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Danny has a boyfriend. A wonderful boyfriend. He’s tall, athletic, has good morals and is a doting partner. Honestly Danny thinks he’s too good to be true; not everybody with a past as traumatic as his would grow up to be such a good person. Even if he was a cop, which was like the only bad thing about him… but not really.
Danny Nightingale and Dick Grayson live together in a small apartment in Bludhaven. Close enough to the city edge that Danny can commune to the Gotham observatory for his job as an astronomer and close enough to central Bludhaven that Dick can work for the Bludhaven police. They had a simple one-bedroom apartment in a rundown building and everything they owned was second hand, but it was perfect.
Perfect because it was theirs. No money from Vlad trying to worm his way into Danny’s life and no funds from Dick’s way too rich adoptive family. No, they made their own way, and it honestly makes him love Dick all the more.
Right now, it was a random Tuesday evening and Danny was secluded away in his little office in the basement of the observatory. He was going over some research papers to compare to some of the findings from a session with the telescope last week. It was slow going but fed his space obsession oh so sweetly.
He was happily reading away and annotating away when he heard the gas attack alarms sound. Honestly there were far too many alarms they had to have memorised to know what to do when each sounded, one of the downsides to working in Gotham.
Danny put his beat-up black gas mask on and started making his way up to the main floor to evacuate the building. He could already hear the screams of panicked patrons scrambling to get the hell out of there. Once he was up on the main floor he could even see some of his coworkers completely forgetting their training and bolting. At least everyone had their gas masks on.
Just as Danny was taking in the chaos, he heard the shouts of ‘the doors are locked’ ‘oh god no’ ‘we’re going to die’. Danny could taste the fear, distress, anxiety and straight up dread in the air. It was deliciously potent and tasted bitterly sweet on his senses. He inhaled deeply, even though his mask the fear was intoxicating to him.
“Welcome my lovely test subjects” came a delighted voice over the observatory speakers. Some people froze where they stood, some collapsed to the ground chests heaving and crying out and others started grabbing whatever they could to try and beat the doors down. Danny just stood there, trying to think of a plan.
He couldn’t do anything as Danny Nightingale the astronomer. But at the same time, he couldn’t go ghost without people freaking out that he was some new meta villain.
“The wonderful experiment you’ve all so graciously unwillingly volunteered for is the testing of my new fear gas formula.” Oh no, this was not going to go well for Danny.
Even with his mask he’d be dosed with it and who knows what would happen to him. He could go intangible and get out of here, but he couldn’t just abandon these people. He might be their only chance if something serious goes down.
“In two minutes, the observatory will begin to fill with gas. You can try and escape but soon you will succumb to the sweet, sweet sensation that is fear. Put on your little masks and let’s see what’s stronger, those little scraps of cloth and plastic or my genius” The voice who could only belong to Scarecrow cackled.
Danny could feel sweat bead at his forehead as he tossed up all the options and considered how the different scenarios could go. That’s when he heard it, the sniffling cry’s of a woman. He looked around and when he couldn’t find the source of the crying he sniffed the air, tasting the overpowering sadness from one source he followed it.
Danny found the woman, a young girl actually, roughly thirteen years old cowering behind one of the display counters. Her entire body was trembling as she cried and rocked herself back and forth in foetal position. She was mumbling to herself through her tears ‘not again’ over and over again. She didn’t have a gas mask either on her face or in her hands.
“Hey little miss, where’s your mask?” Danny asked in as gentle tone as he could. He lowered himself down to her level and looked her in the eye as best as he could through the lenses of his mask. She glanced up at him with wet eyes and quivering lips.
“I d-don’t have one. M-m-mine was stolen by some m-man. I don’t want to get drugged a-again.” She sobbed out lowering her head to her knees and pulling herself tighter in on herself.
“Do you know who it was?” Danny looked around trying to spot a man with a mask that’s to small. Danny could feel his cold blood starting to boil in rage at the thought of an adult taking advantage of a child’s inability to fight back and steal in a situation like this.
“n-no.” She put her head in her arms and continued to rock herself. Danny’s heart broke. He reached up and took his mask off. He would be fine, he doesn’t need to breath anyway and he can try and resist whatever fear fuelled feelings try and take over from the gas surrounding them.
“Here, you can have mine.” Her head shot up and she looked at him with eyes so wide he thought they might pop out of her head. “R-really?” She breathed out softly.
“Yeah, let’s get this secured. It’s a bit big for you but we’ll make it work.” She cried thanking him as Danny smiled softly and put it on her, fiddling with the straps to make it fit. “There you go little one.”
