#dp dc

[snaileer]

Call to My Bedside

When Danny wakes up with shackles around his wrists and chains pinning him to the wall, he’s not all that surprised to see his mother in front of him.

And no, he doesn’t mean Madeline Fenton, although he wonders if he’d be surprised by that either and really, what does that say about his life?

But no, he’s not all that surprised to be staring into the eyes of Talia Al Ghul right now.

Even if his heart stops at the sight of her.

Immediately, he tries to stand, shoulders pulled painfully behind him as he tries not to let her loom over him.

This is a woman he barely remembers, through no effort of her own, but that’s what happens when you left a kid to be trained by strangers before he’s whisked off to America against his will at age 5.

Really she was lucky he remembered her at all.

She crouches down slightly to make up for their height difference, face softening too quickly to be real, “I am Talia Al Ghul. Though you may not remember, you are my child-“

“I remember.” Danny cuts her off, trying to keep the anger from making his eyes glow. He does remember, he remembers enough to know that it would be dangerous for them to know he has powers.

He settles for glaring at her.

For a second it seems she just watches him, but the kindness drops from her face as she straightens.

The slap catches him hard enough to jerk his head to the side, chains rattling behind him as he unsuccessfully tries to catch himself.

Instead, they go taut behind him, leaving him to jerk sideways, breath rough by the surprise of the hit.

“Do not interrupt me, child.” Her voice rings cold in the air.

Danny doesn’t bother to lift his head, instead keeping his eyes pinned to the grimy floor. Had he forgotten how unforgiving this place was? What it was like?

“Look at me.”

Danny kept his eyes downwards. He didn’t want to look at her. He wanted to go home.

“Look at me, or suffer the punishment,” She said, voice steely.

He slowly lifted his head, eyes meeting hers.

“Good. You know who you are then, child? What place you are meant to hold in this world?”

Danny doesn’t answer, only glaring.

She barely blinks but her eyes sharpen in warning.

Danny grits his teeth, “I’m Danny al -Al Ghul, heir to the Demon’s head of the League of Assassins-“

The second hit is just as hard, but Danny is better braced for it.

“Your name is Danyal Al-Ghul, you are my blood and the blood of Batman, your heritage dictates a higher quality of discipline than this and you will show it.”

Everything in Danny’s being rebels against the name. He hasn’t been Danyal in years. And he refuses to go back to it.

He straightens his back, ignoring the ache of his shoulders as he snarls at her, “My name is Danny, Danny Fenton. I haven’t been your precious heir in years, and you can’t make me now.”

They couldn’t and he wouldn’t let them, not when he had the power to-

Talia idly pulls something from behind her and he feels the blood drain from his face.

It’s a picture of him, Tucker, and Sam, next to it is a larger grid of images, each making his heart drop further in his chest.

Sam. Tucker.

Jazz. Mom. Dad.

All of them in cells. Chained.

Hurt.

His family, his family-

“Did you think we would not know of your gifts? Would not know how you would think to leave us? You clearly do not remember as much as you think you do.”

Danny can barely hear her over the static rushing in his ears.

She grabs his face roughly, “We are the League, child, and you are one of us. You may have thought you were like them, but we are better. Meant for better, and you will not be allowed to squander the gifts bestowed on our bloodline through you. Until you can make the right choice yourself, as your blood, we will make them for you.”

Danny looks into her eyes, the certainty behind her words, and he feels a gaping emptiness open inside him. The kind that knows it’s not going away.

He wants to go home. He wants to see his family, and his friends. He doesn’t care that his parents don’t know his secret, that he’s just barely getting a handle on it himself, he just doesn’t want to be here. Not again. Please, not again.

Talia releases him, and he lets his body droop, sinking into himself as he crouches over the ground, the restriction of his arms keeping him from even fully curling around himself.

“Remove the chains, he will not be going anywhere,” Talia says, her shadow falling over him in the dim light of the doorway.

Danny barely moves as the cold metal falls away from his wrists.

And he knows she’s right.

He won’t be going anywhere. Not as long as his family is in danger.

—

The first months were hard. Harder than Danny remembers. Maybe his five-year old self had just had it easy.

He doesn’t now.

“Again!” His instructor shouts, bamboo staff coming down on the back of Danny’s knees.

He doesn’t let himself stumble. Not anymore.

At least his Arabic is getting better, he can understand it completely, as if he’d never forgotten it -as if it’d been his mother tongue- and he can speak it smoothly again, though shallow. You can’t even hear his American accent anymore.

Danny hasn’t spoken English since that first week, when they’d beaten it into him every time he’d tried.

When they’d beaten him for not understanding fast enough. Not reacting fast enough, not responding fast enough, to a language he didn’t know, hadn’t known for years now.

They’re right about one thing.

Pain is an excellent teacher.

“Again!”

He moves fast enough to dodge the bamboo stick this time, body shooting forward against his opponent.

Dodge, lunge, feint, block, swipe, block, block, block-shit-block, reach-

His back slams against the stone floor of the courtyard, knocking the breath out of him.

The instructor doesn’t step in. He won’t.

Not even when his opponent’s hands clamp around his throat.

Danny struggles, trying to use his inhuman strength to pull the arms away, but that inhumanity has waned since he’s been here, drained like the rest of his energy.

He feels the weight begin to build in his skull, he can’t breathe, he doesn’t have much longer, what can he- Danny forcefully moves his arms away, fighting instinct, instead pulling his legs up and rolling, just as they’d drilled into him, the change in leverage giving him the break he needed to be free as he stands-

The bamboo slams into his back, knocking him forward, “Again!”

Danny rolls with the momentum, ignoring the new throbbing in favor of dodging his opponent’s grappling fists.

Dodge, lunge, dodge, swipe, dodge, dodge, hit, swipe, block, forward, dodge, block-

Danny breathes through the sweat dripping down his skin, the way his ribs creak with every breath, the way his muscles feel numb and disconnected. None of it matters.

He just has to win.

He doesn’t have any other options.

He never did.

Not really.

This is why they brought him here.

Why he was born.

He has to win.

Danyal twists the arm of his opponent back until there’s a sickening crack.

“Again!”

A new opponent flies towards him with fists already raised.

He doesn’t have any other option.

He never did.

——

The next time he sees Talia is just before the ceremony to his next stage. She is waiting in his room when he walks in.

“Mistress,” He greets, bowing his head, feeling phantom pain bloom on his cheeks. It’s the only thing that makes him call her that.

“Danyal, your training is going well,” She says, voice idle in that meandering sort of way. This isn’t why she’s here.

“I will improve,” He says anyways. Because he knows he’s not meeting their standards yet, knows they’re disappointed by the heaviness in his bones that weighs him down and drains his energy.

She stands, making Danny go stock still as she approaches, featherlight touch on his chin as she tilts it upwards.

English drifts from her lips, “You have his eyes, his cheekbones…” her eyes drift down again, and it still doesn’t feel like she’s even really looking at him, “My chin and my jaw…not like Damia-“

Her hand drops.

Danny can’t figure out the change but he can feel it. Hesitantly, he asks, in Arabic still, “Talia, why… are you here?”

The steel returns.

“The bat is dead. You are the last of his power,” She says, then pauses. She seems torn about saying more.

She doesn’t, exiting silently as Danny stares into the air, unmoving.

His… birth father… was dead?

A man that was a great enough warrior to impress the Demon’s Head. Impress Talia.

A man… he didn’t even know the real name of.

It’s not like the Bat was anything more than a name to him.

A name he had to live up to.

Danny sighs and turns to his drawers. He has a training ceremony to prepare for.

——

Danny doesn’t resist the arms that hold him back as they swipe a broad slash across the skin of his back with the whip, simply letting himself curl inwards around the pain before he’s dropped unceremoniously to the ground.

He pulls himself back up just soon enough to see the next person dragged in and thrown in front of him.

The handle of the blade is pressed into his hand.

It wouldn’t be hard.

It should be hard. Right?

Killing a man whose crimes he doesn’t even know should be hard. It’s meant to be hard, right?

Danyal wishes he doesn’t know how easy it will be to fall into it.

But he can’t keep doing this. Collecting scars because he’s clinging to morals that aren’t even his.

He can’t keep doing this. He can’t keep doing any of this.

He has to.

Danyal slices the edge of the blade across the man’s neck.

The cut is clean. Deep.

He’s dead in less than a minute.

Danyal’s own blood continues to flow.

——

Danyal doesn’t know what’s happening. One minute he’s training, trying to push past the exhaustion lining his bones, and the next the entire west side of the courtyard is in flames, crumbling down the side of the mountain.

Danny runs through the rubble of the passageways, searching for the source, searching for reasons, searching for… he doesn’t know, but he knows he can’t be caught doing nothing.

He doesn’t find anything except ruins.

Danny is called to meet Ra’s Al Ghul two weeks later. His grandfather. The Demon’s head.

The man doesn’t even look at him.

Danny stays kneeling all the same, better safe than beaten again.

“Are you familiar with Red Robin?”

Danny inclines his head, just barely, “I… can’t say I am…Great One.”

The following hum is derisive.

“He is one of the Bat’s… followers. Recently, he has proven himself to me. His ruthlessness is impressive, his ability to pursue his goals: admirable. He would make the perfect heir,” Ra’s says and he must know it makes Danny’s heart drop, why else would he say it, “Do you know what Timothy lacks, Danyal?”

Danyal stays quiet, eyes tracking the grit of the floor.

After a pause, near silent footsteps enter his vision, “You are the culmination of his mentor’s blood and my own, blessed with the gifts of the Lazarus pits, and yet-“ the cape swirls as Ra’s turns away, “Yet it is squandered by the mistakes of your upbringing!” He yells.

Danyal clenches his fists, willing himself silent.

The air of the room falls level again, “I grow tired of your mediocrity, Danyal. You will advance, or I will stop wasting my resources keeping your baggage alive.”

Danny’s head whips up before he can think better of it, meeting Ra’s Al Ghul’s eyes where they stare down at him.

“Do not mistake my past grace for mercy, Danyal. Mercy makes men weak. There is no room for weakness, and we are here to purge it from this world. Do not forget that.”

“Of course, Great One.” Danyal’s heart pounds in his ears, fear jumping across each beat sporadically, “I will do better.” He tries to fill his voice with confidence.

He’ll do better.

He has to.

Ra’s looks at him, then turns his back and waves a hand dismissively, finally allowing Danyal to stand and leave.

