Archive of Our Own ^beta

The Watchtower briefing room was quiet in the way only serious meetings could be. The holographic projection of a slowly rotating derelict starship hovered above the table: fractured hull, drifting trajectory, and an unmistakably dangerous inward collapse that screamed impending catastrophic failure. 

The good news about this was the ship wouldn’t reach the point of collapse. The bad news was it wouldn’t reach this point because the doomed vessel was hurtling straight toward Earth, and without intervention would hit Earth first. 

Batman stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, expression granite-solid.

“We’ve initiated the long-range scans and have pulled the data,” Martian Manhunter said. “If the ship is on its projected course, we’ll intercept before the orbit decays further.”

Cyborg brought up telemetry. “Heat signatures were fluctuating at the sampled time. Like it’s destabilizing faster than physics says it should.”

Superman leaned in. “Time until atmospheric breach?”

“At current speed?” Cyborg zoomed in. “Three days.”

Batman nodded once. “We’ll confirm its trajectory through the deep-space telescope.”

Flash zipped in carrying armfuls of snacks. “Did we start? I thought there’d be more screaming for the whole ‘giant murder-ship’ thing.”

Batman keyed the telescope access. The feed flickered…Static.

And then: a blank starfield.

Superman frowned, looking at the geniuses around the table, “Wrong sector?”

“No,” Cyborg said, double-checking the coordinates. “That’s exactly where the ship should be.”

Wonder Woman crossed her arms. “So where is it?”

Green Lantern scanned the void. “No debris. No residue. No radiation spike. It didn’t explode.”

Wonder Woman’s expression sharpened. “Ships do not simply vanish.”

Flash raised a hand. “Counterpoint: Magic exists and sometimes things do just vanish.”

Batman didn’t outwardly react, but something slid into place in his mind.

• Tim had asked to come to the Watchtower specifically to see Danny today.
• Danny had reserved the telescope to show him the Horsehead Nebula.
• The ship was gone.

Batman inhaled through his nose… his version of a sighing and hitting his head on the table.

Superman picking up his friend’s fatherly exasperation folded his arms thoughtfully looking at Batman. “Tim’s with him?”

“Yes, I’ll go talk to them.”

Flash grinned. “Awwwwwwww. Stargazing is always a solid date idea.”

Batman cut him a look so sharp Flash dove behind Wonder Woman for protection.

Cyborg cleared his throat. “Ask Danny for the visual logs. He usually photographs every anomaly he sees.”

“He does,” Batman confirmed. “And he was using the telescope before the meeting.”

Everyone turned toward him.

Flash whispered, “Dude’s gravity well is insane. It’s possible even dead ships would fall out of their path for him.”

Batman ignored that too.

“Continue scans,” he ordered. “See if there’s any trace at all and retrieve the eyewitness.”

Aquaman muttered under his breath, “Eyewitness or culprit?”

Batman did not deny it.

He simply strode out, cape snapping behind him, a man fully prepared for the chaos of reining in a well-meaning nuclear-powered, twenty-year-old ghost king and the son who became feral around him.

Danny didn’t realize he glowed when he talked about space.

Tim did.

He noticed it the first time Danny launched into an explanation of stellar drift, hands moving in wide arcs like he was sculpting the cosmos itself (and sometimes he was, as it was like stardust trailed after his animated hands). Every time Danny’s excitement spiked, a faint green shimmer rippled under his skin, it wasn’t bright, and it wasn’t dramatic, just a quiet pulse of light, warm and strangely gentle. That a person would only really notice if they were in arms reach of Danny and looking for it. And Tim was finding that he wanted to be in Danny’s space more and more and was always looking at him so always happened to notice the shimmer. 

Like right now, Danny was sitting cross-legged in front of the Watchtower viewport, pointing at a band of stars with both hands, gummy bears floating lazily beside him like circling like tiny delicious satellites.

“And that one?” Danny said, leaning closer to the glass. “Supernova residue. Still dispersing. If the light wasn’t delayed by, like, ten thousand years we’d see it unfolding in real time. Isn’t that crazy?”

Tim wasn’t looking at the stars.

He was looking at him.

