Chapter Text
Bruce Wayne is a big guy. Danny stands when he enters Tim’s hospital room, and they see eye-to-eye, but Bruce probably has at least a hundred pounds on him, all thick, corded muscle. There’s the rest of the family out in the bright light of the hallway, but Bruce enters the room with an older man in a smart suit, and everyone else stays on the other side of the door. The butler closes it behind them, and Bruce extends a hand for Danny to shake.
“Thank you.” He says, immediately.
“I’m sorry.” Danny replies.
“Is he awake?”
“Not since they upped his meds.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“So, Amity Park has a ghost problem.” Danny says. “Always has, kinda, but you know, it’s manageable, Phantom-” Phantom should’ve stopped this, but Danny doesn’t know how to say that without Bruce Wayne getting people involved in his town that he doesn’t want there. “Uh, we have a hero, who deals with it, but I guess- I don’t know why they went after Tim. No one’s been abducted for like, a year.”
“It has to do with you.” Bruce says, soft and completely confident.
“Probably.” Danny says, unable to look him in the eye.
“With your parents? Tim says they’re ghost hunters.”
“Maybe.” Danny doesn’t know if he told Tim that, but he also knows it’s about the first thing that comes up when you look up his name. “It- It shouldn’t’ve happened.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t.” But he doesn’t seem to be upset with Danny. There’s a gentle acceptance to it, like it’s not the first time something like this has happened.
Twelve rounds of painkillers. No spleen. The fatty ridge of scars where flesh that hadn’t quite fixed were cut open again.
So it probably isn’t.
“It’s okay, son.” The butler says. “Master Tim was overdue for a hospitalization anyways. He’s very accident prone.”
“This wasn’t an accident.” Danny says. Accident is a car crash, falling down a flight of stairs. Accident is not getting tied up in a pocket dimension in the middle of nowhere, sliced open and stabbed. Accidents happen to everyone. What happened to Tim isn’t something that happens to everyone.
Bruce is looking at the clipboard at the foot of Tim’s bed, hand tucked into a pocket. “You got him here.” he says. “Alive. That’s the most I could hope to ask of you.”
Danny’s hugging his elbows close as Bruce brushes hair away from the face that Danny had tried his best to clean, but he couldn’t get rid of the bruises, the swollen lip, the two black stitches where he’d bitten through his own lip. To keep from screaming, Danny guesses.
“I’ll um- now that you’re here, I guess I’ll-”
“Alfred.”
“Sir.” Danny moves to follow him, assuming that the butler will be driving him home, but he opens the door to the hallway, where there are the other Wayne wards. “Stephanie, take Damian and get Danny some clothes, please, and shoes.” Steph catches the keys that are tossed at her.
“Come on, brat.” She says amicably, putting her arm around the kid from Boston.
“I-”
“We tried calling your parents.” Bruce says. “Three times. Your sister picked up, but she’s all the way in California. You just went through a major traumatic event, you’re refusing treatment-”
“I’m fine.”
“We’re not going to just kick you to the curb.” Bruce finishes. “You’re part of this.”
“I’m not...” Danny’s standing, awkwardly, in the middle space between the bed, the chairs, and the door. “We’ve only been dating a few months.”
Dick takes the door- left open after Alfred gave Steph the keys- as an invitation, looking at Tim’s sleeping form with a click of his tongue, then wrapping Danny up in a hug. He’s an inch or two shorter than Danny, but something about the steady way he grips his arms makes him feel like a little kid.
“Christ, Danny, you’re freezing. Here, come on,” He takes off his coat, a thick, expensive feeling thing, and wraps it around him. “Hol-lee sh*t.”
“Oof.” Duke says, assessing the damage. “Damn.” Dick still has arms around him, and Danny realizes it’s because he’s still gripping the back of the man’s shirt, like a little kid, and it’s probably something like Disneyland’s stupid hug rule.
He steps back. “Uh, I really can- if you guys want privacy-”
“Dude.” Duke says. “Chill out, take a seat. Get some sleep. It’s like midnight.”
“I’m fine.” Danny says.
“That’s like the fourth time you’ve said that just since you called me. For the record, you’re not very believable.”
How does Danny explain that the reason Tim spent so long getting sliced to ribbons was that he was taking a nap, so no, he doesn’t need to go to sleep now.
Dick slumps into the corner of the little couch, looking at his phone. “Uh, do we want McDonalds or Taco Bell? Wait, nevermind, this Chinese place is open till two! Thank you, mob fronts, you never fail to deliver.”
