#I was reminded about ghost hunger and my brain went a little crazy bonkers with it

[phantomposting]

Another half asleep twins au rant/prompt! Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors I have not slept in a hot minute.

Trigger Warning ⚠️: Ghost Hunger, Dissection/vivisection, starvation

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So this is a Ghost Hunger Damian and Danny are twins au. I was reminded about ghost hunger the other day and boy did it give me the spark of creativity I needed to create yet another au/fic idea to hyperfixate on.

So in this au Damian and Danny were very close as siblings but Danny ended up dying throwing himself in harms way to protect Damian on a mission for the league. Damian blames himself for not having better reflexes/not paying enough attention and could never convince his grandfather to allow Danyal to be resurrected via the pit.

Talia saw how desperate her son was for the other to live though and also cared for Danyal so she risked it all to revive him secretly and hide him amongst the civilians in America. Damian sadly never got to learn about that fact tho and lived years with the guilt he felt which left him determined to never let that happen again. Which meant he could never let anyone get close enough to want to do such a thing for him and he needed to hone his skills.

Danny on the other hand has hazy memories of his brother while with the Fentons and goes through the same timeline of becoming Phantom and protecting Amity Park. Eventually tho his parents find out and that gets him strapped to a table in the basement begging for his half life/getting vivisected.

So Danny flees going on the run and ends up on the streets of Gotham. The spirit of Gotham is so excited and welcoming to her newest child. He is a protector and her king after all. It fills her with pride that she would get to care for such an important person. She does all she can to make sure the king stays safe. Little things to keep him hidden and protected.

Danny however has unintentionally been keeping a pretty big secret from the ghosts of the realm. He doesn't really know this though and thinks its just a ghost thing. Basically his core is slightly corrupted due to the years he spent around the Lazarus pits aswell as the revival vial the dip in it's corrupt ectoplasm. As a result he experiences ghost hunger which was pretty easy to manage when he lived with the Fenton's. He would normally satiate his hunger via eating pure ectoplasm from the lab but now he has no access to that which leads him to starving himself.

This starvation mixed with his human side starving aswell is very very hard on his body as a result he begins to black out sometimes when he wakes up he usually tastes ectoplasm but just assumes its his own due to his injuries from his parents. These injuries are weirdly taking way longer to heal which is due to ghosts being very mental/emotional state based.

Gotham soon realizes she has a big problem on her hands. It turns out the king's core is corrupted and as a result many of her ghostly children are going missing. She is deeply upset and calls out for help to assist the king with his corruption or stop him from killing more of her children. She hopes the king gets help rather than getting taken down however. She knows it's not his fault. She knows how protective of her city and her people he is and how kind he can be to them and hopes issues get solved so he may become a protector of her people.

This call for help brings Constantine to Gotham. He doesn't get a whole lot of info from Gotham at first but he knows whatever is going on can be dangerous and is important. He knows that some of the bats are in danger too and gives them a warning that something in Gotham seems to be hunting ghostly beings and those whom have died before are at risk especially Red Hood.

The Bat's don't take too kindly to the supernatural threat and kinda force their way into assisting Constantine whom is already annoyed with the prospect of having to deal with the bats.

So time passes and the bats gets a few encounters of feeling as if they're being hunted. Jason is also the first to discover the new homeless kid in Gotham who looks almost exactly like Damian. It's hard to really see too many similarities at the time tho he's so thin it's deeply worrying and his icy blue eyes greatly contrast Damian's emerald green, but some similarities are far too obvious to miss. Oh great more black hair blue eyed adoption bait. Better keep him far away from Bruce.

The few run ins some of the bat kids have with Danny make them worried about the homeless kid. Dick, Tim, Duke and Jason all get run ins with the kid and tho they want to try and help the kid he always seems to vanish without a trace. It's kinda creepy but they all can recognize just how scared this kid is.

Eventually Bruce and Damian get their run in with the kid. The GiW have finally tracked Danny down and due to the stupid vivisection wounds not healing and the starvation of both forms he can't get the strength he needs to defend himself or make an easy escape. He ends up cornered in an alleyway and getting shot with luckily no major damage. Batman and Robin come across the scene of what appears to be some weird new gang bullying a homeless child and makes quick work of them.

After all is said and done and they look back to help the injured kid Damian ends up shocked to find that this kid is Danyal. At first he pulls his sword on him making threats thinking this is some sick and twisted trick from the league, but then he comes to his senses seeing how broken and defeated Danyal is. He doesn't flinch or shy away from the fate, though he has tears in his deeply tired eyes he doesn't fight back. He doesn't seem to have the energy to. He just sits against the walled dead end that almost got him killed and stares down the katana as if he no longer fears death.

Things get bit emotional as he questions his long dead brother. Danny is honest in answering he doesn't know how he came back nor does he fully remember how he died in the first place. He also dodges some of the questions and keeps the ghost half hidden. He explains to them he's gotten himself into trouble however and people are after him now and he appreciates the help. He keeps as much as he can about ghosts being involved a secret. He has no idea about the Bat's stances on them after all. And he seems to hate metas so probably won't take to kindly to a ghost.

Damian and Danny share info and Bruce discovers he has a son he didn't know about and deeply regrets not being there cause the state this kid is in is pretty dier. He's not sure he can fully trust the kid though. It's clear he's hiding something and that could be a danger to his family and Gotham, but he decides to give him a chance. After all this is his son and he wants to help him no matter what.

