Better Halves (and other such falsehoods) - Astereae (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

“I don’t f*cking belong here, Sam,” Danny says, dodging the fifth co*cktail waitress he’s passed in this hallway. “I got this suit from rent-a-tux, I’m pretty sure one of these kid’s dad owns Armani. Not just a suit, like, the company. ”

“ You’re fine. ” Sam says, evenly. “ This is what you want, right, getting the super-selective invite to the social elite party? ”

“This isn’t a high school kickback.”

“ I’m fully aware of that. ”

Danny nods at the other wealthy teenager in the alcove he’s tucked himself into to try and get out of the flow of traffic. “I feel like a hick.” The teen wipes at his nose, a motion which means either he agreed with Danny being a hick, or could be evidence of a drug habit, or something totally incongruous, and Danny isn’t savvy enough to know which.

“ Well, ” Sam says, leadingly.

“f*ck off.” He tilts his head back to get a better look at the ballroom, which was just past the alcove of the hall he’d tucked himself away in. There were two goals for the night, the first of which was fairly easy- avoid Vlad at all costs. It was fairly easy (much easier than Danny had initially anticipated) because on arriving at the gala, after a footman took his coat, he was told that the younger attendees were welcome to socialize in the B hall. At first it felt a bit like being relegated to the kiddy table, when Danny shucked off his thrift store puffer coat to be hung up in a little room full of boiled wool and Chanel, but it became quickly clear that it was more about providing an environment where young heirs and new money twenty-somethings could get drunk and make poor financial decisions regarding the ‘investment paintings’ in the gallery.

“ It’s probably in a vault somewhere in the basem*nt ,” Tuck puts in, having been mostly silent. Sam had been much more vocal, as she was providing emotional support rather than logistical support, and Danny was much more in need of the former.

“I hate museums,” Danny mutters, and the other teen pulls out his phone, wiping his nose again. There is a little chill from the window, because it’s old single pane glass, and the grilles look to be as old as the building. Outside, big New England snowflakes are drifting over the gardens, making the scene all idyllic and christmassy.

“ A little culture wouldn’t kill you. ” Sam replies.

“Only cause I’m already dead,” Danny steps back out into the crowd, wondering how everyone else is able to move without feeling like they’re constantly in the way of someone, or, alternatively, their view of whatever ridiculous ‘modern’ painting they were exchanging intellectual commentary about. It’s something about how assured they are, growing up with the aftertaste of silver on their tongues.

“ The archives are your best bet, can you get down there? ”

“Do you have any idea how many people are here? And they all want to know my name. The only reason I haven’t gotten pulled into the quicksand of rich people niceties is because I’m on the phone, or because they think I’m one of the staff.”

“ Crowds are great for anonymity. ”

“I wish that were true.” In the ballroom proper, there are a lot of people, that’s sure, but they’re all in clumps, spread out enough that visibility is too good to just disappear in. “I should’ve done this whole thing invisible.”

“ You’re too far from a portal to try and be invisible for that long. Plus, you were expected. ” Sam reminds. “ You’re not important enough for turning it down to be anywhere near acceptable. I didn’t get invited this year, but.. ”

“Which you are totally not bitter about. I would’ve brought you if I had a plus one.”

“ The social echelon that hosts these galas expect that your plus one would get an invitation independently. ”

“Sounds incestuous.”

“ Eh, ” Sam intones. A girl in a red silk dress shakes her empty champagne flute in front of his face, and he pulls the phone away from his ear.

“I’m not a caterer.” Her face twists up, like he smells bad.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well then what are you doing here?”

“I’ll call you back,” Danny tells Sam and Tuck. “Danny Fenton.” He holds his hand out to shake, but both of her hands are occupied- one with the flute and the other with a clutch.

She blinks at him. He drops his hand.

“Heir to Vlad-co?”

“Oh!” She says, with enough genuine surprise that Danny believes she might’ve actually heard of him- according to Sam, it’s important that you already know everyone going into these events, that you research the guest list beforehand. “Sorry. I didn’t realize...”

“Don’t worry.” Danny says. “My prada’s at the cleaner’s.”

She smiles at him again- it doesn’t hit her eyes, and she doesn’t get the joke. “Right.”

“Right.” She’s still holding the flute half expectantly. “Maybe just put it down on one of the tables?”

She just nods and walks away, and god, Danny hates this. It’s bad enough when he’s somewhere he doesn’t belong but he knows all the rules, even while he’s breaking them, because acceptance at least feels within reach, if he’d just bought the right clothes, said the right things, changes that felt plausible. Sam tried to coach him, but obviously it wasn’t effective.

He shakes his head, just slightly, glancing down to his phone. It’s nearly dead, because he forgot to pack his charger, and didn’t think it would be that much of a problem, going straight from the airport to the gala.

“Great,” He breathes, just to himself, tucking it into his suit pocket. He nods and smiles to the photographer in the photo, because even though he doesn’t want to see Vlad at all throughout the night, he also needs to be seen in attendance, because his parents thought it was a good idea for him, and because Vlad made some very thinly veiled threats about what would happen if he didn’t show up.

At least that meant Vlad most likely didn’t know about the shard potentially being kept in this particular museum’s archives. Although Danny isn’t really sure if he would be interested in it for any reason other than making his life difficult.

He selects a little cup with some kind of chocolate mousse in it and wonders if he just walks up to a group and laughs at the first funny thing someone says if the night might get a little easier. There are a few loners hugging the walls, of course, including a kid who looks about twelve wearing a suit that could buy Danny’s whole block. All of the loners look cool and curated, though, which Danny decidedly does not.

He eats a spoonful of mousse and cringes immediately. “Oh, there’s rum in that. Right.” He sniffs it, then takes another spoonful, this time with a high ratio of whipped cream. “When in Rome, I guess. Act like you belong, Danny, just act like you belong.”

The shards (shard singular, actually, in regards to this night) are the second goal of the night. They’re the shattered pieces of a... skull? Bowl? Chalice? Something round and hollow, that belongs to one asshole of a spirit who’s tearing up the realms looking for it, despite the fact that it’s been broken and scattered across an amount of realms for the past millennia, give or take. Of course Danny was the one to wake it up, and so of course Danny was the one who had to go on a quest to get all of the shards to calm it down, because when it first got broken, it terrorized the zone for the better part of a century before it decided to take a nap, and while that might not be much to some spirits, it seriously puts a damper on Danny’s day-to-day.

They managed to track one of them down to an archeologist connected to the museum hosting the gala, and so there Danny was, eating chocolate rum mousse, in an ill-fitting rented tux.

Whatever. It was better than the Needle realm, where he’d gotten the last one (it’s worse than it sounds. Somehow.) He finishes the mousse, wondering idly about the alcohol content as he puts the cup and spoon down at one of the standing tables, trying to ignore the twelve year old, who is staring daggers at him, and moving through to the next hall, hoping desperately that it leads somewhere he can slip, invisible and intangible, to the vaults below.

***

Tim was born to attend galas. That’s not even a joke, a decent percentage of the reason his parents had him was to parade him around to the rest of high society as the perfect son, the perfect addition to their perfect family and he’s not even bitter about it, because he’s so damned good at it. He fits in authentically, in contrast to his siblings. In all fairness, Dick is the only other one who really tries , with Damian thinking it’s below him, and Jason, when he was attending them, thinking the whole process was idiotic.

And, well, Dick trying is half the problem. He’s an entertainer at heart, and the desire to be liked works against him in an atmosphere where everyone is trying to act like they care the absolute least about what everyone else thinks about them. Tim doesn’t need to try. The fake smiles and drinking enough that everyone around you thinks you’re drunk but little enough that it doesn’t disarm you at all (easy for Tim, who’s not even eighteen, and who can con the investment bankers and other executives who think it’s fun and or funny to give the minor alcohol).

But securing good deals for Wayne Enterprises isn’t the goal of the night. It’s not maintaining his image as a flawless boy genius, or a legitimate member of the Wayne boys.

“We’re sure it’s in the archives?” Tim asks.

“ Hundred percent sure, boy wonder. ” Zatanna’s voice says in his ear.

“You owe me so much for this one,” He says, with a fake smile plastered on his face. “I wasn’t even going to come to this.”

“ Well, no one else got invited, so... ”

“All the robins were.” Hell, Damian is here, somewhere. Tim lost track of him in the first flurry of people vying for his attention. Then again, Damian is only here because Bruce insisted Tim bring him as a show of unity, despite the fact the little brat maintains that he hates him and doesn’t care to act any differently.

“ Yeah, well, you won’t make a scene. If everything goes according to plan, no one will ever remember you were there. ”

“Right. I’m gonna let you go. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking I’m doing anything out of the ordinary,” Tim says, still smiling, taking a glass from a passing waitress without really looking at her.

He’s in the main hall where the Gala’s being hosted, and everything smells like balsam, classic colognes, and champagne. Tim makes a show of sniffing his glass, like he’s thinking about the bouquet. He’s not- most of the time when he’s playing a sommelier, he just says words and everyone else nods, so he’s convinced no one can actually taste the different notes. A small string ensemble is playing Handel, which is insulting to the composer, in Tim’s opinion.

“Mr. Drake-Wayne! I’m glad to see you could make it!”

“Of course, senator,” Tim says, pausing in front of one of the larger pieces. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Ah, you might. Your guardian appears to find it below his station.”

“Bruce is very busy around the holidays. He’d be here if he could, I just hope I’m an adequate substitute.”

Senator Ricci laughs, a little falsely, and Tim humors him with a chuckle. “Ah of course. You’re doing quite a lot of business for him now, aren’t you? Gotta start ‘em young, I always say. Speaking of, aren’t you a little young for that drink? Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

“I appreciate it, senator.” Tim says, tipping the glass, which he hasn’t even sipped from, towards the canvas. “Great understanding of color here, wouldn’t you say? Very evocative.”

“Ah, good eye. It’s one of my favorites.”

“You haven’t put a bid on it, though?” There’s no sticker by the artist statement that indicates the painting’s been sold. The figure listed does seem to have a few more zeros than Tim expects from the quality, but from what he’s seen, the artist has several pieces similar selling for around the same. It’s easy enough to recognize people are purchasing for the name.

“Ah, you know.” The senator says dismissively. “It’s a little rich for my blood.”

“Really?” Tim fakes.

“Are you considering it?”

He shakes his head, mildly. “I’m more in the market for gallery pieces instead of... investments.” Ricci leans forward, looking at the statement again, and Tim moves on. His skills as a collector are easily as limited as his of a sommelier, which is why he strays to the more abstract pieces in settings such as this, so whatever bullsh*t he ends up saying can’t be easily argued by anyone with a shred more competence in the matter.

Generally the deciding factor on who’s right in these environments, though, is money. Which Tim has a lot of. Enough that it’s rarely worth it to disagree with him.

He continues wading through the crowd, with enough nods and smiles and snippets of small talk that if anyone asked (no one would ask) people would say of course he was there, I saw him talking to so and so I saw him with him, he was flirting with her, didn’t he buy that one painting? No, someone outbid him. Tonight is not the night to be memorable, and Tim likes it that way. He likes his names out of the papers, his face off the internet, and his life out of other people’s thoughts.

Once he’s made his round and had his whole flute of champagne, he places it on an empty tray, making sure he’s less careful about his posture, the sounds of his footfalls despite not being the slightest bit inebriated. It’s all a lie.

Tim is an excellent liar.

There’s actually not all that much in terms of security for museums overnight, especially regarding the stuff that’s not on display. The pieces are less valuable, and even if they aren’t, you have to be a seriously committed- or specific- thief to dredge through museum archival records to find them.

Tim’s not either, but according to Zatanna, John Constantine was concerned about the ancient scrap of pottery only now, despite it being unearthed way back in the sixties, due to come ‘concerning semi-dimensional disturbances’ in the past few weeks. That’s justice league dark for you- even when they try to sound scientific they fail miserably. They ought to just stick to their superstitious mumbo-jumbo.

Tim bypasses the electronic locks using a chip he’d put in one of his cufflinks, which he’d coded to the museum’s security system on the drive over. The lights aren’t on, but Tim’s well loved by the shadows. His fingers trace faint lines on the wall as he descends the stairs, glad to be free from the facade of drunkenness. He’s only been drunk a few times, only once in earnest, and he despises it. He needs to be in control of every action, every word, every thought. He isn’t interested in losing inhibitions.

There’s two levels of security to get into the archives proper- the fob, which he has, and a mechanical lock, which Tim picks without much of a thought.

All this, he thinks, for a plain shard of pottery. It almost feels insulting. He glances at the numbers and letters on the shelving. At least it would be quick. He won’t be back in Gotham tonight for patrol, but he could at least get some work done back in the hotel, some hours of sleep, and maybe even a meal before he and the Demon have to be at Logan International to return to Jersey. Their flight is at five, but it’s short. Environmentally speaking, they ought to take the train, but he’s equally aware of his follies as he is of his virtues, and he’s not patient enough for all of the sitting and waiting and doing nothing while scenery scrolled by. Especially not sitting across from his nominal little brother who wants to kill him.

The archive hall is as big as the main ballroom upstairs, although the ceiling is much lower. The emergency lighting, sparse as it is, is red to help preserve the ink, paint, canvas and papers. If Tim were anyone else, it might be eerie.

Based on the organizational system, the shard was in the opposite corner to the door. Not completely tucked away, but forgotten, as an obscure, unstudied piece.

“This is so stupid,” Tim breathes, “It’s probably in a cardboard box, I don’t get why they couldn’t have just written a formal requisition. Ridiculous.” His fingers pad against the metal shelves, making them chime softly.

“Oh sh*t.” Tim pauses, wondering if he heard that right- was that actually a voice, or just false echoes that his brain was making in the silence?

His question was answered a heartbeat later, when the silence breaks into a ringing, violent, cacophony.

“Oh sh*t,” Tim copies.

***

Danny returns to the confines of physicality in a low room that smells of old paper and is lit blood red. It’s bigger than he anticipated, and he’s somewhat lost in his first few breaths. But in those breaths, grows the misty tail of his ghost sense, the humming pull that he feels with haunted objects.

Hopefully the shard is the only haunted item down here (optimism is a healthy trait , okay?) and he doesn’t end up stuck in the labyrinthian archives, full of steel stock shelves, looking for the thing for so long that he misses his flight back to Illinois.

He follows the pull carefully, conscious of how loud his footfalls are on the tile. The shard is kept, of course, in a metal tackle box, locked with a rusted Master Lock. Danny rolls his eyes, fishing Pariah Dark’s ring out of his inside pocket. He doesn’t wear it casually- absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that- but it’s useful when he definitely doesn’t want to walk out of this museum with an actual artifact from said museum on his person. He’ll just move it into a pocket dimension and retrieve it when he’s back in Amity Park.

He turns his arm intangible and sticks it in blind, feeling the dust and the old, tattered plastic. His fingers find the shard, and the sharp edges dig into the meat of his palm with a surety. He twists his wrist to open the portal and, to be fair, he probably should’ve thought that opening an interdimensional tear in the middle of an environmentally controlled archive might’ve caused a few problems. The contents of the tacklebox all rush into the portal because of the change in pressure, and luckily the box doesn’t implode into itself, because it’s not airtight, but it’s a near thing.

“Oh, sh*t.” Danny says, his voice barely catching, and he closes the portal and removes his arm. There’s a short second where he holds his breath, and he thinks it might not cause any problems.

Then the alarms start up.

Danny’s been dead at this point for the better part of four years. Almost four years of fights and flight and figuring himself out. He knows how his powers work, and how well, and how well they last him the further he gets from a portal. He also knows better than to let himself run through his reserves in a minor emergency (such as getting caught in the locked archives of a museum in Boston) because Murphy’s law declares that if he does, there will be a major emergency (asteroid, ancient god, aliens, interdimensional threat, ect.) and he and everyone else will be S.O.L.

So he ignores the instinct to dissolve into the aether and float back up to rejoin the party, and skids out into the main aisle. He’s ready to lie through his teeth to whatever security guard shows up.

He’s not ready for there to be another person there. A teenage boy in a f*cking expensive suit. Danny always thought you couldn’t really tell a three hundred dollar suit from a three thousand dollar suit- mostly because he’d never seen the latter. It’s obvious in the silhouette alone. They stare at each other for a breath, then two, their torsos moving in tandem, Danny’s heart loud in his ears. The panic is visible in the whites of the other boy’s eyes.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Boy in expensive velvet suit says. (Velvet? f*cking velvet? )

“Neither are you,” Danny replies oh so smartly.

“Yes I-” Velvet suit cuts himself off as the doors open, and the chopped up beams from flashlights light up their shoes. “f*ck.”

“Right.” Danny hisses at him.

Patent leather shoes bites his lip, eyes darting around and down, as if he’s looking for a way out. There’s not one, so Danny takes a venture on the quality of the suit, and the fact that it appears to be a deep evergreen as opposed to black, and the ring on his pinky, the fact that his nails are painted, and says:

“Fake-out make-out?”

Collar jewelry instead of a tie looks at him, considers, rolls his eyes and says: “f*ck it, aight.”

And then he kisses Danny with a purpose.

He’s so taken off course by it that he doesn’t really understand the desperate motions of the other boy’s hands- to get Danny’s shirt untucked, his tie loosened- as what they are, which is attempts to get them looking both as disheveled as possible in as little time as they have. Once the shock wears off, Danny goes with the program, mussing his hands up in his hair, tugging at the buttons of his vest (which is silk, and feels like it has a brocade.) Danny is aware instantly that he’s outmatched, which was a funny sort of understanding, that you can be outmatched whilst kissing, but he definitely is. Old money boy knows how to use his mouth, and he’s stronger than his frame suggests, and his fingers are deft, and if Danny is being totally honest, he was getting a little bit distracted, because he finds himself annoyed in the blue L.E.D beam of the security guard’s flashlight.

“It’s just a couple of kids, Manny!” The imposing woman shouts, and her partner, presumably Manny, grumbles, moving back to the door. “f*ck are you doing here, eh?”

“Sorry, are we not meant to be here?” The other boy asks, blinking in the harsh light. His face is flush and his saliva tastes like champagne on Danny’s lips. His hand is knotted up in Danny’s necktie, keeping him anchored at his shoulder, despite the fact that Danny’s probably got a solid five inches on him. “We didn’t know.”

The security guard evaluates them. Danny offers his best, kissed-silly grin (it isn’t hard) and keeps his mouth shut, because there’s no way he can sound half as rich as this kid.

“Get the hell out of here.”

Danny is led up the stairs and out into the museum proper like a dog on a leash, the rich boy’s face set hard and determined. No one else is in the tall hallways, and it’s eerily silent, without even the distant sounds of the party going on in another room.

“Where is everyone?” Danny chances.

“Probably outside after all the alarms,” The boy says. “Gala’s effectively done, even though it was a false alarm.” He glances at Danny when he says ‘false’ as if questioning him.

“Right.” Danny says. “How’d you end up down there anyways?”

“I was looking for the bathroom,” he says through gritted teeth. “What were you doing down there?”

“Ah, right, same. Bathroom.”

“Of course. Of course,” He rolls his eyes- they’re a deep blue, a color which Danny didn’t think eyes really came in, dark blue, almost black around the edges. “Why else would you be in the basem*nt of a f*cking museum, god knows,” he’s barely breathing the words, and Danny’s not sure (on account of the fact that he’s had superpowers for again, the better part of four years) if most people would be able to hear him, but he can.

They walk out of the main entrance to flashing lights. The boy pauses, and Danny, still being led by his necktie, runs into his shoulder. The whole gala is standing out in the snow, women in sleeveless dresses huddling, the staff scrambling to organize everyone’s coats to their tickets, the media’s cameras all trained on them, the most interesting thing of the night.

The boy’s tongue clicks inside of his mouth, and then he smiles evenly, letting his vice off of Danny’s tie. He tries to placate the journalists and photographers, asking one particularly tall man in glasses for his pen. Danny drags his eyes across the crowd, until he finds Vlad, looking at him with that glare that says: If not for the fact that we are surrounded by the highest class in the United States right now, you would be a grease stain on the brickwork .

“Thanks, Clark.” Danny follows a tug on his sleeve down the stairs as gold cufflinks drags him out into the crowd. He loses sight of Vlad, which doesn’t provide much relief- he’d much rather know which direction his imminent demise is coming from. “Here.” He slides a business card into Danny’s breast pocket and drops his arm. “Damian! Where are you, little monster, let’s go!”

He turns around, suddenly, to catch the arm of the twelve year old from the ballroom.

“Tt. You just had to make a scene, didn’t you, Drake?” Manicure (Drake, evidently) plucks something metallic out of the boy’s hand, tucking it away with near supernatural speed.

“Nice try, demon, come on.”

He leaves, and Danny has just enough battery left to request an Uber.

***

Wayne Manor Regulars

Flying Phallus: Hey Timbo, thought you might need this

Attachment: So you’ve had your first sex scandal , a powerpoint by Alfred Pennyworth

Typing...

Typing...

Typing...

f*ck you it’s not a scandal.

Spoilt: if it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck

Demon Interloper: He gave him his number.
Demon Interloper: His PERSONAL cell phone number. I saw him write it.

snitch.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

“Did you get him to sign an NDA?”

“I barely spoke two words to him, no I didn’t get him to sign an NDA!”

“Tsk tsk.” Dick says. “Obviously you were otherwise occupied.”

“You’re not helping.” Tim grumbles, sitting hard in a chair. “What’s he going to disclose, anyways? We made out, briefly, and trust me, that’s like the least illicit thing that teenagers were doing at that party.”

“What you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter,” Bruce states. “People, as you are aware, are capable of this funny little thing called lying. He can claim a lot of things happened. Lots more than second base, easily. He could say you forced yourself on him, that you paid him-”

“He’s heir to Vlad-co, I’m not sure what I would be offering him,” Tim starts, although Daniel Fenton, the boy he’d made out with, didn’t dress, or act, like any of the other heirs at the party. His suit was cheap polyester, and his hair wasn’t done. All he had in his pockets was a duct tape wallet and a phone that was five or six years out of date.

“Stop and think about that for a second. You can’t think of a single reason the heir to one of our major competitors might want to get one over on you?” Bruce asks, unamused.

“He’s not trying to get one over on me!”

“Tim, you are not this naive.” Dick says.

“He wasn’t supposed to be down in those archives either. He hadn’t stolen anything, I checked, but I doubt he wants anyone’s noses in that basem*nt, either.”

“We can’t trust that. How do you know he didn’t follow you down there to engineer this situation?”

“Because only you could come up with a plan that convoluted, Bruce, and I know he didn’t follow me, because I’m me , you think I didn’t check? He had to have gotten down there before me, somehow.”

“Somehow,” Dick parrots.

Tim shoots him a look. “Why are you even involved in this conversation?”

“I’m your advocate.”

“Then start advocating.”

“Go! Make out with hot rich boys and snobby girls! Be young, wild and free!”

Tim leans his head forward onto the table with a soft tap and closes his eyes. “Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

Bruce sits down gently across the way with his sigh that says: I’m going to level with you and be sympathetic now. “Tim, I’m not upset.” Tim rolls his eyes where he can’t see. “If you want to go this route, it’s fine, it’s a safe character to play, I just thought it wasn’t what you wanted.”

“It’s not!” Tim insists, sitting up. Bruce is looking at him with his eyebrows all curled up in concern, which would be nice if Tim could believe it was genuine. “It’s not. I just don’t know how to fix this. I want it to go away.”

Tim habitually, has presented himself as above the drama of the American elites. He’s a prodigy, sharp witted and quick tongued, and he’s a tragedy, orphaned and living off the goodwill of Bruce Wayne. The last time he was a major player in a media circuit was when he discovered his father’s body, and he’d rather not do it at all, if possible. Bruce had coached him through that fiasco, too, wiping the tears off of his face before they went in front of cameras, standing with him just behind his shoulder and speaking into the microphones for him, telling the vultures and the other carrion feeders that grief was meant to be private.

God forbid Tim thinks love is meant to be private as well.

“How long are you planning on staying east, anyways?” Dick asks. “If you just keep your head down, it’ll blow over- Bruce could get caught with a tennis player, or something.”

“That would make it worse.” Tim says. “Articles about where I learned it from. B has way more staying power in the media than I do.”

“So you’re saying you’re going to wait for it to blow over?”

“Which will only be possible if we make sure that this boy has signed an ironclad NDA.” Bruce says, gesturing to the magazine on the table between them.

“I kissed him,” Tim says, face hot, “for less than a minute.”

“Was there tongue?” Dick asks, then swipes the magazine, perching on the edge of the table. “Looks like there was tongue.”

Tim lets his forehead rest on the table again. “Die.”

“So that’s a yes .”

“Dick,” Bruce warns. Or perhaps insults. Tim sometimes wonders if his commitment to the nickname after his adoption was a contingency plan for scenarios exactly like this.

“How fast it fades from the media is...” Tim waves his hand, “inconsequential to the actual issue, which is the damage this will do to my image.”

“What image?”

“Exactly.” Tim’s never dated anyone, not as Tim Drake. Robin, of course, has had a couple partners, exclusively under the mask. And they didn’t know he was Tim Drake- Steph knows now , of course, but they haven’t been together for a few years. Actually, to his embarrassment, Daniel Fenton was the first person he’d kissed without a mask on.

Tim Drake is mysterious. Tim Drake is mature. Tim Drake never had a rebellious phase, Tim Drake never did drugs, or made out with models, or said the wrong thing. Bruce’s public persona was made to divert attention by making him seem unassuming and foolish. Tim’s was to make him seem imposing and brilliant.

And getting caught making out with some stunningly handsome heir made him seem... just like everyone else. It was a reasonable strategy, but like Bruce said- it wasn’t the plan. It wasn’t what Tim wanted.

“NDA.” Bruce reiterates. “And we’ll deal with everything else after the fact.”

“Yes sir.” Tim says.

***

“You made out with Tim Drake? ” Sam asks. “f*cking hell, Danny, really? How?”

“Tim Drake.” Tuck repeats. “ The Tim f*cking Drake.”

“What do you- how do you know who he is?” Danny asks. “How do both of you know who he is?”

“Are you being for real right now? Tim Drake? Tim Drake was on my list, he was like number three after Superboy and Chris Hemsworth.” Sam says, sitting heavy on her bed. “Ugh!”

“Sorry, what list?” Danny pulls himself up to sit on her desk, nearly knocking off one of her assorted water bottles.

“My list? My list of unattainable celebrities I had a free pass for if I ever got the opportunity to make out with them while we were dating without it being cheating.”

“You must’ve been in the same gala circuit at some point, how is he unattainable? That’s like, someone you reasonably could’ve made out with.”

Sam scoffs at him. “Yeah right. It’s Tim Drake, ” As if that’s supposed to mean something to him. “You don’t just make out with Tim Drake at a gala- hell, you don’t talk to him! You just admire from afar while the aunties gossip about who’s daughter he likes best despite the fact that he hasn’t even looked at anyone younger than fifty the whole night. He is the definition of unattainable.”

“He’s actually really easy to make out with. I did it within seconds of meeting him.”

“How was it?” Tuck crosses his legs up on Sam’s gaming chair.

“Really f*cking good. Like. I didn’t know a human could do that with their tongue, kinda good? I didn’t think a kiss that lasted a few seconds could leave me light-headed, kinda good?”

“I hate you so much right now.” Sam moans, lying back. “Of course he’s a good kisser. He’s perfect.”

“He’d also broken into a museum basem*nt, so like perfect? Maybe that’s like. A strong-ish word.”

“You were also breaking into a museum basem*nt.” Tuck reminds.

“Yeah but I had, like, a good reason.”

“Maybe he did too!”

“A good one?”

“The world is bigger than you and your ghost problems, you know.”

“Why do I feel like you’re not on my side in this? What makes Tim Drake so special?”

“He’s Tim Drake!” Tucker repeats.

“You keep saying that like it’s supposed to mean something to me. So what, he’s rich and aloof? Big whoop.”

“He’s not just rich. I’m rich- my family, this is rich. He’s the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. He could buy a small country. Actually-” Sam pauses, and considers. “A medium size country. He’s richer than f*cking god.”

“And he’s a genius. Bruce Wayne started him out working with their software division before the whole thing with his parents? He’s brilliant. I mean, brilliant. Wayne Enterprises was one of the top five corporations before he took over, sure, but the growth it’s seen since Bruce stepped down is wild, especially considering he’s only seventeen.”

“So I should be fawning over him why? Because he’s good at performing capitalism?”

Sam props herself up on her elbows to stare at Tuck. “He doesn’t deserve to have kissed him.”

“Ugh, I know.” Tuck looks down at the picture on his phone screen, which is Tim Drake and Danny, rushing out of the museum, looking guilty six ways to Sunday. “I would treat you so much better. I would honor-”

Danny shoots a little energy blast at him. To shut him up.

“Rude!”

“He’s not god, he’s a teenage boy. Who happens to be an excellent kisser, but who I will likely never be speaking to again, so, can we drop it? Let’s talk about where we can find the next shard- you said there was another one that was stateside?”

“Yup,” Sam says, laying back down. “It’s on the computer. Jersey.”

“Ewwww, noooooo. Jersey? No.”

“‘Fraid so. Gotham. But weren’t you talking about some Ghost King business that you had to do there?”

“Yeah, but that’s like, sh*t I’m actively procrastinating, I don’t wanna!” And additionally, he doesn’t like the idea of going to Gotham, where Batman haunts the skyscrapers, like an entity in his own right. Batman, who’s part of the Justice League. The Justice League, who don’t give two sh*ts about Amity or Danny, and who he’s decided, for his own sanity, to just ignore so as not to develop too dangerous a grudge. “I don’t like being ‘Ghost King.’”

“Ghost King Danny is an essential part of the ectosystem.” Sam says, still staring at the ceiling.

“I know, it’s just sucky that I have to be that part.”

“It can’t all be fun superhero battles and making out with America’s most eligible teen bachelor.”

Danny kicks at her bed, but it’s so big and cushy that it doesn’t even jostle her. “Fine. Fine, but only because the shard’s there.”

She reaches blindly in the comforter for her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to call Jazz and let her know that you’re capable of maturing.”

“Why are you so hell bent on attacking me today?”

“Because you got to kiss Tim f*cking Drake. I thought we made this obvious.” Tuck says. Danny sticks his tongue out at him.

“Jealous.” He accuses.

“Yes! Exactly!”

“Daniel.”

“Sometimes I wonder why I answer your phone calls.”

“Because I have great advice.”

“I think it’s because I realized you are a pathetic, sad man and the easiest way to keep you from your ill-advised schemes is to entertain you on occasion.”

“Why did you make out with Tim Drake?”

“Why do you care? Isn’t he one of the only people who’s richer than you? Which means he... oh, he has social power over you? He’s- you’re intimidated! ”

“I am- Daniel Fenton, I forbid you from fraternizing with that boy!”

Danny snorts. “Amazing. You actually think that you’re capable of determining who I spend my time with?”

“Wayne has been trying to get his hands on proprietary information that I hold for years and that boy is trying to use you to get to it!”

“Hm. Oh well.” Danny says, and hangs up on him.

He could tell Vlad that he’s not anywhere close to fraternizing with Tim Drake, but he delights in making him miserable, so he’ll just keep quiet about it. The Wayne estate, much to Danny’s surprise, hadn’t put out a statement about it over the week, despite the litany of tabloids and 60 second news stories about it. To be fair, Danny hadn’t either, but his private instagram with 34 followers wasn’t exactly a platform. Not like Tim Drake, who had several hundred thousand (Danny understood why , he was gorgeous. The last post was from the summer at a beach resort. He had abs and vampiric white skin, despite the sun.)

Phantom’s twitter had a decent following- sixteen and a half thousand- but he couldn’t exactly post ‘Danny Fenton, of Daily Mail fame, is not dating Tim Drake, as implied by several news stories. Nothing much happened at all really, and I know this because I am a close personal friend of the former’ without giving Wes a conniption about it. Although Danny’s never once confirmed any of the boy’s theories, he’s moved from trying to get other people to believe him, to shouting at Danny about how easy it would be for other people to figure him out. Like he doesn’t know. It wasn’t high on his priority list at the beginning, and now he thinks if anyone else were gonna figure it, they already would’ve.

Now it was almost an inside joke, the way that none of them would confirm it. Even Wes doesn’t seem all too bothered by it anymore.

He exits out of Tim Drake’s instagram, then opens up his texts, staring at Jazz’s picture.

Jazzercise

are you in class rn

I’ve got about 45 minutes free

Danny calls her as soon as she replies.

“You’re in the news, dork.” She says, a smile in her voice.

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“D’you like him?”

“I don’t dislike him.” Danny says. “I barely know him.”

“Was he a good kisser?”

“Why is that the first thing everyone asks? Yes.”

“What’s going on?”

Danny leans against the cast iron rail that leads to their awning. Even though he talks to Jazz about the real stuff more than anyone else, sometimes he can’t fit his mouth about the words. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” The line is quiet for a few seconds, a few cars driving by on his side, and the bustle of a college campus on her’s. “You sitting out front?”

“Yup.”

“How’s it been? I can venmo you for some mac-n-cheese if you want.”

“There’s some frozen pizzas in the upstairs freezer. Even if they’re a little ectoplasmy, they won’t do me much harm.”

“Any fruit? Veggies?”

Danny laughs. “What do you think? School serves salads.”

“Do you eat them?”

“I could.”

Jazz doesn’t scold him for it- she understands. “Look, semester’s almost over, and I cut back hours to study, so I can’t doordash anything for you. Why don’t you ask your new boyfriend?”

“Don’t.” But at the suggestion, Danny’s hand sneaks into the pocket of his jacket, and he rubs his thumb along the corner of the business card, which he’s worn soft with that same movement. “I’ll get something from Sam or Tuck.”

“You should just tell them. They’ll help.”

College has made her lose perspective. Two years ago she never would’ve suggested it, because the both of them knew that it wasn’t something they talked about to anyone. Their pride wouldn’t allow it.

“Jazz.” He says.

“I know.” She says, which isn’t true. He’d had to remind her. “How’s school? Apart from the salads.”

“I’m passing everything but P.E., and that’s just on account of me skipping it. To do more important things. I might drop it, I don’t think I need it to graduate.”

“College applications?”

“Aren’t open.”

“Right. Are you planning on coming out here for Christmas?”

“Think so, yeah.”

“Mom and Dad okay with it?”

“You think they’d notice at all if I didn’t mention it?”

“Probably not. How’s everything else? You holding ground?”

“I have to go to Gotham. There’s that liminal son of a bitch who’s causing problems, and Sam and Tuck say the numbers say there’s a shard there.”

“Are you gonna eat before you go?’

“Yeah, sure.” he lies.

“Love you.”

“Love you less,” He says, with a roll of his eyes- it’s a reference to one time when they were going back and forth with the ‘love you mores’, getting unreasonably frustrated about it, until Jazz yelled at him ‘No, you do NOT! ’ Danny thinks she was five, so he was three.

“Good luck.” Danny keeps the phone by his ear even after the line goes quiet.

He stands up, and doesn’t turn around. The door is closed, the lights are off, and the house is silent.

Like it always is.

***

“So you weren’t the one who stole it.” Constantine says.

Tim, fully in the Red Robin cowl, crosses his arms, unamused. “What, you think I would keep it, for some reason? It’s a shard of pottery!”

“It’s much more than that, I assure you.” Zatanna says. “The spiritual forces that are tied to-”

“I don’t care. It wasn’t me, I don’t have it. Capiche?”

“Did anyone else have the opportunity to steal it?”

Tim scowls, thinking about Daniel Fenton. “Maybe.”

“We didn’t bring you in on this for maybe, boy wonder.”

“Who else would even be after it?”

“As far as I can tell, no one in this plane.” Constantine says. “They’re not really applicable to... human problems, so to speak.”

“...Okay?”

“Constantine’s trying to bribe a ghost king.” Zatanna says, deadpan.

“ The ghost king,” he corrects. “The main one, the intermediary.”

“You said that this could be disastrous! World-f*cking-ending type sh*t! That’s the only reason I went to that stupid Gala in the first place.”

“Not... our world.” Zatanna corrects. “Some of us have a vested interest in this for other reasons.”

“But not me.” She shrugs. “You know I have other cases? A team to run?”

“The kiddy stuff can wait.”

Tim rolls his eyes- it’s not all that visible under the cowl, although he thinks he might want it to be. “We deal with legitimate issues. More often than you lot, by far. And I have a whole other identity- a job- ”

Constantine scoffs. “Where, at a Batburger? ”

Tim serves him with a cool, derisive glare, which would pale in comparison with one of Bruce’s, but on its own is pretty effective. “I went to retrieve this as a favor. I’m sorry I didn’t get it, if you can find it again, I’ll play the errand boy and get it for you, but this isn’t my... case...” He trails off as a shiver wracks his body, starting at the nape of his neck and traveling down his spine. His brows furrow, because the insulation in his suit is analog, it can’t be disrupted, and he shouldn’t be cold.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Zatanna comments, and Constantine blanches.

“What?” Tim demands, straightening up, letting his hands fall by his belt. “What do you-” And then he nearly jumps out of his own goddamn skin, because there is a man sticking through the wall and through his torso .

“Hi there, hi, yes, uh, excuse me.” He says, and Tim changes his initial appraisal- he has the frame of a lean man, but he’s still young. Eighteen at the oldest. His hair is so white it nearly glows, and it makes his olive skin look much tanner than it reasonably is, in comparison. Tim darts out of the way- he moves through him easily, as if he's made of less than air, like a hologram, but his presence in the room is undeniable. He floats in, wrapped in a cloak made of night sky, predator-green eyes surveying the small office. “Constantine.”

“My liege,” The man’s head is bowed, as if looking at the... ghost king? He must be- Tim has the impression of a circlet, made of lens flare and electricity, although only when he’s not looking directly. As if looking at him would be disrespectful, and disrespect for the boy would be dangerous.

“Dispense the formalities. You and I both know you don’t mean it.” He folds his lithe body up onto an imaginary platform, smiling a sharp-toothed smile. Tim is reminded of Peter Pan a bit, by his youthful appearance and impish grin, the way he sits on air. “Zatanna.” He kisses the magician’s gloved hand.

“Phantom,” She replies evenly, but her eyes are wary. He smiles wider. It isn’t comforting.

“You’ve got something I’m looking for.” He doesn’t even look at Tim- he tries not to be insulted (he’s not really sure if he could handle the ghost king looking at him) and observes the interaction.

“I was going to offer it-”

“Yeah, well, I was in the neighborhood.” Phantom says. “Hand it over.”

Gingerly, Constantine reaches into the spell bag on the table to remove a silk kerchief, and unwrap it to reveal a plain, off-white and unpolished shard, slightly curved. Phantom demonstrates no issues interacting with it, and plucks it out of Constantine’s hand without ceremony. He looks at it for a moment, and then vanishes it with a twist of his wrist.

“Smaller than I hoped. Oh well.”

“We meant to retrieve another, that was uncovered a few decades ago in Crimea-”

“Oh, I got that one already.” Phantom says.

“But I thought-”

“First mistake there, then,”

Tim stifles a snort. Phantom’s eyes shift towards him, and he was right. it’s unbearable, and it’s only because of years of training that he keeps his composure. They dart down and up, twice, and then he looks away, like Tim’s not even worth acknowledging. Not so much as a nod, a conspiratorial smile or wink on getting the joke.

“I don’t need more hands on the mortal coil, Constantine. I handle my own- as I have since taking the throne. You know this.”

“I just hoped, that when it came time for my trial-”

“I’m not Justice, John,” The ghost says, his voice low and even. “I won’t be the one weighing your soul against your sins. If you can even scrape up enough of it to place on the scale.”

“But you are the High King.” Constantine argues. “Your judgment is final.”

Phantom waves a gloved hand. “You misunderstand my jurisdiction. I’m a mere moderator for the lesser kings of the Zone, I’m no god.” He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “And though I know you have half a dozen plans for escaping the consequences of your own actions, and I hope that bribing me is one of the far, far back-ups, I am far more beholden to Balance than any favor you might do me. Are we understood?”

Constantine’s lips flatten into a thin line. “Of course, my liege .”

Phantom’s brows raise, and he smiles again. “Right then. Thanks for that, and keep the League out of my business.”

It’s obviously a farewell, and Tim mostly wants the unsettling, powerful thing away from him , but he has responsibilities.

“Wait!”

The king looks at him again. Being prepared for it doesn’t make it any easier.

“You obviously know more about these shards, what they do, than these two. Would any mortal want them, for any reason other than trying to get your goodwill?”

Phantom lengthens out, stepping without any weight till he’s an arm’s length away from Tim, head co*cked to the side and looking down at him, ever so slightly. “And why would you want to know? As I’ve just said, I handle my own affairs.”

“If it could be a threat to humanity, it’s my business as well.”

He laughs, incredulous. “Like that’s ever mattered to you people before.”

“That's all that matters.”

His bright green eyes roll, and then he turns to Zatanna. “I’m trying to be civil. But if you’re messing around in my matters, or, ancients forbid, summoning me? Make sure none of them are involved, would you?”

“Apologies, your majesty.” she says.

Then he disappears with a swipe of his cape.

“f*cking hell.” Constantine comments. “I hate him, he’s creepy as sin.”

“You made it your job to deal with creepy.” Zatanna reminds him. “And he’s actually pretty reasonable, all things considered.”

“ That was the Ghost King?” Tim asks.

“Little young, right? He just got the throne a few years ago, but he seems to be good for it. There’s been a lot less unrest. Apart from what’s barely been going on, but,” She shrugs. “He’s dealing with it.”

“Can ghosts even be young?”

“It’s complicated. Him especially, or at least I’ve heard.”

Tim leans back against the wall, running his tongue against the inside on his teeth. Phantom was intimidating and uncomfortable, but also intriguing , and though Tim had wanted, during every second of the interaction, for it to be over, he was also desperate to see him again, to figure him out. “Huh.”

“Don’t try it. He doesn’t like you lot, but he fights the good fight. Our side.”

“He said he’s on the side of Balance.” Tim says.

“Good enough,” Constantine says, then pauses and stares hard at Tim. “Trust me, when it comes to ghosts- to ghost kings , that’s the best you can ask for.”

Tim nods, once, then makes his own exit.

Gotham in the winter is beautiful. Tim thinks Gotham is always beautiful, of course. The city lights turn the fog a hazy yellow, and the snow covering every surface that stays still long enough to catch it reflects it all back, making the night bright enough he doesn’t even need the dark vision lenses on his mask.

Conceding the Robin mantle to Damian hadn’t been an easy choice. Dick said that he hadn’t minded it, when he gave the cape and badge to Jason, because he’d already outgrown it. Tim doesn’t know if he’ll ever outgrow Robin. He’s grown around it, like a tree absorbing the fence it’s planted against. It’s so much of who he is he thinks he’ll have to carve himself to pieces to remove it. God knows that’s what Jason and Damian tried to do, when they thought he didn’t deserve it. As if he’s not the best Robin Batman’s ever had.

He leans his elbows on the scaffolding for the billboard he’s behind. He shouldn’t be so petty about it. He’s going to be eighteen in the summer. He thinks Red Robin is somewhat a hero in his own right, now, and that he should be aspiring to being something other than a sidekick, but it’s not like it’s ever really been a priority for him. Bruce was excellent at giving him enough agency. When they were on cases together, he followed orders. But everyone follows Batman’s orders when they work cases together, if it’s him, or Dick, or Green Arrow, or f*cking Superman himself. Red Robin had Young Justice. Red Robin had room to breathe.

Especially now, where he only spends a week or so every month back in the city that raised him.

He falls into the routine of patrol easily, dropping from fire escapes and flipping through drug deals. There will always be crime to stop in Gotham, and sometimes Tim would rather do this, the mindless flips and banter, the heady adrenaline of a bullet moving so close past his face he can feel the heat off it, than the bureaucracy of running a hero team that saves the World.

He can’t say that, though, because he’s good at the latter, and so few people are.

Tim is offered a cut of szarlotka from a street vendor after scaring off some thug who’s trying to steal her cash. He takes the lukewarm pastry and a cup of hot cider with a smile, then slips a fifty into her tip jar when she’s looking at her next customer. He takes it to a roof and eats it, listening in on B’s frequency. He knows Tim is here, but the only really big case he’s working right now is Jason. Which isn’t really a case anymore, in Tim’s opinion.

It’s not B that calls for him, though, it’s his civilian phone, buzzing against his outer thigh.

“This is Tim Drake,” is how he answers.

“Gotham City Jail calling collect, will you accept the charges?”

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Danny flies through Gotham, trying to shake that slimy feeling he always has after talking with Constantine. He’d sold himself out to so many entities, and their signatures followed him around like snail mucus. One more thing to do, and then he doesn’t have to be in New Jersey any more.

He hates acting the king, thinking through every word, trying to sound ‘regal’. It’s exhausting, and it’s a performance. Practiced. He still feels like he’s failing at it.

He closes his eyes as he moves through the clouds, dancing through the buildings like a breeze. He moves from the high-rise, reflective glass, the old stone cathedrals and apartment buildings, to the warehouses and stockyards that border the docks. There’s the muffled edge of voices coming from the supervisor’s trailer in one- Danny rests above it, invisible and intangible, to hear the discussions of a weapons transfer.

His target isn’t in there, though. He’s crouched just below the window, in a shiny red helmet, a biker jacket and militaristic cargoes. Danny tips himself upside down, examining him in the safety of being little other than consciousness at this point. A shiny, massive pistol is held below his hip, with the safety off.

Danny shows himself, and says, “Boo.”

The Red Hood doesn’t start loudly, but he moves quick, the barrel of the gun straight to his forehead.

“Go on, try it.” Danny says, smiling. “It won’t touch me.”

“You working for them?”

Danny turns, looking through the window. “No.”

“You with the Big Man?”

“Who?”

“B. Batman.”

Danny snorts. “Also, no.”

“Then either help or get out of my way.”

Danny considers, then rotates his body around his head until he’s floating next to the man, feet a few inches off the ground. “Fair enough,” he says. “But only if you’ll entertain a conversation afterwards.”

“I don’t do conversation.”

“You will with me.” Danny reaches forward through his chest and wraps his fingers around the man’s core- it’s not fully fledged, because he’s not dead, it’s just the attachment he’d formed to the realms when he was. But it’s close enough. The man chokes, gags, then grasps back to the button at the nape of his neck to release his helmet. It falls off his head in two halves while he swipes through the illusion of Danny’s arm. “Right?”

“Fine. Fine.” He manages to say, and Danny retreats. “f*ck.” He’s a handsome man in his early twenties. His hair has a shock of white right at the front of it, like Danny has, but his is kept cropped short and spiky. “Afterwards.”

“Right. Here.” Danny offers the half of the helmet.

“Son of a bitch, what are you?”

“You can call me Phantom. And I’m the King of Ghosts.”

“You-” He cuts himself off. “Did they stop talking?”

Danny sticks his head through the wall. They’re all staring at the window he and his liminal compatriot are hiding beneath, hands on baseball bats and side pieces and the AK’s on the table. He waves, then pulls out.

“Yup.”

“f*ck.”

“Weren’t you planning on killing them anyways?”

“I was planning on coming out of the woodwork like an avenging ghost and scaring the sh*t outta them. I have a reputation to maintain.”

“Mm. Apologies.” Danny says, although he isn’t sorry.

“Just don’t get in my way,” Red Hood says, and stands up.

“Oh, but that’s the funnest part,” Danny whispers to himself.

Danny can see why the Red Hood’s liminality is concerning as he fights. He doesn’t fight like a ghost- he has a fair amount of concern for his own well being, dodging in extravagant ways. He’s careful, which Danny hadn’t been expecting. Largely, mortals who are brought back, regardless of means, become more careless when their lives are at stake- death is no longer as daunting, as permanent. But the Red Hood approaches the altercation with the practiced confidence of someone who is very well trained.

The undead are very rarely Danny’s business. They’re related to him, tangentially, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are, at the end of the day, undead. Danny works with the straight up dead, that’s the whole point. But when he heard through the grapevine that someone who could, under the loosest of definitions, be considered as ‘under his keep’ was starting a mafia, controlling mortals in the mortal realm, it sort of demanded his attention. If he let it slide unnoticed, then some other entities would edge at his authority.

Cause, hey, you let the revenant do it, why can’t we?

Danny hates being King.

Danny stands in the middle of the room while chaos commences around him. His contribution is mostly just standing still while they fire shots at him, and providing panic because it doesn’t phase him. The Red Hood has one of them in a headlock, pulling him back by the hair to expose his throat.

“You know, maybe you ought to-” Danny says, but the vigilante doesn’t listen. He draws a line across his neck, which wells up red, then sputters and paints the front of his white tank-top in blood. He drops the body, and Danny winces. “Spare them.”

“They don’t deserve sparing.”

Danny’s face contorts. “I mean-” One slams into his back- he’s only incorporeal for metal, right now.

“The guns these goons have been selling-” Hood stops as one breaks a wooden baseball bat over his helmet. Similar to the bullets on Danny, the bat does next to nothing to him. He moves less than an inch. The man falls with an elbow to the gut and then a kick backwards through his nose. “Were used in a drive-by that killed a six year old and a thirteen year old. Brother and sister. When the cops found ‘em? The girl was still holding her little brother.”

The temperature in the room drops a noticeable ten or so degrees. Danny breathes, which isn’t strictly necessary as a ghost. It’s meant to connect him back to his humanity, when he goes too far, when he gets wrathful (which is a problem when he’s playing the king, wearing the ring and crown. And he has to wear the ring and crown to sustain his ghostly form this far from a stable rift.) The only issue is this wrath is rooted in his humanity. The Red Hood fires off a shot into one through Danny, and he doesn’t even flinch as the body collapses dully to the floor. In fact, he smiles in satisfaction.

“It’s why I’m killing all of them, and not just one as an example. Don’t-” He points his pistol sharply at a goon who is heading for the door- “Assume you can leave.”

“But they didn’t- they didn’t kill those kids, just the guns they... they sold...” Danny tries to justify.

“It doesn’t absolve them. You think they sold those guns thinking they wouldn’t kill someone?”

He’s right. It doesn’t. He shoots the man at the door in the leg. Danny stiffens, and stops breathing. He needs to excise the emotions from this.

“I thought you said you would help. You haven’t been much helpful.”

