Avoiding Past And Future

(53) Intermediate

CW: Danny typical lack of self-preservation, Danny typical negative thoughts

October 19

Pulling out a certain remote from his thigh, he pushed his chair until he came to a rolling stop in front of Bruce. Though he never thought he'd actually hand it over to somebody else again, he had hoped he could have made this look cooler than sitting cross legged on a damn desk chair in the Batcave with a neon green IV drip in his arm. But, atlas, beggars can't be choosers so he'll just cope with it for the time being.

Bruce looked utterly confused when Danny handed him the small device. Danny almost laughed when the man simply took it without a word, as if the smallest of breaths would make a bomb explode. He caught a glimpse of Dick twitching awkwardly to get a better look as well, craning his neck at an odd angle. "What?" He asked rhetorically, with a foot on the desk he pushed himself away again. "The League wants their contingency against me, and the team won't do, full offence." Danny side eyed Bruce, entertained by the faintest hint of a shrug he saw. "This is mine. And Frosty over here will make sure I can get it working right."

Frostbite caught Danny's chair before the boy could crash into him. "I am unclear on how I would be of any help. The device is a detriment to your core health. It would be best to simply remove it." The yeti looked at the smirking boy beneath him. Clearly he had anticipated his answer.

Danny pulled up an old chart that Frostbite hadn't even noticed the boy had taken. "See, that's where you're wrong, my friend. It would be bad to just remove it." He purposely waited until Frostbite was about to argue back, just so he could cut him off. "Last time I saw you, I was already wearing the collars for a few months. Clearly adjustments had to be made since they weren't working too well."

A chill ran down his spine, quite literally, as he remembered nearly freezing to death from his own powers. Not fun times at all. "To accommodate the new power levels, I made them pull energy directly from my core to power it. And it's been doing that for months." He looked up with a smirk, knowing that what he did was technically bad but they had no choice but to let him keep doing it. "What do you say would happen if we suddenly were to remove that, and let all the extra energy my core adjusted for go unchecked?"

Frostbite frowned, clearly not enjoying being outplayed by what essentially was but a mere newborn compared to him. "It would cause severe issues regulating power output. Considering the already existing damage to your core, the extra energy may cause the problems to be severely aggravated. It would be better to slowly lessen the intensity of its effects while being carefully monitored rather than removing it immediately." He grunted out, annoyed yet equally impressed to be outplayed by a child so determined to cause harm to his own body.

"Bingo." Danny snapped his fingers, sending the poor confused yeti a dual finger gun. Pointing towards the Batcomputer, he subtly asked Frostbite for a push towards the device. As if they were playing bumper cars, Dick dodged his projectile of a brother, letting him at the control panel. Already knowing the drill for Batcomputer usage, Dick pulled out the spare glove they kept near the controls so Danny wouldn't be in direct contact with the stupidly expensive tech.

Pulling up some old files he had Waller hide in his casefile, he got into the jailbroken schematics of the inhibitor collars. Dick eyed him cautiously, not quite liking the idea of tech like that still being on his brother's neck. He was a hero, not some criminal or feral animal. "Are you sure about this? You don't have to wear a collar you know, I'm sure Frostbite can think of other ways to make it medically safe to be removed."

Danny sighed, putting the glove down to face his brother. "Dickie." He started, voice a little softer than usual. "Look, I went to Belle Rêve because they had something that could stop my powers. I made sure they would work, exactly so that I would be weaker. I literally had a whole year of time to myself in isolation to work this out." Cujo jumped into his lap again, pressing his face right over Danny's core as the pup could feel Danny's upset from a mile away.