this is adorable and you're all so lovely, now go spread the love to your fav fics and all the hard-working authors on ao3! ❤️
(btw you can embed any image you have the image link/url of by the general code: <img src="IMAGE URL" alt="ALT TEXT">, just replace the blue text within the quotation marks! though of course you don't need it on tumblr)
I used to work for a call center and I was doing a political survey and I called this number that was randomly generated for me and the way our system worked was voice-activated so when the other person said hello you’d get connected to them, so I just launch right into my “Harvard University and NPR blah blah blah” thing and then there’s this long pause and I think the person’s hung up even though I didn’t hear a click
And then I hear “you shouldn’t be able to call this number.”
So I apologize and go into the preset spiel about because we aren’t selling anything, etc. etc. and the answer I get is
“No, I know that. What I mean is that it should be impossible for you to call this number, and I need to know how you got it.”
I explain that it’s randomly generated and I’m very sorry for bothering him, and go to hang up. And before I can click terminate, I hear:
“Ma’am, this is a matter of national security.”
I accidentally called the director of the FBI.
My job got investigated because a computer randomly spit out a number to the Pentagon.
When I was in college I got a job working for a company that manages major air-travel data. It was a temp gig working their out of date system while they moved over to a new one, since my knowing MS Dos apparently made me qualified.
There was no MS Dos involved. Instead, there was a proprietary type-based OS and an actually-uses-transistors refrigerator-sized computer with switches I had to trip at certain times during the night as I watched the data flow from six pm to six AM on Fridays and weekends. If things got stuck, I reset the server.
The company handled everything from low-end data (hotel and car reservations) to flight plans and tower information. I was weighed every time I came in to make sure it was me. Areas of the building had retina scanners on doors.
During training. they took us through all the procedures. Including the procedures for the red phone. There was, literally, a red phone on the shelf above my desk. “This is a holdover from the cold war.” They said. “It isn’t going to come up, but here’s the deal. In case of nuclear war or other nation-wide disaster, the phone will ring. Pick up the phone, state your name and station, and await instructions. Do whatever you are told.”
So my third night there, it’s around 2am and there’s a ringing sound.
I look up, slowly. The Red phone is ringing.
So I reach out, I pick up the phone. I give my name and station number. And I hear every station head in the building do the exact same. One after another, voices giving names and numbers. Then silence for the space of two breaths. Silence broken by…
“Uh… Is Shantavia there?”
It turns out that every toll free, 1-900 or priority number has a corresponding local number that it routs to at its actual destination. Some poor teenage girl was trying to dial a friend of hers, mixed up the numbers, and got the atomic attack alert line for a major air-travel corporation’s command center in the mid-west United States.
There’s another pause, and the guys over in the main data room are cracking up. The overnight site head is saying “I think you have the wrong number, ma’am.” and I’m standing there having faced the specter of nuclear annihilation before I was old enough to legally drink.
The red phone never rang again while I was there, so the people doing my training were only slightly wrong in their estimation of how often the doomsday phone would ring.
Every time I try to find this story, I end up having to search google with a variety of terms that I’m sure have gotten me flagged by some watchlist, so I’m reblogging it again where I swear I’ve reblogged it before.
But none of these stories even come close to the best one of them all; a wrong number is how the NORAD Santa Tracker got started.
Seriously, this is legit.
In December 1955, Sears decided to run a Santa hotline. Here’s the ad they posted.
Only problem is, they misprinted the number. And the number they printed? It went straight through to fucking NORAD. This was in the middle of the Cold War, when early warning radar was the only thing keeping nuclear annihilation at bay. NORAD was the front line.
And it wasn’t just any number at NORAD. Oh no no no.
Terri remembers her dad had two phones on his desk, including a red one. “Only a four-star general at the Pentagon and my dad had the number,” she says.
“This was the ‘50s, this was the Cold War, and he would have been the first one to know if there was an attack on the United States,” Rick says.
The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it, Pam says. “And then there was a small voice that just asked, ‘Is this Santa Claus?’ ”
His children remember Shoup as straight-laced and disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset by the call and thought it was a joke — but then, Terri says, the little voice started crying.
