Chapter Text
Tucker ran his fingers through Danny’s hair. It’d been a fucking miracle that he’d caught Sam’s SOS text, running back to Danny’s room to see him half-way to a panic attack. She’d hung up, having to get back to classes and not wanting to risk another detention when she was their last line of defense. Tucker hadn’t wanted to let her go—he had questions and he missed her desperately, but he’d gotten lucky with his parents’ easy acceptance of him living with Duke. He couldn’t push that too far.
So he lounged on the bed, Danny’s head in his lap as his poor sick boyfriend wheezed in his sleep. It seemed every minute Danny just got worse, and Tucker wished he knew what the hell kind of infection was making him so sick. Changing his bandages revealed that none of his wounds were healing—at least not at the rate they normally would. With a major injury like this, Danny should have been half-way to fully healed by now. Instead the skin continued to look raw and inflamed and radiated a kind of heat that Danny hadn’t had since before his accident.
Tucker wondered if maybe this had something to do with the blood blossom paste. He snorted at the thought. Of course that had something to do with it, it was why Tucker had tried so desperately to get it off of Danny’s wounds. But had it soaked into the skin? Did it inhibit Danny’s healing abilities?
That had to be it. There was no other explanation for how slowly Danny was healing, how he seemed to be actively getting worse as the days wore on. Fuck, what if Danny had some sort of blood blossom poisoning? Tucker couldn’t just eat his way through that! He’d gotten lucky the first time they’d encountered the damn, foul smelling plants. If the blood blossoms had worked their way inside of Danny…
His phone beeped, distracting him from his spiral. Shifting, Tucker rose an eyebrow at the quick barrage of texts coming in.
Duke: I’m almost done with classes be home soon
Duke: A friend of mine is gonna swing by w/ more meds
Duke: You don’t have to say hi
Duke: Just FYI
Duke: Oh and my little brother wants to come over for dinner
Duke: Would you feel comfortable with that?
Duke: I can tell him to wait another day if you need
Tucker smiled as he read Duke’s messages, appreciation for the boy skyrocketing with each text. At the last request, Tucker paused. He’d mentioned a brother before—this had to be the same brother, right? Tucker was pretty sure Duke was his only Gotham cousin, so this had to be a foster brother. The question of why the foster brother was suddenly so interested in coming over for dinner began to cross Tucker’s mind, but he shoved it away. Clearly Duke and this brother were close considering they hung out outside of the home. It made sense for a brother to want to visit Duke and eat food with him.
Shoving his paranoia into a box, Tucker wrote back.
Yeah, that’s fine :me
Danny’s asleep though :me
Don’t know if he’ll be awake by dinnertime :me
Duke: That’s fine!
Duke: I just don’t want to crowd you two
Aw, well wasn’t that sweet? Tucker had gambled reaching out to Duke, but so far the older boy had done nothing but prove him right in trusting him.
Thanks, Duke :me
You’re the best :me
Duke: Of course
Duke: You’re my family
Duke: I’d do anything for my family
Even through the text, the sentence rang with truth. Tucker set the phone aside. Sure, he didn’t know what was making Danny so sick, but it’d be okay. Duke would help them figure it out. He had to believe that.
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It’d been a fight to get Damian to agree to wait until the evening to come over, but Duke was just as stubborn as the brat and far more willing to pull the “I’m telling Dick” card. It meant when he spotted Dax walking towards his building, he didn’t have to worry about Damian’s snide remarks about Dax’s mohawk as Duke called out, “Dax!”
Dax spun on his heel, his sunglasses making him look far more intimidating than he was. He smiled, large and bright as a canvas tote bag—something that was clearly more Riko’s style than Dax’s—hung from his wrist. “Duke!”
As soon as they got close, they pulled each other into a bro hug, patting each other hard on the back. Dax pulled back with a smile, shifting the bag up so it sat more at the crook of his elbow. “Dude, it’s been fucking forever. You need to text us more.”
Laughing, Duke started to lead Dax to his apartment. “Sorry, you know Dayshift keeps me busy on top of classes.”
“Of course,” Dax acquiesced, though there was a tinge of sarcasm in his voice, “because clearly you haven’t replaced your poor sweet friends with your shiny new foster family.”
“Oh fuck off, dude.” Duke shoved Dax’s shoulder, hitting the call button for the elevator. “Like you guys weren’t also busy with clean up after WAR.”
“Yeah, but at least we texted each other.” Dax took off his sunglasses, hitting Duke with the full force of his sincere gaze as the elevator dinged open. “We missed you, Duke.”
A knot twisted Duke’s tongue, but he swallowed it down as he stepped into the elevator. “… I missed you guys too. I’ll try to text the regular group chat more often.”
“You fucking better.” Dax smiled as he followed Duke, shifting his bag to open it. “I wasn’t sure what kind of abilities your kid has, so I went for the generics. I got pain meds, some numbing creams if he has a higher pain tolerance than normal, oh and a few different kinds of antibiotics that are supposed to work with the meta-gene and other metas with advanced healing.” Dax picked up one of the antibiotic bottles, twisting it in the light. “You can thank Riko for that by the way.”
“I’ll have to text her my thanks later—hey doesn’t she see a Meta friendly doctor?” Duke asked, leaning against the wall for the few seconds they rose through the floors. He pushed off as they reached his floor.
Dax snorted. “Yeah, she sees Dr. T. You said no bat involvement, remember?”
Fuck, Duke had said that, hadn’t he? “Right. Fuck, forgot about that.”
“Why no bats? I thought you’d go to them first for something like that.” While the words themselves were neutral, Duke could hear the underlying question interwoven in Dax’s tone.
Duke closed his eyes for a moment, tried to think about how his family would react to Danny’s case. “… the meta kid… his name’s Danny by the way. He just… he got fucked over pretty bad by his parents, and I don’t want to overwhelm him with the bats’ everything. They’re great with kids in active crisis, don’t get me wrong! But for a delicate case like this…”
Dax hummed in agreement. “Right. Plus, you’re the only meta on the roster, right? Probably smart to have me and Riko pitching in then. Give the kid more meta allies in Gotham.”
Duke smiled. “I fucking missed you, dude.”
