Chapter Text
belladonna: jazz wgat th fukc is happning
belladonna: JAZZ
Organic Intelligence: Sorry. He just came out of the OR. He's fine.
Organic Intelligence: His heart stopped twice and he had a seizure but they'll think he'll be okay. I mean. As much as he can
Organic Intelligence: sorry my hands are shaking
TF (Too Fine): Hey, it's okay, we'll get the word to Val and everyone. Are you with him?
Organic Intelligence: This is Dick, Jazz passed her phone off. She's understandably stressed out, but she and Danny are settled in a hospital room with our family. Danny has a pacemaker on, we had a spare for him, and everything's looking stable. Anything else you want to know?
TF (Too Fine): Thanks. How hurt is he?
Organic Intelligence: His chest had to be sewn up, but nothing pierced the chest wall, everything looks clean. There's some burns on his arms with that really nasty anti-ecto stuff that just doesn't wash off, and that injection at the end was another anti-ecto formula. They cleaned it out of his blood, but it probably won't feel very good when he wakes up.
Organic Intelligence: We're a bit worried about his brain, so they'll do some neurological checks ASAP, and we're also going to try to talk him into getting a leadless pacemaker inserted so this doesn't happen again.
belladonna: leadless?? as in, containing no lead?
Organic Intelligence: That too. But it's leadless as in wireless - little pill-sized capsule that goes right in the heart, so it shouldn't trigger an immune response. At least that's the theory. And it's custom-made so it should phase with him but not through him, like ectoline. Danny helped design the casing, so it won't be news to him.
TF (Too Fine): I'm choosing not to ask any questions about how you know all this. Thanks for updating us
Organic Intelligence: Of course
"Hi Mom." Danny didn't have to hear her voice to know which of his parents would've called first.
"Danny!" Maddie exclaimed, overwhelmed with relief. "How are you feeling, sweetie? Mr. Wayne told us as much as he could, but..."
But a lot of the details were secret, right. Danny burrowed further under the thin hospital blanket, trying to hide from nonexistent scrutiny without dislodging either the IV line or wire attaching his pacemaker to the muted monitor. He knew, intellectually, that the only people in the room right now were Bruce, Jazz, and Damian, everyone else having gone home shortly after he woke up, but that didn't stop him from wanting to turn invisible and fly out into space.
"Like crap," he admitted. "Mostly just really tired, I guess, but my muscles are cramping like crazy and my chest hurts. The doctor says it's from pacing me through my chest wall and not from the heart attack, um, cardiac arrest, but... I just... really want to go home." Not to mention the deep gashes that had been sewn shut with ectoline, then bandaged; they throbbed, dull and dizzying, like the rest of him. His arms still burned, too - they were bandaged tightly all the way from his wrists to halfway up his upper arms, aching where they'd cracked open under the acid.
"I know, Danny," Maddie said, soothing enough that he could almost imagine the hug to go with it. "How long do they need to keep you?"
"Couple of days, mostly for observation," he said honestly. "I mean... for obvious reasons, they're not really sure how long the danger period is, but Bruce is really insistent on playing it safe. And then..." He exhaled shakily. "I'm staying an extra day to get the pacemaker in."
"You're okay with that?"
Danny closed his eyes and sighed. "Yeah... I knew it was stupid not to agree to it in the first place. I was just freaked out by the idea of surgery. But I've been practicing medical stuff for a while now and a leadless pacemaker insertion isn't super invasive, y'know, on the scale of surgeries." Surgeries on humans, it turned out, were usually done with the tiniest incisions possible: in this case, a little slit in his thigh. "It's better than..." He decided not to finish the thought, but ended up pressing his fist tightly against his chest, stomach churning in discomfort.
"As long as you're comfortable with it," Maddie said, firmly enough to make Danny's mouth curve up. "And... how are you doing emotionally? I know this must have been... I mean, I don't know if 'terrifying' is a strong enough word."