“And Dad realized that it wasn’t a joke,” her sister says. “So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho’d and asked if he had been a good boy and, ‘May I talk to your mother?’ And the mother got on and said, ‘You haven’t seen the paper yet? There’s a phone number to call Santa. It’s in the Sears ad.’ Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number. And they had children calling one after another, so he put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus.”
“It got to be a big joke at the command center. You know, ‘The old man’s really flipped his lid this time. We’re answering Santa calls,’ ” Terri says.
And then, it got better.
“The airmen had this big glass board with the United States on it and Canada, and when airplanes would come in they would track them,” Pam says.
“And Christmas Eve of 1955, when Dad walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole,” Rick says.
“Dad said, ‘What is that?’ They say, ‘Colonel, we’re sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?’ Dad looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, Dad had called the radio station and had said, ‘This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.’ Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and say, ‘Where’s Santa now?’ ” Terri says.
For real.
“And later in life he got letters from all over the world, people saying, ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ for having, you know, this sense of humor. And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information,” she says. “You know, he was an important guy, but this is the thing he’s known for.”
“Yeah,” Rick [his son] says, “it’s probably the thing he was proudest of, too.”
So yeah. I think that might be the best wrong number of all time.
"Holy shit, you're Bruce Wayne!" Danny gaped, jabbing a finger at the man sitting at the head of the table.
The bustling dining room goes silent as everyone turns to look at him.
"Danny, who did you think was going to be here?" Tim asks, disbelief plain in his voice and Danny feels his face flush red.
"Sorry, I, uh, I guess I just never put it together. Tim Drake-Wayne. Wayne Manor. It, uh, makes sense now." He laughs sheepishly and scrubs at his neck before slumping back down into his chair.
"Well," Tim says with an indulgent sigh, "at least I know you're not just friends with me for my connections."
"Yeah, I'm really sorry, I just never thought about it, I guess."
Danny sinks lower as everyone around him laughs. Come to dinner, he said, the food is the best, he said, ignore the family, he said. Danny really wishes he'd listened to Tim and just ignored them—almost as much as he's regretting accepting the offer in the first place—but... he's having dinner with Batman.
Ancients, that's so weird!
The last time he saw Batman was in the future and, suffice it to say, it was not going well. There hadn't really been time for family dinners there.
Wait. Family dinners?
He peers around the table, openly gawking at everyone as it all clicks into place.
"Everything alright, Danny? Now realising who everyone else is?" Tim asks with a roll of his eyes.
"Uh... something like that..." Danny mumbles as everyone laughs again.
From further down the table, the smallest Wayne scoffs and clicks his tongue.
"I thought you said he was smart, Drake?"
"So, you all do it, too, then?" he asks, ignoring the jibe. Danny's only a little bit jealous as he thinks of how much easier they must have it, how much easier it'd be if his family had been on his side, too. "You all work together?"
"Nah," Dick says from across the table with a brilliant grin. "Tim's the only one that works with Bruce, we all have different jobs. I'm a police officer in Bludhaven."
"Disgusting." Danny blurts out without thinking—because seriously, what kind of self-respecting vigilante would also be a police officer?—before clapping a hand over his mouth. "Sorry."
The whole table laughs again, the loudest being the blonde girl a few spaces down from Dick. Look, Danny wasn't really paying attention to names when they were all paraded in front of him. Dick only gets remembered because his name is a joke.
Come on, Danny, recover!
"That's, uh, not what I meant, though."
"Oh?" Dick asks, cocking his head slightly to the side. Is it Danny's imagination or does his smile tense slightly?
"Yeah, I mean like, you know, in costume. It must make it so much easier to have everyone together like this."
"Costume? What do you mean?"
Yeah, Danny's not imagining it, everyone tenses up at that. It's really only now that he's realising that this probably isn't how he should bring up that he knows about their... night time activities. In fact, he probably shouldn't be bringing it up at all.
"Uuhhh..." Danny looks wildly around the table as he continues making his stupid noise. Think, think, think! There must be a way out of this!
"Danny?" Tim asks, looking concerned.
"Oh, Ancients, this isn't how I wanted it to go at all," he mutters, slipping even further into his chair. He's almost on the floor now and he so, so wishes it could just swallow him up.
