Okay, 🐻 with me, because it'll take me a bit to get to it, but it's worth it I promise, title is a teaser to get you through my law ramblings and set up.
Hall of Justice is in Washington D.C, capital of USA, right? Right. You know what also is usually put in capitals? Embassies.
Now, embassies are really interesting from legal standpoint, but what's most important is that, any uniformed service, like police, fire fighters etc. cannot enter it (as well as house of diplomatic personel or at least main ambasador), unless they get permission from the boss of the mission. It was used historically, to officiate Calvinist marriages in France when local priests (pastors, I guess), couldn't do so in legally binding way, as well as, which is actually relevant to this whole prompt, to keep people who were oppressed by their governments safe (I think US embassies did save few people that way during cold war, but I'd have to look it up more to give you any specifics, I'm pretty sure one dude stayed inside embassy for decades before it was negotiated that he could be transported to the airport and flown away, without getting arrested on the way).
Anyway, Justice League has few interesting members, form quite interesting places, don't they. Like Themyscira or Atlantis. Krypton, Mars and Oa, if anyone wanted to brainstorm how interplanetary law could work like, in that regard. What I'm getting at is that, if they wanted, Wonder Woman or Aquaman could be declared ambassadors not problem, making their residence in US, as well as chosen buildings, premises of diplomatic missions, thus giving them this immunity. Hall of Justice could officially, in the books, be an embassy. I don't think it would be a well known fact, it's base of superheroes first and foremost, but it's there, for anyone who would care to look it up to see.
Now, enter Phantom, on the run from US government dropping by to let JL know that Anti-Ecto Acts exist, if they don't know, or plead his case if they do and just don't care, thinking he'd have to skip town again in hour or two. However, person who spoke with him knew what the Hall was, so they convinced him to stay.
But I lied before. Or at least omitted the truth a bit. There is one other circumstance that would legally allow entry to uniformed services (particularly firefighters). If there is a fire that poses immediate risk to human life and rescue has to be started right the f now. (at least that's true in Poland. If it isn't in US, I don't care).
So, now GIW is perfectly aware that this little white haired ecto-scum is in Hall of Justice. They also know that if they enter in any sort of official capacity (or try to kidnap him and it gets out that they're from government, which it would), it would actually cause issues, and they don't want to deal with mess it would be both from the heroes as well as their bosses or whatever.
So, they send few guys to set it on fire, while others dress up to pretend to be firefighters, when time is right. It is, of course, repeatedly twatted by heroes and potentially by cops assigned to protecting premises of diplomatic mission.
And who is to say, that it doesn't get out to newspapers. Via some well know journalist perhaps?
I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt
“Woah. You look like shit."
Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.
The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.
"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."
And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.
The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.
If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.
"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.
"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.
"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.
The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.
He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."
There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.
"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."
Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"
"Daniel? Is that you?"
His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.
The world blurs into a mess of oil smears as Danny's stolen away into Gotham's smog-smudged skies and sickly yellow light, and he clings onto the shadow of a man he met like a lifeline. It is a lifeline for all he cares, as they get further and further away from Vlad.
Half his face is smudged into the man's body armor, and Danny's only partly aware of the blood he's smearing onto the... fabric? The material -- on his shoulder. He's got half a mind to apologize. He doesn't.
Instead, through the loud whistling of the wind, Danny mutters a string of slurry, delirious "thank you's" on a repetitive loop. He's not even sure if he can be heard, but the terror in his heart turns into pained relief anyways.
Flying always makes him feel better -- the chill, the pressure, the weightlessness -- and it feels even better now. For a moment he can forget that Vlad stuck blood blossom extract into his veins. He sighs out, eyes closing, and almost regrets it when blood covers his teeth.
His reprieve is broken a cruel, few moments later when they land on a rooftop with a sharp -- at least to him -- drop, and with it so does his stomach. The hand splaying against his back jostles him curtly.
"Hey," The shadows whisper, Danny blinks his eyes sluggishly open, and blearily sees the white reflectors of the man's eyes looking at him. "Keep your eyes open."
"Sorry." He murmurs, nose scrunching up as nausea roils unpleasantly in his stomach. He licks his lips again, his blood is drying on his skin, and it feels like paint sticking onto him. It's uncomfortable. "The wind f'lt nice."
They're running across the rooftop, the jostling movement only makes him feel worse. But the shadows said to keep his eyes open, and Danny figures that's a pretty smart idea considering Danny's predicament. But he's going to vomit if he keeps looking at the world spinning around him...
He makes a mental compromise and buries his face into the crook of the man's neck, clawing at his shoulders to try and keep purchase. He latches his fingers onto the cape and despite his trembling arms, refuses to let go.
Danny only turns his head when there's a sharp pain in his lungs, he presses his forehead into his shoulder and coughs blood over his pauldron.... oops. "Sorry," he repeats, voice hoarse, "'m gettin' blood on you..."
"Hn. It'll come off." He's told, and Danny blinks lazily again, nodding curtly. The man's voice sounds nice, as raspy and soft as it is. But before he can tell him that, they're in the air again, the wind whistling in his ears.
Danny relishes in it, but keeps the thought in the back of his mind. Up until they land again, and as another wave of sickly nausea and pins-needles pain washes over him like the tide, he blurts out; "I like yr'voice."
...He doesn't get a response back.
Danny drifts in and out of consciousness, with the Night jolting him awake every so often with a sharp, quiet reminder to keep with him. Danny doesn't bother deigning a real verbal response to that beyond wordless grumbles and mumbles. A few times he stops to cough up his lungs -- even once gagging on air like a cat trying to spit up a hairball. Nothing comes out, and Danny is more embarrassed and exhausted than he is anything else. He wants to vomit, but he's terrified of what might come out if he does.
The man picks up greater speed after that.
Eventually they leave the roof to the stars -- as hidden as they are amongst the sickly clouds -- and drop down into an even darker alleyway than the one Danny found the horned man in. They land on something, and the man slides them off onto the ground.
There's a gentle hissing sound, and Danny opens his eyes just as the man places him in a leather seat and straps him in. "Wh're w'goin?" He asks, lolling his head to the side to peer up tiredly.
"Somewhere I can help you."
Danny already knows he was doing this to help him -- the man wouldn't have taken him away from Vlad otherwise. But still, he can't help the tears pooling up in his eyes and beading on his eyelashes; threatening to drip down his face and mix into the blood.
There's a lump in his throat that he swallows down with a side of copper, but he manages a smile. He can't get the words out, but he hopes the man can see the hope in his eyes.
