Chapter Text
Danny watched Tim’s red tail lights disappear around a corner at speeds that would have sent any normal bike into a wall. If he hadn’t been sure that Tim was Red Robin before, he was now. The conversation he had overheard while pressed tight against the other boy echoed in his head: Poison Ivy had caused an explosion. An ectoplasm green explosion in the same area of the city his parents worked in. It wasn’t a coincidence, it couldn’t be, not with his luck. People might be in danger, and his core longed to go help them, but when he pulled on his powers and tried to shift there was nothing except an ache in his chest like an overworked muscle. Danny leaned against the door and let his head thud against the wood. Ancients, he’d never felt so useless. He rubbed his face and his hand stopped over his lips.
He’d kissed Tim Drake. He’d kissed Red Robin. Danny slammed a fist into the door. “Idiot!” He had a plan, damn it! He couldn’t afford to get any more involved with people. Not when there were only a few weeks before the portal had enough juice to open. Not when he was this close.
Before he could get too far into his spiral, the door opened behind him. Danny just barely caught himself before he went sprawling into his dad.
“Dann-o! You’re home early, good! We can go ahead and get started now.” Jack grabbed him by the shoulder and tugged him into the house before Danny could gather himself.
“Get started?” he asked, eyeing his dad’s goofy grin as he led him into the basement. When was the last time he had looked at him like that? Like he was glad to see him? It made his throat go tight. “On what?” Maddie turned from the notes she was scribbling at the work bench.
“Oh, Danny. I thought I heard you.” she held up a plastic cooler like she was showing off a trophy. “We are going to start on Plan ‘C’, of course.”
***
“Pamela, can't we talk about this?” Tim asked as he dodged a Dodge Neon that Poison Ivy flung at him. “At least tell us what happened.”
“I'm through talking! I wasn't bothering anyone!” Ivy screamed from atop a parking garage. Tim and Steph were stuck on the street, unable to get close due to the vines. “I wasn't doing anything illegal. I was minding my business, and those… idiots! Came in and destroyed months worth of my research. I just returned the favor.”
“You blew up a building,” Spoiler shouted, before letting out a gasp when a vine crept close and twisted around her leg, yanking her up into the air.
“They killed my babies!” Pam screeched. “And I'll kill them for it!”
A vine shot out of the pavement, wrapping itself around Tim’s middle and threw him into Steph. Tim recovered in time to grab onto the vine holding her up and sever it quickly with a knife. They hit the concrete in a roll and jolted to their feet, kicking away the cut remains of the vine. With a glance at each other and a nod, they took off in opposite directions.
“I understand you’re upset.” Tim shouted, extending his Bo staff to block more seeking vines. “But this isn’t rational.”
“If they killed endangered plants, we can get the EPA involved and charge them for it,” Steph said, starting to climb up the vines surrounding the parking garage. “Killing them isn’t the answer.”
Another vine shot out of the pavement and Tim leapt over it, rounding the stairs of the parking garage. He was almost to the top now. If he could get close enough, he could subdue Ivy and end this.
Out of the corner of his eye, just through one of the open windows, he saw the vine Steph was climbing shift. Her grip slipped as the parking garage groaned and concrete cracked. The vines were pulling the structure apart. Tim had no time to react. He could only watch as she fell, helpless, before a black shadow swooped down and back up, a flash of purple in his grip.
Batman was here!
“Finally!” Tim exclaimed, pulling out his own grapple and following them up to the top. “Where have you been? I don’t know how much longer we could have stalled.”
Batman, true to form, only grunted in response. With the three of them, it was easy to take Ivy down. The three of them worked together in perfect, practiced, synch. Spoiler went left, Red Robin went right, and Batman went straight for Ivy. A smoke bomb, some well-aimed batarangs, and one swift blow to the knee, and Ivy was on the pavement.
Batman hummed as he zip-tied Ivy’s hands behind her back. “Fire and rescue should be here soon to put out the warehouse fire. Red Robin, collect some samples from Ivy’s warehouse before they get here.”