“Pretty sure we already covered the mushy bits.” Dax snarked, but he just smiled as he pulled Duke into a one-armed hug. “We missed you too. Now are you gonna let me in or are you gonna keep me waiting outside like this?”
Snorting, Duke pulled out his keys and opened his door. “Right. Tucker, I’m home!” He called out, somewhat quietly while he toed off his shoes. “I brought meds for Danny!”
His cousin peeked his head out of the hallway, looking far more tired than Duke would prefer. “Is your friend here?”
“That’d be me, kid,” Dax said, dropping the bag of meds onto Duke’s counter, “nice to meet you! I’m assuming you’re the cousin?”
Tucker nodded, inching his way into the communal space. “I’m Tucker—is that?”
“A bag of meds for your boyfriend? Yep. My name’s Dax, by the way.” Dax started pulling out bottles, showing Tucker each and every label. “I managed to get a nice variety, but let’s save the antibiotics for worse case scenario, yeah? Don’t wanna give him anything like that until he has a professional look at him.”
Tucker frowned. “You’re really going to help us find a doctor?”
Oh, Duke could feel an ache build in his chest at how suspicious Tucker was. Dax, however, took it in stride. “Of course. Meta kids have to stick together, ya know? Especially here in Gotham.”
“I’m not sure if Danny counts as a meta…” Tucker muttered.
“He’s got powers, doesn’t he?” Dax asked.
Tucker nodded.
Smiling, Dax finished pulling out the last of the bottles. “Then he’s a meta. Aliens and supernatural people count as metas so whatever’s going on with Danny, he still counts under the meta label.”
That seemed to get Tucker thinking. He nodded again, moving to sort through the bottles. Looking at the array laid out on his counter, a thought popped into Duke’s mind.
“Oh, wait, shit, Danny doesn’t have any allergies, does he? I should have asked this earlier, I’m so sorry.”
Tucker blinked before shaking his head. “Just blood blossoms.”
Huh. “Blood blossoms? Is there like a proper name for them? I wanna make sure—”
“Oh, they’re super endangered so they’re not gonna be used in any sort of medications.” Tucker set the pain meds he’d been staring at down, shifting. “Um, and we’d know. If the meds contained them. They dye whatever they’re included in a really bright red. Honestly, if they weren’t so terrible for Danny or endangered they could probably be used for a really nice natural red dye.”
Red huh. “Tucker, was that red stuff on Danny’s wounds—”
“Blood blossom paste, yeah.” Tucker twisted his hands. “Um, it’s not like—I mean he’s not going into anaphylactic shock or anything like that. It just… it fucks with his powers. And hurts him. So you know. No blood blossoms, but everything else is fair game.”
Right. Okay, Duke glanced over at Dax, meeting the other boy’s eyes. Dax nodded at Duke, a confirmation that he’d keep Tucker’s explanation in mind.
“Is Dax also gonna be staying for dinner?” Tucker asked, glancing between the two.
Smiling Dax shook his head. “No, sorry. I should probably be heading out—I’ve got a date with Dre tonight.” Grabbing the empty tote, Dax swung it up on his shoulder as he pinned Duke with a look. “Seriously, dude, text us more. We miss you.”
“I will, I will.” Duke smiled as he walked Dax over to the door. “Keep me updated?”
“Of course. Stay safe, Duke. It was nice to meet you, Tucker!” Dax waved, getting a wave from Tucker back before the door closed.
Sighing, Duke turned to Tucker. “Alright, we’ve got about two hours to figure out dinner. My little brother’s a vegetarian, so I was thinking maybe we just make Indian? How does Danny do with Indian food?”
“I mean, Indian food makes up a good quarter of his safe food list,” Tucker said, “I think it’s cause it’s closer to his home culture’s food than American food.”
“His home culture?”
Tucker hummed as he nodded. “Yeah, Danny’s adopted.”
“No shit?” Duke started grabbing ingredients out of his cupboards. He could whip up a pretty easy vegetarian curry—thank fuck Damian had introduced him to their local Indian food market. Naan from ShopRite just didn’t hit the same way. “Damn, just like most of my siblings then.”
“Is your younger brother adopted too?” Tucker asked.
Shaking his head, Duke tried to think of some side dishes he could throw in. Maybe some rice? “Nah, he’s the one biological child in the entire bunch. Though he didn’t come into the family until he was like 10. Tim mentioned that Damian had been a surprise. He lived with his mom for those first ten years.”
“Huh… hey do you think Damian is a common name?”
Frowning, Duke glanced over at Tucker. “Maybe? I mean, I only know my brother, but I’m sure there’s enough Damian’s out in the world to be like a popular name.”
“Right.” Tucker looked down at his hands, fidgeting with his shirt’s hem. “Right. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”
“What’s a coincidence?”
“Nothing.”
Ah, so Tucker didn’t want to tell him. Duke resisted the urge to shrug, going back to gathering his ingredients and prepping his cutting board. “Do you want to help me cook or do you wanna hang with Danny?”
“Danny’s not the greatest conversationalist right now, so can I help you please?”
Smiling, Duke nodded towards his bag of rice. “Sure. You can start by washing the rice and getting it prepped for the cooker.”
Tucker hopped to it, and Duke wondered about how quickly Tucker jumped to help. He knew the kind of helplessness of watching a loved one suffer. How there was only so much they could do until they found the right medical treatment. A stray thought about visiting his parents passed through his mind. Fuck, when was the last time he’d made a trip to Gotham General? Guilt soured his tongue, settling like a prickly plant in his chest. Later. Once Danny and Tucker were more settled, he could make a trip. Maybe even bring Tucker if he didn’t mind.
“Hey Duke, do you have a sieve?”
Duke paused in chopping his veggies. “What do you need a sieve for?”
Tucker raised an eyebrow. “To wash the rice?”
“You use a sieve to wash rice?”
Embarrassment darkened Tucker’s cheeks. “Yeah, that way you don’t spill any of the rice.”
“Or you just use your hands?” Duke set his knife down, turning to fully look at Tucker. “Like most people do?”
“Right, but like you need to dump out the water every time, and it’s easier with a sieve!” Tucker crossed his arms.
