Danny's found a way to dodge GIW trackers, as well as his parents. Their equipment hunts ghosts, ghosts run on emotion; so as long as he keeps his under a tight lid and doesn't feel anything ever, they won't be able to track him.
It works!
He's able to run from them, and goes as far as New Jersey. The plan was to stow away on a ship, and go to literally any country that wasn't America. He goes to Gotham, which hosts the one harbor he knows where no one will ask any questions.
But because of how weird he acted (completely emotionless during a Joker attack), he was fingered by police immediately.
He's handed over to CPP. CPP doesn't know what to do with a teen literally so traumatized that they don't show any emotion at all, ever. He keeps just...walking out of his placements. Just leaves without a sound.
Luckily, he's always caught, due to those placement houses having quiet alarms and him refusing to run.
They call the one foster parent they know who does.
Bruce Wayne takes in the strange, nameless kid who refuses to talk.
On paper, they gave him the filler name of 'John Doe', for lack of anything better to do.
Bruce does everything he can to make the newest arrival feel at home. Damian, for as territorial as he is, actually breaks out of his shell sooner than expected just to try to get the new kid to speak. To emote. To do something. Duke tries the open approach, then tries the 'no one will ever know, everyone thinks I'm an innocent goody-two-shoes' approach. Nada.
Tim even tries to trick him into talking, but nothing works.
Enter Dick; Dick heard about Bruce's new ward, about the situation, and decided to see if he could get the kid to open up.
Danny though. Danny's in trouble.
The Wayne Manor is weirdly secure, and he can't just walk away like he did his other placements. He can't use ghost powers or the GIW and his parents will immediately know where he is.
He really, really wants to take Bruce up on his offer and just spend the day relaxing. Respond to Damian's attempts to provoke him. Overshare about space facts with Tim.
But most of all, he really, desperately wants to get in a Pun Competition with Dick. He wants to laugh at Dick's jokes, and learn coolass gymnastic tricks!
But he can't!
If he relaxes with Bruce, he'll be content, which is an emotion. If he argues with Damian, he'll get annoyed, which is an emotion. If he sneaks out with Duke and breaks the rules, he'll get happy, which, again, emotion. If he overshares with Tim, he'll get excited, which is, yet again, an emotion!
The worst sin of all, he can't even show proper appreciation of the food the Butler keeps making him!
And now there's even more people coming over!
There's a quiet girl who keeps reading his body language and trying to get him to dance ballet, a blonde girl who keeps trying to kidnap him to take him to BatBurger, a guy with a stripe of white who wants to take him to a shooting range, and it just...he really, really wants to!
He wants to do all these cool things with them!
But he fucking can't!
The entire family is worried about Danny, he can tell. They are so kind, and so worried. It's like being surrounded by different versions of his sister. And even thinking of the fact that he had to leave her behind to escape their parents almost blows the lid off his carefully contained emotions. He wants to badly to accept the kindness they are offering, but he can't.
He's sitting silently in the dining room picking at the amazing food Alfred made. He can't eat it like he wants to, he can't say puns, he can't do anything because then they will find him. He is sitting there when, unbeknownst to him, a man by the name of Ra's al Ghul decides to make is monthly attempt at claiming Danny's foster father as his son and heir.
Danny keeps his fear and surprise under wraps when fucking ninjas burst through the windows showering the room in glass. He clamps down on his pain when a knife whips past his face, nicking his ear. But he can't keep a hold on his anger when Cass has to dodge another knife.
His rage explodes out of him as all the suppressed emotions and all the carefully contained ectoplasm warps his face into something more monstrous and ghostly. He lunges through the table, using intangibility for the first time in months to grab a ninja who was threatening Dick with sword.
"YOU DO NOT HARM THEM!" He roars before throwing the ninja back out the window and all the way across the manor grounds.
His face twists even more as his fangs stretch and his core thrums with his fury. The remaining ninjas are unconscious in a matter of moments. They dare to attack the first people to genuinely care for him other than his sister and his friends. They are alive, and that is the only mercy he has for them.
In the silence that follows, his breathing sounds loud. His tongue flicks from his mouth to lick the trace of blood from his ear even as his ectoplasm closes the wound without even a scar. He looks around at the knocked out foes and the wide eyed members of the family.
For the first time in months he allows himself to feel grief. They could have been everything. A new family, a second chance at a normal life, his chance to be free of those who hunt him. Not any more. He looks around as tears burn at his eyes.
"I- I'm sorry." He whispers. Then He runs, transforming into his ghost form to fly as fast and as far as he can.
mmmmmmm that sweet sweet angst
yessssssssss
Okay, but Danny can fly into Space so he could easily fly to Europe from New Jersey. The reason he didn't before was cause he was trying to not get tracked by using his powers, but now that he's already done so, he can continue to do so.
Only problem is he assumed that since the GIW are an agency of the USA and the Anti-ecto laws were only passed in the United States, that they'd stop hunting him when he flees the country. Unfortunately, the both the GIW and the Fentons are clearly delusional and think that there's no reason they can't operate in foreign countries. So he's still having to suppress himself and flee around the world, all while international relations with the United States are getting worse and worse due to the people hunting him and their actions.












