#prompalomp

“Danny.”

Bruce says the name before he even realizes he is, before he even takes in the reality of who is standing there. Danny. But he— The man turns. His hair is long enough to just brush over his left eye. It tucks behind his ears and brushes against the collar of the slick suit. It’s pure white.

It should be black.

The eyes are more green than blue.

Even as Bruce opens his mouth again to apologize for calling out to a stranger the words fall away.

Danny.

There’s the same scar through the right eyebrow. The same dark spot just below parted lips. The way that the man stands in a line that Bruce can trace with his memory.

Danny.

“Happy birthday, Bruce,” Danny says. He gives a little raise of his glass. There’s the same tilt to his head that Danny used to have when he was whispering something about a lecture in class. “It’s quite the shindig.”

“I—yes, well, I’m…” Bruce swallows back against the ache in his chest. “As far as Gotham is concerned, I’m back from the proverbial dead…”

“I heard.”

Bruce swallows. “They’re a bit…”

“Enthusiastic?” Danny suggests. His lips quirk.

“Yes.”

“Well, when one comes back from the dead,” Danny says, ending his words with a shrug.

“Well,” Bruce says, forcing the words past his tight throat, “that’s something that you apparently have experience with.”

Danny breaks his gaze away, looking out through the dark window. “It’s… complicated.”

“Well… when one comes back from the dead.”

The parroting makes Danny laugh. He looks back with that devil may care smile that Bruce thought he would never see again. “Yeah, well, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Bruce smiles back. He can’t help it. “We’ve already done that.”

“That was before we were resurrected.”

The smile almost falters. Bruce doesn’t let it, not when Danny is right in front of him instead of six feet down.“Who am I to argue against that?”

Danny tilts his head again. His hair shifts. His left eye almost seems to glow. “Now Bruce, you never could argue against me. This is nothing new.”

In the REPLIES (one per person), give me EACH of the following:

An Animal

A, B, or C

A number 0-9

A color or two

The name of a celestial body

Danny’s pretty sure that he’s in Missouri. There’s the start of mountains, at least, and he doesn’t think he’s traveled far enough to be in Arkansas yet. That’s the Ozarks, right? He thinks that’s the Ozarks. Whatever they are, it’s way easier to stay hidden here than in the flat planes of south Illinois.

The small, pup tent from his go bag has been set up against one of the rocky cliff sides, a pitiful attempt to keep the rain from battering it as badly. It’s something, at least.

He’s dry, at least.

So what if his clothing is getting wet instead of drying? He’d just washed it anyways. It getting more wet wouldn’t matter. He just needs some sun for it to dry out before he has to move on. Which is… sometime.

His stomach whines loudly. He takes another tiny bit of the survival bar and watches the water drip slowly through the filter on his bottle. It’s something, at least.

Danny jolts awake to a 'sprog' sound that’s strait out of a cartoon. A body hits the ground with a startled squeak. Before he can even think about it, Danny is out of his tent, baton expanded and ready to his side.

Except it’s not a a GIW agent.

It’s a kid.

A kid like him with bright red hair, a scattering of freckles, and a bright red blush.

“Tim. Hey, Tim. Earth to Tim. Tim.”

The fingers that Tim had been distracted by snapped. Tim blinked and shook his head. “Sorry, what?”

“You tell me. You zoned out there for a moment.”

“I, just. Your nails are painted.”

Danny tensed instantly, which helped Tim focus. He didn’t want Danny to be tense. He wanted… well, mostly he wanted to kiss Danny.

“Yeah,” Danny said, words clipped. “I do.”

Tim chewed on his lip for a moment, before he blurted out on a rush. “Can you paint mine for me?”

When he had gone undercover as Caroline, he hadn’t been able to have painted nails, not as a practicing med student. But Tim had wondered what his hands would look like with painted nails. What his lips might be if they were bold with color. If the stuffed bra he wore was prettier. If he panties on.

Focus. He had to stop zoning out on Danny.

“Oh, yeah, sure. I don’t have a lot of colors, and they’re mostly dark,” Danny said, gesturing with his black painted nails. “But, you know, we could use a break from studying after this section, so why don’t we see if the corner store has any polish and pick out a color for you.”

John just wanted a drink. It was a long fucking day of tracking down information and mostly failing at that and he just wanted a drink. And sure, he has drink in his hand, strong and not costing the house, but he could hardly risk the sip with how the pompous git of a man keeps trying shove his way between the stools. And for nothing too.

Finally his limits are reached. “Bruv! Back the fuck off. He’s not interested. He’s said he’s not interested. He’s continued to be not interested. Cut your losses and go back to your mates, ya?”

“I don’t think this is any of your business,” the sad excuse for a man says. His chest is all puffed out like he’s some sort of threat, because that’s sure attractive.

John rolls his eyes. “It is when your blood elbow keeps jabbing me every half second. Go away.”

“You—”

“Are just trying to have a drink,” John says, “so go the fuck away.”

The guy puffs up further, leaning back in a way that means he’s about to try and take a swing. John starts running the merits of ducking verses punching first. As the meaty hand pulls back, the twink the guy has been hitting on taps the guy on the shoulder stands up.

“Excuse me,” he says.

The guy turns.

The twink swings.

