Chapter Text
“Thanks, Fright,” Danny says as he opens the car door.
“Of course, your highness.” Fright Knight twists to look into the backseat, eyes and hair bursting into purple fire as he points at Danny. “Respect your curfew in fear of my sword and the wrath of the king!”
“You’re my knight in shining armor,” Danny laughs, getting out of the car.
“Meet me back here at the witching hour, or forfeit your soul!”
Danny closes the back door and leans down to speak through the open passenger window. “I’m dead, so I’m pretty sure that means you’d be taking my whole body.”
“Exactly! I’ll be taking your body home.” The flames die down and Fright Knight loosens his fists to return his hands to the steering wheel, the dramatic flair turning into sincerity. “Have fun, your highness.”
Danny waves and then trudges up the steps of the Gotham Art and Science Museum. He’s actually been looking forward to this.
While originally Damian’s idea and assisted by Tim, Danny’s became invested in the project over the last week. To spread the word, he and Damian handed out fliers at school and at both of their families’ companies. Danny even sent out an email to all employees with children between the ages of 13 to 18. Some of those parents were so excited about the idea that they even took fliers to their kids’ schools.
It’s a two pronged strategy. First, to get people (especially the youth) more interested in going to museums; and second, to get people into the museum who normally couldn’t afford the tickets. As a further incentive, parents get free admission if they arrive with their kids. The directors also agreed that if this night has a successful turn out, then they’ll seriously consider how often they can run it.
(While WE has sponsored this whole thing, Danny’s wondering how he can get Dalv Co. to help with footing the bill. Vlad does charity work, but just enough to cut taxes, not because he believes in giving back to the community. (Which is one of the reasons that when Danny is mad at Vlad, he particularly enjoys dumping that week’s allowance into a tip jar. In retaliation, Vlad has sometimes tried to withhold allowance to stop Danny from doing this.)) Anyways, the museum night.
Danny stops at the ticket booth, showing his student ID to the attendant before heading further into the museum. Damian is waiting in front of the info desk, just past the lobby.
“Good, you’re here.” Damian nods to him once in greeting.
“Yeah, hello to you too.” Danny thought he’s early enough, but there’s already people milling around in the foyer; he can see them through the open doors on either side of the info desk.
“Hm. Your clothes are adequate for this evening,” Damian says, giving Danny a once over. Coming from Damian, that must qualify as a complement.
Tonight, Danny’s wearing a burgundy silk shirt with gold buttons and star shaped, topaz studded cuff links at the sleeve cuffs. The one dangling earring in his ear is a match to the cuff links. His black slacks are properly pressed and his suede shoes are embroidered with golden flowers to match his belt. This is even one of the few occasions that he asked Vlad for help to style his hair (even though it brings up painful memories of his dad and they had to have a moment to quietly hug in the bathroom). Vlad was thrilled to help and achieved that tousled-stylishly-on-purpose look. In the car, Danny took the liberty of adding a bit of silver glitter to his eyes along with eyeliner and also some highlighter on his cheek bones over his freckles.
Damian doesn’t look too bad himself. Actually, he looks… really great. Very artistic. The brown polished dress shoes and slicked back hair are par for the course, paired with a dark slate-gray dress shirt and matching slacks. He’s also wearing a touch of makeup with green on his eyelids and a bit of gold dust at the corners of his eyes. It’s his waist coat that makes him into that is the masterpiece. The embroidery looks like an impressionist painting of a sunset; all orange and red and yellow that’s cut through with dusky blue and a hint of lilac purple. Damian’s irises are deep brown in the dimmed lights of the museum lobby.
“Uh, thanks, your waist coat is really cool,” Danny manages, pulling his attention back up to Damian’s face.
“Yes, I quite think so too.” Damian’s eyes flick over to the museum entrance. “Here come some more guests.
“Right.” Danny steps up to Damian’s side (aura brushing against death shroud with a prickle) and he turns to face the approaching people; a probably-thirty year old man with his teen daughter.
From 8-9pm, Danny and Damian greet guests who come to the Teen’s Free Admission Night at the Gotham Art and Science Museum. It’s a great turn out and Danny shakes a lot of hands.
At roughly 8:30, a few select reporters are allowed into the museum (two actually brought their kids, so that’s nice) by the admission and security team. The reporters take some candid shots of Danny and Damian shaking hands (with each other and with guests), and then after the admission doors are closed, they ask for some professional shots and some pictures of Danny and Damian looking at a few exhibits. After that, the reporters filter off to experience the night for themselves.
Now that they’ve been left to their own devices, Damian pulls a travel-sized hand sanitizer tube from his pocket and rubs a dollop into his hands (oh, that’s smart). “As an additional ‘thank you for sponsoring the event,’ the directors asked Tim if they could show some of his work. It’s on the second floor and I’d like to see the display tonight.”
“Sure thing, you’d said he’s a photographer, right?” Danny asks, trying to remember back to the lunch they had in the art room.
“Indeed.”
“It’ll be cool to see his stuff. I’d like to check out the space exhibit at some point too.”
Damian nods. “We can certainly make that work.”
Danny and Damian move around the guests, stopping every so often to admire the artwork. Unlike the two hosts, the guests wear a mixture from casual clothes to Sunday-best, a pair of sweat pants here and a blouse there, or a suit jacket thrown over a t-shirt, but the attention is on the museum exhibits rather than what people are wearing. Most of them barely even register that Danny and Damian are there too, though some do thank them again for hosting the night.
On the second floor, they come up to Tim’s photography display in the Artists of Modern Day Gotham exhibit. While Danny does not have an artist's eye, he can recognize that the presentation starts with a larger field of focus that gets smaller along the selection of photos.
There’s the Gotham skyline poking out of the smog, all smudges and grime but the lights of the skyscrapers shine like stars, bright and hopeful; followed by bird-eye views of streets from the tops of buildings or drones, sidewalks lined in litter or pristine clean, people going about their day. Next, there are street level shots of Gotham life with sex-workers having fun posing for the camera, police cars at a crime scene in the pouring rain, a goon pointing a gun at the camera, a group of homeless people sharing bread around a trashcan fire, and a ballerina posing on the crosswalk with the traffic blurring behind her. Of the smaller focused shots, Danny really likes the one where a rat with a joker smile is sitting on the curb next to a sewer entrance.
The display is… really nice, Danny decides. “You can tell how much he loves Gotham. It’s like he’s saying that yeah, this place is violent and grimy, but look at all the hope. These are people living their lives and wildlife trying to survive.”
Damian nods, hands in his pockets. “I see it too. It’s a quality that I have learned to also love about this city.”
“Yeah,” Danny chuckles, “I guess both of us moved here and have had to learn what others have known ever since they were kids growing up.”
“Indeed.” Lifting a hand, Damian starts pointing out composition details to Danny. This time though, Damian is just sharing information, not being condescending. “The sight lines on this one lead very well from the foreground into the negative space of the background. And this one here follows the rule of thirds excellently. Even though this one uses the contrast of juxtaposition, it’s still balanced with perfect symmetry.”
