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starry-bi-sky · 2 months

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show me how to lay my sword down long enough to let you through - clone^2 ch1

A little boy has landed in Amity Park, and he looks suspiciously like the 13-year-old Damian Wayne living in Gotham. Good news: he landed in front of Danny just as he was finishing up his fight with a ghost. Bad news: the little Damian-look-alike doesn't speak a lick of english, has a sword, and seems very keen on using it whenever he can. Against Danny specifically.

Danny already has his own issues to deal with -- like how it's not even been a year since he found out he was a clone of Bruce Wayne specifically, with all the identity issues that come with such a revelation -- and a stab-happy six year old that was very obviously a clone of Damian Wayne was not one of them. However, the kid was alone in a foreign country, and despite his hostility, it's very clear that he's terrified.

Call him a bleeding heart, but Danny takes him home.

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womp i wrote it and posted it. truly, it was only a matter of time before i did. my clone^2 au except now it's a fic! Here is the humble beginnings of this au if anyone is interested. The full thing is also posted below the read more if you want to read it here instead.

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Danny knows more than he probably should about ghosts, ectoplasm, and all things relating to it — courtesy only in partial credit to his parents and largely to every ghost, spirit, mythological creature, and conceptual entity taken sentient form he’s ever come across in the last two years of his run as Phantom.

For example: he’s learned how to classify the difference between a ghost and a spirit when the words are synonymous with each other. He knows that ghosts cannot pass into the Realm of the Living without a naturally-made or manmade portal that splits the seams between dimensions like holes being chewed through a shirt.

He knows that spirits are just weaker could-be ghosts that are trapped in the Living Realm, unseen by the Living, with unfinished business until someone can come along to help them move on. He’s helped quite a handful of them in the last two years thanks to his clairvoyance, but the city has more spirits than he could possibly know how to deal with. So his efforts are like trying to empty a pond with a bucket.

Danny still tries, anyway. One afterlife saved is one afterlife saved, right?

What he also knows is that natural made portals are exceedingly rare. That they occur when ectoplasm in any given area for some reason or another currents against each other, condensing and building in energy and density until eventually something gives and like snow on top of a roof it caves in and creates a portal.

He knows that these natural made portals typically only last a few seconds at a time, and vary between the size of a rodent and a marsupial no bigger than a wallaby. He knows that most natural portals only last from a few seconds to a few minutes, with the record-holder being five minutes from a portal that was the size of a toddler.

And the reason they never last so long is because ectoplasm is an energy, like most energy, it usually has somewhere to go. It cycles through plants, through the animals, through the ground, anywhere it can reach. It’s cousins with solar energy in that sense. Meaning it, usually, has little opportunity to clash and current with the rest of the ambient ectoplasm in the area.

But it does happen, albeit rarely, and only for a few seconds. Like the equivalent of a static shock; it’s only there for a moment before it collapses in on itself and disappears.

So with that being said, Danny likes to think he’s — maybe not an expert — but fairly knowledgeable about the existence of natural made portals. The Ever-Infinite Bridge Between Realms is ever-expanding, ever-growing, and with it so is the information he has on it. Anything could become obsolete in a moment.

And the only reason he’s thinking about it is because his parents were talking about portals in the kitchen earlier that evening, talking about their portal specifically, but Danny latched onto it, and his mind wanders. He’s not sure why they were talking about it, the portal has been running, unfortunately smoothly for the last two years. He has the scars and eyebags (and trauma) to prove it.

Besides, his mind should be on other things.

Like the goddamn flying snake he’s been chasing across the city skyline for the last thirty minutes. An amphiptere his mind unhelpfully supplies, a word he grabbed nearly two years ago when he first started out as Phantom and was desperately looking up the various ectoplasmic creatures slipping through his parents’ portal.

Some of them didn’t have proper names — like a three-eyed fox he once saw with the tail of a peacock and hooves of a goat. He managed to lure it out of the alleyway it backed itself into with a nasty burger. It tore into it with the fervor of a starving coyote and Danny let it finish eviscerating the burger before sucking it into his thermos.

It was incredibly disturbing to watch at the time, since the thing had an almost beak-shaped muzzle, but now he wishes he was back in the alleyway trying to coax out a ecto-fox-griffin thing rather than chase after what was basically a dragon with no legs — it doesn’t even have the decency to be a wyvern.

He’s only keeping up with the stupid snake due to his grappling hook, something Danny made a year ago in order to keep up with the ghosts flying around the city, and his best fucking self-made invention yet — made from the discarded inventions from his parents’ lab — with his jawbreaker gloves coming in at close second, if only because he gets to call them his jawbreakers.

(It was remarkably simpler than the grappling hook — he just reinforced the knuckles on his gloves.)

Because as much as he likes running, he was going to give himself a heart attack if he chased every ghost he came across on foot. It’d take him all night just to find one. And there was something inherently freeing in the terrifying, adrenaline-rushing sensation of soaring through the air with nothing but hard ground below and endless sky above.

The amphiptere twists its head and looks behind it, and Danny gives it a little shit-eating grin from behind his mask and a small, two fingered salute. The mane of feathers behind the snake’s head puffs up like a frilled lizard, and it opens its maw to hiss — this distorted, almost screeching sound — at him menacingly.

Danny, in response, scoffs under his breath and waves a hand in front of his nose. “Ugh.” he mutters, scrunching up his nose as the snake’s hot breath hits him square in the face. “Someone should throw you one of those dental doggie treats.”

The snake, of course, doesn’t hear him over the sound of its shrieking and the wind. When it twists back around, it dives to the ground, flicking its tail harshly like it’s hoping to hit him as it goes down.

Finally, Danny thinks, dodging out of the way with a twist of his body, and follows it down into the factorial district of Amity Park. It’s already disappeared somewhere when his feet hit the sidewalk, but the buzzing of his ghost sense still tingles on the back of his neck like a seventh sense. So it’s still nearby.

Danny’s grappling hook retracts with a quiet, zipping noise. He hooks it onto the loop of his jeans, and stalks down the side of the road.

Spirits linger beside the buildings. Men, women, and kids wearing clothes from all different time periods congregating in groups and conversing with one another, playing, watching him. Cities never sleep, they doze, and the dead come out at night when the living aren’t there to wake it up. Danny’s spoken to them many, many times.

“Excuse me.” He murmurs, tapping a man in overalls and a railroad cap on the arm. If it weren’t for his faint green glow and how he wisps at the edges, the man would almost look alive. The man turns to him, his eyebrows climbing up his forehead when he sees Danny. “Have you seen a flying snake coming through here?”

The man blinks at him, “As a matter o’ fact,” he says, adjusting the cap on his head, “I have. Flew down the road like a bat out of hell.” The man points down the street, and Danny leans around him to see. “Thought it was gonna knock me righ’ out my work boots.”

Danny presses his mouth into a thin line, making a low ‘hn’ sound in the back of his throat. “Did you see if it went into one of the buildings?” He almost hopes it did, he could probably try and sneak up on it that way. Man, he needs some kind of stunner or something.

“Right in there.” The man tells him, pointing to an old brick factory with the windows grimy and cracked. Of course, Danny sighs out of his nose. If he squints, he can see a green glow coming through the glass.

If he’s lucky, he won’t run into the Box Ghost while he’s in there. He turns to the man and nods politely, “Thank you.” And when the man nods back, Danny turns and hurries down the street. He weaves around the spirits congregating around him, he’s heard from one-too-many spirits how irritating it is to be walked through by the Living.

The door is rusted and locked when he finds an entrance, only made worse by the chain wrapped around the door for good measure, with a padlock. Of course. Rolling his eyes, Danny reaches for his pocket and pulls out a lockpick — too many times doing this has taught him to bring one along, just in case.

(Man, he was envious of ghosts’ abilities to just phase through things. It would save him a lot of trouble. And roadburns, bruises, broken bones, and every other injury known to man.)

He jams the lockpick into the padlock, jiggles it roughly, and unlocks it with a soft click. “They need better locks.” Danny mutters, pulling off the chain carefully with quiet, metallic clattering, and putting it on the ground. He jams the lockpick into the door lock, and with a little more finesse, unlocks that one too.

The door opens with a heavy creak that has Danny scrunching his shoulders up to his ears and his mouth pulling back with a sharp inhale. Shit, he freezes in place, darting his eyes around for the amphiptere.

He sees its glow off in the corner, stark ectoplasm green against the red brick walls, half hidden behind empty conveyor belts and forgotten, empty metal barrels. It doesn’t notice him, with the door open he can hear a loud crrrchk-ing followed by intermittent bangs.

It’s chewing on something, wriggling around like a cat playing with a toy mouse. Danny silently creeps in and slips through the gap between the door, closing the door behind him slowly. His eyes never leave the amphiptere. It still doesn’t notice him.

Two years isn’t that long to teach yourself how to be stealthy, but when you’re doing it every night, you learn quickly. Danny keeps himself low to the ground and his footsteps light. The amphiptere is oblivious to him; its clanging, hissing, snarling drowns out the room to any other noise.

As he gets closer, Danny unhooks his thermos again. There’s a quiet click as he opens the lid with a press of a button, and the thermos hums to life in his hand, warming up against his palm. He creeps around the conveyor belt, his breathing slow and steady.

When he reaches the amphiptere, its back is facing him. It coiled itself close to the ground, its jaw clamped around a metal barrel that’s been crushed like a tin can down the middle. Danny clenches his teeth, discomfort shivering down his spine. That could’ve been his arm had it decided to fight back.

Silently, he raises his thermos at the snake, and with his arm steady, his thumb slams one of the buttons. There’s a recoil like he’s firing a gun, and Danny finds his purchase on the ground as a beam of light lashes out and hits the snake.

The reaction is immediate. The amphiptere drops the barrel with a hideous, furious shriek and lashes out, trying to escape from the beam dragging it towards the thermos. But Danny’s long since learned that the pull of the thermos is much stronger than most ghosts, so long as he doesn’t disturb the tractor beam.

One thing is for certain — keeping the damn thing steady is one hell of a forearm workout. His arms used to shake after a fight, and they’d feel sore in the morning. Not so much anymore since Danny started working out with Sam.

(Tucker declined when they asked him if he wanted to join — he’ll stick with his tech and walking on the treadmill.)

When the amphiptere disappears inside the thermos, Danny slams the lid back on and slumps with relief. Finally, he groans quietly, clipping the thermos onto his belt and pressing his hand to his lower back to stretch. There’s a satisfying pop-pop-pop, and Danny sighs from his nose. He’s calling it a night.

He glances at the time on his phone. It was three am, fantastic. He has school in four hours.

Other than the snake, tonight had been blessedly quiet. Danny spoke to some of the spirits lingering around Third and Main downtown, got some of their information so he could start helping them with moving on — two murders and then a simple fetch quest, — chased down a few other ghosts — most of them just ecto-entities, but there was a young ghost child who he had to play hide and seek with before she would agree to be taken home in the thermos.

He also got into a fight with a fellow teen ghost who wanted to see the “Death-Touched” and if Phantom was as good a fighter as the rumors say he was. Danny’s been called “Death-Touched” since the night he snuck into the lab and released every single ghost his parents had trapped in cages, that wasn’t unsurprising. A little a lot ominous at first, but Danny is nothing if not adaptive.

