Chapter Text
Miles away, in a mansion on the outskirts of Gotham, Danny looks back and forth between the tray of food and the two men still standing near him, trying to psych himself up to the awkwardness of trying to eat while they look on, maybe?
Jay seemed to catch his thoughts written on his face because he piped up.
“A-aanyway, I just wanted you two to meet! Alfie’s always around if you need anything. Gimme a shout if you need anything, i’m going to go on a run around the grounds!” Jay smiles and turns to walk back out of the room with a wave of his hand.
The butler remains a little longer, smiling gently at Danny again.
“As Master Jason mentioned, I am Alfred Pennyworth, the butler in residence. Please do not hesitate to ask if you require anything. I am usually on the premises and always glad to be of service. I have raised the young people of this household enough to know they will knock if they want to enter. Please lock the door if you do not wish them to enter at all, they will understand and will not enter if you do not tell them to. If food is delivered to your room, I will drop by to pick it up 3 to 4 hours later. If you do not wish for me to enter, please leave the tray outside your door and I will pick it up. If you tap 1 on the desk phone, you’ll reach the kitchen phone inner-line, the phone is of course online.” Mr Alfred explains at length before nodding again at Danny’s (slightly overwhelmed) agreeing smile and leaving as well.
Danny feels the blank smile on his lips fall as the bedroom’s door closes and the last few words by the older Englishman bounce around his mind. His eyes trail down to the table holding the covered tray of food, the copy of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, a stack of papers, and there, sitting innocuously on the far corner, a blocky black wireless landline phone.
Sitting down quietly, he picks up the phone and inputs one of the few numbers he knows by heart, before putting the phone to his ear and listening to the tone with bated breaths.
—---
In the large corridors of Wayne manor, winding their way back down to the kitchen, Jason sighs explosively as he stretches his arms and back with a loud pop, walking apace with his unofficial grandfather.
“Ngh fuck… right, that was faster than I thought” The young man snorted, scratching the back of his head.
“After the trials of what seems to be his last several months, the young man’s struggle with company is completely understandable.” Alfred tuts back.
“Never said it wasn’t…” The anti-hero retorted with a rueful shake of his head. “I know he’s in for a long recovery, I just hate feeling awkward…”
“Indeed.”
“PENNYWORTH, PLEASE EXPLAIN TO GRAYSON THAT HIS UNCOUTH BEHAVIOR IS NOT TO BE TOLERATED.” The high-pitched, authoritative voice of their youngest reaching them from the kitchen.
No sooner has the duo crossed the threshold of the room, that they are assaulted by the chaos that had brewed and spilled over their relatively short fifteen minutes absence.
Dick is standing on the other side of the room, holding the bowl of fruit up and away from Damian who stands half on the tip of his toes, half seemingly ready to fall into a combat stance, his fork clutched tightly in his hand.
Cass is crouched on the closest counter, with one hand posed ready to strike and grab more fruits away from Dick, while her other arm is holding said liberated fruits against her chest.
Stephanie has arrived while Jason and Alfred were off to see Danny and is seated, throwing pieces of her orange peel at Duke who was apparently still dozing lightly into his porridge and Tim, who ignores her as he keeps his eyes on his smartphone and every so often hands some pieces of his cooling bacon to Titus who remained laying under the table between the barstools.
“How’s our guest doing?” Dick pipes up, with nonchalance, dancing around his littlest brother and fake-glaring at a smirking Cass.
“Rough night but he seems in good spirits.” Jason responds looking back and forth between Damian and Dick before grabbing the former Heir of the Ras Al Ghul and adroitly avoiding the reflexive elbow to his throat, while rearranging them to hold him under his left arm and compensating for his wiggling. “C’mon short-stack, Titus hasn’t gotten his walkies and I need to run for a bit, let Dickie make an ass of yourself and Alfie’ll set him straight.”
The Red Hood walks past Dick, grabbing the last persimmon off the fruit bowl in his hands, and walks out with their youngest under his arm, who finally stops struggling and simply whistling to pick Titus’ attention, the dog following them on quiet paws.
Dick frowns and sticks out his bottom lip at Cass who smiles warmly and drops a couple of apples, a pear and an orange back into the fruit bowl, walking back to sit at the table with a banana.
“Something weird happening with the security recordings from the Con center.” Tim pipes up without looking up from his phone and bolting out, clearly on his way to the Batcave, startling Duke into waking up.
—---
“WHAT DO Y– MEAN, YOU -ON’T KNOW???”
Danny winces as he lets Jazz’s dulcet rage-filled screechs be laced with statics wash over him.
“Listen I just know their first names, that they live in a Vlad-richness-level manor and they got me out at their own risk.” Danny hisses back, his hand tugging at the hair at the back of his neck.
He can hear the loud sigh and a deep settling breath at the other end of the line.