“Danny. Sit. And call your sister back. She’s worried.” Bruce says. He has the even tone of a man who’s used to being obeyed, and Danny doesn’t have the wherewithal to push back against it. He does as he asks, not even reading through Jazz’s frantic texts.
“What. The. Actual. Hell?” Jazz says, slowly.
“I’m fine.” Danny says.
“What about Tim?”
“Stable. Did Sam fill you in?” Someone should probably check on Sam- she’d been the one greeted, apropos of nothing, by Tim gushing blood all over her parlor, and she’d had to deal with it on her own. Danny makes a mental note to call her after he’s done with Jazz.
“Somewhat. Elle called too.”
“sh*t.” Danny says, then sees that Duke’s staring, so he makes a gesture like: it’s all good. “For real?”
“Yeah. You weren’t answering your phone, evidently.”
“I’ll put the ringer on.”
“And you’re good? Why are they saying you’re not accepting treatment? What-”
“I just didn’t want to let them take my vitals. I have all my limbs, all my organs, no serious tissue damage. I’m fine.”
“Oh, the- right.” Jazz says. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Jazz makes a contemplative noise, and Danny knows she’s considering dropping everything to make sure he’s alright, so he follows it up with: “I know. I’ll have Sam check me out when I’m back home. And FB.”
“You’re still at the hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I just- You didn’t get into it, did you?”
Danny glances around at the Wayne family. Bruce is speaking quietly with Alfred, pointing to notes on Tim’s chart. Duke and Dick are discussing the merits of different dishes to order from the Chinese place of Dick’s phone, and Cass is looking at him with cold, analytical eyes. “Kinda. I wore the ring.”
“Danny,” Jazz says, being the biggest advocate for him locking the ring, the crown, and thus the throne, in a box, and throwing it into a pit, and never looking for it again.
“I know.”
The line is silent for a second- not really silent, Danny has all of Tim’s monitors beeping on his side, and one of Jazz’s roommates is making dinner, one might be watching TV.
“I love you.” she settles on.
“Love you less.” He replies.
“Don’t forget to eat. And get some sleep. Good night.”
“G’night.”
None of the Waynes ask him anything, so he calls Sam.
“Is he okay?”
“Yes.”
There’s the distinct thump of her falling back onto her bed. “Thank the Ancients.”
“You good? I- it took me a while to stop shaking, even after they told me he was gonna make it through.”
“Sure. I mean, the blood is f*cking terrifying, and like, the thought that he might not make it, but I’ve seen you with half your gut blown off, Danny. I have seen your actual, literal brain. At the end of the day, a big cut is something I can deal with. Although my parents did get pissed, that was an eighteen hundred dollar rug.”
“I’ll come by and help you clean up later.”
“I’m sure they’d rather just hire someone. Your loverboy okay, though?”
Danny rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Stable. Woke up for a second to tell them they didn’t have him on near enough painkillers, and once they upped his dose, he passed out again.”
“Tim pretty much only sleeps when sedated,” Duke inserts from the settee. “I think this is the longest I’ve ever seen him with his eyes closed.”
“He- I mean... you saw, right?”
“Yeah.” Danny says.
“Okay. What- I mean, you know what Wes said.”
“Yeah, no, I’m not entertaining that.” Danny says. “Look, you’re gonna have to send Jazz confirmation that I’m all in one piece once I get back into town. You know she doesn’t believe me.”
“With good reason.”
“Yeah, whatever. You alright, though?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go to bed now, actually, now that I know he’s okay. You’re still in Galesburg?”
“Yeah. I don’t know, I think I’m gonna stay the night. The Waynes look like they wanna keep an eye on me, and I’d like to be here when Tim wakes up.”
“I’ll tell the school you had a family emergency.”
“You’re incredible.”
“I know. You never deserved me. Have fun with the uber rich!”
***
Tim doesn’t have an eidetic memory.
He’s perceptive. He’s been through enough trauma, the long term hyper-vigilant kind that left him noticing little details that no one else did, filing them away so that he could pick them out later. But it’s not the photographic kind of memory. It’s words, it’s inferences. He remembers his conclusions more than what led to them, because that’s what really matters.
He wakes up but doesn’t open his eyes, greeted by the familiar sensation of an IV in his arm- oh, both arms. One in each AC and one brachial. The blood pressure cuff was what actually got him from being half-awake all the way, squeezing his arm for a check.
Kidnapped. Tortured. Rescued. His brain provides.
