#Danny discovers the bat cave

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #126

Danny had a feeling Vlad was going to try something. The man had invented his family to a gala he was hosting and Danny knew Vlad was going to pull something. Of course Danny was right, Vlad found an artifact in the ghost zone that he uses to turn Danny into a cat. Danny somehow gets out of the man’s lab but soon finds himself picked up by an old friendly butler.

Danny finds himself at this mansion even bigger than Vlads. He’s given to a young boy whom seems to dislike all the people around him but also seems to hold him in high regard just for being a cat. Danny decides to enjoy being a cat for a few days but eventually something happens to spoil the fun. Danny falls down a vent one day while running around with Damian’s dog Titus, he had become a little fond of the large dog that seemed to want to protect him since he became a household pet.

Once Danny makes his way out of the vent he finds himself in the Batcave.

[rboooks]

DC x DP Fic idea: The Royal Consort

Wesley Weston runs a blog after getting over his desire to expose Danny's secret- primarily due to no one believing him- and no one pays attention to it since almost all of Casper high school has one too.

The difference between the hundreds of other blogs is that one of his pictures of Phantom is clear. A perfectly uncorrected image of the famous ghost, whereas nearly all other pictures are blurry due to ghosts disrupting cameras. Even Wes isn't sure how he managed to capture him so well.

Another difference between his blog and others is that one of his followers happens to be John Constantine, who followed the kid a long time ago due to the fanfiction of the Bats and found them hilarious.

John opens his phone app, expecting a new chapter to the Bruce Wayne/Superman fic, and spits out his tea upon seeing the High King of the Dead casually in the human world. Horrified that the King has not been appropriately welcomed- which could lead to a war that the humans would never win- he calls an emergency Justice League and Justice League Dark meeting.

It didn't help that they had allowed a county to pass the anti-ecto laws, which ruined any attempt to appease the Ghost King once the news broke to the public. The League still worried about a declaration of war even after they demolished the laws and the United Nations had the States apologize on humans' behalf.

They quickly discover High King Phantom has been visiting Earth for almost three years. Before his coronation, Phantom had not been outside the Infinite Realms very often though he has appeared throughout history. Cave drawings date back thousands of years before the first ancient Egyptians, but he's visits are few and short.

Life would naturally send him back to the Realms because he had too much power and ectoplasm. After taking the throne, his powers only grew, which meant someone had to summon him as the only way for him to stay on Earth longer than an hour.

Now as King, he appeared only within the small town of Amity Park daily. Why?

John sighs. "He has an anchor. Someone is tying him to this plane. Like the helmet for Nabu, which allows Doctor Fate to exist here without being launched back to the Infinite Releams, Phantom has bonded himself. And I know who that is"

He pulls up a class photo on Weston's blog and points to a boy wearing a particular necklace.

"Danny Fenton is wearing the official Royal Consort of the Infinite Realms symbol and has been since he was fourteen. Phantom's husband may be our only hope to salvage the terrible mess the USA's bloody GIW placed the rest of us in."

Danny loved the necklace he found in Pariah Dark's old haunt. He inherited Pariah's haunt and everything inside once he was crowned and hasn't taken it off since. He didn't think it would be an issue. It's not like it would out his secret to his parents or anyone else since it was in Ghost Speech. Even he didn't know what it said.

Then one morning he comes down for breakfast only to have the most important members of the Justice League sitting in his living room waiting to greet him.

Desperate to keep his halfa status a secret, Danny must convince the entire world watching him, that he's just a human who scandalously eloped at age fourteen with one of the strongest beings in the mulitverse.

Jack's horrified "We were shooting my son-in-law this whole time" became a meme that has trended for months.

( Part 2 )

[thecatchat]

Ace the bat hound becomes a ghost dog because he's such a good boy and dedicated to justice. Inspired off of this post here.

But, instead of being found out by Danny, it's the batfam's usual mystic contacts, like Constantine, that discover and reunite Ace and the Bats. Constantine muttering about how annoyingly resilient the particular brand of ghost is. From the infinite realms, Ghosts from there are a headache and a half to get rid of but portals, information, and really anything about it is far and few between since no one's been able to get into contact since some fight a couple centuries ago (Dark being sealed away). Justice Leauge Dark promises to let the family know if they hear anything or find any relevant information about the Infinite Realms, but since literally nothing has been heard from them in so long, no one really knows anything off the top of their head about it.

While Ace is technically supposed to be hidden away at home, he ends up sneaking along one day to help deal with Joker after the clown kidnaps Nightwing and/or Robin (Damian). The photos and videos of the event are blurry and smudged, but word of mouth gets around, and soon, the entirety of Gotham is celebrating the return of Bat Hound the Ghost, the very good boy back from the grave.

Meanwhile, things are going great for the family, just having Ace back makes everyone feel just a bit better (because Ace is a full ghost with a core and is helping to filter the currupt ectoplasm called Lazarus Water with physical touch). Jason is over more often and enjoys flopping on the couch with Ace for a quick snooze, Dick is over the moon to fight with Ace by his side again, Damian makes sure Ace is properly introduced to the rest of the animals that live at the mansion, Tim actually falls asleep semi-regularly now after Ace starts bothering him about being awake, and everyone else is reaping the benefits of having a bat trained dog that seems to be able to sniff out when they need a dog to pet.

Then these guys in white show up.

Ace had seemingly been on edge all night and when it was time to turn in for the night and let Signal come out for the day, Ace follows along, not listening to any command to stay home. Some of the others stay ready in the cave but they let Signal and Ace go out with the promise to call the moment something big happens.

Now, up until then, Ace's powers had been tallied up to: intangibility, invisibility, and occasional hovering/heightened jump. Every other exercise responded out as normal dog (except for the whole being dead thing). Maybe slightly higher emotional intelligence, but some dogs are just Like That. Through some tests, they do find that Ace has a new found hatred of Lazarus Water, but they don't find any obvious weakness that isn't a banishment spell which is as worrying as it is a relief.

So when these white suits start shooting using guns that glow the same green as Ace in Signals' vision and the shoots hit? Ace yelps in pain before seemingly barking out some kind of energy ball? And barreling into a wall so hard it cracked from another shot? Every single alarm that Signal can think to trip gets set off.

But not before one of the suits (one of the many suits, they're terrible fighters but there's just so many of them and two of them) takes out something that looks like a thermos and points it at Ace.

Within a second, Ace is gone.

Signal is so shocked he almost gets hit himself by the dozens of shots of energy blasts now aimed at him. He can't get to the white van in time before it speeds off.

----

I'm going to end this part here. I'm going to continue this in the reblogs but I also want people to take a crack at this story themselves! If you're inspired by this please put your thoughts or stories in the reblogs or tags!

[dannyphantom-zero]

Doctor Danny Chapter 8

Vlad managed to squeak out of the situation with a cash fine and Lex Luther was supposed to be under surveillance. Despite being "victims", experimenting or holding a citizen, albeit a meta, was still illegal.

Danny however was currently with the justice league. They had brought him to a hospital but there wasn't much they could do for him there after discovering Danny had strange abnormalities with his DNA and heartbeat.

Jason sat by Danny's unconscious body while everyone tried to figure out what to do with the situation.

"Why didn't you tell me your boyfriend was a meta human Jason?!" Bruce demanded.

Jason looked shocked at first which quickly turns to anger.

"Are you kidding me?! First of all, when did we have such a close relationship? Because lately we could only manage a small conversation. Secondly I didn't know myself" Jason bit back the anger billowing inside him.

"He's got unknown powers and now Lex Luther knows about him" Superman said with a serious tone.

"who was that other guy?" The flash asked.

"Vladimir Masters, billionaire former mayor of Amity Park" Bruce said.

Jason didn't look at any of them, his guilty gaze fell on Danny.

"He's, how can we even tell if he's going to be alright?" Jason said.

The room fell into silence.

"Have faith Jason, that's all you can do"

Jason clentched his fist.

"I don't think so, I'm going to find another way" Jason stood up.

He locked eyes with Superman, "dont let him out of your sight. He's a prestigious doctor. He's important-"

Jason walked out, "he's important, to me"

Superman sat in the vacant chair and tried his best to use his own powers to figure out Danny's condition. There wasn't much medical data on Danny to begin with so they weren't sure what we considered normal for him. More than once superman had been sure Danny's heart had stopped, yet he was still alive somehow.

Bruce had conflicted feelings about the good doctor. Jason trusted him, then again Jason was a murdering crime lord out for revenge.

He knew Jason and Doctor Daniel had a special relationship, after all, one doesn't usually cripple people for just a friend.

Joker had yet to recover.

Back in the bat cave Jason was taking full advantage of the access to the oicie records. It was harder than he thought it would be to get information on Danny because he wasn't born in Gotham but he eventually found a lead.

According to the hospital records paired with surveillance cameras outside the city, courtesy of Tim, Jason found that Danny had come from Illinois.

There was also that girl, Sam was it? Did she know his secret? She had to know something right?

Tim glanced over at Jason's screen.

"Oh that's the lead of that startup band Twisted Vines." Tim commented.

Jason's head snapped towards Tim so fast he almost counted it as a jump scare.

"Do you know where they'll be playing next?!"

Tim pulled out his phone.

"They have an app, let's see...seems like their doing a gig at Croscee's Pub tonight"

Jason stood up.

"I'm going to that and your coming with me"

Tim was grinning from ear to ear. So cool!

Later that night Jason and Tim in civilian outfits made their way to the bar. The band had already started playing judging by the muffled music pounding through the wall.

Jason opened the door and maneuvered through the crowd of people before resting in a corner.

Tim on the other hand has made his way to he front and was avidly cheering the band on.

Jason was growing slightly pissed off. Danny was counting on him and the best he could do was watch this stupid concert.

The music eventually ended and the crowd of people tried to swarm the band but security held them at bay.

Jason had other means, he snuck into their bus.

The band members were obviously shocked to see a stranger sitting in their tour bus.

"Jason??" Sam asked. They relaxed, if Sam knew this person than it was probably alright.

"What are you doing here?"

Jason stood up.

"It's Danny, we need your help. Danny's not waking up"

Sam motioned for then to go outside.

"He was attacked by Vlad Masters and Lex Luther"

Sam clentched her teeth, "Vlad"

When she noticed the look on Jason's face she explained, "Vlad wanted to get with Danny's mom and kill his dad. He also cloned Danny several times. One time he was successful."

Jason could feel the pits bubble up in his chest.

"I need to see him. That's the only way I can tell you"

"I brought a car"

Sam nodded, "give me a minute" she said before climbing back onto the bus.

Tim ran up to Jason, "did you talk to her yet? What did she say?" He asked.

"Alright, I'm good to go" she said slinging a couple of her bags over her shoulder.

Tim's mouth went wide open.

"So cool" he whispered.

The car ride there Jason went into more detail.

Bruce was a little surprised that the answers Jason had went to find were in the formation of some rock punk.

Sam was admiring the space when she caught sight of Danny. She dropped her bags and ran over.

"How long has it been?"

"A couple days."

"Do you know what they injected him with? What about the state he was in when you found him?"

"He was injected with a drug that I don't recognize in the system or otherwise" Bruce said handing her the tablet.

Sams expression darkened, "blood blossoms, fucking bastards"

"He was extremely agitated but Jason managed to calm him down just before he fainted"

Sam handed back the tablet.

"Blood Blossoms are extremely harmful to gh- to people like Danny"

"No matter what I need everyone in this room to swear an oath not to say anything about Danny's condition. I know someone who can help him but I need you all to ask as little questions as possible"

"Where do you have to go?"

"Illinois"

"Take the jet" Bruce said. Jason nodded.

"And here, this is the contact of a friend who can give you a log of Danny's normal condition and what to do if he takes a turn for the worst."

It was Tuckers contact. Jason and Sam left and Bruce got on the contact.

Tucker had become a software engineer for AmerTek Industries in Metropolis.

Flash said he would pick him up and left before anyone could object.

Tucker had been finishing up a report on a new robot the company was in the planning stages of creating, next thing Tucker knew he was in the arms of somebody going at incredibly fast speeds to somewhere.

"Oh" is all he said when they filled him in.

"Sams already on it huh" he sisd with a nervous smile.

"She always so on top of things"

"She told us we could find his medical information with you"

Tucker blinked, "oh yeah! We had to create an updated version. After the accident Danny couldn't get checked by normal doctors anymore. Thank ancients his parents were so oblivious-" Tucker stopped talking when he saw their faces.

"Did Sam not tell you about that? Maybe I've said too much. In any case if there's something you don't understand, let me know"

He handed over the digital file on Danny.

Not even two seconds later Bruce was grilling Tucker on what ectoplasm was and what machine caused this to happen.

There was also a detailed report on what devices the Fenton's had made and how they interacted with Danny.

"What's this page?" Tim asked scrolling onto the page filled with a list of all the ghosts Danny had fought and their abilities.

"I,uhm, well I don't think I should-"

Tucker shrank under Batmans judgmental stare.

"Sams going to skin me alive for this but, I suppose I should tell you everything"

The heroes listened, stunned at the words coming out of Tuckers mouth.

Not only had they not known about the mad "ghost hunting" scientists. They also had known about the portal to the infinite realms.

They were even more shocked when he told them Danny had been crowned king.

"He was a teenage superhero and we were his support team"

Tucker smiled, "nows he's still saving lives. Danny really is something else"

Bruce had went to eh next room to brood over his failure to see all of this whole Supes glumly accepted the fact that he couldn't have done anything without knowing.

"You guys don't need to be so down about it. Any transmissions Danny tried to get to you guys was most definitely being blocked by Vlad and his fancy equipment"

Clark shook his head.

"So Vlad and Danny have history" Flash said.

"Yeah, deep history. In fact. Vlad shares Danny's condition. They're both liminals"

Tucker scowled, "he's literally a villain. Danny's been dealing with this guy for years."

"I can't imagine being a fourteen year old hero"

A glum look passed over Tuckers face.

"We, haven't talked in a while. But I should've tried. I knew he was going through something rough. It was hard for him. Didn't help that he was bullied either. Danny too nice for his own good"

"For now, all we can do is monitor his condition. Have faith in your friend"

Tucker nodded. Danny would wake up. He was sure of it.

[phoenixcatch7]

Bunch of dc story ideas because I keep forgetting to write them down and they're not fully fleshed out anyway:

Captain marvel gets 'deaged', either through klarion or something he ran into doing duty around the Rock, and flees to the first safe place he can think of - the watchtower. Unfortunately, Billy assumed the curse would simply revert him to his mortal form, or close enough... But the champion of magic form turns out to have been a disguise in more ways than one, because this new body most certainly isn't human.

Similarly, cap gets deaged to Billy's age, but he's still... The champion of magic form. Now Billy batson has full access to his full set of powers and skills, but in his mortal shape. This is going to really help his secret identity :'). Especially because the villains KEEP ATTACKING PEOPLE PLEASE KNOCK IT OFF.

Meta!Batman. His rare power transformed him into a monster on the scale of killer Croc or man bat, and also enabled him to turn into a human. A completely normal. Baseline human. It's infuriating that a normal person has to worry about meta blockers or inhibitor cuffs, especially after his (slightly fudged to keep the traffickers out) statistical announcement of 'no metas in Gotham' got presumed to be a demand, because he had to call in the league to help with a fighting ring and now he's hiding in a dark room while superman tries to coax him out. Man bat already stole the niche, it's just embarrassing.

Possessed doll au! When an 8yo Bruce falls into a cave under his house, he had nightmares about tea parties and flapping wings and wooden limbs for years. Nearly a decade later, he returned to find a sprawling system of tunnels and cracks, through one of which lies an abandoned, life sized marionette tea party, with empty porcelain tea cups and old, outdated gowns. The torch lights upon the doll at the head of the table, a tall, imposing man with chipped paint, dressed all in black, his joints rusted and head lolling. Bats screech from the darkness as he approaches, and when he touches its hand the world goes black. It's terrifying to wake up in a body of wood, hearing it creak and twist, hearing it scream as he cries. He wakes up back in his own body, sprawled on the floor, and runs. He's back down in a few months, this time bound and determined to figure it out. It turns out whatever it is, it has no malice. Indeed it makes for a wonderful, powerful body once he's cleaned it up, able to move and bend in ways no human could. He can hollow it out carefully and fill it with whatever items he might need. A body that doesn't need to breathe or eat, one that can take a beating, night after night. It takes him a long time to wonder why the dolls have precisely as many people as the manor eventually does. In the meantime the people of Gotham are 90% sure their protectors aren't human. And the jl is terrified of the cave. (cryptid, cave is haunted au?)

