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A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :)) Performance Piece <- The link to just the one-shot for those interested

Tw's; Bulimia, purging, vomit/vomiting, past rape/non-con mention (squint and you'll miss it tho)

Summery; When you're a performer at heart, it's hard to tell where the show stops and you begin. This can be tricky; especially when you need help.

Performance Piece under the cut :)

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It had been the smoke from the fire burning like a raging inferno that had been the worst. The thick smoke filled the air, obscuring his vision and choking his lungs. Was that why he’d been too late?

It had been his fault from the beginning. It was like he’d forgotten everything having to do with crisis management. He was Nightwing, for fuck’s sake; he’d been Robin before that. He was supposed to be the symbol that soothed victims, the very being supposed to keep you safe from things that go bump in the night. He should’ve known better; that was a mistake Bruce should’ve been making. He should’ve known better.

The rain pounded on the window, setting him on edge. His skin itched with the urge to go back out, rocking back and forth in a desperate attempt to self-soothe. If he’d been a better man, he’d probably be suiting up to find the literal children that had been kidnapped by some unknown government hacks; as it was, he sat on the couch in his dirty apartment. For what? Because he was scared of a phantom-

A sharp breath. Bile in the back of his throat and burned. It almost felt good, grounding. What was he again? It had been so long-

It’d only been three days since the last one. Not enough time. It hardly seemed to matter.

Before he could blink, he was up. By passing the prepackaged fruits and protein bars, he reached into the back of the cabinet. The one Wally knew not to touch. What was it they called him? “Fearless leader”?

He scoffed as he shoved a mouthful of dry cereal down his throat, barely chewing and certainly not tasting. If only they knew how weak he truly was. If only Batman knew how fucking weak he truly was.

“You truly are the strongest among us, Dickie. I’m proud of you.”

It was his fault, he hadn’t deserved the praise to begin with, and now what’s he doing about it? Eating his feelings like he was a stupid child. Well, he already had the cereal. What’s another handful?

... What’s another box? He tossed the empty bag behind him; the cardboard having already been stripped in favor of tipping the whole thing back into his mouth. He grabbed the second box, tearing into it. Might as well, right? What else is he going to do?

The fire escape was so cold-

The thought jolted him. He stared at the half-empty box and put it on the counter. It wasn’t working anymore.

He turned his sights on the fridge, desperate now. Didn’t Ma Kent send over a Boston cream?

It was hardly his best moment. It was considered sacrilege to waste one of Ma Kent’s pies. He wondered what she would think of him now.

He didn’t bother with a fork, digging into the delicious treat with his fingers. The bits that clung to his teeth and tongue were heaven ; refuge in the storm. The only thing that could’ve made this better?

He opened the freezer, grabbing the vanilla ice cream Wally had left in his freezer. “Comfort food,” he’d claimed with a wink. If only he knew half of it.

Fingers already crusted with cereal dust, pie filling, and his own saliva, he dug into the frozen treat. The cold was already making him shiver with nervous energy, the rain mixing the feeling into something distinctly unpleasant. He swallowed bite after bite. It was no time at all when he finished it.

He tossed the empty containers somewhere to his side. Vaguely nauseous from the sugar, the fridge opened once more. What else is there?

Wandering hands found the meal prep containers he’d been delusional enough to buy. The carefully packaged portions intended to be reheated through the week had gone untouched for three, the contents questionable at best. At any other moment, he would’ve thrown them out. As it was, he dug in.

Jason’s condition had led to him desperately trying to get his life together. Bruce had proven he couldn’t handle a second chance; why would he let him try? He’d allowed himself the reverie for a short period, of getting his life together for his baby brother. He’d bought the stupid meal prep containers. He’d done it. He kept up with it for a single week, eating the portions and dishing them out.

Jason’s disappearance was what kept them in the fridge to rot. Whatever pipe dream he’d concocted was dead in the water, cultivating in a night of utter weakness. It was his fault. He was the one that let him go out and he was the one who failed to rescue them. He was right there, dammit. He should’ve done more.

A crack of thunder sounded out, choking him. He was back on the fire escape, his suit ripped, his scalp on fire, the guilt and the shame-

He stared down at his hands, sticky with everything he’d consumed. His stomach throbbed, bloated and beyond full. Painful. He turned around.

Empty containers greeted him. Cereal boxes and tupperware, pie tin and ice cream and everything else. What had he done?

He ran for the bathroom. His body protested the movement, gagging without his consent as he reached the sink. The first bits of it came up unassisted, something he was grateful for in the long run. Less mess clinging to his fingers.

The same fingers that dug into container after container dug into his throat. Retching and coughing up the feelings he’d just shoved deep inside of himself. What goes down must come back up, right?

It was a familiar song and dance. He’d been thirteen the first time he’d done it, young and stupid and not understanding the dangers. He’d been caught by Alfred, managing to convince the man he’d been hit with something at school and that had been why he was covered in vomit, not that he’d done it to himself. Because that would be absurd , right?

It was supposed to be a one-time thing. He’d done research after that, passing it off for a school project when Bruce had asked. It was stupid. It was deadly. It was supposed to be something that only happened to girls.

The stench of bile continued to follow him through his teens. The research had only prepared him for not getting caught again, and the support groups he’d found online were resolutely ignored. He couldn’t afford to get sloppy and was well aware of Bruce’s habit of being well and truly unhinged; if he thought anything was happening, he’d hack his way into everything private he could’ve ever owned and there would go his cover. Nothing about his... condition made its way into his digital footprint again. He made it a system.

The gymnast pages he followed were innocent enough. The weight training, the exercise- it was to be expected. If they talked about nutrition a bit too often to be healthy? Well, that just came with the territory.

It was shitty. He shouldn’t use the thing that connected him to his parents to motivate this infection spreading through him. It was a guarantee that it would be taken away if he got caught. He continued.

It was a compulsion. It was a need he couldn’t explain; even now, an adult working at the studio and supporting himself through his... minor issue, it persisted. The taste of stomach acid burned his throat and stained his tongue. The electrolyte packets he dumped into his water every day weren’t enough to stave off the bouts of delicious dizziness, filling him with a sense of accomplishment and gnawing dread at the same time. Days of emptiness followed by stuffing himself full full full only to cough and retch it back up was worth the minor sacrifice, right?

He choked on it, nothing coming up as his air was blocked. He pulled his hand away, fingers going to the drain to work it down, running the tap when convenient. He looked himself in the eye, taking in the bloodshot eyes and the puffy cheeks.

He’d managed not to get caught before, he could do it again. He would do it again.

Rinse out the mouth. Fluoride rinse after to help keep the cavities at bay, though it was easy enough to hide bad teeth when they were constantly knocked out anyways. Wash his face to help with both the puffiness and the acne. He could do this.

He took a deep breath. He went to the kitchen.

He threw away the evidence, immediately taking the trash out. Wally was supposed to be over tonight; he’d notice. He threw the tupperware into the sink, running water over it to be easier to clean. He did wash out Ma’s pie pan though; he wasn’t a monster. He also had a healthy fear of what she’d do if he messed up one of her favorite pie pans. She was a bit like Alfred; nobody had anything bad to say about them, and they’re the kindest people you’ll ever meet, but boy are they  terrifying when they need to be. He’s seen her yell at Bruce and succeed ; he didn’t want to be on the receiving end.

The storm raged on. The kids were still missing. He was still having flashes of the fire escape. He felt a little more grounded with the soreness in his throat.

He turned to the hallway and nearly jumped. There in his hall was Bruce, still dressed in the bat suit, his cowl down and hair a mess. He had a pained expression.

Every performer knew one fundamental thing, and Richard John Grayson was nothing if not a performance.

He knew. He knew that Bruce knew. Bruce knew he knew that he knew. They stared, not daring to breathe a word.

Every performance came to an end. It looked like this was the end of his.

#kite flies over the nightingale nest #batman #dc universe #batfam #dick grayson #bruce wayne #ed tw #ed #eating disoder trigger warning #vomiting #tw vomit #implied/referenced rape #tw rap3 #squint and you'll miss it tho #I forgot how to tag on tumblr help me #mentioned wally west

[th3sp4rr0w]

Imagine being Alfred during Batman Begins when Bruce leaves to “find himself.” Alfred is worried, but reminds himself that all rich men do this and he’s probably just going to come back as a worldly, obnoxious vegetarian. Then Bruce shows up several years later buff as hell and it’s like no, he’s a ninja. he’s a ninja and he wants to terrorize Gotham in a bat costume.

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Me too Hal, me too

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Made cookies today :)) they weren't supposed to be halloween themed cutters, but that's what came in the mail lmao. At least we got a bat, prompting me to do this :))

I couldn't make a good black so I tried to do all the batkids colors on Bruce's cookie but neglected to think abt the fact that it would turn out rainbow. Oh well.

Yes Jason and Danny both got a ghost and a coffin lmao

#kite flies over the nightingale nest #batman #danny fenton #danny phantom #dp x dc #sparrow posts

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happy bday ao3 <3

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.... Sooo :)

The fic will be finished. If everything goes well I will also be doing Whumpcember, in the pov of Bruce and the rest of the fam trying to find the boys.

I'm sorry it's taken so long. I didn't mean to take this long. I'll have a proper explanation when I post the next chapter.

#kite flies over the nightingale nest #sparrow posts

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Sorry abt the radio silence, I haven't been feeling ✨great✨. Gonna sleep and then work on the chapters I've missed and hopefully get caught up, sorry about the delay guys (I'm okay-ish btw ((: <3)

#kite flies over the nightingale nest #sparrow posts

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I am in the er but i have my laptop with me!! :))

#sparrow posts

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Okay I'm going to bring my phone, laptop, chargers etc but I'm thinking I'm gonna have to potentially head to the er? Don't panic or anything I'm still going to finish whumptober, even if it goes past the 31st, but yeah :D the chapter might be late I'm gonna do my best y'all

#sparrow posts #kite flies over the nightingale nest

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Day Twenty-Two

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Twenty-Two Whipping/Punishment/Stress Position

Alt. Prompt For Day Twenty-Two Nerve Damage

Prompts Used for Day Twenty-Two Whipping, Punishment, Nerve Damage

Tw's; Dubious Medical Accuracy, Blood, Injury, General Child Death (I still have no idea how to tag that)

IMPORTANT; Tomorrow's chapter may be late. I'll try to keep you guys updated on this account :))

Chapter Twenty-Two under the cut :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he woke up, his wrist throbbed. He winced as he tried to sit up, looking at the new scars decorating his skin.

Robin was never supposed to be scared. Robin was supposed to be strong all the time. Laugh in the face of death and still come out the other side, kicking and screaming. That was easy to do when you’d always come out the other side.

As Jason Peter Todd-Wayne, he knew what it felt like to not be able to come out the other side. He’d been scared, but it was okay. He had the bat. Batman had already been too late once, but he couldn’t be late if he was right there, right? He’d had Nightwing and Alf. He had people in his corner, willing to back him up.

Cardinal was born because of their failings. Robin wasn’t supposed to be scared, but he was terrified; Jason was allowed to be paralyzed with fear if he wanted to be because he’d had everyone right there; all he had was another kid in his exact position.

If anything, this had reminded him of something he should’ve already had beaten into his skull; don’t trust anyone. Especially when they’re suspicious.

He failed that. He failed Phantom, and he failed himself. He felt like he failed Catherine.

He pulled his knees to his chest. His hand twitched and pulsated with pain.

He’d wanted to believe that Agent A was a victim. Looking back, it was obvious that it had been by design. The food, the water, the kindness; it had all been a ploy. He supposed he could understand it. Nobody wanted to think a kind person who said pretty words and talked about how mean the others were with you was going to betray you like that.

He’d invented this whole story in his head; that she’d been down on her luck, she had kids, never spoken about a partner. He figured she was a single mother. Needed a nice, cushy government job to raise them comfortably and ended up working with ghosts because it sounded ridiculous; wanted out, now, but couldn’t go knowing there were more people willing to take her spot as soon as she left. Stayed because she wanted to help.

Batman, what felt like years ago now, had taught him that interrogation technique. People are wired to fill in the blanks of an incomplete picture; if you drop little puzzle pieces, they don’t notice the big ones you're holding close. They fill in those parts of the picture on their own. It’s remarkable, really. They don’t even realize they’re being fed bullshit until the after taste hits their tongue. It tasted like defeat and regret.

A particularly stabbing pain made itself known from his elbow all the way down his thumb. It got intense around his joints. He hissed and clutched the offending arm close.

He should’ve died. A shock like that should’ve left him little more than a vegetable. He’d already figured his ghost part protected him from the bulk of it, but the rest should’ve been healed by now. He considered asking Phantom about it.

The other boy lay on the floor. He didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t ask. Living in the same small room together, you started craving privacy; he figured this was his way of asking for space. He’d contemplated crawling into the cupboard before but decided against it in case he was caught by an agent and decided he’d interacted with his surroundings wrong or something and punished him.

What was taking so long? He may not be a damsel in distress, but he was a bat that needed back up. The longest it had ever taken Nightwing to get rescued was a few days, and that was largely because the big bat had been in space and didn’t want anyone to move in until he was there to help. It was mostly because Nightwing developed a tendency to go off on his own and come back 10x more traumatized than he’d left and Batman wanted to provide some sort of emotional support (as much as Batman could be), but still. He’d been there within a few days.

He wasn’t jealous or anything. He was just concerned. If the Bat couldn’t figure out where they were, and soon, then...

He looked over at Phantom. His wrist ached again.

What would it mean for them? They’d eventually either have to escape or die here. They were already working on the first one, but the second was rapidly approaching. If they went full ghost after, they might have a shot of getting out, but they’d already kept them this long. If they went full ghost mode, then they’d probably cut their chances in half. Then, once they ended them for good...

Nothing. Bye. That’s it.

It’s not that he’d already given up. He didn’t want to die, if for no other reason than for spite. Who the fuck were these people to come along and just decide a whole different species is just not sentient anymore? Fuck that. But he also wasn’t optimistic.

He knew that whatever was keeping him alive right now was fading. He could feel it in every little cell in his body; it was like feeling your heart slowly stop bleeding and knowing there’s nothing you can do to fix it. It was terrifying. He suspected Phantom felt it too, after everything.

They didn’t have enough in them to make it out of another fight, not with these people. Their only chance was to run.

But they weren’t ready. He’d made some progress with the collar, but not much; Phantom had been much more successful in that front. He didn’t think they’d be able to get far if they rushed them. He supposed it could work if they were the only three here, but they constantly had people helping out during experiments. It wouldn’t be long before everyone who’d ever helped before was called in to help again, and they’d be right back where they started but worse.

He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain. Different techniques that had been drilled into his head popped up, demanding attention until he realized it wasn’t working and he switched tactics. It was like someone had started touching the nerve itself, gripping it and twisting. It made him squirm, taking over his whole thought process for several minutes. Who could think though this sort of pain?

Eventually, it calmed down on its own. He had little pinpricks of sweat dotted on his forehead; that had sucked. That had sucked hard and he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to do that again. What was that, exactly?

He looked down at Phantom, who was still lying on the floor for... unknown reasons. He was going to leave him be for a few more minutes, but he hadn’t moved since the last time Cardinal had checked on him. He... should, right? That was what people did when someone’s on the floor and they haven’t moved?

He slid down and off the cot, next to the other boy, He made his way to the floor, looking at him from where he’d sat down. He could see tear tracks on the boy’s cheeks, his eyelashes fluttering with sleep. When he reached a hand outwards, he could feel warm puffs of hair against his hand. He looked at him fondly for a few more minutes.

His heart ached. When he’d first found out that he had a twin, he hadn’t been interested. He had Nightwing, and he supposed Batgirl counted too. He had the baby bird, who was delightfully unhinged in the way only a baby brother could be. He was fine; he didn’t need any more siblings. But right here?

He couldn’t imagine what his life had been like before Phantom. Memories wrapped around themselves, trying to remember where the boy had been. It was like they couldn’t comprehend a life without him. Imagining the future was much the same; no matter how hard he tried to imagine it, Phantom was always by his side.

This is what that looked like, right? Being by someone’s side no matter what. He had a suspicion that Phantom could probably leave whenever he wanted to by now. He’d been training his collar pretty hard. But he stuck by his side. He couldn’t comprehend it most days; most other people would have turned tail and ran by now.

The other boy started blinking awake, yawning and bringing his hand up to wipe his eye. He watched him as he did so, resisting the urge to tuck his hand in his hair.

He loved his family; all his family. Affection had been something he’d struggled with for a while. He’d gone from a caretaker that was full of gentle touches and temple kisses to being wary of anyone walking within touching distance to being in the manor, where a pat on the shoulder was pretty much it unless it’s Nightwing they were talking about or something bad had happened, all within a few years. It was jarring. Sometimes his body didn’t know whether to tense to run or to stay relaxed.

He’d never had that problem with Phantom. The circumstances were not ideal, it’s true, but it just came easy when he was with the boy. Maybe it was a twin thing and maybe it was a ghost thing, but for whatever reason, they just seemed to click.

Phantom stretched, looking at Cardinal with half-lidded eyes. “What’s uh... mmm, what’s goin’ on?”

He looked at him. “Nothing much. I only just woke up myself when I noticed you were on the flo-oOor-”

His left came forwards to grasp his right. He hissed in pain as Phantom started up to fuss over him.

He grabbed his wrist, looking over it. He rubbed along the scars. “Can you outstretch your hand for me?” He asked softly.

He tried. It was like the fingers had a sudden rebellion, refusing to outstretch like he’d demanded. The other boy looked at him and rubbed his flesh. It didn’t help the pain, but at least he knew he wasn’t alone.

“I think the electricity damaged your nerve,” he said quietly. “I go through the same thing,” he added, holding up his left hand.

Cardinal stretched out his right arm, bumping the other boys hand against his one. “At least you damaged your left,” he said.

Phantom snorted. “If I had to damage either of my hands, I would’ve preferred my right. I’m left-handed.”

Cardinal laughed with him. “Somewhere, somebody is laughing their ass off at us,” he said.

“Oh, undoubtedly,” he said. He started popping his knuckles, one by one, “We both damage our writing hands in the same way almost exactly a year apart? That’s wild.”

He hummed. “If we get anymore freaky shit like that here I’m suing,” he joked.

“Honestly, I think we should,” he said lowly. “We’re young and cute enough the court would probably eat this up,” he pondered.

Cardinal thought about it. “My adoptive father is an A-list celebrity,” he said, equally quiet. “We’d probably be able to do it.”

The other boys eyes lit up. “We could destroy them mentally one at a time until they’re nothing but a shell of their former selves!”

He leaned away from him slightly. “We could totally do that, buddy, but you’re scaring me a bit,” he said, amusement evident in his voice.

He looked back up at him, a somewhat manic gleam in his eyes. “I run off of spite and caffeine, dude. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had caffeine? I was supposed to get a coffee after I met with the spirit of Gotham and got kidnapped by your brother instead. Then I got kidnapped by the GIW.”

“Oh my god-”

“I know!”

Cardinal looked at him for a moment. “They’re never going to let us out of their sight again,” he said. “Batman’s going to put me on a fucking leash-”

Phantom laughed brightly. “That’s fine. My older sister will absolutely join him. Think they’ll take us on walks together?”

He startled out a laugh. “As long as they don’t start feeding us off the floor- do you want food?”

He snorted. “Sure- what do you want?”

He hummed. “Something with protein.”

He chucked some sort of protein poptart at him. He tore into it the wrapper with his teeth, eventually gaining access to the sweet treat. He took a bite.

It wasn’t bad. It definitely wasn’t a poptart, but it was something with a decent amount of protein, and it was poptart-adjacent. It was good enough.

Phantom sighed as he looked in the cabinet. “Man,” he started, “I would kill for some zesti.”

Cardinal laughed. “No fuckin’ way,” he said. “Nightwing drinks that shit. I swear it’s going to come out one day that they put addictive chemicals in the crap.”

“You know what? It could have the same dark secret as slurm and I’d still drink it. I’d debate it-”

“The fuck is slurm?” He wrinkled his nose.

“Fucking- you remember Futurama?”

“OH- that stupid show ‘Wing watches?”

“I guess? Anyways- one of the episodes they figure out the drink the main character drinks all the time is slug-”

“Nope. Don’t, I know what you’re talking about. You’d fucking drink that, what is wrong with you?!”

He watched as the other boy laughed, coming out of the cabinet with some water. “Look-”

“Don’t ‘look’ me as if-”

“Dude, it’s good. Just trust me.”

“Nightwing’s made me try it, I do not trust you. You’re all going to get some horrible disease and I fear I’ll get it too just from that sip.”

“Stop,” he wheezed.

“This isn’t funny, you have a problem-”

“I only overdosed on caffeine ONE time!”

“You did what-”

He laughed. Cardinal vaguely wondered how it would sound if they were out. If they weren’t on the floor of some government facility, trying to survive some shit that sounds like the plot of one of Nightwing’s shitty shows.

He took a deep breath. He looked away.

He might’ve picked up a few dramatics, but hey, he earned it. This was a situation to be dramatic about.

Phantom looked at him. “Hey, what’s up?"

He tried not to look like he was some damsel looking for her husband that had gone off to war. “I just... I’m missing my family right now.”

Phantom nodded, coming up beside him. He noticed his left hand was cramped up at his side. “I get it,” he said softly. “I miss my family, too.”

He put his leg over Phantom’s. For whatever reason, it soothed something inside him to be linked in some way. He assumed it was a ghost thing.

“What’s the psychiatrist like?” He asked.

Phantom got an easy grin on his face. “She’s bossy. And she keeps trying to psycho-analyze strangers at the grocery store when she notices they’re buying a different milk than usual, because she’s the psychiatrist and she notices that type of thing. She slightly loses her head in a stressful situation, but the second anybody, especially me, Ellie, or any of my friends are in trouble, she’s a total badass. One time she noticed I was getting hurt on patrol and followed me out there with nothing but a thermos and a pipedream.”

“No gear?” Cardinal asked.

Phantom snorted. “Nope. Not even a good pair of boots; she wore her flats.”

“Oh my god.”

He smiled fondly. “Yeah. She burns water in the kitchen; one time she tried to make pancake mix batter and, even though you don’t need to do anything except add water, it had unmixed baking soda in it.”

“You’re fucking kidding,” he replied, looking at Phantom in slack-jawed horror.

“Nope,” he laughed. “But she’s my sister. I love her. And she’s good at a million other things. I honestly believe that she’ll be able to tame Arkham, if for no other reason than she wants to try. She’s really smart, dude, and I think she could do it.”

