Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’ll transfer you to the mayor’s office now. Please hold.”

Jasmine Fenton sits on the edge of the bathtub and passes her Nokia 3310 from her right hand to her left. There are faint footsteps from the other end as the mayor’s secretary ‘transfers’ her to his office.

“Mr. Masters, sir? There’s an Alice Nightingale on the line for you?” She sounds muffled, likely by her hand over the transmitter, but that’s not enough to silence her high, keening voice—or to prevent Jasmine from being able to understand her, or from hearing Vlad Masters’ response.

“Alice Nightingale?” Vlad asks.

Jazz would be twisting the phone cord in her hands if she were on the home phone, but she’s not. She’s on her (secret) cellphone, in the one room in the house that she’s (fairly) certain isn’t bugged to detect ‘ghostly interlopers’.

‘Come on, Vlad, take the hint!’ she thinks.

“Oh, yes—Ms. Nightingale! I’ll take the call, Helen.”

Helen passes the phone over, and Vlad puts on his fakest, most saccharine voice.

“Ms. Nightingale! I wasn’t expecting you to call so soon! How are you and… Michael?”

Jazz hears the door to Vlad’s office shut quietly and takes a deep breath.

“I need your help, Vlad. We need your help.”

“Here, Jazzerincess—put this under your tongue!”

“Dad, I’m not sick—!”

The sting of the Fenton Thermometer being jabbed under her tongue, just a hint of metallic tang accompanying the burn from the added anti-ghost properties. A tense moment of silence follows as Jack Fenton furrows his eyebrows at the tiny digital display on the repurposed household thermometer.

(Dad never knew his own strength.)

“Hah, not possessed! See, Maddie—our little princess is fit as fudge!”

“How can I help you, Ms. Nightingale?” Vlad asks. He must be worried about eavesdroppers even in the mayor’s office.

Jazz takes a deep breath. She can’t help but feel like she’s making a deal with the devil—or, maybe more aptly, asking a shark for a loan—even if she knows Vlad has turned over a new leaf (in light of recent events) and would happily drop everything if she or Danny asked him for a favor.

“My scholarships fell through during my gap year.” Not that she’d planned on taking a gap year originally—like she hadn’t planned on taking a dip in an ecto-contaminated pond the night of her high school graduation ceremony. She certainly wouldn’t have wasted time practicing, writing, and perfecting her scholarship essays if she had known it would all be a washout.

“That’s very unfortunate, Ms. Nightingale. How might I be of assistance?”

“Mom and Dad expect me to go to the local college, but I can’t stay here—and I’m not leaving Danny behind.” Their parents’ attention is on her and her suspicious behavior alone, right now, but who knows for how long? It’s a miracle they’ve been oblivious for as long as they have. “I need your help… convincing them to let Danny come with me when I move out.”

There’s an eerily silent pause, both Vlad’s breathing and the soft buzz of static on the line falling away to nothing. Anyone else would wonder if the call dropped, but Jazz knows Vlad doesn’t need to breathe, and that he ‘holds his breath’ when surprised.

“And how do you expect me to go about that, Ms. Nightingale?”

“Talk to them. Convince them Danny would do better—academically—with a fresh start at a new school.”

Another pause.

“Oh? Where does Michael plan on enrolling in the fall?”

Jazz closes her eyes. She knew he would ask questions; she just hoped he wouldn’t.

“It has to be somewhere with relatively high atmospheric ecto-radiation.” They spent spring break last year with Aunt Alicia and, despite the lack of ghosts, Danny was more tired after his impromptu vacation. “I was considering New Mexico, or Nevada—”

“That’s quite far, Ms. Nightingale—are you sure there isn’t anywhere else, somewhere closer to home, mayhaps? Have you considered Wisconsin?”

Jazz purses her lips. She has. Vlad’s portal enriches the atmosphere around his home in Wisconsin, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and surrounding areas still have elevated levels of ambient ecto-radiation from the first portal incident, which would supplement Danny’s dietary needs.

(And her own.)

However, Jazz has spent nearly three years observing ghosts and their obsessions, and she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to move her and Danny to the heart of Vlad’s haunt—especially considering how his obsession was recently… dramatically overhauled.

(Mom broke his heart, more literally than she’ll ever know.)

(Even just a year ago, some part of Jazz might have thought he deserved it. Now? Well, now she has perspective.)

(Ghost envy is so overrated.)

“There’s one other state I’m considering. New Jersey.”

“No.”

She groans, not feeling the wet rattle in her chest sneaking up on her until it comes out as a frustrated growl. She clears her throat.

“Gotham is not a suitable home for a young woman and her younger brother, Ms. Nightingale.”

“We can take care of ourselves, Vlad.” It’s not exactly difficult when one of them is the real-life equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat, and the other is her. “I’ve been looking into G.U.’s entrance exam. I’m confident I can pass—and Danny could easily get into Gotham Academy, with the right recommendations…”

Vlad sighs. “With the right recommendations, yes.”

“Will you help us?” she asks.

“And if I can’t?”

“I have years of evidence against my parents documented in numerous journals.”

“I’m sure C—certain authorities would be very interested in your case, Ms. Nightingale. So why not bring it to their attention instead of mine?”

“Danny won’t let me.” The growl is back, and she swallows it down, feeling a bit like her lungs are filling with fluid and she’s drowning.

(Again.)

She clears her throat—again.

“But I will take it to them, if that’s my only option. I can get Danny emancipated on my own.”

She’s been poring over the legal side of things, and she doubts Aunt Alicia would fight her on it—not to mention Danny is eighteen in a little less than a year. That might throw a wrench in her plans—if her parents didn’t have a less than stellar reputation. She thinks any judge with half a heart would be sympathetic to her and Danny’s plight.

(It wouldn’t be hard to make them sympathetic…)

“And Michael’s friends? How will he feel about leaving them behind? How will he feel about… abandoning his obligations here in Amity Park?”

