Phantom Children: Redux | III. Nothing is Bred that is Weaker than Man
A DPxDC crossover // Read on [AO3} or [FFN.net]
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CW: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF GORE
Three Years Ago…
Danny could not sleep though the chill of the ship invited him to rest his eyes.
No, he could not.
Though the coolness of his room and the layers of blankets cocooned around him would be tempting enough to knock him out for a couple hours on a regular day it was the cold that kept him wide awake
The freezing, numbing, blessed cold that made the back of his left knee ache and any attempt at sleep fitful.
He tossed and turned in his bed. When was the last time he slept, anyway? Was it in the car ride to the docks? The plane? The hotel they stayed at two—three?— days ago?
Danny couldn’t remember. That was… Jazz would say that was a bad thing if she were here.
It was kind of stupid really but—
He curled in tighter on himself, burying his head beneath the blankets.
When he was younger, his parents bought him a stuffed animal; a brown monkey in a space suit. He named it Albert, after the first monkey to ever go to space. Well, go to space and survive. The first monkey to go to space was Albert II but he died coming back to earth because of a parachute complication. Albert VI (also called Yorick, but Danny preferred Albert) was the first monkey to go to space and survive the landing. Anyway, that stuffed monkey used to be his favorite thing in the whole world. He used to drag it everywhere until he accidentally left it in a hotel during summer break when he was nine.
God, he was absolutely inconsolable when that happened. Couldn’t sleep for anything more than a few hours and when he woke he was the most snappish nine-year-old to ever walk on the face of the earth. His parents offered to get him a new one but he didn’t want a new one. He wanted Albert.
But then there was Jazz. Jazz who snuck into his room at night and tucked Bearbert under the blankets next to him.
“Sleep is important if you wanna grow taller,” Jazz said. “I know he can’t replace Albert, but maybe Bearbert can keep the monsters away until we get Albert back.”
The memory warmed his chest for a brief moment.
And then the reality of it all came crashing down again.
Jazz was dead. His parents were dead.
Lost for all eternity like Albert.
And both times were his fault.
If he just looked underneath the blankets or on the side of the hotel bed, he would have realized that Albert wasn’t in his backpack.
If he hadn’t given in to Dan’s taunts, then he would have been fast enough to everyone.
If he never cheated on that fucking test—
God, he just did everything wrong didn’t he?
Good ol’ Danny Fenton, fucking everything up as usual.
Fucker can’t even die right.
◆◆◆
It was sunset when Danny found himself wandering onto the deck of the ship. The sun resembled a red giant as it sank into the sea, less so in size and more so in the intensity of its color. Visceral and raw and blinding , dying the ocean a deep violet-red.
His mania had abated, somewhat. It seemed to fluctuate in intensity. Sometimes the cold felt all-consuming; frost would crawl up the walls of his little cabin, his skin tinged frostbitten-blue, and the cold would seep beneath his flesh and war with the fever that made him delirious to the world around him. Sometimes it manifested as nothing more than an occasional shiver. What made each day different, he didn’t know. But those calm days, those good days, he savored like a bittersweet drink.
Today was one of those good days. He wasn’t feverish, wasn’t nauseous, and his head didn’t hurt like Skulker had elbow-driven him from 500 feet in the air.
Sure, a shiver would occasionally crawl up his spine, and sure there were a couple moments where his powers froze the waves as they crested, but it never lasted long. The shivers would go away and the ice would break as the wave slammed down again.
“Ah, young Danyal.” Dusan stepped up beside him on the railing, the sea breeze catching a few tendrils of his white hair in the wind. “Your mother told me you had been feeling better.”
He gave a noncommittal hum beneath his breath.
There was a wrinkle between Dusan’s brows and instantly, Danny straightened, hands squeezing the railing. “Yes, sir.”