His real first meeting with Batman was meant to be cool! He had planned to be Phantom, maybe save them from a tight spot, prove his worth as a mysterious and powerful ally as thanks for the help Batman gave him in the future.
"Danny, what are you talking about?" Tim starts tugging on his sleeve in an attempt to pull him back up from his pit of despair.
Eventually, Danny relents and sits up straighter, hiding his face in his hands and whining all the while.
"I'm sorry, I just didn't expect him to be here and it threw me off so now I look stupid and it's so embarrassing!" he wails, flailing his arms wide. "Why wouldn't you warn me that Batman was your adopted dad, Tim? Couldn't you have let me know?"
"I'm sorry, what? Danny are you alright? There's no way Bruce can be Batman, look at him!"
"Yeah," the blonde girl laughs from the bottom of the table, "look at him! That's a wet noodle of a man! Batman can actually do things, B is incapable of pretty much everything."
"Thank you, Stephanie," Bruce sighs, massaging his forehead.
It's... Those are the first words Danny's heard Batman say since everything went down and it's enough to knock him out of his embarrassment.
It's really good to hear his voice again. Especially now, when it's strong and healthy and full of personality—even if that personality is little more than a tired father right now—far better than how it had been, at the end.
Danny sits up, back straight, and grins. He's got this. He remembers it perfectly. Some people count sheep to fall asleep, Danny repeats his mantra to be certain that he'll never forget it.
"Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9."
Once again, the whole table falls into silence.
"Holy shit..." breathes the other D name (Duke? Danny's pretty sure he's Signal) from opposite Stephanie. "Isn't that...?"
"The time travelling code." The littlest Wayne says stiffly. "We have met in the future?"
"That's not just the time travelling code, Dami." Dick says, looking between Danny and Bruce. "That's the family time travelling code."
Danny's grin freezes in place.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"1 colon 65 dash 9." Dick explains, still flicking between him and Bruce. "It means you've been adopted into the family and we should all treat you as such, no questions asked."
"Tell you what, I'm about to ask a question." Danny says, dumbstruck. "You just told me it was a code to identify time travellers, not anything about being adopted! What the hell, B?"
Bruce looks about as shellshocked as Danny feels.
"We must have been close," he says finally, after opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water a few times.
"No! Not that close!" Danny reels back, taking a deep breath ready to refute it all, but... "Well, I mean, you found me when I first got stuck, and you helped me get better despite being... And then we fought together against the, uh, bad guy, before he, um, he... before you couldn't."
An uncomfortable beat passes while they all pick up on what Danny tried so hard not to say.
"So, you're not from the future, then, you travelled there and came back?" Tim asks, breaking the tension and leaning forward with a glint in his eye.
"Yeah, it was a whole end of the world thing, but don't worry about it," Danny says with a hand wave, "It's all kosher now, won't ever happen."
"What did happen?"
"Seriously, don't worry about it, we cool."
"How long in the future was it?"
"About ten years? You were pretty spry for an old man, B," Danny laughs, wishing they'd get off the topic of what happened and get back to the adoption bit.
Everyone shares degrees of a cautious smile as they relax out of the shock, and Dick—whose grin is the biggest—says, "No wonder you got the family code, you're already riffing on him like one of us. How long were you there for?"
"A week, before I managed to get back to my present and stop him then."
"A week? Jeez, B, that has to set some kind of record, seriously."
"Oh!" Danny says, sitting bolt upright and blinking in surprise before pointing at Dick and bouncing in his seat. "You're Nightwing!"
"What?"
"That's exactly what Nightwing said when Batman told me the code! Makes so much more sense now."
Dick laughs and claps his hands, delighted.
"You were not formally adopted?" The grumpy small one—Dami?—asks, his face pinched.
"I didn't even know I was informally adopted."
"And your parents? Are they alive or dead?"
"Damian, stop—"
"They were dead in the future, but they're alive now." Danny says, looking down. He fiddles with the tablecloth, twisting the fabric around his fingers as he fights down the pang of sadness that he always feels when he thinks of them now. He forces a bright smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look too strained. "I just, uh, can't talk to them much, anymore."
"Damian," Dick warns, "1 colon 65 dash 9. Treat them as family, no questions asked."