Just as it was in the air, the drive to wherever they're going is a mess of orange-streetlight smeared blurs and rapid-passing buildings. Danny keeps his head rested against the door, forehead pressing against the cold window, and breathing slowly through his mouth.
From his unfocused peripherals, the man -- of whom with the passing lights, Danny can see is dressed as... some kind of bat? Honestly, not the weirdest thing he's ever seen. -- routinely keeps glancing over at him. He's never seen someone grip a steering wheel so tightly.
"Do you know what your godfather poisoned you with?" The man eventually asks, his voice just as soft and raspy as it was in the air.
It takes Danny a moment to realize he spoke at all, his brain sluggishly catching up to his ears. "Hrm?" He blinks, lifting his head. Danny regrets it immediately, his vision swims nauseatingly and blurs dangerously. He rests his head again. "Oh. Y'h. A flow'r called blood bloss'um."
They pass a streetlight, shining just enough light that Danny sees the Bat-Man's lips purse. Danny's mouth opens, but he makes no sound, his mind trying to find the words he's looking for. "I'z- it's extinct."
He huffs a laugh just as the man snaps his head to look at him, regretting it with a sharp cough and a feeling of dust in his lungs. Weakly waggling his fingers to make jazz hands, Danny slurs; "Shcience."
A coughing fit overtakes him then, and without the adrenaline of flying and running away from Vlad to distract him, the ache and burn of consistently coughing returns and hits hard and sharp. He's been stabbed before, and somehow this still hurts more.
(Well, one is being stabbed. The other is the result of a toxin made from a flower specifically evolved to eat ectoplasm. Something Danny is 50% made of.)
Whining low and through grit teeth, Danny turns and curls back up into the corner of his seat, arms boxing over his head as if that will make him hurt less. Tears spring into his eyes, and he tries to use the feeling of breathing to distract himself.
If he's still breathing, everything will be okay.
Wherever they're going, he hopes they get there fast.
----
("You're a hero, right?" The boy said, but the way he said it made it sound like he was only asking as a formality. That of course Bruce was a hero, it was obvious.)
(He didn't know how to tell him that no, he wasn't. Then he didn't have the time.)
Bruce's hands would be shaking if it weren't for the white-knuckle grip on the car's steering wheel. Every time he focuses back on the road in front of him, his eyes are drawn back towards the boy coiled like a ball in the passenger seat.
He can't tell if it's rage or fear that's making his arms tremble.
The boy -- Daniel, if the voice of his godfather was to be believed -- is small. Bruce could wrap his thumb and forefinger around his wrist, and he's positive they would touch. A waifish, slip of a thing, and Bruce thought he'd been small as a child. His clothes -- simple, unremarkable; a hoodie that hangs off his shoulders and a band shirt he doesn't recognize -- look too big on him, and Bruce wonders if Daniel even knows he's shivering.
This was not how Bruce thought his night would be going -- he was following a lead on Falcone and his people. Now he was rushing back to the cave with a boy who couldn't be any older than fifteen, a boy who was dying of poison because of his godfather.
Hurt and fury bubbles beneath his ribs.
(Who does this to a kid?)
He glances at Daniel again. Messy, sweat-slicked black hair clings to his forehead, and gathers around his ears. It looks like it hasn't been cut in months. He's unnaturally pale, and Bruce isn't sure if his paleness is from the poison, or his natural color. It highlights the dark circles beneath glassy blue eyes, peering unfocused and teary out from lidded eyes.
The blood dripping off his chin is damning and stark against his skin. Some of it is half-dried against his cheek, but most is a horrifying dark red and wet, staining down his throat and into his shirt. Every time the boy coughs, Bruce fears that blood will spill from his mouth next.
He breathes in shakily, and swerves around a left corner. The boy moves with the momentum. Bruce throws his arm out to catch him, and keep him in his seat, the boy jerks, and grunts quietly.
Guilt turns the back of Bruce's neck red. That, and embarrassment. "...Apologies." He murmurs, retracting his hand quickly. Daniel blinks slowly, Bruce nervously keeps an eye on the unsteady rise and fall of his chest.
He's pulled away when, much to his surprise, the boy smiles. It's weak, barely even there and trembling like the rest of him, but glazed in fondness. "S'ok'y." Daniel mumbles, blood sticking to his mouth as he slumps back into the corner. "M'dad drove the same way."
...There were a lot of questions there. But the hurting, discomforting squeeze of Bruce's heart turns his tongue to lead. His throat swells shut, grows a cancerous lump, and keeps his lungs thick. "..Hh."
(What does he say to that?)
A silence, ugly, falls over them again for a few minutes more. Bruce should keep the boy talking -- it's confirmation that Daniel was still alive, still breathing, Bruce hasn't failed yet -- and yet, he can't think of a single thing to say.
They're coming close up on the cemetery, Bruce turns down the road leading to it. His eyes flick to Daniel again. The boy is staring at him, the sickly yellow streetlights catching shadows on his face, leaving a glow lingering in his eyes.
(In his lazy eye, his mind tricks him into seeing a corpse. Bruce suppresses a flinch, and looks over again.)
(Daniel is still breathing. Good. Good. Good.)
He breathes in shakily, something dark and angry rearing its head once again. Who does this? Who does this? He grits his teeth, biting back the scowl pulling on his face.
("You're a hero, right?")
(No, but for now he can pretend he is.)
----
They end up in a tunnel somewhere. Danny's not quite sure where, but the road gets bumpy and the uncomfortable, rough jostling brings a groan out from him. His eyes pound in their sockets, the discomfort ricocheting to this temples and circling to the back of his head.
His head lolls, and Danny shoves it back against the seat with a thud, ignoring the dull pain it rings through his skull. "Are w'there yet?" He asks, blood spilling into his mouth that he tiredly tries to spit out. He's done with drinking it instead.
The numbness he'd been so graciously left with was starting to fade now, returning back to a burning, rhythmic soreness spreading through his limbs. It clustered up around his joints, feeling like pins and needles in his fingers and down his spine.
Bat-man guy grunts shortly, shifts the gearshift into a new position, and glances over to him for the nth time that night. "Almost."
Almost. Almost was... good? Probably. Hopefully. Danny doesn't give a response, just nods mutely.
The car comes to a stop some minutes later, parked in a wide open space with LED lights spread erratically through the floor that hurt Danny's eyes.
Bat-Man barely has the car in park before he's flying out of his side. If Danny didn't know better, he'd have thought the man had phased right through the metal. That's not what happened, and he watches the guy zip around the front of the car to his side.
