Chapter Text
Tim and Danny don’t leave until they absolutely have to check out, partially because they stayed up till early in the morning making out, and partially because Tim is dreading returning to the manor.
Actually, he feels really conflicted about the whole progression of events. The plan was: make Danny hate the Justice League less. Maybe work together a little bit as heroes, make Danny like Red Robin , if not as much as he does Tim, then at least a tolerable amount. Friendly- on friendly terms. Then, when he understands how Red Robin is, how Batman is, how that interacts, then he’d tell him he knew, reveal his identity, and it would all work out.
Obviously there were some holes that needed to be patched, kinks to be ironed, but it was a plan.
But he’s not going to stop now that he’s started- genuinely he doesn’t have the willpower to. He used to think that he was completely in charge of himself, his desires.
He’s not. Now that their feelings are out in the open, he doesn’t think they act much differently, but that might just because they touched a lot before. Tim couldn’t get enough of it, and now he doesn’t have any reason to keep from asking for more.
He does- the reason is this: right before he kisses Danny, he thinks I am going to break your heart and then their lips meet and he can’t think anything anymore. Again and again and again. He stopped counting kisses around two in the morning, when the numbers got too high and Tim’s brain got too tired and giddy to keep track.
Danny’s hand is on his on the gear shift, new, pink skin rubbing a circle around Tim’s knuckle. He’s aware of it on the back of his neck, the hairs all raised up. Last night is a million years away, but he can feel it on his lips, he can taste Danny’s saliva in his mouth. “I need to tell Bruce.”
“Ah?” Danny says.
“He knew it wasn’t real.”
“They all knew.” Danny says, not at all accusatory, just a statement, as he rests back on Tim’s leather seats and watches him drive.
“Sam knew.” Tim says, and it does sort of sound like he’s accusing him of something.
“You couldn’t keep this a secret from Dick any more than I could keep it a secret from Sam.”
It’s fair. Tim, because he has to give Danny as much truth as he can afford without alienating him entirely, says: “I didn’t even try. They knew from the beginning.”
“Same.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“It was kind of silly, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t just an excuse to touch me?” It might’ve been. “You could’ve just asked.”
“You overestimate my... me.”
Danny keeps watching him. It’s just them. It’s always been just them. It wasn’t always- he didn’t love Danny when he kissed him in a basement in Boston, and he didn’t love him when he shared a bed with him in Star City, but he knows that it’s not new, because Danny’s eyes on him are a comfortable weight. It’s obvious now that all those times before, Danny wasn’t staring at him for anyone’s benefit other than his own.
When he wrote the contract, he hadn’t added that clause as an excuse to touch Danny- that’s what it became. He wrote it to maintain control- to let himself think he was in more control than he was.
He’s never been in control of anything when it comes to Danny Fenton.
“You could’ve asked, too.”
“I didn’t want to frighten you. You’re like a stray cat.”
“Okay, well, you were the one who was starving and neglected, so I’m not sure if that’s the comparison you want to be drawing right now.”
“Ancient fucking gods, Tim,” Danny says, exasperated and fond.
“Is that what that’s from? Ancient Gods?”
“Oh,” Danny says, like he hadn’t been aware that was a weird thing to say. “Yeah, sort of. I mean, not all the ancients are gods- it’s ghost stuff.”
“Right. Ghost stuff.”
“I don’t really wanna talk about it.” Danny says, pulling his hands back into his lap and looking out of the window.
“Alright. What do you wanna talk about?”
Danny pulls his knees up to his chest. “You asked last night if you were the first cis guy I’ve dated. Am I the first trans guy you’ve dated?”
“I haven’t dated much,” Tim says. “Well- okay- not in this way, like what we’re doing.”
“What are we doing?”
Tim pauses for a moment, trying to consider the best way to phrase his thoughts. “Like- seriously. Dating seriously.”
“What did you do, hookups?”
“Well, that sounds bad.”