He’d kicked the other teen’s ass, dragged him into the thermos, and moved on.

But other than that, tonight had been tame. So before Murphy can come and kick him in the teeth, Danny’s calling it a night.

Danny is one step towards the exit when he hears a loud, suctioning noise followed by something akin to a glacier cracking down the middle. His heart sinks instantly to his feet, and the chill of his ghost sense crawls up his throat and freezes the back of his teeth. No mist spills out, yet.

Ah, fuck. Danny stifles a groan, turning back around. There goes the rest of his night.

A portal the size of an acorn swirls into existence right before his eyes, and then rapidly grows. Swirling like a whirlpool, it grows bigger and bigger until it’s half the size of him. The bigger it gets, the tenser Danny becomes — the bigger the portal is, the bigger the ghost that can slip through gets.

Please don’t make him face the snake’s fucking cousin. Danny prays, rapidly scurrying back with his hands raised defensively. He scowls under his mask, and waits tersely for something to fall through. Whatever comes through, he hopes it’s friendly. Or slow. Or maybe both.

Danny doesn’t get another winged snake.

Instead, a child stumbles out of the portal. A non-glowing, living-colored child who couldn’t be any older than six, and who rapidly spits out a phrase in a language Danny doesn’t catch. Danny’s hands drop slightly from his side, bewilderment settling in the back of his throat.

As the child rights himself, the portal dissipates behind him with a hissing sigh. It takes Danny’s ghost sense with it, and the chill evaporates from his mouth.

Oh, oh no.

Danny’s heart drops from his feet straight into the ground. Six feet into the ground. Oh, fuck.

That was a living child. That was a living child. That was a whole-ass living child.

If natural portals were rare, then whatever the hell this was — teleportals, Vlad’s teleports, whatever — was unheard of. The only time he’s seen a portal that transported someone from one place to another on the same plane of existence was Vlad. His man-made teleportals.

Natural portals between one place to another? He’s never heard of such a thing. And one just opened in front of him and spat out a child. A human, living child. A portal just kidnapped a child.

A child who, Danny realizes, is holding a sword. A katana, of all things. One that was designed to match his size. A child who was, for a lack of better words, wearing something Danny would expect a ninja to wear. A child who was dressed from head to toe in black.

A child who looks suspiciously like a baby-faced Damian Wayne. Brown skin and green eyes and all, but with youth still clinging to his cheeks. It couldn’t be Damian Wayne himself — that boy was thirteen, and Danny would’ve heard from Sam if something happened to him.

So this meant either two things: Damian Wayne was just now turned into a child and dropped into Danny’s lap, or this was a clone of Damian Wayne. Danny was thinking it might’ve been the latter.

Fuck you, Murphy, he thinks instantly, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip. This was mean.

He stares, uncertainty — and perhaps a little bit of nausea — forming a pit in his chest, as the child makes eye contact with him. The air is silent and thick — with dust, asbestos, or just the silence, Danny isn’t sure. Maybe all three. But they stare at each other for a long, suffocating moment.

Then the kid — Damian — lunges at him, his sword quickly unsheathed.

“Shit!” Danny dives back, just barely dodging being grazed by the gleaming blade. That was fast. Danny isn’t around living kids often but that was too fast, that much he knows. Kids don’t move that fast on their own. Not without being taught.

Damian spits something at him in that foreign language, his face twisting with anger, and the kid turns himself and lunges once again. Danny dodges again, swatting the sword away reflexively with the side of his gloved hand.

“I can’t understand you.” He tells him, his voice comes out rougher than he meant it to, and it comes out muffled from his mask. Please tell me you know English, he hopes, hopping up onto the old conveyor belt.

“'Akhbirni 'ayn 'ana walan 'aqtulak.” Damian snarls, chasing up after him with worrying ease. Danny swats away another stab at him, frowning when the blade leaves a cut in his leather glove. It doesn’t reach skin, but the fact of the matter is that Damian still cut his glove.

He doesn’t know English either, great. Perfect. Fantastic, even. Danny backs up on the conveyor belt, twisting away from Damian’s attacks with… well, not relative ease, the kid is faster than Danny’s expecting, but he’s not getting hits in. So some ease.

But Danny’s been fighting ghosts for the last two years. Fighting entities capable of moving at the speed of light leaves you with quick reflexes and even quicker eyes. Damian jumps up to try and kick him in the face, and Danny ducks down and dashes off the conveyor belt, hopping to the next one over.

When his feet hit the belt, he uses the momentum to leap up onto a rusty shelf. His fingers dig into the sides, and he climbs, vaulting his legs up to the top once he’s high enough. He twists around and stares down at Damian, instinctively crouched on his fours. “I’m not fighting you.” Danny says sternly, watching the kid hop after him. “I don’t fight the living, and I don’t fight kids.” Living ones, that is. Youngblood was fair game.

Damian scowls, pointing his sword at him accusingly from the conveyor below. “Tawaqaf ean alrakd wawajahani 'ayuha aljaban!” Then he’s jumping up after him, doing an impressive flip in the air before latching onto the lower shelves and climbing up.

Admittedly, Danny is rooted to his spot with disbelief. What the fuck? “Who taught you that?” He says unwittingly, bewilderment slipping into his voice. Seriously — who taught him that? What six year old knows how to do a backflip at this age? Who made you, kid?

Naturally, Damian doesn’t answer him, and Danny grabs his grappling gun and aims it at the rafters. With a quick pull of the trigger, the hook shoots out and wraps around one of the beams. Danny yanks back, and he braces as the cord yanks him forward in return. When he reaches the beam, he pulls himself up as the cord unravels itself and retracts back into the gun.

Danny shoves his gun back onto his belt, and disappears into the shadows of the ceiling.

Just in time, Damian was at the top of the shelving unit he was just on, and the kid stomps his foot angrily. Briefly, a smile tugs at the corner of Danny’s mouth, amusement fizzing out in his lungs. “Tawaqaf ean alrakd!” The kid yells, his hands shaking at his sides. “'Ayn 'akhadhatni ya Lieazir!”

He swivels his head around, his face scrunched up in the dark room as he searches the rafters. Danny silently crawls across the beam, stooping low and moving slowly, and never taking his eyes off Damian.

The kid is wound up like a spring, and jumpier than a war vet on the Fourth of July. It’s a little funny, but as Danny creeps through the ceiling, the kid only grows more frantic. The only light coming through is the muffled, yellow dim of the streets, and the moonlight that was in the middle of waning from gibbous to crescent. Good enough that Danny can see the kid’s face shifting from anger to fear.

“Laeazir!” He yells again, and his voice cracks. Danny stills. “Akhruj huna Lieazir!”

Okay, it wasn’t funny anymore. Danny holds his breath, watching as Damian’s expression fluctuates between scowling fury and wild-eyed panic. He’s twisting on his feet, whatever lethal grace he had earlier from their brief fight is gone now, replaced with clumsy, fawn-like alarm.

Damian breathes in deeply, and Danny can see the whites of his eyes when he turns his head wildly in his direction. “Azhar nafsak!”

He’s scared. Danny realizes, pricking up slightly from the rafter. He’s scared. That’s why he attacked him, he’s scared. Of course he is, Danny thinks, feeling like an idiot. He crawls over the beams again, creeping around Damian, keeping his gaze sharp on the kid’s feet. With how much he was spinning, he’s a little worried he was going to fall off the shelf.

Of course he’s scared, he thinks again. He’s a kid, he doesn’t know any English, and he’s alone. Danny can’t imagine what’s going on through his head — of course he’s scared. He must be terrified. He looks terrified.

Danny raises himself up carefully, gripping onto the rafters, and dashes across quickly. Damian whirls around towards him, his hands flying to his katana at his sheathe. His fear smothers on his face, and Damian tenses up defensively.

The grappling gun finds its way back into Danny’s hands, and Danny shoots it at a beam connected to one of the pillars. When it catches, he leans to the side, and lets himself fall. The cord goes taut, and Danny flicks a small button on the side that allows him to lower to the ground with some relative ease.

With his back to Damian, he hears a quiet scuffle and the shelf creaks. When his feet touch the ground, he tugs on his gun and the cord retracts. Danny can hear quiet, rapid-approaching footsteps coming up behind him, and he shoves his grappler back into its place and whirls around.

And immediately, reflexively, catches the blade being swung at him with both hands. Shit, he wheezes out harshly, eyes widening in shock. The blade digs into his hands, but there’s no sting — his gloves had taken the brunt of the hit. They were probably ruined after this, but Danny’s less upset over that more than he is relieved.

Damian glowers up at him, and this close up, Danny can very barely see a watery sheen covering his bottom eyelashes. His heartstrings pull, but it doesn’t stop him from curling his fingers tight around his katana to prevent him from pulling away.

“Let me help you.” Danny says, rushed. He doesn’t understand him, the obvious part of his mind whispers. He needs to get him to understand him. Damian’s arms tremble slightly, he pushes down harder on Danny’s hands. But he doesn’t budge.

He tries to yank it back instead, and it gives slightly — only for Danny to readjust his grip, despite the fear spiking in his heart. Cold metal kisses at part of his palm. It’s cut through his glove more. “Put the sword down.”

“'Ayn 'ana.” Damian snarls at him, there’s still a tremble in his voice. “'Ayn 'akhadhatni.”

A low, frustrated sound emits in the back of Danny’s throat. “I can’t understand you.” He snaps, if the kid would stop trying to kill him for five seconds, maybe they’d be able to get somewhere. “And you can’t understand me.” But if you’d stop attacking me, I could figure out a way how.

Something takes mercy on Danny — because Damian gives up on trying to take back the sword. He lets go of the handle, and Danny sees an opening. Immediately, he tosses the sword off to the side, ignoring the clattering and skidding it makes against the concrete floor. The kid is fast, but Danny is faster. He wraps his hand around Damian’s forearm and yanks him forward.

Damian yells angrily, and Danny traps his arm against his chest and twists him around so that his back is to his chest. Danny is also stronger. Both as a given from his size, and what he does every night. Trapping Damian against him is easier done and said, and Danny immediately sits them both on the ground once he has a good purchase on him.

“'Utliq sarahi!” Damian yells, thrashing against him violently. Danny simply tilts his head up to prevent Damian from headbutting him in the chin, and wraps an arm around his torso tightly so he can fish for his phone. “'Ayuha alqadharatu! 'Utliq sarahi!”

Danny doesn’t know what he’s saying but he can guess, and he readjusts his arm when Damian nearly slips out. “No.” He says curtly, and when he gets out his phone, he sets it down briefly so he can pull his glove off. With his other arm preoccupied with keeping Damian still, Danny tugs it off with his teeth instead.

Silently, he inspects his palm for any injuries from the katana. He hadn’t felt anything, but it doesn’t hurt to check. He smiles faintly, relief weighting off his shoulders, when all he finds is a small cut near the meat of his palm. Not even deep enough to bleed. It stings, but it won’t even scar.

He picks up his phone again, and with his mask on he can’t use the facial recognition. Danny taps in his password with his thumb, and quickly pulls up a translator. In his arms, Damian continues to thrash around, twisting and trying to pretzel himself out of his grip.

