Author's Note

I totally wasn't expecting this chapter to come out so soon... I'm kind of on a roll with this story. Hope you enjoy!

Danny turned the shower off, satisfied that he'd scrubbed most of the grime from the city off of him. He debated turning intangible to get the water off, but that would likely be suspicious so he stepped out and towel dried, Dick had left a fresh pile of clothes on the counter of the sink and Danny checked them over for any hint of bugs or trackers before he put them on and rejoined Dick in the living room. A towel over his head as he dried his hair.

"Feeling better?" Dick asked with a small smile.

"As much as possible." Danny nodded, returning the smile. "I am still on the run from a shady government organization and miles away from home. I'm worried about my family and friends." He admitted.

"That's completely understandable." Dick nodded as he fiddled with a loose fiber on the chair near the couch. Danny settled onto the couch, absently rubbing his hair with the towel to try and dry it off faster. They sat in silence for a moment before Dick spoke.

"Are you okay to continue with the questions?" He asked gently. Danny shrugged noncommittally and gave up on fully drying his hair, taking the towel off his head to hang around his neck until such a time that he could return it to the bathroom.

"Okay, let me know if you need another break." Dick gave him another reassuring smile before taking out his phone again to review the questions.

"Do you have a timeline for when this GIW showed up in your town?"

"About a year ago. Phantom and other ghosts started showing up around the start of my freshman year, they showed up in town a few months later. They were initially drawn in by the million dollar bounty on Phantom. After that they kept showing up from time to time, but they really became an issue starting that summer." Danny explained. "Honestly no one really took them seriously at first, they were terrible at catching ghosts. But they started getting more funding after a while… maybe from submitting evidence about ghosts to someone with deep pockets. Anyway, they grew in power and in arrogance after that. Like I mentioned before, they've blatantly attacked people they suspected might be ghosts, even without any evidence to support their claims."

"Did you know about Phantom's capture?" Dick wondered.

"Everyone noticed he'd gone missing… Suddenly it was just the human hunters and Phantom was MIA. I think they had him for a month before he escaped." Danny pulled his knees to his chest once more, hoping that Dick couldn't make out his necropsy scar through his shirt.

"What do you know about his escape?" Dick asked.

"Not much… just what Tucker was able to recover from their servers before wiping their data. Seems like someone accidentally gave him a double dose of ectoplasm… they'd been supplying him with just enough to keep him from dying… again… when he got the double dose he used one of his powers, a ghostly wail. The camera cuts out after that but Phantom was seen a little while later helping with ghost attacks. He stopped helping with human problems as much though."

Danny knew that agents had died in the collapse, knew that he was responsible for those deaths, knew he was now a killer. Sure it had been self defense and he'd been just doing his best to get out. He hadn't cared much about the collateral damage otherwise… Agents had died and the GIA became more cruel than they ever had been. Was it his fault that Amity was under quarantine? Had they found something out about him that made them suspect humans? Or were they just getting revenge,not caring about any collateral deaths as long as they maintained their objective of eliminating ecto-entities. Danny curled into himself more, his brow furrowing.

"Do you know if anyone was hurt by the ghost attacks during the time he was missing?" Dick asked. Danny frowned, were they trying to blame him for any injuries humans got while he was out of commission. No. That couldn't be it. Dick was a nice guy, he could sense it, it was likely a way to show his ghost half in a better light. At least he hoped that's what it was.

"Fifteen deaths, seventy five hospitalizations, and a hundred and twenty injuries." Danny rattled off the numbers. "This should all be in the flash drive though." he felt those incidents were all on him too, for getting caught, for not being there to help.

"It is, just confirming, it speaks more to Phantom's capabilities as a hero. We can leverage that to help the ghost side of these ecto-acts, not just the humans wrongly imprisoned." Dick reassured him. Danny didn't feel like a hero, not anymore. He'd always struggled with his place in the world and fitting in with his peers. It seemed like every time he started to get his footing, something new would appear to make him question himself once more. Dick made a few notes on his phone before asking the next question.