Danny talked with his whole body: shoulders animated, hair drifting in faint zero-gravity curls, his voice bright with genuine awe. He radiated wonder in a way Tim hadn’t seen in someone since he was a little kid reading his first astronomy book under the blankets.

It was… disarming.

The more Danny spoke, the more Tim felt something slow and heavy and inevitable settle in his chest.

Because it wasn’t just that Danny knew things.Lots of people knew things.

It was that Danny loved them. Clearly, death hadn’t stopped Danny from loving life.

Loved the universe. Loved exploration. Loved sharing the knowledge 

Clearly, death hadn’t stopped Danny from loving life.

Tim’s heart slammed once, hard enough that he instinctively pressed a hand to his sternum.

Danny turned toward him, eyes bright with excitement. “And if you shift your vision just a little, like through the green spectrum…you can catch the tail end of the energy wave. It’s so cool. Here…”

He froze mid-gesture.

“Oh. Right. You can’t… do the thing with your eyes.” Danny grimaced, flustered. “Um…um one sec, I have something for that.”

He dug into his backpack, rummaging past notebooks, loose gummy bears, and a tiny plush ghost, muttering, “Where is, no, not that…aha!”

He pulled out a pair of sleek, black-framed glasses with tiny colored buttons along the temples.

He held them out with both hands like he was presenting Tim with something fragile.

Precious.

“The buttons toggle different light spectrums,” Danny explained, his voice suddenly shy. “Red, blue, full-spectrum, ultraviolet, and, well, green. For the energy wave.”

Tim blinked, stunned. “You… made these?”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I, um…kinda wanted you to see things the way I do.”

The sentence hit Tim like a meteor.

He reached out and took the glasses, careful, deliberate, like accepting a gift that meant more than either of them knew how to articulate.

Danny hovered closer. “Here…let me set it. The calibration can be a little…”

He leaned in.

Close.

Too Close.

His breath brushed Tim’s cheek. Danny’s fingers ghosted along Tim’s jaw as he gently positioned the glasses, adjusting the frame until it rested just right. His other hand hovered near the buttons, brushing the hair near Tim’s temple.

“Okay,” Danny murmured, concentration bright and intimate. “If I switch it to green, you should see the energy trail right… about…”

He clicked the button.

Tim still felt the trail of Danny’s fingertips as he went to pull away, but staying close enough that Danny’s shoulder brushed his. Lightly. Casually.

Tim swallowed so hard it almost hurt. For he didn’t see the stars, couldn’t make himself turn his head. 

Because he knew…he knew…this wasn’t a crush. He’d had crushes. Brief, impulsive, fleeting.

This was a feeling blooming with startling clarity, rooted somewhere deep and growing fast.

Danny pointed at a glowing cluster. “See it? It’s right there…It’s like the universe is winking at us, like we are in on the joke.”

Tim nodded, but he wasn’t looking at the stars.He was watching the reflection of cosmic light dancing across Danny’s face.

Danny who had turned back to the stars but hadn’t moved from being pressed against Tim, humming happily, unaware of the hurricane he’d just created.

Tim exhaled slowly.

Yeah.

He was in trouble.

The best kind.

Danny was mid-sentence about stellar nurseries when he finally realized Tim wasn’t looking at the stars.

He was looking at him.

Really looking…eyes locked, a little wide, a little stunned, like Danny had just peeled open the sky and handed him a galaxy. Tim’s breath caught, throat bobbing, and suddenly Danny’s voice faltered.

Oh.

Oh wow.

Danny felt the warmth hit him first…a rush under his skin, then up his neck, blooming across his cheeks. His glow hiccuped, pulsing faintly. He blinked hard, trying to look back at the nebula, but no…Tim’s gaze dragged him right back.

Tim’s eyes flicked down. To Danny’s mouth.

Oh, Ancients. How Danny wanted this. 

Danny’s heart leaped into regions of the spectrum not yet charted.

He swallowed, unable to stop himself from looking at Tim’s lips too, soft, parted, breath trembling just slightly. Tim leaned in first, barely an inch, like a compass pulled toward magnetic north.

Danny leaned too.

