Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Waking up with a stranger in his bed wasn’t originally on Danny’s plan for college.

He’d been mostly safe from getting extraordinarily drunk at parties all through first year but first semester of his second year seemed to have it out for him. It seemed to have it out for all of them really. Maybe it was Fenton luck but really, maybe it was just Gotham.

Normally parties here didn’t get so bad that he was getting nearly blackout drunk and hooking up with strangers. Maybe it was the fact that second year was beating the engineering students into the ground, maybe it was the chemical engineering student getting their PhD that decided to go rouge three weeks ago causing the entire campus to watch the engineering students warily and the Gotham PD to patrol the engineering buildings carefully for the rest of the week.

It wasn’t a good month. Novembers sucked.

Danny wakes up with a killer (ha) headache and sits up with regret bleeding through his questionably existent bones and his core which hums in both ow and content.

Content? Ah. The warmth of a living person is still next to him. The stranger’s body says they’re sleeping but their emotions that he can feel humming through his core say he’s awake, tense, and waiting for Danny to make a move.

But Danny knows that he isn’t supposed to know the stranger is awake. So he gets up, finds himself a pair of sweatpants crumpled on the floor of his closet and pulls them on.

Stranger still lays in bed pretending to be asleep so Danny glances at them as he leaves the room to go track down some Advil—

Oh Ancients that’s Tim fucking Drake.

Danny leaves the room totally calm and collected.

If he has a mild panic attack in his kitchen that’s between him and the barnyard of animal magnets on the fridge.

Filling a cup with water and downing a few of the pills with it, he takes a second to check himself in the bathroom mirror as if it’s going to help much.

Apparently drunk enough to forget about the scars that make him uncomfortable in front of other people is the way to go because he didn’t even think about them last night.

There are a few new bruises littering his collarbone and torso, based on the state he woke up in he’s not really surprised they’re there and is almost worried to check Tim and the bruises he probably has too and he runs his tongue along his canines that have sharpened significantly since he took the crown. Hopefully he didn’t hurt the guy by accident.

Ancients forbid he’d made any sort of mark that would be harder to cover up. The guy was a fucking CEO of probably the biggest company in the world, he couldn’t just walk around with hickies or bite marks on his neck.

Danny takes a few deep breaths and grabs the bottle of pills for Tim and finds a new glass of water in the kitchen before he returns to the bedroom, pushing the door open where Tim has finally stopped pretending to be asleep.

He’s trying to hide the fact that Danny had startled him, but his emotions read as startled, confused, worry, curious.

Danny shifts uncomfortably, suddenly very self-conscious of the scars on his torso.

“Uh— hey, morning,” Danny says, drawing Tim’s stare back up to his face. “I brought you uh— water. And some Advil… for the hangover.” He holds up the glass of water and a little bottle of Advil before approaching Tim and setting the cup and pills on the bedside table nearest him. “We were both pretty wasted last night so I figured if I had a hangover you definitely would too.”

“Thanks,” Tim mumbles, taking the pills and water and seemingly inspecting them. Danny tries to make it seem like he’s not paying attention as he turns to check the closet for something for Tim to wear rather than express the thought that he would never poison the guy. The pill bottle rattles a bit when Tim takes a few pills and downs them as Danny finds a pair of sweatpants from the Amity Park Zoo.

“You can use these if you’d like, instead of your suit, and you’re welcome to help yourself to one of the sweaters or shirts— really anything you need, feel free.”

“Thank you,” Tim tells him again, emotions giving off genuine gratitude. “I’m just going to make a call.”

Danny nods, heading towards the door. “Yeah, for sure. I’ll be in the kitchen just down the hall, let me know if you need anything.” He closes the door behind himself and purposefully makes his footsteps louder as he heads down the hall. After scaring the poor guy a minute ago he figured it’d be best if he kept his footsteps audible for Tim’s sanity.

Every part of him wanted to listen in on the conversation, figure out who Tim was talking to and what he said about him but yeah no. Huge breach of privacy and all that, so Danny grabs a t-shirt from the couch (Jazz would scold him for not being cleaned up before he had the CEO of Wayne Enterprises in his house. He would argue that he was drunk and also not expecting guests, let alone Timothy Drake-Wayne) and pulls it on before starting on breakfast to distract himself from trying to listen to the conversation happening in his bedroom.

Bacon and eggs was what was left in the fridge and freezer. He really needed to go grocery shopping— he needed his next paycheck before he could go grocery shopping though, but that wasn’t until Wednesday, five days before he would have a full stock again if you counted today. If he hadn’t had to use up power to heal the burn on his thigh from the Firefly attack last week they wouldn’t have to stretch the food so thin but he’d had to eat more than expected because of the extra power use.