Cardinal whistled. “What about the Joker?”

“She’s already said she refuses to work with him in particular,” he said immediately. “She said she wants to help those that want to be, and Joker’s more akin to a ghost now. I can tell he’s been brought back a couple times, right?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, he’s... he’s too far gone. J says there’s a certain point where there’s really no coming back from the damage you’ve caused, and that fucker passed it a long time ago. She also says that considering the damage he’s done to previous psychologists, they need to stop trying.”

Cardinal nodded. “Your sister’s pretty smart.”

He smiled. “Yeah, she is. What about Nightwing? What’s he like?”

He got quiet. “He’s... I think he’s angry. Not at me, I don’t think it was ever really about me. But I think Batman didn’t do everything he should’ve with ‘Wing. He’s sensitive, and always has been. I don’t think that Batman knew how to be a dad yet, and trying to figure it out as he went along wasn’t really the best thing to do. I think I’m supposed to forgive him for being angry and taking it out on me. I mean, that’s what they always say, right?”

“Dude, if you’re not ready to forgive him, don’t. He might be doing better now, but you deserved to be protected all along. Especially since he knew how Batman was.”

He sighed. “I know. I just... he is doing better now. He checks in with me, asks how my day went, treats me like I’m his brother. I don’t want to ruin that. I like what we have going on and I’m so worried that I’m gonna screw it up.”

He hummed. “I’ll help you figure it out. It’s okay to be angry, redbird.”

He snorted. “That’s sticking now?”

He smiled at him. “Why not?”

He gave a soft smile of his own. “Yeah. Why not? But um, to answer your question. I think Nightwing would burn the world down if he thought it’d keep me safe. I think growing up with Batman does irreversible shit to anyone’s psyche, so we all have a funny way of showing we care, but I think he does. Always did. He doesn’t like admitting it, but he’d probably set himself on fire to keep everyone else warm.”

“What do you mean?”

“In a way, I think he might’ve been trying to protect me by staying away.”

“That’s dumb as shit,” Phantom replied, deadpan. “How would-”

“He’s... I don’t want to call him dumb but he’s fucking stupid. He can solve just about any puzzle you put in front of him, but he’ll still convince himself he hasn’t done anything for the community. He solved, like, 7 cases of Batman’s while he was sick and injured one week and cried because he couldn’t follow up in the field.”

“Do you think we could manipulate him into getting therapy?”

He paused. “Maybe?”

Phantom snorted. “It really sounds like all of you need it, dude.”

“Look who’s talking Mr. I Died In My Parent’s Basement.”

“Okay, so we could all benefit from a session.”

“Alf’s gonna love you,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s been teaming up with Canary to get Bat and ‘Wing into therapy for years.”

He grinned. “I want it on the record that if I didn’t know my sister and what she’d say about this very well, I probably wouldn’t have said anything.”

He grinned. “I- oh, ow, oh my god, what was that-”

Phantom dropped his smile, looking over the other boy. “What’s wrong, what happened-”

“Pain- ow-”

“In the recent wound or the old ones?”

“Like- legs and shit, ow-”

Phantom winced. “Okay, just breathe through it,” he said, beginning to rub his back and lay him down. “It’s your death wound acting up, you’re gonna be fine-”

“Death wound?!”

“It’s okay!” He said, putting his hands in front of him. “They act up during important events and things. You’re gonna be okay,” he said, starting to pet his hair. “It’s going to suck, and you might scream a little bit but you’re going to be okay by the end, I promise.”

He looked up at Phantom. He trusted him completely.

Maybe it was dumb, especially after everything he’d gone though. He... he still wanted to believe victims.

Out of everything they’d taken from him, he didn’t want this to be one. People deserved to be believed. At the end of the day, he might not be Robin, but the one thing he never wanted to lose was the trust he had with the people they saved. He didn’t want to be the type of person to doubt every detail of the story. That wasn’t how he was raised.

Catherine wouldn’t have wanted that for him.

He breathed through it, Phantom helping him. Eventually, he calmed down.

They didn’t go back to talking. They sat there, just going through the motions. He drank water. Phantom eventually ate something. They didn’t speak for a long time. They didn’t need to.

It was the moments of waiting that felt the hardest. The not knowing, the exhaustion, the uncertainty. He had no idea what was going to break first; if he’d crack and give in, giving these assholes exactly what they wanted and cracking under the pressure of being the perfect prisoner, or if they were going to snap over nothing and kill them. That was what they were gearing up to, right?

Even if they mentally broke them and brainwashed them into the perfect soldiers, they’d never be trusted. They could never look at them and say, honestly, that they didn’t think they’d run given the chance. Their options had always been escape, rescue, or death. With every passing hour, it looked more like death was the only option.

He still didn’t know why being a ghost was so bad. What had they ever done to anyone to deserve this sort of fate? It’s not like they’d ever done anything wrong outside of their own raw need for survival. He normally agreed with Bruce’s rule, but there are a few exceptions he’d be willing to make. These people?

He wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull the trigger, but God if he wasn’t tempted. He wondered if Nightwing would do it if he asked.

He scolded himself. Nightwing... he was going through something. He could see it in his eyes. The way he carried himself and the dark circles under his eyes. He was deep into... something and he wasn’t sure if he should ask this of him.

“Jason, sweetheart, I want you to promise me something,” she’d said.

Her 9-year-old looked up at her. “Yes, mommy?”

Some of the other kids picked on him for continuing to call his mom ‘mommy’. He didn’t care. She was sick and he loved her.

He’d do anything she asked.

“If it ever comes down to you, or someone else, I want you to choose yourself.”

He’d been confused. “What?”

“Someday,” she’d said, carding her gentle fingers through his hair, “Someone’s going to want to hurt you. And they won’t stop at anything to do it. It’ll come down to a decision; them, or you. I want you to choose you. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

The memory tore its way through his brain. He’d forgotten about that day.

He hadn’t known what she meant then. Even though he’d been far from innocent as a nine-year-old, entirely against his will, he hadn’t known. But he was 15 now, 16 that August.

He sure as fuck knew now.

… He’d never disobeyed a big order like this from Bruce. The thought made his stomach sour. But.

Isn’t that the thing? There’s always a ‘but’ involved.

These people would stop at nothing to hurt them. They’d stop at nothing to kill him if given the chance. It was something he was now painfully intimately aware of.

It’s such an awful feeling, knowing that one day, you didn’t come back home the same. He’d been avoiding processing it fully for Phantom’s sake, but it ripped something out from him now. Was this how Nightwing felt that night? When he’d shown up, uniform ripped, something unidentifiable in his eyes and sat on the couch, staring at nothing for hours? Sobbing in Batman’s, no, his dad’s  arms?

How had he gotten through it? How would he, so far from home? He swallowed, hard.

He was not Jason Todd. He was not Robin. He was Cardinal, and he was totally in control of this situation. That’s what he had to keep telling himself.

He was totally in control of the situation. He could have whatever crisis he needed to about it later. Right now, he needed to keep a level head and focus on Phantom.

He looked over at the other boy. He could still feel pain rocking down his body, nearly overwhelming him. If he hadn’t been trained by the best of the best, he probably wouldn’t have been able to breathe through it. The bat himself would’ve been better at it, but he still wasn’t half-bad.

Phantom looked at him like he’d just watched him do something impressive. It didn’t feel very impressive, but he smiled at him regardless.

“Dude,” he whispered. “You gotta show me how to do that.”

He laughed a bit. “Yeah, maybe I will.”

They’d finished their food and water. Cardinal shoved the empty bottles into his hoodie pocket for later, shoving the wrappers back into the cabinet. It was getting to be uncomfortable just how routine it felt.

The keys jingled shortly after. Just a bathroom break.

One of the agents that would be called in if they thought they needed to be held down took them to the bathroom. The usual crowd of lower levels were there, looking at them and waving. They never tried to speak to them; they couldn’t, or they’d be yelled at. But they always waved, and usually-

One of them pressed something into Phantom’s hand. He smiled at them, mouthed thank you, and kept walking. Cardinal himself felt something being slipped into his hoodie. He looked up at the person who did so. He winked, pressing his finger to his lips.

Out of all of them, they thought they were the coolest here. He wasn’t willing to trust them; they were still working for the GIW. But, in a weird way, he thought they were being more genuine than Agent A was.

They went into the bathroom, did what they needed to in the stalls, then walked out to the sinks. It was vaguely unsanitary, but now more than ever they trusted the water from the bathroom more than any unsealed bottles Agent A stuck in the cabinet. She’d already shown her true colors. He didn’t care that she was ‘concerned’ afterwards.

Going back was also an uneventful affair. Phantom had started letting out pulses of ectoplasm after they came back to kill any bugs they planted- it was actually really nice, not being worried about whether or not they’d missed one. He was still vaguely concerned, however, that they were going to come back one day and find them in the ceiling. He really needed to learn to control his powers so they could move the stash somewhere.

No. He needed to learn how to use his powers so they could escape.

They hadn’t dared look to their prizes until they were safely back in the room. Phantom had some candy- Cardinal had a note with a single word.

“Soon."

It was dated June 4 th . They had no idea what it meant. It wasn’t signed. Was June 4 th the date today? Was it a date in the future? Had it already passed?

He had no idea. He wasn’t used to having no idea. He took a deep breath.

If the note was any indication, he’d find out... soon. He could live with that.

Phantom got his passion project out of the ceiling. He’d done a remarkable job on it so far; it only needed a few more finishing touches.

“Cardinal,” he was holding it up. “We can’t shoot it in here, for obvious reasons,” he rolled his eyes, “But this is yours. If I bond it to my ectoplasm, you won’t be able to use it. I’m not opposed, but I wanted to give you the option.”

He nodded. He took the gun. He stared at the little connector that had recently ruined his life. “What do I do?”

He hooked it to his wrist, being gentle and watching his reactions. He pressed a button.

The whole thing started glowing green. “Okay,” he said quietly, “You need to keep that connected for a bit, so it can get used to you. If you need a break or to disconnect it, press this button-” he pointed to the button in question- “First. If you don’t, you might mess the whole thing up. That, obviously, is not good.”

He nodded. “And I just pull the trigger and it goes off? How do I cock it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know who designed this initially, but it’s pretty advanced. You don’t need to cock it; it doesn’t even have a safety on it.” He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “It’s like they wanted this thing to go off on a random Tuesday. No wonder it was abandoned; the whole design is unsafe.”

“But it’s the best we’ve got.”

He got quiet. “Yeah. It’s the best we got.”

They were quiet. Phantom checked over the gun on occasion, and eventually deemed it ready to go. They stuck it safely back into the ceiling, along with the note and the candy. No sooner were his feet on the ground did the jingle of keys catch their attention.

Agent V stormed in. “You unpicked his stitches,” she said dangerously.

He looked at her. “What?”

“I stitched that one’s-” she pointed at Jason, “Mouth shut yesterday. And now it’s undone. Why?”

“Because I wasn’t going to do anything and there was a scalpel sitting there? Why does it matter, his blood-”

“Shut up! You had no right to do that!”

“Didn’t I?” He asked, baffled.

“You do not take that tone with me, do you hear me, maggot? You do as I say, or you don’t do anything at all!”

“What did I do wrong here?! You never said I couldn’t take out his stitches-”

She stalked forwards, grabbing him and pulling him up. “You things are so fucking needy. You wanna know what we do too needy? I’ll fucking show you.”

“You can’t-!”

“Shut up, dog, unless you want to get punished, too,” she growled. He looked at him, still gripping Phantom’s shirt. She looked at Cardinal for a few more moments. “Get up,” she demanded.

He did as she said. He was tempted to hit her, but she beat him to it.

She stepped forwards and slapped him, her hand landing right over his ear, hard. As much as he tried not to be afraid, the loud ‘Pop!’ and the rush of blood terrified him.

He fell to the floor. Phantom looked at him with wide eyes.

Before either of them realized what her intention was, she had Phantom out of the room. He tried to run forwards to follow them, but they were already out the door. She had replaced the locks. He could hear Phantom still screaming obscenities, Agent A making threats. He was terrified of what was about to happen. He took a deep breath, trying to remain calm.

He thought of what his mom said. He thought of the note.

… If he weren’t curious about the note and its contents, he’d be planning their escape for tonight. He would’ve thought it sounded sinister if it weren't for the group that wrote it. He didn’t trust them, but you know what they say. Satisfaction resurrects cats killed my curiosity, and all that. Besides, he knew they couldn’t live like this. Sooner or later, and he had a feeling it’d be sooner, something would give, and they’d never be able to get it back. He had the sickening feeling that he knew they wouldn’t be able to escape on their own.

Waiting was hell. Both for ‘soon’ to happen and for Phantom to come back, because he had to come back. A million different thoughts ran through his head. His right ear was weird, and he couldn’t hear out of his left at all. It was like someone had shoved some earplugs into him. He felt bile rising in his throat at the thought.

Before he knew it, Phantom was thrown back into the room. His shirt was off and bundled in his arms. He had tears and snot in his eyes. His back looked like someone had whipped him, over and over again like a broken record.

They said nothing. They didn’t need to. It was obvious enough what had happened, and it was obvious he was embarrassed about it.

He took down the first aid kit, cleaning his back methodically. He hadn’t dressed the wounds yet when they heard more keys and footsteps. They halfway expected Agent A to be there to ‘care’ about them. Instead, they found Agent J with new clothes, ordering the pair to follow them to take a shower.

They went obediently. Cardinal helped Phantom walk, and when they got to the shower, he helped carefully wash his back a bit more thoroughly, taking his time to avoid the lacerations and cuts that had formed. When they got out, their shoes and his gloves, masks, and belt were still there, along with the new clothes. Nothing was missing out of his belt; he assumed that they assumed he didn’t have it on. He put on the red sleeveless hoodie over his belt, along with the tighter-fitting black sweats. Phantom threw on a gray hoodie with blue, loose sweats.

When they got back to the room, Cardinal methodically dressed Phantom’s wounds and tried to talk to him.

If something really was happening soon, they needed to be prepared. They made a mental list of things they can carry on them. Phantom grabbed everything out of the hidey hole that he could. Cardinal stuffed his belt to the gills with food and medical supplies stolen from the kit, the gun and dull baterang in the pocket on his left. He watched Phantom stick the journals in his torso; he was slightly jealous. That was so cool.

He smiled as best as he could. He could tell Phantom was tired. He was, too.

Being here was like having your soul sucked out of you. He could feel it in every moment he spent worrying about the future, worrying about their present, if they were going to survive. They were so tired of surviving.

Soon. That could mean so many things.

He closed his eyes and thought of Batman. He’d already done everything he possibly could to ensure Cardinal’s survival. He wouldn’t just throw him away the moment he made a questionable decision. Breathe in. Breathe out.

… Nightwing was likely going to burn this place to the ground, though. He was going to help him.

He’d waited this long to see what would happen. They were so close. Being impatient now could wreck everything they had built.

He focused on Phantom, making sure he was as comfortable as they could get him on the cot. He handed him a bottle of water and a snack, telling him to eat it.

He asked for the red journal. Living with the bat definitely damaged your psyche in some way; he began making contingencies, different plans for different scenarios. They didn’t have much to work with.

They had enough. They had a gun. They had each other. They had the information they’d overheard from the group of lower ranked agents and from passing conversation between the agents.

They got this. They had to have this. The more he thought about it, the more he realized just how serious this all was. This wasn’t just them they were talking about; what if there were more people like this? Ones they didn’t know about? The pits were everywhere; they could have created more people like him.

Their quality of life mattered. All the ghost’s lives mattered. At this point, he didn’t care for the motivations of mad men. This was a genocide. And it was the hero’s job to stop it.

Could he even be considered a hero anymore?

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day twenty-two #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Twenty-One

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Twenty-One Blood Loss/Shock/Near Death Experience

Alt. Prompt For Day Twenty-One Mouth Stitched Shut 

Prompts Used for Day Twenty-One Near Death Experience, Mouth Stitched Shut

Tw's; Medical Experimentation, Dubious Medical Accuracy, Torture, Electrocution, Injury

Chapter Twenty-One under the cut :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some days, you wake up and you can feel it in your bones that something’s about to change. In normal circumstances, that change would probably be good; a new promotion, getting into the college of your dreams, waking up to a text from the girl you like inviting you to hang out. But these are not normal circumstances. Danny Fenton wakes up terrified.

It’s not like there’s no reason to be. Even in peaceful moments, being pressed up against his twin like this, there’s always the undercurrent of fear. They’ve made sure it permeated their lives, soaking up every pleasant moment and leaving nothing but gnawing dread. He took a deep breath.

It had been another hard experiment yesterday. What would today bring? More scars, more reasons why they slept in precarious positions? He thought of the gun, now safely tucked away in their ceiling. They’d decided to stick it back up there when the agents started commenting that they stank again.

They were almost finished with the prototype. They’ve managed to swipe a few things here and there from passing lower rank agents that had started hanging out in groups and had somehow been right there whenever they were going for bathroom breaks. They also had several useful things in their pockets at times. It was starting to almost be funny, sometimes they'd even stick treats in their hands as they passed. If they didn't know better, they'd say they knew what the two were up to and kept useful things in their pockets on purpose.

It was shitty out of them, to steal from these people when they were being somewhat nice. But hey, survival was shitty at times. You do things you’d always promised yourself that you wouldn’t, like steal from random people in some facility and take granola bars from your teacher's desk when your parents make the food come back to live for the third time that week.

He watched Jason sleeping. He had a pleasant look on his face, soft breaths moving the white locks of his hair. They both needed a haircut when they got out.

When they were like this, it was almost easy to forget that they had been kidnapped at all. It was almost like they were just sleeping over at a friend’s house, or they were in the hospital after some dumb thing they’d done, or anywhere but here. Sometimes he wished he’d never gone to Gotham; that the bus had gone to Metropolis as planned. The GIW probably would’ve caught him there, but at least Jason wouldn’t be here with him. The GIW wanted him; Jason never had to be a part of this. He’d made it Jason’s problem now, though. Even if he could get the other boy to separate from him now, what was that going to accomplish? If they got separated now, the only thing that would happen is that they would have no idea what was happening to their better half.

Something built up in his chest, tears pinpricking the corner of his eyes. Out of the two of them, Jason was the better person. He wondered if he’d even be able to look at him if he knew the truth; what he’d done, what he was capable of. The thought made his stomach twist. He shook it from his head.

They couldn’t afford to fall apart at the seams. Something big was coming today, and while they’re here, it’s guaranteed to be incredibly unpleasant. He started shaking Jason awake.

“Cardinal?” he whispered. “Dude, come on, redbird, you’ve gotta wake up,” he said softly.

He groaned. “Phan’om?” he slurred. He jolted awake pretty quickly after that, acting like he wasn’t wiping drool from his cheek as he looked at the other boy. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, yet,” he said, looking towards the door. “But there’s going to be something today. I can feel it.”

The other boy hummed. “I... They usually don’t do anything after an intense one like that. They usually leave us alone for a day or so.”

“I know,” Phantom said, lowering his voice, “But I’ve got a feeling. It’s going to be something big, I just, I know it.”

Jason looked at him for a second and nodded once. “Okay. I believe you. How do you want to prepare for this?”

He shrugged. “Just be vigilant, okay? I don’t like this.”

The other boy hummed and went to their cupboard, grabbing two pieces of fruit jerky and some water. He tossed a bottle to Phantom, then one of the fruit jerkies. He caught both easily.

“After breakfast,” Jason said, already unwrapping his pineapple jerky, “We’ll do some exercise. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

They ate in silence. They were not unused to the feeling they had; it was a regular occurrence now. Eating through dread, pain, whatever they had to that week. They were getting quite good at it even; this was nothing new.

What was new was the arguing outside the door that started up about halfway through the jerky.

“I don’t care what the head said! They are not healed enough from yesterday to continue testing!”

His throat and cheeks constricted at the reminder. He pressed a hand to them to soothe himself; they’d sped up healing when he was introduced to the dry ice, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt.

“If I don’t do this, I lose my badge and you bet your ass I’m going after yours when I do!”

“Oh-ho-ho, you think I’m scared? It’s not my fault you went too hard during their testing! You and Agent J should have stuck to protocol, and I’ll tell the head that they aren’t ready because you two disobeyed her!”

“The head gave us permission to discipline the things when it misbehaves-”

“They are still children! You will address them as such!”

They looked at each other. They really didn’t like where this had begun heading.

“I’m doing this experiment, A, and if you don’t like it you can fuck off!”

It was silent for a few moments. They heard muttering from behind the door for a few moments before the familiar jingle of keys.

Jason grabbed the rest of Danny’s breakfast, stashing it in the cupboard quickly before getting on the cot right before the door swung open.

“Dogs,” Agent V greeted. “We have some wonderful news for you!”

Agent A had a strained smile. “Unfortunately, they’ve deemed more testing necessary. But, this time, I’ll be right there to make sure nobody-” she turned to glare at Agent V- “Goes too far.”

Agent V either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “You’re with us today, maggots-”

“Boys,” Agent A said, all passive aggressive digs. “Come on. We’ll take you to the exam room.”

She looked at them for a moment before leaning down to whisper in their ears, “Are you two hungry? Did you eat already?”

They shrugged and looked at each other. They’d both lost their appetite.

“We’re okay,” Jason eventually said.

“Good,” Agent V interrupted, grabbing Danny by the wrist and beginning to drag him. “Then let’s-"

Agent A quickly got him out of her grasp, holding his hand in hers. She took Jason’s in her other hand, sending a glare to the other agent. “Yes, let’s go.”

She started leading the boys down the hall. They could see Agent V shaking her head as they went, laughing a bit under her breath. They hated the sound.

Getting to the experiment room wasn’t any better on their nerves. They automatically went for their separate cots, even as they wanted to take the other’s hand. They looked at each other.

“Where’s Agent J?” Jason asked softly.

Agent A turned to him. “They asked something of the department head last night and got approved. They’re going to be out for a few days while they prepare for it,” she turned to Agent V, “Do you happen to know what that was?”

Agent V scoffed. “I have no clue,” she said honestly, “I saw them running past with that manic gleam in their eyes again after my break, but they didn’t talk to me about it at all. I half expected to wake up to the news that they’d landed themselves in the mental hospital again, they’ve been obsessing over the cases,” she cut herself off, looking at the boys. “Been obsessing over these dogs, really. I don’t know why. The only thing they’re good for is-”

“Okay, that’s quite enough,” Agent A said, cutting her off. “I’ll try asking the department head about it... again,” she muttered, looking at Jason first, then Danny. “Today’s experiment is about electricity. Agent J wants us to study your electromagnetic impulses and see how introducing some low-level shocks will affect it.”

