Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Three Years Ago…

Danny Fenton was fourteen when his world ended for the third time.

And no, this wasn’t the product of teenage melodrama. Rather it’s the result of the universe’s spirited efforts in making Danny’s life a veritable punching bag for any deity to come over and fuck it up . 

He certainly didn’t ask to half-die not once, but twice , and be responsible for this godforsaken town. That’s a thing heroes do. Or sidekicks that train under heroes. Not some dumb kid barely halfway through his first semester of high school and who was incapable of keeping his grades higher than a C . 

But, well, this was what he got for playing hero, right? Dead parents, dead sister, and dead friends, all because he was too goddamn slow .

(The prerequisite to every hero: a tragic backstory. Guess it was finally his turn.)

The weather went from a light mist to a drizzle, raindrops falling in uneven staccato on the cluster of black umbrellas. He could barely hear the ceremony— not that he was able to pay much attention anyway. Danny tried to. He did. But his mind was a blue screen— had been for the past few weeks—and the preacher’s words were just going in one ear and out the other in loud static.

His fingers curled around the velvet pouch in his pocket, grounding himself. He’d dug it out from its lockbox in the depths of his closet for this exact reason. 

In front of Danny was a single plot reserved for the Fenton family, the grass undisturbed except for the muddy dirt and drooping flowers around the erected marble obelisk that stood atop the plot. (Undisturbed because there wasn’t any need to dig up the ground for a coffin. You’d need bodies for that, and there were hardly any left after—) At the obelisk’s base was a bronze placard engraved with the names of three of the people who once comprised Danny's whole world, and an epitaph: Gone but Never Forgotten. 

Vlad must have chosen it. The obelisk was his decision too; excessive and grand because he would provide nothing less for his greatest enemy, his greatest love, and their wonderful, genius, perfect daughter. 

Danny looked away from the monument, his hair a damp curtain that shadowed his eyes. No mom left to brush it out of the way. No dad to ruffle it into something even messier. There’s a— a pressure at the back of his throat that nauseated him to the point of discomfort but not enough to actually vomit in the nearest shrubbery. He rubbed his scratchy throat with his free hand, letting it rest by his clavicle. Right above where his heart was being mercilessly squeezed by his own guilty conscience. 

He should have been the one to plan his family’s funeral. The one to write their obituary. The one to choose the headstone. The flowers. The date. Everything. It was his responsibility. His duty to make all these decisions as the— 

Danny bit the inside of his lip.

He should have been more responsible. Should have been— oh he didn't know— there when all the decisions were made instead of holing up in a corner of the Zone and letting Vlad take care of it all. God, what kind of son was he to have the audacity to get his family killed and foist off arranging the funeral to the guy who wanted to kill his dad . 

But maybe that was better. Leaving the decision-making to someone else, that is. God knows that Danny makes all the wrong choices.

(If only he was faster he was stronger he saved his family before going after his evil future self  he gave back the test answers sooner that boiler never overheated.) 

The hand on his shoulder nearly made Danny jump out of his skin. 

He shifted his umbrella to see his aunt Alicia looking down at him, concern and pity softening her usually stoic features. Vlad flew her in from Spittoon. When? Danny didn’t know, though somewhere in his foggy memories he might have recalled Vlad asking how to reach Danny’s relatives. It was only aunt Alicia who came in the end, though. His mom and aunt Alicia never liked to talk about their parents, and his dad was an only child who was far too estranged from his own.

“Ceremony’s over, kid. You okay?” 

He’d scoff, but he didn’t want to tempt his nausea. 

“I’ll live.” He winced, the words bitter on his tongue. “I’m fine, I mean.” 

Aunt Alicia pressed her lips into a thin, flat line. “The rain’s getting a little worse. Do you want to head back home?”

Home? Where even was that anymore? 

“I think I wanna stay out here for now.”

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

“No— I just…I want to be alone, I think.”

She sighed, giving a comforting squeeze to his shoulder before dropping her hand. “Alright. I’ll just be waiting for you in the car then.”

Danny nodded absentmindedly, gaze trained on the drooping white lilies by the placard. At the corner of his eye, he saw Vlad approach aunt Alicia, somber-faced but calculating as they headed to the car.

The future he tried to escape was already playing out. Pieces slotting into place like some jigsaw puzzle of doom. 

In his quiet moments, holed up in the corner of his parents’ room, he’d ponder the what-ifs. The should-have, could-have, would-have-beens. He’d think of the future in all its terrible glory and wonder where else it could have all gone wrong. The trigger was—surprise, surprise— Vlad. Or, living with him, that is. If he wanted to put an ounce of trust in that sob story future-Vlad spun, then it was Danny’s own grief coupled with Vlad’s invention that sent the world spinning into its destruction.

(Future-Vlad might have helped him. Might have turned over a new leaf. But there was an entire decade that separated Future-Vlad from the present- Vlad. And Danny would rather cut off his own arm than trust present-Vlad with anything related to Danny’s well-being.)

Danny knew jack shit about the adoption process, but he was 80% sure most social workers would place Danny with his aunt as opposed to his parents’ old college buddy that they recently connected with. That Danny ended up living with Vlad meant that either Aunt Alicia didn’t pass whatever assessment the state required, or Vlad used his influence to tip the scales in his favor. Probably both. 

So the law would never let him live with anyone but Vlad— the fruit loop would make sure of that. Danny’s only option left was to run away, then.

Hm. How long could one half-dead fourteen-year-old realistically outrun a half-dead crazy billionaire with enough connections in both the human world and the Ghost Zone? 

Survey says—

Fuck .

“Our condolences, Daniel.” 

Danny startled. Who the—

He tilted his head the other way, shifting his focus to the woman who just appeared next to him. Sure Danny found his own attention slipping into darker places more often than not these days, but he should have noticed if someone came near him.

No, wait. Aunt Alicia managed to sneak up on him earlier. Maybe Danny really was just out of it. 

 “The doctors Fenton did brilliant work, and your sister had such a bright future ahead of her. Their loss will be felt.”

“Thank you,” Danny answered. The words are still ash on his tongue but he didn’t stumble over them anymore. “I…appreciate your support.”

The woman was tall, with a wiry physique and cool tawny skin. She had an oval face, a straight nose, and sharp features, though much of it was slightly obscured by her hat, the black netting ending just past her nose. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of her long black coat. 

The man—and Danny knew he’d seen him somewhere before, it was on the tip of his tongue—shared in the similar sharp characteristics, but his coloring was a lot lighter. He had long white hair that extended past his shoulders and a long horseshoe mustache that should have looked stupid, but somehow he managed to make it work. He held a single umbrella for both himself and the woman.

His mind clicked. Recognition alight on his face. 

“Mr. Dusan?”

Dusan smiled. “I am pleased that you still remember me, Daniel.”

Mr. Dusan, if Danny remembered correctly, was his parents’ liaison with their benefactor. The CEO of some sort of big research company whose name Danny never really bothered to pay attention to. They had been funding his parents’ research since their university days, and it was because of them that the Fentons managed to get their hands on enough samples of ectoplasm to experiment and research on. Mr. Dusan would be sent every once in a while to observe his parents’ studies, much to the Fenton family’s stress and delight. His visits would be preceded with days of cleaning the house from top to bottom and Danny’s parents frantically getting their stuff organized. But a good visit from Mr. Dusan always ended with the family going out for a nice dinner the day after. 

It was one of Danny’s favorite times, really.

“Just Danny, please.”

“Danny, then,” Dusan said. “May I introduce you to my sister, Talia al Ghul?”

Sister? Danny raised his hand for a handshake, deciding not to comment on the age difference. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m, uh, sorry it’s not during better circumstances.”

Talia shook his hand with a closed-lipped, but somber smile. “Our employer—your parents’ benefactor—actually sent us to give his condolences, and to extend a helping hand if you should ever need it.”

“What?”

“Your parents were pioneers, Danny. Their research changed the face of the world as we know it despite how much they were ridiculed for it. It would be remiss of their benefactor to simply leave their legacy, their only son, alone to the wolves.” Her voice was smooth and honey-sweet, and Danny felt compelled to listen. “If you need anything, anything at all, feel free to reach out to us.” 

She handed him a business card. It was crisp, made from thick card stock. Blank except for a single number in the middle. 

Danny turned it over in his hand. “Anything?”

“Anything.”

He tucked it into his pocket. “Thank you for your offer. I’ll keep it in mind.”

“We will be in town for the next few days,” Dusan said. “We hope to hear from you soon.”

Later, aunt Alicia asked if Danny would rather stay with her at the hotel. She’d ask this every time they parted ways, and each time Danny would say no, thank you.

She didn’t push too much. Knew, probably, that it was only a matter of time that Danny would have to leave his house to live…wherever it was his social worker decided to stick him in.

Danny appreciated her concern— even if he would rather do without it. 

He slipped off his black suit jacket, throwing it over the back of the couch as he walked past the living room. His mom would throw a fit at that. He scrambled down to the lab, taking the steps two at a time, hands wrenching the tie from around his neck—and god fuck why did his skin feel so hot. The tie ended up somewhere on the steps, the velvet bag safely stowed away in a drawer full of blueprints. He kicked off his stupid dress shoes. A safety hazard, his dad would say. The lab floor needed to be clear at all times to prevent an accident.

Too fucking late for that.

White rings passed through him with blinding fury as Danny burst through the portal between dimensions and into the silence of the Ghost Zone. 

He floated. Aimless.

And breathed. 

Danny picked a direction. Eenie-meenie-minie-moe . It’s no use trying to logic out directions in the Ghost Zone. Not when the islands thought of physics as nothing more than a joke. He set off north-north-west of the portal and tried his luck there.

Tucker and Sam would call him stupid. There were probably a billion-and-one better ways to find Clockwork’s stupid tower than this. 

Jazz would say he’s still stuck on the bargaining stage—

Jazz can’t say anything anymore.

None of them can.

Jessica Andrews, his social worker, took him out to a quiet cafe to talk. She was a tall woman with a stocky frame, brown skin, and a soft rounded face. Her nails were painted a light green; it was to match her plants, she’d say. Once, she’d told him about how her husband would complain about all the plants she bought because he couldn’t figure out where the jungle stopped and the house began. 

The cafe was far enough away from most schools and built below some bible store, its facade made from faded red brick with a charcoal gray awning. A few circular tables and chairs were laid out front, though they sat empty. The weather had been everything but gloomy for the past few days.

Jessica clasped her hands over the table, green nails tap-tap-tapping against her knuckles. “How have you been holding up, Danny?” 

They’re seated by the giant window, though there wasn’t much to look at on the other side. Just the road and more old buildings on the other side. 

“‘M fine.”

“That’s wonderful.” She could tell that he was lying; he’d bet on it. “How has your sleep been?”

Danny pointedly drank his coffee— brewed as dark as he could with as many espresso shots he could manage to order without the barista giving him a strange look. “Fine.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The black holes under your eyes beg to differ.”

“I’d rather skip all this small talk if that’s ok.”

“Alright, if that’s what you want.” She brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face. “I promised you early on that I’d keep you informed of how the courts are handling your case.”

He huffed, sinking into his chair. He already knew the outcome. “They decide where to stick me yet?”

“They’re still doing their due diligence and contacting as many of your adult relatives as possible in order to find a suitable guardian.”

“I’m sensing some sort of catch here.”

“The people looking over your case have considered your request to be placed with your aunt Alicia.”

“They said no.”

“They had some…concerns,” she said. “Your aunt’s residence is very isolated, which might prevent you from getting the proper help you need. There were also some concerns about how you would handle a sudden dramatic shift in lifestyles, what with being moved away from your school, your community, your peers, into someplace extremely unfamiliar.”

Danny leveled a look at her. “There’s something else, too, isn’t there.”

Jessica gave him a look of pity. “Your aunt also expressed some…hesitancy in taking you in when we talked with her.”

His breath caught. Teeth gnawed at the inside of his lip. Fuck. He rubbed the back of his neck, slowly inching it up to tug at the back of his hair, the other hand curling into a fist beneath the table. Fuck—

He knew he knew this would happen but he still—

—Can’t believe that he held onto that—

—What was he thinking?

“Danny?”
Fingernails dug crescents into the inside of his palm. He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. Don’t— I’m fine. It’s fine.”

He shivered.

 Dan’s laughter echoed from the back of his skull, mocking him. It’s inevitable, Dan crowed. I am inevitable. You can’t stop the future any more than you could stop the sun from rising .

Clockwork’s tower was nowhere to be found. Danny didn’t know why he kept on searching. Sheer stubbornness, maybe. Some foolish hope beyond all hope that if he begged hard enough, Clockwork would be willing to do him a favor and rewind time back to when everything made sense. 

Sometimes Danny doesn’t even go to the Ghost Zone to find him. 

Sometimes he’ll just find some patch of the Zone with enough floating rocks and scream. Scream until his voice is hoarse and he could no longer sustain his ghost form. Until the rocks are nothing but pebbles floating in the green void. Until all that’s left is the freezing cold inside of him.

The ghosts had been staying away from Amity Park. 

Good.

He didn’t know what he would do if any of them showed up now.

Danny woke up with his skin freezing-on-fire-cold-too-cold-he-can’t-stop-sweating. He didn’t remember calling anyone, but he must have, considering that someone showed up in his room with a bowl of chicken soup and a glass of Gatorade. 

He should’ve been more alarmed at this— there was a stranger in his house. But right now his head was begging to be smashed in with a hammer and he’s just glad that he was not alone.

“Do you think you could sit up and eat, Danny?” The figure sat down at the edge of his bed, one hand on top of the blanket cocoon he made for himself. A woman. An accent that was definitely not American. British, maybe? Either way, not aunt Alicia. 

His stomach rumbled. At least this time it didn’t feel like throwing up everything. Danny pushed himself up with aching slowness, leaning back against the headboard. Bleariness blinked away from his eyes, he saw his caretaker’s features more clearly. It was—it started with a T. Tania? Tasnia? No, Talia was the name. Mr. Dusan’s sister.

“Ms. al Ghul? What are you doing here?”

“You don’t remember?” She sets the bowl down on his bedside table, in easy reach, and hands him the glass. “You called the number Dusan and I gave to you sounding delirious. We were worried but Dusan had some pressing business to attend to, so I came on my own.”

“Oh.” The drink was heaven to his parched throat. “How did you get inside?”

Her eyes—a unique shade of green—sparkled with mirth. “I have my ways.”

“Oh-kay .” He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “Thank you. For coming all this way, I mean. You really shouldn’t have to come and take care of some kid you just met.”

“Nonsense, Danny. I could hardly leave you alone in such conditions, it would be against my instincts as a mother.”

“You have kids?”

“I have one,” she said, then paused as if contemplating something. “No, I had two.”

Danny bit the inside of his cheek, thumb wiping away the condensation on the surface of his now empty glass. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Talia let out a sad sort of chuckle. “Thank you, though it’s not needed. He’s— my eldest son—isn’t dead. Certain circumstances forced me into the position to give him up for adoption. He’s alive and well, hopefully, though he probably doesn’t know that I exist.”

Oh. Danny didn’t know what to say to that.

“You didn’t try to get into contact with him?”

“What would be the point? He has his own parents now, a life free of complications. The best I could hope for was that he kept the memento I gave him.”

“A memento?”

“A necklace.”

Danny stilled. 

It was stupid. Foolish even, to think about it. There are like over seven billion people in the world.

“What kind of necklace, if you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

Talia smiled, eyes glazed as if in memory. “It was a present from his father. A beautiful work of art, it was. It was a sapphire necklace— with two rows of sapphires, to be exact, cut in perfect circles and polished to a shine.”

The velvet bag Danny had tucked beneath his pillow burned at the back of Danny’s mind. It can’t be. That was too much of a coincidence.

“Each sapphire was surrounded by gold, though there were small diamonds that surrounded the larger sapphires.”

Oh god, oh god. What was his life?

“Though beautiful, my favorite part of it had to be what was within the middle sapphire. It was possible to open it, you see. And engraved inside were the words—”

“‘ For the greatest happiness you have given me.’”

Talia looked at him, green eyes wide. “How did you know?”

Danny found himself unable to look at her. Gingerly, he set his glass bedside table, next to his cooling bowl of chicken soup, and retrieved the velvet pouch beneath his pillow. He held the bag to her, almost reluctantly, but relinquished it once it was in her grip.

Talia opened the bag and drew out a necklace. Two rows of sapphires inlaid in gold, with the largest ones surrounded by tiny diamonds. It was beautiful, though perhaps it no longer shone as it once did. 

She beheld it in silence, fingers tracing the exquisite craftsmanship as if, at first, in disbelief, then in reverence. She stopped at the large sapphire on the bottom row. 

After a moment, she opened it.

“My parents told me I was adopted when I was six,” Danny said, unable to take the silence any longer. He tangled his fingers together, clasping and unclasping them. “They gave me that necklace— said it was from my birth mother. They never knew who she was, and the orphanage they got me from had no information either.”

Tucker and Sam once asked him if he ever wanted to know who his birth mother was. Danny wasn’t sure what he wanted, really. Sometimes he wondered about it, but he was content with not knowing for the most part. His parents were his parents, blood relation or no, and he looked similar enough to Jack Fenton in coloring that most people didn’t question why his skin wasn’t as light as theirs, or why his features were a lot sharper than theirs.

(Tucker and Sam never knew about the necklace. It was hard to explain why he never told them considering he’d tell them just about anything else— but it was different. It was…something just for him. A cold comfort in knowing that, at one point, he was someone’s ‘greatest happiness.’)

He coughed into his elbow, a shiver racking his spine.

Warm arms enveloped him into a hug. 

“ It’s you, ” Talia whispered. “ It’s you.”

Something inside Danny seemed to click back into place. His core thrummed gently, humming a litany of feelings and words he couldn’t translate. Some are apprehensive. Others are confused. But most of all it felt…happy.

Warm.

“You know that I’m adopted, right?” Danny said to Mrs. Andrews when they met up again. It was a park this time; she was really adamant about getting him out of his house. 

“I am aware, yes.”

“When you mentioned that all my relatives would be identified and informed… does my biological mother count too?”

Mrs. Andrews exhaled between her teeth. “I know what you’re asking about, but I’m afraid it isn’t an option. In adoption cases like yours, the biological parents usually relinquish all parental rights over the child. Even if we did find your biological mother, the court would never let her have custody over you again.”

He shivered, pulling his jacket closer around him, and wondered why he still put so much faith in the legal system. 

It was only a matter of time before Vlad came to visit him once again.

“What do you want, Vlad .”

The black bags beneath Vlad’s eyes were the only thing unkempt about his otherwise neat appearance. Mourning or not, his smile still made Danny’s fist itch to punch it. “Why, little badger, can I not see how the son of my oldest friends is doing?”

“I’m not living with you, you fruit loop.”

Vlad rolled his eyes. “Really, Daniel, this disinclination of yours is getting tiring. Just accept it and the moving process will be much, much easier.”

Danny glared at him, green eyes livid. His teeth bared and gnashing. “I’d rather die than live with you.”

“Well, you’re already halfway there. Need help finishing the job?”

He swung his fist at him, but Vlad caught it with ease. “Get out of my house!”

“There’s no use in being difficult, now. You know as well as I do that the courts will inevitably choose me .”

( Inevitable, Dan had said. Inevitable inevitable inevitable.)

“Shut up.” Danny seethed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” 

As he tore his hand away from Vlad’s grip, a spark of power burst in between them in a blinding white light and bitter cold. Vlad threw up a shield, but Danny was too caught off guard. He was blasted back, knees hitting the armrest on the couch and nearly making him stumble. When the light cleared, Danny could see swathes of crystalline ice and frost embedded in the middle of the living room.

Frost had crept up Vlad’s shield, coating it in a thin wall of ice which broke the second Vlad released the barrier. Vlad looked down at the ice, face flashing between surprise, confusion, awe, before settling into a patronizing smile. 

“Do you see now?” Vlad said, gesturing to the ice. “This is why I’m the only one suitable to be your guardian. I am the only one that can understand you. That knows your needs as a young half-ghost. That can guide you and teach you.”

A bitter cold shook Danny’s body to the core, frost seeping into his bones and the bite of winter in his lungs. A thin layer of frost coated his palms and fingertips. His face is flushed. He feels hot but the shivers won’t stop.

Vlad approached, arms opened wide like he’s approaching some scared animal. Like a little badger. 

Danny hissed at him, scrambling to his feet to place the couch between them. 

“Come on, Daniel, just let me take care of you.”

“Go to hell, Vlad!”

“Tch.” Vlad dropped his hands, fingers dragging through his hair in exasperation. “Fine. You know what, fine. Have it your way. Perhaps some time experiencing the mania will help you understand my meaning.” He went to the door with a frustrating degree of calm. His suit cleanly pressed, not a strand misplaced in his hair, a total contrast to Danny who felt seconds away from collapsing on the floor. 

“Do try to keep a hold of yourself, though,” Vlad said over his shoulder. “Your parents might be dead, but they are hardly the only ghost hunters around.”

He slammed the door shut. 

Danny sank to his knees, arms wrapped around himself as he vigorously tried to rub his skin warm. What was wrong with him? 

Was his sickness a few days ago related to this? He thought he just caught some sort of bug, or, or it was the stress of it all affecting his body, but the ice—

This wasn’t a normal sickness.

Vlad called it a mania. What did that mean?

He shook his head, arm reaching for the back of the couch and hauling himself up. Figuring out Vlad’s words wasn’t his biggest concern; right now, Danny needed a way to get rid of this ice. Talia and Mr. Dusan were coming over soon to go over his parents’ research, he needed to—

They can’t figure out that he’s—

Danny stumbled down to the lab, frantically looking for any of his parents’ inventions that could help get rid of the ice. 

No. No. Not that. Not that either. 

His arm suddenly went intangible, slipping through the lab bench. The sudden momentum made him lose balance and he hit his head on the side of the bench. He staggered upright, rubbing his pounding head. What was wrong with his powers? They hadn’t been this out of whack since he’d first gotten them in the accident.

A violent shiver ran through him, his breath coming out in a cold mist. Frost had begun to creep outwards from the soles of his shoes. 

Danny stepped back. The frost followed. 

His eyes darted around the room, mind racing for a solution. His frenzied gaze landed on the ghost portal, the entrance sealed shut by the heavy metal doors. Tucker once said that he noticed that Danny seemed to recover energy faster when he was in the Ghost Zone. They’d tested it at one point by letting the Box Ghost loose on the town and seeing how much energy Danny could recover if he rested in the material world versus the Ghost Zone.

It was still a working theory. Tucker and Sam wanted to test it out some more later.

They never got a chance.

It was a long shot but it was better than nothing. 

He ran to the front of the portal where the genetic locking mechanism lay. But as Danny went to push the button, ice sparked from his fingers, freezing the lock solid.

“What? No!” He slammed his fist onto the ice but the ice wouldn’t break. “Nononono, this can’t be happening right now.” 

He shivered, eyes holding a manic glint as he looked at the portal. “I’m going ghost!” Bright rings of light enveloped him, and suddenly it became impossibly colder. 

Floating in the air, Danny curled in on himself, teeth chattering as he tried to regain his composure. He flew to the portal, willing himself intangible as he tried to go through the doors, but slammed into cold metal instead. Either whatever materials his parents made the door out of completely negated his intangibility or his powers were in really bad shape.

He got up, hands pressed against the portal doors. He willed himself intangible once more, but instead of his arms passing through the doors, a thick sheet of ice sprouted from his hands and started crawling up the portal. “No!”

Danny tore his hands away from the door but the ice kept growing and growing and growing. Stretched across the doors until it covered the entire entrance to the portal. Its jagged ends stopped past the octagonal metal frame and clung to the walls.

Oh god, This can’t get any worse.

“Danny?”

And then it did.

He took a deep breath. Like a deer in headlights, he turned around to see Talia and Mr. Dusan at the foot of the basement stairs. Talia was in front, a hand braced against the wall, one foot on the floor and one still on the step. Dusan, ever the statuesque figure, was right behind, hands still clasped behind his back. Their eyes were, mouth slightly agape at the sight of him.

It was then that Danny registered what Talia said. 

The words tumbled out of him, “You recognized me?” 

He clamped his mouth shut. Idiot. 

Talia took her hand off the wall and stepped completely into the lab. “Of course, I would. You’re my son.”

The words sent a brief spark of warmth through his core. Not even his own parents recognized him when he was Phantom. 

“I wasn’t aware that you were a meta, Danny.” She gracefully stepped around the patches of ice on the ground. “How long has this been going on?”

“Um, uh. A few months.” At this point, there really was no point in lying. “Since the start of the semester.”

“A lab accident, I presume.”

“Yeah….uh, how did you know?”

The corners of her mouth quirked up. “No one on my side of the family has the meta gene, and while your father is quite impressive, I’m very certain he does not have it either. An accident of some sort would be the only other option.”

He felt himself start to relax, muscles starting to relax at the sound of Talia’s calm voice. The shivers were still present, but somehow they were a little more bearable. 

“Now why don’t you explain to us what happened?”

“I don’t—” Danny swallowed a lump in his throat. “I don’t even know what’s going on, much less where to begin. All I know is that I’ve been feeling out of sorts for the past few weeks. I thought I was just sick but apparently, it’s way more than that, and I don’t know what to do, I barely even know what I am, much less what’s wrong with me and that fever must have done something because ever since then my powers have been on the fritz and there’s this stupid ice that won’t melt and I can’t keep it under control and if I can’t keep my powers under control how am I supposed to hide the fact that I’m a fucking ghost —”

“Slow down, slow down. You’re starting to panic. Now, I need you to take a few deep breaths for me,” she said, now a few feet away from Danny. “In for four…hold for seven…yes that’s it, you’re doing well…and out for eight.”

Calm began to seep back into Danny with each breath, his mind no longer racing a million miles an hour. “Thank you— thanks, I, um, I feel much better now.” 

“That’s good. Now, what was that about ghosts?”

“Uh, that I am one? Sort of? It’s complicated.”

“I guess we can get the full story later. Does anyone else know about this?”

“No, no one.” He paused, then grimaced. “Well, there’s one other person. He’s sort of like me and, before you ask, I can’t tell you who he is. The only other people who knew about me are the other ghosts and…Sam and Tucker.”

“Not your parents?” Dusan, who had been a silent observer till now, stepped closer.

Danny shook his head. “No, I— I never got the chance to tell them. At first, I wanted to keep it a secret because I didn’t want them to know about the accident, but afterward, it just became harder and harder, what with their research and ghosts and the government and I just…” He sank back down to the floor, despondent. “I just didn’t want them to feel…guilty, I guess.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. “It doesn’t matter now, though. It’s too late to tell them either way.”

“Oh, Danny, habibi. My poor child.” Talia extended her arms out to embrace him, but Danny stepped back.

“I don’t— my powers they’re— I don’t want to hurt you.”

She smiled. “You won’t. Trust me.”

Danny…Danny found himself trusting her. He let the transformation fall, taking one step closer to Talia, his hand stretched out. Their hands touched, and Talia’s words rang true. The ice did not touch her, nor did the frost, and Danny breathed out a sigh of relief. 

“Well, this would certainly complicate the matters of your guardianship,” Dusan said, now a few feet away from them. “If I am of the correct assumption that you have no wish for anyone to know of your status. What of the man you mentioned—the one who is like you—could he take you in?”

“No. Never. That man is not an option.”

Talia carded her fingers through Danny’s hair in a soothing motion. “It is a shame we could not make a strong enough case to take custody of you.” She paused, humming pensively. “Although…” Turning to Dusan, she continued. “Do you think father would…?”

Dusan considered it. “Well, he would certainly be delighted at the prospect of another grandchild, especially one like Danny. But you know how he is.”