He feels Ra’s’ eyes on his back the entire time as he leaves. And no matter how much he wants to, he doesn’t stop in the hallway. Even once the door is closed, he continues forward.

In his mind, Danny stops and heaves a breath through the grief crashing over him.

In his mind, Danny is a million miles away, at home, with his family around him, happy and safe.

In his mind, Danny rushes back into Ra’s al Ghul’s grandiose throne room and attacks him with the sword he’s forced on him, not stopping until he’s free or dead.

In reality, Danyal breathes out with false calm and moves on.

He has training to get to.

——

Danyal can feel the pressure of the Leagues- of Ra’s’- expectations pushing down on him.

It’s not new.

But he doesn’t let it weigh him down anymore. He doesn’t have that luxury.

Instead, he uses it to push himself harder, farther, pushing until he reaches those expectations.

And surpasses them.

And keeps going.

He won’t-can’t stop. So he keeps going.

Moving up, learning, training, getting better, faster, getting stronger.

Getting weaker.

Danyal ignores the strained whisper of his core in his chest in favor of aiming at the target in his scope.

An Ethiopian politician, making a name for himself by drafting new acts supporting the build of a dam on the Nile River.

It would endanger the lives of thousands in Egypt, cutting them off from the water that has flowed through their country for millennia.

It would never make it through the legislative ruling without him.

This is their duty. To cull the disease. To burn away the parasites killing the world. The ones feeding off excess.

Danyal pulls the trigger and starts packing the gun away.

His hands move with robotic precision, even without his guidance. No, his eyes and his focus are elsewhere.

Instead, Danny stares at the newspaper laying damp on rooftop gravel, eyes scanning every detail, every line.

May 7th of 20XX. Over a year.

Alien invasion recently. Superman.

New hero in Russia.

Multiple car crashes in Pakistan. All survived.

None of it really matters to him, not really, it doesn’t tell him anything interesting, nothing he needs to know. It’s not even an American newspaper.

But…It’s the closest he’s come to freedom in so long. In almost two years.

Is it bad that what he calls a taste of freedom is knowing how long it’s been since he’s been free?

The rifle case clicks shut beneath his fingertips and he stands without so much as a lingering glance at the newspaper.

Danyal leaps off the roof, scaling down the side, ignoring the way his legs want to collapse beneath him as he lands in an alley.

He heads towards the rendezvous, job finished. Efficient as always.

Exactly as is expected of him.

———

It is several months more that he begins to realize there may be something truly wrong.

He’s training-fighting, losing- with the Lady Shiva. If Red Robin could beat her, Danyal must as well.

He’s fairing… okay.

They’ve been engaging for a while now, for a fight, a minute at least, maybe two.

He feels his breath rough in his chest, his face slick with sweat, his body buzzing with adrenaline and the push to do better-

His heart squeezes, seizing up tense and frozen for just a second, his body following in surprise-

There’s a sword through his stomach.

Danyal tries to focus again, to swing his sword, like he’s been trained, but everything feels… loose.

The sword is removed from his stomach, wet blood sliding down his tunic. Cold floor beneath his knees, had he fallen? No, he had to stand, get up, get up, get up. Get up!

Please, you have to get-

There’s hands on him, moving him, the hallways are too dark, -get up, you have to get up- he can’t tell where they’re going. No they’re not dark, his eyes are closed, he pries them open, gasping for breath as the pain in his stomach tears deeper.

Please, he just wants to go home.

Darkness still clouds his vision, but the people carrying him barely glance back as he groans.

His eyes flicker shut, too heavy to keep open as he tries to focus on anything but the pain, on not bleeding out, on please don’t let him die here, not here, please.

They enter another door, letting him stumble across steps farther and farther down.

When they reach the bottom, it seems as though every sound is sucked out from the room. An eerie silence thick in the air.

It forces his eyes open, just a squint, darkness prickling at the edges of his vision.

He barely catches a glance of cave walls before he feels himself thrown forward.

And familiar green fills his vision.

Panic surges.

Pain in his stomach. -His hand. The button!-

Green water surrounding him. -The portal is on!-

Liquid fills his mouth when he tries to scream. -There’s no sound between dimensions.-

It feels like burning acid running across every nerve of his open wound, creeping into his pores like tar covering a dying animal.

But it doesn’t feel like death.

He would know.

It feels a little like life.

He doesn’t want it.

He doesn’t get a choice.

He never does.

It feels like a thousand screaming souls, begging for justice and for freedom, just as he is.

They shout and yell at him to do something, to fight where they can’t, why can’t they, they’re so helpless, angry at their helplessness, angry at their inability, angry angry angry

Their pleas fill his ears, louder with each passing second.

He’s angry, angry, angry- how dare they, how dare they- he could win, they can’t stop him, they deserve it-who’s they?- he’s going to kill them, they can’t stop him-

Frigid humid air stings against his skin, no longer submerged, and green fog tinges everything.

But he-they- need to fight, kill them, stop them, do something, do something because they can’t- fight!

Danny lunges at the first person he sees, an assassin in all black at the edge of green waters.

His fist nearly collapses his skull. It doesn’t stop him.

There’s another and Danny lunges again, ignoring the sword that slashes towards him, grabbing it and snapping the metal with one hand, the other around the ninja’s neck, gripping, cracking, breaking-

Something heavy hits him over the head, the world staticking for a second as his hand loosens, a body dropping to the floor.

Hands reach at him, pulling, holding, restraining, and he fights with sharpened claws and fangs and burning fists of glowing energy and hands ripping hearts from their chest- until there’s so many bodies around him and restraining him, that it actually slows him down.

Enough to realize his powers are flowing easily once more, surprise cutting through the fog in his mind.

He stops actively pulling against the arms holding him down, his cheek now pressed painfully against rocky floor.

Where is he?

A nauseatingly familiar voice fills the room, “You managed quite the damage, Danyal,” Ra’s al Ghul stands in front of him, when Danny is able to lift his head and look, “Perhaps there is still potential hidden behind your weakness, the capabilities of your rage is akin to my first venture into these pools, so many centuries ago.”

The smile on Ra’s’ face sends twitches down his spine and confusion pools in his gut, “What…?” he murmurs, head still murky, but a bolt of fear races through his chest, and he forces his words into the League dialect once more, “What happened…? I..-“ His voice is small, and slowly he feels the assassins holding him release his arms and back away. He pushes himself upright to his knees, finding less strain in his muscles, in his bones, than he has for nearly two years.

“You failed your training, little Al Ghul,” A voice, Lady Shiva, speaks from his right. Her sword is still red.

Danyal’s eyes jump to hers, the memory rushing back- blood, the sword, falling, the water- his hand grips the side of his tunic even as his head snaps to the side, finally seeing the green waters lurking just next to them.

The Lazarus Pits, his training says.

Ectoplasm, his core whispers.

He looks down at the hole in the fabric of his tunic, any bloodstains around it all but gone. There’s not even a scratch.

The rest of his clothes are still layered with blood.

And Danyal knows it isn’t his.

He stands, watching as other league members file in, dragging away the bodies surrounding them.

There are too many to count.

He doesn’t even try.

Ra’s Al Ghul steps forward, drawing his focus once more.

He eyes Danyal critically, “Walk with me, child,” He says, already turning away with robes moving gracefully.

Danyal hurries to move with him, one step behind as they trail through the halls and corridors, slowly moving farther and farther up through the compound.

Finally they step out from an arch, the gentle late afternoon sun lighting up the sky with colors. Just enough light to see clearly, not enough to blind or burn.

It would’ve been a perfect afternoon to die on.

Instead, Danyal catches the sword thrown towards him with surprising grace. Ra’s face is filled with dangerous curiousity as he speaks, “Attack.”

Danyal doesn’t question it. Doesn’t wonder why Ra’s remains unarmed, doesn’t question if he might hurt him. He just acts, lunging forward at the command with nary a second thought.

“Starting today, you will train with me. Each week,” Ra’s speaks as he easily dodges and blocks Danyal’s hits, forcing him to take a new approach each time.

Danyal nods, “Of course, Great One.”

Ra’s knocks him to the ground, standing over him with sword drawn, “Call me Grandfather, Danyal. You’ve earned it.”

Danny’s heart squeezes.

He nods, “Of course Grandfather.”

——

After that, things change. Ra’s Al Ghul keeps to his word, calling for him each week, sometimes no more than a few days apart.

All too quickly it becomes a part of Danyal’s routine. The brutal training sessions of Ra’s beating him down and letting him up only to do it again.

He wishes he had it in him to question the Demon’s Head, but he doesn’t, so when Ra’s tells him to attack, even when unarmed, even when Danyal should rip his throat out with one use of intangibly, Danyal listens and attacks him.

Months into the now singular training, Danyal realizes that he hasn’t left this compound in a while, there hasn’t been a spontaneous move, or travel for a new master.

It’s just been… Ra’s.

He feels more stable, more stationary than he remembers being in so long. His youngest years had been the same routine of constant movement from base to base, compound to compound. And then he had lived.. in America, and had a single home, a house he knew the direction to from anywhere in town. For so many years, he been able to settle in one place.

Only to be uprooted once more, thrown back to everything he’d left behind, everything he’d-

Danyal enjoyed knowing where he would return to at the end of the day. The sense of familiarity that came with the same room, the same bed and halls, day after day, week after week.

Maybe that’s why it catches him by surprise when Ra’s calls for him at the base of a landing pad, jet idle behind him.

Danyal allows a nearby assassin to pass a pack into his hands, clearly full of materials.

For a moment, Danyal wonders where they are going? What new training awaits him at the other end?

Then Ra’s steps aside, dangerously graceful as ever, and reveals the bay of the jet to be not empty, but filled by assassins, each standing at command.

Danyal looks to Ra’s once more.

“An Al Ghul does not only follow, Danyal,” He says with a sharp smile as he approaches, laying a heavy hand on Danyal’s shoulder, “An Al Ghul leads. And as you are my heir, you must learn to command the respect of our members.” The hand squeezes on his shoulder, making him look up, meeting Ra’s in the eyes, “By any means necessary.”

Danyal looks away, looking back at the assassins waiting for him, for his command.

He’s not ready.

He has to be anyways.

The hand on his shoulder feels like lead as he steps out from under it, filling his voice with power he doesn’t feel, and sending the squadron scattering to new assignments.

Flight, equipment, weaponry, information, planning, infiltration, execution, all of it, it’s all on him to control.