“I thought I was soooo special for getting an NDA from you after a clandestine make out session but it turns out-”
“Look up the meaning of clandestine, that was like the exact opposite-”
“It was just a habit for you- maintaining your aloof image must’ve been pretty damn hard when you were kissing a bunch of people casually-”
“It was before my dad died, I wasn’t nearly as public as I am now, first of all, and it wasn’t nearly as... illicit as you make it sound. Largely girls liked me, and I didn’t... not like them?”
“Oh, woe is you.”
“Shut up, you don’t have to be an asshole about it.” Tim says, unable to keep himself from smiling. “Anyways, I think the first person I really liked was Steph, but I was sorta dating this other girl at the time- well, Dick told me we were dating, but I didn’t really like her, you know?”
“Are you gonna get to the point any time soon, Ross Geller?”
Tim points at him. “Rude, okay? Rude. And we weren’t even- I don’t know. I didn’t know what liking someone was like before I liked Steph, okay? It wasn’t like that for her, though. So when she left...” Tim shrugs. “Anyways, to answer your original question, no. But it doesn’t matter to me.”
“I didn’t ask if it mattered.” Danny says. “I asked if you had, because it’s, like- there are differences.”
“One would assume.” One would also assume that there are differences dating Danny, who’s somewhat dead, than someone wholly living. Tim relishes in the idea of discovering them.
“Ah, would they?”
“Is there anything I need to know? Like urgently?”
“Is there anything you want to know?” He asks, simply. “Or anything you need to know, for um, the calendar?”
“The calendar?”
“The calendar detailing when we should be reaching certain sexual benchmarks in our relationship.”
“I would like to state, for the record, that you were the one who said that, not me.”
“Do you think that Dick would believe you? If you said that.”
“Not the point.” Tim drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “You haven’t had any surgery, right? Do you want- I mean, if you wanted, that’s really- not hard for me to arrange.”
Even looking at the road, Tim can see Danny cringe out of the corner of his eye.
“Ah. No?”
“I don’t really vibe with the idea of people being near me with scalpels, you know?”
Tim kissed marks into the scars beneath his collarbone last night. “Oh.”
“Right. Especially the idea of being unconscious during it, you know, that they could do whatever-” Danny pulls his knees in closer, like he’s trying to protect his torso, where he’d been cut open. “Maybe one day. I’d like to, but I can’t reconcile with the process of it.”
“Were you not unconscious when-” Tim looks at Danny, then has to tear his eyes back to the road. “Oh, fuck, I don’t know if I wanna know the answer to that.”
“I was awake.” Danny says, quietly. “They wouldn’t let me fall asleep.”
“Are we getting into ghost stuff again?” Tim asks, instead of demanding to know who ‘they’ were, like he wants.
“Maybe. I’ll tell you one day.”
“Okay.” Tim says. The cab quiets to the sound of the wheels against the road, the hum of the engine, Danny breathing deep and heavy. After a minute he takes his hand off the gear shift and holds it out just in front of Danny’s left knee. “Hand.”
“Pardon?”
“Hand. Please.”
Danny complies, lacing their fingers together. “Okay?”
“Yeah. What, I can’t want to hold my boyfriend’s hand?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay, but it does need to be closer to the gear shift, this is a manual.”
Bruce is in the house when they arrive, as are Damian and Cass, according to the security app. This is the ideal set of people, Damian excluded, because they’re quiet, generally, about their mockery. Damian is more okay than others, because he’s still repulsed by the idea of Tim having romantic feelings for anyone, and will probably avoid them if they’re doing any sort of PDA. Which Tim intends to do as much as Danny allows.
Anyways, Bruce isn’t in the cave, because Tim can’t see him having scanned in, and it’s four-thirty, which means he’s probably awake, so he drags Danny to the library, which is where he presumably is. Tim knows B just about as well as he knows himself, because there he is, reading on the couch with Titus’s head on his lap.