Danny smiles and listens, watching where Damian points.
The museum’s lights are dimmed low and the winter string lights were taken out of storage to be used for the event. The lights are strung through the exhibits, looped around paintings and hung over the informative display panels. In the dim yellow glow, Damian’s eyes aren’t gold or even brown, they’re dark and thoughtful.
After standing for a moment longer at Tim’s photography display, they move on to meander the other exhibits. There’s a lot about the art wing that goes over Danny’s head, but the different periods are interesting, and he appreciates Damian’s commentary on different brush techniques and paint types. While they saw older styles like the renaissance period on the first floor, the second floor has more modern art movements like abstract and futurism, not to mention Gotham’s current artists.
They move to the other wing of the museum, taking in the second floor science exhibit with the dinosaurs and invention room and the documentary screen. Danny thinks that the exhibit depicting the Progression of Air Travel is interesting, but it talks more about airplanes than rockets. The Tinker Invention Station is full of people (though Danny manages to swipe some parts and make a little robotic car) and the documentary on “How is That Made?” is interesting for the moment that they watch about giant chain links being made for cruise ship anchors. Then they leave the second floor and return to the foyer stairs to go back to the first floor.
They quickly move past the instrument center in the What is Sound room– various teens picking up the boom whackers and wind chimes to make as much noise as possible –and enter the Space Exploration room.
Danny looks at the model of the space craft mounted to the wall, the Ares 14 which reached Mars and returned in a voyage that lasted only a year. It’s actually an outdated exhibit given that there have since been two more Mars trips, but the initial voyage was no less remarkable in terms of human engineering (much like how the first trip to the moon with Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 are still talked about).
“Actually, fun fact,” Danny says, pointing to one of the placards that explains how the space craft’s landing location on Mars was very carefully chosen and considered. “The average thickness of the Martian crust is 45 km, with 32 km in the northern lowlands region, and 58 km in the southern highlands. From cooled lava flows to erosion by high winds, there is a lot of variation in Mar’s topography.”
It happens so slowly that Danny and Damian almost don’t notice the change in the crowd. The way that people start shifting their weight on their feet and looking over their shoulders.
Tense hands and wide eyes.
Nerves that skitter up the spine.
Watching shadows that seem to deepen.
Nervously clearing his throat, Danny continues speaking, even though he could swear that it feels like a hand is slowly closing around his neck. “Anyways, the boundary between the northern and southern regions of Mars is quite complex in places. One distinctive type of topography is called fretted terrain. It contains mesas, knobs, and flat-floored valleys that have walls going up about a mile high-”
Damian gestures for Danny to stop talking, casting a glance over his shoulder. “Fenton, something isn’t right.”
Danny stops and looks around, his eyelids strangely heavy. Some of the guests are yawning, others are looking anxious. It is getting late at night in Gotham, so that’s not too unusual. He kinda just gives Damian a confused shrug. “As I was saying-”
“Listen,” Damian hisses quietly, his death shroud spiking urgently against Danny’s aura. “I think…” He trails off, concentrating and eyes flicking around the room.
It’s Danny’s turn to share now and Damian should be listening, but there’s a coiled tension in the set of Damian’s shoulders and an anxious twist in his frown. So, alright, if only just to reassure humor Damian.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Danny tilts his head and listens, letting his senses hone down to an edge. There’s a sweetness against his tongue and a hissing coming from the vents and the rustle of clothes as people move and-
And hissing coming from the vents.
His head snaps around, whole body jerking sluggishly with the movement. If he focuses really hard with his human eyes, he can just about see the slow trail of a blue mist against the floor, swirling as it gets kicked up and dispersed by people walking past.
“Fenton? What do you-” Damian’s words are cut off and warped as he tries and fails to suppress a jaw-cracking yawn, hand raised to cover his mouth.
Danny wishes he could turn off his breathing for a moment, but unfortunately this human form needs air to make words. “Masks! Masks! Put on your gas masks!”
There is a mixture of responses.
Some people flinch in sluggish confusion, others take a slow moment to register his words, and the rest immediately dig into their pockets and bags to pull out the small gas filters (because it’s
Gotham for crying out loud and things exactly like this happen (granted, this is the first time that Danny has been caught in an event, but of course he’s prepared)).
Then there’s the thudding of bodies hitting the floor as people go down one by one.
The smell of fear rises so fast that it sends Danny’s head swimming. Instinctively, he swallows hard, and then has to bite the inside of cheek to keep the surge of power at bay. The coppery tang of blood coats his tongue, his own restless fear rising from the pit of his stomach.
Don't scream. Don't scream.
“Fenton, mask.”
Damian sways, one hand trying to fix the mask to his face and the other pulling his phone out of his pocket as he leans on the wall for support, knees trembling.
Forcing the tainted air out of his lungs, Danny clumsily fixes his mask to his face.
“There must be a sedative… in the fear gas…” Damian gasps blearily, voice muffled by the mask. He squints at his phone screen, eyes drifting closed before he snaps them open again.
Even through the mask, the air is sweet with fear. There’s power tingling in Danny’s sluggish fingers and his heart is a terrified stumble in his chest.
Don’t scream.
He should just go ghost. Find a place to hide and escape. Let the local heroes do their job. His job is ghosts. This isn’t a ghost. At least, he doesn’t think so. His ghost sense isn’t going off and his range of sense has expanded over the years.
But Damian is right there, fighting to stay awake and reaching for him.
Oh.
Falling.
Damian is falling.
Danny catches him and they go down together; Danny’s knees hitting the floor, the pain dull and registering far off in the back of his head as Damian sprawls limply in his arms, that death shroud reduced to a low shiver against Danny’s skin.
He’s vaguely aware that this is going to be funny later when he can tease Damian about it.
But right now…
Right now, Damian is saying something.
Danny furrows his brow, focusing past the sleepy yet scared fog in his head.
“Time? What time…” Damian’s words trail off as his eyes flutter closed.
The time? What? Danny picks up Damian’s phone and squints at the screen. There’s a red SOS circle in the middle of the lock screen, wobbling like the way that an alarm clock rings in a cartoon.
9:57
Danny looks up as footsteps approach.
The tip of a cane? A staff? The tip of a staff is under his chin, lifting his head up. A purple and green figure wrapped in shadows that stands behind a long-limped burlap creature that’s bending to crouch over Danny and Damian.
“Seems we got one still clinging on.”
Cold, broken fingernails pull the straps of Danny’s gas mask away from his cheek. “Not for long. He’ll succumb to my fear.”
Danny jerks his head away from the looming shadows and the foul breath that wafts over his face, biting his tongue this time as he locks his jaw closed.
Don’t scream.
Afraid. Afraid. Afraid.
They’re going to get him. They’re coming for him. It’s his fault. It’s all his fault.
Don’t scream.
