“pls stop summoning me i just want to pass calculus” (dpxdc)
Danny hates being summoned. He can’t stand it. Now, it’s not all that common- after all, who knows how to summon the King of Ghosts? But when it does, it sucks.
Imagine your heart being tugged out of your chest, and you have no choice but to follow it if, you know, you want to stay alive. Imagine being shoved in a tiny little cylinder and being thrown around like you’re the ball in a game of “Monkey-In-The-Middle”. Now multiply those feelings by 100. That’s how it feels to be summoned.
So when Danny feels the familiar tug in his chest during a calculus test, he groans. He finally discovered what Stoke’s Theorem was (despite its many inconsistencies), why does he have to leave now, of all times? He gets out of his seat and quietly asks his professor if he can head to the bathroom. The professor gives him a stink eye, but gives permission anyway. Danny darts out of the room like his pants are on fire and finally allows himself to be swallowed by the metal cylinder of darkness that is a summoning.
He lands gracefully, feet first, within the confines of a decently drawn chalk circle, clearly meant to protect the summoners from his wrath. Unfortunately for them, however, Danny is strong. Freakishly strong. The measly summoning ritual before him does nothing to stop him as he smudges it with his foot before walking through without so much as a twitch of a finger. He finally glances up at his summoners, already exasperated. Danny knows this abandoned warehouse like the back of his hand, after all, he’s been here countless times - all for the same thing.
“Guys, you gotta give it up. I’m not granting y’all immortality or resurrecting your loved ones. Please leave me alone, I just want to pass multivariable calculus in peace,” Danny sighs out in poorly concealed frustration. He left his calculus test for this?
The cultists’ leader steps forward confidently and recites his practiced speech as if it’s gospel.
“My Lord, the Ghost King, please grant us, your loyal followers, the gift of immortality so that we may follow you for eternity. Our souls are pure and will-”
Before he can finish, he’s cut off by a boot to the chest, followed by a flash of metallic red. Red Hood stands in front of the leader’s body, dusting off his leather jacket smugly (though it is quite hard to tell what the man feels, Danny thinks, what with the helmet and all). The vigilante turns to face the rest of the cultists, and by extension, Danny.
“I got tired of hearing his voice,” Red Hood (in Danny’s opinion, he should be called Red Helmet) states cockily, clearly smirking under that helmet of his. Danny calls back to him, “You got tired? Imagine hearing that spiel at least twice a month for a couple of years. Fucking Jeff, man, he won’t let me pass calculus in peace.”
He nudges Jeff’s prone body on the ground. “Get up man, you didn’t even get hit that hard. Stop playing dead, you’re no good at it.” As he speaks, however, the rest of the vigilantes drop from the rafters to the ground. They’re quiet- they’re trained by Batman, of course they are- but Danny senses them anyway.
Red Robin - Tim Drake, Danny’s mind fills in - walks up and cuffs Jeff, who is now miraculously awake. Batman sends him a reproachful glance, but Red Robin shrugs and says, “He already knew we were behind him, no use in being sneaky here, B.” As RR steps away to call GPCD, evidently to pick up Jeff and the other cultists who’ve just been standing there like a bunch of lost ducklings, Danny stops him.
“Hey, any chance you can get the police to go easy on them?”
“Why? Didn’t you say that they’re the reason you can’t pass calculus- which in itself is a really weird statement that I’m choosing to ignore,” Nightwing questions. They’re taking the reveal of an omnipotent, all powerful god pretty well, Danny thinks. He responds out loud, though, saying, “Yeah, but Jeff’s a pretty nice guy outside of the cult stuff; we get coffee sometimes. Plus they’re a nice break from the whole ‘I killed 50 people for you now give me power to take over the world’ nonsense that I get from others.”
“Anyway, is there any chance y’all could get me something like a doctor’s note for my calc class? I was in the middle of a test and I was crushing it, trust me, but I had to come here or I’d be ripped into a million pieces and I really want to finish that test because my grade depends on it,” Danny rambles, bulldozing over Red Hood’s follow-up question. The room, now clear of all cultists, is silent for a moment. Clearly, the vigilantes haven’t processed this situation as well as Danny thought they did. Then finally, Danny gets to hear Batman speak.
“Okay.”