Snorting, Duke started shuffling through his cookware to find his sieve. “Then how do you tell if the water is running clear? The whole point is to wash until the water runs clear—you can’t see how clear the water is if you’re using a sieve!”
“Okay, but like you can just use a measuring cup to check.”
“A measuring cup?”
“Or a small bowl!”
“Or a small bowl he says, Jesus.” Duke shook his head before pulling out the sieve, handing it over to Tuck. “What kind of savage have Aunt Angela and Uncle Maurice been raising?”
“Hey!” Tucker protested, taking the sieve and grabbing a measuring cup from the still open cabinet. “Don’t you make fun of my parent’s parenting decisions! Clearly using a sieve is more efficient than a bowl!”
Duke couldn’t help his laugh. “Dude, just don’t spill the rice and you’re golden. It’s pretty fucking hard to fuck up washing rice so badly you need to use a sieve.”
“You just don’t understand my genius.”
A sudden burst of bittersweetness filled Duke as he joked with Tucker. He’d missed this. A strange though to have when he’d never cooked with Tucker. Hell, Duke barely knew the boy, yet there was a longing in his chest for something he couldn’t quite think of. Maybe it was the easiness of his interactions with the boy? The banter back and forth? But Duke had no shortage of people to hang out with. Hell, Duke would argue he was more loved now than he’d ever been when he was younger. The answer slit his throat with Tucker’s sudden question.
“Did you ever cook with your parents, Duke?”
Ah. How could he have forgotten? As he’d gotten older cooking had been added to his list of chores, and his parents had been ever so excited to teach him family recipes—bits of their culture that they’d fought hard to protect over the years. His mom had been the first to teach him her famous gumbo, his dad collared greens. He remembered nights of laughter and gentle teasing, his parents pointing him towards the correct cooking utensils with a gentle joke and laughter when he’d screwed up enough that they had to get take out.
His eyes burned, but Duke just cleared his throat and ignored them. “Yeah, they were the ones who taught me how in the first place. Haven’t been able to cook with them since I was 16 though.”
He didn’t dare look over at Tucker, didn’t want to see the pitying look or the guilt or any of the other expressions that boiled down to ‘poor Duke, basically orphaned yet still having to care for his parents as they deteriorated’. He’d seen the look often enough on his own siblings, on Bruce’s face even when he thought Duke wasn’t looking. His family pitied him, and he hated it, hated the fact that everyone looked at his parents as a tragedy, as if they had died.
That guilt crawled back. Duke would visit them tomorrow. He promised.
(If he didn’t forget.)
“That’s rough, buddy. Anyway my parents don’t let me cook without direct supervision anymore because the last time I cooked by myself I forgot to wash off the ectoplasm from a ghost fight Danny had been in and the food accidentally came alive.”
Duke’s neck practically snapped with how fast he swung his head. “Did you just fucking ‘that’s rough buddy’d’ me?”
Tucker raised an eyebrow, expression clearly unimpressed. “Yeah? What else did you want me to say?”
Maybe Duke was focusing on the wrong thing here. Maybe he should be asking about the fact that ectoplasm apparently made food come alive or the fact that Danny apparently was in ghost fights blood (was bloody even the right word here?) that Tucker ended up covered in ectoplasm. But Tucker was looking at him with an expression so normal and lowkey annoyed that Duke couldn’t stop the smile and lighthearted feeling spreading through his chest.
“Maybe ‘Sorrows. Sorrows, Prayers.’” Duke put on his best approximation of a British accent, the one that got Alfred to give him the stink eye when he’d pulled it out last family movie night.
Snorting, Tucker turned his attention back to his task. “That’d require me to believe in a god, and pretty sure no gods exist in Gotham.”
They devolved into trading barbs about Gotham back and forth, the companionship easing Duke’s heartache just a little bit. Maybe his parents wouldn’t mind him reviving this tradition without them. Just this once.
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Damian knew it was not kind to judge his siblings on their places of living, but he had never been known to be kind.
He scrunched his nose as he approached the apartment building that Duke had recently moved to. Utterly preposterous that Duke moved solely to house a clone. He clenched the tupperware Pennyworth had forced upon him tighter to his chest. Duke hadn’t even bothered to choose one of the nicer buildings. Instead the outside looked fifty years older than it actually was—and not in an artistic, dignified way. No, the paint seemed to be peeling despite the building’s supposed new status and grime streaked into whatever crevice it could handle. The security also remained less than stellar as Damian punched in the code he’d stolen off of Duke’s phone. Honestly, if the only thing keeping unsavory individuals from entering was a passcode then it was a miracle Duke hadn’t already been robbed.
The carpet was a tacky sort of orange. Its pattern seemed more reminiscent of hotels than any sort of living space. Honestly, the amount of orange in the apartment building made Damian wonder just who their interior decorator was. Orange walls, orange carpet, orange ensconced lights. The only non-orange items were the doors which looked to be made of some sort of wood composite that clearly had been bought off the cheap. Reaching the elevator, Damian couldn’t help the curl of disgust as the doors opened to reveal the most noxious cannabis scent. Did Duke’s neighbors have no sense of propriety?
Still he jabbed the button for Duke’s floor and waited. Determination settled onto his shoulders, pulling them back as he prepared himself. Meeting his brother for dinner shouldn’t have been such a tense affair, but Damian knew dangers existed where his family refused to look. They may claim themselves knights of the shadows, heroes for the broken, but they had not watched a man die the way Damian had. They had not been trained in the deepest bellies of the underworld, did not understand that not every injured animal was something to save.
Damian understood. Damian protected his family from harsh truths so they could pretend to gentle him. He would be the herd dog, snout bloody as it guarded its flock. His sheep may think themselves protectors in their own right, but he would not let the wolves trick them in such a way.
A tinny ding reverberated from the elevator as its shiny doors creaked open. Damian stepped out and marched straight to Duke’s door. He knocked three times, sharp, before taking a step back. Muffled noises cut through, Duke calling ‘Just a minute’ as a younger voice seemed to be asking something. The clone? Or perhaps the cousin that so far passed all of Damian's snooping and checks. He hated to admit that the boy might be an innocent in all of this. Some poor civilian that got tricked by a poor clone of Damian. A poor clone that stole his dead twin sister’s name.