Phantom, the ghost king, touching his face with soft hands and a wealth of deadly anger behind his eyes. Collapsing in front of a townhouse.
Danny Fenton, shirt on backwards, talking derisively about the hero who saved him.
What had he said, exactly? He was mad that Phantom had sent him to the house, instead of a hospital. That he was the reason the crown was- was something.
Great. Got him to a hospital, though, obviously. There’s the pull of stitches on his arm, the numb swell of his lip, the beeping of machines and the smell of antiseptic. There’s all the sensation, but none of the pain, the way it goes with high-quality painkillers.
He had been in pain, he remembers that, now. Gritting through his teeth that he needed way more morphine than they were giving him.
He blinks his eyes open, wanting to rub his eyes clear of crusties, then thinking that really none of his arms are good to move right now.
The room is blue in the early morning light- it’s just before dawn. Bruce’s silhouette is ducked in the doorway, cut against the yellow of the hall, talking low on a phone. Dick, Duke, Cass and Steph are somehow all piled on the settee which was made for two people maximum, Damian curled into a little ball on a chair in the far corner.
And Danny’s still here. He’s in the other chair, cheek in one hand, staring at his phone screen. Someone got him new clothes, but he hasn’t had a shower yet, there’s still some rusty residue in the white streak hanging over his forehead. On the little coffee table, half a chinese buffet has been picked across.
Danny glances up and meets his eyes. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hey,” He says, although it’s barely a breath. “What time is it?”
“Six. Ish. Three til, actually.”
Bruce turns at the sound of their voices and nods in acknowledgement. To anyone else it might seem like he’s ambivalent, but Tim knows better. He’s here. They’re all here, they all dropped everything for a standard stab and grab.
“C’mere.” Tim says, so Danny stands up and stows his phone, rolling the little chair over to the shoulder of his bed, so he can be at eye-level with Tim. He reaches up with the arm- there’s gauze on that, and two IVs, but that’s fine- the arm without the blood pressure cuff to pull Danny down by the neck. “Look, I appreciate the commitment to the boyfriend act, but this isn’t a big deal. You didn’t have to stay.”
“They wanted to keep an eye on me.” Danny said. “Shock, you know.”
“Right.” Tim relaxes his grip, his fingers still a little numb.
“Did they say anything to you? Nightbane, and the prisoner? About why they took you.”
“Shoved a video camera in my face. Then there was a ton of definitely sexually charged torture. Like, if Phantom hadn’t shown up, I’m certain he’d’ve tried to f*ck my stab wound.”
Danny scowls, and the railing of the bed creaks between his fingers, then cracks. The plastic’s broken. They both stare at it for a second- Bruce too, from the doorway, before Danny tucks his hand away.
“I’m sorry. You never should’ve been a part of this.”
“Part of what?”
“The sh*t that goes down in Amity Park.”
“I’ve lived in Gotham for seventeen years. This isn’t a big deal.”
“But it is.”
Tim shifts his hand so that he’s cupping Danny’s cheek, under the barest pretense that Bruce is half watching from the doorway, and Danny doesn’t know that he knows. Mostly because his hand is right there. “Stop.”
He inclines his head into his palm, just a smidge. His face is cold, like he’s just been outside in the wind, but his nose and cheeks aren’t pink at all. “It won’t happen again.”
“Stop.” Tim says again. “And this wasn’t Phantom’s fault, either. He saved me.” Tim doesn’t like the way the words taste in his mouth, although they’re true. “Don’t cause problems for him on my account.”
“Who says I could?”
“Your last name is Fenton.”
Danny’s eyebrows lift, slightly. “Right.” Then he straightens, and Tim lets his hand fall back onto the bed. “Excuse me.” The wheels of the chair make a soft, plasticky rattle as he pushes himself to standing, rushing out past Bruce and dropping the shattered plastic pieces of the bed handle in the trashcan on his way.
“That was something,” Bruce says, stowing his phone.
“Don’t start,” Tim says, letting his head rest back and his eyes close.
“How do you feel?”
“High.” He pauses to collect his thoughts, then says: “Why did you let him stay?”
“Because he’s still seventeen for another week, and his parents didn’t pick up when I called. His sister lives in California. Who was I supposed to hand him over to?”
Tim realizes he has no clue how far the ambulance took them from Amity Park, that Danny hadn’t let go of his hand till he got replaced by a team of doctors, so he must’ve ridden with him, and didn’t have access to a car.
