Thevoidstaredback - Cats Welcome, Humans Tolerated

Now that was odd. Oracle was the one to receive all the emails and messages meant for Batman and the others, so she'd been the one to receive the email about a disappearance at Gotham General Hospital. Normally, after filtering out the spam that sometimes leaked through, or the ones that had been sent to the wrong address, she'd forward the email straight to the Bat Computer so that Batman or Red Robin could look over them. This one, though, was one that had caught her attention.

"There was a disappearance at Gotham General. A kid was brought in after the Scarecrow attack yesterday, the one that got the mask of Fear Gas? His record has been wiped and the kid's gone. There's no record of his discharge."

While it was crude and poorly typed, it was to the point.

"Hadn't Red Robin been at the Scarecrow attack yesterday?" she wondered aloud, "Yeah. He was the one to carry that kid out. The one that got the face full of Fear Gas."

Between watching over the others while they were on patrol, Oracle didn't really have the time to properly assess the email or the situation, let alone check in on it. There was something about this, though, that dragged her attention to it. She'd learned, when she'd been Batgirl, to always listen to her gut feeling no matter what. It had saved her before, so she followed it.

She watches the security footage from Scarecrow's attack the previous day. She followed the ambulance the kid had been in via street cameras. She hacked into the hospital to check the records and followed the kid from those, cameras, too. Everything was as it should be.

There! The sign on the monitor in the hospital said there was a radioactive substance in the kid. It also said that the proper agency had been contacted. And- Ectoplasm? What's that? Doesn't that have to do with ghosts and stuff?

The more Oracle watches, the worse her feeling got. A quick check proved that there were, actually, records of this child missing from the hospital. He also hadn't been discharged. That room was still marked as occupied.

An hour after the two nurses had left the kid, a group of people wearing all white entered the room. They unhooked the kid from the hospital equipment before placing him in a wheelchair. Unconscious.

Oracle narrowed her eyes, suspicion falling heavy over her. This was bad. Something was wrong.

She managed to follow the group through the halls, out of the hospital, and to a nondescript white van.

"Shit."

DPxDC Prompt:

The vigilante meant well, taking the kid to the hospital to treat his injuries. The kid mumbled the entire time, barely conscious. "No hospital, please," he said more than once.

Poor kid, the vigilante thought. He must have a phobia of needles or something.

...

They never could have anticipated the danger they put that kid in, placing him in the care of that hospital.

How To Balance Your Daytime and Nighttime Activities So That You Don't Burn Yourself Out More Than You Already Have

In Danny's defense, dying scared the hell out of him. Living in a house of ghost hunters was a bad idea, so he left. It didn't matter that they were family. He was a ghost living in a house of Ghost Hunters whose life's work was the very thing that killed him in the first place. He died turning on the portal his parents had spend nearly thirty years working on with two witnesses to his demise. The natural response was to destroy the portal and leave without telling anyone.

He didn't get to that point, though. The first few months after The Accident had been constant ghost attacks, one after another. Danny had tried t understand what was happening, but between his friends on some level denying his death, the ghosts attacking on sight, and the powers he was developing not getting themselves under control, he was reaching his breaking point.

On top of all of it, the portal destabilized.

No one had been in the lab, thank god, but the ghost portal collapsed in on itself. The running theory his parents had was that the ghost boy had been the one to break it. Danny's running theory was that the constant back and forth and overloaded the system. No new actually knew what had been the thing to turn it on in the first place, so no one could actually prove anything either way. At least, that's what Danny hoped.

Danny knew, in the deep recesses of his mind, what to do to get it working again. He knew what to do to keep it open if he so chose.

It had never been his choice in the first place.

Danny had known it wasn't entirely safe for him when the house started to turn on him, but that had only been solidified when the portal had gone down, Jack and Maddie Fenton doubled down on hunting down the Ghost Boy. He was the only ghost left in Amity Park, so he was the only one the trackers would lock onto.

Six weeks before he turned fifteen, Danny left his home. He didn't tell Jazz or Tucker or Sam, and he most certainly didn't tell his parents. Quietly, he packed his things - only those of which that would be easy to carry - and left. He didn't bring his phone or laptop with him. He thought about leaving his wallet, but figured that'd be useful to him.

The last thing he did before leaving Amity Park was go to the police station and tell them he was leaving willingly. He refused to elaborate as to why. They didn't need to know that. He didn't tell them where he was going, either, just that he was leaving.

It was an accident that he ended up in Bludhaven. Four weeks of traveling had tired him out. His powers only making it worse. He was low on money and food, he'd been sleeping on benches and in alleyways, his clothes were all filthy, he hadn't showered in days- He was ready to collapse.

Bludhaven, from what he understood, had a much smaller homeless population that her mother city Gotham, but it was still a lot of people. Particularly homeless youth. Danny was just another kid in an alley when he'd finally collapsed.

It took three days of sleeping behind a dumpster before anyone noticed him. In that time, he'd only woken up once. Not having eaten in a while, he had no waste to expel, so his body had focused on keeping he rested before allowing him to wake up. That was when he'd realized the actual danger he was in.

He had no idea if human weapons could still work on him or not, and he was not trying to figure that out any time soon. So, before the group of armed guys who'd just come into the alleyway noticed him, Danny let the invisibility wash over him before he flew up and away.

On the rooftops is where he found the city's vigilante. He was dressed in a black suit with blue accents and a black domino mask. His weapon looked like a broken bo staff and was strapped to his back.

Danny was not inclined to meet this man, but he'd never seen another hero in action before! Sure, he knew they existed, but he'd never actually gone looking for any. No one in Amity had, actually. It was a peaceful place. Well, until he opened the portal on himself, but that was hardly his fault.

Sure, he wasn't going to meet him, but maybe following him around wouldn't hurt? As long as he didn't get caught, he should be fine. It was only for the night, anyway. He'd probably never see this man again after this.

At least, that was the plan until he accidentally followed the man home at three in the morning. In his defence, though, he didn't know that it was that early or that Nightwing - as he'd heard a few guys call him - was going home! Regardless, he was going to take this to the grave. He was going to leave Bludhaven come dawn and he was never going to tell anyone the he knows where Nightwing lives.

Again, that was his plan. Danny ended up falling asleep on the rooftop opposite the building Nightwing lived in. He slept through the day, only waking up when rush hour foot and road traffic got too loud to ignore. Just as he was getting ready to leave the rooftop, he spotted movement in Nightwing's apartment.

Now, he couldn't even begin to say what had made him stay, but he did. He sat back down and watched as Nightwing moved around his apartment.

It was messy, messier than he'd have expected, but he wasn't one to judge. What really caught his attention, though, was the uniform Nightwing was wearing. Now that begged the question as to why the hero - vigilante was probably the better term here - fought crime at all hours of the day. Why approach the problem both legally and less legally? Why align yourself both ways?

Danny was always a curious boy when something sparked his interest.

He was swift in his movements as he pulled out the binder of paper and scholork he'd taken with him. Opening up to the first blank page, Danny started to write.

He was a hero, whether people thought of him as such or not. He only ever wanted to help. Maybe he could help this guy. Maybe he'd feel some kind of accomplishment if he managed to help Nightwing.

Step one is to observe.

Part 2 Part 4

Tag List: @flame-343

I need to point out that I have gone off of the original prompt, if that wasn't already obvious. In the og prompt, Danny is an adult. In this one, as I continue my take on it, Danny is a child. I didn't mean for it to happen, but the words don't listen to me, I listen to them.

had a dream where i logged in to ao3 and saw this

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