Dani To Do List
- go back to Dick's
- learn to cook?
- learn how to put out a grease fire
Dani gets back to her regular exploring routine for a couple of days, letting her core sort itself out.
Unfortunately, it sorted itself into the pro-Dick category. She misses him. It's weird, given she's only really hung out with him for a day, but oh well. Ghosts tend to make connections pretty quickly.
She goes back three evenings later. When she pushes his apartment button, she doesn't even have to announce herself before she's buzzed in. Dani walks through the lobby and hits the button on the same elevator they used last time to go up to Dick's apartment. She has to wait a minute, and when it opens it releases a duo of valley girls with immaculate manicures and fairly convincing spray tans.
When they walk past her, the one in the bright pink halter top looks at her like she's something icky stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Dani doesn't spare her a second glance.
With a snotty voice that is audible even without Dani's sensitive hearing, the girl sneers, "Who let the street in here? I thought this place was supposed to be classy." Hmph. Dani's not even all that ratty. A couple days of dirt, sure, but the clothes are new and fairly nice, courtesy of Dick.
Dani flashes a peace sign and jams the close door button. She also makes sure to give them a big wink before the doors actually manage to shut before pressing the penthouse button.
With a little focus, Dani finds the snotty voice as it grumbles about her manners or appearance or something equally shallow. Her friend joins in as their voices get fainter, and Dani grows disappointed. A shame they didn't notice the elevator is heading to the penthouse. It'd be funny to hear their reaction.
She stops listening and instead watches the numbers rise. Surprisingly, the elevator doesn't stop to let in anyone else. Dani wonders if pressing the penthouse button makes her ride priority. Maybe there just aren't any people going up? It's kinda rude to ride an elevator all the way up without letting it stop for more passengers. Must be a rich privilege thing.
When the elevator opens, Dani's expecting to see Dick on the other side with a huge grin. Instead, she's met with a dark, empty apartment. A little more disappointed now, Dani wanders inside and lets the elevator slide shut behind her while she takes off her shoes and sets them aside like any civilized human being.
The phone rings, and Dani's ghost just about said sayonara to her body and hightailed it out of there.
Ancients, what's with the jumpscare?
It's coming from the tablet embedded in the wall. The caller id reads Off. Richard Grayson, so Dani assumes it's Dick and taps the screen.
A click. "Dani?" As expected, it's Dick, albeit a bit crackly from Dani's ghostly interference.
"Yeah?" Her voice must be near-incomprehensible.
"Sorry, I'm finishing up a shift. I'll be back really late, but there's food in the fridge and you're totally welcome to make yourself at home. The atlas is on the coffee table and I put my brother's thawb on the bed in case you came back for it. Give me a call if you need anything, alright? If you want to order in there's cash in the drawer by the sink."
"Uh, okay," Dani answers. He's babbling, all rushed but clearly excited. "When will you be back?"
"Oh, don't wait up. My shift ends at two, and I probably won't get out of here for at least an hour after that." He pauses, the sound muffling as he talks to someone else. His voice returns, more hurried now. "I have to go, but I'll see you in the morning?"
"Sure," Dani agrees.
"Great, I'll see you then." Dani goes to press the big red button with an upside down phone, ready to hang up, but she pauses when he tentatively asks, "Dani?"
"Still here," she replies.
"I'm glad you're back."
With that, he hangs up.
Dani rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. It's good he's not around to see how pleased she is to hear that. She has an aloof and unaffected reputation to uphold, after all.
She checks the drawer by the sink, ready to be exasperated by Dick's excess, but she's still shocked by the sheer amount of cash. It's all in twenties, and she counts it out to a total of $800. What exactly does he think she'll order for dinner? A gallon of caviar?
She's had caviar. It's the nastiest thing she's ever put in her mouth. Maybe boysenberries are just sugary caviar. They're both equally disgusting, and relatively the same color.
The teen doesn't even want to order out. There's still leftover naan from dinner three days ago, and once she nukes the rest of the Pakistani food in the microwave, she's content to dig in.
It's a little too quiet, so Dani turns on the TV and peruses Dick's extensive selection of streaming services. She settles on an African documentary for background noise and goes back to the table to finish dinner. Luckily, since she's not interacting with the electronic, there's only a bit of fuzz around the edge of the lines. It was a miracle she and Dick were playing Minecraft instead of something with more advanced graphics. The lag could easily be attributed to Dani trying to entity-cram a bunch of chickens in a one block area.
