show me how to lay my sword down long enough to let you through

by Imshookandbi

Summary:

A little boy has landed in Amity Park, and he looks suspiciously like the 13-year-old Damian Wayne living in Gotham. Good news: he landed in front of Danny just as he was finishing up his fight with a ghost. Bad news: the little Damian-look-alike doesn't speak a lick of english, has a sword, and seems very keen on using it whenever he can. Against Danny specifically.

Danny already has his own issues to deal with -- like how it's not even been a year since he found out he was a clone of Bruce Wayne specifically, with all the identity issues that come with such a revelation -- and a stab-happy six year old that was very obviously a clone of Damian Wayne was not one of them. However, the kid was alone in a foreign country, and despite his hostility, it's very clear that he's terrified.

Call him a bleeding heart, but Danny takes him home.

Chapter 1: i was little, i was weak, i was perfectly naive. and i grew up too quick

Notes:

So I've finally moved Clone^2 to ao3! I'm not sure how I'll continue this as the overarching plot is "Danny and Damian's development from strangers to brothers" and that is the main focus of the story, but each chapter will probably be written in connecting "short" stories because that's easier for me to compartmentalize and adds less pressure to me.

For anyone who hasn't seen the au (which is likely), clone^2 is a combination of two of my aus on tumblr -- a clone danny au where he's a clone of bruce wayne, and a damian clone au where he ends up in Amity Park due to unforeseen circumstances. It spiraled from there and now it's one of my favorite aus. You can read the original post this stemmed from on my tumblr @starry-bi-sky under the clone^2 tag in the search bar, there is also this link here

Stuff to know about Danny since the story starts right when he gets Damian and not his accident: He isn't a halfa, his accident occurred outside of the portal. However he is heavily liminal. So he has mild powers like:
- The scary eyes
- his ghost sense
- clairvoyance
- the ability to touch and interact with ghosts without needing ghost-fighting weapons to do so
- (passive) he generates his own ectoplasm, however its at a rate much slower than the average ghost but faster than the average liminal

Additionally, damian speaks arabic in this chapter and will for a while, so in the end notes there's a translation if you want to read it. I wasn't originally thinking of adding one to really kinda drive the point home about how Damian's stuck in a place where nobody knows what he's saying.

But also I know how annoying it can be to want to translate what someone is saying and having to stop and swap between the fic and a translator. And also because the way I chose to translate it makes it so that, even if you put it in, it won't give you anything. And I also know how annoying THAT is where you want to translate something but can't because the translation doesn't recognize it.

So to save you the trouble, there's a translated transcript at the bottom

Danny knows more than he probably should about ghosts, ectoplasm, and all things relating to it — courtesy only in partial credit to his parents and largely to every ghost, spirit, mythological creature, and conceptual entity taken sentient form he’s ever come across in the last two years of his run as Phantom. 

 

For example: he’s learned how to classify the difference between a ghost and a spirit when the words are synonymous with each other. He knows that ghosts cannot pass into the Realm of the Living without a naturally-made or manmade portal that splits the seams between dimensions like holes being chewed through a shirt. 

 

He knows that spirits are just weaker could-be ghosts that are trapped in the Living Realm, unseen by the Living, with unfinished business until someone can come along to help them move on. He’s helped quite a handful of them in the last two years thanks to his clairvoyance, but the city has more spirits than he could possibly know how to deal with. So his efforts are like trying to empty a pond with a bucket. 

 

Danny still tries, anyway. One afterlife saved is one afterlife saved, right? 

 

What he also knows is that natural made portals are exceedingly rare. That they occur when ectoplasm in any given area for some reason or another currents against each other, condensing and building in energy and density until eventually something gives and like snow on top of a roof it caves in and creates a portal. 

 

He knows that these natural made portals typically only last a few seconds at a time, and vary between the size of a rodent and a marsupial no bigger than a wallaby. He knows that most natural portals only last from a few seconds to a few minutes, with the record-holder being five minutes from a portal that was the size of a toddler. 

 

And the reason they never last so long is because ectoplasm is an energy, like most energy, it usually has somewhere to go. It cycles through plants, through the animals, through the ground, anywhere it can reach. It’s cousins with solar energy in that sense. Meaning it, usually, has little opportunity to clash and current with the rest of the ambient ectoplasm in the area.

 

But it does happen, albeit rarely, and only for a few seconds. Like the equivalent of a static shock; it’s only there for a moment before it collapses in on itself and disappears. 

 

So with that being said, Danny likes to think he’s — maybe not an expert — but fairly knowledgeable about the existence of natural made portals. The Ever-Infinite Bridge Between Realms is ever-expanding, ever-growing, and with it so is the information he has on it. Anything could become obsolete in a moment. 

 

And the only reason he’s thinking about it is because his parents were talking about portals in the kitchen earlier that evening, talking about their portal specifically, but Danny latched onto it, and his mind wanders. He’s not sure why they were talking about it, the portal has been running, unfortunately smoothly for the last two years. He has the scars and eyebags (and trauma) to prove it. 

 

Besides, his mind should be on other things. 

 

Like the goddamn flying snake he’s been chasing across the city skyline for the last thirty minutes. An amphiptere his mind unhelpfully supplies, a word he grabbed nearly two years ago when he first started out as Phantom and was desperately looking up the various ectoplasmic creatures slipping through his parents’ portal. 

 

Some of them didn’t have proper names — like a three-eyed fox he once saw with the tail of a peacock and hooves of a goat. He managed to lure it out of the alleyway it backed itself into with a nasty burger. It tore into it with the fervor of a starving coyote and Danny let it finish eviscerating the burger before sucking it into his thermos.

 

It was incredibly disturbing to watch at the time, since the thing had an almost beak- shaped muzzle, but now he wishes he was back in the alleyway trying to coax out a ecto-fox-griffin thing rather than chase after what was basically a dragon with no legs — it doesn’t even have the decency to be a wyvern.  

 

He’s only keeping up with the stupid snake due to his grappling hook, something Danny made a year ago in order to keep up with the ghosts flying around the city, and his best fucking self-made invention yet — made from the discarded inventions from his parents’ lab — with his jawbreaker gloves coming in at close second, if only because he gets to call them his jawbreakers.  

 

(It was remarkably simpler than the grappling hook — he just reinforced the knuckles on his gloves.) 

 

Because as much as he likes running, he was going to give himself a heart attack if he chased every ghost he came across on foot. It’d take him all night just to find one. And there was something inherently freeing in the terrifying, adrenaline-rushing sensation of soaring through the air with nothing but hard ground below and endless sky above. 

 

The amphiptere twists its head and looks behind it, and Danny gives it a little shit-eating grin from behind his mask and a small, two fingered salute. The mane of feathers behind the snake’s head puffs up like a frilled lizard, and it opens its maw to hiss — this distorted, almost screeching sound — at him menacingly. 

 

Danny, in response, scoffs under his breath and waves a hand in front of his nose. “Ugh.” he mutters, scrunching up his nose as the snake’s hot breath hits him square in the face. “Someone should throw you one of those dental doggie treats.” 

 

The snake, of course, doesn’t hear him over the sound of its shrieking and the wind. When it twists back around, it dives to the ground, flicking its tail harshly like it’s hoping to hit him as it goes down. 

 

Finally, Danny thinks, dodging out of the way with a twist of his body, and follows it down into the factorial district of Amity Park. It’s already disappeared somewhere when his feet hit the sidewalk, but the buzzing of his ghost sense still tingles on the back of his neck like a seventh sense. So it’s still nearby. 

 

Danny’s grappling hook retracts with a quiet, zipping noise. He hooks it onto the loop of his jeans, and stalks down the side of the road. 

 

Spirits linger beside the buildings. Men, women, and kids wearing clothes from all different time periods congregating in groups and conversing with one another, playing, watching him. Cities never sleep, they doze, and the dead come out at night when the living aren’t there to wake it up. Danny’s spoken to them many, many times. 

 

“Excuse me.” He murmurs, tapping a man in overalls and a railroad cap on the arm. If it weren’t for his faint green glow and how he wisps at the edges, the man would almost look alive. The man turns to him, his eyebrows climbing up his forehead when he sees Danny. “Have you seen a flying snake coming through here?” 

 

The man blinks at him, “As a matter o’ fact,” he says, adjusting the cap on his head, “I have. Flew down the road like a bat out of hell.” The man points down the street, and Danny leans around him to see. “Thought it was gonna knock me righ’ out my work boots.” 

 

Danny presses his mouth into a thin line, making a low ‘hn’ sound in the back of his throat. “Did you see if it went into one of the buildings?” He almost hopes it did, he could probably try and sneak up on it that way. Man, he needs some kind of stunner or something. 

 

“Right in there.” The man tells him, pointing to an old brick factory with the windows grimy and cracked. Of course, Danny sighs out of his nose. If he squints, he can see a green glow coming through the glass. 

 

If he’s lucky, he won’t run into the Box Ghost while he’s in there. He turns to the man and nods politely, “Thank you.” And when the man nods back, Danny turns and hurries down the street. He weaves around the spirits congregating around him, he’s heard from one-too-many spirits how irritating it is to be walked through by the Living. 

 

The door is rusted and locked when he finds an entrance, only made worse by the chain wrapped around the door for good measure, with a padlock. Of course. Rolling his eyes, Danny reaches for his pocket and pulls out a lockpick — too many times doing this has taught him to bring one along, just in case.  

