Isabella nodded pleasantly. “Alright.” She said, returning to her work.

10:32 PM

Dinner was a quick matter, further fueled by the fact that they had both forgotten to eat after breakfast. Damian made sure to thank Isabella for the meal before reconvening with Drake in his room. Without much preamble, they both focused on closely analyzing the drone footage.

When the greenhouse full of red blossoms came into view again, “I told you those flowers are important to our case.” Damian made a point to say this time.

“Yeah, yeah.” Drake rolled his eyes, not really acknowledging Damian’s advancement in the case. He still didn’t have an explicit relation between the flower and their case, which meant its final value as a clue was still to be determined. As the drone closed in, Damian took a closer look at the precautions the researchers took to manage the plants. Air filtration masks and lab-grade gloves. Damian knew from the first viewing of the footage that their attire was standard for all of Dalv Co.’s personnel. 

From his own experience he easily recalled how touching the plants with bare hands made his skin burn with unformed blisters. The smell, like their mountain guide had expressed, was impossible to ignore. The first night Damian had made the mistake of leaving it on the pamphlet. When he returned to his room a few hours later, the smell had seeped so deeply into every aspect of his room that he’d succumbed to a coughing fit that forced his dinner into the trashcan. He couldn’t even touch the fabrics in his room without feeling his skin prick with unexplainable harshness. Damian had needed to request a new room and that all his clothes be washed again before he could wear them again.

He couldn’t throw the flower out, certain, even then, that it was an important clue. But Damian could hardly let its unbearableness seep into another room. He eventually came up with the idea of storing the flower in a secure food container without any of Father’s standard Bat-grade sealants accessible. It held up decently enough. Damian took to keeping his fan on indefinitely and cracking open a window that pointed to the pool on the property to help filter the air. The scent was bearable after that, though Damian found that he was having difficulties sleeping, which he attributed to the odd flower.

The flowers in the greenhouse were healthier than the one Damian kept in a Tupperware on his dresser. The petals were a vibrant red with long and strong stems to hold the large flower head upright. As the drone closed in even more, Damian noticed something new. Some sections of the greenhouse, while having the same bright red petals, had a deep purple stem instead of green. Was it a different breed of the flower?

The researchers were eventually called out of the greenhouse, and as they filed out of the building, Damian noticed something he wanted to be sure of before he voiced it to Drake.  for the plants to be artificially rained on. “Do you know what they are?” Damian asked.

“I have my suspicions, but I really hope I’m wrong.” Drake said glumly, eyes glued on the screen. The murky blue liquid was most likely a type of fertilizer-infused water. The second was a peculiar blood red whose consistency was difficult to replicate that closely. If it was blood, the most obvious question that followed was, where were they getting that much? The staff thought of this as a regular enough occurrence that the action had been done with a simple command and without any uncertainty of procedure.

Assuming the greenhouse’s size to be at least 3000 square feet and the average water distribution for a greenhouse to be 0.4 gallons per square foot resulted in the greenhouse needing a minimum of 1200 gallons. An adult held an average of 1.5 gallons of blood in their body. Damian automatically calculated the amount in his head before he could think to stop himself. That meant at least 800 human bodies a day.

It was possible that his calculations could be wrong since he didn’t have proof that the greenhouse was using human blood and not animal. Another uncertain factor was that the blood that the greenhouse used was visibly being distributed as a slower consistency than the water. How could Vladimir Masters have done so without having any suspicions or relations to alerting human or animal trafficking, seeing as only now were Drake and Damian being alerted of it? 

Drake had already made the same realization and was noting that on his report log where Damian could see. Damian let the matter remain in silent contemplation since there wasn’t much that could be done about it now. Human trafficking and laundering, despite the Justice League’s best efforts, were still a large international concern. It was the case that Cain had left to investigate in Shanghai under the guise of attending the very prestigious Shanghai Arts School. 

 Damian instead pointed out another detail. “All the flowers that were picked have purple stems.” He’d noticed first when the researchers were called to leave the greenhouse, but now, as the drone flew closer to them and overheard mundane conversations, he was able to get a closer look at the hands of the swarm of researchers. 

“What?” Drake asked, surprised. He rewound the footage to when the scientists began filing out of the greenhouse and slowed it down to examine as many of the selection of flowers as he could. “Why are the stems purple?”

“It’s not entirely uncommon for plants to have purple stems.” Damian explained, recalling his long-ago lesson on herbs and poisons. “It has to do with their habitats and climates. But it is unusual for plants growing in such sunny or tropical regions.”

“Maybe the green-stemmed ones are growing into the purple stems.” The older boy hypothesized. “These clearly aren’t normal flowers.”

“It’s possible.”

“It would explain why those are the only ones that were picked.” He concluded and let the video continue. “Maybe that means they’re ready for whatever they’re trying to do with them.”

As the scientists left the greenhouse, they disposed of their safety gear and held the flower with their bare hands as they entered the main building. Damian had hardly been able to do the same for more than a few minutes. Drake, like the scientists, hadn’t shown any adverse effects from the flower in his short exposure to it. In fact, Damian alone had such dramatic reactions to the flower. Even the staff that had been tasked to deal with his old room and clothes hadn’t seemed to be able to notice even the slightest thing wrong and had very evidently chalked it up to Damian’s temperament.

The first assumption was an allergy. That couldn’t be the case; Mother had edited his genes to ensure that he had none. She would not have the oversight to let something as innocent as a flower allergy be Damian’s weakness.

The drone followed a particular pair of scientists that took their flower into a nondescript laboratory. Without much preamble, one took to a desk with the newly acquired flower and began dissecting it slowly and carefully. The prepared containers were labeled in English, unlike the other labels in the hallways or outside the building that were in an unintelligible collection of symbols and characters.

The other scientist got to work at a machine set in the corner of the room. Damian pointed it out, easily recognizing it. “That’s used to extract scents and compress them into essential oils. Mother often commissioned the League's perfumer to further her own personal scent collection, though I doubt that was his sole purpose.” Damian recalled. “I’m not personally familiar with the process.” The scientist opened one of the storage units, and a cold steam escaped that he took precaution to get away from, expecting it. It looked like a collection of red petals from the flower that had been frozen to a brittle crisp. A portion was dropped inside the machine to be processed.

“Poison?” Drake asked, watching the scientist work. 

“Most likely.” 

Had Damian poisoned himself with the flower? That would explain his reaction to it but not why he seemed to be the only one to have one. Surely the scientists and research staff interacted with the plants more than him without particular regard to safety equipment. From the footage, turning the flower into a poison seemed to require a particular process.

The drone doesn’t stay long enough to show the full process of what was being done to the flower’s frozen petals. Giving more attention to flying around the room to see more of its contents until a newcomer arrived at the lab with a guard.

By the way she spoke to the working scientist in the lab, she must hold a position of superiority. ‘What are the stats for today?’.

‘Around 30%, ma’am.’ The flower perfumer answered hesitantly.

The manager was dissatisfied with that. ‘You do know the importance of your task. It’s vital for Mr. Master’s newest project.’

‘Right, ma’am, of course.’ The scientist working on the machine stood stiff and silent and shared a look of concern with the flower dissector. ‘It’s just, the flowers take time to ripen and the procedure is very delicate—’

‘I don’t care. If you don’t meet your quota of blood blossoms, Fumer, I’ll be the least of your problems.’ The manager cautioned.

‘Yes, ma’am.’ The pair said as she turned to leave with the drone hovering above her security’s head.

The name was new to him. “Blood blossom.” Damian mumbled, trying the words in his mouth. 

“There goes their plausible deniability.” Drake joked dryly as the camera followed the manager and his guard out of the room. The drone followed from a safe distance before it suddenly stopped moving. Drake turned to Damian to give him a judgmental eyebrow raise. “Can you guess where this is from?” He asked condescendingly.

Damian huffed, hiding his embarrassment. He’d been so sure of the fact that Brother was in danger, but now, with the moment passed, it seemed childish and ridiculous to think he could sense someone in danger thousands of miles away.

The dramatic frown on Drake’s face shifted for more serious introspection. “I texted Danny while Carlos was getting our things in the car,” He began, watching Damian’s face closely. “Apparently, he was watching Lian as a favor to Roy—not sure how they met—and they were attacked by some local rogue.”

“What?” He’d been right? 

“Apparently he was poisoned and needed a few stitches but should be fine.” Drake concluded, pausing the footage before turning all his attention to Damian. “How did you know something was going to happen?”

“I don’t know…” He muttered, honestly. Drake didn’t look satisfied, and neither was Damian at the lackluster explanation. “I just had a feeling.”

“How convenient.” Drake rolled his eyes and turned back to the footage. In the time the drone remained stagnant, a pair of chattering scientists had passed by in range for the device to pick up their conversation.

‘Seriously, again?’ One asked, clearly annoyed.

‘Apparently someone got caught up in a faulty experiment.’ The other explained, equally peeved.

‘Those damn Phantoms making shit harder for us even without even being here.’ The first one cursed. What did he mean by that? 

‘Tell me about it. Those signs are already impossible to understand.’ They were almost out of the frame now. ‘The sooner we can get rid of them, the better for humanity.’

“They’re after Phantom specifically.” Drake noted aloud, “And not all ghosts in general.”

“Why would they need to change the signs if someone got injured in an experiment?” Damian wondered before remembering the answer himself while regarding Drake’s comment. “The person must have died.” He suddenly concluded, “If they’d been able to read the signs, then Phantom can read them too.” Damian explained, finally understanding the odd choice Master’s had made. 

Drake easily picked up his line of thought: “Phantom can understand the language of anyone who ever died. If we take into account that he’s who they’re focusing most of their attention on, that would explain the ghost shield and anti-satellite qualities they have. If Phantom does come, which they’re expecting him to eventually, then they want him there in person.” He added to what Damian had said. “Do you think Danny knows about this?”

It was possible considering his past of heroing in Amity Park, but his animosity with Masters seemed surface level only. To learn that he was supposedly doing all this to target Phantom specifically seemed out of the scope of what they could’ve learned from the Phroums. But they can’t be certain without asking him directly, since the Phorums didn’t have any of his own accounts and only showed public fights. 