“Samples of what?” Tim asked, but Batman had already turned his back. He left without another word, Ivy tossed over his shoulder.
“I can help,” Steph said.
Tim paused. He could use an extra set of eyes to look for… whatever it was Batman wanted him to find. But– “No, you should return to the cave and get agent A to check out your ankle.” Steph opened her mouth to protest, but Tim shook his head. “Don’t think I can’t see how you’re limping. Go, I’ll meet you there.”
Steph pouted, clearly wanting to argue more, but left. Without any other distractions, Tim made his way to Ivy’s warehouse.
Purple lights lit the inside, giving everything an eerie, sickly look. The warehouse was filled with pots and plants, their leaves dark from the light. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “Samples of what?” he muttered as he wandered through the plants. Hundreds of rare flowers filled the space, from tiny purple buds nestled among waxy leaves, to a large red plant with yellow spots that smelled like death, and many more that Tim couldn’t begin to name.
“Oh.” Tim stopped, looking down. Dirt covered the ground with broken stems and crushed leaves. Rows and rows of shattered pots, completely ransacked. Tim pulled out an evidence bag and scooped up samples of the various plants and soil. He left just as the first fire trucks arrived.
***
Danny watched with dread as the centrifuge spun his blood in circles. All the molecules were separating, the heavier ones being forced down to the tip and pulling the ectoplasm out of suspension. Six vials, ten milliliters each. Sixty milliliters. Two ounces of blood spinning round and round. The red numbers on the display counted down the minutes and seconds left in the cycle while the three of them watched in silence. He felt as if he were standing on a blade's edge, and the blood in those vials would determine if he stayed balanced on the edge for another week or if he toppled off. And if he did? What happens then?
He risked a glance at Maddie. What was plan C? The cooler she had been carrying was sitting just behind her, unassuming, with no outward clue as to what was inside. There had been nothing in their notes or on the computer about it. Not knowing was the worst part. It couldn't be anything good, not with Maddie taking the lead on it. She was always the better inventor between her and Jack. Her inventions always worked as designed.
The chime of the centrifuge was deafening in the silent basement. The vials were removed and set into a tray and one by one Maddie removed the ectoplasm with a sharp needle and syringe. Six equal amounts of ectoplasm were placed into a separate vial to be measured by weight and volume and compared to the previous week’s sample. Complicated math was scribbled on a scrap of paper, parts per million were figured, more than this was bad, less than that was good. Danny couldn’t care about the numbers anymore. The lines around his dad’s eyes tightened, the furrow between his mom’s brows deepened, and a sigh escaped her lips. He knew before she said anything. The numbers were bad.
“Okay, sweetheart, we are going to try something new,” she said, her voice high and sweet, but there was a predatory gleam in her eyes that spoke of excitement. It was the same look she got when presented with some new interesting specimen. It set his heart rabbiting in his chest.
“What are you going to try?” he asked, arms crossed across his chest, weight shifting between his feet. It was taking everything in him to keep them solidly on the ground. To not take off up the stairs and fly away somewhere with no Plan C. No blood tests or labs.
She didn’t answer right away, too busy digging into the hard plastic cooler. It had been his, once upon a time. Stars and planet stickers decorated the surface, faded mostly to white with age, and his name, scrawled in permanent marker across the top, had mostly rubbed off leaving only a partial ‘D’ and one ‘n’ behind. A vial was removed, deep red, almost purple, liquid sloshed around inside. Jazz might call it burgundy just to get on his nerves. He knew what it was before Maddie said it.
“Blood blossom extract!” She held the vial up to the light and twisted it this way and that, as if she were admiring the color. “We’ve been working with Dr. Isley for months to bring the species back from near extinction.”
“You can't give that to me!” Danny said, backing away from the vial. “It could kill me!” He had been exposed to blood blossom before, and it had been one of the most excruciating things he had ever endured. If that was injected into him, the pain alone would kill him.