She looked at Agent V harshly while saying low level. They had no idea what that was about and, frankly, given the context, they didn’t want to. Danny could already feel the build of panic in his chest.

He hated electricity. It took him months after the accident to just plug something into an outlet; the idea of this? He hated this.

He could tell he was sending a wave of something to Jason from the way the other boy looked at him, and normally he’d care a great deal about that, but not today. He couldn’t think past the steady growth of a panic attack.

“We can only do one at a time, unfortunately, but-”

“Can I go first?” Jason interrupted to ask.

The agent looked at him for a second, a scowl marking her face before Agent A jumped in, putting herself between them. “Of course, Robin,” she said, smiling pleasantly.

They both could hear Agent V’s scoff but decided not to acknowledge it. They couldn’t bother themselves with that right now.

Agent A got Jason situated in the chair, hooking him up to various bits and doodads. Danny forced himself not to pay attention unless he wanted to go into a full-blown panic attack; he somehow didn’t think that would be helpful for this situation.

It started out fine. Agent A handled the majority of the electric impulse stuff, while Agent V was delegated to writing notes about the jumps and ticks of various parts. The small shocks would jolt Jason, but as far as he could tell it was nothing painful. Like getting a shock from one of those gag gift buzzers; painless, harmless. He almost calmed down. He couldn’t see electricity jumping from connection point to connection point on the other boy; he’d also kept up a steady stream of Calm-Safe-Fine the entire time. It was... well, it was going well. He almost felt a little silly.

How could he think this could go wrong? Just because of his own trauma? He almost laughed to himself, looking at Jason who’s begun to laugh at his hair standing straight on end. He paid attention to Agent A, who looked amused by Jason’s shenanigans. As soon as the good, warm feeling enveloped him, it bottomed out into something wrong. He looked around. Where was...?

Cold relief flooded him, finding her near the doorway. She was nowhere near the machine. Jason was safe. The thought almost shocked him to his core.

Since when did he start thinking of them as ‘safe’? Was it because Agent A was trying to get them to trust her, which was suspicious? Was it because nothing was happening right now? Nausea threatened to grip him.

He’d been getting too comfortable here. Too relaxed; they’d started being lazy checking for bugs and had begun to discuss leaving the journals in an easier hiding spot. They kept the gun in Jason’s belt for fuck’s sake, if they decided they wanted to take it randomly one day, they couldn’t fight them off! They’d gotten so used to feeding schedules and hot (or, cold, in his case) meals during lunch that they thought it was safe just because Agent V was by the doorway while Agent A was conducting an electricity experiment on Jason. He felt sick with the realization.

The worst part is, he almost wasn’t angry that he’d begun to trust her. Deep down he knew that the fact that she still worked for the GIW alone was enough to immediately disregard a thing she said. That was enough reason to never trust her, even a little bit. He looked at Jason, who was still having fun. The sight was making him nauseous.

How long would it be until he wasn’t challenging these thoughts anymore? How long would it be until Agent A was just another part of their lives here, like the cot they’d gotten used to sleeping on and the ceiling hidey hole they’d begun trusting? The snack cabinet they rarely, if ever, thought about anymore? The one that just filled itself whenever it got low? When was the last time they put something in the ceiling in case they needed it one day?

He knew they had to play the long game while they were here. Be good, try not to get on their nerves, that sort of thing, but that didn’t mean they had to accept what was happening, did it? That they had to extend any sort of trust to Agent A? She was still working for them, and he’s not saying they need to immediately assume that anything she does for them has some ulterior motive, but he is saying they should take it with a grain of salt. He’s beginning to think they have no grains left; when was the last time either of them mentioned their distrust? Or does Danny only feel it now because she’s hooked his brother up to a death machine to test ‘electric impulses’ whatever the fuck that means?

He’d talk to Jason later about it. For now, they weren’t out of the woods yet on this stupid fucking experiment, but he was going to have to talk to him later about it. This was getting to be ridiculous, and he felt absolutely idiotic that he hadn’t realized their oversight sooner. They shouldn’t be trusting anybody here, especially somebody that’s been getting close enough to them that they’re casually showing up with popsicles and they don’t even inspect the wrapper before eating them.

Their main plan was still escape. No matter how nice Agent A seemed, he knew she would not help them. He had to keep reminding himself of that. No matter what, when the time came, they could not trust her. This was not some movie where they could take the ‘nice’ bad guy and run; she was a grown woman. If she wanted out, she’d get out. If she wanted to take them with her, she would take them with her. No matter how many sad little sob stories she told.

Maybe he was being a little harsh on her, but he’d been tricked and scammed before. This was beginning to remind him of Paulina, the way she used to say she was miserable being popular and enjoying it every other second of the day. He knew what being manipulated felt like; maybe it’s time he became a little manipulative himself. Not to people that didn’t deserve it, of course, just to these people. Hey, they’re expecting it anyways, right? Ghosts only fake emotions to manipulate you into trusting them, right? He put on a fake smile.

They want manipulative? Fine. He’ll give them manipulative.

He laughed at Jason’s hair, which was still messy. Only a little. He glared at him playfully as Agent A mock-scolded him. He kept his eye on Agent V as she started circling them like a hunter stalking prey.

He turned to her, all smiles. “I like your hair today,” he said softly.

She turned to him, shocked for a moment before scowling. “Excuse me?”

He sighed internally, making a show of flinching back. “I, um, I never wanna say anything, ‘cause you’re usually pretty mean to us,” he said, making sure to look shy and slightly vulnerable, “But your hair is always so pretty. I’m impressed; I always have to have my sister do mine and it’s never as neat and pretty as yours,” he said.

He could see her blink and slightly blush a bit. “Thank you?” She muttered.

Agent A looked at him. “That was very nice, Phantom,” she said.

He thought about the time he accidentally dropped his pants in front of Paulina. His face flushed. “Thank you,” he said.

Agent V broke herself out of her stupor and glared at him. “All you ghosts are the same,” she hissed, looking at him. He backed away, making sure to look pathetic. “I outta-”

“Agent V,” Agent A emphasized, “He gave you a compliment! Accept it, or don’t, and move on; don’t get mad at him because you can only seem to receive compliments from polite teenage boys,” she scolded.

Agent V glared at her. “That is not my issue here and you know it.”

“I don’t know what your problem is; all I know is that you’re being very rude to someone who just paid you a compliment.”

She scowled and went to sulk by the doorframe. He made sure to widen his eyes a little bit as he looked at her, trying to look curious instead of like he was gloating.

He was usually a shit liar. Sam had tried to teach him before, but ironically enough, it wasn’t until he met Jason, he became better at it. One of his ‘lessons’ was focused on emotions and how to fake them, since apparently improv comes up in the field more than you’d think. Danny could see that; he just usually punched through it. Maybe if he was better at it, some of the ghosts he fought could communicate with him better? Who knows.

He had started thinking of it like he was playing a game with Yungblud. The young pirate was constantly changing rules; he’d had to learn how to adapt. As long as he treated all enemy battles like they were playing a huge game, he might actually be able to do this. He was used to faking emotions and injuries on the ship; he’d even fooled Jason a couple of times. Maybe they could...

He wasn’t sure. Maybe he could make Agent V out to be a nutcase or something. Overly paranoid. Get her fired. He doubted it, but a boy could dream, right?

He looked back over to Jason, who was almost done. They only had a few more tests to go now, and then it’d be his turn. He watched Agent V move out of the corner of his eye. He kept one eye on her as he watched Jason’s reactions to the rest of the tests.

He supposed he should’ve caught it sooner. He was looking at her when she did it, after all, but he’d been so preoccupied with looking at his twin he didn’t even register it when Agent V bent a hand down and turned the knob to the electricity. Jason screamed as the volts tore through his right hand; Agent A was trying to get it to stop. He could see Agent V messed with something and it intensified. Through the panic and adrenaline, he spotted the cord where it plugged into the wall. He lunged for it, unplugging it quickly. It all stopped. The agents looked at him.

Agent A looked stunned. Agent V looked pissed. She stalked up to him and grabbed his hair.

“What did you do that for?! Huh?!”

“Agent V-”

Jason started screaming anew. He twitched with aftershocks as Agent V screamed over him.

“THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY’RE DISRESPECTFUL!”

She reeled. “HE GAVE YOU A COMPLIMENT!”

She laughed. It sounded like some shit Disney villain; it made his hair stand on end.

She threw him against the wall and turned around, stalking towards Agent A. He could see them saying something, grappling at each other in the background as Danny made his way over to Jason, getting him off the chair and unhooked from the machine. When they were both on the floor, he cradled his head in his lap and soothed over him. He wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort Jason or himself.

He was glad Jason had gone first, in a way. He was certain if it was him, he’d be wailing, and either kill them all bringing the building down or killing himself making the collar shock him over and over. He forced the thought out of his head. He kept trying to soothe Jason and make him stop screaming. If this was going where he thought it was-

The door slammed shut. He heard a terrible ‘click!’. He didn’t have to look up to see who it was; he knew what happened. The banging on the door was the only confirmation he needed.

Agent V bent down slamming her hand on the floor. “You dogs have caused a lot of trouble for me today,” she hissed.

She put her hand in Jason’s hair, sliding him towards her. “Shut up!” She yelled at him.

Danny could see the tears forming and sliding down his cheeks. He had similar marks to him, only his went from his hand, up his arm, and slid up his neck instead of going straight to his heart. He could see a few licking their way up his cheek and chin. He thought he might puke at the sight.

He didn’t stop his screaming sobs. Danny knew what it felt like. He also knew that, even if she did know, she wouldn’t care. Agent V would do what she wanted regardless of consequences; she proved that when she locked Agent A out of the room.

She muttered something about destabilization before she shook her head. His hearing was starting to be weird, probably all the adrenaline. He vaguely wondered if you could go into shock when you weren’t the one hurt.

She took out a suture kit, clamping his mouth shut. He watched in numb horror as she began to stitch his mouth closed, staring from the left and going to the right. One of the Lichtenburg scars went over his lip; she didn’t even try to avoid it, tearing through it with her needle as she reached the end. It was like something out of Frankenstein .

He started rocking back and forth to calm himself down. She noticed, laughing at him and tugging at his hair. He didn’t understand; what did he do? What did they do? Why was this happening to them?

She leaned down in his ear. “This is what you get,” she said, horrible voice penetrating his brain, “For existing. You should’ve stayed dead, dog. If you maggots know what’s good for you, you’ll fucking destabilize yourselves before you make more mistakes,” she said.

The banging had stopped a few minutes ago now. She rose, bored. She looked over to the door, then back at them. “I’m going to lock you in here,” she said. “You two have fun doing whatever it is you do. Don’t fucking touch anything,” she said harshly.

She opened the door. She banged it shut. He could hear the click of the lock. He looked around.

All at once, the overwhelming panic that had overtaken him stopped. He silently looked at Jason, writhing in pain and clawing at his own lips. He looked around. They still had the kettle in there from yesterday. He got up, grabbing the kettle itself to fill with water before putting it on the pad to turn on. It felt like he was on autopilot as he slowly made a pick out of ice, not seeing any sharp instruments laying around. He got on top of the other boy, slowly cutting the stitches and pulling them out, being careful not to touch the ice to his lips.

When the kettle beeped, indicating it was done, he stopped what he was doing, leaving the ice on the floor. He grabbed the kettle and, careful not to touch any himself, poured the water over Jason’s body. He stopped writhing in pain, at least. He helped him get up and moved him to the cot, grabbing the pick and finishing what he’d started. Jason took the kettle from him, drinking the rest of the water directly from the vessel.

The lines were still raw and pink, but at least they weren’t as painful anymore. They carefully got his hoodie off of him so it couldn’t irritate the wounds.

They looked but found no gauze. They didn’t want to risk letting them know that Jason had carried some in his belt, deciding to wait to dress his wounds until they were in their room. Maybe, if they were lucky, Agent A would come back. Regardless of how he felt about it right now, she was their best bet. She was the only one pretending to give a damn about them.

Jason hit him softly. “Look around,” he rasped. “See if you can find anything for the thing,” he said.

He knew what he was talking about. He looked around slightly as he made sure to melt the pick. What could he use to build on the gun?

He saw a bracelet on the floor. He touched it slightly; it shocked him. He looked around for a moment before grabbing a pen, turning off the device before grabbing it. He put it and the pen in his pocket. He looked at the electricity machine.

He almost didn’t even want to think about it. It had already caused them so much pain, but he had to at least consider it. He did; he took one of the connectors, cutting it off before sticking that into his pocket as well. He thought about it; it already looked old and slightly fragile. He pushed the machine down, where it broke on impact. He took a deep breath, sending out an impulse of ectoplasm that would fry any camera in the room, and the memory with it. He opened his eyes, shocked; it hadn’t hurt.

He looked at Jason, who was staring at him curiously. He began floating; he flew up to the ceiling, touching it. He blinked.

He hadn’t realized it was already used to his ecto-signature. He flew back down, landing his feat on the ground. He looked at Jason.

“Dude-”

“Shh, I know,” he whispered. “We’ll discuss that later. Put these in your belt,” he said, shoving the objects into his hand.

Jason looked at Danny, his hand slightly shaking. He probably had nerve damage; the ectoplasm couldn't fix everything. He almost wanted to apologize.

He did as he asked, shoving the objects into his pocket carefully. “What do we do?” he asked.

Danny looked at him. “What?”

“What do we do?” he repeated.

He was silent for a moment. “I have a plan. Don’t worry,” he grabbed the uninjured hand, looking him in the face. “We’re going to survive this.”

Jason shook his head. “No, I mean. They’re ramping it up. If they’re comfortable enough to do this-”

“I know,” he said. “I know. I’m... I’m thinking,” he said.

Even if Jason didn’t have a hold of his powers, he could probably train his collar to his ecto signature. He could get Jason out of there and then they might be able to run. He could get the gun working, and then they’d be able to defend themselves a little. This could work... he hoped.

Never mind that they didn’t have any idea where they were. They could be in a different state for all they knew. He took a deep breath.

He could finish his panic attack later. He just had to focus on Jason, and everything else could work itself out. He looked at Jason, who was staring up at him with wide eyes. He pressed his face into his, starting to cry.

He soothed him as best as he could. He didn’t have much experience; other than the few times he’d comforted Ellie. It wasn’t something he was used to, per say. He thought about Jazz; what would Jazz do?

He put his hand in Jason’s hair, beginning to pet him gently. “It’s okay, Jason,” he said softly. The other boy would probably lecture him about codenames later, but that was later; for now, it worked to make him ever so slightly more emotional, allowing him to let it out. “I’m here,” he continued.

Jason let out a wet sort of noise, pressing closer to Danny. He rolled with it, rubbing down his back. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “We’re going to get through this. I promise.”

He pretended he wasn’t thinking about the way Jason had looked. How it sounded. The smell of burnt flesh. Was this how Sam and Tucker had felt? Was this what he put them through?

He’d always ignored those sorts of details. It was never talked about in the group; it was just another fact of their lives that their friend had died in his parent’s basement being electrocuted. It was secondary information that they’d watched. He’d always pretended not to see their flinches when he joked about his death; he pretended Sam didn’t look slightly guilty every time they joked that she’d killed him twice. He wondered if the whole thing could’ve been prevented if the portal had never turned on, if he’d never turned it on. If he hadn’t made the ghost problem worse, would they be there right now? Would Jason be here right now?

He wondered how his twin could ever forgive him for this. He couldn’t forgive himself.

How had Tucker and Sam dealt with this? He missed them violently. He wanted to see them and hear them laugh and tease Val and go back to the library with Star. He yawned slightly, trying to hide how exhausted he was.

That was something that had begun to worry him. They both had been getting tired more easily, forcing them to eat more food. How long would it be provided? How long until they had to ration themselves to whatever they’d squirreled away in the ceiling? How long did they have until they decided they couldn’t learn any more about them and destabilized the cores keeping them alive?

He’d never been one to think about how much time he had left, even after the accident. He’d never really thought about it before; he’d never had the time. He never processed that he’d died and come back. There was always a ghost to fight or an assignment to do; he never thought he’d have to face that day. Right now, with his twin crying in his arms, was not the time to be contemplating his death. It felt useless; it happened. He got brought back. And now, he was half-ghost, and everything was worse now. That was his story, the end. Good night. Sweet dreams. That was all he was meant for, right? Just another tragic figure cloaked in their own blood. Another casualty of the war his parents... the Fenton's and the GIW started.

That was all, right? That was just his life now. He felt his own tears pinprick his eyes.

As much as he’d tried to push it down these last few weeks, he was angry. The only reason he even existed was because these people wanted to play God. What did they think would happen if they destroyed the zone? He stopped for a second. What would happen if they destroyed the zone?

It was every afterlife you could imagine. It was heaven and hell, it was Elysium and the Field of Punishment, it was Valhalla and everything else you could think of. It was a place for every religion and culture; it wasn’t one thing, and it wasn’t the other. It was everything.

It connected every single possible timeline, universe, and afterlife together. Sure, there was one monarch for it; one person to rule it all. But their job was pretty much to iron out the snags, things like the GIW. Things that might disrupt it. He knew that war was an option if the GIW kept doing what they were doing. He’d never really processed it as an option, but it was one. He knew what that would mean for this land. A pit formed in his stomach.

Pariah was in the sarcophagus. The ancients couldn’t decide without a ruler if what he understood from his conversation and personal reading was true. He wondered how they even chose a new one. He knew it couldn’t be a vote since Pariah probably wouldn’t have been made king to begin with if that was the case.

He decided it didn’t matter. It’s not like they were going to be part of the decision making if they were stuck there.

They had to get out. He had to do something. He rocked back and forth, to soothe Jason (at least, that’s what he told himself). He wondered what would happen when they got out. It’s not like he had anywhere to go, and even if Bruce wanted to adopt him, did he want to be adopted by another fruit looped billionaire?

If he didn’t want to be associated with Bruce, what other option was there? Jazz wouldn’t be legal for another year yet, and she didn’t go to college until this fall. Even if she got emancipated, could she take care of him, too? How would she afford that? College students were notoriously broke, and she wouldn’t be an exception; it would take at least a year of studying before she could get an internship anywhere, and she had her heart set on Arkham anyways. Would they even let a kid that graduated high school a year early and had only been in college for a year internship there? Was that a thing they allowed to happen? He didn’t think so.

He took a deep breath. No matter what happened in the future, he couldn’t lose sight of right now. Right now, Jason’s sobs had slowed into hiccups, and he was nearly asleep in his arms. Agent A had finally found a set of keys and she opened the door. He made his face perfectly blank as he looked up at her. He made sure to look vaguely traumatized. It wasn’t hard.

He wiped any trace of anger from his body. He made sure he radiated ‘tired’ as he did so. Even as she fussed over them, taking Jason from his arms and pulling a med kit from the hall to dress his wounds, he stopped himself from trusting her.

“She is not your friend,” he reminded himself. “She is part of them. She isn’t trying to escape. She wouldn’t help you if she knew you were. She is part of them.”

Even as she helped them to their room and left, leaving the door open and coming back minutes later with blankets and pillows to cover the boy with and prop his head up, he reminded himself that she was not their friend. As the locks clicked into place as she left for good this time, she was part of them.

A part of himself wanted to trust her. He wanted to trust her badly. She was one of the only people that had ever been vaguely nice to them before. But when you're someone in his circumstances, you can’t afford trust. He would trust her when she was helping them escape this place. If she was telling the truth right now, she was still letting two 15-year-olds be tortured by her workplace. He didn’t have much sympathy for her.

He sent out an impulse of ectoplasm instead of looking for bugs manually, then floated up to the ceiling to grab the journals. He got them both, looking around the small space.

He wanted to plan a bit more before messing with the gun. That could wait for another day. He replaced the tile and flew down.

He opened his blue journal, seeing the plans he’d made for the gun. Now that he had the parts he needed, he could plan it out a little more clearly.

He drew up the plans, the action soothing himself slightly as he went. Planning was all they had right now. If they tried to run, they wouldn’t get far. They had to bide their time. They had to wait.

The boy next to him kept shifting in his sleep. He looked at the gauze he sported. The sight made him angry all over again.

What had they done to deserve this? Had they done anything to deserve this? He didn’t know anymore. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure it mattered.

He took a deep breath. He sketched. He checked over Jason. When he was done with the plans, he floated back up to replace the journals in the ceiling tile. One of these days he swore he was going to find something staring back at him in that thing. The thought made him shiver.

He tried to send another distress signal to Ellie. He didn’t know why he wasn’t getting anything back, but he was beginning to get concerned. They had no idea how much time had passed since being here, but he was pretty sure it was about time for one of Ellie’s scheduled visits to Amity Park for some sibling time with him and Jazz. She should’ve been able to feel it and respond by now.

He forced himself not to think about it. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

He sighed and closed his eyes. They just had to survive until tomorrow. They could figure out the rest later.

They just had to be alive to figure it out.

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day twenty-one #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Twenty

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Twenty Dehumanization/Stockholm Syndrome/Master and Servant 

Alt. Prompt For Day Twenty Mutilation 

Prompts Used for Day Twenty Dehumanization, Stockholm Syndrome, Mutilation

Tw's; Medical Experimentation, Torture, Injury, Blood

Chapter Twenty under the cut :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Log 67 on subjects F and T. This is Agent A speaking.

“The round of experiments with temperature control, in which I gave the subjects dishes of varying temperatures, was a partial success. Subject F became significantly worse when exposed to heat, and when exposed to cold temperature dramatically improved. Subject T did improve when exposed to hot temperatures, however I believe them to be more intelligent than we initially believed.

“I do not believe they are sentient; I think the ghostly nature of them has taken that away. However, I do believe that the human bodies they inhabit are still somewhat functioning, including the little intelligence they have left. Subject T also brought up some good points.

“The experiments we conducted in which the full ghosts made food disappear without any trace despite not going to the bathroom at all could’ve been due to converting it into ectoplasm. I will propose redoing that experiment with a redirected focus to the department head. Subject T also informed me that, upon realizing how good it felt, they stuck their heads under warm and cold water, respectfully. I suspect that they also drank from the taps, however it did not confirm this.

“I still have not found the journals I gave them previously. I heavily suspect they have been using them; however, I still do not know where they’ve hidden them. I do not know how to ask without looking highly suspicious of them.