Venom!dp x dc twin au. Danyal and Damian were the league famous demon twins, the dual gems in its crown, until Danyal is killed. Raas, furious and refusing to lose his other grandchild, starts pushing Damian harder and harder while his brother is taken to the pit as a last resort. To the adults' knowledge, it didn't work. Danny's body dissolved in the acidic waters. To Damian's knowledge, his brother returned as a desperate, animalistic thing one night, seeping through the cracks of his room. Refusing to let his brother go again, Damian demands they be reunited as one, and Danny fuses with his very skin. Once his mind returns, Danny returns the sentiment, both deeply terrified of being pulled apart again. They communicate through reflections and whispers, sharing control of the body by transforming between human and ghost, sharing powers and instincts equally. When they're sent to Wayne manor, they're restless and defensive. They have each other, no one else can discover Danny, no one else can separate them again. Their father must never find out.

Thanagerian!Danny. He's a couple generations removed on his mother's side, so he doesn't even realise until his ghost form appears with two gorgeous wings. It really adds to the psychopomp symbolism, at least? He has a lot of questions when he meets the justice league. No wonder vlad never successfully managed to clone him!

Shapeshifter captain marvel. Please. He's apprenticing under tawky ^^

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

(continuation to writing prompt #7)

(#) = Notes at the end of post

← previous

✦

Jason catches him before he hits the ground, quickly slings him over his shoulders, and redraws his pistol in a matter of seconds before he's bolting down the street. His eyes scan the rooftops for any snipers but can't find evidence of anything aside from a brief flash of white. He's almost to his closest safehouse and in the clear when he's bodily tackled to the ground, Danny tossed from his shoulders and to the pavement with him. He manages to flip himself and his assailant over enough to give the man in white a sharp right hook to the temple and knocks him out cold.

More white suits are running down the street towards him, so he shoulders Danny's considerably light weight again and books it away from his original destination. No point in having a safehouse if it's discovered. Defeats the whole point of having one in the first place. As he's booking it down the street and taking as many random turns as possible, he hears several sets of footsteps hot on his trail, some of them shouting orders back and forth to each other. He barely dodges another dart headed towards his leg before he's had enough. He didn't like the odds of fighting multiple opponents while also having to protect his passenger, so he caves and connects the comm-line to any of the bats out and about tonight and immediately gets a response from Oracle and the Big Bat himself.

"Hood, what's the situation? You're moving awfully fast. You don't normally call in." He's panting so hard with how fast he's running, it's a miracle he gets anything out.

"Hey, O. Being pursued by an organized group. Have an injured passenger they desperately want and I might be a plus to the package. Passenger shows signs of being experimented on."

"Do you recognize your assailants? Any identifying features?" Ah, there's Bats.

"Everyone's wearing a white suit and they have snipers with drugged darts. Passenger is out cold after getting hit with one. Caught him in the middle of him running and he seemed convinced that I was just as in danger as he was."

Batman swears on the other end and proceeds to call in Red Robin and Nightwing while Oracle takes over the conversation again.

"Batman's not far out. Can you give your tail the slip to meet up with them?"

Still hearing the collection of footsteps behind him, he answers back, "Negative. The behavior of Passenger leads me to believe they have some sort of tracker. I've taken as many twists and turns I could think of, still haven't lost them." He grits his teeth at what he says next, shoving his pride down as deep as he could.

"I need backup."

A new voice enters the comm in the form of Nightwing. "And you'll get it. Bats and I are headed in your direction. ETA is about seven minutes. Think you can string them long enough for us to get the drop on them?"

Hood huffs an approximation of a chuckle in his ragged state. "I'll try my best. I've been running for while now and I'm about out of steam. Luckily, Passenger's pretty light for his size."

He grunts as he nearly trips over a plank of busted plywood in the next alley he exits, but regains his footing just as fast. He's getting really sick of these white suits. He would've grappled up to the nearest roof if he didn't already know a few of them were already in pursuit from up there too. He's been leading this goose chase so long he's even getting close to the Bowery. Maybe he can lose them there. Gaining a bit of a second wind, he puts a little boost in his speed, silently apologizing to Danny over the bumpy ride. He figures he'd prefer a few extra bruises from a less than gentle getaway than being captured by whoever these creeps in white were though.

He manages to get a couple of streets into the Bowery before his pursuers seem to have had enough with the chase. There's an inaudible order shouted from one white suit to another before Hood hears a sound akin to a laser before he feels a shot of burning pain in his back. He tumbles forward again, this time tucking Danny into his chest as best he could so he didn't go flying like last time. He rolls a few times before landing with a still unconscious Danny flat on the ground and him hovering protectively over him. Whatever they used to knock him out must be strong if not even a second throw to the ground wakes him up.

Hood gasps at the burning pain as he feels around the back of his jacket with one hand. He immediately finds a patch of scorched leather, the material extremely hot to the touch. He curses as he shrugs it off and tosses it to the side. He can always get a new one, he reasons. Right now, he needs to get back up and start running again, but not before leaving a little present. Once he's without his helmet, he books it once again down the street and keeps an ear out for the white suits, waiting for them to get close enough before he presses a hidden button and blows up the street. Hopefully a few of them got caught by the blast.

"Hood, what was that sound!? Everything alright?" Red Robin suddenly yelled over the comms.

"All good. Just left the white suits a little gift. Turns out they have blasters and they hurt like a bitch." He griped. "What's your ETA now?"

"Not much longer. All of us can see the smoke from the explosion. How's your passenger during all this?"

"He's been knocked around a bit and still unconscious. He needs a serious medical eval once all of this is over. He had a few stitches pop before this stupid chase even started." He said as he ducked around the corner to avoid another laser blast.

"I'm running on empty at this point. You guys better get your asses over here before I blow up more than just my helmet-" He feels a sudden sharp jab in his shoulder and turns to find a white dart with the letters G.I.W. printed on it.

"Shit."

"What's wrong?" Batman immediately asked.

"The darts. I've been hit." Almost immediately, he feels sluggish and dizzy.

He stumbles to a stop, propping himself up against the brick wall of the nearest building. Overwhelming nausea took over as he nearly dropped to his knees.

"Shit shit shit shit," His words came out slurred. His grip on Danny loosened, the guy sliding down to lay limply on the ground. "Guys... if you're gonna show up... now would be a really good time."

He eventually downgraded to sitting on the ground, back against the wall with Danny still unconscious at his side. His vision was so blurry at this point it was a wonder he could see anything. Regardless of his drugged state, he tried his best to keep a sharp eye on all entrances on the street. Eventually tho, his eyes landed on the dart that caused his current predicament, the letters on it steadily swimming into focus.

"G... I.W."

"What? Hood, are you alright?" Red Robin responded, heavy concern in his voice.

"Look for... federal agencies with the acronym G.I.W." He said at barely a mumble.

"Hood? Little Wing, hey! We need you to stay awake, buddy."

"Too... too tired." He could barely keep himself upright, much less keep his eyes open. Staying awake was a little much to ask.

"No no no no. Come on, Little Wing. We're almost to you. Hang on a few more minutes."

Jason didn't have the energy to respond.

"Red Hood, answer me!" Batman's gruff voice rang in his head with how loud it sounded right now. "Jason!"

Is it just him or does Bruce sound panicked? Something about that didn't seem right. Why would Batman be panicked?

Panicked... Panic... Panic?

His eyes shot back open as he sluggishly caught a few white suits in his line of sight walking steadily closer. The drug was still working heavily through his system, but he had just enough clarity to do something he never thought he'd be forced to do.

"Sorry, guys. I'm just gonna... have to trust you to find me... Okay?" His voice cracked on the last word as he slowly searched the collar of his kevlar shirt.

Finding what he was looking for, he pressed the panic button he'd installed for crazy reasons like this. Crazy reasons like being kidnapped. An internal tracker he installed in himself(1) was brought to life as soon as he pressed the hidden switch. His location should be being broadcasted to every Bat in the city and a few of his Outlaw friends. With it being internal, it can't be taken, damaged, or interrupted. He specifically designed it himself to withstand anything he could think of. Once it turned on and he at least had that assurance, he finally succumbed to the drug and felt himself go limp despite his family frantically calling his name. The static of a radio communicator buzzed somewhere above his head as a white suit approached.

"Agent O, come in. Prepare another cell at HQ. Whatever Phantom is, this thing seems to give off similar energy. We can probably learn something from it since Phantom refuses to talk." He said as he toed roughly at Jason's boot.

Whatever was said in response was lost on him as his hearing cut out and his vision faded to black.

✦

Wow. That was a doozy to write.

I've seen a lot of fics where Danny is rescued by the Bats from the GIW almost right away and everything works out from there, but I wanted to see one where he wasn't. Might as well throw Jason in there too. Why? Because angst. It's one of the things I'm good at apparently.

Notes:

(1) What if his death at the hands of the Joker and Batman's late arrival gave Jason a certain paranoia/fear of not being found if he was ever taken/hidden again? About not being found in time/never found again? I think he'd take precautions. So much angst with this idea too.

_

People who wanted tagged?

@undead-essence @someonebored0100 @dxrksong @somera-rubina @wolfeyedwitch @little-pondhead @entity-of-the-rift

I think that's everyone? I'm not used to tagging people yet, so forgive me if I missed your username!

[luxaofhesperides]

those who serve.

CHAPTER SIX: a break.

read the previous chapter here or the entire fic on ao3.

this is 11.5k.... this fic will never end..... surprise i still have no idea how long this will be. tentatively setting the goal to end at 9 chapters total. taglist will be in a rb, ask to be added or removed!

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Danny doesn’t sleep. He dozes lightly, enough for his thoughts to slow down without losing his awareness of the world around him, but he doesn’t sleep.

How can he? 

He didn’t find a shady basement full of illegal things. No, he found an entire cave used as a home base for Gotham’s heroes. 

It is a very nice cave. Not dark and wet and miserable at all, as he thought all caves were. It did have bats, though, but most stayed away from the main cavern. And it was big; multiple different levels, all full of different things. Part of him wants to go back to snoop around, but the larger, more wary and sensible part wants to run away and pretend this night never happened.

Danny stays in bed until the clock hits 7AM. Then he heaves a sigh and pulls himself out of bed, forgoing changing out of his pajamas in favor of walking through walls directly to the kitchen. He’s still reeling from what he’s discovered, torn between wanting to run away and wanting to learn more about them.

They’re heroes. Actual, legitimate heroes, and he works for them. When else is he going to get a chance like this?

But if they see him as a threat…

Well. It’s not like Danny has much. If he needs to, he can just walk out of the manor and never be seen again. 

Although, it might be a little harder now that he has a legal identity and they can put out a missing person report on him. 

The kitchen is dark and still when he arrives. Even Alfred isn’t up yet, it seems. Which makes sense; if he’s wrangling a bunch of heroes until three in the morning, he’d need to wake up later in the day to get enough sleep. Danny hopes it’s not a regular thing, staying up to help the rest of the Gotham heroes—who he still can’t believe are the Waynes—because that would mean Alfred had been forgoing sleep or running off of very little in order to have their dawn chats while Danny was living on the streets. 

He should make breakfast for Alfred.

The rest of the Wayne family can fend for themselves. Though he doubts any of them will wake up until much, much later. 

A large part of him still balks at rummaging through someone else’s kitchen without permission. Never mind that in order to do his job, he has to; his poor Midwestern heart demands he respect other people’s spaces. He has to push it down as hard as he can just to open the fridge and look through it, trying to think of what he can make. 

Nothing too difficult. He can barely make pasta dishes on his own and he still tenses when the fridge opens, fully prepared to take down reanimated food. 

There’s a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits. Milk and eggs, too. That’s… maybe something he can work with?

Danny pulls out a few fruits and sets them onto the counter next to the sink. It takes him a few seconds of indecision to decide on which knife to take from the knife block, then grabs the smallest one he can find, just to be safe.

It’s not like he needs a big one to peel and cut fruit. 

He makes a mess trying to get everything plated, apple peels of all different sizes scattered on the counter and strawberries bleeding down his hands as he cuts them into halves after removing the leafy heads. They don’t come up exactly even, but it’s good enough that Danny decides he can serve them to Alfred without shame. 

Cracking the eggs goes fine, after he’s done with the fruits. No pieces of shell fall into the greased frying pan and the yolk is intact until he accidentally hits it when trying to move the egg closer to the middle of the pan. Fuck it, he decides, frantically mixing it all together, scrambled eggs it is.

No one will know he messed up. No one.

He seasons the eggs lightly, then gets them on a separate plate. 

Fruits and eggs doesn’t seem very filling, so Danny hunts through the refrigerator once more and comes out with a tub of vanilla yogurt. He scoops it out into a small bowl then tops it off with granola and honey. 

Fruits, eggs, yogurt. That’s a breakfast, right? It’s the healthiest and fanciest breakfast he’s ever made. He certainly never got this back home, usually going for cereal or bread on the days he wasn’t running late to school. 

Danny sets everything onto the kitchen table, ready to wait for Alfred to wake up. Then he realizes he hasn’t set out anything to drink and panics, tearing through the cabinets like hurricane, frantically searching for tea.

This house doesn’t use teabags, he realizes with despite when he comes up boxes up boxes of loose tea leaves. 

Did people really drink it like this? How?

He brings down a box of English breakfast tea; it sounds perfect for Alfred, if only he knew how to brew it.

Despairing, Danny drops his head onto the counter and sighs heavily.

“That was quite the sigh,” a deep voice rumbles behind him. Danny jumps up to the ceiling, floating in the air as he tries to get away from Bruce, who has once again snuck up on him unnoticed. “Ah. Sorry for startling you,” Bruce offers.

It’s hard to believe this man is a vigilante who protects all of Gotham.

“It’s fine,” Danny replies weakly. “What are you doing up so early?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Well, I asked you first.”

“I supposed you did,” Bruce concedes with a small smile. “I just came up from the Batcave. I haven’t slept yet, and it’ll have to wait until I return to the manor after lunch.”

It’s even harder to believe that billionaire Bruce Wayne can call anything the Batcave with a straight face, yet here they are. This dimension is so bizarre. 

“I just came up to grab something to drink,” Bruce says. He turns his attention to the fridge, looking through it before he pulls out a carton of apple juice and pours himself a cup.

Slowly, Danny floats back down to the ground, silently setting his feet down. 

“Don’t tell the kids,” Bruce says as he takes a sip from his cup.

“Um. What?”

“That I’m drinking their juice. They each have their own juice that they are very protective of and they always get in fights over who else is drinking it, or ‘stealing it’ as they say.”

“And it’s you?”

“As I said. Don’t tell, Danny. Let me have my fun.”

“Sure, I guess.” He is amused by that, but the way Bruce is so casual and friendly with him despite having his secret identity be revealed makes Danny’s nerves stand on edge. It reminds him too much of Vlad, always acting friendly and nice to try and sway Danny over to his side, only to react violently when Danny refused.

“I’ll get out of your hair now,” Bruce says, putting his now empty cup down in the sink. “We’ll train later today. And we can talk about the family secret you’ve stumbled upon before you head to bed, alright?”

Not alright, not at all, but Danny did agree to training. Even if that was before he knew about Bruce being a vigilante. As much as he isn’t looking forward to it, he’s also not a quitter. He’ll worry about it more when the time comes. Surely that won’t end badly for him.

“Okay,” Danny says quietly. Bruce gives him a parting nod, then leaves the kitchen. Danny’s eyes follow him until he’s sure the man is gone, not yet ready to turn his back on him. As nice as Bruce has been, he’s also very dangerous. Now, Danny knows why but he’s been burned too many times to just believe someone when they claim to be a crime fighting hero.

Usually, he’s the crime they’re fighting, attacking him with prejudice when all he wanted was to protect people and ghosts from each other. 

He doesn’t even want to think about how things would have turned out if he hadn’t met Alfred, if the Wayne family—not a mob family but clearly just as dangerous—went after him without that buffer. Would they have driven him out of Gotham? Made sure he couldn’t be safe in this dimension either?

If things ever go too badly, maybe he can track down Martin Manhunter and beg for help?

There’s nothing more he can do now but see how it all turns out and prepare for the worst. No one else is in the kitchen, and when he strains his hearing, it’s clear that there’s no one nearby. Deeming it safe enough, Danny dares to turn his back to the kitchen entrance and return to his tea making struggle. 

Rummaging through drawers gets him a tea infuser he has no idea how to use. To think he used to complain about how long it took to make Jazz’s tea. At least she used tea bags like a normal person. 

This is rich people nonsense. This is too much effort for tea. Alfred will just have to do with some water, unless he also enjoys stealing other people’s juice.

He’s just starting to put the tea away when a knock on the doorframe startles him. Danny looks behind him and relaxes when he sees it’s only Alfred, looking as put together as ever despite the early hour.

“Good morning, Alfred,” he says, “I made you breakfast! And I tried to make you tea but I don’t actually know how to make it when it’s not in a tea bag.”

“Good morning, Danny. Thank you, that’s very kind of you,” Alfred smiles. “Have you already eaten?”

“Oh. No, not feeling very hungry right now.”

“I would prefer if you ate something. Sit, I will make something light for you.”

“No, no need! I can just eat like. Yogurt or something.”

