Chapter Text
Danny totally preferred the Nasty Burger. Not that the Batburguer was bad no, the food is very good there, the french fries were delicious too. But the Nasty Burguer food was slightly better. His host had expressed his disagreement by stealing his fries and demanding him non worthy.
"Hey i still want that!" The ghost rogue lifted his arm to reach for the fries, but the crime lord didn't let him get it
"No no! I'm confiscating your fries for the crime of heresy!" He cracked a laugh when Phantom tried to get the fries again but before he noticed, Phantom's hand snatched his fries that were still on the table. "Hey!"
"You stole mine i stole yours!" Phantom laughed loudly at the exasperated expression that Hood made. Especially after eating one of them still with his mask on, he just turned it intangible to pass through his mask, but for the people he looked like some sort of cryptid that didn't need to take off his mask to eat. It was even a mask at all or he just didn't had a mouth?
Their bickering between the two criminals was the only thing audible on the moment on the currently slitly terrorized staff and clients on the place.
When Red Hood mentioned before if he wanted eat something, Danny didn't expect simply walking into Batburguer in full gear and order something like everything was totally normal.
The moment they walked in, everyone seemed to notice their presence, silencing the place and watching them walk up to the counter. The poor guy in the counter looked so tired that he didn't even look at them twice and treated it as if it was routine for a rogue and a crime lord to walk into the store and order something.
Red Hood paid for both of them and Danny didn't stop him, after all who didn't like free food? And despite the cashier's indifference, the other employees seemed more nervous about their presence, as if they were expecting the two to announce a robbery at any moment.
The food was ready in record time, and soon the two were scanning the place for an empty seat. People quickly got up with their things, Hood and Phantom found their reactions amusing, so they chose one of the recently empty seats and began eating with peoples eyes still on them.
Some people had their phones pointed at them not so discreetly, whispering to each other and watching them from the corner of their eyes. At least people avoided sitting in the seats that were closest to them.
"So... how should I call you other than the rogue with healing slime?" Hood started, treating the situation like it was normal. The people started to whisper a bit more louder upon the reconnaissance of who he were. Danny snorted and with a smirk, he decided to follow the lead.
"You can call me Phantom." And that was the first time he give some sort of name for the public.
While they were eating they were completely ignoring the chaos around them, they were certainly already a topic on social media because some reporters tried and failed to hide outside the establishment through the window with cameras.
People watched the two talking and teasing each other as if they were long-time friends, even though they had just witnessed Phantom introducing himself to Hood.
While all this was happening, Phantom and Hood were enjoying the mess they had created, even though they couldn't exactly talk about what they wanted to now. Still, Hood appreciated it, since the whole situation was a bit too much to take in at once.
When they finished eating, the two of them stood up which caused the people around to tense up.
"Shall we go? We still have business to discuss." The comment earned even more whispers from the spectators.
"Sure!" Phantom smirked and followed Red Hood out of the place, picking up the weapons the two had left beside them to eat and leaving the place aware of the cameras still on them.
The two walked down the street until they turned into an alley and were out of sight, Phantom grabbed Hood to make the two invisible and intangible and fly up the buildings along with him. When Phantom landed on the roof of the same safe house from before the two started laughing as if this had been the funniest thing they had ever seen in their lives.
"Holy shit I didn't think it would be this funny!" Phantom said between laughs, floating in the air as if gravity didn't exist.
"Ah, I wish I was there to see B's face when he sees the news. He probably already knows." Hood smiled mockingly, happy to cause more headaches for the big bat.
"We should do this more often" the two smiled, that being the beginning of a friendship that Gotham was certainly not prepared for.
After the two had a good laugh about the situation, they sat down on the roof and continued their conversation from before. Hood still had questions and Phantom understood that it must be confusing and difficult to learn about everything that you had no idea existed before.
They talked about ghosts, the Infinite Realms, Phantom's powers, and that Hood will probably have some powers soon when he's healthier, which was definitely something else to process.
They talked about their death, and while neither of them said exactly how they died, they both agreed that it wasn't a normal death and that it had something to do with the glowing green goo.
