#go crazy

Elle and Damian become ‘associates’, as he puts it. They do not talk, necessarily, but they sometimes sit at the same table at lunch or in the library and go about their day.

When their class is assigned a group project that requires teams of two, Damian and Elle end up paired together. Damian argues that it's better to be paired with someone who at least seems to have a modicum of common sense compared to some of his other classmates.

She invites him to come to her family’s cafe. “Our apartment is above it anyways, so if it gets too loud, we can go upstairs. And the snacks will all be vegan, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to eat anything.”

He agrees and they go. Damian meets her older twin brothers, Dante and Danny, and they could not be any more different given how similar they look. They both have jet black hair, but Dante has a strip of white in his, not unlike Todd's hair. Dante has red eyes while Danny has ice blue. Dante has multiple piercings in his ears, one on his eye brow, and one on his bottom lip. Damian has no doubt that he would have tattoos if he was old enough - though he doesn't discount the possibility that Dante would give himself a stick and poke. His style is best described as grunge, if Damian is remembering correctly.

Danny, meanwhile, has no piercings, and is wearing a bright white hoodie with a graphic on the chest that depicts an absolutely horrendous science pun. Grayson would love it. Danny smiles brightly at the both of them as he gets them a plate of pastries and drinks.

Talking to them for a bit reveals that while they have different nicknames, the twins are both named Daniel.

"What parents would give their children the same name?" he asked incredulously.

“Is it a bad time to tell you my legal name is Danielle?” Elle is giggling as she says it, but Damian is in physical pain at the revelation. “I know you like using proper names, but please, don’t call either of them Daniel. They HATE it.” 

They do end up going upstairs after it starts getting busier in the cafe, and Damian meets Ellie’s older sister Jasmine, who is also studying. She insists that she be called Jazz.

“Why does your family have such an aversion to using proper names?”

“We just don’t like them.”

Despite his exasperation, Damian does in fact have a good time at the Nightingale Cafe. The food is adequate and the company tolerable. When Alfred comes to pick him up, Damian tells Elle that he wouldn't be completely opposed to having future study sessions here. Elle just grins.

Damian mentions it off-handedly at the manor at dinner one night when Bruce asks him about how school is going and the progress of his group project. Bruce is surprised by Damian’s willingness to talk about it, but he’s glad to see that his son has made a friend.

-

Not long after “A Glitch in Time”, Elle comes to Amity Park. Elle has gotten to do a lot of traveling, and wanted to come back and spend some time with her template. The GIW managed to locate her while she's visiting and succeed in capturing Danny while he was helping Elle get away from them. He’s brought in for experimentation, and his parents find out about Danny’s powers. They don’t react well, and agree to help the GIW with their experiments.

Elle panics and goes to Tucker and Sam, who call Jazz, who is currently at college. Realizing they need more muscle, Elle goes to Vlad and finds Dan. She begs him to help since Sam and Tucker told her about his whole situation and she really doesn’t want to confront Vlad. Dan’s been getting tired of Vlad’s manipulative shit for a while, and this gives him an out. Not to mention that because they haven’t actually met yet, he gets along with Elle rather well. He agrees to help her bust Danny out.

They break into the GIW base and manage to get Danny out. Unfortunately, Danny’s already been hurt really bad by the experiments. Sam takes one look at him when Dan and Elle bring him to her place and tells them he needs to go to Frostbite.

They all work together to break into Fentonworks and get to the portal. Dan and Elle go with Danny while Sam and Tucker distract the security.

Danny stays in the Far Frozen for three months healing. Even with all the ectoplasm and his accelerated healing, it takes a long time for him to be okay. Meanwhile, Dan and Elle stay close by. They bond a lot more and Dan develops a soft spot for Elle.

Finally, Danny is well enough to not need round the clock care, and he wants to go back to Amity to check on Sam and Tucker and call Jazz. He’s not sure what he’ll do after that, but Ellie promises to stick with him, and so Dan will too.

They get back, only to find that the Fenton portal is still shut down. They thought they would have fixed it by now. They end up going through Vlad’s portal instead. They find that Amity Park has been placed in a total information blackout and the GIW has declared martial law in response to Danny’s escape. Vlad had no choice but to allow it or else they would have learned that he’s a halfa too.

Sam and Tucker are being monitored. They haven’t been arrested yet but the threat of it is clear. Tucker uses his hacking skills to get Danny a message explaining the plan he, Sam, and Jazz came up with while they were gone.

Sam wired Jazz a good chunk of money courtesy of her grandma. Jazz will meet them at a location neither Sam nor Tucker know of and they will go into hiding. Dan can’t go back to Vlad’s mansion after all the poking around the GIW has done. Elle refuses to leave Danny alone. Danny doesn’t want to leave, but he recognizes that he has no choice. They grab the go bags Sam and Tucker put together, complete with burner phones and instructions of how to contact Jazz and set up a secure link with Tucker later.

They meet Jazz in a city a few hours away and it's teary when they reunite. They all change their last name to Nightingale. They end up in Gotham after being invited by the city spirit. Danny wants to finish school but doesn’t know if he can handle in-person classes right now. Elle is willing to give it a go. It's more for solidarity than anything else. Dan refuses to go back to school, but they convince him to at least get his GED. Jazz has been working to transfer to Gotham University and manages it.