“B?”
“Tim, Danny, welcome back,” B says, scratching the dog between his ears. “How was Princeton?”
“Good.” Tim says.
“It’s pretty.” Danny comments.
“Danny’s gonna try out for the cheer team.”
“Am not.”
“And, uh. We’re dating now.” Tim says, holding up their joined hands. “For real.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow, but keeps reading his book. “Thanks for telling me.”
“You don’t sound very surprised,” Danny comments.
“I’m surprised it took you two this long. Assuming you’re telling me right away and this is a new advent.”
“You know it is,” Tim says, cheeks warm.
“And have you told the rest of the family?”
“No.”
“I suggest you text the group chat and then lock yourself in your room for twenty-four hours. Expeditiously, because otherwise I will.”
“Is he serious?” Danny whispers to Tim.
“I’m always serious, Danny.” Bruce says, finally looking up and holding his phone up. “I don’t know how long I can restrain myself. This is exciting news.”
Tim grimaces, knowing he means it, and pulls out his phone to text:
Me n Danny are together fr now. I’m turning my phone off.
Die
And then does turn his phone off, but he can hear B’s chime with the responses.
“I give you five minutes.” Bruce says.
Tim looks at Danny, squeezes his hand, and then drags him towards the stairs.
***
“Fuck you, fuck you so hard, fucking goddamn shit, Danny, do you know how horrifying it is to get a call from Tim Drake fucking Wayne on a random Thursday where you pick up the phone and instead of hello, he says ‘Danny’s alive, he’s here in Gotham’ when I didn’t know something had gone wrong in the first place? What the fuck. And then you don’t reply to anything even after you get your phone back for a week ? I’m gonna kill you. Again. I don’t care, you need to call me!”
“I love you too, Sam.” Danny says, laying down on Tim’s bed, looking up. “Uh, sorry, sorry about all that.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it! The portal is fucking gone, the police show up at my house with a warrant to try and find you, I have no way of knowing what the fuck’s happened- what the fuck happened?”
“Vlad. Coup attempt. Nearly killed me. I nearly killed Elle- and him probably, based on how he looked when I saw him the other day, uh, not why I called you-”
“Why else are you calling me?”
“Me and Tim are dating now.”
“Oi vey. Danny, are you shitting me? What kind of Nightingale bullshit- nevermind. I’d be happy for you if I weren’t so fucking pissed at you.”
“I’m sorry,” Danny says again. “I missed you.”
“I’m-” Sam sucks in a deep breath, and something clatters on her end of the line. “Why wouldn’t you just call? Just to let us know that you’re alright? And I know, I’m glad you like him, but why go to Tim?”
Danny curls up on his side. “I don’t know. I- because- because I want to be done.”
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“And Tim- Sam, once you killed me, to make me Phantom again. Tim likes me without that. I don’t know what I am without it, except for what I am with him.”
Sam doesn’t reply, and Danny doesn’t say more, for a very, very long time.
“We needed you.”
“I know.” He says. “I don’t care to be needed, anymore. I think I’d rather be wanted.”
“Danny.” Sam says, every sound miserable, like she’s trying very hard not to cry. “I never meant to-”
“I know. I know you don’t mean to. But you do.”
“You know I love you, right? I love you , not Phantom.”
“I know.” Danny says, because he thinks he does. “I- can you still be my best friend? Please? Because after we got together, after I kissed him, when I had a second to think about anything other than how much I like him, and how lucky I am, I was just thinking about how much I wanted to tell you all of it.”
“Of course.” She says. “Is it better? Kissing him, now that it’s real?”