After finishing her food and doing the dishes (she has manners, okay, she just usually chooses not to use them), Dani takes another shower and pulls on the thawb she used last time. It's clean and smells faintly of detergent. It gets soaked from her still-wet hair, but Dani just pulls it up into a ponytail like usual and ignores the wet fabric sticking to her skin.
The sun has only just begun to set when Dani finishes up, so she opens the curtains wide to watch the day turn to night. She even opens up the balcony doors and stands outside, letting the wind and fading sunlight speed up the hair-drying process.
She wants to go flying. She wants to feel the wind try to rip the clothes from her body and hair from her head. She wants to feel that drop in her stomach when she enters free fall. She wants to breathe the crisp air above the clouds.
Maybe soon, she will. Her core has long since stabilized by Danny's father's invention. The compound that was meant to tear ectoplasmic cells apart instead forced the ectoplasm to pull together until it clicked into place, finally settling into stability. The human cells were purged of all active ectoplasm for a brief window of time, and they formed their own connections that didn't need to be held together by ectoplasm that fought against itself like water and oil. She was finally whole, body and form.
After, Danny took her to the Zone and she was given a very thorough work up by Danny's personal ghost-doctor — Frostbite — who recommended she gradually begin reusing her powers as she felt more steady. He gave her supplements to keep her core well-nourished and healthy, and Danny added some emergency medication if she ever felt like she was destabilizing.
That was four months ago.
She returned to the mortal realm a little after two weeks of recovery, her health eventually signed off on by both Danny and Frostbite, but she hadn't used her powers more than once or twice a week since. She hadn't dared to slip into her ghost form, which was so much more susceptible to spontaneous melting than her human form, which could now exist independently from any ectoplasm.
Flying in particular took up so little energy in her ghost form. It was more natural to float than tether a gravity-defying form to the ground. But in her human form, it was the same as using invisibility or intangibility. It was accessing her core and bringing her energy to heel in a body that wasn't a natural conduit. It's a heady rush of sparks and chill, a slight resistance as the body's cells rebel against the unnatural, a shiver of power that teases what lies beneath.
It was a ripping sensation, slime dripping through her fingers as her body fought to dissolve, her mind fighting to keep each cell together. It was constant mental energy devoted to keeping her whole. It was burning in her core.
It was. It isn't anymore, as far as Dani can tell, as far as Danny and Frostbite have assured her over and over again.
Her mind just wasn't getting the memo. Her powers are locked behind a mental barrier in a mind that remembers fear and pain.
Dani exhales into the musty city air before turning back to go inside.
She'd fly again.
Just not today.
FIRST POV SHIFT :D
Dick breaks all the traffic laws he's supposed to enforce as he rides back to his apartment. It's just after two-thirty, but it feels like he's hours over the end of his shift. He hasn't been alerted that his apartment's security has been breached since he let Dani in around seven, but he's paranoid.
The balcony door opened. What if she climbed down? It was theoretically possible, what if she felt like proving it?
Ugh. Tim's right: I'm such a mother hen.
He doesn't care. This tiny little teenager had trusted him enough to go to his house after he overstepped, and he wants to see her all safe and sound before she inevitably heads out for her next adventure.
The elevator can't rise fast enough. Dick drums his fingers on his thigh as he watches the numbers go up.
With a cheerful ding, the doors slide open to give him a full view of his apartment. When he doesn't immediately see her, Dick looks to the nearby mat, hoping he'd find Dani's shoes…
And there they were, two ratty sneakers with more holes than coverage, neatly stacked up by Dick's running shoes.
He lets out a heavy sigh of relief. She wouldn't go anywhere without her shoes.
He shrugs off his outer coat, removing his own shoes before stalking inside to look for his guest. He doesn't even make it to the hallway before he spots her, curled up in the guest room comforter on the couch, her sleeping form illuminated by the open curtains letting in the faint glow of the city lights.
The atlas is open on the coffee table in front of her, displaying some kind of city map of Istanbul. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to which pages she looks at. Maybe she just opens them up randomly. Maybe they're from places she's previously visited, or ones that she wants to visit in the future.
