CHAPTER THREE - What his files hide?
After signing all the necessary papers Danny had to, beforehand making sure that they had no hidden deals, which he would later have to fulfill, he was led to the members of the team with which he will live now. He was not particularly enthusiastic about this option, because his communicating with others skills were not the best even in his school times (Let alone now, when he was an adult!), especially since purely theoretically, he was supposed to get along with a group of teenagers whose hormones were definitely too much buzzing.
Nevertheless, looking back, it was indeed a better option than getting to know your new "roommates", let's say in the middle of his stay here, for example. He was already able to imagine the situation in which both sides would surely find themselves awkward because of their first meet in these kind of circumstances, so if at the expense of their present introduction to themselves would be peace for him later on - He would gladly do it.
They will talk literally for a while and probably say something to introduce themselves to each other, because that's what younger people usually do when they meet for the first time, right? (Curse you Dash, now Dannys social skills are even worse!) After all, why would teenagers like them want to have a boring conversation witch scientist like him, right?
--
As he could later see, appearances are deceptive, and he should have learned the true meaning of this sentence ages ago.
First of all, much to his misfortune, the first to introduce himself to him when he didn't even get into the room properly was none other than Kid Flash himself, who rapidly flooded him with a mass of questions. It was hard for Danny himself to keep up with them, and he could have sworn that during his several years of being a hero, despite appearances, he was not one of the kind of slow guy, as if he were to compare himself to other heroes. (Although who knows? He might have gone out of shape, but he was not going to whine about this fact right now...)
After another, definitely if he would have to guess at least a thirteen-year-old basing on his posture and body build (Who's sending kids to the battlefields now? A lot must have changed since he was a hero-) successfully dragged his friend away from him, he was given the opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief even for a moment.
Unfortunately for him, it was not the end. Black Canary, who accompanied him all this time during his, if so you can call it "journey", which involved walking a distanse from whatever room they were in to the main room, literally in the blink of an eye said goodbye to him and walked away. Danny really didn't know what to think of the younger woman anymore, on the one hand he really liked her company, because she seemed to be the only person who could understand him in all this mess, while on the other he didn't know whether or not consciously or not she was quite a lot recently has been putting him in more emberassing situations.
"Would you like a cookie?" After looking to the side, breaking out of his thoughts, he could see a teenager who previously introduced herself to him as Megan (who was a real Martian, he couldn't believe it at first!) Standing next to him with outstretched hands, in which there was a bowl in which they were previously mentioned treats.
Taking a bit of one of them, thanking her beforehand for the treat, he could immediately feel the moment when his tongue were hitted by the sweetish, or even even too sweet, taste of the baked treat. He only wiped the corners of his mouth with an agile movement of his hand, only to face the cookie-maker himself, so that he could also speak to her.
"They seem a little too sweet, why don't you try putting in them less cinnamon next time?" He suggested, also trying to wake up his last left gray brain cells in this day and say it as much as he could politely to don't offend girl standing in front of him.
To his delight, instead of, as he had expected at first, Megan did not look at him in any crooked way, or simply did not ignore him in the slightest. Instead, she only gave him her best smile and nodded at his words with her head, so that after thanking him for "Excellent advice", she could leave (or rather fly) to the section where the kitchen was and, as he guessed, prepare another plate of cookies.
For a while he was amazed by the positive energy that emitted from this girl, but he had no intention of taking it away from her by his not really sunny attitude, so he just allowed himself to enjoy the moment and take a few steps ahead to properly enter the room.
"How old are you?" Robin asked not surprising him by doing that. Because what really he expected from Batman's ward with whom he had the pleasure (Or don't, after all he did not recall the interrogation process memory as one of the pleasant ones-) to talk earlier.
"Twenty six?" Although his voice sounded questioning, and probably he himself seemed unsure of his own answer he didn't as someone would expect have trouble with it, but rather he didn't expect from them that... Simple kind of question at the very beginning. Although who knows, maybe it is because for the first time in a long time he was not in any way a suspect in any case, and his interlocutors were children who were several years younger.
"Twenty six? Wait, Batman told me you worked in the S.T.A.R. labs, how on earth would you be able to do that if you for sure had to graduate from college?" Robin interrupted immediately, looking with a rather skeptical attitude towards the only adult in the room.
"I've finished my courses when I was twenty-two, I didn't have the highest score, but they were... Good." Stopping at the last sentence, almost dreamily and with a kind of nostalgia, he remembered the years when he finally had the chance to focus on his own development and learning, thanks to which, just like now his adult sister he was able to take care of himself.
When he quit being a superhero, he really wasn't convinced of his decision at first. No matter how hard he tried there was always that one soft voice in his head saying that maybe he should better come back, that maybe he should try to overcome his "trauma", (Although it was hard for him to call it a trauma but he had no intentions of arguing with Jazz on that matter) but he just couldn't. Therefore, when it turned out, giving up the title of a hero was equal to the instant gain of time for himself and his own self-realization - He really couldn't believe that all it taked was just turning off this stupid portal in the basement for good and leave that alone. In other words, he didn't regret his decision to quit in the slightes.
