Okay first off the first thing I realized like, 30 seconds after I made this comment was: Bruce and Danny had to realize themselves too that Danny wasn't aging. Which was a really bad night for the both of them, especially for Danny, who was basically inconsolable the whole night and got himself really sick in the morning as a result.
And Yes! The blood blossom extract just like, feeds off the ectoplasm Danny's body naturally produces. Which makes it impossible to just 'wait until it out of his system' because there is no 'system' for it to escape from! The blood blossom feeds on his ectoplasm, his ecto-levels get really low, the blossom extract then starts to "fade" away (for lack of better terms), which lets his ectoplasm regenerate, only for the poison to revive and latch onto it again.
It creates a vicious cycle of Danny getting really badly ill for a week or two, him recovering for a few months, and then when he's at a high, he crashes and burns again. It's really painful to watch and it's painful to experience. It gets a lot more manageable when Danny and Bruce create some "suppressor" bracelets for Danny to wear that helps manage his ecto-levels, so he crashes and burns significantly less often.
Which also means, yeah, absolutely he learns to be more like a bat in order to stay in the game. He can't -- well, more accurately he shouldn't -- use his ghost form or access his ghost powers. It causes the blood blossom in his system to just, surge, and the few times he has used his ghost powers, he's gotten terribly ill afterwards.
aaaa Danny just being an older brother to Dick. No notes other than Danny is both so jealous, so happy, and so sad when Dick turns fourteen. Then fifteen. Then sixteen. And suddenly Dick is the older brother now, and Danny is still fourteen.
Dick, even when he was nine, always having a sliver of doubt about his brother going out as vigilantes with them. But Danny is just as much of an unstoppable force as him and Bruce, and if he wants to help or go out, nothing except his own illness will stop him. He has a terrible habit of biting off more than he can chew, something they all have in common but it always seems the most prevalent in Danny; or at least the most noticeable.
It's not until he's sixteen, being sat down and having his brother and Bruce explain to him about Danny's lack of aging and the extent of Danny's illness does he find out why. What little video footage he can find on the Phantom of Amity Park reveals a powerhouse; a shooting star in his own right. His brother used to be larger than life, going toe-to-toe with beings on the same level as Superman and winning.
It's both very hard and laughably easy to see the similarities in supergiant star Phantom and the neutron star Nightingale. There's one thing that hasn't changed though; they both smile the same way. Looking at his brother feels like looking at a living tragedy now. He starts helping Bruce find a cure -- if this Vlad Masters guy can get his hands on blood blossoms in order to poison his godson, they can find it to make an antidote.
(which is another thing. Vlad Masters is a despised name amongst the Wayne Family.)
Once Dick knows the full truth, Danny lets him in on inside jokes once previously kept between him and Bruce. Little jokes from his time as Phantom and quips about his illness that wouldn't make sense without full context given. Danny one day nudges his elbow against Dick's side after a long patrol, and with an impish grin tells him; "I would take this over fighting Skulker any day."
"One of your old rogues?"
"Oh yeah. He was the Ghost Zone's "greatest bounty hunter", some bounty hunter he was. He routinely got his ass kicked by an untrained kid. He wanted my skin on his wall."
"It's funnier than it sounds, trust me! He used to work with Vlad, but he cut all ties after he heard what he did to me. I guess there are lines even he won't cross."
A constant between all the kids is that they can get a little overprotective over Danny. It's a case of little siblings being protective over their older brother; general familial protectiveness; and Danny's illness. He, just like the rest of them, tends to neglect his health at times. They're all pots calling the other kettles black, but the consequences of Danny not taking care of himself feels a lot more real than with everyone else.
There's really not a sibling whose "worse" than the others, because it fluctuates. But Jason might be the worst if I had to pick; I wouldn't be surprised if he has illness trauma. When he was a kid living in Wayne manor he was Danny's little living shadow whenever his health took a minor dip. Danny spent a lot of time unsuccessfully convincing Jason that he wasn't going to drop over dead.
... i didn't go into it because i was distracted and i was originally just gonna leave it in the tags, but i think it deserves to be in post because I have more thoughts on it than I thought.