Tim’s footsteps are barely there but Danny turns briefly before concentrating on moving the bacon onto the plates without dropping it. “Hey,” Danny greets him as he sets the pan into the sink. “Eggs’ll be done in a second. Help yourself to the fridge, there’s orange juice, milk, uhh… there might be a bit of chocolate milk left but I think my little sister laid claim to that.”

He decides not to freak out about Tim Drake wearing his favourite NASA hoodie that’s clearly several sizes too large for him and swamps him entirely as he shuffles further into the kitchen.

“Your sister?” Tim asks as he moves over to the fridge as Danny grabs him a glass from the cupboard.

“Yeah, Elle, she’s my little sister. She’s at an overnight camp for the weekend at the Gotham Observatory.”

Thank the ancients that was this weekend.

Tim pours himself a glass of orange juice. “She likes space then?”

“Yeah, both of us do,” Danny smiles as he splits the scrambled eggs into two portions. “I’m majoring in aerospace engineering, so she probably gets it from me.”

The fact that she’s a clone might help that.

Tim takes a few sips of his orange juice.

“I’m Danny, by the way. He/Him pronouns. I figured you uh— might’ve forgotten. We were pretty out of it I think.”

“Oh,” Tim says. “Um, I’m Tim, he/him as well.”

“I know,” Danny nods. “You’re pretty popular around here. It’s a little hard to not know who you are.”

“Right,” Tim‘s ears redden a bit and Danny quickly shuffles them over to the table. “I’ll— um…” he takes another sip of orange juice as he follows Danny to the kitchen table. “Do you have a charger I can borrow?” He asks.

Danny points his fork to the counter where there’s a charger hanging partially off of it. Tim plugs his phone in before taking his seat and starting on the food.

“Thank you, it’s very good.”

“Glad you think so,” Danny grins. “Though I’m sure it’s not as up to rich standards as it could be.” Tim probably had a kitchen the size of Danny’s whole apartment— maybe even two, but at least the food tasted alright and he hadn’t burnt it.

Tim smiles a little bit. “It’s still good food.”

Danny shrugs. “Thanks.”

They eat in silence until Tim asks, “What day is it?”

“Uh—“ Danny checks his phone— an old brick looking thing that Tim has a variety of reactions to without actually making a face. It almost makes Danny laugh but instead he says, “Saturday.”

Tim nods and finishes off his last piece of bacon.

When they’re done, he helps Danny clean up the prep dishes, washing them so that Danny can dry them and put them away where they belong.

“Y’know, you’re a lot more down to earth than I thought you’d be.” Danny comments as he takes the now clean frying pan to dry it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tim grumbles.

“Nothing bad!” Danny smiles, “just that I didn’t really expect you to like— I dunno, know how to do the dishes.”

What the fuck that was so rude, literally why would you say that?

Tim stares at the soapy water. “My grandfather would have a conniption if I couldn’t at least do the dishes.”

Danny doesn’t say anything to that, still berating himself for the comment, but he nods.

Once they’re done, Tim grabs his phone to text someone. “Could I get your address? One of my brothers is going to come pick me up.”

Danny gives him the address and puts the spatula away.

“This is going to sound so awkward,” Tim starts, “But do you remember what happened last night?”

“Before we ended up here?” Danny asks, leaning back against the counter next to Tim.

“Yes.”

“I’m a little foggy, but I know I was at a party some classmates dragged me along to. About a block away from here I think. Not sure when you showed up just that suddenly you were there and clearly neither of us were thinking very straight.” He grins at the pun he made and Tim’s eye twitches, making Danny laugh. “That’s all I got though.”

Tim nods. “I can piece together most of what happened from that. I was at a grand opening for the library before I ended up at that party. One of the desserts must’ve had more alcohol in it than I thought. I would’ve had to be— uh—“ he clears his throat, cutting himself off, Danny’s smile fades a bit. “Do you know if anyone at the party knew who I was?”

Danny shrugs, “not sure? It’s not likely though, everyone there was either an engineering student or a nursing student and we’ve just finished midterms so chances are, everyone at that party was drunk out of their minds. It was also dark. I didn’t know it was you until this morning so I think you’re pretty safe, but I can try and check for you if you’d like?” He’d do some snooping maybe try and ask if any of his friends had recognized anyone else at the party in a way that seemed inconspicuous.

“That would be great, thank you.” Tim nods, a look on his face that Danny is quickly coming to recognize as the face he makes when he’s thinking. Tim’s phone buzzes and Danny watches his expression morph into a glare as his emotions read embarrassment, annoyance.

Danny can’t help but peak over Tim’s shoulder to read the message.

‘So you’ve had your first sex scandal: a presentation by Alfred Pennyworth.’

