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dragons-are-cats · 3 months ago

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Part 2 let’s go

The nightmares were getting worse.

It had only been a week since Gar had been nabbed off the street and treated like a literal lab rat before a stranger managed to break him free. The titans had been overprotective since then, trying to keep him on lockdown in the tower and keeping him benched from the missions. He would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the extra attention at first, but it was getting suffocating and he wanted things to be back to normal and not treating him like he was going to fall apart in a moment's notice.

Gar hadn’t really told them about the vivisection either.

He’s always been self-conscious with his scars, and he was the light-hearted one! The one who joked and walked off injuries like nothing, not the one who had nightmares of being treated as nothing more but an animal. An experiment. A monster. As much as he joked about scars being cool, he didn’t really want to talk about this one.

He just told them he was slightly experimented on, that he had pieces of him taken and was generally treated like an animal.

He just… couldn’t talk about the vivisection. Couldn’t bring himself to talk about it or even think about it. And he didn’t want anyone to worry. Because that’s what they would do, worry about him when he didn’t need them to worry. He was fine.

100% fine.

Other than the nightmares.

So maybe that was why he was pulling up his window and shifting into a falcon as he flew into the night sky at 2am. Why he made a straight shot to Gotham, particularly to the edge where a sketchy looking apartment building stood.

Maybe the constant nightmares from the past week had affected his blurred vision worse than he thought as he slammed hard into a closed window he could have sworn was open.

Danny didn’t startle.

3 years of dealing with the undead kind of kills your nerves.

But a loud ass ‘BANG’ that echoed throughout his shit apartment at 2:30am was enough to make anyone jump. Danny was already awake, in the middle of a midnight snack, when he glanced towards the source of the noise to notice a green bird sitting by his closed window, feathers ruffled while some of its feathers still stuck to the window.

Danny shuffled to the window, unlocking it before opening it to let his green visitor indoors, barely blinking as the bird shifted into the familiar Titan. “Did you seriously slam into my window?” Danny asked, and Beast boy chuckled.

“Birds can’t see glass? I thought it was open?”

“It’s Gotham. Anyone who leaves a window open at night is screaming out: ‘COME ROB ME!!’” Danny raised an eyebrow, before flopping onto his couch, tapping the spot next to him to get the green hero to sit, “you shouldn’t be out flying so late with those stitches by the way. Healing factor or not, it’s gonna take time for that thing to heal.”

Beast boy flopped down next to him, “I don’t know, I think my healing factor is pretty good, barely felt a tug my entire flight here!” Danny easily saw past the fake grin, noticing a hand gripping his shirt and the bags under his eyes.

“… can’t sleep?” Danny asked.

Beast boy paused, before his eyes drifted to the floor, “… do they… go away? Eventually?”

There was a little hope in his tone, but it seemed like Beast boy already knew the answer, “…no. They don’t.”

Beast boy sighed, running a hand through his hair as he let out a sour chuckle, “just another one to the pile, huh.”

“How’d the titans react?” Danny asked.

Beast boy paused again, uh oh. “I… didn’t tell them?” The Titan shrunk under Danny’s scrutinizing gaze. “They would just worry! And-, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Bad enough you have nightmares.”

“I just-! I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell them. Couldn’t go: ‘hey guys! Know how I have issues with being treated like an animal, especially when it comes to experimentation and whatnot? Well it turns out the worst I’ve always feared happened! And I was VIVISECTED. Man, saw all my organs out for display! Just like a frog in a science experiment!’” Beast boy sighed, “they are already treating me like I’m made of glass, they know I have these issues. And they are already worried with what little I told them, I don’t need them going full mother hen mode!”

“You couldn’t tell them, because you don’t want to relive it,” Danny simply bypassed the excuse of making his friends worry. Before the titan could argue, Danny continued, “look, I understand. Talking- thinking about it feels like reliving it. And so soon after? I expect nothing less. But… you will need to tell someone about it eventually before it builds up and blows up in your face later.”

Beast boy remained quiet for a moment, and Danny let them both just sit in that silence, well, as silent as Gotham could get.

“Can I talk to you about it?”

Danny glanced over in surprise, meeting wide and fearful forest green eyes. “I barely know you. You barely know me,” Danny stated.

“You’ve… you’ve been through this. You know…” Beast boy’s hand gripped the cloth of his shirt tighter, “you know the kind of nightmares I get.”

