Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Talia Al Ghul had twins sired by the so respected 'Detective', Damian and Daniyah.

Damian, the first born, was obedient, efficient, the perfect heir in Ra's eyes.

Daniyah was not. She questioned everything she was told to do, outright refused to do some of them — it was rare to find her not being punished for a misdoing.

Talia wasn't stupid, she didn't want her children to grow up like she did — training was good, but what the League of Assassins did to children not old enough to understand it was absurd — but she was also almost always not in a position to help them.

It took a lot of careful planning on her part, but, after a mission in which Daniyah refused to kill her target and Damian finished it for her, the opportunity was in front of her. She proposed to her father that Damian be sent to the Batman to train with him as a reward and Daniyah be sent on a mission to keep track of the Fentons, a couple who studied Lazarus Water as a branch (and so happened to be on the adoption wait-list after a miscarriage years prior), as punishment.

Daniyah, to her credit, had always been a decent actress and played her part well, acting as though the boring, nearing exile of a mission was punishment and not the best solution to their problems.

The Fentons misheard Daniyah's name, they registered them as Daniel Fenton. Danny didn't mind. Strangely, Danny liked it even.

Danny had kept their hair short their entire life due to the League's training, so they understood where the confusion came from. They found they didn't really care about what gender they were treated as.

Eventually, the Fentons figured it out, but Danny said he didn't mind so they went with it. 

(Jazz would later explain to them the spectrum of gender and non-binary genders.)

Life went on, the accident happened, Vlad came in, Jack and Maddie made Vlad Danny's godfather like they made him Jazz's. 

Danny wasn't too fond of Vlad because of the... Initial circumstances, but, overtime, he became an occasional annoyance rather than an actual antagonist in Danny's life. Sometimes, Danny would even indulge Vlad by attending galas with him for the sake of Vlad showing him off. If that made it easier for Danny to find new information on ectoplasm he could (eventually edit and) send to the League, then that was between Danny and Clockwork.

*

"Hey, Damian, did you see the kid Vlad Masters brought?" Duke asked as he approached Damian near the entrance — the perfect spot, since he could greet guests and check most social interactions off his list and it was also easy to slip away.

"I believe father said he wouldn't go into business with Masters." Damian replied, nodding toward a guest that was leaving with a slight smile on his face (he was told it was polite to smile, so he started to do it for the sake of manners, but he loathed how that made people feel as though they should continue to talk to him).

Duke shrugged, "Probably. He still attends for appearances." It would be a ridiculously stupid move to do otherwise. "Anyway, got any twins you didn't tell us about?"

"Yes."

"'Cause that guy Masters brought looks just like—what?"

Damian rolled his eyes as Duke's shocked expression settled, living no room to doubt his emotions. "I said I have a twin you didn't know about."

"I—" Duke blinked, "I don't even know where to begin." He rubbed his forehead, trying to get his bearings. "When you say 'you', you mean me specifically, or the family in general?"

Damian had the gall to look bored, "The family."

Duke seemed relieved at not having been singled out, "Okay, great... Uh, why did none of us know? I feel like that's something important for you to tell us."

"It didn't come up," Damian said simply, like a little shit.

Duke brought up a hand in a stop sign, "See, Dick will probably repeat that this is something you bring up."

"Why would I?" Damian asked, "Last I saw Daniyah, we were eight and she—"

"Wait, 'she'?" Duke interrupted, "I'm pretty sure Masters told me he had a godson named Daniel Fenton."

Damian wasn't surprised by that information, "That would be because Daniyah was registered as such. I'd wager because her name was too middle eastern for the Fentons to know how to spell and they didn't think to ask her how to spell it."

"How—" Duke was thoroughly confused, "How does someone misgender someone that badly?"

"Daniyah's always had short hair." Damian said, as if that made all the sense in the world to him — it probably did. "Anyhow, as I was saying before you interrupted me, the last time I saw her, we were eight and she was being sent on a punishment mission."

"I don't think she was sent to clean toilets, was she?"

"Hers is more similar to exile," Damian explained, actually helpful for once, "She's been infiltrated with a scientist couple who study Lazarus Water."

"How does an eight year old infiltrate scientists?"

"She got adopted by them," Damian said as though that was nonsensical to ask.

*

Danny knew Damian would be there — he'd kept track of his twin's public persona (and vigilante life), like any sensible person would do (recently, Talia had told him stalking was a form of affection — a bit fucked up, but she had the right spirit). 

He'd been doing a great job of not interacting and keeping from being spotted, as was protocol for if two agents ended up on the same field — he knew Damian wasn't an agent anymore, but assumed the protocol still applied. He knew, the moment Duke Thomas spoke to Vlad and then went straight toward Damian, that he'd failed that protocol. 

Now, Damian was trying to convince him to leave the League. "Daniyah, there is another way."

"I know there is another way," Danny replied through a humorless laugh, "Except I told you about it for years and you never listened." During the years away from his family, Danny had missed them, his memory softened the feeling of anger at the way his twin always moulded his ideals to whoever ruled him. "Look, you know we aren't supposed to be speaking, I'm still on the League, I'm breaking protocol by being here."

They'd sneaked off to a room along with Duke, who watched attently and silently as they argued. "You don't have to be an agent anymore."

"Yes, I do." Danny spat, "You don't seem to have realized, but some of us don't have the privilege of being the favorite—"

"You don't know I was the favorite," Damian interrupted.

"I was there!" Danny exclaimed, sparing Duke a look as if he was saying 'do you see what I've got to deal with?'. "I was constantly being punished and grandfather was constantly talking about how I'd never be fit to be your replacement, let alone an heir."

Damian's jaw shifted as he attempted to ungrind his teeth in order to speak, "If you didn't disobey him at every turn, he wouldn't say such things."

"Yes, he would. He would, because he did." Danny had to hold himself back from shouting, causing a scene right now would be bad for both of them. "C'mon, Damian, I always won our matches. Objectively, I was the better fighter, and grandfather always found something to criticize me for and something to praise you for, even though I'd won." Damian didn't say anything, swallowing saliva to wet his throat. "That's because grandfather believes in two things: the right of blood and the right of being born with a dick."

"Are you saying grandfather discriminated against—"

"Why was mother not the heir?!" Danny interrupted, his voice raising slightly as Damian took a step back. Danny took a deep breath, "Grandfather was never fair. Don't pretend he was. Don't pretend I ever had the privilege of being saved."

Damian scowled, "Being saved is not a privilege."

"It isn't," Danny agreed, "You're just forgetting that when you got freedom in reward, I got sent on a mission as punishment. Because you killed the target I spared. Because how dare I disobey a direct order from grandfather?" He scoffed, "And now you're sparing people and you're being rewarded for it."

Damian faltered slightly, "It doesn't have to be this way, you don't have to continue being punished."

"Life isn't fair, Damian," Danny said, tired to the bone. "Not sure you got the memo."

Damian's eyelids narrowed, "I've got the 'memo', Daniyah."

"You're still free and I'm still being punished, so I'm not sure you understand exactly what my position is." 

"You're position is crystal clear to me," Damian replied, "You got a bad hand and you refuse to accept help."

"I don't refuse to accept help, I'm refusing to accept your help." He moved to leave, "I'm not a damsel in distress, and I don't need your furry parade to save me."

"'Furry parade'?" Duke repeated.

"I didn't say you were a damsel in distress," Damian replied, taking a step closer when Danny took a step away.

"Good for you," Danny said coldly, "I'm against killing, but violence is not off the table."

Danny nearly laughed when Duke mumbled, "No violence, please, Dick will be so upset."

Instead of laughing, Danny rolled his eyes. "I'm not taking help from a hypocrite." Danny crossed his arms, staring Damian in the eyes challengingly. "If you wouldn't stand up for me in front of grandfather, don't pretend you would any other way."

Chapter Text

Danny knew Vlad's eyes bore into them as they walked back near him after ditching Damian and Duke, they wished this would be one of the times Vlad decided to leave it for later. "Great to see you're making an effort in getting to know the rest of the elite, Little Badger." He said, crushing Danny's hopes of getting a few minutes to calm down from the infuriating conversation they'd just walked away from. "Although, I must urge you to be more careful with how you're going about things. Running off to a secluded location with two boys? People might get the wrong idea."

Danny made a face, "People should get their nose out of my business, then." It wasn't the right way to go about the interaction, Vlad would get the wrong idea and he loved pushing their buttons, but Danny was still mad.

Vlad raised an eyebrow as he reached to grab a glass of wine from a waiter who was walking nearby. "Unless, of course, the idea they're getting isn't wrong." He said, "In that case, I must say, I could see Duke Thomas, but Damian Wayne?"

Danny fought the urge to gag, "Uhm, ew." They said, "Heck no." Vlad simply stared in question, his gaze demanding an explanation (one Danny thought Vlad really wasn't entitled to). "You know I'm adopted?"

Vlad took a sip of the wine, carefully tasting it, "I may have stumbled upon that information, yes."

"By snooping." Danny added, rolling his eyes. "Damian's my twin." Vlad's eyes widened and he tried not to make a scene of choking on his wine. "Yeah, don't advertise it. Jazz is the only one who knows."

Vlad sputtered as he tried to recompose himself, "How did you you end up with Jack and Maddie?"

They watched as Vlad straightened his tie and tried to act normal (and failed), "Bruce Wayne doesn't know I exist, just in case you're thinking of trying to use it against him." Danny noted, "And I'm not telling you this story in a ballroom." Partly because they didn't want people to overhear, partly because they wanted to leave before Damian thought to run after them. Danny just needed Vlad to take the bait.

Vlad seemed to catch the implied request for them to leave and he stood quietly for a moment, watching Danny. "I'll call the car."

*

Danny explained the situation to Vlad on their way to the airport, making sure to only say the basics. Vlad went to buy their plane tickets and Danny took the opportunity to go to the restroom and change out of the suit. He still looked over his shoulder, but soon relaxed when Damian didn't spring up out of nowhere.

They were on their way to security, Danny thought he was off the hook — Damian would probably just cast this encounter aside like he'd casted the knowledge of Danny's existence aside for the past seven years — but then he saw Damian with Duke and who he assumed was Tim (eyes partly taking in the scene and partly glued to his phone) in tow. "Oh, ancients." Danny cursed as he locked eyes with Damian and his twin sped up toward him and Vlad.

Vlad looked at him upon the curse, realizing Danny had stopped walking. "What is it?" Danny nodded toward Damian and the others, "Would you like me to call security?"

Danny sighed, "Security won't stop them." He admitted, fully turning to them, "I appreciate the effort, boys, but I'm already acquainted with our lord and savior, Jesus Christ."

Damian scowled, glaring at Duke after he'd let out a snicker, "This is not the time for your insipid jokes, Daniyah."

"This is exactly the time for my insipid jokes, Damian." He replied, "Did you not understand the part where I'm not a pet that you can add to your rescue collection?"

"I cannot let you leave."

"Why?"

Before Damian could answer, Tim spoke up, eyes still glued to his phone, "Dick said he'll tell Bruce." He said, showing his phone's screen to them, it was a chat.

Danny nodded, "Makes sense, you're here because of an order. You always did what you were told."

"I am not here because I was told." Damian bit back, "I'm here because Daniyah deserves better."

"I don't think you'd be qualified to make the 'better' happen," Danny said, twisting his nose as Damian stared at him in confusion and slight offense. 

"Of course I am!"

"You don't even know the first thing about me!"

Damian no longer seemed confused, he was rather satisfied even. "I know you live in Amity Park, Illinois. You go to Casper High — your grades dropped last year, you were banned from handling fragile objects, you occasionally fill in as the school mascot. You spend most of your free time around Samantha Manson, cotton candy heiress and social media influencer and activist; Tucker Foley, a nobody from your town; and Jasmine Fenton, academic prodigy and your adoptive sister." 

Danny raised an eyebrow, "Mother did say stalking is a love language." He mumbled.

Damian pointed at Vlad, "That is Vladimir Masters, your aparent godfather and local millionaire better known for his Packers obsession and acting similar to Lex Luthor."

Danny looked at Vlad, " He's not the brightest in the bunch." Vlad looked at him, offended, but Danny just shot him a look that conveyed 'you haven't proven me wrong yet'. "I'd say what I know about you, but we're in public." That seemed to say about as much as anything he could say would. "I assume Drake was the one who found me?" Tim looked up finally, Danny looked at Damian, "Mother passes by every six months to update me on the ongoing matters of the League. I think last time there was something involving grandfather cherishing Timothy Drake's spleen?"

Duke looked at Tim (who looked a little pissed at the news), horrified, "You have a spleen, right?"

Tim popped his lips, "It's been displaced."

"You need that to live!"

"I'm living just fine without it," said Tim, shrugging.

Duke looked at Danny again, "When you say 'cherish', you don't mean... There isn't eating involved, right?"

Danny felt sorry for Duke, he looked like a regular guy who was now having to deal with the Wayne crap. "I'm pretty sure he put it on formol and put it on display somewhere. Cannibalism doesn't fit grandfather's ammo."

"How do you know that?" Tim asked, intrigued by the information.

Danny shrugged, "He'd probably say cannibalism is for poor people who are unable to hunt for decent prey or whatever."

"That is not what he would say," Damian argued, crossing his arms.

Danny laughed, "That's exactly what he'd say."

"Are we ignoring the fact that cannibalism was considered in the first place?" Duke asked, horrified about something else entirely.

"He trains child assassins," Danny said, "I don't think the bar was set too high to begin with."

"It's still cannot believe you would would have supposedly been trained as a child assassin, yet you insist in fighting like a rabid raccoon." Vlad remarked.

Danny laughed, "People are so salty about that." He looked at Tim and Duke's confused expressions (moreso Duke than Tim). "I don't have a conventional fighting style, it works for me."

"Your 'fighting style' was learned from an actual raccoon." Damian said accusatorially.

"And you lost to someone who fights like a raccoon." Danny shot back, "Constantly."

Tim had been typing away on his phone for the last minute when he spoke up, "Jason said he wants to meet..." He looked up at Danny, "Him?"

Danny shrugged, "Gender's a lie, use whatever pronouns you want for me."

"True," said Tim after a brief moment of consideration.

Damian's brow furrowed, "I didn't know you use all pronouns."

"Kinda what happens when you go seven years without speaking to your sibling." Danny had sent letters at first, like he did to Talia, but Damian never replied — maybe he wasn't allowed to — even after being sent to live with Bruce. "Which brings us back to my point — everything you know about me can be found in a document." He didn't know why Damian had followed him or what he wanted to accomplish.

Damian breathed out through his nose, "I wish to make things right." He finally said, "You're right, things have never been fair for you, and we can find a solution if you come back with us."

The validation was nice, the proactivity was better, but it wasn't everything. "I have a life in Amity Park." Danny told him, "I didn't wallow in self-pity for the past seven years, I lived." He wondered if that would be a hard concept for Damian to understand — that he could be not miserable while still being a victim. He wasn't sure the nuances of victimhood were something Damian could understand when he knew his twin would most likely not see himself in that position. "I'm not leaving everything I built behind just because you want me to." He looked at Vlad — who he was quite sure saw victimhood in a biased way. Vlad drowned in his own victimhood, and focused his revenge on victimizing other people while not considering their own victimhoods. In other words, Vlad was self-absorbed.

Damian faltered, "Then... What now?"

Danny sighed as he looked away form Vlad and back at his twin, "Now, we have a flight." He gestured toward the security gate they had been about to go through. "If you really want to make things right, I'm sure you can find my email address."

*

"You acted differently around the Waynes," Vlad noted quietly when they were on the plane, flying on the first class. Danny nodded, Vlad raised his eyebrows. "It's intentional, then?"

Danny sunk deeper into her seat, getting comfortable. "Well, kinda?" She started, "Technically, I act different in Amity. The way I act around Damian precedes that."

"Why?" Vlad asked, that was the longest conversation they'd ever had in which no snark had been spoken.

"Well, at first, it was just my cover, but now it's just... A different modus operandi." Danny shrugged, "It's pretty watered down by now, but I do still pretend to be unathletic and sometimes even incompetent at things. It works, nobody would suspect 'wimpy Danny Fenton' is Daniyah Al Ghul."

"That is... Certainly one way to go about it." Vlad couldn't relate to it. To give up status, stand by in boredom and fake incompetence? His philosophy was to use everything at his disposal (his name, his acquaintances, his money, his power, etc), to intentionally not make use of it felt criminal to him. "Your twin seems to be under the impression that this League is trapping you here?"

She shrugged, looking ahead thoughtfully, "It makes sense to him. It would probably be the truth if I didn't have my powers."

"How so?"

Danny looked at him, "I'm expected to send a report every few months (each no longer than a semester apart) regarding what I was sent for — Jack and Maddie's research. If I defected, I'd have a few months, maybe a year if I planned really well. They'd find me eventually, and they'd bring me forth to the Demon Head, where I'd be judged and killed for treason." She explained, "Now that I'm a halfa, things are... Different. If worst came to, I could run off to the Zone."

Vlad nodded, "And the Demon Head—"

"My grandfather."

"Yes," Vlad said, smirking slightly at the knowledge he had, "He would be upset that you're the heir to the High Throne of the Infinite Realms by right of conquest?" He said carefully, sounding it out. Vlad loved a few things that weren't material, two of them were: gossip and screwing people over.

Danny seemed to catch on, "He would."

*

"Oh, ancients." Danny cursed deliberately, watching from his vantage point as Batman, Robin, and Red Hood turned around, trying to find the source of the noise until one of them spotted him. "Ah, finally!"

"Daniyah, what are you doing there?" Damian asked as he took off his domino mask, drawing Batman and Red Hood's eyes upon him.

"Damian—" Batman called in a low voice, probably to lecture him on why he was taking off his mask around a stranger.

"I know all of y'all's identities," Danny announced, cutting his biological father off. "And I'm here because I got your email."

Damian squared up, "You never replied."

Danny jumped off from the beam he'd been sitting on, "Yeah, because you sounded like a bot, I realized I can't really leave the 'rekindling' of anything up to you."

"How did you get in?" Asked Batman with his guard still up.

Danny shrugged, "Alfred let me in."

"Why?" Batman asked through gritted teeth.

"Well," Danny started, walking closer to them, "I asked really nicely."

Red Hood barked a laugh and removed his helmet to reveal Jason Todd, "Tim was right, I do like this one."

"Glad to know," Danny replied, looking at Batman, "I'm not here to harm anyone."

It seemed like a long battle, although it couldn't have lasted more than a minute, Batman held his gaze before finally nodding. "What are you here to do?"

"I hope you did not come all the way from Illinois to New Jersey solely to insult my conversational skills." Damian complained, crossing his arms as he stared his sibling down annoyedly.

"No," Danny said, dragging out the 'o'. "That is a perk, though." He admitted, laughing at Damian's glare. "Vlad had to do something else here — in New Jersey, I mean — I took the opportunity." He carded a hand through his hair, breathing in before he sobered up. "Look, I meant what I said about not needing to be saved, but there's something you can do, if you want to help." That seemed to get their interests (more than he already had it before), "Dismantle the GIW."

He was glad to find confusion in their expressions, "What is that supposed to be?" Damian asked.

"The Ghost Investigation Ward." Danny explained, "My mission was to track Jack and Maddie Fenton's research and send back to the League anything regarding Lazarus Water. The thing is, they don't study Lazarus Water — Lazarus Water is the cheap, discount, corrupted version of what shows up in their research."

"What could be stronger than Lazarus Water?" Bruce asked.

"Ectoplasm." Danny said finally, "Their field of study is ectoplasmic entities of post-human consciousness — ghosts." He explained, "They hunt ghosts, but they aren't the ones I'm worried about at the moment, they can't do anything big scale, unlike the GIW." 

"What does this ward do?" Damian asked, serious, but Danny could detect a hint of morbid curiosity.

"The GIW legally have free reign to hunt, experiment on, and kill any being with ectoplasm in their system through the Ecto Acts." He said, looking at Jason, "You'll find the Ecto Acts go against the Metahuman Protection Acts."

Jason did a good job of keeping his expression neutral, "Does Lazarus Water look like ectoplasm in exams?"

"They look slightly different under a microscope, so maybe someone looking wouldn't outright spot it, but it does show up in scans as ectoplasm." Danny replied as he shot Jason a sympathetic look.

"Why does it matter to you that ghosts are hunted?" Damian asked, staring Danny down coldly.

Danny felt his eyebrows knit together, "Those are bold words from the press's resident animal rescuer." He mirrored Damian's pose, crossing his arms as well, "It shouldn't matter why it matters to me. It should matter that your brother," he pointed at Jason, "Was the League's pet project in resurrection, and the fact that he's drowning in ectoplasm gives the GIW free reign to hunt him down."

Damian breathed out through his nose, nostrils flaring as he did so. "You've made us well aware of that, Daniyah, I am asking you how it benefits you."

Danny uncrossed his arms and shook his head, "You don't need to know why. That's the point." Danny had thought his decision over and over, doubted it, but it was ultimately the best way to know there was a bridge to build beyond Damian's expectations of saving him. "I can do this on my own if it comes to it, it'll get done either way, but you have the resources to make it happen quicker and with less risk." He looked at Bruce and Jason, then back at Damian, "It's your choice."

He turned to leave. Danny was at the entrance of the cave when Damian spoke up, "Is this about Phantom?"

He'd been hoping they hadn't made that connection. Danny started ahead as he paused in his steps. "Would the answer change your decision?"

There was a pause as Damian considered, "No."

Good enough. "Then yes." He replied, moving to leave again.

"Where are you going?" Bruce asked neutrally, though Danny could hear the hint of confusion.

Danny looked at him and pointed at the stairs out of the batcave, "I was leaving."

"To where?" Jason asked through a laugh, at least he could appreciate how hilariously timed Danny's actions were.

"I was hoping I could swing by a Bat Burger before I left," Danny said, "We don't have them in Amity."

Jason looked at him, then at Damian and Bruce staring wordlessly, "You know what, I'm going with you."

Chapter Text

Damian watched as Jason walked out of the batcave with Daniyah, asking her in the distance why she was walking by herself in Gotham and receiving a joking reply. His father sighed loudly and he could hear him take of his cowl, "Are you still angry?"

Father sighed again and sat down on one of the chairs steadily, "Yes, Damian." He said calmly, "I will be for a while."

Damian turned around, "What did you expect me to do?" 

Father eyed him, in deep thought for a moment. "I don't know," he admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly as he supported his elbow on the nearby table. "I would've liked to know about her. You know how I feel about family."

Damian felt the urge to scoff, he didn't. "Yes, you will take in anyone."

His father seemed to hear the unsaid 'like strays', "I was under the impression you didn't think like that anymore."

"I don't," it was true, he didn't view his adoptive siblings as strays or charity cases anymore, "But I am angry as well." Damian had been trying to communicate his emotions more often, his family seemed to like it when he did.

