chapter 01:

minds twist through the fractured expanse of our being

AUGUST

It's the beginning of August, and it's a rainy mess of a day. It wouldn't be bad if it was cooler, but as summer holds tight to the city of Gotham, the city is humid and moist. It's not the perfect first day of school, but Damian's smart about it. He checks the weather forecast on his phone after his morning jog in the manor's gym and slings a raincoat over his shoulders as back-up. It's always good to have a back-up.

It's not fully zipped up, though; as he makes his way to his assigned locker for the year, he ditches both the raincoat and the umbrella in there, along with the books for classes he wouldn't need until after lunch that day. Gotham Academy isn't a fully enclosed school, but by pure luck, all of Damian's classes for the semester end up in the largest, main building.

He makes his way to his first class early. There are students clogging the hallways, both familiar and unfamiliar, catching up with friends after their summer vacations. The endless chatter always annoyed him, from bragging about different luxury vacations (well, I went to Cancun for a few weeks this summer. I went to Jamaica. I went to New York City!) to trying to flex on each other's wealth.

Damian ignores it. There are a few students who try to start conversation with him, but they are further and fewer between now. Damian is a junior now, at Gotham Academy; he has been at the same school for years, as have most of his classmates, and they all know it's pointless to try to get to know Damian.

His father sends him to school, not for the education, but for the friendships.

Damian isn't… good at that, yet.

He can work with others on group projects in and out of class; that's practical training for working with teams on missions, after all. But friendships, built out of a mutual, platonic fondness for one another were hard to come by. Damian has tried, he really has.

Unfortunately, most of the students at Gotham Academy are prissy rich kids. He doesn't share any similar interests with most of the students there. He isn't into a team sport, he isn't in a club, he's tried fencing at the school but found extracurriculars interfere with the family business.

Those who have tried to befriend Damian haven't been the best of company. Not all of them were the delinquent types, but they were all rich boys, who believed the more cash they carried on themselves as they got driven back and forth from their uppity mansions and penthouses in Gotham were a good replacement for personalities. They treated each other like crap, and more often, treated any female classmate or teacher worse. It took Damian only a day of that nonsense before he cut himself out of those groups (and only had to break one student's nose in a bit of mismanaged rage).

He feels… a bit bad about it all, but he's only got two more years left. And then he will be free from standardized education, and won't have to worry about silly, mundane things like "making friends" again.

His first class is an elective class he remembered selecting months ago. It was the first time that Gotham Academy was offering such a class, and the topic intrigued him. Mr. Meyers, a history teacher at the school, and winner of the "least likely to become a Gotham supervillain" superlative many years in a row in their yearbooks, was teaching a class about Mythology this semester.

Damian knows a lot about mythology—he knows a lot about all his other classes as well, to be fair. But mythology was one of the few things he was able to read when he was training in the league that wasn't strictly educational. All of the mythology books his mother had given him in his studies there had been for various history or language courses, of course, but the mythology books were the closest bit of fiction he could get when he was still there. He cherished those books dearly, and bought identical copies of them a few years after he ended up with Father to keep on his shelf.

Not many students have arrived in class so far. Mr. Meyers—technically Dr. Meyers, he has a double-PhD in historical studies and communication theories proudly framed on the wall of his classroom—isn't even in the classroom yet, either. It is the most ideal situation for the first class, as the seats that were chosen on the first day would become permanent after that (except in rare cases where students were too unproductive near each other).

Damian picks a seat on the edge, closest to the door, but in the fifth row back. Mr. Meyers' classroom was set up with tables, and not individual desks, which meant Damian would most likely get someone next to him, but they would be on his left side, and could easily be ignored. He chose a spot strictly in the middle of the classroom, where both doors were easily and quickly accessible in case of emergency. Gotham Academy had hired multiple defense contractors over the years, including some who worked with the Justice League, in order to better protect its students; but Damian didn't always trust the security cameras, the hidden metal detectors, or whatever other ridiculously expensive tech they purchased to protect students. Gotham Academy wasn't usually threatened by rouges, and on rare cases it was, the mechanisms would fail anyway.

He pulls out a notebook and a pen, setting it on the desk, before glancing at the time on his phone. There were still nearly ten minutes until classes started, and he took a second to read the notification on his phone.

FATHER:
Have a great day at school today, Damian. Sorry for missing you this morning.

ME:
Thank you. I understand, your patrol ran late last night.

Grayson texts a meme in the family group chat (family-sans-Father, of course), but Damian doesn't look at it. He slides his phone back into his school bag and takes a deep breath.