He's barely understood that he's even gotten out of the car before Bat-Man has Danny's door open. He jolts involuntarily, sitting lame in his seat as Bat-Man gets him unbuckled and pulled out of the car.
The lights are still painfully bright in Danny's eyes as Bat-Man pulls him out, and he whines involuntarily, tilting his face inward to hide it against the armor-weave.
"--sleep at a reasonable-- dear god! What happened!?"
Oh, forget the lights. Danny turns his head and braces against the brightness -- and his tilting, whorling sight -- to see who else was here. He sees an older man with a cane standing near one of the tables.
"His godfather poisoned him." Bat-Man growls, Danny nods heavily. "I need my antidote kit. Alfred, I need you to stay by him, make sure he doesn't start choking if he throws up."
The older man -- Alfred? Scoffs, and when Bat-Man passes by he follows after him. "As if you need to ask me. But where do you even plan on putting him?"
Without answering, Bat-Man shifts Danny until he's being held in one arm, and then approaches a metal table covered in nuts, bolts, and half-finished gadgets and gizmos. Without blinking, Bat-Man uses his free arm to shove it all off the table with a crashing, clattering, banging sound.
Then he lays Danny down.
The metal is freezing, sinking through the fabric of his jacket and shirt, and Danny turns his head to watch Bat-Man. In the process, he catches a glimpse at Alfred's expression -- and the sheer exasperated affront written on his face forces a laugh out of him.
Bat-Man's hands still from where they're tilting him onto his side, and Danny covers his mouth with his hand to stifle his giggling. "Sorry." He says, trying to catch his breath. "th'look on his face was funny."
The Alfred man sends a look at the Bat-Man when he glances at him, one eyebrow arched, before stepping over as Bat-Man gets Danny full on his side. Bat-Man disappears down somewhere, his footsteps echoing through the room.
"I hope he knows that he'll be picking all of this up when we're done, because I am certainly not." Alfred says stiffly, procuring a pristine handkerchief out of thin air. One of those nice looking ones that are probably made of like, butterfly silk.
Danny almost smiles, but Alfred starts reaching for his face, so instead he suppresses a flinch. There's a pause, before Alfred's hand glides over his cheek. Despite the callous padding on his palm, his touch is resoundingly gentle.
He cups Danny's jaw, and starts wiping the blood from his face.
...Oh.
Danny blinks uncomprehendingly up at him. He hasn't felt an actual affectionate touch in months. Vlad tried to be, but every touch to Danny's skin felt oily; disgusting. Danny wanted to scrub at the spot every time he pulled away.
So this was like warm sunlight on his face, and he hums low and pleasantly. "Tha'feels nice." He mumbles, relaxing unconsciously.
"I would hope so, young man." Alfred-guy says, folding his already blood-stained handkerchief in half for a cleaner square and moving to clean the blood from his throat. "All this blood couldn't have felt pleasant."
No, no, Danny thinks slowly, not that part.
"May I ask for your name?" Alfred asks before Danny can correct him. "It's not every night that the young master brings someone back with him."
Danny stares. "Danny." He says, "Mnh... just Danny. M'godfath'r calls me Daniel, an' he poisoned me."
Alfred nods, and pulls his handkerchief away. It was stained right through with blood. Danny cringes with shame. That probably won't come out. "I wish we were meeting on better circumstances, Mister Danny. It's a pleasure to meet you."
His good midwestern manners kicks in, and Danny nods curtly. HIs head spins in revenge for the movement. "Y'too, sir."
Bat-Man reappears in that moment, clearing off a space on the table across from them with a kit of various bottles and vials and other doodads that Danny's too unfocused to recognize.
He watches him yank off the vambraces wrapped around his arms, and then the gloves on both his hands. Alfred brushes the hair off his forehead, gathering Danny's attention again.
"If you don't mind, how did you two meet?" He asks, Bat-Man glances over his shoulder at them both, but says nothing. There's a clattering of bottles before he bounds off again down a tunnel. Danny takes that as his sign to explain instead.
"All'y." Danny says, shifting when the pressure on his shoulder grew too uncomfortable. His stomach flips, and he freezes in place to breathe in slow. He swallows dryly when the nausea passes. "Um-- I w'z runnin' from Vlad, an' I saw him in one 'f the alleyways."
Bat-Man reappears again with more things, and starts messing around with his collection of bottles and tubes and whatever -- probably to fix an antidote.
...Would he even be able to make one? Fuck, Danny hadn't thought of that. Blood Blossoms interact with him differently.
He forcibly keeps his breathing even, and zeroes in on Alfred. "I thou' he was a hero, n' I was right. He is." He smiles, and Alfred's expression softens out.
Danny breathes in sharp, pain ricocheting up his spine. "He's-- mine, at least."
Nausea hits Danny like a steamboat. Or maybe a train. Or one of Skulker's punches to the gut -- either way, one moment he's laying on his side, half-conscious and trying to watch the Bat-Man putter about his little detox station as Alfred diligently kept Danny's sweat-soaked forehead dry and his face free of blood. Then the next, a sensation he can only describe as his stomach trying to wring itself inside out claws desperately through his gut.
In the way only the feeling of being about to vomit can bring, Danny has a moment of clarity, and he shoots up from the table as the back of his throat hollows open and he gags wordlessly. "Bucket." He retches, holding himself up on violently shaking arms as his vision begins to swim again. "B'cket, I n'd a buck't."
The man, Alfred, lurches off to the side, and Danny's not quite sure where but he manages to produce a tin bucket out from thin air. just in time for Danny to snag it from his hands and empty out the contents of his stomach into it.
(There was hardly anything in it but his own bile and what little food he'd eaten today -- he hasn't had an appetite since he found his family dead in their beds, silent and peaceful as if all they'd done was go to sleep.)
(He knows not every death is created equal, some are simply clumsy, but still, it just felt cruel--)
When he's done, the little smoothie from hell he left behind is tinged red, and there's the distinct taste of iron on his tongue. It coats the back of his throat, and for a moment, Danny simply stares uncomprehendingly at it.
"Oh," he mumbles, feeling only a little better as his nausea's hotflashing fades and takes with it what little clarity he had left. His grip weakens, and the bucket loosens in his grasp. "Tha's no good."
From the corner of his blurring eye, the Bat-Man stops what he's doing to turn and look at him. Danny can finally see the wide, shock-blue color of his eyes; they look alarmed.
It's okay, Danny thinks, instinctively trying to reassure. Blood-and-spit still coats his bottom lip, as cotton returns to blanket over his brain. His mouth refuses to move however, his jaw feeling too heavy to allow him to make a sound. Alfred takes the bucket from his hands, and only then does Danny realize his soft swaying.