Translation: Danny’s obsession is likely linked to protecting Amity Park from ghosts, and ghosts from Amity Park. Not to mention, ghosts can be incredibly attached to their more personal bonds, to the point of codependency. It’s certainly been to his own detriment in the past—and as far back as before his accident. Danny, Tucker, and Sam have been thick as thieves since the second grade.

(Sometimes Jazz feels like shaking Sam Manson and Tucker Foley. Friends aren’t supposed to enable your most self-destructive tendencies—but what does she know? She’s never had friends of her own before.)

“Tucker is aiming for G.U. next year as well, and Sam loves Gotham on principle. It’s only a year, and I’m sure Tucker will make sure they all stay in contact.”

Vlad feigns coughing, and yet she clearly hears him say, “And the portal, Ms. Nightingale?”

Jasmine passes her cellphone from her left side back to her right, glancing into the tub. Her ‘science experiment’ is almost complete.

“Let’s just say the portal’s ecto-filtrator is going to fail spontaneously within the week.”

Chapter Text

They leave for New Jersey on the Labor Day weekend. And the traffic isn’t even bad—especially as they get closer to their destination; Gotham City isn’t exactly a popular vacation destination.

Unfortunately, the trip to Gotham isn’t just a vacation for Danny and Jazz. It could be their home for the next two to four years, if not longer. Danny is slated to finish high school at the prestigious Gotham Academy (he still has no idea how he passed the placement test) and Jazz is attending Gotham University, taking one of the most famous (infamous) criminal psychology courses in the entire country.

Their parents are not moving to Gotham with them. They’re staying in Amity Park, in a rundown one-bedroom apartment (from the only landlord in Amity Park that would take them) while the insurance claim for their townhouse (now rubble) is processed.

Danny somehow doubts they’ll get anything for it—all the unauthorized renovations had to have voided their policy, or whatever.

Midway through August, the portal to the Ghost Zone exploded after the ecto-filtrator ran dry. Luckily, it happened in the middle of the day while his parents were out chasing an unexpected hoard of ectopuses (ectopi?) and he and Jazz were at the mall shopping for new jeans.

He finally got his Fenton growth spurt (trade mark pending), bringing him closer to Jazz’s height of six feet, four inches. He finally broke six feet even after two months of the worst growing pains ever.

During those two months of torture, Danny may have… skimmed a little extra off the ecto-filtrator… in a slightly larger quantity than he usually did. He couldn’t help it—growing made him hangry, and he didn’t want to take it out on any poor unsuspecting blob ghosts, like Jazz did that one time.

But, yeah. The portal his parents built, and the house they spent most of their adult lives DIY renovating, are gone. Naturally, the number of ghost sightings in Amity Park are at an all-time low, with only a few ghosts being savvy enough to find the remaining weak points to punch through on their own, or having the ability to open portals at will, like Cujo and Wulf.

And it’s… odd, leaving Amity Park, knowing there’s nothing he has to… go back for. The portal is closed (the open wound his undeath ripped in reality finally closed, if not healed), maybe for good, and he can just get on with his half-life.

Even knowing he’s been relieved of his duty to guard the portal and protect his hau—home—isn’t enough to ease the knot of anxiety in his stomach.

(Jazz is convinced it’ll go away when he settles into Gotham—and readjusts to the ambient ectoplasm levels in the Gothic city.)

They’re renting a two-bedroom apartment in a shadier part of Gotham (excellent pun—he’s gotta remember to send it to Sam and Tuck when he powers up the desktop Tucker built him in his new room) thanks to Jazz’s secret savings account and the grants they’ve gotten to cover their schooling.

Danny can practically smell Vlad all over said grants, but he trusts Jazz to have it in hand. She’s better at managing Vlad than he ever was.

He knows Jazz doesn’t want to be around Mom and Dad right now—hasn’t since her own NDE (it’s debatable if the ‘N’ even belongs in the acronym, seeing as Jazz was more than a little dead for… a while…). And, while Danny had a small reprieve from their parents’ suspicions being directed at him, it wasn’t worth it seeing Jazz being their new target.

(Did it hurt that they seemed more concerned about Jazz setting off the home anti-ghost measures than they ever did about Danny setting them off? Yes. Was he jealous?—absolutely not!)

So… Gotham—about as far away from their parents as they can be without leaving the country. Wow.

They arrive late on Monday evening, the traffic in Gotham City proper maybe busy—hard to judge when they’ve yet to experience the city on a non-holiday day.

Jazz navigates to their new neighborhood in her secondhand SUV, their meager belongings packed in the back and strapped to the roof rack. They probably won’t be driving it much—the buses and subways are cheaper. A good thing, too; the front end of the SUV started making a knocking noise on bumps halfway through the trip. Probably a sway bar link—nothing he can’t fix with a bit of time and some money.

Their new apartment is on the corner of Nightingale Avenue (ironic, considering it’s half of their legal last name—which Danny didn’t know until recently was actually Fenton-Nightingale). The street behind them is called Park Row, but is better known as Crime Alley by the locals. Explains why the old but newly renovated apartment they’re renting is so cheap.

Tucker warned them all about it—and Vlad begged Jazz to rent literally anywhere else in the city—but he and Jazz aren’t concerned. It’s not like they’ve never (yes, the ‘n’ belongs there) been held at gunpoint before.

It’s fully dark when Jazz pulls into the small parking garage attached to their apartment. Said parking garage was a must for Danny and Jazz. They may not treasure their old SUV, but neither were they about to let it rust out in the rain and seaside fog. Doesn’t hurt that it adds a modicum of security.

He notices a black motorcycle in the parking garage, frowning at the unusual model. It could be from some overseas manufacturer that Danny isn’t familiar with, or it could be a custom make. Either way, it screams money—which could mean one of several things.

He hopes it’s not the option that involves one of their neighbors being a drug dealer.

