imagine danny got caught in the dcu for whatever reason--dealer's choice (botched summoning, escape after bad reveal, natural portal, etc). bonus points if it's gotham.
he does some research (if it's a different dimension) and discovers metahumans (wow! random people can just have powers now??)
he decides he can't tell anyone he's a ghost for whatever reason, and instead has to choose a power. he settles on intangibility because it would help in self-defense purposes (gotham strikes again).
he's gotten used to using his powers freely, though, and maybe a Bat sees him fly. his excuse? "i'm a meta and i can become intangible. that includes intangibility to gravity."
he uses this excuse for as many powers as possible. invisibility? intangibility to light waves. portal-making (if applicable)? intangibility to the fabric of reality. seeing/sensing ghosts? intangibility to the boundaries between life and death.
he just keeps using wilder and wilder explanations, and when anyone asks how the hell that works, he just shrugs and says "i have intangibility and everything else is just an extension. doesn't have to make sense to you."
maybe he ends up on the justice league's radar for some random meta that could probably go toe-to-toe with most of the league's heavy-hitters.
maybe at that point, constantine, zatanna, or deadman figures out he's a ghost and danny finally gives a list go his actual powers. or maybe he just never does!
Of course, this place has single bed rooms. At least he has some privacy. But why is it so big and empty? His room is as big as the lab at home. He could build his own gadgets if he wanted... there must be a scrap yard somewhere in the city.
Apparently, it's unusual to dress normally or for students to leave at all. Four different people thought he was an intruder. But Horace did take a break from mopping to give him directions. Never mind that he seemed to be mopping up rubble, when clearly you are supposed to use a broom or vacuum, come on, that's lab cleanup 101. In his defense, Horace didn't look act or sound like a janitor. He seemed more like a guard dog with extra jobs... and a rubber mask. Come to think of it, practically everyone here wore a mask. Most of which barely covered their faces. Is it too hard to change your skin hair and eye colors slightly and put on a completely different personality? Now that's how you hide in plain sight.
Of corse, this big fancy town would have a salvage store instead of a yard. Back home, no one charged you to recycle. He did get some choice pieces, however. It's just like his parents taught him, look for whatever looks the most like junk. Chances are no one's examined it properly.
He also went to a local hardware store. The store clerk gave him weird looks at the registe. Thanks to Vlads lack of information, he hadn't brought any basic tools, so he had to buy 6 different sets. He probably looked like an amateur way over his head for a project or hobby.
The taxi driver gave him funny looks, too. He probably doesn't get asked to drop people off at the ocean.
Wait.
How's he supposed to get to the island? For that matter, how did he get off the island? It's way in the middle of, not even a harbor, it's off the coast of Jump City.
It looks like a regular tower from this angle.
Exept, he could have sworn it was purple, not blue.
Danny's found a way to dodge GIW trackers, as well as his parents.
Their equipment hunts ghosts, ghosts run on emotion; so as long as he keeps his under a tight lid and doesn't feel anything ever, they won't be able to track him.
It works!
He's able to run from them, and goes as far as New Jersey. The plan was to stow away on a ship, and go to literally any country that wasn't America. He goes to Gotham, which hosts the one harbor he knows where no one will ask any questions.
But because of how weird he acted (completely emotionless during a Joker attack), he was fingered by police immediately.
He's handed over to CPP. CPP doesn't know what to do with a teen literally so traumatized that they don't show any emotion at all, ever. He keeps just...walking out of his placements. Just leaves without a sound.
Luckily, he's always caught, due to those placement houses having quiet alarms and him refusing to run.
They call the one foster parent they know who does.
Bruce Wayne takes in the strange, nameless kid who refuses to talk.
On paper, they gave him the filler name of 'John Doe', for lack of anything better to do.
Bruce does everything he can to make the newest arrival feel at home. Damian, for as territorial as he is, actually breaks out of his shell sooner than expected just to try to get the new kid to speak. To emote. To do something. Duke tries the open approach, then tries the 'no one will ever know, everyone thinks I'm an innocent goody-two-shoes' approach. Nada.
Tim even tries to trick him into talking, but nothing works.
Enter Dick; Dick heard about Bruce's new ward, about the situation, and decided to see if he could get the kid to open up.
Danny though. Danny's in trouble.
The Wayne Manor is weirdly secure, and he can't just walk away like he did his other placements. He can't use ghost powers or the GIW and his parents will immediately know where he is.
He really, really wants to take Bruce up on his offer and just spend the day relaxing. Respond to Damian's attempts to provoke him. Overshare about space facts with Tim.
But most of all, he really, desperately wants to get in a Pun Competition with Dick. He wants to laugh at Dick's jokes, and learn coolass gymnastic tricks!
But he can't!
If he relaxes with Bruce, he'll be content, which is an emotion. If he argues with Damian, he'll get annoyed, which is an emotion. If he sneaks out with Duke and breaks the rules, he'll get happy, which, again, emotion. If he overshares with Tim, he'll get excited, which is, yet again, an emotion!
The worst sin of all, he can't even show proper appreciation of the food the Butler keeps making him!
And now there's even more people coming over!
There's a quiet girl who keeps reading his body language and trying to get him to dance ballet, a blonde girl who keeps trying to kidnap him to take him to BatBurger, a guy with a stripe of white who wants to take him to a shooting range, and it just...he really, really wants to!
The Waynes are a multi-millionaire family who own an international company….
Now imagine that for some reason a member of the family has a mandatory trip abroad (check some offices, go to a gala, investigate something like civilians, etc.) and you decide that perhaps a tourist trip with new experiences can help your family. new brother, so they take him…
Danny doesn't know where they are going, only that they leave on a private jet….
Now imagine the bats that accompany him seeing how an emotional switch turns on in his little brother the moment he knows they are in another country…
They test this theory out a few times. Like any respectable bat, they can't go off the statistics of just a one time thing.
...
Tim has the brilliant idea of pushing and pulling Danny in and out of the American border. Danny's emotions turn on and off like a fucking light switch and Tim feels vindicated. He TOLD the others it would work.
-
Alternatively, meta collars block the ghost signals. Doesn't affect danny negatively but like maybe limits his powers a bit. The Wayne's figure this out. Somehow.
One of the bats had the theory that the lack of emotion came from a meta-gene activating during the Joker attack and decided to try the meta collars (All the lab results were inconclusive so who's to say that isn't a probability?), just in case, they needed to try everything.
Danny feels like he's ecto-signal is being blocked by the meta collar and risks letting go of his emotions, just a bit, to test it's limits, but the collar doesn't block much, and is easier to just don't feel at all than trying to control how much he feels. So the bats get to see Danny's face gain some emotion (nervousness? Anxiety? Hope? Fear?) for a fraction of a second before he goes completely emotionless once more.
- Theory one: The meta-collar isn't strong enough somehow, let's try with one more powerful. -> Danny doesn't want to risk it again, so he stays emotionless.
- Theory two: Since Danny doesn't react with stronger meta-blockers, then something about the meta-collar gave Danny an emotion strong enough to come through for a second. Maybe it brought memories of something... something before the Joker attack? Was... Was Danny a victim of meta trafficking? Did they just re-traumatize their new little brother multiple times?
Duke feels especially guilty about this because as a meta, "he should have known better". The bats are not as eager to keep experimenting after that, but Danny continues to be emotionless, so eventually they have to try something else, right?
There’s a plate in front of him that he didn’t put there. It’s good food—eggs and pre-cut slices of ham and, ugh, toast—
Danny clamps down on his automatic reaction. Nope. Suppress it. Toast is—fine. He can’t afford to hate it right now. It's fine. He'll choke it down.
He can’t afford to feel anything— Not anymore.
The chair across from him scrapes against the hardwood floor. Someone’s joined him at the table for early breakfast. “Morning, John!” they greets him cheerily. Danny refuses to look up.
…He think the voice is probably Duke’s. Danny’s been trying to resist the urge to get to know anyone, but, well…familiarity with the foster family comes whether he wants it to or not.
It’s whatever. It is what it is.
Duke makes one-sided conversation about his plans at school and his friend group he’s headed out with later. Danny refuses to listen. If he listens, he’ll miss doing the same with his own friends. If he listens, he’ll want to ask if he can come too, just to break the monotony inside his head.
And he can’t.
So he just. Pushes food around with the silverware. Occasionally takes a bite.
Chews.
Swallows.
The next person to break through Danny’s carefully cultivated lack of awareness is the smallest foster sibling. Damian. He walks through every interaction as if he’s the Gotham Royal his father pretends to be, and always ends up reclining at the table with a cloth napkin in his lap and impeccable posture. Meanwhile, Danny’s seen his foster father pick chips off his shirt and eat them during required movie nights.
“Doe,” Damian greets Danny. Danny doesn’t respond. “Thomas, has Doe eaten an appropriate portion of breakfast yet?”
“Ask him, man,” Duke lobs back lazily. Damian glares. “Say, John, have you tried the pool yet? It’s going to be summer soon; it’ll be something to do that won’t have you fried up like an apple fritter.”
“We will not be joining you at the pool, Thomas. I have enlisted Doe in the morning feeding routine for the barn’s occupants. We are otherwise engaged for the morning.”
“Oh, those were your plans? Glad to know your afternoon’s free, then. I’ll tell Alfred to have your bathing suits ready at two.”
The kid’s glare is potent enough that if he was a ghost, Danny is certain he would have already fried off most of Duke’s hair with his eye lasers.
They argue (or, well, Damian argues) about what Danny is meant to do today, but Danny has no intention of providing input. Bruce told Damian that animal therapy might be beneficial for his deeply traumatized foster sibling, and, well…who is Danny to say otherwise?
…Not that Danny is traumatized. This is on purpose, so it’s not trauma. It’s just. What it is.
His fingers twitch. Danny specifically does not see when both of the other table occupants move their focus entirely to him in the hopes that Danny might have another reaction.
He doesn’t. He stops eating.
Someone comes up against his side. “A jacket, Master John? The report indicted that the weather is still rather chilly this morning.”
His arm is half-slid into a sleeve. Oh. Right. Danny shrugs the rest of the jacket on—and then has to suppress the urge to be grateful that everyone is doing their best to take good care of him.
He goes limp.
Alfred is too familiar with Danny’s tendencies to make a fuss. Damian takes Danny’s limp hand, orders Alfred to prepare lunch for their return, and trots them both out of the house towards the barn.
Danny lets himself pet the animals for exactly how long it takes to threaten to improve his mood.
He gives up on the activity right on the cusp of something that should have been contentment.
*
“Is it safe to take John out of the country?” Dick asks, perplexed. “Barring the fact that he’s still a foster, and I’m pretty sure that it’s illegal to cross the borders with him…”
Bruce sighs, and crosses his legs underneath his desk. “There’s nothing for it. There’s been a direct, public threat against the manor, and everyone’s safety is at risk—especially John’s, considering that he’s unable to defend himself. The best solution is to take the jet, publicly and visibly visit a nice resort overseas, and wait for the whole affair to blow over.”
…Dick chews on his lip. He fights the urge to pace; half the items in the office are antiques, and if he gets too heated in the moment…well…he’d been at risk for knocking items off of cluttered shelves before. “Alfred will be stuck here, though. Won’t that destabilize John’s routine? There’ll be a lot of novel stimulus, and we don’t want him to shut down the way he…”
The way he had been when John had arrived, Dick is careful not to say. The micro-expressions and placidity John displays now are leagues ahead of the unsettling blankness, lack of engagement, and constant attempts at elopement. The only conclusion that they can draw is that John is, if not happy and content, comfortable in the here and now.
Which means that disrupting that here and now might have long-term detriments for their teenage foster.
“No choice,” Bruce decides, which. Dick doesn’t know what he’d expected. Batman would never pick someone’s mental health over his expectation of their operative safety. “It’ll be your vacation, plus whoever you think will be available to be taken out of the public eye. Tim will be sheltering with me to maintain his work schedule, and Cass has already elected to visit Hong Kong for the remainder of the year. Pick a resort and get back to me. You leave tomorrow night.”
Dick’s salute is as sarcastic as he is bitter.
So. He packs for his upcoming…vacation. And he asks Alfred to pack a bag for John for a week.
And he hopes this won’t be yet another setback for John Doe, who didn’t deserve being subjected to Batman’s whims any more than any of Bruce’s other children.
But he sighs. And Dick packs.
*
Danny’s on a plane and he doesn’t know why.
Damian and Duke and Stephanie are all here, but not Tim, and not Cass? And not Jay? And Dick is…somewhere here? He thinks?
There’s cards. There are even cards in a little pile for Danny, even though he isn’t super sure what they’re playing. He points at one when prompted and tries to zone out for the rest of it.
The urge to have play along and fun is so strong. The world is surging in motion outside of their plane, and they’re cozy inside, with soda cans and cards and chatter and laughter, and…
Danny goes to sit at the back of the plane. There’s nowhere to hide from his longing. There’s nowhere to hide from his misery.
So he just. Hides.
He curls up his legs, puts his head in his knees, and waits for the ride to be over
…That’s enough.
*
Dick gets off the plane first, and helps everyone else get down. Danny’s not really afraid of either heights nor falling, so he doesn’t let Dick touch his arm the way he touches everyone else’s.
Dick’s nice, and that's the entire problem at hand.
Still, the man lets him go—and smiles, and gestures out with a hand. “Alright, everyone; this is nicest spot in the Caribbean, apparently. Welcome to Necker island!”
Damian grumbles, as he’s wont to, although Duke and Steph look suitably impressed by the greenery, and…
…Something in Danny unfolds. Wait. Are they…outside the US?
For one, Danny’s pretty sure that’s illegal. Isn't he a foster?? Holy shit.
On the other hand… Danny takes in more of the scenery, glancing around at lush green foliage and blue waters. He’s…they’ve got their own government, right? They probably wouldn’t have any ties to the Guys in White.
So. So maybe. Maybe Danny’s…safe, here.
(He’s almost too afraid to believe it.)
(Or. Maybe he is too afraid to believe it.)
