Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Breathe.

Danny had been told to breathe.

Do it in pieces, they said. Inhale. Then exhale. Keep going. Don’t stop.

Breathe in.

His eyes flickered open, but sight didn’t come immediately. Everything was still dark. Not because the world was dark, but because he simply hadn’t fully come online yet. He blinked a few times, trying to force the world to make sense again.

There was a feeling under him—vinyl, maybe. Slightly sticky. A seat.

No, not just a seat.

A bus seat.

He could hear it now. Breathing—slow, steady, human. The low hum of a vehicle in motion. A woman murmuring something soft to her child. A phone vibrating against denim.

Right.

He was running.

The image of his parents—no, the people who’d been raising him for the past 6 years—flashed like a warning light in his brain. They’d found out. Too much, too fast. No more pretending. No more space.

Breathe out.

 His hand moved on its own, instinctively reaching for his phone. The plastic of his case felt familiar in his fingers, cold and flat. He pulled it out, and the screen burned his retinas like a spotlight in a nightmare.

Too bright.

He dimmed it, blinking away the blur.

3:48 a.m.

The bus would arrive at 4:14 a.m.

Only a small half an hour left.

He glanced down to check on his bag. Still in the same spot, nestled between his feet like a loyal pet.

Breathe in.

He unzipped it carefully.

One shirt, two. Jeans. Toothbrush. The lipstick blaster—fully charged. A basic med kit which met his specific medical needs. Thermos. Crumpled adoption papers. The birth certificate with its half-faded edges.

Still there.

All still there.

Not that it mattered. Not really.

The bag only held the things he could replace.

The essentials, the irreplaceables—the parts of himself he couldn’t risk—were phased safely into his body.

Untouchable.

Hidden.

Breathe out.

He slipped the phone back into the hollow of his thigh, the cool touch of internal metal soothing against his skin.

Now fully awake, his senses sharpened. He blinked once, twice—his night vision flaring softly into place like a camera lens adjusting.

The bus wasn’t full. It wouldn’t be at this hour.

He took a slow sweep of the space around him.

Near the front, a man with a beautiful full brown mustache but a gleaming bald scalp was hunched over his phone. His thumb pressed something, and a loading bar flashed across the screen before Danny recognised the screen on the phone. AO3.

Danny almost smiled. Fanfiction at 4 a.m. was a kind of religious devotion.

He wanted to know what the man was reading. He wanted to ask.

But the effort to engage felt too heavy. Too… human.

So he let the curiosity pass like a train on another track.

Breathe in.

A woman and a teenage boy sat a row ahead and to the right.

The boy was asleep, head on his mother’s shoulder.

She ran her fingers through his black hair with a motion so gentle it hurt.

Like she’d done it a thousand times.

Like she’d always be there to do it again.

Danny swallowed.

His throat caught on something he didn’t want to name.

He thought about his own—no.

Not his mother.

The woman who had signed the papers when he was nine.

The woman who let him live under her roof for the past six years.

The woman who had told him she’d love him no matter what.

The woman who had looked at him like he was an object to be hated.

Madeline Fenton.

Yes, there had been moments like that.

But they were more like... echoes.

Ghosts of what should’ve been normal.

Few, and far between.

Breathe out.

He turned his head again, slowly.

A woman sat a few rows behind him, wearing a scarf that almost glowed silver in the dim light.

He squinted, focused.

There—her breath hitched. Just slightly. A labor to it.

And a handprint.

Faint, but clear if you knew where to look.

No new passengers.

No one missing.

The bus hadn’t stopped.

He hadn’t been unconscious long enough for anything to change.

Breathe in.

He was still safe.

He repeated the words in his head, slower this time.

I am still safe.

But the truth didn’t settle.

It refused to stick.

Because even in the calm of a dark bus, surrounded by sleeping strangers and the warm hum of an engine, Danny felt it—this creeping, crawling thing in his chest.

Like something was watching from inside.

Not outside.

He’d know if someone was watching him from the outside because of his enhanced senses.

Inside.

Why didn’t he feel safe?

Why did his body still feel like a trap?

Why did his memory feel like a blade turned inward?

His eyes unfocused.

The present unraveled.

The images came.

Too fast.

Too loud.

Too real.

Breathe out.

He closed his eyes and was back on that cold table.

He saw her again.

The woman he’d called mom for the past five years.

Hovering over him.

Her face expressionless, clinical. Like she was doing a chore.

Like this wasn’t personal.

But it was.

There was something in her hand.

A scalpel.

Clean. Precise. Cold.

Just like her.

His brain begged him to close his eyes.

But they were already closed.

He wasn’t really seeing this.

Not now.

These were memories.

Just memories.

Just. Memories.

He tried telling himself she couldn’t hurt him anymore.

That she was far away.

That he was on a bus, in motion, free.

But the words didn’t stick.

They slid right off his brain like oil on metal.

Didn’t matter that she wasn’t here.

His body couldn’t tell the difference.

Breathe in.

His heart started speeding up.

Suddenly pounding like it remembered how it felt to be alive.

Almost a normal speed.

Almost human.

It made him nauseous.

His body didn’t know what to do with all that movement.

He hadn’t felt his heart beat that fast in a long time.

Just a bit over a year, to be precise.

It was wrong.

Loud.

Too loud.

He needed to calm down.

To slow down.

He knew how.

He always knew how.

It had been carved into him with fists and discipline and the kind of silence that rang louder than yelling from the moment he’d turned three years old until he turned nine.

So he started.

Hands first.

Fingers curling tight.

Then up his arms—

Brachioradialis, biceps, triceps.

One by one.

Like flipping switches.

Tight, then tighter.

Muscle by muscle.

Shoulders next.

Then his back.

Everything tensing in a sequence he’d trained himself to remember.

It was working.

But not as fast as he wanted.

He needed something else.

He tapped his thumb against his fingertips.

A quiet rhythm only he could hear.

Index. Middle. Ring. Pinky.

Back. Ring. Middle. Index.

Again.

Again.

And again.

He could feel it.

His pulse slowing.

Thirty beats per minute.

Home base.

Breathe out.

He didn’t even realize he’d been holding his breath.

It hissed out of him like steam from a cracked pipe.

It didn’t really matter.

Oxygen wasn’t as important anymore.

Not for something like him.

He grabbed his phone again, hand steady again.

The screen glowed dull in his palm.

4:03 a.m.

Eleven minutes left.

He put his phone back in his thigh before lifting his shirt so he could look in from the neckline.

The stitches stared back at him.

A clean Y, drawn in black thread and puckered skin.

It pulled when he moved.

The edges were starting to fuse with the fabric.

The shirt clung to him in wet patches, dried blood creating little crusted islands on the cloth.

He let it drop.

Didn’t bother peeling it off.

It’d just stick again anyway.

Breathe in.

He turned toward the window.

The world was rolling past in long blurs of black.

Lights.

Shadows.

Trees.

A sign crept into view.

Then surged forward.

Red letters.

Sharp. Angry.

‘Get out!’

Above it, another line—faded and crossed out violently with a thick, red slash of spray paint:

‘Welcome to Gotham.’

Danny had finally come to find him.

He’d find Damian.

Breathe out.

Chapter Text

Breathe in.

Danny watched the others file out first.

One by one, they gathered their things, stretched tired limbs, and stepped off the bus into the quiet weight of early morning.

He waited.

Let the shuffle of footsteps die down before he moved.

There was comfort in being last. In not being seen unless necessary.

In knowing no one was behind him.

He stood slowly. Muscles tight, joints stiff. His body argued with him at every shift.

As he descended the steps, his eyes scanned the people he’d shared the last few hours with.

The man with the immaculate mustache—by the side of the bus, tapping his phone quickly, eyes darting as he finished the last lines of whatever fic had kept him company in the dark.

Dedicated. Danny respected that.

The teen with the dark hair was leaning on his mother’s shoulder as they stood next to the bus as well. The woman gently smiled, her fingers brushing through the strands of his hair as she leaned down to whisper something. A mother’s voice, soft and sweet—like it didn’t know how to be sharp.

The woman with the scarf tugged it tighter around her neck, readjusting the fabric just so.

Hiding what didn’t want to be seen.

Covering what someone else had done.

He watched them all drift out into the dimly lit station, their backs receding, footsteps echoing.

Then—finally—he took his own steps forward.

Out of the bus station.

Out of his past six years of life.

Into whatever came next.

Breathe out.

The air outside was cooler than he expected. It wrapped around him, not harsh, but indifferent.

He looked up.

No clouds.

But also—no stars.

Danny felt his face pull into a subtle frown. A quiet pout.

A childish disappointment he didn’t quite know how to stop having.

Why would Damian ever choose to live in a place where the stars weren’t visible?

It felt... wrong.

Like someone had erased the sky.

He slung the backpack over his shoulder with a practiced motion, careful not to jostle too hard.

He felt the familiar ache flare in his chest anyway.

Fine. That was fine.

He reached into his thigh and pulled his phone out again.

Searched for the address.

Wayne Manor.

Of course it would have a name like that. Dramatic. Predictable.

Rich people.

He let the GPS load.

Let the little arrow judge him silently.

Realized he’d been walking in the wrong direction and pivoted, dragging his body back the way it came.

Breathe in.

He kept his eyes on the street.

Focused on the road in front of him, even though the pain in his chest pulsed with every step.

A reminder.

A warning.

He was not built for long walks right now.

At least he wasn’t running.

Running would split the stitches wide open.

And he really didn’t want to go through that again.

Normal painkillers didn’t work anymore.

His body laughed at Tylenol. Mocked Advil.

Even morphine had become more suggestion than solution.

Danny frowned, remembering.

They—him, Tucker, Jazz, Sam—had tested it.

Figured it out like scientists with something personal at stake.

He needed double the dose of the special kind. The kind made for metas with healing factors.

The kind that cost more than a decent apartment’s monthly rent for a single dose.

Sure, Sam had the money.

And sure, she offered—more than once.

But Danny couldn’t let her burn through thousands of dollars just to keep him from hurting.

Pain was cheaper.

Pain was familiar.

Pain was easy to carry.

Still, he hoped—really, really hoped—he hadn’t torn the stitches just by walking .

It would be embarrassing.

To show up after six years and immediately need help, even if that is exactly why he’s looking for his twin.

Six years.

That was how long it had been.

Half a childhood ago.

A lifetime.

He’d let Damian think he was dead.

Let everyone think it, actually.

Which... wasn’t exactly a lie.

He had died. In a way.

But not the kind that stuck.

His heart was still beating.

His lungs still worked.

He was still here.

Breathe in.

He kept moving.

Feet rolling over stones, one after the other, as if the rhythm could keep him sane.

The road changed under him—coarser stones giving way to something smoother, more polished.

He looked up.

Caught it.

Stars.

Not a lot. But some.

Enough.

Apparently he’d walked far enough away from the city for the sky to show its teeth again.

And Wayne Manor was even further.

That meant more stars.

Maybe.

If they let him stay.

If Damian let him stay.

If their father looked at him and didn’t immediately tell him to leave.

If not... he’d leave Gotham.

Try another city.

Preferably one where the sky bled stars.

His phone buzzed in his palm.

Time to turn.

He did.

Eyes still glued to the night sky.

Breathe out.

Eventually, the manor came into view.

It looked like a castle that had gotten bored of being elegant and decided to be intimidating instead.

Big.

Too big.

Danny stopped at the gates.

Checked the time.

4:56 a.m.

Too early.

Way, way too early.

He hesitated.

Could go get food.

But that meant walking more.

And he was pretty sure some of his stitches were already protesting.

Treating them now would be a bad idea.

Damian would kill him if Danny did field medicine on a public sidewalk.

So, no.

He’d wait.

Danny lowered himself down, slow and careful, and leaned against the cold iron gate.

His legs folded awkwardly beneath him.

Everything hurt. But in a manageable way.

He pulled up his phone and set an alarm for 6:30 a.m.

He wouldn’t wake them up at this hour.

Even if he wanted to.

He closed his eyes.

Not to sleep.

That wasn’t happening.

Just to rest them.

Just for a while.

Breathe in.

~

The buzzing in his thigh started low. A dull vibration, growing into awareness.

His alarm.

 Danny blinked his eyes open slowly, lashes heavy with grit. The sky was lighter now—gray creeping in where black had once stretched endlessly.

He pulled out his phone and shut of the alarm before phasing it back into his thigh.

Carefully, he pushed himself off the ground. A sharp breath caught in his throat when pain flared across his chest together with the feeling of his stitches tugging angrily.

He really hoped they were still intact.

He forced his legs to move, walking the few steps to the call box by the iron gate before pressing the button.

He could feel the cool metal under his trembling fingers.

He waited.

Each second felt longer than it should have.

Then—

The box crackled as a smooth, British voice filtered through the speaker.

"Yes?"

And just like that, Danny’s throat closed.

His breath caught.

It caught in his throat like a hook. He hadn’t prepared for this part. Not really.

He’d prepared for walking. For pain. For rejection.

But not this.

He cleared his throat. It came out dry, like he was trying to swallow a spoonful of cinnamon.

“…Hi. Uh.”

His voice wavered. He hated that.

“I’m looking for Damian. Damian Wayne?”

Silence.

Then—

“And may I ask your name, sir?”

Danny flinched.

It was stupid how much it hurt to say his own name.

Like digging up a grave with your bare hands and finding your own bones at the bottom.

He had to close his eyes. Had to force the breath from his lungs.

Breathe out.

“…Danyal,” he said finally. His real voice, this time. Lower. Quieter. The syllables sat heavy on his tongue.

Another pause.

He looked at the box of the intercom with quiet determination and let the words come quietly, carefully.

“Please tell him Phobos is here to see him.”

There was another silence. Not as long as the first. But it hit harder.

Danny waited.

He wasn’t sure if he was breathing anymore. Maybe he was, but it didn’t feel like it. His fingers curled into the metal of the gate, white-knuckled, gripping like it might ground him. It was only when the ache settled into his knuckles that he forced himself to release it.

Then the voice returned.

“One moment, Mister Danyal. Please remain by the gate.”

His shoulders sagged.

A breath escaped him, shaky and uneven.

He rested his back against the iron again, not trusting his legs to keep holding him up.

The voice hadn’t told him to leave.

That was something.

Breathe in.

Then—

He heard it.

He could hear rapid, hurried footstep behind the door of the manor.

Danny peeled himself away from the iron bars and squinted toward the huge house.

Two figures came out of the hurriedly opened doors.

One small. Fast. Familiar.

The other larger, trying and failing to keep up.

Then he heard it.

“Phobos?”

It was a whisper. Almost not audible. But Danny caught it with his enhanced hearing.

“Deimos,” Danny whispered back, low and hoarse. Damian wouldn’t hear it. But he had to say it anyway.

Damian was accelerating now. Faster and faster. Like seeing had confirmed what his heart refused to believe.

“Pennyworth, open the gates!” he called without looking back.

The iron slid open with mechanical groans.

Danny didn’t move.

He couldn’t.

Damian slowed when he saw him standing still. A scowl growing on his face. Suspicion growing along with it. The closer he came, the more his eyes narrowed.

