Avoiding Past And Future

(6)Intermediate

Could you imagine what it would be like to lose your family at the ripe old age of 9?

Being separated from your only living relative, only to lose contact because they got too busy with friends, school and extracurriculars and you didn't want to be a burden?

Only to then almost die in an accident a mere 2 years after?

Not only that but to then also lose your new family, friends and more than half of your town to your psychotic future self just a few months later?

Well, Danny didn't have to imagine that, frankly he'd rather not.

But he couldn't.

Simply because it's his life and there is no changing that.

And before you ask, yes, he did try but Clockwork refused.

He was 9 when he watched his parents fall to their deaths. The sickening cracks of their bones breaking still haunted his nightmares. His brother and him were put in juvey for a while. The government didn't want Pop Hayley to take care of them.

"The circus isn't a place to raise children." They said, because juvey was such a better option.

But they didn't actually care. They were just two little gypsy boys with no family. As long as nobody had to look at them, nobody cared. That was until Bruce Wayne tried to take them in. Of course this didn't work. Who in their right mind would let some orphaned gypsy kids stay with a billionaire playboy. God how he hated being called that. He hated how is heritage was used against them, to degrade them. As if it somehow excused treating them as lesser. Although, there is a certain man in history that would agree with those people.

Anyway, the child service workers decided it was a good idea to see how it goes. After Bruce threatened to sue, of course. But they only let his brother go. "He is more civilized." They said. "He'll fit in easier." He hated being looked down on, even more so when compared to his identical twin. It wasn't his fault that he was a bit more clumsy and didn't like biting his tongue to dickheads. No matter how much he hated it, he still encouraged his brother to take the opportunity. Only older by a few minutes, he still felt the responsibility to protect his brother.

Especially now that he was the only one he had left.

Of course he did try to break out a few times, but it didn't work out. His brother was only given limited times to visit him. Mostly because they didn't want Danny to 'influence' his brother. But it didn't matter.

By some miracle, there was a family who had come to visit him once. It was a family of 3. They had a daughter that looked like the split image of the mother. The dad was a big bear of a man, but an absolute idiot. Of course Danny did make sure to let them know this. Hoping that it would deter them from taking him away from his brother, he put on quite an attitude with them. It didn't work though. The man laughed with every jab he sent out, and the daughter excused most of his behavior. Some smart people talk about the effects of trauma and PTSD on a child. Before he even knew it, he was being signed out of juvey and put in a camper on his way to Illinois.

He hated being so far from his brother. They didn't get to see each other much as they each had school and their own messes to handle. His brother had become rather famous after he was officially granted the status of ward to Bruce Wayne. The media was flooded with articles about him and reopened the wounds about their parents' deaths. Only this time, Danny was conveniently left out of the story. They had no use for a kid that wasn't under the care of the Bruce Wayne. With the spotlight on him every time he left the house, visits were nearly impossible. They did try to stay in contact and hang out during vacations, but they both had school and friends as well.

Not to mention his brother's extracurriculars.

Of course he knew about his secret identity. He might not be able to talk to his twin as much as he would prefer, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep tabs on him and on Gotham. Obviously he also told his brother he knew. At first it was quite big of a deal. Lots of apologizing and promises of secrecy being made.

But Danny didn't care too much.

Sure he was worried sick his brother was going to get hurt, or worse, but he couldn't stop him even if he tried. His brother was handling everything way worse than Danny was. Partially because he was still in the same city as where everything happened, living with a man who drinks parties and fights his way through his own grief. He couldn't blame him for going out there and hunting down that crook that caused the accident. On the contrary, he was glad the man got caught. Just sucks that he himself couldn't do anything about it. He wasn't as smart as his brother, academically, but he was sure he could handle the hero-bizz just as well. He just needed some training.

Danny had honestly thought about it. He could follow his brother's example and go with his nickname raven. He never liked being too much in the spotlight anyway so he'd fit right in with Gotham's mismatched Dynamic Duo. A miniature Mr. doom and gloom so to say, but with the agility and energy of the walking traffic light.

Eventually their contact started to lessen as his brother was extremely busy with his new life. The string of excuses or times he forgot about their hang out time really hurt Danny, but he never let it be known. He wasn't the ward of a billionaire with a reputation to keep up and social gatherings to attend. He wasn't a secret nighttime hero. He was barely even an average student in class, compared to his top of the class brother in a fancy private school. He had no right to complain about the lack of time spent together. Their lives just forced them apart.

Luckily for him, he at least managed to make 2 amazing friends. Tucker was his best guy friend, about as close as a brother from another mother could be. He was very tech savvy and seriously saved Danny's ass on multiple occasions by getting him up to speed with technology. With that came those sweet sweet games where he could forget about everything that bothered him. And of course release some of the pent up frustrations he had.

His other friend was Sam. She was a really chill girl that could stand up for herself, which he really liked. A lot of the people first thought he was his brother, here to relax and get away from the cameras. Sam's parents were part of those people. But they quickly learned he was, in fact, NOT Bruce Wayne's ward. Once that news spread, he was dropped from everybody's social graces and even became the target of a lot of bullying. But not Sam. Even though her parents thought the worst of him, much like those lovely Gothamites he got to know, she stuck by him.

School was about as bad as it could be for him. He had to get a lot of extra tutoring from Sam and Tucker as he wasn't particularly used to a regular school system. He improved rather quickly with a few hiccups here and there, but he never felt the need to go all the way. He was happy being an average B student. The things he was more interested in weren't tested at schools. As fate would have it, he really fell in love with the inventing his foster parents were into. Sure their designs were made for ghost hunting, but it spiked his interests none the less. He sneakily learned a lot from their designs and weapons. Occasionally he would even try to help fix minor issues that they were looking over. Of course they didn't really like a child messing with their tech, but they always listened anyway.

Of course, that also lead to the incredible downfall of his life. One simple mistake and then everything just started going really wrong really, really fast.