“'Ana Damian Al Ghul, dam Ras Alshaytan!” Damian demands. Danny is a little worried that he might bite him, and he hoists him back up onto his lap when he tries to wriggle down. “Yajib 'an tastamie li'awamiri ya Lieazir!”

Al Ghul. Danny’s never heard that last name before, and he pauses from his typing to frown. “Hm.” Damian — the original, that is, not the clone in his arms, — went by his father’s surname, and Danny can’t remember if it was ever released what the mother’s last name was.

He quickly swaps the tab on his phone to a new one, and types into the search bar: ‘Damian Wayne mom last name’ and clicks enter. There’s a few seconds where his phone is loading, and then it pulls up the results. And with it, is a chunk of text from the top article: Damian’s mother was kept anonymous for her privacy’s sake. Who she was, what her name is, it’s all unknown other than that she was Chinese-Arabic. A remarkable feat of anonymity in the grand scheme of things and the all seeing eyes of the internet.

“Hn.” Danny’s mouth presses into a line, and he glances down to Damian. Original Damian’s maternal surname was unknown, and now he knows that his clone was calling himself Damian, what was the off chance that ‘Al Ghul’ was a random last name given to him, and wasn’t actually his mother’s surname?

…Not likely. Or it was a low chance.

Putting that aside, he swaps back to the translator and converts what he wrote into Arabic. Damian’s mother was Arabic-Chinese, and the language Damian was speaking didn’t sound like Chinese. So, fingers crossing, he hopes it’s Arabic.

Turning up the volume as far as it could go, he looks back at Damian, whose struggling and yelling has slowly begun to cease. Danny doesn’t trust it, and he smiles a little amusedly, that’s not going to get me to let go. He checks the translation to make sure it’s what he wants it to say, and then hits the play button.

[I can’t understand you, but my name is Danny. I want to help you.]

Damian jerks, hitting his head against Danny’s chest in surprise. “'Utliq sarahi 'ayn 'ana?” He sneers, “'Ana last bihajat limusaeadatikum.”

“I just said I can’t understand you, bud.” Danny sighs, once again adjusting his hold on Damian. The kid kicks at him and misses him entirely. His arm was starting to get tired from the strain of holding Damian on its own, so Danny puts his phone behind him and swaps them.

He honest to god gets hissed at when he has to adjust Damian as well, and Danny pauses for a moment just out of pure wonder at the boy in his arms. He was hissed at, as if he was scruffing a stray cat. He was so telling Sam about this when he gets this kid home.

Smiling faintly, Danny pulls his other glove off with his teeth, checks for injuries, and then with a little bit of contortion, grabs his phone and pulls it back up. Then his train of thought catches up to him, and he freezes just as he’s about to type into the translator again.

Take him home? The kid? Danny can’t do that. There wasn’t any room in the house, and how would he explain this to his parents?

‘Hey mom, dad, this is Damian. He’s a clone of my genetic template’s son! Yeah, yeah, that template, the one who just so happens to be the old college buddy that you accidentally cloned instead of dad? The one who just so happens to be capable of suing our family out of existence if he happened to catch wind of my existence? Oh, where did I find him? Last night while I was out. Why was I out? Oh, because I just so happen to be the Phantom, your sworn enemy and the ghost-hunting vigilante who you are convinced is also a ghost. Can we keep him?’

Yeah, yeah, he can see how well that would go down. He might as well take off his mask and tell Bruce Wayne he had a clone already. But… where else would Damian go? He doesn’t know any English, he was alone in a foreign country with no money, no way to get home, the worst thing Danny can do is abandon him right now.

Danny presses his mouth into a thin line, a frown beginning to pull at the corner of his lips.

…He could figure something out with his parents, Jazz will help him once he explains the situation. And if he can get Damian to agree to stop trying to kill him, then they can both make it back to Fenton Works before sunrise… Hopefully.

Pressing his mouth into a thin line, Danny starts typing into the translator again. [You’re in America right now. The translator doesn’t translate the name of my city well, but we’re in Illinois. You are very far from home.]

Damian jerks once again, twisting his neck to look up at Danny with disbelief. “'Amrika?” He says, the corner of his up curled up. Danny nods curtly, he doesn’t need to know Arabic to know what ‘Amrika’ means. “Hadhih Amirika?”

Danny nods again, “Yeah, America. You’re in Amity Park.” He points to the ceiling, and gestures around them slowly. Damian watches him carefully, his eyes narrowed. “Am-i-ty Park.” Danny says, enunciating the syllables slowly.

Green eyes narrow at him further. “Amity Park.” Damian says, slowly and sharp. When Danny nods, he drops his head and Danny tilts slightly in order to see as Damian casts the room a disdainful look. “Amity Park.” He repeats, voice full of enough venom to kill a full grown man.

He can’t help himself, he snorts to himself and grins underneath his mask. The sound causes Damian to snap his head back up at him, and return his glower full force. He tries to wriggle again, but, like all other times, it’s in vain.

“Sawf tutliq sarahi.” Damian orders, mouth twisting back into a scowl. Danny almost wants to tell him that his face will freeze if he keeps doing that. He’s already got his thumb hovering over the keyboard. “Yajib 'an 'aeud 'iilaa aldawrii.”

Danny types into his phone, [I want to help you. You don’t know English, so getting around on your own will be next to impossible. If you promise not to attack me, I will take you back to my home and we can figure out how to get you home.]

It’s… okay. Danny doesn’t really want to help the kid get home. Wherever that is, it’s teaching a child how to kill people, and it’s making clones of people. Statistically, that’s a bad sign. It also means that, for all intents and purposes, Danny should help the kid get home so he can find out whatever this organization is and, hopefully, put a stop to their cloning.

However, Danny has his own city to take care of. Amity Park is full from head to toe with ghosts and spirits, and with his parents playing whack-a-mole with the portal’s door controls, he doesn’t feel comfortable leaving the city for even a few days. His parents can catch a lot of ghosts in only a few days.

His parents can spill a lot of blood in only a few days.

The evil cloning organization that made Damian will just have to be something Danny can leave in the capable hands of the older, more experienced heroes. For now, he can try and stall Damian’s homecoming and also keep him safe by keeping him housed.

Damian, instead of wriggling again, slumps against him with a throaty huff. Danny peers over his head, checking to see if he was just pouting or had, somehow, passed out. Damian was scowling, his shoulders slumped up slightly, and Danny internally coos.

He’s pouting. It was adorable.

The boy is silent for a long minute, a scowl carved like marble in his face, and Danny is content — no, wait, slightly content. He still wants to get home at a semi-reasonable time, — to wait him out. He is stronger, bigger, and faster than him. Eventually, Damian makes a low grumbling noise, something Danny can almost mistake for as a groan, before the kid slumps against him.

“Hsnan, sa'abqaa maeak hataa natamakan min 'iieadati 'iilaa aldawri.” He says, sounding significantly less full of indignant rage, and more so full of indignant irritation. He also no longer wriggles, and Danny feels hope sparking low in his gut. Did he finally get through to him…?

More seconds pass by with the two of them just sitting there in silence, before Damian wriggles again — but rather than trying to escape, he twists his head to give Danny a dirty, expectant look. Danny frowns, confused, and then jerks — Oh! Oh!

He fumbles for his phone, [Was that a yes? Nod if it was a yes?]

Damian scoffs at him, looking very much like Danny was nothing more than dirt under his shoes. But he nods curtly, “Naeam sa'adhhab maeak.”

Danny cheers, loudly. The hand curled around his phone punches skyward, like a fistbump to the ceiling, and Damian drops his head away from him. He yells something at him — probably telling him not to be so loud, but Danny pays it no mind. He’s only focused on the pure, utter, relief, pouring into his lungs and trying to trick itself out of his mouth as a laugh.

Yes, yes! He convinced him! That’s one less worry to worry about, and as Danny drops his hand with his phone, his other arm starts to loosen up around Damian's waist — something Damian very much notices. As he stiffens up and is halfway through shoving himself out of his grasp.

Danny lets him go, remembering abruptly the mask on his face. He lets Damian get to his feet, but he’s quickly scrambling soon after, not to grab him again. But to scramble for the katana he’d tossed out of the kid’s reach. Damian exclaims behind him, but Danny has his fingers curled around the handle before the kid can chase after him.

When he stands and faces Damian again, the kid is all puffed up with rage again. Danny doesn’t doubt that, if the kid is trained to be some… kind of ninja…. that he has more weapons on him. But Damian looks more focused on his sword, so Danny holds up his phone-hand in a gesture to hopefully make Damian wait before he attacks him.

“Wait, wait, wait!” He cries. Damian does, fortunately, and Danny quickly types into his phone again. [I will give you back your sword, and I will show you my face when we reach my home. But you must promise you won’t attack me once I do.] He pauses for a moment, and then types in as well: [I’ll also show you how to use the translator so we can talk both ways.]

He doesn’t know if Damian even knows what his… father? Looks like, or what his feelings on him are if he does. But Danny was going to cover his bases, and if there was the off chance that Damian held negative feelings for his dad, he didn’t want the kid to attack him, again.

(It probably wasn’t a good idea to do this at home, but at this point Danny just wants to be in his room.)

Damian eyes him up suspiciously, tense as a wooden plank and hunched like he was ready to pounce anyways, but he nods curtly. “Aeidak.”

“Okay.” Danny breathes out, slowly straightening up. He’ll take that as Damian promising not to attack him. “Okay, good. Good.” Lowering his hand, he pockets his phone back into his jeans and flips the sword around so that the blade is pointing downwards. He holds it out for Damian, and the kid, quick as a whip, snatches it back from him and sheathes it into its scabbard.

Great, finally. Now he can leave. Danny’s hands drop to his sides and he wriggles his fingers at Damian, absently gesturing for him to grab his hand. He turns his head away, searching for the door. “Let’s go.”

No hand takes his, which Danny should have expected, so he drops it back to his side and leads Damian to the exit. The kid sticks close to him, but keeps just barely out of sight from his peripherals. His steps are quiet, Danny would say almost silent but that wasn’t the case. If he wasn’t paying attention, though, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. Ninja stuff, probably. Danny’s a little, no, a lot concerned that he’s so good at that.

Ancients, bud. He thinks again, disbelief returning like a hand around his throat. Danny keeps glancing back at Damian to make sure he was still there. Just who, exactly, made you?

When they get outside, the night air hits them cooler than it was inside. Spirits were still lingering around the sidewalks, chattering amongst each other and throwing him various, curious glances. Danny suppresses a frown, but can’t stop himself from making a low ‘hm.’

They probably felt the shift in the atmosphere from the portal opening. It may have dissipated, but the excess was still lingering around. Without his focus solely on Damian, Danny can feel it too. Like a fog in his chest. Or, perhaps more accurately, like going through the day in a tired glaze, only to be hit with pin-startling clarity. The spirits were probably trying to soak up as much as possible in order to gain a stronger physical form.

Which, unfortunately for them, wouldn’t happen from this portal alone. Too many spirits trying to do the same thing. Not enough ectoplasm.

He leads Damian down the steps, and over to the sidewalk. On instinct his hand reaches for his grappling hook, but Damian, still loitering in his peripherals, tenses up. Oh, right, Danny thinks, and switches for his phone instead, this is a two-person trip.

