Dude, get a restraining order
(Masterpost) (Ao3 link) (previous)
(Chapter #5 Ya'll)
Just like he said he would, Damian walked Danny to his earth science classroom. Guiding him through labyrinth-like hallways with a firm grip on his sleeve. It’s as if he thought Danny would slip through his fingers and be swept away by the crowd of students. Embarrassingly enough, that’s an accurate assumption of both his luck and his situational awareness. If he dared to imagine the future, prison bars, sigils, and the outline of a body immediately came to mind.
Forever he’d be thanking the ancients for Damian expert skills in navigating. Without him, he’d probably be curled up at the bottom of a staircase by now. Or in a death cult keen on taking over the world. It might seem ridiculously pessimistic, but freaky escalations like that happened to him all the time! He’d gone from searching for a gift he’d accidentally knocked into the zone to staging a massive prison break! Needless to say, he appreciated the company.
“Since your map is half a century out-of-date; I’ll pick you up around lunchtime,” Damian declared, curtly waiting for his response.
”Sounds good,” Giving the other boy a small wave and a thankful smile Danny headed into the classroom.
A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips as he read the cheesy geology jokes scrawled onto the board. The jokes were stupid in a way only teachers or dads could make them. Puns that could do psychic damage if you dare read them aloud. It’s beautiful. Leagues above a certain English teacher who butchered slang so brutally the lingo died on the spot.
The typical classroom posters lined the walls. A clear bucket full of rocks just sitting on the teacher’s desk as she started taking attendance. He sat close to the front furthest from the door. His blindside faced the wall, nobody could sneak up on him and he wouldn’t be trampled when the bell rang. Nobody could gawk pityingly at his face this way. Yeah, you could pry this spot from his cold dead hands.
It might seem extreme but people were…Weird when it came down to his disability. Some people treated him like he was utterly useless, incapable of doing anything on his own. They tried to “help” without bothering to ask about his condition or if he even needed help. It was so much worse the first few months after the accident. He was wheelchair-bound for that. -1/10 wouldn’t recommend.
He could say with certainty nobody wanted to be paralyzed. It’s jarring how differently treated him back then. They’d point out the obvious like he’s completely blind. Annoying, but understandable considering how gnarled his facial injuries were before they healed. It looked like somebody shot him in the face with a firework. The fact that he didn’t lose an eye was a medical miracle backed by new ghostly powers.
What wasn’t understandable was the complete lack of boundaries strangers had with him and his wheelchair. No amount of warning could’ve prepared him for the first time someone grabbed his wheelchair and moved him. He thought it’d been a one-time thing but it happened again and again without fail. Somebody would move him out of the way or try to “Help” him get to where he’s going. Several times without so much of a “Hello! Do you need some help,” people he’d never spoken to would grab the handles of his chair and start pushing him.
It’s infuriatingly dehumanizing and their heartbroken faces when he called them out tugged at his heartstrings. So many times he’d guiltily stewed over his responses. Jazz killed that guilt without so much as a thought when she put things into perspective. Even though Jazz had a habit of psychoanalyzing him it felt good when she said his anger warranted.
Nothing would ever feel as good as taking those first shaky steps outside his wheelchair though. The wave of overwhelming emotion when a group of baffled doctors told him his paralysis wasn’t as permanent as they previously thought was unparalleled. He cried a lot that day. Tears of joy, he’s not ashamed to admit that.
Never in his life would he have thought he’d be grateful for Dash’s bullying. But after a full two months of extensive physical therapy and multiple surgeries, he now knew were unnecessary anyone treating him like they did before was a godsend. Dash believed in a twisted kind of equality when it came to bullying, he’d pick on anyone he deemed a loser. For him, it’d been verbal harassment, but regaining the ability to walk gave him confidence. He was extremely cocky, snapping back with sarcastic venom at every dig made at him.
Slowly but surely, people stopped babying him. It was harder to argue that someone was helpless when they were actively picking fights with the star football player. After all the shit he’d involved himself in people treated him like normal. Normal in the sense he was picked on for being a loser with crazy parents.
He’d take that kind of bullying over the underhanded insults drowned in infantilism. As the months passed it felt like everyone forgot about his accident. His classmates would get angry at him when he couldn’t keep up with them and go green with envy when he got extra time for his assignments. People acted like he was getting special treatment just for the sake of it.
Like full body electrocution was something he could just walk off. They didn’t understand how walking and running were easier than standing in place. He was accused of faking it whenever he stood up from his wheelchair. People were offended that he still considered his left side blind when he could still see light in his peripherals.
