The King and his Red Knight
DPxDC crossover fic
Part 1
Really sorry to everyone who suffered through the fact that I didn't know about the existence of readmore. I can't fix the thread now but the individual posts are better? Sorry I have like a very rough idea of how this site works 😭
Check the: The King and his Red Knight tag to find all the parts
"Go here, Danny. Go then, Danny. Go to a random cemetery in the middle of the night for no reason, Danny." A voice grumbled, accompanied by the sound of sneakers rhythmically tapping stone.
Danny Fenton, currently Phantom, sat on a gravestone, his white hair a beacon in the dark night. There were no stars in the sky for him to gaze upon, their light hidden behind swaths of smog and neon lights playing off the gray clouds.
Clockwork had dumped him here, with no explanation for why. Not that he ever really explained much when he sent Danny off on his tasks. He supposed he should be grateful, at least he was in the same when rather than being transported a thousand years into the past.
"Wait here King Phantom. You will understand in time." Danny mimicked his mentor's voice as he let himself float off the grave he'd been dumped on after Clockwork shoved him out of a portal. His body floated higher until he could flip around, his legs crossing. He sat upside down, his chin in his palm as he glared petulantly at the assembled gravestones surrounding him, his toxic green eyes glowing.
"So far all I've seen is a concerning amount of ecotplasm for a city without a ghost portal and some blob ghosts! How long am I supposed to wait here?" Danny asked the air, and the aforementioned blob ghosts who were hanging off his body, soaking in the ambient ecotoplasm he radiated at all times now.
Neither provided him with an answer to his question and Danny let out a frustrated groan as he lowered his still flipped body to look once more on the gravestone he'd been tasked with waiting on.
Jason Todd, the name read. The dates, too close together, made something in Danny squeeze painfully. He'd been young, barely older than Danny when he stepped into the portal. Only for this teenager there had been no ectoplasm to bind to his dying body and repair the damage of death and force him back into a semblance of life.
"Who were you and why did Clockwork send me to you?" Danny asked the gravestone, one clawed finger tracing the words before he pulled back with a sigh when the gravestone gave him no explanation. The dead didn't always speak, not even to their king.
Turning his body Danny looked over the rest of the cemetery. It was empty, as most usually were this time of night, of the living. There were a few shades wandering around, circling closer to him, drawn by his presence. No full ghosts though, but oddly enough there rarely were in cemeteries. This was where the dead came to rest. To remember, if they wanted to. Cemeteries were sacred spaces to the dead, much as a temple or a church would be for the living who were religious. Ghosts who still clung to life, to their obsessions, did not frequent cemeteries, did not dare trespass and disturb those who had already found their peace.
Danny himself was an oddity. He had never shied from cemeteries, enjoying the peace he found in them, the guarantee of safety offered. And perhaps, he mourned that he himself would never have a gravestone for the living to place their flowers and their tears at. Who would make a grave for someone who was both alive and dead? There would never be a body to bury for him. His human half would continue to live on so long as his ghost core remained and could fuel it.
Maybe that was why he found peace in cemeteries, for all his whining that Clockwork had dumped him here. Cemeteries were for the living and the dead, one of the only places both existed in harmony naturally. For someone who was as much dead as he was alive such a place held a certain degree of belonging for him.
Danny straightened out in the air, letting his body lie above the grave as he folded his arms behind his head and looked up at the covered sky. He complained and whined about this task, but he was secretly glad that Clockwork had given him something to do. Even if it was just 'hang out in a random cemetary'.
Ever since he'd graduated high-school, revealed himself to his parents and discovered how deep prejudice and hate could run, and he'd run away to the Infinite Realms for sanctuary while his friends moved forward with their lives, he'd felt unmoored. A ghost with no haunt. Bored was too light a word for the gaping emptiness he felt in his chest, for the loneliness clawing at him. Clockwork, Wulf, Pandora they could help chip at the ache inside of him but not banish it. Not now that his family, his friends, were spread so far apart and so distant from him.