“My collaboration with Agent V has been going smoothly. The subjects are fearful of her. I have mentioned her here and there, and each time the subjects have shown themselves to be weary of her. Her role in the emotion experiments has been undoubtedly helpful.

“Agent J has been our control. I am unaware if they have been informed of this or not. They are not unnecessarily cruel to the subjects; they are not kind, either. The subjects do not show any sort of strong emotion when I’ve mentioned Agent J, so I am confident that their role has been fulfilled nicely.

“Today, we will begin setting up the conclusions for both experiments. I will be giving them cold treats before the bulk of it today, mostly to see how subject T will react since I was not able to test its tolerance to the cold the other day. I will find a reason to ‘accidentally’ hurt them and see how they react. Once I am done with that, I will be setting up more temperature experiments with Agent V, where she will force feed them their opposite temperature preferences. I will update the log once we are finished.

"Once again, this is Agent A speaking. This is the end of log 67.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She walked down the hall with a purpose, pulling out her keys as she did. She held the treats in her hand by their wrappers. The bored expression on her face morphed into a smile as she began to unlock the door to the room.

Subjects F and T. It was considered an honor to even be considered for being allowed to be a part of their experiments; to even be allowed to witness one. To be a keyholder for their door was a huge responsibility.

She walked into the room. The door shut with a final click.

The things looked up at her from their cot. One was pressed protectively against the other’s chest. She made sure to look perfectly pleasant as she greeted them; “Hi, Robin! Hi Phantom! How are you boys doing today?”

Subject T looked up at her. It had its mask on again; it had taken it off for a while when it was sick. She hated it when that thing put it on; it was harder to gage its emotions. “We’re doing pretty good,” it said. “How are you doing, Agent A?”

She smiled conspiratorially. “We were right,” she said in lieu of an answer, “The department head wants you to eat something cold just to prove the results,” she rolled her eyes to feign annoyance, “As if we didn’t give them enough evidence. But I’ve tried to make it fun!”

She held up some Batman-themed popsicles. She had to take them from her own freezer; for some reason, the stores ran out of them. She didn’t care about the attention to detail, but the Agent A they knew would. When these experiments were over, she swore she was never going to do this again.

She’d do it next time anyways. It was just in her nature.

Subject T snorted and Subject F perked up. “I used to love those when I was little!”

Subject T laughed a bit. “Batman only gets those when we’re on patrol. He thinks it’s his civic duty to thank them for making them to begin with,” he laughed.

She quirked her lip, landing a small giggle. “I could not imagine him eating one of these.”

“Believe it,” he said, amusement coloring his tone. “It’s so funny watching him bend down to take one of these from the clerk. We go to a local stand, she’s maybe 4’11? And she’s one of the only places that sells ice cream at the end of patrol time. Sometimes she stays open late for us.” He looked down at the cot, picking at the fabric. “She’s one of my favorite people ever. She called him a miserable furry once.”

Subject F made a loud, amused noise. She’d have to jot that down.

“She did what? She’s my third favorite hero now,” he said.

“Third? Who are the other two?”

“You and the psychologist.”

Agent A raised an eyebrow. “Psychologist?” She asked, handing the boys the treats.

“One of my teammates in Amity,” he explained. “The only other known hero is Red Huntress, but we each have teams. I don’t know who’s on Red’s, but I have three people; Psychologist, Black Dahlia, and Pharaoh.”

“Your names are so cool,” Subject T complained, tearing the wrapper off the treat, “We have Batman, Batgirl, Robin, and Nightwing. Two of those are just variations of the same thing!”

“How’d Nightwing get his name anyways?” Subject F asked as he also started tearing the wrapper off.

“He’s always been obsessed with Superman and one time eons ago Big Blue made the mistake of telling him some story about Nightwing and Flamebird. He got into a fight with the Bat when he was like 17 and went awol, moved to Bludhaven, started going by Nightwing and bang! There he is, terrorizing the bat where he can’t reach him.”

“Eons,” Subject F wheezed, “Nightwing is not that old, he’s only four years older than us!” he said. He started nibbling on a bat-ear, humming in surprise. “Wow! This is really good!”

“Really?” Subject T said, inspecting it. “I tried it once and I don’t remember it being that great.”

“It’s really good,” he insisted.

Subject T put his tongue to it. He winced, pulling away. “Ow!” he exclaimed.

“That hurt?” She asked.

“Yeah,” it said, sticking out his tongue a bit. “It’s like I drank my tea too fast and burnt it,” it explained.

She made sure to act as though she winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said, doing the motions she might if it was her son in pain. She reminded herself that these things were not actual children.

If she got emotionally confused, she might end up without a job. At the Ghost Investigation Ward, they took emotionally compromised agents extremely seriously. She had kids; she had a husband. She needed to be level-headed here. She cursed these ghosts for taking this form; they knew what they were doing. She was certain of that.

She watched as it put its mouth on it again. It couldn’t hurt that bad if it was going for seconds.

“Are you alright?” She asked instead.

It winced again. “It burns. How much of this do I need to eat? In order for them to be satisfied?”

She made an apologetic face. “The whole thing,” she said.

Half would probably suffice. It was for other ghosts. She just wanted this thing to suffer for what it had done.

She watched it as it struggled through the popsicle. She tried not to let the vindictive grin she was sporting internally become external. She kept her face politely concerned, occasionally chiming in.

The other thing was reveling in the cold treat. When it was done it slung itself over the other’s shoulder. It looked at her when the other was about halfway done.

“Agent A? Could I finish his portion for him? We already have the results; would it really hurt if we just fudge the report a bit?”

She took a deep breath. She had to comply. That was what the Agent A they knew would do. She hated that thing for thinking of this; she could’ve quietly enjoyed this for another 15 minutes if it had just kept its mouth shut.

“Yes! What a good idea, honey!” She smiled. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of that sooner, Robin.”

It waved her off. “It’s okay, Agent A. They probably wanted pictures anyways I bet,” it said, looking at her.

She nodded and pulled out a camera. “They did,” she said. “You boys really are too smart for your own good,” she said.

She watched as Subject T handed Subject F the unfinished popsicle. It took it eagerly, tearing into it. Subject T scooted off the cot, going to stand by her. It opened its mouth.

She took pictures of the painful looking mouth. It was still stained from the popsicle, but you could tell the flesh itself was red and swollen. She took delight in it; knowing that, if this thing could feel discomfort and pain at least, that it was. This certainly couldn’t be comfortable at least.

She finished taking the pictures and looked over to the other thing. “And how do you feel, Phantom?”

“’s a bummer Rob’s in pain,” it said, licking some of the melted part that dripped down his hand, “But this is like. Wow. It’s like it’s fixing something in my chest,” it continued.

She made sure to laugh a bit.

“It’s a ‘bummer’ I’m in pain?” Subject T repeated, mock offended. “Wow. I know how you feel about me now. Thanks, man.”

They laughed. She made sure to laugh, too. It’d be bad if she suddenly stopped.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, getting up, “Be good! I think they want to do further testing,” she said. “I’m going to try to lead the experiment, but I’m not sure if they’re going to let me or not.”

They nodded. She left.

She made sure the locks were in place. She pressed her ear to the door.

“... don’t know how you could like these things,” Subject T said.

“They’re good? They’re cherry flavored!”

She heard a bright laugh.

“Dude, exactly. It’s cherry, not even grape or blue raspberry-”

She rolled her eyes and went away. She huffed. They rarely actually had conversations of value. If she hadn’t personally witnessed some of their rare moments of intelligent thought, she wouldn’t believe them capable.

She went to the medical area where agents J and V were preparing for the next bout of experiment on the creatures. She looked around at the various things they had dragged in; Bunsen burners and freezers, fridges and kettles. She smiled a bit. “You two have been busy,” she said.

Agent J looked at her. “You could’ve helped,” they muttered.

“I’ve conducting an experiment on the subjects,” she said, looking at her. “Besides, Bryce just lost his first tooth and Suzy’s sick. I’ve been busy with my family.”

Agent J huffed. “I’m well aware you have children,” they said. “That doesn’t mean you get to skip out on work.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Wait, back up,” Agent V interrupted. “Did you say Bryce lost his first tooth?”

She smiled fondly. It was softer than any of the smiles she’d ever given the things parading around as children. “Yes!”

She squealed, a smile on her face. “He’s getting so big!” She exclaimed, going around to hug her from the side. Agent J tried to hide a small smile of their own.

“I remember when you had the baby shower,” they said quietly.

She gave a smile of her own. “Yeah,” she said, tearing up. “I do too.”

“That was when the hubby tried to bake the reveal cake, right?”

She groaned, “Yes,” she said.

Agent J perked up. “Oh! That was the one that turned out-”

“Green!” They all said in unison, devolving into laughter.

Agent V looked at her. “How are you holding up, anyways? I know it must be hard interacting with those things day in and day out.”

She sighed. “It is hard, but it’s worth it. If we can find a way to recreate whatever it was that made them like that without harming any children? It’ll be worth it.”

“I think we need to start looking into ways to neutralize them if they go rogue,” Agent J stated. “Especially if we end up recreating them. Could you imagine the damage they could do if they got loose?”

Agent A shuddered. “I know,” she started messing with various cords, beginning to tidy them. “I think the blood blossom experiment was promising, but I want to study these two a bit more. I haven’t been able to plant the bug yet,” she said.

Agent V looked at her. “You mean you haven’t-”

“No! They check every time I leave, still!”

Agent J whistled. “You’re doing the emotional attachment experiment again?”

“Yes, otherwise I’d take myself off of this case,” she said.

“Ah,” Agent J hummed, “And here I was thinking you’d gone soft."

“Oh, please,” Agent A scoffed. “Me? Soft? When have you ever-”

“I know! That’s why I was confused! I was going to go to the board soon if you didn’t get your priorities straight! I’ve never known one of your emotional experiments to go on for this long.”

She rolled her eyes. “They’re so suspicious! All the time!” She exclaimed.

“Yeah, I’ve barely been able to get a glimpse of them since I cut off that one’s hand,” Agent V rolled her eyes. “It’s not like it didn’t grow back.”

“Speaking of, have we tested how good of a hand it is? Does it function?”

“I suspect it has some sort of severe nerve damage,” Agent A stated, “But I haven’t been able to test the motor functions just yet. It keeps it close to its chest.”

Agent J scoffed. “Cute. Want to see if we can do that today?”

She hummed. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

Agent V snorted. “Maybe I should cut it off again if it’s defective and see if it grows a better one,” she joked.

Agent J huffed out a laugh. “No. We might’ve gone a bit too far with that one,” they admitted.

She let out an ugly laugh. “Didn’t you force the other one to watch?!”

Agent A laughed along with her. “You did what! And I thought you were the neutral party!”

Agent J adjusted their goggles. “Yeah, I uh, was not in the best mood. Betty and I got in an argument that morning,” they said.

“Um... excuse me?” A timid voice from the hall asked.

They turned to find one of the newer agents standing in the hall. They looked at each other. Agent J raised an eyebrow. “Can we help you?”

The agent squeaked. “Um, well, I was trying to text an update to my partner, but my phone isn’t working? I was wondering-”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t be bringing that to work,” Agent V said, moving towards him. “The ectoplasm around here renders most electronics useless within a couple of weeks, especially cellphones. Plus, we’ve had issues with ghost trackers and such in the past, so we developed tech that renders them more or less useless. Your phone will be fine a few hours after you get home,” she said, tapping it. “But from now on, don’t bring it, unless you really want the new model.”

She bent down and looked him in the eye. “Don’t they cover that during orientation?”

He shook his head. “They said something about blank spots and not using your phones around the ghosts, but they never said they shouldn’t be brought to work,” he said.

She hummed. “Yeah. Maybe leave it in the car next time? I’m sorry about the miscommunication, I’ll talk to my wife about giving the right information.”

He squeaked again. “I-I’m sure-”

“Shut it,” she said, looking down at him. “Don’t lie to my face next time. Scram.”

He did.

Agent A snorted. “V, you don’t have a wife,” she said.

Agent V looked at her, grinning. “He didn’t know that.”

Agent J huffed. “Stop traumatizing the interns. I think we’re ready to bring in the subjects, which one of you wants to get them?"

Agent A started making her way towards the door. “I’m going to take a break. Agent V, do you-”

“Yes!” She said, already walking out of the room.

Agent J sighed. “I suppose you’ll come in halfway through to play the ‘oh poor pitiful baby’ routine?”

She snorted. “Yeah. I can’t wait until I can be done with this. Those things are driving me nuts.

Agent J hummed. “You’d better go then. Have a nice break."

She smiled back. “Thanks. Have fun experimenting.”  

They smirked. “Oh, you bet your ass I will.”

She laughed and left the room.

As she approached the break room, she caught some conversation. “... They were real skinny, too. Just a couple of kids, man. One tripped, and the agent walkin’ with them yelled at them, accused them of tryin’ something,” she heard. She slowed down, stopping by the door.

“Dude, I’ve seen them before. Once I saw them bringing them back to their room; they cut off one of their hands to see if it’d grow back.”

“Oh my god,” she heard another voice. “Should we report this?”

She rolled her eyes. She walked into the break room. “You three know that they’re ghosts, right?”

They looked up at her like deer caught in headlights. She sighed.

She hated having to explain things like this to the new guys, but having them still believe that ghosts, no matter what shape they took, could be sentient was dangerous. It left them vulnerable.

She pulled up a chair. Why was it always up to her to do other people’s jobs?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The things huddled together as they walked down the halls. “Move, dogs,” she barked. They flinched.

She loved seeing these things squirm.

Ghosts took just about everything from her. Her eye. Her chance at love. Her career. The least she could do was return the favor, right?

She pushed one forwards, tripping it. The chain she’d put around its throat pulled on the collar, shocking it. She laughed a bit. “Can’t keep your balance, F? You really are fucking pathetic,’ she sneered.

She grabs them both by the hair and starts dragging them. It’s not like they could feel pain, right?

She didn’t let their tired eyes with the bags underneath fool her. She knew they were faking it. She saw it in the way they carried themselves; they weren’t afraid of anything. That was where she and Agent A disagreed.

Sure, they probably dread getting hurt because it means healing times. They probably do, to some degree, feel discomfort from the beatings. But they don’t feel beyond that. She knows they can’t; they’re ghosts. Ghosts don’t have feelings. They don’t feel pain. They can’t have intelligence or anything of the sort.

When they get to the room, she flings Subject F to the left and Subject T to the right. “On the cots, dogs,” she said.

Agent J raised an eyebrow at her. “Thank you for bringing them in, Agent V,” they said simply. “I trust you did not harm them?”

She rolled her eyes. “As much as these things can’t be harmed, yes,” she replied.

“Excellent. Grab the ice, please,” they said.

She grabbed the ice and brought it over to Subject T. “Eat,” she said, thrusting it into its hand.

It hissed a bit before doing as it was told. She grabbed it by the hair, “What was that?”

It looked up at her. The ice stuck to the inside of its cheek, making small ripping noises as it tried to move its mouth. “It hurts.”

She rolled her eyes. “How stupid do you think we are? We know you can’t feel pain,” she said.

Agent J added, “And if you could, it’s just ice. No need to be dramatic.

It looked down. “Yes, Agent J.”

She felt a jolt of anger run through her. She grabbed its hair again, yanking hard. “And?”

It swallowed frantically, “Yes-yes ma’am,” it choked out.

Agent J handed subject F a cup of hot but cooled to normal drinking level tea. “Drink,” they demanded. It followed the instruction.

She watched as Agent J took notes. The temperature experiments were never one of her favorites; this was the bulk of it right here, giving them something of a certain temperature and seeing how they reacted. She decided to make it more... interesting.

She grabbed the kettle, hauling it over to the sink and filling it up. She ignored the look that Agent J gave her as she brought it back to sit on its platform, waiting for it to begin to boil. She mostly watched as Agent J gave them things; Warm bread, cold puddings, seeing where the limits lay. She rolled her eyes.

Once it began to boil, she grinned. She picked it up and moved towards Subject T.

“Open your mouth,” she demanded.

It turned to her, eyes wide. “But-”

“Now,” she said, holding his jaw. He opened it and she forced his head back, pouring the boiling water directly into his throat.

Nothing happpened. It remained undamaged. Agent J stared at them.

“Interesting,” they mumbled. “Subject T. How do you feel?”

He looked at them. “... Fine?” he squeaked out. “Like I drank a cup of tea a little too fast?”

They hummed, marking it down. She looked at Subject F.

It tried to back up but she was quicker. She could tell the other one wanted to step in as she grabbed this one by the hair, forcing its head back. It opened its mouth, probably to scream as she poured the water down its throat.

It screamed. Blisters formed nearly immediately. She took out a camera and put down the kettle to take pictures of the things.

It cried as she did so. She rolled her eyes; when will these things learn?

The other one stared in shock. “Why would you do that?” It whispered.

“We needed to see how you two would react to boiling water,” she said simply. Agent J maintained their composure, but she could see they were slightly amused.

It got angry. “This isn’t an experiment! This is cruel! You have the data you need-”

“You don’t know what we have,” she said, turning to face it. It was starting to annoy her.

“I know you have enough! What more do you want from us? We’ve given you everything you’ve ever asked for and yet-”

“You hush!” She snapped. “Before I make you-”

“Agent V,” Agent J reprimanded. “Just punish it and be done.”

She smirked. They didn’t have any suture kits; they didn’t need them today, unfortunately; but she did have her knife on her. “With pleasure,” she said, stalking towards it.

It also tried to back up but she caught it by the hair, “What? You want to scream at me when you think you can get away with it but the moment you face repercussions for your actions, you try to run?” she sneered. Who did this thing think it was?

“I’m not sorry,” it grit out. “You’re all evil, you’re not scientists-”

She slapped it. “You shut up, before you make this worse for yourself,” she hissed. The other thing was still crying in pain. She smiled.

“You know what? How about I split your punishment for that,” she said.

Its eyes widened. “No,” it said softly.

“Oh, yes,” she said as it protested more, “Shut up before I do something much worse,” she said as she yanked its shirt up. “You’re lucky I haven’t already decided on a much worse punishment,” she said.

“You belong to me,” she continued, pressing her knife into its back. “You both do. Don’t forget it again,” she said, drawing her blade down its back. She picked it up, going to the other side.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t try that now,” she hissed. “You’ve already made your position clear,” she drew the blade down again, connecting the points at the bottom. “This is your reminder that things could be much, much worse. You’re lucky I’m not getting the blood blossoms out to dress your wounds,” she said, leaning in close. “And you’d better watch every second of me doing this to the other one,” she said, getting in its face.

“Please, he didn’t do anything-”

“That’s the point, dog,” she said. “You did. This is all you. This entire punishment is your fault,” she said, waving the knife in front of its face. “This is called ‘consequences’. Don’t fucking forget it again,” she said, grabbing the other one and flipping it over.

She dragged it out more than she had the first time, watching the blood curl and pool around the knife as she dragged it down. She admired her work.

Marking them with the ‘V’ might be overkill, but what else was she supposed to do?

It’s not like these things were anything more than a bag of ectoplasm. They weren’t real; they pretty much amounted to objects. Not even pets.

They were just things that only knew destruction. They didn’t know what it was like to truly fear something, to love. She didn’t feel bad for it.

These things were willing to take any sign of weakness and exploit it. It saw sympathy as something to leverage. It didn’t know that a human being, a real human being was fragile.

She felt bad for the children that had to die so it could play its sick game. Maybe she could make the body a non-viable option and save the kid trapped in it.

She sighed. No. Agent A already determined the kids were gone; only the ghosts were left. She could mourn for them on her own time. Right now, she had to deal with the things parading around their corpses.

She grabbed some gloves, putting them securely on her hands. Agent J watched her as she picked up the tongs, using them to pick up the dry ice they had laid out for the subjects.

She pressed it against subject T’s chest. It screamed, trying to squirm. “Stop,” she hissed, digging her nails in it. “If you don’t, I’ll get more boiling water for Subject F,” she threatened.

It still whimpered and cried, but it stopped squirming as harshly. It’d have to do. She was already getting bored again watching it happen.

For the sake of the experiment, she grabbed another piece of dry ice and placed it on the other twin, who looked at it curiously. It tried to speak but nothing except garbled sounds came out. She knew what it was trying to ask; she did not care for it. She turned away.

“I’m going to the vending machine,” she called over her shoulder. “Want anything?”

“No,” Agent J called back.

She strolled out of the room. As she walked down the halls, she passed Agent A. She raised an eyebrow.

Well, guess she didn’t need to go back. She rerouted.

Might as well take her break now, right? She wasn’t going to be needed again anytime soon.

She laughed to herself. She couldn’t wait to get the green light to destabilize those things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They were always stuck with the cleanup.

When Agent A stormed in to make a big stink, they had to remind themselves that it was just part of their experiment. They weren’t exactly sure why they had decided to do it again, but they had. Everyone else was paying for it, though.

They mopped up the blood first. Sticky and red and so unsanitary. If Agent V had ever come back from the ‘vending machine’, they’d be making her do this. Unbelievable. They didn’t even make this mess!

They rolled their eyes. They mopped the floor, finding water from the boiling water. They cleaned up the discarded medical supplies Agent A used to dress the wounds left behind on the subjects.

Why had they gone into this position again? It’s not like they needed the money. They had plenty; they could retire now and be set for life, even with inflation. Hell, they could move to another country and still not have to work another day in their natural-born life.

They sighed. They really should consider a career switch. It’s not like they hadn’t before, but these new subjects were just...

They weren’t kids. That’s what they kept telling themselves; even with all the things they hear them reference when they think they aren’t listening, and the slang they use, and their tiny faces still full of baby fat, they aren’t kids. They’re things parading around in a kid’s corpse; they tried to find it somewhere in them to be angry about it. To get upset and rage.

They couldn’t. It was like everything had been sapped out of them when it came to those two. They had caught themselves almost referring to them by their names before.

Daniel James Fenton and Jason Peter Todd. They’d found the first one fairly easily, and the second only shortly after. They figured Bruce Wayne did something to make him this way, but they still couldn’t figure out what or how to reverse it. They were fairly sure that Jason hadn’t actually been Robin, so they didn’t consider magic or anything of the sort just yet.

Whatever it was, they were angry. Billionaires thought they could do just anything they wanted and get away with it. That child was dead because of his negligence; he had something parading around his body. They felt for him.

But the thing was not Jason Peter Todd. It was Subject T. It was something to be disdained and hated, not pitied. They could mourn for Jason at a later date. Right now, they had to deal with the thing wearing his face.

