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A loud ring wakes him up and Damian tenses. It sounds like his alarm, but he still has almost a month before school opens again.Not only that, but his bed isn't that stiff, and the covers are the wrong material too. He's wearing a sleevless shirt, these clothes aren't what he went to sleep with. It doesn't take a genius to realize he isn't in his room.In fact, his body feels weird, he isn't sure how to describe it, but it's obvious there's something wrong. Drugs? He can think clearly, but it's still a possibility.He keeps his eyes closed and listens closely, there's the sound of traffic, not too far away but not right beside him either. It comes from below... So a building then. Based on the distance… Sixth floor? There's obviously the condemned alarm, music, from somewhere… Not the same building, no, it comes from far away. A neighbor one. So it's probably a city. He smells lavender, not too strong. Probably from the covers. Also wet soil, he isn't sure where that comes from.He doesn't hear any footsteps, nor voices. That doesn't mean he's alone, but it's as good of a sign to open his eyes as he's going to get.As he opens his eyes the first thing he sees is a white ceiling. Moving as little as he can, he looks around. He's on a bed, white pillow, white covers. Next to his head is a cellphone, not his own, the case is blue, his is black. That's where the noise comes from, the alarm flashing with big letters “Job #2!” on the screen on top of the button to stop it.He tries looking at the room, it's a bit hard from this angle, but in case he's being watched and they don't know that Damian is awake yet he doesn't want to risk moving more than strictly needed.The bed is quite high, a bunk bed? Is someone on the lower bed? He doesn't hear any breathing other than his own but can't discard the possibility.He's in a small room, there's the bed; a wooden desk with an expensive looking computer, an action figure of a character he doesn't recognize, a pink glass bunny, and an open book and a chair; a tiny bookshelf with some books, he recognizes two of them as detective novels, a book about art history he also owns, and a huge gardening manual, the other ones aren't in the right angle for him to be able to identify; A closet with shoe boxes on top of it; A clock.The walls are mostly barren, decorated only with a watercolor of a landscape and a poster with spaceships and the words “The Grand tour”. There's a window with the curtains drawn open, letting sunlight get inside the room.Slowly, he gets a hand out of the covers to stop the goddamn alarm. And then-Damian opens his hand in front of his face, instantly feeling even more alert. This is not his hand.The skin color is the same old olive, and it has the scar he's had since he's five, the one on the back near the thumb, but the size is too big, like an adult's.He quickly takes off the covers and looks at himself. This isn't his body, it's a grown man's, and yet… And yet, when he looks at his arms he can see a couple of scars he recognizes near the shoulder…Ok. Hypothesis number one, someone, somehow, broke into the manor, kidnapped him without anyone noticing, turned him into an adult and left him in a stranger's room.Hypothesis number two, time travel.He jumps from the bed and now that he's standing in the middle of the room he can see what was under him.The bunk's bottom bed has been stripped from its mattress, and instead it has a collection of plants on top of it, all in orange pots of different sizes. That explains the smell.They're on various stages of grown, and most of them haven't even germinated yet. On each pot, with black marker and in Arabic, is written what the plant is: carrot, strawberry, aloe, potatoe, onion, and “space plant that cures headaches”. Except for the last one, a bonsai that is instead marked with “MAYA’S GIFT, KEEP ALIVE AT ALL COST!!!!” He can't tell for sure if it's supposed to be from Maya or for Maya, but that isn't exactly important. Behind the plants there are some pages tapped to the wall, with schedules for sunlight and water.No one has appeared yet, so Damian assumes he's probably safe to investigate what's going on. Looking through the window he can recognize Blüdheaven.He frowns, what is he doing here? If this is really hypothesis number two he can't see himself moving to this city. Even if he decided to leave father, he just can't see himself living here.Turning on the computer results ineffective, since he doesn't know the password. The open book is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, with a couple of sticky colorful papers left around the middle and beginning, and on the open page it has a bookmarks made to look like the Wicked Witch of the West's legs are sticking out when the book is closed. In the drawers of the desk he finds notebooks for biology classes and sketchbooks, as well as materials for painting.The boxes over the closet contain a mix of stuff, from old boardgames to computer pieces to shurikens, but nothing of real interest. In the closet itself he finds various clothes that would fit well the body he's in, as well as a locked drawer with the key hanging from the lock, when he opens it he finds it filled with two katanas and some knives.On the bookshelf he finds books in a variety of languages, some of them he doesn't speak. A lot of them, like the one on the desk, have sticky notes on some pages. Most are manuals or textbooks about different stuff, from the aforementioned gardening one to math to medicine, there are also some novels, mostly about detectives or science fiction, but there's one about romance too. Finally, one of the lower shelfs is almost completely composed of comics, mostly X-Men, Spiderman and Capitan America, with some of a girl named Gwenpool thrown here and there. There's also two tomes of a manga he's never seen before.After he's sure he isn't missing anything else in the room he moves to inspect the cellphone, and now that he actually looks at it he notices the phone case isn't all plain blue, it has the Superman S right at the center. Damian raises an eyebrow, but decides not to focus on that right now.The lock screen is a picture of a dog, and even though he's way older Damian still can recognize it's Titus. According to it it's 6am, and the date is the same as when he went to sleep at 2am, but it doesn't say the year. It also doesn't look too futuristic, but that isn't an actual proof of the time period.As it happened with the computer he can't actually access to it without the password, but there are three apps he can open from there, one is the camera, the other is the alarm and the third one is his contact list. He has quite some numbers listed, at least way more than he has in his cell phone back home. He quickly scrolls thought them all.