Danyal turns back to gauge Ra’s’ reaction, only to find him already halfway gone, the sight of his retreating back the only response.

Okay, he’ll do this.

He can do this.

He has to.

What else can he do?

——

He takes to leading missions with the hand of a natural.

It’s easy.

Send these people here. These people here. Block every exit, erase every loose end, don’t leave any witnesses. Finish the mission.

Their missions are for the betterment of everyone, they are fixing things, getting rid of corrupt leaders, people unworthy of what they have, everything they’re doing is for a reason. It has a purpose.

He has a purpose.

So he ignores what’s behind every number he sends for each job. Ignores the calculation behind every call to secure the exit that has five private guards. Ignores the number behind the perimeter assignment because he knows the building has a late hour maid present each night.

They’re just numbers.

And he’s good at this.

At least he’s good at this.

He kills the first person to question an order.

They don’t question him again.

Everything runs smoother when they don’t question him.

It’s easier this way.

It’s always easier.

——

He’s traveling again. Spending more hours sleeping in hotels and safe houses than any bed he might deign to call his.

More and more time goes by, bit by bit, hour by hour, each filling his body with sand like setting concrete.

Slowly, Danyal feels it begin to wear on him. The exhaustion of the missions, his own body weighing him down with every strike he takes. Refusing to react with the speed demanded of him to succeed.

Danyal pushes past it. It doesn’t matter. This is his duty, it is all that is expected of him and he will do it. Even as he finds himself clutching his chest in the dark of a mission, blood still leaking from his target below him.

He forces himself past it, eyes flickering, steeling himself, then wiping down his blade and leaving, muscles tense and bones shaking.

He makes it as far as the car waiting in the near abandoned parking garage below, his chest continuing to tighten, heart erratic beneath his ribs. Danyal grunts, pain lacing up his arm, struggling not to stumble as he staggers into his seat with a near gasping breath.

He pulls himself together, his words as confident as he can make them as he speaks to the assassin in the drivers seat, “Call Ra’s Al Ghul. Bring me to him. Now.”

Danny feels his heart twitch in his chest, his hand flickering in his vision, or is it his vision that’s flickering, he can’t tell, still the cold leather soothes him, heart pounding louder louder, yelling, screaming in his ears, angry so angry so angry, rage rage rage, fix it fix it fight fight fight for us fight! Don’t let it go, never let it go, revenge, make them pay, they have to pay-!

He comes back with a gasp and a burst of pain across his shoulder, adrenaline and fury still coursing through his veins in equal measure.

His hair is wet, green liquid dripping down his face in sluggish trails mixed with foreign blood. It lays plastered on the curves of his face, framing his eyes as he stares up at the Demon’s Head.

The same malicious smile sits on his face, “Welcome back, Danyal.” The words are tinged with expectance.

Danyal pauses, collected his words around his tongue like a lead weight in his dry mouth, “I- Why was I put in the Lazarus pit again?” Danyal can only hope he’s showing the right amount of deference to even be allowed such a question.

“You were brought to me collapsed, and your heart failing you. The Lazarus pits provided a temporary solution,” Ra’s says, his eyes sharp, “But it is temporary. This problem will not be allowed to continue.”

“Of course, Master,” Danyal pulls himself to his knees, “…I believe it’s because of my accident-“ Danyal pauses, this is closest he’s come to actually telling them how he got his powers, what it did to him-, “There was electricity, and the shock, my heart was-is damaged. I don’t know why it’s getting worse-“

Ra’s hums, “The body can be fixed, child. The mind cannot. This,” Ra’s places a hand on his back as Danyal stands, “is merely an obstacle to our goal.”

“I will not fail you, Grandfather.”

“I know, child.” His words are a guarantee, an assurance to Danyal.

He will prove that the confidence placed in him is not mistaken.

——

It is barely months after that second time that Danyal once again feels his body’s failings encroach on him.

His heart beats off pattern, falling out of rhythm more with every passing day.

Danyal takes a deep breath, willing it to calm himself.

He will not let this stop him. He is an Al Ghul. He is capable. He is strong, and he will not be held back by his own body.

Danyal turns his focus inwards, ripples traveling along the surface of the ectoplasm in his core he’s left untouched for so long now.

He lets the ectoplasm submerge him, turning his form ghostly, his eyes sharper green than they’ve ever been before.

Danyal lets his feet lift off the ground, just for a second, weightlessness enveloping him, the buzzing of the world a background in his ears.

Then his toes touch the ground again and Danyal snaps into movement towards his closet. He puts on his usual league clothes over the old hazmat suit, feeling the layers lighten as he covers them up. Until it feels as though he’s only wearing the league clothes, and his white gloves stare in his face.

Slowly, he removes them, staring for too long at the green lines like cracks trailing up his arm.

Danyal turns away.

He has work to do, he can’t let himself be held up with small feelings like that.

As Danyal travels the halls, every step an effort to remain flat on the ground, he feels the ectoplasm within him roil, coursing faster and stronger than he ever had before, even in the Ghost Zone or in A-.

It revitalizes him and Danyal arrives to Ra’s Al Ghul’s training with bold confidence filling him.

Ra’s greets him an enigmatic smile and a challenge of his strength.

Danyal meets him kind, dodging every lunging, swiping every parry, light on his feet like he hasn’t been in years now.

Their fight lasts longer than any other they’ve had, his muscles able to hold up stronger in this form, his stamina infinite as the ectoplasm he draws from without any need for breathing or rest.

Ra’s Al Ghul is impressed even as he holds Danyal beneath his boot, his sword pressed to his neck.

Glowing green sluggishly leaks from the scratch.

Danyal pays it no mind.

Instead he stares at the small cut on the crown of Ra’s’ head, a single crimson red droplet crawling down the side of his face.

Danyal did not win. But he didn’t loose either.

Satisfaction fills him in a rush, carrying him through even as they reengage.

——

Danyal strives to reach his goals, to hit every target set out for him, beat every opponent put against him, to reach the expectations and the potential that the Demon’s head sees him.

To make himself worthy to be here, to stay.

And he knows his weaknesses hold him back, make him vulnerable, put everything-one- in danger.

So he stops being vulnerable. Stops letting his body, his weaknesses, dictate his capabilities.

Faster and faster his store of ectoplasm drains within him.

And Danyal makes himself stronger and stronger, short exposures of the Lazarus pits to keep it from stopping him.

He can’t stop.

So he keeps going, keeps training, fighting, growing- when had he gotten tall? When had he gotten older?

He keeps working, to be better, to be the best.

And as he approaches the Demon’s chambers weeks later, he is surprised to hear yelling.

More than that, he is surprised to hear Talia’s voice be the one yelling.

He pauses outside the door, eyes narrowed and body resting on the edge of invisibility.

He does not want to know the punishment for eavesdropping, nor for interrupting them… and yet…he hasn’t spoken to Talia, not truly, not since she told him the Batman was dead. Barely seen her except beside the demons’s head in ceremony as he stands at the edges of a room.

It has been entirely too reminiscent of his childhood.

Danyal’s ears prick up as the volume increases once more.

“You cannot ask me to bring him back to use him for-!”

“I do not ask for anything, Daughter! He belongs to the League! And the League to me! It was a mistake to allow you to keep-“

Ra’s’ voice drops too low to be heard through the door, muffling the rest of his words.

Danyal steps back from the door, standing in the hall with questions blooming in multitude.

Moments later, Talia Al Ghul steps through, a force of fury in every step. She catches sight of him immediately, and when Danyal makes eye contact, her eyes are filled with worry, stress, regret, a thousand what-ifs and plans and concerns.

Somehow he knows none of it is for him.

He bows slightly, and she passes by him without a word.

Danyal watches her hair flow as she retreats further and further down the hall until he finally turns around to enter the room.

Ra’s Al Ghul is waiting for him.

He gives no indication that he knows Danyal heard him, so Danyal doesn’t say anything. But he doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that means Ra’s doesn’t know.

He always knows.

His training continues.

For days, and weeks, and months more, he continues.

But even a ghost cannot lie to himself forever.

——

When Damian wakes up with chains around his wrists and the familiar feeling of harsh metal beneath his knees, he is not surprised to see his mother standing in front of him.

He wishes it were only his mother.

Instead, his grandfather stands in front of him as well, eyes staring down at him with impassive judgement. Damian feels his spine straighten against his will, the feeling of ‘never good enough’ creeping through his limbs.

He glances at his mother behind Grandfather’s looming form. Her face is uncharacteristically open, the barest hint of tension evident in her jaw, her eyes almost brighter with the concern hidden behind them.

Damian forces his eyes away as Grandfather begins to speak.

“You’ve wasted your time with your father Damian,” he starts, “Letting your training go to waste as the league continues to work to better the world.”

Damian wants to sneer, a scowl forming on his face, “The league does nothing but hurt innocent people. My time as Robin has saved hundreds.”

Grandfather’s eyes sharpen, “And I see it has taken your discipline as well.”

Damian grinds his teeth, “Anything I have learned, I learned from my Father and my family,”

“Your family?” Grandfather says, his tone almost mocking as he raises an eyebrow, “You are an Al Ghul-“

“I am a Wayne too!” Damian says, straining as he rises to his feet, “I am Damian Al Ghul-Wayne! Just as you wanted me to be! And it is my choice to be a hero, to be Robin, and I stand next to Father and the others with pride!”

Grandfather’s glare intensifies, “Do not interrupt me again, Damian. You will not be exempt of the consequences.”

Damian stares him down, fear pressing against his insides with a scream too familiar to his youth.

He turns away with a click of his tongue.

Shame whispers at his cheeks.

Grandfather waves a hand blithely as he turns his back, “Bring him.” He pauses at the door, “He remains bound.”

Damian watches his Grandfather leave, his eyes drifting sideways to his mother.

“Mother, why am I here?” He demands, tone sharp and clear. He tries not to let show how lost he is.

Mother steps forward, laying a gentle hand on his face and the other at the crook of his neck, cupping his cheek as her eyes soften. Regret sits behind them.

“Mother.” He says again, pulling slightly away from her hand, “Why am I here?”

She sighs, stepping back, “The Demon’s Head has need of you.”

Then he watches her leave as well, and Damian finds his arms and hands grabbed as assassins unchain him and push him forward.

He reluctantly lets them lead him through the unfamiliar halls of wherever they are, just a few paces behind his mother.

