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And sure, Danny might have missed it the tiniest bit. Some of the things he had done were pretty cool, and who wouldn't miss flying. But he had more time to do schoolwork and less reasons to get detentions or have someone nagging him that he just needed to work harder in his academics. That and there wasn't any ectoweaponry around here, so he didn't get zapped or shocked anymore either.

It was actually pretty nice.

So it threw him for a loop when suddenly he gasped in the burning pain shoulder at the dinner table. He actually never felt something like that at a dinner. The closest would be bitten or poked at by the reanimated hotdogs or the turkey at Thanksgiving. But this was on a completely different level. It was different from the burn and staticky feel of ectoweaponry or one of Vlads' inventions.

The closest he could compare it do was when his leg got stuck in that bear trap Vlad had set out in the forest one time. The metal teeth punctured his skin and squeezed, it had been excruciating. It also had taken him by surprise too, just like the knife.

"What the fuck?" Danny hissed out throug clenched teeth, finally peeling his eyes away from the knife digging into his shoulder to look at Damian instead. The kid had a sneer on his face and seemed nonplussed that he just threw a knife at Tim and him.

Thank the Ancients Tim had moved when he did, if he hadn't... Danny looked back to Tim's chair and where another knife was sticking out of the wood. It was right where Tim's head had been.

Danny didn't even know where Tim was right now, and there were raised voices. He could feel someone talking to him and a hand lightly touching his shoulder that was getting uncomfortably wet with warm blood. Everything felt a bit muffled to be honest, his vission was blurring from the tears that had welled up in his eyes at the pain. It was getting harder to breathe.

"You almost killed Tim," Danny said weakly in shock. The thought made him feel shakey. He hadn't talked that much to Tim. The older teen was usually busy or looked so tired that Danny hoped Bruce would get him to sleep. But he had helped Danny a couple of times on his homework and was nice company when they ran into each other and Tim actually relaxed from whatever else he had going on.

Tim was the one who somehow knew what questions Danny was thinking and answered them easily. He was the one who helped Danny not feel so out of place the first two weeks he had been here.

The idea that he could have been killed at what was supposed to a be a family dinner, something that Danny actually had started to look forward too, made him feel sick. It made him angry. It scared him.

Danny gritted his teeth and grabbed the plate with his other hand. Pushing through the pain from the motion that made him want to choke, he threw the plate across the table and yelled, "YOU ALMOST KILLED HIM."

Everything froze.

The plate hadn't even been able to reach Damian, Danny's throw too weak to get any further. Instead, it smashed against the table and the other's plate. Shards of pristine white went flying, but Danny didn't care.

Dinner was absolutely ruined, but it had been ruined the moment Damian had spouted some threats about being the bloodson and rightful heir. How did it even go all wrong? It was supposed to be a regular dinner. Alfred had mentioned trying a new dish.

But the idea of eating made him feel sick with the knife sticking out of him and Tim's chair. Damian was seething, spouting more threats. Some in a language he couldn't even place while Bruce had a stony look on his face Danny had never seen before. His chest hurt, and Danny couldn't stop crying.

He almost choked when he felt hands touch his face. His eyes whipped toward someone who was somehow in front of him now.

Blue eyes.

Tim.

It was Tim.

"Danny, I need you to breathe," Tim said, his voice as firm as Alfred's when anyone tried to enter the kitchen. He was...fine. Danny didn't see any blood and Tim's hands were warm against his face. Not a cut to be seen anywhere on his face or head

"Breathe, Danny, breathe." Tim repeated, and finally, he did. It hurt, and Danny felt disgusted with the way he could feel the knife slightly move at the motion.

"It hurts." Danny choked out.

"I know," Tim glanced to the side. "But you'll be fine. We'll get you patched up, and it'll be okay."

Another set of hands appeared, these a much older pair.

"I'm sorry about the plates, Alfred," He whispered.

Alfred gave him a comforting smile while he worked to stauch the bleeding. "It's quite alright, I had started to dislike that particular set."

Danny didn't call him out on the lie.

Tim freezes, his plastic fork of pancakes halfway to his mouth. "I'm sorry, you're gonna have to run that one by me again."

Danny still won't meet his eyes, squinting up at the rising sun instead. "I was, y'know. Like you. Or, I guess I'd be lumped in more with the Flash or Superman or whatever."

Powered. A powered vigilante. It's so patently fucking ridiculous that Bruce managed to find yet another black-haired, blue-eyed orphan who likes to run around at night in kevlar (please, G-d, let Danny have had adequate protection in whatever he ran around in) that a giggle bursts out of Tim. Then another. And another, until he's laughing as tears run down his face, Danny staring at him in concern.

"Sorry, sorry," Tim says, hiccupping as he finally manages to wrestle his hysterics under control. "Just. Of course Bruce managed to find another orphan who flings himself at danger headfirst instead of dealing with his problems."

Danny smiles shakily. "Except for the orphan part, guilty as charged."

Right. Danny still has terrible parents, somewhere. They'll have to worry about that at some point, maybe. "So, why'd you stop when you came to Gotham? I like to think we'd have noticed someone else running around."