He and the Bat-Man stare at each other, something akin to fear in the other man's eyes, before he breaks the prolonged eye contact and returns to his antidote-making with a renewed vigor.
Alfred comes back into view, and with a kind hand, pushes Danny to slowly lay back down on his side. Danny does so silently, his arms trembling terribly. Alfred's hand cups his cheek, protecting his head as Danny became more vertical, and Danny can't help but tilt his nose inwards and press into the meat of his palm.
His mind is all over the place, low rumbling pain is beginning to set back in again, but Alfred's hand is warm and Danny so desperately needs the gentle touch. It's been so, so long.
Despite making all of his own inventions, Vlad's hands were too soft, too well-maintained, and every saccharine hand he ever laid on Danny was too tight, too possessive, too much. Too thick; syrupy. it felt like a leash threatening to wrap around his throat and chain him to the floor. Danny wanted to carve his own skin out from his body whenever Vlad tried to touch him.
Alfred's hands were rough and callused like his parents' were; toughened from years of hard work and handling machinery. He noticed it before when he was cleaning the blood from his face, but he was noticing it again now, and it was like sleep to the insomnic. Or like a balm to heartburn.
It's okay, Danny thinks deliriously, the reassurance he wanted to give the Bat-Man earlier washing over him instead. It's okay, he breathes carefully, it's going to be okay. I'm going to be okay.
When Danny's finally laying fully back down, the hand on his cheek begins to pull away. The brief respite it gave to his muffled mind immediately combusts, his skin growing cold as his irrational peace crashes and burns at his feet.
His eyes -- since when had they been shut? -- shoot open.
No, no, no, wait, this is wrong.
An agonized whine slips past him, paining and hurting, terrified, and he latches out and leeches his hands around Alfred's wrist. "Don’t go.” Danny rasps, voice breaking in two. “Pl’se, ple’se, please. Don’t leave me. Pl’se don’ leave me.”
He claws at Alfred’s sleeve, trying to pull him closer with a low cry. Tears bubble and bleed onto his eyelashes, his core hums and he can feel the ectoplasm beneath his skin begin to buzz. No, no, no, he was doing so good. He was doing so, so good.
Like sharks smelling blood in the water, Danny can practically feel the blood blossom in his veins thicken. Behind his eyes, his mind conjures the image of a wolf lunging at an injured rabbit, and just as its glistening maw snaps down on the animal’s neck, agony ricochets through his lungs.
A sob beats out of his chest, and flowering pain burns through him like wildfire. Clawing maliciously, hungrily, through his nerves and sinew and bone, down to the keratin of his fingernails, and swallowing his head whole. Blood spills down his nose, and Danny cracks out another sob.
“Please!” He cries. He chokes on his lungs, and coughs violent and wet. Iron coats his tongue, and begins dripping into his mouth. Panic fills his head with static, the ectoplasm buzzes louder in his ears. Danny gags on blood.
He manages to latch his fingers onto Alfred’s shirt, scrabbling for the fabric even as the man swoops forward once again and wraps his arms around him. Danny’s propped up, and he pushes his face into the man’s collarbone with hysteric tears burning down his face.
“Don’— don’ leave me. Pl’ase, ple’se, pl’se.” He babbles, voice thickened in grief. Through his tears and blurring lashes, he peers up at Alfred, and catches the stern tightening around his eyes. Terror spins his head this way and that, and Danny’s grip tightens. No, no, no, he’s sorry, he’s sorry. He’ll be good.
More blood fills his mouth, and Danny’s everything is alight in stabbing, terrible agony as the blood blossom toxin devours him whole in renewed fervor. His fear feeds the ectoplasm, and in turn feeds the blood blossom. With another sob, blood spills down his chin and stains down his throat. He chokes, and tries throwing his head back — he’s going— he’s going to get blood on him.
Alfred’s hand stops him, “None of that, Mister Danny.” He orders, sounding deceptively calm as he pushes Danny back against his shoulder. Danny tries to fight against it, but his strength has all but been consumed by the poison, and so he acquiesces with a high whine. “We're not going anywhere.”
Fingers find their way through his hair in an attempt to soothe; it does nothing to stop his snowballing terror, but it distracts Danny from the second bubble of blood pooling up his throat. “M’sorry.” He gurgles. Blood sputters from his lips, and joins the rest dribbling down his chin.
His tears block out his vision. “M’sorry, m’sorry, m’sorry, m’sorry, m’sorry.”
He should’ve— he should’ve known better than to think he could find a way out of this. Blood blossom is blood blossom, and it’s been extinct in the living realm for centuries. But he just- he just wanted to get away, he wanted to hope. But they're not going to find him a cure, he’s going to die here and the blossom will destroy his core and he’ll cease to exist forever.
Another sob tears out from him, leaving its claw marks in his lungs as it verges on the edge of a shriek. “I’m sorry!” Danny wails, creating divots into Alfred’s shirt. “I don’ wanna go, please, I don’ wann’ go. I can b’ good, I prom'z'.”
Alfred’s grip on him tightens, and Danny barely hears the low growl vibrating out of his throat. “Master Bruce.”
“I’m almost done.”
He shouldn’t have bothered these people with his problems, he should’ve just— just found an alleyway to die in. Somewhere away from everyone else— but he didn’t, he had to be fucking hopeful. And now he was going to die here in front of people who didn’t deserve to watch—
“I’ve got it.”
Danny’s vision dots and blacks as Alfred suddenly moves him, and his hands scrabble for him as he starts to pull away. “No no no—” He slurs, more blood spitting from his lips. Don’t leave him alone, please.
The Bat-Man appears to take him instead, a vortex mass of black that sweeps an arm behind his back and pulls him back close. Danny’s fingers, shaking, weak, aching, latch desperately onto what of his cape he can reach. “Don’ wanna die.” He cries, burrowing into Bat-Man’s shoulder. He’s scared, he’s so scared.
A new hand cradles the back of his neck, and Bat-Man’s voice rumbles low like an incoming storm. “You’re not going to.”
There’s a prick in Danny’s arm, cutting through the dying haze of his mind. He nearly misses it, it’s nearly drowned out by the prickling, burning pain consuming him, but he feels it for a brief, singular moment.
Relief sludges through him seconds after, dousing water over his bones and tissue and chasing away the blossom’s ravenous hunger. It spreads through his arm; down to his fingers and up to his shoulder, following along his collarbone and out to weave through his ribs and lungs and heart.
