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forwhump · 3 months ago

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a/n; I’m sorry I keep posting 😭😭😭 remember when I hated it more than anything ?? now I can’t stop

I actually have a list of requests now (!!!!! 🥹 !!!!!!) & I swear I cross my heart I pinky promise if you asked me for something I WILL post for you !!! if you were kind enough to request smth from me I’ll actually write & post anything you want forever just not chronologically in any form at all, that’s all LOL

I found this first when I was perusing the wren folder so that’s why this one is up but NEXT TIME, next time it will be softer & there will be caretaking I promise

just a little bit of wren’s first night in the district first, that’s all <3 (spoilers : it’s horrible) @ doughnut this one’s for you 😚

tw/cw: kidnapping, captivity, rape, noncon, humiliation, psychological torture, sexual torture, misgendering, transphobia

sexual servant whumpee, creepy whumper

There are a glorious few moments, when Wren first opens his eyes, that he isn’t scared.

He’s in pain — the pain starts before consciousness does. But he isn’t scared. It’s a small mercy.

Instead, he wakes to that pain. Groggy, it’s hard to tell exactly what hurts, a sort of fog much the same as trying to wake from unconsciousness. As he wakes, as the fog of sleep clears, the pain settles and Wren couldn’t tell exactly what was hurting because everything hurts. He groans, and even his jaw hurts. He tries to groan, anyway, but the sound is muffled because he’s gagged, a strip of cloth pulled tight and knotted at the back of his head.

For a second, for a split second, Wren doesn’t really think about it. Still barely conscious, he barely considers the gag, and thinks, instead, of the knot at the back of his head. He can feel where it’s tangled in his hair, tugging at his scalp with each exhale. He’s face down, and as he blinks his eyes open, he doesn’t really notice the concrete, but the sheet of his hair.

Wren doesn’t wear his hair down. Wren hasn’t worn his hair down since he was a very small child, a child beauty pageant queen, and his mother would spend hours brushing and oiling and meticulously braiding it for him. He doesn’t think he’s had a haircut since only a few years after that. By the time he was old enough to decide for himself what to do with his hair, he was proud of it. He has great hair. But he also has really long hair, and it’s a pain in the ass. Really impractical, at times.

This is what Wren thinks about. He doesn’t wear his hair down. Why is his hair down? It’s pooling on the concrete around him, and why would he have —

The concrete?

Everything hurts.

Wren’s gagged.

That’s when he gets scared.

It’s the most scared he’s ever been in his life.

Wren’s been scared before. He would be lying through his teeth if he said he hadn’t. He’s never been scared like this. He’s never felt anything like this.

It’s an infection, a parasite that burrows deep into his chest, into his core, and it spreads through him quickly, churning through his bloodstream, just under his skin. He’s shivering, and he doesn’t notice, not right away, that it isn’t only because he’s scared. It’s only when he rolls onto his back that he realizes just how cold it is, so cold his breath clouds the air above him. His hands are tied behind his back, and he traps them against the ground beneath him as he rolls over. It’s why his arms, his wrists, his hands, his shoulders ache — his hands are tied so tightly at his back his fingertips are buzzing with static.

There’s only a single light in the ceiling above him, something fluorescent. Its glow is orange and its flicker, irregular, buzzing with shorted electricity. Something starts to burn low in Wren’s stomach, and the contrast to the cold in here and in his bloodstream is enough to make him gag.

The room is empty, except for him and that fluorescent bulb. It’s concrete on all sides, an empty concrete cell, and the only door is an iron slat carved out of one wall, the bolted, armed doors of a military hanger.

Wren can taste his heartbeat. His hair is down. What the fuck is —

And he can still barely keep his eyes open. Blinking slowly, he braces his hands behind himself and manages to push himself up from the floor, not far but far enough that he can lean heavily against the wall across from that door. His skirt is flouncy, red and white gingham layered with tulle, and it settles in a fan across his lap as he sits up. His eyes close on their own, too heavy to be —

They fly open again just as quickly. His skirt?

No, it’s —

No, he’s not wearing a skirt. It’s a dress, and only then just barely. It’s short, and it’s so tight around Wren’s waist that it hurts, and it hurts a little worse each time he breathes. It’s a child’s dress, and something about that makes Wren more uneasy than anything else. He tries to swallow, and it makes him sob.

He’s wearing cowboy boots. They aren’t his boots.

What the fuck is going on?

It’s so fucking cold.

Wren tries to stand, leaning his weight against the wall, but his legs are shaking too badly and they give out from under him. He falls hard. This time, it has nothing to do with the cold.

He tries to take a deep breath and it catches on something in his throat, something that makes him sob. He isn’t sure when he started crying, but his tears are cool on his face.

What the fuck is going on?

He isn’t so fortunate that he has to wonder for long. Huddled against the wall, shaking so hard he might be pulling himself apart at the seams, Wren cries. He tries to stand, to pull his hands free, to make any sense of his surroundings, and he can’t, and he cries. For a time, the only sounds are the hoarse, panicked hitching of his sobs and the constant, droning hum of the fluorescent bulb above him.

It starts with a chirp, with a weird, technical sort of beep. Wren doesn’t even get the illusion of relief, of somebody coming to his rescue — something is really, really wrong. What’s going on? There’s another beep, then a series of more beeps, and then a sound, through the door, like muffled thunder.

Wren’s heart beats at the back of his throat.

When the door opens, it opens slowly. A man fills the doorway, and he makes Wren’s blood run cold. He looks like something from a nightmare, something so horrible Wren can’t even really fathom him. He doesn’t look real. He can’t be. All black, a monster, the shadow of a monster, except for the cowboy hat, perched low on his head.

For a second, for a naive, blissful second, Wren doesn’t recognize him. He doesn’t recognize the dreadful black uniform or the macabre silhouette. He doesn’t remember how limp Robin had been.

Beneath his cowboy hat, he’s wearing a mask. It’s just as dreadful as the rest of his uniform, but when he pulls it down, it’s so much worse.

He knocks the wide brim of his hat up, out of the way, grinning down at Wren. Looking up at him, into his face, at his eyes, it’s like looking into the eyes of a violent animal. There’s nothing human in his eyes. Wren recognizes those eyes.

He lurches without meaning to, pressing himself a little harder into the wall.

There’s an intensity in the way he watches Wren that makes Wren’s stomach bubble, acidic. He grins a little wider, and something in the way it pulls at his face is grotesque. Unnatural. He doesn’t have a human smile, either. “Why, good mornin’, sugar,” he says, and he says it with an equally unnatural twang. Is he mocking him? The dress, and the hat, it’s — “I’ve been waitin’ on you.”

So, this —

This can’t really be happening, right? It isn’t. This is — what is this? What’s — who is this? What is he — gingham. This is — gingham. Why is Wren wearing gingham? What the fuck is happening? This can’t be happening.

The train of thought must show on his face and the soldier doesn’t try to hide how much he loves it. His grin stretches. The way he angles his head is predatory. Something in Wren’s chest gets very, very tight. “Why, shucks,” he mocks. “You’re awful pretty when you’re scared, girl.”

Heat spreads beneath Wren’s face and trickles down the back of his neck. When the soldier takes a step closer, he flinches back against the wall again. He doesn’t mean to. His hands are shaking at his back, trapped against concrete so cold his fingers are starting to numb with it.

There’s an even colder, unfiltered terror in the way his grin is fixed to his face, in the way he isn’t looking at Wren, not really, but at the hemline of the dress. Gingham. He stalks towards him like a predator, and he crouches down in front of him, too close.

He’s big. He’s massive, in fact. Wren’s never been a particularly big guy, but this guy would tower over even Robin, all six feet and three some odd inches of him. His shoulders are probably double the width of Wren’s own. When he crouches in front of Wren, he blocks the light with the bulk of him, and tears blur his silhouette.

When he speaks again, he speaks without twang, but with a smug, probably militant sort of confidence that makes Wren shiver, try as he might to help it, try as he might not to let this man see. “My men call me Point,” he says, and there’s something almost condescending in how he says it. “You will not. You will not speak unless you’re spoken to. If you must refer to me, you will refer to me as daddy. If you disobey, you’ll be punished, cowgirl, and I won’t take it easy on you. I don’t care how purty you are,” and he puts the accent back on. “Y’understand?”

Wren can’t breathe. His chest is too tight. The lump in his throat is too big. The soldier — Point? — looks like he’s expecting an answer, and Wren doesn’t have one. He can’t breathe. Against the wall, he shakes his head.

“No?” Point asks, sickly sweet.

For such a big guy, he’s fast. He grabs Wren by the face, so fast Wren can’t do anything to stop it. He cracks his head back against the wall behind him so hard that for a moment, Wren loses consciousness again.