Danny is so very terrified. They’ve caught him. He’s all on his own. No one is going to come save him this time.
Is that his blood in Danny’s mouth?
Are his teeth latching around someone's throat?
No. It can't be. He can’t be.
Dark Phantom is supposed to be erased.
Don’t scream.
Wait. Why shouldn’t he scream? What was he doing again? He was running, right? There’s something chasing him, something that is going to catch him, rip him to shreds. He’s so scared. He’s so alone. He’s so tired. It is a lead pull in his limbs.
It doesn’t matter how terrified he is. He can’t run anymore.
It’s okay if they flay the skin from his corpse.
At least he gets to sleep now.
There's a cold press of ice or tile against the side of his head and then his vision goes black, his consciousness bottoming out.
~~~
With every breath, a sweet tang of fear blankets Danny’s tongue and slides down his throat. It goes straight to his core, that icy thrum in his chest dialing to a buzz as energy seeps into his system. The fear is thin now– like watered down broth –enough to feed on while still making Danny’s mouth water, wanting more.
He swallows hard and sucks down another delicious breath. So many people here, all of them giving off dull ripples of fear.
It’s so good. It’s so much.
He needs more.
It’s too much. It’s not enough.
His senses return to him slowly. The eager weight of his core, brimming with power. The cold air. A crackle of static in the background. A pain in his temple like he hit his head. He’s aware of a warm weight next to him– his aura pressed up against a prickly shroud of death –and there’s something cold and metallic around his right wrist.
That weight stirs, his right arm getting moved by that metallic thing around his wrist. “Fenton?”
Danny peels his crusty eyes open and blows out a slow breath. Human. He’s a human right now. “Yeah, I’m here.”
The pros and cons of his body’s slower systems: it took longer for Danny to fall asleep and now it’s taking longer for him to wake up. Even with his fast healing burning through the sedative that clouds his head, his blood only pumps so fast. Not nearly as quickly as a full human’s.
Damian leans over him, eyes scanning his face. “Are you injured?”
Waving him off, Danny slowly sits up. “Bumped my head, but I’m fine.” He lifts his hands to rub them over his face, but stops when his right arm feels heavier than usual. His body hasn’t been heavy since he was fully human, but now his arm is way heavier than even that.
“Yeah, we’re handcuffed together.” Damian gives a light shake of his left wrist which pulls on Danny’s arm.
Danny has to… process… that for a moment. “I see.”
“We’re in the front room. The ticket lobby is behind us through there and the foyer is past those doors.” Damian points as he speaks.
“Yeah, I know where we are, I can see the info desk,” Danny says a bit more gruffly than he means to, gesturing to the desk that they had stood in front of earlier that night while greeting guests.
Aw, crap. The guests.
“Tt. I was just trying to be helpful.”
“Right, yeah, sorry, my nerves are shot.” Thanks a lot, fear gas.
“I know, mine too.” Damian looks away, taking in the details of the room.
Danny takes another slow breath, trying to breathe past the low tang of fear permeating the air, but the energy still goes straight to his core.
He could stop breathing, but his mortal body can only tolerate that for so long before the respiratory system does a panic-restart and forces him to breathe. Maybe if he takes a breath every other minute or so, that could work. He’d still be taking in the fear, but at least it will be slower.
Licking his dry lips, Danny takes a breath and holds it.
The museum’s intercom system crackles on. “Hello there, little birds, are you ready to play a game?”
Danny and Damian lock eye contact, their bodies going still.
“Since Gotham’s youngest princes are feeling oh so charitable, I thought a good dose of fear might help bring you crashing down to earth,” says a rasping voice.
“Indeed, let’s see just how intelligent you are,” the first voice chimes back in.
Damian heaves a sigh, casting his eyes sky-ward (silent prayer or silent curse?) as he mutters, “Scarecrow and Riddler.”
Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Danny’s seen clips of them on tv (“Watch out for this criminal”) and stuff on Twitblr (funny compilations of villainous plans getting spoiled by vigilantes). But for Damian to recognize them by voice alone? Or maybe it’s the gimmicks. Either way, impressive.
“But first, something to get the gears turning in those sleepy heads of yours.” Now that Danny is listening carefully, he can practically hear the smile in Riddler’s voice.
“One two three, open says me
Fret not to pick the lock
For soon you shall see
Intelligence or waver and balk
Charity’s plea, ends in misery.”
The intercom cuts off.
Damian wastes no time getting to business. “Fenton, what was the time?”
“Oh, earlier? It was almost 10. What time is it now?” Danny checks his pockets, frowning when he turns up nothing but lint. They took his phone.
“Tt. Yeah. They took my phone too and my–” Damian pauses, cutting off from what he was going to say so he can take a steadying breath. “My airpods.”
“Dude, airpods don’t matter right now. You can buy more later.”
Damian rolls his eyes but doesn’t respond. Together they stand up, giving as much space between them as their cuffed wrists will allow.
Returning to the matter at hand, Damian points to the digital clock above the info desk. “It’s nearly 10:30 now. That means that we lost around 30 minutes. They took our gas masks, our personal belongings, moved us, and locked us in this room. We can assume that they moved the guests to accommodate the trap.”
Damn. Danny is definitely going to miss his 11pm curfew.
Well, they better get moving.
“‘One two three, open says me. Fret not to pick the lock,’” Danny repeats. “Well that’s almost too easy. We’re looking for a key to open the door.” He does not repeat the line ‘charity’s plea, ends in misery’ because he really doesn’t like the idea of their event being the doom of all the people in the museum.
“Obviously.” Damian’s voice is as clipped as ever, his irritation clear. He drags Danny behind the info desk, immediately going through the third drawer. “It’s safe to assume that they’ll be able to hear and watch us. For now, we must play by their rules.” He holds up his hand, a hex key grasped in his fingers.
After using up all his breath by talking, Danny slowly takes in another deep breath that’s full of sweet fear. “Yeah, okay.” His voice might be a bit choked and hopefully Damian will chalk it up to just being scared. “So, you don’t happen to know what the vigilante response time is like?”
Moving over to the double doors that lead into the foyer, Damian frowns. He presses on the bar, maneuvering the hex key in the pin hole.
The door pops open with a click.
Damian gives Danny a meaningful look.
Flushing a bit with embarrassment (it’s definitely embarrassment!), Danny casts his eyes away and follows as Damian pulls him into the foyer. Well, it’s more that Damian just walks forward with a purpose and because they’re attached at the wrist, Danny has to follow.
He understands what Damian was trying to say with that one look.
If his brain wasn’t so caught up with his own anxiety and the fear swirling through the museum, he would’ve thought it through before asking.
Don’t make the villains upset by talking about the vigilantes. Danny and Damian have to stall for time until the Bats and the Birds get here, keeping Riddler and Scarecrow engaged enough that they don’t try to pull anything.
The vigilantes shouldn’t take too long, right?
