Chapter Text
Daniel Nightingale–previously Fenton–is not someone you would consider lucky. Smart, sure, but Luck was never very fond of him.
When he managed to get his GED a year before he was set to graduate high school, despite his kidnapping, that was due to his brain and desperation to do something. He may have been paralyzed, but he refuses to succumb to self-pity. When he managed to start at community college that same summer, it was so he could throw himself into something, get totally lost in his education, ignore the pitying looks from his peers and professors and therapists and doctors and sister. When he managed to secure an interview to intern at Wayne Enterprises, that was for him to do something with his life. His half-life. Whatever. To get that internship was a shock.
Danny stares up at the building he’s supposed to be working at, scowling at the front steps. Just ten steps that he can’t get up. Wayne Enterprises, so close to his dream internship but unable to get in the fucking building. There was no way in hell his wheelchair was making it up those steps.
“There’s an accessibility entrance if you need it,” comes a voice behind him. Danny turns his body, and oh joy its the CEO of the company he’s supposed to be working at. Fucking great.
“...Where?” Danny asks, reigning in his bad mood. Admittedly, he didn’t sleep well last night, so maybe he’s already treating this to an unfair amount of skepticism.
“It’s on the side of the building, close access to an elevator. C’mon, I’ll show you where it is,” Timothy Drake-Wayne responds, beckoning Danny to follow. And well, not like he has much choice.
Danny guides his wheelchair toward the alley Timothy is at the cusp of. Sure enough, there’s a ramp, not too steep by design, leading up to a side door with guard rails the whole way up. Overall, it’s…better than he was expecting. Not too deep in the alleyway either, so the risk of mugging is considerably lower.
“This door has security, they already know your face so you’ll be able to come and go as you please,” Timothy says, climbing the ramp and pressing the button to automatically open the door. “If you ever have problems with this button, let them know and we’ll have it fixed within the hour.”
Danny nods, wheeling past Timothy and into the building. Where Danny was expecting a cramped space with a security office carefully watching, he gets…kind of that. It’s not a storage closet like he was expecting, but a short hallway with another door and a security office overlooking the hall.
“Good morning Mr. Nightingale, good morning Tim” someone calls from within the office, sounding far too bubbly to be awake this early. Sure enough, there’s a pleasant looking woman in her mid-50s, built in a way that suggests she works out, but maintaining a warm smile.
“Good morning, Ms. Jones,” Timothy replies back.
“Please, just Danny is fine,” Danny adds on.
“Alright boys, you’re good to head in,” she replies, the door at the other end of the hallway giving a click as it automatically opens for the two men.
Tim takes the lead again, casually putting a hand into his suit pants pocket. Comparatively, Danny is woefully underdressed, wearing blue jeans and a black turtleneck. Perfectly unsuspecting for the chill of early Spring, and covering enough of his scarring.
“So, first things first,” Tim starts, leading them out the hallway and into the main greeting area of the first floor of the tower. It’s nice, tile flooring with armchairs and coffee tables scattered throughout. There’s even a mini-cafe. “We have to talk onboarding paperwork, accessibility, and what this internship will look like. I’ll take you to HR for the first one, I’m sitting in on the accessibility but, again that’s for HR to talk to you about. I’ll head the talk on that last one since we’re trying something new with our STEM internships. Sound good?” He turns and looks at Danny with a winning smile. Danny just nods quietly.
Tim nods back, pressing the elevator button. “If anything ever bothers you, HR is floor ten. There’s a directory in the elevators and on every floor, so don’t worry about memorizing where everything is.”
The elevators open with a shrill ding, and a few people step out, a few greeting Tim, others glancing at Danny. He’s used to the glances, but it still makes his hairs stand on end.
Tim and Danny get into the elevator with a few others. The elevator is rather large, and people are kind enough to leave the handrails open for Danny to grab onto. He takes the corner, but manually locks the wheels of his chair to keep his hands free. He digs into his side bag, checking to make sure his pens and notebooks are in place and pulling his phone out to see his sister’s text.
Jazz: Good luck on your internship today !! You’re gonna do great !!
Danny reacts to the message with a heart, tucking his phone back into his bag. The elevator keeps roughly the same amount of people as they go up, some people leaving while others get on. At floor ten, he and Tim get off, entering a space with a large front desk and chairs lining the walls, with hallways extending on either side of the desk.
Danny wheels his way out of the elevator, following Tim to the front desk to exchange a few words, then down the hallway to a large room with windows, several desk setups, and a woman in her mid-30s pulling papers out of random folders. She looks up as the men enter with a slight smile.
“You must be Daniel Nightingale,” she says, standing up to approach and shake his hand. “I’m Lizzy. Tim, go ahead and wait in the reception room, I’ll have Milo call you back once the sensitive paperwork is done.”
It takes forty-five minutes, but the onboarding bullshit is done. Tax forms, validation to work in the United States, verification of identity, blah blah blah.
Danny pulls out a bottle of ibuprofen and his nerve medication as Tim re-enters the room, dry swallowing two painkillers and his anticonvulsants to fight the encroaching headache and muscle twitches in his right hand. Just another fucking symptom of that stupid stupid kidnapping.
“Isn’t taking pills dry bad for you?” Tim asks as he enters.
“Can’t get much worse,” Danny deadpans, slipping his bottles back into his bag. “Besides, it’s a fun party trick,” he adds, shooting a smirk to the CEO.
He expects a pitied look, or silent admonishment like Lizzy is shooting him. He doesn’t expect Tim to snort, hiding a clear smile behind his hand.