They meander down the tarmac until they make it to a golf cart; Dick loads up their suitcases and makes chatty conversation with the driver as Duke and Stephanie haul themselves on board.
Damian does his level best to drag a stunned Danny up into the cart and onto a seat. Still. Danny’s a bit too perplexed. Is he safe? Is the Caribbean far enough away from the people hunting him down?
Something gets shoved into his hand. Danny looks down.
…Is that a pineapple?
Anyway. Rich people are whack. Vlad might have Fuck You money, but the Waynes have Fuck You and Your Whole Neighborhood money, since it can apparently let them buy out the whole island and their staff and meals and the beach and everything else for two straight weeks.
Two straight weeks.
And. Somehow. Danny has…a bathing suit…?
He definitely spends like twenty minutes staring at it. It’s no one else’s—no one else wears a Men’s Small, as far as he can tell. Not even Damian. It’s in white and red, like his favorite NASA tee. Just. Who bought this for him? Who knows what size he is??
“Need any help changing?” Duke finally asks, baffled by Danny’s bafflement, and Danny is startled all over again by the pure concept of feeling bafflement.
What a headrush. Fuck; acclimating back to the states is going to be horrible, he can already tell.
So Danny just. Goes into the bathroom. Puts on the bathing shorts.
Stares at himself in the mirror.
…Puts his NASA shirt back on, because looking at the Lichtenburg lines trailing across his chest makes him nauseous.
Danny takes a deep breath in. A deep breath out.
He feels…nervous. Scared. Happy. Excited for vacation. He hasn’t been excited for vacation since he was seven, he thinks. Where had they gone? Chicago? A conference?
Danny pushes himself out the bathroom. He’s scared out of his wits. He’s tired from the flight. He’s nervous to interact with people without his self-imposed emotional barrier.
And he’s so, so relieved, that he doesn’t have to shove it down before he feels it.
Duke and Stephanie are already in their swimsuits at the door, teasing Damian for his full-body suit and swim shoes combo that he insists is ‘tactically sound’.
Dick taps Danny’s arm. “Are you ready to go?” he asks, cheery as ever.
Danny, carefully, nods. It’s the first intentional gesture he’s done for anything non-vital.
Dick beams.
The giant luxury house locks behind them. Steph hauls the towels, Dick hauls a picnic basket, and Damian insists on both the umbrella and Danny’s hand.
They go down to the beach. It is a brilliant, blue afternoon.
*
Duke collapses on the towel next to Dick, which is. Fair.
“Those two give you the runaround, huh?” Dick asks knowingly. He'd watched Marco Polo slowly turn into a death match just off the island shoreline. The exhaustion is warranted. Damian, who had insisted on the wet uniform he’d worn in the League, and Steph, who would only let a twelve-year-old defeat her if she was dead, make, uh…formidable opponents.
Duke groans into the towel. Fair. More than fair.
Dick lets the air cool him off, perfectly happy in his place under the dying light of the beach sunset, the virgin piña he’d ordered, and some sappy beach romance he’d found on Bruce’s Kindle account. It’s been pretty interesting so far, which means that it was probably one of Selina’s purchases back when they were dating.
Well. Not the first time they were dating. Maybe the. Third? Wait, which time had she moved in again??
“Dick.” Duke mumbles into the towel. “Dick. What the hell. Why am I exhausted.”
“Low stamina,” Dick identifies correctly. He takes another sip of his smoothie, and watches Steph bodily grab Damian in the hopes of chucking him further into the sea. “Get in more cave laps and practice your endurance when we get back."
Duke grooooans, which is the luxury of being young. When you start hitting your thirties, everyone acts like a complaint about your bad shoulder is a sign you ought to think about retiring your uniform.
Dick sits, and listens to the dulcet tones of children fighting and the roar of the ocean. Still, someone has to keep an eye on John, so he resists the urge to take a nap.
John, waist deep in the water, watches the sun slowly hit the horizon.
…It is a peaceful sight, if a kind of unusual way for the kid to behave. The ocean doesn’t allow for a lot of options for elopement, though, so maybe the behavior is an adaptation to his current environment.
“John made an expression in the house before.” Duke’s statement comes apropos of seemingly nothing. Dick looks down from his chair to see Duke watching him watch his foster brother. “He didn’t seem to understand why he had a bathing suit. So. You know. Stuff is firing on at least some cylinders.”
…Huh. Dick sips more overpriced smoothie. It may be the best thing he’s ever tasted. There have been other micro-expressions before from their enigmatic John Doe—brief moments of lucidity in the occasional odd moment—but full on confusion? Really?
“We should break him out of his routine more often, then,” Dick admits. Fine. This time Bruce got lucky, and no one died or wanted to kill each other, and John didn’t immediately shut down upon yet another change in scenery. This is a success. Maybe, next time, he can get Tim and Jason to ditch work and join in.
He’s sure that forcibly dragging Cass to an island for family vacation wouldn’t work per se, but maybe, if Dick gets Tim to bring in Lady Shiva in town for another brief tête-à-tête…
…Man, Dick’s really desperate for family time if he’s thinking about bringing in Lady Shiva into his plans. The second piña he orders should probably have rum in it.
So Dick watches Steph and Damian practice breath-holding exercises (carefully not retraumatizing each other by pinning the other down underwater), content with the new chill in the breeze and the spotty pinks making their debut on the horizon. They’ll have maybe another hour outside before needing to towel off and find an outdoor shower.
Duke rolls over, taking in the last of the sunlight.
—And then the kid bolts upright. “Dick!” Duke hisses, eyes on the shore in front of them. Dick snaps to attention. “Holy shit—look at him!”
Dick quickly scans the scene. Nothing wrong with Steph. Nothing wrong with Damian. John—
—John looks like some marine thing risen above pink-tinged waves, copper-green fire freckles glowing across his cheeks and exposed arms like drops of liquid flames. There’s something in the hot vestiges of sunset that makes his hair look white where the light hits it, and John looks bright—too bright, as if there’s no shadow being cast beside him.
He looks see-through. He looks like frosted sea glass against the surf.
But John looks…happy. Just…happy to see the sunset. Happy to listen to the sea-birds and Steph and Damian’s squabbling and to run his fingers through the waist-high waves, barely buffeted even when the waves break against his chest or pull the water back down to his hips.
“Holy shit,” Duke admires.
Dick can barely breathe. “Holy shit is right.”
“…So now we get to ask why he’s so comfortable here, as opposed to the manor,” Duke rationalizes, and, augh, he’s right. Dick’s not looking forward to that. Still, they have two weeks to try and untangle the knot of mysteries around their John Doe, and more than enough resources to do it with.
Dick slurps the last of his smoothie down and sets it aside. “Text the staff line and tell them that we’re upgrading to a completely hands-off experience, please. No staff are to be around except for scheduled cleanings and laundry service, and the occasional meal and restaurant visit.”
Duke holds his hand out for Dick’s phone, which, fair. Dick supervises the text, and his foster brother shoots it off into the atmosphere when prompted. And Duke gets up, brushes the sand off his shorts, and darts back off to the shoreline—already glowing faintly in the fading light.
Dick snorts with a smile.
John, at least, takes to Duke’s suddenly-brightly-lit appearance with little more than clear surprise. Duke hops under the water, his light giving away a clear location—and swims around John once or twice before John carefully lowers himself in after him.
There is, thankfully, no need to play lifeguard for his siblings. Dick watches them anyway. John takes to the water with a sort of placid playfulness, and Duke follows his lead; as soon as Damian notices that John is actually paying Duke real attention, swimming becomes a real free-for-all.
The sun tucks itself away until the sky is red and weeping. Dick will call them all into dinner for a minute. For now, though, he watches his sibling get along, and he wishes it could be this easy for them forever.
It won't be. But for now, Dick can appreciate his vacation.
Why the hell would Danny allow them to take him back to the US? If he actually is safe when he’s out and away, he’d be literally fighting for his life to stay
And all he’d have to do is tell them the States are dangerous for him
So clearly it’s angst time 😈
**
Danny felt the pit falling out of his stomach, a dread he still habitually almost squashed. Maybe he should squash this one.
Two weeks hadn’t been enough to fully break through the walls he’d built up, to get him used to feeling anything at all again, but he’d almost been feeling human. Almost been feeling like a person.
And then, just to be sure (because obviously he was working up to how to explain to his new foster “family” that he just. Couldn’t go back to America with them. He’d even dared hope that since they cared so much… they’d let him without question)… he’d looked up extradition treaties.
Of course the US had an extradition treaty with Bermuda, Antigua, every bloody island government he could have been hiding out with. Of course the GIW could still get him.
All he could do was hope that the sheer distance, the unlikeliness of them having global scans out just for him rather than focusing on the States, had meant they hadn’t triangulated him yet. That he hadn’t accidentally outed himself by just daring to feel, for once.
The disappointment on his siblings’ faces when he came down for dinner his blank and emotionless self would have hurt, if he let himself feel anything.
He’d dared to smile at them these last few days, dared to offer more than just a few words to conversation. Dared to greet them with a nod or a wave.
No more of that now.
Although… it was the Waynes. There was, just maybe, the smallest possible chance that they’d let him choose the next vacation. And they were still far enough from the mainland US.
Dick could be, well, a dick when he wanted to, but he was the oldest. Indisputably in charge of this excursion and the responsible one even if it was largely against his will.
So once the concerned flapping and attempts to coax him to do more than blink had finally subsided in the rush to pack the car, Danny stole off to one side and took Dick with him, by dint of a simple brush on the back of his wrist.
(Ancients, they were so kind. So considerate, so caring… why did he only have this when he couldn’t let any of it matter?)
He didn’t even want to risk the words, to risk how his voice would break and heart would ache to speak it. So he typed out the words, turned them towards Dick, watched his eyes widen and hope relight his face as he read.
‘Can I pick the next vacation spot’
Of course, Dick immediately began assuring Danny a hundred ways that they could totally stay on the island longer, they’d buy it out for the rest of the month, the year if he didn’t want to return to Gotham that badly, but that wouldn’t work.
Danny knew about the extradition treaty now. The island, which had seemed like a paradise… wasn’t.
But Dick had already been so enthusiastic.
So he chanced a shake of his head, raised the phone again, even pointed to “next”. And Dick fell over himself promising to take Danny wherever the hell he wanted to, on Earth or off it.
(and. That. That nearly broke him. He knew the Waynes were richer than any six gods you cared to name, but Dick offering to fly him to space? How could that be a real offer?
But Dick looked so completely certain. So sincere.)
Clamping down firmly on the nugget of hope, Danny left as quickly as possible so Dick couldn’t wear him down. The guy had already begun to suspect Danny actually did like his puns, and since the very first time he’d let his lips twitch in a smile…
He thought Dick made a lot of puns before, but if Damian was to be believed there’d been a defined exponential growth in the number he’d been making every day since.
Danny couldn’t risk enjoying himself. He had a lot of research to do on extradition treaties with the US.
I would like to point out, there's no way the Bats aren't hyper-vigilantly monitoring Danny. For even the tiniest clues of what he might want or need or like. So there's no way they don't notice the research Danny is suddenly doing. And it's probably not enough to actually answer even one of their questions about John Doe. But it's a lead. Their first genuine lead.
Of course, now they have to wonder; what did John do (or think he did) that he needs (or think he needs) to flee the States?
Dick, Duke, Damian, and Stephanie are going to debrief everyone on what happened on the island.
But, before that, everyone who wasn't on the island is going to panic, when they come back and it seems Danny regressed. Especially Bruce. He's kicking himself that his new kid, 'John', is no longer even doing micro expressions!
When they do do the debrief, they get questioned why they didn't just text anyone and stay longer? The four deadpan at the others, then say it's because they knew the others would come to the island and overwhelm the boy when he was just getting out of his shell.
Duke brings up that when John showed emotions his powers reacted. John wasn't afraid of his own powers, nor was he afraid to use them around the Wayne's. But he was afraid to use them in Gotham.
Dick brings up Danny's research of the US territories. When he found out the island was a territory, he stopped showing as much emotion. So maybe he's afraid to use his powers in the US in general?
Tim blurts out that maybe John's powers are traceable and that's why he hides his emotions. If he is a trafficking victim, knows that he's still being hunted after escaping, then maybe John is more afraid of these traffickers than he feels safe in the Manor? He doesn't trust that the Wayne's are able to protect him.
Damian brings up that John's powers being activated felt like the Lazarus Pits. Everyone goes stock still.
Duke brings up that John's eyes has glowed green when he was showing emotions. So Damian continues on that line of thinking. John has scars all over his torso that looks like Lichtenburg scars. Which wouldn't make sense cause those are supposed to fade away after a while.
If you survive.
Which brings up that he must have been thrown into a Pit or was given the water. Ra's wouldn't have done this, unless John had been an amazing assassin or something. So, they either have an enemy in their home, or someone else found a Pit and used John as an experiment. 🧪
I did, like, five minutes of research into this, but lets GO!
---
Danny was on a plane. Another plane. This time to a country he got to pick.
Kind of.
Most of the countries with non-extradition treaties to the US had their own issues. Countries like North Korea were an absolute no. Jason had looked horrified at the mention of Ethiopia, so Danny tossed out most of Africa just to be safe. The Middle East also seemed to have everyone worried, even as Damian was from there?
If Danny could emote, he'd have sighed in relief when Cass had mentioned Hong Kong. The family had a rather large penthouse there, as it was one of the major hubs for the various Wayne Enterprise and subsidiaries. Tim and Bruce agreed that an in-person walkthrough would probably be well overdo.
There was then some sort of side organization going on as the rest of the extended family seemed to decide who was going, though Danny hadn't even had to ask. Alfred was already helping prepare Danny's suitcase.
Danny also asked about his passport. He somehow had one with the John Doe name, which, huh. The Waynes must have pulled some strings being Richer than Six Gods.
Anyway, Danny was in the air on the Wayne Enterprise jet towards the back once more. The ride was long - nearly sixteen hours in the air, direct - so everyone was in various states of activity as they reached the mid-way point.
