Fandom: Batman
Pairing: Bruce Wayne & Male OC, Damian Wayne & Male OC [Platonic]
Rating: Teen
Content: Amnesia, Loss of identity, Blood and gore, Graphic violence, Injuries, Animal abuse, Semi-verbal character
Date originally written: 12th January 2022
Summary: Omen lays low after the encounter with Killer Croc.

Damian thinks someone's watching him.

Omen hadn’t been sure that he would survive, when he eventually disappeared from the dark alleyway and found a safe, quiet spot to recuperate. His leg was in terrible shape and it refused to stop bleeding, and he was sure that he had an infection, too. There was no way in hell that the crocodile man who lived in the sewers and consumed raw flesh didn’t carry some sort of disease.

He’d lied down and let himself rest, the pain burning in his leg, and the blood dripping down his fur. He felt tired, a bone deep exhaustion that he wasn’t sure even sleep could cure.

Omen wondered if he was dying. If this was what dying felt like. Could he even die? Was he even alive in the first place? Or was he a ghost, forced to endure the hardships of the living? He didn’t know.

Omen laid there for ages, and had almost accepted the fact that he was going to die there in the dark, with no friends or family to speak for him, when the shadowy tendrils on his back started moving on their own. They draped over his injured leg, wrapping around it like bandages. He could start to feel his form shifting over the wounds, as if trying to patch up the punctured flesh.

He was surprised, as over the weeks, his wound slowly healed on its own, helped by his own powers (which he still barely understood). The healing process wasn’t perfect, but in the end he suffered no infection. He had a nasty scar and a bit of a limp, but Omen was simply glad that he wasn’t dead and that his leg did indeed still work.

He didn’t go out for a long time. He had lurked near some of the vigilante’s hotspots and heard them- for the first time in his life- say his name. They were looking for him.

Omen thought that it couldn’t be good. It was his worst nightmare come true: being hunted down across Gotham for something he didn’t do. Or...in this case, for something he believed was the right choice.

He had a small, distant thought in his mind that maybe they were looking for him to make sure he wasn’t dead- that they were concerned about his health- but it was extremely unlikely. It was far more likely that they were searching for him to bring him into custody, or something similar. Perhaps the crocodile man hadn’t been as lucky as he had been. Maybe Omen had killed him unknowingly.

He couldn’t be sure, but he also didn’t want to find out.

Thus, he stayed inside at all times, waiting until he was certain no one cared about him anymore.

Robin continued his patrols as he normally did. He had of course been benched by Batman for supposedly "going against direct orders", a reason that Damian personally disagreed with, but once the break from being Robin had finally been over, he returned to Batman's side, where he was supposed to be.

Although things went back to normal when it came to his and his father's patrols, Damian could tell that there was something wrong. He knew it wasn’t his family; his father was acting normal, as were all of his brothers and his sister, too. His father may have been trying to diligently search for the weird demon-wolf they had seen a few weeks ago, but it was standard procedure for when new rogues showed up in Gotham.

No. There was something else. An outsider was watching them. He could feel their eyes on him every time he went out onto patrol. Whether he was out with Batman or with his other siblings, he was being watched by somebody.

He let his father know the moment he realised what was going on. Damian thought it might be the League of Assassins, or perhaps even his mother. His mother, of course, had taught him how to know when he was being watched in the first place, and it could've been her attempt at communication with him. His father had checked, double checked, triple checked and even quadruple checked every single thing he possibly could, but there had been no sightings of Talia or the League of Assassins anywhere in Gotham, not for at least a year.

Damian almost wanted to call his mother, ask her if she was watching, if there was something she needed. But he held back, he didn't want to get too hasty. He didn't want to anger his father by going behind his back, either, so he fell back onto a different plan: Observation.

Next time he went out as Robin, he would be observing his surroundings as much as he possibly could, more so than he usually did. If he felt eyes on him, or believed he was being watched, he would slink into the shadows and keep a mental track of where he was and what time it was. Then, when he got back to the Cave, he would find any security cameras from that area and go through every single one of them during the time he believed he was being watched.

It might take some time, but he believed it would provide him with enough information to figure out who his stalker was.

When Omen finally started going on nightly walks again, he did so with extreme caution.

He did not want to gain the attention of any of the vigilantes, especially not the ones that had seen him during his fight with the crocodile man. So he remained cautious, and made sure to always have an eye on his surroundings.

It meant less people watching- less fun- but it also meant better safety.

He made sure he did not appear underneath any sources of light, he kept his form less corporeal than normal, and always made sure he had some sort of escape plan, usually a dark patch of shadow that he could sink his entire body into, and then move to another dark area far from the original spot he was in.

He didn't want to be seen at all. He didn't want to be hurt by others, and although the only person so far to hurt him was the crocodilian individual (which, to be fair, Omen did start that fight), he still had this almost irrational fear of being hurt.

He wasn't entirely sure why. Perhaps it was just his nature to be cautious and wary of others...or maybe he'd been hurt before. He might not remember what happened to him prior to becoming Omen, but perhaps his body or subconscious were remembering things on their own.

He didn’t want to know. The more things he learnt about himself, and the more things he learnt about Gotham and the world at large...the more he realised that learning about his past may be a bad thing. Learning about who and what he was may put himself in danger, and that wasn’t something that Omen wanted.

Nevertheless, he stayed away from vigilantes as much as he could. He stayed away from police cars and suspiciously dark and fast moving vehicles, both on the land and in the sky. He stayed out of sight from helicopters, and he stayed away from popular and famous buildings. He did not go down into the sewers or interact with brightly coloured misfits.

Despite his extreme caution, he did occasionally run into vigilantes sometimes. They never saw him, but he saw them, traversing the tops of buildings and hiding in the same shadows that he did. He kept a close eye on them whenever he saw them, making sure that they were far away from him before he moved, usually in the opposite direction.

Lately, Omen been seeing the little child vigilante a lot more, usually beside the big scary one. He was happy to see that the little one was okay, and did not seem to sport any major injuries. Although small cuts, scrapes and bruises were to be expected, the child seemed fine otherwise.

It never really made sense to Omen why such young people got involved in vigilantism, but he could tell that the young ones were far more dangerous than most realised. He was sure that if the child could not fight, that they would not be out at night fighting crime in such a dangerous city.

Omen’s thoughts usually drifted off into all sorts of interesting topics of conversation (not that he had anyone to talk to), and there had been a few times when he had done so unintentionally while observing the vigilantes from a distance. He had barely ducked fully back into shadows when the child vigilante had turned around quickly, staring in his direction.

It was as though the little one knew he was there, and had heard his thoughts as if he had been howling them from the rooftops.

They knew he was there.

He would have to be more careful around the youngest one, it seemed.