“It kind of reminds me of you. Do you remember when you broke your wrist?”
Tim had been 13 and too confident for his own good, and Bruce had been sufficiently convinced of his competence, enough to pull a maneuver between buildings that Dick and Jason each wouldn’t’ve struggled with, but Tim didn’t have the body awareness for, yet.
“I was terrified to call your parents from the ER. And you kept telling me not to bother. I thought it was because you didn’t want them to find out- but I didn’t know how you could hide the cast.
“I had some lie, about you falling off your bike, and me finding you. But they never picked up.”
Tim remembers the hot pain, the way his fingers were puffy and stiff, and the fact that he was keeping himself from crying in front of Bruce by tangling his good hand into the ER blanket so tightly it was cutting off the circulation to some of his fingers.
“They didn’t notice the cast.” Tim says. “I didn’t even have to hide it.”
“I can get him a ride if you don’t want him here.”
“If you can find him. I think I scared him off.”
“Who were you talking about- who saved you?”
“Hm. Phantom.” Tim muses, then rambles through what he could remember of the incident, his encounter with the Ghost King a few months ago with Constantine.
“Hn.” Bruce comments, simply. “I think we’ll stay here for a while. Doctors say you’re not cleared to fly for another few days, and twelve hours on the road won’t feel good.”
“Who’s staying in the city?”
“I’ll send everyone else back. And Jason.”
“They’re f*cked. I’m not helping you pull sh*t together next week when he blows up... whatever it is he wants to blow up but can’t because you’re here.”
“It’ll be fine. I’m looking into this. And you’ll still be on bedrest in a week.”
“It’s my case.”
“I’m helping.” Bruce says, lowly, in the tone that tells Tim there isn’t any room for argument.
“Okay.” Tim says, on too many drugs to care.
Danny comes back an hour later, which Tim wouldn’t’ve put money on if you’d asked him, with one of those big boxes of Einstein bros bagels hooked in two fingers, and a precarious tower of coffee cups in the other. He opens his eyes a sliver at the sound of the styrofoam squeaking against itself, while Danny moves the food from last night to make room for breakfast.
There’s a cruel comment somewhere on his tongue about Danny being able to afford it, but he can’t word it. Instead, he grumbles while Danny opens a 16 oz can of something with a horrific caffeine content:
“Did you get me one?”
“No oral intake.” Danny says, not looking at him.
“Well, then can you get them to put some caffeine in my IV?”
“That’s a sh*tty idea.” He says, his voice a little raw, like the time away wasn’t enough to soothe his anger. “Even if you’re just joking.”
“He’s not,” Dick says, halfway awake, reaching out through the dog-pile of Tim’s siblings to grab a coffee. “You’re a miracle, Danny, how much do we owe you?”
Tim can hear the tension in the silence, even though his eyes have drifted back closed, before Danny says- “Uh, like, five each should cover it-”
“I’ll just venmo you fifty, does that work?”
“Uh, that’s-” Danny says, hesitantly. Dick reads him wrong and says:
“No, you’re right, I’ll send seventy-five.”
“Oh.”
There’s some grumbling at being woken, which is slightly offset by the smell of dark roast, and when Danny says he got hot chocolate for Damian, Tim thinks briefly that Danny will be joining him with a stab wound. Dick calms the brat down before it escalates. Someone turns on the light.
“Where’s B?” Steph asks, muffled by a bagel.
“Talking to the cops, and press.” Danny provides. “I passed them in the lobby.”
“Yeah, like we’re pressing charges against a Ghost.” Duke says.
“The litigation is complicated and the extradition is tedious,” Danny replies.
“Best just leave Phantom to deal with it.” Tim says, his words still slurring. It’s a jab at Danny, and he opens his eyes to see his reaction, but Steph and Dick block his line of sight to fuss over him, finally being awake.
“The thing should’ve finished the job.” Damian says.
“Damian!” Dick scolds.
“Don’t pretend like you weren’t worried.” Tim says. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Father made me.”
“B can’t make you do sh*t. You feel guilty because the only reason I was out of the manor was because I was dropping you off at school.”
Damian huffs.
“If-” Danny says, and pauses while people look at him. “If we’re all sure Tim’s gonna be okay, and that I’m not gonna have a mental breakdown, would one of you mind driving me back to Amity Park? Not Duke, no offense, but whether or not you’ve gotten your license since I last saw you, I don’t think going to Amity would be real comfortable for you.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Steph asks, grinning.
“No,” Danny and Tim reply, at the same time.