Cass, obviously, with the most knowledge of Hong Kong was along for the ride. She was in the front of the craft with Jason and Dick, who were all huddled around a table - because this jet was so big and spacious that it had tables, benches, and full lay down beds for the occupants - and were seemingly playing Poker.
Tim was a little farther back and in his own table section, typing away at his computer like a mad man. He'd seemingly clonked out for all of twenty minutes about an hour prior before shooting up, looking like he'd suddenly cracked a major code, and now was on his computer chatting with Barbara over something Danny couldn't quite make out unless he wanted to use some of his ghost powers or move closer, neither which felt right.
Damian and Duke had claimed two of the laydown chairs after playing some racing game on Duke's Switch, and both seemed to be passed out. Bruce was the closest to Danny in one of the more normal seats that could be converted to a bed across the aisle from the teen, the reading light above him on as he wore a pair of spectacles, seemingly perusing something on the tablet he held.
Danny had been mostly staring out the window the whole flight, bouncing back and forth between observation, listening to whoever tried to engage him (he'd been pulled up to the table to eat and play Uno at some point, though he'd only eaten the food and watched, and Duke had sat next to him for a good portion of the early flight so they would watch a movie - the movie was atrocious in that way a bad movie could swing around to being hilarious, but Danny had held in his laughter even as Duke was snorting and pointing out all the plot holes), or looking down at the tablet he'd brought with him.
He'd been looking again and again at the US extradition laws and Hong Kong's stance on various entities.
China wasn't the paragon of human rights, but, after a debacle between the Chinese Ministry of Self-Reliance trying to form a "Justice League of China," that League clashing with the actual Justice League, and the eventual absorption of some of the members into the League, China had been forced to adopt some of the League Doctrine in relation to metahuman and non-human beings.
And, for some reason, they had specified in their examples of acceptable entities including ghosts, amongst other beings like demonic and deity, as those that fell under the acts.
In accordance with Chinese Law, a ghost on their soil, so long as it abided by the other laws placed by the government, would be treated like any other human under the same circumstance.
Granted, there was still some hinky stuff kept under wraps, with the media control and how some speculated that the Ministry of Self-Reliance had just gone underground, but, well, that was a different story. Hong Kong, while part of China, was also constantly fighting with its oversight, seeking more freedom and, in fact, had further local rulings that would protect those seeking asylum.
The GIW, his parents, the US government... none of them could touch him there.
Danny realized that someone was approaching him. He flicked his tablet to the home screen as Bruce approached, having gotten out of his seat to go talk to the elder Wayne Children at the front. He had a blanket and pillows in hand.
"You should probably get some sleep, too, before we land." He pointed out. Danny glanced forward, seeing Dick having disappeared into the bathroom while Cass was having what looked like a staring contest with Tim. Jason simply flopped down on one of the sofas while kicking off his boots, getting comfortable for some sleep. "Do you need help with the chair? They're a bit older style, so some of the controls can be a mess." Bruce expressed sincerely, his voice soft.
Danny shrugged and stood, opening his arms to accept the items Bruce had brought over. Bruce smiled as Danny held his own things - Danny may not know how these stupid chairs worked, but he wasn't going to not help - as Bruce got the chair to lie flat. Danny was able to take the rest from there, shaking his head when Bruce offered further.
Danny huddled himself into the corner of the chair, back to the window so that he could keep eyes on the other occupants. He checked his tablet's app that kept track of their flight.
Estimated time of arrival: 7 hours and 23 minutes.
Danny felt his emotions simmer under the icy glass walls he'd placed around his heart, his mind, his core.
He dozed off, praying that the Fenton Luck wouldn't rear its ugly head.
---
It wasn't all fun and games as the Wayne Family packed up for Hong Kong. Tim and Bruce did have to actually attend to Wayne Enterprise while there, and Cass was enlisting Damian to help with a smuggling operation - it would be impossible to take them down and out in the Chinese ports, but the two were planning on doing a lot of intel, planting trackers, and freeing any endangered species should need call.
Jason had largely come with as he'd missed out on John's opening up on the last trip, and, well, once he'd pointed out how John might have had his own dip into a Lazarus Pit, he'd been insistent on coming, claiming something along the lines of "us undead guys gotta stick together."
Dick, having been the one to organize this, had also been a no-brainer.
And Duke? Well, Duke had pointed out that, as the only (known) meta in the family, he also had some unique insight into what that meant and how that could weigh on a person.
Steph had complained about not coming, but she was also swamped in cases. Barbara was had been offered an invite, but she, too, had too much on her plate to come along.
Bruce had been hesitant to leave Gotham, as he always was, but, really, if he needed to be back, the Zeta in Hong Kong could have them back across the world in minutes, not the hours it took for them to fly traditionally.
The plane had a variety of sitting areas, some with tables or chairs facing one another, two sections with couches, and a set of seats near the rear that wouldn't be uncommon on a first-class commercial flight, with one large seat to one side of the row and two on the other. There were nine chairs in this back section with plenty of walking space so that, even if all beds were laid flat, no one would be walking over another.
John had claimed the single in the furthest back row, so Bruce had settled in opposite, hoping to keep an eye on the whole lot from there while also not intruding on the foster's space.
Bruce had made sure to sleep some at the beginning of the flight, not wanting all of them to be out at the same time. While he had staff onboard and trusted his pilots, it was always good to have Bat eyes and ears in case of emergency. With everyone settling down for the last part of the flight to alleviate jet lag, he made sure to stay sentinel.
A body dropped into the seat next to him. Bruce, ever aware, was glancing over as Dick popped his head onto Bruce's shoulder. Bruce had once been a person who had shied away from touch when given the choice, having few who he felt comfortable having in his personal space bubble (though he faked otherwise well), but, well, Dick had always shown a lot of love through physical affection. The young man whom had swung from his antique chandeliers (and still, sometimes, to this day - there was a reason he'd either replaced or reinforced them all to hold human weight) and tried to run around Gotham in a aerialist's unitard (Bruce thanked whoever blessed him with Alfred, because Bruce certainly had trouble convincing his young ward that pants with Kevlar or some other light-weight armor was a requirement to be in the field) was always welcome in Bruce's bubble, as were his other kids.
"You should get some rest, chum." Bruce said, looking back at the tablet in his hands. He was reading over the Budget Report for the Watchtower, something that would be both shocking (the amount of money spent on rare herbs and volcanic ash, while not exorbitant compared to some of the other costs, would certainly cause questions if it wasn't for the fact that they had magic users and, therefore, needed magical defenses) and mundane (three new Speedsters had fallen out of the multiverse/timeline/whatever in the past year, and the food budget was in need of adjustment as they were brought on to various teams).
"Hm." Dick hummed. He was an adult now, well on his way to thirty, but there was something about setting his head on Bruce's shoulder that still made him relax just a bit. He could be fiercely independent, but he also had moments where he would just regress back to being nine, and Bruce's larger than life persona would shield him from the worst of the world for a little bit. "You think this is going to work?"
"I hope so." Bruce returned. "Any luck on finding out more details about John?" Bruce added, but he shifted to Romani so that, even if John woke and somehow overheard their conversation, he'd have, hopefully, no clue on what they were saying.
"He's a ghost." Dick returned in his first tongue, so much smoother than Bruce's accent. "Oracle found some traces of his path to Gotham, but his tracking was all over the place. We've tried using face ID, but we haven't found a match yet."
Bruce sighed through his nose. "I'll keep an ear out for updates from Oracle, then. We will also need to keep an eye on him to make sure that he doesn't bolt when we land."
Dick nodded before pulling out his phone. He switched back to English. "Want to video call Haly and Alfred with me?"
Bruce couldn't help but smile. "You call your kiddo, chum."
"She's the cutest little baby, and you can't convince me otherwise."
"Wasn't going to, Chum."
---
Danny's passing through customs was a bit of a blur. They'd landed at a private landing strip before being whisked away by a half a dozen local passport control agents. Danny kept close to the Waynes, still, because, well, he still felt like he couldn't break.
But the longer he was there, he could feel it.
The ice melting.
Cass had taken the lead once they'd settled in, showing them around her favorite haunts of the city and having Danny try much of the local food. Before the Waynes, he'd never been able to really travel and just be a tourist. Sure, there was one memory of him and Jazz in Toronto when they were very little, and he'd gone to freaking space to stop Technus, but he'd always been too young or in Hero Mode otherwise.
Bruce and Tim had taken him around Wayne Enterprise's main headquarters there the following day, though Jason and Duke had later "broken him out" to go to a local market and laugh at all the poorly worded shirts with bogus English on them.
Danny had cracked a snort when he saw a particularly bad shirt. He still didn't want to allow too much to spill, what with so many people around, but, well, the ASSA shirt with a poor man's Nasa logo had nearly broken him.
He wasn't really allowed to be alone outside of the Wayne Penthouse, where everyone got their own rooms for the trip, but Danny didn't mind. Everyone seemed to have a much better understanding of Cantonese compared to him (which was pretty much anything as Danny spoke none of the language, not that he felt secure enough to speak much anyway), so having everyone else translate was a blessing.
But then, about two weeks in, Danny finally felt the last of his ice break away.
Because Duke had asked him if he wanted to climb out to the rooftop deck, a telescope in hand, and try to find stars through the Hong Kong light polution.
"I think that's Sirius? The dog star?" Duke said as he pointed to a spot in the sky. Only the brightest stars could pierce the night shadow, much like with Gotham on its rare cloudless nights.
"You're pointed at Vega."
Danny was almost shocked as his own voice seemed to claw its way out of his throat.
Duke jumped, swirling back on the younger teen, before seemingly pulling himself together. He looked back at the night sky. Playing calm, Duke added, "Huh. You know your stars?"
"It's the brightest star..." Danny trailed off. He tried to keep his small joy down, his face contorting, but... he was so tired of keeping even his littlest delights down. Of keeping his interests at bay. Of crushing Danny. "...in the constellation Lyra."
"You want to take the bad boy for a spin?" Duke gestured to the telescope.
Hesitantly, Danny approached. He looked into the telescope, adjusting his knowledge based on where they were in the world.
Danny felt himself just... lighten. He could feel his ecto energy rise from his Core for the first time in so long, and he didn't have as much fear. Even if he somehow spiked Ecto now, he was an ocean and continent away from the people looking for him. He was somewhere that would treat him like any other tourist.
He could just... be.
Danny had gotten so caught up in the moment turning to minutes, dropping stifled facts about the stars that he'd always loved, that he forgot about his situation as he looked back, staring at the sky without the telescope.
The ecto flooded his eyes, and the darkness dispersed, revealing the cosmos overhead.
And, then, he noticed the white, floating hair in his perifery.
Danny grasped the hair, and he felt the tug on his head.
And he crashed back into himself.
He'd been glowing. His hair had turned white.
Duke was right there.
Danny tried to clamp down on his emotions, try to think, but the panic rose, his eyes no doubt flashing green, as he turned back to the teenager who was staring right at him.
---
Duke had played calm when John had spoken, desperately hoping not to scare the boy off.
And Duke had somehow hit the jackpot, it seemed, because the boy began to, hesitantly, speak facts about the stars as they looked into the night sky.
If Duke was honest, he didn't need the telescope to see past the darkened sky. His powers allowed him to manipulate the light and shadows around him, and it took barely anything to swipe away the darkness in his own vision to bring the stunning galaxies into focus. He could do the same for others, but, well, he didn't know how John would react if he had done so.
Still, as John took on that eerie glow again, that lightness in his body that seemed to give him a sense of antigravity, his hair turning almost celestial as white dots glowed into white bands, Duke tried not to stare.
But, this time, it seemed that John had become aware of what was happening.
It happened in a blink. One second, John was looking into the night sky, readying the telescope to show Duke another cluster of some kind, but then he stopped. He tugged his own hair, realizing the color shift, and spun on Duke.
Duke had half expected John to shut down, but, this time, it seemed that the walls had fallen away, because John was going into a full-blown panic attack.
John's eyes were the same eerie green, his clothes and hair floating with that unearthly glow and his eyes flickering - sky blue, toxic green, icy blue, and back - and, worse, the ground around John's feet was turning to ice.
"Oh shit." Duke threw, throwing up his hands. "John! John, it's ok. It's fine. I get it."
John looked down, up, down, a hand going to his chest like he was having a heart attack. The air around him seemed to spark and simmer with some kind of energy.
"Look, it's going to be ok. You're not alone."
Duke had lead the We Are Robins movement back in the day, and he had his fair share of helping kids through panic attacks now and through today. He'd learned a lot with Bruce, but patience was one of them.
"No one here is going to hurt you." Duke tried to assure, but the young man before him kept panicking. "Just..." Duke got an idea.
He pulled his powers, using broad body strokes. He didn't need to, but the act both helped him focus on what he was doing and project his movements for John to see.
John looked up as Duke wiped the darkness away from the sky, the galaxies now appearing to them like it did in the areas of the world where light pollution was a distant nightmare.
"I have powers, too. The family knows, and they have helped me through a lot of stuff." Duke reassured. Duke kept an eye on the ice that had been forming at John's feet. It had been seemingly climbing up his legs, across the rooftop (thank goodness that they had glass protectors around with the tall protective bars - they both acted to prevent people from scaling up there - ha, really, because all the kids could jump them - and create barriers that stopped anyone staring at the roof from seeing anything clearly; to an observer with a telescope, they would just see random lights on a penthouse rooftop). "You're safe here."
---
Danny felt his heart stop. Full stop. In his ghost form, he still had one, but it was sluggish and, of course, inhumanly slow. He could stop it like holding one's breathe, but that had never happened in his human form before.
But the shock must have done him in.
Because the sky was so beautiful, and Danny didn't have to fight anything to see it.
Duke was doing it.
Duke was a meta.
Did... did that mean the Waynes would help him? He'd been thinking about how and what he'd do when they planned to load up back to Gotham. They had only planned to be there for three weeks, though Tim had been talking about staying longer and inviting the others to do so if they had the time.
