Chapter Text
Danny liked the morgue. It’s cold, it’s quiet, and, for the most part, he gets left to his own devices. Here, he felt at peace. Not like home at all. Hell, even the dead were quieter here, and this was Gotham. The dead here didn't do much. They didn’t want his pelt, ride around on motorcycles, or attempt to mind control him and half his school. Here, the dead just wanted their stories told.
like Mr. Malkov. He has bullet to the head that went in through the temporal lobe and out the frontal lobe before ricocheting inside his skull. He was turning away when his wife shot him and scrambled his brains. It was the hemorrhaging that killed him in the end. Then there was Miss Sullivan. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, but Danny didn’t need to hear her whispers to figure that one out. She was pink, the blood inside of her bright red from the gas. Her cracked skull told him more. Blunt force trauma. Her boyfriend had hit her on the head with a wrench and knocked her out. He ran off thinking he had killed her and hadn't even bothered turning the car off before shutting the door.
“Honest” Paulie, well, he was an odd one. Blunt force trauma to the skull, applied liberally and with prejudice. Paulie was quite upfront with him on the why of it all. Stolen money, owed debts, and him being a sucker who thought he could play both sides. The why wasn’t what Danny was paid to find out. He was all about the how, the method. Even without the dead whispering their secrets, he could see the signs. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a body is worth a novel. Bodies carry the tales of their lives, even in death. All of the moments, big and small, from life to death, are there, engraved into their bones, built into their muscles, written on their skin. Ever scar, every mark, every filling, every bone ever broke, all painted a scene. Despite this, Danny would have been hard pressed to figure out the weapon used if not for Paulie whispering in his ear. Seems the mobster that did it read a little short story by Roald Dahl. The weapon was a frozen leg of lamb that had been served for dinner the next night with a side of roasted potatoes and glazed carrots. Paulie said Shawny wasn't much for reading, he just liked lamb.
He put it all in the reports. The official, and the unofficial. The official report had everything you'd expect. Just a normal report from any medical examiner listing everything that the physical evidence alone could tell him. The unofficial reports... Well, those read a bit differently. They contained everything in the official reports, but there was more. He'd write everything in the unofficial reports, from the exact time to the color of the killer's shirt. Once he had listed the exact cologne the killer had been wearing in a mugging gone wrong. The first time he had handed a detective an unofficial report, they had given him a look. They had laughed at him, just a chuckle and a pat on the back, but it was still at him. The detective had told him to leave the actual investigation to the real detectives. They thought he was a joke. That had changed when they realized was right. The questions had come fast. He answered honestly, not answering all of them, but still honest. He answered in half-truths and lies of omission, but he never outright lied. He always was terrible at lying. His answers had unnerved the fine officers of the G.C.P.D. After the questions all that was left was the staring.
Most were polite enough to look away when he caught them. Not all of them, but most. He could feel their eyes on him, watching him everywhere he went. In the halls, at the watercooler, even the bathroom. He knew there were rumors. "Fenton is the next Victor Zsasz" seemed to be the most popular.
That’s another thing the morgue had in its favor. People rarely came down there willingly, even before the rumors started. Here, there were no stares, no gawking, just the cold, the stillness and the whispers of the dead. Ancients, he felt so tired. A deep exhaustion radiated through his bones. Even at his apartment he never felt as relaxed as he did here, among the drawers full of bodies. He could never rest at home, the constant sounds of the city pulsing through him was constant, leaving him tossing and turning all night as his neighbors screamed at each other. Maybe that’s why the cool steel of the examination table looked so inviting? He could close his eyes, just for a moment. He was caught up on his work, his reports were written and sittingon his desk. Just a little nap wouldn’t hurt anything...
Danny awoke to someone's warm hand touching his wrist.
“He’s dead.” The voice of a man spoke, breaking the silence of the morgue.
“Who is?” Danny opened his eyes and sat up. The man who had been touching him screamed as Danny blearily looked around the room. To his confusion, the one screaming in front of him was Nightwing. Batman stood stoic and unmoving, like a statue. If Danny had been a less observant sort, he would have missed the slight movement under his cape. And in the middle of it all, a harried and confused looking Commissioner Gordan. He turned to Gordan
“Oh hey boss, did you need something?”