Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His feet were tingling, almost itching from the pressure bearing down on top of them. He had been sitting cross-legged on the floor too long. It didn’t really matter though, did it. His hands rested on his knees, palms up toward the ceiling. His fingers twitched when the fuzzy pain in his legs crescendoed. His eyes were closed, head and upper body tilted back, resting in the corner of the room.

He had been alone for too long. It had been too long since someone had come inside his room, had taken him out, had removed him to- he was alone. It was almost peaceful. It was quiet. It was the longest chance he had to rest since he had been taken, but with apprehension starting to crawl into his mind like a half-dead animal at the side of a road, he couldn’t sleep. All he could do was curl himself up in the corner and try to breathe as deeply as he could. 

Slowly, the descent taking minutes upon minutes, a lock of black hair fell down his face, landing squarely on top of his eye. His face scrunched, a knee-jerk reaction. He blew an annoyed breath up, pushing the hair up and to the side. His hand jerked up, pushing the long greasy lock to the back of his head. 

It had to have been months since he had a proper shower and weeks since he had gotten dirty enough to get hosed down. Benefits of living in an almost completely sterile environment. Of course, it wasn’t perfect. In his room, the walls were steely gray, presumably of some thick, blast-proof metal. A small alcove in the corner had a miserable little bathroom. 

His toilet was thick plastic, his sink no more than a dribble out of a faucet that drained in the floor. When he got too tired of the grease in his hair, he would try to rinse it under the pitiful flow. It did little in terms of cleaning, but it helped him feel a little better. 

He supposed that he was great evidence of human adaptation. At the beginning of high school, he probably would have died if he had been kept confined like this. Now, he didn’t even know how long it had been, how old he was, if his family and friends were looking for him. Did they even know he was still alive - well, at least out there. Danny hadn’t been alive in a long time. 

This had become his new normal. In a room, a sterile lab, a dissection table. Constant experiments, scientists poking and prodding and trying to figure out how he was still moving, still alive even as they had evidence of his death. 

Danny had to have known that once the GIW captured him, it would all be over. 

At first they were satisfied with prodding around his ghost half, at first they were satisfied with removing limbs and organs and blood and watching it all grow back again. At first Danny could handle that pain, handle being pinned down and tortured. 

It was only a matter of time before his ghost half gave up, fell down, disappeared. The scientists weren’t even horrified when they learned they were experimenting on a boy, a teenager, someone whose heart was still beating, albeit sluggishly. 

The experiments shifted in nature. What did it take for Danny to switch between forms? What was the biology like, what discrepancies were there? There was a pattern to it all. Danny needed energy either of the ATP variety or the ecto variety to remain in ghost form. The scientists would provide the energy, Danny would transform (After all, his ghost half was much more resistant to lasting damage and he was a scared kid, terrified of dying a full death then being erased by the scientists in their desire for knowledge). They would do whatever they wanted and could to him, sometimes the same things over and over, recording the data. Then Danny would de-transform. 

The GIW did nothing to him while he was human. He supposed they only observed how he reacted to varying situations. It took him far too long to notice this pattern. Well, he was under a lot of physical and psychological stress. The tiny Jazz in his head told him that it was okay that his brain was functioning slower in this environment, stuck on survival mode and not observation and extrapolation mode. Danny’s survival brain called him an idiot for letting this go on longer than it should have.

Before he had the chance to capitalize on this development, Danny was moved. He didn’t know why, or when, or really how long it had been or how long they had traveled. All he knew is that a few scientists and agents had rushed into his room (back then it had been smooth white resin floors and plain white walls) stabbing him with a tranq before he could fight back. He woke up in the back of a truck, chained to the wall and bench with ecto-proof green chains, surrounded by agents. His hands were locked closely together and a muzzle rested over his mouth, locking his jaw shut. 

It wasn’t his first time experiencing the muzzle or the chains. It was unpleasant to realize they were going somewhere far enough away that they had to tranq him twice. 

It took Danny a while to learn that the new facility was a bit smaller. It seemed more discreet. The experiments were new. They exposed Danny to crazy substances that his ghost half shouldered with ease, but his human half collapsed under. 

Sometimes he was stuck, laughing and laughing and laughing until he could barely breathe. Sometimes he was stuck in hallucinations so real that he was convinced he was in the experimentation room, watching his family subjected to the horrors he lived through, watching his world crumble around him. 

He always had to transform into his ghost half to shake off the effects. One time he couldn’t do it fast enough. A scientist had to rush to inject him with something. Danny had long since stopped trying to escape. The ghost shields were always up, covering every doorway, every entrance or exit. They ran through the walls, making everything phase-proof. The punishments made the attempts worthless. That night - or the next morning, he couldn’t tell - was the first time Danny tried to escape in the final way he knew how. 

He grabbed the security guard who provided him with his regular dose of ecto or a meal. He knocked the man out and stole his weapons, both the regular and ghost ones. Danny took a military knife to his arms, and pressed the ecto weapon to the side of his head. He brought in a shuddering breath, ignoring how the blood coating his arms, his hands, his shaky fingers, made everything slippery. In the seconds before he pulled the trigger, his room was swarmed with security. 

Danny didn’t stand a chance. He was too valuable, too rare, to lose. 

He was disarmed, pinned, taken care of medically, hosed off, held in the experimentation room for a long time. Danny was placed into a new room. Bare, unfurnished, nothing inside that he could use to end himself. 

The GIW’s little halfa, the most powerful ecto-entity they had. Danny knew that had a few blob ghosts, but the blobs didn’t manage to last very long. They also managed to contain an ectopus for a short while, but it didn’t hold up to the rigorous testing. Danny was the only ecto-entity they held at this location. 

His resilience must have fascinated them. It didn’t matter. Danny wasn’t going to go along with their little song and dance anymore. 

He stopped transforming for them, refusing under any circumstance to reveal his ghost side to them. He had thought before that it kept him safe, being undead during their torture, but it was the ghost they wanted to study, not the poor, depressed teenager. 

They did their best to force him to transform, attempting to push his human body to its limit. Danny had stopped caring. He just wanted his torment to end. 

The GIW started using the gases, the odd substances to try and push him to transform. Danny endured terrifying cackling and chilling hallucinations to the very last moments before the scientists would run in, panicked, and jab him with the antidotes. 

Now it had been what seemed to be a few weeks, maybe even a few months, of bland nothing. A guard would bring him food, normal human food. He would drink from his drippy little faucet. He would try to rest. 

How long would this reprieve last? What would they do to him next? What was in store for him? How much longer would his pathetic existence continue? 

Why didn’t anyone save him? Why did no one seem to care? Why did it feel like he had just vanished from his life, no one to witness what a tragedy he was. 

Because he was a tragedy of the most pathetic form. He had been losing from the start. Danny didn't think there was ever a point when he was not fighting that hopeless battle. He might have been unaware of it, but with the hand he had been dealt, he never would have gotten out unscathed. 

His parents were almost as obsessed as the creatures they were determined to study, so much so that their children were left unattended. Danny was lucky in some ways that the accident he was a part of brought him back. He had to assume that there was a very real chance in his neglected childhood that he messed with something that would have ended him permanently. 

His schoolwork was pathetic. He had been okay, but once high school hit, Danny was revealed as the stupid child he really was. There was nothing in his future. There was no hope of becoming an astronaut, no hope of getting any real job as an astrophysicist, an engineer, none of his dreams would even pan out. Danny was a failure. 

Once he died, well, all it did was seal the lid on his tragedy in a bottle. Dead. Dead but alive. A monster, in between life and death. Walking a tightrope, never quite on the right side of the line. Enemy to everyone. Humans hated him, ghosts attacked him, even the other halfa tormented him. 

The ghost attacks were just another losing battle. Always a few steps behind, always winning by the skin of his teeth. Relentless. That was the word best used to describe the other side. He couldn’t sleep, he could rest, he couldn’t stay in school. All he had time for was fighting ghosts and making excuses to his parents who weren’t even there all the time. 

Then the GIW entered the picture. Danny’s doom, Danny’s torment, Danny’s downfall. At first they were a joke, incompetent and useless. He avoided them, ignored them, failed to notice as they got stronger and smarter. 

Danny’s friends were a bright spot in his tragedy, but they only made his unhappy ending far worse. The darkness never seems quite as dark until it is compared with brighter things. He dragged them into the fight, got them hurt again and again, put them into dangerous situations, even harmed their schoolwork sometimes. And in the end, they weren’t powerful enough to save him. 

He hoped their lives flourished now that he wasn’t there to stain them with his pitiful existence. 

Because the death knell rang on his tragedy the day he was captured. His story was as good as put to rest the second they trapped him behind those ghost shields. They made him weaker and weaker. The chances of his escape got slimmer and slimmer until he had no chance at all. 

It was fine. Danny had long since settled with the fact that he was going to die here. Maybe he would get to fade away somewhere else, pass to the great beyond in peace. Probably not, but it would be quick either way. He would probably be less stable as a full ghost. He would probably succumb to the cruelty within weeks. Just like the blobs and the ectopus, unable to withstand the torture. 

His eyes flickered as he heard voices. It sounded like the scientists were coming by to look in. They did so often. Probably to make sure he didn’t hurt their precious little experiment with anything they had missed from his stripped room. Still, he carefully scooched along the wall towards the door to make out what they were saying. 

“Phantom can work through any aersolated chemical weapons. Do you think there’s a chance he can work through injected forms?”

“I think it's better to inject it into various other ectoplasmic creatures and examine the results before we judge if it’s safe enough. Phantom is probably the only one of his kind. I don’t want to risk extinction because you were too hasty.”

“Venom isn’t always lethal. There are plenty of human results to look through. The only question mark in the equation is ectoplasmic reaction. Especially that of an established humanoid ghost. They are far more powerful than anything else we can keep long enough to experiment on. So who is to say that the observations will pass through ectoplasm the same way?”

“We are not risking it without further testing,” Said the first scientist in a firm voice. 

Danny let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He locked eyes with the two men looking in through the slats in his door. Once the scientists were sure of his continued existence, they departed again. Danny kept an ear on their continued bickering as they passed down the hallway then out of range for his heightened hearing to catch. 

He wished again that he could break the plexiglass in the slats of his door, that he could reach and stretch his hands an impossible distance to swipe a key card that he had no access to and open that door and set himself free. It was a hopeless dream, like any other wisp of desire to escape. This was his end. This was his destination. 

He may be safe from more experimentation for now, but soon enough the GIW scientists would become impatient and risk his life once more for their agenda and desire for knowledge. He wished he could shout, wail his sentience to the heavens. He wished that the Justice League would have heard his pleas for help, especially when everything was still new. He wished he knew why Amity had been thrown to the dogs and he had been thrown to the scum of the earth. 

He wished he could have killed them all before they learned to muzzle him on the experimentation table. He was scared that he wanted them dead. He wondered how much longer he could do this before he lost his humanity. He wondered if they would kill Dan just as easily as they seemed to be killing him. 

But he wasn’t all dead yet. He wasn’t all dead yet.

Chapter Text

The interesting case came from Tim, which is where most of the more interesting cases seemed to come from. Bruce tilted his head a little as he heard Tim’s odd gait on the steps down to the Batcave, just enough to see his face. The bruises under his eyes and the slightly sluggish nature of his walk told Bruce that Alfred had hidden all the coffee.  

“Alfred cut you off?” Bruce said in lieu of a proper greeting. 

Tim laughed, a laptop that was balanced on one of his arms wobbling crazily. 

“He got rid of a bunch of my stashes.” Tim said, a manic gleam to his eye, “But it hasn’t stopped me yet.”

Bruce watched as Tim stuck his hand into a smaller crevice in the wall that he hadn’t really noticed, pulling out a tall energy drink can. Tim cracked it open with one hand, chugged the entire contents, then threw the garishly bright aluminum into a nearby bin. He didn’t even flinch. Bruce’s mouth twisted in mild concern for his third child. 

He eyed the laptop with hesitation. It meant Tim was about to present him with one of three things: A funny internet meme/video, an oddly accurate conspiracy theory, or a serious case that demanded immediate action. 

“What do you have?” Bruce asked, nodding toward the laptop. 

Tim glanced down at it, expression briefly confused like he had forgotten why he had come down in the first place. Realization dawned quickly and he hurried over to Bruce’s side, setting the laptop down on the desk. Bruce turned away from the Batcomputer, full attention on Tim’s, now serious, face. 

“Alright. I was doing a thing where I was double-checking the listings of all the abandoned or unused warehouses in Gotham because almost all of our villains have a warehouse somewhere that they own or use. It figured it could help out with the early alert thing that Babs is working on. Anyway. I was getting Jason to check some in Crime Alley since he doesn’t like us interfering and all that, and it was all clear. But there was a smaller warehouse, recently bought, right on the edge of Crime Alley, although I think technically it’s outside of Jason’s jurisdiction. Anyway, it’s really close to two warehouses that we suspect are being used for Joker gas production and Scarecrow gas production respectively.”

Bruce blinked, processing through the extra information Tim was spitting in his sleep-deprived state. There was a warehouse that was under suspicion because it had proximity to two villain production places that they already had under surveillance. Got it. 

“The warehouse buyer was unlisted and I couldn’t dig up anything on it. Like, super encrypted and hidden. I even got Babs to take a swing at it and she kept hitting a wall. That was pretty suspicious. So I decided to go take a look in person, and there was a lot of security hidden around the place. Like if you walked past it on the street, a normal person wouldn’t look twice, but If you know what you’re looking for, the place is crawling. There’s a couple of weird things, but one thing is that the place doesn’t have any cameras. Like, nothing at all. And all the security wears is white suits. Like pure white. Which sounds like a horrible idea in Gotham, but I wear bright red so… I guess I can’t judge too hard.”

“Tim,” Bruce said firmly, effectively cutting off the rambling, “Is there any real suspicious activity, or is it just weird.”

“Oh yeah,” Tim clicked a couple of buttons on his laptop, switching to a picture of two men in white suits accepting a box from someone who was outfitted in a Joker goon getup. “I caught pictures of them doing a deal. Here’s the thing though,” Tim looked at Bruce, “They’re only buying small amounts of Scarecrow and Joker gas, and they’re also purchasing antidotes for the amounts they’ve already bought. They have to be incredibly well funded, because those antidotes are not easy to get.”

Bruce nodded, thinking for a moment. 

“What does your gut say?” He asked Tim. 

Tim paused for a moment to assess, “I don’t know.” He responded quietly, “I don’t like it because it doesn’t really make sense.”

“I’ll ask Babs to add surveilling this warehouse to the patrol schedule. We’ll keep someone on it for a bit. See if we can figure anything more out. Then we’ll raid. Sound good?”

Tim nodded, “Thanks, B.” and he made his way back out of the cave. 

Bruce watched him leave then shook his head. These kids were going to either kill him or themselves, whichever came first. 

—

Tim shifted on the rooftop, the gravel and concrete combo digging horribly into his ribs. His binoculars were pressed into his eyes as he watched the deal go down. An earpiece in his ear fed him the choppy audio. 

“One vial of venom.” The dealer grunted, just barely audible over the slight wind that was blowing through the streets. 

“Do you know if narcan helps just in case of overdose?” A woman in a white coat asked. Tim tried to place her accent. It was pretty obviously not local. 

The dealer shifted on his feet. Tim was pretty sure he was rolling his eyes, but he was looking at the man’s back. 

“I dunno. Do your own research.”

The woman smirked in a way that set off all the alarm bells in Tim’s head. 

“I assure you,” The woman said, “We will.”

The people in white went back inside. The dealer skulked back down the street, disappearing down an alley. Tim sent someone after the dealer, just to see if they could track down the venom manufacturing that had recently started to take a new hold in the city. 

He watched the building carefully. Over the past two weeks of near constant surveillance, they had finally figured out the pattern for guard changes. Now they were double-checking their work to make sure that when they finally breached the building, they wouldn’t be surprised. 

It was almost time to get up close and personal with the interior of that mystery warehouse and figure out just what exactly that anonymous buyer was doing. Tim couldn’t wait to dig his fingers even further into this mystery. 

“Red Robin, Robin and Batman need backup. Fight broke out with the Venom people just a few blocks West of your location. Here’s the address.”

“Copy,” Tim responded into his earpiece. 

His eyes tracked the last of the guard change, sitting still until all the men had found their posts, then he took off. He would be back soon. 

—

It took another week before they were ready to breach the premises. The goal was not to storm the facility, but instead a sneak mission to find a computer and download any relevant files. This was particularly dangerous because any previous attempts to slip any bugs into the building had failed. The only real knowledge they had was the guard changes on the outer layers. 

“I can do it!” Tim shoved his hand in the air, wiggling it around for extra effect. 

Bruce shook his head slowly. Jason scoffed. Robin shouted some insult that Tim ignored. 

Cass reached up and grabbed his arm, pulling it back down to his side. He let her. 

“I go.” She said, “Smaller. Sneakier.”

“I think you’re a little obsessed with this one Tim,” Dick said, throwing an annoyingly heavy arm over Tim’s shoulders, “At least Cass will get out if she’s in danger. You’d just get tunnel vision.”

He was right, but it didn’t stop Tim from crossing his arms and pouting a little. Bruce cleared his throat, effectively halting Jason who was taking a pass at Tim’s helmet hair. 

“Robin, Red Robin, and I will be on backup in the nearby area. Keep patrols close, don’t stray too far in case we need to pull Orphan out. Spoiler, Hood, you’re secondary. Keep an eye on the city. Nightwing,” Bruce looked over at Dick who was surreptitiously trying to poke Damian in the side and failing spectacularly, “Will you still be in town?”

Dick shook his head, briefly pausing his attempts to bother his youngest sibling. “I’ve got day job stuff. I’ll be keeping an ear on the frequency though.” 

“Signal will be functioning as the reserve. He’s the backup’s backup and will be in the manor, resting. We don’t predict having any major trouble to interrupt this op. Any comments, questions, or concerns?”

Nobody volunteered anything serious. Damian did have several things to say about “Grayson is trying to assault me Father, make him stop!” but it was quickly disregarded. There was nothing left to do but wait for the day of the operation. Tim was going to implode. His energy drink stashes had vanished. 

—

Cass was the quietest of her siblings. She loved their chaos and their loud conversations and soaked in their bold lives. She would never have a loud life like they did. It just didn’t suit her. She loved her place in the shadows, out of the spotlight. 

She needed to be the one to breach the building. Tim was the only other real candidate, even as Damian protested that he was capable, and he was far too close to this case. She worried about Tim (She worried about her whole family, really) getting tunnel vision. If he got stuck in here and had to risk his life, simply to get that final shred of evidence or information, then he would risk his life without hesitation. Cass knew that she could always come back later. 

Plus, she fit far more comfortably in this ventilation system. Tim really would have had to fight to get his shoulders through some of the more abrupt turns. Cass marveled at some of the odd filtration systems she passed. They were really hardcore. She wondered what they were meant to filter, because they looked more than industrial, they were specialized. What were they doing here that they needed personalized air filters? 

Eventually, they seriously blocked her path. She needed to take it to the hallways. The hallways that weren’t supposed to be there according to the blueprints that Oracle had found for her. As it turned out, the mystery buyer who had purchased this warehouse several years ago had made major renovations to the interior. Instead of the wide-open space, there was a labyrinth of identical, white and gray halls. It created quite a disorienting effect, and Cass was sure that any normal person would become lost instantly. Cass was not a normal person. 

Slinking through the halls and using corners as her cover (There were no shadows with bright fluorescents built into the ceiling every few feet) Cass made her way to a tech room. She entered, slowly, ever so carefully. 

There was one security guard in this room full of computers. She caught him in a sleeper hold before he even knew what hit him. Cass draped him on the floor and stole his chair, rolling over to the biggest monitor. Oracle walked her through hacking the computer and setting all the files to copy over to the USB that she plugged in. 

To her surprise, there was a monitor flicking through camera views. Tim had been so sure that there were going to be no cameras, especially based on the outside. He wasn’t too far off. After watching for a minute or two, Cass had seen the same five flicking through. All the images were grainy and flickering, hardly reliable. She had to wonder if the cameras were low quality, or if they just had faulty wiring. 

Cass started to pay more attention to the contents of the rooms that were being filmed. Her blood chilled. She paused the view on one room in particular. A metal table was in the center of the room, buckles periodically attached. Lining the room were trays on metal rollers, about hip height for the average adult. Medical tools were scattered across the trays. 

That alone was not so jarring, but the red and green that flecked the straps attached to the table suggested blood spatter. Cass had the horrible sinking feeling that this was a torture room. It would be one of the cleaner and more modern, but it was terribly suspicious. 

Eyes locked on the screen, she let the feed naturally flow through. She paused the camera again when it landed on an almost bare room. There was one person inside, easily dismissed as he was dressed in white like the whole facility. But Cass looked closer. It was hard to tell, but he looked thinner, smaller than the rest of the staff. He didn’t move, just sat on the floor of the room, head leaned back against the wall. 

The computer beeped softly, signaling the end of the file transfer. Cass watched for just a moment more. Nothing happened. She grabbed the USB and turned to leave. Just as she was heaving herself back into the ventilation system, she looked back at the screen one more time. There were two security guards inside, toting futuristic looking guns and grabbing the person by his arms and shoulders, dragging him from the room. 

Cass quickly tapped her comm. 

“Backup,” she whispered urgently, “Innocent in danger. Maybe torture.”

Her words were short, fell short , of telling them everything she needed to. Cass was briefly frustrated by the lack of information she was giving them. They would come anyway. They would come and help her rescue this person who was in such danger. 

They would turn this information-gathering mission into a rescue mission. 

Chapter Text

“Venom reacted well with the ectoplasm.”

“Based on your observations,” The other scientist said sarcastically, “I think we should be looking at a more complex organism before we grab Phantom.”

“Oh come on,” The first scientist said scathingly, “You can’t keep protecting that thing forever. Someday we are going to have to perform a new experiment. It’s science, sometimes unexpected things happen.”

“Well pardon me for trying to preserve the last of its kind . It is a scientific marvel and should be kept close to pristine.”

The scientists rounded the corner and left his range of hearing. Danny knew something was going to change soon. The scientists had been whispering, often right outside his cell. He doubted they knew he could hear them. Then they would take their precious little conversations somewhere else. 

They had gotten their hands on a blob ghost and the dangerous ‘Venom’ injection they had been bothered by a while back. From what he could catch of their conversations the scientists still had a few disagreements, but Danny knew that soon they would come to a conclusion about what to do with him. This tentative peace would be broken. It would change. Whether or not it would dissolve back to the normal pattern had yet to be seen. Maybe Danny would be lucky enough not to make it out of this one. 

—

Danny stood in the corner of his cell, heart racing as he faced the three security guards. They had learned their lesson and remained unarmed with any devices that Danny could steal and use against them. They only held the muzzle the scientists used for experiment days. 

He didn’t have enough energy to do more than bare his teeth at them. They rushed him, two pinning his shoulders against the wall and the third forcing the muzzle on him and buckling the straps. Danny thrashed in their hold, desperately trying to evade the horrid contraption. It was a fruitless endeavor. 

They dragged him out of the cell, not even waiting for him to get his feet underneath him. His bare toes dragged on the flooring. Danny wasn’t sure if he was imagining the friction burns. He stumbled a few times and purposefully tried to slow the guards down, anything to keep the GIW from thinking he was going to be easy or complacent. It didn’t matter either way. The guards remained emotionless and unaffected, dragging him efficiently to the experimentation room. 

Danny was lifted, almost too easily, off his feet and onto the table. He struggled as they buckled the straps, one for each of his limbs, his head, his torso, his knees, and his hips. He could barely wiggle; he was strapped down so hard. There was nothing to do now but wait. 

Danny often beat the scientists to the room. Sometimes the anticipation of danger was worse than the actual experiment. But the anticipation, the dread, had been building for weeks now, since he had first heard the scientists talk about that Venom injection. No, it had been since the odd peace had started. Well, Danny knew it couldn’t last forever and it was on him that he had gotten his hopes up even the slightest bit.  

The wait stretched on. No one was in the room. Danny was alone. Minutes ticked past and still no one entered the room. There was no ominous rattling of a cart down the hall, no clicking heels drawing his impending doom closer. Nothing at all. Danny was alone. 

He had no idea how long he had spent all alone in that horrible, terrifying room filled with the echoes of past torture, but he started to hear a commotion. It advanced ever so slowly toward him, toward this room. Danny heard ectoguns firing in the halls and shouts and cries of pain. He heard odd thumps that sounded like bodies hitting the floor. 

Danny felt rather than heard adrenaline pumping through his body, filling him with unbridled energy, more than he had felt in a long, long time. His heart was thumping in his ears and he felt strong. He thrashed in his bonds, desperate to get free. He slammed his body around whatever wiggle room he had left, yanking at his shoulders and feeling his ribs pound with every bounce between the strap and the unforgiving steel table. 

The door bowed inward suddenly, like someone had tried to knock it down but wasn’t strong enough. If Danny had been thinking straight, he wouldn’t have been surprised. That door was strong enough to handle a delirious ghost, it could, no doubt, handle a normal attack. Instead, Danny wasn’t thinking straight and he screamed against the muzzle, barely any sound slipping through. He thrashed harder, not paying any mind to the twinges of pain. 

He had to get out . He had to get away from whatever terrifying creature could get through the GIW. 

The door hit the floor and what looked like a person walked in. All black and gray with a hint of yellow and horns poking up from the top of the head. Danny’s vision was too blurry, ears too full of pounding adrenaline to fully process anything he was hearing or seeing right now. (Later he would feel rather foolish that he had failed to notice Batman, but at the time, it didn’t seem like a possibility).

The figure bent over him and Danny watched a very human mouth move. He didn’t hear anything. Instead he kept thrashing and fighting the bonds on the table, trying to shout or plead through the muzzle. Something sharp pricked his neck, the part of him that was allowed the least movement. Despite his fear and everything within him that was fighting to stay awake, Danny drifted off to sleep

—

It was alarmingly easy to cut through the swaths of white-coated security. They all had guns of a futuristic nature that shot beams of light. The light beams had very mild affects on his crew, pushing them back or lightly burning exposed skin, but nothing devastating. Taking them down was easy. 

It was less easy when a smaller number of figures who looked like scientists appeared and started a Scarecrow gas attack. A short order from Bruce and everyone had gas masks on, fighting through the cloud like nothing had changed. 

Oracle, now in the camera system and complaining thoroughly about the ancient technology, directed them as best she could to the room that held the victim. Bruce arrived first, throwing his bulk around to break down the reinforced, locked door. This was going to hirt a little. 

It only took three blows to pop the thing off its hinges and he rushed into the room. A quick scan of the place told him all he needed to know. Instead he focused his attention on the boy. Long, black, messy hair, a thin face and a body that was far too thin to be comfortable. The kid was thrashing from his place, buckled to the medical table. There was a look of abject terror on his face. Bruce approached slowly, hands raised, trying to show the kid that he was harmless. 