Danny wished he had someone… when he himself watched as his chest was peeled apart, as he could only watch as hands dug into him, as his own parents smiled as they unknowingly tortured their son. It wasn’t personal for Beast Boy like it was for him… but… he could be here, to listen and understand. Be that someone that he had wished he had.

Danny laughed to himself, “look at me, a hypocrite. I didn’t tell anyone about it either. I know better than anyone why you wouldn’t share.” Danny sighed, “then again I didn’t tell anyone and it blew up in my face. With the rumors of Red Robin and his skills when it comes to detective work, they are going to figure it out eventually.” Beast boy was bouncing his leg, staring at the floor. “But I can understand better than them. I can tell you it doesn’t go away, but it does gets better.” The green Titan glanced at Danny in relief, still his leg bounced. “You hungry? I bet that flight wasn’t as easy as you put it.”

Beast Boy grinned, “anything vegan?”

“I always have something vegan for my friend when she visits.”

“Ooo I’ll have to meet her sometime,” Beast Boy stood up, and Danny could feel the anxiety around him begin to fade.

“I’m not sure I’d want that to happen, you’d two team up on me,” Danny grinned.

As Danny stood to throw something basic together, he couldn’t help but think about that was bothering Danny about this whole ordeal with his parents vivisecting a superhero.

They were biased, easily blinded by it… but they weren’t stupid. Going after someone for being green was ridiculous. They were more likely to go after Martian’s if that was all it took to convince them that something was a ghost.

They should have known that Beast Boy wasn’t a ghost, there had to be more to it.

He glanced to the green titan, still bouncing his leg, ears slightly twitching with every little noise, looking around his little apartment. Danny brought over the snacks before sitting back down, “Can I ask about your powers? Something isn’t sitting right with me with this whole ordeal… the Fenton’s are insane but they aren’t completely stupid.”

Beast Boy was already chewing on the offered goods, looking over with a tilt of his head, “Whaddya wanna know?”

“When you shapeshift… you can shift into any animal, right? Fish? Birds? Octopus? Even extinct animals?”

Beast boy gave a nod, “Yeah, anything animal, alive or extinct, real or fictional, demons, hybrids… if it’s not human, I can turn into it. Though those last ones get harder to control than typical animals.”

“You've… turned into a demon?“

“Somehow less traumatizing than this whole thing,” Beast Boy shrugged.

“So you can shapeshift into anything that isn’t human, it doesn’t have to be a carbon-base life form, doesn’t limit you to just mammals… anything that isn’t a human is on the table,” Danny tried walking through his thoughts.

“Pretty much?” Beast boy hummed with a nod.

“This may sound odd… but have you encountered any odd glowing beasts in the past? Could fly and go through walls?”

Beast boy whipped his head towards Danny, “I did! A weird chimera thing, it was green and glowed and junk! Only Starfire’s bolts could land a hit and Raven wasn’t around to help us figure out what it was! I tried to copy it but…” the Titan then shivered, “well… I didn’t look like it at all. It felt weird. It even hurt when I shifted… then it was like being plunged in ice cold water… but I could finally land hits on it. It disappeared quickly after that so I turned back to normal and haven’t tried turning back into that thing since,” he explained.

Danny thought for a moment, “you don’t need to know the full details about the creatures you turn into, just a glance at living or dead things will work, even pictures. You’re not limited to earth animals, or multidimensional creatures… and you perfectly copy that species biology, once again without needing to know what it is or how it works…” he looked over, “can you turn into that thing again?”

Beast boy chewed on his lip, “it feels weird, and I haven’t been able to get rid of this lingering smell of death ever since, what if it gets worse?”

“Only for a moment,” Danny insisted. He was hoping his theory wasn’t true.

Beast boy let out a sigh, standing up before his body shifted.

His body morphed into what seemed to be a tiger at first, before wings of a pterodactyl sprouted from his back, saber teeth extending past his jaw, a sharks tail replacing the tiger tail, and the stripes covering each non-tiger part of his body. He was still green, but his stripes were now white instead of black, and he glowed.

Danny didn’t need to be in ghost mode to pick up the ectoplasm in the air.

Danny gave him a shaky thumbs up and Beast Boy reverted back to his regular self, another shiver running through him, “I forgot I felt cold in that form too.”

