I do think Danny being Bruce’s younger brother is a slept-on opportunity for DPxDC fandom.
So, general idea.
In the tumult of the night his parents died, Bruce hadn’t thought twice about handing his baby brother off to a kind police officer. He was shaking so hard he thought he’d drop Daniel. While the officer walked away to calm the screaming, swaddled infant, Bruce gave statement after statement to officer Gordon and others. When Alfred arrived at the station to retrieve the Wayne boys, he was met with a terrible shock.
Somehow, through incompetence or malevolence, Daniel was nowhere to be found. The officer who took the child initially said they handed him off to a secretary when he’d calmed down, and the secretary said she’d called the local CPP office to check on what requirements needed to be met for an infant in their custody. They said they’d send over an agent to handle the process. The child was passed to the person with the correct badge. They were now unreachable. And Daniel was too.
The CPP office denied having received this call. The secretary produced the recording, which all police lines in Gotham have by default. The police line says the call went to CPP; CPP’s system says otherwise.
And Daniel is somewhere out there with a crooked agent, or a fake agent, and they have no idea who they are or what they want.
Of course this made national news. The image of the stolen Wayne baby was on every television and newspaper. It was broadcast nationwide. Information about the disappearance had a hefty reward. Bruce begged the media for help finding his little brother. Not since the Lindbergh baby had there been such a national outcry.
And still there were no answers. Bruce grew disillusioned with a justice system that couldn’t find his parents’ killer nor his brother’s kidnapper. Daniel Wayne’s disappearance became the first case for Batman. It led him into the darkness of Gotham, plunging headlong into rampant trafficking, corrupt child services, and even brought the fabled Court of Owls to his attention.
—————
Meanwhile, in a different genre, young scientist couple Jack and Madeline Fenton are of their yearly vacation to haunted locales around the country. With a two-year-old in tow, they’re not quite up for spelunking through caverns or wandering the woods at night, but there are plenty of urban legends to investigate!
Through their unique combination of genius and incomprehensibility, the Fenton tangle with the Court of Owls, managing to destroy one of their secret society hideouts and save a cute baby on the way out! Sure, they’re convinced the Court was made up of ghosts and the child was spirited away to be ritually sacrificed. But the baby is safe in Maddie’s arms, and Jack notices how much he looks like himself, so they decide to take him home.
They try to report what happened to the police of course, but the cops told them to get lost with their ‘crazy ghost stories’. Along with the other complaints received about their insane outfits, gear, and vehicle, the police were quite ready to have the Fentons get the hell out of the city.
You’d think a town as haunted as Gotham would have more credulous citizenry, but what could you do? Oh well, back to Amity Park!
“What should we call him, Jack?”
“How about Daniel? I keep seeing that name everywhere for some reason!”
“Oh, that’s perfect! Welcome to the family, Danny!”