Danny looked at them inquisitively. Talia turned her attention back to him. “Our father—your grandfather—is a very powerful man. But he is a very secretive man, and much of his influence is in secrets and shadows. Much of his machinations he prefers to keep in the dark. But if you were willing to prove yourself to him, then it is not beyond his power to craft you a new life.”

“You—you’re talking about a new identity.”

“Daniel Fenton could never be with us,” Dusan said. “But Danyal al Ghul on the other hand….”

“I…” Danny lowered his gaze to the floor. Well, he was prepared, on some level, to give up his name. He had plans to run away, and going by ‘Danny Fenton’ would just be putting a target on his back if Vlad decided to look for him. 

“We could be a family, Danny,” Talia whispered. “Like we always should have been.”

Family. The words felt warm inside his chest. At the back of his mind, his core hummed eagerly at the prospect. Family-family-a-place-to-belong.

But to give up his name…to give up his life …would he really be willing to do that? But if he wasn’t, then being handed over to Vlad might as well be—

( Red eyes. A looming shadow. Screams unheard because of the explosion. A world in ruin. Inevitable. Inevitable.)

“ I’ll do it.” He steeled his resolve. There was no other choice. “I’ll go with you. What do I have to do?”

Talia grinned wide. Dusan’s eyes gleamed with approval. 

“Simple,” he said.  “We must kill Danny Fenton.”

Chapter Text

Present Day…

Rain battered the cracked sidewalks of the East End. Puddles that formed at dips in the walkways or gathered at the curbside reflected the hazy neon signs of the buildings above. It was 6:00 p.m., though it felt much later than that. The skies above were as dark as the stone Gotham was chipped from, an impenetrable mass of soot-gray that rumbled with occasional thunder. Ominous,  maybe, to someone in Metropolis or Central city, but for Gothamites, it was just another Tuesday evening. 

The East End was quiet. Its people kept themselves busy indoors, dry and warm, chattering in hushed tones beneath the dim lighting of whatever seedy establishment they found themselves at. It was never good to make too much noise in the East End, no matter how much the neighborhood had improved over the years. You’d only end up attracting the wrong kind of attention. 

But tonight’s brand of quiet was… different. Ask any resident and they’ll tell you just so, though they won’t be able to explain why . It just was. It was a quietness that held itself sharp. Still. Like a finger resting on the trigger of a gun just before it's fired. 

And fire it did.

At 6:06 p.m. Araceli Reyes dialed 911 after hearing loud noises in the apartment next door. She double-checked that all three of her locks are bolted shut and hid in her bedroom with a baseball bat in her lap. She wanted to think it was nothing, but this was Gotham. East End Gotham . Sure, Araceli was new to town, but even she knew that it was never just nothing in Gotham.

At 6:15 p.m. Gotham police arrive at Atwood Apartments to check out the report. No one answered them at the door. When police broke into the apartment, it was to the sight of the room’s lone occupant, dead on the floor. There’s a chair toppled over next to the victim. A picture frame that fell off the wall and had its frame cracked was lying nearby. The rest of the apartment contained no noticeable disrepair. The medical examiner that arrived later would pronounce the victim dead via a myocardial infarction, and that was that. 

Another dead, another gone in Gotham city. Considering the many ways Gothamites could go? A heart attack was as good as any.

Batman landed on a shadowed corner of the GCPD rooftop with practiced ease, cape whispering against the cold concrete surface as he rose with mechanical grace. Robin— Damian— dogged at his heels. 

Commissioner Gordon stood on the ledge across from his position, back turned to Batman in favor of watching the Gotham skyline. A plain manila envelope was tucked beneath his arm. The other, no doubt, was holding a styrofoam cup of scalding hot coffee. Black with two packets of Splenda mixed in. 

Batman tilted his head to Robin, hands flickering through a couple of their signals. 

You-package-retrieve-stealth.

Robin quirked an eyebrow, but much to his credit, he didn’t question it. He stepped around Batman and began to quietly make his way across the roof. Batman had no doubts that Robin would succeed— Gordon, no matter how many years passed, was still rather unperceptive when it came to knowing when a bat was there — that wasn’t the point of this. It was, on one part, to see if Damian could follow directions, and for another, to test Damian’s fluency on their hand signals. There were six variations that had been developed over the years, made with the express purpose of being blended together so that he and his partners could communicate silently and securely. The brief command he had given Robin then used signals from three different variations alone. 

Robin returned, handing over the envelope. Batman unsealed it and pulled out a sheaf of documents, quickly scanning through its contents. 

Katherine Nguyen, 45, female. Pronounced dead on the scene one week ago in her studio apartment located on the outskirts of the East End. The medical examiner on the case initially ruled the cause of death as a myocardial infarction, but the following autopsy revealed…

Ice?

The photo showed the heart nearly encased in clear ice, with fractals creeping up the pulmonary arteries. The report also listed some bruising on the heart.

“Have you managed to get samples of this ice, Commissioner?” 

Gordon nearly jumped out of his skin. “Jesus Christ!” He whipped around, eyes darting across the rooftop before spotting them in a shadowed corner by the door. He looked at the envelope, then to his empty arm, and sighed. “When in the hell are you gonna stop doing that?”

Batman grunted. He passed some of the documents to Robin who accepted them with a soft grunt.

“Forensics couldn’t break the ice at all , much less get a sample. At this point, they’re even doubting it is ice.”

“Melting it?”

“Short of flambéing it, we’ve tried everything. It won’t melt.”

Dr. Freeze was still locked in Arkham at the present, so unless he’s working with an associate, it wouldn’t be him. A meta, then? His mind skimmed through his own mental database, quickly discarding all unlikely suspects. He’d have to double-check back in the cave, but for the moment his list was worryingly bare. 

“Her knuckles are bruised,” Damian muttered, chin cradled between his fist. “But there are no other physical wounds on the body.”

“Homicide Division’s got dibs on this case so far but all their leads end up in dead ends. Ms. Nguyen over here? Not even sure if that’s her real name. The guys downstairs found that her records only go back six months; before that, she was a veritable ghost. Whoever she was, she was running from something— and it found her.”

“Anything else?” Batman said.

Gordon scoffed. “If only. No—” He shook his head. “We swept the place, looking for fingerprints or any clues that could point us at potential suspects. All in all, we found three.” Batman flipped to the end of the folder. Three photos. Two men, another woman. “Michael Hobbs, Jack Anderson, and Maria Rivera. All presumed dead via heart attack. And all of them didn’t exist in Gotham until six months ago.”

Bruce leaned back into his chair, head cradled by his hand and supported by the armrest as he took in all the information. The faint glow of the batcomputer’s screen illuminated his face in soft blue light. Organized to the right of the screen were all of the files concerning the death of Katherine Nguyen. To the left, the other three victims, arranged in chronological order by time of death. 

Two men and two women. Perhaps it was only because of the small sample size, but statistically, men were more likely to die of a heart attack than women, so having this even number was suspicious. All victims were between 26 and 45 years old, with Jack Anderson, the second victim, being the youngest, and Katherine Nguyen being the oldest. The ages themselves bring the legitimacy of these heart attacks into question. While certainly not impossible, all of the victims would have been far below the age range of being at risk of a heart attack— much less dying from it. 

Of course, the biggest clue that there was something strange afoot, other than the ice, was that four people in seemingly close acquaintance with each other, all died of the same disease in the same short span of time. Either it was the most unlucky of coincidences, or they had themselves part of a modus operandi for their killer. 

The GCPD requested the bodies of Hobbs, Anderson, and Rivera be exhumed for investigation. The autopsy reports found evidence of bruising around the heart in all three victims, similar to Nguyen. It’s like the hearts were crushed from the inside, but only Nguyen’s heart contained the ice growth. What made her different, then?

Or—Bruce tapped his fingers against the armrest—there was nothing different about her at all. 

Assuming the perpetrator was a meta, this could be someone fairly new to their powers and was still prone to sudden lapses of control. He noted the possibility down on his computer. 

“Your coffee, sir?” Alfred chimed, rolling in a stainless steel service cart. Atop it was a mug, a carafe of coffee, and a plate of shortbread biscuits. 

“Thank you, Alfred, that would be great.” Alfred poured him a cup, brewed especially strong. Bruce accepted the mug when handed to him, hand cradling the bottom before shifting his grip to the handle. He leaned back in his chair, breathed in the rich aroma, and sighed. 

“Another perplexing case, master Bruce?”

“Exactly so.” He sipped the coffee, savoring its rich and bitter taste. “As much as I enjoy the concept of impossible murders in fiction, having to solve them in real life is frustrating.”

“And what makes these murders so impossible?”

Bruce looked up at the monitor, walking himself through the entire case, using Alfred as a sounding board. “There were four murders in the past month— or, to be exact, three suspicious deaths and one murder. All of them, John Does, all presumably connected, but by what , I’ve yet to figure out.” 

Bruce enlarged the three photos on the left. The pictures were taken from their forged documents, all of them featuring stoic, rather plain-looking, faces. “The first victim went by the name Michael Hobbs, 38, male, and was an office worker for SalTech Industries. No known enemies, though that’s not surprising considering his records—and everyone else’s— only go back six months. He was found by a coworker after Hobbs hadn’t reported to the office in three days. Estimated time of death is February 3rd, four days before he was found. There was evidence of old injuries, but none recent enough to be pertinent to the incident. The apartment was clean, no signs of forced entry or a struggle.”

“The second victim, found February 9th, went by Jack Anderson,” Bruce continued. “Twenty-six years old, the youngest among the bunch, and worked an entry-level job in a different company. Like Hobbs, no known enemies, records only went back six months, and the cause of death was determined to be a heart attack. Though judging by the autopsy, it’s more likely our victims’ hearts were squeezed to death. Found dead in his home with no signs of struggle or forced entry. It’s the same story with Maria Rivera, 36, who worked as a bartender at the Red Door. Estimated date of death is February 15th.” 

Bruce paused, taking another sip of coffee. “She, or at least the Red Door, is one of the few connections I’ve found so far. I asked around the bar under the guise of Matches Malone and found that Hobbs, Anderson, and Nguyen were all frequent customers. Always there when Rivera was on the clock.”

He pressed a few keys, bringing Nguyen's case files front and center. “And finally we have Katherine Nguyen, our only truly confirmed murder, so far. Forty-five years old, she had only died fifteen minutes before GCPD arrived at the scene. Cause of death is undecided, but it’s between myocardial contusions as seen by the bruising on the heart, or the unusual ice growth. Forensics revealed that the only other people to enter her apartment within the last month were these three over here, and it was that evidence that brought our attention to these…series of deaths.”

Alfred hummed. “I take it, then, that it is the heart that has been keeping our bioscanner busy.”

Bruce nodded. Gordon had given him the heart to examine at Bruce’s request. He had technology and resources that the GCPD didn’t have at their disposal to detect the more… unconventional. If the ice was alien or, god forbid, magic , he would have a better chance at knowing. 

As if on cue, the computer received an alert that the bioscan was complete. 

After one more long sip of coffee, he placed the mug down onto the table and opened the report. There was water in there, for sure, along with a multitude of minerals and substances the bioscanner could not identify. 

Bruce narrowed his eyes. The scanner should be able to identify any kind of substance as long as it was native to earth or was recorded in the Justice League’s database. Though the universe was indeed vast…this gap in his information was troubling. 

His gaze stopped on a section of the report, jaw tightening. There, on the screen, the bioscanner detected components similar to that of a Lazarus Pit.

“Well,” Alfred said. “This certainly narrows down the suspects.”

More alerts flashed onto the screen. Two calls; one from Damian, the other from Tim.

“Computer, merge calls.”

“B! I got something.”

“Silence, Drake! I told you that I would be the one to inform my father.”

Tim tutted at Damian. Bruce could already imagine Tim wagging his finger and Damian’s offended expression. “ Codenames only, Robin-Two.” The relish in Tim’s voice at the codename and Damian’s angered response made Bruce sigh.

“It’s not fair that you get to be Robin-One when I’m the blood son.”

“Luck of the coin, demon brat. Your fault that you chose heads.”

Bruce cleared his throat. “R-1, status report.”

“ Father!”

“Ha! Suck it!”

You know, it wasn’t very long ago that Bruce only had one child to worry about. 

“R-1, stop antagonizing your partner, he’s eleven. R-2, you know the chain of command and you know that R-1 was appointed to lead this mission.” He sighed, glancing at Alfred with a long-suffering look. “Now, status report, please.”

Finally managing to comport themselves to some level of professionalism, R-1 reported his findings. “We went to the addresses of all four victims and swept their places for any kind of evidence like you asked. While we didn’t find anything relating to our killer, we did find some interesting dirt on our victims. Here, I’ll send you a photo now.”

It was a throwing star. Made of gray metal and designed similar to a cardinal compass with a circular base and four points jutting out from it.

“It’s a League of Shadows star,” Damian said. Huh, wasn’t this deja vu?

“We found more of these throwing stars as well as other weapon caches in all four houses,” Tim continued. “This Kira-impersonator seems to have a thing against the al Ghuls.”

“Kira?”

“What, never watched Death Note?”

The victims were all members of the League of Assassins…but judging from the ice, so was their killer. 

They’ve established their definitive link, but they still hadn’t deduced the killer, the motive, or the method of the crime. But still, it was a start. 

“You did great work, boys. Head back to base when you’re ready.”

“Roger that, B! R-1, out.”

“Wait, R-2.”

“Yes, father?”

Bruce leaned forward, elbows on the table, his chin cradled by his clasped hands. He had a theory in mind, but he needed confirmation. “What happens to people who defect from the League of Assassins?”

“Simple: death. No one leaves the League without permission, and those that do have their lives forfeit.”

A possible motive. He would need to dig around more.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Robin , signing out.”

It turned out, all Bruce needed was a larger sample size. 

With enough time, too little sleep, and one coffee refill too many, Bruce was able to cross-reference enough databases around the world to compile a list of deaths that matched the modus operandi of their assassin. The list was unexpectedly both too short and too long, listing thirty-one names of suspected or confirmed members of the League of Assassins. He corroborated with Damian to make sure he got the most accurate information possible.

“Some of these names belong to some of the best assassins the League ever trained. Others are powerful leaders who were once under grandfather’s influence; they would be heavily protected, especially since…” Damian’s lips thinned. “Whoever this assassin is, they’re good.”

The incidents began happening half a year ago, with the first victim being a weapons manufacturer who died of a heart attack in his yacht just off the coast of Greece. A little digging revealed that he had frequent dealings with Deathstroke in the past. That connection, among other things, helped click the puzzle pieces into place.

Almost all the victims were defectors. Splinter cells that formed in the wake of Ra’s al Ghul’s death and Deathstroke’s failed coup last year. 

Talia, after that entire fiasco ended, declared her intent to rebuild the League after it had fractured. It would make sense that she would make it a priority to root out any possible snakes in her garden. The dangers of the mission were probably what softened her to the idea of letting Damian stay with him. No matter how capable his son was, Damian, as the next heir to the League, was too tempting of a target.

Bruce won’t lie, no matter the expectations the word assassin might give, he expected something a bit more… theatrical . Some grand spectacle of death to show others what fate awaits those who betray the League of Assassins. 

Though perhaps this was the spectacle. It would certainly be terrifying in its own right, to know that Talia had an agent—or agents , so as to not discount every possibility— that can intrude anywhere undetected and kill without a trace. A silent death that seemed impossible to anticipate. 

Discussions with Tim and Damian also led him to suspect one other thing that set Nguyen’s murder apart: she fought her attacker.

While the disarray in Nguyen’s apartment could be contributed to her struggling from a heart attack, the knowledge of this being a murder, the bruising on her knuckles, and evidence of a head injury close to the time of death told a different story. Her allies were being picked off one by one. It would be safe to assume that she anticipated the assassin to visit her next and either chose to confront them or made preparations to get out of Gotham as quickly as possible.

Either way, the assassin found her. 

If Bruce were to throw in his theory about the assassin being a fledgling meta, then he’d hazard a guess that Nguyen fighting back made the meta panic or lose enough control to unleash their cryokinetic abilities. 

There was, as always, one problem.

One piece that did not fit perfectly into the puzzle.

The twenty-fourth victim, as far as Bruce could tell, had no connections to the League of Assassins. Yet it was his case that was the most similar to Nguyen’s: An unexplained heart attack in a locked room; the strange presence of ice that would not melt. 

What part did a prisoner in Belle Reve have to play in this mess?

Frederick Isaak Showenhower. The odd one out. His death indicated that either Talia had a reason to want him dead…or whatever agent Talia had at her disposal had a vendetta to settle. 

If Bruce could figure out why Showenhower was killed, perhaps it would lead him to his assassin. 

Chapter Text

Three Years Ago…

Danny could not sleep though the chill of the ship invited him to rest his eyes. 

No, he could not.

Though the coolness of his room and the layers of blankets cocooned around him would be tempting enough to knock him out for a couple hours on a regular day it was the cold that kept him wide awake

The freezing, numbing, blessed cold that made the back of his left knee ache and any attempt at sleep fitful.

He tossed and turned in his bed. When was the last time he slept, anyway? Was it in the car ride to the docks? The plane? The hotel they stayed at two—three?— days ago?

Danny couldn’t remember. That was… Jazz would say that was a bad thing if she were here.

It was kind of stupid really but—

He curled in tighter on himself, burying his head beneath the blankets.

When he was younger, his parents bought him a stuffed animal; a brown monkey in a space suit. He named it Albert, after the first monkey to ever go to space. Well, go to space and survive. The first monkey to go to space was Albert II but he died coming back to earth because of a parachute complication. Albert VI (also called Yorick, but Danny preferred Albert) was the first monkey to go to space and survive the landing.  Anyway, that stuffed monkey used to be his favorite thing in the whole world. He used to drag it everywhere until he accidentally left it in a hotel during summer break when he was nine.

God, he was absolutely inconsolable when that happened. Couldn’t sleep for anything more than a few hours and when he woke he was the most snappish nine-year-old to ever walk on the face of the earth. His parents offered to get him a new one but he didn’t want a new one. He wanted Albert. 

But then there was Jazz. Jazz who snuck into his room at night and tucked Bearbert under the blankets next to him. 

“Sleep is important if you wanna grow taller,” Jazz said. “I know he can’t replace Albert, but maybe Bearbert can keep the monsters away until we get Albert back.”

The memory warmed his chest for a brief moment.

And then the reality of it all came crashing down again.

Jazz was dead. His parents were dead. 

Lost for all eternity like Albert.

And both times were his fault.

If he just looked underneath the blankets or on the side of the hotel bed, he would have realized that Albert wasn’t in his backpack.

If he hadn’t given in to Dan’s taunts, then he would have  been fast enough to everyone.

If he never cheated on that fucking test—

God, he just did everything wrong didn’t he? 

Good ol’ Danny Fenton, fucking everything up as usual.

Fucker can’t even die right.

It was sunset when Danny found himself wandering onto the deck of the ship. The sun resembled a red giant as it sank into the sea, less so in size and more so in the intensity of its color. Visceral and raw and blinding , dying the ocean a deep violet-red.

His mania had abated, somewhat. It seemed to fluctuate in intensity. Sometimes the cold felt all-consuming; frost would crawl up the walls of his little cabin, his skin tinged frostbitten-blue, and the cold would seep beneath his flesh and war with the fever that made him delirious to the world around him. Sometimes it manifested as nothing more than an occasional shiver. What made each day different, he didn’t know. But those calm days, those good days, he savored like a bittersweet drink.

Today was one of those good days. He wasn’t feverish, wasn’t nauseous, and his head didn’t hurt like Skulker had elbow-driven him from 500 feet in the air. 

Sure, a shiver would occasionally crawl up his spine, and sure there were a couple moments where his powers froze the waves as they crested, but it never lasted long. The shivers would go away and the ice would break as the wave slammed down again.

“Ah, young Danyal.” Dusan stepped up beside him on the railing, the sea breeze catching a few tendrils of his white hair in the wind. “Your mother told me you had been feeling better.”

He gave a noncommittal hum beneath his breath.

There was a wrinkle between Dusan’s brows and instantly, Danny straightened, hands squeezing the railing. “Yes, sir.”

“Hm.” Dusan pulled a sleek black phone from his jacket pocket, unlocking it with a few taps of his thumb. He passed it to Danny. “You will be pleased to note that our ruse has succeeded, and you are now free from the clutches of the law.”

It was an article from the Amity Park Angle. It was short, only a couple paragraphs long, and had his school picture posted beside it.

Daniel James Fenton, 14, passed away tragically last Wednesday. 

Ah. His jaw tightened, skin tingling though not from the cold. 

This was his obituary.

He returned the phone to Dusan, not wanting to read the rest of it.

How did you do it? He wanted to ask. How did you kill me?

Instead, he gave a strained sort of laugh. “You think I’ve set a record? I’m probably the only one in the world who managed to technically die and remain alive three times.”

The corner of Dusan’s mouth quirked up. “Needs must, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He scratched the back of his neck, eyes drawn to the lull of the darkening waves.

“What is it that occupies your thoughts?”

He pursed his lips, shifting his arms so that they laid crossed on the railing. “I don’t— I just…everything happened so fast.” He dropped his head into his arms, fingers raking through his hair. “A few weeks ago I was, well, not normal , but close enough to it. I had my parents, I had my sister, I had my friends, and the most I had to worry about was the next ghost attack and making sure I remembered to do my homework. And then the explosion happened and everyone died and I became an orphan but it turns out I’m not? Because my real mom found me but I can’t— you guys had to fake my death to get me away!”

Frustration coursed through his veins with the same intensity as the waves slamming against the side of the ship. He leaned back, hands holding the railing in a knuckle-white grip, frost creeping from beneath his fingers. Not that he noticed. Not that he cared. 

“I’m dead. I’m dead but I’m not and I’m constantly flipping between being fine and becoming a human popsicle. I’m on a ship in the middle of the ocean and I have no idea where we’re going because people won’t tell me!” The red sun glared hatefully into his eyes. Red red red like Dan’s eyes, like Plasmius’ eyes, and burning so, so bright . He had half a mind to wish that the sun would just extinguish itself so he’d never have to see that color again. 

The sun did not extinguish, but Danny’s anger did. Left as quickly as it arrived, leaving him hollow. 

He slumped against the railing. 

What was he doing unloading all this stuff on Dusan? Dusan didn’t ask for any of that. He didn’t deserve to listen to all of Danny’s baggage. Not when Dusan was already doing so much for him.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said quietly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Dusan laid a warm hand on his shoulder as they both stared at the sun. “Tell me, my boy, have you had the chance to read the Odyssey?”

Danny shook his head. They were supposed to, though. On the first day of school, he remembered Mr. Lancer’s quiet pleasure as he passed out the class syllabi of how they’d be covering the Odyssey in the spring. Poor Mr. Lancer. He was a hardass, sure, and he had his faults, but he genuinely did try with Danny. 

“And if some god should strike me,” quoted Dusan “out on the wine-dark sea, I will endure it, owning a heart within inured to suffering. For I have suffered much, and labored much.”

He continued: “Like Odysseus, you have found yourself cast adrift into the world, far away from all that you knew. And like him, you will endure this. You must. For the world is a vast and cruel place, Danyal, and you must either bear against its weight or it will see you crushed and broken beneath it.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“You can,” he stated, resolute and firm like his grip on Danny’s shoulder. “You can endure because your family is here to support you.”  

Danny opened his eyes.

The sky was an endless expanse of swirling gray clouds. The ocean rocked the raft to a punishing rhythm, murky green-gray waters slapping against the rotting planks.

Danny was tied to a makeshift mast, the rope crossing over his abdomen and tied tightly behind his throat, digging into his jugular. He could not speak. Could not breathe . 

“Do you remember, Danny?” Sam stood at the head of the raft, her back turned to him. “Do you remember that story I told you about The Raft of the Medusa?”

Eighth grade. A field trip to the Amity Park Museum. Their teacher wanted to show them the new art exhibit since it was only available for a short while. He remembered the painting Sam was talking about; it was hard not to when The Raft of the Medusa seemed to overpower every other painting in the exhibit. 

It depicted the aftermath of a ship wreck. A morbidly beautiful painting of a raft lost at sea, its few surviving passengers desperately trying to call for help, their faces gaunt, eyes manic and wild.

“There were originally 147 passengers on that raft. One hundred and forty-seven people and only fifteen survived at the end of it.”

A large wave smashed against the raft. It filled Danny’s nose with salt-water and his mouth of the taste of asphalt. He gasped, coughing out the smoke in his lungs. 

Sam was still rooted to her spot, back turned to him.

“Do you remember, Danny? Do you remember who they blamed for the entire disaster?”

The ocean carried the raft up and up and up . High into the air that they rose. He could almost touch the clouds if it weren’t for the ropes digging into his skin. 

“They blamed the captain.”

The raft plummeted into the sea. He couldn’t scream, his heart was lodged in his throat.

The raft slammed into the ocean, pieces splintering off upon impact. Thunder roared around them like the clashing of cymbals and the sound of laughter.

Danny strained against his confinement, but the ropes tightened around him, the harsh fibers burning his skin.

He could hear the mast creak. Hear it splinter as it fought against him. 

He was almost there. Almost there .

“Look at me Danny.”

Danny opened his eyes—when did he close them?

Sam was in front of him and— oh god .

Oh god.

Her face .

Her flesh was melted, plastered against her blackened bone. Eyes nothing more than empty sockets in her head. Her skeleton hands held his face, forcing him to look. To look at what he had done to her.

“Why didn’t you save us Danny?” She asked. Asked with the voice of six people he had failed, their voices conjoined in some deranged siren song. “Why did you kill us?”

He could see it now. He could see that they weren’t alone on the raft. There, being slowly dragged into the depths, were the burned and waterlogged corpses of his victims. 

He screamed, and the sky answered with his own manic laughter.

Danny opened his eyes and his skin was on fire.

He yelped, tearing off the weights that pinned him down and tumbled onto the floor. 

He can’t—

He can’t breathe—

Tucker suffocated to death, chest caved in and choking on air.

Someone was calling his name.

Who was it?

He can’t—

He doesn’t—

Mom?

“Focus on my voice, habibi . I need you to breathe, can you do that for me?” 

There’s something warm enveloping his hand.

“Breathe in, Danny, come on. Inhale through your nose for four.”

One. Two. Three. Four.

“Hold for seven.”

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

“And exhale through the mouth for eight.”

She counted out loud, and he tried to focus on her voice.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

Each second felt like an eternity. Some part of him laughed and said that this was Clockwork’s doing. Retribution for daring to interfere with the timeline. Punishment for whatever future atrocities he committed.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out.

Talia gave him a closed lip smile, rubbing circular motions across his back. “There is nothing to be sorry for, my son. Now, let’s get you back to bed. Perhaps I’ll get you something warm to drink, would you like that?”

Talia slipped her son something to ease the pains and make him drowsy. Carding her calloused fingers through his hair, she watched as Danny sank further and further into sleep’s sweet embrace. His breath evened out, the tension loosening from his frame. She continued her soft ministrations on his dark hair, but slowly her fingers moved to stroke the lines of his face, the slope of his nose, and then the curve of  his eyes.

She cataloged his features and compared it to her own. He had her nose. Her mouth. Her skin. He had a more lean figure like her, built more for speed and agility than brute strength— though currently, Danny could be considered more ‘lanky’ than lean, but training and a strict diet will correct that. The rest of Danny was all her beloved’s, from the wide too-bright-too-blue eyes, to the sharp jawline, to the exact shade of black in the hair.

Was this what her beloved looked like in his youth?

Was this what Damian would grow to become?

The ship rocked gently along the waves. She smoothed down Danny’s hair and pressed a soft kiss to his head before rising from her seat at his bedside.

She could not say the same for Bruce at that age, but she was quite certain that Damian would never be as trusting as Danny was. Though she could not blame it entirely on the boy. He was raised in a rather…inferior household, per se. What innate skills he might have inherited from his bloodline were left to rust under the mundanity of civilian life. Had circumstances been more favorable, Talia would have whisked Danny away the moment Dusan had discovered him all those years ago.

