Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danny had begun to notice a trend in his life. Every time he was due for a Paradigm Shift, something in regards to portals would happen.

For instance, his accident— obviously connected to opening the portal. His meeting his future self— it could be argued that wormholes were in fact portals through time as well as space.

And now, this. Danny had woken up at two in the morning to find a teeny-tiny natural portal swirling around his fingertips that disappeared as soon as he came back to awareness. Oh, he freaked out, racing into the Realms to go ask Frostbite for help. (With all the powers that Danny seemed to continually acquire, Frostbite tended to be stop number one to make sure Danny was still okay.)

So now Danny had the ability to make natural portals, similar to Wulf. Or, he was starting to get that ability; it would take a long time until he was at Wulf’s level. Frostbite recommended asking some of the denizens of the Realms for help honing his newest skill, as it would be easier to let the ectoplasm flow through him here, rather than pull from his own to try to force a portal through. After all, it was easier to use the ambient ectoplasm as a conduit rather than brute-force it with what little existed in most places in the Human Realm.

This, absolutely, was not a complication that Danny needed right now. Look, it was finals season at Gotham University, and he was overworked, overstressed, and undersleeped. Yes, “undersleeped” was not a word, but dammit it was applicable .

The last thing Danny needed to have to deal with at this exact moment was another goddamn power popping up. Teleportation suddenly went high up on his list of priorities, namely, how the fuck to keep from randomly opening portals and falling through. 

He was pretty damn sure that he had it somewhat under control enough to get through his finals, and at least they were just written exams and not practical–that would be a nightmare with portal fingers. Going to school he felt sort of twitchy, like he just drank three or five Death Wish coffees consecutively, but he resisted the urge to shake out his hands or do anything that might create a portal while surrounded by innocent civilians. He wouldn’t inflict the possibility of the Box Ghost on anyone who wasn’t used to his craziness.

Entering the classroom, Danny noticed that the weird guy who sat up front was staring at him again. What was up with that guy? He was pretty sure the guy was popular or something because everyone would try to surround his desk everyday, but the guy would just sit there on his tablet and ignore them all until they left. But when he saw Danny he could count on the guy to keep him in his sights, so Danny usually sat way in the back for his own piece of mind. You can never know what a stalker may do.

So, wariness had never steered Danny wrong before. (In fact, he really could have used more wariness growing up, but alas.) As Danny headed for the back of the classroom, the TA intercepted him, hesitating slightly. 

“Ah, hey,” the TA said, “I know you usually sit in the back, but this is a final exam, and Professor Wright wants everyone up at the front.”

Well, shit. Danny shrugged as he turned back around, trying and failing to seem casual about the one-hundred-eighty degree heel-point-turn as he headed back up to the front. The lecture hall was one of those that were built in a big arch, a half-circle facing towards the professor’s front desk. Every seat had its own little airplane tray, if an airplane tray was just big enough to hold One Single Pen and maybe a sheet of paper, if you were really good at Tetris. (But there wasn’t even a spot for a cup holder! Criminal!)

And if Danny made an immediate beeline for the seat nearest the exit, that was entirely his own prerogative. Fuck you. 

Although, without realizing it, he had inadvertently seated himself two chairs down from his stalker (title pending review). Joy.

With a tap to her desk, Professor Wright got the class’s attention, doing her usual visual scan of the class before she handed out tests. “You have two hours to complete this written exam,” she said sternly, watching them all sharply. “You may begin.”

And thus, the shittiest two hours of Danny’s half life (not counting The Accident because that took a solid ten minutes) began. 

—

Tim really only went to college to humor Alfred and Bruce. “You can’t be just a teenage CEO, you have to make more friends than just your siblings, Tim.” Bullshit. He wasn’t even friends with his siblings–he was their personal IT.

Tim could be the damn finest teenage CEO and he didn’t need friends. It’s not like Bruce had any!!!! But noooo . He should change his name to “Hypocrite Man” instead of Batman, it would fit better.

…Shit, Tim needed more sleep.

He rubbed his face tiredly as students began trickling into the lecture hall for their final written exam for Engineering 101–the easiest class he could’ve been put in. Honestly, it was insulting to his abilities to be put into such a basic class. He was re-building the batarangs to be more aerodynamic at the age of nine!

The worst part, truly, was the fact that every other college student seemed so intent on befriending him, despite how politely he rejected their attempts at “friendship”. Oh, he knew the type-- they heard “Drake-Wayne” and money emojis started popping up above their heads. Mostly figuratively. He still was not one hundred percent sure on that one, he sometimes stopped for a few Death Wishes on the way to class and he wasn’t sure if that was a hallucination or not.

Much like his similar situation. Tim sat close to the board in the direct center of the desk arc. He spent enough of his time peering up at a massive screen in the dark, damnit, he was going to peer up at a massive screen in the light this time. The current hallucination that Tim was slowly beginning to question if it was real or not was the teenager on the left side of the room, directly next to the door.

There were a few things that ticked off the boxes for “hallucination”. One, he looked like the concept of Wayne Adoption Bait personified, with messy black hair and maybe blue maybe green eyes, Tim couldn’t quite tell from the distance. Shit, his clothes even lent to the idea, messy, patched, his jeans worn threadbare in more than a few spots that were stitched back up. 

The last part that really ticked off the hallucination box was the fucking Lazarus Water that seemed to literally seep from this guy’s hand. Every few minutes Tim would see he’d notice, wipe his hand on his jeans, and shake his head before returning to the exam. 

Like, what the fuck?

How did this random guy in his class have Lazarus Waters dripping from his fingers? Was he dunked in the toxic kool-aid like Jason was and suffered after-effects? Was he going to get frustrated with the exam and go bat-shit, Pit Rage enveloping him? Did Tim need to call in reinforcements? He really didn’t feel like it honestly–last night everyone picked on him for his “unhealthy obsession with coffee.” 

He’d rather have another “Titan’s Tower” incident than give up his coffee. Don’t test him. Dick learned that last time he tried–and he was still getting random texts rick-rolling him to this day.

He watched as the guy avoided Tim’s gaze and kept a wide berth, walking to the back row like usual as quickly as he could it seemed. He always avoided Tim for some reason, like he seemed to know the vigilante was keeping an eye on him. But the guy was stopped by the TA who was telling him something, but Tim couldn’t hear over the “friends” surrounding his desk like sharks this morning. Were half of these people even in this class? Did they just reproduce asexually or something? Nevermind that sharks didn’t reproduce asexually-- he was losing the point, here.

Back to Wayne Bait.

The guy seemed to turn around with a slightly-forced smile to the TA before heading back up to the front, leaving him in the current predicament. Wayne Bait (and that was his nickname now) sat in the front row on the farthest side of the room from Tim directly next to the exit, working silently on his exam. Every so often, give or take ten to fifteen minutes, he would notice his hand, “covertly” wipe his hand on his jeans, and return to the exam. 

If this guy was supposed to be a spy, he was the shittiest spy Tim had ever met.

There goes the theory and shaky connection he had for the guy–that he was sent by the League. He would die in a day with how obvious he is. He couldn’t keep a secret to save his life.

Marking off his exam that he wasn’t paying much attention to, Tim was about to stand up to turn it in when the other guy beat him to it. He actually finished first– before Tim –and he seemed to be confident tossing it on the Professor’s desk. Was he an idiot who thought this was easy? Or was he actually smart? He didn’t think anyone taking such a beginner class in their second-third year of college would be. (He got stuck here by the “guidance counselors'', not through his own choice ! “Guidance counselor” his ass.)

Either way, he had to investigate. It was Bat-protocol 101 to trail a suspicious subject at a distance, subtly gathering information. He was still “on” as Tim Drake, not as Red Robin, though, so he couldn’t make a scene.

----

What the fuck was this dude’s problem?

Danny finished his test and left the lecture hall, glad to be away from the prying eyes of everyone who could see his powers acting up. He did not need to be outed as a meta (which, does he count as a meta if he was dead?) in the middle of Gotham-fucking-city where The Big Scary Furry basically banned all metas. He just wanted to get through college as quietly as he could, but Fenton luck would have it he somehow got himself a stalker. 

Granted, he was a really cute stalker, despite those heavy eyebags that matched Danny’s own back in high school when he’d spend nights patrolling instead of sleeping. But he was still following Danny around–he hadn't even done anything! 

After the exam (which was way too easy, he was so glad to be done with this class now) he left to go home and try to get ahold of Frostbite for some more advice about how to regulate the energy used for making portals. He couldn’t keep dripping ectoplasm all over the place, they’d think he was some new villain with radioactive abilities or something! So this guy following him was a real pain.

Sure, by human means this guy was really stealthy. He was keeping to the shadows or blending in with small groups of people up and down the halls, making his presence as small as possible to not register on Danny’s radar most likely. He was skilled, he went about it very calmly like he was used to lying through his teeth and sneaking around. He’d make a great spy if he wanted to. Maybe he already was? Were spies real?

No, no, off track Fenton.

However good this guy may be, it didn’t matter if he was death-touched in any way. Danny could sense anyone who has died or been death-touched, almost like their souls tickled at the edge of his mind. He liked joking to Sam and Tucker that he was like “Spider-Ghost” and they told him he couldn’t perform copyright infringement because he was a nerd. Danny retorted that the Spider-Verse said anyone could be Spider-Man, so suck it. They had reminded him of an actual character named “Ghost-Spider” and he had just walked away sulking.

But not now. He wasn’t going to put up with this guy’s spyness today–he needed to get home because he felt the tingling in his fingers get worse and he couldn’t have Mr. Popular following him home.

So, Danny took slightly drastic measures. He weighed the odds and shrugged, deciding that even if Mr. Popular was a spy, it’s not like he could kill Danny. (Again.)

He turned, pretending to pull his phone out and send a text as he walked down the hall to where Mr. Popular was milling around in a crowd. Danny walked casually by, only to grab the guy by the wrist and start tugging him along. The guy protested for a moment, but surprisingly didn’t try to fight Danny’s grip at all.

Danny pulled him around the corner into an empty hallway, then turned to face Mr. Popular, his arms crossed over his chest. “Dude, what the hell is your problem?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t take well to stalkers.”

The other guy just gawked at him for a moment before sputtering out an answer. “I–I didn’t, I’m not a–you, how…?” He blinked rapidly for a second before a frown marred his face, crossing his arms defiantly in a mirror to Danny’s stance. “I am not a stalker!”

“Ohhhkay,” Danny drawled, tilting his head a little to the side. “So, what, then? Did Vlad send you? Honestly, I thought he’d have given up by now given how many times I’ve kicked his ass back to Wisconsin, but nooo . He had to send Pretty Stalker Boy after me.”

Danny watched as the stalker guy’s face turned beet red. He cleared his throat and avoided looking at Danny when he said, “Like I said, I am not a stalker.” But then his face twisted into an expression of confusion and he finally turned to look at Danny. “Who the fuck is Vlad?”

“A shitty impression of a half-bit vampire,” Danny said instantly, taking great joy in the guy’s baffled expression. He almost grinned, almost . “Look,” he said instead, “don’t worry about it. Sorry for the harsh greeting and all that. I’ll hear you out on the not a stalker thing, but you’ve also kind of been staring at me through the whole exam, and left right after I did, which, you gotta admit, is grade-A stalker behavior.”

Stalker Boy just stood there, tightening his stance like he was bracing for a fight, but relaxing his face like he was trying to portray he was trustworthy. Yeah, no, that ship sailed earlier. 

“Well, I was not stalking you, I promise,” he began, twisting his body away from Danny’s. “But I couldn’t help noticing that you finished faster than anyone else in class and I was curious how you did it.” Okay, that made Danny kind of ticked off.

“Look, dude, written exams ain’t got shit on a lab with extremely lax safety rules,” Danny scoffed. “I didn’t cheat if that’s what you’re asking, I just got placed in the basic class because they wouldn’t let me test out. Engineering 101 was a cakewalk .”

He watched as the guy’s eyes grew as wide as dinner plates, his mouth flapping open like a dead fish as he stumbled for what to say. But Danny didn’t want to hear it, he was pissed off how his already shitty day seemed to be ending. He turned to leave, ready to call Cujo for a quick portal to the Zone so he could find Skulker and punch him.

“Wait a second, I didn’t mean to imply–” He tried to call out an excuse to Danny. But he didn’t want to hear any of this guy’s bullshit, it would just spew like garbage to Danny’s ears right now. He turned about face and he marched down the hall to leave before he got angrier. He didn’t do well with people accusing him of cheating–not after Dan.