“Don't be so dramatic, Danny. It will only break the ectoplasmic bonds, it won't affect living cells.” Maddie set the vial down on the counter and started gathering needles and syringes. “You might feel some flu-like symptoms for a few days, but then you will be right as rain.”
Danny shook his head and backed away from that vial, from the manic glee on his mother's face. He hit the table behind him, cold steel biting into his hands as he gripped it, trying to make the room stop spinning. He looked for the stairs, but Jack was right there, between him and the only exit. They were going to kill him. They were going to kill him, and he couldn't do anything to convince them not to. How could he explain to them that the ectoplasmic bonds they wanted to break were what was keeping him together? He looked to Jack, hoping his father would see the insanity of this, but he was met with a dark, grim mask.
“Dad, you can’t just inject me with something untested. What if I’m allergic?”
“Danny.” Jack said, voice low, mouth twisted and eyebrows furrowed.
“You don’t have any allergies, Danny,” Maddie said, not looking at him, too focused on drawing up a dose of the blood-red liquid. Danny's throat felt tight at the memory of the last time he had been around the flower. He swallowed hard.
“But– but blood blossoms are extinct, right? I might be allergic to them, we wouldn’t know.” He was grasping at straws. He knew it, but he couldn’t let them put that stuff in him.
“It’s just a little shot, it’ll hurt more if you fight it.” Maddie turned, and the sharp needle caught the light, a bead of red at the tip. Danny inched along the table away from them. Away from the blood blossoms.
“Jack, hold him still.” Jack grabbed Danny’s arm and pulled him, thumb digging into the bandage on the crook of his arm where they had drawn blood not an hour ago. Maddie readied the needle, yanking his shirt sleeve up over his shoulder.
“Get away from me!” Danny yelled. There was a pulsing beat in his core, too slow, too strong, to be his heartbeat. “GET–” he felt his core squeeze painfully in his chest, “AWAY!”
An explosion of light burst forth as his core expanded, knocking his parents back. Away. The syringe lay cracked on the ground, the heady, unmistakable scent of blood blossoms filled the air. He had a second to gasp a breath, hold it. Jack was already stirring. In a leap, Danny crossed the lab and grabbed the vials of ectoplasm from the bench. His ectoplasm, taken from him and measured like a science experiment. He’d need the boost from the ectoplasm to get away from his parents. Away from Gotham. But first he needed to get Cindy home.
***
“So,” Steph said, leaning back on the medical cot, “how did your date go?”
Tim shook his head, but didn't pause wrapping her ankle. “It wasn't a date, we were doing homework.”
“If you were doing homework, why were you all the way in Sheldon Park?” she asked with a smug grin.
Tim paused, the bandage pulled tight in one hand, Steph's foot held still in the other.“What — how did you know that? Oh,” he groaned, “Oracle, right?” Tim sighed. Sometimes he really hated how little privacy he got in this family.
“Yeah, so, what happened?”
“Not much,” Tim shrugged. “We went up to the old observatory.” Tim finished wrapping her ankle and sat beside her on the cot. “I thought he might like it, and he did…” Tim trailed off, playing the rest of the date in his head. “I kissed him.”
Steph let out a high-pitched squeal and clapped her hands. “Finally! Did he kiss back?”
“Yeah, at first. Then he pulled away and started apologizing.” Tim sighed and ran a hand through his hair before leaning back on the cot with a thump. It was narrow, so his head and shoulder hung off the edge and the world was upside down. Steph matched his pose, her long blonde hair just barely sweeping the floor.
“Is he with someone else?”
“He's never mentioned anyone else, but it's possible.” Tim closed his eyes and replayed the event again. Right before the explosion, Danny was going to say something.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry, it’s just I’m–” what? He had looked so morose, but also…determined? Then the explosion, and then Danny…
“Shit!” Tim jolted up to sitting so fast his head spun, heart racing in his chest.
“What?” Steph asked, sitting up much slower.
“Danny called me Red.”