Archive of Our Own

Bruce likes to keep an eye on the elite of Gotham, especially after the Court of Owls fiasco showed they couldn't be trusted, more than previously thought. So when an out of town billionaire shows up and they can't clearly trace where the wealth came from? Red flags immediately. 

Those flags just get more noticeable when Tim finds records of high grade medical supplies being sent to Vlad Master's Manor, which leads to the discovery of medical records for a 17 year old godson Vlad has custody of. Danial Fenton (later changed to Danial Nightingale by Vlad, Danny refused the Masters last name) was placed under Vlad's care after his parents were found to be unfit and their experiments caused severe health issues in their son, hospitalization at 14 for electrocution and later a few days before he turned 17 for a sudden drop in health due to an experiment malfunction sent him into a 2 week long coma. Vlad was given custody during that time and stepped down from being the Mayor of Danny's hometown to move to Gotham. 

They can't do much with just a few red flags, but it doesn't take much for Bruce to find reasons to hold more Galas and events to observe Vlad in person and meet his godson. The first thought when the Batfam meets Danny, is they are all worried if he should even be at the gala with how sick he looks. He is pale, shaky, has an oxygen mask, and Vlad doesn't let him leave his sight the whole night. Vlad is also a little sickly looking, but he waves it off as not being used to the Gotham air yet. (Normally a weak excuse anywhere other than Gotham, but the number of gas based attacks and endless smog does take newcomers a few days to a week to adjust to.)

Their second thought is how familiar he looks, but none of them can place from where . He isn't a Gotham native, no real social media presence, and while his parents are scientists none of them have even heard of their area of study before for it to be from that. The most they can find is that the parents passed through Gotham sometime 16-17 years ago but the records were lost in a rogue attack.

The story Vlad tells about Danny and himself is a 'tragic' tale of his best friends putting their life's work over their children and it actively harming them. The other child, an adult daughter, was unable to take in her brother so it fell to Vlad to take his 'poor little Badger' into his home and cut off a 20+ year friendship. 

Tim is fact checking all this over coms and finds it to be true, if a little embellished, and Vlad keeps his own involvement denying the older sister custody out of it. Bruce takes one look at the glassy eyed teen leaning against Vlad to stay upright and hates that it seems all legal. Danny's little twitches when Vlad moves, flinching at his touch, and immediately standing up straighter when he is aware enough to notice the leaning all leave a bad taste that Bruce doesn't like. 

And things do not get better from there. 

While Vlad seems to adjust to Gotham, Danny's health seems to drop every time he is seen in paparazzi sightings around the city or at a gala. The few times Danny has gotten away from Vlad at a gala and they can get close to meet him, it's because he has to sit down or risk passing out. They spend most of that time making sure he is okay so they don't get a lot of information from him before Vlad notices and leaves the gala with him. 

The little they do learn is: 

• Danny seems to have a distrust of 'fruit loop' billionaires and the wealthy in general. He doesn't elaborate on outside some dazed mutterings of 'Vampire themed secret lairs and collection of weird things that make no sense to anyone but them'. 
• Danny will sometimes squint up at Bruce and say his father's name in confusion (and sometimes fear) before Vlad immediately shows up to take him home when this happens.  
• Danny loves space. Tim once tried to use a new LexCorp satellite as small talk and was given the most energy Danny has ever shown to get a 20-30 minute lecture about how it 'was garbage even amongst space junk' before Danny seems to fall asleep mid rant. This was one of the few times Vlad seems to show genuine care when he shows up to carry Danny home. 

Dick has the weirdest reaction to seeing him for the first time next to Jason. They were on separate missions when this all started and first met Danny at a gala together. Jason just gave Danny weird looks all night and rubbed at his chest like it was hurting near Danny, so they never actually met yet. (Alfred checked and he was fine.) Dick , however, freezes and goes pale like he's seeing a ghost before he shakes it off and goes back to his 'gala persona' before anyone outside the Batfam notices. They ask him about it later in the cave, but Dick dodges the questions and says Danny just looks like someone he knew and it surprised him was all. Jason gets him alone later to call him out on his bullshit and Dick admits he has some suspicions about Danny but doesn't want to say them yet without more proof.  

They get the chance at the next corporate gala between WayneTech, LexCorp, DalvCo, ect. in Metropolis. Vlad cannot miss this gala but Danny is the worst they've seen and last seen in a wheelchair, the event center is Metropolis isn't great for disabled guests and the rogues there would not be as nice to Danny. (Gotham goons take one look at Danny at galas and just leave him with a Wayne kid when their boss crashes the event. He's not gonna be carrying any money and they're not gonna take his medical stuff. If Batman doesn't send them to the hospital for it, Red Hood will put them in a grave instead.)

Nightwing and Red Hood head to Master's Manor after Vlad is spotted at the gala and Bruce distracts him, Damian is with him to steal Vlad's phone in case they set off the home security and it sends out an alert. The inside of the manor is pretty 'old rich guy' standard, there is a lot of Packers memorabilia but pretty normal so far. There isn't a lot to show Danny even lives there outside the occasional medical equipment in each room in case he needs it, they don't even realize when they find his room because it's as impersonal as a guest room. There are no posters, no figurines or books about things Danny likes, there isn't even a bag or jacket out in the room. Even Alfred lets some of their clothes sit out if it's hung on the back of their desk chairs or a wall hook.  

