Archive of Our Own ^beta

Part One

It's on a normal, ordinary Tuesday night that Danny made a decision that would forever change his life. And it was probably because it was an ordinary Tuesday night that Danny wanted- no, needed- to make a change.

He had been sitting down with his family at the dinner table, dazedly listening in on the conversation around him, plate untouched in front of him. Jazz had applied to a huge swath of colleges, and at first she had been worried about the bite it would take out of her savings account. Only for Mom and Dad to cover the cost when they found out their darling baby girl could be going to her dream school of Harvard, and isn't that just amazing?

Deep down Danny knew his parents would never do the same for him.

Harvard had never been his dream, but no matter his choice they would have never forked over that much money to help him out.

Danny had always been the black sheep of the family. Nowadays he could maybe blame part of it on his grades, but he had only started struggling after the portal had been turned on. In a way, he had bitten himself in the ass, and he would forever carry that debt. (A debt in the form of the core pulsing in his chest.)

His parents hadn't been nearly that considerate of him even before his accident, when he had been a good student. He used to get straight As, but Jazz had always done better. She was class president, and the teacher's pet, and 'a joy to have in class', and all sorts of things Danny would never be. Danny had always lived in his sister's shadow, and he would always love her regardless but… it was bound to hurt someday.

And perhaps the most damning thing of all was the soulmate marks painted on each of their skins.

Danny lifted his gaze to his sister's wrist, where her soulmate mark peeked out from underneath her sweater sleeve. He didn't have to see his parents' marks to know they all matched, all three of them. A perfect familial soulmate bond.

Three. Not four. Danny had been painfully aware of that fact since he was little, when he first learned what soulmates were and how they worked. To this day he could still remember the awkward, tense silence that followed his teacher as she realized that, despite his family having a familial soulmate connection, he didn't share it with them.

It wasn't that rare, blessedly. Danny couldn't stand to be any more of a freak than he already was. Yet that didn't make the blow land any softer, didn't make the truth any easier to swallow.

Danny had never belonged here with them. While familial soulmate bonds were typically between blood relatives, it wasn't uncommon to see that stretch to adoptions and other forms of relationships, such as siblings or aunts and uncles or grandparents. It still wasn't that common, of course, and Danny remembered a horrifying stint where Danny had wondered if he had been adopted as a baby without ever knowing it.

Considering how terrible his parents were at communication, Danny could even believe it too. After all, his school teacher had to be the one to tell him. By then Danny had gone more than five years with a weird, pretty ink blotch on his shoulder without an explanation for why it was there. He'd always assumed it was a birthmark, which would be technically true, but still not the entire, most important truth of all.

But no, he was theirs through and through. Danny had seen the blood tests Vlad had done on him (nonconsensual blood tests, Danny might add) and he was their son. No doubt about it.

Danny didn't know who was more disappointed: him or Vlad.

He did have a soulmate mark, at the very least. It might not be with the people he wanted it to, but it existed. It was there. There was someone out there waiting for him, hopefully looking for him too, and Danny just needed to find them first.

He hoped… he hoped they were looking for him. Danny knew his soulmate bond was familial, even if it wasn't with his parents or sister. But every year that his time ticked down, as adulthood slowly, rapidly caught up to him, Danny knew soon enough his time would be up.

You didn't lose family when you became a legal adult, of course. There were plenty of people who hadn't gotten their soulmate bond fulfilled until they were in their older years; for all that the world was small sometimes, it was ridiculously easy to just miss the person you wanted most. But Danny was losing time for someone to come in and save him, to whisk him off somewhere safe where people would care and cherish him and-

Sometimes Danny thought about Vlad. It would have been so easy to accept his offer and forget about his parents. It's not like they would miss him that much. He might have been close to his mom when he was small, but she had stopped paying attention to him long before his teen years and it showed. As for his dad- well. Danny loved him. Loved them both really, but they didn't exactly hide the fact that Jazz was their favorite child.

It didn't matter if it was because of the soulmate marks painting their bodies. They had made their choices, and their choice wasn't Danny.

His own parents hadn't even wanted him, soulmate or not. Danny had never been all that inclined to trust Vlad either.

(Some days the only person Danny trusted was his soulmate. And that was only because they weren't around to hurt him too.)

Danny was losing chances. He was wasting time. No one was coming to save him.

Could Danny even save himself?

…Danny needed to do something else with his life. He couldn't keep staying in a house he never really belonged in in the first place. Danny couldn't keep fighting ghosts forever when it was taking any hope for a future right out from underneath him. He couldn't keep doing this, sitting here and pretending like everything was okay when he felt he was going to die a second time.

That was when his decision was made, resolve hardened, heart stricken.

Danny couldn't stay. But there were a few things he had to do before he could leave.

It wasn't an instant change. Danny slowly but surely picked up his grades, even if it meant getting absolutely no sleep at night. Eventually he did get more as he slowly weaned himself off from ghost fights, to the point that he hardly ever fought anyone that wasn't Skulker or Ember. And the latter was only because her mind control got the best of even Valerie, and Danny couldn't leave her to that fate.

His friends had definitely noticed, but he had evaded their questioning for the most part. Danny should probably tell them. He usually told them everything, but he knew they would never understand.

Sam had a romantic soulmate somewhere out there in the world, someone who was probably just as kickass as her. Tucker had a platonic bond, which he had tried to fight at first. He still fought it some days, but neither of them could understand the deep, pervading ache that had settled into his bones a long time ago.

His school teacher had definitely noticed. While he was chided more often than not for falling asleep in class, they could no longer scold him for missing out on assignments. Mr. Lancer had even given him a bright grin when he informed Danny he would be looking at an easy A at the end of the semester if he kept up his work.

Danny was glad. That made this next part just a little bit easier, although no less painful.

He did his research, he checked his sources, he did everything he needed to just for this moment.

As summer break steadily approached, and his sixteenth birthday gone unremarked upon, Danny knew his time had come.

"I want to get emancipated," Danny stated abruptly during another Tuesday night dinner. It was the first time he had spoken the entire meal, and yet he was still honestly surprised they had even heard him.

Dad had been very enthusiastic just moments ago, but now he stared at Danny in shock. His eyes blinked like something out of a cartoon, hands still outstretched from his wild gesturing.

"You want to get emancipated," Mom repeated, the first to break through the shocked tension. Jazz was still staring at him, mouth gaping wide. Danny tried not to look at her for too long. He didn't want to see the look in her eyes when he'd have to break her heart. "Wha- Danny, that's silly. You're fifteen!"

"That's kinda the point, Mom," Danny deadpanned. It was an ordeal trying not to sound too exasperated. "In the state of Illinois, minors have to be anywhere between the age of sixteen and eighteen years old to be considered for emancipation, with a grade point average of 1.2 or higher. They must also have proof that they can manage their own affairs and that emancipation would be in their best interests."

"How could you take care of yourself? You don't work?!" Mom was shouting now. Danny hadn't expected her to get so angry about it.

"I've worked since last year," Danny reminded her. He shouldn't be so surprised she had forgotten already. He didn't work much, especially not during the school week, but a paycheck was a paycheck and the courts had to acknowledge it too. "You literally signed my work permit."

"You told me that was for a school field trip!" Dad accused him, pointing a thick finger in Danny's direction.

Danny tried not to give into the instinct to flinch.

"No, I didn't," he replied as blandly as possible. "It's not my fault you just assumed it was for a school field trip. I was fifteen, and since when did Casper High have the funds to herd dozens of teenagers to some museum out of town?"

"Hah! You're fifteen, you're not eligible for emancipation," Mom shouted and shot up from her seat. "You said it yourself!"

"I turned sixteen two weeks ago," Danny squinted at her, craning his neck to stare at her with wide eyes. Seriously, what was up with her? He had never seen his mom like this before. It was honestly freaking him out a little.

Jazz gasped, "We didn't do anything for your birthday."

"You didn't do anything for my fifteen either, it's fine," Danny drawled and went back to his meal. He didn't have much of an appetite, but any excuse to wet his parched tongue seemed nice right about now. Maybe if he swallowed hard enough, the lump in his throat would go away too.

"No, it's not fine!" Jazz cried out. There were tears brimming in her eyes, and Danny struggled to keep looking at her like this. "Do you- do you want us to make it up to you? What will it take to make you stay?"

"Nothing can make me stay," Danny told her plainly. Another tense, shocked silence followed. Danny's entire chest inflated with the force of his sigh. "Whether it's emancipation, running away-" Danny ignored the way Dad sucked in a harsh breath there, "-or waiting until I'm eighteen, one day I am going to walk out that door and I'm not coming back. Whether you ever get to see me again is entirely dependent on how tonight goes."

"You… you wouldn't actually run away, would you?" Mom stuttered. Rather uncharacteristic of her, Danny had to admit.

He locked eyes with her once, just long enough for her to see how dead serious he was about that particular promise. Because it wasn't a threat, even if it sounded like it. Danny could walk out that door tonight and disappear like the ghost he was, and there was nothing they could do to stop him.

Mom broke off the unspoken staring contest first, eyes falling to the plate in front of her. The food had gone largely ignored ever since he first spoke up. Only he had eaten since, and it was just to take his very first bite of the meal. Danny still didn't have much of an appetite, but he would get there.

"I have a meeting with a lawyer set up for you to sign paperwork," Danny cut through the awkward silence. "You'd have to go to a court hearing after that but then you'd be free of me."

"Is that what you think we want?" Jazz asked, heartbroken.

That was perhaps the hardest part of all. Because when it came down to it, Jazz had chosen their parents in all the little ways. Danny could just as easily keep in contact with her even if he left the house, but the fact that she had automatically placed herself with their parents was telling. It was like they were a unit that couldn't be separated, and wasn't that technically the truth?

They were all soulmates. Danny had never been.

"Do you really think I'd be doing this if I thought you didn't?" Danny whispered back. He couldn't fight off the hurt in his voice this time. Jazz's eyes instantly began to water, and she wiped the back of her hands across her eyes. Dad automatically went to pat her on the back, console her.

His parents had never done the same for him.

Even if he was their soulmate, if they treated him like they did now, he would leave then too.

"The meeting with the lawyer's on Friday at four," Danny told them in a croaky voice. He almost didn't even recognize his own voice. "For once in your life, don't flake on me."

With a scrape of his chair, Danny walked away from the dinner table. No one tried to follow.

That's fine. Danny hadn't expected them to.

(He'd hoped, though. He'd hoped beyond hope that one of them would try and he didn't know why he was so disappointed to see none of them could.)

Come Friday afternoon and Danny had, thus far, managed to avoid his parents ever since that fateful dinner. It's not clear if that's just because they were avoiding him too, but Danny wasn't one to look a gift ghost in the fangs. He's at the lawyer's office fifteen minutes early, just to calm his nerves before whatever shitshow might follow. The minutes ticked by, Danny sat with the kind, older gentleman that had taken Danny's case in so abruptly.

He wondered what the man must think of Danny and his family now. The Fentons were pretty much infamous in Amity Park at this point. It was only a matter of time before word got out that Danny was gone, had gotten himself emancipated and got the hell out of dodge at the earliest opportunity. If they didn't notice it soon, they would definitely notice it when he didn't show up for his Junior year.

Danny was going to miss prom with his friends. That was fine, too. Homecoming hadn't been all that spectacular either.

He would have to tell them soon. Danny might be a coward but he wasn't so heartless as to walk out and not tell them anything. He didn't know how they would take it. After the mess with his family dinner, Danny honestly didn't know what to expect from anyone anymore. Better to be prepared for the worst and hope (baselessly) for the best.

And then his parents showed up. They're five minutes late, sure, but they actually showed up for once. Danny wished they had bothered to do it all the other times when he'd needed them too. Or maybe they just couldn't wait to be rid of him.

Jazz wasn't around. Danny figured she had another tutoring session to get to. It's not like she needed to be here to sign any paperwork. And yet…

Danny didn't know if he should be happy or not that she didn't come anyway.

His lawyer, Mr. Walters, walked them through everything. He also discussed the differences between partial and complete emancipation. Nonetheless, it's clear from the very start which one Danny was aiming for, and it's not partial. Ultimately it was for the courts to decide, but Danny had prepared everything with Mr. Walters.

The courts had always made more sympathetic decisions on matters concerning soulmates. The fact that Danny wasn't soulmates with any of his family members, and the fact they were all interconnected without him, would undoubtedly work to his advantage. They would see it like he was never theirs to keep, and with all the other evidence Danny had compiled, he should do just fine.

That was what Mr. Walters kept trying to reassure him. Danny had to believe it was true.

(His parents sign the paperwork. Danny should be happy. It came as no surprise when he's not.)

"I'm getting emancipated," Danny announced to his friends one evening, on their way home from Nasty Burger. He made no mention of the fact he had already started packing away his belongings, getting his affairs in order. He's already found some studios to apply for, once the courts finally sign off on documents printed with ink that dried a long time ago.

Danny had made sure the court date had been scheduled before he approached his friends about the situation.

This part was unsurprising- Sam and Tucker staring at him with a mixture of shock and confusion. He could practically imagine their brains turning, the gears moving. They were probably wondering why they hadn't heard about this before, and all the other signs that something was going on behind the scenes. There were more than a few incidents that Danny could think of, but he's definitely not telling them that.

"Uhm, congratulations?" Tucker replied first, a wince on his face. He didn't seem to know what to make of the news. "Is that what you say when people get emancipated?"

"I don't know, but I appreciate it," Danny chuckled. He's smiling for the first time in weeks, and that's more than enough for him right now. For now.

"Where are you staying?" Sam asked next. She always did like to plan ahead, where she could, and Danny wasn't surprised to see it appear now. It's still not an easy question to answer.

