Hold on I need a theme song to write this to. I choose this.
Danny narrowed his eyes at Bruce Wayne.
Bruce Wayne widened his eyes at Danny, tried to take a drink of champagne, missed his own mouth, laughed, reached to grab a napkin with the hand holding the glass, and dropped the glass.
"I hate you. I hate the fact that you breathe the same air I do." Danny said sincerely. "I just want you to know that."
"Why 's it bad if I breathe the same...oh! Oh no! You're allergic to champagne!" Bruce Wayne shouted, wildly looking around for...something. "Quickly, someone get an Epileptic Pen!"
All around them, various gala goers started giggling into their hands. The wait staff, pity in their eyes, tried to explain what an Epi Pen was to the infamously ditzy billionaire.
Danny glared at him harder, but was yanked away by Sam before he could say anything else.
"You can't keep getting away with this," Danny hissed, fully aware that his ears were turning red with the force of his rage.
Bruce Wayne's dazed, drunken smile in response only served to further piss Danny off.
"Did you know there was a pool here? Cuz I didn't." Bruce Wayne slurred, hand slapping against the rim of the newly broken water fixture. The replica of the Venus de Milo, broken in half, was dribbling water out of where her spine would have been instead of her eyes, like it had been doing before Bruce Wayne decided to kiss her.
"Yeah, sure, it's a pool. The other end is ten feet deep; you should dive into it headfirst from the roof." Danny agreed, eye twitching.
Sam dragged him away by his ear before Bruce Wayne could say anything.
Later, when Danny saw Bruce Wayne again, he slipped up and cracked the glass of apple juice he was holding.
"You're a disappointment," Danny deadpanned from the doorway, arms crossed as he watched Bruce Wayne try to figure out where the door was.
By dragging his gross alcoholic hands all over the marble wall.
Bruce Wayne froze, shoulders hunching up, and for a solid second Danny thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd gotten through that idiot brain. That maybe, just this once, Bruce Wayne understood he'd been insulted.
But Bruce Wayne slowly turned around, eyes wide and full of wonder.
"How'd you know what my sons call me? Are you...are you a psychic?" The man asked, completely serious.
Danny threw his hands into the air and walked away in disgust, roughly shoulder checking the two security officers that were on their way into the room he just left.
"It's just a moron, leave him in there and he won't be able to find his way out until tomorrow. Please, leave him in there." Danny called over his shoulder, "Or punch him so hard his eyes swell shut, I don't care which."
Danny slapped the pills out of Bruce Wayne's hand, before proceeding to crush them into dust under the heel of his stupidly fancy shoe.
Bruce Wayne, for some unknown reason, looked affronted.
"Do you even know what was in those pills?" Danny asked, trying to keep his voice down.
Bruce Wayne, still mystified, slowly shook his head.
"You-! I can't. I can't. I fucking can't. Where's Damian?" Danny cut himself off, turning away to look for Wayne's youngest. "He's the only one in your family with a single bit of sense."
"...But those were my medicine?" Bruce Wayne asked, sounding lost.
Danny stopped looking for the youngest. The youngest Wayne would actually kill him for something like that.
He'd seen the pills and just...assumed. That they were illicit.
Slowly, so slowly, he turned back to Bruce Wayne.
"Oh. Shit. For like...nevermind. That was...my bad. I'm...I'm...sorry." Danny forced out the apology, feeling like every word was broken glass.
"Aw, you do care!" Bruce Wayne said, pulling Danny into a hug.
Instead, he grabbed Danny, smooshed him into his chest, lost his balance, fell backwards, landed on table hosting the tower of champagne glasses, and got both of them absolutely soaked with alcohol.
Sam had to drag Danny away in a headlock.
Bruce had, honestly, no idea what he'd done to earn Daniel Fenton's ire.
But it was the most amusing thing he'd seen at any gala in years, and one of the reasons he'd started attending more of them.
Was it childish, perhaps, to deliberately antagonize a fourteen year old for fun?
In fact, Barbara insisted on recording his run-ins with Mr. Fenton. According to her, it was hilarious to watch with the full knowledge that Bruce was Batman, and this scrawny child kept telling him to die in various ways.
Bruce couldn't antagonize his own children, not like he did with Mr. Fenton. No, they'd get even with him.
Especially because, if Bruce was being honest, he was certain that Mr. Fenton himself had absolutely no idea why he hated Bruce Wayne so much, just that he did.
Bruce had a hypothesis that it was because, subconsciously, Mr. Fenton knew he was lying whenever he was playing the part of Billionaire Playboy. From what he could glean from his background check on Mr. Fenton, the lad hated liars.
Reasons aside, though, Mr. Fenton's hatred was something Bruce, quite frankly, treasured.
Mr. Fenton's luck, however, was probably a meta power, if Bruce was being honest with himself.
Every single gala that boy went to, Bruce was able to find a crime that needed to be investigated.
Bruce fumbled the glass of drugged champagne, letting it shatter on the ground.
""I hate you. I hate the fact that you breathe the same air I do." Mr. Fenton said sincerely, his eyes deep wells of fury. "I just want you to know that."
In his comm, Oracle let out an ugly snort, followed by an almost shrieking laugh before she managed to mute herself.
"Why 's it bad if I breathe the same...oh! Oh no! You're allergic to champagne!" Bruce improvised, searching the room to see if Robert Haydara had already fled the scene. "Quickly, someone get an Epileptic Pen!"
In the chaos that ensued, Bruce managed to convince the staff to show him an example of an Epi Pen. In doing so, he brought to light via the staff members themselves that the Nurses Station, set up for emergencies as was normal for all Gotham Galas, was missing literally all of it's Ketamine.
