The Boy king and The Dark Knights

XXVII

TIM DRAKE was frustrated.

Which to be fair, wasn’t that uncommon, but still.

He had met Duke’s friends from Amity Park earlier, and he knew them from somewhere, but he had zero fucking clue where.

He had already ran their faces through multiple supervillain databases and pulled up absolutely nothing, so at least they probably weren’t evil.

Probably.

Even if they were evil Damian would probably sniff them out like the little bloodhound bastard he was and then stab them.

Or maybe he’d set Danny on them, the amount of damage he could do with a thermos was not to be underestimated. (Dick could attest.)

He was walking with both Duke and his friends, half tuning in to their conversation as he told Damian about how they’d be picking him up from school.

The walk was short, and it felt like no time at all before Tim was in front of Gotham Academy Middle, scanning through the throngs of children for his brother, nephew, and the Kryptonian latched onto the both of them.

Damian came forward first, all prim and proper and sizing Sam and Tucker up, probably figuring out how many times he’d have to bite their ankles until they ran away screaming.

“Drake. Thomas. Who are these?” He said, and Tim probably shouldn’t have found Sam and Tuckers dumbfounded blinks as funny as he did.

“This is Sam and Tucker, Duke’s friends from the Amity student exchange.” Tim introduced them by pointing, the asshole in him not telling Damian their last names grinning at Damian’s pointed glare.

“Nice to meet you little dude!” Tucker said, extending his hand, obviously expecting Damian to act like a normally socialized child and extend his own.

Damian, the heathen, only raised an eyebrow, and Tim was kind of jealous of how much judgement and pretentiousness the shrimp could fit into one single motion. “I’m sure it is.”

“So Damian, where’s Danny?” Duke asked, deflecting as Sam (and Tim) snickered at the dejected look on Tuckers face.

“Daniel is over there meeting Kent. He came to pick up Jon today.” Damian said, pointing to where Danny was excitedly shaking Superman’s hand and Clark was staring at him with a look somewhere between awe and confusion on his face.

Tim turned to look at his companions and see Duke’s first impression of Danny, when he stopped dead in his tracks at the identical looks of horror on Tucker and Sam’s faces.

“Hey, are you two okay?” Tim asked, looking between the horrorshocksurprise on the faces of his brother’s friends.

“We… we need to go.” Tucker said, still half in his trance and grabbing onto Sam’s arm like it was a lifeline.

“What?” Duke looked sad, because Duke is a nice person like that (Tim was suspicious, cause Tim is a paranoid bastard) . “Is everything okay?”

“We need to- uh- water our mayor. Hamster!” Tucker said, his mind obviously scrambling to catch up with the situation. “We’re watching another kids hamster and we need to water him right now so we’ve got to go bye!” Tucker spat out, before turning around and speed-walking away, pulling Sam after him.

“You have weird friends.” Tim said to Duke, watching the two out of towners scuttle away.

“I have weird family too.” Duke looked at Damian, who huffed and looked away.

“Poor normal Duke, the unwitting weirdo magnet.” Tim said, patting a totally sympathetic hand on Duke’s shoulder.

“Are you guys calling me weird?” Danny asked, doing that annoying little appearing out of nowhere to scare the soul out of you thing he did.

“Yes.” Damian said, without missing a beat, and Tim almost choked on his laughter.

“… yeah, that’s fair.” Danny nodded.

—

“Holy fucking ancients.” Tucker said, his mind racing as fast as his heart.

“That was Danny.” Sam said, her voice empty. “But it was tiny Danny.”

“Tiny Danny who is also a member of the fucking Wayne’s and- oh no.” Tucker said, puzzle pieces in his head coming forward to snap into a horrifying picture. “Oh no.”

“What is it?” Sam asked, and Tucker had to give himself a breath to make the panicked words running through his head make sense.

“Okay so you know how Bruce Wayne funds the JL?” Tucker asked.

“Because he’s dating Batman? Yeah.” Sam responded, confused at to what point Tucker was trying to make.

“Who do we know that’s evil and rich and would probably love to have access to facts and finances involving the Justice League?” Tucker said, trying to goad Sam into getting the answer herself.

“Lex Luthor?” Sam asked hesitantly.

“No! Well, probably, but no. Vlad!” Tucker said, throwing his arms wide as a hint of recognition dawned on Sam’s face.

“Okay, so how does that relate to a smaller Danny-“ Sam paused. “Oh my god Danielle. Holy fucking Ancients there’s Another Clone!”

“And Vlad probably placed him among the Wayne’s to get info on the Justice League!” Tucker said, and by this point they were both probably a bit hysterical.

“Vlad’s going to try to make a move against the Justice League.” Sam’s voice was as shellshocked as her face.

“Yep.”

“And we have zero clue where our Danny is.”

“Yep.”

“So it’s up to us to do something about Danny’s clone, who is currently a part of the Wayne family, AKA one of the most prolific families in Gotham.”

“Yep.”

“Fuck, we’re so screwed.” Sam’s face hit her hands with a soft slapping noise.

“Oh we’re far past screwed. We’re super screwed.” Tucker said, cursing every god he could think of.

Sam groaned in response.