He could hear footsteps hurrying after him, so he marched onwards a little faster than he was and turned the corner at the opposite end of the hallway he dragged them to originally. Planning on going home to call for Cujo to get some puppy cuddles before talking to Frostbite.

Although, in his annoyed stomp-off away from the Stalker Boy now chasing after him, Danny didn’t notice the energy that began pooling around his ankles until it was too late. He tripped, careening forward at the sudden lack of anything solid under his feet, an annoyed cry ripping from his throat as he fell through the new portal he had accidentally made.

“Oh, COME ON!”

—--

Tim could not believe what had just happened. How did this guy even notice him following after he left the classroom? He stuck to this training–stay in the shadows as much as possible, but if not feasible to blend into your environment to keep an eye on your target. He stayed a good hundred feet or so behind the guy the entire way, often stopping and pretending to be part of a group of people. He even, ugh, high-fived a few of the guys who have tried to be his friend since starting at the school to make Tim seem natural walking down the hall.

But this guy somehow noticed him, casually reversed his steps and came towards Tim’s direction. He had assumed his target forgot something in the classroom and was going to give it a minute before following. Then he was shocked into silence as he was suddenly grabbed before being dragged away, by none other than the one guy who was not supposed to notice his presence.

Then he had the nerve to call Tim a stalker! Which, he guessed was fair, based on his behavior it could come off as stalker-ish to a civilian. He had tried to explain his actions, except it didn’t go quite as well as he thought and he was left with more questions than answers.

He was totally off of his game right now. Maybe Alfred and Dick were right, he needed more sleep breaks between cases. 

The guy had called him Pretty Stalker Boy (which, why had that made his face feel so hot?) and started accusing him of working with someone named Vlad. Who was this Vlad? He mentioned Wisconsin and Tim had made a mental note to look into anyone named “Vlad” in Wisconsin–there shouldn’t be too many. It’s a unique name for the United States, that's for sure.

The other guy talking pulled Tim from his diverted train of thought. He looked over to see Adoption Bait’s crossed arms were so tight now, Tim could see veins popping out and his fingers dug white spots into his forearms.

“--I didn’t cheat if that’s what you’re asking, I just got placed in the basic class because they wouldn’t let me test out. Engineering 101 was a cakewalk .” The guy’s brows furrowed so deep they looked like two eyebrows merging into one. His jaw tightened and clicked with his words, distracting Tim for a moment before his words registered in the vigilante’s tired brain.

Oh. Oh shit . This guy thought that Tim thought he cheated on their exam? He didn’t! He was just trying to, to…he didn’t know what he was doing! He didn’t expect to get caught by a civilian and have to come up with an excuse with an hour of sleep and the coffee already out of his system.

He felt his eyes grow wide as the heat left his face, “Wait a second, I wasn’t trying to imply–” He started to argue, wanting to explain that isn’t what he meant. But he was cut off by the guy just turning and walking away, not saying a word at all to Tim. 

Excuse me? Tim thought, annoyed. Granted, he is the one who acted like a stalker before accusing a complete stranger about cheating on a college final–an action that could lead to expulsion. Not the smartest (or most well thought out) thing he’s ever done, no, but it’s not like it was on purpose!

He called out, “Hey!” all indignant-like towards the guy’s retreating figure. Staring for a moment at his lean figure, moving swiftly through the hall and only making any noise because he purposefully stomped his feet. Tim had never seen blue eyes that cold before as he was stared down by the other man, it had felt like he was being frozen from the outside in. 

He was hesitant about feeling that cold again, a niggling of fear keeping his feet rooted to the ground for just a moment before his irritation drove him forward. He began hurrying after the guy, calling out for him to stop. He almost thought he couldn’t hear Tim, but as he got closer the other guy began moving faster. 

So he’s just a jerk who will ignore the situation instead of dealing with it? God, he keeps checking off boxes for Adoption Bait! Tim groaned at the idea of Bruce catching wind of another kid like him and his brothers.

A dull pang went through his chest at the idea of this guy becoming another brother though. He held a hand over his chest briefly, slowing for a second. Was this arrhythmia? B did have a good way of shocking Tim’s heart. If he got this guy as a new brother–another pang, this one hurting more than the last as Tim’s eyes trailed after the other boy. All of his thoughts stopped for half a second before he shook his head and began jogging to close the distance his pause created. Yeah, he was gonna go with arrhythmia, he was pretty sure heart problems were hereditary on his mother’s side of the family. Right? Well, he was going with it. Better than thinking about what else that pang was.

In his hesitance though, he lost the small gap he had between them before and the other guy turned a corner making Tim lose sight of him. But before he could reach the corner himself, he heard a loud yelping noise–like someone was surprised or hurt. 

“Hey, are you–” Tim started to call out, but cut himself off when he heard the guy shout.

“OH, COME ON! ” 

That was all Tim heard before it was silent, not even the heavy footsteps from Adoption Bait’s combat boots that he had heard before. Changing from his jog, Tim ran the last ten feet to the corner and turned it, expecting there to be a group of assassins or someone making a similar assumption to his and kidnapping the poor guy thinking he was a Wayne.

Instead, Tim felt like he was having an actual heart attack. 

Because there on the floor was a pool of Lazarus Water about the width of a regular sized dog bed, swirling on the ground like a rock was thrown in and rippled the surface. He stumbled and grabbed the wall in shock. What the actual fuck was Lazarus Water doing in the middle of Gotham U?

Sucking in a sharp breath, Tim snapped his head back up and searched the hallway from his position for Mr. Adoption Bait–but he was nowhere to be found. Where did he go so quickly that Tim didn’t see him leave?

He wanted to go after the guy, but the pool on the ground was more important unfortunately. He tapped into his communicator, opening the channel Duke used during his day shifts in case anyone needed to reach him.

“Duke? You there?” he asked, taking out his cellphone, eyes never leaving the neon green pool swirling before him. It felt different to the pool Ra’s showed him at the League base he was in, how was that? Because it was away from the source?

“Tim? Hey, I thought you were in class,” Duke responded after a moment. Tim snapped a quick picture of the pool for evidence and took in a sharp breath as it began to shrink before his eyes. “Tim?”

Letting out a shaky exhale, he took a step back and told Duke, “I’m gonna need you to swing over to Gotham U if you can man.”

Within seconds the pool that had been as large as a dog bed had shrunk to the size of a lemon, before it disappeared with a little pop like it had never existed. Raising his eyes up, he stared at the other end of the hall from him–the only way to have gotten out besides that doorway were the windows, which were undisturbed. 

A really terrible theory began swirling around Tim’s thoughts, taking his focus as his brother kept trying to get his attention on comms. 

“Tim, bro, I’m out on patrol–”

“Duke, it’s an emergency,” he interrupted, already on his phone and hacking into the school’s registry to find that student. “There may be a meta in the city who can control Lazarus Waters.”

Bruce was going to lose his shit. 

I am so totally making him tell Jason, Tim thought.

Chapter Text

Duke had been having a good day. Morning patrol on weekends was usually quiet-- escorting a few college students back to their dorm rooms after morning party regrets set in, gaining intel on the other cases the rest of the Bats were working on when he could, and various other tasks. He pursued his own leads, of course, but he was available and ready for anything.

He had just thought to himself that it was a slow day when of course Tim called him, saying those words that sent a chill straight down his spine. 

“ There may be a meta in the city who can control Lazarus Waters. ”

Well. Shit . 

Anything that had to do with the League of Shadows, the al’Ghuls, and especially Lazarus Pits got an all-call from the Bats. There were just too many connections between the Bat-Family and the League for it to be handled by any one person; too many motivations at play. 

And the Lazarus Waters? Duke could already tell there would be damage control needed if Jason got wind of this before they had a plan to handle it. 

So, he diverted course from his usual patrol, swinging over to the deserted alleyway where Tim’s coordinates led. It was a small side alley just off the main campus of Gotham University, shadowed by the four story building it was against. Duke smirked as he approached, the shadows of the building growing darker, twisting slightly to give the pair of vigilantes better cover as he approached his still-in-civvies brother. 

Landing with a soft tap from his boots, he put away his grappling hook and watched Tim mumble to himself for a moment while scrolling through his personal tablet. He didn’t even acknowledge Duke’s arrival, much less Duke rolling his eyes at Tim’s lack of situational awareness. Walking forward, he grabbed his brother’s shoulder, causing him to startle and nearly punch Duke out, who dodged it deftly.

“Oh, hey! When did you get here, man?” Tim asked him, eyes flicking back to the tablet he held possessively. Seriously, did Tim ever let go of that thing? He should really put a case on it, given how scared he seemed of shattering it. 

Duke just gave him a flat look. “I’ve been standing here watching you mumble sweet nothings to your tablet for a few minutes now.” 

Tim blinked.

Okay, so that was a little snarky for him. In his defense, Duke was tired, okay? Steph got a broken arm from Penguin, so Signal got called in to help with a case last night instead of sleeping. And naturally, because everyone else worked the night shift, Signal had to immediately turn around and go back on his own patrol. Tim being cryptic and making him rush over to meet him about a meta on the loose who can control Lazarus Waters ? Yeah, he doesn’t have the patience for this level of crazy today.

“I don’t–you know what, nevermind, it’s not important,” Tim furrowed his brows at Duke before tapping a few things on his screen and turning the tablet around for him to see. On the screen, Duke could see a club picture off the campus blog of some kid around their age who honestly looked like a classic Wayne adoptee. Black hair and blue eyes? Check. Heavy eyebags that could rival Tim? Check.

Duke tilted his head and pointed at the picture. “Okay, so what am I looking at here? Another kid we gotta keep Bruce from meeting or something?” He was confused.

Tim rolled his eyes and rapidly tapped the screen again, “No, you smartass! This is the meta I’m talking about!” Tim turned the tablet back around to mess with it and Duke leaned back and crossed his arms.

“Okay, so what kind of information do you have on him already?” He asked Tim. Knowing his brother, the guy probably had the new meta’s entire life filed neatly away in a folder on his tablet–all the way down to his Social Security Number and all. 

Tim’s lips thinned and his eyes started squinting a bit before he muttered, “I haven’t yet.”

Wait. “I’m sorry, what?” Duke’s eyes widened cartoonishly, not that Tim could see while he was wearing his Signal mask. It took him about ten minutes to grapple to this location from where he was at and yet Tim had nothing on this guy?

He sighed, shoulders dropping, “Look, okay? I’ve been trying! But it’s like this guy is a ghost– he participates in literally only the engineering club. I got his name off of his exam paper earlier, but it’s like his identity isn’t real! I can’t find a ‘Daniel Nightingale’ anywhere in the US database– or any other database!” 

Tim honestly looked like he was going to cry from frustration. He started pacing back and forth, muttering softly under his breath. Okay, time for concern-- a ghost? When was the last time Tim even slept?

Cautiously, he moved towards Tim only for the other man to whip around suddenly and Duke jumped back, arms raised as he saw Tim’s crazy look appear in his eyes. Whenever someone saw that it was either time to run– or time to drug his coffee so he could sleep the crazy away. It was a fifty/fifty chance of working, but either way he slept, so Alfred told them it was a win.

“But I called you here because of this!” Tim exclaimed, pulling out his cellphone. Duke quietly tapped his comm device a couple of times to get Babs’ attention before Tim yelled out a cry of frustration and anger. 

Duke twitched, a frown flickering onto his face. He may have been covering them with thicker shadows, but that doesn’t soundproof an open alleyway. “Tim, be quieter man!”

“Nooooo….” his brother moaned pitifully.

“What’s wrong?”

“I took a picture of the Lazarus Water pool when I called you–before it disappeared,” Tim explained. He ran a hand through his hair, thoroughly messing up the neat strands, but he didn’t seem to care, only having eyes of dawning annoyance at his cell phone. “I had been talking to the meta and he turned a corner. Before I could reach him, I heard him yell out and when I arrived the puddle was there on the floor.” Rapid-fire, Tim flipped through his photos, searching his phone for the picture he wanted but his face scrunching up n irritation the longer it took.

Duke was honestly getting beyond concerned by this point and tapped his comm again. Thankfully Barbara tapped back, which meant she was listening and recording Tim’s breakdown. Just in case.

“Okay, so what is wrong now?” Duke asked hesitantly. It was never good when Tim got irritated at technology.

“IT’S GONE!” Tim groaned low in his throat. “Well, it’s here, but the image is corrupted somehow! I swear to you man, it was there but it disappeared so I can’t even take you to the location to see it yourself but–” Tim kept rambling and Duke just sighed heavily, his shoulders dropping.

