Chapter Text
Danny ran straight through the wall into the batcave and ignored the painful yank at his core. Several people startled and reached for their weapons, but they'd changed out of their costumes in the last hour and the lack of immediate access to weaponry gave them enough time to realize it was him before anyone threw a batarang.
"Danny," Bruce's shoulders settled. "Please don't sneak up on us like that, you could get hurt. And about the men that Jason saw earlier-"
"Do you have an encrypted phone?" Danny cut him off. "Something that can do long distance calls without being traced or listened in on?"
Bruce frowned. "Why?"
"I'll tell you after."
Bruce's frown deepened. He opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by Tim spinning around in the batchair and rifling through his pockets. He unearthed his cell with a triumphant noise and extended it to Danny. "Babs helped me program it a while ago, no one should be able to listen in that you don't want to."
Danny grabbed it with a mumbled thanks and ignored the curiosity in Tim's eyes. He and Bruce were silent while Danny took a deep breath and punched in the foreign number.
It rang a few times and he felt a spike of fear that she wouldn't pick up. Then, there was an audible click and the ringing stopped.
"Hello?"
Danny almost crumpled to his knees in relief. He chose instead to sag against the desk and cradle the phone to his ear.
"Hi," he croaked.
Ellie screeched. "Danny? Oh my Ancients, where are you? Jazz is losing her mind, she said you haven't been answering your phone and the Fentons are being super dodgy-"
"I'm okay, I'm in Gotham." Danny pretended not to notice that Bruce and Tim were creeping closer to eavesdrop better. He also wasn't naive enough to think that Tim's phone wasn't secretly recording the entire conversation for them to listen to later. "Where are you?"
"London, right now. I'm on my way back to the States."
"No!" Danny winced and lowered his volume. "No, Ellie, just stay away for now. A lot has happened and I promise to fill you in later, but for now I need you to go back to the Zone and be my stand in."
"Danny, what-?"
"Please, Ellie." His voice broke a little on her name.
She was quiet for a minute. "Danny," she said softly, "what happened?"
A hot tear ran down his cheek and he swiped it away quickly. "They got me, El."
Ellie didn't tend to bother with breathing, but he imagined if she did then she would have gasped. "Are you okay?"
Danny glanced up at Bruce and Tim. They were staring. "I think I will be. I don't know when I'll be able to get back to the Zone, though. My powers are completely drained and I can't-" He stopped before spilling the beans about his inability to transform. That was one thing that he was absolutely not ready to share with the bats, because that would mean admitting to them that he was dead. Admitting to Damian that he wasn't nearly as alive as he'd been pretending to be. No, he'd rather let them continue to think that he was a meta.
"What do you want me to tell everyone?" Ancients, he loved Ellie. She might be his clone, but the girl was way better at compartmentalizing her emotions during a crisis than he'd ever been.
"That I'm okay, just out of commission for now. I'll get back in contact as soon as I can, but I need to stay away for their safety."
"And what do you want me to tell Jazz?"
Danny felt his heart stutter. "Stay in New York. Don't go home." The next part was hard. "Don't trust Mom and Dad. Tell her I'm safe, I love her, and I'll call her as soon as I can. And Ellie?"
"Yeah?"
"Amity is off limits for everyone. That's an order."
She paused. "Understood."
He hated this. Her voice shouldn't ever have to be so serious and somber.
"Danny?"
"Yeah, El?"
"I may not know what's going on, but I do know you. I need you to promise me that whatever happens, you'll prioritize yourself. Don't be a hero."
He swallowed thickly. "You know I can't promise that."
"I'm not asking."
Danny sighed and screwed his eyes shut. "I have to go. I love you."
"Love you, too. And I'm serious, Danny. Stay safe."
"Right back at you."
Danny pressed the end call button and handed the phone back to Tim.
"Who was that?" Bruce asked.
"My sister," Danny murmured. He sniffled and rubbed his eye to try and shove down the tears that wanted to come out.
"Is she okay?" Tim looked like he was thinking very hard about something.
Danny felt a strong instinct not to give away any information that could potentially imply that his sisters were vulnerable, but he was trying so hard to open up to these people. "Yes, I just haven't talked to her in a while. She and Jazz - my other sister - get worried when I'm MIA since we all live separately now." He shuffled his feet nervously and steeled himself before looking up at Bruce. "I know you must have a lot of questions, but please understand that there are some things I just can't tell you about. Not yet, at least. I'm not sure what Damian has said, but a lot has happened in the last six years and there's some stuff I'm not even sure I'm allowed to tell you about. I want to trust you, I really do, but I've learned that trust can come back to bite you when you give it to the wrong people." Danny swallowed. "Especially parents."
