Chapter 2
The stranger let go.
Finally.
Damian stumbled back a step, sharp boots scraping over ruined earth, the stench of scorched stone and alien ash seeping into his senses. His heart thundered beneath his ribs. His limbs buzzed with fight-or-flight instinct. But he didn’t run. He never ran.
Instead, he straightened his spine, shoulders squared, fists clenched and hovering slightly at his sides—coiled, just enough to launch forward if needed. A battle stance, subtle but unmistakable.
And now that there was distance—now that he wasn’t being crushed in that maddening embrace—Damian got a full look at the man in front of him.
The stranger looked as though he’d crawled through the mouth of a war and barely made it out alive.
His hair was dark brown streaked with silver, sweat-damp and disheveled, plastered in thick strands against his forehead. There was blood smeared across his temple—fresh, sticky. His goatee, a sharp, neatly trimmed thing beneath cracked lips, was caked with dust and grit. Deep lines carved themselves into his face, not just with age but with wear—the kind of exhaustion that spoke of long battles and longer regrets.
He wore armor—or what remained of it.
A bleeding-edge suit of technology, hugging his frame like a second skin. Metallic plating stretched over a black underlay, the kind that shimmered when the light hit it—but now it was torn, fractured. Chunks of it were missing entirely. One side of his chestplate had melted inward, scorched by something powerful, leaving the glowing core at its center—an arc reactor—half-flickering and pulsing with weak, sputtering light. His left gauntlet looked partially fused, fingers stiffened like they couldn’t quite move right. The armor had veins of red and gold, but everything about it was dulled by dirt and damage.
Damian’s eyes narrowed. His brain was cataloging everything in real time. Height—taller than Father. Physique—lean, but built. Injuries—numerous, none fatal. Emotional state—volatile.
The stranger’s eyes—dark brown and impossibly raw—searched Damian’s face like they still couldn’t accept what they were seeing. There was a desperation in them, like he’d just lost something irreplaceable and was now staring at the ashes.
But Damian didn't flinch.
He didn’t care that this man’s heart was cracking open in front of him.
He didn’t know him. And he didn’t trust him.
“Explain yourself,” Damian said, low and cold, every syllable sharp enough to slice. His voice carried a lethal edge, the way it always did when he didn’t have the upper hand but refused to show it.
The stranger didn’t respond. He just stared. Like he was still waiting for the hallucination to pass.
Damian shifted his weight subtly onto the balls of his feet. Every breath he took was calculated. Every heartbeat was a countdown. He was ready to strike. He was ready to end this.
Damian took a step forward, shoulders bristling, voice curling into a low, venom-laced growl. His green eyes were alight with fury, sharp as the edges of a blade.
"Who are you?" he demanded, fists still half-clenched, coiled and ready. "Where am I? What did you do? How did I get here?" Each question hit like a thrown dagger—quick, precise, intended to wound.
The stranger—the man in broken red-and-gold armor—flinched, just slightly, as if waking from a dream laced with smoke and death.
“I—” he started, voice rasping like he hadn’t spoken in hours. “I don’t… wait. You’re not… you’re not Peter.” His eyes narrowed, disbelief giving way to something colder. “Who are you?”
Damian’s jaw tightened. “I’m the one with the questions. And you still haven’t answered them.” He moved again, a slow, deliberate shift of weight that hinted at violence barely restrained. “If you think I’m some idiot who stumbled here by accident—”
“I don’t know how you got here,” the man snapped back, tone cracking under the pressure. “One second he—he was here, and the next…” He stopped himself, blinking rapidly, as if trying to clear an image burned into his retinas.
Damian’s eyes narrowed further. “He?”
The man didn’t answer.
Damian barked, “Answer me!”
But before another word could leave either of their mouths, a shape moved at the edge of Damian’s vision—silent, smooth, otherworldly.
He turned sharply, every muscle tensing.
A woman—if one could call her that—stepped out from the jagged shadow of what looked like a shattered spacecraft hull. She moved like something built rather than born. Mechanical grace. Dead silence. Her skin was blue, a deep, bruised cobalt, and fitted so tightly over her angular frame it looked sculpted from polished stone. One arm was metal—brutal, unpainted, gleaming under the planet’s dying sun. Her jaw, part-flesh, part-machine, clicked faintly as it shifted. Her left eye was some kind of implant, a flickering red light set into a skeletal socket. Her posture screamed battle-readiness—spine straight, chin tilted down, like a blade mid-draw.
Damian’s senses sharpened the moment she stepped into view. Her skin—no, plating?—shone, a cold, dull blue veined with lines of silver circuitry. Her voice cut through the space between them. “Do you work for Thanos?”
Damian’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”
It wasn’t mockery. It was a real question. A cold knot was forming in his gut, not from fear, but from the gnawing, relentless confusion that had been growing since the moment he’d blinked—and the world had changed.
He had no idea where he was.
No idea who these people were.
And now this walking corpse was accusing him of working for someone he didn’t know.
“Liar,” she snapped, already stepping closer.
Damian shifted. Instinct drove him into a defensive stance, one foot back, knees loose, eyes tracking every movement. His cape still hung off one shoulder, torn and frayed. Dust clung to the blood on his jaw. The remains of Peter’s armor—whoever Peter was—still shimmered over parts of his arms and chest, foreign tech fused with grit and bruises.
“I said I don’t know who that is,” Damian bit out. “I don’t answer to anyone. Certainly not someone named Thanos.”
There was no give in her. No understanding. Her glare could have frozen lava.
Before Damian could strike first, the man—the one who had grabbed him when he arrived—raised both hands like he was trying to calm down wild dogs.
"Okay, okay,” he said, trying for control and not quite reaching it. His voice cracked at the edges. “We’re all clearly freaking out—understandably—and none of us seem to know what the hell is going on.”
His eyes were bloodshot behind the battered iron mask. Stubble shadowed his jaw. Sweat slicked his temples, and his breathing was shallow, like someone who’d been running for too long—through grief, maybe, or through war. His armor was broken in places, scorched and dented. His right gauntlet sparked softly, like it was on the verge of dying altogether. And his eyes—his eyes looked like something had been ripped out of them.
He looked at Damian again, slower this time. Not panicked. Not hoping. Just… wrecked.
“Look, Blue—dial it down a notch,” he said, glancing at the woman. “He doesn’t know who Thanos is and he’s like twelve years old. Either he’s lying, or something even weirder’s going on than usual. And honestly? That bar was already underground.”
Then his gaze locked onto Damian again. And Damian hated how gentle his voice got.
“Kid. You said you don’t know who Thanos is. Okay. That tracks. You didn’t know me, either.”
“Should I?” Damian’s voice stayed flat, but his fists stayed clenched. “You hugged me like I belonged to you.”
The man flinched—just for a second. Then he nodded, slowly. “Yeah, well. I thought you were someone else.”
Damian didn’t speak. He let the words hang.
The man’s shoulders sagged, like his bones were tired. “Let’s all just… sit. Or stand. Or scowl at each other in meaningful silence. Whatever helps us figure this out without anybody getting vaporized, cool?”
Damian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t trust these people. Didn’t like being touched. Hated being confused.
But.
He was outnumbered. Outgunned. And, annoyingly, the man was right—everyone here seemed just as lost as he was.
So Damian didn’t relax.
But he didn’t strike either.
Which, for him, was practically an act of god.