Wolf-eyed Witch's Fandom Sideblog

*Danny's idea of Dog sizes is skewed, to him Cugo is a big dog, anything smaller than that is medium to small to xsmall.

Bonus

-Red Hood(or the bats in general) thinks the appartment building was suspicious. Maybe it was some rich guy just being nice, but outside of Bruce, stuff like that doesn't happen in Gotham. Maybe its money laundering, or its acting as an underground brothel, or the owner is actually a massive creep. Either way, they want to be discreet, they don't want to ruin a good thing for people in need if everything happens to be clean happenings. So, they go under cover, Jason acts like a working boy, Damian is a abused kid/teen on the run, Steph is hiding from a abusive ex, maybe Alfred gets in on it and acts like an old man whos boss just fired him because of with no severance pay?

Bruce doesn’t sigh, but there’s the implied sigh in his words. “You don’t read minds, Flash.”

“I don’t need to be able to read minds to know what you’re thinking right now,” Barry argues. “The little guys are traumatized! They were just stuck waiting to be made into paste.”

Bruce stares back silently from behind is cowl, judging.

“Can we not?” Wally snaps. He clutches his own blob ghost tight enough that it squeaks and quickly relaxes his grip. Well, not his, blob ghost, just the one that has found its way to him. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Barry says, voice carefully softened. His comforting victims voice.

It rankles.

“Is it?! Because I think what it is, is that they’ve got part of our family here in a fucking tube to keep experimenting on! What I think it is, is that he never really made it out!”

The noise in the room quiets at his out burst. Dick is looking from across the room with worry in every line of his body. Barry isn’t looking at him at all.

“Flash,” Bruce says, voice firm.

Wally hunches his shoulders. “That was unprofessional, I know.”

“You don’t have to stay in this room,” Bruce offers instead of ripping into Wally’s outburst. “If you wish to stay on site but away from here, there is a boardroom.”

“I… yeah. I’ll go—I can get some waters and stuff for it too for everyone. Maybe these little guys will settle in too,” Wally says. He has to stumble through the words, but it’s better to have something to do. “And I’ll stay out of the way until I calm down.”

“Flash. Both of you,” Bruce says. They look to him, of course they both do. Bruce just commands attention. “This is understandably hard. It will be for your whole family. Focus on making sure your family is alright. If we need your expertise, we will ask, I promise you that.”

After a moment, Barry nods. “I’ll try to settle the blobs in the boardroom so that they’re out of the way.”

“That would help,” Bruce agrees.

“And I’ll try to keep the younguns away,” Barry says with a sigh, because that was a whole thing.

“Keep them to the boardroom if they don’t stay away. All of them,” Bruce advises. “Wonder Woman and Zatanna are speaking with some of the ghosts, and Constantine is making sure that the building is safe from realm bleed. Until we know matters are secure, Young Justice need to stay out of the way and as a group. I am counting Afterimage as part of that group.”

Barry nods. “We’ll make sure they know that.”

Wally thinks they’re both was more confident in keeping the kids contained than they should be, but doesn’t open his mouth. (He’s still feeling a little hysterical.)

“Boardroom is this way,” Barry says and zips off. The little ghosts hang on easily for the whole walk, even through the super speed. In fact, the ghosts seem happier after the trip.

Wally sets the ghost he had been holding down on the table. It’s sleek and dangerously black in the bright, white room. Wally hates it. He hates this whole place. “I, um, saw some paper boxes in a copy room. They might be good for these little guys. I’ll just—”

He leaves before Barry can say anything back.

The copy room is empty. There’s a pile of papers that have been briefly lit on fire that still stink of smoke, but no one is trying to deal with looking through them yet. It lets Wally sit down. His head down drops down between his knees and his hands wrap behind his neck. He breaths in.

There was another Danny.

He breaths out.

They still didn’t know if there was a consciousness there.

He breaths on.

If there was, had Danny know anything outside of this torment?

He breaths out a long, slow breath.

One piece at a time.

One piece at a time and backed by their family: by Barry and Iris and Bart. But they’re also by their extended family of heroes: by Bats and Supes and the Amazonians and everyone else. This would be hard, but they would handle it together.