He really doesn’t think he can stomach anything when he’s still reeling over the fact that his employers have a giant underground cave for crime fighting and has no idea how to interact with them anymore. They seem fine with his powers so far, but what happens when they start to see him as dangerous? Or worse, interesting?

Interesting is what gets him captured and cut open and studied. Danny doesn’t think he can survive that, halfa or not.

“Very well,” Alfred says, but Danny can see the way he forces back a frown, the line of his shoulder drawn tight. Before he can start fixing Danny a bowl, Danny ushers him into his seat and works on quickly taking care of his own small breakfast, leaving his yogurt plain. 

Alfred frowns at the amount he puts in his bowl, but doesn’t say anything. He waits until Danny sits across from him to thank him for the breakfast. 

They eat in silence, the silence not quite as comforting as it had been in the past. Danny’s too on edge to let his guard down any more, despite how much he wants to trust Alfred. He needs to see with his own eyes that the Waynes mean him no harm, that he can trust them to be good and let him live quietly and safely. 

When he can’t take the silence anymore, staring down at his empty bowl, Danny says, “Superheroes, huh.”

“I would be more than happy to answer any questions you have.”

There’s so much Danny wants to ask that it all crashes together into a tangled mess in his head. Instead of important questions like how often is the city in danger to need so many heroes or aren’t you afraid they’ll all die and you won’t be able to do anything about it, what comes out is, “When they asked who my favorite hero was at dinner, were they just looking for an ego boost?”

Alfred laughs, the lines in his brow smoothing out some. “Oh, yes. They are a rather vain lot when it comes to their night identities.”

It eases the tension in the air, makes it easier for Danny to relax enough to focus on the conversation and keep his mouth from running ahead of his mind. “So, I know Dick is Nightwing. Who’s everyone else?”

“They would be very excited to tell you themselves, but they’re also not going to wake up for many hours yet. I will tell you the basics, but I encourage you to ask them about this,” Alfred says. “Master Bruce is Batman. He is the very first vigilante in Gotham. He is among the first generation of heroes and a founder of the Justice League. Master Richard is Nightwing, as you’ve said, and he leads the Titans in New York when he is not here. Master Tim is Red Robin and often works with many other heroes and groups, such as the Teen Titans. Master Damian is the current Robin and Master Duke is the newest of us, operating in the day as the Signal.”

“That’s a lot.”

“There are more. Mistress Cassandra is Black Bat. She has recently returned from Hong Kong. Miss Barbara Gordon is Oracle, who is the leader of the Birds of Prey and works digitally. There are many others who operate within Gotham or visit the manor, and I’m sure you’ll meet them in due time.”

“Great,” Danny offers weakly. So many heroes, just in Gotham. He’s seen firsthand how bad it can be, all the crime and dangerous villain plots, but it’s also concerning to know that this world has such a need for all these heroes. He was enough in his old dimension, as Phantom. 

But he wouldn’t be enough here. There’s constant danger everywhere, and he realizes now that he’s taken the peace of him home dimension for granted. Admittedly, at the time, it didn’t seem like peace when he was dodging ghost hunters and the government and trying to wrangle ghosts. But all of that was mostly kept in Amity Park, and he was the person most affected by it so there weren’t many civilians getting caught in the crossfire. 

“Do they have powers?” he asks.

“No. All they do is a result of their own skill, hard work, and equipment.”

“So they’re just normal humans beneath the masks?”

“Yes, they are.”

The knowledge sends a chill down his spine. He would panic when Sam or Tucker or Jazz got caught in a ghost fight, even when they were equip with Fenton Blasters or something else that they could use to defend themselves. And that was just against ghosts! Here there are people waving around guns, fully prepared to kill, and the members of the Wayne family go out only in colorful armor? 

They could die so easily. All it would take is one good shot, one unlucky hit, and they’re gone forever.

“How do you stand it?”

“Pardon?”

“How do you stand watching them all go out and endanger themselves? How can you be fine with just staying here?”

Alfred leans back in the chair and looks to the window, gaze distant. “I am not fine. I never will be. But I also see how much good they are capable of, how many lives they save because they choose to risk themselves each night. They are all good, good people who want the world to be a better place and are willing to fight for it.”

He pauses for a long moment, lost in thought, then says, “I will always worry about them. Even when they go out as civilians. As much as I would like to keep them safe within these walls forever, I know that they would be unhappy living like that. It’s enough to know that they will do all they can to come home to me and be cared for. I tend to their wounds and ensure they can rest and heal in the manor. It is very rarely enough, but it’s better than nothing.”

“My parents hurt me,” Danny admits quietly. He keeps his gaze fixed on the table, trying to ignore how tense Alfred becomes, the heavy weight of his full attention. “When they found out what I am, what I can do, I just… stopped being their son and became their… prey? Target? Mission? I wish I had someone like you back then, because then it wouldn’t have hurt so much all the time. But all I had was my sister and my friends and they can’t do much against adults except help me escape.”

“I am so sorry, my boy, that you have had to suffer so much. But you’re here now, and I will take care of you, just as everyone else in this household will. You are not alone, Danny.”

Danny shrugs, slouching in his seat. “Thanks,” he mutters. 

“Well!” Alfred claps his hands together, the suddenness of the sound making Danny flinch, then he rises to his feet. “We have much to do today. Would you like to help me make breakfast for the rest of the household? Or would you like to tend to the vegetable garden?”

“What will I have to do for the vegetable garden?”

“Water the plants, pull any weeds, and also pick a few cucumbers and bell peppers, if you would.”

Danny offers Alfred a small salute and slides out of the chair. “I’m on it, boss!”

He ducks out the back door, grateful to be given an escape from the conversation and all the unpleasant memories it brought up, and takes his time walking to the vegetable garden. The sun is fully above the horizon now, and though it’s still cloudy, it’s not enough to block out the sunlight that rains down onto the garden. 

He hits up the small shed for a water can, then fills it up to the very top until it spills out whenever it’s jostled. He waters each raised bed, making sure the to get every inch of dirt thoroughly soaked.

It takes refilling the water can another four times before everything is watered and tended to. There are barely any weeds to pull, but he searches carefully just in case any escaped him the first time, then gets to carefully picking cucumbers and bell peppers, lifting up the hem of his shirt to create a makeshift basket. 

All of that takes the better part of an hour, which is apparently enough time for more people to wake up, and for Alfred to make a full spread of breakfast left on the kitchen island, while the man himself is nowhere to be found.

Damian is sitting at the table, eating, when he reenters the kitchen. Danny freezes for a moment and just looks at Damian, takes in how young he is, how small, and is horrified that anyone lets him out so late at night to fight crime.

“Good morning,” Damian says, setting down his fork, “As you now are aware of our secret identities, let it be known that if you endanger any of us, I will remove your limbs for your body. Slowly.”

“Sure,” Danny replies, distracted as he tries to get all the vegetables onto the counter without dropping any of them. “Sounds fair. Quick question: aren’t you too young to be fighting crime? Shouldn’t there be an age requirement or something?”

Damian scoffs. “I have trained since I could walk. I am made to be the heir to the Bat and the Demon’s head. I am more than capable of defeating the criminals of Gotham.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about this whole situation.”

“It’s none of your business anyways. As long as you stay out of it, none of this will be a problem for you.”

“As long as I’m here, I won’t be able to stay out of it,” Danny says. “I just don’t have that kind of luck. The world always finds some way to screw me over.”

Damian doesn’t speak again, so Danny takes that as his cue to focus on putting all the vegetables away. There’s nothing more they can add to that conversation anyways, so Danny is more than happy to put it behind him and pretend at normalcy again. 

He wonders where Alfred went, wondering if it would be rude to just leave while Damian is still around to search for him. He’s still pondering it when Damian asks, quietly, “Do you really want nothing to do with our… night lives?”

The thing is, just two years ago, Danny would be jumping at the chance to be a hero. A proper  one, working alongside other heroes to save people. But a lot has changed since then. The Danny who existed back then was always moving, always trying out some new trick with his powers, always trying to juggle heroics and normal life. He was innocent. 

Or, at least, as innocent as anyone so familiar with death could be. 

As he is now, Danny is just tired. He doesn’t want people to get hurt, and he’ll protect them if he can, but he’s so tired of being scared and hated and hunted down. 

He’s a kid too. He was even more of a kid back when he was fourteen. 

Why did no one protect him?

That’s not a fair question to ask, really, because he did have his friends and his sister and a few ghosts who would do their best, but it wasn’t enough. 

“No,” Danny answers, voice hard. “I’m done with all of that. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Were you a vigilante too? Before you arrived here.”

Danny turns to face Damian and leans back against the counter. He doesn’t look at the kid, really, just at the floor in his general direction. “I don’t know.”

“How could you possibly not know? Either you are, or you aren’t.”

“It was complicated,” Danny snaps. “I was trying to protect everyone. But a lot of them didn’t see it that way. Just saw me as a threat, or am monster, or something. God, the government was out to get me.”

“Vigilantes are not usually well liked,” Damian says.

“Yeah, well, most vigilantes still get human rights. I got nothing. Everyone like me got classified as non-sentient, so we had no protections. If they wanted to experiment on us and cut us open, there was nothing stopping them.”

“And where was this taking place?” The clear rage in his voice startles Danny, makes him look up and warily eye the way Damian is gripping his fork, looking as if he wants nothing more than to bury into someone who’s wronged him.

“...It doesn’t matter,” Danny says slowly. “There’s nothing any of you can do. And it’s too far away to matter. Does that answer your question?”

Damian lets out a slow breath, forcing himself to call down. Danny can almost hear Jazz’s voice in his ear, counting slowly and saying Good! Now again, deep breath in and—

He shakes his head, trying to force her imagined voice away, and focuses on Damian’s controlled breathing; in, out, in, out, slowly each time.

“Every answer we get,” Damian says at last, “Brings up more questions. We will find where you came from. You can make things easier for us by just telling us your background.”

“Not a chance in hell, dude.”

Damian clicks his tongue and stands, holding his empty plate. “Very well. We’ll just investigate as we usually do. You won’t be able to keep your secrets from us forever.”

“I can do my best, though.”

“You will not be joining us as a vigilante,” Damian says again, putting his plate in the sink. 

Didn’t they just cover this? Was Danny not clear enough? 

“Right,” he confirms, “No heroics for me.”

“I will ensure you have proper protections befitting an associate of the Wayne family, then.”

Danny blinks. “What. Hey, wait, hang on. Didn’t we just talk about me not being involved in any of that?”

“Trackers,” Damian says, thoughtfully, steamrolling right on ahead, “A taser, of course. We’ll find a way to hide a few panic buttons on your person. Those will also have trackers, so if you should ever need help, we will be able to find you.”

“I really do not need any of that.”

“I will talk to father about it,” Damian nods.

“Don’t,” Danny starts to say, but somehow Damian is already out of the kitchen, leaving Danny behind absolutely bewildered by all directions their conversation went. 

Seriously, what was all that?

Danny huffs, then shakes his head. Not his problem. If it comes to it, he can just go invisible and run away until the Waynes learn to act like normal people. He pushes the entire conversation out of his mind and washes Damian’s plate, then sticks it onto the dish drying rack next to the sink. 

He’s not sure where Alfred is, so he busies himself with cleaning the kitchen, wiping the down the table and counters then straightening everything up. 

Some more poking around in the kitchen and the rooms and hallways beyond help him find where more cleaning supplies are. He considers mopping the kitchen, but figures that should be saved for after dinner, so any messes he makes while helping Alfred cooked won’t be messing up a newly cleaned floor.

By then, it’s well into the morning, just a few hours away from noon, and Danny hasn’t seen anyone else come by. 

He’s… uncomfortable being left unsupervised in someone else’s house like this. Sure, he lives here now, but it’s not his home. He’s just a new employee who doesn’t have any close bonds with anyone in the family. He spends way too long debating on whether he should stay in the kitchen and wait for someone to show up, or if he should go through the manor and find Alfred in order to get some instructions on what he should do. 

Eventually, Danny tires of pacing around restlessly and ventures away from the kitchen, poking his head into random rooms and straining his hearing to make sure no one sneaks up on him.

Not that it helps, when a chill races up his spine just before someone taps his shoulder.

Danny whirls around, stumbling away, and holds himself back from lashing out at Cass. 

She immediately takes five steps back, giving him space, and offers him a smile and a small wave. “Morning.”

“...Good morning,” Danny returns, looking over her carefully. Cass gives him his time, and he’s grateful that she backed off immediately, but he’s still rattled by the fact that she snuck up on him so easily. The space between them is reassuring, but he’s not foolish enough to think it’s anywhere close to enough if she actually wanted to hurt him.

Cass is a vigilante too. Black Bat, Alfred had said. It goes to stand that she’s as dangerous as the rest of them. He’s sure she’s the scariest of the bunch. There’s just something about her that makes every nerve in his body scream to alertness, prepared for a fight, waiting for a knife to slip into his ribs.

She doesn’t say a thing as he stares at her. Danny shifts his weight off one foot, trying to think of a way out of this situation, and comes up blank.

“So.” He cringes immediately at how he breaks the silence, then rolls with it. Might as well, really. It’s not going to get any worse from here. “Did you want breakfast?”

Cass shakes her head. “Not hungry for food. Hungry for snacks.”

“Oh, well I made cookies last night. I’m not sure where Alfred put them, though.”

She shakes her head again. “All gone.”

Danny blinks. “Huh?”

“Ate them all,” Cass explains, “Last night. Family meeting about you. Very good cookies.”

He’s… not going to unpack all that right now. Or ever, hopefully. “Cool. Which one did you like most?”

“Sugar cookie. The brown one?”

It takes a moment to remember which one that is, with all the cookies he made yesterday, but he recalls that particular batch quickly. “The brown sugar cookies!” 

“Yes!”

“I thought they were missing something, so I rolled them in cinnamon sugar. Alfred’s recommendation, really, I was just going to dump cinnamon in the dough. Turned out really good, though.”

“Very good,” Cass says again, nodding sagely. “Best cookies. Make more?”

“Uh, maybe later. I’m looking for Alfred right now?”

“He is calling Jason. I can… guide you?”

Cass offers a hand, still five steps away from him. There’s still plenty of space between them, enough for him to stay out of grabbing reach, but he can take her hand if he wants to. Or he can go intangible and just fall through the wall behind him. 

But she’s nice. Terrifying, of course, but nice. 

He got scared, and she moved back to give him space. She doesn’t push for questions or explanations, just treats him as if he’s always been here. 

Danny looks between Cass and her hand. 

He’s going to stay here. He’s staying for Alfred. And now he’s staying because the Wayne family regularly endanger themselves and it makes Alfred upset. He can wonder about running away all he wants; Danny knows himself and he knows he’s here to stay.

He didn’t even run from his parents until they tried to kill him for good, captured him and had the basement prepped for his vivisection. There’s a chance he can make something of himself here, to create someplace he can be safe, and he can’t afford to lose it.

He takes Cass’s hand.

“Yeah, okay. Take me to Alfred, please?”

“Okay,” Cass says, a bright smile on her face. She turns and leads him down the hall, her grip loose and easy to break from. Danny doesn’t let it break.

Cass is both dangerous and kind. Danny’s survived all sorts of dangerous people before. If he can just get his brain to chill out, then he can act normal around her and the rest of the Waynes. He can do this.

She leads him through the manor with ease, as if she could navigate it blind, and opens a door to a little balcony on the second floor that Danny didn’t know about. Alfred turns to face them as soon as the door opens, phone held up to his ear, and he gives them a smile and waves them in, inviting them to sit on the small bench. Cass sits him down on one of the cushions tied to the bench, then pats his head.

“Still training today?” she asks.

“Apparently,” Danny answers with a grimace. “Think I can get out of it?”

“No. Don’t worry, I’ll be there.”

That’s not really reassuring, but it is nice to know that he won’t be locked in a room alone with Bruce and forced to fight his boss. That’s got to be against some labor law. Sam would probably know.

Cass leaves, giving him one last wave from the door, then disappears back into the manor.

Alfred looks out over the grounds, nodding lightly to whatever Jason is saying. Danny doesn’t want to eavesdrop, so he just bounces his leg and stares up at the cloudy sky, wondering if he’d be able to see the stars on a clear night. 

“I shall speak to you again soon, Master Jason,” Alfred says, barely a minute later. “Yes, do take care of yourself. Until next month, then.” And his phone is put away in one smooth movement. Alfred straightens out his waistcoat, then turns to Danny. “I apologize for being away for so long. Are you ready to start the day?”

“Sure. It’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? So what’s the plan for today?”

“Well,” Alfred says, looking Danny over thoughtfully. “If you would be willing, there are some lightbulbs that need changing and chandeliers to be dusted. It’s difficult for most people to reach these, but if you are able to fly up and take care of these tasks…”

The thought of causally using his powers out in the open makes his skin crawl with nerves, but it’s too late to try to keep it a secret. He did float down into their secret crime fighting cave. There was no way he was ever going to keep that from the Waynes. 