He did it. Danny thinks deliriously, feeling his lungs and sinew attempting to stitch themselves back together as the injection stifles the poison and spreads down to his legs. He barks out a laugh — it hurts, and he regrets it within seconds, but not enough as he probably should. He did it, he did it, he did it.
The Bat-Man carefully pulls the syringe out, and only now does Danny register the old-familiar sting of needle piercing skin. And when it’s placed at Danny’s feet, the Bat-Man raises his hand again and carefully presses his hand — rough and calloused more than Alfred’s — to his jaw. Danny freezes, silent as a mouse, and lets the man tilt his head and press his fingers to his pulse, before using what strength he’s got left in his arms to fling them around Bat-Man’s neck.
The Bat-Man makes a startled grunt, and Danny tries to say something, but it comes out slurred and incomprehensible even to his own ears. So Danny just pushes his face into Bat-Man’s shoulder, smearing blood against the armor weave. He’s too exhausted and happy to feel bad, and he’s shaking so much that it’s only because the Bat-Man tentatively wraps his arms around him in return that he doesn’t collapse.
'Thank you, thank you, thank you.' Is what he wants to say, but he can't find the strength in his tongue to move it. He ends up choking on some sort of half-there sob, hoping that this alone can properly convey the sheer gratitude he feels. The arms around him tighten minutely.
---------------------
Bruce only loosens his hold when Danny's gone completely limp against his chest, and it's only so that he can shift the boy's weight onto one of his arms in order to check for his pulse again. His hand stays remarkably still despite the bone-deep trembling he can feel in his arms, and only when he feels the arrhythmic fluttering of a heartbeat against his skin does Bruce breathe out.
"He's alive." He murmurs, if only for the reassurance to himself. He was alive. Daniel was alive, for now. "Just unconscious." It was hard to say he looked alive. Danny became, somehow, even paler than when Bruce first laid eyes on him, and the blood soaking down his front didn't leave the mind to wander beyond the image of a corpse.
Bruce feels for a heartbeat again, just to be sure.
(He doesn't think he'll ever be able to wipe the image of Daniel wringing out a slur of apologies, thick red blood bubbling out of his mouth as he was actively dying, out of his mind. His hysteric sobs will haunt Bruce's dreams hand-in-hand with the rest of his nightmares. If he'd been a few minutes too late...)
Alfred makes a curt sound, dragging Bruce from an oncoming spiral, and appears with a new handkerchief -- from where, he wasn't sure. "I'm not surprised he passed out." He mutters matter-of-factly, rounding around the table to Bruce and Danny's side. "Simply surprised by how long it took."
"Hn." Bruce plucks the handkerchief from Alfred's hand before he can clean Daniel's face, and begins doing it himself. They'll need to run some kind of DNA scan to figure out his identity, he hadn't given a last name. A blood test too. Danny said his godfather used blood blossom, an extinct flower, to poison him. Bruce wasn't sure if it was true, or just the delirious hallucination of a child trying to survive.
(And if it was true, then there was no telling whether the poison would have any long term effects on the boy. He'd been somewhat stable the entire time -- barring his rapid deterioration at the start when he heard the sound of his godfather's voice -- so his sudden, abrupt, decline had been both alarming and terrifying.)
Alfred arches an eyebrow at him, and plucks the syringe off the table to dispose of it. "May I ask what your next plan is, Master Bruce?" He asks anyways, expertly dismantling the syringe's needle and throwing it in the sharps container nearby. "I hope you don't plan on sending him on his merry way when he wakes up."
Bruce jerks, "What?" He looks up at Alfred, pausing from cleaning Danny's face to stare at him, quietly balking. He hasn't thought of what he was going to do yet, but that hadn't even crossed his mind. "No, I'm not." Not when he wasn't sure what the aftereffects of the poison were like. Not when the only person Danny could go to was his godfather -- the very man who poisoned him.
(And the mere reminder of it forces something hot and dark and angry to bubble underneath his skin, like a dark shadow skimming the surface of the water.)
No, no. Sending Daniel out when he woke up wasn't an option. Bruce would never sleep again if he chose that. But, then-- well, what was? He couldn't keep him in the cave; Bruce spares one glance around the decrepit, abandoned train station, and doesn't even need to consider it.
But the only other option he could safely think of -- one where Daniel would be left undisturbed and unfound by the rest of the world, somewhere no one would think to look, -- was the Manor. Except, if he took him to the manor, how would he explain how he got there? Any and all excuses led to tying Bruce Wayne to Batman.
He looks down at Daniel. Most of the blood has been soaked in by the handkerchief, if he tried cleaning off anymore all he would be doing is smear it around. With the blood no longer being the sole point of his attention, he could finally take in the rest of the child's face.
There really wasn't much to look at beyond, well, just how young he was. Baby fat still clung around his cheeks, and blood was soaked on the dark hair curling at the nape of his neck. Bruce hadn't noticed it earlier, too distracted with trying to do something to save him, but Daniel was as light as a feather. Lighter than he ought to be. Picking up his arm, Bruce silently wraps his fingers around his wrist, and presses his lips together when his fingers touch and then some.
Was he really going to prioritize his secret identity over the safety of a kid?
"Well?" Alfred's voice breaks through the thoughts in Bruce's head, and he snaps his eyes back up to the man who raised him. Alfred's brow is perfectly arched, and he stares at Bruce expectantly, awaiting an answer. "What is your next step, Master Bruce?"
Reblogging to let people who may be perusing the reblogs: this is now available on my ao3! It's titled "late at night, when the nightingale sings" and the first chapter starts with this thread. I just posted the second chapter, like, five minutes ago.
Metahuman with super healing powers whose entire job is that once a week they go to a nearby hospital and are put into a medically induced coma for 24 hours while all their organs and blood are harvested, and kept there until they've healed up again.
They get paid a small stipend by the Heroes Council for this, and they live off that.
No crime fighting, no obvious heroics, and they only took a Super Identity because it's technically hero's council policy. Nobody's ever seen them in a cape.
Every so often the Heroes council will release an official report to the public, and there'll be another bunch of news articles wondering how some unknown super calling themselves 'Meat Factory' somehow consistently holds the record for most lives saved across the city.
It is essential to my vision that they are not at all sanctimonious about this.
Like, they regularly act like they're getting away with something. They joke about how they get to earn money in their sleep. They show up to their hospital visits in deliberately ridiculous disguises, on the excuse that they need to 'protect their identity'.
Part of their employment contract is that they get served the same post-operation vanilla ice cream that they normally hand out on the childrens' ward. Also a sticker. Their overnight bag is covered in stickers.