Bruce was to not do any Batman work until he was fully healed. All because he got caught by surprise during a fight with Ivy, and his back paid the price. It was a bone bruise, which, in Bruce's opinion, was a minor injury, but Alfred had heard Dr. Leslie warn him that if he didn't rest, she wouldn't be surprised if it led to a broken bone.

She meant that he could get hurt worse in the field. But Alfred heard this leads to that and ran with it. Now Bruce was bored out of his mind, waiting for his family to let him move. Technically, he wasn't on strict bed rest, but since Dr. Leslie also found out the rest of his body was practically screaming from all the stress he put it through, she advised that he stay in bed for a while.

His kids gave him a TV remote, a couple of books, and his phone (with some programmed blocks to prevent him from accessing the systems he wanted to work on). They explained that in about three days, he would be allowed access to his laptop, not before then. He could get into his wheelchair and roll to different parts of the house, but not "on his own". He was pretty sure they put motion sensors around his room just in case he tried

He watched shows, read his books, and scrolled on social media. It's only been five hours, and he was already losing his mind. Maybe it was because he knew he couldn't work, but the hours dragged on so much that he didn't pay attention to the episodes, and the paragraphs in the books didn't register in his mind.

Social media had never really captured his attention, except for searching for signs that someone was getting close to his identity. He was so bored he started scrolling blindly, eyes glazed and unfocused on the screen. Even if he was focused, the screen moved too fast for him to see what the posts were about until his thumb accidentally tapped on a pop-up ad.

The ad was a link that sent him to a different website. The website looked plain overall, except for the kiss marks floating on the sides and the random posts encouraging people to call them for a good time with like-minded people. Bruce has never seen a website like that before.

Usually, such websites were subtle- and sometimes not subtle at all- images that showed it was more of a working girl or boy service. These posts had odd phrases like "Call me to talk about dinosaurs!" or "Call me if you love the following book series," and even "Call me if you want to vent about stupid siblings- only middle children!"

The website was called "Kitty's Connections," which sounded like a run-of-the-mill, adult service website, but the content was....different.

Bruce quickly ran a scan on the page with his phone. Barbara and Tim made sure everyone's phones had virus, malware, and phishing scanners installed so they could quickly verify that any app or webpage they visited was safe. Nothing was marked dangerous, so in a moment of utter boredom, Bruce scrolled through the different posts. Apparently, each user had a phone number linked to the webpage's app, and when someone found a topic they liked, they were supposed to tap the number to make a direct call.

No messaging because that wasn't "authentic" anymore. Bruce was pretty sure this was someone closer to his age who created the webpage. He scrolled for a good hour or so, with nothing catching his attention. Bruce was about to close the webpage and return to his social media when one post from the user DeadKingFenton caught his attention.

Call me if you want a platonic fun time : 1-800-XOXO

Underneath the odd message was an image of a burning crown that bore an alarming resemblance to a fictional legend that Bruce had personally been obsessed with as a child. In his favorite show, The Grey Ghost, the protagonist, despite being human, had been helped by his mysterious mentor and informant of the Underworld- The Ghost King.

He only appeared as a flaming crown floating over a figure that hid in the shadows and never showed thier face. Their voice was provided by multiple people speaking at once, and despite their importance, the Ghost King appears on screen only twice, with all other references to them delivered by the Grey Ghost reminiscing about his days in training.

The Ghost King haunted the narrative, but there were never many details about the character, and fans quickly realized the King was more of a plot hole than anything else, barely making sense in the context of the show. The king was more of a fantasy element in an otherwise modern (of its time) fiction show.

Only really devoted fans knew the King's symbol, which was something Bruce was. His eyes lingered on the message, the image, and after a moment, he said, "Well, what's the worst that could happen?" and pressed the call number.

At once, it encouraged him to install the app, and create a profile. Bruce quickly went through the necessary steps to create an account under the username ProudGreyGFan. Once that was done, the call started, and instead of the usual call tone, the Grey Ghost theme song was heard.

