#ttac(wygiaf)

She and the others had all seen what memories Danny had been willing to show thanks to the powers of a Viewing Room, but that wasn’t enough, was too much, was- Ancients she didn’t know! Apparently, according to the stupid old Clock, she and the others would regain their memories of the past when they reached a certain point in their Existence, but she didn’t want to wait that long, couldn’t wait that long.

These people were some she had likely never met, people she didn’t know how to defend against, people that could betray Danny without her ever knowing because she was too busy helping to do damage control on the last betrayal. If the people were anything like the memories, they were highly trained and capable of doing damage to Danny that she wouldn’t be able to help undo. If they were anything like the memories, then they would never willingly cause that type of damage.

She knew that Damian knew of one past life, probably the one Danny had shown them snippets of, but she didn’t know if any of the others remembered. Sam was still haunted by the look on Danny’s face when she’d asked who all had the memories. There had to be something that Danny wasn’t telling them, but she couldn’t interrogate him about it when talking about it hurt him so much.

Sam huffed as she spun around to begin pacing again, the black and green of her skirt flaring around her in a satisfying way. She passed the beautiful architecture of the buildings on the Isle, all themed around different members of their little group, some of which probably belonged to the very people Danny was currently escorting here, the people to blame for her doing much more walking than she’d planned to today.

Footsteps on the path around her alerted her to an approaching person that could only be Jazz. Danny and Elle were with the group, along with Damian and Talia, and Tucker was locked away in his spiraling tower, trying his best to make sure Jack would never find Danny. With the footsteps came an overwhelming feeling of calm-soothing-happy-peace-arrival. The feeling oozed through the air in a way that made Sam’s spine crawl in an odd way.

“Glad to see someone’s in a happy mood.” Sam’s voice was low and grumbly, making her sound more like an immature child than she’d wanted.

“It is understandable why you would not feel the same, you don’t feel like you have enough information. You aren’t seeing or feeling what I am, what they are. Come, walk with me.” Jazz’s voice was calm, and her face was fixed into the expression she wore when she knew something that would help if only she could figure out how to share it without breaking any vows or rules.

Sam sighed, letting the tension in her body relax as she nodded. “This had better not make me late to greet them though.”

“Relax,” Came the knowing reply, “Danny will be a little late due to the changes the Realms are going through right now, he forgot to account for the moving of Skulker’s Hunt-Lair due to what today is.”

Sam scowled to be reminded of the main reason she was so worried besides the guests that would be arriving. She kept her mouth shut, knowing Jazz would just give her a vague answer about Danny knowing what he was doing when it came to this. 

They walked down a path that hadn’t been there a few seconds before, neither batting an eye because of how normal of an occurrence this was. It could only have been about a minute before they stopped in front of a sprawling landscape that looked like a lot of different types of animal habitats had been combined in a way that didn’t quite make sense to Sam, but she appreciated the care the plants had reviewed even if she’d never been able to enter this space. There was a cabin in the center area that looked cozy and easily defensible. All in all, it didn’t look like a horrible place, even if she wasn’t as good at Danny or Jazz at using a person’s surroundings and mannerisms to gauge their personality.

“What do you see?” The question felt calm on the surface, but a strange sense of anticipation laid under it, like a tiger in the shade.

Sam raised an eyebrow at Jazz before telling her about the observations Sam had made. Jazz nodded before saying, “I see Damian.”

Sam straightened, suddenly tense for an entirely different reason than before. No one had been able to figure out who the strange zones not claimed by any of them belonged to, but now Jazz was telling her that this strange field was Damian’s? Suddenly, the purpose of their walk hit her with the force of a fully charged ecto-laser. Jazz was trying to comfort her by telling her which place belonged to which person after letting her observe it with an open mind.

She suddenly felt much more enthusiastic for what was to come. That was, until a thought crossed her mind. “I’m not continuing this if it will stop me from being there when they arrive.” Her tone was one that usually brokered no arguments, but one could never be too sure with the Nightengale siblings.

“It will be fine, Danny forgot to calculate some islands shifting, so they’ll be a bit longer than earlier estimates. The latest we will be is a few moments after they arrive.” The look Jazz gave her was knowing, and the feeling that swamped Sam was one that told her to listen and follow without giving too much away.

“Lead on then.” Her tone was much more defeated than she felt, but it was the only form of rebellion she would give, playing it up was a necessity.

Duke, Stephanie, Cass, Alfred, Tim, and Bruce were all locked behind Clockwork Spoiler Fences. Meaning she only saw a wall of clocks rather than the actual interior. She was starting to get frustrated when they approached a massive big top tent surrounded by all sorts of interesting and out of place items. 

Jazz didn’t even ask a question this time, probably sensing Sam’s rising frustration. “The area belongs to Dick, it breathes him if you listen close enough. The out of place objects are symbols of those he considers family, those he would do anything to protect. Do you understand why I’m telling you this, why I’m showing you this?”

Sam almost snapped a rude answer out of frustration, but then some of the things in the yard registered to her. They looked newer then the others, less sure in a way that she couldn’t describe. There was a tech filled area that kind of looked like Tucker’s work area when he found a project that he couldn’t put down, there was a small library section filled with psychology books and notebooks with a good light above it, there was a mini greenhouse, and there was an area that looked like it was ripped from the night sky to be made into a nice lounging area with plenty of room for lots of people.

“I. You.” It was like the frustration drained out of her as the biggest  realization of the night hit her. “Dick is like Danny, very family oriented. It doesn’t matter if the others were locked behind fences because Dick isn’t. You wanted me to know that Danny trusting them has a reason. You’ve definitely seen more memories than us and know that I’d trust them anyway, but I needed to calm down first. I get it. We can go back now.”

Jazz gave her a bittersweet smile that had her hackles raising. “We aren’t quite done yet. Follow.”

Sam was nervous, yet she followed, there was nothing else to do. They came upon what looked like a building that would definitely fit into her mental image of Gotham, a bizarre mix of styles that somehow fit together, likely paying homage to several different stages in the person’s life. Most of the windows were covered in locks and ways to stop people from seeing inside, even far up the building. Sam could see a few traps that looked well made.

She looked to Jazz, confused, only to see a look that she couldn’t decipher, too many emotions in so few space. Turning back to the building, she looked closer, finding signs of wear and tear and a few hasty looking patch jobs. A couple sections looked burned, a few had odd water damage, and a few looked like they were being held together by pure will after an explosion. There were some paint jobs that looked like they were done with human blood, and there were some parts that looked like they would fit a mansion better.

Looking even closer, she saw something that stopped all the thoughts in her head. Something that stopped her heart, stopped her breathing, and had her feeling like she was falling. Hidden in a way most people wouldn’t catch were symbols, ones she could barely read, Existence Speak given written form. Most were written in a hand she recognized, Danny’s, but some of it was written by someone she’d never met. That wasn’t what had stopped everything about her though. Hidden just a little better were symbols she did recognize, could read, and never thought she’d see.

“I see Jason.” The words were near breathless, full of sorrow and hope and so many other emotions. They sounded almost like they hurt to say, pulled from unwilling lips in a way that had Sam’s emotions rising and swirling with defensive intent.

“Who was going to tell me Jason was Danny’s betrothed?”

~`~`~

Dick couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was off. He’d known Danny for close to a year now, long enough to know at least a little about how he operated, and Danny wasn’t straying from that pattern. It rubbed him the wrong way in such a way that he couldn’t verbalize it. Jason was off too and not just off in the way he’d been lately. The family had gotten used to the new normal, and Dick seemed to be the only one to notice something was very off.

If he was being perfectly honest, Dick expected there to be some tension in the air, a group of them was going to another dimension that contained all the afterlives and more, anyone would be tense at that. However, even those one would expect not to be tense had this sense of urgency underlaying everything they did.