“Good hook,” John says as he stares down at the guy, laid out flat on the floor.

“Thanks,” the twink says with a vicious sort of smile that makes John reevaluate him quickly. (John likes what he finds.) “What are you drinking? I’ll buy you another.”

“It’s not what it looks like.”

Bruce leans against the frame of the door. The sounds of the party are loud behind him. This part of the museum should have been closed off during the gala unveiling the new collection. But the door is open. The room is cast in moonlight. The red light of the cameras are off. An a slim, well dressed man has the acrylic top of of a pedestal half lifted off. “It looks like you’re stealing one of the artifacts from the museum.”

The stranger pauses, then sighs, “Okay maybe it’s exactly what it looks like. But for good reason!”

Bruce hums.

“Really, I promise,” the stranger says. They wave the case they had off now as they talked. “It sounds insane, I know, but—look, okay, this was the necklace of a French aristocrat. One of her favorite. At least while she had her head attached if you know what I mean. And I know it sounds insane but her ghost is…look, okay ghosts are… so there’s this thing called ambient ectoplasm…”

Bruce saunters forward slowly as the stranger completely fumbles talking. He leans over to get a look at the jeweled necklace. It’s one of the less stunning ones in the collection. Bruce looks up through his lashes at the stranger. “Are you sure that you just don’t want to wear it? You might need something more revealing to match it.”

The stranger blushes so quickly that Bruce is a little worried about them fainting. “N-no. I’m just, I promise that it’s—”

There are the sounds of crashing glass and startled screams from the main room. They both spin to look. The stranger curses through several languages.

“She’s here.”

It was likely that when Nightwing landed on the rooftop, that he made less noise that Phantom had. Which said something as Phantom was rumored to be a ghost. It was still just a rumor, but the way Deadman and the Dark side refused to even get involved said something.

Which sucked. Nightwing was pretty sure that they would have an easier time convincing Phantom to join one of their teams. But there Nightwing was—

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to lurk?” Phantom asked. He hadn’t even turned around to look at Nightwing. He continued without waiting for an answer. “Well, I mean, maybe she didn’t. Mine taught me how to do a round house kick and how to sew new stitches. That last one is ironic, if you knew.”

As Phantom talked, Nightwing circled closer. He didn’t think that Phantom was a threat, not really, but the other seemed off.

Or maybe it was just that Nightwing could see the city lights through Phantom’s form.

“Why do you keep coming to see me, Nightwing?”

Nightwing swung his legs over the edge of the building, unafraid of the twenty something story drop. “I haven’t really kept it a secret. I’ve told you that there might be a spot on the Titans for you. I’m scoping you out. Not like that.”

Phantom finally turned to raise a brow at Nightwing, who could only grin back.

“Okay, maybe a little like that too.”

“Yeah?” Phantom asked with a little smile.

“You’re beautiful, you have to know that,” Nightwing said.

“I don’t have to know anything.”

“Well you are. And I like talking with you. It doesn’t have to be me meeting you on rooftops across the country. There are other heroes,” Nightwing said.

Phantom gave a dramatic gasp. “No, other heroes?”

“Yeah,” Nightwing breathed. Somehow he’d gotten very close to Phantom. Those green eyes were brilliantly bright.

Phantom’s little smile turned into a smirk. “Then you better catch me.”

Nightwing pulled back as he blinked. “What?”

“Catch me.” And Phantom tipped off the edge of the building into the night sky.

There had been a kid coming into the library every day for for almost two weeks now. The sole of their left red sneaker was loose. Their hoodie was thready from the fabric being caught on fence posts and nails and barbed wire. Their backpack was held together with duct tape. Everything said homeless. Luckily, the kid themselves hadn’t actually said homeless so Babs didn’t have to report them.

Obviously something needed to be done, but the kid wasn’t bruised or bleeding so Babs was skirting the line of what being a mandated reporter meant as much as she could. Sending the kid into the systems wouldn’t be the right call, not without a trusted home for him to go into. Not that the kid wouldn’t fit right in with the Wayne family, black hair, blue eyes, and a haunted feeling about him.

Babs had maybe started to work on planting the idea.

Maybe.

(Damian would be in college soon and it would be nice for Helena to have another kid in the house.)

“Hey there, David. What section are you work in today?” Babs asked as the kid came up to get slot for computer access. Tuesdays were busy as one of the nursing homes came in the morning. She added ‘David’ onto the waiting list. The kid had stuck with the name, but the way that they sometimes took a beat to answer told Babs that it wasn’t their real name.

David shuffled. “I, um, I thought I would go over to law. For, um, checking on something.”

Law. That was new. “Taking a break from your invention?” Babs asked. She’d never gotten a great look at what David was inventing, but whatever it was, it was complicated. That was another reason that Babs was being careful with David. The kid had quite the mind—something that could be dangerous in Gotham.

David shrugs. “Yeah. Sorta… hit a snag. Trying another direction, I guess.”

“Well, let me know if you need any help, okay? Legalese can be hard to understand,” Babs said with a smile.

David gave a a tiny smile back. “Thanks. I’ll, um, that way, right?”

“Yep. I’ll come get you when a computer opens up. It won’t be until ten maybe since it’s a Tuesday.”

“Yeah, thanks, Barbara.”