Warnings
* bad mental health (danny)
* referenced previous deaths (failsafe)
* implied self harm (danny) (only at the very end so feel free to read up until the part of dick breaking into the bathroom if you're okay with the other two)

November 5

Dick didn't stop squeezing Danny's hand even after they safely made it inside their safety bunker of a room. Danny still looked mostly out of it, yet somehow too aware at the same time.

Dick didn't want to admit it, but for the first time since, well, ever, the comments about his brother got under his skin. Just slightly, but who wouldn't want to know why his image was found all over literal history.

But taking another look at Danny, actually looking at him, Dick knew that look. Too far gone in his own mind to make much sense of the world. Too far lost in memories that won't stay where they belong. So he did what he knew would help. Practically dragging his sim of a brother over to the bed, he sat Danny down gently. After making sure Danny was actually seated and wouldn't somehow slide off, he grabbed a pillow and walked over to his desk.

With precision honed over the years of vigilantism, Dick threw the pillow at Danny's face with all his might.

"Ah putain de merde." Danny yelped out as he found himself scooted back an inch from the force of the fluffy projectile. Dick looked on smugly as Danny rapid blinked his way back into awareness. Danny took a moment extra, shuffling his legs under him as he held onto the pillow. Dick had left the room dark, save for the galaxy LEDs Danny had insisted on adding to the room. It gave it a cozy vibe, not too dark to be totally blind but also not bright enough to seem like day. Danny's natural glow peaking out from his suit also helped with the illumination, or the lack thereof.

Dick grabbed the chair and rolled over to Danny, testing to see just how back to reality his mind had come. The second he came within reach, Danny peaked out a leg from underneath him and started quarter turning Dick's chair side to side. Messing with a chair was ever too tempting for Danny, Dick too, but he knew the only times either of them wouldn't fidget with it when things got too bad.

Dick looked at him, seeing if Danny would lock eyes or keep evading. To his luck, Danny did look up, giving Dick the opening he was looking for. "Care to elaborate why they think you're old as fuck?" He tried to keep his tone light, sound like it was just a silly joke but the way Danny immediately froze up again put him on edge.

"Well...." Danny started off, undoubtably falling into another rabbit hole of memories.

"I will throw another pillow at you."

"Only if you actually take me out this time." Danny joked back, a smile creeping back up as he kept twisting Dick around while fiddling with the hem of the other pillow. "It's nothing bad, I don't think, I just didn't know there was any proof. Ah, Frostbite's gonna be so mad." Danny groaned as he let his head fall into the pillow. "Basically, and really there is nothing basic about it but also kinda is-"

"Focus." Dick chastised as he got a hold of the other pillow while Danny wasn't looking. Giving him a soft warning pat on the head, he could feel Danny laugh silently.

"No, I mean, it really is." He lifted his head, pillow still on his head as Dick kept holding onto it. "It was like the second time I went to Frostie's for training. And he let me explore a little. Really, I think it was a set up." Dick lifted his hand in silent threat, eliciting another bark of laughter from Danny. At least it was keeping him distracted from whatever bothered him earlier so that had to count as a win. "There was this one map thing just laying around. So I thought I'd be useful and put it away, you know? Well apparently the map has a mind of it's own because of course the ghost map does."

Dick wasn't sure where this was going, but he had a feeling their knack of finding trouble just had to be genetic at this point.

"And like, it's the ghost zone we're talking about. So of course this thing starts dragging me through portals like it was taking me on the most insane sight seeing expedition throughout literal time and space." Danny recounted, gesturing around and nearly hitting Dick three times over as he kept on explaining how the map followed every random bit of historical lore Danny mentioned. The map was a ghostly artifact of Clockwork, apparently, kept 'safe' in the Far Frozen in case of needing to make medial expeditions. "Fin, so like it really wasn't my fault, blame Frostbite for leaving it out like that."

The more Danny talked, the more back to life he seemed to get. And the more Dick started getting glorious ideas to fuck with people. "Say," Dick started, tell tale gremlin smirk plastered on his face warning of what he was thinking of. "When we get this mess sorted, d'you think Frostbite would let us take that thing on a joy ride?" Because who could ever not take the opportunity to mess with the League? If they already found some evidence of Danny, just imagine how they'll flip their lids when suddenly Robin was there right alongside him in centuries old works.

Would they be able to commission a portrait from Johannes Vermeer just to freak them out even more? The possibilities were endless and he was sure Alfred wouldn't mind some extra classical décor for the manor.