“Hm.” Dusan pulled a sleek black phone from his jacket pocket, unlocking it with a few taps of his thumb. He passed it to Danny. “You will be pleased to note that our ruse has succeeded, and you are now free from the clutches of the law.”
It was an article from the Amity Park Angle. It was short, only a couple paragraphs long, and had his school picture posted beside it.
Daniel James Fenton, 14, passed away tragically last Wednesday.
Ah. His jaw tightened, skin tingling though not from the cold.
This was his obituary.
He returned the phone to Dusan, not wanting to read the rest of it.
How did you do it? He wanted to ask. How did you kill me?
Instead, he gave a strained sort of laugh. “You think I’ve set a record? I’m probably the only one in the world who managed to technically die and remain alive three times.”
The corner of Dusan’s mouth quirked up. “Needs must, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, I guess.” He scratched the back of his neck, eyes drawn to the lull of the darkening waves.
“What is it that occupies your thoughts?”
He pursed his lips, shifting his arms so that they laid crossed on the railing. “I don’t— I just…everything happened so fast.” He dropped his head into his arms, fingers raking through his hair. “A few weeks ago I was, well, not normal , but close enough to it. I had my parents, I had my sister, I had my friends, and the most I had to worry about was the next ghost attack and making sure I remembered to do my homework. And then the explosion happened and everyone died and I became an orphan but it turns out I’m not? Because my real mom found me but I can’t— you guys had to fake my death to get me away!”
Frustration coursed through his veins with the same intensity as the waves slamming against the side of the ship. He leaned back, hands holding the railing in a knuckle-white grip, frost creeping from beneath his fingers. Not that he noticed. Not that he cared.
“I’m dead. I’m dead but I’m not and I’m constantly flipping between being fine and becoming a human popsicle. I’m on a ship in the middle of the ocean and I have no idea where we’re going because people won’t tell me!” The red sun glared hatefully into his eyes. Red red red like Dan’s eyes, like Plasmius’ eyes, and burning so, so bright . He had half a mind to wish that the sun would just extinguish itself so he’d never have to see that color again.
The sun did not extinguish, but Danny’s anger did. Left as quickly as it arrived, leaving him hollow.
He slumped against the railing.
What was he doing unloading all this stuff on Dusan? Dusan didn’t ask for any of that. He didn’t deserve to listen to all of Danny’s baggage. Not when Dusan was already doing so much for him.
He should have kept his mouth shut.
“I’m sorry,” Danny said quietly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
Dusan laid a warm hand on his shoulder as they both stared at the sun. “Tell me, my boy, have you had the chance to read the Odyssey?”
Danny shook his head. They were supposed to, though. On the first day of school, he remembered Mr. Lancer’s quiet pleasure as he passed out the class syllabi of how they’d be covering the Odyssey in the spring. Poor Mr. Lancer. He was a hardass, sure, and he had his faults, but he genuinely did try with Danny.
“And if some god should strike me,” quoted Dusan “out on the wine-dark sea, I will endure it, owning a heart within inured to suffering. For I have suffered much, and labored much.”
He continued: “Like Odysseus, you have found yourself cast adrift into the world, far away from all that you knew. And like him, you will endure this. You must. For the world is a vast and cruel place, Danyal, and you must either bear against its weight or it will see you crushed and broken beneath it.”
“But what if I can’t?”
“You can,” he stated, resolute and firm like his grip on Danny’s shoulder. “You can endure because your family is here to support you.”
◆◆◆
Danny opened his eyes.
The sky was an endless expanse of swirling gray clouds. The ocean rocked the raft to a punishing rhythm, murky green-gray waters slapping against the rotting planks.
Danny was tied to a makeshift mast, the rope crossing over his abdomen and tied tightly behind his throat, digging into his jugular. He could not speak. Could not breathe .
“Do you remember, Danny?” Sam stood at the head of the raft, her back turned to him. “Do you remember that story I told you about The Raft of the Medusa?”