"We've been able to dig up some records given that the Bats bypassed some of the GIW firewalls. The public is very divided in their opinions about Phantom, but that's fairly common place among heroes. Certainly Batman has his share of poor reputation. What's your opinion on Phantom, especially given that you've worked with him." Dick looked up from his phone and Danny pursed his lips as he thought.

"I… I guess it's complicated. I know more about him than most, as do my friends and sister… it kind of clouds your judgment to be so close to the situation. My opinion is biased." Danny said as his fingers drummed against his knees.

"I'd like to hear it anyway." Dick''s smile was warm and encouraging.

"I think he really is doing his best to protect the town. That isn't to say that he's without his faults… but he's a dead teenager. Teenagers aren't best known for their emotional control and as a ghost… well… Emotions are amplified. They're a big driving factor for a ghost, they go to extremes… Maybe that's why he does his best to protect everyone, maybe he always felt the need to protect and when he became a ghost, maybe that was amplified." Danny paused searching for the next words.

"He has had a lot to deal with… I mean he died so young and he's trying to protect Amity Park and the ghosts… it's a lot to handle… especially after what the GIW did." Danny looked at his shoes. "They picked him apart and studied him. Pulled out organs fascinated by them growing back. They cut off an arm, pulled out his liver… have you ever seen your own liver!? That can't be easy to recover from… I mean, first you die at a young age, then ghosts start attacking people you care about, after that the government declares you as non sentient, even when you know you are sentient… just different.

"Death changes people… some for the worst but Phantom didn't take out his anger on humans for being alive while he died. He fought for humans… he fought for ghosts… and then he's captured and tortured As he begs and pleads for them to let him go." Danny had tears rolling down his cheeks now, his voice thick with emotions.

"Those agents may have been human… But they were no better than monsters. Phantom feels guilt about injuring humans, even accidentally. Can you imagine how guilty he feels about the agents that died when he escaped?" Danny buried his face in his hands.

"He clearly wasn't in his right mind. He was wounded and injured. Torture does psychological damage not just physical. Not to mention he only did it in self defense." Dick frowned.

"That's what my sister says too… but… that doesn't stop the guilt." Danny mumbled through his hands. He shook his head and looked back up at Dick. "They were monstrous, both for what they did to the ghosts and humans, but Phantom feels guilt anyway for killing them. How ironic is that?" Dick was quiet for a moment, watching Danny then nodding slowly.

"I can only imagine."

"I know that some ghosts aren't dead people… but… Phantom is. He used to be human, he still protects humans… but… they all want to see him as this infallible superhero or a ghostly menace… they don't see him for him… a dead child." Danny whispered. "Not even his allies really see that… except perhaps the ghostly ones. The humans he's allied with just see him as having powers… not being dead. What does that make me as ecto-contaminated as I am? What does it mean for me to live with one foot in the grave?" Danny said, hoping for reassurance that he was still human, even when he knew in his heart he was not.

"I don't know, Danny." Dick admitted and Danny looked back at his shoes. "What I do know is that you've shown resilience, determination and a strong sense of justice. Even if you aren't fully human anymore. Not many people have the courage to do what you did, to risk your life traveling through another dimension to get help when all other routes failed. I'd say you're the hero of your story. Even if you don't have a mask, a suit, or powers. You've been the hero today. We're already working on taking down the laws and organizing teams to infiltrate the GIW and extract the ghosts. You brought this to Batman's attention. Not everyone would have the guts to approach Batman of all people and trust him with their secrets. Secrets, by the way, that the GIW tried to cover up by threatening you and your town." Dick's words rang with sincerity and Danny drew in a shuddering breath.

"Thank you… for saying so." Danny managed a small smile. The conversation fell into silence as Danny recomposed himself, preparing to answer the next question. He hated how emotional he got, he felt like all of him was on display as his ectoplasm fed his emotions and in turn his emotions fed his core. Dick broke the silence once he felt Danny had calmed enough.