Bruce calls in someone to cover the rest of his and Damian's patrol route for the night and has Alfred get Doctor Thompkins to meet them back in the cave for medical assistance. They get Danny back and he starts getting some treatment for his wounds. Alfred and Thompkins are pretty horrified to find the vivisection wounds on the kiddo. They are definetly infected by this point. And much to Danny's dismay he has to use the excuse that he's a meta to explain why he's got such a low temperature and heart rate, why he can't use sedatives, and why stitches and stuff like that won't work.

So treatment is a bit difficult but they do their best with it. Alfred and Thompkins also discuss what needs to be done to get the kid back on track to being healthy. All the while Damian is anxiously waiting to be able to see his brother again. Bruce has never seen Damian show such emotion and care before aside from when he's dealing with animals. It's so jarring. And of course the other bat kids are snooping trying to find out what's going on.

So recovery is slow and bat kids try to connect with their new sibling whenever Damian isn't trying to act as a guard dog/mother hen. Danny ends up the closest with Damian and Jason in the family. Jason can immediately tell something is off with the kid due to the Lazarus water reacting to him and is the first person Danny opens up to about being half ghost (much to Damian's dismay). Jason keeps Danny's secret for him but encourages him subtly to open up to the others cause they'll definetly accept him despite the fact that he's half dead. They bond a lot on their mutual trauma and of course Damian is jealous but also happy Danny is actually talking to someone and getting back on his feet.

Damian still feels immense guilt over the first death Danyal faced and this guilt makes him think of course Danyal would want to avoid him that Danyal blames him too which is totally untrue and eventually gets worked through but not until after theres some conflicts due to jealousy. But that comes later.

One night Jason decides to stay over for Danny's sake and Danny has another black out. Basically his ghost form goes feral and tries to go after Jason. This results in the discovery that Danny was the danger Constantine has been looking for all along and there's a major blow up in the family due to this info. Danny only stops feral mode after eating a blob ghost (poor lil guy) and gets rudely awoken by the batfam accusations of attempted murder.

Danny is finally informed that he's been killing and eating ghosts and is horrified this goes against his whole goal of protecting everyone and keeping the balance and really goes against his protection obsession. It breaks him and Bruce yelling accusations at him doesn't help at all. Kiddo has a major breakdown and goes on the run from his new family thinking he is a danger and that he blew it with them.

Danny faces issues with injury to his core aswell due to what he's done and how that effects his obsession. Basically he's having a real bad time.

Jason whom has connected with the kiddo knows that this ain't Danny and somethings clearly wrong and so does Damian so the two reluctantly band together to locate and help the poor kiddo. With this team up Damian discovers Jason knew Danny was a half ghost and jealousy causes a fight but they manage to keep the team together out of concern for the kiddo.

The the other Bats team up with Constantine to track him down and eliminate the threat. Gotham tries to impede them though cause she knows the route they are on will only bring harm to the ghost king rather than help him. She tries her best to help hood and Robin find him first.

When Jason and Damian discover Danny he's in bad shape. Kiddos absolutely breaking down and very injured his core is definetly injured for sure. They try to offer assistance but Danny isn't thinking straight he's like a wounded animal so if he gets cornered he fights back.

It really doesn't help that the GiW manages to track him down yet again and the boyoa have to deal with both that and a ghostly Danny whom poses a risk of injury to not only them but himself.

With so much going on its no surprise that the GiW actually succeeds in capturing Danny. The two vigilante's end up getting knocked out and left to the wayside.

Eventually the other bats come across them and they explain Danny was captured by the thugs that first attacked him. Constantine recognizes the organization and is deeply frustrated but hey atleast it's not his problem anymore right? Wrong. With the kids explanations he realizes Danny was not actually evil. He's partially alive and he is a protector spirit not a rouge one. He also realizes how bad things are cause a spirit like that committing such acts that he has risks destabilization which would probably kill both the human and ghost half. He's no ghost expert but Gotham's giving him signs she wants him to help the ghost kid and now he's in quite the pickle.

So this leads everyone into panic mode and search and recuse mode. Theres a big rescue mission where they break into the GiW headquarters and fight the GiW to get Danny back. Of course he is having a hard time staying stable and they have to both use whatever magic Constantine can muster to keep him as stable as he can and on the spot therapy time to try and stabilize the poor kiddo.

Eventually they get him stable enough to bring him back home but now he has mandatory therapy sessions with Black Canary. They also have a lot of emotional work ahead of them aswell and physical work trying to get a steady supply of ectoplasm so the kid doesn't starve again.

They have to fight the Fenton's for custody aswell and try and dismantle the GiW and anti ecto acts. Its a long process and they really discover just how bad things were for the kid.

They probably have a visit to frostbite too if they can get a portal and this helps him heal and make sure no more ghost medical problems occur. This also helps the family learn a lot of ghost health is tied to emotional and mental health.

Damian and Danny probably end up getting in a few fights due to Damian's jealousy aswell but eventually work though it and become closer due to it. They are inseparable. And Damian also has to learn to get used to Jason being around and an active older brother figure. Bruce apologizes for his mistreatment of the kiddo too. Their relationship stays a bit rocky for a long while but they definitely make progress.

Theres a lot of emotions and emotional conflict and things are very rocky for awhile but eventually they get to be a functional and loving family dynamic! Danny gets a happy ending in the end it's not a perfect home but he definetly wouldn't want to be anywhere else :D

This is the longest prompt I've written yet I hope you guys enjoy it 💗💗💗