Chapter 3
Unprepared for any visitors anytime soon, Danny jumped and flinched violently when the door opened with an ear splitting (at least to him) bang. Turning quickly, ready to fight any of the robots that the GIW normally sent in during test like these, he was surprised to find that there were no robots, but rather people wearing obnoxiously bright costumes. He was half tempted to ask if they were on their way to comic-con or something of the like. He held his tongue, instead taking to scan each of the newcomers from head to toe.
The shortest one, and presumably the youngest, had black hair – much like his own in his human form – and was wearing a red armour-like shirt with an 'R' on the left side of his chest. He wore a domino mask, obscuring the area around his eyes, and had a black and yellow cape. The boy looked to be at least sixteen.
The boy standing next to him was wearing a suit so yellow it hurt Danny's eyes. He was taller than the first boy by a good few inches and had fire-orange hair, and Danny felt a pang in his chest about how much it reminded him of his foster sister. He wore goggles over his eyes and his suit was accented with bright red. In the center of his chest there was a red and white lightning bolt. He looked to be about seventeen or eighteen, but Danny couldn't correctly decipher which one. Danny could hear the boy's heart beating fast, a lot faster than a normal humans and almost ten times as fast as his. He could feel the electricity rolling off the boy in wave, and Danny wondered what would happen to the older teen if Danny used his powers to absorb the electricity.
'Guess if this goes south, we'll find out,' the young boy thought to himself.
Standing behind the two boys there was a dark skinned and muscular teen that was around the same height as the red-head, only an inch or a half taller. He had platinum blond hair and was wearing a red tank top with black accents. Danny's eyes lingered on the sword-like weapons secured to his back, and when he shifted his gaze slightly to the right, he noticed the eighteen year old teen had gills on his neck. Danny didn't bother wondering why, he was after all half dead, so he had no room to judge others on their unique anatomy.
Danny's gaze finally gravitated to whom he had deemed the biggest threat in the room. This was a grown man not a teenager, and he wore all black. He had a bat symbol over his armour-covered chest and a cowl that covered over half his face. The cowl had pointed tips that resembled a bat, which correlated with the strange symbol. He was very muscular, and Danny couldn't identify anything about him that said he was...unnaturally enhanced. But Danny knew from experience that it didn't mean he was any less of a threat. The man wore a permanent stone mask as his expression, and Danny knew that this man would not hesitate to take down any thing that was deemed a threat to the people or things he cared about. Alpha was the word that seemed most fitting.
Not once dropping his defensive stance, the scan of the four in front of him took a total of thirty seconds. The boy narrowed his eyes in suspicion and apprehension, and waited for one of the others to make the first move. He could tell from the slightly shocked expressions on two of the teen's faces, they were expecting a scared, broken little boy.
They were wrong. Danny is scared out of his mind, and he's fucked up, but that doesn't mean the walls that carefully hid the fear, the vulnerability, was going to let up just because it was possible that he was rescued. He was not stupid, and deciding to trust these people right off that bat would be a very stupid decision.
The man in all black – Batman, Danny decided – stepped forward, which he responded to by promptly taking a step back. The man stopped his approach, obviously taking the nonverbal queue, and spoke.
"My name is Batman," Danny refrained from blinking in shock at the fact he had accurately predicted his name, "You are in the Young Justice Headquarters." This time Danny did blink in shock, and confusion.
'The Young Justice? What the hell is that?'
"What do you mean? You've never heard of us?" The youngest of them (who still was five years older that Danny) asked. The eleven year old jumped, both not realizing he spoke out loud and for being addressed directly. Danny, unsure of his voice and still very much distrustful of the odd bunch, only gave a slight shake of his head to answer the boy's question. The boy that Danny decided to refer to as 'R' until he got a proper name and the boy with the hair like his sis-he is not going to think about that, 'Lightning' Danny decided shared a confused look while the other two stayed stoic as ever.
"Dude, how long were you in there?" Lightning blurted out. He received a blow to the side by 'R' and a nasty glare (but not the worst Danny's ever seen) from Batman.
The boy, however, took this in stride despite the hurricane of emotions brewing under his calm, warrior facade. "Seven years, 3 months, 1 week, 6 days, 14 hours." He responded. The other's noticed a distinct accent that no one was able to place indicating that English was not his first language.
The others stared in shock and pity, even Batman and 'Gill boy' who were obviously the most serious of the group. Danny opted to ignore the pity and focus on how many people were in the room and how uncomfortable it makes home (not that he would ever admit that). He surveyed the group again and categorized them internally.'
I really hope I get some names soon.'
"Holy shit." 'R' muttered under his breath, too quiet for any human to hear, but Danny heard it loud and clear and his calculating gaze snapped to the teen immediately, who almost recoiled.
'Lightning', trying to change the mood, started to speak. "My name is Kid Flash, but most just call me Kid."
The others seemed to catch on. "I'm Robin." 'R' stated.
"Aqualad" 'Gill-' Aqualad said.
'Pretend names it is, then.'
"Phantom. People call me Phantom."