The thought sent Damian’s teeth grinding once more.
The door swung open, and Damian forced his expression to smooth into something a little more pleasant. Duke smiled as he gestured Damian inside. “Little D! Come in, come in—are those Alfred cookies?”
“Yes. Pennyworth was insistent that I bring something as a gift since I was so abruptly forcing my presence in your home,” Damian said, holding out the tupperware for Duke to take. He rolled his eyes at how Duke immediately snatched the cookies from his hand, ripping open the lid to see just what exact flavor Pennyworth had decided on for the night. Judging from the smile, Damian assumed it to be one of Duke’s favorites. His gaze swept past his older brother and landed on the cousin.
Tucker Foley looked ashen, his skin drained of any warmth as he stared at Damian. He supposed it was a natural reaction—most normal people would be shocked to see a perfect copy of their lover standing in front of them. Well. Maybe not completely perfect—Damian had noticed that this clone seemed to have taken his sister’s eye color rather than his own. Truly, another stamp of its imperfections and a wonder as to why it had been allowed to exist for as seemingly long as it had.
Still, there was no sign of the clone. Damian tried not to frown, instead walking towards Foely. He catalogued the flinch, the boy terrible at hiding any of his reactions. Another tick in the innocent box. Truly a pity. Damian supposed at least Duke would be able to comfort Foley once it was revealed that the object of his affections was nothing more than an imperfect copy of Damian.
“Damian Wayne,” he said as he held his hand out to the boy, “Duke has told me that you are his cousin.”
Swallowing hard, Foley took Damian’s hand. His grip felt loose, so Damian just squeezed a little tighter. That seemed to jerk the boy into action as he squeezed Damian’s hand back. “Tucker Foley. Um, it’s nice to meet you, Damian.”
“Likewise.” Damian let go, crossing his arms as he once more swept his gaze across the apartment. “Where is the other one?”
“Danny wasn’t feeling well, so he’s not gonna be joining us for dinner,” Duke explained, sending Damian some sort of pointed look that Damian had no desire in interpreting.
“Hm.” Damian glanced towards the hall. “Sorrows. Sorrows, prayers. I suppose I will just have to join you for dinner another day so I might be able to meet him then.”
Foley cleared his throat. “Is there a… reason you want to meet Danny?”
“Is there a reason I should not?” Damian looked Foley up and down. The boy chewed on his lip, a clear sign of his hesitation around Damian. Which, Damian had thought that the initial shock of seeing a seeming carbon copy of his beloved would have worn off by now. Perhaps Foley knew more than he’d initially suspected.
“Damian.” Ah, Duke was absolutely scolding Damian with that tone, his face settling into some sort of glare. Damian just huffed.
“I was not being mean, Duke. I was asking a simple question. It is not my fault that my voice lends itself to a monotonous pitch.” For good measure, Damian tilted his head up, putting his supposed snobby ‘I’m better than you’ look on full display.
Foley smiled, waving Duke off. “It’s fine. Um, I just meant that I didn’t realize you would want to meet both of us so badly.”
Really, now Damian had to roll his eyes. “Of course I want to meet the two that my older brother will be housing for the indeterminate future. Now, do we want to continue this awkward conversation or can we continue to dinner where I am sure Duke has used his mediocre skills to create something edible.”
“Hey!” Duke shoved Damian’s shoulder as he led him to the table. “I make great fucking food, thank you very much!”
“I mean, you wouldn’t let me taste any of it, Duke—”
“Lies and slander! Tucker, whose side are you on?”
“Whichever side is funnier.”
That sort of easy bickering helped settle Foley, though the boy never really lost his anxious edge. Throughout the dinner (a decent attempt at Indian food, Damian was loathe to admit), Foley snuck as many glances at Damian as he thought he could get away with. Damian tried not to be too perturbed by it. He knew he’d stared quite a bit when Mother sent the first of the clones after him.
Well, stared at the corpse, but that had been an existential nightmare he’d rather not repeat.
Though, as he ate, Damian could catalogue the similarities that marked Foley and Duke cousins. They had the same nose, and their smiles dimpled in the same way. Though, Duke’s skin was a darker shade than Foley’s, and their eyes were completely different shapes. Their mouths quirked into similar self-satisfied smiles when they told what they thought were good jokes. They wouldn’t be mistaken for siblings, by any means, but their relations manifested in subtle ways.
Damian noted the hesitation in their interactions. Duke hid his caution behind jokes, but Foley—clearly untrained, quickly becoming just a civilian with an ever shrinking chance of having known his boyfriend was a clone—couldn’t hide the awkward smiles or the way he sometimes seemed to stutter over a joke.
“How long do you plan on staying in Gotham?” Damian asked, sipping his water with a faux nonchalance.
Foley paused, fork halfway to his face. His gaze flicked to Duke, as if seeking reassurance before he set his fork down. “I’m not sure. Everything kind of happened in a blur so…”
Ah yes. The supposed coming out. “I see. Well, I am sure Duke has already offered his assistance, but I will let you know that the Waynes have not only supported but founded multiple organizations to protect and assist LGBTQI+ youth here in Gotham. Not to mention that the majority of our family members are some form of queer. If you and this… Danny require assistance we would be more than happy to give it.”
Duke’s smile twisted into something of a suspicious pride. “That’s really sweet, Little D, but they just got here. I don’t want to overwhelm Danny and Tucker with the entirety of the Wayne’s… everything.”
Damian narrowed his eyes. “While I understand that our family can be intimidating, Duke, do you not think that it would be beneficial for these two poor teenagers to have access to every resource available to them?”
That smile stiffened, and Duke practically scrapped his knife against his plate, guiding the last of his rice onto his spoon. “Yes, and they do because I am going to use everything at my disposal to help Tucker and Danny out.”
“Yet, I had to find out about this cousin of yours from Brown.” Venom laced his words, shooting from his mouth like well-strung arrows.
“Damian—”
“Brown, Duke.” Damian set his cup down. “She is not even part of the family yet—in fact, I am certain that only myself and Cassandra are even aware of the fact that you have a cousin, let alone that he is currently residing in your apartment with his boyfriend.”
“You can just call me by my name.”