Honestly, if all they want is for him to use his powers for mundane things like this, it’s not bad. Definitely better than being tested and observed like some newly discovered creature. 

Alfred just wants some help with household tasks, and Danny’s powers make it easy for him to do them. That’s all.

“Sure,” Danny says, “I can do that.”

It’s normal. Normal enough, anyways.

As long as they keep to this facade of normality, he’ll be fine.

Bruce Wayne apparently does not care to be normal. 

.

.

.

This is more a rich people are different from the rest of humanity than it is this is top secret hero stuff. Who has a giant gym in their house complete with a pool and a locker room? On top of a giant crime fighting cave? 

It’s absurd.

Danny stares at his locker—complete with his name on it, so he doesn’t accidentally open someone else’s—and wonders what, exactly, a training session with Bruce Wayne is going to look like. He had been expecting basic exercises to see where he’s at, something close to what he does at school in P.E. Now he has to factor in weights, treadmills, and a boxing ring. There’s also ceiling to floor mirrors on one wall and a large section of the room covered in a thick mat, with only a single martial arts dummy on it. 

He tries very hard to ignore the wooden swords and bo staffs hanging on the wall. He’s definitely not touching those while other people are around.

Sighing, he decides that putting off this training session isn’t going to make it end any faster and opens his locker. 

There’s a set of training clothes already set inside for him. He’s sure it’s perfectly his size. He’s just not going to think too hard about how they managed to get his size at all. 

Though the locker room is empty, he doesn’t want to change out in the open. He was the same way in school, and though this often got him teased by the football team for his ‘insecurities’, they quieted down when they saw his scars. Dash never asked about it, but he was always careful afterwards to make sure Danny’s shirt never rode up and revealed anything when he tossed Danny around. 

He peeks around the locker room before he hurries into the changing stall, paranoid that he’s being watched somehow. He changes quickly and, sure enough, everything fits him perfectly.

The only problem is that the shirt he was given is short sleeve. Th Lichtenberg scar, made permanent by his death and the ectoplasm that flooded his system at the same time as the electricity of the portal, is clearly visible. The white scar tissue branches down his arm all the way to his wrist, wide and ugly. 

He really doesn’t want any questions about it. 

Danny takes off the shirt, then puts his long sleeve shirt back on. He can train just fine in it, and if they have a problem with it, they can order him a long sleeve shirt for training.

He takes his clothes to his locker and shoves them in, then takes a few minutes to just breathe, trying to force his nerves away long enough that he can walk out to Bruce without feeling nauseous. 

When he finally manages to force his feet to move, Cass and Damian are in the gym as well. 

Cass he expected after their morning conversation. Damian is a surprise, and it seems like the boy is trying to act as if he’s not here to watch Danny train, using one of the wooden swords to go through a series of careful movements. 

Bruce is waiting on the mat next to the dummy, and he nods when he sees Danny approach. “Come here,” he says, “We’ll do some stretching first, then we’ll see where you are in self-defense.”

Cass looks them both over with a sharp eye, then walks away to pull out a yoga mat and set it just outside the mats. She effortlessly goes into a handstand, then goes down onto her forearms and lowers her legs into a split.

“You’re not expecting me to do that, right?” he asks, looking at Bruce.

He smiles, a small thing that softens the serious expression he had been sporting, and shakes his head. “No, not at all. We’ll just do basic stretches. After me, now.” And with that, he immediately gets started, rolling out his shoulders and stretching his arms and wrists, then dropping down into a forward fold. Danny does his best to follow along, glancing up often to make sure he’s doing everything right.

Stretching is easy.  He’s definitely not as flexible as Bruce or Cass, but he doesn’t do too badly. At the very least, he can press his palms flat to the floor in a forward fold. 

They’re just finishing up, rolling out their necks, when the door to the gym is pushed open and Tim comes in. “Have we started yet?” he asks, looking a mess. His hair is windswept and tangled and he’s sporting a split lip that he didn’t have yesterday.

“Do I want to know,” Bruce says, and Tim grins.

“Know what? I’ve been having a peaceful, relaxing day. Quit worrying so much, it’s bad for your heart.”

Damian scoffs, swinging his sword down at an angle. “As if any of us would ever believe that you’re not causing messes for us to clean up.”

“What’s that, Gremlin? You’re looking for a sparring partner? You should have said so sooner!” And Tim’s grabbing a bo staff from the wall and throwing himself at Damian without any warning.

Danny makes an aborted sound in the back of his throat, torn between yelling for Damian to watch out and Tim to stop, but Damian isn’t phased at all. He scowls harder and blocks Tim’s attack, then hits back. The heavy thud of their weapons hitting each other echo through the gym, but neither of them get hurt. They dodge each hit expertly, dancing circles around each other, fighting gracefully in ways Danny has never seen. 

Bruce clears his throat and Danny snaps his attention back to the man in front of him. 

“Why don’t we begin with something easy,” Bruce says. “Punch me.”

“What?”

“Punch me,” Bruce repeats. 

Danny stares at him. “I don’t want to hurt you. Aren’t you supposed to teach me how to defend myself, not attack other people?”

“Both require the same skills. The only difference is in how you choose to use it. Now, punch me.”

Slowly, Danny lifts an arm, curling his fingers into a fist, and looks up at Bruce’s face to make sure this is fine. Bruce looks unimpressed, waiting for him to move.

He throws a weak punch at Bruce’s abdomen and is entirely unsurprised when his wrist is grabbed and held in place easily.

“Again,” Bruce says, “And do it seriously, this time.”

Okay. 

Okay, he can do this.

Danny steps back, giving himself some space, and takes a deep breath. He’s fought plenty of people before. Mostly ghosts, but still. He can figure out how to fight hand to hand without using any of his powers. He can hold back his strength. He can do it.

He shifts his stance, standing with his feet shoulder width apart, a more stable base, and lifts his hands in front of his face, not curling them into fists but holding them loose. Just as his mother taught him, before she started handing him and Jazz weapons to familiarize themselves with. 

Bruce is a vigilante, he reminds himself. They all are. They know how to fight and how to defend themselves. They have plenty of experience and he’s sure they’ve already come up with ways to take him out if they need to. 

Danny lets out one last fortifying breath, then looks up at Bruce, who is watching him with a shrewd gaze. Whatever he sees makes him nod approvingly and shift his own stance, no longer casually standing in place but ready to move.

“I will try to stay at human power levels,” Danny says, one last warning before they really begin. “Stop me if I go too far.”

“I can handle anything you throw my way, Danny. Don’t worry about me. This is about helping you be able to protect yourself.”

No more stalling. 

Danny darts forward, throwing out a punch. Bruce takes a single step back, twisting to the side so Danny’s fist sails past his body, and sweeps out a leg to trip him. Danny’s already moving, trying to get to Bruce’s back, get out of his line of sight, staying light on his feet. 

Distantly, he’s aware of the sound of Tim and Damian’s battle falling silent, but he can’t focus on it as he tries to strike Bruce’s pressure points, darting in and out so he can’t be grabbed. His mother’s old lessons come back to him, body falling into that familiar rhythm, and it’s enough to make him slip up, use a little too much strength.

Bruce staggers back two steps, then is grabbing Danny’s arm and tossing him over his shoulder before Danny can process what’s happening. 

Instinct has him floating in place, then his legs shoot out and kick Bruce in the chest, using it as a springboard to jump off of to get some distance between them. 

“Good,” Bruce says, giving him a moment to catch his breath. “You’ve had training before.”

“My mom is ninth-degree black belt in mixed martial arts. She taught me a few things.”

“We’ll need to see where you might need some improvements. Otherwise, I give you permission to use your powers against me.”

Danny drops his hands in shock, coming out of his ready stance. “Wait, seriously? I could really hurt you!”

“I promise you, Danny, you really can’t,” Bruce says. “Remember, I’m Batman. I’ve fought gods and monsters before.”

“I don’t know…”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with Danny, even if it means you only stick to flying.”

That’s… reasonable. He does fly a lot; he loves flying. It’s the best part of being a halfa, really. And most of his fights involve him flying. Having to stay on the ground puts him at a disadvantage, and if they really want to train him up to hero standards—

No. He’s not going to be a hero in this world. He’s going to live a quiet, normal life as best he can and he won’t be flaunting his powers around in a world he’s unfamiliar with. 

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Danny refocuses on the training match and nods. “Flying only,” he says.

He’s up in the air before Bruce can move, darting around him, then ramming into his side like a bulldozer. This, he didn’t learn from his mother. He learned it from Cujo.

Bruce grunts, his breath knocked out of him, and grabs Danny. There’s a brief moment of struggle where Danny tries to get away, but he’s laid out on the floor before he can go intangible.

The lights above him are blinding. Bruce towers above him, all broad shoulders and heavy muscle, looking down, and his face is shadowed enough that is makes Danny’s heart stop and he sees—

Dad, wait, it’s me! Stop, please!

His father wasn’t smiling. There was no manic grin, no booming laughter, no victory cry for catching Phantom. Just his father standing above him, expressionless, as he held up a Fenton Thermos and—

Bruce reaches for him—

“Stop!”

Before anyone can move, before Danny can come back to his sense and make his brain understand that it’s not his father standing before him, ready to capture him and treat him like a thing to be cut open, before he can say anything more, the air shifts.

Cass is there, suddenly and without warning, and slams into Bruce, then tosses him over her shoulder and onto the mats. She kneels with one knee on his chest, keeping him pinned down, and steel in her eyes.

“We’re done,” she says. “Time for a break. Snacks.”

There’s a beat of silence, then Bruce relaxes and nods. “Right. This is enough for today. I’ll make a light training regime for Danny so he can protect himself both with and without his powers. Boys,” he says, looking to where Tim and Damian have been watching them, “If you want to continue training, do so in the Batcave. Don’t use flimsy excuses to learn more about Danny.”

“What excuse? I genuinely wanted to beat Damian up,” Tim retorts, and follows it up with a soft whack to the back of Damian’s head.

“As if you could beat me!”

They’re back to tussling a moment later, weapons thrown aside in favor of slapping the shit out of each other.

It would make him laugh in any other circumstance. As it is, Danny’s frozen, heart jackrabbiting in his chest, staring at where Cass is keeping Bruce pinned, keeping him safe from the man who resembles his father in the lowlight. 

He can’t focus on much more than them, frantically trying to piece together the last two minutes to make sure he’s safe, it was just Bruce, everything’s fine. He may have yelled for Bruce to stop, but he’s sure that Cass was moving even before then.

Somehow, she had known that he needed to get out of that situation. Needed distance from Bruce. Needed protection.

And she had given it to him.

Dangerous and kind indeed.

“Go,” she says, pulling Bruce back up to his feet. “I will stay with him.” She doesn’t give him any time to argue, pushing him towards the door. 

Then she shoots Tim and Damian a look and they immediately disengage from their fight. Damian tosses his wooden sword over to Tim, who snatches it out of the air without even looking at it and puts both their weapons back on the wall. They leave within a minute, closing the door behind them.

A stillness settles over the room, the world gone quiet now that it’s just him and Cass.

He’s shaking, he realizes. His hands tremble where they rest on his chest and it takes far too much effort to force himself to sit up.

Cass doesn’t comment on it. She just sits down next to him, giving him enough space that he feels comforted by her presence rather than trapped.

“Sorry about that,” Danny manages to say at last, forcing the words out. His voice is rough and his heart feels like it’s been scrapped over with sandpaper.

“No.”

“What?”

“No sorries. Bruce went too far. Saw you weren’t… safe? Did not stop, so I made him.”

“I’m still sorry you had to get involved.”

“Danny,” she says, then waits until he looks at her. “It’s okay. I always beat Bruce. It’s good for him to lose sometimes.”

He can’t help but smile a bit. Between her and Tim, he can see that Bruce’s kids really enjoy causing him trouble. That’s how it’s supposed to be with siblings; everyone teams up against the parents. All siblings have to unionize, that’s how every world works.

“Thanks.”

Cass reaches out a hand. This time, Danny doesn’t hesitate to take it. 

They sit in silence for a long time. His heart settles down and the last of his fear dissipates; the guilt of being so terrified of just the idea of his father towering over him remains, but that’s something he’s sure will accompany him for the rest of his life. Cass doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t push for conversation, and simply waits patiently as he regains him composure.

As much as he’d like to, he can’t hide away in the gym forever. 

He begins to stand and Cass follows him up, keeping hold of his hand. She looks him over carefully, then nods and pushes him towards the locker room.

“You’re not going to ask questions about…” Danny waves a hand through the air, “All this, right?”

“No questions,” Cass reassures. “Tell when you want to. Even bad memories are important. Yours to keep.”

“Okay. Thanks for being so cool about all this.”

Cass gives him a sunny smile. “Go. Change. I will get Alfred.”

Danny offers a weak salute, then heads off to the locker room to change, happily chucking off his training clothes and dropping them into the laundry chute. 

Training was a disaster in a different way than he expected, but either way, he’s relieved it’s over. Now, all they have to do is pretend his little panic never happened and they can all move on with their lives.

Alfred must see that resolve on his face when he exits the gym. Danny isn’t asked any questions as they walk through the halls, simply told about the chores that need to be completed. They don’t come across any members of the Wayne family and Danny can’t help but feel that’s purposefully, that they’re avoiding him to keep him from getting spooked and running away.

Danny takes over dusting the high rafters and corners of the ceiling, sneezing when a particularly strong sweep of the duster over the top of a hanging light fixture brings up a cloud of dust. Below him, Alfred vacuums and straightens out rooms, calling out directions to help Danny get everything clean.

Once the sun begins to set, Alfred sends Danny to the kitchen while he puts away all their cleaning supplies. Dinner prep has apparently been taken care of while he was training with Bruce; all Danny has to do is start the oven and pull everything out of the fridge. 

He wants to offer to set the table, be more helpful, but the thought of seeing everyone again has his throat tightening up, bringing up the residual panic that hasn’t left him since he fell through the Infinite Realms into the streets of Gotham. Instead of helping more with dinner, Alfred pulls out a thick recipe book, paged faded with age, and sets him on making a cake for dessert. 

Danny manages to get all the ingredients together, measured carefully and mixed slowly so none of the flour spills out of the bowl. He does well enough that Alfred decides he can safely leave Danny without any supervision in order to bring dinner to the dining table where the Wayne family waits. 

In the time he’s alone, Danny tries very hard not to mess anything up, folding in melted chocolate into the batter. 

He works slowly enough that Alfred is able to return before Danny tries to hunt down a baking pan. He wordlessly pulls one out of a cabinet and sprays it with cooking oil before setting it on the counter next to Danny, watching with a shrewd eye as Danny pours out the batter, using a rubber spatula to scrape batter down from the sides of the bowl.

“Very good,” Alfred comments, then instructs Danny to lift the baking pan and drop it onto the counter gently a few times to break any air bubbles in the batter. 

They get it in the oven and start the timer after that. Alfred pulls out another mixing bowl and gets to work making buttercream frosting, showing Danny how to separate the egg whites from the yolk. 

Danny is not ready to try it on his own, but it’s cool to see how it’s done. Alfred does everything so precisely, with clean movements and nothing wasted. It’s beyond impressive. Danny can only hope he can emulate some of that one day.

The smell of rich chocolate cake fills the kitchen and Danny feels his mouth start watering. He hasn’t had much to eat since lunch, and even that was small. For once, he’s feeling hungry enough to eat a horse, and is a strange mix of embarrassed and elated when his stomach growls loudly.

“Oh my,” Alfred laughs, “I see that cake never fails to wake a boy’s appetite.”

Danny shrugs sheepishly, and allows Alfred to usher him into a chair at the kitchen table. He watches as Alfred bustles around the kitchen, whipping together a quick meal of sauteed radishes, sliced in halves and with the leaves included, and a wrap so full Danny worried it would burst when he bit into it. 

It’s a bigger meal than what he’s used to, made with larger portions and heavier ingredients, but all the events of the day have drained him of enough energy that Danny all but devours his dinner. He even brings out his fangs to tear into the wrap more easily, eating quickly to sate his hunger. 

“How are you liking your food, Danny?”

“It’s delicious!” he answers with his mouth full.

“Do try to avoid talking with food in your moth,” Alfred gently reprimands, and Danny shoots him a thumbs up, trying to chew faster.

“I can have some of the cake later, right?”

“Of course. So long as you finish your dinner, then I will give you the first slice.”

Danny clears his plate in record time and has everything washed and dried by the time the oven beeps. Alfred opens the oven door, flooding the kitchen with warmth and an even strong aroma of chocolate, then slides on a pair of Batman oven mitts; they’re black, with a bat symbol on the back and little white eyes glaring out from the fingertips, and have little bat eats sticking out from the tops. He has to bite back a laugh and wonders how much of their own merch the Wayne family owns. 

“Now we must wait for it to cool down before we can frost it,” Alfred says, setting the cake down on the counter. 