Alas, such was not the case.

She left Danny’s room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

The League had too many enemies at the time that bringing Danny in would have made him too tempting a target. Though Talia was not naive enough to believe that concern for his first grandson would be Ra’s al Ghul’s only motive for not having recovered sooner, she did see why it would have been more beneficial to keep his existence and any connection to the League wrapped under secrecy.

“It seems that our father’s investments have paid off.” She looked to her left at where Dusan seemed to materialize from the shadows of the ship’s passageway. “Now, we have the makings of a great assassin at our disposal.”

“Do you think that he planned for this to happen?” She asked, matching his stride, the pair of them slowly making their way to the bridge.

“I cannot even begin to fathom the mind of Ra’s al Ghul. How he could have  predicted this , I do not know, but he must have expected some kind of result by keeping your son with the Fentons. No— even that was an accident, wasn’t it? This…this is fate.”

Talia doubted that even the great Ra’s al Gul could predict this outcome for her son. However Ra’s was not one to so carelessly sacrifice a potential asset unless he had a particular gambit in mind. What future did he envision when he made that decision all those years ago?

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The Rosa disanthus produced mixed results. The worst of the chills and fever abated about half an hour after he imbibed the tea, only to be replaced by nausea and vomiting.” Talia raised her hand, contemplating the lines of her palm for a moment. “There was frost when he had a panic attack. Frost coated his palms and covered his arm all the way to the elbow—I don’t believe he even realized  it—but when he drank the tea, it receded.”

“Hm.” Dusan furrowed his brows. “His condition affected his physiology to a greater extent than we thought. No matter. Hopefully enough exposure would mitigate much of the effects. Neither of us are strangers to mithridatism; we would have inevitably tested for all his potential weaknesses, and starting early would prove fruitful later on.”

 “You have spoken to father, then?”

He inclined his head in affirmation. “He has given me the task of training young Danyal.”

Talia’s fingers curled into a fist, hand dropping to her side. “I would have thought that I, as his mother, would be in charge of his lessons.”

“Take no offense, sister, this is not meant to be a punishment.” He smiled, a cunning gleam in his eyes. While Ra’s al Ghul normally paid more attention to his daughters for their strength, not even he could deny that, above all his other children, it was Dusan who inherited Ra’s ruthless cunning. “Danyal is young and naive, but he is powerful . Simply isolating him in Nanda Parbat will do nothing if he could simply fly away whenever he wanted. We must teach him to love us. To choose to stay.”

Talia thinned her lips, jaw clenched. She nodded, leaving the conversation at that.

Dusan would be a harsh master to learn under. He would strip Danny and of all he used to be and break him down into nothing . It would be cruel and unkind— but it would be efficient .

Well, no matter. Talia would always be there to pick up the pieces; the honey to the vinegar; the carrot to the stick. She would take what remained of the boy known as Danny and rebuild him with loving words and her motherly embrace, fill the cracks with love and loyalty for the League and their family and shape him until he becomes her son and no one else’s.

She had been forced to give up her eldest son once. Never again.

This child was hers.

A light fever clouded Danny’s mind during the last stretch of their journey. 

Talia said it was the tea that caused it. A little something that they picked up at their last port stop that she and Dusan believed would help with his mania . 

Danny didn’t like that tea. It had a pungent aroma to it that made his nose wrinkle. He couldn’t place the scent, but the strength of it was like walking past a Bath & Body Works at the mall mixed with the smell of cherry-flavored cough syrup. Its taste was about as pleasant as its smell, considering that his stomach fought the tea at every step of the way. 

He didn’t want to drink it, but Talia and Dusan insisted and Danny didn’t really have much right to refuse. They did so much for him already and in return all they really wanted was for him to drink some tea.

Despite his revulsion for it, Danny could admit that the tea did work. Sort of. It kept the worst of his chills away, thawing the bitter cold deep within his core.

It kept the dreams away too.

So maybe it wasn’t so bad. 

He couldn’t remember much of what happened in the interim. Only the rocking of the ship, the quiet lull of his bedroom, Talia’s soothing voice and her hands carding through his hair.

Dusan came at one point with the intention to prepare Danny for his meeting with Ra’s al Ghul, his grandfather and his parents’ benefactor. There was a degree of reverence in Dusan’s eyes as he spoke, his usually impassive face split into a wide grin.

 “He is a remarkable man, your grandfather,” Dusan began. “Powerful and intelligent. A self-made man of means.”

A visionary, Dusan described him. A man with dreams of a better future, of freeing the world from the corruptions of society and the clutches of greedy and vicious people who only want to drain the world of its vitality to feed their voracious gluttony. 

“Too long have the scum of the earth been allowed to exist in the light of day,” Dusan said. “And so it is from the shadows that Ra’s al Ghul means to rectify it.”

Danny squeezed his eyes shut, trying to take it all in. “That sounds…” His foggy brain couldn’t find the right word. “Intense.”

Well, at least it was safe to say that Ra’s al Ghul wouldn’t like Vlad.

Dusan chuckled. “Indeed. But do not make the mistake of assuming he lacks benevolence. Ra’s al Ghul is ruthless because he must be. But to those who are worthy, he is merciful and just. You have already taken the first step in proving your strength to Ra’s al Ghul, but now, you must leave yourself in his hands. Present your case. Tell him what you seek. Trust that he will help you—for you are of his blood—and that he will help you best.”

It’s those words that Danny—through all of the sudden influx of new sights and sounds and scents around him and the anxiety crawling beneath his kin— tried to remember as they traveled through the mountain fortress of Nanda Parbat. 

Exactly where Nanda Parbat existed on the map, Danny had no idea. It was surrounded by snow-capped mountains, built atop a large plateau that dropped off into a deep canyon. The fortress was palatial. Tall towers framed the high walls that encircled the fortress, sunlight bounced off the deep blue tiles of the steeply sloping roofs and gleamed against the golden spires atop the main buildings. 

There were three courtyards from what he could tell, each one hidden behind the other and separated by a thick wall. The training yards, Talia called them. 

“Who are they?” Danny said, gazing down at the hundreds of people below from their helicopter. They appeared to be doing a series of some kind of martial-art exercises, one form smoothly transitioning into the next in an intimidating display of synchronization.

Dusan answered, “They are those who believe in the world Ra’s al Ghul would bring.”

Trepidation settled in his gut. There was a voice at the back of his head that sounded like Jazz that told him that something was wrong. That this was a bad idea.

His core smothered the thoughts with a brief flicker of grimace, happily humming that warm family-here-home-wish.

Talia and Dusan led him up the lengthy staircase leading to the main compound and through a dizzying series of hallways and stairs that led to the office of Ra’s al Ghul. He barely noticed anything as he walked, too busy trying to keep in pace with his guides. The main building was a huge square tower. The hallways were made of polished wood, rows of shoji screens on Danny’s right and a railing looking down into the courtyard in the middle of the tower to his left. 

“What is this place?” he asked. His other question— who are you?— remained unsaid.

Dusan smiled, the overhead lights casting shadows across his face. “This, young Danyal, is home.”

The screen door slid open to reveal a large and spacious office. An antique desk sat in the middle facing the door, piled high with all manner of books, scrolls, ancient tomes, and artifacts. The walls were filled to the brim with even more books and miscellaneous items— some familiar, and some completely unknown to Danny. 

Sat behind the desk, a gold bird-shaped magnifying glass held steady above some ancient manuscript, was Ra’s al Ghul. 

“You are here,” Ra’s al Ghul remarked. He set down the magnifying glass and gently flipped a page of the manuscript spread out on his desk before standing. He clasped his hands behind his back and leisurely made his way around the desk. 

 To Danny’s surprise, Ra’s al Ghul did not look like a grandfather. Not that Danny had any other grandparents to compare Ra’s to, and Dusan’s descriptions certainly didn’t give off the vibes of some friendly and sage man who doted on his grandkids and talked about ‘the good old days.’

Yeah, Danny didn’t really know what to expect, but he certainly didn’t expect Ra’s .

Ra’s al Ghul looked, at most , a decade older than his mom and dad. Hell, even Dusan looked older than him. Built tall and broad-shouldered, the indication of whipcord muscles visible beneath his dark green and gold embroidered shalwar kameez. He had the same cool tawny skin as Talia’s, his strange green eyes marked by crows feet. He had dark gray salt-and-pepper hair with a receding hairline and sharp widow’s peak, the back of his hair tied tightly and low against his head. 

At his acknowledgement, Talia and Dusan greeted Ra’s al Ghul with a salute. Right hand curled into a fist and pressed against their heart, head bowed. Startled, Danny was quick to do the same. 

He bit back a cringe when he realized how sweaty his palms were.

Ra’s inclined his head and they were allowed to drop the salute. He approached them at a measured pace, movements so unnervingly silent even as Danny was watching him move right in front of him. 

He stopped in front of Danny, looming over him with narrowed eyes.

Was Danny…was Danny supposed to meet his gaze or lower it? He knew that in some cultures it was rude to look someone directly in the eye. Or was it supposed to be a sign of respect?

Ra’s al Ghul suddenly straightened. Smirked. Danny really hoped that was a good sign.

“So this is him, then,” Ra’s said, walking back further into the room. He turned abruptly on his heel, head cocked to the side. “Come closer, child. Let me get a better look at you.”

His heart jumped into his throat, and he pushed it back down with a painful swallow. A tingling sensation overtook his arm, the urge to try and scratch it away needling his mind. He caught Talia’s gaze as he moved past her and felt a flicker of reassurance as she subtly brushed her knuckles against his, calming his frazzled nerves. 

Dusan tilted his head slightly, features impassive  but assessing. 

Ra’s al Ghul, worryingly enough, reminded him of Vlad. Appearance wise, they looked nothing alike. But there was this… presence , this certain gravitas about them that emanated both great wealth, resources, and the cunningness of which to use them. 

Though while Vlad came off as comically villainous and, well, kind of pathetic at times, Ra’s al Ghul possessed an overwhelmingly intimidating aura that seemed to engulf the room. This was a man who did not demand attention but commanded it. One could not help but obey.

Gut instinct told him to not show any fear.

Gut instinct told him to leave .

Ra’s al Ghul’s flat affect broke into a small, soft smile that peaked from beneath his goatee. Gentle. Kind. Almost what Danny assumed to be grandfatherly .

His core hummed excitedly. The anxiety at the pit of his stomach subsided somewhat. 

Ra’s loomed over Danny—too close—eyes sharp and assessing. “Do you know who I am, boy?”

“You are Ra’s al Ghul,” he answered. 

Family , his core replied.

His smile grew. “That I am, boy, that I am. But I am also your grandfather.”

Grandfather, his core sang.

He straightened his posture, settling a firm hand on Danny’s shoulder.

This time, Danny could not help but flinch.

“No need to be so nervous,” Ra’s chuckled. “We are family, the two of us. My blood runs through your veins as surely as it does your mother’s, no matter that you were once lost to us. And besides that, the doctors Fenton were an invaluable asset to us, both in their research and in caring for you.” He shifted his hold, arm now across Danny’s shoulders as he led Danny in front of the desk. “Dusan and your mother were rather…cryptic with their reports. I have heard that you have a rather unusual situation and would like our help.”

“Yeah— I mean, yes, sir.” Best behavior Danny, best behavior. 

Ra’s detached himself from Danny’s side and sat behind his desk once more, elbows rested on polished wood and hands steepled in front of him. Curiosity gleamed in his strange green eyes. “Do tell.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, craning his gaze towards Talia.

Talia gave a reassuring smile.

He swallowed a hard lump in his throat, trying to remember what Dusan said.

Present your case. Tell him what you seek. Trust that he will help you.

It was— he never had to tell this many people before. Hell, he never had to tell anyone this story at all! Personally, Danny would like to keep it that way, but it made sense that Ra’s al Ghul would want the whole story. To know what mess he found at his doorstep.

And wasn’t this the reason he came with Talia, anyway? To look for help?

He raised his head once more, meeting Ra’s with a resolute gaze. “Some months ago, I was caught in an accident in my parents’—um, the Fenton’s—lab. Long story short, it turned me into a meta…or at least meta-adjacent? Sorry, I didn’t really have enough time to get too deep into ghost biology.”

Ras raised an imperious brow. “Ghost biology? Yes…If I recall, that was where your parents’ research lay. So you claim that you are a ghost?”

“Yes. Maybe?” Danny shrugged. “It’s kind of been what everyone’s been telling me and what all the signs have been pointing to.”

“I was under the impression that death was a prerequisite to becoming a ghost.”

“There’s been a running theory that I did die in that lab accident. It just didn’t stick.”

Ra’s blinked, giving Danny another appraising look. Danny fought the urge to squirm. Then Ra’s threw his head back with a loud, raucous laugh. “Fascinating!” He stroked his goatee, amused. “What a brilliant little enigma you are. What a wonder my grandchild has become! Though taking his blood into account, perhaps I should have expected it.” He leaned forward in his chair. “So, what request is it that you will make of me?”

Danny bit the inside of his cheek, mind racing for the right words to say. “I want…I was told that you would be able to give me a new life.”

“A new life.”

“I need— I don’t know what I need, really, but for certain reasons I can’t stay in Amity and I certainly can’t trust the law because I know where they’ll put me if I go back and if that happens then—”

Red eyes. A city in ruin. A world on fire.

“Then, what?”

Danny looked away, shoulders hunched as if he was Atlas himself, carrying the weight of the world on his back. “Something really, really bad will happen.”

Ra’s al Ghul beheld him, fingers drumming on his desk in a steady thump-thump-thump . Danny felt stifled under that gaze.

Trust in him , Dusan had said.

Grandfather , his core said. Family-here-trust-together.

After what seemed like an age, Ra’s al Ghul nodded. “Your request is doable, and I will excuse your ambiguity for the present, though I will require a full and detailed explanation at a later date.”

Danny let out a shaky breath. Relief coursed through his veins.

“But,” Ra’s al Ghul said. “I do not give you this new lease on life for free. I require payment.”

“I don’t— I don’t have anything to give.”

Ra’s waved off his concerns. “Worry not, boy, the price I seek is not so steep. What I want is for you to take your proper place in this family.” He stretched out his hand. “Do we have an agreement?”

Danny stared at the hand.

Was it…would it really be this simple? A new name, a  new life, a new family all in one fell swoop? 

It was almost too good to be true.

Take , his core hummed. Chance-take-family-mine-whole-take.

He took  Ra’s al Ghul’s hand and shook it. “We do.”

From that pact, Danyal al Ghul sprang into existence. 

And at that moment, though he did not know it yet, Danny Fenton well and truly died. 

Chapter Text

Present Day…

Batman made plans to visit Belle Reve Penitentiary before the week was over. The entire facility was made out of thick, gray, stone dotted by uniform windows. It stood above the waters of a murky swamp, the edges of the property enclosed by high wire fences. 

There were about half a dozen security protocols that needed to be done to gain access to Belle Reve’s inner sanctum. Each layer and set of equipment installed and updated by various construction teams to insure that no single entity could compromise the Penitentiary’s—and thus Task Force X’s—security. 

Batman, as he was wont to do, bypassed all of it.

He deposited himself in Amanda Waller’s office. It would have been a spacious room had it not been crowded with rows of filing cabinets. A healthy dose of paranoia made Waller careful to store any truly critical information in digital form, where it can be hacked by some malicious force or given access to by some particularly helpful person. The sorting system, from what Batman could see at first glance, forwent the standard A-Z categories for something else. Probably something that only Waller could understand.

A desk sat in the middle with a comfortable rolling chair behind it and a dual-monitor on top. Behind it was a wide window that overlooked the midnight Terrebonne Parish skyline. 

He did not, however, have the time to appreciate the view as Amanda Waller finally stepped into her office. 

She was a stout woman with a stern expression, dressed sensibly in a dark, mauve blazer, a white blouse, pearls, and a long, black skirt. A file-folder was tucked beneath one arm. The second she saw him, Waller paused, cocking her hip to one side and free hand tucked into her blazer pocket. 

“Batman,” she said, nonplussed. “What brings you here?” 

“Information…On a prisoner of yours.”

Waller took a seat behind her desk, setting her folder aside. “As far as I recall, Belle Reve isn’t currently housing any of your rogues. The last one was transferred over to Arkham a few months ago.”

He threw a printed article onto her desk. A small little piece from the Terrebonne Times, more a notice than actual news with what little information it held. The headline was emblazoned on the top:

DEATH AT BELLE REVE

Inmate Dies Under Mysterious Circumstances;
Foul Play Suspected

Waller glanced at the article then looked back up at Batman, brow raised. “A little late to be investigating this, don’t you think? The event in question happened six months ago.”

“I need access to Frederick Isaak Showenhower’s cell.”

“Hm. I’m surprised you’re actually asking.”

Batman remained silent. 

“Well.” Waller steepled her fingers together. “I suppose we could come to an arrangement.”

“An arrangement?” Batman snorts. “Sure. You give me access to the cell and I won’t tell your superiors that Showenhower—a regular human kept in a meta prison—didn’t die from some dispute between inmates, but from some outside force breaching Belle Reve’s ‘impenetrable’ security. You don’t hold any cards here, Waller.”

“Oh really? If I didn’t, I would have expected you to just waltz into the cell yourself without telling anyone.”

“I hold some respect for you, Waller. That’s the only reason why I’m asking.”

Waller made a pinched, sour face. With a huff, she got up from her desk and led Batman through the winding corridors of Belle Reve to Showenhower’s cell.

“What do you know about Freakshow, Batman?”

“Thirty years old, male, Caucasian, and possibly born with albinism. A bank and jewelry store robber who disguises his hits with a traveling circus show. He has connections with the occult and used it to commit his robberies. APISA apprehended him in St. Augustine, Florida, a little over a year ago.”

Waller laughed. “The GIW’s first and last hurrah.”

The Ghost Investigation Ward—or the Guys in White as it was jokingly referred to—was a fairly new and now defunct branch of the Agency of Paranormal Investigation and Spectral Affairs, focused on the research and apprehension of ectoplasmic entities known as ‘ghosts’. Their less than stellar track record made them the joke of not only APISA but the entirety of Task Force X, instilling within the ward’s few members a tight-knit camaraderie and an almost terrifying level of dedication towards their mission. They were more zealots than government agents. Coupled with their incompetence and their high collateral damage, the group was forced to disband. 

“Occultism aside,” Batman said, “small time human thieves aren’t usually the kind of criminals Task Force X would be interested in.”

“You’d be right. APISA and the GIW’s interest lay not with Freakshow, specifically, but with his family. The Showenhowers’ research in the occult and supernatural go back centuries. They’re a veritable treasure trove of information, and as of three years ago, they’re also the only expert on ghosts left.” 

He blinked. “Ghosts.”

“Ghosts.” Waller echoed. “Though not exactly the kind that you’re thinking of, but that is what these creatures have been calling themselves. As far as our researchers can tell, these ‘ghosts’ are inhabitants of a dimension tied very closely with our own.”

Suddenly, a spark. A memory. Information clicked into place.. “You learned of Freakshow in Amity Park.”

Waller neither confirmed or denied it.

It made sense, in a way. Though thought of as little more than a tourist trap, Amity Park had gained the reputation of being the most haunted city in America. Though no substantial proof ever made it outside of the city besides extremely blurry shots of light and grainy footage of streaks in the sky, the Justice League knew better than to dismiss the threats, if only because JL-Dark marked the city in the League’s main database with a heavy ‘ DO NOT INTERACT ’ warning for humans and metas alike. The exact situation in Amity Park was never explicitly laid out for the League other than that it was contained and handled and that the League should not, under any circumstances, interfere. 

 Though for good measure, Constantine saw it fit to bold, underline, italicize, and capitalize the DNI. Most heroes since then have taken to simply going around the city—even going so far as to avoid its air space. 

“Well, here we are.”

Showenhower’s cell was located on the highest floor of the penitentiary, at the very end of the  hallway and isolated from every other prisoner. Despite it being six months since the incident, all of the cells in this particular hallway were left unoccupied. 

The inside of Showenhower’s cell, however, was far from empty. Frost covered the room from floor to ceiling, dropping the temperature by a few degrees. Large stalactites of ice hung down from the ceiling, patches of ice covered every corner and crept up the walls like vines.

“This is where he died,” Batman stated, breath coming out in white mists. 

“Right over there.” Waller pointed at the single bed pushed towards the right side of the room. A frozen mattress on top of a rectangular dias that jutted out of the wall and had no space beneath it. “It was a strange thing. One moment Freakshow was sitting on the bed and staring at the wall. The next? He slammed his hand against the wall, froze the whole damn room over, and dropped dead.”

Pause. Rewind. Play.

The door to the cell slid open and Freakshow walked in. He stood in the middle, surveyed the entire room, before his gaze stopped at the camera discreetly placed in the corner of the ceiling. He blinked, lowered his head, then went to sit down on his bed. Directly across from him was a mirror.

Ten minutes passed in relative silence. Freakshow just sits, tapping his foot. Tilted his head here and there. Scratched the back of his neck. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then— He froze, shoulders stiffened. For a brief moment, a wide grin stretched across his face before it’s pushed back into a stony expression. Freakshow slammed his hand against the wall, ice burst from his palms, and he dropped dead.

Pause. 

Rewind. 

It had been days since Batman visited Belle Reve. Bruce made little progress in solving the case.  It did not help, of course, that there were other things that demanded his attention: a JL founders meeting concerning the admission of new heroes; the rumored reappearance of some stolen tech from Task Force X circulating the black market; his presentation for an upcoming fundraiser for the Wayne Foundation; his regular duties as batman and as CEO of Wayne Enterprises…The list was endless.

Play.

Thank goodness for Tim. His son had a good head on his shoulders and amazing intuition. Though as much as Tim had been arguing with Damian as to who got to accompany him on certain excursions, Bruce could see that Tim was just itching to go off on his own. To spread his own wings. 

Reluctant as Bruce was to let any of his Robins fly out from under him…at this point, he’d like to think he had enough experience to know that his children would grow up with or without his consent. Bruce had spent the last year easing up on Tim’s restrictions—much to Damian’s envy. More solo patrols, more casework, a greater degree of decision in his own missions, etcetera. Bruce even let Tim take the lead in the stolen tech case, only stating that he reports any and all findings to Batman and to not engage dangerous enemies alone if able. 

Bruce tapped a sharp rhythm on the desk, willing his attention back to the task at hand. 

Ice covered the room. Freakshow slumped down, dead. Pause. 

Rewind. 

He played the video from the beginning once more, fingers steepled as he watched the proceedings.

An ordinary man with no powers at all walks into a heavily fortified prison cell, sits down on his bed, shoots ice from his hands, and dies. No one entered the room with him, and the door remained locked up until security came barreling through the doors a few minutes after he died. 

Freakshow sat down, foot tapping loudly—

Pause.

Freakshow’s character profile described him as someone who was very deliberate with his movements. A trait possibly learned from years as a showman. What few footage Bruce managed to scrounge up from Circus Gothica’s shows displayed a ringmaster with a mastery over his own body, each gesture practiced and perfected for maximum effect. What videos there were of Freakshow when he was not addressing the audience—or the dozens of recordings of his stay in Belle Reve— saw a man who stood with uncanny stillness. Hands clasped behind his back, head tilted to the side just so.

Certainly not a man prone to fidgeting and tapping his foot. 

Rewind.

Play.

Freakshow sat down across from the mirror, back to the camera, foot tapping loudly. The sound of it reverberating loudly in his tiny cell. He tilted his head, hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. 

Bruce narrowed his eyes. How did he miss it before? He zoomed in on the mirror, enhancing as much of the image quality as possible. Freakshow was talking . The words were too inaudible for the camera to pick-up, and his mouth’s movement was too subtle, too quick to be read. 

“He knew his murderer was in the room with him,” Bruce mumbled. 

“Father?” 

Bruce looked over his shoulder. “Ah, Damian.” He rotated his chair to face his son. “What can I do for you?”

 “Pennyworth asked me to inform you that dinner would be ready soon.” Damian’s eyes flicked over to the video footage. “Any progress with the assassin?”

“Perhaps.” He beckoned Damian closer to the monitor, replaying the video for him and explaining his own thought process. “Here, pay special attention to the mirror. It’s subtle, but you can clearly see Freakshow speaking— presumably to someone else in the room. Notes on his file indicate that he’s not prone to talking to himself or mumbling his thoughts aloud. Coupled with the uncharacteristic fidgeting—an action that causes enough noise that it masks his mumbling—we can also presume that this conversation contains sensitive topics, ones he wants to hide

“I briefly considered some kind of magic to be at work because of his connections with the occult but disregarded it quickly. Not only is a suicide spell out of character for Freakshow—and also shown no prior attempts to it or any signs of thinking about suicide—but the display of cryokinesis doesn’t fit into the larger picture. And while Freakshow was noted to use magic, he does not possess an innate talent for it like Zatanna. According to Waller, Freakshow’s magic is more in line with alchemy, and his cell was swept every time he leaves it for any contraband or suspicious items.”

He paused the footage and rewound it to when Freakshow sat down in front of the mirror. “So, we can presume that he was talking to the culprit meaning three things.” He held up his index finger. “The first is that his murderer was in the cell with him but managed to remain unseen, perhaps because of some new cloaking technology, though it’s more likely that invisibility of some sort is part of their meta-ability.” He raised another finger. “The second is that Freakshow could sense the presence of the culprit and has enough of a relationship with them to hold a seemingly civil conversation. And the third—” he held up a third finger then curled his hand into a fist— “Freakshow was unable to call for help. Why?

“ He was overshadowed.” 

Bruce snapped his head to Damian. The words were quiet, so quiet in fact he nearly missed them.

“What did you say?” 

Damian clamped his mouth shut, eyes widening imperceptibly as if he, too, was shocked to have said it out loud. Quickly he smoothed his face, features receding into an impassive stare as he took a step back from the monitor. 

Bruce decided to press further. “Damian.”

Damian pursed his lips, eyebrows pinched in such a way to indicate that he was deliberating something. “It’s…” He trailed. “How much do you believe in ghosts?”

If someone had asked that question to Bruce when he was sixteen, ten, or even seven years old, he would have answered with a resounding no. Ghosts—restless spirits, monsters, things that go bump in the night—were all mere figments of imagination. Now, however, having lived in the time of gods and superheroes, intergalactic politics, and magic …

“I believe enough.” He tilted his head, a piece of some unknown puzzle slowly making itself known. “You are referring to Amity Park’s breed of ghosts.”

Damian gave a curt nod. “Grandfather was always trying to learn more about the Lazarus Pit. He had some assets—scientists—within Amity Park tasked to do just that. Of course once these ghosts began to appear, grandfather was immediately informed,” he explained. “From what I’ve learned, overshadowing is some kind of possession, it’s an ability that all of Amity’s ghosts can utilize.”

“So you believe Freakshow was overshadowed by one of these ghosts.” The explanation, for lack of another, worked. The lack of any physical evidence, no forced entry or exit—all evidence that could be explained away by ‘the ghost was invisible,’ as much as it irked Bruce to say. Freakshow’s connections with the occult only strengthened the theory.

According to the penitentiary’s blueprints, Freakshow’s cell was lined with a special type of metal composed of ectoranium—a rare mineral with anti-ghost properties. A preventative measure in case Freakshow’s partner, Lydia, or any other ghost tried to help him escape. It should have been impossible for any ghost to phase their way into the prison.

Unless the ghost walked in with Freakshow. 

