Chapter Text
It was 2 AM on a Saturday, Danny's only break.
Was he relaxing during his break? No, he was panicking on the phone with Jazz because Ellie had just reappeared after months of silence, looking far smaller than he remembered and missing a limb.
The only good news was that Ellie was sleeping and no longer destabilizing.
“Jazz, please,” Danny begged again.
“I have classes tomorrow!” As Danny paced, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror hanging on his fridge. His once-black hair was now dyed light brown, and his blue eyes had a hint of ectoplasmic green.
Danny spared a glance at Ellie’s small form, curled up on the couch.
He'd cleaned her up the best he could, toxic green slightly staining his t-shirt, which fit more like a dress on the halfa girl’s tiny frame. Ellie was sprawled out on the couch, her white hair tangled with ectoplasm. He'd wrapped her stump of a leg the best he could, having put his faith in a medical website he'd somehow found during his initial panic.
And as if his day couldn’t get any worse, sirens, warning of another Arkham breakout, ring through the city. Danny rests his forehead on the cool metal of his dented refrigerator.
“Fuck,”
Chapter 2: Life Used to be so Peaceful (Not)
Summary:
We look back a little later in Danny’s life before modern wrecking ball number two comes in
Notes:
Fic title is definitely a WIP, but oh well.
I took forever to write this cause I didn’t like what I originally wrote and apparently just had to rewrite the whole thing.
I want a factory reset cause my brain is not working with me
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Four Weeks Earlier
Danny flopped onto the dusty floor, not sweating, but breathing heavily. He had just finished moving boxes into his apartment by walking up the long stairwell because he didn’t trust the creaking and groaning elevator to hold up a cat.
His new apartment isn’t too bad. Ignoring the several blood stains or the bullet holes or the possible molding visible in the lobby. At least, it’s one of the only places his core didn’t freak out about and it didn’t have a rat infestation. The brownie points have to count for something, right?
Regardless, he's here now. In the last city, he'd ever expect himself to be in. Gotham City.
“This was a mistake, wasn't it?” Danny spoke to his empty apartment as if he was expecting one of the several shades that haunt the place to pop up and respond instead of doing… whatever they were doing.
The apartment had a simple layout, with leftover furniture from the last tenant, like a welcome rug, a dusty sofa that's stained with Ancients know what, and a bunch of baseball posters.
Maybe the cheap rent shouldn't be surprising, if his ghost sense isn't guiding him wrong, and it hasn't yet, he's pretty sure someone died in the bathroom.
Problems for Danny of the future, present Danny needs to call Jazz so she can stop blowing up his phone with notifications.
“I made it,” Danny spoke to the receiver.
“Good, and you didn't-”
“No, nobody followed me. Relax for five minutes, please.” Danny sighed, glancing up at the dusty couch. Theorizing how he can get it out without his ghost powers.
“I’m fine, Jazz. You don't have to keep checking on me like I'm some goldfish you're gonna find floating upside-down after school.” He rubbed his forehead.
“I know, I know.” A faint bell could be heard in the background, “I have to get back to work, I love you. Talk to you later, okay?” Jazz offered.
“Love you too, see you later,” Danny replied, hanging up.
Danny rose from his slump on the floor, dusting his clothes off.
“I need to vacuum this place…” His nose scrunched up at the amount of dust he managed to beat out of his shirt with a few lackluster attempts.
Notes:
I need something to read my stuff back to me bc I do not want to manually proofread this myself and I don’t. I’m pretty sure it shows