Eighth grade. A field trip to the Amity Park Museum. Their teacher wanted to show them the new art exhibit since it was only available for a short while. He remembered the painting Sam was talking about; it was hard not to when The Raft of the Medusa seemed to overpower every other painting in the exhibit.
It depicted the aftermath of a ship wreck. A morbidly beautiful painting of a raft lost at sea, its few surviving passengers desperately trying to call for help, their faces gaunt, eyes manic and wild.
“There were originally 147 passengers on that raft. One hundred and forty-seven people and only fifteen survived at the end of it.”
A large wave smashed against the raft. It filled Danny’s nose with salt-water and his mouth of the taste of asphalt. He gasped, coughing out the smoke in his lungs.
Sam was still rooted to her spot, back turned to him.
“Do you remember, Danny? Do you remember who they blamed for the entire disaster?”
The ocean carried the raft up and up and up . High into the air that they rose. He could almost touch the clouds if it weren’t for the ropes digging into his skin.
“They blamed the captain.”
The raft plummeted into the sea. He couldn’t scream, his heart was lodged in his throat.
The raft slammed into the ocean, pieces splintering off upon impact. Thunder roared around them like the clashing of cymbals and the sound of laughter.
Danny strained against his confinement, but the ropes tightened around him, the harsh fibers burning his skin.
He could hear the mast creak. Hear it splinter as it fought against him.
He was almost there. Almost there .
“Look at me Danny.”
Danny opened his eyes—when did he close them?
Sam was in front of him and— oh god.
Oh god.
Her face.
Her flesh was melted, plastered against her blackened bone. Eyes nothing more than empty sockets in her head. Her skeleton hands held his face, forcing him to look. To look at what he had done to her.
“Why didn’t you save us Danny?” She asked. Asked with the voice of six people he had failed, their voices conjoined in some deranged siren song. “Why did you kill us?”
He could see it now. He could see that they weren’t alone on the raft. There, being slowly dragged into the depths, were the burned and waterlogged corpses of his victims.
He screamed, and the sky answered with his own manic laughter.
◆◆◆
Danny opened his eyes and his skin was on fire.
He yelped, tearing off the weights that pinned him down and tumbled onto the floor.
He can’t—
He can’t breathe—
Tucker suffocated to death, chest caved in and choking on air.
Someone was calling his name.
Who was it?
He can’t—
He doesn’t—
Mom?
“Focus on my voice, habibi . I need you to breathe, can you do that for me?”
There’s something warm enveloping his hand.
“Breathe in, Danny, come on. Inhale through your nose for four.”
One. Two. Three. Four.
“Hold for seven.”
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.
“And exhale through the mouth for eight.”
She counted out loud, and he tried to focus on her voice.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
Each second felt like an eternity. Some part of him laughed and said that this was Clockwork’s doing. Retribution for daring to interfere with the timeline. Punishment for whatever future atrocities he committed.
“I’m sorry,” he choked out.
Talia gave him a closed lip smile, rubbing circular motions across his back. “There is nothing to be sorry for, my son. Now, let’s get you back to bed. Perhaps I’ll get you something warm to drink, would you like that?”
◆◆◆
Talia slipped her son something to ease the pains and make him drowsy. Carding her calloused fingers through his hair, she watched as Danny sank further and further into sleep’s sweet embrace. His breath evened out, the tension loosening from his frame. She continued her soft ministrations on his dark hair, but slowly her fingers moved to stroke the lines of his face, the slope of his nose, and then the curve of his eyes.
She cataloged his features and compared it to her own. He had her nose. Her mouth. Her skin. He had a more lean figure like her, built more for speed and agility than brute strength— though currently, Danny could be considered more ‘lanky’ than lean, but training and a strict diet will correct that. The rest of Danny was all her beloved’s, from the wide too-bright-too-blue eyes, to the sharp jawline, to the exact shade of black in the hair.
Was this what her beloved looked like in his youth?