Ketamine, the drug that, in small doses, was one of the only things that could keep people even slightly sane during a Scarecrow attack.
The gala was quickly shut down, and everyone who'd had any champagne was quickly escorted to the hospital.
The robbers, hired by Robert Haydara, were found in a nearby broom closet, waiting for the gala attendees to either die or fall asleep.
A case wrapped up cleanly, all thanks to Daniel Fenton's unwitting help.
Sitting in the cold water of the fountain was uncomfortable.
Trying to figure out how to run away with the bomb hidden in the Venus de Milo's head was harder.
Luckily, using Mr. Fenton's suggestion, Bruce was able to have an excuse to excitedly run through the halls and disappear long enough to disarm it.
He came back, shame faced, and told everyone that he'd gotten lost, unable to find the roof.
Mr. Fenton glared at him from across the courtyard, the glass of apple juice in his hand cracking.
Bruce, very unlike himself, actually let a small, real laugh slip out.
Bruce was having a hard time finding the secret door, and Oracle couldn't find a way to force it open.
It was on a closed circuit she couldn't access.
The guards were getting closer, and Bruce knew he didn't have a good excuse to be where he was-
"You're a disappointment," Mr. Fenton's voice rang out, tired and true in far more ways than the boy would ever know.
Bruce froze, trying to find...something he could say, anything to let Mr. Fenton keep thinking he was an idiot.
"How'd you know what my sons call me? Are you...are you a psychic?" Bruce asked, somehow keeping a straight face even as Dick proceeded to lose it through the comms.
Mr. Fenton, hand in the air as a sign of exasperation, turned and left, apparently talking to the security guards on his way out.
The guards, when they entered, were no longer suspicious.
No, they just looked at Bruce with pity.
"Come on, Mr. Wayne, it looks like you got a 'lil lost. Let's get you back to the party, okay?" One of them asked, his voice kind and pitched like he was talking to a ten year old.
Oracle, who had been doing so well, let out one of the ugliest laughs Bruce had ever heard her make.
Either Bruce Wayne took the poison, or someone close to him at the gala would die.
The problem was, almost everyone was there.
Barbara was accompanying James Gordon, Tim was there representing himself, Dick and Damian were present as Bruce's children, Duke was attending as the newest addition to the Wayne family, even if it wasn't adoption, Cass was Barbara's date, and Jason...
Well, he had no idea where Jason was. It wasn't at the gala, and they still weren't on the best of terms. So Jason would be fine.
More importantly, normal people had no idea Jason Todd was alive, and the threat was being made towards Bruce Wayne, not Batman.
But Bruce could do this. He'd trained himself to be resistant to most poisons, and the threat said nothing of leaving to get medical assistance.
He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and...
The pills were slapped out of his hand, onto the ground, and then crushed into dust.
Bruce had many things going through his head.
Who had managed to sneak up on him? Why had they done that? What was he supposed to do now?
"Do you even know what was in those pills?" Daniel Fenton's voice hissed, barely audible over the sounds of the gala.
Oh, that was why he hasn't sensed anyone; against his judgement, it looked like Bruce just...didn't see Mr. Fenton as a threat.
He would have to work on that.
Instead of saying anything, Bruce shook his head.
After all, he had absolutely no idea what was in those, other than it was apparently 'poison'.
"You-! I can't. I can't. I fucking can't. Where's Damian?" Mr. Fenton sounded like he was trying very hard not to yell, but Bruce spotted a potential issue when he spun around to search for Damian; the ground up pills kicked up into the air a little bit.
Poison dust particles. Hmm. Not good.
"He's the only one in your family with a single bit of sense." Mr. Fenton continued, about to step away.
Bruce could not let that happen; if his foot left where it was tamping down on that dust, the results could be devastating.
"...But those were my medicine?" Bruce heard himself say, and was relieved when it actually worked.
Mr. Fenton didn't lift his foot.
Instead, he stopped moving entirely, suddenly very pale.
"Oh. Shit. For like...nevermind. That was...my bad. I'm...I'm...sorry." Mr. Fenton said, and Bruce could tell it hurt the boy to say that because it sounded like it did.
In the comm, he heard Cass let out a small coo.
Barbara, however, was literally shoving a napkin in her mouth to stop from laughing again. He knew. Not due to her sounding like she was shoving a napkin in her mouth, but due to him watching her do it across the room, neck and ears red as she fought to remain quiet.
More pressing, though; the red dot that had just appeared on Mr. Fenton's shoulder.
It had only been there briefly, before disappearing. Bruce knew it was currently on the boy's head, though.
So he had to make sure Mr. Fenton didn't get shot, and also that the dust under his shoe didn't get airborne.
A fairly easy solution popped into his mind.
"Aw, you do care!" Bruce shouted, reaching forward and yanking Mr. Fenton into his chest as he fell backwards.
The shot went wide, hitting the wall behind Bruce, and the champagne that soaked both of them prevented the dust from going airborne.
Then Mr. Fenton punched him in the face.
Bruce felt his head snap to the side, astonished.
He spat out a small bit of blood from a split lip, staring up at the furious teen.
"Wait; if you punch like that...how are you getting bullied?" Bruce asked, not thinking of the consequences.
He really should have expected the other punch.
"Hey Sam?" Danny asked, voice choked from where she was still restraining him.
"What? Danny, you have got to know how mad I am at you right now, I cannot believe you-"
"How did Wayne know I get bullied?"
"...Huh. That...I don't know."
"I told you something was off about that gu-ack!"
"You are not getting out of this! You punched Bruce Wayne, Danny! It was just an accident!"