But i imagine it's like. genuinely terrifying whenever danny's health crashes and burns. Because before they got those bracelets (which look rather unassuming and cuff-like) Danny's crashes more often than not felt like someone cutting the strings on a puppet. Just. abrupt, scary plummets in his health because his ecto-levels quietly reached a point where the blood blossoms could kick back into full gear. There's few things more terrifying than Bruce watching his kid cough up blood, there's even less when he coughs up a blood clot the size of a golf ball.
They got those bracelets made shortly before or sometime after dick joined the family, but neither Bruce nor Dick will ever forget the awful dread of watching Danny slowly recover, be almost completely healthy and full of life, completely vibrant like a spring flower, only to collapse later and at random. It was easy to get caught up in Danny's charismatic magnetism, only to remember later that it was going to be nipped at the bud at any moment.
It's a lot like going on a rollercoaster and knowing when you'll reach the top, but never knowing when you'll drop. Just that it will soon.
One thing that stays the same, however, is Danny consistently bouncing back from it tho. Even while actively sick there's always an aura of hope around him, and how it's just a sick spell. He'll bounce back and be back on his feet in a week, he always is! It was either that or falling into a depressive hell.
Danny never got as badly sick after that until Jason's death. There have been a few scares where he got pretty sick after he was forced to use his powers, but he bounced back within a day or two. Beforehand it'd take a week at best, and then he was weak for a while afterward.
The rest of the family never knew how bad it got because Dick, Bruce, and Danny never talked about it. Dick and Bruce didn't because it was frankly just, terrifying and traumatizing. Neither of them like talking or thinking about it, and Danny doesn't bring it up because it sucked for him, and well... he never thought it was important to bring up. He saw no point in bringing it up because it felt like trying to garner pity points, there's never a good reason or time to bring up what life was like before his suppressors.
Which brings up a very angsty idea I've got that took this out of the tags, where Danny's bracelets break one day and he doesn't tell anyone -- just quietly alerts Lucius Fox that he'll need the parts to make new ones. And the thing about Danny's bracelets is that the way they 'suppress' him is by detecting when his ecto-levels reach a certain level, before then absorbing the ectoplasm he's producing until his ecto-levels have lowered to a safe level. The absorbed ectoplasm gets steadily released into the atmosphere with the rest of the ambient 'plasm in the air.
It's a rather elaborate piece of tech, and Danny's frankly a little scared of crashing before he can get those parts and make new ones. But it normally takes months for him to crash, and Lucius said the parts he'll need will be in by the end of the month at latest.
Murphy is very cruel -- or more accurately, my own entertainment is. Because of course Danny ends up aiding in a fight that hits all the check boxes of causing a crash: he's in a high-stress situation where he's tense up the wazoo, and forced to use his powers a few times -- intangibility being one of the worst offenders. Pair that with the physical exertion, and by the time they're done, Danny is trembling, nauseous, and in a lot of physical agony from the blood blossom extract.
"You alright?" One of his siblings asks, hovering, and Danny's mask is hiding his unfocused staring as he's hit with another hot flash, so he doesn't bother even looking at them to nod. He's staring over their shoulder trying to ignore the burn in his lungs.
"Yeah." He grits out, "peachy. Jus' took a lot out of me, y'know how it is." It's a lot of effort to not slur his words, and he ends up doing it anyways.
He manages to make it until Batman shows up before he finally collapses. Danny's lurking off in the corner, trying to keep an eye on things (somewhat unsuccessfully), but when he sees Batman an instinctive part of him relaxes, and that's when his body gives up on trying to keep itself together.
He's hit with a coughing fit that results in his head swimming, and a blood clot the size of a tennis ball sitting in his hand. "Oh. Shit." He says, blood dripping down his chin. "That's no good."
Batman's shadow appears over him, and he looks up as Bruce grabs his shoulders tightly. "M- my- uh-- m'bracelets broke." he tells him, and watches his dad practically stop breathing. "Bu- s'-- it's- 's fine. ll'be fff'ne."
(He won't be. But he'll live.)