Dick takes a moment to admire the soft picture Dani paints, all cuddled up in a huge blanket, her face smooth and relaxed, her dark hair wild and untamed. Dick's never actually seen her brush it. It looks like it hasn't been in a long time, maybe ever. He wonders why she keeps her hair so long. It must be a pain when she can't properly take care of it, right?
She's wearing Dami's thawb again, only visible from the one arm that has broken through the blanket and is draped over one of the throw pillows. Alfred ordered a new one for the young ex-assassin, but Dick strongly suspects he also ordered a couple for Dani as well.
Alfred is the only one Dick has told about Dani so far. He doesn't want his family to scare her off, which they certainly would when they heard about her. He'd tell them to stay away and come back to two sisters, three brothers, and possibly a family friend or two (not Duke though, he's an angel) fawning over her. She'd be so overwhelmed. The Wayne family can be… well. A lot.
They will love her, though. And Dick's certain she'll love each of them in turn.
Maybe there's too much Bruce in him, because he decided she was family two minutes into their first conversation.
He just has to manage to not mess this up.
Her waking up to him looming over her might do it, so Dick reluctantly steps away and gives her some space. If she wasn't such a flight risk, he would pick her up and take her into the guest bedroom. For now, he won't risk it.
After a quick shower and outfit change, Dick goes back into the guest room and steals Dani's abandoned clothes to throw in the washing machine. He opens the drawer in the dresser he'd filled with a few articles of clothing for her so she'd see it and then heads back into the living area to pull out his laptop. He doesn't know if she'll still be here when he wakes up, so he wants to spend time with her before he inevitably has to get some sleep.
He hadn't gotten much sleep the past couple days, too busy trying to comb through the city either personally or over cameras to catch a sight of her.
Man, he's such a creep.
That won't stop him, though.
He pulls up a case Tim asked his opinion on, skimming through the notes and adding a couple of thoughts on anything that stood out to him. Tim hardly needs his help with the detective work — he's better than all of them on that front — but one of the POIs was someone Dick had dealt with in the past, so he might've had some info.
Dick pulls up their chat.
BestBrotherEva: Yue has connections with the Chinese mob. Check the attachment for profiles.
BestBrotherEva: [attachment]
He pulls up Bruce's log to start catching up on the crime in Gotham. Dick has only skimmed through a single sentence of one of Bruce's recent reports when Tim's reply comes through.
BabyBird: cool thx
BabyBird: when you coming down next?
BestBrotherEva: not sure
BestBrotherEva: I'll let you know
BabyBird: what's her name
A slice of panic cuts through him. You can't keep these paranoid detectives from anything .
BestBrotherEva: whose
Maybe he's assuming Dick is dating someone new? Playing dumb rarely works but…
BabyBird: you're hilarious
BabyBird: [attachment]
BabyBird: if you tell me I won't tell everyone else
The attachment is four separate pictures of him and Dani, one from outside the ghost tour place looking at her map, two on their following walk to the seafood restaurant, and the last from his own apartment of Dick wrapping her ankle.
Tim is the literal worst. Least favorite brother, no question.
BestBrotherEva: you know I hate it when you look at my home cams
BabyBird: Oh demon brat, Dick's letting someone wear your clothes~
BestBrotherEva: shhhhh you snitch
BabyBird: we entering countdown? 3…2…
BestBrotherEva: her name is Dani, you menace
BestBrotherEva: and I hate you
BabyBird: hm and whatcha doin with her
BestBrotherEva: I'm not doing anything!
BabyBird: you bought her food
BabyBird: and clothes
BabyBird: and an atlas
BestBrotherEva: …
BestBrotherEva: i do that for everyone
BabyBird: I'm getting the brat
BestBrotherEva: nonononono wait
BestBrotherEva: I met her at the precinct. I ran into her while she was treasure hunting, and "stargazing" on the clock tower, and randomly digging up a Terroni dumping site for literal no reason
BestBrotherEva: what was I supposed to do
BabyBird: so you adopted her?