"How exactly does a human become ecto-contaminated anyway?"

"There's a few ways, long term exposure to ectoplasm or ecto-entities, brushes with death, lab accidents." Danny winced as he recalled his own lab accident and the death that he'd experienced.

"Lab accident… is that why you have such high levels of ecto-contamination compared to your fellow townsfolk, or so you've said." Dick asked, picking up on the wince. "You don't have to answer, but it would be helpful to know."

"I…" Danny swallowed and looked away from Dick, staring at his socks for a long while before nodding slowly. "My parents… the ghost portal didn't work at first… not until I turned it on… who puts the on button inside of a machine?" He laughed humorously and then sighed. "It's not a big deal anymore really… but it is why I'm severely ecto-contaminated… I was also ecto-contaminated by my coming from the portal initially."

"That… that must have hurt. I can't imagine… I'm sorry that happened to you." Dick said. Danny nodded slowly.

"I… I spent a night in the hospital, there are medical records if you want to check." He mumbled, still refusing to look up at Dick.

"Thank you for sharing. It couldn't have been easy to talk about." Dick said and Danny could feel his sincerity wafting over to him, along with anger, though he wasn't sure why there was anger. Danny nodded curtly and continued to examine his new socks.

"Danny." Dick said seriously and Danny glanced up at him, feeling the shift in the air.

"Hmm?" He frowned, not liking where this was going.

"Are you safe at home?" Dick asked, his eyes studying Danny who felt like a bug in a jar. Danny wished he could confidently say yes. He loved his parents and they loved him so… he should be safe at home… but in all truth he wasn't. Not from their ghost equipment, not from their experiments, and certainly not from their so called lab safety protocols.

"My parents aren't beating me if that's what you're asking." Danny said. It was true, they didn't beat him… just fired guns at his ghost half and take Phantom apart molecule by molecule… granted they'd been different since the past summer.

"You don't have to be physically abused to not be safe." Dick said. Danny flinched and looked at his hands, his thumb traced the scar on his palm and he remained stubbornly silent. Dick sighed heavily and leaned forward.

"Danny. I've heard a lot of concerning things in the short time we've talked: fighting reanimated meat and sentient toasters, involving yourself with Phantom's vigilante activities, ecto-contamination, and now this lab accident… I'm worried about you." Dick frowned, Danny could tell he was worried, he could taste it in the air… maybe that's what the anger had been about. Danny shook his head nonetheless.

"They are the only parents I've ever known. They love me. They may not be perfect but… I know they love me and they are doing their best. It was my fault for going to the lab in the first place. They think they're helping with the ghost problem. It's not their fault if the equipment goes off around me because of my ecto-contamination!" Danny defended them, his eyes flashing green once more. Dick waited patiently for him to stop before speaking again.

"The equipment they use to hunt ghosts… it goes off around you." Dick clarified.

"Well… it's the ecto-contamination like I said. They aren't trying to target me!" Danny snapped. "I don't want to have this conversation anymore if you're just going to insult my parents and accuse them of abuse!"

"That doesn't change the fact that you're in danger!" Dick said, the worry in the room was nearly choking him. "I'm not accusing them of intentional abuse, I don't think they have done anything malicious and I'm not suggesting anything like bringing legal action against them yet-" Dick was cut off as Danny suddenly stood.

"LEGAL ACTION! Why!? They don't think they've done anything wrong! They're a little absent minded sure, but it's my fault their tech goes off around me! It's my fault that I died in that stupid portal, my fault for not being careful enough!" Danny snarled. His eyes glowing brighter with his anger. "Leave them alone! They love me and I love them!"

Dick was quiet a moment as Danny glared daggers at him.

"You… you died in the portal?" He finally asked softly, Danny took a step back as if he'd been slapped and he looked away, his eyes blue one more.

"Ectoplasm has reanimation properties. I'd like you to go now." Danny said softly.

"Danny please, at least let me recommend someone for you to talk to while you stay here." Dick said, standing and reaching out to the teen. Danny stepped back.

