DP x DC Writing Prompt #5
Damian does not glance back at Bruce when he knocks on the door. Instead they both wait in silence.
After a moment, the door opens.
"Hello," Jasmine, Jazz, Fenton greets politely, unsurprised to find the Waynes on her doorstep. Damian's expression grows ever darker at this revelation.
"Hello Ms. Fenton, are your parents home?" Bruce asks, placing a firm hand on Damian's shoulder, to ground as much as to restrain. To his credit he does not shake it off.
"No, they're out of town for a conference," the eighteen year-old says, opening the door wider. "But I think you'd better come in."
Bruce would normally decline, but Ms. Fenton is a legal adult and he has already, even unknowingly, waited 16 years. Damian makes the choice for him, striding past the threshold.
"Please take a seat," Jazz says as she leads them to the living room. She ignores Damian's swinging head as he takes in the home. It is deceptively large, a 90s style house filled with modern furniture. The walls are bright, with purple and green accents that would normally feel garish but somehow work. The stairs leading to the second floor are lined with family photos that Bruce yearns to take a closer look at. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"
"No, that's alright, thank you," Bruce says, taking a seat on the long plush couch. A men's windbreaker lies haphazardly thrown across one of the arms. A closed container of Oreo cookies sit on the coffee table next to a physics textbook open to chapter 16, half covered in highlighter and filled with sticky notes. There's a child's painting framed next to the tv, a handprint made to look like a thanksgiving turkey in bright blue.
For the home of experimental scientists, it is cozy and well lived-in.
Damian repeatedly glances at the stairs through the doorway.
Bruce clears his throat. "We were hoping to--"
"I've texted--oh, I'm sorry," Jazz says, having spoken at the same time. Bruce gestures for her to go on.
"I've contacted Danny, he should be here soon. He was out with some friends." Jazz explains. As she hadn't pulled out a phone in their presence, Bruce can only deduce they have some sort of camera at their front door. This also explains Ms. Fenton's complete lack of surprise at their appearance.
"So you know who we are." Damian says, the first words he's spoken since they arrived at the house and the longest sentence he's spoken since they arrived in Amity Park.
"I do," Jazz says, calm in the face of Damian's clearly simmering anger. Bruce trusts him not to attack Ms. Fenton, but he still watches him carefully.
"He told you about me," Damian says. It is the same question, but it is also not.
"He did," Jazz says.
Damian swallows. "I see," he grits out.
Jazz's neutrality slips and her face softens in sympathy. "Damian," she starts hesitantly, but before she can say anything else the front door opens.
A moment later Bruce's son walks through the doorway, and Damian is on him.
This is what Bruce hoped to prevent, but despite his numerous checks of Damian's luggage his son has still managed to smuggle a small dagger, which he now produces and swings in a calculated arc at Daniel Fenton's jugular.
Danny dodges cleanly, and dodges every swipe thereafter in a manner that speaks to continued practice long after his time at the League. Damian is a perfect product of his training, but it is up against Danny his flaws come to light. He is just as good as he always was, but Danny is better.
In a matter of seconds Damian grows frustrated and sloppy in his attacks, completely atypical for him. Danny takes Damian out at the knees and pins him down with one arm, pressing his face into the carpet.
"Calm down," he orders. His voice is deeper than Damian's at sixteen to his twelve, the accent that still traces Damian's words completely gone from his speech. Damian growls and thrusts his head back into Danny's face, meeting it with a sharp thunk. He rolls up as Danny recoils, putting distance between them. Danny glares at him from several steps away, hand to his forehead. Damian tosses the dagger into his other hand as he charges, and to Bruce's surprise Danny does nothing more than turn his face to the side, allowing Damian to draw a sharp line down his cheek.
Damian stops dead in his tracks.
"Are you done?" Danny asks, blood beginning to pool at the seam of the cut.
Damian's expression is stricken, eyes stuck on the blood starting to drip down his brother's face.
"I said, are you done, Damian?" Danny asks. His voice is cold.