Was this what Damian would grow to become?
The ship rocked gently along the waves. She smoothed down Danny’s hair and pressed a soft kiss to his head before rising from her seat at his bedside.
She could not say the same for Bruce at that age, but she was quite certain that Damian would never be as trusting as Danny was. Though she could not blame it entirely on the boy. He was raised in a rather…inferior household, per se. What innate skills he might have inherited from his bloodline were left to rust under the mundanity of civilian life. Had circumstances been more favorable, Talia would have whisked Danny away the moment Dusan had discovered him all those years ago.
Alas, such was not the case.
She left Danny’s room, shutting the door quietly behind her.
The League had too many enemies at the time that bringing Danny in would have made him too tempting a target. Though Talia was not naive enough to believe that concern for his first grandson would be Ra’s al Ghul’s only motive for not having recovered sooner, she did see why it would have been more beneficial to keep his existence and any connection to the League wrapped under secrecy.
“It seems that our father’s investments have paid off.” She looked to her left at where Dusan seemed to materialize from the shadows of the ship’s passageway. “Now, we have the makings of a great assassin at our disposal.”
“Do you think that he planned for this to happen?” She asked, matching his stride, the pair of them slowly making their way to the bridge.
“I cannot even begin to fathom the mind of Ra’s al Ghul. How he could have predicted this , I do not know, but he must have expected some kind of result by keeping your son with the Fentons. No— even that was an accident, wasn’t it? This…this is fate.”
Talia doubted that even the great Ra’s al Gul could predict this outcome for her son. However Ra’s was not one to so carelessly sacrifice a potential asset unless he had a particular gambit in mind. What future did he envision when he made that decision all those years ago?
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The Rosa disanthus produced mixed results. The worst of the chills and fever abated about half an hour after he imbibed the tea, only to be replaced by nausea and vomiting.” Talia raised her hand, contemplating the lines of her palm for a moment. “There was frost when he had a panic attack. Frost coated his palms and covered his arm all the way to the elbow—I don’t believe he even realized it—but when he drank the tea, it receded.”
“Hm.” Dusan furrowed his brows. “His condition affected his physiology to a greater extent than we thought. No matter. Hopefully enough exposure would mitigate much of the effects. Neither of us are strangers to mithridatism; we would have inevitably tested for all his potential weaknesses, and starting early would prove fruitful later on.”
“You have spoken to father, then?”
He inclined his head in affirmation. “He has given me the task of training young Danyal.”
Talia’s fingers curled into a fist, hand dropping to her side. “I would have thought that I, as his mother, would be in charge of his lessons.”
“Take no offense, sister, this is not meant to be a punishment.” He smiled, a cunning gleam in his eyes. While Ra’s al Ghul normally paid more attention to his daughters for their strength, not even he could deny that, above all his other children, it was Dusan who inherited Ra’s ruthless cunning. “Danyal is young and naive, but he is powerful . Simply isolating him in Nanda Parbat will do nothing if he could simply fly away whenever he wanted. We must teach him to love us. To choose to stay.”
Talia thinned her lips, jaw clenched. She nodded, leaving the conversation at that.
Dusan would be a harsh master to learn under. He would strip Danny and of all he used to be and break him down into nothing . It would be cruel and unkind— but it would be efficient.
Well, no matter. Talia would always be there to pick up the pieces; the honey to the vinegar; the carrot to the stick. She would take what remained of the boy known as Danny and rebuild him with loving words and her motherly embrace, fill the cracks with love and loyalty for the League and their family and shape him until he becomes her son and no one else’s.
She had been forced to give up her eldest son once. Never again.
This child was hers.
◆◆◆
A light fever clouded Danny’s mind during the last stretch of their journey.
Talia said it was the tea that caused it. A little something that they picked up at their last port stop that she and Dusan believed would help with his mania .