It’d probably be rude to just grab Damian and start flying. Damian might try and stab him, or worse, try and get out of his hands again. The mental image of Damian falling nearly fifty-feet in the air flashes behind Danny’s eyes, and he represses a shudder.

Yeah, let's tell him first.

His fingers fly across the screen. [I’m going to use a grappling hook to get us back to the house. It’ll be faster. I’m going to pick you up, hold on tight.]

Damian scoffs at him, but nods. Danny pockets his phone, swaps it out for his grappling hook instead, and lets Damian look at it for a minute before he crouches down and wraps his free arm around Damian’s legs and hoists him up.

Something gets said to him by Damian, harsh and scowly, probably an insult, but he wraps his arms around Danny’s neck and his legs tight around his torso. At this point Danny just rolls his eyes and adjusts his arm to hold him tight around the waist. “Hold on.” He mumbles, and points his gun to the sky.

Flying through the city is admittedly trickier with the extra weight on his front and only one hand free, but Danny takes it as a challenge rather than a problem — if only so he doesn’t think too much on it. Damian’s fingers claw into the back of hoodie the moment his grappling hook pulls them through the air, it borderlines almost painful, and Danny doubts he could drop the kid even if he tried.

There are a few close calls where Danny nearly clips the edge of one of the skyscrapers, but it takes one easy twist and a little bit of spinning to correct the angle. The threat of it sends a rush of adrenaline through his veins, and Danny can’t say he didn’t laugh a few times. Becoming Phantom turned him into an adrenaline junkie, he thinks.

Damian doesn’t seem to be having much fun though, his grip suffocating on Danny and his face buried into his shoulder. He’s choking Danny a little, but he wouldn’t dare try and correct it while in the air, and it’s only bringing him mild discomfort.

Not fast enough but all too soon, Danny is touching down near the residential area of Amity Park where the buildings are too small for him to grapple through. He drops onto one of the apartment rooftops, and his feet are barely touching the ground before Damian clambers off him like a wet cat trying to claw its way out of a pool.

With the sound of his grappling hook receding, Danny laughs low under his breath. “Flying not for you, bud?” He asks, slightly breathless and grinning under his mask. The hook clicks into place in his palm, and Danny shoves it back onto his belt.

The kid glares at him amidst brushing off his clothes and patting at his sides. His hand brushes over his sword, and when he feels the hilt still there, Damian drops it. The kid straightens up like a soldier — immediately killing Danny’s sky-flushed mirth in the process — and stares up at him, awaiting orders.

Danny’s smile falls, and he clears his throat. Okay, he thinks, checking himself over for anything out of place, before looking back to Damian. Resolve hardens like cement in between his ribs. He’s not going back. Not if I have anything to say about it.

He moves around Damian and steps over to the roof ledge, swiveling left and right for the direction of his house. Which is unnecessary, he can see Fenton Works from a mile away, but he does it anyways. Anything to distract him from the discomfort that’s been sledgehammered at him. “This way.” He murmurs, gesturing for Damian to follow. Shuffling feet, and Danny can sense more than see the little boy at his side.

Considering the way he saw Damian hopping around earlier, Danny is confident in his ability to roof hop with him — confidence well deserved because Damian follows him with relative ease. Which is still real damn worrying, but he can dwell on it when they get to the house.

Still, he keeps a close eye on Damian the entire time they’re leaping rooftops. The boy was six, he didn’t have the same stamina nor height that Danny did — it’d be too easy for Danny to lose him on the way to the house because he couldn’t keep up, or he decided to change his mind while Danny was distracted and book it in another direction.

They reach the house in no time, and Danny’s fishing for his key from his belt the moment his feet hit the concrete of the rooftop. Damian remains behind him, an ever-constant shadow as Danny ducks under the various legs, wires, and poles of the OPPS Center and unlocks the door to the roof.

Getting to his room is a relief. The strange, buzzing sensation that settles through Danny’s eyes like a thin film whenever he’s using his ‘scary eyes’ dissipates, and he’s kicking off his boots with a low sigh before he can really think it through. He’ll put them back in their place when he’s done — but for now, he just wants them off. Damian pools in behind him, slinking off to the corner of the room as Danny shuts the door.

His room is spotless — a cleaning habit he’s kept meticulously since he wanted to be an astronaut. He had planets hanging from the ceiling, glow in the dark stars muttered against the walls, and posters of astronomy, Dumpty Humpty, and NASA plastered beside the stars. And a large corkboard hanging above his desk.

“Finally.” he groans, twisting his hips and stretching out his back before reaching over and turning on the hanging lights. A soft orange glow fills the room, and Danny turns just in time to see Damian jump in surprise. He’d moved over to Danny’s bookshelf on the opposite side of the room, his body half turned away and tilted like he’d been inspecting it.

Danny stifles a smile, and tugs off his thermos and grappling hook and places them on the desk. Damian straightens up, shuffling away from the bookshelf and back over to him, his brows beginning to furrow with a look of determination.

He marches towards him, “Laqad wasalna 'iilaa manzilika, walan ealayk 'an tafi bikalimatik watakhlae qanaeaka.”

Danny doesn’t know what he’s saying, but Damian points to his face while he’s speaking so Danny figures it out relatively quickly. Besides, it’s not like he’d forgotten either. He has to take off his mask to sleep, and it’s easier to change when he’s not wearing it. He grabs his phone from his pocket.

[I know, I’ll take off my mask. But remember: you can’t attack me.] He hits play, and watches Damian scoff for the nth time, roll his eyes, and nod. As if to reassure him, or to prove that he wasn’t going to attack him, Damian folds his arms behind his back.

Briefly, Danny feels himself nearly frown again at Damian’s almost soldier-like posture. But he has time to worry about that later, he shoves his phone back into his pocket. Danny raises his hands and curls his fingers around the bottom of his mask.

Carefully, mindful of the straps, Danny pulls it off. The cool air immediately rushes over his damp forehead, and he quickly shakes his head with bated breath to get the strands of hair plastered to his skin off. He locks eyes with Damian, tense, and with air trapped in his lungs.

Damian’s eyes widen comically, his scowl softening for a moment. For a moment, Danny thinks that maybe things will be fine…ish. But then Damian’s face is scrunching up again, his face sharpening angrily, and his hands reach for his sword.

“Dijaal!” He hisses, fire lighting in his eyes as he grabs for his katana.

Danny takes a step back and holds his hand out, narrowing his eyes defensively. “Hey, hey, hey!” He hisses back, he points a finger at Damian accusingly, arching an eyebrow. “You promised!”

Apparently, the tone of ‘no takesies-backsies!’ transcends language, because Damian freezes where he stands and simply remains glowering at him. Danny raises his eyebrow higher, locking him in a staring contest, and Damian takes his hand off the hilt.

Great. Good. Fantastic even! Crisis avoided, and no parents woken up in the process. That’s a success if Danny’s ever heard one. He keeps his eyes on Damian, before slowly reaching for his phone again. It’s like having a stand-off with a bull. A tiny, six year old-sized bull with a sword rather than horns, but a bull nonetheless.

He gets his phone out safely, and gets out the translator. Again. [I know I’m a clone of your dad. I didn’t ask to be. I still want to help you.] And he does, he so much does. Danny was a bleeding heart, forever and always. If he can help, he will. He hopes that the blood he is made from won’t stop Damian from accepting that help.

Damian stares him down, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to analyze Danny’s every move. Danny stays still and lets him, waiting for the jurisdiction of the small assassin.

Whatever it is that Damian sees, it causes him to drop his hands to his side with an irritated sigh just like before. He says nothing, but the resigned slump of his shoulders tells Danny all he needs to know, and he beams.

Success, he thinks, laughing quietly in earnest. [Stay here.] He quickly types into his phone and plays. He reaches for his thermos. [I need to release the ghosts in my device, then I’ll show you how to use the translator.]

He plucks the thermos from his desk and tosses his phone over Damian’s head and onto the bed. It bounces, Damian grumbles something under his breath, and the phone bounces again. Danny puts the mask down, and dances out the door and down into the lab with practiced ease.

When he returns, Damian is snooping around his room, looking around his desk this time around. He straightens up when Danny steps into the room, and Danny doesn’t bother addressing it — instead he grabs his phone again and gestures for Damian to sit on the bed with him.

It takes a painfully long amount of time to show Damian how to use the translator, with a ton of repetition and fiddling around. But they manage, finally, to get a system up where Danny will type something into the translator, play it back to Damian, and then hand the phone to Damian. Damian then would swap the translation, use text-to-speech, and play it in english.

Naturally, text-to-speech has its flaws, and Damian is only recently learning how to read, so Danny figures out the translation errors on his own. They don’t talk for long, Damian is shut off, snooty, and reserved to him. All Danny knows is that his name is Damian Al Ghul, and he is the blood son and second heir to something called the League of Assassins.

How cheery. “League of Assassins” sounds definitely evil. Ancients, Danny doesn’t wanna know. He’ll have to get involved if he knows any more.

He lets Damian fiddle with the translator more in regards to searching his closet for clothes for Damian to wear. He doesn’t have any shorts that will fit, but he pulls out an old NASA t-shirt that still somewhat fits him, and tosses it to Damian.

After much arguing, he gets Damian to wear it, and he gives Damian the bed. That takes less arguing — Damian is all too happy to sleep in a bed rather than the floor, and Danny pulls his beanbag chair out from its nook to shove it under his desk.

He’s still awake by the time sunlight begins peeking over the buildings, his eyelids heavy and sore with exhaustion, and his limbs feeling loose and disconnected. He’s fixed up his gloves — torn from the katana, but now half-heartedly sewn up with thread and a lot of muttered swearing on Danny’s part. His mask is shoved in a hidden pocket in his backpack along with his thermos.

Damian is fast asleep in bed, and with nothing else to do, Danny keeps his sharp eye on him. Swamped in Danny’s shirt and curled up under the covers, Damian is teeny. Well, he was small even before that, but it is even more apparent when tucked under blankets meant for people bigger than him.

And, for perhaps the third time that night, Danny is hit with just the sheer longing of how much he wants to help him. Danny is the hand that feeds, and Damian has a lot of teeth. The cut of his gloves is more than proof enough of that. But Danny wants to help him, Damian has no one else here to. Danny, so far, is the only one who can help him.

He is also hit with the sheer magnitude of what he’s just done — the terrifying revelation that Danny’s just taken in the clone of his template’s son. What the hell does that make for him and Damian’s relationship? Genetically, Danny is technically his father, but they’re complete strangers to one another.

What does that mean for Danny? It’s been four months since his parents revealed their betrayal. Their lies. Their backstabbing, earth-shattering, fifteen years of astounding— the truth to Danny about his… birth. Four months isn’t long enough to deal with something like that. He is still questioning everything he does — whether his actions belong to him, or to Bruce Wayne.

And this? This just takes the fucking cake.

Danny breathes in deeply, snapping himself out of the slow-creeping spiral threatening to drag him under the waters of his mind. His eyes flick to the window. It’s too early to think about this. Much, much too early. He slinks into his beanbag with a low groan, stifling back a groan.

He can worry about the identity crisis and his crisis of autonomy later. Later, when he’s not mind-numbingly exhausted and already mentally fragile from that alone. Not when there’s a teeny baby assassin sleeping in his bed who happens to be his son? Cousin? Brother? template’s son’s clone.

