Wandering Worlds

Chapter Three – All the world drops dead

Frustrated, confused, and in a dire need of using a bathroom – a real bathroom, clean, with running water, god, the things you take for granted – Dick let his head fall against the pillow, teeth clenched. What was this? A dream? It was too real, it lacked that rupture with logic that even his nicest and therefore cruellest dreams ever had. Moreover, none of his nightmares, bad as they were, ever included a dead doppelgänger before.

The way Gar had looked at him was bugging Dick the most, there was such stark suspicion, it hurt even to remember, and Kory… Maybe this was an illusion. An illusion tailor made to hurt him in new exquisite ways. Yes, another of Trigon's faux realities, that would explain why he had to endure the expression of explicit disgust on Kory's face towards him. The way she had talked to him, as if he was less than nothing to her. Was that Trigon's plan all along? Taint the last thing he had of his own? Poison the memories he had of the people he loved with mock versions in which they now felt nothing but contempt to him? Had Trigon let him live that long so he could savour his torture, stretching it as long as possible before, finally, granting him the mercy kill Dick so desired?

"Hey, cry baby."

Dick jumped, startled to be brought of his self-indulging self-loathing thoughts and blinked open eyes he didn't notice he had closed. Still not fully used to the clarity. Donna stood beside his bed, with a very Donna-ish look on her face. It hurt to look at her too, but maybe a little less, because he got to say goodbye to his Donna.

"Don't you dare feeling guilty for my death, Grayson." She had said hugging him so hard he was barely able to breath. "If you do I'll know and I'll haunt your ass, Trigon will be nothing compared to me."

Or maybe, because, instead of disgust or anger, that Donna only had worry and pity on her face. Which, considering their relationship, it was how she normally looked at him. Dick cleaned his throat and tried to wipe the tears falling but ended up cursing loudly when he was painfully reminded of the restrains on his wrists.

"Hera! Do you kiss you mother with hat mouth?"

He only gave her a dirty look to which she only pressed her lips harder, holding a smirk.

"You know damn well I don't have a mother."

Donna rose her eyebrows, she clearly was having a little bit of fun watching his struggle, but curiosity was floating above her sadistic tendencies, and regular grumpiness.

"Do I?"

Dick took a deep breath, his wrists were sore.

"Can you please free my hands? This is ridiculous."

"You attacked Rachel," she said, very serious now.

"Yeah, and I'm sorry, alright? Not going to do it again if she keeps Trigon locked up."

Donna frowned and crossed her arms.

"How do you know about Trigon?"

"Because I do! Come on, Donna, we both know you can make me say the truth if you really want. Put the rope around me. And I'll tell the same thing, that I need to go to bathroom, and if you let me for much longer you'll be cleaning up the mess."

She held his fierce gaze for a while, and then blew air through her mouth.

"Fuck it. This day can't get any weirder anyway."

For a moment of despair, he thought she'd leave him too, but she just went behind the screen separating the beds to retrieve the key for his cuffs.

Dick massaged his wrists, glad to be finally free. He jumped out of the bed crossing over Donna.

"The bathroom is-"

"I know where it is," he cut her and left.

It was weird how being alone, once a tragedy, suddenly became a comfort. He lied against the cold wooden door for a while in the dark, massaging his wrists, thoughts floating through his mind rapidly without setting on anything. After a while, his arm, almost automatically reached for the light switch that was exactly where he knew it would be, as if he had used that bathroom a million times over, grown up in the house where it belonged to.

But the Wayne Manor he had grown in was blown to the ground with Bruce Wayne by Dick himself.

He stepped in front of the mirror. No wonder no one recognized him. The dishevelled, filthy pile of flesh and bones could never had being Dick Grayson, the darkening black eye wasn't exactly helping either. He blinked and the last image he had of Rachel looking like a decaying corpse looked back at him. Dick forced his eyes opened, a sob buried so deep inside he didn't think he was still holding, crawled up from his guts, and he bended forward, holding the porcelain sink for dear life.

When the desperate tears subdued, he cleaned his face, marvelling in he pleasure of running water and hand soap. He pulled his long greasy hair behind, combing it with his fingers but there was no use.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Just a minute," he said, not quite ready to leave.