Danny can’t help himself and starts laughing, highly amused as Tim sets his phone back on the counter with a tired sigh.

When he finally stops laughing, he breathlessly asks, “Am I gonna have to sign an NDA?”

“Yes.” Tim grumbles. This just makes Danny laugh harder.

【＝】

When Tim leaves, picked up by Dick Grayson, the eldest Wayne child, who has a sweet little three legged dog that Danny can’t help but be reminded of Cujo by, he heads back inside to clean up the apartment, put on a load of wash and then double check if he has any leftover assignments to finish before he has to try and study for the ever approaching final exams.

He makes it up the stairs, into his apartment with the door closed before he takes another step and ends up in the Ghost Zone.

Danny sighs heavily and tries to pretend he doesn’t want to curl up on the floor and sob. As long as he can make it back to pick Elle up from the school when she gets back from her field trip. He’s in Clockwork’s tower, the old man is presently waiting for him before a fireplace in a comfy armchair with tea and sandwiches laid out.

“Clockwork,” Danny greets, hoping he doesn’t sound too pissed off. “What did you need?”

“Hellblazer is looking for you.”

Danny stares at them, waiting for more.

“… That’s it?”

Clockwork hums, “It is all I am to be telling you, the Hellblazer has questions and you have… answers he needs.” They take a long sip of their tea.

“Okay… where can I find the Hellblazer?” Danny had heard about the Hellblazer. John Constantine, the man with a soul in a million pieces. He can’t imagine that Constantine will be comfortable in his inevitable afterlife with a soul in that many fragments.

“He will find you.”

“Great.” Danny sighs. “Perfect, excellent, exactly what I need. Can you at least tell me when he’s going to find me? Cause I need to pick Elle up from her field trip today—“

“All will happen as it’s supposed to.”

Danny takes a deep, fortifying breath (it doesn’t help much), then nods. “Right. You wanna send me back then?”

“You have the ring.”

“And I’d rather not use it if I can help it.”

Danny blinks and he’s back in the apartment. No time has passed. Danny closes his eyes and pretends he doesn’t have a headache.

Chapter Text

Danny was right. The Hellblazer’s soul made him uncomfy, like his core was itching in the wrong kind of way. 0/10 would not recommend. He was accompanied by a Shade who went under the alias Deadman, though as a Shade was unable to speak in the court of the King (an old law Danny was working on getting changed because really, what kind of bullshit was that?).

John Constantine was presently bowing just below him where he sits on the throne of the Infinite Realms. As The Hellblazer straightens he greets Danny, “Your majesty, I have come before you today as a representative of the Justice League from Earth-One. We would like to request an alliance to strengthen the relationship between our Earth and the Infinite Realms.”

Danny sits up a bit, leaning forward. “I know why you came,”

The Hellblazer looks like he almost expected that, so Danny has to give him some credit.

“What might this alliance give for our benefit?”

“That’s what we hope this meeting will clear up.”

Danny hums. He isn’t exactly sure what exactly they’re going to exchange. Anything Earth could try and provide him— well, there was those pits and a couple revenants he needed to check up with on Earth-One. Having the support of the Earth’s (his Earth, he had to remember he was still Danny, still a little bit living) heroes would make his job a bit easier.

“When do they want the meeting scheduled for? I have things to do and I won’t clear my schedule for a little band of heroes.”

Intimidate and pretend you know what you’re doing. Danny’s motto for being king.

Hellblazer clears his throat, “We had planned for Thursday—“

“No.”

Not when I have classes from 8am until 6pm.

“Thursday would be beneficial—“

“John Constantine, why are you still talking to me about Thursday?”

Hellblazer snaps his mouth shut promptly. “Apologies your majesty, what day would work best for you?”

Danny hums, leaning back hoping he looks like the picture of calm, collected, and majestic. “Friday would work better. Let’s say…” he drags out the y for a moment, “noon?”

Hellblazer bows, “Friday at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time then?”

【＝】

Danny painstakingly reads through every paragraph of the NDA Tim had sent him. It was ingrained very thoroughly into his head by Frostbite, Clockwork, Dorothea, and everyone on his council and teaching him to be king, that he needed to read every contract he received very carefully so that he didn’t accidentally agree to something that would have later repercussions.

Finding nothing remarkably suspicious— it was just to make sure he didn’t go to the press about the events of the weekend, really, he signs the contract and sends it back to Tim within two hours after receiving it.

Elle bounds past him holding a thermos and shouting something about catching blob ghosts to show her new best friend and Danny lets his head fall onto the table. “Elle no showing off the blob ghosts to random people.”

“But he’s not random, it’s Damian Wayne!”

Danny groans, there was really no escaping the Wayne family. “Even more of a reason not to show him the blob ghosts.”

“Why?”