"I don't do shrinks after the last one tried to murder my sister. If you aren't going to go, I will. Thank you for the bed, breakfast, and the clothes." He mumbled as he turned to the door.

"Danny, wait. I'll go for now. You don't need to." Dick said as he pocketed his phone once more. Danny hesitated, he'd fully intended on storming out, but he didn't even have his shoes on and the promise of a warm and somewhat safe place to stay while he was in Gotham was very tempting.

"Then go." He spat. "Don't insult my parents to me next time we meet." He said before going to the bedroom and slamming the door. He threw the towel that was still around his neck on the desk chair before throwing himself on the bed and staring holes into the comforter as he heard Dick leaving. He laid there for ages, his mind churning with anger before he slowly drifted off to sleep.

Grayson arrived in the cave with a sigh and Damian looked up from his homework, his eyes narrowed slightly as he took in his adoptive brother.

"You certainly screwed that up, Grayson." He said coldly, "we'll be lucky if he doesn't make a break for it after that fiasco."

"Don't remind me." Grayson grumbled as he leaned against a nearby wall. "At least he said he'd see me again… that means there is hope."

"Tch." Damian scoffed and rolled his eyes. "It certainly wasn't your brightest moment."

"Lay off, kid, I'm beating myself up about it enough." Dick grumbled. He glanced at the computer which showed a progress bar on one of the screens, whatever it was analyzing was near completion.

"What's that?" Dick asked, shrugging off the wall and coming to look.

"DNA Results for Danny. He genuinely has a corrupted DNA sample… rather than being completely corrupted and unreadable it seems like there is a foreign substance that's bonded to the DNA itself… likely this ectoplasm he speaks of. The computer finished analyzing the makeup and is now able to filter out the ectoplasm so we can read the DNA. We got quite lucky that it isn't completely unreadable." Damian reported as he went back to solving his calculus assignment. He'd done harder math when he was nine, but he had to keep up appearances for his civilian persona. While the assignment itself wasn't hard it was tedious, and the ever growing progress bar was distracting. That is all to say it was taking a while.

"I guess we did… hey… why do you call him Danny but still won't call me Dick." Grayson frowned.

"Dick is a phallus." Damian scoffed. "I would prefer to call you Richard if you insist on me using your first name."

"Richard sounds old." Grayson said, making a face.

"And Dick sounds erotic." Damian countered.

"Touche." Grayson said with a frown. The computer beeped and Damian's head snapped up as fast as humanly possible as he watched the computer begin to spit out results. He didn't even realize he was holding his breath until he let it out… Danny was a match for both Mother and Father, not to mention a genetic match for him as well. It should have been impossible, there were none of the typical signs of cloning and Damian felt his heart begin pounding as he realized what this meant.

"Hmmm… congrats, it's a boy." Grayson said as Bruce walked into the room. Bruce stared at the screen for a long moment before slowly nodding.

"Damian, suit up. We need to meet with Daniel again."

Danny had expected the Bats to come back, he'd even expected one of them to show up in their civilian ID again. What he had not expected was seeing the Bats in daylight, they seemed to prefer the night like the nocturnal creatures they named themselves after. He was also not expecting to wake up to Batman and the stabby Robin -possibly long lost twin brother- staring at him in the middle of the afternoon as he jerked awake from his nap. Also unexpected were their emotions, a weird mix of happiness, hope, fear, anxiety, love and respect. He wondered if he could get nausea from feeling so much at once as he frowned at Batman and Robin.

"Do you Bats not understand the concept of knocking? Someone needs to knock some sense into you! Do you always creep up on sleeping people or am I special?" Danny snarked. He didn't much like being woken up abruptly. It made him snarky and sarcastic. Robin had made a face at his pun and Danny felt that was a fair reaction, it wasn't his best work after all.

"We need to talk." Batman said simply, and Danny scoffed and folded his arms, frowning at the man.

"Must have been urgent." He grumbled.

"It is." Came Batman's gravelly voice and Danny frowned. These people did not appreciate his sarcasm at all.