Everyone he talked to said he was lucky. Lucky to survive, lucky to walk again without aid, lucky to have all the sweet powers, lucky lucky lucky. He didn’t feel all that lucky when his joints locked or when reading gave him migraines so bad he questioned if being alive was worth it.
He knows it could be worse. Dear god does he know it could be so, so, much worse. He could be fully dead. Charred to a crisp without even a blast shadow as evidence of his death. He should’ve been paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. Braindead, hooked up to a machine as his family mourned their loss. The consequences of walking into that portal chamber were so much lighter than anyone could’ve imagined. So he dealt with it.
Things could be worse. At least he wasn’t in Gotham directly after his accident. Slipping through solid objects around people 100x more fearful of their surroundings was a wonderful way to speedrun getting his spine shattered by a guy in a bat suit. Or trafficked. Danny winces as he scribbles on a sheet of lined paper.
Someone is staring at him. The boy beside him was shooting daggers into his very soul. Hadn’t even bothered to hide the way his face twisted in suspicion when Danny turned to look him in the eyes.
“You need something?” Danny probed, praying this was just him misreading facial expressions.
“What the hell happened to you?” The other boy whispered, his tone harsh and accusatory.
“A shocking experience,” His half-assed response earns him a sharp glare and a sneer.
“No really, what happened?”
“Got zapped,” He shrugs, hoping his classmate would take the hint and drop it.
“That’s not what I meant,” The other seethed. “How did you get electrocuted?”
”Electricity,”
“The fact you’re dodging my question makes you look more suspicious,”
“Not trauma dumping on a stranger makes me suspicious?”
“It’s Gotham! We don’t get transfer students outside major cities and we certainly don’t get ones willing to stay for months! What are you planning?” He hisses, voice cracking as he tried and failed to make it sound lower.
“Trust me, if I had a choice to stay home I would’ve,”
“I don’t think I do trust you,”
“That's not my problem,” Danny shrugged. This guy spoke with the delusional confidence only the stubbornest flat earther could rival. He’s not a gothamite by any means but wasn’t the key unspoken rule of the city “Mind your damn business unless you’re a bat,” It’s on par with Don’t dig straight down but this guy clearly hadn’t learned of the former.
“Why do you have fangs?”
”Genetics,” What kind of question was that? Plenty of people had fangs. It’s a common trait, almost every person in amity has it!
”I don’t believe you,”
Heh? What’s the point in asking if he wasn’t going to believe him when he answered? It reminded him of a certain annoyance back home.
“Why do you-“
”Leave me alone!” He snaps. It’s like his classmates doing his best impression of a toddler! “Why?” “Why?” “Why?” Desperately trying to catch Danny in a lie and refusing to believe any response that wasn’t a confession of guilt. World's greatest detective over here, interrogating him for having the audacity to show up to Gotham with “Gasp!” Scars! Oh, the humanity! What a delinquent!
Ancients’ weren’t these prissy private schools supposed to be better than public schools? He walked to school today expecting to be murdered and or indoctrinated into a weird death cult not interrogated by Walmart Batman over here!
What was this guy expecting to drag out of him anyway? Blueprints for a deathray? A secret plot to break everyone out of Arkham? Secret rogue plans? He just got here today! What could he possibly be planning when his apartment didn’t even have toilet paper yet? They hadn’t even hit the 24-hour mark and he already had a conspiracy theorist pestering him.
“Why are you-“ Copycat Wes starts.
”Leave him alone you fucking moron!” A female voice snaps behind them.
“ You don’t understand! He-,” Sputtering to defend himself the girl glowered at him.
“Has done nothing to warrant your harassment,” She finished the sentence for him.
”No! He’s up to something I swear! Just look at him,”
The girl looked him up and down, her hazel eyes shooting daggers into his soul. “He looks like he’s a strong breeze away from a heart attack,”
Ouch.
"There is something wrong with him, you're just too dim to see it," He spits.
“Listen here you toe-eyed spaz, I don’t want to have to deal with Lightning Rod over here frying people to death because you wouldn’t stop tormenting him!” She seethed, jabbing her finger into Offbrand’s chest.
“How do you know he’s not going to do that regardless?”
She turns her attention back to him. “Are you going to start doing rogue shit?” She speaks calmly as if she’s asking about the weather.
He pretends to ponder for a second, checking his phone for dramatic effect. “ Nah, My sister says I’m not allowed to be a criminal outside my hometown. It’ll affect her chances of getting into a good college,” To his surprise, that’s an acceptable response for her.