That’s when a purple gas started pouring in from the air vents above them. The chaos surrounding them increased tenfold as people became desperate to get out. They kept crashing into the doors with the full force of their body’s and throwing things at the windows.
Danny stopped breathing, allowing his lungs to still in his chest. He could taste the increase in sheer unadulterated terror from those around him as the gas continued to fall around them and fill the room.
The young girl held his hand tightly as she shook more than a leaf on a windy autumn day. Danny stoked her back with his free hand as his vision became blurry from the haze of purple smoke. The noise surrounding them reduced as people tried to desperately reduce their breathing.
That’s when Danny felt it. Even without breathing the gas surrounding them floated into his nostrils and invaded his senses. He could taste it on his tongue, not just the bittersweet fear being exuded from those around him, but the fake chemically tastes of the gas. It hit like an artificial sweetener that burned his tongue, Danny thought as he felt his body slowly lower to the ground.
Distantly he can hear the young girl calling out to him and more distantly he can hear the yelling of all the observatory patrons and workers increase as the masks proved useless. Danny felt the girls’ hands grabbing at him as she too fell to the ground next to him and started shrinking in on herself and shaking.
Danny could feel himself reaching out to pull her into himself, but it was like he was removed from his own body. He knew he was moving his limbs, but they felt gelatinous and heavy. His vision swirled with purple as the gas increased and completely filled the room.
Ancients he wished he had called in sick and stayed home in bed with Dick all day.
He began to see hallucinations. Hallucinations of his past horrors and began reliving them. But they changed and soon he saw Dick, his beautiful, beloved Dick, on the very same table that once bound him. It was Dick being cut open and screaming for it to stop. Danny knew distantly that this wasn’t real, but he felt the fear grip his core and squeeze like a vice.
Time blurred and Danny really wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he heard new voices that weren’t incoherent with chemically induced fear. The purple in his vision lessened and before he knew it, he felt hands grabbing at him pulling the girl from his grasp. He felt her cry and shudder as she went, and he reached out for her vaguely.
He hoped she was being pulled to safety. He hoped that he would see his beloved soon. He really needed to be held tight in those strong arms after the chaos of this day. His thought trailed off in a delirium.
Suddenly a flashlight is being shined in his eyes, he can feel fingers at his neck and can hear someone yell “no pulse or breathing over here! He’s somehow already in rigamortis!” oh, that was probably a paramedic. Danny should probably start breathing again.
So, he did. He took a Shakey breath and immediately regretted it. Whatever gas was still in the air hit him like a shovel to the face with his heightened senses. Danny rolled over on himself and began to laugh uncontrollably as his vision blurred at the edges.
That must have caught the attention of whatever vigilantes were still on the scene because before he knew it black spandex covered hands were on him. A voice was yelling at the presumably paramedics and Danny felt his body being lifted into well-toned muscled arms. His vision was still swimming as he continued to giggle and struggle to catch his breath, but he made out a black domino mask. So, one of the bat’s then.
Then they were moving, the rush of fresh air hit him taking the edge off the fear and chemical induced high he was on. Oh, he was high. That’s why he felt both light as a feather and like he was full of lead. Why his vision was swirling even without the purple haze in the light of what now appeared to be the gloomy Gotham sky.
He felt like he was pulled upwards and the sky looked like it was coming closer. He reached up to the sky while gasping from giggling. He felt cold cement under him and the same black spandex covered hands grabbing at him.
A voice was talking to him, trying to ask questions but Danny couldn’t make out the words. He could hear other voices behind the one next to him but they sounded so distant it was like little birds whistling.
Danny started trying to push the very muscly man holding him away. He only wanted one set of arms holding him this preciously.
“Hey, I, I, I have a b-boyfriend aaaand he’s super duper hot. So, go awaaaay muscle man.” Danny feebly pushed at the man and felt himself rolling over.
A voice broke through Danny’s haze as he felt himself falling into a well needed sleep now that he was away from the overstimulating emotions running rampant in the observatory.
“I think he’s high, his response is different fro-” and then Danny’s world fell into darkness as he uttered quietly “imma take a quick lil nap.”
When Danny finally felt his senses coming back to him, he found himself to be on a soft but stiff bed. He groaned as he brought his hand up to his forehead to rub the pounding headache away as he sat himself up.
Upon opening his eyes Danny noted that a sheet had fallen around him as though it had been pulled up to cover him from head to toe. He blinked blearily and looked around him. He appeared to be in some sort of boot leg medical facility.
He felt his heart start to pound and his core thrash to take over and compel him into going ghost. Where was he? All the equipment around him appeared more ‘medical save your life’ as opposed to ‘medical lets dissect the half dead teenager in a secret lab’.
