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bluebird8683 · 4 days ago

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Chapter 2: “I left behind a cocoon,” explained the butterfly.

word count: 3841

A glance to the sky and the sun’s position tells him all he needs to know about the time; it’s currently that awkward cusp between afternoon and evening, where one can never truly call it one or the other without feeling some doubt in the fact that they are using the correct term. That means that Sam is unavailable via phone as her family has a no phones policy at the table, though they were probably finishing up eating dinner right about now. It also means that Tucker is most likely free and probably playing one of his computer games or wrapped up in some program that he’s working on, since his family tends to eat their “second dinner” later.

With that in mind, he makes the decision to call Tucker while he flies over. His friend picks up right as the second ring starts.

“Hey, my dude! What’s up?” his friend greets, keyboard clacking in the background. He must be coding something simple, he deduces. The clacking wouldn’t be as soft if he was playing Doomed or any other game. And if Tucker was coding anything difficult or with many moving parts, he would have stopped so that the project could always have his full attention (unlike that time where he accidentally switched languages in the middle of a program and therefore tried to use inheritance in an non-OOP language and was later confused as to why it wouldn’t work).

“I… discovered something,” he hedges, not wanting to lie, but also knowing that talking any specifics would have to wait till they were in person.

The computer sounds stop. “Danny?” he questions, voice concerned. Tucker probably picked up something in his voice; he has never been all that good at keeping secrets from him. Tucker always tends to just know whenever something is up.

He holds back a flinch as he approaches his friend’s house. “This isn’t something to talk about on the phone. I’m on my way to pick you up.”

“But it’s T-bone…” Tucker starts to refute on autopilot before he stops to actually think. While he knows that he has been clingy, he tries to let his friends have their evenings with families. He understands how important family time is, so for him to request this must be rightfully setting off alarm bells in Tucker’s head. “It can’t wait then?”

“No, I would rather it didn’t,” he replies; the sooner Danny can be removed from the lab, the better.

Tucker sighs. “I’ll let my parents know, but you better be up to playing rubber duck if I wind up forgetting what I was doing.”

“Of course.”

“Alright then, how far out are you?”

“About a minute.”

“I‘ll let Mom know and head out.”

“See ya soon!”

The phone chimes, alerting him to a dropped connection, and he puts the device in his arm after shooting Sam a quick text to let her know about needing to talk about something that couldn’t wait, and that he’ll be at her greenhouse with Tucker in about a half hour.

~~~~~~~~

He only has to wait a minute or so before Tucker makes it outside. “So, you gonna tell me what’s up?”

“I need help,” he responds before scooping his friend up into a princess carry and taking off invisibly into the sky.

Tucker stares at him, “Dude?!?”

“I’ll explain more once we’re with Sam. I don’t want to have to explain everything twice.”

“I’m holding you to that!” Tucker crosses his arms, trusting his long time friend to carry him through the air, even though it goes against all the laws of physics.

He chuckles and easily agrees. He would expect nothing less from his precious friend. They’ve always trusted each other; nothing could change that.

They settle into a silence after that as he flies over the buildings, making his way to the outskirts of the town since the Manson mansion was right at the edge of the town where all the rich folk had their residences. It takes a bit of time to get there, since he can’t even go anywhere near his top speed considering he doesn’t want to accidentally cause harm to the precious human in his arms.

~~~~~~~~

Still unfamiliar with navigating from the sky, it’s the sharp glint of the sunset off the greenhouse glass that finally proves that he didn’t miss her house and have to do a third sweep of the sprawling neighborhood; everything blended too well into the grass and identical rooftops. Sam rarely has to sneak them over, since it’s pretty easy to avoid her parents when they come over (and they tend to walk there together, so he excuses himself for missing the place the first time he went through the area).

He slowly descends into the greenhouse, invisible and intangible, till he can place Tucker’s feet on the ground. His friend smiles to him in thanks and plops down onto his usual chair at their usual table. Based on the strain in his friend’s eyes, he still hasn’t gotten used to traveling via Ghost Airlines. Since this had become a somewhat common issue, he digs out a bag of candied ginger from his left arm for his friend to chew on and get resettled. Tucker accepts his offering with a nod and eats it slowly.

Sam arrives just as Tuck finishes eating all the ginger in the bag. “What’s up? You don’t usually call meetings late in the day like this. Did you manifest another power?”

“No,” he answers succinctly, ending that train of thought early. Both Sam and Tucker tend to get excited whenever the topic of his abilities comes up, but Sam is by far the most interested in them.

She visibly deflates and snaps, “Well, what is it then?”

“I…” he starts and can no longer find the words he needs to say, her piercing gaze and sharp scent of annoyance and disappointment stealing them. It stings; he knows objectively that he is much stronger than her, that she, unlike him, is practically nothing in the grand schemes of things. But still, he holds her in high esteem (and cares about her deeply) and so seeing her being short with him is something he tries to avoid. Especially since he cares about her. And besides, sticking to English… or any human tongue has become more and more difficult as time passes. Core Speak, the language of Realms Beings, comes to him so naturally now that, if he didn’t know any better, he would have assumed it to be a language that he always knew, instead of something he had never even heard of two months ago.

Sam, noticing his response, grimaces. She probably didn’t mean to come off as angry or irritated as she did, but what's done is done. None of them have time abilities after all; they aren’t Clockwork or a disciple of his. Sam isn’t one to voice her apologies—she’s a bit too proud to do so, but he can only tell that she is sorry by her body language and the bitter taste of her regret in the air.

He pulses his core to recenter himself. The coolness of it floods his form as he lets himself relax, hovering where he is above the floor, incorporeal but visible to their human eyes. “Thank you both for coming.”

“Of course, my dude!” Tucker responds instantly.

Sam nods, her guilt forcing her to face away from him and instead settle on the caterpillar crawling on her prized purple roses instead of him. Her fingers twitch from where they are, purposely down at her sides.

“You said you wanted help. And when you need help, we’re your mans!” Sam jabs Tucker in the side. “I mean people! We’re your people!”

“So, spill.”

He opens his mouth to speak and hesitates. He would have to word this carefully since he understands that death is a sensitive topic for humans, and coming to accept it is challenging, but he won’t lie and let them believe and live in a world that doesn’t even exist (in this dimension). Danny deserves to get away from there, and his close friends need to face the music and understand that while they didn’t directly kill him, he is dead and they had a hand in it. (And besides he can think of this as a good practice round for telling Jazz and the rest of the Fentons, which he has struggled to find the right time to do.)

“There’s something I’ve been trying to tell you, to make you understand.” His arm twitches—in memory of the pain of his death, or wanting to go up and rub the back of his neck out of habit, he isn’t sure—but he stills the appendage and keeps his gaze on Sam and Tucker.

They trade glances. He’s always been pretty impulsive and done things all at once, so to hear about him struggling with this probably made the importance of this even more obvious. He could smell a wave of cold smoky dread coming from Tucker, at least one of his close friends understands where he’s going with this.

“I did not survive that day.” He comes straight out with it, not seeing the point of delaying it any further (and not really knowing how else to say it).

“But Danny—” Sam starts to interrupt, but he cuts her off.

“I am not Danny!” he explodes, his arms thrown wide in exclamation, “Danny is the dead body I need your help to move and bury, because I can’t even touch him!”

“No,” Sam says immediately, harsh and sharp. “That’s not possible.”

He doesn’t answer, reigning in his anger. He needs to remember yelling won’t help, it would just rile everyone up further. Besides, he’s more curious about what her thoughts were than immediately proving himself truthful (though it still irks him).

“You were fine,” she says, faster now, like speeding through the lie would make it reality. “You got up. You talked to us. You had a pulse and breathed; both Tucker and I checked! You’re fine.”

“I don’t breathe,” he says evenly. “I mimic it, sometimes. Did it out of habit at first. But it stopped meaning anything after the first few hours. Same thing for my heartbeat.”