Bruce's lips lifted as he listened to the familiar and beloved music. It went on for a few seconds, just about to loop again, when someone answered.

Someone shockingly young. He was expecting someone his age, or even older, since Bruce knew the show was from his father's generation. He had been an awfully young fan back when Bruce was a child, and that was mostly because Thomas' favorite show was what he wanted to share with his son.

"Hello?" A male teenager, by the sound of his voice. Bruce blinks once, then twice, utterly frozen from surprise until the voice returns. "Anyone there?"

"Y-yes. Sorry, how old are you?" Bruce finds him asking.

"I'm fourteen."

"Well then, goodbye," Bruce hangs up the call, rubbing his eyes. In seconds, his phone starts ringing again. He answers without checking the caller- so used to only his family having his number- and much to his displeasure, the same teenage voice comes from the speakers.

"Hey, you called me. Do you not want to chat?"

"Not with a teenager."

The fourteen-year-old laughs. "It's not that kind of chat, old man."

"It's still not appropriate. I thought you were older because of the Crown of Fire picture in your post. Sorry."

There is a pause, heavy with something that snaps the attention vigilante part of my mind. Bruce finds himself pausing over the end call button, waiting as the boy finally replies, "How do you know the Crown of Fire?"

"I'm a fan of the show it's from." Are you not? is left unsaid, but heard all the same. There are a few moments of silence, though Bruce could hear the boy moving. It sounded like he was outside, somewhere crowded, based on the footsteps, and maybe even close to a road if those were cars driving by. It could be just wind, but it was too consistent and heavy for that.

A few minutes went by, and then the boy's voice returned, "What show are you talking about? I can't find it online."

"The Grey Ghost, from the early 50s," Bruce replies, even more confused. If this wasn't a reference to his favorite show, then how did the boy know the Crown of Fire? He could have just chosen it because he liked how the image looked- Dick has done that plenty of times- but to know it by name was an entirely different thing.

It implied that the Crown of Fire was more than just a fictional element in an old show.

Another pause goes by, and Bruce is now sure the boy is searching, before his surprise voice comes back. "Wait, the Ghost King is a character in this? No way!"

"Did you not watch the show?"

"No, this is the first time I'm hearing about it."

"Then how did you know about the Crown of Fire?" Bruce asks, pressing the phone to his ear and trying to get as many details of the boy from the background noise he could make out. Something in him told him to do so.

Bruce was never one to doubt his instincts- they saved his life more than once.

"Um, I-er, I saw it online and thought it was cool." The boy stumbles, which is the worst attempt at lying in his life. Too honest. He then asked how the boy knew about the Ghost King if he had never seen the show. "Er, what I saw was a picture of the Ghost King wearing the crown. I, ugh, thought he was someone's OC."

"Someone's OC?" Bruce questions, confusion coloring his words. What was with kids and making everything into an acronym?

"You're really old, aren't you?" The boy laughs a little more relaxed. "It means original character."

That explained nothing, but Bruce still hummed as if it explained everything. It sounded like the boy was moving underground. He was proven correct when he heard an announcement. This is Gotham Line L to Gotham Line W.

The kid was in Gotham? And on his way to Crime Alley? At this hour? It was the last train, and frankly, quite dangerous.

"I suppose I sound old to someone so young. I'm forty-seven." Bruce replies, typing a text to Jason- the one to be for sure near Crime Alley- a request to stop by the station and ensure the fourteen-year-old gets home safe.

A few seconds go by before his son's confirmation comes through, along with a suspicious " Why do you know there is a child walking so late on his own? But Bruce chose not to answer that part of the message.

"Ancient." The boy mocks in the same good nature, teasing his children, and Bruce's lips twitch into a smile against his will. " You're ancient. Why aren't you sleeping? Old people are asleep by this time, right?"

"I could ask you the same. Kids have bedtimes for a reason, you know."

The boy barks out a laugh, delighted. The sound is almost surprised, like he wasn't expecting to be brought to laughter, or that he was out of practice. Bruce adds one more mark to the list of worries this call was starting to make.

"I usually stay up late!" The boy said through giggles.

