A Chance

-8-

Bruce just seemed confused too, and the smile disappeared, turning into a happy lip thing from Danny's perspective, but really he was frowning. The small halfa huffed and shifted his legs, using his already lifted torso to twist himself around and fully face the man. He sat quietly, wondering if this was okay, but he reached up again -farther this time- and poked the man's face, pushing one side of his cheek up.

Danny scrutinized the look, Bruce was still sour faced, his lips didn't look right when Danny made them go up, he had to made Bruce happy again for it to be real. The child huffed and sat back, lowering his gaze and pulling his arms back around himself. He dug through his mind, looking for things that he'd done that made Bruce happy, but he was interrupted by Bruce himself.

"What are you trying to do?" Bruce asked, but Danny didn't really understand, that formation of English words didn't make much sense. "What's wrong Danny? Remember you can speak to me, you don't have to be quiet."

Danny looked up, recognizing a few of those words and his own face soured. Earlier he had shushed him, but now it was okay? This man was as confusing as his core. The child shifted in his seating, this time wanting to get away from Bruce rather than towards, but his big hands landed on his legs, trapping him here for Bruce to stare at. His core was twisting faster now and a touch of red was now in the iridescent throng, the yellow no where in sight. "Danny, speak to me please."

Danny flinched, this was not a question with a choice, it was an order.

His lips parted and he breathed loudly for a few seconds before he attempted his words. "W-wh-what-ats..." he trailed off, not really knowing what he was trying to say or what he was allowed to do to show the man his question. So in the proceeding silence he unlatched his arms from around his torso and brought them up to his own face, his pointer fingers at the corners of his mouth and pushing them upwards.

Bruce's core flared red dramatically, causing the boy to drop his hands from his face and huddle meekly, ducking his head low because he expected a violent reaction to accompany the red flare. It's okay though, he understood now, he wasn't sure why he didn't think of it earlier. Bruce must not want him to do the happy lip thing, that was for other people, non-ghosts only. Like bathrooms. Then there was a hand on his shoulder and Danny flinched away on instinct, a tiny whimper escaping his mouth, but then another came on the other side and Danny was trapped under the weight of two hands on his shoulders.

"Danny that is a smile, people do it when they're happy." Bruce explained, Danny watched the man's red flare slowly spoil into darkness through his hanging hair. One of the hands lifted and Danny whined as it got close to his face, his eyes screwed shut as the hand went lower, then went under his chin. The small halfa flinched hard, nearly jerking out of the man's grip, but the hand under his chin moved up, making Danny's head look up too. "Hey, Danny, it's alright. I'm not going to hit you. You haven't done anything wrong. Look."

The boy was trembling now, shallow breaths of air passing through his parted lips, his eyelids were closed tightly, but at the new order he flicked them open to look up at the man with wide frightened eyes.

Bruce was doing the thing -smiling- again, but his eyes didn't crinkle and his core remained coal-like. "It's okay to have questions Danny, you can ask whatever you want whenever you want. You don't have to be scared."

The halfa didn't understand, those words held no meaning, no comfort or anger to tell except for what his core said, and his core was so dark and none of it made any sense and Danny was so scared!

"Please-" he whispered, eyes closing again as tears welled up and his face scrunched with fear.

"Danny it's okay. You're not in trouble." Bruce said, his hand left his chin and returned to his shoulder. He then pulled, grabbing the child and smushing him against his chest for a third time.