Danny sees it as what it is- an invitation. The Red Hood picks up one of their guns and tosses it at him. He catches it on instinct.

“I’m not wrong.” The man insists. He seems hung on it, there’s some desperation in his tone. Like he needs Danny to believe him. Like he needs someone to believe him. “The girl got shot in the lung. She could’ve made it, but she wouldn’t leave her brother, even though they got him in the head- he was dead before he hit the ground.”

Danny wonders how clear his emotions are on his face. If the vigilante can see how it’s prodding him where he’s tender.

He could kill this man a hundred ways without the pistol in his hand.

The wrath thrums in his core, and frost grows on the plexiglass windows.

He clicks the safety off.

“Someone needs to do something. Else they’re just gonna keep selling them, and kids are gonna keep on dying.”

Danny aims. He’s never fired a gun before- not a real, steel and gunpowder gun- he’s much more familiar with laser blasters and rocket launchers and his parents inventions. It’s not hard to hold it steady. Shakiness, hesitation, they’re all human follies.

“I need to leave.” Danny says, suddenly, and pops into nothingness.

It’s not really nothingness- it’s invisibility and intangibility, which is the nearest thing. Danny slips away and back into physicality, into humanity, leaving behind the wrath and the capricity of the Ghost King. He takes off the ring and tucks it in his pants pocket. He just needs a few hours free of it. Maybe he could walk to a hot dog stand- he had a fiver in his pants pockets. Enough for two hot dogs and a pop, and only a slight risk of intestinal parasites.

He breathes in the winter air in ragged breaths, stumbling out towards a fence.

He’s so concerned about wrangling his ghostly half back into submission that he doesn’t really think about how he looks, stumbling around in a threadbare hoodie halfway through December, holding an illegal gun in his hand.

That is, until lights and sirens show up.

“f*ck.” He whispers.

“Hands up! Drop the weapon!”

Danny complies. The officer handles him roughly, yanking his hands down and behind him. His head slams against the top of the old crown victoria when he’s thrown into the backseat. “What am I being arrested for? You haven’t even read me my rights!”

“Are you f*ckin slow, kid?” The cop asks, letting the gun swing between two fingers.

“It’s not mine.”

“And you think that helps your case?”

Danny rolls his eyes, letting his head fall back against the crusty fabric upholstery, which smells of B.O., blood, and vomit. “Whatever.”

He watches the hazy lights of the city go by. All the lights reflect in a million places, between the snow, the ice, and the mirror-finished windows of the high rises. There’s neon signs behind accordion fences and sodium lights turning the gray slush a distasteful orangey-brown. Other than that, Danny can see the beauty, especially the higher up he looks. The old neo-gothic buildings puzzled into the new city growth that were built around them.

He doesn’t speak with the cops driving him. He’s exhausted from the tug and pull of the crown. He could’ve made that decision. He had every right to make that decision. He was-

Damn it, he needs a nap. He was hoping this trip would only take a few hours and he’d be able to fly back, eat something, and have a week ring-free before he’d have to use it to portal to California for Christmas with Jazz. But dealing with Constantine always took a while, and the Red Hood was unreasonably difficult to track down. Sleeping usually helps, with the god complex and the biting people’s heads off aspect of it. He’ll take a kip in the city jail and then slip out when he’s less liable to forcibly take control of earth.

“How old are you?” One of them asks, already halfway through his wallet, while flash from the camera nearly blinds him.

“Seventeen.” Eighteen in two and a half months, not that it matters. He follows prompts to turn to the side, and the camera flashes again.

“You’re a long way from illinois... Daniel.” He says, holding his license.

“Danny.” He bites out, cursing the fact that he brought his wallet, with actual information that they can use to put an actual warrant against him. He scowls at the booking officer who tries to take him by the forearm to guide him to the holding cells. "I'm going, ancients."

“Danny, then. We're gonna have to give your parents a call.”

“Good f*cking luck.” He says, leaning back against the cinder blocks. f*ck. f*ck, he can’t do this right now, he can’t go through New Jersey courts, he doesn’t have the time.

“Grandma, then? Brother, sister? Uncle?” The cop asks, unphased.

Danny will not be stressing Jazz out over this when she has exams to take, and she's a whole country away. He crosses his arms and silences the officer with a glare before he can work through all the various relations Danny might want to call.

“Fine. Social work ain’t here till Monday, and I ain’t gonna do the paperwork.”

Danny takes a moment with his eyes closed to remember that it’s late Friday. “I’m in here til Monday?”

“Unless you got money for bail in here.” The cop says, pulling out his crumpled fiver.

He scowls, thinking through his options. Sam and Tuck- both still in Illinois. Sam might well be able to post bail, but not without explaining it to her parents. Vlad- absolutely not. It’s against his nature to owe him anything. Or-

“I can make a phone call though, yeah?”

“One.” He jerks his head over to the mounted phone, which was at least two decades older than Danny was.

Danny steps around another kid who was glaring at him, pulling out the business card from his pocket and flipping it over. The embossed letters are poking out, so it says ЭW in the middle, above Drake’s scrawled phone number.

Wayne Enterprises is based in Gotham, right?

“Connecting.” Says the operator.

“Disaster mitigation services, what are you willing to do for me to ensure B doesn’t hear about this?”

“Uh... is this Tim Drake?” There’s rustling on the other end of the line and a thud, like it’s been dropped.

“Yes, who’s this? Who gave you this number?”

“You did?”

“Is this... Daniel Fenton? What are you doing in City Jail? And why are you calling me about it?”

“Because I didn’t really have any other options, and I still got your business card.”

The line is silent for a second. “I’ll be twenty minutes, and you owe me a conversation.”

“Thank you.”

“Someone coming?” The cop asks.

“Yeah.”

The other kid’s glaring intensifies as Danny steps across again. “Lucky little sh*t.”

Danny lunges at him, letting a little bit of his aura leak back out, and everyone flinches, even the grown men in the holding cell across from them. He sits back down on the bench, folds his legs up close to his chest, and lets his head rest on his knees.

He tells himself he’s just going to doze, but he closes his eyes and wakes up to the bars rattling.

“Fenton! Your boyfriend’s here.”

Danny blinks hard, scrubbing the drool from his chin.

Tim Drake stands in front of the cell, looking unfairly handsome, hands tucked into a knee-length wool coat, worn over a white hoodie and dark joggers. His sleek black hair is swooped back from his face artfully, a few strands brushing over his cheekbones. His dark brows pull together as he looks Danny up and down. “Comfortable?”

“Enough.” Danny says.

“Let’s go.” He says. “Thanks, Marshall. I’ll give Gordon a call about all this.”

“Right, mister Drake.” The cop says, unlocking the cell. Danny stands up, a little unsteady.

“Thank you,” Danny says again, head ducked low so that he doesn’t tower over the other boy as much. The other detainees look at him apprehensively as they walk out front, and Marshall gives him a ziploc baggie with his personal items in it. Danny glares at the ring before tucking it into his pocket. Tim Drake looks over his shoulder by the door, snow blustering by outside the glass.

“You coming?”

“Yeah.” He says, tossing his hood up.

Tim Drake drives a shiny black Aston Martin. He takes off his coat and tosses it in the backseat. “I posted your bail, by the way, you can just venmo me for it.”

“Oh, how much do I owe you?” Danny asks, feeling bad about his soggy chuck taylors in the sports car’s sleek interior.

“Fifteen.” He says, turning the engine over.

“Fifteen bucks? Hell, uh, here’s a five, I’ll get you the rest-”

“Uh-” Tim Drake laughs a little, startled. “Fifteen hundred. You got caught on condemned property with an illegal firearm, you thought they’d let you walk around for fifteen bucks?”

“You paid fifteen hundred dollars to bail me outta jail?”

“... Yeah?”

Danny opens his mouth to retort, and is cut off because his stomach growls. Loud.

“How long were you in there before you decided to call me?”

“It was pretty quick. I just didn’t have the opportunity to eat beforehand.”

Tim bites his lower lip, then flips on his blinker, crossing a few lanes of traffic. “I’ve had negotiations with Vlad-co. Fifteen k ain’t that much to you.”

“I don’t have a lot to do with that stuff.”

“You’ve got a trust though, right?”

Danny thinks about biting out ‘do I look like I have a trust?’ but thinks better of it. “Technically.”

“Technically meaning you can’t use it for bail funds?”

“Technically meaning I’d only gain access to it when certain requirements are met.”

“What, grades? Declaring a business major?” He asks, checking his blind spot, then turning.

“More like Vlad needs to be married to my mom.” Danny grumbles. “Among other things.”

“Oh,” Tim says, softly. “I’m guessing that’s the reason you didn’t call him for your bail, too?”

“More or less.” Danny says. “He’s ridiculous, and I’d rather not owe him anything. I won’t skip out on court, so you’ll get your money back.”

“So, what were you doing with the gun?”

“I picked it up. Figured I should turn it in or something like that.” Tim doesn’t believe him. Danny wouldn’t either, but it’s not like he has a great explanation, nor the time to come up with a convincing lie.

“Dumbass move in Gotham.” He states. They’ve pulled into a drive through. Tim rolls down the window, the winter air coming on as an affront. It relaxes Danny, but Tim’s nose turns pink almost immediately. He sniffs.

“Welcome to Batburger, where we flip our patties like Robin, what can I get for you?” the speaker crackles, the worker sounding incredibly bored.

“Two Red Robins, one with a co*ke, and-” He glances at Danny.

“co*ke’s fine. Cherry if they got it.”

“And a cherry co*ke.” He finishes.

“Seventeen thirty-two at the window.”

“Thanks.” Danny says. “And, you know, I just have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“That seems like a trend, yes.” Tim says. “But why are you in Gotham?”

“Oh, just some... Just some business.” Danny says, vaguely. “I had some people to talk to.”

“Vlad-co business?”

Danny leans back, closing his eyes. “Not really. I could care less about all that.”

“What kind of business, then?” Tim asks, rolling down the window again to hand a sleek black card to the fast food employee, who’s looking at the car with a slack jaw.

“Personal.”

“I don’t suppose I was one of those people you had to talk to?” He takes the card back, then hands Danny a large paper bag.

“You crossed my mind,” Danny says, although it’s not really true.

“Excellent. I’ve been waiting for your call. I just assumed it wouldn’t be from jail.” He places their drinks in the cup holders. “I do believe a conversation is in order.”

“Is it really?”

“You, um. You haven’t said anything.”

“I’ve said plenty, actually, such as ‘thank you for paying my bail.’ and ‘I wasn’t doing anything illegal with that gun.’”

“Technically, the fact that you were in possession of it at all is illegal,” Tim says. “And I mean. About Boston.”

“Well, you haven’t either.”

“It’s below me to speak to the papers.”

“It might be below me, too.”

Tim Drake gives him the stankest side-eye Danny had ever experienced (and he’s been friends with Sam Manson for most of his life) and says. “Right. More like above you.”

Danny’s face melts warm. “Yeah. More like.”

“Sorry. It’s been stressful. I don’t like-” He removes his hand from the wheel to make a vague circle in the air. “This. The stories and business people thinking I’m just some kid, and-” He sucks on his teeth. “It’s bringing up some stuff, for me.”

“I think you’re probably just rich and you don’t know how to talk to normal people.”

“I deserved that. Hand me my fries, would you?”

“You’re planning on eating in this car?”

“If I wasn’t, we would’ve gone into the restaurant.”

“Ancients. Imagine that.” Danny says, but hands him some fries. “Yeah, I really- honestly, I didn’t think it was a big deal, til my friends found out. Apparently, everyone but me knows whose tongue I had in my mouth.”

Tim coughs on a fry. “Did you have to say it like that?”

Danny shrugs. “Yeah.”

“Thank god you haven’t talked to any papers.” He says.

“So, where are you driving us? If we’re planning on eating in the car?” Danny says, after a second.

“Somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”

“Should I be worried that you’ll murder me?”

“Two points.” Tim Drake points a fry at him. “First- it was me who bailed you out of jail, like just barely. And second, if I kill you, then I won’t get that bail money back.”

“Right.”

***

Daniel Fenton didn’t look amazing at the Gala- sure, he looked handsome, in a roguish way that Tim was fairly sure was inherent- he was wearing a cheap suit and his hair wasn’t done, and the only fragrance he was wearing was dollar-store deodorant. But he looked... decent, then. He looks sh*t now, his messy hair wet, wearing a threadbare hoodie and blue jeans with a hole in the knee. Not an intentional sort of hole, that comes with new jeans now, but the kind that wears through when someone wears them for years on years. Tim parks them on the top of a parking structure that one of WE’s subsidiaries owns, the kind that’s high up, so he can see the lights.

Danny tears into his burger as soon as it’s allowed. Tim recognizes that kind of hunger. It’s the kind that makes you uncomfortable to look at, so he stares at the snow landing on the windshield, instead.

“There’s um, there’s some paperwork in the glove compartment.” He says.

“Oh, yeah,” He wipes off ketchup on paper napkins in his lap. “What’s it?”

“NDA.”

“Oh.” Danny says.

“Uh. You can finish that first, if you like.”

Even if he does look sh*t, now, he is still roguishly handsome, with that white skunk stripe at the front of his head tucked into his wet hair, a trouble maker’s set in his jaw. But Tim won’t be distracted by cheekbones and icy blue eyes. Whatever’s up with Danny Fenton, he’ll get to the bottom of.

It’s almost like a case.

“So, why haven’t you said anything? After your friends told you about me, I mean, what, you just thought it wasn’t a big deal?”

“Truth be told, I was doing it to piss off Vlad.” Danny says, putting down his drink. “He, uh, forbid me from associating with you.”

“Spite.” Tim notes.

“It’s a strong motivator. Honestly, I’d be content to just go along with it as long as they’re entertained by it, just to see him upset over it.”

Tim drums his fingers on the steering wheel. Then he pulls out his phone.

Who is the mysterious Paramour of the Wayne CEO?

What we know about the elusive Vlad-co heir dating TDW- nothing?

Yet another teenage genius- why Daniel Fenton and Timothy Drake are Corporate America’s newest power couple.

He licks his lips, looking through his google alerts.

“Say. I have a proposition.” He says, a plan forming flimsily in his mind. Danny looks up from the NDA, which he’s sorting through on the dash.

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“What do you say we do?”

“Do what?”

“Go along with it. You get spite for Masters, I regain control over my reputation.”

Danny blinks. “W-w-what would that entail?”

“Just be seen at events with me. And listen to what I tell you. All I need is to make people as intimidated of you as they are of me.”

“People are intimidated by me already.” Danny says. Probably because he’s tall and muscular, and he has the bearings that Tim can recognize are learned by years of fighting, but which other people just find scary without knowing why. Tim can do this. Tim can make a plan, he just needs enough space to construct a reasonable break up that won’t harm his reputation, retroactively or otherwise. And it would give him an excuse to figure out Daniel Fenton, what he was doing in that basem*nt in Boston, at that construction site in Gotham.

“Do this, and I get the charges against you dropped.”

“You can do that?”

“I have commissioner Gordon on speed dial.”

He folds himself up onto the passenger seat. He’s taken off his shoes, so as not to get the muddy soles on the seats, as if Tim would care about that. “What kind of events?”

Tim thinks. “There’s a New Year’s party in Star City that Queen expects me to attend.”

“Look, I don’t normally go to stuff like that. Boston was... an anomaly.”

“Yeah, you were wearing a rented tux, it was pretty obvious.” The pieces are slotting together in his mind. “Past that, there’s the Met-”

“The Met Gala?”

“Yeah, I could deign to attend.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not,” Danny says, shaking his head and chuckling.

“We’ll have to maintain appearances for at least a year to avoid speculation. I’ll draft up some documents. Can I have your email?”

Danny’s looking at him like he’s crazy. His hair’s dried up into a mess of waves, and there’s some tomato seeds on the corner of his mouth. “You just bailed me out of jail. And you think this is a good idea?”

“I don’t have bad ideas, Fenton. And like you’ve just said, I have collateral on you.”

“So you’re blackmailing me into pretending to date you?”

Tim shrugs. “Or you could just sign the NDA.”

“Why do I have a feeling I’ll be signing a much more expansive one after all this?”

“It’s probably an accurate feeling.” Danny wipes at his face. Thank goodness, it was beginning to bug Tim. “Really, you can just sign the NDA, show up to court and let me deal with the Boston stuff.”

“You can really get the charges dropped?”

“If you swear you really weren’t up to anything with that gun.” Of course he was up to something with that gun. Tim was confident he could deal with it better than the GCPD could, though.

Danny holds up his hand, pinky outstretched. Tim stares at it.

“This is swearing.” He says.

“You’re in?”

“I think it’ll be fun, I don’t have to come back to Gotham for a court date. Plus my friends would never believe it.”

“You can’t tell them it’s fake, though. No one can ever know this was fake.” Except for his family, of course, but he’s not going to get into why trying to keep it a secret from them would be futile.

“Right. That’s a given.” He nods towards his hand, and Tim hooks their little fingers together. “Deal.”

The gears in Tim’s head are turning, and he grins at the other boy.

“Deal.” He says. “I’ll send you the docusign.”

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

To ensure there is no unequal balance of power in this contract, subject B retains the right to speak to the media about the events in Boston on the night of December 10, until the point thereafter the contract is terminated. Similarly, subject A will insure that there is no legal action taken against subject B for the events in Gotham the night of December 15, after all conditions of the contract have been fulfilled. ☐

Danny squints at his laptop screen, trying to make sense of the legalese. Over his shoulder, Tuck says:

“Did he have an actual lawyer draft up a contract for you guys to pretend to date?”

“He knows that nothing you sign will be legally binding since you’re seventeen, right?” Sam asks.

“I’m sure I’ll have to go through everything again in February.” Danny says, clicking on the box to digitally initial it. “He doesn’t turn eighteen till July, though, so it’s about the same amount of binding for both of us. And no, I think he wrote it out himself. He kind of has that vibe.”

“You know, you’re already violating the terms of section B by letting us know about it.”

“Yeah, but who are you gonna tell?”

“Danny.” Sam laughs.

“Sam, you can’t,” Danny reaches to grab her wrist. “I can not do this on my own.”

“I wasn’t gonna say sh*t, come on.” She rolls her eyes. “Although I am worried he might try to murder you.”

“I thought you wanted to make out with him.”

“Mm. Well-” She says, looking up and to the side.

“Sam!”

“No, he’s got that, like, Christian Bale in American Psycho kinda vibe.”

“Sam I have just entered into a contractual relationship with him, you can’t be saying this stuff.” Danny says, clicking another box.

“It’s not a contractual relationship, it’s a fake relationship, you’re not having sex.” Tucker states.

Danny sits back, putting his hand over his mouth, slightly. “I hate you.”

Tuck clicks his tongue. “Liar.”

“So much. Legitimately, so much.”

“‘Subject B must attend at least 1 social event with Subject A every two months, or be seen in public with him. Subject A will commit to extending enough invitations that this does not put distress on Subject B’s schedule or quality of life. Subject A will also assume all fiscal responsibility for travel and wardrobe expenses regarding events.’ Danny, see if you can get me a versace bag.”

“Tuck!”

“What? He has the cash for it.”

“We aren’t taking advantage of this.”

“You’re literally doing this to spite Vlad, it’s all about taking advantage.” Sam says.

“I will not be making him my sugar daddy.” Danny says, pointing around the room. “It will not be happening. Sam paid for fifty percent of everything while we were dating because I loved her. Tim Drake will be paying for ninety percent of sh*t because he’s made a legal document requiring me to go to rich people parties. Are we understood?”

“Loved?” Sam pouts, which was not the point of the statement.

“Love, still, platonically- you guys are the actual worst.”

“Oh, but you love us. You’ve just said.” Tuck insists.

“I just said I love Sam. I still hate you. Despise. Loathe.”

Tuck flicks the back of his head, and Danny lets him, smiling in spite of himself.

He signs the final page, and not two seconds later, his phone buzzes on the desk.

“If there’s an addendum, just email it to me,” Danny says, in lieu of answer. “And I did all the proper initializing.”

“Yes, I saw that, thank you. I need your measurements.” Tim says, voice sounding trans-atlantic over the line, like he’s a fifties movie star.

“Pardon?”

“Measurements. Waist, shoulders, hip, inseam, outseam, arm length. Neck, thigh and wrist diameter-”

“I wear adult medium.” Danny says.

“You’re required to give me your measurements per section H, part 3, of our contract.”

“Couldn’t you have just texted me?”

“My hands are full.”

“With?”

Tim sighs, and Danny can practically hear him roll his eyes. “I’m at the tailor’s, which is why getting your measurements is a matter of some urgency, and I didn’t just... text you.”

“Huh?”

“I’m getting you a suit. For Queen’s new years party. I won’t be seen with you in a rent-a-tux suit.”

Danny glances at Sam, eyes wide. She shrugs.

“So, do you have them handy? Or at least a measuring tape?”

“I do,” Sam says. They were in her room, and she’d pulled it out of some pile of clothes.

“Who’s that?”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Sam Manson. Tucker Foley. My best friends.”

“Were you signing those documents with them in the room with you? Do they-”

“They just got here.” Danny interrupts. “Barely.”

“What measurements do you need?” Sam asks, close to the microphone. “And is there someone with a pen handy on your side?”

Danny sticks his hand into her stomach to give her that cold, unsettling feeling, but it’s not much of a deterrent, because he’s been doing it for a few years, and she and Tuck have gotten used to it.

“Yes. Amelia, would you take the phone?”

“Yes, mister Drake.” Danny, in turn, hands the phone to Tuck, while Sam wraps parts of his body with the waxy yellow tape, saying numbers.

“This is ridiculous.” He whispers to Tuck.

“Since when has your life not been ridiculous?” He whispers back.

Danny wants to say: when I was thirteen- but even that’s not true.

“Cranial diameter,” Tim Drake asks for, over the phone.

“The f*ck do you need my head measurements for?”

“In case you need a hat.” Sam says, like it’s obvious.

“I can buy a hat.”

“A bespoke hat?”

“Tim Drake, you best not be buying me a bespoke suit.” Danny says, loudly, while Sam holds his head in place.

Tim’s laugh can be heard faintly over the line, breathy and startled. Danny feels a warm tickle in his gut at the sound. “No, but I am getting you one that fits right.”

“He’d look real good in burgundy. Like a wine purple?” Sam suggests. “Don’t put any leather on him that isn’t black, though.”

“I was thinking something classic.” Tim informs. “But those are good suggestions, I’ll take that under consideration.”

“I am a genius.” Sam says, smiling. Danny glares daggers at her, and she smiles in that goofy way of hers.

“He’s my boyfriend, Sam.” Danny says, partially because he wants to convince Tim that he hasn’t told them, and partially for the look on her face. “And just black is fine.”

“I’ve already got it picked out.” He informs.

“Great.” Danny says.

“That’s all. I’ll see you on New Years eve... babe.” The pet name sounds stilted and awkward, and Tuck covers his mouth to stifle his laughter.

“Oke-doke, sweetheart.” Danny replies. “See you then.” Then he grabs the phone from his friend and ends the call.

“Sweetheart?” Tuck repeats, smiling wide with disbelief.

“You’re not supposed to know it’s fake.” Danny reminds.

“‘Babe.’” Sam quotes.

“What, you guys still think he’s cool?”

“Cooler than you.” Tuck says, with a sage nod.

Danny flips him off.

***

“I don’t understand how this is a solution,” Steph says.

“That’s because you’re short-sighted.” Tim argues. “I’m brilliant.”

“You’re so, incredibly, stupid.” Dick turns the laptop screen towards himself. “You drafted a contract? Did you write it on notebook paper with glitter pens and put hearts on all the i’s?”

“Is that a reference to a rom-com?” Steph asks.

“To All the Boys,” Dick smiles. “Which you should probably watch, if you’re going to go through with this. Or The Proposal. Or Pretty Wo-”

“Stop.” Tim commands. “I’m remaining objective. He’s up to something nefarious, this will give me the proximity required to figure it out. I will not be falling in love with him.”

“You never put in this much effort when we were dating,” Steph gripes, flopping forward over Tim’s shoulder.

“That’s because I actually liked you.”

Steph glares across him at Dick, like he just doesn’t get it. Tim does get it. She doesn’t get it. He hadn’t needed to put their brief romance under rules, policy and legalese. They were both vigilantes, there was enough understanding there. And they were never actually an item, either. They didn’t put a label on it, or go steady, or whatever Dick would call it- there hadn’t been enough time, and they were fourteen and fifteen, respectively. Tim maintains a great deal of affection for her, but honestly.

“Oh, Tim,” Dick tuts.

Tim glares at him. “How many of us are going to Star City for this party, anyways?”

“B and Damian are staying,” Steph says. “I wasn’t invited, which is rude, frankly. Same with Babs.”

“So then that’s me, Dick, Cass, and Duke?” Tim confirms, ignoring her jab.

“Yup.” Dick replies, with a bright grin. “And your plus-one. Oh, Steph, do you want me to rope you in? I’m contractually obligated to, as best big brother ever.” He holds his hand out, and she takes it, right in front of Tim’s face, to spin her around the room.

“I was waiting for you to ask. Normally, that would be Tim’s job.”

“I don’t get why you guys would want to go to a party. It’s not like we have a case there.” Tim says, signing out of his computer and spinning around in his chair.

“We do so, it’s called: figure out everything about Timmy’s new boyfriend.”

“Fake boyfriend. And figuring him out is my job.”

“He’s gone.” Dick says, holding Steph’s face in his hands. “We’ve lost him.”

“It was bound to happen eventually.” Steph nods, solemnly.

“Shut up.” Tim says. “Steph, do you have a dress? I just got back from the tailor’s.”

“I’ll make do. Are we stopping in California before going up?”

“I’m in California tomorrow and then I’m driving up. You guys can fly in on the day of.” Tim says. Speaking of, he should probably pack. “I have some work to do.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding. You’re gonna be alone, in your depressing apartment in San Francisco, over Christmas? No. We’re coming.” Steph insists.

“I’m Jewish.”

“Over prime charcuterie board season then? Unbelievable.” Dick corrects immediately.

“Crass.” Steph adds.

“Miserable.”

“Get out of my room.”

“What airline are you on, I’ll get tickets!” Dick calls, as Steph drags him out. “And wine!”

Tim rolls his eyes and picks up his phone on instinct before starting in on his briefcase.

Danny Fenton

Hey, I can make my own way to Star City, don’t fuss over it.

In the contract, it states that I will assume all fiscal responsibility for travel regarding events.

Yeah, but it’d make me feel guilty.

I already have your ticket purchased flying out of Chicago. You are based in Illinois, right?

Sure. Nevermind then.

Of course he’s based out of Illinois. Tim has done a totally normal amount of research into him since their encounters- after Boston, it was only natural- figure out why he was there, who he was there with, and if he was any threat. The answers were: unsure, Vlad Masters, and probably not. Then, after bailing him out of jail, it was much more in-depth. Figure out who he was, who his parents were, any other characters he might be connected to, what his motives might be that could connect him to the Gotham underworld. This is where Danny Fenton gets a lot more interesting.

He’s seventeen, a few months older than Tim is. He doesn’t have a very strong social media presence- an instagram where he interacts with a small group of friends. A facebook which mostly seems to be a posting board for distant relatives to wish him a happy birthday. Nothing much else. His town is small and unassuming.

His parents are ghost hunters. Regarded as quacks by the larger scientific community, with a cursory glance over some patents bear a striking resemblance to the alternative energy research Vlad-co is doing, although any actual scientific merit is lost in the fact that they seem to be obsessed with applying it to fighting ghosts.

The similarities in their research could be traced back to a grad school thesis that the Drs Fenton and Masters worked on in tandem, which could be applied to both companies. Tim had skimmed the paper, uninterested. Anyone who knew anything about ghosts knew that they were a ‘fight fire with fire’ situation. Just call Deadman.

Or Phantom.

Apparently, Phantom, High King of Ghosts, was also the resident superhero of itty bitty Amity Park, Illinois. He’s unaffiliated, and Tim thinks he’s only really there because there’s an unusually high amount of ghost related issues there.

Tim pauses halfway through winding his laptop cord.

Was it possible Danny was the ‘hands’ that Phantom had referenced on the mortal coil? But he hadn’t had the shard at the gala. Or was he working with his parents, who, according to their website, were staunchly anti-Phantom?

sh*t. He’d told Constantine he wasn’t interested in getting involved in this.

***

Danny steps out into the alley behind Jazz’s apartment complex, tugging on his suitcase, before slipping the ring off his thumb, the portal closing. It’s raining, because it’s Northern California in December, but there’s no snow. His shoes get soaked again as he squeezes between the complex dumpster and the wire boxes and breakers of the neighboring building, head ducked low.

Jazz lives with four roommates in a 1920’s building that survived the earthquakes, which the owners have taken to mean that it doesn’t need any upkeep whatsoever. He drips puddles in the tiled entry, pushing his hood back and shaking his hair out like a dog.

He double checks the ancient elevator, which is one of those with the cage in front instead of a proper door, but there’s the same out of service sign on it as there was the last time he visited. Great.

She also lives on the fourth floor, so Danny adjusts his backpack, picks up his suitcase, and starts on the stairs.

In the hall on her floor, Danny passes Jenna, who’s also carrying a suitcase, along with a backpack and duffel bag.

“Oh, hey Danny,” She says, with a bright smile. She’s been in the apartment for a semester longer than Jazz, and she’s seen plenty of Danny. None of the girls who live with Jazz ever seem to question how her little brother from Illinois manages to come visit her so frequently- he’s around at least once a month. “I’m just heading out. Your taxi wouldn’t happen to still be out front, would it?”

“Don’t think so, sorry,” He smiles sheepishly. “Those stairs are killer.”

“Ugh, don’t I know it. No worries. See ya later!”

Danny uses the spare key under the doormat to let himself into the unit, shucking off his soaked hoodie and kicking the door closed behind him. From inside the kitchen, Jazz calls: “Did you forget your phone again?”

“No, it’s me,” Danny calls back, tugging at his shoelaces to get his high-tops off.

“Oh,” Her head pokes out into the hallway. “You’re early. I thought you said you weren’t coming til six.”

“Jeez, I’ll just go then,” He says, rolling his eyes and reaching back for the doorknob.

“No, hey, come here, you doofus,” She tosses the dish towel back in the direction of a counter and stretches her arms out wide.

“I’m all wet,” Danny mutters, but lets her hug him.

“You’re taller,” She replies. Jazz is tall, made up nearly entirely of limbs, but he caught up to her height-wise when he was sixteen and is now steadily growing taller. Standing straight, he thinks she’d reach up to his nose.

“Not by much.”

She kicks his ankles- his jeans are too short by about four inches. “Really?”

“Shut it.” He’s smiling.

“You’ve got to stop growing. It’s unfair.”

“How so?” Jazz takes his suitcase and he keeps his backpack as they walk into the living room, where he’ll sleep on the fold-out bed.

“It’s just fundamentally unfair to your older sister who now has to, like, jump onto your back to give you a noogie, which is her god-given right. It was already an unfair match-up, because you have superpowers, but this is just ludicrous.”

Open discussions of superpowers means that Jenna was likely the last roommate out. None of them stay for holidays. Jazz hasn’t been back in Illinois since she moved out, two and a half years ago. Danny likes to pretend that he isn’t jealous, because he was one of the greatest supporters of her getting out. At least one of them should be able to leave that town. That house.

Ancients knew Danny would never be allowed to.

She makes him a warm cup of tea in the NASA mug that’s designated as his, because the discomfort of cold wet clothes in the drafty apartment still affects Danny, despite his ice core. She places both his mug and hers on the coffee table while Danny pulls a throw blanket over his lap, and she settles next to him.

“So, how’s it going?”

“Could be worse.” Danny leans forward to pick up the mug. “I mean, it’s Christmas, so not by much, but it could be.”

Jazz grins. They don’t celebrate Christmas anymore, they just get take out and watch through their list of terrible, terrible horror movies that they can make fun of. “Yeah, how so?”

“I could be dead,” He replies, immediately, and they devolve into laughter.

“So,” Jazz says, once the delivery guy has dropped off their chinese food and the styrofoam boxes are placed all over the coffee table, a movie about some creature living in a septic tank playing on the TV with the volume turned way down. “I was thinking we should go to SF after Christmas, maybe hit up some museums? I heard the Exploratorium has a new exhibit on aeronautics.”

“If we want to go to a museum, I can portal us to DC for the Smithsonian.”

“How many times have you been to the air and space museum again?”

“Not enough.” Danny says. “And... I have to go back to Illinois on the thirtieth.”

“I thought we were doing new years.” Jazz says, soft disappointment in her voice. They got close when Danny died, but they got closer after she moved out, and Danny no longer had to perform the expectation of hatred for her. Plus, with the distance, she didn’t really try to parent him anymore, which made her much more tolerable. In fact, she’d even promised that she’d let him do shots this new year, in a whisper with a smile, that suggested she thought it would be his first time drinking.

“I have a party to go to.” Danny says, without any of the excitement that statement would typically suggest. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Jazz says, light eyebrows all knit up because she knows Danny only has four friends. He stares at her pointedly after she does, and she doesn’t press the issue. “But that just means more touristy outings with your big sister. Alcatraz?”

“This is meant to be a vacation.” Danny answers tiredly.

“We don’t know for sure it’s haunted.” She says. She doesn’t know, but Danny does. He doesn’t need to check, but there’s probably a barrier that’s keeping the spirits there from crossing over- there usually is in super haunted places that don’t have a stable rift to keep the entities stable and corporeal- which, if he showed, up, would be his job to deal with.

“Ugh,” He complains. “Hand me the beef and broccoli.” On the screen, a sh*tty CGI reptilian-humanoid thing tears the blonde girl in half.

“So, there’s a new Tremors movie,” Jazz says, picking up the box.

“What?”

“With a budget!” she adds, delightendly.

“Oh, that can not make those films better.”

“It does not.”

***

Tim does actually have business to attend to, despite the complaints of his siblings, all of whom decided to join him for the week of post-christmas pre new years, spread out in the living room of his apartment. It’s a spacious living room, because his apartment is a penthouse suite that sits above the morning fog, the south facing wall made entirely of windows. When he wakes up, it looks like the building is much higher than it really is.

Tim is up before everyone else, who’re sprawled out on blankets and pillows and couch cushions, removed from his sectional and spread out over his rug. He steps over Duke, rolling his eyes, before he fills up his coffee maker and pulls off the dish towel that Cass (the only one with any foresight) had laid over the grazing platter at some point last night before they all passed out. He loads up a plate with cheese and bread, his laptop tucked under his arm, to try and get something done while all his siblings are still asleep. The sun is shining in through the wall of windows, and the fog moves on, a few stories down.

Cass is the first to rouse, which is to be expected, and also the least disruptive. She walks around his kitchen silently, preparing her own mug of coffee and looking, disapprovingly, through his fridge. She can judge him all she wants, it’s not like he’d been there for the past few weeks. She ends up grabbing a banana- they had gone grocery shopping on arrival, the whole group of them, but mostly for aforementioned grazing board, chips, and sodas. Cass was the only one who added anything remotely healthy to the cart.

Tim does usually eat healthy- he kinda has to, to make all of the ridiculous vigilante stuff sustainable. Just not over holidays with all of the ‘young adult’ Gotham vigilantes staying with him and encouraging hedonism.

Cass taps the top of his laptop. He glances up over the top of it, and she co*cks one eyebrow.

“I’m responsible for maintaining all of your lifestyles.” He says. “That doesn’t stop because it’s December, and it doesn’t stop because you all are here.”

She blinks once, twice, as she processes the words. It takes her a while, but she doesn’t typically need words. Listening to them, to her, is a courtesy. She rolls her eyes and nods, then signs:

“Today, plan?”

“I’ve got to go to the post office and pick up my and Danny’s suits, I have a meeting with Cratchitt, which will hopefully be quite short, I’ll grab lunch, then I’ve got to go to the tower and make sure Cassie and Kon did alright with the, uh, the sub-for-santa.” His family believes, wholeheartedly, that Young Justice sponsors fifty families across the US over the Christmas season, and not that they have been operating as the actual Santa Claus for the past few years. It’s close enough to the truth that Tim can convince himself, and more importantly, Cass and Bruce, that he isn’t lying. “You guys can stay here, ruining my furniture and working through Dick’s rom com agenda.” They watched three last night while he was sorting through accounts and clearing out his inbox.

“There’s no purpose to it if you’re not here. It’s for your edification.” Dick mutters, halfway into a pillow.

“I thought you were asleep.” Tim says, crossly.

“I thought I was too. How do you manage to get up this early?”

“The crushing weight of responsibility keeps me up.”

“I thought it was anxiety.”

Tim shrugs. “That too.” He finishes off his cheese and stands, grabbing his raincoat from the hook by the door. “I’ll be back around six.”

“Really?” Steph asks, roused by Dick, who she had a leg draped over. “Ugh, lame.”

“I told you guys to stay back east.”

“So he’s definitely Sandra Bullock, right?” Duke asks, groggily. “That’s the conclusion we came to? Even though we’re the rich family?”

“I’m leaving.” Tim says. “And I’m Sandra Bullock because my parents died when I was sixteen.”

“You were watching!” Dick exclaims, as Tim slips out of the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Tim doesn’t love San Francisco the same way he loves Gotham. It’s a great city, but Tim thinks that’s probably half the issue. Gotham is f*cked up, and the people there are all f*cked up, which leads to a somewhat codependent sense of belonging. The bay area is all health nuts who drink green smoothies and wear North Face and Timberlands, and go rock climbing indoors, and who seem to have their lives together.

But everywhere is walkable, and even if you get jumped while walking, it'll be by a regular dude with a knife instead of some idiot in lycra.

Both suits were shipped out priority from his tailors in Gotham, which means there’s ample time for them to get to his house, but Tim would like to get them through the dry cleaner’s and pressed before the party after whatever abuse they suffered in transit.

So he walks the suits to the dry cleaners, speaking politely in broken mandarin to the owner (who runs the best dry cleaning establishment in the Bay area, despite what Google Reviews would have you believe) and unboxes both of them on the counter.

“Uh, mister Drake?”

“Yes, Uncle?” He asks, laying out Danny’s suit.

“You do know, this one will not fit, yes?”

“Oh it’s,” Tim swallows, taking a second before forcing out the lie, “It’s for my boyfriend.”

“Oh, very good!” He pats Tim solidly on the shoulder, “Congratulations.”

Tim bows his head, slightly. “Thank you.”

“We will text you when it’s ready.”

“Thank you.”

Tim buys another coffee to go from one of those pretentious little cafes that are supposed to be better for the economy than starbucks, but still charge seven dollars for a latte. He can’t be expected to do business on just one cup of coffee, especially not with Cratchitt, who will inevitably just tell him that the investors are worried about the potential ramifications of the nature of his relationship with the Vlad-co heir, which hasn’t even been made public yet.

...Although Tim did post a picture of his (Danny’s) hand on the batburger cup in his car, the night he bailed him out of jail, with no context, a song that could be construed as romantic, on his insta story. Just to make it seem natural when they were photographed in matching suits at Queen’s.

He nurses the coffee while Cratchitt gives him an earful about quarterlies and performance reviews and how he’s spending too much money making sure their employees had those pesky things, such as- insurance, and livable wages. He states that won’t be changing, and they’ve experienced growth regardless, and Cratchitt bitches at him about it. It’s a long meeting, and the coffee only lasts him halfway through it. He manages to keep his back straight and at least a neutral expression on his face the whole time.

When he finally leaves the WE building, the fog is gone completely, and it’s sunny, for once. Still cold, and damp, but it’s well into winter. At least it snows in Gotham.

He ducks into a sandwich shop, blinking away the mind-numbing boredom and bleariness that this city seems to induce. At least the second half of his day is scheduled as Red Robin, which is always easier than being Tim Drake.

No one knows Red Robin’s parents are dead. Red Robin’s already proven himself as competent, and just the once was okay for everyone, it doesn’t have to be constant. Tim is excellent at being Tim Drake, but it’s still an effort. Somehow, Red Robin’s become... less of one. Although actually, he thinks the only thing that isn’t a performance at all is who he is around family.

He shakes his head. This can be easy too- the anonymity of a city that didn’t raise him, just being another person in a crowd. Hell, he can’t even see in front of the guy standing in front of him. He’s tall, but as Tim’s attention moves to him, there’s something about him that’s familiar. He’s bouncing with nervous energy, and when he looks over his shoulder, Tim’s heart drops into his stomach.

Danny Fenton, his newest case, his fake boyfriend, and the bane of his existence, is in San Francisco.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Danny despises being High King of Ghosts. It’s bureaucracy, at its core. The spirits of the prisoners of Alcatraz muck the stone floor and try to intimidate him, until he looks one straight in the core and snarls.

“What are you doing?” Jazz hisses, while the guide says something historical.

“Work. Because you brought me here knowing I would.” She smiles while he slips on his ring shivering as the power works its way through his veins, his core. “What ever are they going to do when this place isn’t haunted anymore?”

“Oh, you know how little that matters to the living.”

Danny glares at her, then raises his hand. “Is there a bathroom?”

“Right over there, sir.”

Danny gives the man a flat-lipped smile, hating that he’s called sir now, and wonders if it’s worse that the ‘sir’ was somewhat condescending. He checks the stalls before disappearing.

Subliminally, the prison looks much like the photographs that were in the site’s museum, if they’d been soaked in green dye. Danny strides through the walls with quite a bit more freedom than the other spirits seem to be allowed. They’re all echoing whatever miseries they had in the prison in life, it seems.

They look at him, some of them with resignation, and some of them with malice- those are the ones who were dragging on his ankles in the mortal plane. They exist in-between- not quite in line with the living, but not all the way in the realms, either.

He shivers, which is a false action. There’s definitely some weight to this place, which he hadn’t been expecting. Lots of haunted places in the US aren’t really- it’s just carbon monoxide ore exposed wiring f*cking up people’s electrostatic perception.

“Where’s the warden?” He asks, his voice sounding like it’s being spoken through water. The spirits glance at him, then go back to chattering to each other. It’s not really any language, just the action of useless talking. None of the spirits have enough presence to really be... distinct? Danny doubts they’re really even actual people who died there, just the impressions of the suffering. Hopefully it isn’t actually Warden , though Danny hasn’t a clue why or how he’d manage to make it all the way to California. “Who’s in charge here, I’ll even take a prison gang leader.”

The spirits are congregating around him, drawn in by his spectral gravity, but none are really acknowledging his words.

“You know, I led a prison gang once,” he says, wading through the spirits and the gunk. “Briefly. It was honestly more of a riot.”

In the realm of the living, the tour group walks by, drawing some attention, although most of them are still focused on Danny, trying to actualize themselves on his leftover energy.

He moves slowly, trying to catch a trail of energy to follow, but they pop up and fall apart as quickly as he can identify them.

The question is how much he actually needs to do this, because none of the spirits are really sentient enough to do sh*t to mortals, nor are they sentient enough to really be suffering - well, they are, they’re literal embodiments of suffering, but it’s not like they can be anything else.

But at the end of the day, it’s not about who it's harming, it’s about Balance, to which (whom? whatever) Danny has sworn to embody and upkeep. Balance means that they need to be on the other side, and duty requires that he facilitate the transition.

Damn it, Danny wanted to have a vacation .

He wouldn’t be able to scrub the location memories from the place, but he’d be able to free up some of the energy. If he could only figure out why there was enough ectoplasm for the memories to form so close to legitimate entities.

“Who’s keeping you here?” he asks, looking one of the echoes in the head- there’s no face, just shifting shadows and features as it remembers the people who contributed to it. “What’s keeping you?”

Its face stretches as it chatters at him, the sound of teeth clacking against each other, but it hasn’t got a mouth long enough for Danny to try and make any sense of the words.

“You didn’t die here.”

He turns at the sound. Maybe there is a legitimate spirit or two hanging around.

“That’s true, I didn’t. Show yourself.”

The ghost obeys, as it must, a middle aged man without any lips at all, just bare teeth and muscle, in a prisoner’s uniform. “That’s a neat trick you got there.”

“How long have you been here?” Danny asks. He hadn’t been paying attention at the beginning of the tour, or their guide hadn’t yet said the year that the prison ceased operation.

“Time means little to this place. This purgatory.”

Danny rolls his eyes. Obviously, the answer is: long enough to become dramatic. “When did you die?” He asks, instead. “What year?”

“Fifty-seven.” He has a little drawl. “Ain’t it still?”

Danny shakes his head.

The prisoners have started crawling towards him, clawing at his uniform. He looks at them distastefully, and kicks them away. “If you let them, they’re going to tear you apart. They absorb you, make you one of them.”

“Trust me, I’m more than they can handle.”

“Well, I’m not. I can’t even remember my own name anymore, and that’s how it starts.”

“What do you remember about yourself?” Danny asks the man, moving again, because the prisoners are pulling at his energy, trying to take pieces of him into themselves. It’s annoying to him, but it actually seems to be painful to his new friend.

The man’s head tilts back, and he licks his transparent lips, remembering. “The taste of blood on my tongue. The resistance of flesh against a blade. The heat of a wound around my fingers, like a woman’s-”

“Enough.” Danny commands. Ancients, it’s entities like this who give ghosts a bad name. “Do you know what keeps you here?”

The man looks at him again, although he doesn’t, nor has he ever, have actual eyes, just dark smudges, full of malice. “The demon in the hole. The one that done killed that man, wrapped his throat round with rope and squeezed till there weren’t no life left to take from him.”

“Take me there, and I will free you.” Danny says, though he’s worried if he lets the surplus energy flow into the realm, as he ought, that the spirit will have enough of a hold to form a core. Especially given he’s lasted in this environment for the last sixty some-odd years.

“Even these don’t go there,” the murderer says.

“Take me.” Danny commands.

“I’m likin’ that trick less and less,” but he nods his head down one of the hallways, and Danny follows.

The words written on the walls are all upside-down and backwards, or made of symbols not meant to be read, because what they are is so tied to the perception of the spirits of this space. Danny knows that the easiest thing would be to open up a portal large enough to dunk this whole liminality of the island into the zone where it belongs, but that would not answer the question of why it’s stayed.

Plus it would take a massive show of power. One which Danny has, but isn’t willing to demonstrate. Not when he has to portal back home in a few days. He’d rather not demand a sacrifice of blood and terror for his services, which would be inevitable, if he drew on that much power that consistently.

The further they get down the main corridor, the more the formless spirits thin out, less of a sludge of limbs and agony on the floor, and more of impressions, confined by laws they’ve made for themselves, sitting in cells and rattling at the bars. Beside him, the killer glances about, uneasy.

“What did you do to get sent here, boy?” He asks.

“It’s a long story,” Danny replies.

“Aren’t all of them?”

“I doubt your’s is.” He says, with a little bite of sarcasm he can’t help, “You killed somebody.”

“Several,” he corrects, which Danny should’ve figured. They seem to have followed the tour group, inadvertently. Sometimes he can catch their silhouettes, like the afterimage of a too-bright light. “Four. Would’ve been five, but the last one was a damned fighter.” He reaches forward, to tease with the end of Jazz’s ponytail.

“Cease. ” Danny is liking him less and less.

“I can’t do anything to them. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“The thought alone is an affront.” Especially to his sister. But he won’t show this man his connections. He has the impression that if he speaks them into being here, one of the shadowy figures would pluck the meaning from them to make it feel human for just a little longer.

“Where’d you learn that trick, eh? You think it would work on this lot?”

“They don’t have enough substance to follow orders.” Danny says. “And it’s not something you can learn, so don’t try.”

“That’s selfish.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Believe me, it’s not.” The cells in the corner are darker, with more solid doors than just bars. The light of the prison in the subliminal space is diffused, not direct like the sunlight coming in from the high up windows on the mortal plane.

Whatever it is that’s hiding in that cell is sucking in everything, not just the souls, or the energy from tourist’s perception of it. Even the light.

“You can leave,” Danny tells his murderous companion. “I no longer require your assistance.”

“Thank f*ck,” the man says, and dissappears.

Danny steps through the door into the solitary confinement cell.

The entity is crouched in the shadows in the furthest corner of the cell, only visible by two blood red eyes, perfectly circular, which are trained on him as soon as he enters.

“You can’t have them,” It hisses at him, its voice a raspy whisper.

“I don’t want them.” Danny says. “I just want you to go where you belong. Where you don’t have to eat them to stay around.”

“You want me in your keep. You want them all in your keep. They’re mine.”

“I have no keep.” Danny said.

“You have control.”

“Somewhat.” He steps forward, and it recoils back. It’s strong, to be certain, and evil, with the kind of aura that would lead to most mortals pissing themselves, but Danny has been the biggest, scariest fish in the pond for long enough that it just doesn’t work. “There aren’t any more prisoners. There haven’t been for a long, long time. When you suck every last drop of humanity, of energy from whatever’s left of those that died here, the fear from tourists won’t be enough to keep you going.”

It doesn’t seem to be able to form an actual response to that, it just hisses at him.

Danny hisses back.

“Control. Control. Control,” it repeats. “You have it and do not want it. I do not have it and I neeeeeeed it.”

Danny steps forward again. It doesn’t seem to have ever been human, unlike his ‘friend’ from earlier. It’s more of a concept, given form by the suffering and...

There has to be some sort of nexus for it to form around, because it’s not in the zone, nor is it close enough to any rift to actualize.

“Danny Phantom versus the prison industrial system,” He whispers to himself. “Fight.”

It’s not really a fight. However strong the entity might’ve been, back when people were still dying on the island, it was next to nothing now, especially in comparison to him. He towers over the emaciated spirit, which is huddled over a hole in the corner.

There’s... something, piercing the fabric of reality, pinning the mortal plane to the zone in a fixed point, and allowing the creation of this middle space between them. The demon of the cell hisses at him.

“Let me see it.” He says. “Let me see.”

It draws back, like the movement is contradictory to its very being.

It’s long, bone white, and slightly curved.

It’s a f*cking shard.

He rips it free from its puncture, and the hemiplane folds itself into the little hole into the zone in the space of a blink.

Danny presses reality back flat, with his hand wearing the ring, and the little hole is gone, like it was never there.

As convenient as it would be, Danny can’t imagine it’s a good idea opening a rift in a tourist attraction in California. Especially an unstable one.

He hides the shard in a pocket dimension before slipping off the ring and jogging to catch up to his tour group. He falls in next to Jazz just as their guide finishes talking, encouraging them to pick themselves something from the gift shop.