They sat down heavily. They looked at the room, still messy and unkempt. They shook their head.

They still couldn’t believe the ‘queen’ insisted on them seeing if they could recreate this. As if seeing the children that were affected by these things wasn’t enough to shut down the project. It would be one thing if they were studying them to prevent it from happening again; it shouldn’t happen again; but specifically, to replicate this? This was wrong. This shouldn’t be happening.

But, then again, it could be nice to have half-human hybrids to send into the zone to destroy it. The Fenton's already had prototypes of portable portals; they were just putting on the finishing touches. If they could have someone that was safe in the zone go in and do what they need to, and come out unscathed? They’d have to destabilize them afterwards, of course, but it could be revolutionary for the cause.

That didn’t mean they didn’t think this was heinous. This was still massively messed up and they wished it didn’t have to happen at all.

Children shouldn’t have to die because of the adults around them. The negligence involved was incredibly heartbreaking. They hoped the ward could see that. They wanted better for the children involved here.

They sighed, looking over their notes. They added some. They looked over the pictures, of the way the dry ice had bonded to Subject T’s skin and the boils involved with Subject F’s experience. Though, they had to admit, Agent A had a brilliant idea when they suggested they put the dry ice on Subject F’s boiling wounds and boiling water on Subject T’s dry ice situation. It had shown some promising results; they had almost been healed when they walked out today. It truly was remarkable.

They still hadn’t figured out what made some subjects so sensitive to certain temperatures. They’d been trying for years but couldn’t figure it out. They paused.

Different ghosts had different powers, right? They knew they also didn’t have organs like humans did, but the hybrids had to be different. So, what made the powers come into play?

They rushed over to the various machines. They wondered if they could scan these ones, because of the human nature of them. MRI’s, CAT’s, PET’s. Everything. They might even do an echo exam just to see how the heart worked; they would have to have one if they still had the human body, right?

They furiously wrote. If they could figure out what produced the ectoplasm, what caused the ghost to take form, they could prevent it from happening and potentially stop the epidemic at the source. If they could do that, they could get rid of the monsters as a whole.

They grinned. This was brilliant. If they could do this, then they could prevent more people from having to become hybrids with the monsters! If they could do that, then they could euthanize the ones they currently had and finally put the children to rest. They smiled softly.

They wondered who they were in life. What their passions were. What they’d been like. Did they play sports? Did they read? Were they into video games? This was the sort of thing they’d wondered about all the ghosts that came in. They hated seeing people become monsters, tied to obsessions they couldn’t control. It was painfully familiar to watching their mom in her final days. She’d been beautiful; now, she was in the ground too soon. They pushed the thought out of their heads.

They just had to finish this. They had to finish this, then they could focus on other endeavors.

The head was a busy woman and didn’t have time to waste going over experiment requests that were half formed.

If they could do the scans and tests, then they could see how the hybrids worked compared to humans. Any abnormalities they saw, they could attribute to the ghosts. Since they couldn’t scan ghosts, this would be the way to get the information they previously could not receive.

From there, they could figure out what made the ghost a ghost. Brain activity, heart rates, even the way the organs were positioned and functioned. From there, they could see what made the ghosts destabilize to begin with!

They’d already determined that eating blood blossoms didn’t prevent a ghost from forming, but if they knew how they worked when they were already formed, they could prevent that in regular people, and they’d never form. They could add ingredients to food and in the water supply, or force people to take medications. This could work!

Any ethical concerns that cropped up could be easily quelled. This was more important. Once the public learned that ghosts were willing to kill your kids to get access to human bodies, they’d understand. Ghosts would do anything to mess with humanity and they’d gone unchecked for far too long. They knew there’d be pushbacks, but they were the heroes here! They could even go to the Justice League one day if this got big enough, get them on their side! A ghost would never be able to do this again. They’d be able to save any future kids from this fate. They smiled as they finished writing the proposal, running towards the head’s office. This couldn’t wait; it was too important.

Children’s lives were on the line.

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day twenty #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Nineteen

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Nineteen Taken For Granted/Left Behind/”Why Wasn’t I Enough?”

Alt. Prompt For Day Nineteen Hypnosis 

Prompts Used for Day Nineteen "Why Wasn't I Enough?"

Tw's; Vomit, Guns, Injury Mention

Chapter Nineteen under the cut :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summertime was always fun. Getting ice cream, hanging out with friends, having no responsibilities for three months; it was a break from the monotonous routine of going to school, dealing with people that hated him for seven straight hours, coming home to do work and doing it all over again.

The best part about summer was having time to spend with his mom. Going to different places just to stargaze, getting to see different parts of the world while hunting for ghosts? Even if his parents could be annoying sometimes, it was fine. All he really had to do was get past Jazz and everything would be alright.

Like right now! After the Fenton-Portal didn’t work, they were preparing for a trip out of state to go to different conventions and see if they can figure out what was going on with it so they could fix it. They might even be back in time for his birthday.

He heard his phone ring from the stand. He turned and answered it; it was glitching slightly, he’d have to have Tucker look at it if it didn’t fix itself.

“Hey, Danny speaking. Talk to me,” he greeted.

There was horrible, wet coughing on the other end of the line. “Danny,” Tucker said and sniffed, “We hanging out today?”

He winced. “Dude, even if I weren’t packing for a trip right now, I wouldn’t hang with you. You sound awful, what’s up?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just so cold right now.”

His voice sounded off, but not sick-off. He wondered if he did something to his throat; his voice sounded a lot deeper. The words caught up to him and he frowned. “Dude, what are you talking about? I’m melting over here,” he replied as he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

Tucker groaned. “No, I’m like, so cold right now dude,” he said. Danny laughed a bit.

“You’re sick, man. Go get some sleep, I’ll call Sam and let her know. I’m sure she’ll bring you something.”

“Ugh, veggie crap,” he sniffed. “I want Nasty Burger.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Goodbye, Tucker,” he said into the receiver and hung up.

He went to put his phone in his pocket when he saw something in the reflection. Giving a little “huh?”, he went to check again. There was a soft knock on the door.

He turned around. “Yeah?”

Jazz walked in with some pancakes. “I figured you’d want something before we have to live off protein bars and stuff that really shouldn’t count as fruit,” she joked.

Her voice was slightly off, too. It was almost like she had an... echo?

“Thanks, Jazz,” he said, grabbing the plate from her. He swore he could still hear someone talking. “Are mom and dad down stairs?”

“Yeah, they’re finishing putting up the last of the defenses against ghosts. You know how they are.”

He nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, they’re a bit... eccentric,” he said.

She snorted. “Did you hear that they determined that ghosts don’t have digestive systems because any food they give them disappears?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s dumb, maybe they just process it a different way? Also, since when are you interested in this crap?”

She frowned. “I...”

“Jazzerincess! Danno! It’s time to go, are you kids done packing-” Jack called from downstairs, devolving into a coughing fit. They heard Maddie offer him a tissue.

Something about it made his insides go cold for just a few moments before he shook it off. The oppressive heat immediately took its place again. Today was shaping up to be weirder than usual. “Almost done dad!” he shouted back.

He looked at Jazz, stuffing his phone in his pocket so he could grab a still-warm pancake. “Thanks, Jazz,” he said. “I’ve gotta finish up packing before dad chokes on his own saliva again and we never get out of here.”

She giggled and left.

Assuming the voices he could hardly hear were his parents', he finished packing. Occasionally, he thought he could see something out of the corner of his eye. He assumed it was nothing. He ate bits of pancake as he went.

He carried his bags downstairs. He‘d sensibly packed a backpack of the essentials and a smaller backpack of consoles, chargers, and books to keep himself occupied in the car and whatever hotels or campsites they stopped at. He had headphones with him. He thought of everything.

He cursed. He’d almost forgotten to grab his toothbrush.

He set the bags on the couch and ran back upstairs, waving to Jazz as he went. There was a weird show on TV showing a boy eating soup in some sort of room with a hospital bed. There was another boy next to him laying down.

He slid into the bathroom, almost crashing into the bathtub as he did. He wrenched open the cabinet before he could think about it too hard, grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste to go back down the stairs so they could leave.

He shook his head. He thought he saw something weird.

He grabbed his small bag, putting the toothbrush and toothpaste in the side pocket and started to head for the car. The sun beat down on them from above, causing more beads of sweat to drip down his face uncomfortably and make him regret his choice of not going to go stay with Tucker while they did this. Tucker and Sam both had air conditioning.

He thought of the thick cough his friend had this morning. On second thought, he was glad he didn’t stay with him; he didn’t want whatever disease Tucker had contracted.

They piled into the car and started driving down the road. He picked up the copy of Pride and Prejudice Jazz lent him for the trip and started reading.

“Danny, sweetie, why don’t you put some sunscreen on?”

He frowned. “Not right now, mom,” he said.

She huffed. “Why don’t you at least have some soup?”

He frowned. “Soup?”

She tried to shove a thermos in his face. “Come on, sweetie, for me?”

He curled up on himself. “Mom, I don’t want to get souped again,” he said. “Remember the last time I ate soup in the car?”

“Danny, just take the soup so she’ll leave you alone,” Jazz said, grabbing the thermos and shoving it in his hands.

He took a drink. It tasted like piss; he gagged slightly. He noticed his mom and Jazz staring at him expectantly. 

“It’s hot,” he said. It was; it burned as he drank.

“Good. Drink it,” his mom said.

He rolled his eyes. He drank as much of the soup as he could, just so she’s stop.

The lingering taste twisted his stomach. As the car moved forward it got worse.

He tried to focus on the book. He hummed under his breath. They’d probably get mad at him if another soup incident began.

He watched as Jazz downed some soup of her own. He didn’t know how she could stand it; the heat was building up in the GAV. He knew better than to ask to turn on the air conditioning; his parents were strict about where and when they turned it on. It was one of the few things that was non-negotiable.

He was beginning to think he was right to put the tank-top on but was sorely regretting wearing sweatpants.

His gut twisted. He jerked in his seat. “Pull over."

“What-”

“Pull over!”

His dad pulled over as he allowed Jazz to take the book. He pulled off his seat belt, opening his door and leaning out.

He could feel Jazz rubbing his back and whispering something to him. It was weird; her voice almost sounded like Tucker’s had earlier.

His mom forced some water into his mouth. He obediently swallowed.

They sat there for a moment, Danny collapsing into the seat. He thought he could vaguely hear a Tick, Tick, Tick, somewhere in the car. Another roll of nausea waved through him.

His gut cramped painfully as he retched, Jazz once again rubbing his back. He thought he could feel someone’s hand in his hair, but he couldn’t decipher who’s.

His mom handed him a tissue to wipe his mouth with when he was done.

They got back on the road, Jazz helping to prop him up using some of the pillows she’d brought. She leaned him over to rest his head on her shoulder.

He almost let the lull of the road put him to sleep. He closed his eyes and let the motion soothe him; he warned them not to give him soup on the road. This was exactly what happened last time he was given soup in the car.

He rubbed his eyes, cleaning out the crusty bits trying to glue them together. Jazz absently kept petting his head. He stared at his dad’s seat.

The driving was too smooth. It was almost like his dad actually knew how to drive; it was nice, and not that he wanted to question it, but it worried him. Jack had never been able to drive this well.

It was like he’d been replaced. He looked around.

He thought he saw something white at the edge of his vision. What was-

They pulled into a truck stop as he started questioning himself. He shook his head; he always got way too car sick on these long trips, especially when he was hot. The soup hadn’t helped. The taste in the back of his throat didn’t help the nausea that still lingered in his stomach.

“What happened to him?” He heard someone ask as they got out of the car.

“He got carsick,” Maddie replied, looking at the person with a protective glare.

Their face scrunched up. “How’d you deal with that in the car?”

“We pulled over,” she stated flatly.

They scoffed. “Figures. Parents these days are much too soft on their misbehaving children.”

“You listen here-”

“Mads! You and Danno comin’?” Jack called. When they turned back, the person was gone.

They shook it off, Maddie helping Danny into the truck stop. When they got inside, she encouraged him to go to his dad.

He almost tripped, Jack catching him and smiling down. “You okay, champ?” he asked.

Danny nodded. He opened his mouth and frowned. He could swear he heard something.

“... Ghosts parading around as teenagers. Don’t be fooled-"

He looked around. “What was-”

Jack started tugging him to the bathroom. “Come on, Danno, let’s get you cleaned up.”

He followed his father on unsteady feet. The more he looked around, the weirder it was getting. Most of the people around them were wearing white; White hoodies and sweats, white blouses with white jeans, white dresses. It was starting to freak him out.

They went into the bathroom. He went into a stall, trying to calm down. What was going on? What was happening here?

He took several deep breaths, trying to gather his thoughts. Sweat dripped down his neck, soaking his tank. He felt wet in places that he didn’t know he could sweat; it felt like he’s had an accident on his way here.

He really wished he’d had the forethought to wear shorts. He wasn’t even sure where they were going, but wherever it was, it was just getting warmer.

He heard someone knock on the stall door. He figured that was as good of a sign as anything that he’d been in here too long and to get out.

He opened the door and got out, going towards a sink. He turned on the cold water and thought about it for a second as it ran.

He stuck his hand under the cold stream. He was going to splash his face, but couldn’t quite get the motions down. Desperate for any sort of relief from the heat, he stuck his head under the faucet.

“Danny?” He heard his dad ask. “You okay there, buddy?”

He didn’t respond. The cold was a blessing on his flushed skin. He already felt like his head was clearing.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Someone had an annoyingly loud watch. He decided he didn’t want to know who, staying under the stream for what was probably longer than necessary.

He went up for air for just a moment before going back to the stream. He wanted to stick his whole body in the sink but didn’t think that would be a very pleasant thing to do to the rest of the people in the small space.

He felt his dad’s hand on his shoulder. “Okay, champ, that’s enough,” he said. He held the whine that tried to escape his chest back by the skin of his teeth; it was like finally getting a glass of water after years without it, and somebody coming along and saying you’d had too much. He almost wrenched himself from his father’s grasp to go back underneath the cool stream.

Jack helped him dry off with paper towels. He felt more balanced as they walked back to the car, even as he mourned the cold stream of the sink.

The walk felt longer than it had when they were going to the bathroom. He figured he’d been more out of it before, and now he could appreciate it.

… Assuming you could appreciate a sea of white like this. He didn’t know what was up with that. Oh well; it’s not like his own tank top wasn’t white. It was a hot day, after all. That must be it.

As they walked, he got the distinct feeling of something just being... wrong.

Tick, Tick, Tick

He turned. Nothing. He took a deep breath. He was fine; it was just hot. The heat was getting to him, consuming him whole. That’s all. A cold drink and getting his parents to turn on the AC would fix everything.

His mom and Jazz were already waiting by the car, holding drinks when they got there. His dad opened his door for him, making sure he was in the car completely before closing with a distinct slam. It almost sounded like someone closing the lab door a bit too hard. Everybody got settled before putting on seatbelts and starting the GAV.

He looked around at Maddie and Jazz, waiting patiently for them to begin to pass out drinks. He hoped they got him ice-cold water.

He could see it in his mom’s hand. He waited patiently, not willing to risk his chance of getting them to put on the ac. He could feel sweat still dripping down his back as he waited.

He picked up the book, feeling good enough to go back to reading. He was getting to the good part where Elizabeth finally talked to Mr. Darcy about George Wickham. He was never one to reread a book to hunt for the finer details, but something about this book-

Hang on... when did he first read Pride and Prejudice ? He tried to think back, combing over his education. He normally wasn’t one to read for fun. He opened his mouth to ask Jazz when she read it in school, only for his mom to make a noise.

“Oh! I’m sorry, guys, I forgot to pass out drinks,” she said, turning around and handing Danny and Jazz their waters.

He tore into his easily, making sure not to lose his place in the book. Jazz grabbed it from his lap. He thanked her before tilting his head back, drinking the cold water greedily. It soothed something in his chest, cooling him down and making him feel more human.

When he was done, he asked if they could turn on the ac. His mom twisted to look at him, Jazz giving him the same look.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?” She asked, pressing her hand to his forehead. She frowned. “You’re really warm. Baby, it’s not that hot in here.”

“What are you talking about?” He asked. “It’s boiling; I feel like I’m melting,” he complained.

Jazz grabbed his shoulder. “Danny, it’s really not that hot in here. Do you need us to stop the car? You drank your water pretty fast-”

“No, I’m not nauseous,” he said instead. “I’m fine. It’s just hot, can we turn on the ac?”

His dad looked at him through the rear-view mirror, “We’ll stop to get you something else cold to drink soon, champ. This ac isn’t going on; you might be hot, but the rest of us are fine,” he said, not unkindly.

He didn’t protest any more. He knew better than that; if he pushed, it’d just get his dad mad and, although the man wouldn’t mean to, his driving would become more erratic than it normally was and he’d nearly crash the car again. Considering they were in the GAV, a lot more damage could be done, and he really didn’t want to know how that would play out.

His nose ran a bit. He wiped it, taking a tissue from his mom and putting it in the bag she’d brought for their trash. He cracked his wrists, which had become stiff for... whatever reason. Especially his left. He moved his fingers; they felt stiff and borderline unusable. Cracking the knuckles didn’t help.

He took the book back from Jazz. Where was he again?

Ah, yes, the absolute drama fest Elizabeth had created for herself by not taking warnings as they came.

He smiled a bit. At least she wasn’t Jane; oh, that girl would drive him crazy. He wondered what her father would do in real life to that man. He knew his dad would NOT have stood for that sort of behavior from any suitor of Jazz’s.

He shook his head. Maybe he was getting too into this. Ah, well. What else was he going to do? His wrist felt too stiff for videogames right now.

Tick, Tick, Tick

The car slowed down. He hadn’t realized just how much time had passed; they were in some sort of desert. “Okay, everybody out,” Jack said.

They began getting out of the GAV. His mom grabbed the tents, beginning to set them up. He watched her; she was completely dry as he sweat through his clothes. He felt absolutely soaked.

He thought about putting one of Jazz’s blankets up on the open doors to create a privacy barrier to change behind, but he decided against it. He’d just sweat through those too.

He spotted a door.

Tick, Tick, Tick

He went towards it. He didn’t hear anyone call him back as he went to the door in the middle of nowhere. He wondered what it was doing out there.

He opened it easily. He looked back. He normally didn’t act on these sorts of impulses, but something was wrong. He could feel it. He needed to do this.

He walked through the door, coming to a winding path of halls. He began to walk. Occasionally, he’d see little glowing markers. He went down those hallways; he had a feeling they were important. He couldn’t explain it; it was like something was leading him to something big.

He looked around at the emerald-colored floors. The trim was intricate; it looked like someone had hand-carved it, taking hours of work just to hang here. He had the feeling it would’ve been an honor to have completed a project like that. The tapestries that hung on the walls had the same vibe; it was like they were made specifically for these granite walls.

He had the distinct feeling he’d been here before but couldn’t place when. It was like thinking back to a dream you’d had years before. He looked around.

Occasionally he’d see beautiful statues made from expensive-looking material. He had no idea where he was, but it felt like he’d seen them before. He frowned, trying to think. His breathing was harsh, even though he hadn’t done much actual exercise. He tried to wrack his brain.

He heard voices. He checked the glowing markers; they went straight to the voices. He understood the language, though he didn’t think he’d ever heard it before.

“Mother, why must I learn about this?”

“Because you will need to know soon, darling,” a woman answered.

He peaked his head around the threshold. He saw a woman and a child sitting on an expensive-looking bed with silky sheets.

“Mother, I promise I am ready-”

“Darling, I know you are ready for combat. I want your life to have more than that.”

Danny stepped further into view. Both of their heads snapped towards him. The woman furrowed her brow as the child grabbed a knife from under the pillow.

“INTRUDER!” He shouted, starting to lunge at him.

“Darling, stop,” the woman murmured.

She walked up to him. She was beautiful. She was vaguely familiar; why was everything so familiar-

“Habibi,” she said. Darling, his mind supplied. “What are you doing in this place? How did you get here?”

He opened his mouth to tell her of his parents and their road trip. He couldn’t get the words out. Instead, he stammered out, “I- I’m not sure.”

She placed a hand on his cheek. “You are very flushed,” she said. She turned over her shoulder.

“Darling, go get a servant. Ask them, nicely, to bring me some cold water.”

He nodded seriously. “Yes, mother.”

He started running as fast as his small feet would carry him.

The woman turned back to him. “Jason, your father is incredibly worried for you. Where did you come from?”

He was more confused than he was before. “My name is Danny,” he said.

The woman looked more concerned. “Habibi, what do you speak of?”

The feeling that had been building made his stomach roll. “I think we’re in trouble,” he muttered, almost collapsing.

She caught him easily. “Who is ‘we’, habibi?”

He licked his lips. “Me and Jason.”

She sat him down. “Explain.”

He tried to think. “I-I think, we’re being held... captive?”

She nodded. “I heard the same rumor. Where are you?”

He closed his eyes. He tried to think. “It hurts,” he whimpered. He felt her cup his cheek, stroking his hair.

“I know. Describe where you are, habibi, so we can help you and Jason.”

“... White. White room.”

“Good, good, what about the people?”

His breath hitched. “White suit.”

He opened his eyes. His gaze caught a mirror. If he turned his head right...

“She’s giving him soup.”

The woman looked at him. “What?”

“The- the lady. She’s giving him soup,” he repeated.

He vaguely registered her looking to follow his gaze. “You see him? In the mirror?”

“Yes,” he said. “She had two bowls... I don’t know why- I think she’s getting me something cold.”

“Can you hear them?”

He shook his head slightly. “I think I could before. I couldn’t hear them this time.”

She hummed. “Why did they take you?”

He made a pained noise. “I... I can’t remember. Everything’s wrong. I can’t think-”

“Shh,” she soothed. “It’s alright, habibi. Just relax,” she rubbed his shoulder. “Try to think. What happened when they took you?”

He tried to think. It was like trying to remember a past life.

“They don’t like us.”

He heard her hum again. “You’re doing well,” she said. She rubbed his cheek. “Habibi, why don’t they like you and Jason?”

He felt something painful in his wrist. “They don’t think we’re human.”

She blinked. “What does that mean, habibi?”

He tried to remember. Why didn’t they think he was human again? He felt pretty human right now.

“I...” he trailed off. “She’s back.”

The small child the woman had sent out earlier came back, a cup of cold water in his hand. “Mother, I could not find a servant, so I did the task myself.”

