Jasmine Fenton had never really gotten used to silence. Not the good kind at least, the peaceful calm silence that settled over Amity Park between ghost attacks, but the heavy, suffocating kind that pressed in on all sides, as if even the air itself were waiting to see what sheād do next.
Her apartment in Gotham was too quiet.
And it wasnāt supposed to be. Danny should have been here by now, tripping over his duffel bag, making some dumb joke to break the tension, asking if the landlord would notice if he installed an ecto-filter in the kitchen sink. She had a grocery list written on the counter in his handwriting. His toothbrush was already in the guest bathroom.
Heād been days away from moving in when the Guys in White found him.
Jazz had replayed the moment in her head a thousand times. The static-filled phone call from Tucker, Samās voice breaking in the background, and thenā¦ nothing. The GIW had taken him. Her parents in their eternal blindness had handed him over. As if he were just a test subject. As if he werenāt their son.
Her knuckles whitened around the chipped mug she was holding. The coffee had gone cold hours ago, but she couldnāt bring herself to let go, not when it was the only thing grounding her in the moment.
Sheād spent hours trying to think rationally, trying to find an angle to save Danny. But the Guys in White were government-sanctioned; she couldnāt appeal to the law. Every trail Tucker tried to follow ended in firewalls thicker than anything heād ever seen. Sam had almost been caught twice trying to gather physical intel and Jazzā¦ Jazz had go after every crumb that showed the minimal chance of bringing him back.. Every friend, every contact. Every desperate, useless idea.
She hadnāt meant to look at the TV. It had justā¦ been there. White noise in the background. Another pointless news about Gothamās elite. Charity galas, scandals and the golden billionaire family that somehow managed to stay mostly intact.
Wayne Enterprises was unveiling something at a hospital fundraiser when the camera panned across the family. Bruce Wayne, stoic and reserved, Dick Grayson with that impossible charm; Tim Drake standing a little too close to champagne tower and beside themā¦
The boy next to Bruce was scowling, arms crossed, chin tilted upward in a familiar defiance. His green eyes glinted sharply under the camera lights. The resemblance hit her like a physical blow.
It was Danny. Butā¦ no. Not Danny.
Her mind stuttered, caught between recognition and disbelief. The boy looked sharper around the edges, but that face. Those eyes. The same haunted irises sheād seen looking back at her across a dozen childhood photos.
And then it clicked. Damian.
The twin brother Danny talked non-stop when he was adopted.
She remembered the stories Danny had told her when it was just the two of them, about the old life he'd been told to forget, a life he'd never get back because he'd failed, because he hadn't been strong enough. The stories about his brother, a brother he'd never get the chance to see again, but she could hear in his words how much he loved him and how much the distance hurt him.
Jazz also remembered a particular story, whispered in the night, about how they were called, in a literal translation of the words, Sons of the Bat.
And if the boy on the screen with her brother's face was standing beside Bruce Wayneā¦
Jazz stared at the TV until her pulse steadied into something sharp and certain.
And Batman was Dannyās father.
The mug slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor.
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