Damian’s gaze swung back to Foley. Head held defiantly, Foley’s brown eyes glinted with a curiosity and steel Damian hadn’t expected out of a civilian. He raised an eyebrow, deliberately taking a long sip of his drink before replying, “whatever do you mean?”
“My name. You haven’t called me Tucker once in our entire conversation,” Foley said, squaring his shoulders, “you don’t have to call me Duke’s cousin all the time You can just call me Tucker.”
Duke winced. Perhaps he’d worried about Damian going back on his promise to limit his ‘meanness’. The thought nearly made Damian roll his eyes. He knew perfectly well how to play nice as it were. Besides, dinner was winding down. He couldn’t have Duke paying too close of attention.
“I apologize. I come from a culture that is very… polite about names.” Damian glared as Duke snorted, clearly amused with the tale Damian was spinning. Taking a deep breath, he turned what he knew was his best attempt at an apologetic face to Foley. “We do not refer to someone by their first name unless you are particularly close. It is seen as more respectful to refer to people by their last names than by their first names. I figured you would be disquieted by this and as such just avoided naming you altogether.”
Foley blinked before smiling. “Ah, got it! Danny actually used to have the same name hangup when he was first adopted. Duke mentioned that you didn’t grow up with the Waynes? Did you grow up outside of the US then?”
Damian felt his brow twitch. “I did.”
“Oh sick, where did you grow up?” Foley leaned forward, smiling in some sort of attempt to be friendly.
Ah. Damian ran through the countries the Himalaya’s ran through. “Nepal.” An unusual, if safe answer. Damian doubted Foley knew much of the country.
Eyes glinting, Foley shifted. “Oh what a coincidence! That’s where Danny grew up! Small world, huh?”
Oh. Damian could see where this was going. He forced a smile on his face, unnatural and surely reading more predatory than he’d like. “Yes. Quite. I don’t suppose Danny was adopted when he was 10 years old?”
“No, Danny was adopted when he was like 9, I think.” Foley set his utensils down, plate cleared and mirroring Duke’s. “Still, that’s a lot of crazy similarities, right?”
“Sure.” Damian set his own utensils down and pushed away from the table. “I apologize for being abrupt, but I need to relieve myself. Please, feel free to get started on Pennyworth’s cookies without me.”
Duke frowned, pushing away from the table. “You sure? I mean, I can show you the bathroom and—”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you.” Damian grabbed the tin of cookies and moved it to the middle of the table, opening it up. “These are mostly your favorites, Duke. You know I am not as fond of peanut butter cookies as you are.”
The distraction worked, perhaps a little too well. Duke’s gaze flicked to the cookies as he grabbed one out. “I mean, still—”
“You apartment is not that large, Duke. I can figure out my way.” Damian resisted the urge to palm at his pockets. He had no need for such petty reassurances. “I will be back shortly.”
He walked into the hallway, waiting for the focus to shift before he slipped into the first bedroom on the right.
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Someone was in his room.
Danny stilled as he heard footsteps—the soft kind of someone trying not to awaken whoever was sleeping in the room. Tucker had always been bad at that, so Danny knew it wasn’t his boyfriend. Maybe Duke? The curtain was drawn and the lights were off, but the last bits of sunlight still streamed through the cracks. Had he slept all day? Maybe Duke was debating waking Danny up for dinner.
Though, along with the pulsing aches of his body, a roiling nausea coated the back of his throat. It sat heavy in his gut, letting him know that trying to eat would end poorly. Danny tried to remember the last time he’d truly felt nauseous. Pain and aches provided a constant he couldn’t escape, but he hadn’t felt sick like this since before the accident. The Fentons must have fucked him up badly if he was being so eagerly reacquainted with the threat of vomiting all over himself.
Dragging his eyes open, Danny turned to tell Duke that he’d have to skip dinner for now. His eyes landed on the figure in his room. He froze. Each breath rattled in his ears.
The figure’s black hair melted into the shadows of the room, gelled into place. Brown hands—a healthier version of Danny’s own brown—fussed with an all too familiar bug. Panic constricted his throat, vomit dancing at the back of his tongue as the figure turned.
Damian stared down at Danny. Green eyes caught blue, hatred quickly darkening his gaze. Stepping away from the bug (holy shit, Damian was here, Damian was in Gotham, Damian was trying to spy on him), Damian stalked over to Danny’s bedside.
He stood, just staring as Danny wondered if this was where he died. He’d fucked it up the first time, maybe Damian was here to finish the job? Fuck, had Damian figured out that Danny had faked his death all those years ago? His eyes flicked to the scar, the twin to Danny’s own neck scar. He swallowed, felt the cruel reminder of the last fight he’d had with his brother.
Tension thickened the air around them. Damian scowled as he just… stared. Danny almost wished he’d do something. Then maybe he could react. Could force his body to do something instead of staring back at his brother in a twisted mixture of terror and yearning. Fuck, it’d been how many years since he last saw Damian? 5? That felt far too long and far too short at the same time. Did Damian even recognize him? Danny tried to remember what the corpse they found would have looked like—a little girl who dared far above her station. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Danny’s eyes watered. He felt sick, his stomach twisting as saliva filled his mouth.
“I know what you are.”
Danny tried not to gag as Damian spoke. His voice had gotten deeper. Deeper than Danny’s currently was even after a year on T. Unfair, but the thought quickly dissipated under the pain and horror of the realization. Damian knew. Damian knew.
Leaning down, Damian lowered his voice. “You may have my brother and his idiotic cousin fooled, but I see past your lies.”
Tears slipped down his cheeks, uncomfortably warm. Danny wanted to curl up, to hide but any movement threatened to bring up whatever acid lived in his stomach. “Dami,” he rasped.
Damian grabbed Danny’s collar, dragging him closer. “Quiet. You don’t get to use that name. You’ve already defiled her name, you do not get to take any more from her.”
“Damian—” Danny’s head spun, trying to keep up when his body revolted at every movement. “Damian, please.”
“You should know better than to expect mercy from me.” Damian dropped Danny back onto the bed, uncaring at Danny’s groan. “The only reason you are not already dead is because Duke is fond of you. As soon as I’ve convinced him of your true nature, I will gut you like the coward you are.”
