Chapter Text
The shop bell jangled, & Danny looked up in surprise as a semi-familiar red helmet ducked through the doorway.
"Be with you in a minute!" He called over, quickly finishing up with his current customer - it was probably best not to keep the Red Hood waiting, but he wasn't about to drop anything just because the guy carried a gun, either. He was probably inadvertently rushing a bit, though. From the grateful look they shot him, however, the college student in front of him didn't seem too keen on sticking around in the vicinity of Gotham's most notorious vigilante, so it didn't look like they minded the rush.
"What'll it be?" Danny smiled up at the blank red visor as it approached (the bell jangled several more times as the more skittish of the - surprisingly plentiful - 3am customers took the opportunity to escape any potential Hood-related fallout). The man in front of him didn't move, but Danny got the distinct impression that whilst the expressionless helmet was continuing to stare him down, the eyes behind it were flicking around as much of the small Café as they could, taking everything in.
"What do you recommend?" A distorted voice growled, after several long, silent, minutes.
Danny gave him another customer service smile. (The one that strayed just a little too far into unnerving, just to show that he wasn't intimidated by a man cosplaying as a grumpy biker.)
"One house blend, coming up." He reached up, snagging several small containers, & began measuring tiny spoonfuls of each into a mixing bowl. To the untrained eye, they all looked more or less the same - maybe some were a little brighter, others a little darker, but they were all more or less the same green. Their actual properties, however, were very different: different levels of ectoplasm, different types of tea (both from the mortal realms & from the Ghost Zone), different medicinal properties, etc. And even though every customer got the flavour profile they asked for, it was Danny's job to blend everything so that each customer got exactly the balance of ingredients they needed. After all, they had opened this shop precisely to help Gotham's long-neglected liminals. It wouldn't do to inadvertently make things worse by giving them access to too much or too little of what they needed.
Teas blended to his satisfaction, Danny quickly poured hot water over the mix & grabbed a whisk, whipping the whole thing into a foaming green that filled the air with a grassy scent, with a hint of citrus (& battery acid).
Hood's attention hadn't left the bowl since Danny had started adding various powders, the emotions rolling off him slowly shifting from highly suspicious to longing as the blend came together. Which wasn't all that surprising; the man had one of the worst cases of poisoned ectoplasm Danny had ever seen. He must've been starving for a detox for years.
Tea mixed, Danny went to pour it into a to-go cup, only to find a pair of gloved hands reaching for the bowl. He raised an eyebrow at the man & tilted his head slightly.
"Might be a bit hard to drink it with that thing on," he offered, nodding at the smooth expanse of the red helmet that hovered above him. A wave of embarrassment came off the man (it mixed oddly with the ever-present anger that seemed to buzz around him like a second skin) & he reached up to press the latches on the back of his head, fingers moving in an unnecessarily complicated-looking dance. Danny took the opportunity to deftly pour the foaming drink into a green, recyclable, disposable coffee cup, resting a lid on top. He slid it over the counter to rest against the side of the iconic helmet.
The Red Hood wasted no time in removing the (only loosely closed) lid & downing the tea without even stopping to take a breath.
Danny eyed him with professional anxiety. The first few times were always tricky. Whilst Frostbite & his fellow healers had taught him a lot, there was only do much you could tell about someone from first impressions, especially when their ectoplasm was corrupted as badly as this guy's, & there were plenty of ways things could go haywire. Fortunately, the last couple of late-night customers seemed to have finished their drinks & left whilst he was serving Hood, so if anything did happen, there was no worries about having to get Tucker to use his Suggestion on the witnesses (Danny knew how much his friend hated that particular residual power he'd been left with, so he did his best to never ask him to use it if there were any other possible options).
Danny smiled in relief as all the tension drained out of Red Hood's shoulders, & his awareness seemed to spread out a little from the laser-like focus it had held on the tea for the last however many minutes. Part of the reason their teas kept people coming back was the relaxing effect they had on patrons; dealing with corrupted ectoplasm tended to make the emotions go more than a little haywire, especially the negative ones. Jazz said it was probably why Gothamites were so grumpy all the time. Danny thought people from big cities were just like that, really, but it probably didn't help. Still, at least the notorious grumpy vigilante in front of him was continuing to relax. A little too much, actually-
"Whoops!" Danny exclaimed, as Hood's knees buckled & his head slumped forward. Guess he spoke - thought? - too soon! He hurried around to the customer side of the counter "Still need to work on the dose. Guess you were doing an even better job at holding yourself together than I thought." Letting go of gravity just enough to keep them both upright (but not so much their feet lost contact with the floor), Danny grabbed the Red Hood by one muscular arm & slung it over his own, much bonier, shoulders. Snagging the man's helmet on the way past, he guided the two of them over to the break room.
They drifted through the narrow doorway, Danny using a touch of intangibility to avoid being crushed against the doorframe by the other man's bulk, & over to the oversized, & well-worn, couch that they kept available for times such as these. Laying the Red Hood down with his head on one padded armrest, his heavy boots sticking up over the other end of the couch, Danny placed the helmet on the floor beside Hood's head, unfolded a blanket over him, & left the vigilante to his nap.
Flipping the sign on the door over to closed, Danny set to work cleaning up. Hood was sure to have questions when he woke up, & with a case as bad as his, it was probably best that Danny actually answer them for once.