“Can I use my powers to help it cool faster?”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“Well,” Danny says, holding up a hand, “I can make ice.” He lets his fingers frost over, his ice the pale blue of an iceberg’s submerged bottom. “I can freeze the counter space around and under the cake.”

Alfred looks intrigued, which is a good sign. “Would it not melt?”

“Not unless I want it to.”

“Then by all means, Danny.” He steps back to give Danny space to work, watching as Danny presses his fingers to the counter and lets the ice spread from the point of contact, circling the cake. He pushes his ice to be a few degrees cooler than usual and feels the chill race up his arms. 

It’s comfortable for him, but he knows he shouldn’t touch anyone until he warms back up. Sam and Tucker have told him plenty of times that he’s colder than ice after he uses his powers, a biting kind of cold that always hurt their hands. 

“It should be cool enough soon,” he says, stepping back from the counter and shaking out his hands.

“Thank you, Danny. Would you mind keeping the frosting cool as well?”

“No problem, Alfred!” He ices over the frosting bowl; it’s not quite as cold as the ice on the counter, but enough to keep the frosting chilled. “Do you want me to do anything else?”

Alfred thinks it over for a moment, then shakes his head. “Not at the moment, no. Go take a break. I’ll wash up and get everyone’s dishes. Master Bruce would like to speak to you as well, when you’re ready.”

Oh, great. No more running from questions, it seems. 

His mood plummets immediately, but he still forces up a smile for Alfred. “You got it. I’ll just… wait for him to get me, then.”

He’s out of the kitchen before Alfred can offer an platitudes, wandering aimlessly until he ends up in the grand foyer. He flies up to the ceiling and sits upside down, legs crossed, and tries not to think about training and all the explanations he doesn’t want to give. 

His thoughts drift towards Amity and he misses it with an ache. He never planned to stay there forever, already looking for out of state college options, joining the rest of his class in wanting to leave and find their way into the wider world. 

But all he wants now is an hour at Nasty Burger with his friends, a trip to the bookstore with Jazz, the familiar shared panic as everyone on the road tried to avoid the Fenton AV whenever his parents decided to go grocery shopping. Hell, he even misses Caspar High and the stress of having his work pile up as he fought ghosts and ghost hunters and his own procrastination. He misses the park where he’d play fetch with Cujo. He misses flying through the clear skies of Amity, the way the lights of the city shone up to him from where he rested high above it all. He misses the empty fields and forests and the clear air that Gotham will never have. 

Danny is so far from home. He doesn’t think he can ever go back.

Would he even have a home if he found some way back to his original dimension? 

His parents know the truth now. They captured Phantom, trapped him in the Fenton Thermos, and when they opened it again, Danny came out. He transformed immediately, full of panic and fear, begging for something as his mother sank into denial, shooting at him, while his father was emotionless and Jazz was screaming as a distraction, for him, at being pushed down by her parents as they focused all their attention on Danny. 

The last thing he ever heard from his home was Jazz screaming I hate you! How could you! Danny is⁠—

And then the Infinite Realms wrapped him in its embrace and took him away. 

“Danny?”

Danny jolts and falls from the ceiling. His stomach drops and he braces himself for impact, too out of it to use any of his powers. Instead of hitting the floor, he crashes into someone’s chest, their arms wrapping around him to hold him steady.

He blinks his eyes open and looks up at Bruce, who gives him a moment to collect himself, then sets him down on his feet. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Danny says, voice hoarse. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just startled.”

“If you don’t feel up for a conversation⁠—”

“No, no, let’s just get this over with. The sooner the better, right?” He offers Bruce a strained smile, but it falls from his face quickly.

“Alright,” Bruce says slowly. “Let’s head up to my office.”

He guides Danny up the stairs, keeping a heavy hand on his shoulder. It makes Danny feel trapped, but he’s too tired to get away. He’s resigned to this happening and just wants it to be over already. 

When the door closes the behind them, it sounds final in Danny’s ears. He sinks into the armchair off to the side of Bruce’s office, rather than taking one of the more uncomfortable chairs in front of his desk.

Bruce sits across from him on the lounge couch, elbows on his knees and his fingers steepled together.

“Danny,” he begins. “I know you’ve had a stressful day, but it’s important that we discuss this now.”

“Discuss what,” Danny says tiredly. He’s not asking, not really, just trying to lead Bruce to where they need to go.

“You are aware of our identities as Gotham’s vigilantes.”

“I’m still not very familiar with any vigilantes. I don’t really know anything other than your names.”

“But you know our identities. You know where we live and where we operate from. This is dangerous information; in the wrong hands, it will destroy us and leave Gotham to be torn apart from the inside by all the corruption we work to keep off the streets.”

Irritation prickles down his spine. Danny knows how important secret identities; look at what happened to him when he was discovered. Logically, he knows Bruce has no way of knowing this, but emotionally, Danny wants to snap at him, hurl insults and accusations to distract from his own hurt.

“This must remain secret,” Bruce continues, leaning forward some. “We will know if you reveal this information to anyone.”

“If you’re going to threaten me, can you just do it outright?”

Bruce blinks, then leans back, his brow furrowed. “What?”

Danny sighs and folds his arms across his chest, holding himself in a mockery of a hug as he looks away. “I get it, this is a big deal and having an outsider suddenly in the know is a huge risk. But I also need you to consider who I am.”

“And who are you, Danny?”

“A homeless runaway freak of nature. I have no support in Gotham. I have no one outside of Alfred that I can rely on in this country. You talk as if I have any power over you, but I don’t. Who would I even go to? Who would believe me?”

“Reporters would pay a lot for information like this⁠—”

“That’s not the point,” Danny interrupts, a bite in his voice. “The point is that even if I know all your identities, you’re still the one who has power here. I am entirely dependent on you for housing, food, safety. You’re my boss. The only reason I have anything, including a legal identity, is because of you. And you can take it away at any time.”

“I wouldn’t⁠—”

“People can excuse anything when they’re desperate enough.”

Bruce falls silent, staring at Danny with dark eyes. His expression is unreadable, as warm as stone, and Danny tenses in preparation for something awful; being fired, or kicked out, or imprisoned. 

“No matter how good they think they are, or try to be,” Danny continues, his voice growing quieter, more tired, “When the time comes, they’re willing to do anything to get what they want. No matter who you are to them. No matter what they have to do to you.” He looks over to Bruce, finally meeting his gaze. “Do you understand? You don’t have to threaten me because my entire existence here is a threat to my survival. I can only hope that everyone will be kind for another day before they decide I’ll be better off being cut open by scientists and studied.”

“Is that what happened to you? Why you ran away?”

“That isn’t important. It’s none of your business.”

Bruce frowns. “If it puts you in danger, it is my business, as you’re a minor in my care.”

“I am always in danger, okay? The details don’t matter. If you make me talk about it, I’ll run away and make sure no one can ever find me again. Got it?”

“Understood,” Bruce says after a tense moment. “I won’t push. But if you ever want to talk⁠—”

“Yeah, no. Not going to happen. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

He leans back, straightening up. “There is. In regards to training⁠—” 

Here it is. Danny just said he didn’t want to talk about, so Bruce hops right into the next topic of conversation that will make them talk about it.

“⁠—You have a good foundation to grow from. It would benefit you to learn how to handle a few of our weapons as well, and if there’s something you want to learn that we can’t provide for you, we can find someone else to train you. I will need to know what your triggers are so I can avoid frightening you as I did today.”

“I don’t have triggers,” Danny says, “I just don’t trust anyone but Alfred and Cass to not really hurt me. It’s just how it is.”

“...Very well.”

“Is that all?”

Bruce nods. “For now, yes. I know one of your conditions was not being involved in our nightlife, but if you’d ever like to learn more or see more of the Batcave⁠—properly, this time⁠— then we’d be more than happier to lead you through it.”

His gut reaction is to turn it down immediately, to ensure he doesn't have anything to do with their ‘nightlife.’ But Alfred’s involved.

All Danny is here to do is help Alfred, and that apparently includes wrangling vigilantes into surviving each night and being tended to. He already knows he’s going to join Alfred down there one day, but he’s not ready for it yet.

“Maybe some time in the future,” Danny offers. “Not any time soon, though.”

“That’s fine, Danny. We’ll go at your pace.”

A knock on the door stops the conversation from continuing. Damian opens the door and comes in before he has permission.

“Are you finished yet?” he asks, looking between Danny and Bruce.

“Uh, just about. Why?” Danny replies.

“We cannot eat any cake until you have the first slice.”

Conversation fully over; Danny has cake to eat and he needs to get to it right away. It’s way more important that talking to Bruce about his trauma and the family’s secret vigilante activities. 

“Sweet, let’s go get cake.”

He stands and Damian turns back to the door, ready to go. He stops at the doorway and glances back to Bruce, then asks, “Is he to remain aware of our nightly activities?”

“Yes, he is,” Bruce answers.

“I will be showing you where all the supply caches in the manor are,” Damian tells Danny. “They will hold either weapons, first aid kits, or fire extinguishers. It is crucial to memorize the location of all of them in the event of an emergency.”

“Isn’t this place safe? I mean, you all live here.”

“We hold events here, unfortunately,” Damian scowls. “There’s a gala coming up, in fact. You will need to know all of this before it begins. We shall start after we eat cake.”

From what he’s seen and heard of Gotham so far, this really is for the best. If this were Amity Park, Danny would call this behavior overly paranoid. Here, it’s an appropriate level of preparedness. 

“After cake,” he agrees, following Damian as he leads the way out of Bruce’s office .

He’ll worry about everything else after that promised first slice. As long as he’s got Alfred on his side, he’ll deal with anything thrown his way.

.

.

.

(“Don’t push,” Cass warns. “He’s like me. Will run.”

Tim sighs and slumps against the counter. “I just need to know more in order to help him! Come on, Cass, don’t tell me you don’t want to beat up everyone who’s ever hurt him.”

“Only if he wants to tell us,” she says, firm in her stance. 

Alfred nods approvingly from where he’s slicing the recently frosted cake. Danny’s ice remains on the counter, and he makes a mental note to ask the boy to remove it before he goes to sleep. 

“Miss Cassandra is right,” he interjects when Tim opens his mouth to speak, trying to find some way to change Cass’s mind. “Danny has had a difficult life and needs time and space to trust us and feel safe in the manor. I will not allow anyone to push him more than he can handle, simply because they could not handle their own curiosity.”

“You’d better tell that to Bruce, then. You really think he won’t interrogate Danny?”

Alfred sets down the cake knife with more slightly more force than necessary. “He has been warned. Should I hear that he did not take my warning lightly, I will ensure he faces the consequences of disregarding Danny’s needs.”

“Well,” Tim says, “You’ve got me and Cass to back you up. Danny will be fine with the three of us in his corner.”

“I do hope so,” Alfred replies. Cass is looking towards the kitchen door, so he begins to plate some of the slices. She has a sixth sense for knowing when someone is approaching, and when she’s around, Alfred takes his cues from her to make sure everything is prepared when they enter the room. 

Sure enough, just as he’s finished plating the last slice, the door opens and Damian enters with Danny trailing after him, looking paler and wrung out. 

It seems he will have to remind Bruce about Danny’s boundaries. Tim and Cass will be pleased to take on this new mission, and from the look in Damian’s eye, so will the youngest Robin.

Good. 

He won’t let anyone push Danny out of the manor. Not while he still has breath in his body.)

[darkysilverwing]

I'm seeing a lot of Danny Phantom in Gotham posts lately so I figured I'd throw in some things that I've yet to see but I feel like should be seen more often:

-Danny realizing that it's actually super not safe to fly in gotham air space while visible so he quickly learns to just turn invisible whenever he needs to fly somewhere.

Of course this means that he meets batman, realizes there's trouble somewhere else and turns invisible before leaving, accidentally giving bats a taste of his own medicine.

-Danny Phasing through the walls and accidentally discovering secret lairs all around town belonging to villains, resulting in danny also finding the bat cave and being convinced that bruce wayne is secretly a villain.

Considering the giant joker playing card and maybe even an entry about the joker open on the bat computer he goes to bats while on patrol, convinced he found the secret identity of the joker and leads bats back to the cave, forcing our dark knight to reveal his identity.

-Bruce meeting Jack and Maddie, the chaos.

-Sam and Tucker in the bat cave, geeking out over the technological marvels and gothic vibes.

[caelestisdreamer]

Ugh my phone died while I was reading a dpxdc fic, I’ve attached the summary, if someone has seen it and can help me rediscover it

The summary of what I read so far:

Danny’s in clockwork’s tower and falls through a clock or something and ends up in the DC dimension. He’s de-aged to three years old and ends up in Wayne manor. Bruce finds him and puts him to bed and they do a DNA test in the bat cave. They discover Dick is the father.

Upstairs Clockwork is talking to Kronos, apparently they’re like different dimension versions. Kronos gives Danny a backstory in this dimension, Dick’s his father and his mom is this circus girl who will become a Talon in the future.

If anyone could like tag what the post if they know, that would be great! Thanks!

[poke-me-with-a-stick]

Chapter 11 of 'Artifical Wingman'!

For the full story, click here!

---

Day three, and once again it was Damian’s turn to pick an activity for the day. And Honestly? He is a bit proud of what he chose, confident that it would bring Danny out of the slump he seemed to be in. 

The vigilante knew exactly what had the teen upset. It was glaringly obvious, as the next day they would be trying out that potion. Today might be their last day like this. He himself had spent most of the night awake, his chest squeezing uncomfortably as he fought off the negative thoughts that ate at him. ‘What if the potion does work? Will I hate him? Could we still be friends? But, what if it doesn’t work? Will he stay? Will he accept my feelings, return them? Or will he keep trying to get rid of them? What do I do if he rejects me?’ 

Some of his worries had eased when they met in the kitchen a few minutes after dawn, Danny being unusually quiet and seemingly deep in thought instead of groggily sipping tea. Whatever thoughts plagued him seemed to be a bit similar to his own, and from the bags under the teen’s eyes Damian could tell that the teen had gotten less sleep than he had. The tension in Danny’s shoulders had eased some when he received a bowl of oatmeal, a slight purr vibrating from his chest as their hands brushed, but the odd emotion behind his icy blue eyes stayed, darkening the pretty color with what could have only been a mixture of uncertainty, melancholy, and some sort of confusion. 

Damian didn’t like it, his heart aching for the teen, wishing he could take all the bad emotions away and leave only happiness. But he couldn’t. Not like he wished to. Not yet anyways. He doubted that Danny would take any attempts at physical comfort from him literally, not until he took that potion at least. So that only left one other option for him to try. 

That led to where Damian found himself now, walking hand in hand with the ravenette as he led them down the least camera-infested path, something that was becoming harder and harder as they reached the more upscale part of Gotham. Beside him, Danny was whining, wanting to know where Damian was leading him. 

“Come onnnn, Dami! Pleeease tell me where we’re going?” The teen batted his eyelashes, an adorable pout forming on his lips when Damain refused to answer. It was hard, resisting the urge to give in to the puppy look the teen was using on him. Under different circumstances, he might have caved by now. But he remained strong, the want to see the look on the teen’s face when he discovered where Damian had taken him overpowering his want to spill the surprise. 

Doing his best to keep his internal struggle from showing on his face, he readjusted his sunglasses and chuckled. “You’ll just have to wait and see.” He told the teen, grinning slightly at the way he huffed and folded his arms, dragging Damian’s hand up along with the motion.

They fell into a companionable silence, allowing Damian’s thoughts to drift once more. Danny was acting pretty chipper now that they had left the apartment, but it took more than a cheerful voice and silly actions to fool a robin. He could tell by the teen’s eyes, still a darker blue than normal, filled with that confusing mix of emotions. Part of Damian was a bit… relieved? That the teen was actually having some sort of inner turmoil. He felt horrible about his relief, but it was still there, even if he didn’t know exactly what those emotions meant in terms of the teen’s thoughts. As good of a detective as he was, one thing Damian was not, was a mindreader. 

Hopefully, today’s activity will be enough to at least begin to turn the teen’s emotions, make him want to stay. Even if it didn’t have the intended result of successfully wooing the boy, he was hopeful that it would be at least enough to make him hesitate. If he could make Danny want to stick around, then there would no doubtably be more time to make the teen fall for him. 

He ignored the part of him that tried to make him see reason, that warned him that there was still a chance that the potion would work as intended and by lunch tomorrow he might not have any romantic feelings for Danny at all. Now, in the daylight with his Beloved’s hand in his, he was back to being more self-assured that the thoughts that plagued his mind earlier were nothing more than trivial anxieties. He refused to consider how this would turn out for Danny, should the potion work after today went as he planned it. How much pain it would cause the teen, finally allowing himself to fall for Damian only for the other to reject his feelings. Even like this, a small part of him nagged about this possibility. The voice sounded oddly like Todd, repeating a warning he heard often from the man. ‘Your cockiness will be your downfall.’ 

