Damian Wayne was like a duckling. A violent, stab-happy, danger-prone duckling, yes, but a duckling all the same. Which means when Danny almost got stabbed by a sleepy, instinct driven Damian, he was able to wave it off with a laugh. Damian, on the other hand, stared in horror at the butter knife firmly lodged in Danny’s arm.
“PENNYWORTH!” Danny jerked back at Damian’s scream. “RICHARD! FATHER!”
God damn, the kid had a pair of lungs on him. Danny’s wince was interpreted as pain to Damian, who gently grabbed his injured arm and started to pull him towards the kitchen’s marble island.
Danny blinked, non plussed as his hearing picked up a thundering of feet as the present family members scrambled towards Damian’s distress call.
“Wait, Damian, I’m fine. It’s-”
“You have been impaled, you imbecile! Had it been any of the other simpletons, they would have-!”
“Ouch.” Danny put his other hand in mock hurt over his slow-beating heart. He literally doesn’t care about the butter knife. He’s just impressed there was enough force in there to impale him. “Are you calling me names now? After- gasp- stabbing me?”
Before Damian could reply, the beginnings of regret, remorse, and guilt on his face, Alfred, Dick, and Bruce burst into the kitchen.
“What happened?!”
“My word, master Danny!”
“What is it?!”
“I’m fine. It’s like a small stab. Not even a big stab. I’m good.”
Dick paled, seeing Danny’s arm clutched in Damian’s hand.
“That’s- that’s a knife. In your arm. How is that ‘fine’?!”
“What happened.” Bruce asked Damian, gently removing Danny’s arm from Damian’s death clutch.
“I- I did not mean to,” Damian starts, guilt coloring his voice.
“He didn’t,” Danny cuts in. “I startled him and got stabbed for being dumb. I won’t fault him for having a defense mechanism like that, ancient knows what I might do if you guys startled me.”
The awkward silence that settled at his words made Danny twitch awkwardly.
“Uh, so, can I add this knife to my collection? Even if I didn’t get mugged?”
“Danny.”
“Bruce.” Danny stared stubbornly back. With his uninsured hand, he patted Damian on the head. He was going to enjoy the fluffiness before Damian’s guilt was no longer enough to hold him back from snapping at Danny’s hand like a grumpy alligator. Bruce loses, obviously. He’s a teenager who was also an ex-vigilante. Batman’s got nothing on a determined halfa.
“Master Danny, I must insist you refrain from getting stabbed. There is only so much gauze and antiseptic cream in the house.” Alfred returned- huh, when did he leave?- with a med kit.
Danny called bullshit because he knows there’s a whole ass medical bay beneath the manor.
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Alfred said, promptly beginning the extraction of the butter knife.
“Are you okay?” Dick asked, hovering worriedly. “He- are you…?”
Damian was allowing Danny to ruffle his hair, so…
“Yep, I’m good. This isn’t even on my top thirty most painful stabbings,” and it really wasn’t. That honor was given to the GIW and that one time Jazz accidentally stabbed him with her earrings. “That was pretty impressive, actually. It’s like, a butter knife. The other ones had pointy ends.”
“Do not clump me with those pathetic wastes of spaces. I am naturally superior and would… would never harm you on purpose.” Damian said, getting quiet at the end like he was trying to plead to Danny to believe him.
“Of course not. But- if you want help me keep the knife, you can hit me with a mug, it would technically be a mugging.”
The pun got the desired effect. Damian leaned away with a disgruntled look and Dick stopped hovering as close in order to let out a small cackle.
“Done.”
“You should go get changed, kiddo. We’re going to see Tim’s photography at the Gotham Gallery today.”
“Oh, for real?” Danny patted Damian’s fluffy hair one last time, pushing away from the counter. “Oh, I’ll clean up here first and-”
“That will not be necessary,” Alfred scolded, a mop somehow already in his hands. “Please see to it you are prepared for the day.”
“Thanks, Alfred. Can I keep the knife.”
“Very well.”
“Sweet. See you guys later?” Danny pranced off after seeing the nods.
——
“He’s… he got stabbed a lot. Before us, I mean.” Dick tapped a furious rhythm onto the counter. “Not that we’ve stabbed him until now but even once is concerning for a civilian.”
“He was used to it.” Bruce replied.
“Perhaps we should join Todd in his endeavor and ensure that his worthless tormentors are permanently out of the picture.”
“God, he said top thirty. He was counting.”
Damian silently withdrew a kitchen knife.
“No murder with my quality chef’s knives, Master Damian.”
“Tt.”
“Master Jason follows the same rules. Now, out of the kitchen. I may be old, but I remember the last time master Bruce and master Dick stepped foot in here and I will not have a repeat.”
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Lately all I can think of is TFP Optimus being demon bait. Amongst every iteration that I seen with the Matrix, he feels more like a placeholder involving the relic than an actual Champion for Primus. Plus TFP is the only one who doesn't retain any knowledge about his past as Orion Pax.
Placeholders are easier to tempt than champions since they aren't fully protected or warned of the danger. The Matrix of Leadership practically rats him out to anything supernatural when you consider it acts more like a vessel unlike other relics. Optimus is gonna have a mixed time should a demon hone in on him.
I get what you're saying. All the strange and, let's face it, very sus Artifacts are painting a very wild picture.