A strangled whimper wrenched itself from Danny’s throat. He’d always understood Damian’s disgust with him, but to hear it so plainly. Fuck, he almost wished the Fentons were pulling his lungs from his chest again because maybe then he could have a reason for why he couldn’t breathe. Hatred saturated the air, Damian staring down at Danny just as he had when they were younger.
Turning on his heel, Damian slid out of the room. He closed the door silently behind him. Danny waited for a breath. One… Two… a sob ripped itself from his chest. He shoved his face into his pillow, swallowing back his own sick as he told himself that this was to be expected. He knew Damian would have reacted this way. Knew Damian always saw Danny as beneath him. This wasn’t new.
But his grief tore through Danny as sharply as a scalpel. Any daydreams he’d entertained during his years in Amity Park shattered, coating his mouth in a bitter regret and acrid sourness. He gagged, scrabbling as he stumbled out of bed. He just barely reached the room’s trash can when he threw up. Tears and snot mixed with his sick, his nose and throat stinging from the force of it. He felt hollowed out, as if the Fentons had kept everything they’d tried to take from him instead of plopping it back in his body with some sort of macabre disinterest.
Time twisted, passing in figure eights as he threw up two more times, bringing up nothing but the sickly mucus and bile. A creaking door interrupted his panting breaths, heavy footfalls running towards him. Tucker wrapped his arms around Danny, pulling him close as he asked questions, if Danny was okay, how he’d gotten out of the bed, how is his pain.
“He knows,” Danny whispered.
Tucker paused, his hand halfway through Danny’s sweaty hair. “Who knows, Danny?”
“Damian.” Oh, his twin’s name burned. Tears welled back up, and Danny wondered how a cavern could ache so much. Shouldn’t emptiness be a cooling numb? His insides had been scraped raw. “Damian knows. He’s in Gotham. He knows I’m here.”
Tucker sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Oh Danny…”
“He’s gonna kill me.” Danny’s breath caught on the edges of his ribs. “Damian’s going to kill me. Tuck—”
Shushing him, Tucker just pulled Danny further onto his lap. “I know, Danny. I know.”
He didn’t, not really, but what could Danny expect Tucker to say? That it would be okay? That they’d figure it out? Each sob caught on his stitches, and Danny felt his skin burning. Sweat and tears and snot, Danny felt like nothing more than a bundle of scars and bandages. A skeleton clinging to the last scraps of muscle and viscera. He thought he’d be safe. Mother had promised—
A hysterical sort of laugh-sob tore past Danny’s lips. That was right. Mother had never promised him safety. Never promised him peace or ease or love. What a fool he was, to take his mother’s word that Gotham would be safe.
Danny sobbed until he was sick, and then sobbed some more.
❅⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄❅⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄❅
There were only a certain amount of realizations one could make before they started to wonder if maybe they were turning into a conspiracy theorist.
Like, Tucker had been prepared for zero new realizations when meeting Duke’s adoptive brother. Sure, Duke’s adoptive brother and Danny’s evil twin had the same name, but that could easily be chocked up to coincidence. Damian was a fairly popular name for kids in America, and Danny’s twin didn’t own the name Damian. Surely Damian Wayne was someone completely unrelated.
And yeah, some people had doppelgangers just out in the world. Celebrity look-a-likes were a thing, and it wasn’t completely out of left field for someone who looked almost exactly like Danny to exist. Maybe this Damian just happened to look eerily like Danny while having the name of his evil twin. Again, weird, but like not a huge leap to make.
But they grew up in the same country. Were taken in at similar ages. Fuck, the more Damian talked the more it felt like Tucker was 9 years old trying to crack the icy exterior of one Danny Fenton. It unnerved him, how much Damian acted like a younger, less socialized version of Danny. The pieces just kept adding up into a picture of the secret assassin brother Danny had struggled talking about being the same boy lying through his teeth about why he refused to call Tucker by his first name.
Which like, fine, that would have been enough but Duke had mentioned that Damian was the only biological child of his foster dad. His foster dad, famous billionaire and airhead Brucie Wayne. The same Brucie Wayne that Sam had complained about the one time her family had managed to drag her to a Wayne Gala. Bruce Wayne who if he was Damian’s biological father meant that he was consequently Danny’s biological father.
On a side note, that made Danny unintentionally a liar because he had promised Tucker that his bio dad wasn’t Bruce Wayne, but at this point Tucker had to believe that Danny didn’t actually know that Bruce Wayne was his dad.
But Danny had been firm that Batman was his dad. So if Bruce Wayne was his dad, and Batman was his dad…
“Bruce Wayne is dating Batman?”
“No, Sam!” Tucker groaned as he let his head hit the pillow. Danny curled against his side, like the world’s most pathetically sick kitten. “Bruce Wayne is Batman, and his biological son, Damian Wayne, is Danny’s secret twin brother who is also an assassin and also probably the stabby Robin you’ve been hyped about.”
Sam glowered through the screen. “You cannot be implying that Damian ‘I’m better than everyone’ Wayne is the objectively coolest Robin.”
“The butts match, Sam! If Damian Wayne is a secret assassin and Bruce Wayne is Batman then obviously the only Robin with a known kill count during their Robin days is clearly Damian Wayne!” Tucker resisted the urge throw his arms around. It’d been a bitch and a half to get Danny to fall back asleep. If he woke Danny up now then he deserved nothing less than the electric chair.
Never before had Tucker seen such an epic pout on Sam. “But Tucker, Damian Wayne isn’t a secret assassin, he’s just an asshole. Besides, if he’s a secret assassin then that implies that Danny is a secret assassin.”
“Former secret assassin. He faked his death,” Tucker replied, scratching at Danny’s scalp in just the way he liked.
“And you believe this?” Sam asked, incredulous. “Tuck, Danny's injured as fuck. He’s probably delirious!”
Tucker sighed. “Ghosts and superheroes exist, Sam. Why can’t secret assassins? Besides, it actually makes a few things make more sense now.”
Oh the temptation to wake Danny up just to see the way Sam’s face kept scrunching was strong, but Tuck would just have to screenshot some stills for later. “How the fuck does that make things make more sense? Danny is the most unathletic person we know—and he has a D in most of his classes! You’re telling me that Danny “D in English” Fenton was able to fake his death to escape being an assassin?”
