He could overlook a lot of things, but this was getting ridiculous. You’d think seasoned vigilantes would have better excuses prepared, but Danny had caught that flash of panic that crossed Tim’s face as Danny came face to face with Tim dragging an unconscious Steph to her designated room in the manor.
“Uh.”
“Danny! Uh, Stephanie brained herself- uh, sliding down the bannisters and- pleasedon’ttellBruce.”
Danny blinks, staring at Tim and then very pointedly, very slowly, turned his head back towards the direction he came from: the main hall… where the bannisters were. He wonders what vigilante hijinks they were trying to hide from B this time.
Tim coughs, trying to inch Stephanie away. “Uh. She was doing… cartwheels?”
Danny let his eyes slowly take in the bruises that were clearly not from “cartwheeling in the mansion” on the both of them. There’s a huge bandaged cut on Steph’s forearm and a giant bruise on the edge of Tim’s jaw. Tim’s face twitches nervously, not that anyone else would have noticed- except Danny has enhanced ghost senses and could feel the panic coming off of his adopted brother.
“You know…” Shit, what does he do? Not knowing would be so much easier if these idiots gave him good excuses! “I don’t think I want to know what you two have been up to… but should I be worried for your, uh, physical health?”
“Nope!”
“… Okay.” He says. Tim opens his mouth to make further excuses but Danny adds quickly, “But don’t tell me, because if Bruce asks, I want plausible deniability.”
Cartwheels, Danny’s ghostly ass. Luckily, this show of doubt reaffirms Tim’s belief that Danny believes them all of the other times. Danny grins inwardly, planning capitalizing on the guilt that flashed over Tim’s face.
“Deal.”
“Want help?” The halfa points at Steph, who’s still being dragged over the carpet by a noodle armed Tim. Danny knows Tim’s strong, he’s a vigilante, but it’s funny watching him pretend to struggle.
“Please. I’m so tired right now.” He looks it too. Danny’s brows furrow with genuine concern when he takes in Tim’s drowned raccoon look. He picks up Steph, firmly removing her from Tim’s suddenly weak grip. Being careful to avoid her injuries, Danny nods at the door to her room. Tim cracks it open and does a little showy gesture towards the inside.
“C’mon, we’ll tuck her in and then I’ll tuck you in.”
“What, you don’t have to do that.”
“If you don’t let me tuck you in and make sure you sleep, I’ll tell Alfred who really accidentally poured boiling hot coffee on his azaleas last week. And I’ll sic Dick on you and tell him you haven’t been sleeping enough.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” Tim grumbles. “But fine. It’s really not my fault I’m this tired. A missing spleen is hard to handle, you know.”
“Yeah, missing an organ sucks,” Danny says, shit eating grin hidden long enough to catch the contemplative bloodhound look that passes over Tim’s face.
“Which- uh, which one of your organs is missing?”
“Liver.” Danny says, remembering the flashes of pain. He tilts his head away to hide the grin at Tim’s panicked face.
When he tucks Tim in, he pretends to believe Tim’s sleeping act and left his room while mumbling about the Wayne’s clumsiness and bruises and stocking up on bruise cream. He couldn’t even enjoy Tim’s floundering, this time, worried as he is.
——
“Brother.” Danny half turns his head, just to beam a sunny smile at Cass. He signs an exuberant hello. The halfa hangs up his coat as he addresses his adopted sister.
“Cass! What’s up?”
“Dinner.” She smiles back, signing that Alfred wanted them to the dinning room post haste. The main dining room, because rich people were fruit loops and Batman is totally included. Cassandra looks down and gasps.
What…?
Oh. Fuck. Danny glances down. He genuinely forgot about that.
“Huh.”
“Okay?” Suddenly, Cass is right next to him, hand reached out and hovering over the actual knife Danny forgot was sticking out of him. At least it’s where his liver should be, so he won’t have to pretend.
“Oh. Yeah, I’m good. Don’t have a liver.” Danny decides on the spot that he’s not gonna mess with Cass. She smiled the same as him. “Got mugged on the way back but I think they said I could keep the knife, right?”
“Danny.” She’s frowning at him. He feels like he just kicked tiny Cujo. But he doesn’t feel bad enough to blurt everything out.
“Here. You can have it if you want?” Danny casually pulls out the knife and holds the wound together with his bare hands. Cass looks more alarmed. She bodily picks up Danny and starts running.
“Woah!”
Cass throws him at Alfred, gently.
“Miss Cassandra! Why, I never-!” Alfred pauses in surprise.
“Uh. Wow, Cass. You’re really strong.” Danny pipes up, hand still over his gushing wound.
She ignores him, pointing at Danny and telling Alfred, “Hurt. Got mugged. Dumb.”
