Chapter Text
Jazz carefully guided the shirt over Danny’s torso, keeping it off his chest, and he lowered his arms.
“Hey, at least I finally got the surgery I wanted.”
“Danny!”
“Right, bad time.” His eyes jumped around the room, unsure of what to focus on.
“Danny, you can’t stay.” Jazz’s tone was soft, careful.
“I know.” It came out as a whisper.
There was a pause between the siblings.
“Oh, Danny.” She set a hand on his arm, careful to not brush his wrist, knowing she couldn’t pull him in for a hug.
“Where do I go?” His eyes moved slower, taking in his room for the last time. Jazz bit her lip and his eyes snapped back to her.
“What?” He asked.
She hummed slightly.
“They never told you, because they wanted you as theirs, no questions asked. Danny… Jack had an accident after they had me, he couldn’t have another kid.” She bit her lip again.
“Jazz. What are you saying.” It came out flat.
“Maddie was a surrogate. If they had twins, she could keep one. They got to keep you. You’ve got another family out there. They were in Gotham, their last name is Drake. That’s all I know.” She rushed the words, each one breaking everything Danny thought he knew.
It made sense, really. He might have the blue eyes and black hair of Jack Fenton, but he never had the build of the man. Jazz shared in his height, at least, towering over Danny even now. Danny was slim and short, even with his lean muscles.
“Oh.” Was all he managed to get out, his thoughts racing about the possibility of another family. A twin.
“Danny, you’ve- you’ve got to go. You can go to Gotham. Look for the Drakes. I can come to Gotham, too.” Jazz was standing, picking up his already packed backpack.
“No, Jazz.” Danny shook his head. “You’ve got a year left on your Associates, it’s all planned out. You need to finish it. It’ll be better that way for you, less of a mess.”
“That doesn’t matter Danny, I don’t care-“
“Yes you do. I know you care about me more, but you still care about it. I don’t want you to throw that away for me. Finish your plans. Then you can move where you were going to continue your schooling if you want. But don’t change your current plans, please.” He pleaded.
Jazz heaved a sigh, nodding.
“Okay. Okay. We can make it work. You’ll go to Gotham. I’ll go back to school for now.” There was a pause again between the two, neither of them wanting the moment to end. Jazz still broke the silence.
“Danny, you have to go.”
He nodded, knowing he needed to go before the Fentons got back.
“Jazz, I-“ he stopped, looking at his sister.
She smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes in the right way. She pushed his backpack into his hand saying,
“I know, Danny. I’ll see you again eventually. Go find your family.” And nudged him slightly towards the window. He nodded, taking the backpack.
“You are my family.” He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear, and pretended to not notice the tears gathering in her eyes. White light flashed through the room and Phantom shot out of the window, headed for New Jersey.
———————————
Danny’s sweatshirt caught on the rough stone as he slid down the grimy wall in the alley, hitting the ground. His chest pulled and burned with each quick gulp of air. He didn’t have time to collapse like this, he needed to search for the Drakes before night fell, but he was too exhausted to move aside from the heaving of his chest, which only served to aggravate his wounds.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there in the back of the alley, hyperventilating. It took longer than he would’ve liked to get his breathing under control.
Danny lifted his head and took stock of himself. His knees were pulled up to his chest, but held just a bit further away than he normally would have them so as not to touch. His hands were now on his knees, trembling. When was the last time he had seen them steady? When he had taken his backpack from Jazz? No, they had been trembling then, too.
He pushed his legs slowly outward, wincing when his knees cracked as they straightened. He could feel the layers of grime under his legs but couldn’t bring himself to care. He had already been in grime for a while on his way to Gotham and knew this would be his life for a while now, if he couldn’t find the Drakes. If he could find them and they didn’t want him.
Danny’s eyes wandered from himself to the alley, drifting from the grime under his legs outward. He was pressed into the back of the alley, keeping away from the street itself. Between himself and the entrance of the alley were two dumpsters which were wafting off a stench he wished he couldn’t smell.