Welp, there goes the rest of his patrol on this fine sunny day.

Because now, he had to take his brother home because he was having a mental breakdown and hallucinating. Again. Really, they needed to start setting an alarm to manhandle Tim into bed if necessary at least once every 24 hours.

****

Contrary to popular belief, Red Hood did not get paid enough for this bullshit. Really, he didn’t. A lot of the wealth he got from his gang was redistributed, sinking his assets into helping the Alley and keeping the worst of the crime out of Gotham.

(Guns helped. Vigilantism didn’t pay, but beating the living shit out of drug-runners did. At least emotionally.)

He’d had a--God help him for saying it--a quiet patrol early in the morning after a late night drug ring bust he crashed. A light patrol that ran a little later than he’d have liked (due to said bashing of heads last night) but he was running across rooftops back to one of his safehouses to go over the intel he’d gotten from the pathetic b-movie criminals when he saw it .

The bright flicker of something green in the corner of his eye that nearly caused him to trip, if he hadn’t recovered instantly. 

“What the fuck…” He whispered to himself, body jerking as he turned to see the green puddle disappear before his eyes had a chance to adjust to what he saw. He felt discombobulated on this random rooftop, his night finally ending, only to see a goddamn Lazarus pit appear and disappear out of nowhere.

Before Jason could even comprehend the situation enough to tap into the bats’ comm channel and yell at them all, he felt a shiver run down his spine. To his left now, a few rooftops away, he saw another pool of bright green liquid as it began forming. He gawked as it grew larger and swirled in the air above the rooftop, his feet moving him forward as his mind couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.

Was this Talia’s doing–or Ra’s? How could they have mobilized the damn Lazarus Waters? Genuinely, how in the fuck did they manage that? Last that he knew, they were static. In one place. That did not move .

Jason came to a stop as he tapped his comms, asking under his breath, “Oracle, please tell me I’m not going insane again.”

Radio silence. Maybe Babs was sleeping, or working on a different case? She normally responds quickly for him.

“Well, fuck,” he muttered under his breath, deciding to hop over the few rooftops to his new destination. Tentatively, he moved closer and pulled out one of his pistols to poke at the swirling green… something that just seemed to have spawned out of the ether. 

With all that he had experienced in his… twenty-something years of life (look, shit got weird when you were dead for six months and then got reality-tripped back), you would have expected him to be able to deal with something weird. Really, after the resurrection thing, he should have been able to roll with the punches. 

But seeing a random kid come barreling out of the portal in a wide arc, going from a weirdly horizontal position up to his feet was really and truly somehow the highlight of his day. Immediately Jason tripped the safety on his pistol, his voice coming out in a low, threatening growl.

“Who are you?” he asked, his grip tightening on the pistol as he loomed over the kid- Jesus, he couldn’t be any taller than the Demon Brat. Looked kind of like him, too-- messy black hair, but blue eyes instead of green, otherwise…shit. He looked like Adoption Bait. “How did you get up here?”

The kid didn’t respond to him right away, instead he stood there for a moment with his arms outstretched like he was trying (and failing) to learn yoga. He watched as the kid’s eyes flitted around for a few seconds before focusing on the gun pointed at his head.

Eyes widening, the kid shot his arms up and shouted, “It wasn’t me, officer!”

He didn’t lower the gun, but Jason wanted to go home. What about him looked like a fucking cop? Was this kid an idiot? He was small enough, maybe he didn’t finish middle school and that’s why he’s stupid.

“I’m… not a cop,” he said slowly, watching the kid’s reactions. “Again-- how did you get up here, and what the fuck did you come out of?”

“Well, uh, so…to answer the first question,” the kid rubbed his neck like he was nervous and looked away before answering. “I don’t know?” He shrugged and grinned at Jason in a “what are you gonna do?” kind of way. It rankled him for some reason, knowing somehow that the kid wasn’t being completely forthcoming. 

He shifted his other hand to his hip where the second pistol rested and nudged the other in the kid’s direction again. He would never actually shoot a child, but man this kid was irritating him worse than when Dick ran out of cereal.

Jason’s shoulders ticked slightly as he looked at the kid, studied him for a moment. “Say I believe you. How, exactly, did you intend to get back down ?” He took a step forward, intending to scare the kid. Just a little. Look, he popped up out of a Lazarus Pit that definitely was not on the roof of a building before. A little intimidation was called for.

“What makes you think you can’t believe me? People say I’m very trustworthy,” the kid twisted his lips and rubbed his jaw like he was thinking. “Well, most people would I guess…okay like three people, maybe four,” he turned from contemplative to pouting. “Could we just move to a different question man?”

Jason deadpanned. He knew, logically, that the voice modulator in his mask would keep the emotion mostly out of his tone, but…come on. He can only disguise the irritation so much. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you haven’t answered either of my other questions. You’re not a very good liar kid.”

“I mean, I did answer the first question,” the kid cocked a couple of finger guns at Jason and he felt his eye begin to twitch. “I don’t know how I got up here. As for the others…” the kid’s voice faded off as he looked away from Jason and shuffled his feet. He grunted to let the kid know he saw what he was trying, and his shoulders slumped when he seemed to realize he wasn’t escaping. “Um, so, the thing I came out of? Uh, that’s harder to explain.” 

Jason knew that grin. It was the same one his brothers used whenever they wanted him to ignore the fact they did something to piss him off. Fuck that, if it didn’t work with his brothers it wouldn’t work with this random kid.

”Enlighten me,” he drawled, stepping forward again, pulling back the hammer of his pistol with an ominous click . The safety was still engaged, so it wasn’t like he even could shoot-- it was mostly an intimidation tactic.

His eyes couldn’t possibly get any wider, but the kid stood before him starting to only now freak out at a gun pointing him down apparently. He leaned backwards instinctually and Jason stepped forward in warning for the kid not to run.

“Um, so, funny thing is…” He shifted minutely, the distance he made shouldn’t have changed anything. Yet Jason froze as the swirling mass in front of him began to shrink, his heart hammering as he saw wind whipping the kids clothes around suddenly. 

He couldn’t let this kid get sucked back into whatever the hell this thing was. Muttering a curse, he shoved his pistol back into its holder and rushed forward with his arm outstretched towards the young teen, who was…smiling?

“So, funny thing is, my ride's here? Don’t want to keep the meter running you know,” he lifted his right leg back and leaned. Jason’s eyes widened as the green vortex seemed to close in around the kid while it closed. “Maybe next time we can talk about that stench surrounding you? Jeez, it was a good thing I didn’t eat lunch today,” He grinned at Jason, a fang peeking out over his lip. “See ya later, Stinky Hood!” 

Then he was gone. One step back and he was sucked into the Lazarus pit and he disappeared along with it.

What. The. Fuck.

Tapping his comms furiously for Babs, he rushed to his bike down below and decided he was going straight to the Cave.

Because what the fuck just happened?

****

“You guys think Jason has busted a vein in his neck yet?” Steph whispered into comms. They were positioned in different locations around the League of Assassins base they were staking out. It was one of the few US based locations they had any knowledge of, thankfully located not even a day’s flight with the batplane from Gotham.

Dick scrunched his eyebrows in confusion and turned in the general direction he knew she was hiding. “I’m sorry, what?”

He heard her snicker and respond, “You know, those neck veins that pop out when he’s like, really mad? Do you think it finally exploded when B said he had to stay in the Cave after learning about the portable pits?”

“Tt, if Todd allows that to affect his performance, then that just proves his unprofessionalism,” Damian huffed, adding his two cents into the conversation.

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed into his hand. Tapping his comms with the other, he admonished Damian. “Baby Bat, that isn’t a nice thing to say.” 

“ Tt, ” was his only response from the twelve-year-old. Steph started laughing again and Dick could hear Tim commenting on how pissed Jason looked from his position at the Bat Computer.

They were currently on a three-person stake out at the nearest US League base they had knowledge of to follow a working theory that the new meta was either working for, or created by someone higher up within the League. If they were an innocent civilian who lost control of their new powers then that’s one thing, but with the bats, all possibilities had to be accounted for. Their main concern was that it was a member who had been experimented on to activate their meta genes and manipulate them to something that would benefit Ra’S and his goals. 

Dick was really hoping that wasn’t the case.

But after what happened in the cave earlier on when Jason came storming in? It was an all hands on deck situation now.

He and Cass had been down in the cave doing some work on their weapons before patrol later that night, Dick’s escrima sticks were running low on power and needed juicing up. It was quiet, almost peaceful, until Tim and Duke came bursting in through the underground entrance on Signal’s motorbike. He had heard his younger brothers before he saw them, and what he had heard was arguing.

Which is something the older sibling never wants to hear.

“Duke! I’m telling you I need to do some more research on this new meta!” Tim was yelling over the sound of the motorbike’s engine rumbling. He watched as Tim hopped off clumsily, his focus more on his phone than where his feet were going.

Duke turned off the bike, making the echoes from it recede so the Cave was near-silent once more, only the humming of electricity in the air left. He pulled off his helmet in time for Dick to see him roll his eyes heavily and send a look over at Tim’s retreating back.

“Tim, I’m telling you I saw nothing with my powers when you showed me where you last saw the meta,” he called out, arms raised up like he was lifting Simba up in the air. “So, because I’m inclined to believe this didn’t happen, I’m gonna ask again–when was the last time you slept bro?”

Dick walked over, confusion coloring his features as he stood next to Tim at the desk. His younger brother, of course, had gone straight to his chair at the computer and began pulling up the files from his personal device to be shown up on the big screen. In the corner, he had pulled up a blank mission report form to start filling out.

Dick squinted as he watched Tim type out the title… ”Possible Encounter with Meta who Controls Lazarus Waters”.

What the hell? Dick felt his thoughts freeze as he startled, not paying attention for a moment to his brothers still arguing next to him.

“Bro, seriously, I think you–” Duke started to speak, but Tim spun his chair around so fast his legs fanned out at them. It broke Dick from his thoughts immediately–turns out having size ten loafers smack into your knees suddenly did the trick, that’s for sure.

A deep frown marred Tim’s face as he glared at Duke. “Do not try to suggest that I am hallucinating from lack of sleep again,” he warned.

Dick winced in sympathy as Duke rubbed his neck awkwardly. No one liked to get on Tim’s bad side, he was incredibly good at pranks. Dick was still getting random notifications from dating apps he never signed up for–and couldn’t delete. But looking between the two, he noticed the dark circles under both boys’ eyes. He sighed and decided to help one brother even if it pissed off the other one.

“I mean, Timbers, it has happened before,” he hedged. Tim’s glare turned to him now and he crossed his arms, upset. “Remember that time Alfie went out of town for the weekend to visit the Kents? You hopped yourself up on twice as much caffeine as normal and stayed up for multiple days,” he cut a quick glance at Duke who was shuffling away from the situation. Coward. “You swore up and down you had seen Kon-El fly through Gotham in his birthday suit.”

While it would have been totally believable if the kid had gotten drunk, he had an alibi that weekend as he was working at Ma and Pa Kents’ farm. They had fully believed Tim though, and had been running around Gotham looking for the young Super all day until he called Dick asking why Tim was blowing up the teen’s phone with weird messages. They had promptly drugged Tim’s next cup of coffee and dragged him to bed where they locked him in his room until he slept for at least ten hours.

“I still say he was lying through his teeth! I know what I saw!” Tim defended himself. 

As he stubbornly argued with Duke, Dick heard the elevator doors opening and turned to see Bruce walking into the Cave, looking down and distracted by his league communicator. But once he got closer and heard the raised voices of his sons, he paused and Dick knew the man was considering running upstairs for Alfred to handle this instead before they noticed him.

So, naturally, he didn’t let him escape.

“Bruce! Can you come help us convince Tim–” He started to call out, but the little bugger to his left interrupted him.

“Excuse you Dick, but mmph–!” It was a big brother’s job to stop their younger siblings from talking stupid. Sometimes that required actually covering their mouths–at the risk of being licked. Like Tim was doing now, ew.

Ignoring his brother’s attempts, he continued, “Anyway! We need you to tell Timmy he needs more sleep, he seems to be hallucinating again B,” he told their father. Bruce’s eyebrows furrowed deeper than Jason’s during Scrabble Nights (the man loved using the thesaurus in his brain to beat them mercilessly) as he stepped up to join the little party they had going around the computer.

