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When Bruce Wayne was invited to Gotham’s Ghost Convention, he viewed it as a good chance to renew his knowledge on ghosts, with the introduction of Phantom in the league. It was a logical choice, and with such a cautious group of people, it was unlikely more could go wrong than usual for Gotham. Hell, he’d even gotten the OK from Alfred to go. Unfortunately, Fate decided that everything should go wrong today.
It had started when the speakers over Ghost Biology (Dr. Maddie and Jack Fenton, room 305, hard to miss the neon green display) had started talking about how ghosts had no emotion, couldn’t feel pain, blah blah blah. Their son was in the corner of the room cringing at every word, and like usual only Bruce noticed. Given that the current topic was, untrue given his interactions with Phantom, he snuck over there and offered the kid some conversation and food if he wanted.
The kid raised an eyebrow, “My name’s Danny, let me text my sister I’m gonna go get lunch with a mysterious stranger in a fancy suit so she knows where I am.” He said it with the tone of sarcasm you would use when talking to an overeager 10-year-old with a sword. Bruce did his “I’m on T.V. and do not want to snort” laugh and said, “My name’s Bruce Wayne, feel free to tell her I’ll buy lunch and gifts.” He got the “oh wait you’re that rich guy” face. “If you insist Mr. Wayne, though some of the food here might bite back so be careful what you order.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Shall we head out?” Danny nodded and they started the crowded con trek to the food court. “I suppose I should start on that conversation I promised, eh? Who’s your favorite League member?” Danny seemed to think about it for a second before replying with a dopey smile, “Captain Marvel, he’s so childish and sunny all the time. It’s a nice change of pace compared to most of em. What about you?”
“Well I have to say my favor goes to the locals, so I have to disagree with you on the Captain.”
“Batman and his hoard of Robins are good and all, but Marvel isn’t afraid to share the run-down, it’s nice to hear that the person destroying half the city only has a 50% chance of doing it again immediately. The news outlets have my shaky trust At Best.” They were getting close to the food court by now.
“Good point. I wonder if the other League members ever try to stop him.” They do. Many times. It has never worked, bless Billy’s heart. Phantom was the only one who never really put effort into it, probably because he didn’t see much reason to withhold it in the first place.
“Oh I’m sure they have, Superman is always glaring at him in the back of interviews. I’m surprised that hasn’t become a meme yet, you gotta really screw up to get that glare from him consistently.” True, Bruce hasn’t been a good influence in that department.
“Kid, you may be too smart for your own good, what’s the best clip to get a still from?” Bruce was definitely going to start a Superman meme on his Bats-isBruce conspiracy blog. If not to annoy Clark, then because it was a rather funny idea.
Danny smiled ear-to-ear, literally. Constant exposure to ectoplasm might have some impact on human biology, Bruce noted and tucked into his mental theories box. “WHIZ-TV has some good ones, but I think the best are uploaded by this kid named Freddy. He has a youtube channel for Captain Marvel news clips, but he manages to record and ask questions alongside actual news anchors. It’s pretty interesting.” Ah, Marvel Jr. Makes sense he’d do that.
“I’ll check it out soon. Which food stalls do you think are safe? I have a feeling ordering vegetarian won't make much difference in regards to it biting back.”
Danny snorted then pointed to the various fast food stalls there. “Not the healthiest, but usually safer on account of being frozen and precooked away from large amounts of ectoplasm and crowds of people who work with ectoplasm daily.”
“Alright, what do you want, I can order while you go find a table.” Danny gave him his order and wandered off into the slightly less crowded table area to find one. Bruce went over to the Big Belly Burger and paid for the food. It was then that shit hit the fan. How one may ask, did that happen this time?
The Penguin. Apparently one of the captive ghosts at the con was a vulture that Oswald had formerly been associated with. So naturally, he had to go rescue the bird in the most explosive manner. By the time Bruce had managed to get in costume and defeat him, Phantom had shown up and was struggling with the amount of ghosts Penguin had released. Out of the 2,230 or so there, a quarter of the containment areas had been breached in the initial explosion. Phantom was currently dealing with the 10 he hadn’t caught yet on top of the hundreds of ghost hunters attending, who were doing what ghost hunters would predictably do in this scenario unfortunately. Batman set to work on clearing the hunters of the area, a task made much more difficult with the ghosts flying around as well as some confusing him for a ghost, somehow. They got the bat-glare.
“Was wonderin when you’d get here Bats! Mind lending a hand? There’s probably an ecto-gun somewhere that you can use.” There were several on the ground, most of them repainted Fenton Works weaponry. He picked up a thermos and an ecto-pistol and started working on getting Phantom out of the mob pit of ghosts surrounding him. It took awhile but they eventually rounded up everything, including one vulture ghost that did not want to leave the Penguin. Equally cute and annoying, but it was done.
“I’m glad you were here Phantom, who knows how long that could’ve taken without you.” Hours, days, maybe a week if they were particularly sneaky.