"...I don't really want to talk about it."
Obviously it had been scary, but Danny wasn't sure if that was exactly the feeling that had him curling up underneath the thin barrier of the blanket. He hadn't felt like this after facing Pariah Dark, even though that had been pretty freaking terrifying. Heck, he hadn't even felt like this after coming face to face with his evil future self.
Being cloned had felt like this. Freakshow had felt like this.
"Okay, sweetie. You know where I am if you want to talk." Maddie's wry tone pulled a soft laugh out of Danny. "Jazz told us you handled it really well, you know. She seemed very proud of you."
"I didn't do anything but tell bad jokes until my brain melted." Danny's voice came out flat.
"...I know, Danny. But that was still very brave. I'm sure most people wouldn't have been able to keep their heads enough to do that much."
Danny snorted softly, knowing exactly what most of the others would have said to that: not Gothamites. Gotham locals were built different. He didn't address it, though. "I guess. I don't know. I just..." He trailed off, not sure how to explain the fact that the knowledge that the Joker had killed Jason had been pounding against his sternum just as much as his heart had. Jason was one of the toughest people Danny knew. "It doesn't matter. Hood killed him."
Maddie chuckled, no small amount of relief in her voice. "I know. Half of Blackgate has been rioting in celebration, and even the guards aren't complaining about it. And, to be honest... thank goodness."
"Mmhm," Danny agreed, tightening the blanket over himself. As much as he understood why Bruce had never killed the Joker himself - unsanctioned executions were not really a thing they wanted precedent for - the relief at having the Joker off the street was overwhelming.
And at the end of the day, he was really, really grateful that Jason had cut through the chaos and beelined for him. Danny might be able to survive for longer than most people without a pulse, but like, not much longer. A couple of minutes, maybe.
"...I'm sorry that your father and I can't be there for you, Danny. I can't imagine how hard this is on you." Danny didn't respond, his fist twisting into the sheets, and after a moment, Maddie continued, "Bruce is there with you, isn't he? You're not being left alone?"
"Bruce has been here since I woke up," Danny reassured her. "He said he'll have to check in at home a couple times, but Jazz and Damian are here too so I won't be alone." His voice quieted, more with exhaustion than anything. "I'll be alright."
He and his mom didn't talk for much longer after that, cutting their time a little short; holding onto every minute didn't feel as urgent as it did before they got to visit in person for an hour every week. His dad called a few minutes afterward. It was familiar in a way that now felt almost comforting.
"Hey, Danno. Jazzy says you kicked butt yesterday."
Danny laughed quietly, relaxing against the bed. "Yeah, that's definitely not how that went. I didn't... really do anything." His voice softened toward the end, becoming even more morose.
"Are you sure? I heard you sassed him to the Moon and back." Jack's voice was light - it was forced, but reassuring, and Danny smiled a little. Then, "You did great, Danno. Really. I'm proud of you."
Danny ducked his head, hiding his face under his arm, and tried to keep his breath from becoming shaky. He also tried not to wish that his parents were in here, with him, even if that meant them knowing that his insides still felt singed from the caustic formula. (Anti-ecto formula number fourteen, apparently.)
"I'm gonna be getting my pacemaker in on Thursday," he said after a moment, dodging the question of what had happened. His ultrasound pacemaker was still wrapped around his chest, humming almost imperceptibly. "I don't know if I'll be able to visit on Saturday, but Jazz will be." He both did and didn't want to, anyway. It was confusing.
A lot of the things he felt right now were confusing.
"I know, son. You just rest. You'll be good as new in no time!" Jack's voice lilted encouragingly, and Danny smiled a little, curled up under the blanket. "And make sure to think about what you want to do on your birthday! It's almost that time, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Danny managed a full smile this time. "Bruce has been planning something, I think. He won't tell me what though."