"This is Damian treating him as family, the little turd has no manners." Tim scoffs, rolling his eyes, but he gently bumps shoulders with Danny to knock him out of his funk. Danny can't help but send him a watery smile.
"I have the most exemplary manners, Drake, unlike some people." Damian spits, crossing his arms with a pout. "I was merely ascertaining his status to see how he could possibly fit into the family."
"I know this is all a bit sudden, Danny," Bruce smiles, ignoring Damian and reaching out to lay a warm hand on his arm, "for all of us. But if I felt strongly enough to give you that code after spending a week with you in the future, then you are more than welcome in this family, if you so choose it. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we'd like to get to know you a bit more."
"I know a threat when I hear it, Bruce." Danny snorts. "But, yeah, I get it. I'm sorry this is all so weird, it really wasn't how I wanted to find you again, but... I'm glad I did."
"So are we, Danny." Dick says, with a warm smile. "And formally or not, 1 colon 65 dash 9 means you're family. Welcome to the fun house! No take backs or refunds, sorry. You're stuck with us."
Danny has a habit of muttering the code when he's super stressed, exhausted, and/or grievously injured. It's his safety net, his last hope, a fervent prayer. Being able to recite it makes him feel just the tiniest bit better when everything else has gone to shit. Sometimes he starts reciting it without realizing it. It just happens, instively at this point, whenever his mind slips too far away in pain or panic.
Mind slipping away in pain or panic is defenitely the most accurate way of describing the situation when Danny gives the Bats the code.
Wait, can I play with this version? (Love the original, too! Made me smile and laugh.)
-----
Danny bit back a scream as the blast from a GIW gun caught him in the thigh. He was almost there.
He grit his teeth and flew faster, ignoring the noises of the white vans and their weapons. Trying to forget that his parents had made more than a few of them.
Gotham. He'd be safe in Gotham.
"Gamma alpha up—upsilon—" He cut off as another laser missed him by inches. A ninety degree turn, and he was veering down an alley too small for all their vans.
And relief filled him when he saw it was a dead end. He flew right through the building and up until he was on the roof.
A quick ectoblast destroyed the fire escape roof access and he collapsed to his knees, his left arm still clutched around his bleeding stomach. He looked around, but the roof was empty. Nothing convenient to sit against or make the surface any softer.
At least he'd made it to Gotham before they'd found him. Closest thing he had to a home anymore, even if no one else remembered that.
If only he'd gotten to see Bruce or the others once more.
"Gamma alpha—" he coughed "—upsilon tau iota mu epsilon, 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9," he said on instinct.
He curled into a ball, still holding his stomach and the litany repeated. The city lights swam in his vision. Gotham looked the same now as it would in ten years. Gargoyles watched him from an even taller building in front of him. He stared at them, trying to commit them to memory.
If he died again, would that be it? Or would he turn full ghost?
Footsteps sounded on the roof behind him and Danny finally closed his eyes and curled up tighter. What would they do to him? "Gamma alpha..."
---
Dick had been following the vans as they chased some meta through Gotham, but hadn't been able to get close enough to intervene. Then the meta density shifted through a building at the end of a dead end alley forcing the men in white suits to abandon their vehicles and attempt to track their prey on foot.
Tim and Damian arrived shortly after and began a competition to see who could distract more of them at once while Dick searched the building for the meta.
Babs let him know her cameras picked up a burst of green light coming from the roof and he sprinted up the stairs.
When he got to the roof, he didn't expect to see someone so small. Or so much blood. Or for the blood to be green.
He winced when his footsteps made them curl up further and whimper in fear.
"Hey, it's okay. I'm here to help."
But they didn't seem to hear. Dick got closer and that's when he realized they were saying something.
"...colon 65 dash 9. Gamma alpha upsilon..."
No. That couldn't be. Dick rushed forward the last few steps and put a hand on the person, the kid's, his brother's shoulder as he repeated the time-travel identification code.
"We need immediate extraction to the cave," he called out over comms. "Bird down."
He ignored the questions that came through and focused on his unknown brother.
"Hey, I'm here. You're safe now," Dick said as he carefully rolled the boy over.
Unfocused green eyes blinked up at him. "Ni'win," sighed the kid. Then there was a flash of light. His eyes were now blue, hair black, and blood red. Then his eyes closed as he passed out.
