Chapter Text
When Danny first moved to Gotham to complete his PhD at Gotham University, a tiny nugget of a dream consistently lived in the back of his mind—to work at Wayne Enterprises. But that was all he thought it would ever be, a dream. Maybe he should have known better, since earning a PhD had also been one of his unlikely dreams a few years ago; now he was twenty-seven and halfway through to earning it, despite a late start to his secondary education.
Danny had taken a gap year after high school, after being so overwhelmed by ghost attacks and protecting Amity Park for so long. His final grades and high school GPA weren’t terrible, but they weren’t great. After graduation, Danny honestly didn’t think he’d even get the chance to go to college at all, and then he found out he was the freaking Ghost King of the Infinite Realms.
Yup, that’s right. Clockwork finally deemed him able to handle that apparently. But during that following year, he also learned some perks to the title—he could declare Amity Park off limits to any ghost but him. And since ghosts had to go through Amity Park to get to the rest of the living realm, Danny Fenton was finally free from a life of vigilantism and heroics!
Well, they could still go through and bother Vlad via his portal, but Danny didn’t care about that at first. The fruitloop freaking deserved it. He did end up making a deal with Vlad after a… suitable time period of retribution, however.
Danny smirked down at the countertop as he remembered his godfather’s exasperation near the end of that particular payback. He was waiting for his coffee to brew in the breakroom, needing to refuel before taking another go at those blueprints.
Because he was now an engineer at Wayne Enterprises.
Danny hadn’t even started his PhD yet when he and his friends found out that Tucker’s uncle Lucius had gotten a job at Wayne Enterprises. Danny and Tucker each had gushed over how cool that was when they found out. Maybe that was the spark that created Danny’s far-off dream of working there too.
But through a series of miraculous events, a la Tucker putting in a good word with his uncle and Clockwork deigning to let Danny play with time a smidge to fast-track studying for his Bachelors, Danny was in. A junior engineer—already!—in the company’s R&D department.
He was still Ghost King even if he had retired from his Phantom alter-ego. But it also turned out that Dani loved being a Princess. She had come home after a few years of traveling throughout the living realm and wanted to branch into the Infinite, so they decided that she could take over a lot of Danny’s Kingly responsibilities in the Realms. It had been so long since the Realms had a peaceful ruler, or even just a ruler that wasn’t locked away, meaning it totally made sense for Dani to rule on the road by meeting as many ghosts and visiting as many haunts as she could—a ghostly PR run, one could call it.
The coffee machine beeped, and Danny cleared things up for the next person before grabbing that sweet, sweet caffeine. He was so, so grateful for Mr. Fox pulling the strings he had to hire Danny, no matter how much the man insisted Danny’s ingenuity for engineering was reason enough for ‘scooping him up before anyone else could’. It turned out that growing up with mad scientist parents, plus needing to learn how every invention worked so as to break them or slightly nullify them, was a fantastic foundation for his chosen career.
Danny left out that part of his background though if anyone asked about his education. The GIW, although less of a worry since ghosts stopped coming through the portals, was still a legal issue for Danny’s very existence, and the entirety of Amity Park’s craziness was hushed up by them nowadays. He didn’t want to risk any in depth research into ghosts if people found out his parents were arguably successful ghost hunters and/or scientists, for his own safety. Jazz had been able to leave all that behind in her life, and Danny hoped to as well—as best he could, at least, considering his half-alive condition.
As Danny began to leave the breakroom to return to his cubicle, he glanced around before subtly using his ice powers just a tiny bit, cooling the drink from its scalding temperature. He needed the caffeine, stat! In fact, he was just taking his first sip as he left the room when disaster struck.
“Oh, no! I’m so sorry!” exclaimed the man who Danny collided with, the coffee lost to the floor and staining both of their outfits. “Are you okay?”
Danny was really glad he had cooled the drink down. Now he only had to worry about stains and not mild burns. “I’m fine,” he said, wiping some of the liquid from where it splashed his face and almost dripped into his eyes. Blinking rapidly, he looked at the unfortunate stranger. “I should have seen you there, Mr…” Danny’s eyes widened. “Mr. Wayne! Oh, Ancients, I’m sorry!”
Bruce Wayne stood before him, his crisp white shirt not so white anymore, and his no-doubt horridly expensive suit completely ruined. Surprised he wasn’t angry, Danny quickly became overwhelmed when the man whipped out a pocket square and started dabbing Danny’s face and clothes with it. What the—
“No, no, it’s my fault,” Mr. Wayne insisted. He flashed a bright yet sheepish grin, and Danny couldn’t help but feel a little weak at the knees. That was definitely the look that made the media dub ‘Brucie’ Wayne Gotham’s most eligible bachelor. And he was directing it at Danny.
Danny’s face was already dry and Bruce Wayne’s frantic patting had moved down to his neck by the time Danny finally rebooted his brain and stopped the man, lightly pushing his hand away. “I—thank you, sir, you don’t—”
“Pssh,” Mr. Wayne made a pinched face, “call me Bruce, please. I’m only barely older than you… Denny, right?”