He uttered low soothing phrases, trying to come off a little less intimidating. He glanced back for a moment, seeing his kids guarding the doorway but not coming inside. Good. they didn’t want to rush this one. 

He got closer, bending over a little as he came to the edge of the table, trying to make himself seem a little smaller, a little less like a thing of nightmares. It did nothing. The kid’s ice-blue eyes were fixed on him, cloudy in fear. He was still thrashing and Bruce was worried that he was going to tear a joint with his vigor. 

He murmured even more calming, meaningless platitudes. He changed tracks.

“Do you have a name?”

Bruce asked gently. He knew the kid couldn’t answer - no one could miss the horrible contraption they had wrapped over his mouth - but he was hoping for a spark of recognition in those eyes. Nothing. 

“I’m here to get you some help. Nod if you can hear me?”

Still nothing. Sighing, Bruce let one of his hands drop to his utility belt, pulling out the tranquilizer he kept handy. He really hated tranqing people, but if he didn’t there was no doubt that this kid would end up hurting himself in his fear. There was no better solution, especially since Oracle had just warned him that a distress signal had been sent from the warehouse. Babs had done her best to keep it from going out, but it was out there and there was nothing they could do about it but get the kid and get out. 

Tim had made sure the cops had been informed of the location - there was enough illegal stuff on property that they would be arrested for something - but they needed to get out.

Once the kid had drifted off, Batman took a knife and cut the straps. They were incredibly strong and it took a lot of force to get them undone. Bruce wondered what kind of power they expected this kid to pull with heavy-duty restraints like that. He scooped the kid - now terrifyingly limp - into his arms and left the room. 

They left the building almost as fast as they had entered it. The Batmobile was parked a few streets away. Once Batman, Robin, and the kid were piled in, they took off to Leslie’s. Tim was incredibly offended to be kicked out of the car, but had to be sated with his task of calling ahead so Dr. Thompkins would be prepared for them. 

They dropped the kid off with some nurses in the lobby, and now all they could do was play the waiting game. Batman settled in one of the stiff plastic chairs near the door of the clinic. Robin decided to pace the floors instead of demeaning himself to rest when a civilian was ‘under his watch’. Bruce didn’t fight it. The boy wasn’t nearly exhausted or injured enough to be worth the argument. 

—

About an hour later, Leslie came to fetch them. They settled themselves in the boy’s room, preparing to hear the results. 

“Look,” Leslie said in her dry, no-nonsense way, “You won’t get all of the details right now. This patient is still unconscious and cannot consent to his personal medical information being shared. So for now, doctor-patient confidentiality stands.”

Bruce nodded. He expected as much from her and respected her for it. 

“What can you tell us?” he asked. 

Leslie eyed him for a moment. 

“You briefed a nurse as you were arriving. Said you picked him up from an experimentation place and had to sedate him to get him out?”

Bruce nodded in confirmation. 

“This place messed him up.” She said bluntly, “His readings are all over the place and we can’t leave him hooked up to the machines because they start to freak out, even though I’m starting to learn that his homeostasis is… different.”

Well, that explained the lack of heart monitor and other bulky medical tech that usually adorned Leslie’s clinic rooms. 

“There is no telling how the experimentation will manifest. I assume that it will have unprecedented results.”

“Did you happen to get a sample of his DNA?” Bruce asked, “I would love to see if we can reconnect him with his family.”

Leslie shook her head, “His DNA destroys itself too fast to do any in-depth tests. You wouldn’t get any results.”

Bruce frowned, but nodded, “Will you alert me when he’s awake and able to talk?”

Leslie quickly surveyed the boy’s body, “Fine.”

With that, they departed, leaving Leslie to deal with the physical issues. Meanwhile, Bruce needed to parse through some information and create a plan.

—

Leslie sighed deeply as she bent over the muzzle on the kid’s face. They had done all the pressing medical checks and had to ignore the contraption for the time being, but now it was time to remove it and check the jaw and mouth for damage. 

There were strange locking mechanisms and a strange green light strip running through the whole thing. Nothing looked booby trapped or inherently dangerous - Leslie had learned to be cautious with stuff like this that Batman dragged to her - so she hesitantly ran a scalpel over one of the thinner straps. She pulled away quickly, carefully monitoring the kid for any changes. Nothing happened. 

It took only a few minutes to pull the thing off. Leslie wanted to throw it in a trash can and burn it, but instead she bagged it and placed it aside to give to Batman later. He was weird about keeping things like that. She was sure to store it far out of sight of the kid, in a locked drawer in her office.

She spent the next twenty minutes checking the kid’s mouth and jaw for damage from the muzzle. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to have any injuries correlated with long-term muzzle usage. Then, she double-checked all the other results they had found previously. Everything was relatively the same. It didn’t make any sense. 

The kid had a terrifyingly low core temperature and a heart rate so slow that Leslie had thought he was crashing. There was something in his blood that self-destructed when removed from the kid’s body, but she didn’t think it was actively harming the teen. He was a puzzle.

—

Danny shot up in the bed, heart slamming wildly in his chest. He was stumbling to his feet before he could look at the room in question. When his feet hit the floor, Danny froze. That wasn’t his floor. This wasn’t his cell. This was a hospital bed. This was a small room with chairs in the corner and a door… Danny tested the handle and found that it was unlocked. 

There was a woman in the room across the hall, typing something into a computer. Danny watched her for a moment, then poked himself further into the hallway. The door creaked. She looked over and a thin smile spread on her face. 

“Good, you’re awake. I’m Dr. Thompkins. Do you have any pain or discomfort that I should know about?”

Danny paused and let his fingers prod around his body, making sure that he was in one piece with no major holes that weren’t supposed to be there. He wasn’t leaking red - or green - so he was alright. He looked back at the Doctor and shook his head. 

“Your body is currently breaking down the last remnants of a sedative and a general antibiotic. I would suggest you remain in your bed.”

Danny eyed her carefully. Her suggestion sure sounded a lot like an order, but she made no move to back it up, simply sitting in her chair, face lit by the glow of her computer screen. Danny turned around and went back to his bed. 

He had a lot to unpack. First of all, he wasn’t in the GIW facility. Second of all, he had no idea how he got here or why this lady was so nice to him. Like, she wasn’t being gentle, but the lack of obvious hostility was so far removed from his recent memory that it was a shock to his system. 

It was so absurd that right as he had lost all hope, he was no longer locked in that place. Danny was out. He was free now. What was he going to do with himself? Was his family still okay? Were they still looking for him? Was it safe for him to go back to amity like nothing had changed? Would he be captured again?

Dr. Thompkins knocked at his door and entered slowly. 

“I have a few more questions for you. I also wanted to inform you that I know practically nothing about the group that had you. Do you know how long you were with those people?”

Danny blinked. There had been no way to count time. The lights were always on, meals were sporadic at best… He shook his head. No idea. 

“We might need to catch you up on some vaccines then. Alright. Can you tell me your name and what year you were born in?”

Danny blinked at her. She was holding a clipboard with a small chart on it. He assumed that she was just trying to get some basic information, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to hand that out. The doctor looked at him after a moment, eyes skating over his face and tense form. 

“Are you able to talk, or do you just not want to?” She asked suddenly, like the thought had just occurred to her. 

Danny cleared his throat, “I can talk.” He said in a strangled, whispery tone. He hadn’t had a reason to talk in so long he was out of practice. 

“Good,” She said briskly, “That saves me a few tests. If you’re scared, this information will be handed out to nobody without your consent. I take confidentiality laws incredibly seriously.”

Danny wondered whether she would feel the same if she knew the teenager she was talking to technically wasn’t considered human by the government, but he wasn’t inclined to reveal that and risk her good nature falling to the side. 

“Danny.” He said after a moment. He omitted the last name and hesitantly tacked on the year of birth. 

“Danny, do you remember the year you got your last physical?”

She was probably fishing for the last year he could recall before his kidnapping, but the problem was that his last physical had been his last year of middle school and then his parents had become too distracted to take him to appointments every year. Danny avoided it too since his biology changed noticeable and drastically in his freshman year. 

He provided the year of his last physical, “But I was kidnapped in my sophomore year.”

She asked him for the last specific date he could remember. Danny complied. She left the room and came back with a tray of small needles and a note. 

“These are all the vaccinations you need to get. I can wait to inject them until you’re ready. This is the current date and the calculation of the duration of your time imprisoned. You can read that when you’re ready too.”

She was brisk, but it felt very kind to Danny that she was letting him pace this. The sight of the needles, far smaller and less lethal-looking than the ones he was used to, still made him tremble. But he wanted to get it over with, so he held out his arm. Dr. Thompkins talked him through every step, every injection, every little motion she made. 

“I’ll leave you to it.” She said as she swept out of the room, “But I recommend rest.”

Danny grabbed the note the second he was alone. He grasped the paper tight, holding it to his chest for a moment, too scared to look, terrified of what he would find. He looked, just for a moment, then pressed it back to his chest, a breath caught in his throat. 

His tears caught up with him, great hacking sobs leaving his chest. He cried so loud he was sure that Dr. Thompkins could hear him. He was grateful that she left him alone. He was grateful that she was being so kind, even as he was being so rough and mistrusting. He cried as he read over the date again and again. 

The GIW had taken just under two years of his life from him. Two years stuck in that repetitive torture. Two years of not knowing where his family was, two years of not knowing how old he was or if he was going to live to see the next day. Two whole years. His family probably thought he was dead. His friends probably thought he had passed beyond. 

Danny didn’t know how he was going to face them. He didn’t know what he was going to do about any of this. He didn’t know how he was going to continue to avoid the GIW, didn’t know how he was going to get back or even if she should. He didn’t know, he didn’t know, he didn’t know. He was so tired of not knowing. 

Danny cried himself to sleep. 

Chapter Text

Danny jerked awake as someone knocked at his door. It took him several adrenaline filled moments for past events to come rushing back to him. Then he drooped back into his bed, boneless in his relief. Dr. Thompkins bustled in as he grunted just audible enough that she could hear from the hall. In her hand was an I.V. bag filled with innocently clear liquid. Danny eyed it with no small amount of suspicion. 

“This is full of nutrients and minerals that your body needs,” Dr. Thompkins said. “Your body is lacking a lot. I probably should have done this last night, but I also figured you would want the chance to acclimate to all this.”

Danny nodded slowly. 

“Is it okay if I insert your I.V.?” She asked carefully. 

Danny nodded again. Dr. Thompkins walked him through every single step again, and somehow she did it without making him feel stupid for being so suspicious. He was really starting to like her. It was terrifying. 

She left quickly after that and a nurse came in a few minutes later with a tray bearing light breakfast foods. Danny picked at his breakfast, eating everything slowly, but not leaving a single crumb behind. He really hated wasting a good meal, even if it was hospital type food. Still, he had just finished his tray when Dr. Thompkins was at his door again. 

“Danny, there is someone here who wants to see you,” She started. 

Danny tensed up immediately, heart rate jumping too. He couldn’t have been found already! He didn’t go ghost, he wasn’t leaking his ecto-signature because he’d stayed human, he had no idea how the GIW had figured out where he was so fast!

The doctor noticed his distress, “In case you don’t remember, Batman was the one who rescued you and brought you here for treatment. He has some questions and is waiting in the lobby. If you don’t want to talk to him or don’t feel ready yet, I won’t let him come in here. It’s up to you.”

It took him several minutes to get his body back under control. Dr. Thompkins waited patiently, collecting the tray as she did so. Danny considered his options. 

First of all, it was wild that Batman was the one who rescued him. He wondered if the GIW would pull the power of the government to get the big Bat to give him back over. In fact, he wondered if Batman would bring him back himself if he even got a hint that Danny wasn’t technically considered sentient. 

On the other hand, It was really freaking cool that Batman was the one who got him out. Tucker would have freaked out, and even Sam would have thought it was pretty impressive. Danny didn’t know if he could handle the mix of stress, anxiety, and cool overload. Was he good enough to do this? Did he really have a choice in the matter?

Danny spent so long worrying and freaking out about the Batman business that he eventually came back around to calm. Now that he had really thought about it, the likelihood that Batman didn’t know what he was getting himself into was slim, so he wouldn’t be inclined to just hand Danny back over to the GIW. However, even if he was in the dark about all their operations, there was very little chance he would hand Danny back over because of all the work he had put into freeing him (and also because Danny looked and acted like a teenage boy, and supposedly Batman had a heart under his steel exterior.)

Still, he was completely unready and unprepared to talk to the legend. Dr. Thompkins came back in and asked him if he was ready to talk to the big Bat. He shook his head. She nodded and told him that she would shoo Batman away and call him back whenever Danny decided he was ready. He really liked her now. He knew she would fight for him, and that was a valuable thing. 

The next morning, Dr. Thompkins gave him another round of shots. She said something along the lines of finishing off his immunities. After she was done with that, she gave him another I.V. bag of nutrients. Danny knew that he was probably severely underweight. It wasn’t like the scientists really cared about keeping him in peak condition. In fact, they might have discouraged it. He knew that he needed any of the food he could get. The ectoplasm he gained from it would only help his body regain muscle and fat quicker. 

He did feel a bit guilty about taking up a bed. Dr. Thompkins’s clinic was pretty small and he could hear her and her team dealing with other patients right outside the door. There was never a shortage of people to help. Danny did catch on to the fact that very few people needed to stay long. Most needed something stitched or cleaned and bandaged. There were one or two emergency ODs that needed narcan and were quickly sent to a hospital. 

Danny had asked Dr. Thompkins why she didn’t treat them at her clinic. She told him that she wasn’t equipped to handle the commitment of getting someone through withdrawal. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was because he was taking up space here. He , who wasn’t really injured. His only problem was that he was underweight and had just been kidnapped from a government agency. 

Dr. Thompkins - “Call me Leslie” - told him that she just handled more cuts and broken bones and stuff like that to really deal with drugs for too long. She knew enough to handle the emergency, then knew that it was better to hand them off. 

“Doesn’t it cost them too much?” 

Leslie smirked, “Anyone I send to the hospital has their full bill paid by a Wayne charity.”

Danny’s mouth dropped open, “What? That’s crazy.”

“I’ve partnered with those charities for a pretty good amount of time.” Leslie admitted, “They are usually the ones to keep me funded. You know I don’t really take pay here.”

Danny had figured it out. Just like he had figured out that Batman had come by again seeking him out. Leslie was still keeping the big bat off his back, but Danny didn’t know how much longer that was going to last.

Apparently, it was going to last longer than the next day. 

“You’re not getting kicked out,” Leslie started, a foreboding beginning, “But we need to talk about where you’re going to end up.”

Danny immediately started fidgeting with his I.V., picking at the tape that was keeping it in his hand. 

“Do you have any family that can come pick you up?” She asked. 

Danny shook his head slowly. There was no chance that he was reaching out and potentially endangering them. He would need to lay low instead. 

“Do you know anyone locally that you can stay with?” Leslie tried again, persistent. 

It was another negative. Danny knew he was in Gotham, and he also knew that he knew no one in Gotham. He was well and truly on his own here.

“Danny,” Leslie said slowly, “Can I suggest something?”

Danny shrugged. He really didn’t know how to respond. 

“I suggest you talk to Batman. He’s just going to ask you a few questions. He may even offer his assistance, and I really think you’re going to want to take it. Because I’m assuming that the foster system is quite literally a death sentence for you specifically.”

Danny hesitated. He really didn’t know why he was so apprehensive to talk to Batman. He didn’t want the man to give him back, he supposed. But the choking fear that had come the first night was gone. So… it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t just run off. He would be stranded, leaking his ecto signature and unable to slip into the Realms. Batman would probably find him on the streets anyhow, and Danny did need to eat. 

What choice did he have?

“Okay.” he agreed softly. 

—

“A reminder. I won’t let Batman do anything to you. If he does attempt to harm you in any way, I will kick him out.” Leslie said briskly. 

It made Danny feel a lot better, but there was still a pit in his stomach. 

Batman was tall. He seemed to fill the doorway, towering over Leslie and far, far over Danny who was still in his bed. Leslie was not afraid of him, instead she leveled a harsh gaze at him and spoke boldly. 

“If you set back his recovery in any way, you’ll have to patch yourselves up for a month.” 

Batman inclined his head to her and spoke in a rumbling voice that was somehow placating and gentle despite the terrifying gravel. 

“I won’t do anything to harm him.”

“Tell that to him,” Leslie said pointedly, her eyes flicking over to Danny. 

He flinched slightly at being addressed and then again when he realized that Batman’s full attention was on him. It was an uncomfortable position to be in for sure. Surprisingly, Batman did as he was requested. 

“I am not here to harm you in any way. I am simply trying to get a read on your situation and the threat to my city. The second you want to quit this talk, I will give you space.”

Danny didn’t fail to notice that Batman promised nothing of his abandoning Danny, or leaving him completely alone. All he did was promise that he was here to talk and that he would back up a little bit if Danny got overwhelmed. Not an awesome start, but not a terrible one either. He would take what he could get. 

He nodded, a very small jerk of the head. Batman settled into one of the uncomfortable chairs that Leslie had put in the room just for this purpose. Earlier she had smirked at Danny and told him that it was the stiffest chair in her clinic. 

“First,” Batman cleared his throat and shifted in the chair, plastic squeaking as he did so, “How are you feeling?”

Danny blinked, processing the statement for a moment. It was completely odd to him. Batman, sitting here in full vigilante regalia, asking Danny, the classified non-sentient, how he was feeling just a few days post kidnapping from government agents. Wow. What a time to be half-alive.

Danny shrugged. He was in pain, sure, but when was the last time he had felt really normal. His body was constantly aching from the stress he was under, but also from his tired body. He hadn’t gotten to exercise or do much of anything but atrophy in his cell. He was pretty sure he looked kinda like a stick figure, to be honest. Batman could probably guess how he felt, so what a waste of a question. It had been almost two years since he had seen the sun… Figure that out Batman. 

“Alright…”

Was an interrogation by a vigilante supposed to feel so awkward?

“What’s your name?”

“Danny,” Danny answered without much fight. Batman probably could have gotten that off of Leslie. 

“Do you have a last name?”

Danny frowned. He didn’t trust his parents, he didn’t want them, and he didn’t care for them. They must have known that he was the fancy new experiment the GIW had captured. They had such close ties with the organization, they could have gotten him out. Instead they had chosen to leave him there. 

“No.” He responded darkly. 

“Danny, do you know who your captors were?”

He nodded. Batman’s mouth twitched in a slightly downward way. Danny figured that the big man had expected him to elaborate. Well, screw you, you giant furry, Danny wasn’t feeling very charitable or expository, thank you very much. In fact, he was so uncomfortable with this whole thing that he was getting ready to sic Leslie on him. 

“Chum, I promise we’re trying to take them down. If you have any information that might help us, we would love to have it.”

Wow. Danny didn’t know that Batman could go that soft. His voice was suddenly gentle, despite the rasp, and his body language had shifted enough that it threw Danny off. Suddenly he didn’t look so big or terrifying, despite still being both. 

“Ghost Investigation Ward.” Danny answered stiffly. 

“Okay,” Batman nodded slightly, “Can you explain any more than that?”

Danny shook his head. He hadn’t done much speaking over the last two years. He had done a fair amount of begging and screaming, but conversation was lacking in a GIW facility. This was already far overwhelming any sense of normalcy that Danny had. 

He almost expected Batman to get angry. Obviously Danny was withholding information. Batman nodded calmly. 

“Okay Danny. Thanks for your help, that will get us going in the right direction. Just one more thing, and then I can be done. Do you have anyone you can stay with? Anyone to pick you up or take care of you?”

“No.” Said Leslie dryly from her place at the door. “And back up. You’re stressing the kid out.”

“I assume he’s not local. Are you local Danny?” Batman asked. 

Danny tensed and shook his head. 

“The foster system will kill him.” Leslie said in a warning tone. 

“But you’re required to report kidnapping cases to the police.” Batman said softly, standing and pushing the chair back. “Can I convince you to wait on the report for just another day or two.”

Leslie examined Batman for a moment, arms crossed firmly against her chest, posture showing that she meant business. Finally she nodded toward Danny. 

“I’m not the one you have to sell it to.”

“Danny,” Batman turned back to him, “Would you like to continue this conversation, or shall we break for a few minutes?”

Danny felt a rush of relief and anxiety at being included in the conversation again. He really needed that break, if only to deal with his cognitive dissonance. He told them as much and watched them leave the room. 

He had no idea what was going on. He was reeling over how much had just happened and it had literally been five minutes. Now that he was out, the world was moving far too fast for him. Danny curled himself up into a little ball and pretended to shut the world out. If he convinced himself he was in a bubble, maybe he could be ignored for just a few minutes. 

He spent some time breathing, his fingers fixed firmly against his wrist. He felt his body move, his subconscious taking care of all the normal bodily processes. He was alive. He was alive and he had decisions to make. If he stayed here for too long, the GIW would find him again. It was only a matter of time. Time he didn’t seem to have enough of. It was time to hear the bat out again. 

When all three were firmly settled in his room (Leslie had basically put herself in the position of Danny’s guardian for the moment) Batman began his offer. 

“Leslie is required to report unattended children such as yourself if she keeps them overnight. If she is caught hiding you, she will get punished. She has a lot of leeway since this is a private clinic but… her hands are tied for the most part.” 

Leslie nodded along with his explanation, face pinched with emotion. 

“I have a good friend… One who has experience fostering young boys from tough situations. He can step forward to take care of you until you are safe and in a position to take care of yourself. It will keep you safe from the system and will ultimately be the shield you need while we take care of this organization. Now, it is totally up to you whether or not you take this offer, but I highly recommend it.”

Leslie cleared her throat. 

“Danny, I think it's a good offer. You’re allowed to ask questions though. Feel it out. See if it works for you.”

Danny nodded, thinking over the information as it had been presented. It seemed far too good to be true. 

“Who is it?” He asked. 

“The man in question is Bruce Wayne.”

Danny coughed, absolutely floored. He immediately started shaking his head, the whole bead trembling a little with his forceful movements. He absolutely could not go to another billionaire creep’s mansion. Who knew what could happen to him?

“I know Bruce,” Leslie was saying, although it was hard to hear over the wind whipping through his ears. “I can personally vouch for him. You would undeniably be safe there.”

“You just want to keep an eye on me.” Danny spat, the most words he had put in a sentence since he had left the GIW, “I’m an unknown variable and I'm dangerous .”

Batman eyed him, “Are you?” He asked gently, “You’ve given me no reason to think of you as a threat. I will admit that I am concerned for the health risks you might pose from having lived in an experimental situation, but nothing will happen that you are not completely comfortable with.”

“No.” Danny rasped, turning his back to the vigilante, all the while aware of how stupid and dangerous it was. 

“I’ll give you a little time to think on it. But I recommend you also consider the alternatives.”

With that, Batman whirled out of the room dramatically. Leslie shut the door quietly, allowing Danny to have his moment. 

He was acutely aware that Leslie was in a tight spot. He was acutely aware that the second his name went into the system, the GIW would pounce on him like feral wolves. He was aware that he needed to get out of here and run to somewhere the GIW weren’t, like overseas. He was also aware that he had no means to get overseas. He seriously doubted that Bruce Wayne could keep the GIW off of him. Plus, the man likely wouldn’t care enough about his new charge to do anything if he got harmed. The only thing protecting him would be Wayne’s own reputation. 

A chill swept over the room. Danny turned over and felt his stomach land in his toes when he saw the little green sticky note barely hanging on to the wall. He reached out with a trembling hand, tugging at the green paper and pulling it close enough to his face to read the sloped handwriting. 

Brucie Wayne is not as he seems… This is not a bad thing. If you’ll take a chance on him, he’ll take a chance on you.

Danny growled in the back of his throat, ripping the note into tiny pieces and tossing them onto his bedside table. A moment later he felt bad and gathered the pieces up, organizing them back into the original note, irreparable. It was the first ghostly contact he had experienced in far too long. He mourned his anger, mourned that he had destroyed Clockwork’s note. 

The last time he had seen one of the cryptic stickies, it had been in the transport van. It had appeared on the wall across from him for just a few seconds. All it had said was Trust . Danny didn’t know who or what to trust, but he was getting the feeling that he shouldn’t trust anybody. 

The note had been pretty clear this time around. Bruce Wayne would be willing to take Danny in if Danny gave him the chance. He had his reservations, but… did he really have another option?

Chapter Text

Leslie greeted the driver of the car with a warm smile. 

“It’s good to see you, Alfred. Keep the idiots safe.”

“Likewise Ms. Thompkins.” The driver, Alfred, had replied in a very posh accent. 

Danny slid into the backseat, clutching his hoodie around himself. It was a gift, bought for probably about ten dollars judging by the wear and tear. Alfred looked at him blankly. Danny figured that he was probably a little put off by Danny's greasy and messy body. He hadn’t had a really proper wash in a while and his clothes were all second hand. Pretty far off from a trust fund baby. 

“Buckle up Master Daniel,” Alfred said smoothly, not missing a beat and not letting any of that presumed disgust show. He must be good at his job. 

“Danny.” Danny said. He couldn’t stand being called Daniel. He was going to be living with a billionaire, he didn’t need to be hearing Vlad’s preferred name for him also. Danny was for sure going to book it if Bruce Wayne also decided to call him badger. That would just be too much froot for him to loop. 

“Very well Master Danny,” Alfred acquiesced. 

Well… that was easy. Maybe this whole thing wouldn’t be so bad? Or maybe Danny shouldn’t be judging this whole foster situation by one chauffeur. 

He was lucky enough that he was labelled as a John Doe who wasn’t speaking. It was clever to not give a name that the GIW would really be looking too hard for. Although, Danny figured they were going to start parsing through John Doe’s soon enough. The agents got pissy when their prey evaded for too long. 

“Master Bruce and Master Damian will be greeting you.” Alfred broke the silence, “They are quite excited for your arrival.”

“Damian?” Danny asked cautiously. 

“Master Bruce’s biological son. He is twelve and the only one currently living at home.”

Danny hummed noncommittally. 

“The rest come and go, although they will be giving the manor a little space while you settle in.”

Danny hummed again, unsure of what the proper response should be. It felt odd that he was displacing these normal people from their lives. Sure, it wasn’t horrible if they weren’t still living in the stupid mansion, but they should still be allowed to visit. But, whatever. Billionaires are crazy, so billionaire spawn would also probably be crazy. It wasn’t really his business. 

The rest of the ride was fairly silent. Danny respected that Alfred was a man who could bask in silence. No awkward or dry small talk, just the quiet and the scenery of Gotham. 

It wasn’t very scenic until they started getting to the rich part of town. As it turned out, Leslie’s clinic lived in a really rough neighborhood, which really explained all the bullet and knife wounds she stitched up in the three days he stayed with her. 

Eventually, they pulled onto a long driveway. They came to a gate. Alfred did something at a little panel, probably put in a code or something, and they pulled toward a gigantic house. 

“Welcome to Wayne Manor.” Alfred said, glancing in the rearview mirror with a little glimmer in his eye. Danny was going to get murdered here. This looked like a murder house. 