It's just school, he reminds himself. After two more years, I will no longer have to deal with any more of these people. Two more years.

Someone clears their throat, pulling Damian out of his thoughts. He looks up, and there's a student standing at the other chair at their table. Their black hair was shaggy, cut shorter on the top but longer in the back (a mullet, his brain provided for him later), and had striking, icy blue eyes and pale skin dotted with a constellation of freckles. At a brief glance, Damian could look at this person and consider him a part of the Wayne brood, as the media called them; black hair and blue eyes seemed to be an overwhelming majority in their family.

"Uh. Sorry. Is this seat taken?" They ask.

There's a gentle aura about this person. Their uniform is a little unkempt; not in a delinquent way, but in a way that looks like they'd ran out the door late. Their mullet is a bit wind-swept, and they look a little soaked from the rain.

"No, it is not." Damian replies, after a moment more of studying this student. This is a new student, he realizes. Gotham Academy does not tend to get new students—perhaps one or two a year, if they're lucky—due to the fact that many families do not see the worth of moving to a risky city like Gotham. Even if they stayed in their penthouses or the manors, there was still crime waiting around every corner, and even if they were lucky, there was always the Gotham weather. "You may take it."

"Cool." They smile, showing off longer-than-normal canines. A genetic trait, most likely. They take a seat next to Damian, and set their purple bag on the floor. "I'm Danny, by the way. Danny Fenton."

Damian pauses, for a moment. This… Danny person does not seem to recognize him as the Damian Wayne. But the shock wears off quickly, when Damian realizes that Fenton is holding a hand out to him.

He hesitates, before reaching out to shake it. "Damian Wayne."

"Nice to meet you!" Fenton says. "My pronouns are they and he, what're yours?"

"He and him." Damian replies. It's the first time he's ever been asked about his own personal pronouns, but he's no stranger to using a variety of different pronouns for others. All of his family members are cisgender, of course; but there are so many different species of aliens and inter-dimensional beings out there, that a variety of pronouns have just become commonplace in his world.

"Cool." Danny takes out his own notebook—a composition book, one of the cheapest that can be found on the market—and a chewed-on pencil with a worn-down eraser out of his own bag. The bag itself looks like it's seen better days. A violet purple, with a variety of patches, buttons and pins on it. Some of them were decorative. He recognized a patch—or perhaps it was a large button, it could be either—from the band Drake has been listening to recently, Humpty Dumpty. Most of the patches seemed to be for restoration, with doodles made onto them to look better.

He must be a scholarship student, Damian thinks, watching Danny closely as he shuffles for something else in his bag, and brings out a large eraser. Scholarships were often given out to a few students every year from the "lower class" neighborhoods in Gotham. Damian recalls a student from Crime Alley once attended Gotham, but he'd graduated with his scholarship the previous year and moved on with life.

But everyone could always tell when a scholarship student was near them. Their uniforms were usually unkempt (due to other schools in Gotham not requiring them), their belongings were more used and not the newest, or highest fashion items, and they seemed to just have an aroma about them. Not a strangely-scented grotesque one, but they were different, and they stuck out.

It was strange, though. Most scholarships to Gotham Academy were offered only for freshman. The student next to Damian—they were clearly a junior, just like him.

"Hey, um. Have you ever had this teacher before?" Fenton asks, interrupting Damian's thoughts, once again.

Damian is used to awkward small talk. After all the galas Father has forced him to go to, they've become second nature to him. "Mr. Meyers is an exceptionally good teacher. He is a bit stricter on grades than other teachers here, but if you study and do your own work, you will be fine."

"Oh, good." Fenton lets out a deep sigh. "This seems like a fun class. Do you like mythology, too?"

"Yes. I find it quite enjoyable. I assume you do as well, as you picked this class?"

"I didn't actually pick it. My, er, guardian couldn't enroll me as early as we were hoping, so I was just put in this class randomly." Fenton explains. More students are beginning to file in, and Mr. Meyers has finally arrived, beginning to write his name on the whiteboard in the front of the room with a dry-erase marker. "But I like mythology, too, so I think it'll be fun."

The five-minute warning bell rings out in the hallway. From where Damian is seated, he can spy a few students beginning to frantically leave their friend groups to disappear into various classes. A large friend group—one Damian can recognize as one of the multitudes of "popular" cliques at Gotham Academy—splits up into this classroom and the one next door. They were the sort of students that Damian despised the most. All boys who had no respect for anything around them, unless they had the money to show their worth.