If they accounted for what they’d been able to find from the GIW’s files, it seemed more likely that Phantom might know at least somewhat of this. Based on what they knew of the time Phantom left for the first six-month period during the GIW unlawful martial law. The second time he’d left, just a short time after his initial departure, all the ghosts in Amity Park left with him.

Was it a coincidence, or did Phantom have some kind of influence from other ghosts? From the footage uploaded to the Phorums he seemed to be on good terms with both ghostly and living residents of the town. It was particularly the Fentons, Masters, and the GIW that opposed Phantom harshly and influenced a small portion of Amity Parkers to abide by their mindset.

Phantom was a powerful ghost. If the ghosts believed he was in danger, it could make them question their own safety since they were made particularly vulnerable by Phantom’s return to the Ghost Zone. Was this the fact that influenced Masters to fund research against Phantom specifically? If they were somehow able to neutralize him, they could easily do away with the other, less powerful, ghosts. It was only speculation. Without asking Brother, they couldn’t know for sure his relationship with Masters.

Drake didn’t seem to expect Damian to respond to his question and continued on with the footage. There are no other clues they are able to notice as the drone is made to wander through the twisty hallways and periodically scan various signs. Drake had uploaded the footage to one of his programs to plot the map in a 3-D format that is compatible with the technology built into their suits. Half-paying attention to the screen, he pulled out his phone.

“You’re not seriously asking Brother, are you?” Damian balked at coming in closer to read the screen of his phone over his shoulder.

“I’m not stupid, brat, of course not. I’m asking Oracle to run the images we have of the signs to decode them for us. I don’t have the program for that.”

“Tch.” Damian settled back into a more comfortable sitting position, watching the footage while the older boy was distracted with tomorrow’s preparation. Damian took stock of the vents in the ceiling. He could tell by the design in them that they were easy to access; they were large and could be disassembled and reassembled without damaging them. The facility had a clear emphasis on security, noting that all personnel traveled in pairs and the multi-factor authentication at almost every entry point. They were clearly put in place with trespassers in mind, yet the vents were entirely overlooked. Was it a trap since vents are known as the easiest way to sneak around? Or was it because ghosts, commonly equipped with invisibility and phasing, wouldn’t need vents?

Eventually the drone arrived at a notably different room with the large covered machine in the corner. Drake’s attention returned fully to the footage once it passed the large doors into the warehouse-like facility. As the drone went to assess the large tarped creation, the same wind from the night before pushed the drone away from getting too close and saved it from alerting the security system. The wind-user had instead sent in the tire to express the dangers of the room.

Domain could hardly fault Drake for leaving such a large portion of the facility uncharted after potentially alerting the facility of his presence. The room, from the stationary scan of it, had scattered parts of mechanical contractions that Damian couldn’t make much sense of. They would have to wait till they could get physical access before they would be able to find out what they were keeping hidden.

Eventually the drone left the building and returned to the beach. “The map should be ready in a few hours, or at least as much of it as we can make from the footage. Babs is working on figuring out the signs right now. We’ll know more by morning.” Drake said, stretching his arms and yawning. “I already sent you the tickets for the cruise we’re going on tomorrow, so make sure you have everything you’ll need.”

“I don’t need such childish instructions.” Damian said, irritated, crossing his arms to prove his point.

Drake raised a brow, and his lip twitched like he found something funny. Damian’s frown could only deepen. “Whatever. I’m going to sleep.” He said, shooing Damian away with his hand.

Damian left for the short walk to his own room. The cruise was a two-day ocean excursion that would be passing close enough to the Dalv Co. island that they could sneak the boat for. Arriving at his room, Damian paused at the door, bracing himself for the potentially poisonous flower sitting on his dresser.

November 18 - Sunday - 7:12 AM

Damian woke up with a painfully dry throat and a now routine morning cough. Already familiar with the feeling, he pulled himself out of bed and made the walk to the kitchen, where the staff was only beginning to arrive.

“Good morning, mijo.” Isabella greeted him, preparing to make breakfast. “Up early again.” She mused, setting a warm cup in front of him. "Here, this will help with your throat."

Damian tried to speak his gratitude, but it came out too scratchy to make much sense. Isabella just gestured for him to take the drink. The ceramic cup was comfortably warm from its contents, and steam blew into his face as he lifted it. It smelled sweet and churned in the cup with the familiar fluid consistency of water. The warm honey tea had a slight hint of lemon and quickly remedied his symptoms.

When Damian finally set down the empty cup, Isabella came to collect it without instruction and wiped the counter where he hadn’t used a coaster. Damian watched the woman cook and instruct the other staff on what they should do seamlessly. In a way it was like being back at the Manor with Alfred busy with his early morning work. Except the Manor did not employ so much excess in staff, uncharacteristic of a family as wealthy as Father’s. Though Damian was beginning to suspect he may not be as wealthy as Damian had assumed.

The double doors that led to the backyard and pool let in a fresh morning breeze that managed to sweep into the kitchen despite being further down the hallway. Damian watched Isabella work diligently, chopping and prepping the food that would make his breakfast. She quickly noticed his attention and narrated her process for Damian, pausing periodically to make sure he was following. The first day he’d woken up particularly early, he’d inquired only to ensure the fish he’d seen her preparing wasn’t meant to be served for him. Not knowing his original intention, Isabella had since taken it upon herself to educate Damian on the process of how his meals were made. 

“And now I’ll let this sit until you and your brother are ready to eat it.” Isabella concluded. “Would you like your food now, or will you wait for him to wake up?”

Damian was not waiting to take his meal with Drake of all people. “I'll freshen up first.” He’d come down as soon as he’d woken up and hadn’t paused to so much as get dressed.

Wearing an outfit he deemed acceptable for the cruise they would be setting off for before noon, Damian passed Drake’s room as he walked towards the stairs and to the kitchen. He didn’t bother with stealth when he opened the well-cared-for door and walked towards the bed where Drake lay unmoving.  

Damian stood there for a moment, looking down at the sleeping face, wondering how he should point out his weakness of not noticing Damian in his room. He began reaching for one of the abandoned extra pillows to suffocate him when his wrist was grabbed mid-motion. “Oh, good, you're awake,” Damian appraised.

“I thought I locked the door.” Drake released Damian’s wrist to pull the blanket over his face.

“You did.” Damian confirmed. “Breakfast is ready. Don’t make a fool of yourself by being late.”

When Damian returned to the kitchen, Isabella was busy elsewhere, and an unfamiliar staff set his prepared breakfast for him. The staff, except for Isabella and Carlos, Damian noticed, were inconsistent, so he hadn’t felt inclined to learn their names. He was almost halfway done with his food by the time Drake slumped into his usual chair, closest to the kitchen entrance.

“Did you already pack your things?” Drake asked between bites of food.

“Obviously.”

“The boat leaves at two,” As Damian was well aware. “It won’t wait for us, so we need to be there on time.” Drake explained unnecessarily.

The particular cruise they had tickets for was on one of the most popular ships and was regularly booked out weeks in advance. Drake had mentioned needing to call a friend before he could secure their tickets on the jet to Puerto Rico, gambling at which would pass the area of the unknown Dalv Co location. They had canceled the other reservations after they returned from their hiking trip. Fortunately for them, one of the islands less than a mile from Masters’ was a highly advertised stop for their cruise. 

“I know.” Damian grumbled, stabbing the last bite of his meal, annoyed at being coddled.

“I’m just running through the plan again,” Drake sighed, holding his annoyance. “We’ll leave in an hour or so. If you're already ready, just go over the files I sent you.”

"I would've done that anyway." Damian made a point to say as he stood from his chair. The wooden legs scraped against the floor at his unforgiving harshness.

This was Damian’s case. He should be the one deciding the directives, not falling into another subordinate role. He’d selected Drake to be his partner for expertise, but it seemed like he’d completely taken over the reins of the mission. Damian should fault himself since it was only due to his poor management that this could happen.

It was because the matters he’d assigned to Drake earlier had unexpectedly grown to become a core part of the case. And now it would be needlessly redundant for Damian to try and take control of the sections since, as he’d expressed earlier, they matched Drake’s criteria of skill more naturally than his. By Damian not having a preexisting knowledge base to match Drake’s, the process would take far longer, and there were only so many schematics he could stare at before the urge to gouge his eyes out would make him lose focus.

Annoyed that he wasn’t able to rebel while staying on mission, Damian begrudgingly reviewed the new files. One was the linguistic diagnostic of the signs from Dalv Co’s island base, and the other was a digitization of the map the drone was sent to make. Damian remembered most of the inside of the research facility from the footage and briefly went over it. It had been externally downloaded onto his suit’s domino so he would have access to it while in the field. Under good circumstances, both his domino and Red Robin’s wrist computer will stay connected to the main software that was originally used to construct the 3d map and update as they traverse the base. This generally makes a quick escape easier, but they know to not really rely too heavily on technology and have a backup ready in the event the program has functionality issues.

The second file was a response to the one Drake sent Oracle containing the facility’s attempt at thwarting Phantom’s neurolinguistic abilities. Her decoding program was able to find a small sense of similarities in the words, since they don’t know what and what not to expect to find on the island, they have little context to utilize. The results self-reported low reliability ratings, but since it had been trained on all known Earth and extraterrestrial languages, it was at least in the right direction.

Once he’d thoroughly read through the report, Damian took some time to review the reports on Dalv Co, the Phantoms, and the Fentons. He was already intimately familiar with his additions but needed to pay thoughtful heed to Drake’s sections.

2:13 PM

A final horn blew as the large ship left the dock. Damian stood at the railing watching the ocean they were preparing to enter. Drake had split off from him once they’d come aboard the ship. The ripples they’re decent from the dock created grew, and the wind carded through Damian’s carefully prepared hair. The collar of his light blue linen top rippled against the skin of his neck. It was a natural occurrence that the growing ocean wind would send his perfectly curated appearance into disarray, and Damian’s disproportionate irritation to it was unexplainable, even to him.

Despite picking a less popular section of the deck, Damian felt the passing and prodding looks stinging his back and nape. For the sake of the mission, he put forth his best effort to seem as unbothered about it as would be expected of the youngest child of one of the most well-known and wealthy families in the world. 