“The eyes give it a way. Look—” Damian reached over to rewind the footage, pausing it at a specific moment. “—His eyes are normal here.” He points at Freakshow’s irises, dark gray due to the grayscale footage of the CCTV, plays the video, and then pauses it again a few seconds later. “But if you look at his eyes now, you can see the faint indication of a glow around his eyes. The color value of the irises are lighter, too. One of the biggest tells if someone is being overshadowed by a ghost is the glow and the change in eye color. “

Another review through the footage revealed that Freakshow’s eyes changed multiple times, often reverting back to his original eye color when he was speaking, and then changing when he was silent. 

Bruce grunted, fingers drumming a steady staccato on the arm of his chair, head leaning on his knuckles. Their culprit was a ghost. That information certainly changed things. Not only was Bruce’s suspect list now wiped clean and placed Freakshow’s murder as the lynchpin of their case, there was also the worrying implication that the League of Shadows held command over an extradimensional being whose powerset he was not familiar with. 

He glanced up at Damian. “What else do you know about ghosts?”

Damian shrugged. “Not as much as I’d like. Grandfather didn’t share much with me.”

“Hm.” He rose from his seat and set a hand on Damian’s shoulders with a light smile. “You head up first. I’m sure Alfred needs help setting the table.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll head up after you. There’s still one last thing I need to do.”

Damian raised an imperious eyebrow before ducking his head and heading to the elevator. Bruce watched his son’s retreating back, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. His eyes narrowed, the corners of his mouth downturned.

Damian was hiding something.

 Beneath the eerie, grim torchlight, Plasmius observed the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. It stood, looming above a raised dais where a throne might have been, once. Beneath it on each side were two pedestals encased in glass, protecting the two most powerful artifacts of the Infinite Realms. 

The glass cases were a mere formality, however. No one would steal either of the artifacts. To take only one of them would render the artifact useless as only with the ring and crown combined could the awesome power of the Infinite Realms be harnessed. Taking both would be an even riskier gamble. The crown and ring would only deign to bestow its powers on those it deems worthy. Strong. If the wearer did not suit, then the artifacts would eviscerate them before they could even blink.

It was strange to think that Pariah Dark’s awakening would be the felix culpa that saved Plasmius from his own demise. 

Plasmius was prideful and vain in nature, but even he was self-aware enough to realize that the artifacts would only accept those equal or greater in power to Pariah Dark— and Vlad was simply not that.  Even the Ancients, powerful as they were and the original victors against the old king, were not considered worthy. The only one who might have come close was young Daniel.

‘Close’ being the key word here. 

It was unfortunate that the boy never stayed long enough to grow into his powers. If he did, he might have become someone powerful. Someone worthy. A king. (Only if it was under Vlad’s terms after all. A child monarch was never without an older and wiser regent at their shoulder. Taking Phantom under his own tutelage would be a worthless endeavor if Vlad could not come out on top). 

Instead Daniel ran away, squirreled himself into a hovel so deep that neither of Vlad’s ghostly nor mortal resources could dig him up. (Yes, Daniel ran away. Was missing. No matter what forensics or the police or his own private investigators tried to say, that mauled and burned body placed beside the Fenton memorial was not Daniel James Fenton. The boy was still alive. It was only a matter of where.)

The sarcophagus shuddered.

Plasmius lifted his gaze to the death mask of Pariah Dark. “It is weakening,” he said, voice reverberating  across the near empty throne room. He pivoted on his heel, a sardonic grin on his face as he faced Fright Knight. “Should we prepare for His Majesty to awaken any time soon?

Fright Knight cut an imposing figure in the torch light. “No.” Plasmius could not tell if the ghost was disappointed or relieved. “The sarcophagus holds strong still. In a year or in a decade, my king may wake once more, but that time is not today. For now, he rests in a fitful sleep.”

“A year or ten…how comforting.” Plasmius rolled his eyes. “What brings you here, then?”

“It is the duty of a knight to protect his liege lord against all things.”

“Oh don’t go pretending you’re a loyal knight now. Not when you betrayed your lord the last time.”

Fright Knight narrowed his eyes, then gave a derisive snort. “No, I suppose not. If you must know, half-breed, I was summoned by my creator, and regardless of my own desires I am obliged to answer the call.”

“Your creator— Pariah?”

Fright Knight shook his head.

“Then who—?” He turned to look at the dais again. At the sarcophagus. At the crown of fire and the ring of rage emitting a preternatural glow.

Ah. That explained it.

Of the many paradoxes there were in the world, Vlad’s favorite one concerned the nature of Omnipotence. There were many versions of the Omnipotence Paradox, but the most well known one went like this: could god create a stone so heavy that he could not lift it? While there were many answers to the question and many conflicting ideas, Vlad favored the notion that an omnipotent being could do absolutely anything it desires except that which compromises its own omnipotence. If god is essentially omnipotent, then he cannot make a stone that he cannot lift, for that would mean making a stone that is equal in power to god.

Vlad often wondered why Fright Knight never attempted to seize the sovereign’s artifacts for himself, what with his predilection for ruling. Though bestowed with the title of knight , anyone could see that Fright Knight's true desire was rulership. Dominion . A desire that he could never satiate. The closest he could ever come to it was to serve and stand close to power. 

Apparently it was not because Fright Knight didn’t want the artifacts, but because he was, by nature, incapable of wielding them. The artifacts cannot create something stronger than themselves, and they refuse to be worn by anything it perceived as lesser than them.

“My, my,” Plasmius laughed. “It must have absolutely burned you to bend the knee to Pariah Dark.”

The fiery plume on his helmet flared dangerously bright as Fright Knight let out an inhuman growl. “Watch your tongue before I relieve you of it.”

Plasmius held up his hands in mock-surrender. “So, why did your creator call you to Pariah’s Keep?”

Fright Knight paused, intrigued. “Can you not hear it?" He asked. "They are singing.” 

Vlad strained his ears, but he heard nothing. Just the echoey silence of the throne room and the flickering of torchlights and Fright Knight’s armor.

If Fright Knight had a mouth, he would smirk. “No, you cannot, can you? Someone of your ilk is not privileged enough to hear their song. But I suppose there’s enough of a ghost in you that you can feel the artifacts’ call even if you cannot hear it.” He quiets, head inclined just so as if he were listening to the song right now. As if the artifacts were speaking to him. “They are in mourning.”

“What would they even be mourning about?”

“A lack of purpose,” he said. “For what is the worth of a tool if nobody uses it?”

Vlad frowned. So they are the reason why the Ghost Zone has been so agitated recently. Like Eris and the golden apple of discord, the artifacts have thrown their song all across the Infinite Realms, proclaiming to everyone to prove their worth, to prove their strength. Even Pariah Dark, trapped in his slumber, cannot resist the call.

Even Plasmius, who was deaf to its song, was drawn to this place.

Plasmius rubbed his hand across his face. “It will tear the Infinite Realms apart just to find someone strong enough to wield it.”

“Perhaps,” said Fright Knight. “You cannot hide your portal forever. It will be found, mark my words.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A warning, Plasmius. If you wish to preserve what modicum of peace you have in the material world, then you would do well to close the portal and destroy it.”

Plasmius’ face curled into a snarl. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Then you invite your own folly.” With a dramatic flourish of his cloak, violet flames licking at the cobbled floor, Fright Knight leveled the Soul Shredder between Plasmius’ eyes. “Challengers will seek out the Uncrowned to prove their mettle, collateral damage be damned. They will find him, or he will find them."

“Will you be one of them, then? A challenger?”

Fright Knight stilled, anger simmering just above his armor. “Mocking me, are you? No, a challenger I am not. My grand purpose in this world is to guard my creators, bestow them to and swear my oaths to my future liege lord, whoever that may be.”

With those parting words, Fright Knight flew off, taking his post at the entrance of the keep, leaving Plasmius alone in the presence of the ring and crown. To bear their heavy gaze.

(Something within him, something that he once thought controlled, thought leashed to his will, reared its head. Want , it said. Want-have-mine. It gnawed at the back of his mind like a starving rat chewing on the bars of its cage. Want-have-mine-want-prove-prove-worthy.)

Vlad squashed that voice with a grimace.  He was the one in control, not his ghost.  He was stronger than such baser instincts.

(Prove-worthy-power)

Danielle had been working far too hard lately, and as a result she’s been in and out of the portal more times than Plasmius would prefer. It was attracting too much attention. Perhaps a quick vacation was in order.

Besides, it wouldn’t do to reject an invitation from Bruce Wayne himself now, would it?

Chapter Text

One Year Ago…

EXCERPT OF FULL VERBATIM AUDIO TRANSCRIPT FROM THE DIGITAL FILES OF [REDACTED]

“[...] almost two months since we obtained the subject and still we’ve made little progress in ascertaining its origins or uncovering its secrets. [REDACTED] wants results soon, but it’s difficult to get anywhere when they’re so worried about us damaging the damn thing. They paid a hefty sum to get it, so I’m told. 

“Keh. Rich bastards, throwing their money however they damn well please. Not that I have much room to say about it, considering they’re paying me to figure out this thing.”

[Long silence. Indistinguishable sounds.]

“ Well, it’s not like I’m not curious about the subject myself.  [Foot tapping] Let’s see, where to start?

“Refer to Project Theta audio log AR-AUD-002 or AR-TSCP-002 for full description and history of the subject. I’m not gonna bother repeating it again. 

“The subject has been emitting an unidentifiable energy to our scanners— see Image 9.2 on Project Theta’s main file for all photos so far— which, to the naked eye, appears a bright green. Radiation was considered as a possible source of its energy but quickly discarded once the Geiger counter results came out. 

“Subject’s initial exposure to electrum was successful in producing a reaction, however the brevity of it made it difficult to record exactly what those results were. Following attempts to recreate the reaction were unsuccessful…almost as if the subject refused to interact with the electrum. 

“That’s the strange thing about the subject, anyway. We were informed that it was an energy source, but the more time I’ve spent around it, the more I’ve realized that that statement isn’t exactly true. There’s a…a kind of sentience to it. A personality. I’ve noticed over the course of working on this project that the subject’s energy readings fluctuate depending on the number of people in the room; the fewer people there were, the more active it became. 

“That’s the reason why I’m here after hours after all, and without telling Dr.[REDACTED] either. I wanted to test my own theory first— I didn't want to look like a fool in front of the rest of the team, if I was wrong, after all.  So far…it looks like I’m right. The subject’s energy levels are noticeably higher than in previous tests. This is— [loud metallic clang] What the hell? [keyboard clicking] Running imaging scans now.”

[Loud hum of the scanners.]

“No, this can’t be— We were told it was a power source! I thought it had a personality but not that it was [inaudible sounds]. There’s something in there, I know it. This fucking thing, its, its, its a damn containment device. 

“But for what?”

“[inaudible mumbling] …should wait, it’s the smart thing to do, after all. But…well, no risk, no reward. 

“I’m texting [REDACTED]. If I don’t give an all-clear sign after 10 minutes, she has instructions to inform the higher-ups that I and the subject have been compromised.

“Alright. I’m approaching the subject now.”

[Footsteps. The speaker’s vocal audio becomes fainter as they walk away.]

“Really, it’s a strange feat of engineering, this is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of metal before. I’ve read the background on where it supposedly came from but…well, to be honest, I still think it’s a bunch of bullshit. 

“I am lifting up the subject now. Huh. Lighter than I expected. I know what the reports say, but I’m still surprised at the weight of this thing. Alright, time to…time to open this.”

[Inaudible sounds followed by a long pause.]

“What’s this? [Laughing.] There’s nothing inside.” 

Chapter Text

Three Years Ago…

Danny’s beginning to think he’s made a mistake.

Well, no, he’s always thought that. From the day Sam convinced him to pose inside the ghost portal to the moment he shook hands with Ra’s al Ghul, the voice in his head that sounded a little bit like Jazz would wag its proverbial finger at him. Danny would reason with himself that he had no other option except to join Ra’s al Ghul. That man was his grandfather and his parents’ benefactors. He’s wealthy, or at least powerful enough that Vlad would have a hard time pressuring Ra’s to give up Danny. 

Danny would be safe here. The whole world would be safe if Danny were here. Free from that terrible future of bleak gray skies and ruins upon ruins. Of Amity being a bright, shining city of the future—the only city of the future— and the wasteland beyond its borders.

Staying in Amity Park would have trapped him to that destiny— Danny knew it. His future was written in stone, or else why would the goddamn Master of Time try to kill him specifically? Danny had to leave. Had a duty to do everything in his power to divert the world from that catastrophic timeline. He owed it to his friends, his family. 

(There is another voice, one that sounds like Sam, saying that in many Greek myths, the ones who try to avert a prophecy only end up hastening it instead.)

Or maybe there was no mistake. There was no mistake because there was no alternative outcome. That no matter where he decided to go after Amity, no matter what he does, the seed of that dreaded future had already been planted and he was only prolonging the inevitable. 

So why not trust the al Ghuls? Why not trust the only family he had left in this world, the ones who took him in and helped him when he needed it most? Danny will give them all his secrets, his scant bit of knowledge, his weaknesses, so that when the future finally catches up with him, at least his family will be prepared to take him down.

(He refused to kill them again.)  

Whatever becomes of him in the future, Danny’s family will live. He will make sure of it. And the first step of his self-appointed mission was to tell his family exactly what the future held in store for them. 

Ra’s al Ghul— “Grandfather", the man would correct— listened to Danny’s sorry tale with an inscrutable expression, fingers steepled in front of him. “Well,” he said, leaning back into his office chair “This is certainly an interesting situation we’ve found ourselves in.”

Interesting, he said. As if he didn’t just find out that the boy he let live under his roof was a veritable nuke with a ticking timer.

“I did say it was complicated,” Danny tittered. His legs were getting stiff from standing like this for so long; his spine straight, shoulders rolled back, calling upon whatever bit or ‘proper etiquette’ he remembered from looking at Mr. Manson.

Ra’s quirked an eyebrow, as if sensing Danny’s distress. “Your feet are too close together. Place them shoulder length apart and you’ll feel much better.”  

Sheepish, Danny did so.

“Now, I will agree that your situation is rather ‘complicated’ as you put it, but I’m quite certain that it’s not the worst that the League has dealt with.” And what did that mean? “Regardless, I believe that the solution is quite simple.”

“And that is?”

“From the Fentons’ research—corroborated with your own information—ghosts are an extremely emotional breed of creatures. What drove the alternate you to the brink was not just grief, but the lack of control over that grief. The solution, then, is to train you to have more control over your own emotions, over your own mental faculties.”

Well…the theory looked sound enough. But it seemed simple. Too simple. “And how would we do that?”

Ra’s al Ghul gave a wry grin. “I have some ideas.”

The next thing Danny knew, he was being shipped from the mountainous cradle of Nanda Parbat to Infinity Island, located…in some ocean somewhere. He didn’t really know, and it wasn’t like anyone would tell him anyway. It’s been over a month since he was unceremoniously dropped off here by masked men, with nothing to his name but a set of clothes thrown in his direction. Like any sane person, Danny assumed that there must’ve been some mix-up and went to find Dusan— Mentor, that is the name by which you call me here— to get this all straightened out.

The grin Dusan—no, Mentor —gave made the hairs on the back of Danny’s neck rise. Mentor explained that no, there was no mix-up. Ra’s al Ghul sent direct orders for Danny to be placed under his tutelage. It was for Danny’s own good, Mentor said. 

Infinity Island, among other things, functioned as some kind of boot camp for the League. (League of what, Danny didn’t know.) Danny was shoved in the most recently formed cohort—a group of twenty people between seventeen and twenty-five years old—who were already three weeks into their training. Which meant that the entire cohort had to repeat three weeks of training just so Danny could catch up.

Mentor insisted. He wanted to assess his students’ progress for himself, now that he was stepping in to take the place of their instructor. 

And while the cohort expressed their gratitude at being personally trained by an al Ghul…well, let’s just say that Danny doesn’t expect to be making friends anytime soon. 

Endurance training—or as Danny liked to call it, ‘Coach Testlaff’s P.E. Class from Hell on steroids’—would definitely rank in Danny’s Top 10 Worst Experiences Ever. Which was saying quite a lot considering part of that list was being mind controlled, getting electrocuted in a portal to hell, and seeing everyone he cared about blow up. 

(Smoke. Rubble digging into his palm. The smell of burning fle—)

Though unlike P.E. class, there isn’t a bell to tell Mentor when their training is up for the day. More often than not, they’ll be working late into the night. Given just enough time afterwards to drag themselves to their cots and pass out, only to be woken up just a few hours past dawn. 

Danny dreams.

He seemed to be dreaming a lot these days.

He dreams that he is amidst the rubble of the Nasty Burger, hands welded to the boiler. The rumbling machine slowly tick-tick-ticking away at his life.

He dreams of waking up at his house, the entire explosion a hyper-realistic nightmare. Of running down the stairs to see his parents in the kitchen. Of hugging them, loving them, and raising his eyes up to see their burned and melted faces. Their charred hands cradled his cheek, and their gurgled voices ask him why .

He dreams that he is in the Ghost Zone. Trapped on a barren rock floating endlessly into the void with nothing but himself and the empty vacuum of eternity.

He dreams of floating above a world gone mad. His skin is a frostbitten blue, his hair a fiery mane. Two contrary states that pull on his insides and make him want to scream. He is twenty-four and fifty-five. Young and old. Phantom and Plasmius. Both and simultaneously neither at all. Either way he is grieving and grieving and the hurt won’t stop, their screaming will never stop, not until you make them. 

He dreams of a world in ruin, of fire licking the skies and bones crushed underfoot. He dreams of heroes falling and villains scrambling to find a place in this fractured world. He dreams of a woman— familiar but not—who fights him with the ferocity of a thousand infernos to buy time for her son to escape. 

He dreams of crushing her throat. The bones snapped so easily in his hands.

He felt nothing.

(Cold-cold-cold.)

He wakes up with a pillow thrown at his head.

“Will you shut up ,” said the person in the next cot over in lightly accented English. “Some of us are trying to sleep here.”

Danny placed his hands on the pillow over his face and debated screaming into it out of spite. 

Instead he mumbles a hoarse sorry through cracked lips and tosses the pillow back. The person—starts with an H, Danny couldn’t remember—simply glared at him before folding the pillow in half and sleeping the other way. 

Danny pulled his blanket higher over his shoulder. 

He cannot sleep. Refused to despite knowing that they will be woken up in a few hours and worked until their bones are jelly and their muscles sore and the moon high in the sky. 

A pair of bare feet came into his vision. “Oh mon dieu, you’re not crying are you?”

The figure—Danny still couldn’t remember his name—crouched in front of Danny. He was one of the older teens in Danny’s cohort, probably just a few years older than Jazz. He even had red hair, too, though it was shades darker and closer to a dark auburn than ginger. 

Danny glared at him. “Not crying,” he insisted. Though as his hand came up to touch his cheek, he discovered that it was wet. 

“Yeah,” drawled the other. “Not crying.”

Danny’s arm shot out to try and jab the guy in the chest and knock him over.

His fist was blocked. The man looked at him with a raised brow, amused. 

“What do you want?” Danny spat.

“What I wanted was to sleep, but since someone couldn’t keep their nightmares the fuck down—”

“I said sorry.”

“‘Sorry’ isn’t going to give me those precious minutes back, are they?” He said, throwing Danny’s arm back. “So I figured I’d come over here and find something interesting to keep myself occupied with. What’s your name, kid?”

Danny , he wanted to say. My name is Danny Fenton. “I go by Danyal.”

“Hm.” He sat himself down onto the cold concrete, legs crossed in front of him, and held out an open hand. “Name’s Henri.”

Apprehensively, Danny shook it. 

“Well,” Henri said, “now that the pleasantries are out of the way, tell me something about yourself.”

“What?”

Henri gave him a look. “Listen, Danyal, I’m tired but sleeping now is a lost cause considering that any minute now Mentor is gonna burst through those doors to whoop our asses into shape. I’m bored. You’re the only entertainment I’ve got.” He propped up his chin on the back of his hand. “So, tell me about yourself.”

“I…I don’t really know what to say.”

“I don’t know— anything?” He gestured at Danny. “You’re like, what, twelve?”

“Fourteen.”

“Same difference. Your life must have been all sorts of fucked up to end up here.”

Well, Danny thought, he isn’t wrong. “Well, I’m from—”

Henri cut him off. “Nope. We don’t share information about who we were before. That person’s dead, remember?”

“Dead? How did you—”

“You had to fake your death too, didn’t you? A lot of the recruits had to do that.”

“Oh…I didn’t know.”

“It’s ‘cuz you’re new.”

“Well then how am I supposed to tell you about myself if I can’t talk about myself?”

“...You have a point.” Henri grimaced. “It’ll probably just be easier to just ask questions, isn’t it.” 

Danny shrugged. “Probably.” 

Henri and Danny talked for no more than an hour before it was time to train once again. The questions were neutral, mostly. Awkward ice breakers that one would expect on the first day of school. Yet somehow, in that small time, Danny thought that he might have found himself something like a friend.

(Friend, his core sang. Friend-yes-maybe? Friend-red-friend-warm.)

Training could consist of anything, though the majority of it dealt with physical fitness. Running laps around the island;  push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups; swimming against the tides; obstacle courses; drown-proofing; etcetera, etcetera. When it wasn’t any of those things, Mentor taught them how to eat, how to stand, how to sit, how to talk, and even how to breathe. Everything must be done with perfect intention. And if you failed, then you were met with a never ending tirade of insults shouted in your face and hours of extra training on your shoulders. 

And if they weren’t being yelled at, then they were being taught the purpose of the League. Of Ra’s al Ghul, and how the League functioned as the hand that carried out his ambitions. He spoke with a low and steady cadence, expounding upon them the evils and horribleness of the world and the greatness of Ra’s al Ghul’s mission. “The world is beautiful, recruits,” Mentor said. “But mankind pollutes it with its cruelty.” 

Danny thought of Vlad and his slow-burning rage. Thought of the GIW and their cruel zealotry. Thought of Freakshow and his need to control. Thought of Dash and the A-listers, their brutal fists and their sharp cut words; of Mr. Lancer and his willingness to turn a blind eye; of his parents, ridiculed and derided by Amity Park despite their genius. He thought of the story of a boy whose grief was so great he tore out his own humanity. And how his humanity transformed into a creature of red eyes and blue-tinted skin—turning on the boy and destroying the world.

(Danny…Danny didn’t disagree with the idea.)

He learned as well that the best way to survive this place was to never disappoint. A task that was, in itself, difficult to achieve. There was never a clear set of expectations of what Mentor wanted them to do. Sometimes Danny would think he’s done everything right only to be saddled with a dreaded  night watch. The bar always moved. Always changed. And Danny was left scrambling to please, hoping that he didn’t make a single mistake lest his training got any worse.

“Do not think,” Mentor commanded. “Only do.”

Do not think. Do not think. Danny could do that. Was willing to do that. Thinking was never his forte anyway. He would have done much better at school if it was. He wouldn’t be here if it was. His family would still be in Amity if it was. His friends would be with their parents if it was. Danny would still be fully human if he was just able to think.

Thinking also had the rather awful side effects of introspection. Of memories. Of regrets. Things that kept him awake late into twilight dawn which would only lead to mistakes. And mistakes lead to disappointment. And disappointment led to—

(A bitter cold bloomed in his chest. Could feel the phantom touch of frost covering his palms. Quickly, before anyone could see, he tugged onto that thread of cold and stamped it down. Willed his entire being to just— stop.)

It was better not to think. 

“Life in the League is simple,” Mentor said to them. “All you have to do is obey.”

“You look like shit,” Henri said one night, subtly sliding his plate over towards Danny.

Danny made a garbled noise, mouth full of the salted dried fish and white rice. He was never a huge fan of fish before, but after eating salted fish every night during his entire stay at Infinity Island, it kind of grew on him. It beat the tasteless gruel they got for breakfast, anyway. He washed the food down with water. “Wha’d’you mean?”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”

“Dunno if you’ve noticed, but there aren’t that many mirrors here,” Danny replied. He looked down at his water cup, angling it slowly to try and get a good look at his distorted reflection. “I mean…I guess those eyebags aren’t gonna go away for a while?”

Henri’s mouth flattened into a grim line, brows furrowed. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days, Danyal.”

Danny frowned.  That can’t be true. The League makes sure everyone got at least two meals a day, and Danny’s barely left anything on his plate. He pushed back Henri’s plate. “I’m fine. I haven’t skipped any meals or anything so you don’t need to—”

Henri pushed the plate back. “I’m not hungry.”

“Henri…”

“I’m not,” he insisted. “If you’re not gonna eat it, then I’ll just throw it away.”

Danny pursed his lips. That’d be such a waste. And…if he had to admit it to himself, he was still hungry….

“Just this once,” Danny said. He switched his empty plate with Henri’s and started to scarf down the food. They were never given a lot of time to eat. Mentor wanted them to be efficient in everything, and idle chit-chat just wasn’t part of that. 

Once became twice. Twice became thrice. Then more times after that. Henri never gave his entire meal to Danny again—the latter insisted—but he would always find ways to sneak portions of his food onto Danny’s plate without him noticing. 

Despite this, Danny’s figure remained stick-thin. Gaunt. Paradoxically so, considering his strength and stamina remained stable. The situation became severe enough that Mentor took it upon himself to intervene.

“Tomorrow you will not train with the rest of your cohort,” Mentor informed him privately. “I will be escorting you to the island’s on-site physician for an examination.”

Danny blinked. “Permission to speak, Mentor?”

“Permission granted.”

“Why are you escorting me personally? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to leave that to someone else so you can oversee the cohort’s progress?”

Dusan raised an eyebrow. “Am I not allowed to be worried for my nephew?”

Startled by the admission, Danny’s mouth hung open in a small ‘O’, head dropping sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Thank you, sir. That’s very kind of you.”

Dusan al Ghul had never been blessed with children. He was not particularly disappointed with this; paternal instincts never called to him in particular, and he never saw the appeal of wasting his own time and resources on rearing tiny, squalling infants. But there was a certain appeal in the idea of parenthood . Of taking the primal and raw nature of life and shaping it to your own will. 

Nurture triumphing over nature.

 Immortality gained through the hearts and minds of the next generation. 

(He could already see it in young Damian— Talia’s cunning, Ra’s al Ghul’s strength, the Batman’s stubbornness. Each of them in some way leaving their mark on Damian. Living—existing— through him.)

(Is that not why the Dark Knight took so many under his wing? To have someone carry on his work when death finally takes a hold of him? It was why Ra’s al Ghul had children; there would be no one else more trustworthy to carry on one’s legacy other than one’s own kin.)

Parenthood was something beyond his understanding, but teaching was the next best thing. Here, in the League, Ra’s al Ghul gave him the honor of rearing each new line of assassins to serve his righteous cause. Above them, Dusan stood, a gardener of the shadows. At his discretion, recruits were assessed and trained, their limits found and tested to see which would break first— it or the recruit. The weak were weeded out, the strong cultivated. Arrogance was nipped at the bud, and loyalty, obedience , was sowed and reaped in abundance.

Danyal al Ghul was as soft as an unready mind. A seed that sprouted in substandard soil and yet, somehow, flourished into something more. But this sprout would not reach its fullest potential without his guidance. 

And so he would give it. Carefully.

Danyal was, in some ways, like the others the League recruited. Those people were nobodies. Nothings. Orphans and drug addicts and homeless people on the run. People that no one would miss. Those who the world gave up, and who gave up on the world. Desperate people whose faces are gaunt with a hunger for something to believe in, some place to belong.

Those who had nothing left to lose and will cling to whatever is given to them.

And yet…Danyal was nothing like them. Superhuman strength, speed, and agility. Cryokinesis, intangibility, invisibility, energy manipulation, flight, telekinesis. The League had been keeping track of Danyal’s growing list of abilities ever since they discovered that he and Phantom were one and the same being all those months ago. Unlike the regular recruits who, if they could not be trained, were trapped and disposed of, Danyal could not be contained. 