Mr. Meyers is able to settle almost every student down by the time their lecture starts, at least. And since it's only the first day of school, things will be the easiest they can be. Mostly syllabuses and first readings, but of course…

"Before we go through the syllabus, I think I want to start you off with an icebreaker this morning!" Mr. Meyers says, eliciting a few groans from the classroom.

Icebreakers. The bane of Damian's existence. This couldn't go by fast enough.

Even though Mr. Meyers was one of the more beloved teachers at Gotham Academy, he was still a teacher, at the end of the day. He takes a second to explain their icebreaker. With the partner next to you, I want you to learn two facts about them to present to the class. At least one of them should try to pertain to some sort of myth. Just tell them your favorite, or whatever you want to I guess. Make it related to the class!

Damian looks back over at Fenton. At the very least, the icebreaker wouldn't be too bad. Fenton is not one of the students he does not like. Yet. There could still be surprises thrown his way.

The classroom erupts into chatter—not all of it on-topic, of course—and Fenton looks over at Damian.

"Icebreakers. Gotta love 'em." He rolls his eyes. "So, two facts, one of them about a myth?"

Damian nods. "I can go first, if you wish."

"Oh, okay. Cool."

A fun fact about myself… Damian always finds himself drawing up a blank in these icebreakers. While for the most part, he can easily blend in with the crowds of Gotham Academy, he is still a Wayne. He is a partially-public figure. His family has managed to keep him out of the public eye as much as they possibly could as he was still a minor, but he's still made appearances at galas and public press meetings with his Father regarding this or that, and what he could present as a fun-fact was usually rather well known.

"I would consider my favorite myth to be the Greek myth of Prometheus. I find his story of helping humanity out and getting punished by the gods for it to be rather interesting. And as for a fun fact about myself…"

Damian trails off. What can he do? He can just use the same fun fact he always uses—I am the youngest in my family, practically everyone knows that. It's not "fun", really, it's usually just common knowledge to any Gothamite. He doesn't know why he takes a moment to hesitate, but there's something about Fenton that makes him stop. Reconsider.

Maybe it's the eyes. Maybe it's the fact that Damian finds a bit of refuge in the calming aura of them, against the chaos of Gotham Academy. Danny Fenton was not like his other classmates, and he had proved it to Damian within moments of meeting.

"…I like to draw." Damian finally says, ignoring the way his face felt a few degrees warmer. His family knew, of course, that he enjoyed drawing, and multiple ways of it as well. His fingers were often stained with chalk pastels or colored pencils were strewn chaotically around his swords in his bedroom when he got into a creative mood. They were cleaned up quickly, but the skin under Damian's nails would be stained for a few days either way.

Fenton smiles. There's nothing evil, or cruel, about it. It's just a nice, warm, smile. "Really? That's cool!"

He doesn't know what he's supposed to say, so he motions for them to go on.

"Okay! Okay. Uh, let's see… For my Greek favorite myth, I guess I'd have to pick the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It's tragic, sure, but there's something really heartwarming about it, too, you know?"

Orpheus and Eurydice. Damian was familiar with the tale—of Orpheus, braving the Underworld and Hades, to save the love of his life, Eurydice, despite all odds. But at the last moment, Orpheus has doubts, and ruins his chance to return to his love.

He wouldn't call it heartwarming, though. Mostly just tragic.

"And as for a fun fact… Uh, I guess I could say I'm a triplet?" Fenton says.

Damian blinks. That was not what he was expecting. "A… triplet?"

Fenton nods. "Yeah! I've got a twin brother and a twin sister. They're both here, too, but Ellie's in math right now, I think, and Dan has gym at the beginning of his day." They shrug and laugh. It's a light and airy laugh, it reminds Damian of a windchime, and it's not the worst noise in the world "Guess my guardian kinda lucked out with getting a whole set."

It takes Damian a second to process what they meant by "whole set"—before he can speak further, Mr. Meyers interrupts, saying that the talking time is over, and it's time for the "presentations" of the partners. It's worded a little strangely, but Mr. Meyers is just like that.

They go around the room and stand up to introduce each other, starting on the furthest end from Damian. It is all pretty simple stuff. Many girls cite the myth of Hades and Persephone as their favorite myth, while the boys cite either Jason or Hercules (using his Roman name, but inputting the Greek story onto it, screw you Disney, you know what you did) as theirs. It is unintentionally gendered and a bit weird, but they get through to Damian and his partner quickly.

"This is Damian!" Fenton says, with a smile. Despite the awkward air around them, they seem to present pretty easily. "His favorite myth is the story of Prometheus, and a fun fact about him is that he's an artist!"