"That's great! I could barely keep track of three birthdays, I have no idea how he remembers so many-"
Danny closed his eyes, listening to his dad ramble for a while, cheering him up.
Afterward, he hung up and sighed, a leaden feeling crashing back over him. He knew Bruce, Damian, and Jazz were on either side of him, waiting for him to pop back out, but he just... didn't really want to. The idea of coming out and facing everything seemed overwhelming.
He felt like he was failing some sort of test as a hero, acting like this - after all, he'd faced death before, more than once. He'd been in danger, he'd had- he'd had friends and family at stake, and saved them by the skin of his teeth or less.
He just... hadn't been expecting it to be so personal, he guessed. The Joker hadn't just tried to torture him to death - he'd gone out of his way to do it in a way that felt intimate, so that every moment was charged with horror. So Danny could still feel the press of eyes on him, watching him struggle.
A shudder ran through his body, and a moment later, a hand landed on his side, firm and steady.
"You're safe here," Bruce reminded him quietly. His voice was still tight with echoes of tension.
Jazz didn't say anything, but one of her hands crept under the covers and found Danny's, holding on tightly.
"Even experienced heroes need some time to recover from the shock of clinical death," Damian said. Danny thought it was directed at him for a moment, until Damian continued, steady and artificially neutral, "It doesn't matter how dead he was to begin with. The sensation is not one you grow used to."
Jazz took a deep breath. "Does this side get any easier?"
"Why don't you ask Father?" Damian asked, dry as dust. Bruce grunted, and Jazz sighed.
"Yeah. I didn't really think so."
Danny buried his face in his arm and tried not to think about the fact that he'd kind of signed up for a lifetime of this. (It didn't matter. He'd do it again in a heartbeat if it saved someone else.)
Danny had been very quiet since waking up.
While there were several other behavioral abnormalities to be observed - his reluctance to be seen, the way he kneaded the mattress like a cat, the way his tension spiked every time someone entered the room - it was his silence that Bruce found most concerning. Danny had said very little since he'd opened his eyes, aside from the calls to reassure his parents and his meek agreement to get a pacemaker inserted, and had otherwise for the most part stayed still and quiet, lost in thought. (Although Jazz had convinced him to play Tetris for around twenty minutes.)
Based on the way Danny was hiding under the covers, Bruce suspected they were in for a return to his previous habit of sneaking around the manor invisibly, which was fine; the other children found it amusing. More worrying was the way he'd flinched as soon as he realized the room was full of people, his eyes flashing green before he retreated under the covers.
Joker truly excelled at nothing quite so much as psychological warfare.
Jazz had relaxed somewhat after Danny had passed his neurological checks, proving that any damage had fully regenerated. But it was obvious she wasn't really reading the book in her hands, and if she let go of it for too long, a slight tremble quickly became apparent. She also kept giving fleeting, anxious glances to the muted hospital monitor.
Damian was doing better, working quietly in his sketchbook, but had remained tense. While all of them were used to close calls, those times that required CPR were always the hardest, and Damian had performed it for nearly a full minute before the AED was set up. Bruce wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to stay until the new pacemaker was in place, reassuring himself of Danny's continuing safety; the two had gotten along better than Bruce had initially expected.
Bruce exhaled, tension running through every line of his body until they ached. This happened far too often.
Dick was minding the rest of the brood for the moment; he'd gone to personally supervise the cremation of Joker's body, because that was a resurrection that no one was willing to risk, and then gathered everyone up to mob the Watchtower, alarming everyone there. Duke, thankfully, had only been tranquilized, and woke up a few hours later, furious to have been rendered unable to help. Tim and Cass were already working on finding the source of the Fenton tech the Joker had obtained, and would likely head out that night to interrogate some of the imprisoned goons. (Most of them had survived, although several needed hospitalization.)
Which left Jason, who had left before most of the others had arrived, putting his mask and helmet back on like he'd never taken them off. Bruce had wanted to stop him - there was no way that he was in any way 'fine' after a confrontation with the Joker - but tension still simmered thickly between them, Jason's words hanging in the air.