They park close to one of the dingy yellow overhead lights, unpacking the SUV in clear view of the dead security cameras. Danny and Jazz both know it’s dead, but that doesn’t mean everyone else knows. It might deter the average thief or vandal from breaking their windows, or stealing their tires, at least. Not likely, but one can always hope.

They carry their things up to their new apartment, avoiding the sketchy elevator (it’s old old) in one trip. Danny may look like a twig, but he’s also half-dead, which has its perks. Jazz is… similar, now, except she’s been in every sport imaginable since she learned how to forge Dad’s signature, and she inherited the Fenton six-foot-plus genes. Which is to say Danny looks like he should be cracking in two under the weight of his load—and Jazz looks like she could bench the weight of both their loads and then some.

They make it to the top floor without dropping anything and set their stuff down outside their door—unit no. 13.

(Yes, it was discounted. Gothamites take their superstitions very seriously.)

Jazz takes out the key and inserts it into the lock, jiggling it carefully when it doesn’t turn over.

She double checks the apartment number and the key. Danny is about to turn the whole lock intangible when someone leans between them, pulling on the handle.

“Gotta pull on these old doors sometimes,” he says.

Danny and Jazz stare at the stranger with wide, unblinking eyes. Neither of them heard or sensed him until he was right there.

The stranger is roughly six feet tall and built like a brick shit house—so he’s shorter than Danny by an inch and a half (his growth spurt has continued through the summer) and shorter than Jazz by four whole inches. And yet, he probably weighs more than the both of them combined.

(Someone that size has no business walking soundlessly down a creaky hallway like a damn cat.)

Jazz puts the key back into the lock and twists, the deadbolt scraping in the silence. Danny realizes they’ve both stopped breathing and audibly exhales to remind Jazz to take a breath.

She gives herself a little shake. “Thanks… neighbor?”

“Anytime,” he replies. “You new in town?”

Danny clears his throat and stands up a little straighter. He can’t exactly loom over the stranger, like Jazz does, but he can try. He doesn’t offer his hand out to the stranger, either. His hands are too cold for comfort.

“Yeah,” he says. “You?”

“Me? Nah, I’m a Gothamite, born and bred.” The guy takes a step back, taking in Jazz and Danny with a roaming eye. “So, where are you guys from?”

Jazz blinks. Danny leans against the door frame.

“We’re from the Midwest,” he says.

“Indiana?” their new neighbor guesses.

Jazz smiles—the little smile she gets when she thinks someone is ‘cute’. Danny shudders.

“Illinois, actually. Only one state off.”

“So close,” he says. He has a lopsided grin, probably in part from the tiny white scar splitting his lip. Danny’s keen eyesight traces the scar up the side of his face, where it’s invisible to human eyes under anything but optimal lighting—which the carpeted hallway does not have. The stranger’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Jazz blinks, twice this time, in quick succession. (It’s a measured formula at this point. She’s getting more natural at it, day by day.)

She holds her hand out to their new neighbor, sharp nails buffed down and filed smooth with a glossy manicure.

“I’m Jazz,” she says. “Jasmine Fenton. This is my little brother, Danny.”

“Just Danny,” he adds. He hates when people self-correct.

Their neighbor shakes Jazz’s hand, maybe for a fraction of a second too long. Danny notes how the hairs on his bare forearm rise.

“Peter Todd,” he introduces. “I go by Jay around here.”

“Middle name?” Jazz asks.

“Something like that.”

Jacob, James, Jason—maybe even Jack. Could be short for any name beginning with a J, really. Jared… Jeremy… Johnathan…

He excuses himself while Danny is still generating a list of common names that begin with J. He only notices the black full-face helmet tucked under one arm as the guy turns, heading for the unit on the opposite corner of their floor, no. 16.

Danny elbows Jazz.

“Do not fall for the biker getup again, please.”

“Oh, shush—that was one time!”

“One time too many,” he mutters back. Jazz smacks him on the back of the head in retaliation.

Chapter Text

Tim, age seventeen, is returning to school (under duress) to complete his high school education and graduate with his “peers”.

He already has enough credits to graduate, but Bruce is pushing (read, forcing) him to return for his final year, seeing as Tim didn’t really get to finish it last year. (Tim’s always been a year ahead of his age group, as he tested out of the first grade and straight into the second grade when he was younger—forcing him to return is just asking him to get snubbed by the few kids that remember him being a know-it-all for all of a week in grade one.)

Bruce, he thinks, is making him return as something of a punishment (or a well-earned break, not that Tim needs that) for going AWOL last year.

And that’s a waste of time, in Tim’s (humble) opinion.

Of course, Bruce would be the one to object to that. (Bruce objects to most of his plans; he’s always telling Tim to think his plans through, more, before committing to them. You’d swear he thought Tim was reckless, or something.)

So, Tim wakes up at an ungodly hour on September sixth and allows Alfred to drive him (and Damian) to Gotham Academy. Alfred drops Damian off at the middle school entrance (he’s a sixth grader now, with aspirations to get bumped up at least two grades by mid-terms—he has to show Tim up in everything) and lets Tim out at the administration building. He has to collect his class schedule.

Which Tim (privately) thinks is a farce. Couldn’t they have just emailed him his schedule? Or maybe have sent it in the mail? He knows his enrollment was pretty last minute (the day of the deadline), but he doesn’t see other students lining up in the secretary’s office for their schedules.

Tim sees a grand total of one (1) other student waiting in the administration building for the middle-aged secretary to find his schedule. The other student jogs his knee, gripping the wooden armrest of the antique leather chair until his knuckles are white. He’s staring at… the flashing red light on the printer, indicating the printer has run out of paper. (The secretary is oblivious while searching the cabinet next to the printer for the campus maps and preprinted welcome packets.)