“Boys, explain,” he ordered. His eyes shifted to the computer screen and scanned the little information Tim had pulled up on screen, Duke debriefing them on what happened since Tim called out to him while he was on patrol. Baby Bird kept interjecting at certain points to tell them his side of the story as well. 

Apparently, in his Engineering 101 class there was a guy ( about my age but looks younger, bright blue eyes and a nice smile, the few times I’ve seen it in class ) who could seemingly control Lazarus Waters. Per Tim, he got into an argument with the guy ( he knew I was tailing him somehow and dragged me off! I was so surprised I may have…accidentally accused him of cheating… ) and he felt some kind of strong wave of intimidation from the guy before he left. Tim said he chased him but then he had heard the guy yell out and next thing he knew there was a small pool of Lazarus Water ( it was right after he turned the corner , him summoning it is the only thing that makes sense! )

It all sounded pretty far fetched, even for the world of capes and martians they lived in. 

Honestly, Dick was inclined to believe Signal on the situation. Cutting his eyes over to Bruce confirmed he agreed as well that Tim was simply sleep deprived and imagining things again.

“You guys don’t believe me!” Tim shouted, spinning his chair again in a frustrated circle. He blew a raspberry with his lips and muttered, “You’re all trying to gaslight me right now. I swear I know what I saw.” 

He tried to sound confident in his words, but there was now a little doubt creeping in; it seemed  like they were all ganging up on him. Dick felt bad, seeing Tim’s shoulders hunch in around his ears as he started pouting and listlessly swiping on his tablet.

“Baby Bird, I–” He started to say, but the loud revving of an engine cut him off. The noise getting louder as a motorcycle sped into the cave, tires squealing and leaving black marks on the steel platform as it came to a stop. 

They all turned, expecting a criminal and lifting out their weapons, only to see Jason’s bright red helmet. Which he reached up to remove and throw on the ground in a fit as he got off his bike, his posture stiff and angry. 

“Jaylad, what are you doing–” Bruce started to ask but Jason held up a hand. Damn, this family really liked cutting each other off mid-sentence huh? Dick thought to himself.

“Can it Old Man!” He stomped up the stairs in his heavy boots and stopped at the desk. Shoving Tim aside with a muttered “move it Replacement”, he started tapping on the keys to bring up a video feed. They all cautiously gathered around him to watch, curiosity outweighing anything other emotions they’d be feeling at Jason’s impromptu arrival. 

Before pressing ‘play’ though, Jason’s hands tightened into fists on the desk as he bowed his head before the screen. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Does ANYONE want to explain to me why I just met a kid who came in–and out of–a goddamn LAZARUS PIT IN THE SKY?” 

He smacked the enter key to play the video feed from what seemed to be his body cam. At first it was just Jason on a rooftop as the sun started getting a little lower in the sky (he must’ve had a long night to just finish patrol) before the feed quickly moved to the right. There on the screen, they watched as a puddle of bright green something started to disappear before Jason’s eyes. They heard him curse and saw his arm reach up to tap on his helmet, but a moment later his head swiveled to the left. 

There they saw a swirling pool of green form in the sky, a couple of feet above a nearby rooftop it seemed. Watching as Jason began running the few buildings over to investigate, only to see a shadowy figure fall out of the vortex at an odd angle like they were falling forwards. 

The following exchange was strange to Dick’s ears and he raised an eyebrow at his little brother. He couldn’t help but be a little disbelieving of the situation, but the proof was there on the screen. Even though it was a little distorted --sort of like trying to take a picture with a potato or something because everything was just a little fuzzy or too bright–and when the kid (because everyone was a kid to him now, damn Dick was getting old) spoke there was a strange feedback. It almost sounded like he was on a loop recording of himself talking, so you could hear his voice twice. They only got every other word he said and it was not very clear, but even Dick could tell he was a spitfire and probably a good portion of the reason why Jason was so aggravated right now.

Then he heard Duke gasp as the vortex began shrinking and the figure took a step backwards while they heard Jason yell. The light changed just slightly when the kid moved and they saw messy black hair and finger guns more clearly, before the kid slipped into the vortex and disappeared.

When the video ended, everything was quiet for a moment. Then they all heard a loud smack  and looked over to see Tim slapping the armrests on his chair, a maniacal grin on his face.

“AHA!” he shouted out, pointing fingers at Bruce, Dick and Duke. “You tried to gaslight me! You tried! But HA, I didn’t imagine SHIT !” The cackling continued as some of them nervously backed away.

“What the fuck is wrong with Replacement? Did he finally go crazy?” Jason jerked a thumb at Tim who was now tipping his chair back and steepling his fingers together.

Dick was trying to ignore Baby Bird and Duke was swiftly making his way across the room. Sometimes, he was pretty sure that kid had the most sense of anyone in this family.

Tim had been reveling in… whatever he was feeling right then. But upon being called out, he suddenly jumped up from his chair with his fists pumping up in a victory pose. He shouted out, “Vindication!” and it echoed around the cave as Bruce just sighed at his son’s antics.

Coming back into the moment, Dick partially listened to his siblings bickering in the comms as he redirected his attention to the base nearby. The high-tech lenses in their masks allowed Dick to zoom in on the brightest window in the League, as well as glance at Barbara’s messages in his HUD. Within it, he could see multiple trainees performing lunges as they practiced the League’s skills repeatedly until it was burned into their muscles.

He didn’t even have to wonder who their instructor was. He knew from the sweat pouring down their faces and the lashes on their arms from any mistakes they made. 

Fucking Slade .

If Dick had a dollar for every time that Slade happened to be involved in something that Dick was investigating, he’d be richer than Bruce. Probably. They’d had an… odd relationship over the years--from flat out enemies to rivals, then occasional partners (no, not in that way)--and yet, they always returned to their respective moral compasses and ended as enemies again. 

Dick despised Slade, so of course he had to show up on this intel mission. Of course , because that’s just his luck.

He tapped his comms twice to get his siblings’ attention, waiting for them all to shush before he began talking. 

“Slade’s on site, keep an eye out for him-- Robin, no seeking him out , this is a recon mission,” he subvocalized, making sure to keep his voice as quiet as possible. Damian huffed in response, but didn’t say anything, so Dick kept going. “Robin, RR, what’s our best way to check the Pits?”

“ Most likely, you’ll want to go in through the underground entrance, then through the west entrance into the garage,” Tim hummed over the comms, undoubtedly pulling up schematics for the building. “ I’m sure the elevator down will be heavily guarded, no doubt, so take the stairwell instead. It’s your more likely option to get downstairs, but it’s about ten stories to get to the Pit’s location. ”

Which meant that they would have to be careful, there was too much distance to travel without getting caught. Dick tapped his fingers on his comms to silence them for a moment as he thought out the best strategy–should he keep Robin as their lookout so he didn’t get emotional if he encountered Slade? The kid hated the man even more than Dick did and puberty was not helping Damian’s impulse control. It would probably be safer all around if he kept his current position and Steph went in as a distraction since she was good in a crowd, multiple weapons at her disposal to disarm and disorient her enemies. 

Nodding his head, Dick tapped his comms again to inform his siblings of the plan, but instead heard yelling coming from all ends. He instinctually went to yank the comm piece out of his ear like a headphone that suddenly had terrible feedback screaming in his ear, but stopped himself.

Rubbing his now aching head, Dick called out above the noise, “Hey! What the hell happened? Why is everyone–”

“DICK!” Tim shouted, cutting him off. He grunted like Bruce as his brother’s icon appeared on the HUD contacts, pulling up a video feed from the BatComputer. “Look! Spoiler spotted this from the position she is at right now–it’s the meta kid!”

He blinked in surprise and focused on his HUD, pulling up the feed Tim was sharing with everyone to see a different angle of the training room that wasn’t visible to him from his position–too many trees on the property blocking this window view. From the feed though, Dick could clearly see inside as the trainees began panicking and running around, knocking into each other. Slade though, he was standing stock still in the middle of the chaos inside, staring ahead at something in the middle of the room. 

“What is happening in there?” Dick whispered, watching as the older man slowly reached for the swords on his back. The blades he only drew when facing against whatever he instinctively deemed a threat. 

They all watched the feed as the wind began whipping around inside the building, hair and clothing moving as fast as though the people inside were in a hurricane. After a moment of chaos though, everything suddenly stilled before a small green speck blinked into existence. Dick zoomed in with his HUD lenses and saw the speck that was no bigger than an apple begin to grow, rapidly expanding until it was as large as Slade was tall. A green hue glowed against the man’s split orange and black suit, lighting up the room like a child’s night light.

“Hey…isn’t that the thing–” Steph started to ask before Jason began yelling into comms.

“MOTHERFUCKER! That’s the thing the brat came out of before!” He began grumbling to himself as Tim could be heard complaining. Something about being shoved onto the cold floor?

Before anyone could respond though, the feed shifted and Slade was now bracing himself in a low crouch with his blades extended. He was watching the swirling green vortex in the middle of the room intently, and Dick zoomed in with his HUD contacts as much as he could to try and see inside the vortex.

There! He thought, mind racing as he saw a shadowy figure move towards the surface of the vortex. The only question Dick had was, if this kid is working for or being controlled by the League like they were thinking, then why was Slade reacting like there was an enemy? Could it be this is a project he wasn’t aware of? Or maybe their theory was wrong and this is just an unfortunate meta; one whom they needed to keep away from the League’s grasp.

“Nightwing, what are your orders? Do we proceed or hold our positions?” Robin called out to him over comms. Dick knew he was most likely itching to move in on the building and attack Slade, so he turned in Robin’s general direction and gave him the hand signal to ‘stay put’ while he checked communications from Barbara.

Finally able to access the cameras inside, sending you feed now. Is what she wrote to him before sending a new video to pop up on his HUD, inside the building and clearer than what he got from zooming in on Spoiler’s shared feed.

With this new angle, they could see a short figure coming through the vortex. The figure was dressed casually from what Dick could tell, a hoodie and jeans, and they were twisting their head in every direction like they were confused. Until they stopped moving and looked down from their position in the air to see Slade below them. Dick’s muscles tensed as he prepared to call out for his siblings to close in and enter the brewing fight.

“Spoiler, Robin, on my mark,” he began to call out to them, one hand reaching for an escrima stick to run with. But before he could move forward, he saw the figure jump out of the vortex and land on Slade’s head.

What the fuck?

Thanks to Oracle hacking into the security cameras they had audio, so they heard Slade grunt and call out in anger, “Who dares–?!” 

But the kid didn’t seem to pay attention or care because he literally stood on Slade’s head for a second, looking around and then vaulted off like the man was a diving board.

“Whoops, sorry, dude!” the kid called, flipping away with a corkscrew, landing in a perfect Spider-Man crouch to absolute silence. “Dude, you look like a Deadpool ripoff. But orange. Who hurt you, bro?”

“ Excuse me?! ” Slade growled, taking a step forward, his grip tightening around the hilts of his twin swords. “Who the fuck is-”

“And what’s up with the swords, by the way? Do people still use swords? Are you a ninja?” He asked rapidly, dodging a slice from Slade’s blade. “Whoa, dude, you need to label your sharp objects! That’s against OSHA violations!” The kid shrugged, hand on his chin, “I mean, I would know all about OSHA violations, so you can trust me!”

Dick stared in open-mouthed shock at this absolute smol being of chaos taunting Slade Fucking Wilson, only for a blur of red and green to track from his left side, rushing towards the central plaza. “Wait, Robin, no!” he yelped, bolting into action to drag his little brother away from his Greatest Nemesis. 

“Silence Nightwing!” Robin snarled, ducking out of Nightwing’s grasp as the taller brother caught up. They continued rushing towards the main building where the action was taking place, Damian dodging all of Dick’s attempts to stop him. Smashing into the large bay window and ducking into a roll, he called out, “You shall not stand in my way!” 

Dick groaned, long-sufferingly as he shot out his grapple to the roof, swinging in behind Robin. “I guess that this is what we’re doing now,” he muttered. 

The kid slapped a hand over his face, even as he hopped back to avoid Slade. “Oh, great, the furry brigade has arrived,” he sighed. “Gucci,” he said in a flat voice, his stare dead as he watched the bats roll in. “I’m just gonna… let y’all handle this. ‘Kay, thanks.” 

Dick was a little offended at his tone honestly. Like, rude. But regardless, they had an oath to protect every citizen, regardless of how snarky they were. So, he slipped back into fighting, keeping Damian from going too far while taking potshots at Slade. It was worth it.

Meanwhile, Spoiler sidled over to the kid who was watching in mild satisfaction. “Hey there,” she greeted. “So, what’s up with the glowing green portal of death?”