It’s a glorious moment, but it’s only a moment. When he blinks his eyes open again, Point is leaning in, leaning too close, and the back of Wren’s head is wet. Warm.

“You will behave,” Point warns, and the accent is gone, replaced by something lethal, unamused. “You will do exactly as I tell you, cowgirl, or I will hurt you very, very badly.” Wren makes a soft, involuntary sound, and that grin flickers back to life on Point’s face, a thousand watts. “I took a big risk taking you out of there, girl. You were supposed to be put down. You owe your life to me, and I’m not about to let you get away without paying your debt.” He lifts the cowboy hat from his head, placing it on Wren’s. Wren shivers, trying to shake it off, and the soldier moves again, that same sort of movement, too quick for the human eye. He grabs Wren by the throat and pins him back against the wall. “Behave.” He thumbs slowly along the underside of Wren’s jaw as he holds him there, and the way Wren’s skin crawls almost aches. His fingertip catches on the gag. “Now I’m going to take this out,” he explains, “because I want to hear you beg. But if you wanna scream, cowgirl, you can go right ahead. Y’know why?”

Wren doesn’t want to know. He tries to sob, and it gets stuck beneath Point’s hand.

Point, who angles his head and whistles.

The door swings open again barely a full second later, and it’s still more than enough time for the fear to build, and build, and build, and burst into something that Wren shudders with, so hard his ribs rattles against each other. Another soldier fills the doorframe, another macabre silhouette. Another follows it, then another still, shadows that crowd the dim concrete cell, an army that filters into the room, blocking out the light.

Point grins at him. “Because the only men that will hear you,” he explains, for good measure, “are my men, and they want to hear you scream. The only men that will hear you are my men, and they’re just waiting for me to be done so they can have their turn with you. I’m not usually much for sharing,” he adds, finally sliding the cloth from Wren’s mouth, “but we’ve never been allowed a plaything down here. It would be cruel not to let them have my sloppy seconds.”

Cold seeps through Wren’s skin and forms crystal in his bloodstream, a cold that aches from the inside. “Please,” he blurts, and it’s weird the way the words come, not from his brain but from the festering, infected panic in his chest. “Please, don’t, don’t —”

But Point only grins, leaning in so close Wren can feel his breath. “I knew it,” he says, sickly sweet, laying the accent on thick. “You’re prettiest when you beg, cowgirl.”

“What?” Wren breathes, and he’s dizzy. He doesn’t think it has anything to do with hitting his head. “Please, I —”

He’s interrupted by a groan so low Wren can feel the rumble of it in his bones. His mouth tastes like bile and his own heartbeat. “That’s it,” Point coos softly. “There’s a good girl.”

Wren’s breath hitches, caught somewhere high in his chest. He doesn’t mean to, but he whimpers around it and Point makes another, lower sound, so low the hair on the back of Wren’s neck stands up. He leans away, only far enough to peel off one of his gloves with his teeth. Bared, he flexes his fingers, and something serpentine beats around the inside of Wren’s stomach. “Please,” he breathes, and one of the other men audibly snorts. Wren isn’t even sure why, but it makes him sob. His hands are curled into fists so tight the bones in knuckles are grinding together. “Please,” he whispers, and Point slides a hand beneath his skirt, warm against the inside of his thigh.

Wren reacts with his entire body. He jerks away so hard he knocks his own head, still bleeding, back into the wall. Point, for such a big guy, is fast, he’s too fast, and he has his other hand curled around Wren’s thigh before Wren sees him move. He makes this embarrassing, hiccuping sort of sound, trying to shake him off, to push him away, but Point, without sweat or struggle, pulls him away from the wall by his leg, onto his back on the concrete. As he pushes Wren’s thigh up towards his chest, he coos softly. “Good girl.”

Wren doesn’t even get the chance to plead again. Point leans in close, too close, cheek to Wren’s cheek, and forces three of his fingers inside him with a groan like a man dying.

Wren doesn’t scream. Wren doesn’t do anything, actually. He freezes, so tense he can feel the ache in every one of his bones. His mind blanks, a whiteness, a sort of emptiness he’s never experienced before. It’s like everything stops, all at once, narrows to Point’s fingers and the pain he pushes inside Wren and the rumble of his approval against his chest.

“Stop,” he hears himself say, from somewhere outside himself, from somewhere really far away. “Please.”

Point coos at him again. “Oh, cowgirl,” he says. “We’re just getting started.”

When he does ease out his fingers, it’s to push up his dress, the gingham and the tulle, shoving it up and around Wren’s waist. Panic surges and it tastes like bile. He doesn’t think, not really, not coherently, he only panics, and he tries to kick and Point catches him with a vice grip around his ankle. He hauls Wren closer and the concrete is so cold against his bare skin.

“No,” Wren says, and his voice isn’t his own, too breathless, too loud, too high. “No, please, please, don’t —”

Wren would dare say he’s a strong guy — he’s a lot stronger than he thinks he looks like he would be, at least. He’s no match for Point. Not at all.

And it’s strange, almost, or it would be, anyway, if Wren had the capacity to ponder the strangeness of it. He was already scared, a suffocating, delirious sort of scared, a kind of scared he didn’t think would be possible. And still, somehow, Point forces his thighs apart, and Wren can’t stop him, he can’t fight him, he can’t struggle, he can’t do anything Point doesn’t want him to do, helpless, and it’s like Wren hadn’t been scared at all. It’s like Wren, until that moment, didn’t know what it meant to be scared.

Something new rises, crests, and crushes him. He can’t breathe under its weight. He does scream, then, and he doesn’t recognize the sound of his own voice.

Point grins widely. He isn’t looking at Wren’s face. He holds his thighs apart and kneels between them.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. How is this happening?

“Please,” Wren gasps, this hitching, horrible thing, “please.”

Point shifts, pinning Wren to the ground with his weight. Whatever his uniform is made out of, it feels like gravel against his skin. He moves slowly, taunting, as he pulls his belt loose, as he pulls himself free from his pants.

Wren isn’t breathing, not even hyperventilating, just making these hitching, gasping sort of sounds he can’t control. There are so many men in here with him, crowding this concrete cell, and none of them help him. There are so many men in here with him and they all just watch him beg. There are so many men in here with him and Wren has never been so alone, not once in his life.

He wants his big brother. He wants his mom. He wants to go home.

“Please,” he cries, desperate, frantic, almost a wail, most of a scream. “Please, pleasepleasepleaseple—”

Wren, in the end, screams himself hoarse.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

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luxaofhesperides · 1 year ago

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those who serve.

CHAPTER SIX: a break.

read the previous chapter here or the entire fic on ao3.

this is 11.5k.... this fic will never end..... surprise i still have no idea how long this will be. tentatively setting the goal to end at 9 chapters total. taglist will be in a rb, ask to be added or removed!

Danny doesn’t sleep. He dozes lightly, enough for his thoughts to slow down without losing his awareness of the world around him, but he doesn’t sleep.

How can he?

He didn’t find a shady basement full of illegal things. No, he found an entire cave used as a home base for Gotham’s heroes.

It is a very nice cave. Not dark and wet and miserable at all, as he thought all caves were. It did have bats, though, but most stayed away from the main cavern. And it was big; multiple different levels, all full of different things. Part of him wants to go back to snoop around, but the larger, more wary and sensible part wants to run away and pretend this night never happened.

Danny stays in bed until the clock hits 7AM. Then he heaves a sigh and pulls himself out of bed, forgoing changing out of his pajamas in favor of walking through walls directly to the kitchen. He’s still reeling from what he’s discovered, torn between wanting to run away and wanting to learn more about them.

They’re heroes. Actual, legitimate heroes, and he works for them. When else is he going to get a chance like this?

But if they see him as a threat…

Well. It’s not like Danny has much. If he needs to, he can just walk out of the manor and never be seen again.

Although, it might be a little harder now that he has a legal identity and they can put out a missing person report on him.

The kitchen is dark and still when he arrives. Even Alfred isn’t up yet, it seems. Which makes sense; if he’s wrangling a bunch of heroes until three in the morning, he’d need to wake up later in the day to get enough sleep. Danny hopes it’s not a regular thing, staying up to help the rest of the Gotham heroes—who he still can’t believe are the Waynes—because that would mean Alfred had been forgoing sleep or running off of very little in order to have their dawn chats while Danny was living on the streets.

He should make breakfast for Alfred.

The rest of the Wayne family can fend for themselves. Though he doubts any of them will wake up until much, much later.

