Part One / Part Two (You are Here) / Part Three
A03
Hopper had undersold Harrington's condition.
Wayne hadn't expected anything pretty, but the face that turned to them as they walked through the door almost had him freezing in place.
Black eye, bruised chin, split lip.
More and more bruises, some faded and some very new, trailing down the kids neck.
The rest was hidden by his preppy little polo shirt, but Wayne didn't doubt that there were more.
Harrington tried to stand when they entered the room and the way he moved--entirely unbalanced, clearly in a lot of pain--made Wayne think the only thing the kid really needed was a hospital.
Because Steve Harrington hadn't just been beaten.
He'd been tortured--and very recently strangled.
(Abruptly, Wayne realized that Hopper had implied the boy had been in the mall fire--just as much as he implied the mall fire was anything but.
He also hadn't stated how Harrington had escaped the Suites trying to break into his house.)
"Sit down." Hopper commanded, and Wayne expected Harrington to do anything but listen.
Say something cocky, or act the part of a demanding little shit maybe, despite the condition he was in.
Instead the kid just sighed in relief and dropped like a stone, right back into the chair.
Hopper came around his desk, talking all the while. "Steve, this is Wayne. Wayne, Steve."
"Hello Sir." Steve croaked politely. His voice was wrecked, no doubt from the necklace of finger shaped bruises around his neck.
"You're going to stay with him for a while, and you're gonna pay him for the privilege." Hopper informed him, as he began digging around his desk. "Money, chores, whatever Wayne wants."
Wayne held his gaze as Steve turned to appraise him.
Would Harrington pitch a fit?
Would he look at Wayne's work clothes, streaked with dirt and sweat, with the name of the warehouse embroidered in the corner and crinkle up his nose, just like his daddy did?
Hopper didn't lie, but a part of Wayne wanted to see just how different this Harrington was. If the respectful demeanor was an act done for Hopper.
Or perhaps, Hopper had mentioned Steve's father for a reason, instead of his mother. Did he adopt her ice-like approach to life?
Micro managing and long-held grudges were Stella Harrington’s game, and she excelled at it.
Steve however, did nothing of the sort, instead settling with the situation in a way that reminded Wayne far too strongly of the men and women who'd come home from war.
"Okay." The kid said simply, after a long moment of consideration. He turned back to Hopper. "But we need to tell the rest of the Par--"
Here he cut a look back to Wayne, correcting himself. "the kids. I don't want them showing up at my house trying to find me and freaking out."
"They wouldn't--" Jim paused, fingers freezing from the rummaging they'd been doing. "they absolutely would, goddammit." He muttered darkly.
"I'll tell the kids. The only thing I want you doing right now is laying low. I need to get a hold of Owens, but it's gonna take time to do that, and more time to fix this, so as of right now, Harrington? You're on vacation." He pointed sternly, as if Steve might argue.
The kid looked too tired and messed up to bother trying.
"I mean it. You're out of the country, where is anybody's guess. No one's seen you and no one better be seeing you, got it?" His voice held firm, and Wayne had to blink because the tone here wasn't one of a police chief warning a teenager--but of a father talking to his son.
He knew, because his own voice did that now. Took on a worried tone that masqueraded as something more like annoyance and seriousness.
"Yes, Sir." Harrington said, remaining weirdly compliant. "Consider me gone."
A hand came up to briefly press above one eye, and Wayne wondered if the kid had been looked over, or if they had just crammed him into Hopper's office without offering so much as a tissue box.
How many painkillers did they have back at the house? Wayne usually kept a good bottle around, but Steve was going to need more than that…
He found himself once again cataloging Steve's wounds, this time comparing them to the medicine cabinet he had at home.
"I expect you to be a damn good house guest, you hear me?" Hopper continued, trying to cut a menacing figure. He finally found what he was looking for; pulling out a large, padded envelope.
He handed it over to Harrington, who took it without looking, shoving it into the duffle bag he'd had sitting at his feet.
There was a smudge of red on the handle of said bag, that matched perfectly up to a shittily done wrap on Steve's right hand.
Wayne mentally added 'buy more bandages' to his list.