It was Donna again, she looked almost apologetic.

"Great Hera, you are really him, aren't you?" And to Dick's utmost shock, Donna engulfed in in a bear hug. His hands took a while to fall around her body. She smelled like dust, and tangerines, it was familiar, and so Donna. He felt like crying again, but she suddenly pushed him away. "Fuck, my bad."

Still confused, he observed her bend down to pick up something she dropped, it was a bundle of clothes.

"Here," she pushed them to his chest. "Take a shower, you really need one. No offense."

"None taken. Hard to come across running water where I come from."

"Yeah, I will ask you about that later when I can breathe through my nose again," she said and then added; "and I will be using the rope!"

He smiled fondly at her.

"Thank you, Donna."

After the longest and thoroughest shower of his entire life that made his skin feel raw and new, Dick found himself back in the Batcave's infirmary. Donna had collected hair, cells from inside his mouth (in swabs that could have been more gentle, mind you), his fingertips and blood samples, and was currently processing them as Dick wanted looking bored.

"So, if you are Dick Grayson, and the Batcomputer says you are-"

"I also say I am."

She rolled her eyes, muttering something the sounded a lot like the word "irrelevant".

"Where are you from? The future? Do we revive you somehow and that goes so wrong you had to come back to stop us or?"

Dick squints in disbelief.

"How would that even work?"

Donna gives her table a nervous slap.

"I don't know, Grayson, you are the one travelling through demonic portals!"

He breathes through his teeth.

"I don't think I'm from the future."

"What you mean you don't think?"

He wrinkles his nose.

"I'd know, wouldn't I?"

"Probably," Donna says chewing her bottom lip. "Do you have any memory loss?"

That makes Dick bark a mirthless laugh.

"Quite the contrary, actually," he finally says in a dark tone.

"What you mean?"

"I'd give everything to forget the last year."

"What happened?"

He sighed, unwilling to have that conversation but very ware he had no way out.

"It started with Jason's death. Bruce killed the Joker for revenge."

"Yeah, they told me."

"What you mean?"

"I was dead when it happened, it's… It's a long story. So, Bruce killed the Joker, big deal, he had It coming. Jason came back and?"

"Jason came back?" Dick asked in confusion.

"Yes?"

"That's not it happened for me. Bruce used Jason's death as an excuse to kill the entire Rogue's gallery."

Donna made a disgusted face.

"All of them?"

"Yes."

"Even Catwoman?"

"Yes."

"Fuck. Wasn't she-?"

"Yes. She tried to protect Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy."

"Yikes…"

Dick took a deep breath and continued.

"We tried to stop him, and Kory…" he swallowed and looked away. "Rachel lost control of Trigon after that and the rest… Well, it's not worth commenting."

Donna didn't say a word for the longest time.

"I think you are from another universe."

"Excuse me?"

"You know? How Paradise Island pulls fallen female warriors from different times? Sometimes women from other realities are brought to us too. That's what I think you are. But how exactly did you get here? How did you find Rachel's portal on your side?"

Dick took a deep breath and scratched his chin, it felt weirdly naked after having a beard for so long.

"Well, Lex told me to investigate some weapon…"

"Lex as in Lex Luthor?!"

"Yes. We're not pals," he explained quickly, "but he's one of the last."

"What you mean one of the last?"

"The last humans, as I told you, Rachel let Trigon out, he threw his darkness over the whole planet, made people mad."

"Fuuuck."

"I didn't find any weapon, just Rachel. I tried to attack her, but instead I was sucked by this portal thing and then I was here."

Donna tapped her fingers on the table, deep in thought for a long while, then, she stood up out of the blue, stretching her back behind like a big cat and sighed.

"Well, I believe you," she said matter-of-factly.

Dick's eyebrows knitted together and he stood up too.

"But you didn't even use the rope."

"Yeah, I know. Probably will have to use it tomorrow when you tell this all over again in front of the whole team. Now," she patted his shoulder, "go to sleep, you might not be reeking anymore, but you still look like shit. Night."