Danny shrugs, finally taking a full bite of his food, chewing as he thinks. "They didn't need me anymore. It- They-" He stops, takes a deep breath, and looks at Tim. "I don't know when I'll be able to tell you the whole thing. I can't right now, but I swear I will. Just suffice to say my friend Sam disagreed with the thing that was causing most of the town's Rogue problems. Violently. She and Tucker completely trashed the la-" Danny almost chokes on the word before taking a violent bite of burrito. "Well. They took care of it. I think Sam might still be doing community service for that, actually. Her parents kept her from juvie, and she made sure Tucker didn't get caught, so. Any lingering problems, our town's other vigilante can take care of."

Tim frowns, stuffing a forkful of rapidly cooling pancakes in his mouth. "What town has two vigilantes, one of whom disappeared suddenly, that I haven't heard of? You're not from Canada, are you?" He still should have heard about it, even in Canada, but it's the only thing he can think of.

Danny grimaces. "No, the town is in the US. Or, at least, it's never not been in the US."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Danny's back to fidgeting with his food instead of eating it, mouth twisiting uncomfortably. "It's complicated. The town's... hard to find, if you're not from there. And it, uh. Moves. It's been in a couple different states, though it's always in the Midwest. One time it was in Illinois, so we went on a class field trip to Chicago, and when we tried to go back, it was in Ohio. That was a mess." Danny smiles, small but fond, though it fades when he catches a glimpse of Tim's incredulous stare. His hand goes up to rub the back of his neck as his shoulders hunch. "It's, like, a supernatural thing. And also the government is involved, so. Like I said. Complicated."

Tim could press for more details. Something in him itches for information, to know everything he can possibly know about this dangerous town that could potentially cause problems for the two of them. Bruce would probably say he should press, that a fellow vigilante would have to understand the need to know, to prepare. But-

But Danny's shoulders are hunched around his ears and he's half curling away from Tim. But he's picked enough of his tortilla to shreds that the burrito filling is threatening to spill all over the cheap aluminum foil and Danny's hand. But they're both out here because of Bruce's expectations of what a vigilante "should" deal with, for the sake of the cause.

The sudden mental image of Bruce telling Danny to just bear with it because Damian's adjusting, he just doesn't understand, and he "can think of it like extra vigilance training, right?" makes Tim's blood boil. The thought of Bruce treating Danny like... like he treated Tim.

Ah. Tim can maybe understand why Danny showed up with packed bags in the middle of the night.

Instead of all the burning questions rattling around his brain, Tim takes a deep breath and says, "Man, and I thought living in Gotham was weird."

Danny's shoulders drop and he looks over at Tim with an expression so hopeful, it breaks Tim's heart. "Nah, living in Gotham is still weird as hell," he jokes back, a breathless grin on his face. His teeth look like they're maybe a little sharper than they should be. Has Tim really not noticed that before? "I mean, come on, you have a man-eating crocodile-person living in the sewers, dude."

"That's the Gotham special sauce. Guaranteed to make your life worse!" They both grin at each other, a little manic, and in a flash of inspiration, Tim suddenly realizes where he's headed. "Hey, if we go to Kansas, is your mystery town going to drop on top of us?"

Danny takes a thoughtful bite as Tim finally remembers he has food too and crams an entire cold pancake in his mouth at once. He's had worse. "Eh, probably not. It shows up in the Great Lake states a little more often than the plains states. And also, it doesn't just like. Drop on top of people. As far as I know." He looks suddenly preturbed.

"Cool." Tim consciously decides not to unpack that particular issue right now and pushes himself off the railing, closing the lid of his now empty takeout box. "In that case, we should probably find somewhere to stay and sleep because it's, quote, 'inadvisable,' end quote, for me to drive a motorcycle when I haven't slept in over 24 hours."

"Yeah, I'd agree with that," Danny says, cracking a smile. He takes one last big bite of burrito before wrapping the remains in the foil and following Tim to the roadside trash can. "What's in Kansas?"

Tim thinks of the few times he's visited Conner at the Kent's farm, the warm, homey feel of it that's still utterly foreign to him. "A friend. Somewhere to rest, maybe to stay." Mrs. Kent certainly won't turn them away. In fact, when she finds out why they're there, Tim has a suspicion he's going to have to stop her from calling Bruce immediately to yell at him.

Danny tries to lob his wrapper into the trash like a basketball and misses wildly, grumbling as he goes to pick it up. "A place to rest sounds nice."

They left Gotham on a Friday night. It's a gorgeous, sunny Monday afternoon when Tim knocks on the door to the Kent family farmhouse, feeling abruptly foolish and like this was an abysmally stupid idea.

Martha Kent flings open the door faster than Tim expected, hands already on her hips. "Timothy Jackson Drake, your father is worried sick! What's gotten into you?"

Abruptly, shamefully, Tim feels his eyes burn as Danny audibly shifts behind him. "Hi Mrs. Kent. Can we come in?"

A hand on his arm. Tim glances back to see Danny frowning at Martha. "We can go. I'd hate to be a bother somewhere else," he mutters.