Danny didn’t like that tea. It had a pungent aroma to it that made his nose wrinkle. He couldn’t place the scent, but the strength of it was like walking past a Bath & Body Works at the mall mixed with the smell of cherry-flavored cough syrup. Its taste was about as pleasant as its smell, considering that his stomach fought the tea at every step of the way.
He didn’t want to drink it, but Talia and Dusan insisted and Danny didn’t really have much right to refuse. They did so much for him already and in return all they really wanted was for him to drink some tea.
Despite his revulsion for it, Danny could admit that the tea did work. Sort of. It kept the worst of his chills away, thawing the bitter cold deep within his core.
It kept the dreams away too.
So maybe it wasn’t so bad.
He couldn’t remember much of what happened in the interim. Only the rocking of the ship, the quiet lull of his bedroom, Talia’s soothing voice and her hands carding through his hair.
Dusan came at one point with the intention to prepare Danny for his meeting with Ra’s al Ghul, his grandfather and his parents’ benefactor. There was a degree of reverence in Dusan’s eyes as he spoke, his usually impassive face split into a wide grin.
“He is a remarkable man, your grandfather,” Dusan began. “Powerful and intelligent. A self-made man of means.”
A visionary, Dusan described him. A man with dreams of a better future, of freeing the world from the corruptions of society and the clutches of greedy and vicious people who only want to drain the world of its vitality to feed their voracious gluttony.
“Too long have the scum of the earth been allowed to exist in the light of day,” Dusan said. “And so it is from the shadows that Ra’s al Ghul means to rectify it.”
Danny squeezed his eyes shut, trying to take it all in. “That sounds…” His foggy brain couldn’t find the right word. “Intense.”
Well, at least it was safe to say that Ra’s al Ghul wouldn’t like Vlad.
Dusan chuckled. “Indeed. But do not make the mistake of assuming he lacks benevolence. Ra’s al Ghul is ruthless because he must be. But to those who are worthy, he is merciful and just. You have already taken the first step in proving your strength to Ra’s al Ghul, but now, you must leave yourself in his hands. Present your case. Tell him what you seek. Trust that he will help you—for you are of his blood—and that he will help you best.”
It’s those words that Danny—through all of the sudden influx of new sights and sounds and scents around him and the anxiety crawling beneath his kin— tried to remember as they traveled through the mountain fortress of Nanda Parbat.
Exactly where Nanda Parbat existed on the map, Danny had no idea. It was surrounded by snow-capped mountains, built atop a large plateau that dropped off into a deep canyon. The fortress was palatial. Tall towers framed the high walls that encircled the fortress, sunlight bounced off the deep blue tiles of the steeply sloping roofs and gleamed against the golden spires atop the main buildings.
There were three courtyards from what he could tell, each one hidden behind the other and separated by a thick wall. The training yards, Talia called them.
“Who are they?” Danny said, gazing down at the hundreds of people below from their helicopter. They appeared to be doing a series of some kind of martial-art exercises, one form smoothly transitioning into the next in an intimidating display of synchronization.
Dusan answered, “They are those who believe in the world Ra’s al Ghul would bring.”
Trepidation settled in his gut. There was a voice at the back of his head that sounded like Jazz that told him that something was wrong. That this was a bad idea.
His core smothered the thoughts with a brief flicker of grimace, happily humming that warm family-here-home-wish.
Talia and Dusan led him up the lengthy staircase leading to the main compound and through a dizzying series of hallways and stairs that led to the office of Ra’s al Ghul. He barely noticed anything as he walked, too busy trying to keep in pace with his guides. The main building was a huge square tower. The hallways were made of polished wood, rows of shoji screens on Danny’s right and a railing looking down into the courtyard in the middle of the tower to his left.
“What is this place?” he asked. His other question— who are you?— remained unsaid.
Dusan smiled, the overhead lights casting shadows across his face. “This, young Danyal, is home.”