He was getting better at knowing when to push and when not to, thanks to all the therapy he’d finally signed up for, but he couldn’t seem to find a way to safely navigate whatever was going on today. Figuring it would help soothe his nerves, and trusting his family to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid while he was zoned out, he went over his list for the day.

He had brought along his gift for Tim, so it wasn’t that he was forgetting anything. He had double checked to make sure their alibis were as good as possible. Dick had even taken the time to arrange back-up alibis that would work in some of the cases the originals would have failed. He’d done everything to plan for as much as he could, so the tension wasn’t coming from him in any way.

Then what could possibly be the reason? They were doing this trip for Jason, Danny had agreed, Damian and Nellie were excited for the trip until today, Talia was doing her best to make sure everyone had a good time, Bruce had done as much research as possible, Tim had asked every question he could think of, and the others were filled in on what all was going down. There was no logical reason for this much tension to be happening.

He was dimly aware of the group entering a warehouse and boarding an insane looking vehicle, was it frog shaped or was that just him stressing too much to see it clearly?, but he refused to focus until he figured out where the tension was coming from.

He didn’t get much further into his thoughts before someone was talking at him. “Why?” He internally winced at the word he hadn’t meant to blurt.

His awareness of his surroundings came back as he found himself staring into the emotionless face of Nellie. “Buckle before we have to host another funeral for you. Once was bad enough, don’t make it happen twice.”

Every thought left his head as he sank into a seat and numbly snapped the many straps around his body, there were more safely straps here than in the Bat Jet. As soon as he was fully strapped in, her words sank straight to his bones, giving him a horrible idea that he immediately brushed aside to focus on the world around him. That couldn’t be the reason for the tension, Danny and the others had to be more aware than that.

The strange ship they were in jolted forwards and suddenly they were in a wash of green. It was close enough to a Lazarus Pit that Dick knew the entire family would be on edge, but he found that he couldn’t rip his eyes away from it long enough to double check. Something about the place seemed so familiar, so… he couldn’t even figure out what. The tension from before fell to the second priority as he struggled to see as much of the world as he could.

“The Nightingale Dimension Hopper is completely opaque on the outside yet completely see through on the inside without showing any of the things that make it function.” There was pride in Damian’s voice, pride Dick never thought he would get to hear about anyone but Baby Bat’s animals.

He shifted slightly in his seat in order to see the screens better and let out a yelp of surprise when his seat adjusted itself so that he was facing the wall. There was purple spiraling into the green around him, the combo should have brought to mind the Joker, but all Dick could think about was his parents, oddly enough.

“Did we forget to mention the seats will adjust themselves based on who is seated in them?” Nellie sounded like she was going to say more when she was cut off by the slightly tense voice of Danny.

“Explanations can wait, I’m switching off of autopilot, there will be more shifts than originally calculated for. Everyone needs to be completely buckled in, now. Including you Nellie.”

There was a whine even as Dick heard the sound of her complying with her parent’s orders. The Hopper jolted before darting down in a dizzying spiral, Dick’s chair adjusting to let him see the doors snapping into rightful place mere seconds after they passed. Suddenly, they started heading up at a slow pace, still weaving around doors that shifted around them in a way that simply felt right. 

The trip was filled with sudden shifts in speed and direction as Danny continued to skillfully avoid doors that hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier. There were some near collisions that pulled gasps from those near Dick, but he couldn’t figure out why. It was clear to him why Danny needed to make those changes, they would have been hit otherwise.

Despite the strange flying that followed a pattern Dick was beginning to think the others couldn’t see, the flight was going fairly smoothly until Dick shouted a wordless warning right as Danny slammed on the brakes, hard. They came to a stop so sudden that it produced a screeching noise from someone in the room.

“Why did you stop?” Bruce’s gruff voice demanded seconds before a massive island snapped into place with a sense of purpose. 

Dick didn’t know what he was feeling, what he was thinking, or why it happened, but a weapons deck that just looked like a wall of weapons suddenly appeared in front of him. He ignored every button except one he knew would increase their speed. His hand was already moving towards it as Damian shouted from behind him, “Hit it!”

If he thought the Hopper was fast before, it was nothing compared to this. The speed they were going was hard to describe. Dick tried to think of something he could use to explain this to those not here, but the only thing he could come up with didn’t make sense. After all, how could a ship outspeed a Flash, but that was exactly what it felt like. Dick could almost physically feel time slowing down as the Hopper accelerated to speeds that could only be described as impossible.

As suddenly as the speed started, it stopped, which definitely should have snapped their necks. It made perfect sense to Dick that it wouldn’t, however, because it was an invention Danny made, so of course it wouldn’t kill those Danny invited to board.

Wait a minute, why would he know that?

A/N: I won't be tagging anymore people after this post, please just subscribe to the masterpost.

The burning never seemed to ease or stop, at least it hadn’t for the hour or two it had taken him to find Danny. Every step felt like it took an eternity as it was weighed down with a weight so heavy he couldn’t find a comparison for it. Every breath was like one taken by someone on the brink of dying of thirst while in a desert, hot and raspy. He would have been worried that all of this was some odd sensation added to his usual fits with the Pit, but he could hear the Pit screaming at him to run away, trying to pull him away from the cold hand guiding his fire to the one person who could help.

The spiral of conflicting instincts fell quiet as he saw the scene he’d walked in on. Talia stood guard several feet away from where Danny, Nellie, and Damian were all curled up around one another. It brought an intense wave of belonging-happy-love-pride-mine-mine-mine crashing over him from that burning orb in his chest. It brought him up short and stole his breath in one smooth movement.

Jason stared at the scene before him, a boulder sinking through his stomach at the thought that he’d have to interrupt this even as a slicing wind seemed to demand that he join the cuddle pile. He took a step forward and Talia’s eyes snapped to his, carrying with them a knowledge-filled look that also seemed to be giving him permission. Like that was all he was waiting for, he stepped closer, stopping at some invisible barrier that he knew would be the point-of-no-return.

With a deep, fortifying breath, he stepped over the line, watching as Danny’s eyes snapped open and to his. Confusion was like a fog in front of them until it was washed away in understanding and a little bit of fear. Not a word was spoken, but the wind sang between them of the fact that nothing would ever be the same again. By the time he managed to tear his eyes from the magnetic pull of Danny's, the two others in the pile were awake and watching him with buried hope in their lives.

“You have a question.” Danny’s voice was soft and as quiet as ever yet there was something hard in it, like an ice that would never melt. It was clearly, to Jason at least, intended as a question that had failed to lift itself enough at the end.

A soft smile graced Jason’s lips, a smile that had been there since he saw the cuddle puddle earlier, and it didn’t fade as he said, “I do.”

Silence sat over the group for a few long minutes before Damian piped up with a sharp, “Are you going to ask it?”

The question was sharp, but Jason couldn’t shake the thought that it was only so sharp because of impatience. The sharpness was different from the usual brutal edge to Damian’s snark, it was more of a normal axe swing instead of the usual of an executioner's axe. Jason went to ask his own question when there was a flaring of fire from the orb.

“I- I don’t-” Jason broke off with a jagged sigh as he raked his hand through his hair. This should not be this hard.

Danny tilted his head. “You aren’t ready. Rest first. Question later.” That seemed to be all the talking energy Danny had for the day as he immediately laid back down, prompting Damian and Nellie to snuggle up once again, not that they’d drifted very far from each other in the first place.

“What just happened?” Tim’s voice was tense, like he was still waiting for something else to happen. Jason looked over at him to see that it wasn’t just Tim’s voice that was tense.