 

(Man, he was envious of ghosts’ abilities to just phase through things. It would save him a lot of trouble. And roadburns, bruises, broken bones, and every other injury known to man.)  

 

He jams the lockpick into the padlock, jiggles it roughly, and unlocks it with a soft click. “They need better locks.” Danny mutters, pulling off the chain carefully with quiet, metallic clattering, and putting it on the ground. He jams the lockpick into the door lock, and with a little more finesse, unlocks that one too. 

 

The door opens with a heavy creak that has Danny scrunching his shoulders up to his ears and his mouth pulling back with a sharp inhale. Shit, he freezes in place, darting his eyes around for the amphiptere. 

 

He sees its glow off in the corner, stark ectoplasm green against the red brick walls, half hidden behind empty conveyor belts and forgotten, empty metal barrels. It doesn’t notice him, with the door open he can hear a loud crrrchk- ing followed by intermittent bangs. 

 

It’s chewing on something, wriggling around like a cat playing with a toy mouse. Danny silently creeps in and slips through the gap between the door, closing the door behind him slowly. His eyes never leave the amphiptere. It still doesn’t notice him. 

 

Two years isn’t that long to teach yourself how to be stealthy, but when you’re doing it every night, you learn quickly. Danny keeps himself low to the ground and his footsteps light. The amphiptere is oblivious to him; its clanging, hissing, snarling drowns out the room to any other noise. 

 

As he gets closer, Danny unhooks his thermos again. There’s a quiet click as he opens the lid with a press of a button, and the thermos hums to life in his hand, warming up against his palm. He creeps around the conveyor belt, his breathing slow and steady. 

 

When he reaches the amphiptere, its back is facing him. It coiled itself close to the ground, its jaw clamped around a metal barrel that’s been crushed like a tin can down the middle. Danny clenches his teeth, discomfort shivering down his spine. That could’ve been his arm had it decided to fight back. 

 

Silently, he raises his thermos at the snake, and with his arm steady, his thumb slams one of the buttons. There’s a recoil like he’s firing a gun, and Danny finds his purchase on the ground as a beam of light lashes out and hits the snake. 

 

The reaction is immediate. The amphiptere drops the barrel with a hideous, furious shriek and lashes out, trying to escape from the beam dragging it towards the thermos. But Danny’s long since learned that the pull of the thermos is much stronger than most ghosts, so long as he doesn’t disturb the tractor beam. 

 

One thing is for certain — keeping the damn thing steady is one hell of a forearm workout. His arms used to shake after a fight, and they’d feel sore in the morning. Not so much anymore since Danny started working out with Sam.

 

(Tucker declined when they asked him if he wanted to join — he’ll stick with his tech and walking on the treadmill.)  

 

When the amphiptere disappears inside the thermos, Danny slams the lid back on and slumps with relief. Finally, he groans quietly, clipping the thermos onto his belt and pressing his hand to his lower back to stretch. There’s a satisfying pop-pop-pop, and Danny sighs from his nose. He’s calling it a night. 

 

He glances at the time on his phone. It was three am, fantastic. He has school in four hours. 

 

Other than the snake, tonight had been blessedly quiet. Danny spoke to some of the spirits lingering around Third and Main downtown, got some of their information so he could start helping them with moving on — two murders and then a simple fetch quest, — chased down a few other ghosts — most of them just ecto-entities, but there was a young ghost child who he had to play hide and seek with before she would agree to be taken home in the thermos. 

 

He also got into a fight with a fellow teen ghost who wanted to see the “Death-Touched” and if Phantom was as good a fighter as the rumors say he was. Danny’s been called “Death-Touched” since the night he snuck into the lab and released every single ghost his parents had trapped in cages, that wasn’t unsurprising. A little a lot ominous at first, but Danny is nothing if not adaptive. 

 

He’d kicked the other teen’s ass, dragged him into the thermos, and moved on. 

 

But other than that, tonight had been tame. So before Murphy can come and kick him in the teeth, Danny’s calling it a night. 

 

Danny is one step towards the exit when he hears a loud, suctioning noise followed by something akin to a glacier cracking down the middle. His heart sinks instantly to his feet, and the chill of his ghost sense crawls up his throat and freezes the back of his teeth. No mist spills out, yet. 

 

Ah, fuck. Danny stifles a groan, turning back around. There goes the rest of his night .  

 

A portal the size of an acorn swirls into existence right before his eyes, and then rapidly grows. Swirling like a whirlpool, it grows bigger and bigger until it’s half the size of him. The bigger it gets, the tenser Danny becomes — the bigger the portal is, the bigger the ghost that can slip through gets. 

 

Please don’t make him face the snake’s fucking cousin. Danny prays, rapidly scurrying back with his hands raised defensively. He scowls under his mask, and waits tersely for something to fall through. Whatever comes through, he hopes it’s friendly. Or slow. Or maybe both. 

 

Danny doesn’t get another winged snake. 

 

Instead, a child stumbles out of the portal. A non-glowing, living-colored child who couldn’t be any older than six, and who rapidly spits out a phrase in a language Danny doesn’t catch. Danny’s hands drop slightly from his side, bewilderment settling in the back of his throat. 

 

As the child rights himself, the portal dissipates behind him with a hissing sigh. It takes Danny’s ghost sense with it, and the chill evaporates from his mouth. 

 

Oh, oh no.  

 

Danny’s heart drops from his feet straight into the ground. Six feet into the ground. Oh, fuck.  

 

That was a living child. That was a living child. That was a whole-ass living child.

 

If natural portals were rare, then whatever the hell this was — teleportals, Vlad’s teleports, whatever — was unheard of. The only time he’s seen a portal that transported someone from one place to another on the same plane of existence was Vlad. His man-made teleportals. 

 

Natural portals between one place to another? He’s never heard of such a thing. And one just opened in front of him and spat out a child. A human, living child. A portal just kidnapped a child.  

 

A child who, Danny realizes, is holding a sword. A katana, of all things. One that was designed to match his size. A child who was, for a lack of better words, wearing something Danny would expect a ninja to wear. A child who was dressed from head to toe in black. 

 

A child who looks suspiciously like a baby-faced Damian Wayne. Brown skin and green eyes and all, but with youth still clinging to his cheeks. It couldn’t be Damian Wayne himself — that boy was thirteen, and Danny would’ve heard from Sam if something happened to him. 

 

So this meant either two things: Damian Wayne was just now turned into a child and dropped into Danny’s lap, or this was a clone of Damian Wayne. Danny was thinking it might’ve been the latter. 

 

Fuck you, Murphy, he thinks instantly, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip. This was mean.  

 

He stares, uncertainty — and perhaps a little bit of nausea — forming a pit in his chest, as the child makes eye contact with him. The air is silent and thick — with dust, asbestos, or just the silence, Danny isn’t sure. Maybe all three. But they stare at each other for a long, suffocating moment. 

 

Then the kid — Damian — lunges at him, his sword quickly unsheathed.

 

“Shit!” Danny dives back, just barely dodging being grazed by the gleaming blade. That was fast. Danny isn’t around living kids often but that was too fast, that much he knows. Kids don’t move that fast on their own. Not without being taught.

 

Damian spits something at him in that foreign language, his face twisting with anger, and the kid turns himself and lunges once again. Danny dodges again, swatting the sword away reflexively with the side of his gloved hand. 

 

“I can’t understand you.” He tells him, his voice comes out rougher than he meant it to, and it comes out muffled from his mask. Please tell me you know English, he hopes, hopping up onto the old conveyor belt. 

 

“'Akhbirni 'ayn 'ana walan 'aqtulak.” Damian snarls, chasing up after him with worrying ease. Danny swats away another stab at him, frowning when the blade leaves a cut in his leather glove. It doesn’t reach skin, but the fact of the matter is that Damian still cut his glove. 

 

He doesn’t know English either, great. Perfect. Fantastic, even. Danny backs up on the conveyor belt, twisting away from Damian’s attacks with… well, not relative ease, the kid is faster than Danny’s expecting, but he’s not getting hits in. So some ease. 

 

But Danny’s been fighting ghosts for the last two years. Fighting entities capable of moving at the speed of light leaves you with quick reflexes and even quicker eyes. Damian jumps up to try and kick him in the face, and Danny ducks down and dashes off the conveyor belt, hopping to the next one over.   

 

When his feet hit the belt, he uses the momentum to leap up onto a rusty shelf. His fingers dig into the sides, and he climbs, vaulting his legs up to the top once he’s high enough. He twists around and stares down at Damian, instinctively crouched on his fours. “I’m not fighting you.” Danny says sternly, watching the kid hop after him. “I don’t fight the living, and I don’t fight kids.” Living ones, that is. Youngblood was fair game. 

 

Damian scowls, pointing his sword at him accusingly from the conveyor below. “Tawaqaf ean alrakd wawajahani 'ayuha aljaban!” Then he’s jumping up after him, doing an impressive flip in the air before latching onto the lower shelves and climbing up. 

 

Admittedly, Danny is rooted to his spot with disbelief. What the fuck? “Who taught you that?” He says unwittingly, bewilderment slipping into his voice. Seriously — who taught him that? What six year old knows how to do a backflip at this age? Who made you, kid?

 

Naturally, Damian doesn’t answer him, and Danny grabs his grappling gun and aims it at the rafters. With a quick pull of the trigger, the hook shoots out and wraps around one of the beams. Danny yanks back, and he braces as the cord yanks him forward in return. When he reaches the beam, he pulls himself up as the cord unravels itself and retracts back into the gun. 