Not that he resented their choices, their distance, in fact he'd fought for them to do just that, to get out of Amity Park, to go to college, to become more than overworked teen superheroes. Still he missed them, even if he could visit them whenever he wanted. It was becoming clear as time moved forward that the world they belonged to and the one he did were two different things.
Danny Fenton couldn't go to college when his parents had declared him dead. Danny Fenton didn't exist as far as the government was concerned. Danny Phantom couldn't return to Amity when those same parents were waiting to capture him and tear him apart 'molecule by molecule'. Danny Phantom couldn't go back when the GIW were crawling over the town like ants.
So neither Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom returned to Amity after that day. And he made sure they couldnt follow him when he ensured the portal that took his life to function never opened again. He didn't need the portal any longer to get in and out of the Infinite Realms, and it was safer for the ghosts, his subjects, if the temptation of the Fenton portal was gone.
The world of the living was not yet ready to accept that the dead didn't always stay dead. And Danny would keep his people safe until they were.
Danny jolted from his lazing state of reverie when a pulse of emotion rocked through him, the strength of it stealing his breath if he had any to take.
Fear/Trapped/Dark/Fear/Help/HELP pounded into him and Danny frantically flipped around, head swiveling, poisonous green eyes wide as he triedf to locate the source. The emotions, the plea for help, burned his core, his Obsession screamed at him.
Help/SomeonePlease/Dark/Trapped/CANTBREATHE/HELP another wave of messages, of emotions pushed themselves at Danny and this time underneath the onslaught he could hear a rhythmic thudding. Danny looked down, horror filling him when he realized the thudding was coming from under the ground. From the grave he'd been hovering over for an hour now.
Danny flew down, sending back a wave of I'mHere/HelpIsComing/I'mComing to the boy trapped in his own coffin, feeling the intense wave of relief and hope sent back before he dived into the earth as if it wasn't there. Danny paused for a moment when he passed the thick wooden coffin, seeing a boy in the dark with wide, panicked blue eyes and fingers tipped with shredded nails and fresh blood.
"Hey, I'm going to get you out of here, okay?" Danny told the boy, keeping his voice gentle, soft. The boy jolted, fixating on the only source of light, Danny's growing green eyes. Danny hoped his smile came off as calming instead of 'freaky AF' as Tucker liked to call it. He grabbed the boy, Jason, as carefully as he could and then let his intangibility wash over the terrified teen as he lifted them both out of the coffin.
When they emerged from the coffin and the ground Danny set the teen down, leaning him against the gravestone, his own gravestone, and pulled back a bit. The boy was gasping in air as if the fetid, polluted air was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.
Danny tilted his head as he watched the boy ground himself. Now that the emotions were leveling out and his Obsession was purring in contentment rather than growling in a frenzy, Danny could feel something off about the boy.
Disregarding the fact that he'd just come back from the dead, of course. But that wasn't the oddest thing Danny had seen in his afterlife. No the boy felt... not like a normal, living human. Not even like an Amity Park resident, who all felt more than slightly liminal. No this boy, this Jason Todd, felt closer to liminal than even Jazz, Tucker or Sam, who were three of the most liminal humans Danny had ever been around.
Jason felt almost...like a ghost. But not. Danny could feel the tickle in his throat that proceeded his ghost sense but the tell-tale mist never emerged. It was as if Jason was...like him. But Danny couldn't sense a core either. Even halfas had cores.
"Who are you?" Jason spoke, breaking Danny from his thoughts and examination. Jason was looking at him with a mix of gratitude and suspicion. Which, fair. Danny had just pulled him from his own coffin and there were so many questions that could stem from all of this, disregarding all the weirdness that was just Danny himself.
"I'm Danny, Danny Phantom. Or just Phantom. I go by either. And you're Jason, right?" Danny asked, smiling at the teen and oops, yeah that was definitely his scary smile based on the slight flinch there. It wasn't his fault his teeth were too sharp now and his lips split a bit too wide.