Okay, Meat Factory is awesome and hilarious, but if they're being harvested for and regenerating absolutely everything, may I suggest an alternative super name: Theseus.
in modern day it's very easy to look at batman and be like "WHAT was this guy doing. Insane choice. You do NOT have to fight crime this way" but then you learn literally anything about the US in 1900-1939 and you're like "oh a batman terrifying people would have actually for real improved the situation"
"what did batman do to improve Gotham in ANY WAY that Bruce Wayne couldn't"
Batman is breaking into your landlord's house and promising they would be seeing Batman EVERY NIGHT until they got running water in the apartment building, there are literal plague rats running around
Batman is solving crimes the police ignore due to sexism and racism, finding the perpetrators, and dangling them off a roof, promising if they ever do that again, he will also dangle them off a roof again
Batman is breaking into mafioso bedrooms, tying them up, gluing 500 individual feathers onto them, then taking pictures and sending them to every big newspaper chain in the country to remind people that the ones they're afraid of are still only men
Then he finds police officers on the take and glues feathers to all their uniforms so they can't walk around without everyone knowing they are also associated with the chicken mafia, what a loser.
He is seeing violent crime happen on the streets and swooping in to get in the way as it is happening. Extortion, assault, murders-- get good, assholes, your crime is witnessed and you have been punched in the face, AND he's going to tip off the police commissioner who last year started listening. He is blowing up a mobster weapons depot so they have fewer guns on the street.
Bruce Wayne can help when the system is working. And Batman gets to work when the system does not.
More (Self-indulgent) facts of The Lady and the Wulf
Lady Gotham doesn't actually know her own city very well or the people living in it. She only paid attention to people who pay attention to her. For example, she knows a lot about the Waynes across generations because they actively work to improve the city and care about it. On the other hand, Joker, who never thinks of Gotham as anything other than a personal playground, wasn't someone she recognized and genuinely thought was a demon. Much like how people say the more you acknowledge a ghost, the longer it sticks, the more people loved Gotham City, the more Lady Gotham knew about them.
Wulf has a fear of animal control. He once saw thier truck driving down the street and took off like he was in a horror movie chase scene. It triggered a stampede because people from Crime Alley assumed someone randomly breaking into a run meant either a shooting or a cop raid. A lot of them learn not to ask why they are running, especially when a man Wulf's size does it. He also hates cops but doesn't flee at the sight of them; he just scoffs and glares at them mistrustfully.
Lady Gotham is often asked for her photo by Gotham tourists who think she's a cosplayer or street performer. They like to pose with her, or have her pose against one of Gotham's iconic Gothic-style buildings. The locals know she's one of the homeless populace, but they understand the tourists' excitement. She's very attractive if you can look past her... unique personality.
Wulf's wanderlust takes him on a lot of side quests. Since he's so charismatic, he often convinces people to teach him random skills while on said side quests. It's a patchwork of abilities that can be useful- he knows how to make soap and some basic car maintenance- and some that aren't -He knows how to make perfect owl hoots and can tell how bad a storm is based on knee pain.
Lady Gotham once got into a rap battle with a middle school kid. She didn't know it, because rapping is an actual language in the Infinite Realms, descending from Sirins who sing every word they say; it's the modern slang, and she had assumed they were having a normal conversation that turned rude midway. She lost, but put up a worthy fight against the worst thing to a person's self-esteem: a thirteen-year-old child.
Wulf enjoys finding food trucks or small, struggling family-owned restaurants to eat at. He thinks the food tastes more authentic and often better there than at big-name places. He goes feral for street vendors and will follow people to thier car if they claim they're selling food from the trunk. It's how he found the best tamale maker in the city. He often pays with favors or charms people into giving him free meals, since he's flat broke.
Lady Gotham has had favorite humans throughout Gotham's history. The list includes Martha Wayne, Tim Drake, James Gordon, Jason Bard, Leslie Thompson, Vicki Vale, Anthony Wayne, and Solomon Wayne. Her reasoning? These people loved the city and were entertaining to watch. Most were based on vibes, though. Thomas Wayne is an honorable mention because she knew a lot about him despite not liking whatever the hell was wrong with him. It was against her will to know Thomas Wayne.
Wulf hates his new dulled senses. He mainly used scent, but his hearing, his sight, and even his taste have gone down since he was made fully human. He gets frustrated when he can't see or hear as well as he used to. He often tries to force himself into a heightened state and ends up looking odd, pressing himself against a wall to hear sounds inside a building or running into things a lot because the lighting is too low, but he's too stubborn to ask for a flashlight. He tells many, many, many people that he's a wolf on the inside.
Lady Gotham breaks into many places because her favorite humans often did, and she assumes it's a requirement for being among the best. She understands that breaking and entering is a crime but thinks it's like taking a right turn on red. It's allowed, even though people say it's not officially. She mostly does it for hygiene purposes, like taking showers and washing laundry, but occasionally she'll do it to see what someone's decorations look like. If she doesn't like the layout, she'll rearrange furniture and leave before the homeowners get back. It unnerves a lot of people despite no theft or property damage being done to thier home.
Wulf gets along with almost all the street kids, knows them by name (or the nicknames they go by), and is the first to notice if one vanishes. He may have lesser senses, but he's one heck of a tracker and can figure out the last known place the kids were when they disappear. Because of this, Wulf becomes one of Red Hood's best informants, especially after Wulf informed him he would kill anyone he found mistreating kids. Jason can tell he means it and respects the hell out of Wulf for it. Bruce still thinks they are old classmates from the monks and is worried that Wulf will go through on his promise.
I can always rely on you being online for at least 10 minutes at 3am, so ima send this now when I know you're on or were on.
Danny was one of the people who worked on the Watchtower, and as it is a Space station for Heroes, and something he helped build over months, and he is one of the repairmen who work on it, thus he spends a lot of time there, it is practically an extension of his haunt. This is completely fine until a magic user decides to bring up "why are you using the haunt of a very powerful realms spirit as a base" because being in their haunt without permission could be very bad, meanwhile Danny is literally there, over in the lunch room/cafeteria, the one with floor to ceiling windows and a skylight pointed at the stars, very much happy to have both his obsessions satisfied at once.
If you want crack, he included a small compartment between 2 walls where he has made a room. That's why almost no one ever sees him leave, that is his home, it is his haunt. You can't make him leave even if you think you can.
I'm like 60% sure this was an @nerdpoe drabble at some point.
....
