Chapter Text
The last time Danny saw Tucker and Sam, Tucker was shoving his new ID that he’d made for Danny through totally legal means into Danny’s torn and stitched back together school bag on top of the bare essentials that he’d managed to snag from his room before his parents locked down the house, and Sam was making Danny put on her baggiest black hoodie and handing him one of the clutches he’d seen around her room whenever they hung out at her place.
Tucker was crying, Sam was barely holding her tears at bay, and Danny was shaking like he’d just been electrocuted by the ghost portal that day instead of years ago.
“You’ve got the thermos, right?” Sam checked, putting her hands on Danny’s shoulder’s to get him to look her in the eye as he pulled the hood over his head. She stuffed her old purple and black purse that had doodles the three of them had done from years ago when she’d been using it as her go-to bag.
“Yeah,” Danny croaked, “Fenton phone too. First things that went in.”
“Your brand new life is safe and secure in there too,” Tuck said, zipping the old backpack up, and offering it to his lifelong best friend with a watery smile.
“As long as you don’t lose my purse or those ID papers, you should be fine for a while,” Sam decided.
The boys pretended that they didn’t notice Sam was trying to convince herself the same thing she was trying to convince them of, “Grandma always insisted I keep an emergency fund in case something were to ever happen, and, honestly, I can’t think of anything classifying as more of an emergency than ‘my best friend's parents’ learned he was a ghost and almost succeeded in killing him and also the town is on a witch hunt for him,’ so…”
“Yeah, this fucking sucks,” Danny laughed wetly, “I can’t thank you guys enough. Seriously. Tuck, I don’t know how you got these done so fast, but thank you.”
Tucker shrugged and threw an arm around Danny’s shoulders, pulling him in close, “Yeah, well, your parents are crazy. This town is crazy. Vlad is crazy. I’ve been sorta preparing for this awhile ago in case you had to go dark.”
Danny couldn’t help but laugh again at the lame joke as his breath hitched and ignored the wet stains quickly appearing on Tucker’s shirt as he squeezed back.
“Fruitloops. All of them,” He murmured.
Sam joined in and squeezed them both with a nod, “Fucking fruitloops.”
Danny could barely make out Tucker declaring how he hated fruitloops through his sobbing.
Danny let the hug linger longer than he should have, and he paid for it when his parents caught up with him and shot a chunk out of his abdomen not an hour outside of Amity mid-flight, but it was worth it to get a semi-proper goodbye with his best friends.
Danny lost his parents somewhere three hours away from Amity, Illinois, but he didn’t stop flying until he passed a state sign welcoming him to Nebraska.
He didn’t risk much more than a quick “Got away. Safe. Love you guys” on the secure server Tucker set up years ago using some shitty truck stop’s free wifi before moving on.
He transformed back into a human, put his backpack on underneath Sam’s baggy pullover, and bought a bus ticket from Omaha to Wichita at the first bus depot he came across.
As night fell over the bus as it traveled down the open road, Danny waited until all the passengers were asleep before he pulled his arms into his sweater and wiggled in his seat as he moved the backpack to his front. In the glow of the bus’ runway lights, he pulled out his new identity to memorize everything about himself.
He held in the manic laugh at seeing “Tom Kingdan” written on every piece of identification he had been given. His new identity was a pun. Tucker knew him so well.
“Well, Sam always said that hiding in plain sight was the best way to go,” He murmured under his breath.
He slid the purse from his pocket. He’d missed it before, in the rush of it all, but now he could see that it was the purse he and tuck had taken sharpies to. Sam had pretended for years that they ruined it, and that was why she stopped using it. Danny knew it was because she didn't want the doodles to get ruined. He slid the IDs into what felt like the only empty pocket.
He curled his body over, carefully counting the cash in the purse, and then recounting it because there was no way there was ten thousand fucking dollars inside.
Danny pulled up Tucker’s server using the bus’ terrible internet and the Fentonphone.
Danny: Sam what the fuck
Tucker: What?
Danny: the purse
Sam: Yes, what about it?
Danny: There's, like, 10 000 in this purse?? Sam what the fuck
Tucker: Why don’t you give me 10 000$, Sam?
Sam: So you can buy a bunch of expensive tech? No.
Sam: Also, we’re billionaires. Just because I don’t spend that much money doesn’t mean I don’t have way too much of it.
Sam: Just… try to not spend it all at once. First of all, I can’t exactly get you more. I basically gave you my piggy bank from my room and transferring money would put a huge red target on your back. Second of all, that’s a huge amount of money.
Danny: I won’t, promise. I’m going to make this last as long as possible
Danny: Also I love the ID, You really get me on a spiritual level, Tucker
Tucker: I’m down to commit crimes in the eyes of the government any day. They suck, and we hate them.
Sam: So what’s your new name?
Tucker: Tom Kingdan.
