"What the hell do you mean he's coming on patrol?" The younger Bat yelled, turning fully towards the man, a glare firmly on his face, anger and disbelief hiding the surprise at the near casual comment.

"I mean I am going to take him with us tonight to see how he does. I had planned this a long time ago and was going to do it but then everything came up, so we're doing it now." Bruce said calmly. He, too, turned towards the other. They were both sitting at the kitchen table, Danny still sleeping (hopefully), Dick had been bent over a bowl of cereal and Bruce reading a book, however both activities were abandoned in favor of the conversation.

"You can't possibly think that's a good idea. Bruce, he's already been through a lot, you want to add fighting crime to that extensive list of things that give him nightmares? Because, if you haven't noticed, Gotham's crime isn't very pretty." Bruce sighed, finally placing down the book he was reading and leaning forward, folding his hands on the table and leaning his weight on his elbows.

"We have to go back. With everything that has happened recently, we haven't been on patrol in weeks, and we have to go back at some point. And Danny has to come because there is nowhere else he can go, he's safer with us than alone here. Besides, based on what he's seen, do you really think seeing a mutilated corpse or someone trying to kill him is really going to affect him? Dick, he's too far gone to be scared of that type of stuff." Dick glared for a moment longer before sagging in defeat.

"Yeah, I guess, but-"

"But you don't want to risk his life now that you just got him back. I get it. I don't want him to be at risk either, but this is the best option. It could teach him how to fight back better, could protect him in the future." If possible, Dick deflated even further.

"Fine. But he stays with us. No testing him by having him go ahead of us, no letting him scope something. He is with us." Bruce chuckled.

"Understood. But when he's trained a bit better, we will have to split up. But for now, he stays with us."

"What are you talking about?" a small, hesitant voice spoke up from behind Bruce. The man didn't falter when he turned around in his chair and picked the boy up and placed him into the seat next to Dick. The teen in question had spilled milk from his cereal all over his lap when he jumped at the abrupt appearance. Danny, seeing the mess, looked dryly at his brother.

"I thought you were 'fearless'." Dick looked up and sent a light glare over to the boy as he mopped up the liquid off his pants.

"I'm not afraid, you startled me. Who wouldn't be startled when a small child appears out of nowhere?" Without a beat, Danny glared back at the 'small child' part before pointing over to Bruce, who was clearly amused, at the two.

"He doesn't count. He's unshakable." Before Danny could respond, Bruce cut in.

"Not 'unshakable' just observant." Turning to Danny, he stated, "have you been working on your English? You sound a lot better." While he still had a thick accent and some words were mispronounced, he was talking in complete thoughts and sentences. Danny shifted and avoided his gaze before he nodded. Bruce and Dick narrowed their eyes in suspicion.

"What did you do?" Dick asked.

"I didn't know how else to learn," Danny mumbled, looking at his lap.

"What did you do?"

"I snuck into Bruce's office to look at his books." Both exhaled a sigh of relief, relaxing after the confirmation he hadn't done anything bad or stupid.

"The business books? I thought we got you some books to learn from." Danny looked up and pouted.

"Those were for kids." Bruce cracked a smile and Dick laughed at the boy's words.

"Danny, you are a kid." The boy glared at the amused Bats.

"Am not." Dick just rolled his eyes while Bruce just huffed a small laugh. Danny went to retort but suddenly remembered the initial curiosity that had prompted him to interrupt in the first place.

"What were you talking about?"

He watched the nonverbal cues on each of their faces closely. He watched them flick their eyes to each other without moving from their positions and observed as they continued their activities with only a minuscule hesitation on Dick's part. The boy narrowed his eyes as he slowly honed all his enhanced senses on the two humans and waited to see if anything was out of the ordinary.

After his...adventure...he decided he shouldn't be more relaxed, he should continue to live as he always had.

Carefully.

It wasn't as if he didn't trust these people, because he did. He trusted them, and that fact, if he didn't dwell too much on the potential consequences, warmed him and made him happy. 

Its just...with trust comes overestimation, a lesson he learned the hard way.

