Mainly DC x DP

Still, actually looking at him right now? He looks so ordinary. Like any kid you'd pick up off the street, if that kid happened to have been bought some slightly pricy clothes by Dick and Duke. And if that kid happened to be embarrassed about being dragged into her library by the other batgirls. And, perhaps, if that kid had someone with red hair in his life that he lost recently. From the way his face twisted, dropped, and went politely blank in the first few moments was any indication.

"We have plenty of books on astronomy actually. Let me check our databases and see what's still available? You can tell me if you haven't read some of them."

"That'd be great! Thanks miss Gordon."

His smile is so bright, Barbara can't help but smile too. 

"So," Steph slides up after Cass and Harper wander off with Danny in tow. They're definitely listening in on their comms too, but none of them know how the new guy's hearing actually is so it's all coded from here on out. "What'cha think? Me and the girls found him lost in the gardens while still looking for the exit. Which y'know, totally fair. I still get lost out there, I think they change the hedge mazes on purpose after you walk in."

To translate, Steph said something along the lines of; 'Have you found anything about him yet? He may have gotten lost, but all the traps out there? He dodged all of them. Or just didn't trip some of them. 

"It's been years since I got to walk Bruce's gardens, ever since Dick and I broke up at least. I know he's tried to make them more wheel-chair friendly, but it takes forever to get my chair back to the house. Its impressive he managed to get through there, think he could give Duke tips? I hear he still gets lost."

Translation; No I haven't, I can't find much at all. It's a little strange, especially since he dodged all the traps. He's definitely some kind of meta.

Before their conversation can get any further than that, a figure bursts into the library, chased by police sirens. It's a man. One that makes Barbara's stomach pitch into her stomach.

"OUT!! NOT YOU!!" She wails to no avail.

Condiment King looks utterly bewildered to be yelled at so fiercely, or maybe because he's in a library- and Barbara is more certain than ever he's never bothered to learn to read. He doesn't seem interested in leaving. In fact, the second he seemed to realize that the books could be used to his advantage, he immediately point his stupid ketchup and mustard guns at the nearest shelf.

Somewhere to the side of her, Stephine and Harper scoot a bit closer to Danny. Cassandra disappears somewhere.

This stupid joke of a villain opens his stupid mouth to make Barbara rethink Bruce's no-kill policy and she reaches under her desk-

"Oop-" Everyone freezes as Danny sticks both of his forefingers into the barrels of the dual guns.

"What is this!?"

"Not my smartest plan... Which is saying a lot." Danny paused for a moment, and, just before Condiment king can get out his next statement, he interrypts the both of them with a dramatic; "PICKLE!" It's a pickle! ... No, I can do better, man-"

"Relish this moment! For the Condiment King will not be dill-nied his dues!" He cried. Giving a strong yank to get the guns back, only for Danny to wrap his hands around the nozzles and not give a single inch. A very impressive feat because even if this particular villain was a comedian, not an athlete, was almost twice Danny's weight and had much better leverage.

"Maybe you should just chilli out! You're pesto-ing these nice girls and, look man the bit's not the worst-shi'vre ever seen, but this place doesn't sesa-seem to be your scene. But lettuce end this quickly."

Before anymore a-salts on their ears could happen, the girls watched Danny swing forward, slide between the rogue's legs and give him a swift kick to the butt. Using Condiment King's own gun-tubing to hog-tie him in what only could be described as a 'cartoon logic bing-banging and a dust cloud' manner. He'd even gotten on tube inside Condiment King's mouth, and was sitting on the rogue's back- awkwardly perched since both guns are still in his hands, but no less smug about the take down.

Stephine and Harper both jogged over, with Stephie keeping her phone out, still recording and snapping picture with Danny.

Cassandra, who had rematerialized at some point, signed to Barbara; Scrappy. Formal training, but center of balance off. Trained by woman? Learned from doing mostly. Then goes to join the other two to check on their new brother.

Interesting...

Barbara watches as Danny, instead of standing up, gets stopped short by the fact that his fingers are actually stuck in the gun nozzles. One last photo gets snapped of him face planting, then pouting at Stephine making a peace sign at the camera before attempting to help him.

"THIS IS THE POLICE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" This by-the-book bullhorn gets everyone's attention, and Barbara sighs in relief hearing her dad's voice. He must've been already close by if he came out to handle such a c-tier rogue even before realizing how close they were to Barbara's place of work.

Shaking her head at their girls still trying to free Danny, she manages to get Harper at least to; "Let the police in and take this lunatic away from my books!"