They stop in front of an open doorway, and when Damian is dragged in front, the sight he is met with brings confusion over anything else.

In front of him is a young man, no older than Todd or even Drake, laying asleep in a hospital bed with a heart monitor attached to him.

The beeping that fills the room is shallow and unsteady, much like the boy’s breathing. His hair is dark with speckled streaks of grey and a natural paleness in his skin.

Worse than that is the IV Damian can see tucked into the crook of his arm, tube trailing up to a bag.

Slowly feeding Lazarus water into his veins.

Damian whips his head around to look at his mother, only to find her staring disdainfully at the boy in the bed.

It only serves to confuse Damian more.

What had this man done to cause his mother such ire?

“Take the sample.” His Grandfather’s voice commands. And Damian feels the arms holding him shift to a more secure grip, pulling him to his knees even as he fights them. A man in a white coat approaches him, and Damian fights harder when he notices the syringe in his hand.

The sting of the needle is dull against the fear crashing through him as his grandfather watches.

His mother looks away.

Finally, Damian jerks as the hands he now knows are Ubu’s release him, still hovering close as he is dropped. He is surprised to see that they actually took blood, rather than dosing him with something. Sedative or worse.

Damian scowls at his grandfather, but he simply looks unconcerned as the assumed doctor moves forward to take a second sample, this time from the boy laying in the bed.

“Why am I here, Grandfather?” He asks, eyeing all parties critically.

“Haven’t you realized, Damian?” His Grandfather asks with a mockingly raised eyebrow, “His heart is failing, and the Lazarus waters can only fix so much by the nature of his defects. Your brother needs you, Damian,” Grandfather says, voice serene, “And you are going to help him.”

Damian barely has a moment to process his words before the hands are pulling him back once more, he yanks his arms from their grip, “Grandfather! What are you- let me go!” Damian turns fully to incapacitate the assassins, only to have Ubu pull his binds harshly sideways and give the servants leverage enough to actually tame his movements.

“Who is he?! Mother!” Damian turns to her, unsurprised to see her turning a blind eye once again, “Mother who is he!? What is Grandfather talking about?! What are you doing!?” The assassins pull at him again, successful in getting him through the doorway as he struggles.

Just before the door closes, he hears the Doctor speak to his grandfather, and his response.

“The boy is a match Great One.”

“Good, prepare Danyal for surgery. As soon as possible.”

The surprise is enough that the door closes in his face and he is dragged back through the hallways.

He stands as much as he can, walking at pace, refusing to allow them to disrespect him by letting them drag him.

He glares at Ubu as he shuts the door of his cell between them.

Once he knows he is alone, Damian takes a better register of his situation. He is still in his Robin uniform, so that means he was out with the family- he has a brother- they’ll be looking for him. He believes he’s on a boat, the rocking, the design of the doors and walls- a brother!- he has to make sure he can be found. Grandfather has plans for him-why tell him now- he doesn’t seem to be listening to Mother’s decisions- his brother’s name is Danyal- he might be in danger-they both could- how is he going to get out-

Damian stops.

He readjusts his clothing, feeling the minute shift once more. There’s something between the collar of his suit.

Slowly, Damian runs his hand along the fabric, finding a small bump he recognizes as a tracker.

One of his own bat made trackers. But how..?

Mother.

Damian scoffs to himself. Of course, he should have known she would never show such an obvious display of affection without reason. She was still largely loyal to Grandfather, but Damian was not so naïve as to think she did not care for him at all.

The vibration of the tracker is rhythmic beneath his fingers, the only solace he gets.

His family is coming.

He knows it.

He just hopes it’s fast enough.

——

Perhaps Grandfather’s first mistake was taking him as Robin, when his family was always the most on edge, the most prepared, the most connected.

Or perhaps his first mistake was training Bruce Wayne in the first place.

Either way, Damian watches from the other side of an observation window as his Grandfather and Father engage in a fight racked with fury on both ends.

Richard jostles him, bringing his attention back into focus.

Right.

His newest brother.

He mumbles an explanation to them, words slurred as they leave his mouth. But he knows they heard him. The shock-caution-suspicion painted across their faces could mean nothing else.

Perhaps his Father was under a curse. Surely there was a limit to how many unknown children one person could have in a single lifetime?

All the same, once freed, he moves to help Drake and Richard remove the boy-brother, Danyal- from the operation table next to him, stepping over the doctors knocked unconscious at their feet.

Reluctantly, he allows Drake to support him under one arm, the anesthesia still weighing down his eyelids.

They rush through the halls like a bull, both him and Drake separating to fight off more than one assassin. Even Richard has to set down Danyal to join the fight at least once.

But finally, they make it to the Batplane idling next to the hull.

The moment they are onboard, the plane starts to move away, but his Father is still on board.

Still fighting with Grandfather as they burst through the doors, fists and weapons engaged in equal measure.

Father dodges sideways, blocking hits until he reaches the rails, then he jumps over without hesitation. And just as Damian is about to shout for him, arm reaching out futilely, Richard blows past him.

He is leaping out of the open cargo door with just as much surety as his father leapt, a cord tied around him, and with perfect precision, he watches Richard catch his father at the extension of his swing.

It’s a perfect demonstration of their partnership.

And Grandfather is left scowling out at them from the ship.

His mother stands alone and calm on the upper deck, watching.

Damian turns his attention to his family.

And to Danyal with them.

——

Returning to the cave is less of an affair than Damian may have expected from such a mission.

His father is-has been- silent for most of the flight, staring at the body of Danyal with blank eyes.

Even Drake and Richard conspicuously cast a glance back every few minutes. Damian controls himself from doing the same. He is not so undisciplined as to be as obvious.

Still, the tension only rises the longer Danyal continues to remain asleep. Even by the time Damian feels the last of the anesthesia leave his own system, Danyal is unchanged.

Damian is certain his grandfather would not choose someone so sickly to be his heir, someone so incapable of protecting themselves in this state. Surely there was a reason he was kept, a reason he was allowed this weakness when Damian was-

Regardless, Damian didn’t trust it. The others could get pulled into this invader’s lies all they wanted, Damian would be there to stop him, he was sure of it.

Still, he watches Pennyworth dote over him in the medbay, Father laying him down on a medical bed with harried care, removing his cowl with barely a thought.

Damian ground his teeth, did they not understand that this was an operative trained by his Grandfather? An assassin with no attachment to them that was favored enough by Grandfather to warrant Damian being-

Damian turned to his locker, glad to replace his weapons stores and feel the weight of his sword at his side once more. It would be a pain, but he would have to find a way to receive a package from his mother if he wanted his other sword back.

It was merely a replica of one of his betters but the desire remained.

He watched from the corner of his eye as the family began to gather in front of the Batcomputer, the screen’s light casting shadows on them even in the artificial cave lighting. Finally, they were going to be doing something.

Damian approached, lingering at the edge where he could still see through the curtains of the medbay.

“I’m not the only one who noticed a suspicious lack of life threatening wounds right?” Drake began, turned away from the console with one hand still on the keys, “I mean, there was that first surgery cut, but that was the same as on Damian. It certainly wasn’t enough to necessitate Lazarus water being entered directly into this kid’s bloodstream.”

Damian scowled, “He was like that before they attempted this. Grandfather said that there was something wrong with… Danyal’s heart, said that I would be able to fix it.”

Father cast another brief look at the medbay, Pennyworth’s shadow still moving within. “I’ll have Agent A call Leslie. Robin,” he turned towards Damian, “Did Talia or Ra’s mention anything else to you? Where .. he’s been this whole time?..Why you didn’t know of his existence?”

Damian shook his head, “No, only that he was my brother and that the pit water was being used to fix him somehow. That I was needed to save him.”

Father hums, turning back with pensive silence.

“B, we don’t even know how long this kid’s been there, he’s older than Damian,” Richard pleads. And it makes Damian duck his head with clenched fists. Who was he? Why was he so much more favored by Grandfather?

Why had they told him he was the firstborn of mother? Of father?

“He could always be a clone with advanced aging, we know Talia is capable of it, she’s done it before,” Drake adds. But the theory sits uncomfortably with all of them. Something just not quite right.

“But then why did they need Damian?” Richard says back.

Father grunts.

“Is it really…” Richard starts, “I mean, we have to consider that she actually kept it secret again. Even from Damian.”

“But B wasn’t even with Talia before that, Damian was the first time they… y’know.” Drake says, a grimace on his face at the end.

Father hums, “But I’d fought Talia before. And I had trained with Ra’s.”

“All it would have taken is one DNA sample, right.” Richard says with a sigh, carding his fingers through his hair, “Well, we might as well-“

There’s a slight clatter on the medbay level, silencing everyone as their heads snap to the sound.

When nothing follows, Father motions them all to head up, flanking the room.

Damian is the closest, entering first. No sooner does he notice Pennyworth laying on the floor before he feels a hand slip around his neck and another quickly snatch the sword at his side. Within seconds, Damian feels his back pressed against another body, the cold steel of his own sword stinging at his neck as he stares into his Father’s eyes.

Except his father is not looking at him, he’s looking at the person holding him.

Danyal.

“Where am I!? Who are you!?” The voice behind him demands, the vibration buzzing against him with the familiar staccato of Damian’s native league dialect.

His family shares a weighted look, clearly hesitant to say anything. Already Damian can see the way their fingers twitch towards weapons and utility belts.

The steel at his neck tightens, “Tell me now or I slit his neck and deliver your bodies to the Demon’s Head myself.”

Father’s stance tightens, anger pulling at his gloves even as he forces himself to put his hands up in surrender. When he answers, it is in the League dialect, “We’re not a danger to you, Danyal,” the blade doesn’t so much as twitch, “Put down the swor-“

Stephanie Brown’s voice rings out across the cave, “Hey, Kate and I just finished patrol and-“

Damian doesn’t pay attention to the rest of the sentence because the moment Brown starts speaking, his assailant’s group loosens just a bit, accompanied by a low, broken whisper of, “English?…”

Damian immediately jabs the flat of his arm up, putting the blade farther from his neck as he begins to grapple with him.

In the blur of movement, Damian sees his sword coming at him, throwing his body back with a barely a second to spare, feeling the supporting hand of Richard on his back as he joins their combined front.

Danyal now stands alone in front of them, stolen sword extended in warning.

And now that Damian can see his face, he knows why his family was hesitant… Danyal’s eyes flicker a bright Lazarus green.