They couldn't protect him from the GIW. (They failed once, who says they won't again.)

They couldn't protect him from nightmares or flashbacks. (How can they protect him from the haunting memories, lingering scars, and dark voices that echo in his head?)

They couldn't protect him from the powers that sometimes make him curl up in the middle of the night in agony as he slowly released small amounts of energy at a time so his core doesn't overheat, freeze, or overcharge and kill his human half. (What can they do? They don't know anything about ghosts, let alone Halfas.)

They certainly couldn't protect him from the virtually unknown threat of Pariah Dark and his army. (He isn't even sure he could survive that, whatever it is.)

They were only human. Trained or not, this was just outside their capabilities.

It was outside his too.

Danny trusted them to take care of him, to not hurt him intentionally, to not betray him, to try and help him. He did.

He just couldn't rely on them to be able to protect him from the demons shadowing him. Because he was the only one, on this blue earth and beyond, that completely understood. It was not their fault. It was not anyone's.

It was just a cold, hard fact. The harsh reality of this-of his life. 

Oh well.

'You are one messed up kid.'

"Danny, we want to talk to you." His eyes temporarily flashed their vivid green color in shock.

God dammit. He needed to stop that.

He tilted his head in confusion at Bruce as he turned in his chair and folded his hands over the now-closed book. Sparing a quick glance, Dick had also cleaned up his breakfast and mirrored the other's position. The boy used a considerable amount of willpower to keep himself from narrowing his eyes and tensing.

'Think they're going to kick you out? Tell you they think you were more than they bargained for? Ooh, what about giving you back to the GI-'

He shifted his gaze back to Bruce, careful to keep the unguarded, not suspicious look on his face.

"You remember when we explained what we do? The vigilante thing?" Danny nodded, fighting the automatic irritation at the tone. He hated that tone.

"Well, we normally do that every night, go on patrol that is, however with everything that has happened, we haven't gone out in a long time. We need to go out tonight, and start getting back on schedule when it comes to patrolling."

'They are going to ship you off somewhere. God just get to the point will you?'

Danny wondered why he felt so irritable today, maybe the annoyance and feeling as if they are hiding something from him? Mentally shrugging it off he waited semi-patiently for the two to spit it out.

"Well, the problem is we can't leave you alone. We don't want to risk another abduction." Bruce trailed off again and Danny sat, waiting for the point of the conversation. His mind worked a mile a minute trying to connect the dots so that he could understand the conversation.

"We want you to come with us on patrol tonight to see if you can start coming with us permanently. If you want to, of course. If you don't we can come up with an alternative." Danny knew there was no alternative. The boy was curious what it would be like, a more childish part of him was excited at the prospect, but overall he didn't want to jump into it unprepared, no matter how much he may want to.

He was not the type to let his emotions make his decisions, it never worked out.

"What do you do on parole?"

"Patrol, not parole. Usually, we stay on the rooftops of buildings and look for people to help. Every once and a while, when a bigger threat than street criminals come, we are signaled by a good friend of mine."

"What would I do?"

"You'd stay with us and we'd fight the criminals, however, if there is something bigger, you won't fight. You would have to remain in your ghost half to disguise yourself from the bad guys." Dick answered that time.

"You would have to remain in your ghost half" He couldn't do that. Not that he didn't want to (he didn't particularly like the idea, but he could handle it) but he couldn't.

That was how they found him last time.

He said as much. "That's how they found me last time." Dick turned to his guardian, clearly unaware of that fact. Bruce, however, didn't seem concerned.

"Yes, but when we infiltrated the facility you had been kept at, we found and took their tracking technology. We reverse engineered it and found a way to hide your signature from all of their technology."

"When the hell did you do that? Why didn't I know about this? Who did you go with? I didn't even know you had found the facility!" Dick stood up leaning over the table and towards Bruce, speaking in rapid fire. Danny was processing the information and considered the risks of going out. He stayed silent and observed the other two before giving his answer.