"I'm looking at studio apartments in Gotham City," Danny replied with a small nod. He very carefully didn't say: 'I'm not staying here.' He's pretty sure the idea gets across just fine.

"Gotham?!" The two of them cried out in shock. Danny was suddenly very grateful that he had broached the subject when there weren't any houses nearby, just a bunch of quiet, industrial buildings.

"But that's hours away!" Tucker exclaimed, "Where will you go to school?"

"There are schools there too," Danny reminded him as gently as possible. It felt like such a silly argument to make, but Danny would give him a break thanks to the incredulity of it all.

"What about the ghost attacks? Who's going to protect Amity Park?" Sam shouted in return. "You can't just leave this place to fend for itself."

"And I won't. You're still here aren't you?" Danny pointed out to her. Her jaw clicked shut with an audible snap. Danny had no doubt they would continue their semi-vigilante careers regardless of his presence, and if they didn't then… that was fine too. If anything, Danny should have stopped a long time ago if that meant they would too. If only to protect them from any more harm.

"Besides," Danny tried to say, to relieve the building pressure in his core, "Valerie is here too. And my parents, if it really comes to that point. I won't completely ignore Amity Park, I'll try to keep track of the news if someone like Vortex comes back around. But it's not like we get many ghost attacks these days either."

Danny didn't know what had caused that particular change, but he wasn't going to complain. Maybe the ghosts could feel the changing pressure in the air and decided Amity Park wasn't worth it after all.

(Was that all it took? For him to walk away for people to stop getting hurt?)

"What about us?" Tucker asked, voice cracking. Danny wanted to cry. "We're your friends and you're just going to abandon us-?!"

"We can still call and chat and play games together like we always did," Danny told them, gesturing weakly. "We don't have to be in the same state, let alone the same city for that."

"What if I don't want to talk only over the phone? A video call isn't the same!" Sam cried out, sounding like she was on the verge of tears. "You're still leaving!"

"And how can you expect me to stay?!" Danny snapped back, harsher than he meant to be. But it was like the dam had finally burst, and no one was going to like the tumble of emotions that came out with it. "Is that what you wanted me to do? Stay in this hellhole for my entire life because my parents fucked up and created the portal? I was just the stupid idiot that stepped in and turned that thing on. It could have happened to any one of us, so now I have to bear the burden of their stupidity?!"

"I am tired of fixing everything for my parents," Danny practically shrieked. He was sure the next street over could hear it, but he couldn't control his own tears. "I am tired of cleaning up after their screw-ups because they don't give a crap about the lives they're ruining. If they actually cared they would try-"

And yet they never did try. Not with him. Not with understanding him. Not with understanding just how poorly they had failed him and failed the town and failed their own oath as scientists.

His parents had failed long before this. The consequences were bound to catch up with them.

"I'm so tired," Danny mumbled into his hands, tears pooling out of his eyes.

It's funny. He hadn't even cried this much when he'd died.

(He's sure dying a second time would hurt less than this.)

The three of them stood there in tense, awkward silence. It's nothing Danny's not used to by this point, whether it's from his parents or his sister. He'd just- hoped he wouldn't feel the same with his friends.

Sam was the first to step forward. She did so tentatively, like he might blow up at any given second. When he didn't flinch away, she stepped in closer and wrapped her arms around his back. A hug. She was hugging him.

Seconds later, Tucker moved to join them, wrapping his arms up around Danny's other side. He felt a little claustrophobic, or maybe that's just because of his mild hyperventilating, but- It felt nice, too. He didn't remember the last time he had gotten a hug that felt as good and terrible as this.

He would miss this.

Danny caved then, wrapping his arms around them too.

His grip was loosening, his hold on their friendship already slipping, but he would always remember the imprint of their hands around his in his memories.

The days came and went. Danny studied, packed, and apartment hunted. He looked into new jobs around where he hoped to move. He researched night schools for when he worked during the day. It would be an adjustment, but one Danny was prepared to make.

It seemed his family had other ideas.

They didn't speak to him anymore. It became obvious to Danny that his parents had been avoiding him before, since he saw more of them now that the court date steadily approached. His mom always had a stern look on her face when he passed her in the hall, and his dad was always twiddling his fingers when they found themselves sharing the kitchen.

Even Jazz didn't speak to him, although not for the lack of trying.

Danny could tell she was struggling. His sister had always considered herself the only real adult in the household, even when it couldn't be farther from the truth. She had always been a kid just as much as him, but had the weight of an unfair responsibility carried on her shoulders. It would be better when he left, really. She wouldn't have to worry about her stupid kid brother anymore.

Danny knew they had their opinions. Their last dinner shared together had just been further proof of that. Their reactions still puzzled him when they hadn't cared all that much when he was here. It looked like this was a much needed wake-up call for them all, but it was a decade too late.

You needed a relationship to begin with to fix the broken pieces.

He didn't know how long they would keep quiet about this. He didn't know what would happen once the court hearing passed. Would they immediately reject him and kick him out of the house? Would they treat him politely, but at an arm's distance, like he was a stranger to them? Or would they desperately try to convince him to come back, to stay, once reality crashed down on them?

Danny didn't know what his future would look like. For once, he tried to be proactive and plan ahead for it.

He kept an eye out for Vlad, but the man never made an appearance. A curious scroll through the internet revealed that Vlad had been quiet on all fronts. He could be busy with personal matters, or maybe he was scheming up another plan to make Danny his son and Maddie his wife. If he didn't enact his plan in less than a week, however, his last opportunity would slip out of reach.

Danny was leaving. If his friends couldn't even make his stay, then there was precious little chance Vlad could convince him to do the same.

He wrapped up some loose ends in the Ghost Zone. It consisted mostly of goodbyes, since Danny couldn't be sure when he'd be able to visit the Realms again. He would be losing access to the portal once he moved out, and he wasn't stupid or desperate enough to make a second one. In that alternate future Danny had the ability to create portals, so it wasn't totally out of the realm of possibility.

It wasn't an urgent necessity, so Danny tried not to focus on it too much. It wasn't all that hard to distract himself with other things. Like his actual hearing.

He didn't arrive at the courthouse with his family, of course. That would negate his point.

He came half an hour early once again, wound tight like a live wire. Dressed in his best pair of slacks and a pressed white button-up, Danny felt… grown up. Mature. It suited him better than any pair of tuxes he'd ever owned and gave him a small dose of confidence. One that would hopefully work in his favor when the time rolled around.

His parents were nearly late, which didn't surprise him in the slightest. He was pretty sure the only reason they arrived at a reasonable time was because Jazz had gone with them and practically herded them into the room. His sister looked frazzled, but otherwise put together. Any time she tried to catch his eye he made a point to look away, refusing to make eye contact.

Maybe it seemed cruel, but it wasn't intended to hurt her. It was just the only way Danny knew how to protect himself.

Mr. Walters had walked him through the entire process and prepped Danny well. Whenever it became his turn to speak, Danny kept his voice level, tone respectful, and emotions at bay. The last thing Danny needed was a breakdown right in the middle of the courtroom.

He couldn't keep his knee from bouncing underneath the table, however. The trepidation was getting to him. It was only a matter of time before he started tapping his fingers too, which would be more noticeable. He'd rather keep his nerves on the downlow as much as possible. Jazz would be able to read him, to a degree.

She had never been a mind reader, but she was still his sister.

But maybe not for much longer.

(When the judge declared Danny emancipated, gavel echoing throughout the courtroom, Danny could have cried with relief. As he exited the room, leaving the three marked soulmates behind, Danny went and cried in the bathroom for a whole other reason.)

"What's this?" Dad asked when Danny handed him a piece of paper. He had never seen his dad handle anything with such care and hesitation before. The man regularly handled huge, mounted cannons without a thought and yet this he was nervous about?

Danny supposed he might not have ever understood his dad, not truly, but it wasn't like the man had ever made a real effort to understand him too, so did it really matter?

"It's a list of all the chores I used to do," Danny explained flatly. Dad arched a brow incredulously, attention falling back to the paper. Danny watched as his dad unfolded the piece, eyes widening to the size of saucers as he saw how long that itemized list went on for.

Dad chuckled awkwardly. "That's, uh, that's a lot."

"I know," Danny said, voice dry. Just like he knew that his sister never had never been expected to do all the things Danny did. He was the one that ran around the house cleaning up after his parents, reassembling a lab he had died in, and expected to do it all without an ounce of appreciation.

Danny knew why they never expected Jazz to do the work of course. They wanted her to focus on her studies, after all. Danny didn't know why they were so surprised to find Danny's grades had taken the brunt of it as a result. Really, it was just more proof that they had never cared about him to begin with.

"You and Mom will have to split the list since Jazz is going off to college soon, but it should be fine, right? It's not that hard of work," Danny bit out with a grin that felt more like a sneer. That's what his parents always told him when he fell behind on chores. That it was easy, that it was quick, that he shouldn't have such a hard time cleaning up after them.

Maybe now they would actually learn to pick up after themselves.

"You know how to change the ecto-filter right?" Danny questioned his dad next. "You were always complaining when I was late, so if you need to, you can set an alarm like I did."

"You set an alarm?" Dad blinked at him. Why was that such a huge surprise?

"I didn't exactly want to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, so," Danny remarked lamely. It didn't have as much bite as he'd hoped for, but it made Dad wilt all the same.

"Hah, right," Dad chuckled awkwardly. Danny tried not to shuffle too much as the silence settled like a heavy blanket of snow. The kind that weighed you down and wore out your bones. "I should probably ask for Jazz's list too then-"

"She doesn't have one," Danny interjected to remind him. "I did all the chores." Dad gaped at him a bit, like he couldn't comprehend what he'd just heard. Danny brushed past him to head back up the stairs.

There were a few more things he would need to throw out, or maybe donate to charity before he flew out to Gotham. He had less than a week left before he left Amity Park behind. Classes ended in two days. Danny still didn't know if he should come to Jazz's graduation or not.

"You know… we never did get to go out on that last fishing trip," Dad commented with a small, wistful laugh. Danny hadn't even realized Dad had followed him up the stairs. "There were so many things we never got to do together… We never did play football in the park together. Or go camping, just us guys, like I mentioned once. Or, or, I never got to teach you how to shave." Dad smirked at him, rubbing at his own five o'clock shadow. "There's a special Fenton family technique for it."

One that Danny would never learn, because he wasn't a Fenton anymore.

Danny didn't know how to feel. Maybe to someone else all those activities would have sounded fun, and Dad might have sounded sincere. But Danny couldn't help but think about how he didn't like any of those things. He never enjoyed fishing or camping, and he definitely wasn't interested in football beyond finding new ways to piss Vlad off when the Packers inevitably lost another season.

Danny noticed how all those things were activities Dad wanted to do. When had Danny's opinion ever held merit in this house? What about all the other things his dad would miss out with him? His birthdays, his graduation, his wedding- Those were all things his dad might never get to see and he didn't care. Or maybe he just hadn't realized how much he had lost yet.

Who knew. Who cared.

(Danny cared. Danny cared too damn much and his throbbing core paid the price.)

"I didn't think you'd come," Jazz admitted as she adjusted her graduation cap. The blue shade complimented her hair perfectly, and she had done her hair in those curly waves he'd seen her practice weeks ago in the bathroom. It reminded Danny so much of Mom in college, and as the guy who'd once traveled back to that period he figured he had an unusual authority on the subject.

Danny shrugged. "I thought about it, but… You're still my sister. I didn't want to leave you hanging. I figured if you didn't want to see me you could just pretend I wasn't there."

It wouldn't be the first time.

Jazz gnawed on the inside of her cheek. "Danny, I- I'm sorry I couldn't fix this."

"There was nothing you could have done," Danny told her honestly, and almost regretted it when he saw how she flinched. "I know this may surprise you, but you can't control everything Mom and Dad did for me. Or didn't do for me. You're my sister, not my third parent."

"I tried to be," Jazz murmured.

"Please don't say that," Danny shook his head, "or else I'll end up hating you too." Because if she was his third parent, then she would have failed him just as much as Mom and Dad had. But if she stayed his sister, the person she was supposed to be, then Danny could accept that she could only do so much with her circumstances.

"You don't hate me now?" She asked with no small amount of trepidation.

Danny thought about it. He sat down on the nearby bench and thought about it some more. Jazz joined him at some point, her knees pressed together as she waited in painful silence. Danny felt bad for ruining her perfect day. This was supposed to be a day to celebrate her and her achievements.

He might always resent his parents for the way they compared him and his sister, but Jazz had still worked hard to get here. She deserved to be proud of herself, and deserved to go out there and have fun. Jazz shouldn't be sitting here, miserable with her kid brother, feeling sorry for him and herself and their pathetic clusterfuck of a family.

"I love you but I hate you too," Danny admitted quietly. When she went rigid as a tree, Danny pushed past the lump in his throat to say, "I'll always love you, Jazz, regardless of what happens with our parents. But I hate the fact I couldn't be you."

When Danny was little, he'd wanted to be just like her. Just as smart, just as liked, just as loved. Danny would never be those things, least of all in their parents' eyes.

Jazz stared at him wordlessly. But that was fine, Danny didn't have much words left in him either.

It wasn't much longer before it became too much and tears started to well in the corner of Jazz's eyes.

Danny laughed helplessly as he used his sleeves to dab at her eyes. "Sis, don't do that, you'll ruin your makeup." Jazz didn't reply to him this time. She leaned forward and wrapped him up in a hug, face buried in his shoulder. She was probably staining his blazer, but that was alright. He'd bought it off the rack from Goodwill.

Danny held her close and held on tight. This might be the last time he saw her for months or even years to come, and he wanted to cherish every moment he could in her company.