Sam stares at him in shock.

Tucker’s face is way too pale as he stammers a denial (even though he can see that even he doesn’t truly believe it), “Maybe it’s another near-death thing? Like—you got zapped or shocked, sure, but you didn’t actually die. People survive freak accidents all the time. And are you sure you not needing to breathe anymore isn’t just a power, like your intangibility?”

“Tucker,” he says quietly, trying to be as gentle as he can considering the news seems to be breaking his friend. “I have to focus on appearing more human-like and being tangible. This form is my natural state, not the one I wear when we’re walking about in public.”

“Okay, but—there was radioactivity, dimensional displacement, some kind of quantum field that could have…”

“I don’t have a heartbeat, Tucker. I can force one, if I focus. But I don’t need to; it’s uncomfortable, and it leaves me tired. I don’t eat. I float without thinking. I have to focus in order to appear human-like. You both get headaches when you stare at my natural form for too long. I died in that lab.”

“You’re just—you’re being dramatic,” Sam cuts in, unconsciously echoing the words she had heard her parents say numerous times. “Maybe you passed out. Maybe you stopped breathing, but it wasn’t... it wasn’t death. Not real death. You’re here, after all.”

“I found my corpse. That’s why I said this couldn’t wait.” His voice sharpens, just enough to make the temperature drop as his core hums a bit louder in his agitation.

“Shut up!” Sam barks, pointing at him. “Stop implying… this like it’s real. Like… you aren’t talking to us right now.”

He answers, his voice noticeably weighted with the truth of it. “You’re confusing continuity with identity. I am here, yes. But I am dead. He didn’t survive. That boy, Danny, he's lying in the lab behind the portal. I looked like him, and since I appeared to be okay it was natural to assume that all was fine, but I only exist because Danny doesn’t anymore. I am dead, no amount of denial or arguing is going to change that. I have a corpse.”

“You—you joked,” she rebutted, panic starting to seep into her words. “You laughed at our inside jokes.”

“You think that means anything? Communication and understanding humor is not just something limited to humans and other living creatures. You think just because I died that I lost the capability to laugh and sense comedy? Of course it’s possible for me to have his memories, my soul came from his. I’m still him… sorta. I’m just… different due to my change of species, natural home dimension, and the whole death experience.”

“So what?” Sam says, crossing her arms. “You look the same, talk the same, feel the same. Why are you even trying to argue this?”

“Because you’re ignoring the differences! I’m no longer even human, Sam. You’re still pretending that Danny didn’t die! And he did! I did! Accept it.”

He hovers lower, closer to the ground so that they’re now eye to eye, and places his hand on her cheek before continuing in a gentler voice. “You want it to be easy. You want to slap an old familiar name on me and keep going. But I’m not Danny. He died in that lab. And neither of you have cared to look.”

“That’s not fair,” Tucker says, softly.

“Isn’t it?” Danny bites back. He’s had to rest there, since that’s where his family lives and it’s the only place he can find that has the energy he needs to absorb in order to keep existing. He hasn’t had any other option since he likes existing and can’t stay at their houses every night or his parents and/or Jazz might notice. “You’re the ones that had to talk Danny into even going down into the lab in the first place, since neither of my parents were home.”

Sam's eyes flash. “You’re talking like it’s our fault? You walked in on your own. You’re the one with scientist parents, not us…”

“You dared me,” he cuts in, “Urged me to just pose for a small ‘harmless’ photo,” he makes air quotes.

She flinches, and he pulls back to give her some space.

“I told you I didn’t want to. And then, after you tucked me into bed, you ran and didn’t set foot near my house again. Neither of you did.” His voice is flat, too flat, no reverb or echo or static to his words (unlike everything else he says these days), just plain solid truth. He lets them sit with it for a moment.

“I couldn’t!” Sam explodes. “And neither could Tuck! We tried! But we couldn’t even walk down that street without… without…”

“Panicking,” he finishes for her, quiet but sharp. “I know. I could smell it from up in my room whenever you came close.”

There’s no bite in his voice. No exaggeration. Just a truth that’s heavy enough to weigh down their shoulders (it looked a little too much like grief for Danny to really want to acknowledge it at this point, with his emotions as raised as they are).

“You think it was easier for me?” he asks, not looking at her. “I woke up, the second time, alone. I had practically no memories of the first time! I had no idea if you both were okay! I might have known conceptually that you both weren’t dead, since I had been put in bed, but I had no way to confirm it. Not even a simple note!” he yells, gaze bouncing between the two of them, glowing bright enough that his vision was starting to tint green. He pauses and forces himself to calm down; letting his anger take charge isn’t what is needed right now. “I didn’t know if you were both in the hospital or if anything else had happened while I was out. I was practically out of my mind with distress.”

Sam and Tucker turn and face one another, the color drained out of their faces.

“Why do you think I was so insistent on being with both of you all the time, especially for those first couple weeks? Spoiler: it wasn’t because I was having trouble keeping myself living-tangible. I needed to make sure you both were okay!” He pauses for a moment before continuing. “I died, and my first conscious thoughts afterwards? They were panicked, worrying if you both were okay.”

Tucker drops the plastic bag that he had clearly forgotten about (otherwise he wouldn’t dare even think about littering anywhere near Sam) and pounces on him, wrapping him in a hug. The nonhuman saw it coming and managed to turn tangible in time, but he hadn’t expected Sam to join the impromptu group hug. She hates physical affection, claiming she gets too much forced on her at home. But she does join, and he can tell by the redness in her eyes and the fact that she keeps looking up that she’s trying not to cry. They’re finally accepting the truth (and responsibility) and it feels like a balm on a burn that was worse than he thought it was.

They part, eventually. They have to finish the conversation.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stay with you. I…” Tucker stops, unsure how to continue.

He forces his arm to land heavy on his close friend’s shoulder. “Tuck, I’ve already forgiven you for that. Humans can easily panic. I just need you to accept that Danny’s dead and for you to get him out of there, since I physically can’t.”

“How did you know?” Sam asks, more for show than asking anything she really believes in. He could tell since her voice was shaky at best, and he could see the slope of her shoulders increasing. “How do you know it was…” You? The last word echoes unsaid but still heard.

“Beyond the fact that I’m the only person that could have died there? Beyond everything I’ve brought up earlier? I know because I found him, maybe an hour or so ago,” he informs her. “I wanted to see the portal, but came down from a different place mostly out of curiosity. I didn’t expect to find him! But there I was, floating above Danny, staring down at him. When I went to move him, to put my arms beneath him and get him out of there, I found I couldn’t. I couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t shake him. I kept trying, over and over,” he goes silent for a moment, his gaze far away, still aware of exactly how he left Danny. “I tried until I realized it was impossible.”

“You don’t know it was you,” Sam tries again. “You were where you—where it happened. It could’ve been something else, like a trick of the light or…”

“He’s wearing Fenton gear.”

Silence.

“The new set that was ordered especially for me, with the black boots that I requested instead of the teal ones from before. The space where you ripped off the Jack face sticker was blank. You know, like what I’m currently wearing the reverse of? You haven’t seen him, so you don’t know, but I do. I saw.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asks, her voice breaking as tears start slipping down her face.

“Because you’ve been pretending that I’m Danny. And I need you to accept that I’m not. That your actions, in combination with Tucker’s, led to my death. Besides, I’ve seen the way Tucker gets quiet. How he’ll just stare at me whenever we’re out at the Nasty Burger or just out and about. I know he sees that I don’t eat. That I tend to stick to this form unless I have to because we’re out in public. I know he’s noticed my shirts are always still dry after PE, not even a drop of sweat on the fabric nor a flush on my face, despite Danny being notoriously not fit at all. I had a feeling Tucker was starting to realize something was up beyond the obvious powers and transformation.” He stops, and then continues a bit guiltily. “Plus, I need your help moving him. ”

His voice flattens. The hum of his core pulses once, sharply. “Danny is behind the portal, so we’ll have to turn it off to get to him, but he’s still there. Untouched. Starting to rot.”