Could they just... help him stay? Cass had her own apartment in the city. She lived here. Could he stay with her?
Wasn't that aiding and abetting? Wouldn't they get in trouble?
Then again, Richer than Six Gods Combined.
Danny felt his heart clench, beating once more.
"I'm going to approach you, ok?"
Danny looked down at the ice then back at Duke.
He didn't want the other teen hurt.
Duke took a step forward and, looking at the ice and Danny's worry, he used wide strokes, once more, as his shadow reached out over the ice.
Danny watched as Duke stepped over the ice, like he was creating his own little Shadow Bridge.
He was like Johnny, in a way.
Heh, and they thought I was the John here. Danny thought vaguely.
Duke made it to Danny without touching the ice. "Can you breathe with me, dude?"
Danny did. He forced his breathing to match Duke's, watching as the other teen breathed in, held, and breathed out.
Danny felt his powers, trapped in a cage of his own making, slowly come back under his control, though bits stayed at the surface with his emotions. He wasn't sure how he'd fix that, but at least he wasn't freezing the floor anymore and managed to dismiss the ice he'd been forming. His glow settled some, and his hair had white mixed in with his black. While Danny couldn't see it, one eye was green while the other was his human blue.
"You feeling more grounded?" Duke questioned.
Danny, feeling like he just flew from Wisconsin to Amity and back, nodded, but he felt wiped.
"Can I take your hand? You look unsteady."
Danny hesitated, looking Duke up and down.
Danny wasn't like Duke. He wasn't sure what Duke was, but Ghosts were not part of the Metahuman protections. He'd looked, and the laws hadn't allowed it. It was the small loophole that the GIW and his parents worked through.
But, as he looked at the other teen, and with what he'd learned about the Waynes, he hardly thought any of them would truly distinguish it.
Danny took the hand offered to him.
And then he stumbled.
"Woah!" Duke rushed forward, grabbing Danny before he could hit the ground. "I think you should lay down. You're freezing, man."
"That's... normal... ish." Danny mumbled. Then, because he hadn't in oh, so long, he added, "I'm... a pretty... chill... guy..."
Duke stopped, startled, before staring at Danny for too long.
Danny thought he'd made the wrong move.
Then, Duke spoke, "Oh my gods, we have another Dick."
Danny couldn't help it. A small, wheezing laugh shook loose of his lungs.
Duke slung the offered arm over his shoulder, hefting most of Danny's weight onto him. "You need to eat more, dude. You're light AF."
Danny shrugged as best he could, feeling his exhaustion stomp down on what emotions he had allowed out. He felt his glow waver.
"Hey, I know you're tired, and, like, panic attacks suck, but, also, glowing? Seriously, are you gonna be ok? Do you need a doctor?" Duke questioned.
"Mm... fine..." Danny ground out. "Sleep."
Danny was out like a light before they got off the roof.
Danny's found a way to dodge GIW trackers, as well as his parents.
Their equipment hunts ghosts, ghosts run on emotion; so as long as he keeps his under a tight lid and doesn't feel anything ever, they won't be able to track him.
It works!
He's able to run from them, and goes as far as New Jersey. The plan was to stow away on a ship, and go to literally any country that wasn't America. He goes to Gotham, which hosts the one harbor he knows where no one will ask any questions.
But because of how weird he acted (completely emotionless during a Joker attack), he was fingered by police immediately.
He's handed over to CPP. CPP doesn't know what to do with a teen literally so traumatized that they don't show any emotion at all, ever. He keeps just...walking out of his placements. Just leaves without a sound.
Luckily, he's always caught, due to those placement houses having quiet alarms and him refusing to run.
They call the one foster parent they know who does.
Bruce Wayne takes in the strange, nameless kid who refuses to talk.
On paper, they gave him the filler name of 'John Doe', for lack of anything better to do.
Bruce does everything he can to make the newest arrival feel at home. Damian, for as territorial as he is, actually breaks out of his shell sooner than expected just to try to get the new kid to speak. To emote. To do something. Duke tries the open approach, then tries the 'no one will ever know, everyone thinks I'm an innocent goody-two-shoes' approach. Nada.
Tim even tries to trick him into talking, but nothing works.
Enter Dick; Dick heard about Bruce's new ward, about the situation, and decided to see if he could get the kid to open up.
Danny though. Danny's in trouble.
The Wayne Manor is weirdly secure, and he can't just walk away like he did his other placements. He can't use ghost powers or the GIW and his parents will immediately know where he is.
He really, really wants to take Bruce up on his offer and just spend the day relaxing. Respond to Damian's attempts to provoke him. Overshare about space facts with Tim.
But most of all, he really, desperately wants to get in a Pun Competition with Dick. He wants to laugh at Dick's jokes, and learn coolass gymnastic tricks!
But he can't!
If he relaxes with Bruce, he'll be content, which is an emotion. If he argues with Damian, he'll get annoyed, which is an emotion. If he sneaks out with Duke and breaks the rules, he'll get happy, which, again, emotion. If he overshares with Tim, he'll get excited, which is, yet again, an emotion!
The worst sin of all, he can't even show proper appreciation of the food the Butler keeps making him!
And now there's even more people coming over!
There's a quiet girl who keeps reading his body language and trying to get him to dance ballet, a blonde girl who keeps trying to kidnap him to take him to BatBurger, a guy with a stripe of white who wants to take him to a shooting range, and it just...he really, really wants to!
The Waynes are a multi-millionaire family who own an international company….
Now imagine that for some reason a member of the family has a mandatory trip abroad (check some offices, go to a gala, investigate something like civilians, etc.) and you decide that perhaps a tourist trip with new experiences can help your family. new brother, so they take him…
Danny doesn't know where they are going, only that they leave on a private jet….
Now imagine the bats that accompany him seeing how an emotional switch turns on in his little brother the moment he knows they are in another country…
They test this theory out a few times. Like any respectable bat, they can't go off the statistics of just a one time thing.
...
Tim has the brilliant idea of pushing and pulling Danny in and out of the American border. Danny's emotions turn on and off like a fucking light switch and Tim feels vindicated. He TOLD the others it would work.
-
Alternatively, meta collars block the ghost signals. Doesn't affect danny negatively but like maybe limits his powers a bit. The Wayne's figure this out. Somehow.
One of the bats had the theory that the lack of emotion came from a meta-gene activating during the Joker attack and decided to try the meta collars (All the lab results were inconclusive so who's to say that isn't a probability?), just in case, they needed to try everything.
Danny feels like he's ecto-signal is being blocked by the meta collar and risks letting go of his emotions, just a bit, to test it's limits, but the collar doesn't block much, and is easier to just don't feel at all than trying to control how much he feels. So the bats get to see Danny's face gain some emotion (nervousness? Anxiety? Hope? Fear?) for a fraction of a second before he goes completely emotionless once more.
- Theory one: The meta-collar isn't strong enough somehow, let's try with one more powerful. -> Danny doesn't want to risk it again, so he stays emotionless.
- Theory two: Since Danny doesn't react with stronger meta-blockers, then something about the meta-collar gave Danny an emotion strong enough to come through for a second. Maybe it brought memories of something... something before the Joker attack? Was... Was Danny a victim of meta trafficking? Did they just re-traumatize their new little brother multiple times?
Duke feels especially guilty about this because as a meta, "he should have known better". The bats are not as eager to keep experimenting after that, but Danny continues to be emotionless, so eventually they have to try something else, right?
There’s a plate in front of him that he didn’t put there. It’s good food—eggs and pre-cut slices of ham and, ugh, toast—
Danny clamps down on his automatic reaction. Nope. Suppress it. Toast is—fine. He can’t afford to hate it right now. It's fine. He'll choke it down.
He can’t afford to feel anything— Not anymore.
The chair across from him scrapes against the hardwood floor. Someone’s joined him at the table for early breakfast. “Morning, John!” they greets him cheerily. Danny refuses to look up.
…He think the voice is probably Duke’s. Danny’s been trying to resist the urge to get to know anyone, but, well…familiarity with the foster family comes whether he wants it to or not.
It’s whatever. It is what it is.
Duke makes one-sided conversation about his plans at school and his friend group he’s headed out with later. Danny refuses to listen. If he listens, he’ll miss doing the same with his own friends. If he listens, he’ll want to ask if he can come too, just to break the monotony inside his head.
And he can’t.
So he just. Pushes food around with the silverware. Occasionally takes a bite.
Chews.
Swallows.
The next person to break through Danny’s carefully cultivated lack of awareness is the smallest foster sibling. Damian. He walks through every interaction as if he’s the Gotham Royal his father pretends to be, and always ends up reclining at the table with a cloth napkin in his lap and impeccable posture. Meanwhile, Danny’s seen his foster father pick chips off his shirt and eat them during required movie nights.
“Doe,” Damian greets Danny. Danny doesn’t respond. “Thomas, has Doe eaten an appropriate portion of breakfast yet?”
“Ask him, man,” Duke lobs back lazily. Damian glares. “Say, John, have you tried the pool yet? It’s going to be summer soon; it’ll be something to do that won’t have you fried up like an apple fritter.”
“We will not be joining you at the pool, Thomas. I have enlisted Doe in the morning feeding routine for the barn’s occupants. We are otherwise engaged for the morning.”
“Oh, those were your plans? Glad to know your afternoon’s free, then. I’ll tell Alfred to have your bathing suits ready at two.”
The kid’s glare is potent enough that if he was a ghost, Danny is certain he would have already fried off most of Duke’s hair with his eye lasers.
They argue (or, well, Damian argues) about what Danny is meant to do today, but Danny has no intention of providing input. Bruce told Damian that animal therapy might be beneficial for his deeply traumatized foster sibling, and, well…who is Danny to say otherwise?
…Not that Danny is traumatized. This is on purpose, so it’s not trauma. It’s just. What it is.
His fingers twitch. Danny specifically does not see when both of the other table occupants move their focus entirely to him in the hopes that Danny might have another reaction.
He doesn’t. He stops eating.
Someone comes up against his side. “A jacket, Master John? The report indicted that the weather is still rather chilly this morning.”
His arm is half-slid into a sleeve. Oh. Right. Danny shrugs the rest of the jacket on—and then has to suppress the urge to be grateful that everyone is doing their best to take good care of him.
He goes limp.
Alfred is too familiar with Danny’s tendencies to make a fuss. Damian takes Danny’s limp hand, orders Alfred to prepare lunch for their return, and trots them both out of the house towards the barn.
Danny lets himself pet the animals for exactly how long it takes to threaten to improve his mood.
He gives up on the activity right on the cusp of something that should have been contentment.
*
“Is it safe to take John out of the country?” Dick asks, perplexed. “Barring the fact that he’s still a foster, and I’m pretty sure that it’s illegal to cross the borders with him…”
Bruce sighs, and crosses his legs underneath his desk. “There’s nothing for it. There’s been a direct, public threat against the manor, and everyone’s safety is at risk—especially John’s, considering that he’s unable to defend himself. The best solution is to take the jet, publicly and visibly visit a nice resort overseas, and wait for the whole affair to blow over.”
…Dick chews on his lip. He fights the urge to pace; half the items in the office are antiques, and if he gets too heated in the moment…well…he’d been at risk for knocking items off of cluttered shelves before. “Alfred will be stuck here, though. Won’t that destabilize John’s routine? There’ll be a lot of novel stimulus, and we don’t want him to shut down the way he…”
The way he had been when John had arrived, Dick is careful not to say. The micro-expressions and placidity John displays now are leagues ahead of the unsettling blankness, lack of engagement, and constant attempts at elopement. The only conclusion that they can draw is that John is, if not happy and content, comfortable in the here and now.
Which means that disrupting that here and now might have long-term detriments for their teenage foster.
“No choice,” Bruce decides, which. Dick doesn’t know what he’d expected. Batman would never pick someone’s mental health over his expectation of their operative safety. “It’ll be your vacation, plus whoever you think will be available to be taken out of the public eye. Tim will be sheltering with me to maintain his work schedule, and Cass has already elected to visit Hong Kong for the remainder of the year. Pick a resort and get back to me. You leave tomorrow night.”
Dick’s salute is as sarcastic as he is bitter.
So. He packs for his upcoming…vacation. And he asks Alfred to pack a bag for John for a week.
And he hopes this won’t be yet another setback for John Doe, who didn’t deserve being subjected to Batman’s whims any more than any of Bruce’s other children.
But he sighs. And Dick packs.
*
Danny’s on a plane and he doesn’t know why.
Damian and Duke and Stephanie are all here, but not Tim, and not Cass? And not Jay? And Dick is…somewhere here? He thinks?
There’s cards. There are even cards in a little pile for Danny, even though he isn’t super sure what they’re playing. He points at one when prompted and tries to zone out for the rest of it.
The urge to have play along and fun is so strong. The world is surging in motion outside of their plane, and they’re cozy inside, with soda cans and cards and chatter and laughter, and…
Danny goes to sit at the back of the plane. There’s nowhere to hide from his longing. There’s nowhere to hide from his misery.
So he just. Hides.
He curls up his legs, puts his head in his knees, and waits for the ride to be over
…That’s enough.
*
Dick gets off the plane first, and helps everyone else get down. Danny’s not really afraid of either heights nor falling, so he doesn’t let Dick touch his arm the way he touches everyone else’s.
Dick’s nice, and that's the entire problem at hand.
Still, the man lets him go—and smiles, and gestures out with a hand. “Alright, everyone; this is nicest spot in the Caribbean, apparently. Welcome to Necker island!”
Damian grumbles, as he’s wont to, although Duke and Steph look suitably impressed by the greenery, and…
…Something in Danny unfolds. Wait. Are they…outside the US?
For one, Danny’s pretty sure that’s illegal. Isn't he a foster?? Holy shit.
On the other hand… Danny takes in more of the scenery, glancing around at lush green foliage and blue waters. He’s…they’ve got their own government, right? They probably wouldn’t have any ties to the Guys in White.
So. So maybe. Maybe Danny’s…safe, here.
(He’s almost too afraid to believe it.)
