December 5th

Danny sat giddily watching the Batcomputer, medicated smoothie in hand and feeling like he was unstoppable.

Right about now they were supposed to be on a mission, some issue with Sportsmaster again. But Bruce had handed the responsibility over to Oliver to handle, assuring not only them but also the archer himself that the team would do just fine without Bat involvement for once. The man was so worked up over the rogue and everything that came with sending out the team, it really wasn't worth the effort anyway. Especially when, in exchange, Bruce could spend more time with his kids.

Well, physically spent time with one while the other yapped in their ears about everything around.

Gotham Academy and Gotham University were holding a combined science fair. One where students could present their work for extra credits but also give an opportunity for people like Bruce to run around and scout business prospects. It was a win-win for all involved.

Except poor Danny couldn't go. Not being out in the public yet while they waited for all the forms to clear in the legal side of things was absolute torture when he couldn't go look at the shiny new things. So his poor victims, sorry family, had to play the part for him. With a camera hidden on their persons and a comm in their ears, Danny was able to look around as well and point out some interesting stuff.

Frankly, he couldn't wait until next year where he would be able to go as well. Maybe even participate if they allowed it. Just for fun, naturally. Dick would have, but chose not to with all the private stuff going on. His teachers understood, even better now that some of them were already aware of a certain new student enrolling.

As it stood, Danny had already gotten excited about some of the more technical side of the projects presented. Dick, too, had found a few he saw potential in. Bruce, as versed in the subjects as he was, let them take the lead for once. They were proving more than capable to do so. With the way things were going, Bruce may not have brought enough business cards with him to hand out.

He might have Lucius bring over a new stack just in case. Having spotted a certain shiny dome waltzing around as if he owned the place, Bruce put a hand on Dick's shoulder to stop the boy from wandering too far out of reach. Keeping nothing but a charming smile on his face, Bruce watched as Lex and two white suited men started walking their way.

With practiced care, Bruce's smile didn't falter as he heard a scared whisper in his ear. "Bruce." Danny's heart sank as he saw the overly white fabric from miles away. With a racing heart and a stomach trying to summersault it's way out of his body, he stood powerless as GIW agents roamed freely in Gotham. "The white suits." His voice quivered, "keep a close eye on those men. Any weapons they carry likely has the safety off." Danny wasn't able to warn them any more as the potential threats closed in.

"Bruce!" Lex called out warmly. "How nice to see you here, and your ward, too." As he reached out a hand to shake, the white suited men hovered their hands over their hip. A warning, but not in the way they indented. Their failed intimidation only proving more worth to Danny's caution. Lex caught his gaze, waving it off nonchalantly. "Oh, don't mind them. They're just here for security."

A dangerous glint sparkled in the bald man's eye, matching the gleam of the light on his overly polished appearance. "One can never be too cautious these days." He feigned nervousness, scoffing as he held a hand close to where his supposed hart was meant to be. "Can you believe there's a ghost haunting your city now? Honestly, the mayor is a fool not to take my offer and get rid of him." His equally bald headed entourage did little to hide their displeasure at the mention of Gotham's newest hero.

Dick's hands balled into first inside his pocket, anger boiling under his carefully crafted mask. Biting the inside of his lip, he had to will his mouth to stay closed as Bruce took the lead. "Oh? Must not have been that good of an offer then." The passive aggressive comment was worth putting some suspicion on himself. Though was it really that bad to not care much about ghosts in Gotham of all places? Not like they hadn't seen crazier on the regular.

"Ghosts seem a lot less dangerous than all the people with questionable mental health and access to weaponry." Dick's quip immediately earned him a glare from the walking bleach commercials.

"Listen, brat." The dark skinned one started, sneering as he gripped his weapon tightly. "Those demons trick less intelligent beings with ease, fool the fools and worm their way into wherever to cause destruction as they please." The man was getting awfully close to Dick, forgoing his place as a security guard and ignoring the existence of personal space.

