Chapter Text
The Cave explodes into motion as soon as Danny disappears.
Damian and Jason both rush to start getting suited up, having been in civvies. Tim had been in most of his gear by the time their spar started, because he knew damn well Danny wouldn't be afraid to knock him around and his suit would help minimize the bruises.
He does have to rush for a domino and adhesive, while Bruce pulls the cowl on and contacts Babs as fast as possible.
“Oracle,” he barks. “I need your cameras scanning for Danny Nightingale immediately - everyone else, all hands on deck. The Fentons are in Gotham with the GIW and something is going down tonight. They claim to have zeroed in on and be in pursuit of Phantom's clone.”
“-ait, what?” Tim hears Dick's voice ask as he fits a comm into his ear. “I thought Danny was in the Cave with you?”
“He was,” Damian barks, striding out of the locker area in full dress and voice echoing double through Tim's comm piece. “He fled to pursue the clone tip like an absolute buffoon.”
The kid is spitting mad - that means he's worried.
“Get in the car, let's go!” Jason shouts, making for the Batmobile and fully suited up as the Red Hood.
“Oracle is searching the city cameras for him or the GIW,” Bruce starts. “As soon as we get a hit and know where to go-”
“He's heading northeast in a straight line and moving fast,” Jason interrupts brusquely. “Now either get in the fucking car or give me the keys! I want that stupid bitch in something armored when I find him or I'd already have been out of here on my goddamn bike!”
Bruce and Tim exchange a surprised, somewhat alarmed glance even as they rush for the car immediately, the four of them clambering in like a well oiled machine.
Bruce slams himself into the driver's seat and starts the car immediately, Tim bypassing the door and swinging himself into the passenger's seat right through the window.
Jason doesn't fight for shotgun, sliding immediately into the back with Damian.
Tim knows why: it's easier to get out of the Batmobile from the back, where you can throw the suicide doors wide open and be off like a shot.
Jason intends to be on Danny like a pissed off street cat scruffing her kitten before the idiot knows what hits him.
They're roaring into the tunnels that lead from the Cave into Gotham proper in seconds.
“How do you know where he's headed?” Bruce barks, though he's clearly following the initial direction of ‘northeast’ already.
“Wouldn't you like to know,” Jason snarks automatically.
“Yes,” Bruce grits out tersely. “I would.”
“Join the club,” Jason says. “This is news to me too.”
Great, so some weird ghost stuff. Probably the same thing that has gotten Jason to stay in the Manor while Danny is here and let him call out any lies about being fully recovered.
The Batmobile rockets out of a Cave entrance and onto the streets, Jason immediately calling out which directions to take like some sort of Buff Spooky Alexa.
Despite not knowing how he knows, not a single person in the car doubts him for a second.
Bruce takes every turn he's told to, no hesitation.
“Not seeing Danny yet, but there are several unmarked white vans on the move throughout Gotham. Dispatching Bats in pairs to waylay as many as possible,” Oracle chimes in.
“Doubt you will see him,” Jason grumbles. “He knows we're in the city cameras and he doesn't want the GIW to see him coming either, he'll stay invisible.”
“Does the use of his powers in human form make his signature more noticeable?” Damian asks, gripping the back of Bruce's seat tightly and jaw clenched.
“I don't know,” Jason says, sounding baffled and vaguely offended. “What do I look like, the Nightingale Encyclopedia?”
“Well we're literally following directions you're giving us on vibes alone,” Tim snarks, “So yeah you're looking pretty close right now.”
Jason doesn't have any smart ass retort for that, just huffing and looking back straight ahead.
“Hood's Spooky Sense wouldn't happen to be pointing you towards the construction site for the scheduled Waltham Hotel, would it?” Oracle asks.
Tim's eyes dart to the city map splayed across the console screen of the Batmobile, laden with details and updates that civilian traffic apps simply do not have.
It's a program lovingly crafted and upkept by Oracle herself.
“Yes, yes it would. What's there?” he asks.
“I honed in on the area because several vans in different parts of the city were all headed in that direction,” Oracle tells them. “And a little combing shows there are several of their vehicles already there in secluded, hidden spaces. They're surrounding the site. Windows are blacked out, but I'd bet there are people waiting behind the wheels.”
Shit. So this is where Ellie's signature is coming from, without a doubt.
“Any sign of the clone?” Bruce asks tersely.
“I don't see any movement in the site at all, though my cameras are a little distorted in the area like there's something ghostly.”