A large part of him still balks at rummaging through someone else’s kitchen without permission. Never mind that in order to do his job, he has to; his poor Midwestern heart demands he respect other people’s spaces. He has to push it down as hard as he can just to open the fridge and look through it, trying to think of what he can make.

Nothing too difficult. He can barely make pasta dishes on his own and he still tenses when the fridge opens, fully prepared to take down reanimated food.

There’s a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits. Milk and eggs, too. That’s… maybe something he can work with?

Danny pulls out a few fruits and sets them onto the counter next to the sink. It takes him a few seconds of indecision to decide on which knife to take from the knife block, then grabs the smallest one he can find, just to be safe.

It’s not like he needs a big one to peel and cut fruit.

He makes a mess trying to get everything plated, apple peels of all different sizes scattered on the counter and strawberries bleeding down his hands as he cuts them into halves after removing the leafy heads. They don’t come up exactly even, but it’s good enough that Danny decides he can serve them to Alfred without shame.

Cracking the eggs goes fine, after he’s done with the fruits. No pieces of shell fall into the greased frying pan and the yolk is intact until he accidentally hits it when trying to move the egg closer to the middle of the pan. Fuck it, he decides, frantically mixing it all together, scrambled eggs it is.

No one will know he messed up. No one.

He seasons the eggs lightly, then gets them on a separate plate.

Fruits and eggs doesn’t seem very filling, so Danny hunts through the refrigerator once more and comes out with a tub of vanilla yogurt. He scoops it out into a small bowl then tops it off with granola and honey.

Fruits, eggs, yogurt. That’s a breakfast, right? It’s the healthiest and fanciest breakfast he’s ever made. He certainly never got this back home, usually going for cereal or bread on the days he wasn’t running late to school.

Danny sets everything onto the kitchen table, ready to wait for Alfred to wake up. Then he realizes he hasn’t set out anything to drink and panics, tearing through the cabinets like hurricane, frantically searching for tea.

This house doesn’t use teabags, he realizes with despite when he comes up boxes up boxes of loose tea leaves.

Did people really drink it like this? How?

He brings down a box of English breakfast tea; it sounds perfect for Alfred, if only he knew how to brew it.

Despairing, Danny drops his head onto the counter and sighs heavily.

“That was quite the sigh,” a deep voice rumbles behind him. Danny jumps up to the ceiling, floating in the air as he tries to get away from Bruce, who has once again snuck up on him unnoticed. “Ah. Sorry for startling you,” Bruce offers.

It’s hard to believe this man is a vigilante who protects all of Gotham.

“It’s fine,” Danny replies weakly. “What are you doing up so early?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Well, I asked you first.”

“I supposed you did,” Bruce concedes with a small smile. “I just came up from the Batcave. I haven’t slept yet, and it’ll have to wait until I return to the manor after lunch.”

It’s even harder to believe that billionaire Bruce Wayne can call anything the Batcave with a straight face, yet here they are. This dimension is so bizarre.

“I just came up to grab something to drink,” Bruce says. He turns his attention to the fridge, looking through it before he pulls out a carton of apple juice and pours himself a cup.

Slowly, Danny floats back down to the ground, silently setting his feet down.

“Don’t tell the kids,” Bruce says as he takes a sip from his cup.

“Um. What?”

“That I’m drinking their juice. They each have their own juice that they are very protective of and they always get in fights over who else is drinking it, or ‘stealing it’ as they say.”

“And it’s you?”

“As I said. Don’t tell, Danny. Let me have my fun.”

“Sure, I guess.” He is amused by that, but the way Bruce is so casual and friendly with him despite having his secret identity be revealed makes Danny’s nerves stand on edge. It reminds him too much of Vlad, always acting friendly and nice to try and sway Danny over to his side, only to react violently when Danny refused.

“I’ll get out of your hair now,” Bruce says, putting his now empty cup down in the sink. “We’ll train later today. And we can talk about the family secret you’ve stumbled upon before you head to bed, alright?”

Not alright, not at all, but Danny did agree to training. Even if that was before he knew about Bruce being a vigilante. As much as he isn’t looking forward to it, he’s also not a quitter. He’ll worry about it more when the time comes. Surely that won’t end badly for him.

“Okay,” Danny says quietly. Bruce gives him a parting nod, then leaves the kitchen. Danny’s eyes follow him until he’s sure the man is gone, not yet ready to turn his back on him. As nice as Bruce has been, he’s also very dangerous. Now, Danny knows why but he’s been burned too many times to just believe someone when they claim to be a crime fighting hero.

Usually, he’s the crime they’re fighting, attacking him with prejudice when all he wanted was to protect people and ghosts from each other.

He doesn’t even want to think about how things would have turned out if he hadn’t met Alfred, if the Wayne family—not a mob family but clearly just as dangerous—went after him without that buffer. Would they have driven him out of Gotham? Made sure he couldn’t be safe in this dimension either?

If things ever go too badly, maybe he can track down Martin Manhunter and beg for help?

There’s nothing more he can do now but see how it all turns out and prepare for the worst. No one else is in the kitchen, and when he strains his hearing, it’s clear that there’s no one nearby. Deeming it safe enough, Danny dares to turn his back to the kitchen entrance and return to his tea making struggle.

Rummaging through drawers gets him a tea infuser he has no idea how to use. To think he used to complain about how long it took to make Jazz’s tea. At least she used tea bags like a normal person.

This is rich people nonsense. This is too much effort for tea. Alfred will just have to do with some water, unless he also enjoys stealing other people’s juice.

He’s just starting to put the tea away when a knock on the doorframe startles him. Danny looks behind him and relaxes when he sees it’s only Alfred, looking as put together as ever despite the early hour.

“Good morning, Alfred,” he says, “I made you breakfast! And I tried to make you tea but I don’t actually know how to make it when it’s not in a tea bag.”

“Good morning, Danny. Thank you, that’s very kind of you,” Alfred smiles. “Have you already eaten?”

“Oh. No, not feeling very hungry right now.”

“I would prefer if you ate something. Sit, I will make something light for you.”

“No, no need! I can just eat like. Yogurt or something.”

He really doesn’t think he can stomach anything when he’s still reeling over the fact that his employers have a giant underground cave for crime fighting and has no idea how to interact with them anymore. They seem fine with his powers so far, but what happens when they start to see him as dangerous? Or worse, interesting?

Interesting is what gets him captured and cut open and studied. Danny doesn’t think he can survive that, halfa or not.

“Very well,” Alfred says, but Danny can see the way he forces back a frown, the line of his shoulder drawn tight. Before he can start fixing Danny a bowl, Danny ushers him into his seat and works on quickly taking care of his own small breakfast, leaving his yogurt plain.

Alfred frowns at the amount he puts in his bowl, but doesn’t say anything. He waits until Danny sits across from him to thank him for the breakfast.

They eat in silence, the silence not quite as comforting as it had been in the past. Danny’s too on edge to let his guard down any more, despite how much he wants to trust Alfred. He needs to see with his own eyes that the Waynes mean him no harm, that he can trust them to be good and let him live quietly and safely.

When he can’t take the silence anymore, staring down at his empty bowl, Danny says, “Superheroes, huh.”

“I would be more than happy to answer any questions you have.”

There’s so much Danny wants to ask that it all crashes together into a tangled mess in his head. Instead of important questions like how often is the city in danger to need so many heroes or aren’t you afraid they’ll all die and you won’t be able to do anything about it, what comes out is, “When they asked who my favorite hero was at dinner, were they just looking for an ego boost?”

Alfred laughs, the lines in his brow smoothing out some. “Oh, yes. They are a rather vain lot when it comes to their night identities.”

It eases the tension in the air, makes it easier for Danny to relax enough to focus on the conversation and keep his mouth from running ahead of his mind. “So, I know Dick is Nightwing. Who’s everyone else?”

“They would be very excited to tell you themselves, but they’re also not going to wake up for many hours yet. I will tell you the basics, but I encourage you to ask them about this,” Alfred says. “Master Bruce is Batman. He is the very first vigilante in Gotham. He is among the first generation of heroes and a founder of the Justice League. Master Richard is Nightwing, as you’ve said, and he leads the Titans in New York when he is not here. Master Tim is Red Robin and often works with many other heroes and groups, such as the Teen Titans. Master Damian is the current Robin and Master Duke is the newest of us, operating in the day as the Signal.”

“That’s a lot.”

“There are more. Mistress Cassandra is Black Bat. She has recently returned from Hong Kong. Miss Barbara Gordon is Oracle, who is the leader of the Birds of Prey and works digitally. There are many others who operate within Gotham or visit the manor, and I’m sure you’ll meet them in due time.”