Actually, on that note, looking closer it appeared that he wasn’t hooked up to any sort of observational machinery. He touched his face, no oxygen delivery devices. On inspection of his arms there were no cannulas or lines hooked up to him. His vitals are so naturally low if he didn’t force them up that if this were a hospital they’d have him hooked up to everything.
Wait, he felt his heart start beating not just increase in rate. Actually, he wasn’t breathing right now was he. He stretched out his limbs, and it felt like a layer of dried cement was covering him and cracking off his body as he stretched. Oh, he must have looked like he was dead, because he is but anyway.
Danny slowly removed the blanket that covered him and stood beside the bed. His joints popping as he did so. Ok, what to do now. Running away and home to his wonderful boyfriend sounds good, yeah, he’s gonna do that. So, Danny started making his way out, phasing through the door and walking down a short corridor.
He immediately ended up in a comically large cavern with stone walls completely surrounding him. There was lighting everywhere, what looked to be gym equipment, target ranges and so damn many weapons displays and technology. What really got his attention was the various Gotham vigilantes yelling back and forth Infront of overly large computer monitors displaying all sorts of chemical breakdowns.
“He’s dead, what do you want from me! You thought he was high and then he was just gone! I am going and I’m dealing with Scarecrow myself” Nightwing yelled at Batman and who Danny believed was Red Robin.
He turned on his heel and was facing Danny who just stood there frozen. He had never run into Nightwing before, only seen flashes of him back home in Bludhaven. But that voice had a familiar timbre to it, something that sounded like home. Nightwing and all the bats that looked to see why he stopped his storm out stood still.
Danny took a single step back looking to see if there was another option to get out of here that didn’t involve going ghost and just intangibly flying upwards until he saw sky. But then at a speed that would probably make the flashes jealous Nightwing had sprinted over to him and was hugging him tightly.
“I-I thought you were dead.” He started to cry into Danny’s shoulder. He pulled back to look Danny in the eyes and started touching his face. “You were dead. You had no pulse, you weren’t breathing, you’ve been dead for the last eighteen hours. You, you were in full rigamortis. Stiff as a board and cold as ice. How, how are you standing here?” Nightwing hurried out while pulling at Danny and looking him over.
Danny’s brain went blank. How to explain that he was not fully alive to start with.
“Um, Nightwing… he’s still not breathing.” Who Danny still thinks is Red Robin said pointing at him from where the other vigilantes were now standing closer to them.
Nightwing froze and he and Danny looked at each other, both frozen in place.
“He’s right,” Nightwing let go of Danny and took a step back “you’re not. And you’re still cold as…”
“As death. Yeah, I know. Sorry let me just get my organs working again.” Danny said as he hit himself in the chest. Come on organs get to working half decently.
“Well, that’s totally normal. You sure know how to pick em.” Said a girl in purple whose name escaped Danny, but he believed she was another bat.
Danny looked around at the small crowd before his eyes returned to Nightwing. He looked at him closely; his build, that hair colour, his posture and that voice. That lovely voice that sounds just like home.
“…Dick? Is that you?” Danny said taking a hesitant step forward.
The vigilantes all looked between each other. From what Danny could see of Nightwing’s face he appeared to be fighting an internal battle against himself.
“…Screw it, yeah it’s me Danny.” Dick said as he pulled his mask off. His blue eyes shining with tears.
Danny felt his own tears burn at his eyes and slowly begin to trickle down his cheeks, he leaped forward and wrapped his arms around Dick whose arms seemed to instinctually hug him back.
“Oh Dick, it was such an awful day and that horrible gas. and there was this poor girl who had her mask stolen and who does that to a kid? I hallucinated and saw myself being tortured again, but then it changed and it was you there in my place. And all I wanted was to be holding you and held by you, but I knew you weren’t there.” Danny rushed out as they held each other tighter.
“…Tortured again? What, what do you mean Danny? Why aren’t you dead anymore? Not that I’m upset but…” Dick sounded worn out and looked lost.
“it’s a long story time but I’m kinda half dead. It’s a lot and not important right now. What is important is that I’m here and you’re here. I’m ok Dick… I see you also have what I’m assuming will be a long story time.” Danny said pulling away and touching the spandex of Dicks costume.
“Ha, yeah. I guess we both got a lot of secrets huh.” Dick said while brushing Danny’s hair from his face. “Are you really ok? I was so scared when I saw you with no mask under that paramedic. I thought I lost you forever.”
“Yeah, I am very fine now that you’re here.”