Unfortunately, their giggles couldn't last much longer as there were actual important matters to handle. Dick was the first to sober up, years of experience screaming at him to stop wasting time. "Ni?" Danny hummed, smile faltering at the serious look on Dick's face. "I need to know if you'll be good for this or not."

Danny's eyes fell down, any remnant of joy leaving his being again as he remembered why they were goofing off in the first place. "Yeah, no, I'm here. It's just..." His voice fell to just above a whisper, not wanting to bring up any of what was haunting his mind. "It feels like that all over again, you know?"

Oh how Dick knew. He saw the same look on his teammates when it happened, hell, he felt it too. The creeping fear that it's happening all over again. How they'll die one by one just like before because no matter how strong they are, they're just kids. But he knew not to let worry cloud his judgement too much. Fix the issue first, deal with everything later. If later ever came, that is.

"What if we-what if I mess up again? It's real life this time, it can't just be fixed by waking up from a living nightmare like before."

Dick finally let go of the pillow he had kept on Danny's head for most of their talk so far. Bringing it up to his own chest, he scooted closed until he was able to rest his folded knees onto Danny's. "Then we'll just deal with it just like we did then too." Dick reassured him, leaning over so far to the right he nearly fell off the chair, just for a glimpse of masked eye contact with Danny. "As horrible at it was, we can now say we trained for this. We know what to do and what not to do."

Danny snorted, looking at Dick for a second before turning back to his lap. "Yeah, because the team would just love listening to us, let alone have either of us lead again." There was no way any of the team would actually want their help, not after how everything turned out. Hell, Wally seemed down to go a whole lot further than just ignoring their advice a handful of minutes ago. Had it not been for Bioship stepping in so fast, who knows if the others would have even done anything.

"Then fuck them."

Danny's head shot up, wide eyed, at Dick's statement. "Dick, you don't have to just for me-"

"Who said I was doing this for you?" Dick countered immediately, determination set hard in his brow. "Anything done to you is on me as well, Ni. If they can't respect you, why should I bother. I'm not going to run a daycare until they decide to wise up and listen to experience over ego."

Dick stared straight into Danny's masked eyes, daring him to try and argue against him. Danny, for his part, stared back. As if he was trying to find the answers to whatever was raging in his mind. And the answers were right in front of him. "If you go, I go with you." Danny's voice may not have come out as loud as he wanted to, but the stubborn levels of determination rang clear. "I'm not letting you go out there on your own if I can help it."

Dick cracked a smile, clasping a firm hand on Danny's shoulder before smacking him with his pillow once again. "Spoken like a true hero." He laughed as Danny tried to counter the soft barrage of attacks.

"Says the one who doesn't know what giving up means." Danny tried to push Dick's chair away, hoping to end the onslaught that way, only to receive a final smack hard enough he nearly hit the wall.

"Of course I don't, I'm like 78% pure spite and stubbornness." Dick rolled to a stop after bumping into the desk. Pulling up the built in computer, he started tapping away at it. Before long, the entire desk area was covered in various screens monitoring Gotham's crime reports.

"And what's the other 22%?" Danny asked as he too pulled up the handful of things Dick hadn't opened up yet.

Dick looked over his shoulder, the light from the holoscreens illuminating his toothy grin. "Whatever I need it to be." Danny rolled his eyes, focusing in on figuring out just how bad the city was already going to ruins. Patrol should have started half an hour ago. It wasn't that big of a gap yet but this wasn't a regular city. Any other place wouldn't have noticed the absence yet, but Gotham was like a living entity itself, fueling anybody who lived within her bounds.

Of course they would notice the lack of adults and immediately connect it to Batman being gone as well. Gotham didn't rank on the top of the list of highest educated criminals for no reason after all. "Are you good to handle some of the calls?" Dick asked, glancing at Danny as he struggled to work his way into the GCPD system through their built in backdoor code.

"Dick, I'm gonna have to be real honest here." Danny sighed, hands finding their way to his face once again. "I barely had time to learn all these protocols on top of all the studying Selina made us do, and Alfie, and Frostbite, and then all the team shit, and-"

Dick cut him off with a hand to the knee, keeping his eyes and free hand working on getting all the info they need to keep Gotham safe from a distance. "Chill, Ni. I'll handle the Robin calls, you make sure Richard Grayson has a paper trail too." He sent a quick smile Danny's way before going back to his barrage of pop ups. Within seconds he had a call screen popping up.