“More than you know. Ancients, he does this thing with his tongue-”
“Fucking hell, Danny, if I have to learn one more thing about Tim Drake’s tongue -”
Tim goes back to work the next day, after following Bruce’s advice and staying in his room the whole day after dropping the whole ‘dating for real’ bomb. Well, more accurately, not opening his door- the little circular windows on the west side of the room open up and he and Danny could climb out between the dormers to watch the sunset. It was a soft affair, muffled chuckles and hands held and the skin of their legs sticking together in the humidity. The sunset didn’t get the quiet memo- it was spectacular, like someone lit the sky on fire.
“Gotham has the best sunsets,” Tim said, his head resting on Danny’s shoulder, “Because of all the chemicals in the air, and the fact we always have clouds, but they end just out of the city limits, so we usually get the sun poking through. It almost makes the rest of it worth it.”
They eventually went back into the room when Tim declared that the bugs were intolerable.
Now, Danny wakes up in Tim’s bed alone, which is not his favorite thing, because it has all the markers he’s come to associate with comfort- the smell of Tim’s shampoo and detergent, the softness of the sheets- but it’s not warm.
He rolls over on his stomach with a groan to check his phone, but it’s unfair for him to expect Tim to put his whole life on pause just because he showed up beaten half to death without warning.
There’s no news of any ghost attack, Elle has sent a random emoji, as has become her habit to let him know she’s still alive. Today, it’s 📯, and he’s stopped trying to decode any meaning from them. It’s all the communication he gets, regardless of what he sends back.
Danny lets out a long exhale, putting the phone back down and rolling over again to stare at the ceiling for a moment.
A moment rolls into almost half an hour before he can convince his aching body up to sitting.
It’s harder to wake up when he feels safe. The worry for the zone, his parents, the world, it’s still there, but in an abstracted sort of way. It’s more so guilt now. There’s no immediacy. There’s no imminent threat to his life.
Danny is so, deeply, existentially tired.
He wanders through the manor towards where he more or less thinks the kitchen is, based on the two times he’s been there. He’s wearing one of Tim’s shirts, inside out and backwards, stretching awkwardly across the line of his shoulders. He runs his finger along the collar as he walks, until he catches the edge of voices.
They’re not hard to catch, really, in part because of heightened hearing, and also the fact that one of them- Dick- is yelling.
“-because I’m worried , B, you’ve been doing this for years, you should know about the pressure-”
“It’s how he was raised, he wouldn’t know what to do without it!”
“He should be allowed to learn.”
“Do not tell me what’s best for my son, Dick.”
Danny hears Dick laugh, disbelievingly. “Holy fuck, Bruce, are you serious? Are you actually serious?”
“You’re not here-”
“I am right fucking here! It’s an hour drive, less at night.”
“I’m better for him than being with his mother. Or Ra’s .”
“Better isn’t good. ”
“Well, he’s here. He’s not living with you in your shitty one bedroom apartment in Bludhaven-”
“Because I told him that he needed to be here! He would’ve come if I let him-”
“No one lets Damian do anything.” Bruce says. He hasn’t raised his voice much, although Danny has always viewed him as a rather soft spoken man, especially when he compares him to his own father, but now he’s speaking loudly. Not yelling, but loud enough that it’s obvious he’ll be heard.
“Jesus Christ- do you know why he calls you father? It’s because I’m the one he sees as a dad!”
That makes Danny suck in a harsh breath between his teeth as he cringes.
“Is that-” Dick opens the kitchen door, revealing him and Bruce, both red in the face, although he immediately plasters on a genial smile. “Danny.”
“I just wanted some coffee.” Danny stutters. “I didn’t mean- um. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
“It would’ve been hard not to overhear,” Bruce says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ah, apologies. I’ll be in my office.”
Dick doesn’t look at him as he moves past them into the hall, and when he’s out of sight, raises his own hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as well. Danny wonders if he knows the gesture is the exact same as Bruce’s in exasperation. “Fuck. Sorry you had to hear that. Uh, there’s cold brew in the fridge pretty much all the time- I swear Alfred and Steph are the only two people who know how to work that fucking espresso machine. Unless you’ve worked in a cafe, too?”