The paler one stepped forward, somewhat behind the dark skinned man but definitely closer than Bruce liked. "Trusting them is exactly how you earn yourself a one way ticket to getting your city cleansed." He nodded, sunglasses bouncing on the bridge of his nose before he pushed them back into place. "Let the adults handle issues like this. You'll understand when you're older."

Dick felt like he could break a tooth with how hard he was clenching his jaw just to stop himself from going after these men's snobby noses. The only thing holding him back was the very firm grasp Bruce had on him. While he could complain about potential bruises later, the dull pain anchored him in the moment.

With a smile so sickeningly sweet it could make a unicorn throw up, Bruce eased the tension back down. "Thank you for the concern, gentlemen, but I would appreciate if you would not try to tell my son how to think. This is a free nation, after all." The commotion had drawn some unwanted attention from the people around. More at the poor stressed out student whose booth they were arguing in front of, but any drama with two of the region's richest was always bound to draw extra eyes on the situation.

Noting the eyes on them, Lex cleared his throat and fixed some imaginary wrinkle in his collar. The shift in mood forced the two bald headed eyesores to fall back to where they belong, trailing behind Lex as the man swiftly moved on with a simple "A pleasure as always, Bruce."

Dick glared at their retreating forms, something about how overly confident those men were creeped him out. Heebies thoroughly jeebied, he prodded Bruce in his ribs, pushing the man towards the food court to get away from the entire area. With a snack and cold drink in hand, he couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong. Subtly calling out for his brother, he breathed out "Ni?" before taking a sip from his cup.

"Yeah." Danny was still there, smoothie long abandoned as he held Nanaki and Shiro close.

"There's some interesting prospects around." Bruce mused, poking at the mixed salad he picked up. "Any future plans are surely to take off." It was awkward, but the easiest way to talk in such a crowded room. Though it didn't seem like any were particularly looking at the pair of Waynes, the sheer number of eyes and ears made it impossible for a truly private conversation.

Dick hummed, his own hotdog looking anything but interesting enough for how intently he was staring at it. "You know," he slowly drawled out, "maybe a change of suit would have been a better idea. That green tie really isn't the vibe for this place."

Bruce looked down, not even having noticed he had a green tie on today. But that was besides the point. "Hate to say it, but I'd have to agree. Maybe I'll ask Lucius to bring another around along with the new cards." Fixing his tie back in place, he had to trust Danny was understanding what they were trying to tell him.

Luckily for them, and unluckily for Danny, he very much did. Though he wished he didn't.

Somebody put a BOLO out for Danny's flabbers because they have gasted out of the room. Had Alfred not stood beside him as the two discussed Bruce's bad tie choice over some questionable convention food, he would have not believed his own ears. Of course, Alfred reassured him he had not misunderstood at all.

They wanted him, technically still questionably legal Danny, to suit up as Robin.

Screw all the discussions they had about how Danny never wanted to replace Dick as the boy wonder, he was given very little choice in the matter. Phantom was a death sentence. With GIW already so brazenly wandering around, the whole thing reeked of a set up.

Of course, that meant he had to remain human to not spike their sensors and not play directly into the trap they had so obviously set. But that also meant they'd need one hell of a cover story for both Richard Grayson-Wayne and Robin to be in the same damn room without any shapeshifters on standby.

What was J'onn doing anyway?

Nevermind that, they didn't have the time for that. Reluctantly, Danny walked over to the changing rooms. Ignoring his stomach dancing the salsa, he pulled on colors that don't belong to him. Gloves that ended way sooner than he was used to, yet somehow still fit just fine.

Pushing a few strands of black out of his eyes, he waited with the mask. "Isn't there one giant issue here?" He turned to Alfred, hand stopping halfway from raking through his clearly too long locks as the man already stood prepared with a wig. "Do I even want to know why you guys just have a perfect wig for Dick's hair on hand?" The glint in Alfred's eye did absolutely nothing to help ease Danny's racing thoughts.

