Some night, he flew above the twinkling lights of Blüdhaven’s buildings, wind rushing through his hair and the feeling of weightlessness pushing at the curve of his back.
There were a multitude of things that Dick Grayson appreciated, loved, Bruce for. One of those things would always be that his adopted dad allowed him to fly once more, even after his parents’ wings were cut.
In the air, he was home.
In the air, Dick Grayson felt like he was living up to, flying alongside, the Flying Graysons. Every flip, every trick he used to go faster, to fight better, felt like his parents were there guiding his every move.
Time healed his hurt, but still, the hole in his heart remained.
So when one of his best friends, a ghost vigilante by the name Phantom, asked him if he wanted to see his parents, he froze like a deer in bright white headlights.
“What…?”
Phantom did a flip in midair. “Wanna see your parents? They’ve been asking if they could talk to you.”
“My parents… are ghosts?” That was the least pressing question he had right now, but it was all his mouth could speak.
“Kind of. It’s complicated,” Phantom side-eyed him. “It would require going into the zone.”
And just like that, Dick understood. After the Amity Park came onto the map and the Justice League fixed the human and alien and meta rights violations that were happening right under their nose, Phantom had permanently closed all access to the Zone. Save, of course, for himself and a few magic users, who all refused to anger the King of the Dead.
“The only way you’re getting to my people now, is through me. Should anyone try to get into the zone, without my permission… I will make sure that you and your family’s afterlives will pay the appropriate price.”
No-one wanted to test his threat. The afterlife is something few fucked with and came back whole.
The Phantom they’d seen on the news then was incredibly different than the one in front of him now. Dick knows, understands now, that it was because Phantom trusted him. After years of being denied help, years of struggling all by himself to keep reality from collapsing while avoiding getting experimented on by humans understandably closed his heart.
“You’d take me into the Zone?” Dick didn’t know what he was feeling. Hope, fear, trust, touched, happiness, something.
A lot of things.
Danny shrugged. “Yeah. I trust you,” he said as he glanced back at Dick-at Nightwing. “Only you, though. No one else.”
The question that remained was whether Dick trusted Phantom too. And considering the fact that the ghost king ironically saved his ass from being killed a couple of times meant, “Yeah. I- I’d love to.”
Danny smiled, all pointed teeth and solemn trust. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Now?!” Dick stood up anyways, his heart in his throat. Danny held out a gloved hand.
“Yeah, now. Haven’t you heard that death waits for no one?” At Dick’s concerned look, Danny added, “Don’t worry. You won’t actually die. You’ll come back whole and alive, I promise.”
“Oh, okay. Let’s go, then!”
——
Clark Kent threw himself out of the window, Superman suit already on.
Seonds later, he was hovering in front of Bruce’s shadowy form on top of a gargoyle.
“Clark,” Batman greeted in his gravelly voice, irritated. “What.”
“Batman, Nightwing’s heartbeat- it disappeared!”
Bruce’s heartbeat stuttered.
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ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴏɴ ᴀʟʟ ғᴏᴜʀs. werewolf kiri au.
you wake up under a mountain of furs.
light comes flickering from the hearth and, warm and welcoming as it is—you've no idea where you are.
you don't recognize the inside of the cabin; it's certainly not yours, nor is its layout that of any you’ve seen in the village. it's rather plain, with a singular window and table and chair and small fireplace, empty enough that you wonder how anyone could live comfortably with so little.
outside, the winter storm rages on, and there's a howl that cuts through the air that strikes bone-deep.
all at once your memories come back to you: dragged through town with bound hands and ankles, in only a thin night dress, screaming with all your might as the physician that delivered you into this world tied you to an old pine, along with the priest and the man that sold you blueberries in the spring.
people you knew and loved. had trusted.
the memories become hazy after a while, darkening with the night that crept in. you remember your body losing its feeling, but not its fear. you remember the violence of the storm, breaking trees and branches and uprooting the forest floor. you remember the horrible and hulking shape of something rising in the moonlight.