Danny mutely shakes his head, while Dick gets out a mason jar to add ice to. “Okay, uh-” he sets it on the island counter, still visibly flustered, while he gets the french press and other assorted creamers and milks out of the fridge. “Yeah, that should be- do you want syrups? I swear I know where Alfred keeps them-”
“It’s okay,” Danny finally musters. “Just milk is fine.”
“Sorry, this is not how I wanted to do this.” Dick says. “Dude. I’m so happy to welcome you into the family! I promise it’s not normally like that. Well, sometimes it is, a little bit, between me and Bruce, but you know what they say about oldest children, we’re like a test run.”
“Yeah.” Danny agrees. “Uh. Sorry.”
“We were yelling. Well, I was yelling- I swear, every time we argue, he manages to stay completely level while he gets under my skin, so he looks more ‘logical’ even when he isn’t, or to tell me I’m being hysterical, like- ugh. Nevermind.”
“For what it’s worth,” Danny says. “At least he responds to you. My sister used to scream herself raw at our parents and sometimes it was like she was just talking to a wall. Or she’d get through an argument- my sister is the smartest person I’ve ever met- and they’d just tell her to go to her room, or ground her for yelling at them. Being disrespectful.”
“That is a thing about Bruce,” Dick says, while Danny pours his coffee. “Is he understands that respect has to be earned. He’s less clear on the aspect that it can be lost, as well.”
“Uh, I wanted to say, though. Uh, thanks for not telling Tim about me being in Jason’s apartment. And I wanted to say that I am going to explain it all to him, when I can. Possibly. Maybe you should tell him that Jason is alive-ish first, though.”
Dick’s eyebrows shoot up. “Right! Right, uh. Yeah, you should definitely have a conversation about that sometime soon.”
“What did Jason tell you?”
“Uh, nothing, really.”
“And, just to confirm, because I know there’s definitely some shit going on with your family, but you’re not some kind of larger scale mafia, right? Like- I’m not big on jumping to conclusions, but-”
Dick guffaws, patting Danny on the shoulder before seeming to realize that he’s still recovering and scaling it back. “No. Wayne enterprises might end up the last clean company on this planet, but god knows Tim and Bruce will keep it that way.”
“Okay. I’m just saying, Jazz reads those mafia romance books sometimes, and I’m not saying they’re accurate, but if they were- ”
Dick keeps on laughing, and Danny cracks a smile. “Oh, oh I can understand that misconception, that’s-”
“Yeah, it’s just the natural conclusion, isn’t it?” Danny asks, while Dick perches on the edge of the counter. “But- and I know this is like, probably the most suspicious fucking thing ever, I know Jason is. Into organized crime, that is.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Bruce adopted him off the streets. He went back. It’s a bit of a sore spot between them. I actually think it’s miraculous that he managed to fuck up his relationship with B more than I did.” Dick sighs, deeply. “Now that you’re actually dating Tim, you get to see the... less ideal side of this family.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Danny says, leaning his hip against the counter, “How incredible it actually is that you’re still here. I never want to go back to that... house. Jazz hasn’t, since she left for college.”
“Ah, of course. That perspective is one that I don’t often discount. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to yell at him when he’s being a complete and utter twat. He’s only fifteen years older than me, you know?”
“I did not.”
“And I always maintained that a twenty-two year old should not have the responsibility of raising an eight year old, but I did, in fact, receive guardianship of Damian when I was like, twenty five for a period of time. And I was a nightmare, but- sorry, really, you probably don’t want to be hearing this.”
Danny shrugs. “Why not Alfred?”
“Oh? Yeah, well, Damian has specific needs, and I’m a part time firefighter, and my department was okay with me taking a couple months off. Alfred had to take care of the estate. And Tim, even though he didn’t want to take it.”
“Tim doesn’t take well to being cared for.” Danny says. “You have to do it carefully. Sort of ironic, huh?”
