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Danny shifted from one foot to the other nervously as he stood in front of the gates of Wayne Manor. He still wasn’t entirely sure if this was a good idea or not but he needed to try. He deserved to at the very least try to have a chance at happiness. Especially after everything that had happened with the Fentons had gone down.
He knew that telling Jack and Maddie about him being a halfa was going to be tricky. Knew that they would either pin him down and try to vivisect him, he had hoped that they would lay down their weapons and accept him. Both of those situations were the ones that he had been expecting the most. And somehow neither of those had happened. Instead they had looked at him so broken, so disappointed, and turned him away. Had told him to pack a bag and leave. Jazz had said that it was better than them trying to vivisect Danny and experiment on him.
But he wasn’t so sure about it. In Danny’s head, he had always imagined that they would resort to vivisection because they were convinced that he was broken and needed fixing. Throwing him away felt like they just didn’t want him, didn’t want to even try to fix him.
It made sense, sure. Especially since he was the extra kid, the kid that they had only even adopted in the first place to keep Jazz happy. It made sense that they would throw him away when they realized he was broken, and not good enough to fit in their family.
But it was okay. Really, it was. Danny was eighteen now anyway, he was old enough to live on his own. Besides, he had a little brother somewhere out in the world and he could maybe see if he would want to be family.
Danny had known from the time he was very small that he had been adopted. It had been rather obvious when looking at him and then looking at his family. He didn’t have any features that came from Jack or Maddie. Sure, he had the black hair and blue eyes but that was where the similarities stopped. He was short and lithe, not nearly as smart as either of his parents or sister, the black sheep of the family. The adoption had been closed but that didn’t matter when your best friend was a talented hacker who had an agreement with a ghost who had a tendency to haunt technology.
It had been laughably easy for him to find out that his biological parents were none other than Jack and Janet Drake, the famous archeologist billionaires from Gotham City, New Jersey. A little more searching had found that Janette had died just a few years before and that Jack had just been murdered by Captain Boomerang not too long ago.
But they had left behind a son. Timothy Jackson Drake. Sixteen years old and recently emancipated. And maybe Tim was wanting a family just as badly as Danny did. So off to Gotham he went to hunt his baby brother down. He didn’t have much, not in the human world, at least. But he could at the very least offer Tim a family, support, something.
From there he had done more research. He had gone deep into the Archives in the Infinite Realms, the collectors had been more than happy to let Danny into their library to look into the Drakes. He had learned that both of his biological parents had moved on to Elsewhereness upon their deaths. Which Danny was a little sad about, he would have loved for them to be ghosts so that he could get just a few answers, and learn more about himself. But he was also happy that they had gotten the chance to move on.
It was his baby brother’s file that was the most interesting, though. He had learned that his little brother was a hero, the vigilante Robin and more recently Red Robin. He had also learned that while he was emancipated, he had been taken in by Bruce Wayne and his family.
From there he had easily connected the dots that Bruce was Batman and from there learned that Bruce Wayne was currently lost in time and no one seemed to believe Tim about it. And that just wouldn’t do. He couldn’t allow his brother to search in vain. Not when a certain ghost in time owed Danny a favor! He would just have to grab Tim and go talk to Clockwork about Bruce and see what they could do about pulling him back in.
His searching had led him first to Wayne Manor. He reminded himself of the most important bits about his own little family he had never known. His little brother had been fostered by the Waynes after Janet’s death while Jack had been in a coma. The Drake Manor had already been bought out by someone else and this was the only other known address for Tim, it seemed.
He carefully pressed the doorbell, his heart racing in his chest faster than ever before. He just had to hope that this would go well, he didn’t know what he would do if it didn’t. The gates creaked open and Danny swung his leg over his motorcycle once more and sped up the driveway before parking in front of the manor.
On heavy, stiff legs he made his way up to the door and knocked once before the door swung open to show an older man in a nicely pressed suit.
“Wayne Manor, how may I help you?” The older man asked politely.
“Hi, uh, I’m looking for Timothy Drake,” he said hesitantly, staring up at the man feeling so utterly small.
“And what might be your business with the young master?” The man asked curiously, his head tilted to the side.
Danny winced. “I’m his brother,” he said softly. “I know it sounds crazy, I have all of the paperwork. The adoption records, all of that. And I-I’m more than willing to do a blood test to prove it if I need to. I just wanted to meet him,” he said quickly, his heart racing like a jackrabbit in his chest.