“Great,” Danny offers weakly. So many heroes, just in Gotham. He’s seen firsthand how bad it can be, all the crime and dangerous villain plots, but it’s also concerning to know that this world has such a need for all these heroes. He was enough in his old dimension, as Phantom.

But he wouldn’t be enough here. There’s constant danger everywhere, and he realizes now that he’s taken the peace of him home dimension for granted. Admittedly, at the time, it didn’t seem like peace when he was dodging ghost hunters and the government and trying to wrangle ghosts. But all of that was mostly kept in Amity Park, and he was the person most affected by it so there weren’t many civilians getting caught in the crossfire.

“Do they have powers?” he asks.

“No. All they do is a result of their own skill, hard work, and equipment.”

“So they’re just normal humans beneath the masks?”

“Yes, they are.”

The knowledge sends a chill down his spine. He would panic when Sam or Tucker or Jazz got caught in a ghost fight, even when they were equip with Fenton Blasters or something else that they could use to defend themselves. And that was just against ghosts! Here there are people waving around guns, fully prepared to kill, and the members of the Wayne family go out only in colorful armor?

They could die so easily. All it would take is one good shot, one unlucky hit, and they’re gone forever.

“How do you stand it?”

“Pardon?”

“How do you stand watching them all go out and endanger themselves? How can you be fine with just staying here?”

Alfred leans back in the chair and looks to the window, gaze distant. “I am not fine. I never will be. But I also see how much good they are capable of, how many lives they save because they choose to risk themselves each night. They are all good, good people who want the world to be a better place and are willing to fight for it.”

He pauses for a long moment, lost in thought, then says, “I will always worry about them. Even when they go out as civilians. As much as I would like to keep them safe within these walls forever, I know that they would be unhappy living like that. It’s enough to know that they will do all they can to come home to me and be cared for. I tend to their wounds and ensure they can rest and heal in the manor. It is very rarely enough, but it’s better than nothing.”

“My parents hurt me,” Danny admits quietly. He keeps his gaze fixed on the table, trying to ignore how tense Alfred becomes, the heavy weight of his full attention. “When they found out what I am, what I can do, I just… stopped being their son and became their… prey? Target? Mission? I wish I had someone like you back then, because then it wouldn’t have hurt so much all the time. But all I had was my sister and my friends and they can’t do much against adults except help me escape.”

“I am so sorry, my boy, that you have had to suffer so much. But you’re here now, and I will take care of you, just as everyone else in this household will. You are not alone, Danny.”

Danny shrugs, slouching in his seat. “Thanks,” he mutters.

“Well!” Alfred claps his hands together, the suddenness of the sound making Danny flinch, then he rises to his feet. “We have much to do today. Would you like to help me make breakfast for the rest of the household? Or would you like to tend to the vegetable garden?”

“What will I have to do for the vegetable garden?”

“Water the plants, pull any weeds, and also pick a few cucumbers and bell peppers, if you would.”

Danny offers Alfred a small salute and slides out of the chair. “I’m on it, boss!”

He ducks out the back door, grateful to be given an escape from the conversation and all the unpleasant memories it brought up, and takes his time walking to the vegetable garden. The sun is fully above the horizon now, and though it’s still cloudy, it’s not enough to block out the sunlight that rains down onto the garden.

He hits up the small shed for a water can, then fills it up to the very top until it spills out whenever it’s jostled. He waters each raised bed, making sure the to get every inch of dirt thoroughly soaked.

It takes refilling the water can another four times before everything is watered and tended to. There are barely any weeds to pull, but he searches carefully just in case any escaped him the first time, then gets to carefully picking cucumbers and bell peppers, lifting up the hem of his shirt to create a makeshift basket.

All of that takes the better part of an hour, which is apparently enough time for more people to wake up, and for Alfred to make a full spread of breakfast left on the kitchen island, while the man himself is nowhere to be found.

Damian is sitting at the table, eating, when he reenters the kitchen. Danny freezes for a moment and just looks at Damian, takes in how young he is, how small, and is horrified that anyone lets him out so late at night to fight crime.

“Good morning,” Damian says, setting down his fork, “As you now are aware of our secret identities, let it be known that if you endanger any of us, I will remove your limbs for your body. Slowly.”

“Sure,” Danny replies, distracted as he tries to get all the vegetables onto the counter without dropping any of them. “Sounds fair. Quick question: aren’t you too young to be fighting crime? Shouldn’t there be an age requirement or something?”

Damian scoffs. “I have trained since I could walk. I am made to be the heir to the Bat and the Demon’s head. I am more than capable of defeating the criminals of Gotham.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about this whole situation.”

“It’s none of your business anyways. As long as you stay out of it, none of this will be a problem for you.”

“As long as I’m here, I won’t be able to stay out of it,” Danny says. “I just don’t have that kind of luck. The world always finds some way to screw me over.”

Damian doesn’t speak again, so Danny takes that as his cue to focus on putting all the vegetables away. There’s nothing more they can add to that conversation anyways, so Danny is more than happy to put it behind him and pretend at normalcy again.

He wonders where Alfred went, wondering if it would be rude to just leave while Damian is still around to search for him. He’s still pondering it when Damian asks, quietly, “Do you really want nothing to do with our… night lives?”

The thing is, just two years ago, Danny would be jumping at the chance to be a hero. A proper one, working alongside other heroes to save people. But a lot has changed since then. The Danny who existed back then was always moving, always trying out some new trick with his powers, always trying to juggle heroics and normal life. He was innocent.

Or, at least, as innocent as anyone so familiar with death could be.

As he is now, Danny is just tired. He doesn’t want people to get hurt, and he’ll protect them if he can, but he’s so tired of being scared and hated and hunted down.

He’s a kid too. He was even more of a kid back when he was fourteen.

Why did no one protect him?

That’s not a fair question to ask, really, because he did have his friends and his sister and a few ghosts who would do their best, but it wasn’t enough.

“No,” Danny answers, voice hard. “I’m done with all of that. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Were you a vigilante too? Before you arrived here.”

Danny turns to face Damian and leans back against the counter. He doesn’t look at the kid, really, just at the floor in his general direction. “I don’t know.”

“How could you possibly not know? Either you are, or you aren’t.”

“It was complicated,” Danny snaps. “I was trying to protect everyone. But a lot of them didn’t see it that way. Just saw me as a threat, or am monster, or something. God, the government was out to get me.”

“Vigilantes are not usually well liked,” Damian says.

“Yeah, well, most vigilantes still get human rights. I got nothing. Everyone like me got classified as non-sentient, so we had no protections. If they wanted to experiment on us and cut us open, there was nothing stopping them.”

“And where was this taking place?” The clear rage in his voice startles Danny, makes him look up and warily eye the way Damian is gripping his fork, looking as if he wants nothing more than to bury into someone who’s wronged him.

“...It doesn’t matter,” Danny says slowly. “There’s nothing any of you can do. And it’s too far away to matter. Does that answer your question?”

Damian lets out a slow breath, forcing himself to call down. Danny can almost hear Jazz’s voice in his ear, counting slowly and saying Good! Now again, deep breath in and—

He shakes his head, trying to force her imagined voice away, and focuses on Damian’s controlled breathing; in, out, in, out, slowly each time.

“Every answer we get,” Damian says at last, “Brings up more questions. We will find where you came from. You can make things easier for us by just telling us your background.”

“Not a chance in hell, dude.”

Damian clicks his tongue and stands, holding his empty plate. “Very well. We’ll just investigate as we usually do. You won’t be able to keep your secrets from us forever.”

“I can do my best, though.”

“You will not be joining us as a vigilante,” Damian says again, putting his plate in the sink.

Didn’t they just cover this? Was Danny not clear enough?

“Right,” he confirms, “No heroics for me.”

“I will ensure you have proper protections befitting an associate of the Wayne family, then.”

Danny blinks. “What. Hey, wait, hang on. Didn’t we just talk about me not being involved in any of that?”

“Trackers,” Damian says, thoughtfully, steamrolling right on ahead, “A taser, of course. We’ll find a way to hide a few panic buttons on your person. Those will also have trackers, so if you should ever need help, we will be able to find you.”

“I really do not need any of that.”

“I will talk to father about it,” Damian nods.

“Don’t,” Danny starts to say, but somehow Damian is already out of the kitchen, leaving Danny behind absolutely bewildered by all directions their conversation went.

Seriously, what was all that?

Danny huffs, then shakes his head. Not his problem. If it comes to it, he can just go invisible and run away until the Waynes learn to act like normal people. He pushes the entire conversation out of his mind and washes Damian’s plate, then sticks it onto the dish drying rack next to the sink.

He’s not sure where Alfred is, so he busies himself with cleaning the kitchen, wiping the down the table and counters then straightening everything up.