 

Danny shoves his gun back onto his belt, and disappears into the shadows of the ceiling.

 

Just in time, Damian was at the top of the shelving unit he was just on, and the kid stomps his foot angrily. Briefly, a smile tugs at the corner of Danny’s mouth, amusement fizzing out in his lungs. “Tawaqaf ean alrakd!” The kid yells, his hands shaking at his sides. “'Ayn 'akhadhatni ya Lieazir!” 

 

He swivels his head around, his face scrunched up in the dark room as he searches the rafters. Danny silently crawls across the beam, stooping low and moving slowly, and never taking his eyes off Damian. 

 

The kid is wound up like a spring, and jumpier than a war vet on the Fourth of July. It’s a little funny, but as Danny creeps through the ceiling, the kid only grows more frantic. The only light coming through is the muffled, yellow dim of the streets, and the moonlight that was in the middle of waning from gibbous to crescent. Good enough that Danny can see the kid’s face shifting from anger to fear.  

 

“Laeazir!” He yells again, and his voice cracks. Danny stills. “Akhruj huna Lieazir!” 

 

Okay, it wasn’t funny anymore. Danny holds his breath, watching as Damian’s expression fluctuates between scowling fury and wild-eyed panic. He’s twisting on his feet, whatever lethal grace he had earlier from their brief fight is gone now, replaced with clumsy, fawn-like alarm. 

 

Damian breathes in deeply, and Danny can see the whites of his eyes when he turns his head wildly in his direction. “Azhar nafsak!”  

 

He’s scared. Danny realizes, pricking up slightly from the rafter. He’s scared. That’s why he attacked him, he’s scared. Of course he is, Danny thinks, feeling like an idiot. He crawls over the beams again, creeping around Damian, keeping his gaze sharp on the kid’s feet. With how much he was spinning, he’s a little worried he was going to fall off the shelf. 

 

Of course he’s scared, he thinks again. He’s a kid, he doesn’t know any English, and he’s alone. Danny can’t imagine what’s going on through his head — of course he’s scared. He must be terrified. He looks terrified. 

 

Danny raises himself up carefully, gripping onto the rafters, and dashes across quickly. Damian whirls around towards him, his hands flying to his katana at his sheathe. His fear smothers on his face, and Damian tenses up defensively. 

 

The grappling gun finds its way back into Danny’s hands, and Danny shoots it at a beam connected to one of the pillars. When it catches, he leans to the side, and lets himself fall. The cord goes taut, and Danny flicks a small button on the side that allows him to lower to the ground with some relative ease. 

 

With his back to Damian, he hears a quiet scuffle and the shelf creaks. When his feet touch the ground, he tugs on his gun and the cord retracts. Danny can hear quiet, rapid-approaching footsteps coming up behind him, and he shoves his grappler back into its place and whirls around. 

 

And immediately, reflexively, catches the blade being swung at him with both hands. Shit, he wheezes out harshly, eyes widening in shock. The blade digs into his hands, but there’s no sting — his gloves had taken the brunt of the hit. They were probably ruined after this, but Danny’s less upset over that more than he is relieved.  

 

Damian glowers up at him, and this close up, Danny can very barely see a watery sheen covering his bottom eyelashes. His heartstrings pull, but it doesn’t stop him from curling his fingers tight around his katana to prevent him from pulling away. 

 

“Let me help you.” Danny says, rushed. He doesn’t understand him, the obvious part of his mind whispers. He needs to get him to understand him. Damian’s arms tremble slightly, he pushes down harder on Danny’s hands. But he doesn’t budge. 

 

He tries to yank it back instead, and it gives slightly — only for Danny to readjust his grip, despite the fear spiking in his heart. Cold metal kisses at part of his palm. It’s cut through his glove more. “Put the sword down.” 

 

“'Ayn 'ana.” Damian snarls at him, there’s still a tremble in his voice. “'Ayn 'akhadhatni.” 

 

A low, frustrated sound emits in the back of Danny’s throat. “I can’t understand you.” He snaps, if the kid would stop trying to kill him for five seconds, maybe they’d be able to get somewhere. “And you can’t understand me.” But if you’d stop attacking me, I could figure out a way how. 

 

Something takes mercy on Danny — because Damian gives up on trying to take back the sword. He lets go of the handle, and Danny sees an opening. Immediately, he tosses the sword off to the side, ignoring the clattering and skidding it makes against the concrete floor. The kid is fast, but Danny is faster. He wraps his hand around Damian’s forearm and yanks him forward. 

 

Damian yells angrily, and Danny traps his arm against his chest and twists him around so that his back is to his chest. Danny is also stronger. Both as a given from his size, and what he does every night. Trapping Damian against him is easier done and said, and Danny immediately sits them both on the ground once he has a good purchase on him. 

 

“'Utliq sarahi!” Damian yells, thrashing against him violently. Danny simply tilts his head up to prevent Damian from headbutting him in the chin, and wraps an arm around his torso tightly so he can fish for his phone. “'Ayuha alqadharatu! 'Utliq sarahi!”

 

Danny doesn’t know what he’s saying but he can guess, and he readjusts his arm when Damian nearly slips out. “No.” He says curtly, and when he gets out his phone, he sets it down briefly so he can pull his glove off. With his other arm preoccupied with keeping Damian still, Danny tugs it off with his teeth instead.

 

Silently, he inspects his palm for any injuries from the katana. He hadn’t felt anything, but it doesn’t hurt to check. He smiles faintly, relief weighting off his shoulders, when all he finds is a small cut near the meat of his palm. Not even deep enough to bleed. It stings, but it won’t even scar. 

 

He picks up his phone again, and with his mask on he can’t use the facial recognition. Danny taps in his password with his thumb, and quickly pulls up a translator. In his arms, Damian continues to thrash around, twisting and trying to pretzel himself out of his grip. 

 

“'Ana Damian Al Ghul, dam Ras Alshaytan!” Damian demands. Danny is a little worried that he might bite him, and he hoists him back up onto his lap when he tries to wriggle down. “Yajib 'an tastamie li'awamiri ya Lieazir!” 

 

Al Ghul. Danny’s never heard that last name before, and he pauses from his typing to frown. “Hm.” Damian — the original, that is, not the clone in his arms, — went by his father’s surname, and Danny can’t remember if it was ever released what the mother’s last name was. 

 

He quickly swaps the tab on his phone to a new one, and types into the search bar: ‘Damian Wayne mom last name’ and clicks enter. There’s a few seconds where his phone is loading, and then it pulls up the results. And with it, is a chunk of text from the top article: Damian’s mother was kept anonymous for her privacy’s sake. Who she was, what her name is, it’s all unknown other than that she was Chinese-Arabic. A remarkable feat of anonymity in the grand scheme of things and the all seeing eyes of the internet. 

 

“Hn.” Danny’s mouth presses into a line, and he glances down to Damian. Original Damian’s maternal surname was unknown, and now he knows that his clone was calling himself Damian, what was the off chance that ‘Al Ghul’ was a random last name given to him, and wasn’t actually his mother’s surname?  

 

…Not likely. Or it was a low chance. 

 

Putting that aside, he swaps back to the translator and converts what he wrote into Arabic. Damian’s mother was Arabic-Chinese, and the language Damian was speaking didn’t sound like Chinese. So, fingers crossing, he hopes it’s Arabic. 

 

Turning up the volume as far as it could go, he looks back at Damian, whose struggling and yelling has slowly begun to cease. Danny doesn’t trust it, and he smiles a little amusedly, that’s not going to get me to let go. He checks the translation to make sure it’s what he wants it to say, and then hits the play button. 

 

[I can’t understand you, but my name is Danny. I want to help you.]  

 

Damian jerks, hitting his head against Danny’s chest in surprise. “'Utliq sarahi 'ayn 'ana?” He sneers, “'Ana last bihajat limusaeadatikum.” 

 

“I just said I can’t understand you, bud.” Danny sighs, once again adjusting his hold on Damian. The kid kicks at him and misses him entirely. His arm was starting to get tired from the strain of holding Damian on its own, so Danny puts his phone behind him and swaps them. 

 

He honest to god gets hissed at when he has to adjust Damian as well, and Danny pauses for a moment just out of pure wonder at the boy in his arms. He was hissed at, as if he was scruffing a stray cat. He was so telling Sam about this when he gets this kid home.  

 

Smiling faintly, Danny pulls his other glove off with his teeth, checks for injuries, and then with a little bit of contortion, grabs his phone and pulls it back up. Then his train of thought catches up to him, and he freezes just as he’s about to type into the translator again. 

 

Take him home? The kid? Danny can’t do that. There wasn’t any room in the house, and how would he explain this to his parents?  

 

‘Hey mom, dad, this is Damian. He’s a clone of my genetic template’s son! Yeah, yeah, that template, the one who just so happens to be the old college buddy that you accidentally cloned instead of dad? The one who just so happens to be capable of suing our family out of existence if he happened to catch wind of my existence? Oh, where did I find him? Last night while I was out. Why was I out? Oh, because I just so happen to be the Phantom, your sworn enemy and the ghost-hunting vigilante who you are convinced is also a ghost. Can we keep him?’ 

 

Yeah, yeah, he can see how well that would go down. He might as well take off his mask and tell Bruce Wayne he had a clone already. But… where else would Damian go? He doesn’t know any English, he was alone in a foreign country with no money, no way to get home, the worst thing Danny can do is abandon him right now. 

 

Danny presses his mouth into a thin line, a frown beginning to pull at the corner of his lips.