“How do you know that name?” he snapped.

“I know it,” Danny said, “because we used to call each other that.”

Damian’s frown deepened. Arms crossed.

“Tt. If you were truly Phobos, you’d be running toward me as well.”

Danny almost smiled.

Almost.

It was such a Damian thing to say.

“That’s fair,” he admitted softly.

But he really couldn’t.

Breathe out.

Danny took a single step. Pain flared in his chest like fire licking up from the inside.

Damian’s hand lifted.

“Stop. Identify yourself. Code I-A-D-4-0-6-8-9-5-2-0-I-S-D-P.”

Danny looked him dead in the eye.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t hesitate.

“I-A-P-5-9-1-0-3-2-9-6-W-Y-G-C.”

He said it evenly.

A string of numbers and letters that meant everything.

Their code.

The one they had created together.

One they’d only spoken aloud once.

Never written down. Never stored. Never shared with anyone else.

The one thing that no one else could know.

The moment Damian heard it, his scowl faltered. His eyes widened just a fraction.

Suspicion melted.

He started running again.

“It’s really you.”

Danny barely had time to brace before Damian crashed into him—arms wrapping tight around him in something between a hug and a tackle.

Pain bloomed violently under Danny’s skin as he felt the unmistakable tear of his stitches unraveling.

Danny winced—sharp and audible.

Dammit.

He’d tried so hard to avoid this.

Damian pulled back instantly, hands gripping Danny’s shoulders. Eyes wide. Searching.

“What’s wrong, Phobos?”

Danny just stared at him. At the unusually teary eyes of his younger twin. He couldn’t find the words. He didn’t want to find the words. He didn’t want to explain how he’d been cut open like some kind of monster.

So instead, he grabbed the edge of his shirt and lifted, quickly pulling it free from the half-healed scabs with another hiss of pain, showing his brother, his Deimos, his stitches. The stitches which were still way too fresh. The stitches which had now popped by the movements he’d been making ever since his sister—since Jazz—had rescued him out of the Fentons’ lab.

Breathe in.

Damian’s face froze. “You’re bleeding.”

Danny raised an eyebrow. “I noticed.”

Damian's hand closed around his wrist, gentle but urgent. “These need to be renewed. Now.”

Danny pulled back just a bit. “My backpack.”

Damian glanced at it near the gate. “Tt, you don’t need it. We’ll get you new things.”

Danny shook his head. “You’ll need what’s inside if you want to stitch me back up.”

Damian stared at him, puzzled, but didn’t argue. He turned, marched to the gate, and picked up the bag himself.

As they started up the ridiculous driveway, Danny’s gaze drifted.

The larger figure from earlier was still lingering at the edge.

Black hair. Danny’s bright blue eyes.

Was that their father? Bruce?

But the look in the man’s eyes—confusion, disbelief—wasn’t the look of a man who’d known he had another son.

Damian didn’t even glance at the man, he simply kept pulling Danny towards the house.

A second man stood at the entrance—older, gray-haired, impeccable posture and a perfect suit. As the man spoke, Danny heard the same voice from the intercom. “Master Damian, I take it you know this young man?”

“Yes, Pennyworth. This is my twin brother, Danyal.”

There was a pause.

Then a deeper voice cut in behind them. “And why are you so certain?”

Danny turned to look at the direction the voice came from and saw Bruce stepping toward the two brothers.

“Because he called himself Phobos,” Damian replied coolly, “And he knew our code.”

Bruce’s expression faltered, but he didn’t argue.

Damian turned back. “Pennyworth, please prepare the med bay. My brother requires medical attention.”

Danny held out his backpack, eyes flicking apologetically toward the man. “There are instruments in here. They’re the only ones that work on me.”

The man gave a slight bow. “Very well.” Then he was gone, silent and composed.

Breathe out.

Damian looked back at him, frowning. “Why wouldn’t the standard tools work, Phobos?”

Danny smiled, sad and crooked. “Because a lot can happen in six years, Deimos. A lot.”

“Damian—” Bruce started, clearly wanting answers.

But Damian cut him off without even glancing his way. “We will converse about this later, Father.”

Then he turned back and led Danny through the door.

Into the manor.

Into whatever came next.

Chapter Text

Breathe in.

Danny was sitting in a cold white room. Too white.

The kind of whiteness that had surrounded him for so long before. The kind of whiteness that felt like it was trying to erase him.

And maybe that’s what was happening.

Because right now, his mind was slipping, sliding away from him.

He wasn’t even sure he was still visible to the human eye.

He could feel it: the edges of himself starting to blur, becoming less and less visible.

He thought—no, hoped—no one had noticed yet. He hoped no one would notice when he went invisible or intangible and showed he really wasn’t a ‘he’ anymore, but instead an ‘it’. Just like she’d told him.

Because that’s what he was.

Not a person.

Not human.

Just a monster .

Breathe out.

Someone was in the room with him.

He could tell by the vague form he was able to see.

But he couldn’t lock onto their features or recognize who they were.

He couldn’t make his brain focus enough.

Somewhere, deep inside, a tiny voice whispered that he was safe.

Yes.

Safe.

Wasn’t he?

But it was so white here.

It’s as white as it was back there.

In that cold, sterile room where the woman with a brown bob had been hanging over him, observing his reactions with her calculating gaze, telling him what he really was. A monster. A murderer. A ghost.

Breathe in.

There was a hand waving in front of his eyes now.

But his vision betrayed him.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t focus on the hand or the person waving it.

Why. Wouldn’t. His. Eyes. Focus ?

Someone grabbed his shoulders, firm but gentle.

He tried to focus again when he could vaguely see a mouth moving in front of his face, but all he could hear was a sharp, piercing beep.

Like the ringing after an explosion.

Oh.

Danny knows this feeling—he was panicking.

Breathe out.

He wanted to look down at his hands, to remind himself he was still real when he realised he had his mouth hanging open without meaning to.

That wasn’t good.

Was he dissociating as well?

Danny curled his toes inside his shoes and pressed his thumb and index finger together, while trying to feel the difference in pressure.

Anything to anchor himself.

To remind himself he wasn’t just disappearing into nothing.

The blurry figure in front of him lowered their gaze, watching his hands.

Had they noticed?

That was bad.

Danny wasn’t supposed to do this.

This was human behavior. And Danny wasn’t human. Not anymore.

Breathe in.

Out.

In.

Out.

Shit.

Now he was hyperventilating too.

A hand wrapped around his wrist, warm and steady.

Something soft pressed into his palm, rising and falling in a calm rhythm.

Slowly up.

Still.

Slowly down.

A breathing rhythm?

Danny tried to match it.

Breathe in.

Hard at first.

Breathe out.

Harder still.

But bit by bit, he felt his breath slow down.

Just a little.

But everything was still so white.

Breathe in.

The hand holding his wrist tugged gently, pulling him away from the—bed?—or chair? He wasn’t sure what he’d been sitting on.

Oh well.

He was being pulled away from it anyway.

Breathe out.

He didn’t want to lose the pressure under his toes yet though.

Why couldn’t he just float?

Why had he told himself he couldn’t float again?

Everyone who wasn’t supposed to know knew his secret already anyway, didn’t they?

Breathe in.

He was moving now—away from the endless white.

But still—he felt the grounding pressure beneath his toes, between his fingers.

Someone was pulling on his arm, away from the white now.

And he hadn’t lost the grounding pressure beneath his toes and between his fingers yet.

That’s good.

Wait.

Was it?

The beep in his ears slowly faded into a haze.

A soft, familiar voice carefully cut through it.

“Phobos. You’re safe now. Don’t worry.”

Deimos?

It couldn’t be.

But wait... no.

Right.

Danny had gone looking for him.

He’d found Damian.

Breathe out.

Why was his mouth so dry?

Oh.

He still hadn’t closed it.

He could hear a faint smacking sound now.

Was that Danny?

It sounded funny.

Now he hears a chuckle.

Was that Danny too?

“Phobos? Are you alright?”

Danny could feel his eyes focusing again, little by little.

The whiteness was gone. Left behind.

There was no need to be afraid anymore.

He was safe.

Deimos had said so.

ANd Deimos doesn’t lie.

His hand was still pressed gently against something warm.

He looked down.

A chest.

Whose?

He raised his eyes slowly.

The chest is connected to Damian’s face.

Relief washed over him like a wave breaking on a shore.

It was Damian’s chest.

Damian was safe.

Damian was Deimos.

And Deimos would always protect him.

He’d promised.

Breathe in.

“Danyal?”

Danny’s eyes flicker. Finally he sees Damian’s lips syncing up with the sound again. The words aren't just noise anymore—they’re connecting, making sense again. The haze is thinning out. Slowly, like mist burning off glass.

“Danyal, are you alright?”

Damian looks worried. Too worried.

That’s... not good.

Danny doesn’t want him to look like that. He wants to fix it. Smooth the line between his brother’s brows.

 He wants to say something comforting. Something normal.

Something human.

“Deim’s? ‘M fne, dun’ wolly ‘bout mew.”

Yeah. That... doesn’t sound right even to his own ears.

And judging by Damian’s raised brow and the deepening crease in his forehead—it definitely didn’t do the trick.

“Phobos, you’re slurring your words,” Damian says, voice tight, “You are clearly not ‘fine.’”

Right.

As if Danny didn’t know that.

As if the frown tugging his own face downwards was just there for fun.

He’d worked so damn hard to stop frowning all the time.

After the League.

After Nanda Parbat.

After everything .

He'd reshaped himself into someone lighter. Not light—but lighter. Someone who smiled too much and talked with a slightly fake Midwestern twang because it was easier than explaining the soft Arabic lilt he used to carry.

It was all a performance.

But he was good at that performance.

So good he’d sometimes even believed it himself.

And it had helped, hadn’t it? Made people back off. Made people see a normal kid.

Not an assassin.

Not a ghost in human clothes.

Breathe out.

Wait—what were they talking about again?

Right. Damian was still checking if he was okay.

“Nnn, no, ‘m tot’lly fne, Deim’s.”

He really tried to sound convincing.

But the look on Damian’s face said it all.

He didn’t buy it for a second.

Zero faith. Absolute disbelief.

Kind of annoying, honestly.

Because Danny was fine . Totally!

...Okay maybe not totally .

But his face was the one lying, okay?

The foggy panic attack haze, the tension, the tight chest—none of that counted. He was fine where it mattered. Sort of. Kind of.

Danny didn’t say that out loud, of course. He couldn’t. Not with how jumbled his words were. It was a dead give-away that he wasn’t as ‘fine’ as he’d be claiming to be. And even if he could, Damian would see through the lie.

He always saw through it.

Danny had never successfully lied to his twin. Not once in their whole life. Damian could read him like an open book—always had. It was like some weird twin telepathy. Especially since Danny could read Damian like a book as well. There had never been a single secret between them. Not one.

Instead of arguing, Danny let his gaze wander around the strange room.

A cave?

Sort of.

The ceiling stretched high overhead, bats fluttering in the shadows, but the cavern was filled with slick, high-tech equipment—more like a bizarre, high-end mancave than a natural cave.

Danny blinked again, taking it all in.

Breathe in.

Suddenly, Danny felt the solid push of Damian’s hands guiding him down into a chair.

Wait, when had that chair appeared behind him?

When had they even moved?

He glanced over his shoulder, saw the door they had come from.

The med bay.

Yeah. That’s where his panic had spiraled.

He’d been teetering on the edge since before the bus, but it wasn’t until he stepped into that cursedly sterile room that everything just... snapped.

His memory was hazy.

He remembered giving his code.

Walking into the manor.

After that, things blurred.

No recollection of a cave.

Definitely didn’t remember being stitched up.

Speaking of…

Danny lifted his shirt.

Nope.

Still busted.

Stitches popped like overcooked rice.

Great.

He sighed. That meant he still had that part ahead of him. The part with the actual pain.

He glanced around again.

He remembered giving his medkit to the butler guy—Pennyworth, yeah?

Breathe out.

Damian was in front of him again, steady hands on his shoulders.

“Danyal, look at me.”

Danny obeyed. Their eyes locked.

“We still need to do your stitches, but I realise you probably don’t want to go back into that room anymore.”

Danny immediately started shaking his head with almost a feverish panic.

Hell no. Not going back in there .

“So we’ll have to put them in here. Have you developed any new allergies I should know about in these past six years?”

Danny shook his head again. He hadn’t.

“Okay, good. That means we can use the normal numbing agents—”

“It won’ work,” Danny cut in, voice low, soft, ashamed as well as still a bit slurred (but at least it was getting better).

Damian froze. Turned sharply.

“What do you mean ‘it won’t work’, Danyal?”

Danny didn’t meet his eyes. Didn’t want to see the exact moment the worry turned to something heavier.

“Hasn’t worked f’r the past year,” he muttered.

There it was. That look .

That glower.

Danny could feel it, even without looking.

Half-truths didn’t work on Damian either. Of course they didn’t. This is Damian we’re talking about here.

“I’m going to ignore the fact that you won’t tell me what’s actually going on,” Damian said slowly, voice deceptively calm, “and ask you two questions. One, is the reason for this the same reason you gave Pennyworth your own medkit?”

Danny nodded shyly.

“And two, what does work for you now so you don’t have to sit through getting stitches without any numbing agents?”

Danny looked up through his lashes.

“Double dose of the stuff metas with healing factors use,” he answered before sheepishly adding, “and even then it doesn’t always work.”

Damian’s expression twisted. Something between anger and hurt.

“I know you guys probably don’t have that stuff on hand—” Danny started, trying to prepare himself to just tough it out, again—

“Of course. Of course he needs that.”

Damian pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering like he was trying to hold back a full meltdown.

Then, aloud:

“Pennyworth, please fetch two capsules of Clark’s numbing agent.”

Danny blinked. The butler was already beside him somehow. Silent as a ghost. Professional as ever.

Huh.

So they did have it.

Danny watched him walk off. Still stunned.

Meta painkillers didn’t come cheap.

Breathe in.

A moment later, Pennyworth returned with the capsules, a needle, Danny’s medkit, and something rubbery—biting gear.

Danny appreciated that.

Last time he’d bitten his tongue during stitching, it had bled so bad it needed its own stitches.

Which... really sucked.

Who knew tongues were so sensitive?

He eyed the needle, frown creeping in again.

Damian noticed instantly. Of course he did.

“What’s wrong, Phobos?”

A hand reached out, gently smoothing the crease between Danny’s brows.

“Why are you frowning?”

Danny hesitated—he hated revealing how much he’d changed, how far from normal he was now. But Damian’s encouraging, trusting gaze made him take a breath.

“That needle… it probably won’t pierce my skin.”

Damian opened his mouth, maybe to argue, but Danny hurried on, “Needles made for supers don’t work on me either. We tried.”

Damian’s mouth pressed into a line. But he didn’t argue.

“Do you have any other needles then?”

“Yeah.” Danny nodded and made grabby hands toward the medkit Pennyworth still held before it was placed into his hands.