The other student (6’2’’, on the skinny side of lean; he has a greater reach than Tim but looks weaker overall—a non-threat) barely spares him a glance. Tim pegs him as a transfer student from out of state. (Tim’s face features unfortunately often on Breaking News GNN. Only an out of towner—an out of stater—wouldn’t recognize Timothy Drake.)

Tim doesn’t speak to the transfer student. He’s not interested in making small talk while they wait for the secretary, Mrs. Cooper, to acknowledge the printer. (And he’s definitely not interested in making friends at Gotham Academy—if anything, he’s hoping to cajole his teachers into letting him test out by midterms.)

However, they are going in the same direction—maybe to the same class. Tim finds that somewhat suspicious, though he shouldn’t. Other than his height, there’s nothing intimidating about Transfer Student. But, it would be negligent of him to pass up the opportunity to do some light sleuthing.

(Maybe he is a bit paranoid. Not that he’d ever admit that—to anyone.)

“New student?” Tim asks, casually.

Transfer Student looks over (and down), acknowledging Tim for the first time. His eyes (under fluorescent lighting) look almost purple—not quite lavender, but maybe periwinkle.

(Black hair and blue (adjacent) eyes; throw in a dash of tragedy and you’ve got adoption bait for one Bruce Wayne.)

“Yeah. You?”

“You could say that.”

Transfer Student’s eyebrow creeps up, deliberately slow for maximum judgemental effect. (Tim grew up speaking in half truths and non-answers, so sue him—he’ll win.)

Then they pass the last four-way junction on the west wing, so Transfer Student is definitely going to the same class as Tim.

“Calculus 4201?” Tim asks.

Transfer Student glances at his schedule.

“Looks like it.”

They’re both heading to an advanced math course—a university course, technically. Transfer Student must be smart (or dedicated), maybe even a math whiz.

“Where are you transferring from?”

Transfer Student’s expression flickers. (The start of a smirk? He’s been studying face reading—it’s a useful skill, even if he’ll never be as good as Cass.)

“Public school.”

Tim notes down that he evaded responding with a precise answer. Defensive of his more humble education? Embarrassed by his previous school? Tim considers pursuing more information, though it’s nothing he won’t be able to find out later—on the Batcomputer.

Tim spots the open door to their math class down the hall and Transfer Student sighs.

“It should be illegal to schedule math first thing in the morning.”

“Would you rather have gym—I’m sorry, physical education?”

Transfer Student’s face twists into a grimace.

“Heck, no—and thank god I’m excused.”

Tim blinks. Physical Education is a required course at Gotham Academy, though it is possible to get excused with a note from a qualified physician—usually the academy’s personal physician.

(Tim is also excused, on account of his many suspicious scars.)

They enter the classroom just before the bell, their choice of seating limited to the two seats at the front of the class.

The math teacher begins the lesson almost before the bell finishes ringing, and Tim watches Transfer Student (Daniel Fenton, according to roll call) doodle on his notebook from the corner of his eye. He does that the entire class—which is fine; the teacher didn’t assign questions on the first day of class—just explained the curriculum and gave a small introduction to their first unit.

And then they head to their next class…

… and Tim discovers (after reading Transfer Student’s schedule over his shoulder—he snagged a seat behind him, this time) that they share more than half of their classes.

(Meaning Daniel Fenton, like Tim, is taking some of the highest level courses that Gotham Academy offers.)

After their next class, Spanish, Tim splits from Daniel. He heads to Statistics 4205 while Transfer Student goes to Robotics 3203.

Tim still has no intention of making friends at Gotham Academy, but now he’s curious about Daniel Fenton, the transfer student from Amity Park, Illinois.

(Their Spanish teacher, Señor Sandoval, asked everyone to introduce themselves with a standard template—name, age, where they’re from, and one unique conversation starter. Tim got Amity Park from his introduction, and a curious take on, “have you checked the weather today?” in stilted Spanish.)

During lunch, Tim collects his prepaid meal from the cafeteria staff (or maybe he should call them caterers? What they’re serving seems to have come straight from a five-star restaurant) and approaches Daniel Fenton at his table in the back corner of the dining hall—nearest the windows.

(Another clear sign he’s not a Gotham native; all the other students avoid the windows like vampires—or like teenagers who would rather not get caught in the crossfire of the next rogue attack.)

Tim pauses across from Daniel Fenton, the dining hall table between them. Transfer Student glances up long enough to acknowledge him, then takes a crumbled brown paper bag from his backpack.

(His backpack violates the Gotham Academy dress code.)

“So, Daniel—“ Tim tries.

“Just Danny.”

“—Danny, then.” Tim takes the chair across from him. “How are you finding class so far? You must have been taking some pretty advanced classes at your old school to qualify for so many AP courses here.”

Danny frowns, his hands pausing from their task of twisting the neck of his brown paper bag lunch sack around and around.

“Were there even any advanced classes back home…?” he mutters under his breath.

Tim blinks.

“I mean, I was failing most of my classes, so it’s not like I would know,” Danny says. “The school guidance councilor would have laughed me out of his office if I asked.”

Tim hesitates. He’s not sure how to ask Danny how he got into Gotham Academy without sounding like a rich snob. A rude, rich snob.

“My godfather recommended me to Gotham Academy,” he says, without prompting. “He probably thought it would keep me busy—challenged, or whatever.”

Tim doesn’t know how to digest that.

“Were you bored at your old school?” he asks.

Danny finally removes his lunch from the paper bag, having twisted the neck off with his absentminded twisting.

“Nah. Was just dealing with a lot of stuff, you know?”

Tim nods slowly. Danny picks at the ham and cheese sandwich he packed for lunch, pinching off the crust and nibbling from one corner.

Damian silently appears, almost slamming his own lunch down, sitting primly in the seat next to him. Tim bristles. He really doesn’t want to get stabbed with the school’s fancy cutlery on his first day.

“Uh, hi, Damian?” he tries. “What are you doing here?” There’s a second dining room for the younger grades, which was supposed to serve as a buffer between him and the Demon Spawn.