A few whispers erupt in the classroom—What? He's an artist? I didn't know that! How did he get Damian to admit that?—but they die down quickly when Damian clears his throat.

"This is… Danny Fenton." Damian starts. The classroom goes quiet at the sound of his voice. Oh, the pain of being the Ice Prince at school. But it's a grave he dug for himself, and it's quite comfortable, as a matter of fact. "Their favorite myth is the one of Orpheus and Eurydice. He is also a triplet."

A few more whispers and mumbles, but they die down once Damian and Fenton sit, and the pair behind them begin. Maya's favorite myth is Eros and Psyche! Alan's favorite myth is the story of Heracles!

So on and so forth; eventually the icebreaker ends, and Mr. Meyers begins a overview of the syllabus. Most of the class will be focusing on different mythological cultures from ancient times, but their last few units will focus on "modern mythology"—on three different modern mythos that Mr. Meyers has personally defined. He doesn't go over them, but Damian mentally notes down the interesting part about it.

The Mythos of Batman is their second-to-last unit.

Interesting.

Fenton finds Damian again at lunchtime.

Damian takes the seat in the furthest corner away from the crowds in the cafeteria, closest to the windows. It is still pouring rain out, and event though he can't see much through the frosted glass of those windows, the noise is still there. It's pleasant, and blocks out most of the crowd of the room. He pulls out a smaller sketchbook and a pencil, content to be in his own little world for the next forty-five minutes (a ridiculously long lunch break)

He's sitting for a few moments with a salad before he notices a familiar face heading his way.

"Hey, Damian. I just wanted to, uh." Fenton nervously shifts on his feet. "Thank you, I guess? When we did that icebreaker this morning, and you used my pronouns… Uh, thanks."

"There is no need to thank me." Damian replies, curtly. "It is the bare minimum."

"Yeah, I know, but still. Thanks. It meant a lot." Fenton looks down at the table, and then back at Damian. "Can I sit here? We don't have to talk if you don't want to."

Damian thinks for a second. He hasn't sat with anyone at lunch for a long time. The last time was probably that group of boys when he was a freshman, and unaware of the sort of folk he was hanging out with. They were noisy and rowdy and didn't eat their lunches, and nearly started a food fight at their table with how they'd built ketchup catapults with just a plate of French fries (one of the few good things Damian learned from them, they come in handy with his own siblings) one day.

But Fenton isn't the worst company. He'd also been in Damian's earth science class after their mythology class, so they'd sat together again, but hadn't had a chance to talk as much.

"…Sure. Feel free to do what you want."

"Thanks." Danny sets down his own tray of food, which is also a simple salad. A bit drowned in ranch, by the looks of it, but there isn't a single piece of meat in the salad, just like Damian's.

Perhaps a vegetarian or a vegan as well, Damian thinks, but doesn't comment on it.

It seems like they're more than willing to disappear into their own worlds, when two other students approach. Both of them look eerily similar to the student in front of him, but in obviously different ways.

"There you are, Danny!" The shorter of the two says, pouncing on Fenton almost immediately. "We were looking everywhere for you!"

"I didn't want to bother you if you were gonna sit with your friends, Ellie. Just because we're siblings, doesn't mean we have to spend every waking hour together." Fenton responds.

Ah. These two must be Fenton's triplet siblings.

The smallest of the two—Ellie—wears their longer hair in high pigtails, which is unusual for Gotham. Any sort of pigtail is reminiscent of Harley Quinn, and even as she's turned over a new leaf and isn't as villainous as a rouge any more and more on-par with being an anti-hero vigilante who has friends in lower places, the hairstyle is still avoided. The people of Gotham were superstitious folk. Ellie's ears are pierced multiple times, and one of them has an industrial bar in it.

Damian could hardly recognize the other student as a sibling to the other two, but on a close inspection, there was similarities there. All three siblings had the same black hair, and blue eyes, though the shades of blue varied in intensity. But this third, unnamed sibling, was built like a brick on steroids, as Drake would call Todd often. At least a foot or more taller than Fenton, by the looks of it, and twice as wide, this third sibling just had their hair neatly pulled out of their face in a low ponytail. They also had a bit of unshaved facial hair as well.

"Who are you?" The third sibling asks, eyes narrowing.

"Oh, right. Dan, Ellie, this is Damian. We've got a few classes together." Fenton—Danny—this is going to get confusing—looks over at Damian. "Damian, these are my siblings. Dan and Ellie. He/him and she/her respectively."

"Nice to meet ya!" Ellie's energy is incredible, and she doesn't hesitate in swinging a handout to shake his. Damian hesitates, taking it slowly.