Sam turns away. “Stop,” she pleads, voice cracking. “Just stop.”

“Yeah, I think we get it,” Tucker adds, his voice thicker than he has ever heard it before, his eyes puffy from the tears cascading down cheeks still full with baby fat. “We love you. We’ll help you dude, always.”

“Yeah,” Sam echoes, voice weak. “Always.” She draws in a few deep breaths before straightening herself out and asking in a stronger voice, “Now, what do you want us to do?”

He meets their eyes, both of them, equally. “Bury him, give him a grave away from the lab. He deserves a place to rest, away from everything.”

Sam nods, a look of focus taking over her face. “Ok, let’s game plan. How are we going to do this?”

“Well, first let’s decide where we’re going to bury him, any preferences D—” Tucker starts, then pauses and winces as if just remembering something, “Ummm… you have been using Danny as reference to…”

“My corpse?” He verifies.

“Yeah. So, what should we call you? If Danny is you from before? Do you want a different name?”

He stares. He hasn’t really considered it beyond the fact that being called Danny feels wrong on every level, so he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “You can call me Phantom for now. I haven’t really decided on anything yet.”

Sam snorts, her eyes still red for all that there is mirth dancing in them as she responds. “Figures you'd make your new name a pun on your old one.”

Tucker nods in agreement.

“Sam! Tucker!” he exclaims in fake betrayal, a smile on his face, his core ringing in happiness. His smile is different from all the ones he has given since the incident, since it’s true and carefree.

“Okay, then. Phantom, any preferences for Danny’s burial site?” Tucker asks

“No preferences,” he says, and then really starts to think. “Just… somewhere quiet.”

They nod. “There are quite a few places that fit that criteria. Are you thinking quiet, like in the middle of the woods, or…”

He’s glad he found Danny. More than that, he’s glad it forced him to finally get them to face the truth, however heavy reality might be now as it sits on their shoulders.

Bury the dead

My invisobang fic for 2025! I'm posting max of a chapter per day and I'll reblog with the next chapter. A special thanks to my wonderful beta superus who has read this a million and one times for me and help me a bunch make sure it was the best it could be for publishing. WARNING: GORE

Summary: Death is a part of the circle of existence, everything that lives must eventually die. It is the nature of things. No matter how far long, or not far along as the case may be, a being is in their life, Death can come knocking at any time. This is a fact. There is no escape, only ignorance for those who have not faced reality yet.

It has come time for a select group of people in Amity Park to face this truth and the fact they might have had a hand in one young teen’s death. At the end of the day, at least his soul is still around to explain and get his body buried.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70251576/chapters/182429261

Chapter 1: Proof of Death

word count: 4036

There’s a maturity that comes with dying. Some sort of wisdom or perspective that makes his life and priorities from before seem incredibly insignificant and childish. He knows that he’s been changed, that he’s died, that he’ll never be the same. There’s no way to change back now.

The metamorphosis altered him beyond his new mindset, species, and subsequent power set. He can’t help but see his classmates and friends (though it is mostly Sam and Tucker that he sees it in) as adorably oblivious. They look so young to him now, so innocent. Most of their actions and worries are trivial in the grand scheme of things, but he can’t help but be enamored. He’s become weak to their pleading because, at the end of the day, they were there for him (even if they were the reason behind it in the first place). They could have left, could have fled once he started screaming. Or before, when they were all humans and got in trouble together doing their hare-brained schemes. But they didn’t.

They covered for him. They stayed, even if he is now a completely different type of entity than them, a fact they’ve been ignoring in the face of pretending he is still human (even though pure humans would never be able to develop such abilities and skills that he now possesses). His friends, who were there when it happened, seem unable to accept the consequences of their actions and the fact that he’s not the same being who walked down into the lab with them.

He knows dying made an impact on him. That he will never be Danny, be the little kid (barely a teen—oh how proud he used to be of officially being a teen!) who wandered into the hole in the wall in an effort to show off in front of his only friends, completely disregarding his screaming survival instincts and the voices of his parents in his head that warned him away from the lab. He barely recognizes that version of himself, the boy who had known better, who had hesitated on the precipice of reason before forcing himself to step forward (to trip and fall and die a death no one but him has accepted or even tried to understand yet).

He hadn’t wanted to. He had known it was a bad idea. He had even said as much as they urged him into the PPE, but the thought of backing out and seeing the disappointment in their eyes, had been worse. (He would do practically anything for them.) Besides, his parents, while telling them to stay out of the lab for safety, had claimed that the portal machine was safe, even if they didn’t know why it wasn’t working… so it would be fine, right?

So, he had silenced the voice of reason, ignored the churning of his guts (instincts that had saved him before), and walked into the device. Not out of excitement, but because turning back had felt like an admission of… not weakness, but something he hadn’t been ready to name. (A feeling that he can no longer comprehend like he used to… his whole way of understanding emotions and processing them has fundamentally shifted and changed with his soul emerging from the human chrysalis it used to inhabit and shifting into his current form.) The jackhammering of his heart in his chest was the last thing he had felt before he had tripped and only felt the A̷̢͈̽͐͛͐̄Ǵ̶͙̤̞͌͆͑̎̚͝͝Ō̶̡͇͖̻̝̠͔̺̭̝̼̠͙̅̋̀̆͒̊̈́̊̍N̸̫̹̘͔̬͍̠̺̘̯̟͖͕̋́̐͒̿̀̔͛̚͜͝͠ͅY̷̘̻̜̠͈̫͚̻͂ of death. (A feeling he will never have again, for he no longer has a naturally beating heart.)

Now, he wonders what that boy would think of who he is now. Would he be horrified (at him or their friends)? Would it be possible for him to understand the ways he’s been reshaped? Would Danny be able to recognize the body he sees in the mirror as his?

His friends still laugh, still stress over things that once felt important, still carry themselves like the world is exactly as they always thought it was. For all that witnessing his death traumatized them, his friends carry on like the world is still solid beneath their feet. (And to be fair, it is; they don’t have to worry about existing in the same dimension as everything else like he does. It makes him feel like what they did had no real consequence. He hates it.) The only reason he hasn’t exploded at them is how exhausted the two of them have become. With Tucker panicking and updating everything to be even less likely to discharge electricity, and Sam not only no longer joking about being dead inside but also no longer wearing anything that has a death motif… it is clear they were impacted by what happened. The panicked calls for “check-ins” in the middle of the night make that more than clear that they care and were impacted. Even if neither of them have tried to address it.

He doesn’t begrudge them for it. But he knows, with a quiet certainty, that he will never again see things the way they do. And he’s glad. (For all that, he wishes that someone would accept his state of being or at least acknowledge it; he would never ask them to die for him, to face what he did. He just wishes they would accept that he’s no longer human. They deserve to be Protected; they were the twin stars he orbited around after all. But the result of their peer pressure needs to be addressed before it forces him to leave.)

They, his friends, just call it “the accident.” He almost laughs at that sometimes, like it was something minor, something that had no big impact or held much importance. But every day, the evidence piles up as he notices more things that mark him as more “other” than human.

In his human shift, his skin holds no warmth (all he feels is cold now, but he doesn’t mind, it’s comforting); his touch startles others, like touching ice unexpectedly. His skin is now pale in a way that feels uncanny if one stares at it too long. He’s the kind of white that the women he’s read about in history textbooks used to die for. Literally, women used to poison themselves for the perfect porcelain complexion. (Ha! Ironic isn’t it? He achieved what they strived for, it only took his death. His skin is now the shade of death and dolls that gather dust on antique shelves.)

His ears taper to points, his canines long enough to puncture his lips if he were human. His fingernails are much thicker now, almost like claws with their sharp ends. And when he moves, he’s all fluidity and grace; no stumbles, just the precision of an apex predator. His eyes gleam an unsettling and piercing blue, shifting to a glowing ectoplasmic green when his emotions get particularly strong.