Dick smiles- actual, genuine, with teeth and all. It’s the kind of smile that makes Danny smile too, in spite of himself. “Glad to hear you’re getting it figured.”
“I don’t know if I’d say that,” Danny says. “But I’m aware it’s a problem, which is more than I think most people can say.”
“Has he told you about the fake uncle yet?”
“What?”
“Oh, so, when his dad died- I’m sorry, that’s a bad phrase to laugh through, but I assure you, the story is funny- okay, so his dad died , and Tim has legitimately no other family. Like, I think he probably has a geriatric great aunt in Lyon, yeah, but like- family that could reasonably take care of him, okay? And so what would you assume to happen? Of course Bruce should take him in. Him and Bruce have known each other for like two years, and he said he didn’t see B as a father figure, but that could not have been more obviously bullshit, right? So, very sad, we’re all there at the funeral- I promise this gets funny- we’re all there at the funeral, and B puts his hand on Tim’s shoulder and tells him not to worry about his stuff, he’ll have Alfred call the movers, and Tim says: ‘oh, no need,’ like. Yeah no need. I don’t even have a driver’s license, but like, yeah, no need, of course.
“So, like, comes out that Tim has this uncle! This uncle, from what side of his family? Who knows! Who fucking knows. But there’s an uncle. From presumably Europe, who’s busy, but can take care of Tim, ish, right? And Tim’s parents, you know, they were rarely ever in the country, and they just dropped him at boarding schools and summer camps, so his uncle being not really present was just like, standard quality of life for him. So how were we supposed to know that he made him the fuck up!”
“What?”
“He made him up! No uncle! The uncle was fake! Tim assumed complete control of his parent’s company, budgeted for the townhouse mortgage and the car payment, dropped out of school, created false documentation so that no one opened up a social services case. And he kept it from Bruce for months.”
“Of course he did. He was dying of infection and he asked me to take him back to the hotel so he could ‘sleep it off’.”
“Anyways, it all came out, and Bruce grounded him for like two weeks for lying.”
“How could he ground him if he wasn’t adopted yet?”
“You massively underestimate B’s grounding power. Sometimes I forget he can’t ground me anymore.”
“Yeah, that makes total sense. Thank you, by the way, for telling me.”
“Oh, you didn’t hear it from me! Anyways, I’ve got to go, I’m Dami’s chauffeur to the reptile expo. And also his logic, because you know if he went on his own we’d have to outfit a whole room into a herpetarium.”
***
“He can move through walls.”
“I know.”
“I assume that means he can also move through floors?”
“Probably! Sorry I haven’t exactly gone up to him with a notebook to jot down what all of his powers are. What I’m showing you is what I’ve got.” Tim says, crossing his legs up onto the command chair, his Phantom file up on the screen.
-Invisibility
-Intangibility
-Energy blasts
-Scream? Vocal attack of some kind?
-Referenced multiplication (not recorded)
-Enhanced strength
-Manipulation of physical form
Next to what is his favorite photo of Danny in Phantom form, one from Amity Park’s news site- a candid shot from an article talking about how Phantom has slowly changed the town’s perception of ghosts. It’s a bust from the shoulders up, and Tim wishes he’d taken in- the way that it’s back lit, his white hair like a halo, and the shadow over his face making the otherworldly glow of his eyes all the more prominent.
Tim is getting distracted.
“So-” Bruce snaps in front of his face- “So, what’s to say that he won’t just fall down through the floor and end up in the cave?”
“Because he doesn’t know there is one? God, B, I don’t think he hangs out in the completely dark and claustrophobic extent of the earth just... all the time, I can’t imagine that being pleasant.”
“Hn.”
“Yeah, yeah, fucking christ, I get it. We could go to the townhouse until he leaves for college, but I don’t want him that central in Gotham.”
