Danny forced himself to stop breathing the moment the smoke surrounded him. It's not like he needed to breathe in this form anyway but it was still a habit. Immediately he went invisible in case the new arrivals were in fact the GIW. How those lunatics had found him he didn't know but he couldn't take any chances. Perhaps it's Skulker who got a new toy to try and catch him for his pelt.

To this day, still, ew.

He flew up a little to survey his surroundings, taking a few seconds to observe the utter chaos going on.

At this point Danny was starting to think the guards slipped something into the vents of his cell or something.

First no food, again.

Then a jailbreak? Here? Absolute madness.

Not only that but one bad enough he had to step in and have his collars on standby mode. Definitely not whelmed.

Then being the last guard standing because SOMEHOW everybody's collars were on standby.

Then the absolute mess with Frosty the temper tantrum throwing teen. Definitely wishing he just punched that dude now.

The love birds not taking kindly to their possible friend-possible rival getting collared.

And now?

Danny felt like he took some hallucinogens as he watched Cujo chase a yellow zooming blur like he had been starved for a year. He almost didn't notice the blur had dropped off green girl with- are those fucking gills on his neck? Green girl was now with fish guy who immediately ran off to water magic a shield where buff dude was still on the floor from tackling Cujo.

"M'gann!" Fish guy called towards green girl, well, at M'gann apparently. Danny whipped his head around to look between the two. "Can you link us up?!" Fish guy yelled at her, or ordered? Danny watched as green girl put a hand to her temple and her both entire eyes began to glow a pale green.

He couldn't think much about the green eyes due to the sudden headache he felt. It wasn't a stabbing pain but he could definitely feel some sort of pressure had started in his mind. The oddness of the feeling made him lose grip on his powers as he felt himself fall a couple inches until he composed himself again. He would be questioning if somebody had been trying to possess him if he had felt another ghostly presence outside of Cujo who was still very much chasing that blur.

"Can somebody get this thing off me?" Danny heard somebody ask but he didn't see anybody talk.

"I tried!" He heard a female voice call out. It wasn't green girl's voice and for some reason he definitely 'heard' it from behind him. Danny didn't dare move as he was almost sure they had forgotten he was still there. "The damn thing just runs through the nets like they don't even touch it!"

Well if this isn't the worst development of the day. Just what the hell was that? Who the fuck were these people? And most importantly why were they trying to catch Cujo?

Danny didn't have much time to panic as the chaos below him just continued on with zero regard for his mental distress. "Superboy get out of there! We will cover your retreat." He definitely knew that was fish boy's voice but fish boy's mouth absolutely did not move. Danny could feel an actual headache come up as he tried to make sense of it all. If normal medication worked on him, he'd gladly drown a whole bottle of painkillers by the end of the day.

"Right, right." He heard buff teen say somewhat dazed.

Danny could barely focus on what was happening in front of him. So much was going on, so much had happened already and he couldn't shake this odd feeling he had. The longer this weird gang of teens was here the more he couldn't shake the strange familiarity of the blur and fish boy. There was something about them that he couldn't quite place.

"Who is this kid anyway?" Oh come on! Just how many times had he been called a kid today already?! "There was nothing in Batman's files about a small kid being here?" He is not small! He was a proud 5' thank you very much! He just hadn't gotten his growth spurt yet is all! The voice definitely came from above him. With his short circuited brain Danny looked right at the owner of said voice and yelled out.

"Um, rude! I'm not a small kid, I'm almost 14!" If anybody would ask later, he would deny he puffed out his cheeks in a pout until the day he died again.

"What?" Was the last thing his brain audibly registered as a batarang landed near his feet.

His mind was absolutely racing. The kid up on one of the lamps felt so familiar.

So painfully familiar.

But he couldn't place why.

He could feel his heart constrict but his brain had yet to catch up why. Who was this?

Black hair, red suit, cape? He didn't know many heroes that were active these days, definitely not kids.

Kid heroes?

Images of that blur and fish boy jumped in his mind.

Yellow and super fast...

Gills and a golden arch on his belt...

He could almost picture his evenings with Wilcox as the man had showed him articles on the latest happenings in the hero and crime world.

Kid Flash and Aqualad

There was no way the security alerts didn't notify the Justice League of the pending issue. Were the adults so busy they sent their kids to handle it?

Then

Danny felt his legs hit the floor as he had gradually descended back to the ground and stumbled back a little in surprise. His knees were too weak to carry the sudden weight of standing again. The masked face he stared at, hiding just as shocked of an expression as his own. In utter fear he reached up to his own face, tracing the part of his face the boy didn't have covered.

Of course they would end up with the opposite part of their face covered.

Just like he ended up on the opposite end of the law

Danny was certain if he had been in his human form he would long since have passed out from forgetting to breathe and his heart pounding so hard it would escape his chest cavity. Pure panic and dread were starting to bubble up as realization after realization hit him like a bullet train. His eyes refused to focus beyond the figure that was now burned into his eyes. Desperately he tried to believe it wasn't him, but he watched the boy slip from his perch. The way he sat there before, how he skillfully caught himself again, how he would even have gotten up there without making the light move.

