Third Law of Motion
Established everlasting trio.
@batpham-discord-highlights
Danny and whoever he wishes to bring are invited to a week at the beach with the Waynes. Tim says he wants to talk, but does he know he is already dating his best friends?
[Read on AO3]
Befriending the Justice League at first had been kind of a rocky situation. There was a lot of misunderstandings, a lot of mistrust, and for some reason Superman hated his guts with passion.
But after some years Danny had settled as one of the fixed members, and one of the most powerful ones, if he can say so himself.
Batman took a while to warm up to him, and maybe helping him create a weapon that could take down the Ghost King helped a lot, but in the end the man revealed himself as the billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne.
It was… an experience, not gonna lie.
Danny’s track record with rich men were Vlad, which despite having mellowed with time AND with losing his right to the throne on the grounds of being a loser, was still a bit of a creep; and Lex Luthor when the man tried to summon him to ask for a wish or something, or maybe try to enslave him to his will? It wasn’t really clear what he wanted, Baldie talked and talked and talked and Danny just got bored and set everything on fire.
Anyway, Bruce Wayne turned out to be kind of a nice guy? The real one, since the public persona was kind of an idiot. The Bruce Wayne he met when he came over to visit for dinner one time, Bruce’s butler-slash-father insisted, was a tired man trying to keep up in a world where gods walked among humans.
Danny respected that.
Also, the man had a huge family. It was stupid. He had an adoption problem, definitely; but also he had such a big heart to accept so many people as his own - not only the officially adopted, but the friends of the family that were considered family too.
Danny left the mansion feeling warm and yearning for a family like that - noisy, rowdy, not afraid to throw down on the living room and wrestle for the remote. He wanted that so much that he couldn’t stop the mini-heart attack when he was invited to come over again, and then again for Thanksgiving and when he realized he had the contact information of everybody saved in his phone.
The Waynes were not afraid to touch his cold skin and call him out on his bullshit, to make jokes about being dead (well, that was more Jason, the dude he found out had some ectoplasm in his veins), to ask about his Kingdom without apprehension in their voices.
They were weird, but amazing.
Also, the Waynes invited him and whoever he wanted to bring to a one week beach vacation. They would take care of everything - transportation, food and where to stay. He and his people would only need to bring their own luggage to the airport, where they would meet.
Turns out, they flew in a private jet to a private island. “This way you can be yourself without thinking of being seen.” Bruce had said when he saw Danny’s shocked face.
“Isn’t it neat having rich friends?” Tucker adjusted his glasses as he sat down on Danny’s bed, watching him look for his bag of toiletries in his suitcase and put it in the ensuite gigantic bathroom.
Because the summer mansion was big enough so everyone had their own room, of course.
“Don’t let Sam hear you, she was pissed off enough about the environmental impact of using a private jet.”
“I think Damian’s rant about Wayne Enterprises’ eco projects and plans for the next five years will shut her up for the rest of the week.”
“I love that kid. I have decided he is my favorite only because of Sam's sour face as he talked.”
Danny chuckled. It had been a success to bring his best friends and partners to this trip. He knew they would get along with the Waynes, but after the flight it became clear that Sam and Damian would get like a house on fire and that Tucker had found his techno geek equal in Tim.
There was a knock on his door.
“Danny? Are you decent?”
“Morally? No, but I have clothes on, if that’s what you are asking.”
From the other side of the door, Jazz’s long suffering sigh was heard perfectly. “That joke got old after the first three times.”
“It’s funnier the more you hate it,” he said as she opened the door and walked in, already wearing her bathing suit and beach dress. “Excited much?”
She blushed a little. “It’s been a while since I went on vacation.”
“That’s what you get when you are such a workaholic.”
She blushed harder. “Shut up, as if you were better,” Jazz smiled as she crossed her arms over her chest. “When was the last time you slept more than three hours at night?”
“I plead the fifth.”