They had the Fenton ecto-weapon prototypes, yes, but there was a matter of the ectoplasm. While Ra’s al Ghul did generously provide the Fentons with a sample of the Lazarus waters for their experiments, no one but the Drs. Fenton knew the exact methods of which to isolate the ectoplasm from the waters and purify it into an energy source. The majority of the prototype ecto-weapons the League had at their disposal, however, Danyal had already shown to be able to overcome. Either by outright tanking them, or nullifying their effects somewhat with Danyal’s human half. 

It was a moot point of discussion, at the end of it. Phantom was too powerful a weapon to be put down at the earliest signs of disobedience. 

If they could not kill or contain Danyal, then they would simply give him no reason to leave. And no method by which to leave.

The Rosa disanthus was a rather elegant solution to their debacle. The flower in itself was harmless to humans— though its natural pungency was rather annoying, sweet and cloying like cheap perfume. But to ghosts, it was a natural repellant. One flower was enough to deter a ghost from approaching, but a whole bushel of flowers, arranged in a circle, were enough to entrap a ghost indefinitely. And, as Dusan realized, ingesting blood blossoms was enough to temporarily suppress Danyal’s ghostly half.

A daily intake of blood blossom tea was instrumental to keeping Danyal as pliable as he was. With it, he was unable to subconsciously draw on his supernatural abilities that would allow him to breeze through the physical stress of League training. Danyal was instead reduced to his own mortal strength and endurance. 

While Danyal’s physical capabilities were rather embarrassingly weak and underdeveloped—especially considering his parentage— it was exactly what Dusan required. A tired body is a tired mind, and a tired mind is one that is able to easily accept Ra’s al Ghul’s teaching. 

That there were side-effects were to be expected. That they took longer to manifest than Dusan anticipated was much more fascinating.

He pulled up in his off-road vehicle in front of the recruit mess hall. “Danyal,” he greeted. 

Danyal immediately stood at attention, his posture perfect. “Good morning, sir.”

“A fine morning it is, nephew. Come on up, we have places to be.”

The medical facilities were located on the northern side of the island. Not terribly far, but cumbersome to get to by on foot what with the dense jungle and sandy beach. 

The physicians were perfunctory in their examinations; they took vitals, ran labs, and cross-referenced everything with the Fenton ghost files. 

“You have been keeping with your diet regimen, yes?” Asked one of the physicians. He pressed his gloved fingers against Danyal’s skin, brushing the ridges of knobs of his spine. Blooming across his back were large, faint scars. Fractals branching across his torso like the limbs of a gruesome tree. “You are still too thin.”

“Fast metabolism,” Danyal mumbled. He sat on his hands atop the examination table, black shirt neatly folded beside him. His figure, though not skeletal, per se, was gaunt. Ribs poked from his pallor skin, stomach still concave for a boy who ate double the portions than any other member of the League of Assassins. “I’ve had it since the accident, but it’s never gotten this bad.”

The physician hummed, jotting his notes down alongside the results of Danyal’s vitals. “Do you happen to know why?”

He shrugged, expression wrinkled with skittishness. “Ectoplasm maybe? I’m not— I really don’t know for sure but that’s the best guess I can make. Before coming here, I’ve never been out of Amity for more than a couple weeks at most. And Amity—or at least FentonWorks—always had some kind of ambient ectoplasm around it.”

Another physician joined the first. She handed him a tablet, pointing to a specific section on the screen. “Logic checks out if that’s the case,” She said, one hand tucked into her white coat. “In a…metaphysical sense, these ghosts are like any other creature; a psyche in control of a vessel. Though while most living creatures have a vessel of flesh and blood and bone, ghosts have this ectoplasm.”

The first physician nodded, cupping his chin thoughtfully. “I see… In that sense, as humans need food and nutrients to keep our body working, ghosts use ectoplasm as their own source of energy.” He looked up at Danyal. “Your ghost is hungry, recruit.”

“If ectoplasm is what my ghost half needs then why…” Danyal gestured to himself.

“All things require energy to work,” the second physician said. “If your ghost half cannot get the energy it needs from ectoplasm, it must get it from another source: you. It’s difficult to confirm anything so this is all just conjecture, but it is my current hypothesis that your ghost is ‘rerouting’ your body’s energy to sustain itself, while only leaving the barest minimum for your human body to keep up with your current training.” She chuckled. “In more morbid terms, it's a very strange case of autocannibalism.”

Danyal paled, squeamish. 

Dusan cleared his throat. “What is to be done, then?”

She furrowed her brows. “If my hypothesis holds true, then the only permanent solution I can come up with is a return to Amity Park—”

“No,” Danny said vehemently. His fingers curled across the edge of the table, knuckles bone white. “No. That’s not an option.”

She blinked, then nodded. “It would not be feasible in the long run, anyway. You would be on a timer every time you left the city which is a weakness that would be exploited. A temporary solution would be some kind of ectoplasm based supplement. The Fentons, however, did not leave notes on how they engineered their artificial ectoplasm, and even if we were able to obtain enough ambient ectoplasm to study, we may not be able to reverse engineer it in time to create a working supplement.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m fucked.”

“Perhaps not,” said the first physician. “There is another option, however we would need…permission first before we can consider.” 

Dusan was easily able to discern the physician’s meaning. What made Infinity Island a point of interest for Ra’s al Ghul was the Lazarus Pit hidden within the base of its extinct volcano. If the Pit did contain some form of ectoplasm, it may yet be the key to Danyal’s survival. 

“I will authorize it,” Dusan said. He turned towards Danyal, effusing an aura of warmth and concern. “Ra’s al Ghul would agree. He wishes only the best for his grandson.”

When Dusan explained what the Lazarus Pit was to him, Danny was certain it wouldn’t work. A pit that brought people back to life? It sounded so impossible. Dead was dead; resurrection just went against the natural order of things. 

Then what are you? Mind-Jazz asked. 

The butt end of a Schrodinger’s joke. But…touché I guess.

And besides, if the pit could bring the dead back to life, how would that work with Danny? Would he still keep his ghost half or would the pit half-revive him and he’d end up fully human?

“Does it matter?” Dusan asked.

Danny chewed the inside of his cheek. Frankly, it did. While getting rid of his ghost half would ensure that Dan’s future would never come to pass, it would also mean that Danny would lose his one advantage. His one bargaining chip. “Before the accident, I wasn’t anyone special. Without Phantom I’m just… plain ol’ Danny.”

“Without Phantom, you are still an al Ghul.” Dusan laid a comforting hand on Danny’s shoulder. “And you will always be an al Ghul.”

Danny’s core flooded with warmth.

“Yeah.” he couldn’t help the trembling smile on his face. “We’re family.”

Danny heard the Lazarus Pit before he saw it. A low and steady hum reminiscent of the ghost portal. But…different. Not necessarily fainter but garbled, like hearing someone speak underwater.

The room was a large, open space, with jagged obsidian walls framed by red wooden pillars. It was dim, lit only by the green glow of the pit that consumed the majority of the space; a pool of too-clear waters and toxic-looking steam rising from the surface.

“Oh.”

(Oh, his core echoed.)

Danny stumbled towards it, half-dazed. The still waters seemed to shudder at his approach, small ripples gravitating towards him as if he were the moon, and they the tide. 

(We-us-them-calls-sustain-sustain.)

Danny could feel it. Could feel the energy of the Infinite Realms swirling in the pit, however diluted, and it was calling to him though he couldn’t understand the words. His knees hit the ground, one arm outstretched. He found himself lost in the green. In the call. If he just leaned forward a little bit more then—

Wait.

It seemed like an eternity before Danny could tear his gaze away from the pit. 

He looked up and met Dusan’s assessing gaze. “Requesting permission, sir?”

The corner of Dusan’s mouth curled up, pleased. “Permission granted.”

His core sang, pushing against the confines of Danny’s chest and tumbling them over into oblivion. 

Chapter Text

Present Day…

“—For there is nothing more noble than the act of helping those in need.” The rumble of polite applause echoed throughout the grand ballroom of the Gotham Royal Hotel, interspersed by the sound of flashing cameras. Bruce Wayne, Prince of Gotham and the heart of its social elite, smiled from his podium at the front of the room. He raised his flute glass high in the air. “A toast!” He declared, sharp eyes scanning the crowd of old money, nouveau riche , and assorted celebrities and figureheads. “To the betterment of Gotham!”

“To the betterment of Gotham!” The crowd cheered.

With one last blinding smile, Bruce declared the Wayne Foundation charity gala open and stepped off the podium. A gaggle of people who insisted that they absolutely must talk to Bruce at that very moment swarmed him, complimenting him on the decorations or the speech or other such banal topics. With a grace and deftness born out of years in the spotlight, he politely extricated himself from the crowd and went off to find his sons.

Tim and Damian—in a rare show of brotherhood—huddled together by the buffet table. Tim leaned against the white column at the end of the dessert table, legs crossed at the ankles and idly munching on a small cup of raspberry sorbet. Damian was a bit further behind, back against the wall and arms crossed, his posture straight and dignified as he scanned the crowds.

“Father,” Damian greeted, arms falling to his side. “An impeccable speech, as always.”

“Thank you, Damian.”

“The passive aggressive criticism on the miserly habits of the rich was a nice touch,” Tim said. He scooped up another layer of sorbet. “People are gonna be wondering whether Bruce Wayne actually meant that or if he just accidentally implied it for weeks .”

Bruce grinned and ruffled Tim’s hair, who would’ve squawked at the action if he didn’t have his spoon in his mouth. “Astute observations as always, Tim.”

Tim pouted, combing his hair back to something sensible with his fingers before putting the spoon back in his cup. “It’s not like I have much of a choice. Watching you subtly insult people was, like, the only thing that ever got me through these events,”

“Well, Drake, if you dislike it so much, why did you insist on coming? Your presence is hardly required as I, the blood heir, am more than enough to represent the Waynes alongside my father.” Damian puffed his chest out in pride, chin tilted in some in some strange attempt to look down at Tim.

Tim rolled his eyes. “As frivolous as these people are—and I mean frivolous , did you hear about the time August Lupton dropped thousands on a custom water bottle? —the high society rumor mill can be an information goldmine. ”

“It is when it wants to be,” Bruce said. “But you won’t get anything just skulking around here. You need to actually mingle for that. Now, go on.” He made little shoo-ing motions at Tim. “You can’t hide by the buffet table forever. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Tim groaned and kicked himself off the pillar, setting the empty sorbet cup on the table before wandering out into the crowd. “Well, off to suffer the mortifying ordeal of being perceived, I guess.”

“And Tim?”

Time pivoted on his heel to look at Bruce. “Yeah?”

“Try to enjoy yourself.”

The corner of Tim’s mouth curled in a soft smile. “Sure thing, Dad.”

With Tim out in the fray Bruce turned to his youngest. “Well Damian, this’ll be a long night. Feel free to stay here or wander around if you’d prefer. I know you’re not too comfortable with large social gatherings just yet.” At the sight of the crease between Damian’s brows and the sudden lost look on his face, Bruce added “Though I’d certainly appreciate your company once I start making the rounds.”

Damian regained his bearings, huffing with pride. “Of course. It is my duty as your son to assist you.”

Making the rounds was a tedious affair of seeing and being seen. It meant shaking hands with people who came to greet him, laughing politely at people’s stories, posing for a picture here or there, and overall making sure that people actually donate something instead of just imbibing themselves with thousands of dollars worth of alcohol and passing out in a hotel room.

Damian made the whole activity more bearable. He stuck to Bruce’s side like a little guard dog, shielding him from the party’s matchmaking matrons, or heiresses, or models that tried to cling to Bruce’s arms. Most women—and the few men—had to keep their flirtations discreet with Damian around out of politeness to young ears and so as not to risk Bruce Wayne’s scorn.

Though Damian bore the ‘schmoozing’ with grace, Bruce made sure to keep an eye out for his youngest nonetheless. Whenever the crowds got a bit too large, or more than one person tried to reach into Damian’s space than he was comfortable with, Bruce would tactfully pull the two of them away for some breathing room.

It was during one of these breathing periods that father and son found themselves by one of the ballroom’s bars. Bruce requested another flute of champagne for him and a mocktail for Damian. The latter actually insisted on getting champagne as well, but Bruce reminded him that Damian was still underaged.

“I’ve been trained against all sorts of poisons,” Damian grumbled, just loud enough that only Bruce could hear. “Alcohol is hardly as bad.”

“Not the point, chum.” Bruce thanked the bartender for the drinks. He filed away the thing about poisons to unpack later. “Alright, one mock…tail.”

Drinks in hand, Bruce paused at the sight of Damian’s expression. His youngest’s face was bleached white. 

Bruce snapped his attention to whatever caught Damian’s attention.

It was a girl. Small. Around Damian’s height, so there was a good chance they were around the same age as well. Olive skin with a rounded face. Black hair arranged neatly in a low bun with long bangs framing her cheeks. Her eyes were blue, yes, but— that was Damian’s face. 

Discreetly, Bruce flashed a few quick hand signs. You-know?

Negative, Damian signed. You?

Negative.

The girl was standing half-turned away from them. She idly fidgeted with her bracelet—a thick cuff made up of segmented polished metal—looking for all the world inattentive to the conversation the adults were having around her. But when the man to her left—her guardian? —turned to speak to her, she responded with enthusiasm and a bright smile.

It took a few seconds for Bruce to place a name to her guardian’s face; Vlad Masters, CEO of VladCo., Gotham Academy alumni, and the mayor of Amity Park.

That city again. And now there was the girl.

Bruce leaned down to give Damian his glass. “Damian,” he murmured. “Do you know if Vlad Masters is affiliated with the League?”

“Masters?” Damian snapped his gaze to the man next to her. He shook his head, face clouded with an expression Bruce couldn’t quite place. Some strange mix between curiosity and…anger? “No. No he is not.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes. Even Damian denied it, there was something in the tone of his voice that suggested he knew Masters, nonetheless. Or perhaps, knew of him. “I see…”

He relaxed his posture, rolled back his shoulders and painted on one of his charming and affable Wayne ™ smiles. “Vlad Masters, is that you?”

At the sound of his name, Masters turned. The brief flash of annoyance at being interrupted mid-conversation was quickly smoothed away once he identified who called him. “Why, Bruce Wayne, it’s been so long!” He quickly excused himself from his group before meeting Bruce halfway, the little girl trailing behind him.

The two of them shook hands. Bruce was slightly surprised at how cold to the touch Masters was; a health condition, perhaps?

“I didn’t think I’d see you here.”

“And turn down an invitation from Bruce Wayne himself? No, I would never be such a fool, and the funding of underprivileged public schools in Gotham is a worthy cause to come back to,” Vlad said, swirling his glass of red wine. “I’m rather surprised you remembered to invite me; I know most people forget that I was once a Gothamite.”

Bruce tucked a hand into his pocket and shifted his weight onto one leg, looking for all the world like an indolent cat. The Masters family, from what Bruce could remember, were old European money that immigrated and then married into new American money families after the Bolshevik Revolution. Vlad Masters’ parents moved to Gotham some decades back, and while they were considered Old Money , they weren’t considered Gotham Old Money. And to the fickle echelons of Gotham’s glittering courts, that distinction was very important. Gotham cares for its own.

“My butler is really good at these things,” Bruce replied.

“Of course, of course. Well, how has life treated you so far, Wayne?”

“Oh nothing too exciting. Just boring old board meetings, am I right?” Bruce said. “What about you? Last I heard, you were dipping your toes into politics or something. Are you a governor, yet?”

“Oh gracious, now!” Vlad chuckled, the sound falling flat. “Nothing so grand as that, I assure you. I’m only a small-town mayor.”

Bruce nodded. “Right, right. So what’s that like?”

“Oh dreadful work, really. So much paperwork, so many things to do or oversee, but rewarding in its own way.” He puffed out his chest in pride. “Many of the people in Amity Park do rely on me, you know. Though I’m afraid my schedule’s busy enough that I barely have time to go home!”

“Well, we’re very happy that you made room enough to visit us here in Gotham.” Taking a sip of his champagne, Bruce tilted his head to spy the mop of black hair standing in Masters’ shadow. “And in such wonderful company as well! Vlad, you must introduce me to this young lady here.”

Masters’ face lit up. With a hand pressed between her shoulder blades, he guided the girl to stand beside him. “This here is Danielle, my daughter, and my pride and joy. Danielle, this is Bruce Wayne, our generous host.”

Danielle beamed, face blooming into a lovely shade of pink. She held out her hand to Bruce. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Wayne. Thank you for inviting us to your gala.”

Bruce stooped down and gingerly shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Miss Masters. I hope you’re having a lovely time tonight.

Danielle nodded with enthusiasm. Vlad looked on at his daughter with pride.”

“Congratulations, Vlad,” Bruce said. “I didn’t know that you had such a charming daughter. Does she take after her mother?”

Masters blinked, as if not knowing whether to register that statement as simple curiosity or some subtle backhanded compliment. “I wouldn’t know,” he replied apprehensively. “Danielle was adopted, you see, from a young age. She never had the chance to know her mother.”

At least one of those statements was a lie. There was a slight stutter in the way Masters said ‘adopted’, as if he was unused to saying the word, and the eye contact was too prolonged to be natural.

“Since she was young?” Bruce pried. “I feel like I would remember hearing of her before.”

“I like to keep my family life private, I’m sure you understand. Say, didn’t some of your children come with you?”

Bruce allowed the change in subject. “Ah, yes!” He pretended to search through the crowd for Damian and called him over from his position next to the bar. Damian shut off his phone, tucking it away as he went to stand at Bruce’s right. “Tim is somewhere over there with his friends but this here is my son, Damian. Damian, this is Vlad Masters, an old business partner and a, uh—” he scrunched his face, as if trying to remember what Vlad said a few minutes ago. “A mayor of some town somewhere. And beside him is his daughter, Danielle. She’s around your age, I think.”

Bruce turned to look at Masters, expecting to see some variation of ‘insulted but trying to keep up a polite façade' at his dismissal—only to freeze.

Masters’ face paled considerably. His beady eyes comically wide as he looked at Damian, the fingers curled around the stem of his wine glass in a vice grip. Damian, uncharacteristically wary, steadied his stance but shifted minutely closer to Bruce.

Well, this was interesting. “You alright, Vlad? You looked like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Masters jerked his head towards Bruce. Surprise—and fear? — contorted his features for a brief moment before it smoothed back down into a proper mask. “My apologies,” he chuckled, though there was a shift in the way he looked at Bruce; as if Masters was dissecting him through a microscope. Masters shook hands with Damian. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, young man.”

Then, quieter to Bruce, Masters asked a question that caught him off guard. “Say, Bruce, perhaps my memory is failing me, but do you remember how there was talk about you and a Ms. Tate some years back, yes? Is Damian perhaps the…?”

(White curtains and white sheets. The stench of antiseptic. The arch of Talia’s back as she curled away from him, face buried into the pillow. “Beloved, I…”) 

It took more willpower than Bruce would like to admit to keep his façade from dropping. “No…No, nothing came out of that affair. Ms. Tate and I haven’t been together for well over a decade.” There are memories at the very depths of Bruce’s mind that were trying to scratch their way to the surface. With careful, practiced precision, Bruce buried them deeper. “I didn’t realize that you knew about that old piece of gossip.”

“I happened to be in Gotham at the time,” Masters explained. “And I happen to pride myself on having a very good memory, especially when it comes to faces.” He scrutinized Damian once more. “Apologies for my staring. Young—Damian, was it? — only reminded me of someone I knew once.”

Masters turned his head away, and beneath his breath, muttered, “The resemblance is rather uncanny.” 

“Are you certain that Vlad Masters has no connection with the League?”

“Yes, I’m certain.”

At the gala’s end, Bruce and Damian slipped into the car and had begun to comb through the information Oracle sent over on Damian’s phone. Tim had already left an hour or so earlier, having found a lead on his case and impatient to see where it went.

Vlad Masters. Most well-known as the CEO of his multibillion dollar company VladCo., which specialized in weapons manufacturing and technology. Graduated summa cum laude at the University of Wisconsin with a double bachelor in business and, strangely enough, spectrology. According to his records, he was forced to drop out of college for a time after a lab accident during his second year landed him in the hospital. Originally based in his Wisconsin Mansion, about three years ago he made the decision to move to Amity Park, Illinois. Soon after, Masters ran for office, managing to oust the popular former Mayor Montez from his seat.

His daughter, Danielle, was in her last year of Casper Elementary; that was all anyone really knew about her.

“I texted Oracle earlier to focus on information on Danielle Masters, but this was the only truthful thing that she could find,” Damian said. “There are paper trails, yes, but most of them either lead to nowhere or go in circles. As far as any kind of documentation goes, ‘Danielle’ only began existing about a year ago when she was enrolled into school.”

Damian’s phone buzzed, the Oracle logo taking over the screen. “Hope you boys haven’t started the engine yet,” Oracle said, once the call was accepted.

“We just left the hotel,” Bruce answered. “What’s the situation, Oracle?”

“Oh you’re gonna love this. There’s been a break-in in Masters’ rooms at the Royal Hotel.”

Bruce shifted gears. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

It didn’t take long to suit up, and with Oracle’s help Batman and Robin made it just in time to see Danielle Masters get thrown out the door. The back of her head hit the wall with a sickening thud as she fell to the carpeted floor. Batman quickly ran to her side, assessing her injuries. The majority of injuries looked superficial; a scraped knee and a few hits on the arms that might form colorful bruises. Danielle remained conscious, though slightly dazed. Concussion was a possibility.

“Oracle, I need you to call an ambulance right away.”

“Already on it, B.”

“Robin, stay with Danielle—”

Robin bristled. “I want to fight!”

“ — Stay with her to make sure she’s safe and follow me once you’re sure. Remember, civilians are our first priority.” And with that, Batman shot up to his feet and kicked down the door. (The door was closed. How did Danielle get out?)

Immediately, he could pinpoint the sounds of a struggle further within and towards the left-hand side where the beds would be. A crash. The sharp sound of broken glass. A pained shout and the discharge of a weapon— not a regular gun by the sound, something more energy based. He swept into the living area, the room dark and lit by one LED lamp knocked to the ground. The coffee table was turned over. One of the couches was singed.

Masters burst from the doorway to the left, torso angled back as he shot a barrage of green energy from a strange weapon. (Small. Handheld. Shaped like a gun with a smoother body.)

Batman called out.

Masters jumped, white hair in disarray. “Batman? Is that—” He yelped as another figure surged into the room and tackled him to the ground. The gun clattered away, sliding underneath a waist-high table. 

Batman leapt in action, shooting a line of his taser into the assailant’s side and sending a shock of electricity. The attacker screeched— (Young male. Adolescent?) — releasing his grip long enough for Masters to scramble away towards the door. He shot his arm out to grapple Masters again only to be yanked back when Batman pulled on the line.

The attacker grunted, black gloved hand hovered around the hook dug into his side. In a split second he wrapped his hand around the still-live line, pulled Batman towards him, and launched a flurry of knives that forced Batman to let go of the taser to dodge. He ripped out the hook with a forceful tug, visceral chunks of green coming away and glistening in the lamplight. He crushed the hook in his fist. Malevolent green energy erupted from within, disintegrating the hook and the green flesh into nothing but ash.

Meta, Batman’s mind supplied, hand hovering over the inhibitor cuffs in his belt.

The wound on the assassin’s side slowly knitted itself back together. 

Batman dashed forward, dropping smoke pellets on the ground that quickly filled the room. He grabbed the assassin’s shoulders and slammed him against the window wall, reinforced glass shuddering at the impact. 

The assassin snarled from beneath his featureless white mask, fingers scratching at Batman’s wrist. 

Batman growled. “What does the White Ghost want with Vlad Masters?”

The White Ghost said nothing. One of his hands suddenly went translucent and jabbed Batman’s chest— only to miss by a hair’s breadth as Batman whipped his body to the side. But that was enough for the White Ghost to wrench himself free from Batman’s hold, dropping to the ground and surging upwards for a palm strike to the underside of Batman’s chin.

Though momentarily stricken by the superhuman strength behind the strike, Batman rolled with the momentum, taking advantage of his greater size to recover quickly and go on the offensive. 

They exchanged a flurry of blows. Quick. Precise. A skilled and brutal and nonlethal dance. It baffled Batman as he threw White Ghost against the hotel’s television set, irreparable cracking the screen. The League of Shadows perfected the art of killing; their martial style was designed to take down any opponent with brutal efficiency. For the White Ghost to not only use primarily non-lethal attacks, but also forego using any more of his meta-abilities and weapons meant that either he wanted to keep his casualties low, or he’d been expressly ordered not to kill Batman.

Batman blocked a high kick with his forearm, shoving the leg away to jab at his opponent’s chest.

But that was Talia. Always sentimental about what could have been.

The smoke began to clear just as Robin—having left the hallway— cut his way through the room, katana slicing between Batman and the White Ghost. But where Robin should have sliced upwards to catch the assassin, instead he hesitated. 

Before Batman could pull Robin behind him, White Ghost grabbed Robin by the collar of his cape and threw him towards the front of the living room. A blue bolt of freezing energy shot from his hands and hit Robin in the chest. Thick, crystalline ice began to grow from Robin’s chest, encasing everything from the chest down in ice and pinning him to the floor. 

Robin roared, struggling against the ice. 

Batman took advantage of the sudden pause by knocking White Ghost off balance, twisting their outstretched arm behind his back and slapping on the inhibitor cuffs. The two grappled, with Batman barely managing to slip the other cuff on.

White Ghost growled and—to Batman’s shock—simply phased his hands through the cuffs. He twisted, slammed an outstretched palm against Batman’s chest and fired an energy blast point blank, knocking Batman into the farthest wall. Batman winced as the back of his leg crashed against the bedside table, his head knocking over one of the large paintings hung above one of the beds. 

Heaving a great breath, Batman kicked himself off the wall and skyrocketed towards his enemy, barely skidding to a halt when White Ghost summoned that bright blue energy again and blasted a wall of ice spikes that cut the room into half. Even beneath layers of body armor, Batman could feel the unnatural chill that emanated from the ice.

“Batman!” cried Robin. 

Through the gaps between the spikes, he could see the White Ghost staring back at him, arms outstretched. Chest still as if he was hardly winded. (As if he did not even need to breathe.) Those green pinpricks scrutinized him for a moment before he pivoted back on his heel. 

To Batman’s short-lived relief, White Ghost avoided Damian, instead veering left towards the door to chase after Masters.

Suddenly, White Ghost stopped. Took a step back. 

Standing beneath the doorway was Masters, one hand outstretched and the other bracing it. Danielle’s cuff bracelet was stretched around his wrist, the segmented metal extending over and around the hand. The end result looked something similar to Cyborg’s cannon blasters. The weapon began to hum as it gathered energy, a green light swirling at its barrel.

The White Ghost did not move.

Damian was stuck behind the White Ghost.

The White Ghost could phase. Could dodge.

Damian couldn’t.

“Robin!” Batman yelled. He backed away across the room then shot forward, gaining enough momentum to vault over the ice wall. The ends of his cape caught against the spikes, forcing Batman to slow so he could yank it off. “Robin!”

The high pitched wine of the weapon began to crescendo. There was no guarantee Masters had sufficient firearms training. He could miss. He could hit Damian.

Masters fired. 

White ghost conjured some sort of green shield in front of him, bracing himself against the energy blast. For a moment, it held. 

Then it began to fracture. 

Masters surged forward, forcing White Ghost back towards Damian.

In a split second decision, Batman threw a batarang at Masters’ weapon, knocking the beam off course. The beam struck the ceiling, raining chunks of concrete down at them.

White Ghost released his shield and threw himself over Robin as slabs of the ceiling buried them.

Batman could barely breathe. He rushed over, jumping over fallen furniture and debris, shouting for Robin to respond.

There’s a crackle in the comms. Voices— Robin’s voice— though Batman could barely make out the words with all the blood rushing to his head. 