“My classmates are insufferable.”

That gets a rise out of Danny—or a raised eyebrow.

“Danny, this is my…?”

“Foster brother.” Damian provides.

“This is my foster brother, Damian Wayne.”

Tim sees the gears turning as Danny does some mental gymnastics—the most he’s done all day, clearly. He has an epiphany and gives Tim a commiserating look.

“Billionaire-won’t-take-no-for-an-answer troubles?”

Tim’s jaw doesn’t drop, but it’s a near thing. (That’s exactly the problem he’s having! He told Bruce he didn’t need to—didn’t want to!—go back to school, but Bruce does what Bruce wants.)

“Uh, yeah, actually,” is Tim’s brilliant response.

“My godfather is the same way. I just ignore him when he’s being particularly ‘insufferable’ and hope the problem goes away.”

Damian scowls, sensing the verbal dig for what it is.

“Bruce is kind of hard to ignore,” Tim says, whispering. “Especially when he’s sulking.”

Danny laughs (the most emotive he’s been all day, despite readily sharing his personal information) and Damian clicks his tongue.

“You mentioned your godfather recommended you to Gotham Academy,” Tim says. “He’s a billionaire too, I take it?”

“Yeah.”

Damian turns his nose up at Danny.

“An exaggeration, I’m sure. There are only so many billionaires in this country.” And Damian knows them all, and their extended family history. Danny isn’t on Damian’s radar, so ergo he must be lying—or so Damian thinks.

Danny’s eyebrow once again arches. It’s a practiced gesture, for sure.

“And I take it you know all of them.”

Tim suppresses his surprise. Sure, he was just thinking it, and it’s not difficult to assume Damian is being a bratty know-it-all based on his tone alone; it’s just rare for someone to match Tim’s thoughts and call Damian out at the same time.

“Of course,” Damian smugly replies.

Danny rolls his eyes.

“Vlad technically has dual-citizenship.”

Damian scowls, or scowls more—he was already scowling. He’s always scowling.

“Vladimir Romanov-Masters?” Tim asks, chin sliding off of his upturned palm. (He leans into his surprise, playing up the act.)

“Yup,” Danny says, popping the ‘p’.

Damian is stiff next to him, tense. Vladimir Romanov-Masters doesn’t have the most stellar reputation. (His leanings aren’t exactly an open secret, like Lex Luthor’s, which makes him… unpredictable.)

“So, Masters is your godfather. That… must be something.”

Danny snorts. “He’s something, alright.”

“He’s paying for you to attend Gotham Academy?”

Danny shakes his head. “No way—even I’m not stupid enough to take handouts from Vlad. He just recommended me for the special placement tests.”

Tim freezes now. Danny just admitted to using Vlad’s connections to get a special placement… and also that he’s got a genius level intellect, by Gotham Academy’s standards—which is a pretty accurate measuring stick. Damian is even squinting at Danny now, likely wondering if they’re not both staring at a future rogue. (Genius level intellect is a red flag in Gotham.)

The bell rings and Danny crams his half-eaten sandwich into his mouth—the entire thing, at once. He looks at his schedule, saying, “English? God, I hate English.” Except his mouth is full of sandwich, so it comes out as, “Ingwish? Gah, ahhate Ingwish.”

He walks off without waiting for a response, balling up the (now scraps of) brown paper bag his sandwich came in and throwing it overhand at a garbage bin twenty paces away.

It goes in.

(Tim is not impressed—he’s not!)

Chapter Text

Jason’s apartment on Nightingale Avenue was purchased as a… concession to his family’s recommendation that he put some distance between himself and Crime Alley. Apparently, being in Crime Alley makes him ‘obsessive’ and ‘aggressive’, and makes his already awful circadian rhythm worse.

But they weren’t insisting (demanding) he quit being a crime lord when they made their recommendations, exactly, so Jason bit the bullet (ha) and bought out the corner unit on the top floor of the Elizabeth Towers apartment complex for the next two years. The landlord didn’t ask questions after that, just happy to have two years worth of rent and a damage deposit up front.

He doesn’t stay every day. Sometimes he even goes weeks without stopping by for anything.

It’s really just there for the days he wants to sleep in late, make comfort food in peace (without the percussion of bullets and gang violence in the background), or sit in silence when everything else is too loud.

But he still uses it—more often than he thought he would, even.

He’s returning to the apartment the Monday morning following a weekend long stakeout with Dick. He already showered at the Manor, but politely declined Alfred’s offer to make up a room for him.

Jason didn’t think Alfie would put him in his old room or anything, but a bout of ugly suspicion pushed him from sticking around to find out just where the old butler would put him.

(Paranoia, Leslie calls it; he should see someone about it, she says.)

At eight o’clock on the nose, Jason steps into the hallway of the top floor of Elizabeth Towers', from the dingy little stairwell. The elevator technically works, but Jason’s got a thing about boxes, especially the narrow, rectangular kind.

He’s two steps in when the door to number thirteen slams open, the door stopper on the wall twanging from the abuse.

The boy, Danny, spills out the door, catching himself on one hand as he trips over his own feet. He’s up and sprinting down the hall (for the apartment’s rusty exterior stairs, better known as the fire exit) almost before he can recover his balance, all gangly limbs. Jason notes that he’s wearing the Gotham Academy uniform, which is… interesting. Nightingale Avenue’s neighborhood isn’t exactly Gotham Academy material.

The older sister, Jasmine (or Jazz), catches the top of the door frame on her way out. It’s an older apartment unit, so the door frames aren’t quite up to code. They measure roughly around six feet, six inches high and Jasmine’s head almost brushes the top frame in her ankle boots.

She swiftly locks the door behind her, making eye contact when she swivels, heading for the indoor stairs—like any normal, civilized person.