"Are your guardians aware of that? Better yet, are they aware you're taking calls from strangers?" Bruce probs as casually as he can. It doesn't seem to be done as delicately as he should have done it because the good humor vanishes, and the heavy silence from before returns.

After a moment, the boy speaks again. "They don't care."

Not a lie, but said with far too flatness that Bruce knows the boy means his guardians don't care about him, and not that they didn't mind what he was doing. If it were anyone else, they would have missed the difference in the way he spoke, but he's Batman. He could hear that bitterness loud and clear in the flatness of his tone.

"They should. My kids tell me beauty sleep is really important- especially since I don't believe in skin care routines," Bruce said instead of peaking at the obvious tension. He wants to know more, which is why he hadn't hung up again.

"You don't believe in skin care routines?!" The teenager yelps, sounding equally as horrified by that knowledge as Tim and Steph did when he walked in on them applying random products during a sleepover.

They had moved to the viewing room for a night of romantic comedies a few minutes before Bruce got the urge to go turn on the projector to watch a documentary. His son and (almost) daughter forced him to sit down while they smeared similar products on his skin, which he thought was pointless, but he did enjoy the face mask.

Bruce laughs. "I do wear lotion and sunscreen. I also drink plenty of water- that usually clears up any skin issues I have."

The teenager makes a noise that sounds like he's deeply offended, but doesn't comment on it further. Instead, he asks how much water is considered 'plenty'. In the same breath, the boy starts talking about the water bottles he makes and sells in his free time.

Bruce allows himself to get pulled into the conversation, asking questions when appropriate but mostly letting the kid lead. Eventually, the conversation moves to the Grey Ghost and other old shows the pair enjoys, with Bruce mentioning things from before his time, and the teenager mentioning old cartoons he enjoyed that Bruce only has faint knowledge of.

Out of all his kids, Dick and Jason were the ones most prone to cartoons, but the teenager considered shows from ten years ago old, so he recognized some names. The most recent was a loss to him, as Damian preferred anime to Western animation. Tim liked live action, Steph mostly watched dramas, and Duke went from horror to sitcoms.

It sounded like the teenager was one of the few who mostly watched animated things instead of anything else.

Eventually, the train arrived at its destination, twenty minutes later, and the boy paused in his summary of the most recent show that had a giant plot twist he had not been expecting.

"Oh, I have to go."

"Alright." Bruce accepted easily. "Have a good night."

"Um, you too. I'm Danny, by the way."

Bruce bites back a lecture on telling strangers his name, especially online, but only just. He tries to sound as casual and warm as he had been throughout this entire conversation. "Nice to meet you Danny. My name is Bruce."

"It was fun talking to you, Bruce," Danny says brightly, then in a much more obvious attempt to sound casual, he asks, "Can I call you again?"

Bruce's heart squeezes at the longing in the boy's tone as he laughs. "Of course."

Danny does a little cheer before he once again bids him goodbye, and the call drops. A few minutes go by, and he has half the mind to go down to Crime Alley to check if the boy got there safely or even open his chat with Jason to make sure he was around to get Danny home safely. He holds off, just because he knows his family would get angry, but just as the itch to do something starts to get unbearable, his phone rings.

This time, actually checking the screen, he finds Jason's burner phone number, the one he uses as Red Hood, flashing across his screen. He picks up, answering in a confused voice, just in case it's someone other than Jaylad.

He can pretend to never get a call from that number, as Brucie, if that's the case.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"It's your butler, who else?" Jason scoffs, answering the call in the code they agreed upon for the month. At once, Bruce relaxes even as his son carries on like nothing was amiss. The who else also let him know that his son was in a secure place, so he wasn't worried about being overheard.

Jason let that settle before his voice took on a more serious tone, dropping the mocking. "Listen, I'm calling about the teenager you mentioned on the last train of the W line. I followed him from the station, only to find out he was crashing in a broken-down camping store that had closed years ago. When I went inside, I saw his little setup in the far back of the building near the bathrooms. Kid's homeless but seems to be using the building's still functioning water system- and no, I don't know why it's active- to make himself look like he's not."