“Did you go back through the footage from earlier in the night?” Jason asks, somehow sitting so still it's eerie and yet also practically vibrating in his skin.
“Don't ask me stupid questions, Hood,” Babs says, which at least earns a slight snort.
“What looked like construction workers were in and out with nondescript boxes and stayed for varying periods of time throughout the day,” she says. “But I looked at the work schedule and there's not supposed to be any workers on site today.”
“So it is a trap,” Damian spits. “As should have been obvious to anyone with a brain.”
“It was a trauma response,” Bruce rebukes lightly. “The threat of losing someone you've already come so close to losing makes people do irrational things.”
Jason scoffs. “Still gonna kick his ass.”
Bruce is right, though. They all know that panic feeling and they've all made less than sensible decisions in response.
Perhaps nobody more so than Bruce.
“Black Bat is closest to the site and is almost on scene,” Oracle interrupts them. “Robin, when you arrive on scene join her to take the agents present down and investigate whatever the hell they've been doing inside that building. Nightwing and Spoiler will be there for backup within five.”
“Copy,” Damian replies.
“Have you contacted the JL?” Bruce asks. Now that they have a set destination he doesn't have to wait for Jason to call out the turns - he just tears through the city pushing a hundred.
The cars in Gotham get the hell out of the Batmobile's way when it's driving like this.
The cars in Gotham don't bother to move out of the way of police cars most of the time, sirens be damned, so that probably says something about who Gothamites trust in an emergency.
“I've notified the Watchtower that the GIW and Fentons have reared their heads in Gotham and are making a move,” Oracle confirms. “Supes and Green Lantern should be the first to respond as backup.”
Bruce grunts his approval, the car turning into the Diamond District proper where the Waltham Hotel is half built and under construction.
“ETA less than two minutes,” Bruce barks.
“Black Bat is on scene and in the construction rafters of the building,” Oracle replies. “She's ready to go when you arrive.”
“Does she see anything that would indicate whether Ellie's actually there?” Tim asks.
Two soft taps come through the comms; Cass tapping on her own comm, twice to signal no.
Then her voice comes through, soft as ever.
“No ghosts. Agents. Odd machines - only one is on.”
Tim presses his lips together and sighs tensely through his nose.
That's probably the source of the signature, then.
He's not sure whether he's happier that Ellie hasn't been nailed down by them again already, or upset that Danny really is being reeled in like a fish on a hook.
It happens as they turn the last corner and the chain link fences surrounding the Waltham construction site finally come into view.
An odd reverberating pulse of sound seems to radiate from the construction site, one that makes Jason shudder and shake his arms out with a quiet eugh but doesn't feel like anything to the rest of them.
Then every floodlight on the site snaps on in blinding sync to illuminate the grounds and the banners draped on the fence.
Coming Soon: Waltham Hotel
Luxury Suites For A Taste Of The High Life!
More importantly, they illuminate the rush of sound and movement from within.
Bruce drives the Batmobile straight through the flimsy fence.
The way the influx of GIW agents who are flooding out of the woodwork in the site balk and flail away from the sudden two and a half ton missile screeching onto the scene is almost comical.
They clearly didn't expect the vigilantes of Gotham to be here so fast, but Tim supposes they also didn't expect the vigilantes of Gotham to have a pissed off Danny radar on their side.
Tim's a little more concerned with the figure in the middle of it all, though.
Danny's crumpled on the ground like a puppet with his strings cut - Tim's heart lurches in panic, though it's tempered with a bit of relief when he sees Danny trying to get his hands under him and push himself up.
Bruce cuts the wheel hard and straight up Tokyo drifts around Danny's figure, cutting off the main body of the GIW for the moment before screeching to a halt.
The car hasn't even fully stopped before Jason and Damian throw themselves out of it.
Damian leaps over the hood of the Batmobile to set upon the agents with a vengeance - Tim sees the shadow of Cass dropping from a construction scaffolding to do the same.
Jason grabs Danny by the back of the shirt and hauls him unceremoniously into the car.
“Drive!” he barks, slamming the door shut behind him.
Danny retches hard where he's sprawled half across Jason and half across the seats.
“Hey hey hey, do not throw up on me!” Jason shouts, roughly shoving Danny's head away and down so if he throws up it'll be on the back floorboards.
Danny manages to shake with a little laugh over it even as he dry heaves.
Tim doubts the way Bruce tears out of the construction site is helping with nausea, but thankfully nothing comes up.
“I'm going to fucking kill you,” Jason spits, hands everywhere. He's checking Danny over for blood or injury like a mother hen. “What's wrong with you? You shot, cut, what?”