"How did you know that?" Jason asked, blue eyes narrowing. Danny nodded at the gravestone the boy was leaning against with a raised brow. Jason turned and almost toppled over from the movement. Danny frowned as the boy caught himself on his gravestone. His skin was still pale, too pale, and as Danny watched Jason swayed again.
"Shit. You're fading. You didn't form a core and your body isn't stabilizing." Danny cursed, moving towards the boy who scrambled back, only to be stopped by his grave.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jason asked, hands fisting as he tried to rise only to fall back to the ground when his legs refused to hold his weight.
"Saving your life. The dead aren't supposed to come back. There's always a price to pay, a balance that is struck. Currently, as you are, if I don't get enough ectoplasm in you to form your core, you'll fade and turn into a brain-dead husk." Danny told Jason, tone stern and no nonsense as he grabbed him. Jason made an effort to break free, but it was weak, and even at full strength, he wouldn’t have been able to break Danny's hold. Few in this realm could.
If they had the time, Danny would've approached this situation in a far different manner, but this close he could hear Jason's heartbeat, a weak flutter in his chest, skipping beats as it tried to fuel a body that was past saving. Jason didn't have the time for Danny to approach this gently and kindly, to coax trust out of the teen like he would a feral cat.
Jason had minutes left before his ectoplasm starved body consumed itself trying to make a core and failed because while wherever they were had more ambient ectoplasm than most places, it was far from enough to sustain the birth of a halfa. Maybe if Jason had stayed dead for another year, he'd have naturally formed a core and risen as a proper ghost. But that wasn't what happened, somehow he'd gathered enough to fix his body of whatever wounds or illness had put him in that coffin to begin with and come back to 'life' but without a core to sustain his body he'd be dead, again, in minutes. And Danny was not about to watch while a teenager, another teenager, died.
"How do I know I can trust you?" Jason hissed as Danny pushed his arms down and laid his clawed hands on Jason's chest.
"You don't. But you don't have another choice." Danny said with a shrug. "Now are you going to let me save your life or not?" Danny asked, not moving his hands. He'd save Jason either way but this would be easier if Jason worked with him.
"Fine." Jason spat and Danny smirked as his hands began to glow a toxic green that matched his eyes.
Ectoplasm pooled out of his hands and rushed into Jason, filling him until the boy glowed bright enough to rival the neon lights of the city around them. The green light flared around him like an aura, slowly shrinking but getting impossibly brighter as the glow centralized around his chest until a small glowing ball of green, like a trapped star, blazed from his chest.
Jason gasped, back arching as Danny pulled his hands away and the light vanished under Jason's skin. For a moment Jason's blue eyes burned green and his hair flashed snow white before returning to black, with one single lock of unearthly white left above his forehead. Jason collapsed back against his grave, chest heaving. Danny watched, eyes full of a sad understanding.
"What the fuck was that?" Jason panted out.
"Welcome to the world of the half alive, half dead." Danny said with a smile. "Want to get a burger and talk about it?" He asked, standing up and dusting off his hands.
"Make it a chili dog and you've got a deal."
~~~~~
Fixed some typos added some lines
Maybe I'll continue this AU. Maybe not. This scene was in my head for days and I wanted to share
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those who serve.
Running away from Amity Park—from his entire dimension—Danny takes refuge in the streets of Gotham. It's hard, suddenly being a homeless teenager in such a crime-ridden city, but it's better than dying a second time.
Enter Alfred Pennyworth, a kind old man who works as a butler who, for some reason, has decided to befriend Danny.
His future is still up in the air, but he's hopeful that things will work out. After all, Alfred isn't getting any younger and someone needs to help him with his butler duties. Danny's just the right person for the job.
