Chapter Text
Hood managed to finagle a wriggling, giggling Danny up to the safehouse. Hood would later say that it was like trying to contain a sack of potatoes and a feral cat at the same time. Hood would also like to complain to management that this isn’t what he signed up for. For record, he was supposed to be out kicking in the teeth of the bad guys. He was supposed to be a lot of things. He was NOT supposed to a goddamn babysitter for Replacement’s supposedly younger brother. A younger brother who apparently thought Hood smelled funny.
“Ok, Danny, can you tell us what happened?” Nightwing said gently, trying to coax the still very high Danny into some semblance of an interrogation.
“Bout 4 months ago, parents went on ‘nother bender ghost hunting trip. The bastards,” Danny said as he flopped his head back against the couch. “And while they were gone because ‘We should only be gone for a couple of weeks, Danny, Jazz. You’ll be fine.’ Fine my ghostly ass. Not like I can die again anyways. But I got booorrrrred. And went snooping.” This apparently sent Danny into a fit of giggles. “Found a box. MY BOX. Pictures inna box. Jack and Maddie in Egypt. Ghost hunting. Friends with Jack and Janet. Janet was preggers. J n J didn’t want the baby. Soon as I was born, gave me to Jack n Maddie. Signed their rights away.”
“And why are you in Gotham?” Nightwing prodded.
“Jack and Maddie found out I was Phantom. Ghost Vigilante back in Amity Park. They shot me outta sky, and then gave me to the GIW, who vivisected me. That fuckin’ hurts, my guy,” Danny replied as he pulled up his shirt. There on display was the puckered Y-incision scar. It looked ragged and jagged as if it had been hastily sewn shut.
“So, you’re a meta?” Batman growled.
“Nope. I’m a ghost. Being dead is a medical condition. Can’t be a meta if I’m not alive,” Danny snarked and then giggled. Apparently, he thought being dead was hilarious. Batman pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.
“What about any other family members?” Red Robin asked.
“Well, Google said that the Drake parents were dead. Ain’t got no other family. Ain’t going back to Jack and Maddie. They’ll kill me again. Jazz is in college and can’t live with her. A friend of mine set me up an apartment, an ‘nother friend helped me emancipate myself from Jack and Maddie. Now I’m Danny Nightingale, and I’m in online high school right now. Since Gotham doesn’t have ghost attacks like Amity, I’m set to graduate in a couple of months. Then got a full ride to Gotham U for Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering.”
“Who is Jazz?” Red Robin asked, trying to get Danny back on track.
“Jazz is Jack and Maddie’s older daughter, but she’s still my sister. She, Sam, and Tucker are the one’s who rescued me from the GIW,” Danny stated fiercely, as if daring them to claim Jazz was anything but his sister.
“Who is the GIW? You’ve mentioned them twice,” Nightwing interjected, while holding his hands up.
Danny leaned in as if he were telling an important secret. “Ghost Investigation Ward. Government Agency. Captures and experiments on ghosts.” He blew out a raspberry as he finished telling the vigilantes.
“FUCKING HELL!” Hood exploded.
“That violates the Meta Protection Acts!” Nightwing snarled
“Not a meta. And it’s called the Anti-Ectoplasm Control Acts. All perfectly legal. Dudes, I’m so fucking hungry,” Danny stated. His pupils were no longer as blown wide open, and he was no longer prone to fits of giggles. Red Robin's fingers were typing furiously on his wrist computer to look up the acts that Danny just mentioned. “Yo, Hood, my guy. Figured out why you smell funky. You got some rank-ass ecto in you.”
Four sets of eyes snapped to Danny. “What do you mean?” Hood growled.
“Ectoplasm. Bright green, goopy stuff. Don’t know where or how you came into contact with it. But how it got stuck inside of you is rank as fuck. I could like, fix it. Might hurt a bit. Might not. Eh,” Danny said as his eyes stayed blue, and quit flickering.
“What. Do. You. Know. About. The. Lazarus. Pits?” Hood snarled lowly, his voice modulator accentuating each word.