Danny shakes his head, trying to bat Jason's hands away long enough to sit up semi straight.
“I'm fine, I'm okay-”
“It was that pulse, wasn't it?” Jason asks. “Felt fucking disgusting, what the hell was that?”
“Dunno,” Danny says, shaking his head. He's upright, but he's hanging his head a little like he still wants to puke. “Hit me like a truck. Crazy vertigo, couldn't tell which was up or down. Knocked me right out of invisibility.”
“You've got company, boys,” Oracle barks. Take this left now, B!”
The left is so close it's almost behind them by the time Bruce's brain can process the command - he turns hard, sending Danny and Jason toppling over onto each other in the back seat.
They get the barest look at the GIW van that was trying to surprise them and cut them off ahead before that street is out of view.
Another set of headlights from another white van flares up behind them.
“Shit,” Danny hisses, pulling himself up with a hand on the back headrest to look out the back windshield. “Of course they're willing to chase the motherfucking Batmobile. Absolute nutjobs!”
“They're outmatched,” Bruce grunts. “We'll lose them.”
It's not false confidence - there's not a vehicle on the streets that can keep up with the Batmobile, let alone a bunch of creeper vans.
“Dani-” Danny starts worriedly, glancing back in the direction of the construction site.
“Wasn't there,” Tim reassures. “Black Bat confirmed. They've got something there putting out a convincing signature, but it wasn't her. I promise.”
Danny frowns and wilts a little, looking distinctly guilty.
“I should have known, I just-” he says, huffing and shaking his head. “I just- I can't lose her, you know? I can't.”
Bruce doesn't take his eyes off the road, but Tim can see that he wants to glance in the rear view just to make eye contact.
“I know,” he says. It's probably the softest Batman has ever sounded.
“But I should have known,” Danny repeats as they screech around a corner to avoid another van. “She's like me. She barely has a signature when she's alive, she'd have had to be dead for me to feel her like that and she wouldn't be stupid enough to walk into all this projecting-”
“Enough,” Bruce says firmly. “It's done.”
“And now we've got the location of at least one of their hidey holes,” Jason adds. “You just helped us smoke some of them out is all.”
Tim doesn't say what they're all thinking.
Danny's reaction probably wouldn't have been so extreme if it hadn't been Maddie Fenton's voice that delivered the news.
In his head, all he must have been able to see was his child cracked open on their operating table like he was.
Instead, Tim waits a solid twenty seconds of tense silence watching their surroundings carefully before speaking up and saying, “I think we lost them.”
Frankly they'd kept up longer than Tim had thought they would, but Oracle did say there were vans heading towards the site from multiple different directions.
They just got rerouted to the chase, is all.
Danny blows out a sigh, leaning back into the seats and dragging a hand through his hair.
“How did you even find me so fast?” he asks, quizzical.
“Mysterious ghost GPS in my brain,” Jason deadpans. “You wanna explain that, by the way?”
Danny balks, then cringes. “Uh, ghost GPS in general, or…?”
“Just you,” Jason confirms.
“Right,” Danny sighs. “Well, shit. Maybe now is not the best time-”
Bruce slams on the brakes.
“Shit!” Tim barks, wide eyes on the vehicle that just cut them off further down the narrow alley they've been barreling down.
It's the weirdest, most technologically tricked out monstrosity of a vehicle Tim has ever seen - and that's saying something.
“Floor it!” Danny demands, eyes wide and face ashen. He grips the shoulder of Bruce's seat so tightly Tim can hear the upholstery ripping.
“What?!” Tim asks. “There's nowhere to-”
“Just do it,” Jason cuts him off.
There are no intersecting alleys here until the one the fucked up van is blocking - the fucked up van two people recognizable as Jack and Maddie Fenton are leaping out of.
Bruce glances behind them and throws the car into reverse as Mr. Fenton raises and aims what looks alarmingly like a bazooka right at them.
The alley is long - there's no way they could back all the way out before the weapon is fired.
“Don't back up, just floor it!” Danny insists, frantic and loud.
“I can't-”
“Fucking floor it, Bruce!” Danny snarls.
“Oh for fuck's sake, B,” Jason growls, nudging Danny aside and bracing a hand on either front seat backrest.
“You got it, Mrs. Puff,” he says, swinging himself through the gap between the seats to straddle the center console, one leg in Tim's leg space and the other in Bruce's.
Jason reaches down to throw it into drive, stomps his steel toed boot down on top of Bruce's foot and floors the gas.