-

"You aren't uh, uploading that anywhere are you?"

All the officers, save her father, were doing last minute clean ups. The commissioner himself had been taking the statements of everyone involved- outside thankfully. Letting Barbara have her alone time to upload all the information they'd observed into the database to keep searching for more leads on Danny. But she was still half-listening through the comms in case he said something else of note.

"Like, to the internet? Nah. Condiment King might not be a full rogue- there's a whole story about mind control and we keep having to knock hi out of it cause nobody knows the pass phrase to fully get rid of it. Anyway, even with guys like him, it's a bad idea to let people think anybody but the Bats got the guy." Stephine cheerfully tells him.

"She's right, unfortunately." Her dad sighed. "Too much of a risk to the civilians if Rogues decide they want to make a statement and can blame someone easier to get to than a Bat. The reporters will print that Signal helped take him down, since it's the middle of the day."

"Cool, coolcool. Just checking.... You guys sure have a lot of vigilantes." He does sound genuinely relieved, and he's too eager to change the subject.

"You don't know the half of it." Dad sighs, then says his goodbyes as the girls help usher him back inside.

"Sorry about that Miss Gordon. I didn't mean to cause a scene or anything." Danny says, as soon as he slinks his way back to the front desk. Why is he apologizing?

"No, thank you Danny. Really! I'm just glad my books are alright." Who are you? Barbara wonders. Who, or what, are you running from? Why didn't Bruce say anything- it must be pretty bad if he's keeping secrets from all of them like this. Again. "I'm more worried about you though. You should be more careful, what if you'd gotten hurt? Are your fingers alright? You didn't break anything?"

"Nah." He holds up both of them and wiggles them for show. "See? No need to worry about me."

The rest of the conversation remains light hearted. Eventually he goes back to looking for the books they talked about before that whole debacle. Except, even then, he doesn't actually check anything out. Takes a couple of pictures of the astronomy books' content with a phone that looks like it needs a senior citizen discount, but nothing else. Like he's not expecting to stay long enough to be able to return them.

Snow White's stepmother literally sends someone to kill her, and when that doesn't work, she tries to do it herself. We know from the start of the movie, where Snow White is in a ragged dress cleaning the stairs, that she wasn't being properly treated as a princess either. It's only when the hunter takes her out under the pretense of looking for wildflowers that she gets her signature dress, which implies that not only was she being mistreated at home, but that the Queen hid this treatment from the public eye. After Snow White has to run into the forest, she is able to swap her skills for shelter, which allows her to survive! She is resourceful and resilient.

Through his exploration, he's found something strange though. It doesn't matter which server he jumps to, he always sees traces of the same digital signature. If he wasn't literally within the internet, he wouldn't have noticed, but it becomes easier to identify the more he sees it. So he eventually decides to follow.

That's how Danny ends up in Oracle's computer, and there was SO much to explore here.

---

Something has gotten into her system. She hasn't told anyone yet. There's a big stakeout going on, and the bats and birds can't risk getting distracted, but it is driving her crazy.

She's been using her laptop for her Oracle activities to decrease the risk of the thing getting any information on current patrols, but she hasn't been able to lock it out of the data stored on her main computer or erase enough information to keep it away from anything sensitive.

It has been beyond stressful doing everything on a simple laptop after years of using her constantly upgraded setup.

Oracle can't even identify what it is. It isn't behaving like a virus or spyware, but more importantly, she can't get rid of it. It keeps avoiding all her attempts... almost as if it were alive.

After another frustrated night guiding the vigilantes of Gotham with her laptop, she decides to try and communicate with whatever did this. She creates an open chat.

She doesn't think it will actually get any results, but soon she's getting a text."Your computer is crazy!" accompanied by an anime-like emoticon of a pale boy with green eyes and white hair blinking.

---

Phantom goes back and forth with the heroes/vigilantes for about five sentences before pretending to get bored with them. Then he lets his ghostly traits mostly fade and lets Danny “fall unconscious” to the floor. The heroes/vigilantes are quick to check for injuries and his well-being, and when he “wakes up,” he acts confused and lost. He then proceeds to pretend he doesn’t remember anything other than his name, because he really would prefer to be called that. He is doing a damn good job with his acting, at least if the concerned faces are anything to go by.

Through his exploration, he's found something strange though. It doesn't matter which server he jumps to, he always sees traces of the same digital signature. If he wasn't literally within the internet, he wouldn't have noticed, but it becomes easier to identify the more he sees it. So he eventually decides to follow.