“The laza who now?” Danny asked, very much confused. He grabbed his head as he could feel a headache building. Excuse him for coming down from a very bad high on top of being moderately concussed.
“Bright, toxic green, hot, bubbling pits. Kills the healthy, heals the sick and dying. I was dunked in one sometime after I dug myself out of my grave,” Hood explained.
Danny cocked his head to the side, trying to fight through the pain in his head. “Well, ectoplasm isn’t supposed to be bubbling or hot or in a pit. Sounds like you got dunked in a…well, basically, sewage runoff, from the Infinite Realms, but I’d have to check with my ghost doctor, Frostbite, on that. He might know. And if he doesn’t, he can find out.”
“We’ve gotten off topic. What were you doing in that warehouse?" Batman interrupted.
“How am I supposed to know? I was at work, Bat-dude, when the Scarecrow bitch attacked. The coffee shop closed down. Next thing I know there was this red and purple cloud thingy, and I forgot that I didn’t have to breathe so I might have sucked some of that cloud shit in. And then someone hit me on the back of the head. And then I think I remember them putting something else like a rag or something on my face. Still forgot that I didn’t have to breathe. When I woke up, I was in the warehouse, and they were saying something about calling the Drakes for ransom. Lost cause there. I’m just a barista who lives in Crime Alley. Can’t get much ransom out of that.” The four Gotham Bats looked at him in shock. Did Danny not know? Was he truly that naïve?
Danny let out a pained groan, and something on his face had Hood scrambling for a trashcan. He was barely able to get it shoved under Danny’s face before Danny was very violently ill. Nightwing rushed to the kitchen to get him some water for when he stopped, and Red Robin found a cloth to wash his head with. Batman was looking over Danny and could see a healed gash on the back of Danny’s head where he’d been hit. Danny heaved a few more times, and then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped backwards completely unconscious.
“What the absolute fuck?” Hood asked flabbergasted.
“Are we just going to ignore the fact that he was basically in the thrall of Fear Gas this entire time? And instead of being tweaked out of his mind on fear, he was basically on a truth serum,” Red Robin practically shrieked. This caused the other three to snap their eyes to him and stop whatever they were going to say.
“What?” Batman finally grunted out.
“Daniel James Drake. Born in Tanta, Egypt to Jackson and Janet Drake on October 31, 2008. All parental rights signed over to Jackson and Madeline Fenton same day. They moved to Amity Park, Illinois in 2010 where they settled down. Danny was hospitalized for a week when he was fourteen for an unspecified accident that left him with bradycardia and hypothermia. He has Lichtenburg figures that start on his middle finger of his right hand and travel up his arm and through his chest and center over his heart.” Nightwing went over to Danny and lifted his sleeve. Two years later, and those Lichtenburg scars were still visible. “Shortly after the accident, beings known as ghosts started attacking the town. Another being called, Phantom, started protecting both the ghosts and the townspeople.”
“Wait just a second, didn’t Danny say he was Phantom?” Hood interrupted.
“Mmhmm. He also said that the Fentons gave him to the Ghost Investigation Ward who vivisected him. And yes, they have a file on Phantom…haven’t been able to see that file yet. I want to wait till I’m at the Batcomputer for that,” Red Robin responded. “B, you’re not going to like the Acts he told us about, either. This is League level shit.”
“Hn,” Batman grunted.
“How long has he been operating as Phantom?” Nightwing asked while changing the cloth on Danny’s forehead. Danny whimpered in his sleep.
“From what I can tell, about two years,” Red responded.
“FUCK!!!!” Hood snarled. Batman visibly blanched.
“It gets worse. If what he’s saying about being a ghost, it means that the accident from two years ago, killed him, at least partially. And then he didn’t have anything like a mentor or training. He’s been on his own the whole time. I don’t know if anyone in Amity Park ever reached out to the Justice League, but it’s not looking good,” Red said quietly.
“FUCK!!!!” Hood exploded a second time. Everything about this kid set his teeth on edge, but at the same time, the Pit in his head had been oddly quiet.
“Baby Bird, since he’s supposedly your brother, we’ll let you take the reigns on this,” Nightwing said decisively.