Father took his hand away from his face, "Why are you angry?"

He didn't really know, he searched his brain for a plausible reason why everyone's reaction to his omission bothered him, "Grandfather declared Daniyah a disgrace on more than one occasion. I was not allowed to speak of her unless she was mentioned." Especially not to grandfather, he became irate at any reminder that she existed even before her punishment.

An understanding look grew on his father's face, "So you felt this rule still applied?"

"At first," he admitted, "Afterwards, I did not know how you would react to the news."

"I would've been overjoyed to—"

"Or you would have despised her," Damian interrupted, he didn't do it often, but he felt it drove a point home. "And I would not have been able to take that, so I forgot her."

*

"You're in a mood," Dick noted after a few minutes of walking to a lone Damian, sitting in one of the main sitting rooms with a sketchbook on his lap. "Is it because Jason is hanging out with your twin?" Damian eyed him for a moment in question, "He posted a pic on the group chat. We should add them to the group chat."

"If she wishes to," Damian replied, gripping his pencil tighter over the sketchbook on his lap, "Todd and Daniyah interacting has no bearing on my mood."

Dick sat down beside Damian on the couch, "Do you wanna talk about whatever's bothering you?"

Damian seemed to debate on it for a moment, "Father and I had a minute argument." That was severely worrying, since Dick knew Bruce for long enough that he knew how bad arguments could get with him (it hadn't happened in a long time, but he wouldn't put it past him). Damian rolled his eyes, "It did not involve shouting."

That did no good to measure how the argument went, it could've gone terribly with no shouting (it had before), "Okay..."

"Nor did it involve insults." Damian added.

That was a better way to measure how the argument went, if only marginally, "Okay, that's great." Dick sighed, "It's great, 'cause he's a grown adult and you're fifteen, so he should be able to get into an argument and not insult you." Damian never seemed to understand Dick's preoccupation whenever arguments with Bruce were involved, Dick hoped he didn't understand it until he was an adult at the very least. Damian had been abused enough, he didn't need to worry about being the adult now.

"I asked if he was still angry." Damian finally said.

"Was he?" They were back in dangerous territory.

"Yes." Damian let go of the pen, "He spoke of how he feels about family."

Dick nodded, crossing one leg over the other and getting comfortable on the couch. "And what did you say to that?"

Damian didn't look at him, "That I'm also angry."

"You are?" Dick asked, straightening up.

Damian nodded, staying silent for a moment as he thought over what to say. "I know Thomas told you about Daniyah's punishment, but I was also under threat of punishment, and I was forbidden from speaking about her." He explained, voice barely audible and drowning in an uncommon guilt. "Everyone seems to forget that."

"Would you like me to talk to everyone about that?" 

"No. If you do, they'll think I can't handle a little scrutiny."

It was a far shot to ask in the first place, Damian was too proud to allow someone else to fight for him. "You don't have to just handle things, if it makes you uncomfortable or upset—"

"I've handled worse." Damian cut him off.

It was no use to talk about it now, Damian had shut down and pushing would only lead to an unnecessary blow up. Dick nodded to himself, "I'll leave you alone for now, but you can come to me if there's anything else you want to talk about."

*

They were not happy with what they found about the Ghost Investigation Ward. Danny had warned them that the 'Ecto Acts' weren't in agreement with the Metahuman Protection Acts, but they weren't prepared for what it actually meant.

"This is ridiculous," Dick said, hovering over Tim's chair as he leaned on the table to read. Tim barely minded, used to Dick's casual invasion of his space. "How did this thing pass congress?!"

"Bribery, probably." Jason replied, leaning on the wall casually. They'd assumed he'd go back to his house after Danny left, but he came back to the manor instead. "Either for it to pass, or for someone to look away as it did. You know how it is."

Tim laughed faintly, "Better question would be why this ward exists in the first place." He noted, typing away on his keyboard, "I get that the US government has a plan in case of zombies and what-not, but an entire ward dedicated to ghosts?"

Dick made a face, "Do you think the League had something to do with it?"

"I highly doubt it." Damian spoke up for the first time since they'd gathered in the batcave to talk about the GIW. All four eyes in the room turned to him, but he barely minded them, "If it had anything to do with the League, Daniyah would not have told us to dismantle it."

Tim trusted Damian more nowadays, but it was never bad to doubt. "How are you so sure?"

Damian, to his credit, didn't mind the question. "League scientists research Lazarus Water. It is possible most of their material on ectoplasm comes from Daniyah herself. If a ward that researches exactly that belonged to the League, Daniyah would be the first suspect." He explained calmly, though not without the sharpness he always spoke.

"You think she wouldn't ask because it's a big risk?" Dick asked.

"It's a big risk either way," Tim pointed out.

"It's easier to plan for one case than the other." Bruce spoke up, hovering over the other side of Tim's chair, although not as close as Dick.

Damian crossed his arms, "Exactly."

Tim huffed, "And how do we know he's not double crossing us?"

"I happen to know Daniyah better than you do, Drake." Damian said.

Tim turned his chair to face Damian, "Yeah, except you went, like, seven years without speaking to each other."

Dick put a hand on Damian's shoulder when he took a step forward (his steps were always deliberate, that was a warning that he would attack), "Tim's asking a valid question."

"Tim has also been awake for fifty six hours, so it would be a mediocre fight." Jason commented.

Tim looked at him, "How'd you know that?"

Jason gave him an unimpressed look, "You're always sleep deprived."

Bruce put a hand on Tim's chair, "Go to sleep," he ordered. When it looked like Tim would argue, he continued, "We'll debrief you when you wake up."

Tim stared for a moment before sighing, "You'll record everything." He demanded as he got up from the chair. 

"We'll debrief you," Dick corrected, getting an annoyed roll of eyes from Tim before he left the batcave. He turned to Damian, "I know it seems harsh, but there's no reason for us to trust them."

Damian's eyelids narrowed as he breathed through his nose and looked away, " She has no reason to trust us."

"He did though," Jason noted as Dick sat down in Tim's chair and turned to the computer to read more.

"You trust her?" Bruce looked at Jason inquisitively, "That seems unusual."

Jason rolled his eyes, "He's a kid, he's not gonna try to kill anyone."

Dick turned his head, looking at Jason, then Damian, "I don't think being a kid should disqualify them from killing anyone."

Damian crossed his arms, "She's qualified." He admitted, half-proudly. 

Dick stared at him expectantly, "Well?"

"She wouldn't," Damian said.

"How do you know?" Bruce asked.

Damian's gaze turned to him, scorchingly, "She never has," he said, voice low.

"Thought the whole point of being a child assassin is that it requires assassination." Jason mumbled.

Damian looked down, "She refused to."

Jason raised an eyebrow, "It was an option?"

Damian didn't seem to like that implication, glaring at Jason as if he'd killed Alfred, The Cat. "No." He answered coldly, one could've guessed the question hurt him physically. "It was not, and she suffered for it."

"How are they not dead?" Dick asked, horrified by the turn the conversation had taken.

Damian scoffed, "There are fates worse than death, Richard, surely you know that."

*

"Surely you've heard by now," Damian started when Danny rounded the hall and nearly walked into him, "About the Ghost Investigation Ward?"

Danny breathed in to calm himself as he brushed imaginary dust off his person. "Yes," he looked around to make sure the Fentons weren't nearby and soon heard the faint noise of tinkering down in the lab, "Why are you here?"

Damian raised an eyebrow as he stood in the hallways as if he'd been here before (Danny was nearly sure he hadn't, though). "I believe a 'thank you' would be in order."

"We'll get to that after we go over the 'hi', 'how are you', 'long time no see', and the 'sorry for breaking into your place of residence' parts of this interaction that you skipped over." Danny said with a fake peppy voice as he walked toward his bedroom, Damian following him in as he opened the door. "So, hi, Damian! When did you get to Amity? Why are you in my house?"

Damian huffed and crossed his arms at being scolded by Danny, watching as Danny sat down on his own bed. "I arrived at Amity Park about forty minutes ago. I'm inside your house because it would arouse suspicion if I came through the front door."

Danny raised an unimpressed eyebrow, "You came all the way to Illinois just to ask if I heard about the Guys In White?"

"You speak as if you did not go all the way to New Jersey to ask me to dismantle them."

"I didn't," Danny corrected, "I went to New Jersey to try the Bat Burger and decided to stop by yours first."

"Invade, you mean?"

"Alfred let me in."

Damian rolled his eyes, "He refuses to tell us why he believed that to be a good idea."

"We have a friend in common." Danny said, "Just a heads up, you're not gonna find out who it is unless Alfred tells you himself."

"Impossible."

"It's very much possible." He laughed, "Anyway, yes, I heard, and thank you. Things are gonna be a lot easier now that the Guys In White are off my back."

Damian scrutinized him for a few moments, "What happened to you?"

Danny thought briefly of showing Damian the portal, "The Fentons are geniuses, but they're negligent."

"To you?"

"In general." Danny said with a roll of eyes, "They keep ecto samples in the fridge. They're so obsessed with ghosts they can't stray their thoughts for even one second to think of something as silly as safety."

It seemed unthinkable to Damian, even with everything they'd been through. "Do they not think of the danger it poses to themselves?"

"They're safe." Danny shrugged, "Why should they care about other people?"

"That's—"

"Negligent?" Danny interrupted, "I know."

"Yet you would like to stay with them?"

Danny shrugged, "I could go live with Vlad if I wanted, but he's not right in the head sometimes."

"He had an accident with the Fentons' invention decades ago." Damian noted and Danny nodded somberly. "Did something like that happen to you?"

Danny shrugged, "Something like that."

*

Damian was startled awake by the ring of his phone. He barely got phone calls as he had one friend and his family usually spoke to him in person when they needed to wake him up at — he checked the clock — 1:00 a.m.

"Hey, Damian. Sorry I called so late." Daniyah said on the other side of the line. Usually, he'd be out on patrol at this hour, but that was his day off (he had a feeling his twin knew that). "I need to tell you something, can you listen?"

"I can listen."

Daniyah's breathing grew steadier and there was the slight noise of shuffling on her end, she might have been nodding to herself. "I'm dropping the league soon." 

"How?" Was all he could say.

"I'll ask nicely." She deadpanned, "And, if that doesn't work, I'll do whatever is necessary."

"You wouldn't kill," Damian noted matter-of-factly, not thinking over his words.

"I might, if it's necessary," she said, but it didn't sound like she believed her own words.

"Killing is never a necessity," Damian said, but it didn't sound like him (he vaguely recalled hearing that in Daniyah's voice).

She didn't say anything to that, "When I do leave, I might drop off the face of the earth." If things went south, Damian assumed. "If I don't, I might leave Jazz with you."

"The Fentons' daughter?"

"My sister," Daniyah replied,"She would be in as much danger as I just by being associated with me."

"So you want us to protect her," Damien noted the obvious. Daniyah must have nodded, because he heard shuffling again, "Who protects you?"

Daniyah made a noise that almost sounded like a laughter, "No one. Myself."

"You still don't want my help."

"I do," Daniyah said lightly, "But on my own terms. You, of all people, should get that."

"It would not be an issue if you were not so stubborn."

"It wouldn't be an issue if we hadn't had the lives we've had." Daniyah said patiently, "You'll help Jazz?"

Damian paused — hesitated even — but, in the end, there was no question."Yes."

Chapter Text

Things had been chaotic, if Danny were to sum it up, but all was well that ended well or whatever the saying was. (Well, it had ended terribly, actually.)

It all started when they sent a treasonous letter to their mother… well, they guessed that was it, it could be a number of things, really. Anyway, there was a treasonous letter and Danny sent it to their mother. The League didn’t like that, so now Danny and Jazz were at Vlad’s. Soaked in blood. Well, Danny had the most blood. Jazz only had the Fentons’ blood. Because the League killed them. Yikes.

They were just done talking to the cops, which Vlad had probably shone some dollar bills in front of to leave them alone as Jazz fought to stop crying and Danny did their best impression of a shocked fifteen year old. They might be dissociating a little bit, but what was a little dissociation in the grand scheme of things? Nothing, that’s what it was.

“What did you do?” Danny and Jazz looked to the window to see Damian coming in through it, like an uneducated heathen.

Jazz sniffled pathetically, as she tried to clean her face, “You must be Damian,” she said shakily, nose clogged. 

Damian finally stepped both feet inside, “Yes.” He looked at Danny, “Daniyah, what did you do?”

That hurt a bit, but they understood where it came from, “I failed.” The admission hurt like a bitch, “I failed to protect the Fentons, and they died.”

“Danny,” Jazz called as she moved to grab their hand, it sounded almost like a whine, “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known—”

“I did know.” Danny admitted, “Mother sent a letter a few minutes before they came. I was too slow.” Danny had had eight minutes, they could do so much with eight minutes. They could cook cup noodles in less time. 

Damian pointed at Danny, “Whose blood is that?”

Danny threw themself on the couch in Vlad’s mansion, it looked like satin; shiny, white satin. Now, it had blood stains, so Vlad would have to cope. “Don’t know. Not mine.”

Damian twisted his nose as he walked closer to Danny, “Did you kill someone?”

Danny looked at him, “No. Sadly.” They admitted, looking up at the ceiling. “We wouldn’t be here if I had.”

Jazz shoved them to the side and sat beside them, “No murder.”

Danny pointed at her with their thumb, “Jazz said no murder, Damian.”

Their twin rolled his eyes, but moved to sit beside the two of them stiffly, “I heard, Daniyah.” He said awkwardly, shifting in his seat, “Father will be happy you didn’t resort to murder.”

“Screw him,” Danny said with no emotion behind their words, “He’s not living my life, he can’t say that.” They said as if the words were curses, “I didn’t kill the assassins, but I am resorting to murder.”

Damian leaned back, eyebrows raised. Jazz had the same expression on her face, only much more tired and with her eyes puffier. “You are?”

Danny nodded, “I’m killing grandfather.”

She sat up, “What?” Jazz blinked, trying to understand what had changed — Danny knew she could see it in their eyes, they were serious, Jazz knew it in a way Damian hadn’t for a while. “Why?”

Danny shrugged, “He doesn’t get to just murder the Fentons — your parents — there should be consequences to his actions.”

Damian studied their face carefully, “So you will play jury, judge, and executioner? And I am—” he looked at Jazz, “We are to watch and let you?” 

Danny thought it was very hypocritical of Damian to try and give them that speech when he had not heeded it when it left their mouth. 

“Danny,” Jazz called carefully, taking the hand closest to her. “I know you're angry, I'm angry too, but right now is not the time to be making decisions like that. Maybe you can wait until you've calmed down a bit and—”

“They will come back.” Danny interrupted, “I didn't kill the assassins, so it's only a matter of time before they find us again.” They looked at Damian, daring him to disagree, “When they do, they will kill everyone in the way. They're not gonna rest until I'm six feet under. I'm like Jason,” Danny admitted, watching as Damian's expression shifted with shock and he attempted to school it. “Which means I'm not gonna end up six feet under, only they'll keep trying until everyone involved is. ” 

Danny lifted from the couch, taking a deep breath, Jazz followed them with her eyes, “How are you sure killing is the only option, Danny?”

*

Daniyah began walking toward the door with resolve, Jasminefollowed first, then Damian tailed behind, “It's the League Of Assassins, Jazz, violence is the only language they speak.”

“You don't have to lower yourself to that!” She said as she followed Daniyah down the massive staircase that led to the first floor.

Daniyah's back was turned to him, but he knew she would be rolling her eyes. “If I don't, I'll lose everything I've worked for,” she argued, “If I don't, you're gonna be next on their list.” They arrived at the bottom and Daniyah turned to Masters, who had been on the phone and turned off his call when he saw Daniyah storming down like she was about to bring hell to earth.

“Little Badger?”

“Call Fright Knight,” she commanded, “We're taking down Ra's.”

Masters was taken aback by the energy — he didn't know Daniyah like Damian did, he'd never seen her command a mission with the energy of a tyrant or spar someone like her life depended on the win. “Are you sure?”

She didn't dignify that with an answer, “Meet me in Pariah's Keep in half an hour.” With that, Masters was gone, like he'd gone invisible. 

Damian looked around, then at Daniyah, who had just turned to them again, to him. “Take Jazz to a safe place.”

“Danny, I can defend myself—”

“Not against the League.” Daniyah interrupted, “And I'm not taking risks.” Her eyes had never left Damian's — father was just five minutes away, he wondered if he could stall her until he got there. He wondered if father's words would hold any weight to Daniyah, probably not. “Keep Jazz safe.” With a flash of light, Daniyah changed, hair white and outfit different, it was similar to Amity Park’s vigilante (in the sense that all the pictures of Phantom — or InvisoBill — were blurry and he couldn't know how close the similarity was). Glowing green eyes placated him as his sister stepped closer, “Promise me, Damian.” She demanded, “Promise you'll keep Jazz safe.”

Damian looked at Jazz, realizing they were both at a loss for what to do. He turned back to Daniyah and gave a reluctant nod.

She flew away.

“Daniyah is a meta.” Was the first thing he could say, turning to Jasmine as he tried to process what he'd seen.

“No.” She answered, tone tired, “Danny doesn't have the meta gene.” Before Damian could inquire further, he heard someone upstairs. Turning toward the direction of the noise, it didn't take long before he was able to see Richard, scanning the place as he stood with his Nightwing get up. “Is that Nightwing?” Jasmine asked, half confused and half surprised, but not impressed.

Richard looked their way upon the question, locking eyes on Damian warily. “Yes,” Damian answered as a way to let Richard know he could let his guard down.

Richard made his way down the flight of stairs, “Where's your sibling?”

“Which one of us are you asking that?” Jasmine asked before Damian could say anything.

It made sense, if Daniyah had told her about him being a vigilante, she probably made the connection between him and the rest of his siblings. “This is Jasmine Fenton,” Damian said, though Richard probably knew from reading Daniyah's file, “I believe she's acquainted with the truth.”

He looked at her to see how she reacted, if she truly knew it all, how much she knew. She looked abashed, “Well, I didn't want to force any of you guys to tell me before you were comfortable, but Danny told me.”

Richard nodded, accepting the charge in plans seamlessly. “I guess whichever one of you wants to answer should be good, then.”

For once, Damian wasn't sure how to answer. It was easy for him to give mission reports, they meant nothing to him. Daniyah meant everything.

No longer did Jasmine look abashed, she was sobered up and as clinical as Damian imagined he must look when giving his own mission reports. She objectively told Richard how Daniyah had announced her want to commit senicide and fled to someplace called the ‘Infinite Realms’ to meet with Masters.

Richard decided to lead them toward the car halfway through the explanation and now was driving them back toward where the jet was probably parked. “Wait, who's this Knight?” He asked, without taking his eyes off the road.

Jasmine leaned forward so she could face him better (Richard had told them both to sit on the back because “I don't want anyone fighting over shotgun right now”), “The Fright Knight is considered the Spirit of Halloween, he's at the disposition of the King of The Infinite Realms.”

Richard nodded slowly, “Right, and your godfather can call him why?”

“He's the regent.”

“Vlad Masters, who had been known for being as crazy as Lex Luthor at times, is the regent to the ghost dimension's throne?” Richard gripped the wheel tighter when Jasmine nodded, “Are we supposed to prepare for whoever the actual Monarch is?”

Jasmine considered it for a moment, “You might want to invest in diplomacy when it comes to the King.”

“Why?” Damian asked, impatient. These Realms were new, surprising information; he didn't like being surprised.

He got the feeling Jasmine was bracing herself for the answer and the reactions it might get. “Because it's Danny.”

Damian stared in the place of Richard, who had to keep his eyes on the road. “Richard, are you recording this?” He nodded. Damian sighed, it might not be so nice having to explain this all twice to their family. “Great. How?”

“Right of Conquest.” She said without hesitation, like it was just a simple fact from her day to day life.

“Daniyah is the monarch of the ghost dimension by right of conquest?” Damian asked incredulously, then shook his head. He shouldn't be surprised, knowing his twin like he did — she survived on spite and determination in a way that only felt normal within their family. He remembered the comment she'd made, “She said she's like Todd. You said she doesn't have the metahuman gene. Do these relate?”

Jasmine nodded, “What Danny is… they call it a halfa. From what he told me, it's not the same as what Jason Todd is, but it's similar.”

“Jason died.” Richard noted quietly, filling the car with silence. Damian had been dancing around that in his thoughts, he didn't want to have to face that.

Jasmine nodded again, wringing her hands nervously. “Yes,” she admitted. “My parents built a portal to the Infinite Realms. He told me he went to check it out when it didn't work — so he could fill his report for the League — but there was an accident.” Jasmine shook her head, as though she was trying to center herself, “There's only two known halfas, Danny and Vlad, so the science isn't exact, but the best theory is that, in the moment , they die and come back at the same time. Which is why Jason Todd isn't considered a halfa.”

Whilst Damian was too shocked to speak, Richard was already back in his game. “You know all of this about Jason because Danny told you?” He asked rhetorically, “And Danny knows how?”

Jasmine shrugged, “When I asked, he said his mother says ‘stalking is a form of affection’.”

Damian chuckled. Daniyah would loathe it if she heard him say it, but she took after their mother in many ways. He took a deep breath, “What I hear you saying is my sister died.”

Jasmine looked down in what he could only assume to be shame or even grief, “In a way.” She admitted, staring at her hands as she fiddled with them, trying to clean her parents’ blood from under her fingernails, “That’s why he can do the things he can and not have the meta gene.”

“Can’t have the metahuman gene if you aren’t human anymore.” Richard mumbled.

“He says dying is a medical condition.” Jasmine stated, Damian didn’t doubt it, it sounded like Daniyah. She made an effort to not take any serious matters seriously (or so he used to think).

*

The Observants seemed to make an effort to make the job they begged him to do harder. 

Danny wasn’t even joking. Ever since he’d become king, the Observants had been adamant he had to kill his grandfather for crimes against death and they had been extremely angry when he’d refused at every turn. Now that he wanted to kill the guy, they decided he needed to go through all the legal loops and hoops to be allowed to do the job. His hand hurt from all the papers he’d signed. He didn't even know he could sign that many papers in such a small period of time.

Vlad was strangely quiet throughout the whole process, but Danny guessed he couldn’t even say anything against murder when he’d chosen that as an option against Jack again and again — and he hadn’t even been raised as a child assassin.

“Little Badger,” Vlad called quietly, like he was barely aware he was speaking. Jazz had a theory that he, like Jack, was autistic, only he was great at masking — and whenever he or Jazz had caught him not masking, he looked like he was straight up dissociating. Danny didn’t disagree. Danny looked at him, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Vlad usually didn’t question his decisions, especially when they were the vengeful kind, but maybe the death of his ex-best friend had brought him perspective. Too late for that. “You don’t know what I want.”