"Gotham City Police Department Youth Division, this is Barbara speaking. How may I help you?" The voice calmly introduced, pulling a grin from Dick as he tried to hold in his laugh.

"I'm pretty sure the question should be how can I help you, miss Gordon."

"Oh thank lady Gotham. It's good to hear from you, Robin." Barbara lightly cursed, Gotham accent peaking through before she cleared her throat and settled on a more neutral tone again. "I got most of dad's systems working but there are a few that are locked behind a firewall with a certain emblem covering most of the screen." Though he couldn't see her, he could practically hear her roll her eyes at the undoubtably obnoxiously large bat logo covering the screen at this very moment.

Dick openly cackled, already getting ready to get into the GCPD servers like he's done so many times. "Don't worry, my esteemed maiden, I'll get rid of the demon in no time." Laughing through Barbara's playful curses at being called a maiden, Dick's own string of non-Alfred approved wording soon took over any distracting fun they were having. "Or not." He mumbled, furiously trying different backdoors to get where he should.

"Robin?"

"Correction, it's going to take a bit of time." He grumbled, annoyance growing as he battled the downed system and delusional amount of safety measures they installed. Though all the protections felt necessary and likely did their job over the years, with the main operating system down it was an actual pain to try and get remote access to the computers in the GCPD building.

Danny took a deep breath, eyes trained on Dick for just a moment longer before pushing himself up. Taking out one of the burner phones programmed to ping from the manor, Danny looked over to Dick one final time before he went to pace on the other side of the room.

"Gotham City Police Department Youth Division, this is Bette speaking. How may I help you?" The voice of another young teen came through as Danny double checked that it wasn't picking up on Dick's call. When it looked like he was in the clear, he did his best to feign just the right amount of fear.

"Hi, um I don't know what happened but my butler was late for dinner preparations and I can't find him anywhere." Danny cringed at his own horrible excuse, hoping it sounded believable for a rich kid to not even introduce themselves.

Danny could hear some soft tapping in the background. Every few seconds he'd glance over to Dick who was still battling their broken down cacophony of protocols and security codes. "Dick? Are you still there?"

Danny flinched hard enough the phone went tumbling to the floor. Though embarrassed, it probably helped the cover. "YeAh." He stammered, voice breaking as he could hear Bette blow air through her nose. "I, uh, what were you saying?" He asked, hand snaking to the back of his neck as he tried to focus on his own conversation and not Dick simmering in rage at the screens.

"Honestly, how did you manage to get into the top ranks of the mathletes with such horrible focus." Bette mumbled not quite to herself as she tapped away again. "Is it just Alfred or is Bruce also missing?"

"I'm not sure. Bruce had a meeting that would run late so he wasn't going to be home for dinner." Danny bit the inside of his cheek, trying to hold back a groan. "He's not picking up his phone though, so I guess that counts as a yes." He added on quickly, trying to sound believable even though he could barely believe himself.

"Yeah, that would do it." Bette sighed, adding Bruce to what was undoubtably the missing persons report she was working on. "Are you safe where you are right now or do you need somebody to come pick you up?"

Right, right, Richard Grayson-Wayne was still just 13, barely considered old enough to leave home alone safely by Gotham standards. "Uh..." Danny dragged out, not sure what the appropriate answer would even be. "I think I'm good?" He slapped his forehead with the back of his hand, making sure to avoid making noise as it felt more and more tempting to slam his head against the wall the longer he had to talk.

A few nerve wrecking seconds went by, neither Bette nor Danny uttering a word as the melodic taps of her keyboard echoed in his ear. Danny looked over to Dick again, feeling bad for him as he clearly was having anything but a fun time trying to work around the issues from having a downed main system. He nearly dropped the phone again when Dick suddenly jumped up, punching the air as he finally got into their digital file system. Pop-ups flooded the entire desk area as file upon file sprang to life, listing all families with kids who would for sure need help without adults around.

"Have you been able to check on your neighbor?" Bette dragged him back to his own conversation as her barely contained contempt washed over. "We haven't had a call registering from the Drakes but the kid's only 9."

Danny didn't even have to see her to know the exact look of worry she had. Hell, he was worried too. He'd never actually met the kid before, not with how much he tried to stay hidden. But no doubt Dick did know him and Dick would and could go check if he had the chance. "Not yet, but I can go check on him for you guys. Focus on other kids who need somebody to step in for them."