Danny scowls at the handcuffs. In any other situation, he could escape them. A little intangibility, or a little ghost strength, or, hell, he could even just pop his hand off for a second. Except Damian is here too and so Danny has to be all, ‘I'm just a civilian, oh no, idk how to get out of handcuffs.’
Feeling his lungs tighten, Danny lets out his held breath and takes in another slow breath.
Damian has come to a stop in the dark foyer.
The space is eerily dim, light filtering in through the glass dome far above and everything cast in a red haze from the emergency lights. Otherwise, it’s relatively the same as before: the two flights of stairs that lead up to the second floor with a walkway between the landings and the dim gift shop underneath; the glass elevator shafts that show the elevators frozen in place; the square screens of the directory stand in the center of the foyer, all snowy with static.
And bodies everywhere.
Danny and Damian surge into movement, immediately trying to go two separate directions before being pulled back together by the handcuffs. Their shoulders collide and then they are rushing forward, dropping on their knees by a man who holds a younger girl.
Danny basically swallows his heart back down as he realizes it is the first man and his daughter that Danny had greeted just about two hours earlier. The man is protectively holding his daughter close, both of them unconscious and radiating dull, sweet fear, but unharmed. Their masks are missing.
Everyone’s mask is missing.
Then the directory board’s static flickers to life with a video.
“Hello again, birdies.” Riddler gives them a crooked grin that meets his eyes much too enthusiastically. He sits quite poshly, fingers laced together and one leg crossed over his other. “Did you enjoy your warm-up?”
Scarecrow leans forward over Riddler’s shoulder, eyes intense and piercing despite the burlap sack over his face and the straw hat on his head. Gripping the back of Riddler’s chair in one hand, his other hand squeezes the chair arm tightly as he leans over to leer his face too close to the camera. “Are you feeling afraid, yet? I can’t wait to blow this building sky-high. Fill the streets of Gotham with my fear.”
“Ah, ah,” Riddler scolds, batting Scarecrow back with a flap of a hand. “But first, they have to play along. It’s quite a simple game. Four rooms, four riddles, four bombs. Solve a riddle and you get to defuse a bomb.”
“Fail to solve the riddles by midnight, and I flood your guests with fear gas much more powerful than the taste you had earlier.” Scarecrow seems to squirm with excitement. “You will drown in fear, in your humanity, reduced to this animal instinct.”
Danny stares at the projected screen, bodies of civilians laying at his feet and behind him and to the left and up the stairs and–
It settles onto him, the weight of the responsibility placed in their hands. Danny could flare his aura, but he’s never tried to cover as big of a space as the museum’s foyer, much less the whole museum. Although, what if the static feedback is enough to make the bombs explode instead of turning them off? He’d also be a beacon to the GIW and that fear alone is enough to stop him from scrambling all the tech.
“Without further ado, let’s begin,” Riddler says with a crooked grin, the burlap face of Scarecrow hovering at his shoulder before the screen returns to a smear of static.
There’s a creak of a door opening behind Danny and Damian.
“Better get going,” Scarecrow sneers. “Tick tock.”
The time is 10:42
That leaves around 20 minutes for each riddle.
Or 15 minutes if you count that Danny and Damian will have to move between rooms and defuse a bomb apparently. (How can they defuse a bomb?! They can’t even roll a ball down a ramp without arguing! Sure, Danny likes to tinker and invent, but he doesn’t know how to defuse a bomb!! Is it like in the movies? He just has to clip the correct wire? How are they going to get clippers? Do villains provide their targets with tools?)
Danny’s arm is tugged upward.
“Fenton, get up.”
He looks up at Damian.
Right. All that they have to do is stall for time, keep Riddler and Scarecrow engaged enough that they don’t try to pull any funny business until the heroes get here. Danny can already hear police sirens in the distant parking lot.
They just have to get through one riddle, maybe two.
The clock is ticking.
Danny stands and nods to Damian with a confidence that he doesn’t feel. “Let’s go.”
Hand in hand (except not actually because they are handcuffed and not holding hands, Danny doesn’t want to hold Damian’s hand), they enter the Symbolism Era art exhibit.
There are people on the floor here too, no masks in sight as they slumber away. Half of the string lights are still on, but the ceiling lights are now just off instead of dimmed, save for the red emergency lights that bathe the room in crimson. The door at the end of the exhibit is closed and surely locked.
It occurs to Danny now that he and Damian must have been given some kind of antidote if they’re walking around while everyone sleeps.
His mind is a mess right now, thrumming anxiety mixing with the utter rush of power in his core from feeding on so much fear, his own terror making his fingers tremble. This is fine, everything is fine, he’s not in any real danger, but if he messes up, then all these people are dead.
The intercom clicks on and Riddler croons into the mic.
“Look not the child in the eye
Oh yee of little faith come to cry.
Angle weep for death’s bound bride
Wrapped in gilded frame with slim to hide.
The heart whose beat is free to save
With a price as steep as an early grave.”
The intercom clicks off.
“Right.” Damian says, pushing forward and tugging Danny along. “The bomb must be in the next room and we need to solve the riddle again to find the key for the door. We’re in a museum, the riddle must be describing one of the paintings.”
Danny pushes out and takes in another slow breath, trying to ground himself despite the heady rush of delicious fear. “This is very fitting for the symbolism exhibit.”
“Tt. The irony is not lost on me, Fenton. Now start looking at artwork.”
Right. Okay. Symbolism era paintings.
With 30 paintings, there are plenty of options. The paintings are mostly browns and grays with dulled colors save for one color that is highlighted, usually red or white, it seems. Also, they all seem to deal with themes like death, the bible, emotion, or mortality in some way, which certainly sets the tone for the start of this ‘game.’
Look not the child in the eye, oh yee of little faith come to cry. They need a painting with a crying child? Angel weep for death’s bound bride, wrapped in gilded frame with slim to hide. Or the angels are crying? And the frame is gold? The heart whose beat is free to save, with a price as steep as an early grave. Who is Riddler talking about? All the people in the museum meeting an early grave? He couldn’t possibly know about Danny. What about Damian and his death shroud?
Danny and Damian rush through the exhibit, cataloging the paintings as fast as they can while also trying not to trip over or accidentally kick anyone.
“You know…” Danny starts slowly, “The American dream is dead, that could be the answer.”
“Tt. We are not here to talk politics,” Damian chides, “Riddler has a specific painting that he’s chosen as an answer.”
“I’m just saying, riddles usually have many answers.”
Damian scoffs again, going quiet as they continue to quickly look at one painting after another. There’s a long pause of silence and then, “The American Dream was a hoax fed to consumers by capitalists with an agenda.”
Despite himself, Danny huffs a laugh, though he immediately draws in another heady breath of fear that sends his head spinning. His core is so eager and full and–
He bites down on the power that pulses over his tongue.
Keep it together. He has a task at hand.