“Hey! It’s not my fault Gothamites are ready to jump people at any moment. Besides, it’s daytime. It’s not like the vigilante furries are out to save my butt. I think I did really well coming back safe, you know?”
“Hurt. Forgot the knife. Was in him.”
“Master Danny!”
Danny pouts. He also knows there’s a discreet camera in the corners of the sitting room, so he’s definitely hoping he could phase into the cave when Barbara eventually tells the group that he called them “vigilante furries.”
Alfred clucks his tongue and set to work patching him up. Danny tries not to bask in the careful way Alfred tended to his wounds. It reminds him too much of Jazz, if Jazz was British and a man with greying hair.
But because they were watching him and he was watching them in return, Danny noticed the moment Alfred’s hands stalled and Cass’ gaze got intense. What now…?
Oh, fuck, his vivisection scar. Oops. Danny smiled, channeling Dani (his lovely clone sister) at her most innocent.
Cass smiled back, just as sunnily, fists tightening at her side in repressed fury.
——
“Cass? Why’d you call us?”
“Yeah, baby bat. I got a couple o’ smugglers to talk to.”
Cass paces.
“What is it, Cassandra?” Damian tuts impatiently.
“Danny. Has… scars. Autopsy. But was struggling. When cut.”
“What.”
“A vivisection, Master Jason.” Alfred’s voice was crisp and eerily cold. His hands are folded, rage only held back by his sheer will and a well practiced sense of propriety.
“We find. Who hurt him,” Cass snarls. “We. End.”
Jason’s eyes glint green, hands going to his guns. “Fine. By. Me.”
“It does tie in with the dead comment. I wonder what happened to him.” Tim clacks away at the bat computer, furiously looking into the matter already. Bruce has taken to prowling, stressed out at the prospect of one more of his children- not a vigilante at that- getting hurt the way Jason had. Worse, even. A vivisection. He was alive, dissected. Aware enough to struggle. Dick looked like he was torn about hunting down and lunging at whoever hurt Danny to rip their throats out with his bare teeth versus the urge to go back up to the manor and wrap Danny in bubble wrap.
In the corner, Danny was having a quiet breakdown because he came here to watch them react to vigilante furries, not offering to murder the people who vivisected him. What the fuck?? He ran his hands through his hair, invisible.
——
“Oh, by the way, we should consider more daytime shifts.”
“Why?” Spoiler asks Barbara.
“Danny got mugged. And called us the nightly furries.”
“The fuckin’ what-?” Jason chokes out, laughing. Bruce stops his pacing, body language becoming slightly offended.
Danny muffles a laugh only Alfred would have heard.
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More random Nimona headcanons
Bal is one of those people who isn’t allergic to anything except one random medication that no one uses
Ambrosius calls him a lucky bastard every time it’s brought up because he’s allergic to everything
His allergy list is at least three pages long and he doesn’t remember a single thing on that list
Whenever they go out to eat Bal has to remind him “No you can’t eat that it has olives” “Not that either love it’s got lemon” and so on
Most of his allergic reactions are pretty tame so he’ll eat it anyway
And it gives Bal and Nimona so much fucking anxiety
One time Bal walked in on Nimona chasing Ambrosius around the kitchen yelling “Spit out the carrots Nemesis you don’t even like them that much!!”
Whenever he eats alone he refers to it as a game of Russian roulette
Bal refers to it as the reason he has high blood pressure
Because Bal and Ambrosius grew up in the limelight (for very different reasons) there are a million pictures of them through the years
And they use those videos to bully the hell out of each other
Bal can quote the video from the beginning of the movie not because it was an important moment in his childhood
But because Ambrosius will quote it at the most random times throughout the day
Bal will do something small like kill a bug or chase out an animal that Nimona brought in
And he’ll hear Ambrosius mumble “I’m here to slay monsters and protect our kingdom”
He was a little worried Nimona would react badly to this habit but he started joining in
One time he killed a spider and Ambrosius asks “Are you slaying monsters moonbeam?” Nimona yells from the other room “I’m so proud of him he’s truly protecting our kingdom”
There are a million photos of baby Ambrosius on the internet
And Bal made a PowerPoint presentation ranking their cuteness factor out of 10 (100 was the lowest score he got and it was a picture of him with the ugliest bowl cut you’ve ever seen)
And made Ambrosius sit through it
That was the most loved and mortified he had felt in a long time
Nimona uses low-quality pictures of them as reaction photos
There have been times when Nimona asks “Can we eat out tonight” and Bal tells her no and she sends him this
He’ll text back “Is that my fucking wanted poster?!”
She asked Ambrosius if there was any ice cream left and he said no he expected her to call him and complain he didn’t expect this
He calls her yelling “When the fuck did that happen?!”
And she hangs up immediately to let Bal deal with it
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