Tim couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
The guy sitting across from him — Danny, apparently — talked like they’d known each other for years. Casual, warm, familiar. The kind of comfortable tone people earned after a hundred late-night study sessions and shared caffeine addictions.
Except Tim had never seen him before in his life.
He was sure of that. Tim remembered faces, voices, details. He could name every classmate from freshman year by schedule order, recall license plates from across a street, but not this guy. Not even a flicker of recognition.
And yet Danny spoke to him like an old friend — the kind who knew his coffee order before he opened his mouth, who teased him about sleep habits without hesitation, who smiled at Duke like he’d done it a hundred times before.
It wasn’t that he sounded fake. That was the problem. He didn’t.
“Still take it black, huh?” Danny said, handing him his cup like it was muscle memory.
Tim hesitated a beat too long before accepting it. “Yeah. Guess I do.”
Danny just grinned, unbothered, and took a sip of his own drink. “See? I know you better than you think.”
Across the table, Duke gave him a side glance that said, you seeing this too? Tim didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.
Something in his chest prickled. Not danger, not quite — but wrongness. Like déjà vu wearing a human face.
He watched Danny laugh at something Duke said, easy and unforced, like he belonged here — like he always had.
Tim set his cup down, studying him the way he’d study a crime scene. Small tells. Nervous habits. None. Danny was relaxed. Confident. Too comfortable.
No. He wasn’t ready to fill in that blank yet.
“Hey,” Tim said casually, leaning back, “what class did we have together again?”
Danny didn’t miss a beat. “Intro to Chem. You fell asleep in the back row, remember? I had to take notes for both of us.”
Tim frowned slightly. That class had been real. He remembered it. The professor. The seating chart. His notes. Everything — except the person sitting next to him.
Danny smiled, small and knowing, like he could see the thoughts flickering behind Tim’s eyes. “You’ll remember eventually.”
The way he said it — steady, certain, almost kind — made Tim’s stomach tighten.
Because for the first time in a very long time, he wasn’t sure whether he’d forgotten something… or someone had made him forget.
There was something about the way he smiled.
Not fake — just too easy. Like he’d slipped into a role he’d already rehearsed a hundred times.
Danny. That’s what he’d called himself.
Spoke like they were old friends. Looked him straight in the eye when he said Tim’s name — with that relaxed confidence people only had when they knew you.
But Tim didn’t know him. He’d remember a face like that.
Duke seemed at ease, laughing a little as Danny told some story about “the world’s worst cafeteria coffee.”
Tim listened, quiet, dissecting tone, rhythm, phrasing.
Every detail said familiarity. Every memory said no record.
It wasn’t arrogance — it was just math.
If the data didn’t fit, something was missing.
Danny caught his gaze and smiled again, easy as breathing. “You’re still doing that thinking face,” he said lightly.
Tim blinked. “What face?”
“That one,” Danny said, tapping his own temple. “Like you’re solving a crime in your head. You always do that when you’re pretending to listen.”
Duke snorted. “That’s… freakishly accurate.”
Tim said nothing, but his pulse ticked up a beat.
Danny leaned back, satisfied, taking a sip of his drink like he hadn’t just cracked open one of Tim’s tells. He didn’t elaborate, didn’t press — just let the silence hang, comfortable, unhurried.
Tim hated that it was disarming.
Tim was definitely watching him now.
Subtle? Not even close. The guy was practically profiling his soul over a cappuccino.
Danny didn’t mind. He’d expected it.
You didn’t survive Amity Park by not recognizing when someone was cataloguing you.
He kept the act simple — steady breathing, loose shoulders, harmless smile. Not too charming, not too interested. Just familiar enough to stay believable.
It was weirdly fun, though.
He could almost see Tim’s thoughts — the way his eyes flickered, mapping details, cross-referencing memories. Trying to find a version of himself where Danny existed.
So Danny made it easy for him. Dropped little phrases that sounded right. Tiny hooks that let the guy build his own answers.
He didn’t lie. Not really. He just let them remember wrong.
Duke laughed again, asking something about study groups. Danny answered automatically, throwing in another casual, “You used to hate those.”
Danny smiled into his cup. It wasn’t cruel — just practical.
Sometimes people believed what they wanted to, and if that got him a few friends? No harm done.
He glanced up, caught Tim’s eyes, and said softly, “You’ll get there. Memory’s tricky like that.”
Tim didn’t respond — just looked at him for a long, quiet moment.
And Danny could almost hear it: that whisper of doubt turning into conviction.
But God help him — he wanted to.
There was something in the cadence of Danny’s voice that felt like a memory trying to surface.
Not déjà vu. Something older. Something lost.
He sipped his coffee to hide the thought, but the name echoed anyway.
He’d check later. Files. Photos. Student databases. Whatever it took.
For now, he just nodded slowly and said, “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”
It wasn’t that Danny Fenton was dangerous. It wasn’t that he’d broken any laws. It wasn’t even that he was weirdly confident carrying three textbooks like he was auditioning for a circus.
The problem was: Tim couldn’t figure out why he felt familiar.
He sat at the Batcomputer, scrolling through official university records:
• Classes? All registered, all valid.
• Cafeteria and library accounts? Fully active.
• Dorm assignment? On file.
Nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing.
Tim couldn’t shake the way Danny’s posture, the tilt of his head when he laughed, the casual way he balanced chaos like it was a game — it all screamed familiar.
He leaned closer to the screen. Maybe it was the hair. Maybe the eyes. Maybe the universe had just decided to play a prank.
Tim muttered under his breath: “Right… totally normal. Officially normal. Definitely normal. And yet… wrong.”
He pulled up some security footage of the campus quad. There he was. Danny Fenton. Walking, smiling, spilling books, waving at someone Tim didn’t recognize.
And still, for some reason, Tim felt like he’d seen this exact scene before.
He sighed. He rubbed his eyes. “Okay, universe. You win. He’s enrolled properly, everything checks out… but I still don’t trust him.”
Across the table, Duke glanced over. “You good?”
Tim shook his head slowly. “No. But that’s fine. It’s officially fine. Everything’s fine.”
He didn’t say the part about feeling like he’d known Danny forever. That was strictly internal.