“Elle let’s take a moment to think about how well known the Wayne family is and how their company makes energy sources.”

Elle pauses. “Yeah, that’s a good point.” She sighs, “alright, no blob ghost hunting. I’ll go find him a racoon then.”

“Much better,” Danny agrees and catches the thermos chucked at his head without moving from his spot flopped over the table.

It’s not long before Danny is practically slumped over his textbook and notes that had been pulled out with the hope that some reading of the next chapter or so before the weekend was over. It was Monday in a few hours after all. When he’s read the same line five times without registering it any of those times he elects to go to sleep.

His room has barely been cleaned— but at least he got the sheets done, he reminds himself as he shuffles around looking for the pair of pyjama pants he’d tossed somewhere when he’d scrambled to get ready in the morning to drop Elle off at her swimming lessons (paid for by Jazz who insisted that everyone should know how to swim, dead or not.

He grabs the black edge of fabric sticking out from behind the basket on the closet floor and pulls it out, expecting his pyjama shirt. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t his pyjama shirt. No, it was a black tie. Wrinkled from it’s time in the closet but still very clearly much more expensive than Danny could afford.

“It’s Tim’s tie,” Danny hisses, breathlessly. “It’s his fucking tie,” he stares blankly at the tie. “I’m gonna have to go return this.”

Danny rolls up the tie trying to figure out how he’s going to work around his classes tomorrow to go to Wayne Enterprises and somehow get a meeting with the CEO of the largest company in America. He finds his pyjamas and starts to change. He only had one class Monday morning, 9:30-10:20, his next class wasn’t until 1pm, with general traffic… about half an hour to get to Wayne Manor, an hour if there was a rogue attack. If he accommodated to assume there would be an hour to get there, that left him at about 11:30 arrival, spend twenty to thirty minutes talking to Tim, another hour to get back… that left him arriving at 12:40.

If he packed something to eat he could eat in those twenty minutes before class.

Danny looks at the toothbrush in his hand, hardly aware of when he actually got to the bathroom and started brushing his teeth.

“I think you need sleep,” Elle says from the doorway. Danny sighs and turns to her. She’s holding four rather startled raccoons in her arms. A mom and her babies.

“Did you take them out of their home?”

“Their home was the gutter on the side of the road.”

“Alright, fine. You’re taking care of them on your own money.”

She shrugs. “I’ve got some saved up from those dog walking jobs I did.”

“Alright,” Danny agrees, “I think we’ve still got the box from the printer, you can make them a nest out of that, some paper towels and that one old green towel.”

Elle nods and scampers off with her new adoptees.

Danny goes back to brushing his teeth.

【＝】

Danny walks into Wayne Enterprises and vanishes. He’d determined on the way that people probably wouldn’t let him in just to randomly go see the CEO. He’d also determined on the way here that he was going to ask for his NASA hoodie back. It was his Monday hoodie, that was a lie he wore that hoodie a lot. It was honestly impressive that Tim had managed to grab his favourite hoodie.

He’d looked really fucking good wearing Danny’s clothes though and now he had to live with that beautiful mental image of Tim Drake wearing his hoodie and sweatpants, mussed hair and—

Danny takes a deep— unnecessary— breath and waits until the elevator opens and people leave it. He enters visible and closes the elevator door before any alarms are raised. He hits the button for the top floor, figuring it’s probably his best bet for where to find Tim.

The elevator opens up to a spacious waiting room with a few small hallways leading down to some office spaces. There’s a front desk sat just next to the large embellished doors where Danny can only assume is Tim’s office.

The secretary looks up from her computer and the security guard has his attention on Danny.

“Um, hi,” he greets as he walks up. “I have a meeting with Tim Drake? It was sort of last minute so I’m not sure if I’m in his schedule…?”

She checks her computer, “There isn’t anything, but if it was last minute… ID please?”

“Ah— yes,” Danny shuffles his backpack around, zipping up his sweater pocket to keep the tie there. He pulls out his student ID and government ID for her to see. She examines them carefully before leaning over to the phone and presses a button, “Mr. Drake-Wayne sir, there’s a Daniel here to see you, what should I tell him?”

Danny shuffles his feet and looks around the space for something to do other than stare.

“Send him in with a guard until I can confirm I know him.” Comes Tim’s slightly grainy voice through the phone system after a momentary pause.

Danny follows the security guard through the double doors with a slightly offended note ringing in his chest.

Tim is sitting behind a polished desk, all pressed suit and slicked hair. He stands, nodding to the security guard. “I know him, thanks Mitch, I’ll call if we need anything.”

The security guard— Mitch— leaves, closing the door behind him. “Did you forget about me or something?” He asks, scuffing one of his shoes absentmindedly.