”See, he’s fine.”
“Did you not hear a word he said?” Copycat sputters. “He just admitted to being a criminal,”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and?” The boy is red in the face now.
”That’s not our problem,” She replied bluntly.
“How is it not our problem?”
“It just isn’t,”
“It clearly is “ He emphasizes.
“This is why you keep getting mugged,” She snaps. “You’ve lived in Gotham your whole life, how have not learned how to mind your damn business,”
“I know how to mind my business. This is my business. You’re the one who butted in,”
“I’m a nosy bitch too. But I’m not the one who’s pretending to be Batman.” She’s smirking now, tapping her fingernails on her desk.
“I’m not pretending to be Batman,” He defends, hands clenched into fists. “I’m just doing my civic duty!”
“You’re delusional,”
“Well- at least I’m not a criminal,” Offbrand Wes sneered, whipping around to glare at him.
Oh great, he’s directly involved again.
“What a scathing remark, I’ll be sure to cry about it while I build my deathray,” Maybe he shouldn’t keep antagonizing. Offbrand looked about ready to strangle him.
“Now you’re pissing him off on purpose,” The girl behind them deadpans.
“ I am, thanks for noticing,” He’s giddy, a shit-eating grin on his face that would immediately get him shanked if he were outside right now.
Their conversation continues. The three of them whisper-yelling at each other. Offbrand Wes fumed at every one of Danny’s sarcastic responses, doubling down on his suspicions. With every absurd accusation thrown his way, the girl defended him. But if you listened in for more than a few seconds you could see she didn’t step to his defense for the sake of being nice. She just really hated this kid. Who could blame her?
The argument devolved into the two gothamites insulting each other in a way only rich kids could. Family names Danny barely recognized as important were thrown around like dodgeballs. Maybe if Danny kept up with celebrity drama he’d be able to tell who’s winning?
“Daniel Fenton? ” He almost jumps at the sudden interruption. He’d been so awestruck watching these two go at each other's throats that he hadn’t noticed anyone approaching them. The teacher is staring down at him; he smiles politely. Better to garner goodwill now rather than later.
”I’d like to see you after class today,” Oh god, already? What had he done to peeve this teacher? Did she hear them arguing? Offbrand was grinning, vindicated as Danny stumbled over himself.
“Oh- uh, will it take long? A friend said he’d help me find my classes since my map is a little off.” He offered up the map as proof. A sacrifice in hopes of leniency for whatever crimes he’s about to be accused of.
The woman looked over the paper, her relaxed expression dropping with the growing confusion.
“Can I see your schedule?” Danny hands it over without a word. Slowly, she ran her fingers against the brail of his schedule. The slow shift in her stance as her face paled felt like it’d been ripped straight from the trailer of a horror movie. He’s heard a lot of crazy things in his life but nothing would ever shock him more than what his teacher said next.
“We’re going be sued into the fucking ground,” Her words were barely audible, whispered behind a closed fist. Danny’s stunned silence was a thousand times louder. Teachers could swear here?! Isn’t that illegal? He sits speechless for an agonizing minute, unsure if he’s in trouble.
Wordlessly, she drags him to the front of the classroom. It feels like he’s being walked to the gallows.
“Do you mind if I keep this?”
”Yeah? I need to know my schedule,” Was wandering around clueless detention for Gotham schools? He hadn’t even done anything. Sure, he was a tad bit tardy this morning. That’s the plane's fault, not his!
“You don’t have a school iPad?” She sounds utterly exasperated.
“No,” He’s supposed to have a school iPad?
“Did they at least give you a proper school I.D.?”
”I hope so ” He shows her the plastic card he’d been given alongside his schedule. She scrutinized the card, glaring intently at every word. It’d taken hours to get a decent photo for that stupid card.
“There’s something wrong with it isn’t there?” Screwed over straight from the get-go. He’ll be haunting the front desk for the foreseeable future.
“No, no it’s fine,” She waves him off. “Leave the map with me and drop your schedule off at the front desk when you leave for the day okay?” He nods, that’s all he can do at the moment.
When the bell finally rang their teacher practically shooed his classmates out the door. Students clogged the doorway, a glob of tangled backpacks that slowly oozed into halls separating with miffed expressions. The tile floor couldn’t be more appealing as he waited for the bomb to drop. In a fancy school like this, the punishment for tardiness could be public execution. You never know.