Opening the box, he pointed carefully: “Use these to give me an injection,” he said, indicating a special needle, “these to suture,” he continued, “and this thread—for the stitches. The normal threat dissolves within an hour in me. This might be stiffer, but at least it’ll stay in.”

He passed it all over, carefully avoiding their gazes.

Felt the weight of it anyway.

The butler began preparing the needle with the numbing agent.

Danny peeled off his shirt slowly this time, careful not to rip at the scabs again, then handed it to Damian. He took the biting toy and tried pulling it apart with his fingers—no way he wanted to bite down hard and hurt his tongue again.

“That one can withstand Superman’s bite,” Damian remarked with a small, dry smile.

Danny believed it was sturdy enough and popped it into his mouth, bracing himself as Alfred started numbing the stitch wounds.

They waited a few minutes for the medicine to settle.

When Alfred began sewing him up, Danny was pleasantly surprised to find the numbing agent actually worked—mostly. He still felt bits of pain, sharp stabs here and there, but it was manageable.

He had to bite down hard a few times, which earned him a raised eyebrow from Damian, who couldn’t quite hide his surprise that his once human twin now needed stronger painkillers than even Superman.

Breathe out.

Chapter Text

Damian watched with worried eyes—eyes that couldn’t seem to look away from the person sitting before him.

His brother.

Once, Danyal had been the only person Damian could confide in. The one person who truly understood him, who shared not just his blood, but was another part of him. His twin.

He had been the strongest person Damian had ever known—not only in battle, where he could best even their grandfather in a swordfight, but in mind and spirit. A strength that had carried Damian through their early years, that had stood like an unbreakable shield between them and the League’s cruelty.

And then he died. Before either of them had even turned ten, Danyal was taken from him, ripped away like a cruel joke played by the universe.

And yet—somehow—here he was. Alive.

His Phobos.

The only person in the League Damian had truly loved.

Now, that same brother sat in a chair in the Batcave, jaw clenched, struggling not to cry out as a needle pierced his skin again and again. Not even the double dose of Clark’s numbing agent—powerful enough to knock out even Superman—seemed to dull the pain completely. Damian watched as each stitch was sewn, as his brother’s breathing wavered with every puncture. Danyal remained tense, stiffening each time the needle met skin, but refused to utter a sound. That was his way—still so proud, still trying to shield others from his suffering.

But what tore at Damian even more than the physical pain was the panic that still flickered behind Danyal’s eyes—the terror that gripped him at even the thought of returning to the sterile medbay.

It was unfathomable to Damian.

What had happened these past six years?

What had twisted his brother’s life into this?

What had taken a boy who once feared nothing and left him flinching in a medical room?

And how had he returned with powers that neither of their parents could have passed down since they both lacked the meta gene?

When Pennyworth finally finished, he placed the needle and leftover thread gently back into the open first aid kit from Danyal’s worn backpack. He tapped Danyal’s shoulder with a soft, practiced touch and spoke gently, “We’re finished, Master Danyal.”

Danyal pulled the biting gear from his mouth, his voice raspy as he whispered his thanks.

Alfred rose, giving Damian a pointed, knowing look before bowing slightly and retreating toward the medbay to clean up the stuff he’d used, first aid kit and biting gear in hand.

Damian stepped forward without hesitation, slipping an arm around his twin’s shoulders to guide him away from the chair. He led Danyal toward the small couch in the corner of the Batcave—the one tucked away where Drake sometimes liked to pretend he napped. Even if everyone knew he never did.

As Damian helped his brother sit, his mind spun in endless circles.

Who had done this to Danyal?

Why would someone ever do such a thing?

And does this have anything to do with Danyal’s new powers?

He barely registered another glance from the shadows—this time from their father. Bruce’s eyes were sharp, questioning, demanding answers. Of course he would be curious why Damian had never mentioned a twin. But that answer had always been painfully simple.

Because Danyal had been dead.

Because telling anyone wouldn’t have brought back the brother he so dearly missed.

But most of all, because keeping Danyal’s memory private had protected it from being twisted.

Damian had seen how his father reshaped Todd’s legacy after his death, turning his memory into a cautionary tale rather than honoring who Todd truly was. Todd had been a brilliant Robin, one Damian had studied and respected from afar. But Father had corrupted that memory after his death—he wouldn’t—couldn’t—let that happen to his Phobos.

Once Danyal was settled on the couch, Damian sat beside him, stealing glances at his brother as he tried to gather the words he wanted to say. But before Damian could speak, Danyal’s soft voice cut through the silence. The slur was gone now, but his words trembled slightly with emotion he’d rarely heard of his one hour older twin.

“You’re probably angry, huh?”

Damian blinked, thrown by the question. Angry? Why would he possibly be angry?

“Why would I be angry, Phobos?”

“Because I never came looking for you,” Danyal said bitterly, his eyes distant, full of guilt that weighed heavy in the air between them. Before Damian could respond however, Danyal kept going, like the words had been dammed up for years and were now flooding out. “Because I was alive all this time and said nothing. Because I ran and left you behind even when I knew you needed me. Because I’m...”

He stopped. Hesitated.

Damian’s chest tightened.

His Phobos had never hesitated before. Never faltered. Whether in battle or while speaking, his brother had always moved with confidence, absolute and unwavering. But now?

“Because I’m no longer human.”

The words were soft, rushed, almost as if Danyal regretted letting them escape. As if he hadn’t wanted Damian to hear them at all.

The phrase hit Damian like a punch, opening possibilities that both explained so much and terrified him all at once. Powers. Changed physiology. The numbing agents barely working. The way the panic seemed almost... instinctual.

But none of it changed what mattered.

“Danyal,” Damian began softly, willing his voice to be steady, “I don’t care about that.” He reached for Danyal’s hand, gripping it tightly, urging him to meet his gaze. “I’m just happy to see you again.”

He watched as his brother’s head lifted, hesitant hope flickering in those icy blue eyes.

“I thought you were dead for the past six years. Every day, I thought you were gone forever.” His grip tightened ever so slightly. “I’m overjoyed you’re here.”

A fragile, almost desperate relief entered Danyal’s expression—but then doubt returned as quickly as it had disappeared when Damian continued speaking.

“Am I annoyed you didn’t come sooner? Yes. Definitely.”

He saw Danyal’s throat tighten, panic rising again.

“But that doesn’t change the fact that you did come back. Even if it took six years.”

For the first time, Damian saw his brother’s face crumble—tears gathering, unspilling, held back for too long.

This was the first time Damian had seen tears on his brother’s face. Not even earlier, when he had obviously been panicking and dissociating, had the boy cried.

Not even while they were children had Damian ever seen Danyal cry.

Of course, Damian hadn’t ever cried back then either, since emotions were illegal in the league, but they had still been children. It would’ve been normal for at least some tears to appear at some point. Even if they had been from pain instead of sadness. It would’ve been completely normal.

But this truly was the very first time Damian had seen his brother cry.

Without thinking, Damian wrapped his arms around him. Carefully. Gently. As Richard had shown him how to do—to offer comfort when words wouldn’t suffice. His grip remained mindful of the fresh stitches, but firm enough that Danyal would feel safe.

When he finally pulled back, he felt the damp patch on his shirt. His brother hadn’t made a sound while crying. He hadn’t needed to. Damian said nothing about it—he wanted Danyal to know it was okay to cry here. With him.

As he held his brother a bit longer, Damian’s mind sharpened.

He remembered the way Danyal had flinched at his reflection earlier, how he had looked at himself like a monster.

The shame in his voice when he’d whispered I’m no longer human.

It wasn’t a coincidence.

Something— someone —had done this to his brother. Had twisted the strongest, kindest person Damian had ever known into someone who now saw himself as less than human.

Damian’s jaw set with silent fury.

He would find whoever was responsible.

He would make sure they could never touch his brother again.

And he would help Danyal see himself as he truly was.

Because to Damian, his brother was still the same Phobos.

Still the boy who carried more humanity within him than anyone Damian had ever met, no matter what species he was now.

And Damian would prove it to him, no matter what it took.

Chapter Text

Damian remained seated beside his brother, one arm wrapped protectively around Danyal’s shoulders in a not-quite-a-hug—but close enough. His twin leaned into his side with the same quiet trust that used to come so naturally between them. For a brief moment, everything else felt distant. Forgotten.

Then came the voice.

“Damian.”

Their father’s voice came from just behind the wall obscuring sight from the couch to the rest of the cave and echoed in the tiny space. Not loud. Not angry. Just... calling.

Damian’s jaw tightened.

He didn’t move. Not immediately. He didn’t want to leave Danyal alone, not even for a second. Not here. Not in this place he barely knew. The Batcave might have been Damian’s sanctuary, but to Danyal, it was just another unfamiliar battlefield.

Damian glanced down, eyes flicking toward his brother. Danyal didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. The look in his eyes said enough: ‘Go. I’ll be fine.’

Damian hesitated anyway. Just for a heartbeat longer. But then he exhaled and rose to his feet with practiced grace, gently squeezing his brother’s shoulder once more before he stepped away.

“Wait here,” he stated. “I will be right back.”

He didn’t need to look back to know Danyal would listen.

When he walked around the wall, he could see his father’s figure standing behind the Batcomputer, cloaked in shadow, as if deliberately positioning himself somewhere private—somewhere Danyal couldn’t see him. The irony wasn’t lost on Damian. The part where Danyal was currently sitting was already obscured by the tiny, but still floor to ceiling wall. But their father always liked control. Always liked to dictate what others could or couldn’t see.

It’s not like Phobos would be curious enough to spy on us, Damian thought grimly as he marched over, his boots barely making a sound on the cold concrete floor. He’s not a bat. Yet.

Once he reached the console, the shadows closed in around them like old habits. Damian folded his arms across his chest, eyes narrowed and expectant.

His father turned.

“Damian,” the man began, voice taut. “Who is that boy—and why does he look exactly like you?”

Damian stared at him flatly, lifting an eyebrow in disbelief. “I believe I already told you, Father. That boy is Danyal.” His voice was calm. Cold. “My identical twin. Your firstborn son.”

The effect was instant.

Bruce’s face contorted—somewhere between stunned and horrified, as if he’d just swallowed a mouthful of pure lemon juice laced with whatever radioactive sour candy Richard was always chewing on. His lips parted, but for a second, no sound came out.

Then: “Why…” Bruce began again, slower this time. “Why have you never told me about him?”

Damian didn’t blink. “Which reason do you want?”

His voice was flat. Neutral. But that neutrality held teeth.

There were dozens of reasons. A thousand memories. A storm of pain and logic and heartbreak all tangled together into something too messy to explain in one breath. Or even ten.

Bruce exhaled. “Let’s start with the main one.”

Damian’s reply came sharp and immediate.

“Because he was dead.”

He didn’t look at his father’s eyes as he said it. He aimed slightly lower—focusing on the man’s nose. Close enough for sincerity, far enough to guard against vulnerability. A trick he’d learned early on in the League. Eye contact could be disarming. Dangerous.

Bruce inhaled sharply. “Dead?”

“Yes,” Damian said again, more firmly now. “Danyal died when we were nine. His death was what started the chain of events that led to me leaving the League at ten.”

There was a silence between them—heavy, electric.

Bruce looked like he’d been struck. His expression shifted, lips tightening, eyebrows pulling together. There was something else in his eyes now, too. Not just disbelief. Guilt. As if the man was thinking that he’d failed another one of his children, that he had caused another of his brood to die.

“And how,” Bruce said, voice more measured now, more cautious, “how can you be so sure that boy is really Danyal? If he was previously… deceased?”

Damian didn’t miss the way his father tiptoed around the word ‘dead,’ as if saying it too plainly might shatter the illusion. Or maybe he thought it would shatter Damian.

It wouldn’t.

Phobos’ death had, but the word would never be able to.

He straightened, but still refused to look the man he called father in his eyes. “Because no one else calls me Deimos.”

Bruce opened his mouth, but Damian steamrolled right over him.

“And because no one else would know I call him Phobos,” Damian continued, his voice like a blade. “Because he remembered a code we made up when we were children. A code only we knew. We never wrote it down. Never repeated it. We spoke it once, to each other, and that was it.”

He took a step forward, his tone growing colder.

“No clone could have known it. No imposter. No shapeshifter or psychic or illusionist. Only him. And it seems,” he added dryly, “that death doesn’t always stick in this family anyway.”

That last bit earned a flicker of something in Bruce’s expression—acceptance, maybe. Resignation. Damian could see the gears turning in his father’s mind, the way he shifted from Bruce Wayne to Batman. Calculating. Processing. Preparing his next question.

Finally, Bruce exhaled.

“Alright,” he said slowly. “I believe you. I believe he is who you say he is.”

Damian tilted his head. Waited for the ‘but’ he knew was coming.

“But,” Bruce added, and Damian’s jaw clenched.

There it is.

“Why,” his father asked, his voice growing quieter, “why didn’t you ever tell me? Why didn’t you tell me that I had another son who... died?”

That last word was barely audible. Like it physically hurt him to say. Like admitting it out loud gave it power.

Damian stared at him. Really looked this time. Even returned his gaze back to the older man’s eyes. Then he arched an eyebrow with sharp disapproval, as if the answer should be painfully obvious.

And it was.

“Father,” he said slowly, voice like acid, “have you forgotten how you spoke about Todd after he died?”

Bruce’s eyebrows lifted slightly. His mouth opened. Confused.

So Damian pressed forward.

“You twisted his legacy.”

There was no rage in his tone. Only cold, brutal honesty. That made it worse.

“You took the memory of a brilliant Robin and turned it into a cautionary tale,” Damian continued, relentless now. “Even now, you still sometimes use him as an example of what not to be. You still whisper to the others, ‘Don’t do what Jason would’ve done.’ As if his death was a lesson instead of a loss.”

Bruce looked like he wanted to speak again, but Damian didn’t let him.

“No matter how well Todd performed, no matter how good he was at his job, you reduced him to a simple mistake. You made everyone think that’s all he was, even if everyone around you knew better.”

Damian took another step forward. The space between them shrank.

“So no,” he said, eyes blazing. “I did not want you doing the same to Danyal. I didn’t want you to rewrite his legacy. To reduce my twin to a lesson. Or a failure. Or a footnote.”

His voice dropped—low and tight, the words suddenly heavy.

“He was the only thing that made the League bearable. The only one who protected me. The only person I truly— truly —loved in that hellhole.”

Bruce didn’t respond. He just stood there, quiet. Still. Defeated.

And for once, Damian had nothing left to say.

After a long, loaded pause, he finally turned, making sure his footsteps could be heard as he strode away without another word.

He had said what he needed to say.

Now, it was time to return to Danyal. To his brother. To Phobos.

Because for the first time in six years, Damian had someone he wanted—needed—to protect.

And this time, he wouldn’t fail.

Chapter Text

Dick entered the Batcave like he owned the place—which, to be fair, he kind of did. At least spiritually. He’d spent enough of his life down here to have squatter’s rights. The first Robin, the prototype Batkid, the original survivor of brooding lectures and surprise training drills. If anyone could wander in unannounced with a bag of takeout and a list of snarky one-liners, it was him.