He looks back over to Tim to find him striding towards him and Danny panics. Because now there is a fancy— beautiful— hot— business man striding at him and Danny didn’t know that was something he’d be attracted to but fuck.

Tim walks past him, locking the door and Danny tries to let out a shaky breath as quietly as he possibly can.

He turns to Tim as Tim turns around from the door emotions smug, amused. “Had to keep up appearances.” Tim tells him. “If I’m not expecting someone at the office I usually ask for security to come in too, just in case I don’t know them.”

He nods a little bit, turning his attention to the office and automatically moving over to the floor to ceiling windows.

“Ever get scared you’ll fall?” He asks. Tim is human, doesn’t have any way to catch himself as he falls unless he’s got one of the Bats on speed dial or one of the Super people ready to assist should he ever fall or get pushed out of his office.

“I… hadn’t thought about it, actually.” Tim answers him, his emotions all honest, confused, thoughtful. “Not really? It’s not like many of Batman’s rouges can fly, and this is one of the most secure buildings in Gotham.”

Danny hums, thinking of how easy it was for him to sneak in. “Yeah, I guess it is, isn’t it.”

“So…” Tim continues, “How come you’re here?”

“What, you didn’t miss me, Tim?” He smiles smugly at him over his shoulder.

Danny watches Tim breathe out shakily. “No.”

His emotions betray him and Danny almost laughs.

“What are you doing here?” Tim asks him again.

Walking away from the windows, Danny unzips his pocket and hands over the rolled up tie. “You forgot your tie. Also I want my hoodie back. It’s my favourite one.”

Tim takes the tie back and Danny watches as his ears redden.

“I can— I can buy you a new one.”

Danny stares at him. What? “Did you throw it out?” He asks incredulously.

“What?! No!” Tim shakes his head. His emotions do a weird thing then, some mix of embarrassment, longing, desire—

“So… can I have it back?” Danny asks slowly.

Tim hesitates for a tense moment before he smoothes his expression, “I— how should I get it to you?”

Danny raises an eyebrow at Tim. “Uh… I can come back tomorrow? I guess?”

Tim nods mutely, emotions reading reluctant, acceptance, pain, and a faint line of lonely.

Danny sighs. “Look, how about I take the hoodie back for the week, then you can have it back for the weekends? We’ll share custody.”

What am I doing? It was a one-night-stand. The NDA said it was a one-night stand.

Tim laughs breathily. “What?”

Danny shrugs, smiling at the laugh. “I could be convinced to share custody of it.”

“Convinced?” Tim asks, clearly amused.

“I wouldn’t say no to bribery.”

And oh boy there was certainly a lot of things Tim Drake could bribe or convince Danny with, even if it was unnecessary.

“You offered shared custody, I don’t think you can say you could be bribed into shared custody.” Tim tells him incredulously.

Danny laughs, grin splitting across his face almost unwillingly. “It was worth a shot.”

Tim sighs, “alright, I’ll have the hoodie tomorrow but I’ll be in meetings until noon, so just make sure you’re not here until then or you’ll be waiting a long time.”

“Sounds good,” Danny agrees, heading towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Tim.”

He waves an awkward goodbye to the secretary and Mitch the security guard.

If you checked the security cameras in the elevator, you’d see Danny walk out of the elevator at street level but nobody leaves the elevator on the cameras facing the elevator Danny had just left.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Danny only has one class, leaving him plenty of time to get between WE and his next class at four in the afternoon. When he gets to WE he’s greeted on entry and guided to the elevator without needing to be invisible.

Once at the top floor he heads over to the desk and is greeted by the secretary. He spots her nameplate this time, Rosemary.

“Daniel, welcome back,” she greets.

“Just Danny, please. I’m here to set up a few meetings with Tim for the future.” He tells her approaching with a kind smile.

“Of course,” she agrees easily. “Mr. Drake-Wayne will be a few more minutes in his meeting.”

“Oh, no worries, I’m in no rush. How are you today?”

She looks almost pleasantly surprised he started a conversation. “I’m well, thank you. My girlfriend and I are celebrating our third anniversary later today so I’ve been looking forward to that all day,” she smiles.

“Congrats,” Danny tells her, “What are you guys planning on doing?”

“I’m not sure actually, she planned everything so she’ll pick me up after work and I’ll get to be pleasantly surprised.”

“Well I hope it goes well for you two.”

“Thank you, what about you? A partner? Partners?”

“No uh, no official partner,” Danny tries to laugh awkwardly. “It’s just me, my sister, and my dog at the apartment.”

“Oh a dog?” Rosemary smoothly moves past the awkward spot in Danny’s response. “What kind?”

“We think some kind of Rottweiler but we’ve never gotten a DNA test or anything. Do you have a dog?”