Or: Alfred Pennyworth sees a homeless teen who looks like he'd fit right into the Wayne family and decides to take matters into his own hands. It's not like he's just going to leave this very sad, possibly meta teenager alone when there's more than enough space in the Manor to house one more child in need.
read chapter one on ao3 or below the cut.
Technically, Danny doesn’t exist.
He has no papers, no records, no family in this dimension. It’s a blank slate, a fresh start where he can be anything he wants. That doesn’t change what he is, however, and Danny is just another lonely child living on the streets.
In Gotham, he’s not a hero or a threat; he’s just another nameless face passing by, another teenager with no support system and no future. Just a figure clinging to the alley walls, head bowed and hands tucked into the pocket of his hoodie. It’s not great, far from it, but it’s better than the alternative where he—
—parading around in the corpse of our son! How dare you! Wearing his face won’t save you from what we’ll do to you! Leave Danny’s body so we can bury him, leave him! I’ll tear you ap—
This is better, is the point. Out of the frying pan and into the crime ridden streets of Gotham. Not quite a fire but close enough.
No one is hunting him down in this dimension, at least. He’s ignored and left to his own devices, wandering the streets only when the sun’s gone down and slipping into grocery stores after hours, invisible, to get a few things to eat. It sucks that he’s resorted to stealing to survive, but at least he’s surviving.
Survival is the entire reason he ran from his own dimension, after all.
He’s been here for two and a half weeks now, getting acquainted with the streets. Every day is spent hiding and trying to endure the crushing loneliness and grief of losing his entire life. He’s still half alive, yes, but the life he lived has gone up in flames, torn to pieces under his parents’ attacks. He can’t even blame them for it; under the circumstances, with the limited understanding they had, it’s only natural that they would try to kill him after discovering that Danny Fenton, their son, died two years ago.
Understanding doesn’t stop the sting of betrayal, doesn’t soothe the ache of being chased away from his family, but it’s something.
It’s all he has, these days.
There’s no one to hide from, no one who knows him at all, so Danny wanders, more ghost-like than he’s ever been before. People give him a wide berth at night, never making eye contact and walking by faster.
Save for one, of course. One person, at dawn, who always seems to find him no matter where Danny’s wandered that night.
He introduced himself as Alfred Pennyworth. The British accent caught Danny off guard enough that he stopped and turned to face the man, who stood a few feet away, umbrella held over his head.
“Are you quite all right, my boy?” he had asked. “I have a spare umbrella if you would like to keep from getting any more soaked.”
It took a few tries for Danny to find his voice after a week of not speaking a word. “No,” he rasped, barely audible over the rain, “I’m fine.”
He walked away without another word, thinking that was the end of it.
It wasn’t.
Alfred returned dawn after dawn, never staying longer than ten minutes, trying to make small talk with Danny.
Danny, for his part, had no idea why this random British man had decided to make friends with a homeless teenager, but figured that he was just a lonely old man with no family left. That, Danny could understand. So he’d stay for a bit, listening to him talk and occasionally replying, then say his goodbyes when more people began to emerge onto the street.
Two and a half weeks in, Alfred finally asks Danny for his name.
“Why?” Danny asks, shifting where he stands. He doesn’t exist here, but it doesn’t stop his instinctual need to run from anyone who goes looking into him. The GIW don’t exist here, no one is hunting him down. There’s no information about him in this dimension that can be used against him. It’s hard to remember that, not after he’s spent the last few years trying to keep ghost hunters from finding him.
“I feel it’s rather rude of me to speak to someone I have never properly greeted,” Alfred says. He always speaks so calmly, as if there’s nothing in the world that can shake his composure.
I don’t exist here, Danny reminds himself, I’m safe.
“Danny.”
“Danny,” Alfred repeats. “A fine name.”
“Thanks? It was my first birthday present.”
The stupid comment makes Alfred smile, just a little, so Danny calls it a win instead of beating himself up over having zero control over what his mouth says.