They entered through the front door, which opened into a ridiculously large and lavish (although warm) entry hall. Danny was pretty sure he gasped. The Waynes had a lot better style than Vlad. 

“Welcome,” said a warm voice. 

Danny’s eyes snapped to the person talking, quickly sizing up the big man. 

Bruce Wayne was tall and built. He obviously worked out and took good care of his physique. Although, it was hard to tell behind his soft, navy sweater and loose black slacks. For such an imposing figure, he had a gentle voice and a nice sparkle in his eyes. Danny relaxed slightly. 

“Tt,” The child standing next to Bruce Wayne scoffed. 

Damian was short, spiteful, and obviously took a fair bit after his mother, since he shared only a few features with his father. Danny immediately tensed back up. First of all, this kid managed to radiate displeasure like he was made of it, second of all, that kid had died before. 

And suddenly, Danny was feeling a lot less safe in this house with Bruce and Damian Wayne. 

“Master Damian, is that how you greet a guest?” Alfred chided. 

Damian committed to an eye roll of epic proportions, then stuck out his hand, “Welcome to the house Daniel.” He said murderously. Danny didn’t take the hand. He was pretty sure the kid would do something violent with it. 

“Please excuse Damian. He was homeschooled with his mother for most of his childhood. He has yet to really learn how to put up with people,” Bruce said calmly. “Danny, if you need anything, feel free to ask any of us. For right now, Alfred can show you to your room. Does that sound good to you?”

Danny nodded, mentally noting that he was being asked for his opinion. That was a good start on Bruce’s part, although Damian's past deaths (or at least brushes with death) still had him on edge. 

Danny was comfortable enough with Alfred, though, so he was content to follow the man through the winding halls. 

“Your room has been stocked with bedding and some clothing items, although a trip will need to be made to acquire more. Do you have any allergies, food or otherwise that I should be aware of?” 

Danny blinked. He blinked again, “No.” he said slowly. 

“Lunch will be ready in two hours. Feel free to wander the house and get a feel for your surroundings. Your room has an attached bathroom as well.”

“Thanks.” Danny mumbled. 

His room was pretty massive, with a really nice bed. There was a desk, bookshelf, closet, and a set of drawers. On the bookshelf were a lot of fiction books, although there was a scattering of nonfiction among them. It was a pretty good selection, and Danny saw a few titles that he liked. In the closet and drawers were clothes, fairly nice and nothing terribly fancy. Pretty basic stuff. Danny poked his head in the bathroom. It was fully stocked with linens and toiletries. 

Danny immediately took a long and luxurious shower, dousing himself in shower products and soaps, getting every last drop of sweat, blood, and ecto off. Danny poked gently at the ridges of his scars, carefully peeling old skin and ecto off. When he got out of the shower, he took some time to trim his nails, and with some dull scissors he found in a drawer, he decided to shop off a lot of his hair. 

It left him with a ridiculously uneven cut, but it was nice to have it closer to normal, even if it was still far out of reach. Danny finally slipped into some of the new clothes, tucking the older, torn things into the back of his closet. He never knew when he might need to look homeless. 

There was still about an hour left until lunch was supposedly served. Danny used that time to take a nap. He locked the door and proceeded to crash. He woke up about half an hour past the prescribed time for lunch. Danny groggily wandered out of his room, trying to retrace his steps from earlier. 

Luckily enough, he managed to make it to a giant, familiar, staircase. Now that he was on the main floor, he just had to follow his nose to the frankly delicious scent of the kitchen area. Danny knew that he would not be able to make it back to his room without help. 

The room felt warm and busy, even though Alfred was the only one inside. Danny had the feeling that Alfred knew he was there, even when he hadn’t made a noise, announced himself, or done anything to alert the old man. 

The man finally turned around, presenting Danny with a simple sandwich. It felt like a bit of a letdown, especially considering the tantalizing aroma that pervaded the kitchen. 

“Master Damian has elected to take lunch in his room, and Master Bruce had to rush and take a business call. You will be alone for lunch, but we will gather for dinner. I hope you will join us then?”

Danny hesitantly took the plate and poked at the sandwich suspiciously. It didn’t come to life and bite him, so that was a plus. It also looked ridiculously high quality.

“You may eat in here if you wish, or you may take your food to the dining room. I just ask that you do not run off with the dish.” Alfred offered.

Danny eyed him and took a small bite of the sandwich. He took a moment to evaluate then devoured a huge chunk of his lunch in one bite. His hunger roared to life in seconds. He hadn’t eaten anything so good in years. He hadn’t eaten anything that food shaped in a while either. He had gotten far too used to GIW energy sludge. 

Alfred smiled, a small thing, and turned back to the kitchen. 

“Dr. Thompkins informed me that you are in need of nutrition. Do not be afraid to snack, or ask me to make you something. However, please note that the use of the kitchen and all cooking tools inside will be restricted until I can personally evaluate how likely you are to burn it down.”

Danny snorted a little. Seeing as he hadn’t cooked a meal pretty much ever, he wasn’t too concerned about being able to use the kitchen. But he was a little nonplussed by how cavalier Alfred was about all these things. There were rules, which was nice to note, but there was also a fair amount of free range. Danny could eat the food, as much as he wanted. Danny could not use the kitchen to cook. It didn’t feel like an even trade and Danny felt like he could feel debt brewing. 

For now, he finished off his sandwich and brought it over to the kitchen sink to rinse it off. It was only polite after all. 

“I’ll have you know,” Alfred said in a light tone, almost conspiratorial in nature, “That Master Bruce is not allowed to use my kitchen, and only two of his brood have the privileges, although neither currently live here.”

Danny snorted lightly again. It was almost amusing to picture the great Bruce Wayne being shooed out of the room by Alfred. His little mind picture featured the disgruntled Alfred waving a wooden spoon. It was surprisingly domestic. 

Danny had the nice feeling that he might be able to trust Alfred, even if all the other rich brats in this house would set him on edge. 

He ended up spending the rest of the afternoon perched in a corner of the room and watching Alfred cook. He was partially afraid that he wouldn’t be able to get back to his room. Danny didn’t want to be found by Damian with no adults around. He had a terrible feeling that something bad would happen and he would be blamed for it. Also, Alfred was wonderful company. He made light, unpressured commentary of what he was doing, but he was also unafraid of leaving healthy silence to fill the air. 

It was comfortable. What Danny didn’t like is that Alfred was constantly offering gently for Danny to help with one thing or another. Danny would likely get underfoot and mess something up and then his only ally in this place would be upset at him and then he would have to run away and figure out where to go and… Danny really needed to stop letting his mind run away with him. 

—

Dinner was stiff and uncomfortable to the extreme. Bruce kept trying to talk to Danny. It was horrible! Damian spent most of the meal shooting glares at the halfa from across the table. Bruce was interrogating him and trying to get him to spill personal information. Who cared what his ‘favorite color’ was! Why was it relevant to his stay here?

Danny did learn some interesting and semi-important things. Damian was vegan or vegetarian. Something similar enough to Sam’s diet that Danny recognized it. It might have been one of the only tolerable things about the ten-year-old terror. He also learned that Damian had been raised in a violent home. As in, Damian was far too willing to talk about violence and threaten violence and no kid who hadn’t been in a violent home would be that comfortable with violence. 

Danny also learned that Bruce was hiding a lot of things. He prided himself on being kinda observant and perceptive with people, and Bruce lied. He lied about small things and was honest about big things and frankly, it was very confusing. Danny was really tired just trying to wrap his head around the whole situation. Another important thing was that Bruce really loved his kids… regardless of whether he had actually adopted them or not.

“I’ve got… seven kids. Six of them float in and out. Sometimes they live in the manor, sometimes they don’t. You’ll meet them at some point, but they’re giving the manor a little bit of space right now. We don’t want to overwhelm you.” Bruce said thoughtfully. 

Danny almost snorted. It was far too late with that. He was very overwhelmed. 

Dinner ended with little fanfare and Danny retreated further into the house. He got lost on the second floor and wandered around until he ended up in a small library with an incredible window that showed a large portion of the grounds and the beautiful night sky. The nice part about living further away from Gotham proper is that the sky was a little more visible. 

It was one of the more irritating things about the city. Danny couldn’t see the sky. But this view, Danny could stick around for. 

Chapter Text

If Bruce wasn’t aware that he was fostering another kid, he would barely know there was someone else in the house. Danny was practically a ghost. Bruce just had to wonder if all the odd things he noticed about the boy were a result of his capture and experimentation, or if he just came like that.

For instance, Danny had practically no presence. He was just like Cass in that he walked silently and stuck to the shadows to conceal himself. It was like he was used to hiding. Bruce didn’t want to think about what had happened to the boy to make him that used to fading into the background. He figured that he would want to fade into the background if he had been tortured like that. 

Danny was also silent with his voice. He didn’t join in conversations or ask any questions. And when something was asked of him, he stuck to one word answers. He was cryptic and evasive with those answers as well. As much as Bruce hoped that he could get a little more information out of the poor boy, he figured that it would be a lot longer before he gained that trust out of the kid.

Danny was also terribly moody. Now, this didn’t come as a surprise. Bruce was a foster/adoptive parent of several troubled, young boys. He knew moody inside and out and was usually very good at disarming attitudes purely out of practice. (By the time he got around to Tim he figured it out… Danny was supposed to prove his success in being a 'good dad' but it wasn’t really working with this one... maybe it was because the kid wasn't vigilante-related?). Danny was resistant to all his attempts to put him at ease. 

Bruce was well aware that there must be something else, something underneath the surface that was keeping Danny from getting comfortable in the house. Or he just needed more time. Bruce couldn’t fault him for any trust issues he might have. Trust would have gotten him nowhere. Bruce also hadn’t earned anything from him. Goodness, he had only known the boy for two weeks. 

In those two weeks, Alfred had heard the most talking and seen the most interaction. 

It was fascinating just how quickly Danny had assessed and decided that Alfred was the one to trust. Bruce knew that Alfred was no open book. But, Bruce also understood that he and Damian might be far less approachable than Alfred, so it made some sense. Damian was prickly and Bruce was the billionaire who was in control of Danny. There was some deserved wariness. 

In fact, Bruce might have been suspicious if Danny had given them his trust quickly.

Danny had made it very obvious that he didn’t exactly like it here. He had tried to leave - halfheartedly - twice now. The first attempt happened when Alfred took him out shopping. Danny had tried to wander a little too quickly from Alfred’s watchful gaze. Alfred did not lose him, having shepherded around vigilantes for quite a long time. Danny seemed somewhat resentful, but not combative, at being made to return to the manor. 

The second attempt happened an hour before. Damian and Danny had met in a hallway. Threats were brandished, as well as a knife. Danny attempted to flee from a second story window. It was one of the security cameras on the outside of the house that caught him. Bruce got an alert from the movement and was able to get over there to thwart the escape. 

Damian was currently grounded and pouting. 

Bruce knew that Damian understood that Danny was a civilian and a victim. Damian had always struggled with comforting victims and being a protector rather than a fighter. Damian had always been the sword and never the shield. This difficulty clashed with his territorial nature. In Damian’s mind, Danny was invading his space and making himself comfortable on the other’s turf. 

Now, it was time for Bruce to go have a serious conversation with his youngest. 

Damian sniffed proudly as Bruce knocked and entered the room, back turned broodingly. 

“Do you know why you’re in trouble?” Bruce asked carefully.

Damian tutted, “Because you do not like me threatening civilians.”

Bruce hummed lowly, “So you know… Why did you decide to do it?”

“Isn’t it obvious Father?” Damian asked, finally turning toward him, “I thought you were the great Detective. Figure it out for yourself.”

“I’m sorry Chum,” Bruce said quietly, “I need you to explain it. I don’t want to get it wrong.”

“Do you even need me anymore!” Damian burst out.

Bruce blinked… This was not what he had been expecting. 

“Of course I need you. I will always need you. You’re my son.” 

It was obvious to him… Perhaps he had not made it so obvious to Damian. 

“Then why do we need him? Why do we need another fake son in this house? Why did you bring him here if not to replace me. I know I am not always the best or perfect son, but I…” Damian cut himself off with an angry sound, swiping violently at the tears that had started rolling down his face. 

Bruce knelt in front of his son, resting his hand carefully on the boy’s knee. 

“Damian,” He said softly, “Danny is not a replacement for you. You are doing a fine job and you will never become replaceable to me.”

“I’m sure that’s what Drake thought,” Damian spat. 

“You didn’t replace Tim.” Bruce responded.

Damian scoffed disbelievingly.

“Look,” Bruce tried again, “I offered to take Danny in because he has no one else. I also want to make sure that his quality of life was not altered or damaged in his imprisonment. We still don’t know who had him or what they were doing with him. It undeniably altered his body, so I’m just making sure that he’ll be okay in the long run. If he wants to leave this house and family in a year or so, then I will let him go.”

Bruce sucked in a deep breath, preparing himself to walk further through the minefield of this conversation. 

“And even if I did want to adopt Danny, it wouldn’t change your position here. Damian,” Bruce tilted his son’s head so that they were looking eye to eye, “You will never be displaced by someone else in the family. Not if I can help it.”

The conversation continued on for a bit longer, Bruce repeating his convictions and Damian struggling to accept them. It ended peacefully and with no shouting which was a blessing. Bruce knew that he needed to continue to address that issue before it blew up in his face. Damian struggled with his permanence in his family, and that just wouldn’t do. Bruce would have to inform Dick to be on top of it as well. 

Now it was time for him to find Danny. If he was correct, Danny was with Alfred. Alfred was usually dusting around this time of day, so now it was a mission to find where. 

It was the library. Danny had curled up on a small couch and was watching Alfred twitch a feather duster over the tall expanse of shelves. Danny twitched when Bruce entered the room. 

“Are you okay Danny,” Bruce asked.

Danny shrugged then nodded. It was fairly unconvincing. 

“I wanted to apologize for Damian’s behavior. It was completely wrong and he is facing consequences. Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”

Danny shook his head, eyes firmly affixed onto Alfred’s form. 

“I’ll leave you two to it then,” Bruce said as jovially as he could, “Don’t forget that you can ask me for anything.”

He swept out of the room and up to his personal office. 

Danny was so silent it was frustrating. Bruce was learning little tidbits by the day. Today he learned that Danny was agile enough to scale the side of the house by the rickety trellis. The trellis in question would only hold Cass and Damian, all the other children were too heavy. That also said something about Danny’s weight, which they already knew was a problem. 

They also discovered that Danny was likely middle class before his kidnapping. This was inferred from his behavior while shopping. He wasn’t floored or uncomfortable with the stores and opulence of the diamond district like Jason had been and he wasn’t too upset with money being spent on him. He didn’t exhibit comfort in those places either. This meant that he wasn’t lower class, but he also wasn’t elite. So… middle class. 

It was mediocre detective work at best, but Bruce really didn’t have anything else to go off of.

Maybe a week or two more and then he could introduce one of the other boys. That seemed like a good plan. The kids had enough basic information about Danny to tide them over until they could meet him, and Danny could have a little more time to acclimate to his new environment… It was a win-win.  

Chapter Text

Danny was in need of some new toiletries. It was apparently something that Alfred had neglected on their previous run to the store. It was also something Alfred insisted that he go out for so he could “choose his preferences”. Danny suspected that Alfred was trying to get him and Bruce to get along. 

Because it just so happened that the day this trip apparently needed to happen was a day when Alfred was unavailable to take him and a day when Bruce had nothing to do. Funny, Danny was under the impression that Bruce barely worked. The man was constantly home and almost never had to run off to do business. It was suspicious behavior at best. 

Danny didn’t really want to consider a worse-case scenario. He already had one Vlad, he didn’t need another one. 

“Do you care which car we choose?” Bruce asked kindly. 

Danny frowned and crossed his arms, hoping that was enough of a no for the man. 

“That’s alright. Not a big car fan?”

Danny shook his head. He had no preference for the thing. In fact, the only thing he had preference for were things that were helpful in keeping him alive. Danny could survive without cars, so he had no opinions there. 

“One of my sons is a big vehicle person. He’s the reason I have some of the heavier duty ones. He wanted to see how they worked.”

Danny hunched his shoulders a little under the barrage of words. Bruce seemed determined to make conversation and Danny was not going to answer. Not only was his voice still a little wrecked from the bouts of disuse and then screaming, but he also didn’t have anything important to say when he did talk. He didn’t need to make conversation or get closer to this family because he was taking off the second he was eighteen. 

They got in a car. It was one of the more casual ones, which was somewhat relieving. Knowing that they weren’t trying to grab attention helped. Danny hated being the center of attention.

The car ride was the definition of awkward. Bruce tried to keep silent, but it seemed in his nature to make some kind of inane conversation. Danny just sat and stared out of the window into the foggy landscape. Man, he didn’t think he’d ever miss Illinois, but Gotham city life was bleak. Where was the sun? Literally where was anything that wasn’t gross and decrepit. 

He was being a little critical. They were still in the diamond district after all. It couldn’t be too shabby for all the elites out there who wanted fancy things but still apparently wanted to live in the crime capital of the world . 

Danny really didn't understand or like rich people. 

Eventually they ended up at some kind of shop. It was fancier than most but not as high end as most of the stuff out there. Bruce and Danny wandered into the place, Bruce ducking his head like he was trying to keep out of sight. 

It took Danny a moment to realize that he was trying to keep people from recognizing him. Danny felt a sliver of gratitude at the gesture. Sure, it wasn’t for him, but the last thing Danny needed was to have his face broadcasted for everybody and their mother to see. 

The pair made it to the aisle they were looking for without incident. Danny started snatching the cheapest of everything he needed while Bruce followed after him, looking a little downtrodden. Every once and a while he would suggest something or other and Danny would shoot him a venomous look. Bruce would then shut up and let Danny do his thing. Good… they had an understanding. 

Finally, when Danny had gathered his loot, he dragged them over to the register. Bruce made the transaction, and Danny tossed the items in the backpack he had brought along (look, he may not eat the way Sam liked to, but he sure did listen to her lecture about overuse of plastics and he would do his part.)

Bruce gave him a questioning glance as he was doing this, but Danny just stared challengingly back, continuing to put his items in the backpack. That was when everything dissolved into chaos. 

A small explosion shattered the windows of the shop and others near it. People started screaming and running, most filtering into the wide open streets, others tucking themselves away into nooks and crannies. A sickly green gas started to spread, seeping ominously everywhere it could. Danny didn’t know it was possible for people to sound so afraid. 

This all happened within a few seconds. Bruce grabbed Danny and the cashier, dragging them to the back of the store. He shouted for a few other customers to follow him in their mad dash. Danny twisted a little, freeing himself from Bruce’s grasp. He faced the man, wild fear filling his body. 

“What.” He coughed out.

“Fear gas,” Bruce answered urgently, “Scarecrow’s here.”

The group tumbled out of an emergency exit into the alley behind the store. The others started running, getting as far away from the action as they could. Danny was torn. There was a part of him that needed to be out there helping people and getting them away from this monster, but there was the bigger part of him that knew it was the stupidest decision in the world and that Danny would only get himself killed by trying to help. 

Bruce made the decision for Danny, and they started making their way away from the action. The gas was faster, catching up to them despite how fast they were going. Danny had a sneaking suspicion that Bruce might be holding back. Danny was still weak and slow from his imprisonment, but Bruce was keeping pace with him. Danny rolled his eyes. The man was going to get himself killed while trying to endear himself to Danny. How foolish. 

Danny allowed himself to tap into his ghostly side - just a little bit - enough so that he was running far faster than he had before. Bruce kept pace with him. They had to slow too much to turn sharp corners. It was definitely hindering their excellent escape. They peeled out of the alley and pelted into the street. 

Danny could see a figure above the smoke, wearing something that looked like a sack over his head. They were a little too far to hear him properly, but it didn't matter. A figure swung from the skyline and landed on his head. 

He was pretty sure that he squawked a little at the sight, something between a laugh and a squeak. 

“Good. A vigilante is here. Red Robin I think.” Bruce said breathlessly, panting from his place beside Danny. 

Danny hummed. He vaguely remembered that Batman had a whole group of people that worked with him. There was a bit of a buzz about it in late middle school. It just so happened that it was too far away to catch their excitement for too long. Danny had forgotten. 

“We should keep walking. Our car was probably destroyed and the gas is going to keep spreading for a bit.” Bruce warned. 

Danny followed him, simply for lack of other action to take. At least he still had all his stuff with him. The backpack really was a good idea. Thanks Sam. 

It took about fifteen minutes for Alfred to come pick them up. He was weaning an expression that was halfway between disappointed and amused. He shot Bruce a look that Danny couldn’t quite decipher. 

“Couldn’t stay out of trouble, could you Master Bruce.”

—

Danny was hiding. 

He was often hiding in the house, avoiding someone or other. It was pretty easy. He had started to get his bearings, or at least a sense of direction good enough to tuck himself into small rooms and forgotten corners of this ridiculously large mansion. 

He was hiding because of Damian in this particular instance. 

For some reason, the grumpy child was trying to seek him out. Danny didn’t know what he wanted or why he was being tracked like a hunted animal (GIW flashbacks, really) but all he knew is he didn’t want to be found. And he also knew that their last meeting had gone horrible and taught Danny that under duress, he could climb at frightening speeds.

Damian was also ridiculously good at finding Danny’s hiding spots. Soon enough, he was going to run out of strange places to tuck himself. Maybe it would be better to find Alfred. Alfred would defend him. He had no patience for Damian’s more… vicious tendencies. 

For now, Danny settled a little further into the shadows of his current hiding place. Damian had found him in a number of odd places, like the third shelf in Alfred's wonderful walk-in pantry, wedged underneath a desk in Bruce’s conference office, and even in Danny’s shower. 

Danny had yelped and pelted Damian with every shower product at his disposal, unable to hear what the gremlin was shouting at him. It was frankly, terrifying and a breach of privacy. 

He had a few blessed moments of peace before the door to the closet creaked open, letting a sliver of light come through. Danny held his breath, hoping the pile of neatly folded towels would block him from view. If only he was that lucky. 

“Daniel,” Damian said in a slightly huffy voice, “Please do not run. I wish to talk.”

Danny huffed back, extricating himself from the towels and standing face to face with the child. 

“It has been brought to my attention that my actions were unfounded and wrong the other day. I would like to say sorry to you for any pain my poor emotional control brought you.”

“You’re being forced,” Danny guessed. 

Damian shook his head, “I fully acknowledge my wrongdoing. We have gotten off on the wrong foot. Shall we start over?”

Danny examined the kid, noting his actually pennant posture and the obvious discomfort and guilt on his features. To the best of his knowledge, this was a real and felt apology. And much to Danny’s dismay, he found himself wanting to accept it. 

“Danny,” He said, holding out his hand to shake. Damian looked at it for a moment, like it was a snake about to bite him. Then he shrugged, took the hand and firmly shook it. 

“Damian. I think we shall coexist peacefully.”

Danny nodded emphatically, just relieved that he would get some semblance of peace and personal space back. 

Chapter Text

The Gotham University spring semester was coming to an end, and with it brought one of Bruce’s brood back to the manor for the summer. Bruce gave Danny this warning about a week in advance and made it clear that the whole family knew bare bones information about him and that he wasn’t supposed to be pestered at all, for any reason. 

It was honestly crazy how hard he was trying to win Danny’s trust over. The bad part was that it was kinda working. Danny could already start to feel himself getting comfortable in these walls with these people around. Even him and Damian were chill together, which was a nice change of pace. 

In fact, Danny had sought out Damian and was intending to wear out his welcome by spending most of the day with the younger kid. He was under the impression that all of Bruce’s wards loved Alfred and were hesitant around Damian. It was only logical then, that he stationed himself by Damian to avoid the newcomer. If he spent time with Alfred, then he would meet this college student far earlier than he cared to, and if he hid by himself, there was a chance that a meeting would happen with no secondary witnesses. Not like Danny expected this kid to do anything, but it was always better to have witnesses when there was precedent that they would listen to the other over himself. 

Damian was in the barn, feeding the various animals that he housed inside. Something else that Danny could admire about Damian, beyond his vegan habits, was his habit of fostering animals with the intention of finding them incredible homes to live in. It was respectable that Damian understood that he was not always the best home for these animals. It was also really cool that Damian currently housed a family of peacocks. That was some real rich-people crap if ever he saw it. 

Damian noticed Danny, but said nothing about his silent companion… or to him for that matter. He only shoved food in Danny’s hands sometimes and the rest left him alone. It was a mutual understanding to be quiet in each other’s presence. Danny also thought that Damian was a little jealous of his ability to be silent. 

He had noticed that both Bruce and Damian were incredibly quiet and managed to make themselves pretty unimposing wherever they were, but nothing could beat the silence that death brought. Danny didn’t even have to try for it. It was like he didn’t quite touch the floor, even though he was very firmly human without any plans of changing that any time soon. 

Because the pair were outside, they saw the car pulling up the long driveway. 

“Thomas is back,” Damian sniffed. 

While this was slightly confusing, Danny had learned that Damian preferred to call people by their last names. It made Danny eternally grateful that he had not given anyone his surname, because he would rather die a hundred times over than hear his parent’s family name repeated every time he saw Damian. After all, it did take a literal fight for Damian to start calling him Danny, and he still slipped and called him the ever-formal ‘Daniel’. 

Danny still hadn’t apologized for reflexively attempting to punch him the first few times it happened. When the only other person who called him Daniel was another rich jerk, he got a little trigger happy. He was just surprised that Bruce hadn’t done anything about those incidents yet, although Danny suspected that Damian hadn’t told his father, too prideful to admit that Danny had actually landed a pretty nasty blow to the ribs. Damian was still very good at dodging though, and was learning that Danny was not to be trifled with. 

“Duke?” Danny asked, wanting to make sure he had the right kid.

“Duke Thomas. He is not a formal ward of my Father’s, but his parents are unable to care for him currently and Father is his acting guardian and emergency contact.”

Danny hummed and turned back to the cow, scratching under her chin. Damian watched in approval. Danny ignored a small shiver that ran up his arms. The chill never seemed to leave Gotham until summer was in full swing. Then came the humidity, or so Danny had heard. There was a definite bit to the air. 

Neither boy went inside until it was dinner time. Both trooped in, careful to shed muddy shoes before they could track the dirt in on Alfred’s clean floors. Both went into the kitchen and scrubbed their hands. Both plopped down at the table and glared at the table. 

“Hi Damian. Hi Danny,” Said Duke cheerfully. 

“Thomas,” Damian greeted stiffly. 

Danny just glanced at the new kid, eyeing him warily. Duke didn’t look dangerous or GIW related. Duke looked a little bashful, hesitant, like he really cared what Danny thought of him. Danny scoffed deep in his throat and turned back to his plate. Alfred had already loaded it with all the things he was expected to eat. 

Apparently he was malnourished, but this was too much food. Danny had been eating half of this for practically his whole life. Although he had to admit that after practically growing up on takeout, luxury food was pretty dang nice. He would still kill for some Nasty Burger, but he figured that was a little too localized to pull off. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Duke’s face fell a little. But Bruce walked in and engaged Duke in a conversation about the semester and grades and a bunch of stuff that Danny didn’t really care about. 