“He’s already had his medical autonomy taken away once. When he wakes up, we’ll see if he wants to meet with his brother and do a DNA test. From there, we’ll see what he wants. But even if the DNA doesn't match, it sounds like he has a life already planned out. He didn’t seem like he was going to come to us for money. It sounded like he had all but given up.”
“So…the Old Man talks to the Justice League. Some of this shit should never have been left to a 14-year-old to handle by himself. Nightwing heads back to the cave to get everyone there up to speed, and Replacement and I wait here till the kid comes around and we talk to him,” Hood said with a hint of finality. “I can also make sure the kid eats something. God only knows he probably hasn’t been eating much for how light he was, carrying his twink ass over here.”
“Hn,” Batman grunted in agreement, and then both Batman and Nightwing left. “Make sure to keep comms open.” Batman reminded Hood and Red as he climbed onto his bike. He’d already given the computer in the Batmobile the order to send it away.
Hood and Red sat quietly while waiting for Danny to wake. They were each lost in their own thoughts. Red was thinking that he would have a part of his family back. But if everything that Danny had told them was true, then his life wasn’t any better. It held a shit ton of neglect and trauma on top of that. Hell, the kid had lived through being vivisected for fuck’s sake. Hood was thinking about what Danny had offered, about him fixing the Pit Rage. He was seriously thinking about taking the kid up on his offer, Batman and his stick-up-the-ass paranoia be damned.
Danny groaned as he was coming to. “Damn. What in the hell hit me?” He asked of the room in general, not really expecting anyone to answer.
“Hey Danny,” Red Robin responded. Danny whipped his head around so fast he gave the vigilante whiplash.
“Uh…I’m not in my apartment, am I?”
“What is the last thing you remember?” Red asked instead.
“I was walking home from my job at the coffee shop, and there was some kind of Rogue attack. I think it was it was that wanna be Halloween store knock-off farmers’ fucker, Scarecrow, right?” Both Hood and Red snorted and laughed. That was a good way to describe Scarecrow for all that he was once a brilliant psychologist.
“So, you don’t remember getting caught up in the fear gas or being kidnapped afterwards?” Red asked after he calmed down.
“Is that why I feel like I got hit by a truck?”
“Well, the kidnappers did hit on the back of the head,” Hood supplied helpfully.
“Meh. Not the first time I’ve been kidnapped honestly. At least they didn’t try to clone me this time,” Danny replied.
What?
“WHAT?” Both Red and Hood squealed in unison.
“Did I say anything, like weird, while I, ya know, under this fear gas?” Danny questioned while rubbing the back of his neck in a nervous tick.
“Well kid. To tell you the truth. You were the best interrogation we’ve ever had. Didn’t have use force or break your kneecaps or anything,” Hood teased.
“Does the name Phantom mean anything to you?” Red asked around Hood’s teasing. Both vigilantes noticed how Danny blanched.
“Ummm…” Danny moved his eyes to clock the exits to see if he could make break for it.
“Don’t even try it, Casper. You basically told us your entire life story,” Hood said matter-of-factly. “Now c’mere and eat. You’re all skin and bones, even if you are a ghost.”
“What?” Danny squeaked.
“I could replay the camera footage for you, if you want,” Red said softly, hoping that Danny wasn’t about to make a break for it.
“No…I just…fuck…and I’m only half ghost. Like Schrodinger’s Boy. Half ghost, half human. I even get a magical girl transformation out of it. I’d show you, but it would bring the GIW on my ass, so I’ll hold off on that for now,” Danny said defeatedly.
“The good news is that you have a brother here in Gotham,” Red Robin said around a mouthful of food.
“Wait. WHAT? And how do you know that?” Danny asked suspiciously. “By the way, Hood, this is the best food. Ever. Even better since it didn’t come back to life and attack me.” Both vigilantes looked at each other in horror. What even was this kid’s life?!?!