“You want to kill your grandfather.”

Danny signed the last paper, putting it on top of the pile and watching as it disappeared. “It’s more complex than that.” He scratched the top of his head only to be reminded he was still wearing the crown, which was apparently obligatory for him to be wearing whenever he was doing king business (he wondered if the Observants just told him that because they knew he didn’t like it). He sighed, “I don’t want to kill him, or anyone. I don’t think murder should ever be considered a necessity — I held that moral very highly my whole life, I don’t wanna let go of it now.”

“Then why are you going through all this trouble?”

He got up from his seat, moving to sit on one of the weird green couches (he guessed they were supposed to be fancy, but he couldn’t understand what about that weird texture was fancy). “It’s the trolley problem. If I kill him, I will spare many more people.”

“You will spare yourself.”

Danny felt his blood boil and his eyes burn. It was true, in a way. He was sparing himself, he was sparing himself the pain of losing more people, it was a little selfish. He was fine with the fact that it was selfish. He thought that, maybe, after everything he’d been through, he deserved to be selfish. He deserved to spare himself when nobody else would. “I will spare Jazz.” Danny stated coldly, “I will spare my mother.” Would grandfather really kill her for Danny’s act of defiance? He couldn’t know. He didn’t doubt it. It sounded like something Ra’s would do. Kill his mother, find out he couldn’t die, and force him to do his bidding because he was too dangerous to be left to his devices. Danny just knew Ra’s would feel threatened by his existence as a halfa. “I might even be sparing you, if you care.” He rolled his eyes and left his seat, moving outside and finding Vlad didn’t follow him.

Danny found himself in the armory; he wasn’t surprised he ended up there, whenever he needed to find something in the Keep, he always seemed to find it instinctively. The armory usually had a ghost guarding it and keeping track of all that went in and out, but he guessed Clockwork must’ve dismissed the guy. Clockwork seemed to show affection like his mother did, from a distance. 

He went through the weapons on display, eyes landing on the spears and pikes. He may have been the best in the League of his age group, but had neve been a match for Ra’s and he’d spent years without proper training, so getting a short-range weapon was absolutely out of the question.

Halberds, poleaxes, spetums, lances, sovnyas, partisans, morning stars, glaives… a pike would be impractical (and improper), an ahlspiess was a good option, and a bardiche was certainly good for show.

Danny picked up a war scythe (it was looking back at him and just begging to be used, come on). He couldn’t go back on this decision and he couldn’t regret it. He refused to regret it. He was done surviving Ra’s, he would outlive his grandfather (in the metaphorical sense, because he was, you know, not quite alive anymore).

“Your majesty,” an Observant called from the door, ending the small mercy of his loneliness.

“You may speak.”

That was one of the low-ranking Observants, an errand guy, he feared the power Danny was forced to claim, unlike the high-ranking Observants, who disdained it. “I have been sent to inform that,” he pulled a scroll out of nowhere, “In authority of—”

Danny groaned, “Can you sum it up? I don’t have all night.”

The Observant nodded nervously, “You have the clearance to go through with the execution of Ra’s Al Ghul.”

Danny nodded and dismissed the guy, breathing in steadily as he felt a wave of cold leave his mouth. “I wonder if they would’ve asked this in the first place if they knew who he was.” He said, looking at the embroidery on the wall tapestry, it was a weird color, but beautiful in an off putting way, like most things in the Infinite Realms. “Or maybe they would’ve asked anyway, you know how they are — you give a hand, they take the whole arm.”

There was a chuckle from behind him, from the ringing of his voice, he could tell Clockwork was in his adult form. “They would attempt to use it to disqualify you from your position and ultimately fail.” He said, “In some realities, they use it as a trial.”

Danny finally turned to face Clockwork, “How come cheating on a test makes me evil, but killing my grandfather doesn’t turn me evil.”

Like most things, the answer was obvious to Clockwork, but not for anyone who wasn’t acquainted with the flow of the timestream, which was most people. “Like you said, it’s the trolley problem.”

It was somehow more scary to him that Clockwork was quoting him.

*

The quickest jet they could get at the time could comport five people comfortably. Which was a good thing because only five people had been available at the time they took off. Only now everyone was available and they were all speaking over the comms.

“I think we should all agree that Jason doesn’t get a vote,” Tim said over the comms, his video popping up on the screen and showing him in his office, typing away on his computer. “Because we all know he’s pro-murder.”

“I’d be pro-murder if I was Danny,” Stephanie said.

Jason rolled his eyes, remaining as comfortable as he could in his seat on the plane. “So you’re saying you aren’t.”

“Duh,” Tim said, “I need to get my spleen back from him first?”

“We still need to talk about how you told no one you had no spleen for,” Dick paused, “How long?”

“Irrelevant.”

“Why do you keep saying it doesn’t matter that you have no spleen?” Duke asked, his own screen popping up for once, his expression deeply troubled by Tim’s antics.

“Who cares that Drake was weak enough to lose his spleen?” Damian mumbled from beside Jazz and Jason, arms crossed and subtly pacing through the jet as he disregarded the seatbelts.

“I will hunt you for sport,” Tim deadpanned.

“Nobody will hunt anybody for sport,” Bruce finally said firmly, “And everyone, not just Tim, has to tell someone if they lose important body parts.”

“What if I lose my appendix?” Stephanie asked.

“The appendix is an important body part.” Dick argued.

“ Any body parts,” Bruce rectified, cutting off the chatter.

After a moment of silence, Barbara’s screen popped up, “We still haven’t actually discussed what you’ll be doing once you get to the League Headquarters.”

“There’s a chance we’re already too late,” Jazz finally spoke up, looking anywhere but at them. Everyone was now paying attention to her, she seemed to know it. “Danny went through the Infinite Realms, but time there isn’t linear. He could get to his grandfather in five hours or he could be finding him as we speak. What are we going to do if we get there and there is a body to find? You’ll arrest Danny?”

“I’m more worried about finding his body,” Jason mumbled.

Dick nodded, “What makes you so sure Danny would survive trying to kill Ra’s?”

“He defeated Pariah Dark.” Jazz explained, too tired to go into detail.

Duke’s screen popped up, “If Danny has powers like you said, I’m betting for them.”

“Since when do you bet?” Steph asked, her screen popping up beside Duke’s. Duke shrugged, “Did I corrupt you already?”

Tim’s own screen appeared, “We both know that was my hard work, Stephanie.” He rolled his eyes, “Anyway, it’s Ra’s Al Ghul, powers might not be enough against him.”

Jazz sighed, “Can someone answer my question?”

Jason raised a hand, “I can take him in if he does kill Ra’s.”

“We would have to assess the situation,” Bruce said right after, raising his voice slightly and giving Jason a look.

“Daniyah said you don’t get to say anything because you haven’t lived her life.” Damian said, attracting all eyes (except for Jazz’s) towards him.

“When,” Bruce started, confused, “Did they say that?”

“Earlier,” he said vaguely, earning a look from his father. “Before she announced she wanted to commit murder, but that is beside the point.”

Bruce seemed to accept it, as he didn’t say anything about it. Jason’s nose scrunched up, “Cass has lived Danny’s life.”

They all looked at the screens expectantly. It took a few seconds before Cass turned on her camera, “ What? ” She signed.

He shrugged, “I mean, if we should hear someone’s input, it should be yours. You’ve had a similar life,” Jason explained, “And the brat too, I guess.”

Cass’ body slumped in exasperation and she sighed, “ League Of Assassins kill F-E-N-T-O-N, ” Cass signed, expression stoic as she stared at the camera. “ Danny desperate. I kill grandfather Danny place. ”

Dick furrowed his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. The one who did speak was Bruce, “Can you explain why?”

Cass looked down for a moment in thought, “ League Of Assassins return, Danny hide. Whole life, hide. ”

“But,” Duke said, his screen appearing beside Cass’, “Why can’t she just leave like Damian did?”

Damian felt sorry for not listening to his sibling tell him they were never on equal footing, “She tried, that’s how we got to this situation.”

“ No option. ” Cass signed steadily.

“Didn’t you say they’ve never killed anyone?” Tim’s voice could be heard before his image appeared on screen, “And now they just decide killing is the way to go with zero experience? Don’t you think that’s strange?”

“Daniyah received the same training as I did,” Damian replied, “She hasn’t forgotten any of it, and she was never a pacifist. Despite her refusal to kill, she was one of the best fighters we had. She learned, by herself, how to avoid killing a person and still hurt them.”

Jason absentmindedly scoffed, unimpressed, “You have to understand something to actively avoid it.”

Dick watched the scene attentively, trying to figure out what his next steps would be after this. He looked at the youngest, “What about you, Damian, you’ve never said anything about how you stand on this?”

Damian looked shocked that he had been asked, he hesitated visibly for a few seconds, like he didn’t know what his answer was yet. He took a deep breath, gaining resolve, “I agree with Cassandra.” He stated, looking down like the words pained him. “But I don’t—” his face contorted, “The day Daniyah was sent on her mission, she said murder is never a necessity. Now, she feels it is.”

“This,” Duke started hesitantly, “Isn't it considered self-defense? If he doesn't kill Ra's, he dies?”

Tim sighed, “Well, yeah—”

“He's already dead.” Jazz interrupted, still looking down in a tired transe.

“Hey, I’m sure it’s gonna be fine—” Duke started, he’d been the last to join them and hadn’t had time to hear the full recording of the car conversation.

“She means it literally,” Jason interrupted, awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

Duke blinked, “What?”

“He’s like Jason,” Tim explained absentmindedly, “Died and came back.”

Duke’s brow furrowed, “Jason can still die.”

Dick crossed his arms and sighed, “They aren’t the same as Jason, Jason was brought back. Danny died and then didn’t.”

“Isn’t the contrary of death life, though?” Steph asked.

“He’s both,” Jazz corrected, closing her eyes. She seemed more present than she’d been a moment ago. “He's dead and alive at the same time.”

“Nice,” Steph said.

“Only you would say that,” Tim complained.  “It is a mood though,” he mumbled before shutting off his microphone and camera.

“We…” Barbara trailed on, “Are definitely getting off track and you guys should land soon, we need a decision.”

“Yes,” Bruce said, “Thank you.”

Dick’s eyebrows rode up, looking at Bruce expectantly. “And?” He said, crossing his arms, “What do you think our decision should be?”

Bruce’s expression was neutral, but Dick could tell from years of knowing him that, in his mind, he was thinking ‘who? me?’. “I don’t know.” He admitted, looking down in thought. “Assuming Ra’s is the only target and the situation doesn’t escalate, the logical course of action would be to provide Danny psychological assistance — if they allow. In any other case, I don’t know what could be done. We don’t have enough information to be able to stop them in case they decide there are any other targets or if they refuse to accept our help.”

“So,” Jason popped his lips, “What you’re saying is that we’re helpless?”

Dick’s eyebrows knit together in a mixture of concern and frustration. He looked at Jazz, “Unless Jazz knows some way to stop Danny.”

She sighed, rubbing her forehead, eyes still closed. “I do,” Jazz said, finally opening her eyes, “There are weapons that can stop ghosts, but they were all in our house, back in Illinois.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned that before you guys left Illinois?” Tim opened his microphone to say moodily.

Jazz looked even more devastated than before, Dick put a hand on her shoulder to try to provide some comfort. “Hey, don’t be mean, she just lost her parents.”

Steph laughed, “Yeah, Tim, don’t be a dick, we already got Dick for that.”

*

Clockwork had personally taken Danny to the League of Assassins base his grandfather was in, giving her a semblance of a comforting look as Danny stepped out of the portal with Fright Knight and Vlad in tow. 

Vlad had asked why he was needed if Fright Knight was present, maybe Danny could’ve argued in favor of Vlad’s sanity (he had never experienced someone die other than himself, after all) when the Observants had stated he needed to be present as Danny’s regent, but Danny wasn’t feeling very nice currently. 

Upon stepping through the portal (and it promptly closing after the three of them), they were met with a dozen assassins who were unhappy with the fact that they’d just appeared inside. Danny phased through them, deciding that paying attention to what Fright did to the assassins in self defense would do her no good in the long run. 

She knew this base. It wasn’t the base her Damian had been raised in most of their lives before being sent away, but they’d frequently been there whenever a mission or special lesson called for it. It was a fortress, even after they’d gone past the walls that guarded it, and the inside had a cold that seeped through her clothes and chilled her bones. Danny remembered hating when they had to stay there for more than a couple of hours, the base had not been designed for the desert weather, it was an oven during the day and freezing at night. As it was, it wasn’t as cold as it could have been had it been midnight. Danny guessed it must be nearing dawn, though there were no windows she could look through to verify that information.

Marching down the hallways to where she knew her grandfather would probably be waiting for her, Danny tried to fight memories that resurfaced of her and Damian spying on the young men and women on their ways to their own missions, sometimes even throwing small objects at them as a part of a game because they had nothing else to do and had managed to be forgotten about for once.

Her crown floated above her head — another thing the Observants had demanded — but she still felt it, like her head was a planet with its own gravity and the crown orbited it. The phantom feeling was similar to when her head had been shaved for the first time, when she was four and had refused to kill for the first time, and her mother had her use a shawl to cover her head so it didn’t get sunburnt whilst she trained. Before that, her hair had been shoulder length, her mother always brushed and braided it neatly. She hadn’t gotten it to that length again.

The scythe she’d picked was heavy in her hand and she gripped it tighter, taking a deep breath as she approached the door through which she knew she’d find Ra’s. Looking to the side, Danny could see Vlad staring unsurely and Fright… well, he was just there. Danny stopped in front of the door and looked at Fright, “You wanna do the honors?” She asked, pointing to the door with her free hand. From the little she’d observed, Fright seemed to enjoy any opportunity to let out his aggression. With little ceremony, Fright kicked the door open. Inside, was a wide office room, with paintings in the walls, weapons of choice on display, something that looked suspiciously like Timothy Drake’s spleen in a jar with formol, and a mahogany table in the middle, with comfortable chairs around it, where her grandfather sat idly. 

Ra’s looked up, unbothered, “You’re late.” He complained, because of course her grandfather would complain that Danny was late to execute him. Not that Ra’s necessarily knew that Danny was there to execute him.

Danny put an ectoplasmic shield up to block anyone else from going through the door. “I know, bureaucracy in the Infinite Realms is a bitch.” Danny said without thinking twice, Ra’s simply stared at the three of them. Danny felt light, like her brain was a balloon and it was floating somewhere in the vicinity. Man, dissociation sucked.

“Do you care to introduce your…” Ra’s looked from Vlad to Fright, “Escorts?”

Somewhere in the distance, Danny thought she could hear footsteps. “I don’t.” She looked Fright, “Can you restrain him?”

Ra’s was quick, Danny’s eyes could barely follow, a lifetime (and then some) of fighting being put to use. Nobody would be able to catch him at that speed. A human, at least. Fright Knight was a ghost, physics didn’t apply to him, he seemed aware of that. She’d give her grandpa the credit, he held his own for a solid minute. He’d even nearly gotten to Danny once, but there was no escaping the force that was Fright. 

(“Learn the rules,” her grandfather had said once, as he corrected her stance, still patient with her. “Know them by heart. You cannot win if you have no knowledge of the rules.” He’d ignored the fact that she’d been winning most of her spars because her form wasn’t as perfect or by the book as Damian’s. She had been taking notes from the raccoon Damian had secretly taken in, as it seemed to evade capture whenever it was spotted by someone. Nobody could understand how it could escape literal assassins. Just as nobody understood why Danny kept winning with her terrible, animal-like form, so they assumed she was winning because of luck.)

Her grandfather fought Fright thinking the rules applied to him, just as Danny thought he would, failure was inevitable.

“Thank you, Fright.” Ra’s was utterly baffled, unable to understand how he’d lost for the first time in… it might have been a long time. He was too used to making and bending the rules. People shouldn’t have that power, Danny shouldn’t have that power. She caught his eye and stared straight at them, “I, Phantom, heir by conquest to the throne of the Infinite Realms—”

“‘Phantom’.” Ra’s repeated, with mockery in his tone.

*

They’d managed to contact mother halfway through the trip and get grandfather’s whereabouts. She’d been updating them on the status of the base, alerting them, right as they were about to land, that the fortress had been attacked.

The entrance had been littered with bodies, some passed out and some dead. Damian couldn’t believe it was Daniyah who did it. Mainly because the work didn’t look like hers. A couple times, she’d had to put groups of people out of commission during their missions, she’d always put them in piles together. Never just tossed them aside and moved on. Damian wondered if Daniyah’s state of mind was such that she couldn’t be bothered to care, he wondered if he was wrong.

The halls of the fortress were quiet as the group of three (as they’d chosen to leave Jasmine in the jet and Richard with her to guard her) ran to where they’d been told grandfather would be, their footsteps echoing despite their attempts to quiet them. They’d soon found the door open at the end of the hallway, displaying the scene with a green sheen — it must be one of the shields Jasmine told them about when she’d warned them of Daniyah’s powers.  

There were voices coming from the open door, and Daniyah raising her voice was the most noticeable one, “In the presence of Regent Plasmius, and with assistance from the Fright Knight, sentence you, for crimes against Death, to death and incarceration post-mortem.”

Right, because his sister was the monarch of the ghost dimension. Because she’d died. He had to get used to that knowledge. 

“That seems a little excessive.” Jason joked from beside Damian and Bruce.

Masters immediately turned to see who it was and grandfather merely looked at them (while the weird guy holding him seemed unfazed), but Daniyah barely stiffened. “Sure, but so is experimenting with life and death.” She said, head raising slightly, the thin crown floating above her head following the movement.

A laugh left their grandfather’s lips, “Leave killing to your brother, Daniyah.” It hurt that he’d never be able to escape it. He had blood on his hands, and everyone would feel the need to remind him. Damian didn’t get the luxury of forgetting. 

“Let us in,” father demanded, desperation seeping into his voice.

“You are not going to do it.” Grandfather said dismissively. Bold words for someone being held down by a non-shirt-wearing ghost. “You are just wasting our time.” Daniyah’s grip on her war scythe tightened as she stood in front of their grandfather, back still turned to the door.

If he could get into the room, Damian would have felt tempted to do it. He felt like when they were kids and he’d kill Daniyah’s target for her because she would refuse and then they’d try to cover it up only to get found, he felt the absurd need to protect an innocence he wasn’t sure she’d had for a while now. “You’re better than this.” He called lowly.

Daniyah finally turned to face them, him, expression disbelieving. “You don’t get it.” She turned her back on Damian again and raised her voice. “This is better.”

Damian might have shouted, but his ears rang with panic induced adrenaline coursing through his veins. Daniyah shifted her grip on the scythe to hold it with both hands and, steadily, thrust it forward. Right into their grandfather’s throat. Then to the side, ripping it open.

He’d never noticed how obscene murders were.

The ectoplasmic shield dropped, but they didn’t dare move as Daniyah gave the back and purple ghost some order they couldn’t understand and walked forward to one of the displays, taking a jar and turning to them. Unlike Jasmine, her eyes were dry, they weren’t red and puffy either. It was almost as if she was present but not really. 

She handed Jason the jar, “That would be Tim Drake’s spleen, I think.” Daniyah moved past them as if she hadn’t just murdered someone. The three of them turned to see a portal appear and her stepping through, soon followed by the black and purple ghost. “Vlad, you can dissociate later.” She announced loudly and they soon heard, then saw, Vlad walking that way and following her through the portal.

It closed before they could think of going through.

Chapter Text

After Danny was done, you know, killing his grandfather, there was paperwork to take care of. He wondered if he could… he couldn’t kill the Observants, they were never alive to begin with. Disexist? 

The point was he wanted for them to stop bothering him so he could dissociate in peace. And maybe also have a mental breakdown.

Clockwork was smart. He also was in charge of the timeline and could probably see he would go on the murder spree Bruce seemed worried he’d go on if people didn’t leave. Clockwork kindly suggested that people get the fuck out of the throne room. He had to thank Clockwork later. After he was finished having a mental breakdown. Because he’d just committed murder.

So he cried, and maybe screamed a little bit too, and said goodbye to having morals. Then, he asked Clockwork to open a portal (because he refused to teach Danny how to open portals — he'd explained that it was like driving in a way and Danny was too young, which was lame). He hadn't specified where to (he'd assumed Clockwork would take him to Vlad's mansion, but Vlad was still dissociating in a room in Pariah's Keep), so he was shocked to discover he was at the gates of the Wayne Manor.

He walked up the — very long — driveway to the main doors and knocked. The door was opened within a second of him knocking, revealing an unimpressed Alfred. “Clockwork warned you?”

“He did,” he answered with a smile as he led Danny in.

“Cool. Didn't warn me , but cool.” He commented as he cleaned his shoes on the carpet. Alfred led him inside calmly, it was a different room than the one Alfred had taken him to before he took him to the batcave last time, it was in a different part of the manor too. He could hear faint voices before they reached the room — Bruce, Damian… “S’up?” He said before even walking into the room, opening his eyes to find them immediately drawn to one person.

His insides curled with a sense of panic as he set eyes on her, long hair, tan skin, a long dress that hid her feet and hugged her chest and arms. Her lips had a warm brown lipstick, they curled upward upon his sight. “Daniyah,” she greeted, tone soft and velvety. She was the only one with a pleasant expression.

Danny looked at Damian, then back at her. “What do you want?” He couldn't help but sound annoyed, rather than calm and collected, like he'd hoped to come off as.

Her eyebrows lowered disapprovingly for a second, “Where are you manners? I raised you better than this.”

He fought back the insane urge to roll his eyes violently. “You haven't raised me at all for seven years now.”

Talia had no restrictions regarding rolling her eyes, “You were like this before then.”

“Talia…” Bruce mumbled a warning, voice low but sure.

His nose twitched with disgust, “You'd have no one to blame but yourself, then.”

The tension grew so thick one could nearly smell it if they paid attention, Danny didn't — he was too busy watching his mother's every move. “Maybe so,” he could see Damian's eyes shifting from him to their mother like a scared deer (Danny felt almost proud of him for having learned to show genuine emotion, even if it was fear). “But Damian doesn't misbehave like that.”

Danny crossed his arms over his chest, “Damian's emotionally constipated. Just because he doesn't ‘misbehave’,” he uncrossed his arms to make air quotes, “Doesn't mean you did a good job of raising him either.”

Her nose twitched with anger, but the rest of her face remained the same neutral expression, “You have no idea how much I’ve sacrificed in order for you to have the privilege you have of—”

“Sacrifice?” Danny interrupted, arms limp beside himself. “You wanna talk to me about sacrifice?!” The volume in his voice raised and he couldn't contain his anger, rising quicker than a pot of milk in the fire. “You've given up both our lives before we were even born.”