“I’ll take you,” Dick offers, giving Tim’s shoulder a squeeze. “Damian, come on.”
“But-”
“Nope. You’re coming.”
“Fine.” Damian spits.
“What’s the matter?” Stephanie asks, when the three of them have closed the door behind them.
“Nothing.” Tim says.
“Never have I pretended to understand the complex notions of your psyche,” she begins, although Tim would wager that she’s the only one who would ever come close. “But by God, what have you done to that poor boy?”
“Who’s to say I was the one to do anything?” Tim asks.
“Because it’s always you, Tim.” She says, exasperated. “He’s a perfectly decent guy, who you’re taking total advantage of, and he doesn’t deserve you poking at his wounds, the way you have a tendency to do.”
“I do not-” Tim protests immediately.
“You sort of do.” Duke says. “You’re like a caged animal, emotionally.”
“f*ck off.”
“Point,” Duke says, easily.
“He didn’t do anything wrong. He saved your life.”
Tim thinks that there are people who’ve saved his life who he wouldn’t trust with it, and Danny was one of those people, bed sharing and drunken secrets aside.
He lets his head fall back on the plasticky pillow to meet Cass’s gaze, to vy for support, or to entice her to get them off of them, but she just shrugs, her arms crossed.
“I want to go back to sleep.” He says, and because of all the sedatives, doing it’s just as easy as saying it.
***
“Sorry,” Dick says, for the fifth time on Tim’s behalf. They’re ten minutes on their way from Galesburg to Amity Park, out of the half hour long journey. It had gone by much faster in the ambulance, probably due to the lights and the sirens and the everyone moving out of the way, as well as the shock. Now, obeying the speed limit and the odd clusters of morning traffic, Danny realizes how far they’d had to go to save Tim’s life, and it doesn’t settle well in his gut. “He’s just a bitch when he’s stressed. And he’s always stressed, so he’s always somewhat of a bitch, but regular Tim stressed and getting stabbed stress are like, two totally different orders of magnitude.”
“It’s fine.” Danny says, again, like he has every time Dick’s gone through this tangent. “I knew what I was signing up for.”
“You knew when you agreed to date him that he might get stabbed?” Damian asks, from the backseat. “Tt. What has Drake told you?”
Danny’s eyes slide across the boy’s face in the rearview mirror. He has an odd accent, which is closer to British than it is American, but with an odd sort of musicality that Danny doesn’t associate with English speakers at all. The boy glares right back, eyes sharp and unabashed beneath thick lashes.
“I knew he could be a bit of an asshole,” Danny replies. “Does he get stabbed regularly?” He thinks he must.
Damian co*cks one eyebrow, and his intense gaze flicks to Dick, who’s watching the interaction and the road in quick turns.
“He’s been kidnapped before.” The man says carefully, tapping his phone mounted in the rental car’s vent to check the exit. “Once or twice.”
“Ah.” Danny says. “Figure I would hear about that, wouldn’t I? Teenage CEO kidnapped, or Wayne Enterprises Posts bail, or whatever?”
“You wouldn’t.” Damian says. “Drake doesn’t like people knowing about his weaknesses.”
Danny knows this. He’s not sure how being kidnapped translates to a personal failing on Tim’s part, but he’s sure that’s how the other boy perceives it.
“B usually deals with it before the Cops or Press figure out about it.” Dick says. “We deal with it in family.”
“They know about this, though,” He says, thinking about Bruce, wearing the same collared shirt he’d arrived and slept in, declining calls and waving Channel 7 cameras out of his face.
“Because you called an ambulance,” Dick says. “Not that- not that you did anything wrong, Danny, swear to god, thank you so much, but that does go and make it a matter of public record.”
“Isn’t there HIPAA or whatever? That should- I mean, that means something, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Dick says slowly. “But that could make it worse. People know he’s in a hospital in Illinois, and that he got rushed there from yours, but not that he, you know, got stabbed. They can and will draw whatever conclusions they want. Have you had media training?”
“For what?” Danny asks, folding his arms, and wanting to sink into the dark leather seats.
“Talking to, you know, cameras and stuff about stuff? People might be hounding you. Actually, that’s probably a good portion if the reason B insisted you stay. We didn’t ask him if you could leave. Hmm.”
“I’m not stupid. I’m not gonna talk to cameras about Tim.”
“Isn’t that all your relationship is for, anyways?” Damian asks, and Danny freezes, catching his gaze again.