Sam: That’s amazing. It’s so stupid, it just might work.
Danny tried not to freak out over the ridiculous amount of money in his hands, and was failing fast. A light layer of frost was creeping up his seat at the prospect of being given something so outrageous... Except how many times had they gone to Nasty Burger or somewhere else only for Grandma Manson to hand Sam a hundred dollars on their way out the door even if Sam already had money? And Danny knew for certain that Grandma never accepted it back.
He zipped it shut quickly, and attached the little cross-body metal chain strap that Sam kept stored in the inner pocket before he slid it on under his sweater. There was no fucking way he was keeping that lose in his front pocket. Nope.
“If your family wasn’t so crazy rich, I would feel bad for taking that amount… For all of the five seconds it would take for you to punch me in my arm,” He whispered, bringing a sleeve up to wipe his face, and tucked himself against the window, "But no, instead I'm gonna freak out at what it means to be homeless and also have that amount in my pocket."
Danny: I love you both so much. I’ll be in touch.
Tucker: In the meantime, I’m going to up the security on the server.
Sam: I mean, if Technus can’t hack us, then the government’s not going to do much better.
Tucker: Fair, but I can always make improvements.
He stuffed the phone back in his back and stared out into the distance with only the snoring of strangers and the haphazardly wrapped abdominal blaster wound to keep him company.
Another couple buses brought him to Dallas. He sent Sam and Tucker a picture of him on the Goatman’s Bridge. Another couple buses brought him away from Dallas after that.
He bought sunglasses from a discount store that had fake plants hanging in the windows and sea glass wind chimes to hide the occasional flash of green in his eyes while waiting for one of his buses.
He burnt his red and white shirt by dumping into a barrel fire in a back alley in Atlanta. The people gathered in tents and under tarps paid him no mind, and they certainly didn’t notice Danny’s hand passing through the barrel and dropping a much beloved shirt directly into the flames on the way through the alley.
Danny didn’t risk transforming if he didn’t have to, just in case the GIW were nearby, but he absolutely took advantage of his invisibility and intangibility by showering in gyms and swiping protein bars and drinks from the vending machines. By the time it took to realize they were short money, they would chalk it up to the machine releasing two of the items instead of one.
Harmless.
Sometimes he bought whatever destination was a good chunk of miles away from wherever he currently was, sometimes he bought whatever destination was popular at the terminal that day. Sometimes he spent a week or two in between buses to nowhere.
Anything to not stand out.
He accepted that he had no destination in mind a long time before he stopped looking at what destinations he was buying tickets to. He didn’t bother listening to the driver announce whatever city they were entering, he just watched the smog roll over the probably-toxic waters of the dark bay as they rode across the massive bridge. Danny’s eyes glossed over a vandalized sign as they came off the bridge and entered the looming city being pelted with rain.
"Welcome to Gotham City"
Well, it’s not like he was a meta.
Danny frowned as the bus passed by grimey city blocks and businesses illuminated in toxic fluorescent lights even in the middle of the afternoon with the help of what Danny could only assume was the perpetual smog and overcast.
“Well. Shit. If it sucks here, I can just keep going, but they probably won’t find me here. Probably,” Danny snorted softly, “Can you imagine Batman having to take down crazy fucking ghost hunters? Yeah. No.”
He got off the bus with little fanfare and his hood up, though seeing as everyone else did the same, he fit right in with the crowds trying to avoid the downpour.
Danny didn’t hesitate to pick a direction and start walking. He was not about to be the victim of mugging his first night in Gotham.
Get his back snapped over Batman’s knee for being mistaken as a meta?
All because of a mugging?
No thanks.
His scuffed sneakers were soaked in minutes, and the rest of him wasn’t far behind as he made his way through the city. He refused to peer into alleys as he traversed the streets of Gotham, and he refused to look around wildly as if he was a tourist. He was, but at the same time, acting like one would get him in a lot of trouble.
(He tried to ignore how he wouldn’t be able to truly stop himself if someone was getting hurt and he was the only one around.)
Danny crossed a street with a crowd and found himself walking just behind a group of kids a little older than Jazz, and after walking for another 10 minutes and passing the impressive stature of Gotham University. He blinked and choked down the pang of hurt.
“No university for me. Not that any would’ve wanted someone with grades like mine,” Danny grumbled.
He turned away from the antithesis of what his life would amount to, and ignored the voice in his head that sounded an awful lot like Jazz whisper that he just didn’t try hard enough.
He didn’t need any extra input. He already knew he wasn’t enough. That was why he was in this situation in the first place.
Danny found himself crossing one of Gotham’s bridges into what was obviously one of the shittier neighborhoods by the time the sun was setting, and, sure, it was a bad idea, but he also didn’t care too much. A homeless teen would absolutely fly under the radar in the shittier neighborhoods. It was exactly what he needed.