Steve nodded at Hopper again. "Yes, Sir."
Jim’s eyes narrowed. "Quite that, you know I hate that."
The briefest glimmer of mischief crossed Harrington's face. "Sorry, Sir. Won't happen again, Sir."
'Ahh.' Wayne thought. 'So there's a teenager in there after all.'
Jim rolled his eyes. "Get out of my office."
"Thanks Hop." Harrington said, finally dropping that odd obedience, a hint of a smile on his battered face.
He stood, and Wayne had to stop himself from offering an arm out as Steve reached for his bag and limped towards him.
He paused right before he left Hopper's office, hand on the doorframe.
"You'll check up on Robin too, right?" He asked, and for the first time his tone took on something more alive--and filled with worry. "And Dustin? Erica?"
"Dustin and his mom are finally taking me up on my suggestion to see their family in Florida for a while, and the Sinclairs are taking a sabbatical from Hawkins. I'm working on the Buckley's." Hopper drummed his fingers on the desk. "So far, no one else besides you and El have been targeted, and we're going to keep it that way."
Steve let out a breath, and while Wayne could tell the worry hadn't left him, he could almost physically see Steve force himself to put it away.
Another act that was far beyond the kid's years.
A different officer popped up as they walked down the hall towards the exit, waving his hand madly. "Harrington! Chief says you forgot this!" He barked.
(Or tried to anyway. Callahan wasn’t the most aggressive of officers and frankly, never would be.)
A slim sports bag was held in his hands, and Steve nearly tripped over his own feet when he tried to turn and claim it.
"I'll get it." Wayne said, knowing his tone sounded gruff.
No use for it. He could either sound gruff or sound sad, and Wayne knew better than to start off the relationship with yet another hurt young man by acting sad.
Pity wasn't gonna win him any favors here.
He took the bag, slinging it over his shoulder, uncaring of the wince on Harrington's face until something sharp poked at his shoulder.
Several somethings, in fact.
"What the hell do you got in this thing?" He asked once they hit the parking lot, voice low as he escorted Steve to his truck.
"Just a baseball bat, sir." Steve said, in the exact same tone Eddie used every time he thought he was bein’ slick.
Considering the thing in the bag could have passed for a baseball bat if not for the sharp pokey bits, it wasn’t a bad attempt. Steve just hadn’t accounted for the fact that Wayne lived with Eddie.
An unfair advantage, really.
‘Least there can’t be any baby racoons in the damn bag.’ Wayne thought idly.
Went on to gently put the bat in the backseat, watching as the kid struggled to lift himself into the truck.
"You can drop that, I take too being called Sir about as well as Hop does." He said, keeping his tone nice and calm, hoping to ease into calling Steve out on his lie.
Fussed with a few dials on the stereo, giving Steve an excuse to take his time before starting the engine and taking the long way home.
Wayne wanted to talk a little-- without the chance of Ed’s interrupting.
"Son,” He started off. “I was born in the morning, but not this morning. I'm hoping to make the next few weeks as easy as I can for both of us, and I can't do that if you're starting off with a lie."
Steve blinked, turning to face him in a matter that was too fast for his injuries. He didn't bother hiding the hurt it caused him, but his voice stayed even as he spoke.
"What do you mean Si--Wayne."
"Nice catch.” Wayne said. “We’ll get you there yet.”
It was a trick he'd learned with Eddie--little tidbits of praise went a long way when it came to gaining trust.
Especially with kids who hadn't ever been given much.
Harrington seemed smart to it, or perhaps was just hesitant to speak in general because he remained quiet, not offering up any info. No further lies, but nothing towards the truth, neither.
Which was fine. Wayne didn’t think a little pushing would hurt.
"That bat of yours was digging into my shoulder like a bee swarm." Wayne continued, when it became clear Steve wasn't talking. "I'm more a fan of football than baseball, but last I checked they hadn't changed the design of a bat."
"What teams?" Steve asked, perking up a touch. "Of football. Which ones are yours?"
Wayne could ignore it of course, or demand Steve give him an answer to the question he asked.
He did neither. "I’m liking the Colts since they got moved here. You?"