“...o….need to…..lea—”

Beneath the rubble there was a brief flash of flight, and the pile of rocks and broken furniture almost collapsed further beneath them. 

“...eave….jus…go…”

“Robin!” Batman dug through the debris. “I need you to respond to me, Robin!”

He pushed back a large slab of cement, uncovering a bright green dome. White Ghost had his hands braced against its surface, back bowed over Robin like a figure of Atlas holding up the world. Robin was free from the ice, body curled at an awkward angle. When Batman got enough of the debris out of the way, the dome fell, and White Ghost sank beneath the floor.

Batman— Bruce really didn’t care at that moment. He wrapped his arms around Robin’s shoulders for a quick hug before breaking away to assess his injuries. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, father,” Robin assured him. “Unharmed. Though I may have some first degree frostbite.” 

Batman grabbed the front of Masters’ shirt and slammed him against the wall. Masters wheezed, and through gritted teeth hissed “I am not one of your rogues, Batman, nor one of your Gothamites, so put me down .”

Batman was well aware of that. He was also well aware that the only thing staying his hand was little Danielle who was anxiously waiting outside the door. Robin had volunteered to keep her busy while Batman interrogated her father. “Why were you targeted, Masters?”

“I don’t know .” Masters tried to kick against Batman’s leg. It was a vain effort; leather dress shoes stood no chance against Kevlar. 

“You must have some idea,” Batman growled “The League of Shadows doesn’t just go after anyone.”

“The League of what—?” Vlad squawked. “I assure you Batman, the only League I associate myself with is the NFL.”

Batman narrowed his eyes, unamused. 

He held up the cuff bracelet—now deactivated—in front of Vlad’s face. “And what is this?” 

“What the—” Masters looked down, spotting his bare wrist. “When did you—?”

“It’s an interesting gadget,” Batman continued. “A miniature portable energy cannon. Is it one of VladCo.’s new inventions?”

“That’s company secrets, sir.”

“Not when you bring an unknown weapon into my city.” 

Masters glowered. “It is merely a habit. ” His voice had a sharp edge to it; the words spoken through gritted teeth as if he were holding back a growl. “My city has its own share of monsters, Batman, and as mayor I’m quite the target whenever they want to cause any trouble. Weapons like that —” he jerked his towards the bracelet “—are the only thing that can actually hurt them.”

Batman released his grip on Masters, the latter dropping clumsily to the dust-covered floor with a grunt. Distantly, he could hear the hustle  of GCPD officers rushing out of the elevator, Gordon’s weary and commanding voice at the forefront. “You’re talking about ghosts.”

Masters stilled, his anxious features suddenly shutting down like shutters drawn closed. But the micro-expressions in his eyes—slight twitches that most would miss—spoke more volumes. “So you do know about them.”

A puzzle could not be completed without all its pieces; a solution unsolvable without all the needed variables; a knot unravelable without first finding its end. Batman looked down at the bracelet in his hand, scrutinizing the bright green detailing that ran between the segmented metal. A similar bright green to the force field that surrounded the White Ghost— the one that shielded Damian from the brunt of the debris

‘...o….need to…..lea—’

You need to leave.

‘...eave….jus…go…’

Leave. Just go.

“Not enough,” Batman said, voice barely above a whisper. An ugly feeling of anger, of disappointment, coiled at the pit of his stomach.

Not nearly enough. 

Chapter Text

Two Years Ago…

Endurance training lasted three months, and at the very end of it their twenty-person cohort was reduced to ten. Dusan said that he must have been going soft. 

If that was ‘soft’ then Danny shuddered to think what Dusan’s ruthlessness looked like. 

Phase Two of their training was…different. For one, instead of the familiar base of Infinity Island, now Danny’s cohort was transplanted to some desert. For another, the expectations and demands placed upon them fundamentally increased compared to the three months of endurance training they had. 

But all the same, the training was grueling, the sun was hot, and sand got absolutely everywhere. 

Oh. Can’t forget about the chores either.

Henri looked up from the whetstone, disbelief spreading across his face. “You were going to…quit?”

“Well, yeah?” Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean— I’m not now . I’ve come too far to quit now, but back then? I was about ready to quit by week two .” He sighed, leaning his head back against the cool stone wall. “You had to admit that I wasn’t cut out for it back then. Hell, even now, I still don’t think I am.”

Henri shook his head, the dagger ringing in his hand as he glided it against the whetstone. “I envy you, Danny. You must’ve had a pretty good life before coming here.”

It’s because he came here that Danny had a life. But Henri wasn’t supposed to know about that. “What makes you say that?”

Henri scoffed. “Well—” He lifted his knife, meticulously inspecting the edge before flipping it around to start sharpening the other side. “Just look around you. The other novices? The people you’ve trained with? None of them are even going to think of dropping out just because the training’s tough as shit.”

“I’m not a math guy but statistically I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.”

“You’re not taking into account the human factor, that’s why. You know, the majority of the people who get picked up for this are orphans, or runaways, or people who just got dealt the—uh, how does the saying go again? Short end of the stick? Yeah, short end of the stick one too many times.”  

Henri paused. “You know Niki?”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Week Five. Brown hair, short, has more faces than fingers, a really strong kick.”

It was the kick that unlocked the memory, strangely enough. After his first month of endurance training, Dusan came in with a woman—a recently graduated apprentice—and had her spar with the best person in their cohort: a guy named Amir. Danny didn’t know him very well—in fact he disliked the majority of the people in his cohort—but that didn’t stop him from audibly wincing when he witnessed Niki kick Amir’s back so hard she dislocated both of his shoulders. He was in the infirmary for weeks and got set back in months of training after, so Danny heard.

Seeing Danny’s expression, Henri laughed. “Yeah, that Niki. Before she came here, she used to be an addict. Got kicked onto the streets and spent a whole year doing whatever she could chasing her next high. Got into a fuck ton of trouble too. The League took her off the streets, cleaned her up, and gave her a new life. Last I heard, she’s posing as the date to some fancy Greek diplomat in Monaco.”

“How do you even know all this?”

“Maybe if you stopped being a kissass and actually made friends with the others, you’d know these things.”

Danny threw the rag he was using to wipe a knife at Henri’s head. “A kissass— well fuck you too.” Then, grumbling under his breath, “It’s not my fault that they don’t like me.”

“Yes, yes,” Henri placated, throwing the rag back. “Poor little Danyal, stuck being Mentor’s favorite.” He flicked his auburn hair. “Good thing I’m around to keep all the mean kids away.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “What ever would I do without you.”

“Starve, probably.” Henri cleaned off the knife. “But I digress. You see, out there—” he jerked his chin towards the open window, and beyond it the wide expanse of sand and shrubs and rock “ —we have nothing. A life in the slums, of being treated less than dirt. We are leeches. Vagrants. Eyesores. But here? Here, Ra’s al Ghul gives us food and clothes and a roof over our heads. Here he gives us purpose. A meaning to our lives.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

Henri’s smile was dark with contempt. “Paris may be the city of lights, but that only means it casts larger shadows.” 

The metal door that guarded the armory groaned open. A welcome interruption considering that Danny didn’t know how he was going to respond to Henri’s insight. 

Or…not.

“Oi!” Owens banged his fist twice on the side of the door before leaning up against it. His relaxed figure contrasted against the annoyance that scrunched his face. “Ugh, you guys aren’t even halfway done yet?”

Danny rolled his eyes. “We just started an hour ago.”

Owens—and no one really knew if that was his first name, last name, or even real name—was the youngest member of their cohort after Danny. He was a six-foot tall pillar of jackassery, and at sixteen, would probably grow even taller in time. His skin was tanned and covered with bursts of freckles over his face and arms from long, grueling hours in the sun. Owens always seemed to be sporting a scowl whenever Danny saw him. Or maybe Owens simply had that ‘recently sucked on a sour lemon face.’ Who could say?

He clicked his tongue, crossing the room to snatch the cloth Danny was using to wipe down the sword in his lap. “Shove off, loser.”

Danny held firm against Owens’ foot pushing him away. “Hey, what gives?”

“Mentor ordered for you to be ‘summoned to the east compound’ so I have to take over doing your shit,” he grumbled.

Henri narrowed his eyes, the knife in his hands taking on a dangerous glint. 

Owens just scoffed, raking a hand through his hair. “Don’t even try to start shit, Henri. Remember what happened to the last trainee that tried to murder someone without permission?”

Danny grimaced. The incident itself happened within a different cohort, but stories had a way of circulating. Rumor had it that one of the trainees tried to gain favor with their instructor by eliminating another member of their cohort. Drowned them on the beach and didn’t do a good enough job at hiding the body. The trainee was found out very quickly—there were eyes everywhere on the island after all—and summarily punished. Though exactly what the punishment was, no one except those in the cohort knew; the only thing known for certain was that no one would ever make the same mistake again.

Henri huffed, resuming his maintenance with a serene grace. “I have no idea what you’re implying.”

“As long as you keep to your side, I’ll keep mine.” Owens said. He shot Danny a glare. “What the hell are you still doing here?”

Danny stuck his tongue out at him. “Don’t have to be so rude about it, jeez.” He got up, said goodbye to Henri, and headed off to the east compound. 

The building was, thankfully, only a short walk from the armory. It was a giant, boxy building with dark-tinted windows, that sat near the edge of the jungle and bordered the sharp cliffs of the island. One of the Shadow-people—official members of the League—intercepted him at the door, leading him through a series of winding hallways until they arrived at a large room on the far-end of the building. 

The room wasn’t lavishly decorated by any means, but it lacked the foreboding utilitarianism of the rest of the island. Not homey or welcoming, but more…warm, somehow. Human. There were couches and chaise lounges, beautifully carved tables, bookshelves, potted plants, and dark green curtains. At the end of the room were glass doors that opened into a balcony that overlooked the sea.

And there, stood in the middle, with a smile that made his core hum, was her.

“Talia,” he breathed, as if the very name was sacred. His core fluttered, barely biting back the word it wished to call her. Too shy despite its eagerness. Mother , it whispered. Mother-mother-mother.

The first time Talia parted with her son, mere moments after his birth,  it was more out of necessity than any true desire to do so. Her father needed the aid of the Batman against an old enemy. Her mother’s death needed to be avenged. Her beloved needed to be focused on the mission— not be burdened by the weakness of family.

The plan was easy enough to execute. The ambush at their desert HQ was the perfect setting to enact her great performance. Her beloved may be the world’s greatest detective, but Talia had been taught all the ways to craft a lie ever since she could learn to speak. A sudden fainting spell, a conspiratorial request to Dr. Weltman, and silent tears to soak her infirmary pillow were all she needed to fool him. 

Him and her father. 

(But the tears she shed that day were real— even if the reason for them was but a mirage.)

Talia hid her pregnancy for as long as she was able, and when she could no longer hide the swell of her stomach, she fled from the League’s grasp and burrowed herself a hole so deep that no one could possibly find her. She tracked down Dr. Weltman to help Talia give birth and swore her to secrecy. Saw only the downy tufts of dark hair on her infant son’s head, heard his shrieking cries, before bidding Dr. Weltman  to take her son and leave him some place where he could be safe.

Talia never inquired as to where Dr. Weltman took her son. The less she knew, the better for everyone once Talia eventually returned to the League; the prodigal daughter escorted back to be dealt her punishment. Ra’s al Ghul did not take lightly to betrayal, less so from his own kin.

When she conceived Damian, Ra’s made sure to keep a tighter surveillance on her movements.

“The League of Shadows require an heir,” he said, Lazarus green eyes cutting in their gaze. “You have already robbed us of one. This new child will remain here.”

It did not take long for her father to order that the little fetus inside her womb should instead be transferred to an artificial gestation tube. An unfaithful daughter such as her did not deserve to carry the precious heir to the League, after all.

Talia bore all this with grace and a fierce determination to regain her place in the League. All her efforts focused towards gaining the privilege to raise Damian herself.

Damian was such a cute child. A sweet and kind child who squealed in delight at the birds nesting at his window. Who was the balm to her soul. Whose first words were a gurgled mama. Whose aches and hurts she soothed with gentle touches and soft kisses to his black hair. Whose little hands she pressed a wooden training sword into as she taught him all the ways he could cut the life out of a foe.

Then one day Dusan came to the League with tales of a little boy with black hair and too-pale-blue eyes.

The ache in her heart returned with a vengeance.

Talia did not know why her father decided against recovering his lost grandson then and there. Perhaps he thought of Danyal as a lost cause— what potential he had chipped away by years of civilian life and mundane morality. Perhaps he had some grand and masterfully crafted plan for Danyal that required him to stay with the Fentons for as long as Ra’s deemed it fit. Perhaps Ra’s was simply curious. He was an old man, after all; old enough to have seen the patterns of history repeat themselves and know, almost instinctively, which people are destined to become instruments of Fate.

Talia never claimed to know the inner workings of her father’s mind.

When the time finally came that she could claim her eldest son as her own— could finally, finally hold him in her arms and say “yes you are my son” after years of trying to bury his existence in her heart—her elation was short-lived.

It would be Dusan who would train him. 

Dusan who would mold him.

Talia was ordered to sit on the sidelines and turn the other cheek.

And yet… Behold!

Here was her first born, in the flesh. Taller than she last saw him three months ago, and his hair cut shorter and away from his face. His arctic eyes brightened at the sight of her despite the shadows beneath. He stood straighter, broader; stance not necessarily confident but disciplined. He bore but a passing resemblance to that frail little boy in that room of ice.

He spoke. “Talia.” There was a slight quiver in his voice— a cross between elation and desperation—and all Talia could remember was the fasting cries of a baby she never let herself see.

“My son. My habibi.” She closed the distance between them, hands cupping his face. Her thumbs brushed against his cheekbones—could see the smatterings of freckles on his nose. There was a sharpness to his face now. A gauntness that was never there before. “How are you?”

Danyal’s eyes—his father's eyes—crinkled up in a smile. “I’m alright. More than that, now that I got to see you.” He blinked, head cocked to the side. “Why are you here?”

She smiled. “Officially, I am here to deliver you this.” Talia walked back to the table, taking out two opaque white pill bottles. She handed the one with a simple green label on the front to Danny. “After hearing of your condition, Ra’s al Ghul had his people work on a medicine that will, hopefully, supply your ghost half with its needs.”

Danyal twisted open the bottle and shook a few gel capsules onto his hand, the bright green a stark contrast against his skin. “It’s…from the Lazarus pit?”

Talia nodded. “Take these once a day. And these—” she hands him the other bottle with a red label “ —are to help control your cryokinesis whenever your mania has gone out of control. There will be some side effects with this one, so make sure you are somewhere safe if you ever need to use them.”

He clutches both bottles in his hands and lowers his head. “Thank you.”

“Anything for family.” Talia smiled. “Though I will say that while the medicine is the official reason I am here, unofficially I am here for something else.” She beckoned him to come closer. “Come, I want to introduce you to someone, though you must take care to be quiet.”

Talia took him by the hand and led Danyal into an adjoining room. “Do you remember when I told you that I had a son?” A soft four-poster bed sat in the middle, ladened with all manner of pillows, and nestled at its center was a small lump. 

“Come closer,” she whispered to him. Talia sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over the lump, brushing away soft strands of hair to reveal a soft, rounded face, eyes closed in sleep. “This, Danyal, is Damian. He is my youngest son.” 

She turned to look at him. Could see the realization blooming on his face, eyes wide at first in surprise, then understanding, then longing. His mouth was agape in a silent ‘oh.’ “He’s…”

“Yes, my son. This is your brother.”

“My brother,” Danny whispered. 

Brother-brother-brother, his core echoed.

This small child cocooned in sleep was his little brother.

“I told him about you during our flight here and he was absolutely determined to greet you properly but…” Talia laughed softly, fingers brushing against Damian’s cheek. “However stubborn he may be, he is still seven and prone to exhaustion.”

Danny laughed, instantly enraptured. 

He looks like me, Danny thought. Though the skin was much darker—closer to Talia’s own—and the shape of the eyes a bit different, Damian almost looked like the childhood pictures his mom and dad would frame and decorate the house with. 

“What’s he like?”

“Proud,” Talia said. “He’s been raised as a prince, you see. Stubborn, of course, something he inherited from your father. Very intelligent and very determined and…kind. So very kind and gentle to animals.”

His chest fluttered with warmth. His core hummed. Brother-mine-mother-mine-family-here-us-together.

This-is-how-it-should-be.

Danny’s own eyes never left Damian’s face. “Can you tell me more about him?”

Talia smiled. And for the rest of the afternoon, her voice filled every corner of the chamber with warmth as she regaled Danny with anything and everything about the precious treasure that was Damian al Ghul. Danny listened with rapt attention, mind absorbing every little detail.

The voice in his head that sounded like Jazz spoke. Being a big brother is a lot of responsibility. Can you handle it?

Yes, his core sang. A conviction. A promise. A vow.

Brother-mine-mother-mine-family-mine.

Protect-protect-protect.

Here-us-belong.

The physicality and discipline they gained during phase one of their training was refined in phase two. The martial skills they were taught were further expanded upon; an entire arsenal of techniques cultivated and developed into the most efficient way to take down any opponent was open to them. “The goal of a fight is to end it,” Dusan instructed. “To make sure your opponent cannot get up and strike you again.” 

Danny’s revitalized ghost half gave him advantage over the rest of his cohort, who were all older and bigger and stronger than he was. A bit of experimentation and he found that he could channel his ghostly energy into his human form to enhance his strikes, increase his speed, or boost his stamina. Though his early spars were mediocre at best, now he was a force to be reckoned with on the training mat.

Stealth was another subject. Dusan taught them the exact way to walk so as to minimize any footsteps. How to hide your tracks. The art of disguise. They were given obstacle courses and staged missions with the objective of getting in and out of a building without being seen or traced. Even without his invisibility or intangibility, Danny passed these tests with flying colors. 

They were taught weapons handling and herbology, first aid and navigation. Languages, too, were on their list. Mandarin and Spanish and Arabic and Hindi and Russian and more, their accents trained so that eventually they’ll be nigh indistinguishable from a native speaker’s. 

They were taught about the mission; the grand purpose of the League of Shadows. They were the great fangs that protected the head, the hands by which to do its bidding. The world was dying, said Ra’s al Ghul. The world had been rotting in a slow and agonizing death because people were too stubborn, too selfish to change their ways. And from the shadows, the League will preserve the world by cutting off the rot , like how a surgeon cuts out a tumor. 

“Rules and order alone will not right the world. Justice cannot be done without whilst staying clean,” Dusan lectured. “To survive in this world, to survive in the League of Shadows, you must have the conviction to dirty your own hands.”

Danny does not believe in the mission. Not wholeheartedly, anyway. What he does believe in is his grandfather’s generosity and his uncle’s solid stature, an ever present anchor against any storm. Believes in Damian’s bright curiosity and his compassion, in the bashful way he’d reach up to hold Danny’s hand in his. Believes in Talia’s healing touch and soft smiles, the warmth of her voice washing over him like a gentle tide. 

Danny believes in the vows written in the names he is called. Grandson. Nephew. Brother. Son. 

Family.

And for that, Danny was willing to do anything. Be anything.

  When Dusan gave him a poisoned cup, Danny drank without hesitation. 

Mithridatism: the practice of building immunity towards poisons made from large organic molecules through gradual administration of non-lethal amounts. In this area, Danny also had a greater advantage over his cohort. Further experimentation showed that his ghost-half naturally detoxifies Danny’s body of any inorganic poisons, metabolizing it into itself and using it as energy.

Ghosts feed off death much the same as how they feed off ectoplasm, though the former seemed to be a less effective energy source according to his parents’ research. Ra’s al Ghul—who personally came to observe how Danny’s two forms intermingled with one another—wanted to test if Danny could also feed off death. Long story short, the answer was Yes.

But only his own.

Not that Danny ever actually died while doing these experiments. Really the only thing that was needed of him is to imbibe enough poison to actually trigger the death aura manually and let Phantom do the work of healing him up. Phantom, you see, cannot let the human-Danny die because then there would be nothing to stabilize Phantom. Instead, Phantom converted whatever ectoplasmic or deathly energy he could get his hands on and pumped it through human-Danny’s system to speed up the recovery process. Danny’s wounds, in a way, were also the source of his extraordinary healing factor. 

Ra’s had theorized a method that would allow Phantom to keep the energy siphoned from the death aura as an extra source of power without harming human-Danny— but it was risky. Simple, but risky. A plan to be used only in the worst case scenario.

Blood Blossom training was the worst of the lot. Staying human was Danny’s only defense against that stupid flower, and even then just being close to the blossom’s sickly sweet scent made his stomach lurch in on itself and his head spin with nausea. But his family expected him to be able to bear it. To work through the repugnant feelings that made his skin prickle and his chest flare with pain and tolerate it. 

Mind over matter.

That’s all it was. 

Control the mind, control the body.

He would not be beaten by this. 

“Is it just me, or has everyone been really out for me these days?” Danny wiped the sweat matting his forehead with a small towel. Settling the towel around his neck, he leaned his back against the cool concrete walls of the indoor sparring room.

He and Henri were taking a short break a ways away from the rest of the cohort. Some of the others were still sparring on the practice mats, repeating katas over and over to perfection. Dusan with a long wooden rod in hand circled the mat like a hawk, ready to strike at any sign of a mistake and correct with harsh precision. 

Henri poured a bit of his water bottle over his head, soaking his auburn hair. “You just noticed?”

“It’s not like I’ve been here long enough to.” His extra training covering the extent of his ghost powers usually meant that Danny was summoned to practice away from the rest of the cohort. On the bright side, he saw his family more often. Damian even came to a few of his training sessions to observe.

On the down side…well, as much as he didn’t like his cohort, it didn’t mean that he wanted to be an outcast. Mutual dislike was a given, this alienation on the other hand…

Focus. Their opinion of him didn’t matter in the long run. Besides, Danny was used to be an outcast. He never had many friends throughout his life except—

Except…

“Hey, hey!” Henri snapped his fingers in front of Danny’s face. “Earth to Danyal, are you reading me?”

Danny startled. Blinking the ghost of a memory away from his eyes, he smiled. “Copy that, Houston.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“No need to apologize to me, but you better hurry up.” Henri pointed to the imposing form of a League of Shadows member diligently standing at the entrance. They were masked, but Danny could tell from the angle of their head that the Shadow was looking expectantly at him. “It looks like I won’t be seeing you for a while.”

Ra’s al Ghul carefully snapped the tome shut in his hand. “I have decided that it would be more beneficial for your education to remove you from your cohort.”

Danny’s mind stalled. “What?” 

Ra’s hummed. “You’ve improved in keeping your composure but you still leave yourself far too open. We must work on that.”

He’s frantic. Tongue tied and mouth dry as he tried to phrase the multitude of questions he had into the forced formal speech of the League. “I’m, uh— Sir, may I ask why I’m being removed?” Internally, Danny was flipping through all memories of his performance as a League apprentice. He didn’t see anything he could have done wrong; his marks were always high, Dusan had always praised his hard work, and Danny trained himself into the dirt from dusk till dawn. Why then? Why move him?

“Simple,” Ra’s said. “They are holding you back.”

Seeing the confusion plain on his face, Ra’s continued. “You are leagues ahead of your peers, Danyal. It would make no sense for you to have to stay at their level when you could instead reach farther. It’s also much more efficient, considering you have spent the majority of Phase Two of your training in private lessons.” He steepled his hands atop the heavy wooden desk. “Fear not, you are not completely removed from them. When the time comes, you will join them for the final test.”

The final test. The last hurdle before being welcomed as an official member of the League of Shadows. None of the recruits actually knew what the final test entailed; none of the inducted members would say anything about it, and the only sure piece of rumor they could get about the test from more advanced cohorts was that it had a very low pass rate. The League viewed its recruits as investments, and if they could not fulfill their potential, then they would be discarded.

Ra’s set his book aside and pulled out another one from a stack to his right. The book was small, only a bit bigger than Danny’s hand, with a faded purple cover bound shut by a long leather cord wrapped tightly around it. At Ra’s beckoning hand, Danny moved closer to the desk, hovering awkwardly over Ra’s.

“A recent acquisition,” Ra’s said, slowly unraveling the book with tender care. “It is difficult to find not only authentic, but reliable, books on the supernatural. To differentiate the experts from the charlatans. But these—” gingerly he flipped open the cover, carefully flattening the worn and yellowed pages “—were penned by a member of the foremost occult experts on ghosts. Their research into the infinite realms and its inhabitants have spanned centuries, and the exact depth of their knowledge is incalculable. They’re rather fond of their secrets.”

In thick, bold calligraphy—ink cracking at the edges—the title ‘ AN EXTENSIVE ACCOUNT ON THE NATURE OF GHOSTS AND THE MANIFESTATION OF THEIR PSYCHE’. Then, in neat curling script at the bottom was the signature of Elizabeth Showenhower.

Danny’s memory sparked at the name. “Showenhower?”

“You know of them?”

“I…had a run-in with a Showenhower—a criminal that liked to call himself Freakshow—when I was still in Amity. He ran a circus and had a staff that could mind control ghosts to perform acts and rob banks for him.”

“So they’re still around, then.” Ra’s flipped through the book, summarizing the rumored history of the Showenhower family to Danny. The family was a collector of cursed artifacts and scholars of the antiquated and esoteric, their interests laying solely in the territory of ghosts or ghost-adjacent things. Each member would collect and study and compile their knowledge into various caches of hidden libraries, passing the secrets they learned of the Infinite Realms onto the next generation of Shownehowers who would then repeat the cycle.

Danny wondered if his parents ever came across any books by the Showenhowers and consulted it. They would have poured over the text, reading it cover to cover and analyzing every scrap of information it had to offer. Did they even know about the Showenhowers? Wonder what they would think about all of the alchemy in their books. Some part of Danny believed that, as scientists, his parents would scoff at the idea of magic. But then again…his parents did build their entire career on proving the existence of and then studying a creature that many believed didn’t exist, so maybe they’d eat up the magic part, too.
“Ah, here we are.” Ra’s settled on a page and flipped the book over to Danny. “I feel that you will find this section quite interesting.”

A Case Study on the Ghost of Miss Catherine and the Subject of Mania.

Mania. The ice. The overwhelming cold. Perhaps this would finally give him the answers to Vlad’s cryptic words. God…that entire conversation—Vlad, Amity, ghosts— seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was great uncle Johnathan who first coined the term Mania to describe this phenomenon in ghosts. Mania, from the greek word μᾰνῐ́ᾱ , which is synonymous with the word ‘madness’ or an otherwise ‘mad desire.’ 

His eyes locked onto that word. Madness. Like…insanity?

The ghost of whom I had the pleasure of meeting goes by the name of Catherine. She is comparatively weak in power to the other ghosts recorded by the Showenhower family, a mere apparition with minor poltergeist tendencies that had, until recently, been haunting the young lady of an affluent family. They are not relatives, of that I have no doubt, but a thorough and in-depth research into the family in question’s history revealed that some years ago they had once employed the services of a young woman as a live-in nanny for their newly christened daughter. It was remarked that the two shared a very close relationship up until the nanny was unfortunately killed defending her charge in some sort of conflict.

The passage then went on to describe the afterlife of Catherine the ghost. A tragic tale of a woman who protected a girl she thought of as her own daughter and, even after death, continued to watch over her from afar until the girl’s untimely death via consumption. 

He traced the words with a building impatience,  slowly parsing the meaning of the passage. Some of the passage was written in a long, winded, and pedantic style. Reading it reminded Danny of that one assignment in 8th grade US History where they had to memorize and recite the Preamble of the Constitution. 