"A few days ago. None of the Young Justice team was informed and only a few of the Justice League had gone. We didn't want to draw attention or get your hopes up. It was classified." Dick huffed, clearly upset, but not having a good retort. He collapsed back into his chair and crossed his arms, pouting slightly.

"So, Danny, what do you think?"

Danny nodded, giving a small smile.

After all, 'hope for the best, prepare for the worst' they say.

<><><><><><><><><><>

Danny giggled, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor of the Batcave. Ace was sitting behind him and the large dog had his head resting on top of the boy's spiky white hair, leaning all his weight on the eleven-year-old, who didn't seem to mind due to his powers. The boy was playing with one of the dog's large paws. He was dressed in a long sleeved black shirt and black sweatpants, and no shoes (not that the Bats knew that, he ditched the shoes as soon as they went to suit up.) The clothes were slightly smaller than the clothes he normally wore,not nearly as baggy. They fit him well, still large, but less like he was swimming in the clothes. He had two wristbands on each arm. They were tight enough that they couldn't move up and down on his arms, but they weren't too tight, they supposedly hid his ecto-signature.

The dog pulled his paw from the boy's hand and it landed on his knee. Lifting his head, the Great Dane sniffed the Halfa's pure, white hair, eliciting another giggle from the half ghost as he went cross eyed in an attempt to look at the dog.

Danny wasn't really sure why, but the creature seemed to take a liking to him. Danny had been hesitant at first, sure about his belief that dogs hated him, but he was wrong.

It wasn't just the dog, but the bats that usually stay dormant on the ceiling of the cave tend to come down and land in his hair or on his shoulder. Like two are doing now that the dog had moved to place his large head in his lap. Danny glanced to his left shoulder to see a small, black bat perched there. He could also feel the prick of another bat on the top of his head.

He didn't really understand why the animals liked him. But he liked them too so it was okay.

A minute or two later, another two bats flew down and landed on his other shoulder and his hand that rested on the Great Dane's head. Danny slowly lifted the bat to not startle it. It was young, and small. Danny smiled at it and lifted his other hand, palm facing up, and prompted the bat to his other hand. The bat moved, and Danny gently cupped his hand to keep the creature from falling.

Danny was whispering in Romanian to the bat, and even though he knew the creature didn't understand, it somehow looked intrigued at his words.

"Odată ajunsese un miller care era sărac, dar care avea o fiică frumoasă.Și sa întâmplat că a trebuit să meargă și să vorbească împăratului și, pentru a se face el însuși, el ia spus el, 'Am o fiica care poate sa faca paie in aur.'"

(Once there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the king, and in order to make himself appear important he said to him, "I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.")

"Împăratul ia spus mițelului: 'Aceasta este o artă care mă iubește bine, dacă fiica ta este la fel de inteligentă cum spui, adu-o mâine în palatul meu și o voi pune la încercare'"

(The king said to the miller, "That is an art which pleases me well, if your daughter is as clever as you say, bring her to-morrow to my palace, and I will put her to the test.")

"Și când ia fost adusă fată, a dus-o într-o încăpere plină de paie, ia dat o roată rotitoare și o tambur și a spus: 'Încetați să lucrați, și dacă mîine dimineața devreme nu ați făcut această paie în aur în timpul nopții, trebuie să muriți.'"

(And when the girl was brought to him he took her into a room which was quite full of straw, gave her a spinning-wheel and a reel, and said, "Now set to work, and if by to-morrow morning early you have not spun this straw into gold during the night, you must die.")

"Apoi el însuși a închis camera și a lăsat-o în ea singur. Așa că a stat fetița săracului miller, și pentru că viața ei nu putea să-și dea seama ce să facă, nu avea nici o idee despre cum paiul putea fi rotit în aur și ea a crescut din ce în ce mai înspăimântată, până când în cele din urmă a început să plângă"

(Thereupon he himself locked up the room and left her in it alone. So there sat the poor miller's daughter, and for the life of her could not tell what to do, she had no idea how straw could be spun into gold, and she grew more and more frightened until at last, she began to weep.)

"Dar, odată, ușa se deschise și, din când în când, a venit un bărbat și a spus: 'Bună seara, miller de stăpână, de ce plângi așa?'"