That's how Danny ends up in Oracle's computer, and there was SO much to explore here.

---

Something has gotten into her system. She hasn't told anyone yet. There's a big stakeout going on, and the bats and birds can't risk getting distracted, but it is driving her crazy.

She's been using her laptop for her Oracle activities to decrease the risk of the thing getting any information on current patrols, but she hasn't been able to lock it out of the data stored on her main computer or erase enough information to keep it away from anything sensitive.

It has been beyond stressful doing everything on a simple laptop after years of using her constantly upgraded setup.

Oracle can't even identify what it is. It isn't behaving like a virus or spyware, but more importantly, she can't get rid of it. It keeps avoiding all her attempts... almost as if it were alive.

After another frustrated night guiding the vigilantes of Gotham with her laptop, she decides to try and communicate with whatever did this. She creates an open chat.

She doesn't think it will actually get any results, but soon she's getting a text."Your computer is crazy!" accompanied by an anime-like emoticon of a pale boy with green eyes and white hair blinking.

---

Through his exploration, he's found something strange though. It doesn't matter which server he jumps to, he always sees traces of the same digital signature. If he wasn't literally within the internet, he wouldn't have noticed, but it becomes easier to identify the more he sees it. So he eventually decides to follow.

That's how Danny ends up in Oracle's computer, and there was SO much to explore here.

---

Something has gotten into her system. She hasn't told anyone yet. There's a big stakeout going on, and the bats and birds can't risk getting distracted, but it is driving her crazy.

She's been using her laptop for her Oracle activities to decrease the risk of the thing getting any information on current patrols, but she hasn't been able to lock it out of the data stored on her main computer or erase enough information to keep it away from anything sensitive.

It has been beyond stressful doing everything on a simple laptop after years of using her constantly upgraded setup.

Oracle can't even identify what it is. It isn't behaving like a virus or spyware, but more importantly, she can't get rid of it. It keeps avoiding all her attempts... almost as if it were alive.

After another frustrated night guiding the vigilantes of Gotham with her laptop, she decides to try and communicate with whatever did this. She creates an open chat.

She doesn't think it will actually get any results, but soon she's getting a text."Your computer is crazy!" accompanied by an anime-like emoticon of a pale boy with green eyes and white hair blinking.

---

So, one bottle became two, two became three, three became six, and by the time the sun slipped below the horizon, Danny had a pile of bottles scattered around the couch and an intense look of self hatred set upon his brow. He was buzzed, but his stupid ghost biology refused to absorb anymore alcohol.

“Stop brooding, Danny. It’ll hurt your brain.” Jazz said, a hint of worry around her joking insult. “You’re forgetting something important.”

“Wha-?” He mumbled out back at the haze of her-hah- ghost.

The door clicked open. Danny whipped his head to wards the door, snarl on his face and ready to lunge at the intruder, when he came face to face with a scuffed up Jason.

They froze simultaneously, but before Danny could do anything, Jason’s hands tightened on the door knob. The kid’s eyes darted to the floor, where the bottles laid, and back up at Danny’s face. What he found there must not have been good, because he took a step back.

It was fear.

Danny felt his heart drop and his throat go dry. The self hatred doubled in size and weight, but he smacked it down in favor of scrambling for the words- anything- to fix the damage his stupidity and addiction caused.

“Jason.” He said, voice raspy. Had he been screaming again? Good start, good- nope. Never mind, Jason is using the door to shield himself now. Danny glanced outside and-

“Oh. I- I didn’t realize it had gotten so late.” He turned back to Jason, who eyed him warily. “I- I forgot to pick you, didn’t I.”

“…I can walk back by myself.” The hesitant but full of bravado reply made Danny’s ghostly obsession to protect rear its head.

“Still. I’m… I’m sorry, Jason.”

Jason evaluated him, noticeably eyeing his open hands and purposefully lax posture, before stepping inside. He doesn’t close the door behind him- clearly leaving it as an option just in case he needed to bolt. Danny stood up slowly. Jason watched him, and his hands. His smaller hands- Ancients, Danny was scaring a kid- curled up into fists.

“What… how did you get hurt?”

“Got mugged.”

“Are you okay? No- wait,” Danny flooded his liver and blood stream with ectoplasm, and his head instantly cleared. Ah, the agony of being coherent.

Danny subtly shook his head to clear his thoughts. Focus.