Their noses touched.
Tim inhaled sharply.
Danny’s glow brightened…

And then the door slid open.

“Danny.”

They jumped apart so quickly they almost drifted into the ceiling. Batman stood in the doorway, cape settling around him like judgment incarnate.

Danny squeaked. Tim tried to look normal and failed miserably.

Batman did not comment. He didn’t need to.

He simply crossed his arms. “Did you, at any point today, see a derelict ship approaching the Watchtower?”

Danny blinked, then perked up, relieved to have something to answer that wasn’t I was about to kiss your son, sir.

“Oh! Yeah, that.” Danny pointed out the window as if the ship were still floating there. “It was in the way. I wanted to show Tim the Horsehead Nebula…the baby stars were super bright today…and, well…”

He glanced between them, sheepish.

“…last time you didn’t like it when I sped the whole station up to dodge debris, soooo I took care of it myself instead.”

Batman stared at him. Tim stared at him.
Danny, suddenly unsure, looked at Batman for approval.

“Was… was that the right call?”

Tim made a faint, involuntary sound, something between a gasp and a whispered prayer.

Because the implications hit him all at once:

Danny hadn’t just moved a starship.

He’d done it casually.

Quietly.

For him.

So he wouldn’t be inconvenienced. So the view would be clear for their date. 

And he did it without being asked. Without expecting thanks. Without even intending to mention it.

The tips of Tim’s ears went scarlet.

A knot of heat twisted low in his stomach… part awe, part attraction, part a sharp, protective instinct that ignited like a flare. Danny was powerful, cataclysmically so. But he was also gentle. Kind. Unselfish to a fault.

And Tim suddenly, desperately needed the universe to understand: No one gets to exploit that kindness. Not the GIW, not governments, not opportunistic mystics, not anyone. They’d have to go through him. And all his siblings if Tim had any say. 

If there was any justice in the cosmos, Tim Drake would be the shield at Danny’s back.

Batman’s eyebrow twitched...his version of open astonishment, reaching similar conclusions as his son. Then, carefully: “What exactly did you do to the ship?”

Danny brightened again…proud, animated, glowing with that soft green shimmer that made Tim feel unmoored and breathless..

“Oh! I phased onboard, checked for life…there wasn’t any…and then I compressed the whole thing into a tight ecto-singularity and slingshotted it into the sun. Super quick! I checked the path right before Tim got here so the view would be perfect for him.”

Tim’s soul nearly left his body.

He stared at Danny like the universe had tilted. Danny felt the stare. Danny always noticed him, and his glow fluttered. Heat rose across his cheeks as he bit his lip, suddenly shy.

Batman noticed all of it.

He closed his eyes for two seconds...just two...but it was the two seconds of a man reevaluating timelines, contingencies, and potential future in-laws.

Potential in-laws that could throw starships into the sun. But also potential in-laws that would throw starships into the sun for his son. 

Then he sighed.

“Danny,” Batman said, stepping closer, voice gentler than before, “your abilities are extraordinary. But protocol exists for a reason. We need to know when you intervene. Not because we doubt you, because even the strongest allies need backup.”

Danny nodded earnestly. “Okay. I can do that next time. Promise.”

Tim, still pink-eared, whispered, “You, uh… you really checked the view ahead of time?”

Danny ducked his head shyly. “Well… yeah. I wanted it to be special.”

Tim forgot how breathing worked.

Batman’s eyes flicked between them again…the flustered genius son and the glowing space monarch trying his absolute best.

He exhaled. Resolved something internally.

And said, with the tone of a man arranging the future:

“Alfred is making dinner at seven. Tim’s favorite. You should join us.”

Danny brightened…literally. “Really? Yeah! I mean...yes, sir. Well, I mean yes, as long as Tim wants me there…”

Tim looked like he’d just been handed the stars, takes Danny’s hand, “Yes, I want you to come to my family dinner. You’ve met most of them already.” 

Batman turned to leave.

“Protocol, Danny,” he reminded. And walked out, cape swaying, the soft sound of a man who knew exactly what direction this was headed.

Before he was out of range he heard Tim, “Alfred’s also making Jason’s favorite dessert soooo maybe your sister would like to join too.”