The screen door slid open to reveal a large and spacious office. An antique desk sat in the middle facing the door, piled high with all manner of books, scrolls, ancient tomes, and artifacts. The walls were filled to the brim with even more books and miscellaneous items— some familiar, and some completely unknown to Danny.
Sat behind the desk, a gold bird-shaped magnifying glass held steady above some ancient manuscript, was Ra’s al Ghul.
“You are here,” Ra’s al Ghul remarked. He set down the magnifying glass and gently flipped a page of the manuscript spread out on his desk before standing. He clasped his hands behind his back and leisurely made his way around the desk.
To Danny’s surprise, Ra’s al Ghul did not look like a grandfather. Not that Danny had any other grandparents to compare Ra’s to, and Dusan’s descriptions certainly didn’t give off the vibes of some friendly and sage man who doted on his grandkids and talked about ‘the good old days.’
Yeah, Danny didn’t really know what to expect, but he certainly didn’t expect Ra’s .
Ra’s al Ghul looked, at most , a decade older than his mom and dad. Hell, even Dusan looked older than him. Built tall and broad-shouldered, the indication of whipcord muscles visible beneath his dark green and gold embroidered shalwar kameez. He had the same cool tawny skin as Talia’s, his strange green eyes marked by crows feet. He had dark gray salt-and-pepper hair with a receding hairline and sharp widow’s peak, the back of his hair tied tightly and low against his head.
At his acknowledgement, Talia and Dusan greeted Ra’s al Ghul with a salute. Right hand curled into a fist and pressed against their heart, head bowed. Startled, Danny was quick to do the same.
He bit back a cringe when he realized how sweaty his palms were.
Ra’s inclined his head and they were allowed to drop the salute. He approached them at a measured pace, movements so unnervingly silent even as Danny was watching him move right in front of him.
He stopped in front of Danny, looming over him with narrowed eyes.
Was Danny…was Danny supposed to meet his gaze or lower it? He knew that in some cultures it was rude to look someone directly in the eye. Or was it supposed to be a sign of respect?
Ra’s al Ghul suddenly straightened. Smirked. Danny really hoped that was a good sign.
“So this is him, then,” Ra’s said, walking back further into the room. He turned abruptly on his heel, head cocked to the side. “Come closer, child. Let me get a better look at you.”
His heart jumped into his throat, and he pushed it back down with a painful swallow. A tingling sensation overtook his arm, the urge to try and scratch it away needling his mind. He caught Talia’s gaze as he moved past her and felt a flicker of reassurance as she subtly brushed her knuckles against his, calming his frazzled nerves.
Dusan tilted his head slightly, features impassive but assessing.
Ra’s al Ghul, worryingly enough, reminded him of Vlad. Appearance wise, they looked nothing alike. But there was this… presence , this certain gravitas about them that emanated both great wealth, resources, and the cunningness of which to use them.
Though while Vlad came off as comically villainous and, well, kind of pathetic at times, Ra’s al Ghul possessed an overwhelmingly intimidating aura that seemed to engulf the room. This was a man who did not demand attention but commanded it. One could not help but obey.
Gut instinct told him to not show any fear.
Gut instinct told him to leave .
Ra’s al Ghul’s flat affect broke into a small, soft smile that peaked from beneath his goatee. Gentle. Kind. Almost what Danny assumed to be grandfatherly .
His core hummed excitedly. The anxiety at the pit of his stomach subsided somewhat.
Ra’s loomed over Danny—too close—eyes sharp and assessing. “Do you know who I am, boy?”
“You are Ra’s al Ghul,” he answered.
Family , his core replied.
His smile grew. “That I am, boy, that I am. But I am also your grandfather.”
Grandfather, his core sang.
He straightened his posture, settling a firm hand on Danny’s shoulder.
This time, Danny could not help but flinch.
