Danny Fenton Joins Gotham Academy’s Debate Team and Accidentally Becomes the Only Person Villains Will Negotiate With
Gotham Academy starts a debate team to “encourage civic engagement.”
Danny Fenton signs up because he thinks it’s about arguing for fun.
Damian signs up because he intends to win.
This is already a mistake.
Danny’s approach to debate is… unconventional. He doesn’t research like everyone else. He just walks into the room, listens for a bit, and then says things that feel less like arguments and more like he already knows how it’s going to end.
“Your plan falls apart in about ten minutes,” Danny tells an opponent calmly. “You’re relying on people staying scared, and they won’t.”
“…Based on what evidence?”
Danny shrugs. “It just doesn’t stick.”
He wins anyway.
It becomes a pattern.
He predicts outcomes he shouldn’t be able to predict. Calls out logical flaws before they’re fully explained. Ends arguments with unsettling confidence, like he’s already watched them fail somewhere else.
Damian hates that it works.
Then Gotham’s villains notice.
It starts small. A low-level rogue takes hostages near campus. The police prepare for a standard standoff.
Danny walks past the perimeter, hands in his pockets.
“Hey,” he calls up to the window. “This isn’t going to go how you think.”
Everyone freezes.
The rogue shouts back something aggressive. Danny just tilts his head, listening—not to the man, but to something else entirely.
“No, yeah, I get why you’re doing this,” Danny says after a moment. “But the exit you’re planning? That route’s blocked. You didn’t see it, but it is.”
There is no way he should know that.
The rogue hesitates.
“Also,” Danny adds, almost apologetically, “you’re about to get surrounded from the back in, like, two minutes.”
“…What?”
Danny checks an invisible clock. “One minute, actually.”
The rogue surrenders.
The police later confirm the backup units Danny mentioned were en route, but had not been announced yet.
This happens again.
And again.
Soon, the rumor spreads: there’s a kid at Gotham Academy who can tell you how things end.
Some villains start asking for him.
Not Batman.
Not Gordon.
Danny.
Damian is deeply offended.
“This is not your responsibility,” Damian snaps after the third incident.
Danny frowns. “I mean… it kinda is? If I know it’s going to go badly, shouldn’t I say something?”
“You should not be able to know.”
“Yeah,” Danny says, quieter this time. “I’ve been told that.”
Because here’s the part no one else sees.
Danny doesn’t just guess outcomes.
He feels them.
Like echoes. Like the future brushing up against the present just long enough to leave a mark.
Bad endings feel cold. Heavy. Wrong.
And Gotham is full of them.
But when Danny speaks—when he nudges things, shifts a choice, changes a single moment—those endings… move.
Not disappear.
Just… change shape.
Damian realizes it slowly, reluctantly.
Danny isn’t predicting the future.
He’s arguing with it.
And somehow, against all logic, he’s winning.
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