Bruce had second-guessed many of his decisions after Jason's death, tearing apart every step of their relationship as he looked for every way he could have prevented it. In that way, like many, Tim's brazen introduction had been a comfort, reminding him that it really was difficult to stop these children from getting involved, with or without his permission. But there had been other things: the way he'd trained Jason, whether he'd ever emphasized the risks enough, the independence he'd allowed him without nearly enough supervision.
Every young vigilante he'd trained after that, he was thinking of Jason, and pushed them harder because of it. Making sure they could protect themselves, making sure he could protect them. (Making sure, always, that they could escape any kind of binding.)
But he had never allowed killing the Joker to be much more than an intrusive thought. One that nearly broke his willpower at time, yes, but still just another intrusive thought, like the urge to kill Joe Chill.
It was amusing, in a grim manner, that Jason believed that Bruce had never wanted to kill the Joker. Jason would probably be very surprised at the number of people Bruce had wanted to kill over his lifetime.
It was not a privilege that he could allow himself. The position heroes and vigilantes currently held in society was already dangerously unchecked; they were allowed liberties that no rational institution should ever afford to anyone. None of the restrictions that applied to police officers, military officials, private security, or any other existing form of law enforcement had been applied to heroes in any meaningful way. In its current form, if a hero decided to murder someone, and even half of the founding members agreed that it was justified, that murder would go uninvestigated and unpunished.
Might makes right. It was the most basic form of power, and it was not a position that Bruce could allow the Justice League to take. Heroes were citizens just like everybody else, and allowing them to kill would either place them at odds with the state, undoing all of the progress they'd made, or it would create a new form of state-sanctioned murder. Their battle against the Justice Lords had demonstrated clearly where that road led.
Necessity turned to security. Security turned to reliance. Reliance turned to preference. And in that manner, an action of last resort became a tool of convenience, ready to be used against those whom no one would defend. (In theory: murderers and pedophiles and terrorists. In practice: typically sex workers, immigrants, and marginalized communities.)
Bruce knew all of that. And he knew that the most dangerous thing about heroes was that no one would reprimand them for their actions.
And yet... when Bruce heard that the Joker was pronounced dead at the scene, he'd felt nothing but relief.
So far, it seemed like that was all anybody had felt.
Bruce's phone buzzed against his side. With a sigh, Bruce excused himself to go answer it, stepping just outside. "Lucius."
"I should have the device ready by tomorrow," Lucius told him without missing a beat, steady and confident. "The insertion procedure should be normal, and I've tested to make sure it'll stay off when it's supposed to. It can be manually restarted if necessary as well."
Bruce nodded tightly. "Was there anything you were unable to account for?"
"The adhesive mechanism is not completely foolproof," Lucius warned. "It is still possible to dislodge it with extreme, repeated impacts. He shouldn't have any trouble replacing it manually in that scenario, but I will continue to look for a better solution."
Bruce grunted. Given the positions Danny was likely to take in hero work, 'extreme, repeated impacts' were almost certain to come into play more than once, but it would do. "Thank you. I'll have Alfred retrieve it tomorrow evening. We'll be inserting it on Thursday."
He returned to the hospital room. Jazz was still not reading.
"Nightwing brought a tablet, if you're struggling to focus."
"Oh!" Jazz twisted to look at him, looking taken aback. Thankfully, Danny also peeked out from under the covers, exposing just enough of himself that Bruce could make out the flash of his mask's lenses. "Um, thank you, but..." She glanced at the monitor again, head tilting slightly. Danny's heartbeat had been steady since he'd been settled into this room, if a bit rapid by his standards, but it was unnerving without the accompanying audio.
"I will notice if anything goes wrong." Bruce certainly wouldn't be relaxing his hypervigilance anytime soon.