He was halfway down the metal ramp when he noticed Bruce standing behind the Batcomputer. Classic silhouette: arms folded, one foot planted slightly wider than the other, cape pooled around him like a judgmental shadow. Dick rolled his eyes fondly.

Typical.

What wasn’t typical, though, was the fact that Bruce was talking to someone—and Dick couldn’t see who. The other person was hidden behind the frame of the huge computer screen and Bruce’s broad frame. Just out of view.

That gave Dick pause.

He tilted his head, curiosity piqued. Normally, if Bruce was lecturing one of his kids, voices would be raised—or at the very least, you'd get the occasional sarcastic quip from whoever was stuck in the hot seat. But right now, the conversation seemed… quiet. Focused. Serious.

Not something Dick wanted to interrupt.

Which was unfortunate, because his entire reason for coming down here had been to do exactly that: bother Bruce, maybe steal the chair while he wasn’t looking so Bruce would fall, and make a big show of needing the computer for his latest Blüdhaven case. But now? Now he’d have to wait.

He wasn't so rude that he’d interrupt important conversations. He was just a little bit rude.

Depending on which sibling Bruce was talking to—and the mood Bruce was in—this conversation might actually matter. And as much as Dick loved chaos, he also knew when to keep his mouth shut.

With a sigh, he pivoted and made a beeline toward the back corner of the cave—the one that housed Tim’s napping couch. The couch was legendary. Supposedly for naps, but in all it’s years down here, Dick was pretty sure Tim had never actually used it for sleeping. Mostly it functioned as an emergency crash zone for people who were too stubborn to admit they were injured.

Still, it was a comfortable couch, and it was technically unclaimed at the moment.

As he walked, his mind wandered back to the case that had driven him into the cave in the first place. A drug operation out of Blüdhaven. What had started as a routine check at a local fair had turned into something straight out of a fever dream: plushie prizes stuffed with bricks of cocaine. Dick still wasn’t sure how anyone thought that was a good plan. Smuggling narcotics inside teddy bears?

It might’ve been funny—if it hadn’t nearly killed three kids because they’d given them the wrong plushies as a prize.

They’d just been playing. A normal pillow fight with their plushies. Then someone noticed the weird white powder spilling from a ripped seam. By the time the parents had called for help, two of the kids were already unconscious. Narcan had saved their lives.

Barely.

Dick’s stomach tightened at the memory.

He needed that supplier behind bars. And to do that, he needed the Batcomputer. But first, patience. Bruce was in one of his Deep Conversation modes.

Dick finally reached the thin but high wall and rounded the corner toward the couch—already mentally preparing to sprawl across it dramatically and maybe nap for fifteen seconds before pretending to be productive.

Except—

He stopped short.

There was someone already sitting on the couch.

And that someone looked like Damian.

For a second, Dick just blinked at the kid. His brain scrambled to process the visual. Damian never sat on the napping couch. That alone was weird. But what really sent up red flags was the way the boy was sitting—still, small, almost curled in on himself like he was trying to disappear into the cushions. His arms moved slowly, hesitantly, wrapping around his own chest like he needed to hold himself together.

“Hey, Dami,” Dick greeted instinctively, his voice warm but cautious.

The boy looked up.

No glare. No muttered insult. No ‘Richard’ delivered like it was a curse word.

Just wide eyes. Unblinking. Haunted.

He didn’t say a word.

Dick’s heart skipped a beat.

That wasn’t Damian. Not his Damian.

There was something off about this kid. Something quiet and fragile that Damian never let show—especially not around the Batfamily. It was like watching a ghost wear his brother’s skin.

Slowly, Dick’s eyes narrowed. His body tensed. One hand crept toward the escrima sticks on his back.

Was this a clone?

They’d dealt with clones before. Damian had enough enemies with god complexes and access to rogue science labs that a clone sighting didn’t even make the top ten weirdest things in their lives anymore. Especially with Talia and the league still in the picture.

He didn’t activate the sticks yet. Just unlatched them, fingers brushing over the familiar handles. His gaze never left the boy.

But the second the escrima sticks hissed to life—crackling with electric blue energy—the boy startled.

Then he bolted.

Well, not bolted , exactly. He scrambled.

Awkward. Panicked.

He began crawling backwards across the couch like an animal trying to escape a predator—half-tumbling over the cushions, like he wanted to wedge himself behind the furniture, or maybe into it, if that were somehow possible. His eyes were huge. Terrified.

Dick froze.

That was not how Damian clones reacted.

The real Damian? He’d have already tried to disarm Dick by now. A clone? Even faster. They always attacked on sight. Always aggressive. Programmed to kill, not panic.

But this boy?

He looked like Dick had just pointed a weapon at a stray dog.

The escrima sticks dimmed.

“Okay,” Dick muttered under his breath, lowering them slowly. “Not a clone.”

And definitely not a threat.

Which left one very big, very pressing question:

Who the hell was the boy who looked exactly like his youngest brother… and what was he doing sitting on Tim’s napping couch?

~

Danny sat stiffly on the unfamiliar couch, his back pressed tight against the cold leather cushions like they might open up and swallow him whole if he let his guard down for even a second. His fingers gripped the edges of the cushions tightly, like he had to keep holding onto the edge of a cliff, just so he wouldn’t lose his grip on reality again.

Everything around him was so unfamiliar. The air smelled too clean. The lights were too dim. The walls too full of secrets. It was like being inside a dream that didn’t want to let him wake up.

Damian had told him to wait here. Said he’d be right back.

He’d even looked serious when he said it—serious in that solemn, intense way that Damian always had, but softer than usual. There had been something tight in his twin’s expression, something careful. Like he was leaving for a battlefield and wasn’t sure he’d come back. Danny knew that look. Knew what it meant even without words. Damian hadn’t wanted to go. Not after what had happened earlier.

Danny knew he had panicked. Hard. He barely remembered the beginning of it—just flashes of breathlessness and blinding white—but he remembered the end. Damian’s voice pulling him out. The feeling of a chest moving under his palm. The quiet promise that Danny was safe.

But now he was here. Alone.

And waiting.

Because Damian had told him to wait here.

So he was waiting. Still. Obedient. Slightly scared.

He heard the footsteps before he saw the man—calm, confident steps that echoed softly against the floor of the cave. Whoever it was, they weren’t trying to sneak up on him. That didn’t make it better. If anything, the certainty in the steps made Danny’s chest tighten even more.

He didn’t want to be seen.

Didn’t want to be found.

But then the figure came around the corner.

Danny tensed.

It was a man. Older than him. Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in dark gear with something that looked close to a blue bird on his chest that screamed batfamily even before Danny saw the things that seemed to be weapons tucked behind his back. The man came to a stop the moment he spotted Danny on the couch, his brows lifting with clear surprise. Which made it clear to Danny the man hadn’t expected anyone to be here. Especially not Danny.

Danny didn’t move. Just stared. Frozen in place, his breath catching in his throat.

The man stared back and Danny could feel the uncomfortable feeling of being observed starting to creep up his neck as he slowly started wrapping his arms around his own chest. Kind of like he could protect himself if he just wrapped himself up into a small bundle.

That’s when Danny could spot a small flicker of uncertainty crossing the man’s face, before his features softened just a little. “Hey, Dami,” he said, voice warm despite the caution in it—like the name had slipped out before he could think twice.

Danny’s stomach flipped.

Dami?

No. No, no, no. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t him.

Danny blinked hard, trying to keep his eyes wide—look at me, he tried to say without speaking. I’m not him. I’m not Deimos. Their resemblance was uncanny—he knew that—but still. Damian’s eyes were green. Danny’s weren’t. His voice was sharper. Danny’s softer. They weren’t the same. And it was obvious if you only looked at the two of them.

But the man didn’t see the difference.

Or maybe he did. Because suddenly, his hand began to move—slowly, deliberately—toward his back. Danny’s heart skipped. Something about that motion sent his senses flaring with alarm.

The man turned just enough that Danny could see the things on the man’s back he'd thought of as weapons before were actually sticks.

Sleek. Black. Polished. Charged.

Were those supposed to be weapons?

Weird weapons for an even weirder man.

Maybe he should say something? Correct the mistake? But his voice felt trapped in his throat, locked behind the tremble he was trying not to show. His tongue sat heavy in his mouth.

Then— click .

The man drew the sticks free, and with one press of his thumb, they lit up.

Bright blue lightning exploded from their edges with a crackle that pierced the silence. The sound was sharp. Violent. Too loud in the quiet corner of the cave. The electric hiss echoed in Danny’s ears like it was coming from inside his skull.

He froze.

And then he remembered .

Not here. Not now. Not this man. But then . The accident. The lab. The portal. The electricity flowing through him.

A scream that wasn’t a scream lodged itself in his chest. A scream that felt so much like the scream he’d given back then.

Danny reacted before he even knew he’d moved.

He flinched back like he’d been hit, his whole body jolting away from the man and his terrifying sticks. He kicked at the couch cushions, scrambling across the leather like a cornered animal desperate to escape. His arms wrapped even tighter around himself, trying to protect the stitches still healing under his shirt—his current reminder of how fragile he still was.

He tried to disappear into the couch.

Tried to make himself smaller. Less threatening. Less visible.

There was nowhere to go.

But he tried anyway.

His breath came fast. Shallow. Too fast.

He shouldn’t be here.

This had been a mistake. A stupid mistake.

Damian had said it would be okay—but how could it be? These people didn’t know him. They saw his face and thought they knew who he was, but they didn’t. They didn’t see Danny. They saw a threat. A trick. A copy.

Just like his parents had called him an imprint of his consciousness.

He squeezed his eyes shut, curled in on himself, waiting for the hit. For the strike. For the sting of pain or the snap of lightning or—

Nothing.

No impact. No blow. Just… silence.

And then, slowly, a shift in the air.

When he cracked one eye open, the man was still there. But the sticks were down now, dimmed and lifeless. The lightning had vanished. The man was watching him—but not with anger. Not even suspicion.

Just confusion.

Concern.

The man’s posture had changed. No longer braced for a fight. Now he looked unsure. Hesitant. Even gentle, in a clumsy kind of way. Like he didn’t know what had just happened or how to fix what had just happened, but wanted to try.

He mumbled something—Danny couldn’t catch all the words, not over the pounding in his ears—not even with his enhanced hearing—but the tone wasn’t harsh. It wasn’t cold.

It was quiet.

Danny didn’t trust it. Not yet. But he didn’t flinch again.

He stayed pressed into the couch, watching the man with wide, wary eyes.

Waiting for the moment the kindness would vanish. When the fear would be proven right.

But it didn’t happen.

Not yet.

Danny pulled his knees tighter to his chest, curling in again. He wanted his Deimos. He wanted to crawl into his twin’s arms, bury his face in that familiar chest and let the world melt away. Damian made everything quieter. Softer. Like the danger couldn’t touch him as long as they were together.

Without him, everything felt sharp again.

Too sharp.

He didn’t want the scary man. Or the scary cave. Or the scary lightning.

He wanted his brother.

He didn’t care how childish it made him seem.

Danny’s eyes didn’t leave the man’s face. Not anymore. Not until he heard more footsteps approaching, echoing down the path toward the corner of the cave where he sat curled like a shadow.

He turned his head, just slightly.

Please, he thought.

Let it be him.

Let it be Deimos.

Chapter Text

Damian rounded the corner at a brisk, almost aggressive pace, his boots striking the floor louder than necessary. The sharp rhythm of his footsteps was deliberate—meant to signal his approach, meant to warn. He didn’t want to startle his brother. He just needed to get back. Needed to get to Phobos.

But the moment his eyes landed on the couch, his heart lurched and he knew he was already too late.

There, curled into himself like a wounded animal, was Danyal. His knees pulled tight to his chest, his shoulders trembling, his eyes wide and wrong. Shallow, panicked breaths shook his frame, like he couldn’t get enough air.

And standing in front of him, escrima sticks still faintly humming in his hands, was Grayson.

Not Richard .

Grayson.

Because after what he’d just done, he didn’t deserve the familiarity of a name that once meant something.

Damian didn’t think. He didn’t hesitate.

“ Step back. ” The command cracked through the air like a lash, Damian’s voice low but sharp enough to cut steel. He was already moving, already positioning himself between his twin and the perceived threat—shielding Danyal’s small, shivering form with his own body as he sat beside him.

“ Now. ”

From the edge of his vision, Damian saw the unmistakable flicker of confusion cross his oldest brother’s face—eyes narrowing slightly, posture tilting as he registered what he was looking at.

But Damian didn’t care.

Grayson’s confusion meant nothing to him.

The only thing that mattered right now, was protecting Danyal.

Grayson tried to speak—his voice faltering, awkward, thick with questions. “Whu—?”

But Damian was already pulling his brother into his chest, guiding Danyal beneath his arm and letting him curl tightly into the casual shirt he was wearing, the fabric already rumpled and damp from the boy’s previous panic. Danyal didn’t hesitate—just ducked under Damian’s arm like it was instinct, like this was the only place he felt safe. His too-thin hands gripped the side of Damian’s shirt like it was a lifeline.

Damian ran a steady hand through his brother’s inky black hair, slow and calming, fingers combing gently through the familiar strands. The other hand wrapped protectively around Danyal’s shoulder, tucking him further in.

He lifted his gaze—cold and sharp—and met Grayson’s eyes with a glare that could have frozen lava mid-eruption.

Grayson flinched. Just barely. But Damian saw it.

And then—finally—those damned escrima sticks lowered.

Only now, with the boy visibly tucked into the youngest Robin’s side like a terrified shadow, did Grayson seem to realize the truth: that this boy wasn’t a clone. Wasn’t a threat. Just a terrified boy who had already been through too much.

Damian didn’t relax. Not even slightly.

He glanced down at the trembling figure in his arms. Danyal was trying to disappear—curling tighter into himself, like if he just folded in small enough, he could escape the weight of the world pressing down on him.

How had Damian ever called that disaster of a man his favorite brother?

He looked back up, eyes burning with fury.

How had he ever looked at this overbaked acrobat, this idiotic optimist of a man, this—this sauteéd sparrow and thought ‘ you’re someone I trust with the people I care about’ ?

“ Dami? ” came the soft, tentative voice from the stale circus snack again. Damian didn’t even blink in his direction. He just resumed stroking Danyal’s hair, lips pressed into a thin line as he felt a damp warmth begin to soak through his shirt again—more tears. Another reminder of just how fragile his brother now was.

Then, movement.

He felt Danyal shift.

Damian frowned slightly, unsure why his twin was pulling away. Was he trying to see where the discount bat had gone? Did he want to keep an eye on the electrified moron and make sure the escrima sticks were actually down?

But when Danyal finally peeled himself out from under Damian’s arm, his wide, watery eyes didn’t seek out the boneless freak.

They locked directly onto his.

“I—” A hiccup. “I tried to show him,” Danyal whispered, his voice cracking like brittle glass. “I tried to open my eyes far enough so he could see .” Another hiccup. “But he—he just didn’t see I’m not you! ”
The pain in his voice hit like a punch to the gut.