 

…He could figure something out with his parents, Jazz will help him once he explains the situation. And if he can get Damian to agree to stop trying to kill him, then they can both make it back to Fenton Works before sunrise… Hopefully. 

 

Pressing his mouth into a thin line, Danny starts typing into the translator again. [You’re in America right now. The translator doesn’t translate the name of my city well, but we’re in Illinois. You are very far from home.]  

 

Damian jerks once again, twisting his neck to look up at Danny with disbelief. “'Amrika?” He says, the corner of his up curled up. Danny nods curtly, he doesn’t need to know Arabic to know what ‘Amrika’ means. “Hadhih Amirika?” 

 

Danny nods again, “Yeah, America. You’re in Amity Park.” He points to the ceiling, and gestures around them slowly. Damian watches him carefully, his eyes narrowed. “Am-i-ty Park.” Danny says, enunciating the syllables slowly. 

 

Green eyes narrow at him further. “Amity Park.” Damian says, slowly and sharp. When Danny nods, he drops his head and Danny tilts slightly in order to see as Damian casts the room a disdainful look. “Amity Park.” He repeats, voice full of enough venom to kill a full grown man. 

 

He can’t help himself, he snorts to himself and grins underneath his mask. The sound causes Damian to snap his head back up at him, and return his glower full force. He tries to wriggle again, but, like all other times, it’s in vain. 

 

“Sawf tutliq sarahi.” Damian orders, mouth twisting back into a scowl. Danny almost wants to tell him that his face will freeze if he keeps doing that. He’s already got his thumb hovering over the keyboard. “Yajib 'an 'aeud 'iilaa aldawrii.” 

 

Danny types into his phone, [I want to help you. You don’t know English, so getting around on your own will be next to impossible. If you promise not to attack me, I will take you back to my home and we can figure out how to get you home.]  

 

It’s… okay. Danny doesn’t really want to help the kid get home. Wherever that is, it’s teaching a child how to kill people, and it’s making clones of people. Statistically, that’s a bad sign. It also means that, for all intents and purposes, Danny should help the kid get home so he can find out whatever this organization is and, hopefully, put a stop to their cloning. 

 

However, Danny has his own city to take care of. Amity Park is full from head to toe with ghosts and spirits, and with his parents playing whack-a-mole with the portal’s door controls, he doesn’t feel comfortable leaving the city for even a few days. His parents can catch a lot of ghosts in only a few days. 

 

His parents can spill a lot of blood in only a few days. 

 

The evil cloning organization that made Damian will just have to be something Danny can leave in the capable hands of the older, more experienced heroes. For now, he can try and stall Damian’s homecoming and also keep him safe by keeping him housed. 

 

Damian, instead of wriggling again, slumps against him with a throaty huff. Danny peers over his head, checking to see if he was just pouting or had, somehow, passed out. Damian was scowling, his shoulders slumped up slightly, and Danny internally coos. 

 

He’s pouting. It was adorable.

 

The boy is silent for a long minute, a scowl carved like marble in his face, and Danny is content — no, wait, slightly content. He still wants to get home at a semi-reasonable time, — to wait him out. He is stronger, bigger, and faster than him. Eventually, Damian makes a low grumbling noise, something Danny can almost mistake for as a groan, before the kid slumps against him. 

 

“Hsnan , sa'abqaa maeak hataa natamakan min 'iieadati 'iilaa aldawri.” He says, sounding significantly less full of indignant rage, and more so full of indignant irritation. He also no longer wriggles, and Danny feels hope sparking low in his gut. Did he finally get through to him…?

 

More seconds pass by with the two of them just sitting there in silence, before Damian wriggles again — but rather than trying to escape, he twists his head to give Danny a dirty, expectant look. Danny frowns, confused, and then jerks — Oh! Oh!  

 

He fumbles for his phone, [Was that a yes? Nod if it was a yes?]  

 

Damian scoffs at him, looking very much like Danny was nothing more than dirt under his shoes. But he nods curtly, “Naeam sa'adhhab maeak.” 

 

Danny cheers, loudly. The hand curled around his phone punches skyward, like a fistbump to the ceiling, and Damian drops his head away from him. He yells something at him — probably telling him not to be so loud, but Danny pays it no mind. He’s only focused on the pure, utter, relief, pouring into his lungs and trying to trick itself out of his mouth as a laugh. 

 

Yes, yes! He convinced him! That’s one less worry to worry about, and as Danny drops his hand with his phone, his other arm starts to loosen up around Damian's waist — something Damian very much notices. As he stiffens up and is halfway through shoving himself out of his grasp. 

 

Danny lets him go, remembering abruptly the mask on his face. He lets Damian get to his feet, but he’s quickly scrambling soon after, not to grab him again. But to scramble for the katana he’d tossed out of the kid’s reach. Damian exclaims behind him, but Danny has his fingers curled around the handle before the kid can chase after him. 

 

When he stands and faces Damian again, the kid is all puffed up with rage again. Danny doesn’t doubt that, if the kid is trained to be some… kind of ninja…. that he has more weapons on him. But Damian looks more focused on his sword, so Danny holds up his phone-hand in a gesture to hopefully make Damian wait before he attacks him. 

 

“Wait, wait, wait!” He cries. Damian does, fortunately, and Danny quickly types into his phone again. [I will give you back your sword, and I will show you my face when we reach my home. But you must promise you won’t attack me once I do.] He pauses for a moment, and then types in as well: [I’ll also show you how to use the translator so we can talk both ways.] 

 

He doesn’t know if Damian even knows what his… father? Looks like, or what his feelings on him are if he does. But Danny was going to cover his bases, and if there was the off chance that Damian held negative feelings for his dad, he didn’t want the kid to attack him, again.  

 

(It probably wasn’t a good idea to do this at home, but at this point Danny just wants to be in his room.)

 

Damian eyes him up suspiciously, tense as a wooden plank and hunched like he was ready to pounce anyways, but he nods curtly. “Aeidak.” 

 

“Okay.” Danny breathes out, slowly straightening up. He’ll take that as Damian promising not to attack him. “Okay, good. Good.” Lowering his hand, he pockets his phone back into his jeans and flips the sword around so that the blade is pointing downwards. He holds it out for Damian, and the kid, quick as a whip, snatches it back from him and sheathes it into its scabbard. 

 

Great, finally. Now he can leave. Danny’s hands drop to his sides and he wriggles his fingers at Damian, absently gesturing for him to grab his hand. He turns his head away, searching for the door. “Let’s go.” 

 

No hand takes his, which Danny should have expected, so he drops it back to his side and leads Damian to the exit. The kid sticks close to him, but keeps just barely out of sight from his peripherals. His steps are quiet, Danny would say almost silent but that wasn’t the case. If he wasn’t paying attention, though, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. Ninja stuff, probably. Danny’s a little, no, a lot concerned that he’s so good at that. 

 

Ancients, bud. He thinks again, disbelief returning like a hand around his throat. Danny keeps glancing back at Damian to make sure he was still there. Just who, exactly, made you?  

 

When they get outside, the night air hits them cooler than it was inside. Spirits were still lingering around the sidewalks, chattering amongst each other and throwing him various, curious glances. Danny suppresses a frown, but can’t stop himself from making a low ‘hm.’  

 

They probably felt the shift in the atmosphere from the portal opening. It may have dissipated, but the excess was still lingering around. Without his focus solely on Damian, Danny can feel it too. Like a fog in his chest. Or, perhaps more accurately, like going through the day in a tired glaze, only to be hit with pin-startling clarity. The spirits were probably trying to soak up as much as possible in order to gain a stronger physical form. 

 

Which, unfortunately for them, wouldn’t happen from this portal alone. Too many spirits trying to do the same thing. Not enough ectoplasm. 

 

He leads Damian down the steps, and over to the sidewalk. On instinct his hand reaches for his grappling hook, but Damian, still loitering in his peripherals, tenses up. Oh, right, Danny thinks, and switches for his phone instead, this is a two-person trip.  

 

It’d probably be rude to just grab Damian and start flying. Damian might try and stab him, or worse, try and get out of his hands again. The mental image of Damian falling nearly fifty-feet in the air flashes behind Danny’s eyes, and he represses a shudder.

 

Yeah, let's tell him first. 

 

His fingers fly across the screen. [I’m going to use a grappling hook to get us back to the house. It’ll be faster. I’m going to pick you up, hold on tight.]  

 

Damian scoffs at him, but nods. Danny pockets his phone, swaps it out for his grappling hook instead, and lets Damian look at it for a minute before he crouches down and wraps his free arm around Damian’s legs and hoists him up. 

 

Something gets said to him by Damian, harsh and scowly, probably an insult, but he wraps his arms around Danny’s neck and his legs tight around his torso. At this point Danny just rolls his eyes and adjusts his arm to hold him tight around the waist. “Hold on.” He mumbles, and points his gun to the sky. 

 

Flying through the city is admittedly trickier with the extra weight on his front and only one hand free, but Danny takes it as a challenge rather than a problem — if only so he doesn’t think too much on it. Damian’s fingers claw into the back of hoodie the moment his grappling hook pulls them through the air, it borderlines almost painful, and Danny doubts he could drop the kid even if he tried. 

 

There are a few close calls where Danny nearly clips the edge of one of the skyscrapers, but it takes one easy twist and a little bit of spinning to correct the angle. The threat of it sends a rush of adrenaline through his veins, and Danny can’t say he didn’t laugh a few times. Becoming Phantom turned him into an adrenaline junkie, he thinks.  