She gently took the water from him. “Thank you, darling. Can you leave us for a few moments?”

He looked like he wanted to pout. “Yes, mother,” he said instead, leaving the room once more.

She held the glass to Danny’s lips at the same time the boy, Jason, held a spoon to his. The cold was soothing, filling his body with relief. The water only soothed for a few seconds.

The woman holding him in her arms tried to ask a question, but he couldn’t hear her. He realized it was the cold broth that soothed his insides. He shook with effort, trying to get his body to hold the spoon.

He got it. He began to watch himself spoon it into his mouth and swallow. With each mouth full, he felt better. He looked at the woman.

“She came back. She gave me cold broth,” he whispered. His face scrunched in concentration. “I don’t think she’s nice. She’s better than the rest, but she feels... weird.”

The woman smoothed over his hair. “Habibi, I know it’s hard, but can you remember anything else?”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t remember why they wanted him, or why his body felt like it was on fire. He couldn’t identify the feeling in his chest.

“I don’t,” he said, “I’m sorry. I-”

He got an idea. He grabbed her wrist. “My name is Daniel James Fenton,” he said. “Please. Please, look into them. Jack and Maddie, my parents. I- I think-”

He thought of the portal that didn’t work. Was it always like that? Hadn’t it been active? He couldn’t remember very much.

“You think what, habibi?” she asked, not unkindly.

“I think they have something to do with this.”

His eyes stared at nothing. Memories slammed into him, one after another. His eyes welled up.

“I wasn’t good enough for them,” he said. Tears began streaming down his face.

“For whom, habibi?”

“For them,” he emphasized. “They don’t love me anymore. They think I killed him,” he cried.

“Killed who?” She asked franticly.

“Danny,” he said. “They think I killed Danny-”

Memories flooded him. They came too fast for him to explain.

“I hurt him,” he cried. “I hurt Dash, they yelled, they found out-”

“Found what out, habibi? You need to slow down; I do not understand.”

He couldn’t. Slow down, that is. The memory of the worst day of his life snatched his breath. He screamed.

His body began glowing in a familiar pattern, going from the center of his palm to just above his heart on his chest. It tore into him, consumed everything; any rational thought he’d had before.

Tick, Tick, Tick

The woman tried to help him; he could vaguely hear her yelling something above his head.

He knew it was too late. Something inside of him told him so.

When the pain subsided just a bit, he looked at her. “It’s the GIW!” he yelled.

She snapped her head at him. “What?!”

“It’s the-”

He disappeared from her grasp. He tried to hang onto her clothing as he was snatched from her grasp; it did not work.

He was slammed back into his body besides Jason, his arm aching from the center of his-

That’s right. He looked at his half-formed hand, shaking. The pain wrapped around his wrist like a cuff, feeling like it was cutting off the circulation. He half expected to look down and find it purple.

He nearly fell off the bed. Jason caught him, trying to calm him down. “Dude,” he said, “Phantom! Phantom, what’s-”

Tears flowed down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said pathetically.

The other boy laughed slightly. “For what?”

“I couldn’t- I tried-”

Jason took him in his arms, rubbing his back. “Hey, breathe,” he said softly, “You’re not making much sense. You need to calm down, Phantom,” he said.

His body convulsed. He sobbed into the other boy’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t good enough,” he cried. “I’m sorry, I tried- I tried to tell her,”

“Shhh,” he replied, rocking him softly. “You need to calm down,” he said.

Danny looked up at him pathetically, another round of violent sobs overtaking him.

Jason, the saint he was, rolled with it. He soothed him as best as he could, rubbing down his back and shoulders. Eventually, he calmed down enough to have some semblance of having his life together. The tears stopped. He opened his mouth to tell him what he’d just seen.

The jingle of keys caught their attention. They looked towards the door, seeing an agent they’d interacted with before.

“Come on, maggots,” he said severely. “I’ve been told to take you to the bathroom.”

They followed him. Jason took his good hand in his. They followed the agent to the bathroom, trailing slightly behind as much as they could. Jason rubbed circles into his flesh as they walked.

When they got there, he went for the sink. He turned on the cold water, splashing it over himself. Once he felt like he cooled down as much as he could, he went to the stall to use the bathroom.

He had no idea if that was a real thing he’d seen or if he was just hallucinating. He thought it might not matter; whatever just happened, it’s not like he’d actually given the woman anything useful. Even if he had, what would she have done?

It was probably just his subconscious trying to soothe itself. His parents loving him, taking care of him like they used to; it was probably just a fever-induced dream. He shouldn’t read too much into it.

False hope was going to hurt more if he allowed it to. He knew there was nobody coming; his friends could easily track his ecto-signature, and he still hadn’t heard anything from Ellie. They probably cut their losses.  

That was fine. He’d been the placeholder all his life; he should’ve known that, eventually, Sam and Tucker would also move on. He’d always been someone that filled the space until someone better came along. It was his fault if he was hurt that they’d finally gone and done that very thing.

Jason looked at him, concerned. He washed his hands and bent down, drinking straight from the tap. He allowed the cold to run through his veins and cool him down; his head felt clear. He felt like he could think. He’d probably still tell Jason about it; it was just a dream he’d had when he wasn’t in his right mind.

Jason handed him a bottle. He smiled at him and filled it with cold water. He could see Jason filling his with warm. He vaguely remembered that Jason was sensitive to the cold.

He wondered why they had different temperature needs. He wondered what Jason’s core was like. He might check that out when they got to the room; he wouldn’t want to try anything in the bathroom in case someone walked in on them.

When they were about to leave, he got an idea. He took his tank top off, running it under the cold tap. Jason watched him as he wrung it out and put it back on.

“Smart,” he muttered.

Thanks,” he replied.

They made sure the bottles were in Jason’s hoodie pocket before they left. They walked back down the halls, the twists and turns melting together and giving him a low-grade headache.

When they got into the room, the agent shut the door and locked it. Jason looked at him before giving him his water.

He thanked him quietly. They looked at each other for a few minutes.

“All right,” he said eventually, “I’ll bite. Phantom, what was that earlier?”

He took a deep breath before explaining. “I don’t know, man,” he said finally, “I think my brain just likes fucking with me. ‘Why couldn’t you be good enough for your parents, you piece of shit? Huh? You a little bitch boy?’” he mocked.

Jason snorted at him. “I don’t think it’s stupid, if it makes you feel better. That is weird, though. I wonder what was up with the rich people shit.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it was me associating one of my friends with safety? Her parents are rich as shit.”

Jason shrugged again. “Who knows? Brains are weird,” he said. “And if it makes you feel better,” he said getting close and booping him on the nose, “You’re more than good enough for me. You’re my brother, you hear? If anything, they’re not good enough for you.”

He smiled a bit. “Thanks, Ja-”

“Cardinal. Code names, remember?”

“Shoot, that dream has me more fucked up than I realized,” he said. “Sorry, Cardinal. Thank you.”

He waved him off. “You’re okay, man.”

He linked their pinkies together. They sat in silence for a few minute before he suddenly perked up. “By the way,” he said.

Danny looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

He saw the other boy take a deep breath. He looked over to the door before going under his hoodie and into his belt. He could hear two ‘Snap! Snap!’s before he pulled out his hand.

He blinked. “Cardinal. What am I looking at?”

When he looked back up, the other boy was smiling guiltily at him. “I stole this earlier,” he said lowly and held out the watch. “And I may have took this from the van?”

He held out a gun. It was smaller than any of the ones he’d seen before. He sighed. “Cardinal-”

“I know, I should’ve mentioned this way earlier, but I didn’t know how to bring it up,” he said.

He took it gently. He inspected it. “Okay, I haven’t seen this model before,” he said, “But I think I can figure it out. This-” he pointed to the cartridge, “Is where they put vials of ectoplasm.”

He watched Jason nod.

“This one’s empty,” he said, It looks like they discarded it for some reason. I don’t think it’s broken, but I can take a look when my hand regrows.”

He watched Jason take a deep breath. “Do you think we could rig it up to take ectoplasm from our bodies to fuel it?”

He blinked. He brought his left hand up, stroking his chin with what was formed. “Maybe. I’ve never thought of doing it like that before.”

Jason nodded. “It doesn’t need to be perfect,” he said. “It just needs to vaguely work.”

He nodded. “I can probably do that. We might need to steal some material, though,” he contemplated.

“Done. Just let me know and we’ll keep an eye out.”

He grinned. He loved having someone so on board with his plans.

“I think we can get away with using some scalpels as tools,” he said.

“I have a lock picking kit on me, do you think those’ll work?”

He shrugged. “What do they look like?”

Jason took the kit out of his belt. Danny took it from him gently, looking it over. “Yeah, these might be able to unscrew something,” he said.

He helped the boy pack it all up and away in his belt. “I think we’ll need... man, I wonder if they have some sort of specter deflector?”

“What?”

“Something that deflects ghosts,” he explained.

Jason shrugged. “I’d assume so?”

They talked lowly for a few more minutes, going over ideas. Eventually, Jason took the blue journal from the ceiling, tossing it down to Danny.

Sketching ideas was fun. There was still an undercurrent of hurt in his chest.

He didn’t think he’d ever understand why he wasn’t good enough for his mom. Why they disowned him so quick; the hatred in his father’s eyes.

It was a look he hadn’t seen even on the agent’s faces. He looked over to Jason.

He couldn’t imagine doing something like that to him. Or to Ellie, or Jazz, or Tucker and Sam. He didn’t think he’d ever understand why, or how, his parents could do it to him. It was like they didn’t even have to think about it; they’d done it as easily as breathing.

At least he had Jason. He’d had the dream woman. From what Jason said, he’d probably have the Bat too, when they met; apparently, he was in the early stages of an adoption addiction, and Jason was already planning on making it worse by getting him to adopt the neighbor.

They put the journal away before they lay on the cot. They could think about this more tomorrow.

He was still unnaturally warm, but he’d been getting steadily better. He hoped that was a good sign.

He cuddled up to Jason. He hoped the dream was some sort of sign they were going to survive. That there were still people out there looking for them.

He suddenly felt silly for feeling like his friends and sisters forgot about him. Of course, they hadn’t.

After all, he didn’t forget about them just because he had Jason. He just had to be patient.

He just had to survive a little longer.

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day nineteen #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Eighteen

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Eighteen Fever/Vomiting/Warm Soup 

Alt. Prompt For Day Eighteen Misunderstanding 

Prompts Used for Day Eighteen Fever, Vomiting, Warm Soup

Tw's; Human Experimentation (Not necessarily medical? But it's still an experiment? Idk), Vomiting, Injury Mention

Chapter Eighteen under the cut :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Log 54 on subjects F and T. This is Agent J speaking. I am by myself verbally recording the results to the second stage of the temperature experiments.

“As you recall from previous recordings, we started out with alternating colder and warmer temperatures in their private room. The cold side was mid 40’s, the warm being mid 80’s. Subject F was sensitive to the heat, while subject T was sensitive to the cold. We decided further experimentation was required.

“Yesterday my team and I conducted another temperature experiment. We took Agent A’s suggestion and moved them out of the room they are usually kept in for the experiment, as it would skew her personal studies on the subjects. Starting with a baseline of 68 degrees and working our way into freezing temperatures, then increasing it until we just exceeded regular body temperatures, we tested to see if our initial findings were correct. Subject F was increasingly sensitive to the heat, while thriving in the cold. Subject T, on the contrary, thrived in the heat while incredibly sensitive to the cold.

“Putting heat and cold packs on the boys proved to only increase their discomfort to an almost painful degree. We are still unsure if they can feel pain, due to their more human features, or if they are pretending like other ghosts would. We are still certain they are not sentient and will continue to test regardless of whether they do.

“I have no reason to believe they have purposely skewed my experiment. I did initially believe that they must have decided to rebel by doing so, however after careful observation by both myself and Agent A, I find it highly improbable. The subjects, while they can be insubordinate and incredibly disrespectful, usually do not try to push when I tell them to do something. Though, that behavior only started after they received a few punishments for doing so. They may be more intelligent than the average ghost, and we will have to do further testing on that front, however that will not be today.

“My team has informed me that yesterday’s experiments have left the boys increasingly sensitive, almost sickly. I have been told that, as part of Agent A’s experiment I have yet to be privy to, she has been feeding the subjects. She says she has reason to suspect that the human bodies they parade around still work. I have to say I agree with her hypothesis. When you give a full ghost food, not only is it contributing to food waste, but it does not need to be excreted anywhere, leading us to believe that there is no digestion. The subjects, however, do have a need to excrete waste when they have finished the digestion process.

“We have decided to take this opportunity to do further testing. We will be preparing to take hot, warm, and cold dishes to the subjects over the next few days. Pending the results of this, we may need to do further research on ghosts and how they work, as we have seen ghosts with temperature sensitivities but never in this extreme. Agent A will deliver all the food we will prepare, as a sort of collaboration. I am not pleased by this, however it came at the request of both Agent A and the department head.

“This has been log number 54. I will, of course, be taking notes throughout the experiment and will be giving an update at a later date. This is the end of the log, provided by Agent J.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cardinal sighed as he sat up on the cot. His lungs felt like they had been shoved full of mucus. It occasionally ran down the back of his throat, causing loud, wet coughs to reverberate through the room. He’d been forced to keep his lower facemask off for the most part, unless he wanted to trap the mucus and saliva against his face. He didn’t feel like doing that, understandably. Most of the agents that came around them had already seen the scar on his cheek anyways.

He’d already been preparing to hide it from the public as best as he could, but he was not looking forward to telling Batman that they’d seen his cheek. Nightwing wasn’t likely to be happy, either, but he didn’t want to be blamed for it. He’d done his best.

Phantom wasn’t much better. Whereas Cardinal’s body wracked with cold chills, Phantom’s caused him to sweat near-constantly. Cardinal thought the other boy was worse off in all honesty; where he was, for the most part, fully lucid, just sick, Phantom kept confusing reality for whatever dream he’d been having. Cardinal didn’t know what their temperatures were, but feeling Phantom’s forehead didn’t help. He determined he probably had a fever, which was not that helpful. He’d almost taken a page out of Nightwing’s book, but he maintained that it was still creepy no matter what the reasoning was to bend down and kiss someone’s forehead when they were sick and couldn’t fight you off.

At least he got Phantom’s hoodie in the meantime. The other boy had a tank-top on so he didn’t feel too bad about it. He pulled the hood up as he sat in the room.

He was glad he didn’t have his cape in a way; it would remind him too much of being Robin. Although it pained him to do so, he wanted to distance himself from ever having been him.

On the other hand, he was cold. The cape helped a lot with that. The Robin suit was supposed to as well, and Batgirl’s leggings would be a blessing, but they still hadn’t gotten their clothes back from showering.

They were probably combing them for evidence or something. He could respect it, but he also resented them for it right now. The hoodie and sweats were warm, but they weren’t warm enough.

He checked over Phantom again. He’d been trying to keep an eye on him to make sure he was still improving, even if it was by little bits. So far, he hadn’t seen much improvement, but at least he wasn’t getting worse. He wished he could make ice or something; he bet that would help the other boy right now.

He heard the soft jingle of keys. He heard someone unlocking all the locks, one by one. He wondered who it was this time. Time had been going extra weird, since he couldn’t puzzle out when Agent J’s shift was.

There was a soft knock as a warning. Only Agent A did that; they were... well, not safe. However, for the time being, he reluctantly trusted her not to hurt them.

She walked forward, pulling something along behind her. He looked at her curiously.

“I know I said I wasn’t going to,” she started out, “But I knew you boys needed something a little better than crap protein bars and stuff that barely counts as fruit. I told them that you guys still need to eat, I’m sorry!”

Cardinal looked at her guilty face.

“I framed this as an experiment,” she added. “I predict that, with adequate nutrition, your injuries would heal better, and you’d get over feeling yucky sooner!”

He snorted. “I would think that, as scientists, they would figure that nutrition would help anybody feel better.”

She giggled as she started giving him a bowl of soup. “They’ve always shut me down when I wanted to preform experiments like that,” she handed him a spoon, “Someone did tests and figured that ghosts don’t have bathroom needs and concluded that meant they didn’t have digestive systems.”

Cardinal looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. “They know that different species have different ways of converting waste and absorbing nutrients, right? How do they know ghosts don’t convert it into ectoplasm or something? It has to go somewhere, anyways; what did they think happened to it?”

She looked at him, slightly stunned. “I hadn’t even thought of that! I’ve looked over the notes before, but all they’ve ever said is that the food disappeared.” she said.  

He smiled. “Phantom and I have been talking about it. It’d make sense, since ghosts have to-”

He cut himself off with a cough. She immediately began to rub his back, trying to soothe him.

“Here,” she muttered, “I brought tissues.”

She gave him one, allowing him to cough up the ball of mucus that had started trying to go down his throat and into his lungs. When he was done wiping his lips free of the filth, she was holding a small trash can in front of him.

“I also brought this,” she said sheepishly. “In case one of you gets an upset stomach.”

“Thank you, Agent A,” he said softly. He tried his hardest to keep his tone pleasant.

She smiled at him. “You’re welcome, honey,” she cupped his cheek. “I have one about your age, you know. You’re so much like him,” she whispered.

“What’s his name?” He didn’t really care. He just wanted to be polite.

“Jason,” she said.

He felt a jolt of panic run through his body. He’d never get used to hearing his own name in the domino. It did increase his suspicion that they already knew who he was, though. What are the odds?

“I have a cousin named Jason,” he said in response. Her eyebrows raised.

“Really?” she asked. “What a coincidence!”

He nodded. What a coincidence indeed. Instead of a verbal response, he picked up his spoon and began to spoon up soup to put it in his mouth.

He could feel the warmth, and he could see it was steaming. He figured it couldn’t be that hot, though, because it felt like it was cool enough to eat. He put the spoon in his mouth.

She watched him. “How is it?” she asked.

“Like someone made it with piss,” he thought. “Really good!” Was what he said.

She looked pleased. “It’s my homemade recipe!” she said proudly.

He resisted the urge to make a comment. “You did a good job!” was what he said instead.

She patted him on his head. “Wake Phantom up soon, please? I don’t want his soup to get cold,” she sounded concerned.

He nodded. “I’ll give him a few more minutes. He just went down.”

She nodded. “Okay,” she agreed easily. There was something in her tone that he couldn’t quite identify. It might’ve been... annoyance? “I have to go, but you boys enjoy the soup!”

She left without much more fanfare. He shrugged.

He kept eating the soup. It was nearly inedible, and nothing like Alf’s soup back home, but it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever eaten. Batman tried to make a birthday dinner when he found out his birthday was the same day as Alf’s. He’d eaten every bite of that and ended up with severe food poisoning; he figured this couldn’t be any worse.

He debated if he was going to make Phantom eat, but figured he’d better if Agent A was actually doing an experiment for once. He didn’t want her to get fired or something; whether he trusted her or not, she was being decent to them. That had to count for something, right?

He set his soup aside and started shaking Phantom’s shoulder. “Phantom? Hey, man, you gotta get up,” he said softly.

Phantom groaned. “No’ now, ma,” he slurred.

Cardinal raised an eyebrow. “I am not your mom,” he muttered. “Hey, dude, come on,” he said and shook him a bit harder.

Phantom whined. He tried to curl in on himself more. Cardinal didn’t let him, grabbing him and hauling him into a sitting position. “Dude,” he said, “You gotta eat. Come on, we got soup. It’s even warm,” he said.

He grabbed Phantom’s soup, giving it a quick taste test. It was, surprisingly, worse than his was. He grimaced and set the bowl back on the cart. “Okay, maybe not that one,” he said, “But you can have the rest of mine. It’s not the best,” he said, grabbing his bowl, “But we can drink some water after we eat.”

Phantom looked at him with glassed over eyes. “Soup?” he muttered.

“Yes, soup,” Cardinal said. “Want soup?”

“No,” he slurred. “Don’ wan get souped ‘gain,” he said.

Cardinal made a mental note to tell Agent A that Phantom was disorientated. This wasn’t likely to be good.

“Food,” he said instead. “Come on, you need to eat,” he said.

He grabbed a spoonful of soup and brought it to his lips. It reminded him of taking care of his mom as she deteriorated. He pushed the thought out of his head as he put the spoon in Phantom’s mouth.

He whimpered. Cardinal made sure he swallowed. “Hot,” he said.

He grabbed a tissue and wiped down his forehead. “I know, buddy,” he said. “I’m sorry,” he added.

After he threw the tissue into the trash can, he spooned more warm soup into Phantom’s mouth. The boy let it happen, obediently swallowing the food he’d put into his mouth. When Cardinal got to the end of the soup, he let the other boy lay back down.

He grabbed the other bowl and grimaced. It’d be good for him, he knew. He didn’t want it to go to waste, if only for the sake of having someone somewhat nice to them on their side. He took a deep breath.

It wasn’t his stomach upset, right? He grabbed the bowl in one hand and pinched his already-stuffy nose with the other. He pretended he wasn’t getting snot on his fingers as he tilted his head backwards in preparation.

He started chugging the soup. Dribbles of it ran down his face as he went, trying to get it over with.

The warmth traveled through him. It was the first time he’d felt really warm since he’d been shoved into that ice bath.

He felt immediately better after he finished it. The lingering taste on his tongue made him cringe, but at least he was almost positive it wouldn’t give him food poisoning.

He got up and got some water from the cupboard. He downed a bottle to wash away the taste and grabbed another for Phantom.

When he turned around, he found the other boy sitting up and about to vomit. He lunged for the bucket Agent A had given them, barely getting it under his mouth as the boy’s stomach emptied itself of its contents. He could hear the pathetic sounds he made as he retched and gagged, his body convulsing with movement. Cardinal winced in sympathy.

He rubbed his back softly. He opened the water when he was done, pouring some in his mouth and making sure Phantom swallowed it. He hadn’t like the soup going down; he figured it didn’t taste any better coming back up. He felt vaguely guilty for forcing him to eat it to begin with. At least he was fairly certain neither party could be blamed for Phantom puking. It’s not like he did it on purpose.

He thought about it for a second. He at least hoped that they couldn’t blame anyone for Phantom throwing up. These people sometimes seemed to think they did things just because it amused them or something.

He sat with his brother for a few more minutes as he finally calmed down. He helped him lay back down. That proved to be a mistake.

Within minutes, he was gagging again. Cardinal helped him sit up again and held him as he dry heaved into the bucket, knuckles white against the dark trash can. Cardinal wondered if Phantom would be able to let it go; he was holding it so tight.