“Ok… okok… fuck – I’ll get Sam’s help and we’ll try to get to Gotham as soon as possible.” She finally continues, a hushed and incomprehensible exchange happening on her side, probably Sam and Tucker’s interjections. “In the meantime, you find out where the hell you are and call us back tonight before 7PM EST tonight. If I don’t get a call I’ll… I’ll find a way to get to you before the end of the weekend!”
“Right…” Danny responds weakly, feeling a stone of apprehension in his stomach.
“Hey! Hey! Danny, listen to me. It’s gonna be okay. Listen to me, I swear , I’m coming to you.” Jazz’s serious and quiet tone makes the young halfa’s eyes sting as he grips tightly on the phone against his ear.
“Okay…” He responds in a quiet breath.
“Shit I think somebody’s noticed me.” Tucker’s voice pipes up loudly behind Jazz’s.
“Disconnect before they can trace you back to Amity, quick!” Sam yells out.
“Fuckfuckfuck IT’S ORACLE OHGOD I’M GETTING COUNTERHACKED BY ORACLE HAAA–” Danny’s best friend screeching suddenly cuts off and the young half-ghost looks down at the handset only to realize his tight grip completely crushed it to pieces.
Leaning over, he tosses the crumbs of plastic and electronic elements into the paper basket under the desk, before sitting back up, and remains staring in silence at the royal blue wallpaper, attempting to wade through the increasing static in his brain.
“It’s gonna be okay. Jazz said so.” He whispers to himself, rubbing at the tightness in his chest, flinching at the passing thought that there should be a slicing pain there.
He has to take another while for the tight pain at the back of his throat to dissipate. Breathing shakily, he looks unseeingly at the uncovered, half-eaten pancakes and buttered scone.
The call was extremely short for the amount of information exchanged and left him with a sense of vertigo and nausea.
So his parents are in custody, Jazz is sleeping over at Sam’s while they were trying to organize another breakout, and worse, he realized he actually hasn’t learnt a single useful information about his saviors… great times.
Danny has always been distantly aware of the vigilantes outside of Amity Park, Dash is a Green Lantern stan on top of being a Phantom fan after all.
But their utter silence after the Anti-Ecto acts passed in Illinois, and the restrictions against metas tightening, before the other few states started adopting the Acts had spoken pretty glaringly of how much they (did not) care about Podunk-town, Illinois and its turmoil.
So he never had any hope that any of the big-time heroes would take note of the disappearance of a small-town vigilante who never left his ghost-infected town anyway.
But Oracle… Phantom had spent more than one afternoon or evening listening to Tucker rant about the legendary hacker Oracle and their white-hat exploits.
—--
Worry gnaws at his belly and before he can think on it too much, the young half-ghost is slowly making his way out the door and attempting to listen for sounds, voices or other, in order to find Jay, Mr Alfred or even that guy from yesterday, Tim?
Slightly dazed by the sheer size of the building, he hesitantly ventures out and down a large mahogany and marble spiral stairway. The superficial resemblance with Vlad’s manor is broken by the presence of candid portraits of smiling people rather than solemn ones, and a sense of homely warmth cocooned in quiet heartbreaking love and grief of a house lived-in by generations of a family. (Vlad’s house sort of felt similar but with an under-layer of falsehood and jealous discontent)
He ends up in a corridor off of the large stairway, following the slightly muffled voice of Mr Alfred and another person.
Following the voices, he knocks and enters what turns out to be a large airy kitchen. Mr Alfred is standing with his back to the door, sans jacket and with starch-pressed white shirt sleeves rolled up as he cleans a sinkful of dishes and suds, with a man sitting close to him on the counter, juggling a couple of apples around.
The other man is younger, with expressive blue eyes and a quick smile as his eyes follow Danny into the room.
The halfa clears his throat, unsure how to broach the suggestion on his mind.
“Mister Phantom!” Mr Alfred cuts off his hesitation, turning to smile at Danny. “Has there been any issue? How may I help you?”
“The phone… broke…” Danny responds with a flash of a wince. “M’sorry.”
“In this household, that’s not even close to the worst thing broken by inattention or else.” The dark haired man with Mr Alfred chuckles, with a cheeky grin to the older gentleman butler. “I’m Dick, I’m Jay and Tim’s older brother. We met briefly but you were pretty out of it most of the way… and you looked a bit … paler…”
Danny winces, rubbing ruefully at the side of his head.That was a very diplomatic way of saying “a whole ass color palette bleach difference”.
“I.. yeah… I called some people to tell them I got out, they want me to call back tonight, but … i sorta busted the phone.”
“Ah I see, no problem, I will replace the landline in the room before tonight.” The butler nods, while looking pointedly at the younger man next to him.
“Uh?... ah! Yeah, let me grab what’s left of that and show you a bit of the house in the meantime!” The man (Dick??) grins and vaults off the counter to join him and lead him back out of the kitchen. “The media room is pretty great! And I’m not just saying that because I’m the one who campaigned for most of what’s in it!”
Danny follows him out, one last look behind catches Alfred fiddling with his watch for a moment before going back to his dishes.