BestBrotherEva: uh, kinda
BestBrotherEva: she's prime sister material
BestBrotherEva: gotta even out the numbers
BabyBird: mhm
BabyBird: well
BabyBird: I definitely want to hear more about this, but O just picked up a sighting of my target
BabyBird: I'll keep quiet for now
BestBrotherEva: make sure you cover your tracks
BestBrotherEva: she's not ready for all y'all's nonsense yet
BabyBird: 👍
Dick sighs and scrubs his face with his palm. He barely made it a week. Tim is so nosy . There's no reason he should've been hacking into Dick's stuff! It's not like he wasn't checking in or acting strangely or anything!
… Although, if Alfred told Damian he wasn't going to be heading down as he planned, Tim might've heard that and dug into it. That teen has zero restraint.
Well… at least he had the decency to send pictures.
Dick opens up the attachments to see if they're worth saving. To his immense disappointment, Dani is blurry in every shot, like she'd been moving and the pixels got all scrambled trying to capture the image. A shame. He would've loved to get a sample for some facial recognition software so tracking her down isn't such a nightmare.
Closing out of the chat, Dick brings up his firewalls. As expected, Tim's tracks are untraceable.
Dick resigns himself to letting another bat in the loop.
DicksoBall: hey would you do me a favor?
MadHacker: you want me to help you keep the little girl a secret?
DicksoBall: YOU TOO BARBARA ARE YOU KIDDING ME
MadHacker: ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯
Dani wakes up to the glorious site of a drooling Dick slouched over an open laptop. If only she could capture this moment for future posterity.
Something settles in her to see him whole and healthy, even though there wasn't a logical reason to worry otherwise. Stupid core.
She leaves him there to sleep and goes back to the guest room to change. Originally, she plans on putting on last night's clothes, but they're gone. She does find an open drawer that has a couple of shirts, shorts, and socks, though. After a small stint of investigating, Dani finds her clothes in the washing machine.
Dani puts them in the dryer and turns it on. She'll wear the other clothes because she's just that benevolent, but she still wants her sweatshirt. It may be August and stifling hot, but it's where Dani carries all her stuff.
The other shirts aren't in adventure green, but they each have some kind of graphic related to traveling. Dani decides on a cobalt blue shirt that has a small compass rose design on the left breast. She's also intrigued by the cargo pants in a dark forest green. It has eight pockets. That's a lot of pockets.
After she's dressed, Dani takes out her ponytail, half heartedly combs her fingers through some of the knots, and re-ties her hair. It feels nice to be clean and have fresh clothes to change into. If only it wasn't such a hassle to transport them.
When she returns to the living area, she finds that Dick has woken up (probably from the slamming of the dryer door) and has relocated to the kitchen table with his laptop. Dani wonders just how much work he does in a day (she's never seen him do anything else unless he's specifically hanging out with her).
"Good morning," Dani greets him.
He looks up at her with a broad grin, eyes sparkling. "Hey! Sorry I wasn't here when you got in last night."
"No problem," Dani replies. "What are you doing?"
Dick shrugs, looking at his laptop distastefully. "Just reading reports. I like to know everything that's going on even if I'm not involved."
"Do you get paid for that?"
Dick laughs openly at that. "Absolutely not. But, as you could probably tell, I'm not actually doing this for the money."
Dani pretends to contemplate this, looking around the huge, sunlit penthouse. "I dunno, you could use the extra hours."
He laughs again. "No, I think I'm good. I work plenty."
"Speaking of," Dani segues, "are you working today?"
Dick grins. "Nope! Shockingly, you caught me on my day off."
Dani is skeptical. "You switched shifts."
"Yep!"
Dani can't help but smile at his antics. "So, do you want to make waffles?"
Dick's smile fades. "Make waffles? We can just order in."
"I want to make them," Dani insists. She's never tried cooking before. It'll be fun! "I checked, you have the ingredients." Yes, the nonperishable, unopened baking ingredients and luckily butter, eggs, and milk. At least his iKea of a house came with the basics, even if it was clear the only thing he used was milk for cereal.
The man looks properly apprehensive. "Uh, I'm not too good at cooking. How about some toast?"
"Me? Change my mind?" Dani laughs. "Not likely."
Dick closes his laptop with a resigned sigh. "I'll unplug the smoke detectors."
His lack of faith in Dani is a little insulting.
But, after their roaring oil fire is finally put out with the contents of two whole fire extinguishers following an hour of accidents, screaming, and a brief stint of Dani's hair catching on fire, Dani can admit he was right to be worried.