—

The next morning, Danny went to find Damian again. To his horror and surprise, he was with Duke, in the family room. They were shouting at each other, threats and jeers and trash talk, over a video game that Danny was not familiar with. Neither realized that he had walked in for a few minutes. It was absolutely hilarious to watch Duke actually squeak when he glanced over and saw Danny in the doorway. 

“Want to join?” He invited, holding a spare controller out to Danny. 

Danny weighed his options. Well, the game looked fun and Danny hadn’t played a video game in two years so… it wasn’t really much of a choice at all. 

He smirked and snatched the controller. It took a while for him to get a feel for the movement in this simple fighting game, but once he did, he began to hold his own against the two other boys. He didn’t join in on the trash talking, but he did let himself laugh freely, especially when he pulled off a particularly brutal win against the other two. 

Yeah, he could get used to this. 

—

Duke was really, really nervous to meet the new foster kid. Duke had honestly thought that Bruce would only foster kids that he was actively training and helping with vigilante business. As it turned out, Bruce would make exceptions for kids actively related to cases. 

Duke got the full rundown of what they had figured out about Danny. He had been kidnapped and experimented on with unknown substances and later rogue weapons for an unknown amount of time. They knew this affected his body chemistry, but were keeping an eye on him to make sure that he didn’t have any other powers or lasting effects. Beyond this, the kid had no family, or at least none that he would admit to. 

Bruce admitted that Danny was incredibly silent, enough that it might be classified as a meta ability. He doubted that this was the extent of Danny’s prowess. He also admitted to Duke that Danny was hard to build trust with and he didn’t know where to start. 

Duke doubted that he would be of any help with Danny. In fact, he was pretty willing to stay out of the manor for fear that he would displace the kid or steal some of the attention that he obviously needed. But the fact was that his lease was up on his dorm room. He already knew that he needed to find another room and some roommates but it hadn’t been inconvenient until Danny came around. 

Danny wasn’t around when Duke came home. This meant that he got the unhindered scoop from Alfred. According to Alfred, Danny was incredibly helpful and respectful and very, very quiet. Danny and Damian had gotten into a few spats but had settled into a… mutual respect of some kind. Alfred told Duke in a quietly proud sort of way that Danny did tend to prefer his company. 

It was nice that Danny had found his people in this intimidating house. Duke knew firsthand how overwhelming everything could be. He resolved to be as kind as he could to Danny and hope that could carry them through. 

Dinner was a bit of a downer to his expectations. Danny scoffed at him, scoffed , and then didn’t acknowledge him for the rest of the evening. All secret mental images of him and Danny clicking immediately were dashed as he answered rote and boring questions about Gotham University. 

It didn’t help that Dick pestered him over the comline for details about Danny. 

“I literally didn’t get a word from him. Wait your turn,” Duke had responded. Jason had just laughed and Bruce told them to keep the chatter off the comms. 

Duke had wandered down into the kitchen to grab a late-night glass of water when he bumped into Damian. They conversed briefly before Duke asked his burning question. 

“What do you think of Danny?”

Damian tutted sharply, “He would be a worthy opponent should he become a warrior. For an untrained child his strikes are powerful and his stealth and awareness are incredible.”

Duke wondered if the so-called ‘spats’ were what gave Damian this very specific information about Danny. He laughed a little nervously. 

“What do you make of his character then?”

“He is sullen. I would expect such after experiencing trauma like he has. None of us have heard him string more than five words together, much less laugh or enjoy something. Since I have known him, there is very little I can glean from his character," Damian admitted, “Although his company is quite pleasant. He is very reasonable with my eating and animal habits.”

Duke was relieved that at the very least Danny was a decent human being, if a heavily traumatized individual. Hey, don’t sue him for being cautious. He clashed with heavily traumatized individuals almost every day. One can’t be too cautious in Gotham after all. 

He and Damian were both up early the next morning, even after the late night. Both were a little antsy. They agreed to duke it out over video games rather than the sparring mats. Duke was secretly glad they did. 

Danny managed to sneak up on them both as they were competing in a very intense death match. (Damian was the far better fighter in real life, but Duke matched, if not surpassed, his video gaming skills). Duke made a very unmanly noise, but offered the amused Danny a chance to join in. After all, what teenage boy didn’t like video games? 

It was worth it after all, to hear the laughter when he won. Danny had a normal laugh, a little wheezy and breathless, but filled with joy. It was almost as good as rescuing victims, to hear Danny laugh like nothing was wrong in the world. Duke could almost find himself committing to do whatever it took to make Danny laugh like that again.

Chapter Text

Danny shivered a little from his place on the couch. He and Duke had begun playing video games together more often. Neither really had anything else to do, and it was a nice way to “bond” as both Alfred and Duke had put it.

The house wasn’t cold, and that was what was bothering Danny. The house wasn’t cold, and the air around Gotham was starting to lose its chill as the summer was fast approaching and yet Danny was still shivering. It was especially disconcerting when Danny brought into account that with his ice core, he usually didn’t react that badly to cold, especially not a light chill.

Nobody had noticed his occasional shivering, or at least no one mentioned it. Of course, Danny was a lot more aware that this was abnormal for him than anyone else was. 

“I am lucky today!” Duke cheered as he beat Danny for the sixth time in a row. 

Danny growled a little under his breath. He wished he could shout insults, but something in his throat was just stuck. He felt stuck. His body felt just a little stiff, and his fingers didn’t feel like they were reacting in time. It was incredibly frustrating. 

By the tenth loss, Danny had had enough. He threw down his controller in an unusual fit of irritation and stormed out of the room, ignoring Duke’s worried shouts from behind him. He stormed past an alarmed Bruce and slammed the door to his room, proceeding to lock himself in the bathroom. 

He knew it was stupid and immature to throw a tantrum over something so silly as a video game, but he couldn't’ displace the feeling that something was wrong . It put him on edge and thus, he was antsy and irritated. 

Danny let out something between a scream and a growl, deep in his throat. He glared at his reflection in the mirror, long hair hanging down by his face and sallow skin stretched over his cheekbones. His eyes flared green and in a fit of both anger and fear, Danny slammed his hand down on the counter. 

A cracking sound split the air, stealing all the breath from Danny’s lungs. Trembling fingers traced over the small crack that was slowly spreading through the very thick and very expensive stone sink basin. No one would know it was there unless they were looking for it, but still the damage brought a sour taste to his mouth. He hadn’t been trying to tap into his ghost strength. He needed to keep his ghost half at bay. 

For lack of anything else to do and now thoroughly morose from his actions, Danny decided to wash his hands. As he held his trembling hands under the warm water, he noticed something off. The suds washed away, leaving his fingertips pale and washed out, almost blue in the bathroom lighting. It was like there was no circulation to his fingers. (it looked like his ghost skin).

Danny elected to ignore it. If his body was just failing to circulate to his fingers or was a little too cold, then his normal movement would fix it anyhow. If it got worse, then Danny could easily assume it was just ghost stuff acting up and act on it then. 

To make matters worse, Duke was hovering outside his room. 

“I’m sorry,” He apologized hurriedly, “I didn’t mean to…” Duke trailed off, obviously unsure of what he could have done that would set Danny off. 

Because there was literally no part of this situation that Duke was responsible for, but he was definitely feeling some guilt. 

Danny reached over and gently whacked Duke’s shoulder, hesitantly, and shook his head. 

“Not your fault,” he intoned quietly, then walked away, leaving a surprised, frozen Duke behind him. 

—

When Danny was feeling unsettled and just out of place in his own body, the best way to recenter himself was to hang out with Alfred. Alfred was the person who was best at not treating him like glass or ignoring his presence. Alfred talked to him quietly, asked him to do tasks, and generally acted like Danny was already a normal fixture in the household. 

As much as he wanted to be alone, it wasn’t the best course of action for Danny. Being alone would make it easier. 

Nice things came out of gluing himself to Alfred’s side. Alfred was teaching him how to cook, at least the basics. Danny liked to putter around the kitchen, stirring things and finding the ingredients that Alfred needed next. Sure, he wasn’t allowed to do anything big in there, and he definitely wasn’t allowed in the kitchen unsupervised, but it was good to be busy. 

Danny started to find that most often, it was the simple things that brought him back into his body and set himself at ease in his skin. Things like taking a hot shower and enjoying the suds running through his shoulder length hair and over his papery skin couldn’t help but remind him that he was not with the GIW anymore. 

Things like sitting in the art room with Damian, scrolling on his new, high-tech phone and leaning against a big pile of dog on the floor. Damian had even convinced Danny to pose for him once since, “I need to practice having live models and you have nothing better to do.” Danny supposed that it was better than the demon child asking him to pose naked, in which case he would have no choice but to smack him and run. 

One day as Danny was exiting the art room, leaving Damian to his artistic processes to grab a snack, he ran into Duke. Duke glanced at him, glanced at the door he had left, and glanced back to Danny. 

“Does Damian know you’ve been in there?” he asked nervously. 

Danny furrowed his eyebrows and nodded. 

“And he’s okay with it?” Duke’s intonation rose, obviously a little uncomfortable or surprised. 

Danny both shrugged and nodded. Damian was usually pretty good at voicing his complaints. Danny was pretty sure that Damian would have already physically fought Danny if he wasn’t cool with him crashing art time. Although… he might still be guilty from the first week… Hmm, Danny would have to check and make sure that Damian really didn’t mind. 

“Wow… okay. Danny, that's really cool.”

At Danny’s blank look, Duke elaborated.

“Yeah, Damian’s really possessive of the art room. He absolutely hates letting people see him sketch or paint, or really see anything that's still in progress. And he’s pretty cagey about letting people see the finished artworks too. I don’t think even Bruce is allowed in there most days.”

Danny hummed. Now he really had to check that Damian wasn’t doing this out of guilt. Out of anybody, Danny really knew how much it sucked to have a safe space invaded. It didn’t make any sense that Danny would have a permission that not even Bruce did, when Danny had known Damian for a little over a month, and Bruce was literally the kid’s father. 

Danny made eye contact with Duke, shrugged again, then walked off toward the kitchen. He did really want that snack, and maybe if he gave Alfred the good ol’ puppy dog eyes, he could get the man to whip up something fast and delicious, and maybe even let Danny help. 

—

His hair was becoming a point of ever increasing frustration and irritation. Danny was getting ready to tear it out by the roots. It was longer than he had ever had it before. It was getting in his eyes and mouth and drying slowly and it was a gigantic nuisance. 

Alfred seemed to notice his distress on a particularly bad day. 

“Master Danny, perhaps you wish to attend a haircut appointment?” Alfred asked aloofly. 

In his desperation, he agreed. 

But there were few people he trusted that close to his head and neck. In fact, Danny knew that the GIW preferred short haircuts, but Danny had kicked, scratched, and then bitten (in that order) The three people who had attempted it. The scientist decided it wasn’t that big of a deal in the long run. 

Danny didn’t want to hurt an innocent, but he also didn’t want his hair to be long anymore. He wanted it back to normal. 

The hairdresser showed up at the manor. It was just a little helpful to know that this lady was someone that Bruce trusted to get past all his ridiculous security. Alfred also seemed to notice his hesitation as she was setting up in a smaller side room. 

“She deals specially with people who have trust issues or developmental issues. She’ll explain everything she does, set up a mirror, anything to make you feel comfortable Master Danny. All you have to do is speak your mind.”

It went smoothly enough. She asked what Danny wanted and he showed her several pictures that were close enough to what he had sported before. She nodded and started clipping away. She was never quiet, always chatting about some inane topic or explaining a new tool that she brought out. 

Whenever Danny felt like he was tipping over the edge of calm, she would pull back under some pretense or other and give him a moment to breathe. All in all, she was very good at keeping him present in his head while not making him feel stupid for needing a break during a freaking haircut . 

Still, by the end he did feel a little foolish for being so stiff and uncomfortable the whole time. All negative thoughts from the appointment were washed away when he emerged from the shower, free from all tiny, discarded hairs with his head lighter than it had felt in forever. 

It was nice to feel normal, even in such an unusual place.

Chapter Text

Bruce gave Danny another week's warning when another of the brood was returning home. Cassandra Wayne was returning from a prolonged stay in Hong Kong. 

Danny didn’t know much about Cassandra. Of all the Waynes, she was the one that avoided the public eye best. When the paparazzi did catch up with her, she was very put together. Danny literally could not find an unflattering image of her online when he did a panicked google search. 

He was not about to engage with an unknown. He needed to gain some information. Luckily he didn’t have to try very hard. Like Duke arriving when Danny was hanging out with Damian, all members of the household started throwing small tidbits his way. 

“Cass doesn’t speak very often. She prefers to use sign language. Maybe she could teach you if that's something you’re interested in,” Duke offered randomly. 

“Cain is graceful. Her ballet performances are nothing to scoff at,” Damian admitted begrudgingly. 

“Miss Cassandra is excited to meet you. She left for Hong Kong right before Master Bruce offered to foster you and was very disappointed at her untimely departure. I think you will find that she is affectionate, but very perceptive of boundaries.” Alfred said in a way that made Danny all too aware of how much the man loved Bruce’s only daughter. He imagined she was the favorite. 

Danny now had some puzzle pieces to play with, but Cassandra Wayne (or Cain as Damian had referred to her) was coming home tomorrow and Danny was still completely unprepared to meet another of Bruce’s brood. 

The day of her arrival, Danny parked himself in a dark corner of the entryway, well tucked out of sight. His goal was to observe without being observed. When she walked through the entryway, bright smile on her face, relaxed, and hands fluttering away with meaningful signs, something clicked in Danny’s head. 

It was something that had been bothering him since the beginning. Something about the way everyone in this house moved, how they talked and what their body language did, not to mention Damian’s odd extracurriculars and his odd liminality. Something about it all had been itching a small part in Danny’s head. The ways their eyes flicked to exits, the way they carried their bodies, the way they seemed to blend in and tuck themselves away in every room they walked into. It went beyond crazy rich people. 

Danny had the exact same habits, although he wasn’t sure if any of them had caught onto it yet. Danny also talked in the same misdirecting way, he also slipped into shadows, walked lightly, and made himself disappear. His eyes tracked exits and his body was always prepared for a fight. 

They were vigilantes. 

Danny melted back into the shadows even more, practically squishing himself into the wall as much  as he could without actually going through the wall. Paranoid, he thought he saw Cass’s eyes flick to his corner for a moment, but she moved on without another look, so he figured he was safe. 

Once she and Alfred were out of the entryway, Danny fled outside to the gardens, getting as far from the manor as he could without going past the property lines. He found himself a nice tree to get lost in and started scaling. Perched in the top of the tree on a branch that probably wasn’t meant to hold anything heavier than a squirrel, Danny finally had time to breathe and think it all through. 

It seemed obvious now. Even the traces of their ecto signature matched up, although he had desperately been trying to ignore anything related to ghosts in recent memory. He had definitely been keeping Damian’s oddly large amount of ecto out of his mind. He had met Batman and had felt the man giving off just a wisp of liminality. Just enough for Danny to sense, but not enough for even the most sensitive GIW equipment to pick up. It just meant that Batman had brushed close to death enough times that he picked up some of the other side. 

Danny was pretty sure that Robin had even been in the waiting room one day and the slightly more concentrated ecto he felt around Damian matched, despite how much he had been ignoring the signs. Danny wrung his stiff fingers, worrying the whitish skin until it practically turned blue. 

He had been trying so hard to ignore all the crazy little signs, he had been trying to convince himself that he was going mad, that the GIW had finally gotten to him, that it was just a coincidence, that if he just ignored it the problem would go away. Now he couldn’t really let it go because he knew who Batman was . Heck, he could probably peg every Bat in Gotham just by knowing who his foster dad was. Oh my gosh. His foster father was Batman.

It… it almost made it easier to try and trust Bruce. They had something in common now, after all, even if Bruce didn’t know it. But knowing that he was an established vigilante (regardless of Danny’s personal vendetta against the League) who had done a lot of undeniable good in the world, helped a bit. 

It made Bruce just a tad more credible. 

It also made Danny slightly more suspicious of his motives. Maybe Bruce didn’t want to hold onto him. He just wanted to make sure the weird, medically impacted, kidnapped kid wasn’t going to develop insanity and become a new supervillain in Gotham. He was probably going to kick Danny to the curb once the case was solved. 

Danny…. He could work with that.

Alas, now it was time to pretend like he had never experienced this particular mental breakdown and pretend that he was okay. (Because who knew how everyone would react if Danny just outed them like that. He might get locked away in some little cage or gaslit or something far worse. He didn’t need to push boundaries, he just needed to move on with as much information as he could gather so he could make the best decisions to protect himself.)

—

Dinner went okay. Cass was nice. She tried to talk some for Danny’s sake, but he could tell she didn’t like talking and was kinda struggling with some words. They switched to sign later in the evening, and from there, Danny was lost. He went to bed a bit earlier than usual. To be fair, he was just closing himself in his bedroom and continuing to follow the Batman vigilante family tree madness. 

He was pretty sure he had everyone pegged, although he wasn’t sure if Cass was Orphan, Black Bat, or Batgirl. Mostly because he was struggling to figure out which one was currently active because he was fairly certain she had been all three at separate times. 

It was also odd how domestic the scene was. It was hard to imagine the dangerous and brutal vigilantes of Gotham chatting and having a lovely dinner together, but Danny had just witnessed it. 

—

Cass stayed away from him for the first week or so. Danny sometimes went around and tried to figure out where she was so he could observe or just get a sense of her. She was almost as hard to find as he was. Given, sometimes she was actually out of the manor and around town, and Danny hadn’t been given that free reign, nor would he really take it if he did have the freedom. 

She was silent enough to rival him. Danny would be suspicious of all her sneaking if he didn’t already know why she was sneaky in the first place. But it was still somewhat unsettling to have someone best him at something he had gotten used to being the best at. 

Duke confirmed that both he and Cass were scary silent. It was nice that the average vigilante couldn’t tell their stealth levels apart, especially because Danny was technically cheating with his ghost abilities, but who was keeping track of that anyway?

When Cass finally decided to track him down, she made it obvious. She asked around and made sure that Alfred alerted Danny of her search. He camped out in the library, a neutral and quite comfortable space, regardless of Danny’s distaste for reading long novels. 

She walked in. Danny heard her this time and assumed that she was making herself louder to keep him comfortable. He couldn’t help but appreciate being able to track her without seeing her. It was a skill that he had depended on in the facility, and now it was simply a means of comfort. 

Cass studied him for a moment, plopping down onto the armchair across from the couch he had curled up on. Her eyes flicked from point to point, head tilting slightly as she took in all the details. 

“You know.” She said in her gentle voice. 

She made it sound obvious, like Danny hadn’t been keeping secrets close to his chest since he was in middle school. Like she hadn’t just pulled him apart with a moment’s attention. 

His eyes narrowed, just for a moment, like a challenge. 

“I am Cass. I am also Orphan. You do not want the others to know?”

Danny shook his head slowly. 

“Then I won’t tell.” she smiled and leaned back. “You don’t like talking either.” 

Once again, it was not a question. She knew. Danny had made this fact perfectly obvious, so he was far less thrown off balance than before.

“I teach you sign?”

It was earnest. Danny studied her back for a moment, sure that he didn’t pick up on half as much as she had in the same amount of time. Cass was gentle above all else, quiet and calm. She didn’t give him any bad vibes and Danny had become experienced at finding out which people were most likely to hurt him quickly. Sure, he was suspicious of the rest of the Waynes, despite them having fine vibes, but people weren’t nice for no reason, so that was a mark against them.

It didn’t seem like a bad offer. Danny did practice speaking when he was alone, trying to get his strangled, whispery voice back to normal before he started using it constantly. Sign language could be a useful skill to have in his repertoire. 

“I’d like that,” He managed, still a faint shadow of what his voice used to be. 

She smiled brilliantly at him and immediately dove into a lesson on some basics. 

—

Danny decided that Cass was one of his favorite members of the family to hang out with. It was helped along by her intrinsic knowledge of what he was thinking. He picked up in bits and pieces, and mostly from Cass herself, that she was a master at reading body language and using it in practical ways. 

Danny wished that he had that knowledge, but from the gun-shy way she mentioned it, it was unpleasant to learn. He wasn’t sure about the full story, but it seemed to be connected to the reason speaking was difficult for her. Because, unlike he had originally assumed, Cass’s struggles with speaking weren’t physical, like Danny’s, they were psychological. It was a whole different ball game. 

Alongside sitting in the art room with Damian, cooking or cleaning with Alfred, and playing a video game with Duke, Danny figured out soon enough that learning sign with Cass was one of the quickest ways to center himself when he was having a bad day.

Chapter Text

Roughly two and half, maybe three months had passed since the raid. Danny hadn’t seen Leslie in a while, and he was due for a check up. Leaving the house was stressful enough (despite being able to see the incredible Leslie again for which Danny was grateful. She was going to be a light of common sense in the sea of crazy, rich vigilantes) but Danny was also alerted that Richard Grayson was going to be coming home for a couple weeks. 

Dick Grayson, known as Nightwing to the superhero community, also worked as a cop. He had apparently been injured in the line of duty and was given some time to recover. And seeing as there was a new sibling in the house (this was Duke’s retelling, Danny wasn’t actually a sibling and would hate to impose that title on himself when this situation was incredibly temporary) he decided to do his languishing in the Manor where he could hang out and “bond”. 

Danny decided that this was going to be one of the more stressful meetings of the Wayne children and was determined to scope out plentiful hiding places to escape from the intense attention everyone warned him he was about to receive. 

But first, he just had to get through this doctor's appointment. (and then he needed to address his growing agoraphobia, although was it really an irrational fear if it was based on very real and well founded paranoia?)

Bruce, once again, was the only driving adult that was responsible enough to take Danny. This trip, although still awkward, felt a little different from the first. Danny was pretty sure it was because he was all too aware that it was Batman driving him to Leslie’s clinic, but maybe Bruce’s vibes had shifted a bit. Danny tended to avoid the big man around the house, and Bruce still dashed off to work or stayed in his office most of the time. Danny was pretty sure that the man also took off to spend a significant amount of time in the Batcave, but he still hadn’t located it (if indeed it was near the house). The search for the Batcave was Danny’s pet project on the days that he wasn’t up for human contact. 

“Cass has been teaching you sign language. Have you been enjoying that?” Bruce asked stiffly. 

Danny signed a quick yes. Bruce smiled indulgently. They fell back into that horrid silence that was so oppressive. Danny watched the world slip past the car window. Well, at least he did that while they were still in Bristol, but as they moved into Gotham proper, the view slowed, oftentimes to a standstill. Traffic was pretty bad. There must have been an accident. 

Bruce seemed to catch onto Danny’s concern, “I checked the news,” He informed Danny, “There was a bit of an incident on a road near here. Signal took care of it, but the rerouted traffic is backing us up.”

Danny nodded slowly. He couldn’t help the twinge of fear, knowing Duke was out there fighting crime. It helped a little that he was a meta (something that he hadn’t told Danny but was associated with his vigilante persona) but Danny was suddenly and unpleasantly dunked into the world his sister and friends had occupied since he had died. Although, Danny sincerely hoped it had been better for them since they knew he was a lot more resilient half-dead than he had been alive. 

A deeper pang shot through him at the thought of the people he had left behind. He wondered what their lives looked like now. He wondered if they thought he was in the Realms somewhere. He wondered if they still looked for him, if they still expected to see him in the Nasty Burger or turning a corner at school. He wondered if his parents cared that he was gone. 

Danny slammed a mental wall down on those thoughts, clenching his jaw and very nearly taking out a sliver of his tongue. Bruce heard his jaw click and glanced over. Thankfully, he decided not to comment on Danny’s shift in body language, and instead let that awkward silence take over. 

Danny tried to imagine white noise filling his brain, turning off his thoughts and letting everything be blissfully blank for a bit. It halfway worked. Danny zoned out on the sidewalk, numbly examining the pedestrians as they walked around the grey city.

This worked to occupy him for several more minutes. Bruce quietly gave him a few minutes warning for their arrival, which Danny heard but didn’t pay much mind to. Before he knew it, Bruce was pulling into a tiny parking lot. Danny stepped out, scanning their surroundings. Well, now he knew why Bruce had settled on the cheapest-looking car he owned. It was still nicer than anything else around, but it was far less likely to get car-jacked immediately than any of the fancier vehicles. 

Danny didn’t wait for Bruce as he approached the clinic, letting himself in and waving at the nurse behind the desk. She smiled at him. She remembered him then. Danny was pretty sure her name was Hannah, but he had been pretty out of it and didn’t know if he got all the names straight. After all, it was Leslie who had spent the most time with him. 

“Leslie’s with another patient, but she’ll come get you when she’s ready,” the nurse offered, “It’s good to see you up and looking better.” She smiled. 

“Thanks,” Danny responded in his whispery tone, shooting her his best smile. 

He let her get back to her work (paperwork seemed to be unanimous in healthcare settings) and took an uncomfortable plastic chair in a place that allowed him to see both the entrance and the hall leading to the patient rooms. Bruce chose the seat right next to him and pulled out his phone. Danny exercised his best self-control not to snoop on the man’s personal messages. 

He succeeded, but only because Leslie came out in less than five minutes, trailing a young man who was sporting a line of stitches near his eyebrow. He looked mean and hungry, and Danny was incredibly thankful that he was leaving. 

“You’re looking a lot better,” Leslie commented as the trio walked back to her office, “Let's take a closer look, shall we?”

Leslie ran him through a series of easy tests. Everything seemed to be coming back clear. Bruce was looking happier with each quick result, although both Leslie and Bruce were still a little perplexed at his heart rate and resting body temperature. Danny knew it couldn’t be helped, but made no comment. 

Leslie moved on to his mouth and throat. 

“There’s still some damage to the vocal cords,” She announced, “Still nothing I can do for it. Keep resting your voice and drinking a lot of water.”

“Alfred makes some incredible soothing tea,” Bruce volunteered.

“That could help,” Leslie conceded, “If the damage persists too much longer, I might recommend a speech therapist to see if that can help, but I don’t think its wise at this time with Danny’s… situation.”

Danny nodded emphatically, making a face that was the best approximation of a ‘yikes’ as he could. 

“If neither of those help, I would have to say start thinking about surgery-”

Danny shook his head as hard as he could, letting his fingers snap into a sharp No . 

Leslie let out a dry laugh, “I didn’t think it was wise either. That’s far in the future. Hopefully we won’t ever get to that point.” She sighed, then turned to Bruce, “Alright,” Suddenly business-like, “Get out.”

“Pardon?” Bruce asked diplomatically. 

“Out. I want Danny to be completely comfortable. This is procedure, don’t feel hurt,” Leslie snorted as Bruce’s face fell. “Go wait in the lobby and I’ll come out when he’s done. Then you can both be on your merry way.”

Danny let out a deep breath when the door snicked shut behind Bruce. 