Some more poking around in the kitchen and the rooms and hallways beyond help him find where more cleaning supplies are. He considers mopping the kitchen, but figures that should be saved for after dinner, so any messes he makes while helping Alfred cooked won’t be messing up a newly cleaned floor.

By then, it’s well into the morning, just a few hours away from noon, and Danny hasn’t seen anyone else come by.

He’s… uncomfortable being left unsupervised in someone else’s house like this. Sure, he lives here now, but it’s not his home. He’s just a new employee who doesn’t have any close bonds with anyone in the family. He spends way too long debating on whether he should stay in the kitchen and wait for someone to show up, or if he should go through the manor and find Alfred in order to get some instructions on what he should do.

Eventually, Danny tires of pacing around restlessly and ventures away from the kitchen, poking his head into random rooms and straining his hearing to make sure no one sneaks up on him.

Not that it helps, when a chill races up his spine just before someone taps his shoulder.

Danny whirls around, stumbling away, and holds himself back from lashing out at Cass.

She immediately takes five steps back, giving him space, and offers him a smile and a small wave. “Morning.”

“...Good morning,” Danny returns, looking over her carefully. Cass gives him his time, and he’s grateful that she backed off immediately, but he’s still rattled by the fact that she snuck up on him so easily. The space between them is reassuring, but he’s not foolish enough to think it’s anywhere close to enough if she actually wanted to hurt him.

Cass is a vigilante too. Black Bat, Alfred had said. It goes to stand that she’s as dangerous as the rest of them. He’s sure she’s the scariest of the bunch. There’s just something about her that makes every nerve in his body scream to alertness, prepared for a fight, waiting for a knife to slip into his ribs.

She doesn’t say a thing as he stares at her. Danny shifts his weight off one foot, trying to think of a way out of this situation, and comes up blank.

“So.” He cringes immediately at how he breaks the silence, then rolls with it. Might as well, really. It’s not going to get any worse from here. “Did you want breakfast?”

Cass shakes her head. “Not hungry for food. Hungry for snacks.”

“Oh, well I made cookies last night. I’m not sure where Alfred put them, though.”

She shakes her head again. “All gone.”

Danny blinks. “Huh?”

“Ate them all,” Cass explains, “Last night. Family meeting about you. Very good cookies.”

He’s… not going to unpack all that right now. Or ever, hopefully. “Cool. Which one did you like most?”

“Sugar cookie. The brown one?”

It takes a moment to remember which one that is, with all the cookies he made yesterday, but he recalls that particular batch quickly. “The brown sugar cookies!”

“Yes!”

“I thought they were missing something, so I rolled them in cinnamon sugar. Alfred’s recommendation, really, I was just going to dump cinnamon in the dough. Turned out really good, though.”

“Very good,” Cass says again, nodding sagely. “Best cookies. Make more?”

“Uh, maybe later. I’m looking for Alfred right now?”

“He is calling Jason. I can… guide you?”

Cass offers a hand, still five steps away from him. There’s still plenty of space between them, enough for him to stay out of grabbing reach, but he can take her hand if he wants to. Or he can go intangible and just fall through the wall behind him.

But she’s nice. Terrifying, of course, but nice.

He got scared, and she moved back to give him space. She doesn’t push for questions or explanations, just treats him as if he’s always been here.

Danny looks between Cass and her hand.

He’s going to stay here. He’s staying for Alfred. And now he’s staying because the Wayne family regularly endanger themselves and it makes Alfred upset. He can wonder about running away all he wants; Danny knows himself and he knows he’s here to stay.

He didn’t even run from his parents until they tried to kill him for good, captured him and had the basement prepped for his vivisection. There’s a chance he can make something of himself here, to create someplace he can be safe, and he can’t afford to lose it.

He takes Cass’s hand.

“Yeah, okay. Take me to Alfred, please?”

“Okay,” Cass says, a bright smile on her face. She turns and leads him down the hall, her grip loose and easy to break from. Danny doesn’t let it break.

Cass is both dangerous and kind. Danny’s survived all sorts of dangerous people before. If he can just get his brain to chill out, then he can act normal around her and the rest of the Waynes. He can do this.

She leads him through the manor with ease, as if she could navigate it blind, and opens a door to a little balcony on the second floor that Danny didn’t know about. Alfred turns to face them as soon as the door opens, phone held up to his ear, and he gives them a smile and waves them in, inviting them to sit on the small bench. Cass sits him down on one of the cushions tied to the bench, then pats his head.

“Still training today?” she asks.

“Apparently,” Danny answers with a grimace. “Think I can get out of it?”

“No. Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

That’s not really reassuring, but it is nice to know that he won’t be locked in a room alone with Bruce and forced to fight his boss. That’s got to be against some labor law. Sam would probably know.

Cass leaves, giving him one last wave from the door, then disappears back into the manor.

Alfred looks out over the grounds, nodding lightly to whatever Jason is saying. Danny doesn’t want to eavesdrop, so he just bounces his leg and stares up at the cloudy sky, wondering if he’d be able to see the stars on a clear night.

“I shall speak to you again soon, Master Jason,” Alfred says, barely a minute later. “Yes, do take care of yourself. Until next month, then.” And his phone is put away in one smooth movement. Alfred straightens out his waistcoat, then turns to Danny. “I apologize for being away for so long. Are you ready to start the day?”

“Sure. It’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? So what’s the plan for today?”

“Well,” Alfred says, looking Danny over thoughtfully. “If you would be willing, there are some lightbulbs that need changing and chandeliers to be dusted. It’s difficult for most people to reach these, but if you are able to fly up and take care of these tasks…”

The thought of causally using his powers out in the open makes his skin crawl with nerves, but it’s too late to try to keep it a secret. He did float down into their secret crime fighting cave. There was no way he was ever going to keep that from the Waynes.

Honestly, if all they want is for him to use his powers for mundane things like this, it’s not bad. Definitely better than being tested and observed like some newly discovered creature.

Alfred just wants some help with household tasks, and Danny’s powers make it easy for him to do them. That’s all.

“Sure,” Danny says, “I can do that.”

It’s normal. Normal enough, anyways.

As long as they keep to this facade of normality, he’ll be fine.

Bruce Wayne apparently does not care to be normal.

This is more a rich people are different from the rest of humanity than it is this is top secret hero stuff. Who has a giant gym in their house complete with a pool and a locker room? On top of a giant crime fighting cave?

It’s absurd.

Danny stares at his locker—complete with his name on it, so he doesn’t accidentally open someone else’s—and wonders what, exactly, a training session with Bruce Wayne is going to look like. He had been expecting basic exercises to see where he’s at, something close to what he does at school in P.E. Now he has to factor in weights, treadmills, and a boxing ring. There’s also ceiling to floor mirrors on one wall and a large section of the room covered in a thick mat, with only a single martial arts dummy on it.

He tries very hard to ignore the wooden swords and bo staffs hanging on the wall. He’s definitely not touching those while other people are around.

Sighing, he decides that putting off this training session isn’t going to make it end any faster and opens his locker.

There’s a set of training clothes already set inside for him. He’s sure it’s perfectly his size. He’s just not going to think too hard about how they managed to get his size at all.

Though the locker room is empty, he doesn’t want to change out in the open. He was the same way in school, and though this often got him teased by the football team for his ‘insecurities’, they quieted down when they saw his scars. Dash never asked about it, but he was always careful afterwards to make sure Danny’s shirt never rode up and revealed anything when he tossed Danny around.

He peeks around the locker room before he hurries into the changing stall, paranoid that he’s being watched somehow. He changes quickly and, sure enough, everything fits him perfectly.

The only problem is that the shirt he was given is short sleeve. Th Lichtenberg scar, made permanent by his death and the ectoplasm that flooded his system at the same time as the electricity of the portal, is clearly visible. The white scar tissue branches down his arm all the way to his wrist, wide and ugly.

He really doesn’t want any questions about it.

Danny takes off the shirt, then puts his long sleeve shirt back on. He can train just fine in it, and if they have a problem with it, they can order him a long sleeve shirt for training.

He takes his clothes to his locker and shoves them in, then takes a few minutes to just breathe, trying to force his nerves away long enough that he can walk out to Bruce without feeling nauseous.

When he finally manages to force his feet to move, Cass and Damian are in the gym as well.

Cass he expected after their morning conversation. Damian is a surprise, and it seems like the boy is trying to act as if he’s not here to watch Danny train, using one of the wooden swords to go through a series of careful movements.

Bruce is waiting on the mat next to the dummy, and he nods when he sees Danny approach. “Come here,” he says, “We’ll do some stretching first, then we’ll see where you are in self-defense.”