The case study of the ghost of Catherine Eckhart seemed to go on forever, but things did start to become interesting once Elizabeth Showenhower started to describe the effects young lady Helen’s death had on Catherine. She became inconsolable, yes, but at the same time frenzied. Her normally weak poltergeist abilities began to manifest stronger, somehow, more erratic as she began to attract objects toward herself. Curtains and bedsheets and wooden chairs and silverware would start to float and circle around her pale and lingering form, a swirling vortex of household objects that scared the occupants of the Edwards manor so much that they soon abandoned it. 

Ghosts, Elizabeth wrote in small curling script, are at the very heart of it a manifestation of a particular brand of psyche. They are the imprints of the dead that choose to linger beyond the veil. The central feature that formulates a ghost and anchors it onto the material plane is the primal human experience of want. Of desire. Think of it as a very singular sense of purpose. They have an uncontrollable need to pursue this desire—though whether if it is because of a belief that by fulfilling it their souls can finally seek peace, or if by continuously satiating that desire they are able to maintain their permanence in both the Infinite Realms and the material plane, we know not. It is the constant source of debate among the Showenhower family. I am of the belief that it is the latter.

Mania, then, as great uncle Joseph described it, was the consequences of failing to fulfill that desire. Or, perhaps in the case of Miss Catherine, it is the inability to fulfill that desire leading to the perceived failure of it. Her last act in life was one of sacrifice and an intense desire to protect the young lady Helen, and in death that feeling only persisted and manifested ten fold. What then was she to do now that her dearly beloved charge has passed? Had been taken away by a disease that neither doctor’s nor Catherine’s efforts could cure? 

Logically, one would realize the futility in blaming one’s self for such a death. It is not the fault of any party that lady Helen died so young. It is not the fault of any party except that of the diseased hands of Fate itself. But ghosts are not built on logic. They are pathos incarnate; they are the strongest emotions a person has in the moments before death takes hold that manifest itself into substance. 

Mania is, perhaps, the  most tragic form of self-preservation for ghosts. It works two fold: the first being either the amplification of the ghost’s current abilities (in the case of miss Catherine, the radius of her poltergeist abilities doubled and she was able to commandeer larger and heavier objects than before) or the manifestation of new abilities (great uncle Joseph wrote of a ghost that developed an ability to manipulate light to cast illusions) as a way of coping for the perceived failure. The second is the amplification of their own emotions to an almost mad and degenerative degree. 

To illustrate the second point— Before lady Helen’s death, Miss Catherine had been, foremost, a benign ghost. Her desire to protect Helen mostly appeared to be eliminating any slight inconveniences, such as helping Helen find lost objects, or warding off unwanted suitors. After Lady Helen’s death, Miss Catherine’s  benign nature changed to one of hostility. Her ghostly aura threatened to choke any of the servants that attempted to remove the late lady Helen’s belongings from her chambers. The incidents increased to the near impalement of one of the servants that I was forced to intercede and exercise Catherine from the chamber with blood blossoms. Catherine, then, took to zealously guarding Lady Helen’s grave.

I am reminded of the words of my namesake, my thrice great-grandmother Elizabeth Showenhower. “Ghosts have only a singular desire in their whole existence to which they must devote the altar of themselves to, but it is an unfortunate truth that they cannot choose as to what that desire may be.”

It was the desire to see lady Helen safe that tied Miss Catherine to this world, and now that the lady is gone, Miss Catherine’s soul seeks a new anchor.

There was more to Elizabeth’s writings, but Danny left it off there, confident that he got all the information he needed, but still in the process of deciphering what it meant. 

The idea of ghosts having a singular desire was not an entirely new concept to Danny. It was a theory his parents had discussed a few times over dinner, though the terminology they used was different. Obsessions, they called them. Danny didn’t really think much on it until he started fighting ghosts himself, and even then he didn’t really care much about the validity of the theory. Though considering how gimmicky the Amity Park ghosts sometimes got, maybe there was some truth to this whole ‘singular obsession’ thing.

If so, then what was his?

“Why did you show me this, sir?” 

Ra’s scrutinized him with that unreadable smile. “I thought you would appreciate learning more about the workings of your other half, even if it is through an occult lens.” He took the book and slid it towards himself, carefully shutting it. “When you first came to us, you said that you were afflicted with mania and yet could not tell us what that meant. Now, we know.”

That familiar and biting cold began to creep into Danny’s chest. “That I failed,” he said. A statement. An undeniable fact. 

“Yes.” The bluntness of Ra’s words hurt more than Danny would like to admit. “You did. Your cryokinesis developed in response to your mania, but instead of making you stronger, it only hampers you. I believe this is because you lack an anchor. If we can figure out your obsession, then we can quickly find the appropriate anchor and better help you get your powers under control. So the key question remains: what did you fail at? Tell me, Danyal, do you know the core of your own desire?”

No, said his mind.

(Yes, sang his core. Yes-yes-yes-we-know).

Did he?  

He clutched at the fabric of his shirt above his heart. His core thrummed just beneath the skin. “I think I do…but at the same time I don’t? It’s not— it’s difficult for me to put into words because at one moment it's one thing and the next it's another.”

Danny thinks about that nightmare from so long ago. Of Sam and a raft of burned and water-logged corpses asking why, why didn’t you save us? He thinks of Damian, both arrogant and so eager to please, his boundless curiosity, and quiet gentleness. He thinks of Talia’s fingers combing through his hair, of her warm embrace, of her enduring love. 

“I don’t know what exactly my obsession is. All I know is, at the very end of the day, what I want is to get stronger. Not for revenge, not as some kind of weird penance. I want to be stronger so that I can protect them—Mother, Damian, you and Dusan. I just want to keep my family safe, because you took me in when I had no one else to turn to.”

Ra’s stared at him with his all-knowing eyes, surprise alighting for a moment across his face before it settled into a smile. Something almost fond. “Well, I believe we found your anchor without even having to try.”

(Here, his core sang. Here-family-stay. Here-us-belong.) 

Chapter Text

Present Day…

The first time Batman met the White Ghost—who may or may not be an actual ghost— was about one year ago. It was a brief encounter— barely one at all, really; just the statuesque image of a black-clad assassin standing at attention by Talia’s side, the full-white mask burnt orange in the setting sun. The White Ghost said nothing during Talia’s exchange with Damian, only parting with a brief nod before accompanying Talia onto the submarine. 

Batman knew, vaguely, that the White Ghost was with them in Deathstroke’s underground research lab off the coast of the U.K. Though for unknown reasons, he never engaged with either Deathstroke, Batman, or Talia during the entirety of the event. The White Ghost’s contributions were the hoard of broken and bloody man-bats thrown over the high-walkways that hung from the cavern ceilings, and a strange sonic based attack that managed to take down swathes of enemies in a single turn.

When asked, Damian only said that the White Ghost was “the shadow of the Demon’s Head” and “a loyal member and protector of the al Ghul family.”

The second descriptor is what’s currently niggling on Bruce’s mind as he finished patching up his bruises in the cave. 

Damian was back up in the manor, wrapped up in blankets and nursing one of Alfred’s signature hot cocoa. The boy was being uncharacteristically passive, when usually he’d be digging his heels into the cave and stubbornly insisting that he’s fine and more than capable with assisting with the case, father. 

After their encounter with the White Ghost at the Royal Hotel, Damian’s been  strangely silent. 

It’s reasonable to assume that if the White Ghost was the “protector of the al Ghul family” that Damian would know the assassin’s real identity. But why Damian never offered that information up when he would usually be very willing to ‘prove his worth’ —Damian’s words, not Bruce’s— was the more interesting puzzle. 

Much like how saying that the White Ghost was the “protector of the al Ghul family” as opposed to “protector of the League” was interesting in its deliberate specificity. 

If the White Ghost was the main culprit of these ‘executions’ then that meant that Bruce had to reframe the motive. Since the White Ghost was the protector of the al Ghuls specifically, then that meant that all the victims posed in some way as a threat not to the League of Shadows, but the al Ghul family. The distinction was slight…but eye-opening all the same. 

Bruce opened his case files again, combing over the list of victims. The majority of them were self-explanatory; not only did these people betray the League, some of them even abetted the murder of Ra’s al Ghul one year ago. A protector would seek to avenge their fallen master. The reframing of the motive, however, casts a different light onto the one outlier victim in that case. Well, two now, with the attempted murder of Vlad Masters.

All files on Freakshow reveal no connections to the League of Shadows nor any dealings with Deathstroke, so his death would be less motivated by revenge (as Bruce first hypothesized) and more preemptively cutting off a possible threat to the al Ghul family. What threat he posed would be the question Bruce needed to answer. 

He paused, stroking his chin in contemplation before creating a profile for Vlad Masters to add to his case files. Bruce quickly typed down all the necessary surface details for the profile, then pulled up multiple databases to begin his research. 

Vlad Masters inherited his family’s company at the age of 25 and since then has been involved in a streak of extremely lucrative business deals. No businessman in the Midwest wanted to face Masters from across the board room, his skills in negotiation and manipulation so great that even some of the more ruthless CEOs would walk out of that meeting signing away more than they intended. One of his lesser known ventures was his shell company— DALV Co. (Bruce had to pinch the bridge of his nose at the name. The only veneer of protection they had was the owner’s name spelled backwards. Seriously, he didn't know which was worse, this or Clark’s glasses.) DALV Co. dealt in more underground and…less than legal business ventures, things that Bruce made a note to look at later. While Masters’ assets did not seem to indicate any kind of dealings with the League of Shadows, there was something else that caught Bruce’s eyes. A specific area in DALV’s research and development division labeled Project Lemures.

Lemures… as in a reference to the spirits of the restless dead in Roman religion. 

The files were heavily encrypted, but not the worst thing Bruce ever had to deal with. Within a few minutes, he was able to bypass its security and gain full access to the trove of knowledge Project Lemures had to offer. Weapons schematics, blueprints for some kind of containment device, cloning research, drugs— all things centered around spectrological research and ectoplasm. 

Ghosts. The occult. Spectrology.

In his mind, he began tying a thread between Freakshow and Masters. 

If Ra’s al Ghul was interested in learning more about these ghosts, then why would Talia order his right hand man to eliminate those knowledgeable on them? What threat did Masters and Freakshow have on the League?

Knowledge is power.

Bruce’s eyes lingered on pages and pages of cloning research on his screen. (It never said whether the cloning process was successful—)

He couldn’t say for sure what knowledge Freakshow guarded, but with Masters… 

Did the League attempt to create their own version of the Amity Park ghosts? Bruce filed the hypothesis away in his mind. It required further proof.  He pushed himself away from the desk, leaning back against his chair. One by one he cracked his knuckles in thought, letting his mind spin with possibilities, discarding pieces that fit, rearranging the ones that did. There were too many holes in this puzzle. There were too many uncertainties at the moment to say for sure. 

Too many things that Bruce didn’t know about.

There was one thing he knew for sure: The League would come after Vlad Masters again. 

Bruce returned upstairs to the Manor, back aching and eyes weary from staring at the monitor for so long. He stifled a yawn. Running his fingers through his tangled hair.

He stopped as he walked past the doors to the manor’s grand library, spotting a shadowed figure hunkered down within the large leather arm chairs. It was Damian, dressed in comfortable pajamas, a fuzzy blanket thrown over his lap, and Titus curled up by his feet. There was an open book nestled on Damian’s lap, his fingers blanketed between one page and the next as if  he was in the middle of flipping the page. But instead of being engrossed in his book, Damian’s eyes were elsewhere, head pointed towards the large open windows of the library that looked over the garden of topiaries.

Bruce cleared his throat.

Damian’s head twitched. He slowly turned to look at Bruce. “Father.” 

“Damian.”

“It’s late.”

Bruce blinked, flicking his eyes to check the time. There, on the mantelpiece clock— 4:15 AM. “So it is. It means you should be in bed by now.” He tilted his head, expectantly. “Unless you finally decided to tell me whatever it is you’ve been hiding.”

“Hiding?” A wrinkle formed in the space between Damian’s brows. 

With tired grace, Bruce took the seat opposite of Damian’s, settling into the old leather with a groan. “You’re not good at playing coy, Damian.”

Damian’s frown deepened. “I assure you I am not ‘playing’ at anything.”

“Playing dumb isn’t a good look on you either.” Bruce gave Damian a look. He leaned forward in his chair, elbows propped up on his knees, and fingers steepled together. “You know the White Ghost—”

“I don’t—”

“You know more about this case than you let on.”

“That’s—”

“The question I have is: why are you holding this information from me?”

Damian seized back, as if struck. Green eyes shifted away to look at some dark spot in the library.

It was easy enough for Bruce to let his eyes pick apart every little twitch and microexpression Damian gave off. Eyes shifting— going dark, going blank. The clench of his jaw as he ground his teeth, the tension carrying down to the tight lines of his shoulders. The slight increase in respirations. Thumb fidgeted over the corner of the page. Feet braced against the floor as if ready to run .

Damian’s stoicism was easy to read, if one knew where to look.

If Bruce let his mind wander, he’d be able to extrapolate from Damian’s body language and circle the truth. Damian’s willingness to talk about the League until the White Ghost appeared. The White Ghost was a guardian, a protector; Damian must have known him when he was young. 

The League of Shadows valued many things. Chief among them are two traits: obedience and loyalty. 

Children always loved the hand that cherished them. 

Bruce tried to soften his gaze. To turn off the part of his brain that analyzes and calculates without end. “I hope you know that I’m not mad at you. That I won’t be mad at you. But, Damian, the League of Shadows is planning something and I need all the information I can to stop them.”

Damian bit his lip, shoulders hunched as he tried to shrink further into the chair. “I know,” he said, voice almost wavering.

“Will you tell me, then?”

Damian stayed silent.

Bruce sighed heavily. “People’s lives are on the line Damian. Perhaps even more than that, depending on what the League has in store.” He could see the way Damian’s fingers clenched the page, wrinkles forming on the pristine edges.  “If I can’t trust you to be honest with me right now, then I can’t trust you to work with me on this case.”

“What?” Damian jumped up, book clattering to the ground. Titus reared his head up, ears perked. “You can’t— you can’t do that!”

“I can and I will. You’re off of this case and benched for a week. No patrols, no costumes, just monitor duty.” He rose from his seat, eyes shadowed.  “The appearance of the League has compromised you,  Damian, and until I know for certain that I can trust you, this is how it is going to be.”

Batman perched atop the head of a hulking gargoyle, surveying the unsleeping streets of Gotham. It was a relatively quiet night, by the city’s standards. An evening of petty thieves and wannabe gangsters, easily frightened by the sight of a shadow that moved just a bit too unnaturally. 

A flash of red in the air caught his gaze. 

Robin.

Tim. 

Robin swung from his grappling line, using the momentum to launch himself high into the air. As he reached the peak of his swing, he released the line, angling himself into a swan dive before his cape flared, the memory cloth charged with electricity as it became a functioning glider. Wind caught under his new wings, Robin glided across the rooftops, before rolling into a not-so-graceful landing on the rooftop behind Batman’s perch with a yelp. 

Batman pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh, turning to see Robin dusting himself off.

“That design hasn’t been properly field tested yet,” Batman stated. While previous renditions of their capes had included functions that allowed them to glide for short periods of time, the recent breakthrough with the memory cloth promised a longer and more sustainable glide while remaining lightweight when not in use. He and Lucious Fox had run simulations of the design but had only started field testing a few weeks ago.

Robin quirked his lips up in a cheeky grin. “It’s been field tested plenty.”

Meaning that he took one of the prototypes for a test drive.

Batman sighed louder. It was a small mercy that Lucius had yet to add the mini-jetpack to one of the prototypes.

“Well,” Robin said. “My route’s all clear. Only things of note were a couple of teens about to rob a convenience store— easy enough to scare off—and how much I miss doing patrol without the Demon Brat trying to one-up me every time.”

He leveled Robin a look. 

Robin returned it with a raised eyebrow. “What? You know what he’s like. It’s honestly a miracle he didn’t come out of his room to gut me when he heard I’d be doing the rounds with you today. Whatever it is he’s hiding, he’s willing to sacrifice his pride for it.” At Batman’s downturned expression, Robin’s gaze turned inquisitive. “You know who it is.”

“I know who it is not. And it’s given me an idea of who it might be.” The previous White Ghost was Damian’s uncle, Dusan al Ghul, who was less loyal and more a fanatic. Whoever the current holder of the title was, they would have been equally trained to take over the role. “And your case, Robin?”

The pride in Robin’s voice warmed Bruce’s heart. He could already tell that Tim had prepared a ninety eight slide PowerPoint presentation on this case back at the cave. He made a mental note to clear his schedule for tomorrow.

“Brief me.”

“The two culprits are Kiarra and Isadora Lee, two retired career criminals with a pretty impressive track record. They took the job as a ‘last hurrah’ before officially retiring, but there was a lot of incentive for them to hijack and steal government property than just for the thrill of it.”
“They were hired.”

“Yep,” Tim said, popping the ‘p.’ He adjusted his position on the gargoyle, setting down properly and letting his legs swing from fifty stories up. “I found a few of their off-shore bank accounts and saw a significant sum of money being deposited at around the same time frme, only a few weeks after the robbery. The money was deposited via a dummy account that pinged me around to a few other shell companies, but eventually led me right back here to Gotham.”

Tim laughed. “Wanna know who it was? August Lupton.”

“Lupton?” Batman raised an eyebrow. “Their family deals in real estate.”

“I know. When I dug into their company’s files, I didn’t see any projects that would even hint at weapons involvement, and while the Luptons aren’t clean, their crimes are more towards the white collar variety than anything else. Which got me thinking that maybe they’re acting as an intermediary for another party.  And that’s when I found August’s dirty little secret.” 

He pulled out a small tablet and showed it to Bruce.

There, on the screen was a very distinctive owl mask. 

A cold wind swept past them, their capes whipping like dark flags against the building’s limestone walls. It had been years since the Court of Owls first attempted to seize Gotham for themselves. Batman thought they’d disbanded after their failure, and their leaders were poisoned by one of their own

And now they dared try again?

He’d like to see them try.

But investigating the Court was a dangerous undertaking to do alone— especially if they’ve managed to successfully rebuild their Talon army. It might be better to pull Tim from the case and reassess the situation—

“I can do it.”

Batman blinked.

Tim looked at him with a knowing gaze. “You’re thinking that it’s dangerous to continue on my own. That maybe I should step back. But this is my case, B, and I’m seeing it through to the end.”

There’s a look in Tim’s eyes that Bruce is far too familiar with. A kind of fiery determination that burns through everything, consequences be damned. He’d seen it in Damian, when he ran off to rescue his mother. In Jason, when he took to the streets of Gotham as Robin. In Dick, who threatened to go after Zuco with or without Batman. 

Every bone in Bruce’s body tells him to say No. To say Wait. But Robins rarely listen when they have their minds set on something, but better that they go with Bruce’s approvals and stipulations than have them disobey and go at it alone.

“Investigation and observation only. Assuming they haven’t caught onto us yet, we’ll have the element of surprise on our side. I want no direct confrontation with the Court until we’re certain of what their plans are.”

Robin grinned. “I might actually have a lead on that. The items were stolen enroute to a new Task Force X facility— four trucks loaded with government research and tech and escorted by a federal convoy, with seven potential routes to their destination. No matter how impressive the Lees were, they couldn’t have intercepted and stolen those trucks with just the two of them. At the very least, they would’ve needed an informant on the inside to tell them what route the convoy was taking, the arrangement of the trucks, and possibly how to disable any trackers.” He held up a finger with every item that he listed. 

From his perch, Robin leaned in closer. Despite the white-lenses of his mask, there was a familiar conspiratorial gleam to his gaze. “And don’t you think it’s weird how…bloodless it was? While the Lees are usually pretty clean with their crimes, but with something of this caliber, you’d expect more casualties than a couple of knocked out agents and bruised egos. I had a hunch—” which in Tim’s language, meant ‘I took a wild leap in logic that I can’t explain’ “— and after a bit of digging I discovered a connection. While the two stolen trucks did have a couple of unreleased or cut military projects, the majority of the items that were taken belonged to a sub-branch of Task Force X: The Agency of Paranormal Investigation and Spectral Affairs.”

Batman’s mouth pressed into a grim line. 

Robin narrowed his eyes. “I take it you know them, then, and that it’s not a good sign.”

“They were mentioned in my own investigations.”

“Well then, you’re not gonna be happy when I tell you that the majority of agents selected to guard the convoy were former APISA agents. All of them had gone underground when their employment ended.” Robin tapped his fingers against his arm. “You think there’s a connection?”

Batman’s silence gave his answer.

Robin let out a low whistle. “The Court of Owls and The League of Assassins? Gotham never has it easy, does it.”

With an almost silent hiss, the top of the Batmobile opened up in the silence of the Batcave. Waiting for them in the hangar was Damian, arms crossed and brows furrowed. 

“Looks like the demon brat finally got over his tantrum,” Tim huffed. He hopped out of the Batmobile and headed straight for the showers. 

Bruce took down his cowl before approaching his youngest. “Damian.”

Damian looked away. “Father.” His grip over himself tightened, the fabric of his black turtleneck bunching between his fingers. “After much…deliberation…I came to see that it would be prudent to inform you about the identity of…the White Ghost.”

Bruce stayed silent, sitting down on a nearby chair so he was eye-level with Damian.
“The White Ghost’s name is—” Damian paused to swallow a lump in his throat, eyes skittish. “He was once known as Danny Fenton, from Amity Park, Illinois. Grandfather considered him a person of interest for years, up until he came under the League’s influence about three years ago. He was personally taught by my uncle, Dusan al Ghul, and then eventually succeeded the title of the White Ghost upon uncle’s death.”

“Why the vested interest in him?”

“I don’t know!” Damian exclaimed. He snapped his mouth shut, face drained of color. “No, I do know but— I’ve always been told how important it is to keep Danny’s secret, and if anyone found out what he was then he’d— he’d be…”

Damian’s shoulders shook, like brittle leaves of a dying tree. His fingers gripped to his sleeves like a lifeline, fingers wound tight that Bruce was afraid the fabric might rip. 

He’s never seen Damian so distressed.

Not since…

Bruce pulled his son into a tight embrace, letting Damian bury his face in the crook of his shoulders. He rubbed soothing circles along the space between Damian’s shaking shoulders until he could feel his breath even out.

His son. His poor son, raised on secrecy and strict obedience.  A lifetime of conditioning could not be so easily forgotten, and seeing Damian like this made Bruce’s heart ache. He almost regretted being so strict.

But this was information he had to know.

“Who is he, Damian?”

Damian let out a shuddering breath. 

“Baba. He’s my brother, Baba.” 

Chapter Text

One Year Ago…

Like many others before the doctor—and undoubtedly, many others after him—it was curiosity that did him in at the end. Curiosity, hubris, and poor lab safety.

But by the good graces of some cosmic force, Dr. Rhodes did not die. And after his shaking legs gave out and he laughed away his fright, he picked himself up, texted his colleague that he was alright, and went home to bed. Mind still heady from his near-death experience, he was completely oblivious to the extra consciousness that latched onto the shadows of his mind. 

(Not that he knew to even look for it.)

(The red-rimmed eyes were only because Dr. Rhodes was tired. That’s all.)

And if it was Dr. Rhodes who laid his head to sleep that night, the thing that got up from bed later that night was very much not.

It felt strange to wear another person’s skin. Like an ill-fitting suit, the measurements were all wrong. The torso was too tight in some places, the range of movement around the joints too stiff, the feel of the body too wrong in ways He could not articulate.

No, Alexander Rhodes’ body did not fit, but it was a good enough hiding place for the time being. 

He took stock of his surroundings. A well-furnished apartment complex on a high-rise building. The furniture was nothing He would consider luxurious, but quite possibly something above reasonably-priced. Upper-middle class, at most. A wall of the bedroom was covered in a large floor-to-ceiling window that looked out onto the city and the light-polluted skies above. In the distance, He could discern a bright blue W.E. sign fixed atop a tall tower. 

Coupled with the gargoyles and the aura of death that clung to His shadow, it was safe to assume that this was Gotham. 

A quick check at Dr. Rhodes’ phone confirmed His location as well as the date. 

It had been two years since His imprisonment in that accursed thermos

It will be eight years until this timeline catches up with His own.

No… What was His own. 

His own hinge event had passed. The timeline had diverged, and if it was not for His forethought in latching onto that time medallion, He would have been forcibly wiped by the timestream to maintain stability. Even now, He could feel the incessant tug of the universe pulling at His core, intent on correcting itself.

Like He was some mistake.

An aberration of nature twice over.

Well, it’s not like He disagreed, but He would rather not be beholden to the whims of something as fickle as Time. 

He pulled up a search engine on the good doctor’s phone and  looked up ‘Amity Park, Illinois.” Surprisingly, the front page results showed no notable headlines. There was news of Axiom Labs being funded for a new building, the Casper High Ravens winning their latest game, and other such plebeian stories— but there were no reports of ghost attacks. How strange. He kept scrolling through the news tab, eyes scouring for any mention of the Fentons or Danny Phantom or—

He froze. Borrowed eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets as the words tried to process in his head.

Why in the world was Vlad Masters the mayor?

Clicking on the blue hyperlink only led to more outstanding revelations, because not only was Vlad the mayor, he was also the proud father of one ‘Danielle Masters.’ Unbelievable. Vlad. A parent. He wondered for a brief moment what poor woman got saddled with having Vlad as a husband, before he saw a photo of ‘Danielle,’ all  black-haired and blue-eyed and almost the spitting image of Danny at eleven. 

Now, what were Danny’s thoughts on his clone?

In the search bar, He searched up the Phantom of Amity Park. 

The results showed nothing promising. The most recent news reports the Amity Park Angle had from a few months ago focused on a different hero— some creature that went by the name Zelus. Any mentions of Phantom were kept to brief speculations on his disappearance and conspiracy theory posts by wackjobs that knew not one iota of how ghosts worked.

Further digging confirmed that Phantom’s last sighting was a week or so after the Nasty Burger explosion. The Fentons were still dead. Sam and Tucker were still dead. Vlad was still alive. So where was Danny?

The answer came in a short obituary. 

Daniel “Danny” James Fenton, dead at fourteen, survived by no one. 

Cause of death: suicide.

Laughter bubbled up His throat like acid.

It's almost nauseatingly droll how this timeline echoed his own. The Nasty Burger, blown sky high. Vlad Masters, his dreams of family nearly realized. Danny Fenton, dead by his own hand. (It wouldn't be the first time, nor would it be the last.)

Now, what sort of monster would claw its way out of Danny Fenton's corpse this time?

Chapter Text

Two Years Ago…

At the crack of dawn, Danny was woken up and told to prepare himself. He was shuffled into a room along with the rank and file of the League. Many, he realized, were members of his own cohort from before Ra’s pulled him aside for private training. They all stood at attention, uniforms crisp and clean, postures in an impeccable League salute the second Ra’s al Ghul appeared on the mezzanine above them. 

Ra’s peered over the railing to survey them. Finding them satisfactory, he smiled and flung his arms wide. 

“Congratulations to the first and second cohort for passing the second phase of your training,” his voice boomed across the room. “And welcome, recruits, to your final test.”

No one spoke. Danny doubted anyone even breathed . 

But there was a sudden shift in the air. Everything suddenly felt sharper. Tenser. The back of his neck prickled as if the point of a blade was pressed against his skin. 

Ra’s al Ghul continued, hands settling behind his back as he prowled above them. “Your test will consist of three trials, each you will complete with a partner of your choosing, that will challenge the knowledge and skills that the League has painstakingly imparted upon you.”

At the mention of “partner”, Danny quickly scanned the room to find Henri. He caught Henri doing the same, and as their eyes met, they gave each other an imperceptible nod.

“Time and time again, your mentors have broken you down and shaped you into something better. Now it is time to test your mettle, to prove yourself by walking into the flames. Those who fail will be burned. And to those of you to succeed—” Ra’s bared his teeth into a sharp grin, gleaming eyes seeming to stare straight into Danny’s soul. “Those who survive this crucible will be welcomed with open arms into the shadows.”