It would just be so much easier if Danny could go ghost. Phantom could take care of everything lickty-split. Make some mimics, grab the bombs, fight the villains, and be done with no casualties. Except he can’t with Damian right beside him and Danny’s core is gaining so much power that Phantom would be like a beacon to the GIW. Ugh, and Danny can’t even make a mimic without Damian seeing (because the mimic, well, mimics Danny’s current state and Danny’s current state is visible, so the mimic would be very visible to Damian).
This whole situation is just annoying and frustrating and scary (aside from the residual fear gas in the air actually making him feel scared). There’s all these people here and they are relying on Danny and Damian.
Eventually, after just a few minutes that feel way too long, they come to stop in front of a painting. Two round-faced and dirty children are carrying a stretcher where an angel sits. She is hunched over and dressed in vivid white, a white blindfold around her eyes and her wings closed, a small posy clutched in one hand. The child behind the angel is looking directly at the viewer. With a background of browns and a dull blue sky, the angel is the brightest spot in the center of the canvas. The placard next to the painting reads, ‘The Wounded Angel by Hugo Simberg, 1903.’
Well, it does fit the riddle.
Damian looks at the painting reproachfully. “Are we really going to deface or even destroy a piece of historical work?”
“We can easily afford the price tag between both of our companies.” Danny doesn’t want to do this either, but they kind of have to, come on, Damian.
“Tt. Yes. But the piece could be gone forever.”
“They already damaged it by putting a key in the painting.”
“If they used the proper tools, then the damage can be repairable. We don’t have those tools now. I suppose if we are careful then it could still hopefully be repaired.”
“Lives are on the line.” How has Danny become the voice of reason in this situation?
Damian sighs in resignation. “Then we better hope this is the correct painting.”
They exchange a glance, hesitating a moment longer. They could wait and see if Batman or someone comes crashing in, but the police sirens have faintly continued outside of the museum and no one has made any attempt to contact them. The Bats and the Birds are surely doing their thing, gathering information and waiting for the right time to strike when there won’t be as much risk to civilians. They probably have to find where Riddler and Scarecrow are holed up, or figure out where the bombs are, or something. And the police aren’t going to try to interfere with villains like these, especially not with so many hostages.
So, silently and in unison, Danny and Damian lift the painting off the wall.
Surprisingly– or maybe it shouldn’t be surprising considering the circumstances –there are no alarms tripped by the movement. To say that Danny is rattling with anxious nerves would be an understatement.
“Right.” Danny stares down at the painting as it lays on the floor. “So the key is in the frame or it is under the angel’s heart.”
Damian purses his lips, extremely displeased. “Then we start with the frame.”
So they do.
They dismantle the frame.
They pry out the small metal nails with their fingers and set the gilded wood aside, examining each piece for hollowness or any strange marks, working quickly while still trying to be thorough. Then they turn the painting face down and pull the parchment off the back of the canvas.
Danny isn’t sure what he’s expecting to see, but he certainly wasn’t expecting to see another hex key glued to the back of the canvas. His arm is pulled up to the side as Damian puts his head in his hands and takes breath that could only be described as pained.
After giving him a short moment, Danny is intending to be supportive yet insistent in prompting them to get going (the clock is ticking!), but then Damian puts his hands down, nothing but sharp resolution on his face.
He pries the key off of the canvas.
Both of them wince as the glue tears away in a chunk, but then the anxious desperation to finish this is spiking through them again. They’re so close now.
They leave the painting on the floor and rush to the door.
The end of the hex key is mostly glue free, but they definitely have to force the key into the lock to get it to work, not even bothering to take the key out as the handle bar presses in and unlatches from the door frame.
Danny and Damian hurtle into the statue exhibit.
The statues are washed in red light and draped in half dead string lights, their shadows casting strange shapes across the crimson walls and over the sleeping forms of the civilians.
The bomb is sitting in the center of the room.
It sort of looks like a boom box, or a stereo, in a way. Well, it’s certainly a boom box of sorts. There is the middle control part with buttons and a small screen that is counting down, currently sitting at 61 minutes and seconds reducing (the time left until midnight). The compartment left of the middle controls has a vial of foggy, puke-green liquid and the right compartment has a metal canister shaped like a long doughnut where the center hole is a chalky-white looking substance.
“Congratulations! You found your prize! Now aren’t you in quite the squeeze,” Riddler crows through the museum’s speakers.
“Let’s see your fear choke you,” Scarecrow hisses. “Intelligence smothered by terror. Did you know that being afraid increases the risk of making a mistake by over 50%.”
Yeah, Danny’s feeling quite afraid, but with no better choice, he and Damian kneel next to the bomb.
“You ever done this before?” Danny asks shakily.
Damian’s eyes narrow. “What do you think, Fenton?”
“Yeah… Me neither…” Anxiously, Danny looks over the device again, and– “Oh, look at that.”
“What? What do you see?”
“It’s modular,” Danny breathes. Is the light headedness because of the realization or because of the buzz he’s getting from the taste of fear. He points to the groove-like ‘cups’ that hold the canisters in place. “Actually, it’s not too dissimilar to my E-Energy design. Both of these canisters can be pressed down and twisted to be removed. Kind of like when you’re opening a pill bottle. However, if we do this wrong, a triggering mechanism could be underneath the canisters.”
“Then do we remove the fear gas first or the explosive first?”
Do they get turned into smithereens or do they get a face full of fear gas. That’s a hard decision to make. Instead, Danny counters, “Or do we remove them at the same time?”
Damian meets Dany’s gaze, face stoic. “Then we remove them together.”
Without another word, Danny puts his hand on the explosive canister. Damian almost looks like he wants to protest, but he keeps his thoughts to himself and puts his hand on the fear gas vial. If this goes badly, Danny will be fine (that is, after a long ass time of healing), but if Damian were to manage to survive, then Danny would prefer that Damian doesn’t lose a hand.
“Count down from 3 and then move on ‘go’?” Danny offers.
“On go,” Damian repeats in affirmation.
They count down together.
“3.”
“2.”
“1.”
“Go.”
In one fluid, ker-thunk movement, Danny and Damian press down and twist their canisters, pulling them up and out of the control device.
Controls clicking, the countdown flickers off.
The museum is dead silent.
No fanfare, no fireworks, no gas clouds or demolition. It feels very anticlimactic, like maybe Danny isn’t holding a fist full of death in a jar. He meets Damian’s eyes, both of them holding a canister above their heads. He wants to laugh or puke or hyperventilate or pass out.
“We should very carefully take these back to the info desk. There’s no civilians there and the evidence will be right at the front door for the police,” Damian says, his own face just a touch pale.
“Yeah,” Danny replies shakily. Bombs are so far above his ghost pay grade. “That sounds like a good–”
Sirens blare in the distance.
The cacophony rises into wails all across the city, drowning out the residual sound of police car sirens.
The sound shatters the hushed stillness of the museum, the canister of explosives nearly slipping from Danny’s fingers (he might have instinctively flubbed gravity on it so that he could correct his grip). Those alarms only mean one thing. Danny has only had the displeasure of hearing them one other time before.
