#theyre struggling to stay afloat and figuring out batman's identity was a huge break

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Doctor Danny Fenton was an enigma to Bruce. Every word he spoke, every microexpression seemed to leak out a barely-contained rage, as if he were a boiler about to explode hidden behind a fragile mask of scientific professionalism.

Everything Dr Fenton told Bruce terrified him, and he seemed to revel in the exaggerated fear that Bruce played up, even as the most terrible things he admitted were shared as if they were nothing more than office drama.

"Ghosts are clearly non-sentient echoes of malevolent emotions. The screaming is just a memory of a trauma-induced response."

"Ectoplasm is a wonderful clean energy source."

"My parents built a portal to the ghost zone, and we use it to power this entire facility!"

"Our ghost hunting weapons are powered by ectoplasm, too. They're reasonably harmless to humans, at least as far as being literal weapons are concerned, but really pack a punch against ghosts."

"We've learned a lot about how to maximize energy extraction from ectoplasm by studying our prime specimen, especially after we figured out how to turn off its stimulus response."

Bruce felt like he'd walked into a nazi eugenics lab. Oh, how badly he wanted to find this "prime specimen" and escape with it. Instead, he stubbornly stuck to his role, swiping a random scientist's security card when the opportunity presented itself, to clone and give Oracle backdoor access to the facility's servers.

As much as Bruce wanted to break every bone in Dr Fenton's body, he was an absolute treasure trove of actionable intel, letting his ADD guide him from topic to topic with no concern for operational security.

In order to shut down this facility, they needed to find and shut down that portal. They knew there was at least one "specimen" that needed rescuing. They knew that the facility was armed with ecto weapons, which weren't that dangerous to themselves.

They knew that the anti-ecto acts needed to be repealed before they could even consider prosecuting Dr Fenton.

Barbara was able to get into the servers pretty easily once Bruce had gotten an in, and Bruce spend the rest of the tour memorizing the facility's layout and innocently asking questions of Fenton that would help Barbara continue digging.

Fenton constantly zigzagged back and forth through their tour, telling Bruce what was behind many of the closed doors even if Bruce wasnt allowed to enter, and even muttering the mnumonics he used to remember various things loud enough for Bruce to overhear.

It would have been endearing if not for the fact that he was carelessly admitting to casual genocide.

By the time the tour was over and Bruce was heading home, Barbara had gotten into nearly every file on the servers and was already distributing them among the Bats to read through.

All except one: a medium-sized file buried in Dr Fenton's workspace. It was, quite literally, sealed up tighter than Fort Knox. Niether she nor Tim could make any headway on it, and they informed bruce that they would need more info from danny to crack it unless he was willing to wait about ten thousand years to brute-force it.

Bruce had already scheduled to meet Doctor Fenton again tomorrow, so that wasnt an issue.

---

Dr Fenton had dropped his key card. He was in the middle of unlocking a high security door when an alarm went off, and he had bolted to go take care of it, not even realizing he had dropped the card.

It was a perfect opportunity. Bruce grabbed the card and quickly cloned it on his hidden card reader before putting it back on the floor exactly where it had fallen. Oracle would be able to doctor the security footage, so it looked like Bruce had never touched it.

The alarms turned off soon after, and Dr Fenton was back in less than a minute, apologizing for the false alarm and sheepishly grabbing his security card when Bruce awkwardly pointed to it.

Dr. Fenton apologized again, swearing up and down that he's never been that clumsy before. The tour continued as Bruce asked more and more questions, buying Oracle as much time as possible to break into the forbidden file. The security clearance wasnt the only thing she needed to open it, but having that brought down the brute forcing time from centuries to weeks, and she had a few other tricks to reduce it further.

Bruce continued needling for answers to any question Oracle had that might help her, and Fenton obliviously and distracted answered in bafflingly round-about ways that only served to give them even more actionable intel about the facility.

Apparently, the whole "harmless to humans" thing wasn't completely true. Humans could be ectocontaminated to a point where they *could* be affected by ecto weapons. But dont worry, if a human is that contaminated, they're already functionally brain-dead anyway.

(It explained why Jason got a nasty burn from one of the weapons they'd stolen from a field agent when he and Tim were disassembling it for study, but Bruce sure as hell was not going to declare Jason brain-dead because an unknown weapon had injured him.)

Bruce was being led to one of the offices to discuss financing, signaling that they were running out of time, when Oracle declared that she got the file open. Bruce asked for a private room where he could make some calls before committing to giving money to the nightmare of a research facility, and Fenton obliged, saying he should probably talk to the head of security about the alarm earlier and whether they had isolated the cause and had a solution to prevent any future false positives.

"Holy shit," Oracle muttered after a few minutes of silently scanning the files, "B, i think we might need to consider that Fenton is a double agent."

"What."

As much as Bruce didn't want to admit it, facts were quickly sliding into place. Fenton was FAR too talkative and had made Bruce walk nearly every hall in the facility at least three times.

He dropped his security card on purpose, reacting to a false alarm.

"Oh, shit," Oracle repeated, "he knows."

"Knows what, exactly?"

"That you're Batman," she answered with a solemn finality.

Had he *really* been deliberately helping their investigation? What did Fenton get out of it, though? Surely he knew he was encriminating himself, or did he think he could escape judgment by claiming to be the whistle-blower?