(Or. Maybe he is too afraid to believe it.)
They meander down the tarmac until they make it to a golf cart; Dick loads up their suitcases and makes chatty conversation with the driver as Duke and Stephanie haul themselves on board.
Damian does his level best to drag a stunned Danny up into the cart and onto a seat. Still. Danny’s a bit too perplexed. Is he safe? Is the Caribbean far enough away from the people hunting him down?
Something gets shoved into his hand. Danny looks down.
…Is that a pineapple?
Anyway. Rich people are whack. Vlad might have Fuck You money, but the Waynes have Fuck You and Your Whole Neighborhood money, since it can apparently let them buy out the whole island and their staff and meals and the beach and everything else for two straight weeks.
Two straight weeks.
And. Somehow. Danny has…a bathing suit…?
He definitely spends like twenty minutes staring at it. It’s no one else’s—no one else wears a Men’s Small, as far as he can tell. Not even Damian. It’s in white and red, like his favorite NASA tee. Just. Who bought this for him? Who knows what size he is??
“Need any help changing?” Duke finally asks, baffled by Danny’s bafflement, and Danny is startled all over again by the pure concept of feeling bafflement.
What a headrush. Fuck; acclimating back to the states is going to be horrible, he can already tell.
So Danny just. Goes into the bathroom. Puts on the bathing shorts.
Stares at himself in the mirror.
…Puts his NASA shirt back on, because looking at the Lichtenburg lines trailing across his chest makes him nauseous.
Danny takes a deep breath in. A deep breath out.
He feels…nervous. Scared. Happy. Excited for vacation. He hasn’t been excited for vacation since he was seven, he thinks. Where had they gone? Chicago? A conference?
Danny pushes himself out the bathroom. He’s scared out of his wits. He’s tired from the flight. He’s nervous to interact with people without his self-imposed emotional barrier.
And he’s so, so relieved, that he doesn’t have to shove it down before he feels it.
Duke and Stephanie are already in their swimsuits at the door, teasing Damian for his full-body suit and swim shoes combo that he insists is ‘tactically sound’.
Dick taps Danny’s arm. “Are you ready to go?” he asks, cheery as ever.
Danny, carefully, nods. It’s the first intentional gesture he’s done for anything non-vital.
Dick beams.
The giant luxury house locks behind them. Steph hauls the towels, Dick hauls a picnic basket, and Damian insists on both the umbrella and Danny’s hand.
They go down to the beach. It is a brilliant, blue afternoon.
*
Duke collapses on the towel next to Dick, which is. Fair.
“Those two give you the runaround, huh?” Dick asks knowingly. He'd watched Marco Polo slowly turn into a death match just off the island shoreline. The exhaustion is warranted. Damian, who had insisted on the wet uniform he’d worn in the League, and Steph, who would only let a twelve-year-old defeat her if she was dead, make, uh…formidable opponents.
Duke groans into the towel. Fair. More than fair.
Dick lets the air cool him off, perfectly happy in his place under the dying light of the beach sunset, the virgin piña he’d ordered, and some sappy beach romance he’d found on Bruce’s Kindle account. It’s been pretty interesting so far, which means that it was probably one of Selina’s purchases back when they were dating.
Well. Not the first time they were dating. Maybe the. Third? Wait, which time had she moved in again??
“Dick.” Duke mumbles into the towel. “Dick. What the hell. Why am I exhausted.”
“Low stamina,” Dick identifies correctly. He takes another sip of his smoothie, and watches Steph bodily grab Damian in the hopes of chucking him further into the sea. “Get in more cave laps and practice your endurance when we get back."
Duke grooooans, which is the luxury of being young. When you start hitting your thirties, everyone acts like a complaint about your bad shoulder is a sign you ought to think about retiring your uniform.
Dick sits, and listens to the dulcet tones of children fighting and the roar of the ocean. Still, someone has to keep an eye on John, so he resists the urge to take a nap.
John, waist deep in the water, watches the sun slowly hit the horizon.
…It is a peaceful sight, if a kind of unusual way for the kid to behave. The ocean doesn’t allow for a lot of options for elopement, though, so maybe the behavior is an adaptation to his current environment.
“John made an expression in the house before.” Duke’s statement comes apropos of seemingly nothing. Dick looks down from his chair to see Duke watching him watch his foster brother. “He didn’t seem to understand why he had a bathing suit. So. You know. Stuff is firing on at least some cylinders.”
…Huh. Dick sips more overpriced smoothie. It may be the best thing he’s ever tasted. There have been other micro-expressions before from their enigmatic John Doe—brief moments of lucidity in the occasional odd moment—but full on confusion? Really?
“We should break him out of his routine more often, then,” Dick admits. Fine. This time Bruce got lucky, and no one died or wanted to kill each other, and John didn’t immediately shut down upon yet another change in scenery. This is a success. Maybe, next time, he can get Tim and Jason to ditch work and join in.
He’s sure that forcibly dragging Cass to an island for family vacation wouldn’t work per se, but maybe, if Dick gets Tim to bring in Lady Shiva in town for another brief tête-à-tête…
…Man, Dick’s really desperate for family time if he’s thinking about bringing in Lady Shiva into his plans. The second piña he orders should probably have rum in it.
So Dick watches Steph and Damian practice breath-holding exercises (carefully not retraumatizing each other by pinning the other down underwater), content with the new chill in the breeze and the spotty pinks making their debut on the horizon. They’ll have maybe another hour outside before needing to towel off and find an outdoor shower.
Duke rolls over, taking in the last of the sunlight.
—And then the kid bolts upright. “Dick!” Duke hisses, eyes on the shore in front of them. Dick snaps to attention. “Holy shit—look at him!”
Dick quickly scans the scene. Nothing wrong with Steph. Nothing wrong with Damian. John—
—John looks like some marine thing risen above pink-tinged waves, copper-green fire freckles glowing across his cheeks and exposed arms like drops of liquid flames. There’s something in the hot vestiges of sunset that makes his hair look white where the light hits it, and John looks bright—too bright, as if there’s no shadow being cast beside him.
He looks see-through. He looks like frosted sea glass against the surf.
But John looks…happy. Just…happy to see the sunset. Happy to listen to the sea-birds and Steph and Damian’s squabbling and to run his fingers through the waist-high waves, barely buffeted even when the waves break against his chest or pull the water back down to his hips.
“Holy shit,” Duke admires.
Dick can barely breathe. “Holy shit is right.”
“…So now we get to ask why he’s so comfortable here, as opposed to the manor,” Duke rationalizes, and, augh, he’s right. Dick’s not looking forward to that. Still, they have two weeks to try and untangle the knot of mysteries around their John Doe, and more than enough resources to do it with.
Dick slurps the last of his smoothie down and sets it aside. “Text the staff line and tell them that we’re upgrading to a completely hands-off experience, please. No staff are to be around except for scheduled cleanings and laundry service, and the occasional meal and restaurant visit.”
Duke holds his hand out for Dick’s phone, which, fair. Dick supervises the text, and his foster brother shoots it off into the atmosphere when prompted. And Duke gets up, brushes the sand off his shorts, and darts back off to the shoreline—already glowing faintly in the fading light.
Dick snorts with a smile.
John, at least, takes to Duke’s suddenly-brightly-lit appearance with little more than clear surprise. Duke hops under the water, his light giving away a clear location—and swims around John once or twice before John carefully lowers himself in after him.
There is, thankfully, no need to play lifeguard for his siblings. Dick watches them anyway. John takes to the water with a sort of placid playfulness, and Duke follows his lead; as soon as Damian notices that John is actually paying Duke real attention, swimming becomes a real free-for-all.
The sun tucks itself away until the sky is red and weeping. Dick will call them all into dinner for a minute. For now, though, he watches his sibling get along, and he wishes it could be this easy for them forever.
It won't be. But for now, Dick can appreciate his vacation.
Why the hell would Danny allow them to take him back to the US? If he actually is safe when he’s out and away, he’d be literally fighting for his life to stay
And all he’d have to do is tell them the States are dangerous for him
So clearly it’s angst time 😈
**
Danny felt the pit falling out of his stomach, a dread he still habitually almost squashed. Maybe he should squash this one.
Two weeks hadn’t been enough to fully break through the walls he’d built up, to get him used to feeling anything at all again, but he’d almost been feeling human. Almost been feeling like a person.
And then, just to be sure (because obviously he was working up to how to explain to his new foster “family” that he just. Couldn’t go back to America with them. He’d even dared hope that since they cared so much… they’d let him without question)… he’d looked up extradition treaties.
Of course the US had an extradition treaty with Bermuda, Antigua, every bloody island government he could have been hiding out with. Of course the GIW could still get him.
All he could do was hope that the sheer distance, the unlikeliness of them having global scans out just for him rather than focusing on the States, had meant they hadn’t triangulated him yet. That he hadn’t accidentally outed himself by just daring to feel, for once.
The disappointment on his siblings’ faces when he came down for dinner his blank and emotionless self would have hurt, if he let himself feel anything.
He’d dared to smile at them these last few days, dared to offer more than just a few words to conversation. Dared to greet them with a nod or a wave.
No more of that now.
Although… it was the Waynes. There was, just maybe, the smallest possible chance that they’d let him choose the next vacation. And they were still far enough from the mainland US.
Dick could be, well, a dick when he wanted to, but he was the oldest. Indisputably in charge of this excursion and the responsible one even if it was largely against his will.
So once the concerned flapping and attempts to coax him to do more than blink had finally subsided in the rush to pack the car, Danny stole off to one side and took Dick with him, by dint of a simple brush on the back of his wrist.
(Ancients, they were so kind. So considerate, so caring… why did he only have this when he couldn’t let any of it matter?)
He didn’t even want to risk the words, to risk how his voice would break and heart would ache to speak it. So he typed out the words, turned them towards Dick, watched his eyes widen and hope relight his face as he read.
‘Can I pick the next vacation spot’
Of course, Dick immediately began assuring Danny a hundred ways that they could totally stay on the island longer, they’d buy it out for the rest of the month, the year if he didn’t want to return to Gotham that badly, but that wouldn’t work.
Danny knew about the extradition treaty now. The island, which had seemed like a paradise… wasn’t.
But Dick had already been so enthusiastic.
So he chanced a shake of his head, raised the phone again, even pointed to “next”. And Dick fell over himself promising to take Danny wherever the hell he wanted to, on Earth or off it.
(and. That. That nearly broke him. He knew the Waynes were richer than any six gods you cared to name, but Dick offering to fly him to space? How could that be a real offer?
But Dick looked so completely certain. So sincere.)
Clamping down firmly on the nugget of hope, Danny left as quickly as possible so Dick couldn’t wear him down. The guy had already begun to suspect Danny actually did like his puns, and since the very first time he’d let his lips twitch in a smile…
He thought Dick made a lot of puns before, but if Damian was to be believed there’d been a defined exponential growth in the number he’d been making every day since.
Danny couldn’t risk enjoying himself. He had a lot of research to do on extradition treaties with the US.
I would like to point out, there's no way the Bats aren't hyper-vigilantly monitoring Danny. For even the tiniest clues of what he might want or need or like. So there's no way they don't notice the research Danny is suddenly doing. And it's probably not enough to actually answer even one of their questions about John Doe. But it's a lead. Their first genuine lead.
Of course, now they have to wonder; what did John do (or think he did) that he needs (or think he needs) to flee the States?
Dick, Duke, Damian, and Stephanie are going to debrief everyone on what happened on the island.
But, before that, everyone who wasn't on the island is going to panic, when they come back and it seems Danny regressed. Especially Bruce. He's kicking himself that his new kid, 'John', is no longer even doing micro expressions!
When they do do the debrief, they get questioned why they didn't just text anyone and stay longer? The four deadpan at the others, then say it's because they knew the others would come to the island and overwhelm the boy when he was just getting out of his shell.
Duke brings up that when John showed emotions his powers reacted. John wasn't afraid of his own powers, nor was he afraid to use them around the Wayne's. But he was afraid to use them in Gotham.
Dick brings up Danny's research of the US territories. When he found out the island was a territory, he stopped showing as much emotion. So maybe he's afraid to use his powers in the US in general?
Tim blurts out that maybe John's powers are traceable and that's why he hides his emotions. If he is a trafficking victim, knows that he's still being hunted after escaping, then maybe John is more afraid of these traffickers than he feels safe in the Manor? He doesn't trust that the Wayne's are able to protect him.
Damian brings up that John's powers being activated felt like the Lazarus Pits. Everyone goes stock still.
Duke brings up that John's eyes has glowed green when he was showing emotions. So Damian continues on that line of thinking. John has scars all over his torso that looks like Lichtenburg scars. Which wouldn't make sense cause those are supposed to fade away after a while.
If you survive.
Which brings up that he must have been thrown into a Pit or was given the water. Ra's wouldn't have done this, unless John had been an amazing assassin or something. So, they either have an enemy in their home, or someone else found a Pit and used John as an experiment. 🧪
I did, like, five minutes of research into this, but lets GO!
---
Danny was on a plane. Another plane. This time to a country he got to pick.
Kind of.
Most of the countries with non-extradition treaties to the US had their own issues. Countries like North Korea were an absolute no. Jason had looked horrified at the mention of Ethiopia, so Danny tossed out most of Africa just to be safe. The Middle East also seemed to have everyone worried, even as Damian was from there?
If Danny could emote, he'd have sighed in relief when Cass had mentioned Hong Kong. The family had a rather large penthouse there, as it was one of the major hubs for the various Wayne Enterprise and subsidiaries. Tim and Bruce agreed that an in-person walkthrough would probably be well overdo.
There was then some sort of side organization going on as the rest of the extended family seemed to decide who was going, though Danny hadn't even had to ask. Alfred was already helping prepare Danny's suitcase.
Danny also asked about his passport. He somehow had one with the John Doe name, which, huh. The Waynes must have pulled some strings being Richer than Six Gods.
Anyway, Danny was in the air on the Wayne Enterprise jet towards the back once more. The ride was long - nearly sixteen hours in the air, direct - so everyone was in various states of activity as they reached the mid-way point.