Danny and Damian’s eyes lock together.
Arkham breakout.
All hands on deck for the vigilantes.
There aren’t going to be any heroes coming to the museum now.
Damian huffs out a breath, returning his attention to his vial of liquid fear gas. “All right then, we’re on our own.”
Heart ticking up into a jackhammer, (which is fast for him, but still slow for a mortal), Danny stares at Damian. “Well, don’t sound so happy about it.”
~~~
After depositing their deadly payloads at the info desk, Danny and Damian make their way to the second puzzle room. Riddler remotely popped open the science exhibit door opposite the symbolism door on the first floor.
As warning sirens continue to blare in the background, the two young heirs step into the What is Sound? museum exhibit. Like the other rooms, this one is also bathed in red light and decorated with half working string lights, sleeping bodies of teens and their parents on the floor. The only difference is that this room has a music corner.
There’s a sort of calm determination that has fallen over Damian and Danny, in the set of their shoulders and the slant of their mouths as they continue playing this ‘game’ despite their fear.
The intercom clicks on.
“Four by four marching rows
Grandly sat upon the staff
Fielding sharply for my wrath
Daring down the sharp foes
Avoid not the low bellows
Grant secrets’ sharp shows
Even carving up the last
Grandly sat sharp with past
Can’t stop dead man’s two final woes.”
The intercom clicks off.
Damian and Danny silently listened, casting their eyes around the room for clues. There are the information panels on the walls that describe sound wave vibrations, pitch frequencies, and how the ear canal works to pick up sound. People are lying unconscious on the floor. Most notably, there is the music corner where an assortment of instruments wait. The options range from boom whackers to wind chimes to string instruments and xylophones and an electronic keyboard.
“It’s a music riddle,” Danny realizes.
“Obviously it’s a music riddle.” Damian leads the way over to the keyboard, sitting down on the bench and leaving enough room for Danny to take a seat too. He has to when his wrist is handcuffed to Danny’s.
“Well, I don’t know. This isn’t exactly my forté,” Danny huffs.
“Well,” Damian parrots back, “You’re lucky that it’s mine.”
“Music or riddle solving? Because I was referring to the riddles and everything about being held captive by villains.”
“Music, obviously,” Damian says matter of factly. “‘Four by four marching rows’ is the measure count and then the first letter of the following lines dictate the notes with the word ‘sharp’ appearing to dictate which notes are not standard. Plus, given the last line, the final note is clearly a half note.” He sets his hands on the keyboard. “Just don’t get in my way.”
While Danny would normally bite another response back at Damian, this whole situation is tense enough as is. It’s getting under their skin and making them snippy. Well, snippier.
He settles on the bench and does his best to move his hand alongside Damian’s keystrokes. Damian taps out the rhythm slowly once as he recites the riddle again, but when there is no response from the Riddler, he plays the music again, quicker this time. Still there’s no response. (Let it be known that Riddler is a fucking troll because the short music rift is the song for finding a secret chest in Zelda).
“We have to play together?” Danny guesses.
“We have to play together,” Damian affirms with a sigh.
“Great.” Danny tries to sound cheery about it. “I love music.”
“You just said that this is not your forté. Have you ever played a single musical instrument in your life?”
“Uh… Not since 4th grade when it was mandatory.” Danny rubs the back of his neck as he recalls the foggy memory. “I just faked my way through the trumpet all year. Oh, and the year before that, we did ‘Hot Cross Buns’ on the recorder.”
“Perfect.” Leveling a flat look at him, Damian’s voice utterly drips with sarcasm.
“Just show me what to do and be fast about it,” Danny snaps back.
“Tt. Put your hand here, and this hand here, and copy what I do.”
It’s frustrating with the handcuffs only allowing their connected hands to travel a certain distance apart. Danny gets his hand slapped twice, but they finish the music rift together and then the door is opened and they run into the space exhibit to defuse the bomb, so he’s not going to be mad (yet) about Damian smacking him.
Praise the ancients, this bomb is the same set up as the one in the statue room. Or, at least, it appears that way from the outside of what Danny can see. “What are the chances that this one is rigged differently than the other one?”
“Well, it seems that doing things together is a theme, so that’s probably the best bet,” Damian muses, casting his eye over the bomb as it counts down (they still have over 40 minutes, so they’re making good time (which also means that it’s past 11. Whoops, there goes Danny’s curfew)).
“Right, okay.” Danny reaches his hand out, but Damian beats him to it and puts his hand on top of the bomb canister. “Hey, I was–”
“You have just as much at stake as I do, Daniel. I’m removing the damn bomb, you take the fear gas this time.”
Danny considers protesting, given that at least he could remake all 27 bones of a human hand, from the distal tip of a phalange all the way down to the lunate. Not to mention the 34 muscles and– No. Stop. Don’t think about it. The scar wrapping around the middle of his right forearm burns as his thoughts brush against the memory of that sterile lab, his stomach flipping as his core roars, threatening to spill over.
Pulling himself out of his head, Danny refocuses on the bomb counting down in front of him and puts his hand on the vial of liquid fear gas. “Okay, same as before, count down together from 3 and remove on ‘go.’”
Damian nods once in confirmation.
They count down together.
“3.”
“2.”
“1.”
“Go.”
Pressing the canisters down and twisting their wrists– ker-thunk click –and then the canisters are lifting away with ease. The countdown stutters off.
“Alright,” Damian breathes, “Two down.”
“We’re halfway.” Danny gets to his feet, feeling ever so slightly dizzy at the corners of his vision. Maybe it’s because he’s restricting his breathing? Maybe it’s the buzz from the continual dose of fear? Maybe it’s the realization that they might actually be able to fucking pull this off. They can do this. Everyone is going to be okay, they have to be okay.
“Fenton, come on.”
Danny’s feet move on autopilot. He cradles the vial of fear gas in his hands– the condensed state of the liquid is surprisingly cold –as he follows Damian out of the space exhibit, around the unconscious people, and past the flight of stairs.
Only after Danny has set the vial down next to the first one at the info desk does Damian ask, “Daniel, are you alright?”
He can’t help the instinctual snort of twisted amusement. Of course he’s not alright. He’s scared, terrified even. He’s overfeeding on fear to the point of getting high, all this power that’s aching to get out of him, to be used, be useful.
Instead, Danny casts a look to the sleeping father as he clutches his daughter close. “We can do this, right? They’ll be okay?”
Damian’s expression changes, going from guarded to open. Though, his own fear and concern are still tight around the corners of his eyes and mouth. “Yes, we’ll make sure they’re okay.”
Another slow breath blown out and sucked back in, that heady rush of sweetness straight to Danny’s brimming core. “Okay, then let’s go.”
This time, Danny leads the way as they go up to the second floor and walk through the “How does weather work?” exhibit to go into the dinosaur exhibit.
Interesting. The first two bombs were placed in the space and statue exhibits at the back corners of the museum. The space exhibit is currently under where Danny and Damian are standing. That means that the last two bombs are placed at the front corners of the museum, spread out for maximum damage. Danny hates that.