“Oh, that?” the kid said, glancing over his shoulder, clearly about to lie through his teeth. “No idea.”

“How’d you get here, then?”

“Second verse, same as the first.”

“Riiiight, riiiight,” Spoiler drawled. “You need a ride home or anything?”

“Oh, no,” the kid answered with a polite smile. “I can get myself home just… fine… shit.”

Dick knew that Spoiler was absolutely grinning , her eyebrows probably drawing together in excitement like whenever she pulled off a good prank. He knew that look well, unfortunately. “Gotcha, kid. So, you wanna be honest with me now, or are we going to have to have a long, long , painfully boring conversation?”

Dick certainly did not want to be a part of that conversation, but he knew Steph was just trying to lower the kid’s guard by acting casual. He deflected a strike from Slade as Robin rushed past, sliding between the man’s legs to kick them out from under him. It didn’t work and Slade jumped in the air in time, somersaulting over Dick’s head and landing behind him.

“Ancients spare me a boring conversation,” the kid groaned. “Look, if I tell you what you want to know, will you leave me alone?”

Okay, she was getting somewhere with him. He grunted as he reached behind with an escrima stick to block Slade’s next attack. Damian crying out in frustration to the side, but Steph continued her conversation like she was catching up with someone at the grocery store.

“ I will,” Spoiler promised. “No promises for Murder Robin and Nightwing over there.” 

Damian was probably going to try to stab her later for that nickname, Dick surmised.

The kid shrugged. “I’ll take my chances. The green glowing soup though? It’s like… it’s like a fast travel point. Except it’s completely randomized, and I have no choice in where I end up.” He watched as the kid hung his head miserably. “At least not yet. Eventually I’ll be able to control it, or so I’ve been told, also are we in a goddamn ninja dojo? ”

“Cool, cool. Any connection to Lazarus Pits?” He heard Spoiler ask in the background, completely ignoring the last part of the kid’s question.

“The what?” the kid responded, confusion lacing his tone. Dick flipped around in time to see him giving her an absolutely baffled look. 

“The… green glowing bubbling pits of liquid undeath?”

“The WHAT?!” He heard a sudden shout. It surprised him and Slade got too close for comfort, abandoning his right sword for his fist.

“I’m gonna take that as a no, then,” Dick called over his shoulder as he punched Slade in the jaw, Damian dropping to quite literally kick Slade in the shins. “But, isn’t that the thing you came out of?”

“Uh, no??” the kid replied, getting visibly grossed out as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing at the circling green… something behind him. “That’s ectoplasm. Clean ectoplasm, notably, and if your ectoplasm is bubbling ? Dude, you’ve got an icky as hell situation on your hands.”

Dick grunted as a fist connected with his midsection, but before he could retaliate he heard Slade cry out. Looking up, he saw Robin jumping off the back of a collapsed trainee on the floor, his sword raised high as he landed it through Slade’s shoulder. Leaping off the man’s back, Robin landed nearby and Dick took the opportunity to turn the shock up–stabbing Slade’s stomach with an escrima stick. He landed on the ground in a boneless heap, but Dick kicked him for good measure. You have to double check right?

Job finished, Dick left Damian to tie up the man as he slowly lifted himself from where he was crouched on the floor. Putting a hand to his midsection and wincing, he turned to watch the kid throwing his hands around as he spoke about (what sounded like nonsense) to Spoiler.

Robin dusted off his hands as he finished tying up Slade, leaving him as a ‘fuck you’ present to his mother. “Continue,” he ordered primly. 

“What’s the magic word?” the kid shot back.

Before Damian could commit murder… again… Dick stepped in, setting a hand on Robin’s shoulder to pull him back. “So, just to clarify, you’ve never heard of Lazarus Pits, even though we’re effectively standing over one?”

The kid blinked, then wrinkled his nose. “Oh shit, deadass? Is that what I’m smelling? I thought that was just, y’know, the lingering smell of Gotham, what with all y’all’s… fuckery. How far down is it?”

Spoiler shrugged. “About… two, maybe three stories down? Not far.”

“Goddamnit,” the kid muttered- and really, Dick needed to get his name, there’s only so many times he can call someone ‘the kid.’ “Add it to the fuckin’ list I guess…my desk is more paperwork than wood at this point…”

A faint woosh from behind got everyone’s attention as the portal started to close, getting many, many curses in a language Dick couldn’t quite pin. “Fuck, damnit-- look. You find any more of these pits, I need you to write down their uh… uh… the numbers on a map for me,” the teenager said quickly, scribbling a quick sigil on a piece of paper notably stolen from the wall of the training room. Was that supposed to be a motivational poster for assassins? “If you need me, then just… light this on fire? I think?”

“That did not sound confident,” Damian muttered under his breath, only for Spoiler to flick his ear. “Ow!”

“Ignore him,” Dick responded calmly. “Light it on fire, are you sure about that?”

“Either that or dunk it into the bubbly ecto, both’ll probably work. But it’s gonna get rid of the sigil, so, I guess, use it wisely?”

Dick started forward, a question on his lips as the kid took a step back. “Sorry, dude!” the kid called as he stepped away, dropping into the portal. “Gotta ghost! ”

Was that a pun? It gave pun vibes.

“I like him!” Spoiler announced, putting her hands behind her head as she strutted from the room cackling.

“If B’s listening,” Nightwing snickered as he followed, giving Slade one last kick in the ribs. For good measure. “I call first dibs on adoption.”

“ You’re not adopting him ,” Tim insisted over comms. 

“Bitch, watch me. ” Dick grinned as he heard Tim cursing him out over comms.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Danny really had to take a long look at his life thus far and just… contemplate how he’d gotten here. Really, like… how ? He’d grown up around a relatively unknown type of radiation , he’d been killed (and simultaneously resurrected) at fourteen-years-old, became a goddamn superhero , and now he had to balance the whole ‘Ghost King’ thing with college! All while trying to secure a good internship over the summer (one that paid, preferably) and still acting as a superhero (albeit retired but it was a hard habit to break). Shit, and, oh yeah…

Now there was fucking Batman . 

The absolute last person that Danny wanted the attention of was now on his trail, and he could only dodge the man’s whole team before Danny managed to slip up. It was literally inevitable that it was going to happen (i.e, Fenton Luck rearing its ugly head). Especially since, before all this nonsense with portals had started, he’d been gunning for an engineering internship at the Watchtower. 

Listen, okay? His Obsession may have been Protection, but Danny lived for space. He lived in an age where there were actual legitimate alien superheroes that came from other planets living amongst humans.

Sure, yes, his ghost form didn’t need oxygen and therefore he could theoretically go out into space if he wanted to, but that felt kind of like cheating. He wanted to earn the ability to go out into space, not…just skip past all of the requirements. While Danny knew he’d never get into NASA as an astronaut like he had dreamed of (not after the Accident changed everything), the Justice League was thankfully more welcoming to metas. On the Watchtower he could not only experience space, but he could be a part of making a difference and protecting people without getting knocked into next week by Skulker.

Sure, being dead wasn’t technically a meta power, but like…he could pass it off as one? If Danny stuck to one power and one power only, probably keeping it at a lower level than he’d normally use it at, then it should be fine and inconspicuous. Like…pretending to density shift instead of his pure intangibility, just keeping it limited to one limb at a time. That had massive potential for engineering too, so he was sure they’d appreciate that up on the Watchtower.

But alas, now Danny had to deal with these stupid portals on top of all his other worries. Luckily after the first set of wild teleporting, he’d gotten it under some form control (albeit with a little help from Cujo and Wulf). Not…the best instructors since one was a puppy and one didn’t know how to really teach because everything was just a gut instinct with him. Seriously, if Danny had to hear Wulf tell him to just “feel the tingling in his tail before shaking it out” to focus on portal making, he’d go insane! But eventually, he got the hang of feeling the ectoplasm building up in his fingertips and learning how to redirect it through his system to avoid creating accidental portals anymore.

Training had not been fun though. He still felt really bad for scaring that old lady when he opened a big one in the middle of her living room instead of Pandora’s home. That had been awkward, a glowing ghost boy standing in front of her rocker all of a sudden with a giant pool of death swirling behind him? She thought he had been the Grim Reaper coming for her and started throwing things at him. Wulf had laughed when he saw the goose egg on Danny’s forehead from her throwing a lamp at him. He had not found it as funny.

But, on the bright side, he took that as motivation and learned to control his portals rather quickly after that. 

Bonus points! It’s been a few weeks now and none of the bats have come looking for him yet so he was starting to feel pretty good about things. Exams were over, the project for Engineering club was finished, and he nailed the portals. Things were looking up for Danny.

But that’s usually when shit hits the fan. Like today! He was just minding his business, walking around downtown looking for whatever smelled good for lunch when he got an insistent tugging sensation pulling on his stomach. It felt like his stomach was cramping–the kind where when you haven’t eaten in four days so your stomach finally starts screaming at you to feed it. But he had eaten breakfast that morning? It was lunchtime and he was hungry for sure, but not that hungry.

“Falafels! Hot and fresh falafels, come and get them!” A street vendor called out. Danny turned in the direction of the voice and saw someone with a cart on the street corner ahead, calling out to passersby to stop. He sniffed the air and oh yum …the falafels the man was pandering smelled amazing . His stomach growled and the tugging sensation went away so he shrugged and started walking over.

Maybe I’m just hungrier than I thought? I was practicing portal making and that does take a lot of energy sometimes, he thought to himself as he maneuvered through the crowd on the sidewalk.

A few minutes later though, he felt the tugging again and it knocked him off balance, causing him to bump into someone. He apologized quickly and hurried away, arm wrapped around his aching midsection. Why did it hurt so much? Even Danny’s back was hurting right now, it was less a quick tugging feeling and now it was getting stronger somehow. It felt like someone wrapped a heavy rope around him and started pulling him the opposite direction he was heading towards. It sucked.

Feeling somewhat nauseous fighting the pain, he trudged forward towards his goal. The falafel stand was so close he could already taste it, the scent of the herbs wafting in the air and making his mouth drool. For a moment, Danny forgot about the odd pain he was feeling as he sniffed the air and practically ran to the vendor’s cart, eyeing the menu hungrily.

“Well, hello there young man!” The vendor, a tall smiling man called out when he noticed Danny pop up. “What can I help you with today?” He gestured at his booth with a grand sweep, and Danny’s eyes didn’t know where to settle first.

Apparently, his gut thought he should look at the dirty ground. Because another wave of pain rolled over Danny like he had just been knocked over by Lunch Lady’s fist. He groaned as he grabbed his stomach, leaning over the edge of the booth and leaning his forehead on the menu for a second.

He heard clattering on the table before the vendor spoke quietly near his ear, “Sir customer, are you alright? Should I call for medical attention?”

Danny peeked his eyes open to see the vendor had set his utensils down and was leaning over the makeshift counter, concern lining his face as he watched Danny. It was kind of the man to worry, but he didn’t want to impede on the guy’s business. If the falafels tasted as good as they smelled, he bet the guy would be making good money and he didn’t want to ruin that. He'd rather be a repeat customer honestly.

“Thank you, but there’s no need,” he waved off the man’s concern and straightened up. He was still in pain and now it felt like there was a pounding in his head, like someone had been calling his name with a megaphone but it was muffled by a brick wall. “Probably just hunger pains, I’ll be okay. Especially after I eat some of this falafel–it smells amazing!” He grinned, faking cheer to convince the man he was fine (so not fine), get his food and go.

The vendor seemed unconvinced that he was okay, raising an eyebrow at him as the man slowly reached for his tools again. He quietly prepared and packaged a to-go container of fresh falafel for Danny as the halfa was sweating bullets, pain lacing through every limb now.

“Here you are dear customer, please enjoy,” he told Danny, handing the bag of food over and taking the bills Danny had crumpled in his hand while waiting. He nodded at the vendor and slowly moved away from the stand, shuffling under a random awning and pulling out his food. Maybe it was just really really severe hunger pains? He was sure he’d feel better once he relaxed and ate his tasty food.

“Ancients, this smells incredible…” Danny almost whimpered as he shakily pulled a piece out of the bag and lifted it up to his lips. He relaxed his tense stance for just a moment, pulled by the smell of his lunch and it seemed that was enough incentive for the tugging to come back full force.