“Okay first off, English isn’t his first language so I think we can give Danny a pass on his shitty English grades. Second, Sam, it sounds fucking ridiculous. I get that, but you’ve only known Danny for a year. You didn’t meet him when he was freshly adopted.” Tucker glanced down at his boyfriend, affection bubbling just underneath the what the fuck of it all. “He was way different from the Danny we know today.”
“Really.” There was that disbelief, but Tucker could see Sam tilting her head just so. A visual that Sam was listening, even if she would rather be telling you just how stupid she thought whatever idea you had was. “How?”
“He had an accent for one.” Some days Tucker mourned Danny’s accent. He knew it still lived somewhere in Danny, but it hadn’t come out since before Sam had moved to Amity Park. “And he struggled a ton with social stuff—like it felt like he’d come from another planet with how much he didn’t understand American cultures or even just regular kid things. He also used to beat Dash up regular.”
“Wait, really?” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Our twink ghost Danny used to beat Dash up? The same Dash that’s been shoving him in lockers and kicking his ass for the past year.”
“Yeah,” Tucker laughed, “I know it seems crazy.”
“There’s no way.” Sam crossed her arms. “Proof or I’m gonna say that you’re being stupid listening to Danny when he’s definitely got a fever and some sort of infection going on.”
Huffing, Tucker shifted. “I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to find proof, Sam. This was years ago.”
Sam just snorted. “You literally revolutionized Amity Park’s tech when the Portal Incident happened, Tuck. I’m sure you can find something.”
Could he? Tucker racked his brain, trying to think of some sort of way to prove Danny’s history of fights when he remembered. “Oh shit, okay fine here—I’m gonna make you stare at the ceiling while I send you the proof from my PDA.”
“Oh wow, so you’re not going to let me watch while you conjure up some fake evidence of our Danny beating Dash up pre-ghost powers?” Sam teased as Tucker set the phone to the side. “For shame, Tuck.”
“Oh look, I’ve just stumbled upon your secret chat with Paulina where you swap music recs and totally don’t flirt with each other!” Tucker crowed as he grabbed his PDA, fussing with it to try and switch the controls for one handed mode.
“That doesn’t exist!”
“You sure? Because I’m seeing that you texted her during class—which naughty, naught, Sam! You’re supposed to be the good kid of us three—and you recommended Moi dix Mois to her! Getting into some Japanese Rock are ya, Sam?”
“You’re bluffing. There’s no way you have my texts.”
Tucker smirked as he slipped into their old elementary and middle school’s records. “Oh, look at you guys planning a little date! Did you finally get the balls to ask her out, Samantha?”
At her spluttering, Tucker could imagine just how red her face was going. “It’s not—I’m detoxing her from the A-Lister’s bullshit! This is an important mission to help restore the ecosystem of Casper High and make it safer for everyone involved!”
“Ah, so not a date then.” Tucker pulled Danny’s discipline records into a single PDF, saving it and adding it to a text to send to Sam as he started rooting through their ‘evidence’ folders. “You know, this is actually really cute convos. I’m sure it’d really heal the divide between the popular kids and us nerds if people saw just how close you two are.”
“Tucker Ivory Foley, don’t you dare—”
“You’re right, that would be mean of me.” Tucker smiled as he found the video he’d been looking for. He copied it into the text, pretending to gasp as he hit send. “Ah shit, I’m so sorry, Sam. I think I just accidentally sent your text history to the entirety of Casper High.”
A tinny ding reverberated through his phone, and Tucker had the joy of switching out his PDA for his phone just as Sam’s panic drip into annoyance. “You’re a fucking bastard, Tucker, and I am cursing you and your entire bloodline for the shit you put me through.”
“I love you, Sammy-poo!” Tucker said, a teasing lilt to his words as he smiled brightly at the screen.
Sighing, Sam grumbled a reluctant, “I love you too, you dick. Now let’s check out this fucking video…”
It’d been the last fight Danny had ever gotten into with Dash—and the only one the school had caught on security camera. The memories were hazy, the kind of hazy that came from something being far enough in the past and not remembered often enough. Before Dash had hit his growth spurt, he’d been a short kid. The stout kind whose baby fat clung to them like life depended on it. He’d been bullying Tucker about something—maybe playing with his PDA again? Tucker couldn’t quite remember and the video didn’t capture the words so it just looked like Dash talking to Tucker from the outside.
“Holy shit!”
Tucker chuckled. Sam must have gotten to the blur of Danny jumping onto Dash’s back, grabbing him into a chokehold and wrestling him to the ground. Younger Danny had always had a viciousness to him, a ruthlessness that he’d tempered after this incident. Closing his eyes, Tucker could imagine the awe and slight fear he’d felt when Danny had just kept punching Dash in the face, sitting on his chest and pinning his arms with his legs. He hit with far too much force for a 10 year old, and his knuckles bled as badly as the broken tooth and smashed nose Dash had ended up with.
When the teachers had finally come to break them up, Danny turned to Tucker with the softest sort of gaze, asking him, “are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
Maybe that was when Tucker had fallen in love with his best friend.
“Okay so that’s why he started out freakishly good at just beating up ghosts,” Sam said, running a hand through her hair. The purple had nearly faded to a blonde. She’d have to redye it soon. “Ancients, okay, so Danny has been holding out on me. You’re sure he didn’t just do martial arts as a kid?”
“Absolutely positive. You can see in his record just how many times he got in trouble for bringing a knife to school.”
“He brought knives to school?”
“Yeah, and he was freaky good with them.” Tucker hummed. “Maybe we could make him some anti-ghost knives. Or like ectoplasm based knives? He used to love his knives so I think he misses them.”
“Okay, focus, Tuck, you’ve convinced me.” Sam shifted on her bed. “Okay, so Danny and his twin brother are secret assassins and their dad is Bruce Wayne who is Batman. Sounds like you guys have a pretty easy way to get Danny into like Witness Protection or whatever the fuck the Justice League does for runaway ghost kids like Danny.”
