DC x DP — The Boss, The Bat (Mafia AU) PT1
"So... let me get this straight—"
"You're not straight." Sam pointed out, mock confused, but her amused lift of her brows and lips made it obvious
"Let me get this gay, then, Miss Manson," he retorted as he shifted uncomfortably in a suit, "we are walking into the house party of a mafia don. The biggest mister mafia man of Gotham, to be specific."
"This feels like a rhetorical question, Danny."
"No, it's a valid one! Why did you not tell me this until we were five minutes away?!"
"I don't know! I didn't want you to freak out!"
"Well, now I'm freaking out! What if I say something wrong and get myself fed to the fishes?! I'm not ready to be mutant Gotham fish chow, Sam!"
"Look, they're ethical criminals."
"That feels like an oxymoron, Sam." He mimicked, and ducked from the swing of her black purse automatically.
"It's like when I threw seed bombs on golf courses and Vlad's lawn. I broke the law, but in style."
"There is a very thick line between minor acts of eco-terrorism and actual terrorism or murder or human trafficking." Danny was about three inches away from flipping his shit. He was walking into the home of a crime lord. An entire family of criminals.
I'm going to die again, Danny thought, sardonically.
"Bruce Wayne has sworn off hurting kids since he started." Samantha placated, but now Danny knew why she had been pacing in their hotel room and why she looked so pale without her usual goth makeup on.
"Oh, gee, he doesn't traffic or give drugs to kids. It's only adults," He replied dryly.
"He's actually banned human trafficking in his territory. And the drugs, I've heard, are made to be as safe as they can with the threat of passing around tampered-with ones with consequences."
Phantom dragged the heels of his palms down his eyes. "Consequences meaning getting shot in the head."
"Eeeeehhh..." Sam grimaced, seesawing her hand. "Look, do you really think I would put both of us in that much of danger?"
"Well seeing as you didn't tell me that fact that Bruce Wayne was a part of the mafia, yes!"
"Okay, okay, I get it. But all I need to do is quickly rub a few elbows and give some money to Tim Wayne."
"Why are we giving them... Sam. Sam, please, for the love of Ancients don't tell me that your parents told you to go pay off the mafia. In Gotham. By ourselves."
The halfa cast a glance around the limousine cab, already taking off his dress jacket.
"Daniel fucking Fenton, roll back up that window right now, you are not leaping out of a moving vehicle—"
There was a thunk, flailing as limbs as the goth wrestled him to the floor in a fancy dress, and a whole lot of cursing.
"Really, Danny, it's not that bad." Sam growled as she half-dragged the boy by his suit jacket to where the entrance of the Wayne gala was beginning.
The goth had been almost obsessively smoothing out the wrinkles from the whole trying-to-escape thing. It had been a lot of fussing and a lot of cusses in Hebrew he shouldn't repeat for his safety.
"You're supposed to be the brave one," She pointed out mulishly as she glanced up at the oppressive height of the infamous Wayne family manor.
"Yeah, I'm also not supposed to be the smart one but look how the tables have turned."
"Forget tables," Sam hissed as they drew an adequate (thankfully) amount of attention, "if you don't act at least a little normal, I'm going to hit you with one of the chairs."
"How barbaric of you, Miss Manson." He mocked, and was then subtly cuffed in the back of his head. He rubbed what would probably be a light bruise tomorrow and sent her a scowl.
"What next? Do you want me to go arf?"
She turned and started looking to the sky, beginning to murmur a prayer as they walked away with clicking of their stilettos.
"Wait, stop, don't leave me here. Everyone is old and white and looks like they're going to buy my organs on eBay for their purebred toy poodle—"
"Don't be silly," Sam called back as she continued to get further and further to the ballroom door, "Everyone knows you can't buy human remains or organs on eBay. People have tried."
And then she's in, and Danny knows what is good for his survival and shuts up.
He hasn't seen Sam like this before. I mean, at all of the mini galas and parties in Amity, she, Tucker and him were messing with the snobbiest people's cars. (Sam's grandma had caught them once, and simply cackled and given them tips on wiring the break light to the horn so whenever they break, it would blare the horn until they stopped. Fucking legendary.) Sam would not be polite, or even present. Sometimes she'd hijack the classical music and put on screamo.
But no. Now she's giving this fake little smiles and hiding her clenched fists behind her back. Danny was pretty sure if he focused and got close enough, he could see her eye twitching.
"Frrreaky," Danny muttered to himself. Well, contexts were different. Fuck him, he had almost forgotten he was in the heart of the mafia family of Gotham.