"If this is about the thing with Dick this morning, I'm not sorry. He was being a dick. He crossed a line and I won't be talking to him again today." Danny said defiantly, as if the Batman staring him down wasn't intimidating at all.

"This isn't about that." Batman said and Danny raised an eyebrow as he waited for him to elaborate.

"We need you to come with us." Robin said, stepping forward. "We ran your DNA as you allowed and we're able to filter out the corruption from the ectoplasm to check your genetic code. You should be pleased to know you are not a clone. There is more to say about it… but we'd like to move you to a more secure location first."

"Okay…" Danny said, a little stunned. He hadn't thought that they could even manage to read his DNA so the whole thing came as a shock. Did that mean they had found something out about where he'd come from? Did that mean that Robin really was somehow his twin? He wasn't sure what to do with that information so he just stared at Robin for a while, trying to see if he could see his own features in the teen.

"Now would be preferable." Batman interjected into his staring session and Danny blinked.

"Oh… right… sure i guess." He shrugged as he rolled off the bed. He ran a hand through his hair trying to tame it after his impromptu nap before he went to grab his shoes. He paused as he glanced at the front door then at the Bats, both of whom had followed him to the living room.

"Um… are we just going to walk downstairs and out the front door in broad daylight or will we be slipping out via the window?" Danny asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Window. Batmobile is parked below." Batman grunted.

"Wait! It's actually called that!? I thought that was just what the media had christened it." Danny laughed as he followed them to the window and to the fire escape.

"The first Robin named it when he was nine." Robin said as he slipped out the window then jumped down to the alley. Danny followed suit and Batman followed behind. The back seat of the Batmobile didn't have much space but Danny managed to cram himself in anyway, doing all he could to look around at everything, the awe on his face was probably apparent as Batman and Robin jumped into the vehicle and the top slid shut. It was pretty incredible the amount of tech and buttons around them.

The ride was silent and Danny didn't even bother trying to figure out where they were going. Perhaps when he was younger he would have memorized the streets so he knew where they were, each twist and turn being mapped out. Not now though. For starters he saw no point in knowing, it's not like he cared to find where they were going again, and if he did he could always leave a faint ectoplasmic trace, like placing a pin on a map. Secondly, if he needed to escape, he could just go ghost and fly out, even if it meant exposing his secret. It would be a last resort to do so, and he didn't believe the Batman would do anything to harm him. After all, he couldn't sense any ill intentions toward him.

As for where they were going, he wasn't quite sure. They'd been driving for a while and Danny suspected that they had doubled back at times, likely to help hide where they were going as a security measure. Against him or others he couldn't be sure, though he figured the rumors about the Batman being paranoid must be true.

Without warning Batman swerved down an alleyway and headed straight for a wall. Danny's eyes widened, preparing to make them all intangible before impact, but the wall opened instead, allowing them down a secret passageway carved beneath the foundation of Gotham. Danny looked around at the stone walls around them, lit by lights every few feet, glowing a cool white, giving everything blue shadows. Had Batman built all this? How had he done it without anyone noticing? Was he repurposing old or forgotten infrastructure? Even then it would need to be maintained. How did he afford it? Maybe rumors about Bruce Wayne funding the Batman were more than just rumors.

The journey underground took less time than the one above ground. Perhaps Batman didn't feel the need to try to confuse him when they were underground and everything basically looked the same. Before long they emerged into a large cave filled with tech and elevators, levels built to house what looked like souvenirs, training stations, and what looked like a possible medical bay. The various trophies were certainly interesting, particularly the giant penny and the dinosaur. He hadn't realized that Batman was a collector… then again he may be keeping some of the tech and weapons to study and/or keep them safe and out of the wrong hands.

"Is… is this..?" Danny's voice came out smaller than he meant it to and he stared at the expanse of the cave with wide eyed wonder. Robin spoke first, a smirk of pride on his lips as the Batmobile came to a stop.

"Welcome To the Batcave, Danny."