"Green Bay Packers, though I like the Colts too--that trade in 84’ was crazy." Steve said. After a second he proved that answering instead of pushing was the right move because he added; "What did Hopper tell you? About…" He trailed off, making a gesture Wayne didn't bother trying to interpret.
"He said some things. I've guessed a few others." Wayne admitted. Cut a little look out of the corner of his eye as he came to a stop sign. "I know the feds are real interested in you after Starcourt."
Steve took that in, hands tightening on the handle.
"It really is a baseball bat." He said, a little fast and with the tiniest hint of that challenge Wayne had been looking for. "It just also has nails hammered into one end."
Wayne took that in with one nice, slow blink.
"A bat with nails in it." He said, and it made a hell of a lot of sense compared to the sensation he'd felt carrying the case. "You use it against anyone?"
"Some of the feds." Steve admitted, and even with his eyes on the road Wayne could tell he was being stared at.
Judged.
Not in the way one expected a rich kid to judge, but in the way Eddie had, those first few months he'd lived here. The times when he'd push, just a little, to see what Wayne's reaction would be.
Eddie hadn't done it in a damn long time, but Wayne recognized the behavior nonetheless.
"Anybody else?" He asked.
"Nobody human." Steve replied.
"Alright." Wayne said, and made a mental note to drop all questions related to that.
He didn't need to know, definitely didn't want to know, and had a feeling if he did know he'd find himself being watched by the same spooks after Steve.
"I've got a few deck boxes that lock on my porch. Think you'd be agreeable to leaving the bat in one?"
Steve paused, hand clenching tighter around the strap of his duffel bag. "If you gave me a key so I could get it in an emergency, I'd be happy to."
He tried to sound calm, even a little charming in that sort of upper-class businessman sort of way, but the fear bled through.
The kid wasn't happy separating from the bat, and given it sounded like it might have saved his life recently, Wayne understood the hesitation.
With an internal apology to Eddie, he promptly threw his nephew under the proverbial bus. "I've got my nephew at home and he'd be far too interested in it, is all. Blades and weapons and such tend to attract him, and I don't need to be rushing anyone to the ER."
All of which were very true facts (one Wayne learned the time he'd allowed Eddie to bring a sword home, only for him to nearly cut his own nose off winging the thing around) but he figured it might make Steve more amenable to separating from it.
Sure enough, some of the tenseness bled out of Steve's shoulders. "Yeah that's fair."
The truck hit a few potholes as they finally turned into the trailer park, and the kid hissed, a quiet sound.
Judging by the uncomfortable wince, and hands clenched into his jeans something painwise was giving him trouble.
"When was the last time you took a pain pill?" Wayne asked, doing his best to weave around the other holes that dotted the gravel roads.
Steve blinked. "Uh…"
"You take any today son?"
Steve his head.
"Didn't have time to grab it." He said, offering a sad look to his pack.
Course he hadn't.
"Let's get you inside then and get you some." Wayne said with a sigh. Thankfully Eddie's van wasn't here--Wayne was fairly certain he had band practice today but knowing him it could be a million other things.
Just meant he had to acclimate Steve as fast as he could, to try and get the poor guy settled before Ed’s came in.
He just hoped life and lady luck would work with him, for once.
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more cfau miscellaneous things because Childhood Friends Danny and Jason have my head and heart always and I need to finish rewriting chapter two dammit (and redo the half-finished chapter 4 because its just Not The Vibes). i'm almost through I need to get through the graveyard scene. (i just stubbornly refuse to have it be shorter than the original chapter and thats the little death. that is the mind killer.)
Danny and jason’s ghost forms both smell faintly like burnt flesh and cigarettes. However, Jason has a more smokey smell while Danny’s smells almost,,, electrical? In a sense? Like he just straight up smells like burnt flesh and sulphur while Jason smells like someone put him in a smoker first.
It’s very much an unpleasant smell but Danny finds an odd comfort in it just as much as he finds a comfort in the smell of nicotine.
(Jason post-revival smells burnt flesh once and is immediately offput by the fact that it brings him an instinctive comfort. He doesn’t realize its because it reminds him of Danny, and is uncomfortable by it.)