“Is that a compliment I’m hearing Bats? I’m flattered, but it wasn’t a big deal. Figured Gotham’s MO and a couple hundred ghosts wouldn’t end well.” That was definitely a compliment but the sun would go out before he admitted that. “Anyways, I should probably go find somewhere safe to open up a portal and dump these guys, see ya.”
Batman grunted, then watched as Phantom flew off, presumably to the spot near Wayne Manor they had determined was safe to open portals near. (It was definitely not coincidence he could monitor it from the Cave without much trouble.) Batman himself went to find a safe place to de-suit, after that he’d meet up with Danny. Danny! Oh fuck him, he forgot about Danny in the chaos. He sighed, and started thinking of ways to reconnect with him. Asking the Fentons to borrow a phone under the guise he lost his could work, added bonus of getting his number and being able to check in on him every now and then, kid looked a little thin for his height.
Alright, time to meet the parents. This was going to be interesting. Wait, no. De-suit first. He ended up calling the car and de-suiting there, mostly because Alfred had a fresh suit in there and his had been ripped in the initial attack. He walked back in, it was already fairly re-crowded unsurprisingly. Making his way towards room 305, he wondered what kind of home lives they lead. Danny was thinner than he should be, but that could be attributed to a number of medical disorders and personal choices even if it was concerning. He mentioned a sister, presumably here if he’s informing her of his location. Likely older than him for the same reason. If he got the chance, it’d be good to talk to her as well.
And there was the neon green sign. Lovely, he walked in the room to find an excited blur of blue and orange. They were moving around and grabbing random parts, having turned the small room into a mini-lab. He caught bits of “we need to repair the”, “give me that”, and “can I have a cookie?” Bruce slipped in, making sure to make some noise so they knew he was there. “Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton? May I borr-”
“GHHOOSSTT!!” There was an ecto-gun in his face. It was charging up. He was not prepared for that, and he stumbled back some. “Jack no, that's Mr. Wayne. He was here for our presentation earlier, remember?” She turned to address him, “Apologies Mr. Wayne, Jack gets a little excited after ghost attacks that big. What were you saying?”
“Right, um. I was hoping to borrow a phone. I lost mine during the explosion and I need to call the person I was with so they don’t worry too much. We were separated and we usually call after something happens just in case. We’ve both had less than pleasant experiences after attacks like this.” Mrs. Fenton rummaged through a bag and produced a Palm Centro with some heavy modification and handed it to him with the calling app already open. “Thank you, I’ll only be a minute.” Mrs. Fenton smiled at him and launched herself back into her work. He clicked ‘Danny’ in the contact menu and started the call.
“Hello? Danny, this is Bruce. Where are you? We should meet up again. Buddy system and all.”
“Why are you calling from my moms phone?”
“I dropped my somewhere in the initial explosion so I asked to borrow one. If you want to get lunch again, we can meet near the food court or ask if it's ok to go get something elsewhere. The food court is still a mess last I saw it, but if you want to chance it we can.”
“Nah, the explosion and ghosts fucked it up pretty bad, I’ll text Jazz and we can head
out. Where were you thinking?” Why wasn’t he going to text his parents?
“Well there’s plenty of fast food joints, but those aren’t particularly healthy so I avoid them. If you have anything you’d want we can go there. I have a feeling my butler will be able to whip up just about anything though.
“Butler? Right, you’re rich. I don’t see any problems with that idea. I’m near the front so
we can meet there. See ya.” Danny hung up, so Bruce took note of the number before setting it near the bag she produced it from. Heading towards the front, he noticed that the damage was already starting to be cleaned up. He spotted Danny on the stairs in front of the door. “Hey Danny! Alfred should be on the way. I think he’s in the lotus today, so watch for one of those.”
“Of course you have a lotus. Until then, what’d you think of your first major ghost attack?” He gave that ear-to-ear smile again, this kid knew he was being creepy.
“Well I have to say, it was a little underwhelming, compared to Gotham’s Tuesdays. No one got majorly hurt except during the Penguins attacks and Batman and Phantom were there pretty fast to clean it up. I’m honestly surprised there's no huge monologue from a ghost threatening vengeance on everyone for some rather silly reason.” The truth was definitely the best route there, even if it seemed to disappoint Danny a little.
“Don’t say monologue and silly reasons, it’ll summon the Wisconsin Ghost to doom us all.” Plasmius did have a penchant for monologues and silly reasons, must be a semi-sane villain thing.
“You seem fairly comfortable with ghost attacks, are you from Amity?” Only place on Earth to get enough attacks for this sort of attitude.
“That obvious? Damn. Yeah I’m from Amity, but don’t let anyone here ask you that. We’ll be covered by Press and Hunters within seconds.” He watched as Alfred pulled up.
“Yikes, I’ll keep quiet. Looks like the car is here, shall we?” He stood up and offered his hand to Danny.
“Taking me home after the first date flopped? ’m flattered Mr. Wayne.” Danny stood up and started walking towards the door, keeping the conversation going until they entered the car.