With sunlight peeking through the windows, he slinks out from under his desk to prepare for another day.

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dpdc #dpxdc crossover #danny fenton is a clone #clone^2 #dpdc au #dpxdc fic #dpdc fic #danny fenton is not the ghost king #starry's writing #ao3 tag highlights: Accidental Little Brother Acquisition #Cat Distribution System Except Its A Child #i crave validation and attention so whoops #danny: wow that is a child! Why Is The Child Violent #danny: ahaha i can ignore my identity crisis if i focus on Literally Anything Else

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piived · 3 months

Text

Justice is Swift (Vengeance is Sweet) — a DPxDC Dead on Main Fic

chapter two is officially here!

master post || <- ch.1 || ch.2 shitposts || ch.3 ->

CHAPTER TWO — KISS AND TELL

Summary —

Danny starts classes, meets a new friend, makes a trip to the Realms, and has some surprise visitors. Jason and Tim have MUCH to think about and research. So much research…

chapter word count — 9,148

full chapter under the cut, but for the best experience read on ao3 and consider leaving kudos/comments as they fuel me :)

𓆩⟡𓆪

CHAPTER TWO — KISS AND TELL

The first week of classes flew by for Danny and suddenly it was already Thursday and time for his scheduled meeting with Bernard and his mysterious boyfriend at the campus cafe in the two hours before their last lecture of the day.

He was running late, the notes from his last lecture still clutched in his hands and threatening to fly away as he booked his way across the quad towards the central student center building. He managed to slide past the closing door from another student entering and glanced around in search of Bernard’s blonde hair. He had texted Danny that they were there nearly ten minutes ago and sure enough, he spotted Bernard at a table in the corner, sitting across someone with a dark red hoodie and black hair.

He beelined for them and matched Bernard’s friendly grin, plopping down on the seat next to him and across from the guy who looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t place.

“Hey, you made it!” Bernard laughed at Danny’s disheveled state, scooting a cup of what was hopefully very strong coffee towards him. “I thought Professor Montgomery was gonna try holding you all hostage or something.”

Danny huffed a laugh and started organizing his notes to put them in his bag correctly. “Sure felt like it,” Danny groaned, “man, that guy is the slowest talker I’ve ever heard, it’s excruciating.”

The guy across from him hummed in amusement, eyeing Danny’s sketches and notes, “Advanced Mechanical Engineering?”

Danny sighed, “Yeah, unfortunately.”

The guy hummed again, “You gotta be pretty clever to take that class as a freshman, did you test out or transfer credits from elsewhere?”

Danny shrugged and flushed a little bit, “I tested out but also did my generals online and transferred the credits so I can take more advanced classes earlier. My parents were scientists and I could probably pass intro and beginner mech engineering in my sleep.” He finally managed to get everything in his backpack sorted and turned fully towards him, holding out his hand. “Hi, sorry for being rude. I’m Danny Nightingale.”

The guy smirked a bit and grabbed his hand in a firm grip, “Timothy Drake, pleasure to meet you, Danny.”

Danny’s eyes widened and he glanced from Timothy Fucking Drake to Bernard who’s shit eating grin was growing by the second.

“You wouldn’t happen to be Timothy Drake-Wayne, would you?”

Timothy shrugged. “I prefer to go by Tim.”

Danny barked a laugh and shoved his elbow into Bernard’s side who grunted and shoved him back without much luck. Danny was solid when he wanted to be, thank you very much. “Well, my friend Tucker is going to absolutely lose it when I rub it in his face that I sat at the same table as his idol and had an actual conversation.”

Tim rested his chin in his hand and looked amused. “Oh yeah? Well, make his day and tell him I said hi.”

Danny cackled at that, “I don’t want to be that annoying guy but would you mind taking a selfie for proof? He’s the type to call bullshit without supporting evidence.”

Tim’s eyes actually twinkled at that, “Sounds like a smart guy. Sure.”

Danny grinned and pulled out his Tucker-modified phone, spinning in his seat and pulling Bernard with him so they were facing away from Tim and towards his camera, effectively getting them all in. “Say cheese!”

Tim put on a very obviously media trained smile that Danny now recognized from articles and paparazzi photos, and Bernard held up a peace sign while Danny classily flipped the camera off with a shit eating grin. He laughed and quickly sent it to Tucker with a cheeky ‘my new good friend Tim says hi.’

“Thanks, he’ll probably faint.”

“Well, anything for a fan,” Tim waved it off only half sarcastically, eyes locked on Danny’s phone that was now on the table. “What model is that?”

Bernard sighed ruefully and Danny shot him an amused look before answering Tim. “It was originally an old Wayne Tech, I think. Until Tuck got his hands on it and did whatever magic he does.” Danny gave the dog a bone and slid it over to Tim to inspect. “I don’t know exactly what he did but I think I have the detailed manual he lovingly and painstakingly crafted somewhere if you’re interested. Or I can send you his information and you can absolutely make his life by complimenting his handiwork,” Danny not so subtly suggested. He was a fantastic friend and wing man and if Tucker ever said otherwise he was a dirty rotten liar.

Tim hummed as he fiddled with the hardware and poked around on the lock screen. “Do you have a carrier?” He frowned, poking some more.

Danny shrugged, “I don’t think so? Tucker’s always ranting about them robbing the public blind so I think he made a way around it. Unless someone is mysteriously paying a bill I don’t know about, but I doubt it.” Plus the small fact that he had signal even in the Realms, a feat Danny was positive no regular carrier company could pull off.

“Huh,” Tim stated, fascinated.

Bernard groaned, “Great, now you have him hooked. Make sure you get that thing back from him or he’ll steal it and spend all night reverse engineering it and I’ll have to call Con to help me lure him out of his cave.”

Tim spared a glance to glare at his boyfriend and not so subtly kicked him under the table and Danny laughed, amused at their antics and reminded of his friends. “Who’s Con?”

Bernard lit up and Tim’s face got a little softer around the edges. Danny liked whoever this Con was already. “Our boyfriend! He doesn’t take classes here and is busy with work or else I’d have dragged him along but you’d like him!”

Danny laughed in disbelief and groaned into his hands. “You’re kidding me.”

He could practically feel Tim and Bernard stiffen and looked up quickly to see their stony expressions, a far cry from the light and openness from moments before and Danny kicked himself for ruining it. “You got a problem with that?” Tim asked flatly, eyes narrowed. Danny sensed the underlying danger in it all and held his hands up, blanching.

“No, no! Literally not at all,” he stammered in a rush, trying to bring back the happy feelings from before. “I’m just somehow doomed to be surrounded by poly relationships while my love life continues to be very much a disaster.”

Tim and Bernard shared a look and relaxed minutely but were still guarded so Danny slid his phone back to himself and pulled up his album dedicated solely to his favorite group of lovable idiots. “Here they are,” he said with a fond grin, showing the other two the latest picture of Sam, Val, and Tucker hugging and laughing at some diner or other, clearly lovesick and giddy (even Sam who rarely showed true emotion in photos). Bernard let out a loud, “Aww,” hand over his heart and Tim relaxed fully again, smile back, thank the Ancients.

Danny pointed to Tucker in the middle with fries sticking out of his mouth like fangs (Tucker was absolutely going to murder him—again—for showing Timothy Drake this particular picture, but Danny thought it was worth it). “That’s Tucker Foley, tech extraordinaire and my best friend since we were in diapers,” Tim cocked his head to take in the picture better, assessing, now that he could put a face to the tech. “He’s going to CalTech for Compsci and Engineering and Sam and Val,” he pointed to the two respectively, “are at UCLA for Environmental Sciences and Bio Engineering.”

Bernard let out an appreciative noise, “Tim, I love them already. Enviro Sci and Bio and Tech! They’re basically alternate us! Damn, I wish Con was here,” he pouted and pulled out his phone to presumably text said boyfriend. Danny laughed, and took his phone back, scrolling past other pictures with a smile. Oh how he missed his friends.

Tim slid his phone over and Danny took a look at a picture of the three of them, Bernard and Tim pressed to either side of who Danny presumed to be Con, a tall punk looking guy with circle sunglasses and artfully spiked up black hair. “That’s Conner,” Tim supplied with a smile edging towards fond.

Danny smiled back, “Damn, you guys are adorable.”

Bernard swooned against him and Tim flushed a bit and snatched his phone back. “I know, right,” Bernard cooed, and Danny laughed, shoving him back upright. “I’m like the luckiest guy in the world, somehow snagging a rich genius and a hot punk rocker. My life is like, the best,” Danny fake gagged and Tim rolled his eyes but took his boyfriend’s offered hand across the table.

“Fuck, I really thought I would be free of insufferably sappy trios that make me feel oh so insufferably single,” Danny sighed, thunking his head on the table.

Bernard patted his back in sympathy, “There, there,” he hummed, “I’m sure we can find you your very own harem in no time.”

Danny groaned, “Yeah, no thank you, I could barely handle one person at a time which is why I didn’t join their group in the first place despite their insistence that a ‘polycule’ has a better ring than a ‘tripoly’.”

“Well, then that makes it even easier. I think Tim has a couple spare siblings we can hook you up with — ow! Kidding!”

Tim glared and pointed a stern finger at his boyfriend, “Don’t even joke. Danny doesn’t deserve to be subjected to any of those heathens and you know it. He’d get eaten alive.”

“Hey!” Danny exclaimed, offended. “I’m tougher than I look!”

“No, no,” Bernard patted his shoulder in sympathy, “he’s totally right. I wouldn’t subject you to that realm of chaos.”

Oh, if only they knew that Danny literally ruled over an infinite realm of chaos. He just shook his head in amusement. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen pictures of you Waynes and let’s just say that if any of them made a pass I’d give them the green light, chaos be damned.”

Tim made a sound of disgust as Bernard cackled. “I knew I liked you for a reason, Danny.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Tim shook his head. “Though if you stick around long enough one of them is bound to bite. Or Bruce will take one look at you and try to adopt you, so I hope you’re not too attached to your parents.”

Danny dimmed a bit at the mention of his parents but managed a laugh. “Well he’s welcome to try, I’m sure they wouldn’t put up much of a fuss but he might have to fight my sister, and my money is on her.” Not to mention the fact that Vlad would have a total conniption if another billionaire got their hooks in him — but, on second thought, maybe Jazz's wrath would be worth it to see the fruit loop's expression when he showed up at the next gala that Vlad was always trying to trick him into attending as a Wayne... But no. He wouldn't want to risk Vlad doing something drastic like overshadowing poor Bruce Wayne just because Danny wanted to be an annoying little shit. Damn.

Bernard slung an arm over his shoulder and Tim gave him a calculating look which Danny ignored in favor of taking a sip of his neglected coffee, desperate for a change of subject. “Thanks for this, by the way,” he wiggled the cup. “What do I owe you?”

Bernard waved him off, “Don’t worry about it. Perks of dating a Wayne, they tend to get things for free around here.”

Tim shrugged and Danny wasn’t going to argue about free coffee so he let it drop.

Conversation flowed to lighter topics and soon enough Danny and Bernard had to leave for their Physics lecture. Tim pressed a kiss to Bernard’s cheek and waved goodbye to them both. Danny waved back and waited until he was out of sight before spinning around on Bernard.