“No need to be so nervous,” Ra’s chuckled. “We are family, the two of us. My blood runs through your veins as surely as it does your mother’s, no matter that you were once lost to us. And besides that, the doctors Fenton were an invaluable asset to us, both in their research and in caring for you.” He shifted his hold, arm now across Danny’s shoulders as he led Danny in front of the desk. “Dusan and your mother were rather…cryptic with their reports. I have heard that you have a rather unusual situation and would like our help.”
“Yeah— I mean, yes, sir.” Best behavior Danny, best behavior.
Ra’s detached himself from Danny’s side and sat behind his desk once more, elbows rested on polished wood and hands steepled in front of him. Curiosity gleamed in his strange green eyes. “Do tell.”
Danny rubbed the back of his neck, craning his gaze towards Talia.
Talia gave a reassuring smile.
He swallowed a hard lump in his throat, trying to remember what Dusan said.
Present your case. Tell him what you seek. Trust that he will help you.
It was— he never had to tell this many people before. Hell, he never had to tell anyone this story at all! Personally, Danny would like to keep it that way, but it made sense that Ra’s al Ghul would want the whole story. To know what mess he found at his doorstep.
And wasn’t this the reason he came with Talia, anyway? To look for help?
He raised his head once more, meeting Ra’s with a resolute gaze. “Some months ago, I was caught in an accident in my parents’—um, the Fenton’s—lab. Long story short, it turned me into a meta…or at least meta-adjacent? Sorry, I didn’t really have enough time to get too deep into ghost biology.”
Ras raised an imperious brow. “Ghost biology? Yes…If I recall, that was where your parents’ research lay. So you claim that you are a ghost?”
“Yes. Maybe?” Danny shrugged. “It’s kind of been what everyone’s been telling me and what all the signs have been pointing to.”
“I was under the impression that death was a prerequisite to becoming a ghost.”
“There’s been a running theory that I did die in that lab accident. It just didn’t stick.”
Ra’s blinked, giving Danny another appraising look. Danny fought the urge to squirm. Then Ra’s threw his head back with a loud, raucous laugh. “Fascinating!” He stroked his goatee, amused. “What a brilliant little enigma you are. What a wonder my grandchild has become! Though taking his blood into account, perhaps I should have expected it.” He leaned forward in his chair. “So, what request is it that you will make of me?”
Danny bit the inside of his cheek, mind racing for the right words to say. “I want…I was told that you would be able to give me a new life.”
“A new life.”
“I need— I don’t know what I need, really, but for certain reasons I can’t stay in Amity and I certainly can’t trust the law because I know where they’ll put me if I go back and if that happens then—”
Red eyes. A city in ruin. A world on fire.
“Then, what?”
Danny looked away, shoulders hunched as if he was Atlas himself, carrying the weight of the world on his back. “Something really, really bad will happen.”
Ra’s al Ghul beheld him, fingers drumming on his desk in a steady thump-thump-thump . Danny felt stifled under that gaze.
Trust in him , Dusan had said.
Grandfather , his core said. Family-here-trust-together.
After what seemed like an age, Ra’s al Ghul nodded. “Your request is doable, and I will excuse your ambiguity for the present, though I will require a full and detailed explanation at a later date.”
Danny let out a shaky breath. Relief coursed through his veins.
“But,” Ra’s al Ghul said. “I do not give you this new lease on life for free. I require payment.”
“I don’t— I don’t have anything to give.”
Ra’s waved off his concerns. “Worry not, boy, the price I seek is not so steep. What I want is for you to take your proper place in this family.” He stretched out his hand. “Do we have an agreement?”
Danny stared at the hand.
Was it…would it really be this simple? A new name, a new life, a new family all in one fell swoop?
It was almost too good to be true.
Take , his core hummed. Chance-take-family-mine-whole-take.
He took Ra’s al Ghul’s hand and shook it. “We do.”
From that pact, Danyal al Ghul sprang into existence.
And at that moment, though he did not know it yet, Danny Fenton well and truly died.
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