Chapter Text
Danny blinks and he opens his eyes to an unfamiliar scene. He’s sitting at an unfamiliar dining room table, surrounded by unfamiliar people. There are so many people here and he doesn't recognize a single one.
It's a somewhat chaotic scene too. They’re all talking over each other, some yelling, some laughing. There is a veritable buffet of food in front of all of them, and yet no one actually seems to be eating very much. This scene comes as a great surprise to him, who -one blink ago- was trying and failing to do his homework at home in his room.
Danny takes three full seconds to try an understand the scene before him. Trying to decide whether he's hallucinating, or maybe fell asleep. Something hits him in the face, and he shoots up, his chair making a horrible noise as he pushes it away so fast it tumbles over. He watches the chunk of potato that hit him roll off the table and onto the floor. Everyone in the room turns to look over at him like he’s insane.
“Oh my god, who are you people?” Danny did not mean to say this out loud, but at the sound of his voice he startles. Danny takes a moment to assess, and then, “Oh my god who am I?” He is tall, and big, and this is certainly not his body, what is he wearing.
The boy sitting to the right of Danny, a little shorter than he is, with black hair and blue eyes (though now that he’s paying attention that does describe most people in the room), starts chuckling lightly. “Uh, Jason? Are you good?”
"It was just a potato, it couldn't have hit him that hard." A blonde girl, one of only two girls at the table, mutters from the left of the person across from him, crossing her arms over her chest. She seems like she's pouting.
Danny ignores the blonde that evidently hit him with the potato and instead turns to stare the boy across from him right in the eyes. “What day is it?”
And he can tell the concern around the table is just ratcheting up every time he opens his stupid mouth. The boy across from hit puts down his silverware carefully, maintaining eye contact.
“Did you hit your head on patrol?” who's to the left of the person across from him. The person across from him is another boy with black hair and blue eyes who is studying Danny in a way that makes him uncomfortable, that under-a-microscope look that makes you feel like you’re failing at something.
Danny can tell this is real now. But if this is real, he needs figure out how he got here. He wouldn't know if someone made a wish. No one else can transport people. This doesn't feel like mind control, and all of that would still be him, this is him in a different body... Wait.
He looks around, trying in vain to find a calendar and instead seeing everyone else staring at him. They all seem very concerned; the whole table is tense around him. He remembers that the person across from him asked him a question.
“I have no idea if Jason hit his head.” Danny says. “I was just trying to remember if it was my birthday.”
And if he thought the room was busy when he first arrived here it is absolute pandemonium now. Everyone starts shouting and asking questions that he can’t even hear over the volume of the yelling. Someone with white hair in a suit just appears through a door he didn’t even see earlier to stand by the one of the only two people not screaming, who -Danny would guess- is the only other adult in this room, sitting at the head of the table. He also has black hair and blue eyes, and where almost everyone else’s reaction was panic, he froze instead. The person across from Danny also isn’t shouting, but his staring has not eased up even a little. The person next to Danny on his right has now fully stood up and looks like he might actually jump across the table to win the argument he ended up in with the girls down the table.
None of that is important though. He knew that this was a thing that happened. He didn’t think it would happen to him. He’s half dead.
“Are you Jason’s soulmate?” is the main gist of the shouting that Danny can interpret but he’s more concerned with actual Jason at the moment. If they switched bodies... Then Jason might be in trouble… Is his body even compatible with Jason? Can Jason survive it? If the swap killed Jason, is his body fully dead now?
No, let’s not overthink this. If it worked, then Jason is probably fine. For now. Unless there’s a ghost attack. Or a G.I.W attack. Or his parents decide to go ghost hunting again.
“Uhhhh. Hey, I forget, how long is this body swap supposed to last again?” Danny asks.
“Until you and Jason have physical contact. You have to actually meet.” The boy sitting across from him explains. He seems like one of the only ones that heard Danny talk, everyone else was still shouting.
“Oh, that just seems terrible. What if we’re in different countries or something?” Danny complained. “Honestly, am I in a different country? Where even are we right now?”
“You’re in Gotham.” This voice was new, coming from the head of the table to Danny’s right.
“Oh no. Nope.” Danny started backing away from the table, almost tripping on his overturned chair. Gotham is probably the one place in America he wants to in less than Amity Park. At least his rogue gallery doesn't try to kill random civilian people, only him and only sometimes. “Absolutely not, no, how do I get out of here?” He starts earnestly looking for a door to get out of this place while walking backwards towards the wall. There are three doors he can see, and he has no idea where any of them go, and why doesn’t this room have any windows? He almost trips over the chair while backing up, his head too busy looking for escape to watch where his feet are going. What kind of a room doesn’t have any windows? Do they like to eat in a basement?
“Jason- not Jason. Uh, you need to calm down, everything will be fine alright, we’ll get you and Jason introduced no problem.” Danny swivels to track the voice and it’s the one who was sitting next to him before, he’s walking towards him with his hands up and out in front of him.
“I have to get home.” Danny wheezes. He should really try to breathe more.
“We can get you there, promise. Now, I’m Dick, can you tell me your name?”
Danny's head snaps to him and stays there, refocusing away from searching the exits. “Your name is Dick? In this day and age?” Danny is so confused he’s stopped panicking. “How old are you for you to go by the name Dick?”
“Okay, rude.” Dick sounds like a petulant child so Danny’s estimations for his age are continuously dropping. “I’m 24.”
Danny snorts. “Okay.” The blond girl starts laughing over at the table. “I’m uh, I’m Danny.”
“Nice to meet you. Sort of. I’m Tim.” The guy from across from him had made it over to stand next to Dick. “There’s a lot of us here today so the one laughing like a hyena is Steph. That one there is Duke.” African American, still with black hair but he has brown eyes and waves once introduced. “Damian is the short one next to him, and Cass was sitting across from Dick earlier. Our dad, Jason’s dad-”
“Not my dad!” Steph interrupted. Tim waves her off.
“Everyone but Steph's dad, is over there, Bruce. Alfred, our butler is the one next to him.” Alfred gives a slight nod to his head. Bruce is just staring at him. He has a slightly pinched look on his face, like he is smelling something terrible. Danny has the distinct feeling that he has upset Bruce somehow, but he's too upset right now to begin to wonder what his presence has done to upset someone else.
“So, names out of the way. You said you wanted to go home, where do you live?”
“Amity Park.”