Leslie read down a list of standard questions. Danny answered truthfully for all of them. When she was all done, she looked him in the eyes, “Is there anything else I need to know about or that you would like to ask me?”

Danny hesitated for a moment, then displayed his stiff fingers for her examination. They were still white, not quite dead in nature, but still concerning. 

“Low circulation,” Leslie took one of his hands and started prodding. “You’re young, so I’m more inclined to think Raynaud’s than anything else.”

“What do I do?”

Leslie hummed, “I would say eat a healthy diet and exercise, but from what I hear, you’re already doing both. The best I can recommend is making sure your hands don’t get too cold. You can wear gloves, and if they get like this often, running your hands under warm water might do the trick. If this persists, then tell Bruce and come back to see me. We’ll try to figure it out. Anything else?”

Danny’s eyes flicked to the closed door and then back to Leslie. He leaned in close, “Do you know any… Big secrets about Bruce?”

Leslie squinted at him, “His… nighttime extracurriculars?” She asked carefully. 

“The, um… bat ones?” 

Leslie huffed quietly, “I can’t believe you figured it out. Yeah, I act as their discreet doctor in return for funding. It’s part of the reason why I encouraged you to go with Bruce in the first place. He’s an incredible man.”

Danny nodded slowly. 

“How did you figure it out?” Leslie leaned back against her desk. 

Danny shook his head slowly. 

Leslie smirked, “You’re allowed your secrets.”

They exited her office. She and Bruce exchanged a few words, and then they were back in the car and heading back to the manor. 

Danny did about the same as before, skimming pedestrians and wondering briefly who they were or where they were heading to in this bleak cityscape. His eyes locked on a figure in white. The car was moving quicker this time, less traffic to slow them down, so Danny whipped his head around to track the figure, even as they left it behind. 

Maybe it was his imagination, but Danny could swear the pedestrian was looking at him too. 

“What’s wrong?” Bruce was asking, but Danny could barely hear him. 

All he could see was every person on the street wearing even a single scrap of white clothing. All he could see was the men wearing white coats, the guards wearing white jackets, the scientists with their clicking white shoes. He could see their weapons, their scalpels, their guns, their cruel sneers. He could see his bones, his guts, his organs, laid out in front of him like a gruesome tapestry, woven together with green, green, green. 

He blinked and slithered down into the footwell of the car, sliding completely out of his seatbelt and wedging himself where he couldn’t be seen by anyone on the street. Bruce was talking to him. Bruce was saying words and Danny was hearing static. Bruce was saying words and Danny wasn’t paying attention because there was static in his head and adrenaline in his lungs. If that was even where adrenaline went, but he figured it was because his heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his mouth and his lungs were beating out a steady pace that made his head rise to the clouds. 

A hand gently tapped his head, brushing his hair more so than actually touching him. Danny still twitched, violently, away from the offending hand. Bruce was saying more things, trying to be calming or something, but Danny was too busy dying and falling to pieces on the floor of the car to hear him. He was dying? But wasn’t he already dead? If he was dead, then why was he breathing so hard? Did dead people breathe? But Danny couldn’t be dead? But he couldn’t be alive either because the scientists did things to him that no one was supposed to survive. 

Danny heard a sharp noise, something that reverberated in his ears, bouncing around his busy head and punching him right in the gut. He heard laughing in the distance, painful and like needles to his ears. The laugh sounded like his own, after the scientists had given him that one gas. The one that stretched his face into a grin and made him want to die. Danny wondered why Bruce was laughing like that. Danny was too busy dying to ask. 

Danny blinked and the world returned to normal speed, an overwhelming change from the swampy time he had been wading through before. He realized that he was the one who was laughing, that hideous and horrible laugh. He realized that the car was stopped, that they were on the manor driveway. 

Bruce was talking to him. Bruce had opened the door and was talking to him, not touching him, not getting too close, but just talking to him and using soft words. Danny gasped and cut off that laughter that was chilling him to the bones (He wasn’t supposed to get cold? Why was he cold?).

Danny wriggled his hand free from where it had been pinned between his body and the seats. He swiped at his face and was unsurprised to find it salty with tears. He gasped again, the only way it seemed he could get his shuddering lungs to take in air. 

“I’m going to move the seat back so you can get a little more room to breathe, okay?” Bruce said gently, hands moving ever so slowly and obviously to the seat mechanism. Danny tracked his hands as they reached to the lever and pulled it back, shifting the seat on its tracks. Danny let himself expand as the footwell grew. 

He was a little too big for the space he had endeavored to slide into. He hadn’t really been thinking. Danny slipped his eyes closed and let his face fall onto the padded edge of the seat. It was so stupid. One white coat jacket and he… did whatever this had been. 

Danny was no stranger to anxiety attacks, but this was a whole other beast and he was feeling like he had just fought three ridiculously tough ghosts all at once. Boneless with exhaustion was approximately the feeling. 

Bruce had continued his soft talking, despite Danny once again tuning him out. Danny continued to tune him out as he started carefully unfolding himself from the car. He was a little wobbly when he finally got out, blood rushing to fill his legs with pins and needles as punishment for the abuse he had just put them through. 

“That was a nasty panic attack.” Bruce commented.

Danny looked over, surprise probably painted all over his stupid, overreacting face. 

Bruce had nothing but simple compassion in his face and voice. He held his arms out silently. Invitingly. Danny hesitated for a moment, but fell into the man, letting his big arms wrap around him. Danny melted into the hug, long overdue for some physical affection.

He had no idea how long Bruce held him in the front yard. He had no idea how long it took before his shoulders were trembling. He had no idea how long because he felt like he was eight again, in Jack’s loving embrace. Before Jack had forgotten about his own son in the pursuit of the dead. 

It was nice.

Chapter Text

Dick Grayson was as nosy and excitable as Danny predicted he would be. He arrived and, according to Duke, dropped all his bags and accosted Duke for Danny's current location. Thankfully, Danny had disappeared that afternoon with no information given to anybody on where he was going. 

He had a perfect track record of staying on the grounds, so Alfred told him to be safe and sent him off with a few snacks to weigh down his pockets. Danny was informed later about the moping of epic proportions that Dick participated in.

His disappearing act also had the benefits, according to Alfred, of getting Dick to actually get his bags to his room and at least partially unpacked. Then the great hunt for the disappearing Danny began. Dick received no help from his siblings, and Cass just laughed at him, gave him a quick hug, and then vanished in much the same way that Danny had a tendency to do. 

Danny delighted just a little in his really good hiding spot. Dick passed by him twice. He really got to scope out the older man. Dick was bright and full of energy, despite favoring his side a little where the bullet had pierced. He looked athletic and kind and very huggable, which to Damian’s dismay was an actual thing. Dick hugs were apparently freely given and well-enjoyed by most, if not all, of the family. Danny couldn’t help wondering how amazing a hug from Nightwing would be, but he wasn’t entirely planning on it. In fact, his plan was to evade until dinner, when everyone would be gathered and Danny easily rescued from the spotlight.

Damian was persistent, Cass was patient, Duke hadn’t participated, and Dick had the advantage of having grown up in this house and knowing all of its hiding places. Danny froze when the doors of the cabinet that was in the small office in the back corner of the third floor, were flung open. 

Danny regretted that his hiding spot had allowed him to be so easily captured. With a hyper young adult looming over him, Danny didn’t have the fight or flight options. So he stared up at Dick with the most deer-in-a-headlights expression he had ever made. Dick ignored this obvious discomfort.

“Man, you are awesome at hide and seek! Finally, some decent competition.” Dick grinned, backing up just a little bit. 

Danny uncurled his legs and swung them out of the cabinet so he was sitting a little hunched. His legs started to go through the annoying process of rushing blood around and giving him pins and needles. 

“Anyway, I figured I would come find you so we could get to know each other a little bit before dinner. It can be hard to get to know someone over a meal when other people also want to talk to you and all that. I also figured that you’d probably want to go to bed really fast. I remember wanting to sleep a lot when I was your age, although that might have been because I had a tendency to pull all-nighters.” Dick helped Danny get down as he spilled his excited word-vomit. Danny was left a little off balance at this barrage. 

Dick caught sight of his hands, twisting anxiously and pulling at the fabric of the gloves he was wearing (Danny had requisitioned them from Damian’s room while the boy had been out walking Titus. It was summer, so he figured the kid wouldn’t miss them, and he’d be sure to give them back before he left, definitely in the winter).

“Are you cold?” Dick asked, finally giving Danny room to answer. 

Danny glanced down at his hands, debated telling Dick about his poor circulation, then decided that it wouldn’t be worth the effort or the strain on his voice. He just nodded. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry for keeping you here. I guess this room can get a little chilly, especially when you’ve not been running around like I have. Let’s get you downstairs and all bundled up.”

Danny yelped as Dick scooped him up in a mix between a bear hug and a fireman’s carry. If Danny had been completely human, he might have died a little inside at the speed that Dick was carrying him. He was pretty sure they slid down the banisters and maybe hopped a few steps, and they definitely did a little sock sliding on Alfred’s nice wooden floors. It was kind of exhilarating if Danny didn’t consider the fact that he was being held hostage against his will. 

He blinked and suddenly he was a burrito in a bunch of blankets on a couch. He was in the room that he and Duke often played video games in. Speaking of Duke, he was in the corner armchair, failing to hide his laughter at Danny’s predicament. 

“Is that better?” Dick asked after his effective swaddling. 

“Can I have my arms back?” Danny asked softly.

“Sure thing,” Dick unwrapped him and rewrapped him before Danny could wiggle around. 

Duke laughed a little harder. 

“Go easy on him big guy,” Duke snickered. 

“But I have so many things to learn!” Dick protested. 

“I have a suggestion,” Duke set down his phone, “Why don’t we boot up a video game and not focus all of our attention on Danny, who seems a little stressed. Sound good?”

Danny nodded furiously. The video game was started. Danny managed to slowly unwind himself from his blanket burrito as time went on. He was off his game tonight, although it was probably partly to blame on Dick’s presence. Danny wasn’t prepared to meet him this soon, although he probably should have considered sooner that Nightwing would be able to track him down pretty easily. 

His fingers were still stiff from the lack of circulation. It was affecting his gameplay and Danny was getting pretty pissed off about it again. Duke noticed the warning signs this time, at least a little. 

“You doing okay there, Danny?” Duke prodded gently as Danny set down his controller a little too hard. 

Danny signed a frustrated fine that definitely didn’t look fine. 

“If you want to switch games, that’s okay. We could always do with some variety,” Dick offered. 

“I’m fine,” Danny rasped, as loud as he could make himself. 

Duke didn’t seem to be too surprised when Danny finally reached his limit a few deaths later and left huffily. Danny heard Dick calling out after him. He also heard - his super hearing was a little too good - Duke stop Dick from going after him. Good. Danny needed some space. 

Danny went to the place where he had his little knife fight with Damian. He opened the window and scaled the trellis all the way up to the roof. It was pretty warm this evening, and the sky had been pretty clear all day. Danny had hopes that the sky would still be clear, even as the sun was in its later stages of setting and the clouds - whether they were water vapor or smog had yet to be seen - were rolling in. 

He was in luck. Danny ignored the light growling of his stomach in favor of seeking out his favorite constellations. He had missed dinner. It was fine, Alfred would probably give him a snack later, especially since he was supposed to be eating high nutrition stuff. 

In his mind, he followed the star maps, drawing the lines of all the constellations he could remember. He tried to ignore the memories of his mom telling him the stories behind them, back when she still noticed that she had a son. 

The roof squeaked a little. Danny glanced over to see Cass making her way over to his spot. She laid down on the tile next to him, her quiet breathing filling the silence. It was peaceful. 

“Why are you up here?” She asked. 

Stars Danny signed carefully. 

Show me? She responded. 

“That one over there, the big and little dipper,” Danny gestured, showing her where to draw the lines. It took a moment, but she figured it out. “Stories too. Ursa Major and Minor were people turned into bears by the goddess Hera.” Danny coughed at the end of his statement. 

Cass smiled softly. That was all the fuel he needed. 

He pointed out Cassiopeia and barely managed her story. He told her about Cygnus, Andromeda, and Hercules. He went on and on for as long as his voice would allow. When he couldn’t speak any longer, Cass taught him several words that he had used earlier. They spent another thirty minutes on the roof, coming up with their own name signs for each of the constellations. 

—

Cass watched Danny’s eyes sparkle and come to life as he talked about the stars. She had never seen him this engaged, this in love with anything since she had met him. Cass wanted to hurt the people who had taken this sky from him. She wanted to run them out of Gotham and make sure they would never touch her precious little brother again. She wanted her little brother to be able to see the stars and tell her all the stories whenever he wanted to. 

As they sat on the dark roof, Cass watched those green eyes glitter, reflecting the thin light of the stars and moon. She would hurt people for him, but for now, it was enough to sit here and listen, to teach him new signs so they could talk about the stars without hurting his soft, kind voice. 

Cass would do whatever she could to keep that sparkle in his eyes and that pure, childlike delight in his face and voice. 

Chapter Text

Danny had been a government experiment for two years. Apparently this meant that he needed to have his grade level checked. Danny already knew that he was probably going to be way behind since he was barely scraping by before he was kidnapped. He just didn’t want some stranger telling him that he was stupid when he already knew it. 

Cass noticed his growing antsy nature as the day of reckoning approached. Danny could tell because she got especially gentle with him (a little insulting that she thought he needed kid gloves when he got upset, but it was probably vigilante training kicking in. Danny was technically a trauma victim.)

The day right before the grade assessment person that Bruce booked was supposed to arrive, Danny opened his door to find a small stack of books in the hall. Curiosity struck him and he bent down to inspect the titles. 

To his joy and utter delight, there was a pile of books about the stars, astronomy, astrology, mythology; anything that was related to the stars was in that stack. Danny squirreled them all away into his room, skimming the synopses and back covers, glancing through chapter titles, and basking in the presence of them. He knew who to thank. After all, only one Wayne had witnessed his obsession with the heavenly bodies. 

Cass took his thanks warmly. 

Relax . She signed at him. It was an order. 

Danny decided to follow her advice and settled down with a book for the afternoon, just to soothe his nerves. It also served as the perfect excuse to keep the Waynes from messing with him too much. Dick burst into the room and made a few comments, but Danny was too absorbed in the pages to do more than idly track his movements. 

Duke walked in, presumably to ask if he wanted to play a video game with him, but backed out quietly when he realized that Danny was already occupied. Damian had enough tact not to bother him, although Danny did glance up from his book to realize that the younger boy had stationed himself in the room with his sketchbook. Damian noticed his gaze and scoffed. 

“You can never sit still otherwise.” 

It was Damian’s best attempt at an explanation. Danny smirked and proceeded to ignore the younger boy. He would pester Damian to see the finished product later, but for now he was studying the drift of stars over time and how astronomers had mapped their positions for hundreds of years. 

The next afternoon was less pleasant. Danny was stationed in the dining room with a test paper and some loose notebook paper strewn about him. 

“We will take several tests to determine your grade level. If you need breaks in between the tests, let me know. The test is designed to grow harder as it goes on. Do not get upset if there are things you don’t know. Just answer to the best of your ability.”

Danny glared at the lady weakly, but got to work. The first test paper was on English-related skills. Grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, all woven together in a terrible mesh of stuff Danny was bad at. He had never been amazing at any of this stuff. His brain was built for science and math and engineering. He liked astronomy and physics and learning how to make things work. Symbolism was something meant for torture. Mr. Lancer had never managed to drill it into his head and Danny was now suffering for it. 

The next test, social studies, was a bit better. Danny liked stories pretty well, so long as he wasn’t dissecting them, so history wasn’t too tough. As long as it wasn’t boring, which a lot of it had been. There were a couple other things, but a good portion of social studies was applying common sense and logic, or at least, that was Danny’s experience with it. 

He took a big break for lunch after those two tests. His better subjects were after lunch and he couldn’t wait to send this suspicious government-looking lady out of his safe haven. 

Math was next. Danny felt rather comfortable with his results. Even back at Casper High, he had been beyond his grade level in math. His teacher gave him some harder worksheets for extra credit which Danny had taken with great vigor because he really needed to pad his grades. At least his B in Math (more from lack of time to do homework than any failure to understand) had made his C minus average in the humanities less shameful.

Danny took a few minutes for a snack. His brain felt like it was being stretched. He was pretty sure he hadn’t thought this much in a year. It was odd how out of practice one could feel about schoolwork of all things. 

Science was the final hurdle. Danny cracked his knuckles and dove in. Finally, he was really in his element. He had grown up (and died) in a lab. His parents were leading scientists in their field and real innovators, despite their lack of empathy. 

The lady gathered his tests. Danny tried to glean any bit of information from her stony face. He got nothing. 

The lady turned to Bruce, “His results will come back within a week. I will be sure to send them over quickly.”

Bruce thanked the lady and showed her to the door. Danny, freshly exhausted and ready to kill something, someone, or himself decided to take a nap. 

It was a great decision. 

—

True to the lady’s promise, Danny’s scores came back within the week. 

It was no surprise that Danny had placed at a ninth and tenth grade level in English and Social Studies respectively. It was a pleasant surprise that Danny would have been getting A’s in his senior level math class. It was a big surprise to Danny that he was already doing collegiate level science. 

“I’m proud of you. You’re a smart kid Danny,” Bruce said cheerfully, if he could even be called cheerful. It didn’t really suit him. 

No, Danny was not pointing that out in an attempt to ignore how warm that made him feel. Danny got plenty of validation from his peers. He wouldn’t be affected by such a simple statement. 

Danny was less warmed to hear that he would need a private tutor to catch up to twelfth grade in his more humanities-related classes. Bruce got a little twinkle in his eye. 

“You’ve got the rest of the summer to bask in, but I already know an excellent tutor for you. I think you’ll like each other.”

That was mysterious and creepy and not at all what Danny wanted to hear, so he just left awkwardly after that. Really, what was he supposed to do with that statement? In literally every other context, that would be ridiculously creepy. If Danny didn’t know that Bruce was literally the Batman, he might have dipped and taken his own way after that. Thanks for the shelter, but the creepy rich weirdo factor got too high. A man could dream. 

—

Over the weekend, Dick went back to Bludhaven. Danny was slightly relieved to see him go. Sure, the man was incredibly nice and literally didn’t have a mean bone in his body when it came to his family, but he was also one of the most stressful people Danny had met. 

The man literally had no concept of embarrassment. He had seen the old pictures. Why didn’t his robin wear pants? Why did the Discowing suit exist? Literally why did he have the fashion sense of a colorblind mongoose? 

Beyond that, he was pretty clingy. He respected Danny’s boundaries a majority of the time, but when he got excited, he invaded Danny’s space a little too much or asked just a few too many questions. It was like suddenly getting a hyper toddler instead of a grown adult. 

But he really did give the best hugs when Danny was in the mood to accept them. 

The consensus was that Danny liked Dick, he just didn’t want him around all the time. Danny had plenty of people like that. Literally everyone he ever knew was like that except maybe Tucker and definitely Jazz. Even his other best friend Sam put him on edge every once and a while. 

Maybe that said more about Danny than it did the people he surrounded himself with.

Anyway, he was on good enough terms with Dick that he let the man hug him one more time before he left. 

“It was really good getting to know you Danny. I’ll probably be back soon. See ya!” and then he was off. 

It was starting to inflate his ego a little bit, that all these people wanted to get to know him and spend time with him. Like, these people were older than him, most had jobs, all of them had incredibly dangerous responsibilities, and they wanted to spend at least some of their down time with him. It didn’t really line up. They weren’t good friends with him. In fact, Danny figured they were obligated to spend at least a little time with him since he was the new foster kid, but they chose to spend extra time with him. 

Huh. 

Chapter Text

Danny really liked being Alfred’s sous chef. He spent at least a few nights a week in the kitchen with him, helping prepare whatever delectable meal was on the menu. Danny had always been curious about cooking. He had wanted to learn, but in his house, it was impossible. 

First of all, Danny’s parents were useless at cooking. Maddie could pull together a decent mac n cheese, and Jack could man a grill with mediocre skill, but neither could really cook. Second of all, the fridge was often used as spillover space for ectoplasm samples. That meant that any food stored in the fridge ended up getting contaminated. There was a reason that Danny hated hot dogs with a passion. 

Danny practically lived off of takeout and non perishables. Jazz had tried to learn some cooking, but without a decent teacher, she ended up with rough results. Once again, she also had to face the issue of food contamination. 

Being in the kitchen with Alfred was fascinating. And apparently, Danny wasn’t too bad. Most of the Waynes were terrible cooks. None of them were allowed in the kitchen for fear they would burn the house down. Danny didn’t have that natural culinary calamity. In fact, Alfred told him that he might have something of a natural talent for at least basic skills. 

It was more than Danny had heard in ages. It took being noticed in a positive light for someone to applaud natural skill, and it had been so long since Danny had been noticed for some positive reason. His parents only knew of his existence when he messed something up and needed to be scolded. Casper High and its teachers only noticed him when he had too many absences or missed assignments or tardies. The GIW only applauded his odd biology. 

Danny absently watched the pot of water on the stove. They were making some kind of pasta dish tonight. Danny was waiting for the water to boil before he salted it and added the fresh pasta they had just made. Alfred had admitted to Danny that making pasta from scratch was sometimes more effort than it was worth, and that a good box of dried pasta would work just as well in most circumstances. Then he had complimented Danny’s natural ability and left the boy just a little dazed. That was probably part of the reason why he had the easiest task. 

It was also a bit of a compliment - a nonverbal one - that Alfred had left Danny alone in the kitchen to run something to Bruce who was way upstairs. No one else who was currently in the house could boast of that ability. It made him feel pretty darn special, and Danny had specialized in being special since he was young. 

Danny, distracted by his pasta water as he was, had a sudden fight. Several things happened within a few seconds. First, Danny shuddered violently as he had the sudden and very unpleasant feeling that someone had walked over his very nonexistent grace. Second, the floorboards outside the kitchen creaked. Third, Danny's ghost sense went off for the first time since his early days with the GIW, spewing mist from his mouth and alarming him further. 

These three events culminated in Danny grabbing the first thing he could think of to defend against this ghostly threat. The door creaked open and the near boiling water was thrown at the person who had opened it. The pot flew through the air just a moment after the water, both thudding into the nice wooden door of the kitchen, which had opened just soon enough to shut to take the brunt of the impact. Danny scrambled for another makeshift weapon, wielding a wooden spoon in front of him. Luckily, it was not the nice wooden spoon. Alfred would probably forgive him if he broke this one. 

“Woah, I surrender, new kid,” Rumbled a deep voice that grated on Danny's nerves and set his sense of safety up in flames. It felt like the voice echoes with the screaming of tortured souls, just faint enough that no one alive would notice. 

It was like the room had been bathed in a sudden dose of ectoplasm, but not just normal ectoplasm, scary ectoplasm. It felt like the Pariah Dark of ectoplasm. 

“Sorry for scaring you. Is Alfred with you?”

“Stay back,” Hissed Danny, voice somewhere between normal talking and ghost speak. He didn’t want to deal with whatever this cursed individual was. 

“Alright. I’ll just hang out here. Didn’t know you had a feisty streak in you, but I’m not surprised. Bruce attracts crazy kids like flies to honey.”

Danny could feel the presence backing up, away from the door. His escape route was opening. Perfect. Before the creepy presence dude could make a move, Danny was booking it out of the door, the spoon flying through the air toward the man. He didn’t make chase even though Danny heard the solid thunk that told him that wood had met flesh. He was gone too fast to make anything out. 

All he knew was that whoever or whatever that was needed to stay really, really far away from him. It was like fear amped up to a hundred, like everything Danny liked to keep locked in a box inside his head was running rampant. 

Whatever had happened in there, it messed with his emotions, and as a ghostly creature, that was terrifying. Ghosts were made of emotion, so anything that upset the emotional balance was dangerous and not to be trifled with. And Danny really didn’t want to trifle with that. 

—

Danny went down for dinner and immediately felt the same sensation, like nails on a chalkboard levels of discomfort and warning in his body. Every sense told him to get as far away as he could. He forced himself into the room (dinners with the family had become somewhat of a nonnegotiable and Danny could not skip without high levels of suspicion, and he had no way to explain his ghostly instincts.). He would just have to tough it out. 

It was surprising how normal the source of his anxieties looked. Tall, thick, built, intimidating, soft, terrifying, imposing, nice. Those were all adjectives that described Jason Todd, second son of Bruce Wayne. Danny knew that Jason had been missing for a long time, long enough that people thought he had died. Now he knew the truth, Jason had actually died, or at least come really really close hundreds upon hundreds of times. 

Danny skipped over his normal seat and picked the one that was as far as he could get from Jason. His stomach was doing flips and Danny was like, 90% sure that he was not eating anything. Cass and Duke were shooting him odd glances. Damian was sitting right next to Jason. 

The others started their meal and were immediately drawing Jason into their conversations. Danny didn’t join in, content to wait until it was socially acceptable for him to leave and put as much distance between Jason and himself as possible. Cass tried to draw him into the conversation once or twice, encouraging him to join the mix of signing and talking that made a beautiful cacophony. Danny kept his hands still and his face as neutral as he could make it. 

He felt his heart rabbiting in his chest. He didn’t know how the others couldn’t see it trying to beat its way out of his ribcage. 

Danny watched them get slightly more confused as the dinner dragged on. They enjoyed getting to talk to Jason, but had no reason for Danny to be so stiff and shut down. 

Danny ignored their confusion and instead focused on what he could learn about Jason. Jason lived in a place called Crime Alley. Jason was working on a college degree in the humanities, but took most of his classes online. Jason worked in the Martha Wayne Foundation that was a significant charity in the area. Jason didn’t come around the house often, and when he did, there was usually an Alfred-related reason. Jason and Bruce had a fraught relationship. 

Danny escaped with his useful information and spent the rest of his night huddled in his room, shaking off the nervous sweat and bitter taste of ecto and bile on his tongue. He knew exactly when Jason left for the night. The last bit of his lingering anxiety from the ghost sense finally faded as he drove out of Danny’s radius. The last bit of tension drained from his body. 

Danny shucked off his thick socks and swung his feet into bed. The blankets felt odd on his feet. Danny looked down, examining his toes and horrified to find them as pale as his fingers, which were still failing to circulate blood properly. His breaths started coming in sharp little gasps. Danny wormed his way under his blankets, hiding his toes and fingers away in the soft folds and letting the thick layers bring him some much-needed pressure. 

He rode out the anxiety attack like a weathered pro, falling to sleep quickly after. 

And so life continued. 

Chapter Text

The summer was officially over, Danny had met five out six Wayne wards and five out of eight bat-related vigilantes. Danny was enrolled in online school, due to his temporary muteness, questionable legal identity, and his supposed ‘trauma victim’ issues. He was pretty sure that was code for Batman was worried that this kid that was experimented on might spontaneously and disastrously develop superpowers and accidentally hurt people. 