Bruce breathed in, “Danny,” he called carefully. Danny didn't look away from Talia, “Maybe we should have this discussion later, I don't think you're good mentally at the moment.”

Danny finally spared him an annoyed look, “Yeah, no, duh.”

Talia was staring at him with gritted teeth, “Show some respect.”

“No!” He shouted, “I have no respect for you. You gave me up, you saved Damian.” Danny's eyes burned and he could feel tears welling up in his eyelids, “You didn't even have the decency to tell my father I existed!” 

She lowered her chin, eyelids narrowing, “You never earned it.”

There were so many things Danny wanted to say, accumulated over the years, pouring over like his tears and snot. He knew she would say that, yet he began the conversation anyway, hoping for a different outcome. “I was a kid,” he whimpered.

Talia lifted from her seat smoothly, heels making a faint noise on the carpet as she walked toward Danny. For most people, she would stand a safe distance — far enough to not get grabbed and close enough that she could attack — but she stood inches away from Danny, “And you never earned it.”

Bruce quickly got up, extending a hand as if he was ready to stop something from happening. “Talia, you are saying things you will regret later.” She turned to him as if Danny didn't exist, “Maybe you should leave.”

Talia turned to Danny one last time, then back at Bruce. “Very well.” She looked at Damian, “I will see you again soon.” She spun swiftly, toward the door Danny had come out of.

“I'm nothing like you,” Danny said loudly, stopping her on her step. “You've said that before, but I think you're upset that I'm a lot like you.” He cleaned his cheeks with his sleeve, “You can't help but see yourself in me and it upsets you because I'm very different from you, but in all the ways you dislike.” She didn’t say anything to that. In fact, her face looked as neutral as it had when he’d entered the room, but he knew it had gotten to her. Like it or not, his mother had also been abused by Ra’s. Admit it or not, the reason she despised him — Danny — was because she saw the cycle repeat, but for a long time Danny could do nothing to break it. Then he did. He hoped he had. “You’ll have to live with it.”

Talia blinked, “I’m living just fine.”

It was meant to rile Danny up. It did rile him up, only not in a way Talia expected it to. It was as cold as his core, ready to burn with time, unforgiving. “I hope you’re living fine with the fact that I died.”

She looked him up and down, “You look fine to me.”

He hummed, “Yeah, but I did. A year and a half ago, and it's your fault.” His body was doing the weird dissociation thing where he heard himself, but it was as if he wasn't in his own body, like he was hearing someone else talk. It sounded familiar in a way that didn't sound like him. He usually sounded like himself when he dissociated like that, but today he didn't. It was like hearing someone else use his voice or like he was pretending to be someone else, but he couldn't quite put his finger on who. He looked at Damian, “My mission requires— required me to inspect all the devices and experiments the Fentons made and report back.” Danny looked at his mother once again, “If I hadn't had to inspect the portal, I wouldn't have died.”

Talia took a step, a small one, back inside the room. “Your mission was a mercy.”

“My mission was a punishment.” Danny corrected. He wondered how Bruce and Damian must feel watching them argue — probably like they were watching a car wreck in motion. “I died.” It wasn’t an admission at this point, it was a fact. He died and he came back more or less unscathed, but irrevocably changed. “And you have to live with that.”

He wanted for his mother to scream, try to kill him, call him naïve and say she already knew, he’d take guilty crying at this point as well. 

He got the same as he always had, silence. Silence, then she turned and left like it meant nothing to her, like she’d done a thousand times before.

It was said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, so maybe Danny was going bonkers.

Danny looked to the side when he heard someone step forward. “Daniyah—”

“I did die,” Danny interrupted, “In case you were wondering. It’s not a bluff.”

“I did not doubt.” Damian answered solemnly. After what felt like a year, he said, “It’ll stop eventually.”

Danny looked at Bruce, quiet, calculating when would be required of him to speak and when it would be best. “What? The dissociation?”

“The guilt.”

“I really hope that doesn’t stop.” He admitted, watching as Damian’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I killed a person, Damian. Yes, he was an asshole, but he was still a person.” He was tired. So, so tired. He didn’t know how long he’d been awake and it had been an exhausting experience. Danny hugged himself, “If I have the power to kill a person, I don’t get to not feel guilty about it.”

Damian, to his credit, seemed to have learned something from having lived for seven years in a steady, loving environment with all (if not most) of his needs met, because he hugged Danny.

*

Valerie felt like she was watching clips of a suspense movie or a true crime documentary. The whole town was in a weird mood ever since the announcement of the Fenton parents’ death, like people hadn’t gotten to a consensus on how to feel about it. The worst part was she couldn’t get a hold of Danny — he wasn’t showing up to school, he wasn’t picking up his texts or calls, Sam and Tucker were weirder than usual about her asking after him. When the funeral was announced, covered by the mayor himself, she made a point of attending. Watching with disgust as people she’d heard talk about how much they hated the Fentons cry over their deaths.

She first saw Vlad walking toward the pews that had been set in the park, Danny and Jazz following behind. Jazz’s eyes were red and puffy and she was carrying a tissue crumpled in her fist, she sat down like the whole world wasn’t there, almost absently. Danny carried a stoic energy almost as deep as the bags under his bloodshot eyes, but there was no sign of tears. He didn’t look like the Danny she knew, he carried himself like someone different, it was akin to a king whose crown was weighing over their head. Jazz had stood up and given a eulogy Valerie hadn’t listened to, but she was sure sounded lovely, dabbing under her eyes periodically as she sniffed. After the ceremony was done, the caskets were taken away so that the Fentons’ bodies could be cremated. 

Valerie walked toward the front, where Vlad was giving people a fake smile and a speech about how they should be happy about the time they did get to spend with the Fentons. Jazz’s close circle of friends had made their way forward and were giving her some much needed comfort. Danny, in his place behind the group, seemed to be subtly rolling his eyes at the discourse Vlad was puking. He saw her as soon as she walked past Jazz, offering something that had probably meant to be an awkward smile, but just looked like he was in pain. “I’m sorry.”

Danny’s eyes lacked their sarcastic spark, “You didn’t kill them.” He deadpanned, “You got nothing to be sorry for.”

“I didn’t,” she agreed, because that had been bugging her ever since she’d heard the news. Who had killed the Fentons was still a matter of mystery, even though the police had determined the most probable cause had been an attempted home invasion and robbery gone wrong. “But I’m sorry I can’t offer anything better than sorry.” He just shrugged in response, “Do you know who’s gonna take you in yet?”

He nodded absent-mindedly, “Vlad is.”

Right. His creepy godfather who he was always arguing with and had professed to hate more than once. It was weirder than the circumstances of the Fentons’ murder. “Danny, I know it might be painful to talk about right now, but what happened?”

He turned to her with panic in his eyes, the most she’d seen him express since he’d arrived. “What?”

Maybe it had been a bad idea to ask a grieving friend about his parents’ deaths only four days after the deaths actually happened, but she had already touched the subject. “No official motive has been released to the public.” Danny had gained an awareness in his eyes she didn’t know he was lacking, brows furrowing as he tried to figure out what she meant. “And it’s just very weird — people have theorized that it was a robbery gone wrong, but also nothing in the house seemed to be unaccounted for?”

Danny winced, sucking on his teeth, “I don’t know, we didn’t do a very thorough search, we wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.”

“You guys checked the most valuable things, though, right?”

He let out a long sigh and she felt horrible for asking, but her mind wouldn’t quiet on the subject. The worst was she knew she wouldn’t pay attention to it any other day, so she didn’t know what called her attention to it now of all times. “Yeah, but who knows… They were already dying when I came downstairs.”

She stopped, brows furrowing, “Wait, you were there?” None of the reporters mentioned that in the news, she’d heard before about the news redacting minors’ names, but maybe the police just didn’t announce that fact to them.

Danny was still avoiding eye contact, “I was in my room, we heard a struggle.”

Jazz had been there too? No wonder she looked so devastated. Valerie remembered being sad when her mom died, but Jazz looked like she felt worse. “How—” she was a bit scared to ask, scared of the answer, but Danny didn’t look harmed, so it couldn’t be that bad, could it? “Did they leave when they saw you?”

“No,” Danny shrugged, “I, uh, they were in the kitchen, so I chased them off with a knife.” It sounded lighter than the rest of himself, it gave her an uncanny valley feeling.

She didn’t know how to react to it, so she laughed, a bit awkward. “You chased them out?” Valerie found it hard to believe as well, “Danny, you’re not exactly a fighter.” She noticed how his body went rigid, another uncanny thing, as she associated Danny with his relaxed stance and attitude. “I mean, you get picked on everyday, but you can chase murderers off with a knife?”

“So?” He asked through gritted teeth.

“So you’re the most defenseless person I know.”

He had an anger in his eyes she’d never seen before, a hate she didn’t know he was capable of. “Maybe you just don’t know me that well, then!”

She was taken aback by him raising the volume in his voice, her Danny didn’t do that, but that was definitely Danny and he wasn’t hers. It was her fault, too. She’d pushed him away in fear of hurting him, getting him caught in the crossfire of her second life, and now she was pushing him past the limits she’d established. “Of course I know you.”

It was stupid of her to try to insist, but she’d already dug the hole, so maybe she should see if she fit inside. “You don’t.” He said surely and firmly, “And that’s my fault, but you still don’t.”

She didn’t understand what he meant, he was a pretty transparent person — you always knew who he liked or disliked — and he wore his heart on his sleeve. “I don’t—Danny, I don’t understand.” Was all she could say.

He scoffed, “I know.” Danny turned and walked away.

*

And she followed, duh.

Valerie was actually pretty shocked at how fast he could walk when he failed PE on the regular. “Wait, Danny!” She shouted as they approached the side of the town hall, where there was no one around. “I want to understand, please.”

He stopped abruptly, “I doubt that.” Danny mumbled as he turned to face her, face carrying irritation and doubt. 

That annoyed her a bit, but she’d forgive him because he was right to be angry, a little, because she pushed. “Try me,” she crossed her arms.

Danny stared at her in silence for a few seconds, “If I said ‘I’m Phantom’, what would you say?”

Valerie made a face, “That it’s not true.”

“Why?”

That seemed like a nonsensical question, “Because he’s dead — a phantom .”

He nodded silently a moment, looking around only for his eyes to land on her unforgivingly. “And if I said I’m Phantom?”

“You already—” she remembered how, once, Star had pointed out Phantom looked similar to Danny. They’d dismissed it, because they didn’t have reliable pictures to consult, only their memories, and Paulina then entered a rant about how Phantom looked like Damian Wayne. They were similar, she couldn’t deny it then, she wouldn’t deny it now, but, as she’d pointed out, Phantom was a ghost. “You’re not dead, Danny.”

His gaze didn’t waver, “But if I was?”

“What is this about?”

“Val,” he said calmly, “I’m Phantom.” He said it as one would a well-known fact, “And I know you’re the Red Huntress.”

She stared, then stared some more, trying to understand what he said. Valerie laughed, it was the only thing she could manage to do. “What?”

Danny stared right back, “I’m Phantom.” He said calmly, “I’ve known you’re the Red Huntress for a while now. Sam recognized your voice.”

She laughed again, scratching at her scalp, “No wonder Sam and Tucker were weird when I asked about you, if you’ve been telling them stuff like that.” Because there was no other explanation — Danny knew about her, fine, that was explainable, her own father found out about her secret identity, but him being Phantom made no sense. 

“No, they’re acting weird about me because I killed my grandfather.”

Valerie walked closer to him, watching him more attentively, the bags were still there, but she wondered if maybe he was worse than she thought. “Danny, are you feeling okay?”

He looked at her like she was crazy, “No, I just told you I killed my grandfather.”

“You told me your only living grandparent died of cancer five years ago, Danny.”

“Jazz’s grandfather.” He corrected her, looking away, “I’m adopted. I killed my grandfather.” Danny looked like he'd repeated that until he'd been worn down, repeated until his throat had been sore and he'd screamed it at the top of his lungs longs past that. She couldn't imagine how he'd get to that point and his admission didn't make sense. “Look, I don't expect you to understand it or why I did it, I know you don't. We've lived very different lives, Val.” The old nickname was what weighed the most for her, strangely, because it sounded like a goodbye. “So maybe it's better if we just…”

“‘We just’ what?” She asked when he had been unable to finish the sentence, “If we just go our separate ways? If we don't talk anymore?” Saying it scared her, because there was a big chance he confirmed it, and Danny's face told her he was also scared of the answer. “You make it sound like we're breaking up when we aren't even dating, Danny.”

“I know,” he admitted quietly, “Maybe you had the right idea, though.”

The anguish behind his eyes told her the two of them were each having a conversation in very different genres. Only she didn't know what his was. “Don't—we're still friends, Danny.” 

“I'm not someone you should be friends with, Valerie.” Danny raised his voice, meeting her eyes. “If you knew the things I've done, the life I've lived, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to. And, if you did, your dad wouldn't allow you to be friends with me.”

It felt like Danny believed in what he was saying and that was the only thing that stopped the anger coming to a boil inside her. She knew Danny was adopted, he'd even implied once or twice that there was a reason a ‘life before Amity Park' existed for him. Valerie figured whatever got him up for adoption wasn't nice. It insulted her that he immediately assumed she couldn't or wouldn't understand. That he thought so little of her as to believe she wouldn't try to understand. “Maybe I should get to decide that for myself,” she argued, crossing her arms.

He stared at her, like he was considering her words even though he'd seemed to have had his mind made up before she even started the conversation. “I have a brother.” He started, mechanically, like he was playing a record, repeating a story he'd heard. “When my mother got pregnant she planned her child's entire life ahead of them. Then, she found out there were two children, not one. I was unwanted before I was even born.” She knew that existed, she'd heard some of her peers tell each other stories about being an accident, but she couldn't fathom being unwanted — her father and mother (before she passed) had always treated her like she was exactly what they wanted, even when she threw tantrums. “We were raised as assassins,” Danny had this thing going on where he started to make sense, then he said something that was out of a movie. “We knew how to fight as soon as we could walk, we learned how to torture and kill before we could understand what it meant.”

“Seriously—”

“You think you should decide for yourself whether or not you want to be around me,” Danny interrupted, voice firm and commanding like she'd never heard. “Fine, but you’ll listen. If you don't think I'm telling the truth, that's just another reason why you should steer clear.” Valerie closed her mouth, watching and waiting for what else he had to say. The thing about her thinking he might be wrong in the head and that would be the reason why he was saying all those crazy things was that he didn't sound wrong in the head. Danny was shaken by what happened, you didn't need to be a genius to see it, but he seemed completely aware and oriented, even if what he was saying seemed outlandish. Maybe that's why she listened. “When I was eight, I was given up to the Fentons after I refused to execute a task. Except I wasn't really given up, because I still had to send them information about the Fentons’ research. It was a punishment mission, an exile. My brother was rewarded for completing my task by being sent to our biological father who's… he isn't normal, but he's not an assassin, he can provide things like a healthy environment and shit.” There was bitterness in his voice as he looked around. He couldn't be lying, she could feel the bitterness irradiating off him. It was impossible for someone to fake that. Paulina couldn't fake that and she was a great actress. “I love the Fentons', but Jack and Maddie are—were neglectful at best. Jazz did most of the work in teaching me how to behave like a human being.” He faltered, showing unsurety for the first time since that conversation. “A year ago, the Fentons built a portal to the ghost dimension, but it didn't work at first. I went to investigate and…” He closed his eyes, keeping them shut for a moment before he opened them, a new determination shining in them. “It turned on, I became Phantom.” She felt there was some information left behind, but couldn't put her finger on it. “I became Phantom and then I had three times the threat I had before, and I didn't know what to do for a while, until I saw my brother again. I asked him to get rid of one of the threats and I was stupid enough to believe the others wouldn't follow through, so I sent my mother a leather saying I wanted to leave the League of Assassins.” Valerie could barely follow, let alone process, the story, there was so much happening in it and she wasn't even sure she believed in it. “No one leaves the League, I knew that, yet I sent the letter. They went after me, the Fentons were caught in the crossfire.” She was feeling slightly inclined toward believing him, mostly because he sounded broken and the unshed tears in his eyelids were really convincing. “And I realized… I—there’s no winning with the League. They would stop at nothing to get me and put me in the ground.”

“How are you still here, then?” Valerie found herself saying, because there was an implication here and it could be the hole that proved it was just a really well done lie. It had to be.

“My grandfather was the head of the League.” Danny affirmed and Valerie hated how that made the story go full circle. “So I killed him.”

Her brow furrowed, “So you killed a person? And you haven't been arrested?”

Danny made a face, “I'd hardly call my grandfather a person, but, answering your question, legally, he doesn't exist.” The worst part is he wasn't smug, he was just neutral, like these were just facts. “And neither does Daniyah Al Ghul, which is who killed him.” 

It was too much to process. It kinda made Valerie want to cry, but she didn't. She didn't like not knowing what to believe in, she liked being sure. She liked picking a side and fighting for it. “Danny…”

She would've continued to let her words form as her brain processed them, but he smiled, “I'll see you around, Val.”

He was gone before she could think of answering.

Chapter Text

Damian's appreciation for finer details that led to his inclination toward art started when he was a child, being forced to wait on his feet the whole night with Daniyah beside him in a test of endurance, watching as the sunlight filtered through the windows as the sun rose in the sky. He cast his awareness of his body and the way it ached in favor of watching the light change minute after minute.

That wasn't on purpose, he just did it, it was natural to him to catch little details after he'd been taught how to look out for them.

Living with the League of Assassins was catching all the little details and putting them on a neat little box of their own, while living with his father was opening the box and putting the details to use.

His siblings always seemed shocked when he noticed little things — Duke had tried to explain that he acted as though he didn't care, so they assumed he wouldn't care to notice. Truthfully, he didn't care most of the time, but he still noticed and shelved it for a time when he did care.

Jon had kindly said that it meant he did care, only he was an ass about it.

Richard said he should probably talk about that in therapy (which he'd been made to attend — at first every week, but now it had decreased to every two months).

Damian didn't care which it was, it was as close to a balance as he could get so far, between what he wanted, how he'd been raised, and what his family and society expected of him.

Jon also noticed little things, that was what made Damian pay attention to him at first — how, through his naivety, he could still be observant. It was a shock, because he didn't seem like an observant person, what with his puppy eyes and inattentive behavior, but Jon was great at reading people. He could read people's emotions like they were written on their foreheads in a way that made Damian envious.

It didn't shock him that Jon noticed how the vibration of his message notification was different than usual. “It's Daniyah.” No other explanation was needed — he'd told Jon most of what had happened in the last couple of months, including how Daniyah had gone back to Amity Park after murdering their grandfather and he'd had radio silence from her in the fortnight that followed.

“Vlad's being annoying.” The text said, “Can I come over?”

Damian frowned as he showed it to Jon, going on to type, “I thought you were in Illinois.”

“I am.”

Jon himself had confusion on his face, “Do you think they're coming here by plane?”

“It is an option.” Damian answered, though he had a feeling it wouldn't be the case.

Jon nodded, “Who was Vlad, again?”

“Daniyah's godfather.” He started, “Vlad Masters, millionaire who came by his wealth ‘through luck',” he made finger quotes, ignoring how Jon giggled at the disgust in his voice, “In reality, he cheated people out of their own wealth.” Damian put his phone away, sure Daniyah wouldn't message so soon, regardless of which travel mode she decided to use.

Jon made a face, “I can't believe people are like that. How is he their godfather?”

In the distance, he could hear someone moving about, probably Alfred or one of his siblings. “He was a friend of the Fentons before he stumbled upon his wealth.”

“Yeah, think Lex Luthor, but add vampire to it.” Their eyes shifted to the door to see Daniyah coming from the corridor, leaning against the door frame.

Jon grew out of his shock faster than Damian did, “That's a terrible combination.”

Daniyah smiled, “I like him, he gets it.” They said as they entered the room. Daniyah looked at Damian, “I portaled here,” they explained upon his questioning look.

“Into the house?”

“Outside, Alfred let me in.” They answered, making a face, “I'm not an animal.”

Jon got up from Damian's bed, extending a hand toward them. “You're Daniyah, right?”

They took the hand and shook it. “Danny,” they corrected, “And you're Jon Kent.” Jon looked at Damian in question, Damian made no effort to answer. Danny laughed, “I saw you on Damian's Instagram.” Jon nodded in understanding, Damian usually only posted pictures of his pets, but eventually he'd post something else.

“You said Masters was bothering you.” Damian stated, a clear prompt for Danny to elaborate on it.

“He's being annoying.” They said simply as they pulled the chair in front of Damian's study desk and sat down. “He's usually annoying, but it's a different annoying.” They explained, “He's not right in the head sometimes.”

Damian scrutinized them for a moment, “You don't seem to like him very much.”

Danny laughed, “Nope.”

Jon’s brow furrowed, “But he's your godfather?”

They nodded, looking out the window contemplatively, “That wasn't my idea.” Danny noted, shrugging to themself, “We kinda hate each other.”

“Why do you live with him, then?” Jon asked, unable to fathom the crazy Wayne family dynamics (which was ironic, considering his brother was a clone of his father).

“Because he's my legal guardian, so the law requires it.” They deadpanned.

“You don't have to live with him,” Damian said — they'd had that conversation once about the Fentons, Damian suggested that Danny live with them and they weren't open to it. “You could live with us.”

“I'm not leaving Jazz with Vlad.”

“We could take her in as well,” Damian said simply. He'd talked to father about this when he'd suggested it to Danny, father had agreed it was the best solution and he'd be glad to take them in. 

Danny stared at him for a moment, burning holes through his skull as they ruminated over their answer. “I told you, it's not that simple.”

Before Damian could think of an answer, there was a knock on the door. It opened to reveal Alfred carrying a tray of food. Damian got up to get it and thanked him. Alfred put a hand in his pocket once the tray was off his hands and looked at Danny, “I have a message for you, it seems.”

Danny groaned, “Clockwork?” Alfred didn't answer, but the smile on his face confirmed it. Danny walked past Damian as he put the tray on the desk and grabbed it from Alfred's hand. Watching as the butler left the room. Damian watched as Danny looked down at the note and said, “Ah, shit.”

Jon looked up from pretending he hadn't been paying attention, “What does it say.”

“‘Look ahead’,” they answered.

Joan made a show of looking at the general areas that should be, “I don't see anything ahead of you, though.”

“Me neither,” Danny said, even though they were still looking at the note. Was that a self-deprecating joke? Danny looked ahead, finally, and a partial appeared. “Fucking knew it.”

Damian inspected the glowing, swirling portal, “Does this happen often?”

“What's this?” Jon asked.

Danny grabbed a cookie from the tray. “Portal to the Realms.” They said, biting the cookie. “Means the Observants are requesting my presence for a kingly duty or whatever.” Danny sighed, “Do you wanna come with and watch me lose my shit or something?”