There’s more movement along the streets now, Gotham beginning to wake up with storeowners getting ready for the day and morning shift employees heading out to let the night shift go. It’s just about time for them to part ways until the next morning, and Danny’s resigning himself to another day of loneliness.
His short conversations with Alfred are really all he looks forward to. It’s nice to hear about the man’s time in England, his work as a butler, his opinions on American cuisine and the like. He never presses for a response and he doesn’t try to dig for more information about Danny. Just talks to him, then says his goodbyes.
“I’ll let you go back to your day,” Danny says, pushing off of the wall he’s been leaning against. “See you around.”
Alfred nods once. “Very well. I do hope you get some rest today, Danny. You always look very tired when we talk. I hope I haven’t been keeping you from sleeping.”
“Oh, not at all. I just have insomnia. Better to have some company than just lay around wondering why I can’t sleep, you know?”
“Indeed. I shall be off then.”
“Yeah, alright,” Danny says. “I’ll see you tomorrow once you somehow track me down again. Are you sure you don’t have magic?”
Alfred shakes his head with a small smile. “I am quite positive I do not have magic. Perhaps we simply have similar ideas about where the best places to walk are.”
“Sure,” Danny says, drawing out the word. “Whatever you say.”
Truth be told, the first few days, he was scared that Alfred was somehow tracking him down. For what, Danny didn’t know. Maybe he wanted to harvest Danny’s organs? Sell him to an evil scientist to be experimented on? Induct him into a mob?
Alfred didn’t do any of that. He just showed up, talked for a few minutes, then went on his way. He never followed Danny, never asked strange questions, never did anything besides chat about his life and his work as a butler.
It honestly was fun to listen to. It’s clear how much Alfred cares for his employers. Before meeting him, Danny had never really thought of butlers beyond being an outdated job for people too rich to do their own chores. Now it’s interesting, learning all the things a butler has to do and why Alfred chooses to do them.
He still doesn’t have a favorable opinion on billionaires. Too many bad experiences for him to view them is any unbiased light (thanks for that, Vlad, but eat the rich either way); still, it’s nice to know that this family looks out for Alfred. They give him a place to live, a family to live with, a reason to stay.
It would be nice if Danny could have those too, in any way that he could. He’s at the end of his rope, struggling to stay and not surrender himself into the Zone and be done with the living realm entirely.
Even his Obsession isn’t enough to sustain him. There’s no one to protect here; honest to god vigilantes patrol the streets of Gotham to keep it safe. Danny isn’t needed here.
There’s no place for him at all.
Already, his mood is plummeting and all he’s done is take a few steps away from Alfred. It doesn’t bode well for his future, whether that’s what’s to come in the next few hours or the next year.
Sighing, Danny ducks his head back down and begins his search for someplace to bunker down for the day. There are quite a few empty buildings around, newly constructed but not yet in use. He doubts there’s any security installed yet, so he should be safe to settle in and catch some sleep before the sun goes down.
Just as he turns the corner, he hears someone running. They’re behind him and he tenses, ready to disappear so they can’t get him.
It’s not Danny they go to. It’s Alfred.
“Hand over your wallet if you want to get out of here alive, old man!”
Shit, Danny thinks, spinning on his heel to get back to Alfred. He rounds the corner to see a mugger jabbing a gun at Alfred’s temple. He looks angry, nearly shaking, and there’s a strange shine in his eyes.
Drugs? No, not important. What’s important is that Alfred is standing still, as calm as ever, with his hands lifted in the air.
“Hey!” Danny yells, sprinting towards them, “Back the fuck up before I rip your tongue out!”
Fear and anger push him on, his Obsession whispering protect protect protect in his ear and he closes the distance between them.
The mugger barely has time to move the gun away from Alfred’s head, and no time at all to point it at Danny, before Danny tackles him, slamming him onto the ground. He rips the gun out of the mugger’s hand and tosses it carelessly to the side.