But he couldn't hold on forever.

It wasn't easy, but Danny had managed to narrow down his belongings to a few scarce boxes. He wouldn't be able to carry them all onto the plane, but it should make things easier for the flight over.

Danny didn't know what had compelled him to pick Gotham of all places, but it had just felt… right, at the time. It didn't hurt that their rent prices were ridiculously low. Danny knew there were other environmental and economical factors that tied into that of course, like all the Rogue attacks and the general bad state of living in the poorer areas. But it had felt right in ways Danny couldn't explain in words.

Perhaps that was his soul calling out to its soulmate, looking for its missing pieces. Something was leading him to Gotham, and even if it was just his wishful, then that was more than enough for Danny.

When Danny went back upstairs to drop off the last box at the front door, he hadn't expected to find his mom sitting on the edge of his barren bed.

"Do you remember this one?" Mom asked him quietly. Cradled in her hands was a picture frame of them two, Danny's arms wrapped around her neck and a beaming smile on both their faces. There was something wrong with this image, and it took a few moments for Danny to realize what.

Mom wasn't wearing her gloves right now.

"We had just gone to the park," Mom continued to say, despite his silence. "One of the boys had pushed you off the swing and you were crying. But then I got you ice cream to make you feel better and you were all giddy and giggly and…" Mom trailed off then, a pained expression sapping the smile on her face.

"We were so close when you were little," Mom murmured. "What happened to that?"

Why does it have to be my fault? Danny tried very hard not to say.

"We haven't been close in a long time," Danny reminded her in a soft voice. She wasn't wrong that they had been closer when Danny was small, but even back then they had always shown more favor to Jazz.

So really, Danny just hadn't been old enough to realize there was something wrong with that picture too.

"Is it because you weren't our familial soulmate?" Mom asked in one breath. "Because there's nothing we could have done about that. We went to so many doctors after you were born to figure out why and they never had any answer. That was just how fate worked out to be."

"No, it's because you treated me differently because I wasn't your soulmate," Danny deadpanned in explanation. Mom twisted her head a little, but offered no other reaction.

They lapsed back into silence, that same deafening silence Danny had heard more and more most recently. She fiddled with the picture frame.

"I didn't-" Mom swallowed a shallow breath. "I never meant to make you think we didn't care about you as much. But you- you were someone else's soulmate. You were bound to someone else and we could never keep you."

Mom could have gutted him and it would have hurt less.

"And I wasn't worth enough to try?" Danny asked, a traitorous crack in his voice. Mom gaped at him, mouth opening and closely futilely. Danny closed his eyes and held a hand to his head, like he could faint at any given moment.

Danny struggled to piece himself back together.

He sucked in a hollow gasp of air. "I guess you were right after all."

Without another word, Danny picked up the box and marched right back out the door. His mom didn't follow.

For once he didn't want her to. He just wanted to get away.

He could never escape his aching heart.

When Danny had chosen a flight to New Jersey for one o’clock in the morning, he had felt like a bit of a coward. He hadn’t wanted his friends to see him off at the airport, and he hadn’t wanted to sleep in the house for one night more. So he’d chosen an hour where the traffic would be lighter, and he could arrive a few hours ahead to get his ticket and boxes arranged in relative peace. There might be questions about why he was flying alone, not to mention the security inquiries about all his things.

It had seemed like the logical choice, even if it did feel cowardly.

When the actual time came to pack his things into the taxi and head to the airport, Danny hadn’t expected his whole family to be awake for the occasion. All three of them stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching him with bated breath. None of them moved to help him put away his boxes, although he could understand that. Maybe they didn’t want it to look like they were rushing to get rid of him.

Well, they had already failed on that front a long time ago.

By the time everything was in the trunk of the taxi, it was inching closer to eleven o’clock at night. They were still awake. Watching him go.

Danny made a point of taking his key off his novelty key chain, another gift from Tucker Danny couldn’t part with. He held it in the air, so they could watch as he set it to the side table at the entry. Mom made an aborted motion, and then Danny was slamming the door behind him. Jogging down the few front steps and slipping into the taxi had felt more thrilling than Danny ever thought it would be.

The taxi took off just as the door was wrenched open again, and Danny glanced to see Mom standing at the front step, Jazz at her side. But the car was already zipping off, headed towards its destination without delay.

Yet it wasn’t until the taxi left the city limits that Danny could actually bring himself to relax, back sinking into the hard leather bench.

His family hadn’t stopped him. Vlad hadn’t shown up to ruin the day.

Everything had actually worked out fine.

Danny had been making so many decisions based on what felt ‘right’. Maybe this was a sign from the universe that it actually was.

A studio apartment didn’t offer much space, Danny had come to realize as he stood at the front door. He didn’t have a bedroom separate from the living space and kitchen. However, he did have a detached bathroom, which was arguably the most important part. He didn’t have much furniture yet. He would probably be living out of his boxes for a while as he got settled and assembled to the Gotham lifestyle.

He did buy two things on his way to his new apartment. Ironically, the drapes were the more important one.

The windows were barred, as most windows in Gotham’s poorer areas were. It might not stop the more brazen burglars, but it was a decent enough deterrent. Danny might have to insert his own security measures when he got the chance, but this would have to do for now.

As Danny installed his new drapes, since he didn’t want the next street over to see him bumbling around the studio, Danny saw a shadow move out of the corner of his eyes.

With a breathless gasp, Danny pressed himself as close to the window as possible. His breath fogged up the glass as he watched Batman and Robin flit across the rooftops. If Danny squinted, he could even see more of the local vigilantes in the distance.

In a small city like Amity Park, it was easy to forget that there were so many more heroes out there, saving the day just like Danny used to.

Danny hesitated as he drew the drapes shut. He wanted to see more of the vigilantes, but they were busy and Danny was exhausted. He did need some sleep, and they were probably wrapping up for the night anyways.

He didn’t have a mattress yet, just a futon on the floor. Which had been his second purchase. Even still, Danny bundled up the comforter he had brought from home, a gift from Sam way back when. He drew it around his neck as he stared up at the ceiling, where his old glow-in-the-dark stars littered the smooth surface.

All the pieces he’d brought from home, the moments that mattered most, soothed the damaged part of his soul. And yet…

Danny turned to lay on his side, face smashed into his pillow. His arms snaked around himself, until they slid up and under his shirt. He laid a palm atop his soulmate mark. The incomplete bond was warm against his chilled skin, like a hearth in the winter cold.

Curled up into a ball, with his arms wrapped around himself and his mark, Danny could fool himself into thinking it was a hug.

Part Two

Gotham was everything and nothing like the stories Danny had grown up hearing about. There were Rogue attacks frequently, but not as often as people made it out to be. There were a lot of homeless folks in Danny’s area, and there were working girls on the street corners, but they were some of the nicest, kindest people Danny ever had the honor of meeting. The air quality was shit and in the city Danny couldn’t see any of the stars he loved, but Danny wasn’t constantly weighed down with a responsibility he’d never asked for either.

That dubious honor went to Batman and his vigilante partners.

Danny tried to do his research when he could, so that consisted mostly of the weekends. He already knew a lot of information thanks to mere osmosis, but there was so much Danny would have never known if he hadn’t found the right people to ask.

There had been five Robins, not four, but then there was also the ‘We Are Robin’ movement, which muddled things a bit. There were rumors that Red Hood was the second Robin, who the Joker had supposedly murdered. Red Robin was apparently banned from three other countries, but no one was going after him for it? Strange.

Danny knew he’d come from a small town area of course. It’s only understandable that some of this information passed over his head, but it was just wild to see how much bigger the world could be if you just knew where to look.

He wished he could go sightseeing more often. As his schedule stood he could only really explore the city at night on the weekends, when he didn’t have night school to take up his attention. At first Danny had worried that he would feel out of place, but he’d quickly learned that there were actually a decent amount of teens his age and older that did night school as well, since they had to help provide for their families or themselves during the day.

Danny wasn’t as alone in his circumstances. He did feel bad to see so many people in similar, or worse, shoes than he was. At least Danny had chosen to walk away. A lot of these other kids weren’t as lucky.

“You’re looking morose again,” Duke commented as he munched on a sandwich. One of those ridiculously nice sandwiches that looked to die for. Danny didn’t know who was preparing Duke’s meals but they must make the most delicious food.

“‘Morose’? What kind of books have you been reading?” Danny teased. Duke threw a bag of chips at his face, but Danny caught it just in time. “I’m keeping these by the way.”

Duke rolled his eyes. “I can’t help that I live with an English major, okay?” Danny chuckled as he split open the bag. He did share with Duke though, as a token of his appreciation.

Danny wasn’t exactly sure about Duke’s circumstances. From what he understood his family was relatively well off, and Duke didn’t have to work during the day. It sounded like Duke did some volunteer work, however, which Danny had opinions about. What kind of volunteer work did Duke have that required him to go to school at night? And how had he convinced his guardian to let him do it?

But that wasn’t really any of Danny’s business. If there was anything Danny had learned since moving to Gotham, it was that you didn’t stick your nose in places it shouldn’t be if you knew what was good for you. It was a bit of a learning curve for Danny, who always seemed to find ways to attract more trouble.

“How is Mr. English Major anyways?” Danny asked with a grin. Duke didn’t share his siblings’ names, and Danny didn’t ask. It was much funnier to give them all stupid, ridiculous nicknames anyways. It was also much easier to tell them apart that way. Duke had a big adoptive family, from all the stories his friend had shared.

“A pain in the ass,” Duke groaned, shoulders sagging. “I think there’s something up with his soulmate bond, he’s been cranky for months.”

“Oh woe be him,” Danny drawled before he popped another potato chip.

“I think it might be pretty serious though,” Duke admitted as he rubbed his chin. “I mean, the rest of the family has been pretty agitated. I don’t know if they feel it through their shared bond with him or if they’re just all feeling it.”

“Wait,” Danny shook his head furiously, “your family are all soulmates with each other?” Duke nodded. “I thought you had a platonic soulmate?”

“Oh I’m not soulmates with them,” Duke laughed at the very idea. “Ugh, can you imagine that? I can barely get my head on straight with just one, what would it be like to have five?”

“Can you tell how many you have?” Danny asked. He’d never heard of such a thing before, but well. It’s not like Danny knew everything in the world.

“Not that I know,” Duke replied after a moment of thought. “But I don’t know, that number just… feels right, you know?”

Danny thought about the lonely cavern in his soul, waiting to find its missing companions. He had never believed in the idea of soulmates completing each other. He had met far too many ghosts who’d never found their mates and weren’t worse for it. Who were just as whole and seen and alive.

Maybe that was why Danny felt the loneliness so much more than most. His soul was missing people he’d never thought he could have.

“And they…” Danny licked his lips. “And they don’t treat you differently for it?” Duke gave him a look that proved Danny wasn’t being nearly as subtle as he thought he was, but Danny didn’t care about that as much as his answers.

“Not really?” Duke frowned. “Obviously I’m not their soulmate, so I’m not privy to their emotional state like their actual soulmates would be, but it’s not all that bad. I’m one of the newer adoptions, so I’m still learning things about them and they’re learning things about me. I’ve got a sister that’s not bonded to them either and she’s like the family favorite.”

“Oh,” Danny said lamely. So Duke hadn’t been adopted out of pity or anything, but because they’d genuinely wanted him in their lives. They’d taken in more than one kid without that bond. That was…

Danny swallowed. “That’s good.” He gave Duke his best smile, open and relaxed and oh so painfully sad. “I’m glad.”

Danny tried not to think about his soulmates too often. He was busy with too many other things to really bother, so it didn’t make much of a difference. One soulmate, ten soulmates, none of that changed the reality of his situation.

A little something else did.

“Why are you giving me an envelope?” Danny asked in a low voice to his boss. Danny had worked at this coffee shop since he first moved to Gotham, and he was happy to see he’d managed to stick it out. He’d chosen the earliest and worst shift, which his managers had always been happy about. Envelope in hand, Danny realized they might have appreciated it more than he realized.

“It’s clean money, if that’s what you’re worried about,” his boss chuckled at him. “It’s your six-month bonus. We give it to all the new hires that make it this long.”

Right, Danny had totally forgotten about that. It had been one of their selling points too, now that he thought about it some more.

He hadn’t realized he’d been here six months already.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Danny asked as he opened the envelope. His eyes widened when he saw the sheer amount of cash in between white paper walls. He definitely couldn’t keep it on his person, not when he’d be jumped within moments if someone got a whiff of that kind of money.

“Whatever you want,” she remarked with a shrug. “Save it, invest, buy yourself something nice? It’s your money now, kid. Take care of yourself.”

Danny considered it. A lot of it was going into his savings for sure, but Danny did have a decent amount of spare cash now. Working two jobs, plus tips, with a tiny apartment allowed him that much. Danny could size up if he really wanted to, once his lease ended, but he had grown accustomed to the familiar four walls of his studio. And it had the best views of the Bats and Birds flying across the night sky.

Now that gave him an idea…

“Thanks, Betty,” Danny said with a grin. “I’ll try not to go too insane with power.”

Danny bought himself a camera. It wasn’t too fancy; not something with more lenses than he knew what to do with. It wasn’t an expensive brand either, since he didn’t want to bring any more undue attention. But it was one specifically designed to work best at night and Danny was going to take full advantage of it.

On the weekends, Danny went birdwatching. Proper birdwatching, if he did say so himself.

He scaled fire escapes, climbed buildings, loitered on rooftops. All to get the perfect shots. He preferred the more mellow ones, where they sat on roof ledges, or waited on a stakeout. Most people online wanted action shots and sure, Danny got those too. But he liked the ones where they looked human, like any other guy out there just trying to help save the day.