“Dude! Timothy Drake-Wayne‽”

Bernard laughed, eyes twinkling, “Please, I knew him long before he got the Wayne name and he’s still as much of a nerd. Now he’s just a rich nerd with a better family.”

Danny blinked at that and huffed out an incredulous laugh, “Okay yeah, I get that. Sam is totally loaded too and she’s like the most unhinged person I know. But still, there’s rich and then there’s Wayne rich.”

Bernard shrugged, “Yeah but in the end it’s the person who matters, and Tim? He’s my best friend. He’s always been my best friend even when we didn’t talk for years and he’ll probably, hopefully, be my best friend forever. And he’s the reason I met Conner, too, and now I have both of them,” he got that stupidly sappy look in his eyes and Danny shoved him playfully.

“Yeah you guys are solid, I can tell. I’m glad I met you, Bernard,” Danny grinned.

Bernard rolled his eyes, “You can call me Berny or Benny or something if you want. Bernard is such a mouthful.”

“Yeah, okay Benny Boo Boo, Boo Boo Bear,” Danny teased, eyes alight with mischief.

“Did you just How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days me, Nightingale?” Benny laughed in shock and Danny cackled. “No way that’s sticking! I take it back, your nickname privilege is revoked, Danny! Danny!” Danny jogged further away, still laughing. “Call me Bernard, I beg! Daniel!”

Yeah, Danny liked his new friends a lot.

—

Saturday morning had Danny prepping for a quick trip to the Realms to check in on things when his phone rang with an incoming video call.

“Hello?” He answered absently around the pen cap he had in between his teeth.

“Danny, you’ve completely fried Tucker’s brain with your Timothy Drake stunt,” Sam glowered back at him and Danny laughed.

“Good to see you too Sam, I hope your first week back to classes have been going well, how’s Val?” Danny teased.

“Classes are as awful as ever and Val is ready to smother Tucker in his sleep if he doesn’t stop gushing over how Timothy Drake-Wayne said hello to him via you, you jerk. Now he’s looking for flights and trying to convince us that he can somehow miraculously miss a week of classes to go on a stalker fanboy trip and it’s all your fault!”

Danny cackled, “Oh that’s even better than I thought! Has he really looked for flights?”

Sam glared, “Yes. We had to hide his credit card. You better tell him not to be an idiot and fly across the country just to try and catch a glimpse of your little friend.”

Danny held his hands up in surrender, “Okay okay, I’ll give him a call and tell him how irresponsible he’d be to ditch his favorite place and people in the world for week to hang out with his literal icon and boy crush that I can most definitely get him in contact with.”

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” Sam whined.

Danny grinned, “Yep,” popping the P. “But seriously, I’ll tell him to wait until fall break at least. No promises past that.”

“That works for us. We were already talking about hopefully making a trip back home for Thanksgiving so we can probably stop by Gotham without too much hassle.”

“Please do, I miss you guys,” Danny frowned. Sam smiled softly.

“Yeah we miss you too, loser. Whaddya got planned for today?”

Danny sighed, “A trip to the GZ, I gotta make sure everything’s still running and I’ve got a couple scheduled brawls to handle. It’ll be good, I’m getting antsy without the constant barrage of duels. I’m understanding why they visited me in Amity so frequently now.”

Sam laughed, “Ghosts are so weird. Have fun duking it out. Call tomorrow?”

Danny nodded, “Yep, Tucker made sure to put it on my schedule and I still get an annoying amount of reminders for it throughout the week.”

“Good, I’ll see you tomorrow then, stay out of trouble.” He managed to not laugh at the familiar words. Stay safe, Trouble. He so did not need to be thinking of Red Hood right now. The whole vigilante situation was a conversation to bring up when they were all together during their scheduled group call.

“Yeah, yeah, you too. Good luck with Tucker’s obsession and try to remember that you love him and would be devastated if Val actually killed him!”

Sam flipped him off before hanging up and Danny laughed.

He checked over his notes to make sure he wasn’t missing anything important that he had to prepare for and made sure his curtains were closed before transforming and ripping open a portal.

It’d gotten easier and easier over the years with practice and now that he was officially Prince Regent it was almost second nature. He slipped through and flew around leisurely, checking on things as he went until he finally made it to the council hall where the representatives were meeting.

It was a quick session, more to just keep him in the loop of things and keep in touch with his council friends, updating them on his mortal living and showing that he still took his responsibility as Prince Regent and Future King seriously. He wanted to do right by the Realms and he was insistent on proving himself worthy. It helped that he enjoyed spending time among the ghosts, not having to worry about hiding any part of himself and able to show off all of his abilities freely as needed. No carefully pulled punches necessary.

He parted ways with the council after the meeting had long dissolved into more gossip and light conversation than actual business and found Ember already waiting outside the building, leaning against a tree and idly strumming her guitar.

“Hey, Ember, how’s it been?”

Ember smiled at him and nodded, “Not too bad. A bit boring with the main Amity portal gone and our favorite punching bag in a city he banned us from, but we make do.”

Danny winced a little at her words. He knew the decisions to disable the portal and cut them off from Gotham sounded harsh, but he had talked it through with the Council and had all come to the agreement that it would be best. He didn’t want his parents or some other ghost hunting fanatics to go too crazy while he was gone and end up destroying the city or Ancients forbid actually capturing one of his ghosts, and he had no idea how Gotham would handle seeing his ghosts or what the Bat Clan might try and do to them. Until things had settled and he was sure it was safe, it was best to keep things contained to the Realms as much as possible.

“Well, I can help make things a bit more interesting now,” he smirked and she got the hint and swung her guitar at his head. He cackled, ducked, and the brawl began.

The best thing about fighting in the Infinite Realms was that he didn’t have to worry about any collateral damage or civilians getting hurt. He didn’t have to carefully direct the fight to more secluded areas or yell at stupid passerby’s to stop gawking and run. It was so much more fun on equal turf. He should have been doing this for years, really.

After a decent while of back and forth Ember finally called it quits, effectively worn out and seemingly pleased with the sparring. Danny felt better having been able to get some pent up energy out on a being that wouldn’t be completely disfigured by him punching with his full strength and shook out his arms in satisfaction.

“Don’t be a stranger, Phantom! Track me down next time you’re here,” Ember flicked him on the ear and left with him grumbling about normal ways to show affection.

He did track down a few other ghosts, checking in and getting the latest scoop (Elastica and Kitty) or having miniature brawls (Boxy and Johnny) to help relieve the buzzing burn of energy.

He left feeling satisfied and spent, muscles aching in the good, I-just-worked-out kinda way and core humming pleasantly in his chest.

—

Danny could tell someone was following him.

He had gotten pretty good at sensing prying eyes and his hackles were effectively raised, internal warning bells going haywire as he made the walk home from campus.

His last lecture had gotten out later than usual which meant Danny was walking in the dark, the sun setting earlier and earlier already and the dim, gloomy atmosphere of Gotham only enhancing the shadows even as the sun was still setting.

Danny made sure to look all around him, trying to figure out where the eyes were coming from. He debated skipping his normal alleyway shortcuts, seeing as how the last three days he’d had to step in to stop various muggings and drug deals, but he really just wanted to get home.

He toyed with the idea of a ghost being the one who was tracking him, but he knew he would have sensed it if it was. Which left a human or meta, and Danny didn’t like the thought of either.

Maybe it’s just a cute, stray alley cat. He tried to think positively but knew he wasn’t fooling anyone, especially not himself, a known liar.

He sighed and walked through the first alley without any incidents but still felt the eyes pinning him down. His hands were clenched in his hoodie pocket and his feet threatened to leave the ground to just fly him away faster than he could run, but he tamped down the urge. The last thing he needed was attention on him like that.

After making it through the third alley without a confrontation he debated not leading whoever was following him to his apartment, but figured it would be as good a place to kick someone’s ass as any and with a lesser chance of being seen using his powers if needed.

He skipped the elevator and trudged up the three flights of stairs and by the time he got to his apartment door, he knew someone was already inside. He debated turning intangible to see who exactly was waiting, but he didn’t know if they had cameras around and didn’t want to risk it. He took a steadying breath and unlocked his door quickly, flipping on the lights as soon as he got the door open and quickly shutting and locking it behind him.

He blinked at the guy standing in his living room, and then blinked again. “Red Robin?” He asked in shock. Of all the people he expected, one of Batman’s Squad of Vigilantes wasn’t one of them. Which, he really shouldn’t have been that surprised considering his encounter with Red Hood.

“Daniel Fenton,” Red Robin said and Danny flinched at the name.

“Nightingale, actually. I got it changed. And I prefer Danny,” He slowly toed off his sneakers and set his bag on the table. It was only then that he saw Red Hood leaning against his kitchen counter. He sighed resentfully.

“Really? I thought you said you wouldn’t tell your buddies about me,” Danny folded his arms and glared at the masked Vigilante who held up his hands.

“Hey, I don’t kiss and tell.” Danny could swear the guy was smirking under his mask and Red Robin spluttered.

“Kiss? Hood, please tell me you did not kiss a civilian,” he sounded exasperated.

Danny was a little miffed himself. “I don’t think we kissed. I think I would have definitely remembered that happening.”

“Oh trust me, you’ll know when I kiss you,” Red Hood said, voice low and deep, and Red Robin pinched the bridge of his nose as Danny's gut did a little flip.

Huh. He'd have to unpack that later.

“Okay, no more talking about kissing. Ignoring the fact that you somehow already know each other, and yes, Hood, we will be having words about that,” he glared and pointed accusingly at the still-pleased-with-himself vigilante, “I’m here to talk about you, Nightingale. Primarily, why you’re linked to over thirteen mysteriously stopped muggings and drug deals, all of which took place on your routes home from school.”

“Wow, okay, stalker much?” Danny scoffed, crossing his arms and internally panicking. He’d been caught. Somehow. Play it cool, play it cool. “What do you mean, ‘mysteriously stopped'?”

Red Robin sighed, pulling out a folder of something and setting it down beside Danny’s bag, gesturing for him to look through. He did so, flipping through images of what had to be some sort of surveillance videos of what were indeed, very familiar muggers and victims. Danny looked up at Red Robin with an eyebrow raised.

“Aaand,” he drew the word out, “am I supposed to be seeing something here besides some vaguely disturbing crime scene photos? None of these guys are dead, are they? That’d be a kinda fucked up thing to show me, dude.” Not that he was any stranger to death, and he knew for a fact that none of them were dead, but if he was actually a civilian? Yeah, that’d be fucked up.

Red Robin scoffed, “No, none of them are dead. And that’s exactly the point. All of these guys were caught in the act of mugging someone but the person or thing that stopped them never shows up on the cameras. That shouldn’t be possible.”

Danny shrugged for real that time, “And what do I have to do with this? That sounds like a meta with invisibility or something to me and last I checked, I’m definitely not a meta.”

Red Robin pulled out another folder, and Danny was hesitant to flip it open, but forced himself to anyways. He saw pictures of himself walking on the street or down the familiar alleyways. “Holy shit,” he said bluntly, “You really are a fucking stalker. What the hell are you taking pictures of me for?”