(But all at once the door opened, and in came a little man, and said, "Good evening, mistress miller, why are you crying so?")

"'Vai', răspunse fetița, 'trebuie să mănânc paie în aur și nu știu cum să o fac.'"

("Alas," answered the girl, "I have to spin straw into gold, and I do not know how to do it.")

"'Ce vrei să-mi dai,' spuse manechinul, 'dacă o fac eu pentru tine?'"

("What will you give me," said the manikin, "if I do it for you?")

"'Colierul meu,' spuse fata."

("My necklace," said the girl.)

"Micul bărbat își luă colierul, se așeză în fața roții și se repeziră, se rotește, se rotește, trei rotații, iar bobina se umplea, apoi se așeza pe alta și se rotește, de trei ori, și al doilea era prea plin. Și așa a continuat până dimineața, când toate paiele s-au rotit și toate rolele erau pline de aur"

(The little man took the necklace, seated himself in front of the wheel, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three turns, and the reel was full, then he put another on, and whirr, whirr, whirr, three times round, and the second was full too. And so it went on until the morning when all the straw was spun, and all the reels were full of gold.)

"Împăratul a fost deja acolo, iar când a văzut aurul, a fost uimit și încântat, dar inima lui a devenit mai lacomă. Avea fiica militarului luată într-o altă cameră plină de paie, care era mult mai mare, și îi poruncise să se rotească într-o singură noapte, dacă își aprecia viața. Fata nu știa cum să se ajute singură și plângea, când ușa se deschise din nou, iar micul bărbat apărură și spuse: 'Ce-mi vei da dacă aș desface acel paie în aur pentru tine?'"

(By daybreak the king was already there, and when he saw the gold he was astonished and delighted, but his heart became only more greedy. He had the miller's daughter taken into another room full of straw, which was much larger, and commanded her to spin that also in one night if she valued her life. The girl knew not how to help herself, and was crying when the door opened again, and the little man appeared, and said, "What will you give me if I spin that straw into gold for you?")

"'Inelul de pe degetul meu,' răspunse fata."

("The ring on my finger," answered the girl.)

"Micuțul a luat inelul, a început din nou să rotească roata și până dimineața a strâns toate paiele în aur strălucitor."

(The little man took the ring, again began to turn the wheel, and by morning had spun all the straw into glittering gold.)

"Împăratul se bucura dincolo de măsură la vedere, dar totuși nu avea suficient de mult aur și a pus fiica militarului într-o încă mai mare cameră plină de paie și spuse: 'Trebuie să te întorci și în cursul acestei nopți , dar dacă reușiți, veți fi soția mea '"

 (The king rejoiced beyond measure at the sight, but still he had not enough gold, and he had the miller's daughter taken into a still larger room full of straw, and said, "You must spin this too, in the course of this night, but if you succeed, you shall be my wife.")

"Chiar dacă ar fi fiica unui miller, credea el, nu am putut găsi o soție mai bogată în întreaga lume."

(Even if she be a miller's daughter, thought he, I could not find a richer wife in the whole world.)

"Când fetița era singură, manechinul se întoarse pentru a treia oară și spuse: 'Ce-mi vei da dacă îți voi roti și pațul de data asta?'"

(When the girl was alone the manikin came again for the third time, and said, "What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time also?")

"'N-am mai rămas nimic pe care să-i dau,' răspunse fata."

("I have nothing left that I could give," answered the girl.)

"'Atunci promite-mi, dacă ar trebui să deveniți regină, să-mi dați primul copil.'"

("Then promise me, if you should become queen, to give me your first child.")

"Cine știe dacă se va întâmpla asta vreodată, se gândea fiica millerului și, neștiind cum să se ajute singură în această strâmtoare, îi făgăduise manechinului ceea ce voia și, pentru că a făcut din nou paiul în aur."

(Who knows whether that will ever happen, thought the miller's daughter, and, not knowing how else to help herself in this strait, she promised the manikin what he wanted, and for that he once more spun the straw into gold.)