A1, A2, A3, A4, Abigail, AC, Agent Scully(Owes $30), Anna(Dead?), BarbaraG, Billy📵, Boss(Job1), Boss(Job2), Cassandra🗽(New), Cassandra🗾(Old), Clark, Colin💪, Crushin’ it🤘(Owes $5), David🎨, Diana🥋, Dick🐤, DJ💍, Duke(I owe $10), Father🦇, Father(Emergency), Harper(Owes $15), Jason🎓, Jon⭐🌹(Owes $5), Kathy🛸, Kid⚡, Leslie, Lois, Maya🌱, Mark(Job1), Miranda, Mother1(Not working), Mother2(Not working), Mother3(On Mondays ONLY), Jack(Still mad at me?), Pennywort🥪, Queen🏹, Red🍎, Selina🐾, Stephanie👁️, Stephanie(emergency), Stephanie(Huge emergency), Stranger danger(Owes $5), That One Asshole, Tobias(Dead?), Tom(Job2), Valerie(Still mad at me), Veterinary, Williams(Job1), Zatanna🎩.
Damian frowns. He can't recognize himself in any of this stuff. He doesn't see himself as someone who's into gardening, and even if a couple of the books seem ok most of them don't interest him at all. He's fine with his older self getting into biology but why would he need two jobs? Not only that but the names in his contact list are really weird, apart from the obvious of there being certain people in it he wouldn't expect, he doesn't usually address his family by their first names, he doesn't like using emojis, and some the names listed are obviously nicknames. If this really ends being theory number two Damian isn't sure how to feel about it.He can totally see himself calling one of his contacts “That One Asshole” though.Deciding there isn't much more to learn from this room, he opens the door and moves to explore the rest of the apartment.The bedroom connects to a tiny living room, it has a couch, a TV and a coffee table with a console on top of it. It's the same one he has back home, and when he turns it on the disk it has inside is the latest version of Cheese Vikings he knows of. A contemporary console is still not proof of the time period, as an example he knows for a fact Drake keeps a ten years old PS1 in his place, but he would expect technology to be way more advanced if this really is the future.The rest of the place is unimpressive, to say the least. A normal bathroom, a kitchen, a balcony. The most interesting thing is probably the decoration. Frustratingly, there aren't any photos, but there are several paintings, the most impressive, hanging on top of the couch, being a huge oil canvas of Gotham's skyline made with extreme detail, to the point Damian thinks he could pinpoint the rooftop from which it's seen if he really tried.Other interesting ones are a framed watercolor of Alfred's garden, and a portrait of who he easily recognizes as his mother, even though it's shot from an angle it obscures half of the face. It's not hard to come to the conclusion Damian- Or rather, the supposedly adult Damian, made these. It's also a possibility he painted all the other paintings, he wouldn't know, he's never been one to sign his art. If that's the case though, that's a nice surprise, he can see a huge improvement compared to his current skills.Damian takes a moment to inspect his reflection in the bathroom. The face is similar, that's for sure. He can easily see himself growing into this body. Same eyes, same hair, same skin, same factions, same same same, only the age is wrong.He starts taking off the shirt and looking for other known scars. Most of the ones he got as a little kid are still there, but several more recent ones are lacking, and there are a bunch of new scars he doesn't recognize too.What specially catches his eyes is the lack of the biggest one, the one from when he died. It's supposed to be on his chest, right at the middle, above the stomach, and to have another matching one on the back from where the sword came out. That zone is now empty of marks though, and instead he takes notice of a similarly big scar way higher, between the heart and the collarbone, and a matching one on the lower back.Odd.The more he investigates the more the time travel theory strengthens and weakens at the same time.He goes to the kitchen, determined to end his doubts about the date once and for all. He hasn't seen any newspaper lying around, so expiration date of the milk it will be.Entering the kitchen, he notices a crude drawing tapped to the freezer, as if made by a kid. It depicts the same character of the action figure he couldn't recognize before and Damian very consciously decides not to think what it means. Instead he barely allows it a glance as he opens the fridge and fishes out the the first thing he can grab.It's a package of ham. Not tofu, actual meat.Well, that answers the question. He's a vegetarian and isn't planning on changing that, so this is not the future.The package's date also confirms it, it's set to go bad the same year it was yesterday, the same year it likely is today.Hypothesis two discarded.But that still doesn't clear up what's going on. If this isn't time travel then someone turned him into an adult, but that doesn't explain the apartment or how not all the scars match.If