 

Damian doesn’t seem to be having much fun though, his grip suffocating on Danny and his face buried into his shoulder. He’s choking Danny a little, but he wouldn’t dare try and correct it while in the air, and it’s only bringing him mild discomfort. 

 

Not fast enough but all too soon, Danny is touching down near the residential area of Amity Park where the buildings are too small for him to grapple through. He drops onto one of the apartment rooftops, and his feet are barely touching the ground before Damian clambers off him like a wet cat trying to claw its way out of a pool. 

 

With the sound of his grappling hook receding, Danny laughs low under his breath. “Flying not for you, bud?” He asks, slightly breathless and grinning under his mask. The hook clicks into place in his palm, and Danny shoves it back onto his belt. 

 

The kid glares at him amidst brushing off his clothes and patting at his sides. His hand brushes over his sword, and when he feels the hilt still there, Damian drops it. The kid straightens up like a soldier — immediately killing Danny’s sky-flushed mirth in the process — and stares up at him, awaiting orders.

 

Danny’s smile falls, and he clears his throat. Okay, he thinks, checking himself over for anything out of place, before looking back to Damian. Resolve hardens like cement in between his ribs. He’s not going back. Not if I have anything to say about it. 

 

He moves around Damian and steps over to the roof ledge, swiveling left and right for the direction of his house. Which is unnecessary, he can see Fenton Works from a mile away, but he does it anyways. Anything to distract him from the discomfort that’s been sledgehammered at him. “This way.” He murmurs, gesturing for Damian to follow. Shuffling feet, and Danny can sense more than see the little boy at his side. 

 

Considering the way he saw Damian hopping around earlier, Danny is confident in his ability to roof hop with him — confidence well deserved because Damian follows him with relative ease. Which is still real damn worrying, but he can dwell on it when they get to the house. 

 

Still, he keeps a close eye on Damian the entire time they’re leaping rooftops. The boy was six, he didn’t have the same stamina nor height that Danny did — it’d be too easy for Danny to lose him on the way to the house because he couldn’t keep up, or he decided to change his mind while Danny was distracted and book it in another direction. 

 

They reach the house in no time, and Danny’s fishing for his key from his belt the moment his feet hit the concrete of the rooftop. Damian remains behind him, an ever-constant shadow as Danny ducks under the various legs, wires, and poles of the OPPS Center and unlocks the door to the roof. 

 

Getting to his room is a relief. The strange, buzzing sensation that settles through Danny’s eyes like a thin film whenever he’s using his ‘scary eyes’ dissipates, and he’s kicking off his boots with a low sigh before he can really think it through. He’ll put them back in their place when he’s done — but for now, he just wants them off. Damian pools in behind him, slinking off to the corner of the room as Danny shuts the door. 

 

His room is spotless — a cleaning habit he’s kept meticulously since he wanted to be an astronaut. He had planets hanging from the ceiling, glow in the dark stars muttered against the walls, and posters of astronomy, Dumpty Humpty, and NASA plastered beside the stars. And a large corkboard hanging above his desk. 

 

“Finally.” he groans, twisting his hips and stretching out his back before reaching over and turning on the hanging lights. A soft orange glow fills the room, and Danny turns just in time to see Damian jump in surprise. He’d moved over to Danny’s bookshelf on the opposite side of the room, his body half turned away and tilted like he’d been inspecting it. 

 

Danny stifles a smile, and tugs off his thermos and grappling hook and places them on the desk. Damian straightens up, shuffling away from the bookshelf and back over to him, his brows beginning to furrow with a look of determination. 

 

He marches towards him, “Laqad wasalna 'iilaa manzilika, walan ealayk 'an tafi bikalimatik watakhlae qanaeaka.” 

 

Danny doesn’t know what he’s saying, but Damian points to his face while he’s speaking so Danny figures it out relatively quickly. Besides, it’s not like he’d forgotten either. He has to take off his mask to sleep, and it’s easier to change when he’s not wearing it. He grabs his phone from his pocket.

 

[I know, I’ll take off my mask. But remember: you can’t attack me.] He hits play, and watches Damian scoff for the nth time, roll his eyes, and nod. As if to reassure him, or to prove that he wasn’t going to attack him, Damian folds his arms behind his back. 

 

Briefly, Danny feels himself nearly frown again at Damian’s almost soldier-like posture. But he has time to worry about that later, he shoves his phone back into his pocket. Danny raises his hands and curls his fingers around the bottom of his mask. 

 

Carefully, mindful of the straps, Danny pulls it off. The cool air immediately rushes over his damp forehead, and he quickly shakes his head with bated breath to get the strands of hair plastered to his skin off. He locks eyes with Damian, tense, and with air trapped in his lungs. 

 

Damian’s eyes widen comically, his scowl softening for a moment. For a moment, Danny thinks that maybe things will be fine…ish. But then Damian’s face is scrunching up again, his face sharpening angrily, and his hands reach for his sword. 

 

“Dijaal!” He hisses, fire lighting in his eyes as he grabs for his katana.

 

Danny takes a step back and holds his hand out, narrowing his eyes defensively. “Hey, hey, hey!” He hisses back, he points a finger at Damian accusingly, arching an eyebrow. “You promised!”

 

Apparently, the tone of ‘no takesies-backsies!’ transcends language, because Damian freezes where he stands and simply remains glowering at him. Danny raises his eyebrow higher, locking him in a staring contest, and Damian takes his hand off the hilt. 

 

Great. Good. Fantastic even! Crisis avoided, and no parents woken up in the process. That’s a success if Danny’s ever heard one. He keeps his eyes on Damian, before slowly reaching for his phone again. It’s like having a stand-off with a bull. A tiny, six year old-sized bull with a sword rather than horns, but a bull nonetheless. 

 

He gets his phone out safely, and gets out the translator. Again. [I know I’m a clone of your dad. I didn’t ask to be. I still want to help you.] And he does, he so much does. Danny was a bleeding heart, forever and always. If he can help, he will. He hopes that the blood he is made from won’t stop Damian from accepting that help. 

 

Damian stares him down, eyes narrowed like he’s trying to analyze Danny’s every move. Danny stays still and lets him, waiting for the jurisdiction of the small assassin. 

 

Whatever it is that Damian sees, it causes him to drop his hands to his side with an irritated sigh just like before. He says nothing, but the resigned slump of his shoulders tells Danny all he needs to know, and he beams.  

 

Success, he thinks, laughing quietly in earnest. [Stay here.] He quickly types into his phone and plays. He reaches for his thermos. [I need to release the ghosts in my device, then I’ll show you how to use the translator.]  

 

He plucks the thermos from his desk and tosses his phone over Damian’s head and onto the bed. It bounces, Damian grumbles something under his breath, and the phone bounces again. Danny puts the mask down, and dances out the door and down into the lab with practiced ease.

 

When he returns, Damian is snooping around his room, looking around his desk this time around. He straightens up when Danny steps into the room, and Danny doesn’t bother addressing it — instead he grabs his phone again and gestures for Damian to sit on the bed with him. 

 

It takes a painfully long amount of time to show Damian how to use the translator, with a ton of repetition and fiddling around. But they manage, finally, to get a system up where Danny will type something into the translator, play it back to Damian, and then hand the phone to Damian. Damian then would swap the translation, use text-to-speech, and play it in english. 

 

Naturally, text-to-speech has its flaws, and Damian is only recently learning how to read, so Danny figures out the translation errors on his own. They don’t talk for long, Damian is shut off, snooty, and reserved to him. All Danny knows is that his name is Damian Al Ghul, and he is the blood son and second heir to something called the League of Assassins. 

 

How cheery. “League of Assassins” sounds definitely evil. Ancients, Danny doesn’t wanna know. He’ll have to get involved if he knows any more. 

 

He lets Damian fiddle with the translator more in regards to searching his closet for clothes for Damian to wear. He doesn’t have any shorts that will fit, but he pulls out an old NASA t-shirt that still somewhat fits him, and tosses it to Damian. 

 

After much arguing, he gets Damian to wear it, and he gives Damian the bed. That takes less arguing — Damian is all too happy to sleep in a bed rather than the floor, and Danny pulls his beanbag chair out from its nook to shove it under his desk. 

 

He’s still awake by the time sunlight begins peeking over the buildings, his eyelids heavy and sore with exhaustion, and his limbs feeling loose and disconnected. He’s fixed up his gloves — torn from the katana, but now half-heartedly sewn up with thread and a lot of muttered swearing on Danny’s part. His mask is shoved in a hidden pocket in his backpack along with his thermos. 

 

Damian is fast asleep in bed, and with nothing else to do, Danny keeps his sharp eye on him. Swamped in Danny’s shirt and curled up under the covers, Damian is teeny. Well, he was small even before that, but it is even more apparent when tucked under blankets meant for people bigger than him.

 

And, for perhaps the third time that night, Danny is hit with just the sheer longing of how much he wants to help him. Danny is the hand that feeds, and Damian has a lot of teeth. The cut of his gloves is more than proof enough of that. But Danny wants to help him, Damian has no one else here to. Danny, so far, is the only one who can help him.

 

He is also hit with the sheer magnitude of what he’s just done — the terrifying revelation that Danny’s just taken in the clone of his template’s son. What the hell does that make for him and Damian’s relationship? Genetically, Danny is technically his father, but they’re complete strangers to one another. 