Maybe this was an abuse of power, but Danny used his invisibility for the closer shots. Floating off the ground meant none of the Bats could hear the gravel shifting under his feet. Staying at a safe distance meant they didn’t feel the cold chill when he drifted by. And if they did, well, there was always a strange breeze when you were this high up.

This was probably cheating, but it wasn’t a test so Danny didn’t mind. He wasn’t being graded, he was just having some fun. He tried not to get too close anyways, since it felt like an even worse invasion of privacy. Danny was just here as a witness of their work, a fan standing on the sidelines and silently cheering them on.

Danny knew what it felt like to have a whole city’s safety resting on his shoulders. Amity Park had been much smaller, but he’d only had a few people to help him out too. He was glad Batman had so many other people to lend a hand, despite his insistence that he ‘worked alone’.

Snorting to himself, Danny pressed his knees to his chest as he flipped through another set of still photos. He’d found Nightwing and Black Bat having a flexibility contest a few streets down. The dark shadow of Batman hovered somewhere in the background, the vague outline of his cowl’s ears standing out. How could Danny not take advantage of it?

“Is this karma?” Danny snapped his head up to see Red Robin gaping at him. Shoot, he’d forgotten to stay invisible again. Rookie mistake.

“For blowing up parts of Europe?” Danny asked slowly. Danny couldn’t see past the whiteouts in the domino mask (and thank the Ancients the hero had gotten rid of the cowl head. He couldn’t pull it off like Batman could, sorry) but he could see the tension in Red Robin’s shoulders after that remark. “Oh, sorry. I have a bad brain to mouth filter.”

“You wouldn’t be the only one,” the vigilante muttered to himself. “What are you doing up here, anyways?”

Danny glanced at the nearest fire escape. Then he glanced back at Red Robin.

“Birdwatching,” Danny said simply and succinctly. Red Robin continued to stare at him.

“Birdwatching,” Red Robin repeated in disbelief.

Danny nodded. After a moment or two of more stunned silence, Danny lifted his camera and snapped a photo. It took the vigilante off guard, which gave Danny the perfect opening to make a run for it. He practically slid down the fire escape, phasing through parts he thought he could get away with.

He heard a shout after him, but it was drowned out with the sound of his feet beating on pavement. The wail of sirens filled the night, a distant cry that echoed through the streets. It was heading in the opposite direction of his house, the exact direction Danny ran to. He didn’t want Red Robin to know his address if he could help it.

There was an underground subway a few blocks away. Danny only needed to make it there and the night crowd would cover his tracks. Red Robin wouldn’t dare to try and mess him there, where the mass of civilians would hinder his movements and throw around unwarranted suspicion. That’s what Danny was banking on, anyways. He just had to hope his stunted vigilante mindset followed the same line of thought as Red Robin’s did.

Danny didn’t realize his mistake until the honk of a truck horn caught his attention. He twisted his neck to the side to see a massive sixteen wheeler about to turn him into a pancake. Before he could slip away into intangibility, a body slammed against his, arm snaking around his wrist. Danny grunted as he swung away in Red Robin’s grip, tumbling onto a roof on the downturn.

He clutched his camera to his chest at all times, careful not to break it. It was one of the most expensive things he owned at this point, up there with his laptop. Even his phone was cheaper than this. Danny didn’t want to lose it so soon.

“Are you okay? Any injuries?” Red Robin asked him in a rush of air, sliding down to kneel beside him. Danny stared up at the vigilante with parted lips, quietly gasping for breath. If he looked carefully, Danny could’ve sworn he saw the vague outlines of pupils beneath the lenses.

Danny lifted up his camera and snapped another photo.

Red Robin shook his head vigorously, but he wasn’t so easy to fool a second time.

“You really got to stop doing that,” he deadpanned to Danny.

“I thought pictures were supposed to last longer,” Danny remarked back unflinchingly. That got a surprised bark of laughter for the vigilante. “I swear I’m not doing anything illegal.”

“Illegal? No. Dangerous? Yes,” Red Robin snorted before he stuck out a hand. Danny glanced down at the gloved appendage, but ultimately accepted the help. Red Robin hauled them both to their feet. Danny felt a little dazed but otherwise in one piece. He’d never swung on a grapple before. Was this what Spider-Man felt like?

“You’re one to talk about danger,” Danny commented dryly. He wiped himself down of grime and roof rash. He then checked his camera for damages, just in case. “I’m just a little guy taking pictures of the local bat colony.”

“What are you doing with those pictures?” Red Robin asked.

Danny scrunched up his nose. “I thought about framing them, but I figured I should probably buy a shelf to actually put framed photos on,” Danny admitted with a grimace. He still needed to buy a mattress with a bed frame. And maybe a chair for the kitchen bar. Maybe the camera had been a bit of an impulse buy after all…

“You’re not gonna sell them?” Red Robin questioned and oh, that made a lot more sense. Danny was a security risk in their eyes.

“Selling them would elicit questions about how I took them. And what else I might have seen,” Danny answered vaguely, hoping Red Robin would catch his drift so to speak. The last thing he needed was for gangsters and mafiosos thinking Danny had seen things he shouldn’t have. And while Danny had definitely done all those things, he’d like to keep that to himself thank you very much.

“Fair enough,” Red Robin laughed again. A fine line of tension eased off his shoulders. “Can I see them?”

Danny clutched his camera a little closer to his chest. He had yet to show anyone his pictures. He’d considered sending Tucker and Sam a few, but things were still a bit awkward between the three of them. Danny didn’t want to make them think he was having so much fun without them. He might be happier now that he was living under his own roof, but neither was he jumping for joy to be away from his two best friends.

Besides, this was Red Robin. Danny had taken a lot of photos of the man, and his coworkers. The muse was never meant to look at the art, they were the art. Er, or something philosophical like that. It was embarrassing to show how much of a dork he was.

But it was still their pictures. Red Robin deserved to see how the world viewed him.

“You won’t delete anything without asking first?” Danny asked warily. If there truly was something Red Robin needed him to remove, then Danny would be willing to delete it. But only if the hero ran by it with him first. He was rather attached to his work.

“It’s still your property,” Red Robin pointed out.

Danny had watched Red Robin steal one of Robin’s katanas and pretend like the boy had misplaced it. Pretty much anything went when it came to these vigilantes.

Nonetheless, with a small dose of hesitation, Danny handed over the camera. Red Robin didn’t furiously yank it away like Danny was half-expecting. Instead the hero crowded in a little closer and held it in his hands, allowing Danny to watch as he flipped through the photos. That was oddly thoughtful of him.

Red Robin cackled as he clicked onto yet another photo of Red Hood falling on his ass. “Do you know if you can print a dozen copies of this for me? I need to frame this on the Cave walls.”

“Sure?” Danny guessed more than said. Did that mean he had Red Robin’s approval? Would they be seeing more of each other after this?

Danny didn’t ask, and after Red Robin froze on another photo, Danny didn’t feel inclined to. It was one of the closer shots, where Danny had gone intangible and invisible to get a clear zoom on the faces. It was Batman and Red Robin himself, the younger vigilante’s mouth open as he chatted away about something Danny had tuned out as he usually tried to do. There was a small, adoring smile on Batman's face.

Whoever said that Batman didn’t smile had another thing coming. It was a rare thing, but he only seemed to smile for the people he loved the most.

“These aren’t bad,” Red Robin said, voice surprisingly level. He continued to click through the photos like he hadn’t just had a lapse in composure. “For a newbie.”

“What makes you think I’m a newbie?” Danny asked with crossed arms.

“Take it as a retired birdwatcher, I know all the tells and best tricks,” Red Robin told him, a little smug smirk tugging at his lips. Danny gaped at Red Robin; he used to take pictures of the heroes too? “Maybe I’ll have to bring my old camera around to show you how it’s really done.”

“Don’t you have civilians to save?” Danny drawled flatly. Yet not even he could fit off the creeping grin.

“I do, but I just wanted to make sure I saved you,” Red Robin told him, smirk loosening into something softer, comforting. “Do you need an escort back to your place?”

“What are the chances that you’ll know my address by Monday night?” Danny shot back in return.

“High. Somewhere in the 70s,” Red Robin remarked.

Danny groaned. “Fine. Don’t go looking me up on the internet, alright?” Red Robin gave him a mysterious smile, but didn’t otherwise agree. Jerk. Danny shuffled on his feet. “Do you think you could swing us back?”

Red Robin’s mask stretched as he arched a brow. “Are you afraid of heights?” There was surprise coloring his voice. He’d seen the angle on some of Danny’s shots, he knew Danny had gone somewhere high to get those photos.

A faint blush spread across his cheeks like wildfire. “I just… wanted to know what it felt like again is all. We don’t have to do it.”

Red Robin rubbed his chin thoughtfully, considering Danny for a moment. “Well, it depends… How fast do you want to go?”

Danny’s smirk could have rivaled the Grinch.

He never gave Red Robin his name. The hero never asked. He just took Danny home and waited on the opposite roof as Danny unlocked the door to his studio, waving good night to the vigilante. Of all the ways to meet one of his heroes, he hadn’t quite expected it to turn out like this.

Later, when Red Robin found him huddled on yet another rooftop, he had a camera bag with him. Danny had to admit the guy was stupidly good, although Danny’s angles still rivaled his. He’d have to remember to goad the hero over it for a while.

Danny even remembered to bring the envelope filled with photos. When Red Robin pressed a wad of cash into his hands as payment, Danny tried to refuse but then the hero was up and away.

It made him all the happier that he had developed one more photo, one that Red Robin hadn’t asked for but would hopefully appreciate all the same.

(True to his word, Tim would plaster the majority of the photos along the walls of Jason’s locker in the Cave. He even sprinkled a few around the Cave itself, just to keep his older brother on his toes. One he kept to make copies of, in the future. Plus, what good vigilante didn’t keep a spiff of blackmail material?

One photo, however, stayed tucked away from the others, framed to protect it from any harm.

Tim had always been the artist, not the muse. He had photos of him and Bruce of course, but hardly any of him and Batman. He had maybe one, from his Robin days, but nothing from that day since.

Now he finally did.)

Danny had managed to escape the worst of the violence so far. He heard gunshots often, and the wail of police sirens or emergency vehicles almost daily, but otherwise Danny hadn’t gotten caught up in the trouble. He just kept his head down, worked his two shifts, went to school at night, carefully ventured out during the weekends.

It made sense then, that on the eve of month seven, Danny hadn’t been so lucky.

When the front doors slid open, a chime ringing out in the convenience store, Danny opened his mouth, “Hi, welcome to-”

No noise escaped him as a gun was suddenly leveled at his head, point blank. There were only four other people in the store with him: one of them was a coworker, and the three others were customers. He could hear gasps and small shouts of fear, but Danny didn’t make a peep of sound.

“Empty the register,” the gunman grunted. Danny didn’t move. The man pressed the muzzle against his forehead, eliciting the smallest gasps from Danny. “Don’t make me wait, sweetheart.”

An eerie calmness spread through Danny at the condescending remark. The adrenaline boiling his veins turned to ice as he stared down the butt of the gun and didn’t flinch.

“No.” Danny locked eyes with his would-be killer, jaw clenched as he remembered every detail he could on short notice. He noticed the fringes of grays beneath the hockey mask, the tattoo on the forearm. He tried to memorize the make and model of the gun but then it was pressing back into the hardest part of his forehead, right against his skullcap.

“Do I need to repeat myself?” The gunman sneered at him.

Danny felt so calm. How was he so calm right now?

His hands didn’t shake on the countertops as Danny said, “I heard you the first time. My answer is still no.”

“Look, kid, I try not to hurt brats like you but you’re making it real difficult right now,” the gunman spat, leaning in closer until his hot, foul breath fanned Danny’s cheeks. “So how about you just hand over-”

A flurry of movement caught Danny’s eye, and he moved just in time to see the Red Hood barreling into the store. The gunman was knocked down and disarmed within the blink of an eye, and Danny just stood there, staring at the unconscious body on the floor, stunned.

Red Hood kicked the man another time for extra measure. “What did I say about mugging stores on my turf, asshole.” The man didn’t so much as grunt. He turned back to Danny, who hadn’t moved an inch. “You okay, kid?”

Danny bobbed his head, “He could’ve used a breath mint but otherwise, I’m doing pretty good.” Red Hood gave a snort of incredulity. “Fred-” His coworker seemingly jerked back to life at the call of his name. “-Can you call Tommy for me and let him know what’s going on?”

It was only a matter of time before the cops showed up at the Red Hood’s call, assuming some of the witnesses hadn’t already made one. Tommy wasn’t a fan of the cops, and he’d want to know if a squad was heading straight for his store.

“Uh yeah, sure,” Fred choked out. Danny nodded. And then promptly passed the fuck out.

“Go home, kid,” Tommy grunted in his usual, gruff way. “I mean it. And call out of school tonight, you adrenaline junkie-”

“I’m sorry if I worried you, sir,” Danny snarked, all smiles and teeth. A shock blanket was wound around his shoulders, even though Danny felt much better than earlier. Danny had really let himself go for that to affect him. At least he got a blanket out of it for the winter months. Christmas had already come and gone, but January and February apparently didn’t relent much either.

“Get,” Tommy playfully whacked him in the shoulder with a rolled-up magazine. Danny grinned to himself but headed off to the front entrance. He never left anything in his locker here at work, since he didn’t want to risk losing it if he forgot. Danny was homebound now.

Or he would have been, if Red Hood hadn’t decided to step back into the picture.

“Let me walk you home,” Red Hood told him. Danny doubted the anti-hero would give him much choice on the matter, but that was neither here nor there.