Cass looks them both over with a sharp eye, then walks away to pull out a yoga mat and set it just outside the mats. She effortlessly goes into a handstand, then goes down onto her forearms and lowers her legs into a split.

“You’re not expecting me to do that, right?” he asks, looking at Bruce.

He smiles, a small thing that softens the serious expression he had been sporting, and shakes his head. “No, not at all. We’ll just do basic stretches. After me, now.” And with that, he immediately gets started, rolling out his shoulders and stretching his arms and wrists, then dropping down into a forward fold. Danny does his best to follow along, glancing up often to make sure he’s doing everything right.

Stretching is easy. He’s definitely not as flexible as Bruce or Cass, but he doesn’t do too badly. At the very least, he can press his palms flat to the floor in a forward fold.

They’re just finishing up, rolling out their necks, when the door to the gym is pushed open and Tim comes in. “Have we started yet?” he asks, looking a mess. His hair is windswept and tangled and he’s sporting a split lip that he didn’t have yesterday.

“Do I want to know,” Bruce says, and Tim grins.

“Know what? I’ve been having a peaceful, relaxing day. Quit worrying so much, it’s bad for your heart.”

Damian scoffs, swinging his sword down at an angle. “As if any of us would ever believe that you’re not causing messes for us to clean up.”

“What’s that, Gremlin? You’re looking for a sparring partner? You should have said so sooner!” And Tim’s grabbing a bo staff from the wall and throwing himself at Damian without any warning.

Danny makes an aborted sound in the back of his throat, torn between yelling for Damian to watch out and Tim to stop, but Damian isn’t phased at all. He scowls harder and blocks Tim’s attack, then hits back. The heavy thud of their weapons hitting each other echo through the gym, but neither of them get hurt. They dodge each hit expertly, dancing circles around each other, fighting gracefully in ways Danny has never seen.

Bruce clears his throat and Danny snaps his attention back to the man in front of him.

“Why don’t we begin with something easy,” Bruce says. “Punch me.”

“What?”

“Punch me,” Bruce repeats.

Danny stares at him. “I don’t want to hurt you. Aren’t you supposed to teach me how to defend myself, not attack other people?”

“Both require the same skills. The only difference is in how you choose to use it. Now, punch me.”

Slowly, Danny lifts an arm, curling his fingers into a fist, and looks up at Bruce’s face to make sure this is fine. Bruce looks unimpressed, waiting for him to move.

He throws a weak punch at Bruce’s abdomen and is entirely unsurprised when his wrist is grabbed and held in place easily.

“Again,” Bruce says, “And do it seriously, this time.”

Okay.

Okay, he can do this.

Danny steps back, giving himself some space, and takes a deep breath. He’s fought plenty of people before. Mostly ghosts, but still. He can figure out how to fight hand to hand without using any of his powers. He can hold back his strength. He can do it.

He shifts his stance, standing with his feet shoulder width apart, a more stable base, and lifts his hands in front of his face, not curling them into fists but holding them loose. Just as his mother taught him, before she started handing him and Jazz weapons to familiarize themselves with.

Bruce is a vigilante, he reminds himself. They all are. They know how to fight and how to defend themselves. They have plenty of experience and he’s sure they’ve already come up with ways to take him out if they need to.

Danny lets out one last fortifying breath, then looks up at Bruce, who is watching him with a shrewd gaze. Whatever he sees makes him nod approvingly and shift his own stance, no longer casually standing in place but ready to move.

“I will try to stay at human power levels,” Danny says, one last warning before they really begin. “Stop me if I go too far.”

“I can handle anything you throw my way, Danny. Don’t worry about me. This is about helping you be able to protect yourself.”

No more stalling.

Danny darts forward, throwing out a punch. Bruce takes a single step back, twisting to the side so Danny’s fist sails past his body, and sweeps out a leg to trip him. Danny’s already moving, trying to get to Bruce’s back, get out of his line of sight, staying light on his feet.

Distantly, he’s aware of the sound of Tim and Damian’s battle falling silent, but he can’t focus on it as he tries to strike Bruce’s pressure points, darting in and out so he can’t be grabbed. His mother’s old lessons come back to him, body falling into that familiar rhythm, and it’s enough to make him slip up, use a little too much strength.

Bruce staggers back two steps, then is grabbing Danny’s arm and tossing him over his shoulder before Danny can process what’s happening.

Instinct has him floating in place, then his legs shoot out and kick Bruce in the chest, using it as a springboard to jump off of to get some distance between them.

“Good,” Bruce says, giving him a moment to catch his breath. “You’ve had training before.”

“My mom is ninth-degree black belt in mixed martial arts. She taught me a few things.”

“We’ll need to see where you might need some improvements. Otherwise, I give you permission to use your powers against me.”

Danny drops his hands in shock, coming out of his ready stance. “Wait, seriously? I could really hurt you!”

“I promise you, Danny, you really can’t,” Bruce says. “Remember, I’m Batman. I’ve fought gods and monsters before.”

“I don’t know…”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with Danny, even if it means you only stick to flying.”

That’s… reasonable. He does fly a lot; he loves flying. It’s the best part of being a halfa, really. And most of his fights involve him flying. Having to stay on the ground puts him at a disadvantage, and if they really want to train him up to hero standards—

No. He’s not going to be a hero in this world. He’s going to live a quiet, normal life as best he can and he won’t be flaunting his powers around in a world he’s unfamiliar with.

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Danny refocuses on the training match and nods. “Flying only,” he says.

He’s up in the air before Bruce can move, darting around him, then ramming into his side like a bulldozer. This, he didn’t learn from his mother. He learned it from Cujo.

Bruce grunts, his breath knocked out of him, and grabs Danny. There’s a brief moment of struggle where Danny tries to get away, but he’s laid out on the floor before he can go intangible.

The lights above him are blinding. Bruce towers above him, all broad shoulders and heavy muscle, looking down, and his face is shadowed enough that is makes Danny’s heart stop and he sees—

Dad, wait, it’s me! Stop, please!

His father wasn’t smiling. There was no manic grin, no booming laughter, no victory cry for catching Phantom. Just his father standing above him, expressionless, as he held up a Fenton Thermos and—

Bruce reaches for him—

“Stop!”

Before anyone can move, before Danny can come back to his sense and make his brain understand that it’s not his father standing before him, ready to capture him and treat him like a thing to be cut open, before he can say anything more, the air shifts.

Cass is there, suddenly and without warning, and slams into Bruce, then tosses him over her shoulder and onto the mats. She kneels with one knee on his chest, keeping him pinned down, and steel in her eyes.

“We’re done,” she says. “Time for a break. Snacks.”

There’s a beat of silence, then Bruce relaxes and nods. “Right. This is enough for today. I’ll make a light training regime for Danny so he can protect himself both with and without his powers. Boys,” he says, looking to where Tim and Damian have been watching them, “If you want to continue training, do so in the Batcave. Don’t use flimsy excuses to learn more about Danny.”

“What excuse? I genuinely wanted to beat Damian up,” Tim retorts, and follows it up with a soft whack to the back of Damian’s head.

“As if you could beat me!”

They’re back to tussling a moment later, weapons thrown aside in favor of slapping the shit out of each other.

It would make him laugh in any other circumstance. As it is, Danny’s frozen, heart jackrabbiting in his chest, staring at where Cass is keeping Bruce pinned, keeping him safe from the man who resembles his father in the lowlight.

He can’t focus on much more than them, frantically trying to piece together the last two minutes to make sure he’s safe, it was just Bruce, everything’s fine. He may have yelled for Bruce to stop, but he’s sure that Cass was moving even before then.

Somehow, she had known that he needed to get out of that situation. Needed distance from Bruce. Needed protection.

And she had given it to him.

Dangerous and kind indeed.

“Go,” she says, pulling Bruce back up to his feet. “I will stay with him.” She doesn’t give him any time to argue, pushing him towards the door.

Then she shoots Tim and Damian a look and they immediately disengage from their fight. Damian tosses his wooden sword over to Tim, who snatches it out of the air without even looking at it and puts both their weapons back on the wall. They leave within a minute, closing the door behind them.

A stillness settles over the room, the world gone quiet now that it’s just him and Cass.

He’s shaking, he realizes. His hands tremble where they rest on his chest and it takes far too much effort to force himself to sit up.

Cass doesn’t comment on it. She just sits down next to him, giving him enough space that he feels comforted by her presence rather than trapped.

“Sorry about that,” Danny manages to say at last, forcing the words out. His voice is rough and his heart feels like it’s been scrapped over with sandpaper.

“No.”

“What?”

“No sorries. Bruce went too far. Saw you weren’t… safe? Did not stop, so I made him.”