“What do you want from me? Why am I here?” he demands once again.

His Father steps up, “I don’t know how much know about me: my name is Bruce Wayne,” There’s barely even a flicker of recognition, “But you might know me better as Batman.”

The eyes widen, eyes scanning them with fervor before narrowing with suspicion and denial, “The Batman is dead, the Demon’s Daughter told me so herself.”

Drake steps forward, “She was wrong. He came back-“

Damian rolls his eyes, “Clearly Mother must have told you. Do not be stupid.”

Danyal’s brow furrows, silently mouthing the word ‘mother’ beneath his breath.

“I don’t-“ He cuts himself off with a grimace, hands tightening on the shaft of the sword, “I don’t believe you, what-“

“What happened? Did we bring back the demon spawn, why are you all-“ Brown bursts into the room, words already filling the air. Only to stop when she sees Danyal.

He raises the sword at them again, noticeably less stable as he supports it with two hands, “Who are you!? Why am I here!? Tell me-“ He grunts again, putting a hand to his chest, “Tell me, now! I-“ the sword drops, Danyal using it to support himself like a cane. Father steps forward, hands extended. It only serves to make Danyal lift his head to glare at him.

“Stay back-“

“We’re only trying to help-“

“I said-“ Danyal grunts, hand clenching at his shirt as he drops to his knees, “Stay- Stay back- I’m-“

The sword falls from his hands with a metallic clatter on the stony ground, Danyal gasping for breath.

“Back- off..” He whispers, the English falling from his lips with desperation as he curls in on himself.

Father rushes forward the moment Danyal’s body goes limp, lifting him onto the medical bed as the room bursts into motion. Richard is grabbing medical equipment as Drake helps father with providing CPR as Brown moves to get Alfred, all of them quick to jump to action.

Damian slowly steps forward, picking up his abandoned sword from the floor.

He turns it over in his hands, making sure it is unharmed from the ordeal even as he watches his family rush to help each other.

Just what had Grandfather been doing to Danyal?

Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/snaileer/752878745769181184/call-to-my-bedside-part-2?source=share

[ourrechte-blog]

A Funny Take on Raising Baby Dan Dan

I had to make a Gridman reference. I had to. Moving on, you've seen this. Dan gets deaged and Danny hides out in Gotham for reasons. Now here's the humorous take

Rather than Danny taking Dan (and Dani) to Gotham, Valerie hears about it and deciding that Danny is too Fenton to care for the literal end of the world and kidnaps the baby to raise into a model citizen by herself

Can you just imagine the divorce energy if Danny takes deaged Dani to Gotham at a later date and runs into the Grays?

And can you just imagine this too... Dan steals the Talons when the courts think he's the Gray son they were promised

[radiance1]

Alfred Pennyworth has in fact, perhaps, in the slightest of chances.

Picked up his Master's habit of collecting children as if they were on sale.

He was spending his time on one of those rare vacations he decided to take, it was nice, to relax with only the vague overhanging worry of something going wrong back at the manor that he's gotten very good at ignoring.

Only to come across a child bleeding out in an alley, heavily injured.

He would not be able to live with himself if he didn't at least try to help them however he could.

Such is how he acquired a child he later found to be a meta who whished to learn the ways of a butler.

---

Danny had escaped from a GIW compound, after having been handed over by his family a while after his reveal. He felt, completely and utterly betrayed, when it happened. His parents, while hurt, he was at least capable of actually seeing them do it, but never would he have thought Jazz would do so as well.

They did it so happily, that he wondered if letting him go really was the greatest thing to happen to this family.

He chained, muzzled, all the ways to bind him they pulled all the stops too, knowing how dangerous he was. He wouldn't have even done anything then, too stunned by his families apart willingness at handing him over to the government.

He hated them.

He hated them so much.

The GIW facility was a terrible, cold, unfeeling place. One where they drilled thoughts into his head again and again until he found himself unconsciously repeating them when his head felt empty, one where his body gained a new mark day by day and pushed through tests, he had no clue of even hoping to comprehend what they would gain out of it.

It was a cold, unfeeling place. Placed in a cell of white and nothing else, with low walls and chains binding his body in place until the time came for another experiment.

It was a room he grew used to. One he even held some kind of strange, twisted affection for.

It was a room that held a tiny piece of safety, of rest. It was a room that taught him to hate.

A deep, powerful, disgusting, twisting hatred that crawled from the depths of his cells, corrupting his blood and carving itself deep into his bones. Forcing it's out of his pores until it practically oozed from his flesh.

It drowned his mind, tainting each and every thought, every memory, every dream, every waking moment until he could feel nothing but hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehate.

When he was taken out of that he could feel nothing, with the drugs swimming their way through his blood that snapped the thin string keeping him between a person and an emotionless puppet.

He thinks that's what the GIW thinks he is.

And when he was placed back in that room, he could only hate.

It was a cycle. Stuck between feeling either nothing or hatred.

He hated feeling nothing, it made him feel like he wasn't real. Like it snapped the thread that held him between what a real person was and a dream.

So, he allowed himself to drown deep into his hatred. Until the white walls of his far to small room seemed to fade, until whatever sound he could have heard became nothing but dull noise.

Until the passage of time seemed to become just a blink.

He didn't know what day it was, when he saw it. Saw them. He didn't know the time, the date, the day, the hours. He knew nothing.

But he could recognize his family. Recognize one of the objects of his intense hatred that he forced his thoughts too. The people who willingly gave him up just like that and one of the causes for his current life.

He didn't know why they showed him them, he felt it some sick, utterly cruel joke. A joke he didn't know the punchline for, a joke the universe sent his way to make his life all the more miserable.

There were multiple of them. Multiple clones of his family. Som within test tubes, some being pulled out from the tubes, some walking around in lab coats. A waste of talent, they called it in his dad's case, a waste of intelligence in his mother's, and a waste of intellect in his sister's case.

His original family was already dead, he was told. Replaced by clones, clones that took over the legal decision to change his guardianship. Clones walking around twisting and desecrating his family.

'At least it was painless.' One of the clones said, talking with his mother's face. 'Far more than they deserved for having keeping a thing like him' spoken by his father's imposter.

The drugs pumping through his system to keep him calm, to keep him feeling nothing was suddenly pierced through by an intense feeling of horror, hate and self-loathing.

He should've known it wasn't his family. He should've done more! More to protect them! To keep them safe! The could've still been alive if he just knew.

In that moment, watching imposters speaking, walking, talking, breathing, with his families faces. He exploded. Exploded with a power fueled by nothing but his intense hatred for every. Single. Living being in this goddamn facility.

He killed whoever stood in his way. Managing to get his hands on relatively newly designed weapon, an ectoplasmic scythe (that also apparently could revert into an everyday item). Which he used to rip and tear throughout the entirety of the facility. He got injured, of course, he couldn't dodge everything, but he didn't care.

A body stuck between life and death, incapable of fully going one way or the other no matter what happened. Gifted supernatural powers fueled by wrath and twisting hatred and a weapon made by man yet in the range of the supernatural.

They didn't stand a change. He killed them all. No matter who it was, man, woman, clone. He didn't, couldn't care. He could only kill, only maim, only hurt.

And that's what he did.

It was then, when the facility was blanketed with silence tainted by despair, death and hysteria. When previously white walls were covered by blood, and the halls turned into rivers of blood and corpses. That he broke down, the overwhelming hatred he felt replaced by relief then sadness then self-loathing.

His family didn't give him up! But they were killed. Kill because of him. He couldn't stand being in this place, anymore. His body felt as if it were moving on unseen strings as it walked through the halls, the scythe shrinking back what it was when out of combat, his mind too occupied by thoughts and feelings.

It walked through a portal, one to the ghost zone, and then promptly into another portal and spat him out into an alleyway. Which he then promptly collapsed and curled into a ball, curing the shrunken scythe in his palm and he was out like a light.

A few days after he woke up, he found himself growing attached to the human that found him in that alleyway. An old man, maybe, but a nice one. He didn't want to meet anyone, besides that man, so he turned invisible when anyone else come into contact with him.

Alfred Pennyworth.

It was a name he clung onto mentally and a man he clung onto physically as well. He wanted to be like that man, someone so nice and caring, someone who didn't mind that he turned invisible at the sing of another person, who let him cling onto him both invisible and not whenever he wanted to.

He did panic when he heard Alred saying his vacation was over, and such that he had to leave. He didn't want to be left alone again, he didn't know what he would do if he was left alone again.

Until Afred said we were going home.

We. As in, him plus another. Alfred plus Danny.

Home.

Heat blossomed in his chest, seeming to replace the constant, low hum of hate sitting beneath him skin.

Home.

[meira-3919]

DPxDC

Aight!! Calling on a good portion of the DpxDc fandom! Please help a gal out?? Like, I'm looking for this fic, here are the deets:

It's definitely a DpxDc fic.

The main characters are Danny, Diana/Wonder Woman - and in a way, Clockwork.

Clockwork gets Diana to care for Danny in this fic

Diana and Danny are cousins in this fic

They are both pretty, like crazy beautiful

Diana gets Danny a gig in the museum she works at. People go to his section because he's pretty....

Please, send titles...please???!!!

[starry-bi-sky]

more clone^2

snippet 21: Danny is Bruce Wayne's Clone and--

Star, with the rest of the A-List girls: alright ladies! it's time for our quarterly 'cutest boys' list! Now I'll get straight to the point, in our number one spot is--

All girls, in unison: Danny Fenton

Star, writing it down on a whiteboard: and for our number two spot--

---------- Snippet 22: clone meet clone

Ellie, dramatically: Danny!

Danny, equally dramatic: Ellie!

Ellie, pushing past him and looking around: where is he! i wanna see the little guy!

Damian, with a sword, brandishing it dangerously: *in arabic* don't come any closer, stay back!

Danny, wrapping an arm around Ellie's waist and pulling her back: woah, woah - he's still adjusting to everything

Danny, turning towards Damian with his google translate open: [please don't stab her. this is Ellie my clone.]

Damian, lowering his sword in disbelief: 'there's MORE of you?

-------------- Snippet 23: Ellie has the same epiphany as Danny

Ellie:...hey Danny

Danny, pouring over his arabic book: hm

Ellie: since I'm your clone, and you're a clone of Bruce Wayne, and Damian is a clone of Damian Wayne, does that technically mean I'm his mom - uh. dad-mom?