“Sure!” Jon had said without thinking twice.

Damian's brow furrowed, “How do you know you’ll lose your patience?”

Danny shrugged, “The Observants have that effect on me.”

*

As they stepped through the portal and it closed after them, Jon couldn't help but stare at it helplessly.

“I will return you to your dimension, there's nothing to worry about.” Jon turned to see a hooded figure with blue tinted skin and a bear, he looked like he was old enough to be a senior citizen.

Danny sighed, wearily at the person, who Jon assumed must be a ghost. “Is this important?”

“As important as you make it.”

Danny rolled their eyes as he walked further into the room with familiarity, stopping at a stand that had what looked to be a thermos on top. “So the Observants just want to annoy me.” They stated, Jon guessed the two must be well acquainted with each other, since Danny was comfortable being sarcastic and the other person didn’t seem to mind (though Danny being sarcastic might not be specific to this person, Damian did describe them as having not respect for most authority figures several times). Danny turned to them, “This is Clockwork. I don't hate him.”

Damian simply nodded, taking in the room and interactions quietly. Jon smiled, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Clockwork smiled at him kindly, but soon turned to Danny. “You might wish to keep a cool head today.”

“The Observants might wish to not be annoying.”

With that, Clockwork led them into a corridor and into another room that looked almost like a courtroom, only it was filled with one eyed beings with robes that Jon assumed were the Observants. The one at the very front cleared their throat, “And what might this be?”

Danny let out a breath through their nose and, with a ring of light, transformed into Phantom. He was just like Damian had described — since they couldn’t rely on the blurry pictures they had — white hair that reflected light like snow in the morning, green eyes that exuded a power you wouldn’t imagine came from the same Danny who had been in their human form, and an aura of power that matched the flaming crown hovering above their head, which seemed simple at first glance, but had intricate details etched into it upon inspection. “You forgot to bow,” they noted, watching coldly as the hundreds of Observants scrambled into their knees, the one in the front staring Danny down with contempt the entire time. “Now you may rise.” Jon thought, for a moment, he’d heard Danny mutter ‘assholes’, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Surely, your majesty, you’ve been told it is against our rules to bring in… outside life forms.” The one in the front said through gritted teeth.

“Surely, your travesty, you’ve read them.” Danny said mockingly, Jon had to make an effort not to laugh as he and Damian followed Danny and Clockwork to the front. “And, since I know you read them, because I read them, you know that’s not the law. The things imposed by factions in the Infinite Realms during the last ruling period aren't law, however much they benefit you.”

They snarled in outrage, “Are you implying—”

“There was nothing implicit about my statement,” Danny interrupted them, narrowing their eyes, coldly calculating their next move. “Is there a reason the Observant Council called me or can I go about my day as usual?”

The observant in the front didn't answer but the one behind them did, “Yes, well, the council has found your participation in your Royal affairs lacking.”

Danny raised an eyebrow and crossed their arms, “You mean the Royal affairs you forced me into?” That took Jon by surprise — from what Damian had told him, Danny becoming heir had seemed like a completely purposeful decision, but now he wondered if either of them had the full story.

The front Observant sneered, “You say that, but have no qualms against the benefits your position brings you.”

“Yeah, well, I'm fifteen. Some of y'all are thousands of years old. Not a fair comparison of judgment to be making,” they noted, “Also, I have a regent for that reason, call him.”

The second observance spoke up again, “We have found your choice of regent to be inadequate.”

“You guys chose the fruit loop, not me.” Danny deadpanned, “Because he helped me close the sarcophagus of eternal naps or whatever — even though he was the one who opened it in the first place — he qualifies somehow?” Jon turned to Damien mouthing Danny's joke, he laughed as Damian shrugged.

“You dare mock our relics,” the first one's voice boomed across the hall, “Our sacred objects, our traditions!”

“Yes, they're stupid.”

“Little girl!” The observant called through a shout, “This insolence cannot stand any long—”

A green beam shot at them and the hall gasped collectively as the head observant fell with the impact, screaming about how it burned. Jon turned to Danny to find they were marching toward the observant in question with the anger of a thousand Suns following them. They grabbed the observant by their robes, “I assure you, there is nothing a little about me.” Danny hissed at them as they cowered in fear. 

Jon probably wouldn't have been able to hear it if he didn't have super hearing, “So do not interrupt me,” the volume in their voice raised, “And don't even think of addressing me by anything other than title.” 

Danny dropped the observant and they fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes crawling away as soon as they recovered.

“And if any of you need anything, call Vlad and deal with his craziness instead of being fucking cowards who rely on a fifteen year old to run the dimension.” With that, Danny turned and stormed out of the hall, seemingly not caring if Damian and Jon followed (or trusting that they knew to follow them).

*

Damian didn’t associate Danny with authority. He associated Danny with defying authority, mocking it, disrespecting it. In his head, Danny was the antithesis of authority. It had made no sense that Danny somehow ended up the heir of the Infinite Realms by anything other than a freak mistake and it made no sense to see Danny blow up and make a demand of the Observants, exercising their authority.

Danny marched up to the same place they’d come from, stopping in front of the stand they’d stood by earlier, “Why do you keep making me do this?” Damian was startled by Clockwork floating by him and Jon — it was weird, not hearing the footsteps, not knowing what to listen for.

“It needs to happen,” Clockwork stated calmly. Damian had a sense he was cautious — that he knew something about this interaction that he and Jon didn’t and knew to look out for it — it put him on edge. He brushed his shoulder against Jon’s as a warning.

Danny reached up and grabbed the crown from atop their head, holding it in front of themself. “Does it?” They asked, turning slightly toward them, “You mean it needs to happen like the Fentons needed to die?” Clockwork didn’t answer. “Even though you know what happens?”

“It doesn’t.”

Danny turned to Clockwork fully, eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Why?” There was pain in their voice, another reminder that Danny changed in ways Damian could do nothing to help. “The Fentons died, I’m living with Vlad, why is it any different? How many people have to die for me to become a danger to ghost society?” Clockwork was still calm, the way one would be when waiting for a storm to pass or for a toddler to finish a tantrum. Danny held the crown out and shook it, “Why did you push me into this?”

“You may not understand it, but it’s necessary.”

“Make me understand,” Danny placated him, “‘Cause, from where I’m standing, you’re just solving one problem by creating another.” They pointed toward the thermos. 

At first, he didn’t understand why the Thermos was there to begin, but he remembered Danny had told him about the Fenton Thermoses and how they trapped ghosts. “Who’s in there?” He asked.

Danny looked at him and pursed their lips, seemingly remembering it wasn’t just them and Clockwork in the room. They looked down, “That’s Dan. He’s my…” Danny scratched their nose, “My evil alternate self. Kinda.”

“You have an evil alternate self?” Jon asked with concern.

Danny shrugged, “Don’t we all?”

That… was unfortunately true.

“You do,” Clockwork answered, tone neutral.

“Should we be worried?” Damian asked, he wouldn’t ask most people, but he found he trusted his twin enough for that to be enough.

“I don’t know,” Danny turned to Clockwork, “Should we be worried, Clockwork?” The danger was back with the force of a freight train, dripping from Danny’s voice in a way that was unmistakable and impossible to miss. It was clear in the way Danny’s voice dropped four semitones, then raised one a moment later. “Because you keep saying I changed things only to say I have to do something to keep it changed every six months. You said if I turned in the answers, I wouldn’t turn into Dan. You said things would get better after I pledged to the throne, which just got me tied to Vlad.” Danny took a breath, glaring daggers at Clockwork, who seemed to be unphased by the exchange, like he’d lived through it already. “You said I had to send my mother a letter stepping down from the League and—” They stopped abruptly, grabbing the thermos and turning to Damian and Jon, “We’re leaving.”

“If you wish,” Clockwork said with a nod of his head.

Danny’s eyelids narrowed, “I do.” Clockwork waved his hand, relaxed, like he didn’t have a care in the world, and a portal appeared behind them. 

As they stepped into the portal and out into his room again, Damian decided he disliked Clockwork. Of course, he wouldn’t focus on that now. “You had a realization,” he asked as the portal closed.

Danny was already pacing around angrily, even though they’d barely stepped out of the portal. “You betcha I had.” They’re nostrils flared as they tried to breathe in calmly. Jon gently intertwined his pinkies with his and gentured toward the bed, Damian let himself be pulled and sat beside Jon. Danny didn’t falter in their incessant pacing, but their eyes hovered over the two of them for a moment before sighing and muttering, “Shoulda figured.”

“So,” Jon began, which was wise of him, since he was the one with the best social skills out of the three of them. “Did you want to tell us about your realization?”

“What do you mean they’re in the Infinite Realms with Danny?!” They heard father ask down the hall, his voice traveling with his as he moved around the manor. He soon appeared at the door, deflating when he found the three of them there. He put on a smile, “Danny, didn’t know you were here.”

“Yes, you did.” Danny stated matter-of-factly.

Father looked at Damian and Jon helplessly, “We just came back,” Jon informed him helpfully, gesturing toward Danny’s fuming and pacing form, “We’re in the middle of a crisis.”

Danny pointed at Jon angrily, “This is not a crisis. This doesn’t even come close to a crisis.” They dropped the crown to the ground and held the thermos to their chest, “The last time a crisis happened, people died.”

Father nodded, seeming to know how to handle the situation better now that he knew what the mood was set to, “Okay, and we don’t want people to die.”

Danny’s pace got slightly slower as they thought over it, “Well…”

“We do not want people to die.” Damian repeated, getting an unimpressed look from Danny. Father turned to him, silently asking what happened. Damian didn’t know much more than he did, so he looked at Danny. “You were about to tell us what realization you had.”

“I wasn’t.” Danny shot back, breathing in, “And, if I was, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“The beginning would be a good start,” Jon tried.

“The beginning is not a good start,” Danny brushed their hair back with their free hand, several white strands escaping and falling on their forehead and cheeks. 

Father stepped into the room, “Anywhere you want to start would be good.”

“Well, let’s see,” Danny stopped pacing in front of their father, crossing their arms, putting the thermos under their arm. “I’m a puppet.”

Damian remembered Danny’s comment about how they’d been forced into the throne, it made sense they’d come to that conclusion. “You’re a person,” Damian refuted.

“I’m three possums in a coat.”

“I thought you were a puppet.”

“I can multitask.”

Damian saw Jon chuckle from the corner of his eyes and looked at his father to find he seemed slightly confused by their exchange. “Explain.”

Danny sighed, “Right after I agreed to be the heir, the Observants gave me a task — killing grandfather. He’d already committed plenty of crimes against life and death both, I guess they didn’t want to risk it?” Danny shook their head, hair moving along their movement like it wasn’t affected by gravity like it was when they were in their human form. “I refused.”

Because that had been Danny’s stance on it for as long as Damian could remember, they’d told him it was a line they didn’t think people should cross, that it might change them. That had been Danny’s stance on it until they’d been backed into a corner they could only get out of by doing the very thing they’d vowed to not do. “Clockwork told you to send the letter to mother.”

Danny nodded, looking at the ground, “He told me to step down, that it was the moment to do it, so the League came after me and the Fentons got caught in it. He’s the ancient of time, he knows everything that’s going to happen. Clockwork had to know that was gonna happen,” they paused. From the furrow in their brow, Damian knew they were thinking as they spoke, coming to new conclusions as they allowed themself to elaborate on the thought. “He did know what was gonna happen, and he knew it was gonna force me to do what the Observants wanted me to do.”

Damian was taken aback when Danny jumped and stayed on the air, floating several feet above the floor, crossing their legs and dumping the thermos on their lap. Jon didn’t make a habit of using his powers mid-conversation, especially not if there was no need, but Danny didn’t seem to have the same reservations. 

“So Clockwork is one of the bad guys?” Jon asked carefully. What did it matter if he was good or bad? He was clearly a foe.

Danny shook their head, “No, he’s not one of the bad guys.” 

Sometimes, Damian regretted agreeing to his father’s ‘no killing’ rule. He didn’t like that he’d had to kill, that he’d been taught to do it before he knew who he was, or that he’d needed to do it to earn his grandfather’s acceptance; but what would one more life on his hands be if this life was taken to protect his sibling? 

“But?” Damian inquired, raising an eyebrow.

“But he’s an asshole,” Danny completed the thought. “In the end, he has the Realms’ best interest in mind. Everything he’s doing is for the greater good, whatever that is.” They sighed, “I’m a threat to that.”

“How are you a threat?” Father asked cautiously, stepping closer to the three of them.

Danny scratched their forehead, and held up the thermos. “My evil alternate self is here,” they said sheepishly. It was a slightly humorous scene, if Damian had to admit it. “Basically, most people I love died because the Nasty Burger has never seen a safety inspection ever and it exploded. Sometime after that, the League took me back and I ended up killing Damian by accident. After I killed a bunch of people, I went back to Amity Park and I was forced to live with Vlad, where I eventually tried to kill myself — which is a terrible idea, because I can never fully die.”

“And because suicide is bad,” Father suggested.

Danny stared at him for a moment, before continuing as if he’d said nothing. “So, since I’m a halfa, I didn’t succeed in ending myself — I just killed my body and left my ghost with nothing to tether itself to except pure emotion — which is a little less than what most ghosts got to work with and much more volatile. My ghost apparently separated Vlad’s ghost from his body — which doesn’t kill him, for some reason — and fused itself to Vlad’s ghost. They, then, proceeded to go on a murder spree.” Danny finished explaining, “So I caught ‘em and the jerk got souped.”

Jon pointed at the thermos curiously, “What are you gonna do with it?”

“I’ll just take it to Pandora when I go to the Realms again.”

“And,” father started, “This Pandora, who are they? Are they trustworthy?”

Danny stared at him blankly for a moment, “It’s not a random person named Pandora, it’s Pandora. You know, from Greek mythology?”

Father stared back, “Is that…”

“Wasn’t she the one who opened the box with the worlds’ evils?” Jon asked, concerned, which was cute.

Danny rolled their eyes, “That story is told backwards — she is the one who caught the worlds’ evils in the box. She guards them.”

Father shook his head, “We’re getting off-track, you said you were a threat to the greater good.” He said, “Is it only because of your alternate self?”

Danny shrugged, “And the fact that I shouldn’t exist. As I said, I can’t die.” They said casually, destransforming, but continuing on the air as they retrieved their phone from the pocket of their pants.

“You said your body can die,” Damian noted, “And that, once it does, you are dangerous and volatile.”

“According to the Observants, I'm all of the options you quoted and more.” Danny joked (not really), “I'm dangerous, volatile, and dangerous because I'm volatile.”

“What do you plan on doing about it?” Jon asked. Damian loved Jon, if Damian had been the one asking that, it would've come off as accusatory, Jon could somehow make it sound genuine and curious.

Danny chuckled, “I haven't even begun planning for that yet.” They were avoiding Damian's eyes, but he knew Danny could feel them on them. “I'm more concerned with getting Vlad to quit being nuts.”

Father's head cocked to the side with confusion, “Your godfather?” Danny’s eyes turned to him, probably remembering the fact that they had had two conversations with their father ever. “You want to get away from him? Why?”

Danny took a deep breath, shoulders following the motion, “If you ever spoke to him for more than an hour, you probably know he's not suited to take care of anyone, let alone two people.”

Father wasn't fond of Vladimir Masters, but Damian guessed he would've taken Danny's trust in him as a vote to give him the benefit of the doubt, as he'd crossed Vlad off the partnership list a long time ago. “So you don't feel safe with him?” That was father asking for the go ahead to do something about it, which meant Danny might become Damian's sibling legally… his family dynamics were too confusing and he wished he didn't care.

“I didn't even feel safe with the Fentons!” They complained, then paused, making a face. “I mean, I didn't feel safe for completely different reasons than with Vlad, but the order of factors doesn't change the product.”

The way father breathed in meant he was getting ready to drop the bomb, Damian braced for it. “Would you feel safer if you were with us?”

Danny looked at him, eyes narrowing as they studied their father. It was shocking how the man seemed to be fighting back the instinct to squirm and cower under the gaze of a fifteen year old (Damian would blame his father for being soft hearted like that). “Would I?” Danny shot back, shrugging to themself as they spared Damian a look, “I might, but would you be safe from me?”

There was the question Damian refused to ponder over. Danny had always been an objectively better fighter than him, constantly winning their matches, but, even then, Damian had never thought of Danny as a danger to him. There were certain lines Danny hadn't wanted to cross, but Damian had never been under the impression that his sibling was innocent — he'd seen them hurt people when the mission required. Now, the stakes were different. Danny's morals were no longer intact, they had blood on their hands. Despite the Observant situation, they had political power to back them if needed. Danny had raw power in their hands and an alternate reality that proved how far they could go. 

Were they safe around Danny if they ended up insane?

“Vlad's an insane piece of shit,” Danny said, “But, at the moment, he is more powerful than me. I've bested him on smarts so far. If he needed to contain me, he might be the only one in this Realm that can.”

Jon made a humming noise, “You want to get away from Vlad,” he started, sounding as confused as he looked, “But not?”

“Yes,” Danny blinked lazily. “I'm a very complicated individual.”

“It's your safety or everyone else's,” Jon stated, catching up to Danny's train of thought quickly.

“See, I knew Damian liked you for a reason,” he did like Jon, but it was very rude of Danny to tell on Damian like that. “Thing is, why do I have to choose? Can't I have both?” Danny looked lost, hopeless maybe. “There has to be some sort of compromise, right?”

Chapter Text

“Who’s calling?” Damian asked as Danny cringed at the caller identification. 

Danny knew Damian could see Tucker’s name from the distance he was at and that he probably already knew who Tucker was from whatever research he’d done on Danny (because they’d been taught stalking was a form of affection by their mother and apparently Bruce also subscribed to that belief system), but, of course, asking gave Danny the chance to make up a lie Damian couldn’ttrat Damian, “Follow my lead.” Danny picked up the call and put the phone on speaker. “Oh, so we’re done ignoring Danny?”

“ Oh, get fucked! ” Sam shouted, the two of them probably had the speaker on as well. “ You told Valerie? ”

Danny popped his lips as Damian sent him a questioning look, “I may have, but what do you care, you were ignoring me!”

“ You killed a person, ” Sam deadpanned, he could picture the ‘you gotta be fucking kidding me’ look she probably had on her face.

“ Also, ” Tucker added, “ You lied to us during the entire time we’ve known each other. ”

“Both of you are grossly overestimating my grandfather’s humanity,” Danny mumbled. Ra’s was seven hundred years old, give or take a few, whatever he’d done to be alive for that long was definitely not worth defending. “What did you expect me to do?”

“ Well, you could’ve tried— ”

“Do not say I should’ve tried to change the system,” Danny interrupted, rolling his eyes, aware that Damian was watching curiously, analyzing it keenly. “You have no idea how the League Of Assassins worked, you don’t get to say that.”

After a moment of silence, Tucker spoke up, “ Wait, it’s actually called the ‘League Of Assassins’? ”

“It doesn’t translate well from Persian,” Danny lied. Looking to the side, he could see the corners of Damian’s mouth pull slightly, as both knew the translation was exactly that from the name in persian.

“ Back to the subject, ” Sam called through the phone, “ Why did you tell Valerie? ”

Danny made a face, “Did Valerie talk to you?” He asked, because it was the only way he thought they would know otherwise.

“ Yeah, no, duh! ” Sam exclaimed annoyedly.

“ She was very confused, dude. ”

“ Yeah, because not only do you not know how to flirt, you’re also terrible at explaining your tragic backstory! ”

“I should not be held accountable for the shit I did when I was dissociating.”

Sam ignored what he said and continued speaking, “ And you just dropped that bomb to her, and then you disappeared from school for two weeks! Which, by the way, where the hell are you? ”

“ Yeah, we came over to Vlad’s to talk to you and he said he didn’t know where you were. ” Tucker said, a hint of concern in his voice, “ He’s kinda crazy right now, we couldn’t get much from him. ”

Danny rubbed the bridge of his nose, “I know he’s crazy, that’s why Jazz is at a friend’s house and I’m in Gotham.”

“ Why are you in Gotham? ”

“ He’s probably visiting his totally real twin, Damian Wayne, ” Sam said sarcastically. Danny looked at the phone screen, then at Damian, smiling. Damian sighed and nodded. Danny hung up on them and started a video call. When they picked up the call, they seemed to both be sitting in Sam’s bed, while Tucker held the phone. 

“ Why are you so dramatic, Danny? ” Tucker complained.

“I learned that from my mother,” Danny said, moving the phone so it wouldn’t show Damian yet. “Also, I am, in fact, visiting Damian.”

Sam merely rolled her eyes, but Tucker said, “ I get the two of you look alike, but you don’t expect me to believe Damian Wayne is actually your twin, right? ”

He needed to get friends who were less rude in his next life. Danny moved the phone to show Damian, sitting at his desk, sketchbook forgotten ever since the call began. “He’s real.” 

Damian sighed again, “I am real.” He said, sounding bored.

The two were silent for a minute, staring at the screen as Danny grinned. Then, Sam looked at Tucker, “ Is it special effects? ”

Tucker looked at her, then at the screen, analyzing it carefully. “ Doesn’t look like a filter to me. ”

Danny groaned, “You guys are impossible.” 

*

Sadly, Danny found out that Damian got along with Sam and Tucker like a house fire. He seemed to take enjoyment in the way his friends couldn’t take him seriously most of the time and would make fun of his choices, and Sam and Tucker were more than happy to tell him all of his embarrassing stories.

In conclusion, Danny was surrounded by fucking traitors.

On the other hand, being in the manor meant he got to talk to his other adoptive siblings who lived there, like Tim, Duke, and Cass, and they were more than happy to help Danny get retribution. 

“Alright, I’m gonna ask it,” Duke announced. The five of them were hanging around in a sitting room, waiting for Alfred to call dinner even though it would be at least an hour until then, as many of the members of their family weren’t home yet. He turned to Danny, “Are you getting adopted?”

It was silent, all eyes were on Danny, so it was easy for him to catch how Cass subtly signed to Tim — Danny didn’t know more than the alphabet in sign language, but he didn’t need to know it to recognize she was asking him something. Tim subtly looked at Danny in response, whatever his answer was, he didn’t want to share with Danny or until they knew his answer. Danny cleared his throat, “I’m already adopted.”

“By Vlad Masters,” Tim said through a laugh, as if the name itself was a joke (fair).

Danny eyed Tim, out of everyone, he was the only one who didn’t seem one hundred percent confident in Danny, though he did a good job of hiding it. “Yes.”

“I’m sure Danny is acquainted with the fact Masters is an imbecile,” Damian said.

Danny pursed his lips, “Yup.”

Duke made a face, “If you agree…” He stopped, seemingly trying to gather his thoughts. Duke seemed like a genuine person, he was honest and clear about the things he thought. “What’s the issue?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it that you don’t want to get adopted?” Duke asked.