Danny gaped. “Danny,” he barely managed to correct him. Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, knew his name?! Or… almost?
Mr—Bruce, Bruce snapped his fingers, as if just remembering. “Danny, right! I hear great things, all very great.” His expression changed a bit, becoming more serious, and Danny’s breath hitched. “Lucius is very fond of you.”
Danny gulped. That… that was a good thing, right? Why did his eyes look so… intense, then? “Th-thanks?” he stuttered.
There was a beat, then Bruce laughed, clapping a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Of course! Oh, by the way, bill any dry cleaning to a company card, it’s on me!”
Danny glanced down at the old pair of jeans and inexpensive button-up he had chosen that morning, obviously not expecting to run into his company’s CEO. “Sure thing,” he said faintly. He looked at Bruce’s own outfit again and cringed. Could clothes that billionaires buy even be dry cleaned?
Danny was saved from putting his foot in his mouth by the sound of footsteps approaching from behind him. When Bruce saw the person his eyebrows rose, so Danny looked over his shoulder to find Lucius Fox himself coming their way.
“Bruce, what have you done to my poor engineer?” Mr. Fox asked.
“Just a minor collision! Lend him a company card, would you, Lucius?”
Mr. Fox rolled his eyes but nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll have to steal him from you actually, R&D have hit a bit of a roadblock just now, and the interns are insisting he needs to take a look at whatever the problem is.”
“It’s Bruce, please,” Bruce insisted, but Danny could hear a weird strain in his voice. Looking closer, he seemed a bit tense, and a weird look seemed to pass between him and Mr. Fox, communicating something Danny obviously couldn’t decipher. What was up with that? “And of course,” Bruce continued. He looked back at Danny. “It was nice meeting you, Denny!”
Danny didn’t bother to correct him again, still a little stunned at the man’s smile. He did manage to nod though before Bruce walked away.
“You got something to change into, kid?” Mr. Fox asked, and Danny refocused. He did, in fact, and said so. “Good. Go change and meet me in Lab 6, will you? I’ll call a janitor to clean that up,” he said, motioning to the small puddle on the floor.
Danny quickly ducked back into the empty breakroom where there was a small coat room and locker area for junior R&D employees to put away their personal belongings, since many worked directly in the labs and only had small cubicles with desks. He mourned his lost coffee and looked longingly at the machine after he changed, but he would have to wait. When Lucius Fox asked you to do something at Wayne Enterprises, you did it, ASAP. He couldn’t even be mad at Bruce Wayne for his beloved drink’s sudden death—not with that beautiful smile now seared into Danny’s memory. Hopefully next time they met, if they ever did, there wouldn’t be any other embarrassing mishaps.
♞♞♞
Bruce Wayne didn’t trust easily, and that fact seeped into his role as CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Of anyone though, he would admit that he trusted Lucius Fox the most with his family’s vast company. But that didn’t mean that trust encompassed those Lucius trusted as well.
Bruce did his own cursory research into every single Wayne Enterprises employee. Obviously the company did its own background checks, and Bruce trusted those, but he liked to dig a little deeper, just in case. And he did it for his own files—you never knew when certain knowledge could be useful for a case.
He dug deeper for employees with more important positions, of course. So even though he wanted to trust Lucius’ hiring decisions, when the Batcomputer pinged inconsistencies from the hiring of one Daniel Fenton, Bruce couldn’t just take a familial recommendation and the employee’s strong university track record at face value.
Dick pointedly noted that the man was studying for his PhD. He obviously meant to connect the high ratio of Gotham rogues with doctorate degrees, and therefore suggest a corresponding higher probability of criminal intent or action, which was only slightly irrational based on the data, and offset only by common sense.
Batman and Robin hid on a shadowy rooftop opposite the main entrance of Wayne Enterprises. Before arriving, Batman had explained patiently to the hyperactive Robin why exactly they would be following Danny Fenton home from work. The online issues pinged by the Batcomputer search included extremely strong firewalls and some suspicious discrepancies when looking into Danny’s early education. For how brilliant the man was, his high school transcript copy submitted for admission before starting college was abysmal. This prompted Bruce to try and get his original transcript straight from the high school, only to run into absurdly complex online security that he still hadn't been able to bypass.
Why hide his grades like that, if it was Danny doing so? And why submit terrible grades instead of forging better ones? Especially considering Danny’s rapid advancement through his courses and stellar scores.
Bruce hit more firewalls looking into Danny’s personal life, and strangely by looking into his hometown in general. Something was not right in Amity Park, and he would find out—if not as Bruce, then as Batman.
“B, I’m coooold,” Robin whined, falling nimbly from the handstand he had been amusing himself with for the past few minutes. Batman continued to watch the entrance with his binoculars, but lifted his cape in invitation.
Robin grinned, ducking underneath. No matter how many times he suggested the boy add actual pants to his uniform, Dick refused. He only barely settled for thermal underwear. Luckily the season hadn’t completely turned from autumn to winter quite yet.
