Chapter Text
“How about Cyborg?” Tucker suggests.
Danny rests his head back in the bean bag and stares at the ceiling. It’s not like he hasn’t noticed the similarities himself. It’s famous how teenager Victor Stone had a lab accident and then pieced himself back together and in the wake of tragedy rose to heroism. Tucker has long admired Cyborg and asked Danny more than once to get his autograph if they ever meet.
It’s not a bad suggestion. Cyborg would definitely get the lab accident… He’d understand the call to be a hero…
“Let’s keep searching.” Danny decides.
Tucker gives him a frown but doesn’t push it. They’ve been tossing around ideas of who Danny could go to for advise on and off for couple weeks and it’s not the first time Cyborg has been suggested. He might even be the best choice, but still…
“Hm… How do you feel about questionable morals?” Sam asks distractedly as she continues reading off her laptop.
Danny’s brows furrow. “Uh, how questionable?”
“There’s a rumor that one of the vigilantes in Gotham is undead.” Danny stares at Sam in confusion. Batman is notorious for not allowing metas in his city. “The theory is that Red Hood is actually the second Robin, who died. This is all hearsay and conspiracy, but the timeline works and it explains why Batman lets Red Hood stay despite his ‘no killing’ policy. There’s even a credible testimony from someone who was saved by Red Hood who says that the vigilante referred to himself as a zombie.”
“Isn’t Red Hood a crime lord?” Tucker asks incredulously.
“Apparently he’s reformed.” Sam shrugs.
The two continue to squabble over whether or not Red Hood qualifies as a valid mentor, Danny can’t help feeling simultaneously touched and hurt.
They don’t like acknowledging that he died that day. Tucker won’t outright deny what happened, but Danny has caught Tuck counting his breaths more than once, reassuring himself that Danny is still (partially) alive. Sam hides it behind rolled eyes at his increasingly morbid jokes, but when she thinks he’s not looking she’ll haunch her shoulders just a bit from their usual proud posture.
It’s hard for them to acknowledge what happened – what they saw.
But Sam went out of her way to find someone who might be able to understand that Danny’s story doesn’t start with ‘I survived’.
Jazz would say that support groups are healthy and highly recommended after traumatic events. Was that what Danny was really looking for? Support? Sam certainly seems to think so. It must have been hard for her to track down rumors like that (and there are many heroes who are rumored to have ‘died’) to find one that was credible. How many leads had she tracked down before suggesting he talk to a possibly reformed crime lord?
And what would it mean for Danny?
If Red Hood had died and come back…
It wouldn’t be the same, clearly. Danny had died and revived and died and survived or some variation thereof for an endless thirty-five seconds (he had checked the footage, desperate to understand what had happened to him) where he was unmade and remade and simultaneously held himself together. Vlad may also be a halfa, and Danny did feel bad for the months and months that he had laid alone in the hospital as the ectoplasm slowly integrated into his being, but at no point had Vlad ever mentioned dying.
And that’s what Danny needed to get off his chest. Sam and Tucker were always behind him 100% and he couldn’t imagine better friends, but they were there. It was a raw wound for all three of them and Danny couldn’t force his friends to sit through another existential crisis (there had been several that first month).
He tunes back in as his friends’ discussion starts winding down. “Look, opinions on him vary. I’ve got everything here from ‘He’s a madman who should be locked up in Arkham’ to ‘He’s the true vigilante Gotham needs defending the poorest areas.” Sam defends.
“I’m just saying, there are other options and a potential crime lord should be way down the list.” Tucker crosses his arms and glowers.
Danny, as the one with the actual list, writes down Red Hood at the very bottom of the page with a huge blank space between him and the three potential mentors they already put down. Cyborg is at the top of the list followed by Martian Manhunter (“He’s literally an alien! And he can phase through objects – that’s totally ghost like! He’d be perfect!), and Raven (“She’s an expert on dark magic. I guarantee she’ll either know about ghosts or know where to find out more.)
They toss a few more suggestions including a rumor that there’s an actual ghost that works in the Justice League’s magic of ‘Dark’ division. Considering that most people don’t even think that division is real, Danny dismisses it.
A week later Danny is still thinking about Red Hood. The weekend after is President’s Day and the three day weekend would be the best time for him to fly out to Gotham. At his top speed he could be there in five and a half hours, spend some time tracking the vigilante/crime lord down, ask some questions, do some actual touristy stuff, and then fly home. There are sure to be plenty of abandoned spaces that a ghost could access for him to sleep in and hey, if everything goes really well with Red Hood, maybe Danny can crash at his place!
Ok, so that’s the idealized plan and Sam had already pointed out that he had never flown for so many hours before so he should plan on taking a break in the middle and Tucker helpfully reminds him that Batman doesn’t like metas in his city so his invisibility is also going to get a workout. He sees the worry in their eyes but neither of them mention the potential danger and reassure him over and over that they can handle the ghosts for a weekend and they will call him if anything big happens.
Yeah, Danny definitely has the best friends.
Now he just needs to secure himself a potentially murderous, hopefully undead mentor.