Chapter 26:

"Ow!" the halfa glared indignantly at the infernal bone needle. From the looks of it, he had obviously not inherited his father's needle work skills as he sucked on his injured finger.

After Mrs. Manson covered his mathematics, he had almost finished studying most of what was needed to know till his first year university. It sounded very absurd for a fourteen year old to have that much in such a short span of time. Well, that was before he had Sam's mother, a Valedictorian of Yale, as a teacher in… well, everything.

Not to mention, he hadn't realized he actually had the potential academically, believing that only his sister had taken the genius gene side of the family. Then again, he never really had time to actually concentrate on his studies with all his attention was on keeping people safe from ghosts in a daily basis.

Making Danny take an IQ test beforehand, the godmother was insistent on making him try his hand at several subjects where he had averaged a consistent C-. The teen was reluctant at first, seeing as his grades hadn't exactly reflected well on his brain power.

Mrs. Manson was pleased as she saw progress in her godson. She had been a strict but understanding guide for the young teen and it was growing more and more obvious that her little Danny-kins was a late-blooming prodigy. All he needed was a little push, intense and on-hands lessons and a lot of guidance. His understanding of theories in both science and mathematics were astounding, and his way of learning wasn't plain blind memory work. He had high degree of reasoning and abstract thinking.

It was wonder how the adults around the teen never noticed.

However, despite Danny's very steady hands in delicate experiments, he was amazingly uncoordinated in cross-stitching and any form of needle work.

It was hysterical for Alfred and Mrs. Manson to see the teen pout, whine, and groan over stitching. In a matter of hours, he had several band-aids on every single one of his sore digits. It seemed unfair that he could solve a very difficult science problem in matter of minutes and a couple of hours to finish a little embroidering.

It had been weeks and it was official he had stuck to home-schooling. His adoptive father who frequented his lessons more than ever was happy to know how progress was going with his son… of course, he still made certain continued probing into the missing villains and criminals around the world.

The lowering crime rate had been loosening his usual tight schedule. Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman was currently laughing along with Clark Kent as they watched the teen accidentally get tangled in the yarn he was supposedly turn into a sweater. The said sweater was his homework. According to his teacher, it was his home economics that needed extra work when she winced at seeing the last needle work he'd made.

"Are you done yet?" the said teen was glaring at the two older men who were laughing at him, he sighed in resignation.

The halfa phased himself out of the meshwork of threads, freeing himself.

"Come on, Danny, we have an event tonight, and this time, I'm bringing you along…" the father was well aware of the fact that his son was terrified of mass parties.

"That's a first Bruce, I'll be there to cover the story," the man of steel was chuckling at the sight of the nervous teenager who was lead away to get ready.

"I thought it was time to develop his social skills, home schooling has its faults Clark,"

The other man nodded in agreement. In few minutes, they heard footsteps.

A blushing teenager in a very dashing looking tuxedo revealed himself. He shuffled in his leather shoes, looking very anxious was a definite understatement. The men merely smiled at him.

"Do I have to come?" the teen whined for the fifteenth time in the limo. The last social event he went to was a college reunion and that ended him getting a new arch-enemy.

"If you don't stop complaining, your dad's going to ask Mrs. Manson to increase your home economics homework," the reporter warned.

This immediately shut the teen up, who resorted to quiet grumbling.

"You'll meet some teenagers there your age you know," Bruce tried to assure.

The detective was sympathetic towards his son but he had to expose to him some human interaction with society at some point.

As the limo came to a stop, Clark had stepped out beforehand to get to the event on his own, Bruce Wayne and Danny were met by several flashes of light as they walked towards the building. The teen stuck close to his father, who smirked at how much his hero teen looked like a cornered mouse when in front of the paparazzi. Strange that it was a complete opposite of the way the halfa looked when facing world destruction.

As the bachelor and teen made their way towards the building, teen visibly relaxed his hold on his father's sleeve. They entered the ballroom where several extravagantly dressed people were. Several people came to greet them, who of which his father seemed to be familiar with. As he thrust forward the teenager to crowd, Danny smiled amiably and had a tinge of pink that stained his cheeks.

"This is my son Daniel Fenton Wayne; I assume you all know him by now?"

The look in his eyes showed a genuinely proud gleam.

"My, what a handsome young man!" Danny heard a lady in a black gown exclaim.

"Doesn't he look like Bruce a little? They even have the same eyes!"

"Oh, but look more carefully! Daniel's eyes are more baby blue, and his eyes stand out more,"

The center of attention of the ladies was usually the billionaire, but tonight seems to be an exception.

