[hider=Damian Flashback/Dream?]
Although he had been living in the desert regions for some time, the heat never seemed to get better. 

Now especially, it blistered against his skin and pressed down on him like an immense lead weight, blurred his vision with shimmering illusions, burned in his nose already muffled with dust...and over the past day or so he swore he was starting to be able to hear it desiccating everything around him and even [i]taste[/i] it in his mouth separate from sandy grit and what little he'd scavenged. 

It might seem like suicidal madness to some, for a child to go alone through the most inhospitable portions of Khandaq, but the real annoyance was how long it was taking to track and catch this latest tutor. He was sure he was supposed to be learning some lesson about tracking, or perhaps perseverance or survival, but what he was mainly learning was how quickly sand chafes at everything given half a chance, how little exposure skin required to burn, how clumsy military patrols were, and worst of all how tasteless and crunchy scorpions were.

Preoccupation with his own discomfort probably explained how he'd missed the bomb until a pressure sensor went [b]*click*[/b]



"-tt-" It didn't matter. He was Damyan Ibn Al Xu'ffasch, Heir to the Demon, the next Alexander the Great. 

[i]He would survive.[/i]
[/hider]

Damian's eyes snapped open at the same time as his hand darted underneath his pillow for a blade or a gun and only found more pillow. From there it took several panicked seconds for him to realize he wasn't in a hidden League of Assassins stronghold or Wayne Manor and a few more to realize he hadn't been kidnapped. During this time he also had to suppress the urge to throw the pillow as a distraction and see if he couldn't move enough to kill at least one of the two figures at his beside before they restrained him.

Once he had calmed down sufficiently, he pushed himself into a sitting position with only the slightest hiss to hint at the pain he forced past to do it. The pain was a good sign. There was no desert now, but the explosive had been real enough and even with his Robin suit and what he assumed had been some sort of borderline-regenerative technology he seemed to be covered in first and a few second degree burns everywhere the suit was thinnest and his whole torso felt like he'd been tenderized with a sledgehammer.

As soon as he noticed Kate Kane he snatched the cup from her outstretched hand with the sort of reflexive speed that came with a childhood among ninjas and sipped at it, then grimaced just short of choking. Hot coffee was likely not the best beverage for recovering from explosive-induced hospitalization, and even then Damian wasn't actually very fond of coffee. Worse yet it was hardly [i]good[/i] coffee, not even in a rustic pedestrian way.

"I suppose it's fitting of a pretender like you to anticipate my needs, but next time try to do a more competent job. If I'm going to have to put up with you as Fake-Batwoman AND Brown's girlfriend, you could AT LEAST get my drink preferences right."

The lecture had absolutely nothing to do with distracting them from his moments of terrified panic and subsequent embarrassment, after all he was far above any such thing. No, the so-called "Batwoman" just had to learn where she stood in the 'family' hierarchy, that was all. Some thief who stole a name and costume she had only just gotten acknowledged for couldn't be allowed to see him weak, after all. It would take more than some minor thing like being nearly-dead for him to permit that! Besides, he hadn't even brought up how bad the coffee tasted.

He also wasn't sure if there was any basis to Kane being Brown's girlfriend, but it was sure to get under Batgirl's skin either way, and somehow NOT barbing her after she'd apparently helicopter'd over him like some imbecile the whole time he was out seemed...wrong.

"Now, Brown where's my gear? If I go now I can still get back to the construction site and pick up the case before the trail goes cold and have whoever tried to kill me in a full-body cast by noo-."

The fact that he was able to push himself nearly standing and out of the hospital bed as he spoke would have been impressive if it hadn't been cut off by a sound halfway between a puppy whimpering and a fish gasping when he failed at mimicking Cassandra's pain-dampening technique and flopped back against the bed like a ragdoll. 

"...by dinner then. In a full-body cast by dinner. They'll be eating theirs through a straw."