The intercom clicks on.
“In beak I bear the boss’s breach
Upon whose grace I make my siege
Though three is good, in more I drown
The sharpness borne upon my crown
Mistake me not for head or toes
My claim to fame is in my nose
Upon my mark you'll find my pile
To build and bear my bone-borne trial”
The intercom clicks off.
Danny looks at Damian. “Please tell me you had a dinosaur phase as a kid. You seem like you’d know a lot of dinosaur facts.”
“Actually,” Damian seems to grimace, “I was raised to believe that the world formed over six days of creation. While my grandfather is not a religious man, he does believe that there are gods influencing matters beyond our human understanding. I did not know much about the theory of evolution until I moved to Gotham.”
Oh yeah, Danny could name a few ancient beings that influence things. Or, at least, people’s belief in the concepts is what fuels the Ancients. Also, once again, Damian is really not beating those ‘raised in a cult’ rumors.
“Excellent… we’re doomed…” Muttering, Danny’s eyes search over the shadowed and red-cast dinosaur displays.
With one display in the middle and the other five displays lining the walls of the room, there’s only a few options for them to work off of. There are some dinosaur bones, teeth, footprints, and eggs in sealed glass boxes, but the dinosaur displays are just plastic and resin (probably metal frames too, of course).
The five dinosaur displays have “skin” on them to show what they may have looked like in real life. There are patches of removed skin where the “muscle” and “bone” structures are shown. On the placards with the blurbs about the dino is a 2d image of the skeleton and next to that is a pile of plastic bones for people to try to put together.
“We have to try,” Damian insists. “‘You’ll find my pile, to build and bear my bone-born trial.’ Obviously, we’re going to need to construct one of the toy skeletons.”
“Yeah, the question is which one. We have five options and not all that much time.”
“The panel descriptions, there has to be some clues,” Damian realizes.
“Okay, but we gotta make this quick.” Turning to the pterodactyl display right next to the door, Danny looks down at the blurb.
“You don’t have to tell me that, Daniel. I am well aware.”
Danny rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything in favor of reading.
The Pterodactylus - More commonly called the pterodactyl, pterodactylus was among the first dinosaurs to ever be discovered. As of yet, there is only one species within the genus, though a great number of other Pterosaurs have since been identified. With a full wingspan of just 1 meter, Pterodactylus is on the smaller side of pterosaurs, and would not look out of place next to most modern birds.
Exchanging a glance, Danny and Damian shake their heads.
They left to step up to the central triceratops display and start reading again.
The Triceratops – Famous for its trio of horns, and its bony frill, Triceratops was an herbivore that lived in the Late Cretaceous period in what is now western North America. Though its horns were once presumed to be a defensive weapon, modern paleontologists believe them to have been more valuable as both courtship and dominance displays.
They shake their heads again.
Third time is the charm, right? (It has to be).
Once more, they move left to the brachiosaurus display.
The Brachiosaurus – A sauropod, or a kind of dinosaur characterized by a long neck and tail, and thick, trunk-like legs, the Brachiosaurus was estimated to have a full body length of between 18 and 22 meters. Notably, it also had longer forelimbs than hindlimbs, resulting in its torso sitting at a steep incline. Its tail was also shorter than most other sauropods. Scientists believe it was a high grazer, much like the modern giraffe, with an ability to reach vegetation sitting as high as 9 meters off the ground.
And again, Danny and Damian shake their heads.
Tick, tock, the time is ticking down.
Continuing along the back wall displays, they move to the pachyrhino.
The Pachyrhinosaurus - A cousin of the triceratops, the pachyrino has many horns– though none as prominent –while the triceratops famously has three horns. A distinguishing characteristic of the pachyrhino is the large boss that sits on top of the pachy's nose, as referenced with Latin names. Pachycephalosaurus means thick-headed lizard while pachyrhinosaurus means thick-nosed lizard. Scientists believe that the pachyrhino might have attacked by charging at threats.
“My claim to fame is in my nose!” Damian gasps.
“I bear the boss’s breach!” Danny shouts at the same time.
As one, they dive for the pile of plastic bones.
Once put together, the dinosaur skeleton model will be about hip height on an average adult. The skull is the easiest part to identify, followed by all of the tail vertebrae that are fused together, and then the spine that also has all of its vertebrae as one piece. That leaves them with four feet (where the little bones of a foot are once again fused together into a single piece), leg bones, two strange bones, and a whole lotta ribs.
“Okay, so these two have to be the femurs, right? Longest bone in the body,” Danny says as he sets the two aside.
“Right,” Damian agrees. “Which means that of these eight, two of them are fibulas and two of them are tibias, then two are radiuses and two are ulnas.”
“Well human leg bones are longer than arm bones, and the diagram picture shows the front legs being shorter than the back,” Danny offers.
Nodding, Damian sorts the bones into the front and back pairs. They’ll figure out lefts and rights in a moment.
“Okay, then the feet.”
Is Danny intimately aware of what the bones inside of a human hand look like? Specifically, the right hand? Yes. Yes he is.
Does that information transfer over to the bones of a dinosaur foot? No. No it does not.
“Why aren’t there any carpels! It’s just all phalanges bones!”
“It doesn’t matter, Daniel. Which ones are for the front and which ones are for the back?”
“I don’t know, larger on the back again?”
“That matches with the larger fibulas and tibias, we can try it.”
“What do you think these two are?” Danny holds up the two strange bones.
“Well, they’re clearly not shoulder blades. Must be the collar bones then.”
“Right, okay.” Danny sets them aside.
Damian and Danny stare down at the pile of ribs. Wordlessly, they start sorting the ribs into pairs that are the same size, from smallest to largest. (Which, by the way, is really annoying when your wrists are handcuffed together! Thankfully, Danny was primarily left handed before his accident and Damian is right handed, but still, they pull against each other a lot. “Quit it.” “No, you quit it.”) Finally, they end up with 12 different pairs of ribs.
“Smallest rib bones go towards the collar bones, right?” Danny guesses, thinking about the human rib cage. Ancients, his head is feeling so fuzzy and full, his chest tight with the weight of his core.
“No, look at the photo.” Damian gestures with a plastic rib in his hand. “Clearly the smallest ones are towards the pelvis.”
“Clearly the smallest ones are towards the pelvis,” Danny mocks.
“Just hurry up, this is taking too long.”
“I know that! You’re not helping.”
“I am too! Give me that.” Damian takes the rib out of Danny’s hand. “See? This goes here.”
Danny snatches it back. “No, this medium one should be closer to the large middle rib.”
“No, it should be on the other side, in between these two.” Damian moves it back to where he had first placed it.
“Quit that, you have it wrong.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“That’s the wrong way around!” Using his handcuffed right hand, Danny lunges for the plastic rib.
Damian uses his left hand to pull on the handcuffs. “No, you quit that.”