Danny sighed, “There are other issues involved.” He spared Damian a look, but soon looked back at Duke, making sure to not look at Tim. “Jury’s still suspended on what I want.”

Cass signed something at Danny, Tim spoke up to translate, “Cass said to not do anything you’re not sure of.” He turned to Cass and signed something back, ‘ like murder ’.

Danny, of course, didn’t miss Duke and Damian’s reaction to the sign, no matter how minimal, in addition to reading Tim’s lips. “Did you know you mouth what you’re saying as you sign?”

Tim turned to him slowly, “What about it?” 

Danny laughed, Tim had chosen to pretend he already knew it, he could work with that. “I just think it’s funny you’re criticizing the fact that I killed my grandfather when you blew up… what? Five hundred League members?” Cass laughed, she knew how to appreciate his genius. 

Tim’s expression was blank as he nodded, “So Talia told you about that too…”

“She didn’t need to, I could access the documents at any time.” Danny let his face relax, he was in control of the situation (it sucked he still had to have control over them, but if it felt necessary, it probably was). “Do tell me what your opinion is on my body count, though, I’d love to hear it.”

Cass smiled as she signed something at Tim. Duke looked at Danny, “Cass said she’d love to hear Tim talk about body counts.” Cass added something else, looking smug as she signed it, “Both kinds.”

“I would not like to hear Timothy talk about how many people he’s had intercourse with,” Damian said firmly. “Nor his kill count. It is pathetic.”

Duke made a face, “Five hundred is pathetic?”

“He lost his spleen in the process,” Danny noted.

“I’m working on putting it back,” Tim said. 

Oh, yeah, Danny remembered the weird shit in his grandfather’s office, maybe they’d found the spleen there, conserved in formol (or in Lazarus Water, maybe that’s how the tissue stayed alive enough for him to be considering putting it back). “Don’t you need healthy habits to get a transplant?” Danny knew it was a weird thing to say to someone he barely knew, that it would sound weird to Cass and Duke, but he needed to make another impression on Tim. He decided that, since Tim didn’t trust him, he’d give Tim a reason not to trust him.

“I have healthy habits.”

“You do not.” Damian deadpanned at the same time Cass signed something (probably exactly what he’d said, since nobody bothered to translate it).

“Yeah, I do.” Tim said defensively, pursing his lips as he leaned back in his chair, “As far as Danny knows.”

He smiled, “You don’t know what I know.”

Tim stared at him for a moment, “Care to enlighten me?”

Danny made a show of thinking about it, humming and making faces. “Well, your internet history is a pretty big clue.” He did his best to look innocent as he said it, trying to ignore Damian’s eyes on him.

Tim’s eyebrows raised, then lowered, knitting together as he tried to process the information, “It’s impossible for you to have accessed that.”

For someone who became Robin via stalking, Tim should really know better. “Because you were awake the whole night?” Danny asked, watching as Tim closed his mouth almost violently. “I didn’t access your computer.” He took his phone out, texting the group chat he had with Tucker and Sam to tell them the reaction he was getting. “For a hacker, your stuff is pretty badly guarded — I didn’t even need Tucker to break in.” 

Duke chuckled nervously, “I didn’t know you were tech savvy, Danny.”

“I’m not,” Danny said nonchalantly, locking eyes with Tim, “That’s why it’s so embarrassing for Timothy.”

Cass laughed lightly, signing. “You sound like Damian,” Duke translated, sighing exasperatedly. “I didn’t know Damian back then, but I actually think Danny is scarier.”

Tim lifted from his seat, teeth grinding against each other so much they could nearly hear it. “The demon actually attempted to kill me.”

“What fun would that be?” Danny said.

Tim rolled his eyes. Cass signed him something, Danny could tell it was a question, probably asking where he was going. “I need to double down on my computer security.”

As he left the room, Danny burst into laughs. Damian turned to him, “What was that about?”

“I was bluffing.” He said through laughter, “I barely understand how computers work aside from googling stuff, I was so bluffing.”

“How did you know he spent the night awake?” Duke asked, watching him curiously, but cautiously. Fair, he probably thought Danny spied on Tim or something.

Danny shrugged, “Lucky guess. Jason mentioned once that he’s always sleep deprived. I took a risk and it was so worth it!”

“You are a clown,” Damian told him. Cass was still smiling, but there was something else in her eyes. There was something about Cass’ expressions that always got Danny, sometimes no emotions would get through, sometimes her emotions were completely transparent in a way that didn’t seem to be purposeful. She signed. “Why did you play with Timothy?” Damian translated.

“I don’t know,” Danny shrugged again. “He was wary of me.”

“He’s definitely wary of you now,” Duke commented.

“Yeah, but now it’s because of my own merit.”

Duke slapped his thighs in a gesture of exasperation, “Never thought I’d hear someone say there is merit in emotional manipulation and terror, but I should’ve expected it, coming from this family.”

*

If it weren’t for the paperwork he was currently getting together for the adoption process, if Danny decided to go through with it, Bruce probably wouldn’t have noticed anything different in the family dynamics — not because Danny didn’t make a difference, but because he fit in nearly seamlessly. He sat at the dinner table eating and talking and it felt as if he’d always been there.

It was unsettling, in a way, to look at Danny taking part in conversations so effortlessly, like he didn’t simply fit in, like he belonged there; only they knew nothing about Danny. They didn’t know what his tastes were, they didn’t know why he had the thought process he had. He was a stranger sitting at the table and belonging like he wasn’t a stranger.

It made Bruce infuriated, he had to hold himself back from making a face, because it felt bitter. At least with Damian, he’d gotten to meet him at an early age — Danny was already fifteen. He was happy he got to meet Danny at all, but the fact that he didn’t was something he couldn’t swallow. Why didn’t Talia tell him about Danny when she sent Damian? He could’ve tried to find a way to get him away from the League, he could’ve tried to do something about the situation instead of sitting around with no knowledge of the situation and having to crash into the issue years too late.

“Hey, can I talk to you?” Danny asked as they exited the dinner room after helping Alfred put it away.

Bruce smiled and nodded as he led the two of them to another room, trying to ignore the way the rest of the children eyed them curiously. Though the children often acted like idiots, he knew they were smart and very capable of coming to conclusions that would probably be right. There was a limited amount of subjects Danny could want to talk about with him, anyone could come up with two guesses as to what the subject would be. “What did you want to talk about, Danny?” He asked as they entered his office and he gestured toward the chairs and the couch, giving Danny the option of sitting down.

“I wanna stay up,” he answered. “You can sit if you want, though,” Danny added, “It would be better, actually, since you’re very tall and I’m not getting any taller than this.”

Bruce laughed lightheartedly and sat down, telling Danny it was no problem for him, but the last part confused him — Talia was a significant amount taller than Danny, not to mention his own mother had been a tall woman, Danny should grow to be at least close to their height. “Whenever you’re ready to talk, I’m ready.” Bruce said calmly, “Don’t be afraid to hurt my feelings.”

Danny seemed to pause at his last addition, “I’m not.” He said, but it wasn’t brusque, it almost seemed like he was trying to comfort Bruce. “Everyone has always spoken very highly of you to me — grandfather, my mother, even Damian seems to think you’re the shit.” Danny took a breath, “I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt, and, I'm assuming, since you offered, that you want to adopt me.” Bruce nodded, “Why?”

He’d gotten the question before many times, sometimes the wording was different, but the question was always there. From Dick, wondering if he was just a charity case. From Cass, wondering why he would wish to take her in when she thought she was damaged — he remembered her saying through broken english it made no sense to adopt someone who couldn’t communicate properly, who didn’t even know how. From Damian, wondering why he chose to keep him when he hadn’t been wanted, when it became clear he didn’t know how to relate to his siblings. He’d always answered differently, none of the answers less true than the others. “I think, out of everyone, I have the best shot at giving you any help you might need. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I could help you and I didn’t.”

Danny watched him as Bruce made sure to keep his posture relaxed, Danny reminded him of Cass and Jason when they’d just come and were still not fully comfortable, watching the way Bruce reacted to make sure they were still safe. “You don’t even know me.”

“I want to,” he said, trying to not move too fast as he spoke, he didn’t want to appear too eager, he had to be calm and sure. “I—” Bruce breathed in when he realized he was about to rush it, “Danny, I value family above all else. That is something that, in some ways, I’m ashamed to admit. This is entirely up to you, but, if you want to, I’d like for you to be a part of this family.”

Danny looked entirely out of place in the office, hair sticking up at many angles, shirt crumpled, shoulders slumped in a façade of relaxation. His eyes narrowed for a second before his face relaxed, “Mother said you’re good with making plans, and backup plans. I’ve heard her complain about your paranoia and congratulate it on the same sentence more than once.” Bruce had to think twice before reacting, controlling his breathing so it didn’t spike. Was this all for Danny to say he didn’t trust him? “I’m going to need you to promise me that, when it comes to me, this will come above family.”

Bruce hesitated, he knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t understand the shift in the conversation, “I—”

“You already know about Dan,” he must mean his alternate self, “I need to know you’re going to kill my ghost if that ever happens.”

“Why are you coming to me for this?”

Danny pursed his lips, “I can’t ask Damian this. I don’t know if he would do it if it came to it.” He dug into his pockets for a piece of folded paper, opening it to reveal two sheets of paper and extending it to him. Bruce took it hesitantly, “This is information on Blood Blossoms and where to get them — they are deadly to ghosts.” Danny held his gaze as he said it, the gravity of the situation. “They’re nearly extinct, but my friend, Sam, says they’re not too hard to keep. If you have them, you’ll be able to contain both me and Vlad if one of us ever become a problem.”

Bruce felt his eyebrows knit together as his brain processed the information, “This is your condition for me to adopt you?”

Danny made a ‘so and so’ gesture with his head, “One of them.” He said, voice lighter now that he’d gotten that part out of the way. “The other one is that I’ll be involved in the process.” While the request was not at all unreasonable, it was unusual, in Bruce’s experience. Most of his kids chose to stay out of the way of the bureaucracy of their adoption process, only stepping in when necessary, like for hearings. Most of them had found it too stressful and were more than happy to leave it to the lawyers, but Danny actually had an experience with adoption, unlike them. “Especially when it comes to Vlad.”

“You don’t have to talk to him ever again, if you don’t want to.” He tried to reassure Danny, but he raised a hand.

“Vlad’s one of my rogues,” that changed things, for Vlad to be as powerful as Danny, and be a foe. “Well, sometimes, it’s complicated. Lemme try to convince him this is the best solution first, if it doesn’t work, we’ll have to consider containment plans.”

“You’ve thought everything through,” Bruce noted as he looked down at the folded paper momentarily before looking at Danny. He was clearly nervous, but still spoke firmly, you’d have no doubt he had a handle on the subject. 

At first, some of Danny’s behavior confused Bruce, it seemed unpredictable at times, nonchalant in an unfamiliar way too, he wasn’t sure where it came from. He was now coming to the conclusion that most of it was a façade, like his own public persona, which made sense, as Danny probably had to figure out how to fit in the same as Damian had when he was given away, only Danny didn’t have the same space for trial and error his brother had because he was still being watched by the League Of Assassins.

Now, Danny loosely reminded him of himself in the way he spoke, he wondered if it was intentional (intentional in the way he or Talia would plan their speech pattern around a specific person to make them trust them more in an undercover mission).

“You’re not familiar enough with the situation to be able to do it yourself.” Danny stated calmly, his face relaxed as if it wasn’t a big deal to him. “Are these terms acceptable to you?” Bruce nodded and affirmed his consent. “Can you put it in writing?”

“Yes, that’s not a problem.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Bruce made a stop gesture.

“Which is completely fine, you don’t need to trust me.”

“Thanks for the reassurance,” Danny said awkwardly, “‘Cause I don’t. I’m just saying the problem here isn’t my lack of trust in you.” He was now learning Danny was as brutally honest as Damian could be sometimes. “Well, for the first issue, anyway.” 

Bruce had questions, “I—”

“I’m sure you can understand how I can’t trust you for the second issue. The problem in the first issue is,” Danny paused to breathe, “I don’t really trust myself.”

“You don’t?”

Danny made a face, like he was halfway to laughing and halfway to cringing. “Not after I learned that doing something as simple as cheating on a test can have a domino effect that ends up with my crazed ghost going on a murder spree.”

“That… sounds reasonable.”

Danny nodded slowly, gesturing toward the door, “Right, well, now that I made this awkward, I’m leaving.” He announced and left before Bruce could answer. Bruce laughed to himself after the door closed and he couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. 

Everything else aside, he was reminded Danny was still a teenager.

Chapter Text

“Danny,” Bruce called over breakfast, the assortment of Wayne children present — Damian, Duke, Cass, Steph, and Tim (who looked at Danny and grumbled every few minutes before taking a bite of food and looking back down at his phone and typing at it furiously) — looked at Danny immediately to watch for his reaction, “Can I ask you about your academic life?”

Danny nearly laughed, at least it was a more or less safe topic, “What about it?”

“I’m assuming you were enrolled in a school?”

“You’re not assuming, you accessed my school files, you know I’m enrolled in Casper High.”

Bruce nodded, clearing his throat when there were snickers from Steph, “You’ve been here for four days now, and I’m not complaining about it, it’s been great to get to know you better, but two of those were school days. I’m concerned about the impact this will have on your record.”

“I have that handled.”

“Are you sure, because—”

“I’m sure,” Danny interrupted him, “I talked to the vice principal, he said I could take a break from going to school as long as I turned in the work.”

“That’s good.”

“I know,” Danny wanted to roll his eyes, but he didn’t. Why didn’t people believe him, geez. “Don’t worry, I’m not dropping out of med school”.”

“What?” 

Danny took a bite of his pancakes as he stared at Bruce's confused expression. Maybe it was a bad idea to make digs about Bruce's dropout status, but it had been said already. He'd play it casual, maybe that would soften the blow, “Yeah, I mean, I'm not planning on going to med school at all, I'm probably getting a degree in astrophysics instead, but I don't plan on dropping out.”

Bruce's expression was blank, but not like he was hurt, which was good, more like he didn't know how to react. “That's good, don't drop out.”

“I won't,” Danny said, looking at Tim, who had gone through the routine of looking at Danny, eating, and going back to typing. Turning to Damian, his brother's eyes were telling him not to go through with the joke, but it was just too good. Tim was making this hilarious already, how was he supposed to not escalate the situation? He never got to do this with Jazz, she was too good at reading him, she'd figure him out on the second sentence. “If I ever did, though, I'm sure I could have a lucrative career in tech.” Bruce was making a confused expression, looking around subtly to see Steph was holding her laughter, Cass seemed amused, and Duke looked slightly concerned by the situation, in addition to Tim being an obsessive loser. “I don't know much about computers, but I'm sure I could wing it. Half the work is probably telling people to restart the computer, anyway.”

Bruce blinked, “Right, I thought you just said you weren't dropping out,” he was interrupted by Tim mumbling something annoyedly and turned to him. “What's going on with you?”

Tim put his phone down angrily, “I'm updating the computer security because your demon spawn cannot contain himself.” He put his arms up, “He just had to break in!”

Bruce looked confusedly at Damian, “You hacked into the computer?” Damian merely raised an eyebrow as he continued eating.

Tim was more confused as he looked at Bruce, then shook his head and pointed at Danny with his whole ass arm, “No, I meant the new demon spawn!”

Bruce turned to Danny, more bamboozled than ever, “What?”

“Hey, I find that nickname insulting, I deserve an insult that isn't a copy of Damian's!”

“That's hardly an insult to me,” Damian stated calmly.

“Yeah, be more creative, Tim!” Steph chimed in through laughter.

Bruce shook his head, raising a hand that signaled for them to stop talking, “Danny hacked into the computers?”

All eyes turned to Danny as he pursed his lips. It looked like his actions had consequences, after all. Yikes. “Well…”

Danny saw Cass sign something in the corner of his eye, “Tell them the truth,” Steph translated after a moment, her speech slower, as if she was still trying to figure out what had been said, she probably hadn't known sign language for as long as the rest of the family did.

“The truth?” Tim asked, eyes roaming over his siblings calculatingly.

Danny popped his lips and nodded, “Yeah,” he looked at Tim, “I lied.”

“What.”

“Yup,” Danny nodded again, a grin making its way in his face. “I never hacked into your internet history — I don't actually know anything about hacking.” Tim's expression was blank, like he was still processing the words. “All I knew is that you're sleep deprived with enough frequency that it's an ongoing joke between the rest of your siblings. I played it all off of that and you fell for it.”

Tim was now fuming, but Bruce didn't care for that, he cared for understanding what was going on. “I don't understand, why are you using psychological warfare against Tim?”

He wouldn't have called it psychological warfare, but that was a better description to the situation than ‘gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss’, so Danny would be going with it. He shrugged, “Tim’s really judgy.”

Tim slammed his hand on the table, like a lunatic who had spent the last few days awake because a fifteen year old had fooled him. “And you're a murderer.”

Danny raised an eyebrow, “So are you! Not only are you judgy, you're a judgy hypocrite! And you lost your spleen in the process!”

There was venom in Tim’s eyes as he breathed hard. Danny could almost hear Jazz telling him not to piss people off, but the instinct was too strong to resist. “Your grandfather cared more about my spleen than he ever did you!”

Danny furrowed his brow, “That's not an accomplishment, dude.”

“That's kinda gross,” Duke commented to Cass and Steph.

Bruce raised a hand to stop them. He looked tired, but he did choose to pull an Angelina Jolie, so the insane amount of children he had was all on him. “Stop it, both of you.” He said calmly, looking at Danny, “Elaborate on why Tim being ‘judgy’ bothered you.”

Shit, Bruce was apparently somewhat as good at reading him as Jazz, and he actually worked on communication, unlike the Fentons. Danny was not mentally ready to be parented. Jack and Maddie tried to parent him on occasion, but he never actually respected it. He didn't actually know how to be parented. By someone who had emotional maturity no less. Danny blinked, realizing he now had to come up with an intelligent answer. “Tim is wary of me.”

“Why do you think that?”

Danny took a breath, “I know that,” he corrected. “His entire body language announces it. He was wary of me and I didn't do anything against him to deserve that, so I gave him a reason to worry.” He explained simply, “And, even if his body language wasn't screaming ‘I don't trust you’, you just confirmed it.”

Bruce stared at him in confusion, “I never—”

“You asked me why his judgement bothered me,” Danny cut, “Not him if he was judging me. So I'm pretty sure he's voiced his concern to you at some point — even if he hasn't, you've known him a decade, you don't need him to tell you at this point.” He crossed his arms and sat back on the chair, “Am I incorrect in my assessment?”

Bruce stared calmly at him for a moment, thinking of what to do, before he nodded. “You're right to assume that,” he offered, “Still, I would like to know why your first thought was to antagonize him. Would it not be easier to try to gain his trust?”

“It really wouldn't.” Danny answered, “And I wouldn't have antagonized him if he hadn't decided to make comments about me right to my face, so I think you can say he brought it upon himself.”

“And, hopefully, Tim learned something from this.” Bruce said, giving Tim a look. Tim, in response, only groaned as he put his forehead on the table in defeat. Bruce looked back at Danny after shaking his head, “But why do you think it wouldn’t be easier to earn his trust? Do you really think it would be easier to fight endlessly?”

Danny furrowed his brow, “I don’t think it’s easier to fight.” He agreed, “I just think it’s harder to change someone’s mind when they’ve already made it up.”

*

When Bruce told Danny he wanted to have a meeting with him and a few of the kids to discuss the more appropriate course of action toward his adoption, he thought it would be a bit more… structured.

Alas, it was not. 

“No, both of you are crazy.” Jason argued as he fought hard to swallow his bagel, slamming his fist on the table of the conference room they were in (why did they have to have a conference room in the first place?). “‘Cause you wanna send the kid back to that lunatic.”

“Actually, that’s my idea also.” Danny butted in for the first time since Jason, Dick, and Bruce had started arguing and going over old grudges (well, mostly the first two arguing with Bruce over their grievances). 

Jason turned to him with disbelief, “Why would you want that? That’s a recipe for disaster,” he said as he finally swallowed the bagel, putting his hand flat on the table as his whole body turned to Danny. “Don’t let them pressure you into making shit decisions just because they make it look like those are your only options, okay. Always look for safer options, always.”

It was nice to know Jason cared (or at least felt responsible somehow, for whatever reason), but Jason didn’t know how dangerous Danny really was. He’d gotten the Walmart discount version of the explanation. “That’s not it at all. Trust me, I’ve had enough men making decisions about my life for me for a lifetime. It’s the whole reason I’m here,” he noted. “I know the risks better than anyone, I know Vlad’s dangerous.”

“Nothing putting a bullet in him won’t solve,” Jason gave Bruce the side-eyes, “If only someone would let me do that.”

“Yeah, it is,” Danny laughed half-heartedly, “He’s a halfa, death is subjective for us.”

Jason looked at Bruce and Dick with confusion, then back at Danny with something that bordered on disappointment or dejection, “They told me you were like me.”

He shrugged, “In some ways, yeah. You died and came back, it just wasn’t the same way Vlad and I were. If we’re talking in metaphorical terms, death claimed you and then was forced to relinquish that claim through your resurrection; death has a claim on me, but so does life.”

“The best of both worlds,” Dick joked.

Danny laughed, “Hadn’t heard that one in a while, but I guess. Worst of both worlds also works.”

“We’re getting off-track,” Bruce called in what was almost a mumble — Danny took that to mean he was in Batman mode, not Bruce mode, which Danny also thought was very autistic of him.

“Maybe we wouldn’t be getting off-track if you were participating in the conversation instead of watching Dick and Jason argue like it’s a podcast.” Maybe Danny should stop coming at Bruce, but it was too easy too and Danny thought maybe he deserved it a little, since he could read Danny like a book and that was one hundred percent not fair. Dick had the decency to hold back his snickering, but Jason had no such compunction. “Anyway, if anyone comes close to being a match to Vlad, that’s me, so I don’t think it’s productive to discuss an option in which I’m not present when we know it’s the worst course of action to be taking.”

“You come close to being a match for him, but you aren’t.” Jason bit back, “I refuse to believe there’s no better solution. You’re fifteen, you shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

“That ship sailed before I was born.” 

Danny knew he shouldn’t have to deal with this in consideration of his age, but he did have to deal with it in the long run. He wanted to deal with it. He was tired of being complicit and helpless, that didn’t get him anywhere except into a bigger grave he’d been forced to dig for himself. His inaction meant the rest of the world would continue to move in ways he didn’t like. Action warranted a reaction he’d been foolish enough to not anticipate — Danny had the chance to anticipate the reaction he would get now, he was taking the opportunity to change the tide.