From the corner of his eye, Damian saw the flexi failure stiffen. His expression shifted fast—recognition flooding his face as the pieces finally clicked into place. His lips parted in silent shock, eyes wide with dawning horror.

But Damian didn’t spare him another glance.

Instead, he cupped Danyal’s face gently between his hands, thumbs brushing tears away from pale cheeks as he spoke, voice softer now—but still unwavering.

“ Phobos, ” he said firmly, using the name like a grounding weight. “This wasn’t your fault.”

Danyal tried to shake his head, to argue, to shoulder the blame like he always did. Damian didn’t let him.

“If I hadn’t left you alone without telling anyone but Father and Pennyworth of your existence, none of this would’ve happened,” he continued, his tone low but fierce. “Father and I should’ve done better.”

Danyal blinked, looking like he wanted to protest. Like he wanted to say that Damian or Bruce weren’t at fault either. But if they weren’t, who would be? Because Damian knew for certain that it wasn’t his Phobos.

But before Danyal could speak, the peanut-butter-brained pigeon spoke up again.

“Dami… who’s this?”

It was admittedly a valid question.

But Damian still turned and gave the walking gymnastic mishap a slow, scathing look—a glare so thick with judgment it could have flattened a boulder. That burnt feather had terrified his brother—his Phobos—and only now was he asking the questions he could’ve—should’ve—asked earlier?

Unacceptable.

“This,” Damian said, drawing the word out like it tasted poisonous, “ Grayson ”—he spat the name like it might actually physically wound the disco pigeon—“is my twin brother. Danyal.”

The wiggly weirdo didn’t say anything. He just stood there, eyes flicking from Damian to the trembling boy in his arms and back again. And for once, he was silent.

Damian could only hope the weight of his own shame from scaring Danyal would do what Damian’s glares alone could not.

He held Danyal tighter, pressing his lips to his brother’s hair, and whispered low enough that only the boy could hear, “I’ve got you. You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you again. Not here. Not ever.”

Chapter Text

Dick stood frozen in place, the hum of his escrima sticks still buzzing faintly in his hands as the last remnants of the charge faded. The noise was small, but in the heavy silence now hanging in the small alcove, it felt thunderous.

He looked at the two boys on the couch—though calling them “boys” felt too simple. Damian was stiff as stone, posture defensive and unrelenting, glaring at Dick like he’d just murdered Batcow in cold blood. And then there was the other one—curled tightly into his twin’s chest, arms wrapped around himself in a self-made cocoon. That was Danyal. Damian’s twin brother.

Twin brother. The words echoed in Dick’s head like it had bounced off the cave walls and circled right back into his brain, refusing to stay rooted inside of his head.

Danyal peeked up at him occasionally, quick glances darting from behind Damian’s shoulder like he was bracing for the sticks in Dick’s hands to light up with lightning again. His arms didn’t loosen. They clung to his own torso like armor, like his arms were the last line of defense he could trust.

“Twin brother?” Dick repeated when the words finally stuck, barely louder than a breath. The syllables didn’t sound real coming out of his mouth, like he was just testing how they felt on his tongue. “Damian, what do you mean? Why—”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Damian cut in, his voice cold, sharp, and biting. He held Danyal even tighter, as if daring Dick to try and separate them. “He’s my twin brother. And if you ever threaten him again—even by accident—I will make sure you will never be able to step foot in this cave again.”

There was no bravado in the threat. Just fact. And Dick, who had once seen Damian use an off-center balanced butter knife as a throwing knife to hit Tim’s hand smack dead in the middle as the boy was waving it around, didn’t doubt for a second that the kid meant every syllable.

Dick swallowed, his throat dry. “I didn’t know. Damian—I thought he was a clone.”

Damian’s laugh was short and bitter, a jagged sound that didn't hold even a hint of humor.

“You tried to electrocute a traumatized person because you thought he was a clone?”

The question landed like a slap, and Dick winced.

“No—yes—I just…” He ran a hand through his hair, still holding one of the now-dead escrima sticks, the charge finally entirely gone. “He looked at me weird, and—”

“That wasn’t weird,” Damian snapped again, venom lacing every word. “He was trying to show you he wasn’t me. That he wasn’t a clone. He was showing you his eyes. They’re the only genetic thing between us that’s different.”

Dick opened his mouth, then closed it. That truth hit him hard, a slow, gut-twisting realization as he stared at the boy still clinging to Damian’s side.

Danyal was no longer sneaking glances. He was watching Dick openly now, gaze still wide, but the fear had shifted. It wasn’t directed at Dick—not entirely. It seemed to be trained more on the escrima sticks still in his hands.

Dick looked down at them and immediately understood.

He moved slowly, deliberately—lowering the sticks toward the floor with exaggerated movements, letting the boy track every shift of Dick’s body with his eyes. He didn’t want to startle him again. Didn’t want to risk another flash of panic.

Danyal followed each motion, his head barely poking over Damian’s shoulder. His body hadn’t relaxed yet, but the tension wasn’t getting worse, either. Damian, for his part, was murmuring sweet nothings to his twin again, voice soft and low, fingers running rhythmically through Danyal’s hair. Words Dick couldn’t hear, but knew were important.

Once the sticks were safely set on the floor, Dick slowly rose to a standing position again and locked eyes with Danyal.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He meant it. And he made sure Danyal could see that.

Now that he was really looking at the boy, Dick could see the differences. Not huge, but there. Damian had vibrant emerald eyes. Danyal’s were icy blue, almost silvery, with a sharp ring of bright green hugging the inner iris, like a whisper of something they shared.

Danyal’s skin was slightly paler too—a shade or two lighter than Damian’s olive undertones. His hair was longer, shaggier, messier. Like it hadn’t been cut in months and he barely bothered to brush it.

And somehow, Dick had missed all of that.

How?

He felt a familiar pit open in his stomach. The same pit that showed up every time he realized he’d hurt someone without meaning to. Every time his good intentions burned someone instead.

Danyal didn’t answer his apology. He simply turned his gaze toward the small wall that curved around the side of the alcove, as if distracted by something Dick hadn’t noticed.

It was ridiculous. Dick was closer to the wall—if someone was coming, he would’ve heard it first.

And then he did hear it.

The almost imperceptible sound of footsteps. Too soft to echo. Too smooth to be anyone but—

Bruce.

How in the hell had Danyal noticed the footsteps before Dick had?

Dick turned slightly, just in time to see Bruce rounding the corner of the little wall, expression unreadable but posture just tense enough to betray that he already knew something was going on.

Damian turned too, his glare sharpening—but it didn’t carry the same white-hot fury it had toward Dick. No, this one was colder. Controlled. Still angry, but measured.

Damian was furious with Dick.

That realization stung more than the look itself.

Dick met Bruce’s eyes and shot him a questioning look, silently asking if he’d known. If this—Danyal—was something Bruce had been keeping from them, too.

The look Bruce returned said everything: No. He hadn’t known. Not before today at least.

So Damian hadn’t told anyone. Not his siblings. Not even Bruce.

That alone was shocking.

“Father,” Damian greeted, voice slick with acid. The way he said it was like he was daring Bruce to say the wrong thing.

Dick blinked. That voice—the venom in it—was usually reserved for enemies. And sometimes for Tim. But not Bruce. Never Bruce.

So whatever conversation they’d had earlier, it hadn’t gone well. Dick could imagine it now. Bruce standing behind the Batcomputer, trying to ask questions—and Damian cutting him down with razor-sharp words before he could even properly begin.

Honestly? Kind of hilarious.

But also—No.

Focus, Richard.

Now wasn’t the time for mental comedy reels.

He looked back toward the couch. Damian’s arm was still wrapped securely around his twin, who had turned his attention toward Bruce now. The same way he had with Dick—watching, waiting, cautious but not shrinking any further than he already was.

Bruce’s eyes found Danyal’s. And for a long moment, he simply studied the boy.

Then Bruce spoke, voice calm and even.

“I believe we should ask Danyal some questions now.”

Chapter Text

“Danny” the boy in question said softly when he’d finally found his voice again. The word hung in the air like something fragile but carefully chosen. He was still nestled safely in Deimos’ arms and the warmth of his twin's embrace kept the world at bay for just a little longer.

The man with the lightning sticks—now identified as Grayson thanks to his twin brother—had backed off quickly once Damian had stepped between them. The moment those weapons were set down, Danny had actually been able to calm down pretty quickly. The panic still wasn’t entirely gone yet—especially since he’d already still been panicking before Grayson had threatened him—but it was down to an easily manageable level now.

He really liked the way Damian had been so protective of him. Like Danny was something precious. Something worth protecting. He hadn't felt that in so long that it almost ached.

Lifting his head slowly from where he'd been half-hiding behind Damian's shoulder, Danny peered up at the others in the small alcove. There were three people except for him. It felt like too many for such a cramped space

Bruce stood tall, impassive as ever, but his eyes were visible—he wasn’t wearing his cowl, even if the man was wearing the rest of the furry costume. If Danny was being honest, Bruce just looked like a man trying to piece together a puzzle no one had told him existed. Grayson stood off to the side, posture looser than before but gaze sharp, like he was trying to figure out whether Danny was a threat or a tragedy.

And then there was Damian—his twin—frozen in the act of watching him, confusion flickering in his eyes as if Danny had just spoken in another language.

Danny caught the expression and sighed softly. He knew exactly what caused it.

“I go by Danny now,” he said, voice firmer this time as he locked eyes with the man in black—their father. “It’s... what I prefer.”.

He noticed the twitch in Damian’s brow before the boy even opened his mouth. Danny could practically see the pout forming in his twin’s soul. He smiled faintly and turned his gaze to him.

“You can still call me Danyal. Or Phobos,” he added quickly. “Just not them. I don’t like it when someone other than you does.”

That pulled a small smirk from Damian. He didn’t say anything, but the relief was clear. Apparently, somewhere along the line, Damian had learned to let emotions show. It was a nice change. A good change.

“Alright, Danny,” Bruce said with the kind of calm finality Danny imagined only he could manage. Danny's head snapped back toward him, heart jumping.

“We need to ask you some questions.”

Before Danny could respond, he felt Damian’s arms tighten slightly around him. His twin’s head turned, eyes narrowing with protective fury.

“Grayson should leave first,” Damian said coldly. The venom in his tone was almost visible, like he was trying to pour the poison right into the blue bird’s mouth.

Danny blinked and opened his mouth, wanting to say it was okay, that Grayson didn’t have to go. But the vigilante moved too quickly, giving Danny no time to object.

Grayson’s hand reached toward the escrima sticks on the floor.

Danny tensed instantly, every muscle pulling tight. It wasn’t the man he was afraid of—it was the sticks. The hum. The memories.

Grayson noticed.

He froze, his hand hovering above the weapons like he was touching a tripwire. Then, slowly, with a kind of care that surprised Danny, he pulled his hand back and stood upright again, empty-handed.

Danny relaxed the moment the man was standing up again—his shoulders uncoiled, his breath came easier. Across the space, Bruce’s brow lifted just slightly, the only outward sign that he’d registered the whole exchange. Danny couldn’t feel much from him. Just the low buzz of curiosity, muted like most liminals he’d brushed against before. But it seemed Bruce had caught the tension too, and for a moment Danny thought he almost looked... amused?

Maybe. Maybe not. It was hard to tell with the Bat.

Finally, Danny turned and whispered, “It’s fine if he stays, Deimos. Really. Just... please get rid of the sticks.”

Damian hesitated, confusion flickering briefly across his features, but he let go without protest, grabbed the sticks and walked away, disappearing around the corner to secure the weapons.

Danny watched every step. His eyes didn’t leave the escrima sticks until they vanished fully out of sight.

Only then did he look back.

Both Bruce and Grayson were staring at him. Not cruelly. Not even accusingly. But intently. Like they were trying to see through him. Like they could read his thoughts if they just stared hard enough.

Danny hated that. It made him feel exposed, flayed open.

It made him feel like he was back there .

When was Deimos coming back?

He lowered his gaze and found his fingers fidgeting in his lap. Pulling at his sleeves. Clenching and unclenching. Human behavior.

He froze.

He shouldn’t do that. He wasn’t human. Not anymore. He was something else. A monster in a boy’s body.

He forcibly stopped the fidgeting.

Then—footsteps.

He heard them first. Felt them just a bit after. Damian was on his way back.

His head snapped up two full minutes before the other two finally heard the approaching sound. Their confusion was obvious in the look they gave each other—and warranted. No normal person should have heard that so early. Danny had, though. It was another reminder of what he was now. Of what he’d become.

How many powers have I shown already? He couldn’t remember. Had he floated in the medbay? Phased through anything? He really should’ve paid more attention.

He’d have to ask Damian later. He didn’t want to. Asking meant admitting. And that meant saying, out loud, that he wasn’t the same anymore.

Even if Danny knew that the upcoming interrogation would probably also force him to admit it to Deimos.

Damian rounded the corner, returning to his place at Danny’s side like no time had passed. No hesitation. Just presence. Comforting and constant.

Danny latched onto him again, like an anchor, and waited.

“Danny—” Bruce began, his voice level and low, but Damian didn’t let him get far.

“Father,” Damian interrupted, sharp and controlled. “I think we should check Danyal’s stitches first.”

Danny caught the flicker of surprise on Grayson’s face. His eyes widened slightly. He obviously hadn’t known Danny had stitches.

“Hn,” Bruce grunted. Bat-approval, apparently, seeing how Damian moved quickly, pulling gently away from Danny’s grip and reaching for the hem of his shirt.

Danny nearly choked on his own mortification.

His shirt lifted, and suddenly two strangers were staring at his chest—at the neat but angry red lines in a neat y-shape across his skin.

Fun.

It wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened. Not by far. But it still sucked.

Damian, at least, was methodical and efficient as he checked the wounds, fingers gentle but thorough. Danny didn’t flinch—he’d had far worse.

Still, he felt the weight of the other two men’s gazes. They weren’t like Vlad’s. Not like the men in the labs either. Their stares weren’t filled with hunger or cruelty. They were filled with... curiosity. Like they didn’t really know what to do with the injured boy on their couch in the little alcove of their ultra decked-out mancave.

Deimos gave a small nod of satisfaction as he pulled the shirt back down. Danny’s heart warmed a little at the sight of it. He’d missed that—his little brother’s quiet, thoughtful expressions. The ones he’d only show once they were alone in their rooms.

It was quite cute actually.

So, of course, Danny acted immediately.

Grabbing Damian’s head, he pulled his twin in against his chest and tucked his chin on top of his hair, holding him tightly.

Deimos started struggling the second he realized what was happening.

“Phobos!” he protested, trying to pull back without hurting him. “You need to let me go! You’ll tear your stitches!”

Ugh. Why did he have to make such a good point ?

With a reluctant sigh, Danny released him, slumping slightly as Damian pulled away and sat upright beside him—perfect posture, arms folded, as if nothing had happened.

Danny peeked sideways. Bruce’s face was still neutral—stone and steel. But Grayson looked amused, a faint smirk curling one corner of his mouth.