“Danny just told Jason to cool off before asking his question. There have already been too many big revelations for you all. You all need to process before we move on to the next big thing. You don’t have to be so tense, Tim, no one is going to blow up at each other.” Talia’s voice was cool, even, and oddly disappointed. Jason didn’t know what to think about it.

He took a deep breath, chest expanding and fire dimming slightly. “Okay. Process. Right.” His brain was a mass of mush in his head. The world around him was dimmer and brighter than it should have been, telling him that he was far too out of it to ask the question he needed to ask. “I can do that.” He would do that because he would have to. Things would be okay.

~`~`~

Things were not okay. It had been several months since the conversation in the garden that fall day, and he wasn’t quite sure that he’d processed everything. The burning in his chest was a near constant these days, growing and waning like it had a mind of its own. He’d started to hack up the dark green stuff from that one day in the Cave somewhat frequently. That was a double edged sword, good because it gave him more of his mind back, but bad because it gave him more clarity on the awful things he’d done. 

There were some things he didn’t regret, but there were also a lot that he did. He’d felt bad about what he did to Tim before, but now it was like he’d never known what guilt felt like before. Jason’d started talking to Harley about all the crazy shit in his head, and she’d been a big help, even though he couldn’t tell her everything.

The worst part was the dreams. While before his dreams had been filled with what he’d done wrong or how others had failed him, now it was like those few odd dreams were all he could have. He could never remember all of it, but he had flashes, flashes that kept getting longer and more intense. They always started out with a feeling of intense comfort-belonging-hope-love, but they rarely stayed that way, causing him to try to avoid sleep until Harley had bashed him over the head, both literally and figuratively, to get him to realize what he was doing wrong.

Beside all the crazy stuff happening, he and the other Bats had settled into a good rhythm with each other, becoming more and more like the family they all had always claimed to be, like the family he was finally admitting they could be. He’d even settled into a good pattern of days with the Nightingales. They traded who would make dinner or breakfast, telling stories about their lives to each other. Jason got to see more of the days when Danny couldn’t speak, realizing that he must have been really close to them in the past because of how well he could understand them even when speaking wasn’t an option.

The weird flashes of another person like the one he’d gotten when they were leaving the League of Assassins kept cropping up at weird times that didn’t make sense. The long black hair that he was used to sometimes appeared to be white and braided instead of in a ponytail or loose. The red duck earrings changed to snowflakes obscured by an odd mist, kinda like the kind that surrounds dry ice. Blue eyes were covered by black and white goggles or a blue veil with green snowflakes. He didn’t even want to get into the hero suit or fancy clothes that suddenly would swap in.

The whole Bat Family had learned that Danny hated Christmas, or, more accurately, he hated being forced to celebrate Christmas. He’d given them all gifts, amazing ones, but it was not in any way because of Christmas. It was apparently some trauma left over from his awful parents, and Jason respected that completely. He himself never really got into the Christmas spirit because of how many rogues decided to do Christmas themed heists and/or just had issues with the holiday itself.

Danny had continued to not give the Joker any satisfaction through making sure they didn’t show any emotion around him. This had the interesting effect of the longest stay the Joker had ever had in Arkham because he didn’t want to leave before making Danny react to him. Jason joined Ellie and Damian in providing comfort on days like that.

One interesting thing to happen over the months was when Danny introduced them all to Khuzbu, which was the human way of saying whatever its name was in Existence Speak. Khuzbu was a spherical treat with a hard outside, many different options for the inside, and a truly insane amount of flavor options. Dick had tried to joke by asking for the feeling of flying freely through the air only for Danny to deliver exactly that. The way Danny flavored the little spheres was by tossing it up and then catching it in a specific pattern, which was odd and kind of impossible until one considered that these were magic treats.

Jason would say that he’d had a lot of fun between the chaos of these months, if only the burning and howling wind-fire in his chest would have left him alone. It was hard to focus enough to even get out of bed some days, so he would lay there, paralyzed by snippets of memories and emotions that ebbed and flowed as if pulled by the invisible force of some moon. Those days were the ones where he would lose track of time only to come back to being taken care of by one of his siblings. 

The ups and downs were fine, just intense. The summer heat only seemed to make everything worse for Jason, but he managed to find ways to keep steady despite everything that was happening. There were some days when he felt lava flowing through his veins, others when he felt like a windstorm screamed through him, and still others when he felt calm.

Today was a day in July, getting kind of close to Tim’s birthday, and the whole gang was gathered together in the backyard of the Manor. He felt as calm as he could considering all the other factors, but he also felt oddly restless, like something big was about to happen or something massive was about to change. He felt oddly calm, now that he thought about it.

“Did I have a Lair?” The question finally burst from his lips, suddenly everything was silent, from the elements inside him to the people around him.

“Yes.” The simple word carried so much weight as it fell from Danny’s lips.

“Will you please take me there?” He didn’t fully know where that question came from, that was an absolute lie because he knew it came from the orb in his chest, but he was glad that it was out in the open. It just felt right in a way that he wasn’t sure it was possible to define with human words.

“Sure.” While the other word had carried a massive amount of weight, this one sounded like the wind was snatching it away, like it was being forced from lips that didn’t want to form the word, like it was a form of damnation to speak the word aloud.

Jason felt a sense of comfort and peace wash over him at the idea of going somewhere that he felt so connected to without even knowing if he’d seen it this life. He was going to a place that felt closer to home than he’d been in a long time. It was a feeling that somehow washed away some of the guilt that he felt over some of his actions in the past. The restless feeling also settled down some, like the massive thing was already set in motion.

He was so far in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the discussion going on around him, nor the fact that there was a betting pool and that several of his siblings were going to come along. He didn’t notice the strange looks he was getting from Talia, Damian, and Nellie, looks that were an odd mix of finally watching someone do something you’ve been waiting on and wondering what took so long. He was only drawn from his thoughts by Danny bumping shoulders with him.

“When?” Danny’s voice was quiet and soft, like always, but it felt somehow more there, more intense.

“Soon.” He offered a smile to cover his nerves as he answered the soft question.

“Tomorrow?” Danny offered a half smile of his own even as an indecipherable mix of emotions swirled in his eyes.

“Okay.” Jason could hardly wait.

Nellie was curled into one side, so the other was open for snuggling and there was enough room on the couch. Finally after twelve centuries, it was only five minutes according to his internal clock, Danny noticed him staring and smiled an okay. Still, Damian waited until Nellie gave her consent too before diving at Danny.

There were gasps around the room, and Damian heard at least one person yell his most common nickname in the tone that said they thought he was about to hurt somebody. He ignored all of them in favor of finally, finally, curling up into Danny’s side, one arm reaching behind them to tangle his fingers with Nellie’s. Damian’s eyes slipped closed as he let out a noise of contentment, but he knew that there were shocked looks directed at him from almost every member of his family. It wasn’t his fault that acting like the well adjusted person he used to be would have doomed the world to ending, so he didn’t feel like the gazes were quite warranted.

“So. How about I start out with a brief backstory and then we can get into your questions?” Danny’s voice sent soft rumbles through Damian with how close he was to them. It made Damian let out another sound filled with how content he was to be right where he wanted to be.

“That would be acceptable.” Father’s voice was tense enough that Damian knew him being so close to someone Father considered an unknown probable threat wasn’t giving everyone else the same comfort it was giving him. Oh well.

Danny took in a deep breath, telling Damian which story they were going to tell before they even started. “This is not the first life we’ve lived together. At first, we didn’t really know each other. Tim and I were online friends who discussed superheroes, but we didn’t know each other irl, we didn’t want to. In those days Amity Park, my hometown, was a neighboring city to Gotham, only about an hour or so away. I was adopted at around the age of ten by the Fenton family, in that life at least. I met Jason about eight years later when a government agency picked up signs of contamination on both of us. They called us ghost scum even though the actual term coined by the species we were technically a part of is Existences. Jason and I had both died at least once, brought back at different times and in different ways, but it meant we showed up on their scanners.”