Red Robin tapped the top picture of him walking on the street, clearly coming back from school. “Surveillance caught you walking towards the alleyways right around the time of each incident,” Red Robin explained, “You’re seen going in, but never seen coming out on either side, and the muggings all somehow get stopped at the same time.”

Danny’s heart sped up a little bit. Fuck.

“You can see how that looks a little bit suspicious?”

Danny rolled his eyes.

“You don’t think I’ve ever seen something shady happening and gotten the fuck out of dodge? It happens way more often than you think and I try the alleys everyday because it’s so much faster, but sometimes I have to take the long way around instead and leave the crime fighting to creepy assholes like yourself,” Red Hood snorted at that and Red Robin sent him a glare, “If you’re saying that none of you or your little swarm of Bats stopped these guys, maybe you should take that as a sign that you’re not doing your jobs very well and when you find whoever did stop them maybe consider a nice thank you card or a gift basket instead of invading their home and privacy.”

Red Robin sighed in frustration and ignored everything but the first part of Danny’s speech, “See, we’ve checked literally every single angle. We know you couldn’t have left any other way without us seeing you, even with the blind spots! There’s no way for you to not be somehow involved.”

Well, time to do some better bullshitting, then. The mention of blind spots eased some of his worries. It seemed that at least they fortunately hadn’t seen him actively transform, and if Red Hood really hadn’t mentioned what he had seen… Danny sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face as he decided which route he wanted to take with this. Maybe he could clear himself of both instances if he played this right. “You clearly did enough research to figure out my given last name. Did you happen to check out my parents at all?”

Red Robin seemed taken aback by the question. “Drs. Jack and Madeline Fenton. Most of their work and research has been either heavily redacted or taken down completely, but from my understanding they’ve been rather dedicated to the research of the paranormal, correct?” His tone suggested exactly what the thought of that line of research.

Danny shrugged and laughed derisively, “Yeah that’s one way of putting it. I’d just call them rabid ghost hunters and be done with the fancy talk, though.”

Red Robin cocked his head, “Ghost hunters?” He asked, skepticism clear in his voice.

“Yep,” Danny said, popping the P. “Completely obsessed with it since college. Spend their entire lives dedicated to proving the existence of ghosts and planning out experiments they’d do if they ever successfully caught one.” Danny had to take a deep breath and blink away the memories of exactly the type of experiments they had done when they caught him. “I practically grew up in the lab they set up in our basement, surrounded by ghost finders, ghost gloves, ghost vacuums, you name it.”

“Okay,” Red Robin drew out, clearly trying to figure out why Danny was telling them this.

“How much research did you do on Amity Park itself?”

Red Robin shrugged, “Not much, I’ll admit, but nothing of substance stood out to merit further digging.”

Danny scoffed, “You should try again. I think you’ll find it very enlightening if you’re as good as they say. I know they tried their best to bury all the shit with the Guys In White, but they can’t have gotten everything. Try there first.”

“Guys In White?” Red Hood finally chimed in, curious.

Danny shrugged. “Some half-baked government agency. Tried enforcing martial law in Amity for a while, didn’t really stick,” he smirked at the memory, “I think their official agency name was Ghost Investigation Ward or some bullshit, but they dressed in all white and high schoolers are so very creative. I’ll let you figure the rest out, Detective.”

Red Robin was typing furiously on his wrist cuff and Danny assumed it was a list of things to research. “Now, are you guys done with the entering part of the breaking and entering or do you want to steal my leftovers as well, in for a penny and all that?”

“Well, if you’re offering to have me over for dinner,” Red Hood crooned but Red Robin interrupted, rudely. Danny shared a look with Red Hood as his partner paced around Danny’s small living room. Danny noticed the uncomfortable swirling was back in his gut and frowned, trying to pin point when it had started and why.

“Wait, wait, wait! Are you insinuating what I think you are?” Red Robin asked, voice higher than it was a minute ago. Danny turned his attention back to him and shrugged.

“Depends on what you think that is; you know what they say about assuming. But if it’s about getting the fuck out of my apartment, yes, I thought I made that clear enough.”

Red Robin stopped pacing and stared wide-eyed at Danny. “Ghosts. You’re insinuating that there are actual ghosts and that one might be what, lurking around the area, stopping muggings conveniently at the same time you’re walking home from school?”

“I think the correct term is haunt, not lurk,” Danny helpfully corrected.

Red Robin stared at him for a long moment before blinking, “Holy shit you’re serious.”

“Deadly,” Danny joked to himself. Red Hood snorted. Score.

“But! That can’t be it. Ghosts aren’t—“

“What? They aren’t real? The good old JL doesn’t have any files or databases on the subject?” Danny’s voice dripped with venom. He had his opinions on the Justice League and none of them were very flattering.

“They do, but they’re so sparse and the sources are so old they’re hardly credible,” Red Robin resumed pacing, seeming more and more frantic.

“Yeah okay, that sucks for you. Maybe do some more research and get those files updated. Have fun with that.” Danny was done being subtle. He glanced at Red Hood who seemed to catch his vibe.

“Red, time to go.”

Red Robin stopped and stared at them incredulously, “Seriously? Nightingale, I know you have more information. Why not just share it so we can figure out who this person or ghost or whatever is?”

Danny shrugged, “Maybe I don’t kiss and tell either. Maybe this ‘person-ghost-thing’,” he quoted Red’s earlier word when talking about whatever was stopping the muggings, “doesn’t want to be found. I’ve given you plenty to chew on so go have fun and don’t bother me for a while. Maybe learn to knock or call like civilized people while you’re at it.”

“Yep, we’re going. Red, grab your files or lose them,” Red Robin grumbled but reluctantly swiped the photos back into the files and followed Hood to the window they clearly came in through.

Hood made sure Red got all the way out before turning to Danny and giving a two finger salute, “Always a pleasure, Trouble.”

Danny shook his head with a rueful grin, “Likewise, Hood,” and then took a chance, “Does the League keep logs of distress calls?”

Hood’s head cocked to the side but after a moment’s hesitation he nodded, “Yeah. Extensively.”

Danny nodded and then requested, “Look into any calls sent from Amity starting about six years ago. See why no one came to help.”

Hood sucked in a little breath, seemingly surprised, and nodded again. “Will do. I’ll let you know what I find?”

Danny was a bit surprised by the offer, it was more of a concession than he expected from the vigilante with how secure and classified he was sure the League kept their records. His stomach lurched and he swallowed thickly. “Thanks,” and as the vigilante turned to leave he surprised both of them by saying, “Hood?”

The vigilante stopped and turned to him once again. Danny would guess his eyebrow would be raised if he could see it. “The offer for dinner stands if you want it, anytime.”

He didn’t know where the words came from but found himself not regretting them. There was something about the guy that drew Danny in. The swirling intensified.

Danny could have sworn Hood was smiling under his mask when he said, “I’ll make sure to knock, all civilized like.”

Danny laughed as the window shut behind them and he was finally left alone in his apartment.

“Finally! I thought they were going to be here foreverrr,” well, almost alone.

“Hey squirt,” Danny grinned down at the teenager currently hugging him. “How you doing, Ellie? And what took you so long? I told you I was moving weeks ago and you promised to stop by sooner! I had to ask around the GZ to see when the last time anyone saw you semi-alive and well or if I had to track you down in some lab or something.” The words were light, but they both knew they held more serious meaning. After all, ending up in a lab was a genuine concern and possibility for them.

Ellie pulled back and grinned sheepishly, “I know, sorry! I got distracted in Japan and then I lost track of time in the Zone, you know how it is.”

Danny sighed and pulled her back in for a short hug, “Yeah, I know.” Time was a little wonky in the Realms. You had to be careful not to spend too much time or before you know it a week could pass by in the mortal plane. “I’m glad you’re here now, though your timing kind of sucked. How much of all that did you see?”

Ellie snorted, “Oh, all of it. I was here before they decided to break in but I knew you were coming up so I wanted to see what you’d do first when they didn’t start stealing or tearing the place apart. I’m surprised you didn’t sense me.”

Danny shrugged, “I did eventually but I was a bit distracted with them stalking me and all that I didn’t notice at first. I’m not nearly as sensitive to you as I am others unless I’m focusing.”

“Yeah, yeah, shared DNA, yada yada,” she flopped down on his couch and he went to his fridge to pull out a couple containers of leftovers. He was starving. And tired. He paused when he saw a large container with a note on it.

You dropped yours. Forgive me for being rude? — RH

It was from the diner he’d been at before his mugging and first Red Hood encounter. He was oddly touched and chose to ignore the fact that the vigilante had either been observant enough to note the diner’s name on the spilled container or had gone back to check. He was too hungry to care. He pulled another container out for Ellie and grabbed some forks.

He gave the food to Ellie who took it gratefully, not even asking what it was before shoveling it into her mouth. He sat down next to her and she asked him questions while she chewed. He loved the disgusting little gremlin, he reminded himself. A lot. “Soooo,” she drew out, “who were those guys and what was all that about?”

Danny sighed and explained everything that had been going on. She nodded along and by the end she was laughing. “You’re trying to get them to believe that you have a ghost helping you out?”

Danny nodded, “Or that I’m helping Phantom out. Maybe I let him tag along to Gotham to get away from Amity’s ghost hunters,” he shrugged. “I’ll decide depending on what conclusions Red Robin scrounges up I guess.”

“And this Red Hood guy?” She wagged her eyebrows and Danny shoved her over.

“It’s not like that!”

“You invited him for dinner!” She cried, laughter clear in her voice. “And he was obviously flirting with you like every time he spoke! He liiiikes you,” she sang and jumped away as Danny tried to poke her in the side.

“Hey! No he doesn’t! I’m sure he’s like that with everyone!” He tried to defend himself. She stared at him like he was stupid. “What?” He asked defensively.

“You’re joking. Red Hood? The Red Hood? He’s definitely not like that with everybody. I think he’s more prone to murder and shooting first asking questions later, not flirty banter and inviting himself to dinners.”

“Oh yeah?” Danny asked, “And how do you know so much about him? Isn’t this your first time in Gotham?”

Ellie shrugged, “Word spreads around and the internet is very useful.”

Danny had to give that to her. “Fine, but still. I don’t see how he’s serious. Like you said, he’s The Red Hood. Capital ‘The’ and everything.”

“So? You’re The Phantom. Badasses are drawn to each other I guess,” Ellie shrugged all casual like as if the words didn’t make Danny want to cry. His little sister thought he was a badass.

“So how long are you staying?” He deflected, even if it was the answer he was dreading most. Ellie hadn’t stayed anywhere for very long since she escaped from Vlad. Danny and Jazz refused to try and force her to stick around anywhere, letting her have her freedom, but it was hard to let her go sometimes. Okay, every time.

Ellie darted her eyes around and bit her lip. Nervous. Danny braced himself for her to drop the bomb that she was leaving right then, not even staying the night. It wouldn’t be the first time but they always crushed him the most.

“Uh, I was actually hoping to maybe stay with you long-term?” Her voice was small and hopeful and Danny melted.

“Of course, pipsqueak,” he tried not to sound too eager. “You can stay as long as you want.”

She relaxed a little bit but kept fidgeting, “Okay but I’ve been thinking,” she hedged and Danny patted the seat next to him for her to sit down. She did, “I’ve been thinking about school.” She said it in a rush and Danny blinked.