He’s not sure why their attention bothered him so much; he should be used to having all eyes on him. Damian had been raised to be the Demon’s Head and lead the League of Assassins and Shadows one day, a position where he was continuously and relentlessly being watched by his supporters and opposition. He was the sole blood son of Bruce Wayne, whose favor could ensure anyone's lavish future and whose dislike could mark an end to any kind of prosperity. Damian was bred for attention. 

But he was no longer the heir to the Demon’s Head, nor did he hold the title of Bruce Wayne’s firstborn. The only position he had left was Robin, an amalgamation of legacies that could never be outdone by anything short of another legend. The title wasn’t innately his under scrutiny and could change at a tide’s whim. Damian watched the artificial waves wash over the characters he’d been told to be, wondering who would come about when they were cleared away.

Drake approached him, speaking with a casualness that was jarring against Damian’s internal contemplations. “We should grab lunch.” He suggested. Somehow under the growing winds and crashing water, he stood next to Damian, looking purposeful in all his misshapen attire. His shirt rested askew on his shoulders, somehow managing to draw complementary attention to his firm shoulders. The buttons half undone at the bottom fluttered as if abashed to show the skin behind its cool fabric. When the wind blew at him, it was as if Drake had somehow managed to plan for that as well.

“I’m not hungry.” Damian snapped, more hostile than he’d really wanted to. He didn’t need to be told to eat like an irresponsible child. 

Drake sent him a sideways look at the immature outburst. It allowed the people who pretended they hadn’t noticed Damian standing there to gawk at him owlishly disapproving. “Whatever.” Drake shrugged simply and walked away.

Without an outlet for his growing anger, Damian stormed to his room, where he wouldn’t have to match the appearance of a boy he didn’t know. The narrow hallway of doors echoed his angry feet until he reached the room number that matched the one on his ticket. Drake’s was the one across from his, something that was planned as a convenience but was now only fueling Damian’s emotions. He opened the door and closed it as soon as he was inside, letting it act as a barrier between him and the boat full of expectations. 

He stood in the doorway, feeling another wave of disappointment wash over him. The room was smaller even than the one he’d stayed at in the past few days. To the left of the door was the bed that spanned the whole wall. On the opposite wall was a small vanity desk half the size of Damian’s schoolroom tables. The single carpet that spanned between the two objects was coarse and bland of the colors Damian suspected it once possessed. On either side of the vanity was a slim door. Damian checked to find that one was a closet that barely had enough room for him to step fully into, and the other was a cramped bathroom. Between the barely there space between the entrance to the room and the head of his bed was a small table that his suitcase was set next to.

There was a singular and small window in the room. A small circle on the wall that faced the entry door that showed the sea outside the barrier of the boat’s steel underbelly. The ocean outside was a shimmering cerulean blue, dispersing the sunlight that managed to seep to this depth and scatter in drops through his room. In the moment that Damian had gone to investigate the closet and washroom, a colorful school of fish arrived to pass by his window. The view was beautiful, and Damian wished he had his supplies to make a painting of what he saw. 

The first school left, but there were plenty that came to take its place in time. Each was different from the last in a mystery of ways. Eventually, Damian realized that watching the fish from his small pocket to the natural world had managed to quell the anger and stomach-churning discomfort of uncertainty.

With his emotions not there to cloud his intellect, Damian realized, regretfully, that he could not avoid the other people on the boat and remain in his room for the entirety of their two-day cruise. Damian, in just a few steps, reached for the door handle only to see it twist open without his assistance. Unfortunately, it wasn’t because he’d managed to awaken a latent telepathic ability.

The door opened so his supposed case partner could step into his room. His cologne wafted through the small room with his presence. “Oh, good, you're here.” Drake appraised, closing the door behind him with the air of someone who wasn’t trespassing.

The irritation Damian had only just managed to quell began to come back full force. “You're disturbing the fish.” Damian told him, crossing his arms, reminding himself the older boy wouldn't have come without a reason.

“I’ll be sure to send my official apology.” Drake rolled his eyes. “I have something I want you to check out.”

Damian only raised a promoting brow.

“I bugged one of the on-deck inventory rooms I noticed the crew was congregating in. I overheard some of them talking about a low-tide entrance from the stewards floor for inventory and such.” Drake explained, “I pulled up a map on my walk here because I couldn’t get a chance earlier.”

“You want me to go check if it’s a viable exit for us.” Damian concluded simply.

Drake nodded. “It would be odd if the both of us disappeared for too long.” He likely suspected that it was a good enough option already and just wanted Damian to go check in person for due diligence. It was a good idea, and one that Damian had no hand in the conception of. 

Damian had taken on this case at first to check if Brother was to be trusted and quickly uncovered a myriad of oddities that lined his past. He had looked more into it with a vested interest and equally so to prove to Father and the others that he was as capable as them. For the interest of the case, it shouldn’t matter who came up with what idea. But for Damian’s own interests, he felt he was the one proving his own inability to take care of the position he’d granted himself as case lead.

When the silence stretched into a stagnant uncomfortableness, Drake scrunched his brows into a frown. “Do you have a better idea?” Damian first heard it with the daringness of refutal; his subconscious infused his potential disobedience to Drake’s request with it. But when he looked up to face his brother, he saw nothing more than a genuine question.

Damian was forced to give an honest reply, “No.”

Drake looked at him scrutinizingly. “So you’ll go check it out?” He clarified.

Damian looked away, crossing his arms. “Yes.” The words are barely audible to himself.

The taller, older, and more experienced Robin stood next to Damian’s closed door for a minute longer. His face held the look it did for stripping crime scenes for invisible clues. Here, Damian isn’t sure what he’s looking for, and it made the way his arms sat at his chest feel incorrect. Finally, Drake dragged a long sigh and reached for the door handle. “Let me know what you find.” He instructed before seeing himself out.

The door closed with a quiet click, and Damian stood on the rough carpet until he couldn’t hear Drake’s footsteps heading in the direction of the upper deck entrance. Given the time, most of the guests were busy there, meaning it was the best time for Damian to go search for the exit Drake had spoken about, unnoticed. The cruise was only an hour into the trip, and anyone seeking out the inventory wouldn’t need to potentially bump into Damian.

4:26 PM

Damian wandered the deck he’d left too quickly from earlier. Having explored enough of the steward's floor to be able to easily find the low-tide door, he rationalized he should go to the surface with the excuse of getting lunch. He kept an ear out for anything interesting that might be helpful to them or to hear where Drake had preoccupied himself. The crowd had hardly quelled from before, but now the groups had formed and were engrossed enough in their own activities that they only paid Damian a passing glance of interest.

In the time he was below deck, Damian had enough time to steel himself against the natural attention he would receive as the youngest Wayne. Though he regretted not pausing to fix his hair from its ocean-wind-tousled state before heading on his investigation. There were many signs pointing out the direction to the dining area, so Damian had no difficulty finding it. 

The kitchen should already be made aware of his dietary preferences, since his guest code was recorded when he entered. The wait to be seated was short, and he was seated in an area close enough to be able to see the whole room without being placed in the center view of everyone. The waiter placed and set a glass of lemonade and a platter of fruits for Damian to sip on while he made quick work of his order. The conversations surrounding him were mundane and uninteresting, but sitting alone made it easy for Damian to be able to catch anything without seeming suspicious. If he had come with Drake, they would be forced to make some type of conversation to not seem hostile, and Damian was glad he avoided the inconvenience.

Of the many occupied tables, there was one whose conversation Damian unfortunately couldn’t make himself ignorant to. They sat behind him, the angle of a table between them blocking Damian from their direct view. The table sat five: an aged couple and three teenage girls between the ages of 15 and 18. A family, Damian concluded, by the atmosphere.

The couple was busy in their own discussion, calmer than their younger table mates, about the intricacies of their recent bout of golf. The teenagers were talking over each other to be heard within their small group, their topic and names easily catching Damian’s attention.

“Can you believe we actually get to go on a cruise with Tim Drake?” One girl gushed.

“I told you this would be so much better than going to the Bahamas.” Another added, taking a stab at her salmon as if she needed to kill it herself.

“Wait, so, out of the three of us, who do you think has the best chance?” The third girl asked, her expected answer obvious in her tone.

“Seriously, Heather? It’s not going to be you.” The second girl scoffed.

“He did say he preferred brunettes that one time.” The first girl gushed, pulling forward a lock of her mud-colored hair to admire.

The other two girls, with artificially lighter hair, muttered their disagreement with the opinion. Their bickering quickly grew louder until presumably their father cautioned them with a stern voice. “Girls.”

The argument died after that, and they ate in silence until the oldest girl, Trinity, said wistfully. “If only the other one came with him.”

“Who?” Heather asked, sipping at her carbonated drink.

Damian was given a short reprieve when his server returned with his food. “The chef sends his regards. Would you like anything else?”

“This will be all, thank you.” Damian dismissed him to attend to another table that had been vying for his attention. His presence had helped Damian be temporarily ignorant of the girl’s consensus on who they wished had accompanied Drake.

“O-M-G, yes.” Heather agreed to a previous statement. “He’s so dreamy.”

“Between Danny and Tim who do you think is—” What had Damian done to deserve this level of torture?

“Danny, definitely.”

“What, no.” Lexi vehemently disagreed. “Tim has the unmistakable old money charm. What more could you want? He’s like the epitome of my type.” She gushed.

Damian wasn’t sure if his food was badly prepared or if the conversation at the table was souring his appetite. “Okay, he’s, like, seriously hot, but I could totally think of some other guys that are in his league.” Heather explained as if it was an intellectual discussion. “But Danny is like once in a millennium, or whatever. He’s totally unmatched.” She declared.

“Tim has the old money look, but Danny is so regal.” Trinity agreed, sighing wistfully into her forkful of salad. “It’s obvious why people call him the ice prince of Gotham.”

“So, Danny or prime-Bruce Wayne?” Lexi proposed, coming into a silent agreement with them. 

A thoughtful silence took over the group. “Wait,” Heather gasped, floundering to grab her phone from her bag. “Have you guys seen Danny’s picture against Thomas Wayne’s? They’re basically identical.”