“They’re called the GIW and they’re nearly nonexistent.” Nellie sounded sleepy, but Damian refused to open his eyes to double check.

“Yes, I was getting to that, but thank you.” Danny was surely smiling at Elle, but Damian knew it would drop as soon as the story continued, this was a hard time to relive for all of them who were there and remember. “The GIW did horrible experiments on us with a secondary purpose of killing us eventually. One of the worst things they did was make us believe we were being rescued utilizing some sort of hallucinogen that would make us see and hear whatever we wanted to see and hear then pretending to break us out only to punish us for attempting to escape. It took too long for us to be found, so by the time a real breakout was actually happening-”

“Jason flinched at his own guns.” Damian interrupted, finally opening his eyes to stare at Jason as the memory of that day played in his head. “He only realized it was a real gun when he used it to save us from an agent who was sneaking up on us. The hope and fear that lit up his face at that moment will always stay with me. No one got mad at me when I started to use excessive force, mainly because they were too busy doing the same. By the time we realized Da and Pops were gone, we’d basically destroyed the entire base, leaving the crippled remnants of their agents behind.” Damian saw the horror in Jason’s eyes, and all it did was remind him of that fateful day.

Danny ran their fingers through his hair, and he let it relax him enough for his eye to drift closed, leaning into the point of contact. “We didn’t fully trust that it was actually real, so Jason and I ran to Clockwork and Frostbite, two Existences who live in the dimension all Existences can call home, the Infinite Realms. We stayed there for a couple months to a couple years, time is hard to judge around Clockwork. When we got back, we couldn’t be separated from each other for too long because that typically meant the next experiment would be absolutely awful. Jason and I lived that life to an end that was a long time coming, dying side by side in the same way we’d always lived. It was a good life. Jack and Maddie were good in that one, we managed to rescue Talia from the mind control and brainwashing she was under, and we lived a full life that was full of love and joy.”

“If only it could have lasted into the next.” Elle’s voice was so miserable that Damian scooted closer to Danny to tangle the fingers of their spare hands together, giving his precious ghoul as much comfort as he could.

“Elle is right, the next life was absolutely awful. Damian was never born because Talia died early, Tim died as a tiny child, almost everyone we knew and loved were dying left and right. A combination of having to personally see most of those deaths, Fear Toxin, Joker Venom, and being constantly dipped into the Lazarus Pit drove the Dick of that life to such insanity he eventually blew up the entire universe, forcefully making everyone  in that universe move on. Jason and I remembered our first life for the entirety of our second, but I didn’t remember either life we’d lived until I reached what I think is eighteen years of mortal life and full maturity as an Existence. Existences don’t age or count maturity in the same way that mortals do, so Elle is technically my adult child even though she’s only about sixteen-ish in mortal years.”

Elle hummed. “Jack’s a piece of shit in this life though.”

Danny groaned playfully. “You’re so lucky that you can swear because you weren’t there when most of the town got soul cursed because of that stupid wish.”

“What, you gonna tell me I’m strawberry crepe grounded because you’re jealous I can say fuck?” Elle was probably smirking, if the teasing frame of voice was anything to go by. Damian just stayed floating in the void of black behind his eyes, letting the voices of his loved ones wash over him as the sense of peace rocked him to sleep so suddenly that he barely registered when it happened.

~`~`~

“I’ve never seen Demon Brat go to sleep like that before.” Jason’s voice was quiet and full of shock, managing to express himself while still making sure he didn’t wake his brother up.

“You mean you don’t remember him sleeping like this before, just like you don’t remember him ever calling you Pops before.” There was a slight smirk on Danny’s face that Jason saw in the corner of his eye as he kept staring at Damian, half expecting him to wake up because Danny hadn’t lowered their voice at all. “Don’t worry he won’t wake up.”

Dick shifted, drawing Jason’s attention to the stiff way he was sitting. “Why did he call you Da and Jason Pops?”

“Because that’s what I call them!” Nellie chirped.

Danny chuckled. “He married Nellie here in our first life, so we were his in-laws. Talia is his mother, Bruce is his father, Jason is his pops, I’m his da, and you, Dick, are his dad. He just didn’t have a chance to address you as such before falling asleep.”

“How does he remember? Is there a way that we could remember?” Tim sounded like he wanted to ask more, but Jason respected his ability to cut his questions off, staying silent because he didn’t think he could do the same.

“I think he made a deal with Clockwork to prevent the chaos of our second life, taking upon himself the burden of remembering for us. I don’t think he remembers the second, because I don’t know if he ever existed in the second. As for a way that you could remember… Jason will remember eventually, as soon as the Pit’s Influence finally leaves him behind. As for the rest of you… only if you become an Existence, of which there are many types. If you’re asking to see if you managed to solve your case before, you didn’t.” Danny looked so sad at the end there that Jason couldn’t help what blurted out of his mouth next.

“What happened to Tim with the twin case?”

Danny looked even closer to tears, and Jason felt like kicking himself at seeing that expression on their face. “He died.” Shock kept the room completely still and silent. “He didn’t share it, adding another massive project on top of his work in his civilian life and his vigilante life. The rest of you, not knowing what was bothering him and not wanting to push him too hard just tried to pick up the slack in a desperate attempt at giving him a break. It didn’t work. The more time he had off from his other obligations, the more he sunk into the twin case, but he never found anything.” The words poured out of Danny like a waterfall of agony, paralyzing everyone else in the room with the sheer depth and intensity of the feeling. “It.. It got to the point that we all tried to bench him, but he grabbed a spare suit and snuck out. On route to the Twin Case Safehouse, which is where I live now, he ran into the Joker, who killed him. We.” Danny paused, taking in a deep, fortifying breath that had Jason stiffening in fear for what would be said next. “We managed to keep Tim alive and back to the Cave. He was the right kind of personality and in the right kind of space to become an Existence after death, but he-” Tears started leaking from Danny’s eyes, as he broke off to do some calming breathing techniques. A minute of silence later, he picked the thread of the story back up again. “He said that he didn’t want to continue existing, that he didn’t deserve to, because he’d never finished his case. He said that the only solution he could come to is that his target was already dead and he refused to continue living in any way when they’d already passed into Limbo. He was the first to die.”

“Who else died to the Joker?” Bruce’s voice was quiet and fearful, yet steady, like he was horrified of the potential answers but needed to know regardless. Jason needed to know too, Danny had come home exhausted every time he’d been assigned to guard the clown. Jason needed to know how bad it was.

“Jason and I in our second life, Bruce, Tim, Dick, Duke, and Steph in our first life. He ordered the bomb set that killed Jazz, Tuck, Sam, and Jack in that first life as well. He was at least involved in the situations that killed most of you in the second life as well. He blinded Dick only a month before he killed him, so there’s that. He baited Scarecrow into the attack that killed Alfred. He tortured Jon into silence and a near coma, and he was at least part of a lot of the hero deaths that occurred in that first life, although most of those weren’t the most well known of heroes. Every time I see him, I refuse to give him any satisfaction, locking my emotions and feelings deep inside to present a blank mask to him all the while fighting back my natural instincts to kill him,” Danny’s face and voice were as dark as the topic, “To torture him and show him just what he put my family through in a life he no longer remembers, to show him what true fear really is, to make him the focus of every joke he once pulled, to-” Danny cut off when Damian stirred in his sleep, automatically brightening as he turned a little more towards Damian to pass their fingers through his hair again, muttering things that Jason couldn’t hear that caused Damian to sigh and relax back into sleep.

