i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.
He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.
And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.
And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.
Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.
Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."
There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.
It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.
Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.
At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.
"Do you like to do anything?"
Nothing. Just silence.
Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.
Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.
Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.
And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.
He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.
Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.
So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.
"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"
"Don't."
He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.
Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"
"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."
It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"
The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."
Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."
And they fall back into silence.
Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."
He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.
(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)
At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.
Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.
("Tucker told me once--")
("Tucker?")
("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")
(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)
(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)
It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."
The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."
The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.
When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.
Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.
"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."
When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.
Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.
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Pleaseeee I need the live stream audience’s (and their fbi agent) reaction to Steve pulling the nail bat out to defend Ozzy’s honour. The series is so amazing thank you for giving it to us!
Considering the fact that Eddie got Steve to sit down on the bed, kissed his forehead, and then left Steve, Ozzy, and the live-stream to go ‘talk’ to Dan, the unanimous reaction among the chat was, what the actual fuck.
Steve, mindless to the live-stream, flops back on the bed with a loud sigh and doesn’t even complain when Ozzy, still wet from what little time he had in his pool, jumps up on the bed next to him. Steve ruffles Ozzy’s wet fur and tells him, “You deserve nice things, buddy. If an asshole breaks your things, you have every right to break their face. That’s justice, right?”
Ozzy puts his paw on Steve’s chest and Steve nods, “You get me.”
Meanwhile, the chat is blowing up with people being like ‘adorable’ and ‘cute’ and ‘I wish he’d pet me like that’ while other people who aren’t incurably horny are just like, ‘are we going to talk about the bat? Why the fuck does that thing exist? Why does it look used? Why is it being wielded by a middle school teacher with fucking ease???’
“He’s a jock,” Eddie answers. “Of course, he has a bat. All jocks have bats.”
‘NOT WITH NAILS IN IT’ The chat explodes.
“Home security?” Eddie tries with a shrug. “I’ve been trying to get him to GET RID OF IT for decades now.”
Steve doesn’t even lift his head when he says, “I got rid of my axe.”
“You had your axe taken away from you,” Eddie replies because that was true. After the gates were officially closed, the government confiscated everything that so much as breathed in the direction of the Upside Down. Both Steve’s axe and Eddie’s sweetheart were taken.
The only reason the nail bat survived was because the government didn’t know it existed.
A couple days later when half his live-stream chats are still filled with people being like ‘why was he so comfortable holding it?’ and ‘this is a prop from a music video, right?’ and ‘please answer or I’m going to actually die,’ Eddie does provide an answer. He says, “Try googling Hawkins, Indiana. I think that’ll answer all of your questions.”
It does not.
It actually asks a lot more questions.
The introduction of the somewhat-alluded-to-before nail bat to the Steddie Conspiracy Forums causes absolute chaos. No one can agree on anything. It validates so many theories and creates dozens more especially when Steve lets it slip in the background of another live-stream that Jonathan actually made the bat and Steve just never gave it back.
Meanwhile, the only benefit to Steve’s particular brand of shitty parents is that he learned how to girlboss gaslight gatekeep from absolute pros. Anytime one of his students asks him about the nail bat, Steve acts like he has no idea what they’re talking about. He has literally never heard of such a thing, “Like the animal? Their fingernails?”
As for their agent.
Their reaction was heard across all the office cubicles in the basement of the building. Just a loud, disbelieving, “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”
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Just a completely random thought but like...
I am truly starting to believe, at least for people my age (so late 20s- early 30s range), our parents didn't actually want children. Not in the way that matters.
They didn't want unique, individual, whole other people to raise into adults. They didn't want to do the amazingly hard work of being a parent- in that being a parent entails making sure your children can go out into the world and be their own people and make their own way, and it is your job as the person raising them to prepare them for that as best you can.
They wanted "children". As in dolls. As in "look at this thing I made let's talk about how great I am for making it". As in "let me brag about all of my child's accomplishments, those are all on me, but if they fail that is on them". As in "my child matters in what they can give me, not in who they are as a person of inherent value". As in "this was expected of me and I did it and now I am going to raise this human being the same way my parents raised me".
As in "why doesn't my fully grown adult child talk to me anymore? They're so entitled! They're so whiny! They DARE tell me I didn't do a good job parenting them! They DARE tell me I hurt them! They DARE express that they have feelings and thoughts and wants and a life outside of what I imagined for them in my head, outside of what will look good on me! How dare they not be a little thing I can hang on my fridge with a magnet and point to and say look my baby loves me. Look I am a good parent- that means I am a good person. Look I became a parent and that means I am GOOD. How DARE they undermine my entire identity as a Good Parent by telling me that I messed up?"
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