And when he’s outside, or under any kind of light? Nothing. No shadow. Just emptiness where it should be, no matter his form or how solid he tries to be.

And if one were really paying attention, they’d notice that he doesn’t eat anymore. (Despite not eating, he never finds himself hungry. He has found that he can still stomach water, and enjoys drinking it chilled with ice cubes on occasion, but that’s all he can bring himself to stomach. Instead, when he feels fatigued, he goes home so that he can absorb the energy radiating from the portal… if he finds the emotions around his friends isn’t enough to sustain him.) They would also notice that despite the almost translucent quality that his smooth as silk skin now has, there are no veins that can be seen. (It makes sense, when he took the time to think about it. He has no need for blood; after all, he’s not naturally a solid being after all.) Sometimes, when he sees himself in the mirror, he wonders… if he cradled a skull in his hands, would anyone even be able to tell the difference between the color of his skin and the bone he would be holding so gently?

The truth of his being isn’t something he can hide from anyone who cares to look, isn’t something he cares much to hide either, but it also isn’t something he will shout from the rooftops. In fact, he is still discovering things that make him Other, makes him different from the humans he surrounds himself with.

Not that anyone pays him enough attention to notice, beyond his friends who are living in denial. And Jazz, who has most of the clues but still can’t put the puzzle pieces together. (It’s probably the sheer absurdity of it. Her brother is dead, and she doesn’t believe in spirits or anything like that. And yet, there he is. Still going to school, despite lacking a heartbeat. Still laughing with his friends.) He knows that if the portal wasn’t working, his parents would already know… or at least Maddie would, but they’ve been spending all their down time in the basement working on countermeasures for the portal and possible ghost invasions.

For all that he’s accepted that he’s not a human, he would like to say that he still embodies the virtues that are held dear by them, even if he judges things and makes decisions on a different metric than they do. It sometimes takes effort for him to understand some of the decisions people make, but he tries. It is the least he could do when he wants them to do the same for him.

His true form, he knows, would draw from the masses horrified screams and make him the center of attention with his lack of legs and the fact that his eyes are a swirl of green, blue and white. His deathmark is also far from subtle, sparkling along his pale-blue skin and white lips that match the shade of his hair and eyebrows. Nothing about his appearance could fool one into thinking he was human. He liked that about it. It was in no way misleading or lying.

His decisions these days are mostly based on whether he will regret it later and how it would impact those around him. (Since his death, he’s become more aware of the world and people around him. He’s always been considerate, but now he notices the little things: the people who enter rooms after him, the exhaustion that Mr. Lancer always emits, the way Mikey’s eyes light up when someone talks to him. The way his friends, Sam and Tucker, brighten when they ramble on about whatever they want to talk about. And he acts on it. He holds the door open for anyone who is behind him, stays after class to help clean up, makes sure no one gets left sitting alone [even if it means talking his friends into it], and makes sure to hang out with his friends, both together and solo. It feels important now, in a way he never grasped while red blood traveled through his veins.)

Even with this new, broader understanding of the world and what he wants his place and impact on it to be, he finds himself surprised and a little emotionally unprepared as he floats above Danny, the charred remains of what used to be his body.

The reality of his death stares back at him, raw and undeniable. He had already accepted his death. It had become a known fact in his mind as soon as he had woken up. But even knowing of his own demise, stumbling across him (the body, the chrysalis his soul left behind) isn’t something he had expected. (Oh, Ancients, look at him! That was him!!!)

His corpse lies twisted, contorted in a way that suggests Danny had tried, in his final moments, to reject what was happening to him (even though he had eventually failed). His arm is still stuck out, like it's still touching the button or loose panel that started it all.

The PPE, meant to shield him, the suit that he put on for a stupid photo he was peer pressured into that would have no significant or emotional meaning behind it, clings like a second, ruined skin, shriveled and warped, desperately holding onto the flesh beneath it as if trying to keep him together. It has fused in places, the fabric melted into charred muscle and stiffened into grotesque ridges where electric fire and energy had licked and seared. In other spots it is torn and peeling, ripped apart where his body had fought against the unbearable heat/pain. The material has sunk in, melted past the epidermis, becoming one with the raw and blackened tissue that had been cooked from the inside out like it was some big steak at a barbecue where all the dads got too distracted and wound up putting everything in the microwave because it got too cold.

And his face—Ancients, his face.

The fatal wound had slithered its way up from his arm to his cheek, jagged and branching like lightning frozen mid-strike. It stretches across his skin, chaotic and sprawling, stopping just beneath one of his eyes. As if the force that had killed him had managed not to affect him, to not reach his soul through his eyes (the natural body’s window), turning the skin around the area to the texture of jerky. (A food he hated even back when he was human, one he thinks he’ll never be able to even look at now.)

It is said that eyes are windows to the soul, but isn't this (him being unaffected by it all) then a lie? Like the butterflies that mimic others in order to seem poisonous when they aren't. He is no longer who he once was. He is not Danny, the boy who lived and breathed and grew in that skin. He is something different, something taken from the heart of the star he used to be and exploded and twisted into something new. He cannot say that his death didn't affect his soul because it did. It changed who he is; changed how he defines himself and how he interacts with the world. So, finding his eyes clear of any damage disgusts him. One last falsehood branded on his body. (He hates this. He hates this. He really, truly hates it.)

The organs remain perfectly preserved, half open and lifeless, as if they should comfort him with their pristine state saying that he was unaffected. But instead, they only disturb him, even with the settled blood staining the ends of the orbs a dark red. It is nothing but a pretty lie, a deception that sickens him… but maybe their state would bring his friends comfort?

His skin, everywhere else, tells the truth. It is ruined, warped beyond recognition, twisted into something that no longer looks 100% human. In that, at least, he can find comfort. He has come to value truths, a virtue he didn’t hold too much stock in until his metamorphosis. Because beyond his new instincts saying lying isn’t even worth it, he understands now what it means to be the unspoken consequence.

That is because he is the result, the aftermath, the only evidence (excluding his corpse), of what occurred. His body is a testament to the price paid for foolish actions and his parents’ lies, a scar carved into reality itself. (Why has he had to pay the price when his parents have no clue that anything even happened as a result of their lies, beyond the portal suddenly working?)

There is no denying what happened. There are no soft edges, no illusions, just the raw, unvarnished truth lying before him in all its glory. And if nothing else, at least the truth does not pretend. (Danny can’t; he’s dead.) It does not soothe with empty reassurances or try to reshape itself into something more palatable. It simply is. His skin bears it, his very existence embodies it. And though the world may try to look away, to forget, to deny, he never will. He can't. Because he is the reminder. The consequence. The floating, talking proof that some things, once changed, can never be the exact same again. He will most likely never lie again (there’s no real point when it comes to things like this).

Finding Danny had been a surprise. Not a shocking one, but something unexpected all the same. (It did raise an emotional response in him, but it was mostly a sense of wrongness; that he shouldn’t be there.) He had wanted to see the portal from the other side, to see if his instinct about how different the swirl pattern in the portal from the other side was right. He never expected this. (He hadn’t truly thought about it. If he had been asked earlier, he wouldn’t have believed that he had left a body behind. Would have believed that his undead form had somehow been bound to the human one he was based on, or perhaps that it had been incinerated from all the energy of the portal opening and stabilizing.)

He thought he’d take a moment to trace the swirling patterns in the familiar green light that followed him everywhere these days, just a brief pause to get a bit more energy before trying to focus on reading that book Sam asked him to look over. But then… but then he saw Danny, and he couldn’t do anything other than stare. It had taken him a moment to realize that he had instinctively gone invisible at the sight, as if hiding would somehow erase the horrifying sight before him. His remains. Danny.