"Kid! Come on! I need you to stay awake."
Already, he could hear the sounds of the batcopter, though. Their unknown brother would be fine.
Reblogging this again cause I just realized the time travel identification code is (approximately) GAYTIME 42 63 28 1:65-9.
Haven't put together a meaning for the numbers yet, but given the thought OP must have put in to which greek characters they used (because there is no way that was a coincidence, I see you OP); I wouldn't be surprised if there was some cipher to the rest of it.
1:65-9 reminds me of the format of reference numbers for bible passages 🤔
Quick search doesn't really reveal anything (possibly a passage from the book of Isaiah? It references descendants? Not really sure it fits tho) so maybe not.
Hoping op will bless us with insight because I wanna know now haha
@ailithnight @spacedace shit I simultaneously can't believe someone spotted it and also that it took someone this long to spot it 🤣 well done!!! The numbers don't actually mean anything aside from Danny's creative way of remembering shit
GAYTIME 42 63 28 1:65-9 comes from an earlier draft of the scene (draft is a strong word, daydream would be better), but I thought it was... sweeter/angstier to have the code ingrained in his mind because of his constant repetition, like a safety blanket
👻🦇
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Ah, wait, hang on, I got this... shit, what was it?" Danny slumps forward, elbows on the table, head in his hands, face scrunched up as he searches through his memory for the specific sequence of words. Why did they have to make it so hard?
"Danny? Is everything okay?" Tim says gently, placing a hand on his back. Ancients, Danny must look so weird to them, he really should have come better prepared for this.
"Sorry, so much stuff has happened since then and I'm not great at studying anyway, so, like, this is just the worst for me..."
He'd come back from the future and immediately had to retake his CATs, and to help, Jazz had been trying to give him some better studying tips. She'd been talking about relating important information to different acronyms, right? Mnemonics? Like the math thing? Please excuse my dear aunt Sally...
That's it!
He sits bolt upright, throwing Tim's hand off his back, and points his finger again at Bruce.
"Batman is gay!"
Everyone's silent. Duke drops his fork with a clatter and Stephanie snorts into her pasta, choking on the noodles.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Oh," Dick says, his voice hollow with shock, "I think I know where this is going."
Danny waggles his finger directly in Bruce's face, valiantly barrelling through the embarrassment. It'll be worth it.
"Batman is gay! Gamma alpha upsilon tau iota mu epsilon! Batman is gay!"
"Can you please stop saying that?" Tim hisses, pink in the cheeks as he looks between him and Bruce and it finally hits Danny what he's been shouting.
"Oh, right, yeah, sorry, that's gotta be weird..." Danny pulls his hand back and rubs at his neck sheepishly.
When he peeks towards Bruce again, his face has fallen into a mask completely devoid of any of the goofy Brucie Wayne charm. Yeah, he's Batman, alright.
"Is there anything else?" he says, gruff and giving nothing away.
Anything else? Anything... oh shit!
"The numbers! Right, there are numbers! There are some numbers that go after that and they... are... as... follows..."
"Drake, your friend is an imbecile."
"Shut the hell up, Damian, let him think!"
"42."
Okay, good start, Jazz had said that one was easy to remember because it was the answer to life, the universe, and everything, but that made no goddamm sense to Danny so he just shrugged and accepted it.
"Then it was 63 and I only remember that one because it's six away from one of my three favourite numbers."
"69, 420, and 666?" Stephanie asks from down the table.
"Hell yeah." Danny clicks his tongue and shoots her with a finger gun.
"Nice."
"I do not get it, Richard please explain it to me."
"Nope, not touching it, sorry Dami."
"28—the episode where they go to the future in the animated TV show about the teen hero—and then 1 because it was a double bill and also episode 29..."
"So, that's 42, 63, 28, and 1." Dick repeats, glancing around the table with a deep breath. There's a weight to the air as everyone waits. "Anything else?"
"It wasn't just 1, it was... 1 colon 65 dash 9! You should get your colon checked at 65 and B had 9 more years until it became an issue! 42, 63, 28, 1 colon 65 dash 9!"
There's a brief second of stunned silence before the whole table erupts into shouts.