"One would be surprised how often they come in handy over the years." Alfred smirked as he helped Danny get the thing on. The practiced grace getting the hairnet and wig secured brought up so many more questions than Danny felt willing to deal with. But the tactical use of mask glue to make sure it would stay secure was at least one thing he understood.

Maybe they should use some around the edge of the gloves too, he mused. While his recovery was going quite well, not all of the neon green scarring had fully faded yet. Even in his human form, the ecto still sat just below the skin, marring olive with even greener hues. The gloves covered most of it, barely, but it felt like they would slip down just an inch too far for his comfort if he moved around.

Without even paying much attention, Alfred had guided him over to the mirror. Embarrassingly enough, it had taken Danny a good bit too long to realize he wasn't standing face to face with his brother. Though Danny was still a size or two slimmer, the suit hid their physical difference well. A bit too well. It was like they were genuinely identical with the help of that darn realistic wig.

If he dared himself to be honest for just a moment, he'd be forced to accept it felt wrong just how right it felt. How his resolve was crumbling just that little bit at just how easily he could slip into the Robin role and take over. Maybe if Phantom ended up not working out after all, a human identity might not be that bad of an idea.

Danny shook his head, forcing the idea to fall under the rubble of his broken thoughts. He had a lot more things to worry about than day-dream about a world where things weren't as messed up as they were.

Coming back out to the main room of the Batcave, Danny tugged his brother's cape closer around him. Making sure his comms were linked up with Bruce's and Dick's, he got the weirdest déjà vu when approaching the Zeta platform. With a reassuring smile from Alfred and his beloved furballs watching him leave with a soft flick in their tails, he braved the open air of Gotham City.

Knowing Cujo was roaming somewhere, having sent the pup out earlier in the day to go play with Jay and Ace, brought him more nerves than reassurance. With the GIW in town, he was sure they'd light the place up like 4th of July if they even saw a glimpse of the pup. Add Cujo's overprotectiveness onto that, and it was a recipe for disaster. A quick little pitstop, nothing more than a passing though the area, should be enough. Leave a paper trail for Robin to already be out on patrol and make sure Cujo knew to stay away.

Two ghost blobs, one thermos kind of solution.

Now if Robin was already conveniently spotted hanging around Gotham U's campus, there would be no reason to question why he would be able to step in so quickly should anything go wrong during the exposition. A little friendly PR with the students never hurt anybody, especially not when Danny was still getting used to being around so many people. If he messed anything up with his intoxicating levels of awkwardness, his brother would be able to fix that within a week.

The fact that not a single soul seemed to think anything was off with 'Robin' did bring him some joy. Mostly since that meant they would still pull off a bait and switch after all these years, which truly was just the right amount of ego-boost Danny needed in that moment.

Before too long, the oh so predicable disaster struck. While he was mid-discussion with an engineering student too. He'd almost won a bet with the young woman over a cookie when the screaming started. A breathy comment from Brucie to Dick was all he needed to know the planned attack had started. Rushing over to the expo hall, Danny did his best to piece together his best impression of the Robin mask.

Taking to higher ground, he scanned the room for who could possibly have been sent to wreck havoc on his city. Most ghosts wouldn't even dare without telling him first, but none of his friends had scheduled a spar today.

Pulling just the slightest bit at his core, he looked around trying to find any sign of an ecto signature to track. Even when invisible, most ghost couldn't hide that. Now if the GIW were any better at shooting than a damn stormtrooper he might have been able to follow their line of fire but as it stood, it was a miracle nobody had gotten shot on accident yet.

Lex should be considered miles too lucky the buffoons only carried special anti-ghost guns and not the people-harming kind. Really, whatever his grandiose plan was, it didn't seem to be going too great as Bruce and Dick were taking all the grace points with leading the panicked crowd out of the room in as orderly of a fashion as they could.