Danny:

Ellie:...its a fair question

Danny: .....*deep sigh* you're his cousin until further notice.

------------ Snippet 24: wait for me ii (hadestown, live vers.)

(i'm not sure of the context, but i've been thinking of Danny saying this to Damian during a serious moment for days. the snippet title is the song that the dialogue below is from)

Danny, fixing up Damian's wraith suit: the meanest dog you'll ever meet

Danny, zipping up damian's jacket: it ain't the hound dog in the street. he bares some teeth and tears some skin, but brother,

Danny, adjusting Damian's gloves, pausing to look him in the eye: that's the worst of him.

Danny, he holds a finger up to Damian's eyes and points it at him: the dog you really got to dread, is the one that howls inside your head

Danny, grabbing damian's mask and smoothing it over his eyes: it's him whose howling drives men mad, and a mind to its undoing

------------ Snippet 25: Danny is Bruce Wayne's clone-- (Battinson Vers*)

Ember, in the middle of a fight with Phantom + Wraith:

Ember, knocks off Phantom's mask for the first time: lets see what ugly mug you're really hiding under there, Phantom--

Phantom: *the wettest, most pathetic looking pretty boy on the planet*

Ember:

Phantom, dryly: what, did your mic die out or something? all that caterwauling finally make you lose your voice

Wraith, unsheathing his sword: *vibrating with baby brother rage bc he knows EXACTLy why Ember is silent*

----------- Snippet 26: Damian is finally starting to play nice :)

Dany: hey... guys.... whatcha doing

Damian, hanging out with Sam: Me and Manson are plotting ways to crush the Mayor's plan to cut budget funding for the city parks and cut down the native trees

Danny: oh, i see.... is this safe?

Sam: probably

Danny: hm.

------------- Snippet 27: digging up cold case

Danny: ....if Damian is out with Sam tonight with their plot against the mayor....

Danny, turning towards his desk: then that means I can work some more on Mrs. Witherbury's murder case that she asked me to solve without Dames guilt-tripping me into bed :)

Danny, settling down at his desk with a thermos full of coffee: i'm glad sam and damian are finally getting along

--------- Snippet 28: sparring

Damian, frowning: your reflexes are incredible but your combat is downright awful, brother. it's truly a miracle i didn't skewer you upon our first meeting

Danny, got his ass kicked by his 7yo brother: *groaning in pain* not everyone has super secret assassin training, Damian. And I don't really have time to actually practice anything.

Damian: Mrs. Fenton knows martial arts and her form is proficient enough, I'm sure she would be delighted to teach you if you asked. I will join since I need to keep my skills sharp and my training was unfinished when I arrived here.

-------- Snippet 29: daytime surprise

Phantom, fighting Skulker in broad daylight: *under his breath* at least Lancer's english test will get canceled for this...

Phantom, dodging a blast from Skulker: *in ASL, furious* don't you have anything better to do, you fuck!?

Skulker: foolish ghost child, speak! I know you're capable of it - speak before you lose the ability to

Phantom: *flips him off instead*

Wraith, sending back a ecto-blast with his sword: please pay attention, phantom

Phantom, doubletaking: *in a hissed whisper* what are you doing here!? it's a school day, you should be at school!

Wraith: Tt. If the boot fits.

------------ Snippet 30: guilt

Danny with his head on his desk, his elbows propped up as he massages his hands: hn

Damian, lurking to the side with a guilty look on his face:

Damian: can i....

Danny, silently holding his hand out to Damian: hrm

Damian, immediately taking it and doing the massages + finger exercises: ...im sorry

Danny: hm... I forgive you

[theglamorousferal]

Incorrect DPxDC quote:

Jason: *learns he has contaminated ectoplasm and an only partially formed ghost core* can I get that in writing?

Frostbite: Certainly!

Later

Jason: *rolls up to the Batcave where everyone is meeting* GUESS WHAT? I DID come back wrong.

Dick: Jaybird, no you didn’t-

Jason: *slams doctor’s note on the meeting table* GHOST DOCTOR SAYS SO!

[jaxon-exe]

Most efficient ER in Gotham

Had the idea of ER nurse Danny and ER doc Damian working in the same ER.

Like their the same age but Danny was working there first (bc it takes less time to become a nurse than a Dr) and everyone in the ER loves him. He is the most component nurse they’ve ever had and is always cool, calm and collected even in the most stressful of times. Drs know that if shit hits the fan they can pass any patient that’s not dying right this second over to Danny and he’ll get them sorted all by himself, cracking jokes the whole time to keep everyone else from freaking out.

Then Damian starts working there and he’s basically a no nonsense Danny. Nothing fazes the guy. On his second day there he handled a gun shoot wound, spinal injury, rib fracture and stabbing all within an hour of starting his shift, all on different patients. He gets in, gets shit done and moves on as if he was dealing with a minor problem not 3rd degree burns.

Now these two, despite working at the same hospital, have never met. Bc Danny works the night shift and Damian works the day and every person that works there is so fucking glad that’s the case bc non of them expect them to get alone. Like Danny’s all wise cracks and jokes and Damian is all ‘stop wasting time’ so even tho they’re both efficient as fuck, no one expects them to tolerate each other.

Then on the first Halloween Damian works there, every member of staff is on shift bc it’s fucking Gotham and all the staff r just bracing for the inevitable fall out of two unstoppable objects colliding. Only it never happens bc these two get alone like a house on fire. Like yeah normally Damian gets up people goofing off but that’s bc their not doing work and just wasting time, he sees nothing wrong with Danny’s jokes bc he’s getting work done while he jokes. It’s like working with Dick, he honestly finds it a bit reassuring bc if Danny is cracking jokes it can’t be that bad. Danny on the other hand is just so glad to have someone else that can keep pace with him. Normally by this time of night he’s juggling 8 to 18 patients on his own with only minimal help from the on shift doctors but now Damian is right there with him and the two r basically tag teaming the hoard of mass casualties that just came in.

Needless to say that night Gotham general was the most efficient hospital on the planet and every doctor and nurse on staff have the horrible realisation that while they had mentally prepared for these two fighting, they hadn’t prepared for the fucking hurricane these two form when they get alone. 

[snaileer]

To Play Pretend

(PhantomVision Revised)

Let me out! Let me out!

This is isn’t real! It’s not real! Accept it, play along play along. Get out! Convince him, you have to convince him! Get out! Wake up! Snap out of it! Play along play along play along

Wake up! It’s not real wake up wake up accept it wake up wake up wake up get up get up get up

Bruce sits bolt upright with a haze of fog still between his skin and his mind. Immediately, his gut feels off, the way his shoulders are loose with the lack of anxiety and paranoia that he’s grown used to, the way his vision is not quite aligned to his senses.

And yet.. he can’t seem to raise the right sense of alarm. His mind stays slow and calm, even as he mentally screams to start investigating. Someone, something is messing with his mind.

He turns his head to the side of the bed he’s in-another thing he does not recognize- surprised to find Diana laying next to him.

How is she here? No, they were on a mission, investigating.. something. Why can’t he remember? He’d had Oracle on comms, Wonder Woman at his side, it was a Justice League mission- why is he-

Bruce winces, sharp pain running across the front of his brain. What was-

The door slams open, a boy he doesn’t recognize standing there, dark black hair, and blue-green-blue eyes. His mind jumps to son, a shallow feeling of family bubbling up that makes Bruce want to recoil, this isn’t Damian, it’s not Tim or Jason or Dick or Cass- this isn’t his son! This isn’t his family! he wants to yell out.

And yet, his mouth calls him Danny, a name he doesn’t know and says with such familiarity.

“Dad! Babs is being a know it all again!”

Bruce feels his face smile without his permission just as he sees Barbara step around the doorframe.

She’s standing, she’s younger, she looks just a little different, hair pushed back by a teal blue headband- Bruce wants to scream, something is wrong!- instead he smiles more as she ruffles Danny’s hair.

“Little Brother, you’re going to be late for school,” Barbara says, despite the fact that she had always, always been an only child.

Diana sits up beside him, and Bruce can’t even turn away from the two in front of him, no matter how much he tries, barely managing a wide eye look from his peripheral. He can’t tell if Diana even catches it. He can’t move, can’t interrogate the only unknown here, kid or not, can’t research or ask Oracle for more information. Barbara hasn’t been able to reply to him any more than he has.

Within a blink, they’re downstairs-how did they get here, what’s happening, is there a time distortion as well?- and Bruce is standing at the stove top, a pan of broken eggs with small bits of shells in them in front of him.

It’s manageable. He could still finish these eggs- unbidden he steps aside, a jovial laugh as Diana goodnaturedly scolds his cooking abilities, emptying the pan and starting anew.

Bruce turns. Danny and Barbara are both sitting at the table, Danny the picture of teenage recklessness, homework spread in front of him.

Every word looks like scribbles, staring too hard makes his brain hurt.

The toaster dings. Danny looks up at it, glaring. Bruce swears his eyes flash green-

“All done! Enjoy!” The clink of plates hitting the table makes them both look over as Diana sets them down.

Barbara and Diana share a look even as Diana stiffly turns back to the counters.

Bruce looks at the toaster.

Empty.

“Come on, Babs we’re gonna be late for school!”

Barbara hesitates, a pained look hidden just behind her eyes, “Danny, I- my legs hurt right now okay? I can’t drive us to-“ The words sound like a struggle to get out. And Danny stands stock still in the living room, looking at her with unnatural stillness.

“But you always drive us to school.”

Bruce watches Barbara’s body snap back to that same stiffness as before as she moves to stand from the kitchen table.

Bruce forces a step forward, smile on his face, “How about I drive you today, kiddo?”

“Okay, Dad!” Danny smiles, movement returning to the room. He moves to grab his backpack left against the wall and Bruce throws another look at Barbara from the side of his eye. She’s okay for now, body more natural as she returns the look with wide eyes herself.

Still, she stands and follows after them as his feet lead them to the car out front.

It’s an old station wagon, a stereotypical family car.

Even as Bruce walks around to the driver door, keys somehow already in his pocket, he catches Danny staring at the car with narrowed eyes and suspicion.

Bruce looked back at the car- truck, had it always been a truck, no, no, no, it changed it changed, things were changing.

Danny climbed into the backseat like nothing was different and Bruce did the same, Barbara behind him in the backseat.