The man gave him a surprised look, his eyebrows raised high before he stepped back and allowed Danny to make his way into the manor.
“Take a seat in here, Mister–”
“Uh just Danny is fine,” he said nervously. Did he call himself a Fenton still? His parents had disowned him. But Drake didn’t feel right either, he didn’t exactly feel like he had a claim to that name, not when he had never even known his biological parents.
“Mister Danny, then. I will see if I can get in contact with Master Timothy, he ah, he no longer resides at Wayne Manor, you see. But I should be able to contact him for you,” the man said and that’s when Danny was finally able to get over his own anxiety to take in the man.
One of Danny’s fun and nifty powers was empathy and once he was able to shove down his own feelings he could feel the emotions that were pouring from the old man. The grief that seemed to drip from the older man was overwhelming. It was like grief for a life lost mixed with the grief of someone who had a broken family. It was a familiar feeling. The files had said that the rest of the Wayne family thought that Bruce was dead, he understood why they would be grieving the man. It was a shame that they didn’t believe Timothy, though. It seemed that his little brother was a bit of a genius.
“Thank you ah–,” Danny trailed off as he realized he had never gotten a name, his smile tight as he looked up at the man.
“Alfred Pennyworth,” he said with a dip of his head and a polite smile for Danny. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance young sir.”
With that, Alfred left the room quickly and left Danny alone in the sitting room with nothing but his thoughts. He looked around the sitting room for a moment, taking in the fact that nothing seemed to have been touched in quite some time. There was no dust to be seen but the room didn’t exactly seem to be lived in either. It was sad. The entire manor seemed to be grieving, it was stifling if Danny was being honest with himself.
Danny just tapped his foot as he waited for Alfred to return to let him know if his brother was coming or not. He had no idea what he was going to do if Timothy didn’t want to meet him. Hadn’t even let himself think about it. But now the dread was growing in his gut and the worry was prickling at the back of his neck.
“Timmy?” A voice asked behind him, confusion laced its tone. “Oh thank god! I’ve been wanting to talk to you about what happened and–”
The words died on the man’s lips as Danny turned to give him a confused look. “I’m sorry, I’m not Timothy,” he said awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m actually here waiting for him.”
“Oh,” the man said, his shoulders deflating slightly. “Sorry, you just, you look just like him.”
Danny couldn’t help but smile at that. Good to know at least he and his baby brother looked alike. He had seen pictures, of course, had stalked Tim’s socials for hours trying to figure out what kind of kid his brother was. But hearing someone else say it, it had him feeling rather giddy.
“Well, I would hope we look alike. We have the same biological parents after all,” he said, the smile still stuck on his face.
“Oh! Oh, I uh, I didn’t realize Jack and Janet had another kid,” he said, giving Danny a distrustful look.
Danny simply shrugged his shoulders. “As far as I can understand, Janet got pregnant with me right after they got married and they weren’t ready for a kid yet so they put me up for adoption. Very hush-hush affair from what I’m gathering,” he said lazily. “I’m Danny.”
“Danny,” he said slowly. “I’m Dick, Tim’s older brother.”
Waves of distrust seemed to come from the man, hitting Danny rather violently. He simply ignored it and just gave the man a pleasant smile. He couldn’t fault the guy for being distrustful. Danny had just shown up at his house and said he was Timothy’s older brother. Not only that but there was very obviously something going on with this family and it was more than just their nightlife. The bats were well known for their distrust. And his baby brother had once even been Robin before recently moving up to the status of Red Robin. Danny was honestly more than just a little excited about getting to share hero stories with his baby brother. Maybe even compare rogues!
“It’s nice to meet you,” Danny finally told the older man as he sat once more to wait for his brother to arrive. He felt eyes burning into the back of his neck and simply allowed them. If Dick wanted to grill him, he could. But Danny wasn’t going to awkwardly stare at the man in some weird intimidation of wills.
Soon footsteps echoed through the halls of the manor and Danny grinned as he turned around to find Timothy Drake standing in the doorway.
“Wow, it really is like looking in a mirror,” Danny mused out loud as he stared at the teenager, a wide smile on his face.
Timothy gave him a suspicious look. “Alf, Dick, can you give us a few minutes alone?” He asked quietly. The two older men nodded and quickly left the room, leaving them alone.