Letting them get some good PR from this too, Robin kept an eye out for who could be causing trouble. Not a moment later he was already thanking his lucky star he was hiding up high where nobody could see him when his ghost sense forced itself out of his throat. There was definitely somebody here, a few somebodies from how harsh it came out too. But the fact they were now noticeable enough for his ghost sense to trigger, gave him enough of a trace to find where they were.

Aiming himself in just the right angle, he pushed off from his hiding spot with some aerosolized ice-smoke bombs. Nothing that would actually hurt a ghost beyond cause an itchy throat and a cough annoying enough it shocks them out of invisibility.

Landing safely on one of the booth tables, Robin made sure to keep an eye on not just his trail of icy agitants but also the pair of trigger happy shiny fools. As the sound of three distinct coughs were growing louder, so did Robin's need to face palm. Up in the air were his three favorite uncategorisable feather fucks. Their little fez hats holding on for dear un-life as the vultures heaved from the coughing fit they had to deal with.

"Hey, why'd you have to do that for?!" One of them complained, Pez, Robin remembered naming him. He was always the one who spoke the most.

"Yeah, why?" Dez wined, always the one repeating what Pez said. That must mean the only one remaining silent was Wez. Not much of a talker that one, though they were the one who liked to throw a claw out just for fun.

Robin didn't even get a chance to react as the fools with tools already started miserably failing to land a single hit. Granted, none of the vultures were staying still, flopping around between fits of coughs and dodging shots.

Watching the situation grow more unruly despite the shrinking crowd, Robin tried to distract the GIW agents with some caltrops to throw them off balance. "What are you guys doing here?" He called over to the vultures, words over violence usually working out better with them anyway.

Unfortunately, Pez wasn't particularly in a talkative mood. "Why would we tell you that, brat?!" Dez's annoying 'yeaaaahhhhh' did very little to stop Robin form just wanting to freeze them in a block of ice and drop them off at Walker's. Though it didn't do much, at least he could rule out them being sent by Vlad as they would never have shut up if that fruitloop did. Though Wez's lack of going for Robin's eyes was the more obvious sign. He never held back when it was Vlad trying to send a message so it wasn't him.

"Okay, lets make a deal here." Robin sighed, inching away from the now annoyed agents as they yelled obscenities at him. Lex glaring daggers at him also just added that lovely flavor of angry rich cunt into the already stuffy air. "Tell me what they're paying you with and I'll double it if you get out within the next 10 minutes without hurting anybody."

"HA," Dez cawked loudly as he fluttered around yet another missed shot, "As if you can get us premium seeds-"

"SHUT UP YOU KFC REJECT!" Pez yelled as Wez slapped Dez with a wing, pushing Dez right in the way of what would have been a missed shot. With a few singed tail feathers, Dez fluttered next to the other two again.

Robin genuinely couldn't help the long groan this time. While they were too advanced to fall within the category of animal ghosts, they were still very animal coded in their behavior. "I'll get you the seeds, from Undergrowth himself, if you leave. Unless you want to get souped." There was no way for Robin to soup any ghosts, but it's not like the flying triple-combo menu knew that.

"What are you doing?!" Agent K hissed, almost as if he could recognize the ghost hiding behind the mask. The barely concealed seething anger making it feel like old times. "You can't reason with ghosts, they won't listen! Stop wasting our time and let the adults handle this!"

Robin slowly turned to the agent, thankful the mask was hiding just enough to make his expressions perfectly readable as he gave them the deadest of deadpan looks. "Handle what? Improving ventilation by trying to shoot the windows out? You guys can't even hit them when they're literally hovering." Just to prove his point, Robin threw out a little frost coded batarang right at Dez's stupid little hat, knocking it clean off while never breaking eye contact with Agent K.

Growling in annoyance, Agent K aimed his blaster at Robin. Now actually grateful for the mask, it hid how Robin's eyes widened just a moment. How his stress spiked at the thought of being made. But no, if Lex jumping in to push the blaster down was anything, it was just the same old lack of anger management. No matter the plan to make ghosts look dangerous, having his personal bodyguards shoot Gotham's beloved child hero with so many witnesses still around was about the worst PR imaginable.