Panting, Dick sets down the empty fire extinguisher. The smoke is slowly being funneled out from the oven fan, making it a little easier to breathe. Dani, covered in flour, carbon dioxide foam, dried batter, and ash, inspects the burnt ends of her hair. All things considered, it's not so bad. She'll have to cut off around ten to fifteen centimeters, but she needed a trim anyway.
"Deep frying the batter wasn't our best idea," Dick says unnecessarily. He wipes off some of the foam from his hands with the only kitchen towel that hadn't already been ruined by batter or fire.
They look at each other over the kitchen-island-turned-war-zone. Dani is filthy and singed. Dick has batter in his hair and his unfortunate choice of a white shirt has streaks of ash.
Suddenly they're laughing so hard they can't breathe. It's the type of laughter that's borderline hyperventilating, something deep and guttural from the stomach that brings tears to their eyes. Dani's abs ache from the hysterics, but she can't calm down.
They laugh until they're in pain, then look at each other, breathless, and double over for another round.
It takes several minutes for them to reign in their laughter enough so they don't immediately start up again when making eye contact.
They end up eating cereal for breakfast.
HackerBuddy: hey why did you lock me out of Dick's servers
HackerBuddette: he asked me to and you're not the only one who can be bribed by info of our new sister
HackerBuddette: but here look
HackerBuddette: [ attached: ] [ attached: ] [ attached: ]
newsiblingbonding1
Dick is mixing some kind of batter in a bowl. Dani – though her whole form is blurry and pixelated – is getting out a pan.
"Hey, can we deep fry the waffles?" comes a distorted voice, presumably from Dani. "I had them in Belgium. They're really good."
Dick puts down the batter and turns to face her. "I guess. They won't look much like waffles though."
"That's alright. What do we need?"
"Just oil in a pan, I think. Then we can heat it up and add the batter."
"Sounds simple enough."
End Video
newsiblingbonding2
Batter is added to the bubbling oil. Immediately, it explodes into flames, quickly spreading to the nearby paper towels that were used to try and clean up some spills of batter. Dani and Dick both jump back at the hiss, and Dani grabs a glass of water and tosses it onto the fire. Predictably, there's a second explosion.
"You're not supposed to put water on a grease fire!" Dick shouts, throwing open the cabinet under the sink to get the fire extinguisher.
"How was I supposed to know that?!" shrieks the garbled female voice. "Water beats fire, that's how it works!"
"You're supposed to smother it with baking soda or a lid!"
That was the wrong move; instantly, Dani grabs the nearby container of flour and throws the whole thing on the fire in a glorious wave of white powder. She follows this up with grabbing all towels in reach and batting at the fire wildly. One of the towels catches fire and Dani drops it, stamping on the flames, turning her head to the stove.
Her hair is next to burn.
"Dani, your hair's on fire!"
Dani immediately shrieks and starts running around the kitchen island.
"No wait, stay still!" Dick chases her down with the hose of the extinguisher brandished in front of him. When it becomes obvious Dani is going to just continue running around without doing anything about the growing fire in her literal hair, he starts shooting out the foam. He only stops when she's soaked and flame-free, then turns the rest on the flames. It runs out, but Dick is quick to grab the back up and start spraying the stove.
End video
newsiblingbonding3
Dick and Dani laugh uncontrollably in a destroyed kitchen. They're laughing so hard it looks painful.
End video
HackerBuddy: I am in awe
HackerBuddy: please that was so horrifying and wholesome at the same time
HackerBuddette: I know right
HackerBuddette: I love her already
HackerBuddy: I'm getting her a fire extinguisher for her room
HackerBuddette: make it two lol
Hey guys! Another week! I've been excited for this chapter since the very second I wrote it out. The waffle scene pushed Dick's return to Gotham to the end of next chapter, but it was too good to pass up.
Do they actually deep fry waffles in Belgium? No clue, but it seems like something they would do. I read a book on Belgium once. They deep fry everything... twice. It's why their fries are so good.
Anyway, I'm genuinely blown away by the response. Every comment fills me with intense joy, especially the ones where people tell me scenes they liked or add in their own commentary. Makes me feel light in this cold dark hole of grad school I've dug myself into :')
Thank you so much for reading, and I'll see you all next week!