Damian hears him this time, and he flushes red. "I--you--"
Danny sighs. He looks at Jazz, whose expression is back to carefully controlled.
"Are you alright?" he asks her. She nods.
"You left me," Damian accuses, standing there holding his bloody dagger limply.
Danny turns back to him, raising an eyebrow.
"You left me," Damian repeats louder, rapidly blinking.
"Yes. I did." Danny provides no excuse nor any explanation. His stance is unyielding.
Damian's eyes bounce wildly, shifting to Jazz and Danny slides smoothly in front of her, protectively. He looks at Damian warily, not as if he is his brother, but as if he is a danger. Damian flinches.
Hope is the last to die, Bruce thinks, watching as that last bit of hope Damian had is extinguished, the knowledge working its way through every inch of his body like ice in his veins. His eyes darken. He turns and runs from the room, the front door slamming shut not a moment later.
Jazz stands up, pulling a few tissues from the box on the coffee table. She presses them to Danny's face, cupping his cheek until he holds it himself. "I'm going to go get the first aid kit," she says gently. It is a thinly veiled excuse to leave them alone, and Bruce is grateful for it as she heads for the stairs.
They both wait until her footsteps have faded, taking each other in. Bruce looks at his mother's eyes and the sharp turn of Talia's nose. Damian's everything, four years older.
"You shouldn't have come here," Danny says, throwing himself on the armchair Jazz has just vacated.
"You know who I am," Bruce says carefully.
Danny glares. "I've kept your secret. She nor my parents know."
"I know," Bruce says. "That's not what I meant. You know who I am. And who I pretend to be. So you know I am familiar with masks."
"And?" Danny asks, looking vaguely bored.
"And so I can recognize when someone is wearing one. Damian will too, once he's calmed down."
Danny's expression sharpens. "No, he won't. Because you are going to go to back to whatever bed and breakfast you're staying in, pack up, hop in your private jet and fly him back to Gotham immediately before the League realizes you've gone. If they haven't already," he mutters.
"This is about the League then," Bruce says. "Do you not believe I can protect you?"
"I don't need your protection," Danny snaps, and watches Bruce actively extrapolate with a dawning resignation. "So this is the World's Greatest Detective at work," he says, slumping bonelessly into his chair, the first teenager-y thing he's done.
"Damian's in danger from the League," Bruce says. Danny glares from his slump. It's almost cute. "And as long as the League doesn't know about you, he's safe."
"Draw your own conclusions," Danny says, baring his teeth. Damian often makes the same face. "As long as you leave."
"I can protect him. I can protect you both," Bruce says. "Let me help you."
Danny closes his eyes. He centers his breathing in an exercise someone has clearly walked him through in the past. Bruce would bet money on the adoptive sister waiting patiently upstairs.
"Mr. Wayne. You are not my father," he says. "My trust in you extends to the point that I left Damian in your care, but that is where it ends. And that was when it was sanctioned by the League. By coming here you have endangered those sanctions."
Bruce disregards the sting, doubling down on his analysis. Talia had left Damian with Bruce well after Danny had left the League. But Danny speaks as if the decision had been his.
Or perhaps, Bruce realizes, it is not that Danny decided upon it, but that Danny allowed it to continue.
Bruce takes a second to review what Oracle had gone over with him before they left for Amity. Daniel Fenton had by all accounts, since leaving the League, lived a fairly normal life. His adoptive parents were eccentric scientists dabbling in the occult but their findings that bordered pseudoscience circulated a very niche community of like-minded eccentrics. The bulk of their income came from alternative energy, a more viable source of study that they'd veered harder into in the past year or so, a government contract with the EPA currently in the works. This had in part funded a vacation to an all-inclusive resort the family had taken that past summer.