As predicted, only a few more minutes passed before Danny exited Wayne Enterprises. Bruce had made first contact earlier that day outside the R&D breakroom, and the first impressions didn’t stand out as too peculiar. Danny was a bit tongue-tied, Bruce supposed, but that wasn’t an unexpected effect, considering Bruce was the CEO and had orchestrated their meeting to include an ‘unexpected’ yet plausible stroke of bad luck. First reactions to misfortune could be very telling about someone’s character.
Batman squeezed Robin’s shoulder, and he sensed the boy come to attention. He tucked away the binoculars and nudged the boy out from his cape. “Come,” he said, setting off to follow Danny from the shadows.
They trailed him a few blocks, and soon deduced he was heading to a certain subway stop, which Batman knew was the most direct route to Gotham University’s dormitories. That had already been investigated, but Batman wanted to know if Danny ever deviated from such a set routine.
It didn’t seem he would that night—that was until Batman and Robin witnessed Danny get suddenly jumped and tugged into a nearby alleyway. Robin gasped in surprise and leapt forward, rushing to intervene. Batman held him back immediately. “Robin, remember. Assess…”
Robin huffed. “Then engage.”
Batman grunted in affirmation. Together they took to the roof above the alley and peered down.
It was dark, the sun long set and the moon new, with only a bit of light reaching from the street to illuminate the thugs and Danny in the alley. It was enough to see Danny’s unobscured face even if his attackers remained anonymous, and Batman instantly noted both the lack of fear in his expression and the loose stance he had with his hands raised in surrender.
There was something else too, something peculiar. The alleyway was mostly dark, the lamplight orange-hued… so what was creating that light with a greenish tinge?
He could sense Robin did not make any of those observations, likely more focused on the muggers, one of which was standing very close to Danny and wielding a knife. Anxiety practically radiated from the boy next to him, so Batman wasn’t entirely surprised when, at the first threatening swing of the knife, Robin promptly disregarded Batman’s quiet warning and vaulted himself off the roof and into the situation.
Vexed, Batman followed. On his descent he saw pure surprise from Danny, but the man seemed to process their appearance quickly. Much quicker than he’d processed Bruce Wayne’s earlier that day. In fact, instead of ducking to safety, Danny kicked away the thug’s knife on the ground after Robin knocked it from the criminal’s hand.
One of the other thugs in the alley bolted, so Batman threw bolas at his legs to trip him and he went down in a heap. Another thug he straight-up punched in the face, and the man fell to the ground, unconscious. From the corner of his eye he saw another sneaking up behind Robin, the boy too focused on fighting the formerly-knife-wielding thug, but before he could even ready a Batarang in his hand, the thug slipped backwards wildly, landing hard on the ground with a skull-rattling smack against the concrete.
Batman’s eyes narrowed. Was that… ice on the ground?
A triumphant cry alerted him to Robin’s success, and it was then that he noticed Danny had moved, now closer to the thug that just slipped than Robin.
Interesting.
“B, did you see that move I did? Just like I practiced!”
Batman did not, but he hummed. “You should have waited,” he chided, keeping an eye on Danny. The man was eyeing them both, obviously curious but more wary than he had been when facing those muggers on his own.
Robin deflated a bit. “Sorry,” he said, then followed Batman’s gaze to Danny. Less bubbly than before, Robin ducked back to Batman and pushed aside his cape to hide under there like he had on the roof.
The alley was quiet, the only ones not unconscious being the vigilantes and Danny. The man was taking Batman in, who in turn suppressed the urge to bristle at the scrutiny. He saw Danny’s gaze linger on his utility belt, which was more visible due to Robin having moved Batman’s cape.
“Thought you weren’t a gun guy,” Danny said, inexplicably.
Batman looked down, then up again. “I’m not. It’s a grapple.”
Danny’s eyes rose. “A grapple? You mean, like a grappling gun? What if your hand slips, or you’re tired?” he questioned. “Good grief, Wii remotes are bad enough!”
This was… not how people usually reacted to Batman and Robin.
“We practice!” Robin interjected. “Though… you’re not wrong about Wii remotes.” He looked up at Batman.
Danny seemed less wary, but grew more tense with worry. “You have one too? That’s…” he trailed off with a frown. Batman almost couldn’t hear his next words; they were so quiet, but he thought he heard Danny mutter, “…so not safe. Could be much better…”
Breaking the strange atmosphere they drifted into, Batman said, “You should go.” Danny’s entire demeanor during their encounter had been entirely unexpected, and Batman didn’t know what to make of his observations of the man. Yet. “The police will arrest your attackers.”
“Right… right, thank you,” Danny said. Batman and Robin were closer to the entrance of the alleyway, so he slowly made his way past them, hopping over one of the thugs. “I—you get home safe.”
Robin giggled. “That’s our line, mister!”
Danny grinned and nodded. “Sure, kiddo. Bye then.”
“Bye!” Robin chirped, coming out from under the cape to wave.
When Danny was out of sight around the corner, Batman grabbed onto Robin and grappled back up to the roof. Upon landing, Robin squirmed to be free and faced him with a smile. “He was nice, B!”
“Hn.” Danny Fenton was indeed nice. And if he was right about that ice, it was also likely that Danny Fenton was a meta.