(Not that her brother isn’t normal, per se—he’s just a prickly teenager with black hair and blue eyes; totally not potential adoption bait for a certain bastard.)

“Hi,” she says, sounding a little breathless; mouth quirked up in a friendly sort of smile.

Something in Jason’s chest squeezes at the completely normal gesture. Then she takes a deep breath in and glances down at her watch.

“Bye!”

She squeezes by (the hallway is narrow, and neither of them is small), and almost walks into the door to the stairwell.

“It’s pull, not push,” he says.

She doesn’t blush, though she winces slightly.

“Right…! I knew that!”

And then she’s gone, slipping through the barest opening of the door.

Jason rubs his mouth, wondering when he started smiling back, and shakes his head.

(Red heads are more Dick’s thing, anyway.)

Jasmine takes a seat in the lecture hall of her first class of the semester—criminal psychology. Her limbs tingle in excitement, a feeling like running water (rushing blood) spreading from her chest, out.

She slept in fits last night; kept getting out of bed to soothe the insistent need to study the GU handbook and campus map, to double check her bag and her outfit and her lunch in the fridge, the cap on her thermos… just everything!

But she’s here now, and Gotham University’s campus does not disappoint.

The other students trickle in after her, and then (finally!) the professor.

He introduces himself by slamming a brand new name plate down on his lecturn. Jazz doesn’t bother remembering his name—she’s horrible with names. A trait of hers that’s only become amplified by her recent… changes.

Then he’s launching straight into the lesson, the other students scrambling to pull out their preferred stationery. Jazz’s hand has been poised to take notes for the last ten minutes.

He speaks like he doesn’t need to breathe (he does, Jazz knows) and jumps from topic to topic—coming off as impatient and slightly manic. She feels her attention divide, her right hand converting his hectic spoken lesson into her preferred shorthand while her left hand twitches as she mentally types out a profile of her new professor.

The girl next to her has her head tilted, staring at their professor in apparent fascination. Jazz’s lips twitch into a small smile, already feeling a sort of comradery with her bench buddy.

Jazz isn’t smiling two weeks later, staring between her bank statement and the moldy bread in the fridge. She cringes when the smell of stale fridge and sour milk hits her nose, slamming the door shut.

They’ve been spending more money on groceries, bills, and public transit than she predicted they would. Possibly because she and Danny have the unfortunate habit of forgetting to eat what’s in the fridge, thus wasting it and resorting to buying takeout, often.

She doesn’t want to tell Danny about it. He already neglects to eat enough. She doesn’t want him to stop grabbing food from convenience stores or the school cafeteria when he’s hungry, or stop asking for takeout when he gets home from school.

And she definitely isn’t asking Vlad for an allowance.

She just needs to find a part-time job… yeah!

Which is how she finds herself sitting in the back room of a little strip club on the backside of Nightingale Avenue, or Park Row.

The owner (Blake Burnham) of said strip club (the Jersey Devils) sits across from her. She’s a heavily tattooed middle-aged woman, and judging Jasmine hard for being there, breathing in the stale cigarette smoke scented air of her club.

“You don’t look twenty-one.”

Jazz winces.

“Well, I’m not—and I’m not here for the bartending… position.”

“You’re here to dance,” she says, flatly.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Yes…” (Blake does not give her an appropriate title to finish with, or permission to use her name.)

“You have experience?”

“Not exactly,” Jazz admits. “But I do have a portfolio!”

(Said portfolio contains her various accolades in dance, gymnastics, and cheerleading. Jasmine Fenton kept very busy with her extracurricular activities during school.)

Jasmine Fenton, age six, the principal dancer of the Amity Park Ballet Studio after less than a year of lessons, envy of the class of older girls she beat out for the lead role in the annual showing of the Nutcracker.

She dances her heart out, wishing her parents were in the audience watching her, like they promised they would be. Her stomach churns with nerves, but not the kind generated from performing in front of an audience. She worries her parents forgot to pick Danny up from preschool again, as she had to walk to the concert hall after school by herself and didn’t have time to pick him up herself.

She hopes (if they forgot Danny, too) that Miss Newton let him go home with Tucker.

Blake studies the portfolio, flicking through her various achievements with a bored eye.

Jasmine, twelve, competing at a national gymnastics tournament held at the University of Wisconsin-Maddison. She sweeps the podiums in all disciplines of the junior division, leading to many of her co-competitors complaining she should have competed with the seniors.

She busses home with the rest of the Casper High Gymnastics Club. No one offers to help carry her trophies. She hauls them in through the front door, clacking together in her gym bag. Daddy beams at her from the wreckage of the toaster on the kitchen table.

“Jazzerincess! How’d the, er—swim meet!—go?”

“I quit the swim team last year, Daddy.”

“Oh, right! How’d… karate lessons go? Chop any boards yet?”

Jasmine stands up straighter, despite feeling like the strings holding her up are being snipped away, one by one. “It went great, Daddy.”

(Jasmine calls her gymnastics coach the next day to resign. Then she calls the local karate dojo to inquire about enrolling. Maybe Daddy will actually want to watch her compete if it’s karate.)

“This legit?”

“Yes?”

“You a fast learner?”

“Yes, M—” a sharp look, “—of course.”

“Jasmine Fenton, you can’t be serious!” Chenille Louis shouts, jogging to keep up with Jazz's long stride. “This is my senior year—and my last chance to go to the nationals! You can’t leave the squad now! We need you—I need you!”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Chenille, but I don’t have time to consider cheerleading right now. I have to take care of Danny—”

“What a load of bull, Jasmine! Your brother’s fine!”

“He has nerve damage, Chenille,” Jasmine says, gritting her teeth so hard her jaw hurts. “He can’t even hold up a fork some days.”

“Oh, boo-hoo! Maybe that’ll teach him to keep his hands clean of your parents’ crazy shit!”

