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wandixx · 2 months

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Ghost of fries and hero of cookies part 5

All work words count: 14 643

Words in this part: 1 685

Summary of whole work: Duke wasn't expecting to wake up from his quick rooftop nap to some meta kid with fries. He also wasn't expecting kid to stay

Danny asked Dani to stay safe while she was in Gotham. Where would she be safer than under the wing of local hero? And he looked like he needed bad day combo anyway

This part summary: Steph finally gets to meet Duke's kid. And she comes bearing gifts!

Beta read by @audhumla-sailor though English is second language for both of us, so proceed with this in mind. I also know all of the charaters through fics alone, so probably ooc. Stay catious if it's something you don't like

First part, Previous part

Duke was really glad that Bruce was busy whole previous evening and couldn’t give him The TalkTM Vigilante edition. Maybe he shouldn’t because B being busy spoke trouble but he couldn’t feel too sad about it. He didn’t want to have The TalkTM though.

For now, Dani was running next to him, with a serious look on her face that was kinda uncanny. She wasn’t supposed to not be happy and some weird instincts were screaming at him to fix it and fix it now. But he didn’t know how!

Though some of his jokes caused a little smile, so it was good.

It turned potentially less good when she stopped without warning, lowering herself to the fighting stance (finally proper, which made him so immensely proud by the way). He stopped too, wishing they wouldn’t have to fight but he knew better than to latch on this hope.

“What’s up, Hoopoe?” he whispered.

“Someone is coming. Light, use grapple” Most likely one of the Bats then, they were due to a visit anyway. However better to not lower his guard in case he was mistaken or it was a prank/test. His expectations were proven right though, when purple blur flipped over the edge of the roof. He relaxed and put hand on Dani’s shoulder so she wouldn’t tackle Steph before they could explain anything. She seemed on edge like that whole day.

“Hey Spoiler” he greeted to further show that the blonde was a friend.

“Sup Signal! Heard I can finally meet your little friend!”

Dani straightened herself and tried to float a few inches up to seem higher probably.

“I’m considerably higher than most kids my age” she deadpanned. She really wasn’t though. He was still trying to learn whether her size was caused more by genetics or malnourishment. Her only family member Duke knew of was also small, so maybe it was a family thing though.

Steph shrugged, waving her palm a few inches below her shoulder, approximately where Damian reached, quite few inches over Dani’s head.

“Robin is the family’s smol violent bean and you’re shorter than him. You’re small bean, deal with this”

Little girl pouted, crossing her arms. Steph cooed.

“Oh, you even get angry like he does!”

Young meta looked like she was asking ‘Should I use violence?’ and inch towards the answer ‘Yes’. Duke decided he should step in before she acted on these thoughts. Teasing was the opposite of what girl needed at the moment. Some good fight might not be bad but maybe not with Steph.

“Cut it Spoiler”

She rolled her eyes so dramatically he could tell she did so despite her mask. He still thought it was impressive “Don’t be boring dude”

Dani growled in a way that couldn’t be fully human, just like she did when they talked about her training for the first time. Duke squeezed her arm. Girl glanced at him before sagging so much he was scared she would fall for a hot second. He exchanged concerned looks with Steph over her lowered head. It was not normal nor was it good.

“Alright, you’re not smol,” Steph agreed lightly “Officially at least. What’s in my head stays there. Does it work for you?”

Duke almost hit her in the arm. Not strongly, in a friendly manner but still. He didn’t only because it seemed to somehow work. He let his hands drop.

“Your mind is sacred,” Dani started seriously “what leaves your mouth is not. Can’t diss you on your thoughts but I’ll on your words” she shared like it was some important truth of life. Or folklore proverb though Duke wasn’t sure about the latter. Afterall he was Gothamite born and breed, he knew countryside from movies “And actions. Actions are kinda important,” meta girl added in lighter tone after moment of thinking.

“Yeah, actions are the best” Steph agreed easily “Hey, can I get it on a T-shirt? I’ll love and cherish it”

“First you laugh at my height and then you want my intellectual property for free? For shame, Spoiler, for shame?”

Steph looked thoughtful, theatrically over exaggerating her body language.

“Valid” she nodded.

Duke decided he would just watch whatever was going to happen and did damage control if needed. He didn’t feel up to anything else anyway.

“Heard your cape went in an adventure,” the purple vigilante admitted after moment of silence. Dani shrugged rubbing her arms awkwardly. Duke knew she normally would fix said cape. It was her way of fidgeting.

“Yup, it’s good way to put it,” girl nodded. “Somebody needed it more, I hope it enjoys its travel. I should get a replacement soon”

“Well, I can’t let fellow caped crusader, who understands necessity of hood, run capeless”

Younger girl waved her hands in a flurry motion of dismissal.

“Don’t-” she stopped when her eyes locked on orange bundle Steph took from somewhere under her cloak. Opportunity to pull tricks like that had made Duke consider adding some sort of cape to his Signal suit back when he had been working on it back in a day but dismissed it. He still wasn’t looking forward to learning curve of fighting with such additional liability. He couldn’t turn it intangible when it was in a way like certain white haired cheater did.

