Chapter Text
Danny shouldn't be thinking about the past life he lived, shouldn't think about the parents who adopted him only to disappear for months at a time, nor the vigilante family he’d inserted himself into during their time of need. That life wasn't his to begin with! Just a dimension with a timeline that needed fixing in an unconventional way.
So, why is he crying?
He just got back to his home, time hadn’t passed here. He can see Sam, Tucker, and Jazz again! (He'll never see Cass, Jason, Dick, Damien, Steph, Kon –) He's more experienced and better at fighting now. He can protect Amity better! (He misses Gotham. The city seemed to make heroes feel like magic) Danny has his original life back… but damn it, he wants to go back! He doesn't want to protect a city alone again!
Danny curls into himself on his bed. Silent sobs racking his body. He's so different than he was before. His hair was longer and parted in the middle, nothing like his usual, (old), fringe style. His missing scars and the new ones he can't explain. Gods- (No, wait, it's Ancients) he is missing his spleen! How was he going to explain that, or any of this? Even as his sobs grew more violent, their volume didn't increase.
A trick he learned in the Wayne manor.
He didn't want to disturb anyone with his half remembered dreams of a different life.
Danny took a shuddering breath, the feelings he’d been trying to bury since his return hitting him full force. He’d been sucked back to his original dimension without warning a day ago. Clockwork, that bastard, didn't even give him time to say goodbye to the rest of the Bats and Birds. He was in his apartment as Tim Drake one second and plopped in Danny Fenton's bedroom the next.
His talk with the older ghost didn't make the situation any better.
He didn't explain anything! Just that his work in that dimension's timeline was done. If Clockwork hadn't time locked the portal Danny would've been in the ancient’s lair instead of dissociating in a room that doesn't feel like his anymore. He hates not being given a choice or having a plan.
Jason was right; anger was so much easier than actually dealing with your feelings.
His spiraling was stopped when he heard a soft knock on his door. Oh, he’d forgotten that Jazz was home. Living through a lifetime made him forget a lot about his first one. He didn't get time to follow the new spiral of thoughts before his sister opened the door.
"Danny?" Her voice was soft, laced with worry.
"Yeah," He hates how hoarse his voice sounds.
He should be better than this; he’s infiltrated the league of assassins for Ancients’ sake. He watched as she approached his bed, buried beneath blankets. He can hear when she actually sees him by her gasp.
"What happened?" Jazz asked as she sat on the bed facing him.
"I… I fixed a timeline in a different dimension for Clockwork." Danny can't bring himself to look at her. Everything is still fresh. The feeling he can just barely comprehend as grief has yet to settle inside him. He takes a deep breath. He can compartmentalize this and deal with it after Jazz leaves.
"How long were you gone this time, a month or two?" Jazz looks at him with unending patience and care.
"17 years," He whispers hesitantly.
"Oh… oh, Danny." He couldn’t have prepared himself for the shock and pained confusion on her face. She leaned her over him, pulling him into a tight hug.
Oh, he can't compartmentalize this after all. Danny’s breath hitched as fat tears began rolling down his face, dampening his pillow even more. His life as Tim made him forget what it was like to have unending support from a sibling. He loved the hodge podge of the Waynes, but he was a vigilante first. He wasn’t really family.
Just a coworker.
“You don’t have to talk about it if it’s too much. Just know that I’ll always be here for you little brother,” Jazz’s voice was gentle. Oh, did he miss her during those years. Cass and Barbara helped him cope with missing Jazz whether they knew it or not. He turned into her, relishing in the fact she was here. He may be missing a whole new family, but he got his old one back.
“I missed you, Jazz. Can you stay here with me for a little while?” He pleaded between silent sobs.
“Of course. I’ll be here as long as you need.”
---------—x—---------
Tim woke up to the sound of typing and the sight of red hair. He must have crashed at Barbara’s last night. He sits up, not fully awake just yet.
“Morning, Babs,” he yawns, eyes blurry.
The gentle but persistent clicking of keys stops with a hitch of her breath. "Danny, it's me Jazz. Is Babs someone you were close to… before?"
The voice he hears back isn't Barbara's.