“I’m still sorry you had to get involved.”

“Danny,” she says, then waits until he looks at her. “It’s okay. I always beat Bruce. It’s good for him to lose sometimes.”

He can’t help but smile a bit. Between her and Tim, he can see that Bruce’s kids really enjoy causing him trouble. That’s how it’s supposed to be with siblings; everyone teams up against the parents. All siblings have to unionize, that’s how every world works.

“Thanks.”

Cass reaches out a hand. This time, Danny doesn’t hesitate to take it.

They sit in silence for a long time. His heart settles down and the last of his fear dissipates; the guilt of being so terrified of just the idea of his father towering over him remains, but that’s something he’s sure will accompany him for the rest of his life. Cass doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t push for conversation, and simply waits patiently as he regains him composure.

As much as he’d like to, he can’t hide away in the gym forever.

He begins to stand and Cass follows him up, keeping hold of his hand. She looks him over carefully, then nods and pushes him towards the locker room.

“You’re not going to ask questions about…” Danny waves a hand through the air, “All this, right?”

“No questions,” Cass reassures. “Tell when you want to. Even bad memories are important. Yours to keep.”

“Okay. Thanks for being so cool about all this.”

Cass gives him a sunny smile. “Go. Change. I will get Alfred.”

Danny offers a weak salute, then heads off to the locker room to change, happily chucking off his training clothes and dropping them into the laundry chute.

Training was a disaster in a different way than he expected, but either way, he’s relieved it’s over. Now, all they have to do is pretend his little panic never happened and they can all move on with their lives.

Alfred must see that resolve on his face when he exits the gym. Danny isn’t asked any questions as they walk through the halls, simply told about the chores that need to be completed. They don’t come across any members of the Wayne family and Danny can’t help but feel that’s purposefully, that they’re avoiding him to keep him from getting spooked and running away.

Danny takes over dusting the high rafters and corners of the ceiling, sneezing when a particularly strong sweep of the duster over the top of a hanging light fixture brings up a cloud of dust. Below him, Alfred vacuums and straightens out rooms, calling out directions to help Danny get everything clean.

Once the sun begins to set, Alfred sends Danny to the kitchen while he puts away all their cleaning supplies. Dinner prep has apparently been taken care of while he was training with Bruce; all Danny has to do is start the oven and pull everything out of the fridge.

He wants to offer to set the table, be more helpful, but the thought of seeing everyone again has his throat tightening up, bringing up the residual panic that hasn’t left him since he fell through the Infinite Realms into the streets of Gotham. Instead of helping more with dinner, Alfred pulls out a thick recipe book, paged faded with age, and sets him on making a cake for dessert.

Danny manages to get all the ingredients together, measured carefully and mixed slowly so none of the flour spills out of the bowl. He does well enough that Alfred decides he can safely leave Danny without any supervision in order to bring dinner to the dining table where the Wayne family waits.

In the time he’s alone, Danny tries very hard not to mess anything up, folding in melted chocolate into the batter.

He works slowly enough that Alfred is able to return before Danny tries to hunt down a baking pan. He wordlessly pulls one out of a cabinet and sprays it with cooking oil before setting it on the counter next to Danny, watching with a shrewd eye as Danny pours out the batter, using a rubber spatula to scrape batter down from the sides of the bowl.

“Very good,” Alfred comments, then instructs Danny to lift the baking pan and drop it onto the counter gently a few times to break any air bubbles in the batter.

They get it in the oven and start the timer after that. Alfred pulls out another mixing bowl and gets to work making buttercream frosting, showing Danny how to separate the egg whites from the yolk.

Danny is not ready to try it on his own, but it’s cool to see how it’s done. Alfred does everything so precisely, with clean movements and nothing wasted. It’s beyond impressive. Danny can only hope he can emulate some of that one day.

The smell of rich chocolate cake fills the kitchen and Danny feels his mouth start watering. He hasn’t had much to eat since lunch, and even that was small. For once, he’s feeling hungry enough to eat a horse, and is a strange mix of embarrassed and elated when his stomach growls loudly.

“Oh my,” Alfred laughs, “I see that cake never fails to wake a boy’s appetite.”

Danny shrugs sheepishly, and allows Alfred to usher him into a chair at the kitchen table. He watches as Alfred bustles around the kitchen, whipping together a quick meal of sauteed radishes, sliced in halves and with the leaves included, and a wrap so full Danny worried it would burst when he bit into it.

It’s a bigger meal than what he’s used to, made with larger portions and heavier ingredients, but all the events of the day have drained him of enough energy that Danny all but devours his dinner. He even brings out his fangs to tear into the wrap more easily, eating quickly to sate his hunger.

“How are you liking your food, Danny?”

“It’s delicious!” he answers with his mouth full.

“Do try to avoid talking with food in your moth,” Alfred gently reprimands, and Danny shoots him a thumbs up, trying to chew faster.

“I can have some of the cake later, right?”

“Of course. So long as you finish your dinner, then I will give you the first slice.”

Danny clears his plate in record time and has everything washed and dried by the time the oven beeps. Alfred opens the oven door, flooding the kitchen with warmth and an even strong aroma of chocolate, then slides on a pair of Batman oven mitts; they’re black, with a bat symbol on the back and little white eyes glaring out from the fingertips, and have little bat eats sticking out from the tops. He has to bite back a laugh and wonders how much of their own merch the Wayne family owns.

“Now we must wait for it to cool down before we can frost it,” Alfred says, setting the cake down on the counter.

“Can I use my powers to help it cool faster?”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“Well,” Danny says, holding up a hand, “I can make ice.” He lets his fingers frost over, his ice the pale blue of an iceberg’s submerged bottom. “I can freeze the counter space around and under the cake.”

Alfred looks intrigued, which is a good sign. “Would it not melt?”

“Not unless I want it to.”

“Then by all means, Danny.” He steps back to give Danny space to work, watching as Danny presses his fingers to the counter and lets the ice spread from the point of contact, circling the cake. He pushes his ice to be a few degrees cooler than usual and feels the chill race up his arms.

It’s comfortable for him, but he knows he shouldn’t touch anyone until he warms back up. Sam and Tucker have told him plenty of times that he’s colder than ice after he uses his powers, a biting kind of cold that always hurt their hands.

“It should be cool enough soon,” he says, stepping back from the counter and shaking out his hands.

“Thank you, Danny. Would you mind keeping the frosting cool as well?”

“No problem, Alfred!” He ices over the frosting bowl; it’s not quite as cold as the ice on the counter, but enough to keep the frosting chilled. “Do you want me to do anything else?”

Alfred thinks it over for a moment, then shakes his head. “Not at the moment, no. Go take a break. I’ll wash up and get everyone’s dishes. Master Bruce would like to speak to you as well, when you’re ready.”

Oh, great. No more running from questions, it seems.

His mood plummets immediately, but he still forces up a smile for Alfred. “You got it. I’ll just… wait for him to get me, then.”

He’s out of the kitchen before Alfred can offer an platitudes, wandering aimlessly until he ends up in the grand foyer. He flies up to the ceiling and sits upside down, legs crossed, and tries not to think about training and all the explanations he doesn’t want to give.

His thoughts drift towards Amity and he misses it with an ache. He never planned to stay there forever, already looking for out of state college options, joining the rest of his class in wanting to leave and find their way into the wider world.

But all he wants now is an hour at Nasty Burger with his friends, a trip to the bookstore with Jazz, the familiar shared panic as everyone on the road tried to avoid the Fenton AV whenever his parents decided to go grocery shopping. Hell, he even misses Caspar High and the stress of having his work pile up as he fought ghosts and ghost hunters and his own procrastination. He misses the park where he’d play fetch with Cujo. He misses flying through the clear skies of Amity, the way the lights of the city shone up to him from where he rested high above it all. He misses the empty fields and forests and the clear air that Gotham will never have.

Danny is so far from home. He doesn’t think he can ever go back.

Would he even have a home if he found some way back to his original dimension?

His parents know the truth now. They captured Phantom, trapped him in the Fenton Thermos, and when they opened it again, Danny came out. He transformed immediately, full of panic and fear, begging for something as his mother sank into denial, shooting at him, while his father was emotionless and Jazz was screaming as a distraction, for him, at being pushed down by her parents as they focused all their attention on Danny.

The last thing he ever heard from his home was Jazz screaming I hate you! How could you! Danny is⁠—

And then the Infinite Realms wrapped him in its embrace and took him away.

“Danny?”

Danny jolts and falls from the ceiling. His stomach drops and he braces himself for impact, too out of it to use any of his powers. Instead of hitting the floor, he crashes into someone’s chest, their arms wrapping around him to hold him steady.