The smell was somehow even worse than the taste. He was suddenly grateful his nose was so stopped up; the stench was still somewhat overpowering, and he couldn’t even smell right yet.

He kept an ear out for the jingle of keys as he propped Phantom up against the wall. He rubbed his back as the poor boy cried. He exuded the very aura of misery; it was like watching someone kick a puppy. He wished he could take all his pain. He hated watching his family members be sick.

He sat next to his brother. He grabbed a tissue and wiped his mouth as best as he could, throwing the tissue in the can. He was glad Agent A had the foresight to give them one; it still sucked that Phantom was feeling like this, but at least they didn’t have to scrub the floor and didn’t have to watch awkwardly while someone else did it.

He made sure to put the bottles into his hoodie pockets. He was going to rinse out the one Phantom put his mouth on after he puked, but he usually filled up a couple bottles during their bathroom breaks. Phantom liked really cold water, while Cardinal himself preferred warm water. It was just another thing that had changed about him since he died.

He sighed. Now was so not the time to think about that. Sometimes it felt like he was going crazy here.

He refocused his attention to Phantom. He vaguely thought about pulling a journal out to write his symptoms in, but he didn’t feel like risking getting onto the counter right now. The last thing they needed was him cracking his head open, and then having to explain how he cracked his head open to the agents. He didn’t think they’d appreciate his tendency to squirrel things away like that. He had suspected someone was checking their room when they left for a while, but he didn’t think they figured out the ceiling trick considering the gun was still up there last he checked.

Phantom pressed his head onto Cardinal’s shoulder. Cardinal let it happen; he patted his head absently.

He heard keys. He pushed his sleeves up and moved his hood more securely over his head.

Agent J walked in. They sniffed. “What is that smell?”

“Phantom threw up,” he responded, pointing to the small trash can.

They scrunched up their face. “How did you two get that in here?”

Cardinal resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Agent A brought it in when she brought soup.”

Agent J did roll their eyes. “Figures. She's much too soft on you two.”

Cardinal opened his mouth and shut it. Agent J raised an eyebrow.

“Are you two coming?”

He blinked. “Bathroom break?”

“Why else would I be here?”

He shrugged and got off the cot, helping Phantom off. He threw his arm around him to help him balance.

They began following Agent J to the bathroom. As they walked, he spotted an agent. He squinted.

He was holding a watch. He checked it before slipping it back into his pocket. Cardinal got an idea.

As they passed the agent, he pretended to stumble. He bumped into the agent.

His hand slipped into his pocket and grabbed the watch. He drew his hand into his sleeve and out of the pocket quickly as he and Phantom headed towards the floor.

The other agent caught them, helping them up. “Whoa, you okay there, buddy?”

He nodded shyly as Agent J turned around. “What did you do now, subject T? How incompetent-”

“Whoa, what’s going on?” The other agent asked. “They’re just kids.”

“You fool,” Agent J hissed. “Those two are the ghosts parading around as teenagers. Don’t be fooled-”

“He tripped. He’s carrying that other one- what's going on with them anyways? What’s wrong?”

Agent J rolled their eyes and snatched Phantom from his grip, gesturing for Cardinal to move away. “They’re having adverse reactions to their experiments from yesterday. They’re going to be fine,” they said scathingly. “Don’t get involved. You are not needed in this situation. I understand that their forms are deceiving, which is why I asked agents of your rank not to be involved.”

They looked at Cardinal with a withering glare. “You, take him,” they said, shoving Phantom back in his arms, “And keep up. Do not pull a stunt like this again."

“How about I help you guys to where you’re going?” The agent offered.

“No,” Agent J said, already turning around. “I will have your badge if you get involved.”

He looked at Cardinal as he began to follow. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said quietly.

“’s okay,” he said in response. “I’m kind of used to it at this point.” He was willing to admit he might’ve gone to far as he felt eyes on them as they walked down the hallway.

He pocketed his prize in his sweats as they trekked on. When they got to the bathroom, he helped Phantom into a stall as he turned his attention to the sinks.

He rinsed out the bottle Phantom had used thoroughly and filled it with as cold of water as he could get. When he was finished, he filled his own with warm water. He finally used the bathroom himself, taking his time.

When he was finished, he knocked on the door to the stall Phantom was in. “Hey? You doing okay?” he asked softly.

He heard a groan. He frowned and tried the door. It was unlocked, so he let himself in.

The other boy looked up at him pathetically. Cardinal sighed and helped him up to get him to the sink.

He fumbled with the cold water, sticking his hand in and making a pleased sound. Cardinal watched as he stuck his other semi-formed hand into the water and started trying to splash his face. When he couldn’t quite get the movement down, he practically stuck his entire head under the faucet.

He watched for a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t drowning and went to another sink, keeping an eye on Phantom to make sure nothing changed. He had a feeling drowning wouldn’t do much in terms of making him feel better.

Though, Phantom was looking, albeit only slightly, better. He got an idea.

He turned on the hot water. He watched as steam started rising from the sink and stuck his hand in the faucet.

It should’ve burned. He got the distinct impression that it should’ve hurt; it would’ve hurt before the accident. Then again, he was always finding weird things that hadn’t happened before the accident. He took a deep breath. It felt nice.

He splashed his face and it was even better. It clicked.

For whatever reason, his body craved the heat. The hotter the better, really. He figured Phantom was the opposite if the way he was sticking his head in the sink was any indication. He felt worse for making Phantom drink the soup. He vaguely wondered just how hot it was; if the water in the sink was any indication, he figured he felt the heat differently to everybody else. He wondered if the opposite for the cold was true. He hoped he didn’t hurt Phantom too bad with his mistake.

Oh well. He wondered if he should tell Agent A; fake or not, she seemed to at the very least want to get the boys to trust her. He definitely wouldn’t trust her more if he told her about this and she did what Agent J had and swapped their temperature preferences on purpose. That’d just be bad business.

When he finally wrenched Phantom’s head out of the sink, he helped him dry off with paper towels and threw them into the trash can. Once they were both dry, he helped him out of the bathroom.

He wasn’t certain, but he swore Phantom was walking better. He didn’t feel like he had to take as much of his weight as he had when they were walking here. They left the bathroom together.

Agent J wordlessly started leading them back to their room. As they passed the agent again, he subtly pressed something into Cardinal's palm when they walked passed. He looked up at him and mouthed ‘thank you’ as he walked. The agent nodded at him and went on his way.

When they got to the room, Agent J held the door for them and slammed it shut when they got in. The locks were put into place as they got settled back onto the cot.

He opened his hand to find two pieces of chocolate. He smiled a bit to himself. He tested how he felt standing up before deciding to stick them into their hiding spot for when they felt better.

He climbed onto the counter and moved the tile. He put the two pieces of chocolate into the hole he opened up. He paused.

His fingers ghosted over the gun. He... had started to wear his belt again.

He took it out. He looked it over as he stood there. He replaced the tile and hopped down.

He inspected it as he did so many times before. He hadn’t known how to tell Phantom about it yet, and looking at him now, he wasn’t sure if he could right now. But he did have an idea.

He was pretty sure that, like the collars, the gun used some sort of ectoplasm. He took a deep breath.

It may not be the smartest idea he’d ever had, especially since he was sick, but he tried to make the tip of his pinky finger intangible. If he could train his collar to a tolerable level, he could start training the gun to pull ectoplasm out of him instead of manually loading it. He was pretty sure that’s what the agents had been doing anyways; he didn’t know much about it.

Being picky about weapon choices was for those who have options. Batman and Robin had choices; Cardinal didn’t. It was this gun, and a now dull baterang. He supposed he could probably try and snag a scalpel next time they went to the hospital-like room and got experimented on, but he wasn’t about to risk that. He was already risking everything.

He put the gun in his belt and let his finger go back to being solid. Phantom usually tried to stick it in stuff, but he wasn’t willing to do that right now. He was trying to learn to control his powers while also training his collar. He wasn’t about to risk that, given the conditions.

He almost laughed. Just a few months ago he never would’ve thought he could be in this situation.

He suddenly remembered the water. He fumbled for the cold one first; it was, unsurprisingly, almost painfully cold. It felt like ice against his skin. He put it in Phantom’s hands.

He grabbed the still-warm one next. He opened it and sipped. He sighed in relief.

He could get them both healthy- or as healthy as they could be in this hellscape- now that he knew what he was dealing with. He wondered what they could’ve done if they knew this all along. Oh well.

He suddenly remembered what he’d done in the hall. He pulled the watch out from his pocket.

He could’ve cried. 3:15.

It was an actual watch face- he hoped that it would last longer than a digital. He felt like he had to charge his every three days; he’d eventually just given up. He was pretty sure it sat in the back of his closet; he couldn’t wait to get it back on his wrist. He was going to wear that thing forever if it meant he never had to go without knowing the time ever again.

It was almost remarkable how he missed the little things. Sure, he missed big stuff too; going to school, talking with the baby bird, his family. He still never knew that he could miss simple stuff like knowing the time and going to the bathroom whenever he needed to instead of... whatever their schedule was for taking them. He could know , now. He wouldn’t have to wonder as much. As far as he could tell they had rigorous schedules that they didn’t really deviate from during the day unless they had an experiment planned.

He tried not to grin. He failed. He knew what time it was.

Sure, he still couldn’t decipher if it was morning or night. It almost didn’t matter. He could always figure that out later with careful questioning. Agent A usually let them ask some questions, though sometimes she refused to answer. They hadn’t gotten brave enough to ask how long they’d been there yet.

He thought about climbing back up on the counter to grab a journal and record the time. He decided against it. He could always hide the watch on his person somewhere if they found the stash; if he proved he knew what time it was, they would ask questions. If they asked questions, they would figure out he had a watch on him. Then they’d want to find it and take it from him.

He carefully put the watch away. He could watch it tic along every day if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to get caught with it. He still marveled that he felt like he could watch the seconds go by, literally, and not get bored out of sheer relief. He touched the pouch after he closed it. He ghosted back over the pouch with the gun.

He knew he’d never be the same when he got out. It was why he went from being Robin to Cardinal. Reminding himself of the people that had gotten him this far was the only reason he remained somewhat sane.

He kept an eye on Phantom as he began to lightly exercise. He figured if drinking warm soup and water helped him feel better, raising his core temperature should work as well. He was slightly shocked that nobody had ever caught them yet. Especially when Phantom joined; they always got a bit too into it. In their defense, there really wasn’t much else they could do.

Phantom sat on the cot and looked over him with glassy eyes. They at least looked a bit more aware than they did before he had access to cold water. He’d already finished his bottle. He almost wished they had a sink in their room; that would make things so much easier. Oh well.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

When he was done with his exercises, he checked the time again. 4:45.

He wondered if they were going to be fed again as he tore into a protein bar. He’d finally stopped shivering. His nasal cavities had started running with gusto; he took it as a good sign. He threw them into the bucket, which still hadn’t been emptied. He probably should’ve taken it with him to empty and rinsed it out, but in his defense, he was a bit preoccupied with Phantom. At least the boy looked to be doing slightly better.

He finished the bar and put the wrapper back into the cabinet.

A few more minutes went by. He wasn’t sure what to do now. He sat with Phantom, tucking the watch back into his belt.

He got a familiar feeling and grabbed a tissue. He sneezed into it as he heard keys jingling.

He suffered through his sneeze attack as Agent A came into the room. He waved as best as he could before going back to sneezing incessantly. He vaguely registered she had another cart with her, bearing what vaguely smelled like more soup. He grabbed a new tissue and blew his nose.

He figured he should tell her. About the hot and cold thing, not that her soup tasted like piss. That just seemed rude.

He looked at her. “Hey,” he greeted.

“Hi,” she said easily. “How was it? Did it settle okay?”

“It was good,” he lied, “But it didn’t settle well for Phantom. I think it’s because of the temperature.”

Her brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

He explained. She looked vaguely surprised. “Really?” She asked.

He nodded.

She hummed. “This just came off the stove in our break room,” she said, using her sleeves to grab it. “It’s pretty hot. It’s almost too hot for me to handle the bowl.”

Cardinal took it in his bare hands. “It feels warm,” he said.

“It’s not too hot for you?” She asked.

He shook his head. He grabbed a spoon and dipped it in, bringing it to his mouth. Aside from the general taste and texture of it...

“It’s perfect,” he said. “It’s not too hot or anything, for me. I don’t know how-”

“No, no, this is... wow, this is remarkable,” she said. “You’re really helping me out. I’m going to record this- if this is good for you, and he’s the opposite, I should probably grab him something else, huh?”

He shrugged. “I can always wait for it to cool down before I give it to him, but thank you."

She grabbed the bowl carefully, putting it on the other cart along with the empty bowls, making sure to set the tissue box on the other one before starting to wheel it out. “Nonsense. I don’t know what I’ll grab him yet, but I’ll think of something- I think I have some premade broth in the fridge? I’ll be right back, honey, you just eat your soup.”

He smiled at her. “Thank you, Agent A.”

She smiled pleasantly at him. “You’re welcome, Robin.”

He'd almost forgotten they decided not to tell her about the name switch. It was only through training with the bat that he hid his surprise, waving as she left.

That had been easier than he’d thought it’d be. He looked over to the trash can.

… He forgot to mention it. He’d either do it when she got back, or he’d make sure to take it with him when they left.

He hoped that he was right. Phantom deserved to feel better. He deserved everything good in life, really. He knew he hadn’t known him long, and that he was biased, but he thought Phantom was a better person than he was.

He reminded him of how he used to be when he was Robin, before all of the bullshit. Though, if this proved anything, it was that he missed his rogues. He almost wanted Riddler to escape again just to have some sort of banter with someone, or mental stimulation. He wondered if he could ask Agent A for logic puzzles or something. Maybe they could frame it as testing their intelligence or something; didn’t someone mention seeing if they could recreate halfa’s? Something about sending them into the zone?

As bad as that sounded now that he and Phantom had talked (or, more accurately, written and read) a bit about ghosts, if he could exploit it to get them perks, he wasn’t above it. Maybe he’s a bad person for that, but he couldn’t afford morals right now. Morals were for people who weren’t currently being kept captive after being kidnapped by a government agency that considered you to be non-sentient things for experimentation.

He wondered if Phantom would hate him for it. When he was Robin, he might hate him now that he was Cardinal. It didn’t sound like his problem now, though. One day he’d be the person he wanted to be; that wasn’t today.

He looked at his half-drank soup. He craved the warmth. The taste wasn’t half-bad now that he vaguely got used to it.

He picked it up regardless. He could keep spooning it into his mouth, but he wanted to get it over with at this point. He drank greedily, feeling the heat go from his mouth to his throat and into his stomach. He felt like he was thawing out.

He wondered if he would be able to eat ice cream in the summer with his brother. If he’d be able to share pudding with the baby bird again. If he and Phantom could ever share the same dish, or if they’d be forced to have separate items for the rest of their lives. He was almost bitter that this happened.

The jingle of keys pulled him from his thoughts. He had started startling at the sound; he wondered if this would be another weird trigger of his when they got out.

Agent A walked in. She held a bowl of cold broth. She greeted him, handing him the bowl.

She watched as he turned to Phantom while holding it. He picked up a spoonful and put it into Phantom’s mouth.

He watched as he started becoming more aware of his surroundings. Eventually, he was able to take the spoon himself. Cardinal still held the bowl, but he felt better seeing Phantom beginning to feed himself.

“Remarkable,” Agent A breathed. “I’m... they’re probably going to want me to feed you something cold. When you two get better, of course. They’re going to want to make sure this wasn’t a fluke.”

Cardinal sighed. “I kind of figured they might,” he said. “I think they think we’re doing it on purpose.”

She sighed herself. “I think you’re right. I’m sorry, Robin.”

Something squeezed in his chest. He tried to remind himself of the gut feeling he’d had when he first met her.

When she was like this it was so hard to remember she still worked for the assholes keeping them there.

“That’s okay,” he said diplomatically. “I guess I can see why. Most of them are too blinded by their own prejudice to be able to see the results for what they are, I think.”

She hummed. “Yeah. That’s not fair on you two,” she said.

He shrugged. “I’m just glad you believed me,” he replied.

She paused. “Yes. I’m glad, too.”

She stood and took his empty bowl. “I’ve got to run. I’ll send someone to bring you two to the bathroom in a bit. I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Agent A. Have a good day.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Robin. Have a nice night.”

He almost perked up as she left. He waited until he heard the click of the lock to dig into his belt and pull out the watch. He checked the time. 5:30.

He smiled. It was 5:30 pm.

He finally knew what time of day it was.

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day eighteen #kite flies over the nightingale nest

[th3sp4rr0w]

oh uh. scuse me. just a lil snail crossing your dash

#OHMYGOSH #i love this lil guy #id die for them

[th3sp4rr0w]

DPXDC Prompt #65

Danny dies and gets reincarnated into the DC world, Lex Luther had made a second stable clone from half Superman and Batman, he used lazurus water as a stabilizer and Danny’s soul was perfect for it. He was going to keep him as a weapon against Batman but when he and Connor get freed everyone is alarmed. Danny wasn’t done growing and comes out as a 10 year old and is basically Connors little brother.

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Seventeen

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Seventeen Hypothermia/Heat Stroke/”You Look a Little Pale” 

Alt. Prompt For Day Seventeen Memory Loss 

Prompts Used for Day Seventeen Hypothermia, Heat Stroke, "You Look a Little Pale"

Tw's; Medical Experimentation, Past Injury Mention, Past Child Abuse, Mentioned Vomit, Mentioned Gross Behavior Towards Children, PTSD/Flashbacks *Note; There will be no actual sexual assault, especially towards minors, in this fic. It is strictly gross comments made in his past. The scene with the agents touching his cheek is not meant to portray sexual assault. I do understand that it sounds that way, which is why I added the comparison to other creepy adults in his past. It is just Jason's PTSD being triggered and sending him spiraling.

Chapter Seventeen under the cut :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They were left alone for a while.

Agents, mostly Agent A and Agent J, would periodically flitter into the room to check on Phantom’s wound, see how it was healing, give them bathroom breaks, etc. Agent A had even pulled a few strings and got them showers. She’d even gotten them fresh clothing but promised they could keep whatever pieces they wanted, and she’d wash the rest. Cardinal kept his masks, belt, and gloves, and Phantom kept his hoodie. They, of course, kept their shoes as well.

When Agent A started making comments on their greasy hair and the way they smelled, Cardinal got an inkling he knew what was going on. He’d managed to shove all the contents of his belt into the hiding place without breaking the tile. He put a few things he knew he probably wasn’t going to be allowed to keep into the belt, to check if they’d search it. They were missing when he got it back. He was suddenly glad he’d thought of the ceiling as a hiding spot.

Cardinal had helped to shampoo Phantom’s hair when he was asked, rinsing it gently. He’d helped him get dressed again after he got stuck in his shirt and asked for it. He’d had to step up a lot for his twin recently, but he didn’t mind.

The bastards had gotten their answers results at his brother’s expense; blood blossoms did affect them negatively in human form, and their limbs...

It hadn’t grown back fully yet. They weren’t sure what kind of scarring there’d be, what the functionality level would be like, if it would cause any pain, but Phantom’s hand had started growing back. It would be fascinating if it didn’t send rolls of nausea careening down his body every time he thought about it.

He’d started exercising again. They still weren’t sure how to tell time, but he figured it was about every twelve hours or so Agent A and Agent J would switch off. That’s how most places would handle shift change, right? As far as he could tell it was as close to making sense as he could get it.

He did one set of exercises the first time he saw Agent A and the other the first time he saw Agent J. Phantom joined in where he could, having to be careful of his injury and mindful of his human half’s limitations. He also tried to keep up with the collar training; it worked fairly well most of the time.

One day he’d started moving slightly... sluggishly. He couldn’t figure out why, no matter how hard he’d tried. It was like his body had decided to just... stop working. Until he started exercising, at least.

As soon as he’d started to sweat a little bit, he felt infinitely better. It was so much worse after he was done with his sets and started cooling down. It was like someone was actively trying to freeze his joints together using his own body water.

The worst part about it was that Phantom wasn’t anywhere close to dealing with what he was. He swore the room was colder, but Phantom didn’t know what he was talking about.

Cardinal wasn’t stupid. If this had been just about any other person in the building, he would’ve thought they were fucking with him. But Phantom? It didn’t make sense.

What was (probably) the day after that was better, for him at least. He felt warm, like he could actually retain the heat he generated and use it for something. The frozen joints had thawed out and he could move freely; it was like he was some little creature, coming out of hibernation new again.

But Phantom was sweating like he was in a sauna. Beads of it dripped down his face and back; he took his shirt off just to try and cool down again.

It was odd. Neither of them could make sense of it.

The temperatures in their room kept getting more extreme. Phantom would thrive on days Cardinal was too stiff and cold to think, let alone move, and Cardinal would absolutely love the days Phantom was too hot to speak.

Then came the day the agents finally decided Phantom was healed enough to begin testing again.

He had about half of his hand and thumb regrown. The first joint was moving on its own. It was, apparently, enough for the agents to deem him fit. Cardinal almost asked if they could wait but he decided not to get too cocky. They had it decent in there right now; neither of them had been physically hurt in days, they had snacks, neither had gotten caught journaling yet, and they’d even had a shower. As far as kidnapping scenarios went, they were doing pretty good for themselves.

Agent J marched them down to the medical room. They still didn’t know why they’d started having experiments in there instead of their room.

They were directed to sit on the cots. Cardinal could tell Phantom didn’t exactly feel comfortable; in his defense, neither did he.

“Alright,” Agent J was holding the tape recorder again, “Log 51 on subjects T and F. This is Agent J, by myself. I have gotten the greenlight for further testing on the temperature experiment.”

Cardinal looked at Phantom. He looked back. They knew they weren’t going nuts. How rude, truly; all the other times they’d at least warned them they were being tested on.

“I’m going to start the experiment out at 68 degrees, then lower it slowly. Afterwards we will climb back up.”

They set the temperature and waited. At first, both boys were fine; he had a slight chill, but it was bearable.

When it was lowered, Cardinal reacted, squirming to try and get warm. Phantom looked at him like he was nuts.

The lower they went, the more it became obvious that he wasn’t doing very well. His teeth chattered; his body shivered. He pulled his knees up to his chest to try and preserve some of his heat.

It was odd. Cardinal had been through harsher temperature changes than this before; why did he feel like a frog slowly getting boiled alive, or more accurately, slowly frozen to death?

It felt as though everything had slowed down to an unbearable level. It was like his brain had been set on fire and he was trying to stay afloat.