The moment Bette's typing paused, Danny knew he messed up. Why in the world would Richard Grayson know about the list of venerable youths. Oh the walls were just begging to be decorated with picture perfect imprints of Danny's face at this point. It really didn't help that Dick sharply turned around at him, typing completely stilled as he looked at Danny like he just grew a second head. Their silent staring contest was broken by Dick's shoulders sagging, tension easing as he went back to his own call with Barbara once again.

"That would actually be a big help, if you could." Bette finally said, relieved to catch the smallest of breaks. It probably did a whole lot more than a little, knowing how Gotham's high society parents would have it out for anybody and everything if something happened to their biological assets called kids.

"I'll, ah, I'll go do that right now." Danny stammered, trying to end the call as fast as he could without sounding too eager to hang up. He finally let go of the tension in his shoulders, fighting the urge to crack his neck for the time being. Typing up a quick message in the notes app for Dick, Danny slid it in front of his brother with practiced silence.

Dick still struggled to get through the mine field that were the outdated GCPD servers without the hotfixes the BatComputer added onto it for them. Some of the coding was older than he was, it truly was a miracle it was functioning as well as it was. He looked down, seeing the note asking for the number to the Drake estate. He shot Danny another hard to read look before typing up the numbers and throwing the phone over his shoulder for Danny to catch.

In his attempt to not let the thing fall again, Danny accidentally already pressed the call button before he could mentally prepare on how to fake his way through this mess.

"Hello?" A soft yet polite voice came over the speaker. Danny wasn't sure why it surprised him. Bette did warn him the neighbor boy was only 9, yet somehow it didn't click he would be so young. Did they also sound so fragile and innocent at that age? He doubted it.

"Hi," he finally answered, hand running through his loose hair before settling on twisting the end of his braid around his finger. "This is Dick, ah, Richard? The neighbor." Danny could genuinely be an Emmy nominee for how convincing he sounded. Definitely not worthy of creating a face sized peephole in the wall.

Danny could hear a tiny muffled sniffle before the voice spoke up again. "Dick? Why aren't you calling from your phone?" Once again the walls seemed to beg for some love and affection as Danny fought the urge to curse out of frustration. Of course this kid would have fucking caller ID. Dick probably gave him the kid's cell number and not the landline.

Danny stalled, making some soft rummaging sounds right next to the speaker so Dick's call couldn't pick it up. "Ah, well my phone broke so I had to use a different one." Considering he was pretty sure Dick still had a reputation for clowning around whenever he could, he left like it was the most believable thing that came out of his mouth so far. "But that isn't the point right now," he pressed on, "are you somewhere safe? Any of your people still there or..." Well he couldn't just ask if they vanished too, it might freak the kid out even more.

Danny could hear some minor rustling, likely the kid getting onto some fancy couch that wasn't used often as the leather complained at being stretched. "I-They're gone. They were just doing the washing up after dinner and then...poof." The kid's voice cut off as he was trying to choke down another sob, barely able to get the last word out before his voice gave out.

Danny felt bad for the kid, hating how he couldn't do much except stay on the phone with him for a little longer. "They were doing dishes?" When the kid let out a strangled hum in response, Danny questioned further, "Did anything break?" It sounded dumb coming out of his mouth but he had no clue how this kid was raised, if he was even raised in the first place as so many rich kids lacked proper guidance.

The child hummed again, shifting again much to the protest of the couch. "There was a plate that fell, maybe a glass too. I-I didn't want them to get in twooble for creating a mess when they would poof back so I tried to cwean it."

Danny could hear the sticky sound of the sweat, or tear, adhered phone being pulled away from the kid's ear before he spoke again. "'Master Timothy, don't touch broken things.' They always says. 'You're going to hurt yourself, Timothy.' But I don't wanna listen to them getting yelled at again when it not their fauwt somethings bwoke. It's not like mama or papa would notice if it cweened up before Batman and Robin fix the bad that made them go poof."

"Timmie, hey, Timmie." Danny shushed the child, thankful he said his own name. It would have been pretty bad if he had to ask for it himself given how Dick looked after him before. "It's gonna be okay. Don't touch the broken stuff."

"Too wate." It came out barely above a shuddered whisper, yet it violently pulled on Danny's heartstrings anyway.

Well then.

Danny looked over to Dick again, concern ever-growing as even the boy wonder had yet to manage a remote system reboot. At this rate, one of them really would have to go back to Gotham just to personally threaten the Batcomputer with getting scrapped if it wouldn't function the way it should. And if it came down to it, there really was only one clear answer on who would be going.