And the worst part? Danny shouldn’t be here. He should be buried, safe beneath the earth, and given a proper farewell. Laid to rest.

But he isn’t. To be stuck on his death site is a horrific fate, a constant reminder of his last moments… No wonder he’s been having issues with his anger. Danny won’t find peace, not here. Not surrounded by the machine that took his life and its ceaseless noises. How could he rest with the sounds of his worst agony constantly echoing around him?

He has to do something about it. And it has to be now.

The moment he shifts dimensions, to move him, to free him from this terrible place, he takes a deep breath (an ingrained soothing habit that no longer really works anymore) and is immediately hit with the odor. He tries to expel it, tries to remove the memory of experiencing it, but it’s everywhere—thick and sticky, clinging to him like syrup left out on the counter on a hot day, something that would be impossible to ever fully clean up.

Danny smells of things that… are just plain wrong. He smells of burnt chicken and sickly-sweet decomposition. The air stings with the scent, almost burning the ecto-strands in his nose with something similar to sulfur and ozone. It’s... too much. Metallic bitterness lingers at the back of his throat even after he turns off his lungs, like blood spilling from an infected wound. The memory/sensation of it sticks to him, sinking to his very core and sticking to it like droplets of slowly coagulating blood.

There is no escape. He innately knows that there is no shower hot enough nor soap strong enough, and no amount of time in the fresh air will be long enough to get rid of it—of the memory of this discovery. He will carry this with him forever. Though thankfully all the ectoplasm in the air has stopped him from decomposing as fast as he would in any other location.

It takes him a bit to get his bearings, to rally enough to be able to actually approach Danny with the knowledge of his scent (even if the only reason he still smells it is he remembers it and it won’t go away). He floats closer slowly, cautiously, like he wishes he had allowed himself to be when he was here before instead of racing to get the photo so that he could leave (back when he was alive and fragile enough for it to kill him). The glow he passively emits in this form adds a light to the glazed-over eyes that only emphasizes their emptiness, that there’s no one home. It’s like a vampire staring longingly into a mirror, having long forgotten their appearance but still having no reflection to view themself with, and so their visage is forgotten.

He considers forcing himself onto the physical plane, to place his feet on the ground and feel the weight of gravity, but that feels wrong. Like he’s trying to convince Danny that it’s okay, that he’s alive, but he’s not. Hasn’t been for a while now and never will be again. So, he continues in his natural state, the pull of Earth’s mass towards him nonexistent on his paranormal body as he changes his orientation so that his body is closer to the floor. How does he want to do this?

Gathering up his courage, he goes to scoop up his corpse into a princess carry, only to find his hands slipping through Danny. He stares at his hands, he knows that they are tangible at the moment, he can feel his body forcing itself to be still enough to be solid. But his hands slipped right on through, leaving them to brush the warm metal of the machine.

Maybe he just missed? Maybe he moved too fast? He knows that isn’t the case.

He steels himself and floats forward again. He squares his shoulders, forcing himself to stay calm. Be solid. Pick him up. That’s it. One thing at a time, he can do this. Then he floats down to scoop up Danny, only for his hands to pass right through him… again.

He blinks. Looks down at his hands. They’re solid. He knows they are, just like he knows that they were last time. He can feel the strain of holding himself together, forcing his form to stay tangible. But Danny? He’s untouched, still in the same position as before.

With a shaky breath, he tries again. He forces himself to slow down, and be more deliberate. He focuses, narrows everything down to the feeling of his hands, his fingers, the forced tangibility he wills upon his body. He reaches. And again, his arms slip through Danny like he’s made of smoke.

A surge of panic bubbles up from under his forced calm. That’s not right. That’s not right. He growls, his eyes flash an even brighter green, and his core rumbles with his rising emotions. And he tries again. And again. And again. Each attempt is more frantic than the last. But no matter how hard he focuses, no matter what he tries, he gets the same result of his hands gliding through Danny like he isn’t there even though he can still smell him. He almost wishes that he could smell his own emotions, that way it might drown out the scent of the corpse but he has a feeling it would also make things worse.

He can’t touch him. He can’t move him. He can’t do anything. And that terrifying truth sets in like trees taking root in his core.

What to do now? He ponders, having finally given up being able to even touch his body. Well, maybe he could get someone else to help move and bury him? Who could he ask? Jazz, Maddie, and Jack still have no idea that he could even be dead, so they’re out… but perhaps Sam and Tucker could? They would freak out over seeing his corpse, and that isn’t something he wants to happen, but he doesn’t have the time to wait for them to accept his death. Danny deserves to be moved from there. As fast as possible. And if that means that he needs to force his friends to face the truth, then that’s what he’s going to do.

He’ll fix this. It’s already a travesty that Danny’s been here this long.

#Invisobang #Invisobang 2025

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bluebird8683 · 6 days ago

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Invisobang 2025

Bury the dead, a fic by @bluebird8683

I had a really fun time drawing this scene, the lighting was so fun to mess with. The fic is amazing, definitely worth the read! 💚

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bluebird8683 · 6 days ago

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Invisobang 2025 :D

My piece for Bury the dead by @bluebird8683

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bluebird8683 · 6 days ago

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Bury the dead

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70251576/chapters/182429261

Chapter 1: Proof of Death

word count: 4036

And when he’s outside, or under any kind of light? Nothing. No shadow. Just emptiness where it should be, no matter his form or how solid he tries to be.

And his face—Ancients, his face.

And the worst part? Danny shouldn’t be here. He should be buried, safe beneath the earth, and given a proper farewell. Laid to rest.

He has to do something about it. And it has to be now.

Maybe he just missed? Maybe he moved too fast? He knows that isn’t the case.

He can’t touch him. He can’t move him. He can’t do anything. And that terrifying truth sets in like trees taking root in his core.

He’ll fix this. It’s already a travesty that Danny’s been here this long.

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bluebird8683 · 6 days ago

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Surprise!

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Reblog THIS post to participate. Ends on 9/21.

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bluebird8683 · 10 days ago

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No One Knows AU, but the actual story part takes place 10-15 years later at a high school reunion.

The usual No One Knows AU stuff, where there were rumors that Danny was running around with weirdos nobody recognized(ghosts), or that he was doing substances, he distanced himself from Sam and Tucker, ect.

After he barely scraped by and graduated, Danny left town and nobody could ever find any information on him, not from social media, or jobs or anything. Even his family hadn't really heard from him, just texts every few months that essentially equated to; "Haven't died(lol) in a ditch somewhere". Honestly people mostly forgot about Danny until it was time for the reunion. They couldn't find any new adresses or anything to send him an invite, so they sent his invite to his parents who let him know about the event, but Danny never responded so everyone assumed he wouldn't attend.

The reunion starts up, people chatting, and trying to prove how much better their lives are over another even though they all mostly peaked in highschool(cough*Dash*cough), before devolving into rumors and gossip about Danny, and his life thats sure to be crap, to make themselves feel better.

Their chatter is cut off by someone walking in. They cut an imposing figure, every step that echos on the gym floor commanding attention and respect. They have a familar, and unnatural glow, and they're tall, as tall as Jack Fenton, but lacking the man's bulk. They're wearing a suit that looks like it belongs in a fantasy manwha, with long white and black hair thats braided over their shoulder, some extinct flowers(not blood blossoms obviously) braided intricately through the locks, leading up to a glittering crystalline crown that seems to float above their head rather than sit upon their head. They're talking on the phone as they enter, an equally as impeccably dressed, and glowing, assistant walking beside them with a clipboard, and a number of papers.

Everyone is whispering, wondering who just walked in, as Star, the one who arranged the reunion, walks forward to ask, the person gets off the phone, handing it to their assistant. Before Star can ask who they are, they turn towards the reunion goers, revealing their unobscurred face.

"Sorry I'm late, Demons have no sense of timing." And everyone is stunned, because that, that is a very familiar voice, the voice of Danny Fenton.