“What?” Lexi asked, skeptical. “There’s no way.” Damian hurriedly finished his meal to escape being in earshot of the dimwitted conversation comparing his whole lineage in terms of attractiveness. 

Damian walked around the deck surrounded by the salty ocean air. The boat, despite being fully booked, didn’t seem overly crowded. There were plenty of open spaces in each area he passed where he could lounge around if he so desired. When Damian spotted a notably large group of teenagers by the pool, he easily concluded Drake was somehow involved.

Damian made his way to the pool, his suspicions quickly confirmed.

“How about ‘Timmy’ then?” One person asked.

“That’s fine. My older brothers call me that sometimes.” He heard Drake's humor, his voice infused with artificial casualness.

“It can’t be something your family calls you, though. It has to be special.” Someone else complained.

“That’ll be hard, though. I’m pretty sure every variation of my name is already in use.” Drake added, laughing.

“Wait…” A third person started, conspiratorially. “How about ‘Timothy’?”

With a sound of revolt, Drake quickly shut that down, “No way. I’m pretty sure that just gave me goosebumps.”

“C’mon, there’s got to be something.” Someone complained, dramatically.

Having had enough of hearing people gush over his brothers, Damian stood at the outside of the circle surrounding the corner of the pool. “This can’t seriously be how you're going to be spending the whole cruise, is it?” He projected his voice through, making sure it didn’t lose the true annoyance he was feeling.

The group turned to look at him. Their defensiveness at the insulting tone quickly disappeared when they recognized him, and they seamlessly parted to let him pass. Drake turned to him from where he sat leisurely on the edge of the pool with his legs in the water and half a glass of a colorful liquid in one hand. His previously partly buttoned shirt now fully exposed his torso in a careless and purposeful manner.

“I was wondering where you were.” He said to Damian, not answering his question. “How’s your seasickness?”

Seasickness? Of all the excuses for Damian’s absence, he used the one Damian would most dislike. There's a smirk hidden in Drake’s eyes, filling Damian with the primal need for immediate vengeance. Using the first thing that came to mind, “All better now, Timothy.” He made sure to enunciate every syllable of his name, making the teen bristle uncomfortably at it.

The crowd that hadn’t dispersed yet echoed a quiet coo. Drake stood, addressing the crowd, “I should go check on him.” He said, forcibly leading Damian into an unoccupied corner. “I hate when people call me that.” He hissed, annoyed.

“I know.” Damian smiled vindictively.

Drake dragged a defeated hand over his face. “Did you find it?” He asked instead of dragging out the disagreement.

“It should work well enough.”

Drake nodded at the information. “Good. I did a quick check, and we should be within two miles of the target in two more hours. There’s a show that’s going to start in 90 minutes. It should last for at least two and a half hours, which should be plenty of time to lose the crowd.” 

“Won’t they notice if they don’t see you there?” Damian nodded his head subtly to the crowd at the pool that awaited the return of their teenage paragon.

“Our tickets reserved us a private viewing, and it’ll be hard to see us from the general crowd. I’ll just need to be seen going inside.” He glanced back over at the group. “In the meantime you should make yourself seen for at least an hour.” Drake bargained, “I told them you weren’t feeling well, which should cover for you for a while, but if you just stay in your room, it’ll start a rumor.” He cautioned. 

“Fine.” Damian grumbled, crossing his arms.

“There’s an aquatic viewing on the second deck. I reserved you a spot for 5, since it sounded up your alley.”

Damian looked away from the ocean behind Drake, which he’d decided to watch during their conversation. His fondness of animals was one of his publicly known characteristics, so it wasn’t as if Drake needed to put in a strenuous amount of work to come to the conclusion. Still embarrassed and weirdly endeared by the offer, he felt his ears begin to heat up.

“I’ll consider it.” Damian said quickly so Drake wouldn’t feel the need to study his face for the response.

He nodded, looking back towards the pool and not noticing Damian’s embarrassment. “I think we’ll just have to pull a Clark and wear our suits underneath.” He thought aloud. “I’ll meet you by the stairwell at 7.” He concluded heading back to the collection of teenagers waiting for him.

7:09 PM

Drake and Damian crouched in an empty hallway watching a group of stewards pass with their arms full of boxes. They spoke jovially to each other as they passed, not even glancing in the direction of the two vigilantes’ ill-conceived hiding spots.

Once they were cleared, “What horrible security.” Damian huffed, shuffling around Drake so he could lead the way.

“Yeah. Well, I’m pretty sure our family consists of all the people crazy enough to use a low-tide entrance while the boat is in the middle of the sea famous for having pirates.” Drake defended, pulling his arm up to check his wrist monitor.

Damian swatted it down. “Pay attention.” He ordered, making a show of looking around, knowing full well there wasn’t anyone nearby.

“I’m paying attention.” Drake snapped back, “I’m checking the map to make sure we’re headed in the right direction.”

“I know the way.” Damian insisted, demanding to be believed.

Drake looked up at him with a raised brow and a frown. “You’ve been here once. We don’t have the time to waste on accidentally taking the wrong turn since this place is built like a rat maze.” He said, returning to the small hologram of a map on his wrist computer. 

Damian had no real defense against using the subtle map on Drake’s wrist and realized once again he was following Drake’s lead on his case. Damian gripped at the straps of the small bag hanging from his shoulders to remind himself that the mission came first. Damian stayed behind for only a few meters before growing indisputably confident in his memory and quickening his pace so he was leading the other. The entrance they were headed towards was a decent way inside the stewards' quarters, but there were many markers Damian remembered for finding it. 

The door, as Damian had checked during his inspection, had a padlock password that didn’t require Drake’s technical expertise to bypass. Damian made quick work of it with the tools he kept in the sleeve of his Robin suit that was currently hidden under his clothes. He was able to successfully dismantle it without setting off the lax security without any assistance, having done similar things many times before. 

As a security measure the door was installed with three doorways that couldn’t be open at the same time. They’d arrived in their civilian clothes, and once they were inside the first passage, they closed the door behind them. They had kept it on thus far in the unlikely case they were spotted. There was a heavily tinted rectangular window on one side of the base that housed the first door to display the internal water level but gave away little else.

They began discarding their external appearances on the side opposite of the paned window. “There is no way the Kents manage to get anything done like this.” Drake grumbled, pulling at the leg slacks over his Red Robin boots.

“They have the advantage of super speed and not needing padding or armor.” Damian grumbled, folding his clothes and setting them in an unviewable corner.

Drake groaned, having a hard time with his stubborn attire. Once he’d successfully shed the layers of his civilian suit to stand in his fully assembled vigilante garb, he left the clothes in a heap next to Damian’s neat stack. He reached for Damian’s bag, pulling out an oxygen mask for each of them.

“Aren’t you going to fix your clothes? They’ll get creased.” Damian asked, taking the one offered to him.

“I’m counting on it.” Drake smirked before pulling the mask on and unfastening the next door.

With both chambers dry, it was easy to get through. Drake planted a bug so they would be able to access the doors remotely to get back in. After they passed through the second and closed it behind them, there was only one left between them and the harsh currents of the ocean outside the large ship. Drake took out the final content of the bag: a portable water propeller that could imbed itself in their water-style suits to move faster in the ocean. Master’s island was over a mile out from where the ship was swimming through, and they hardly had the time to spare for an unassisted swim.

In the last chamber the loud sounds of the water current the boat was producing echoed. Before opening the barrier, Drake gave Damian a sign to ask if his gear was secured. Damian double-checked while Drake tested his own to make sure nothing would come loose during their swim. When Damian gave his okay, Drake pulled out an industrial-strength tether from his belt pocket and fastened it on a dedicated clasp on Damian’s suit. The clasp was placed in the small of his back just above his belt for optimal function, like it was on everyone else’s. Without Red Robin’s usual wing-styled cape for his water-designed suit, Damian easily clasped the other end of the tether to him. Once they exchanged the signal for being ready and the tether was tested by pulling on it a few times, Drake pulled the lever. 

The water rushed into the small space, and the strength of it slammed both of them against the door to the previous chamber. It was doing a satisfactory job of keeping the clothes they left it in dry care. Damian pressed his teeth into the mouthpiece of his scuba-oxygen mask, bracing himself against what seemed to be the weight of the whole ocean. After the whole space was filled with salt water, the pressure subsided enough that the vigilantes could begin swimming out.

After they paddled their way out of the boat’s low-tide entrance, Red Robin signed to Robin to wait. With the tether not allotting them more than a meter of distance from each other, he was forced to abide. Red Robin worked with his rich computer to remotely close the third chamber, watching as the act was successfully completed. Then he swam up to the small circular window to view the chamber again. From the distance Robin can’t see what the other is doing and floats stationary when he notices the current is growing stronger. To his left he noticed the boat's strong propeller was closing in on them.

Alarmed, he looked back to Red Robin, who was still busy in his nondescript task on his computer and at the window. Robin waited for a moment longer, trying to trust that Red Robin was aware enough to leave before the current grew too strong and dragged them both into high blades. Three seconds passed painstakingly before Robin felt the level of genuine danger was too high and pulled the tether hard.

Red Robin lurched through the water like a ragdoll before his muscles could once again hold his body rigid. Robin didn’t stop swimming as fast as he was able with Red Robin’s deadweight to get out of the ship’s range. He could feel his muscle’s strain lessen once Red Robin started working to catch up to him before he saw the familiar splotches of color somewhere to his left.

Satisfied with their current level of safety when he could see fishes swimming about, uncensored, did Robin stop and turn to Red Robin. ‘What?’ He sighed pointedly, gesturing his head to the ship. The inability to speak would not save Red Robin from being berated for his stupidity.

‘Water’ and ‘flush’ Red Robin sighed in return, expressive of his defensiveness. He was trying to check if the water that had flooded in the chamber was flushing out while the door was closed. If it wasn't, not only would their reentry be variably more difficult, but it could also potentially compromise the safety of the passengers. The chamber was equipped with a self-flushing function, the reason there were two sections to the exit. The sudden rush of water inside was amateurishly something they hadn’t accounted for. Red Robin must have been concerned the function was damaged in their oversight. 