"Timmie, I need you to listen to me, okay?" Danny sighed through his nose when Timothy hummed. "Stay away from the broken things for now. Can you get a clean towel or something to put on the hurt?" He could hear Timothy rustling about again, couch voicing objections one last time as he made his way over to the kitchen for a towel.

When a tiny "done" came through, Danny continued. "Okay, do you know where the keys are to the doors?" Another soft acknowledgement echoed over before Danny instructed Timothy to lock all the outside doors he could reach and to find a safe place to wait. "Just stay there for a little, okay? I'm gonna ask my friend to come pick you up so you can go hang out at the GCPD." He actually felt himself relax when Timothy did as told. Happy that ending this call went a lot smoother than the other, Danny looked over to the desk where Dick looked ready to throw hands with the lines of code himself.

Dick felt the eyes on him, turning to see Danny peer right past him, completely zoned out. He tried to stay focused on whatever update Barbara was giving him, but it was quite hard when he could see Danny start fading from view and becoming more translucent by the second. Reaching over to the pillow once again, Dick was just about ready to launch it when Danny snapped out of whatever he was doing.

The second the phone slid over to him again, he nearly lunged at it in hopes it was anything positive.

Cujo isn't answering, going to try something else

Dick looked up at Danny, confusion turning to mild worry as Danny turned away the second they locked eyes. As if Dick meeting his gaze was the cue he was waiting for to head to the bathroom and lock himself in there.

Feeling weirded out at how Danny didn't even turn on a single light, Dick tried to once again focus on his call. He had luckily managed to get into the protocol planning for the GCPD shelter rations and regulations with Barbara's help from her end. Somewhere along the way Bette had also been called over so they could properly plan out how to keep all of the ones in need of shelter and assistance safe. Backup generators were already being fired up by the time they finally managed to wrap up everything they could with Dick giving remote assistance.

Now with the distraction of the IT support call being over, it left Dick's mind to wonder about what Danny was still doing in that dark bathroom. He lost track at how long ago it was, but it had to be a good few minutes at the very least. Getting impatient, he got up and inched his way towards the bathroom door.

Only to find it locked.

Dick tried the handle again, getting no movement from the door at all. Worry spiked up to fear when Danny didn't even give a reaction to him trying to open the door. Not wanting a repeat of the last time they found themselves in that very bathroom, Dick had enough.

He took a few steps back, eyes locked on the only thing separating him from his brother. Charging right ahead, Dick failed to stop himself when the door opened right before he would force it to do so. Danny let out a strangled cry when Dick crashed into him, sending the both of them to the ground.

Dick was the first so somewhat recover, giving Danny a visual once over. Outside of getting to second base with the floor, and being a bit paler than earlier, he looked fine. Well, about as fine as one could be when "He didn't answer either" was the only thing Danny managed to utter as he clumsily tried to stand back up. Swaying slightly, Danny steadied himself against the edge of the sink. Like the porcelain had burned him, he instantly retracted his hand again, opting to lean with his hip instead.

Giving himself just a moment more to catch his breath, Danny turned to face Dick and help him up. Dick hadn't even noticed he was still a pretzeled mess, too distracted with how strange his brother acted. But those were worries for later.

Later, when he had time to ask why Danny was suddenly favoring his right arm.

Later, when he can check why Danny's left glove had the corner of a tissue sticking out of it.

Later, when he could actually make sense of everything that happened.

Later, when everything would be fine and there weren't annoyed teammates waiting for them to come back.

Later, when they didn't have a world to save.

Full recap* Dick noticing how out of it Danny seems, smacks him with a pillow to keep him distracted from the bad* Danny reveals he went on a sight seeing trip through time and space because of a ghost map Frostbite left out one day, Dick jokes about going on a trip after everythign is over* discussion how it feels like Failsafe is happening all over again, reassurance they'll do better this time and if the team wont listen then fuck them* Dick calls GCPD while Danny handles making a papertrail for Richard Grayson. He calls their neighborboy and tells the child 'a friend' will come get him and bring him to the GCPD building* Danny warns he cant get Cujo to respond so he wanted to try something else, goes to the bathroom to do so in privacy* dick gets stressed out after getting no signs of Danny for a while, finds the door locked and decides to break in* danny says "he" didnt answer either* dick notes danny's acting weird but choses to make that an issue for later