Danny received average grades in school, above average in science and mathematics, declining sharply in his freshman year and sophomore year before evening out around the second semester. He had gotten into fights repeatedly with one student in particular, suspended for two weeks following an incident that resulted in a the student receiving a black eye. Teachers reported him to be highly intelligent but distracted and removed. They had recommended he be evaluated for an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He had no social media. He had missed multiple picture days. The ones he had attended he was sneezing, or a blur of movement, even going so far as to fall off his stool, legs flailing. Bruce had drank up every last one as Barbara had waited patiently.
A normal life. A family vacation to Bermuda. Average grades.
His freshman year, distracted and removed. The same year Damian had arrived at Bruce's home. Masks upon masks.
"You have informants within the League," Bruce says. Danny, to his credit, has no discernible tell. But there is no other explanation. "What will you do, if they find out you are alive?"
"That is none of your concern," Danny says, but he might as well be saying whatever I have to.
He never stopped practicing, after all.
"If they go after Damian, it is my concern."
"And that is why you need to take Damian back to Gotham before they do." Danny says. "I will take care of it."
Damian had barely spoken since he had realized Danyal was alive. But Bruce had seen the reverence in his eyes as he looked at the file.
"الوريث الصحيح" he had murmured. The rightful heir.
"You are proposing going after the entirety of the League with no backup," Bruce says. "Even if you think they won't kill you, you won't win either."
"Maybe they will," Danny says lightly. "Kill me. That would also work."
Bruce inhales sharply. "Danny," he starts.
"Go home, Mr. Wayne," Danny says, pushing himself up with one hand. The other still clutches the wad of tissue to his cheek, partially soaked with blood. "Go take care of your son."
"I'll go," Bruce says, "I'll take him to the Watchtower. And then I'll come back."
"Mr. Wayne-"
"I should've come for you," Bruce interrupts. "Sixteen years ago. I should've come for you."
Danny's brow furrows. "You had no idea I existed."
"But if I had. I would've come. I never would've left you there. And now that I know, I am not leaving you now."
For the first time Bruce watches Danny be completely caught off guard. He openly gapes at Bruce.
"You would've died," Danny lands on, voice thin. "They would've killed you."
"Unlike you, I would've brought backup." Bruce says, mimicking Danny's lightness.
He's lying. Sixteen years ago he would've thrown himself at the League to save his newborn son without a plan, without a thought beyond rescuing his baby.
Danny barks out a laugh. "You would've laid siege to Nanda Parbat with The Big Blue Boy Scout?" he looks wistful. "That would've been rad."
Bruce sees his opening. "Danny," he stands, eye to eye with his son. "Let me help you."
Danny evaluates him. "The Batman," he says softly. "I didn't want you to come, then. I didn't need one more person I had to prove myself to. All I wanted was to live amongst the stars, in the quiet of the cosmos."
"You want to be an astronaut," Bruce says. At Danny's cocked head, he says without shame, "I read your essay on personal heroes. You wrote about Edward White. Ad Astra Per Aspera."
Danny smiles slightly, sadly. "It is a rough road."
"You can be whatever you want to be," Bruce says. "I won't stand in your way."
"Even if I want to be Danny Fenton?" he asks.
"Even then."
Danny sighs. "I don't need your help Bruce," he says. "No," he says as Bruce opens his mouth. He pulls the wad of tissues away from his cheek. Underneath the splotches of dried blood the gash in his face has cleanly knit itself together, a faint white line now all that remains.
"I don't need your help," he says clearly. He holds a palm forward, and a green fire grows from its center, until the flames are licking delicately up his fingers.
"I know The Batman does not kill. But I am not a Robin. I am something else entirely," Danny says, his eyes reflecting the green of the flames. Or not, as he looks up at Bruce, his eyes green all on their own. They are sad. This is why he stayed away, Bruce realizes. Not out of fear. Danny is not afraid. Danny is tired.
But for his brother, Danny will wake up.
"And If the League takes one step towards Damian, I will raze them to the ground."
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you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.
you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.
he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.
a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.
he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.
you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.
people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.
wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.
also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.
he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."
you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.
"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."
he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.
you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.
is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?
you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.
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