‘Answer,’ Robin asked. Red Robin gave him a confirmation, meaning it was working functionally. Robin nodded, then used his mask’s mapping function to see if he swam in the right direction to escape the ship’s growing current. The island was about 6000 feet to their left, according to the data they shared.

They activated their propulsion devices in sync to push them the rest of the way. The swim, unassisted, would have taken either of them around 20-30 minutes, but with their propulsion attachment, they emerged port side in just 12 minutes.

Robin’s head pushed through the surface tension of the water first, with just enough room under the island’s singular deck for him to take a deep breath without his breathing valve. He pushed his hair to not prick at his eyelashes, the soaking follicles having enough weight to actually stay there. Red Robin appeared not much later. Once they were in range of the island, they had turned off their propulsion and signed to meet under the dock after they noticed there was space under it.

Since the island was relatively small and had little infrastructure, if they were to appear on the other beaches, they would no doubt immediately attract unwanted attention. The dock they were currently hiding under was just next to the scientists’ dorms. Robin peered around the beams holding up their cover to see the actual distance between them and the building. The footage on it had been minimal, but it looked like a simple enough building. He watched as a small group of five entered from the front entrance, opposing the side of the building facing them.

There on the fifth floor, Robin spotted something he hadn’t dared to count on. An open window. “I’ll sneak in.” He told Red Robin, keeping his voice careful and low. “I’ll steal uniforms for us.” Robin began making his way to the shore before Red Robin gave his approval.

“Wait.” Red Robin grabbed his arm. “You’ll leave a water trail. Dry off first.” The sun was setting low, so it couldn’t be counted on to help with that, and they had no other equipment that they hadn’t swum with.

“It’ll take too long.” Robin argued. “Let’s get to the shore first.” They had accumulated two hours left to do a preliminary search of the island before Drake’s show would end and his absence would be noted. They spent 13 minutes in their water, accounting for Red Robin’s stunt of inattention, and 7 to reach the low-tide door they used to leave. They had only 100 minutes left to search the island and arrive back on the ship with an explanation as to why their hair was soaking wet.

7:32 PM - 100 minutes

The small green countdown ticked in the corner of Robin’s domino. Without a valid argument, “Fine.” The previous Robin conceded. Once they were on the soft sandy ground, they kept their bodies low and moved quickly to a spot under the windows of the first floor, a clear blind spot from the residents. Their water-type vigilante suits were designed from the base of scuba diving gear and other regular aquatic attire. Their suits were watertight, and the dampness stayed on the surface of their costumes, making their clothes easy to dry off. But the water dripping down his neck and the sides of his face from his soiled hair would be much more difficult to manage.

Red Robin assessed the wall to see how difficult it would be to scale. “It’s just stone, and it’s uneven. You should be able to manage without needing a grapple line, but even if you used it, the marks wouldn’t be noticeable.” He decided, looking up to the open window. “Someone might be in there, are you sure you won’t be seen? The wall absorbs a lot of water, so it would point out exactly where you're going.” He pointed out the handprint he’d left when checking the wall.

Robin did his best to push the water off his clothes, wringing his limbs as tight as he could, shaking the water out of his hair like a wet dog with no civilized option. Before he could answer, a sudden and unexpected gust of wind pushed against the duo. The sand was too unstable to streak with Robin’s feet being pushed back despite his best effort. Red Robin wasn’t faring much better to his left.

There was no reason to push the idea that the wind came from a natural source. It disappeared as fast as it appeared, and the warmth and strength of the gust had left both Robin and Red Robin with extremely windswept but dry hair and clothes. Robin’s shock was mirrored in Red Robin’s silent ‘What the fuck.’

The older of the two looked around searching for something Robin was sure he wouldn’t find. “Thank… you?” He said to the calm and still air. 

Unsurprisingly, there was no answer. 

With no more excuses, Robin detached the tether from his back and began scaling the wall, making sure to keep his body flush against the coarse exterior. With the sun low in the sky, the shadowy gray of his suit would be almost indistinguishable from the dark stone of the wall.

When he was within arm's reach of the ajar window, Robin unsheathed a well-polished dagger from its spot on the back of his hip. The first used the reflective metal to subtly check if the room was occupied. His dagger previewed an unmade bed to the left of the window, feet facing a door. Next to the door was a wardrobe that didn’t appear to have a lock and was adorned with a flurry of garments at its foot. There appeared to be some framed images on the wall, but the light reflected too much for Robin to make any sense of them.

Once he was sure the room was empty, he hooked the dagger into the wall. Robin tested his weight on the blade before using it as his hold while he used the toe of his boot to push the window open enough for him to fit inside. Perched on the window sill, Robin scanned the room more carefully now.

The room was a mess. The bed was unmade, the sheet hanging off an exposed corner. There was a table opposing the bed heaped with seemingly random items. They were of no use to him, so he didn’t waste precious time trying to understand the mess of it. Between the hazardous mess was a lit candle that left an odd scent in the room. Robin stifled a cough, not wanting to potentially alert someone in another room of the apartment.

Remembering his objective, Robin first headed for the clothes on the ground. There was a notable amount of white garb, which made him suspect lab gear. The entrances of the pictures on the wall reflected sunlight in his peripheral vision when he bent down to gauge their state. 

He pulled out the first one from the pile, looking it over. There were a few dark-colored stains around the bottom of the sleeve and odd bright red and green blotches around the middle. It was too vibrant to be blood, fortunately. Robin smelled it inquisitively and immediately recognized the scent as blood blossom. It wasn’t as potent as Robin knew it could be, and deciding it wasn’t unbearable, he pulled his arms through it. The shoulder stitch hung lower than it should, and the sleeves would need to be folded to fit Robin’s size. The hem lay above his knees, inches lower than he’d seen it on the other scientists.

There was a name embroidered on the left chest that was hidden in the creases of its ill fit. Robin pulled the fabric to read clearly, his eyes widening at the sheer coincidence. ‘Dr. Fenton, Ph.D.’. 

Before Robin could decide if taking their lab coats was a viable choice, his communicator beeped. “Robin, update?” Red Robin asked.

“It’s the Fenton’s room.” He informed, the shock not wearing off his voice yet.

“Oh, shit.”

“The size will fit but they're well known in the field…”

“We might be recognized as imposters.” Red Robin understood easily. A moment later, “Bring one, we can use it to make duplicates.”

“Are you sure that's a good idea?” Robin shuffled through the pile, checking if there was an option without a name. Standing now, the Fenton Tech logo smeared on the table’s contents seemed impossible to miss even when it curved out of view. He pulled the lab coat off his shoulder, finding the concept of it alone too heavy to bear.

“Yes.” Red Robin stressed, pressuring him to hurry and leave the scene. The part of Robin’s neck that his suit didn’t cover began to take on an uncomfortable sensation, enticing him irresistibly to itch at it like the blood blossom in his room sometimes did.

91 minutes

Robin crouched on the window sill, a criminal’s lab coat in one hand and the dagger he’d lodged into the wall in the other. He let it hold his weight while he balanced himself on the stone wall and dislodged it to land securely on the grassy ground next to his vigilante partner. “Here.” He handed over the coat and sheathed his dagger.

Red Robin gave him an appreciative nod, opening up the garment to inspect himself. His eyes carefully scanned each letter of the embroidered name, as if to make sure Robin hadn’t misread it. He opened his mouth to speak, looking up from the lab coat to Robin, who couldn’t help itching the skin on the cuff of his suit. Red Robin’s words died as he took Robin and turned him forcibly to take a look at the skin on his nape. 

“What happened?” He asked, turning Robin again like a ragdoll to watch his face for a story he might not be inclined to share.

“Nothing.” Robin said honestly, the burning on the back of his neck not subsiding.

“You're having a reaction to something.” Red Robin worked out quickly, pushing Robin to fill in the gaps he hadn’t deduced yet.

“I’m not allergic to anything.” Robin insisted. They were all annually tested for a detailed health analysis.

Red Robin looked at his inflamed skin and then scrutinized the lab coat in his hand. “Did you put this on?” Robin looked down at it, remembering belatedly that the ill-fitting collar had brushed against the bottom of his hair and over his exposed neck. When Robin didn’t immediately answer, Red Robin rubbed the seemingly fabric on his cheek.

“Hey!” Robin hissed, careful to not draw attention to where they were hiding. As if on cue, he could feel the cheek begin to feel uncomfortably warm and itchy.

Red Robin noticed just as quickly as Robin could feel the sensation. He looked down at the lab coat. “We’ll have to test what’s on here for future reference.” He decided, rubbing the fabric against his own cheek, to wait for a potential reaction. Nothing happened. Red Robin pulled out an expandable evidence bag from his belt, pushing the coat inside and placing it under a small area of bushes by the dock.

“We should check out the greenhouse first.” Robin suggested rubbing his cheek so he didn’t risk making himself bleed during the mission and leaving behind DNA evidence.

Red Robin didn’t answer, instead rummaging through his belt again. “Use this cleansing wipe on the area and make sure to do it over your hands too. It’s the best option we have right now. if we manage to get into an unoccupied lab, then you're going to use that.”

“We don’t have time to—”

“Now.” Red Robin demanded, in a tone Robin could authentically compare to an order. 

The hierarchy system for the Gotham vigilantes was much different than in the League. For the first time in any of their interactions, Robin didn’t think he had the space to disobey. His hands were already scrubbing his cheek from a subordination that was beaten into him from a young age before he could think to argue.

When Robin was satisfied with his work, he held the wipe, wondering how to discard it. He was about to tuck it into his belt to deal with later, but Red Robin snatched it from him before he can. He encased Robin’s wipe inside the one he’d used to clean his own hands. He stuffed it into another evidence bag and shoved it next to where he hid the lab coat.

Finally, Red Robin handed Robin a pill. “Antihistamine.” Robin had a small pack in his own belt, but he took the one offered to him just to satisfy his partner so they could move on to the actual investigation.

“I’m not allergic.” Robin felt the need to insist.

“Sure.” Red Robin said dismissively, watching Robin swallow the pill carefully. He gave a hand gesture, and Robin opened his mouth so Red Robin could check that he actually swallowed the medicine.