The lack of the teen in question is also noted. They search the whole house and don't find Danny. 

Tim checks the cameras around the Manor and only Vlad is seen leaving, the last time Danny was seen on camera was passing a window in his wheelchair as Vlad pushes him towards the empty library. Duke makes a joke about old rich people and their hidden rooms behind bookshelves, mocking Bruce a little but also suggesting they check. Jason thinks that would be stupid but sarcastically grabs a book to check anyways, he gets annoyed when it's the correct book and a wall opens up. 

After Dick gets Jason to focus instead of rant about it, they head down the hidden stairs of what is clearly a new addition to the manor. The walls are sleek metal and have weird green accent lights that make Jason's chest hurt like being near Danny does. The stairs end at a simple looking door that shocks Jason when he touches it but Dick is perfectly fine and the door opens, it wasn't even locked and the Batfam wonders what is keeping Danny down there if he is. 

The room has a green glow and Jason's chest pain gets worse as he gets further in and they find Danny. He is lying in a sealed tub of what looks like Lazarus water, a mask giving him oxygen mixed with a sedative and a strange device around his chest that occasionally blinks red and the machines around the tub change things until it turns off again. Not a single person there or on coms can say what any of it does, but they all agree that Danny isn't safe there but can they even take him? They have no records of what is wrong with Danny as Vlad uses a private medical doctor and neither Tim or Barbara can hack into his servers to look.   

Dick is weirdly insistent they take Danny and tries a USB Tim made for in person hacks on missions, it's supposed to just drag anything and everything it can to be sorted later. The USB hits a wall that Tim tries to get around as Jason and Dick look for physical files, the computer pings with an Egyptian pharaoh logo before the firewall seems to drop and they get the files. Tim says he found a hidden backdoor someone called 'KingTuck' made and used that. 

They can't take Danny, to everyone's displeasure, but they can leave things in place so they can get back inside the Manor later for when they can. Jason works to get samples of the Lazarus waters and doesn't notice Dick had found some of Danny's blood vials and took one. While the others are checking the files and samples in the cave, Dick has a DNA test to run against the family DNA they keep on file in case of a clone.

The others might not remember what Jason used to look like in the beginning, but Dick does and that kid literally haunted him after Jason died. He wants to know why Danny looks exactly like the dead kid Jason.

Notes: 

• Jason's malnourishment from being an orphan on the streets got healed by the pits, which is why he is the same size as Jack (And Dark Danny) now. (A larger and more violent person that looks like him is going to freak Danny out.)Danny was under constant stress from the ghost fights and forgetting to eat because it's hard to feel hungry for living food as a halfa, living with Vlad doesn't help anything either. Ectoplasm can keep both halfs going but living food is needed for the human half to grow and heal. 

• Jack and Maddie were in Gotham for 'ghost readings' when the twins were born, a rogue attack hit the hospital where a mix-up reported only one survived but they couldn't tell which one. The reality was a nurse passed Willis Todd the wrong baby in the chaos and his baby was lost in the attack. He assumed Sheila Haywood cheated after Jason grew up and didn't look like him, this did not help how Willis treated Jason before he was arrested.

• Dark Danny got his name, Dan, because Danny once found a baby named things next to his in storage that said Dante. He thought it was just his parents ordering the wrong name again, like how Jack calls him Dann-o instead of Danny sometimes, and it reminded him of the hell story his English class was reading. Dante's Inferno.
• Due to Vlad withholding clean ecto to purposely weaken Danny, and the ambient tainted ecto in Gotham he didn't fully account for, Danny's living body will begin to show over time what would have happened if he didn't become a halfa to survive the portal accident. 

1. 1. His left arm is completely nerve dead, he cannot move or feel it most of the time.
   2. His legs are really weak, often needing braces with a cane to get around or a wheelchair at his worst.
   3. His heart is weaker and has an irregular heartbeat.
   4. Danny's limbs will have a shake to them from his fried nerves and the electrical damage to his brain. His memory will also get worse the longer he isn't given good ecto.
   5. Overall, Danny is very tired, in chronic pain, and could actually die if Vlad doesn't make sure to give him fresh, clean ecto often enough. 

• The 2 week coma was because a new invention by the Dr.s Fenton cut off all the ecto at once and Danny's body couldn't handle being fully human again. Vlad took that invention, tweaked it, and is using it to keep Danny weak now. It was a chest harness they could fire at a ghost like a net but also use it to keep a ghost still for experiments without it getting in the way. It had an ecto disrupting circle right over where the ghost's core would be with a twist dial to decide how much ecto gets absorbed or not.    
• Jason finds the fact he could have been named 'Dante' fits him better after all the things he lived through as Robin and Red Hood. Dante means "steadfast or enduring" while Jason means "healer".