Dan doesn't reach out a hand, instead, he plops his tray down—it looks like he got the steak-and-potatoes lunch, lavish for a school lunch, but then again, this is Gotham Academy—and glares.

Damian glares back. He is just going to need to refer to them by their first names. A bit of an inconvenience, but if they are all Fentons, things would get confusing quickly.

"Dan, stop it, you're going to scare him."

"I am not doing anything." Dan says. He stabs at the steak with his fork, and tears of a chunk, shoving it in his mouth. All without blinking, all without breaking Damian's gaze.

"Yeah, you are." Ellie replies. She leans in, setting her own tray down. It looks like Ellie got the casual of the school lunches. A plate full of chicken nuggets. Multiple plates of chicken nuggets, all stacked on top of each other, by the looks of it. "Sorry, Dan's a bit overprotective of our lil' bro."

"I am not the youngest." Danny interrupts. "Ellie, for the last time, I am older than you."

The sibling banter is… familiar. He can envision his own siblings doing something like this, which does let Damian relax, even though he is consciously aware of Dan's unblinking stare in the corner of his vision.

"Don't listen to him, Damian. They've always been like this." Dan adds.

Danny's voice cracks, his head whipping to Dan. "I have not." He groans, burying his face in his hands. "Why don't you go sit with your own friends?"

"I don't have any friends."/"I don't wanna!" Danny's two siblings speak in unison, and then look at each other. Finally, it breaks the uncomfortable stare he was getting from Dan.

Damian sighs. If he'd known that this would be the natural course of events, he might not have let Danny sit with him after all. But it was interesting to see how these siblings interacted, and the familiarity was a little comforting.

"You're one of the Waynes, aren't you?" Dan asks, in between bites of his lunch.

"…Yes. I am the only biological son. The rest of my siblings are all adopted."

"Wait, you're one of those Waynes?"

"Yes. I introduced myself to you when we first met, did I not?"

"Well, yeah, you did." Danny pokes at his salad with a fork. "But I didn't know you meant, like, one of those Waynes."

As much as Damian ought to feel insulted—he is the only blood son, he likes to think he is quite recognizable, something about Danny's admission feels… nice. In a strange way. They are genuine when they say it, it's not as if they're lying. Danny is quite an open book with his emotions. But being recognized not as Damian Wayne, Robin, youngest son of Bruce Wayne, Ice Prince of Gotham Academy, but instead, as just Damian Wayne, with no weight on his name feels…

…

… nice?

"Oh, my poor, sweet, oblivious baby brother…" Ellie wraps her arms around Danny's head and pats him, feigning comforting.

"Ellie, let me go."

"No."

"I will bite you."

"I'd like to see you—ouch!"

It seems like these three siblings are just as feral as each other. Danny's teeth don't break through the sleeve of Ellie's uniform blazer, but the message is clear enough. If a teacher were walking by, they might've asked the students to knock it off, but the teachers are usually too busy with their own lunches, or making sure the rowdiest group of boys don't actually start a food fight on the first day of school.

Damian knows of Grayson's horror stories of Gotham Academy food fights. They were banned shortly after he graduated. Never again…

Safe to say, the teachers had bigger priorities than dealing with a few rowdy siblings.

Ellie looks over at Damian. "So, Dami, I gotta ask you something."

"Do not call me that."

"Dami." She repeats, not listening to him. On purpose. The audacity. "Is it true that your dad is Batman's sugar daddy."

All of Damian's appetite is suddenly gone. Danny yelps, glaring at Ellie, and Dan breaks out in raucous laughter, nearly spitting out his water.

"What."

"Hey! It's an honest question! There's no way that Batman just has all that money to keep rebuilding all those weapons and stuff!" Ellie defends herself to her siblings, before looking at Damian. "Is it true?"

"It. Is. Not." He was trying to resist the urge to grab the butter knife from Dan's plate to stab Ellie with. He was trying so hard, but it was right there, and Ellie was annoying him, with her stupid questions and smile. But he didn't want to hurt her, all that much, really. "Do not ask me another stupid question like that again."

Ellie doesn't notice his seething anger. Or she decides to not care about it. Both explanations are likely, given how she's interacted with him so far.

"Okay. One more stupid question, and then I'll stop."

"You are insufferable."

"Thanks! I do my best." She folds her hands together on the table. "Dami, do you think the heroes of Gotham count as furries, or as featheries?"

"You are horrible. I do not like you."

"We're besties now, Damian! You can't get rid of me that easily!"

And that is how Damian—somehow—ended his first day of junior year with not just one, but three friends.