“I’m really fine, but I appreciate the thought,” Danny drawled as he headed back for his apartment. He’d have to take a few back alleys and go around a few different routes to lose any possible tails, but it’d be worth it. He didn’t really care if Red Hood followed him back, so long as he didn’t draw any attention to Danny.

“Fine? Kid, you just stared down the muzzle of a gun,” Red Hood scoffed in disbelief.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Danny made the mistake of muttering. The helmet immediately snapped towards him, a furious line to the vigilante’s shoulders.

“What was that?” Red Hood asked, voice steely.

“Would you relax? This is Gotham. That’s hardly out of place for most kids my age,” Danny shorted with a roll of his eyes. Red Hood was just making a mountain out of a molehill.

However, the more he thought about it, he could admit it had been a while since that happened. He remembered back to all the times his parents had pointed weapons at him, in both halves, and he’d have to hold himself back from flinching. It was no wonder he had maintained his composure until the very end there. Just like it made sense that it took the wind out of him.

Danny wasn’t as desensitized to physical harm as he used to be.

“Most kids don’t try to play hero,” Red Hood grunted, a biting, bitter tone to his voice.

Danny peeked at him, an unimpressed look painting his face. Danny was the last person Red Hood should be having this speech with. Of course it wasn’t like the anti-hero knew about his Phantom persona or his former hero life. He might have given all that up now, but it had been his life for over two years. It was a jab that didn’t land well, regardless.

“That was not playing hero,” Danny clicked his tongue. “If I wanted to play hero, I would have thrown myself at the guy and tackled him to the floor.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Red Hood replied, waving at Danny’s… everything. “Cut that shit out before you get yourself killed.”

“Why are you so bent over this? You’re not in charge of me and even if you were, I still wouldn’t give a shit,” Danny snapped at the man, pointing an accusatory finger. “You go out every night knowing one day you might not make it back, and so what if I do the same? Everyone here does the same. And if I want to be the one to walk into the line of fire so someone else can live then that’s my damn decision, and you have no right to take it away from me.”

“Have. A good. Day,” Danny said through clenched teeth, fists knuckle-white at his sides. He stomped off into the distance, dragging his shock blanket along with him.

Red Hood watched him go, gaze searing into the back of Danny’s head.

Danny felt like breaking something.

(“Dick,” Jason whined into the phone as soon as his brother picked up the call. He could probably feel Jason’s distress through the bond, and it was only a matter of time before the rest gave Jason a call or rushed to his rescue. “I think I’m turning into Bruce.”

Dick audibly winced. “I’ll be there in ten.”

Jason smashed his face into the couch pillows to muffle his screams of agitation.)

Danny did end up calling out sick that night for school. He explained the situation with the receptionist and she more than understood. It was no secret that Danny was a newer citizen to Gotham, so she likely assumed that Danny was ill with fright or something equally cheesy and not at all true.

He considered going in anyways, despite his boss’ insistence otherwise, but Danny was just too angry to think straight right now. Especially not for classes and tests.

That’s probably why he thought it was a bright idea to go out as Phantom for the night. He didn’t linger in the streets, where the other dead and moaning spirits wandered. Instead he shot straight for the sky, arms crossed over his chest as he stared down at the twinkling lights of Gotham City below.

It wasn’t anything like Amity Park, which had been smaller even if it was spread out over a bridge. But it was magnificent and breathtaking in its own way, even if you didn’t want to smell it at the same time.

The whirl of an engine tickled his right ear and Danny snapped his head up to see a Bat with actual jetpack wings flying in his direction. He lifted his hands in the universal sign of peace, slowing to a halt not far away from him.

“Hey, can I help you with something?” The Bat asked him. Shoot, Danny forgot what his callsign was. Batwing or something like that?

“I’m fine,” Danny sighed with his whole chest. “I’m just not in a very good mood right now.”

“Ah, that’s understandable,” Batwing told him, a kind smile on his face. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Danny considered the offer. “What’s the most embarrassing Red Hood story you have?”

Batwing chuckled. “That’s a conversation that requires solid ground.” The hero beckoned Danny down, towards the roofs once more. Danny marveled at the technology from a distance. Keeping his interest in check, Danny watched as the hero patted the roof plating beside him. Danny plopped himself down and turned an attentive ear towards Batwing. “First, I need to know why you’re asking to begin with. Because I’ve got a few that could really ruin a man’s reputation.”

“He said something the other day that I overheard and it… pissed me off,” Danny said very, very carefully. No one had to know that it had actually been today, after all. “I get that he has this whole ‘no hurting kids on my turf rule’ or whatever, but he doesn’t get to control my life, crime ‘lord’ or not. I’m already dead, who cares-?”

“You’re dead,” Batwing repeated with dismay.

Shoot, shoot- abort!

“It wasn’t because you guys couldn’t save me,” Danny rushed to reassure him. “It was just a freak accident. Really, it could have happened to anyone as stupid as me-”

“I’m still stuck on the fact you’re dead and yet right in front of me,” Batwing interjected smoothly, grudgingly amused.

“Oh right, I’m a ghost! We exist. Can we get back on topic?” Danny remarked with a lift of his shoulders.

“What is the topic? The Red Hood story or why he pissed you off,” Batwing commented, a lilt to his voice.

“I’m not being stupid,” Danny defended with a pout.

Batwing lifted his hands again. “I never said you were. I’m just trying to understand why you’re here, with me, and not somewhere else, making his life difficult.”

“I’m not a poltergeist,” Danny snorted, “but I guess I just don’t want to see his face right now. I get that he has good intentions, I really do. It just feels like… another person telling me I don’t know what I’m doing when I lived it.” Danny stared down at his hands. Hands that had pressed down the portal’s button, hands that had fought and beaten down enemies, hands that had held so many loved ones close.

“What did you do the last time someone said something like that to you?” Batwing inquired. The last time something like that happened he’d walked out on them, just like he did with so many other things in his life.

“I walked away,” Danny admitted quietly.

“That’s good,” the hero commended him.

Danny whipped his head back around to face him. “Really? You really think so?”

“Of course,” Batwing told him. “Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where there is no true right or wrong. Life is not just one shade of black or white. But we each have to navigate our own choices and pick what feels right for us. People might always fight to change our minds, but it’s up to you to make up yours. And if people continue to intrude on those decisions, you have every right to do what’s best for you.”

“Sometimes that means walking away when there’s no good reason to stay,” the hero finished.

Danny folded his hands together in his lap. "I dunno. Last time it was because I couldn't stay."

"Yeah? Can I ask how come?" Batwing asked him now. Danny didn't have to answer. He probably shouldn't. He should maintain some semblance of distance and privacy between them. But it felt… right.

"I was invisible long before I ever became a ghost," Danny murmured softly.

Batwing stared at him for a long, quiet while.

"I'm sorry," the man said eventually.

Danny shook his head. "It's nothing you could have helped. I don't think even my soulmates could have saved me from this."

"Do ghosts have soulmates?" Batwing asked. Truthfully? Danny didn't know. Some did, some didn't. Some lost, some gained. The afterlife was a fickle thing, and for a halfa like him, it was that much more complicated.

The soulmate mark on his shoulder burned like a brand, far more than his core ever had.

Danny smiled sadly. "This one does."

When Danny came back to school the following night, he found Duke there in their usual spot. Only difference seemed to be that his friend was completely distracted, staring off into space as he stared down at his meal, chewing slowly. Danny settled down beside him, the scrape of his metal platter stirring Duke from his stupor.

"You okay, man?" Danny asked in concern.

"I'm fine, it's just…" Duke shook his head vigorously. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

That felt like a non sequitur.

"I do, but I know not everyone does," Danny stated carefully. "What do you ask?"

"It's not super important," Duke dismissed with a sigh. Then his friend perked up a little, eyes narrowing. "Instead we should be talking about how you got held up in a robbery."

"I didn't realize that word got around so quickly," Danny commented, arching a brow.

"I may have… eavesdropped on the front office by accident," Duke admitted as he evaded eye contact.

"Sure, I'll pretend it was an accident," Danny drawled. Duke shot him a brief, heatless glare. "What do you want to know?"

"I don't know, how are you? What were you thinking?" Duke posed first, much to Danny's annoyance.

"I was thinking that I'd rather it be me than anyone else," Danny bit out with a frown. "And I feel fine. My boss told me to take yesterday off from school and that's why I didn't show. I feel much better today. Even got ahead on some projects, cried at my place for a while. You know the drill."

"Danny…" Duke trailed off but Danny was already waving him off.

"I didn't tell you for pity," Danny reassured the teen. "I just thought you'd like to hear I had my cathartic moment and it's all behind me now. It's just… It took more out of me than I expected, is all."

Duke obviously didn't believe him, but he didn't have to either. Danny really did feel better after his conversation with Batwing. The man had the patience of a saint and, even though Danny still didn't get his embarrassing Red Hood story, by the end of the night he hadn't needed it.

Those were the kinds of heroes Danny had always wanted to be, the ones that sat down with civilians and villains alike and tried to help them get through another day.

Sometimes Danny missed helping people. Sometimes Danny forgot he had to help himself first.

"Do you want to come over to my place in the morning?" Duke offered. Danny paused mid-sip to stare incredulously at him.

"Duke, you scoundrel. At least invite me to breakfast first," Danny teased with a dainty swat at Duke's arm.

"I wanted to invite you yesterday, but then you never showed," Duke revealed to him. "Probably for the best, my dad had to pull me out of school early for a family emergency."

"Should I really be coming over so soon after one of those?" He questioned warily. He knew how some soulmates could get after agitation spread through the bond like poison. Jazz always tended to get a bit extra snappy with him by accident when their parents were mad at him. It was just vestiges of the bond feeding in to create a cesspool of unwanted, alien emotions.

"I wouldn't have invited you if I thought the rest of the family wouldn't appreciate a visitor," Duke assured him. "Damian might throw a fit, but he's pretty territorial in general so that's not saying much."

"Will I be meeting most of your family?" Some more of that wariness was creeping in. Danny interacted with people on a regular basis; that's what happened when you worked two retail jobs. But this was Duke's family, people he spoke so highly of even if he insulted them lovingly in the same breath.

The last thing Danny wanted was for them to look down on Duke for having such disappointing friends.

"It'll be fine, I promise," Duke said as he placed a comforting hand on Danny's shoulder. He gave it a little squeeze. "If you really don't want to come, you don't have to! I don't want you to feel forced. But Alfred can make you Dutch pancakes for breakfast?"

"I like Dutch pancakes," Danny murmured to himself, curiosity kicking in. "Uh, I mean… I guess it couldn't hurt? I reserve the right to leave any time I start feeling uncomfortable, though."

"Absolutely," Duke agreed. "The family butler, Alfred, will pick us up."

Danny… must have misheard that. He had to, right? …Right?

"I'm sorry, could you say that again?"

It turned out Duke did not lie. His family did have a butler, whose name was Alfred Pennyworth, who greeted Danny with a warm smile and a firm handshake. Danny instantly liked him. Duke greeted him like a close friend, perhaps even family. The way the older man tutted at Danny's skinny arms felt grandfatherly. Danny got the feeling he would be eating a lot once they arrived at Duke's place.

Duke's place, which so happened to be Wayne Manor.

"You didn't tell me you were a Wayne," Danny hissed under his breath in distress.

"Honestly, I thought you already knew?" Duke admitted with an apologetic wince.

On one hand, he felt offended that Duke had just assumed and never said a word about it to him. On the other hand, he appreciated the confidence in Danny's intelligence. Especially because, in hindsight, it was so obvious. Blindingly obvious. More obvious than Signal during his rare night patrol shift.

The Wayne family was by far the most famous example of adoptive, familial soulmates. Duke had talked about his family, with their multitude of soulmate bonds, and yet Danny had never once connected the dots. He'd noticed that Duke's family was fairly well-off but he hadn't even realized they were billionaires. Danny felt like an absolute idiot and absolutely betrayed at the same time. It was a heady mix.

He was now incredibly self-conscious of his worn down, ratty jeans and sneakers, and his fluffy, not at all appropriate sweater. Standing next to Alfred, dressed in a suit, Danny felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb. At least Duke was wearing a polo, Danny was going to look like an idiot!

His knee bounced as the limousine pulled up the long, endless driveway to Wayne Manor. Duke watched him in his peripheral vision, Danny could tell. None of that seemed to matter when they crested the hill. Danny gasped quietly in awe as the sunshine perfectly cut through the towers of the Manor, bathing it in the warm morning light.

Danny wished he had his camera right now, this would have been a gorgeous shot.

His nerves relaxed after that, a small mercy in the chaos of his mind. Danny helped himself out of the car when they arrived, before Alfred could try to. Danny was a guest, nothing more. He appreciated the attention but he didn't deserve it.

He let out another little gasp as they stepped into the foyer, twisting in a circle as the chandelier overhead dazzled him. Danny was not a stranger to wealth. He'd been to more than one of Vlad's properties, and he used to regularly stay over with Sam once she revealed she was rich. Danny had gone to Dora's castle, and Pariah's Keep, both with their endless hoards of gold and precious gems.

In some ways the Wayne Manor could not compare to those extravagant shows of wealth and influence, yet Danny could feel it all the same. In other ways this place outshone all over others, but Danny couldn't put his finger on why.

He slowed to halt and found Alfred and Duke smiling at him fondly, much to his embarrassment. His ears colored with it, which just made Alfred smile wider.

"It takes most people by surprise the first time," Duke laughed at him warmly, patting him on the back. "I remember when I first moved in I practically haunted these halls. I thought for sure there were secret hallways somewhere."

"And you'll continue looking," Alfred commented lightly. All too lightly, like a man who knew secrets but would never tell. "Shall we head to the dining hall first? If you would like, Master Duke, you can offer young Mister Danny a tour at a later time? Preferably after a meal."