“Whoa!” He yelped, clutching his doggy bag as the world seemed to swirl and distort around him. The pain he had been feeling all over his body suddenly intensified on one spot behind his belly button and he felt himself being yanked away from his location. It was the weirdest sensation (and he knew weird , okay?), it felt like the world was being squeezed into a tiny box and he was being squished inside when he obviously didn’t fit. But it only lasted a few seconds before he felt like he’d been pushed out in the same way as a jack-in-the-box, spring loaded and ready to creep you out.

Oh, and he was in his ghost form now too? 

The colors all blurred together around him, the view he had of a busy Gotham city-street and sounds of people honking their horns or complaining being replaced with near silence. The bright sunshine of the random afternoon Gotham decided it liked having the sun around was replaced with a dark space, so dark he couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of him. Danny’s ears popped when the world stopped looking like a spinning color wheel and he could hear noise again, a small few voices arguing with each other.

“No, no you forgot the little swirl in the corner on this side!”

“No, I didn’t. It’s exactly the same as this one!”

A loud groan reached his ears as the first voice responded, “Little Wing, that’s a copy that you’re copying!”

The first voice–a man–was met with silence for a moment, the kind where you had to think on your feet so you could respond and not sound like an idiot. Danny took the pause as his chance to get his bearings though, twisting around and blinking rapidly to remove the spots from his vision. Finally focusing though, he could see the room he landed in was not as dark as he thought originally–and that there was a faint light emanating from below, similar to that of a phone screen but way bigger. 

Turning intangible and invisible, Danny floated himself forward a little to peek around a stalagmite (stalactite? Which was it again? He always forgot) and saw a giant penny. No joke, it was probably six stories tall–and there was a dinosaur next to it?? Holy crap, this place was starting to look like a memorial hall for the abandoned U.S. Seven Wonders! You know, like the world’s biggest ball of twine?

Fascinated, Danny went to fly closer for a better look when a feminine voice shrieked below him. It startled him and he almost dropped his bag of falafel–that would have been terrible.

“Shit! Guys, I think we messed up!” The girl’s voice rang up to where Danny was hiding in the ceiling. He was really avoiding looking down because he had a bad feeling he might know where he was summoned to.

Oh, and that is totally what happened. He’s been lucky enough that no one has attempted (or succeeded) in summoning him since he became Ghost King. But Clockwork and some of the older ghosts did warn him what the occurrence may feel like to warn him so he wouldn’t be caught off guard if a mortal managed it. He knew how to make his sigil, of course, and for emergencies all of Team Phantom keeps a copy on them. But, um, they usually just text or call so he kind of forgot that people even could summon him.

He also forgot he gave a sigil to the bats last time he saw them. His gut told him that he was going to regret that decision very soon.

“What the hell do you mean we messed up?” The second voice from earlier asked her, his voice surly. 

“Uh, well…I think we’ve all just been making copies of the copies and uh,” he heard paper rustling around as she answered hesitantly. “I think we also lost the original one?”

There was barely a second of silence before all hell broke loose on the ground below him. Danny finally caved and looked down, spotting a giant computer that Tucker would probably salivate over and try to hack if he saw it. Sitting at the computer was a figure hunched over the keyboard, clacking away and ignoring the chaos on the floor behind them.

Honestly? It really did look like straight chaos erupting. Danny watched as some of the bats (in and out of costume) scrambling around on the ground, some of them even slipping on sheets of paper and scattering markers everywhere. It looked like an art classroom threw up on the floor of the Bat Cave–because yeah, he was positive that’s where he ended up. 

“Jay, you saw it last didn’t you? Where did it go?” Nightwing (sans his mask) was jumping around to avoid the scattered papers, eyes frantic as he searched the floor. 

“Me? No, apparently I was just ‘copying a copy’ according to you,” the man who spoke wore an old leather jacket and used air quotations, pushing his fingers into Nightwing’s face. “Why don’t you ask yourself where it went! Weren’t you the one who said to keep it aside so it didn’t get mixed in?”

“Jay–” Nightwing started, but he slipped and fell. Danny choked back a laugh as he quietly enjoyed the show and his falafels before they grew cold.

“Tim, do you know–?” The blonde woman who noticed they lost the paper started to ask, body turned towards the figure at the computer. But she was stopped by Nightwing slapping a hand over her mouth, only for her to toss him over her shoulder with a glare. Wow, this was better than reality TV, he thought.

“What the hell–” She started but he shushed her from the floor. Danny cocked his head and switched from watching them to looking at the figure at the desk, now swiveling their chair around.

The falafel between his fingers promptly fell right back into the to-go bag he was now loosely holding onto in his shock. Sitting right there at the big computer in Batman's secret lair was his classmate. Pretty Stalker Boy was related to the bats??

Oh, hell. That made so much sense.

“What are you guys doing?” Pretty Stalker Boy scowled as the others assembled, standing and crossing his arms like he was about to ground them. It was kinda funny and Danny watched as a couple of the others blanched while Nightwing began frantically flapping his arms.

“Oh, nothing, nothing! We just, uh…misplaced something?” He shrugged from his position on the floor and Danny actually felt sorry for the guy. Pretty Boy sighed and got out of his chair, stomping his way closer and Danny had to use his super-hearing to listen to what he said.

“You better not have lost that sigil Dick, I swear to God…” he muttered before bending to dig through the pile of papers himself. “We need that to find the meta kid again. School’s out so I can’t find him there and I wanna talk to him about stuff.” Was that a blush, Pretty Boy? He wanted to talk, huh?

Well, Danny wanted to speak to him too. It’s not everyday a cute guy was so determined to meet him and talk. He was so expressive that Danny couldn’t wait to try and see how else his face could change. 

But they were panicking enough down there, and he figured, well. He’s already seen their secret identities, he might as well show himself. He did mean it when he told them to call him with the sigil in an emergency, but it seems they used it by accident and didn’t even realize it. He kinda figured the Big Bad Furry would’ve trained his fledgelings a little bit better.

Sighing, he closed up his bag of falafels and floated down to Pretty Boy’s abandoned chair, still invisible to the group. Once he got good and comfy though, he noticed that the man named Jay was staring right at him, brows furrowed and hand on his hip like he was reaching for something. Interesting. Danny tilted his head as he observed the larger man, the white tuft of hair amidst black and the slight sheen in his eyes that wasn’t a reflection of the computer monitor. 

Looks like this will be more fun than I thought it would be , Danny decided. He grinned to himself as he let his invisibility drop and reopened his bag of goodies. Jay immediately pulled out a gun and pointed it at him once he was visible, but it took a solid two bites of falafel before anyone else noticed the tension in the room and looked up. 

Once they had all noticed his presence, Danny waved nonchalantly. “So…I know that it’s summer break and all,” he waved his gloved hand at the mess they had made. “But aren’t we all a little too old to be playing summer camp arts and crafts?” He popped another bite of bread in his mouth and enjoyed the confusion and panic that swept across their faces.

Tim was so over today. 

Alfred cut off his coffee supply for the day so he was running on fumes, his siblings were messing around and making too much noise while he was working, and worst of all…they somehow lost the sigil they were given for Adoption Bait.

He had been listening to them play arts and crafts at Dick’s suggestion for hours now, attempting to recreate the sigil so they had back ups. There was a lot of arguing about whether the copies were accurate or not. Then there was arguing about using the copies to test their effectiveness. After that was just the general bickering that came from his siblings whenever they were in the same room for too long.

He’s just surprised that no one tried to maim or kill anyone else yet.

Trying his best to ignore them, he spent the day researching more into “Danny Nightingale” to find out more about the mysterious meta. So far they had tracked his power list as including control over Lazarus Waters alongside possible enhanced agility or speed. Based off of the video footage from the league base they infiltrated, the teenager was able to hold his own in a fight with Slade with a confidence one wouldn’t expect from a civilian who recently unlocked their meta abilities. Other than what they’ve seen with their own eyes, though…

He still basically didn’t exist. Which was so, so frustrating . Briefly, Tim considered screaming into his hands as his siblings bickered over the sigils, standing up to track down the original sigil in the mess of papers they’d been scribbling all over. Honestly . Sometimes he genuinely felt like he was the shepherd for a whole bunch of cats.

So when Jason pulled out his pistol and leveled it at the chair in front of the Batcomputer, Tim didn’t even flinch. He just sighed heavily and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes.

“ Aren’t we all a little old to be playing arts and crafts? ” a voice said, echoing through the cave in an eerie manner. Yes, the Cave was breezy as hell (given it was, in fact, a cave) but this was… different, somehow. An eeriness that set Tim’s skin crawling as he looked up.

For a moment, he really considered that he had been awake a little too long. A completely unknown person with snow-white hair stared back at him with eyes in an all too familiar shade of green, the backlight of the Batcomputer seeming to surround him in a very off-putting halo. It almost made him seem like he was glowing. 

…Scratch that, he was glowing, like someone had cracked open a glowstick and poured it all over the guy.

Weapons found hands faster than Tim could blink, emergency dominos yanked from pockets and slapped on as the kid raised his gloved hands. His outfit was… odd, even for their line of work. Black and white spandex, seemingly-- God love the man, but he couldn’t see even a thread of Kevlar anywhere, was it straight up spandex? His boots and gloves were white, along with a collar and an odd-looking symbol on his chest, sitting sideways in the chair with…

Was that a fucking falafel?

 Tim straightened, giving the guy a deadpan stare.

“Oh great, a new sleep paralysis demon,” he drawled. “Get out of my chair.”

“Hey, you summoned me, ” the white haired demon whined, dramatically throwing his hand-- falafel and all-- to his forehead like a Victorian lady with The Hysteria. “So given the whole cave thing, I’m gonna take a wild guess that you’re the Bats?”

Tim raised an eyebrow and gestured around to the rest of the room. “I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

“Let me guess: I’m at Kleinfeld's in Atlanta,” the mysterious new guy drawled.

“ Tim ,” Dick hissed as he got to his feet, scrambling to push his little brother behind him. “This is all a dream, weird glowy fellow, don’t worry. You’ll wake up in five minutes thinking ‘ wow, that was such a weird dream! ’”

The eyes of everyone in the Cave slowly turned to Dick, varying levels of what the fuck in their stares. “...Dickface,” Jason said slowly. “I know you can lie better than that.”

“Well I’m panicking okay?” Dick responded, throwing his arms out in a ‘help me, I’m an idiot’ gesture. “You do a better lie!”

“You’ve been in more stressful situations where you had to lie than this!” Jay shouted, gun lowered a little bit but still pointed at the unknown.

Dick just whined pitifully and Tim questioned how he was even the oldest of them, the man indulged his inner child a little too much sometimes. He shook his head and switched his gaze over to the guy dropping crumbs in his desk chair. Eye twitching, he told him, “Wrong guess, but I think you know that.”

The guy just smirked at him, “Okay, next try then: the abandoned theme park idea they had for the Disney Villains?”

“Weren’t they going to name that Defunctland?” Steph whispered to Jason, who shrugged.

“Dunno, don’t care.”

“Alright, final guess,” the demon hummed, sitting up properly with a grin that was just… a little too far into Uncanny Valley. Like, when they watched ‘The Polar Express ’ the first Christmas that Damian was with them, and Damian stabbed the TV when Tom Hanks came on the screen for the hot chocolate sequence. 

Tim was getting off-topic.

The guy met his gaze as he swung his feet off the armrest to plant them on the ground, taking a final bite of his falafel. “I’m in the Batcave, and you just accidentally summoned me without even realizing it,” he stated simply.

“Wait, what do you mean?” Dick’s brows were furrowed and he looked around at everyone. “Did you guys summon a teeny-bop demon to the cave?”

“A teeny-bop-- ” the demon echoed incredulously. “I’m not-- I-- hey! ”

“Wow, and I thought Timbo was articulate when he was flustered,” Jason cracked a small grin at him. “But it looks like you’ve got him beat, kid. Now, how about you actually explain what the fuck is going on before I shoot you?” He wiggled the arm holding the gun and stared the demon down. “My arm is getting really tired, you know?” 

“Don’t you know it’s rude to be pointing a gun at someone when they haven’t done anything?” He told Jason, hanging his head with a sigh. The demon put his hands on his hips and observed Jay for a second though when he looked up again. Cocking his head he told him, “Wow. You know, I thought that Vlad was walking garbage, but dude … when’s the last time you showered? ”

Tim couldn’t help it. He snorted.

Jason shot him a look of such utter and complete betrayal. “E tu, Brutus?”

Their impromptu guest cracked up laughing, grinning with teeth that were just a little too sharp to be completely human. “Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t help it. Your ecto is like, rancid though, my guy. My dude. My bro. Please let me fix it. You’re giving me an aneurysm just looking at you.”