 

What does that mean for Danny? It’s been four months since his parents revealed their betrayal. Their lies. Their backstabbing, earth-shattering, fifteen years of astounding— the truth to Danny about his… birth. Four months isn’t long enough to deal with something like that. He is still questioning everything he does — whether his actions belong to him, or to Bruce Wayne.

 

And this? This just takes the fucking cake.

 

Danny breathes in deeply, snapping himself out of the slow-creeping spiral threatening to drag him under the waters of his mind. His eyes flick to the window. It’s too early to think about this. Much, much too early. He slinks into his beanbag, stifling back a groan. 

 

He can worry about the identity crisis and his crisis of autonomy later. Later, when he’s not mind-numbingly exhausted and already mentally fragile from that alone. Not when there’s a teeny baby assassin sleeping in his bed who happens to be his son? Cousin? Brother? template’s son’s clone. 

 

With sunlight peeking through the windows, he slinks out from under his desk to prepare for another day.

Notes:

Danny, upon seeing a natural portal open in front of him: ah, fuck
Danny, upon seeing said natural portal spit out a human child: oh, fuck

i'm not used to writing fight scenes, so sorry if it feels a little clumsy lol. I tried to keep in mind that, while Damian has assassin training, he's also. a literal six year old. From what I know, the LoA starts training pretty young. As someone who works with toddlers on the daily, I also know that good fucking luck getting anyone below three to listen to you consistently. It varies from child to child, but I'm guessing that at best, league training starts at three years old, so Damian has only had three years of (presumably) rigorous League training.

But he's also a six year old. They are admittedly more capable than people who aren't consistently around children think, but they are still six years old. So it's gonna be,,, a fun balance of comic realism and plausible deniability in terms of what Damian can and can't do. As I like to say; i don't need it to be realistic, just believable lol.

If it feels like his skills fluctuate, or if he doesn't seem as competent/capable as he should be, I apologize in advance.

Here's a translation of what Damian's said:

"Tell me where I am and I won't kill you." Damian snarls, chasing up after him with worrying ease.

Damian scowls, pointing his sword at him accusingly from the conveyor below. “Stop running and face me, you coward!"

“Stop running!” The kid yells, his hands shaking at his sides. “'Where have you taken me, Lazarus?”

"Lazarus!” He yells again, and his voice cracks. Danny stills. “Get out here, Lazarus!”

Damian breathes in deeply, and Danny can see the whites of his eyes when he turns his head in his direction. “Show yourself!"

“Where am I?” Damian snarls at him, there’s still a tremble in his voice. “'Where have you taken me."

“Let go of me!” Damian yells, thrashing against him violently. [...] "You filth! Let go!"

“I am Damian Al Ghul, blood of the Demon Head!” Damian says, sounding demanding. [...] "You will listen to my orders, Lazarus!"

Damian jerks, hitting his head against Danny’s chest in surprise. “'Let go of me, where am I? I don't need your help.”

"America? He says, [...] "This is America?"

“You will release me.” Damian orders, [...] "I must return to the League."

“Fine, I will stay with you until we can return me back to the League.” He says, sounding significantly less full of indignant rage, and more so full of indignant irritation

Damian scoffs at him, [...] "Yes, I will go with you."

Damian eyes him up suspiciously, [...]. "You have my word."

“Imposter!” He hisses, fire lighting in his eyes as he grabs for his katana.

Also, why Damian doesn't know any English, I personally thought that League would... hold off on teaching him English in favor of getting his training all up to speed, considering he's a clone. He would've learned it later on, but they were focusing on his training for the most part.

ALSO. There is fanart of Danny+Damian made by gascanposts from back in December when I was on a posting spree. Here's a link to that here, it's fantastic yall should check out its art. Gascanpost EDIT: Link works now!

Aaaahh what else -- oh! Whatever chapters I post here will likely be different from some of my clone^2 posts because, well, oneshot rambling tumblr posts aren't the same as a chapter fic. So some things may be edited, changed, or cut. Like Danny's baseball bat didn't make an appearance here despite having that on the tumblr posts.

Chapter 2: while a brand-new war began. one that no one else could feel

Summary:

Now suddenly equipped with... a child... Danny's showing Damian an impromptu house tour before his parents wake up. They talk a bit, and Danny tells Sam and Tucker about his newly acquired... ward?

[My parents don’t get up until seven, and they’re in the lab by eight. They typically don’t leave the lab until after I get home.] Danny says as he leads Damian into the kitchen, the automated voice of the translator AI cutting through the air easily. Damian stuck close to his side, eyes narrow and a snooty look of disdain stamped on his face like a printing press while his eyes flit around the room.

The kid had woken up immediately upon Danny shuffling out from beneath his desk, and he had to scurry back to avoid being skewered by Damian’s katana. He bumped into his desk in the process, and the muffled thud it made against the wall had Danny praying that his parents wouldn’t wake up from the noise.

(“I should’ve confiscated that.” He muttered, gripping the table with white knuckles and mouth pursed into a thin line. The business end of Damian’s katana staring him in the nose.)

(He should’ve expected the baby assassin to sleep lighter than a feather. His mistake, of course. Damian realized quickly after where he was, thankfully, so Danny didn’t have to fight him off in his room. The noise and mess that would make would have surely woken up his parents, and he still hasn’t come up with an excuse as to why Damian was even there.) 

So now with Damian awake, Danny decided to just go ahead and give him a quick tour of the house so that he knew where everything was. Fuuuck, it was only setting in now that he had to leave the kid home, alone, all day.

(Maybe things will be fine. Murphy screwed him over already with this, he has other people to torment, surely. Like the other heroes, for example.)

Wherever Damian’s ‘League of Assassins’ was situated, it was probably ten times nicer than Danny’s house. That is, if Danny’s assumption from the look on Damian’s face was correct. 

Breathing out through his nose, Danny leads Damian over to the fridge, his fingers digging into the phone screen again. [I don’t have an excuse ready for why you’re here, so please don’t get seen by them. They spend all day in the lab so you should be able to roam the house freely.]   

He feels like the butler from a period drama set telling the down-on-her-wealth noble lady the rules of the manor, while she was staying with a fabulously wealthy nobleman of higher standing. It felt ridiculous. But it was unfortunately necessary, he can’t imagine what kind of reaction his parents would have to Damian — and what kind of reaction Damian would have to his parents.  

Damian scowls at him and says something in Arabic, spitting it out like acid while his arms cross over his chest grumpily. Danny stops and turns to him fully, raising a deadpan eyebrow. Damian repeats what he said, looking at Danny like he wants him to spontaneously burst into flames. 

They stare at each other for thirty, uncomfortable seconds, with Danny keeping his deadpan steady, before finally he silently holds his phone out. Damian breaks their staring contest to look down, and his surly expression deepens. 

Grumbling under his breath, Damian snags it out of his hand. Danny counts his fingers as he pulls his hand away. 

(When he counts all five still there, he drops his arm back to his side.) 

[I will stay hidden, for now.] Damian spits out, looking supremely disgruntled. It’s kind of endearing, but endearing the same way a tiger cub was. Cute, but undoubtedly dangerous. Rather than handing back his phone, Damian speaks into it again. [But figure out what to tell them. I am above hiding.]  

“Planning on it.” Danny mutters, nodding sharply before taking back his phone and turning back to the fridge. Before he even takes the handle, Danny pushes his hair from his face and leans forward, pressing his ear to the door. The metal is cold on his cheek, but he barely pays it to mind. 

Ecto-contaminated food didn’t have nearly enough of a signature to fully trigger his ghost sense, but it did make a strange, buzz-humming sound that felt more internal than external. Like the sensation that Danny himself was humming instead.   

From his peripherals, Danny can see Damian staring at him with unconcealed bewilderment, his apparent surliness temporarily forgotten in favor of looking at Danny like he was an idiot. “Madha tafaeala?”

In lieu of answering, Danny just holds up a finger at Damian. Something the little dude really doesn’t appreciate, as he immediately scowls at Danny and makes that ‘myeh’- like expression that kids do when they’re trying to give someone they don’t like attitude without actually saying anything. The one that, as far as Danny is concerned, doesn’t have a real term for but everyone knows what it is anyway. 

Either way, Damian makes a face at him that does, briefly, succeed in irritating Danny. He says nothing and cranes his ears instead, trying to catch if there’s any internal buzzing coming from inside the fridge. His hand drifts instinctively to the counter, where he and Jazz had moved the knife block for this exact reason. 

…Will he have to hide this with Damian here? He hopes not, the last time the knife block got moved he forgot, and had to strangle a half-eaten chicken from the fridge after it came back with fowl vengeance. 

When he doesn’t hear or feel anything out of the ordinary, he leans back and swings the door open with ease. Rows upon rows of liquid-jellied-solidified- whatever- it-was-feeling-at-the-time ectoplasm sat in glass canisters, tupperware, and bottles on the shelves. Glowing green in between the stuff that was actually food, and washing a buzz over Danny like someone just draped him in a weighted blanket. 

(He should clarify. Ectoplasm does exhibit its own signature that’s too weak to signal his ghost sense, but that buzzing-humming feels more like the painless tingling of when part of his spine falls asleep. Except everywhere, and the feeling is heavier in his head. It’s oddly comforting. Nostalgic; like the smell after the snow’s freshly melted and the weather is warm. It is very much not like the ominous, buzzing-humming-intent of a partially reanimated chicken thats regained some of its sentience and wanted revenge.)  