"You're not a bother for not wanting to get stabbed!" Tim snaps.

Martha's eyes widen as her lips thin. "I'm beginning to think Bruce left some things out of his explanation when he called to see if you'd been by. Why don't you two come in and fill in the blanks? Tim, I've met. Who's your friend?"

"This is Danny. My brother." Tim holds his head a little higher, almost daring Martha to contradict him, but she simply nods.

"I'm Martha Kent, but you can call me Martha if you want, sweetheart. Conner should be home from school in about half an hour. Until then, why don't I make some coffee and you can tell me what Bruce didn't."

"May I use your bathroom first, Mrs. Kent?" Danny asks, edging through the open door after Tim like a wild animal testing to see if the hand holding food is about to grab.

Tim frowns. "Oh, it's time to change your bandage, right? Take the first aid kit with you." Danny accepts it quietly, following Martha's directions around the corner.

As soon as he's gone, Martha turns to him with one eyebrow raised. "Bandages? Stabbed? Tim, what on Earth happened?"

So Tim takes a deep breath. And tells her.

When he finishes, Martha is so spitting mad he's a little surprised she's not breathing fire. "The nerve of that man!" she seethes. "He told me you two ran away because you were having trouble adjusting to having a new boy in the house."

Danny snorts, rounding the corner with such perfect timing that Tim knows he's been listening. "I don't think we were the ones with a problem."

"I'll say," Martha mutters. "I'll make allowances for cultural differences and adjustment periods, but not for acts of violence. I oughta call him right now, give him a piece of my mind-"

"Who is Ma decimating now?" calls Kon as the front door opens. "Hi Ma, hi Tim."

Tim rolls his eyes. "Stop greeting people by heartbeat," he calls back. "What if Danny wasn't already in the know? How am I supposed to explain that?"

"What are you talking about, there's no one else-" Kon rounds the corner and freezes, he and Danny staring at each other like startled deer. "...hi," Kon finally says. "Are you aware that you don't have a heartbeat?"

Tim chokes on nothing, whirling to stare at Danny, who shrinks back in his chair, looking a little wild around the eyes. "...I have one, it's just slower than you're expecting. It probably didn't register as a heartbeat."

Frowning, Kon furrows his brow before it smooths out. "Oh, there it is. What is that, eight beats a minute?"

"Five to seven, last time we measured."

"Huh." Kon points at himself. "Half Kryptonian, attempted clone of Superman, what's your deal?"

Danny somehow slides a little further down in his chair. "...half dead." Tim chokes on spit. Kon's eyes widen comically, and Tim hears Martha suck in a breath through her teeth. "I, uh, I have a clone too? I don't know if you've ever met another clone before, it might be nice for you. She's somewhere in Romania, I think, but I could probably get a hold of her, if she bothers to check her email any time in the next century-"

"Damn," Tim chokes out, cutting off Danny's ramble. "When you said you were a vigilante, I didn't think you meant you got the whole deluxe treatment. Usually that's the big city vigilante kind of messed up." It's a testament to how shaken Martha is that she doesn't tell him off for swearing.

Danny hitches one shoulder up, half a shrug, and doesn't meet anyone's eyes. "Well, you know me. Only one thing in the world I ever did by halves." He snorts sardonically at a joke only he gets before the smile vanishes and he levels a look at Martha. "Just... I mean, can you give me a few minutes to start running, if you're going to call the cops or the Justice League or somebody on me? I still have my bag packed and everything."

Martha looks like her heart is breaking, which is fair, because that's about how Tim feels. "Oh, honey, no, I'm not calling anybody on you. I might call Bruce to give him a piece of my mind, but otherwise, you're right as rain to stay right here."

Kon whistles through his teeth, cutting off whatever Danny was about to say. "What'd Bruce do?"

"Let his new kid stab Danny and try to stab me."

Kon's eye abruptly flare red. "What? Tim-"

"Please do not fly to Gotham to fist fight Bruce. He has Kryptonite in the house."

"I could just punch him once, really fast," Kon wheedles, hands clenched in shaking fists. "He wouldn't even have time to register that I was there."

Martha takes a deep breath, pulling herself together. "There will be none of that, young man. If you have energy to burn off, you can go throw around haybales."

Kon breathes in sharply before letting his shoulders slump, just a little, and unclenching his fists. "No, ma'am. I'm fine. Can I show Danny and Tim around?"

"Just trying to get out of chores," she says, fond. "Go ahead, dear.

Tim turns to Danny, who's been sitting half out of his chair and watching everyone with wary eyes, clearly ready to bolt. He decides that the best way forward is just to ignore that, offering a hand to haul Danny up from the table. "C'mon, the Kents have some cows that are pretty cute, if you're into that kind of thing."

Tim keeps the warm feeling in his chest off his face when Danny only hesitates a second before grabbing his hand. "Okay. If you think it'll be alright."

Kon shoves himself between them, slinging one arm around Tim's shoulders and one around Danny's. The other boy tenses for a split second before absolutely melting into the contact. "Yeah, it'll be fine. C'mon, Ma wants to fuss over the guest room, let's go before we get roped into helping."