"I've gotta show you my room," Duke insisted, eyes sparkling. "Bruce got me a new Switch and- Titus!"

A truly massive dog barreled into the room, nearly mauling Danny over. He still toppled backwards, ass hitting the floor with a hard thump. Danny held out his hands to protect his face, but instead of teeth he got the onslaught of puppy kisses. Danny groaned and laughed all at once as the black dog showered him with affection.

"Titus! Down, boy," another voice called out as he rushed into the room. Carefully, the dog was pried off of him by the back of his collar, although not for the lack of trying on the dog's part. Danny looked up to see a man in his mid to late twenties smiling apologetically down at him. "Sorry about him, he's not usually this affectionate in the morning."

"He must be missing Damian," Duke hummed thoughtfully as he gave Titus a few scratches behind the ear and under the chin, effectively taking him out of the newcomer's hands. "Or did you miss me, boy? You did, didn't you?" Titus wagged his entire bottom with the force of his wagging tail, eliciting a laugh from Danny.

"You must be Danny!" The newcomer greeted him with a blinding smile. "Duke's told us a lot about you. I'm Dick Grayson, the oldest of the Wayne brood." Dick stuck out a hand for Danny to take, and for once he accepted it gladly.

A moment later he regretted his lack of hesitation.

The second their hands touched, fire raced down Danny's arm, right to the soulmate mark on his shoulder. His core throbbed like another appendage, detached from his body but torturing him all the same. In the same breath Dick was hauling him to his feet, the two were collapsing into each other's arms.

Danny had no strength in his legs, entire body turning to molten lava from the inside out. His core desperately tried to keep up with him, pouring cooling ice through his veins but it wasn't enough.

The phantom of unfamiliar emotions filled his head and heart, stifling the air out of his lungs and Danny couldn't breath.

There were hands on him, wrapped around him. One on the nape of his neck to steady and protect his head and spine. Another was around his waist, so he wouldn't fall like the limp doll he felt he was.

His head was filled with static, flickering thoughts and feelings he didn't recognize. The spare trace of an unknown memory swept by, making him nauseous.

Through the haze, Danny could hear voices saying, "Keep him steady and elevated. You should have as much bare skin touching as possible, Master Dick. Master Duke, I need you to call Master Bruce for an immediate return to the Manor-"

Danny slipped into oblivion.

Part Three

Danny woke up in an instant. One of the more preferable ways to wake up from a fever-like, comatose state. His skin felt overly sensitive, his throat parched. There was a nagging sensation on his shoulder that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he rubbed it against the back of the couch. Wait… couch?

“You back with us?” Dick asked, voice a mere whisper. Danny peeled open his eyes, grateful that those weren’t sensitive too.

Dick had his arms wound around his back, a hand on the nape of his neck and gently pressing Danny’s face into the collar of his neck. All exposed skin to exposed skin. Danny had only heard stories about this part before. He never imagined that one day he would be on the receiving end of it.

“Is it time to go back to sleep yet?” Danny muttered. Dick chuckled against him, and a spark of amusement-affection-fondness slipped past Danny’s mind. It warmed a strange little, greedy part of his soul. Those weren’t his emotions, Danny intrinsically knew. But it tickled his own, nudging the back of his mind.

“You should probably try to stay awake,” Dick warned him with a consoling pat to the back. “The sooner you learn to filter the emotions the easier it’ll be.”

“Is that what I had?” Danny asked in confusion. He slipped his hands between them to furiously rub at his face. “Brain overload?”

“Pretty much,” Dick told him, wincing. “When you join a bond that’s already been created, you join the network. In your case, that meant you just had the emotional backlash of five different people.” Danny groaned pitifully. “Damian was the last one to join and he was pretty out of it too. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

That was hardly on the top of Danny’s priority list right now.

“Is that why you’re cuddling me? So my brain doesn’t get its wires crossed?” Danny asked with an arched brow.

“Something like that,” Dick chuckled again. Every burst of emotion bloomed like flowers on his skin, silky soft to the touch. “It’s doctor-recommended, you know.”

“I think your doctor is a hack,” Danny muttered mulishly under his breath. He didn’t move, despite his protests.

Dick didn’t laugh this time, but Danny could feel the amusement-happy-relief come through all the same. It was startlingly clear, much more than all the research papers had made it out to be. Danny wondered how his ghost half affected the emotional regulation of soulmate bonds. Not even Frostbite could have helped him with this; if there were other halfas a long time ago, it wasn’t like they had five soulmates to contend with on top of that.

Danny always had been a bit of an extreme case.

“Bruce and Tim should be coming home soon,” Dick informed him as he rubbed soothing circles in his arm. “They might have to take a detour to pick up Damian, but it’ll be fine. So long as Bruce doesn’t get pulled over for breaking any speeding laws.” Danny snorted this time as well, and Dick shivered against him. What did his emotions feel like? What did the bond say that Danny could never express?

“So that’s four,” Danny began, “if I counted right. Where’s the fifth?”

“Probably trying to sober up,” Dick informed him. A flicker of guilt-concern-fondness-irritation blossomed right next to his ear. “He’s had a rough last few nights but he said he’d try to get here as soon as he could. Probably trying to make himself presentable. He’s a vain little thing sometimes.”

Danny smiled into Dick’s shoulder. Danny couldn’t sense those emotions just yet, since he hadn’t sealed the bond completely. Exposure over time should allow him to sense them at any distance, or so Danny had always been told. His family had never really talked about their bond in front of him, although he’d always known it wasn’t so he didn’t feel excluded. He just wasn’t important enough to hear the explanations.

“What are you thinking?” Dick whispered softly. Danny made a curious noise. “You felt sad.”

“I’m sure I felt a lot of things,” Danny muttered dismissively. Dick gave him a metaphorical forehead flick through the bond. Danny jerked back, but Dick kept them linked and close. “How did you do that?”

“I’ll teach you someday,” Dick told him with a shit-eating grin. “And don’t get evasive with me, I can feel the guilt.”

“Do you guys get any emotional privacy?” Danny huffed in annoyance.

“A few months down the line and you’ll learn how to filter,” Dick promised, “but for now, you’re a relatively open book.”

“Only relatively?” Danny drawled, arching a brow.

“We’re still not mind-readers,” Dick reminded him softly. “We know how you feel, but not why. Not unless we did something to cause it, but that’s more logical deduction than any kind of magical skill only afforded to soulmates.”

Ugh, why did he have to be so reasonable about everything?

Dick giggled against him. “What was that for?” Danny couldn’t help but ask.

“Your emotions are interesting,” Dick told him, a smile in his voice. “Every person in the bond feels differently, that’s how you decipher who’s feeling what.”

“And mine are… interesting?” Danny repeated. Dick passed calmness-reassurance-happy-happy down the bond, making Danny positively melt. Maybe another time he’d be upset about how easy it was to manipulate him and his emotions with the soulmate bond, but that was an argument and debate for future Danny.

Dick hummed. “It’s like… have you ever seen the Aurora Borealis?” Danny’s breath caught in his throat, core spinning with joy within him. Dick gave a sharp inhale.

“Dick? Are you alright?” Danny asked cautiously, dread filling his gut like slimy ectoplasm.

“I don’t know, that was…” Dick twisted an arm around to hold his rib cage. He didn’t seem hurt or injured in any way, but Danny could feel a quick spike in emotional output. That must be where his soulmate mark was. “How did you do that?”

“I didn’t know I could,” Danny muttered, with all honesty and sincerity. At least now he knew how his halfa status could affect the bond. On principle, ghosts consisted of emotion, large and small, that went into their lives and their deaths. That much concentrated emotion came with a heavy toll, one that Danny had been forced to live with for the past two years. And now his soulmates would too.

Danny would feel worse about it, and he likely would once something inevitably terrible happened with his core. But right now, Danny just tentatively reached out again, with his core and not his mind-heart. He brushed up against Dick’s side of the bond like a cat brushing against their beloved human’s legs. Dick practiced turned into goo in his arms, arms turned to leaden weight around him.

“Dick?” Danny asked in surprise. Dick didn’t respond. Danny craned his neck back to find Dick sound asleep.

Huh. Danny didn’t think he could do that.

Dick’s arms were heavy around him, a dead weight now with Dick completely out of it. Danny had certainly lifted heavier, and he could just as easily phase right through the grip if he wanted to. Except… Dick had said it was doctor-recommended, and Danny had no other place to be besides waiting for the rest of their soulmates to show up. He supposed he could get some breakfast in until then but…

He didn’t know. He felt pretty comfortable where he was now.

Danny buried his face in Dick’s shoulder again, arms tucked between their chests, and let his mind wander.

Danny came to with the sensation of a heavy body sprawled on top of him and numb fingers. Groaning, Danny carefully shoved Dick off him. His soulmate still clung to him protectively, as Danny was his favorite safety blanket, but at least now Danny could regain some circulation in his hands.

It was then that it occurred to Danny that they weren’t on the couch anymore. The couch had been decently wide to fit them both on it, not not nearly enough for them to lay out, basically side by side, comfortably without someone tilting off the edge. A glance around the room revealed that they had somehow been moved to a bedroom. One with the most sinfully comfortable mattresses Danny had ever slept on.

Of course Danny also hadn’t slept on a real mattress in months but that was neither here nor there. It also didn’t lower the quality of the mattress, in his esteemed opinion.

Danny twisted around to get a better look only to freeze. In the corner of the room, sitting in a chaise lounge chair, was a very familiar face. He’d known what Bruce Wayne looked like even before he moved to Gotham, but once he came here it was hard to escape the man. It felt like his face was plastered over every single paparazzi or opinion piece in the city’s newspapers, and every local news channel had a segment all about him and his family.

Him and his family, who Danny was soulmates with.

Fuck, what had his life turned into?

“Mr. Wayne,” Danny blinked at the man, all innocent and angelike. He had never done anything wrong in his life, no siree…

“Please, call me Bruce,” the man chuckled at him. “And you are?”

“Duke didn’t tell you?” Danny questioned in return, suspicious. His friend wouldn’t have overlooked something so important on purpose, if he could help it. He knew Duke better than that.

“He was a little preoccupied trying to stop his brother taking a chunk his arm off,” Bruce remarked, a wan smile on his face. He must be referring to this Damian mentioned earlier. It felt so weird knowing the family’s names now, when he had gone so long with nothing but nicknames to tell them apart.

“I’m Danny,” he offered, feeling a little awkward. He gave a tiny wave, body still half-covered with a sleeping Dick. “Hi?”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Bruce replied as he kneeled next to the bed. He looked older up close than he did in pictures, which Danny supposed made sense. There was no Hollywood glitz and glam to make him look like the eternal bachelor everyone made him out to be. In such close quarters like this, Bruce really just looked like a tired father.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” Bruce asked him, holding out a hand in preparation.

“I thought it was doctor-recommended,” Danny remarked.

“It is, but it can still take a little getting used to,” Bruce explained, “Dick is usually much better about asking too. The only reason he didn’t was likely because you were too far gone for that.”

Danny understood that. To be frank he hadn’t even expected he would have been given a choice.

He glanced at Bruce’s proffered hand, then back to the man himself. Danny couldn’t feel Bruce’s emotions yet, nothing more than whatever was filtered through Dick’s side of the bond. And seeing as the man was dead asleep, it wasn’t much if anything at all. Danny wanted to trust his soulmate, any soulmate he had, but it took some getting used to.

Dick shifted against him, feeling the vestiges of Danny’s anxiety.

Danny pursed his lips together, trying to lock away those emotions behind a steel wall and throw away the keys. “Okay…”

Bruce didn’t move away, and any movement he did make he broadcasted clearly. Danny watched with apprehension as Bruce slowly slid a hand towards Danny’s head. They maintained awkward, tense eye contact all the while. Danny felt more like a feral cat you brought in from the yard than a teenage boy.

…You know what, that might actually be more accurate.

Yet the moment Bruce’s fingers made contact with Danny’s scalp he melted all over again. The sudden rush of emotions had him gasping again, even as he leaned into the new link in the bond. The network tied another knot through the links, but the rest remained frayed.

Bruce slumped forward slightly too, overcome with the onslaught just as Danny had. The man recomposed himself faster than most would give him credit for. When that hand dragged through his scalp, nails gently scraping skin, Danny could have purred like a muscle car. Those were instincts Danny hadn’t given into in a long while, and he had no plans on giving in now.

Instead he just gave himself to the touch entirely, head twisted to an almost painful angle to not jostle Dick, even as he yearned for the new bond twisting around his soul.

Flickers of reverence-awe-sadness-scared passed through Danny, ghosting against his skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Scared? What reason did Bruce have to be scared?

Danny tried to send a wave of reassurance, but it came out more like a trickle. A small, shy tug at a metaphorical sleeve. Paired with a physical tug to the sleeve, and a quiet, pleading look from Danny, it wasn’t long before Bruce caved. The man toed off his shoes and carefully eased himself onto the bed. Danny scooted over to allow the man more space, watching every with a cautious eye. It left Danny bracketed on both sides, but for once he didn’t feel cornered.

It had been a long time since Danny received so many cuddles. His friends were often a source for physical comfort, but not a consistent one. Sam had her moments of touch-aversion, after the constant touches and prods of her parents. Tucker got too self-conscious about it as well. Jazz was likely the most consistent of them all, but that came with issues of their own.

“Are you going to do this one at a time?” Danny asked curiously, keeping his voice low for Dick’s benefit. Looking at him again, the man just looked exhausted. Which likely lent more credit to his current slumber than whatever his core had done.