Danny didn’t know what to make of that. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know either.

Still, the moment passed.

Now seated side-by-side on the couch again, the twins looked like mirrored statues, calm and composed.

Danny turned back to Bruce and held his gaze.

He was ready now.

Let the questions begin.

~

Danny stared up at the two men standing across from the couch, feeling the weight of their stares and the silence stretching longer than it needed to. Their looming presence was starting to get a little awkward, especially since he could already tell this conversation wasn’t going to be short.

“You know,” he said, casually leaning back against the cushions, “if my suspicions are correct, this is going to take a while. Maybe you guys should find seats too?”

His tone was light, almost teasing, but there was an edge of expectation in it. He wasn’t joking about the time.

They didn’t question it.

Bruce moved first, stepping away silently like some dark wraith before returning with a chair that had apparently materialized from thin air. Danny had no idea where it came from—probably some kind of Batcave magic.

Grayson, on the other hand, dropped to the floor like a toddler at storytime, settling into a criss-cross-applesauce position without a hint of self-consciousness.

Danny blinked.

Okay. That was... weirdly bendy. His posture shouldn’t look that relaxed after plummeting to the floor with zero hesitation. Was the guy hypermobile? Slightly liminal?  His ecto-sense wasn’t screaming, but the vibe was weird. That made... what? Three borderline-liminals orbiting his brother now?

Why the hell are there so many liminal people around Deimos? That’s a question for later. For now, conversation.

Grayson broke the momentary silence. “I feel like introductions are in order,” he said, flashing Danny a grin like this was a casual brunch and not, you know, the aftermath of a trauma spiral. He extended his hand with a flourish. “Hi! I’m Richard Grayson. But you can call me Dick.”

Danny stared at the offered hand. Then back up at the man’s very sincere face. Then back down again.

His expression twisted with barely-contained skepticism. “On purpose?”

That earned a full-throated laugh from Grayson— Dick , apparently. The man leaned back a little, hand still hanging there, amusement written all over his face.

Before the moment could grow awkward, Danny reached out and shook it.

“Danyal al Ghul,” he said smoothly. “But as I mentioned earlier, I go by Danny now.”

The name came more easily this time, without catching in his throat or sitting like glass against his teeth. It still felt strange—like putting on a jacket that didn’t quite fit—but at least he wasn’t holding his breath saying it anymore.

Their handshake was brief but firm. Mutual. No power plays.

The moment was broken by the unmistakable sound of footsteps. Calm, measured, not even bothering to be stealthy.

A moment later, Pennyworth entered the space carrying a silver tray like it belonged in a palace. Balanced atop it were an assortment of cookies, several porcelain cups, and a perfectly polished teapot.

“I believe you gentlemen could use some refreshments after that little debacle,” he said, tone dry but not unkind, as he set the tray on the side table. He poured four cups with graceful efficiency, nodded to no one in particular, and left the room like nothing had happened.

Danny stared after him, eyebrows raised. “…Does he always—?”

“—Know exactly what’s going on everywhere in the house or the cave?” Dick finished, sipping his tea like this was all completely normal. “Yeah. He does. Nobody knows how he does it. Alfred just... knows. Honestly, it’s like magic, except we know it isn’t”

Danny hummed lowly. Interesting.

Observation one: Dick was definitely a talker. Not exactly Danny’s preferred kind of person, but he could deal. He’d gotten used to Wes over time, and Wes never shut up. Maybe this guy would grow on him too—as long as he kept those damn sticks away from Danny at least.

Observation two: Alfred—apparently that’s his first name; curse Deimos and his weird insistence on calling everyone by their surnames —had been setting off ghost-adjacent pings ever since Danny first laid eyes on him. He didn’t think the man was entirely dead just yet, but even if he wasn’t, he was definitely circling the drain of mortality. Close enough to being a ghost that the ‘Realms were probably watching him like hawks.

Danny briefly wondered if Alfred would enjoy being a ghost. Probably. He had the whole “impossibly competent tea-drinking specter” thing down already.

Before he could fall any further into weird ghost-thoughts, he felt it—Damian’s eyes locked on him like lasers. He turned to see his twin practically drilling into his soul.

He could see the question forming before it left his brother’s mouth.

“How are you here?” Damian asked.

The question hit like a stone thrown into still water, echoing beneath the surface.

Even if the tone was clipped, the question beneath the words was screaming.

How are you not dead?

Danny didn’t answer immediately. He gave Damian a deadpan look, raising a brow.

“I took the bus to Gotham,” he said blandly. “And I walked the rest of the way.” 

He said it flatly. Innocently. As if he didn’t know exactly what Damian meant.

The stare Damian returned was pure judgment. He didn’t even have to say it. The silence screamed, Don’t be an ass, Phobos.

Danny let the silence sit for a beat longer before rolling his eyes with a sigh.

Fine. Time to stop being a little shit. Even if teasing his little brother was still incredibly satisfying.

He glanced sideways, not quite meeting Damian’s gaze. “Remember that mission with the forest fire?” he asked, voice lower now, heavier. “Our very last one. You remember that one?”

Damian’s expression shifted—just slightly. Something soft. Cracked around the edges.

“Of course I do,” he said. His voice was quiet, the words like a whisper choked with something too old and too sharp to name. “That mission was the last time I saw you.”

Danny nodded once, slow and deliberate, the smile falling from his face entirely.

The words didn’t feel like knives. They felt like tombstones.

And now, they’d finally begun to dig them up.

Chapter Text

Six years ago—The night of their last training mission.

It was hot.

So hot.

The kind of heat that made the air shimmer and claw its way down your throat, filling your lungs with something heavier than oxygen.

There was fire everywhere.

The forest roared around him, alive with crackling flames that devoured trees, swallowed the earth, and spat embers into the night sky like falling stars. Smoke curled and coiled, blinding, choking, erasing direction.

What was he supposed to do again?

Right. Basecamp. He needed to get back to basecamp. East. Basecamp was east of his current position.

Danny squinted up, trying to orient himself by the stars. A clear sky should’ve been a blessing. Except he couldn’t see it— not through the rolling black clouds of smoke turning night into something oppressive and close.

He had been going somewhere earlier. He’d known where east was at that point. But the flames had turned every direction into a blur of glowing orange and shadowy black. Was it this way? Or that way? His sense of direction, so finely honed through years of training, was useless in the chaos.

His fists clenched.

It didn’t matter. He had to move. Anywhere was better than here.

Danny picked a direction—blindly—and ran. His boots pounded against the scorched earth as he wove between burning trees, leaping over smoldering logs, ducking under low-hanging branches that could ignite at any second. The fire wasn’t his only problem.

The league ninjas were chasing him.

They moved like shadows, even amid the chaos, their presence more sensed than seen. His body ached, lungs raw from soot, but he pushed on. Being the League’s top fighter didn’t mean much when you were outnumbered ten to one, with the air itself trying to kill you.

He had to keep going. He had to—

Shit.

A cliff.

Danny skidded to a halt just in time, teetering at the edge, loose gravel sliding out beneath his boots into the yawning darkness below. He'd obviously chosen the wrong way.

The sharp, almost musical sound of steel slicing through air pulled his attention back. Shuriken. They were coming fast.

Danny's reflexes kicked in before his brain could catch up. His hand snapped up, catching the deadly stars mid-flight with practiced ease. In one fluid motion, he spun them back into the darkness, his throws precise, lethal. The grunts that followed told him his aim hadn't faltered, even with smoke-stung eyes and darkness all around him.

But there was no time to enjoy that small victory.

A shadow lunged from his right—a ninja had closed the distance. Fast.

Close-combat. Great.

Danny’s mind flashed back to his grandfather’s words.

‘No weapons. If you need them for this mission, you're weak. Get out of the forest without bringing any. No exceptions.’

Right. This was the test. Survive, adapt, improvise, and don’t die.

Two kunai sliced through the air toward him. A mistake. He silently thanked the thrower as his hands shot up, snatching them from the air just as he had with the shuriken just before. The moment was razor-thin, and he used it—flipping the kunai into a reverse grip, positioning them like extensions of his fists as he blocked a strike from his opponent’s wakizashi.

It wasn’t ideal. The ninja’s blade had better reach, but Danny had flexibility on his side. And instincts.

Okay, Danny. Breathe. Focus.

Let the flat of the blade hit you if it must. But the edge? The edge would mean death.

It was a brutal dance—one where the music was the roar of flames and the tempo was set by their clashing weapons. Sparks flew with every deflection. Every step back brought Danny closer to the cliff’s edge, until there was no more ground left to retreat to.

But then, an opening.

A faint hesitation, a shift in weight.

Danny pounced.

He slipped behind his opponent in a blur of motion and slashed his kunai across the ninja's throat. The body hadn’t even begun to fall when movement in the periphery caught his eye.

Two more.

Danny’s hand snapped up, kunai flashing through the air, each finding its mark with unerring precision. One down. The other—too close.

He dropped to a knee, grabbing the fallen ninja’s wakizashi, the hilt still warm from their grip. The weight was familiar, comforting. He rose, blade raised just in time to intercept a barrage of shuriken that whistled toward his head.

The impact jarred his arms, but he held firm.

He didn’t expect the next attack—not a blade, not a fist—but a misstep.

His balance wavered, the treacherous ground beneath him finally giving way.

He fell.

Time stretched thin as the cliff edge disappeared above him. The wind roared past his ears. He clenched the wakizashi, bracing for the inevitable collision with the jagged rocks below.

Only… it didn’t come.

The ground arrived far too quickly. And it was soft.

Confused, Danny shot upright, heart pounding, chest heaving. The air here was clean. The fire was gone. He was still in a forest, but the oppressive heat had vanished. The suffocating smoke, too.

He craned his neck, expecting to see ninja scouts hidden in the treetops. Nothing.

The cliff? Gone. As if it had never existed.

Was this some kind of hallucination? A death vision? No—he knew death. He’d danced with it before, even crossed its threshold once or twice, only to be dragged back by the Lazarus Pits. But this… this was different.

A rustling from his left snapped him to attention.

Danny's grip tightened around the wakizashi. He fell into a low stance, eyes narrowing, muscles coiled and ready.

The threat that emerged from the bushes wasn’t what he expected.

It was a boy. Curly hair, dark skin, around his age. The kid stumbled out into the clearing, nearly tripping over a root, and froze when he spotted Danny, wide-eyed.

For a split second, Danny thought maybe it was a trick. A ploy. He knew better than to underestimate appearances.

But then, the boy grinned.

He ran straight toward Danny, his excitement so genuine, so loud, that it felt absurd in this context.

Danny’s stance tightened.

The boy, however, seemed far more interested in the sword Danny held. He stopped short, poking at the blade with an inquisitive finger.

Danny frowned.

Definitely not an assassin.

Still, he didn’t drop his guard. Rule number one: never drop your guard.

“Man!” the boy exclaimed, voice full of unfiltered childhood awe. “That’s so cool! I want a sword too…” His words trailed into a pout, disappointment etched into his face.

Before Danny could react, the boy latched onto his wrist—the one still clutching the wakizashi—and began dragging him through the underbrush. Danny didn’t yell, didn’t protest. He was too trained for that. But the sheer audacity of being pulled along like some lost puppy left him stunned.

The boy talked the entire time, a stream of rapid-fire words that barely registered. Danny knew English—he was fluent, in fact, even if he did always have an Arabic tilt to his words—but this kid’s mouth was a machine gun of syllables and enthusiasm, making comprehension impossible.

They broke through the brush into a clearing.

Tents. A camper. Families.

Danny’s eyes scanned the camp in an instant. Four adults. Two kids—the boy still dragging him, and a girl about his age with black hair. The adults were split evenly; two African American, likely the boy’s parents, and two Caucasian, probably the girl's.

He was yanked forward again.

“Mom! Dad! Look what I found!” the boy shouted, as if he’d discovered a shiny rock and not a soot-covered assassin.

The boy’s parents turned. Their faces shifted from casual parental attention to outright shock in a heartbeat. They hadn’t expected their son to bring home a sword-wielding, ash-streaked stranger dressed in cult robes.

Danny could tell instantly—these people weren’t assassins. They didn’t move like it. Didn’t carry themselves with the subtle readiness, the dangerous grace. Their stances were open, unguarded. Civilians.

The boy’s mother bolted toward them. “Oh my God, Tucker! Where did you find him?”

She dropped to her knees, frantically checking her son for injuries. Satisfied he was unharmed, her gaze shifted to Danny, reaching out as if to check him too—but she froze halfway, noticing his scowl, the ash clinging to his skin, the grip he still had on the sword.

Her hand hovered, uncertain, flickering between motherly concern and sharp maternal instinct telling her this boy might be dangerous.

Danny could see the conflict in her eyes. She wanted to pull her son back, but knew the boy wouldn’t be letting go any time soon. His grip on Danny's wrist was steadfast, oblivious to the tension.

These people were American.

Which meant... he wasn’t in Nanda Parbat anymore. He probably wasn’t even in Pakistan anymore.

How he’d gotten here, he didn’t know. But for the first time in his life, he wasn’t surrounded by the League. He was out. Free.

‘At least for now.’ Danny thought tentatively.

That was six years ago.

Since then, life had become different. He’d gone into the foster system, gotten a legal name, and a foster family that eventually adopted him. He went to school. Attended classes. Became friends with the boy and the girl he’d met in that forest. It was a near-normal life.

Except for the Fentons’ eccentricities, of course.

But normalcy never lasts forever. And a little over a year ago, it all changed again.

Chapter Text

“So…” Damian’s voice broke the silence that had been left after Danny finished recalling the last day he’d seen his twin. His voice was hesitant, faltering in a way Danny had only heard a handful of times before. His twin brother wasn’t someone who stumbled over words. Deimos didn’t hesitate. Not unless it was something that cut so deeply, it twisted his tongue in the process. “You… never died?”

Danny’s shoulders tensed. The question hung there, like a blade balancing on a thread. He didn’t look up. Couldn’t. His eyes found the floor, locked on a small crack in one of the tiles as if it held all the answers.

But the answer Damian wanted wasn’t simple.

The answer he wanted wasn’t true .

Because Danny had died. Just… not when Damian had thought for the past six years. Not when everyone else here thought. Not when it would’ve made sense in the neat, tragic timeline of ‘he disappeared and was never found’.

No. Danny had waited. Waited until the day after they’d turned fourteen. Until November 12th. That day—the day that carved itself into his bones like a scar.

He’d never forget November 12th.

There were other days branded into him, of course. Dates soaked in blood and smoke and loss. But November 12th bled differently. It wasn’t a day, it was a wound that reopened every year like clockwork. An annual reminder that his heart had permanently stopped once, and that he would never be a normal person ever again.

That his body no longer obeyed the normal rules of life.

That he was a monster.

Which meant… he would have to tell Damian.

He would have to tell his twin about his ‘state of existence’. Because when November 12th rolled around again—and it was less than two months away now—it would not be something he could hide. Not from Deimos. Not from any of the people in the same house as he is.

