Chapter Text
This is all Ra's fault.
It’s been years, why does his life have to come back this way when he was so close to finishing his plans and finally turned away from his past once and for all.
His plan was simple: train, get old enough to move out, kill Ra’s, forget all about his life as an assassin, silently apologize to Damian over not wanting to ruin his life with his bullshit, hope they never cross paths.
It was all going fine and dandy until Vlad decided it would be great to bring him as his successor to a party, a party for Damian’s birthday, and his first year of living as a Wayne, awesome.
Now the last part of his plan was going off the rails, even before he could finish the main part of it, because Ra’s was still alive.
So now, he had to somehow avoid Damian in a stuffy party, for hours, and he doesn’t even have Sam for emotional support because her family didn’t bring her in fear she would ruin their image to the richest family in the world, oh how he wanted to throw Fright Knight at Vlad.
From what he knew, the only members in this party were Brucie Wayne, Richard Grayson, Damian Wayne obviously, and Tim Drake-Wayne.
So, Batman, Nightwing, Robin, Red Robin, if his guess was right, he knew for sure Robin and Batman, his little brother, and his biological father, now he had to avoid all of them, or at least Damian, because as much as it’s been 5 years, he is 70% Damian could recognize him even in his Phantom form.
So in short, he wasn’t taking any chances.
He had separated from Vlad not too long after his greetings, that thankfully hadn’t included any Wayne, he had almost been dragged to greet Grayson, but he slipped away before he was.
Now he was in a corner, not fully hiding, because it would be suspicious, but in a place in the middle of people and loud conversations.
His efforts were in vain when he felt eyes on him, he already guessed which eyes, but he for some goddamn reason turned to him anyway, and he stared into wide green eyes, as wide as his own probably were.
The stare only lasted a second, and he in that second decided that, now it was time to run, otherwise his little brother would find a way to become Flash the fifth and find him, he had to turn a corner and go invisible, maybe he could play being a hallucination.
It was cruel, but he couldn’t go back, he had a new life, his little brother had a new life, he couldn’t implant himself just because he was Damian’s older brother, he couldn’t implant his ghost problems into their life, he couldn’t take the chance of Damian being liminal enough for his parents, or the GIW, to try and experiment on him.
His little brother already had Gotham bullshit, he didn’t need his.
He started running, waving though crowds, avoiding anyone he could, until he crashed into someone, thankfully he didn’t fall, but there was a tiny assassin at his tail, and he had to do a vanishing act.
When he looked up to see who he just crashed into, his brain rebooted for a second, that was Grayson, Nightwing, Shit.
He tried not to look suspicious, relaxing his face into an awkward fake apologetic smile and apologizing, ‘I’m so sorry, didn’t mean to crash into you.’
Grayson’s smile was much more genuine, ‘It’s fine-’
He could hear Damian’s footsteps, they were silent, but he had been a trained assassin for 12 years, and he couldn’t hear the guy’s reassurances anymore, continuing his escape to whatever corner he could find.
He heard Grayson’s tiny shocked sound when he pushed him aside and continued his run. He was almost sure that was a low squawk, but it was Gotham, what happened in Gotham stayed in Gotham and all that.
As the sounds of the party lowered, the silent footsteps became clearer, and the turn became closer.
‘Danyal-’ He heard his brother start, then falter, forcing himself not to flinch, ‘Danyal wait!’.
He turned the corner and became invisible.
There was silence when Damian turned the corner, Danny backed away, backing up to a wall, guilt turned in his stomach when he saw tears glistening in his little brother’s eyes, who wiped angrily at his eyes before they fell, and turned around.
The pit of guilt in his stomach only grew when he did the same, going back to Vlad’s car and warning him he was there, and calling Jazz.