Danny was chill with online school though, so he wouldn’t call Bruce out. Speaking of Bruce, Danny still wasn’t sure how to feel about the man. His kids turned out pretty alright for being rich and crime-fighting vigilantes. That said something. But Bruce was also stiff and avoidant and although he told Danny that he could go to the man with anything, he never made himself very available. 

Danny also knew that Bruce liked to give him warnings of when he was going to meet someone new whenever he could. Sometimes it didn’t work out, like Jason dropping in without telling anyone and sufficiently scaring Danny. There was one other instance of it not working out, although it was much less eventful. 

Danny had come down to dinner to find a stranger sitting at the table. He was quickly introduced to Tim, and although his metaphorical hackles were raised, he was more civil than he had been with any of the other siblings. It definitely helped that Danny knew more about Timothy Drake-Wayne than he did any other Waynes. Tim had been Tucker’s teenage crush and technological obsession for a long while, so Danny had to suffer through rants and crazes of the celebrity sort. 

Other than that, Tim seemed pretty nice. He didn’t really try to get to know Danny all that much, instead opting to observe, much like Danny had been doing to the whole family since he got here. Tim did have a bit of an ecto-presence like the rest of the family, which was still a bit of a shock to the system. It wasn’t anything like Jason, so it was a relief. 

The day after, Danny, out of boredom, decided to try and rank the family in terms of most-ecto contaminated to the least. It was somewhat difficult. Duke had almost no contamination to speak of, while Bruce, Dick, and Cass had trace amounts more. Damian and Tim had similar amounts, although it was hard to tell who had it worse, and Jason, obviously, had the most. Jason probably broke the scale because he was definitely more than just ecto-contaminated, but it was Danny’s scale and he could choose who got to go on it. 

It was odd, but still none of the Waynes, save Jason, could come even close to Jazz’s level of liminality. None of them came close to Tucker, Sam, or Valerie. In fact, the average Amity Park citizen might fall somewhere between Damian and Jason on the scale. 

Danny still didn’t know quite how all the Waynes had acquired quite so much ecto. It would have taken a terrifying amount of death to leave that much of a concentration. It was suspicious, but the more time Danny spent with them, the less of a danger he considered them. If they were playing the long game, then he was falling for it, hook, line, and sinker. 

—

Danny had finished his assignments for the week. Alfred was out shopping. Cass was seeing some friends. Damian was grumpy and didn’t want to be bothered. Duke was inexplicably gone, which meant he was probably patrolling as the only daytime vigilante this city had. Danny was bored. Danny rekindled his hobby of wandering around the house and trying to find the entrance to the Batcave, should it be in the Manor (Which he hadn’t figured out yet). 

His new method was trailing Bruce. It was good practice on stealth (because if it worked on Batman, then Danny was pretty much set to sneak by anyone who didn't have ecto-signature trackers). It was the smartest method, and Danny was a little annoyed he hadn’t thought of it sooner. 

There was an office, a clock, and an elevator down into the dark. Danny waited several minutes and repeated the motions, letting the door open and shut without entering. Success. Now he just had to wait until no one was going to be in there so he could go look around. Because where else would Bruce hide his secrets? It was the one place in the house Danny didn’t know about, couldn’t poke around in. It was safe. 

—

It was only two days later until Danny made his move. The manor was fairly empty again, and Danny could disappear without notice for a few hours. He made his way down the terrifying elevator shaft and shuffled into the cave. 

It was dark and shadowy, lit dimly in most places. There were railings to protect from sharp drops and walkways to fill in the craggy floor. Danny couldn’t help but let out a noise of awe. Knowing there was a Batcave and seeing the Batcave were two very different things. It was somehow completely what he had been imagining, but also beyond anything he ever could have thought of. He couldn’t wait to poke around!

Danny made his way to the giant computer. He didn’t touch anything, he just looked up and around and all over to make sure there was nothing overtly suspicious that he would need to see. After gawking for several minutes, he made his way over to the vehicle bay. Danny kept his hands to himself (For the most part) as he looked over the car, motorcycles, even a tank that were in the bay. This was every teenage boy’s wet dream right here. 

Danny examined the training area and swept through the medical bay. He shuffled through some information in the records room, careful not to displace anything or touch much at all. He didn’t want to ruin someone’s case or irreversibly harm a case against someone who deserved jail time. 

He ended his self-tour with the costuming area. He found glass cases with old suits memorialized within. There was a draw of ecto down here, an echo of something sad and angry and brimming with the same nastiness that filled Jason but hadn’t really touched the others. 

There was a child-sized suit in one of the cases. There was a plaque at the bottom that had been messed up, destroyed, made impossible to read. Danny didn't’ need to know what it said, He already knew everything he needed to know. 

He had been drawn to this portion of the cave more than any others. No matter how amazed he had been by a giant T-rex, or floored by the armory, or delighted by the vehicles, this spot called to him. It was poignant and deep in nature, like it echoed or vibrated inside his chest. 

A child had died in that suit. A child had died in that suit, and Danny had just met him not that long ago, the walking dead. An anomaly, not quite like Danny himself. Danny had never fully died, while he had completely died and never died at the same time. Danny was an anomaly, Jason was unnatural. There was a distinct difference between the two. 

Danny hated it, but he felt the need to get to the bottom of the story

—

He had no idea how long he had spent staring at that case. He heard the elevator start and flinched, rushing for someplace to hide, somewhere to get away so he wouldn't be caught. He still hadn’t seen anything that would tell him what kind of man Bruce was. Because the longer he spent down here, the more he was realizing that Bruce and Batman were two very different people, and while he was learning about Batman, he didn’t have squat on Bruce. 

He wavered too long between decisions, and instead was caught frozen in plain sight. Duke was gaping at him, mouth wide and eyes blown huge. Beside him, Cass smirked, a playful glimmer in her eyes. Knowing her, she had probably been guessing how long it would take Danny to figure out where the Batcave was. 

Neither of them could stop Duke from calling Bruce. It made sense. Duke was scared of Batman and wanted to do right by him. Just because Danny understood didn’t mean he was happy with it. He dreaded Bruce’s anger, dreaded feeling the weight of his disappointment or feeling his displeasure. This was the first major misstep Danny had made during his time in the manor. Sure, it hadn’t technically been against the rules, but Bruce wasn’t going to say it because Danny wasn’t supposed to know everyone’s secret identity. 

It was obvious that he was out of line based on the way Duke was acting. 

They didn’t have to wait long. It was only a few minutes until Bruce was the one descending on that elevator, mouth drawn as tight as his arms were across his chest. Danny didn't realize he was trembling until Cass gently touched the back of his hand. 

“What were you thinking?” Bruce demanded roughly, “How did you even get down here? Did you touch anything? Did you change or mess with anything?”

Danny flinched back and Cass stepped in front of him. 

“Calm. Don’t be mean. You regret later.”

Bruce sucked in a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“We can double check the footage to make sure that Danny didn’t mess anything up, but I’m sure that he didn’t mean to if he did,” Duke interceded nervously. 

“Sorry,” Danny muttered, ducking his head. He couldn't look at Bruce anymore. 

“Fine… We’ll just have to tell Batman that another civilian knows the location.”

Danny couldn’t help but snort despite the tension. Everyone looked at him. 

“What was that?” Bruce asked, voice tight. He took a step closer, “Do you think this is funny? It’s very serious.”

“No,” Cass giggled. “Very funny.”

Bruce shot a glare at his daughter. 

“I know,” Danny said as loud as he could, “I’ve known for a bit.”

It was quiet. Danny got the courage to look up again, seeing both Duke and Bruce looking at him with the most bewildered expressions they had ever made in front of him. For Duke, it was incredibly expressive, for Bruce it was more like a slacker mouth and buggier eyes than before. 

“How did you figure it out?” Bruce asked slowly. He was off-kilter now. 

Danny shrugged, “No one else could do it my way. You’re safe with me.”

Cass nodded, He’s known since I came she signed. Maybe before ?

There were a few more moments of silence as everyone took a moment to process and calm down. 

“Alright,” Bruce said finally, steepling his fingers and pointing them at Danny, “Let’s set some ground rules for the cave. You don’t come down here without someone else. You don’t mess with anything or touch anything without permission from one of us, alright?”

That was surprisingly reasonable. Danny had been expecting a ban from the cave, not limited access. He nodded his understanding and agreement. 

“I’m going to tell the kids that you know. Shop talk is now allowed back upstairs.”

Duke cheered a little as he wandered toward the computer, presumably to pull up the footage from the cave. Huh. Danny would get to figure out how other vigilantes worked, their lingo and all that. Fascinating 

—

It wasn’t until hours later that Danny realized he learned something else new about Bruce. The man wasn’t quick to anger or violence when he was upset or stressed, which seemed a little surprising for the gritty and bloody vigilante. 

Bruce was in control of himself, even when Danny did something that seemed so far out of the realm of possibility. Could Bruce be safe? Was he a decent human being despite being rich and crazy? 

Chapter Text

Danny had to admit, he wasn’t floored by the fact that he had just been kidnapped by one of his foster siblings. It was bound to happen eventually. Every rich person in Danny’s life kidnapped him at one point or another. He was just surprised it had taken this long. 

Tim was humming along to the song that was on the radio, not paying much attention to Danny, who was perched stiffly in the passenger seat. Danny was doing his best to text Cass as subtly as he could. He did notice Tim’s eyes flick towards him a couple times, so he had to assume that his kidnapper knew he was texting and just… didn’t care? It seemed a little out of character. 

Cass texted him back “Have fun!!!” With a plethora of emojis that he couldn’t hope to understand. 

Well that was entirely unhelpful while still making him feel marginally better. If Cass wasn’t too worried, then he would probably be okay. Danny just didn’t trust his chances against a vigilante if all this were to go wrong, especially since he wasn’t willing to bleed out his ecto-signature everywhere for the GIW to track. 

There was a reason he’d been keeping himself cooped up in Wayne Manor for so long, and Tim had just thrown it all out the window. Danny would ask what they were going to do, but he was nervous about taking Tim’s eyes off the road. Gotham motorists were insane. Almost as insane as Danny’s parents had been when they drove the GAV. 

They pulled into a fast food drive through lane. 

“What do you want?” Tim asked nonchalantly.

Danny signed his order hesitantly. Tim turned to the speaker and spat out a bunch of words that didn’t make much sense to Danny. He hoped his food would be alright. 

“This is Batburger. All the menu items are vigilante related. I figured it was high time you visited, especially now that you’ve joined the club of people who figured out the secret without being told.”

Tim held up his hand for a high five. Danny complied. It was a really wimpy high five. 

They pulled around and got their order. Danny dug in, while Tim was more reserved, because he was still driving the car. The food was pretty good, it was nice to have some cheap, greasy food after all the good stuff Alfred had been stuffing him full with, but it didn’t really stand next to Nasty Burger. Ah, the nostalgia. 

Danny had to concede that the fries were a bit better here, although he could have forgotten Nasty Burger fries. It had been a while, after all. 

“What are we doing?” Danny felt safe enough to ask after a sip of his soda. 

“Well, you’ve barely left the manor since you arrived, and I have on good intelligence that you like space, so I decided it was time for a field trip to the Gotham Aerospace Museum. Feel free to infodump on me as much as you want.”

Well Tim might had just found the quickest way to Danny’s heart. He was practically buzzing with energy as they pulled into the parking lot. He was a few steps ahead of Tim all the way to the entrance. He let Tim pull ahead to pay for the tickets, and then they were off. Danny stopped for just a moment to glance over a map, then he beelined for the space shuttle area. 

His fingers were cramping from how much he had to fingerspell to tell Tim everything he wanted to know. There were a lot of words that just didn’t come up with Cass, and Danny was still something of a beginner, so he was a bit out of his depth.

Tim seemed pretty engaged and asked really good questions. Danny had to remind himself over and over again that he didn’t need to dumb it down as much as he thought. Tim was really smart. He had a mind for engineering that Danny approved of, even if he wasn’t as deep into it. Danny was pretty sure that Tim’s thing was patterns and clues. If he was right in assuming that Tim was Red Robin, that vigilante in particular was known to have Batman-levels of detective skills. 

Detective skills and aerospace engineering didn’t have much overlap, but Danny and Tim were both smart people, and they had smart people conversations. 

Danny was practically salivating the whole time they wandered through the exhibits, but he just about burst into tears when Tim led him over to the planetarium. The showing was about an hour long. Tim seemed interested, but Danny was glued to the screen, sometimes signing a factoid right before the narrator said a similar thing. 

—

Tim was quite impressed with Danny’s depth of knowledge and interest. He knew the kid liked space, but he didn’t expect him to know so much theory or be able to dive into the math and science. He was glad Danny was enjoying it, because no one could spend that much time in the Manor without pause and come out the other side completely sane. Also, he figured the kid needed to get a break from Bruce for a couple hours. Seeing as the man just learned that another kid found their secret, he was bound to be a bit overbearing for a while until his paranoia died down.

—

Danny thanked Tim over and over as they headed back to the car. 

“You’re welcome. But for the record, you really did need a break from the house.”

The car ride back was mostly silent. As they were getting closer, Tim cleared his throat. 

“It’s totally your business if you don’t want to tell me, but I was wondering why you haven’t pushed to get out a bit more. Like, Bruce is chill if you have something you want to do, and there’s plenty of people who’d love to hang out since it’s probably not smart for you to go around Gotham by yourself but…”

Danny stilled, body drawn tight.

“It’s dangerous.” Was the only answer Tim could get from him. 

“Well, thanks for hanging out and not siccing Bruce or - Alfred,” Tim shuddered a little, “Alfred definitely would have my head for not asking you. I’m heading back to town. See you,” Tim grinned and drove off, leaving Danny on the doorstep. 

Well, that was a fun day.

—

Damian was grounded that evening. A bad hit from a drug dealer during a raid, and he had badly bruised ribs. Danny couldn’t help but wince in sympathy every time that Damian’s breathing hitched. He knew how bad rib injuries felt, and didn’t blame Bruce for taking Damian out of the game for a little bit until breathing didn’t hurt. 

Damian did not share Danny or Bruce’s perspective and instead railed against his grounding. Alfred was the one to present the compromise. 

“Master Damian, would it be sufficient for you to be on communications? I would appreciate getting a little extra rest, and Master Danny might enjoy accompanying you.”

“Fine,” Scoffed Damian, turning to go into his room, suppressing a wince. 

Danny watched as his eyelid twitched a little with the force of withholding any sign of his pain or ‘weakness’ as he would consider it. It was almost amusing if Danny wasn’t wholly aware of how much the whole situation must suck. But he was quite elated to have the chance to watch the Bats at work. 

Alfred had gotten him a chair so he could perch from a bit further back and watch everything go down. Danny curled up in the chair in his comfiest pajamas, ready for a night of being worried out of his mind and also tensed up and ready to get out there and help. 

“Father, who is out tonight?”

“Hood is in Crime Alley, Red Robin, Orphan, and Spoiler are with me. Catwoman might be around tonight, but I wouldn’t count on her presence.”

“Copy,” Damian answered, turning to the Batcomputer and tapping away. Soon enough, he had visuals of all the active vigilantes. Danny didn't know how the whole setup worked - Tucker might have been able to figure it out - but they essentially had body cams for each vigilante. He and Damian would have a front row, first-person seat to the show. 

Most of the patrol was uneventful. Even Danny could tell that it was a bit slower. Most of the people they bagged were small fry. A drug dealer here, a mugger there, a would-be killer over there. Nothing major. But then again, the only rogue not in Arkham at the moment was Riddler and he wasn’t too volatile by himself. 

Danny had started to zone out (which he never imagined could happen in a place and time like this) when a new voice filtered through the computer. 

“B, I’m flagging an odd movement about ten blocks west of you. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it’s pretty big. Spoiler, you’re the closest to that if something goes wrong.”

“Who’s that,” Danny whispered to Damian. 

Damian decided to be a little brat and answer at normal volume while still actively on comms. 

“That is Oracle.”

Tucker’s other celebrity crush - Danny wasn’t sure if a celebrity crush was different from a superhero crush, because most people in middle school had both, but it probably wasn’t relevant - the guy in the chair for Batman, although this was a lady in a chair. 

“Oh, is Danny on the line tonight?” Oracle asked, “It’s nice to meet you Danny. I heard you figured out the secret.”

“Hi.” It was a really lame answer. 

“Maybe I’ll swing by the Manor sometime and get to meet you in person.” She offered. There was no time for Danny to respond. Her tone changed in an instant from welcoming to businesslike, “B, it’s a gun shipment, and they’re based in Crime Alley. I’m sending Hood your way as we speak. If you want to wait for him and Spoiler, it’ll probably be handled faster.”

And off they went. Danny couldn’t help but notice that Hood, supposedly Red Hood or Jason, didn’t have a body cam like the others. He still got a chilling view as Batman, Spoiler (Whoever she was), and Red Hood took out the gang members with brutal efficiency. It was a beautiful thing to watch. 

Danny got up and stretched a little. Damian glanced over. 

“Will you do something for me since you are standing?”

“Yes.”

“Can you retrieve this evidence for me? Father will require it when he arrives, and they are coming back in less than an hour.”

Danny gave him a quick thumbs up and grabbed the sticky note that Damian had offered him. He scampered off to the records room like a good messenger boy and started poking around the sorting system. He didn’t really need to understand how the room was sorted because the note was very clear on what exactly he needed to grab, but it was still pretty cool. 

He grabbed the needed box and backed up to leave the room. His elbow knocked an evidence box that was slightly diagonal on the shelf, knocking it over onto the floor. A shock of anxiety went through him and he rushed to clean it up and put it back where it belonged before he could forget exactly where it had been. 

The sight of the evidence froze him in his tracks. His eyes locked onto the object, heart speeding and starting to power adrenaline through his body. His hands trembled as he brushed one outstretching finger against the shape. A full-body shudder passed through him. His breathing picked up. 

Why in the world did Batman have his GIW muzzle? Why in the world did Bruce have his experiment muzzle?

Chapter Text

He took a half step back. His foot caught the evidence box that he had set down when he was rushing to pick up the other one. He tripped, and his back slammed into the ground, knocking out what little air there was left in him.

It felt like there were bees under his skin, buzzing too close to the surface and filling him with a restless, terrible energy. He scooted back, pressing against the wall. He scratched vigorously at his arms, hoping to at least reduce the trembling feeling. All he did was break the skin and leave long, red scratches up and down his skin. 

“Daniel, are you alright?” Danny jolted. 

Intellectually, he was aware that Damian was doing his best to break his formality with Danny, but in the moment, it was the tipping point. A broken sob heaved from his chest and he pushed himself to his feet, his whole body shaking with the effort it took. 

He booked it. 

He didn’t stop until he was on the elevator, back up to the main house. He didn’t stop even as he brushed past Alfred on the stairs. He didn’t stop until he had locked his bedroom door. He fled into his bathroom, locked that door, and huddled in the corner of the shower. 

The floor was white. The tiles were a slate grey. The shower curtain was a similar grey. Grey, but not shiny, not like the metal of his new walls. Gray like a rock. Gray like he was out he was out he was out he wasn’t there anymore he wasn’t there but he was scared he was going back. 

Because Bruce had his muzzle. Bruce had his muzzle and Danny didn’t know why. He didn’t know why Bruce would keep his muzzle. Was Bruce going to use it if Danny didn’t behave? Was Bruce going to make Danny be quiet and hurt him? Was Bruce going to become just another tormenter in his life?

His world dissolved into a haze of sensations. The blood pounding in his veins. His breaths scratching up and down his throat. The feeling of his clothing rubbing against his skin. The stiff tracks left behind by a tear. Oppressive cottony fuzz against his hands. An odd, tingling numbness in his fingers and toes.

Danny ripped off his shirt, gloves, pants, everything but his boxers. His hands, fingers white with blood loss, fumbled up to the tap, releasing warm water into the tub. He barely noticed as his boxers soaked through, as the water pushed his discarded clothes further away from his grasp. Danny fumbled again, reaching for the little knob that would turn the shower head on. 

He let the drumming of the water wash away every other feeling. He watched the glass of his mirror fog up. He felt the steam washing away the scratch in his throat. He let the rhythmic motion, the consistent feeling, wash away the panic in his body, at least to the point where he could manage it. 

If managing it was just pushing it at bay. Danny built an imaginary wall in his head, locking his fear, his animalistic responses, out. Once everything unwanted was at pushed behind those walls, Danny dragged himself out of the shower, wrapping his body in a towel before he could start shivering. This newfound susceptibility to cold was quite irritating. 

He pulled on some new, dry clothes and unlocked both his doors. Five minutes later, Bruce was walking in, still sporting his Batman regalia, sans mask. 

“Are you okay?” He asked gently. 

It would constantly surprise Danny how such a large, intimidating man could be quite so soothing and calm. It was such a moment of cognitive dissonance. 

“I saw the muzzle in the cave. Why did you keep it?” Danny paused for just a second, not long enough for Bruce to answer before pushing on, “Were you planning on using it on me?”

He coughed, the only reason he stopped his tirade. Bruce waited until he stopped hacking, briefly disappearing and returning with a glass of water. Probably from the sink. Danny took it. 

“I would never use that horrible contraption on you or anyone. We keep a lot of evidence, and Danny,” Bruce looked him in the eye, not a challenge, but just to make sure that Danny was really paying attention. “We are still keeping an eye on your case. We need to make sure that no one else gets taken like you did, especially since we don’t even know how it has fully affected you.”

“They’re dangerous,” There was a note of warning in his voice, one that Bruce caught onto in an instant. 

“I know. So are we. And we’re far better at being careful.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I don’t, not yet. But someday I hope to figure this out. I’m not going to stop, Danny. They need to be taken care of.”

Danny couldn’t deny that, so he broke eye contact and turned his back. Bruce took it properly as the signal to leave. He paused in the doorway. Danny could imagine that he glanced back, although he couldn’t be sure. 

“I’m still here if you need anything. Good night Danny.”

Bruce never saw it and Danny would never admit it, but he signed a small good night into his chest. 

—

Danny came down to the cave for the first time since the incident. It was Alfred on comms tonight, and Danny was far more ready to watch him directing the Bats with Oracle’s help than he was any other vigilante. Although Alfred didn’t technically count as a vigilante, did he?

It was his personal goal to make it through the whole night without incident. It was a bit shameful of an ex-vigilante to not be able to shoulder the emotional withdrawal of patrol. I mean, he was technically sabotaged last time since he was knocked out of the game by something that wasn’t patrol, but the point still stood. He hadn’t made it through a whole night of Bats and Birds-ing and he was determined. 

Like last time, it seemed like a pretty chill night. Unlike last time, Damian was on the field, constantly in Batman’s shadow. It was pretty impressive how he seemed to just melt away. Especially when one of the others would show up and their body cam footage didn’t even show Damian. He was just that good at stealth. Danny was better.

As it turned out, experiencing a sustained traumatic experience messed up Danny’s ability to pull all-nighters. He was well and truly fatigued by the time all the Bats were wrapping up patrol and way-too-early in the morning. He didn’t know how they all lead normal lives in the daytime. Danny used to patrol the same amount of time and then be an absolute disaster at school. Life really was unfair. 

Most of the Bats were making plans to come back to the cave for a bit of a debrief from the evening. 

“Agent A, is Danny still around?” Asked an upbeat female voice. That was Spoiler. 

Danny jerked slightly when he heard his name. Alfred smiled every so slightly and responded in the affirmative. 

“Great. I guess I’m coming along guys,” She said. 

Danny let his eyes drift closed. He was just keeping them from getting dry while he waited. No big deal. 

He almost fell off his chair when the Bats arrived. Somehow they managed to time it so that they arrived at once, or at least in very quick succession. Danny was suddenly a little more awake. He was indeed very happy that Jason decided to head back to his turf instead of the manor. 

He was all the way awake when a purple blur sped up to him. 

“Hi, I’m Stephanie Brown, or Spoiler since you’ve probably already figured it out. I’m not a part of the family, but sometimes I sleep here and steal food. Mostly Tim’s food though because I think it’s funny to make him suffer a little.”

“Hi,” Danny replied eloquently, getting caught up in her flow of words. Stephanie was quite fast-paced. He didn’t really know what to do with that anymore. 

Thankfully, almost like Bruce noticed how stiff he was getting, he called Stephanie away to finish the debrief. Danny took this time to make his escape up to his room. He had been drifting off and he really needed sleep. He also needed an excuse to get away and process all of Stephanie from a distance for a bit. She had a pretty overwhelming personality. 

The next morning (Danny had both the luck and misfortune to have a terrible, sweaty nightmare, but also wake up reasonably late in the morning) Danny desperately needed a shower. Nightmares were the worst. Especially ones that left him sticky and locked up. Blearily, he shuffled through the motions. 

It was about halfway through his shower routine that he noticed it, when his brain finally turned on for the day. It was peculiar to feel the cold patch that was spreading across his chest. He had started to feel that his skin was a little stiffer, maybe a little smoother in that spot. Danny figured that it was a rash or irritant of some kind. 

It was glittering in the fluorescent lighting. Glittering and pale and almost white in a way that Danny had started to know very well. He prodded it experimentally, noting how the skin didn’t bend, didn’t give way. It was stiffer than his fingers and toes. It refused to bend, while his extremities bent with enough coaxing. 

Still, though he knew the ice was growing slowly, this time from a much more vital part of himself, he was rather detached from the whole thing. He finished his shower and toweled off with a semblance of calm. His favorite hoodie was in the laundry basket. He went over and sniffed it experimentally. He gagged. Okay. He had definitely put off washing that one far too long. 

Danny went over to his closet, rummaging around for another hoodie. He slipped on some pants and a shirt along the way, but Danny needed to drown in fabric right now, and nothing in his closet was right . What he really wanted was for his favorite hoodie - a size too big, but perfect on him - to not be disgusting. But he couldn’t really have that, now could he. 

Danny knew that his anxiety attacks built slowly. They didn’t crash upon him suddenly, like his newfound panic attacks did, they snuck up on him. He could spend days building up to an anxiety attack as one thing after another seemed to pile up until he was drowning in stress and worry. 

This anxiety attack had probably been building up, ever since the release of his panic attack, and possible even before. This hoodie situation was the final straw. 

Danny fell back, shoulder blades thumping harshly against the bed frame. He gasped for air as tears started to track down his cheeks unbidden. Before he knew it, he was sobbing into his arms, half-curled into a miserable little ball on the floor. He was hyperventilating. He always did during the rare times he allowed himself to cry. His hands were buzzing with a mix of adrenaline and lack of oxygen. 

He needed to drink some water. He needed to breathe normally, sucking in long breaths to slow his heart. Neither was going to happen any time soon. 

It was about ten minutes that he sat on his floor, riding out the waves of anxiety then ebbed and flowed in their time. A knock on the door made him lift his head. He knew he looked like a mess, but he had managed to calm his tears, leaving him only with the sudden hiccupy breaths that his hyperventilation tended to leave behind. 

Dick poked his head in and immediately winced a little when he saw how wrecked Danny looked. 

“I’ll leave you alone if you want, but do you need anything? I heard… I was going down the hall and you sounded a little rough.”