As the crowd of women dragged his son away, Bruce couldn't help but smile seeing his son happily blushing away.

"Geez Bruce, did you have to pick someone so adorable? All the ladies are getting his attention…" it was one of his business partners who have been in close terms with both Bruce himself and the Wayne enterprise.

"You called him adorable, which just means you agree with said ladies…" Bruce chuckled at his friend's complaint as he took a sip of red wine.

Another man joined in the conversation, one of Wayne's close friends in the field of nanotechnology.

"Ah, so Bruce has finally revealed his little treasure, do you have any idea how the media has speculating your Wayne inheritor?"

"Just rumors Johnson, but if there's gossip saying my boy's an eye-catcher, then Richard here knows that hands down." Bruce was referring to his complaining companion who happened to laugh at the comment.

"So, have you heard of my latest project?"

Currently, Daniel seemed to be in an 'okay' mode, so far he was enjoying himself and managed to keep his blushing level to under moderate. The women he spoke with were microbiologists, and he was fascinated by how much he was hearing about their project.

"So you're developing a way to actually re-design and clone a living multi-cellular eukaryotic cell, Mrs. Rodriguez?" the excited teen asked.

"Yes, we're still on the theoretical side of it, but we're hoping for a big success… it's very good to know someone from your generation is so educated and interested in the field of science!" the thirty-five year old woman was very impressed by the young man in front her.

"Indeed, Bruce was wise to have chosen such a well-mannered and intelligent heir…" a colleague added, an older Mr. Watson, the man in charge of the research project.

"It's a bit of shock that Bruce even adopted an orphan from such a dreary town, what was that place called? Amity or something?" it was brunette who had cut into the conversation, emphasizing on the word 'orphan'. "From an uncivilized middle-class family am I right?"

The teen turned to her, and looked down at the glass his holding as his grip visibly tightened its old on it. He didn't talk back and kept silent. He knew he should say something… defend himself… but didn't know what. The smirking woman was indirectly pointing out he wasn't prestigious enough to have been in his position now. It was true, he was an orphan… it was sheer luck on his part that he had been adopted by the Wayne Family.

The other adults with him flinched, and that enough gave the Danny a clue on how high the woman's status was.

No…

He may have been from an 'uncivilized middle-class' but didn't make her any better of a person than he is.

"Madam," every eye turned to the young man. "It's true that I was an orphan and a mere child to your eyes, but I will not let you insult my deceased family… they were probably more civil than you are, and most definitely the better sort of individual that you'll ever be." His voice was firm and confident.

The woman frowned at this and briskly stepped forward and raised her hand to hit the teen for the insult.

He didn't make a move to stop her as his left cheek slapped and now tinged red. Gasps were heard.

"You brat! How dare you insult me and compare me to such scum!" she raised her hand to hit him once more.

"I suggest you back away Miss Wolcott," Mr. Watson shielded the teen who remained stoic.

"You! If you want to keep your job I sugge-"

"I'd suggest you follow his advice…" the woman froze and turned to meet a very cold pair of blue eyes.

"B-Bruce! You don't understand! This urchin insulted me!" she stuttered.

"And after you insulted my son's family, please, Miss Wolcott, if you wish to cut-off all contacts between the Wayne Industries and your father's company, I suggest you apologize and leave immediately…"

"It's alright Dad," Danny finally spoke up, smiling a little as he glanced at the now-quiet woman. "No harm done, there's no need to make a big deal out of this."

The father stared silently at his son whose eye begged him to drop it. He nodded, noticing the several spectators the scene has attracted. He motioned the Wolcott heiress to leave anyway.

There was a moment a silence that Danny broke as he cheerfully introduced Mr. Watson and his team. The father smiled gratefully at the man who defended his son, noting that if they ever needed a new company to fund their project, he'd be there.

The teenager excused himself to go the restroom after a while.

He slipped into the men's room. He looked the mirror, observing the slightly pink cheek. He winced as he touched the tender skin. Well, he'd had worse injuries from ghosts as it is. He didn't evade because he couldn't, there were other nicer ladies behind him he didn't want to push back. It wasn't like a slap could kill him. So it the last moment, he let the offending hand strike him.

In the last second his eyes left the mirror, he caught a glimpse of a very familiar pair of blood-red eyes. He almost screamed at sight. In another millisecond however, he gave out blood-curdling scream anyway as gleaming sword shot out from the mirror and pierced his chest. At that moment everything went blank.