Cass, obviously, with the most knowledge of Hong Kong was along for the ride. She was in the front of the craft with Jason and Dick, who were all huddled around a table - because this jet was so big and spacious that it had tables, benches, and full lay down beds for the occupants - and were seemingly playing Poker.
Tim was a little farther back and in his own table section, typing away at his computer like a mad man. He'd seemingly clonked out for all of twenty minutes about an hour prior before shooting up, looking like he'd suddenly cracked a major code, and now was on his computer chatting with Barbara over something Danny couldn't quite make out unless he wanted to use some of his ghost powers or move closer, neither which felt right.
Damian and Duke had claimed two of the laydown chairs after playing some racing game on Duke's Switch, and both seemed to be passed out. Bruce was the closest to Danny in one of the more normal seats that could be converted to a bed across the aisle from the teen, the reading light above him on as he wore a pair of spectacles, seemingly perusing something on the tablet he held.
Danny had been mostly staring out the window the whole flight, bouncing back and forth between observation, listening to whoever tried to engage him (he'd been pulled up to the table to eat and play Uno at some point, though he'd only eaten the food and watched, and Duke had sat next to him for a good portion of the early flight so they would watch a movie - the movie was atrocious in that way a bad movie could swing around to being hilarious, but Danny had held in his laughter even as Duke was snorting and pointing out all the plot holes), or looking down at the tablet he'd brought with him.
He'd been looking again and again at the US extradition laws and Hong Kong's stance on various entities.
China wasn't the paragon of human rights, but, after a debacle between the Chinese Ministry of Self-Reliance trying to form a "Justice League of China," that League clashing with the actual Justice League, and the eventual absorption of some of the members into the League, China had been forced to adopt some of the League Doctrine in relation to metahuman and non-human beings.
And, for some reason, they had specified in their examples of acceptable entities including ghosts, amongst other beings like demonic and deity, as those that fell under the acts.
In accordance with Chinese Law, a ghost on their soil, so long as it abided by the other laws placed by the government, would be treated like any other human under the same circumstance.
Granted, there was still some hinky stuff kept under wraps, with the media control and how some speculated that the Ministry of Self-Reliance had just gone underground, but, well, that was a different story. Hong Kong, while part of China, was also constantly fighting with its oversight, seeking more freedom and, in fact, had further local rulings that would protect those seeking asylum.
The GIW, his parents, the US government... none of them could touch him there.
Danny realized that someone was approaching him. He flicked his tablet to the home screen as Bruce approached, having gotten out of his seat to go talk to the elder Wayne Children at the front. He had a blanket and pillows in hand.
"You should probably get some sleep, too, before we land." He pointed out. Danny glanced forward, seeing Dick having disappeared into the bathroom while Cass was having what looked like a staring contest with Tim. Jason simply flopped down on one of the sofas while kicking off his boots, getting comfortable for some sleep. "Do you need help with the chair? They're a bit older style, so some of the controls can be a mess." Bruce expressed sincerely, his voice soft.
Danny shrugged and stood, opening his arms to accept the items Bruce had brought over. Bruce smiled as Danny held his own things - Danny may not know how these stupid chairs worked, but he wasn't going to not help - as Bruce got the chair to lie flat. Danny was able to take the rest from there, shaking his head when Bruce offered further.
Danny huddled himself into the corner of the chair, back to the window so that he could keep eyes on the other occupants. He checked his tablet's app that kept track of their flight.
Estimated time of arrival: 7 hours and 23 minutes.
Danny felt his emotions simmer under the icy glass walls he'd placed around his heart, his mind, his core.
He dozed off, praying that the Fenton Luck wouldn't rear its ugly head.
---
It wasn't all fun and games as the Wayne Family packed up for Hong Kong. Tim and Bruce did have to actually attend to Wayne Enterprise while there, and Cass was enlisting Damian to help with a smuggling operation - it would be impossible to take them down and out in the Chinese ports, but the two were planning on doing a lot of intel, planting trackers, and freeing any endangered species should need call.
Jason had largely come with as he'd missed out on John's opening up on the last trip, and, well, once he'd pointed out how John might have had his own dip into a Lazarus Pit, he'd been insistent on coming, claiming something along the lines of "us undead guys gotta stick together."
Dick, having been the one to organize this, had also been a no-brainer.
And Duke? Well, Duke had pointed out that, as the only (known) meta in the family, he also had some unique insight into what that meant and how that could weigh on a person.
Steph had complained about not coming, but she was also swamped in cases. Barbara was had been offered an invite, but she, too, had too much on her plate to come along.
Bruce had been hesitant to leave Gotham, as he always was, but, really, if he needed to be back, the Zeta in Hong Kong could have them back across the world in minutes, not the hours it took for them to fly traditionally.
The plane had a variety of sitting areas, some with tables or chairs facing one another, two sections with couches, and a set of seats near the rear that wouldn't be uncommon on a first-class commercial flight, with one large seat to one side of the row and two on the other. There were nine chairs in this back section with plenty of walking space so that, even if all beds were laid flat, no one would be walking over another.
John had claimed the single in the furthest back row, so Bruce had settled in opposite, hoping to keep an eye on the whole lot from there while also not intruding on the foster's space.
Bruce had made sure to sleep some at the beginning of the flight, not wanting all of them to be out at the same time. While he had staff onboard and trusted his pilots, it was always good to have Bat eyes and ears in case of emergency. With everyone settling down for the last part of the flight to alleviate jet lag, he made sure to stay sentinel.
A body dropped into the seat next to him. Bruce, ever aware, was glancing over as Dick popped his head onto Bruce's shoulder. Bruce had once been a person who had shied away from touch when given the choice, having few who he felt comfortable having in his personal space bubble (though he faked otherwise well), but, well, Dick had always shown a lot of love through physical affection. The young man whom had swung from his antique chandeliers (and still, sometimes, to this day - there was a reason he'd either replaced or reinforced them all to hold human weight) and tried to run around Gotham in a aerialist's unitard (Bruce thanked whoever blessed him with Alfred, because Bruce certainly had trouble convincing his young ward that pants with Kevlar or some other light-weight armor was a requirement to be in the field) was always welcome in Bruce's bubble, as were his other kids.
"You should get some rest, chum." Bruce said, looking back at the tablet in his hands. He was reading over the Budget Report for the Watchtower, something that would be both shocking (the amount of money spent on rare herbs and volcanic ash, while not exorbitant compared to some of the other costs, would certainly cause questions if it wasn't for the fact that they had magic users and, therefore, needed magical defenses) and mundane (three new Speedsters had fallen out of the multiverse/timeline/whatever in the past year, and the food budget was in need of adjustment as they were brought on to various teams).
"Hm." Dick hummed. He was an adult now, well on his way to thirty, but there was something about setting his head on Bruce's shoulder that still made him relax just a bit. He could be fiercely independent, but he also had moments where he would just regress back to being nine, and Bruce's larger than life persona would shield him from the worst of the world for a little bit. "You think this is going to work?"
"I hope so." Bruce returned. "Any luck on finding out more details about John?" Bruce added, but he shifted to Romani so that, even if John woke and somehow overheard their conversation, he'd have, hopefully, no clue on what they were saying.
"He's a ghost." Dick returned in his first tongue, so much smoother than Bruce's accent. "Oracle found some traces of his path to Gotham, but his tracking was all over the place. We've tried using face ID, but we haven't found a match yet."
Bruce sighed through his nose. "I'll keep an ear out for updates from Oracle, then. We will also need to keep an eye on him to make sure that he doesn't bolt when we land."
Dick nodded before pulling out his phone. He switched back to English. "Want to video call Haly and Alfred with me?"
Bruce couldn't help but smile. "You call your kiddo, chum."
"She's the cutest little baby, and you can't convince me otherwise."
"Wasn't going to, Chum."
---
Danny's passing through customs was a bit of a blur. They'd landed at a private landing strip before being whisked away by a half a dozen local passport control agents. Danny kept close to the Waynes, still, because, well, he still felt like he couldn't break.
But the longer he was there, he could feel it.
The ice melting.
Cass had taken the lead once they'd settled in, showing them around her favorite haunts of the city and having Danny try much of the local food. Before the Waynes, he'd never been able to really travel and just be a tourist. Sure, there was one memory of him and Jazz in Toronto when they were very little, and he'd gone to freaking space to stop Technus, but he'd always been too young or in Hero Mode otherwise.
Bruce and Tim had taken him around Wayne Enterprise's main headquarters there the following day, though Jason and Duke had later "broken him out" to go to a local market and laugh at all the poorly worded shirts with bogus English on them.
Danny had cracked a snort when he saw a particularly bad shirt. He still didn't want to allow too much to spill, what with so many people around, but, well, the ASSA shirt with a poor man's Nasa logo had nearly broken him.
He wasn't really allowed to be alone outside of the Wayne Penthouse, where everyone got their own rooms for the trip, but Danny didn't mind. Everyone seemed to have a much better understanding of Cantonese compared to him (which was pretty much anything as Danny spoke none of the language, not that he felt secure enough to speak much anyway), so having everyone else translate was a blessing.
But then, about two weeks in, Danny finally felt the last of his ice break away.
Because Duke had asked him if he wanted to climb out to the rooftop deck, a telescope in hand, and try to find stars through the Hong Kong light polution.
"I think that's Sirius? The dog star?" Duke said as he pointed to a spot in the sky. Only the brightest stars could pierce the night shadow, much like with Gotham on its rare cloudless nights.
"You're pointed at Vega."
Danny was almost shocked as his own voice seemed to claw its way out of his throat.
Duke jumped, swirling back on the younger teen, before seemingly pulling himself together. He looked back at the night sky. Playing calm, Duke added, "Huh. You know your stars?"
"It's the brightest star..." Danny trailed off. He tried to keep his small joy down, his face contorting, but... he was so tired of keeping even his littlest delights down. Of keeping his interests at bay. Of crushing Danny. "...in the constellation Lyra."
"You want to take the bad boy for a spin?" Duke gestured to the telescope.
Hesitantly, Danny approached. He looked into the telescope, adjusting his knowledge based on where they were in the world.
Danny felt himself just... lighten. He could feel his ecto energy rise from his Core for the first time in so long, and he didn't have as much fear. Even if he somehow spiked Ecto now, he was an ocean and continent away from the people looking for him. He was somewhere that would treat him like any other tourist.
He could just... be.
Danny had gotten so caught up in the moment turning to minutes, dropping stifled facts about the stars that he'd always loved, that he forgot about his situation as he looked back, staring at the sky without the telescope.
The ecto flooded his eyes, and the darkness dispersed, revealing the cosmos overhead.
And, then, he noticed the white, floating hair in his perifery.
Danny grasped the hair, and he felt the tug on his head.
And he crashed back into himself.
He'd been glowing. His hair had turned white.
Duke was right there.
Danny tried to clamp down on his emotions, try to think, but the panic rose, his eyes no doubt flashing green, as he turned back to the teenager who was staring right at him.
---
Duke had played calm when John had spoken, desperately hoping not to scare the boy off.
And Duke had somehow hit the jackpot, it seemed, because the boy began to, hesitantly, speak facts about the stars as they looked into the night sky.
If Duke was honest, he didn't need the telescope to see past the darkened sky. His powers allowed him to manipulate the light and shadows around him, and it took barely anything to swipe away the darkness in his own vision to bring the stunning galaxies into focus. He could do the same for others, but, well, he didn't know how John would react if he had done so.
Still, as John took on that eerie glow again, that lightness in his body that seemed to give him a sense of antigravity, his hair turning almost celestial as white dots glowed into white bands, Duke tried not to stare.
But, this time, it seemed that John had become aware of what was happening.
It happened in a blink. One second, John was looking into the night sky, readying the telescope to show Duke another cluster of some kind, but then he stopped. He tugged his own hair, realizing the color shift, and spun on Duke.
Duke had half expected John to shut down, but, this time, it seemed that the walls had fallen away, because John was going into a full-blown panic attack.
John's eyes were the same eerie green, his clothes and hair floating with that unearthly glow and his eyes flickering - sky blue, toxic green, icy blue, and back - and, worse, the ground around John's feet was turning to ice.
"Oh shit." Duke threw, throwing up his hands. "John! John, it's ok. It's fine. I get it."
John looked down, up, down, a hand going to his chest like he was having a heart attack. The air around him seemed to spark and simmer with some kind of energy.
"Look, it's going to be ok. You're not alone."
Duke had lead the We Are Robins movement back in the day, and he had his fair share of helping kids through panic attacks now and through today. He'd learned a lot with Bruce, but patience was one of them.
"No one here is going to hurt you." Duke tried to assure, but the young man before him kept panicking. "Just..." Duke got an idea.
He pulled his powers, using broad body strokes. He didn't need to, but the act both helped him focus on what he was doing and project his movements for John to see.
John looked up as Duke wiped the darkness away from the sky, the galaxies now appearing to them like it did in the areas of the world where light pollution was a distant nightmare.
"I have powers, too. The family knows, and they have helped me through a lot of stuff." Duke reassured. Duke kept an eye on the ice that had been forming at John's feet. It had been seemingly climbing up his legs, across the rooftop (thank goodness that they had glass protectors around with the tall protective bars - they both acted to prevent people from scaling up there - ha, really, because all the kids could jump them - and create barriers that stopped anyone staring at the roof from seeing anything clearly; to an observer with a telescope, they would just see random lights on a penthouse rooftop). "You're safe here."
---
Danny felt his heart stop. Full stop. In his ghost form, he still had one, but it was sluggish and, of course, inhumanly slow. He could stop it like holding one's breathe, but that had never happened in his human form before.
But the shock must have done him in.
Because the sky was so beautiful, and Danny didn't have to fight anything to see it.
Duke was doing it.
Duke was a meta.
Did... did that mean the Waynes would help him? He'd been thinking about how and what he'd do when they planned to load up back to Gotham. They had only planned to be there for three weeks, though Tim had been talking about staying longer and inviting the others to do so if they had the time.