"No timing indeed your highness." The assistant hummed in agreement, ignorant to the stunned room.

'Your Highness?' The group collectively thing, someone dropping their glass. 'What the Hell?!'

Or: Usual No One Knows AU BS, after danny graduates, he doesn't see a future in the human realm, especially with the GIW/Anti Ecto Acts in place, so he goes to the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms, where he takes his place as Ghost King. Ghosts are pretty easy to rule seeing as they litterally only care about their own obsessions/interests 90% of the time, so Danny really only has to focus on keeping peace with other species(demons, gods, angels, ect). Now in a position power, Danny is also able to reach out to the US Government and 'discuss' the Anti Ecto Acts and GIW at length until a treaty of some sort could be worked out between the them. Being King and only having to focus on one thing let's Danny decompress from the stress and running around he did as Fenton. He still goes to the human world occasionally, he does still have to eat and stretch his human sides, but he spends most of that time traveling around with Dani/Ellie. Cut to when the Reunion happens, the GIW have publicly been disbanded,(Danny revealed his ghost self to his parents and Jazz before going to the reunion, they were too stunned to really react so how they feel about it is up in the air still)anyway, Danny goes to the reunion, fancy king clothes and all since he doesn't have to hide anymore.

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bluebird8683 · 10 days ago

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What if Danny didn't die? He does open the portal but for the first time in their lives the Fentons followed OSHA regulations.

He doesn't have the powers, but he was right there when the portal opened, he saw the tear in reality and it...it did things.

It wasn't something that a humans mind was supposed to see, while the Infinite Realms are the in-between dimensions, and what is in-between the in-between?

Elder gods, slumbering calamities, fallen angels hid from their gods ever present eye, righteous spirits who reached nirvana, monsters beyond imagination...

The crack before the Realms snapped to his dimension was only open for a mere moment, a single millisecond but to the young boy it was eternity, and he could only watches as all those beings turned their attentions to him, they saw him, observed him as much as he did them.

He had fallen, screaming as he clutched his eyes, his eyes and ears were bleeding, his brain pounded so hard it felt as if it was going to knock out his eyeballs, Sam and Tucker, spared from it all as they had turned their heads when the lightning flashed and rent the portal open could only rush to the boy, trying to help him but all he could do was scream. Because what was beyond had saw him, and gave him a gift.

---

Far away, in a tall tower, a man with a gleaming gold helmet shuddered as the ankh of light in front of him shattered.

He fell to the floor, the minor magic he used failing as the more complex spell fizzled and broke, leaving him painfully wheezing on the ground, clutching at his chest.

"N-no...T-this can not be...T-The order...it...it failed...it can not fail!" Dragging himself across the Tower of Orders floor, Dr. Fate forced himself over to a lone summoning circle, falling onto it with an exhausted groan, the Gaurdian of Order muttered a soft word, and the circle flared, and in an instant he was gone, leaving the Tower shaking it it's wake.

---

On the couch of the House of Magic, John Constantine was feeling as if the world had fucked him so hard in the ass he would never be able to walk straight ever again.

And with the pounding in his skull from a truly deadly hangover wasn't helping either.

Nor was the half dead Dr. Fate puking up his guts in his living room.

"Argh" which translated to "What the bloody fuck are you doing in my house you daft shiny headed prick" but John didn't really have the strength to say that.

"Blugh" was what the ever regal Dr. Fate responded with, which obviously meant "The border between realities have been broken, the Beyond Dark knows of our existence and has seen our world, they have come to either eat upon our existence and reality or defend agaisnt the others that seek to only fill their own unexistance."

John of course, carefully and gracefully pissed himself.

---

In Faccuet City, a young Billy Batson screamed as his head exploded with noise, the gods and heros alike were all suddenly the strongest they had ever been, their powers flooded and overwhelmed his mortal form, and to save his life, the Champion of Magic forced itself into being.

Even in the Champions form the sudden influx of godly might was almost too much, steam charged with lightning billowed off him in great plooms, sparks zapped from his finger tips to the ground, and the air stunk of ozone all around him.

The gods were ranting, each talking over each other, debating in so many dead languages Billy's mind could keep up the translations.

It wasn't until Solomons voice boomed over the others that the voices fell quiet. "ENOUGH! NOW IS NOT THE TIME OF IN FIGHTING, THE BEYOND IS AT OUR DOOR..."

Taking a breath even if he didn't need it, the ancient king looked all the years he had lived and then some, "Young William...oh dear precious boy...our dear son. A great advent has begun, a door which should never been opened has been thrown wide...the beasts you face, the abominations of teeth and tentacles are just the mites that have slipped under the door...waht is to come will make all that you have faced look like mice...we will not have enough time to prepare you with what is to come..."

Solomons voice broke at the end, and he hung his head in the mental image in Billy's head "Seek out others, join forces with any. All those in touch with the arcane shall know of what just happened...as Champion you will be the spear head, the general of them all...you will lead them agaisnt the Beyond."

---

It took a week for Danny to come back to himself again, at least a little bit, he still had a haunted look in his eyes, and was far to quiet. He barely spoke at all, but when he did it was in ramblings of things not understood by any of them.

His parents assumed it had been a ghost that left in this state, their hatred for the ectoplasmic beings growing more and more as their son, their boy grew worse.

Jazz, unlike her parents listened to what Danny described, studied what she could and figured out what she couldn't, at each dead en she pushed, with Tuckers help she gained access to computer systems that held secrets of the occult, and with Sam's freely given credit card? Oh she dived deep into spell, trying desperately to find any kind of cure for Danny's predicament.

As time went on the boy only got worse, he had begun seeing the beings in the Beyond, some whispered wisdom, of long lost ways to calm the millions of mutterings in his gray matter and the pounding of his heart, while others screamed, in jubilation and rage, as it is only in being seen did they become real, and becoming real meant they had a foot hold in existence.

The wise figures, while helping had also steered him to their own goals, some told him to hate the jabbering hordes, others said that the only way to truly to be rid of them was to be nothing as well, to go far past being a person, into being one with the Byond.

Some of the mutterings lead to more questions, they spoke of Gods long forgotten and recent, of their betrayals and what they did to fall, others claimed that they were not fallen, that they were there to protect him from those that were.

The more and more he listened the more and more he saw of them, until Danny began to not understand what was real and what wasnt.

So he didn't even flinch when a group of imposing figures were in his room when he came up to his bed, hoping that the voices of Parathax the Unbeliever would be quiet enough for him to sleep.

Oh he did scream quite a bit when the sad trench coat man with a multi fractured sould reached out and touched him.

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bluebird8683 · 10 days ago

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Surprise! Your brother is alive!

While Tim was working with the Ra's and the League of Assassins he learned that Damian had a twin that went missing a few years before Damian came to Gotham. This is information he took a mental note of for later as he was more concerned with find Bruce at the time.

It's something he honestly forgets about though, and it isn't until months had passed after the time stream incident that he even recounted it. When he does Tim decides that maybe finding out what happened to Damian's twin would help mend their own relationship.

Thinking that maybe the reason Damian is so angry is because he never got to properly bury his, at the time, assumed dead brother. Only Tim doesn't find something that needs to be buried; he finds Danny Fenton.

Now Tim knows that he should probably go and inform Damian and Bruce that their brother and son respectively is alive. But that would ruin the surprise reveal he was already planning out in his head so he doesn't do that. Instead, Tim travels to Amity Park with one goal in mind: Convince Danny to come back to Gotham with him.

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bluebird8683 · 13 days ago

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Inspired by this post. What if Danny completely derails Injustice.

“This is sooo not fair!” Danny huffed while dramatically falling in his bed “it’s like no one around here ever watched a hero’s fight on TV. Every time I show up it’s either an emergency and I have to save Sam the Cat from a tree he climbed before the poor thing falls or the ghost hunters are going to be on scene already and start shooting on sight! I never get to do my evil villain monologue. Lord of the Flies, I only managed TWO evil laughs EVER! And one of those times my voice cracked in the middle, which sooo embarrassing! What’s the fun of being a supervillain if the heroes won’t even let me give a proper monologue” Danny pouted while turning to lay face down on his pillow.