“Let’s get a sample of the greenhouse first.” Robin said again as they both crept to the edge of the building to see what was closest. The sun had almost entirely set during the ordeal, leaving barely a sliver of light. They could sneak around well enough without trying to blend in. The greenhouse was closer to where they hid than the facility’s main entrance.

“We’ll need samples of the soil where the stems are green and where they’re purple.” Red Robin said, “See if there are any samples of the liquids on the floor or not absorbed into the soil. It’ll be useful.”

Robin nodded, watching a group of ten retire into the dorms. They didn’t have anything embroidered into their lab coats, he noticed. Perhaps it has to do with seniority, since there were so many identifiers the usual staff had to wear. Once the coast was clear, the duo made their way to the glass building.

75 minutes

Robin eyed the security check at the main door while Red Robin used his computer to take a scan of the mechanism. “What?” He muttered to himself quietly when looking over his findings.

“What is it?” Robin asked, standing guard.

“The door’s not locked. It has a lock, but it’s not locked.” Red Robin explained. “This is weird. We should go in from somewhere else.”

“Someone might have forgotten to lock it. They don’t seem to have a keenness for procedure here.” Robin suggested, already following to the far side of the greenhouse.

“It’s an automatic lock that can be scheduled to lock on its own. It’s the standard model for things like grocery stores and stuff. The whole point of them is to not need someone to check the lock. If it’s not locked, there’s probably a trap waiting for us inside.”

Using the same security as a regular grocery store for a high-end research facility where the main entrance had multi-factor authentication and human personnel placed seemed extremely out of place. But Robin remembered that there were many things about this palace that didn’t make sense security-wise. What the lock told him now was the greenhouse, for the resources and labs dedicated to it, was not a high security risk apparently.

Robin assessed the best spot for entry. Since the building was made entirely of large glass panes, it was deceptively difficult. Robin would have to be careful in not choosing a section that was particularly load-bearing and risk damaging the infrastructure of the whole building. That meant the ceiling was the best option.

He pointed out the spot to Red Robin and received a nod of agreement. From his utility belt, Robin pulled out his octo-bat-gloves; they had a small but strong suction cup design that was engineered to not leave marks on most surfaces. Still, as a precaution, they should make as few connections with the glass as they can, since being known so early in the infiltration would ruin the whole operation.

Robin led the climb, thoughtful about where he was placing his hands and feet. Their boots were already optimized to have exceptional grip and already suitable for the climb. Red Robin, who was only one motion behind, kept his limb placements as identical to Robin’s as possible to minimize their tracks.

69 minutes

The roof of the greenhouse was flat with a singular slant angle so rainwater would roll off. The angle wasn’t extreme enough that either of the vigilantes had difficulty easily walking on it. Based on the shape of the structure, Robin decided the rightmost pane was their best place of access. It wasn’t holding the weight of any area based on its height and already had residue of evaporated water that would do well to hide potential fingermarks. He pointed out the spot to Red Robin, who had already made the same conclusion himself in silence.

Robin looked around, checking for any nearby scientists that might spot him. It was entirely dark now, and it looked like most of the grounds were abandoned. Either people were in the dorms or still busy in the windowless facility. Activating his night vision, Robin assessed the best way to remove the pane. Before he could make the decision, Red Robin easily slid the large piece of glass from its fastenings.

Red Robin hadn’t even signaled he would be doing so before he’d committed to the action. Robin felt spiteful to have even something so trivial taken from him. Especially when everything else he’d instructed had felt as if the more experienced vigilante was allowing him to make decisions and lead the duo on his own case. Like the times Father would test him while he was on patrol and not at all like the few times he’d worked a crime scene on his own.

The rope for their descent fell as silent as Robin’s argument was allowed to be. Red Robin didn't bother letting Robin pretend in his position of leadership and took the rope into the greenhouse first, landing softly on the ground. 

The glass pane had been slid up just the bare amount it took Red Robin, the bigger of the two, to fit in. Robin was still crouched next to the opening where the containment of flowers was opened. From the small opening the stench that left was so strong Robin was forced to forget his earlier concerns of their power dynamic for the burning sensation in his throat of his last meal and stomach acid trying to escape their confines. 

His body revolted at the feeling, and the burning spread to his nasal cavity. It was multiple times worse than the bearable effects of the blood blossom Damian had kept in his room. Every ounce of survival instincts told Robin to not enter. Even from here the danger of the flowers made his nerves beat with something Robin wasn’t comfortable calling fear.

But if there was one thing stronger than fear, it was envy. Robin watched from the safe spot on top of the greenhouse as his partner, the previous and more knowledgeable Robin, moved about the glass room of perfection, undeterred. He touched the soil and the flowers, taking samples as they’d discussed with no more precaution than any of the scientists.

The rope was already infected with the naturally made blood blossom concentrate in the enclosed space by the time Robin took it. His skin burned even under his gloves, a feeling somehow as sharp and acute as grabbing heated steel. Robin pushed himself to keep hold, but he couldn’t. Even the few seconds had left his hands feeling like they’d been washed in freshly molten lava, and his skin, under his uninfluenced gloves, might actually be peeling from his hypodermis.

“Robin. What are you doing?” Red Robin asked through the comms, looking up at the younger vigilante who had his hands held out in front of him rigidly.

“I—” Robin tried, not sure what explanation to give, “The rope burned my hands.” He said, his teeth gritted through the pain. 

Sounding genuine in his confusion, “What?” Red Robin stopped working entirely to look at Robin. “Did you take your gloves off at any point?”

“Obviously not.”

“Just…” Red Robin tried looking around as if he would find a solution. “Stay there, then. You’re compromised.” He finally decided, working notably quicker on the floor. His mask was already recording everything he saw, so they could look into it more later.

The pain, searing still, was somehow second to the shame that was spilling from deep in Damian’s gut. He’s not sure which of his afflictions made him gag. Robin quickly moved away from the opening in the ceiling, stumbling despite the very subtle decline of the roof. He falls into a seat at the corner, the fresh salt in the air notably sharp in his chest but in a manner far more refreshing than the skin burning of the blood blossoms.

The minutes tick down in the corner of his domino, infuriatingly slow as Robin is forced to do nothing while his body heals from its state of weakness. The pain in his palms and the harsh effects of the bloom’s scent in his nose and lungs made having any real thoughts very difficult. 

56 minutes

The ability to curl his fingers with only minimal pain had just returned to Robin when Red Robin landed on the greenhouse roof. What gave away his presence more than the quiet sound of his utility belt shuffling against the fabric of his suit that Robin had learned in his first days in Gotham to always listen out for was the unmistakable smell that had already latched onto him.

“How are your hands?” Red Robin asked, coming to crouch next to Robin. “Your skin is red again.” The elder noted, eyes narrowing scrutinizingly. There’s a beat where Robin was occupied with holding himself back from gagging when his partner finally made his conclusion. "You're allergic to the flowers.” 

He reached out to assess Robin’s face, but his glove was in a similar state as the rope, and Robin yelped from the sudden pain of the delicate touch. Realizing his mistake too late, Robin clammed his mouth shut, looking around relieved to find the fields were still empty.

Red Robin moved back half an arm’s length, realizing his suit was contaminated with the blossom. “You knew, didn’t you?” He asked, his voice echoing through the comms unnecessarily. “You knew it was the flower on the lab coats, too. That’s why you hesitated so much to come inside.” The detective surmised.

Robin didn’t respond, feigning his occupancy with testing the mobility of his hands.

Red Robin dragged a hand of exasperation through his hair. “At least you didn’t actually come inside. It shouldn’t be too hard to rework the plan for me to go alone tomorrow.” He said to himself, but the comms were still on, and Robin was immediately fueled with a rage too large for his body to handle.

“What?” He seethed, the pain in his body forgotten as he turned to Red Robin.

“I was in there for less than twenty minutes, and I can’t touch you without you blistering.” Red Robin countered, “These scientists have been working with the flower for days—possibly even years—on end. The whole of the inside of the building is probably contaminated with the flower.”

“This is my case.” Robin pointed to himself with his thumb, standing to face the other now. “You’ve grown far too haughty if you think you have any amount of weight in deciding what I can and can’t do.”

“Shh.” Red Robin hissed purposefully. “Let’s get down from here first.” The elder turned to use his octo-bat-gloves to climb down. Robin forwent the ordeal and jumped the whole distance without any assistance, rolling on the ground to carry off the momentum. He was already hiding in a couch before Red Robin’s feet touched the grass.

“I’m going to try and get a better look into the machine the drone saw last time.” Red Robin said, looking in the direction of the facility's main entrance as if his earlier statement was final.

Making sure to keep his voice low, “No.” Robin said, sternly and definitely. “We should map out the rest of the building first. There’s a whole other section we don’t know anything about yet.”

“It’ll be harder to get in, look around, and get back in time.” Red Robin disagreed, “Since we already know where the machine is, we should look there first.”

“You are not going there.” Robin decided in his best Batman-inspired tone.

Red Robin, now standing two feet away and still making Robin’s nose burn, turned his whole body to look at him. “What is with you?” He frowned, irritatedly.

“Nothing is with me except you're trying to usurp me on my own case.” Robin growled.

Red Robin made a face. “Did the flowers get to your head or something?”

“I’m not stupid or naive enough to fall for your tricks.” 

Distantly, “Hey, did you hear something?” An unfamiliar voice asked. Their argument had gotten too loud, and they’d missed the scientists being close enough to hear them. The vigilantes crouched as low to the ground as they could to use the shadows and the tables inside the greenhouse to conceal themselves.

“No.” Another said after a moment. “It must have been the wind.” He decided, their footsteps growing further away.

48 minutes

The two of them stayed in their positions, completely silent until the passing scientist had entered into the dormitories and they were certain no one else was leaving the facility.  

“We have around twenty minutes left on the island, and we shouldn’t waste it by arguing.” Red Robin spoke, “How about we map the best points of entry into the facility by vent?” It did not evade Robin how the other had assumed charge once again. The mission came first, he reminded himself as he forced a nod of acceptance.

They took the long way around the greenhouse to reach the leftmost wall of the main facility. The incompetent security and night watch at the front door hadn’t managed to spot them during the extended ordeal. Where they were still safe in darkness of the shadows, Red Robin used his scanners to check for any hidden security cameras or sensors that might catch them.