“And after you died?” Jason’s comment brought Danny to earth. He looked at Dick and Bruce, like he was having a silent conversation with them, an argument that had been had time and time again. “You don’t have to stop living and growing just because you died, you should get to keep being a kid.”

“I did stop growing,” Danny admitted offhandedly. Just because it was something that needed to be mentioned, he really didn’t want to have an in depth conversation about the subject. He carded his hand through his hair, “Anyway, I do intend to live as normal a life as possible, I just think I’m better suited to deal with Vlad.”

“Why do you think that?” Dick asked curiously as he shook his bangs out of his eyes, “Because you have powers?”

“Because I’ve been dealing with him for, like, a year and a half now.” If Danny had known it would be so hard to convince them to do things the way he wanted, he would have done it by himself. That was the problem with not being able to count on anyone for a majority of his life, it got harder and harder to rely on people. Danny took a calming breath, “Because, like it or not, I’m all Vlad has. Because he’s a self-serving prick, but I don’t think he’s truly evil.” Vlad was a pain in the ass, but Danny felt sorry for him. Jack and Maddie had blame they never took the burden of and now Vlad was forced to take it to his nonexistent grave. “He’s been a halfa for twenty years, but he’s had no one to count on — no family, his only friends left him when his accident happened. I’m all he has and no matter what happens I’ll still be stuck with him because Clockwork made me put him as my Regent. Clockwork is an asshole, but he’s still playing for the timelines’ best interest, so I’m choosing to believe there’s a good reason why I’m meant to be stuck to him.”

“You’re not responsible for Vlad,” Bruce finally said.

“I know.”

“Do you?” Dick cocked his head to the side. “Or are you just saying that out of reflex?”

“I don’t want to be responsible for him, but nobody else is.” Danny admitted, “And I didn’t want to be King, but I am, and I won’t be responsible for Vlad going insane… or more insane than he already is.” Danny squared up for what he would say next, “Whether or not I’m going to deal with him is not a question on the table here, I will be the one to handle Vlad. What we’re here to discuss is what precautions we’ll take if reasoning with him doesn’t work.”

Chapter Text

Amity Park was calm when he returned. No one stared, no one even looked in his direction. Danny's absence had held no weight on the city, despite it seeming like a pillar in his life.

The mansion seemed no different than when Danny had left, only it was quieter. He wondered if Vlad was even home as he adjusted the com in his ear before going deeper into the house. He walked through the empty foyer, up the stairs — he would have proceeded to his room if it hadn't been for an open door in one of the hallways. 

Danny walked toward what he remembered to be a sitting room of some sort, soon listening to the subtle sounds coming from it. Breathing, shifting in a chair, fiddling with some sort of glass or plastic. Inside the room, Vlad sat by a table, nearly folded over it as he had a bottle and a glass in front of him. Vlad's suit was missing pieces, it was crumpled in several places, and had what Danny assumed to be liquor stains. His hair, undone and unbrushed, was loose over his face, almost covering it entirely. He was a mess.

“Vlad—”

The man turned to him abruptly, finally spotting him as he entered the room. “Where have you been?!”

“Out. Are you drunk?” Danny asked as he tried to read what the contents of the bottle were.

Vlad tried to get his hair out of his eyes sloppily, brow furrowed. “Out where?”

Danny sighed, “I was visiting someone. Have you been drunk the entire time?”

Vlad attempted to get up, but soon tripped over his feet and nearly fell out of his chair, only stopping due to his hand catching the back of the chair. “I am not an alcoholic, who do you take me for, Daniel?”

Danny rushed to support him, “I take you for someone who hasn't changed his clothes for at least four days now.” He said as he started leading Vlad out of the room. “You smell. Also, that's not my name.”

Vlad looked at him, deeply troubled, “What's not your name?”

“Daniel. I said Daniyah, but the Fentons heard wrong and registered me as Daniel.” He explained, “Just Danny is fine.”

Vlad made a face as he let Danny lead him down the stairs, “Danny is not a very classy name. I'd much rather prefer to call you—what was it? Daniyah?”

“Yeah, but don't.” Danny said, “I'm honestly starting to hate that name. Danny is fine, it has the added bonus that my mother didn't give it to me.” He helped Vlad down the last step and started to lead him toward the kitchen. He probably shouldn't be talking about this when Jason was listening in on the coms, too late. “Let's get you some water.”

Vlad blinked, “You dislike your mother?”

“She dislikes me.”

Vlad hummed as they arrived at the kitchen and Danny helped him onto a chair. “Teenagers are all the same, I suppose.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Danny frowned as he moved to get a cup from one of the cabinets.

Vlad watched silently as he filled the cup with water and gave it to him. He took a sip, “I also thought my mother hated me when I was your age.”

Danny stared at Vlad, of all the stupid things he'd said, that was definitely one of them. “I don't think she hates me,” he reached for another cup, “But she definitely doesn't like me.”

“You're a hard person to like,” Vlad mumbled.

Maybe Danny was a spoiled child who had been living a typical North American life for too long. He'd gotten used to being told he was a wonder child, that he may be adopted, but he was still a part of the family. Maybe that was why that hurt him, he'd forgotten what it was like to be unwanted. He shouldn't be looking for approval in Vlad, who he was trying to get away from, but it still hurt. It still felt like a failing on his part that someone couldn't find it in themselves to like him. 

Danny set the cup down before he could fill it with water, staring at the inox sink. “Bruce wants to adopt me.”

Vlad sat up straighter, setting the glass on the table clumsily, spilling water onto the table in the process. “That's preposterous!”

“You're drunk,” Danny shot back, chuckling to himself. 

“I am an adult.”

Danny turned to him, leaning his back on the sink, “How long have I been gone?”

Vlad faltered, “Two days.”

“Five.” Danny walked toward the table and put his hand on top of it. “Come on, Vlad, you're not fit to be a caretaker. I don't even know why you want to so bad, you just said you think I'm hard to like.”

“It wasn't like that,” Vlad complained, aggravated.

Danny rolled his eyes as he leaned on his hand, “It was exactly like that, you just hate being in the wrong.”

Vlad seemed to deflate a little, but he made the effort to keep sounding like a prick, “You think very low of me, little badger. It's almost as though you don't even know me.”

“I think low of you because I know you.” Danny explained simply, “What I don't know is why you're so fixated on having me around still — none of the initial motivators exist anymore.”

Vlad looked down in thought for a moment, “We're the same.”

It kind of annoyed Danny that Vlad was still stuck on that, but he took a breath and tried to gather his patience.

“Beg to differ.”

Vlad scoffed, “Well, unlike you, I'm not a bratty teen, but we're both halfas. There's no one else like us. No one else is quite so…”

“Strange?”

“No.”

“Weird?”

“No, I—”

“Traumatized?”

“What—”

“Freaky?”

“Dan—”

“No, actually, I take back the ‘traumatized’ guess. We have literal genocides going on.”

Vlad groaned, “Oh, don't start on me with that leftist propaganda, little badger.”

Danny took a step back, mentally and physically. A little because of disbelief, a lot because he was about to bitchslap Vlad. “Leftist Propaganda? Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?!”

Danny may have blown up Vlad's glass, just a little bit… It was the glass or the fruitloop’s head. He wasn't gonna pick up the shards off the table or the ground, the fruitloop could do it himself. The table was charred where the ectoplasm had hit it, the water was starting to drip on ground.

“ Danny, ” Jason said over the comms, “ Maybe you should calm down. You said yourself we need to be careful with Vlad— ”

“I'm calm!” Danny groaned.

Vlad made a face, “What—”

“Do not.” It was a warning Danny hoped he could convey well enough through his five feet and three inches of height, but Vlad had never taken him seriously anyhow. As Vlad opened his mouth to speak, Danny slammed his hand against the table, beside Vlad's shoulder. “You better not be about to say a stray word, Vlad.” He scoffed, “‘Leftist propaganda’, the nerve you got!”

“ Danny— ”

“I've been to Palestine,” he wasn't sure if he was telling Jason or Vlad, or why he was talking about it in the first place. Ra's had taken him there the first time he'd refused to kill — he'd given a speech Danny couldn't pay attention to as he watched the ruins — maybe he'd been talking about how bloodshed could be excused for a cause, maybe he'd been threatening to do the same to Danny. Danny still thought nothing could excuse that. No cause could justify that bloodshed. Vlad was still staring at him, as if he was waiting for Danny to make a mistake — it was that pathological need to be right that always shone through in Vlad. “You don't get to call that anything other than what it is: a genocide.”

Vlad hummed as he looked down, no shame on his face. “You're a child, how would you know—”

“I know.” There was no bridge to build between him and Vlad, this was all just a pathetic man's attempt to get on top of his fantasy of companionship. Danny sighed and got away from Vlad,  “I’m getting my things and leaving.”

Vlad yelped as he shot up, stumbling on his feet. Danny made no move to help him, staying a safe distance away. “You can't possibly—” he burped, “Daniel—”

“Danny.”

Vlad rolled his eyes, “Right. ‘Danny’,” he stared through half open eyelids. “You can't possibly think you can just up and leave. There are laws in place.”

“ I get why you hate him. ”

“There are procedures that need to be followed.”

“You break the law all the time,” Danny pointed out.

“Name one time I broke the law!”

“You tried to murder Jack multiple times.” That was more than one thing, technically, but the list was long. “I'm sure you can break procedure this one time.”

“You can't—”

As Vlad took a step forward, Danny took two steps backwards, getting closer to the door. “I am.” He said, “Don't try anything.” There was something like defiance in Vlad's eyes, like he just remembered he wasn't a bratty child being scolded by an adult, that he was, in fact, the adult and he had power over Danny. “I mean it. If I have to, I will kill you.” Danny felt his mouth contracting into a scowl, like his body remembered the emotions he was supposed to be feeling before he could feel it himself. He sighed, attempting to keep his head cool, “You're still my regent,” he offered, “We can be friendly, I can still go to your stupid galas every once in a while, whatever. But that depends on you not being an ass about this.”

Vlad seemed conflicted, his brow furrowed as his drunk brain tried to process the words. It took a minute, but it was clear to see when he'd finally understood. Then, he nodded defeatedly, looking down at nowhere as Danny left the room.

*

Jason was waiting for him inside a coffee shop across the block, like they'd agreed, when Danny came in, dragging his things.

He eyes the two bags Danny had packed, filled to the brim, nearly bursting open, then made a face. “Is that all your stuff?”

Danny looked up, almost like he hadn't been paying attention, despite the fact that he'd clearly seen Jason. He sat down across from him, “No, it's just the stuff I had at Vlad's.”

Jason cocked his head to the side, “Where is the rest?”

“At the Fentons’,” Danny answered nonchalantly. “But I haven't gone back since…” he shook his head, “The opportunity just didn't come up.”

“It's fine if it's too painful,” Jason tried, he didn't know why he was trying to comfort the kid. Most of his jokes were shitty, but maybe he'd taken a liking to the kid's crappy humor. “After my folks died, I didn't wanna go back there either. Not like I had much motivation, that apartment was shitty. We lived by The Alley.” 

Danny nodded, Jason thought he'd ask, so he could warn him about Crime Alley, but he probably read enough about Gotham that he already knew about it. Danny sighed, “No, it's… kinda like visiting the grave of someone you were never supposed to know.” Jason must've looked confused, because the kid shrugged and continued. “I know it wasn't totally my fault that the Fentons were killed. The only reason the assassins came was because Clockwork told me to send the letter.” Was he trying to explain to Jason or justify it to himself? He didn't know, but he let the kid talk either way. “But I should've known better than to send it without a second thought.”

“You feel guilty?” That seemed like a shitty fate for a kid who never got a say in what happened to him in his entire life. 

“Yeah,” Danny nodded, “I know I'll have to go there eventually, because of the portal, but I think it's better if I don't go now.”

There was something shiny in Danny's eyes that kind of looked like it could be a tear, and Jason did not know what he would do if Danny started crying. Dick needed hugs. Tim needed a dark cave to hide in and a weighted blanket. Steph liked making or being given food (and then eating it) to comfort herself — which was why she'd usually go to Jason or Alfred, though she did go to Damian once and he made her tea. Cass needed a weighted blanket and company (no hugs, though). Duke liked being left alone, but Steph and Cass would usually comfort him by making jokes until he laughed himself better. Damian had been harder to figure out, but they figured out by year two that the best way to help was to spar with him until he was exhausted, then hugs. Bruce depended on why he was crying, but usually hugs would work if he was just emotional. Danny was a totally new variable and Jason was not the best person to figure out how to comfort him. 

“I'm gonna admit something and you have to promise not to laugh,” Jason said, finally coming up with something. Danny hummed in question. “Replacement is still bitter that you totally owned his ass, so he refused to book the hotel for us. I could've asked Babs, but I was kind of embarrassed.”

“Who was Babs, again?”

Did no one mention Babs’ existence to Danny? He would've thought Bruce and Dick (and Damian) would've given him the rundown by now, “She's a family friend, dated Dick for a while. She's also in the business .” He explained, “Anyway, we have that issue.”

Danny nodded, then made a face that almost resembled Damian when he thought something was simple and couldn't understand why the other person didn't get it. “We can just find a hotel or something.”

“We can,” he said as he grabbed his cup of coffee and drank the rest of it. “Forgot you're a local.”

Danny made a face, “Not really. The Fentons gave me the perfect cover as an outcast and I ran with it.” He shrugged, “I still don't think this is necessary. I could've just stayed at Sam's until Bruce got the papers sorted out.”

Jason raised an eyebrow, “You'd stay at your friend's place from a week to a month? Their parents must like you a lot.”

“They hate me, actually.” Jason knew kids were unhinged (this one specifically), he didn't know why he was surprised. “But they're rich, it would take a while until they'd find me.”

“And if they did?”

“I'd go to Tucker's.” A pause, “Tucker's parents do like me.”

“You’re not difficult to like,” Jason said absent-mindedly. He wouldn’t have thought twice about it, if it weren’t for the fact that Danny was now looking at him with a puzzled look, then he remembered the conversation with Vlad. “What?” Jason asked, deciding to pretend he meant nothing by it. Because he hadn’t.

Danny shook his head, “I just don’t get what your deal is.”

“My deal?”
“Yeah,” Danny agreed, “Doing this, volunteering to come to Amity Park for however long it takes for the adoption papers to turn up — you’re not doing this for Bruce, you literally call him ‘the B word’. You’re cool and all, but there’s no reason for you to be this nice to me.”

Jason shrugged, “You’re pretty funny.”

“I’m not that funny.”

He pursed his lips as he averted his eyes, looking at the shop. It was a nice enough place, not too big, private (why he’d chosen it). It was mostly empty, too, and there was not much he could use to change the subject without being obvious about it. 

Was Jason going to need to be honest about his feelings this time? He was a crime lord, for fuck’s sake, he didn’t talk about feelings unless they were about how great Jane Austen was or about how the Harry Potter series did a terrible job at establishing a theme. Books, politics, food, all those were concrete things. Emotions were abstract. 

“I enjoy your company.” Jason said painstakingly. Danny’s expression softened, but there was still something there, he still didn’t understand it. “I also kind of understand how you feel about dying,” he admitted, “And I don’t want you to get screwed over.”

Danny raised an eyebrow slightly, “Okay.”

Jason mentally did a double take, “Okay?”

Danny nodded, tilting his head forward a bit. “Yeah, okay.” He reiterated, making a face, “The… council accepts your statement?” Jason hadn’t realized how tense he was before his body let go and he started laughing. The kid was funny sometimes. “That’s not that funny.”

“It’s the funniest thing I ever heard you say,” it wasn’t even a hyperbole. All things considered, it was the funniest thing the kid ever said within Jason’s hearing range.

Chapter Text

Lancer had been very worried about Danny Fenton. He worried about all his students, sure, but Danny had been going through a bad patch — he seemed lost ever since he started high school, some days more than others; then, when he seemed to be just about to see the light, the Fentons were murdered. 

Lancer was worried about Jazz as well, but she seemed to be handling the loss better than Danny. She relied on her friends, she tried to show up to school most days and was talking to their new counselor. He trusted that Jazz would seek help if it was needed. 

Danny seemed to isolate himself like a lightswitch, he could see it during the funeral, how the teen hid behind his sister and the mayor and stared off into the distance before disappearing to who knew where. The moment Danny showed up at school (forced by Jazz, Lancer assumed), Lancer took him aside to ask after his wellbeing. He shrugged, seemed more or less neutral to the whole ordeal, Danny could’ve fooled Lancer if it weren’t for the bags under his eyes, more pronounced than ever.

Lancer remembered thinking back to the Fenton kids’ new caretaker, the mayor himself. He had been aware Jack and Maddie were friends with Masters, but he was also aware that Jazz and Danny never came too close to him, despite him being their godfather. No hugs shared, no delighted smiles. Just contempt and an arm’s length of distance. Lancer didn’t trust him.

Still, he offered Danny the alternative to turn in his work online for the next couple of months, whenever he wasn’t able to go to school. He hadn’t been too sure of it, but Jazz seemed to think it was a good option for Danny at the moment, so he trusted her.

He didn’t expect him to come back looking almost… content. “What?”

“Yeah, if someone wanted to attend classes for a day, but they weren’t enrolled, could they?”

Lancer thought the teen was going to ask for an extension to turn in an assignment he wouldn’t be able to finish in time when he asked to talk to him. He didn’t even know Danny had other friends who weren’t Manson and Foley. He shook his head, “Yes, they’d need to pass by the front desk to get sorted out.” Lancer answered, “What is this about?”

“Oh, uh…” Danny rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, as his other hand landed in his jacket pocket. “I sort of got in touch with my biological family?” It was somehow easy for Lancer to forget Danny was adopted, he’d always fit in so well with his family, despite not looking too much like them, the knowledge sometimes flew by Lancer. “So my brother and my father are coming to Amity, they arrive this evening. I wanted to bring my brother to school.”

Lancer’s eyebrows would’ve reached his hairline, if he was in the possession of one. As it was, he worked on lowering them and schooling his expression. “Your biological father?” Danny nodded, “How does your godfather feel about this visit?”

“He actually knows my father and he hates him, so I don’t think he’ll be too happy about it.” 

“Right,” Lancer nodded slowly, At least Danny was being realistic about it. “So you have a brother?”

Danny made a face, “Well, technically more.” He grinned at Lancer, “You’ll understand when you meet them.”

Sometimes, Danny was a box full of surprises and the whiplash was getting quite annoying for Lancer. “Your biological father is coming here tomorrow as well?”

Danny nodded, “Yeah, he’s adopting me.”

“I thought your godfather adopted you?”

The look on Danny’s face was somewhere between exasperated and annoyed, “He did, but we agreed that it’s… it’s just not working out. Vlad doesn’t really know how to take care of a being that isn’t his cat.”

“He has a cat?” It wasn’t relevant at all to the conversation or for his life, still, Lancer found himself questioning it. Danny nodded, “He doesn’t seem like the type.”

The teen shrugged, “Vlad’s weird.”

Lancer shook his head up and down, “So your biological father is coming here tomorrow?” Danny signed positively with his head, “He’s planning to have you switch schools?” Another confirmation, strangely. “He can only do that if he’s your guardian.”

“I think the adoption papers have already turned up, actually. I’ll have to ask tonight.”

“How did he manage to process them so quickly? That’s a lengthy process, even with your current guardian agreeing to it.”

Danny pursed his lips, it almost looked like he was holding back a grin.”You’ll understand when you meet him.”

Again, that sentence, he felt it was more significant than Danny let on. Yet, he let the teen leave for class as he returned to his duties. Lancer decided he had other things to do and worry about, he could get to it when the time arrived. There was no rush.

*

Lancer hadn’t planned to get to Casper High earlier today, he’d simply gotten ready quicker this morning and traffic had been light, so he arrived sooner than he’d intended. And the reason he was seated near the front desk was because there was paperwork there that needed to be looked after. All those statements were true, but he also wanted to be there when Danny arrived because he was nosy. 

He was a gossip, sue him! 

Falluka told him about how Danny had seemed strange during class — the math teacher had chalked it up to the loss — he’d said the teen seemed disinterested (although that wasn’t too strange), and strangely confident when he did participate. Danny wasn’t known for his confidence, he would fake confidence, but it was easy to see through, hardly ever true. Not only that, he had spoken up against some classmates who tried to make fun of him. Ms. Tetslaff had added that he’d been also unusually good at Physical Education.

The other teachers didn’t know what Lancer knew, though. They didn't get the chance to wait nervously to figure out how much merit nature and nurture had. They didn’t get to worry about the character of this person and if he’d treat his student well.

“Mister Lancer?” Lancer’s head raised toward the source of the voice to see Danny looking around, “You’re on the front desk?”

He put the papers down, “Yes, Ms. Mell is out for a moment and I have some papers to review here.” Mell was actually in the teacher’s lounge, getting coffee and chatting with the new chemistry teacher. Lancer looked at Danny’s distinct lack of anyone accompanying him, “Did your family give up on coming today?”

“No,” Danny said, “My father is coming later today, though. He asked me to confirm whether after class is acceptable to you?” 

“After class is perfect,” he agreed, “I thought your… brother was also coming?”

Danny sighed exasperatedly, looking to the side, where the front desk window wouldn’t allow his sight to venture, and gesturing to something (or someone). It took a moment before Danny stepped to the side and a boy came into view — there was no denying they were siblings. There were a few things different, the other boy was taller, had tanner skin, his eyes were green instead of blue, and his nose was slightly crooked where Danny’s was more or less straight at the bridge (perhaps he’d broken it at some point?), but they were still definitely siblings. This boy had something about him that seemed familiar, but he decided it must be because of Danny.

“This is my brother, Damian,” said Danny when the boy failed to speak up.

Damian looked at his sibling, nonplussed. “I don't understand the purpose of attending this underfunded trap.”

Danny rolled his eyes, “It builds character.” He turned to Lancer, “He's a private school kid, don't mind him.”

“I rarely do,” he noted, turning to Damian himself. “Can I have your ID?”

Damian reached into his clothes and pulled an ID from somewhere, putting it on the counter. “You can't have it.”

Was that an attempt at a joke? “I'll return it in a moment,” he said as he reached and started checking it over. It was a Gotham ID, date of birth was June 14th — they were twins? He could've swore Damian was older by at least a year. Name… “Damian Wayne,” he would've screamed it, but, To Kill A Mockingbird, the energy came and went. Surely, it had to be a coincidence. He checked parentage. The mother was someone named Talia Al Ghul. That name didn't seem familiar to him, maybe it was a big coincidence? He checked the father.

Lancer looked at Danny, who had the smile of the cat who got the cream. A shit eating grin. “That's his name, Mister Lancer, is something the matter with it?”

He took a deep breath, shaking his head. “I thought your brother looked familiar,” he admitted.

Danny laughed, “We’re twins, of course he’d look familiar.”