“There, there” Tucker patted his friends head in solidarity, “there’s still a lot of fun to be had anyway. Remember that time we raided the GIW’s HQ and put neon orange paint on their laundry soap? Their looks of despair and cussing for the month it took to replace their clothes was priceless!”

“… yeah, that was funny” Danny answered muffled by the pillow.

“Right! And besides it’s not your fault no one knows villain x hero etiquette around here.”

“Yeah, but it’s like they are singled me out!” Danny said turning his face around “every other ghost gets to do their monologue. Box Ghost starts to give a monologue and everyone just listens politely before fighting him! It can’t even be ‘cause I’m a halfa or they wouldn’t let Vlad do his evil speech. Moby Dick, even FREAKSHOW gets an uninterrupted evil speech and laugh, the guy isn’t even a ghost! Just some random creep with more time than sense” Danny groans.

“Being a villain means you don’t have to adhere to the conventional rules and can just do whatever though” Sam remarked from where she was laying on a nearby puff “I say let the heroes worry about being ‘polite’ and just do your thing” she gave her two cents.

“Yeeaah” Danny groaned long suffering “but what I wanna is to give my monologue. I got it all wrote out and memorized, even got my act down to a T in the mirror. It’s just… I worked so hard on it, I spent more time and effort in this than on all my lit homework from this entire year combined”

“That’s not something you should be proud of” Jazz remarked dryly from the open door as she passed the hallway.

“It just Frankensteins so much I don’t ever get the chance show it up!” Danny finished as if he was never interrupted in the first place.

“Sounds like it’s the heroes who are the problem-“

“As always” Sam interrupted Tucker’s musing.

“So… what if you tried another hero? One who would follow basic courtesy like letting you talk before the battle?”

At that Danny sat up to look at Tucker in interest “you mean like make another hero, like me and Cujo got Val to become Red Huntress?” He seemed to give it some thought before shaking his head “no, with Val it was a ‘right person at the right place’ kind of thing, I can’t just go around trashing people’s places and works to hope one of their kids takes up a cape and is more polite than the rest of the town heroes, that’d be rude.”

“Well yeah, but what if you just went up the territory of another hero? Like, you can swing by Gotham and put a ‘kick me sticker on one of the Waynes or something, that’s bound to get Batman’s attention and everyone says the guy is super polite and a great listener! All the goons and officers-“

“You just said the same thing twice” Danny chimed in and high-fived Sam.

“-who appear on interviews always talk about how the bat does everything in silence and how much attention he pays to details. The guy would be delighted to have a new villain in his city, I’m sure he is starved for new material as far as villain monologue goes.”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Sam immediately shot down “Gotham is the most gothic city EVER! I will NOT, have either of you visiting it without me, so not until summer vacation, which will take forever!”

“GOTHAM IS ALSO THE SECOND MOST CRIME-INFESTED CITY ON THE COUNTRY AND I DON’T WANT MY BABY BROTHER WALKING AROUND THERE UNSUPERVISED!” Jazz shouted from her room across the wall.

“Oh yeah, that too I guess” Sam agreed.

“Fine, so not Gotham. Central City?” Tucker proposed.

“Are you crazy? The Flash is the fastest hero EVER-“

“That’s debatable-“

“It’s really not”

“He will not even give me time to open my mouth before we start to throw hands! Star city?”

“I mean, Green Arrow seems like a total Moby Dick, not sure he wouldn’t immediately start shooting. Cost City?” Sam countered and proposed.

“I mean… isn’t Green Lantern like a space cop?” Danny scrunched his nose “that’s like a super GIW, right?” The three thought for a second and shuddered at the image.

“Right… so moving on, how about Metropolis?” The three thought for a bit.

“I mean, Superman is an alien, right? I’d love to meet him!”

“Metropolis is supposed to be the unholy child of a Hallmark movie and a cartoon for little kids where everyone is polite and sweet and stuff, you can keep that to yourself and please do not include me on it.”

“The main villain there is Luthor, so no worries of stepping on another person’s toes. To heck with that guy, he puts paywalls on EVERYTHING.” Tucker grumbled.

“…” Jazz said nothing, which is close enough to agreement for them.

“So it’s decided, I’m going to Metropolis monologue to Superman!”

“Yeah, the Boy Scout won’t know what hit him!”

“… wait, do you think he was an actual Boy Scout when he was a kid? ‘Cause that’d be pretty cool”

“Nah, there weren’t boy scouts back when the old time heroes like him were kids”.

___________________\\_________________

Danny made good time to Metropolis. As a ghost he could turn intangible to avoid any air resistance or drag while also reducing his mass to zero. And, as he is creating his own propulsion by just thinking it, that means he could travel much faster than sound without worrying about causing problems for anyone. Really, his biggest issue is that if he goes too fast things get kinda blurry and it’s pretty easy to overshoot your target, so he had to stop to get his bearings and backtrack more than once, but he still made it to the city!

Upon arriving Danny took some time to go sightseeing as he likely wouldn’t get the chance during his fight. Took a few photos sat upside down upon the globe of the Daily Planet to put on his twitter, ate a hot dog, went intangible to Lex Luthor’s office and pantsied him right in the middle of a meeting, you know, normal tourist stuff. Feeling good about himself he decided to move to the harbor as it’s far away enough that his fight with Superman shouldn’t get in anybody’s way.

He then did some (unneeded) stretches and jumped a bit to loosen up, then did a few quick voice exercises he wrangled from Ember so his monologue would go perfect.

He was just about to kickstart his fight by doing the most heinous villain act of his entire career that would be sure to get Superman down ready to throw hands. He carefully picked the wrapping of his hot dog and was ready to throw it (on the street! Not the sea, he’s a villain, not a monster) when he heard a crash from behind him. He turned curiously to see the reason and- WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK!

If asked later, Danny would freely admit that this was the fastest he ever flew because that was Superman and that was a pregnant woman he was punching in the air, the heck-

He fortunately managed to cross the distance in no time and overshadowed Superman harder than he had ever overshadowed anyone before. Immediately upon entering the body he felt a foreign wave of terror slam into him with such an intensity that it almost made his vision wave before he gritted his teeth and forcibly threw it at his core to convert in more ecto. Now in control he wasted no time in flying up and scooping up pregnant lady gently.

“Oh man. Lord of the Flies, what! Who just- dude, yeah, pregnant woman scare me too since that bio class, but- What- Who does that! That’s- that’s messed up Sups. That’s a pregnant woman, dude you can’t just- the HELL!” Danny panicked while he felt the conscience of Superman in the back of his head gradually get his bearings with growing horror.

“Okay, okay, that’s- that’s not fine. She needs a medic and- Frankstein, this looks bad. I never saw someone’s guts before, but- okay, calm down Fenton, keep it together. A hospital is not fast enough I will just-“ now actively throwing his own anxiety and fear at his core on top of Superman to keep from panicking (too much) Danny took a deep breath and laid his hands on the woman’s side over her ribcage.

Being in Superman’s body is disorienting and frankly an experience Danny could do without. He was already used to holding back his own strength, but his was kinda a “mind over matter” deal with him being as strong as he could believe himself to be, Superman though… it was like there was no resistance whatsoever; air, flesh, bone, it all gave the same minimal resistance and if Danny wasn’t used to going intangible he was sure he would have already crushed this woman’s chest by pressing too far. His vision was all wrong going too far and under the skin with the flex of muscles he didn’t have and it was too loud and-

Deep breath. It’s… fine. Send the panic attack to core, we have no time for panic now. ‘Not the first time you had to get used to powers mid-emergency Fenton, keep yourself together!’. With a last deep breath Danny focused back in the pregnant lady on his arms. He never saw anyone’s inside before, but he could take his cues of what is around the bruised spots and that didn’t look right, her heart also seemed to be beating too slow from what he could hear and there was blood and-

“Right!” He took another deep breath “my vision is changing so much I might as well be blind and she is so close to death that no doctor would be fast enough to save her. That’s… fine, I’ve beaten worse odds. If Frostbite can be a doctor I can heal her. Let’s just… stitch her up… from the inside. That’s… fine”.