Behind him, Damian makes some kind of squeaking sound. Or maybe it’s more like a yelp. Either way, it’s alarmed and loud enough that Danny turns around with half a jumping heart and a ‘shush’ on the tip of his tongue. 

“Ladayk ma' lieazir!” Damian hisses, pointing behind Danny at the canisters behind him. Damian’s eyes narrow into slits, and he hunches up like a stray cat that’s been cornered. “Min 'ayn hasalt ealaa ma' lieazir?!”

Danny follows the point of his finger, and sees the ectoplasm canisters behind him. “The ectoplasm?” He asks aloud, looking back at Damian in bewilderment.

Apprehension tightens slowly in his chest. Damian used that word again — and Danny only catches it because it was what Damian had been calling him last night, in the warehouse. He thought it meant ‘stranger’ or something — but, he glances back at the ectoplasm in the fridge.

Was Damian calling him ectoplasm?  

He knows what ectoplasm was? 

What had been a steady tightening in his chest suddenly fastens like a noose. Danny reaches for one of the canisters just to make sure, and Damian watches him tersely as he curls a hand around one of the canisters and pulls it forward. He doesn’t take it off the shelf, but he does gesture slightly with it. “This?” He asks, “The ectoplasm. Is this what you’re talking about?” He knows he has a translator on his phone, but he doesn’t think he’ll need it for this. 

He recalls the word Damian used, and frowns. “The- the lazeer? Laziere?” It’s an embarrassing attempt at trying to repeat it, but Damian understands what he’s saying anyways and nods sharply.  

“Niema, ma' lieazir. Kif lidayk.” 

Danny really doesn’t like that Damian knows what ectoplasm is, and he really doesn’t like the idea that his League of Assassins place knows about it too, and seemingly has access to the physical stuff. This feels too much like going swimming in the ocean and feeling something brush against his foot. 

Now he really needs to make sure that Damian never makes it back to the League. The idea of a bunch of assassins finding out that his parents can make ectoplasmic weapons terrifies him, just a smidge. (Just what has he gotten himself into?)

Putting the canister down and pushing it away from the ledge, Danny reaches for the milk instead, his heart beating uncomfortably in his ears. A discomfited “Hn.” comes out under his breath as he plucks the jug off the shelf and shuts the door, it closes a little more forcibly than normal. Danny reaches for his phone. 

The word ectoplasm doesn’t translate into Arabic, he checks before he says anything. Danny reaches over Damian to put the milk on the table as he types, still frowning uneasily. [It’s ghost stuff.] He says, and then says aloud: “Ectoplasm.” 

“Ec-to-plasm.” Damian repeats curtly, lip curling. Danny nods curtly.

Rather than repeating himself, Danny types into his phone again. [You’re not allowed in the lab without me. Don’t touch the ghost stuff in the fridge, it’s dangerous.] He says, [I was listening to the fridge because the food likes to come alive and attack, if you need food from the fridge, grab a knife.] He’ll try and show Damian how to listen for reanimated food later, it’s a little harder without a ghost sense but the food moves, so he’ll show him how to listen for that.  

Damian scoffs; “'Adhhab hayth 'urid 'ayuha almuhtal.” and reaches out to take the phone from his hand. 

Rather than letting him, Danny pirouettes away, holding his phone over his head, “Nah-ah-ah.” He says, watching Damian’s face twist indignantly into anger. [We’ll talk more later, I want breakfast and you’re probably hungry.]  

(Is he avoiding? Absolutely, he is. But it’s early, and Danny is much too tired to entertain the impending doom sinking into his chest like snow caving in a roof. He needs to do something about the information that a league of assassins has access to ectoplasm, but that something is… being put on the backburner for now.)

(Maybe he’s just catastrophizing — he’s gotten pretty good at that over the years. Maybe he’s putting too much weight on the idea; maybe he’s just sleep deprived. No, he’s definitely sleep deprived. Either way, he’s putting a pin in the murder group for now.)  

Danny turns for the pantry, and takes about one step before he remembers the phone in his hand. Twisting around, he plops it onto the table for Damian, and then marches over to the pantry for the cereal. 

The oven clock reads six-twenty-eight, and that doesn’t have Danny feeling all that great. He said earlier that his parents got up at seven, so they only have thirty-two minutes before then. Then another ten or so before his parents come down for breakfast. Mom takes the shower first, and dad comes downstairs to get started on breakfast. Sometimes it's cereal, but he likes making eggs if they haven’t been irradiated.

The pantry swings open and Danny pulls out a box of cereal, his brows furrowed in thought. Dad will want to talk to him if he sees him — so it’s for the best that Danny and Damian finish eating before dad makes it to the hallway. He turns and glances at the time again. Six-thirty. Thirty minutes. He puts the box onto the table and grabs their bowls and spoons. 

There’s a look of apprehension on Damian’s face as he puts everything down, his fingers curled around Danny’s phone. His eyes flick up to Danny, and then he holds up his phone. [Is this what you eat?] He asks, before eyeing the table again. 

Danny can’t stop the quiet snort that escapes him, his thoughts quieting for a moment as he slides into his chair, before reaching over and plucking the phone out of Damian’s hand. [Sorry bud, it’s all we’ve got time for before my parents get up.] 

Damian makes a disgruntled face, and sits down. 

(He idly makes a mental note to wrangle out of Damian later what kind of foods he likes. He’s not too bad at cooking. He’s better than Jazz, at least.)

---

They make it back up to Danny’s room by six-fifty-two, just as Danny hears his parents shuffling around in their room. They’re up a little earlier than normal. His mom’s limb, quieter footsteps already padding for the master bathroom. Danny is closing the door when he hears a familiar thud, and the low, sleepy groan of his dad sitting up and putting his feet on the ground. 

Damian bounds away and is already situated on Danny’s bed when he turns around, fingers snatching his katana from beneath the pillows before he turns and sits stiffly with it in his lap.    

It was a bit of a ridiculous sight: despite being awake for nearly an hour, Damian’s bed-head hadn’t changed a bit, with a tangled bunch of curls jutting out from one side of his head. Pair that with him still wearing Danny’s NASA tee (and being swamped in it), and the katana, and Danny was half tempted to snap a picture. Again, he was finding himself endeared.

He does end up sneaking that picture as he strides over to his closet to rummage for clothes. 

[I’ll try and think of a way to get you home.] He lies as he shifts through the shirts on the hangers, typing with his thumb, and tilted halfway with his phone jutting out for Damian to hear. [But that’s gonna take a while, so we should get you some different clothes soon.] There was no way he was letting this kid wear the same thing every day, this might take weeks. 

He yanks a yellow turtleneck that Tucker got him off the hanger and tosses it out onto the bed. It lands next to Damian with a quiet thump, and the kid shuffles away from it with a glare as if it's personally offended him. Danny stifles a smile and walks out, grabbing his hoodie-jacket from its spot on the door and tossing it onto the bed as well. 

Damian grumbles something, then holds out his hand for the phone. Danny hands it to him as he passes by, going over to his desk to pick up his gloves and grappling hook, before turning to his bag. 

[I am not worried about the time, Mother will come looking for me.] Damian tells him, sticking his nose up into the air and missing the cold seize of Danny’s heart and the tensing up of his shoulders. His mother. Who was probably also an assassin from the assassin club Damian was made from. 

(A blood rush sends stars spinning around in the corners of Danny’s vision, and he pauses in order to stare blankly at the top of his half-opened backpack. He quickly blinks it away, and unzips his bag fully to shove his gear into one of the larger pockets.)

He hums low, turning to look at Damian with a fake smile plastered on his face. “That’s great, bud.” 

(It should be a good thing, but he can’t quite shake the whole ‘assassins’ thing. Specifically… well, all of it. It’s all giving him a headache to sort through.) 

Damian scoffs at him, [I cannot understand you.]  

Danny snorts unwittingly, turning and shoving his gloves into an inside side pocket just as Damian throws his phone at him. He catches it before it can slam into the wall — or Danny’s head, and puts his grappling hook into his bag before typing into the translator. [I said that it’s good. I’m glad your mom is looking for you.]

That was another lie, and he felt bad that it had to be. Damian rolls his eyes at him, and Danny stuffs his phone into his back pocket and grabs his hook. 

When his bag is accounted for, Danny finally focuses on getting dressed. He moves out to the bathroom to change, admittedly hot-footing it a bit so that Damian is alone for the least amount of time possible. He passes a sleep-mussed Jazz heading for the stairs, and she pauses to mess with his hair.

“Did you stay up all night again?” She mumbles, her fingers catch on a few tangles, but slide out at the end easily. “You don’t have bedhead.”  

Danny pauses, half-distracted by the feeling of her hands in his hair and the urge to hurry through getting dressed. “Only a little.” He says, scurrying away and opening the door to the bathroom. “Was workin’ on a case.” 

Jazz frowns at him, and he closes the door before she can say anything. 

(He’s in the middle of brushing his teeth when he remembers that Damian will need other essentials than just clothes, and immediately starts compiling a mental list.) 

He’s got half an arm through his jacket when he leaves the bathroom, his attention split between getting it on and typing into his phone. When he opens the door, there’s quiet, rapid footsteps shuffling before he sees Damian hopping back onto the bed, staring at him stonily and like a kid who was acting like he hadn’t been doing anything. 

A smile tugs at the corner of Danny’s mouth, and he types into his phone to add something before hitting play on the translator. [I have to head out now, you can look around my room if you’d like. Don’t touch the brown files on my desk, I’ll be back after school ends. I should have a game plan by then. Don’t be seen by my parents.] 