“Have fun?” She whispers to him.

“I have a headache.” He says. “But I got a shard.”

“There was one here? Look, it was worth it.”

“It could’ve waited,” Danny says crossly, because it really shouldn’t’ve. “There was a spirit who played with your hair. I nearly tore his core to shreds.” If the murderer had tried it any later, Danny probably would’ve.

“Oh,” Jazz pulls the end of her long ponytail over her shoulder and twists it between her fingers. “Pleasant.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You want a sweatshirt?” She asks, glancing at the gift shop.

“For sixty dollars? Who’s paying for that?”

“Good point. You want a magnet?”

“I want food. If we run, I think we can catch the ferry from the tour group ahead of us.”

“Race you,” Jazz says instantly, and takes off across the quad.

Danny’s head still hurts, but he pushes the discomfort aside as he sprints after her, letting her keep the lead until the last moment, where he overtakes her with four powerful strides. He slides to a stop on the sea-slick wood of the dock.

“That’s-” she pants, struggling to unlock her phone to show their tickets to the ferry master- “so rude.”

Danny chuckles.

“And you’re not even winded! Shame!”

“I don’t have to breathe.” He stands next to her when she finds a seat- it’s mostly full, and stares out over the bay. The water reflects the winter sun, making it dazzlingly white. Somewhere behind Angel Island, in front of the Richmond Bridge, Danny tries to make out the T of the titans tower.

It’s too far away.

Back in the city, they settle on a sandwich shop that had been recommended by some influencer Jazz follows, that she’s been meaning to try. Due to said recommendation, the restaurant is packed. Danny knows that Jazz knows he’s hungry, and he can see her face fall as she looks at the whiteboard in the window, stating that the estimated wait time is almost an hour. He also knows that she’d never justify eating at such a nice restaurant on her own, so he tells her that he’ll stand in the line while she goes and looks at the second hand bookstore across the street.

The few tables in the room are occupied by more people with phones, taking pictures of themselves and their food, and there’s a dense thicket of chatter that the bare cement walls aren’t doing any favors for subduing. He’s barely inside the door, but evidently, someone thinks there’s enough space to shove in behind him, because he can feel the cool draft of air and hear the squeak as the door opens and closes behind him.

Okay, maybe he’s a bit overstimulated, and the interior of the restaurant isn’t helping, but his relationship with Jazz is always much smoother when she’s not trying to parent him, and that’s easier to achieve when she isn’t worried about him. He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, looking around. Maybe he should’ve taken up her offer for her to wait in line.

“Danny?”

He turns around, accidentally bumping into the lady in front of him. “Sorry, sorry,” he turns back, and then settles on looking at-

“Tim?”

“You’re in San Francisco.” Tim says, eyebrows furrowed. “Why are you in San Francisco?”

“I’m visiting my sister, why are you in San Francisco?”

“I live here.”

“I thought you lived in Gotham.”

“I split my time,” His arms are crossed and he sounds impatient, like Danny is an inconvenience to him. Unfortunately, Danny is and always has been attracted to people who are vaguely rude and think he’s an inconvenience, so the tone only serves to give him butterflies.

Stop that, he thinks to his stomach.

“Right.” He says aloud.

Tim rolls his eyes, face pinched like he’s the one with the headache, then he steps up next to Danny, winding his arm through his elbow.

“What are you-”

“There’s cameras,” Tim says, in an even tone. “The girls back there. We act like this was planned.”

“They’re just taking pictures of their food.”

“Regardless.” He walks him forward as the line progresses and says: “I bought you tickets out of Chicago.”

“Yeah, I have the boarding pass in my email.”

“You do know Star City is in Washington, right?”

“Well, I told you not to bother with the tickets.”

“You didn’t tell me you’d be in California.”

“I didn’t know I had to.”

“I’m gonna return the tickets,” Tim says through a sigh, pulling out his phone and scrolling through his inbox. “You can return yours, too, and drive up with us.”

“Really?” Us? Danny thinks, worriedly, but doesn’t say.

“Well, yes. I wouldn’t want to be stuck on planes and in airports for three out of four days in a row if there were another option. Done.” He stares at Danny intently. “Well?”

“Well?” He repeats, stupidly.

“Are you gonna return yours?”

“Oh, yeah.” Danny takes out his phone and pretends to be busy on it, but he’s really just checking his texts.

“So, are you following me, Danny?”

“Hey, I was here first,” he says, “And we only ran into each other in Gotham because I called you, it’s not like it was random.”

“Alright, well,” his arm tightens in Danny’s, “I’m just letting you know I don’t believe in coincidences. You?”

Danny’s jaw flexes as they step forward again. “Uh. Fate.”

“Fate?” Tim says, the word coming out like a laugh.

“Not that... that’s what this is, you and me, or, I mean, just. Generally, uh, yeah. I believe in Fate. Which sometimes looks like coincidences until later examined.”

Tim rolls his eyes, like Danny’s an idiot.

Danny is also, unfortunately, attracted to people who think he’s an idiot.

***

Tim buys Danny and his sister each a sandwich, directs him to kiss him somewhere not on the lips in case Jasmine Fenton’s watching from across the street and they need to keep up pretenses. He presses his lips to his forehead, and the point of contact is warm, in comparison to the cool, clammy air around them. It’s just a second, barely that, and it still has Tim melting into it.

Maybe he needs more platonic touch.

“I’ll pick you up Saturday morning,” He tells him.

“Yeah, I’ll send you the address.” Right, because that’s something normal people would need, because normal people wouldn’t have a file with all the addresses of someone they barely know’s immediate family on hand.

“Great, thanks.” He retracts himself, nods, and watches Danny dart between cars and a stopped tram before talking to a college-aged girl with light reddish hair. She waves across the street at him while Danny rolls his eyes, so Tim waves back with a genial smile. He can’t hear what he says, but she elbows him, and he laughs.

He looks in his paper bag and finds that he’s not really hungry anymore.

Bart will eat it, no doubt.

Titan’s tower being the base of operations for Young Justice was something Tim had, at one point, wished he could change. The Titans were Dick’s Robin’s team. Young Justice was Tim’s. But the League had relegated the teen heroes to the structurally dubious skyscraper, and-

Well, it was there. Why would they relegate funds to a new base, when all of their other ventures required so much investment? Now that he helps balance figures for the superheroes of the world, he’s less salty about it.

Now, he’s mostly salty about the fact that his siblings could be sleeping in either their dedicated rooms in the tower, or in the guest rooms, instead of his living room floor, in the apartment he rents specifically so that he can get away from everyone every once in a while. And because he sometimes thinks that he can still smell the iron from when Jason crushed his nasal cartilage back into his sinuses, in this room, even though Bart and Cass stayed up till sunrise scrubbing the floors clean and replacing the cushions while Kon got him to a hospital. Jason doesn’t know where his apartment is. All it would take would be one falsely well-intentioned text to Dick, though, saying he wants to make amends, and he would fold.

“How was Christmas?” He asks, putting his sandwich bag on the table in the common area. He’s barely let go of it before it’s gone, and Bart blinks into stillness on the other end of the conversation pit, peeking in.

“Pastrami on rye? Really?”

“It’s a good sandwich.”

“You still want it?” He asks, already chewing on a bite. You don’t put food down that you want to eat in this building. You shove it into your mouth and hope no one asks you to share.

“Nah, it’s aight.”

“Christmas was fine. Saint Nick’s status is still confidential.” Cassie says. “No thanks to you.”

“I funded it. I’m sorry, I was busy!”

“Busy with your new boyfriend?” She asks, crossing the room to squint at him.

“Yes,” He ducks around her. “As a matter of fact, I was.”

“Is he a civilian? I didn’t think you’d ever want to date a civilian, no offense, Rob, but, it’s not like you have before. I mean, I don’t even know what I’d talk to a normal person about on dates. What do you talk about, if not different ways you’ve almost died?” Bart asks, mouth full of Tim’s sandwich.

“Talking about my love life is not on the agenda,” Tim says, causing Cassie to cross her arms with a huff, and Bart to roll his eyes. “I want status reports on independent missions, itemized invoices, and proposals to advance prior areas of interest.”

“We’re doing this already, Rob?” Kon asks, ruffling his hair, even as Tim tries to move away from it.

“When else are we going to do it? It’s today and tomorrow for me to get us all set up into the new year, and then I’m otherwise engaged.”

“With the new boyfriend?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Tim says, with a tight smile. “You know that someone has to do the paperwork regarding all this.”

“Should we hire a secretary?” Cassie posits.

“When we have Red Robin? He’d see it as an unnecessary expense.”

“It would be.” Tim interrupts. “And we’re government subsidized, so we have to do the paperwork. It’s not just for me to get on your asses about what you’re doing, it’s so that we’re still cleared to do anything at all. ”

“Right, like all the sh*t you do is above board. Aren’t you still a vigilante?”

“Only in the city of Gotham.” He sets the display up in the center. “And if you think B doesn’t make me file every tiny expenditure and document every case, you are sorely mistaken.”

“Why?” Kon asks.

“On account of it’s Batman? Who’s cultivated Robin’s whole... robinness?” Bart says. “I’m sure he has Rob keeping track of how many milliliters he pisses while on duty, too.”

Tim throws a batarang at him, which is sharp only because he knows there’s no world in which he could throw it quick enough for it to hit him. As is to be expected, Bart drops it back on his lap less than a second later.

“Shut the f*ck up and tell me that Wondergirl didn’t flip over any vehicles trying to save a cat or something, okay?”

“Well...”

“Cassie!”

“It was a junkbox anyways, they were probably looking for an excuse to get rid of it!”

Tim leans forward with a groan, eyes closed and forehead on the table. “Okay, date, time, location, and rationale.”

“Uhhhh,” she takes out her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t remember the date, I- I’m looking through my instagram stories archive.”

“Why would that help?”

“She took a selfie with it.” Kon says.

“You don’t know that.”

“Did you?”

Cassie’s finger taps against her phone screen and the room is quiet for a moment, then two. “Yeah.”

Tim bangs his head against the table.

“You look tired.” Dick says. “You want to order in for dinner?”

“You don’t. And yes.”

“Great, because I already called for Thai.”

Tim slumps onto the couch, which has had some reconstruction since that morning. Occasionally, he forgets why he actually likes Dick. “Did you guys seriously stay here all day?”

“Nah, we went and hiked round the redwoods.” Steph says. “Didn’t miss this, though.” She shows him a post on her phone, which is just a picture of Danny kissing his forehead on the street.

Tim had seen the google alert while he was at the tower. God, didn’t these people have anything better to do?

“Right, so there’s been a change of plans.” He closes his eyes and leans back. “Danny’s in SF visiting his sister, so we’re all driving up in the Cadillac on Sunday.”

“We’re going on a road trip with him?” Steph asks.

“Tim?” Duke says.

“Hm.”

“I know you’re smart and all, but that’s, like. A really terrible idea.”

“It’s efficient.”

“You’re going to put him in a car with all this for thirteen hours?”

“Yes. You’re all going to pretend like you don’t know this is fake, and be polite to him, and let me deal with it.

“It’s not a quick trip to Bludhaven, Tim, it’s an entire day of driving.” Steph says. “We’re going to get to know everything about him, and we’re going to tease you relentlessly about everything.”

“This isn’t up to debate. If you guys had just flown in straight from Jersey like I suggested, this would be much easier.”

“Oh, this is tearing him apart,” Steph whispers to someone (probably Cass).

“I’m going to my room. Call me when the food's here, yeah?” Tim says, sloughing into the single bedroom and falling face-forward onto the bed.

“How far do you think we can go before he goes into his blacklist files on us?” He hears Steph ask Dick.

“I don’t know, but I am prepared to find out.”

Tim throws one of his shoes at the door.

“We will be on our best behavior!” Duke says, his voice cracking on ‘best’.

“Damn straight you will!” Tim rolls over lazily and pulls his laptop out of his bag and pulls up his files on all his siblings that are coming, quickly edits out anything that might point to their nightlife activities, throws in Jason Todd-Wayne (deceased) and a couple sentences on Damian, before emailing them to Danny, and throwing him a text.

Danny Fenton

Hey I just sent you an email regarding information I probably would’ve told you about my family. Please review that, as well as the relationship narrative and acceptable boundaries for physical contact at public events before Saturday.

yeah fs

oh right
Location Sent

Fine. This is going to be fine.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Tim Drake looks the closest to being a normal teenager Danny has ever seen him, and he thinks it’s probably because it’s five am on a Saturday. He stands at Jazz’s apartment door, having knocked instead of simply texting. (Actually, he did text, but Danny hadn’t bothered to wake up and look at it.) He’s wearing joggers and a crew neck, his hands casually in his pockets.

“Morning.” He says, looking past Danny’s shoulder into the apartment, but blessedly, there isn’t any judgment on his face. “You ready?”

Danny yawns. “Time izzit?”

“Five-thirty.”

“Ugh.” He picks up his backpack, which is set for the three day trip. “Yeah, I’m ready. I can’t believe I agreed to this. Shouldn’t you have like, a private jet or something?”

Tim shrugs. “Not worth the emissions. Wayne Enterprises is committed to-”

“I don’t care about the sales pitch.” Danny cracks his neck and closes the door behind him. “I’ve been on longer car rides. Mostly due to my intense middle-classness, but still.”

“The private jet is for emergencies only.” Tim mutters. “Carbon neutral footprint...”

“So there is a private jet.”

“There are two.” Danny remembers Sam telling him that Tim Drake is richer than god. “But it really is terrible for the environment, so we don’t take it unless there is no other recourse.”

Danny thinks about mentioning the fact that 99.99 percent of the population gets by just fine during emergencies without private jets, and how much better can it be than first-class flying, anyways, but bites his tongue.

Tim Drake isn’t driving his Aston Martin- it’s probably back in Gotham, so Danny wasn't sure why he was expecting it. Instead, parked precariously on the hill outside Jazz’s building is one of those massive Cadillac SUVs, which Danny is completely confident is an armored vehicle.

It’s also already occupied.

Danny did hear him say ‘us’ when he was talking about driving up, but he had- for whatever foolish reason- held onto the idea it would be just the two of them, so that they could review their plan, go over everything, and then spend most of the drive in silence.

“Who is...”

“It’s my siblings.” Tim says, sounding very tired. “They, uh, insisted.” He opens the door. “I’m sorry in advance.”

None of said ‘siblings’ look anything like Tim- there’s a tall black kid in the driver’s seat, a man in shotgun with tan skin and sunglasses. The middle two seats have two girls- the passenger side is a blonde girl with a wicked smile, who’s tucked her knees into her chest to let Danny and Tim in, and an asian girl who appears to be sleeping against the window.

This means Tim and Danny will be sharing the backseat, because according to the conditions of the contract, all of them think that this relationship is real.

Danny blinks, harshly, and wonders briefly if having his bail paid off is worth it.

The man in shotgun turns around as Tim climbs over the blonde and says: “I don’t want to see any funny business back there.”

“Dick,” Tim says through his teeth, although it lacks the bite that would make Danny think it’s really an insult.

“Right,” he says, contorting himself over the seat to reach through the aisle to shake Danny’s hand. “Dick Grayson. Pleasure.”

“Quit it.” Tim says, after Danny reaches forward to shake.

“What, you’re not going to introduce us?” Blonde girl asks with a pout.

“I’ve told him about you guys,” Tim grumbles, tucking himself into the corner. (Very much ‘regular teenager’. Danny’s intrigued.) sh*t. Maybe he should’ve actually looked over those files Tim sent him.

“It’s still polite.”

“Dick, the oldest.” Tim says, rolling his eyes. “Jason’s dead, so he’s not here. Cass is sleeping, Steph- Stephanie’s- my ex, but don’t let her make you feel bad about it, it’s been years. Duke’s driving, cause he needs to get hours for his permit.”

Ok, he really should’ve looked over those files.

“I’m Danny.” He says.

“Oh, we know,” Stephanie says. “Tim talks about you all the time. I mean-” Tim kicks the back of her seat, hard.

“I didn’t know-” Danny pauses, talking just to Tim- “I didn’t know one of your brothers died.”

Tim glares at him. “I’m pretty sure I mentioned it.”

It was probably in the files. sh*t.

“Oh- I-”

“Don’t- he died before B took me in.”

“And he was kind of a jerk.” Dick says, from the front seat. “It’s been long enough. We can make jokes about it now.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

He sees Dick’s brows furrow in the rear view mirror. “You’ve had a sibling die?”

“I have a dead sister.” Did she ever really die? No, but she is dead, and he does make jokes about it.

“I didn’t know that.” Tim says, sounding quite genuinely concerned. Danny glances over, rubbing the back of his neck abashedly. “I- how did I not know that?”

“It was a while ago. I don’t usually bring it up.” Tim’s still staring at him, but luckily, Duke breaks the silence.

“Are you sure none of y’all can’t do the city driving? And just switch me out when we get to the freeway?”

“Stop being a wuss, you learnt how to drive in Gotham.” Dick says.

“Gotham has far fewer hills. Half this place is like, ninety-degrees steep.”

“You made it here from Tim’s.”

“Get us moving, Thomas.” Steph commands.

Duke gets the car into drive with a lurch, where it almost slides down the hill, and narrowly avoids another parked vehicle.

“Shift gears, shift gears,” Dick commands in a panic, and Danny, who has not yet put on his seat belt, is sent careening into Tim’s lap.

“I’m trying!”

Danny removes himself as naturally as he can from Tim, although no one in the car seems to be paying them any attention, and straps himself in.

“I really am sorry about them. This.” Tim says.

“Believe me, this won’t even rank in the top ten of my most awkward road trips of all time.”

Tim smiles and says: “Give it time. I’m gonna try and catch a nap before it gets too bright.”

Danny nods, putting on his headphones and pulling up the files that Tim emailed him a few days ago.

***

When Tim wakes up, it’s eight am, they’re still in California, and his and Danny’s legs are a tangled mess on the seat between them. He’d noticed it, he thinks, somewhat when he’d been sleeping, but it hadn’t concerned him enough to make him get up.

Slowing down had, though.

“We’re getting gas.” Dick says, as he shifts upwards. “And, you know, pit stop. Snacks.”

“Duke, you know you have to pump the gas yourself, right?” Tim asks, thumbing the gunk out of his eyes.

“I what? That’s legal?”

“That’s the way most states do it.” Dick confirms. “Wretched though it may be.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Dick will help you.” Tim jostles Danny, who immediately comes to, scrunching into the corner, hands open and ready. It’s a familiar reaction for Tim, but it’s not one he’d been expecting. “Gas stop. We’re grabbing snacks.”

“Sure.” He says, after a shaky breath. Cass has turned around in her seat to look at him, and her dark eyes slide to Tim as if to say: did you catch that?

Tim nods, just a smidge.

Dick gets out of the car and immediately bends in half backwards, every vertebrae in his spine adjusting to the position with a pop.

“Freak.” Tim accuses, wondering how much he should be playing up this double sided act- keep Danny from figuring out that his family hasn’t figured out that they’re not really dating. Should he take his hand? They’re literally just going into a gas station. But also, according to the agreed upon narrative, they’ve only been dating a few weeks, which still places them firmly in the ‘honeymoon’ stage.

“What, is this too disturbing for you? You don’t stretch enough.” Dick says, his head straight forward between his knees. “Bet Cass can do it.”

Cass can, and does.

Danny’s staring at them over his shoulder, standing just close enough that it’s believable that they’re more than friends. Maybe he is a good actor. Tim has no clue how much credit to give him, because he seems to be made entirely of contradictions.

“Sorry, they’re- I-” Danny should know that they’re an ex-acrobat and ballerina, respectively, but he still wants to make an excuse for them.

“Nah, I get it, car rides get me stiff, too.” Danny says, and then-

Then-

Then Danny folds over backwards as well.

“What the sh*t?” Duke shouts, over the hood of the SUV.

Dick straightens up and stares at the Danny-preztel with a befuddled look. ‘The f*ck?’ he mouths to Tim.

Tim tries his best to express: ‘I have no f*cking clue’ with just his face. Cass stands up, grins at both of them, and bounces to the 7-11.

“Huh? Wazzat?” Steph asks, finally rousing enough to get out of the car. Danny stands up and his body pops as everything settles back into place.

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe what Danny can do,” Dick says, sliding across the hood to help Duke with the pump. “Tim, get me a redbull and some hot cheetos!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim grabs Danny’s wrist and pulls them after Cass. “You have got to stop springing sh*t on me.”

“What?” Danny asks, a dopey grin on his face.

“Dead sister? You’re a- a- a contortionist? Since when?”

“It’s just a thing I can do.”

“That’s not just a thing people can do-”

“It’s a thing Dick and Cass can do.”

“Yeah, well, they’re-”

“Could you?”

“Like, two years ago, maybe, yeah.” The bell rings as they shove their way in. “Like Dick said, I need to stretch more.”

“But you could.”

“We all do gymnastics and martial arts.” Tim says. “A sharp body fosters a sharp mind. That’s in the files.”

“I know. I read them.” Danny picks up a bag of hot cheetos and tosses them at him.

“Really.”

“In the car. Yeah.” Tim gives him a dithering glare. Danny just grins wider. “I didn’t think it would be that salient that quickly. Sorry.”

“I don’t do things for no reason.” Tim says, brows furrowed while he piles up more chips and sunflower seeds.

“I can see that.”

“Can you.”

“I swear to trust your unerring judgment from here on out and to read all the ridiculous, long, boring documents you send me.”

“They’re-” Tim sighs. “Fine. I’ll take it. Do you need to go to the bathroom? I’ll check out.”

“Probably a good plan.” He glances over the rows of snack foods, collectible shot glasses, and vaguely racist trucker t-shirts before pressing a kiss to his temple and half jogging through the store.

Cass appears over his shoulder in a blink, holding all the drinks everyone likes. Her eyebrows raise, she glances the direction Danny went, and she smiles.

“Don’t start.” Tim says.

She rolls her eyes and starts them over to the register, as Duke and Dick come crashing in the store to race for the bathrooms, then Steph a second later, still wearing her blanket-hoodie-sherpa-thing.

“You get in there?” He asks, while the worker scans them out.

She holds up one finger- she was first. Of course she was, Cass has common sense.

Danny appears behind them. Contradictions compounding, Tim didn’t notice him until he appeared in his periphery. Cass can sneak up on him- Cass can sneak up on Bruce, so Tim has elected not to lose sleep over it. But Danny, regular civilian Danny, who’s a few inches past six feet tall? Tim’s starting to think his research wasn’t comprehensive enough.

Especially when Cass jumps.

Cass. Dropping in on Tim is one thing, but no one- no one- startles Cass.

“Hey, I’ll run these out to the car,” he says, with a casual smile.

“Right,” Tim manages to breathe. Cass bumps into him with a glance that reads: I’ll keep an eye on him.

“How’s it going, lover-boy?” Dick asks, in the men’s room, because of course he does.

“I think he was sent to kill me. Us? Bruce? Someone.”

“Remember that you’re the one who suggested this arrangement. And, historically, it’s gonna be a coin flip for whether or not he’s gonna end up being an ally, if he is an assassin.”

“Yeah,” Duke adds, “How many of your close friends and or family started out trying to kill you?”

Tim groans, rolling his eyes. “Get out of here, I need to piss.”

“So, that’s a lot,” Dick says.

But Danny doesn’t seem to want to kill them. He’s had the opportunity to, at the very least, make an attempt- although he wouldn’t get far- but he sits in the backseat, commenting on the conversation when addressed but otherwise scrolling through his phone, tolerating Tim’s legs on his lap for that awkward double-deception.

Tim is an excellent liar.

He’s always just thought that he’s the best liar in the room, and he’s not comfortable contending with the fact that Danny Fenton might present some competition.

Every once in a while, he looks up to catch Tim staring at him and raises his eyebrows with a trick of a grin, like they’re sharing some sort of inside joke, which they sort of are, but he can’t help the feeling that he’s really missing out on something. He’s not- and this is the sticking point- is that Tim can’t sense any malice from him. Tim’s perceptive- some might call him paranoid, but he’s almost always proven right when he has a bad feeling about someone. And as much as logic is screaming at him that there’s something up about this, about Danny, he just... doesn’t have that feeling.

‘You good?’ He mouths across the seat the fifth time he catches Tim staring in an hour.

“Just... just wondering what I got myself into.”

“This was your idea.”

“I know.”

“Welcome to the everyday annoyances of interacting with Tim Drake.” Steph says. “My deepest condolences that I didn’t warn you in time.”

“No worries, I’m sure I’ll manage.” Danny says, half under his voice with that god damned roguish charm.

“I’m sure you will.”

“Steph!”

“What, I said he will!”

“That’s some confidence. Are you sure you’re actually dating my little brother?” Dick asks from the front seat.

“Dick!”

“I mean, he thinks he can manage you, that’s hubris at best.”

“I said I could manage dating him. I think we all know that Tim does most of the managing.”

Dick barks out laughter, and Steph keels over. “Right enough, right enough.”

“Managing. That’s a word for it,” says Duke.

“Shut up, Duke!” Tim says, feeling his ears go red. Danny shakes with a little laughter, covering his face with a broad, boxy hand. “Let's all put our earbuds in and have quiet time.”

“Noooo, I’ll fall asleep,” Duke whines. “I’m so tired, I know how to drive, I don’t wanna do this if you’re all just gonna shut up!”

“You need the hours.” Dick reminds.

“I wouldn’t if Bruce would let me count pat- huh. Uh. Well. You know.”

Smooth, Tim thinks, sarcastically, but doesn’t say, because he doesn’t want to draw more attention to the mishap. Danny nudges him with his foot and grins.

“It just means they love you, you know.”

“This was a terrible idea.”

“You know, maybe.” He leans back to rest his head against the window, looking out at the heavy blur of green. “But we’re already seven hours in, so, uh. Sunk cost fallacy or whatever.”

“That’s the worst fallacy.”

“How’s that?”

“It’s the one I catch myself in the most.”

Danny doesn’t look at him again, but he smiles, watching water droplets skate by, joining and trailing over the tinted glass. “Yeah. I think I can tell.”

***

Tim Drake is becoming more human by the hour, and Danny is increasingly worried about his ability to remain objective in the situation. He has been worried, as a matter of fact, since he first posed the idea, and Danny could still remember the slide of lips against his.

He’s sleeping again, taco bell bag on his lap and a baja blast getting progressively more watered down as the ice melts. Danny feels like he has every right to stare at him, partially because he’s asleep and Danny’s supposed to be enamored with him, and partially because he’d been staring at him for most of the car ride, and Danny had still been fully conscious.

He’s getting along well enough with all of the ‘siblings’, except for Cass, who seems to be wary of him at best. Maybe he shouldn’t’ve made his midsection intangible to let him twist in half at the gas station, but it was worth it for the look on Tim’s face.

She is a little different than the rest of them, though. Danny can almost figure out what it is, like a word you know you know, but can’t quite fit the sounds to. He thinks she must feel the same about him, every time her dark eyes chance towards him.

This is probably because Bruce Wayne seems to be hell bent on running a home for wayward children with dead parents and tragic pasts. The files on all of the Wayne Wards included a list of triggers a page or two long that were to be avoided in conversation if at all possible. Tim had even written one for himself.

Danny had actually done a bit of research after entering into this agreement, he’d read the articles about how Tim, freshly sixteen, had found his murdered father a few months after his mother died, so he wasn’t surprised to see that Tim’s birthday wasn’t meant to be spoken of, celebrated, or even noticed.

Every single one of them doesn’t do clowns.

Great. Danny will fit right in.

Tim shifts in his sleep, and Danny reaches forward to make sure his crunchwrap supreme doesn’t end up on the upholstery. Cass twitches as he does, and he glances back at her. She rubs a fist over her chest- sorry. Danny waves it off. According to Tim, she could follow spoken conversations when they were at a reasonable pace, but he shouldn’t worry about it- she understood much more than people would think, but if she ever wanted to say something (which was rarely, and he shouldn’t feel offended by her silence), she would sign.

There’s no list of their traumas in the handy little PDFs on Danny’s phone, the way there is of triggers, and none of their backstories are quite so public as Tim’s- except for maybe Dick, who got plenty of media attention 19 years ago when, almost immediately after a freak trapeze accident, the young acrobat was adopted by a reclusive billionaire who was just beginning to step back into the public eye. He doesn’t know what makes Cass so jumpy, but he’s sure it’s legitimate, and he won’t blame her for flinching at a sudden movement. He’s been there. Sometimes he still is.

Tim snorts and shuffles further into a corner, and Dick turns around- he and Steph switched spots after lunch so she could keep an eye on Duke’s driving and he could nap- to say: “There are blankets on the top layer in the back.” Danny unbuckles his seatbelt to grab some. They’re insanely soft. (He’d really thought that drugstore blankets had to be about the same as the 80 dollar minky-whatevers, until he’d actually felt the one on Sam’s bed. Which. f*cking hell.) “His is the gray one,” Dick whispers.

“Thanks,” Danny says. “You want your’s?”

“Sure. Blue.”

“Are you guys color-coded?” Danny asks, throwing it at his head.

“It makes Christmas much easier.”

Danny tucks the blanket over Tim’s shoulders and says: “But his favorite color’s red.”

“Yeah, well,” Dick folds his legs up on the seat. “That one was taken.”

“Oh.”

“You know, we- we don’t- we’re not all stuck up and emotionally constipated, like he is.”

“Liar.” Steph says from the front.

“No, I- hey!”

“Just because your denial process involves humor, don’t mean it’s not denial.” Duke says, sagely.

“Ha. Hahahaha.”

“Hey, I’m just saying.”

“I mean he’s not-” Danny speaks up, and then feels uncomfortable with the way they quiet to listen, “he’s- with what happened, it’s not like you can blame him.”

“Oh, sweet summer child,” Steph drawls. “You have a lot to learn about this family.”

“He’s right.” Duke says. “We don’t blame him. From what Miss Raven says, Dick was actually a lot like that when he was Tim’s age. Which is why we make fun of him for it.”

Dick throws a sunflower seed at the boy’s head. “Don’t call her Miss Raven, that’s weird.”

“It’s respectful!”

“Do you like that about him?” Dick asks, ignoring Duke, who is muttering about how he needs to respect his superiors and how ‘these white kids are just on one’, “That he’s this like, brooding, tortured, Byronic hero?”

“Stop trying to embarrass my boyfriend.” Tim says, eyes still closed.

“Ugh, you never let us have any fun.”

“Yeah.” Danny says, because it’s part of the act. “Yeah, maybe I do.”

Tim isn’t awake enough to react to that, evidently, mumbling something incoherent and nestling further into the corner.

“Oh, that’s so sweet. Tim, he’s so sweet.”

“Shut up!”

“Don’t let him fool you, he’s a huge dork.”

“I know.” Danny says, because it seems like the right thing to say.

Tim kicks him.

After two more gas stops, an In-n-Out, and a very enthusiastic (from select parties) Olivia Rodrigo sing-along, they make it into Star City under a deluge of rain. They’re renting a craftsman-style home on the outskirts of downtown from airbnb, and all of them stay in the car while Dick darts out to retrieve the keys from the lockbox, getting soaked near instantly. He gets the front door open, and then it’s a mad dash from everyone to get into the house in as short a time as possible. Danny ends up carrying two suitcases, a duffel bag, and has a garment bag thrown over his shoulder.

Cass gathers up all the throw blankets once they’re inside to throw them in the dryer, and Steph sprints upstairs to allocate bedrooms. Danny stands in the middle of the living room, awkwardly, while Tim busies himself trying to get the fireplace going.

Duke gets to looking at him for the first time all trip, sitting, exhausted, on the sectional, and Danny sees in his eyes that he’s not looking at what everyone normally sees. His eyes dart from Danny, to Tim, then back, his hands slowly tensing on the arm of the sofa.

Danny lifts his hands slowly, placatingly, his palms up and open. “Listen-”

“The f*ck are you?” The boy asks, a quiver to his tone. That turns Tim around, long Bic lighter in his hand.

“Nothing.”

“Bull-”

“You’re sensitive, right? You, uh, you see things other people don’t?” He keeps his hands up, playing up the caution. “I know it seems bad-”

“You have no idea what it seems like.”

“What, Duke?” Tim asks, finger tight on the trigger, keeping the little flame dancing.

“Look, I know, but it’s really nothing to worry about!” Danny says.

“Duke, what do you see?”

“My town’s haunted!” Danny blurts. “Like, super haunted, okay? There’s, uh, there’s like this interdimensional portal, it lets ghosts through on the regular, and so a lot of the people in my town are, we call it liminal. It’s a side-effect of the ambient ecto-energy, and it makes us look really weird to psychics, or, y’know, people who are otherwise sensitive.” He keeps his hand up. “I promise. That’s all it is.”

Duke’s eyes are darting all around, and Danny has no clue what he’s seeing- this far away from Amity Park, and without Pariah’s ring on his finger, his aura shouldn’t be too extreme.

“Really. It’s nothing.”

“Is it contagious? Like radiation?”

“Uh. No.”

Duke blinks, hard, then settles back. “Christ. If you say so.”

“What are you seeing?” Tim asks, relaxing ever so slightly.

“It’s like a... a big green shadow, with glowing eyes, teeth, claws. Something like-” He glances above Danny’s head- “a crown?”

sh*t.

“It- he- feels powerful.”

“My house is actually kind of... uh, right on top of the portal.” Danny says. “It’s just an imprint. I promise.”

Tim settles back on his heels, and he and Duke do this back and forth with just their eyes that Danny’s not privy to.

“If I meant to hurt you, if I could-” he could- “I wouldn’t’ve had to wait til now.”

“Comforting.”

“It really can’t do any damage,” Danny assures. “It’s just a side effect of my environment. Like those people in Appalachia with the blue skin, the silver nitrate stuff?”

“What’s going on?” Dick asks, rubbing his head dry with a towel.

“Tim’s boyfriend is a f*cking freak.” Duke says. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“What else is new?” Dick claps a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “It just means you’re his type.”

“Dick,” Tim admonishes.

“Doesn’t it?”

Steph takes this time to stomp down the stairs and announce: “Me and Cass are in the master, then I’ve got Duke and Dick in the street- facing room, and Danny and Tim can take the attic.”

“There’s only three rooms?” Danny asks Tim, saddling up to the wall while he fiddles with the fireplace some more.

“We didn’t anticipate you staying with us.” He says, softly, while the others argue about which movie they should throw up on the big TV above the mantle. “I can sleep down on the sofa, if you like.”

Danny slides down the wall to sit as he fiddles with the gas adjustments. “What, is there only one bed?”

“What? No, I’m pretty sure it’s all doubles.”

“Right, then we shouldn’t have a problem.”

“Right.” The fireplace lights all at once with a woosh.

“There are three, actually,” Dick says. “And we’ve only seen the first.”

“But do the rest really fit in the theme?”

“What movies, again?” Danny asks.

“Uh, to all the boys,” Steph says.

“Dick has an agenda.” Tim says, bushing off his knees and standing. “Watch what you want. I’m going to go do some work. See you later.”

“Awww, Timmy, this is supposed to be a vacation.”

“For you, maybe.” He says. “I don’t do vacations.”

“You’re really going to leave Danny alone with us?” Steph asks, forcing a pout. “That’s mean.”

“He’ll manage.” Tim selects a briefcase from the pile of bags in the middle of the room. “Night.”

“Actually, I think I’ll tuck in, too,” Danny says, unsure if he wants to interact with the rest of the Waynes without Tim, however thin of a buffer he was.

“Don’t have too much fun,” says Steph, face split in a wide grin.

Tim flips her off.

“I really do have to get work done,” he tells Danny on the stairs.

“I won’t be a bother.” He assures. “They’re just... they can be...”

“A lot. I know.”

“I just-” the stairs to the attic are much narrower- “I don’t understand what’s so horrible about letting people know who you are.”

“I- what do you mean by that?”

“I mean, you’re not really the cold, all business, no fun C.E.O. you want everyone to think you are. You’re a teenager, what’s so terrible about people knowing that?”

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“Try me.”

“It’s not so simple, I have-” he stops talking, abruptly.

There is, actually, only one bed.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

f*cking hell, Stephanie Brown. Tim thinks, staring at the bed. It’s large, thankfully, a king, and there’s enough space that two people could sleep on it in a totally platonic fashion, but still it’s- it’s a bed. And he and Danny had been sleeping much closer in the back of the SUV, but.

Like.

Bed.

“Did they think we were- I mean, did you tell them-” Danny stutters behind him. “Did you say we had-”

“No!” Tim replies immediately, face hot.

“Okay!”

“This- I’ll sleep down on the sofa.” He says.

“They won’t- you know, they won’t be suspicious?”

“Might be, but it’s worth not making you uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t know my comfort really had much to do with it.” Danny says, which is fair.

“I’d like for this whole arrangement to be as easy as possible.” Tim says, heading back for the door. “Take the bed.”

“No, stay up here,” Danny says, catching his wrist. His hands are cold. “You have work you want to do, right? They’ll only annoy you if you go down there now. I’ll take a shower, and once they’re settled, one of us can sneak down.”

“Okay.” Tim says. “Right. Okay.”

Danny puts his backpack on the foot of the bed and pulls out some clothes, then leaves with a nod and a close-lipped smile. A minute later, he hears the rush of water through the pipes. He texts Steph: I’m going to kill you :) and then pulls out his laptop.

There’s a desk, but the chair is really uncomfortable, so Tim toes off his shoes and settles down on one side of the bed, scrolling through his email and sorting proposals into folders. It takes an unfortunate amount of effort to run a major company without it becoming completely, stupidly evil, and sometimes he has to restrain himself from writing ‘have you ever cared about another human person ever in your life’ when some of their upper level investors make requests. After working through the deluge of people scrambling around for a way to make even just a penny more, Tim gets out his headphones and a thumb drive to start editing.

He’s always loved photography, but it’s a hobby that has largely fallen to the wayside. The technical aspects of it were what excited him the most- he loved his ancient canon film camera, his dark room in the Drake townhouse, finagling with the exposure to get the details all just right. He feels like digital photography has less charm, but it’s more efficient. There’s more storage on an SD card than three rolls of film, so there’s more room for error. Tim can sort through ten shots to find the perfect one, which is also, frankly, appealing.

The editing process isn’t quite as meditative, though.

It is, however, meditative enough that he doesn’t notice when Danny enters the room, until he sits on the bed beside him, smelling of that ubiquitous clean scent that gets labeled as ‘sea breeze’ but doesn’t hold any of the comforting notes of brine or salt that Tim associates with the ocean. A fluffy towel is draped over his shoulders and his eyelashes are still clumped and wet.

“What’cha working on?” He asks, before Tim has the chance to offer to go downstairs.

“Uh, I’m creating presets for these photos so I don’t have to do so much foundational work when I go in for individual shots.”

“Huh?”

“Editing. I’m editing the photographs.”

“Forgive me my ignorance, as I really have no clue what CEOs do, but I’m pretty sure editing photos isn’t in the job description.”

“It’s not.” Tim says, sharp, and probably too soon after he finished speaking, because Danny flinches, then goes quiet for a few seconds.

“Who is that?” He asks finally, pointing his chin to the open window on the screen.

“Uh, it’s our Aunt- not really Aunt, she’s Bruce’s friend- uh, Kate, and her fiance, Renee. She asked me to photograph the engagement.”

“May I?” Danny asks, finger hovering over the arrow button on his keyboard. Tim does a quick mental search to make sure this flash drive doesn’t have any case pertinent photos on it, then nods.

“Sure.”

Danny clicks through some of them and says: “These are really good.”

“It’s just a hobby,” Tim says, turning the computer back to him.

“Yeah but, it’s like- how do people say it, you’ve got a really good eye. What’s different about the first one, though? They’re good but that’s just, you know, the colors are so...”

“That’s the one I’m messing with.” Tim says, scrolling back to it. “Gotham’s really bleak, there’s almost never sunlight. So I’m working with the saturation and the warmth to make them look somewhat alive, but I wanted a little more contrast, you know, to make them stand out, because Kate thought it was okay to do this wearing a black peacoat, for some reason, so I put a mask over them.”

“A mask?”

“It’s- here, let me show you.” Tim says, shifting the laptop again so it’s evenly between them. After he finishes explaining how masking works in photoshop, Danny asks about another layer that Tim had accidentally clicked on and off in his explanation, so Tim talks through that, too, which segues into him explaining his rationale behind all of the colorwork- it’s like explaining code to a rubber duck, for how much Danny knows about photography, which is to say it’s actually pretty useful. He also happens to be the most valuable sort of non-artist, the kind who Tim can show two options to, and who will give a simple answer. Unlike Steph, who would stare at him blankly and say: “Tim, they’re the exact same.” Or Damian, on the rare occasion he was magnanimous enough to discuss art with, who would argue down the exact same points that Tim was debating and add nothing productive to the conversation at all. (Tim actually thinks they agree on most things, when they aren’t trying to kill each other. It’s unfortunate, because he’s a brat.)

He doesn’t know who falls asleep first- he does know that he reaches over to turn off the floor lamp so they can see the difference in blacks better while Tim explains how the editing will affect how they print, and he doesn’t turn it back on. And that at one point Danny offers him an earbud so they can listen to the indie neo-goth music he’d made a reference to in the lulls of Tim’s explanations. And that Danny reaches up and grabs the knitted throw from the foot of the bed to cover both of their legs, because it’s cold. And that they eventually were both too tired to really keep up the pretense of conversation, but neither of them moved, because that would take more effort and talking, and if they were going to talk, then Tim would prefer it be about why old-school generative fill was different from AI, and how the lead singer of this group tanned his cat’s pelt for his guitar strap, rather than ‘I should probably go’ and a useless back and forth about who was going to sleep where. Sleep comes quickly, mostly because he’s not expecting it to. He doesn’t sleep well, or a lot to begin with, and he certainly doesn’t sleep in beds with veritable strangers, after he’s met his sleep quota for the day with naps in the car.

But he does. He falls asleep.

It’s really easy.

***

Danny wakes up warm, which is not a regular occurrence. His circulation is what medical professionals describe as ‘poor’ on his best day, and this far from Amity Park, he’s not going to have a ‘best’ day.

But, turns out, he’s sleeping next to another person. Danny tries not to move, which makes him go stiff as a board, and his companion’s breathing changes, and he- the bedmate- shifts to make them more comfortable. Danny forces himself to relax.

He’s sharing a bed with Tim Drake, who throws heat like a furnace and is a total ragdoll next to him. They’re not tangled up at all- they’ve more or less kept their positions from their conversation, even though Danny’s moved down and turned away from him a little. In fact, he thinks it’s the closest to platonic they can be while sleeping (and touching) in the same bed without being curled up back-to-back.

He tries not to jostle him as he reaches through the sheets for his phone, which has barely ten percent, because he was so preoccupied with talking to Tim last night that he forgot to charge it. He seriously needs a debrief with Sam and Tuck- mostly Sam. Tuck is, and always has been, his best friend, but it was Sam who coached him through his bisexuality crises. The first of which happened while they were dating, and was completely awkward. He was sobbing on the foot of his own bed, and she was rubbing circles in his shoulders, because he’d thought- for the ten years he’d been aware enough to look- that he only had that feeling in his gut about boys because he wanted to be one.

And so, she was the one who he talked to about sh*t like this.

Not that this is... sh*t like this.

Danny is completely and totally aware that there was absolutely nothing real going on between him and Tim Drake. That the only reason Danny’s in this situation with him is because he was the one unlucky enough to get caught in front of cameras with him. He’s fairly certain that Tim doesn’t get into illicit affairs with total strangers with any sort of regularity- he doesn’t have the disposition for it. But if he had, and if it hadn’t been Danny, who’d needed to be bailed out of jail less than a week later, he’s sure Tim would’ve strong armed them into an NDA and been done with it.

He’s under no illusions that it’s anything but a con for him. An act. So Danny, regardless of how attractive he finds him, will not actually be developing a crush on him, because it’s dangerous when he’s allowed to hold his hand, and kiss his cheek or the crown of his head, and walk with his arm around him and not have him, at the same time. And the easiest way to prevent this, is to not want him in the first place.

Which was much easier in theory, and before the whole ‘talking until they fell asleep in the same bed’... everything.

Ghoulie Gang

h

hey guys

not an immediate 911 cause of Circ*mstances and also my phones gonna die but like

Uh

we’re gonna have to have a debrief sometime soon

i think i might be liable to explode

lowkey

nah Highkey

who let me do this

this was such a sh*tty idea

Samanson: oh no
Samanson: danny what have you done?

Nothing!

yet

Tuck the Bodacious: what’s worth this level of freak out at ten in the AM?

I’m on the west coast. It’s seven

and it’s not really about anything that

happened today

Per Se

Gray: What happened last night?

My phone’s about to die I will call you all

later

:)

Samanson: dAnNY

His phone gives him that notification, then immediately blinks off. Danny lets his hand fall, considering getting up to scrounge around in his backpack for his charger. But that would almost certainly wake Tim, which would lead to a conversation about how they ended up falling asleep together, and, inevitably, them no longer sharing a throw blanket on a plush mattress. Danny shouldn’t be making decisions based on maintaining this condition, but he’s so very rarely warm. He’s forgotten how much he missed it, how much the human body craves comfort.

He’s still tired enough that he figures he can try drifting back to sleep, and closes his eyes to do just that when he hears whispers at the door.

He can’t decipher what’s being said, just the edges of their voices, some clicks and whistles through teeth, but Tim stiffens and, with much less regard than Danny gave him, sits up to throw his pillow at the door.

The rest of the family takes that as an invitation, not a warning, and flood into the attic room.

“You’re joking,” Stephanie says, her mouth wide in a disbelieving smile.

“Get out!” Tim says, taking Danny’s pillow and throwing it, too.

“Did you use-” Decorative throw pillow, straight to Dick’s face. “Hey, I just want you to be safe-”

“Out! Now!”

“Duke and Cass made crepes.” Steph says, as Tim picks up one of the other pillows that weren’t in use (Danny’s fairly certain the bed has like, ten) and readies it. “Get down quick, or there won’t be any left for you.” She ducks out of the way, and the pillow falls down the stairs after her.

“f*ck,” Tim says, falling back onto the mattress.

“They’re only riling you up because you made a big deal out of it,” says Danny, pushing himself up and rolling away subtly, trying to hide the fact that, if allowed, he would be wrapped around Tim like a koala just to stay warm.

“I didn’t make a big deal out of it,” Tim says, his voice gravelly with sleep.

“Tell that to our pillows.”

Tim takes another pillow and presses it over his face. Then, muffled, Danny can hear him say: “I didn’t make a big deal out of it.”

Danny swallows back a laugh. “Sorry.”

“For laughing or for taking their side? Because the laughter’s okay, I made a joke. Taking their side is unforgivable.”

“There’s no sides to take.”

“There’s always sides.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “No, I’m sorry for-” He waves his hand to their bodies. “You know.”

“It was an accident,” Tim says, and removes the pillow from his face to look at Danny, making it a question.

“Right. But still, I mean, boundaries and... and stuff. This isn’t in the contract.”

“You never went to a boarding school, did you?” Danny shakes his head. “Trust me when I say that sharing a bed with someone isn’t nearly as intimate as you’re making it out to be.”

Danny gets out his packed set of clothes and says: “I’m not making it out to be anything.” Tim props himself up to give Danny another cool, unimpressed look. Danny, in response, picks up one of the weaponized pillows and tosses it back at him. Then, because it’s fun and he likes the idea that he’s capable of flustering the stoic, unflappable boy, he says: “See you at breakfast, sweetheart.”

The pillow hits him on the way out.

Whatever. It was worth it.

The other wards applaud him when he enters the kitchen- proper applause, with clapping and a tasteful ‘whoop’ from Stephanie.

“I’m not gonna do anything. I will not confirm or deny anything. I will not prevent Tim from retaliation, so maybe think a little about how you’re gonna act when he gets down here.”

“Ugh, I hope Tim keeps him.” Dick stage-whispers to Cass, who rolls her eyes.

“Well, I think he’s sorta stuck with me,” Danny says, forking himself a thin crepe and sliding his plate over to all the fixings. “He doesn’t have a whole lotta choice.”

“Trust me,” Dick says, with a conspiratorial smile. “Timbo has lots more choices than he lets on.”

Danny’s sure he does- that much money makes one spoiled for options- but he’s not so sure that Tim’s aware of it, or, at the very least, thinks that they’re viable.

The party doesn’t start until eight, which Danny thinks is late for the kind of party that he’s meant to wear a suit to, but it is a New Year’s eve party, so they’re going to have to stay until at least midnight. The girls, much to Tim’s annoyance, take the car to go dress shopping.

“I thought you said you had something!” Tim half-shouts across the house.

“I said, and I quote, that I’ll make do,” Steph says. “I’m sure there’s a half-decent department store up here.”

“For a party at Queen’s?”

“I make anything look good.”

“Cass has a dress, though?” Cass leans back in from the door and gives Tim a thumbs up. “Of course.”

“And don’t try and give me a budget, you know I’ll make good choices.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tim says, vaulting over the back of the couch to sit next to Danny.

“Thanks! Love you!”

“How much do you think she’s gonna spend?” Danny asks, once the door clicks shut.

“She’s probably gonna scrounge up some miraculous vintage piece at a goodwill for twelve bucks,” Tim replies. “She’s actually quite practical, don’t let her fool you. It’s probably why she waited so long, she didn’t want me to insist on buying her a runway piece.”

“Oh.”

“So,” Tim says, “What are you smart about?”

“Excuse me?”

“What can you talk at length about with people three times your age? And please don’t say a TV show, because if you do there’s not salvaging this in time. Languages, poetry, vintage lamps?”

“I went to public school in Illinois. I read the spark notes of Hamlet. Once.”

“Okay,” Tim says, although he does not look like it’s okay.

“Do you know about all those things?”

“No, but I don’t need to.”

“And I do?”

“You need to know about one thing and let it carry you for the night. I was raised at parties like this. Eventually you learn how to use all the right words in a conversation without saying anything at all.”

“Can’t you just teach me how to do that?” Tim stares at him blankly. “Fine. Uh, Ghosts.”

“Ghosts?”

“Yeah, ghosts. My parents are ghost hunters. I live in the most haunted town in America. I can talk about Ghosts.”

“No.”

“No? You’re just flat out rejecting it?”