The punishment for seeing the school guidance counselor had been public humiliation with a side of attempted murder. So capital punishment being carried out in schools wasn’t something he’d be surprised about. They’d better have a guillotine, he’s gotten pretty sick of the electric chair.
“Is your friend coming to get you?” The woman asks, still studying the map with a furrowed brow. She squinted at the paper holding out in front of her face like the distance would change the image.
“I think so, he dropped me off here,” Danny pauses, fiddling with the buttons on the cuffs of his sleeves. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”
She shakes her head much to his relief “Somebody’s going to be in trouble but it certainly isn’t you,”
Patterned knocking at the classroom door draws his attention from the woman. Green eyes met blue as Damian quietly entered the room.
“That’s him!” Beaming, he turns back to the teacher. “Can I go now?” She nods wordlessly. With her approval, Danny doesn't hesitate for a second. He darts over to the other boy with a relieved grin on his face.
“How was class?” He asks as they step out of the classroom.
”Unnoteworthy,” Damian hummed.
”Same,” I mean, technically he did get into a fight. But it wasn’t exactly something to write home about. Blows hadn’t been exchanged and he wasn’t gut-punched with a month's worth of detention. Yet.
The walk to the lunch room is heavily crowded. The cafeteria echoed with the chattering of a sea of teenagers. Their navy blue uniform made clusters of students indistinguishable from one another. Sam would hate it here.
“Hey, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate lunch here?”
“Ten. I bring my food from home,” Damian responds quickly pausing afterward as if he’s contemplating a second answer.
“Fair,” He shrugs “nothing beats some home-cooked edible food,” Memories swirled through his brain like he’s a soldier fresh out of war. Reanimated turkeys, living mashed potatoes, gallons of milk that glowed bright enough to light an entire room.
“I reckon your parents’ aren’t the best chefs?” He can barely hold back a wince at the question.
”They try to be…” He sighs “Dad can make some killer fudge but everything else he cooks looks radioactive,”
“I suppose I can relate to that” Damian drawls, “Most of the family is barred from the kitchen without supervision,”
“That’s probably a good idea, learning to cook can be pretty messy,”
” I take it you’re the cook of your family?” Damian asks, eyebrows raised.
“Eh, kind of? I’m not the best but I can make edible food,”
“The bare minimum you know?” He laughs. “My parents are scientists so there wasn’t exactly time for cooking lessons while they were drilling us on safely handling their machinery,”
Damian looks him up and down, eyes locking on his face. “I don’t think those ‘drills’ did you well,”
“They did. I deliberately ignored what they taught me; fucked around and found out,” He shrugs. The past is the past and he’s learned not to change it for his own sake.
“I see…”
“Soooo…” Danny starts, the silence between the two of them awkward. “How would you rate the school-provided lunch?” He reiterated.
”I’ve only eaten the school-provided lunch once but I’d say it’s a four, maybe four point five if I’m being generous,”
”I’d settle for edible,” It’s a private school. Sure, it being in Gotham threw him off a little but what’s the worst that could happen? He dies? A bit too late for that.
“Your standards concern me,”
“Take that up with my school cafeteria; they gave me those standards,” To be fair, his parents contributed to that too. So had Nasty Burger. He had a love-hate relationship with food especially when it’s from a school cafeteria.
Call him paranoid but Casper High fed people dirt and grass plucked from the football field as a “Vegan option” Don’t even get him started on the rocks. Whole ass stones almost as big as his fist. They’d been expected to eat that?! Anyone who’d gotten nailed with one of those suckers when ‘food’ started flying, forever had his sympathy. Nobody was hospitalized but he’d seen the dents in the wall when they made him clean the cafeteria. Rocks were chucked in that food fight.
He’d gathered his lunch without much of an issue. The salad wasn’t sentient and his sandwich hadn’t screamed at him yet. He’d even managed to remember his lunch number at the end of it! Today’s a good day to be pleasantly surprised by the bare minimum. God knows he's gonna need the extra positivity.
Walking through the cafeteria, he spots Damian pretty quickly. The other somehow found himself one of the only empty tables in the whole cafeteria. When Damian waves him over it takes all his self-control to stifle a grin. For a split second, he’d thought he’d overstepped. Thought he’d missed the signs that Damian wanted him gone like Dad missed the signs that Vlad was a psycho.
“Are you really the chef of your family?” Damian questions.
“I am,” he grins, as Damian eyes him skeptically. “Does this-“ Danny gestures at himself. “Not look like the textbook example of a five-star chef to you?”