“Mr. Drake-Wayne, that is inappropriate,” Lizzy frowns.
Danny waves it off. “No, no, it was meant to be funny. Seriously, you would not believe how many people don’t like my jokes. It’s nice to get a laugh for once.”
Lizzy keeps her frown, but doesn’t fight him on it. “Well, if you ever feel disrespected due to your disability, you know which floor we’re on. It goes against company policy to be harassing someone at all, and against the Americans with Disabilities Act to harass someone with accessibility needs.”
“Yes ma’am,” Danny responds with a lazy salute.
She hands him a familiar stack of paper, one he got when he started going to college. “These are your rights under the ADA, the back page is for us to sign and make a copy of.”
Danny flips to the back page, ignoring the muscle spasms to sign the paper, tearing it off and handing it to Lizzy.
“I’ll be right back with that copy,” she says as she leaves the room.
Once she’s gone, Tim pulls out a chair to sit. “I didn’t bother you by laughing, right?” He asked.
Danny shakes his head. “I make a lot of jokes about it, gets me a lot of pitying looks where there should be laughs. Trust me, your toes would be hurting if I was offended by anything.”
“Checks out. Can I verify some of your educational journey before we talk big business?” Tim asks, pulling out a high-end tablet from his computer bag. Fruitloop.
“Go for it.”
“Passed your GED at 17, graduated with Associate’s in Engineering from an online community college at 19, Bachelor’s in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering in just a few weeks.”
Danny nods, “yep, all true.”
Tim’s brow furrows as he taps something on the tablet. “Do you have a specific area you wish to focus on? I’ll admit, both mechanical and biomedical engineering are pretty broad focuses.”
Danny is pulling out one of his sketchbooks before Tim can even finish, flipping to a page of half-finished schematic sketches of a glove.
“I had an accident a few years ago that makes my right hand more prone to muscle spasms and any sensations feel weaker. Right now, I’m dabbling with the idea of a glove that can…I guess amplify sensation. Not too much, just enough that it feels normal. Like, if you were to put velvet to my hand right now, I could very distantly feel it, but to get details would either require my nerves to magically get better or a louder signal.” Danny rambles, showing pages of notes. “It’s a lot of work, I’m taking a class about the human nervous system right now to get a better grip on how I could do it. Decided on amplification because, while I could just send the signals up to the nerves in my arm, it would be easier and more compact to just make the signals louder.”
Tim blows out a breath, skimming pages of notes that mean absolutely nothing to him. “Goddamn, this is impressive.”
Danny flushes under the praise, smiling as he closes his notebook. “It’s been a passion project for a few months now.”
Tim nods approvingly, typing on his tablet. “I like it, seriously. Might be moving my plans around regarding your internship.”
Danny tilts his head, duly noting Lizzy walking back into the room. “Meaning?”
“Well, the plan was to have you watch various engineers through the process of designing and researching and building over the span of several weeks. I think you could probably skip the designing, might put you in the research just so you don’t have to take a class to invent in the future. Are you any good at the physical aspect of engineering?” Tim asks.
Danny nods, “my parents have built a lot of stuff, I’ve been taking their machinery apart and rebuilding it since I was 14. Improved their designs a few times.”
Tim types on his tablet, absently responding. “Wonderful, that’s great. What do your parents do?”
Fuck, I totally brought that upon myself.
“Rot in prison, I’d prefer not to talk about their work.” He replies with a tight smile.
Nailed it.
Danny only feels a little bad when Tim’s face screws up apologetically. “I’m sorry, that must be difficult.”
Danny shrugs, tracing his left thumb over the scar encircling his right wrist. “It’s whatever, their lunacy helped me get into engineering.”
Tim nods, face falling back into that easy mask of a smile. “I can understand that. C’mon, let’s go meet some of your mentors for the next few weeks. You’ll be taking classes on lab safety tomorrow, and we have to put protocols in place for if you have a medical emergency while working.”
Danny slips his ADA paperwork and signed copy of the agreement into his bag, tossing a wave to Lizzy as he wheels out of the room.
Danny drags himself into his bed, abandoning his wheelchair for his beloved bed, faceplanting into the pillow.
It wasn’t a bad first day. It was just overwhelming. Endless paperwork, so many introductions, having to be social.
Eugh.
The beginning of the Ghostbusters theme song starts playing from his phone. He lets out a long sigh before reaching to his bag, still on his wheelchair, and pulling out the phone to answer.
“Whad’you want?” He asks, rubbing his hand down his face.
“Hey! Sam and I figured we’d pick up some Vietnamese on the way home, you want anything?” Oh good, it’s Tucker. If he answered Sam like that, he’d be dead on the spot. More dead. At least 75% dead.
“If you get me a pork bánh mì sandwich, I’ll marry both of you,” he says, flopping back onto his face.
“That’s my man, you good?” Tucker asks, concern coloring his voice.
“So much paperwork,” Danny whines. “My wrist hurts, my brain hurts, my eyes hurt. Everything sucks.”
A snort sounds out over the phone, “Danny Nightingale, number one archnemesis is paperwork.”
“How was your first day?” Comes Sam’s voice, muffled with distance from the microphone.
“Pretty good, got a tour from Mr. CEO himself, he even laughed at my jokes,” Danny replied, sitting up to pull out his schematics. “Plus, he liked my design so much that he wants to push me into a lab by the end of this week.”
“Dude! That’s great!” Tuck exclaims across the line.
Danny hums in agreement, maneuvering himself to the nightstand where his laptop lies. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Hey, I have to study for an exam, I’ll see you guys when you get home.”