"Later I signed up to that one laboratory where I spent a few months there until it was time to present my skills in S.T.A.R... " Pausing in the middle, he turned his hand to the back of his neck so he could scratch it a bit and continued his speech later. "At first I wasn't sure of my skills, but as you can see they liked my extraordinary thinking and before I knew it, I was accepted." Letting a small nostalgic smile creep onto his face, he began to think about everything that happened to him in such a short amount of time.
"Prodigy?"
"Nah, I wouldn't say so." He replied immediately, turning to see Kid Flash, who had spoken these words. "Rather... Just luck and the ability to go beyond the template." The last words in the sentence he was saying, were spoken in more hushed voice than before, only to be able to breathe a sigh of relief after a short reflection so he could continue talking. "Later, a new option appeared for me, relatively recently, because just a few months months ago I've received a few related job offers. Among them was one that caught my attention..."
"Scientist at the astronomical research station?" Interrupted Boy Wonder.
"Scientist at the astronomical research station." He nodded so that a pleasant silence would fall in the room after these words were spoken.
--
Canary, at the moment when she met this Danny person who was for her a stranger for the first time, only for it to turn out later that he was one of Flash's good and close friends, felt a certain unease towards him. However, he couldn't be described as a potential danger, she did not fear it because his medical files clearly showed that he had a mysterious heart defect, which made his heart beat slower. Immediately due to his organism's condition, she rejected him as a threat, marking him with the nickname "Protect" rather than "Threat".
At first she did not know what to think about him, a scientist two years older than her who impressed even the highest heads of S.T.A.R. laboratories that they managed to become interested in him enough to hire him to work for them, even though they knew that he was only after graduating from university. In short, she was impressed.
However, the longer she spent time with him and became acquainted with him, she could not contain the aforementioned anxiety. During their first meetings, she did not know what this feeling was related to, but the further they had the opportunity to meet and talk... This feeling grew.
An ordinary eye would not be able to perceive his sudden, suddenly invisible reflexes that he was making whenever someone appeared unexpectedly behind him. Canary, however, was not everyone. She did not miss the fact that the older man jumped slightly when he was pulled out of his mind, and that in some of these situations he looked as if he was expecting some kind of attack from one of the sides, which made him appear like some kind of a fighting position in an instant.
As she mentioned, she wasn't worried that he would attack someone, because although he actually dominated everyone with his height, surpassing if she had to guess only with a few centimeters of Superman himself, but others had the advantage of years of experience in actual battlefield and their powers, but...
She wanted to know what he had to go through in his life, that now, even though he tried to hide it (Which only occasionally came out quite well, but as it was mentioned - Canary had years of experience behind her to let her escape his little actions), he still remained in this state.
Therefore, as soon as he signed the necessary documents, and his school papers got into the archives of the League, she immediately sat down with coffee in her hand to sit over them and read them.
At first she wasn't sure about it - After all, no matter how much she excused it, it was in every way an invasion of his privacy, but she really wanted to know what must have happened to him that today he was who he was.
So she promised herself that she would not read more than she was supposed to read. After all, she had no more specific excuse for her reasons for doing this than ordinary human curiosity, so she swore that as soon as she found the information she needed, no matter how much she really wanted to know other informations about him, she would stop reading his files immediately and just put them away on their place.
This is how she found herself here, sitting in some empty room in the League's base in outer space, so that, having previously bitten a piece of cake that she had taken from the cafeteria, she could, after a moment of doubt, start reading feeling that she would spend a moment analyzing what she will read. To be honest, she wasn't too wrong on this one.
Greetings mortals!
For first I want to say sorry because the ending of this chapter might be seen as... A little rushed- I won't lie, I was and still am tired because it's pretty late for me while I'm publishing this. So I'm really sorry if some of the words and sentences turn out to be incorrect mumbling, if you don't understand something, write in the comments about it and I'll try my best while correcting them in the future!
On the other hand-
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
Black Canary got in her hands Dannys files while he was attending school :eyes:
She's going to have a break down when she discovers that he was bullied and nothing was done about that-
And basing on his reactions and refelxes she's going to assume that he survived a really bad school life-
WHOOOPS, MY FINGER SLIPPED-
Therefore I'm happy to tell that we're finally moving somewhere with this story and we're getting closer to first... Moments when others would get suspicious about his past and start questiong themselves what happend in his life :eyes:
SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END SPOILER END
Aaaaaand, before we finish I want to answer one question in the comments section that was actually really good one-
Reader238: Question, since Danny is retired how is he regulating his ice core? Doeas he carry a bottle od water that he keeps at a co constant 40 degrees Fahrenheit?
H: No, no, he's not but for sure it would be easier that way for him and interesting! In all seriousness thought, the answer to this question is linked with the plot so you have to wait for future chapters to discover this mystery! (I can say thought, that at first this method which he's still using now wasn't really... Safe for him and his own health so there was consequences of his actions-)
(Yes, I've got answer for that written earlier because it was in my head from some time-)
I think that's it everyone, hope you're or will have a good day/night and remember to stay hydrated!
~Beware, Haven!
PS: I'm finally after two hours of translating this chapter going to sleep-
And I'm so happy because of that ಥ‿ಥ
My eyes-