Danny would need ice. Buckets of it. Ice baths to lower his core temperature and silence the pain that always came back like clockwork. Every nerve in his body would scream as if reliving that moment again—the moment when electricity had surged through his body and snuffed out his life. He’d be shaking, screaming, thrashing.

The ice would help. Because ice always helped now. His ice core—the strange new ‘organ’ he carried deep inside his chest—responded to cold. Ice helped him a lot with whatever pain he had. More so than when he’d still been a human. But it wouldn’t fix the problem.

It wouldn’t change what he was.

It wouldn’t change that he was a monster.

Danny’s breath caught. He knew what he had to say. He knew that lying would only make it worse. But the words weren’t lining up. They were stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat, jammed behind his racing heart.

He inhaled sharply, but it didn’t help. His pulse pounded louder, faster, climbing into that dangerous zone where his body stopped remembering what slow and steady was supposed to feel like. He needed to calm down. Back to baseline. Back to what was extreme bradycardia for a normal human. Back to 30 beats per minute.

The walls were closing in, and Danny could feel his head spinning. A wave of nausea coiled in his gut. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t say it. Not yet. Not now.

But then—arms. Arms wrapped around him.

He blinked.

Had someone called his name?

Had he been spiraling again? Losing time?

Were his feet even on the floor anymore?

Was he still breathing?

Wait.

He was.

He knew he was.

He’d taken a deep breath just a bit earlier.

Danny sucked in another breath, shallow and trembling. But the arms were still there. Solid. Steady. Not letting go. He could feel the pressure around his ribs, the faint rhythm of a heartbeat not his own pressing into his side.

He tilted his head, eyes darting up to see whose arms they were.

Deimos.

Of course. It was Deimos. Damian. His twin brother.

Danny’s pulse fluttered. He exhaled. Not a full breath, but enough. Enough to ground him again.

Deimos was here.

Breathe in.

Okay. He needed to answer. They were waiting. He could feel the weight of their eyes, heavy and expectant. The air was thick with it.

What had Damian asked again?

Right.

He’d been asked if he’d never died.

As if that was something that could be shrugged off.

And now he has to explain that no, he had died, just not at the moment his twin had been thinking for the past six years.

Had he breathed out yet?

He should breathe out.

Breathe out.

And take another breath so he could tell his brother he was dead.

That he was a monster.

Danny’s fingers twitched against his legs. His hands were shaking. He tried to still them, pressing them tighter against his legs, but they trembled anyway.

He could feel the panic building again. Pressing. Expecting.

Breathe in.

Danny forced his lips to move.

“I—” His throat constricted, the word scraping past. His chest tightened. The room was too quiet. The walls were too close. Too many eyes.

They were waiting.

“Not when we were nine, no,” he managed. The sentence left him with more effort than it should have taken. His jaw clenched as he exhaled.

Breathe out.

A beat of silence. Then the questions came. Of course, they did. These were Bats. They didn’t leave things unsaid.

“What do you mean, Phobos?” Damian’s voice was close now. Next to him. His twin’s tone wasn’t sharp, wasn’t cold, but it still cut into Danny like a scalpel.

He glanced at Damian. His brother’s expression was open, raw. Confusion etched across his face. Danny couldn’t help but notice how much more human Deimos looked now. He was showing his emotions more. Talia would’ve called it weakness. Bruce probably calls it growth.

Danny wasn’t sure what to call it.

Didn’t matter. He had to answer.

Breathe in.

“I died the day after we turned fourteen.” His voice was hollow, flat, and yet the words seemed to smash through the room like a sledgehammer.

He watched the hope and relief that had appeared in his twin's eyes after he’d finished his story fade from Damian’s eyes, replaced by something far heavier. Sadness. Pain. A guilt that mirrored his own.

Danny’s arms moved without permission, crossing over his chest, gripping his own biceps like he was trying to hold himself together. The motion loosened Damian’s arms, just slightly. It felt like losing something vital. But it was fine.

It was fine.

Danny didn’t deserve comfort anyway.

Monsters don’t deserve solace.

Breathe out.

“But you came back?” Bruce’s voice broke in, calm, measured. Like he was reading off a case file, not speaking to his long-lost son.

Danny flinched.

He didn’t get a chance to answer before Dick’s voice piped up, light but full of sincerity, “Hey, don’t sweat it, man. You wouldn’t be the first person in this family to die and come back. We’re kind of known for it.” He smiled—earnest and so, so genuine.

Danny hated how much that look made his chest ache.

Because Dick didn’t know what kind of monster he was.

Danny swallowed hard. His next words wouldn’t come easily.

He didn’t want to say them.

He didn’t want to see their faces fall when they realized.

When they understood.

But he had to.

He knew he had to.

Breathe in.

“I’m still… partly dead.”

The room seemed to freeze.

He could see it—the confusion, the alarm, the mental calculations. They were trying to understand what that meant. Trying to fit it into their neat little Batfamily boxes. Resurrection? Lazarus Pit? Medical anomaly?

No. None of that.

Danny’s eyes flickered across the room, watching for any sudden movements.

Waiting for the slightest sign they’d reach for restraints.

Scalpel.

Lab tables.

Like they had.

He shuddered.

No.

This wasn’t that.

He wasn’t there.

He was here.

He was safe.

He was with Deimos.

Breathe out.

He repeated it to himself like a mantra.

Safe.

The word didn’t feel real.

He let his hands limply fall back into his lap and leaned back into Damian’s hold, feeling the steady weight of his twin anchoring him.

His Deimos.

His shield.

“Still dead?” Bruce prompted again, his voice softer now, gentler. But the question still rang out, mercilessly clear.

Danny knew.

He knew it was time to tell them everything now.

And that he’d eventually have to show them the freak he truly was.

So he inhaled, long and shaky, and he began.

Breathe in.

He told them about the accident. About the portal crashing open on top of his head, the electricity running up his arm andn through the rest of his body, the moment his heart had stuttered to a halt. He told them about the ghosts, about the rift between life and death that had then been open inside his basement. He told them about being Phantom. About being the white-haired boy who fought for Amity Park in the shadows. Being a freak. An anomaly. Schrödinger’s boy—both dead and alive, never fully one, never fully the other.

A halfa.

Half ghost.

Half human.

He didn’t transform.

Not yet.

He couldn’t show them yet.

Couldn’t bear to watch their faces as he became the thing he truly was.

But he knew that moment was coming.

It was only a matter of time.

And Danny dreaded it. Dreaded it more than anything else.

Breathe out.

Chapter Text

Damian was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed and aching in ways he hadn’t been prepared for. Sadness pressed heavy against his chest. Fear curled in his stomach like a serpent waiting to strike. Not for himself—no, he had carved out a life here, beside his father, far away from Nanda Parbat and the poison that place had instilled in him. He was not afraid for himself anymore.

These strange, unknown feelings were for his brother. For Phobos. For the boy who sat trembling in his arms, eyes downcast and breaths clipped like shards of glass.

Every word of his twin’s story twisted like a blade inside him. It filled him with dread, with anger, with a bone-deep worry that refused to loosen its grip. What had his brother lived through all these years? What hell had swallowed him that night in the forest—the night Damian thought he had lost him forever? The night he’d vanished, as though the shadows themselves had reached out and claimed him. A cliff. A fall. And then, as Phobos revealed, a portal that appeared as though it had been waiting.

Coincidence?

No.

Damian didn’t believe it.

There was no possible way. No chance in any realm or reality that a portal simply appeared at the exact spot where his twin had plummeted toward certain death.

No. Possible. Way.

And yet… even that cruel trick of fate might have been preferable to what truly happened. Because Phobos hadn’t been saved. Not really. He hadn’t died in the forest fire. Not by falling, nor by flames. No—he had died later. By electrocution.

One of the most agonizing deaths possible. And from the way Phobos told it, it hadn’t been quick. It hadn’t been merciful. He had felt every jolt, every cruel surge of energy tearing through his body. Every ampere. Every volt. His nerves alight, his skin burning, his muscles betraying him as death crawled slowly, inevitably, over him.

But that wasn’t all.

No.

As if that torment wasn’t enough, Phobos had been chemically poisoned at the same time. Chemicals burning through his veins, corrupting every cell, amplifying the pain until it became something beyond comprehension.

Damian knew pain. He knew poisons. Joker venom had twisted through his body once before, sharp and merciless, and he still remembered the way it had felt like his very soul was being skinned alive. Yet even that had been deliberate cruelty. What his brother endured… it was torment piled upon torment, and Damian’s imagination could barely grasp the depths of it.

And now… now Phobos was sitting here, trying to tell Damian, Bruce, and Grayson that he was fine . That his parents weren’t that bad. That he could shoulder it all alone. All while his arms remained clutched tight across his chest, his body curled inward, his hands guarding the Y-shaped scar that split him open like some cruel mark of ownership. As though they might strike at him again. As though he wasn’t safe in Damian’s arms.

As though Damian wouldn’t destroy anyone who dared to try hurting his twin brother.

The contradiction tore at Damian—this boy insisting with fragile words that everything was fine, while his trembling frame, his hidden tears, his frantic breaths betrayed him with every second.

A dichotomy.

The word pressed itself into Damian’s mind like a brand. It was too sharp, too fitting. His brother was fractured down the middle, pulled between survival and collapse, denial and truth.

And as Damian held him, he realized Danyal was counting his breaths. His twin was clinging to a rhythm—breathe in, breathe out, again and again—like it was the only thing keeping him tethered. Trying to force his panic back down where no one could see. If simply telling his story pushed him this far, then the reality of living it…

Damian tightened his arms around him. A fraction closer. A fraction tighter. Careful of the stitches still pulling at his chest, mindful of the fragile body that leaned into him. He let Phobos bury his face against his shoulder, even as the boy’s voice whispered insistently that he was fine. That he didn’t need this. That he wasn’t weak.

Damian ignored the words. He felt the truth in his trembling.

When he looked up, his father’s eyes met his across the room. Then Grayson’s. They didn’t need to speak. Their faces carried the same unspoken realization: this boy was breaking, and they couldn’t let him shatter completely.

And then—Damian felt it. Wetness against his shoulder. His brother’s tears slipping free once again, no matter how desperately he fought to contain them.

Bruce moved first. He placed his hands on his knees and rose slowly, his motions deliberate, measured. “Damian,” he said, voice steady but lined with something softer. “Take him to the room I’m sure Alfred has already prepared.”

Phobos flinched the moment Bruce shifted, his entire body going taut as a bowstring. Damian tightened his hold instinctively, every muscle in his own body ready to defend, to shield. He knew Bruce had seen it too—the way Danny’s eyes darted to track every subtle movement, the way his body braced for some unseen blow.

So Bruce did the only thing he really could in that moment. He stepped back. Just slightly. Enough that the back of his knees were touching the chair still standing behind him. Enough to show he would not press closer. Enough to show he understood.

It worked.

Phobos studied him, searching for some threat. Then, deliberately, he exhaled and allowed his body to loosen, his grip on Damian easing. Slowly—hesitantly—he began to pull away, pushing himself upright.

Damian hated letting go. Every instinct screamed against it. But he allowed it. He stood as well, ready to catch his brother should his knees falter, ready to steady him before he could stumble.

Together, they stepped out of the alcove where the weight of the morning still lingered in the air like smoke.

And just beyond the corner of the wall, as though he had been waiting all along, stood Alfred.

Of course he was there. Damian wasn’t surprised. Alfred always knew. He didn’t need to be present to hear. Somehow, the man simply absorbed the truths of this house, as though the walls themselves whispered to him. He already knew what they had heard—about the accident, about Phobos being half-dead, about the vigilante called Phantom, about the scars and the family that had twisted him into this trembling thing.

But even Alfred did not yet know everything. Phobos had given them fragments—enough to glimpse the picture, but not to see the whole. There were still pieces missing. Pieces that mattered. Pieces Damian would pry free when the time was right.

Because he needed the truth.

Because if he didn’t know every scar, every danger, every threat that had forged his brother into this haunted, broken halfa—then how could he protect him?

How could he keep his Phobos safe?

Chapter Text

Danny woke slowly, awareness trickling in alongside the gentle warmth of sunlight spilling across his skin. For a moment, he didn’t move—just let the weight of the light ground him in the here and now. Not the forest, not a cliff, not the endless hum of static that had once burned him alive. Just sunlight.

When he finally blinked his eyes open, the first thing he saw was his brother, sitting rigidly in the chair next to his bed. Damian had both arms and legs crossed in perfect soldier’s symmetry, his head tipped slightly forward, the faintest sound of snoring slipping out every few breaths. It was strange—so strange—to see Damian asleep in the open like this, unguarded.

Danny couldn’t help but smile.

Carefully, he shifted onto his elbows, slow and deliberate. Every movement tugged at his stitches, the sharp pinch of healing skin making him wince, but he managed to keep silent. The last thing he wanted was to wake Damian. His brother had gotten the shock of his lifetime that morning, seeing him alive—well… half-alive. He deserved the rest.

Danny’s hand slipped under the blanket. He phased his phone out of the hollow of his thigh with a faint flicker of intangibility and thumbed it awake.

11:35 a.m.

So he’d slept for… What? Two hours?

It felt both too long and not long enough.

When he looked up again, the sight that greeted him made him snort softly. Damian was wide awake now, watching him with eyes like sharpened glass—fixed not on Danny himself, but on the phone in his hand. His gaze was sharp, confused, almost offended. Of course he’d noticed that the device hadn’t been anywhere in the room before. Of course he’d noticed that it had just… appeared.

Danny couldn’t help himself. He grinned sheepishly and started to push himself upright. The phone clattered onto the covers, abandoned, and before he could so much as try to fix the pillows, Damian shot forward, hands quick and efficient as he rearranged them behind his back.

“Lunch shall be served shortly,” Damian said, voice clipped, formal as ever. “Will you be well enough to come down, or shall I bring it here for you?”

Danny laughed. Really laughed. Not the sharp, nervous kind of laugh he’d been holding onto the past few weeks, but a light one that slipped out of his chest before he could stop it. Damian froze mid-adjustment, his mouth pulling into a scowl at being laughed at, but Danny only shook his head.

It was just… good. Good to hear the slight Arabic lilt in his brother’s voice again. Even if it sounded like he was auditioning to be Alfred 2.0.

“Don’t worry, Deimos,” Danny said, still grinning. “I’ll come down for lunch. I’m already healing.” To prove it, he tugged up his shirt. The stitches lining his chest and abdomen were already knitting together, the edges faintly glowing with the ectoplasmic energy in his blood. By dinnertime, he’d probably be able to get them out.

He still didn’t understand why. On the bus ride from Amity to Gotham—nearly twenty-four hours of rattling seats and restless passengers—his body hadn’t healed at all. But now? A few hours under Damian’s watch, and the damage was closing faster than any of his wounds ever had.

Freaking ghost biology.

When he glanced back at Damian, the boy’s face was a perfect portrait of disbelief. His brother looked utterly floored, like the very concept of healing so fast had personally insulted him. Danny snorted again as Damian reached out to prod at the half-healed stitches with careful, precise fingers. He didn’t pull away. If he wasn’t safe letting Damian check him over, then where was he safe?