Although after Hood explained to Phantom about the Lazarus Pits, Phantom mentioned that he needed to talk to someone about it.
"I'll probably need to take you to see Frostbite, both for your health and to learn more about these Pits." Phantom seemed to think about something.
"Who's Frostbite?" Hood asked curiously.
"He's a ghost that lives in the realms, he's also my ghost doctor since my body isn't exactly normal so a regular human doctor can't do much for me. He is also the one that made the medical grade ectoplasm that i use. He will surely know how to help your permanently."
"Permanently? So I'm not fully healed now?" Hood looked a little worried, he thought that because the pits were quiet he was already fine.
"No. When I shoot you, the ectoplasm did removed part of the curse, but it still exists. My plan was to continue to lessen the curse in certain parts of the city, clear the infected liminal areas so that I can find the source of the curse and then get rid of it completely." He motioned to the city from the roof they were in. "I can't totally clean a curse this big with only ecto ballons after all. It would be funny if i could but isn't that easy."
"Makes sense i think..." Hood looked at the city too, he always knew that the city had a unique aura, but he didn't imagine that it would do so much harm to the people living in it.
"It will take time. But it will be worth the time." He smiled at the memory of one of his mentors. Hood didn't totally understand the sentence, but Danny didn't understand it at first either.
The two remained silent for a while, looking at the city from above. Hood thought about what the other had said. After so much time under the influence of the pits, this was the greatest peace he had felt in a long time. He wondered if it could be like this forever. After all, it was good to finally have his own thoughts to himself.
How would his henchmen react later, the people he protected in Crime Alley? Their protector wouldn't be so angry and dangerous to anger. He could trust himself again, he could see himself other than a murderous monster that couldn't be around anyone without hurt them.
How would his family see him?
"...I want to go." Hood broke the silence after a while. Phantom looked at him and smiled softly.
"We can go whenever you're ready."
"...it's okay if i have some time before we go? I need to warn some people."
"Oh yeah, it's good to warn because you probably will gonna be there for a while. Here i will give you my number and you can text me so i will take you there when you're ready" he put his hand inside his own chest and pulled a phone. Hood couldn't help but get goosebumps seeing this.
"Wow this was weird."
Phantom looked at him with amusement in his eyes but made an indignant expression.
"Of all the things the King of the Dead said to you, him taking a phone out of his own chest was the strangest to you?!"
Laugh filled the roof once more.
~~~
"He is just doing this to annoy us." Damian complained for the fourth time.
The bats were either laughing or concerned about the latest news from Gotham. On the screen of the batcomputer was an open tab of an article saying "Alliance between rogue and crime lord worries Gothamites, what is about to fall upon us all?" and a picture of a Red Hood and a now named Phantom eating together at the Batburger.
"I'm sure Jason is getting some answers from him" Dick tried to defend his little brother, but it was difficult upon seeing more proof on the internet saying that the two have mentioned some kind of business. And everyone knew what type of business Jason was involved.
"Even if he got answers, i doubt that he is willing to share." Tim said while sipped from that liquid of dead that he called coffee.
"What i'm most curious about, is why they seem so close already, didn't Hood practically kidnapped Phantom after he got concussed?" Stephanie was scrolling through Twitter on the names of Hood and Phantom and the #OnlyInGotham, but also looking for people that were there to see if someone heard more of their talk.
"I'm so glad that i'm on the day turn" Duke commented on the side, eating chips while enjoying the chaos.
While the kids talked around, Bruce was sulking in a corner, not only Jason was ignoring them again but also had caught the rogue with the Lazarus Water and prefered to eat with him than be cautious with this stranger that could be related to the league or not.
He was doing so great working with them for this, but he should know his son still wasn't ready to trust them entirely again.
"HAH! Guys the Gothamites think they are dating!" Stephanie laughed and so some of the other kids as well.
Why did he decided that having kids was a good idea again?
Alfred just observed from the side, smiling a bit upon seeing the photo of Jason and his new friend having fun, it had been some time since he saw that child with such a genuine smile.