Danny shrugged. He didn’t really have the energy to deal with Dick right now, but he did kinda want some water, and his stomach was aching a little. It was probably time to grab a snack. But he didn’t want to get up and walk. He just wanted to sleep. 

“I don’t speak shrug. I do however speak emotionally-constipated grunting. Compliments of Batman,” Dick winked, still not moving from the doorway. 

Danny felt the corner of his mouth tick upward. He wasn’t nearly amused enough to smile, especially not after his little episode. His hand came to rest on his chest, rubbing absently. He considered for a moment, then signed water at Dick. 

“Coming right up,” Dick grinned and let himself further into the room. 

Danny was suddenly and violently reminded that Dick was his father’s child. There was something very Bruce in him about the way he took the same cup that Bruce did and filled it with water bringing it over, the same way Bruce had done just a night or two before. He was more approachable though. 

“Is there anything else I can do. I will also kindly remove myself from your room if that is something you’re interested in.”

Dick meant it as a joke. Danny considered it very deeply. 

Normally, he would like to be alone after an anxiety attack. This was far from normal. He was actually considering spending time with Dick in the aftermath. Danny was curious enough to see where this was going. 

Hungry.

“I can do something about that too. From my information, Alfred is in the kitchen right now, so we can ask him to whip us up a little snack. Or…” Dick drew out the word comically, “We can just raid the pantry for something easy. It’s all up to you!”

Maybe Dick was being so upbeat because he knew it rubbed off on people. Danny was starting to feel a little bit lighter from his antics. He moseyed along after Dick, both keeping an easy pace as they went downstairs.

It was time for a snack, and perhaps some bonding, maybe even of the brotherly kind? Dick was being far more tolerable this time around. 

Chapter Text

Alfred wasn’t alone in the kitchen. Danny thought the unsettled feeling in his gut was leftover from the anxiety attack. By the time he was approaching the doorway, he could tell that the wrong feeling wasn’t coming from himself. Dick pushed the kitchen door open and Danny froze. 

He locked eyes with Jason, who also looked surprised and was frozen in the middle of what looked like a semi important task. Alfred came up behind Jason and swatted him on the shoulder, kickstarting his task again. Jason tore his eyes away from Danny. 

“Hey Alfie, hey Jaybird!” Dick chirped as he pranced over to the pantry. 

“Master Dick, where are you going with that?” Alfred asked in a warning tone as Dick swiped a box of sugary cereal and some fruit.

“Gonna take the baby down to the cave and hang out.”

Danny made an affronted noise. It was likely that he was the baby in this scenario, and he was highly offended. He was only a few months away from being an adult. 

“Do be careful,” Alfred sounded slightly exasperated. 

“Don’t scare him off,” Jason called over his shoulder as Danny and Dick retreated down the hall. 

True to his word, Dick took him down to the cave. Danny followed him as he went to a corner that he hadn’t had too much time to explore. 

“Welcome to my corner of the Batcave,” Dick announced, spreading his arms wide with the air of a ringmaster. 

It was full of padded mats and various gymnastics and circus equipment. 

“Bruce wanted to put in a trapeze and high wire, but we didn’t have enough space.” 

Why am I here? Danny signed. 

“For snack time and brotherly bonding,” Dick smiled, “I figured a distraction would be in order... anywho.”

A banana hit Danny in the chest and dropped to the floor. They both stared at it for a moment. 

“I thought you would catch it.”

Danny snickered a little and retrieved his treat. They ate in relative silence for a bit. Once Danny had finished his fruit and Dick had wrapped up shoving his face full of that sugary cereal, they got down to business. 

“Stretching before being active is always important,” Dick had wagged his finger in the air like a pretentious teacher. Danny rolled his eyes playfully, but followed along. 

Perhaps his ghostly half gave him a leg up, but he was able to keep up pretty well with Dick’s ridiculous bendiness, and even impressed the older man a bit. 

“Do you know how to do a backflip?” Dick asked.

Danny did not. The closest he came was using flight to make sure he didn’t land on his head.

As it turned out, Dick was an experienced gymnastics teacher and soon had several drills set up. Danny played along, doing the jumps and rolls. Then, Dick put him up on one of the beams and told him to flip off the end. Danny baulked at the idea.

“Look,” Dick put his hands on his hips, “If I had the mats right now, I would put you up on a stack, but for right now, this is the highest I can get you that's not really squishy. But the landing is squishy, so you should be fine. Plus, I’m spotting you.”

Dick only had to wheedle a little more before Danny willed up the courage to jump. It wasn’t a disaster. He did land squarely on his butt and knocked the wind out of himself a little, but in the realm of things that could have gone wrong…

It only took three more tries before Danny put one on his feet. He didn’t stay on his feet, but who really cared about the details there. 

Dick built up a small mat stack, about half the height of the beam. Danny landed on his feet, but stumbled forward, bashing his face into the stack. He couldn’t help but glare weakly at Dick for the next few minutes as the man apologized thoroughly and brought him an ice pack for his nose. It didn’t help that Dick was obviously forcing back laughter. 

Danny had no sense of self-preservation, so he tried again once the throbbing in his nose went down. He overcorrected a lot after that. 

Dick made his mat stack just a single mat and had him practice onto a sturdier mat. He did this for about twenty minutes with varying levels of successful landings before Dick took away all his mats. 

“I’ve got you,” He cheered, preparing to spot Danny. 

It was a lot less comforting of a statement than it had been before Danny slammed his face into a mat. 

Despite that, Dick did manage to keep his face from hitting the floor several times over the course of the next fifteen minutes that Danny wore himself out flipping. When Danny finally landed a backflip, they both exploded into cheers, although Danny’s were cut short by a coughing fit. 

Dick pounded him gleefully on the back as he sung Danny’s praises. 

It felt really good to accomplish something. 

“Now, if you want to do something fun, we can bring the mat stack back out, and the squishy mats, and you can to a flip kinda arched like this,” Dick threw himself into the air, arching so that his head was a lot closer to his feet than Danny thought should be possible. 

He was curious enough, so he hopped back up on the stack and chucked it. He felt something in his chest crack. 

When he landed, he crumpled around his abdomen, clutching it in both terror and pain. He was too scared to check what had happened, but that pop was painful and scary. Dick was over in a second, fawning over Danny. 

“I think my rib popped,” Danny wheezed. 

“Okay, well… Then I guess that’s enough for today. You’re tired, I’m tired, we’re both sweaty, and it’s probably time for dinner?”

Danny nodded his agreement.

He didn’t let Dick help him out of the cave. Call it pride, call it paranoia, but Danny didn’t trust him to be so close while Danny was in pain. At least Dick bought his excuse, even if Danny was half sure that it was true

It was really nice to spend some low-stakes time together though. 

—

Bruce pulled Danny aside after the uncomfortable dinner (it was hard to eat when Jason’s everything made Danny nauseous). 

“We need to talk about your grades in English,” Bruce started slowly, “We expected that it would be your hardest subject, but I think it’s time to talk about tutoring, just until you can get your feet back under you, so to speak.”

Danny eyed him suspiciously, but nodded to show he was listening. 

“I have to admit,” Bruce rubbed the back of his neck, “I was hoping that Jason could tutor you, since he loves English and writing composition, and basically everything that you struggle in, but I suppose that won’t be possible since he makes you… uncomfortable?”

Danny shook his head vehemently. At least Bruce paid enough attention to not shove the two of them together. 

“Alright, well I have someone for you to meet that I think can help you step up your skills a bit. Barbara Gordon is a family friend who works at the library. She’s also Oracle, so you can trust her with the family secret. Is it alright if I introduce the two of you tomorrow?”

Another vigilante, huh? This one was Tucker’s personal idol, so she was probably tolerable. Danny didn’t really see a problem with it, but something in him was still hesitant. 

He didn’t want to impose, so he nodded his assent and left. 

—

Somehow Bruce failed to mention that Babs was wheelchair bound, so Danny felt a little insensitive asking her to meet him in the second-floor library. He also failed to mention that Babs was actually amazing and funny and considerate. 

He wouldn’t hate having her as a tutor.

Chapter Text

Winter break started a little early for Danny. His online school was pretty much freeform, which meant that he could submit his final assignments a lot earlier than a traditional school. He was pretty sure that he nailed science and math, although he bet that his English grade would jump a little. Babs worked magic. I mean, not miracles, since Danny didn’t really have a solid grasp on the nebulous, nuanced, ridiculousness that was English, but it had to be better than it was before. 

With school out of the way, Danny now had no distractions for the three major things that were messing up life right now. One, Christmas was fast approaching and Danny wanted to personally murder Santa Clause about now. Two, sleep was miserable and almost nonexistent now. He kept having nightmares and waking up feeling like he couldn’t breathe or was being shoved into a tight place. Danny had never been particularly claustrophobic, but he was going to start heading in that direction if these dreams kept up. 

Three, the ice was spreading further. 

Danny’s hands and feet remained the way they had been since the ice had started forming on his chest, but that small patch on his chest had grown tremendously in size. The ice had started to wrap around from the front of his chest and belly over to his back and shoulder blades. Danny had started to collect turtlenecks to wear. He didn’t want it to seem too odd when he switched completely over, because the ice was nearly to his neckline now. 

He was struggling to twist his body. He couldn’t really bend all too well wherever the ice built up. He kept some mobility, but the ice was thickest at the point of origin, and was only getting thicker. That one spot near his sternum didn’t give, bend, or act anything like human skin anymore. 

Danny was always cold. It wasn’t odd for him to be seen with a hoodie and sweats, also bundled in a blanket or two. Bruce offered to turn the heat up, and Alfred served only hot meals, but nothing worked. Not even heating pads or hot showers fixed his perpetual chill. Danny downplayed it, because if Bruce got even a hint that Danny was hiding how cold he was, then they would be down to see Leslie. 

Danny didn’t want her to see him like this. He didn’t want anyone to see him like this. He didn’t know what was going on and it was terrifying. 

It was also probably the reason for his increase in claustrophobic nightmares. Danny just couldn’t have nice things, could he.

—

His prediction was correct. Within a week, the ice had started to spread up his neck. Danny didn’t know what he was going to do when it reached his face. It was starting to go down quicker than it went up now, so Danny had some time, but he didn’t know. 

He didn’t think he could make it to his birthday and get emancipated before they could figure out that anything was wrong anymore. Running away was always an option. Or he could tell them. That was the most terrifying option. 

The problem was, everyone knew that he was struggling with something . They were all being really nice and telling him that he could tell them anything and doing their best to accommodate his little odd habits and everything. Their kindness made it that much harder. 

Danny didn’t want to lose it. He didn’t want to run away and not have that support anymore, but he also didn’t want to tell them and see their disgust. The little experiment was failing. He wasn’t an ideal human being, so he had to be thrown to the dogs. 

Maybe it was the thing of nightmares, not reality, but Danny’s brain latched onto the idea and wouldn’t let it go. 

He should have known that life wouldn’t let him have the time to figure it out, especially near Christmas.

—

The boys decided to get together and visit a movie theatre to see a new movie. Danny was invited along. It was good fun. Danny was excited to spend more time with them, especially now that he had figured out how deep Dick’s love of puns went. He was completely ready to make the rest of them miserable, caught between a pun battle. 

They watched the movie. It was fun and interesting, but Danny had started to get very stiff and cold since he had gone without moving for far too long. Motion kept the ice at bay, so he was mentally kicking himself for letting it go this long. He could only afford stagnation to catch what little sleep he could manage. 

The incident happened as the group was leaving the theatre. 

Danny pushed himself up from his seat with a comically large groan, stretching his arms above his head. The ice was creeping around his shoulders now, and he was enjoying his range of arm movement while he still had it. 

Damian was grumbling something under his breath while Dick pushed him to the end of the row and Duke and Tim were laughing about something. They shuffled out of the row and meandered to the theatre exit, in no particular hurry. Danny ambled alongside them, content to rest in their cozy chattering. 

He could see the dark sky outside. It was a little unnerving, seeing evidence of the passage of time. Movie theatres were a place where time was suspended so thoroughly, that entering in the afternoon and leaving in the evening had a sense of wrongness to it. Maybe that sense of wrongness was why Danny’s instincts didn’t tell him that something was a little off. 

They stepped into that chilly evening and came face to face with a lanky, whip-thin man, obscured in a dark, hooded jacket. The man froze, facing them, and pulled his hand quickly from its previous place in his pocket. He pointed a gun at them. 

Danny’s body tensed as he watched from the corner of his eye as Damian allowed himself to be tucked behind Dick, as Duke fiddled with a small device Danny knew to be a panic button, and as Tim took a half step forward and opened his mouth to speak to the man. 

“Give me everything you got.” The man ordered in a rushed, crazed tone. 

His hands weren’t shaking. Everything else about the man was odd and twitchy, but the hands were still. 

Tim exchanged a tense word with the man. Danny wondered for a moment why none of them were taking down this man, but he realized that there were other people nearby, also in danger of a stray bullet, and none could risk their identities at a moment like this. They would do their best to stall until a bat could arrive to take care of the situation, or the police, or at least an excusable opportunity to attack. 

But the man’s hands were steady and his body language was determined. 

There was static in Danny’s ears as his body prepped for a fight. Tim tensed up and the man shook the gun slightly as he raised his voice. 

They probably looked rich enough that he figured he could get away with robbing them. If the man had asked nicely, he probably would have gotten a handout. 

The gun was still and was trained right in the center of Tim’s forehead. Danny could practically see the trajectory the bullet would take. 

He realized in this moment that he actually loved these people and didn’t want to see them hurt. When he had first been picked up, he still would have been standoffish, and maybe used this chance to run off while the others were distracted, especially now that he was only three months away from being an adult. It wouldn’t be worth it to pursue him. 

But now, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them, this family that he almost dared to call his, to a danger like this. 

He acted without thinking as what he could see of the man’s face contorted with anger and as Tim started to duck. With speed that could only come from his ghost half, Danny pushed Tim away, smacking into him with enough force to send him sprawling on the sidewalk. 

The gunman was obviously surprised, gun dropping a little right as he fired the shot that was meant for Tim’s head.

Danny took the bullet. 

It slammed into his chest, right in the center where the ice was the thickest. Danny landed on the sidewalk next to Tim. His few moments of remaining consciousness through the pain gave him the impression of Dick taking down the gunman, and Duke and Damian crowding Danny. 

“You’ll be okay,” Was the last thing Danny heard before the pain swept over him. 

—

Duke ignored the spike of discomfort that shuddered through his knees as he fell to the pavement next to Danny’s body. 

“You’ll be okay, it’ll be okay,” Duke soothed, watching with horror as Danny's eyes slid closed, even as his hands were grasping at his shirt to put eyes on the damage. 

He felt an uncanny sense of wrongness about the whole situation. He had heard bones crack under the force of a bullet before, but the way Danny’s chest cracked just a second after the terrible noise from the gun was off. It was too crisp, too loud, not wet enough. 

There was no blood on Danny’s shirt. Damian found Danny’s pulse and announced that it was elevated for Danny, just a bit lower than an average human beat. Duke slowed his fingers, finally able to grip the fabric and pull. 

Almost in unison, he, Damian, and Tim gasped. Danny’s chest was like that of an ice sculpture. It didn’t move when he breathed, it didn’t act like skin, it didn’t act like it was a part of a human body. It was so inexplicable that Duke froze on the spot. 

The bullet had lodged about halfway into the ice in the middle of Danny’s chest, which explained why he hadn’t bled out or died. Tim was the one who recovered the fastest. 

“Duke, lift him up. This is obviously his meta abilities. We need to get him home and call Leslie. Bruce will know whether or not to call a League friend to help sort this out.” Tim looked at his younger brother, “Damian, run ahead and prepare the backseat for him. You and Duke will ride in the back. We need to get out of this crowd,”

Damian didn’t argue, snatching the keys and booking it to the parking lot. Tim grabbed Danny’s shirt and used it to cover his chest so the civilians who had been inching in, curious, couldn’t see anything unusual. Dick had borrowed zip ties from someone in the crowd and left the gunman with them, joining his siblings.

“What happened?” He asked Tim, quietly but urgently

“Danny’s meta abilities activated. The bullet is stuck in his skin, but otherwise he seems alright. I’m ringing Bruce to get Leslie to the house.”

Once in the back of the car, Damian lifted the shirt again to get a better look. Duke hissed a little at the sight. Although a bullet to the chest would be a grisly sight, something about this icy injury looked even worse. 

Maybe it was because skin couldn’t shatter or crack like that. Maybe it was because he was so still, he looked dead. Maybe it was because this was an injury that Duke wasn’t desensitized to. He gently ran his finger over the deep cracks that had started to inch outward ever so slightly under the pressure from the bullet. He didn't know if removing the bullet would help. He had no idea how to fix this, and that scared him. There was no first aid he could do, no emergency action he could take with the assurance that it was tried and true. Danny was a unique case. 

He had jumped in front of the gun for them. 

Did he know he was safe, or did he think it would kill him? Should Duke be honored and proud that his newest little brother would die for them, or should he be concerned. 

Duke sighed and kept an eye on the cracks in the ice, making sure they didn’t split too quickly. He didn’t want to know what would happen to Danny if that happened. He hoped they didn’t find out. 

Chapter Text

They pulled into the cave entrance despite the fact that they didn’t have the Batmobile. It was where the best medical equipment in the manor was as well as the place Bruce was waiting and had likely taken Leslie when she arrived. 

There was an immediate flurry of motion when the car pulled in as Bruce rushed toward the vehicle, and as the people in the front seat leapt out to help those in the backseat. However, they were all very gentle and careful when they moved Danny, lifting him basically out of Duke’s lap and onto a gurney which had been rolled over from the medbay. 

Leslie had set up shop in the little room in the Batcave.

“Lets get him transferred to a bed so I can hook him up,” She ordered in her typical no-nonsense tone. 

It was this tone that coached all the boys and Bruce into surrounding Danny’s gurney and lifting him very smoothly onto the bed. Once Danny was settled, the Waynes had no choice but to back up as Leslie did her job. 

Soon enough, all of Danny’s vitals had been taken, and he was hooked up to all the machines she had decided to set up. It was difficult to figure out some, through the ice and lack of circulation to fingers and toes. There were a concerning few moments where they feared that Danny didn’t have a heartbeat. 

He did, and although all his stats were concerning from a normal medical perspective, he was doing alright according to his baseline. His heart rate was slightly elevated, which they could do nothing about, and other small things which Leslie was completely prepared to take into account. 

Soon, all of them had nothing left to do but stare at Danny’s bare torso and wonder where they had gone wrong and what to do. Leslie hummed under her breath and turned to Bruce. 

“You’re his legal guardian, which means you’re in charge of his medical decisions. Here are your options.”

Leslie waited until Bruce refocused his eyes on her. 

“Option one: We do nothing now. We wait, we observe, and we pray that nothing deteriorates while we sit on our hands. Option two: I take that bullet out of his chest and pray that it doesn’t damage anything. Option three: We take him to a meta-specialist and risk getting him re-kidnapped when he resurfaces.”

“What do you recommend?” Bruce cleared his throat. It was out of place for him to sound quite so unsure, although to anyone other than someone well-acquainted with him, he would sound rather stoic. 

“Personally, I would like to get that bullet out of his chest. It’s risky though. Since his chest is ice, I can’t tell how deep it goes. It’s not forming a layer of his skin, but rather, it looks like his skin is becoming ice. I don’t know if the bullet is touching anything organic that will be damaged when I remove it. I don’t know if the removal will cause something to shift and crack the ice more. I don’t know if I will pull the bullet out and everything will seal back out. The plain truth is that I don’t know enough about Danny’s biology and meta-ability to figure out what’s going to happen.”

“But you don’t want to go see an expert.”

“Danny’s been too paranoid about being taken again for me to risk putting him in a place that his kidnappers would undoubtedly be looking if they are trying to get him back. I think he knows plenty that he’s not sharing with any of us.”

“And you don’t want to wait.”

“It would be the next best option,” Leslie conceded, “But I don’t know enough about his vitals to trust myself to recognize when he’s getting better or worse. I think removing the bullet and then waiting to see what happens would probably be the best.”

Bruce paused, eyes drifted over to Danny’s very still form. One could trick themselves into thinking he was dead, if not for the shallow movement of his chest and the slow beeping of the heart monitor. 

“I trust your judgement,” Bruce finally said. 

Leslie nodded. 

“Alright, then I need you all to clear out so I can sanitize the room. Whichever of you has the steadiest hands, clean up nice and wait by the door.”

There wasn’t too much in the room to sterilize. It was already a sanitary environment, and Danny was effectively killing a lot of germs by being an ice cube. The final thing to sanitize was herself, and then she went to retrieve Dick from his sentinel by the door. 

“Your only job is to hold onto that gauze pad and place it on the wound when I get the bullet out. You got it?”

Dick nodded, eyes creased in worry. It was admirable how the family had come together for the beanpole of a kid they had dropped off at her clinic months before. He would do the job right. 

Leslie’s hands were steady as she poked at the bullet. It was firmly wedged in its little space, partially collapsed, but held in place by Danny’s chest. Leslie’s examination had proved that Danny’s ice skin was thickest and coldest where the bullet had struck, and she noted how the ice was deformed and warped at the point of contact, even beyond the smaller cracks that were spreading from the impact site. 

She clamped onto the metal, starting to wiggle it gently and test its limits. She winced as Danny’s chest made an odd creaking or squeaking noise in protest. Leslie found that the bullet shifted slightly when she pulled straight out. She pulled, first gently, then harder, willing the bullet to pop out. 

With more effort than she intended to use, she forced the bullet out, almost falling backward with the sudden lack of resistance. Dick leapt into action, pressing the gauze to the wound the second Leslie was clear. She steadied herself and deposited the bullet into a little tray off to the side of her workstation.

“Um, Leslie,” Dick said nervously. 

She turned her attention fully to her patient and assistant. She understood immediately why Dick sounded so unsure. The cracks had spread just slightly under the pressure of removing the bullet (but not enough that she’d stopped the procedure. A little bit of stress fracturing was to be expected). They were a little wider near the crater where the bullet had been residing. 

That wasn’t all. The cracks were filling with a sludgy, thick liquid. Leslie would have mistaken it for chilled blood, if it wasn’t for the slightly greenish glow to the whole thing. It was like looking at something layered and unclear, like watching a 3-D film without the special glasses. Danny’s blood almost looked like it normally did, red flecked with the odd green that Leslie had assumed to be the results of his inhumane experimentation. 

No matter how hard Dick pressed on that absorbent pad, the blood-like liquid continued to fill the cracks in Danny’s chest, spilling over onto the ice of his chest. It refracted the otherworldly green, making spots of that odd color splash over the room. It was haunting, and would have been on the edge of beauty had Leslie not been worried out of her mind about what this was doing to Danny. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the bats crowding the windows, watching and standing in confusion just outside. She knew they could see it too. She had to see what was going on. She had to see where the not-blood was coming from to cut its flow before Danny lost too much of his unique blood. There was no chance that there was a donor in the world who could help him. 

She grabbed Dick’s hand and lifted him slowly off the wound. The pad still stuck to the sticky, sludge of a liquid, and Leslie peeled it away, moving at the pace of a particularly unhurried snail. Dread settled heavily on her shoulders as she worried over what she would find. 

She never would have expected what happened next. 

Leslie made a wiping motion with the pad as she unstuck the final corner, hoping to clear enough of the blood to get a good view of what was going on underneath. A flood of actual green, thinner and more able to flow then any of the other blood that had spilled forth. The green stained the paper gown that Danny had been changed into. The green cascaded across Danny’s icy skin and down the bed, hitting the floor. Leslie jumped back as she noticed the edges of the hospital gown starting to dissolve ever so slowly. 

Just as she thought she couldn’t be any more surprised - and she knew Dick was just as thrown based on the choked yelp he had made when he too leapt away from the green fountain - The green lifted into the air and deepened. It stretched and shifted and seemed to swirl before her eyes. Leslie knew instinctively that the green could become anything and everything it wanted or needed to become. 

Just as the green seemed to settle into an oval spiral of some kind, Leslie heard Bruce and his brood clatter into the room. It had seemed to be a second, yet had stretched on for horrifying minutes. Leslie was half-surprised that Bruce’s self-control had lasted so long. 

The green darkened and a figure stepped out of its swirling depths. Tall, taller than any human and even taller than some non-humans Leslie had heard about, the furry creature bent over Danny’s body. 

Horns of ice, even an arm of ice, and a fierce demeanor, the creature couldn’t help but remind Leslie of Danny. 

Bruce shouted something, but Leslie’s ears were ringing. It was probably shock. 

The creature turned and looked at Bruce for a moment, then seemed to disregard the man as less than a threat. It scooped Danny up in its great, powerful arms and turned back to the spiraling green mass. Leslie hated how lifeless Danny looked, head lolling against the furry creature’s shoulder. 

The creature rumbled, in a voice that didn’t sound like it was speaking aloud so much as talking directly into her mind, “If the Great One wishes to see you again, he will.”

And with that the creature and Danny disappeared into the green. It collapsed onto itself, leaving nothing behind that indicated any kind of portal travel. They were left with an empty bed and greenish, sludgy blood that was dissolving itself any any weaker materials it came into contact with. 

Leslie pushed her hair out of her face, pulling her gloves off. 

“Well that wasn’t the best case scenario,” she quipped breathlessly as she examined both the room and everything she believed about the world. 

Chapter Text

Danny shifted in his bed, reveling in the ability to stretch his arms out and let his body breathe. It was odd… He wasn’t quite sure why he was enjoying stretching so much and why his body felt so stiff. Was he forgetting something?

Danny, with great effort and irritation, pulled his eyes open to solve this mystery. The first thing he saw was his body. He was wearing his jumpsuit, still torn and battered from his time at the GIW. He shot up straight in bed, ignoring how the world seemed to spin with his sudden movement. 

He brought his hands into his field of vision, his horror growing as he saw his gloves, the fingertips ripped through and covered in crusted ectoplasm that was likely his own blood. He looked for his feet and found the same, his boots, covered in ecto and looking far worse for the wear. 

If he had a heart, it would be pounding in his chest, filling his ears with the sound of blood rushing through his veins, ready for a fight. Instead, his core throbbed in his chest, present and loud and terrifying in that the GIW could get it any second and then Danny would be nothing. Nothing more than a wisp. Nothing with a mind, nothing with a will. Nothing but an obsession with no way to fulfill it. A fate worse than Death’s death. A fate worse than passing beyond. 

His body, no longer cold - and why had it been so cold? Danny couldn’t get cold. Danny was resistant to cold - trembled and shook, battered about in the maelstrom of his emotions. His emotions that were so much stronger when he was a ghost, why was he a ghost, why was he a ghost when he had been fighting so hard to keep that from them. They would lose interest if he was always human, so why was he a ghost!

Outside of his perception, a blizzard was circling around the room, real winds battering him alongside his emotions, real snow pelting him instead of the shards of icy fear in his mind. 

