Chapter Text
Danny jumps up to his feet and runs to where Jason and the rest of the crew have assembles in shocked, horrified silence.
“That’s it!” the boy cries as he collides with Jason’s leg. “That’s why you’re so stinky, daddy!”
Jason’s hands shake as he picks Danny up. The boy grunts at how tightly Jason hugs him but honestly, Jason hardly notices. He’s already walking. He has already turned on a heel and started walking, brushing past Bruce and Dick and Duke and all of them. He cradles his baby closer and Danny clings to him just the same.
Jason blinks and they’re in the backseat of the Batmobile.
He blinks again and they’re moving, with Dick behind the wheel.
Then, they’re in the Cave and Jason’s taking Danny upstairs in the elevator while Dick and Tim shout after him about something.
Jason takes him straight to his room, and into the en suite. He divests himself his masks, jacket, and weapons, before kneeling down before the closed toilet, where Danny waits still wearing his blood-soaked school uniform. Danny is quiet as Jason helps him undress, doesn’t argue about doing it himself like he usually would. He lets Jason look over him for injuries and smiles with something that looks like pride when Jason doesn’t find a thing. Frankly, he seems to downright enjoy it when Jason washes him off in the shower, humming to himself while Jason scrubs his hair. After the shower, once he’s bundled up in just about every towel in the bathroom, he even lets Jason brush his teeth for him. Jason steps away only for half a minute to hastily discard his suit and get some sweats on, before he crawls into bed with Danny clutched in his arms. Danny doesn’t complain. He doesn’t say a word.
“I’m so glad you’re okay, baby,” Jason tells him, speaking the words softly into the boy’s damp, fluffed up hair. “I was so scared, I didn’t – I was so scared.”
“I’m okay, Jayjay.”
Fuck, tears fucking pour down Jason’s face. “I know. I know, baby, but I was so scared. If I’d – If you’d – I don’t know what I’d do, Danny. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry this happened. I love you so much, baby, so much. Okay? I need you to know that, Danny.”
The boy nods; he burrows closer to Jason’s chest. “I know, daddy. I love you so much, too.”
Jason cries for a long time. It feels like ages and ages. Danny stays calm and quiet, cuddled up against him. When he does move, it’s only to wiggle his arms free so he can wrap them around Jason. He feels awful, terrible, because it’s like Danny’s comforting him, when it should be the other way around. It’s Danny who just got fucking kidnapped. It’s Danny who just got snatched by the goddamn Joker, and here he is, calm as nothing and consoling Jason. It’s backwards and wrong and he feels fucking useless because what kind of worthless fucking excuse for a parent is he, if he’s the one being comforted rather than being the one doing the comforting?
Early the following morning, Jim Gordon pays the manor a visit.
Jason and Bruce give Danny a quick coaching on what he can and can’t say, before the interview, and Jason isn’t surprised when Danny handles it all like a champ.
“The clown man was scary. His face was weird. He talked a lot but I can’t really remember. I was so scared. I wanted my daddy! I wanted to go home! A-And then it was like I was exploding. My head was really loud and everythin’ happened really fast! The clown man grabbed me and then he was screaming and I was bitin’ him and I was cryin’ and – Then I could see right again and the Batman was there, and he was kinda scary too but lots better than the clown man. He held my hand and took me away from that place, and one of his friends let me sit in the front of the Batmobile when they took me home. Daddy and grampa and gramps were all waiting right by the door and daddy took me upstairs to shower. I was all …messy. The blood… It was everywhere and – I didn’t like it at all. Made me feel all…yucky.”
Straight up? Jason kind of envies the kid his ability to lie like a pro! What he doesn’t envy is himself, once the kid gets old enough to be in his teenage rebellion phase. If Danny can lie like this at the tender age of very nearly seven, he’s going to be a menace once he gets older. Fuck. The kid even knows to play up the whole I am baby shtick! Knows right when to get that stricken, panicked look on his face, and when to bravely hold in the tears. Jesus, fuck, his teenage years are gonna be hell. Jason isn’t ready to go gray that young.
“Are you- Are you gonna a-arrest me, Mister Gordon?” Danny asks in his softest little voice, clinging to Jason with what he knows for damn sure is faux-desperation.
Nah, kid was way to proud of himself when he announced I got him, daddy. He won’t hurt you again, to be anywhere near desperation.
Gordon, however, eats it up like shitty cop-shop donuts and spends several minutes reassuring Danny he will not be arresting him, Danny was scared and he was just trying to defend himself, no one’s mad at him for that.
With Danny’s bloodied clothes in a neatly packed bag – courtesy of Alfred, of course – Gordon then wishes them all a good day and congratulates Danny on his bravery on the way out.
As soon as the cop is out of their collective hair, they withdraw to one of the cozier living rooms. Jason and Danny are immediately dragged right into the center of the cuddle pile that’s formed on the floor in front of the TV. Danny is drenched in hundreds of kisses from his worried family and twice as many hugs, before they can all settle down. Bruce sits in his usual armchair to the side, spectating with that weird warm look on his face, and even Alfred takes a seat with a cup of tea after making sure everyone has enough blankets, pillows, and snacks – big, old softy, that one, don’t let him tell you otherwise.
That’s when Bruce decides to broach the topic.
“Danny?”
The boy hugs Kelvin tight in his arms, and Jason hugs Danny tight in his. “Yeah, grampa?”
“There’s something I’d like to ask you, but you don’t have to answer right now if you’re not ready, if you think it’s too hard. Is that okay, honey?”
Danny nods. “Sure!”