He was pulled from his thoughts once more as his eyes caught on a sign ahead of them. Rare joyful excitement coursed through him, making the teen pick up speed until both boys were in a steady jog, Danny still holding tight to Damian’s hand as he was dragged along.  

Slowly coming to a stop, Damian turned to watch Danny’s face as he read the sign on the front of the building. He wasn’t disappointed in the least. At first, his eyes narrowed slightly, his head tilting in slight confusion as he read over the thick black letters. Then, his eyes widened, his pupils expanding slightly as the emotion that lingered behind his eyes dispersed, replaced by a kind of wonder and excitement. Damian’s chest eased off as they turned back to their usual icy blue. 

His reaction to the Astronomy Museum was more than that, though. He released Damian’s hand to bring his own up, now fisted, and began to bounce with a new, barely contained, energy. His hair began to float and flow, blowing in a nonexistent wind. For just a few seconds, his worn sneakers left the sidewalk as if his body forgot gravity existed, before dropping back down soundlessly when the teen suddenly turned and grabbed Damian’s hand and dragged him up the stairs. 

Damian let Danny pull him along until they reached the front desk, where the teen bounced impatiently as he waited for Damian to pay for their tickets. A short transaction later, and Danny was bounding off, barely giving Damian enough time to slip the ID bracelet around the half-ghost’s too thin wrist. Nodding his thanks to the smiling woman behind the desk, he began following Danny, his pace slower as he watched the ecstatic teen jump from exhibit to exhibit. When he finally caught up, Danny began rambling a mile a minute, delving into the details as he explained each and every exhibit there was, even going as far to explain things that weren’t mentioned at all in the descriptions given. 

The teen was sure that Danny would faun over all the space facts and samples for hours, if he could. But there was another thing here that Damian wanted Danny to see. Because even though Gotham was the worst place for stargazing, they more than made up for it with their state-of-the-art, Wayne Enterprises funded, dome projectors. Who would have thought that one of the inventions he thought was wasted on such a place just a few months prior would be one of the things that would cheer up his beloved the most?

Trying his best to be conspicuous, Damian began to slowly herd Danny in the direction of the Planetarium, discreetly adjusting his cap to cover more of his hair as he walked underneath a security camera. Years of training kept him from looking directly at the camera, instead keeping his attention on the ravenette, who he was certain hadn’t taken a breath since they walked through the door. If it were anyone else, Damian would have been inclined to worry. Not for the first time, he wondered how people didn’t catch on right away to Danny being more than human. The signs were pretty obvious. Perhaps it was another ability of the teen’s? To appear normal, or perhaps influence the way people perceive him? It was a possibility, he supposed. ‘I’ll have to ask him later’, he thought to himself.

He was pulled from his thoughts as Danny finally reached the door to the Planetarium. A delighted gasp, his first inhalation in almost half an hour, as he hurried back and began tugging Damian. “Come on! These are always a must when visiting!” The smile the teen wore sent warm shivers down Damian’s spine. Ignoring his… reaction, Damian chuckled at the enthusiasm his beloved was practically bursting with. He let Danny lead him into the well-lit room, taking a seat towards the front, about two rows away from the center of the room.

Damian did a quick scan of the room as Danny fidgeted in the seat next to him, checking automatically for threats as well as exits. He doubted that anyone would attack a Space Museum, but it was ingrained in him to be prepared for anything. The only other people present in the room, of which was littered with plenty of potential escape routes, were a young couple in seats near the back across the room from them, and the hologram operator. 

They sat there for a few minutes, before the operator held up her hand to get the room’s attention. As the couple’s conversation trailed off and silence settled, the operator gave a bright smile. 

“Hello everyone!” She greeted them in a soft tone. “My name is Alison, and I’ll be your guide as we explore the solar system today.” Turning around, she dimmed the lights and turned on the projector. The machine gave a soft, almost unhearable whirring sound as it started up, before tapering off into silence as the now darkened room was lit up with the image of a beautiful night sky. “Now, are we all ready to explore? The galaxy awaits us!” 

Her voice slowly faded into the background as a new, slightly louder noise started up beside him. Turning his head, Damian was slightly surprised at the aweing sight that met him. 

In his seat, Danny was hyper focused on the illusion above him, staring starry-eyed at the replica of their galaxy. His eyes were far from the cool dark pools they were this morning, now glowing in the dim lighting, casting an eerie, almost mystical, blue light across his sharp cheekbones and the soft curve of his nose, making his fangs flash as he turned his head to keep track of the stars and planets shown. It was an impressively beautiful and intimidating sight, though any hint of a true threat was erased by the semi-loud, grumbling purr that resounded from his chest. If he didn’t know what type of supernatural creature Danny was, he would have put money on the teen being some type of fey, beautiful and enchanting enough to tempt even those with the strongest of will. 

What really caught Damian’s attention, however, was a different light shining from the teen’s face. At first, he was sure it was some sort of trick of the light, a stray strange ray cast from above or something. But, as he observed them, he came to a slightly startling realization that some of the dimmer ones were moving, swirling slowly across Danny’s face in an intricate pattern. Then there were the others, a mix of icy blue and Lazerus green that stayed where they were, glowing more brilliantly the longer the show went on, resting among the swirling, slow-paced stars.

‘Freckles’, his mind supplied. ‘He has glowing freckles.’ 

His physical abnormalities weren’t the only thing that Damian noticed. Along with the awe-inspiring display on the teen’s face, a strong feeling of content seemed to radiate from him as well. Waves of calm that seemed almost infectious, loosening muscles and relaxing his body in a way that Damian rarely did in public spaces. Taking a moment to glance around the room, Damian wasn’t all that surprised that he was not the only one feeling the effects produced by Danny’s strong emotions. 

The couple across the room were practically melted into their seats, as well as each other, gazing at the ceiling in a dazed sort of wonder, almost looking high off the effect of Danny’s joy. Their guide wasn’t nearly as affected, it seemed, despite being closer to the pair than the couple was, though Damian did note the occasional hitches in her speech as she continued to speak, times where she would trail off and gaze up at the ceiling with the same sort of wonder as Danny and the couple, before giving herself a firm shake and picking back up where she left off.  

The feelings lasted the entire show, only fading away when the projector switched off and the lights came back on. Disappointment that he knew wasn’t his own flashed through him, before the foreign emotions faded from his being completely. It didn’t take the son of the world’s greatest detective to figure out that they were from Danny, the same emotion he had just felt flashing across the teen’s face as he slowly came out of his daze. 

Sighing, Danny straightened up in his seat, stretching  and groaning softly in satisfaction as his back let out a series of pops. Damian was a bit more focused a bit lower, watching as the shirt Danny wore rode up over his well-defined stomach. The disappointment he felt was his own this time, when Danny dropped his arms and his shirt slipped back down, effectively covering him once again.

Unaware of Damian’s thoughts, Danny stood up and held out a hand to Damian. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty hungry.” The teen said. “How about we go and grab something to eat?”

Taking the offered hand, Damian nodded in agreement as Danny pulled him free of his seat and led him out of the Planetarium, through all of the exhibits, and through the entrance. Damian made no effort to take the lead as Danny paused on the steps. It was hard to keep from laughing as Danny turned his head up slightly, taking a few deep sniffs of the air around them before starting off down the street, following his nose like a bloodhound. The walk was much quicker than Damian thought it would be, Danny taking odd shortcuts that should not have worked as well as they did, and before Damian knew it, he found them both standing in front of a Batburger. Similar to the one they had visited near the apartment, differing only by the lack of noticeable grime.

Shaking his head in wonderment, he followed Danny into the establishment. 

‘Were enhanced sense of smell part of his ghostly powers as well?’ Damian couldn’t help but wonder. The animal comparisons were happening more and more on their own with no help from his pet obsession. Part of him wondered if the teen also had some sort of mind reading powers, because he had to be doing this on purpose at this point. There was no way he wasn’t doing it on purpose. 

—

Across the city, Jazz was well aware of the fact that someone was stalking her. Whoever it was, they were good at it, because she had yet to catch sight of them. At first, part of her had wondered if maybe she was just imagining things, and maybe she was being a bit too paranoid. But she had been walking in circles for the past two hours and they were still there. Keeping a constant distance between them as they followed, not too far yet not too close either.

Honestly? She found herself more pissed off than scared. This person had been tailing her for two hours, two hours that could have been spent trying to track down her brother instead of trying to lose a pesky tail. 

After walking around the block for a seventh time, Jazz had had enough. Turning in a new direction, she walked straight into an alleyway she knew had nothing more than a dead end. Slowing her pace to a stop, she stayed facing the wall as she waited for her stalker’s next move. Standing there for a few minutes made her realize that he(or she) was not going to make the first move. 

‘Alright then.’ she thought, annoyed. Still facing the wall, she called out to her stalker. “Y’know, if you’re just gonna follow me around all day, the least you could do is introduce yourself.” Her tone stayed calm, showing none of her inner emotions just yet. 

It was silent in the alleyway for a few minutes, long enough for Jazz to wonder if maybe she had just imagined it all. Then a thump and crunch of thick, steel toe boots hitting the ground hard sounded loudly behind her.

Striving for bored and uninterested, Jazz turned around to observe the person who had been following her. The first thing she registered was the jacket. Leather, well crafted, and filled with hidden pockets. The second thing she saw was the red helmet that hid the man’s face from her. Though, it’s not that she needed it to figure out who he was. She would be an idiot not to recognise the screwed-up ecto-signature the man produced. Still, if he wanted to play games, that was fine. She could play. 

Ignoring the part of her that hummed with recognition (and joy), she gave Jason a very obvious once over, taking in every detail of his clothing that she could in an effort to make it believable. “And who are you supposed to be?” She asks him, noting the way he jolted where he was standing. In surprise, maybe? But what did he have to be surprised about? Did he expect her to recognise him in that get-up?

“I’m Redhood.” He says, voice slightly distorted by some sort of voice changer. “I don’t mean any harm to you.” Pausing, like he was trying to think of what to say. She let him. “I heard that you were looking for your brother. I… figured that you could use some help.”

He wasn’t telling her everything. But he also wasn’t lying to her. As far as Jazz could tell, and she was pretty good at picking out the liars now, he was sincere. “What’s in it for you?” she asks after a moment. Again, he physically reacts, body stiffening. Before she had a chance to really decipher what that odd reaction could mean, he answered her question.

“I’m a vigilante. It’s my job to help people.” While it wasn’t a complete lie, it struck her as only half a truth. He was good at speaking half truths. He wasn’t lying about the vigilante part, but his reasoning was off a bit. Clearly that was not his only reason for offering her help.

For a moment, Jazz stood there, staring the man down as she weighed the pros and cons. On the one hand, she didn’t like that he, a virtual stranger, was somehow tracking her down, following her around silently, offering to help her, all while not being fully honest with her. But on the other hand, someone who actually knew this city would be a huge advantage in tracking her brother down faster. Not to mention, someone who she could count on to tell her crucial things about this world. Things like vigilanties, apparently. And at least he didn’t seem malicious at all. No ill intent permeated the air, only a genuine want to help. To help her.

Finally coming to a decision, she nodded at the man, stalking forwards until she stood face to face with him. A smirk worked its way onto her lips when she realized that she had a few good inches on this tank of a man. “Alright.” She says, her voice low enough that only he would be able to hear her. “I’ll accept your help.” She lets him relax a bit, stepping away from him and walking past, to the mouth of the alleyway. Looking around, she makes sure that they are the only ones there. 

When the street proves to be clear, she steps out onto the sidewalk, turning to look back at where ‘Redhood’ was still standing in the shadows. “Oh, one thing though?” She turned away from him again, starting down the empty street. “Loose the helmet, Jason. It’s a bit of an attention grabber.”

She giggles to herself as he audibly sputters, clearly not expecting that from her. A few minutes later he catches back up with her, his vigilante outfit replaced by a t-shirt, jacket and jeans. “How did you know it was me?” He asked. Turning to look at him, she couldn’t miss the lingering emotion behind his eyes, equal parts suspicion and awe. 

Jazz smirks before laying it all out for him. “I mean, it was kind of obvious.” She shrugged. “You’re the only person that I’ve talked to since arriving in Gotham. Meaning that you're the only person I told about my brother. Was it supposed to be a coincidence, me telling you about my brother and then a few hours later being offered help by a masked vigilante who somehow knew exactly what I was doing?” 

He goes quiet after she explains, his expression thought full. Then, he chuckled, reaching up to rub his neck. An action she had seen her baby brother do hundreds of times before. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.” He seemed almost… bashful? She had to admit, it was kind of cute.

They continued to walk in silence for a minute before he clears his throat. Turning to look at him again, she raises an eyebrow in a silent question. “So, um. Do you have any idea where you’re going?” He asked.

Jazz pauses, her face dusted with red as she shakes her head no. “Honestly? I have no idea. I’ve just been following his trail.” She gestures off into the distance, where she could vaguely feel another spot of her brother’s presence. 

Jason frowns at that, obviously wanting to ask what she means, but decides to leave it for now. Instead, he makes a suggestion. “How about we regroup back at my apartment, and come up with a plan. One that's a bit better than just running around the city blind.”

Snorting, she shoots him a look filled with sarcastic suspicion. “I thought you were a vigilante? Don’t people like that usually discourage following strangers to a secondary location?” She outright laughs at the look on his face as he stutters, trying to find a way to defend himself. Still laughing, she manages to agree anyways, letting the blushing man take her hand and lead her through the streets, presumably to his apartment. 

---

(I know there are probably some spelling and grammar mistakes, but it's okay because I tried my best!)

To the lovely person who made the prompt for this story, as well as the awesome people who follow along:

@halfblackwolfdemon @manapeer @xxwintrynightzxx @im-totally-not-an-alien-2 @blu-lilac @academicpurposes @secretdestinywerewolf @passivedecept @naluforever3 @postit-nope @spiteismymiddlename @2t-productions @plague-daisy @feet-achy @bubblecookies16 @thesapphiredragon13 @justwannabecat @magicalcollecter @adeniumdream @amuseofminds @lupagrim @readerkayden @dr-syko-pharm-4 @ladythugs @angelheartgamer @markthespot68 @kyrianclawraith @michikoy-yuki @servasvictoria02 @your-emo-nightmare @vala-dreams @scarlett-green-rose @t1dwarrior-of-earth @charlie-the-frogie @akikoyuii @mysticalcomputerdetective @roseuniverse999 @im-totally-not-an-alien @thefearfullone @weird-droplet-309 @jaytriesstuff @raventao @jacquelynwinchester @dragongoblet @tlise21 @longlivethefallen @the-archer-goddess @temple-of-jalebi @adepresseddwightsblogofjunk @plainly-colorful @the-legal-shipper @49saltpeppershakers @igotafewbadideas @tumbling-darkling @sparklygardenbouquet @sarcastic-yami @blueneko9314 @starscreamlover @liedboutmurder @do3y @roze-realm @some-mildly-happy-human @yinari-uchiha @azuera

[lapetitechatonne]

okay, but we’ve all been so focused on “the Fentons are related to the Waynes” we’ve been sleeping on the Mansons being related to the Waynes

so, the Mansons visit Gotham for a high profile event for the Wayne foundation and they stay with the Waynes (who they haven’t visited since Jason’s funeral or before Tim) because “oh Brucie, we’re family, and you don’t want us to get robbed in one of those hotels, do you?” and it’s absolute chaos.

Sam is doing the whole “distant and brooding” thing, and the batkids are lowkey like “wow she’s 100% related to Bruce” and making jokes about it the whole time, but she definitely bonds with Damian over animal rights and veganism and everyone’s scared.

Bruce has to constantly run interference between Jermey and Pam, and basically all the batkid shenanigans, because the last time they tried to lecture Dick about swinging on the chandelier, Dick just laughed at them and they turned so red Bruce thought they were gonna have an aneurysm, and as funny as that was, if Dick couldn’t refrain from laughing his ass off and flipping over the table just to see the looks on their faces, Bruce highly doubts Damian can keep his knives to himself.

Ida and Alfred sip tea and watch all the chaos unfold from afar (mostly, Ida does love to stir the pot and get the batkids going just to see Jeremy and Pam’s reactions. is that a little immature and uncalled for? yes, but she lives with those two and she has to get her kicks where she can)

and best of all, because Sam is use to Danny, and also lying about her own ghost related affairs, Sam can tell somethings up with these people, she sits there and glares at them enough to know they’re hiding something (and considering the last billionaire she ran into with a secret was cloning her best friend in his basement, she wants to know, just to be sure there’s nothing she needs to call in the Team Phantom for) so imagine her surprise when she follows them discovers that she’s related to Batman.

she’s stunned. sam.excel has stopped working. cannot process the information. she just stands there staring at the cave and the five vigilantes all frozen in different positions staring back at her, and she just laughs because Tucker and Danny are never gonna believe this.

queue Tucker and Danny absolutely losing it finding out that Sam’s related to Batman, they laugh about it for months on end, that is until that bats take more interest in Sam and suddenly they’re on the Fenton’s front porch asking about the ghost that lives with them.