Danny couldn’t be a ghost, he just couldn’t! They were going to hurt him again. They liked to hurt him. They said that hurting him was science, but Danny had never hurt anything alive in his science classes so he knew they were wrong. They hurt him because it made them happy and they only hurt him when he was a ghost because they thought he couldn't feel. He could feel. He could feel. He felt every little thing they did to him and they didn’t listen when he screamed. That was why he just couldn’t be a ghost, especially not right now. 

Because he was being followed. They were tracking him down. They were going to find him and bring him back and hurt him some more. They were going to hurt the people who protected him, people Danny cared about. 

… Wait. Danny was out. They were looking for him because he got out. How did he get out?

Danny’s mind slowed, the snow whipping around the room slowing alongside it. He took a second to suck in a totally unnecessary breath, something to soothe his halfa mind. Muscle memory self-soothing, so to speak. 

Danny was out. Batman had rescued him. Danny had been living with Bruce Wayne and his children. Danny was not going ghost to protect both them and himself from the GIW tracking any ecto-signatures because some of Batman’s children were liminal and liable to attract attention when Danny was around. 

Why was he a ghost though? He was still protecting them from the GIW. 

Danny shook his head, like a dog shaking off water. He blinked hard, rubbed his eyes, and looked around the room. He was in a bed, but it wasn’t the manor. He was in a room made of ice, in fact, most of his surroundings were icy in nature. Danny wasn’t at all cold, but that was because his ice core and ghost half protected him from such things. 

How did he get here? The last thing he remembered… he got shot. He dove in front of a bullet meant for Tim. The same Tim who had taken him out to the museum and the planetarium. Who got him junk food and didn’t push into Danny’s fears and worries. Danny still didn’t regret doing that. But it still begged the question of how he was in the Ghost Zone, let alone the Far Frozen. 

There was a knock at the door. Frostbite lumbered through a moment after.

“We are glad to see you awake, Great One,” Frostbite hummed, moving closer and prodding at Danny’s body, “You have been sleeping for several days.”

“How long?” Danny asked in a quiet voice. Some part of him was surprised to find that his voice didn’t grate in this body, that going ghost seemed to have solved all his medical problems, including the ice that was no longer coating his skin. 

“At least four in the Realms. Based on your world, however, it has been roughly one day.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Great One, we hoped that you could perhaps fill in some of the blanks for us. You have been missing from your studies for quite a long time. And the Unnatural Portal hasn’t opened in very long indeed.”

Danny snorted, turning his head. 

“Yeah well, that was the plan. If I disappear, Jazz would ruin the portal so that nothing could get through. Really, what was wrong with me? How did I get into the Zone?”

“For the first time in several years, your core cried out for help. I simply followed the cry as your physician and portalled you back into the Realms for treatment. As for what is wrong, I can only speculate, although I believe my theories to be fairly accurate,” Frostbite leaned back after completing his examination, turning away and rummaging in a cabinet for something. 

He pulled out a lump of ecto and handed it over. Danny knew the drill and started absorbing it into his body. 

“When I recovered you from the human world, you were in quite dire straits. Your core was leaking its power into your human half, which is not quite equipped to handle the level of power pouring out. You had also sustained quite a bit of cracking to the affected area.”

“What do you mean my core was leaking?”

Frostbite folded his hands mildly, “Great One, how long has it been since you have shifted into this form?”

Danny took in his ghost half, watching his skin and suit knit up from the ecto he had just absorbed. He shrugged, “It’s been a while. Several months.” He glanced up to see Frostbite’s face twist into something like a grimace. His shoulders rose defensively and his tone took on a bite, “It wasn’t safe . The GIW…”

Frostbite hummed tonelessly, “I shall get the story when you are ready. However, Great One, you are a halfa!” He said emphatically, “Your very being is built on balance. What do you think happens when that balance is overthrown.”

Danny blinked for a moment. He shrugged again. 

“I dunno,” He rolled his eyes, “I assume it’s not good.”

“I theorize that your refusal to exercise balance between your forms is what led your core to leak like that. Keeping your power locked away only leads it to building to dangerous and uncontrollable levels. Your skin was turning to ice because your ice core was crying to be used. I expect you to transform regularly when you return to your world.” 

Danny balked at Frostbite’s stern tone, physically jerking back in his bed.

“No!” He shouted, “It’s not safe.”

“I argue that it is far more dangerous to suppress your core,” Frostbite frowned, “If you need space in the Realms to discharge any extra energy, then we can find room.”

“No, I mean it's not safe for me or the people around me if I leak any traceable ecto in the human world.”

“Trace amounts have no adverse effect on human bodies. Why wouldn’t it be safe?”

“Because I’m being hunted ,” Danny broke and leaned forward, bunching his sheets in his fists and feeling the burn of exhaustion and anger in his chest. 

There was a large pause. Frostbite made another noise, but held his tongue until Danny got a grasp on his emotions. 

“Your emotions… You’re dysregulated,” Frostbite observed, “That explains why it was spreading so quickly. Great One… I recommend you search for a therapist in your world. If we can even send you back.”

Danny reared back again at Frostbite’s last comment, “What do you mean if you can send me back? Why wouldn’t I be going back?”

“I thought it obvious. It would be rather imprudent of me to send the Crown Prince of the Infinite Realms back into a world where he is being hunted.”

Danny stuttered through a protest, biting his tongue at the look on Frostbite’s great, furry face. 

“What if…” He said after a pause, trying to gauge Frostbite’s reaction, “I can go back if I agree to tell someone who I think could help me?”

“I would be far more comfortable letting you return if the situation was being handled, although the final decision is down to Clockwork.”

“What about my bill of health? Am I doing good enough to go back before they freak out too much?”

“I would like to keep you for just a bit longer to make sure that your ghost half heals. I think it will help your human half speed things along to absorb a bit more ectoplasm.”

Danny forced himself to sit still through the rest of his examination. He reveled in the soft bed and the unhindered rest. Something about his brain was at peace in the Zone. It was safe here. No one would hurt him while Frostbite was guarding him, so his darkest fears were put at rest. He could sleep without nightmares. 

Frostbite made him switch in and out of human form a few times the next day. He mentioned something about making sure that Danny didn’t permanently harm anything due to his stubbornness. Thankfully, his body was working as it should. And Frostbite’s hope that his human half would be healing a lot faster thanks to the ecto was right. 

Danny’s through felt clearer than it had in a long time, and some of his smaller and thinner scars had finally healed over. There was a dark bruise in the middle of his chest, however. It ached deep in his ribcage to put any pressure near it. Frostbite was mildly concerned about it, but was hopeful that it would heal quickly, even back in the human world. 

“Are we good? Can I go back now?” Danny asked, dancing around Frostbite’s head, enjoying his brief freedom of flight. 

“Do you need any help forming the portal? Wulf has been wanting to see you again.”

Danny smiled sadly. “Maybe next time. Thanks for everything Frostbite!”

He reached into his core and opened the portal, slipping through right as he pulled himself into human form, like flipping a t-shirt right side out. He plopped onto his bed with a squeak. It was time to find someone in the family. He had a lot of explaining to do.

—

It had been thirty-six hours since Danny had been grabbed and portalled out of the Batcave by the giant furry monster. Bruce was pretty sure that no one had unsuited in that whole time. The Batcave had gotten a pretty good measure of the type and amount of energy that had sustained the portal. 

They had seen nothing like it pop up on any of the League sensors around the world. The worst part was that the portal was some kind of magic. The second they hit the two day mark, Batman was going to call in the JLD. Or at least Zatanna. As much as he hated magic and disliked working with the nebulous magic-users themselves, he would do anything to get his kid back. 

He didn’t even know if Danny was alive. He was in such bad shape…

Bruce refused to stop looking until he found his kid, whether or not it was just a body. He refused to give up, not even for sleep. Even Alfred was unsettled by this. He hadn’t even tried to get anyone to go to sleep. He just kept them fed and hydrated as they dug through anything they could that they thought could help. 

Bruce and Tim had started making some new headway into Danny’s original kidnappers when the elevator chimed quietly and the doors slid open.

Chapter Text

Danny stretched and bounded out of his bed. He was sure that Bruce would be frantic about now. He was always tense and borderline panicky whenever anyone in the house got hurt. Danny had straight up disappeared for about two days, so… He could only imagine how bad it was. 

He didn’t run into anyone as he made his way toward the Batcave. Danny braced himself as he entered the elevator. He didn’t know what reactions he would get, so he just needed to be prepared to face yelling, screaming, panicking, disbelief, or anything of the sort. Explaining this all was going to suck. 

The doors of the elevator slid smoothly open. Danny noted Bruce’s hunched shape by the Batcomputer. No one else was in sight. Danny realized that he didn't know what time it was or if anyone was on patrol. 

“Tim, you’re not allowed down here until you sleep. Alfred knows you have a stockpile of caffeine down here and he’s cutting you off.” Bruce sounded exhausted. Danny knew that if Tim had been sneaking down here periodically, Bruce would have excellent reason to be as tired as he sounded. 

Danny shifted on his feet awkwardly. He didn’t really know how to respond or what to say. What should he say?

As it turned out, his not saying anything was enough of an answer for Bruce, who swiveled the chair around. 

“I’m being serious-” He cut off the beginnings of a scolding when he caught sight of Danny just standing there, framed by the elevator shaft. “Danny.”

Danny winced a little at how broken the tone sounded. He lifted his hands in a small ‘here I am’ gesture. Bruce rushed over and Danny fell back a step as he descended. 

Before he knew it, his face was held between Batman’s gloves as the man examined his face. 

“We need to run tests and get Leslie over. What are you doing standing? Last thing I knew you were shot .”

Bruce’s rambling cut off suddenly. Danny wondered what had caught his eye enough to cut off that flow of worry. He suddenly felt guilty that they had been left with no explanation. Particularly if Frostbite had picked him up and made him disappear without even saying a word. He would be pretty wrecked too, if that happened to someone he cared about. 

“Let’s go to the medical area,” Bruce gently circled his hand around Danny’s wrist and led him off. 

Danny allowed himself to be pulled along. He noticed Bruce had his phone in his other hand and was tapping out a quick message. He assumed that it was to everyone else to let them know he was back. Great. Pretty soon he would be flooded with concerned vigilantes. Did he really have the bandwidth to deal with that right now?

Danny considered himself. He could manage it, especially now that he was freshly dosed with ectoplasm and genuinely feeling better than he had for two years now. The Ghost Zone was the perfect reset. 

(He was annoyed that Frostbite managed to fix him up so fast. He had been drowning under the weight of the damage in the real world and it had been but a few days in the Zone. That was it. Was all his suffering really that inconsequential?)

He sat on the medical cot and let Bruce take his vitals and draw a little bit of blood. He watched him like a hawk with the blood, not letting it get out of his sight until he could tell that it was collapsing on itself like blood tended to do when it was met with ectoplasm. It had the handy side effect of making it really difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to get DNA from a crime scene. 

Tim arrived first, sitting with Danny through Bruce’s ministrations. When a lull hit in the activity, Tim turned to Danny. 

“Where did I take you on that trip a while back?”

Danny blinked. Were they testing his memory now? Was that common after a disappearance?

“You took me to the museum… and the Planetarium. Then Batburger, which isn’t quite as good as the burger place in my hometown.”

Danny watched Tim closely as he made eye contact with Bruce. They were acting a little weird and it was setting Danny on edge. He didn’t know what he was doing wrong. 

Dick was the next to arrive. He popped in with a cheery smile, squeezed Danny in a really tight, really fast hug, and asked him another odd question. 

“What did I throw at you down here?”

“Um, kinda a lot of things, including yourself. That snack though. The banana.” Danny watched Dick make the same odd eye contact with Bruce, “You’re being weird. What’s going on?”

Bruce cleared his throat and turned back to face Danny. 

“Just some normal questions. Making sure that nothing was damaged. Do you mind if we check your chest and hands?”

Danny eyed them suspiciously as he took off his baggy t-shirt. He honestly didn't know where it had come from since he was pretty sure he was wearing something different when he got shot. They made sure there was no ice. Danny caught Tim eyeing his Lichtenberg figures. It was the scar that really stood out. 

Danny knew that they usually faded after a few years, but ghosts also had emotionally-impacted appearances. That scar was a part of him now and probably always would be, although it was nearly impossible to see on his ghost half since his hazmat suit was high coverage. 

While Bruce was prodding at his - very healthy looking - fingers, the rest of the crew arrived. 

What kind of books did I get you after I caught you on the roof? Cass signed. 

Danny thought for a moment, then carefully fingerspelled the words Astronomy, space . 

Cass nodded and shot him a smile, then turned to Bruce and did the same. 

“You’re really our Danny,” Bruce said, shoulders finally losing a tension that Danny hadn’t noticed. 

Danny’s eyes darted across each of their faces, horrible confused. 

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Chum, since when are your eyes blue?” Bruce asked gently. 

“What.” Danny looked around for something reflective. Duke passed him a small mirror. 

Danny examined his eyes and… Bruce was right. His eyes weren’t green anymore, but their normal, bright blue. 

Danny wasn’t sure what caused it, whether it was trauma, or spending too much time in an ectoplasmic environment, or even his ghost half bleeding into his human half more, but ever since he had stopped transforming for the GIW, his eyes had been stuck as their slightly glowy green. Now that Danny stopped to consider it, it might have been just another side effect of not going ghost. Another demonstration of his pent-up power. 

“Wow. that’s an unintended side effect,” Danny mumbled. 

“What do you mean?” Dick asked. 

Danny winced, “I have a lot to explain,” He said slowly, shoulders hunching around himself, “Do you guys maybe want to sit somewhere more comfortable for this?”

“Let’s move to the living room,” Bruce nodded. He turned to the rest of the children, “Everyone into comfortable clothing. We’re going to go to bed after this.” Bruce shot Tim a sharp look, “Even you.”

Danny was the first in the living room, already in comfy clothing. Alfred was waiting with a giant tray of chocolate chip cookies and a pitcher of chilled milk. Danny gratefully accepted the snack, munching happily away. It took the edge off the high levels of nervousness. 

Once everyone was gathered Danny cleared his throat. 

“Can someone explain what happened after I was… shot? Up until I disappeared?”

Dick replayed the evening for Danny, explaining everything from the car ride, to Leslie’s treatments, and to the portalling creature. Danny winced as he heard everything, waiting until Dick was done to say anything else. 

“I’m sorry. I know you guys are vigilantes and all that, but I was technically bulletproof and I didn’t really think. That must have been terrifying.”

Danny sucked in a deep breath, “I think what you need to know is that ghosts exist. Science can even explain them a little bit, but they’re probably not the ghosts you’ve heard of. For example, the guy that picked me up… Frostbite. He’s a ghost, and a yeti. He’s also my doctor.”

There was a barrage of questions. Danny couldn’t hope to make out anything more than a few words of each, so he just waited until everyone fell silent. 

“Sorry. I’ll answer questions in a bit. Frostbite is my doctor and took me to another dimension called the Ghost Zone to treat me. I’m all better now, so… It really worked. Um, sorry, I’m really bad at explaining all this. The Zone is basically the glue between dimensions? I mean, it’s where everything dead goes once they pass on. Um, I think questions would be good about now.”

“You said this Frostbite is your doctor,” Bruce started slowly, “Why would a human have a dead doctor?”

Danny bit his lip. “That’s where it gets a little complicated,” He shrunk down into his chair a little, “There’s no easy way to say this, but… I died when I was fourteen. I came back, but not all the way. Ghosts call me a halfa. I’m half alive and half dead.”

Danny looked down at his fingers that he was twisting in his lap. He didn’t want to see their reactions. He heard them shifting in their seats, obviously uncomfortable. 

“How-”

“ Don’t … Don’t ask how I died.” Danny cut off the question before it could be fully formed. “It’s really rude to ask any ghost how they died.”

“Let me get this straight,” Tim was the one to finally break the silence that had fallen over them all, “A yeti ghost named Frostbite who is your doctor portalled you into the Ghost Zone, which is the glue between dimensions, and treated you - a half-ghost - and then sent you back here. Did I miss anything?”

Danny shook his head. 

“There’s a lot more to this,” Danny admitted, “There’s a lot of things in my past I’m not willing to talk about right now. There’s some important stuff I’ll get to. Please,” He looked up again, scanning their faces in various degrees of empathy and discomfort, “please don’t ask me anything. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”

“We can handle that,” Dick chirped, “But, we’ll always be ready for you when you finally get to that point. If we hadn’t made it clear yet, we’re pretty dang fond of you.”

They started filing out of the room. Danny was pretty sure that Alfred had conscripted Dick and Duke to drag Tim to bed and sit on him until he slept, but he didn’t have any proof. It was just him and Damian left in the room. 

“It’s good you’re back. Batcow has been missing you,” Damian grumbled in his softer tone of voice that was his way of being fond. 

“I’ll be sure to join you for feeding tomorrow,” he promised. 

Then Damian left. Danny couldn’t help but be surprised that everyone took it so well. Of course, he wasn’t fooling himself. Bruce and Tim would definitely start looking for ghost-related stuff. Tucker’s software probably wasn’t good enough to keep them out, if he was even still technologically protecting the town. Danny hadn’t poked his nose into anything Amity. He didn’t want to put everyone there in danger by reaching out again. He knew the GIW would make their lives miserable until they coughed him up again. Plus, half the town was liminal enough that the GIW could probably justify some kidnappings. 

But the Waynes were sticking with him, despite all the weirdness. It was more weird to Danny than anything else he had explained tonight.

Chapter Text

Danny made it a week with the secrets burning in his gut before he finally found Bruce. 

If he wanted to find a family member he was completely comfortable with, he might have sat down with Duke or Cass, but he also wanted someone analytical and efficient who was properly equipped to handle the bomb shell he was going to drop. Also, it was sorta a test to see how much madness Bruce could handle before he got rid of Danny. 

“Do you have a minute?” He asked, popping his head into Bruce’s office. 

Bruce jerked slightly, like he was beginning to fall asleep over his paperwork. “Of course. Come in.”

“Am I good to talk shop in here?” Danny checked. He wasn’t sure what the boundaries were around nighttime chatter and all that. 

Bruce nodded. 

“I know who my kidnappers are.”

Bruce grunted in surprise. 

Danny smirked a little, “Technically, you can’t legally get them in trouble.”

“What do you mean?” Bruce asked, “Kidnapping, human experimentation, Child endangerment, possession of illegal firearms and drugs,” He listed, ticking them off on his fingers. 

“Legally,” Danny said again, “Everything they did to me wasn’t punishable by law.”

“How?”

“You know how I said I’m a half-ghost?” Danny asked. 

Bruce nodded. 

“Ghosts are considered ‘ectoplasmic entities’ in the scientific community. Pioneering ectobiologists theorized that ghosts weren’t sentient but were instead imprints of consciousness on ectoplasm - which is what ghosts are made of.”

“I don’t see where this is going,” Bruce admitted. 

Danny sighed, “A group popped up to research these ‘ectoplasmic entities’. It was government funded. They’re called the Ghost Investigation Ward. Me and my friends called them the Guys In White, since that was what their agents wore. It was like a knockoff on the Men In Black franchise,” Danny allowed himself a small smile, “The GIW weren’t dangerous at first. Then the government passed a law that basically declared all ghosts not sentient. That means that the GIW could grab any ghost off the street and experiment thoughtlessly.”

“That law shouldn’t have been able to pass!”

Bruce looked aghast and Danny couldn’t help but feel a little bit satisfied that someone else thought it was unjust. That an adult was looking at the situation and calling it wrong. 

“Well, it was tucked in some other legislation,” Danny said, “But you have to remember that leading scientists said ghosts weren’t sentient. It isn’t a crime if they can’t really think or feel.”

“How is it not obvious to them? I’ve never seen a better example of someone with emotions and thoughts.” Bruce was getting worked up. 

“The GIW captured me, while I was in ghost form. It was legal. They tortured me and tested my biology to the limits. It was legal. They might be able to come for some of your children. And. It. Will. Be. Legal.“

“What do you mean my children?” Bruce’s gaze sharpened suddenly. 

Danny didn’t envy the person or people that endangered Bruce’s kids. He would rain hell upon anyone he could reach for those kids. It was admirable. 

“When a person spends enough time around ectoplasm, which is the stuff ghosts are made of, they absorb it into their body and become something we called ‘liminal’. Most of your kids have a slight bit of liminality. Damian and Jason are the worst. I think the GIW could take Jason out and it would still be perfectly legal. Taking Damian might be on the edge because he had far less ectoplasm in him. They could still argue contamination, but they probably wouldn’t get away with experimentation by any means.”

There was a lengthy pause as Bruce took in all this information. 

“Is this why you were so worried for me when I said I was still investigating the group?”

Danny nodded, just a little bit. 

“Thank you for telling me. I’m going to get the League together to talk about this. A law like this should never have been pushed through. It directly contradicts the meta-rights act. We have a lot of political sway, so we’re going to start deconstructing this at the top.”

Bruce waited until he had Danny’s eye contact, “Look,” he started carefully, “I am going to run the GIW out of this city so you can live in a place you can feel safe in. I want Gotham to be a place where you don’t have to peer around corners. I do not have to wait for the law to be rescinded - and I;m sure it will be once we shed proper light on it - to get them out of here.”

Danny was almost horrified to find tears starting to pool in his eyes. The intensity of Bruce’s gaze caught him off guard. Danny didn’t miss the significance of Bruce’s words. If he was, in fact, speaking the truth, then he was going to do far more than any adult in his life ever had before. This was truly the best-case scenario. Danny had so much more respect for Bruce now. 

“Danny, can you compile this ghost information in a file or powerpoint for me to show the League?”

“I can even get you sources on the original science,” Danny grinned like it was a personal challenge.

—

Bruce came to his room the night after he presented the information to the League. He leaned in Danny’s doorway, large frame blocking a good portion of the light that had been spilling from the hall. 

“Danny Fenton?” He asked gently. 

Danny flinched. He turned, looking the man full in the face. 

“I haven’t been a Fenton since the day my parents first shot experimental weapons at me. Before I was kidnapped, I had a plan to move out the day I turned eighteen.”

It was Bruce’s turn to flinch at the pure vitriol in Danny’s voice. 

“The League is pretty positive we can turn this around.”

“I’m glad.”

“You have a sister.”

Danny paused. “I do,” He admitted, “I don’t want her to get hurt in all this. I’ll find her when the dust settles.”

“The League is looking to contact Amity Park’s local superhero. Do you know anything about him?”

“Phantom hasn’t been out in years. They won’t find him there.”

Danny ducked away from Bruce’s searching gaze. 

“Danny…” He said slowly. Like he knew all the answers. And he was the World’s Greatest Detective, so he probably did. 

“I’m a half ghost. You’ve already seen the human half,” Danny spat, annoyance filling his tone as a replacement for fear. It was just about as good as a confirmation. 

“The family is coming together to push the GIW out of Gotham soon. Is there anything I need to know about them?” Bruce asked, firmly moving the topic away from the things Danny was particularly defensive about. 

Danny spent the rest of the evening detailing all the weapons the GIW had and how they tended to be most useful on ghosts, not humans. They wouldn’t be prepared to face Batman. They probably didn’t even think they needed to since they probably fully believed that they were in the right. 

—

Danny breathed his first deep breath when Dick told him that they were officially free of the GIW. The family threw a little party for him. Danny felt loved. 

—

Danny turned eighteen a week before the Anti-Ecto laws were repealed. He was sitting in the manor living room with Alfred, watching the news and cheering. There had been so many human rights activists and social justice warriors that had jumped on the case as soon as it hit anything close to the public. Danny knew that Sam and Tucker had probably joined in as much as they were able. 

The thought warmed his heart. 

—

The next day, the Justice League hit the news as they raided every known GIW base and enforced the new laws. It was a synchronized attack. The agents couldn’t put up much of a fight. 

Danny sat in his room and cried. He was too happy for words. He was filled with grief that this hadn’t happened sooner. Damian came to pull him from his spiralling what-ifs to feed Batcow and help take care of a new litter of puppies that he had smuggled into the house. Danny bet that they lasted another sixteen hours before Alfred or Bruce found out. Cass’s bet was four hours. Duke thought they were insane and that Alfred already knew but didn’t want to deal with the confrontation yet. 

—

“Hi, this is Jasmine Nightingale?”

Danny sucked in a deep breath, then pressed his phone to his ear. 

“Hi Jazz.”

He immediately pulled the phone back away from his ear as she screamed his name. 

“Danny, you’re okay, you’re okay. Did they have you all this time? Did the League get you out? Where are you? I’m coming to pick you up right now.” Danny thought he heard keys jingling in the background. 

“Jazz, I’m okay. I’ve been out for a while now. In fact, I’m the reason the GIW was taken down. Jazz, I’ve got people I’m staying with but… I missed you. I really just want to hear how you’ve been since I disappeared.”

Danny felt the tears fall down his cheeks as he listened to his sister talk about her college classes, about her psychology program, about her annoying college roommates, about how she still kept up with half of his classmates. He talked to her about his new family, about his life in Gotham, about his therapy sessions that were helping him confront years of torture and dehumanization and suicidal thoughts. 

She threatened him to talk to Sam and Tucker immediately. Danny knew she was thankful to be the first he reached out to. 

The phone call with Sam and Tucker took longer. There was more screaming, more insults, and more frustration. Jazz had understood why Danny had been so terrified to reach out. Sam and Tucker struggled to realize the deeper fear. Nothing could steal his joy though. He had his best friends back. 

They ended up planning a little reunion. Sam had always wanted to visit Gotham and Tucker would literally kill Danny again if it meant he could meet Tim. Jazz would go anywhere to see her little brother again. Danny wanted his old family to meet his new family (technically unofficial, but Bruce was still technically Danny’s medical proxy and emergency contact - Jazz was now proudly his second emergency contact).

—

Danny wandered down to the kitchen. Today was a Jason day. The family tended to warn Danny when his least favorite person would be around. This time, he was seeking him out. 

The air still held that unnatural, disgusting energy, but now Danny had the pure ectoplasm inside himself to help form a bit of a barrier. He leaned in the doorway for a bit - completely silent - and watched Alfred and Jason work in tandem. It was a sight to behold. 

Jason twitched in surprise when he finally noticed Danny. Alfred was too good for that kind of thing. 

“What’s up squirt?” Jason asked nervously. 

“I think you should see a ghost doctor,” Danny said with no preamble, because he really liked to see that carefully blank shock that the Bats wore when someone dropped something really weird on them.

“Do you have a recommendation?” Jason asked, like he was expecting the answer to be no.

“Yup, we could go right now. Maybe I can actually stand to be around you if you get an appointment.”

He didn’t think Jason could get any more confused, but he was wrong. This was amazing. He would really like Jason once being around him didn’t make his stomach roil with disgust. Frostbite was going to have a field day with this guy. 

—

If, a few months down the line, Danny needed to get the protection obsession filled, the Bats would turn a blind eye to their half-dead hero companion. After all, Batman didn’t allow metas in his city, but the dead weren’t metahumans. Death is technically a medical condition anyways.