Without knowing well what to do Danny awkwardly sent some ectoplasm on the woman’s body and “felt” around organs until he came upon what felt like a misshaped closed fist growing and shrinking in uneven intervals, figuring that might be the heart he used his untrained telekinesis to press and pull it in a somewhat regular interval. Since his sight wouldn’t help him anyway with how it couldn’t choose what to look at nor how closely he closed his eyes and tried to block all his senses, focusing solely on his ectoplasm.

He felt a second kind of energy running through Superman’s body besides his own. One that was warm and strengthening for a lack of other words. In impulse he tried to divert some to join the flow of ecto going to the woman’s body, but it resisted being diverted, whatever it is it’s course was too rigid for it, different from his own free-flowing ectoplasm. Not willing to just give up Danny directed some of his own energy to “dip” on Superman’s and collect some before re-joining the flow, which… worked? Better than expected even as the heart he was forcibly pumping seemed to all but soak on the warmth infused ecto and start mending up.

“Right” thought Danny “I can do this” a determination that seemed to echo his host as he could feel a wave of decisiveness from him and what felt like him deliberately trying to pull himself back to be as unobtrusive as one could be on their own body.

Now with a route in mind Danny got to work, using his ecto “touch” to try to feel around the woman’s body from the inside and awkwardly make things work however felt right. When he felt a pool of what he assumed to be blood outside the veins he telekinetically scooped it up and pushed it back where he felt a burst or sliced vein before stitching it up with a thread of ecto he then solidified inside the body. Bone was pulled back in a form that felt right-ish, torn muscle awkwardly pressed back together, still-

“I can’t see!” He cried out “I can’t see what I’m doing, where things are how bad it is, how-!”

In the middle of his latest panic he felt a flash of determination from his host and a sudden focus razor-sharp and intense focusing on the eyes. It did nothing against his overshadowing, but the message was clear nonetheless.

“You want to control the eyes?” Danny asked dubiously “you are not gonna laser beam her down are you?” The presence recoiled aghast and then turned back to trying to control the eyes “this is a terrible idea”, but despite his best judgment Danny still relented and pulled back his control over the eyes, Superman immediately took over, opened them and did… something? Like pulling a muscle and relaxing another while focusing somehow into a certain depth and suddenly Danny could see the bones of the woman and the surrounding bits of muscle and organs consistently. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth he proceeded to direct his ecto to put those back in a somewhat right way, now with a lot more confidence and knowing better what he is doing.

On the on they went, looking for parts that seemed damaged and putting those back together, the ecto keeping things in place and the warmth making the body heal much faster, when they got to fixing the damage to it. The fetus in particular seemed to soak up on the warm ecto like a sponge to the point that Danny had to spend more time ensuring it hadn’t eaten up his previous work than actually fixing it. At many times Danny had to redo his earlier work now that he could see where he messed up, but gradually they got the woman’s body back in one piece that looked right-ish. In the end of the impromptu procedure Danny cautiously let go of the hold he had kept on her heart pumping it and it kept beating, albeit on a different rhythm than the one he guessed.

Finally, with a sigh of relief, Danny disentangled from Superman’s body, figuring the local would have a much better idea of the best hospital to take his former victim(?) than Danny. For a moment the three stood floating there without knowing what to do. At some point what looked like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern had flown to stand near them, but thankfully hadn’t interrupted. Now that he wasn’t actively blocking out outside stimuli to concentrate anymore he could even spy what looked to be Batman on the ground near what looked like the cross of a sports car and a tank “probably the Batmobile” he reasoned.

He could see Superman gearing up to say something, so he spoke first.

“Right” Danny clapped his hands in front of him “so, I did what I could, but I’m really not a medic, or a nurse, or - strictly speaking - good at biology, so… you should probably get her to a doctor asap. I would recommend mine, but he doesn’t really come to this dimension a lot, so-“

“Thank you” Superman cut him off quietly, a deep and sincere look of gratitude on his face “I was under the effect of Scarecrow’s fear gas, it almost made me kill her. I don’t know what I would have done if I- just… thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Today you were a true hero” at that Danny groaned.

“Not again” he whined “I already get that from miss Albrey for that time rescue her cat from a tree and from mister Smith for not letting his son be run through, and- not important. Look dude, I’m a supervillain, not a hero” Danny explained.

For some reason all the heroes, even Flash who had just arrived, looked baffled by this.

“But… you saved my wife? And… you just said you saved kids and cats, and… just… how come you think you are a villain?” Superman seemed to be genuinely confused by the concept despite him fighting villains every other day. Also, pregnant lady was Supes’ wife. Huh, good to know, but back to the matter at hand.

“Well, yeah? This was an innocent civilian woman you were beating the daylights out of like me ripping into Skulker, I couldn’t just… leave you to it? That’d be horrible! I’m a villain, not a monster, no matter what the GIW says and- wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.” Danny shakes his hands walking on air from one side to the other.

“GIW? Look son, I don’t know who that is, but you shouldn’t believe everything people say, especially if it’s about you. Nothing you just described sounds like a villain to me” The Man of Steel said to Danny’s indignation.

“Excuse me!” He turned pointed a finger at the startled alien “I will have you know that I’m a villain and a very cool one at that! I regularly raid bases of the government every time I hear about them having captured another person or ghost to experiment on! N-the scientists who opened a rift to the world of the dead in their basement so they can vivisect ghosts minding their own business call me the greatest menace their town has ever known!” Danny crossed his arms and filled his chest in pride.

“Al- right. So you are a… villain?” Superman said raising his hands placating.

“And a dang good one at that! I mean, a dang terrible one! Terrifying one? Well, I’m scarier than Box Ghost, so there!” Danny pointed triumphantly, before shaking his head in consternation and pouting “I had this whole monologue ready for months, about my evil plan, why I’m evil and stuff, but none of the heroes in my town stay still long enough for me to say it! I had come here so we could fight and I could finally get to give it, I had planned to litter in the street so we could fight and all… but now the moment is gone. And you should really take her to the hospital I think? I guess I can come back in a few days and we can have our epic showdown. How does Friday sound to you? This way I can stay up late-“

At that Danny seemed to realize something and looked up in alarm.

“Lord of the Flies!” All the heroes jumped “it’s almost my bedtime! Moby Dick, I’m going to be in so much trouble, oh no, oh no. Bye Sups, see you Friday, gotta go” and then he flew up at top speed back home. The baffled heroes still reeling from the surreal experience and with more questions than answers. Unnoticed by Danny a cameraman and reporter nearby had captured the entire conversation.

/////////////////////////////////////://////////////////////////////////////

In the aftermath Lois is (finally) taken to a hospital and makes a full recovery. Their baby (I’m tempted to have Clark and Lois name him Danny instead of Jon as thanks to Danny for saving him once they learn his name) is born healthy if somewhat liminar (your pick to what effect - if any - this has), Danny shows up later for his promised fight, he is received with a delicious homemade pie courtesy of Ma Kent and the heroes sit patiently to hear his entire monologue, which is great! They give him reason for his actions instead of fighting upon hearing his speech of how the anti-ecto acts are terrible and the GIW deserves having their bases messed up, which is less great. They then proceed to publicly claim he is a hero and the GIW are the actual villains, which is terrible! At least the anti-ecto acts were recognized as a blight that should never have been allowed to exist and scrapped, which, silver linings?

Now Tumblr, do Your Thing!

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