He blinks his eyes open and looks up at Bruce, who gives him a moment to collect himself, then sets him down on his feet. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Danny says, voice hoarse. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just startled.”

“If you don’t feel up for a conversation⁠—”

“No, no, let’s just get this over with. The sooner the better, right?” He offers Bruce a strained smile, but it falls from his face quickly.

“Alright,” Bruce says slowly. “Let’s head up to my office.”

He guides Danny up the stairs, keeping a heavy hand on his shoulder. It makes Danny feel trapped, but he’s too tired to get away. He’s resigned to this happening and just wants it to be over already.

When the door closes the behind them, it sounds final in Danny’s ears. He sinks into the armchair off to the side of Bruce’s office, rather than taking one of the more uncomfortable chairs in front of his desk.

Bruce sits across from him on the lounge couch, elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled together.

“Danny,” he begins. “I know you’ve had a stressful day, but it’s important that we discuss this now.”

“Discuss what,” Danny says tiredly. He’s not asking, not really, just trying to lead Bruce to where they need to go.

“You are aware of our identities as Gotham’s vigilantes.”

“I’m still not very familiar with any vigilantes. I don’t really know anything other than your names.”

“But you know our identities. You know where we live and where we operate from. This is dangerous information; in the wrong hands, it will destroy us and leave Gotham to be torn apart from the inside by all the corruption we work to keep off the streets.”

Irritation prickles down his spine. Danny knows how important secret identities; look at what happened to him when he was discovered. Logically, he knows Bruce has no way of knowing this, but emotionally, Danny wants to snap at him, hurl insults and accusations to distract from his own hurt.

“This must remain secret,” Bruce continues, leaning forward some. “We will know if you reveal this information to anyone.”

“If you’re going to threaten me, can you just do it outright?”

Bruce blinks, then leans back, his brow furrowed. “What?”

Danny sighs and folds his arms across his chest, holding himself in a mockery of a hug as he looks away. “I get it, this is a big deal and having an outsider suddenly in the know is a huge risk. But I also need you to consider who I am.”

“And who are you, Danny?”

“A homeless runaway freak of nature. I have no support in Gotham. I have no one outside of Alfred that I can rely on in this country. You talk as if I have any power over you, but I don’t. Who would I even go to? Who would believe me?”

“Reporters would pay a lot for information like this⁠—”

“That’s not the point,” Danny interrupts, a bite in his voice. “The point is that even if I know all your identities, you’re still the one who has power here. I am entirely dependent on you for housing, food, safety. You’re my boss. The only reason I have anything, including a legal identity, is because of you. And you can take it away at any time.”

“I wouldn’t⁠—”

“People can excuse anything when they’re desperate enough.”

Bruce falls silent, staring at Danny with dark eyes. His expression is unreadable, as warm as stone, and Danny tenses in preparation for something awful; being fired, or kicked out, or imprisoned.

“No matter how good they think they are, or try to be,” Danny continues, his voice growing quieter, more tired, “When the time comes, they’re willing to do anything to get what they want. No matter who you are to them. No matter what they have to do to you.” He looks over to Bruce, finally meeting his gaze. “Do you understand? You don’t have to threaten me because my entire existence here is a threat to my survival. I can only hope that everyone will be kind for another day before they decide I’ll be better off being cut open by scientists and studied.”

“Is that what happened to you? Why you ran away?”

“That isn’t important. It’s none of your business.”

Bruce frowns. “If it puts you in danger, it is my business, as you’re a minor in my care.”

“I am always in danger, okay? The details don’t matter. If you make me talk about it, I’ll run away and make sure no one can ever find me again. Got it?”

“Understood,” Bruce says after a tense moment. “I won’t push. But if you ever want to talk⁠—”

“Yeah, no. Not going to happen. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

He leans back, straightening up. “There is. In regards to training⁠—”

Here it is. Danny just said he didn’t want to talk about, so Bruce hops right into the next topic of conversation that will make them talk about it.

“⁠—You have a good foundation to grow from. It would benefit you to learn how to handle a few of our weapons as well, and if there’s something you want to learn that we can’t provide for you, we can find someone else to train you. I will need to know what your triggers are so I can avoid frightening you as I did today.”

“I don’t have triggers,” Danny says, “I just don’t trust anyone but Alfred and Cass to not really hurt me. It’s just how it is.”

“...Very well.”

“Is that all?”

Bruce nods. “For now, yes. I know one of your conditions was not being involved in our nightlife, but if you’d ever like to learn more or see more of the Batcave⁠—properly, this time⁠— then we’d be more than happier to lead you through it.”

His gut reaction is to turn it down immediately, to ensure he doesn't have anything to do with their ‘nightlife.’ But Alfred’s involved.

All Danny is here to do is help Alfred, and that apparently includes wrangling vigilantes into surviving each night and being tended to. He already knows he’s going to join Alfred down there one day, but he’s not ready for it yet.

“Maybe some time in the future,” Danny offers. “Not any time soon, though.”

“That’s fine, Danny. We’ll go at your pace.”

A knock on the door stops the conversation from continuing. Damian opens the door and comes in before he has permission.

“Are you finished yet?” he asks, looking between Danny and Bruce.

“Uh, just about. Why?” Danny replies.

“We cannot eat any cake until you have the first slice.”

Conversation fully over; Danny has cake to eat and he needs to get to it right away. It’s way more important that talking to Bruce about his trauma and the family’s secret vigilante activities.

“Sweet, let’s go get cake.”

He stands and Damian turns back to the door, ready to go. He stops at the doorway and glances back to Bruce, then asks, “Is he to remain aware of our nightly activities?”

“Yes, he is,” Bruce answers.

“I will be showing you where all the supply caches in the manor are,” Damian tells Danny. “They will hold either weapons, first aid kits, or fire extinguishers. It is crucial to memorize the location of all of them in the event of an emergency.”

“Isn’t this place safe? I mean, you all live here.”

“We hold events here, unfortunately,” Damian scowls. “There’s a gala coming up, in fact. You will need to know all of this before it begins. We shall start after we eat cake.”

From what he’s seen and heard of Gotham so far, this really is for the best. If this were Amity Park, Danny would call this behavior overly paranoid. Here, it’s an appropriate level of preparedness.

“After cake,” he agrees, following Damian as he leads the way out of Bruce’s office .

He’ll worry about everything else after that promised first slice. As long as he’s got Alfred on his side, he’ll deal with anything thrown his way.

(“Don’t push,” Cass warns. “He’s like me. Will run.”

Tim sighs and slumps against the counter. “I just need to know more in order to help him! Come on, Cass, don’t tell me you don’t want to beat up everyone who’s ever hurt him.”

“Only if he wants to tell us,” she says, firm in her stance.

Alfred nods approvingly from where he’s slicing the recently frosted cake. Danny’s ice remains on the counter, and he makes a mental note to ask the boy to remove it before he goes to sleep.

“Miss Cassandra is right,” he interjects when Tim opens his mouth to speak, trying to find some way to change Cass’s mind. “Danny has had a difficult life and needs time and space to trust us and feel safe in the manor. I will not allow anyone to push him more than he can handle, simply because they could not handle their own curiosity.”

“You’d better tell that to Bruce, then. You really think he won’t interrogate Danny?”

Alfred sets down the cake knife with more slightly more force than necessary. “He has been warned. Should I hear that he did not take my warning lightly, I will ensure he faces the consequences of disregarding Danny’s needs.”

“Well,” Tim says, “You’ve got me and Cass to back you up. Danny will be fine with the three of us in his corner.”

“I do hope so,” Alfred replies. Cass is looking towards the kitchen door, so he begins to plate some of the slices. She has a sixth sense for knowing when someone is approaching, and when she’s around, Alfred takes his cues from her to make sure everything is prepared when they enter the room.

Sure enough, just as he’s finished plating the last slice, the door opens and Damian enters with Danny trailing after him, looking paler and wrung out.

It seems he will have to remind Bruce about Danny’s boundaries. Tim and Cass will be pleased to take on this new mission, and from the look in Damian’s eye, so will the youngest Robin.

Good.

He won’t let anyone push Danny out of the manor. Not while he still has breath in his body.)

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp #dp x dc #dpxdc fanfic #those who serve #my writing #this chapter is actually all abt cass appreciation everyone give her the love she deserves!!!#and also a reminder that bruce is a very paranoid character who often makes things worse bc his paranoia got ahead of him hence the convo #abt the power he has over danny via social standing #hes still nice and a good person but he's also thinking worse case scenario and it blinds him to the fact that danny isn't a threat #anyways IM BACK BABEY #butler danny au #alfred's apprentice au

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