the door shoves open then, with enough force to send you scurrying back into the corner of the room. the blizzard tries to rush inside, but a man stands in its way, leaning back against the wood to keep the wind and snow out where it belongs. he's—big, as tall as the frame and just as wide, with thick hair that he's tied back, messy and low.
he's rosy in his cheeks and on the tip of his nose, as bright as the eyes that snap to you the moment you dare to breathe.
he doesn't say anything, at first. the bag of firewood he sets at his feet settles as he turns to you in interest, eyebrows raised. the clothes he's wearing look—old and worn, certainly not suitable for the storm roaring outside, with the holes and tears in the fabric. the boots he has on, however, seem heavy, have his steps echoing when he moves further into the room.
you pull your knees up to your chest and try to shrink away; beneath your thin dress, your skin has pebbled up, reminding you of just how vulnerable you still are.
your fear translates; the man stops on the other side of the little table, breathing in deeply before raising his hands up in what reads as surrender.
"hello," he finally says, and when you don't respond, he places a thick hand to his dark-haired chest and introduces himself as, "eijirou."
he nods emphatically and then repeats himself, as if to reinforce the name. you only grant him a small nod in return—and he smiles. it's wide, stretching across his face, and friendly, authentic enough that you question whether you're as damned as you thought, or perhaps saved.
how did you even get here? the question finally thaws out from the recesses of your brain and you take another look around the room as if the answer lies between the wood or nestled into the furs. this place looks too hand-crafted, you realize, all of it—and the man before you looks like he could move mountains, if he wanted to.
the chains that had bound you were iron-strong and didn't once budge in all your thrashing, before things went dark—but now you are inside by a well-maintained fire, warm and free, and all that remains of your ill fate are the indentions worn into your wrists.
he's still staring at you, the man. eijirou. he's not moved any closer, either, and when you meet his curious gaze, his lips twist and his eyes narrow. a thoughtful noise comes out of his mouth, like he's thinking of what to say or how to say it, and you're reminded that you don't recognize where you are, nor do you recognize him in the slightest.
big as he is, you don't think he could have carried you too far in a snowstorm such as the one still raging outside; are you still somewhere deep in the forest? in a cabin at the heart of the wood? saved by a man that somehow survives with so little out in the middle of nowhere?
"eijirou," you test the name on your lips and he perks up at the sound, attention snapping back to you instantly. you don't know if it's winter seeping through the floor, or if it's in the way that he watches you, that makes you shiver.
finally, he asks, "cold?" and when you nod, he slowly makes his way over to you, carefully, as if approaching a deer ready to run.
—and then he sheds his shirt with a quick shrug and holds it out to you.
you should want to look away, for decency sake, but you're—stunned by it, by him. there's a litany of scars that paint him in odd and worrisome places, but he stands tall and strong before you, unbothered by his own state. unbothered by the eyes that run over the expanse of his bare shoulders, the dark, thick trail of hair running down from his belly button, the ripples of muscle his loose shirt did well to hide.
you take it from him carefully and it's so warm, almost hot, that you press it to your face immediately to chase away the chatter of your jaw. the material itself, however ragged, is big enough to drape over your curled form like a blanket, and so you do just that. it carries the earthy smell of the woods, deeply woven into the fabric; pine and musk and something smoky.
with your cheek still pressed to his shirt, you look up to thank him, at last, but the words still in your throat at the minute changes of his face: still smiling, though sharper now, somehow, and his eyes are still wide with that keen, rapt interest—but the crimson to them has set like the sun and they've grown just as dark as the night outside.
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i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.
He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.
And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.
And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.
Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.
Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."
There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.
It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.
Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.
At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.
"Do you like to do anything?"
Nothing. Just silence.
Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.
Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.
Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.
And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.
He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.
Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.
So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.
"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"
"Don't."
He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.
Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"
"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."
It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"
The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."
Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."
And they fall back into silence.
Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."
He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.
(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)
At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.
Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.
("Tucker told me once--")
("Tucker?")
("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")
(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)
(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)
It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."
The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."
The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.
When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.
Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.
"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."
When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.
Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.
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