After a long moment, Damian finally leaned back, his face sliding back into neutrality—though Danny could still see the disbelief lingering under his skin. Their gazes met again, and Damian’s next words were measured, deliberate.

“Father, Grayson, Pennyworth, and Drake shall be in attendance.”

Danny caught the unspoken question. ‘Will you be alright meeting a new person?’

He straightened, gave a reassuring nod. “That’s fine. This mornin’ I was still in the middle of a panic attack—been stuck in it since before the bus ride, honestly. But bein’ here with you? It’s better. Nap helped too. Panic’s mostly gone now.”

Damian studied him a moment longer, then gave a short nod. “Alright.” The corners of his mouth tugged upwards almost imperceptibly. “Was that a Midwestern accent just now?”

Danny froze, ears heating before he tore his gaze away with exaggerated offense. “Yeah, well, I’ve been living in Amity for six years. Had to blend in, didn’t I? Accent comes with the territory.”

When he spoke again, he made sure his voice tilted back into its old Arabic cadence. Damian immediately snorted softly, his small smirk blooming into an actual smile.

Danny’s chest loosened. It had been too long since he’d seen that expression.

The knock at the door broke the moment. Alfred’s voice carried crisply through the wood. “Master Damian, Master Danny. Lunch is ready.”

His footsteps retreated before either twin could answer. Danny blinked, a little startled. He hadn’t even sensed the man standing outside until he’d knocked.

More ghostly than I thought.

With a gesture, Danny let Damian help him to the edge of the bed. Once settled, he slipped his phone back into the hollow of his thigh, ignoring Damian’s look of thinly veiled disgust.

Standing made his stitches twinge, but he stayed steady, gripping Damian’s hand as they walked out together. The gesture was as much for him as it was for Danny—the tether to calm what little panic still clung to his chest.

The mansion stretched around them as they descended the stairs, cavernous and old, every hallway a twist waiting to be mapped. By the time they reached the dining hall, Danny already knew he’d get lost in this place more than once.

The table was set for five. Bruce sat at the head, Dick on his right, together with a boy a few years older than the twins with dark hair and tired eyes, buried in his tablet. He hadn’t even noticed their arrival.

Not until Alfred cleared his throat, anyway. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet. The boy startled, guiltily shoved his tablet into the empty chair beside him, and then finally looked up.

When his gaze landed on the twins, his eyes went wide. His mouth dropped open. He pointed between them in shock, as though the very concept of ‘two’ was beyond his comprehension.

“There—” he stammered, unable to even finish the word.

“Yes, Drake, there’s two of us.” Damian’s tone was flat, unimpressed.

Danny blinked. Drake? Come on, Deimos, what’s his first name?

Drake’s face twisted into something closer to horror. The longer he stared, the more uncomfortable Danny felt, squeezing Damian’s hand just a little tighter. Thankfully, Dick intervened, poking Drake in the side.

“Come on, Timmy. You’re making Danny uncomfortable.”

Timmy? Tim. Danny’s gonna be calling him Tim.

Tim’s gaze whipped back to Danny, assessing, sharp, but Damian’s face was as unreadable as stone. Danny’s expression, however, betrayed his unease. Tim noticed. His shoulders dropped into resignation, and he muttered, “Seriously, Bruce? Another one?”

Danny couldn’t help it. He snorted, hard enough to earn himself a room full of stares. He slapped a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking and dropping Damian’s hand in the process, but his grin was already breaking free.

Even in Amity, people joked about Bruce Wayne’s adoption problem. Danny hadn’t expected the punchline to be so blunt in person.

Tim arched a brow, then leaned forward, a grin tugging at his lips. “You’re not going to try and kill me too, are you?”

That did it. Danny’s laughter burst free, loud and sharp, bouncing off the vaulted ceiling. He doubled over, clutching his chest until it ached. “Stop! Stop—it hurts!” He screamed through his laughter as he saw Tim’s mouth open again.

Damian immediately glared daggers at Tim, but Danny only wheezed through his laughter until he finally forced himself still. Damian tugged his shirt up again, checking the stitches like a hawk.

Danny tilted his head back toward Tim, who was now looking at his chest in shock. He reached across the table with an extended hand and a bright smile. “Hi. My name’s Danyal al Ghul—but you can call me Danny. I’m Damian’s twin.”

Tim stared at the offered hand, then at Danny’s face, then back at the hand. Finally, he stood just enough to shake it. “Timothy Drake-Wayne. Call me Tim.”

Danny had guessed the name correctly.

As Damian finished his inspection and Danny adjusted his shirt again, Tim leaned back with narrowed eyes. “So. How come we never heard of you before?”

Damian answered before Danny could. “He was supposed to be dead.”

Danny snorted, deadpan. “I am.”

Dick laughed, Tim looked like his brain was short-circuiting, and Alfred chose that exact moment to enter with steaming plates.

Perfect timing.

Chapter Text

After lunch, Danny stayed seated, his eyes trailing after Alfred as the butler cleared the table with that quiet efficiency that came from years of practice. Every scrape of silverware against porcelain, every soft clink as plates were stacked onto the cart, tugged at something in Danny’s chest. Midwest manners demanded he get up and help—years of living in Amity had drilled that into him—but the pull of his stitches made even shifting in his chair feel like a battle.

So he didn’t move. He just leaned back, one hand curling protectively around his aching abdomen, watching as Alfred wheeled the cart toward the kitchen. The sound of small wheels on hardwood faded down the hall, leaving only the soft hum of the manor around them.

A quiet huff broke his thoughts. Danny turned his head, already smiling faintly before he even spoke.

“What’s up, Damian?”

His brother wasn’t looking at Alfred. Damian’s eyes were fixed on Danny’s arm—on the way it pressed against his stomach like a shield.

“You are in pain?” Damian’s voice was level, but too sharp, too serious. It almost made Danny laugh. Almost. But the sharp throb of his stitches warned him what that would cost.

“Are you in need of more painkillers?”

That pulled Danny up short. He knew the double dose he’d been given that morning shouldn’t have worn off yet. Deimos knew it too. And yet here they were. The meds weren’t working anymore. They never really worked for long.

Ancients, he hated his ghost biology.

Why did his body—his half-dead, half-living mess of a body—still fire off pain signals like he was human, when painkillers just slid off him uselessly? Why did the neurons insist on firing when technically, by all definitions, he wasn’t even supposed to have a living nervous system anymore? It was infuriating. A cruel contradiction.

Whatever was on his face must have given him away, because Damian let out a quiet “tt”—sharp and familiar. Exactly the same sound he’d made when they were children, whenever Danny did something foolish in training. The sound dragged something soft and aching out of Danny’s chest. Six years apart, and some things hadn’t changed at all.

Others, though… other things had changed.

Danny studied his twin in silence. Damian was broader now, shoulders cut sharper, arms built with lean muscle. Back when they were nine, they’d been nearly identical in every way, but time had carved edges into Damian that Danny hadn’t mirrored. His eyes, especially—those had changed the most. There was something vast behind them now—even more so than when they’d still been together.—an echo of all the things they’d seen and done that no fifteen year old child ever should have.

And Danny knew why.

They’d been raised for this. To be weapons. To kill.

Memories pressed forward, unwanted but insistent. Bittersweet yet oh-so sad. Their first true mission. The one that marked the beginning of the end of their childhood.

The Netherlands. Tulip fields and foreign air sharp in his lungs. They’d been only six, small shadows in a world too big for them. But the League hadn’t cared.

The first target was barely older than a boy himself—a young blond man of twenty-two, wandering among the flowers like a tourist in his own country. Danny could still see the way Damian had approached him, playing the lost child, asking for help finding his parents. A trick they’d rehearsed. A distraction. And while the man’s attention was caught, Danny slipped behind him and cut his throat.

The red that sprayed from the artery painted the tulips brighter than they had ever been. Beauty marred with death. And to this day, Danny didn’t know why that man had been marked for death.

The second target… that one was different. Older. Thirty-six, according to the intel they’d gotten. Long brown curls, heavy glasses with thick black frames. A professor, sitting beneath the sprawling branches of an ancient oak in the botanical gardens of Utrecht University.

Danny remembered the way the man’s brows furrowed when the two of them approached from opposite sides, mirror images settling down beside him. He’d studied them, and when he’d asked why they were there, he hadn’t even flinched at the answer.

He’d told them he’d expected this. That his research had made him enemies. He’d been researching Promethium—he’d said the word like it was both promise and curse.

Promethium was a newly discovered element capable of mutating genes, awakening meta abilities where none had been before. His work had been proof of it, and that proof was dangerous. Too dangerous according to some very important people.

He had smiled, weary and calm, and asked them only one thing: make it quick. Painless.

He’d greeted death like an old friend.

They’d sat with him afterward. Sat on either side of his body as the warmth bled out, as his veins darkened beneath skin which quickly grew pale, as silence settled heavy beneath the branches of that oak. They’d stayed until his flesh was cold. Until it had felt wrong to stay any longer.

When they’d finally left, it hadn’t taken long for screams to rise behind them. Someone had found the body. The echoes followed them through the gardens, down winding streets, until they reached the extraction point where League agents waited to bring them back to the plane.

Back to Nanda Parbat. Back to training. Back to the life they had never chosen.

He heard a quiet huff beside him and blinked his eyes open. When had he closed them? His sharp blue gaze met Damian’s vibrant emerald one, twin locked on twin.

That particular look—flat, sharp, and simmering with a certain kind of annoyance—was one Danny was convinced only he could draw out of Damian.

“I’m fine,” he said at last, his voice steadier than he felt.

“You are clearly not ‘fine.’” Damian’s tone was clipped, arms crossing in that imperious little way of his as his eyes flicked toward their father. Bruce, who was still in the dining room for some reason Danny couldn’t even begin to guess.

He got why Damian lingered. His twin was obviously trying to push Danny into taking more painkillers. Probably thought he was helping. And Danny… Danny was still here because standing up hurt. Every breath dragged the stitches across his chest and abdomen like barbed wire. It was pathetic. He should take the meds. But they wouldn’t work anyway. Not on him. Not anymore.

Stupid dead neurons. Stupid dead thalamus. Stupid dead brain. Stupid dead body. Stupid death.

His silence stretched too long for Damian’s patience. Another sharp huff, and suddenly Damian was pulling painkillers from… somewhere. Danny didn’t even want to know. The pills clinked softly in Damian’s palm. Human painkillers. Regular ones. Utterly useless to Danny.

Danny stared. He’d told him. He knew he’d told him. His body would shred through those chemicals before they even reached anywhere close to his nervous system. His stitches going in had hurt less than they should have only because he’d been given a double dose of the special stuff. So why offer him these?

He was opening his mouth to point it out when Damian cut him off first.

“I know you said they won’t work properly, but you should still take something, Phobos.”

Danny winced, not from pain this time but from the way his brother had apparently taken his words to mean they simply didn’t work properly instead of at all. His eyes flickered, full of that bone-deep weariness he couldn’t quite shake.

“Deimos… my body doesn’t react to those at all. My blood eats through the active compounds before they even get close to my neurons. In under half an hour, they’ll be gone. Wasted. Never having given me even a little bit of pain relief.”

He said it flatly, clinically, but he couldn’t miss the way Damian’s expression faltered. That tiny shadow of sadness deepening in those emerald eyes.

From the corner of his vision, Danny caught it mirrored in Bruce’s face. Which was… odd. Why did he look sad? Why would it matter to him, this man who—Danny was certain—still wasn’t even fully convinced he was Damian’s twin, that painkillers didn’t work on him?

The thought flickered and was cut short when Alfred returned, silver tray in hand. A small white box and a glass of water rested neatly on its polished surface. He stopped beside Damian, setting the tray down with his usual care, before addressing Danny directly.

Danny still hadn’t moved from the dining table. Couldn’t. Every time he thought about standing, the memory of his stitches pulling sharper reminded him just how stupid that idea really was. Because Ancients, it hurt.

Worse, it itched. The kind of itch buried deep under the skin, the kind that made you want to claw yourself raw.

He hated the fact that healing wounds itch.

He curled his arms tighter around his torso, as if protecting it from the three pairs of eyes watching him, but the motion made another spike of pain flare white-hot through his abdomen, leaving his face twisted and betraying him.

Alfred noticed. Of course he did. The butler’s calm hands opened the white box, sliding out a blister strip of pills. “Perhaps it would be better for Master Danny if he took some of Master Clark’s painkillers.”

Danny froze.

Wait.

What?

Why in the everloving hell did they have those here?

You only stock painkillers that strong if someone with a healing factor lives in the house at least part-time. Which meant—what? Was there a meta with healing factor living in the manor?

Where had they been during lunch? How old were they? Were they another of Bruce’s endless brood? Or—Danny blinked—Bruce’s partner? Alfred had said ‘Clark’. That’s a male name. Did that mean Bruce was dating a guy?

Interesting. Very interesting.

But ultimately irrelevant. Danny wasn’t exactly straight himself, so who Bruce chose to keep around didn’t matter. What did matter was that there were meds here that might actually work. His gratitude surged almost painfully sharp, easing some of the bitterness gnawing in his chest at every little movement or pang of pain that reminded him of those awful white-dressed so-called scientists.

He met Alfred’s gaze with quiet relief, accepted four pills instead of two—double the dose, just like he’d said in the cave earlier, he noticed thankfully—and downed them quickly with the water.

They didn’t kick in instantly, of course. Painkillers weren’t magic. And that meant he was still stuck in this chair, body throbbing, waiting for them to take effect. Sitting on chairs like this for longer amounts of time only made the stitches pull worse, but the idea of standing—of moving—was laughable.

His thoughts must have been painted plainly on his face again—he really needed to work on that again—because suddenly Damian was moving. He slipped an arm under Danny’s knees, another behind his back, lifting him slowly but surely into a princess carry.

Danny blinked at him, startled but warmed. Grateful, even. Though it was obvious Damian was straining—his arms taut, his posture tighter than usual.

“Deimos,” Danny started, intending to tell him to put him down, to insist he could walk the distance himself if he was simply given a minute to steel his nerves. But Damian cut him off without missing a beat.

“You are clearly unable to walk to a more comfortable arrangement. Remaining here will not aid your recovery. Therefore, I will carry you.” His voice was matter-of-fact, like this was a mission order, his steps slow but steady toward the door.

Danny was gearing up to argue when the light from the window dimmed, blocked by broader shoulders stepping in front of them.

Bruce.

In a smooth motion, the man plucked Danny from Damian’s arms and lifted him effortlessly, as though he weighed nothing. Blue eyes—his own eyes—met Danny’s, steady and unreadable.

Danny instantly knew why. He wasn’t dense. Bruce wasn’t trying to coddle him. He was saving Damian from overexertion. Stopping him from burning himself out.

Good. Danny wanted that too.

At least Bruce was strong enough to do it without strain.

He carried Danny out of the dining room and into another part of the manor, settling him gently onto a couch. Danny sank into the cushions, finally, finally able to ride out the pain until the meds dulled the edge enough for sleep to hopefully creep in again.