[snackleggg]

City of splintering hopes: Chapter 4 "Meda-Lean"

~~~

Ao3

~~~

When Danny came out the other side of the cave, back into the Far Frozen, he turned around to confirm yep the bird robot is still following me.

"So why exactly has keeping me safe been 'added as your top objective'?" Danny asked, using air quotes when referencing what the robot had said earlier.

"Because you are a Halfa" It replied. Danny actually paused at that.

He turned around and started making the trek back to the yeti civilisation in the Far Frozen, following the route that Frostbite had led him through.

"Okay but I wasn't born a Halfa. I'm not a citizen of that city or even related to those Halfas in anyway so why did you activate?" Danny asked.

He heard the crunching of snow behind him stop and he also came to a stop to look behind him at the robot. It had it's head tilted to the side again, seemingly a common gesture for it when it was thinking or maybe confused?

"It does not matter if you were not born a Halfa. What matters is you are one now and that was proven by the activation once you stepped into the Hall of the Ancients" It stated and Danny could tell by it's abrupt blink that he was making a face because he did not understand half the things that just- well not 'came out of it's mouth', it didn't have a mouth but that last sentence definitely had him confused beyond all belief.

"Wat" Danny said "Hall of the what now? Activation? What are you talking about?"

"The Hall of the Ancients is the name of the structure atop the capital." It explained "The automatic pairing system was activated by your presence as it sensed you had not been assigned a droid and therefore assigned me to you" the robot finished and Danny needed a second to take all that in.

Instead of facing everything that sentence implied Danny turned back around and continued walking. He soon heard the crunching of snow behind him signalling that the robot bird was following.

"So... it only turned on because it sensed I was a Halfa?" Danny asked after a brief silence.

"Correct. All Halfas are assigned droids to assist and protect them in their everyday lives, especially those who travel outside of the Hidden lands" It explained and Danny was trying to wrap his mind around it. More questions suddenly started popping up into his mind, thankfully he finally had someone who seemed to know what they were talking about.

For some reason Danny felt relieved. The automatic system that the original Halfas left behind had recognised him as a Halfa and that made him feel very validated.

"Why'd it choose you?" Danny asked after briefly mulling over the question. He had seen many of those statues in the alcoves in the walls and there had probably been more he hadn't seen deeper inside the building. So why was this specific droid chosen for him?

"Each droid has a unique personality of sorts, unique responses to certain situations and when you stepped into the building it scanned your core and automatically found the droid best suited to serve and protect you" It replied.

"So there are just a bunch of pre-made droids laying around waiting to be assigned?" Danny asked, he couldn't help the sadness that tainted his voice. Those droids would probably never be activated, Danny sure as hell wasn't letting Vlad get his grubby little hands on one. He shuddered at the very thought of Vlad knowing about the ruins.

"Incorrect" It informed him "Halfa children typically have droids created and assigned for them at the age of 10. All droids in the Hall of the Ancients had already been created and assigned to a Halfa at some point and were all once active. Including myself." the robot said, there was something in it's voice but Danny couldn't place his finger on it.

"Wait so.... how long have you been deactivated for?" He asked.

"It has been roughly 247 years since I was last active" It replied, that strange tone in it's voice again.

"And that was when...." He could piece together what that meant but the droid answered him anyway.

"When Pariah Dark was launching his attack on the Halfas" Danny suddenly recognised the emotion in it's voice. Grief. Sadness. Hesitancy.

Even if it was a robot Danny could only imagine what it was like. Then another thought hit him and he stopped again in his tracks on the path. But only for a moment before he continued. He could sense the robot's worried gaze but Danny wasn't going to bring up what had caused him to stop. He didn't even want to look back at the droid.

Danny couldn't bring himself to ask more questions, not yet. Maybe another time when his core wasn't clenching in sympathy for the droid.

They walked in silence, every once in a while Danny looked back at the robot bird to see it was seemingly surveying it's surroundings. Danny thought back to how he had scanned the landscape around him when he had come through here with Frostbite and he bit back a laugh at the similarity. It didn't take long before the droid snapped it's attention back to him whenever it noticed him glancing.

Finally they made it back to landscape and terrain Danny was familiar with and it wasn't long before Frostbite popped out and greeted him.

"Great One! You have returned!" Frostbite exclaimed and then he took notice of the new face following behind Danny but instead of any number of reactions Danny had expected Frostbite just glanced at it with something akin to nostalgia in his eyes before diverting his attention back to Danny.

"You're injured!" Frostbite shouted, finally taking noticed of his broken nose. The blood, having dried up ages ago, now looked a muddy brown and felt flaky against Danny's skin.

"Yeah, I had a bit of a crash" Danny said, straining the last word as he glanced at the robot bird that simply blinked back at him.

"Come, let's get you fixed up then before your travel home" Frostbite insisted, ushering him towards the yeti tribe to get his nose fixed up.

Half an hour later and lots of assuring Frostbite that "I'm fine" "No, I don't have a concussion" "Yes, I will make sure to be careful to avoid faceplanting into anything", Danny was finally given the okay to go home but before he left he had one last thing to ask Frostbite.

"Frosty, why aren't you phased by the sudden stone robot bird following me around?" Danny asked, gesturing to said droid who was still hunched over as it stood behind him. Danny had noticed that the robot bird, while not hunching to the point of meeting his eye level anymore, was still not standing to it's full height. He also noticed that no one in the Far Frozen tribe batted an eye at the stone being.

"Oh! Sorry Great One, you must be confused by our lack of reaction! It's just these stone creatures always accompanied past Halfas. If anything we had been surprised when first meeting you that you did not have one. I had a feeling that you may gain one by visiting the sight of their origin" Frostbite replied thoughtfully, a paw held to his chin as he briefly examined the droid.

Danny felt his eye twitch slightly "And you didn't think to inform me that when entering the remains of a Halfa civilisation that some ancient automatic system would decide to give me some bodyguard assistant?" Danny asked, his tone becoming more hysterical as the absurdness of the situation sunk in.

"I apologise Great One. It had only crossed my mind after you had already entered the cave" Frostbite at least had the decency to look sheepish.

Danny took a deep breath before letting it out and giving a slightly strained smile "it's... okay. At least you didn't mean to leave out that semi important fact" He said.

Finally, finally! Danny started his flight home after one last goodbye to Frostbite. He also quickly discovered that bird like stone beings could apparently fly. The droid flew above Danny, stone wings spread and the occasional flap of them even though he was pretty sure that wasn't necessary but he wasn't about to rain all over the robot bird's parade.

Halfway home he realised that he will definitely not be able to explain a giant stone robot following him around to his parents.

"Hey uh... can you turn invisible?" Danny directed to the robot flying above him. The droid looked down at him, blinking once, before replying "Yes, I can but it is energy consuming so only for short periods of time"

"Cool cool cool coolcoolcoolcool, cause when we get to the portal you're gonna have to turn invisible so my parents don't see you" Danny said, a scenario of what would happen to the droid if his parents saw it played in his mind and he quickly shook it from his head.

"Portal? Are we travelling to the living realm?" The robot bird asked and Danny remembered that this was a robot two centuries and a half out of it's time. He would need to keep as close an eye on it as it was keeping on him.

"Yeah. I kind of live there but my parents don't really know about the whole being a Halfa thing so if you stay out of their sight I would really appreciate it. My sister Jazz is fine though, she knows" Danny dreaded having to explain this to Jazz. 'Hey Jazz! I went to the ancient ruins of the original Halfas like we talked about yesterday! I accidently triggered some automatic pairing system that gave me a robot bodyguard for the foreseeable future!' Yeah, that was not going to be a fun conversation.

"I will be mindful" The droid replied before they fell back into a comfortable silence.

Soon the Fenton ghost portal came into view and they both landed on the floating rock it was positioned on.

"Okay remember, invisible. I'll tell you when you can drop the invisibility. Just stay quiet and try not to touch anything" Danny said, making sure he got across how serious this was to the droid.

The robot bird nodded before disappearing from sight instantly.

Danny turned around and did the same, turning himself invisible as he walked through. He mildly panicked when the thought that the droid wouldn't be able to follow him crossed his mind but the feeling of three claw like stone fingers on his shoulder quickly got rid of those doubts.

As expected, his parents were working in the lab, focused intensely on their newest invention which of course was a blaster of some kind. Danny rolled his eyes, another weapon he would have to dodge.

As Danny walked through the lab it was unnerving to him how quiet the droid was managing to be. No heavy footsteps like when they had been walking through the Far Frozen and the cave. No sound of camera like clicking from blinking. The only indication Danny had that it was there were the cool stone fingers on his shoulder.

They made it up the stairs with out a single noise and as soon as they got through the doors Danny immediately dropped his invisibility.

"You can drop it now" He said when the droid didn't immediately follow his example. After the robot became visible again Danny moved around it to close the door to the lab and he sighed in relief.

Despite the fact that he had left in the morning it was evening now as Danny had spent roughly 7 and a half hours on his little side quest. He let the transformation back to his human form go over him and breathed a little in relief.

He saw in the corner of his eye the droid jerk back a bit and he turned to see it blinking repeatedly at him with that same clicking noise before suddenly stopping.

"Your clothes are different than in your other form" It stated.

"Yeah, what of it?" Danny asked as the droid stared at him, still hunched over but Danny was pretty sure it would hit it's head on the ceiling if it stood at it's full height.

"I am an information retrieval droid. Though my objectives have been updated for your safety as top priority I still must gather as much information as possible on everything around me" It stated. Danny made a mental note never to let it onto the internet unsupervised.

"Oh well, like I said earlier I wasn't born a Halfa. I kind of half died? Or maybe I died fully but was half brought back to life? Either way I died, whether half or fully, and those clothes were just the ones I died in" Danny shrugged.

The droid looked at him for another second before seemingly accepting that answer and turning it's attention to their surroundings.

"Right, if you're going to be following me around you should know the layout of the house" Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. The droid nodded absentmindedly, Danny could see it's thin pupils moving around rapidly, trying to take in as much information about the surroundings as possible no doubt.

"Well this is the kitchen. We eat food in here but you don't have a mouth and are a robot so I don't think you'll find yourself in here too often. You already saw the lab, in the basement. Don't go down there unless I'm with you because my parents are down there like 70% of the time" Danny said as he gestured around and then to the door behind them.

Danny started moving into the living room and the droid followed him, he noted that the sound of it's heavy footsteps had returned.

"Living room, we'll pass through here alot to get to the front door so if my parents are ever in here you'll have to turn invisible and be quiet" Danny said, again making a sweeping motion with his arm to show the room. It was weird, he kind of felt like he was showing around a secret roommate.

They went up the stairs. Danny quickly explained that the droid should never ever follow him into the bathroom. An off handed comment to avoid his parents room and the stairs that led to the Ops center. He also pointed out Jazz's room before ending the tour with his own room.

"Since you insist on being around me all the time you'll be spending alot of time in here" Danny said after he closed the door to his room.

The droid was looking around with great interest, examining the books he had on his shelf and all the different space themed things scattered around his room. Danny felt a little embarrassed and could feel his face heating up even though he knew the robot was most likely analysing everything so it could get a better understanding of the Halfa it had been paired with.

Then a thought hit Danny.

"This might be an awkward question to ask now but uh-" the droid turned to face him as he fumbled with something he should've asked from the start "Do you um, have a name I could call you?" Danny asked. He was getting a little tired referring to it as 'the droid' and 'the robot bird' in his head.

"Why yes, you may call me Meda-Lean" They said and Danny blinked.

"Medalean? Or wait- Meda Lean" Danny corrected himself and Meda-Lean nodded.

"Can I call ya Meds for short? Y'know like a nickname?" Danny asked.

"Yes, you may call me 'Meds'." Meds confirmed and the way their eyes seemed to half close gave the impression that if they had a mouth they would be smiling.

----

A stone statue stood tall in a ravaged battlefield. The land was empty and quiet until suddenly the statue moved. The grey stone fell apart revealing a ghost. A rumour that the worlds, both the living and the dead, had forgotten.

The tall figure stood and stretched out two large metallic wings from his back, being careful not to jostle the bow and bag of arrows also resting on his back. Despite not needing to breath he took in a deep breath before releasing it as a loud sigh that echoed throughout the long abandoned battlefield.

"I smell Halfa"

~~~

First | Previous | Next

~~~

I'll be tagging all content do to with this story with the tag City of splintering hopes so if guys want to you can follow the story easier. You can also use that tag for any questions or content you guys make of the story!

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

Writing prompt What if when Danny met the league Jason was still dead and one of the bats (probably dick) decides to interrogate him about if it was possible that Jason became a ghost after months of searching through the zone cue Danny and dick showing up in the bat cave with Jason's ghost a few weeks later it is reported that his grave was found empty and then Danny and Jason discover Talia trying to revive him it turns out that the Lazarus pit can be used to put a ghost back into its body

“Well what do you know,” Phantom said while looking at Jason, “you’re possessing your own dead body.”

Dick smacked Phantom upside the head.

“He is not and you know it.” He told the ghost teen.

“Hey, I’m just glad that I’m back.” Jason said as he flexed his fingers and toes.

“Yeah, well, we better get you some actual clothes. You look like a zombie.” Phantom snarked a bit while Dick shook his head.

—

((Sorry this isn’t much, but I don’t really know how to go with this and I kind of have a small headache. I do encourage a writer out there to come and make this fic.))

[ciathyzareposts]

Batman Returns – World’s Greatest Thumb-Twiddler (Lost!)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Who’s the dark knight detective that’s a hit with all the chicks? Batman! Your darned right. Welcome back to Batman Returns! Last week, I completed the first day by discovering (and stealing) an innocuous awards ceremony tape from the mayor’s office. We spent the day exploring and dealing with thugs from a circus gang, but did not spy either Penguin or Catwoman. Thus far, the game feels a bit thin with empty areas and not a lot that to explore thanks to the verbless interface. That said, the graphics are quite good and I’m enjoying bits of Danny Elfman in the soundtrack– his Batman theme is one of the musical highpoints of my childhood and adds so much to this game.

And yet, you might sense that something is off. As Alex Romanov noted in the comments to my last post, I made a critical mistake that I did not discover until the end of this session. Things didn’t go well for the Caped Crusader. Rather than whitewash it, I will narrate what happened and you can see for yourself how I spent the next four hours of play time. I am not sure whether I was completely doomed after the first day’s mistake or if there was some way that I could have recovered, but either way this is a “Lost!” post. I will try again from the start next week.

I thought he looked like the guy from Twins.

Day 2

Batman began his second day like the first one: sitting at his bat-desk and listening to the nightly news. The top story of the night is that Oswald Cobblepot, a deformed man with a penguin-like appearance, saved the mayor’s son from a kidnap attempt by the circus gang. We know (because we’re not idiots) that the Penguin orchestrated the whole scenario, but the gullible population swallows it and sees him as a hero. Perhaps Batman’s vigilante activities have primed them to accept another bird-themed hero..

I wish we had been present for this scene instead of being told about it on the news. In the movie, the circus gang attacks the mayor and his family at a tree lighting ceremony and escape through a manhole, only to have the Penguin emerge from the same (in his rubber duckie boat!) and return the child to his father. Neither Bruce Wayne nor his alter-ego are present for this scene in the film either, but we lose a lot by having it summarized by a talking head. Still, I cannot fault the game for trying to tell this story strictly from Batman’s point of view, especially as they are highlighting the detective aspect of his character.

The bat-computer is updated immediately with Penguin as a “person to watch”.

Racing to the batmobile, I find no new locations have opened up. I check Gotham Plaza, downtown, and the mayor’s office over again, but other than a few sporadic battles with the circus gang, I observe nothing new. I even search everything twice just to be sure. As far as I can tell, other than the news report at the beginning of the night, the second day has no additional content.

In the film, Penguin’s arrival on the scene is followed by a brief quest to find out his real identity. Penguin is taken to the hall of records where he searches for evidence of his name and his lost family. We later learn that Penguin used his time with the records to assemble lists of the Gotham elite’s firstborn children to abduct. The game skips this part and reveals his name immediately. Unless it comes up later, this is a lost opportunity because Batman spying on Penguin could have been a neat adventure game sequence.

Having found absolutely nothing to do, I retire for the evening and prepare for day three. I hope I am not coming off as down on the game already, but slowly mousing over rooms get boring after a while.

Day 3

Unlike the previous two, the third night does not even have a news update. There are general news stories about the decline of education standards and the increase in crime, but nothing pertinent to our case. I head to the batmobile for another evening of searching around. As before, there are no new areas to explore on our map.

I discover a clue in the mayor’s office: a stack of “party pictures” left on his desk. I scan them using my bat-scanner and return to the batcave. I do not know if there is a penalty if I had taken them instead of scanning them, but I’d rather not risk it. We cannot look at the pictures directly. Instead, we insert them into the evidence computer for processing. It reveals that they are photos from that mayor’s son’s first birthday party. There is also an option to extrapolate further, but the computer does not have enough evidence for additional conclusions. This is twice that Batman has gone to the mayor’s office and stolen something completely innocuous. We have yet to discover an actual clue.