Could they just... help him stay? Cass had her own apartment in the city. She lived here. Could he stay with her?
Wasn't that aiding and abetting? Wouldn't they get in trouble?
Then again, Richer than Six Gods Combined.
Danny felt his heart clench, beating once more.
"I'm going to approach you, ok?"
Danny looked down at the ice then back at Duke.
He didn't want the other teen hurt.
Duke took a step forward and, looking at the ice and Danny's worry, he used wide strokes, once more, as his shadow reached out over the ice.
Danny watched as Duke stepped over the ice, like he was creating his own little Shadow Bridge.
He was like Johnny, in a way.
Heh, and they thought I was the John here. Danny thought vaguely.
Duke made it to Danny without touching the ice. "Can you breathe with me, dude?"
Danny did. He forced his breathing to match Duke's, watching as the other teen breathed in, held, and breathed out.
Danny felt his powers, trapped in a cage of his own making, slowly come back under his control, though bits stayed at the surface with his emotions. He wasn't sure how he'd fix that, but at least he wasn't freezing the floor anymore and managed to dismiss the ice he'd been forming. His glow settled some, and his hair had white mixed in with his black. While Danny couldn't see it, one eye was green while the other was his human blue.
"You feeling more grounded?" Duke questioned.
Danny, feeling like he just flew from Wisconsin to Amity and back, nodded, but he felt wiped.
"Can I take your hand? You look unsteady."
Danny hesitated, looking Duke up and down.
Danny wasn't like Duke. He wasn't sure what Duke was, but Ghosts were not part of the Metahuman protections. He'd looked, and the laws hadn't allowed it. It was the small loophole that the GIW and his parents worked through.
But, as he looked at the other teen, and with what he'd learned about the Waynes, he hardly thought any of them would truly distinguish it.
Danny took the hand offered to him.
And then he stumbled.
"Woah!" Duke rushed forward, grabbing Danny before he could hit the ground. "I think you should lay down. You're freezing, man."
"That's... normal... ish." Danny mumbled. Then, because he hadn't in oh, so long, he added, "I'm... a pretty... chill... guy..."
Duke stopped, startled, before staring at Danny for too long.
Danny thought he'd made the wrong move.
Then, Duke spoke, "Oh my gods, we have another Dick."
Danny couldn't help it. A small, wheezing laugh shook loose of his lungs.
Duke slung the offered arm over his shoulder, hefting most of Danny's weight onto him. "You need to eat more, dude. You're light AF."
Danny shrugged as best he could, feeling his exhaustion stomp down on what emotions he had allowed out. He felt his glow waver.
"Hey, I know you're tired, and, like, panic attacks suck, but, also, glowing? Seriously, are you gonna be ok? Do you need a doctor?" Duke questioned.
"Mm... fine..." Danny ground out. "Sleep."
Danny was out like a light before they got off the roof.
Inspired by this post. & design from @little-pondhead
I'd probably try to draw more later but for now, my brain is mush
This 'mad scientist' au has me in a chokehold. I wish nothing more than to run away with it and make a comic out of it. Danny deserves to be a gremlin in another universe and make it everyones problem.
I'd like to think that there's a day he just takes blueprints from Vlad and makes his own hoverboard and chills on it.
Imagine: Danny sitting on it with a bucket of popcorn as he watches the corrupt companies screech to high heaven to stop the program he installed and "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE CANT STOP IT- NO I DON'T NEED THAT FILE GET RID OF- ITS UPLOADED ON THE INTERNET?!"
“You ever look at someone and wonder how hard it would be to get past their defenses and stab them?”
Damian snapped his head to the side, looking at the young boy now standing beside him.
The boy put his hands up in front of him with a wince, “Not that I ever do that. Totally not, whaaaat???”
Damian huffed and turned back around to watch the gala participants.
“It’s just you kinda looked like you were contemplating the logistics of stabbing Mrs.Halterguild for squeezing your cheeks.”
Damian scowled. Then, after a moment’s beat, “It would not be very difficult. She is nearly blind in her left eye, I would be able to approach without repost.”
The kid hummed, turning back as well before motioning to another group to the far right, “What about Mr. Beckensmith, he’s a retired vet right?”
Damian rolled his eyes and scowled harder, “The man has only seen the battlefield of an office as he bribed his way from being fully enlisted and instead managed to pay for increasingly higher ranks and medals. He is a disgrace.”
The kid cocked his head to the side, looking suspicious for a second and then nodding with concession, “Fair enough, I bet I could get close enough too.”
Damian scoffed.
“What, don’t believe me?”
Damian leveled a doubtful glare at the civilian, making it clear by looking him up and down, “Hardly.”
The other smirked dangerously, “If I can get close enough to poke him and get away without being noticed, will you believe me?”
Damian narrowed his eyes but nodded succinctly and watched as the boy immediately took off, making a few loops around other people before finally backing up to Mr. Beckensmith and poking him on the opposite side as a group moved past.
Damian pursed his lips. Interesting. Certainly better than he would expect from an amateur. And an amateur civilian at that.
When the boy returns to his side Damian brushes off the asks of meaningless praise.
“Come on, I did it, now you have to go poke Mrs. Halterguild without getting caught.”
Damian sneers, “And why would I do that?”
“Because I don’t believe you either, the woman’s old but I bet she sees you and squeezes your cheeks again. Old ladies just have a sixth sense for that stuff you know.”
Damian nearly growls but sets off on his task. He makes sure to stay on her left side, but the woman turns at the last second, forcing Damian to use a passing waiter as cover to remain hidden and finally get close enough to poke her gaudy dress.
Then he sidles back up to the boy on the edges and provides his best ‘I am more capable than you’ scowl. The boy simply laughs and says, “Who’s next?”
They spend the night like that, choosing each other’s targets to attack non-lethally as though they were attempting to stab them, and Damian finds the gala going by in a significantly less tedious manner.
Right up until the boy laughs at him when he chooses a target. Only one bark of laughter escapes, but it is enough for Damian to consider stabbing him as well. If only with a butter knife.
Instead, Damian grinds his teeth and asks, “What is so different about Masters, do you really believe you would be unable to succeed?”
The other gives a breathless chuckle, “I’m pretty sure even you wouldn’t be able to successfully stab Vlad Masters,” The boy’s shoulders sag even as his jaw tightens with irritation, “He sees everything.”
Damian narrows his eyes. Something naws at the back of his brain but currently the critique of his capabilities takes precedence.
“I would be capable of stabbing Masters even without my favored sword,” Damian scowls and stands taller with annoyance.
“Sure you can, man,” At this, the boy quirks a sharp smile, “If you can actually get him, I’ll personally get you a magic sword,” he says with an air of amused indulgence. Like he thinks Damian is some insipid child saying he will find a fairy.
Damian grits his teeth and shakes the other’s hand, then immediately sets off after his target. How dare this civilian question him! He is the Son of the Bat, this is not even a challenge!
Damian growls as his approach is thwarted for the third time by the man turning in his direction and almost spotting him. How dare he! He will not fail!
Just as he reaches to jab the man in the side, already poised to make his escape, Masters whips around and clamps his fingers around Damian’s wrist with a vice grip.
“Really Daniel I thought we were over-“ Masters pauses, looking at Damian critically as he glares at the man’s offending hand, “You are not young Daniel.”
“Remove your hand from my person at once,” Damian growls.
Instead of listening to Damian’s very sensible directions, Masters tightens his grip and twists his arm, most likely in an attempt to hurt him.
“Now why is a child attempting to-“
Damian doesn’t wait to hear the rest of the man’s words, sliding a dagger into his other hand and swinging towards him, until that hand is caught mid-movement as well.
“Heh-Hey there!”
Damian snaps his head to the side just in time to see Grayson take his dagger and slide it into his pocket. He ignores the bark of laughter he hears from across the room.
Masters’ hand disappears from his arm suspiciously fast, “Mr. Wayne, what a pleasure!”
Damian looks over his other shoulder to see his father standing behind him, a thin smile on his face, “Vladimir!”
His father’s figure quickly obscures his vision, putting an arm over Masters’ shoulders in a way that clearly makes him irritated but forces him to follow as he is steered away.
“Dami, I thought we talked about the stabbing at formal events,” Grayson says through a strained smile as he looks over the crowd to make sure no else saw.
“Tt, it was merely a demonstration of my skills, he was in no real danger until he refused to release me. I simply sought to correct that mistake.”
Grayson pinchesthe bridge of his nose, “Demonstration for who, Dames? We all already know your skills.”
“Tt,” Damian scowls and turns away.
Instead of pushing it, Grayson simply sighs heavily, “Just stay out of trouble for the rest of the gala okay? We’re almost done.”
Damian scoffed and waited for Grayson to leave. Once he does, Damian finally looks over to where he had been lingering with the boy.
Gone.
Clearly he’d taken the cowards way out when he’d seen that Damian had been accosted by Masters.
Pitiful.
Damian spends the rest of the night scowling from the wall and looking serendipitously for a head of black hair and blue eyes unrelated to him.
Of course it’s not until they are actively leaving that Damian sees him and immediately splits off of from his family.
He approaches with irritation, preparing to grab the other by the shoulder when suddenly he turns around and blue eyes meet Damian’s green.
“You,” Damian sneers.
“Me,” The other shrugs. He has an amused smile on his face, though it’s strained at the edges.
They stare in silence for a minute, before the other’s smile grows and sharpens once more, “I didn’t expect you to actually try to stab him, y’know,” A slight laugh escapes him, “Not that it was unwelcome by any means, but still, unexpected.”
Damian scowls again, glaring at this foolish civilian.
“Oh, I never introduced myself did I?!”
The boy exclaims and holds out a hand, smile dangerous, “Daniel Fenton. Or if we’re being technical,” a pause as Damian finally returns the gesture and finds his hand trapped, “Daniel Masters, a pleasure to meet you Damian.”
“Hurry up little badger,” A voice says beside them, and Damian notices that it is indeed Vladimir Masters.
The man approaches, placing a heavy hand on Fenton’s shoulder, making the boy go taut, and then they both step into a dark car, leaving Damian on the front steps.
Damian’s anger flares and he shoots a glare directly to the boy getting into the car. It dies the moment they meet eyes and Damian sees the fear hiding in the other’s eyes.
Fear that Damian is all too familiar with.
Fear that reminded Damian of himself. Reminded him of his own eyes when he’d been under his grandfather.
Dick sat in the tensely quiet car trying his best not to fidget. It’s not entirely silent of course, Barbara is talking over the radio to Bruce about the nights oncoming patrol and Bruce is… not contributing to the conversation, but a part of it at the very least.
Maybe it’s just Dick feeling the near purposeful silence coming from Damian in the backseat. He’d been irritated about being the only other one coming to the gala, and sure, they’d had that hiccup with the stabbing attempt, but that was par for the course.
Dick thought he’d handled it well, all sharp pointy things considered.
Clearly not, if the pensive storm of silence emanating from behind him was any key.
“So Damian…” Dick starts, unsure, but hey it’s not like he can expect Bruce to notice, “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay after the gala.”
A pause.
“Everything. Is Fine.” Damian grits out.
Even Bruce perks up at the tone, so something is definitely up.
“Be that as it may…I wanted to make sure you didn’t take my words wrong, I just thought we’d gotten past-“
“It was not you,” Damian snaps.
Dick blinks, sharing a moment of questioning eye contact with Bruce next to him.
Just as he opens his mouth to speak again, Damian interrupts.
“It was Masters.”
Dick quirks an eyebrow, “The guy you tried to stab?”
Damian’s face twists into a sneer, “Yes. Though if he had not tried to restrain me I would not have been so tempted to maim him. The encounter was merely meant to be a practice hit, a….”Damian looks away out the window, “A demonstration.”
“You said that before. A demonstration for who, Damian?”
His face resets into his typical scowl and for a second, Dick thinks that’s all they’ll get, that he’ll leave it there, but Damian turns away from the window to look down at his hands clenched in his lap.
“There was… a boy. With Masters,” Damian finally makes eye contact through the rearview mirror, “We.. interacted during the festivities, demonstrating our shared capabilities to move past other’s defenses.”
Dick squints, blinking repeatedly as he tries to decode Damian’s words, “You guys spent the night…. pretend stabbing people?”
“Tt. It was nothing so juvenile,” Damian scoffs, “We simply found our interests for the evening aligned and shared a demonstration to each other. As I said.”
“Of course,” Dick nods seriously despite the smile on his face, “But why does that have your feathers ruffled, Baby bat?”
Damian takes a deep breath, eyelids flickering closed for a second, and when they made eye contact again, his eyes were softer than Dick had ever seen him.
“He was afraid. After my interaction with Masters, he disappeared. I thought he ran. But he was accepting of my approach just before our departure…” Damian pauses, “He was only afraid in Masters’ presence.”
Dick watches in his peripheral vision as Bruce’s knuckles tighten over the steering wheel.
They’re already on the bridge, it’s too late to take a shorter route directly to the cave. But oh how Dick wishes it wasn’t, this has everything wrong written all over it.
“What was his name?” Dick can feel the Nightwing seep into his voice and tries to control it.
“Daniel Fenton, though he said that it would be Daniel Masters by technicality.”
Bruce taps the speaker button of their radio, keying in Oracle, “Compile information on Vladimir Masters, and any connections to a Daniel, surname alternatively Fenton and Masters both, as well as a timeframe of interaction and all film from tonight’s gala. Both were present,” Bruce orders as they enter Bristol.
“On it,” Oracle’s distorted voice replies. Dick can almost imagine her nod as her face sets and she gets to work.
“Father?”
Dick looks back at Damian, finding him staring intently at Bruce’s gruff profile in the front seat.
“Trusting your instincts is one of the most primary parts of being a detective,” Bruce recites, “I’m trusting your instincts, Damian. If you’re suspicious of Masters, we will follow through.”
Any response is cut short by their arrival to the Batcave through a side entrance. Oracle already has the files on the large screen, details still appearing as she works. Clearly Dick is going to need to remind her to sleep tonight.