Her face when he said this could rival some of Alfred’s worse ‘im not mad, just disappointed in you’ moments. But she didn’t make a comment on it. Good, as if she held the higher ground morally speaking - she got worse when she was invested in a new project.
“I came to tell you that everyone is going down to the beach, and that refreshments will be served soon. If you want food then don’t take too long.”
With that, she turned and left the room, her steps quiet as always.
“Sometimes I forget how hot your sister is.”
“Tucker!” He hit his friend on the shoulder, growling. “What the heck?”
“What? We are all adults!” The young man rubbed his shoulder. “And it isn’t like I’m interested or anything - hell, she’s like my own sister at this point. I’m just appreciating how good the years have been with her.” His friend looked at him with a pensive gesture. “And you as well, my friend. Blessed is the day you agreed to go out with me.”
Danny rolled his eyes, going back to his suitcase to get his swimming trunks and change in the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror once he had changed. It wasn’t like he thought he wasn’t pretty, he knew attracted attention; it was just he didn’t care that much about it, you know?
Not that he was actually looking for someone else - he had two amazing best friends that were too good for him and actually beat into his head that they really liked him and wanted to try a relationship. They made him feel special already and he had lucked out on the partner department. Why care about more?
***
No kidding, the food was half devoured by the time he and Tucker made an appearance at the beach. The Waynes had set up a dining table and chairs in a wooden platform close to the beachline, since the whole place was for them.
Jazz had saved him some, but both knew it wasn’t enough to feed his ghostly metabolism, so Danny proceeded to grab a plate and stuff there anything that looked half decent.
Who was he kidding - rich people's food was amazing and it wasn’t either his parents’ ecto contaminated food or Jazz’s bland cooking.
With a full belly and after being bullied by his sister and partners to get suncream on, despite insisting that he was already dead and wouldn’t be affected by human ailments; Tim had convinced him to try out a monster of an inflatable floaty that was shaped like a giant avocado.
“Alright now what?” He watched as the young man pushed him and his inflatable platform further from shore. Sam and Tucker said they would follow once their floaties were ready.
“Now we wait.”
“For what.” Danny carefully moved a little so Tim could sit beside him on the inflatable avocado.
“For a big wave and then we ride it.”
“Like surfing?” the halfa frowned a little. The sea was calm for once. “And when will a wave come?”
“Anytime now.”
There was a bit of silence, but Danny didn’t mind. Between the sounds of the sea and the quiet companionship, he realized it has been a solid minute since he just… stopped and lived in the moment.
Tim was a cool guy, a bit weird, but the kind of weird that he was used to. He could talk for hours about something and didn't realize he had been rambling about a million things at the same time - Sam said they were very much alike in that sense, usually with a small knowing smile.
Okay he was cute. Danny wasn’t afraid to think it (now, to say it out loud…)
“Okay, I wanted to, uh, talk.”
“Alright?” Talk? About what?
When he turned to look at the other, he had his face hidden under his hair. Danny’s eyes went for their feet kicking the water, trying to decipher what the other would want to say.
“Tim?”
“Um.”
“You wanted to talk?”
“Talk? Who, me?” He laughed, sunking his head further. Danny saw the other’s ears when he moved, and they were red. He was blushing?
“What do you want to talk about?” And why did he need Danny alone? “Do you need help with something?”
Tim, instead of answering, took a deep breath and turned to look at him with a smile. There was no trace of a blush anywhere.
“You know what? It can wait.”
The halfa narrowed his eyes, detecting his own bullshit deflecting techniques - it could wait, but that didn’t mean Tim was gonna actually talk to him later in the trip, or maybe ever.
“Tell me. Is something bothering you?”
Maybe something he was too embarrassed to say? Or something he didn’t want his brothers to know and that’s why he was coming to him for help. Danny would help him hide a body if that’s what he wanted-
Woah, okay. Where did that come from?
It’s true that they were friends, but…
Tim shook his head. “Nah, everything is fine. So, about those waves.”