“Two beautiful Dobermans,” she pulls out her phone and holds up a picture of the two large dogs. “Cleopatra and Prometheus, do you have a picture of your dog?”

“Yeah,” Danny lies, “but my phone died on the way over here, sorry.”

“Another time,” she smiles. “Oh, Mr. Drake-Wayne,” Rosemary turns her attention to just behind Danny where he can feel Tim approaching. “Danny said he’d stopped by because you had to organize a—“ she glances at Danny for confirmation, and he nods, “couple of meeting times for the next few weeks.”

“Yes,” Tim agrees, motioning for Danny to follow. “We’ll be in my office, please only allow interruptions if it’s important.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tim holds the door open and Danny follows him inside. Tim turns to lock the door so Danny heads in a bit further toward the desk.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to wash it, I had an issue come up from work and it ended up taking over my night.”

Apologetic, embarrassed, sad.

“It’s all good,” Danny waves his hand to brush off Tim’s concern. “I can wash it later if I need to.” He takes the bag when Tim hands it over.

“Oh,” Tim says, moving over to a mini fridge. “I made too much last night and had leftovers, would you like them?”

He pulls a container out of the fridge and holds it out. Danny runs his tongue along his teeth, not having to make a full dinner for him and Elle tonight? “What is it?” He asks.

“Pasta,” Tim takes the lid off and Danny leans closer to see the contents of the container.

“Sure,” Danny agrees. “Looks good.” He takes the box from Tim and tucks it into the bag with the hoodie. “So what days should we do our swap?”
“Fridays and Mondays?”

Danny nods, “Should work for me, although, I can’t do this Friday I have a meeting for…” oh fuck what did he have to do on Friday that was normal for a university student? “Work.”

Tim’s emotions read that he can tell Danny is lying but he goes with it anyway, “ah, well that works for me too actually. I also have a work meeting on Friday and I’m not sure how long it’ll go.”

Danny nods, grateful Tim is going to accept the lie since it works for both of them. “So we can swap on Thursday then? I don’t mind giving it up a day earlier this week.”

Tim nods his agreement as he moves behind his desk to write down the dates for their meetups on a desk calendar.

“Should I come to the office every time for the swap?” Danny asks him, taking a seat in one of the chairs across from Tim.

“For now,” Tim decides after taking a moment to consider it. “If I’m not going to be in the office or I’m going to have meetings until set times I’ll text you.”

Danny ignores the joyful little flutter his core does. “Alright,” he says instead. “If anything comes up on my end I can send you a message or something.”

The conversation has been awkward and stilted the whole way through and Danny shuffles his feet awkwardly. When he brings his eyes back up from his feet he sees Tim with his gaze stuck on him, tracing along his collarbone and jawline as though trying to memorize his features.

“Take a picture,” he tells him, grinning.

“What— what?” Tim stutters, gaze snapping back up to Danny.

“Take a picture,” Danny repeats. “It’ll last longer.”

Tim flushes, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

Danny smiles, cute. “It’s alright, I don’t mind.”

Tim clears his throat, ears tinting red and emotions embarrassed, relieved. “Right. Well, I’ll uh… see you on Thursday?”

Danny nods, standing and grabbing the bag as he heads towards the door. “See you Thursday,” he agrees and shuts the door behind him.

【＝】

Danny’s week progresses with classes during the day, getting Elle to swimming lessons in the evening, and then going into the realms and meeting with his council to discuss the upcoming meeting with the JL.

Some of them wanted Danny to be accompanied by someone else but Danny insisted he’d be just fine on his own. He would be in space and was the ancient of space for fucks sake, he didn’t need a babysitter.

On Thursday he finished his morning class and started the trek that was starting to become familiar over to WE. Not enough sleep and he’d forgotten to make a lunch in the morning so he’d have to grab the hoodie and go. No time to talk to Tim beyond much more than a quick thank you.

Once he gets upstairs he jogs over to Rosemary, “Hey Rosemary, sorry to rush but I’ve gotta make this a quick meeting today, forgot to pack something to eat before class.”

“No worries,” she smiles. “You have excellent timing, his last meeting just finished, he’s in the first conference room down the hall to the left.”

Danny thanks her and walks over to the room, pushing open the door to find Tim shuffling some papers around and typing into his computer.

“Hey,” he greets stopping himself from using a nickname. “Sorry to make this quick but I’ve gotta get back sooner today.”

Tim looks up to him.

Surprise, happy.

Danny smiles at the way Tims emotions react.

“No worries,” He says though his emotions flicker on sad.

He stands as Danny comes around the table to hand him the bag with the hoodie and the empty and cleaned Tupperware container from the leftovers.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” Danny tells him, setting his hand gently on Tim’s lower back as he shuffles past him to reach the door.