It's one he barely recognizes now, made even harder to place with the barely covered pain. Jazz deserves a better brother than him.
What kind of brother is he, that he doesn't even remember his own sister at first glance.
Danny takes a deep shaky breath. No, he can't think like that. He hasn't seen her in 17 years, Of course he isn't going to recognize her. Still she hasn't changed one bit.
He can't tell if that makes it better or worse.
"Yeah" he croaks, voice rough from sleep and the lump that's formed in his throat. “She has hair like yours.”
“Oh… do you want to talk about it?” she offers awkwardly. She was completely out of her depth but still wanting to help in her own way. (Alfred would have loved to meet her.)
Danny shakes his head, pushing past the aching in his chest as he drags himself out of bed. He doesn't look back at Jazz, he doesn't want to see the pitying look in her eyes. Something ugly, angry, and raw always tends to creep into him when that particular emotion is directed at him, and she doesn't deserve that.
What a cruel joke that the one thing that he gets in spades in both lives is pity.
He needs a strategy if he plans to survive the next couple of days, (the rest of his life), and that starts small. Get ready and investigate what the hell was happening in his life before… his time mission. He lost so much time with his breakdown, how annoying.
Tim (no, he's Danny now) huffs, opening his closet. Well before he starts anything he needs a damn shower.
---------—x—---------
By the time Danny was clean and dressed, Jazz had left him with a journal with his name on it and her scrapbook. Ancients, she really is the best big sister. (Cass would contest that).
He knows that he should dive into them right away, but… he can put it off a little longer. Remembering and relearning will take time, and he has all the time in the world now, whether he likes it or not. Diving deep will be too much. He’s too emotionally raw, and just needs something to latch on to, like:
Next day survival plan 101, start small.
He can look at Danny’s phone; he’ll figure out what to do with Tim’s later. Remember, one step at a time; one thing at a time. Finding the device was easy, it was on the nightstand where he always leaves it. Seems like this is one of the habits he kept in both lifes. Opening it up was easier than he originally expected; he really didn't have a sense of cybersecurity beyond Tucker back then.
(…Now?)
The device was familiar in so many different ways; he always did gravitate towards technology (with Tucker pushing him forward right next to him). The screen lit up, showing the basic layout of all phones; he dismissed notifications from dumb games, leaving the social media ones. What he was really looking for was his messages.
He had a couple new messages from Sam and Tucker in their group chat. He should look at the chat, but, in doing so, he'd be facing the people he had been grieving their missing presence for the last 17 years. A missing presence that had him picked up so many new hobbies, just because they reminded him of his two best friends. Danny would have never touched a camera if it wasn't for the ache in his chest everytime he passed a looming gargoyle. The hundreds of pictures will finally be seen by their intended audience, if he could only get himself to open the gods damned chat!
Shaky breath slips from his lips as he steadies his thoughts. Baby steps. Look at the messages and go from there.
— New Messages —
PettyWitch
Tucker I swear if your ass isn't up rn, I'm coming over and replacing all of the meat in your fridge with lettuce.
TFine
give me a sec 2 get down there you can stop calling me
i'm not going to answer
what about Danny
how come you aren't calling HIM!!!!!
PettyWitch
Bc Danny can actually get up before noon during the weekends unlike other people in this chat! So he can be trusted to get to Nasty Burger on time.
TFine
HEY!
Their banter goes on. Danny scrolls through it with a painful kind of fondness draping over him. A hole that once gouged his heart was being filled, only to have a different part get ripped out for the same reason. The people he missed will always have some type of mouth on them, especially one that gets them in trouble. Moving past the too fresh grief and focusing on the conversation at hand does bring about a pressing issue, he's supposed to meet up with Sam and Tucker soon.
Shit.
Looks like he's facing more ghosts of his past-turned-present sooner than he thought. It's Tucker and Sam. They stuck with him through his death and his first hero career. If anyone besides Jazz could sympathize with him, it was them.
Resolve hardened like the Bat he is (was —there is no way back to them now), he spends the little remaining time flipping through pictures and looping handwriting as he pieces the memory of his old life back together.