He saw Jazz hesitate, looking conflicted for a moment, but then she met his gaze and loosened, giving him a small smile. "...Thanks. But Danny, I'll still be right here, okay?"
"Mmhm."
Bruce sat down as Jazz leaned over to rummage through the backpack Dick had brought, which was full of miscellaneous hospital visit supplies. After a moment, she pulled out the tablet and a wireless headphone capsule, popped one earbud into her ear, and started looking for videos.
Damian was still working quietly, jaw tense. When Bruce met his eyes, Damian scowled at him, the lenses of his mask narrowing, and jerked his head towards Danny, dismissing his attention. Normal behavior for Damian, who preferred to process his emotions as privately as possible. He would still need support and attention, but it required more subtlety and space. Perhaps it would be appropriate to offer physical affection again once they were home.
Now for Danny, since he'd stirred from his daze. He reached over and set a hand on Danny's head, ignored his reflexive startle, and asked, "Do you want anything?"
Danny held his gaze for a long moment, his face pale and drawn from the physical and emotional stress. There was an unusual green gleam in his eyes that was likely indicative of stress as well. Then he shook his head and dropped his gaze, but lifted one hand to stop Bruce's from pulling away, instead shifting it so it rested under his head.
At least Danny knew how to ask for what he wanted in this area. Bruce huffed quietly, shifted to a less awkward angle, and let his hand stay there as he kept an eye on Danny's vital signs. In return, Danny let the blanket slip slightly, exposing most of his face. He still looked pale and drawn.
"You're still afraid," Danny said suddenly, without looking at him.
Bruce's breath hitched slightly, not expecting to be called out, and then resumed. "It's residual. You're going to be fine."
"...Why am I still afraid?" Danny's voice came out with a twist of frustration. Jazz shifted to glance up, looking worried. Damian also looked over, expression tightening in carefully suppressed anger.
"It's residual," Bruce repeated, with nothing better to offer. "The Joker is... was unique in his cruelty. Cruelty is often more damaging than any number of injuries. You know that well." Danny's standard rogues were, by and large, rather lacking in cruelty; the ones that had been cruel had all left a deep impact on him.
Sure enough, Danny shuddered, his hand tightening over Bruce's wrist to seek comfort. "Is Jason in trouble?"
For a long moment, conflict warred in Bruce's chest. A large, stubborn part of him wanted to say yes, that killing was never permissible for any reason, that heroes should not and could not be judge, jury, and executioner. There needed to be checks on their power. It had been such a point of conflict for so long that the response was nearly reflexive, and frustration built in his throat.
But there was one phrase Jason had used, among all the familiar hurt and betrayal, that Bruce had gotten stuck on, and his frazzled mind couldn't parse whether it was truly an apt point, or an excuse for Bruce to latch onto.
A track record of killing child heroes. Two villains, as Jason had said: Joker and Deathstroke. Jason and Tara.
The self-loathing was his punishment. The fear of losing his children was engrained. The frustration, bitterness, and anguish were his own. But this time, Jason had also brought up a clear, practical, undeniable point - something to build on.
It was a threat he had not adequately accounted for. What had occurred twice would occur again, especially if they continued to treat it under the same rules as with older heroes, which made great allowances to balance out the liberties heroes already took. Most crimes against children were punished more harshly than crimes against adults, for good reason; could the same apply here? Could they demand a more permanent solution?
Bruce would bring the question to the rest of the Justice League for discussion.
Jason's intervention had likely saved Danny's life. Paramedics could not enter a space still occupied by the Joker, and who knew how long it would have taken to remove him? At best, they would have had to bring Danny out, possibly much more roughly than his already-taxed body could have endured. It had been an immediate, on-the-spot choice, for the purpose of rescuing a teammate.
"...No," Bruce said at last, low and rough. "I'll let it go this time."
Danny relaxed slightly, nodded against his hand, and went quiet again.