World’s Greatest Stalker

I return to the streets to see if anything changed. Unsurprisingly, nothing did despite searching every room again. No matter how nice the graphics are, there are only so many times you can watch the same animations before you go a little nuts. The manual claims that you can fast-forward by clicking the right mouse immediately after selecting an action with you left, but I never got this to work.

There are only nine days in the game and we’ve spent three of them doing nothing. When does the plot start?

Now, I suppose.

Day 4

The fourth day starts with a news alert! The citizens of the city are sick and tired of gangs of circus performers roaming the city. They want a mayoral recall election and they want it now. Not coincidentally, Oswald Cobblepot is now the leading opposition candidate thanks to the city seeing him as the hero that they need. We know from the movie that this is all being orchestrated by Max Shreck as part of his plot to get a sympathetic mayor in office so that he can siphon electricity from the city, but the game doesn’t make that connection yet. The movie also shows Penguin eating raw fish and assaulting his supporters, but Mr. Shreck’s excellent stage-management of Cobblepot’s reputation somehow causes these incidents to be forgotten. The news even has the gall to complain that “Batman has disappeared” during these attacks; how many times have I run around the city beating up clowns in the last four days?

I explore the city again and find the standard array of empty rooms and meaningless combats. This time, I spy a feather on the mayor’s desk and pocket it. When I take that back to the evidence computer, I have my first real clue of the game! The computer identifies the feather as being from an Emperor Penguin, possibly one of penguins from an exhibit at the Old Zoo. The computer further believes that the feather is intended as a threat or a calling card, to tell the mayor that the Penguin is after him. Could the pictures from the previous night be a similar threat? What if they were taken by Penguin’s gang to show the mayor how closely he and his family are being watched?

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo… how about you, you, you…

The best thing about this evidence is that I have a new location on the Batmobile’s map: the Old Zoo, in the southwest corner. I discover it deserted but ready for exploration. I’m not sure either from the game or the movie whether the zoo is still in operation or whether the remaining animals, including a large flock of penguins, were just left to starve on their own. I don’t think that Penguin could hide inside of an active zoo, but I also find it hard to believe that they would have left all of the animals behind in a closed one. Maybe I should blame Tum Burton for loving the idea of an abandoned zoo without considering the logistics of it.

A cave for polar bears?

The penguin exhibit!

The zoo is not a huge place and we can’t explore it very deeply. All we have is an overhead view where Batman is perched on a tree, plus views of the outside of “Arctic World” and a cave. We cannot go into “Arctic World”, although we can at least zoom in to the entrance of the cave. That’s where we discover our second piece of evidence of the night: an old circus poster. I scan that and return to the batcave.

The poster is for a circus that disbanded five years ago. The computer further deduces that the circus performers are the same ones that are terrorizing the city. That suggests that the thugs are connected to the zoo and, by extension, the Penguin! Holy moley! The movie makes this explicit much earlier, but I like the way the game is telling this story exclusively from Batman’s perspective.

Before concluding my most successful night yet, I take one more spin around all of the locations to see if I find anything new. I do not, but at least I feel better that the plot is starting up.

How did you get my Skype?

Day 5

I am more than halfway through the game! I considered ending the post here, but there isn’t quite enough content yet. The plot thickens immediately as the Penguin sends Batman a video message directly to the batcave. He wants Batman to know that he has a tape of evidence against the mayor that he will release soon. Once the people discover how corrupt their leader is, they will surely pick Penguin as his replacement. He claims that he is telling us this because he wants to “play fair”, but there is likely another reason. In the film, he’s trying to draw Batman out so that he can be discredited. I’m not sure if the game has the narrative ability to present that well.

Now that I consider it, the craziest part of the game is that you could possibly go from a petition to a recall election in less than a week. Just printing ballots and arranging polling stations would take more than that. Real world gears turn much more slowly, plus Penguin could be just as easily recalled if he won the election. In the film, the timeframe is less explicit but still condensed, starting from the tree-lighting and ending sometime before Christmas; four weeks at most.

Jinkies! Another clue!

I run through my well-practiced tour of every room in the city and find two new clues in the mayor’s office: a photo on a side-table and remodeling plans on his desk. I take them back to the batcave for further consideration.

Who is Byron Orton?

Thanks to our evidence computer, we learn that the photo is of the mayor and Byron Orton. “Who is Bryron Orton?” you might ask? The biographical computer reveals that he is the publisher of the Gotham Gazette and a tabloid called The Tell All. It appears that the mayor is courting him in an effort to improve his standing among the press and to get some positive coverage before the snap election. Mr. Orton appears to be an original creation for this game with no comic book or movie tie-ins, nor does he appear in any of the drafts of the script that I have located. I think– but I am not sure– that Byron’s image is actually Don Landon, a video editor on Batman Returns and a long-time engineer for Park Place Productions. This guess is based on a grainy photo in the manual for NHL Hockey (1992) for the Sega Genesis, so I apologize if I have made a mistake. This is as good a time as any to tell you that Batman’s citizen database has been gradually updated as the game progresses. Catwoman appears for the first time now, for example, plus Penguin’s entry has been updated to talk about the extortion threat. I don’t check them all every day to see what else might be different.

The plans are of a defense-oriented remodel of someplace, but neither we nor the mayor seems to be sure of where. The mayor’s notes suggest that he believes Max Shreck is up to something, but he doesn’t know what. The computer helpfully tells us that a ventilation duct is the weak point in the design, a detail that I am positive will come in handy later.

Dark Knights of the Round Table?

More importantly, discovering the plans opens up Shreck’s office on the map! It’s just across from Gotham Plaza; we can enter it through one of the rooftop screens that I had already found, but not until we knew that the location was important. That gives me a bit of hope that some of these empty rooms will be less empty before the end of the game.

Searching the room carefully, I discover a hidden compartment beneath the globe on the right hand side. I have to use the lockpick, but inside is a memo which I scan for further analysis. While in his office, I get attacked by more circus people, although I am not certain whether that is a programming flaw or further indication that Shreck and Penguin are in cahoots. Back in the batcave, we learn that Shreck’s was hunting to Penguin to use his men to inflame the crime wave. Doing so will undercut the mayor’s reputation, ensuring Penguin’s eventual win. Good thing this sort of thing never happens in real life!

Catwoman attacks!

Heading back out to the city, I am attacked by Catwoman outside of Shreck’s department store. She has no difficulty with any of the weapons that I have on hand, but she eventually leaves. Did she win? Did I win? I have no idea. My computer crashed immediately afterwards and I lost all “Day 5” progress, but she did not appear when I replayed the sequence. My guess is that she is a random encounter, but I’m not sure how to defeat her if I can’t find her.

Who is Dennis Barvel?

While digging around in the computer, I notice an alert that wasn’t there before: Dennis Barvel is listed as a “Person to Watch” and plans to strike at the jewelry store, one of the downtown locations, tonight. The database tells me that he is also known as “Dominic Best”, an armed robbery specialist that likes to target banks and jewelry stores. He just got out of a four-year prison sentence and is looking to strike again. He appears to be a game-exclusive and not in either comics or the film. I head to the location and wait all night (by pushing the “next hour” button), but he never shows up. We know that the original game was to feature some non-movie content, but that the studio nixed that idea much to Bill Kunkel’s consternation. Were Barvel and Orton plot threads that were excised but not removed completely? Is it coincidence that they both show up on day five, or would I have found more if I had searched the database every night? Alternatively, am I just doing something wrong and missed an important cutscene? I have no idea.

Thanks for reminding me!

Day 6

I start the next day without having solved the mystery of Penguin’s extortion tape. He’s even kind enough to video-call me again to remind me that I need to track him down. Thanks, Penguin! He reveals that his real motivation is to expose me, making himself the hero and Batman the freak. The nightly news reveals that there is renewed violence in Gotham Plaza, obviously part of the plot that Shreck and Penguin cooked up the previous day. While not connected to the main plot, I notice that Barvel is no longer listed in the computer. I missed whatever was supposed to happen with him, if anything.

At Gotham Plaza, I enter the fight of my gaming life. Batman has to face enemy after enemy. Eventually, even the Penguin shows up. He blocks everything I throw at him with an umbrella, although I do get him to talk to me after a well-timed bolo hits him. (Or maybe the timing is a coincidence; I am not sure.)

The Penguin is surprisingly effective with his trick umbrella for both attack and defense.

The “conversation” is a brief cutscene: Batman accuses Penguin of coming downtown to admire his villainous handiwork, but Penguin replies that as a mayoral candidate he’s only touring the scene of a major riot. Being down here tonight, fighting me, is apparently good for his image!

Smacking around some bats. You know.

Eventually, Penguin flees the scene– I am uncertain whether I won or lost the fight. He is immediately replaced by Catwoman. I don’t know if this is the fight that I was supposed to have with her on the previous day or related to the riot. If I land a couple of hits on her, we get a brief dialog scene from the movie where Catwoman acts indignant that Batman would hit a woman, before laying it on him with both barrels. She’s probably making some point here about early 90s feminism, but I’m too busy being beaten up by a woman wearing a latex catsuit to understand.

And it’s not okay to hit cats either.

This whole marathon feels like a final boss. Even after Catwoman leaves, I am hounded by circus performer after circus performer. Eventually, I have to run away because I am out of weapons and taking too much damage. When I return after a recharge, I fight only one or two more battles in the plaza. Nothing special happens after I do and I search the rest of the city to find absolutely nothing. I search everything multiple times because I know that I have to find the clues that will lead me to Penguin’s videotape. Still, I come up short.

Reluctantly, I flip over to day seven and the game ends immediately. Penguin’s tape is released, showing the mayor embezzling funds from the city. This scandal ends the mayor’s political career and rockets Penguin (and Max Shreck) into a position of power in the city. The election is done. Batman is disgraced. Game over.

Yeah, I know. He reminded me twice!

But recall elections here are pretty quick and easy to arrange.

You have failed this city. Green Arrow could have solved this case.

Do I have to play again?

There is a small part of me that wants to stop here with a “Lost!” post. I think we’ve seen much of what the game has to offer in terms of interactions and combat. I cannot bring myself to give up just yet, so my plan is to replay from scratch and see if I can find things that I missed. If I make it through a second time with nothing to show for it, expect a “Request for Assistance” but I have a fishy feeling that I know what I did wrong.

Even absent a “Request for Assistance”, advice is appreciated on the Penguin and Catwoman combats. I don’t have a strategy for those except putting the game on “Fierce” and setting my DOS emulator to fast-forward because the fights take ages and get nowhere. Is there an object or a combination of objects that I should be using to win those fights?

Time played: 4 hr 10 min Total time: 6 hr 00 min

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/batman-returns-worlds-greatest-thumb-twiddler-lost/

[fic-dreamin]

Snyder + Capullo = Amazing! Batman Vol. 5 Zero Year-Dark City collects two of the final story arcs for Zero Year; Dark City (issues 25-27) and Savage City (#29-33). This is the conclusion of the three-part story arc major crossover origin event known as Zero Year. Dark City picks up after the events in the first story arc of Zero Year, Secret City, after Batman has stopped the Red Hood Gang and the Riddler shuts off all the power in Gotham City. We see the reintroduction of the classic GCPD blimps from Batman the Animated Series, which is awesome to see, as they comb the city searching for any sign of Batman. But, Batman has a new case on his hands involving a killer who uses a serum that causes uncontrolled bone growth. Batman discovers the villain, known as Dr. Death (who was Batman’s first major supervillain he fought in DC Comics, the Joker was the first villain Batman faced in his own comic book series) and both Death and the Riddler team up to seize control of Gotham during superstorm Rene which threatens to cause even more problems for the powerless and crippled Gotham City. In Dark City, more is explained about Bruce’s opinions of Lt. Gordon and why he doesn’t trust the police lieutenant. We also see more backstory involving Bruce as a child and his parents leading up to the fateful night in Crime Alley. Dr. Pamela Isley also has a cameo appearance in this arc but her research will later impact the look of Gotham in the next story arc. Savage City takes place several days after the events in Dark City. It is now, Zero Year: the new calendar year according to Edward Nygma. Using Isley’s research Riddler has turned Gotham into an overgrown barren wasteland and his demands for Gotham is quite simple: get smart, or die. Every sunset, the Riddler on a giant screen in Gotham and challenges any brave citizen to ask a riddle that he can’t solve. No one has been successful. Bruce can’t retrieve any of his suits or gadgets from the cave so he must improvise and create a torn and tattered costume and tools to help him mount a counterattack against the Riddler. Batman enlists the help of trustworthy allies who are trying to fight against the Riddler, specifically Lucius Fox and Lt. Gordon. The team is also joined by a special covert military assault force as well. But time becomes the enemy as jets threaten to bomb Gotham, doing exactly what the Riddler intended and sending Gotham crashing down all around. Batman and his team must work together to stop the Riddler and survive Zero Year. Scott Snyder’s writing is still great. The characterization of these characters is both refreshing and still honors the source material, which Snyder is very good at doing. The interaction between Bruce and Alfred is very special and very well written. Bruce’s relationship with Gordon changes drastically in these final arcs and it makes sense why Bruce finally throws off his uncertainty about Gordon and accepts him as an ally going forward. The story appeared to take a lot of inspiration from The Dark Knight Rises and the video game The Last of US (both can be seen in the Savage City story arc). The inclusion of Dr. Death as one of Batman’s first villains, just like in the original comics, was amazing. Snyder really got to show off his horror writing here with gorgeous yet very visceral character design for Dr. Death by Greg Capullo. Speaking of Greg Capullo, he hasn’t lost his touch at all. Gotham is very vibrant and well defined as well as people are all distinctively drawn. Capullo always brings his unique style to many of these characters which I enjoy, it definitely sets his work apart from other artists. We see many new vehicles a Bat-blimp, a proto-Batmobile race car, and the Bat-boat. All of them are beautiful to look at and are drawn with great detail. Danny Miki and FCO Plascencia make Capullo’s art look absolutely gorgeous and very vibrant and colorful as well. Batman Vol. 5 is a great ending to the masterpiece of an origin story retelling. To me, this will be my favorite Batman origin story, not because it’s new and I very much enjoy Snyder and Capullo’s run on the character, but because, like Year One when it was written, Zero Year speaks to us in the 21st Century. Zero Year addresses our anxieties our struggles and places Batman’s emergence in the midst of all of those things to show us how truly great a hero he is. Go to Amazon

Outstanding wrap-up for the Zero Year storyline Following directly on from New 52 Batman Vol.4, Volume 5 brings the Zero Year storyline to a close. With the Red Hood defeated, The Riddler is now the supreme criminal power in Gotham City, holding it in a death grip and making its citizenry dance to his own tune by posing daily riddles for his own amusement. There are shades of Christopher Nolan's third "Dark Knight" movie in the plotting, which portrays a Gotham City cut off from the outside world and lorded over by a megalomaniac. Of course, Batman is the city's only hope, and it's hardly a spoiler to say that he wins the day in the end, but it is not an easy victory and it is not without cost. Seeing exactly how this all plays about is the biggest delight of the program, and writer Scott Snyder does not disappoint. It's a dark and gritty Batman tale that ties up the loose ends of Zero Year rather neatly. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first volume, which was still very good in its own right, and I'm looking forward to Volume 6. Go to Amazon

Well worth it. You will get more out of this book than you would any other comic. Another satisfying home run from Snyder Now, I can't automatically say that this book or these books by this writer and artist team is going to be for everyone. These books can be awfully wordy and dense and that might turn a lot of people off from the stories, but you get the most bang for your buck in these trades. It's masterful. Just the storytelling alone is refreshing, inspiring, and cinematic. Go to Amazon

If You are a BATMAN Fan, BUY THIS BOOK!!! I have to say that this book, and this entire run so far, are some of the Best comics I have read in my life! In my Life!!! I mean really, my review doesn't contain spoilers, just the sincere notion to commend this book as thanks for the chance to have read this Masterpiece. Yes, Masterpiece. ( I don't throw that word around lightly ) Go to Amazon

The best superhero deserves the best comic series and this provides Batman Vol. 5: Zero Year - Dark City Five Stars the artwork is beautiful and the story line is Great read. Batman fan from way back. Worth the money. Loved it Batman Five Stars Five Stars Amazing.

[thomwade]

Up From the Depths (Terror From Beneath the Earth, 2009)

Up From the Depths (Terror From Beneath the Earth, 2009)

He is all ears and teeth and he’s from hell! Alice is trying to find her young brother Danny in a local cave network.  Instead, she runs into a mysterious stranger. Alice and Danny’s father Stan runs to the sheriff’s office when his children never return home.  With the help of local Geologist Dr. Edwards, they try and find the children, only to discover a giant mutant bat creature. The creature…