"There's a file in here that's labeled 'To Batman' that had an extra password protection. There was a clue given: Batman's most important date," Barbara paused and took steadying breath, "B, it unlocked when I punched in the date your parents died."

Bruce was grateful that the office he'd been left in had a chair. Dr Fenton was a ghost hunter. Had he ever crossed the ghosts of Bruce's parents? How much would they have known about Bruce, and how did Fenton extract that information?

"Let me read it to you," Barbara continued, "To Batman, i died when i was fourteen and am one of the very creatures this godforsaken organization has declared nonsentient. I used to protect my hometown from malevolent ghosts that came through the portal my parents had opened, but soon i found myself also protecting the innocent ghosts from my parents and this agency.

"When the agency started attacking the citizens of my hometown for being too ectocontaminated, i knew i needed to change tactics to stop them. My parents could not be convinced that their theories were wrong, and their research was used to justify a legalized genocide, disguised as pest control and clean-energy research. Both innocent ghosts and innocent humans were caught in the crossfire of their crusade.

"I decided to infiltrate the GIW, disguising my true nature with my parents' own inventions, and faked the capture of my own ghost's identity as my opening act. The "prime specimen" is my own duplicate, nothing more than an extension of my own will, given just enough energy to keep it from destabilizing as the agency continuously tries to study and experiment on it. In this one singular case, this particular ghost truly is a non-sentient echo, that i have continuously propped up to keep the agents distracted.

"Furthermore, the extraction devise i described to you that sits in room 304 functions a bit differently from what is written in its official documentation. I have never destroyed a ghost. I rescue them. The extractor is actually a portal. It opens up when a ghost is placed inside the machine, allowing them to escape, then harvests energy from the realms equivalent to the strength of the ghost that was rescued, giving the illusion that the ghost was destroyed in the process of harvesting it for energy.

"I can travel to the realms and retrieve any ghost that has been 'destroyed' by the extracter to prove I'm being honest.

"My home town has been quarantined by the GIW for being 'too contaminated.' While I've been rising in the ranks of the GIW and rescuing any ghosts i can, my friends and team have been protecting Amity Park and helping people escape. Go to coordinates xxx xxx to see for yourself what the GIW are willing to do to their own species. An entire city exists there that you won't find on any map, where every human has been stripped of their basic rights, treated no different from the ghosts that are studied in this facility.

"Rescue them first, then come back and rescue me, *after* you can prove the atrocities that the GIW have committed. Signed, Phantom."

Bruce understood now. The anger that Fenton barely contained wasnt aimed at the ghosts.

It was aimed at the agents.

Holy shit, indeed.

You Don’t Know Me

“We’re so glad you’re showing an interest in our work here, Mr. Wayne!”

“Of course! It’s just all so new!” Bruce said through a hollow laugh, “It’s almost unbelievable!”

“Believing in ghosts is the first step to finally getting rid of them!”

Bruce fought to keep his face flat as the director enthusiastically continued his tour of their facility.

Their ghost hunting facility.

Where they had funded and government sanctioned labs purely for the persecution of an entire inter-dimensional species.

“-Truly, the Drs.Fenton were an inspiration to the entire field of ectobiology! We wouldn’t know half the things we know about ghosts if it wasn’t for their early research!”

Bruce forced a thin smile, “Oh? Will I get to meet them? Or can I at least see some of their work?”

The man faltered almost imperceptibly, “Ah well.. that might be a bit, Fentons can be a bit.. overzealous and-“

“I’m sure it would go a long way to understanding the need for such a large facility. If it’s worth it even, perhaps I could fund an expansion…” Bruce let his voice trail off.

The man’s eyes sharpened at the mention of his financials- of course, what more could you expect from a shark who’d joined an operation like this- and the man quickly smiled.

“But of course Mr. Wayne!” He turned around, leading them towards an elevator, “Our labs are just downstairs, easy access you know, and well.. with any new specimens it’s always best to start right away!”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. They already had subjects? Their reports, their research had indicated they weren’t there yet, but if they were, this could quickly turn into a rescue mis-

“-It’s an absolute honor that we even have one of the Fenton’s themselves working with us!” Bruce sharpened his senses, one of them was here? The people who had laid every base for a hateful crusade against another dimension, all for their own ambition?

“Our labs are right through here,” the director said as he pushed open a door, “Dr. Fenton is working with our prize specimen right now, I’m sure!”

Bruce quickly scanned and analyzed the entire room. Testing tubes, jars filled with green, centrifuges, a sample fridge, glassware, plenty of counter space, all taken up by various tools and materials. And standing in front it was the reason for it all, dressed in a white lab coat over garish latex.

He turned around as they entered, “You know me too well, Director,” the young man spoke, ignoring the green splattered over his gloves, “My work with him isn’t finished yet.”

“Mr.Wayne, meet our frontier scientist, Dr. Daniel Fenton.”

Bruce Wayne scanned the young man, no older than 26, with a height similar to his own and shoulders only halfway less.

A scientist. An unknown. A threat.

Fenton smiled at him, “Tell me Mr.Wayne,” Daniel said, and his smile went sharp, “Do you believe in ghosts?”