“It’s too niche!”

“And vintage lamps aren’t?”

“Well, it’s, it’s too fringe. It’d make you seem weird and off-putting.”

“I am weird and off-putting.”

“Not when you’re with me. I need you to be perfect.” He says it casually, like he might say, ‘I need you to wear a suit,’ or ‘I need a drink of water’.

“Ah, I get that. Unfortunately, I suffer from a condition known as humanity.”

“See, you’re clever, which helps, but it’ll only take you so far. You say the first thing that comes to your mind that’s even remotely witty and it’s out of your mouth before you can stop it. These types of people will find that charming.”

“That’s good, right?”

“It’s a parlor trick. If I wanted a witty and entertaining companion, I’d bring a parrot. You’re not careful enough to be clever in this setting. You’d betray your poor breeding.”

Danny breathes out, letting his head tip back against the sofa. “Well, I am poorly bred. And they’re all going to know that, because if they know anything about me at all, it’s that I’m a nobody from nowhere, and the only thing that makes me even slightly important is that I’ve got a billionaire for my godfather.”

“That’s not the only thing that makes you important.” Tim says. Danny drops his head to one side to look at him. “In fact, it’s nowhere near the most important thing about you tonight.”

“Really? Then what is?”

“The fact that you’re going to be there with me.”

“If that’s enough, why are we even having this conversation?”

“Because if I bring you along as a trophy boyfriend, who’s there to be clever and laugh at people’s jokes, I won’t have accomplished the one thing I wanted out of this whole, ridiculous arrangement.”

“You think I’m hot enough to be a trophy boyfriend?”

“I wouldn’t be wasting my time with you otherwise. But, if you can’t manage to be actually intelligent about something for a prolonged period of time, just,” Tim rolls his lower lip between his teeth, “Stay by me, the whole night. Don’t say anything, don’t laugh at any jokes. Appear cold and above everyone. You’re better than them, they’re not worth your time.”

“So I don’t have to talk about vintage lamps?”

“Please don’t.”

***

“Here,” Tim says, throwing the garment bag at Danny.

“Oh? Thanks.” He checks his watch.

“Get dressed.” Tim folds his arms and stands expectantly by the door. Danny looks back at him, the bag still across his lap. “Well?”

“Are you gonna leave?”

“Have you ever put on a suit before?”

“You met me in a suit.”

“That suit didn’t have as many parts as this suit.”

“How many parts can a suit have?”

“More than you’d expect.”

“I’m not gonna change with you in here.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen.”

“I don’t care.” Danny says, and it’s not the typical bickering that he thinks is baseline for Danny. His face is blank, dark brows heavy over eyes as clear and cold as ice. Tim is aware that Danny can be intimidating, but he’d previously thought it was on account of his height, the width of his shoulders, the set to his mouth that suggests he’s ready for someone to hit it. He’s aware of these on a purely objective basis- they don’t frighten him. But there’s something different about the cool, level way he stares at him, without any tension in his face. It slides down his spine like snow stuffed down his collar.

“You,” Tim breathes, and he’s not sure what he means to say, because when he searches for the next few words, his mind is blank.

Danny’s face softens, just a hair. “I have scars. And I don’t like questions, or pity.”

Tim understands both of these things, and he manages a nod.

Danny breaks his stare, and Tim finds himself able to move again. He thought he was over the deer in the headlights response. “Let me know if you need any help.” Then he closes the door, and has to clutch the rail all the way down the stairs.

Duke and Dick are both half- into their suits, Dick fussing over his hair in the mirror, and Duke struggling with his necktie.

“What exactly did you see, do you see, when you look at Danny?”

The corner of Duke’s mouth twitches down, trying to tighten his tie, but the knot goes all skinny on one side. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Make the effort.”

“Tim,” Dick chastises.

“Don’t try- Dick! Don’t try.”

“He’s just a kid.”

“No, he’s not.” Tim looks at Duke, again. “He’s not.”

“He-” Duke swallows. “It wasn’t malicious, I can tell you that much. I couldn’t get a solid read on it, I- I don’t know if I can explain what it was, really. It wasn’t like, something attached to him. Honestly,” He tugs his tie free. “I believe his story. It makes sense.”

“Nothing about him makes sense.”

“You sound pretty shaken up,” Dick says, coming back into the room and taking over Duke’s tie tying. “What, did he kiss you again?”

“No, he-” What was Tim supposed to say? What, he looked at him, and it was scary? He sighs. “Something is up about him.”

“You’ve said. Didn’t stop you from sleeping with him.”

“I didn’t-” Tim picks up a little cosmetic bottle and throws it at Dick, who catches it. “We slept in the same bed, and- he- there’s-”

“He’ll get it eventually,” Dick says to Duke, in that way where he acts like Tim isn’t right there.

“Shut up, you don’t get it! Maybe he’s not malicious, but there’s certainly something going on with him.”

“Well, there’s something going on with us, too. Not all secrets need to be weeded out.”

Tim scowls at him. He knows that Dick leaned into the ‘boy wonder’ aspect of Robin more than the ‘detective’ aspect, because it’s not compulsive to him the way it is to Tim. He doesn’t need to know. Tim does.

“Look,” Dick finishes Duke’s tie and tucks the end into his waistcoat, patting the newest addition to their family on the chest, “If you really think this is the best course of action, I’m behind you. I’m always on your side. I trust your judgment- I’ve learned my lesson, and if your gut’s really telling you that we’re going after him, I’ll back you. Is that what your gut is telling you?”

It’s not. And Dick knows it’s not, and he knows Tim knows it’s not.

Tim leaves, instead of answering. Dick can be aggravating, in his persistent positivity, but he’s also fully aware that it’s a defense mechanism, one that holds an important balance in their family’s fragile ecosystem. He also knows that he can’t lie to the man. He’s been Robin longer than Tim’s been alive. He knows all the tricks, the tendencies, the tells.

And he’s right.

Tim hates that.

“Hey, you think I’ve got this all right?” Danny asks, coming halfway down the stairs. Tim blinks and pushes all his pesky emotions back into submission, checking over the other boy’s suit.

“For the most part,” He settles on answering, bullying him back up the stairs and doing the work of untying his necktie. “What’s this, a four in hand? Really?”

“I thought it looked fine.”

Tim’s not going to waste time telling him that ‘fine’ isn’t good enough. “Lots of people there will make judgments based on the details, like how your tie is tied. A good standard is a full Windsor or a Pratt. Don’t try anything too intricate, because you’ll look like you’re trying too hard. Everyone’s scraping and clawing to make the bullsh*t look like it’s second nature to them.” He folds the silk over and around. His face is just above level with Danny’s collar, so it’s pretty hard to put a decent amount of distance between them and still get the knot looking decent.

“What about collar jewelry?” Danny asks, and it takes Tim a second to remember that’s what he’d been wearing in Boston.

“A simple and elegant solution.” Tim says. “But I don’t have the time to put words to the very specific social cues it sends, and why you’re better off just looking classic.”

“The cue it sent me is that you were queer enough to kiss me as a distraction.”

“That too.” Tim says. “Where’s your jacket?”

He has Danny in mostly black, with a burgundy shirt. It fits well enough, given he didn’t have an actual fitting. Enough that he won’t look cheap, like Boston. He folds up the pocket square and places it so it’s not too careful. Then he throws Danny a watch and tells him to go downstairs and have Dick do his hair.

After the door clicks shut, Tim does his own suit. He’s used to quick changes, even with three piece suits. But he finds himself lingering before he puts on his undershirt, his fingers tracing the knotted skin under his ribs where he’d been stabbed last year. He’d cauterized the wound himself, heating up a flat of metal on a live wire, just to stop him losing so much blood volume (which helped in the short term, but ended up f*cking him over much more when he ended up needing to get the remnants of his spleen out) and the scar was one ugly bitch.

It’s not the only one, although it’s the largest and certainly the most prominent. Tim’s littered in little nicks and lines, raised stars of whiter-than-white flesh where he dug out bullets. Most people, he knows, don’t have scars in quite the same way. It’s not about battle scars for other seventeen year olds, at least not in so literal a sense. He wonders if it’s some surgery- he hadn’t gone so far as to hack Danny’s medical records, although he might try. Maybe some accident in childhood. Maybe self-hatred.

He’s morbidly curious about it, but he has the good sense to button up his shirt, tuck away his pocket watch, and throw his suit coat over his elbow.

Dick has done whatever miraculous thing to Danny that makes his hair look piecey, disheveled, and handsome. Tim appraises him, and gives a nod of approval.

“We’re matching,” Danny notes. Their suits are the same color palette, just inverted, to make them look like a matching set throughout the night.

“Naturally,” Tim says, checking his phone for the time, because the idea of taking out his pocket watch in an air bnb without anyone around for the pretense of it all makes him want to gag. “Come on, next step.”

“There’s more steps?” A lock from Danny’s white streak curls over his forehead.

“Just one.” Tim shuffles through Steph’s make-up bag. It’s her travel one, and she’s never really been one for a lot of makeup, but her skin is a few shades tanner than Danny’s, which makes her concealer good enough to subtly cover up his under-eye bags.

“Woah, you’re not putting that on me,” Danny says, although this rejection isn’t the same as the cold, flat-out no he got for changing in the same room.

“Chill out, you won’t even notice it.” Tim says, putting some on the back of his hand to warm it up.

“I don’t wanna look all feminine and... effete.” Danny says.

“You won’t-” Tim sighs- “I’m not going to be the one editing the photographs from tonight, okay? This is just some preemptive editing.”

“I really think I’m fine.”

“Don’t worry,” Tim says, suffering the indignity of going up on his tiptoes to pat the concealer under his eyes, and Danny lets him. “You’ll still look all roguish when I’m done with you, I promise.”

“Roguish?” Tim had forgotten that was an inside his brain adjective for Danny Fenton.

“Yeah, roguish?” Steph echoes. She’s on the bed, using some medieval torture device on her eyelashes. She scrounged up some miracle of a dress that’s black mink and velvet, and looks like it was made in the nineties mid-century style revival. It fits her like a glove, because Stephanie Brown is god’s favorite.

“Isn’t he, though?” Tim steps aside to let her look.

“Yeah,” She agrees, standing, the hot rollers in her hair clacking into each other with each little movement. “Figure we can put some guyliner on him? Lean into it?”

“No,” Danny and Tim say, at the same time, and in the same tone. Steph rolls her eyes and goes to finish her face.

“Fine, whatever.” She says. “Nothing wrong with looking feminine, though.”

“I know,” Danny says, kind of shy and quiet-like.

“But you don’t,” Tim tells him. Danny pads at his under-eyes, carefully, like he’s trying very hard to resist the urge to rub it off. “Just for the record.”

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

It’s well on the way to nine when they manage to get everyone loaded in the car, all in fancy black-tie type clothes. The constant rain has shifted into snow, the big wet flakes that look pretty when you’re cozied up inside, but are kinda sh*t for visibility. Dick doesn’t force Duke to drive, which is good, because the car ride has them all clutching onto the handles for the ten minutes it takes for them to get from the bnb to Queen’s mansion in the foothills, overlooking the city.

Danny’s been to a few mansions. The Masons had a summer home in South Carolina which was sprawling and beach-themed and built in 2001, mostly out of stucco, and with a horrendous number of fake rocks. Of course, there was Vlad’s place, which was classed as a ‘castle’, and did not bring back pleasant memories. He’s never been to a mansion like Queen’s.

It sits up above the city, surrounded by evergreens, and is made mostly of windows, which show off the massive entry hall, full of yellow lights and rich people. There’s no red carpet, but there are photographers in parkas braving the weather to snatch pictures of the meandering stream of people who are handing their keys off to the help and making their way up into the mansion proper.

Dick does the same as everyone gets out of the car, and Danny loops his arm over Tim’s shoulder, schooling his expression into neutrality.

“Don’t mind the photographers, be courteous to the help,” Tim breathes to him. “Keep your chin up.”

“Got it.” Part of him appreciates the coaching, although he’s trying not to feel bothered by the fact that Tim’s managing every tiny aspect of his presentation. Of course, it’s not enough to just be passable, Danny needs to be perfect, because Tim is . And that means down to the way he walks, how long he looks at each person, the firmness of his grip when he shakes hands.

The walk from the car is heated by those tall outdoor heating tower things, which doesn’t quite make the snow melt. It gets caught up in everyone’s hair and the fur cuff and collar of Stephanie’s dress, but the cold doesn’t really touch them.

“Is that the Wayne brood?” Asks a voice from the top of a glass, spiral staircase, when they’ve just made it in.

“That’s Queen.” Tim whispers to him.

Oliver Queen, the host, hops the railing about ten feet above the main floor, incredibly agile despite the silver peppering his blonde hair, the deep smile lines around his eyes, and the fact that he’s in a well tailored dark suit. He hugs Dick first, then kisses Stephanie and Cass each on both cheeks.

“Bruce still in Gotham?” He asks.

“Oh, you know the old man, he’s allergic to fun.” Dick says.

His face falls, just the slightest bit, into confusion when he spots Danny, but it’s barely noticeable before it’s covered up, and he reaches to shake Tim’s hand. “Tim. Always a pleasure. And I see you’ve brought along Mister Fenton.”

“You’ve always encouraged me to bring a partner to these things.” Tim says.

“Because usually, you bring along Miss Brown, who my guests all find quite diverting.”

“She does have that effect,” Tim agrees. “It does just so happen, however, that Danny will be coming along with me to most events for the foreseeable future. Even your’s.”

“I’ll be honest, Tim, I never really thought I’d see you throwing your lot in with Masters.”

“Oliver,” Tim says, with a slight eye roll. “Of course I haven’t. Danny doesn’t have much to do with Vlad-co, do you, babe?”

Danny smiles and forces a laugh. “I didn’t even know Vlad was my Godfather until I was fourteen. My involvement in the company has more to do with my name being filled in on forms I’ve never even seen.”

“Oh!” Queen grins and reaches out to shake his hand, as well. “Then you became involved in a more... covert environment?”

“No,” Tim says flatly. “Danny’s a bit of a distraction from the stress of our lives, frankly,”

“Oh,” Oliver says, looking at Danny again, face just barely softer. “Well, best of luck.”

“Well, you go be boring, Tim, I’m going to go find something to drink,” Dick says.

“Don’t embarrass me,” Tim says, voice flat with well-hidden amusem*nt.

“Ach, I’d never.”

“Come on,” Tim says to Danny, lacing his arm around his waist, “Let’s make the rounds.”

“I really am just a prop to you, huh?” Danny whispers to him, under the pretense of kissing the top of his head.

“For tonight, yes.” Tim says. “But I don’t need you to impress Oliver. It’s everyone else.”

“Well, I’ll be, is that Timothy Drake?”

Tim looks up at him and smiles. “Come on.”

Danny breathes out a slow stream of fogged breath, and he glances around. Rich people, floating lanterns, a ball in the highest recess of the ceiling. No ghosts, not even the tell of one apart from his Ghost Sense.

“Danny?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

***

Danny does well, throughout the night, standing nonplussed behind Tim while he converses and networks, and does all the things he typically hates. A lot of it is ‘this is Danny Fenton. Yes, that Danny Fenton. My boyfriend.’ Over and over again. Someone gets champagne flutes into their hands and plastic gold New Year’s glasses on Danny’s forehead. They end up standing by a window- light hits the angles of Danny’s face, the bluish, vague refraction from the snowy city, and the warm golden lights of the party carving him out like a Leyendecker portrait.

“Honestly,” He tells Tim, rolling his drink around in its glass. “Is there any alcohol that doesn’t taste terrible?”

“Not in my experience,” Tim says, taking a small sip. “I think everyone’s just pretending to enjoy it. Wine, too. It all tastes the same.”

“Really?”

“Really. Oh, on your six.” Danny turns to the cue automatically to nod to a pair of classy boomers. Tim recognizes the woman- she’s a gallery owner in the Bay area, but not the man. “Delores.”

“Tim, darling. I haven’t seen you around recently.”

“I’m afraid I’ve been otherwise occupied.”

“I’d love to show some of your work again.” He’d submitted a series to her gallery to help solve a series of murders where the killer was targeting other photographers. He hadn’t actually expected her to like it, or to sell anything. “So few up-and-coming artists are working in film these days. It certainly makes your work distinctive.”

“I haven’t had much opportunity to work on anything cohesive, unfortunately. But I still have your number saved if I do.”

Delores clicks her tongue and pats him on the shoulder. “This is my husband, I don’t know if you met him- James?”

Tim shakes the man’s hand, then nods to Danny. “Danny Fenton. My boyfriend.”

“I should’ve known it.” She elbows her husband playfully. “The gays have naturally great taste.”

Danny bites his lip and convulses with the effort not to laugh, and Tim tries to, as subtle as possible, pinch him.

“Danny Fenton, where have I heard that name before?” James, the husband, asks, and Danny reaches forward for a shake.

“I’m the Vlad-co heir,” Danny says, neutrally. It’s pretty much all he says, because it’s pretty much all people want to know.

“Oh, no, no, it’s not that,” he says. “Do you- sorry- would you happen to know anything about the purple backed gorilla?”

Danny breaks into a smile, a big, genuine one. “Oh, yeah. I was actually credited in a research paper on them a few years ago.”

Tim doesn’t remember that.

“At your age, a few years ago must be quite impressive. Are you interested in primatology?”

“Not particularly. Is that your field of study?”

“Yes, I actually teach primate biology at Berkeley.”

“Oh! My sister goes to Stanford. Uh- she’s studying psychology and neuroscience, though.”

“Danny,” Tim hisses, “You know they’re two different schools.”

“Of course I do.”

“It’s alright. I respect my colleagues at Stanford, of course, although you’ll forgive me for having some pride in my institution.” The professor smiles. “So, how did you come to discover that the Amity Zoo’s specimen happened to be female, despite having none of the typical sexually dimorphic traits? Especially at just, and, correct me if I’m wrong, but were you fourteen?”

“I was, just barely. I was doing extra credit for my biology course.” Danny says, sounding a hair too proper, but Tim wasn’t going to correct him on it. “And I ended up... um... in close proximity? To the specimen?”

“Oh, you just have to tell me that story.”

Danny looks at him, and he nods. “Okay, have fun, I’m going to go get some hors-d'oeuvres.”

“Tim. Tim. ”

“You’ll be fine. Talk about Gorillas.”

Tim makes part of a round on his own, mostly checking up on everyone else. Dick and Steph don’t seem to be inebriated enough to cause trouble just quite yet, and Cass’s eyes are tracking Duke, to make sure he’s not getting up to anything, either. Tim’s not all too worried about him, he was raised with actual proper manners, unlike some of them. There is an amount of concern regarding the fact that he’s fifteen, and there is alcohol at the function.

“Where’s your man?” Dick asks, moving loosely, but still looking put together.

“Talking to some professor,” Tim says, pointing with a subtle glance and nod of his head.

“Oh, my god.” Dick says, staring frankly. “You’ve pretty woman -ed him.”

“I have not ‘pretty woman-ed’ him,” Tim says, angling his brother away so he can’t keep staring.

“You keep on telling yourself that, Pygmalion.”

“I haven’t.” Tim insists. “He keeps on doing things that surprise me. It’s unnerving. I’m unnerved.”

“What did he do this time?”

“Evidently, some groundbreaking discovery in primatology when he was fourteen.” Tim says, trying not to sound bitter. He’s not even sure why he might be bitter about it, he’s not jealous. He’s just irked that Danny had managed to hide yet another major event from Tim’s research.

“Huh,” Dick says. “Well, that is something, isn’t it?”

“You could call it that,” Tim says, sipping on his champagne.

“Well, have you gotten it over with?”

“What?”

“Whatever you dragged yourself to this party to do. Secured the investor, or the sale, or whatever business mumbo-jumbo you do.”

“I... guess.”

“So? What was the point?”

“To show off Danny.”

“Really? That’s all? You could’ve just made an instagram post.”

“That’s not the way these people do things.”

“These people don’t do hom*osexual relationships, either. Not publicly, at least.”

Tim pushes his tongue against the backs of his teeth. “I walk a thin line, Dick. But trust me when I say that I know how to balance.”

“You’re insisting on complicating it.”

“No, I’m insisting that I get what I want from the situation, instead of just settling. Is Roy here? Have you found him yet?”

“No, he’s not-” Dick pauses, and removes himself- “Is he? Have you seen him?”

“Go on,” Tim removes the crystal from his hand so he doesn’t finish off the finger of whatever liquor he’s got in it. “See.”

He’s pretty sure Roy’s not around. He hasn’t seen the ankle biter anywhere, and he doesn’t go many places without her. But Dick, much like Tim, is better at these things when he has a purpose, and a goose chase is as good as any.

Steph is much further on her way to plastered than Dick is, she just wears it better. There’s a flush sitting high on her cheeks, below the make up, and her breath is sour with a combination of alcohols, chocolate, and the little finger foods that Tim had seen earlier, which seemed to be made of goat cheese and peaches. He notes all of this as she spins him around once, holding his elbows. It’s the point in the night where she wants to dance, and typically Tim would’ve obliged her. She’s still sturdy on her feet, because she grew up with the kind of parents who gave their kids brandy to quit a colic.

He steers her to the side with just enough of a rhythm that she doesn’t protest, then catches Duke’s eye. He half-jogs over to them in a way that suggests Bruce and Alfred’s public presentation lectures haven’t gotten far enough for him to be at this party. He’s got a cup. When did he get a cup?

“None of that.” He says, pouring Dick’s shot into Duke’s punch, then stacking the glasses, the movement as fluid as possible.

“It doesn’t have anything in it.” Duke protests.

“Yes it does.” It definitely does now.

“You’re only two years older than me.” He says, which Tim doesn’t think has anything to do with the current situation, until he remembers that he’s still holding a flute of champagne, which has gone mostly flat.

“I’m not drinking. Not really, not to get drunk.” He says, then spins Steph enough to hand her over. “Dance with Steph, would you?”

“Yeah, cause Timmers has a boyfriend to dance with,” Steph says, sliding to Duke and pulling him away from the wall. “And I just have not-quite brothers.”

Duke does the closest he can to glaring at him, which is something more like a pout.

“Listen, with the life you’ve got- we’ve got- you don’t want your first time drunk to be at a party at Oliver Queen’s house, alright? Plus, if you get f*cked up, it’s on me and Dick. And Cass.”

“Cass didn’t stop me getting this,”

“Cass thinks the best way to learn are natural consequences. She’s right, but unfortunately those are consequences for all of us right now, and I care more than she does.” Christ, at least when he went to the stupid Gala with Damian, he didn’t have to constantly monitor the kid. “Speaking of, where is she?”

“Dunno,” Steph says, growing impatient. “You’re not really worried about her, are you?”

Tim isn’t, but five minutes ago, he could see everyone, and now he’s only got eyes on two of the five other people he came here with. It makes his skin itch.

“I hate parties,” He says, instead of answering.

Steph starts them off into the floor like a tilt-a-whirl, and they’re not the only ones dancing, but they are the only ones who actually look like they know what they’re doing, and Tim walks up the staircase. Everything is made of glass and gold, and it sends the lights a million different directions. He can’t see Queen anywhere, probably because the party is some sort of cover for him. They always are.

He gets caught by a few more people who want to talk, and exchanges scripted niceties on his way up. He leans over the railing. Dick’s on the other side of the rotunda, looking down. It’s instinct for them to try and find an aerial viewpoint. Because they’re birds, Tim supposes.

Steph and Duke, who seems to have forgotten any irritation from earlier. Cass, shouldered up against a window, watching the city below. Some young tech dude is talking her up- more likely talking himself up, and hasn’t yet realized that she’s just barely tolerating him. Tim’s eyes skate along the outside glass till he finds Delores and James and-

Danny isn’t there.

“Son of a bitch,” He breathes, looking for his tell-tale skunk stripe of hair, then dumping Duke’s leftover punch-vodka-whisky whatever in his mouth, and chasing it with his flat champagne. He regrets it almost instantly, the burning, bitter taste the only thing he can focus on for a second.

“Oh, Tim Drake?” Tim vaguely recognizes the voice, but he doesn’t care.

“Sorry, I have to go. I’ll catch you later.”

“I just wanted a quick word about an investment opportunity-”

“No.” Tim says, immediately irritated. “Brakefield Incorporated, right? I read your emails. No. And also, f*ck off, and learn the meaning of the word empathy. Happy new year.” He puts the glasses on the nearest flat surface and focuses on his feet to make sure he doesn’t miss a step going down the stairs.

Had he kept his eyes on Danny, like he should’ve throughout the whole night, he would’ve been able to track him through the crowd, but as it was, Danny was just f*cking gone.

He makes it back to Delores and James before the alcohol properly hits him and says:

“Do you know where my boyfriend went? I can’t find him.”

“Oh, Tim! He said he needed to talk to somebody and darted off.”

“Brilliant kid, really.” James says, with a hazy grin. “Delores was just saying how we ought to invite the two of you to dinner at some point.”

Tim could not imagine anything worse, but he says: “We’re kinda long distance, and he lives pretty far east, so... Sorry, I’ve really gotta find him. Uh, if it works out that we’re both in Cali again and we’ve got a free night, I’ll text you, yeah?”

“Kids these days just don’t know how to slow down,” He hears Delores tell her husband.

“Have you seen Danny?” He asks Cass, cutting off Tech Bro, who stutters indignantly until he realizes who Tim is.

Her eyebrows do a little set of acrobatics. She’s wearing heels, but is still a solid few inches shorter than Tim, so she looks around him, through the crowd, and then the corner of her mouth twitches down. She shakes her head.

“f*ck.”

“Do you need help looking?” She signs.

“No, no, I’m-” f*ck. “Text me if you spot him.”

She nods, and Tim tries to find an egress. If Danny isn’t in the grand hall, then he’s left it somehow, and Tim doubts he used the front doors, where there are cameras, trying to catch something interesting from the important people inside the glass.

He ends up moving down a hall that Queen roped off, which he knows from prior parties (and one time where Young Justice maybe sort of squatted in the mansion when they knew Oliver was on a league mission, and the tower was getting a revamp after several minor explosions) led to a pool, which could be heated enough for it to be open, but wasn’t really in line with the vibe of the party.

The pools are both covered, the lights are off, and the windows face away from the city. The snow has stopped- it was too warm for much to stick- and the clouds cleared, so it’s almost wholly dark outside. But Tim can feel the cold breeze from an open door. His eyes take a second to adjust to the dark, and even then, Danny’s barely visible.

“-at a f*cking yuppie-ass party, wearing a monkey suit?” It’s a girl’s voice, low and accusatory. Danny’s blocking his view of her entirely.

“Look-”

“You have sh*t to do, Danny.”

“I’m aware. It can wait.”

“It really can’t. Ancients forbid you ever make Phantom’s rule any harder .”

“Stop.” There’s something funny about the way he says it, something that makes Tim’s hair raise on the back of his neck.

“I hate it when you do that.” Says the girl.

“I don’t like it either.”

When they stop talking, Tim holds his breath, and it’s dead silent. He doesn’t think they’re breathing, either. Danny slouches against the doorframe.

“When will you be back?” The girl finally asks. There’s something about the cadence, perhaps the catch of her voice in her throat, that’s familiar to Tim, though he can’t place it.

“I can make a detour on my way back to Amity. Two days.”

“Is this boy worth letting the Zone get f*cked?”

“Tim, you mean?”

Tim forces himself to take a quiet breath to keep from gasping. The alcohol is hitting him now, his face warm, a lightness to his head and a heaviness to his limbs.

“If that’s his name, sure.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that. Than one or the other.”

“Don’t seem like it.”

“If you’d stay somewhere long enough for me to find you, you’d get why. I wouldn’t have to be explaining myself when you’re demanding things of me while I’m expected at a party-”

“Oh, you’re expected-”

“Yeah, I’m expected-”

“Well, whoop-de-f*cking-doo, Danny, you ever think about where else you’re expected?”

“Elle.” He says, half exasperated. “I got one in SF. It’ll take me another month to figure the rest of this sh*t, just tell everyone to hold fast.”

“Are you seriously giving me a job, right now?”

“Can’t I?”

“You’re insufferable.”

“I love you too. Now please, can you go? I’m certain I’m not meant to be back here.”

The silhouettes shift, and Tim thinks that Elle’s given Danny a hug. Then, when it’s back to just his shoulders cut in a suit Tim had made sure was well-fitting, a sharp, short whistle cuts through the silence, obscured at the end by fireworks starting off somewhere in the city down the hill.

Tim starts walking. It was better, he believed, to be moving into the space, so that Danny wouldn’t see him standing frozen when he turned, and there wouldn’t be any questions like: how long were you there? And: how much did you hear?

Danny hears his footsteps and turns. “Hey.”

“Hey. Why are you back here?”

“Uh. It’s a lot out there.”

“Tell me about it.” Tim says, stepping into the awning next to him and letting the cool air wash over his face, eyes closed. “I thought I lost you.”

“Well, you did leave me alone, when you explicitly told me to stick by you the whole night, and not to talk.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me you were a celebrated gorilla scientist, either.”

“I’m not,” Danny whines, which probably shouldn’t be as funny as it is to Tim, but he cracks up. “No, I’m not! I’m actually genuinely so not interested in primatology, but that Professor was all like ‘I’ll talk you up to my colleagues. We can get you a scholarship!’ And- don’t laugh, and don’t look at me like that, I was polite- but like, I have zero interest in studying apes, not to mention, I doubt even the most incredible recommendation letter could excuse my C plus average to Stanford .”

“Berkeley.” Tim snorts out.

“Huh?”

“Berkeley. He teaches at Berkeley.”

“Right. Regardless.”

“You’d be surprised what good connections can do for an admissions process. Don’t you want to move out here, be closer to your sister?”

Danny crosses his arms, watching the fireworks in the wet pavement and puddles on the pool cover. “‘Want’ doesn’t have much to do with it.”

“It could,” Tim says, unsure of what, exactly, he’s offering, but aware that it’s something.

“It doesn’t. It can’t.”

“Why?” Tim asks. Well, that’s excellent, good going Tim. Absolutely zero thinking going on.

“I have...” Danny licks his lips and pauses. “Responsibilities.”

“Right.” Tim says, a little stuck in the way that his eyes catch every spare bit of light there is to grab.

“Shut up, just because I don’t run a fortune five-hundred company, or whatever, doesn’t mean I don’t have responsibilities.”

“No, I- I didn’t mean- f*ck, you’re impossible.”

He smirks, and pushes himself up, reaching across Tim to pull the door closed. “It’s a talent. Come on, let’s go back in, and I’ll shut up.” Tim would really rather not. But he also doesn’t want to say that he’d rather not, so he just waits till Danny notices that he hasn’t followed him for two steps and turns back. “Tim?”

“Just- I need another second.”

“Are you- Are you drunk? What happened to one glass of champagne?”

“I’m tipsy , and I just need a second. For it to- to pass.”

Danny slides down in the hallway, so he’s sitting, and Tim follows suit. “I promise, you’re probably one of the soberist people at this party right now.” But he doesn’t make any move to try and drag him out.

“It doesn’t matter.” He says.

“Is it tiring?” Danny asks, after a second where the world still seemed uneven. “Being perfect all the time?”

“Yes,” Tim says, closing his eyes. “But I’ve never had the benefit of low expectations. The bare minimum doesn’t cut it for me the way it does for the rest of them. I wasn’t raised in a circus, or on the streets, and it doesn’t matter that Dick’s been a Wayne longer than I’ve been alive, and that eight is young enough to learn all the habits you need. Excellence was always the- the expectation , so how am I supposed to exceed that, apart from being perfect?

“And I hate it, sometimes. I don’t- it’s not like I enjoy it, but someone has to do all the sh*t I do, especially when Bruce just drops off the face of the planet for six months, and Damian wants to kill me for saving the stupid ‘family business’, which isn’t a family business, it’s a multi-billion dollar corporation, first of all, because he was eleven , so he thinks being B’s biologically means sh*t, it’s not like he can run a company, he’s not even in f*cking middle school, and legally , Dick and I are just as much B’s as he is.

“So here I am, and my parents are dead, and no one is f*cking listening to me, and I’m trying to prove myself to this child, and I can’t make a single misstep, because then that’ll prove him right, right? And if I fall apart- if I so much as stumble, in front of society, they’re going to descend on me- us- like a pack of wild dogs. Even now that B’s back, because I’ve made myself out to be on this- this- pedestal.”

He pauses to breathe. The tile feels slightly more solid beneath him.

“Here,” Danny says. Tim opens his eyes- he hadn’t heard him move, but he’s crouched by his legs, with a cup of water from who knows where held forward. Tim can’t manage to care about where he got said mystery water, he just takes it.

“Did you leave halfway through that rant to get me this? Because that would honestly make me feel a lot better.”

“And go back in there alone? Fat chance.”

Tim swallows it all in two gulps, and it does make him feel more grounded. “So- there. That’s why no one’s allowed to know that I’m a human.”

“Why am I, then?” He sits back, cross-legged, by Tim’s knees.

“Because it’s not exactly avoidable, is it? This relationship is just as much of a sham as I am. Except there’s two of us behind the scenes now.”

“You’re not a sham,” Danny says. Tim tilts his head to the side. “It’s- it’s just code-switching, right? Everyone changes their patterns of behavior in different settings. They’re all as real as they are acts.”

Tim stares at him. “You’re smart.” Danny rolls his eyes, which Tim sees much more in the movement of his shoulders and his head. “No, you are. C plus average my ass.”

Danny shrugs, shoulders tucked in. Tim’s no Cass when it comes to body language, but he can tell he’s uncomfortable.

“Code switching, huh?” He says, when he finally feels a little closer to sober.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Tim checks his pocket watch- it’s hard to read the face in the dark, and Danny laughs at him before pulling out his phone.

“Five til.”

“Damn, I guess we ought to head back for that stupid ball to drop.”

“Yeah, you good?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Danny stands and offers him a hand. “You think Queen will be pissed we’re back here when there were keep out signs?”

“He’s basically my uncle. The only time he can actually get pissed with me is if there’s a fire or someone ends up in the ER.”

“Hm, well, the night’s still young.”

“Don’t give me any ideas, Fenton.” Tim says, and when he takes Danny’s hand to be hoisted up, he doesn’t let it go.

***

Tim Drake is holding Danny’s hand when they get back to the party, and it’s impressive how quickly he schools his open, vulnerable expression back into the pleasant, detached, half-smile. But his hand is a steady, warm weight in Danny’s, and it adjusts with every step they take, like he’s using Danny to ground himself.

The contract states that they should be close while in public, Elbows interlocked, or with his arm over Tim’s shoulder. The hand holding is acceptable, but Danny assumed they hadn’t been because it felt, for some reason, to be too juvenile for Tim.

As they’d entered the big, fishbowl-esque room, his hand shifted, and Danny thought he was going to drop it, but instead he laced their fingers together.

Danny wonders how he’d been doing these parties alone for so long, because now that he’s seen behind the curtain, the anxiety is palpable in the press of Tim’s fingers on the back of his hands. Tim’s hands are smaller than his, with thin and limber fingers, but there are rough calluses that scratch against his palm.

Gymnastics, Danny’s brain provides, at the idiosyncrasy of it.

Cass appears in front of them in a second, large black eyes going over them thoroughly. She co*cks a thin, perfect eyebrow at Tim, who says immediately: “Leave it alone, Cain.”

She rolls her eyes and shrugs, then whistles. It’s a short, two tone thing, and clicks her tongue. Tim’s hand twitches in his. She pats Danny’s shoulder and smiles, and then she’s gone.

“Does that mean she likes me? Was that- was that approval?”

“Somehow.” Tim says, flatly. “Let’s move position before Steph and Duke get here?”

“How do you know they’re coming?”

“Because I know my family. They’re a bunch of perceptive ass motherf*ckers and they’re gonna know something was wrong.”

Danny had figured as much. Honestly, he was startled that none of them had figured out that the whole dating thing was a farce yet, given how well they knew Tim. He’s trying to keep himself from worrying about what they might notice about him- apart from the obvious, of Duke noticing that he’s f*cking dead - and the fact that Tim, honestly, seems on par with the rest of them, for perceptivity, and he showed up two seconds after Danielle had hopped down a portal.

He didn’t say anything about it, so Danny was trying to keep his mind away from whatever conclusions he could be drawing.

Danielle is transient- Danny doesn’t expect her to be much else. They’re two sides of the same coin, that being that Danny wants to belong, and Elle wants to be free. She’s been traveling with Cujo so that she can go anywhere- realms or earth- and that she can recharge in the zone and she doesn’t destabilize. She hears absolutely everything in the zone, and sometimes she has the common sense to report it back to Danny.

This means, though, that she hears absolutely everything in the zone, and sometimes ‘reporting back to Danny’ is more ‘chewing him out about sh*t he already knows’. Other entities all seem to believe that she’s able to influence Danny more than she reasonably can- more so that she has a significant amount more influence than they do, which she doesn’t, really. He would feel more guilty about turning her into a memory than the rest of them, though.

“Let’s go up,” Tim suggests, tugging him through the crowd. As the night’s worn on, it appears that people have moved away from the networking and more into people dancing, or eating, or just being drunk, in the way that rich people got drunk- old money kind of rich people, that was- which was lounging on the chairs, ballroom dancing, and more laughter than would’ve been acceptable earlier in the night.

“Up?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what Queen’s got in that thing, but I think odds are I don’t want it in my suit.”

“Glitter?”

“Probably.” Danny cracks a smile, which makes Tim’s mask break, for just a second, and then they’re going up the stairs. “He’d do that. Might be cash, which I also don’t need.”

“If that thing is full of money, and I don’t get to stuff some in my pockets-”

“You wouldn’t if there were, that’d be unseemly.”

“Dude.”

“It’s probably not, it’d be too tacky. And if it is, I’ll venmo you five hundred bucks to remain impassive.”

“You know, the more money you give me and things you buy me, the more it feels like I’m your sugar baby.” Danny says, trying to make it sound like a joke, and unable to scrub all the bitterness out of it.

“Well, you kind of are.”

“Oh, great. Thanks.”

“Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“I have actually dated a filthy rich person before, so I get how it works, and that you don’t really understand... money? The way us peasants do?”

“Oh, Samantha Manson, right?”

“Yeah. Sam.” Danny says, and doesn’t ask how he knew.

“They’re not really that rich, you know.”

“After a certain point, it’s all just orders of infinity,” Danny says, following Tim to the railing and resting his elbows. “And they are the richest family in Amity Park.”

“If you got your share of Vlad-co, it’d be you, right?”

“Probably.” Danny says. He doesn’t think about that often- it never seemed like a viable option to him. “I don’t really care about it. Like, it would be nice, to not have to think about money, to not have to pimp myself out when I need Vlad to help Jazz with tuition. But not enough that I’d ever sacrifice my morals, you know?” He doesn’t talk about the crushing credit card debt, the bills that come by the house not just with his parent’s name on them, but Jazz, his. Some from cards ten years out of date with the name of a girl he tried his best to bury.

Tim looks at their hands, their arms, then twists Danny’s wrist to check his watch.

“Your parents don’t help her with the tuition? They get lots of grants, as far as I can tell.” He says, absentmindedly.

“I doubt they even know what school Jazz is going to. And Vlad’s behind most of the grants, anyways, because he is, as I think I’ve mentioned, still creepily in love with my mom. So.”

“Wait, but why are you stressed about money, then?” Tim asks, looking up, like he’s only just processed what he’d said. “I mean, the grants should be keeping you above water, given your family doesn’t have an alternate source of income. You shouldn’t-”

He’s drowned out as the crowd begins counting down, following a screen behind Tim’s head.

“We’re kissing at midnight, right?” He asks, because he thinks he ought to. “Just because, like, there’s plenty of cameras on the other side of those windows, and it’d be weird if-”

“Obviously.” Tim says, at two.

“Just- yeah,” Danny says, and cups the back of his neck to kiss him.

It’s nothing like the kiss at Boston, which was rushed and impersonal and purposeful. It lasts a few seconds, heads tilting, eyes closed, their fingers still interlocked and Tim’s other hand still resting on the rail. It’s not special, it doesn’t make Danny’s brain go fuzzy, but he thinks he’ll probably never be able to drink champagne again without thinking about Tim Drake’s lips. Danny also thinks there’s more of a sense that he’s actually kissing him, despite the fact that this- this whole extant thing- has just been a massive, convoluted ‘fake-out make-out.’

They pull apart when the cheering dies down, and they don’t have a moment to sit in the moment, because Dick shouts: “Happy New Year!” And throws his arms around both of them. The ball was, evidently, full of mostly confetti and glitter. It’s covering all three of them, mostly as a result of Dick, who was better into the blast radius than Tim and Danny were.

“Hey, you find Roy?” Tim asks, his face squished against his brother’s shoulder.

“Nah, he’s not here.” Dick says. “Got a picture for you.”

“Of course you did. You’re like a soccer mom.”

“So, just out of curiosity, how long do we have to stick around now that it’s the new year?” Danny asks.

“Like, at least half an hour.” Tim says, slipping out from Dick’s arms in a smooth motion. After he’s out, Dick doesn’t care to hold onto Danny, so he steps back.

“Ugh. Aren’t parties supposed to be fun?”

“Oh, that’s a misconception we will have to break thoroughly.” Tim says.

“I mean-” Dick says- “We could make it fun.”

“Richard, if you jump off of this balcony right now, I am going to-” He glances at Danny- “I am going to do something that will make you very miserable, okay, and you know I can.”

Dick just laughs at Tim, who glares at him with his arms crossed. Danny plucks out some errant scraps of confetti out of his hair.

“Sweetheart,” He says, gently, “I don’t think your reputation will suffer if he makes a scene, which he’s been doing at galas and parties since he was-” He glances at Dick.

“Eight.” The man provides.

“And it’ll make it less boring.” Danny finishes.

Tim sighs. “I better not have to call an ambulance.”

Dick grins wide, then pats Danny solidly on the shoulder. “Seriously,” He says to Tim, “I think you should keep him around.” Then he vaults over the edge.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

“I had hoped that you’d be further along than this,” Frostbite says, looking at the collection of shards that Danny has laid out on a cloth in front of him. “There’s not even a quarter here.”

“Believe me, I know.” Danny says. “It’d be much simpler if these were just scattered around the mortal plane, but they’re all over the realms, and when you get into different dimensions, it’s hard to track the anomalies that we’ve been using to pin them down on earth.”

“Spirits are getting restless. The lower realms have been thrust into chaos, and you might soon be contending with ancients who have long since been slumbering who Maitzik is disturbing. Powers which have been latent longer than your planet has been able to support life.”

“If it was really gonna f*ck us up, Clockwork and those damnable observants would’ve been on our asses already.”

“My king.” He says, with the slightest edge of patronization.

“Yeah, I’ll cool it on the language.” He says. He sucks on his teeth, looking at the pathetic assembly of bone-colored shards, then folds the cloth up and drops it back into the palace. “I can’t devote all of my time to this, though. Even if I exert my influence to keep our regular suspects on this side of the portal- there’s still the issue of the revenant in Gotham, Vlad’s probably gonna try and overthrow me sometime in the next week or two, because I’m making choices that he’s not really happy with, and- oh yeah- I still have five months left of school.”

“Soon, we’re not just going to be feeling the ripples in Jotunheim. They will reach Earth. You appointed me your advisor, let me advise.”

Danny waves his hand, bidding him to continue.

“The immediacy and gravity of this problem requires your attention more than mortal concerns. Allowing you to balance your mortal responsibilities with your immortal ones is wise when the realms are relatively peaceful, but you can not tell me that your ‘high school’ is as important to you as interdimensional collapse.”

“It’s not. Holding onto my humanity is.”

“You were just on a vacation, unless I’m mistaken. Your little sister-”

“Oh, Elle, f*cking snitch,” Danny says. “I got one of these shards on that ‘vacation’, for your information.”

“All I’m saying is that it must’ve been enough for you to justify putting a little more time into your responsibilities here.”

“I’m trying. I can’t. Don’t assume that just because I haven’t been in the zone that I don’t understand the gravitas of the situation. I am doing everything I can.”

“Your subjects don’t see it that way. They see it as neglect. The longer this rampage continues, the more things it disturbs, the angrier they get with you.”

“I know.”

“Then act like it.”

“You’re treating me like a child. If you didn’t want a mortal teenager to be the High King, you should’ve let me leave the ring and crown in the palace like I wanted to.”

“If you didn’t want to be High King, you shouldn’t’ve defeated Pariah!”

“You act like I had a choice!”

Frostbite turns his hands over, as if he’s just won the argument. In the pocket of his belt, Danny’s phone rings. He pulls it out, sees Tim’s name on the display, and answers.

“Hey.”

“Hi. I was just checking in, did your flight get in okay? News said there were some storms.” Danny’s stomach does a funny little flip, especially given that he’s a ghost right now, and, strictly speaking, doesn’t have a stomach.

“Yeah, I’m all good,” Danny says, waving at Frostbite like we’ll talk about this later, and floating up and away from Jotunheim. “What about you? And why are you calling me about this, you could’ve just texted.”

“I’m calling because it’s hands-free, and I’m multitasking. And I’m fine. Safe and sound back in Gotham.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Are you driving, or something? There’s a lot of static on your end.”

“Yeah, that’s just the ambient ecto-interference, it screws with cell signals here.” Danny says. “Um,” He says, right as Tim says: “So.”

“Sorry, you first.”

“Yeah. Uh. I was thinking... Valentine’s day?”

“What about it?”

“Just that we might wanna do something?”

“Probably.” Danny says. There’s no declaration, no definite party that they’ve got to go to, so he wonders what something looks like.

“Oh, and you need to make your instagram public.”

“I do?”

“Yes. I’ll add an addendum to the contract. If you could also curate it? So it looks, perhaps, less...”

“Like it belongs to a seventeen year old boy?”

“Exactly.”

“Tim, you know I don’t have a social media manager or anything, unless you want to lend me your’s.”

“Babs.”

“Pardon?”

“Babs. A- she’s part of the family, like Steph.”

“There’s more of you?”

“You don’t know the half of it. And I can send it to her to review, but she’s brutal.”

Danny rolls his eyes, turning over in the air on his way down to the portal. “If you think I need it.”

“I could care less about Instagram. Unfortunately, the same is not true for the general public.”

“You sure you don’t just want to show off your roguish boyfriend?”

“I think,” Tim says, “That I may have to kill you when we’re done with this, instead of just having you sign an NDA.”

“Yeah, good luck with that, sweetheart.”

“What, you think I couldn’t?”

“I’m certain you couldn’t.” Danny says, stepping through the portal, and in the same step, shedding his regalia. “Thinking you could is adorable, though.”

“You know, statistically speaking, the average American male thinks that they could beat a Grizzly Bear in single hand-to-hand combat.”

“Okay?”

“The average American male could not.”

“I would agree with that assertion, yes,”

“I’ll let that sit with you.”

Danny closes down the portal and pushes up through a few stories of the brownstone to his room. His parents are in the command center- at least, he thinks they are. That, or they’re asleep. It doesn’t make much difference. He avoids them, and they don’t notice that he’s gone for days at a time. He’d notice if they went missing for days at a time, naturally, partially because he forces himself to check on them once a day and make sure they haven’t been taken by something. Usually he does it invisibly and he gets shot at by whatever new fangled thing they’ve made to tear him apart, molecule by molecule.

His room’s a mess- it’s never not- but he manages to kick through the clothes to find something that isn’t completely deplorable. The suit is hanging up on the back of his closet door. He tried to give it back to Tim, who wouldn’t have it, saying that it was made for him- he didn’t have any use for it.

Danny didn’t either. What was he gonna wear it to- prom?

“Do I have to take you to Prom? Do you have to take me to Prom?”

“I no longer go to high school.” Tim says, a little stilted and awkward on the phone.

“Is that a no?”

“It is. School dances should be below you, as well.” Or, the image that Danny is meant to be portraying, to support Tim.

“Yup. Heard.” Danny says, shoving his feet into ratty slide-on vans, and dousing a hoodie in Axe. Hopefully the cameras don’t follow him to Amity.

“Unless that’s like... important. To you.”

“Nope. Just a- just a passing thought.”

“Great. I- I have an eight-o-clock, so-”

“Right, yeah. I have school, Sam’s actually-” Danny pulls back his curtain to see Sam’s hearse on the street in front of him- “Sam’s waiting for me. I’ll um- I’ll talk to you later?”

“I’ll draft an itinerary.” Tim says, and then Danny hears the dial tone.

“Or you could just call again,” Danny says aloud, grabbing his backpack and stomping down the stairs. He doesn’t stop in the kitchen for toast, or a cup of juice. They haven’t done that since Jazz still lived at home, because she insisted. Still, even though he could make his descent through the house as silent as his ascent, he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know what he’s hoping for. The house is still quiet when he shuts the door behind him.

He sits in the back of Sam’s car, in the coffin that she sleeps in when she can’t stand her parents and she camps out in Wes or Tuck’s driveway for a night or two. The irony of it isn’t lost on him, but it’s because he can go intangible in case of a car crash, and there aren’t any seatbelts in the back.

“There’s the man of the hour!” Tuck says.

Danny throws his bag to the corner behind him, and flops face down in Sam’s pillows. “Hngh.”

“Here,” Sam says, and the cold corner of a pop can nudges against his head. Danny rolls over with a groan, taking the energy drink. The old car rattles as she shifts gears to get them going.

“Tim Drake is a highschool dropout.” He says, pushing back the tab and letting the sour, sharp drink wash his mouth out.

“Tim Drake got an associate’s degree at sixteen and graduated early.” Tuck says.

“Same difference.”

“It’s not when you’re scraping your credits together with your fingernails.” Sam says.

“I think saving the world from its inevitable doom, not once, not twice, but thirty-six times, should earn me an automatic diploma.”

“Thirty-seven.” Tuck corrects. “Nega-Jazz.”

“Right. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight pending, with all the shards and sh*t.”

“Maybe, if anything mattered to schools other than state testing.” Sam says.

“It's the last term. I can manage.” He says, then tips back another swig of the energy drink. If he drinks it fast enough, his heart kicks up to a regular pace, so he usually shotguns a monster or redbull or something before he has a physical. Not that he’s had one of those since Jazz left, either.

After there’s enough dead space in the can, Danny pours in a little vial of distilled ectoplasm, stopping the hole with the pad of his thumb and turning it around to mix it.