“Vlad Masters, millionaire packers fan, modest beginnings, lab accident in college, came out of it and immediately began a rise to riches through suspiciously beneficial business deals,” Oracle reads out as she adds more business contracts to the screen, “Sounds like that lab accident was the most beneficial thing, he’s likely an early age meta.”
Bruce hums lowly in agreement, and Dick can already tell his mind is spinning with contingencies and plans.
Oracle continues, “Reconnected with Madeline and Jack Fenton, mutual friends from college now married, and moved to a small town in Illinois to be closer after their reunion. Became mayor of that small town and after the parents left to travel abroad, on Vlad’s funding, and with the sister away for college, he is now guardian of one Daniel Masters nee Fenton, due to one spectacularly expedited name change and a handful of temporary guardianship papers.”
Bruce’s eyes narrow as he stares up at the images on the screen, a young Vlad, some pictures of press reports after his business deals, his mayoral election, and a handful of shots of him standing next to a young black-haired teenager.
Dick catalogs the tenseness of the teenager in every picture, and feels an uncomfortable familiarity to Slade at the look in Vlad’s eyes.
It makes his own shoulders tense with the feeling of being owned. Possessed.
“This sleazebag is the reason Barbie practically confiscated the Batcomputer from me?”
Dick turns to see Jason walk out from their armory storage, everything but his helmet on. Making the sneer he casts at the screen perfectly visible.
“Hood,” Bruce grunts.
“Don’t worry, old man, I’ll be out of here soon, I was running some forensics before O kicked me off,” Jason says as he walks past them with heavy footsteps.
“We have a case,” Bruce says, making Dick roll his eyes. Really? Not a single hint of ‘I’m happy to see you, Jason’?
“What, rich guy taking in a black-haired blue eyed kid? Gee, sounds familiar. Someone stealing your act, B?” Jason looks back as he reaches his motorcycle, “I’ll keep an eye out for any child soldiers in leotards- oh wait,” He casts them a deadpan look before hooking a leg over his bike.
“Hood-“ Dick starts.
“Besides,” Hood snarls, slamming his red helmet on his head, “You wouldn’t like the way I deal with him.”
The retreating roar of his engine is enough to push Dick towards the batcomputer instead of watching Bruce stare longingly down the tunnel.
What he sees paints an increasingly bad picture. One that’s unfortunately pretty close to what they expected.
“B, come look at this,” Dick calls, feeling the weight of his presence approach over his shoulder.
“We don’t have an accurate timeline for their first meeting, but if Daniel’s dip in grades is any indication, Vlad has been around for barely two years, and now he’s Daniel’s guardian? Something’s wrong with that picture Bruce.”
“Hn.”
Dick continues flickering through the compiled history, now more recent, “Traveling away from Daniel’s hometown, homeschooling him, B, this is textbook isolation.”
“Tt, clearly Fenton required my demonstration so he can attempt it himself. If I was thwarted then his own chances of success against Masters are abysmal,”Damian sniffs.
“That’s why we’re here. Get suited up, we’ll add a stakeout to tonight’s patrol,” Bruce says, turning to the suit cases in a way that’s meant to make the bat cape swirl ominously.
Dick glances one last time at the blown up image of Vlad Masters on the screen, his cold eyes seem to loom over them. Even by the same scale, Daniel Fenton looks small next to him.
Determination rises as Dick turns on his heel towards his own suit.
Time to get to work.
—
Danny stares at the dull eggshell white of the hotel suite’s ceiling above his bed. Despite the lights being off, he knows it’s eggshell white and not the beige-blue it appears to be because he spent most of the daylight hours staring at it too.
Danny tries not to think about the fact Vlad is barely a room away.
He tries not to think of the fact that Vlad sent his parents an entire ocean away.
He tries not think of the fact that Vlad has torn him away from the place he’s known all his life, tries not to think of how he’s stuck here, how he’s stuck with Vlad, can’t get away from him, no matter how he tries, tries not to think of the times that he’s not even in control of his own body, trapped in his own mind with his powers tucked away under chains, of the times that Vlad simply makes him act like his perfect son.
Danny snaps his eyes open.
The eggshell white ceiling stares back at him.
He traces the pale light shining across it from the window until a shadow rushes past it.
Immediately, Danny whips his head to the window, raising from the bed with a sense of curiosity.
He stares out of the window into Gotham’s streetlit darkness, and thinks he sees something dipping through the shadows.
Danny again curses Vlad, slamming his fist in irritation at the loss of his night vision. It’s too soon after the taser but he still tries anyways, feeling nothing but the sore tugging of his core in return and the flicker of green eyes in the window.
The hair on his arms prickles.
Just as he’s about to turn away from the window to continue staring aimlessly at the ceiling, a hand clamps down on his shoulder.
“Little Badger,” Vlad’s voice purrs lowly, “Watching the nightlife are we?”
Danny knows better than to shrug off Vlad’s hand, but that doesn’t stop the urge to drive his elbow into the fruit loop’s sternum, “I was just heading to bed,” He says almost robotically. He just wants this interaction to be over.
As he tries to turn away, Vlad’s hand tightens to keep him in place, “Ah ah ah, Daniel, I want to have a conversation with you,” The grip turns painful and Danny grits his teeth, “It’s bad manners to walk away from someone when they’re talking to you.”
Danny lets himself be turned enough to face Vlad, even just to glare at him, “What? Our little talk earlier wasn’t enough for you? You gonna tase me again like you did at the gala?”
Vlad scowl turns into a vicious sneer, “We can have this argument as many times as you need, Daniel. You are mine, I’ve sent your parents on their dream haunted tour of Europe instead of simply killing your imbecilic father, so perhaps instead of fighting me, you should be grateful.”
Danny sighs through clenched teeth, “What did you want, Vlad?”
Vlad hesitates, eyes scanning him for disobedience before speaking, “I have a business meeting tomorrow-“
“And let me guess, you want me to tag along to make you look good?” Danny scowls.
Vlad’s eyes darken in warning, “I’d thought after Chicago you’d desire to stay back,” he pauses to let Danny remember, “Perhaps I was wrong?” He questions with a raised eyebrow.
Danny feels his heart jump a beat, his muscles tense, remembering the sight of Vlad possessing the CEO, forcing the man to hold a gun to his own head, of knowing exactly the feeling of trying to fight your own body- because that moment had been one of the very first times in months Danny had been free from under Vlad, and it was only because Vlad needed to prove a point to Danny, only because Danny had tried to reach out, had tried to help someone else-
And someone else had paid the price.
So instead of snapping back with any number of scathing, cutting insults, Danny swallows his words and simply nods.
“I’ll stay here.”
Vlad smiles, smarmy and smug, “Good choice Daniel,” He lifts his hand away to wave it in the air as he talks, “I’ll have food delivered of course, make sure to keep up with your studies, I’d hate to have a repeat of last time and have to teach your lessons personally."
Danny clenches his fists by his sides, nails digging into his palms, “Of course not.”
“And Daniel?” Vlad says, stopping at the door.
“What, Fruitloop?”
Vlad’s eyes glow deadly red as he expands his aura over the suite room, “Don’t ever embarrass me at a Gala like that again.”
Danny forces himself to meet Vlad’s eyes, “I won’t,” he whispers.
Vlad shuts the door solidly behind him, leaving Danny alone.
“We’re so glad you’re showing an interest in our work here, Mr. Wayne!”
“Of course! It’s just all so new!” Bruce said through a hollow laugh, “It’s almost unbelievable!”
“Believing in ghosts is the first step to finally getting rid of them!”
Bruce fought to keep his face flat as the director enthusiastically continued his tour of their facility.
Their ghost hunting facility.
Where they had funded and government sanctioned labs purely for the persecution of an entire inter-dimensional species.
“-Truly, the Drs.Fenton were an inspiration to the entire field of ectobiology! We wouldn’t know half the things we know about ghosts if it wasn’t for their early research!”
Bruce forced a thin smile, “Oh? Will I get to meet them? Or can I at least see some of their work?”
The man faltered almost imperceptibly, “Ah well.. that might be a bit, Fentons can be a bit.. overzealous and-“
“I’m sure it would go a long way to understanding the need for such a large facility. If it’s worth it even, perhaps I could fund an expansion…” Bruce let his voice trail off.
The man’s eyes sharpened at the mention of his financials- of course, what more could you expect from a shark who’d joined an operation like this- and the man quickly smiled.
“But of course Mr. Wayne!” He turned around, leading them towards an elevator, “Our labs are just downstairs, easy access you know, and well.. with any new specimens it’s always best to start right away!”
Bruce’s eyes narrowed. They already had subjects? Their reports, their research had indicated they weren’t there yet, but if they were, this could quickly turn into a rescue mis-
“-It’s an absolute honor that we even have one of the Fenton’s themselves working with us!” Bruce sharpened his senses, one of them was here? The people who had laid every base for a hateful crusade against another dimension, all for their own ambition?
“Our labs are right through here,” the director said as he pushed open a door, “Dr. Fenton is working with our prize specimen right now, I’m sure!”
Bruce quickly scanned and analyzed the entire room. Testing tubes, jars filled with green, centrifuges, a sample fridge, glassware, plenty of counter space, all taken up by various tools and materials. And standing in front it was the reason for it all, dressed in a white lab coat over garish latex.
He turned around as they entered, “You know me too well, Director,” the young man spoke, ignoring the green splattered over his gloves, “My work with him isn’t finished yet.”
“Mr.Wayne, meet our frontier scientist, Dr. Daniel Fenton.”
Bruce Wayne scanned the young man, no older than 26, with a height similar to his own and shoulders only barely less.
A scientist. An unknown. A threat.
Fenton smiled at him, “Tell me Mr.Wayne,” Daniel said, and his smile went sharp, “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Even if danny does come clean with the justice league, they would need proof.
Properly exposing himself could put him in danger if the justice league failed (and lets be honest, I dont think danny has that much trust that they could clear this up before anybody gets hurt sense it took them this long to even look into it in the first place)
So keeping danny and phantom as separate entities would be crucial.
PLUS it has so much angst and misunderstanding potential that i just cant resist
Like, danny is the primary doctor (Torturer) for phantom! Hes the son of ghosthunters! Phantoms natural enemy! They are on opposite ends of this war
Of course Danny isnt actually torturing Phantom, they find a way to make it look like hes making progress without causing harm, maybe by reinventing Fenton tech and phantoms spectral manipulation abilities.
But Phantom has to play his role as victim well.
He is so dramatic, and with Danny playing the sadistic manipulative doctor it looks like a horror movie - while both of them are trying not to laugh at the idiot GIW agents who fall for their honestly sub par lying and acting skills.
Maybe B gets to watch one of their sessions, or is otherwise shown them through video recordings which the GIW/Danny so proudly showed off - and is absolutely horrified!
Sure, by human standards it looks like Phantom is ridiculously conscious for someone actively being vivisected - screaming about “oh the horror!” “Wheres the humanity!” “Oh woe is me!”
But Phantom being a different species he cant apply human expectations! This could be exactly how it goes for them! And he definitely LOOKS like hes being cut up (Phantom using his stupid cartoon body manipulation abilities )
And its clear Dr Danny is completely unfazed by all of it! He might even be enjoying it!
Hes especially cruel- telling phantom to shut up (Phantom is being way to dramatic to be believable) and threatening him (phantom is actively biting back replying with “you promise ;)” to literally everything and Danny KNOWS and is trying SO HARD not to laugh)
Ya know general torture stuff
But as oracle is searching through the GIW database she finds a secret file. (This is stolen from one of the earlier replies)
Its Dr Dannys
It contains other sessions of him and Phantom along with Videos of danny reviewing GIW plans, sites, employees, and its Very Helpful for the bats.
I imagine that the videos of Dr Danny and Phantom have them mostly joking around and checking in on each other. Danny used ectopowers and/or help from Tucker or Technus to keep the videos away from the GIW and put them in his own personal files.
Danny had kept the videos of proof that ghosts are sentient (and maybe his own innocence), but he didnt want to make it obvious he was a double agent incase he got found out
I cant decide if its better if these videos reveal Danny as a double agent or if it looks like Phantom is developing stockholm syndrome with his personal torturer. Either way it clearly shows that Phantom and Danny are close.
Does something they do make it look like Danny and Phantom were friends (or maybe more, fake pitch pearl my beloved) before his capture? Do the JL question what happened?
Does Danny eventually reveal to truth? Does he go to jail before he gets the chance?
Did the justice league rescue Phantom or did Danny call in a rescue from Sam and Tucker? Does this make it look like Dr Danny went on the run with his favorite test subject?
Does Danny help out with Phantoms escape, throwing everything the JL know about him out the window?
Does Danny think they figured out he was a double agent? Is he confused when they try to save Phantom from him?
Does Phantom and Danny fuse back together the second the alarms in the GIW base start up because of the JLs rescue? Does it look like Phantom is getting revenge on his torturer via possession? Do the JL try to talk him out of it?
Was Phantom actually weakened by his stint with the GIW? Is it because of the lack of ectoplasm? his general mistreatment? Is the double acting as phantom naturally weaker? or did something need to be done to make the fake Fenton Tools look like they work?
Does this make Phantom too weak to stop the JL from separating him and danny / taking Phantom to the hospital?
Does Phantom need to go to therapy where he is supposed to talk about how evil Danny is? Does it make it look like Phantom has Stockholm syndrome even more? Is Danny going through the same therapy? Does it make him look obsessed with Phantom? Are they playing it up for fun?
Anyway, lots of ideas, I love GIW danny so much.
Also fake pitch pearl for hidden identity purposes, both current or back when they were younger could be so funny / angsty
Danny takes advantage of the Hero Association’s need for recruiting more heroes and his ability to duplicate, along with his ever-growing assortment of powers, to register as multiple heroes with the Association and pull in multiple paychecks. This becomes an issue when several of his heroic personas catch the attention of the Blizzard Group, bringing several recruiters of the B-Class mafia to his front door, each of them looking for a different hero.