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In an au of an au, Danny’s altercation with Rath ends with Rath regaining enough of his sanity to snap out of the grieving state and ends with him breaking down. Instead of being souped and imprisoned, Rath, who is permanently 14, decides to Move On into the unknown. He’s exhausted, heartbroken, and tired.
(Is this influenced heavily by the ParaNorman scene where he talks to Agatha and helps her move on? Yes. But it doesn’t fit with the Original Storyline so im shoving it into an Au of an Au.)
Rath tells Danny that Jason lied to them (which he genuinely believes), and that he’s tired of waiting/looking for him/grieving. Jason is gone. He isn’t coming back, he abandoned them. And he wants his mom and dad, and his sister, and his friends. And he’s ready to join them.
He leads Danny out to Gotham, which other than Amity Park might’ve been the only city left untouched due to Rath’s own mental block on the place. They go out to the park he and Jason used to frequent or up to one of crime alley’s rooftops, and there Rath lies down and goes to sleep. Only to never wake up again, materializing into nothing as his soul moves on.
Before Rath leaves, he forces Danny to promise him that he’ll only wait for Jason for ten years. After that if he doesn’t find him, or if Jason doesn’t show, then Danny has to move on. Whether that be like how Rath does, or if its inly mentally/emotionally, doesn’t matter. He has to move on. Don’t wait for him. Don’t waste his time any more.
(“Oh, and if you find him, kick his ass for me.”)
Danny reluctantly agrees, and Rath lies down. Danny sings to him as he falls asleep.
(Angsty points if the vigilantes including Red Hood caught wind of their presence and were silently watching from the shadows. Rath might know they’re there, but Danny’s too focused on Rath to notice.)
(If only so that Red Hood realizes that this is what happened to Danny, and that Danny is gone before he can make things right. The tragedy, folks. The angst. The initial realization that Danny was Rath, and then also that Danny was dead and has been dead for years, and that before he moved on, he moved on believing that Jason abandoned him.)
(like i said it doesn't fit in the original timeline/storyline hence why its an au of an au and isn't nearly a fleshed out, but i was largely just focusing on the tragedy of Rath moving on and Jason being alive to see it and realize just who Rath is.)
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Just like how the Lazarus pits shot Jason's twiggy 4'6-5'4 (depending on what you find) feet tall and 86lb ass up like a tree an essentially fixed his malnutrition, the portal did the same thing for Danny.
(granted i forgot about malnutrition and danny's likely stunted growth at first -- his family lived in crime alley and despite both his parents working, I don't think they had enough food all the time. He probably wasn't as badly malnourished as Jason was, but he wasn't healthy either.)
Granted his ghost in its "natural" state (14) is short, and his growth spurts were slow at first, it did result in him reaching his dad's height. There were points where it just happened overnight, like a baby. He went to bed one night 5’6 and woke up the next day 5’10.
Jazz is shorter than him. Although I have't decided if she's even liminal at all (and if she is, it didn't cure everything because she would have also suffered childhood malnutrition, and since in au canon their parents didn't get their hands on physical ectoplasm until after they got to Amity Park. So the exposure is less.)
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Danny's voice absolutely sounds like canon Dan's. It kinda just dropped one day when he was 16-17 and never went back up. Sam and Tucker sometimes ask him to just talk about anything because they find his voice soothing.
I'm not sure yet how Danny would feel about it at first considering Rath, but I imagine that Rath, when he did speak, would have had a quieter and scratchier/weaker voice considering he's spent the last decade shrieking and crying.
(and i suppose technically that shouldn't have any effect on his throat considering he's a ghost and idk if that would actually affect him, but i like the idea so im keeping it)
In the beginning you could hear him from a mile away by the sound of his loud, echoing wails, but ten years later you can only really hear him by the soft, shuddering sobs he makes. Like he's gasping for air that isn't there. The future is full of very quiet survivors.
And it's much easier to speak when you pitch your voice upwards (especially when whispering/speaking quietly) so he might've spoken in a higher, airy pitch in order to be heard. So Danny might actually find a comfort in having a lower voice.
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