“Of course,” Lancer said, because of course Danny would also treat this as a joke. He sighed, “You may go — the both of you — unless there is something else you’d like to discuss.” Danny shook his head innocently, and Lancer put the ID back down for Damian to take (which he did immediately). “Well, then.”

He watched the two walk away to wherever teens went when they were early for class (not that Danny had much experience in that department, but he did have some), possibly the lockers. Lancer looked back at the paperwork he’d been looking over, seemingly meaningless now (he was almost done with it, anyhow), and set it aside. Once Ms. Mell came back, he left for the teacher’s lounge, where there was only the new chemistry teacher, who had never had Danny as a student, as she only taught juniors and seniors, and Falluka himself. He almost smiled as he sat beside his fellow teacher (okay, he understood Danny’s grinning a little bit more now and thought his behavior had been totally fair), “Just a heads up, Fenton has a twin.”

The chemistry teacher, Mrs. Dias, a polite (if a little loud) lady in her late twenties, looked up in surprise, “Jazz Fenton?”

Falluka looked at the chemistry teacher, then Lancer, in question. Lancer shook his head, “Not Jazz, her brother.”

Falluka nodded, “Yeah, Danny, he’s in sophomore class, you don’t have him.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard about him, he’s the one with the glass ban, right?” Lancer and Falluka both nodded. She made a face, “What’s with the twin thing? I thought the Fentons only had two children?”

“Rest in peace,” Lancer said.

“Yes, rest in peace,” Falluka agreed, then whispering, “We really don’t need their ghosts around.”

Lancer decided to ignore that even as Dias gave them strange looks, “Yes, they did have only two children.” He confirmed, “Danny’s adopted—”

“Oh, I forgot about that!” Falluka exclaimed.

“Yes, and he’s apparently got in contact with his birth family — who’s adopting him.”

Dias’s brow was furrowed, “I thought the Fenton children had been adopted by the mayor? That’s what Jazz told me, at least.”

“That’s the thing,” Lancer answered calmly as he reached the coffee table in front of the couch he and Falluka were sitting on to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Danny was.”

Falluka scratched his chin, “What’s the deal then?”

“Danny told me Mayor Masters is in agreement, but who knows?”

Dias looked troubled for a moment, “Did Danny’s birth family also adopt Jazz?”

Lancer shook his head, “No, Jazz is also living with Masters, but he never adopted her, her legal guardian is her aunt — she lives in another state, so she agreed that Jazz stay with Danny since she’s so close to finishing highschool.” He explained, “Anyhow, she’s turning eighteen in the beginning of next semester and she was accepted to NJIT early decision with a full ride scholarship, I think she’ll be fine. Her counselor doesn’t seem worried.”

Dias didn't seem to settle at the statement, “I don't know, this sounds fishy, the whole situation is.”

Lancer agreed, the situation was definitely fishy. There was no way Danny told the whole story, but what was he going to do? As far as he knew, everything was being done legally and there were rich people involved — they'd make it legal if they needed to. He took a sip of his coffee gracefully (it was cold, he understood why nobody was drinking it, it was yesterday's coffee… they could've warned him), “We try to do the best we can, but there are certain things that aren't up to us.”

*

“What are you hoping to accomplish with this?” Damian asked as he followed Danny to his locker, annoyed as his sibling hummed in response. “What do you gain from making me attend this school and what do I need to do to convince you to let me opt out of it?”

Danny opened the locker and took a book out, putting it in his backpack, “I can’t think of anything you could give me to get out of this because I’m getting satisfaction out of it.”

“This is why I always used to let you do torture,” Damian deadpanned, “There is no need for you to enact it on me, however.”

“Attending a public, underfunded high school for a day isn’t torture,” Danny rolled his eyes as he closed his backpack, then the locker. “I’ve been attending it for years now, and not as a Wayne, either. I’ve been Danny Fenton: the town nuts’ middle eastern outcast adoptee the entire time — which is the stupidest cover to ever work, honestly. If you think what I’m making you do is torture, you clearly forgot what torture feels like.” Damian could feel a student ogle them as they passed by, but Danny didn’t seem to pay them any mind. He usually didn’t care about the eyes, he was used to it, but they’d arrived early, there was barely nobody at the school and there probably wouldn’t be for another fifteen minutes at least. There would be a significant amount of people trying to speak to them by then, if past experience was anything to judge things by. He just hoped the press didn’t catch wind of it (though perhaps father had thought of it already when he agreed Damian should come to Danny’s school). “Like, gosh, you’re so dramatic, you’re not even gonna get shoved into a locker.”

“Imbeciles have tried that before,” he said, “It didn’t end well for them.”

Danny led them down a different hallway, “This school is full of imbeciles, but I doubt they’d try to do that to you.” He said as he led the two of them into a classroom, waving at Sam when she turned out to be the only one inside. “We operate on small town logic, even though Amity Park is technically a city, the hero worship usually stops them from that kind of stupidity.”

“Geez, Danny, you haven’t even gotten adopted yet and you’re already talking like Damian.” Sam joked as they sat down beside her, turning to Damian, “It’s true, though.”

“I spoke like this before I came to Amity,” Danny noted, “My accent was thicker, though. Anyway, he was saying attending Casper High is equal to torture.”

“It is,” Sam agreed.

“Sam,” Danny said, voice lower, “We’ve been trained to withstand actual torture

Sam started grinning, Damian had a feeling she was about to make fun of him. It was the same expression his other siblings made at each other when they were about to ‘roast’ each other. “If you were trained to withstand torture, why are you such a whiny asshole?”

“Ha-ha,” Danny deadpanned, “Because I can be.”

She started clapping humorously, “Wonderfully put. You deserve an Oscar, Daniel.”

Danny rolled his eyes as he took his materials out of his backpack and put them on the table, “Don’t call me that.”

Sam hesitated, “You don’t like your name?”

“Daniel isn’t my name,” he explained, “I said Daniyah, the Fenton’s misheard me and registered me as Daniel.”

“Yikes,” she said, sucking on her teeth. “How do you get it this wrong?”

Danny laughed, “In their defense, I was bald.” Sam sent a questioning glance as someone walked into the classroom, then left before Damian could turn his head to see who it was. “Yeah, like, head completely shaved, the League never let me have long hair. I don’t think it’s ever been past my ears.” Damian remembered that, at first, their mother had tried making Danny wear shawls, some attempt at teaching him vanity, but he’d always ended up losing them or taking them off deliberately.

Sam reached over and lightly yanked a lock of hair at the front of Danny’s head, “The front is nearly at your chin.”

Danny brushed the lock back behind his ear and grinned, “Hey, I killed for this hair.” Damian stared at his sibling, Danny laughed again. “What? Too soon?”

“Yes.”

“Too late,” Sam said at the same time as Damian, he gave her a troubled look. “C’mon, the guy sucked. Also, wasn’t he, like, seven hundred years old?”

“Nearly eight hundred,” Danny provided.

“He was our grandfather.”

Did Damian know grandfather was… not a great person? He did. He was very smart. He knew that, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew what it was to be loved by his grandfather and now he could only have that feeling through memory. 

“He was eight hundred years old, his death was untimely in that he should have died six hundred years ago.” Sam reasoned. She was right, he knew. “Also, if he didn’t want Danny to kill him, maybe he shouldn’t have taught Danny how to do it.”

“He didn’t teach me—”

“He facilitated it,” Sam added.

Damian cocked his head to the side, did she not understand what the issue was? “I don't believe you should be excusing murder.”

Sam looked at him like she thought he was stupid. Many people did, usually adults. They'd speak patronizingly and doubt his knowledge. It wasn't as rare to see someone his age have the look. “If we're gonna have a discussion, we should probably make some distinctions.” She proposed. Was she about to lecture him? What a nightmare. Sam gestured at the table, like each of her hands was one subject. “What Danny did would most likely be seen as either: self defense or manslaughter.” Ok, maybe she had a point. 

Damian nodded, watching her now as he waited for her to finally get to the point to see if it would be entertaining or right. “So?”

“So I'm not really excusing murder because it would've been excused already if Danny's life was normal.”

Danny made a face, “Hey!” He complained, “My life's…” he wrinkled his nose as he thought, then his face relaxed as his head cocked to the side. “You know what? Nevermind.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, “What was that?”

Danny shook his head as he scratched his scalp, “No, nevermind. I'm not gonna die on that hill.” He stated, “Again.”

“When will you stop joking about your untimely demise?” Damian asked, knowing before the question even left his lips that it was a no use asking for a serious answer from Danny.

“When it stops being funny.” Danny deadpanned, “Also, ‘untimely demise’ is a really—” Danny stopped at the sound of shoes doing a subtle screeching as someone paused abruptly by the door of the classroom. The three turned their heads toward the sound to find a baffled-looking Paulina, already recovering from the seeming run she took to reach the classroom they were in and walking toward them.

“Is it true?” Paulina asked, sounding more calm than what they’d guess she’d sound by the way she’d entered.

Sam  smiled smugly, “Is what true?”

Paulina groaned exasperatedly, gesturing between Danny and Damian, “This!”

Danny looked around comically, “Yes, Paulina, I am real.”

She groaned again, “No, I heard that Fenton was walking around with Damian Wayne — which doesn’t make sense, ‘cause Danny is a loser.”

“That’s what my mother says—” Danny was interrupted by Damian’s hand on his mouth, which he decided to answer in true younger sibling fashion by licking his hand.

“Ninah, this is disgusting.” Damian whined, moving away from Danny as if he’d follow to contaminate him with spit.

Danny wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, “That’s what you get!” He said, turning to a confused Paulina, “Anyway, yes, Damian Wayne is walking around with loser me.”

“Why?” She asked with confusion in her voice, drawing laughter from Sam.

Damian turned to Danny, “I’d like to know as well.”

Danny rolled his eyes, “You’re dramatic, that’s why.” He looked at Paulina, “Is Valerie at school yet?”

Paulina’s nose contorted, “Why would I know that?”

“Why wouldn’t you? You guys were best friends, like, a year ago.”

“Well, we aren’t anymore!”

Sam rolled her eyes at their spatting, “And this is pointless.” She looked at Paulina, “This isn’t even your class, are you only here for gossip?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not getting any,” Danny answered.

“Yeah, move along, Paulina.” Sam made a shooing motion at her.

Paulina looked offended for a moment, before she looked at Damian and smiled, “Before I go, can I get a photo?”

“No,” Danny and Damian said at the same time, both unaffected by it or the fact that Paulina was leaving with a look of dejection on her face. She walked with crossed arms out the door, passing by Falluka, who was on his way inside and paid no mind to them as he set his desk up for the day.

Sam eyed the two of them after Paulina’s retreat, “You know, I can suddenly see the twin thing.”

“Then you must not be very smart.” Damian said calmly.

Sam gasped, “Excuse you , Wayne , I am plenty smart. It’s not my fault you and Danny behave nothing like siblings, like, forty percent of the time.”

Danny scoffed, “Well, yeah, we hadn’t seen each other since we were eight.”

“We would dislike each other much more if we had had more contact over the years.” Damian added, in true fashion of someone who had seven siblings (not including Danny).

Danny eyed him calculatingly for a moment, half aware of the rustles that came from the front of the classroom, where Mister Falluka was. “I don’t know, I dislike you quite a lot.”

“And yet you were not the one forced to be in this cesspit of a school nor were you the one whose hand was licked a minute ago.”

“I’m just making sure I fulfill my duties as your twin, Damian.”

“Twin?” Danny looked at the front of the classroom, where Falluka had just whispered to himself, looking at them with horror on his face. Danny attempted to act casual, giving his teacher a wave before he turned back to Sam and Damian, who had also realized the teacher had been listening in.

“You know, Danny,” Sam said with a low voice, “For someone who had your childhood, you talk a lot.”

“You’d think I woulda learned by now, but no.”

Chapter Text

“How was school?” Was the first thing they heard upon crossing the threshold of the hotel room they were staying in. Danny looked over at Bruce, sitting on the sofa with one leg crossed over his knee in a four shape while he read from a tablet idly.

Damian closed the front door with a bang and marched toward the bathroom, “Mediocre,” he said before closing the door moodily.

Bruce looked up from the tablet with an eyebrow slightly raised, looking between the bathroom door and Danny, who entered his room of the hotel suite and threw their backpack on their bed. Danny hummed as they took off their shoes before coming back to the living room area, “He thinks public schools’ desks are sticky and gross.”

“Are they?” Bruce asked curiously, resting the tablet on his lap.

“Some of them,” Danny shrugged, grabbing the charger they left on one of the tables by the wall and plugging their phone in. “He tried to leave by lunch, but then Sam and Tucker made fun of him, so he stayed to prove he could.”

Bruce laughed, “He didn’t manage?”

“No, he did, we stayed until the end.”

“You said your classes would end at four,” Bruce checked his watch, “It’s three thirty.”

Danny moved to sit at the other end of the sofa, “Oh, yeah, it does, I just have no electives or extracurriculars today.” Bruce cocked his head to the side in confusion, “I chose the minimum amount required this year, since last year I couldn’t keep up with studying for all the classes plus fighting ghosts.”

“I thought you wanted to be an astronaut,” Bruce said softly, “That’s what you wrote on your papers from last year.”

“Daniel Fenton did,” they admitted, “Daniel Fenton was a cover.”

“What do you want to do, then?”

Danny scratched their scalp, looking away contemplatively, “That’s the least of my worries right now. I mean, I don’t even know what my legal name is gonna be a week from now.”

“That’s very sensible of you.”

“I’m a very sensible person.”

“No, you aren’t.” Damian shouted from the bathroom.

“Says the one trying to scrub the public highschool out of himself.” Danny said, hearing something that sounded vaguely like Damian mocking their words. A moment later, the bathroom’s door opened to reveal Damian with water dripping down his chin and arms. “Got it out of your system?”

Damian made a face as he sat on a chair near the bathroom, “No.”

Bruce took the opportunity to take another look at his watch, “I suppose I should be leaving to go to your school in fifteen minutes.” He looked back at the twins, “Would you like to make me company?”

“No.”

“Only if Damian goes too,” Danny answered shortly after their brother, “Otherwise no. I try to avoid Casper High as much as humanly possible.”

“You weren’t avoiding it when you asked after that Valerie girl multiple times today,” Damian accused.

“Valerie?” Bruce asked as Danny rolled their eyes at Damian’s comment.

“We both know you know I dated Valerie.”

Bruce shifted in his seat in the way he seemed to do when he knew something but was trying to be fatherly, “I wasn’t aware you still had something going on.”

That was the thing — there was not supposed to be anything between them. Valerie broke up with Danny, and they remained friendly, but that was where it ended. There were no more long conversations that dragged through late night, no more exchanges in the hallways or the cafeteria. Not only were they done, but Valerie had even less reason to associate with them now that she knew they’d lied throughout their entire relationship. “Not like that.” Danny finally said, swallowing through the lump of unresolved feelings the relationship left them. “We were still friendly after breaking up and I wanted to talk to her before I left. I haven’t since the funeral.”

Damian turned to them, cunning eyes staring into Danny’s soul, “Why did you break up?”

Because Danny was an idiot who didn’t tell girlfriend they were dead, so she thought they were helpless (not wrong, but wrong point of view) and needed to be protected from her vigilantism. “Oh, you know… We just had different priorities.” Damian and Bruce stared at them blankly and Danny knew the two didn’t believe them. That was fine, they didn’t need to believe them, they needed to take the hint that it was none of their business.

Before either of them could comment on Danny’s lack of clarification, the suite’s door started to be unlocked from the outside and Jason opened the door, walking inside calmly before stopping and eyeing the three. “You’re here early.”

“I only have three electives this year, I get off an hour early on Thursdays.” 

Jason hummed, then nodded, closing the door behind himself. “Shouldn’t Bruce be leaving right now, though?”

Bruce looked at his watch again, “I have a few minutes until I have to leave.”

Danny watched the way he then avoided the watch, like it would jump at him and follow him around, “Wait, are you stalling?”

“Stalling? That’s not—”

“Why are you stalling?” Danny continued, appalled. Sure, Casper High was every bit the cesspit that Damian claimed it to be, but Bruce was a grown adult. He had no reason to avoid school. Jason and Damian didn’t seem to give a shit about the strange behavior, Jason even left to go into the adjacent kitchen. “Why is he stalling?”

“He’s a chronic introvert,” Jason answered as he returned with a soda can in his hand.

Danny looked at Damian for confirmation and he simply shrugged. Once again, they turned their gaze to Bruce, who was now looking away, “Can’t I enjoy a conversation with my children?”

“Sure,” said Danny, “After you go to my school and give Mister Lancer a heart attack.”

Bruce cocked his head to the side in disconcert, “That’s…” he trailed off, “No, I’m waiting for Tim to send me the rest of the documents. He messaged me fifteen minutes ago saying he’d send them soon.”

“Remind me again why I’m trusting him with my future?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Bruce asked.

“I usually don’t trust people who talk shit about me in front of me because they think I can’t understand them. Also, I’m pretty sure he’s still fuming about me tricking him.”

Jason laughed, “Yeah, Tim’s a messy bitch, but he wouldn’t mess with something important like this just because you managed to pull one over him — I literally tried to kill him, I would know.”

“That’s true,” said Damian, who also tried to kill Tim before.

Bruce seemed to understand how strange the situation was, but he just took a deep breath and said, “If you don’t trust him, trust me and my better judgement.”

Jason made a face, “Your judgement is not that good, Tim lies to you all the time.”

“You aren’t helping your point, Todd.” 

“Yeah, I realised it as soon as it came out of my mouth.”

* 

FentonWorks had been a monolith of dread in Danny’s mind for over two months now. They hadn’t been inside since Maddie and Jack’s deaths and they knew that returning was in the future — Danny had to leave their grandfather’s soul in the Infinite Realms with Pandora. 

All things considered, Danny had been doing a pretty good job of driving the thought out of their mind.

“Your vice-principal also mentioned the school dance that’s happening this weekend,” Bruce commented, “He said it’s possible you didn’t know about it, so he asked me to mention that he saved you a ticket, just in case.”

“Oh…”

Bruce’s expression shifted as his eyebrows furrowed, “If you don’t want to go, that’s probably also fine.”

“No, I do. Sam and Tucker are gonna be there, it’ll be nice to spend time with them before we leave Illinois.” Danny said, “It also means I’ll have to move some things around, since we’re leaving on Sunday morning tops.”

“You have two friends, and no extracurriculars,” said Damian, “What full schedule could you possibly have that you need to ‘move things around’?”

Jason snorted, “You’re learning your snark from Tim, are you?”

Damian could barely utter a denial before he was interrupted by his father’s raised hand, “I’d also like to know, if it’s not too much to ask.”

“You know, packing and stuff.” And the only suit they owned was still inside FentonWorks, so they’d have to go to the Infinite Realms to leave the thermos with Ra’s Al Ghul’s soul to avoid two trips.

“Packing?” Damian repeated in question, “Hadn’t you packed before leaving Masters’ house?”

“Packing things that weren’t in Vlad’s place.” Danny said simply, “Things I left in my old house.”

“Oh, right. That means you’ll get to pack stuff from the Fentons’ lab?” Jason asked, Danny nodded, “You’ll get the research too, then?”

“Yeah.”

Bruce hummed in something that seemed like approval or appreciation, “That would be very helpful in understanding the differences between you and Jasdon.”

“I understand the difference between us,” Danny hadn’t expected to get weird, confused looks from the three, but that’s what they got. “I’ve read and edited nearly every single paper the Fentons wrote since I was eight, not to mention Vlad’s own research.”

Bruce adjusted in his seat, “Ok. If you can explain now, let's hear it."

At least they weren’t talking about FentonWorks anymore. “I mean, I’ve told you about one of the biggest differences already. For me, dying and coming back happened at the same time, while Jason was dead for a while before being brought back.” They started, "The next thing would be defining the difference between Ectoplasm and Lazarus Water, since Lazarus Water comes from Ectoplasm." Danny deliberated. "Do you know why it's better to buy produce from local farmers?"

"Because it moves the economy better than buying from industries?" Jason guessed.

"Also that," Danny answered with a meek laugh. "I mean the biological factor, though." They said, then launching into their explanation,"Store bought produce has less nutrients. That's because store bought produce stays the longest away from the source it was taken from. The longer a living thing is away from a source of nutrients the lesser the quality of anything within it is. — the moment an apple is taken from the tree, it starts to die."

“Okay, that makes sense,” Bruce said, making a gesture to signal for Danny to proceed.

"Anyway," Danny said, "We follow the laws of nature — biology, physics, chemistry — nothing can be created or destroyed, only transformed. Our bodies decay and eventually we die and decompose. But there's one thing that allegedly doesn't follow the laws of the universe."

"Ectoplasm," Damian interjected.

Danny nodded, "It's an understudied field, so most scientists claim ectoplasm doesn't follow the laws of nature."

"What did the Fentons say?" Bruce asked.

"The Fentons had a more practical view and approach regarding ectoplasm — their object of study was ghosts — so anything they had on ectoplasm that wasn’t substantial they didn't really write or publish."

"So you're the only person who has that information." Damian concluded.

"Well, yeah." Danny admitted, "I heard somewhere that magic is just the science we don't understand yet, and that's what they figured regarding ectoplasm.

They figured it must follow the laws of science and decided to adjust to work with it rather than contain it."

"So it does follow logic?" Jason asked.

"Complex logic," Danny agreed partially. "And, since it follows that logic, it can also transform and lose value when taken away from their source of energy, which is more or less what happens to Lazarus Water."

Jason’s eyebrows furrowed as his brain processed the information, "So Lazarus Water is rotten ectoplasm?"

“What the League of Assassins has inside the pits is, yeah.” Danny agreed, “They call all ectoplasm Lazarus Water. All the ectoplasm they study and are in possession of is bad quality ectoplasm. The Fentons got their ectoplasm directly from the portal, the League of Assassins had to get it where they could.”

“That makes sense,” Jason said, “Is that why you have powers? Or is that because of how you died?”

“How I died. Though I do wonder what would’ve happened if Vlad or I weren’t exposed to pure ectoplasm — I imagine the integration would’ve been much different.”

“Integration?” Damian repeated.

Danny nodded, “Ectoplasm is what ghosts are made of, so having exposure to ectoplasm when we die makes it more likely that someone will become a ghost. It’s our body. So basically mine and Vlad’s accidents made it so we have a solid ghost, but it’s integrated into our flesh body. We have two bodies made of entirely different stuff and they’re tethered. I imagine if that had happened with Lazarus Water instead of pure ectoplasm, it would’ve been a lot flimsier.”

“Like what?” Bruce asked curiously.

Danny laughed as he imagined it, “Like going ghost and our flesh body just drops dead until we return to it.”

“That doesn’t sound safe,” Bruce noted.

“Yeah, dying never is.”