"Drake, tell your friend he needs to shut up and apologise for everything he said about Father before I make him regret it!"
"Why don't you shut up yourself and think about what he just said!"
"I do not want to think about Father—"
"No, you idiot! The code!"
Dick is about to fall off his chair with laughter, as is Stephanie at the other end of the table.
"Oh, my God, he's gonna fit in so well!"
"This is not how I wanted to learn about a new sibling, not at all," Duke mutters into his hands, but Danny can see his shoulders shaking as he gives in to his own laughter.
"Dick."
Bruce's voice is strained, that kind of dad voice where you know you're in trouble.
"Batman is gay?" he asks, massaging his temples. "Really?"
"I was 14, Bruce!" Dick replies through his fits of giggles. "I stand by it. It's funny as hell, and I still think you and Clark would have been good together, and I'm not apologising for that."
"Wait, you and Superman were a thing? Batman really is gay?"
Unfortunately, that's the last straw for Damian and Danny barely has any time to duck the knife flying at his face.
For a second I didn’t realize it meant “high” as in a stoner–I thought “High Geologist” was like a rank of geologist or something and he was insulted you would challenge him to naming stones
Reasons Why I Love This Trope So Goddamn Much (not anywhere near a description of the totality of my feelings on this topic, but a start):
- The vulnerability. The sheer terror of being exposed in front of someone you hate (who hates you). The panic and stoicism of attempting to cover up the pain until it’s too much. Until you can’t. Until the agony is worse than letting them see your tears.
- The mistrust. The constant second-guessing. The suspicion of every move they make. The concocting of escape plans, one after the other, because how can you tell the difference between being restrained for your own good and being captured? The cuffs sure look the same.
- The surrender. Hitting rock bottom. Watching you give in and knowing that you’ve given up on everything because if you can’t fight against your enemy, you can’t fight against anyone.
- The unexpected compassion. A hand where you expect a fist. A bandage where you expect a break. Snappish words and voices raised in anger and understanding, finally, that their bark is worse than their bite.
- The lack of safety. There is no one to catch you when you fall. No one who’s safe, who’s reliable, who’s trustworthy. You are hurt and alone and you curl up and wait for the blow. The slow relearning of trust. The hesitant steps towards hope. (The shattering, sometimes.)
why do i imagine the batfam finally meeting the league and then one of them going 'how the fuck do you have so many kids?' and little shit Jason goes 'well, when two people love each other very much...' and because Bruce doesn't wanna listen to this, he tiredly reminds Jason: 'you're adopted' which naturally means that Jason is going to dramatically pretend that this is the first time he's heard that and how could Bruce keep this from him, much to the horror of the league and the exasperation of Bruce
like, it would be hilarious as a fresh baby robin, with the ink on the adoption papers not even dried yet
but imagine having all his yougner siblings there too, reacting just as dramatic to the news. jason is fake crying, being comforted by cass, while steph is pointing at batman like "how dare you say that? how dare you single out our brother like this? next thing I know is that Red Robin is also adopted, or Black Bat, or Signal."
Bruce: "they are"
multiple gasps of horror. Cass is clinging to Jason, Tim also starts crying, Duke starts yelling "how could you lie to us like this? how could you keep this from us? what's next? Batgirl is also adopted?"
"Batgirl isn't mine at all"
Cue Steph's outraged yelling. "How could you? I grew up in your cave!"
But Robin takes the cake. "everything we knew is a lie," he says dramatically, sniffing like he's about to cry. "father is not our true father. we must embark on a journey to discover our true parentage"
Batman, gritting his teeth. "Robin, you know you are the blood son. You like to remind everyone of this at least twice a week." He has no idea how his children got his youngest to play along
(Dick promised him another cow. Batcow needs a friend)
continuation/aftermath of danny pulling nightwing out of a dumpster
don't let danny fool you with his innocent geek act. that's a working ectogun that he made to look like a phaser. he's absolutely a geek but he's not innocent
Dick: You just said that there’s animated food having a turf war in your fridge.
Danny: Yeah?
Dick: You don’t see anything wrong with that?
Danny: *thinking* …You know, I kinda forgot most people don’t deal with that. It’s been happening to me for as long as I can remember. I completely forgot it was unusual.