“We’re movin on from this topic. You guys can go discuss whatever ya want to in another room, but I’m gonna set this couch up inta the bed it can become and Ma, Damian, n I will be takin a nap. Don’t disturb us for your own safety, now shoo.” Nellie glared at them while flapping her hands until everyone had left and closed the door.

Jason was worried for Danny, that was a heavy topic and a heavy burden to carry. He was worried for Damian too, carrying the same weight for so long must have been exhausting. Talia was waiting for them in the sitting room that everyone settled into for the post questioning discussion. She took one look at their faces and gave them all an understanding smile.

“I remember everything too. Jason and Danny both needed a stand in to take the burden of remembering everything in order for this whole thing to work. Ask all your remaining questions to me, I’ll answer what I can.” At the disbelieving looks she received, she let out a short bark of laughter. “I swear on my loyalty to High King Phantom that I will not lie to any of you for this discussion.” The words sent a feeling of power through the room. “Believe me now?”

Tim sighed, again, knowing his thoughts usually weren’t this sarcastically spiteful. He had been searching every way he could think of to find his missing twin, but nothing had worked. His parents hadn’t even left a birth certificate behind when they abandoned their child. There was no record of a Nathaniel Drake anywhere he looked, which made sense because Tim didn’t remember Neil speaking very much. He’d come back from one of the hangouts with Jason’s new roommate, Danny, to find that one of the automatic searches had turned up nothing.

This didn’t help with his already low mood, but Tim supposed he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up on a day like today. It had started with Alfred cutting him off again, which was normally fine because Tim didn’t even like coffee but today was different. He’d been up the entire night diving into yet more searching for his twin, but he’d found nothing. The only good thing about the day was being able to cancel a stupid meeting for shareholders at Wayne Enterprises for “outside commitments” that he didn’t tell them was just a hangout. 

Speaking of hangouts, he should probably see if Kon could come to one soon, if only because he wanted some comfort from his best friend. He’d been searching for so long, and he hadn’t found a single clue. Tim had a good brain for facts and memorizing, but he had a tendency to throw out anything he didn’t view as important anymore. An imaginary friend was certainly not as important as stalking Batman and Robin, but a twin should have been. Tim just wanted someone to give him comfort and say all the right things to make this situation go away. The former was possible, but Tim didn’t think the latter was realistic.

Tim sighed again, rubbing his face with his hands to try and get his thoughts to quiet down. After all, he didn’t have time for a breakdown with how little he’d found out about his missing twin. He had to set up an automatic search again, expand the search parameters again, maybe get some coffee by bribing someone, and, judging by his clock which was five minutes fast, he needed to get at least one of those things done before he had to get ready for patrol. Great.

He only managed to get the parameters expanded and ready to be sent off to the program that was running automatic searches before he had to head down to the Cave to get ready. It was with a heavy heart that he left his computer to head to the study and the elevator hidden there. There was so much more he should be finding, but it was like someone had gone to the trouble of hiding his twin from him. Even if there was no record of an orphanage in one of the cities his parents had visited when they were four receiving someone named Nathaniel Drake, there should at least be a record of a four year old boy with black hair and blue eyes that had issues talking sometimes.

Arriving in the Cave, Tim shook his head free of the thoughts clogging it, he didn’t have room to think about all that while on patrol, that wouldn’t end well. It took Tim five minutes to finish suiting up, as opposed to the usual two and a half, but he couldn’t bring himself to care until Dick sent him a concerned look over it. He knew better than to let his inner turmoil show so easily, but this was unlike any inner turmoil he’d ever had before. Determinedly, Tim sent what he hoped was a reassuring smile back, as he firmly compartmentalized his thoughts in order to focus on patrol and the here and now. 

Bruce, suited up and ready, stepped into position in front of the Batcomputer, ready to give the troops their orders. Tim didn’t trust himself not to give anything away, so he kept his eyes on the dark figure backlit by the screens. He felt several sets of eyes on him, but he didn’t dare turn his head. This was his own issue, it wasn’t something he should have to go to the other Bats and Birds with for help. Bruce waited until all of their eyes were on him, but he sent Tim a concerned look of his own that told Tim this night was about to turn into a long one.

“Since it is getting close to Halloween, we’re going to start patrolling in pairs.” Bruce was one sentence in, and Tim already had a bad feeling he knew where this was going. “Robin is with me, Spoiler and Orphan are paired up, Red Hood has declined help with Crime Alley, and Nightwing and Red Robin will be patrolling together. There is no trading of partners.” Bruce said more, but Tim was only barely listening.

It made sense, it really did, but that didn’t mean that Tim didn’t hate it. They’d sent the person who deals best with emotions out on patrol with him because the family was starting to get concerned about him. The only person he wasn’t a hundred percent sure about being in on the plan was Jason, but there was still a decent chance that Jason wanted him to talk about what was bothering him too. There wasn’t even any way to get out of it without sounding like he really did need help either because he was starting to go a little crazy over the lack of leads. Still, why couldn’t they just do the normal thing and stay out of his business until he was ready to do a big reveal, maybe with a Powerpoint and-

“Tim!” Dick shouted from a few feet away, anticipating Tim’s instinct to try and sweep the leg of whoever startled him. “I’ve been calling your name for like five minutes. We need to head out for patrol, remember.”

Damn it, he’d just affirmed their feelings that something was wrong. “Yeah, sure.” Tim tried to sound clear and enthused, but he failed, voice coming out mumbly and almost pouty.

Dick sent him a look filled with concern, so much so that Tim didn’t really want to meet his eyes. “You doing okay? If you need to stay in tonight, I’m sure I can handle it. We are patrolling together all week after all.”

Tim just sighed as he headed to his bike, letting his silence speak for itself. This wasn’t going to be very fun, but Tim had dealt with worse, he’d get through this. There was no way that Dick would be able to get any information out of him because this was far too personal of an issue to even think about sharing with any of the others. He’d even made it look like he was looking into just a regular missing person so the others would assume he was avoiding the issue- Oh. Now he saw his mistake, but it was too late to change any of that. How hard could it be to avoid Dick’s attempts to talk about it anyway?

~`~`~

The answer is very hard. 

Tim had only endured three days of questions during patrol and subtler questions during the day if regular civilians were around, but he was already nearly at his wit’s end. There’d been no time for doing any searching while Dick and occasionally one or two of the others were needling him to try and find out what he’s hiding from them, and the lack of progress was already bad enough when he was doing something to try and change that. Now, with no progress and no way to attempt to make progress, he was getting increasingly irritable at an exponential rate, and there was no way that he could make their questions stop.

In a desperate attempt at doing something to throw them off the scent and get his itching to research to go away, he’d started looking into Danny again, even though he’d promised himself that he would leave them alone. Drastic times called for drastic measures, and the drastic measures had yielded results. He’d learned a lot about Danny’s backstory, but he refused to share any of it with anyone but Jason, the only one who hadn’t needled him about the search into his twin or let him be needled over it. Danny had been adopted at a young age into a family that seemed like it was at the very least neglective.

The recent name change from Daniel Fenton to Danny Nightingale had come when their adoptive father, who researched ghosts from a scientific standpoint with their adoptive mother, had declared that they were possessed and needed to be hunted down in order to be freed from “the ghastly ghost, er-, ecto entity possessing my baby boy,” which just sounded like it would lead to the vivisection of someone that Tim was becoming close with. Tim had started helping the people leading the man, named Jack Fenton, on a wild goose chase in between bouts of trying and failing to find enough private time to search for Neil.

Jason had told Danny that he and Tim had been alerted by an anonymous hacker as to their backstory, and Tim had even offered to see if the hacker would help send all the evidence to the Justice League to get help. Danny had declined their offers, simply stating that there were already plans in motion to fix the situation. Tim had continued helping with whatever he caught the mysterious helpers doing, not looking into it anymore at Danny’s request. Normally, a request for privacy wouldn’t totally stop him from trying to help, but Tim was currently on the receiving end of a massive invasion of privacy. 