But Constantine isn't going to freak out. He gave the devil the middle finger multiple times. He's not telling anyone until he assessed the situation either because he knows the non magical heroes wouldn't be chill about this if they knew and end up pissing the being off.
So he calmly tracks down the being who's living as a human, determines he's harmless and leaves him alone. It's always good to be on the good side of a protection spirit.
So Danny ends up in Gotham, how is up to u, but he is put in the same class as Damian.
Now Gotham is weird. Amity Park is weird to. But they r two different kinds of weird. Like Amity park is the “oh ur a bit weird, cool, so is everyone” kinda weird where Gotham is the “wait ur weird?? Fuck ur gonna be a rogue ain’t u?? Get tf away from me. Go have ur villain origin story over there” kinda weird.
So Danny can’t really make any friends bc he’s weird weird. Tho he’s not the only one in his class with this problem. The other guy, Damian Wayne, mainly sticks to himself and seems to be the only sane person in this school. Well, to Danny at least. This made Danny want to befriend him. Even if only to not be alone in his suffering. More than that Danny can feel the traces of ectoplasm on him! Even more reason for him to be friend shaped.
The problem is Damian seems to be in denial about his friend shapeness. Well to bad for him if Danny is one thing it’s stubborn. But dammit Damian seems to be a new level of stubborn. Nothing Danny does works!! It’s almost like this kid is from a different world or at least a different time!! Before he gives up however he has one last attempt. All or nothing!!
So he spends an inter week annoying the fuck outta Damian!! Looks it’s not a smart plan but it is a desperate one. It is also a plan that works a bit better than expected!!
He started his plan on Monday and it took til Friday for Damian to crack. After a full day of maximum annoyance Danny started following Damian home. They made it several blocks before Damian dragged him into a nearby alley and started swinging.
Now this Danny understood!!!
The universal language of ghost, Violence!!!
So the two beat the shit out of each other and r pretty evenly matched. Both of them r on even levels when it comes to speed and battle awareness and while Damian is definitely the better trained Danny is stronger and more durable. Needless to say the fight goes on for awhile.
A few hours later Damian and Danny shuffle into Wayne manor looking like they lost a fight with a wood chipper and when Bruce goes to ask what happen Danny just smiles and goes- We’re friends now 
Bruce would be deeply concerned. Does Danny have a stab wound? Why is Damian limping? What happened? Did you get attacked and fight together to defend yourselves?
Of course, that is the logical conclusion. Sorry Bruce they just beat the shit outta each other. It's fine. They besties now. And they will absolutely make your hair Grey by fighting like that often. Yes, Danny can just shrug off a stab wound. Don't worry about.
Now when Damian is in the mood to stab, he calls Danny for "their favorite bonding activity"
Tim heard
Tim saw them "play"
He knows
Not the rest of the family who are still in their happy little cloud that Damian has finally made a friend, and a "normal" civilian child.
And Tim won't tell them!!!! He tries to bribe Danny to make sure he sticks around. Since he came into their lives Damian hasn't attacked him once! (he continues to say contemptuous things to him but even his is less mean and cruel)
Anyway Tim LOVES Danny
....
He is less happy when Danny offers an actual phosphorescent dagger for Damian's birthday
Tim Wants to know why this worked. Danny is not very good at explaining. And it is slowly driving him bonkers. Especially with the casual trauma bombs only he and Damian are given. Why does Danny manage to avoid horrifying the rest of the family?
Tim is holding this knowledge until the day the veil drops for the rest of them. So he can carefully lay out his entire conspiracy board. Look, he has theories. And he needs the format to properly collate the information.
Also, Danny is happy to play mad science? It's pretty damn great. Sure Damian gets annoyed. But somehow Danny can always calm him down. It honestly looks like a weird empathic connection. Which... Huh, new note for the board then...
Hmm. He has a question to ask...
Tim: Danny, if I attack Damian back will he like me more?
Danny: Wait, have you been ignoring his attempts to bond! Dude!
Tim: Right. Ok. So you know how normal people don't do that?
Danny: They don't? All my friends and family do?
Tim: I have so many questions. And I know any answers I get will spawn more...
Danny: Do you wanna fight about it?
Tim: Fuck it. Sure.
Damian wanders in and is SO infuriated! How dare Tim fight with his friend when he won't face him!
Danny just nods his head at Damian's face to Tim who sees and thinks 'huh'
Tim: Damian, do you wish to spar?
Damian: Fine!
Danny sits to the side cheering them both on. No Tim, don't hold back that's rude! Damian, no lethal moves, he can't survive that!
#okay but consider: every bat has noticed that danny is Fucked Up but all of them think no one else knows#like they're all just sitting around Not Talking About It bc they think the others haven't cottoned on#meanwhile danny thinks none of them know anything (bc in amity his weirdness just. never really registered to ppl)#so it's just everybody going I Have Secret Knowledge when actually none of them do
Ah, the liminal desire to Throw Down.
I think this all started as an exchange program and the schools were set to meet up once it ended. Lester, Dash and Star are the other participants from Amity. Danny stopped hiding his vibes midway through Sophomore year, but no one has noticed how off the others are because they're somewhat masked by Danny’s weirdness.
The coordinators insist that the meeting happen in Amity instead of Ghotham because of Gotham's Rogues and because they think Amity is a nice, normal town.
The bus stops and Gotham Academy is greeted by this Solarpunk/Scifi small town. Star immediately Dodges a puch to the face from a very pretty girl with patches of baby pink scales and they immediately start to share gossip while brawling. Dash is tackled by 7 identical boys which poof into mist once he starts to noogie the one he has one in a headlock. Lester is attacked by a robot and pulls out a device so he can hack it while dodging, as the the rest of the robotics club cheerfully taunts.
Danny ducks out of the way of a lazerblast, pulls Damien from the path of a mini sandstorm and is hoisted into the air by a vine wrapped around his ankle. He bursts out laughing and twists to introduce Damian to his best friends and girlfriend.
A shell-shocked Gotham exchange student looks at their teacher with orange eyes and calmly states they all have fangs. Their long, fluffy ears flick in distress.
Tim has somehow finangled his way to the role of chaperone despite being only 20 and a maximum of 5 years older than the students.
He absolutely flips out when he sees a café serving Lazarus Water smoothies. The barista refuses to sell ecto to outsiders, but he manages to swipe one anyway.
After commandeering a high-school lab to analyze the sample, he excitedly calls Jason to say he's made a break through regarding pit madness.
Jason is currently 3 blocks down with a drink holder from the café. As the monologue continues, he makes it to his girlfriend's table and passes out the Blob Ghost Boba to their friends.