Forcing out a breathy laugh to shake off the nerves, Robin turned back to the terrible turkeys. "So? Luxury levels of premium seeds, or getting souped. Your choice." Robin made a show of reaching behind him, hidden by the cape as if he had been hiding a thermos on this back this entire time.

"S-say we accept, who will pay us." Pez asked cautiously, head on a swivel as he looked between Lex and the hero. There was a reason he was the one who usually took the word, having more than just chickenshit for brains unlike Dez.

Robin pulled his hand back to the front, arms opened in invitation as he shrugged. "You can tell Skulker to talk to Frostbite. I doubt you'd like your feathers frozen over trying to reach him yourselves." Robin's leisurely smile and lax stance countered how tensed up and ready to throw a fit Lex looked. How that man made it through business deals with such a horrible poker face was beyond him, but Bruce looked a lot more entertained than he should be in this moment so it counted as a win.

Quietly muttering between the three of them, dumb, dumber and dumbest finally reached an agreement. With a hollow threat of returning if they don't get their seeds, they finally decided to take their leave once more. Robin didn't bother chasing them out, knowing they could sense Cujo lurking around just as well has he could.

"You know, that really put me in the mood for some KFC now." Robin laughed as people came out of their hiding spots. One young man called out an offer of getting Robin some wings from the food stands as one by one, the remaining witnesses looked around. Robin was going to refuse, but wasn't given much chance to do so as he felt a firm hand clasp onto his shoulder.

Spinning around quickly, Robin relaxed immediately as he saw Mayor Garcia and Commissioner Gordon having arrived on scene. "I see you had this one handled, Robin." Gordon praised as he took in the damage to the facility. "What happened here?"

Robin didn't even get a chance to answer as Mayor Garcia let go of Robin's shoulder. Mood thoroughly soured, he walked over to a certain bald trio trying and failing to stand proud. "Mayor Garcia." Lex tried to greet warmly, arm stretched out for a handshake yet completely ignored.

"I told you to keep your ragtag security contained, Luthor." Mayor Garcia glared, and not just from the light reflexing on their sweaty foreheads. "I told you they weren't needed here, and yet you insisted on parading them around. Not only have you caused substantial damage to the building but to the reputation of the school as a safe and rogue free facility." To say the Mayor was anything but amused was an understatement. Gotham U had a long standing reputation of being left alone by rogue attacks, that much was true. It didn't take a lot of thought to question why, when Lex was here showing off his new security, that would suddenly and so coincidentally stop being the case.

"Don't mind that." Gordon pulled Robin's attention back, right as Bruce and Dick were making their way over as well. "Mayor Garcia was already notified the moment those white suits stepped out. Though I had hoped we could mobilize a bit faster than we did. But I see there was no need for concern."

Like Clockwork was just personally messing with him today, Robin was once again not given a chance to reply as that young man from earlier arrived with the offered chicken wings. Stuttering as he accepted the food, he felt like a fish out of water with no idea of how to gracefully make his exit.

"Eat up, son. You look like you could use it." Gordon laughed as Dick snuck up behind Robin. Eyeing the free wings, Robin just held the little tray out for Dick to take one as he fumbled with the little wooden fork to not invoke Alfred's wrath if he got even a drop of sauce on Dick's gloves.

Though any regular person wouldn't dare nab a wing from a hero, Dick already had enough of a reputation of being familiar with Batman due to his many kidnappings over the years. It was plausible enough he and Robin were on friendly enough terms to act so casually around each other.

Robin wouldn't lie, it helped calm down the spike in adrenaline. As if having to go out as Robin wasn't bad enough, the GIW aiming an anti-ghost blaster right at him did leave him a little shaken. The Mayor of all people showing up in person to chew Luthor out was just the tip of the iceberg. But Dick staying by his side as Robin gave off his statement to Gordon did help. He didn't even bother with the itchiness on his arm from where the glove had slipped down.