For once, as Tim headed out for the fourth day of patrol with Dick, he wished that it wouldn’t be a quiet night in Gotham. He didn’t go far enough to wish for an Arkham breakout because Danny was on shift, but if the interrogation tactics continued tonight, he didn’t know how long he could stay away from that topic. There was only so long he could avoid answering the questions without tipping them all off that it was something worth looking into, so the only way out of this situation was for higher priority tasks to swamp them until they didn’t remember what they wanted to look into in the first place.

Tim’s wishes were answered for the first half of the night, the patrol route he and Dick were on was too busy for any idle conversation, and Tim felt himself start to relax for the first time in days. It was nice to just focus on the flow of the fight, what the bad guy’s goal might be, and the quickest way to stop whatever that goal was. He was finally having a good time on patrol like he usually did. 

Sadly, as they always say, all good things must come to an end. The second half of the night was oddly quiet, suspiciously quiet. Tim suspected that the others might be making sure he and Dick had enough of a quiet night for the interrogation to continue. He could only block out Dick’s questions for so long before his own worry about missing something relevant to any sort of case would make him tune back in, but he’d take his chances that he could hold out for the rest of the night.

Over and over he told himself the plan: Make it to the end of patrol and then retreat to the separate apartment he’d gotten just for this purpose, tricked out with so many traps and defenses that only those expressly trained in breaking in should be able to get in uninvited. It had been tested by everyone at one point or another, and only Cass or Damian had managed to sneak in without alerting Tim. Tim had so many escape plans for that place just because he knew that everyone would know that’s where he goes for privacy.

Tim tuned back into what Dick was saying, not wanting to get so lost in his head that he missed something. “Come on, you can tell me anything. I won’t get mad or call you stupid or anything like that.” Dick’s tone was imploring, but Tim just rolled his eyes in response, too used to this form of questioning to crack now. There was only a couple of minutes left and then he could escape this stupid conversation. “Tim,” Dick whined, elongating his name to comical proportions, “we’re family.”

That sentence turned Tim’s blood to ice. It was the phrase his parents always used when they wanted something out of him. “Do it for the family.” They’d say. “We’re family, Tim.” They’d use it like a reprimand or a prayer. Family was supposed to be something sacred, yet they’d thrown a member of their family away just because they thought they’d have enough with just Tim. They’d thrown him away too, even though they put a roof over his head and occasionally stocked food at the manor. “Tim, we’re family, how could you do this to us?” “Tim, we’re family, just do this one thing for us.” “Tim, you’re a member of this family, these grades aren’t good enough.” “Tim, what use is your memory if you don’t use it to honor your family.” He thought he’d moved past that, the unease he felt with someone claiming him as family, but hearing someone he cared about use it in much the same context as those people, the ones who’d willingly thrown away a son, he couldn’t deal with it.

Someone was saying something, but Tim couldn’t hear them over the thudding of his pulse and the screaming of his lungs. Family, family, family! His mind kept turning over and over all the times the word family was thrown in his face. Tim knew he had to snap out of this spiral or it would just get worse, but he couldn’t. All those times had suddenly taken on new meaning, a meaning he hated. Family had been so important to them, but it hadn’t, the idea of it had. They’d married for profit, and they’d had kids for profit. They’d thrown Neil away just because they didn’t see an early enough return on their investment, would-

A sudden burst of pain rocked Tim’s head back, bringing him back to the present. “Look at me.” A voice said, and he looked up to meet icy blue eyes that were seeming to stare into his soul. “Nod if you can see me.” There was a pause, but Tim was still reeling too much to do even that simple of a movement. Another burst of pain rocked his world, this time he saw a hand retreating, telling him that he’d been slapped. “Look. At. Me.” The tone of the voice told him that there would be no arguing, it urged him to obey. His eyes focused on the blue eyes again, this time registering the rest of the face, the black hair and slight scar at the chin and close to one of the ears telling him this was a friend. Danny. That thought alarmed Tim, but he couldn’t think of why. “Nod if you can see me.” Danny’s voice was much gentler this time, and Tim was grateful for that as he nodded.

“Did you have to slap him?” Dick’s voice made Tim want to retreat, but the glare Danny leveled at Dick made him curious enough to continue trying to force his brain to work.

“Considering none of your methods were working, you’re lucky that I had already figured out the whole secret identity thing, or Tim could very well still be out of it.” Danny’s tone was icier than Tim had ever heard it.

Wait. Danny already knew their identities? Tim’s brain finally recalled that he was currently wearing his Red Robin outfit, minus his domino. That meant that Danny would know his identity regardless of if they already knew or not. Then again, the texting records Tim had been shown after the whole “we know your backstory” reveal had included references to figuring out some big secret with vows to keep it a secret from everyone. That meant Danny likely knew he was the “anonymous” hacker.

“Focus.” Danny’s voice brought him back to the present even though he hadn’t been slapped again, and it was far warmer than it had been when directed at Dick. “Dick is going to apologize to you for invading your privacy so thoroughly that you had a panic attack, or he’s going to apologize for whatever sparked the panic attack. If it has to do with a case you aren’t making headway with, at least consider letting them in on the secret because they’ll see the issue from a different angle than you will. That being said, I’m only asking you to consider it because no one should be able to demand private information from you. If you would like to stay at my apartment for privacy, go ahead, no one will break in during that time without at least minor injuries, and I’ll just dump them on the fire escape after they go unconscious. Now, do you want to hear the apology or get some rest?”

“Can’t rest.” Tim slurred out, tongue feeling sticky and stale at the same time, and his throat was dry enough that just two words made him start coughing. Blessedly cold water flowed down his throat, soothing it and stopping the coughs.

“I’m sorry Tim, I didn’t mean to push that far, but the reality is that I did end up pushing that far. I’ll get everyone to back off, so you just worry about whatever you want to worry about.” Dick looked as apologetic as he sounded, which was very.

Tim took a deep, calming breath. “I understand why you felt the need to push, but I was clearly not ready to talk about it. Thank you for apologizing.” This time, his words were far clearer although they also sounded extremely tired.

“Wonderful. Now, get out of my apartment, Dick, and tell your whole group that I don’t want any visits through the window or any sneaky means. If they want to visit Tim while he’s here, the only way through is to be invited through the front door. Go.” Danny’s voice was back to being colder than ice with the return of them addressing Dick. Surprisingly, Dick simply nodded and left. “As for you,” Danny’s voice was back to being warmer, although it wasn’t quite normal levels of warmth, “get some sleep, and we’ll talk in the morning.” Tim didn’t even have time to protest before falling asleep.

~`~`~

When Tim opened his eyes, he saw a ceiling he was sure he’d never seen before. Looking around, his eyes caught on the sight of Danny sitting in a chair and writing in a book he’d never seen before. It was a grey book with black etchings on it in intricate details. A copper double border decorated the front cover, and the pages were a pale purple shade. Two ribbons dangled from opposite edges of the book, one gold and one silver. The gold one was sitting on a page at the very beginning of the book, but the silver one was dangling outside of the book, waiting to be slotted into place once Danny was done. The pen they were using was blood red and looked surprisingly plain considering all the detail in the book. There was an expression on Danny’s face that Tim had never seen before, longing mixed with deep sorrow and bitter hope.

Tim didn’t know how long he watched Danny write, entranced by movements he couldn’t fully see because the book was tilted up, showing him the cover instead of what Danny was writing. Danny eventually stopped writing, carefully putting the ribbon in place on the page they’d just finished working on and putting the book and pen in a bag that looked like it could and had withstood a lot. Danny looked up to see Tim awake, and the previous heart wrenching expression vanished to be replaced by a caring expression and a gentle smile.