Giving the all clear, the two scampered into the backside of the building, where they would have the best access to a large unconcealed vent. Not waiting for Red Robin to take advantage of his complacency, Robin used his grapple gun to get to the vent entrance first. The size of the vent was large enough for Red Robin to easily fit through, should he still be part of the infiltration come tomorrow.

The unfastening process was simple enough, just a screw in either corner. Familiar with the very common setup, Robin only undid three of the screws and loosened the fourth just enough so the vent cover was still attached but would move out of their way. From where they were, the only way for them to be spotted was if someone, unconventionally, made their way physically around the whole main building or a ship came close enough to see the unfastened vent. Considering there was no dock or secondary entrance to the building from here, the chance was extremely unlikely.

Still, after Robin entered and gave Red Robin the all clear after scanning the vent for any traps or sensors, they closed the vent behind them. It wasn’t perfectly secure, since the theory planned to exit from the same spot and needed to be able to undo it from the inside. Without close inspection it would be difficult to notice three screws were missing from the barely askew vent cover.

Inside the enclosed space, the vigilantes calibrated the prepared map to show where they were. In the small image in the corner of Robin’s vision projected by his domino, there was a yellow and green dot marking either of their positions in the building. Yellow being Red Robin and green being Robin. According to the map, they were very close to a pre-scanned hallway but still in an unmapped area of the facility.

42 minutes 

Currently, they couldn’t risk exiting the vents and being spotted, which limited their options of adding to the map.

“Do you still have your knife?” Red Robin asked, voice almost inaudible.

Robin scowled. “It’s a dagger.” He corrected pointedly.

“Whatever. You see the little vent there. They’re probably placed at measured intervals. If we can see what’s inside, we can add them as points for the map.” Robin had used a similar method to check what turned out to be the Fentons’ room earlier in the night.

Robin nodded in understanding. Cautious of his feet landing against the echoing quality of the vents, Robin eventually made his way to the vent Red Robin had pointed out earlier to test their theory. He lay himself completely flat along the base of the vent and pulled out his dagger. 

Red Robin sat crouched, unable to do anything but wait for Robin’s decree on the usability of his idea. For once since they’d left Gotham, Robin was the one actually able to decide the direction the mission would take. It was still soured by the fact that it was Red Robin’s idea to check the vent holes, but only because Robin wasn’t thinking about expanding the map.

Carefully, he angled the polished blade to spy on the other side of the vent. It took an incredibly steady hand and a sharp eye, but Robin was able to make out enough to say, “It looks like another hallway.” Under them a white-clad scientist passed with two men suited in black, possibly security.

Red Robin nodded, mapping it down in his wrist keyboard. “Let’s head this way first to double-check, and then we can head down this area.” He gestured in the direction that would connect their prepared map with their current position. “That was faster than I thought it would be.”

While they mapped what was happening under 9 other vent areas, Red Robin had to keep a careful distance from Robin in the space. Fortunately, it wasn’t entirely enclosed, and Robin was lucky to only have a scratchy throat by the time they needed to leave the facility. 

19 minutes

Closing the vents properly after their departure seemed like an insurmountably slow task with the timer ticking down in the corner of Robin’s vision. Their position and the dockside of the island, where they had left their evidence, were the two furthest points on the island. They don’t have time to complain and use the advantage of the dark night and no external lighting on the island to fully sprint to the docks.

Red Robin made quick work of stuffing the evidence inside an expandable bag he pulled out from his utility belt. He strapped the bag over his chest, and Robin locked the bag in place around his back so it wouldn’t get lost in the ocean currents and attached the tether before they jumped into the open ocean.

They had timed their excavation to end in tandem with the show Drake was supposedly viewing, and with his fan following, his absence would be quickly noted if they were late. Damian, himself, had spent most of the trip on his own, so perhaps he would be easy to miss, but if Drake is unfound, then Damian would naturally be their next object of attention. The propulsion devices were activated immediately after submersion. 

7 minutes

Robin arrived at the ship's hidden door 5 seconds before Red Robin. He could’ve gained more distance and time, but unfortunately the tether was a practical necessity in the harsh currents, and it could only stretch so long. Red Robin didn’t acknowledge the younger Robin’s wait at the door before he arrived close enough that it could be opened. 

He gave Robin a signal before pressing the automation on his wrist computer. A corresponding symbol appeared on the screen of his domino, alerting him of the action just as the currents pushed him at the chamber's middle door. Robin instinctively bared his teeth into his mouthpiece to make sure it stayed secure during the harsh movements.

The first door closed quickly, but the second door could not be opened until the water drained out of the section they were currently in. Robin kept a close ear out for any signs the ship had been alerted of suspicious activity. He’s certain they were in the clear by the time the water drained from the chamber. 

Once the water level was lower than his knees, Robin began to take notice of the sea creatures that had been caught up in the current along with them. Small fishes jumped and fluttered inconsequentially in the drying chamber. Such a simple weakness, but a more respectable one than a measly flower.

3 minutes

The second door opened, and two rushed to their civilian clothes waiting as they’d been left. Damian had worn a shirt under his later addition of a corduroy zip-up. He used the shirt as a sort of rag over his clothes so his clothes didn’t immediately become soaked from their ocean covered costumes. Drake took the shirt from him forcibly before he could put it in to wipe himself with it too. “Your skin still looks irritated. Make sure you take a shower to get any remnants of the blood blossoms off, and make sure you get your suit cleaned before tomorrow. Unless you have an explanation ready, stay in your room until it’s totally cooled off. Since you’re apparently not allergic.” He said the last part mockingly. 

“I don’t need you babying me.” Damian wanted an insult that would strike deep: “Timothy.” He watched Drake’s shoulders twitch at the name and the frown that it pulled from his impassive expression with satisfaction.

“Brat.” He hissed.

Drake’s formal clothes sat messy and creased on his body. His buttons were askew, making his collar sit flaccid around his neck. “You look ridiculous.”

Drake didn’t put the suit jacket on and left it on the floor and only half hung his tie around his neck. From the pocket of his slacks, he pulled out a tube with gold ornamentation on the outside. Understanding the older teen's plan, Damian looked at him with the same disgust he allotted those who undoubtedly influenced this behavior.

Damian watched as Drake uncapped the tube of lipstick and smeared it on a section of his collar and on the exposed parts of his neck and collarbone. He put the lipstick back in his pocket and pulled on his vest. He didn’t button it before grabbing his suit jacket and checking if the hall was clear and opening the door.

0 minutes - 8:27 PM 

Drake handed Damian his bag of evidence when they split directions. He disappeared up on the deck while Damian headed to his room. He needed to put the things away and make sure his suit was clean of the blood blossom scent that was still sticking to it before tomorrow. 

Damian’s not sure what he looked like as he walked past a small group of people trying to get to his room, but their odd looks at him quickly made him pick up his pace. His room was easy to find, and inside, on the lone vanity mirror, Damian looked at his red and irritated skin. There was still a rash on his cheek where Drake had tried to hold his face, though it didn’t irritate him as much as it had earlier. Damian suspects the only reason he wasn’t able to fully recover was because his and Drake’s costumes had already taken on the flower’s scent, and Drake likely even had some of the pollen on his.

In the house in San Juan, Damian would usually become free of most of his blood-blossom-induced symptoms in a short while of not directly being exposed to the flower. He fastened the physical bolt on his door to make sure no pesky vigilantes snuck in while he was in the bathroom and made sure to limit his contact with the other things in the room. Fortunately, he’d already set his things inside the bathroom before he’d left for the island. 

He set the bag of evidence in the empty space under the sink where there was no cabinet. He set his civilian clothes in one pile and his robin costume in another. His Robin suit took priority since he didn’t have the option of it being sent to the laundry room. He separated each attachment for his suit to properly clean the base while the tub filled with steaming water. 

Damian felt ridiculous with the amount of caution he was being forced to afford on the flowers' pollen and scent. It wasn't even a normal poison, seeing as Drake had quite literally no reaction at all to the flowers despite going inside the enclosed greenhouse. None of the scientists that they had footage of working in the labs had a reaction either. Not a single person other than Damian seemed affected.

His gloves were the last thing he removed. Even with the practiced method they had for removing contaminated clothes, gloves usually required assistance. In their normal suits there was a clasp on the back of the gloves that was meant to make removal easy. This suit did not have that since its primary function was to hold potentially contaminated or poisoned waters. In the end there were a few more marks of red along Damian’s palms, but considering the alternative of calling Drake to help, he supposed it was manageable.

Their soaps were strong enough to remove most types of skin irritants and chemicals without damaging his skin. He used a second set of gloves from his utility belt while he cleaned his suit in the hot bath, for whatever little it could do to protect the skin of his forearm from the diluted flower residue. Every instance of precaution he was forced to take only irritated Damian more. 

Damian imagined an instance in the near future where he was on another mission and happened across the dreaded blood blossom and was immediately compromised like today. What would Father say? He’d never let Damian onto the field again. Given the circumstance, Damian would wager even the others would side with Father on the matter, and it would be consequently impossible for him to move around in Gotham unsupervised. All over a damn flower.

Setting his cleaned suit across the uncontaminated vanity he’d made sure not to touch earlier, Damian realized that this had never happened to him before. Not even in any of the missions he’d done with the League of Assassins, including the ones where they’d made him fight against death to prove his place as heir. Damian had been tasked to sneak into some of the more heavily guarded places with the most peculiar precautions, and never once had he come across a flower that made his skin burn from the inside.

Damian was well traveled and had even been to other planets and alternate dimensions. How was it that none of the odd people he’d encountered, friend or foe, had never once tasked a flower with such dangerous effects on even a subgroup of people and had not utilized it to its maximum? The subtlety of mere flowers could even be grounds for potential oversight by an unsuspecting enemy.

Except there was one person who had done so: Vladimir Masters. He’d assigned an isolated group of people on an isolated island to care for and manage the blood blossoms, making strange scents and perfumes from them. According to their mountain guide, the flowers smelt horrid even to those it didn’t immediately decapitate, making it an unseeming business venture. Almost obviously, making perfumes wasn’t Dalv Co’s goal with the flowers.