Danny was still reeling from the fact Beast Boy had just shifted into a ghost. Like it was nothing.

“One… one last thing. I’m going to need to place my hand on your chest…”

“… are you making this weird?” Beast boy asked as Danny shook his head.

“I need to see… well… feel for a presence. Which the best spot is the center of your chest. It’s the last thing before I confirm anything,” Danny explained.

“Feel a… is there a parasite in me?? Is it going to burst from my chest?!?”

“No-, no it shouldn’t be dangerous if it’s there… but it will answer some of my questions.”

“… alright, if it’ll get us some answers…”

Danny nodded, and placed his hand gently on Beast Boy’s chest, feeling him flinch slightly from his touch. He wasn’t sure if it was from his own cold hands or from the trauma related to his new scar.

He reached out, calling out from his core, and hoped he wouldn’t get a response.

A small chirp responded.

Danny pulled back his hand, slowly looking up to Beast Boy, who was leaning forwards so much he was nearly falling off the couch, “what? What is it?”

Danny ran a hand through his hair, unsure of what this meant, “this is going to sound weird but, have you ever… died before?”

Beast boy pulled back, “wha-? No! I’ve never died before! I was-… well I was really sick but I never died!”

“Of course it’s not the easy answer,” Danny hissed under his breath.

“How is me dying the easy answer?!”

Danny looked back to Beast Boy, holding up his hands as he worked through what all of this meant, “the glowing and flying beast you copied was a ghost. Not just any ghost but a realms ghost,” he held up a hand as Beast Boy looked ready to interrupt, “let me fully explain first, there are different kinds of ghosts. I can’t list them all, and I don’t know them all, but there are various kinds. A realms ghost comes from the infinite realm, their main difference from other ghosts being they have a corporeal form. The realms are made up of ectoplasm, and when someone here dies, usually in a tragic way, and close to a large influx of ectoplasm, their soul can attach itself to that ectoplasm. When it does this, it creates a ghost core, essentially the purest aspects of that ectoplasm will crystallize around that soul, making it the very essence of who that ghost is. You’re still following me, right?” Danny asked as Beast Boy seemed to begin to flush a paler green.

He nodded, so Danny continued, “so… I’m making guesses, because I don’t think this has ever happened before… but your power copies other species, it doesn’t mimic it. When you tried to copy the realms ghost, your body copied its biology. I believe… that you turned every cell in your body to ectoplasm, and formed a core to preserve your mind and soul. When you turned back… that core couldn’t just shatter to return you exactly as you were… and ectoplasm tends to be difficult to get rid off once it’s in your system. I was checking to see if you had a core… and you do,” Danny stated, still a bit in shock himself.

“Are you saying… I’m… dead?” Beast Boy asked, horrified.

Danny quickly shook his head, “no! Not- well not fully dead, not even half… like a quarter dead? A little?”

“I’m a quarter dead?!”

“Just a little! If you didn’t have a core and just leftover ecto, I would say you became liminal, but this is straight up…” Danny paused, “I don’t even know if this qualifies as a halfa situation…” he shook his head, “Good news! You’re still alive, especially like this. You just have… some ecto energy. But that core also indicates you are just… a little dead,” Danny knew it sounded insane.

And Beast Boy just stared, “did… did I die when I copied that ghost?”

Danny paused again, then gave a small nod, “I think you did.”

Saved from vivisection fic but it’s not Danny who gets saved, it’s Batman / one of the batkids.

Fenton parents move to Gotham to hunt the superhero “ghosts” and by some miracle manage to catch one of them. They start cutting batwhoever open and are very fascinated by the “red ectoplasm.” Batwhoever can’t get free and is naturally very scared and starts screaming.

Danny busts in and finds this scene and immediately hatches a plan to lure the Fenton parents away with a duplicate Phantom. He stitches up batwhoever and gets them out via fire escape. He’s very traumatized and guilty cuz he feels responsible.

Batwhoever is very concerned about this nice kid with the mad scientist parents who knows how to stitch human flesh.

I don’t see why this’d have to be specific to Batman, I’m just not sure which other DC characters the Fentons could feasibly get the drop on. Maybe the teen titans?

Also AU of this AU where Danny had been vivisected at some point in the past and Fentons still didn’t know he was Phantom, and part of the reason they moved to Gotham was to possibly help him with whatever mental break he had.

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