Tim is not ashamed to say he screams as they rocket at full speed right at the Fentons and their car.
The Fentons eyes go wide, but Mr. Fenton seems to decide if there's no avoiding the crash he may as well double down - in other words, they still aren't gonna make it before that freakish bazooka thing is fired.
At least they wouldn't have, if something didn't collide with the barrel of it and burst seconds before-
Tim clenches his eyes shut and braces for impact.
….then opens them, confused.
“Wait, what the-” he wrenches his head around to look behind them, realizing the Fentons and their vehicle are behind them now.
The Batmobile went right through them like they weren't there, no doubt courtesy of Danny's white knuckled grip on the driver's seat upholstery.
As Tim watches there are several more little projectiles that seem to come from on top of one of the nearby buildings.
And when they hit? Foam. They explode into sticky durable foam, ensnaring tires and feet and the barrels of weapons.
What the fuck? Those are his pellets!
“Woooo!” Jason crows from his awkward perch, finally letting up on Bruce's foot and scooting back into the rear of the car. “Well fucking done, Spooks!”
Tim blinks back into reality a little, heart hammering.
“How did you know he was gonna do that?” he asks Jason.
“I didn't,” Jason replies.
Tim gapes, flabbergasted.
“You didn't- you just forced the Batmobile into a full throttle collision having no idea what was gonna happen?!”
“Yup,” Jason says, popping the ‘p’. “Figured he had a plan.”
Tim's face must be something else as he stares, incredulous, because Danny fails to hide a snort and snicker.
“You're unhinged,” Tim tells Jason flatly.
Jason scoffs. “I'm unhinged? You're really telling me I'm unhinged.”
Tim turns back forward, snarking, “Yeah, Eight Heads In A Dufflebag. I'm calling you unhinged.”
Jason barks a laugh behind him. “That's fucking rich coming from you, Twenty Seven League Bases.”
Tim whips around to give him a disbelieving and scathing glare. That was revealed in confidence!
Drunk confidence, but in confidence!
“What?” Bruce and Danny say at the same time.
“Nothing,” Jason and Tim echo in sync.
Then, barely bothering to lower his voice, Jason turns to Danny and says, “I'll tell you later.”
“Don't tell him-!”
“Relax, idiot, he's a freak,” Jason dismisses, literally waving a hand. “He'll probably think it's hot or something.”
Danny, looking stressed, confused and intrigued all at once just laughs a helpless little sound and changes the subject.
“The Fentons, they-”
“Oracle has police en route to pick them up and bring them into custody while they're still stuck, to be transferred to the JL as soon as possible,” Bruce says.
Danny sags a little, like he wants to feel relief but isn't sure if he should.
Like letting himself believe they could finally be stopped for good is asking for trouble.
“She's also triangulated which buildings those shots are most likely to have come from,” Bruce says grimly, the Batmobile slowly coming to a stop several streets away from the almost crash.
“We're taking to the rooftops.”
—-
Danny complains about the indignity of having to let Hood grab him and grapple them both up to the rooftops when he can literally fly, but ultimately gives in.
The use of his powers do indeed make his signature more noticeable apparently, and that's likely how the GIW picked him up enough to set off the ambush in the first place.
His invisibility and flight were enough to ping their sensors once he entered the construction site.
Thankfully whatever that pulse was seems to have been disorienting and short term only, because he has no trouble keeping up going from roof to roof.
It's kind of impressive to Tim, how capable and graceful he is even when he doesn't tap into abilities that must be beyond second nature to him by now.
If you take the powers away from people like Supes and the Flash, they struggle.
Danny almost seems like he's practiced how to handle being without them, and it's paying off now.
Tim wonders how many times it's paid off in the past too.
There are only four buildings the pellets could have come from, so it's not a huge search area. There doesn't seem to be anyone present anymore, but-
“Gun,” Jason says, gesturing to the edge of the rooftop they just crossed to.
Tim makes a beeline for it, picking it up carefully.
It's not a real gun, that much is obvious quickly as he turns it over in his hands and turns back to his companions.
It's a paintball gun.
Tim ejects the cartridge to look inside and confirm.
Yup. This is a paintball gun loaded with his foam pellets. The first thing Danny ever redesigned for them.
“What the actual fuck?” Tim asks, baffled.
“Boo,” says a voice right next to his ear.
Tim shouts and turns, swinging the stock of the gun at someone who ducks it with ease and a bright laugh.
The face grinning back at him is sixteen year old Danny plucked straight from the missing poster.