Personally, while I do believe TFP Optimus is a legitimate Prime, he isn't a fully realized one. It gets weirder with the Canon lore in the Aligned verse that the Matrix was housed with Prima's Star Saber and that Optimus is supposed to be the reincarnation of the mysterious Thirteen. Plus, Metroplex from the games vouched his status as a Prime: "Metroplex heeds the call of the last Prime." (Fall of Cybertron game)
I wonder how come the writers didn't go with the Primal Artifacts being semi-sentient? It would really make sense with the mythos and immense powers, especially since those tools can be only wielded by a Prime. So the building blocks were there. Or, have the ghost of Prima within the Matrix that's controlling new ordained champions, and it's intefering with Thirteen's connections? The Matrix has an established history of reformatting new bearers, so is it a big surprise that they're turned into Prima's thoughts of a prefect guardian? Prima has different Aspects and Domains compared to his youngest brother.
The themes of identity and self-determination are there. I think he internally struggled with it. Is he Orion Pax of Alpha Trion? Optimus Prime of Prima? Are they one and the same mask? Does he remember the Wilds in his dreams? Did he have hopes and plans for reconstruction? At night, does he recounts all the steps that brought him to that point?
But yeah, TFP!Optimus would be a succulent prize for a supernatural entity. The Matrix is both a beacon and lighthouse. To see a mortal God-King or a divine champion drowning in uncertainty would turn the very dangerous or very desperate towards him because a contract could be established.
Weirdly enough, out of all the Autobots, I think Optimus would have the easiest time navigating any potential entities. Orion Pax lived and breathed in doublespeak as an archivist directly sponsored by Alpha Trion himself. He knows the intricate dance to steer between treacherous allies and hostile enemies and how to be very leery of certain agreements. Orion was stuck between impossible contradictions of his status.
Ratchet has had certain privileges afforded by his function and frame. He's comfortable taking over things and saying his piece, especially among the current team. He also has a poor opinion of non-Cybertronian anything. He would either be killed for insolence and disrespect or be ensnared in a dream that gives him his deepest wishes. Arcee, depending on your viewpoint, is either lucky or unlucky, especially since she survives all her partnerships. Even Jack Darby, no matter how careful, has a human lifespan, which is seafoam to a Cybertronian. Something would latch onto her anger and grief. Bulkhead can be a very considerate soul. Some being would be charmed by the mech. Bumblebee is kind, and Smokescreen can be impulsive and so very clever. Traits that are endearing to many entities in old tales.
Optimus would have his hands full should something start sniffing around the base.
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The spot of endless night-time in the sky mocks you. It chases it's way to the House through the sky like a snake approaching its prey. Because that's what the King is; a predator coming to feast on the weak. It's the sign of the end. The end you can't seem to stop. A big old "crab you" for even thinking of trying.
You try anyway. Try to climb the mountain with your bare hands. Push the boulder up the hill. You tackle the situation from all angles, but nothing works. You've worn yourself thin throwing yourself at the equation, and it's killing you. Literally.
It's stopped being as painful, which sends alarms ringing through your brain. Your nerves are frying. Dying. Being frozen in time has thawed to the sensation of pins and needles instead of being bone-chilling. Caustic liquids don't hurt to chug down as much. You can phase out of thinking when the King attacks you. You can simply turn your thoughts off and move through the day like a phantom. It concerns you and you just don't care at the same time.
Your blood sings and your voice rots and you go and go and go, pushing yourself thin until you are a walking corpse.
It's just you, though. One for many. You have you have you have you have to remember that. Remember that. Just you just one, saving everyone else. Just you. No one else will remember this.
No one else will remember this.
You sit in the big room with the big window and all the dot charts. You don't remember what it's called-- did you ever know? Who cares? It's not important right now. Sit on the floor and look out the window like a child looking over the ocean.
The King, you can see him now. His tall, dark shadow appearing over the horizon, lit by the moon. His armor shimmers like the stars he seems to love so much. [Because that's what they are, right? Is that the correct term? Stars? You're not sure. There's a torn page in your mind where it should be.]
Just seeing him drives you up a wall. Echoes of pain from how he's killed you run through your body, even though you know its imagined. Mashed to gore painted on the walls screaming howling make it stop make it stop. You don't care anymore. He can come, and he'll kill you. Or you'll kill him! Eventually! It has to happen!
Maybe he can feel your stare. It looks, to you, like he looks up just a little bit, to look in your direction. You, alone, sitting behind a giant window under a shaded masterpiece, clashing sky of sun and moon and all his stupid stars. [Stars feels like the right term, it feels nice in your mouth, but you're not sure. You don't know, if it's right or wrong or if you've just crabbing made something up to describe simple spots in the sky.]
You want to kill him. You want to make sure no one ever has to hear his stupid wails again, or fight his monsters, or be frozen in time or look at his stupid crabbing sky ever again. Make that armor of his a cradle, a grave, a casket or a cage, it doesn't matter, you're going to bury him in it. Trap him six feet under like time has trapped you, a squirming angry animal of a thing behind bars of a birdcage.
No one will find you here. That's fine. The other housemaidens have started to avoid you, because you've become an angry little thing overnight. You don’t bother Mirabelle and some loops you flat out avoid Euphrasie, because they shouldn't have to see you like this, clinging to what was you from over a hundred today's ago. You don't want to worry the two of them, overstep a boundary you can't remember or something, because you've done this all for them and the consequences of your capital-C Change can come later when the King is gone and you don't have to do today over.
For now, you will wait. This loop probably won't be the one because, realistically, when will it be? When will you win? Are you going to be trapped here forever, doomed to repeat the same day over and over in a cage made of craft and wishes and pure spite?
You just wanted to help. Look where that got you. Over and over, forever.
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