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Gotham was usually a dry heat kind of miserable, but tonight it was damp. Danny Fenton (part-time hero, full-time exhausted college student, and unintentional interdimensional traveler) was currently sitting on a gargoyle that looked suspiciously like a very grumpy pug.
He was hungry. Not ‘I missed lunch’ hungry, but ‘my core is humming at a frequency that might shatter glass’ hungry. Being a half-ghost meant that he ran on ectoplasm, but being an entity of the Zone meant he could also metabolize strong emotions. Usually, he stuck to ambient vibes at hauntings, but Gotham? Gotham was a 24-hour buffet of dread.
Below him, a green mist began to roll through the alleyway. Danny’s ghost sense didn’t go off—this wasn’t a ghost—but his stomach did a little flip of anticipation. It smelled spicy.
“Citizens of Gotham!” a voice hissed through a megaphone. Scarecrow stepped out of the shadows, his tattered burlap mask looming over a group of cowering socialites. “Taste the true essence of your nightmares!”
With a hiss of pressurized gas, a massive cloud of fear toxin erupted.
Up on the ledge, Danny leaned forward. The scent was overwhelming. It wasn’t the slow-cooked fear of a haunted mansion; it was concentrated, synthesized, and strangely sweet.
“Oh, man,” Danny whispered, his eyes glowing a faint neon green. “Is that MSG?”
The Batmobile roared into the alley, tires screeching to a halt. Batman, Nightwing, and Red Robin leaped out, respirators already snapped into place. They were prepared for chaos. They were prepared for screaming victims clawing at their own skin.
They were not prepared for a teenager in a faded NASA hoodie to drop from the sky, landing right in the thickest part of the gas cloud, and start sniffing.
“Kid! Get out of there!” Nightwing yelled, his hand outstretched. “That’s a concentrated neurotoxin! You’ll be catatonic in seconds!”
Danny didn’t move. In fact, he looked like he was trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue. He stepped right up to one of Scarecrow’s canisters, which was chugging out a steady stream of gas, and hovered over it.
“Wait,” Danny mumbled, his voice muffled by the green cloud. “Hold on. This is incredible.”
“He’s already hallucinating,” Red Robin said, his voice grim. He checked his wrist computer. “The concentration in that localized area is enough to induce permanent psychosis in a Kryptonian. We need to–”
Danny suddenly grabbed the canister. With a sound like a vacuum cleaner hitting a rug, he took a deep, lung-expanding breath. The green mist didn’t just swirl around him; it was pulled into him.
The Bat-family froze. Even Scarecrow stopped his monologue.
Danny pulled back, his cheeks slightly flushed with a toxic green glow. He licked his lips and let out a long, satisfied sigh that ended in a small, glowing green burp.
“Holy shit,” Danny said, looking at the canister with a newfound respect. “This is basically the fast-food version of fear. It’s a chemically-enhanced, highly-processed, mass-produced product. It’s probably terrible for my long-term stability, but god, it tastes way better than the organic stuff.”
“You... you drank it?” Scarecrow stammered, his syringe-claws trembling. “That is my Phobia-X strain! It should be showing you your parents’ corpses! It should be making your blood feel like molten lead!”
Danny tilted his head. “I mean, I can feel the trauma flavoring, but it’s mostly just notes of sulfur and... is that cinnamon? It’s like a Spicy McFear Sandwich. I shouldn’t have another one, but I really want another one.”
Batman moved forward, his cap billowing. He didn’t know if this was a meta-human, a demon, or a very confused alien, but eating fear toxin was a tier-1 threat.
“Son,” Batman said, his voice a low growl. “You need medical attention. Your brain is currently being flooded with chemicals to shut down your frontal lobe.”
“Nah, I’m good,” Danny said, hovering a few inches off the ground without realizing it. The sugar rush was hitting. “I actually feel more focused than I have in weeks. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good deep seated dread in the suburbs? It’s all just anxiety about a math test flavored. This? This is vintage.”
“He’s floating,” Nightwing noted, his escrima sticks lowering “And his eyes are... pulsating?”
“I’m Danny, by the way,” the boy said, offering a hand to the man clad in blue. A small spark of green electricity jumped between them. “And tell the scarecrow guy thanks. It’s a bit oily, but for a knock-off emotion, the kick is top-tier.”
Danny looked at the remaining canisters. “Are you guys gonna use those? Or can I take them to go? I have a mid-term tomorrow and I really need the caffeine equivalent of primal terror to stay awake.”
Batman stared at the teenager who had just consumed enough toxin to drive an entire city block into a homicidal frenzy and was currently treating it like a venti latte.
“No,” Batman said flatly. “You are coming to the cave.”
“Is there more snacks there?” Danny asked, drifting higher. “Because if you have any existential dread or looming sense of inevitable doom, I’m totally down for tasting.”
Red Robin looked at his scanner, then at Danny, then back at his scanner. “We are so out of our depth.”