His body is autonomous on the drive, even as Bruce tries futilely to jerk the wheel or slam the pedals, they continue to go forward on the road, Bruce’s face as calm as ever. It’s almost familiar, the two of them bickering in the back seat, chattering like his own children, there were his own- no! They weren’t! His kids were out there! Not here! Not here not here-

Bruce stops, awareness heightening abruptly, his limbs his own.

They’re at a stop light, despite there being no other cars around.

The backseat is silent.

Bruce turns back, surprised to see Danny staring silently out the window. He looks at Barbara next, grateful to see real emotion, pain, panic, on her face, not just hidden behind wide empty eyes.

Danny continues to stare out the window.

Bruce follows his line of sight across the street to a closed down burger restaurant. The outside looks clean, but the sign looks burnt and destroyed. Yellow caution tape flaps in the wind across the entrance.

“Danny, what are you looking at?” He asks, surprised to hear the words come out, completely of his own volition.

Danny doesn’t move.

“We don’t go there anymore.”

Bruce narrows his eyes, clues filing into order, “Why, Danny. What is that place?”

“We just don’t.”

“Why Danny, why is that place so-“

“We just DON’T, okay!” Danny shouts, face angry as he turns around to yell, and there- his eyes, that flash of neon-

Bruce is facing forward again. The light is green. The car moves, sound resumes.

His chance is gone.

Bruce wants to grit his teeth, clench the leather of his gauntlets beneath his fists. He barely manages to tighten his hands around the steering wheel.

Too quickly they arrive at the school. Barbara slowly getting out even as Danny practically races up the steps. Bruce wants to help her, surprisingly, his body follows. Allow him to support her under a hug, a fatherly hand on her opposite shoulder, fingers supporting her armpit as they go up the stairs.

Danny looks at them with a tilt of his head and furrowed brows.

Words fall from Bruce’s mouth, unbidden, as his feet force him backwards, “See you after school, Danno! Bye, Babsy-pants!”

The look vanishes from Danny’s face.

Seconds later, a man approaches them, eyes zeroed in on Danny.

“Ah, Daniel, glad to see you’re on time!” The man says, and Danny looks at him, blinking harshly with confusion apparent.

“You must be young Daniel’s father… Jack, was it?” The man smiles slightly and turns to Bruce, grey hair tied in a ponytail behind him, “I am his teacher, Mr. Lancer.”

Bruce’s neck tingles, an odd sense of familiar paranoia prickling his nerves, “It’s Bruce, a pleasure to meet you,” he shakes the offered hand automatically, watching as the man’s smile sharpens at the edges.

“And the same to you… Mr. Fenton.”

The name rings hollow in his memory, barely scratching a memory before it is buried under fog and stuffed cotton.

“I just have so much to teach him,” Mr. Lancer smiles again, watching as Danny finally walks fully through the school doors, turning down a hallway.

Even under whatever spell this is, Bruce is wary of this teacher, though he can do nothing to show it, even feel it past a surface notion of wrongness. But still, his feet carry him down the steps without his permission, away from a kid he is ostentatiously supposed to protect.

As he gets closer to the car, Bruce feels the cloud over his thoughts get thicker, step by step, each clogging his mind more.

He catches sight of the school’s announcement sign, the date.

Mid-October, the numbers hard to read, but he caught enough.

They were months into the school year already. How long had he been here? How long before he’d even woken up enough to know it? How long had he been away from his family?

His fingers clasp around the cool metal of the door handle.

Bruce blinks.

The bell rings.

Faceless, unfamiliar kids flood out of the doors and Bruce gets out of the truck- car, it was a car, it was a car-greeting Danny with a hug, Barbara with a helping hand.

They leave almost immediately, the two of them in the backseat as Bruce drives.

Occasionally, Bruce will look in the rear view mirror and find a completely different sight, the road cracked and broken, buildings abandoned, streets empty; and yet when he checks again, it’s gone. The reflection the same as the road before him.

He can only see it like a translucent image in his peripheral.

Somehow their route home does not take them back past the burger restaurant again. Bruce has used and discarded three different mind strengthening techniques by the time they are back in front of the house.

He parks, noticing for the first time how the air shimmers in front and top of it, the light shifting like a curtain covering furniture when he doesn’t look directly at it.

Diana is sitting on the couch in the living room when they come in, a laptop perched on her lap, looking for all the world like a stay at home worker.

The seemingly blank pieces of paper on the coffee table are discarded as she gets up and moves towards the kitchen.

“Welcome home Danny, how was school Babs?” She says, food preparations already set out around her.

Bruce walks towards her, a hand across her shoulders; the picture of loving parents.

He hopes the feeling of solidarity gleams through anyways.

Freedom of movement snaps through his body so suddenly he nearly staggers. He looks at Diana, a thousand words in one glance, then turns to Danny.

The boy is staring at the door on the side of the kitchen. By its placement, Bruce would guess storage, a pantry, a basement maybe. He hesitates to break the unnatural stillness in the air.

Diana is already halfway to the door, Barbara is at the table, thumbs flying across her phone screen.

He makes a decision, throwing away the facade, “Danny, where are we? Why are we here?”

Danny’s face furrows, head tilting in confusion, but his eyes don’t leave the basement door, green light seeping from the edges.

“We’re… at home. Right? I just wanted… I wanted to go home..” Danny says, eyes flickering that damning bright green.

Bruce presses on, he needs answers, “What happened here Danny? What is this? Why are we here?”

“I…” Danny’s face furrows further, “I don’t…”

The doorbell rings, snapping Danny’s attention to it. Taking with it his mind and movement, fog sliding over his senses.

Bruce’s looks at the basement door from the side of his vision, any hint of green light gone.

“Danny, your friends are here!” Diana’s voice calls out.

Bruce’s vision jumps to the front door, thankful that he follows Danny as he leaves the kitchen.

No no no.. no no.. not them, leave them alone, leave them out of this!

Tim and Stephanie stand at the door, plastic smiles on their faces as they high-five Danny.

“Hey guys! Ready to play Doom?!” Danny says, a wide smile on his face, leading them both inside.

Straight past Bruce.

They walk right past him, shallow words and teenage garble trading between them like it’s natural, like it’s real. Why wouldn’t it be?

NO! Not them! None of it’s real! Let them go!

“You know it Danny! I got new mods, maybe we’ll finally beat Steph!” Tim says, loud in way he never is, pulling a bulky PDA from his pocket.

Stephanie laughs, elbowing the both of them, “Not in a million years, T!”

Bruce watches, helpless to stop them as they go past him, raging against his own body.

Tim casts a desperate look over his shoulder before they disappear up the stairs.

He manages a glance at both Diana and Barbara, each returning the tense undercurrent of urgency that runs through them all.

Even as the fog thickens, submerging his thoughts like polluted waters, he forces his mind to center on one thought, even if that’s all he can do for now, he will not be locked back into this lie they are trapped in.

He will fix this.

Somehow.

[aquawyrm]

But they should believe him. They absolutely know people that can shape shift, or that have multiple forms. Batman works with Etrigan sometimes!

On the other hand, Jason likes to fuck with them.

Holds up idea: Danny is Jason's ghost dad/guardian after he dies and comes back (possibly halfa!jason) and just celestial giant eldritch space ghost danny with his tiny (lol but still Canonbrick house built jason) son

And when Danny is in non-eldritch/human ghost form he is this huge ass fucking 8 (or ten just to fuc with people) foot tall built guy who looks like he could fucking crush superman looking like some old warrior in space themed armor and long hair that floats cause fuck gravity. Who showed up during patrol once and just punted Bane off an injured Jason like he was an annoying fly.

And as in his living human form, he is a fuckin short ass smartalick mf (still built but less obvious) who looks like an astronomy prof with space themed cardigas and has long hair who gives Jason cookies patrol. Who rambles about space if someone list

The Batfam do not believe Jason whe he says that those are the same person.

[ourrechte-blog]

On Bad Ectoplasm

So in the DC x DP stuff, it's always Lazarus Pits being bad ectoplasm because of impurities. You know what else counts as impurities to make bad ectoplasm? Diet soda

[is-not-a-bell]

Sleepy King

The Justice League Dark caught wind of a cult trying to summon the Ghost King. A being with power so terrible and great, that all of the chaotic Infinite Realms feared him. A true tyrant. Long ago it took the effort of ghosts equal to gods to seal him away into a permeant slumber.

And now this cult wishes to wake him and bring him to the living realm. It was a race against the clock to find the ritual site and all members were called on board, magic or not. Even Constantine looked stressed.

They did find the site.

But it was too late, the ritual was completed. The entire inner circle of runes glowed before being swallowed in a column of green light. The air filled with static and a ringing that made Supergirl crumble to the ground.

The light dissipated, but there was no great figure or being of pure evil. Instead there was a boy, a teenager. He laid on the ground curled up in his sleep. He was a ghost no doubt, dressed in regal clothing.

Despite this when he stirred, everyone froze. It seemed the cold hard ground woke him up. He got up slowly and yawned, revealing his sharp fangs. Once sat up he opened his bleary eyes to look around. He looked confused and tired, really tired.

"Where am I?" He mumbled. "I was trying to get some sleep." Constantine internally screaming, latches onto that last sentence. He glances over to Batman. He caught that last part too. Batman approaches calmly and crouches down in front of the boy king. Hardening his resolve, Batman takes on a gentle tone.

"Hey kiddo, sorry we woke you. Lets get you back to bed yeah?" The boy nodded in agreement. He pulled himself to his feet before looking around in a circle. "Where did my blanket go?" He asked rather sadly. Batman is quick to shed his own cape and drape it over him. "You can borrow my cape until we get you a new one." He nodded again, pulling the black fabric around himself.

John quickly summoned a portal door, while Batman led the King through it. John threw looks around at everyone. Everyone could tell he was mouthing the words. 'Find me a fucking blanket now'

Running on the logic of getting the king away from Earth, away from graves and the undead, that could give him power. The portal led to the Watch Tower.

Batman took advantage of the King's bleary state to send a base wide alert for all noncritical members to evacuate immediately. With a priority that death adjacent members leave first. "The stars are pretty." Bruce looked at the boy staring out the window in wonder. He almost looked like a normal kid, almost.

"Yeah they are, it's pretty late so we should get you back to bed." He nodded, going along with Batman's gentle coaxing.

He takes the boy to an unused bedroom. Making sure the room isn't dusty and that lights are dimmed. He glances back to see about a dozen different leaguers all holding blankets, one thought to bring extra pillows. The bed was pretty barren with only a single pillow and a thin bedsheet. So Bruce took a thick duvet, one of the fluffier blankets and a second pillow from his team before shooing them away.