As it speaks, Danny strides over and grabs his backpack. Damian’s eyes follow him the whole time, and Danny slings his bag over his shoulders and stuffs his phone back into his pocket. 

Damian nods curtly at him, and before Danny leaves he reaches over and plucks a hairband off his dresser, pinching it between his teeth. 

“Okay, I’m off.” He repeats, voice slightly muffled by the hairband as he starts pulling his hair up. There’s a huff from Damian and a knowingly annoyed look, and Danny’s smile grows a little out of amusement. He tugs the tie out from his mouth and twists it around his hair. “Be good, Damian.”

Green eyes narrow at him, and Danny hurries out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

(He was a little — no, scratch that, a lot apprehensive about leaving Damian here alone for most of the day. He was worried about his parents, perhaps a little too much, and he was worried about Damian recognizing the ectoplasm in the fridge. He’s worried about the whole thing with these ‘League of Assassins’ people, and he’s worried about how he’s going to explain Damian’s presence to his parents. And he’s most especially worried about how on earth he was going to convince Damian to not return home.) 

Instead of going for the stairs, Danny turns and hurries over to the end of the hallway where the ladder to the rooftop is. There’s a lot he needs to think about, too much for him to want to walk with Sam and Tucker.

The nice thing about people is that they don’t really ever look up.

---

Danny: hey i’ll meet you guys at school

Tucker: did something happen during patrol last night?

Danny: something like that

Danny: i’ll tell you in class

Sam: alright. Hop safe

[Danny liked Sam's message]

---

“Dude.”

“I know.”

“Dude.”

“I know.”

“Dude!”

“I know!”  

Danny drops his head onto his desk with an unceremonious thump, groaning low with his nose smushed into the wood. Sam’s hands, buried in his hair and in the midst of messing with it, stills to let him. Some of the strands slip out of her fingers and pool around Danny’s face, causing a curtain. It tickles a little. 

Maybe he should have just walked to school with them, telling them about Damian probably would’ve garnered less attention that way. He can feel the gazes of their classmates — or at least, the ones not slowly filtering into the room — turning onto them, and burning into his head. 

But running over the rooftops, albeit only until the residential area ended, was sorely needed. It didn’t help clear all of his thoughts, or really much of any of them, but it’d chased away the worst of his anxieties about it. Like a breath of fresh air after being stuck in a stuffy room. 

(This has been, officially, the longest… five hours of his life. And he’s had many, many long five hours in the last two years.)

(Pariah Dark and his evil future self are tied for the record of being the longest twenty-four hours of his life. Finding out he was a clone doesn’t count — it was still ongoing, and distressingly permanent.) 

Tucker makes a noise, and Danny turns his head just in time to see him drop into his desk beside him, lifting his hat to run his hand over his curls with a look of disbelief. He’s staring unseeingly over Danny’s head for a whole of two seconds before looking back down. 

“So he just — what, popped out of the ground? Like a daisy?”   

Sam continues with her ministrations, and her fingers brush against his neck as she straightens his hair down his back. It’s soothing, enough so that the sleep-soreness of his eyelids becomes a lot more evident to him. 

“Hn. Something like that. If the ground was a once-in-a-lifetime portal and the daisy was a murderous six year old.” He mutters, blinking slowly to try and keep himself awake. Sam’s nails scratch behind his ears, gathering up his hair again to finger-comb out the tangles, and he sighs quietly in content. 

He sees Tucker suppress a smile, and he can practically sense Sam doing the same thing. Danny stares, did his ears do the thing again—?  

“You don’t think a ghost had something to do with it?” Sam asks him, her voice staying low as she tugged out the knots in his hair. “It’s really strange that…” She pauses. Danny can feel her lean against his chair, and he lifts his head slightly as Tucker leans in too. “..that Damian just appeared in front of you right after you got done with fighting a ghost.” 

Hrm. She was right. It was weird. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He says quietly, “I was too busy trying to get him to stop attacking me.” And after that he was busy trying to get them both home in one piece, and then after that was the whole identity crisis—

And he’s gonna stop there before his tired mind latches onto that spiral again. 

Sam and Tucker’s mouths press together worriedly, and Danny finds himself frowning too. “Maybe I can sneak into the Zone sometime this week and ask one of the Ancients.” Frostbite knew a lot about the Infinite Realms in general, but Pandora might know more about strange magic. 

He could try Clockwork, but finding the clocktower always feels like a scavenger hunt, and getting straight answers out of the ghost is like trying to catch the wind in a bag. Danny normally wouldn’t mind, he kinda likes the challenge, but now is not a good time for that. 

Either way, it was just another thing on his long list of things to do this week, on top of everything else he had to do since acquiring Damian. He could feel a stress headache coming in, and it was only — he takes a quick glance at the clock — eight-fourteen. Yeah, longest five hours of his life. And counting.

Hrrm. “I just can’t believe my luck.” He complains, of all people to clone, of all kids to end up being cloned. It had to be the one kid who, by technicality, was his biological son. That thought alone felt like a tsunami about to swallow him whole. It was confusing, and complicated.   

It shouldn’t have to be.

The thing is, Danny doesn’t view Damian Wayne as his son. Not by a long shot. Damian Wayne was Bruce Wayne’s son. But just like how Ellie isn’t Danny, and Danny isn’t Bruce; Damian is not Damian Wayne. And Danny still doesn’t view him as a son, and obviously Damian doesn’t view him as a father. But it all feels like a strange gray area, like a merry-go-round that’s not turning off, and it wouldn’t have to be if his parents hadn’t been fucking careless with their DNA samples— 

It’s been four months why does he still feel so raw—  

Tucker snorts roughly, bringing Danny out from his head. 

He breathes in deep, blinking quickly, as Tucker leans back into his chair. Sam starts sectioning off Danny’s hair. “Yeah, fair enough,” he says, “bad luck is my schtick though, Danny, so don’t go start encroaching on my brand.” 

“Your brand?” Sam repeats, voice lilting upward. Danny can imagine she’s raising an eyebrow at him, and he snickers both at the thought and at Tucker. 

Tucker’s eyes light up at the sound, and he grins like he’s won a prize. “Yeah, my brand! You know, Bad Luck Tuck?” 

Danny snickers louder, adjusting to sit more comfortably. “I thought your brand was Too Fine Foley.”

“I can have more than one brand.”  

Sam snickers this time, in the midst of braiding Danny’s hair. It feels fantastic, Danny hums lowly, sinking like putty into his desk. “I’m pretty sure that’s called a monopoly, Tuck.” 

Danny laughs quietly, blinking lizard-like. “Tuck Driver.”  

Sam barks out a harsh laugh, and it trails off into stifled chuckles as Tucker’s jaw drops. The wide grin on his face betrays any potential upset he might have though. “That’s the mania setting in.” He says, voice thick with laughter, “That’s the fucking sleep mania talking right now. Take a nap, dude, we’ll wake you up when class ends.” 

Sleep sounds great actually, and he’s gonna do it soon anyways with Sam still doing his hair. But— “I’m not done talking about Damian.” He protests, but his eyes are closing on their own, as if all they needed to hear was him agreeing to sleep to do it. 

Tucker waves his hand, “It’s not like we can’t talk about him later; nap first. Your eyebags can’t get any darker.” He assures, “Don’t worry, we’ll take notes for you.”

“Hnn… fine.” Danny says, and lets his eyes close. He’s out like a light in minutes.  

Notes:

translations:
From his peripherals, Danny can see Damian staring at him with unconcealed bewilderment, his apparent surliness temporarily forgotten in favor of looking at Danny like he was an idiot. “What are you doing?”

“You have Lazarus water!” Damian hisses, pointing behind Danny at the canisters behind him. Damian’s eyes narrow into slits, and he hunches up like a stray cat that’s been cornered. “Where did you get lazarus water?!”

“Yes, the lazarus water. Where did you get it.”

“I go where I like, imposter.”***

***TECHNICALLY the direct translation is "you fraudster" which is objectively hilarious, however 'imposter' is what I put into the english side of the translation.

------------

My 'a' key has been funky lately and doesn't always work when I press on it (my guess is that I got something under the key and need to clean it out) and i've been pretty good at catching it while writing, but if there are any points where there's a word missing an 'a' feel free to lmk where it is (preferably with the whole sentence for easier finding). I'll go in and fix it.

Funnily enough the scene with Danny and Damian was meant to be much shorter and more as a flashback with only mentioning that danny told him about the routine and his parents' schedules and the tour, but I hated the feel of it and couldn't get a good flow going so I just decided to do the full scene. if anything feels choppy that's my bad, i wrote this while tired and i'm too impatient to wait until im not tired to do a proof check. I'm pretty sure I got everything though,,,

Danny being a good cook while also being a clone of Bruce Wayne is hilarious to me, personally, so it's gonna stick. Also writing this made me realize that I cannot remember for the life of me how the fentons get up to their OPS center, and looking at screenshots of the building kindaa? implies that they climb onto the roof first? And then climb through an entrance there. But then i have no idea how they get onto the roof, so I decided to just wing it.

Oh! The translated conversations between Danny and Damian are gonna be treated like they're having a regular conversation because I'll lose my mind if I have to write 'he played the translator'/'he translated' half-a-bazillion times, and I doubt anyone wants to read that half-a-bazillion times either.

i'd say i don't talk much in the notes but that'd be a big frigging lie to everyone that's ever seen my tumblr posts and this au has me spitballing every chance I get.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of danny is a clone of bruce wayne