(It’s only Jazz’s iron control and the knowledge that she could concuss—or worse—Chenille that stops her from breaking the older girl’s nose. Jazz is a black belt in multiple disciplines, after all—her hands are weapons.)

“Goodbye, Chenille, and good luck getting to nationals.”

“Fuck you, Fenton!”

Blake grabs a bottle of sanitizing spray and a box of chalk off the desk between them.

“You got an hour to figure it out. If I like what I see, you take the front pole Sundays and Mondays. If you don’t show up, you’re done. You wait your turn in the wings with the rest of the dancers any other night of the week.”

Jazz nods and gets to it. At the end of the hour, Blake critiques the hell out of her form, gives her a pointer or two, and tells her she better show up by nine o’clock on Sunday. Jazz asks PM or AM and Blake scowls at her, saying twenty-one hundred instead. Jazz nods again.

(Who would have thought goody-two-shoes Jasmine Fenton would end up moonlighting as a pole dancer?)

Chapter Text

It’s the first week of October when Danny’s card (Vlad insisted he get one, since carrying cash was a liability in big cities—Gotham especially—apparently) declines at the convenience store on the corner of Nightingale Avenue. He stares at his overpriced deli sandwich and cherry cola and sighs.

“I’ll put it back,” he says.

The cashier looks him up and down with a raised eyebrow, then bags the sandwich and cola.

“It expires tomorrow; I’ll just write off an extra sandwich in the morning.”

“But—“

“You look like you could go for a sandwich or three, kid. Just take it.”

Danny reluctantly takes the bag from the counter.

(It’s not stealing if they’re giving it to him, right? He won’t have another Dan—this one a future Gotham Rogue—popping into existence, right?)

(Right?)

“Thanks,” he says.

“Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t mention it.”

Danny nods and exits the small convenience store, trying not to feel guilt or shame. He mostly succeeds; eating the sandwich helps. He was feeling hungry.

(Danny’s always hungry these days. Gotham has higher than average ambient ectoplasm levels, but it’s got nothing on Amity Park, that’s for sure.)

He sits on the guardrail of a nearby exit ramp, sipping his cherry cola and crunching numbers in his head. Budgeting. He got good at that after his accident, when he would titter-totter between being ravenously hungry and having no appetite at all.

Rent just came out, so they don’t have to worry about that for another month. And Mom and Dad deposit their allowances around the tenth—usually. His and Jazz’s grants get deposited on the fifteenth… Jazz also has that secret job she’s being super cagey about, but he won’t press her for the details, so long as she’s still eating and sleeping.

She seems to get paid on Fridays, and takes cash home on random nights of the week. Sunday and Monday mostly, but other days too. There should still be a wad of cash in the teapot she keeps on the counter at the apartment, and she’s told him to help himself to it if he ever needs (or wants, she stresses) anything.

So… it’s probably fine? If worse comes to worst, he could always wheedle some cash out of Vlad, though that would be reserved for the absolute worst case scenario, whatever that may be.

(It’s not fine.)

Tim sits with him at lunch on Friday, scowling at the backs of the jocks who were just harassing him at the entrance to the cafeteria/dining hall/whatever. (He called it a cafeteria the other day and the kid who sits behind him in English let out the most scandalized huff, ever.)

And, for the first time in Danny’s life, he’s not the one at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Amazing.

“Want me to shove them in their lockers for you?”

Tim looks almost as surprised as Danny feels. He doesn’t know why his brain felt the need to vomit that particular thought out loud.

“Thanks, but no thanks. You’d just get in trouble—suspended, or worse, probably.”

“Never said I’d get caught,” he says, tipping the neck of his bottle of orange juice Tim's way. 

Damian, Tim’s little brother, clicks his tongue behind him. Danny doesn’t flinch or startle—he felt the subtle waves of life essence body heat radiating behind him for the last, oh, five minutes?

He rolls his eyes and takes out his sack lunch, which is technically a lunch box inside of a paper bag, but he refuses to call it a lunch box (or a box lunch) on principle. He pops open the aluminum container and takes out his cheese and mayo sandwich, de-boning it pinch by pinch.

Damian sits across from him with his fancy cafeteria lunch and wooden serving tray, nose crinkling.

“I see you judging me,” he says, ribbing him. “Think your thoughts any louder and I might even hear them.”

Damian scoffs and swats Tim’s prodding finger away when the older boy attempts to actually jab him in the ribs.

“Have you considered that maybe I have special dietary requirements?” Danny jokes. It’s an inside joke, obviously, and they’re both outside. Waaay outside.

“You are eating bread, cheese, and egg-based mayonnaise. That rules out gluten, dairy, and egg sensitivities.” Damian clicks his tongue. “Furthermore, the dining hall menu is flexible and more than accommodating for most ‘dietary requirements’.”

And Damian would know—he’s just as militantly vegetarian as Sam is.

Danny holds his hands up in a mock surrender. Damian Wayne won’t be the first (or the last) ignorant rich kid to be offended by his commoner status.

“You caught me,” he drawls. “The cafeteria fair here is just too ‘rich’ for my tastes.”

Tim’s responding neutral expression is one of concentrated thought.

“You got in on special recommendations, but you’ve said before that Masters isn’t paying your tuition… which probably means you have a grant, or maybe you misunderstood and Masters is sponsoring you with or without your knowledge?”

Danny scowls.

“What are you, a tax creditor? I don’t see how my finances are any of your business, Tim.”

Tim blinks, apparently surprised that he’s taking offense to his not-so-subtle sleuthing. Danny wonders if all rich people are so shameless. He’s got firsthand experience setting a precedent for it, at least.

“So which is it, Fenton?” Damian continues, angling to play the bad cop to Tim’s oblivious ‘good’ cop. “If you are here as a scholarship student, you should have access to additional grants to cover the cost of living—not to mention a meal plan for the dining hall.”

He purses his lips, rolling the aluminum bottle cap from his pulp-less orange juice between his thumb and forefinger, squashing it together. He does have a grant… and a scholarship—but he didn’t hear anything about a meal plan.