“We’ll try to,” Bruce hummed in agreement, “it can be overwhelming at first, even for those that have the strongest foundations for the bond. In a little bit we can call in Damian or Tim if you’d like?”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact I have five soulmates,” Danny muttered quietly, blinking up at the ceiling.

Bruce chuckled, all joy-fondness-sadness through the link. “Sometimes I still struggle with it too.”

That soothed some of his concerns, but not all of them. He still wondered what the future would look like from this point forward. Danny was an emancipated minor, yet he now wore a fulfilled, familial soulmate bond. People would ask questions if they found out Danny didn’t stay with his soulmates, and that would hurt the Waynes’ reputation and quite possibly the business.

Danny didn’t want to lose his freedom to come and go as he pleased. They might be his soulmates, the companions to his soul, but he couldn’t throw himself into their lives so easily. He still wanted that space for himself, no matter what lovely cuddles they gave.

Would Danny go back to regular public school after this? He had only chosen night school because he had to work during the day. But that also left the question of whether he would continue to work and provide for himself. Bruce was known for his philanthropy, the man would probably try to pay for his bills without question. Was Danny willing to accept that help?

“You have a lot of thoughts about this,” Bruce commented lightly. What a way to say he could feel Danny’s inner turmoil.

“There’s a lot to think about,” Danny bit out with a pout. Bruce chuckled and resumed his head pets, much to Danny’s contentment. “Hmm… maybe later.”

“Later works for me,” Bruce agreed, voice fading away as Danny slipped back into oblivion. It was like two years of poor sleeping habits were finally kicking in after all this time.

(It made sense, too. Only when you felt completely safe could you allow yourself the things you’d been trained to go without.

You know. Like unconditional love and acceptance.)

The next time Danny woke up he just felt hungry. Bruce had fallen asleep beside him at some point too, chest slowly rising and falling. Dick had rolled away thankfully, so Danny could actually breathe again, but man was he starving.

Carefully extracting himself from the cuddle pile, Danny padded out the bedroom door and immediately found himself face to face with a young boy. A stern expression greeted him as the kid turned away from his sketching pad, a very familiar scowl on his lips.

“You shouldn’t be up,” the boy told him in a bratty voice. Danny felt an equally condescending quip on the tip of his tongue, only for his mind to pause and reassess. That sounded oddly like concern? Was the kid worried about him?

“I was hungry,” Danny replied with a weak shrug. Might as well take the cautious approach.

The boy looked him over with a scrutinizing, critical gaze. He looked so painfully like Bruce Wayne that he could be none other than his only biological son, Damian. Danny had heard stories about this one in particular, detached from the rest of his family and their infamy. Apparently he’d grown up out of the States with someone even wealthier than Bruce. Danny hadn’t thought it was possible at the time.

“You do look thin,” Damian remarked with a sneer of displeasure. “We shall have to correct that.” In sharp, swift movements, Damian had his sketchpad packed away and hidden in his bag, which he left by the door to be retrieved later. Suddenly, Danny found a hand thrust towards him, followed by a grabby-grabby gesture.

“You want me to hold your hand?” Danny asked in surprise.

“The bond must be forged at some point, unless you are not feeling up to the task?” Damian arched a surprisingly shaped brow at him. It just made him seem more condescending for it. Yet Danny could tell, even without the intrinsic knowledge all soulmates had, that Damian wasn’t challenging him. It was an offer, wrapped up in a poorly done ribbon.

Danny accepted the hand. A third flood of emotions floated through him, this one cool like the tide. Damian shivered just like Dick had, fingers folding between Danny’s, holding on firmly.

The boy looked at their joined hands, then back to his face, before succinctly saying, “This does not spread outside this household, do you understand?”

Danny couldn’t help it; he smirked. “Yes, little sir,” he drawled teasingly. Danny’s emotions must have come across in some odd combination because Damian looked at him weirdly. But Damian seemed to always look at him strangely, from their brief history thus far, so maybe it was just something Danny would have to get used to.

Damian led him down a flight and stairs and through the winding halls. Danny tried to keep track of directions, using certain landmarks to find his way back if need be. But it was all for naught and soon enough they had arrived at the kitchen anyways.

“Pennyworth, he’s too skinny,” Damian complained immediately, pointing an accusatory finger up at Danny.

He snapped his head down to the little pipsqueak gremlin child. That’s not what they had agreed on at all!

Smug-satisfaction-amusement filtered through and if Danny didn’t think the kid was so cute he would have swept the rug out from underneath him.

“Ah, Master Danny,” Alfred greeted, calm as always. Danny could even pretend he hadn’t heard the panic in his voice earlier, before he had passed out from the overstimulation the first time. “So happy to see you up and about again.”

“Sorry if I freaked you out earlier,” Danny apologized, scratching the back of his neck. “I didn’t think that would happen…”

“It is hardly something most could account for,” Alfred agreed with a sage nod. “Nonetheless, I shall prepare something at once. You missed breakfast and lunch, so you must be starving.”

“You could say that,” Danny agreed helplessly as Damian herded him into a chair in the dining room. The boy sent him a seething glare that seemed to translate to ‘stay’, as if Danny was some kind of exotic pet dog. He sent Danny another dirty glare when those emotions passed through the bond, annoyance-frustration-hurt filling Danny’s mouth.

Danny tried to soothe the boy’s ruffled feathers, brighten his expression with things like amusement-fondness-exasperation. The hurt feelings eased, although the annoyance stayed. That was fine, Danny could work with that.

“Where is everyone else?” Danny asked Damian, since the boy might know best. Alfred had already stepped out of the room to cook, leaving the two boys to converse. Half of the conversation filtered through the bond, but it should still count.

Most people would call this blasphemous, an insult to the company they shared. Danny just always took it to mean people were jealous their bonds weren’t this deep. It was a connection only afforded familial soulmates, and sometimes not even. Romantic soulmates could share their thoughts, platonic soulmates their pain, and familial soulmates their love. That was just how the world worked.

“Drake went to fetch Todd,” Damian answered, to Danny’s confusion. The boy sighed. “Timothy and Jason.” Ah, that made more sense. “Apparently Todd has made himself a coward and refuses to return to the Manor.”

“It’s okay if he doesn’t want to come,” Danny tried to tell the boy, but Damian just shot him another pout. “Not everyone asks for so many soulmates. It’s okay if he doesn’t want it.”

It’s okay if he doesn’t want me.

Damian’s pout transformed into a glare in the blink of an eye, and Danny could only sense the sparks of emotions before they’re furiously stamped out. Damian must be better at filtering and shielding than Danny was.

It frightened him a little that any of them could read him like this. No touching was required for the emotions to pass through like lapping tides, and at some point Danny was going to resurface choking on his own breath.

“Drake will convince him,” Damian sniffled with great confidence. He supposed he’d just have to believe the kid.

(While the newest family acquisition busied himself with his meal, Damian politely excused himself to change out of his school uniform. In reality, he called his stupid, idiotic older brother and hissed, “If I do not see your face walking through this door in less than an hour, I will carve a hole in every single one of your beloved Jane Austen novels.”

Todd sputtered, “That’s cold, Demon Brat.”

“You upset our soulmate. I do not need weepy feelings, Todd!” Damian whined, stomping his feet. Nevermind the fact that he got enough of those from Drake. For a man so composed, his older brother seemed on the constant verge of a breakdown. Poor Daniel would never survive a day in this household.

“You touched him already?” Drake’s voice slipped in from elsewhere, clearly eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Yes I have,” Damian sniffed, “I wonder who shall be the last.” He hung up on them right then and there, scoffing to himself. Perhaps a bit of a challenge would get those imbeciles moving.)

“How was your nap?” Danny teased as Dick stumbled into the dining room. Bruce followed after him, although at a much more leisurely pace. He looked just as composed and unruffled as he had before, and there wasn’t a hint of fatigue lining his face. Dick, meanwhile, looked like he could use a couple more rounds.

“Great, ten out of ten,” Dick hummed with a smile as he plopped down across from Danny, “Would sleep again.”

“Whatever you did to him seemed to work,” Bruce commented as he patted Dick on the shoulder. “Hopefully it’ll do wonders on Tim.”

“Where is Tim anyways? I thought he came home with you?” Dick asked Bruce, squinting up at the man.

“Damian said that Tim was trying to convince Jason to come?” Danny offered with a glance at the two men. Dick and Bruce shared a wordless look, with nothing more than a miniscule twitch of their brows or cheeks indicating their conversation.

It amazed Danny in some ways that they could communicate through emotions alone. Feelings could say many things, but it wasn’t anything like the telepathic link romantic soulmates shared. It took a lot of finesse and control to get a concentrated discussion like that. To share it with one soulmate, rather than broadcast it through the network as a whole, probably made things so much more difficult.

Danny wondered if he would ever get there.

“Tim and Jason are kinda weird like that,” Dick admitted, bobbing his head. “If he’ll listen to anyone, he’ll listen to Tim.”

“Does that ever bother you?” Danny asked quietly as he picked absentmindedly at his nails. He was sure they could feel his anxiety all the same. “You’re all soulmates, but some of you are closer than others.”

“It takes some getting used to,” Bruce acknowledged, “and there are growing pains.” The man glanced at his eldest son, who pointedly looked away. “Logically there should be no need for jealousy, since we all share a bond, but it happens. At the end of the day it’s important to deduce what it is you’re jealous of. Most of the time it’s just something you want but something you don’t think you can have.”

“Did they tell you that in therapy?” Danny asked curiously, kicking his feet up and down.

Bruce smiled. “They did, actually.” Oh, Danny hadn’t expected it to be true. “I had to go after… There was a family emergency. I got so depressed I was making Dick physically ill.” Danny went pale within moments. “I got better of course, and then Tim came into the picture and slapped me around some more.”

“One of my favorite memories for sure,” Dick gave a little laugh. Fondness-sadness-guilt passed through the bond. Danny felt the brush of something but it wasn’t intended for him at all. Was it normal to have this much emotional awareness of the network? Danny was too afraid to ask and find out yet another way he was just a- “Are you okay?”

Dick peered at him with concern painting his face, no need for the bond to tell him that much. In his peripheral Bruce watched him too, always a quiet, pensive observer.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Intrusive thoughts,” Danny dismissed, shaking his head clear of those thoughts. He would have to unpack those when his part of the link wasn’t so loud. “How much-” Danny licked his lips. “How much do you know about me? I can’t imagine it’s fun to find out a total stranger is your soulmate.”

“We all start out as strangers at some point,” Bruce assured him. “Duke’s mentioned you a few times, but he’s not one to blabber all your secrets.” The man winked at him, a sheepish blush blooming on Danny’s cheeks. “You’re always free to tell us more about yourself.”

Danny didn’t know if he was ready for that yet. He definitely wasn’t comfortable discussing his parents, or the life he’d left behind, but…

“I’m emancipated, have been for… in a couple months it’ll be a year? My parents are alive, but they live in another state now. I have an older sister and she goes to university,” Danny listed off the top of his head. “My two best friends live in my old hometown. I moved here for the dirt cheap rent. I work two part-time jobs and go to night school. And that’s about all I can think of right now.”

“Any hobbies?” Dick prompted him.

“I loved to go stargazing,” Danny admitted, feeling a bit self-conscious. “I, uhm, wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. I went to the Junior Cadet program forever ago and passed with flying colors, but… I don’t know. High school hit and I realized I have pretty shitty time management skills.” Bruce snorted, amusement thrumming under Danny’s skin. “Nowadays I do some light nightscape photography. I’m an avid birdwatcher.”

Bruce’s eyebrows shot to his hairline, like something out of an old 90s cartoon. “You’re a birdwatcher.”

“Is that so surprising?” Danny frowned at the man. Did he know what that lingo meant in Gotham? Surely he knew, but Bruce also had a reputation for being a bit of a ditz. He was much more intelligent than what the press gave him credit for, however. Danny didn’t know what to trust.

“No, not at all,” Bruce said with a smug, smug grin. If Danny had doubts before with the family resemblance with Damian, then those were long gone. “I bet you and Tim would get along swimmingly.”

Danny just wished they would show up for Danny to find out.

(“We have to tell him,” Dick murmured when Damian went to distract Danny, the younger boy tugging the teenager along like a lost puppy. Danny felt- strange. Dick didn’t think anyone else felt anything similar in the bond. Sometimes it was like nothing came through at all, and then moments later the dam would burst and Dick was left soaked to the bone.

Danny’s emotions felt far more acutely painful than anything else Dick had ever felt before. The closest comparison would likely be Raven, a known empath.

Bruce silently stared at the door Danny and Damian had disappeared into.

“I know,” the man spoke gruffly, quietly.

“Soon,” Dick insisted. He reminded Bruce, “He deserves to know why he starts feeling things like adrenaline and anger and whatever cocktail of emotions you call Jason. Those aren’t things civilians feel through a bond. Either he’s gonna ask or-”

“He’s going to think something’s wrong with him,” Bruce finished, then sighed. “I know.”

He’d felt it too, no doubt. The self-loathing had been so powerful Dick could have been crushed by it. Danny carried that weight with him every conversation, in nearly every flood of emotions that managed to break past the walls. Either Danny was learning control very, very quickly or something else was holding him back.

One option left a bad aftertaste.

“We’ll figure it out,” Bruce declared with the utmost confidence.

Dick smiled fondly at the man, shaking his head all the while. Well that was Batman for you. Always trying to find new ways to save the day.)

Danny knew there really was no good way of saying this, so he guessed he had to go with the age-old method of ripping the bandaid off.

“I should probably get going,” Danny said with an apologetic wince. Everyone in the room snapped their heads towards him in sync, soulmate or not. “It’s just- thank you for the hospitality and everything but I really need to check up on my apartment.”