“He can manage himself perfectly well.” Bruce says. Tim isn’t the only one who’s been researching Phantom relentlessly. He’s sure Bruce has also seen every video from every fight Phantom’s had that’s been recorded. He’s cringed at Plasmius (some... vampire adjacent entity? Who seems to have personal vendetta against Danny) beating him into the pavement back when he looked like a scared kid, he’s bristled at the way the Drs Fenton talk about the ghost they have no idea is their son. He’s analyzed the way he fights, he knows that he’s strong and experienced, but he’s never really been trained.
Maybe some training. But there’s flaws in his technique- especially martially- that started with a poorly laid foundation and are now deep cracks he knows Bruce is considering how to exploit. If it comes down that they end up on opposite sides. Tim can’t blame him, he’s doing the same thing. He’s just feeling guilty about it, and trying to distract himself by thinking- we won’t end up on opposite sides.
“I want him to feel safe.” Tim insists. “I don’t know if a deadbolt and a commercial security system is really the answer to that.” Tim’s idea of safety has always been the manor- has always been Bruce . He’s considered the possibility that it might not be the same for Danny, but he can’t conceive of anything better.
“What does he want?”
“If you can find out the answer to that, I’ll...” Tim trails off, unable to think of something appropriately hyperbolic. “If Danny knew what he wanted, I’d’ve done it already.”
“Right, son.” Bruce says.
Tim breathes out, heavy and slow, before he closes out of the file. “I think the justice league should take Masters down. Also I think Masters is Plasmius.”
“Take me through the reasoning on the second point?”
“Well, if Danny can be a ghost and alive, then why can’t he? There’s the connection to Fenton's portal tech- there was a prototype when they were in graduate school, an accident which led to Masters dropping out. The animosity makes sense, it explains a lot of their dynamic, the whole ‘join me’ thing, and how Danny does seem to have some power over him. And Masters is the one who choked Danny.”
Bruce’s fingers had been drumming steadily on the desk, and at that, they stop. “Oh? Did he tell you that?”
“Didn’t need to. I’m not Cass, but sometimes body language is less of a whisper and more of a scream.”
“And you think if we bring down Masters, Danny will be more receptive to working with us? How do you know it won’t just be ‘too little, too late’ again? How do you know we’ll even be able to? The policy has always been to let ghosts deal with ghosts.”
“The Red Huntress isn’t a ghost and she seems to do fine.”
“With anti-ghost tech. The only two companies that develop that are Vlad-co and Fenton Tech. What do you think Danny will feel about us showing up equipped with that?”
“We could develop our own.” Tim counters immediately, then says, “Yeah, design weapons specifically to kill your boyfriend. Great PR plan, yeah. Fuck.”
“Find a solid connection that ties him to the flesh market. Something on paper- you being an eyewitness doesn’t mean anything. Litigation is going to be an easier way for us to defeat him than trying to address him as Plasmius, if your theory is correct.”
“I’d rather hit him in the face.”
“In a perfect world.” Bruce agrees.
“Hey Red Robin, you in here?” Duke calls, crossing the training floor in a few long strides from the parking platform. “I’ve got some presents for you.”
“Right here.” Tim says, leaning to see through the gaps in the monitors. “Ooh! Cameras, fucking sick!”
“A whole bag of ‘em.” Duke says, putting a questionably clean Walmart plastic bag on the desk, then sucks a breath in through his teeth. “Damn, dude, is Danny down here? We telling him now?”
“No, why?”
“The-” Duke circles a hand around vaguely above Tim’s head, “You know.”
“No, I don’t. Like the aura thing?” According to Duke, Danny’s aura/shadow/astral presentation- which was decidedly not residual ecto-energy from living in Amity Park- had picked up the habit of following Tim around rooms since he’s woken up, if he’s nearby.
“Not exactly.” Duke says, pressing on the side of his helmet to release it. He cocks his head to the side. “I don’t know man, I don’t know shit about ghosts to begin with, and I certainly don’t know shit about Danny’s particular brand of semi-ghost-royalty weirdness. But I think it’s rubbing off on you.”