“You do know you’re trending on twitter, right?” Tuck says.

“No.” Danny says. “I haven’t been checking my phone.”

“We can tell,” Sam says, half-bitter, “After you texted us 911 and then didn’t reply for a day and a half.”

“I like, explicitly stated that it wasn’t a 911.” He says.

“Right, what even was that about?” Tuck asks.

“Oh, I slept with him.”

The hearse lurches and bounces, the suspension older than anyone in the car. “You what?”

“Not- okay- in- Sam- in a bed.”

“As one typically does,” Tuck says sagely, as Sam gets her beast of a car back to moving on the road. “Was it good?”

“It was- there was no it- there was sleeping, thank you. Ancients.”

“You shared a bed.” Sam clarifies.

“Correct.”

“You could’ve led with that.”

“You could have some faith that I didn’t have sex with a guy that I’m not really dating.”

“Well, why the freak-out, then?”

Danny takes another swig, propped up in the coffin. “I think I’ve come to terms with it.”

“Are you in love with him?” Tuck asks, casually, like he’s asking if they have first period together.

“No,” Danny says, quickly. “He was just... really warm. And I slept really well.”

“Oh, you’re f*cked,” Tuck says, frankly.

“Wrong. I am capable of remaining objective. Plus, we’re probably not gonna see each other again till Valentine’s day, I think the proximity was getting to me, and now, I can just go back to my regular life.”

The car goes silent. It stretches between the three of them, broken slightly when Sam clicks the turn-signal on, to turn into the school parking lot.

“Right?” He asks.

“Did you miss the whole ‘trending on twitter’ statement?” Tuck says. Sam doesn’t even kill the engine before Wes slams his hands against the back window, one holding his phone.

“Oh, f*ck me.” Danny says, and knocks back the rest of the can.

Here’s the thing- the longer you’re in high school, the less people are inclined to make you miserable. Danny’s nowhere near popular, but Dash had graduated a year after Jazz, and Danny had shot up by nine inches and gained sixty some-odd pounds, so even though he was still objectively a loser, he was a loser that no one really wanted to mess with. Plus, the kids in his grade were all being made miserable by the fact that it was January, and any college that was going to accept them wasn’t gonna change their mind based on the grades they were getting now- so there really wasn’t time to torment anyone else.

“You can’t seriously be dating Tim Drake,” Wes says. “Really? Really, Danny?”

“Okay, I get why Tuck knows who he is, and I get why Sam knows who he is, but I don’t get you.” Danny says, keeping his hood up as they push through the halls.

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen his name on the news before, but I never thought about him until I clicked on an article cause it has your name on it,” Valerie says. “And I bet everyone else did, too.”

Yeah, everyone else probably did, because everyone in this tiny, nosy town knows the name Fenton, even if he wishes they didn’t.

“Well, obviously I keep tabs on him because he’s Robin three.” Wes says, matter of factly. “Currently known as Red Robin.”

“Yeah f*cking right.” Val says.

“Oh, that’s an idea.” Tuck says.

“You guys, I’m not kidding!” Wes says. “It’s actually a pretty solid theory- with Bruce Wayne being Batman, and all.”

“Sure, right, do the butts match?” Sam asks sarcastically.

“Dude.” Wes states, unamused.

“Dude,” Danny says. “Look, I’ve met him. He’s not a Robin. If he has enough time to moonlight as a vigilante on top of all the work he does, then I’ll eat my f*cking hat.”

“You have enough time to be a superhero.” Wes says.

“Well, I’m not,” Danny begins, because he has to, “And I barely passed last term, don’t have a job, and sleep maybe four hours each night.”

“I feel like it must be easier for rich people to be superheroes. They have people that cook for them, clean for them, all that sh*t. Right, Sam?” Val says.

“I’m not Wayne rich,” She says. “But probably.”

“They do have a butler,” Danny says. “He wasn’t on the trip with us, though.” Actually, the members of the Wayne brood (and associated, given that Steph had never actually been adopted) Danny met had been practical and fairly in-touch, and they spoke about Alfred with open affection.

“So they can.”

“We’re not having this discussion. Tim and his family are not the Gotham vigilantes, because I actually find them pleasant to be around, and the Justice League- including their affiliates- are miserable, stuck up sons of bitches who couldn’t be assed to care about us.”

“Hey, Fenton!” Danny closes his eyes, letting his forehead against the lockers.

“Paulina.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to dress.” She says, leaning against the locker in front of him, her phone held in front of his face, showing off one of the less salacious photos from the new year’s party. “Or did your boyfriend do it for you?”

“He did, actually.” Danny says. “What’s the problem, Paulina?”

Her dark eyes scan him up and down, appraisingly, like she always does. Ancients knows she doesn’t like Danny unless he’s already taken, as evidenced by the last three and a half years of on and off again attention. She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth and says: “No problems.”

Danny’s too tired to be flattered by it. “Great. See you later, then.”

“Nice try, Paulie.” Val says.

“Oh right, like you three are all so happy about this outcome, hanging off him after he’s dumped you already. It’s weird.”

“Right, that’s the difference, though, isn’t it,” Sam says- “Is that we actually like Danny, it wasn’t just about the social climb. He hasn’t been obsessed with you since freshman year, Pauls, so this is actually getting a bit pathetic.”

Before the situation can escalate, the two minute bell rings, and she tosses a long, dark curtain of hair over her shoulder. Sam fakes a gag, and Wes whistles slowly.

“Well, if Paulina’s on one about it, the rest of the school is, too.” Tuck says, wrapping his arm around Danny’s to push him to American Civ, while Danny drags his feet, trying to melt as much as possible without actually making forward progress impossible for his friend.

“I should’ve skipped,” he mumbles. “I should just drop out.”

“Nega-Jazz.” Val reminds.

“Dan.” Sam adds.

“You know, sometimes I feel like I don’t have any choices anymore.”

“Dating Tim Drake is a f*cking choice,” Wes says.

“Oh,” Danny says, “You have absolutely no idea.”

***

“Well, Dick likes him,” Bruce says.

“Dick likes everyone,” Tim says, kneading a stress ball on the desk, looking at Danny Fenton’s extremely average life in HD on the bat computer monitors. “Have you asked Cass what she thinks?”

“She’s withholding judgment.”

“Of course she is.”

“Steph likes him.”

“Steph likes embarrassing me.”

“Duke likes him.” Bruce counters. “Even with the aura thing.”

“He’s charming.” Tim says. “And why are you nit-picking this, I thought you trusted my judgment.”

“I do. I’m just not sure if you’re trusting your own judgment.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you wouldn’t fall asleep in the same bed as him if you really thought he had ill intent.”

Tim feels his fingernails through the thin rubber of the stress ball, digging all the way through to his palm.

“I don’t think he has ill intent towards me.” Bruce tips his head, curiously. “Not anymore.”

“Right.” He says, short and curt, which means he doesn’t think Tim’s right at all.

“He just doesn’t add up.” Tim says. “I can’t relax about it because I’m just worried he’s gonna do something completely out of left field and wreck this.”

“This is why you should’ve run this by me before jumping into this whole arrangement. There’s too many variables for you to control.”

“I told Babs to curate his instagram.”

“What about that?” B asks, gesturing to the screen, the window in the back, which isn’t Danny’s social media, but they are all pictures of him- tagged photos, photos which a basic facial recognition program pulled off of the other Amity High student’s pages. He’s deadly handsome in all of them, that’s not an issue- he actually doesn’t have a bad angle. He does look half homeless in a lot of them, though, in second-hand clothes that are either too small or too large on him, always tucked in around himself.

There are quite a few- especially from right after his sister must’ve moved away, where his hair’s incorrigibly greasy, like he hasn’t had a shower in days. Further back than that, there’s the rings of bruises, hidden sometimes by make-up, or tucked into collars or sleeves.

Tim clicks on it, but doesn’t look at the photos as Bruce scrolls through them- he has them memorized.

“You don’t think-”

“Well, there are only two heroes in that town, and one of them is dead, and the other is a Black girl, so it’s not like he’s in our sort of life. His Dad is built like a refrigerator. Danny’s not small, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t get thrown around, especially if someone has a hundred some-odd pounds on him.”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” Bruce asks, in his leading way- the way he does when he’s certain this is a lesson he’s already taught, that he’s sure Tim will come to the correct answer.

“Wait.” Tim says. It’s not the right answer- or at least, it’s not the one Bruce was fishing for. “If the puzzle were really that simple, it wouldn’t catch my attention.”

“Tim,” he says, slowly, with a facade of patience. “He’s a person.”

“I’m well aware.” Tim says. People make the most compelling puzzles. The most complex motivations, with all their relationships and backgrounds. “Anyways, I’m keeping these shut down, they’re near impossible to find even if you search for him.”

“And what about when the reporters show up at Amity Park and interview his classmates, his teachers? Scraping for an angle at you?”

“They won’t.” Tim says. “Our relationship is bright and shiny and new, but unless I stick my neck out while making business decisions, Danny shouldn’t be anything but society gossip.”

Bruce takes a long moment before speaking next. The silence in the batcave echoes. “When do you see him next?”

“Valentine’s Day. Dinner. Maybe Broadway, or the Opera?”

Bruce looks skeptically at the pictures of Danny on the screen. “You think he’d enjoy that?”

“It doesn’t matter what he’d enjoy,” Tim says callously, “It matters how we’re perceived.”

“Have you asked him what he’d like to do?”

“Bruce.” Tim says.

“Don’t ask for my opinion if you’re just going to ignore it.”

“Offer the correct opinion, then.”

“Tim.”

Tim pushes his chair back and leans forward to sign out of his account. “Whatever. I’m going to train.”

“Do you even know how you feel about all this? About him? Do you know what you want my opinion to be?” Tim’s brows furrow. “Because it seems to me that you want your siblings and I to share your mistrust and at the same time, completely support your decision to uphold this ruse.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t see how those two things might be contradictory?”

Tim grabs his gym bag from beneath the desk in a sudden, harsh movement. “I shouldn’t have asked for your help at all.”

“Do you want a sparring partner?” He asks, and Tim’s aware that he’s being illogical, really.

“No.” Tim says. “Just strength.”

Bruce catches him by the arm as he moves by, a gentle squeeze on his bicep. Words don’t often work for the man, although he’s been making more of an effort to them in these later years. He’s a man of action. The whole family does better working their issues out through sparring, or in other cases, actual, literal assault. Tim’s finger presses into the socket of his eye, the ridge of his orbital margin, where the zygomatic fractured and reformed with an irregular bump, after Jason broke it.

“I’m going up. Do you want Alfred to bring anything down?”

“I’m alright. Steph and I are probably gonna go out later, get sushi before patrol.”

“She’s going to get sick on a rooftop again.”

“Nah, we’re not getting kroger rolls again.”

“You got supermarket sushi? Tim, you’re a billionaire!”

He shrugs. “Yeah, well, we were getting toilet paper and oreos.”

“Right,” Bruce says, poised by the elevators. “Do try and figure it out.”

“Why supermarket sushi made Steph sick? That’s not exactly a ‘world’s greatest detective’ tier case.”

Bruce chuckles, the frustration of the prior moment gone entirely. “No.” He says, then waves towards the screens, now mostly black, except for a few which show key cameras for security. “Your other case.”

“Right.” Tim says. “Of course.”

***

“You know Arthurian legend?” Danny asks.

“I’ve heard of it,” Val says, wading through the muck of the swamp. While in the in-between of the zone, mortals have the benefit- and sometimes the handicap- of not interacting with planes. But they’re not in the zone, they’re in another realm. Danny floats along beside her as she trudges through the bog. What’s the difference between a bog, marsh, and swamp again? It doesn’t really matter- the earth is soft beneath her feet, and every step takes effort. “Are you saying this because we’re in Avalon?”

“We’re not in Avalon,” Danny corrects. “Avalon’s directly above us, but there’s no way it could reconcile with the energy of the shard. There are almost certainly correlations with these two realms, though.”

“Is there something in particular that I ought to be worried about? That I can’t just blast.”

“It was more of an existential question,” Danny says, flipping over and coasting on his back, through the updrafts of warm, bog air. He texts Tim- which became an unfortunate habit throughout the month of January, to text him random thoughts throughout the day, as he’s pretty sure the boy knows everything about everything. Wes, ever the pragmatist, says he just has access to and the knowledge of when to employ google.

Tim Drake

Hey what’s the difference between a bog, a marsh, and a swamp?

PH of the water, mostly, and then climate, which affects the flora.

Coolio

He responds quick enough that Danny argues with Wes whenever he says he could’ve just looked it up. It’s not just screenshotted, or copied from the search page- Tim actually has that knowledge on hand.

“How so,” Val says, over the squelch of her boots.

“In that, do you think that I’m Arthur?”

Her eyes slide to him behind her visor, unamused. “In what way?”

“Like, archetypically, or whatever.”

Are you currently in a wetland?

Yeah. Smells foul.

Is the type of wetland pertinent to any issue

Not really. Just curious.

Carry on then.

Danny grins, and Val gives him another foul glance. “Chirpsing your boyfriend?”

“Yeup,” Danny says. “Anyways, in that, dying was my sword in the stone moment? And that I’ve been given the responsibility of holding the crown despite being a child-”

“Sometimes I wonder why Lancer let you into his AP literature class.”

“It’s because he believes in my potential,” Danny says.

“You’ve never even read La Mort d’Arthur, have you?”

“The huh-de-wha?”

“Maybe in some ways you are,” Val says, noncommittally. “Why?”

“I was just thinking. When Arthur was eighteen, when he had that sword in his hand and that crown on his head, and the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders, do you think he ever wished he’d just left the damned thing in there?”

“You’re just so over this whole king thing, aren’t you?”

“That, and the concept of immortality is weighing on me, yeah.”

“Oh, woe is you.” She says.

Danny tucks his phone away. “Okay, fine, any existential crisis wearing on you, that makes mine so boring?”

“I’m helping you so that the world doesn’t end, which means that I’m only working fifteen hours this week, which means that I’m not making my cut of the rent.”

“Vlad isn’t sending you anything?”

“Not since...” Valerie trails off. “You feel that?”

Danny lets himself straighten out, to feel the lukewarm mud that Val’s been sloughing through the last half hour. “He’s not paying you to hunt anymore?”

“Can we not talk about this right now, Danny?”

“I can do this on my own if you need to be working- Val, really-”

“You really think I’d rather be at the Nasty Burger than here? Are you joking?”

“‘Here’ isn’t exactly choice,” Danny says.

“Neither is the Nasty Burger. I pulled a rat out of the soft serve machine on Sunday.”

“Mother f*ck,” Danny says emphatically. “You served us shakes on Tuesday.”

Val shrugs. “I promise there’ve been rats in that machine since it was commissioned in the 90’s. It hasn’t killed anyone yet, it’s not gonna start now.”

Danny scrapes his tongue through his teeth, as if the shake from two days prior could’ve left fur in his mouth. “Bleh.”

She rolls her eyes. “Can you focus, anyways? There’s something buzzing.”

Danny shuts up. He didn’t need to drag Val along for this by any objective measure- the only entities who can really cause him trouble now are the ancients, and Vlad if Danny decides to deal with him without donning the crown, which is pretty frequent. He enjoys the challenge.

But so rarely have any of the entities surrounding the shards been a challenge. More so it’s the environments they create.

Anyways, Val tagged along with him because she was coordinating with Walker on some sort of release date thing- those two get on like a house on fire. They hadn’t planned it, but he’d seen her board and stopped to say hi, and she asked what he was up to, and then they both ended up going through the doorway. She takes naturally to whatever task they have at hand like it’s her sworn duty.

She does good with duty. Maybe she’d be a better king than Danny.

There is something buzzing, she’s right, the mounting hum of thousands of flies

“Pestilence, you think?” She whispers.

Danny shudders. “Ancients, I hope not. He’s a dick.”

“All the horsem*n are dicks.” Val agrees, drawing her blaster.

“Yeah, but him especially.” Danny says. As of yet, none of the things around the shards have been all that sentient- not enough to pose any real issues. “If he’s had this thing the whole time, he’s getting f*cking banished, let me tell you.”

“You should’ve done that a while ago.”

“I can’t banish an entity just because they annoy me. It’s not ethical.”

“Ethical smethical.”

Okay, maybe she wouldn’t make a better king. She’s punitive and ridgid, and sometimes her morality takes a back seat to it.

“Show yourself!” Danny calls, voice echoing through the fog. “This only needs to be as difficult as you choose to make it.”

The buzzing mounts.

And then they’re beset by insects- small, smaller than flies, rather like gnats. Val brushes them off her suit with disgust, and Danny goes intangible, although that doesn’t seem to deter them much. Ghost gnats. Fan-f*cking-tastic.

“Are they-” Danny stops, trying to spit out the cloud of little insects that had immediately flooded his mouth. Once there are only a few gritty pieces, stuck between his teeth, he claps both hands over his mouth (and nose, cause they’re trying to get in there, too) to say: “Are they biting you?”

“Yeah,” She says- her visor covers her whole face, so they’re not invading her orifices. “f*cking itches, ancients.”

They’re an annoyance, and Danny feels drained, as they alight on every inch of him, the suit not acting as any sort of deterrent. “Come on.” His voice is muffled behind his hands. “We’ve got to be close.”

“Are these going to give me some sort of ghost-malaria? Ghost Dengue fever? I don’t have all my ghost vaccines, Danny.”

“Probably,” He snaps, irritated. “Pestilence, if this is you, we both know you know better than to try this.”

There’s no answer. There’s no certain signature, either- although in the realms, picking up on them is much more difficult than earth- the horsem*n have a gravitas to them that Danny isn’t feeling at all.

He lets himself sink further into the wetland, which is walking an odd line between being very dirty water and mud.

“Danny,” Val says, her vocal fry cracking his name in five places.

“Just manage for a second, I’m pretty sure it’s at the bottom.”

“Danny!”

It’s pitch black beneath the surface- there isn’t much light in this particular realm anyways, and the amount of sediment in the water would’ve made it a deep murky brown with direct sunlight, and that’s if they were lucky. He feels around with a combination of his actual tactile senses and ghost-sonar. It’s fuzzy all around the edges, but there’s the collapsed stone remnants of a structure, a gnarled system of roots and bones of beings about the size of elephants, with teeth like wolves.

Something moves past his leg. Danny fights a shudder and drifts forwards.

The plant life in the wetland is a bunch of gnarly, tangled bushes, the mess of which extend well below the waterline. The outer layers are thin and easy to pull, break apart, but they get thicker, full of little creatures, and bigger, slimy things that avoid Danny on the basis of his aura. And leeches. They’re all over him, just like the gnats were above water. Maybe he was a little foolish for thinking going underwater would be a reprieve.

He starts hacking at the thicker roots- they’ve grown in a ball around what Danny has to assume is the shard, gnarled and corrupted. They’re twisted up in that burl wood way that makes them hell to cut through, and Danny’s intangibility isn’t helping at all.

When he finally drifts back up to the surface, his hair is matted up with mud and twigs, and there are at least fifty leeches sucking on him through his suit, and Val is sitting on a log, glaring at him through a cloud of insects.

“Got it.” He says, holding it up triumphantly.

“And I got exposed to fifty some-odd ecto-viruses. Why did I come along, again?”

“To feel like you’re a part of something,” Danny says, offering her a hand- then shaking off the leeches.

“Eugh,” She says, flicking it off her lap. “Let's go, then, this was enlightening.”

“Oh, really.”

“Maybe we should go back and forth a little, so you can feel like you have your adventure.” Danny suggests. “A little zap, some witty banter?”

“Are you procrastinating your kingly duties or your reading for Lancer’s?”

“Wonderful thing about goofing off is that it accomplishes both.”

“Mm, yeah, I’m not condoning that. I’m way more scared of Jazz than I am of you.”

“I am like, one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. Be so for real right now.”

“And I watched you squirt milk out of your nose when you were in third grade and then cry about it. Sorry.”

“f*ck you, Val,” he says, with a grin.

They get out of the realm and into the aether, which is a relief, because all their little parasites don’t seem to be able to live through it.

“I’m gonna go take a shower and a nap,” Danny says. “You want a ride to the portal, or do you have other sh*t to do?”

“Yeah, let’s go. Your mini-me have any other leads?”

Danny checks his phone. “Nah, doesn’t look like it.”

“The zone seem quiet to you?” She asks, looking around.

“Just empty. It’s infinite, that constitutes a lot of blank space.” Danny says, although there is a hollow sort of silence, following them around, which seems to echo in the absence of the flies.

“Sure,” Val says, while he scrolls up through the texts with Tim. “Are you seriously talking to your boyfriend right now?”

“No.” Val and Wes don’t know it’s fake, although he’d considered telling them. Wes, he’s sure, would figure it out on his own, and Danny would vehemently deny it, like everything else.

“Are too.” She says. “Long distance sucks, huh. Your boyfriend being all the way in San Francisco?”

“He’s staying in Gotham for the time being, actually, and I’m not talking to him. I’m just... thinking I might want to say something to him.”

“Something.” Val repeats. “Ugh, how are you still so awkward, you’re practically an adult.”

“Oh, not at all.” Danny catches a shadow move in the corner of his eye, and he turns to it. “Did you see that?”

“Huh?”

“Just-” Danny stows his phone. “Just something.”

“We’re in the zone. There’s always something.” Val says, placatingly, but she looks around as well. “Let’s go.”

Danny folds his lips into his mouth, nods. They coast to the Fenton portal, and he walks them both out invisibly, on the chance that his parents are working in the lab- they are, and his hand goes tight on Val’s arm for a second before he pulls them up to the awning.

“What are they making?” Val asks, although they’d only seen a second of the lab.

“I don’t know, something to destabilize my core, probably,” Danny says, the mud still in his hair when he turns human. “Uh, if you start feeling sick, let me know, I can probably get Sam over and we can run some cultures.”

“Yeah, yeah, go do your reading. I’m going to slather myself in hydrocortisone.”

Danny looks at his own arms, which are covered in bites and gooseflesh, crescent bruises from the leeches. “Good plan. See you tomorrow?”

“So long as you don’t skip class again.”

“So long as you don’t.” Danny replies.

“Yeah, see ya,” Val says, punching him in the shoulder. She does it in earnest, because it’s Danny, and she can.

Danny strips and washes off the bogwater in the shower. His phone starts ringing while he’s in there, but he’s halfway through shampooing all the little gnat corpses out of his hair, and by the time he’s done, it’s stopped, so obviously it’s not that important.

He changes into ratty sweatpants and doesn’t bother with a shirt.

It was Elle who called, followed by a series of texts:

Nuisance

Tensions are rising
Like. I’ve heard three plans for mutiny To Day
And several for blackmail?
Some of them sounded pretty serious

Missed Call
f*cksake, Danny

Tensions have been high for months. This is nothing new, and it’s no more urgent now than it was yesterday. Danny did his part for the day, and as always, dealing with the things that grow around the shard drain his energy.

He collapses on his bed face down, and throws his phone into a pile of dirty laundry.

***

Tim’s life has always been spent in a state of waiting. Anxiety. Awareness that there’s always another shoe to drop. He can’t really remember ever not thinking about the next potential horrible thing. Eventually, he learned to be relieved by the onset of a new crisis, the addition of another tragedy. When he found his father collapsed in a pool of his own blood, his first thought had not been horror.

It had not been sadness.

It had not even been anger.

Tim had stood, shocked, sixteen as of just a few minutes earlier in the doorway, and thought:

Well, there’s one less person I have to worry about.

Everything else had crept in after the fact. The guilt, the grief, the loneliness. But it didn’t change the fact that his first thought had been relief.

All that is to say that the general background worry about what in hell Danny Fenton was going to do to invariably f*ck Tim over doesn’t really affect his quality of life that much. He picks up a serial murder case to shift some of his attention away from his fake boyfriend, because obsessing over him isn’t really productive.

Picking up a case does, however, mean staying in the manor, which means spending lots of time in the cave, where he inevitably has to spend time with Damian.

He’s getting closer to the age that Tim was when he took Robin, and he’s never acted like a little kid. Never, because the first time he met Tim, he tried to kill him, which isn’t typical nine year old behavior. He’s intelligent, well spoken, if softly. In the two years since he first arrived, Tim has seen him evolve into a more compassionate creature, under Dick’s careful hand. But regardless, Tim doesn’t necessarily know how he’s supposed to interact with him. He can’t interact with regular kids.

Maybe it’s because he’s never made an effort- he’d thought about it, before B went missing, when he’d mellowed out and their relationship had begun to take the turn towards amiable. That maybe he’d try to put forth an olive branch and start to at least get along with him.

But then Bruce went missing, and Tim did what he had to to keep everything running, and the little monster had tried to sue him. Babs says he’s still licking the wounds his pride took, and the irritation is keeping them from closing.

And to top it all off, he’s never even tried to apologize. Dick had apologized for him, as if he didn’t stand behind him when he handed Tim the papers, looking sympathetic, but not doing anything to stop it. The little brat just haunts the halls when he’s home, and occasionally comes at Tim out of nowhere with a knife or a tights fist, like his whole goal is to make him uncomfortable in his own house.

It probably is. He’s confident that he still half wants Tim out of the picture, but can’t attempt to kill him again in earnest because Bruce wouldn’t allow it, so he’d rather just make Tim leave of his own volition.

Damian doesn’t just talk to Tim, is the point.

“Drake.”

Tim startles, slipping his headphones off his ears, and turning around in the batcave swivel chair. He’d turned on ambient listening when he’d come in- what, an hour ago?- when the elevator had opened and he’d started a workout routine, just in case he, like a semi-feral cat, just decided to go for Tim’s ankles with zero provocation.

“I’m not done yet. Can you use your ipad?”

Damian scowls, which means he gets the insult, which Tim wasn’t sure he would. “I need you to drive me to school.”

“What?”

“Father and Alfred are currently occupied. Grayson is on shift.”

“Since when do you ask me for stuff?”

Damian and Tim’s current relationship is currently about as fake as Danny and Tim’s- it’s purely for show, in order to avoid speculation about internal weaknesses that people could exploit in the family. Every once in a while, they’re seen together, as brothers, like at the Gala in Boston. Press conferences.

“When I need it.”

“You’ve never asked before.”

“I’ve never needed you before.”

“And this, this- this is what you’re sacrificing your pride for? A ride to school?”

Damian’s jaw twitches. “You’re being vindictive.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.” Damian just stands, with his arms crossed. “Whatever, sure, but you owe me one.”

“Thank you.” Damian replies, which Tim didn’t think was in his vocabulary.

“So, when B and Alfred were making their plans and all that, how’d you get left out of the equation?” Tim asks, when they’re in the car and Damian’s sitting shotgun with a backpack on his lap.

“They just assumed Grayson would be able to take me. He does half the time anyways. And I’m expected to solve my own problems.”

“I never said you weren’t.”

He lets his head lean against the window. “Is it true?”

“What?”

“That the school calls Father if I don’t go, and they weren’t given prior notice?”

“Uh, yeah, I think?”

“Hm.” He says.

The car goes quiet. Tim doesn’t know if Damian listens to music often, and he certainly doesn’t know what he likes if he does. He just sort of imagines him sitting, staring into space, in total silence whenever he retreats to his room.

“Did you- were you planning on skipping?”

Damian makes a vague noise in the back of his throat. Oh. Well, that was something. “I just don’t understand why I have to go. You don’t.”

“Well, if you don’t go to school, regardless of what your grades are, or how well you’re performing or whatever, sometimes DCFS can make a case for neglect. Even though you’re B’s bio kid, Duke isn’t, and if there’s any speculation, it could cause a lot of problems from the family.”

“Oh. I hadn’t considered- father says it’s for my social development.”

“That too, I guess,” Tim says. “I think it’s easier to suffer it if it’s for the family, rather than yourself.”

“True.” Damian says.

He thinks idly that he could tell the kid that one absence would not call down the fury of the DCFS, and that Bruce would probably not even bat an eye at the call, if it got answered at all.

“What would you do if you didn’t go?”

“Train. I’m helping Father with that meta flesh market that’s trying to trade into our underground, I could work that.”

“You have time scheduled for that.” Tim says, although he knows the feeling. After he became an orphan and before he allowed himself to be taken in by Bruce, when he was doing the whole fake uncle thing, he had everything scheduled for what needed to happen. But when he had to make room for things he wanted to do, the first thing that got cut was sleep, and the second was school.

“Yes.” Damian says, and doesn’t elaborate. “Are you going back to California soon?”

“You just want me gone, don’t you?”

Damian doesn’t say anything, but Tim would bet all his shares in Wayne Enterprises that he was pulling a face. “Grayson says we should try and get along.” he mumbles, after a long minute.

“Grayson is a terminal optimist.”

Damian snorts. “He- right, he is, but he’s good with people. I’m not.”

“Neither am I.”

“He says it’s easier to start with people who are similar.”

“We’re not similar.”

“That’s what I said!”

Tim cracks a smile, rolling to a stop in front of the middle school building. “Anyways, I’m staying here for a little bit. YJ isn’t doing anything major as of right now, and I picked up that case with the enucleations.”

“Oh.”

“Uh. Are you gonna need me to pick you up, too?”

Damian shakes his head. “Grayson will be off shift by then.”

Tim thinks that Dick might not appreciate coming to pick up a kid from school during rush hour after 24 hours on shift, but he doesn’t say that.

“Right. Just text me if you do, would you?”

Damian looks at him from outside the car door, with that blank, dark expression. “Right. Many thanks, Drake.”

Tim takes a second after the door closes to check his phone- he didn’t schedule any meetings till after three because he figured he’d take a nap at some point around eleven, maybe noon, but now that he’s out of the house, he feels more inclined to do something other than the regular stressful stuff.

So he goes to the camera shop, because he’d been meaning to, to pick up some film. He remembers going at thirteen, and buying a lens as long as his forearm, stuttering and telling the student working the counter that it was for wildlife photography.

“Do you have any macro FD lenses? Like a fifty to 3.5? I don’t particularly care about the focal length, though..” He asks, now. The camera on his phone is actually capable of getting roughly the same amount of detail, but the development of the pictures used to be part of his process. It helped him change perspective.

“FD? Maybe, let me check.”

Tim drums his finger on the glass display case, housing the shiny new hobby cameras, the kind that cost tens of thousands of dollars. This place must have hella insurance. His own digital camera is probably a little more expensive than these, but he finds that unless he’s doing shoots like the one for Kate, he’s going to reach for his old Canon nine times out of ten.

“You a student?” The guy behind the counter asks, sorting through the rows of lenses.

“No,” Tim answers quickly. “I’m halfway between a hobbyist and a professional.”

He smiles tightly. “Right. Oh, I have a thirty-five to seventy, that okay?”

“Yeah, focal length is whatever,” Tim says.

“It’s actually a bit cheap, lemme make sure that nothing’s scratched, okay?” Tim nods. That’s actually why he needs a new macro- although rather than improper handling or a prank gone wrong, he let his get a little too close to a splash of hydrofluoric acid. Wrecked his lens and nearly the rest of the camera, too.

“What’re you shooting?” The guy asks as he rings Tim up.

“Uh, crime scenes.”

“f*cking Gotham,” He mutters, handing Tim his bag.

“You learn to love it.”

His phone hums in his pocket, so he checks it while he walks out of the store. It’s a reminder that Danny’s birthday is coming up in a week. He pauses on the sidewalk, plastic bag dangling from his wrist, while he thinks about what Bruce had told him, at the beginning of January.

Does he even know what Danny would like, if he were to get him a present? He could just send him cash, although that felt tacky. Birthday presents weren’t part of the contract, because Tim wants nothing less than to be reminded of his birthday by things, or events, or people congratulating him, or, god forbid, giving their condolences.

Danny though- he doesn’t think he’s expecting anything from Tim, although he worries they might be edging closer to friends as opposed to whatever contractual obligation they started out as.

Unless they’re not. Danny texts him at least once a day, usually an inane question, but it seems perfunctory. Like, today’s, for example- asking the differentiators between wetlands. Tim answers, and sometimes asks a follow up question, but Danny’s answers become dry. Tim thinks it might be part of the performance, although it’s not outlined in the contract. It would look weird if their texting thread was only a few pages long, and read like business casual. There was also the very long standing words with friends game which Tim is barely scraping a lead in. He initiated that, but if you asked him why, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

He stares at the little cake icon in his calendar for a whole minute, in front of an alley, which is-

Well, Tim is comfortable in Gotham, despite the high crime rates and the fact that he’s easily a target, due to his status and influence. He knows how to fight, he knows the most likely places he’ll end up getting kidnapped, and this isn’t one of them. There’s not even anyone in the alley, he checked.

He always checks.

And it’s the beginning of February- a cold breeze condensed between buildings doesn’t even make Tim bat an eyelash.

When he feels the hand on him from behind, there’s no space for him to react, before one turns into a dozen- cold fingers, pressing into his face, covering his mouth, his eyes, wrestling his arms into place behind him. He doesn’t have time to scream.

He can’t breathe for a horrible, anxious minute, or two, or maybe he passes out.

He definitely passes out.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

When Tim opens his eyes, he’s weightless.

The air is green, like there’s a film cast over everything, like pond-scum water. Tim’s been in outer space before- he’s been in zero g’s. This isn’t that. Partially because there’s no sh*tty rooms with broken radiators and peeling wallpaper in outer space and-

Well, mostly that first bit.

He’s tied to a chair- wrists cuffed to the arms, ankles tied to the legs, and thick rope woven around his torso. Whoever did it has an excellent grasp on how to restrain someone- he can’t get his arms far away enough from his chest to slip the cuff.s

It’s not good. It is not good at all, He doesn’t have any bearings at all on where he is, on who took him, on how long he’s been gone. The room is dark and small, and Tim is covered in a cold sweat.

The only small comfort is that he can feel the impression of his phone in his back pocket- he has to believe it was an oversight on his captor’s part, despite the knotwork saying otherwise. Maybe they think they’re somewhere where it can’t be tracked, because they don’t know it’s bat technology.

There’s no gravity, no sense of anything pulling him down, but the room shakes, and with it, Tim’s organs rattle inside him. The episode lasts five seconds, and leaves him nauseous. After his stomach settles, he takes a slow account of his body, from the top down. His head aches in a targeted way that implies it’s from a blow rather than any drugging. Corroborating that is the case, he’s aware of his limbs, bruises where he’s been grabbed, on his arms and legs, and where the restraints are agitating.

“He doesn’t look like much,” Says a voice behind him, low and inhuman. “Are we sure he’s the one?”

Something moves through him, in the unsettling way that Phantom did. It’s big, and green, with red eyes set far back in its head. “Tim Drake, right?”

“Wayne Enterprises has ransom insurance.” He says, almost automatically. “What do you want?”

“We don’t trade in anything half as petty as human coin.” Then there’s a camera in his face- a hand held video camera from the nineties, the kind with a fold-out display, and a strap on the side. Tim tries to jerk back into the chair, but it just sets him off at a slow tilt throughout the room. His captor drags him back down, the chair legs clatter on the floor. “Say your name.”

“What is your price, then?” He asks, because he wants to know what he may or may not be condoning.

“Your name, boy!”

“Tim Drake-Wayne.” He spits.

“Excellent.”

The camera snaps shut- it’s an odd dichotomy, because whatever his captor is seems to be in medieval dress, with long ratty hair and sparse, degrading armor. “Keep him alive. Make sure he’s not comfortable.” And he walks through a door.

Tim thinks there was another one in the room with him, but when he manages to get himself moving again, spinning while drifting, the cubical room is empty. His chair floats around almost imperceptibly slow, and although Tim can’t angle his wrist to check his watch, he can feel the ache grow from the hours spent confined. Eventually he gets close enough to a wall to try and kick off of it, but his legs phase straight through. He thinks that the rest of his body will follow, and he’ll float forever into whatever lies beyond the walls, but the chair doesn't get the memo, and bounces off.

Eventually, the slow rock of his drifting combined with the comfort of weightlessness convinces Tim to close his eyes, to help settle the pain in his head. He doesn't let himself sleep- just rest. Someone will notice his absence- an investigation will be done where he was last seen. His family will discover who took him and a mission will be sent to retrieve him. Trying to fight is way out into a completely unknown situation would be reckless at best, and suicide at worst. So long as he’s being left alone, the safest route is to stay the course.

And Tim can’t manage to slip his bounds.

He has to trust that someone is coming. He has to.

“Hm. Hello there.”

Tim’s eyes startle open. Based on the spreading pain in his head, and the lightheadedness, he’d guess the air has a fairly low O2 content. Enough to survive on, but it’s not comfortable.

The thing which spoke is shaped like a man, but with bone white skin, eyes that glow green, like cartoon radioactive waste, and a mouth with blood-stained teeth. He doesn’t have any lips- they look like they’ve been burned off his face to expose his skeleton smile.

“You got what you wanted?” He gasps. He’s really out of breath.

“Oh, I’m sure they will,” The ghoulish thing says. It’s wearing a prison jumpsuit, its eyes dark with what Tim can only describe as hunger. “You are quite pretty, aren’t you?” It seems bound by some sort of force which Tim is not, as it shambles towards him. “I do wish you were a girl. I haven’t had a girl in so long...” It trails off, a skeletal hand brushing spare strands of hair off Tim’s cheek.

His wrists burn in protest as he yanks on his restraints. Without the aide of gravity, it’s much harder to gain leverage to maneuver his way out.

(note to future Tim: practice escape techniques in 0gs as well as underwater)

“Don’t touch me,” he growls.

“Hm,” Its bony fingers tighten into a fist at Tim’s scalp, forcing his head back. “I have been a prisoner. For a very long time, pretty thing. When I was let, I thought I might be able to return to my passions. But nothing can die here. All that is, is, and so it continues, although it changes. I don’t want to change things. I want to take, do you understand?”

“Let me go.” Tim bites.

It’d be an idiotic lie to say that he isn’t frightened. He is. Training with Bruce- learning to become fear, does not absolve it. A healthy amount of fear keeps one sharp and smart. Terror is the thing to avoid. And Tim is certain that he’s endured worse than whatever this thing means to do to him. He’s survived torture, lived out his worst nightmares, taken beatings and fought through them.

“I can take from you.”

Tim does not beg- it only worsens the pain. But the knife glints in some far-off light, silver, long and sinuous. Tim knows good blades from his own training, as well as Damian’s detailed rants about his collections. He can tell it’s high quality. Sharp.

It slides through his skin so easily he doesn’t feel it at first. His blood drifts up- amorphous black globs, suspended in a puddle around the wound.

The ghoul wipes it back and runs its middle finger straight down the slit, spreading the fat away with its index and ring fingers, so that the middle finger can fly along the involuntary twitches of his muscle, slowly, like it’s savoring it.

Tim’s head flies back, neck held tight in agony as he bites his lip. If he opens his mouth, he’ll scream. White spots are dancing in his vision by the time it’s done, and Tim trusts himself to dare chance a shaky breath.

“Won’t you scream?” It asks.

“What,” Tim gasps, “do you want?”

But he knows all about this kind of monster- if not literally, then psychologically. It wants his pain, and after it’s had its fill on that, it will want his life.

“Beg.” it says, and Tim knows it won’t make a hair of difference. “Scream.” That, Tim might, though it would be involuntary. His breath is heavy though his teeth.

The worst thing he can give it is the satisfaction.

“Do you think,” It ponders, “that they might get upset with me if I mar your pretty face?” Its mouth twists. “I think I might not. I do wish you were a girl.”

“You mentioned. Tough luck.”

Its hand swipes through a blob of Tim’s blood, dispersing it into smaller bubbles throughout the room. “And I do wish we didn’t need you alive. Collateral,” it scoffs.

That makes it through the pain. “Collateral for what?”

“Not my business.” It says. “I don’t care about the politics these things are so concerned about. I just heard they needed a knife that could harm the living.” It stops for another quake, which agitates the wound and separates the floating puddles. “And I need to harm the living.”

“Need is a word for that,” Tim bites.

“Want and need are goddamn near synonyms in this place, pet.” Its long, bloody fingers drift through the cut again, and Tim’s incisor chops through the inside of his bottom lip, flooding his mouth with blood. When the ghoul is done, and the ringing fades from Tim’s ears, he spits a mouthful of blood and saliva. There’s enough force it makes it straight to his aggressor's face. It grabs his jaw forcefully, and Tim bares his own red-lined teeth at it.

“f*ck you,” He slurs, still lightheaded.

“I am a very practiced hand.” It says. “I know how to cut. I’ve been doing it a while. The more pliant you are, the longer we can make this last.”

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t just like to kill me.”

“Would that I could, pet.” It lets him go- he’ll bruise, he’s sure of it, but that’s pretty low on his list of priorities. “But I’d rather savor this. If that bastard is to be believed, you’re my first victim in almost seventy years.”

That’s another clue, Tim thinks, although he's not in any fit state to analyze it, or to pair it with any prior analysis.

“When my father,” Tim begins, weakly, “When my father finds you...”

“Oh, neither he nor you can hurt me in any way that matters.”

Tim should disengage. He should be stone to this thing- to give him no entertainment by way of whimpers, twitches, or grimaces. He thinks he may have been able to, once, at the height of his internal misery and self-deprecation. But with a longer time spent somewhere close to happy, his tolerance is shot.

The spirit pushes away Tim’s growing bubble of blood, which immediately begins to well again, and licks the wound. A long, deliberate stroke from the distal end up. Tim doesn’t think he wants whatever it has in its mouth in his bloodstream, but there’s not much for him to do. He half wants to pass out again, but he worries about how else the thing might violate him if he does.

His brain isn’t firing fast enough to make a plan.

“Have you ever known a woman, pretty thing?”

Tim glares at it, though the curtain of his dark, sweaty bangs, some blood drifting past his face. From his arm or his mouth, he isn’t sure.

“Have you- I’m certain you have, strapping young man such as yourself. You know, when sensations become intense, your nerves have a hard time differentiating between them- hot and cold. Pleasure and pain. People have known this for years. Do you feel it? The agony? The ecstasy?”

Tim’s losing a lot of blood. It floats around the room like oil in water, making the whole scene a demented lava lamp. The headache is giving way to the fuzzy temptation of unconsciousness.

The feeling of the knife in his stomach is sudden and surprising. The creature has sunk it all the way to the hilt.

f*ck. Tim’s brain races to try and place where he’s hit, what organs are affected- or could be. Likely a section of his bowel. Right? Or his small intestine- is the blade long enough to have encountered a kidney? Surely not. His brain can’t provide any answers. Just more questions.

“I thought you weren’t...” His voice sounds faint even in his own ears. “Meant to kill me.”

“You aren’t dead, are you? Might be you can’t die, here. I’d love to see.”

“What are you doing?” Tim sees him through bleary eyes, the bigger beast from before, the viking with the video camera. Damn. “He’s not something for you to kill.”

“You told me to have fun.”

“Damn it, we wanted him to take us seriously, but this-” it pulls his tormentor away, through one of the clouds of blood. “I get that you were stuck landside for a majority of your miserable afterlife, and you don’t understand how this place works, but let me educate you. The strong survive here. You might’ve been tough sh*t where you came from, but you are nothing compared to Regis. He makes the rules. We bend them, but we don’t break them. This? This is five steps over the line.”

His torturer stares balefully at the larger spirit. “He’s not even unconscious yet.”

The viking throws the prisoner against a wall. “Yet? He’ll be dead in an hour!”

Based on the amount of blood floating around them, that’s probably true. Tim’s depth perception is off, eyes going in and out of focus, so he doesn’t have a grasp on the exact volume, but it’s a lot. Miracle that he’s still conscious, a lot.

The air (or whatever it is) drops in temperature a noticeable ten, fifteen degrees in an instant, and his captors freeze.

“Oh, ancients,” Says the one in charge.

Tim struggles to stay conscious.

Phantom, the High King of Ghosts, Amity Park’s resident superhero, and Tim’s savior. He breaks through the door in a flash of green light and cold fury. He’s in full regalia, even more than Tim remembers from the encounter they had in Gotham- cape, crown, bracers on his forearms and shins. Tim is anticipating that he’ll ignore him, like he did when they first met, and Tim was in the Robin cowl, but Tim is the first thing his attention falls to. The weight of his gaze is familiar, but Tim can barely meet it.

“Stay.” He commands, and the whole world seems to pause at the word, his two captors frozen. “A mortal? Whose idiotic plan was this?”

His torturer raises a blood-soaked finger to point at the leader.

Phantom drifts through the space with an air of power, waving at the spirits to stay in position, and with three extremely accurate energy blasts, frees Tim from his bounds. He lowers himself so their faces are level and says: “Tim. Hey. Tim. Can you hear me?” His voice is soft, with an adolescent uncertainty he hadn’t carried a moment before, white gloved hands dancing around his wounds.

Tim chances a nod.

“Who did this to you?” The soft mumble of his voice drops, comes out as a growl.

“The one with- with no lips. The prisoner.”

The room goes colder still.

“I knew I should’ve ended you in Alcatraz.” Phantom snaps. “And you. Duke Nightbane, correct?”

The leader squeaks an affirmative.

“Exiled, to the eldritch clouds, for a term of five hundred years. Should you survive it, my wrath might be abated, sufficient to keep me from tearing your core into a billion tiny pieces. My knight is outside. He’ll escort you.”

Tim’s vision is swimming. Phantom’s hand is still on his arm, his blood drifting up from between his fingers as he keeps the wound under his broad palm. Warmth is spreading through his gut, radiating from the stab wound. The pain is pulsing, and for a second, it’s all he can think about.

“Hey,” Phantom says, voice soft again, as the pain ebbs. Tim realizes the king probably sees him as a civilian here, and that they’ve been acting as heroes for nearly the same length of time- he hadn’t considered that the ghost might actually be good at it. “Hey, Tim, listen. I’m gonna get you safe- I need you to listen. You need to ring the doorbell, can you do that?”

Ring a doorbell?

“I’m going to open a portal. The person in the door will help you, you just need to ring the doorbell. Can you- hey, can you do that?”

Yes, Tim thinks, although it doesn’t make it out of his mouth.

“Tim?” His hands don’t feel real as they brush across his face arms, trying to pull his focus back. “Say it back to me, I need to know you understand.”

“Ring the doorbell.” He says. His voice sounds wet.

Phantom breathes a sigh of relief. There’s a vague movement, blurred by Tim’s failing eyes, and a half-warm wind brushes past Tim’s face. He’s moved, and ground is beneath his feet, and his body has weight again. It makes the pain immediately a hundred times worse. It’s cold, but terribly bright- there’s golden sunlight, bouncing off half-melted snow and through dead trees. He’s braced against an eggshell blue door, one hand keeping the knife steady inside his gut and the other reaching to ring it.

After he presses it, he hears the faint echo of the ring, and collapses into a pile of flesh, blood, and pain on someone’s stoop.

“What in hell-” A girl’s voice says, before Tim’s gone entirely.

***

Danny didn’t hear his phone, because it was set to vibrate, and it was in a pile of clothes where he’d thrown it before his nap. When he woke up, it was because of a vague sense of hunger, which he addressed with a bag of stale cheetos from his desk, disoriented the way one gets whenever they take an hour-long mid-afternoon nap. He’s cold, one of the legs of his sweatpants is rolled clear up to his knee, and his tongue sticks to his mouth almost painfully.

He tries to press the sleep out of his eyes, back to laying down, wondering if he should just go back to sleep and try and get his reading journal done for Lancer during lunch the next day, when the Fright Knight rises up through his floor.

“MY LIEGE,” His voice booms, and Danny sits up, startled and still shirtless. “APOLOGIES, BUT I BRING A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY.”

“Has Maitzik risen another level?”

“WE MUST MAKE HASTE. I WILL EXPLAIN ENROUTE. I WOULD ADVISE YOU DON YOUR OTHER FORM.”

Danny’s transformation is over in a second, and their descent through the house to the lab is rushed. Danny’s parents seemed to have migrated to the command center at some point during his shower and or nap, so there’s no need for stealth as he opens the portal.

“You rarely venture to Earth. What’s so urgent?” He asks, following Fright’s course downwards.

“THERE’S A HUMAN IN THE ZONE. ONE OF YOURS.”

Danny frowns. “One of mine?”

“YOUR LOVER, EVIDENTLY.”

“Sam and I haven’t been together in years.”

“A BOY.”

Danny laughs. “Tuck and I haven’t been together since I was alive.”

“I AM JUST REPORTING WHAT I HAVE HEARD. THEY’RE HOLDING A HUMAN LOVER OF THE KING UNTIL YOU ADDRESS THE CURRENT ISSUE.”

“I have no lover.”

Fright shrugs. “REGARDLESS. ANY HUMAN HERE IS UNDER YOUR PURVIEW.”

“Do we know his name?” They’re moving towards a door, Danny following his knight’s lead. The zone isn’t intuitive, the paths shift and change by the minute, and no one door ever really leads to the same place twice. More established entities are able to follow them, but despite all his power, Danny is, in essence, still just a baby, especially when you compare him to how long the Zone has been around.

“I BELIEVE YOUR SISTER SAID- DUCK?”

“Fright, all due respect, but Duck isn’t a human name.”

The knight considers. “DRAKE?”

The doorknob Danny’s reaching for frosts over. “Drake?” he repeats.

“SO HE IS ONE OF YOURS.”

“He has nothing to do with this.” Danny growls. “He’s-” He closes his eyes, makes an effort to keep from crushing the doorknob, then pulls his ring from his pocket. “Come.”

“KING-”

“Come.” The jussive tone pulses through the aether, although Danny seldom needs to use it on the fright Knight. He barely has a handle on his anger, though, and so the power of the throne ends up leaking.

Wearing the ring, Danny is much more acutely aware of the comings and goings of the zone- he can feel Tim’s heartbeat. Flying straight, it would take him five or six hours, it’s still on one of the upper levels, just far.

Danny doesn’t bother with a route. He puts his hand on the doorknob and wills the portal to take him there.

Danny has seen some things. He’s seen lab accidents and the aftermath of brawls. He’s seen corpses and severed limbs and the fallout from natural disasters. And he himself has been prodded and pulled apart, attempts at dissection, all while he’s nothing but mist and consciousness.

This scene shouldn’t be shocking.

It is.

Tim is a mess of blood, floating around the room, unconfined by gravity. Danny vaguely processes that he’s tied to a chair, then he sees the knife in his gut, and there’s not much going on in his brain after that.