“Absolutely not,” Damian replied coldly without skipping a beat. “You look like you could burn a bowl of cereal,”
“I can cook, it just took a while to learn how,” You could only learn so fast when every ingredient is contaminated by a mystery cocktail of chemicals.
Even if he wasn’t a master chef he’s better than he was those first months after the accident. So many dishes shattered against the floor. He’d been scolded for each one. Anything he tried to hold slipped from his grasp before the ten-second mark.
“Could you give me any advice?” Damian asked.
“Try out some pasta recipes,” He comments between bites of his sandwich. “They’re hard to screw up and almost every cookbook has about a dozen you can practice,”
“Don’t go with overly complicated recipes straight off the bat. If you’re trying to make a three-course dinner when you can barely make a peanut butter jelly sandwich you’ll end up with a whole lot of wasted food and some scratched pans,” Danny warns, he’s lost count of the hours he’d spent scrubbing the charred food out of pots and pans.
“Alfred wouldn’t be happy about that,”
“Maybe you should ask ‘Alfred’ to teach you,” Danny comments, he wasn’t a tutor. That’s Jazz’s job. Sure, he’d like to be helpful but his journey in the kitchen involved resurrected coleslaw and radioactive dairy products. An experience few could relate to.
“I taught myself with YouTube tutorials, cookbooks, and spite; I’m sure you’d learn better with someone with someone there to give you feedback on what you’re doing.”
“Tch,” Damian glowered, shooting daggers down at his food.
“I’m serious!” He emphasizes, “Trying to wing it straight off the bat just isn’t a good idea,” He knew from experience. Food poisoning isn’t fun. Neither were the blisters you’d get from boiling oil.
“I’m sure many people ‘wing it’ in the kitchen,” Damian insists. “What if I’m a naturally born chef?”
”Didn’t you say you’re barred from the kitchen?” Damian’s cheeks turn a flustered red.
”I said most of my family is barred from the kitchen!” Damian defends like Danny’s ‘accusation’ is a slight against his character.
”Are you included in that ban?”
”…yes” The other boy whispers begrudgingly. He tries, he really does, but there’s no stopping the quiet giggle that erupts from his chest. Damian glares daggers at him cheeks rosy with embarrassment.
”I swear I’m not laughing at you,” He wheezes. It’s a lie and both of them know it.
”Go ahead and laugh, I’m not the one who fried myself,” Damian huffs.
Danny made jokes about his accident all the time. Much to everyone else's dismay his lab accident was his go-to event to joke about. No matter how many times he got scolded for “Making people uncomfortable” he kept it up. This wasn’t the first time someone had made a comment but there’s something about the way he said it. Something about the way he emphasized his words made Danny lose all composure. Collapsing into his folded arms, shoulder shaking with silent laughter.
”Hey…” The other boy’s voice is weaved with concern a guilty lift to his voice. Gently, he pokes Danny’s arm. Any worry drained from his features when Danny lifted his head to look at him.
”I thought I'd upset you!” Damian half shouts.
”Nah, I’ve got thicker skin than that,” He reassures.
”You're the first, Others tell me I come off rather… cold,”
“Really?” That’s a surprise. Danny couldn’t see it, then again he hasn’t known Damian for very long. After all that’s happened, he’d like to think he’s a better judge of character. The other boy didn’t give off Penelope spectra vibes. Nor did he act like a miniature Vlad. If anything, he reminded him of Sam.
“You’re a liar if you think I’m friendly,” He snaps scowling at Danny as if he’d just spat in his lunch or something.
”I’m not a liar, I just have a different definition of friendly than you do,”
“Does your definition of friendly happen to be rich?”
“Fuck no!” He snaps without thinking. Raising an eyebrow Damian stares at him green eyes scrutinizing his expression like there’s deeper meaning in his words. “Eat the rich,” He clarifies, as if that’s supposed to explain anything.
“Friendliness is compassion, a willingness to help, not sugar-sweet conversations with extroverted compassion,” It’s easy to put on a sweet voice while you screw someone over. Even easier to insult someone with a snidely worded ‘compliment’.
“You helped me without hesitation when you could have left me to fend for myself,”
“The situation was ridiculous, I had to help.” Damian defends
“ You didn’t have to,” he points out.
“Listen, I’m not trying to challenge your view of yourself; I’m just saying you’ve been nice to me so far,”
Damian relaxes, staring down at his lunch. “I pity you,”
“Pity me enough to give me a bite?” Danny asks, batting his eyes obnoxiously.
“Absolutely not,”
“Fuck.”
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