Danny waves goodbye to Rosemary and enters the elevator for some semblance of normal before going intangible and invisible and floating out of WE before joining the crowd headed for the subway.

【＝】

On Friday, Danny wakes up pre-exhausted. He has class until 10 today, leaving him some time to eat something before he makes the trip to the JL watchtower, drifting somewhere around Earth.

He drifts in and out of sleep throughout his morning classes and almost leaves a spoon in the microwave before he finally manages to eat something.

He’s not exactly nervous about the meeting, but he’s definitely not looking forward to being in a meeting with this worlds largest group of heroes who hadn’t so much as blinked in his direction when he was freshly half dead and learning to be a hero at 14.

He knows logically that some sort of interference from the ghostly activity is likely why no alarms were raised, why none of the world ending disasters had drawn their attention. It still stung though. Four years of childish bitterness welling up to frustrate him.

Danny portals right up to Earth’s atmosphere once he transforms into his royal regalia, and starts to circle around, searching for the watchtower. It doesn’t take long to find it.

He finds the familiar uncomfortable feeling of the Hellblazer’s soul and drifts right in through the wall to where he is, surrounded by a few other souls.

“Constantine,” he greets, taking in the others in the room. “Deadman, Lady Zatanna.”

The Hellblazer is leaning against a wall, clutching at his trench coat over where his heart is. “Fuck,”

“Your majesty,” Lady Zatanna gives a light bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.”

“And you as well, I’m sorry you weren’t able to come to the original meeting.”

“Yes, I apologize for my absence.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Danny tells her.

“Shall we get going?” She offers. “Nearly everyone is here now.”

Danny nods and follows the trio down to a meeting room where a small gathering of mostly the original JL.

They stand to greet him with a range of respectful greetings. It’s an effort not to stare too long at some of the heroes he’d spent days pouring over videos of their fights in an attempt to learn something. I mean— that’s freaking Wonder Woman.

He turns his head sharply to Martian Manhunter as he feels his head fuzz oddly. “Stay out of my head and we won’t have any problems.” He growls. The martian starts in surprise.

“Of course, my apologies your majesty.”

Danny is directed to the seat at the end of the table across from the projection screen. Deadman, Zatanna and Constantine leave the room to get a few more things sorted out and Danny holds stilted small talk with a few of the League members as a few more people enter and take presumably assigned seats.

It’s when he faintly hears the buzz of another portal he’s expecting it to just be Batman, who’s soul he knows semi-familiarly just through living in Gotham.

It’s not and— he knows that soul— Red Robin follows Batman and Nightwing in and Danny’s brain bluescreens.

It’s not until Wonder Woman turns off the music that he realizes he’s started playing Last Friday Night loudly on the computer.

“Apologies,” he tells them, lying smoothly. “Ghosts and technology don’t always get along well. It might happen a few more times throughout the meeting.”

Constantine, Zatanna and Deadman re-enter the room and the remainder standing take their seats.

“I think,” Batman starts them off. “That we should start with introductions.”

“Of course,” Danny agrees, “I am King Phantom of the Infinite Realms, Ancient of Space and apprentice to the Master of Time.”

Ancients he’d practiced reciting his titles way too many times.

They go around the room with introductions before Batman clears his throat and begins presenting a prepared presentation for an alliance between dimensions.

Danny tries to listen, he really does, but his eyes are back on Red Robin, on Tim. He’d moved on surprisingly quickly from Tim Drake-Wayne is a crime-fighting vigilante to Tim Drake-Wayne the guy I had a one night stand with looks great in that suit.

“I see I’ve lost your attention Your Majesty,” Batman interrupts Danny’s train of thought and he snaps his gaze back to Batman, accidentally blue screening the monitor again with Last Friday Night blaring through the speakers again. Batman pauses the video and closes YouTube.

“Sorry,” Danny apologizes. “If I’m honest, I don’t really need to be convinced to form an alliance with this universe. This is— was, my home universe before I uh, died. So I’m a little bit biased, but this universe already has some issues that I can resolve on my end, but there’s some that would need to be fixed on your end. A partnership would make that much easier for me.”

Excellent half truth Danny. Look at you go.

Faint, very faint tapping echoes between Red Robin and Nightwing. Morse code he doesn’t understand and shouldn’t be able to hear without advanced hearing.

Batman and Superman move to discuss what they might be able to trade, if anything other than assistance and information. Danny nods along and offers a few opinions to what might be useful. The nearly silent conversation on one side of the table continues.

It doesn’t take long before Tim’s emotions change from confusion, curiosity to fuckfuckfuckfuck.

“What was it in this universe that you said you could take care of?” Batman asks and Danny turns his attention back to the hero.