“We could go with you,” Duke offered, like the true sweetheart he was. Unlike Dick, who was already halfway out of his seat before Danny stopped him.

“No, that’s fine,” Danny shook his head, “I promise I’m not running away. You’ll see me again tomorrow or some time this week. I just have things I need to do. My bosses are probably wondering why I didn’t show up. Which is the last thing I need after I nearly got shot the other day.”

“You what?” Damian hissed, fire and retribution in his eyes. The grip on his fork was knuckle white, all that anger contained in such a small frame just waiting to burst free. Bruce held out a placating hand towards his son.

“At least let someone drop you off? Wayne Manor isn’t close to the main city proper,” Bruce reminded him. Danny considered the offer. Who did Danny trust to have the most tact about this? Uh, duh, that answer was obvious.

“Is it alright if you took me home, Alfred?” Danny asked with a sheepish smile. He ignored the way the two other men in the room wilted a little in disappointment. “Sorry to bother you but-”

“You are hardly a burden, my boy,” Alfred assured him with a genial smile. “Allow me to find the keys first. Perhaps something a bit more subtle than the limo would be appropriate.” Just like that Danny’s fears were quenched. Alfred really had been the best choice, in the long run.

The Waynes seemed nice, and they were friendly and kind to him. Danny just wasn’t sure how long that would last once they got to know him. The less they could hold over his head the better.

Danny could feel their beady eyes on him, so he headed for the front door. In fact, he walked right out the front door, intending to wait by the garage. He could hear the patter of footsteps following him and they were definitely too heavy to be Titus’, so he figured they wanted to see him off. And yet the moment he reached the entrance, he saw another car had just pulled up.

Out came two more strangers, although one was more familiar than the other. Tim Drake-Wayne’s face had been similarly plastered over billboards and magazine covers; he seemed like the Forbes’ new poster boy. Danny didn’t know how he hadn’t connected the dots earlier when Damian had mentioned a ‘Drake’. Danny supposed he had just gotten so used to the ‘Wayne’ part attached with a hyphen.

“Fuck no,” the other guy whined, hands carding through his hair. Danny spotted a streak of white hair through the mess. “Fuck my life.”

“Jason-” Tim started but Jason was already walking off, heading towards the large, endless grass fields on the Manor property. Tim pinched the bridge of his nose, muttered under his breath for a while, but didn’t go after him. He approached Danny instead, offering a tired, kind smile. “Sorry about him, he’s having a crisis.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing for him,” Danny stated blandly. He’d never wanted Jazz to apologize for all the ways his parents had failed him, soulmates or not. Tim shouldn’t have to apologize for Jason either. “So you’re the…”

“Soulmate number four? You’d be correct,” Tim remarked with a waning smile.

Danny was starting to see what Bruce had meant about Danny’s accidental trick on Tim. The poor guy looked exhausted, and he could only be a few years older than Danny. Even in the worst of the ghost attacks, Danny didn’t look nearly as bad. And that was probably just because he slept through classes regularly. Did this guy not sleep at all?

“So how do you want to do this?” Tim questioned, to Danny’s confusion. “They say the location of where soulmates first touch can be a direct influence on what form their relationship takes.”

That was a new one to Danny. Yet now that he thought about it, what would that look like? Dick had been his helping hand, pulling him back to his feet when he needed it. Bruce had been the calming, soothing touch, reminding him someone was always there. Damian had been a quiet, unexpected force of nature, reticent for affection but offering it all the same. What did he want his relationship with Tim to look like?

Tim waited patiently enough, but Danny didn’t want to wait forever.

Without another word, Danny reached out and pulled Tim into a hug, resting his chin on Tim’s shoulder. The older teen didn’t seem to know what to do with him, arms hanging limply from his sides as Danny wrapped his hands around Tim’s back. Tim could draw his own conclusions, on his own time, but Danny could have this for himself.

Somewhere behind him, the door swung back open. At the same time, Tim finally wrapped his arms around Danny too.

Danny leaned his cheek into Tim’s neck, heard Tim’s gasp next to his ear. Anxiety-scared-yearning filled Danny, heavier than any other bond so far, and nearly toppled him over. Tim was stronger than he looked however, and kept them both upright.

“Hey, stranger,” Tim murmured, voice choked and raspy. “It’s nice to meet you.”

(“I heard you like to go birdwatching too,” Danny commented as the two of them sat on the edge of the driveway. With their knees huddled close, Tim’s head resting against the skin of Danny’s neck, it felt completely different than any other bond Danny had sealed so far.

“Did Dick tell you that?” Tim chuckled breathlessly. He was far more calm now then before, but that came with the added bonus of fatigue and resignation. Tim’s emotions carried so much more weight than any of the others, more than Danny had expected without doubt.

“Bruce actually,” Danny muttered with a frown. “Will you show me someday?” Happy-joy-sadness-tired filtered through the bond, spreading through the link.

“I’ll show you all my tricks,” Tim promised, a secretive curl to his lips. “I have entire albums worth of pictures.”

“Don’t let Red Robin hear you say that,” Danny laughed, “I think he’d be jealous.” Guilt-pain-joy. The Waynes really had the strangest combinations of emotions.

“Nah,” Tim whispered, “I think he’d know I won this round.”)

Danny never did find out what happened to Jason. Soulmate or not, the man was still a stranger to him. One that had actually walked out on him at that. Danny wasn’t so inclined to trust he’d come back to him. If he did, would Danny accept him with open arms? Should he?

He remembered Batwing’s advice, a reminder to put himself first when he needed it most. Danny had always been bad about following other people’s advice.

Maybe that’s why, when Jason mysteriously showed up at his studio, Danny didn’t immediately shoo him away.

“Did Alfred tell you my address?” Danny questioned, unimpressed. Jason shuffled at his front door step, forced to bend his head underneath the low overhang. He seemed awkward too, painfully so. Danny didn’t need a sealed soulmate bond to tell that much.

“He’d never do that,” Jason scoffed. “I just ripped it off the car’s GPS.” Huh, okay, that was oddly… clever. Even if it did feel slightly illegal.

Jason silently gaped at him, eyes subtly moving as he took in every inch of Danny’s appearance. He was still dressed in his house clothes, a ratty old t-shirt and some pajama pants. Definitely not something you wore with company present, but Danny had kinda hoped Jason wouldn’t stick around long enough to require an outfit change.

“Are you here for a reason, or do you just want to gawk?” Danny pressed the man. It broke him out of his reverie, blue-green eyes blinking repeatedly at the scolding. It reminded him of Jazz’s teal eyes. An uncomfortable lump formed in his throat, and Danny forcibly swallowed it down.

“I want to talk, if you’d let me,” Jason murmured with a weak shrug. “I understand if you think I lost my chance but I couldn’t handle the pressure at the Manor. I don’t want to do this in front of a crowd of onlookers.”

Danny wouldn’t call their four other soulmates mere ‘onlookers’, but alright…

Danny should tell him no. He really should. The fact that Jason had gone out of this way to see Danny without anyone else present was suspicious as fuck. In any other circumstance Danny wouldn’t trust him or his word. But it just felt… right. That had been part of Batwing’s advice, hadn’t it? Maybe Danny would regret this later, but he didn’t want to regret making the wrong decision now.

Stepping aside, Danny waved Jason in without a word. As soon as Jason stepped clear of the day, Danny slammed him close, just to spook the guy. Disappointingly Jason wasn’t so easily startled.

“So let me give you the tour!” Danny began with a clap of his hands. He pointed towards his bed. “This is the bedroom, living room, sometimes dining room.” He gestured to the kitchen. “This is the kitchen, dining room, and full-time office.” Finally, he waved at the closed door on the far wall. “And that there is the bathroom. And that concludes our tour!”

Jason glanced around the room. He didn’t look disgusted, more alarmed than anything else.

“Damn, girl, you live like this?” Jason quoted with a straight face. Danny barked a laugh, the idiot that he was.

“It’s not like I have any guests over,” Danny replied with an easy-going shrug. “Besides, I figured if I ever did get robbed, they won’t find much on me.” Most of his expensive, pricy things he phased through the walls or floors anyways, but best not to take any more chances than that.

“That is a sad way to live, kid,” Jason pointed out, hands on his hips.

“I like it,” Danny informed him, unperturbed. “It’s not a glittering manor on a hill or anything, but I get to come and go when I want. I’m saving up a nest egg if I ever want to upgrade to something more spacious but it’s… nice. It works for me.”

“Better than what you had before, huh?” Jason hummed, deep in thought. Danny had never said that, had never gotten close to it, yet Jason seemed to understand it all the same. He flopped down onto his futon as he watched Jason observe the small space. Jason didn’t look at him like this, too busy scrutinizing the photos Danny had carefully taped to the wall.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Danny reminded the man of the reason why he came here.

Jason licked his lips, shifting on his feet. “I’m sorry for walking away like that. I hadn’t even realized how you would take it, and it was thoughtless and insensitive and not at all how I wanted to fix- start our relationship.” An interesting slip of the tongue. Danny would allow it.

“Is that all you wanted to say?” Danny remarked with skepticism. Jason dragged a hand through his hair again, a bereaved sigh filling his chest.

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” Jason began to say, “I am a sack of shit.” Danny blinked in surprise as Jason started a strange little tirade. “A couple years ago things went down and I got sick, got better, except now I… have the emotional regulation of a rock. Even worse than Bruce. I can’t read emotions like I used to. I’ve been told by every single one of our soulmates that I feel like- like a thousand different things at once and it hurts.”

Jason crouched down to look him in the eye as he continued, “I can’t control it. I’ve tried a million different things to help and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll be upfront and say I didn’t want to bond with Damian when I found out. Tim was a special circumstance, if only because it’d been an accident. But I had a choice with Damian and I wanted to say no. Only Damian is a persistent little gremlin and he found a way to convince me.”

“You deserve a choice too,” Jason told him. “You can say no, you already have plenty of other soulmates. You can even tell me to wait a while, so you can learn how to filter all the others’ emotions first before you receive my seal. Or you can say no and it’ll never happen. It’s entirely up to you.”

Danny studied Jason silently. The stern lines of his brows, a sign of determination. The set of his jaw, the calling sign of stubbornness. The pleading look in his eyes, the confession of a sinner.

Jason was being completely sincere here, yet Danny knew it wasn’t the whole picture.

“That’s not really why you walked away from me, is it?” Danny murmured in a low voice, tilting his head to the side. Jason sighed again, heavy and annoyed. He dropped down on the floor now, completely at Danny’s level. It felt like they were finally on even footing, with the hope of no more secrets.

“I’m the Red Hood.” Danny’s mouth fell open in a soundless gasp. Jason nodded his head, confirming his unspoken question. “Yeah, you know that guy you shouted at for being a total dick? That was me…” Jason gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I already felt terrible by the time you walked away, but then when I found out you were our soulmate I just- I didn’t handle it appropriately.”

“You could say that again,” Danny muttered under his breath.

Jason gave him an imploring look. “You have a right to be upset with me. I did an asshole thing. If I heard myself say that six years ago, I would have kicked my own ass.” Danny huffed quietly, smile quickly dissipating before Jason could appreciate it. “I didn’t want to hurt you, and I did. I’m so sorry, Danny.”

Danny watched the man silently, words and emotions filling his lungs.

“‘Danny’ is better than ‘kid’,” Danny murmured offhandedly. Jason sat up a little straighter as Danny laid out on the futon, hair sprawled out while he stared at his glow-in-the-dark, twinkling stars. “Why did you say it then? Why did you want me to stop?”

It was Jason’s turn to consider him now. Silence settled between them, sharp and heavy. It was maybe a minute more before Jason shifted over to lay parallel to Danny’s futons, their shoulders a healthy inch apart. Jason continued to insist on Danny’s choice, and the distance they’d have to maintain to keep it.

“I didn’t want you to pay the price like I did,” Jason told him quietly. “I didn’t want you to die like I did.”

Dread and realization and heartbreak cascaded down upon him, like the rushing river tide. Wordlessly, Danny allowed his transformation rings to pass over him. He watched Jason’s expression all the while, watched as his pupils constricted at the sight of him. Danny said nothing and allowed Jason to stare, let Jason pour over every little detail and crevice of his face.

Batwing knew this form. Batwing knew this face. It was only logical that the other Bats did too.

Jason wheezed for air, sounding like a wounded animal. Danny reached out, oh so tentatively, to brush away a stray tear. Jason gasped this time as the bond sparked and sealed for life.

Danny sighed as the onslaught came, and this time he welcomed it with open arms.

Jason had not been kidding when he saw his emotional regulation was shot. It was just a swarming mass of emotions Danny couldn’t decipher, didn’t recognize. Everything in his body wanted to reject the ball of hurt, foreign as it was, but Danny clung onto it in rejection of the very idea.

He reached out with his core, and like a magical needle to a tangled ball of thread, pierced right through the mass.

It didn’t spool apart at the pressure, not even close. But Danny slowly began to pick through the broken pieces, and find all the shards he’d missed.

Jason rested a hand atop Danny’s own, pressing his palm into Jason’s cheek. Danny rolled over and pressed his face into Jason’s chest, curling up into a protective ball against his soulmate, his last missing companion.

Danny didn’t feel so alone anymore.

Forward.

That night, alone in the private bathroom attached to his new room in the Manor, still a tentative, cautious thing, Danny removed his shirt and dared to look at his soulmate mark for the first time. Splattered over his shoulder were hues of purple and blue and black, pigments of a picturesque night sky. The same sky he’d always yearned for, and the same cover of darkness his soulmate found under.

Five twinkling lights pierced through the veil, one for each soulmate he’d held close.

It’s the best gift he’s ever owned.

Fin.