It’s not entirely clear who starts it, (probably it was Danny launching himself at Damian, though Damian was more than ready to meet the attack), but then they are rolling across the floor as they scuffle for the rib. Someone’s foot sends the pile of fake bones scattering. Danny uses a rib to bonk Damian on the top of the head. Damian jabs his hand into Danny’s side. Their cuffed wrists are being pulled this way and that as they try to control where their hands go.
Danny doesn’t mean to, he swears that he doesn’t mean to, but his hand reflexively slips from the cuff.
And then he decks Damian in the jaw.
It feels good, oh it feels so good. That thrumming thrall that sparkles through Danny’s blood. Ice is on the tip of his tongue, his jaw ready to unhinge in a wail to demolish all wails. He could destroy everything in his path right now, reduce it all to rubble. He takes in a deep breath, his head rushing and spinning with the syrupy sweet tang of fear that pulses down his throat.
Power. He’s nothing but the taut hum of power. He’s– he’s gonna–
Danny reels back, letting go of where he’d had Damian pinned down. “Oh shit, sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”
Sitting up, Damian rubs his jaw and then he blinks at the pair of handcuffs that dangle from his wrist, now finally free from Danny. “Let me see your hand.”
“What?”
“Your hand, Daniel, show me. You could have broken your thumb.”
Not really knowing what else to do, Danny holds out his perfectly fine right hand. No doubt, he’d instinctively used some intangibility to slip himself out of the annoyance. Luckily, it seems that Damian didn’t see in the scuffle. “I’m fine, really.”
“Tt. Then you’re either lucky or too full of adrenaline to notice the pain.” Damian carefully smooths his thumb over Danny’s palm.
Well, Danny is certainly feeling a lot right now. Adrenaline. His own fear and the fear of the people around him. Unbridled and barely contained power.
Danny snatches his hand back. “We’re wasting time, let’s just get this finished already.”
“Agreed. Let me know if you start experiencing pain.”
“Fine.” Getting up, Danny goes back to the scattered bones.
Returning to companionable silence, Damian and Danny put the pachyrhino skeleton together, the magnets on the ends of the plastic bones snapping into place. Now it only takes a few quick minutes and a bit of trial and error as they guess at which foot or tibia is the left or the right, but by the time they finish, a patch of redness is already blooming on the edge of Damian’s jaw.
Danny decides not to point it out.
Instead, he gets to his feet and flips a double bird to the pachyrhino skeleton.
Damian makes a sound like he’s covering a laugh with a cough. “You know, it’s not her fault.”
Or ya know what? Maybe he will point it out. “Well it’s that, or I can put another shiner on your stupid face.”
This time, Damian does snort a laugh as he stands up. “Whatever Fenton, let’s go.”
Pushing open the now unlocked door at the end of the dinosaur exhibit, Damian and Danny rush through the air travel exhibit and into the documentary room.
Exactly like the other two bombs, this one sits in the middle of the room, but it is counting down with no less than 11 minutes to go. Shit, they did take too long on that last riddle between reading the information blurbs for clues and then the stupid fight over the bones. What a waste of time.
No, it’s fine. It has to be fine. They have to do this.
One way or another, Danny will make sure that everything turns out all right.
Even if it means revealing Phantom. He’ll do it.
They share a brief look of understanding. Danny puts his hand on the explosive and Damian takes the vial (aw, look, they’re taking turns). Alright, same as before.
“3.”
“2.”
“1.”
The intercom clicks on.
“No, no, no, no, no! You weren’t supposed to get this far!” Scarecrow pitches into the microphone.
Danny sucks in a breath of surprise, hand slipping off the bomb in his rush to let go. He and Damian both go to cover the device with their bodies, curling around it as carefully and as quickly as they can. Danny is so ready to contain the blast with his body and with his ice, his power waiting on the tip of his tongue.
Then, a bit muffled like Scarecrow turned his head away to speak to Riddler, “They weren’t supposed to get this far! Where is my fear? My due homage?”
“Now, now,” Riddler attempts to placate, “This is all part of the game. They’re playing fair and square–”
“Fair? Fair?” Scarecrow splutters, “I am the master of fear, the lord of despair. Cower before me in witless terror! Worship me, fools! Worship me! Scream hosannas of anguish to Scarecrow! The all-terrible God of Fear!”
“No, Scarecrow, put that down, that’s not the agreement we made. They’re following the rules we set–”
“The rules that you set! I only agreed because you promised to sow terror! To reduce humanity to their most basic and primal instinct! You like games? We can play a new game. I like to call this one: run.”
Danny tenses his body. He’s a ready bow string, a finger on a trigger.
But–
A door opens on a squeaky hinge and there’s a clatter of metal over the intercom, Scarecrow and Riddler gasping and coughing. Their voices overlap and for a moment there’s just the sound of confusion and fighting, voices overlapping with bursts of static. In the background noise, Scarecrow’s raging screeches are being muffled until they go silent and there is the thumping sound of a body hitting the floor.
“Dammit, no! Not again,” Riddler whines. “Red Robin, you meddling brat.”
Gasping in relief, Danny and Damian sag to the floor, rolling away from the bomb.
7 minutes 36 seconds frozen on the screen.
~~~
It all wraps up relatively quickly after that.
Police and paramedics flood the museum, maybe fewer than what would have been there had this not been a distraction for an Arkham break. Danny isn’t yet sure which villains got out or if Red Robin is still keeping watch on the museum.
The devices get confiscated, the bomb squad taking charge of the four explosive canisters and the four vials of liquid fear gas. Paramedics quickly move through the museum, checking on each unconscious civilian. Officers question Damian and Danny about the sequence of events. They’re told that their guardians are waiting outside in the parking lot for them, but they have to wait until the investigation is completed before they can leave.
So, here they are, laying starfish on the cold marble floor of the foyer under the museum’s glass dome. As soon as the officers talking with them left, Danny flopped down to the floor. Damian joined him a moment later.
They’re silent for a moment, listening to the voices and the commotion around them.
And then–
“That’s two times now that you had us working while hanging out and once that we’ve been put in danger,” Danny says. He lifts one shaky finger at Damian. “I’m choosing what we do next week.”
Damian folds his arms behind his head, eyes tired. “You’ve got a deal, Daniel.”
He realizes that he hasn’t heard Damian call him “Fenton” for a while.
Nice, first name bases now, that’s cool.
“Is your hand still feeling alright?” Damian checks-in. “No pain?”
“Yeah, s’all good. No pain, no game.”
For the third time that night, Damian snorts a small laugh.
Danny looks up at the smog covered stars through the domed glass ceiling, somehow content with this mess of a night. Even with the barely restrained energy racing through his system, high as a kite and itching to burst him at the seams, Danny feels exhausted. Exhausted but also wanting to go run a few miles.
As soon as he gets home he's running into the Infinite Realms so he can sonic scream and use up all the overflowing power in his system until he starts puking, curfew be damned.