“Don’t touch him,” he hisses. Faintly, he’s aware that his features are shifting, becoming a little less human. The snarl building in his chest has his teeth sharpening, bared in warning.
The mugger trembles beneath him, thrashing weakly. “Alright, alright! Just lemme go! Let go!”
He doesn’t want to. Danny wants to hurt him for daring to go after Alfred, the one good light in the dark, the only person Danny cares about in this dimension. He wants to make this man regret his choices, make him terrified for the rest of his life, break every bone in his hand so he can’t ever pick up a gun again.
A hand drops onto his shoulder.
“That’s enough, Danny,” Alfred says. His voice is stern and Danny can’t help but listen, effortlessly pulled out of his adrenaline fueled rage. His humanity returns to him. “There we are. Come now, my boy, stand up.”
He stands. The mugger scrambles to his feet and runs away.
With the danger gone, Danny can think clearly again. He takes a few deep breaths and locks his ghost-half away as tightly as possible, keeping the cold in his chest buried deep. It was good for scaring away a mugger, but he doesn’t want Alfred to think he’s a monster.
He can handle a lot, but not that.
“Are you okay?” he asks, looking over Alfred for any injuries. There’s no telling that was done to him before Danny got the mugger away from him. It may have only been a moment, but Danny knows very well how quickly a moment can change a life (or take it away).
“Quite. In fact, I am sure you are in worse shape than I am, at the moment.” Alfred gestures downwards and Danny follows his gaze to his knees, where his already worn jeans have new holes in them. His knees are skinned from how hard he slammed into the ground, a dull ache he hadn’t noticed until it was pointed out to him.
“It’s fine,” he says, “I can barely feel it.”
Alfred gives him a hard look, as though he thinks Danny is lying; he’s not, the pain is barely there. He’s had a lot worse in the past. He can handle skinned knees easily.
“Well,” Alfred says, “Thank you for coming back to help me. If there’s anything I can do to pay you back—”
“No. I don’t… I didn’t do it for payment. I don’t need anything.”
“I would like to—”
“No,” Danny interrupts again. “No payment. I just did what was right. Don’t make this a big deal, please.”
Alfred sighs. “Very well,” he concedes, looking more tired and worn than Danny’s ever seen him. “I shall not keep you any longer. Until tomorrow, Danny.”
He looks as though he expects Danny to take the out, to leave immediately. Danny shifts, not meeting his eyes as he doesn’t move.
“I’ll walk with you,” he mumbles. “So no one tries to hurt you again.”
Danny’s worried that Alfred will insist on going alone, that he’ll have to go invisible and follow along when he isn’t wanted, but Alfred is kinder than that. Alfred doesn’t refuse or insist he go on his own. No, he smiles and thanks Danny for his consideration before taking off, making sure that Danny walks besides him rather than behind him.
They don’t talk much. Alfred seems to know that Danny isn’t much for words at the moment, sticking to his side and constantly surveying their surroundings for any danger. He walks confidently through the streets as though he wasn’t just held at gunpoint, carrying on with his morning with the same stubborn spirit that keeps most Gothamites from giving up on their city.
Alfred visits a small bakery first. They’re not yet open, but the owner props open the door when they arrive, waving them in.
“Alfred!” she greets cheerfully, “And I see you have someone new with you.”
She looks expectantly at Danny, who shifts uncomfortably under the attention. He can’t get his voice to work, can’t figure out how to get the right words out.
“Ah, yes,” Alfred says, smoothly drawing her attention off of Danny. “This is Danny. We often talk in the morning and he has decided to accompany me today.”
“I see. Well, it’s nice to meet you! I’m Yurica. Alfred and I enjoy some tea together in the mornings before starting with our days. Why don’t you join us?”
“I don’t… mean to intrude,” Danny manages to say before Yurica waves off his hesitant refusal.
“Nonsense! Any friend of Alfred is a friend of mine. Come, come, let’s get the two of you seated. You’ll get the first picks of the day, once I get the last batches out of the ovens.”