Bruce clears his throat. Everyone waits with their ears perked and curiosities piqued. “Back at the warehouse, you said – Well, you said that’s why you’re so stinky, to Jason.”
Several people smother their snickers (poorly, Jason might add). Jason himself sighs. This again?
“Honey, what did you mean by that? Can you explain, do you think?”
Danny grins with all his sharp teeth. “We’re special! Me and Jayjay, we’re the same! Sorta! I’m a bit specialer, but Jayjay’s special too!”
The same?
Fucking record scratch on that one? What the hell does that mean?
Of course, Bruce is always good at probing deeper when it comes to gathering intel; “How are you special, Danny? Can you explain it to us? We’d love to understand. If we understand, we can help you and Jayjay better, and be there for you.”
Danny toys with Kelvin, straightens the teddy’s onesie and bouncing it in his lap. “Okay. We’re halfas! Well, I’m a halfa, but Jayjay’s more like a quarter right now, I guess!”
Jason’s brows furrow. Halfa? And Jason’s a quarter? Quarter of what? At least he’s not the only one who looks damn confused.
“Half of what, Danny?” Bruce prods.
“A ghost! ‘Cause I died! But then I came back, and I’m full of ghost energy so I’m alive and dead, and a human and a ghost! Jayjay died and came back too, but the ghost energy he got was bad, so he didn’t become a real halfa, that’s why he’s more a quarter. He’s more human than ghost, and more alive than dead, but he’s supposed to be a halfa, but he’s really bad at making energy so he’s just been using the bad stuff over and over and made it even worse, and that’s why he got angry and why he’s stinky! The bad stuff is what’s stinky!”
Again, record fucking scratch.
Danny. Died.
His Danny died.
Little baby Danny died and came back and he’s half-ghost.
It’s green, it’s green everywhere, it’s all over and in his veins and filling his lungs and he can’t breathe and the rage burns and burns and burns like he’s on fire –
It seeps away.
All the anger, the burning, the green, it trickles away like water through his fingers.
Danny sits in his lap and his hands glow a sickly Lazarus green and fuck, it twists Jason’s stomach in on itself to see that awfuldirtynasty color anywhere near his baby boy.
Danny touches his hands to Jason’s chest.
Ice and lightning and fire lance through him. It rips through his body like a tsunami and drowns him under its overwhelming wave.
He sucks in a choked, gasping breath. It ebbs away, all of it ebbs away, and yet, he can feel it right there under the surface, all this electric energy buzzing just under his skin. It feels the way the green felt, except not so fucking angry and hateful and disgusting. Instead, it’s…soft. And warm. Almost…comforting?
He blinks. Danny smiles at him, his little hands holding Jason’s cheeks. “There you go, daddy. It’s all gone now.”
Jason’s throat feels like he gargled glass shards and rusted nails. “Wh-Wha’ happpen’?”
“It’s okay, Jayjay. I took it away. I’m a whole halfa so I’m gonna filter out the bad stuff. No worries! And I gave you some’a my good, clean stuff instead! You won’t be angry again. I think maybe you can learn to make energy and filter the bad stuff but ‘til then I think maybe I should give you fresh new energy now and then, just to be safe ‘til you learn.”
“And…you make good energy?” Brue continues to question, leaned in closer, his voice noticeably choked up. “How?”
Danny giggles; he slumps against Jason’s chest and wraps his arms around his broad shoulders. “I dunno! I just do! Like… Your body makes blood, right?”
“Right.”
“And so does mine! But mine also makes energy, except I dunno how my body makes blood just like I dunno how it makes energy. It just does! I think it’s my core!”
Jason swallows; fuck, his throat feels like hell, still. “What’s a core, baby?”
“It’s like my soul! It’s the soul and the mind and the brain and the body all wrapped up in one! You have one too, Jayjay, I could feel it just for a minute! ‘Cept, it’s real small and has to grow lots more. I think it’s ‘cause you were stuck with the bad stuff! Couldn’t grow right ‘cause’a the bad stuff, couldn’t get rid of the bad stuff or make good stuff ‘cause your core’s not grown enough. I think maybe with good energy in it, it’ll grow, but I dunno. Oh, Jayjay! I was gonna show you! Look! We match!”
Excited as all get out, Danny sits back on Jason’s thighs again so he can lift his shirt and –
Jason’s heart almost stops all over again, right then and there.
On Danny’s chest, just like on Jason’s, is the jagged Y incision of an autopsy.
A jagged scar that certainly wasn't there before – can he hide it somehow? – breaking up the red fractals of the Lichtenberg figures that center on Danny's heart.
Oh, God, his baby, they cut his baby open – and that brings back a memory from months and months ago, from right after Leslie’s failed first visit.
People in white cutting him open.
Again, Jason swallows. It’s taking every ounce of his willpower to keep from – from God only fucking knows what! “Danny. Baby. Do you – Do you remember when that happened to you?”
The boy’s smile sinks. He lowers his shirt. He doesn’t meet Jason’s eyes. He bites his lip and grabs Kelvin tight. “Yeah. I – I was awake. It was…after I came back. The guys in white… They took me away and did it, but then I went back home.”
Jason wants to die again. He wants to die and scream and cry and find these guys in white and rips every single one limb from limb for laying their filthy hands on his baby. By the looks on their faces, the rest of the family feels exactly the same. Hell, even Bruce looks about ready to abandon Rule Number One.
“I don’t like showing it but my sister said it’s okay to let family see your scars because if they’re good, they’ll help them heal in your mind. And…I think you help it heal, Jayjay.”
Jason starts crying, ugly loud sobbing, as he pulls his baby close and hugs him tight enough that no one will ever be able to hurt him again.