What was then? They were regularly and systematically harvesting flowers that seemed harmful to a minority of people, and with the amount of effort and care the plant required to keep up, it hardly made sense to do so for such little returns. Masters, for his many oversights and flaws, was a tried businessman. Damian should not undermine him so much as to think he would have the greenhouse full of blood blossoms for no practical reason.

The entire island facility had been so simple to sneak into since it seemed to have taken into account the most obvious of security while having lengthy measures at the same time. It was a paradox Damian had solved by uncovering that Dalv Co was arming against ghostly intruders, not living ones. Yet for all their precaution, why did the greenhouse, home to the crux of their operation seemingly, have nothing more than a civilian-level lock on the front door and unpinned panes?

Sure, the glass building might have been easy to supervise, but there hadn’t been so much as a guard crossing its wide perimeter in the hour and longer Robin and Red Robin had been there. The main facility that the drone had sneaked into had been a managed feat to access, and further was the odd warehouse lab housing the nondescript contraption with the most notable security.

Keeping in mind that the ghosts were the island's main point of defensive focus, and the average ghost generally had the powers of invisibility, flight, and passing through hard objects, their security would be peculiar to what Damian was used to seeing. The ghosts wouldn’t need to sneak around in the vents since they were immune to sight, walls, and doors. As a result, their air vents were large and simple to access for maintenance and human vigilantes. Once they figured out how to get past the front security, a simple task based on what they’d already seen of the architecture, there was little standing in their way.

So in defense of the ghost, the walls had been made with little other than glass, easily breakable. Ghosts had at least the strength of humans, in most cases. Even if the glass was made so they could not phase through it, like Damian knew was possible, they could simply break through by force. For this reason there were notably no windows in the main facility. But their more than usual lax anti-human security had left the greenhouse unguarded. 

They were confident in the fact that no ghost would attempt to go into the greenhouse that was being presented on a silver platter. The blood blossoms were valuable; Damian just hadn’t deduced why. Despite their value and rarity, they were loosely guarded. That couldn’t be an accident. 

Drake had been so focused on the mechanics of the whole thing that Damian had gotten wrapped up in it too. Masters was pushing for more of the blood blossom oil and scent. And his main focus was defeating Phantom. Everything in Damian told him those two facts had to somehow be related, but he didn’t have the proof to be confident in his hypothesis.

Damian’s fingers were pruned from the heat of decontamination, but he rubbed the soap delicately into his skin regardless. If he was right and blood blossoms were a ghost’s weakness or a major component of a ghostly weakness, why was Damian, a fully human boy, so badly affected? He’d come close to death at times, but surely so had Drake. Drake had been infected with various poisons and been beaten to within an inch of his life many times. His spleen had been carved out of him; surely if Damian had somehow scored highly on the ectoplasmic substance diagnostic, so should Drake. What had Damian done to acquire the weakness?

Ghosts were of the supernatural, and Damian admittedly knew little about the field despite his case topic. Was there some reasoning that since Daniel, Damian’s blood brother, was Phantom, a notably influential ghost in Amity Park, that they were somehow connected? Damian had at times been able to sense, with real accuracy, that Brother was in danger even without any real way of being tipped off. 

Damian was certain it couldn’t be a meta-gene ability, though he’d momentarily entertained the idea. This was something he knew as factually as Damian knew he had no allergies. Mother had edited his genes to make sure of those facts and a few more. Suddenly, Damian remembered a memory that he hadn't pulled on in quite some time.

It happened when he was still with the League and undergoing the brunt of his training. Damian had been dosed with a poison that had made him particularly bedridden. He had a fever within the hour of administration and wouldn’t be allotted the remedy for at least 36 hours to prove he had the strength for the title of heir. 

That night, when Damian was at the height of his fever, Mother had come to his room. She did this often; Damian knew from the times he would awaken to the scent of her perfume in his room without any sign of her. This night, however, when Damian opened his eyes to the scent, she was still there in his room, standing over his bed. 

The memory is hazy with age and delirium, but Damian could never have come up with the terrified face of his mother, not even in his nightmares. She stood over him, shaking at her shoulders, with her face wet and her chest heaving. 

“You can’t die.” She’d begged, her eyes locking with Damian’s as soon as he’d managed to open them through his fever. “You’re stronger than him. I made sure.” Something in her voice was slipping from the vice grip he knew the women to have on logic and reasoning. “Damian has no faults, no weaknesses. He is perfect. He is the Son of the Demon and the Bat. He will not fall to poisons or illness.” She spoke like she was informing him of a ruling.

“M-uh” Was all young Damian had been able to manage; he was not sure how the sight before him could be any sort of real.

The weak voice spurred something from the Demon his mother had just referenced. She grabbed Damian by the shoulders, pulling him up with a grip that had left claw marks on his shoulder. “Damian will survive.” Mother declared, while the boy in question could hardly sit up on his own. Then she pulled a dagger from her sheath with a ferocity that made Damian think that she was going to kill him herself.

He tried to pull away from her with an instinct to survive in the midst of his poison-induced incoherence. But he had no advantage over her to exploit in that moment, and the little boy could not escape the ravaging woman. Mother dragged her favorite dagger through Damian’s forearm. His body tried unsuccessfully to sear the wound closed with pain. Blood dripped off his arms in a growing stream, and in his feverish state, the weakness was more than Damian could handle. His head began bobbing for consciousness, and Mother grabbed it by the cheeks to hold it steady. She pressed her fingers hard into the outside of his jaw, forcing his mouth open. Then, she forced a vial of liquid down his throat. It had the sharp edge of iron he recognized from the many times he had blood in his mouth, but it alone could not make up the odd taste from that night. 

Damian would wake up days later in the infirmary under the close care of the few physicians the League would allot. The incident was never brought up again, and no signs of it remained once his arm healed. 

Damian did not see Mother for many months following the incident. But since then it had been made clear to him what he had been left. She had made sure Damian could survive anything. 

Damian is sure she would be very disappointed if she came to learn his weakness was a simple flower.

9:25 PM

Damian lay on the too-soft mattress of the room, too exhausted to critique the quality of his so-called ‘high-class amenities.’ His skin had calmed down easily enough after the shower, so he hoped his suit was in a similar state. Their next attempt at the island would need to be a much longer endeavor, and Damian couldn’t afford to be slowed down. Especially with Drake not taking him very seriously as mission lead and taking the position for himself.

Damian could sleep now and wake up early to do more research. But he was held back by the unavoidable matter that he hadn’t spent much time on deck, and with the word of his supposed seasickness already being whispered, he needed to make himself known. 

More importantly, Damian was incredibly hungry. Pulling himself out of the discomfort of his mattress, Damian pulled on a clean sweater to shield him from the nightly breeze and headed to the deck. He took a small stop to send his contaminated civilian clothes to the wash, and made a mental note to return with some cleaning solvents to clean the area he’d left them in.

The ship had multiple options for food, and Damian elected for a different option than the one he’d gone to earlier. This was an elevated version of Puerto Rican street-style food Damian had seen about while they were on the island, and the seating was more lax. On the second deck he took his tray of food and opted to sit in the outside seating under the ocean breeze that had quickly trampled over every attempt Damian had made to style his hair.

There were few others in the lounge area that overlooked the dark ocean. From here the city lights of the island could be mistaken for particularly bright stars, blending in with the natural array of them that spanned the sky. Eating his food, Damian felt the wind swirl against the ocean. Damian doesn’t know how he can differentiate this wind in particular from the normal ocean breeze that swept over the open deck. For the sake of logic, he could claim the unnatural direction and strange flow pattern. 

But Damian had only become keen on the difference after he’d felt the hair on his arms and neck stand alert. It was similar to hearing the sound of the wind rushing before a Kryptonian would fly by or, in an entirely unmistakably different case, where a speedster would blur past. Damian looked at where the wind was, as if it was a possible feat. In response his hair was tousled in a peculiar circular manner that could not be blamed at all on nature.

Because he was in public, Damian couldn’t acknowledge the ghost in his presence. He finished his food in silence, pointedly ignoring the supernatural entity about. In retribution the salad Damian had intermittently been taking bites of flew straight into the ocean. Baffled, he looked at the space his vegetables had been airborne. 

Maturely, Damian took a calming breath and resumed as if nothing extraordinary had occurred. He took the last bite of his food and got up to set his plate at its designated spot for collection. 

At the station there was a young woman at the stand in the crew’s uniform, assembling the plates to secure transport. She turned to Damian pleasantly when she noticed his approach and extended a hand with an offer to take the plate. From a distance that had been entirely safe from her elbow, a sauce bowl fell right at where Damian’s next step was, making him trip and stumble into an older man that was innocently making his way around the second deck.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” The woman apologized, assuming responsibility with alarmed confusion. “I have no idea how that happened. I’m so sorry. Are you both okay?” She fretted.

“It’s alright.” Damian managed, pulling himself off the burly man, who hadn’t stirred from his secure footing. “Sorry.” He told the man half-heartedly, who just nodded and went about his way.

“I’m so sorry.” The crew woman said again, genuinely.

“It’s fine.” Damian reassured, handing over his plate, fallen fork, and the sauce bowl. Moving to walk away, Damian was slapped in the face by the kitchen’s double swing doors. There was nobody behind the door that could’ve been responsible. 

“Stop it!” Damian demanded the door since he had no cues for where else to point his irritation.

The crew woman looked at the odd sight, approaching Damian hesitantly to ask again if he was okay. He rushed off in a nondescript direction before she could, rubbing his forehead. He’s certain he can hear the wind howl with laughter beside him.

Damian wandered around the deck, not sure what to entertain himself with when nothing sounded particularly enticing. A yawn pulled from him as he leaned on the banister around the elevated second deck. From here he could see the moon hanging perfectly in the center of the clear sky speckled with twinkling pearls, making Damian wish again he had his oil paints with him.

The boat is still on course for the resort. It’s scheduled to arrive at midday tomorrow. The breeze now, without a meddling spirit, washes over him in calming waves. Silently glad he’d come out of his room for this, Damian settled his fatigue into an empty lounge chair. 

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