“Okay, so I heard that you’re insanely paranoid from some pretty good sources so I decided it would be better to make sure I gave you all the facts and proof first,” Danny said with a small smile. “I’m Danny, Danny Fenton. Jack and Janet Drake gave me up for adoption eighteen years ago to a family in Illinois. I’ve got the adoptions records here, took a bit of hacking to find them– it was a very closed adoption. I’ve got my birth records, uh, and I don’t mind doing some bloodwork to prove it too. But i just learned about who you are recently and who I am to you and I thought you know, maybe you’d want a brother just as badly as I did. But I see you already have a few and–”
A small oof slipped out of Danny’s mouth as a body collided with his and hugged him tighter than anyone had ever hugged him.
“Oh,” he said softly and looked down at the small teenager.
“I knew about you,” a little voice said, words slightly muffled by Danny’s t-shirt. “I learned about you a few years ago when I was looking into our parents' stuff and found the records. But I didn’t want to bother you in case you didn’t know you were adopted or you were happy or–”
“Hey it’s okay,” Danny said softly, brushing his fingers through Tim’s hair. “I’m here, and I’d love to get to know you. I also may have a message for you too,” he said softly.
That finally had Timothy’s head pulling back to give Danny a curious look, his brows furrowed in the exact same way that Danny’s did, his lips did that thing where they quirked up a bit when he was thinking really hard.
“What is it?” he asked, his eyes now narrowed into slits suspiciously.
Danny pursed his lips. “I know this sounds crazy, but I also figured out that the Waynes are the bats so you know anything’s possible–”
“How!?” Tim exclaimed and Danny let out a snort before bright rings surrounded his body for a moment and he was left standing in his ghost form.
“Heroes can recognize other heroes a mile away. But also ghosts are the biggest gossips,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “The name’s–”
“Phantom, yeah I heard about you when I was stalking you. I can’t believe no one ever realized you were the ghost hero,” Timothy said with a laugh. “It’s so obvious, you never wore a mask and you look identical.”
“You were stalking me?” Danny asked, his eyebrows up to his hairline in surprise. Timothy had the decency to look a little embarrassed at it, his cheeks turning a dark red.
“When I found out that you were out there I wanted to learn everything about you. So I looked into the records, found your new name and school records and then I found all the news articles from Amity Park and how you there was a ghost vigilante and wow you sucked at the beginning,” he said with a laugh before he slapped a hand over his mouth.
Danny just let out a loud laugh and shook his head. “No, I definitely sucked at the beginning. But I’ve gotten a bit better,” he said before he sat down on a couch and tugged Tim with him. “But what I was saying was that you’re right, Tim,” he said softly.
Tim looked up at him with big, trusting eyes. “About what?” He asked carefully.
“About Bruce, he’s lost in time,” Danny said simply, a small smile on his face. “I uh, I have some access to records that the living don’t. I came because I want to get to know my little brother but also, when I was learning about you I found the information on Bruce and I know when and where he is. So, if you want to, baby brother, we can go on an adventure together.”
“You believe me,” Tim said horsley. “You-you know where Bruce is? And you’ll take me to save him?”
Danny nodded his head once. “If you trust me, I’ll take you to the Ghost Zone now and show you what I’ve found. And a ghost of time owes me a favor and I’m more than happy to cash it in for you. On one stipulation.”
“A stipulation?” Tim asked, face growing just a little angry but Danny simply grinned at him.
“After we save your mentor, you’ll let me take you out to do actual brother things. Like, I dunno, go to a baseball game or hack into the Pentagon or something. My hacking isn’t as good as yours, but I’m at least a little proficient in it.”
Tim’s face smoothed out at that and he gave Danny a small smile. “I’d like that,” he whispered, his eyes shining. “When do we want to go?”
Danny shrugged his shoulders. “Now is fine. Do you want to tell Alfred or Dick first?”
The younger boy shook his head, a mischievous smile on his face. “Let’s freak them out a little bit,” he said with an evil chuckle and Danny threw his head back and laughed loudly before a portal opened up in front of them. “Then let’s get out of here, Red.”
Tim took his big brother’s hand and let out a breath before he followed Danny through the portal. And just that small piece of trust was enough for Danny to decide he would do whatever Tim wanted, he would destroy the world itself if Tim Drake asked him to.
But for now, they were just going to go into the ghost zone. He was going to show Tim the archives, let him get the proof he needed to know that Danny wasn’t pulling his chain. They were going to go to Clockwork and ask for help to pull him back to his time. And maybe then he would get to meet the Wayne Family, maybe they would bring him into their folds. Danny didn’t mind either way. What he did want, more than anything, was to get to know his little brother better. And as soon as they were done with this mission, he was going to do exactly that.