this was actually a place he could picture his older self in, he could think it's a spell supposed to make him see his possible future, or how his life would be if he was older, or something like that. But instead it's as if things were almost right but didn't quite fit.Alright, theory number 3, alternative universe it is.Ok. So this complicates things. If this was just an aging spell or time travel he could ask for help from his family or other allies, but if this is a different universe he can't be sure he can trust these versions of them. Sure, based on the cellphone this Damian's relationship with them isn't bad, and he doesn't think they're civilians, if only based on the several emergency numbers and the emojis assigned to each one on his phone. But as far as he knows they could be evil. Hell, as far as he knows he could be evil.Might as well investigate a little more around this place…He could get breakfast first though, now that he's pretty sure the food here won't be poisonous. He puts all meat products aside and starts making something with the veggies he can find.It takes him a while, but after a little more of two hours of searching the apartment he finds what he's looking for. A panel with a retina scanner that opens to a big secret room.There he finds a computer, similar to the one at the manor but not as big, it, as expected, is also password protected. On the computer's desk he finds a dog collar and a worn leash. Right, now that he thinks about it where is Titus? He saw him on a picture and now that he thinks about it there was a dog bowl in the kitchen. Alfred too, if this version of him has Titus he also should have the cat. He probably doesn't have Batcow though, he refuses to believe any version of him would have met her and still keep eating meat.That thought is… Really depressing, but this isn't his reality so he decides not to pay it any mind.Maybe Titus is with the veterinary? He should remember to call later and ask, in case he needs to pick him up.Looking around the place Damian also finds training equipment, weapons and a exhibition with a suit that looks like the mysterious action figure plus drawing. At this point he's come to understand that's probably his vigilante uniform.He examines the suit. Now that he sees it in real life up close he sees it's loosely inspired in the league of shadows’ suits. It's fitted to the body on the chest, with the league's more loose pants, it has a cape with a hood and the league's characteristic armor on the arms, shoulders and knees, and a red domino mask.It's mostly black, with some touches of red and orange on the hands and neck, the boots and utility belt looks the same as his Robin suit, except these are red. And at the center of the chest there's a red symbol, similar to Nightwing's bird, but this one is more curved and instead of the wings elongating into the arms they climb to the collarbone, where they curve inwards and join at the back of the neck.Damian searches for paper records. He can't access to the computers, but surely he must keep some physical copies of some archives somewhere. He finds them in a storage box under the computer's desk.He takes the first five and skims over them. They detail two operations to stop drug rings that took place last month, a record of a girl named Catherine Turner that is suspect of a murder, and some records of arms dealing. The first one mention a vigilante called Flamebird a lot, and from that and the costume he concludes this is Damian's hero name.“Flamebird.” He repeats out loud and then scowls. That comes from a Kryptonian myth, so he must have decided his name in a similar way as how Nightwing did. He also thinks back about the phone case, if this version of him turns out to be a Superman groupie Damian is going to throw up.Well, at least now he knows he isn't evil. That means his family isn't either, or at least that he would like to believe.He takes out the phone and opens the list of contacts, his finger hovering on top of Father's number, before deciding to turning it off again. No, he still has too little information, he has no idea how this Bruce Wayne will react, besides, does he really want Father to know what's going on?He’s sure he can solve this by himself. But he wants to at least know what's the state of his family. He's older, so surely father is too, right? He also wants to know the situation of his siblings, but if he just calls someone he wouldn't know how to extract the information without it being obvious something is not right…So that means he should go to the manor.He must have a vehicle somewhere, but he has no idea where it could be. It takes him until midday to find it, a motorcycle in a hidden garage next to the building. He suspects it's somehow connected to the other room, but right now he doesn't know how.He prepares packing some stuff, along with the Flamebird uniform. And then, Damian Wayne takes off towards Gotham.