Tucker winced. “Well…”
“Well, what?” Oh, Sam’s glower was back. “Tucker if you’re holding back on me, I swear to the Ancients—”
“So it’s actually pretty complicated?” Tucker shifted, earning a whine from Danny which he quickly shushed. Once Danny settled back into sleep, he continued. “I mean, Danny seems pretty convinced Damian is gonna kill him, but Duke trusts Damian so I’m not sure if it’s a misunderstanding or what’s going on there. Plus, Danny doesn’t know that Batman is Bruce Wayne.”
Oh, the men Sam could kill with the look she leveled at Tucker. “What.”
Had she been getting lessons from his mom? That had to be how Sam had learned to instill such primal fear in Tucker with one word. “Okay, so like, Danny thought that Damian was still part of their like Assassin cult thing so he doesn’t know that Damian Wayne and Damian his twin brother are the same person. On top of that, when I asked him who his dad is, Danny said his dad was Batman, not Bruce Wayne so I think he doesn’t know that Bruce Wayne is Batman.”
“But you’re going to tell him, right?” Sam asked, raising a damning eyebrow.
“Of course!” As if Tucker would keep information like this from Danny. “Just… I don’t know how much he’s gonna trust Batman if he knows that Damian is working with him. Plus like, I’m still dealing with the fact that like Duke’s definitely a superhero too because like once you get one of them the dominoes just keep falling and like things are just rough, Sam.”
Maybe Tucker sounded the correct kind of desperate, or maybe Sam realized that her best friends needed her softest side at the moment. Either way, Tucker could have cried at the way her eyes gentled. “Yeah. Tuck, did… I don’t want to like bring up bad memories or anything but I never got out of Danny just what happened that made you guys leave.”
Oh. Tucker’s throat closed up, tight and constricting as the tang of iron and ectoplasm filled his nose. He took a deep breath. “The Fentons found out.”
Terror and devastation crumpled Sam’s face. “Oh Tuck—”
“I… it was bad, Sam. Really bad.” He looked away from the phone, unable to stand the intensity of Sam’s eye contact. “I just… I think Danny’s in a really fragile place right now, and it’s pretty hard to find people to trust. So I’m going to tell him just… not right now. I gotta figure out how to let him know without fucking up his trust in Duke. We don’t have a lot of people we can turn to right now.”
The conversation lulled into silence. Tucker kissed Danny’s head, a tiny reassurance as he tried to forget.
“… we’ll figure it out, Tuck.”
He nearly wanted to laugh at how sure Sam sounded. “Yeah.”
“I’m serious.” Tucker dragged his eyes back to the screen, watching as Sam put on her most determined face. “We’ll figure everything out. I’ll work on getting the portal closed so we don’t have to worry about ghosts in Amity, and we’ll tell Danny together, and we’ll make sure his dick of a brother doesn’t actually try to kill him.”
“I’m pretty sure you can’t take an assassin in a fight, Sam,” Tuck said, though eh couldn’t stop the smile that pulled at his cheeks.
Rolling her eyes, Sam crossed her arms and jutted her chin up. “You don’t know that. How do you know that I haven’t already beaten Damian Wayne up?”
“Have you?”
“No, but I’ve been fighting ghosts with you guys for the past semester so I think I can take an assassin at this point.”
Tucker laughed, tears welling up in his eyes as he smiled at the screen. “You’re the best, Sam.”
“You know it. Now I gotta go, my mom’s been trying to call me for like the past half hour and Grandma can only cover me so long. Tell Danny I love him when he wakes up.”
“Will do—good luck with the Prep Monster, Sam.” Tucker lifted the hand under Danny up enough to wave as Sam hung up. Heaving as big of a sigh as he could, Tucker let the phone fall to the bed as he shifted.
“Did Sam alr’dy hang up?”
“Danny!” Tucker turned as Danny squirmed, wincing as he tried to rebury himself in Tucker’s side. “Did I wake you up?”
Humming, Danny turned his half-lidded eyes up to Tucker. “Mm, no. Knee aches.”
“Do you need more pain meds?” Tucker pulled away, ignoring Danny’s indignant whine. “We can try the new ones that Duke’s friend brought over.”
“Please?” Oh it had to be bad if Danny was actively asking for pain meds. Tucker reluctantly stood up from the bed, heading over to the water pitcher that Duke had settled on the dresser. Pouring a cup of water, Tucker looked over the label of the pain medication as he tried to figure out Danny’s dose.
“I’m sorry.”
Tucker didn’t look up from the pill bottle, shaking out two larger than average pills. “What for?”
Danny didn’t respond right away, and Tucker turned to see him shifting in some attempt to get his aching body comfortable again. “I don’t know. Everything? Getting you stuck in this situation with me. Making you take care of me. The fact that I have a crazy assassin brother and that my dad is Bruce Wayne apparently.”
Tucker froze. “You heard that?”
“Just the last bits.” Danny reached his hands out, and Tucker mechanically gave him the pills and the water. Danny, the freak, downed both pills dry before following it with two big gulps of water. “How much you wanna bet that Duke is Signal?”
“Danny—”
“It’s okay, Tuck.” Danny smiled, though his face still twisted up in pain. “I probably should have figured it out sooner with how much Sam complained about Damian Wayne being a pain in her ass at that gala she went to two months ago. I guess I just got too comfortable.”
Tucker let out a breath as he slowly crawled back onto the bed, opening his arms and letting Danny practically throw himself on top of him. “Hey at least we have an easier way to contact Batman, right? Once you’re feeling better we can just march up to Wayne Enterprises and be like Congrats! It’s a boy, please grant us protection from the Fentons and their crazy bullshit.”
Danny choked out a laugh, burying his face in Tucker’s shoulder.
Tucker’s heart melted as he kissed Danny’s temple. “There’s my giggly ghost.”
Danny pulled back, cradling Tucker’s face as he dropped a slow, sweet kiss on his lips. “I love you, Tuck.”
Smiling, Tucker gently squeezed Danny’s waist. “I love you too, Danny.”
As he dropped his face back into Tucker’s shoulder, Danny mumbled, “can we discuss how batshit my bio family is later?”
“Of course.” Tucker ran his hands up and down Danny’s back, settling into the bed. “Go back to sleep, my paranormal paramour. We can talk more in the morning when you’re feeling better.”