Sharp rock dug harshly into Danny’s gloved hand as he braced himself against the cliff face. His chin tucked behind the crook of his elbow to shield his face from the shrieking winds blowing past. When it subsided, he pushed himself up off the thin ledge he stood on in order to grab a higher handhold. 

From fifteen feet above, Henri called down: “A little bit more to go, Danyal! I think I saw a cave a few meters ahead where we can make camp.”

Danny hauled himself up further, his right foot scraping to find that natural foothold he saw literally five seconds ago. “Sounds—” His heart leapt to his throat when his foot slipped. His grip tightened against the rock as he tried to recover his footing, his legs bending in an awkward manner to try and accommodate the strange position. “ —good!”

He let out a ragged sigh. Every corded muscle trembled with exertion, doing everything they can to fight off the increasing fatigue that weighed down on him.

God, this would be so much easier if he could just fly. 

“You okay?” Henri called.

Danny bared his teeth in a grimace. “Never better!”

“Well hurry up then! Don’t wanna give up the lead we have on the other pairs.”

Danny pushed himself off the cliff face slightly, peering down at the steep drop. There were a few dark shadows that he could see slowly advancing up, but—he shifted his gaze to the setting sun—none of them would be able to reach them before nightfall anyway. 

He said as much to Henri, who scoffed and said something about “never underestimating the enemy” and “that’s what they get for wasting so much energy on a pointless fight.”

They kept climbing. And climbing. And climbing  this damned mountain for who knows how long, ignoring the ache in their muscles and the way their fingers would nearly cramp at the force of their grip. Anything, everything to keep their eye on the prize.

That coveted title, the position they all worked themselves to near-death to get: official membership of the league. 

After months of arduous training and their numbers slowly being whittled down, Henri and Danny were at last in the final stretch of the League’s basic training. All of their hard work came down to passing the infamous final test. A set of three trials spanning seven days, meant to test each recruit’s physical and mental skills to the limit. Those who did not complete each trial were kicked from the League. Those who could not complete all three tasks within the allotted time were failed. And even those lucky and skillful few who made it past the third trial were not guaranteed a place in the League.

What’s more, whatever rules of conduct their mentors had bound them to during training (notably the ‘no killing other recruits rule’) was now rendered null and void. It was a no holds barred competition. Every pair for themselves.

The Head of the Demon demanded only the best. And only those who were willing to claw their way to the top were worthy enough to stand at his feet. 

Their first trial was a test of physical skill. A grueling trek from base camp to a designated rendezvous site ten miles out through the sweltering desert heat. Not only that, but the last hurdle to cross to reach the site was a steep thousand-and-something foot mountain. The base of which was already a rocky hike before it nearly shot up to one awfully flat rock face. 

“Look out!”

“Wha— shit!” Danny ducked his head, biting back a shout as a fist-sized rock slammed onto his shoulder before tumbling down hundreds of feet. 

“Sorry,” Henri called from above. “Didn’t realize it was that loose.” His fingers found purchase on a ledge a few feet above and he hauled himself into the mouth of the cave. A few seconds later, Henri threw down a few feet of rope. “Climb up!”

Danny reached out to grab the rope. He wrapped it a few times around his arm and gave a sharp tug to make sure Henri had it anchored up there. “I’m ready!” Once Danny got a firm grip on the rope, it only took a few minutes to make his way up to the cave. 

He nearly collapsed on his back as soon as his feet hit that wide expanse of rock. And his brain—finally registering that he was no longer in immediate danger of falling off and becoming a giant splatter on the ground—breathed a sigh of relief. What remained of his adrenaline rushed out of his body, replaced instead with an overwhelming onslaught of fatigue, hunger, and thirst. 

Danny scrambled for his pack, guzzling down his water bottle and relishing the way the lukewarm liquid soothed his parched throat. He shoved the bottle back when he finished and stumbled further into the cave where Henri was foraging kindling for a fire.

“Merde,” Henri swore under his breath. “This place has nothing.” 

Danny threw his pack against a dry corner of the cave and settled down beside it. “Well, it’s not the first time we’ve had to sleep in the cold.” 

“Oh, I’m not worried for me. It wouldn’t do for our resident prince to get back aches from sleeping on the ground now, yeah?” Henri said with a teasing lilt as he sat next to Danny.

“Hey!” Danny smacked him on the side of his arm. “And prince? Really?”

“I have eyes, you know. Mentor singles you out way too much, and some of the actual established members treat you differently than they do the rest of us,” Henri explained. “And then seeing Lady Talia and her little son just made everything click into place.”

Heat bloomed in Danny’s cheeks. 

He looked like them, he thought, giddy. 

(Well of course he does. They were his family.)

Danny blinked. “Wait a minute. Was the whole reason why you wanted me to be your partner because you figured out that Ra’s al Ghul is my grandfather?”

“Well…”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you.”

“Stones at a glass house, Danyal,” Henri sing-songed. “You got advanced training because of nepotism, and I might be able to pass this trial because I’m your friend. Besides, I didn’t see you eager enough to pair with anyone else.”

Well it wasn’t like Danny knew anyone in the second cohort. And he was pretty sure the majority of the first cohort still hated his guts for one reason or another. (Did Dusan really treat him differently than everyone else? Was that why people hated him?)

He buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe I’m a nepotism baby.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t realize it sooner.”

“Well, I didn’t have much choice in who my partner was, but what about you?” Danny pulled his knees up to cushion his head. “I heard you were ranked first in our cohort. Pretty sure the others would’ve been tripping themselves to partner with you.”

“It’s because I’m first that I didn’t choose any of them to be my partner. Those bastards had been gunning for me ever since you left. People like them love to tear others down because they think they’ll be able to stand taller,” Henri spat. “Well, I showed them. I’ve earned my place here in the League, and I’ll do whatever it takes to stay here.”

From their position, they could see the sky quickly darken. Oranges and reds faded away to dark blues and deep violets, the first twinkling of stars emerging from the shadows. 

“Is that it, then?” Danny asked, voice hushed. “I was the least evil option?”

“Danyal, there’s not an evil bone in your body.” Henri said. 

That’s what you think, Danny thought .  

“If it wasn’t for your family, I wouldn’t even begin to guess why you’re here.” Henri tilted his head back,  downing half his water bottle. He wiped the stray moisture from his mouth with the back of his hand. “But, no, that’s not why I picked you. I wanted to be your partner because you’re my friend, you’ve got good instincts, and because deep down I know you care more about bettering yourself than tearing other people down.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere ,” Danny joked.

“Good thing it’s the truth then,” Henri smiled. “I mean, just think of this morning. While everyone else was too preoccupied with eliminating the competition as soon as the test started, what did you say we should do? You said to sneak out of base camp and get a head-start on the first trial before anyone noticed.”

Danny buried his head in his arms, ears burning.

“You’re a good person, Danyal. I don’t know why you sometimes act like you aren’t.”

Here in the darkness of the cave, with Henri’s red hair and too-kind words, Danny was reminded of the times when he was a kid and snuck beneath the covers of Jazz’s bed. Eyes red-rimmed as he sniffled into her arms and she soothed his worries whenever he got into trouble or the kids at school would tease him about not being as smart as the rest of his family. You’re a good kid, Danny. You’re good, and that’s the most important thing.

(But here’s the thing: Danny wasn’t good. If he was, then maybe Talia would have considered him good enough to keep. Maybe he would have been able to save his family. Saved Tucker. Saved Sam. Even Phantom, the source of all of his good deeds, was still considered a menace half the time.

Phantom might’ve been a bit good, but Danny had certainly never been good enough.)

Midway through the night, Danny woke to the sound of voices near the mouth of the cave. He kept quiet, aware that the darkness made him and Henri invisible to the intruders until they walked further in. He nudged Henri awake with his foot. The latter’s dark eyes snapped open, the only movement their strict training allowed them.

Danny carefully tried to make himself smaller as he observed the two. The one on the right was female (5’7”, possibly 175 pounds, body-type and stance indicates affinity for leg-based martial arts. Avoid kicks at all cost). The other on the left was male (5’5”, leaner, maybe around 150 pounds? Expect faster movements). The two had yet to notice Danny and Henri, their attention focused on looking down below the cave as they talked.

“It would’ve been so easy to cut their hammocks loose,” the guy said. Danny couldn’t recognize the voice. Recruits from the second cohort? “Just one slice and— splat! — another one out of the competition.” 

Henri signaled Danny with a few hand signs. Me-right-you-left-take-out-quick.

Danny signed back. Nonlethal?

“It would’ve taken too much time and energy and you know it,” said the girl. 

Henri shook his head. Ledge-push-them

She craned her head up. “We need to focus on catching up with those two guys in the lead. Where’d you think they are?”

No, Danny signed. Nonlethal.

Dangerous-my-plan-easier.

“Well they haven’t left the mountain yet. We would’ve heard the helicopter if they did.”

Nonlethal. 

No!-Eliminate-quick— Henri aborted his hand signs when the intruders turned around, still oblivious to their presence. There wouldn’t be much time left before the two walked further into the cave and so Danny and Henri.

Henri scrunched his face in exasperation. Fine. Nonlethal.

In a flash, Henri and Danny leapt out of their hiding spot and rushed at the intruders. Caught by surprise and tired from their climb, the two were barely able to put up a fight. Danny’s opponent only managed to block Danny’s strike for a second before Danny redirected his attack and struck the guy’s carotid artery with the edge of his hand. The guy fell to the ground with a thud. Stunned from the sudden interruption of oxygen before passing out.

Beside him, Henri had the girl in a chokehold. The girl scratched at his arms, gasping furiously before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she was knocked out cold. 

Henri dropped the girl with a frustrated sigh. Face screwed up in pain as he gripped his side. “ Putain de bordel de merde!” 

Danny rushed to him. “You alright?”

“Alright?” He screeched. “No I’m not— that bitch stabbed me with a knife!” 

It was then that Danny saw the glint of a knife on the floor, the blade streaked red with Henri’s blood. “Shit.” He ran for his pack, taking out what bit of disinfectant and gauze he could find.

“Fuck— give me that,” Henri said. He snatched the supplies from Danny’s hands before slumping down against the cave wall. “I’ll take care of this. You go tie them up or something.”

“Right— yeah. I should—” Henri was bleeding. Henri got hurt. Because Danny was stubborn and he insisted and— and he made the wrong choice again. “Henri, I’m so, so, sorry—”

“Just go , Danyal. Before those two fucks wake up and I got stabbed for nothing.”

Danny nodded, mute. (Your fault.) With shaking hands he looted the intruders’ bags for anything that could hold them. (You caused this.) With their own rope, he got to work tying their hands behind their back in tight knots, and then looping the rope between their ankles. (You couldn’t protect him.)

Behind him, Henri cursed up a storm. An endless stream of french swears that Danny couldn’t understand but could hazard a guess that most of it was probably about him. He couldn’t blame Henri, though. It was his fault all this happened.

(If only—)

“Looks like our lead won’t last much longer.” Henri held back a grimace as he slipped black tunic over his shoulders. “We should get going soon.”

Danny threw their opponents’ packs deep into the cave after looting them of anything useful. For a moment, he contemplated hurling their supplies off the cliff— but it felt too cruel to leave them stranded here without any way to get back down. (But they would have deserved it.) 

“Visibility is barely above zero,” Danny said. The sky was still pitch black. It’d be difficult to scale the rest of the sheer cliff face when they can’t properly gauge their handholds. “And you’re— you’re hurt.” 

Henri secured his pack. “It’s just a flesh wound.” He looked up at Danny, and something in his expression shifted. He sighs, carding fingers through his hair before placing a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “I overreacted, don’t worry. It didn’t hit anything important.”

“But—”

“It’ll make the climb terrible, I won’t lie, but I’m not just gonna drop dead that easily. Ranked first in the cohort, remember?”

Danny worried at the inside of his lip. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

They reached the summit at the crack of dawn.  Black uniforms smudged with dirt and dust, faces crimson from the exertion. Henri clutched his side, almost fetal-like, before he grit his teeth and pushed himself up to his feet. Danny followed. The two of them attempted to regain some semblance of appearances as they neared the helicopter in the middle of the rocky plateau, patting off dust and combing sweat-slick hair. 

At the sight of a band of people lounging in front of the helicopter, Danny froze. He widened his stance, shoulders tense and ready for a fight. 

“At ease,” Henri whispered. “Look at their uniforms.”

At first, Danny thought they were other recruits. Ones that somehow managed to overtake Henri and Danny and decided to camp at the first check-point to pick off any competition. But a closer look confirmed otherwise. The standard League uniform was reminiscent of the shinobi shozoku, an all-black garment made of light but durable fabric, devoid of identifying marks. These uniforms, however, were slightly different. Though keeping with the same base design, the suit had noticeable kevlar and body armor built into it as opposed to plain fabric. Sewn over the heart—in subtle, gold thread—was the crescent emblem of the League of Shadows. 

These people weren’t recruits. No, they were disciples ; full-fledged members of the League of Shadows.

One of them—lounging at the entrance of the cockpit—acknowledged their presence with a tilt of their head. A black half-balaclava covered their face from their neck to the bridge of their nose. “Recruits,” they said, as Henri and Danny saluted them. “State your purpose.”

“Recruits Henri and Danyal reporting from basecamp, sir,” Henri said. “We are ready and willing to proceed with the second trial, sir.”

“Acknowledged, recruit.” He nodded his head upwards at his companion, who held a stack of folders in one arm. “My co-pilot and I will serve as your transport towards, as well as your proctors for your second trial. You will  be given a dossier containing the details of your mission as well as the outlined objectives. You are given carte blanche in how you choose to approach this, however what methods you use and how successful you are in completing your tasks will be taken into account on your final evaluation. If you understand, repeat to me your names and cohort designation.”

Danny and Henri rattled off the information in clipped tones. Their proctor nodded, immediately pulling out a single file-folder from the very bottom of the stack. He handed them the folder with a wry grin. “Well then, if you understand, then why are your asses still here and not on the chopper? You’ve wasted enough daylight as it is.”

The other disciples—most likely also proctors for the other groups—chortled. “Don’t mess up now!” One of them called out. “The Head expects a lot from you two, after all. Don’t wanna disappoint.”

The second they saw the name “Mortimer Drake (Alias: The Cavalier)” at the top of their dossier, Henri’s face darkened into something downright murderous.  

“The League really does their research, don't they?” He sneered at the photo of a well-groomed man that could almost pass for a real-life version of Captain Hook, long dark hair, goatee, and all. 

Danny held a hand over the microphone of his over-ear aviation headset, to minimize their proctors listening in on their conversation. “You know him?” Danny asked at a normal speaking volume, the roar of the open cockpit masking most of his words from everyone except Henri, who sat beside him. 

Henri mirrored his movements. “Know him? He’s the man that ruined my life.”

“I have eyes on the package.”

Their mission took them to the wealth-drenched shores of Monte Carlo, the city teeming with the vibrant lives of rich socialites searching for new and exciting ways to waste their surplus of cash. The opulence of it all might have awed Danny at one point, but now, the sight of all this excess only wound his stomach in tight knots. 

(How long did that other-Danny last, he wondered. How long did he last in that empty castle, wallowing in grief, with only Vlad for company?)

“Copy that.”

Tonight marked their third—and hopefully last —night in the city. The previous two days had been marked by vigorous stake outs and observations on Mortimer Drake’s habits, mannerisms, and the layout of his multimillion dollar luxury apartment. 

Their mission? A simple search and seizure of an item of the League’s interest. According to the dossier, Drake was an American collector with the taste of the eccentric and esoteric. He used his wealth to obtain a wide variety of artifacts to display in his many, many international properties— and those that he couldn’t buy, he stole as the rogue Cavalier. 

The particular item in question—a large red gem of unknown make—was bought illegally at a black market auction. The item was to be shipped in tonight, guarded by a squadron of private security. The route they were going to take was unknown, the number of staff involved was unknown, and any added security on Drake’s part was unknown. Not exactly great odds for a two-man team working off of limited intel. 

“And the mark?”

“Twice as ugly and surrounded by guards. ETA forty-five minutes.”

On top of that, they were given a secondary objective to complete. Optional, yes, but doing so would garner them a more favorable outcome with their proctors. And if Henri was anything, it was an overachiever. So while Henri was tailing Drake and the shipment, Danny volunteered to break into the apartment, set-up the bugs that they’ll use to temporarily deactivate security, and look for their secondary objective. Danny wasn’t normally an extra-credit kind of student, but in this scenario, he was all for it. 

Ra’s and Dusan assigned this trial specifically for him , after all.

“Find the book yet?”

“Not yet, just doing one last sweep for bugs. Are you sure not preparing for the guards is the right call?”

“Positive. The little weasel’s the type to ogle his treasures alone so no one can see what a fucking weirdo he is. He won’t bring his guards inside if he can help it.”

The apartment was in the clear. Whatever bugs he caught were swiftly disabled, and their various entries and exits were secured. He stood up from his crouch next to Drake’s bedside table, stretching his arms as he walked back into the main living room. It shouldn’t be that long of a wait now. 

 Sunset bled through the wall-length windows of the grandiose apartment. He winced, swallowing down the bile creeping up his throat at the sight. (Red-red-too-red.) He shifts his eyes away from it, the intensity of the color reminding him of things (crimson eyes, the color of burning skies) that Danny would rather forget. Gathering dust on top of the coffee table was an antique looking perpetual calendar. The bronze disk was held up by a stand, the face of the sun engraved in the middle, with its innerworkings exposed to the light. He bent down, glancing at the date.

April 3rd.

Oh. 

It was his birthday. 

Strange how at fourteen, being fifteen felt so far away, but now that he was there…nothing felt different. 

Tucker always made such a huge deal about turning fifteen. It wasn’t as great as turning sixteen, he would say, but fifteen marked the year he could get his learner’s permit. Which meant one step closer to getting a car of his own. And if there’s anything Tucker thought girls liked in a guy, it was being able to drive. 

Tucker’s birthday was in January. If it was April now then that meant—

No. Tucker…Tucker was still fourteen. Tucker would be forever fourteen because he died before he had the chance ( —to even scream, the explosion was just that quick—) to be anything more. If Danny were better, Tucker would have had a future ( — but would it matter? The future is all the same. Rubble and fire and death, what difference would a couple extra years make? )

(“I am inevitable,” Dan decreed. His eyes are red, the skies are red and burning, and smoke— so much smoke it burned his nostrils and filled up his lungs until he was choking and— cold, cold fingers around his throat won’t let go and he cannot breathe he cannot breathe he can’t-he-can’t-he-can’t-he-can’t-he—)

“Brother?”

Danny reared back, as if burned. Hands drawn back into fists against his attacker, willing ectoplasmic energy into his hands to blast away his attacker—

“Brother? Danyal!”

“Danyal? Danyal, what’s going on? Hey— hey, why aren’t you answering?”

His lungs heave. There’s smoke in his lungs, filling his mouth with that acrid taste. He smells sauce and char and can feel the sensation of claws digging into his jugular—

“Danyal— merde. I need you to breathe for me, Danyal. Can you do that? Come on, count with me now.”

Danyal-Danyal-Danyal— who is that supposed to be again? Danyal-Danyal-Danyal—

(“Danny Fenton died,” said the other Vlad, in that other future where everyone is dead.)

Everyone is dead in this future too.

There is a warmth covering his hand, can feel circles rubbed into the back of his palm. He wants to yank it out, but the touch is familiar. There is someone counting in his ear; in for four, hold for seven, out for five. He breathes in— air from an AC, cool, slightly dry, with some kind of nondescript linen air freshener. No smoke. No char. No—

He looks out the window. The sky is closer to orange than it is red, and it isn’t burning. 

There are two Ming Dynasty looking vases that frame a wall table. There’s a large L-shaped couch in the middle of the living room, facing a too-big flat screen TV. On the coffee table there's a strange assortment of crystals. 

He doesn’t acknowledge the frost creeping out from his feet. 

“Brother? Are you alright?”

He snapped his neck towards the voice…and looked down.

“Damian?” He gasped. 

Damian is here. Here. Dressed in a League uniform and a goddamn katana strapped to his back. How did he get here? Who the fuck let him in here?

“Wait— as in that Damian?” Henri swore. “Why the fuck is he here?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” He knelt down to Damian’s height, grabbing his shoulders. “Why’re you here, bud?”

His hands are trembling against Damian’s shoulders and they won’t fucking stop. Get a grip on yourself, Fenton. He’s so close to becoming a full-fledged disciple of the League and now is not the fucking time to act scared. 

Especially with Damian here. Small Damian. Tiny Damian with tiny breakable bones and a tiny snappable neck—

Damian stares at him, brows furrowed. What must he think right now? God, Damian must think that Danny is so weak freaking out over nothing. How is Damian supposed to rely on him then? How could he entrust his safety into someone so damn useless. 

He tries to steel himself. Will the ice in his limbs to shift, and to burrow ever deeper into his chest. Mind over matter, Danny.

“Damian,” he repeats, voice more level, “ why are you here?”

Damian looked as if he was caught off guard. He blinked his eyes a few times, looking down at his feet, suddenly unsure of himself. “I— I wanted to help.”

“Help? With what?”

“There— I overheard members of the League talking. They were saying that because so much resources were spent on you, if you failed the test you would be— they said that you’d be put down!” There’s a desperation in Damian’s eyes as he lunged for Danny, grasping his too-small fingers around Danny’s shirt. “It’s a lie, I know it is! Mother and Grandfather would never— I nearly wanted to gut those fools for saying something like that!”

“But it’s true.” It surprised Danny how easy it was to accept it. It surprised Damian how Danny didn’t even blink at the insinuation of his own murder. “Since the very beginning, I’ve known that staying at the League was only possible if I did well. If I couldn’t handle it, I would have to leave, because the League can’t afford any weakness if it wants to save anything.”

“Danny. They said that they would kill you.”

Better than the alternative. There was nothing for Danny outside of the League. Not as Phantom, and definitely not as Fenton. There was too much risk. Too many uncertain variables. Too many ways that he could mess up and accidentally plunge the world into another dark timeline. Even if Danny helped arm the League with all the ghost hunting knowledge at his disposal, it still might not be enough.

“And I’d let them.”

There were no heroes in Dan’s timeline.

Silence hung like a noose. The tension was only broken by the crackle of Henri’s voice in Danny’s ear. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on over there but you better be ready. Target’s ETA is less than 10 minutes, and I don’t want the little prince ruining our run here.”

Danny swore under his breath. “Yeah, we’ll be ready.” He dragged Damian towards the library by the elbow. “Damian won’t get in the way, don’t worry.”

“Good.” There were muffled sounds on the other side. “And you…you’re alright?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good. That’s…good.”

A click told Danny that Henri switched off his comms. 

With a sigh, he turned to Damian again. “Alright, now I really need you to leave.”

Damian crossed his arms and huffed. “I am not leaving.”

“I’ll tell mother.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

“Oh just try me.”

Despite the flash of fear across Damian’s face, Danny begrudgingly admitted to himself that convincing Damian to leave now would be as fruitful as all of Vlad’s attempts at flirting with his mom. He made Damian hold onto a piece of his shirt and channeled that sleeping store of power inside of himself.

Ra’s and Dusan ran him ragged with exercises on drawing out his ghost powers while in human form. Invisibility, intangibility, minor ecto-rays and telekinesis (something he always forgot that he had), among other powers. Abilities that he took for granted inside the wellspring of energy that was Amity Park, he was now forced to remaster using the limited resources he had. 

He let the invisibility wash over him and Damian. The other’s response was only a sudden jolt from the cold energy, but otherwise Damian didn’t seem to think that anything was different.  Unless Damian happened to walk in front of a mirror, he wouldn’t notice that he was invisible right now. 

“Look, I’ll let you stay, on one condition: you stay quiet and you do what I say.”

“Isn’t that two conditions?”

“Amazing observation Einstein, now shut-up and don’t let go of my shirt.”

The library itself was a room with a heavy oaken desk and built-in wooden shelves filled with a hodge-podge of probably rare and esoteric books. The subjects themselves ranged from ancient history to herbology to first editions of almanacs from who knows what century. And while the shelves and books were kept tidy and dusted, there was hardly any sign of actual use or focused subjects. It was as if Drake was just collecting for the sake of collecting. 

Danny thumbed his way down to the far bottom shelves. The books were sorted alphabetically by their author, putting his mark at…

…Not there.

  At the corner of his eye, he spotted the top drawer of the desk being strangely ajar. Upon closer look, the others were locked shut. Carefully, he opened the drawer, checking for any kind of hidden traps. Finding it clear, he pulled the drawer back and— aha!

He pulled out a faded brown book, the edges of the pages lined yellow with age. Sewn on the cover in faded black thread was the title: “ Summoning Spirits and the Subjugation of Spectres” by Heinrich Showenhower.

Another from that family.

Idly, he wondered what Freakshow was doing. 

He flipped through the pages, noting various illustrations and diagrams that looked a bit too close to magic than his parents’ science. Circular formations with strange writings, pentagrams, detailed sketches of specific herbs, a couple depictions of the more primitive ghosts in the Zone— 

His eyes caught something familiar. 

A picture of an orb. A bright and mesmerizing orb. 

Freakshow’s orb. 

“Danny?”

He snapped the book shut. “Were my eyes red?”

“What? No. Why?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” 

A foreboding chill crawled up his spine. 

He turned on his comm-piece. “Henri, do you have direct eyes on the package?”

A pause, before the earpiece crackled to life. “Affirmative. Drake and It just arrived at the apartment. Right now he’s doing one last inspection before taking it inside.”

“What does it look like?”

“About as close as what intel gave us. It’s bigger than I thought, though, maybe about the size of my palm.”

Fuck. Fuck. It was a coincidence. Surely it’s a coincidence. The odds of the crystal being Freakshow’s orb were higher than Danny felt comfortable with, but the most frustrating part is that he can’t tell if it’s Freakshow’s orb unless he actually sees it.

And if he sees it—

He glanced down at the still-invisible Damian observing the perimeter. (Mine-mine-brother-mine-DANGER.)

Danny gripped the book in his hands tight. He’s broken out of its control once, hadn’t he? He could do it again. 

(Didn’t Sam have to fall off a train for him to break out of Freakshow’s control?)

“Damian, you need to leave.”

“And I told you I won’t.”

“Go to the balcony and start heading to the apartment above this one. It should be empty. You have a communicator on you, right?”

A new wave of apprehension washed over Damian. “Brother?”

Danny started pushing Damian out of the library and towards the balcony. He ripped the comm-piece out of his ear and handed it to Damian, rattling off a set of numbers. Frequency lines. “I need you to go up there and contact our proctors. Tell them who you are and to contact Dusan or mother or anyone and tell them that I may be compromised.”

“Brother you’re worrying me.”

“I need you to do this for me, Damian. Can you do that? It’s important.”

The urgency in his voice must have knocked some sense into Damian. His little brother slipped the comms piece into his ear and nodded, repeating Danny’s instructions back. 

Danny ruffled Damian’s hair, breaking Damian’s invisibility. “Good. Now go, and stay safe.”

“What’s going on, brother?”

Danny shook his head. “It might be nothing, but I’d rather you be safe in case things go south.”

With Damian safely out of the way and the League alerted, Danny took his position near the entrance of the living room. He wanted to take this test with his own strength, to prove in some small way to Ra’s that he was worth more than his ghost powers, but that sentiment would have to wait. If Danny was right— and he really, really did not want to be— then this mission needed speed more than anything else. And the element of surprise invisibility and intangibility could get him would be their trump card. 

He crouched and waited.

Eventually, the door opened. Mortimer Drake entered the space, holding the orb out in the open.

Red seeped into the corner of Danny’s mind—

And all he could feel was bliss.