Jason didn’t even respond for a second, simply gawking at the demon as he pleaded with hands folded together. Even his arm lowered, the gun landing by his side in his surprise. Shaking his head, Jason scowled and said, “Look here, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but I need you to do one thing. Do not call me bro or my dude or whatever else you’re thinking. Got it?”

He got a two finger salute as an answer, “Sure thing Jay!”

Tim watched as Jason’s eye twitched in annoyance and briefly thanked whatever deity existed that he both got to witness this absolute gift , and also that Jason had learned how to control the Pit Rage so well. He would’ve expected that the demon and the chair he sat in would already have been destroyed.

He was fond of that chair. It had his ass prints and everything.

“Anyway,” Steph called as she scampered over, abandoning their arts and crafts project in favor of this new entertainment. “You said we accidentally summoned you, but you’re not the guy that gave us the little paper.”

“Oh, right, that,” the demon laughed awkwardly, standing up and moving a few steps away from the chair. “So, uh…funny story about that, um...”

As Tim watched, a ring of bright light–almost like lightning–crackled around the demon’s waist, splitting in half and eclipsing their guest. The light was so all encompassing, it left little black spots dancing around his vision but he blinked them away quickly. He gaped as the light traveled up and down, black and white suit fading away into more normal clothes. The white boots changed to beat-up jeans and red Converse, while the symbol on his chest disappeared, being replaced by a worn NASA hoodie.

“Holy shit,” Steph whispered off to the side. Mentally, Tim was saying the same thing and freaking out. Because when the light finally finished traveling up his head, the demon’s hair changed to pitch black, and his eyes opened to the brightest blue he’s only seen once before–the chill he felt before running down his spine again upon meeting them. 

Fucking Adoption Bait grinned back, an absolutely shit-eating grin on his face as he met Tim’s gaze.

“Wassup?” He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket and rocked back on his feet.

“Shit, please no one tell B about this kid,” someone muttered.

Chapter Text

Once Danny had convinced everyone that he wasn’t, in fact, a threat to the secrets of the Bats by revealing his own secret (including introductions, FINALLY), everything seemed to ramp up in volume–if not excitement. 

Mostly, he was worrying about the state of his arm being attached to his body still as he was pulled over by the blonde girl to the mess of papers scattered over the table and floor. He observed the absolue fucking disaster it was before she shoved a random piece of scrap paper in his face. He went cross-eyed trying to get a look at it, but it was kind of hard when the thing was centimeters from his nose.

“Is the swirl supposed to go here?!” she demanded, pointing at a part on the offending paper. “Or does it go over here?”

Danny blinked in confusion, taking the piece of paper before he examined it closely. On the paper was a mess of scribbles that sort of (if he was being nice) looked like a circle, little tails splitting off on the sides. Honestly, it looked like a little kid drew it and he didn’t know how to tell these guys that they seem to have epically failed at copying his personal sigil. 

“Um… neither? That swirl doesn’t actually exist on my sigil,” he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “It’s actually supposed to be a star.”

Silence descended over the group for a brief, brief moment of peace. Danny locked eyes with Tim, giving him a helpless little shrug before the rest of the Bats erupted into chaos. Danny jumped as he was suddenly surrounded by screaming.

“ WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT’S A STAR?! ” The largest of them practically roared, his arms thrown up in the air and his eyebrows furrowing into a deep vee. Next to him, Nightwing turned to grin largely at his (obvious) brother.

“I told you! I told you it doesn’t go there!”

Frowning, the large man snarled, “Shut the fuck up, Dickwad, you’re no better!”

“Neither of you were right though, so ha-ha, I win! ” The blonde girl grinned smugly at the two arguing men, who paused in their impending screaming match to throw twin glares at her.

Danny just watched in silent amusement, taking a few steps over to stand next to Tim. At some point, his fellow student had acquired a blanket and a thermos of coffee. Danny felt a little disappointed it wasn’t branded. Like, come on. That’s prime merchandise material right there.

“Come on man,” he gestured at the thermos and Tim raised a single eyebrow at him. “You could at least put some stickers on that thing?”

“And make it identifiable?” Did Danny detect some sass in Stalker Boy’s tone? Oh, this would be interesting for sure.

“More like making it fun?” He gave Tim a lopsided grin as the other boy rolled his eyes. “C’mon, I mean you’ve got the opportunity right in front of you to–”

“I’m going to stop you right there, okay?” Tim sighed and shuffled away from Danny, moving towards his desk chair. “We are not brandishing anything we own as civilians with bat-themed stuff. That’s the easiest way to give away our identities, don’t you think?”

Danny pursed his lips as he silently followed Tim, both of them ignoring his siblings still arguing with each other. He did have a point in a sense, Danny supposed. If anyone decided to really investigate who Batman and his birds were under the masks, they would possibly notice the odd similarities between them and the Wayne family. Counting off his fingers, Danny listed the immediate ones he thought of while floating by the ceiling earlier. For one, the hair styles didn’t change in or out of the suit except maybe Robin who had spiky hair as a vigilante, and from what he’s seen in the news Damian Wayne uses more hair gel than an old car salesman. There’s also how often the Wayne kids are kidnapped, but they miraculously escape or are rescued almost immediately by the Furry Brigade when they are.

Hmm, maybe Tim was right in a way, if someone really tried they could come to the ridiculous conclusion they were bats simply because they walked around with bat merch as civilians.

But, Danny was also used to idiot townsfolk who couldn’t see past their own nose what was right in front of them. Like, come on, Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom ? It was right there, and no one ever saw it except Wes. So honestly? He didn’t have much faith in the residents of Gotham figuring that out since Batman has been active for a couple of decades now, and yet no one has noticed every time Bruce Wayne adopts a kid that Batman gets another sidekick?

To be fair, Danny didn’t realize it either until he was literally summoned by them…but hey, he’s had a lot going on!

Refusing to agree with Tim though, Danny just leaned over the back of the other boy’s chair and watched as he was messing with the computer. He could see news articles and written reports be minimized or closed out of, and he wondered what Tim had been working on so intently it filled this massive screen. Then, he saw a picture of himself in the bottom right corner before Tim could get rid of it. His jaw dropped, it was a picture of Danny during lunch a few weeks ago before classes ended–and it was not a pretty one either.

Now, as a half-ghost, Danny didn’t show up in pictures very well. Like, imagine blowing a giant bubble in front of someone’s face okay? Then you take your camera lens and hold it up right in front of the bubble before taking the picture. You will lose all focus on the person, their edges becoming blurry or distorted, and most of what you see is through a glossy film.

Yeah, that’s how pictures of Danny when he isn’t consciously dimming his powers to avoid that come out. Or pictures with anything made after the year 2000. Honestly, older technology and film can capture ghosts really well but no one used that stuff anymore except hobbyists.

“Tim…” Danny whispered, his eyes never leaving the photo. He had been eating sloppy joes that day and he had been so tired from studying the night before, that he had dropped the bun and the mess inside slid down his shirt. Then, in a feat of even more embarrassment, he had run a hand covered in meat across his face and smeared it. That. That image is what Tim, his Pretty Stalker Boy he decidedly does not want to think he is lame, has saved on his ultra supercomputer.

Horror struck, Danny twisted to look down at his side where Tim sat scrunched in on himself inside the blanket. “Tim, why do you have this picture as the one of me for your report?”

“Because it brings me joy,” Tim deadpanned, sipping smoothly from his coffee mug. “You got a problem with that?”

“How did you even get that clear of a picture?” Danny protested, floating slightly over Tim’s shoulder as he worked. “I told you, tech screws up trying to look at me.”

“Danny, my camera was made in 1960–it has no modern tech in it,” Tim explained. He went back to whatever he was doing on the computer as Danny huffed, crossing his arms and pouting at the image. 

It took him a solid minute of pouting before he realized something. “Wait a second!” 

Tim jumped a little at his exclamation and Danny whirled around in the air to point an accusing finger at him. “If the camera you used was so old then that means you didn’t just pull this image from somewhere!” Danny smirked as he saw a blush rise up on Tim’s face against his will, the other boy was trying hard to ignore it and appear calm though. Danny’s smirk grew wider, “That means you took this photo yourself .”

“What is your point? That I know how to work a camera?” Tim tried to deflect.

“No,” Danny was smiling so wide now his fangs popped out (after so many years of being a halfa, a few of his ghostly features blurred with his human half). “It means that you’re even worse than I thought, Pretty Stalker Boy .”

Tim flinched at the nickname, his ears reddening as he kept a neutral expression on his face. Danny was dying of laughter on the inside though. If Tim was so invested that he noticed Danny wouldn’t come up on normal camera footage and decided to follow him around with an old school camera, that meant he was at least a little interested in him. Right? Danny figured he’d roll with it and hope he didn’t make an ass out of himself in front of his cute classmate who was probably also a bat and knew his identity.

Before either of them could say anything else though, Danny noticed that the cave had become eerily quiet for a moment–all traces of arguing behind them gone–before a deep voice boomed out such loud laughter Danny flinched, thinking it was Jack for a second. Turning though, he saw it was Tim’s siblings and Jay was bent over his knees, using Nightwing as a support while he laughed his ass off.

“Pretty…Stalker Boy, oh my god Timberlina that was,” Jay gasped out another laugh. Apparently this was so funny, he couldn’t breathe. Danny figured it might be good for him to let some of the hot air out, honestly. “Oh, that was hilarious!”

Tim spluttered beside Danny and stood up from his chair quickly. He watched the other boy stomp down the stairs muttering obscenities before he reached Jay. With a short, “Shut the fuck up asshole!” Tim started punching his brother relentlessly.

“Stalker boy!” Jay crowed, not even fighting back as he took Tim’s beating. 

“Timbers, stop fighting with Jay,” Nightwing ordered half-heartedly. Both of the idiots on the ground ignored him and Danny just smiled awkwardly, watching them quietly.

Someone walked up next to him and he turned to see the blonde girl from before. Tilting his head and observing her, he clicked together the similarities from the night he last met a few of the bats. When she noticed him looking and tilted her lips in a half smile is when he was sure which one she was.

“Spoiler right?” He asked point blank.

“Ye-up,” She popped the ‘p’ and bobbed on her feet. “You a meta?”

Danny shrugged. Why not be a little shit? Spoiler had been pretty sassy with him when they were surrounded by lame ninjas. Like, come on, it’s just a giant swirling portal to hell. What’s there to be scared about?

“It’s not being a meta if you’re dead,” he shot back. “It’s a meta- cal condition.”

Spoiler guffawed, breaking out into easy laughter as she patted his shoulder. “Oh, you’ll fit right in here, portal dude,” she cheered. “So, what brought you to Gotham?”

“Full-ride scholarship,” Danny hummed, deflecting a little as he crossed his arms. “Couldn’t pass that chance up, so I went for it. Living on campus and everything.”

“Yikes, campus housing,” she winced. “That’s gotta suck.”

“Better than nowhere,” he shrugged. “Not all of us get fancy caves to hang out in our downtime. Are the bats on the ceiling good roommates?”

“Oh sure,” she shrugged. “You know, until they poop all over your stuff.”

Danny laughed. “Yeah, that sounds like it would be a real shit storm.”

Steph started cackling and Danny noticed Nightwing trying to physically pull Tim off of Jay, who had started fighting back by pinning Tim below him. Jay barked out a laugh as he noogied his little brother’s head and kicked his leg out at Nightwing, knocking him off balance.

“Jaylad! Seriously, stop picking on Tim already– oof!” Nightwing grabbed his middle as Jay landed a well-placed kick to his hip.

“Asshole, get off of me already!” Tim complained from his position on the floor, arms flailing to reach any part of his brother.

Danny simply observed them for a moment before leaning towards Spoiler. “Are they always like this?”

She smirked, “The boys? Oh, hell yes– they are the main reason B has so many gray hairs,” snickering to herself though, she added, “Well, besides me, but that was mainly when I was Robin and the old man was stuck with me more often. Now I just come around to hang out and borrow weapons or cause chaos.”

Danny stilled in response. He was positive that he had a shocked pikachu look on his face, his mind was totally blown. There had been multiple Robins over the years, sure, unless they were a robot or something no one could stay that young for decades. Plus from what he remembered seeing in newspaper clippings, Robin sometimes acted differently or got a new uniform every few years. But, like, he had no idea that there had been a female Robin! When was this? If it was when he became a halfa and started fighting the ghosts then he supposed it would make sense he wouldn’t have known about it. He was too busy trying not to die again and they later realized that around that time is when Amity started to unintentionally develop a media blackout. Nothing from inside could be accessed by anywhere else, and vice versa unless you were Tucker or Technus.