“Okay,” he said easily. It’s not as if he and Jazz hadn’t considered it a possibility before but they hadn’t wanted to try and force her into it.

“Okay?” She asked, eyes large and waiting.

“Okay,” Danny repeated with a smile, “We have all of your documents and we can make either Jazz or I your legal guardian at any time, we were just waiting to see if we’d need to do it. I can get everything ready and we can find somewhere to enroll you in whenever you want.”

She flung her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, “Thank you.”

He held onto her back just as tightly. “Of course, Ellie. Whatever you need.” He looked around his tiny studio apartment and cringed a little bit. “We might need to go apartment hunting again though, I don’t want you sleeping on the couch forever.”

Ellie shrugged, still not letting go. “I don’t mind,” she said and Danny laughed.

“Sure, but I do. If we’re doing this I want to do it right and give you the best you deserve.”

She pulled back slightly and opted for leaning against him, drawing his arm around her shoulder. He tucked her against his side. “Okay. But you really don’t need to move just for me.”

“Yeah, yeah, let me and Jazz worry about that. We’ll make it all work. I’m just happy to have you around, it was getting kinda lonely here without any other ghosts.”

She smiled and nestled closer, “Yeah, it gets kinda lonely without you or Jazz.”

Danny closed his eyes and willed away the building tears. He wondered how long she’d been feeling like that, but decided not to dwell on it. She was here now, and that’s all that mattered.

𓆩⟡𓆪

Tim frowned, pressed against the bricks outside the window as he waited for Hood, ready to hash out what they had just learned. Danny’s question about the logs made him curious and then his heart had dropped at the insinuation that something bad enough had happened in Amity to warrant the Justice League’s help. Even more concerning that the plea for help had seemingly gone unanswered.

“See why no one came to help.“

He itched to search the logs that very moment, but he focused back on Danny as he stopped Hood again, only this time his words had Tim nearly scoffing in surprise, settling instead on rolling his eyes and wanting to gag. He had been worried about Danny’s involvement in the muggings and possibly being a meta before, but now he was worried for the guy’s sanity. Honestly, inviting Red Hood to dinner, ‘anytime.’

Tim made a mental note to somehow work a discussion about basic safety and stranger danger and maybe not inviting crime lords into your house during their next cafe session.

Tim was absolutely hounding Jason for his apparent already established history with Danny if they were comfortable enough to flirt in front of his face and make plans for a date. (Really, why’d it have to be Jason of all possible vigilantes? What had Tim done to deserve this? Bernard and Con were going to be absolutely insufferable about this. Bart, Jaime, and Cassie were never allowed to know.)

He leveled Hood with a piercing glare as the infuriating vigilante finally swung out of the window, closing it aptly behind him. Before Tim could say anything (primarily: ‘What the fuck?’), Jason had tossed him a mocking salute and grappled away. Tim sighed in frustration and pursued, recognizing immediately that they were not headed to the Cave.

Fine by him, he’d be getting his answers one way or another and if Jason tried to stop him he’d have to face the disappointment of losing because Tim was not in the mood to beat around the bush and play their regular game of cat and mouse (and if Jason ever found out that he viewed him as the mouse Tim would probably be shot somewhere sensitive).

He followed Jason through the city and was a little surprised that they were headed to what Tim knew as his main apartment and not one of his many safe houses that he normally preferred to have any vigilante business talks (not that they had very many anyway, with how much of a point Jason made of not wanting to work with them).

He steeled himself for an aggravating conversation and a sleepless few nights ahead of him and swung through the window that Hood had even had the decency to leave open behind him.

𓆩⟡𓆪

Jason had no intention of following Tim to the Cave but he made no attempt to stop Tim from following him back to his apartment. He knew the conversation was inevitable so may as well bite the bullet and get it over with now and not have to deal with passive aggressive or heaven fucking forbid whiny Tim. Jason shuddered at the thought. No, much better to get it over with then, while it was still fresh.

He crawled through his own window, not wanting to walk through the halls in his suit (not that anyone would be surprised in this particular residence, but still, principles and all that). He almost entertained the idea of slamming the window shut and making Tim work to get himself in but figured the bastard might be in the mood to just break the window to speed things up. Tim was truly no fun like this.

“What the fuck‽” Tim immediately rounded on Jason when the window was firmly closed and the curtains drawn. “You didn’t think to tell me you knew my suspect? Is that why you came along?” It was exactly why Jason went with Tim when he heard about the investigation he and Oracle were doing. It wasn’t his fault Tim didn’t ask better questions before letting him tag along.

Jason shrugged, “Oh, I definitely thought to tell you. But then I thought ‘eh, better not’. Much more fun that way.”

“How do you know him?” Suspicious bastard. “And why didn’t he want you to tell your ‘buddies’ about him?” Jason matched Tim’s disdain for the descriptor, wrinkling his nose before sighing and discarding his helmet and settling in at the island bar.

“I saw him getting mugged,” Jason shrugged. Tim narrowed his eyes.

“And?” He prompted when Jason made no attempt to continue.

“And he took the fucker three times his size down with one well placed hit so I accused him of being a meta, which he didn’t take very well,” he omitted the part about the intangibility or phasing or whatever he'd seen, or thought he'd seen, and he wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe he wanted to protect Danny from the full Bat Battalion if the guy did end up having some extra skill sets that B would see as a potential threat. (Maybe Danny's accusations from their first meeting still stung and he wasn't eager to piss off the possible meta anymore than he already had by spreading the information and therefore breaching his privacy even more.) If Tim was as good of a detective as they all claimed, he'd find out soon enough anyway. No need for Jason to be a snitch about it. He wasn't a fucking cop, after all.

Tim’s eyes widened a bit, clearly surprised at that piece of information but Jason continued before he could interrupt with more useless questions. “Look, I barely had a conversation with the guy,” which, was true. “I recognized him when Babs had his info pulled up and wanted to know what it was all about. Now, what do you have on him?”

Tim looked like he wanted to keep fighting but he deflated and leaned against the wall, “Just— don’t play around with him, Jay.”

Oh, Little Timmy was serious about this. Jason narrowed his eyes. “Why?” Not that he was planning on ‘playing’ with Danny, but he wanted to know why Tim of all people was invested. After all, Danny was his suspect.

Tim sighed dejectedly, as if he was suddenly bone tired. “He’s friends with Berny. They met at orientation and they share some classes. I talked with him for like two hours the other day and he’s —“ Tim ran a hand through his hair, “fuck, he’s nice. He’s funny, he talks about his friends like they’re his whole world and is smart enough to have the best full ride we offer and is taking advanced classes as a freshman. I just — I’m really hoping he’s not actually tied up in something messy that B is gonna have to get involved with and possibly ruin an actual, normal, friendship for Berny. I just don’t know.”

The admission caught Jason a bit off guard. For Tim to admit that he 'didn't know' something was rare and a clear indication that this situation was more serious than Jason had originally anticipated. Mixing personal life and business — how fun. But Jason stared at his replacement brother in a bit of concern. Tim was really, really invested in this kid. And Jason found himself right there with him. Something about Danny just drew him in and kept him there, and with all the new information he was only more intrigued. He sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face.

“Replacement,” Tim scowled at the name but they both knew it didn’t hold the same weight it used to. They had come a long way since Jason had first come back and while there was still the shadow of tension looming over them nearly all the time, they were steadily making progress. That didn’t mean Jason wanted to stop being an asshole (just maybe not a murderous asshole). “I’m not going to fuck around with him. I’ll help ya out, figure out what’s going on with him and try to keep him out of trouble and off of B’s radar for as long as possible.”

Tim looked at him with a bit of hope and bit like he expected Jason to jump out and say ‘Psych! Gotcha!’. It shouldn’t bother Jason as much as it did. “Really?” Tim asked and then immediately seemed to regret it. But Jason just nodded, dead serious (ha).

“Really.”

Tim finally let himself show a ghost of a smile. (Ha. Ghost. Imagine that, ghosts being real all this time. Right under their noses. The Justice League would pitch a fit if it ended up being true, Jason could imagine it now.)

“Okay, then,” he pulled out his files once again and set them in front of Jason to peruse. “I ran a basic background check on him before I knew he was tied up in the muggings case, y’know, since he was hanging out with Bernard so much.”

Jason nodded. They were all paranoid as shit, thanks to both their very public lives and their side work and all knew to run background checks on anyone they’d be spending any amount of time with.

“I clearly need to do more digging and find out more about these ‘Guys in White’ but nothing substantial came up on my first search to raise any red flags besides the name change and his parents' strange research,” Tim sounded troubled and Jason agreed. From the concerns that Danny had brought up with the call logs and his hints at researching the town more, there was clearly something Tim had missed, which raised alarm bells in itself. Tim rarely missed something, especially something as big as Danny insinuated, which either meant things were purposefully buried (concerning) or Tim had been blinded by his personal connection to Danny (unlikely). “Which I clearly need to find the complete versions of. I want to know what exactly has been redacted and why.”

Jason nodded, flipping through the printed research that was indeed heavily blacked out. It all sounded like cooky bullshit to him, but he found himself believing Danny when he said that there was truth behind it and he knew Tim would find out exactly what was hiding in the reports.

“Start with the call logs?” It had been disturbing Jason since Danny had asked about it and he knew Tim had heard the whole thing from outside the window. They shared a serious look about it now.

'See why no one came to help.’ What the fuck happened in Amity?

“Yeah, I’m starting there and looking deeper into Amity as a whole while I’m at it now that I know not to disregard any mention of ghosts as like, a tourist ploy or nut jobs,” Tim confirmed and Jason nodded.

“Keep me updated?”

“Yeah, and if you decide to do any digging yourself we can compare notes.”

“Sure thing, Timberina,” Jason said with a smirk, reveling in the way Tim rolled his eyes.

“Still fucking terrible, you know,” he grouched.

Jason gave him a shit-eating grin, “Oh, I know. Now get the fuck out of here, don’t you have investigating to do or boyfriends to smooch?”

Tim flipped him off before making a swift exit, even closing the window behind him. Maybe there was hope for them yet.

‘The offer for dinner stands if you want it, anytime.’

And there was what he really wanted to think about. Because. Holy fuck. Danny had invited him to have dinner with him. Anytime. He hadn’t even seen his apology leftover note and had already been willing to give Red Hood another chance.

Jesus Christ, what was he, a thirteen year old girl? His heart did not need to be skipping a beat at the thought, thank you very fucking much.

He didn’t even know he could trust the guy yet. Especially with all the information Tim had supplied — Jason had a sneaking suspicion Danny was way more involved in everything then he had let on despite his insistence and deflections. Now with the whole added ghost aspect…

Jason wasn’t the type to trust or take people at their word alone. He was the type to shoot first and contingency plan around possible lies and deception. And yet… Danny was somehow slipping past all of Jason’s defenses and he somehow found himself wanting to trust the man despite it all.

Danny was a mystery wrapped up in an enigma and Jason couldn’t wait to figure him out. He just hoped no one would get burned in the process.

#vee’s writing #vee’s wips #vee’s dpxdc fics #jisvis #jisvis ch.2 #dpxdc #dead on main #dpxdc fic #dead on main fic

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