“I don’t know how to feel about that,” Tim says, swiveling to root through the bag of wall-mount cameras. They don’t have any sort of branding- likely drop shipped, but now that he’s looking for it, he can see the V insignia of Vlad-co on the SD cards. He’d dismissed it earlier because it was one of the most common tech suppliers in the world. A little expensive for what it was, and Tim has a different preference for his own cameras, but not unusual.
Now it’s insidious.
“I guess it could be construed as romantic.” Duke says.
“Is it a concern? Could it compromise his identity?”
“Not to Danny- he can’t see it, I don’t think, or he’d be way more embarrassed by it. It’s kinda all over you when you’re together.”
Tim feels himself flush. “Great.” The last thing he needs is Duke, of all people, seeing the visual representation of Danny’s soul cuddle him.
“Maybe for some other psychics, but I doubt it’s a present danger, sir.” Duke says, in his report voice.
“Great.”
“Look at it this way- it didn’t compromise Danny’s identity, and he lives with it all the time.” Duke says.
“Only because when you met him, you’d never seen Phantom.”
“And still haven’t, god willing.” Duke says. “I’m gonna go take a nap, toodles.”
“Signal, your report!” Bruce barks.
“Uh, three small time muggings, the cameras, and I helped a kid find their lost platypus. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to own a platypus privately, but it seemed really happy to see the kid and didn’t appear overweight or anything, and I know Dami, so I kinda let it slide. Oh and I got shot at once but nothing hit me so it’s fine loveyoubye!”
“Signal- Duke!” Bruce sighs. “I hate summer vacation.”
“Your fault for adopting six kids.” Tim puts the SD card into his trash computer that’s isolated from their network, always cautious. “Okay, I have several thousand hours of footage to sort through, you wanna help or do you have other stuff to do?
“I’ll get out your map.”
“Thank you.” Tim says, then calls Babs.
***
Steph gets Danny an interview at the cafe she works at, because he mentions wanting to save up a little- enough that he can buy his own books, or something. Tim had started talking about buying him supplies and after talking mostly to himself for five minutes had looked up and saw the uncomfortable look on Danny’s face and said: “or you could take my old laptop? If you’d rather?”
“My laptop works fine.”
“It’s being held together by duct tape and a dream, and half of the screen doesn’t display color. It’s gonna get you through two weeks of classes before it dies completely, and then you won’t have any of the shit you had saved on it, and it’ll be so stressful you’ll have a breakdown before midterms, I get a new laptop every year anyways from work, please. ”
“Fine.” Danny had said. “But I’m getting a job.”
So that’s how he ends up borrowing the most understated of the Wayne’s cars- a black jeep that seems to have been at one point used for off-roading and has not yet been cleaned- and driving it into Gotham for an interview, which goes well, and the cafe seems a decent enough place to work.
More importantly, it’s how he ends up walking back towards said car- Tim had advised him to be wary of on-street parking because people will smash windows for the change in the center console, so he parked in one of the lots the car had a pass for on the windshield a few blocks away. It’s a relief to be out of the manor, and odd to be in Gotham during the day. Despite the city typically being overcast, the sun decided to make an appearance, heating up the pavement and bouncing off all the high-rises, which look like they’re more suited to the rain, and seem stripped bare in the light of day.
He did ask, before he left, if there were any specific rules he ought to know about walking alone through the city with the highest day-crime rate in the US, and Tim had just kissed him and told him: “Don’t be stupid.”
Tim’s idea of what’s stupid is different than what’s actually stupid for him, which is why when he hears a mostly familiar voice yell:
“You get the fuck away from her! That’s a kid!”
He stops and backs up, looks around to see if anyone else is gonna so much as flinch, or reach to call the cops- do you call the cops in Gotham? It seems ineffective- before turning on his heel and heading towards the ruckus.