(That being said, he hasn’t spoken to the academy’s guidance councilor, or whatever, about his scholarship or his grants, only glanced over the dictionary-sized document they faxed Vlad back in the summer. Jazz asked if he wanted her to go over it for him, but he promised her he would read it… and didn’t. Like an idiot.)

And damn—they don’t serve burgers in the dining hall, but they do serve a chicken club sandwich platter with seasoned sweet potato fries that smells absolutely to die for.

“Well?”

Danny just sighs.

“Yeah, I’ve got a scholarship and grants—”

“Given your ties to Vladimir Romanov-Masters, you should not even qualify for financial support—“

“Vlad’s not legally my godfather.” Danny says, cutting the little brat off. “Pretty sure Dad just told him he could be my godfather and the Fruit Loop ran with it.”

Tim mouths ‘fruit loop’ to himself, a look of horrified awe on his face—as if he’s never stooped to childish name calling before. If he hasn’t, he should give it a go—it’s therapeutic. He gives himself a little shake, then continues his line of invasive questioning.

“What’s your scholarship for, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Danny almost pinches the bridge of his nose but settles for giving Tim the driest, most disappointed expression he can muster.

(It’s that or abject mortification. Their dad is technically the one paying for his education—and Bruce Wayne probably pays for a lot of kids' educations, but Ancients know Danny has a talent for putting his foot in his mouth. He has to be super normal about it, otherwise he could accidentally insult them and embarrass himself in the same sentence.)

“It’s the Wayne Industries R&D Scholarship.” Nailed it—no uncomfortable jokes about their dad paying for his education, no sirree.

Damian’s eyes narrow, and Tim sits up straighter.

“The one—“

“Where you get a random topic to research for an hour, another hour to pitch a product and convince the judges it’s worth financing, and—finally—two whole hours to build something spectacular.”

(Yes, he did jazz hands at the end there.)

“What did you build?” Tim asks, leaning right into his personal space bubble.

Danny stuffs the rest of his sandwich (read, the whole thing) into his mouth and chews. The bell rings.

“Well, would you look at the time, gotta go!” He doesn’t spray a single crumb, though whether Tim or Damian understood a single word from his garbled sentence is anyone’s guess.

“Tt…!”

“How does he do that—without choking?”

Tim is, of course, operating under the false assumption that Danny needs to breathe.

(Breathing is only optional when you’re half dead.)

Tim does, of course, look up his classmate’s scholarship entry. After school. On the Batcomputer. Because it’s redacted on the school server and on the main Wayne Enterprises server. It’s also password protected, for some reason, and all the usual ones aren’t working. Tim narrows his eyes at the screen and cracks his knuckles.

“Something the matter, Tim?”

Tim spins his chair around so fast he almost sloshes his after school coffee all over the floor of the Batcave.

“Why are you stonewalling the information on this year’s recipient of the Wayne Industries R&D Scholarship?”

Bruce raises an eyebrow (and the other follows when Damian melts out of the shadows behind the Batcomputer).

“Why are you interested?” he returns.

“He’s in most of my classes.” And something about him is just… weird. Uncanny.

“Fenton walks like Mother.”

Tim spins to face Damian.

“You never told me that,” he accuses. Then, after a beat, “In which way?”

Damian clicks his tongue. “He makes no sound when he walks.” He says that like it should have been obvious to Tim.

(It should have been—if he had been paying attention.)

Bruce just ‘hm’s, unconcerned. Tim spins back around, again, and wheels closer to Bruce.

“Bruce, what did he make?”

“Who?” Bruce says, a teasing glint in his smiling eyes. He must be practicing for an interview, or maybe he's just doing it on purpose at this point; the Brucie act drives Tim crazy sometimes, and there's no way Bruce doesn't know that. (His brand of 'dad' jokes suck, by the way.)

“Daniel Fenton, Bruce. You know, the totally not suspicious transfer student from Illinois? The one you’re burying under layers and layers of security?”

Bruce hums again, and Damian crosses his arms with an answering click of the tongue. Tim, feeling left out in the silent part of the conversation, slurps his coffee and waits.

“He made a six thousand watt generator with a magnet motor from materials in the ‘scrap pile’ to save on the theoretical development costs, satisfying the requirements for reusable and recyclable materials—and of course the magnet motor is also a perpetual motion machine and can therefore be considered a renewable energy source. Free energy, even.”

As Damian digests that wall of text (uncharacteristic of Bruce), expression looking more and more pinched as he does, Tim reaches a shocking conclusion.

“You’re impressed,” he says.

“Lucius was quite impressed,” Bruce corrects, like a lying liar.

“… What’s Daniel Fenton really doing in Gotham, B?” Because the more Tim learns about Daniel Fenton, the less secure he feels about going to school with a potential/future Rogue. He might show up to class one day, his classmate in the process of taking the academy over.

(How does one combat a genius capable of building six thousand watt generators on the fly, out of scrap?)

“Attending Gotham Academy on a scholarship, Tim.” His expression is almost playful now, like he’s saying ‘keep up, Tim’. Silently. Because (and this is not at all an exaggeration) ninety percent of Bruce’s conversation always are.

“Lucius wanted the demo, but Daniel asked to keep it first,” Bruce continues. “He’s made a second motor and attached both to a pair of inline skates, last I heard.”

Tim blue screens.

“He put… magnet motors big enough to generate six thousand watts of electricity—each—on a pair of rollerblades...?”

“The magnet motors are roughly the size of a deck of playing cards,” Bruce says, one hand resting on his hip now. “The generator itself was only the size of a microwave. An apartment sized microwave.”

Threat assessment: a threat.

Freaking rollerbladers…! (Why is it always the rollerbladers?!)

“Tim, where are you going?”

He grabs his skateboard, and then his camera—just in case.

“Out.”