He waits for Tim's rant to die down and invites him to meet Jazz.
Jason ended up in Amity during his last road trip to blow off steam. Jazz was home for Dia de los Muertos and they really hit it off. He fell head over heels for the Amazon-like redhead and the necropolis she called home.
Gotham will always be his home,but he loves Amity. Who knew the most welcoming place he'd ever find was a town where a uppercut was a friendly greeting.
Living among other liminals has done wonders for his misplaced aggression, and he's even found a doctor to help with his new metabiology.
Leslie's clinic is still his go to for patrol injuries, but Glacier Horn is his new general practitioner.
Because Jazz needs friends, and I saw it in someone else's headcanons ages ago, Tim is introduced to Philip "Spike" Wilkins and his boyfriend Kyle Weston once he returns to the café.
His attempts at interrogation go poorly. Kyle is so oblivious he somehow missed growing a forked tongue. While he has heard of the Justice League, Kyle is firmly convinced its an ARG. Spike, on the other hand, is impressively indifferent. He didn't even bat an eye at the pack of Casper High students hunting playing with the visiting Gothamites.
The only thing that makes him react is when Tim jokes about no one in his family going to therapy. At which point Spike puffs up like a porcupine, complete with quills growing out his back and shoulders.
Apparently, mental health is just as important to a liminal's wellbeing as physical health. Spike is planning on becoming a doctor for liminals. The yeti are wonderful, but they have a tendency to stick out whenever they leave Amity.
Meanwhile, Damien has been greatly enjoying Amity's culture and hospitality. As his classmates grow even more tense at the craziness, Damian's perpetual scowl has been relpaced by a cheerful smile. He's especially starstruck by Valerie.
Damien and class come back slightly traumatized but not too much. But when Damien comes home with a smile on his face the rest of the batclan are extremely worried but are too scared to ask.
Damien: father I wish to visit to amity again
Bruce: hnn
Damien: They are not bad influences father
Bruce: hmm
Damien: I am simply following thier culture and displaying reasonable amount of respect to them!
"Oh B! It was great for him! He is so much more relaxed! It's a really nice town, if a bit fighty!"
Bruce. .. "Fighty?"
Tim: Yup the whole town got irradiated a while back and slowly mutated. So, they are pretty much all ' liminal' as they call it. Very uh, strong instincts.
Dick: What sort of incstincts?
Tim: They fight as play and bonding. All the time. I've never been on the receiving end of so many brawls...
Damian: Yes. I was able to push my skills to their fullest. They do not even mind if I use a sword as they all have enhanced healing.
Tim: what part of EVERYONE do you not understand? I've seen barfights less brutal than the adult book club discussing Edgar Allen Poe
Dick: heh, sounds like something Jaybird would enjoy
Tim: He did
Dick: what
Tim: Jay's pretty much a regular in town. He goes to visit his girlfriend every time he's completely off-grid here. I'm not sure what started the fistfight, something about an orangutan?
Tim: Like, 98% of the town have the same adaptation. They are all like that. Hell the teacher will just throw the squabbling kids out of class and carry on!
Damian: Mr Lancer was the one fighting Todd at the adult book meet. For a literature teacher he fights very well.
Bruce: How did we miss this?
Tim: Ok, so you know the Anti Ecto Acts that got shut down after the incidents of extreme money and property loss?'
Bruce: Hm?
Tim: So. Liminals are ectoplasmic humans. So the government was hiding them to do human tests... They fought back and won. So it was still under the radar. Cause the government doesn't want to admit they did what they did...
Dick: And Jay is dating one of them?
Damian: Jazmine is a fine choice of partner. She should have chosen herself a better partner. But she is worthy of marrying into the family.
Tim: She put Jay in a head lock when he was rude to me! Then proceeded to pin him to the floor and make him say sorry!
Resurrecting this because I want to talk about the Gothamites who ended up in Amity
Can you imagine how stressful those months are?
For someone who's not at all a liminal, its like attending high-school at at Arkham.
Complete with having Rogues as classmates.
Especially Sam, aka Ivy 2.0.
Luckily the Parkers weren't trying to be intimidating. After all, liminality was still a pretty recent development and they all remembered how overwhelming everything was at first.
Still, there weren't any options in the school cafeteria without even a trace of ectoplasm, and the exchange student were so certain that their lives were at stake that liminal mutations set in fairly quickly.
They didn't have any issues during the week their classmates joined them because everyone is was busy dealing with the bizarrely cheerful war zone of Amity.
Returning to Gotham was another story.
The neon colors imparted by ectoplasm were a literal glowing sign that said "these kids are meta."
If you thought Danny had trouble blending in, there is nothing these four wanted more than to have his invisibility.
Especially the Fox-eared Gothamite, Linda.
The poor girl was quite the wallflower before the trip, and hated being cetera of attention. got a dresscode exemption to cover her ears afterwards.
it didn't help much due to the speed of gossip at GA, but it was enough that the goons didn't immediately recognize her as one of the Meta exchange students during a routine hostage situation.
Any Parker can tell you that fight or flight gets a bit twisted for liminals, especially with the intensity of their emotions, so adding fear gas to the mix of adrenaline and hormones was a Bad Idea.
The gas didn't even do much but Linda was so angry and stressed that she-
-CRACK-
and that's the story of how Linda broke Scarecrow's jaw.
At least half of the kids that became Liminal asked to finish out school in Amity park after a few days back in Gotham. It just didn't feel right there any more. Plus, with how much of a target Linda painted on her back by laying Scarecrow out? Her parents needed to get her somewhere safe. Amity Park for all its madness? Was the safest place for her. And they could get better jobs there too.
after Jason reveals his identity as the Red Hood i like to think about the kids begging for Jason to hang out with them and rejoin the family and that but Jason’s being a little bitch about it so when Dick asks for his phone number he just throws an ouija board at him and says ‘i’ll sense it’
issue is that while slightly drunk and sad that his brother hates him, Dick decided to try it out, and Damian watching him through a crack in the door thought it would be funny to text Jason (because he actually does have his league bro’s number) about it so that Jason could maybe mention it the next time they see each other on patrol to freak Dick out, except Jason was working not too far from the manor at the time and he thought it would be even funnier to swing by, slam up against the window and scream through the glass ‘STOP FUCKING DRUNK TEXTING ME’ and absolutely scares the shit out of Dick. so now Dick thinks that ouija boards actually work on Jason because he’s still part ghost and Jason and Damian are scrambling to try and keep up the ruse because of how funny it is.
yousharknotpass
origamiaround
pixelskylines
ellievsbear