He thinks- he’s not sure- but he thinks it’s only a few minutes. But when he’s back to himself, there’s the energy of a spirit, pulled into pieces, ripped from its obsession and his sentience, slowly returning to the Zone’s aether.

He removes the ring and stumbles out through the floating puddles and patches of Tim’s blood. Where did he go? There’s the hot pressure in his teeth that suggests he opened a portal recently. He double checks that the door he’d forced still leads out to the Fenton portal, and stumbles back into his house.

The cold lab air is shocking on his bare torso, and he sprints upstairs.

His phone is ringing, and Danny grabs it and a shirt in quick succession.

“Sam?”

“Get your ass over here right the f*ck now.” She shouts. “Ten minutes ago. I need you to- to-”

Danny takes off through his window and lands ten seconds later in front of Sam’s house. The door is open. With the addition of gravity, Tim’s wounds are making much more of a mess, seeping through and staining the white carpet, smeared across the robin’s egg blue door, white trim, yellow shakes.

“Mind telling me what your boyfriend is doing bleeding out on my carpet?” She says, her voice high pitched the way it always goes when she’s stressed.

“f*ck.” Danny doesn’t remember it being this bad- frankly, he doesn’t remember much at all. Sam’s hands are holding tight pressure on the long, gaping gash on his arm. “f*cking Phantom, opening a portal here instead of a hospital, ancients.”

“What happened?”

Danny kneels by him, looking at the blade still in his abdomen. “Ghosts got him. This- he shouldn’t be involved in this. I’m the f*cking issue, I’m the reason the crown is impotent-” Sam’s first aid kit is sprawled on floral furniture, and her fingers have already covered everything in blood, but he tears open more rolls of gauze, not sure what the best approach to the knife is. He definitely shouldn’t pull it out, right? He remembers reading that somewhere, although that’s always his first recourse when stabbed. He’s also able to heal in a blink. “Is there an ambulance coming?”

“I didn’t- Danny, I called you.”

“Why?!”

“Why? Are you f*cking joking, what do you mean why, because I didn’t know what happened!”

“Obviously he was f*cking stabbed! That’s a 911 type of thing, Sam!”

“I didn’t-” She starts, obviously very close to tears- “You never know with you-”

“He’s just a regular teenager, f*cking-” Danny dials 911 and puts it on speaker, then uses the little scissors to shear through Tim’s thin exercise shirt.

He’s shocked into a moment of stillness when he exposes Tim’s gut. He has toned abs- Danny recognizes those from Instagram. What he doesn’t recognize is the mess of scars that cross them- thin and long, or wide and gnarled. Burn scars, knife wounds, the scale pattern where tilapia skin was grafted over his. Sam’s talking to dispatch, her voice a faraway buzz in Danny’s ear.

Tim’s hand rests on Danny’s, slick with his own blood.

Danny blinks. “Oh. Hey. Are you-” He doesn’t know what he means to ask. ‘Are you okay?’ Obviously he isn’t. Tim, for his part, tries to say something, but it’s only a burbled release of air. His dark eyes open just a sliver and glance at him- stare- daring him to comment.

“I’ve got you.” Danny says. He’s not sure why- he doesn’t feel like he’s got him, he feels like he’s slipping away, and Danny’s not tangible enough to hold on.

“Ambulance is coming.” Sam says, and Tim’s eyes close. If it weren’t for the drags of blood on the back of Danny’s hand from Tim’s fingers, he thinks he might’ve dreamt it.

“We need to, uh,” he says, softly, “To stabilize the penetrating object.”

“sh*t,” Sam says, looking for the first time at the boy’s ruined skin. “What- Danny, what-”

“Don’t. I’ll-” Danny doesn’t know what to say. What even leaves a seventeen year old looking like this? “Don’t.”

“Okay.” Sam says. “Okay.”

The paramedics are able to follow the trail of blood in, and then it’s a flurry of movement as the people in navy blue replace Danny and Sam’s places. Acronyms and letters and numbers being tossed back and forth that he doesn’t know the meaning of, GCS and BP and SPO2. It doesn’t look good, based on their expressions.

“He’s... he’s seventeen.” Danny stutters. “Uh- I- his blood type-” Danny’s pretty sure it’s buried somewhere in the dozens of files Tim’s sent him as reference, that he read it at some point, and laughed because why would he ever need to know that and now he’s drawing a blank.

“Who’s his guardian? Can you give them a call? Who are you to him?”

“I- his boyfriend. I- I’m going with him.” The two who are actually working on him look like they’ve got him stable, the stretcher waiting for them to move him, strapped to a plastic board.

The responder’s lips tighten. “Right. Call his parents in the rig.”

Danny follows them, trying to find a number in the mess of documents with one hand keeping the other on Tim’s uninjured wrist. He finds Dick’s, listed in case of emergency.

He wonders why it isn’t Bruce’s.

Dick sounds half asleep when he picks up- “Mmph. Whozzit?”

“This is Danny. Tim’s- you- uh-”

“Danny?” There’s a rustle, Danny figures he’s in bed, despite the fact that it’s barely dusk. “What? Okay?”

“Tim’s going to the hospital. He’s got a stab wound, I- uh- where are we going?”

“Galesburg Presbyterian is the nearest with a trauma center that can handle this.”

“Stab wound?” Dick asks, suddenly very, very awake. “Wait, in Illinois? When did he get there?”

“Is there anything I need to tell the medics? For his history? Is he allergic to anything?”

“No, I don’t think- Danny, what happened?”

If only Danny knew. “How fast can you get here?”

“Let me call Bruce.” Dick says. “You’re with him?”

Danny nods, then realizes that doesn’t exactly translate over the phone. “Yeah. In the ambulance.”

“Okay. Text me updates. Right?”

“Right.”

“f*ck. Stabbed? Tim? He’s not- sorry, what’s he wearing?”

“Joggers and a t-shirt?” Danny says, startled by the question.

“Oh. Great. It’s gonna be- be an hour. Two? I- are you okay?” The question seems stupid to Danny. Tim lost probably half his blood volume, and is still bleeding through the gauze the medics keep piling on. Danny’s just a witness.

“Yeah. I- yeah, I’m fine.” One of the medics squeezes the saline bag, trying to push as much fluid in him as possible. “I just- I don’t know what I need to do for him. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Danny,” Dick says. “This isn’t anywhere near your fault.”

It is, of course, nearly entirely Danny’s fault- he must’ve let slip to someone in the zone, said something that could’ve been overheard, and he is suddenly and unreasonably just so angry at the whole thing. Granted, Tim wasn’t really Danny’s boyfriend, and their feelings were a farce, but that didn’t make him any more open to the idea that this kidnapping ought to be easier to swallow.

He remembers how Fright had approached him, how he’d referred to Tim as one of Danny’s. Ghosts are known to be frightfully possessive, and Danny is no exception. Sam, Tuck, Val, Jazz- hell, even Wes- are so tied up in Danny’s core that ‘his’ is the best adjective he can think of for them.

He doesn’t know Tim well enough to lay that type of claim. But his pale, bloodied skin is cool in Danny’s hand, which isn’t right. Tim is meant to be warm, and alive, and his hand shouldn’t be limp in his as they peel into the city, the hospital bay. And Danny doesn’t let go.

As soon as the back doors to the ambulance open, a team of doctors and nurses all rush to roll in the stretcher, leaving Danny, stunned, standing shoeless in a bank of filthy snow.

“Let’s get you in,” says a woman’s voice. One of those young nurses who looks like they could still be in high school, in dark scrubs. “Where are you hurt?”

“I- no- it- it’s all his.” Danny says, aware he’s shaking and the world is brighter than it should be.

“Come on,” She says, and waves for another person, who brings him out a blanket. “You found him?” She escorts him through the bustle of the ER. The busiest room by far is the one with 1 painted on the frosted glass, with at least ten people moving in and out, voices overlapping, the double doors both wide open to accommodate.

“Is that-”

“Come on, I want to pull some vitals on you.”

“No,” Danny says, instantly. “No, I’m fine.”

“Lad, you’re pale as a ghost.” She says. “Psychogenic shock can cause some serious issues. We might want to hang some fluids for you.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine, I just- please, is Tim-”

“Your boyfriend is in good hands.”

“It’s not- he can’t- if he dies because of me-”

“So long as you weren’t the one holding that knife, none of what happens tonight will be your fault, love.”

“I might as well have been,” Danny mutters, trying to see inside Tim’s room.

“I think we should get some fluids in you. I just have to get some-”

“I don’t care about my f*cking vitals!” Danny shouts, just to be heard over the sounds of the ER. “Worry about Tim, okay? Worry about the- the kid who got stabbed, please, I’m fine, I’m sorted.”

The nurse holds her hands up, like she doesn’t want this to be a fight. People are staring. “Let me get you some juice, then, at least. The waiting room is over here.”

He sits heavy in a chair, wet, and room temperature, which feels cold when he’s alive.

“Keep the blanket.” Scrubs orders, then goes to, presumably, get juice. Danny looks at his phone.

Dick Grayson-Wayne

B called the hospital, we’re on our way.

They’re upset at you for refusing treatment.

Jazzercise

Why has the actual literal Bruce Wayne called to tell me you’re refusing treatment at a hospital?

What happened?

I’m fine. Didn’t get hurt.

It’s Tim

Unknown Number

Danny, this is Bruce Wayne. Rest assured we will be there shortly.

Danny stares at the message for a long, long minute, before typing out:

I’m sorry.

Please. Thank you for getting him to a hospital.

There’s a strange, detached manner in the way the Waynes are texting him- like a stab wound is simply a daily inconvenience, as if Tim isn’t currently fighting for his life in that ER. He stares at the messages until his screen goes black, and then he stares at his blank expression. There’s blood on his face, from some time when his hand came up and wiped at it thoughtlessly.

A different person in scrubs comes out and tells him that they’re taking him into the OR for a local exploration. Danny doesn’t know what that means, other than that he’s stable enough for them to operate. That has to count for something. Through a haze, he hears that they were lucky, that other than the blood volume, the placement could’ve been worse, that the knife hadn’t moved a lot, hadn’t twisted.

Danny nods through it.

The nurse brought him a muffin and a little plastic cup of orange juice, with the foil covering the top, although Danny hadn’t processed when she’d brought it. He can’t imagine that his hands are steady enough to deal with the wrappings, so he leaves them on top of the reader’s digest.

After that, the same person who told him about the local exploration comes out and says that Bruce said he can see him, but he’s not going to wake up for a while. Danny doesn’t care- he follows him, leaving the food and the blood smeared blanket on the chair.

He texts Dick and Bruce that Tim’s out of surgery, although he’s sure they know, because he’s an approved visitor.

Tim looks only marginally better than Danny expected. He’s breathing on his own, there’s no tube shoved down his throat. That’s about the only positive. He’s got three blood bags alongside the saline, and they’re running more than just the initial IV that the paramedics established. There are monitors all over, and they haven’t cleaned the blood from his face or neck yet. The bruises are coming to a head, outlines of fingers pressing too hard into his jaw. His forearm is wrapped in new, clean gauze, and this isn’t leaking though.

“Can I... Could I have a washcloth and some water, please? To clean him up?”

“You might want to clean yourself up first. You look like you just survived the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

Danny looks down and finds himself practically black from Tim’s blood drying down his front, soaked into his pants. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll be back in a second.”

“Thanks.”

Danny sits on the chair beside his head and holds his hand, despite there being no pretense, no watchful eyes. “Your family’s almost here,” He assures.

“Don’t let them know...” Tim mutters, and Danny starts, because he hadn’t expected him to be awake. “Don’t let them know... I don’t have my spleen.”

“They didn’t take your spleen.” Danny says. “They barely even had to operate.”

“Not this-” Tim grimaces, folding in a little. “f*ck almighty, that hurts.”

Danny calls for the nurse, and a different face is in the room almost immediately. “Uh- he’s-”

She’s typing on the computer. “We have him on a standard dose for the morphine- has he gone through any rounds of opiates from prior hospitalizations?”

Danny realizes she’s asking him, and he stutters. “I don’t- uh-”

“Six,” Tim grits, “Give or take.”

“Give or take.” She repeats.

“Technically twelve, but I never finish out the course.” Tim says.

The nurse sucks on her teeth. “I’ll get the Doctor to up his dose. For now-” She adjusts a dial, and after a second, Tim relaxes.

“From before.” Tim says, voice a slur. “I don’t the- my spleen- from before.”

“That’s- don’t you think that’s kind of important information?”

“They’ll- uh- they do the IV instead of oral, for the antibiotics. I- it keeps me here longer.” Tim rambles, voice soft and sleepy.

“Probably for good reason!”

“Just don’t- don’t tell Bruce...” and Tim’s asleep again, his hand lax in Danny’s fingers.

“Ancients.” Danny says.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Bruce Wayne is a big guy. Danny stands when he enters Tim’s hospital room, and they see eye-to-eye, but Bruce probably has at least a hundred pounds on him, all thick, corded muscle. There’s the rest of the family out in the bright light of the hallway, but Bruce enters the room with an older man in a smart suit, and everyone else stays on the other side of the door. The butler closes it behind them, and Bruce extends a hand for Danny to shake.

“Thank you.” He says, immediately.

“I’m sorry.” Danny replies.

“Is he awake?”

“Not since they upped his meds.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“So, Amity Park has a ghost problem.” Danny says. “Always has, kinda, but you know, it’s manageable, Phantom-” Phantom should’ve stopped this, but Danny doesn’t know how to say that without Bruce Wayne getting people involved in his town that he doesn’t want there. “Uh, we have a hero, who deals with it, but I guess- I don’t know why they went after Tim. No one’s been abducted for like, a year.”

“It has to do with you.” Bruce says, soft and completely confident.

“Probably.” Danny says, unable to look him in the eye.

“With your parents? Tim says they’re ghost hunters.”

“Maybe.” Danny doesn’t know if he told Tim that, but he also knows it’s about the first thing that comes up when you look up his name. “It- It shouldn’t’ve happened.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t.” But he doesn’t seem to be upset with Danny. There’s a gentle acceptance to it, like it’s not the first time something like this has happened.

Twelve rounds of painkillers. No spleen. The fatty ridge of scars where flesh that hadn’t quite fixed were cut open again.

So it probably isn’t.

“It’s okay, son.” The butler says. “Master Tim was overdue for a hospitalization anyways. He’s very accident prone.”

“This wasn’t an accident.” Danny says. Accident is a car crash, falling down a flight of stairs. Accident is not getting tied up in a pocket dimension in the middle of nowhere, sliced open and stabbed. Accidents happen to everyone. What happened to Tim isn’t something that happens to everyone.

Bruce is looking at the clipboard at the foot of Tim’s bed, hand tucked into a pocket. “You got him here.” he says. “Alive. That’s the most I could hope to ask of you.”

Danny’s hugging his elbows close as Bruce brushes hair away from the face that Danny had tried his best to clean, but he couldn’t get rid of the bruises, the swollen lip, the two black stitches where he’d bitten through his own lip. To keep from screaming, Danny guesses.

“I’ll um- now that you’re here, I guess I’ll-”

“Alfred.”

“Sir.” Danny moves to follow him, assuming that the butler will be driving him home, but he opens the door to the hallway, where there are the other Wayne wards. “Stephanie, take Damian and get Danny some clothes, please, and shoes.” Steph catches the keys that are tossed at her.

“Come on, brat.” She says amicably, putting her arm around the kid from Boston.

“I-”

“We tried calling your parents.” Bruce says. “Three times. Your sister picked up, but she’s all the way in California. You just went through a major traumatic event, you’re refusing treatment-”

“I’m fine.”

“We’re not going to just kick you to the curb.” Bruce finishes. “You’re part of this.”

“I’m not...” Danny’s standing, awkwardly, in the middle space between the bed, the chairs, and the door. “We’ve only been dating a few months.”

Dick takes the door- left open after Alfred gave Steph the keys- as an invitation, looking at Tim’s sleeping form with a click of his tongue, then wrapping Danny up in a hug. He’s an inch or two shorter than Danny, but something about the steady way he grips his arms makes him feel like a little kid.

“Christ, Danny, you’re freezing. Here, come on,” He takes off his coat, a thick, expensive feeling thing, and wraps it around him. “Hol-lee sh*t.”

“Oof.” Duke says, assessing the damage. “Damn.” Dick still has arms around him, and Danny realizes it’s because he’s still gripping the back of the man’s shirt, like a little kid, and it’s probably something like Disneyland’s stupid hug rule.

He steps back. “Uh, I really can- if you guys want privacy-”

“Dude.” Duke says. “Chill out, take a seat. Get some sleep. It’s like midnight.”

“I’m fine.” Danny says.

“That’s like the fourth time you’ve said that just since you called me. For the record, you’re not very believable.”

How does Danny explain that the reason Tim spent so long getting sliced to ribbons was that he was taking a nap, so no, he doesn’t need to go to sleep now.

Dick slumps into the corner of the little couch, looking at his phone. “Uh, do we want McDonalds or Taco Bell? Wait, nevermind, this Chinese place is open till two! Thank you, mob fronts, you never fail to deliver.”

“Danny. Sit. And call your sister back. She’s worried.” Bruce says. He has the even tone of a man who’s used to being obeyed, and Danny doesn’t have the wherewithal to push back against it. He does as he asks, not even reading through Jazz’s frantic texts.

“What. The. Actual. Hell?” Jazz says, slowly.

“I’m fine.” Danny says.

“What about Tim?”

“Stable. Did Sam fill you in?” Someone should probably check on Sam- she’d been the one greeted, apropos of nothing, by Tim gushing blood all over her parlor, and she’d had to deal with it on her own. Danny makes a mental note to call her after he’s done with Jazz.

“Somewhat. Elle called too.”

“sh*t.” Danny says, then sees that Duke’s staring, so he makes a gesture like: it’s all good. “For real?”

“Yeah. You weren’t answering your phone, evidently.”

“I’ll put the ringer on.”

“And you’re good? Why are they saying you’re not accepting treatment? What-”

“I just didn’t want to let them take my vitals. I have all my limbs, all my organs, no serious tissue damage. I’m fine.”

“Oh, the- right.” Jazz says. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Jazz makes a contemplative noise, and Danny knows she’s considering dropping everything to make sure he’s alright, so he follows it up with: “I know. I’ll have Sam check me out when I’m back home. And FB.”

“You’re still at the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I just- You didn’t get into it, did you?”

Danny glances around at the Wayne family. Bruce is speaking quietly with Alfred, pointing to notes on Tim’s chart. Duke and Dick are discussing the merits of different dishes to order from the Chinese place of Dick’s phone, and Cass is looking at him with cold, analytical eyes. “Kinda. I wore the ring.”

“Danny,” Jazz says, being the biggest advocate for him locking the ring, the crown, and thus the throne, in a box, and throwing it into a pit, and never looking for it again.

“I know.”

The line is silent for a second- not really silent, Danny has all of Tim’s monitors beeping on his side, and one of Jazz’s roommates is making dinner, one might be watching TV.

“I love you.” she settles on.

“Love you less.” He replies.

“Don’t forget to eat. And get some sleep. Good night.”

“G’night.”

None of the Waynes ask him anything, so he calls Sam.

“Is he okay?”

“Yes.”

There’s the distinct thump of her falling back onto her bed. “Thank the Ancients.”

“You good? I- it took me a while to stop shaking, even after they told me he was gonna make it through.”

“Sure. I mean, the blood is f*cking terrifying, and like, the thought that he might not make it, but I’ve seen you with half your gut blown off, Danny. I have seen your actual, literal brain. At the end of the day, a big cut is something I can deal with. Although my parents did get pissed, that was an eighteen hundred dollar rug.”

“I’ll come by and help you clean up later.”

“I’m sure they’d rather just hire someone. Your loverboy okay, though?”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Stable. Woke up for a second to tell them they didn’t have him on near enough painkillers, and once they upped his dose, he passed out again.”

“Tim pretty much only sleeps when sedated,” Duke inserts from the settee. “I think this is the longest I’ve ever seen him with his eyes closed.”

“He- I mean... you saw, right?”

“Yeah.” Danny says.

“Okay. What- I mean, you know what Wes said.”

“Yeah, no, I’m not entertaining that.” Danny says. “Look, you’re gonna have to send Jazz confirmation that I’m all in one piece once I get back into town. You know she doesn’t believe me.”

“With good reason.”

“Yeah, whatever. You alright, though?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna go to bed now, actually, now that I know he’s okay. You’re still in Galesburg?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, I think I’m gonna stay the night. The Waynes look like they wanna keep an eye on me, and I’d like to be here when Tim wakes up.”

“I’ll tell the school you had a family emergency.”

“You’re incredible.”

“I know. You never deserved me. Have fun with the uber rich!”

***

Tim doesn’t have an eidetic memory.

He’s perceptive. He’s been through enough trauma, the long term hyper-vigilant kind that left him noticing little details that no one else did, filing them away so that he could pick them out later. But it’s not the photographic kind of memory. It’s words, it’s inferences. He remembers his conclusions more than what led to them, because that’s what really matters.

He wakes up but doesn’t open his eyes, greeted by the familiar sensation of an IV in his arm- oh, both arms. One in each AC and one brachial. The blood pressure cuff was what actually got him from being half-awake all the way, squeezing his arm for a check.

Kidnapped. Tortured. Rescued. His brain provides.

Phantom, the ghost king, touching his face with soft hands and a wealth of deadly anger behind his eyes. Collapsing in front of a townhouse.

Danny Fenton, shirt on backwards, talking derisively about the hero who saved him.

What had he said, exactly? He was mad that Phantom had sent him to the house, instead of a hospital. That he was the reason the crown was- was something.

Great. Got him to a hospital, though, obviously. There’s the pull of stitches on his arm, the numb swell of his lip, the beeping of machines and the smell of antiseptic. There’s all the sensation, but none of the pain, the way it goes with high-quality painkillers.

He had been in pain, he remembers that, now. Gritting through his teeth that he needed way more morphine than they were giving him.

He blinks his eyes open, wanting to rub his eyes clear of crusties, then thinking that really none of his arms are good to move right now.

The room is blue in the early morning light- it’s just before dawn. Bruce’s silhouette is ducked in the doorway, cut against the yellow of the hall, talking low on a phone. Dick, Duke, Cass and Steph are somehow all piled on the settee which was made for two people maximum, Damian curled into a little ball on a chair in the far corner.

And Danny’s still here. He’s in the other chair, cheek in one hand, staring at his phone screen. Someone got him new clothes, but he hasn’t had a shower yet, there’s still some rusty residue in the white streak hanging over his forehead. On the little coffee table, half a chinese buffet has been picked across.

Danny glances up and meets his eyes. “Hey, sweetheart.”

“Hey,” He says, although it’s barely a breath. “What time is it?”

“Six. Ish. Three til, actually.”

Bruce turns at the sound of their voices and nods in acknowledgement. To anyone else it might seem like he’s ambivalent, but Tim knows better. He’s here. They’re all here, they all dropped everything for a standard stab and grab.

“C’mere.” Tim says, so Danny stands up and stows his phone, rolling the little chair over to the shoulder of his bed, so he can be at eye-level with Tim. He reaches up with the arm- there’s gauze on that, and two IVs, but that’s fine- the arm without the blood pressure cuff to pull Danny down by the neck. “Look, I appreciate the commitment to the boyfriend act, but this isn’t a big deal. You didn’t have to stay.”

“They wanted to keep an eye on me.” Danny said. “Shock, you know.”

“Right.” Tim relaxes his grip, his fingers still a little numb.

“Did they say anything to you? Nightbane, and the prisoner? About why they took you.”

“Shoved a video camera in my face. Then there was a ton of definitely sexually charged torture. Like, if Phantom hadn’t shown up, I’m certain he’d’ve tried to f*ck my stab wound.”

Danny scowls, and the railing of the bed creaks between his fingers, then cracks. The plastic’s broken. They both stare at it for a second- Bruce too, from the doorway, before Danny tucks his hand away.

“I’m sorry. You never should’ve been a part of this.”

“Part of what?”

“The sh*t that goes down in Amity Park.”

“I’ve lived in Gotham for seventeen years. This isn’t a big deal.”

“But it is.”

Tim shifts his hand so that he’s cupping Danny’s cheek, under the barest pretense that Bruce is half watching from the doorway, and Danny doesn’t know that he knows. Mostly because his hand is right there. “Stop.”

He inclines his head into his palm, just a smidge. His face is cold, like he’s just been outside in the wind, but his nose and cheeks aren’t pink at all. “It won’t happen again.”

“Stop.” Tim says again. “And this wasn’t Phantom’s fault, either. He saved me.” Tim doesn’t like the way the words taste in his mouth, although they’re true. “Don’t cause problems for him on my account.”

“Who says I could?”

“Your last name is Fenton.”

Danny’s eyebrows lift, slightly. “Right.” Then he straightens, and Tim lets his hand fall back onto the bed. “Excuse me.” The wheels of the chair make a soft, plasticky rattle as he pushes himself to standing, rushing out past Bruce and dropping the shattered plastic pieces of the bed handle in the trashcan on his way.

“That was something,” Bruce says, stowing his phone.

“Don’t start,” Tim says, letting his head rest back and his eyes close.

“How do you feel?”

“High.” He pauses to collect his thoughts, then says: “Why did you let him stay?”

“Because he’s still seventeen for another week, and his parents didn’t pick up when I called. His sister lives in California. Who was I supposed to hand him over to?”

Tim realizes he has no clue how far the ambulance took them from Amity Park, that Danny hadn’t let go of his hand till he got replaced by a team of doctors, so he must’ve ridden with him, and didn’t have access to a car.

“It kind of reminds me of you. Do you remember when you broke your wrist?”

Tim had been 13 and too confident for his own good, and Bruce had been sufficiently convinced of his competence, enough to pull a maneuver between buildings that Dick and Jason each wouldn’t’ve struggled with, but Tim didn’t have the body awareness for, yet.

“I was terrified to call your parents from the ER. And you kept telling me not to bother. I thought it was because you didn’t want them to find out- but I didn’t know how you could hide the cast.

“I had some lie, about you falling off your bike, and me finding you. But they never picked up.”

Tim remembers the hot pain, the way his fingers were puffy and stiff, and the fact that he was keeping himself from crying in front of Bruce by tangling his good hand into the ER blanket so tightly it was cutting off the circulation to some of his fingers.

“They didn’t notice the cast.” Tim says. “I didn’t even have to hide it.”

“I can get him a ride if you don’t want him here.”

“If you can find him. I think I scared him off.”

“Who were you talking about- who saved you?”

“Hm. Phantom.” Tim muses, then rambles through what he could remember of the incident, his encounter with the Ghost King a few months ago with Constantine.

“Hn.” Bruce comments, simply. “I think we’ll stay here for a while. Doctors say you’re not cleared to fly for another few days, and twelve hours on the road won’t feel good.”

“Who’s staying in the city?”

“I’ll send everyone else back. And Jason.”

“They’re f*cked. I’m not helping you pull sh*t together next week when he blows up... whatever it is he wants to blow up but can’t because you’re here.”

“It’ll be fine. I’m looking into this. And you’ll still be on bedrest in a week.”

“It’s my case.”

“I’m helping.” Bruce says, lowly, in the tone that tells Tim there isn’t any room for argument.

“Okay.” Tim says, on too many drugs to care.

Danny comes back an hour later, which Tim wouldn’t’ve put money on if you’d asked him, with one of those big boxes of Einstein bros bagels hooked in two fingers, and a precarious tower of coffee cups in the other. He opens his eyes a sliver at the sound of the styrofoam squeaking against itself, while Danny moves the food from last night to make room for breakfast.

There’s a cruel comment somewhere on his tongue about Danny being able to afford it, but he can’t word it. Instead, he grumbles while Danny opens a 16 oz can of something with a horrific caffeine content:

“Did you get me one?”

“No oral intake.” Danny says, not looking at him.

“Well, then can you get them to put some caffeine in my IV?”

“That’s a sh*tty idea.” He says, his voice a little raw, like the time away wasn’t enough to soothe his anger. “Even if you’re just joking.”

“He’s not,” Dick says, halfway awake, reaching out through the dog-pile of Tim’s siblings to grab a coffee. “You’re a miracle, Danny, how much do we owe you?”

Tim can hear the tension in the silence, even though his eyes have drifted back closed, before Danny says- “Uh, like, five each should cover it-”

“I’ll just venmo you fifty, does that work?”

“Uh, that’s-” Danny says, hesitantly. Dick reads him wrong and says:

“No, you’re right, I’ll send seventy-five.”

“Oh.”

There’s some grumbling at being woken, which is slightly offset by the smell of dark roast, and when Danny says he got hot chocolate for Damian, Tim thinks briefly that Danny will be joining him with a stab wound. Dick calms the brat down before it escalates. Someone turns on the light.

“Where’s B?” Steph asks, muffled by a bagel.

“Talking to the cops, and press.” Danny provides. “I passed them in the lobby.”

“Yeah, like we’re pressing charges against a Ghost.” Duke says.

“The litigation is complicated and the extradition is tedious,” Danny replies.

“Best just leave Phantom to deal with it.” Tim says, his words still slurring. It’s a jab at Danny, and he opens his eyes to see his reaction, but Steph and Dick block his line of sight to fuss over him, finally being awake.

“The thing should’ve finished the job.” Damian says.

“Damian!” Dick scolds.

“Don’t pretend like you weren’t worried.” Tim says. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Father made me.”

“B can’t make you do sh*t. You feel guilty because the only reason I was out of the manor was because I was dropping you off at school.”

Damian huffs.

“If-” Danny says, and pauses while people look at him. “If we’re all sure Tim’s gonna be okay, and that I’m not gonna have a mental breakdown, would one of you mind driving me back to Amity Park? Not Duke, no offense, but whether or not you’ve gotten your license since I last saw you, I don’t think going to Amity would be real comfortable for you.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Steph asks, grinning.

“No,” Danny and Tim reply, at the same time.

“I’ll take you,” Dick offers, giving Tim’s shoulder a squeeze. “Damian, come on.”

“But-”

“Nope. You’re coming.”

“Fine.” Damian spits.

“What’s the matter?” Stephanie asks, when the three of them have closed the door behind them.

“Nothing.” Tim says.

“Never have I pretended to understand the complex notions of your psyche,” she begins, although Tim would wager that she’s the only one who would ever come close. “But by God, what have you done to that poor boy?”

“Who’s to say I was the one to do anything?” Tim asks.

“Because it’s always you, Tim.” She says, exasperated. “He’s a perfectly decent guy, who you’re taking total advantage of, and he doesn’t deserve you poking at his wounds, the way you have a tendency to do.”

“I do not-” Tim protests immediately.

“You sort of do.” Duke says. “You’re like a caged animal, emotionally.”

“f*ck off.”

“Point,” Duke says, easily.

“He didn’t do anything wrong. He saved your life.”

Tim thinks that there are people who’ve saved his life who he wouldn’t trust with it, and Danny was one of those people, bed sharing and drunken secrets aside.

He lets his head fall back on the plasticky pillow to meet Cass’s gaze, to vy for support, or to entice her to get them off of them, but she just shrugs, her arms crossed.

“I want to go back to sleep.” He says, and because of all the sedatives, doing it’s just as easy as saying it.

***

“Sorry,” Dick says, for the fifth time on Tim’s behalf. They’re ten minutes on their way from Galesburg to Amity Park, out of the half hour long journey. It had gone by much faster in the ambulance, probably due to the lights and the sirens and the everyone moving out of the way, as well as the shock. Now, obeying the speed limit and the odd clusters of morning traffic, Danny realizes how far they’d had to go to save Tim’s life, and it doesn’t settle well in his gut. “He’s just a bitch when he’s stressed. And he’s always stressed, so he’s always somewhat of a bitch, but regular Tim stressed and getting stabbed stress are like, two totally different orders of magnitude.”

“It’s fine.” Danny says, again, like he has every time Dick’s gone through this tangent. “I knew what I was signing up for.”

“You knew when you agreed to date him that he might get stabbed?” Damian asks, from the backseat. “Tt. What has Drake told you?”

Danny’s eyes slide across the boy’s face in the rearview mirror. He has an odd accent, which is closer to British than it is American, but with an odd sort of musicality that Danny doesn’t associate with English speakers at all. The boy glares right back, eyes sharp and unabashed beneath thick lashes.

“I knew he could be a bit of an asshole,” Danny replies. “Does he get stabbed regularly?” He thinks he must.

Damian co*cks one eyebrow, and his intense gaze flicks to Dick, who’s watching the interaction and the road in quick turns.

“He’s been kidnapped before.” The man says carefully, tapping his phone mounted in the rental car’s vent to check the exit. “Once or twice.”

“Ah.” Danny says. “Figure I would hear about that, wouldn’t I? Teenage CEO kidnapped, or Wayne Enterprises Posts bail, or whatever?”

“You wouldn’t.” Damian says. “Drake doesn’t like people knowing about his weaknesses.”

Danny knows this. He’s not sure how being kidnapped translates to a personal failing on Tim’s part, but he’s sure that’s how the other boy perceives it.

“B usually deals with it before the Cops or Press figure out about it.” Dick says. “We deal with it in family.”

“They know about this, though,” He says, thinking about Bruce, wearing the same collared shirt he’d arrived and slept in, declining calls and waving Channel 7 cameras out of his face.

“Because you called an ambulance,” Dick says. “Not that- not that you did anything wrong, Danny, swear to god, thank you so much, but that does go and make it a matter of public record.”

“Isn’t there HIPAA or whatever? That should- I mean, that means something, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Dick says slowly. “But that could make it worse. People know he’s in a hospital in Illinois, and that he got rushed there from yours, but not that he, you know, got stabbed. They can and will draw whatever conclusions they want. Have you had media training?”

“For what?” Danny asks, folding his arms, and wanting to sink into the dark leather seats.

“Talking to, you know, cameras and stuff about stuff? People might be hounding you. Actually, that’s probably a good portion if the reason B insisted you stay. We didn’t ask him if you could leave. Hmm.”

“I’m not stupid. I’m not gonna talk to cameras about Tim.”

“Isn’t that all your relationship is for, anyways?” Damian asks, and Danny freezes, catching his gaze again.

“What gives you that impression?” He asks, at the same time Dick says: “Damian,” very pointedly. He rolls his eyes and perches his chin on his hand, looking out the window.

“I’m not telling them that he got stabbed. Or kidnapped. Or anything. In fact, I will just be glaring at them until they go away, because it’s not their business, and there’s a reason we have medical privacy laws.”

A muscle in Dick’s jaw twitches. “If you’re too defensive, they’ll stick on it. If you’re too angry, they’ll wheedle at you until you get so angry ,you say something you didn’t mean to. And, if you say that sh*t about medical privacy, they’ll quote you.”

“So say no comment?” Danny asks.

“And say it politely, as close as you can get to a monotone, and refrain from flipping them off.”

Danny breathes out, and says: “No comment.”

“Good.”

“Is this media training?”

“It’s a crash course.” Dick says. “It’ll be pretty useless if you ever have to do an actual presser, but I doubt Tim will put you through that.”

Tim looked him in the eyes and reminded him his last name was Fenton, so Danny thinks that his concern for what he may or may not like is close to nil.

“Wouldn’t he?” Damian asks. “Drake is fairly mercantile about people when he has an end goal.”

“You’re one to talk,” Dick replies, but it sounds fond. “Anyways, Danny, you did nothing wrong, we’re on your side, as you’re on Tim’s side and we really, really do appreciate it.”

“Thanks.” He says, and yawns. Wes and Val are both blowing up his phone with texts, because they both got Sam’s bullsh*t family emergency crap. She must’ve told Tuck, because he’s staying out of it. He grimaces, reading through what emergency could happen to his immediate relatives that would justify him skipping school, then texts: *boyfriend emergency and mutes the ghoulie gang chat.

“You’re really fine?” Dick asks, the rental car idling in front of his family’s house. His eyes keep darting up to the command center, because of course they do, but he seems determined to keep from commenting on it.

“If I wasn’t, don’t you think it would’ve been apparent in the twelve hours I just spent at a hospital?”

“No, because you wouldn’t let them check you out.”

Danny waves this away. Inconsequential. “I am fine. Thanks for the ride.”

“It’s nothing. Danny?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you for keeping my little brother alive.”

Danny considers saying: ‘It’s nothing,’ But he doesn’t think that would go over well. So he just shrugs. “Of course.”

“And do you need me to explain to your parents about what went down? I mean, I know I’m not Bruce, and he did leave them several messages, but you know, I am an adult, so.”

“No, just go back.” Danny insists. “I doubt they even noticed.”

“Oh, they’re just perf-” Damian is saying, when Danny shuts the passenger door, fist twisting in the white plastic of the patient belongings bag that Steph gave him, along with the new clothes. He has no clue where she found a place to buy clothes open at midnight on a Tuesday, but they’re nice. They actually fit him.

He should probably run a load of laundry, before the blood sets, although it might’ve already. He might just chuck them. For the time being, he just keeps them in the bag, reaching down to look at the pile of mail on their welcome mat. About twenty bills, two things from the IRS, and some junk mail from debt relief programs. He adds them to the dining room table, which looks much more like a graveyard of adult bullsh*t that Jazz can’t deal with, and that his parents won’t, and that he refuses to. It hasn’t been used to hold a meal in a very long time.

He’s not hungry, though. Probably he should’ve brought back one of the takeaway containers- he could probably stretch that another day or two if he needed- but he doesn’t know how he could’ve asked without the Waynes figuring out that he needs it.

Oh, and he’s got an extra forty some-odd dollars in his venmo because of Dick.

He’s too lazy to do the laundry, just ties the plastic bag and chucks it near the washer, kicking the slides that Steph bought after them, and floating up to his room.

Wes and Val are arguing what constitutes a missing school kind of emergency from a relationship that’s only been around for two months. Jazz is ‘just checking in’. Danny sends her a thumbs up. Tim texts him that he’s sorry.

Who’s ragging on you to make you apologize?

What, I can’t say sorry of my own volition?

..

well

f*ck you.

It was Dick.

Right. I figured.

Anyways I’m sorry I got all huffy. You’re the one who got stabbed.

How’re you feeling, by the way? Considering all the stabby-ness?

Bad

Right.

Right.

I’m sleeping as much as possible to try and clip through recovery.

That’s a way to think about it.

It’s the correct way to think about it.

This has been Tim’s five minutes of consciousness, thank you for coming, sorry I was a dick.

Danny grins, a little in spite of himself.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

“Do I have to take these? And do you really have to wheel me out of here? I can walk. B. B. Bruce. I can walk.” Tim says, turning the orange bottle around and listening to the pills rattle inside.

“It’s hospital policy, dear,” Says Janice, the nurse coordinating his discharge. “No walking until you’re out of the door.”

“So I have to pay for new stitches if I get up and rip them.”

“That’s right,” She says, with a saccharine smile. “Dad, you have the packet about re-upping his dressings, all the aftercare?”

Tim twists to watch Bruce’s jaw twitch as he nods, although Tim’s not sure if it’s about him being called ‘dad’, or the presumption that he’s not already intimately familiar with aftercare for stitches and stab wounds.

And minor concussions, he tacks on, although minor head injuries like that rarely register to him anymore.

“Great,” Janice says. “Now, Tim, I know you’re a very active young man-”

“Stay in the bed, don’t think just because I’m not in pain that nothing is wrong. Watch TV and eat ice cream, and don’t lie about my pain scale.”

“Yeah, I know. Your records say you’ve been around the block.”

Tim should probably figure out what all is in those. His impromptu splenectomy isn’t. There’s at least one gunshot wound that isn’t, a litany of cuts and sprains and yes, minor TBIs. Some broken ribs, probably, maybe even some facial fractures.

“Yeah, so- I know. Can we just get me out of here?” Even though he doesn’t even get to go home, he gets to go to some embassy suite three-fourths of the way to Amity Park. Bruce wanted to book a hotel in Danny’s town proper, but Tim vetoed that on principle of not wanting to deal with more ghost sh*t before he’s able to walk more than to just go to the bathroom.

“Yes. We can.”

Despite his complaints, Tim’s legs are a little unsteady beneath him when they leave the wheelchair. He did some walking under PT supervision, stubbornly refusing to hold onto his saline rack despite Fit Fred (as he introduced himself) telling him that it would be okay to.

The sidewalk’s been salted, and the rock salt bleeds rust-red across the pavement and crunches under Tim’s shoes. Dick had corralled everyone back to the airport for Gotham after driving Danny back and left Bruce to deal with Tim for the next few days they kept him under observation. Bruce is not naturally caring and Tim isn’t amenable to being cared for, so it was an acceptable outcome. He walks a few steps ahead of Tim, so if he falls he can catch himself on his coat. They both know that’s why, but it feels like he’s being left to stumble along like a baby penguin.

He hates being on pain meds. He’d chuck the Oxycodone in the nearest bin if it weren’t a controlled substance. He'll take the agony if it means being aware of what’s wrong with him. He can barely feel his feet. He wants to feel like can to turn on a dime and run.

“This is it.” Bruce says, unlocking a rental car.

“I hate being on R and R.” Tim says.

“Noted. I don’t care.”

“Noted.” Tim says, easing into the front seat. “Can I have my laptop?”

“You can have your phone and the TV remote.”

“iPad?”

“So long as you don’t have the keyboard. I don’t want you doing work.”

“You want me to suffer. I get it. If I can’t go on patrol, I should be able to do deskwork.”

Bruce looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “No.”

“You hate me.”

“I care about you deeply. Rest is an essential part of your recovery. You will not rest if I give you access to a keyboard. You dislike typing on a touch screen enough that you won’t circumvent your moratorium on cases.”

Tim glares at him. It’s Bruce, so it’s not effective, but it’s half habit and all he can do. “Fine.”

“That’s right.”

The car is a Benz, it’s new, and it drives smooth and quiet through the bare, wet, Illinois countryside. Tim’s face fogs up the window where his cheek is pressed against it. Bruce doesn’t talk, and Tim doesn’t expect him to. He can’t exactly rake Tim over the coals for getting teleported against his will. It’s one of those situations where ‘always be prepared’ kind of falls apart, because it’s not something you anticipate.

Though they do have protocols for alien abductions.

Maybe he should’ve been prepared.

The nicest hotel in the area is a Hilton, but Tim had run through aftershocks of scarecrow gas in a motel 6 one time, so he figures it could be worse. Bruce checks them in, then watches as Tim takes his next dose of painkillers, and does a f*cking mouth check.

“Tongue.”

“I’m not cheeking my meds.”

“Tim.”

“Aaah. Satisfied?”

“Marginally. I’m staying for fifteen minutes to make sure you don’t regurgitate them.”

Tim lies back on the bed and closes his eyes. “You’re fussing.”

“It’s my job.”

“This is why I made up an uncle.”

“This is why Dick wouldn’t let you continue to utilize said made up uncle. You’re my ward, it’s my job.”

Tim rolls his eyes while Bruce sweeps the room for bugs, checks their vantage, and sets up his laptop. Tim keens, reaching for it.

“No work.”

“You’re working.”

“I haven’t been stabbed.” He checks his watch. “Twelve minutes, then I’ll go to the CVS and get fresh dressings and... food.”

“B, no offense, but when’s the last time you went grocery shopping without one of us?” Bruce, wisely, remains silent. “Right. Yeah. Why do I have the feeling you’re just gonna get a bunch of whey protein and eggs and expect me to subsist on that?”

“Text me a list.”

“I’m texting Gotham Daily to let them know that you’re a mess of a human being.”

“They already know.”

Tim rolls his eyes, typing out a list for B. There's three different flavors of pringles on it- he doesn’t like pringles, but he’s been craving the paper-mache texture ever since he woke up from the anesthesia. Specifically the barbeque ones.

“No soda.” Bruce says.

“But-”

“No.”

“Ginger ale?”

“Pedialyte.”

“f*ck you.” Tim says, but adds pedialyte- strawberry- to the list. “Ice cream sandwiches up to your impossible standards?”

“Yes, but only one box. We’re limited by the minifridge.”

Tim points at him. “Acceptable.”

“I should hope so.” Tim sends out the list. “Four flavors of pringles?”

Tim had added sour cream and onion.

“I got stabbed.” Tim whines. “I got stabbed and I want pringles.”

“Hn.” Bruce says.

***

Danny has banished twelve entities for their involvement in Tim’s kidnapping. All of them pointed to Nightbane as the arbiter of the matter, but Danny has some scruples about it.

“Well, they heard you talking with him on the phone.” Sam says. “That’s-”

“That’s how they tracked him down? Please.” Danny says, halfway through the specter speeder wall. “I don’t buy it. Some of them have halfway decent venues to hop into the mortal realm apart from our portal, but none are competent enough to actually track him down.”

“I got kidnapped when we were dating.” Sam says.

“You live in Amity park. We’d kissed in the zone.” Danny says.

“Nine out of ten entities know you’re actually Danny Fenton.” Tuck reminds, and Danny sails the rest of the way into the speeder. “And you, kissing your boyfriend, was published as front page news in the paper after new years.”

“But tracking him down? He was in front of an alley in New f*cking Jersey. Something opened a portal to him. None of them had that kind of power.”

“Maybe we just haven’t found them all,” Elle says, her feet up on Danny’s seat, using a switchblade to pick stuff out from between her teeth.

“We would’ve known about them years ago. There’s me, there’s Wulf, who’s on my side, and will not leave it, and there’s Cujo, who’s my dog-”

“My dog.” Elle argues, and Cujo places his head on her lap with massive puppy dog eyes, so he’s taking her side.

“Traitor.” Danny says, pointing at him. “He was my dog first, and I’m pretty sure Elle didn’t help them, so what gives?”

“Vlad.” Sam posits.

“Doesn’t have access to that kind of portal tech.”

“To our knowledge.”

Danny scowls. It would be convenient for it to just be Vlad- he’s taking advantage of Danny’s compromised position given Maitzik to hack away at his rule, and by having them kidnap a mortal, something which Danny has to address immediately and decisively, a higher priority issue that reads as personal to him, it’s would make it easier for him to convert fringe groups that were undecided about his rule against him.

But if Vlad had the power to open portals anywhere, Danny would be having bigger problems than Tim getting stabbed.

Right?

“Danno? Da-knee. Da-king. Hey.” Tuck says, snapping in front of his face. “Care to share with the class?”

“It better not be f*cking Vlad.”

“Noted. And if it is?”

Danny sucks on his teeth, sitting down on Elle’s feet. “It better not be.”

“Great. This was productive.” Sam says, angling the specter speeder back to the portal.

“You have a black eye.” Elle says, clicking her knife closed and tucking it into her sleeve. Danny, human again, glares at her.

“I got punched.”

“Yeah, I filmed it.” She waves her phone in front of his face, so he can’t actually see it. “You went down for like two seconds.”

“I wasn’t expecting it to split.”

“You weren’t paying attention. You’re too worried about your boyfriend.” She mocks, drawing out the last word.

“I’m not. I’m- Tim is fine. Tim has been fine.” Danny’s had to be invisible to leave his house for the last five days or so, because there have been reporters clawing for a statement. Practiced ‘no comments’ are fine, but Danny prefers not having to do it at all. A particularly vicious investigative one tracked him and the gang down while they were grabbing lunch at the nasty burger, and Sam and Wes each had to take a wrist to forcibly keep him from flipping her off. But Tim has been fine. Got discharged yesterday. Dodging the media circus by virtue of dark shades and tinted windows.

“Are you finally going to go visit him? Can we come too?” Tuck asks.

“He doesn’t want me showing up at his hotel.”

“Then why did he send you the hotel address? And his room number?”

Danny pads the swollen bag beneath his eye and glares at Sam. “Bruce sent it, in case he’s busy and needs someone to check in on him.”

“I can’t believe you refer to Bruce Wayne as ‘Bruce’.” Tuck states.

“Well, that’s what everyone else calls him.” Everyone else being his kids. “Or just ‘B’, but I do think that would be too informal.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy it.” Elle says. “What business could he possibly have to do in bumf*ck nowhere Illinois? I bet Tim made him. He probably wanted you to show up with flowers, and balloons, and-”

“I went to the hospital with him.” Danny says. “He doesn’t need a f*cking get well soon card from me.”

“He got stabbed because of you.” Elle reminds. “It’d be a nice gesture.”

“I don’t have nice gesture money.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Is he coming to your birthday?”

“Given that he will still be bedbound, and I don’t want to subject him to you guys... ever? No.”

“He’ll probably be able to transfer to a couch, play Jackbox and eat pizza.”

“Ah. See, my birthday is not a high society soiree where we have to look competent and beautiful and imposing. It is, as you’ve described, a hangout with supermarket cake and an annoying amount of singing, and thus is not included in the contract.”

“Neither is sharing a f*cking bed.” Sam states.

“Wow. Die.”

“Neither is nursing him back to health. Cradling him in your arms, as he slips from consciousness,” Tuck yelps as Danny kicks the back of his chair.

“The stab wound was actually terrifying. Human beings bleed so much.” Sam says.

“But was it romantic, though?” Elle asks.

“He held his hand. He whispered in his ear.”

“I hate you all, I’m flying back to the portal, and if my parents are using the lab, you’re pulling the speeder in fully visible. Is that what you want?”

“Like they’d even notice.”

“Touche. You all suck.”

“Danny has a crush!” Elle mocks, in sing-song.

“I could order you to shut up,” He says, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing his eyes.

“Yeah, but you won’t.”

“You’re such a brat.”

“I was made from your DNA. This is all you, big bro.”

“I will not take responsibility for your horrific personality.”

“You love me.”

“I’m morally obligated to. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t take effort.” Elle flips him off, so Danny flips her off right back.

Everyone disperses from the lab, because it’s one in the morning and it’s a school night. Danny locks the front door, activates the ghost shield, and checks on ectometric readings throughout the city to make sure there aren’t any fires he has to put out.

Wes texts the group chat to complain about their physics homework, which Danny had forgotten about, so he drags out his textbook and replies:

Evens or odds?

Prophet (derogatory): Dude you have to write things down. you. you have to start writing things down.

Prophet (derogatory): 14-32, evens, and 43-61, odds, but also 56.

Samanson: wow imagine taking ap physics. Nerds. Also didn’t you get that assignment before the weekend?