“Hey sleepyhead. You slept for a little longer than I thought you would.” Danny’s voice was gentle and quiet, but, now that Tim thought about it, their voice was always quiet, it just sometimes carried farther.

“What were you writing?” Tim asked, unable to stop the question.

“Letters.” Danny’s face and voice were sad, their eyes dropping to the floor. “I was writing letters for someone who might never read them.”

“That’s sad.” Tim commented, deciding to not just suddenly clam up, he trusted Danny, as impossible as that’d once seemed.

Danny laughed gently yet sadly. “I won’t disagree with you there, but I will note that it is also a hopeful action. Writing the letters gives me hope that they may someday be able to read them, although that might be all for the wrong reasons.”

“Can I read them?” Tim asked, wanting to keep the easy conversation flowing even if he knew that it would end and what the answer would be.

“No. It’s written in a code I developed with that person, so I don’t think you can read it. Also, it’s a little too personal for that Little Bird.” Danny shook his head softly, and his tone remained gentle. “Would you like some breakfast?”

Tim blinked in surprise at the sudden question. “Yes… You aren’t going to ask about what I’m hiding?”

Danny lifted his shoulders and then lifted Tim with deceptive ease. “Nah. It’s not my place to ask that, you’ll talk when you’re ready. Worry about talking after breakfast because I’m sure we only have so much more time before I get a visit from the Batfam.” Danny continued to ramble on about numerous topics, none of which were important, allowing Tim to just relax without giving his brain enough downtime to start overthinking things again. 

Danny was right, Tim decided, he needed to talk to his family about searching for his twin. Not because they were his family, or because they could help him out with it, or anything like that, but because it was the right thing to do. He wanted to tell them, and that was reason enough. Months in the making, he was finally ready to tell them about his twin. And, okay, it was partly because they were his family and they could help, they were willing to help. In fact, all the trouble he’d gone through with them recently was them trying to help. 

~`~`~

It took a surprising two hours for Tim’s family to come try and visit him. Although he understood a little more about why when he saw that it was the entire Wayne family, including Alfred and Jason. Still, Tim had apparently been sleeping for a long time, so he thought that they’d had time to get ready to ask Danny if they could visit. 

When everyone was settled down with various drinks of choice in hand, although the space was a little too small for so many of them to gather if only because there weren’t enough regular seats causing Danny to drag bean bags from a random closet, Tim couldn’t hold back that question. “What took so long? Breakfast got done two hours ago?”

Jason snorted in amusement. “It turns out that Danny can be fairly scary. I don’t know how much you remember from the whole mess, but Danny managed to do his own version of an Alfred Stare with really good results. They tried to visit earlier, but Danny chewed them out for it. Cass said she thought she’d be caught if she tried to sneak in, and Damian said that all of us together couldn’t beat Danny in a fight if they were incompetent enough to not heed our warnings that what they were doing was the wrong way to go about things. After that, they just decided to invade my apartment until Danny texted me that it was okay to come over.”

Tim considered this for a few moments. “Makes sense.” He turned to Danny. “Speaking of the panic attack, why did you slap me?” Bruce made a noise of concern that didn’t go anywhere with Alfred and Danny immediately glaring at him.

“Dick was nearly in a frenzy because he’d already tried all the normal tactics, so I knew nothing typical would really work. At first, he didn’t want me to help out or really tell me anything because you two were in costume, but then I told him I already knew who you guys were and to bring you inside while I got Jason for any ideas he could give. Jason brought up how we could get a square of a certain color and that should snap you out of it, but he did admit it could send you into an entirely different panic attack, thus that idea got tossed out but it reminded me of something else. You can probably guess the situation, but I’d once met someone who was used to fighting to the extent that it was almost an instinct. When they had a panic attack bad enough that they weren’t processing anything they were seeing or hearing, I’d have to slap them or sometimes spar with them to get them to come down from that. Something about your brain autofocusing on the present to do threat assessment and stuff like that, I don’t really know all the science behind why it works. It doesn’t work for everyone, but I took a gamble that ended up working by slapping you.”

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense.” Tim blinked, thinking through everything Danny had said. He figured that the situation they were talking about had something to do with ghosts.

“Now, I’m sure they all have something they want to say or express, but that’s something to be done between family members. This is a meeting for Tim, so I’ll keep this short. I will not tell anyone about your identities. In fact, if that situation never happened, nor anything like it, you all would have no idea that I know who you are. I don’t need a lecture or a threat about keeping it a secret because I was already doing so. I won’t use it as leverage or anything like that either. To be clear, your secret is safe with me, no matter who or what is after it.” Danny fixed Bruce with an intense stare the entire time he was talking, even though the words were directed at all of them, making it very clear that Bruce was the main person the message was intended for.

“Well,” Dick drew it out comically, clearly trying to break the tension in the room, “I, for one, am happy that you know about our identities because you were able to help Tim when I wasn’t. Thanks for that.” There was a lot of sincerity in Dick’s voice despite how the inflection made it sound teasing.

Danny laughed gently, and the tension broke. “I would’ve tried to help the idiot vigilante on my fire escape because he got the wrong window in his panic whether or not I knew the identity of him. However, as I said earlier, this conversation is for Tim. What he uses this conversation for is up to him. He could explain what he’s hiding, tell all of us to buzz off, tell those of you who invaded his privacy or stood aside as his privacy was invaded what for, or whatever else he wants, within reason, and he’d have my complete support for it.” Danny’s voice was not quite as warm as it usually was, letting everyone who already knew him know that he was serious about this.

“Fair enough.” Jason grinned, twisting to look at Tim with a wolfish grin that somehow made Tim feel comforted. “The floor is yours Timmy, what would you like to say?” The way Jason was leaning towards Tim probably looked aggressive to others, but Tim saw it as Jason nonverbally telling him that he had someone in his corner, aside from Danny. It was comforting.

“The case I’ve not been telling you guys about is a personal one. I’d like no interruptions while I talk, or I might not be able to get it all out.” Tim spoke clearly and as calmly as possible despite the panic starting to creep in slightly. He didn’t really want to have to share what his parents had told him, but it was clear he wasn’t getting anywhere on his own.

“Go ahead Baby Bird.” Dick said, everything about him screaming gentle encouragement. Huh, Tim didn’t know anyone outside of Alfred who could get the people of his family to wisen up about their stupidity this quickly. Well, he didn’t know anyone else before now.

“On my eighteenth birthday, I visited Janet and Jack, like I always do for important family events.” Tim paused to take a deep breath, looking up to see understanding dawn on Dick’s face. Sometimes being part of a detective family meant things got picked up even if you weren’t sure you wanted them to be. This was sometimes. “They said that they had something important to tell me now that they were no longer responsible for me.” Another pause, another deep breath. “They told me that they’d lied to me and convinced me when I was around four or five that I’d simply had an imaginary friend named Nathaniel. Turns out, I’d had a twin that they’d taken along on a work trip and abandoned at a random orphanage because I was doing slightly better in school, and they weren’t seeing enough of a return on their investment.” Tim spit the last word, talking about the situation, even the bare bones of it, was making him just as disgusted with the people who’d brought him into this world as he’d felt that day. “I’ve been looking for Neil since then, but I haven’t been able to find anything. I didn’t want to bring it up to anyone because it felt too personal, but I just. Can’t. Find. Anything.” Tim couldn’t bring himself to look up and find out what anyone’s face looked like, it would just make everything far too real… again.

The silence stretched on for a long time. “Did Janet and Jack say they left your twin at an orphanage, or did they just say they left him in the care of the town they were at?” Danny’s thoughtful voice prompted Tim to look up and see his face looking just as thoughtful, head tilted slightly and one hand on the chin.