“There are some contaminated pits of leftover ectoplasm that got stuck on Earth and is probably boiling and rotting and generally causing some pretty big problems. It’ll take a day or so to take care of each of them, but I can get those cleaned up for you. You uh, probably call them something else. They should look like a pit of bubbling acid green liquid.”

“Lazarus pits?” Nightwing asks, leaning forward, fully invested. “You can… you can just— fix them? In a day?”

“Ah, yes. Since inheriting the throne, there’s some new powers I’ve come into. I’ve been training them to make sure I don’t fuck anything up when I fix it. I was just going to do it without consulting anyone on this side, but since we’re organizing this I figure it would be better to run it by you all. It sounds like they’ve given you problems in the past?” Danny turns his attention to Nightwing.

Tim, Batman and Nightwing share a glance. “You could say that,” Nightwing says, turning back to face Danny. “There’s a few larger pits that are run by an organization called the League of Assassins and their leader has been using them to keep himself alive for the past 600 years or so.”

Danny nods. “Yes, that would be something they could do. Bringing people back from the brink of death and killing the healthy.”

“You said there was something we could do for you in exchange?” Superman asks.

Danny takes a deep breath. These people could demolish the Anti-Ecto acts. He could bring his people safety on this Earth in one fell swoop. After so long burdened by fear of dissection or vivisection— and nearly dying fully from it— he’d be able to live anywhere, go wherever he wanted without fearing using his powers in avoidance of sensors.

“Yes.” He says. “There are… acts, called the Anti-Ecto acts. They state that anyone containing or exposed to ectoplasm can be captured and experimented on and tested and it would all be completely legal. My people as well as people who have lived or been around high concentrations of ectoplasm— the stuff that ghosts thrive off of— are considered illegal to the US government.”

There’s a heavy silence for a long period of time.

“Deadman?” Zatanna asks.

The shade nods, “That is why I have not participated in many operations in America.”

“It’s nearly a direct violation of the meta rights act,” Wonder Woman points out. “And none of us were aware these were passed, or existed for that matter.”

“It’s possible they were passed during Lex Luthor’s brief time as president,” Green Arrow speaks up and Danny tries not to freak out that Wonder Woman and Green Arrow are defending his people. “It would explain why they were passed despite the meta rights act and why we might have missed them entirely.”

Wonder Woman nods, “I agree, I’ll schedule a meeting with the President and address it with him. We’ll work on getting them abolished and adjust the meta rights act to include ecto-entities Your Majesty.”
Danny breathes a sigh of relief. “And I will get those pits cleaned up as soon as possible. If you have a list of locations that would be incredibly helpful. We should be able to find them all without a list, but it’ll take longer to pin down exact locations.”

“I have a list as well as information on who or what might be gathered around them, is there somewhere I can send it to you, or print it off?” Batman asks, typing away on the monitor as he likely searches for those lists.

“Printing it off will work, I have a contact who can digitize them for use in the Infinite Realms.”

Tucker would probably kill Danny for not setting up a contact between him and Batman.

“It’s an extensive list so it’ll take a few minutes to print.” Batman says. “Nightwing and Red Robin, you can give King Phantom a tour of the Watchtower.”

“I’m receiving a ping from Oracle,” Nightwing starts before Batman has fully finished. “If it’s no trouble to Your Majesty, I’d like to see if Oracle needs assistance in Gotham.”

Danny takes in the look Red Robin— Tim gives Nightwing and the look in Nightwing’s eye and almost laughs. “Of course, I’m sure Red Robin knows the Watchtower just as well on his own as with Nightwing.”

Danny can feel the fear, hesitation from Batman but he can’t exactly do anything about it so Danny stands, following Tim out of the meeting room.

There are so many emotions swirling around Tim that Danny doesn’t even bother trying to interpret all of them.

They make it into a large open space with floor to ceiling windows out into Danny’s domain before Danny can’t take it anymore.

“So, that explains most of your scars,” he grins at him.

“You’re a fucking King.” Tim hisses, turning to face him.

“I’m also a university student suffering through second year?” Danny offers sheepishly.

Tim rubs a hand through his hair. “I fucked the Ghost King,” he says breathlessly, almost laughing in disbelief, shock, amusement.

“Yeah, but did you like it?” Danny asks, leaning down to get in his face, grinning wildly.

“Oh, fuck off,” Tim shoves his face away and Danny laughs.

“Well,” Danny tells him after catching his breath and getting an amazing idea. “Would you go on a date with me, Tim Drake?” He asks him quietly, cautious of secret identities, unsure if anyone on the space station knows his identity behind the mask.

A smile grows on Tim’s face and he gives his acceptance as he laughs a bit.

Danny loves feeling the amazement, amusement, love, love, love that echoes off Tim in waves.