He needed to get up.
If that smell soaked into him, he would have a harder time going into places. Danny pushed his hands against the slime on the pavement, propping himself up enough to bring his knees back in. He gathered himself off the ground, stood, and wiped the grime from his hands onto his jeans. Leaned down to grab his backpack off the ground where he must have discarded it when he had first stopped in the alley. Slung the backpack over his shoulders and hauled himself towards the entrance of the alley.
Passing the dumpsters was worse than being near them. Holding his breath did little to ward off the stench as he tried his best to not gag and wretch as he edged as far from them as possible in the narrow space left in the alley.
At the edge of the alley, he could see into the street. The city’s smog hung low, creating a dampness to the atmosphere Danny could sense. Or maybe that was the high concentration of unclean ectoplasm, somewhat like Amity Park’s. While the ectoplasm here was high, it wasn’t fresh. More like city tap water than a fresh well like Amity Park’s access with the portal had. Danny took a deep breath and tried to steel his nerves. He needed to find the Drakes.
His family.
Where did he start with something like that? Jazz and him had decided it was best if he left behind his phone and got a new one when he was able, just in case his parents found a way to track it. He knew Jazz’s number by heart and would text her later. He had other Fenton tech in his backpack for himself. If he really wanted to get back in contact with anyone else he could ask Jazz, but he had gotten distant with Sam and Tucker in the last year anyway. Too much had been changing, or staying the same, depending on the person.
He shook his head, trying to clear the thoughts. He didn’t have time to think about that, he needed to get moving. Night was falling soon, and he needed to find at least some information if he wanted to get a head start before night hit. Where would he find information? The police station?
Ha. In his condition? He didn’t need that. The library, then. He could use their computers for the internet, at least. He couldn’t expect a lot from searching for a random family, but it was a start.
Danny started walking, looking for something to guide his way to find the library in Gotham.
——
Barbara normally got a heads up before the boys visited her unless Dick really wanted to surprise her, or Jason was just there for books, so she wasn’t anticipating Tim to walk into the library. More surprising, was how disheveled Tim was. Usually in public he at least made half an effort to look decent. Being the CEO of Wayne Enterprises so young, he always felt he had to prove a point.
Today, not so much. His hair looked like he lost a fight with a bird, sticking in every direction it could, and she was pretty sure there was dirt in it. It looked like he had tried to pat it down, but it hadn’t helped. His Wayne Aerospace hoodie had a coffee stain down the front, no surprises there, but also looked like he had rolled in an alley outside along with his jeans. She remembered him mentioning that department working on some new projects, so he must have been trying to support them more. He had a backpack with him that didn’t look much better, and she would say it was his school backpack if she didn’t know he was already a drop-out.
“Tim!” She called out, watching his glazed eyes accompanied by his usual eye bags pass her by without sparing a glance and head towards the computer area.
“Tim?” No reaction. She sighed, shaking her head. What would Tim want with the computers here? There was nothing he could do on them that he couldn’t get done at home, or even at the office really. And the way he hadn’t even noticed her calling out to him, and the state he was in… when was the last time Tim slept? He was probably buried deep in some case he refused to set down.
Barbara pulled out her phone and texted one of the group chats.
- decaf brew -
BigBrother: Someone cut Tim’s coffee off and make him get some sleep, just witnessed a code yellow
BloodHeir: Drake is incapable of self-care.
Whelmed: I’ll check on him later
BigBrother: Thanks
Barbara set down her phone with another sigh, looking towards the computers. She could see Tim squinting at a screen like he did when he was disappointed with his findings, but focused and still searching. If she gave it a little longer, yup, there it was, his tongue was just barely sticking out now. She shook her head with a slight smile, attending to her own screen.
The real question was what in the world Tim would possibly be using the library’s computer’s for, especially with his focus he usually reserved for his more puzzling cases.
Things weren’t adding up.