Speaking of Dani, girl stared at Steph’s gift like she couldn’t quite believe it was real. She held her hands close to her chest but her fingers flexed in grabby motion. Her eyes were hidden behind black lenses of her mask but everything else about her face further proved how awestruck she was. Even her muted aura brightened a bit in a way that he learned to recognize as excitement.

It was still kind of weird, by the way. Normal auras haven’t changed, it was kinda their thing.

Steph wiggled her gift a bit. Dani finally took it but had yet to put it on.

“It’s for me?” she whispered so utterly shocked and small that Duke mentally did a double take.

“Yeah, like I said, can’t let you run around without it”

“Oh”

Dani’s hand was gnawing at the edge of the material as if it was some sort of squashmellow.

“Try it on,” Steph encouraged gently.

“We need to check if Spoiler haven’t messed up something”

“Signal!”

Dani snorted, which was all Duke tried to achieve.

She put it on and after a moment of shuffling she once again became orange cloak with feet. She grinned widely looking far more relaxed and settled than she did moments before. She moved around a bit like she was in model show or at least what ten years old thought it could look like.

“You like it?”

“Yup, it’s amazing, thank you Spoiler… Though it’s heavier than I expected”

“Well, I don’t know what your first one was made out of but this is material I use, I found it the best balance between durability, weight and comfiness. Still, it’s quite dense and a bit heavy. Also, I added pockets because you can never have too many of them. Plus there are few glitter bombs inside. You know, ‘welcome to the team’ gifts,” Steph explained eagerly and judging by Dani’s smile, she loved her gifts. Duke would be a little worried on a Gotham crime’s behalf if it wasn’t well, crime and if he wasn’t all there to watch chaos these two would unfold from sidelines with bat-popcorn in hand (though it wasn’t really a thing yet, he would have to mention it to Tim or Jason). For now though, they really should continue on the patrol.

“Now that introductions are over, let’s get going. Crime never sleeps or something,” It was really weird to be the organized one. Before Dani showed up, on a day shift he was a sailor, a captain and a ship (or maybe Gotham was a ship-), We Are Robins days were chaos in purest form and shape and when he was called out for a night he usually was too tired to behave and was just additional mess to organize (on purpose, let him have his goddamn sleep, he wasn’t Tim).

“Okay,” Dani agreed cheerfully “There is a robbery at the greek diner we visited last Thursday. ‘s been going for five minutes or so,” she added unbothered.

“HOOPOE!”

“What?”

***

Spoiler jumped through the open window of the diner with a graceful roll, glitter bombs at hand. Hoopoe and Signal came inside right after her.

“Spoiler alert!” purple girl yelled, throwing two bombs at robbers heads and kicking third one in the ribs.

Dani decided that she liked Spoiler right then and there as she threw her own brand new, orange(!) glitter bombs at remaining criminal.

***

Three of them were running through the city mostly uninterrupted after diner mishap. Steph tried to engage Dani in quip battle but younger girl for once wasn’t jumping on occasion. She kept close to Duke and his only reaction was smug smile in Spoiler’s direction. That’s what she got for trying to steal his sidekick.

“Oh!” Dani exclaimed delighted, stopping abruptly, a smile that spoke trouble gracing her face.

“No, we’re not busting Joker’s scheme by jumping into the meeting to beat them all up without proper back up, again, Hoopoe. They had guns, Hoopoe.”

“Wha- Wasn’t last time enough? Anyway, I heard there is fan meeting with Martian Manhunter in Los Angeles tomorrow,” Great, so no giving him heart attack right now. Thank God for that.

“Shame he won’t make it, huh?” Steph mussed “He is in Illinois right now, isn’t he? It would take him two days driving to even get there”

Dani’s expression looked thoughtful “It’s quite far”

“Yeah, around… 2,500 miles from here”

“Huh”

“What got you thinking kid?” she inquired, ruffling her hair.

“Not a kid and I thought- there is kidnapping at three!” Dani darted in that direction before finishing sentence. Duke jumped right after her slightly scared. She was not ready to handle stuff like that without back up and she would try if he let her run of like that.

********

Steph: I'm meeting my almost niece tomorrow what should I- *gives a gremlin child an ultimate weapon of chaos*

Sometime before this part:

Steph: So, how is your kid?

Duke: She is not my kid!

Duke: By the way, wanna see video I saved of her doing proper side kick for the first time?

Danielle "looks like 10 years old is 10 months max" Phantom: I am in fact much higher than most kids my age

Duke "whoever is feeding this tiny child does bad job at it" Thomas & Stephanie "it's just a lil baby" Brown: Yeah... sure...

Next part

"Tag list" (i haven't expected to ever make it)

@pickleking8

#dpxdc #dp x dc #dcxdp #dc x dp #dani hangs out with duke #signal got new kid and cares about her deeply #dani took so long to tell them about robbery because she didn't like their food and is petty little gremlin #dani says most and not all because she knows vlad is incapable of coming up with something original #so there had to be other clones around #and they probably were higher than here #with her being prematurly released (hence why she is younger than danny)#and fact that danny is short #now that i think about it #dani is opossite of “this is 43567 year old demon acting like child in a body of the child” trope #but baby enough to not risk “born sexy yesterday” area #perfect #wandixx writes #ghost of fries and hero of cookies #have a nice day dear stranger who got to this part

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