“Of course you’re not.” Danny stepped away from the incriminating bottles, slowing to a stop once more as Jason shifted backwards like he was either going to spring at Danny or bolt out the door. “Why don’t we get you patched up? And you can tell me about your day. That I missed, when I forgot to pick you up and that I’m really really sorry for.”

Danny held his breath as Jason considered it. “Are ya drunk?” Jason asked, tilting his shoulder to slide his Wonder Woman backpack down, hand clutching at the opposite strap. A good bludgeoning weapon, even if Danny would rather be electro shocked to death again before he ever hurt Jason.

“No.”

Jason raised an eyebrow, scoffing as he looked down again. Danny recognized the motion, a bolt of heavy nostalgia slamming into his chest as he remembered another red-head doing the same thing when he tried to bullshit his way out of something.

“I was buzzed but… I’m a meta. Alcohol doesn’t exactly affect me. I had to drink a lot to even get buzzed, and it’s gone now.”

“Y’er a meta?” Jason straightened, not completely losing the vigilance, but less tense.

“Yes. I’m completely sober right now, I promise.”

Jason stared at him, inhaled, and relaxed. “You better be.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Whatever.”

——

Danny placed the bandages over Jason’s cuts.

“I am so, so sorry I didn’t pick you up.”

Jason shoved at his shoulder, grumbling “I c’n do it myself.”

“I know. You don’t have to, though.”

The kid looked away for a moment before softly admitting, “I was… worried. Cuz, I thought somethin’ happened.”

Danny swallowed the lump in his throat. Jason slipped more into his alley accent the more upset he got these days, having learned some of the local accents at his new school and regularly swapping those out instead of sticking with his alley accent.

“Thank you. For worrying about me. I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

Point. From the mouth of babes came the painful truth, right?

“No. I’m not. But I will be. I’ll go to rehab, Jason. I don’t want to forget picking you up again.”

“Whatever.” Danny hid a smile as Jason ducked his head, looking endearingly like a grumpy duckling. Like, Jazz, when their parents made those blueberry ectoplasm pancakes she liked but thought they’d forgotten that she liked.

“And thank you, Jason, for coming back alive. I- I should have been there, but I’m so glad that you’re okay.”

“I want waffles and ice cream for dinner.”

“Yeah, we can do that.”

“Wow, you musta felt real bad if you’re letting me eat that for dinner.”

Danny grinned down at the head of black hair (with their red roots once more poking out) and ruffled Jason’s head. “I let you eat like five chili dogs in one go. This should not be surprising. But I’ll let you skip the veggies today too.”

“… No, I want the veggies too.”

Danny let out a bark of bright laughter.

Yeah, there’s no way he’s ever risking Jason looking at him like that again. The kid looked like he thought Danny would come swinging at him, despite their previous meetings where he had, perhaps and with plausible deniability, swung for Jason, but never against him.

That night, after he tucked Jason into bed, Danny signed up for rehab. As a matter of fact, Jazz’s words coming into mind, Danny also signed up for therapy. For him and Jason. Yeah.

——

Off camera, they talked about why Jason react to bottles and hands the way he does, and why he’s so scared whenever Danny slips back into his addiction. I’m just rlly too tired to write it.

——

Danny, who thought his addiction wasn’t that serious and that he could stop anytime because he stopped for Jason: I’m cured!

Also Danny: drinks as soon as Jason goes to school

Danny was one hundred percent using Jason as a crutch and when he felt like Jason was safe, he slipped back to his habits. The only reason Danny’s not dead- well, deader than he normally would be- is because ghost biology makes it so that alcohol is cycled through quicker. Like the Flash, but less fast? Anyways, he had enough to make him lose track of time and forget important things (Jason) and that’s what addiction can do to you, amongst other things.

Jason might seem calm but that’s actually a combo of his go to trauma response (fight) and his experience of 1) being on the streets and 2) living with a previous drunkard coming into play. Also, you might be like what kind of kid wants to eat veggies? And to that I answer: KIDS THAT NEVER HAD ENOUGH TO EAT. I would have killed for a veggie stir fry with a lot of chicken back as a kid lol

Danny made it all the way to Gotham, bottle constantly glued to his hand. It’s better than Vlad’s creep-o-self looming over him all of the time. He bummed out on the streets, fitting into crime alley like a native. Danny learned to pickpocket. Not much, just enough for a bottle when his ran out. He stayed human. At first he tried to convince himself that it was because he didn’t want to be perceived as a meta in a city where Batman notoriously disliked metas. Then, as he sunk deeper, he admitted to himself in a shameful curl of a whisper that it was really because alcohol affected his human side much easier.