She leads them into the bakery, past the kitchen and upstairs into a small sitting room. Danny follows them, unable to leave without seeming rude. He joins Alfred on the couch, awkwardly perched on the edge as Yurica bustles around, disappearing down the hall.
Distantly, he hears the sound of running water and a stove top being turned on. The clinking of cups follows, along with the opening and closing of cupboards. It almost sounds like home, when Jazz was setting herself up for a long study session to make sure she’s prepared for college.
Without noticing, Danny relaxes back into the couch. He keeps his eyes closed, just listening to the movement around the building; it’s soothing white noise that chases away the constant ache of loneliness he’s been carrying these past few weeks.
“Quite the relaxing home, isn’t it?” Alfred asks.
“You come here every day?”
“Not every day, but a few times a week. We’re old friends and are often up before anyone else. It’s nice to catch up for just a few minutes, especially at our age.”
He wonders if this is what it feels like, spending time with grandparents. He never met his own, could never relate to the kids who were always excited to spend time with their grandparents over the holidays, eager to be part of a bigger family. It was fine, before, when it was just him, Jazz, and their parents.
It was fine.
It didn’t last.
Yurica returns a few minutes later, carrying a tray full of cups and a teapot made to look like a fat cat. The sight of it makes him smile, almost distracting him from noticing the way Yurica and Alfred share a Look.
“Here we are,” she says, setting the tray down on the table. She lays out the cups before Danny can offer to help, pouring out fragrant tea with a steady hand. “Cream? Sugar?”
Alfred adds cream to his own cup while Danny shakes his head, quietly thanking her for the tea.
He cradles his cup in his hands, savoring the gentle warmth while Alfred and Yurica chat. He tunes them out, letting their voices fade into background noise.
This is the most relaxed he’s felt in months. It’s sad to think about, so he tries not to, but it lingers in the back of his mind.
Time passes without him noticing. Danny sips his tea until his cup is empty, then sets it down on the tray. That seems to be a cue that Alfred was waiting for, long done with his own cup, and he stands, thanking Yurica for her hospitality.
She waves it off with a smile before Danny can echo the sentiments, then ushers them downstairs, where trays of freshly baked pastries fill cover the counters of the bakery’s kitchen.
“Here, take your pick!”
Danny’s about to refuse when she shoves a paper bag into his hands. “Go on,” she says, “Take what you like. I always offer to friends and I find refusal to be rude.”
Now that she’s said that, Danny can’t keep refusing or he’ll feel awful. Alfred is already picking out a few pastries himself, so Danny trails after him, taking three pastries that look good. It’ll be enough to tide him over for the next two days, so he won’t have to steal any food.
“Thank you again, Yurica,” Alfred says, “It’s always a pleasure to chat with you.”
“Oh, you’re always such a sweet talker,” Yurica laughs. “I’ll see you again soon, Alfred. And you, Danny, are welcome here whenever. Even without Alfred. My doors are open to you.”
Yurica is kind. She sees him in all his scraggly, worn down glory, clearly homeless and with nothing to offer her, and she doesn’t turn him away. Instead she welcomes him in solely because he’s here with Alfred.
It’s enough to have him blinking back tears, ducking his head so they don’t see how much this affects him.
“Thank you,” he manages, then hurries to follow Alfred out the bakery.
Yurica waves at them from the door as they make their way down the street, then goes back in to continue preparing for the day.
Alfred walks around some more; he informs Danny that he has no errands to run at the moment and no one else to visit. Danny follows, keeping an eye out for anyone who might think Alfred is an easy target. He barely pays attention to where they go until they enter an underground parking garage.
The weak lights and stillness of the garage, along with the fact that it’s almost entirely empty, makes a fissure of unease race down his spine. This would be the perfect place for Danny to be knocked out and taken away; no witnesses, no help.
But Alfred wouldn’t do that. Danny wants to believe that Alfred wouldn’t do that.