“What gives you that impression?” He asks, at the same time Dick says: “Damian,” very pointedly. He rolls his eyes and perches his chin on his hand, looking out the window.
“I’m not telling them that he got stabbed. Or kidnapped. Or anything. In fact, I will just be glaring at them until they go away, because it’s not their business, and there’s a reason we have medical privacy laws.”
A muscle in Dick’s jaw twitches. “If you’re too defensive, they’ll stick on it. If you’re too angry, they’ll wheedle at you until you get so angry ,you say something you didn’t mean to. And, if you say that sh*t about medical privacy, they’ll quote you.”
“So say no comment?” Danny asks.
“And say it politely, as close as you can get to a monotone, and refrain from flipping them off.”
Danny breathes out, and says: “No comment.”
“Good.”
“Is this media training?”
“It’s a crash course.” Dick says. “It’ll be pretty useless if you ever have to do an actual presser, but I doubt Tim will put you through that.”
Tim looked him in the eyes and reminded him his last name was Fenton, so Danny thinks that his concern for what he may or may not like is close to nil.
“Wouldn’t he?” Damian asks. “Drake is fairly mercantile about people when he has an end goal.”
“You’re one to talk,” Dick replies, but it sounds fond. “Anyways, Danny, you did nothing wrong, we’re on your side, as you’re on Tim’s side and we really, really do appreciate it.”
“Thanks.” He says, and yawns. Wes and Val are both blowing up his phone with texts, because they both got Sam’s bullsh*t family emergency crap. She must’ve told Tuck, because he’s staying out of it. He grimaces, reading through what emergency could happen to his immediate relatives that would justify him skipping school, then texts: *boyfriend emergency and mutes the ghoulie gang chat.
“You’re really fine?” Dick asks, the rental car idling in front of his family’s house. His eyes keep darting up to the command center, because of course they do, but he seems determined to keep from commenting on it.
“If I wasn’t, don’t you think it would’ve been apparent in the twelve hours I just spent at a hospital?”
“No, because you wouldn’t let them check you out.”
Danny waves this away. Inconsequential. “I am fine. Thanks for the ride.”
“It’s nothing. Danny?”
“Hm?”
“Thank you for keeping my little brother alive.”
Danny considers saying: ‘It’s nothing,’ But he doesn’t think that would go over well. So he just shrugs. “Of course.”
“And do you need me to explain to your parents about what went down? I mean, I know I’m not Bruce, and he did leave them several messages, but you know, I am an adult, so.”
“No, just go back.” Danny insists. “I doubt they even noticed.”
“Oh, they’re just perf-” Damian is saying, when Danny shuts the passenger door, fist twisting in the white plastic of the patient belongings bag that Steph gave him, along with the new clothes. He has no clue where she found a place to buy clothes open at midnight on a Tuesday, but they’re nice. They actually fit him.
He should probably run a load of laundry, before the blood sets, although it might’ve already. He might just chuck them. For the time being, he just keeps them in the bag, reaching down to look at the pile of mail on their welcome mat. About twenty bills, two things from the IRS, and some junk mail from debt relief programs. He adds them to the dining room table, which looks much more like a graveyard of adult bullsh*t that Jazz can’t deal with, and that his parents won’t, and that he refuses to. It hasn’t been used to hold a meal in a very long time.
He’s not hungry, though. Probably he should’ve brought back one of the takeaway containers- he could probably stretch that another day or two if he needed- but he doesn’t know how he could’ve asked without the Waynes figuring out that he needs it.
Oh, and he’s got an extra forty some-odd dollars in his venmo because of Dick.
He’s too lazy to do the laundry, just ties the plastic bag and chucks it near the washer, kicking the slides that Steph bought after them, and floating up to his room.
Wes and Val are arguing what constitutes a missing school kind of emergency from a relationship that’s only been around for two months. Jazz is ‘just checking in’. Danny sends her a thumbs up. Tim texts him that he’s sorry.
Who’s ragging on you to make you apologize?
What, I can’t say sorry of my own volition?
..
well
f*ck you.
It was Dick.
Right. I figured.
Anyways I’m sorry I got all huffy. You’re the one who got stabbed.
How’re you feeling, by the way? Considering all the stabby-ness?
Bad
Right.
Right.
I’m sleeping as much as possible to try and clip through recovery.
That’s a way to think about it.
It’s the correct way to think about it.
This has been Tim’s five minutes of consciousness, thank you for coming, sorry I was a dick.
Danny grins, a little in spite of himself.