Ghosts need an ungodly amount of alcohol to even get slightly buzzed. Danny’s human side? Only one full bottle the shittiest tequila he could find could even hope to be more than buzzed. It sucked.

He’s spent two years being an alcoholic that didn’t actually get that drunk. Technically, underage drinking was a crime. But then again, so was being a vigilante ghost. So, whatever. He does what he can to dull the grief. Mostly, he slept on covered and hidden nooks on top of Crime Alley’s roofs. Gotham city had taken pity on him and cleared her smog clouds when he was awake at night. Stargazing helped, at least. It gave him a little hope. It gave him a little wish to change and better and live like he wants. But then the night ends and when the day comes, Jazz isn’t there. Sam isn’t there. Tucker isn’t there. His mom and dad are not there.

Danny always went back to the bottle, in the end. Not that it did much.

Which was why, when he saw three looming figures over a tiny child, Danny’s saving people thing flared with a vengeance and his surprised ectoplasm burned what little buzz he had achieved by downing most of the bottle away, leaving him stone cold sober and pissed.

Danny sighed, dumping the rest of the nasty tasting liquid out. There’s no point drinking that little.

He approached the trio, who were beating up an actual child. Ancients, he hated Crime Alley sometimes.

“Give me your shit, you little punk!” Asshole 1 decided to say like a typical mugger, raising his leg to kick the curled up kid below. Danny doesn’t let him land the kick, smashing the bottle on the asshole’s head before any of them clocked his presence. He pivots, pushing a bit of that extra strength he normally keeps on a tight leash into his hands, and punched the other two in a quick fashion, knocking them out.

With that taken care of, Danny turned back to the kid who was still curled up. Danny sighed again, the trembles in small shoulders plucking on his heartstrings.

“You okay, kid?”

The kid uncurls, and Danny stared. Holy shit, is he looking into a mirror? Blue eyes, black hair, and tanned skin. Holy shit, he’s even got similar jaws to Danny.

“Huh.”

The kid flinched.

“Y-y’er the drunk,” the kid flinched again, eyes darting to the broken bottle still clenched in Danny’s hand. “I- I ain’t got money, honest. Please-”

Danny blinked down at the kid, brain connecting the dots after so long without actual interaction. He’s panicking and staring at the bottle in Danny’s hand like it’ll kill him. Danny raised the bottle and the kid closed his mouth with a click, terror worming its way into the kid’s eyes.

“I wasn’t going to mug you myself, kid.”

“But- y’er the- the Alley drunk.”

Danny blinked. Did he get a reputation without knowing again? Goddammit.

“I guess. Am I famous or somethin’?”

“Nobody- nobody fucks wit’ ya.”

“I also don’t hurt kids.”

“…”

The kid stared at him dubiously and with a sinking feeling, Danny realized that maybe the kid already had some terrible experiences with a heavy drunken hand. He promptly chucks the bottle further into the alley.

“I drink, yes. But I’m also not the kind of scum that would lay hands on a kid, let alone anyone that didn’t provoke it first.”

“Oh.” The kid uncurled more, looking at Danny warily, more at ease now that the bottle has left the chat.

“Yeah. I’m Danny. Stone cold sober, right now.”

“…”

Danny waited.

“Peters.”

“Okay. Peters, do you wanna take their shit?” Danny pointed a thumb at the knocked out would-be-muggers behind him.

“Y… yeah, sure. What’s my cut?”

“All of it.”

Peters stared.

Danny shrugged and started looting.

"Y'er so fuckin' weird."

----

See, the thing is, Danny hadn't anticipated saving Peters- "'s actually Jason"- would result in having a duckling following him around. The kid, Jason, glared at everyone who even looked at them wrong. But that's not the problem, because Danny could take anyone who took issue with Jason's looks, it's more like there's a child following him around now and Danny doesn't want to be the reason Jason turns into an alcoholic. It's- well, it made him cut down on the drinking. He even got jobs- legitimate jobs that sucks out his his poor ectoplasmic soul.

Why? Because Jason's apparently homeless. While that's something Danny's okay with for himself, he can't ever condone that for an actual child. Jason's walking around in threadbare clothes and thin soled shoes in the middle of Fall, for Ancient's sake.

Danny grumbles as he piled a bunch of clothes into the shopping bag as he checked out. Gotham's Walmart is a different kind of hell, but Danny feels right at home.