“I think it was, care of the town, why?” Tim asked hesitantly, wondering where Danny’s thoughts were.

“I thought as much.” Danny sighed. “Janet and Jack sound like the kind of jerks who make themselves sound better no matter who they’re talking to. It’s much more likely that they simply abandoned Nathaniel somewhere close to the orphanage, maybe even with no warning or explanation to the child. I have someone I could talk to about this while I’m out of town soon, but it’ll likely take him a while to get any results about this.”

The family looked like Tim felt, horrified. He hadn’t even considered that the two would even do something like that to their own flesh and blood. Then again, look at all they’d done to him. They hadn’t even noticed when he started running away from the house to go be Robin, they hadn’t known anything about him except for the things the public could know, and they only told him about his sibling when he was no longer legally their problem. It was exactly the kind of thing they’d do. Tim knew his expression was probably sinking even more with his thoughts, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that with the new, awful revelation about two people he was increasingly disgusted to be related to.

“They-” Jason cut himself off, sounding absolutely furious. “You know someone who could find information better than the Bats?” It was clear to Tim what Jason was doing. He was focusing on the safer topic to avoid triggering one of his Green Fits, as the family sometimes called them.

Danny shocked everyone by laughing. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t laugh when you don’t know. I know a person who knows quite a bit more than all of you combined, but he doesn’t always like to tell me things because I accidentally lost one of his books once. We’re on much better terms now that I’ve somehow added to his collection, but he might delay my information request just because of that. Also,” Danny eyed Bruce, amusement still clear on their face despite the fact that Bruce was starting to glare at them, clearly annoyed at how well Danny seemed to know what he was thinking, “I don’t question his methods because I don’t want to get on his bad side again, once was bad enough.”

“What happened when you got on his bad side?” Dick questioned, clearly, to Tim at least, cutting off Bruce before he could ask any insensitive questions.

“Hmm?” Danny seemed slightly thrown by the question, which didn’t happen very often. Now that Tim thought of it, that might be a sign that Danny had something going on with his emotional state, possibly even due to the whole situation with Jack Fenton. He’d have to ask Jason about that later. “Oh, he used my trauma around Christmas to basically torture me by mind controlling the town into acting out one of the Christmas classics.” Everyone who’d already met Danny was already used to Danny dropping absolutely insane facts about life before Gotham because he didn’t seem to know what normal was. Bruce and Alfred looked pretty shocked and at least mildly horrified.

“He did what?” Jason sounded like he was holding back laughter, and Bruce and Alfred turned horrified looks onto him, which he obviously noticed and just as obviously ignored.

Danny laughed out loud, a big, full laugh that a person usually does when they’re really happy or going insane. It wasn’t a sound often heard in Gotham because of the Joker, but this laugh sounded so distant from the Joker that Tim barely even thought of the comparison. This time Babs and Duke, those of them who hadn’t hung around Danny as much, joined Alfred and Bruce, those who’d never met Danny before this, in turning shocked and stunned looks at Danny.

“He somehow mind controlled the entire town to act out a Christmas Classic, rhyming and all, just because I lost one of his books. Turns out that he isn’t such a bad guy when his library isn’t messed with, but I’d rather not get into all the mess that went into our meeting and stuff like that.” Danny wiped at their eyes because the laughter had actually made Danny start crying. Tim hadn’t seen that happen before, at least, not with Danny.

“How do you know so much about us when it’s only been a few months since you arrived?” Bruce asked the question quickly, like he’d lost control of his mouth. The Bats, and likely Danny too, knew that he’d asked the question purposefully. Tim reasoned that Bruce probably waited for so long to get a read on Danny’s character, and, by doing it the way he did, Bruce had made it appear like he’d lost patience instead of the truth which was that he’d waited for Danny to feel comfortable enough that it was less likely for him to lie.

Instead of looking shocked or losing the amusement that had been dancing in Danny’s eyes since the mysterious informant had been brought up Danny simply smiled wider and said, “My sister is in training to become either a therapist or a psychiatrist, and she used to spend time with me by having me learn psychology along with her. I did the same for my hobby as a way to show that we care for each other. This means that I’m very good at reading people. On top of that, I’d figured out your identities before ever reaching Gotham, but I didn’t do very much digging until it might have been vital to my survival here. On top of that, my sister would constantly ask for my help proofreading papers she’d written about vigilantes and how their work impacted their lives, often using the Bats as people she’d study to fuel said papers. She hasn’t published them, but I still read them. I’ve always been good at reading people, this is just a step up from that.”

“So you’re saying you don’t exactly know a lot about us, you just know what we’re most likely to do based on what our behavior has been.” Bruce said it in a calm voice, but Tim could see the shock that he was hiding behind the calm facade. He understood it, no one had ever done anything like that before, never figured them out to that level.

“Yes and no. I know a decent amount about those of you who have hung out with me a lot because we’ve been talking about ourselves and all that jazz, but I don’t know too much about those of you who haven’t hung out with me as much, met me at all, or told me about themselves. I may be observant, but I try to stay away from assumptions as much as possible.” Danny seemed to be relaxed now, not as stiff or harsh.

Damian shifted slightly, drawing Tim’s attention. There was an odd look on Damian’s face that vanished too quickly for Tim to get a good look at. When Damian noticed Tim staring at him, Damian sent him an aggressive “What?” type of look. Tim just shrugged his shoulders while rolling his eyes before refocusing on the main conversation.

Bruce nodded in understanding. “I see. Why did you decide to work at Arkham Asylum?” Tim rolled his eyes again at the interrogation tone all the Bats and Birds knew so well.

“I didn’t.” Tim blinked in shock at the simple answer said in one of Danny’s most neutral voices. “When I decided to move here I was handed an application and told to fill it out so that I could get a job lined up for me because I don’t do well with being idle, never have. It was only as I was filling it out that I learned it was for Arkham, and when I brought up concerns about working there the response I received was filled with reasons to work there, the least of which being I might be able to beat up a clown with no real repercussions.”

“Why do you hate clowns so much?” Tim found himself asking. Oops, he’d meant to keep that thought to himself to look over later. That always seemed to happen around Danny though, Tim speaking his thoughts before he’d fully processed that he was going to.

“Let’s just say an event in my childhood that nearly resulted in the deaths of myself, my best friends, and several of the other people in my hometown was orchestrated by a clown looking ringmaster who only further leaned into the clown vibes as time went on. Moving on from that though, this is your conversation Tim, so do you want help with the search for Nathaniel? What do you want out of this conversation?” Danny seemed very uncomfortable with the topic of conversation before he switched it, so Tim wasn’t too frustrated at the abrupt topic shift.

“I would like some help with the search. Any information is a good thing, and I hope to one day reunite with Nathaniel. That being said, I don’t know how much you guys can help because I’ve already covered a lot of ground in this investigation.” Tim kept his voice neutral, not wanting to show how badly the lack of progress was damaging his hope, any more than he already had.

Jason hummed thoughtfully. “Which town did they desert your twin in?”

“I don’t know, they never told me. The majority of their work trips the year they left Neil were in the state of Illinois, so that’s where I’ve been focusing most of my efforts.” Tim settled in for a long conversation about the ground he’d already covered, but it would all be worth it in the end if only he got to see Neil again. He only hoped he hadn’t made the wrong decision by including more people in the search, too many cooks in the kitchen and all that. Maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have tried to keep all of this to himself. His was a family of detectives after all. Now wasn’t the time to wallow in the mistakes of the past, at least, not his past mistakes. Now was time to tear apart the mistakes of Janet and Jack’s pasts, and he couldn’t wait for their reactions to him disowning and disavowing them. Or wait, maybe he could, they were less important than Neil any day.