Bruce closed his eyes. I was afraid of this

"I figured as much," He settles on. "From the way he spoke, it sounded like he was lonely enough that his home situation was not right."

"You bringing him in?" Jason asks, with just the hint of tension in his voice that tells Bruce he means the cape life, and the Manor all at once. His son still doesn't approve of children in capes, along with Dick, and both act as if Bruce goes out of his way to turn children into soldiers, no matter who he talks to.

Sometimes it hurts that they forget how hard he worked to talk children out of it, and how hard he fought to get his sons to stay home in the very beginning.

"No. I just found out about him, but I don't think he will be willing to get help from CPS or me until I build a better relationship," Bruce replies. Jason lets out a huff of annoyance.

"No CPS," He grouches, the memories of what that particular system did to him, hidden in Jason's voice. "They never help. Not in Gotham."

"I know. I'm trying to make it better," Bruce acknowledges, but both know his efforts are not enough. For ever corrupted person Wayne Enterpirse had removed, three more took thier place. The system was broken in the country, but in Gotham, it was utterly shattered. "Until then, I want to keep an eye on Danny, and I'll keep talking to him-"

"Talk to him? How are you talking to him?"

"I got connected to him through a website. It's called Kitty's Connections, and apparently, it's to help people meet like-minded individuals, but through phone calls only." Bruce responds without hesitation.

Jason is silent for a long moment before he lets out a long breath. "If it were anyone else, I would be accusing them of being a perv, but I know you. So, we are investigating this website?"

"Yes. I want to make sure it's nothing harmful to children." Bruce had already sent a link to Barbara, along with an explanation. She replied with a thumbs up and a promise to give him a report on whatever she found. "O is on it. In the meantime, tell me about Danny. Does he look alright?"

"He's skinny, in the same way kids who've haven't eaten well for years are. But he's clean, like I said, seeming to keep up his laundry, and his washing well enough through the store's water supply. He also seems unaware of his surroundings. Either he's new to the streets or so used to them he doesn't look out of place." Jason reports, sounding like he was leaping onto the roofs, based on the change in voice and the slight thumps. Bruce wishes he could be leaping over rooftops right now, too. "features wise, he's small with black hair reaching his shoulders, blue eyes and limp in his left leg. Can't be older than twelve or so."

"He said he was fourteen," Bruce corrects, "Didn't sound like a lie. How bad was the limp?"

"Looks new. The kid steps wrong, for it it be a old issue."

"Did he seem ingured?"

"Not that I could tell, but I was observing at a distance. Didn't want him to run,"

Bruce sighs, "Alright. I'll call him again tomorrow. See if I can get more information out of him. Do you mind finding a way to give him food-"

"Already have that covered. Tomorrow, one of my contacts will offer him free food in exchange for some help taking out the garbage or something."

Bruce smiles, pride blooms in his chest. "Thank you, Jaylad. You always do good work for the street kids."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Not a big deal." Despite the words, Bruce knew his son was blushing, attempting to brush off the praise as he had when he was twelve. His boy has never handled praise well. "That's all?"

"For tonight. Thank you"

"Alright, then I'm heading off. By the way, I'm going to call Alfred about this. You better be resting by the time he come up to check on you."

Bruce groans, "I wasn't even doing anything. Why do you have to call him?"

"You know why."

"Fine. I'll watch some cartoons or something while you call him."

Jason huffs out a surprise laugh. "Cartoons? Why cartoons?"

"Danny told me about some. He sounded so passionate, I felt like I should give them a chance." Bruce shrugs, clicking on the TV and typing in the search bar, the first one. It pulls up the streaming service it was on, and since Bruce had all the subscriptions, he was able to start the first episode right away. It was just as brightly colored and playful as he would expect from a show about imaginary friends living in a foster home.

"Alright, have fun." Jason laughs again, "Night, old man."

"Goodnight, Jaylad. I love you."

Jason sputters for a second before he grouses, "Yeah, love you too."

The line drops, and Bruce settles more comfortably to watch the show. He has about twenty seconds before Alfred is running up to ensure he's actually watching TV, but he makes a mental note to look more into Danny's situation and the Ghost King's Crown of Fire.