Prophet (derogatory): irrelevant

He puts on his headphones and gets going on the problems. He doesn’t like physics- honestly, he doesn’t even really like math, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that going to space requires a lot of both. So, much to Jazz’s pride, Danny is actually spending his senior year with a roster of three AP classes- Calc, Lit, and Physics. Danny, realistically, knows he’s not going to get into a space flight program. College, even, honestly, is debatable, but it’s been his dream for so long that until he can figure something else out, he’ll stick with telling his guidance counselor it’s what he wants, and the steps she outlines for it.

He works through the problem set without much regard to whether or not it’s actually right- their teacher gives them a base 75% for just finishing all of them if they show their work. Danny takes a regular amount of advantage of this. It’s probably the only reason he’s passing the class.

He’s almost done when an explosion shakes the building.

His planet mobile he made in eighth grade crashes down onto his bed and Venus cracks, scattering old paper-mache across his bedspread.

“For f*cks sake.” Danny says, pulling his headphones off. “It’s- it’s two in the morning, is nothing sacred?” But he half runs through the dark halls down to the lab. “Are you okay? Mom? Dad?”

“Danny? We’re alright, did we wake you?” His mom asks, peeling her goggles off. She looks alright, although her face is blackened from the explosion. His dad is under one of the metal shelving units.

One of the cross pipes has fallen from the ceiling, and there's new scorch marks on the floors and walls. “Ancients, do you know what time it is? What were you doing?”

“Oh, I- hm.”

Danny crosses the lab to help push the shelves off his father, and one of the solutions drips onto his forearm, boiling the skin up almost immediately. “Dad, get out, I have to wash this.” He crawls out as more beakers drip onto the cement floor. Danny could push the shelf all the way back up, and his parents probably wouldn’t think anything of it, but whatever acid is in that beaker is still dripping onto his arm, and the burning feeling is spreading, so as soon as his dad is clear, he lets it drop to the ground.

Nine times out of ten, best practice for any sort of chemical burn is to flush with water, so Danny runs the sink over it and resists the urge to say ‘What the f*ck?’ Instead, he opts for: “Are you sure you aren’t hurt? I don’t want to go to the hospital again this week.”

“Again?” His mom asks, peeling her hood back. “What were you at the hospital for, sweetie? Was it- was Jazz- no. She’s in, um, in...” she trails off. “Jack?”

“Oh, Jazzy girl? College.”

“Yes, but where, my love?”

Danny’s glad that whatever expressions he’s making can be excused by the sharp, hot needles of pain that the tap water is causing his burn. Jazz didn’t tell them what university she went to, although she had mentioned the state. She would have been alright if she had, of course. They wouldn’t care to remember it.

“It wasn’t Jazz.” He says.

“Were you in the hospital?” His mom asks, moving forward to hold his face in her hands, twisting him back and forth “Are you okay? What happened?” She clicks her tongue, brushing her fingers across the bruising around his eye. “Oh, baby, did you get in a fight again?”

“I’m fine, mom.” He mutters, unable to pull away adequately and keep his arm under the tap. It’s a good reminder that his parents do actually care about him, they just have the object permanence of toddlers, and without Jazz to constantly shake the shiny rattle of their actual children whose wellbeing they should be concerned about, they just don’t think to look up from their experiments. “What blew up?”

“A new ectoplasm destabilizing agent. We got the idea from that Phantom-mini.” His dad says.

“The clone?” Danny says, hoping the stress in his voice can be passed off as pain from the burn.

“Yeah, her. Anyways, we figure if we can separate the bonds causing neutral ecto-energy to form into ghosts, then we’d be able to use it as a serum to completely eradicate the species. But I think we made it too volatile. There’s a lot of semi-bonded ectoplasmic residue in the molecules of the lab given that the portal’s been open for around four years.” His mom explains, with an excited lilt to her voice.

“Really.” Danny says flatly. “That’s...”

“Exciting, right, boy?”

“Very.” Danny agrees. The burning has subsided so Danny moves his arm, but as soon as it hits air, it hurts again, so he puts it back.

“Well, nobody’s hurt,” His dad states loudly, even though Danny’s arm is mottled red and white, and the pressure of the faucet has caused some of the skin to peel away, so he’s bleeding into the sink, “so I think this calls for some post-breakthrough doughnuts!”

“It’s two thirty in the morning, nothing’s open.” Danny grits out. “And this isn’t a breakthrough, you nearly blew up the house.”

“Data is data!” His mom chirps. “And the seven-eleven is open.”

Danny rolls his lower lip beneath his teeth and thinks about how nice it would feel to eat powdered doughnuts with his parents in the wreck they’ve made of the lab, and they’d ask him how school was going and pretend to be concerned, and they’d skirt around the fact that Jazz left. They’d feel like a family for a few hours until Danny was too tired to stand. But then it would be the next morning, and everything would be back to the way it was, but it would just hurt more.

“Go ahead and get your doughnuts. I have homework to finish.” Danny says, pulling his arm out despite the fact that it hasn’t been near fifteen minutes and it still burns.

“Teenagers,” his dad scoffs. Then, to his mom, says: “He never even helps out in the lab anymore.”

Danny rolls his eyes in the stairwell where they can’t see, keeping a tight grip on his wrist below the burn, because he can feel it starting to swell. He pulls his first aid kit out of his desk and flushes it again with saline, pats it dry- it’s deep, and the skin is gummy- white and bubbling up where blisters haven’t popped.

He covers it with a layer of vaseline before dressing it.

Danny hates getting hurt as a human. It takes much longer to heal. Things like the black eyes, the occasional broken rib that he gets when he doesn’t have the time or presence of mind to go intangible before taking a hit, they go quicker, because they’re tied to his power as a ghost. The burn will be around for a few weeks, depending on the depth.

There’s three problems left. Danny winces, holding the pencil with his injured arm, because he does want it to be at least half legible, and tries to shake the feeling that he’s being watched.

Maybe he should check the ecto-radar again. If a spirit wants a good romp, which Danny allows as enrichment for all parties, they know to do it between the hours of six and midnight. Otherwise he’s far less forgiving. But it’s not- Danny pounds some figures into his calculator- it’s not his ghost sense.

The shadows move on the roof of their neighboring building, the one Danny has a view of from his window.

He turns off his lamp to stop the glare, and it takes a second for his eyes to adjust. There’s no way it’s Val- she’d just text him. And if it’s Vlad-

Well, Danny doesn’t feel particularly gracious tonight.

But it’s not. It’s a figure in pure black ink, which blends in so well with the shadows that it nearly disappears. It moves fluidly, but still grounded. Alive. When it moves up so that Danny can see its silhouette in the grayish night sky, he finally recognizes it.

Danny pushes open his window and leans his torso out before he can think better of it. “Hey! The f*ck are you doing here, asshole?”

The Batman pauses, then stalks towards him, smoothly. “I heard an explosion, I tracked it down to this block. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I mean, the f*ck are you doing here.” Danny says, gesturing around. “In Illinois.”

“None of your concern.”

Danny bites his tongue- it is his concern, it’s his f*cking town, “Nothing’s on fire, no one’s hurt, and no one f*cking wants you here.”

The Batman does not seem to find that worth replying to.

“We already have a hero.” Danny says.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Go back to Gotham!” He shouts, and slams the window shut. The Batman doesn’t move, so Danny yanks his curtain shut and glares at the faded fabric. He should probably deal with this as Phantom, but his arm hurts, and he’s tired, and compared to Gotham, Amity Park has got to be boring without ghosts to fight. “Asshole.”

***

“Your boyfriend hates me.” Bruce says.

“Excuse me?” Tim asks groggily, moving to shift himself up and aborting the movement halfway because there’s sharp, hot, immediate pain.

“Your ill-advised romantic ruse. Hates me.”

“He’s met you once. And, while I was heavily drugged and unconscious for the majority of that interaction, I’m fairly sure it didn’t go that poorly.”

“He doesn’t hate Bruce.”

“Why in f*ck would you go talk to my fake boyfriend as Batman?”

“I didn’t. He yelled at me, unprompted, out of a window.”

“Were you creeping?”

“I don’t creep.”

“You dress in all black and stare at people from rooftops. That’s like, definition creeping.” Tim says, lifting up the blanket so that cool air can enter. “You find anything?”

“It’s a very average town. Apart from the ghosts.”

“You saw some?”

“No, but the evidence of them is everywhere. The town is structured around the regular invasion of another realm. It’s interesting.”

Tim lets the blanket drop, then lifts it again. “Hm. I’d like to check it out.”

“Lucky for you, once you get better, you have an excuse.”

Tim flips him off. “No.”

“Did you take your meds?”

“I-” Tim scrounges for his phone. “I took some ibuprofen last time I woke up, watched house hunters till it kicked in enough that I could sleep.” He’s half awake and uncomfortably warm the way that naps leave him, disoriented, and barely aware of the day of the week. Bruce tosses him his prescription, and Tim moves to catch it automatically. He regrets not letting it hit his face almost immediately.

“Now.”

“I don’t want them. I need to wean.”

“The weaning is built into your prescriptions. It’s how it works.”

“When’s the last time you took a full course of opiates?”

“When have I ever pretended to be a good example?”

The pain is hot, radiating throughout his gut and all along his side. The OTC is enough to take the edge off so he can sleep, but by the time it’s half worn off, it’s been bad enough to wake him up. “Fine. I- Fine.”

“How are your dressings?”

“Fine.”

“You do your PT?”

“I walked to the bathroom. Twice.”

“Hn.” He takes the hospital water cup off Tim’s bedside table to refill it. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yes.” Tim lies.

“Okay. Two more days and then we’ll relocate to Gotham.”

“Can’t we go now?”

“Can you stand up?”

Tim swallows his dose and glares. “Yes.”

“Tim. Are you lying to me?”

“I’m gonna go back to sleep.”

“Sure.” Tim listens to him unfold his laptop and settle.

“Need to email Rockefeller-”

“Rest.” Bruce says. “I’ve got it.”

“Make sure to send it through Babs so that she can de-bruce-ify it.”

“I can forge an e-mail, son.”

“No, you’ve gotta promise. f*ck, you’re stressing me out, I’m turning on HGTV. Or you can stop typing.”

“Hn.” Bruce says, and does not stop typing, so Tim finds the remote to turn the TV on, then pulls the sheets over his head. It’s hot and humid, and it smells like sweat. He should probably move to the other side of the bed.

“Don’t touch the channel, and wake me up when we’re ready to drive to the airport.”

“You should drink some water. I think you’re dehydrated.”

Tim grumbles and slowly sneaks his arm out to grab his water, because he’s got a point. His tendency has been to swallow his pills dry, and he hasn’t been drinking a lot otherwise because he has to push himself up to do so. And the more he drinks, the more he has to get up to use the bathroom. He’d rather sleep. When he’s not on R&R, he sleeps five hours for every thirty hour period, and when he gets a hard hit, it all catches up. The last time he got a concussion, he slept for almost forty hours. Dick brought him in for an MRI, and the doctors said he was ‘just wildly sleep deprived’.

He ends up drinking the entire cup in less than a minute, and he places it back on the table. He hears Bruce stand up to refill it over the TV, so he drinks that, too, just slower, and when he only drinks half of the third, Bruce doesn’t come and get it. He knows it’s gonna wake him up in half an hour, but it does lighten the pressure behind his eyes for a moment.

“B?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. I’m useless.”

“Tim.” He hears Bruce say, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to keep up a conversation about anything, much less whatever lecture Bruce would deliver about his worth. It’s not that hard to tune everything out, and slip away again.

***

“The Batman. The actual f*cking Batman, like outside my house.” Danny says, sprawled on the dirty linoleum outside of Lancer’s classroom. “Like, what am I meant to do about that?”

“Did he tell you what he was here for?” Valerie asks.

“We didn’t exactly have a productive conversation.”

“How do you guys not see the fact that he’s Bruce Wayne? Like, he just happens to show up in Amity Park when Wayne is staying here with his son for his recovery?”

“Shut up, Wes,” Sam says, half laughing.

“Yeah, Danny, you’ve met both of them now, what’s your official opinion?”

Danny shrugs. “Yeah, Wes, you’re reaching. Bruce was... a nice guy? I don’t know, Tim was in the hospital, everyone was stressed, including him, but he still was making an effort to, you know, be polite. Batman is an ass in the most ideal of situations.”

“Okay, well Phantom is a competent, uber-powerful ghost king, and Danny Fenton is a high school senior with peanut butter on his face.”

Danny scrubs at the side of his mouth. “I’m not Phantom.”

“Sure, buddy.” Wes elbows him. “So, what’s the move?”

“Val, have you seen him around?”

Valerie shrugs. “I thought it was just Johnny’s shadow running around.”

“Nah, after the last fight, he’s gonna be in the zone for another week or so, if his typical patterns are anything to go by.” Tuck says.

“Huh. I flipped him off.” Val says.

“Noice.” Sam says, hand up for Val to high five.

“Do you think he knows you’re Phantom? Allegedly, Batman has files on every major superhero, their weaknesses, and secret identities. Might explain why he was out at your house.”

“Phantom doesn’t have a secret identity, he is dead. And no, he showed up because there was an explosion.” Danny rolls back his sweatshirt sleeve. “Behold!”

“Ooh. Ancients. Lab accident?” Wes asks.

“Is it ever anything else?” Sam says.

“No. Anyways, he was just ‘checking it out’, like the Justice League casually cares about Amity f*cking Park, and this is normal.”

“Asshole.” Sam comments.

“I have to talk to him, don’t I?”

“Unfortunately yes.”

“Odds he leaves before tonight?”

“Uh, low to none.” Tuck shoves Danny’s legs off his to stand just as the two minute bell rings. “Ready for Lancer?”

“I am never ready for Lancer. How is he my favorite teacher? How did we get here?”

“Come on.” Val yanks him up by the uninjured forearm. “We’re doing multiple choice practice today.”

“Lancer, my man, if I bribe you, can we just watch the 1996 Romeo and Juliet instead?” Tuck asks as they enter the classroom all as a unit.

“We’ve been off Shakespeare for months. Maybe after the AP test.”

“Please? It’s the most faithful adaptation to the original script.”

“I’ll take it under consideration. Essays? Danny, your conclusion best not just be ‘poggers’ again.”

“Is ‘thank you for coming to my TED talk’ acceptable?”

“No.”

“Uh-huh. Can I have an extension?”

Lancer rolls his eyes. “Can you ask for it with more than a minute and a half before it’s due?”

“You know I cannot.”

“If you rework it and email it to me, I’ll re-grade it.”

“And you know I won’t. Thanks, though!”

That night, Danny tracks down errant blobs, a few ectopuss*s, and gets Poindexter in the thermos, a typical round. He tosses it and catches it over the rooftops, darting between power lines, and pretending like the pressure isn’t killing him.

The shards are slowly coming together- if they keep going at this rate, he’ll be done before spring. Not that assurances are helping the political climate. Danny should be in the zone without any ghosts in this realm, but the flying and the fresh air of patrol is such a rare relief that the excuse of tracking down the Batman is the best thing to happen to him in about a month.

That is, until he actually sees the man.

“Ah, damn.” He mutters, then floats down invisibly. “Long way from Gotham, aren’t we?”

To the man’s credit, he doesn’t so much as flinch. “I hear that you’ve come to my city, I’m just returning the favor.”

“Well, believe me, I don’t intend on making it a habit.” He shows himself, sitting on top of the HVAC box. “And I did so as an action of duty. What are you doing so far from home?”

“Same as you. Duty.”

Danny snorts. “No duty should drag you here.”

“Tim Drake-Wayne was kidnapped from my city, and showed up here. This is well within my purview.”

“That issue has already been resolved.” Danny says, cold with the memory. “They were my constituents. I punished them accordingly.”

“Forgive me for wanting to do my own investigation. Can’t we work together? Red Robin tells me you’re a decent hero.”

“Red Robin’s met me once, and I doubt the interaction was favorable.”

“He says otherwise.”

“Well, then he’s a fool.”

“I trust his judgment. There’s no need to be hostile.”

“I don’t want you here.” Danny says. “You had ample opportunity to work with me, three years ago.”

“I don’t follow.”

Danny can’t help but roll his eyes. “Of course you don’t. Your self-absorption astounds me.”

“You’re not getting rid of me.” Batman’s voice is gruff, yet familiar. Danny wonders if he’s just recognizing it from TV, from press conferences. “I can’t just trust that you’ve resolved it if you refuse to establish rapport.”

“Oh, I refuse.” Danny mocks.

“I don’t know what else you’d call this.”

“Payback. Lesson number one, if you’re going to be dealing with Ghosts- we’re quite vengeful creatures.”

Batman seems hesitant to call it and ask what he’s being punished for. Danny expects it would cause a blow to the man’s pride, to admit that perhaps he doesn’t know everything.

“Why do you think those ghosts kidnapped Drake?”

“I told you the matter’s been resolved. You should leave it at that.” Danny slides off the box, standing face to cowl with the vigilante.

“Alas, I cannot.”

“It was not a suggestion.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“You underestimate my power. You’re in this city because I allow it. I do not intend to foster ill will with you and yours, but that does not make me amenable to you traipsing around my home.”

Batman stares at him silently. On his feet, Danny would match him, eye to eye, but he floats to make the vigilante look up.

“Leave.”

“No. How is it that they were able to abduct him?”

It’s a good question, one which Danny wishes he had the answer to, but he says:

“Probably by doing something like this.” he says, and pushes the man back through a portal- less than an inch in the zone, straight back to Gotham, then snapping it shut. “Asshole.”

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

“You said he was good.” Bruce says, mildly annoyed.

Tim’s in a brief window of lucidity after his most recent dose, and he’d answered the phone with the bare hope that B would tell him to pack it up, they were going back to the manor. It’s a fight to figure out what he means. “Sorry?”

“Phantom. He shoved me back to Gotham.”

“What? Yeah, he hates the Justice League. Did you try to talk to him?”

B’s silence speaks volumes.

“Hell, B, that’s stupid.”

“I didn’t call to be admonished by my adolescent son.” Bruce says. “I’ll get on a flight back as soon as I can manage. Are you going to be alright for the time being?”

“...yes. Maybe. Don’t tell Kon or Bart. I’ll- I’ll call Danny.”

“What clause of your contract outlines responsibilities when one of you is bed bound?”

“You sound like Dick.”

“Dick’s right.”

Tim closes his eyes. “When will you get back?”

“Early tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know what Phantom’s issue with us is?”

“When I met him as Red Robin, he implied that he has problems with the league, but not why. There’s plenty of sectors that have issues with the way they- we- do things.”

“He says it was payback.”

“I know as much as you do.” Tim says. “See you tomorrow.”

“Call Danny, before you pass out. Or do I have to, to ensure it gets done?”

“I’ve got it.” He mumbles. “Bye.”

“Good bye, Tim.”

“Is this a butt dial?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Bruce- back in Gotham for an emergency. Can you come and literally just open a can of soup for me? And then my meds when I need them.”

“Okay, yeah. I’ll be by in a second.”

“I’ll- uh- I’ll have B call the front so they can get you a key. Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it.” Danny says. “Even though the Dating is fake, we’re still friends.”

“Are we?”

“Yeah. Are you high?”

“Little bit.”

“Figured. Gimme a minute, I’ll be right by, I just need to wrap something up.”

“M-kay.” Tim texts B sloppily that the hotel needs to give Danny a key, can he make that happen, then closes his eyes with a video essay about daguerreotypes playing by his face.

He wakes up when a cold hand presses against his forehead to check his temperature.

“Bruce?”

“Not quite.” Danny retracts his hand. “How are you feeling? What’s your incision pain at?”

“On a scale of peachy to suicide, I’m at f*ck off.”

“Hm.” It’s dark in the room, but Tim watches blearily as the boy takes off a motorcycle helmet against the sodium lights of the outside, then settles on the bed next to him. “When did you take your last dose?”

“Eight, I think?”

“Is it still tender at all?”

“That’s why I’m still taking the damn things. And supplementing with Tylenol, and Ibuprofen, alternating every two hours, this isn’t my first rodeo.”

“Of course not,” Danny says, then his cold fingers are prodding at Tim’s gut.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuck,” he moans, half curling away and trying to guard the wound as best he can. “Why in hell would you do that?”

“I barely touched you.” Danny says, but it sounds concerned rather than defensive. “Tim, I’m gonna lift up your shirt. When did you last change your dressings?”

“Bruce did them... this morning?” Tim can’t really remember, he hadn’t checked the clock, rather just complained about the bother of having to move so much.

Danny’s cold fingers brush against the skin exposed above Tim’s waistband as he gently rolls the shirt up, checking his drainage and the skin around. When he doesn’t apply any pressure, just flits his fingers along the corners of the tape, Tim almost sighs.

Okay, maybe not almost.

“You’re really warm.” Danny says.

“In bed all day.”

“No, I- hm.” Papers rustle. Probably his discharge packet from the ER. “Oxycodone for pain, every twelve hours or less as needed, supplemented with O.T.C. analgesics and antipyretics... inflammation, drainage...”

“Would you mind...” Tim gropes blindly for his arm, until he can feel Danny’s wrist in his fingers, and he drags the broad hand back to his face to cool it. “That’s all. Continue.”

“I’m calling Bruce back,” Danny says, which means B must’ve called him after Tim did. No trust.

“S’ok now, though.”

“I really don’t think it is. Hello, Mr. Wayne? Yeah, he’s fevering. There’s severe inflammation around the wound site. Not on his arm- I didn’t check that one. Uh. Did you-” He pulls away for a second, but then his hand is back on Tim’s face, and something beeps. “104.6. sh*t, Tim, I can’t drive you, I rode my bike- Yeah, I didn’t check, I don’t want to mess up his dressings. Sir. The area is tender, but not rigid, so I’m not really worried about internal bleeding. Unless he’s been moving around a bunch.”

“I haven’t.”

“Thanks, understood.” Danny says, suffering Tim moving his hands around on his face. “Yeah, that’ll work. Ok. Sorry.”

“It’s so hot,” Tim mumbles, just half aware that he’s actually speaking out loud.

“Yeah, I know,” Danny says, and pulls away his hand, which Tim protests with a whimper. “Shh. Chill out.” He opens his eyes to see Danny pulling off his crewneck. Tim is glad his cheeks are flushed from fever, because- well- frankly- holy sh*t. He didn’t realize that regularly seeing Danny in suits would have the effect of making him hopelessly attractive in a compression shirt. f*cking hell, he’s fit. Not just a strong frame, which Tim knew he had, given the measurements. He’d seen him- hell, he knew he was strong, all long, lean muscles, he’d felt them in Boston, but still. “Yeah, come here, sicko, Bruce is forwarding me the telehealth link.” He pushes himself up and shifts so that Tim is laying against his chest, which is, paradoxically, almost as cool as his hands are.

“I think I have a cold.”

I think you’re full of sh*t.” Danny says. “Did your doctors even know you don’t have a spleen? I mean, if Bruce doesn’t it’s not that much of a stretch.”

“What does- I can't believe you know about that. I can’t believe I told you that.”

“Well, you weren’t exactly of sound mind at the time, so don’t hold it against yourself. And you said if they didn’t know, they’d give you an oral run of antibiotics instead of keeping you for a run of IV, but you weren’t prescribed any.”

Tim does remember thinking about that- and writing it off, because they’d debrided the wound properly.

“And I’m not a doctor, but I am pretty sure your wound got infected.” One of his arms is wrapped around over his shoulder- cool, but not clammy. Like skin covered stone.

Hm. Maybe Tim was fevering.

But, the point- the forearm resting across his chest was sporting a large, square bandage. Tim can see the margins of the wound via leaked through blood and plasma.

“We match,” He comments, then, aware it was probably nonsensical, holds up his own, bandaged forearm.

“Hm? Oh, I guess we do.”

“Why are you so cold?”

“It’s cold outside.”

“But you came in. You should be- you should be warmer.”

“I have poor circulation. Are you uncomfortable?”

“No,” Tim says, because the life sized cold pack named Danny is making the bed much more comfortable- his hair is probably leaving a sweat spot on his chest.

“Well, okay then.” Says Danny, and Tim doesn’t have the sense to argue. “How articulate are you feeling?”

“Three.”

“On a scale of one to ten or comparable to a three year old?”

Tim shrugs, because either answer works.

“Okay, so I will talk, and you will correct me if I’m wrong, which you are capable of, because oppositional is your default setting.” His fingers card some sweaty hair away from his forehead. “Ancients, you’re a mess.”

“I’ll be thoroughly embarrassed by this once my body isn’t trying to cook my brains out.”

“Just add it to the NDA, sweetheart.” He says, then holds his phone out in front of both of them. His screen is cracked. Had Tim ever noticed that? He should buy him a new phone.

“Isn’t your birthday coming up?”

“It’s tomorrow,” Danny says, evenly.

“Happy early birthday.”

“Thank you. Put on your person mask, we’re talking to the doctor.”

Tim doesn’t want to deal with more doctors, he’s just fine letting his heat leak into Danny, but the phone starts trilling.

Danny and the doctor come to the conclusion that he should take him back to the ER.

“I don’t have a car,” Danny says, “Should we uber? Should I call another ambulance? I mean, it seems silly to call an ambulance, but you can afford it, so obviously that factors into the decision-”

“How’d you get here without a car?” Tim asks hazily.

“Bike,” Danny says, and- yes, Tim knew that, he’d said that before, there was the helmet. “I’m not piggybacking you to a hospital in the middle of February, though.”

“S’ok, you can take the car.”

“What car?”

“The rental.”

“Why doesn’t Bruce have it?”

Tim shrugs. “Keys are on the bedside table.” He hears Danny pick them up.

“Let’s go, then. Do you need me to carry you?”

Tim considers this for a moment. He does not, he knows, want to debase himself by being carried around like a damsel in Danny’s well toned arms. He would like it- conceptually, devoid of it involving any actual interaction with another real, human being, he would like it very much. Especially when the carrying party is- well- so fine a specimen as Danny is. But he doesn’t want it, because that hypothetical is impossible, and there is another person involved, who would see him as weak for the needing of it.

“Nooo...” he trails, unconvincingly.

“It’s not so much a question of if you want to be carried as it is if you can stand.” Danny amends.

“Oh. I- huh- no.”

“Okay, then.” Danny says. “Up we go, I’m gonna bundle you. C’mon, grump.” Danny wraps him in the hotel blanket and Tim can hear the keys as he shifts Tim in his arms to make them available.

“Do I weigh nothing to you?”

“Close to.” He shifts him again- that hurts- to keep Tim’s weight off his bandaged forearm.

“What happened? To your arm.”

“Lab accident.” He supplies succinctly, which fevering Tim files away for healthy Tim to unpack.

“And your eye?” He can barely see him in the low light, but one is definitely blackened. “Was it the media? Bruce said they were coming after you-”

“I fell.” Danny says in the same closed off, neutral tone that he’d taken when telling Tim he wouldn’t take his shirt off because he had scars.

He puts Tim in the passenger seat gently, but his hands shake in front of Tim’s face as he pulls the seatbelt across, evidence of how much the situation is actually taxing him. He places a cool hand against his forehead to check his temperature again. His expression says it’s worse.

“Okay,” He breathes, and Tim thinks it’s mostly to himself.

Tim waits for the embarrassment to hit, the uncomfortable pace his brain goes when he requires help, but it doesn’t seem to be coming. Maybe it’s the fever, or maybe it’s the fact that Danny has no expectations of Tim the way everyone else does. He’s not Robin, confined by the idea that he can’t show weakness because he’s already behind the curve by virtue of his humanity. He’s not Mr. Drake-Wayne, a prodigy- he’s just another kid.

He hasn’t been allowed to be just another kid in...

Well, he hasn’t ever been allowed to be just another kid. He hasn’t ever been allowed to be weak.

It’s terrifying as much as it is comforting.

***

Tim is a mess, in Danny’s opinion. His fair face is red and blotchy, and his eyes stay heavy and hooded even as he warily watches everything Danny does. As Danny started driving, he’d reached with grabby hands over the median, until Danny held his hand, which is hot and clammy in his, even now.

“I’m gonna tell the doctors at the ER that you don’t have a spleen.” Danny states, eyes in the streaks of light on the wet road in front of them.

“Don’t you dare.” Tim mumbles.

“I don’t think you’re making this statement in sound mind, because this has very real ramifications for your health and future treatment.”

“How dare you.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re- what are you, my doctor?”

“No, because I know you don’t have a spleen. f*ckssake, Tim. This is ridiculous. This is- you could die. Do you get that? Not just because you got stabbed, but because you were stubborn and prideful.”

“You sound like Alfred.”

“Well, maybe he has a point.” Danny swallows back a mouthful of spit. “How did you even lose it in the first place such that your family doesn’t know?”

Tim makes a considering sound, pulling Danny’s hand up to his forehead.

“I don’t think I should tell you.”

“Really,” Danny says, flatly.

“Really.” Tim says, then falls silent, for a mile marker, two. “I fell.”

“Pardon?”

“Onto something sharp.”

“And you didn’t go to a hospital? After being impaled?”

“I saw a doctor eventually. I was... abroad. At the time.”

“Where?”

“The middle east.”

“Oh.” Danny says, because that makes slightly more sense- he might’ve been treated by military doctors, then, depending on where he was. It might’ve been the sort of situation where no one thinks to document it, because they were too busy trying to keep people alive.

“I was negotiating deals in Bruce’s absence.” Tim says.

“When was this?”

“Last year.” Tim allows their hands to fall back to the median.

“And why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I’m not-” Tim starts, then frowns, and shakes his head. “I don’t want people to worry.”

“Even when it’s justified?”

“So much was happening, though.” Tim says. “I- Dick had to move back into the manor, to take care of the brat, who was still adjusting, and Babs was just getting out of rehab, learning how to live in a wheelchair. We didn’t have Duke yet, thank f*ck, I don’t know what we would’ve done with him, but we still thought Steph was dead, and Cass was doing everything she could with- well, you know, she was- f*ck. But I didn’t want to- to drag attention away from all their issues.”

“So you underwent a major surgery in a foreign country and then didn’t tell any of them anything?”

“People don’t have to worry about me.” Tim says. “That’s what- that’s what people used to tell my parents, you know. ‘That Tim’s a good one, you never have to worry about him.’” He laughs, a dry, humorless bark of sound, and says: “And they never did.”

Danny clenches his jaw, looking at the blue H sign under the upcoming exit, then changing lanes. “But Bruce does, right? Alfred, and Dick, they all... they all worry, whether you want them to or not.”

“Only if I give them something to worry about.”

“It’s not like an intentional thing, though. You’re not trying to cause them worry, you’re not making up issues for attention. It’s okay to have people care about you, sometimes.”

“Who gave you that black eye?”

“No one. I fell.”

“No, you were punched. Who did it?”

“f*ck off. I’m not the one dying, right now.”

“Who cares about you, then? Obviously I’m not allowed to, cause you can’t even tell me who punched you-”

“I fell!” Danny insists. “Don’t try and turn this around!”

“Then don’t try to lecture me!”

“Fine!” Danny snaps. “I’m still telling them.”

Their fingers are still interlocked. Danny slows down on the off-ramp, then glances at his phone to see what his next turn is.

“Don’t tell Bruce?”

“He’ll find out. You’re still a minor. I think the doctors have to tell him.”

“You’re not- well- almost. Half an hour. Happy early birthday.”

“You already said.” Tim pulls their joined hands back to his cheek. “Thank you.”

It’s three turns before he speaks again.

“Do you have plans?”

“Uh, pizza, cake, soda. Games.”

“Huh. Do you like your birthday?”

“I’m neutral to it. I- it’s just another day. I don’t like the idea of being an adult, though.”

“I can’t wait. Bruce won’t let me get emancipated, says it’d reflect poorly on him.”

“I’m sure it’s easy, when you don’t have to worry about rent, or insurance, or car payments, f*cking, credit scores-” Danny cuts himself off as they roll into the parking lot. “What’ll change, really, for you?”

“I don’t have to tell Bruce about any organs I may or may not be missing.”

“Ah, yes, the right to develop sepsis. That’s such a plus.” Danny parks. “Come on, my little fever burrito, let’s go.”

“I allow sweetheart for the face, but you’ve got to clear it with me if you’re gonna try and roll out new pet names.”

“Oh, you don’t like it?” Tim glares at him balefully as he shuts off the engine. “Sorry, sweetheart.”

“I f*cking hate you.” Tim says, as Danny closes his door to walk around and get him out. “And I want to go to sleep. If you take me back to the hotel, I could just sleep it off.”

Danny raises his eyebrows in half a roll of his eyes, as he unbuckles the seatbelt and pulls Tim out.

“Should’ve parked closer. Or gone and gotten me a f*cking wheelchair.”

“I don’t mind.” Danny says, honestly. He knows Tim probably does, that ‘fever burrito’ is the antithesis of the performance he calls himself. But he glares up at him through long lashes, eyes black between the low light, opiates, and their dark color, and Danny finds himself grinning.

This round of ER is much less stressful than the last. They let Danny stay in the room while they put in his IV, and he tells the doctor that Tim doesn’t have a spleen. She frowns, blinks, and says: “That wasn’t in his chart.”

“It changes his course of treatment, right?”

“He’s lucky he’s still alive. Didn’t your doctor tell you after your splenectomy that any febrile illness is life threatening? How long ago did you lose it?”

“A year.” Danny says.

“Nine months.” Tim corrects.

The doctor stares at him, with a bit of a slack jaw. “I’m gonna start you on Keflex. Now.”

Tim lets his head roll back. “Yeah.”

“Thank you.” Danny tells her.

“No, he should be thanking you. Any longer, and he would be in the ICU right now for sepsis. Honestly, Tim, you’re still walking the line, let’s just hope the broad-spectrum course works fast enough.”

“Copy.”

The doctor chews him out for another few minutes, which Tim doesn’t seem to be all too present for, but aids in Danny feeling vindicated. When she leaves, Tim rolls his head to look at Danny and says: “You can go now.”

“You know I can’t.”

“It’s your birthday.”

“Not yet.”

“Sixteen minutes.” Tim waves his bandaged arm, as if to say ‘sixteen minutes is nothing.’

Danny sighs, letting his chin rest on the bed rail, staring at Tim’s gaunt face. “What else would I be doing tonight?” Patrolling. Finding shards. Physics homework. Sleeping, maybe.

“Turning eighteen.”

“It’s gonna happen regardless.”

“Happy birthday.”

“You’re still too early.”

“The reason I called you,” Tim says, eyes closed, breaths deep, heart pinging on the monitor, “Is because you don’t care about me, not really, so this wouldn’t happen. I don’t appreciate being- humbled, in front of you, like this.”

“Tim.” Danny says, carefully, then reaches to check his temperature again. This time, Tim flinches away from the touch. He’s cooler, so Danny pulls back. “If you want me to go, if you really want me to leave you to lay here alone until Bruce gets here tomorrow morning, then I can.”

“Great.” Tim says, immediately.

“So you want me to go?”

“Yes.” Tim says, without hesitation. Then: “I don’t know. I didn’t have someone to hold my hand when I got my spleen cut out. I don’t need it.”

“But do you want me to go?”

The silence in the ER, with the low hum of machines, the beep of the EKG, the far off bustle of nurses and doctors doing work, is far more lonely than the inside of the car they drove in. It nearly swallows Tim’s “No.”

Nearly.

“Okay,” Danny says.

“Can you... can you talk? Or turn on the TV?” Tim asks, just as softly.

Danny doesn’t know what to talk about, so he searches fruitlessly for the remote for a few minutes. When it’s clear he’s not gonna find it, Tim says: “Happy birthday.”

“Nine minutes.” Danny corrects.

“What was your favorite birthday?”

“Uh. When I turned fifteen. It was my last birthday with Jazz still home. She made cake, and it was terrible, which was fine, because Sam bought ice cream cake, even though it was so cold outside, and our water heater broke- or our parents forgot to pay the gas bill- either way, our radiators were shot. But we ran a space heater in my room and made a blanket fort. My room’s pretty small, and so the four of us shove in, and I have one of those projectors, the kind that does the constellations. So Jazz sets it up like a little planetarium. And it gets really warm in our fort. But it is- and I can not stress this enough- legitimately freezing in the rest of the house. It is so cold. And every time we compromised the fort margins, the temperature inside dropped drastically. So, Sam brings the ice cream cake into the fort. We tried eating Jazz’s cake, by the way, we really did, and she’s one of the smartest people I know, but everyone mixes up teaspoons and tablespoons, right? Pertaining to baking soda.

“Anyways, Sam brings the ice cream cake into the fort. And you’ll never guess what happens.”

“It melts.”

“It melts. I have shag carpet in my room.”

“Is it still crispy?”

“Oh, deeply. And one of the sheets caught fire.”

“Oh, who could’ve possibly predicted that outcome?”

“Anyone. We all ended up at Sam’s, like usual, because of the functioning temperature control, and the fact that she has a bowling alley and movie theater in her basem*nt.”

“Right. Why didn’t you start there?”

Danny shrugs. He figures Tim might actually be able to understand the intricacies of Sam’s relationship with money and thus, her family, but that’s too personal and too far away from his business.

“But it was better before we left. When we were all sweaty and sticky, and they were humoring me, telling them about the constellations. And Jazz got me a star. You know those websites where you can pay to have a star named after someone, for a gift? She got me two of those. Even made sure they would be visible from Illinois on my birthday. One for her and one for me. She’d gotten accepted to a bajillion universities, and we were waiting to see which one the furthest away would give her the most money. It ended up being California, but back then, might’ve been New York, Massachusetts, she was considering a couple universities in England, in Ireland.

“But it’s symbolic, right? That we’re not really ever gonna be apart. Even though those stars were far apart to begin with. Thousands of light years. But visually, from Earth, we perceive it as closeness. I can point them out, if you ask, if we go somewhere without all the light pollution.”

“Do you like stars?”

“I like space. I like the idea of the freedom, the openness, the vastness. I like the way that we’re inconsequential, when you put us in scale, and how we all belong, because at one point we were all part of the same super-dense, superheated singularity, that was before the big bang. I like the way that we- humanity- have always looked up and put meaning to it. All of us, when we were huddled around fires, sharpening sticks, we were also making art, and music, and we were looking at the sky.

“I like that we strapped ourselves to metal shells full of explosives, and went out there, like, have you heard of anything so close to Icarus? But we made it back. That in such a close allegory, we broke the narrative. If you read it, without knowing how it ended, humanity should’ve caught fire before we got that close to the heavens. But real life doesn’t have to follow those rules. I like that.”

“Space.” Tim says.

“Space. You know, how kids want to be astronauts, or firefighters, when they grow up? I just never really let it go. I should let it go.” Danny’s eyes track Tim’s pulse on the screen- slow, and even.

“Why?”

“Do you know how many people NASA selects for the space flight program every year? It’s not a lot.” And Danny’s dead, and doesn’t have the time to commit to doing well in college, or even college at all. He sent out applications at Jazz’s behest, but he doesn’t look at the mail pile on principle. He’s not allowed to leave Amity Park.

“Seems like a stupid reason to give up.” Tim mumbles. “There’s thousands of jobs in aeronautics, in theoretical research.”

“I would end up resentful. That I couldn’t be out there.” Danny’s been to space- he’s been further from Earth than humans have, but that’s as a ghost. It doesn’t mean the same thing, it doesn’t have the same triumph against nature that actual space flight does, and that’s what he craves. “And I’m not smart enough for that, regardless.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No.”

“Danny-”

“Don’t try and offer me platitudes. You barely even know me,” Danny says, sharply.

“It’s not...” Tim sighs. “You’re impossible.”

The EKG beeps. Doctors move outside. The saline drip catches lights from the machine and holds them in the plastic cylinder.

Tim says: “Happy Birthday.”

“It’s-” Danny starts, but the clock actually reads midnight. “Thanks.”

“How do you feel now? Any different?”

“I’m tired, mostly.” Danny says. “How do you feel?”

“Ridiculous. Embarrassed. Useless. Tired.”

“Better than delirious.” Danny says.

“True.” Tim says. “Can you keep talking about space? No- you’re tired, too.”

“I can always talk about space.” Danny says. And he does.

***

Tim wakes up, fever broken, with Danny asleep in an uncomfortable ICU chair. He knows, logically, that his parents didn’t care about where he may or may not spend an entire night, but Tim’s chest aches that this is the second time in a week that he’s spent watching over him, because he doesn’t have anyone else to take him.

Danny’s put Tim’s phone by his legs, so he scrolls through texts. Dick is concerned. Steph thinks it’s funny. Damian wants to know if this means he can ride his bike for patrol. Dick is telling him that he won’t let Damian touch his bike, seeing as he’s too short to get his feet in the holsters.

A ringtone plays, but it’s not Tim’s. After a minute, it stops. Danny’s still sleeping. It starts again. Tim looks for something to throw at him, comes up empty, and settles for his phone.

Danny catches it.

Catches it. Then wakes up, with an unflattering ‘snrk’ sound. “What?”

“Phone.”

“Yeah- what-”

“Not that one. Yours.”

“Oh. Huh. Hey Sam, you good? No. No. Hospital. I’m not- I’m at the hospital. Yes. Uh, complications?” He glances at Tim when he says it, like that might be too much for him to share. “I don’t know, until Bruce gets in- is he in?”

“Flight got delayed.” Tim says. “He’ll be in around ten.”

“Uh. Mid morning. No. It’s not a big deal. Yes. No, tell Elle to- put her on the phone. Elle. Elle. No.” Elle- a name that Tim had caught at New Year’s, as well- is a vague sound on the other end of the line. “No, that’s worse. Under no circ*mstances will you do that. Yes.” He takes a breath, and Tim hears the whine in Elle’s voice, and not much else. “He’s in the f*cking ICU, what do you think? No. Either you can stay at Sam’s, or in my room. No, Ambrose has been evicted. He lives in the gutter. No, actually, you don’t get a choice anymore, go to Sam’s. Yes, I still love you, you absolute f*cking gremlin. Goodbye.”

“Who’s Ambrose?” Tim asks, as Danny stands to give him his phone back.

“The possum that was living in my closet until last October.”

“Huh. And he is now...”

“Living in my gutter, yes. Sam and Elle like to give him cheese and peanut butter crackers.”

“And Elle is?” Tim asks, because he can’t help it.

“A horrible little child.” Danny says. “She’s- complicated. The whole situation is just very, very complicated.”

Tim knows all about complicated, but he’s lucid enough to want to pry. “Friend? Family?”

Danny shrugs halfheartedly. “Family more than anything else. It’s just complicated. She’s not around alot.”

“I could probably match all your friends to a picture,” Tim says, “due to my judicious stalking of your instagram, but not her.”

“Like I said, she’s not around a lot.” He glances up to the corner of the room, and Tim ticks away the tell. Another ghost hunter, perhaps? Some connection, liaison, to those who were against Phantom? Although their relationship was familial. Curiouser and curiouser. Tim can recognize that he’s closing off, that he won’t get any more information than the little that Danny was willing to reveal. So he lets the silence stretch.

“Are you hungry?” He asks, at last.

“Not really. I’ll probably hit up a vending machine in a bit. Figure someone around could scrounge up a toothbrush for me, though?”

“I could ask. Should probably get a nurse in here anyways, since I’m awake.”

“You’re obviously doing much better. Fever’s down.” Danny observes.

“I didn’t crash overnight?”

“Nope. You did tell a nurse to ‘f*ck straight off to Arkham with that sh*t’ when she came in to switch out your drip, though.”

“Oh, no, and you didn’t stop me?” Tim asks, aware that this is not the same hospital that the ambulance had taken them to- it’s one that’s closer, and thus the staff might not have had the same pressure applied by the Wayne Enterprises lawyers about tight lips regarding A-list patients. And Tim Drake cussing out a nurse is not a story he wants leaking.

“How was I meant to do that? I don’t know if you realize this, but my opinion doesn’t really seem to register to you.”

“Bodily, if necessary.”

“You’d bite me. Or lick my palm.”

“No I wouldn’t.”

“Not now, but half awake, full of painkillers and coming down from fever? You one hundred percent would.” Danny finds a pack of gum in his pants pocket and stops himself halfway through offering Tim a stick.

“If I don’t swallow it, it’s fine.” He says, conspiratorially, so Danny forks it over. Good, because his mouth tastes disgusting. “You’re probably right.”

“Thanks.” He says. “You gonna call a nurse?”

Tim feels his face morph into a grimace without totally meaning to. When the nurse comes in, he’ll have to smile, and apologize for what he said under delirium. Be polite, be the performance. He’s allowed Danny past too many layers. Slowly, he sorts through the things he said last night, and feels his cheeks heat at the memory of dragging Danny’s hand all over his face, and whining whenever he stopped contact. Tim is not a whiner. Not even when running a 105 degree fever.

“Not yet. They’ll come check on me eventually.”

Danny has a thought about this. He also had thoughts about who got to know about the status of Tim’s spleen. He chooses not to make his thoughts about the nurse known. Probably because of how much flack Tim gave him on the spleen thing.

“Your eye looks much better.” Tim says, tangentially related to his train of thought, but also a genuine observation- the dark bruising has mostly faded, except for where it was most intense, purplish spots ringed by yellowed skin.

“Yeah, I guess.” Danny says, rubbing at it. He’s back in his oversized gray crewneck. The cuffs are stretched, and look like they’d been chewed on- but they don’t hold their shape, and he can see the dirty edges of his medical tape. “You just saw it at night. Made it look worse than it really was.”

“Did it have anything to do with me? With this?” Tim gestures to the space between them.

“You are not the center of my universe, Tim Drake, I am capable of having issues that do not involve our arrangement.” He grins.

“So it was an issue. You didn’t fall.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant.”

“And when you lost your spleen? You fell?” Danny says.

Tim freezes, too wary of the accusation to see the admission in it. “Yes,” he says, reflexively.

“Alright.”

A nurse knocks on the doorframe. “Awake, hun?”

Tim drags a hand over his face, then smiles pleasantly. “Yes.” Danny settles back into his chair, pulling his sleeves down over his hands. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, you look like you’re doing much better.” She says, entering the room and making notes of his vitals, asking questions about pain level, discomfort, bowel movements. Danny looks pointedly at his phone. “Well, I’ll have the doctor in to talk to you in a sec, but I’m just going to hang more fluids, uh, anything else I could get for you?”

“If you could find a toothbrush and some toothpaste for Danny?”

“Oh-” She looks between the two of them, and smiles. “Of course. Right.” She makes a note on the whiteboard beside his bed.

“She thinks I want to brush my teeth so we can kiss.” Danny says, with a lilt to his voice.

“I know.” Tim says.

“Foolish. The gum would’ve worked for that.” Tim looks at him, wondering, for a strange second, if that were a proposition, but then Danny sticks out his tongue, the chewed up wad of gum sitting on the tip.

“You’re such a child.”

“Technically not. Technically, you’re the child.”

Tim doesn’t want to throw his phone at him again, so he flips him off.

“I’m gonna go grab an energy drink, no you can not have one, and if you somehow manage to die before I get back, I will be very disappointed, and I want you to know that death will not deter me from annoying you.”

“Unfortunately, I believe you.”

Danny grins at him, sweetly, before ducking out.

“Overwhelming postsplenectomy infection.” Says his doctor. “You’re lucky you got to the hospital as quickly as you did. It presents initially as flu-like symptoms, but patients degenerate rapidly, usually within the first twelve to twenty-four hours. With an aggressive treatment of antibiotics, steroids, vasopressors, heparin, and blood, you should pull through. I see you’re up to date on all your vaccines, which is good, you need to keep up with those, though.”

“But my splenectomy was months ago.” Tim says. “Isn’t that usually a postoperative risk?”

The doctor makes a vague gesture. “Not necessarily. It’s occurred in cases up to fifteen years after the operation. You’re at highest risk in the first three years.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. Any febrile illness could lead to recurrence.”

“I’ve had low-grade fevers since, though.”

The doctor shakes his head. “Sure, but after a trauma like the one you went through, which increased your risk for a serious septic infection- you really should’ve been kept for a course of antibiotics. Had you gone through a preventative treatment, you likely would’ve been alright. Any significant lesions, you should probably consult with your PCP, see if a round is indicated. But, just generally, preventative measures are going to be your best friend.”

“I followed all wound treatment instructions. My incisions were clean and my dressings were done properly and sterilized.”

“You were stabbed, Tim. The blade penetrated through your abdominal wall, according to your chart, it was four and a half inches deep, it almost ran you through. It’s much harder to keep a wound like that clean, even in the best conditions, than, for example, the cut on your arm.”

Danny is back in his chair, tucked in a ball, glancing periodically at the doctor, but focusing mostly on his phone. Tim’s told him that he could leave, but he insists on waiting for Bruce, and Tim hasn’t really pushed the issue. Horrifyingly, he thinks he might actually enjoy spending time with him. He looks up at the description of his wound, with a cold, hard glare, but it's only for a second.

“So, keep everything clean, keep up with vaccinations, and any fever I have is liable to kill me for the rest of my life.”

“First few years. But yes. Your surgeon should’ve told you this.”

“It wasn’t exactly that kind of situation.”

“Yes. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to track those records down.” They won’t. There aren’t any. Tim’s content to let them struggle.

“So, how long am I in here for?”

“Twenty-four hours. I know you live in Gotham, and if you’re up and walking by the end of your course, you should be good to fly back home.”

“Oh, thank you.” Thank f*ck.

“Right.” The doctor types some quick notes. “Anything else? Any concerns about-” he glances between them- “Sexual activity?”

“No!” Danny and Tim say, instantly and in unison. “We- the- the other doctors. Told us, uh, everything. It’s- we’re not, even, actually-”

“We’ve only been dating like two months.”

“Yeah, of course.” The doctor says, with a sly smile that indicates he doesn’t believe them.

“Uh, when Bruce gets here,” Tim says, “uh, could you tell him about the OPSI and all that, uh, out in the lobby?”

“Is there... a concern for your safety?”

“No.” Tim says. “No, he- I just don’t need to hear it all again.” And he just knows that Bruce will be disappointed, and he can’t bear the thought of it.

“Alright. And don’t worry, all the staff have signed the NDA your lawyers sent through.”

“Great.” Tim rests back against his pillows. They’d found the remote since last night, but he doesn’t really want to watch TV. It’s quiet in the room, the gentle pad of Danny’s fingers on his phone screen. “What’s your deal with Phantom?”

He drops his phone into his lap, and looks at Tim with a world-weary stare. “Why?”

“You’re so upset about- this. I can tell. And you blame him. I know you do.”