The temperature dropped.

His hands were bright red. He couldn’t feel any warmth in his cheeks.

The temperature dropped.

It was like someone had taped pillows to his joints. Moving them felt stiff and uncomfortable; it almost hurt a little bit.

They were pale. That wouldn’t have been concerning if the temperature had risen at all, but given the trend of dropping it that didn’t seem likely. He felt like he was slowly being syphoned of all of his energy. The longer he stayed cold, the more he felt the effects of being that way.

“Hey, Cardinal? You doing okay?” Phantom asked.

The thought of opening his mouth to say anything filled him with dread. He did it anyways.

“I dunno,” he slurred.

Phantom winced. “You really don’t do well in the cold, do you, buddy?”

On the outside, he shrugged, but internally he was slightly freaking out as much as he could. It, at least, was in the 20’s; It’s not like he was in the negative temperatures without any gear. This shouldn’t have been possible.

The temperature dropped. And dropped. And dropped.

He had no idea what he’d done to deserve this. It was like he was in hell, except hell was a frozen tundra. It felt like he should have frost on his eye lashes. He wasn’t sure if he was hypothermic yet, but with the way he was shivering as though it was his full-time job he wouldn’t be surprised.

Phantom gave him his warm hoodie. He, without thinking much about it, had pressed his face into the fabric. He breathed in Phantom’s scent; something minty with an undercut of... huh. It almost smelled like one of Nightwing’s zesty’s. He looked like he wanted to go over to the other boy; they had been lucky to even get away with giving him the hoodie. Something about skewed results.

He looked over to his twin often. He was... doing just about as well as Cardinal had been in the beginning. He couldn't help the flash of jealousy; he’d never had the temperature training Cardinal had back when he was Robin. How was he doing better in the cold than he was? He didn’t feel like it was fair.

Then again, fair was never in the equation in this place. It was a luxury they’d never been able to afford, and frankly he’d be suspicious they were gearing up to something if suddenly it ever was. He was having a hard enough time trying to remind himself that being given access to things like food, water, and a toilet was considered a human right and not a kindness.

Being in the room was not pleasant. He put the hoodie on over his t-shirt and sweats. They’d been surprisingly comfortable considering he didn’t think that the facility would bother providing clothes at all; they were hesitant enough to allow them to shower.

He wondered if Agent A convinced them by telling them it’d skew the results too much if they continued to ferment in their own juices. These people really only listened if you pointed out it could potentially skew results of the experiments they were conducting. That was a depressing thought.

The temperature continued dropping, even as he began to feel worse. What else was new? Once they started one of these ‘experiments’, they rarely stopped unless one of them was really hurt. He could feel himself starting to nod off.

He tried to keep himself awake as best as he could. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he fell unconscious during one of these torture sessions.

He closed his eyes again. He thought of when Batman took him to see the Al Ghul’s one week when they were being extra weird and cagey about what they were up to. It’d been hot; he’d sweat into his eyes and could hardly move in his suit. The bat had lathered his exposed skin in sunscreen whenever he even thought about going outside and he’d still gotten sunburnt.

He tried to convince himself he was warm. The Bat had always told him mind over matter; Nightwing had said the same thing, though, and he’d trusted it way less.

He loved Nightwing and trusted him with a lot of things; psychology, or anything having to do with decision making, he did not trust. This was the same man who ate cereal with his sugar instead of the other way around and drank zesti, like, at least three times a day. It was absolutely ridiculous and he still maintained they needed to stage an intervention for him. Alf usually agreed. He’d also decided the Discowing suit was an acceptable thing to fight crime in, so again, he did not have the best track record.

Though, thinking of his family back home had helped. He’d stopped shivering. He thought back to his lessons with the bat. Wasn’t that a big sign of hypothermia?

He looked down to the rest of his body. He tried to move his toes, which barely cooperated with him. He began to wonder if it was too late to try and beg not to do the experiment, or to at least start raising the temperature and seeing how they do.

He felt something in his chest trying to take shape. Phantom looked at him.

Questioning-Concern-Reassurance

Cardinal tried to focus on sending a response, but there was really only one feeling he had to share.

Cold

Somewhere in him, he recognized that Phantom raised an eyebrow at him. He didn’t have the energy to send anything else and he sure wasn’t going to be trying to verbally respond anytime soon.

Somewhere on the outside, he thought he heard something. He felt the change somewhere deep within him. It was like something had built up in his chest and was telling him of all the things he would normally miss out on.

The temperature had risen, just a little.

He whined, bringing his legs up and tucking them into the hoodie. He pulled the hood up, fumbling with it and nearly being unable to do it at all. He pulled the strings and put his hands in the pockets.

The temperature continued to rise, and Cardinal felt more human with every degree. That’s not to say that he wasn’t cold. He was still freezing; it felt like he was Thanksgiving’s turkey thawing in Alf’s sink, but days before the actual event; the man wouldn’t add water until the day before, saying it was bad luck or something. He didn’t know much about thawing... anything, really? He’d always taken the elderly man’s word on it. He had to know a little bit about what he was doing at least, his food was always delicious.

He shifted slightly to look at Phantom from his makeshift cocoon.

“Subject T,” he heard Agent J’s sharp voice.

He slowly moved his head to the agent. “Yes?”

“Are you done with the dramatics? We have an experiment going.”

He resisted the urge to twitch. He took a deep breath. “Play the long game,” he reminded himself. “You can turn this place into a big campfire later.”

He vaguely wondered if the bat would let him bring marshmallows. At the very least, Nightwing would indulge him. He was certain of it.

“I’m sorry,” he grit out. “I was uh, I’m. God it’s cold,” he said, burrowing back into the hoodie.

“Stop being dramatic,” the agent said simply. “You cannot be that sensitive to temperature.”

He almost pointed out the whole point of this experiment seemed to be how sensitive they were to temperature. He bit his tongue. He could make fun of these people with Phantom later; for now, he needed to be the perfect little captive. He couldn’t wait to tear these people apart.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, attempting not to sound bored or sarcastic. Nightwing said when he wasn’t feeling good his tone just naturally took that route. He didn’t think the agent would appreciate it.

Phantom was right; these people had to have been living in their moms’ basements before this. He couldn’t see a single well-adjusted person ever wanting this job, even if you took away the genocide and other things.

Plus, if a single one of them had ever been even mildly interested in science ever, they’d know this was incredibly unscientific. Cardinal had never been able to puzzle out a single hypothesis. It was like watching a child with a magnifying glass on a sidewalk full of ants.

The temperature slowly rose in the room. His temperature rose with it; eventually, he was able to slightly uncurl himself. He still wasn’t brave enough to take the hoodie off, but he was feeling somewhat better. He looked over to Phantom.

He almost wanted to reach out. He also didn’t want to be separated. He had a feeling that these people weren’t into empty threats, given what happened the last time they were here.

The mark, even being scraped out, hadn’t healed completely right. He had a huge divot in his arm where the mark was, digging into his skin and marring it forever. There were a few scars he wanted to see if they could do something about when he got older; that was one of them.

Phantom looked at him and smiled. Calm-Reassurance-Okay

Cardinal smiled back. Okay-Reassurance-Cold

He could see Phantom almost laugh before he caught himself.

The experiment, like so many others, involved a lot of waiting to see what would happen. It truly was nothing new; these people got paid to basically sit around and watch two teenagers obsessively. Except for Agent A; he wasn’t sure what the hell she was supposed to do. He was pretty sure she was stealing company property with the food and water, and she had yet to conduct an experiment on them. He was pretty sure she was deadweight to the agency; so why did they keep her around?

He might have to conduct a few experiments of his own.

He stretched, finally feeling the frost around his joints loosen. He flexed his hands; they still had the ‘pillow’ quality to them, but at least he could move his fingers without little pinpricks of pain dotting his hands. He didn’t want to imagine how Phantom would feel trying to do this.

His brother looked like he was beginning to feel the heat starting to build in the room.

He yawned and stretched; being in here was so boring sometimes. He didn’t think he wanted to see it get interesting though; it seemed like every time it did, they came away with some new oddly specific trauma. He took off the hoodie, beginning to fold it so he could put it at his feet.

He tried not to think about how the feeling that being experimented on was just another part of their life now.

Phantom stretched out, starfish style. As the temperature rose, he was doing worse. He already looked somewhat worse off than Cardinal felt; he wondered if he’d had enough water today.

The warmth that spread around the room felt nice. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket with hot cocoa after crushing Nightwing in a snowball fight. The other boy had claimed all through the winter that he’d let him win, but considering how much he complained coming in, he seriously doubted that was the case.

Phantom’s skin had a flushed quality to it. When Cardinal looked him over, combing his eyes over his face, he looked dry. He tried not to worry about it, but if he remembered right from his training days, that wasn’t exactly a good sign.

He knew better than to act alarmed. If it got worse, he might try to get him some help. Didn’t they have the data they needed by now anyways?

It kept rising.

He thought it felt nice. It felt like a nice summer day, or a pleasant winter day spent by the fire, or when he used to enter the library on a cold rainy day to find it warm and dry. He’d find a book, probably either an Austen or some other classic, and he’d spend the day reading until they closed.

He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he got the feeling the exact opposite was true for Phantom. As he watched his twin on the bed next to him, he could tell he was struggling; his chest rose and fell rapidly and he sounded like he was barely getting any air in.

He felt the urge to go help. It was just how he was; he may not be Robin, but Cardinal wasn’t willing to let it go, either.

He opened his mouth. “Um, not to be a pain or anything, but his breathing is pretty heavy, don’t you think he should get checked out or something?

Agent J rolled her eyes. “He’s just faking it so he can get out of a bit of discomfort, the way you did, subject T. He’s fine; don’t bother me again.”

He inhaled. He couldn’t protest it; they wouldn’t listen unless they decided they wanted to be cruel and punish them for very little reason again. He wasn’t about to make things worse for them... on purpose, at least.

Phantom seemed to be trying to say something lost to the movements of his mouth. It was like he couldn’t get comfortable; he wondered if it was similar to what he went through with the cold.

A few agents entered the room, glaring at the children as they came in. They had icepacks and hand warmers.

“Ah, good,” Agent J mumbled. “Right on time. Icepacks go to... that one-” they pointed to Cardinal, “Give the warmers to the other one.”

He twitched. Visibly, physically twitched. Who did these people think they were?

He didn’t say anything as the ice packs were pressed onto his neck, hands, and feet. Already, the skin there ached- it's like they were trying to make sure they both came out of there with physical and psychological damage.

Seeing someone in distress for that long would do it for sure.

Reassurance-Protection-Okay?

Hot

… He supposed that was fair, considering he did the same to him earlier.

He watched as the heat packs were applied to Phantom’s flesh. The boy squirmed and tried to fight off the oppressive heat; it did not do much.

The agents were bigger. They didn’t seem bothered by the heat of the room. They seemed to be just fine in their cheap suits as they forced a teenager to undergo heinous torture. He’s pretty sure the UN put this on the list of things you cannot do while interrogating enemy soldiers. He could see why.

He tried to keep breathing. Just because Phantom was likely out of the game for a while, doesn’t mean he had to be.

… They had to have been there for hours now. He couldn’t help but wonder if Agent A would come rushing in to be the savior again. Suspicious or not, playing the long game meant that they were out of options. They had to cooperate with whatever batshit insane plot these people had come up with this time; they couldn’t afford to protest. If the wanted this to end before they were ready to end it, they had to rely on other people in power. Even if you were pretty sure those other people in power weren’t going to be your allies for long.

Beggars can’t be choosers, and all that. They were aiming for survival. And who knows? Maybe his mommy issues leftover from Sheila had translated into a hard mistrust of women in his life that would follow him for years to come and Agent A really was a good person.

He didn’t rule out that both scenarios could be true. Maybe he should listen to Alf and get therapy.

He began to rock back and forth, trying to maintain his core temperature. He could feel his hands and feet going numb. He took a deep breath.

He tried to close his eyes and focus on happier times. Throwing sticky pancake chunks at Nightwing during breakfast, when he and the baby bird played video games, his mom reading him a Jane Austen novel for the first time-

He heard something being dragged in. He almost didn’t want anything to do with it; the whole “seeing what’s coming” thing hadn’t been great for his morale as of yet, and avoiding thinking of their next move was kind of working out for him right now. Maybe if he had his belt stocked when they got captured, or maybe if he didn’t know very well that apparently nothing was off the table to these people, he could think about it.

As it was, he didn’t want to. It would just make the situation worse. He could be tense and ready when the time came.

Although he hated it, he had a feeling that time was now.

Against his better judgment, he cracked an eye open. He didn’t want to know where they got a tub from. He had a feeling he knew what it was for as the ice packs dripped down his neck.

“We want to see how you do when exposed to cold temperatures for longer periods of time, since you seem to be ‘sensitive’ to it,” Agent J said when they caught him looking.

He tried not to sigh. This was going to suck.

He looked back over to Phantom, who looked to be on the verge of passing out. At this point, who’s to say if it wasn’t going to get worse just to get worse?

He looked around. It, apparently, took three agents staring into the same tub to slowly fill it with undoubtedly freezing water using a hose. One looked like they were actually doing their job and monitoring it until they could go get ice to shove into it, the others were doing... he wasn’t sure what they were doing. Probably screwing around. He could relate.

Agent J wasn’t staring at them anymore. They had gotten up to do... something, he guessed, over by the door. He peaked.

He didn’t know what was happening. There was nobody there. That would normally set off all of his instincts, but this place seemed to be more sadistic than intelligent. He took one more look around before grabbing the icepacks and moving over to Phantom.

He swapped their torture devices silently and quickly, looking to make certain nobody was watching. Even if they caught him, he was prepared to take the punishment. He’d rather get in trouble for doing something rather than for little to no reason, anyways.

He slid back onto the cot without a sound. He was getting better at that these days; moving swiftly, silently. Sure, he’d done so as Robin, and he’d done it well, but normally he could at least hear something when he did. The ruffle of his clothing, a swoosh of his cape. He was almost glad he’d lost it in the van that day.

As he watched the tub fill and the agents begin to shove ice into the water, he resigned himself to his fate. He’d known for a while that he’d changed after Ethiopia, emotionally anyway. He’d known he’d changed physically. Being forced to strip to his underwear in what was supposed to be a hot room judging from the beads of sweat dripping down the agent’s foreheads, while he himself was perfectly fine was...

Well. It wasn’t an easy thing to come to terms with.

He could avoid it all he wanted, but one day he’d have to face that these people have changed him irreversibly. The Joker when he blew him up in a warehouse, the GIW when they kidnapped him and are currently still torturing him. Sometimes it felt like his body was just a roadmap of hardships.

Getting into the tub reminded him of something he’d thought he’d forgotten.

He’d been little, maybe five. Before Catherine had gotten addicted, she’d been sick. He wasn’t sure what it was; she’d hidden it from him for a long time, never really addressing it. She had once just been his mom, trying her best in a shit situation.

She’d been really sick that day. She’d been vomiting; he thinks she might’ve had a migraine. She used to get those a lot when he was older. Willis had come home for the first time in days and had been berating her for not cooking dinner. She’d tried to explain, but he’d only yelled at her.

He was five. All he’d seen was someone yelling at mommy when she already didn’t feel good. He didn’t know monsters were a thing that existed outside of underneath the bed and in the closets. How could he?

He was five.

He’d said... something. His memory was fuzzy after all these years. He was nearly certain the word ‘poopy-head’ had been involved, since that was the strongest cuss word he’d known at the time. Instead of taking a step back and wondering why a five-year-old felt the need to call him a poopy-head, or better yet, asking himself why the child calling him an insult hurt his feelings so much, Willis had dragged him into the bathroom.

The electricity had been shut off again that month. It was winter. He vaguely remembered going to the neighbor’s sometimes to bathe with their kid and cook dinner. It didn’t matter. What mattered is there was no hot water in their apartment, and it was winter.

Willis made him watch the tub fill, like he did now. He’d made him get in.

He remembered his lips turning blue. He’d remembered the way it made his body feel. The pain, the cold. Willis had threatened to put him outside in the grey snow after, just to teach him a lesson.

He’s still not sure what the lesson was. Don’t back talk? Don’t call people poopy-head? Didn’t matter.

It’s funny that something that seems so insignificant now still has the power to take his breath away. He settled into the cold water as he tried to ground himself in this moment instead of living in that one. He wasn’t about to let these people see him cry, but it felt like he was five years old again, in the freezing bathtub as the man who was supposed to be his dad berated him. His mom had been so, so mad.

She’d packed him up and taken him to the neighbors, blue-lipped and barely responsive, he’d been told. They ran him a warm bath. They bundled him up in all the blankets either household could spare and put him right next to the heater. They hadn’t known if he would survive the night; a hospital trip had been out of the question for several reasons.

He was pretty sure he had been hallucinating by that point, but after he was supposed to have lost consciousness after the blast in the warehouse, he could’ve sworn he'd felt like he was freezing. He’d just been burnt by an explosion; his skin was probably still burning itself. He’d felt so cold.

He knows if it was real, it was probably just the brain’s way of trying to convince him he wasn’t dying. He wished he could do it now to feel some semblance of warmth after this.

Whatever they were trying to accomplish by doing this, he wished it would just happen already. He could feel his skin burn as he stayed there. Someone dunked his head underneath.

He felt the water soak into his masks, making them stick to his skin. When he was pulled back up by his hair, he reached a shaking hand up.

He clawed at his ear where it looped around. The fabric made it feel like he couldn’t breathe; his hands were so cold that he couldn’t get the thing off for several moments.

It finally caught on one of his fingers. He could barely hear some of the agents mocking him as he tried to catch his breath. One of them caught him by his jaw, forcing him to look up at them. “Look at it, man,” he said, caressing his cheek.

“It almost looks like a real kid, but look at that scar!” Said a different one. He felt another hand poke him on the ‘J’. He resisted the urge to bite them; he didn’t know where they’d been.

He wished they’d get their ogling over with. They were starting to uncomfortably remind him of the grown men and women who’d ghost over his shoulder and ask when he’d be joining the working girls of the alley. If he came with a discount. Where he’d gotten his long lashes and baby blues from. It made his stomach twist.

He thought about closing his eyes and pretending it was Batman, checking over him and making sure he was alright after a hard night out, but quickly shut down the idea. The thought of the man he considered to be his papa acting anything like these disgusting pigs made him want to vomit more, if that was even possible.

He tried to pull himself out of his head as they kept making comments about the scars on his body. Openly wondering if they were death marks. Making bets on how he died as if that wasn’t one of the worst days of his life they were chatting animatedly about. He wondered how these people could go home and sleep at night with the way they acted. He knew he wouldn’t be sleeping very well when he finally got out of this fucking thing.

They dipped him under again. He tried not to think about their tiny apartment in the alley with the mold on the windowsills. He tried to pretend he didn’t think of the blast that had left him in this mess.

More memories fluttered to the surface. The group of men that tried to stiff him while he was selling tires chasing him when he pickpocketed one of them to compensate for the missing money. Falling into Gotham harbor when he first started out as Robin while trying to dodge a bullet from some goon that didn’t know how to shoot. Throwing up water for 30 minutes after Batman fished him out and stripped him of the costume. When the bat took his cape off to wrap around him. Peeking his head at Commissioner Gordon when he asked what happened and him asking if they needed clothes for him.

He didn’t like these memories. He tried to remember his mom’s face when they caught the first snow fall together, before the plows could come through and ruin the pure white snow. The way the snow looked when first falling over the rooftops, covering Gotham in a layer of gorgeous ice. He tried to remember the face the baby bird made when he convinced him to go outside after school and threw a snowball at him, causing them to have a war like he did with Nightwing at home.

Any time he tried to remember the more delicate details, something horrible would come up. In a way, this was worse than it was days ago with the blood blossoms.

These people really should wear masks. He hated feeling weak; he swore to himself he was going to make every single one of these people feel this way one day.

Playing the long game sucked. It got you dunked in a tub of ice water while grown adults laughed at you. It got you memories that mocked you during your lowest moments. Here’s what it also gave you.

Patience. Cardinal had been playing the long game his whole life. When he was a child being abused by Willis, assuming he had come home that night. While he was Robin, staking out criminals and waiting for the day Batman would let him go out alone. With the Joker. While he was here. People assume playing the long game got you nowhere. That it was only good for making memories you didn’t want to keep.

Holding onto things can make you bitter. Sure, the occasional bout of melancholy was to be expected from someone in his position. Mostly, however, he was angry.  

How many other kids had to go through this before anything was done? How many other kids had to die before something was done? Starting out as Robin had mostly been for the long game of helping the alley. The game sucked, but it kept him alive long enough to do something about it.

When you’ve been playing the long game as long as Cardinal has, you get the pleasure of seeing who’s been eliminated. What makes your opponent tick. How their brain works. It gives you the ability to predict what happens next, should you choose to.

Playing the game with the GIW had sucked so far. However, the way he saw it, it was necessary. It gave him the incentive to make his revenge more... satisfying.

Batman doesn’t do revenge. Robin hadn’t either.

Nightwing did. He’d helped him a few times. He was pretty sure the baby bird also took revenge, if the way he’d been plotting getting his father divorced was any indication.

Robin had never been vengeful. Not that he didn’t have anything to be vengeful about; but he’d been happy. Taken care of. He’d believed that Batman would always be there to protect him; he knew now that, if he could, Batman would trade places with him in a heartbeat. That wasn’t what he was worried about.

He’d never understood why other heroes would say he was just a man. Sitting in the tub, he thought he understood now.

There were limits being human had. Robin had never been willing to admit that Batman had limits beyond those he self-imposed. Whether Robin had ever admitted it or not, it was something Cardinal had gotten to know intimately. He supposed it was fair. Robin was never supposed to shoulder that burden; it was, after all, the reason Cardinal was able to take flight. Cardinal was born because of the limitations Batman had.

He felt the hands leave him. He eventually found his grip on the side of the tub, hauling himself above water and looking at the scene in front of him.

Agent A was fussing over Phantom. He could hear her muttering about cooling him down. He saw her place a gentle hand on his cheek, muttering “You look a little pale,” as he watched him fight not to let his head lull to the side.

These people would pay for what they’ve done. However, patience was a virtue. He could be patient. He could play the game. He could wait his turn, bide his time.

He was willing to burn this place to the fucking ground if it meant he’d never be cold again.

#dp x dc #ailesswhumptober2023 #jason todd #danny fenton #danny phantom #dc robin #robin #batman #ai less whumptober day seventeen #kite flies over the nightingale nest