He stops when Alfred pulls out a set of keys from his pocket. A black car in the back corner of the parking garage unlocks with a quick flash of the headlights. That is… an expensive looking car. It’s not an obvious luxury brand or anything, but it’s high quality and clearly made for people with money.
Guess being a butler pays well, Danny thinks.
Alfred opens the door, but doesn’t get into the car. Instead, he looks to Danny.
“Will you be alright, Danny? If you’d like, I have a first aid kit in the car that we can use to tend to your knees.”
“No, it’s fine. Thanks, though,” Danny says, trying to keep from tensing up too obviously.
“And you have a place to stay?”
“Sure do,” he lies.
“If you ever need help, you are welcome at Wayne Manor.”
Danny nods, intending to never go to the manor. He’s not going to risk another rich person trying to either 1) kill him or 2) make him their son. No way. Not in this dimension.
Alfred looks him over, then nods. He gets into the car, offering Danny a quick goodbye. Danny lifts a hand in return, then leaves the parking garage, holding his bag of pastries close to his chest. More people are starting to fill the streets, starting the day, and Danny still hasn’t found a place to hide until night.
He’s kept Alfred safe during his dawn walk. He’s safely delivered Alfred to his car so he can drive to wherever he needs to go.
There’s no point in him sticking around any longer.
Hood up, Danny hurries down the streets, ducking into alleys to avoid being seen by people. It takes half an hour to reach the empty buildings he was considering before, and then just a minute to go invisible and fly up to the roof. The door going inside is locked, but a little intangibility goes a long way.
Danny makes himself comfortable in one of the many empty rooms, back to the wall, and pulls out one of the pastries. It’s not as warm as before, but it’s still soft and flakey. The glaze on it sweetens the bread and it’s the best thing Danny’s had since he first arrived in this dimension.
This can’t go on, he realizes.
All this squatting and stealing. It’s just not sustainable. He’s been acting as if he’s died again, left to haunt the streets of a city he doesn’t belong in. He’s spent all his time either sleeping or wandering, wallowing in his own misery.
No more. This is a second chance.
There’s no ghost hunters. No GIW. No need to be a hero when so many already exist, willingly taking on that burden. Here, Danny doesn’t exist, which means he can be anyone he wants to be.
And in order to live this new life, he’ll need a job. He’ll worry about school once he’s able to save up some money and find a place to live.
Step one to getting his shit together: find a job that will take on a homeless teenager who doesn’t legally exist.
He’s already got one in mind; Alfred does keep offering to help in any way he can, and he’s made working as a butler sound fulfilling.
Serving isn’t quite protecting, but it’ll be close enough that he can satisfy his Obsession.
The pieces are falling into place. The more he thinks about it, the more he likes this plan.
He’ll ask Alfred about it when they next meet. Everything else can wait until then.
(“Are you sure you’re okay, Alfred?”
“Quite,” Alfred says, smoothly stepping away from Bruce’s fussing. “Danny scared the mugger away before he could do anything.”
“I’m glad he was there. Are you sure I can’t go meet him? Thank him in person?”
“You’ll only scare him away, I’m afraid.”
Bruce sighs, reaching for his cup of coffee. “What about as Batman?”
“That will only be worse, I’m sure. Not everything can be solved by putting on a mask, Master Bruce.”
Tim enters the kitchen, drops a tablet on the table in front of Bruce, then collapses into his seat with a groan. “I can’t find anything on him. Are we sure he’s real?”
“I assure you he is very real, Master Tim.”
Tim lifts his head to give Alfred a bleary, assessing stare. “I know we always rag on B about his adoption problem, but he got it from you. You’re not going to stop until you get this Danny guy into the Manor, right?”
“It’s either that or setting up a home for him in Gotham.”
“Bring him here,” Tim says with a yawn, putting his head back on the table, “Now I’m curious about him, too.”
“I shall do my best, Master Tim. I shall do my best.”)
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