“It’s complicated.” Danny says. “I- I respect the work he does. I just wish it wouldn’t interfere with my life so much.”

Lie. “And it does? More than other people in your town?”

Danny laughs, a little. “Like you said, my last name is Fenton. It sure does.” But his laughter hadn’t been sardonic, it’d been genuine, if a little surprised.

“Do you resent that more than him? Being a Fenton?”

Danny rolls his eyes, hiding his expression in a swig of his energy drink. “You sound like my sister. That’s not a compliment.”

“Does your sister resent being a Fenton?”

“My sister lives two thousand miles away and hasn’t spoken to our parents in close to two years. What do you think?”

“Are they the ones who gave you that black eye? Your father?”

“No.” Danny says, instant and certain, but Tim’s not convinced. He doesn’t have an opportunity to press it, because Danny stands, and says: “Mr. Wayne.”

“Danny, please. Call me Bruce.” B says, crossing to shake his hand. He must’ve found Tim in good enough shape that he didn’t require his immediate attention.

“Doctor catch you on your way in?” Tim asks.

“No. Should he have? Any other missing organs I haven’t been informed of?”

“I got my appendix out when I was six.”

“Ha.” Bruce says, low and humorless. “This was- while I was indisposed, last year?”

“Yeah. While I was with Uncle Ra’s.” Tim says. “Sorry he didn’t tell you.”

Bruce glances at Danny, less than a second. “We’ll discuss it later.” The only punishment they receive for getting injured while on duty is staying in for their R&R time, but hiding it- Tim suspects a full audit of his cases while B was out, to make sure he wasn’t withholding anything else. “Thank you again. I hope this doesn’t end up a habit.”

“It’s alright, I’m just glad Tim’s okay.” Oh, he’s just a brilliant liar, Tim’s doubting every conclusion he’s made. “Uh, here’s the rental keys, and the hotel key, and, uh- I’ll have a friend come by, to pick me up.”

“I can get you a car. It’s the least I can do.”

“Really, I’m fine,” Danny says, with the even keel of someone who says that lie often.

“If you’re sure. You have my number, if you need anything. Please, let me know. We’re in your debt.”

“Really,” Danny repeats. “And, uh, given everything, I’m assuming we’re canceling Valentine's day’s plans?”

Oh, Tim had totally forgotten about that. “Probably.”

Danny grins, like it’s funny. It kind of is. He ducks down to kiss Tim’s temple and says: “I’ll live.”

“Total splenectomy in a foreign country.” Bruce states, once the door is closed and Danny’s down the hall.

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re the first to know.” Tim says.

“Second. Your boyfriend.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “I told you he doesn’t hate you.”

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

“How’s your boyfriend?” Elle asks, playing Doomed on Sam’s massive gaming console. “Dead yet?”

“Almost.” Danny says, kicking her bean bag aside so it’s not centered in front of the screen, then sitting next to her. “Caught it in time, though, he’s gonna pull through.”

She clicks her tongue. “Pity. I was loving what you were doing when he was just hurt, I was wondering how batsh*t you’d go if he actually kicked the bucket.”

“You know we’re not actually dating, right? Like, I’m not actually in love with him.”

Elle shrugs. “Sure, whatever you say, bro. I’m just calling it how I see it.” Her avatar gets jumped by a demon from behind, and she can’t shoot it before it takes her out, and the screen freezes, with YOU DIED in big red letters as it fades to black and white. She pulls the headset off and shifts, waiting for Danny to get a controller. “You did another night in the hospital for him.”

Danny shrugs. “The only reason he’s here is ‘cause of me- if we were in Jersey, and he had other people who could be with him, I wouldn’t- it wouldn’t be the same. He wouldn’t even think to call me.”

Elle stares at him for a second. “Right.”

“Whatever.”

“And why are you here, now?”

“Because I wanted to make sure you didn’t fly to the hospital and make him suspicious about everything by being my mini-me.”

“I am only four inches shorter than you.” She is- she’s lost her baby fat and shot up, so she’s built a lot like Jazz, just with more muscle. Sometimes it weirds Danny out, looking at her. She’s something of a tomboy, always has been- it’s not like looking at a super feminine version of himself, which might make it worse- she wears baggy clothes, her black and white hair pulled up into a ponytail, acne low on her cheeks. She’s always had worse skin than him. She blames it on Vlad’s genetics.

‘Figures that all the sh*t he contributed is the stuff I hate.’ she would say, perched in front of a bathroom mirror, and picking her face until she was all red.

“And I’m not done growing.” She says.

“Yeah you are.” Danny says, navigating them to a two player mode. “You’ve been the same height since you were fourteen. You’re done.”

“I could just be paused. You kept growing after you were fourteen.”

“Well, I was on puberty blockers when I was fourteen, and have since been on HRT, so the timeline’s a little f*cked for when my growth spurts are. And I’m taller than Vlad.”

“Ugh, damn that old man.” She says, mildly.

“I know. He hasn’t even called today yet for his monthly extortion and yearly offer to join him, and realize my true potential.”

“I can’t believe you still talk to him.” She says, leaning forward as the gameplay starts. “Just block his number. If he shows up, hand his ass to him, eventually he’ll learn.”

“My parents need his grants. Jazz needs his grants. I can’t just- he’s not that bad.”

“Oh, you don’t get to say that.” She says, her avatar bashing a demon in with its knee. “Sure, he was an asshole to you, he’s your nemesis, whatever, but you don’t get to f*cking say that, Danny. Go ahead, take his money, but don’t you dare tell me that he’s not that bad.”

Danny shoots a big monster that was coming up behind her. He won’t argue, because he can’t deny the fundamental issue- that the reason Vlad is ‘not that bad’ with him is because Danielle is disposable to him, and Danny is not. If he thinks about it for too long, he gets angry, and he has to stop himself from flying to Wisconsin and tear him apart bit by bit.

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not, but that’s okay.” Elle says. “It’s unfair to hold you to my traumas.”

“You’re my- my responsibility, Elle,” because there’s no good word for what a clone is to a person, when the cloned party loves them like family. “You have the right to want me on your side.”

“But not to ask you to make your family completely bankrupt.” She says. “I get it. We just. Shouldn’t talk about it. Kill that hellhog. Chainsaw. Chain. Saw. ”

Danny obliges her, and they sort through the loot. They’re able to play through the school day with minimal issues. He loves her, but they also tend to fight if asked to interact for long periods of time without a buffer. It’s part of the reason why Danny lets her run around, doing whatever she wants. Between being a female version of him, her inherent need to be free, and how caustic their interactions tended to be, it’s all but a necessity.

“You know, if you keep missing school for your boyfriend, you’re gonna need to take summer classes to graduate.” Sam says, in lieu of greeting.

“He could’ve died. The doctor said, if I’d been any later,” Danny says, turning around to catch a plastic bag that Tuck chucks at him. “It would’ve been almost impossible for him to turn around.”

“Oh, wow, you’re a real hero.” Wes says, coming in and folding up on the pool table. “Saving his life twice in a week, no better aphrodisiac than that.”

“Ugh, gag, ” Val says. “Happy birthday, idiot. Now you can buy spray paint and cold medicine, I’m sure this party will be wild.”

“Thanks, Val.” Danny says. “And, for the sake of everyone’s enjoyment of the party, I’m putting a moratorium on talking about my boyfriend. Yes, he is in the hospital again, yes, he’s going to be fine. No, you will not be getting deets, so don’t ask. Wes.”

“Why are you looking at me?”

“You know why.”

“Fine, I won’t talk about your hot, genius, rich, mysterious boyfriend, who is the most interesting thing about you.”

“Thanks.” Danny says. “Also, if you guys sing to me, I will dunk this whole basem*nt into the needle realm, don’t test me.”

“Happy birthday to you,” Elle starts, loudly, and off-key, and Tuck moves to tackle her into the beanbag chair. “ Happy birthday to- f*ck straight off, Foley!”

***

“Jesus f*ck, Tim.” Babs says. “That’s a hell of a secret.”

“And it almost killed me, and I was stupid for keeping it from you, I know.”

“It’s not your appendix, or your tonsils. Technically, you can live without your spleen- same as you can live with a lung and a half, or one kidney, or a third of your liver. That doesn’t make it fine. This is a chronic condition, and you will not get better.”

“Yeah, the doctors already lectured me. And Bruce. And Danny. I get it. Don’t hide missing organs.”

Babs sighs, rolling back from her monitors. Tim’s camping out in the clock tower for his week that he’s grounded, to best avoid Damian. Like most predators, he waits to attack when his prey is weakened, and alone, which he would be taking his grounding in the batcave. “Did it sink in?”

“Yes,” Tim says, aware that it hadn’t, and that she wouldn’t believe him if it had. They’re not wired that way.

“I thought-” She starts, then pauses, as if to organize her thoughts. “I thought you were planning on retiring. Isn’t that what you said when you were thirteen- that you were just in the life to get B back to his feet? What’s a better reason than this?”

Tim sucks on his teeth. “This isn’t really the kind of life someone leaves behind. You know that.”

“Are you saying that because you feel like it’s impossible, or you don’t want to?”

“I don’t know.” Tim says, honestly. “Either way, I’m not leaving because I have to get extra booster shots.”

“It does matter, though. If you feel like it’s impossible, I can tell you it’s not. If you don’t want to, nothing’s gonna keep you from it.”

Tim tucks his knees into his sweatshirt, while Babs types away, assigns Cass to a call. “Have you finished working on Danny’s instagram?”

“Oh, yeah. Feel free to launch that whenever. And I’m not charging for it, cause he did save one of my boys. I’m grateful.”

“I’ll let him know. Although I’m sure he’s tired of hearing it- he told me he blocked Dick after the...” Tim scrolls up in their text log- “Uh, two hundred and fortieth thank you text.”

“Oh, that’s gotta hurt.”

“He unblocked him after Dick promised me he’d stop.”

“Steph said he was a good fit for you,” Babs says, around a laugh.

“Oh, god, f*ck Steph,” Tim says. “He’s adequate, and he hasn’t f*cked me over. Yet.”

“And he’s fine as hell. I know. I curated his instagram.”

“He’s... not bad.”

“Oh, Tim,” Babs says, in that way of hers.

“Okay, he’s very attractive, but he’s not really my type. He’s- we have a working relationship.”

Bab’s thin eyebrows raise as she turns back to her screens. “Okay,” she says, but it’s the okay of someone who’s well acquainted with people who won’t admit any change in opinion for any reason. Tim knows this and resents it.

Tim shifts back on the couch she keeps for them when they come by, carefully, so as to keep his stab wound happy. He’s been able to roll back on the painkillers now that he’s not dying of infection, but that means he has to contend with the pain. And the itchiness. It itches. But if he tries to scratch it, it hurts, so he has to deal.

“That being said, Bruce does really want to figure out a way to thank him.”

“And so do you.”

Tim waves her off, because although it’s true, he’ll never admit it. And because Bruce had said to Danny, once, that anything they could do to thank him, but he hadn’t brought it up to Tim since, and if Babs knew that, she’d go nuts over it. “He likes space.”

“That’s sweet.”

“How much of a donation do you think a planetarium would want to name a wing after him. Like in their little museum portion? Their whole museum portion? The whole planetarium?”

Babs breaks out laughing.

“What? What? ”

“Jesus f*cking Christ, Tim, I love you.”

He flips her off, and says: “I love you too.”

Two weeks after Tim got discharged from the hospital (for the second time), he goes back to work on his enucleator case. There was only one victim in his absence, so Tim’s guilt is slightly mitigated. (“Do you know how many die in this city every day, Tim? Do you know how many people get murdered in this city every day? We can’t stop it all.”) He takes his bike most places as opposed to grappling, because the muscles in his abdominal wall are getting reacquainted with working, and he doesn’t want to tear anything. It’s still more activity than PT suggests, and Bruce insists he can’t patrol alone in case he encounters any combat situations. Sometimes he gets partnered with Cass, which is the best case scenario. Sometimes it’s Dick, or Steph, who are annoyances by trade, but are competent in a pinch. Sometimes it’s Duke, which makes Tim feel like he’s babysitting, but it’s better than the one time he had Damian.

The brat doesn’t actively try to kill him anymore, but he undermines him at every opportunity, and he’d leave him behind for a popsicle and a sticker.

Maybe only the sticker. Especially if it was a holographic one. He hordes those like a dragon. Doesn’t even use them, just keeps them on their sheets.

He’s with him again another week after, gumshoeing. Tim told B that he didn't need an escort for basic investigative work, and B reminded him that that doesn’t bring the chances of combat anywhere near zero.

Damian kicks scrap metal around the warehouse, and the clanging echoes through the empty building. The crime scene techs had already gone through and taken samples and photographs, kicked up the dust and made a mess of things. Nobody had come to clean it yet, though, because the building was abandoned, and whatever bank owned it didn’t give a sh*t that someone got beaten to death with a scrap of pipe and their eyes scooped out with a spoon there.

He takes pictures of the scene, the blackish stain where the blood had congealed with dust and sunk into the unsealed concrete. Above them, the sky glows orange through broken skylights and collapsed roof. Damian’s scrap of metal hits him in the back.

“Hey!”

The demon looks at him, doesn’t apologize, then goes on sniffing around in corners.

There’s nothing new, no missing piece that puts everything else together- there almost never is, but Tim likes to check out all of the scenes as contingency, because he’d rather be caught dead than trust Gotham City’s police, including their crime scene techs.

And he likes getting a feel for the place.

“When are you gonna go back to California?” Damian asks.

“Oh, you just can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?” Tim says, immediately.

“I was just curious.”

“Maybe after I solve this case. Maybe later.”

“It’s just another case. There’s what, a dozen serial killers in this city? He’s not even anything special. He’s not a meta, not a villain, really, per-se. He’s no Moriarty. He’s probably just a vagrant who inhaled too much fear gas, who’s gonna end up in Arkham when you catch him, and then there’ll be another.”

“And there always will be.” Tim says. “It doesn’t mean we just give up on it.”

“Don’t you like the big stuff better? The Justice League, the big tickets?”

“No.” Tim says, a little shocked at how quickly he was able to answer. “No, this was never about glory. This was because I love this stupid, horrible, disgusting city, and the people in it.”

“Tt.” Damian sounds, which means he doesn’t care to continue the conversation he started.

“How’s your flesh market case going?”

“They’re very transient. It’s difficult. I worry they took advantage of Father’s absence while he was attending to you to move their northeast operation out of Gotham.”

“A whole market?”

“The market proper is in South America. Their location here would’ve just been for negotiation and deliveries.”

“Right,” Tim agrees. The Meta Flesh Market has been under the control of dozens of crime syndicates in the past decade. It changes hands, and locations, often. Arguably, it’s not all the same market- Ship of Theseus, right- but there’s only ever one or two- generally in South America and or Central to east Asia- and there’s never not been one, despite the best efforts of the Justice League. Mostly, they do their best to keep them out of North America and Europe.

Yes, people do get upset and use it as an arguing point about how the Justice League is kinda racist and perpetuates colonialism. No, they’re not really wrong.

“Huh.” Tim says. “Don’t move.”

“What?” Damian asks, but freezes.

“Something was drilled into the metal, here.” Tim says, striding up to the column that Damian was standing beside.

“Yeah?” Damian says, looking up at the four holes, spaced in an even square.

“Recently.” Tim says, brushing his gloved hand along the margin of the lowest one, where the metal is still sharp, catching the last bits of sunset from bullet holes riddling the side of the building. “There’s shavings down by your feet, they’re barely even dusty.”

Damian squats to collect them, although Tim doubts there’s anything of forensic value, apart from the fact that they’re there.

“Do you think they mounted something? There’s CCTV outside.”

“The wires are all f*cked,” Tim says. “They’re just there to deter vagrants. And there’s no evidence of electrical work in here, so it’s probably a self-contained mount, like a doorbell camera. But why go to the work of drilling through steel to mount it for just a snuff film trophy? Just use a tripod.”

“Easy to knock over in the struggle.” Says Damian.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t fit, this killer is too disorganized. There’s no way he could even plan where he makes a kill, much less come ahead of time to set up a camera.”

“Was there evidence of mounted cameras at the other crime scenes?”

“Not that I saw, but I wasn’t looking.”

“Pretty big thing to miss.” Damian says snidely.

“Alleyways, dumpsters, the back of a soup kitchen. There are lots of holes in the wall, and it’s more difficult to figure out how fresh they are in brick.”

“The disarray of the scenes as a forensic countermeasure.”

“Not on purpose, though- at least, it’s not the killer’s intent. There’s been a f*ck ton of DNA left at the scene- blood, skin, and hair.”

“Interesting.” Damian says. “So there’s a third party filming- the question is if they were filming because they knew a murder would take place here, or for a different reason, and removed the camera after your killer contaminated it.”

“This is my case.” Tim says, a little possessively.

“I never said it wasn’t.” Damian replies. “I’ll check the other columns.”

“Thanks, brat.”

Damian flips him off. It’s a stunningly pedestrian gesture from him, which makes Tim smile.

Odd.

***

“Almost.”

“You’ve been saying ‘almost’ for weeks, Danny.”

“Yeah, but this time I mean it,” He says, puzzling at his cloth, scattered with bone-white pieces. “Figure I should super-glue them? Or that they’ll just fuse once we get all the bits?”

“I think you should just fight the stupid thing.” Skulker grunts.

“Be my guest.” Danny says. “Oh, right, you’d rather run to the human realm. This is the second time I’ve handed your ass to you on a silver platter in three days.”

Skulker shrugs, refitting his arm. “You’re at least fun to fight when I’m losing. It just screams.”

“You tried fighting it for me? Awww. Skulks, that’s so sweet.” He drawls, laying on as much sarcasm as he can.

“I got fed up with all the damage. It was awful. You need to fight it, because you might actually last more than three minutes.”

“Oh, wonderful vote of confidence, that, thanks.”

“You would be able to defeat it,” Frostbite says. “If-”

“No.”

“It is your deathright.”

“I’m not dead.” Danny interrupts. “I’ll talk to Constantine, see if he has any leads on them.”

“If he did, your friends would’ve been able to track them down already.” Skulker says. “Constantine, the Dark League-”

“Justice League Dark,” Danny interrupts.

“Whatever. They don’t have the same resources you and yours do. They don’t know how ghosts work like you do. There’s no way they’ve found something you haven’t.”

“Do you wanna help? Because what really needs to be done is people looking.”

“It’s not my responsibility.”

“Oh, so you’ll try and fight an Ancient, but keeping your eye out for a shard is too much to ask? Tell you what, the next time you come out, causing issues in my town, trying to catch me in a weighted net to avoid the inconveniences this is causing, I’ll take of the f*cking kid gloves- yes, I do fight you with kid gloves on, Skulk, I’m not fourteen anymore- and you can make your choice about where you’d rather take your anger out.”

“My liege.” Frostbite says.

Danny runs his fingers through his hair. “Sorry. But You can’t deny I’ve made progress.”

“If it weren’t for your distractions-”

“If my constituents didn’t want me distracted, they shouldn’t’ve kidnapped my f*cking boyfriend.” Danny snaps. “And they’re lucky I’ve chosen to continue working on this even though I haven’t finished resolving that. They’re lucky he’s gonna make a full recovery.”

“Unlucky that Maitzik isn’t sentient enough to pin the blame on,” Skulker mutters.

“What would you know about it?”

“Nothing... My lord.”

“Shut the f*ck up, it sounds condescending from you.”

“It is.”

Danny zaps his hand, making him drop the piece of armor he was trying to fit back in despite the dents.

“It’s not even the proper honorific,” Frostbite says.

“Does the whelp look like he cares?” Danny does not. “What’s Frosty’s plan, what does he want you to do?”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s not viable.” Danny says. “Tell everyone who’s getting fed up with the tremors that if they want it dealt with, they should help me find the shards. If they can get along well enough to plan a mutiny, they can get along enough to help me solve the issue.”

“You are so naive.”

“And you are all so stupid. Get over yourselves.”

“Get over yourself and do whatever it is that the yeti’s suggesting!”

“Next time you decide a vacation in the mortal realm is nice, I’m gonna leave you in the thermos for a month.” Danny says, folding the cloth up and out of the plane. “It’s three in the morning. I’m going home.”

Parents? Not dead yet. Ghost sense? Not activated. Homework? Late, and Danny doesn’t want to email to ask anyone for extensions. He collapses on his bed, too wound up to go to sleep and too tired to get up and work on whatever, invariably, requires his attention. His phone buzzes with a calendar notification.

A calendar notification? Danny grimaces, checking it.

Chinese Satellite Atmospheric Entry

Oh, right. Danny signed up for an astronomical updates service, which added events visible in his zip code to his calendar automatically. It was a fun pastime, but most of them were too early, when he was busy, or well after he’d like to have gone to bed.

Danny rolls his neck back and looks out the window at the state of the sky. Partly cloudy.

He could fly above the clouds to watch it. Supposedly it’s pretty- space junk falling from the sky.

Even as the thought crosses his mind, he knows he’s too tired for it. He’s found nine shards in the last week, and applied disciplinary action to over a dozen spirits. His calculus teacher assigned an entire practice test to finish throughout the week, and in an effort to not tank his B- to an F over one assignment, Danny had actually been working on it incrementally. Even at 20 questions a day, he’s still pushing getting it done on time.

And he hadn’t done his 20 questions yet, which meant that he’d have to do 40 tomorrow, unless he rolled over and tried to make his brain do math after being awake for 28 some-odd hours.

f*ck.

He thumbs away the notification just as another one shows up.

Tim Drake <3

OFC you can stack +4s on +2s. How else are you Meant to play?

Danny blinks at the screen. It’s a response he sent to a text almost 13 hours ago, to settle an argument.

Little late

We already finished the game

Sam won, but what’s really important is that Wes LOST

Anyways

Why are you awake? It’s like 4

What are you, my mom?
What are YOU doing awake at almost 4? It’s almost 5 here, maybe I just woke up

We both know you didn’t.

Okay, sure
I was getting caught up on work from when I was sick

It is, frankly, sick and f*cking twisted that you’re working a full on CEO adult job at 17

What’s sick and twisted is that I’m the only one in this family competent enough to do so.
And you didn’t answer
What are YOU doing at the devil’s sacrament (awake at 4 am)

There’s a chinese satellite re-entering orbit and supposedly it’ll be visible

So I’m staying up to watch.

It’s close enough to the truth.

Oh, cool
The weather good for it? It’s always overcast, here.

Some clouds.

Hopefully I’ll be lucky.

Ah, Luck!

Thank you, thank you

So. are you planning on pulling an all nighter? Because 5 am is pretty close to dawn

Maybe, yeah

That can Not be good for recovery

Psh

Go to bed. Remember- any febrile illness could take you out, now

So if your immune system isn’t in tip top shape

You know

It’s my body, it’ll listen to me

You can’t reason with a fever

Maybe You just haven’t tried hard enough.

Go. To. Sleep.

Huh. Compelling.
No.

I’ll text Dick

He’s on shift, he can’t do anything about it.

Well, then I’ll text Bruce

He is. Out.
And you don’t have anyone else’s number. So no one can tell me to go to bed.
:P

Danny doesn’t really process what he’s doing when he presses the phone icon next to Tim’s name

He picks up halfway through the first ring.

“Did you mean to call me?”

Like always Tim’s voice sounds different on the phone- timeless, although the typical ethereal tone is changed by the slight crackle from sleeplessness.

“Go to sleep.” Danny says.

Tim laughs, short, breathy chuckles. “Why do you think I’ll listen to you, just cause you called me?”

“Because you can hear how disappointed I am.”

“Oh, of course,” Tim says with mock-solemnity. “You know, I could just stop texting you back and lie, say I’ve gone to sleep but keep working.”

“Wouldn’t you feel bad lying to me?”

“No,” Tim says, immediately. “I don’t feel bad lying to anyone else. Our whole relationship is a lie. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.”

“But you’d feel guilty. Because I’m coming from a place of genuine concern, you’d feel guilty because someone who cares about you told you to do something, and you didn’t.”

“Oh, you care about me?”

“In the sense that I’d like to stay out of jail, yes.”

“Ouch.”

“You’ll live.”

“Can you see it yet?” Tim asks, and Danny rolls over, so he can see out his window. It’s shot with glare from his lights, so he opens it, putting Tim on speaker on the pillow beside his chest.

“Nah, I don’t think so.”

“The site says it should be visible over Illinois soon.”

“The site?”

“Yeah, some news site is tracking it. I pulled it up as soon as you mentioned it.”

That sets off some funny feelings in Danny’s gut as he scans the sky. There’s clouds over about a third of it, but the wind is moving them pretty quickly.

“Not yet.” he says.

“Oh, that reminds me. What weekend works best for you to come out to Gotham next month?”

“Huh? Do you seriously have a charity gala every f*cking weekend?”

“Pretty much, yeah, but that’s not really what this is.” Danny can hear the smile in the corners of his words. “You’ll like it.”

“That’s a bold statement. I’ll tolerate it. What exactly is it?”

“A surprise.” Through the line, Danny can hear him close a door behind him. “I promise.”

“Legally, I can’t say no.”

“So, what weekend?”

“Any. I am completely free, yes that is miserable, mention it and I will make this gala miserable for you as best I can without violating the terms of our contract.”

“Hah.” Fabric rustling. “Uh, everything should be good to go by the second weekend of March.”

“Yeah, you’ll send me the itinerary.”

“Just trust me, Danny.”

“You told me not two minutes ago that not only were you completely comfortable with lying to me, but that you would do so with relish.”

“I’m not lying. You’ll like it.”

“Huh, I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Okay. For the next minute, I will be 100% honest with you. Ask me anything.”

“Oh, that must’ve pained you to say.”

“It did. Time’s wasting.”

“Will I like it?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to bed?”

“I’m in bed.”

“No way. I call bullsh*t.”

“No, I’ll prove it, one sec-” Danny’s phone buzzes on the pillow next to him with a text. It’s a picture from Tim, squinting in the flash from his phone, silky hair spread out over a pillow.

Danny’s heart skips a beat.

He knew Tim was attractive from day one. From seeing him in a velvet suit, dark eyes wide with panic in a museum basem*nt. His features were sharp, straight and elegant, his hair was smooth and thick. Danny knew this. Knows this. Knows also, that actually developing feelings for him is a slippery slope that he doesn’t want to step on.

It’s just- it’s unfair that he- classically beautiful, timeless Tim Drake-f*cking-Wayne, who looked like he was born to wear a suit- would look good terribly tired, in a two second selfie, getting ready for bed.

“Danny?”

“Fine. I- okay.”

“Okay, you believe me?”

“Yeah, I believe you.”

“On all counts?”

“On all counts.” Danny catches a glimmer out of the corner of his eye, and pushes himself further out the window. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I can see it.” It’s a smear of yellowish shooting stars, seven or eight of them, clustered and falling like a paint stroke. “It’s pretty.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He hears Tim yawn. “I’m glad.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Okay. G’night.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

“I hate you, you know that, right?”

“I’m aware.” Danny can’t help his grin. “Are you gonna hang up?”

“Yes. Maybe. Phone... so far away...”

“Drama queen. It’s gotta be right by your face.”

“Too much effort... to roll over... don’t want- to irritate my incision site-”

“Oh my god, fine. Ancients. Good night, you total pain in the ass.” Danny says, and presses the end call button, then stares at the growing crack in the plaster of his ceiling. His heart is pounding, and his face feels actually, legitimately warm. He lays his fingers across his neck and feels the blood push against his arteries. It’s uncomfortable, frankly, how hard the organ pushes against his ribcage, the way his stomach feels flighty and half sick.

He stares at the crack, waiting for it to settle, for his lungs to feel full again.

It takes the better part of ten minutes, Danny intentionally breathing deep, and trying his best to think of physics, of calculus, of the fact that he still hasn’t read the Camus selection for Lancer’s, to keep his mind from straying back to Tim Drake-Wayne and his sleepy grin and hair spread out like a dark halo on his pillow.

When the butterflies settle and his cheeks feel cool in the wash of cold air from his open window, he sits up, downs a glass of water and realizes he hasn’t eaten in close to fifteen hours, which is probably where the hunger is coming from. The flush, the heart pounding, from the fact that he’s up late by virtue of 460 mgs of caffeine. He turns off his light and returns to his bed. The last traces of the satellite are completely out of sight.

His phone says his alarm is set for two hours and forty minutes.

Danny closes his eyes.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

“I hate airports. Do you think Tim would notice if I didn’t use the tickets? Like- you think they’d send him an email?”

“He bought you first class tickets and the flight is only like two hours. Suck it up.” Sam says. It’s midday on Friday, but the highways around the airport are always f*cked, so the hearse is chugging along in inchworm traffic as they try to make their way to the off ramp.

“It’s not about flying. It’s about the airports. The TSA. I haven’t gone through a TSA check since I was alive. What if I f*ck up the scanner things? Not to mention my lack of a penis is apparently a concern for national f*cking security.”

“You’ve gone through other metal detectors. I’m sure you’re gonna be fine.” She assures. “Whether or not you’ll be fine when you get there, that’s another question.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “I’ve been to Gotham before. I’ve been on fake dates with my fake boyfriend before.”

“Phantom has been to Gotham. The last time Danny was in Gotham, he got arrested. You’re just a straight up magnet for trouble.”

“The last time Danny was in Gotham, his boyfriend wasn’t Tim Drake-Wayne.” Danny says. “And I don’t still have a warrant out in Jersey, I checked.”

“Well, that’s something of a relief,” Sam says. “At least he’s honest. Although one would hope the GCPD would have something better to do than make good on a warrant for some kid. Should it still even count if the first time you were arrested as a minor?”

Danny shrugs. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

“So, he still hasn’t told you what you’re doing?”

“Nope,” he crosses his arms, trying not to sulk about the fact. “Why would he? He’s dressing me, the character I have to play is the same as always, I’m just another prop.”

Sam stares at him, long and hard. “You like that, though, don’t you?”

Danny feels heat rise on his neck. “Ancients, why would you say that? f*ck.”

She laughs “Oh, babe, we all knew this was gonna be a terrible idea for you, but holy hell.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” Danny says defensively.

“Yeah, you did- the choice was- pretend to date a super hot teen CEO or sign an NDA.”

“Well, Sam, is that really a choice? Be for real.”

“I don’t know. You still have to sign an NDA.” The line of cars moves forward. “You made a decision to complicate your life, don’t whine to me about the consequences.”

“Who else am I gonna whine to, then?”

“You’re ridiculous.” Her fingers drum against the steering wheel. “How long are you gonna be there, anyways? The court can’t be pleased with you taking more time off.”

Danny lets his thumb run over the outside of Pariah’s ring in the front pocket of his jeans. “Just a few days. I’m flying back Sunday Morning. And I’m available if I’m really needed, but I have to trust Elle to properly vet issues.”

“Two nights with the Waynes, eh? Good luck.”

“At least I don’t have to travel with them. And Tim assured me that there’s enough beds this time.”

“Pity.”

Danny coughs.

He only has a backpack, as the trip is just gonna be the weekend, so Sam drops him off in front of the Peoria airport, and Danny lets people with big rolling suitcases rush past him until the anxiety about missing the flight is greater than the anxiety about going through security.

He checks in at one of the little self-service kiosks, and not a minute after he scans his boarding pass and confirms his ID, two men in crisp airline uniforms start walking straight towards him.

f*ck. Exactly what he needs right now. He keeps his eyes on the kiosk, trying to seem interested in the seat transfer options, muscles tensed for a fight.

“Danny Fenton?”

He looks up, trying to read any hostility in the men. They aren’t security, they don’t seem to be carrying any weapons, and the one speaking is wearing a genial smile.

“Yes?”

“Right this way. We’ve been expecting you.”

“Sorry? I- I was just trying to get to my flight...”

“Of course. You don’t think you would have to wait in all those lines?” Danny must still look confused, because he continues by saying: “Wayne Enterprises owns Atalanta airlines.”

“Oh, right.” Danny says, although he didn’t know that at all. “So I- I don’t have to- Uh-”

“We’ll put your bag through a scanner, but there’s no need to inconvenience you with the lines, as you are a personal guest of Mister Drake-Wayne. Your comfort is very important to us.”

“Oh. I- Okay.” Danny gets pulled along through the crowds, his bag of clothes checked in by a bored looking lady with nails close to two inches long. The men put him in a lounge, give him a pop can and a whisky glass with ice, but no whisky. An important looking woman in a pantsuit sits a reasonable distance from him, typing furiously on a sleek laptop.

He’d budgeted time for the lines, and for finding his terminal, and maybe getting coffee for fifteen dollars. Ancients, he hated airports. But he supposes if you always did airports like this, it wouldn’t be so bad. He wonders why Tim seemed opposed to it- returning his tickets in SF- if this were the experience he was used to. He sips on the co*ke and texts Sam:

Is this what being rich is like

He knows she’s still driving back, so he doesn’t hold his breath for a response. He texts Tim, also, then, because he doesn’t have anything better to do.

You spoil me.

I’m glad you’re having fun. Airline employees keep their jobs.

Haha

You’re joking right

Right?

Yes, I’m joking.
You’re there early. Your flight doesn’t take off for another hour and a half.

I didn’t know I’d be exempted from the TSA

Ah yes. Perks
I have stuff to do but if anyone f*cks up, you make sure to get me their employee ID, yeah?
Kidding. Mostly. Obviously if it’s like, egregious, then do? But
Nvm

Danny grins. He does a lot of grinning at his phone when Tim is involved, as his friends love to point out. Which- whatever, the dude is funny. His humor is dry until he feels like he has to explain the joke, at which point he becomes hopelessly awkward, which Danny thinks is hilarious (although more so at the boy’s expense).

“Drusella for Vegas?” A man asks on a speaker. “Your flight is ready to board.”

The businesswoman looks up, packs away her computer, and leaves the lounge. Right. He shifts back in the soft lounge chair, takes his thin paperback out of his back pocket, pretends like his co*ke on the rocks is whisky, and luxuriates. Gets into character. Whatever you want to call it.

It only lasts three minutes before he’s texting the group chat that ‘philosophers who think the best way to convey their theories is via novel should be shot. Write essays that other stuck up assholes read and leave the rest of us alone.’

Prophet (derogatory): Salty because the French again, huh?

yES

He suffers through a few more pages with heavy support from sparknotes, because he was missing Lancer’s for this flight. But the story is depressing and uncomfortable to read, so he gives up and watches youtube until they call his name.

First class doesn’t mean that much on a continental flight- the seats are cushy and there are only two to a row instead of three. Danny doesn’t have a seatmate, so he wonders if Tim bought both of the seats. Did he even have to buy tickets if he owns the airline?

It’s right in front, and in the gaps of people coming in, Danny can glance around the aisle and see into the co*ckpit. Commercial flight doesn’t interest him much, but the co*ckpit, full of toggles and dials and blinking lights, compels him. He watches the casual routine the pilot and co-pilot move through in the narrow entrance, comforted by the dull, staticky roar of the plane’s engines.

He’s seen a handful of rocket launches- only one before he died, which he’d had to beg and beg for, and Jazz had gotten on his side, and had pestered, until their parents had folded and driven them down, a day and change, to Chincoteague, to watch one. Most of the rest he’d seen up close, closer than the public’s allowed, because he could sneak straight up to it, and feel the heat waves move through his body like a warm breeze, the shocks like bass at a concert. Launches like that are louder than life, but the foundation of the sound is much the same. Danny loves it. The sound of people flying- people, regular people, not ghosts or aliens, or whatever else. Just normal people, and this was the sound of them scraping and clawing, and twisting the laws of physics to make them fly.

He watches the co*ckpit until the doors close, and then he lets his face rest against the glass of the little window, to watch them sort through the other planes to get to the runway. The attendants talk through the life vests and cabin depressurization, which Danny doesn’t pay a lick of attention to. The plane won’t go down, he won’t let it.

Then they’re flying, and Danny listens to the sounds of human contradictions.

The flight is uneventful. Two hours and fourteen minutes from Peoria to Bludhaven Intl. Danny’s allowed to be the first one off, since he hasn’t got any luggage, and his seat is the closest one to the door. There’s no airline employees to move him through the airport, this time, but Danny doesn’t have any issues following the signs.

He doesn’t need the paper with his name on it to recognize Alfred Pennyworth. The man stands stick straight and unaffected in the bustle of the pickups. His white gloves hold the ecru cardstock in front of his dapper, three piece suit, carefully, so as not to wrinkle the paper.

Danny wonders why he calls himself a butler. The term seems kind of antiquated, although he supposes that ‘personal assistant’ doesn’t quite cover the breadth of his responsibilities. He’s in decent shape, and doesn’t require any glasses, although he was old enough to be Bruce Wayne’s father.

“Master Danny,” He says, with a smile and low, even tone, when Danny is comfortably within earshot.

“Just Danny.” He says.

“I’m afraid that isn’t proper. Please.” He tucks the paper under his arm.

“Master whoever, Vlad Masters,” Danny waves his hand around. “I don’t like the reminder. Or the implication.”

“Right. The car’s outside.”

Danny follows him, hands tight on his backpack strap. It’s not the big Cadillac, which Danny assumes lives in California, or Tim’s Aston Martin, which may well be his personal car. Danny thinks the logo is a Porsche, though he isn’t sure. It’s not like anyone drives a Porsche in Amity. Mustangs are about as far as it goes for rich people show-off cars.

He sits in the front and watches as Alfred expertly maneuvers his way out of the VIP parking spot and gets them onto the New Jersey Turnpike.

“Water?” The butler asks, gesturing to a bottle in the median.

“It’s alright, thanks,” Danny says, fiddling with the zipper on the front of his bag.

“What about music? The boys usually, ah, take the aux cord?”

Danny can’t imagine playing any of his playlists in front of the proper British man, so he shakes his head. “I’m okay.” He watches the street pass by. It’s just barely spring, light green leaves still all folded up into tiny little points, and almond flowers sprayed through the streets. “Where’s Tim?” He finally asks.

“He’s back in the city, preparing. He did tell you that I was going to pick you up, yes?”

“Yeah, I- sorry. He did. I- I guess I’m just excited to see him.”

Alfred smiles. “Everyone is excited to have you, as well. You’ve made quite the impression on them.”

Danny nods. “Right. Thanks, I guess?”

“They’re not easy to please. Not in a genuine respect, anyways. But they’re protective of each other, so by helping Tim the way you did, that really endeared you to them.”

Danny nods into his backpack. “I don’t know what anyone else would’ve done different.”

“You’d be surprised.” Alfred says.

Danny goes back to watching the cities skirt by. Alfred seems to be content to let the silence stretch, but Danny can’t deal with it, so after a minute, he does end up reaching forward to turn on the radio. Something independent with a lot of odd percussion and keening vocals. Not what he was expecting, but he’s not complaining.

The sky gets darker as they get nearer to Gotham, haze from whatever factories giving the clouds a rusted tint. They speed around the edge of the city center. High rises and filigreed cathedral spires fade through smoke and fog.

The Wayne manor is about a ten minute drive from the city proper, surrounded by half bare woods and a roll of pasture. The building itself is grand, old dark brick, climbing ivy. It’s not in as high repair as Danny expects- the roof is missing some shingles, some gargoyles have lost claws, horns, or tongues. The wood doors of the grand entrance are sun faded and water bleached. Damian Wayne is on the green with three dogs, throwing a ball for them.

“Master Damian,” Alfred calls. The youngest Wayne whistles, a single sharp note, and all the dogs heel behind him. “Show Danny the house, his room. I must park the car and set up for dinner.”

“Yes, Alfred,” Damian says, watching impassively as Danny climbs out. “No bags?”

“Just this.”

“People have shown up at this house with less.” Damian says, and Danny has the distinct impression he’s talking about himself. Tim’s brief file on him stated that he was Bruce’s biological son, although no one had known about him til he was nine, when his mother gave up rights and he had nowhere else to go. He carries himself with the same haughty air that Tim does, the posture that a silver spoon nurses, which is why Danny’s fully confident it’s all an act. “Come on, we never use the main doors. They’re too heavy to be really practical.

“The house was built in the 1700’s, before the revolutionary war- it was one of the first estates in New Jersey. It was made in a similar fashion to English manor houses at the time, although the Waynes have always been predisposed to a certain- dark, eclectic flair.” Damian says, as he presses his thumb pad to a scanner, speaking like he’s reading from a textbook. “So there’s an amount of gothic revival. This is the column gallery,” The room is dark, with a low ceiling, and filled with neat rows of columns, alcoves carved out of the walls. One or two display a hellenistic statue, but most are empty. Damian catches him looking, and says: “Father donated a lot of the original collection to museums. The columns support the weight of the upstairs ballroom, because the floor’s pure marble, and about a foot and a half thick. Kitchens and Alfred’s quarter’s are to the right- you shouldn’t go there for any reason, and if you disturb him in the kitchen, you may lose a finger. The garage is to the left, and other storage, boring stuff.

“Through this door-” Damian presses a wood panel, and a hidden door pops open beneath the great staircase- “Is the servant’s quarters. Technically they’re cordoned off because there’s asbestos in the walls that we haven’t dealt with yet, but some of the rooms are safe. Don’t look like that, we’re not making you sleep down there. I’m just letting you know cause Drake’s darkroom is in one of ‘em, and if he disappears for a few hours, you might wanna check down there.” He pulls the false wall back closed. The dogs are still following him obediently, although the largest- a doberman- keeps looking at Danny warily.

“Grand staircase. More statues.” He states, sounding deeply bored. “Ballroom. Whenever we host galas, this is where they happen. This floor is all staterooms- the West wing is business offices, where Father and Drake host clients, and the East has largely been converted into studios for the Wards’ various hobbies. Come.”

The first room in the east wing is a small ballet studio, for Cas, presumably, ceilings three times a regular height, adorned with complicated plasterwork, and two full length windows facing the front green. Then, in the same size, with the same set of doors and windows, is a room full of art supplies and covered canvases that Damian rushes them through without any comment. The last is twice as big as the other two, and Danny can see the scarring on the wall and ceiling where a wall had been removed. It’s a gym, fitted mostly for martial arts and gymnastics, though there’s a weight rack tucked into one corner, and a trapeze rig hooked to one wall. “The gym. Feel free to use it. It’s always unlocked. Can’t say the same for any of the other rooms.” He takes them into the back hall, which all the staterooms open into.

“Up that staircase are the family rooms.” Damian says, “Around the promenade you saw in the ballroom. Guest rooms are over here,” he opens another door, speaking quickly, like he’s reciting a script and he wants to get it over with. It’s another hall, with more rooms, and Damian opens the nearest.

“Washroom’s through there,” he says, pointing to a door. “Should be fully stocked.” He checks his watch and uses the other hand to scratch behind the german shepherd’s ears. “An estate like this was built to run on a full staff, but the only employee we keep on full time is Alfred. It doesn’t make sense to maintain all of it. If you get lost, I can’t guarantee anyone will find you.”

“Are you warning me against exploring?”

“Unless you have Cain with you, yes. Although I suppose you wouldn’t be afraid of ghosts.”

Danny grins. “Right. And where is everyone else? I’d expected... I don’t know, with how many of you there are, I thought the place would be busy.”

“Father and Grayson are each at work, Drake is preparing for your... surprise. Cain- rehearsal, and Thomas is working on his after school activities.”

“Right.”

“Dinner’s at six, sharp, always is, for guests. Someone will come show you to the dining room at that point.”

“Oh, sure, yeah.” The kid doesn’t even nod, just turns to leave. “Uh- could I know the dogs’ names?” Damian turns around so fast Danny thinks he must’ve blinked, and for the first time ever, he sees a gleam of excitement in the boy’s eyes.

***

Tim assumes, as no one’s texted him that Danny’s gone missing, or that the flight went down, that he’d been delivered safely to the manor. He parks his bike in the garage, throws his helmet on the seat, and checks his phone. Again. Danny hasn’t texted since the pre-flight banter. So although he’s making the assumption that he’s arrived at the manor in one piece, he is a little worried about what’s happened to him since.

He runs into Duke in the hall, who’s pulling a hoodie on and shaking plaster out of his hair.

“Have you seen Danny yet?”

“No, I’m just getting back from patrol,” He says.

“Oh, how’d that go today?”

“Great. Check it,” Duke pulls up his hoodie and shirt to reveal a bruise blossoming across his flank, angry and purple against his dark skin. “Awesome, right?”

“Still on that adrenaline high?”

“Oh so much. I can’t feel it at all.” He lets Tim pluck another piece of plaster out of his hair. “So, Danny’s getting here today? I forgot.”

“Really?”

“No, you’ve been neurotic about this for the last few weeks. Of course I know he’s coming in today.”

“Neurotic?”

Duke holds his hands up by his shoulders in defense. “I mean- dude, you planned the whole thing yourself. You could’ve hired an event planner. Doesn’t Wayne Enterprises have like 3 on retainer?”

Tim pokes him in the bruise.

“Ugh! Rude.”

Tim could’ve used an event planner, of course, but because it’s tax season, he’s got less pre-set business meeting because he’s supposed to the family taxes and he schedules around that, but they’re not necessarily that difficult, even when you have the amount of assets they do, so he had the extra time to devote to it.

And he hasn’t been any more neurotic about it than he is about any other responsibility that he undertakes. “I’m gonna go find him.”

“Right.” Duke says. “Ah, I’m gonna do my homework, with my noise canceling headphones on.”

“You- I resent that implication!”

“And I resent sharing a wall with you while your boyfriend is in town.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. How have you convinced everyone that you’re the sweet one?”

“This might be hard for you to grasp, but it wasn’t a calculated decision.” He grins, and Tim doesn’t know why he asked it, even rhetorically.

“He’s not my boyfriend. And the headphones aren’t necessary!”

Duke waves him off as he takes off up the stairs.

Tim rolls his eyes, and makes his way up to the guest room they were putting Danny in. His backpack is on the bed, but he’s nowhere to be found, so Tim breaks and texts him.

Hey I just got home, where are you?

He leans against the bedpost and stares at the text log for five minutes before Danny starts typing, and he feels a knot unfurl in his chest.

Stables with Damian.

Ah. re-furled.

Are you hurt?

Are you being held against your will?

??
I’m fine? Although ‘being held against my will’ could apply
I have a cow head on my lap and while I could get free, I’d feel really bad.

Tim processes the information with a few long blinks, then starts the trek towards the stables.

Danny and Damian are both looking at the door before he opens it. Danny’s sitting in a bed of straw with Batcow’s head on his lap, scratching behind her ears. Alfred the cat is watching warily on top of the stable wall, and Damian is holding the stupid honey badger he’d tamed (no, Tim doesn’t know how, nor does he want to) with both arms around the animal’s chest. It makes him look like a small child with a very angry, very dangerous teddy bear. Annihilator hisses at him, the only one startled by his sudden entrance.

Danny grins, pointing to the cow’s head, like: can you believe this?

“Damian.” Tim says. “Really?”

“He asked.” The brat says.

“How long have you been here?” Tim asks Danny, who doesn’t seem bothered by the half-feral animal in the middle schooler’s arms.

“Like an hour or something,” Danny says. “Can you take my picture with the cow?” He holds his phone out to Tim with the camera pulled up, then poses. Tim takes the picture with a sigh.

“Don’t post that on instagram.” he says, when he hands it back.

“I’m just sending it to my friends,” Danny says, rolling his eyes. “I have way too many followers now to do something stupid like that.”

“Damian, could you kennel your beasts, please? And yourself, if possible.”

“Very funny, Drake,” says Damian, in a complete deadpan, but he does move to put the badger away.

“You like animals?” Tim asks, leaning against the stable door.

“I asked the dogs’ names.”

“Rookie mistake.”

“I figured that out, yeah.” Danny says. “It’s okay, could’ve been worse.”

“Yeah, you could’ve asked about his knives.” Danny’s eyebrows raise. “Then you would’ve gotten an hour long lecture about edge diameter and a much more dangerous demonstration. Do you need help getting up?”

“Nah, it’s okay.” He gingerly picks up the cow’s head and sets it back down like it doesn’t weigh 30 some-odd pounds. “Oh, I have cow drool on my legs, sick.” He smiles at Tim, uneven, charming and roguish, and Tim can’t help smiling back.

“You smell like a barn.” He says.

“Is this place licensed as a zoo? Or a sanctuary? Like- the kid obviously takes great care of the animals, but I watched Tiger King, you can’t legally privately own big cats, and he has three.”

“They’re rescues. And money greases all wheels.”

Danny nods, brushing hay off his pants. “Sweet kid.”

“You just spent an hour with him, you’re really gonna say that?”

“Maybe he’s not sweet to people- I do think he hates me, but I figure that’s gotta be the way he was raised, right?”

“What’d he tell you about the way he was raised?” Tim says, because he’s fairly certain he hadn’t provided any information on the subject in his brief file about Damian.

“Nothing, there’s just...” Danny trails off. “This might be a somewhat intrusive question, but... did he ever die?”

Tim freezes. “What?”

“He’s got a vibe. I’ve been around a lot of ghosts.” He scratches the back of his neck as they walk back towards the manor proper. “Not that he’s a ghost, but I mean, there’s a certain, je ne sais quoi? Cass, too, though I couldn’t put my finger on it when I first met her.”

“Uh, you’d have to ask him about it. Them.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Danny says easily. “I just figure, if he’d died and came back before he hit puberty properly, you could afford a little grace, eh?”

“He spent any grace of mine a while ago.” Tim replies.

“Sure. I mean, I don’t have to live with him. I’m gonna go take a shower before dinner- there’s no dress code, right?”

“Come as you are, you’ll be fine. Though a lack of eau-de-vache would be ideal.”

Danny shakes with a silent laugh, and ducks down to kiss Tim’s cheek, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Tim inclines his head to meet it, because it feels like it is, until they’re both frozen in the eave of one of the manor’s back entrances. Danny opens and closes his mouth three times, and comes up with nothing to say.

“Damian,” Tim says, finally, “uh, Damian’s coming from the stables, he’s-” They both glance back the way they came, to see the demon walking back with the dogs and Alfred the cat in tow. He’s not looking at them at all, but Tim still relaxes a little bit with the addition of the plausible deniability.

“Right,” Danny agrees. “Right. Uh, I’m gonna-”

“Yeah. Yeah, do that.”

“Okay,” he says, breathy and rushed, and disappears into the hall.

Tim presses his fingers to his cheeks carefully, praying they’re not as red as they feel.