But, no seriously, he had to know.

Danny turned to just stare at Spoiler, not sure how to phrase the multitude of questions he had racing in his head. She noticed and tilted her chin up, smirking at him as though she was proud of something. 

Leaning in closer to Danny’s shoulder, she raised a hand to her mouth and whispered, “I was the first Robin to not even pass the probationary period you know.”

Probationary period? Like for new employees? Danny’s expression must have been hilarious because Spoiler started laughing at him, but before she could elaborate she froze in place. Danny glanced over to the brawl below them to check if any of the guys managed to knock each other out and that’s what stopped Spoiler, but they were all frozen too. 

Okay, was this magical or did no one inform Danny they were starting a game of Red Light-Green Light?

A throat clearing across the room drew his attention before hearing, “You only lasted seventy-one days as Robin, Spoiler, as Batman learned it would not bring Red Robin back into the vigilante business. As well as realizing that you managed more property damage in that short time than all of the boys put together over the years.”

Danny watched as Spoiler flinched and an older man dressed like he was about to usher people to their seats in a vintage theater walked into the room. He was gray-haired and British from the accent he had heard while the man spoke, carrying himself in a way that reminded Danny of someone in charge.

“Hehe, hey Alfie…” Jay chuckled from his position on the floor, pinning Tim down with his knees while Nightwing pulled his arms behind his back.

“Alfred, um, I promise we–” Nightwing started before Jay knocked his head into the man’s chin. Everyone ignored him while he cried out about a broken jaw and hard-headed (ha) little brothers.

“Alfred” raised an eyebrow and observed the scene before him, eyes stopping on Danny for a brief moment and he actually felt a chill pass over his spine. Him. A ghost. He felt a chill from a human? It passed quickly and he heard a quiet “harrumph” from the old man before he turned to address the brothers.

“Young Masters, I suggest all of you come upstairs for lunch as the lot of you have been down here for hours,” smiling serenely as he cocked his head slightly. “Please do bring your guest with you, and inform me in the future if anyone will be joining for meals. Thank you sirs.”

He nodded his head sharply and left just as suddenly as he appeared. Everyone around Danny let out a sigh of relief for some reason? But none of them were moving, so Danny just shrugged his shoulders and hopped down off the platform to follow in the wake of Alfred.

“I could go for some food,” he told them, hands raised in a “what’s the hold up?” gesture as he walked.

“You just ate lunch, we saw you!” Tim called out from the floor. Danny smirked at the other boy and stopped to boop him on the nose, enjoying the pink flush that rose up on his cheeks.

“I’m a ghost yeah, but funnily enough I still eat a lot,” he told him, flexing his arms to show off his muscles (yes Sam he had muscles, no they were not limp noodle arms). 

Tim spluttered adorably in response and Danny grinned, hopping up to his feet again and shooting fingers guns at everyone else. 

“I’ll see you guys upstairs then,” he then ran to the staircase before anyone could stop him.

********

“So, first things first, I’m going to need you to elaborate on the ghost comment.”

Danny hummed, looking up from his nearly empty plate of food as the vigilantes stumbled one by one into the kitchen. He noted how Nightwing had taken off his mask and had changed into civilian wear like the others. Each of them had varying expressions of wariness to irritation to embarrassment (Tim). Then there was Spoiler, who seemed to just not give a fuck–which, mood.

“Heyyy, about time you guys got upstairs!” Danny grinned all toothy-like, pretty sure there was some lettuce stuck in his teeth. “I’ve already had, like, three of Alfred’s sandwiches.”

“Please tell me you didn’t eat all of the roast beef ones!” Spoiler whined. Danny tried not to look her in the eyes, and instead focused on Jay glaring at him.

“Bro, do you just have resting bitch face or did I do something?” Danny smacked his lips as he took another bite of his food. He watched one of the man’s eyes twitch in annoyance and had to hold back the maniacal gremlin giggles. “Like, I know your ecto is pretty rancid in there, but are you always this crabby?”

The man snarled and Nightwing rushed over before Jay could attack Danny, pushing him into a seat on the other end of the table. The man huffed and crossed his arms stating, “I can’t talk to this dumbass without wanting to kill him.”

“Jay, please, no killing at the table,” Nightwing begged. 

“Quite right, Master Dick,” Alfred popped up with a tray of fruit he set on the table. “If any violence could please be held in check until after you have all left my dining room, it would be appreciated young sirs.” He lifted an eyebrow at the men as though to dare them to argue before he left again.

“Danny…” Tim started, sitting himself down next to Danny and leaning across the table towards him. Danny smiled and set down his sandwich, turning to mimic Tim’s pose. “We really need you to elaborate on the ‘ghost’ thing and why you suddenly appeared in the form of some kind of demon.”

He snorted, “If that’s what you think a demon looks like, you haven’t met a real one yet.”

“Kid, you are treading on thin fucking ice ,” Jay growled. "My good mood is leaving me and I need you to answer our questions,” Jay practically ground the words out. 

Danny squinted at him, cocking his head and looking into the man’s soul. He knew his eyes were most likely glowing by the gasps he heard around the table, but he focused on Jay. Inside of his chest, where a core should be, all Danny could see was a writhing mess of dark and dirty ectoplasm– like something he would see coming out of Skulker’s armor on his monthly deep clean of the thing, yet somehow worse. But he saw that while it was a concerning amount of rotten ectoplasm, it had stopped ripping into Jay’s soul and little baby core in the time Danny had been around him. Maybe it was reacting to his pure ectoplasm? 

Switching his eyes back to their normal blue, he watched as Jay’s faded from a glowing green as well. He smiled and told him, “Nah, I think you’re lying and you’re actually feeling better than you have in years. How long has it been since you died? Seriously though, that much anger fueled by tainted ectoplasm straight up cannot be healthy for you.”

Tim groaned and put his head in his hands with a heavy sigh. “Danny, I am begging you to please explain yourself and not just… lore-drop like this. You’re going to get yourself stabbed,” he mumbled. “By whom, it's still up in the air.”

“Being stabbed means I get to keep the knife.”

“Danny, no. ”

Danny burst out laughing, shaking his head fondly. “Dude, that’s rule one of finder’s keepers! If someone sticks a knife in a ghost , I get to keep it. Dibs--but, okay, I’ll explain,” he said quickly, seeing Jay’s hand creeping towards one of the butter knives. It didn’t matter it was a butter knife. Danny figured he could get creative enough to make it hurt.

“Okay, so, before I explain, where’s your starting line for ghosts? Like, are we talking Ghostbusters level of understanding, or like… that fucking Zak Baggins show?” Danny asked, tilting his head curiously. 

“Assume Ghostbusters,” Nightwing answered. 

“Okay, so. From what I remember-- and it’s been a hot minute since I watched anything relating to the franchise,” Danny began, taking another sandwich from the offered tray, “the closest thing to my particular brand of ghost would be… I think they’re called metaspecters. Fully corporeal, not tied to any particular space or object-- sometimes, there’s exceptions, of course-- a pain in the ass to deal with. They’re closer to a Rogue Gallery than anything else. Sometimes souls of the dead, sometimes concepts given form.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny noticed Tim whip out a tablet from… somewhere… and start taking avid notes.

“Standard powers for my brand of ghosts, also called denizens of the Infinite Realms, are at basic : at-will intangibility, invisibility, flight, overshadowing-- you’d call it possession, I think-- ectoblasts, enhanced durability and strength, plus a couple other things. Most powers past that are hyperspecific to each ghost. For instance, Undergrowth, he’s like… the concept of nature and the wild personified, so his domain is over everything regarding plants. There’s Clockwork, the personification of time, and then you have ghosts like Boxy, who just… really fucking loves boxes.”

Danny paused to chew on his sandwich, watching the various bats process that. Before anyone could speak up, he muttered, “This sandwich is really fuckin’ good, man. What kind of magic do you put on this thing?”

“No magic, young sir,” the butler-- Alfred, Danny had been told-- hummed lightly. “Simply years of experience.”

“Nice.”

Spoiler leaned over, shamelessly stealing one of Danny’s potato chips, then sat back in her chair. “So you just… know the personification of time? Like personally?”

“He’s my mentor, yeah.”

“Absolutely wild,” she muttered. “Cool, cool cool, cool cool cool.”

“Do you, uh… need a minute?”

The table went quiet for a little bit as the various folks at the table just kind of… processed everything Danny’d said thus far. Jay looked like he was vibrating with annoyance while Tim looked absolutely riveted on his notes, typing faster than Danny thought was physically possible. Spoiler was nodding and definitely not freaking out (she promised), and Dick looked vaguely constipated. 

But, before anyone could say anything else, a very tall absolute brick shithouse of a man walked into the kitchen and… well, the only way Danny could really describe it was an elegant flop into the chair at the head of the table. The dude looked…well, if Danny had to describe it, he looked dead tired but was hiding it very well as he took a sandwich from the tray.

“Afternoon,” the man mumbled, fixated on the tablet in his hand, right up until Alfred cleared his throat. The man coughed and sheepishly put it away--and man, what was with this family and technology just disappearing into improbably small spaces?

…Okay, Danny had no room to speak, but, like, come on. At least he had the excuse of being a ghost . When one has the ability to defy physics, why not take advantage? 

Jay sat forward, his chin on his fist as he thought. “So, the fuck do you mean, my vibes are just fucked up ?” he asked, seemingly dismissing the guy at the head of the table. Danny knew that he knew the man from somewhere , he just couldn’t place it. He swears. Shrugging he dismissed the man as well and focused on Jay instead. 

“I mean, you smell like you just fistfought a sewer and lost,” Danny sassed immediately. “Like, looking at you is similar to looking at a cosmic garbage disposal. Not you specifically, but your ecto makes me actively want to cry. Or make you take a shower. Not sure which one, honestly.”

Jay tensed, clearly moving to stab Danny, only for the man at the head of the table to sigh heavily and rub his face. “Boys, please ,” he mumbled. “It is too early for this.”

“...It’s two o’clock,” Spoiler pointed out.

“Hn.”

Tim cut in, “Okay, okay, we get it, Danny, stop antagonizing Jason,” he sighed with his whole body, glaring at both of them but it hardened when directed at his brother. “Jason, stop antagonizing Danny. Please .”

“I’m not doing it on purpose, I swear!” Danny protested, throwing his hands up in defense. “He just radiates fight me vibes! I kind of want to now, honestly,  just so he stops looking at me like he wants to throw me out of a window!”

“Fight me vibes?” Jason retorted. “You want fight me vibes, you little shit?? I’ll give you fucking fight me vibes--”

The man at the table’s head snapped up at the mention of a fight, blue eyes severe and guarded as he looked first at Jason, then at Danny with a gaze so sharp it was most likely meant to instill fear. He didn't know about Jay, but Danny's faced down worse when he had forgotten a check up with Frostbite so it didn’t bother him as much as it was intended to.

But watching him, Danny saw the very second that the headcount registered in his head, however. The way the man’s eyes flicked between the various teenagers and young adults seated at the table, lips moving almost imperceptibly as he counted each of them. When those tired blue orbs landed on Danny again though, he did a very visible double take–and oh–Danny could practically see the cartoon “?????” appearing above his head. 

“...who…” he started to say, only for Tim to give him an absolutely offended look.

“Bruce, come on,” Tim drawled, kicking Danny under the table when he opened his mouth (which, ow , Christ) to keep him quiet and play along. “What do you think? Does Jason, in fact, radiate fight me vibes like Danny claims?”

Bruce simply blinked slowly and shook his head, “I’m sorry, Tim, what–”

Jason cut the poor guy off, a wolfish grin on his lips. “Yeah B, I know I can take this short stack in a fight anyday.”

Nightwing (Danny refused to call him “Dick” without risk of snorting like an idiot) pinched the bridge of his nose and tilted his head back dramatically. “Jaybird, please I am begging you, don’t fight Danny!”

“Why the fuck not Dickiebird?”

“Maybe because it would be embarrassing for you to lose and Dick is pitying you?” Tim hummed smugly next to Danny who simply watched the chaos erupt. 

Jason was yelling at Tim incoherently while Nightwing held him back in his seat. Tim just drank his coffee and started a conversation with Alfred who was bustling about the kitchen preparing extra food for everyone. 

“God, I love breakfast time here!” Steph cackled to his right, enjoying the show around her obviously.