Something tells him that it's a very important connection with the boy in the broken-down camping store and the reason he wound up there. Bruce would ponder on it more, but he hears the loud stomping of his bulter, so he has to force himself to look utterly captivated with the cartoon and let his thoughts settle.

Just as he does so, Alfred throws up the door with a shout, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, BOY!?"

"Watching cartoons."

Alfred narrows his eyes at him, rightfully suspicious. If Jason hadn't given him the warning, Bruce would have likely done something crazy, like limp to Tim's room to steal a tablet and look into the Ghost King. "Keep it that way."

"I will."

"I will, what?"

"I will, sir."

Barry can feel the anti ghost shielding. Moving through it is like pushing through a door strung with clingfilm. It slows him down, but it doesn’t stop him. Wally is fractions of a second behind him. Barry would have rather had Wally at the other locations where there would be less chance of being shot at, but there had been no convincing the Titans of staying away completely.

Wally takes the left path as Barry takes the right. Something about them coming through the shielding triggers the alarms. Something about them says ‘ghost. Barry tries not to think about it, because he can’t afford to think about it right then. They have a mission.

Locking the GIW out of their own armory is ridiculously simple. Again, overconfident bastards. He avoids taking out any of the agents just yet, just to cut down on panic. Next step was to find the security room. Wally made it there first. Two agents are passed out on the floor. Barry leaves the computers to Wally for the moment and focuses on securing the agents with zip ties. He uses their ties as gags. Which really, white suits? Overconfident bastards.

“Security room is secure,” Wally says. His voice is an even double through the comms. “Relay the time to breaching.”

“Five minutes,” Bats replies.

“Armory is locked up. There didn’t seem to be any exterior guards, but not promises,” Barry added. There was a soft noise of confirmation back.

Barry crosses his arms, foot tapping. Five minutes was an eternity for a speedster.

“Did you feel it?” Wally asks.

Barry nods. “Coming through the barrier? Yeah.”

Wally nods. “There’s also a feeling of, like, static shock when touching the goons.”

“I just thought that was the ugly carpet.”

“It is really hideous carpet.”

An eternity later, and far too much time staring at the carpet, the rest arrive. After grabbing the hard drive that they hope Technus has moved onto, Barry and Wally speed back to their teams and then forward again, mapping out the facility and taking the odd agent out as they go.

The full alarms are blaring now. The GIW are doing the equivalent of shredding the documents, except it’s trying to wipe data. There are Bats making sure to stop that. That one is easy. Harder is stopping the GIW from destroying the active experiments. From destroying the ghosts that they have pressed into cages and test tubes and machines that Barry doesn’t look too closely at but that turn his stomach.

Most of the human shaped ones rise with a wail as soon as they’re freed. Some vanish. Others swoop through the building. The ghost of a lunch lady embraces another that looks like a dock worker of some sort, but it’s hard to tell with the pieces that hang off him like dripping skin. Something large and white and furry attacks an agent.

Barry doesn’t stop them.

“Flash,” Wally says across the comms. “Left side, big lab.”

The strain in his voice is enough that Barry rushes to his nephew’s location, arms full of weird, blobular ghosts that rumble like purring cats. He’d been grabbing them out of one of the machines—at least grabbing the ones that weren’t… bits of green are stuck to his suit like mashed up jelly. The ghost coo as Barry zips at full speed.

Bits of green go flying as he slams to a stop next to Wally.

One of the blobs rumbles deeper and nuzzles Barry in a weird sort of comfort. Absently, Barry dips his chin down to shield it. He doesn’t look down. He can’t. His eyes are glued to what he’s seeing in the large tube in the center of the room.

“Is that…”

“…It looks like it, right?” Wally asks. His voice isn’t above a whisper. “Danny said they had his core, but I didn’t…”

“How could we?” Barry asks back. Ludicrously, Barry says the first thing that comes to mind. “We’re going to have to move. We don’t have enough bedrooms.”

Wally barks out a surprised laugh and covers his mouth quickly. It’s not the time to be laughing. Barry bites his lip to stop his own, slightly hysterical laugh.

The blobs purr.