“For one, his name is Timothy Drake-Wayne. He was adopted by Bruce Wayne after Jack Drake died. And I know that because as the co-CEO of Wayne Enterprises, he gets kidnapped a lot so we Bats have to rescue him all the time. We could arrange a meeting between the two of you, if you want,” Red states, hoping Danny takes the bait. “Of course, he’s going to want to run a DNA sample.”
“Yeah, I get that. But it’ll be hard. Because I’m half ghost, I have ectoplasm bonded to my DNA. So, running it will get wonky. I think. But, if you can set up a meeting, I’d be down for that. In the meantime, I’d really love to get back to my apartment. I’ve got a final for my online chemistry class to study for and a project for my AP Calculus class to submit that’s due tomorrow.”
“Danny, you’ve been exposed to fear gas and likely have a mild concussion. We can’t, in good conscience, leave you unattended,” Hood said, exasperated by Danny’s complete lack of self-care or self-preservation.
“Ok, well then, attend to me in my apartment. I mean, apparently, I’ve already told you my life’s story. So, that means you know my name, and have the access to know where I live. If you haven’t turned me over to the GIW by now, you’re not likely going to. Which means you can take me to my apartment and watch over me just as well there as you can here,” he snarked back. The two vigilantes exchanged looks. He had a point.
“Alright Casper, you’re riding with me. Red Robin will follow.” Hood sounded like he was just done. With everything. Danny leaned into Hood’s back for the ride. After all, the older man was built like a walking tank. It doesn’t take the trio long to arrive at Danny’s studio apartment, and Red Hood is once again the designated carrier as Danny is going in and out of consciousness again. They grapple up to his apartment and let themselves in through the window. Danny snorts himself awake as Hood opens the window.
“Welcome to my humble abode. It isn’t much. But it’s all mine,” Danny said unabashedly. The two vigilantes looked around in earnest. Yes, the apartment was small, but it also looked lived in. There was a small couch and a coffee table that was strewn with Danny’s notes for his classes. The kitchen was barely big enough for a stove and refrigerator. The microwave took up most of the counter space, and there was only one-sided sink. The whole space was barely big enough for one person to turn around in. In one corner, a curtain was hung, and behind that curtain was Danny’s bed. The bathroom was just big enough for a toilet, sink, and shower. And honestly, for a 16-year-old emancipated minor, it wasn’t all that bad. Hood had taken to inspecting the fridge, and he was right. There was literally no food in Danny’s fridge.
“What have you been eating, Casper?”
“Mostly ate at the coffee shop. Sometimes grab takeout on my way home. I…I…don’t really know how to cook. Jack and Maddie never really taught me. They were too caught up in their work, if they even remembered they had kids, half the time,” Danny said the last bit darkly.
“Ok, so new plan. Replacement, I’m gonna go get a few groceries so that I can make a couple of meals for us. You two get settled and shit,” Hood said as he was already on his way out of the apartment via the window.
“So, earlier you told us that you found a box with pictures. Can I see them?” Red asked, hoping he didn’t sound too eager.
“Sure, why not,” Danny replied. Because why the fuck not.
He handed Red Robin the box, and then sat down and got to work on his calculus project. Both were lost in their own worlds, when Red heard a soft thunk. He looked up to Danny asleep at his coffee table. The thunk was Danny’s head hitting the table. Red Robin put the pictures down and went over to his brother studying him. He carefully brushed back Danny’s hair so he could see more of his face. He couldn’t believe it. After all this time. He had a brother. He heard Red Hood coming up the fire escape and made his way over to the window to open it for him. He motioned for his adoptive brother to keep quiet. Hood got the message.
“Think he’ll wake if I put him in his bed. Sleeping like that can’t be comfortable?” Hood whispered.
“I think he’ll be fine. Put him to bed. God knows he needs it,” Red whispered back.
Hood went over to Danny, and very gently cradled the younger boy to his chest. Red Robin went over to the curtain and drew it back so that Hood could lay him down. Danny never even stirred. He snorted once his head was on his pillow and mumbled something about kicking Skulker’s ass, and then he stilled again. Both vigilantes heaved a sigh of relief.
“Looks like we’re having a sleepover,” Hood sighed as he put the groceries away.
“Yep,” Red replied.