Tricks they had learned together

Danny felt his grip on his powers slip as he started to lose what little control he had left. Suddenly he felt himself fall backwards as his foot had phased through the floor. Stumbling backwards, he desperately tried to catch his footing.

This can't be happening.

Not now

Please, let this all be a dream

A horrible nightmare

He had to run

He had to escape

Escape somewhere he'd be safe from hurting anybody

Where everybody else is safe from him

Danny couldn't take the stress anymore. His fight or flight had fully kicked in as panic took over his senses. Barely registering his own movements anymore, he started running towards Cujo. He felt his mouth move but his brain didn't connect what he said. His beloved pup jumped off of the teen hero and sprinted towards the distressed ghost boy.

Cujo jumped towards him and that was the last push he needed to find enough control over himself to fly up to catch him. Luckily for Danny, Cujo was of sound enough mind to remember to turn intangible before they crashed into the ceiling.

Whatever happened next was all fragmented as Danny's panic stricken brain stopped functioning through all the stress and heightened instincts.

He had somewhat of a flash of handing the remote back to Miss Waller and opening her cell. After that it was a blank. He somehow found his way back into his cell, curled in a ball underneath his bunk. Ice was still covering everything which helped absolutely nobody as it only fueled Danny's breakdown even more.

A whole year of hiding

Pretending he was dead and gone to the outside world

Making sure nobody would find him

Making sure he wasn't a bother

Making sure he couldn't hurt anybody

All that effort

Just for him to show up here

"There was nothing in Batman's files"

It repeated in his head in a taunting loop

How did he miss it the first time

How did it take him so long to realize

How stupid he was to think he could have hidden from the greatest detective on the planet

From Batman

How cruel to send his brother to catch him

Danny felt like he couldn't breathe. He didn't actually have to, as he was still in his ghost form somehow. Yet, when he tried to take a breath it's like his lungs refused to expand no matter how many he took. He was only vaguely aware he was crying as the occasional sob interrupted his frantic gasps for air. His throat felt like somebody was squeezing it closed.

That somebody was himself.

His mind slipped so far into panic he hadn't realized he was so desperately trying to breathe he was effectively choking himself. After every other sob he'd try to scratch at his throat, trying in vain to remove the obstacle that was making it hard to breathe.

He curled himself further into a ball, making it harder for Cujo to help as the pup clawed at the boy's arms.

Danny wasn't sure how long he laid there like that. His mind continued to race as his panicked mind only dug himself into a deeper hole.

Now that they knew he was there, was it safe to stay here? Was anywhere safe? If they found him in the most isolated part of a high security prison, was there anywhere he could hide?

Was there anywhere they wouldn't find him?

A sharp pain in his arm brought him somewhat back to reality. He looked down to Cujo having bitten into his right bicep to try and drag it away from his throat. Danny numbly watched Cujo grab another part of his arm to drag it away enough so the pup would fit underneath. Cujo nestled into Danny's chest. The pup's core sent soothing waves to the hurting teen. Feeling yet again overwhelmed by the whirlwind of emotions and thought, Danny held on tightly to the pup, soaking his fur with his tears. Violent sobs wrecked his frail frame as he laid there shaking until he had no energy left and the world felt numb.

That's how Waller ended up finding them who knows how much later.

It had taken longer than he cared to admit for her to coax him out from underneath the bunk. Tears had long since dried out as broken sobs and the occasional dry heave replaced it. She did what she could to calm him down further but Danny could tell there was something wrong.

After calming him down enough for him to be cognizant of his surroundings did Waller pull out the master control for his collars. It took a while but Danny managed to transform back before switching his collars back on. He could feel the phantom (ha) pains of the power still coursing through his veins. Knowing that he couldn't use that power and it only made his collars stronger helped him regain some sense of his peace of mind at least. Within a fraction of a second of the collars turning off, the ice in his cell disappeared and left no trace of it ever having been there.

Outside of the damage it had caused of course.

Waller had helped him move his stuff to the cell next to him so he could be properly locked up as protocol required.

Of course she didn't come here just to check up on him. Of course not, not with one of the worst attempted prison breaks in the history of Belle Rêve having taken place only mere hours before.

No.

She came here to tell him she was being replaced.

The board of directors had given her the blame for the near-success. Even though nobody actually escaped, they still deemed it as too great a failure to keep her as warden. She wasn't sure who she would be replaced with but she had very little faith that it was purely by the books with how eager the board wanted her gone.

She wouldn't be there anymore to keep him company.

She wouldn't be there anymore to keep him safe

She wouldn't be there anymore to keep her end of the deal

He took back all his previous complaints.

This

This was the worst development of the day

The only sliver of hope Danny had left to hold onto was that she promised to pass on her side of the deal to a trusted individual.