Bruce nodded even as his jaw clenched in displeasure. He sat into his hip a little and kept his arms relaxed at his sides to make himself seem less menacing when addressing his newest son. "I do have plenty of questions, but over the years I've also learned that sometimes it's more important to set aside my own need for information in favor of someone else's comfort." He was careful to telegraph his movements as he set a warm hand on Danny's shoulder. "It's important to me that you feel safe here, Danyal. Take all the time you need."
"Oh," Danny said. That was... unexpected.
"If it's easier for you," Tim suddenly chimed in, "maybe just start with the things we need to know for safety reasons?"
Easier, right.
Danny's hand drifted to his torso and brushed against the stitches hidden under layers of cloth and gauze.
"Ok," he acquiesced. Danny expected some amount of fanfare to accompany his agreement, but neither Bruce nor Tim made an attempt to move from their spots. They didn't contact the other bats or organize a more formal interrogation, they just waited for him to continue. It was a little unnerving.
Danny looked down at his sneakers and bit his lip nervously. "I guess the most important thing for you to know is that the GIW wants me for my powers. The second most important thing is that my powers aren't really working right now."
"Why aren't they working?" Tim's question was spoken gently, but Danny recognized the thirst for knowledge in his eyes. It was eerily similar to the Fentons.
Danny swallowed the fear that rose in his throat and redirected his gaze to Bruce. "The, um... The cut on my chest, it's from a vivisection." They both nodded in understanding. "The people who had me - before I came here - they cut me open. It messed with my energy and while my powers are still there, I just don't have the juice needed to use them right now." That wasn't quite the truth, but Danny was drawing the line at telling them about ghost stuff, and cores absolutely fell into that category.
Bruce crouched down beside Tim's chair, and suddenly Danny felt like he could breathe a little better. He hadn't realized just how much Bruce's standing had bothered him until he was looking down at the man instead of up. It was a lot less intimidating this way.
"Can you tell us who did that to you?" Bruce's eyes were so sad, like he already knew the answer but didn't want to hear it.
Danny's mouth felt like sandpaper. He really, really didn't want to tell them about his time in the Fenton's basement. But the Waynes had defended him from the GIW and had yet to betray his trust, so maybe he could open up just a little more.
"My parents." The words were hardly more than a whisper, but he spoke them nonetheless. "My adoptive parents, that is. Jack and Maddie Fenton." He choked on their names and made a pained expression.
Bruce nodded solemnly. His lips were pulled into a deep frown while Tim snarled beside him.
"Fucking assholes," the teen growled angrily. Danny was surprised by how personally he seemed to be taking this.
Bruce laid a pacifying hand on the boy's shoulder and shook his head a little. Tim deflated with an angry huff.
Danny blinked. There was a story there, one that they didn't seem inclined to share at the moment.
Bruce looked back at him and seemed to decide a pivot was needed. "If your powers aren't working, how did you heal Jason?"
Ah, yes. The proverbial juice cleanse that was bound to come back to haunt him.
Danny gave them an apologetic look. "I'm actually not sure if I'm allowed to tell you that, at least not yet. I need to get permission first since the information doesn't just affect me."
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Permission from whom?"
Danny winced. "I don't think I can tell you that either, sorry."
Tim frowned. "What can you tell us?"
Danny shuffled through his mental library of ghost facts and tried to pick out the most innocuous ones. "I already kind of told you about ectoplasm, but basically, since Jason got resurrected, he now partially runs on ectoplasm and is classified as a liminal instead of a true human. He's still alive, but he has some ghostly traits that can affect his health and make him vulnerable to the weapons that the GIW have. I can tell you more once I confirm that I'm not breaking any laws that'll get me sent to ghost jail."
Tim mouthed the words ghost jail.
Bruce was eyeing Danny carefully. "When you helped Jason, you gave him ectoplasm from inside of you. Are you also a liminal?"
Abort, abort, that was way to close to the "I'm actually dead" conversation that Danny was avoiding. He tried to give a nonchalant shrug in response. "I mean, you already know that Ra's killed me in front of Damian. I wouldn't be standing here if Mother didn't resurrect me in the pits."
Bruce flinched at that. "Yes, apologies. So you and Jason both need this ectoplasm to stay healthy? Where do we get more of it?"
"The Ghost Zone," Danny said, ignoring the twin sets of furrowed brows that appeared at his answer. "All I can tell you about the Zone right now is that it's where all ghosts originate from. It's also where ectoplasm is made. And to answer the question I know you're going to ask, no, you can't go there right now. I need to wait for my abilities to start working before I can take you, and again, I need permission so I don't end up in ghost jail. Jason and I will be fine for the time being. It would be great to have a stash of ectoplasm to rely on, but we can subsist off of the ambient ectoplasm that more death-riddled areas like Gotham produce for now."