She would have to check what he searched after he left. Since he seemed rather out of it, she figured he was likely to forget to clear his search history. Not that it was difficult to recover that unless he truly scrubbed it clean anyway, and Tim was in no condition currently to fully wipe his history. She would find out what he was up to when he was done with the computer. For now, she could get back to work while somewhat keeping an eye on him. Something was off. And maybe partially in case he fell over, he didn’t look too good, and he had done it before.
——
Danny tapped through the internet searches, sinking further and further into his seat. The Drakes were dead. His parents were dead. He really hadn’t been expecting much for results by searching for a Drake family, and was—at first—pleasantly surprised to immediately get results of a couple who looked like him. Turns out, the Drakes had been pretty big in Gotham. Unfortunately though, they were already deceased for a number of years. His twin wasn’t mentioned as dead, so likely he went into the foster system and was long-since disappeared. Scrolling through the information about the Drakes, there were a few articles about a Tim Drake-Wayne, but Danny knew of him. Son of Bruce Wayne and CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and so he disregarded those articles and links quickly. After all, he was currently wearing a Wayne Aerospace hoodie, so he knew who that was quite well. Wayne Enterprises was huge in Gotham, so there was no need to click on any Wayne-related links in the search for his family, especially when he had already found what had happened to the Drakes several years ago.
Now what was he going to do?
Danny slumped in his seat—if it was possible to slump further—and did his best to suppress his groan. It was late enough he should get out of the library before they had to kick him out, so he shuffled to his feet and closed his searches down. His backpack was dragged from the floor to his shoulder and he gave a half-wave to the red-head sitting at the front desk who seemed to want his attention. He didn’t give it to her.
Straight out the doors and down the street, Danny thought about his own red-head. He couldn’t tell Jazz yet. If he told her that he already knew his family was a dead end, she would drive to Gotham to pick him up. He couldn’t bum in her dorm room at college, and he didn’t want her to uproot her college plans for him, either. He could figure something out, he just needed a little time. For now, he needed some food and a place to sleep.
——
When Tim stood up from the computer and grabbed his backpack off the floor, Barbara straightened up and paid full attention to him again. As he passed by she waved at him.
“Hey, Tim!” She tried again.
He didn’t look at her, but he did wave while going past, so that was at least something. He was pretty out of it, she might have to tell Dick to double down on his check-in for Tim later tonight. Tim himself blew right out the door of the library, so Barbara shrugged off his ignoring of her.
She wheeled herself around her desk and over to the computers, pulling up Tim’s search history to see what he had been up to while here. He hadn’t even bothered to clear his search history, only closing out of everything, which was strange. It was easy to start at the beginning and see what he started searching, and what he opened from there.
‘Drake’
‘Drakes’
‘Drake Family’
‘Drake Family History’
That… was odd. What would Tim need to search his own family for? That didn’t seem right. Something was wrong with this picture, and it was more than what she was thinking was off about Tim before.
Barbara wheeled back to her desk to pull up footage of Tim to examine it again and save some of it to her own files to look at later.
——
Danny had been walking for a while when he found himself wandering into a park with a sign that read Robinson, which he found a bit ironic with the Robins running around.
After his journey to Gotham, his breakdown in the alley upon his arrival, his discovery that his parents he was searching for were dead, and wandering around a bit more, he was exhausted. He had been exhausted when he left home prior to all of that. Now that he was slowing down again and not actively searching for something, his chest was itching and burning again as well. It ached.
He dragged himself further into the park, looking for the most secluded area he could get. He could look for a better place to stay another day. The sun has already dipped beneath the buildings and staying out in Gotham at night on his first night in the city was probably another death sentence. And besides, he couldn’t keep dragging his legs along anyway. As he wandered further into the park, he spotted some other bushes and decided those would be good enough. He crawled down into them, trying not to get himself scratched, as he found a good opening under the bushes and settled down.
Danny drifted off curled around his backpack, hidden under the bushes of Robinson Park in Gotham.