Danny narrowed his eyes but let it go. “No waves are coming. But, we can do something funnier.”
“Oh?” The other seemed interested. “Please enlighten me.”
Without further words, Danny transformed, ignoring the way his friend shivered when the rings phased through him at being this close. Sam and Tucker always said it was like a cold breeze.
“Now look who is overdressed.”
“Har har. Check this out.”
Using a bit of flight, Danny stood on the inflatable avocado and extended a hand. He focused, his green eyes turning a shade of blue that wasn’t quite human, and a freeze ray emerged from his fingers. The water on the side of the avocado was now slippery ice.
“I don’t understand where this is going, but that was kind of useless. You can’t freeze the sea.”
“I’m not planning on freezing the sea,” was Danny’s only warning before he shot a normal green beam from his other hand.
For those with basic physics knowledge, you’d know that Newton’s third law of motion says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In this case it meant that the poor floaty and its passengers were propelled forwards and placed on the patch of ice.
“You okay there?” Danny looked at his legs, where the poor human had latched on to not fall into the water.
“Yeah. And I see where this is going.” Quickly and carefully, showing off his nigh perfect balance control, the vigilante stood as well on the avocado. Tim fretted a little about where to place his hands, but decided to simply grab Danny’s shoulders. “Hit it.”
Not needing to be told more, Danny launched them both in a stupid yet incredible show of power - with one hand he froze the water in front of them and with the other he propelled the floaty like it was some kind of raft turned into a speedboat.
Both were laughing as they zipped from one end of the beach to the other, doing loops and stunts that nearly had them fall and eat ice and maybe break some bones.
Danny was having the time of his life, until his friend gasped.
“What’s the matter?” He asked, but his eyes were fixed on their paths and his concentration on using the freeze beam and the ecto beam at the same time.
“I think your sister is flirting with my brother.”
“WHAT.”
It took one moment, one second he looked towards the group of people gathered under beach umbrellas, to break his focus. It didn’t matter that his eyes confirmed it - Jazz was talking to Tim’s older brother, Jason, with a big smile on her face -, because when he stopped looking at where they were going his freeze ray stopped and physics did the rest.
Halfa, human and floaty were launched into the air and back into the water at a speed that would make the crash really hurt. In the last moment, Danny grabbed Tim and made them both intangible so the force of hitting the water at that speed didn’t break any of his bones.
They swam back to the surface, Danny now in human form, completely drenched and breathless from the scary fall.
“You guys okay?” They heard Dick call from the shore.
Danny did a thumbs up, but couldn’t really see with his black mop of hair in front of his eyes. He combed it back with his other hand, finding Tim really close.
“Hello there.”
The other’s cheeks flushed. “Well, that was fun.”
They looked at each other, the sound of the waves crashing in the sand filling in for conversation. Danny felt his cheeks burn a little, his eyes roaming toward the other’s lips when he licked the salt water from them. He had a healing cut in his lower lip, probably from crime fighting.
He wanted to kiss it.
Wait.
“I-I wanted to talk, yes.” Tim looked away for a moment, before frowning and turning back to him.
Danny heard Tim’s heart start beating faster and connected the dots. “I think I know where this is going.”
“You do?” There was a spark of fear in the blue. “Then what’s your answer?”
“I’ll have to talk with my partners but-”
“Partners?”
Danny blinked. Tim blinked.
“Dude,” he deadpanned, “I’m in a polycule with Tucker and Sam. You… you didn’t know?”
By the panicked face and the looks he gave the the group on the shore, and specifically, Danny’s best friends still getting ready to get into the water (the fuckers probably knew this was going to happen and set them up, Danny had to have a talk with them); Danny understood that Tim had no idea he was taken before trying to confess.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I will shut up now. This didn’t happen. Forget I said anything.” He covered his eyes with his hands.
“How didn’t you know? I never hid it.”
“I just thought you guys were very good friends!”
Danny threw his head back and laughed.
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