"Gotham produces ectoplasm?" Tim looked surprised by that.
Danny shrugged. "I mean, yeah? Not the city itself, but ectoplasm both creates and is created by ghosts. This city has a lot of dead people, so by association there's a lot more ectoplasm here than somewhere like Metropolis."
Bruce winced. Apparently he didn't appreciate the reminder that his city was basically a mass grave with buildings on top.
Tim had grabbed his tablet to start taking notes. "Ok, let's go back to the GIW and the Fentons. The first one is already here in Gotham, what about the Fentons? Are they going to come after you?"
Danny felt all of the blood in his body sink in dread. "I... I'm not sure. I hope they don't, I've never known them to travel much outside of Amity, but they might."
Tim gave him a quick apologetic look before continuing to scribble.
"Let's focus on the GIW for now, then," Bruce said. "We know that they're here and that they're after Danny. How do we stop them?"
Danny twisted his fingers. "Normally I'm able to fight them off or sabotage their bases and they leave for a little while to regroup. The only way to get rid of them for good would be to have that branch of the government dissolved or revoke their funding. People won't work if they're not getting paid. I can't exactly defend myself right now, though, and believe it or not I don't have a lot of political sway. It's probably best to just watch them for now and figure out how many of them are here, where their base is, and what they're planning. If I can stay hidden long enough to recharge, I can deal with them myself." Danny knew he was asking a lot from the Waynes right now, but what other choice did he have? He couldn't go fight the GIW right now, he'd be caught in minutes. He just had to hope that Bruce would allow Danny to hide away in the manor for a little while longer.
"Or," Tim looked up from his notes, "We do some reconnaissance, formulate a plan, and go after them as the bats while you stay here and recover." Bruce nodded in agreement.
Danny felt his mouth drop open in shock. "What? No! I can't ask you to do that, it's way to dangerous-"
"You said yourself that their weapons will not be effective against us," Bruce interjected. "Jason will stay here with you and we'll dismantle their local team while working on a more long term solution."
"Long term?" Danny sputtered.
Tim hummed thoughtfully. "We might have to get the JL involved if it's going to be political. Then again, the GIW is only a national entity, it might be easier to go after them from the inside. I can reach out to some people."
"Wait, stop for a second!" Danny thrust his hands out and tried to ignore the slight tremble in them. "This is too much, I can't ask you to do all of this. The GIW is my problem, I promise I can take care of them on my own if you just give me a little bit of time."
Tim's face softened with a sad kind of understanding. "Danny, we might not know each other very well yet, but you're family. You've had to shoulder a lot of responsibilities on your own until now, but part of having a family is helping each other out when we're struggling. The GIW is a big issue to handle on your own, but if you let us help, it doesn't have to feel like such a heavy burden."
Danny was rendered speechless. He gaped at them as Bruce reached out and cupped his shoulder gently.
"Danny, we want to help you."
No, this was too much. Danny was supposed to deal with all of this alone, it was his problem, his responsibility-
"Why?" He croaked.
Bruce's smile didn't reach his eyes. "You're one of us, now. Bats protect each other. Can you really say that you wouldn't do the same for us?"
He would, but that was just because of Danny's incurable hero complex. Right?
"Please, Danny." Bruce gave him the barest hint of a squeeze.
Danny took a deep breath. Never once had he been offered or even entertained accepting this kind of help before. If he said yes, he was basically agreeing to let the Waynes bench him while they dealt with his enemies on their own. He'd be trusting them completely and wholeheartedly with his safety. Danny couldn't recall ever having done that with someone aside from Damian. Not even Jazz.
He should say no.
"You have to keep me in the loop. I want to know everything you're planning to do before you do it. The GIW are slippery, I don't want you getting hurt on my behalf."
Bruce nodded and dropped his hand to grasp Danny's in a loose grip. He was warm.
Danny shuddered. "I've never had to trust someone like this before," he admitted quietly. "I'm not sure I really even know how."
"That's okay," Bruce soothed. "We can help with that, too."
Danny stared into blue eyes that mirrored his own. "Promise you won't hurt me."
Bruce's breath caught. He grabbed Danny's other hand and brought them to his chest so he could pull the teen a step closer. "I cannot promise to be perfect, because I've hurt my children accidentally before."
Danny tensed.
"But I can promise that I will do everything in my power to keep you safe and happy. I promise that I will be here to support you for as long as you are willing to let me into your life, Danny."
Danny felt too choked up to respond, so he just nodded. Bruce's smile looked a little less sad at that, and for the first time since coming to Gotham, Danny thought that maybe everything would turn out alright.