No biggie. Nooooo big deal. He had this. He's dealt with Vlad, and he was practically ah... Just as violent.
Well. Half of his... goons (he can't say that without snickering, but it's not like he can say manservants or butlers with a straight face either) were human, and the other half were ghosts. Vlad and his Kronk's were shitty at the whole "mafia" thing in Amity, but he supposes you could call them that.
Danny didn't want to follow Sam around like the dog he joked about earlier, so he decided the best bet was food. Food and staying in the bathroom for most of the time.
The food choices were grim. Well, grim for him as an average fifteen-year-old who ate pizza or his sister's cooking all the time. There was some sort of charcuterie ("Shark coochie," Tucker had proclaimed at a Amity gala to see how much sparkling water Sam could accidentally snort up her nose) cup arranged fancily, something with those fish eggs, and a vast amount of other things that looked needlessly expensive and modern.
Danny plucked up the least offensive looking item, some sort of mini fruit tart, sniffed it, and tossed it down the hatch. It was really rich, a bit too sweet and dry like something he'd get out of an army MRE. Money can't buy tastebuds.
He tried swallowing it down, but the crumbs and its congealed little fruit paste got stuck in his throat. Yuck, yuck, fucking yuck. He decides to make a tactical retreat to the bathroom sooner than he'd anticipated his Fucks To Give to run out.
Slipping into the, of course, opulent crapper, he sticks his head underneath one of the golden faucet to drink some water. God, if Sam knew what he was doing, he would get his ass reemed and probably get called Danny the Dachshund or something equally terrible.
He was mid-drink when a boy, probably a few years older than him, opened and shut the door, leaning against it with a drained sigh.
Danny, with a slightly wrinkled and suit too large, lapping water out of a marble-counter gold sink. The boy in comparison had twists (like Tucker had once, but it looked to be a lot more maintained and professionally done), a clean cut suit, and the farthest thing from disheveled. Tired, though.
It was really long, awkward eye contact and Danny got water all over his cheeks because he's an idiot. He stood straight, wiped his face with his sleeve and remembered that in polite company, that was really unhygienic and let his arm drop to his side.
"Hi," The boy seemed to drag out the short word, just staring at Danny like he was looking right through his flesh and into his core. He scratched the back of his head.
"Um. Am I in your way or...?" Ignoring that it was an empty fucking bathroom, maybe Mr. Perfect Black Tux With Accents of Yellow was deeply connected with this specific sink he was drinking out of.
"No. No," He waved his hand a little bit, stepping away from the door and just standing there. Staring at Danny like he was a bug in one of those children bug collectors.
"Those fruit tarts are horrific," Danny starts, emphatically. Danny hopes he's seeing a kindred spirit in this guy and not that Sam gave him a concussion earlier.
Unknown Teenager gives a look of confused incredulity, probably at his passion of hate for expensive desserts, before nodding slowly. "They're not the best. The spread is terrible, even for 'high society.'"
"Yeah, someone was definitely high when they chose it," Danny snipes unapologetically, and it unexpectedly brought a grin to the boy's face.
Danny learns that his name is Duke Thomas, no, he does not need to go to the bathroom, and he thinks that Bruce Wayne is going to add a chandelier to one of the bathrooms soon just to win the high and mighty measuring contest that rich pricks (ha) do.
They get along well, so Danny offers Duke half of his off-brand Nature Valley granola bar he shoved in his GoodWill suit jacket. It is crushed to about bits from wrestling with Sam on the floor of the limo.
Duke hesitates, pressing his lips together and analyzing Danny again. To ignore his skin crawling, he jokes, "Dude, if I was going to poison you, I'd just give you one of those fruit tarts."
Duke laughed in that kind of hesitant laugh where he didn't know if Danny was joking or not.
Everyone here was so weird. He should've leapt out of the car window, self preservation be damned.
The kid had been thrown to the wolves too, as he had said with a weary sigh, like it was more predictable than upsetting. For complete strangers who met inside a bathroom at a mafia party and getting crumbs everywhere on the (also marble, what the fuck) floors, they got along surprisingly well.
Duke was more suave than Tucker and less inclined to anger than Sam. Nice guy, if a little strange and stared a bit too much when Danny thought he couldn't see him doing so.
Danny was about to suggest they maybe leave the shitter to have a better conversation when his senses prickled.
Conversation had stopped outside, and he could see Duke twitch slightly as well.
A blood-curdling scream cut through the air, even through the thick doors of the bathroom, and then a singular gunshot.
Oh man, I'm so fucked, Danny thought, before running out with Duke hot on his heels, and so, so stupid.
