Damian Wayne has decided he's had just enough of this hellish class trip.
He was chosen to go (because of course he was) even if he was still a freshman. While he (obviously) had a 4.0 GPA, the event was supposed to be barred to upperclassmen only, but the school board of Gotham is nothing if not filled with nepotists.
Even despite the warnings of LexCorp's more, unseemly, past pursuits, the offer and aforementioned event itself screamed nothing but goodwill.
Five nearby schools, along with Metropolis's own high school, would offer up their best and brightest to join on a tour of Metropolis's so-called highlights of science, technology, and agriculture, to inspire a future generation of intellect within the ever-growing city. A quote taken directly from Luthor's mouth during the live announcement over several TV networks. Truly, LexCorp wanted to usher in a new golden area of "The Youths" to take lead with how much the world had changed since the introduction of superheros, aliens, metas and the like.
It was so incredibly suspicious Damian might have gone himself even if he wasn't invited.
Then again, that would have been the preferred outcome to this, then at least he could have been Robin, on the ground and reported on how fucking suspicious this whole thing was, and torn it down before disaster could have struck.
He might have even tolerated the assistance of Superboy, as this particular case landed on his home turf.
Instead, he's in his uniform (the wrong one) surrounded by idiots ("No, Jonathan, if this was a group of geniuses they wouldn't be gawking at high rises like idiots.") and being what is essentially a sitting duck while Timothy of all people gets to run proper recon with fucking Superman .
"Mr. James! I do demand that you come with me this second and-" and now he had a buffoon of an instructor yelling at him like a madman.
"I do demand you keep a closer eye on your students, and to actually pay attention to who you are talking to." That stopped the man in his tracks, he looked Damian up and down, surprise was written clearly on his face.
Damian almost sighed, the other boy (James?) really didn't look all that much like him, (He should know, he's killed plenty of things with his own face) and while once is interesting, twice is strange.
Strange made Damian uneasy.
"Oh! Sorry, sir! Were you looking for the other kid he was-!" Jon says, stepping between Damian's death glare and the unsuspecting teacher. Glancing back to where the other student was reveals he's somehow managed to slip away without detection.
Jon gives Damian a look again before turning to the teacher.
"Agh, looks like he ran off! Maybe he went to go grab a room in the hotel?" The teacher looked at them both, mouth a tight line on his face.
"Thank you both, my sincere apologies for the mix-up Mr.?" Damien smirks, a rare expression on his face at the question. Next to him, Jonathan rolls his eyes.
"Wayne, Damian Wayne." Well, whatever else would happen for the worse today, Damian could at least take his entertainment in the form of all the blood leaving the face of the man in front of him.
"O-Of course!" He wheezed out, making a swift break for the hotel.
"Damiiiiii" Right back to regularly scheduled annoyance
"How many times, Kent? You are to refer to me by my full-"
"That was mean though!"
"It was funny, wasn't it you that told me I needed to have 'More Fun'?"
"Still Dami about-"
"Besides it's on him for storming in my face like that-"
"Damian." That's enough for Damian to still his tongue for a moment, glancing over to Jonathan to see he's got that look on his face again.
Damian surveys the area, the buses are still there but most of the students are gone, crowding the entrance to the hotel with their bags of luggage. There's no one in earshot at least. Damian can guess where Jon's going to go with this conversation.
"He wasn't a clone."
"I didn't think he was!"
"We don't look all that similar Kent."
"I know! I know! I feel weird even knowing I mixed the two of you up the first time, that was the first weird thing." Damian frowned at that.
"Explain." Jon waves his hands around in the air like that would suddenly clear up what he's talking about.
"I don't know how, really! It was just like, as I was walking up to him, some part of my brain just knew I was walking up to you! Even though I obviously wasn't!"
"Did it persist?"
"No, but, I might have gotten kinda distracted at the time so I'm not sure if it just went away as soon as I realized it wasn't you."
"Distracted? Distracted how?" Jon takes a deep breath at that, almost like he's trying to parse his words.
"His... Heart?"
There's a beat of silence at that, Damian staring dumbfounded as Jonathan looks more awkward and slightly sweaty by the second. Damian finally finds his thoughts after a few moments of chewing over what that could have meant.
"Is this some kind of romantic metapho-?"
"No! I mean- No! His heartbeat Damian! Something was off about the kid when he walked up and when I tuned it in I figured out why it was throwing me off." He huffs and cuts himself off at that, "Romantic Damian, seriously?-"
"Jonathan what was so wrong with it!"
"It was too slow!"
"It was too... slow?" This seemed like a bit much for a reaction for Jon to have like that.
"Ok no wait, sorry I'm explaining this wrong, I'm not sure why your twin threw me off so much-"
"Not twins Jonathan."
"Ok, I'm talking like, I thought I was talking to a corpse for the first three minutes of our conversation, slow Damian." Damian didn't like this, it didn't make sense, it felt like a piece added to an already complete jigsaw.
"Fine, but was that all you got from him? For all we know he could just be a meta." Jonathan gave a halfhearted shrug to that.
"I really don't know, between that and how he just seemed to... slip through my fingers? Now he's pulled a disappearing act." part of Damian wanted to just keep brushing it off, this whole event was an obvious set-up to catch the man of steel in a position that threatened the "best and brightest" and some random meta kid, just wandering around? Well, it's hard to connect the dots on that one. Damian sighed.
"Fine, I will request for Timothy to keep an eye out during our stay." Jon smiled, something soft but heavy.
"Thanks, maybe I'm being paranoid I just-" He sighed "-I don't want another kid caught up in this."
Damian just hummed, sending a video file to Tim along with a quick text.
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Get That Out Of Your Mouth (You don't know where it's been!)
FanfictionSpring break, really just a great opportunity to try for the- well, who really knows how many times- but to try and map out the Ghost Zone! Unfortunately for Danny, this little field trip of his has taken him much farther from home than expected. In...