The boy ended up keeping his cape, mumbling how it was warm. He tucked the boy in, before quietly exiting the room and turning off the light. He was pretty sure the King fell back to sleep before he even reached the light switch.

After the door shut, he made direct eye contact with John. "Constantine." They needed to figure out what the hell was going on.

[barefeet-only]

Danny and Damian are related, with a twist.

Danny is the son of Talia Al Ghul, however he is NOT the son of Bruce Wayne. Ra’s has had his eyes on various people across the world that have either impressed him or show a unique skill set that he’d like to have. One such person was under the both categories and he got Talia to collect a DNA sample and as a result Danny was born.

This was before Bruce’s time with the League by a few years, but very quickly Danny was not meeting expectations. And by the time Bruce did show up Ra’s had lost all interest in Danny, moving on to better things.

Talia always hated Danny because she was forced to have him with a man who she never liked in the first place. Furthermore, because his skillset was lacking she found that even more reason for her distain. In her eyes, he wasn’t worth even considering her blood.

Danny, knowing that he was doomed if he didn’t make an escape, left the league sometime around when Bruce was moving up the ranks and was making waves within the organization. Perfect timing honestly, any attention he might have had was quickly gone when this prodigy showed up.

Danny escaped the League and went into hiding quickly after, settling on a rural area of the United States after bouncing around countries for a few months. This was mainly because Jasmine Fenton saw a young boy pick pocketing strangers while her family was visiting Chicago and scolded him. Her mother and father saw the boy and also lectured him to which Danny responded it was his only option (he was trying to get this loud family off his back so he could sneak away). Eventually the Fentons decide that if he has nowhere to go he might as well go with us, and Danny decides blending in with a Nuclear Family is the best way to ensure that his peaceful life away from the League stays that way. Oh how little did he know.

Flash forward a few years, Talia, who was visiting Gotham to check on Damian, sees a glimpse of a boy (now man) she thought she had forgotten. Her blood runs cold, if this abomination is in Gotham then her son is likely in danger and she would never let anything happen to Damian.

[aquawyrm]

Danny shows up in their home, while they're there, AS PHANTOM, to give them a (not booby trapped) cake and congratulate Vlad on becoming less of a fruit loop.

Short DPXDC Prompts #757

Vlad and Lex fake being married to cover up a scheme. This means they have to publicly keep up that appearance… It works a little too well.

[starry-bi-sky]

Just the idea of clone Danny and clone Talia working out much bette then him and Talia would confuse poor Bruce. And best part all 4 of them don'T believe he is batman Danny: "We know he is your Sugarbaby, Mom and dad talked about it." Clone Talia:" So no fear, my OG liked a Himbo. And well Danny is a one too."

FR THO AND THEN THERE’S BABY DAMES IN THE CORNER SWEATING BECAUSE HE KNOWS. HE KNOWS. THE LoA TOLD HIM. He’s not saying SHIT though because this is hilarious. He’s silently laughing in the corner. And yessss Clone Danny and Clone Talia working out much better is exactly why I thought of it -- because one its funny and two the potential angst. the could have been.

It doesn't ever occur to Bruce to tell them he's batman but that conversation still comes up during mealtime one day while Danny's recovering (he has to be tied to his chair because he found the gym and nearly dislocated his shoulder trying to train. Dammit Danny your bones are made of glass right now from destabilizing, let your cells repair before doing anything!) because the four of them were talking about Batman and his clan of kids.

Danny, frowning: im not a himbo?

Nasra: reportedly when you first met Damian, your first response to his attacking you was to... grab the blade with your hands, multiple times. This resulted in you slicing a nerve in both hands and permanently weakening your fine motor control.

Danny: well--

Nasra: even now you're rubbing your palms, you only do that when your hands are bothering you.

Damian, snapping his head up: what!?

Danny: you noticed that?? also i learned. I didn't repeat myself when you attacked me when we met, did I?

Nasra: i. suppose not. you're still a himbo, however.

also Danny does his usual 'run on negative sleep' bullshit while in the manor except now he has not only damian but also Nasra tag-teaming his bullshit. Like no, Danny. you need sleep to recover your strength. your ghostly investigation can wait until you're not about to pass out and break your nose on your laptop. They have whole ass arguments in arabic - all three of them - as damian AND nasra drag danny to the closest soft horizontal surface. Danny returns the favor to the both of them when those two are also doing their 'negative sleep' stuff.

Dick at bby Dames: so do you....

Damian: know that you guys are Batman and his family? Yeah. Grandfather and Mother told me before I was living with Danny.

Tim: how come Danny and Nasra don't know then?

Damian: I didn't think it was important to tell Danny that his original was Batman. He does know of the League, however. He calls Grandfather my "super evil, ecofascist grampa and his cult of killers" and doesn't want to know more out of worry of needing to get involved.

Dick: I - really?

Damian: yes, he figured that since grandfather had yet to successfully wipe out my original, then that whatever Damian Wayne was doing was working. And that if he knew more, then he might have to get involved, and he has own problems to worry about than the League of Assassins.

[thelotusrabbit]

DpxDc #19

Call of the void.

(shorter than my usual, but a funny thought. Also, little drawing at the end)

Something that Danny wanted to explore together with space, was the ocean.

The thing is: both were terrifying to him, but the thrill of the unknown, the immense voids that nature was capable of...

It was absolutely, existentially dreadful.

He loved it!

He wasn't really afraid of getting lost if he tried to take a stroll around, since he could quickly reach land, so why not try?

It wasn't really his fault that he let himself go!

Danny didn't even realize it was happening, but ectoplasm is a substance that tends to fill space. Between molecules, between atoms, it's everywhere, it's the ambient.

Long story short, he only found out that he had grown to the size of Godzilla when he was casually passing by Atlantis.

He hadn't even noticed the underwater city until he heard screaming coming from below...

Something about a leviathan?

[apatheticsunday]

Gotham TikTok

AKA "Danny moves to Gotham and records TikToks with absolutely deranged captions. He films Get Ready with Me in Gotham videos, fit checks, and even A Day in the Life of a Ghost in Gotham! Except everybody is freaking the fuck out in the comments" prompt idea!

No, you don't understand, I'm obsessed. Like, what if Danny's idea of "safe" is just... anything that doesn't actively try to kill him? So Metropolitians, Star City, and Central City citizens are literally biting their nails and sweating bullets every time he posts, because what if he gets merc'd by the "Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag" Red Hood?? And that's one of the nicer villains in Gotham. And Danny's just like wow, this place is niiiiiice, I haven't even been murdered yet!

Maybe Jazz took a 12-year-old Danny to Gotham to escape their parents. Gotham's cheap, dirty, and doesn't ask questions: it's the best place to go to disappear because damn near half the city's population are either super villains, hostages, dead, or vigilantes. She gets a job at an understaffed hospital as a clinical psych intern. She enrolls Danny for online schooling because she's scared a public high school would be too easy for their parents to track.

Which leaves Danny alone for hours. He makes a TikTok account called "Danny Phantom" because, c'mon, he's a kid. And, like most kids, he doesn't really comprehend the idea of a digital footprint or that his account is public, accessible by literally anybody.

He's also a little shit. So, the first TikTok he uploads is of a man getting carjacked, but the caption reads: love to see people helping each other. remember it's always okay to ask for help! it's okay, I don't know how to parallel park, either :)

And you just see this guy in a mask shove a businessman away from his car, gesturing with his gun, before getting into the driver's seat. Except the car is parallel parked so the carjacker just slowly inches back and forth between a Prius and a Honda until he can wedge himself out of the parking space. And then gets stuck in stand-still traffic. The TikTok goes viral. It's talked about on the Gotham news and Gothamites are losing their shit, pointing out the exact moment you can see the carjacker start to soundlessly cuss through the car's windshield or the way the businessman is just... standing on the side of the road, watching with a deadpan look.

Danny doesn't know about it being on the news, but he sees all the comments, likes, reposts, and feels something. He wonders if this is what Ember feels every time people listened to her music. So, he keeps posting. Usually, it's short three-second videos of a hilariously unexpected situation with an even more deranged caption. But then he's accidentally caught in the reflection of a store front while recording and doesn't know, posts it like he always does; only for this TikTok to go viral, too. Because "Danny Phantom" is a child??

He doesn't notice the shift in his comments, but the public opinion quickly changes from wow, Gothamites are just like that huh lol to what the FUCK, kid, get inside!!! anytime he posts.

Except Danny never gets hurt. Even in the most dangerous situations, when you'd think this kid is a goner for sure, he's just happily yapping in the background. He's so different from Gothamites because he lacks that dead-eyed, despair-inducing aura of someone who's lived in a hellmouth their whole lives. (A couple people post that Danny kind of reminds them of Golden Boy Brucie Wayne, all air-headed and unrealistically optimistic, and suddenly there's memes of "what happens when you've never gotten shot in Gotham" or "how i act when Commish Gordie accuses me of shoplifting again" with them side-by-side.)

And then Danny's posts go viral again and again. Danny doing a fit check with a blond-haired woman with a checkered outfit, she ruffles his hair and kisses him on the cheek. A picture of him wearing an old jean jacket with a bright red lipstick smear on his cheek is trending for weeks. Spoiler, fully suited up in an all-purple vigilante attire, and him shoving gas station hotdogs in their mouths. He even has videos of him clearly in Killer Croc's lair, with comments of are you in the sewers??? DANNY??? and he responds, no, i'm in mom & dad's basement :) (Waylon Jones is actually sitting behind him in one of the videos, intently watching a TV show on an iPad.)

Everybody adores Danny - Rogues, Gothamites, even the Bats. (There's at least six videos of Nightwing teaching Danny how to do backflips, handstands, and other acrobatic moves. Even the youngest Robin has been caught on camera quietly talking with Danny, a shocking lack of violence that left half the city's population suffering from cuteness aggression for the kids.)

So, yeah, Danny belongs to Gotham.

But the internet is widely accessible and Danny made it so, so easy to find him. Jazz obviously didn't know he was posting videos of himself publicly; she was too tired after back-to-back 12 hour shifts at the hospital that she hadn't even checked social media in months. Otherwise, she would've told him to be careful, to never show his face or post his real name on the internet. Then again, Jazz would never have expected all of Gotham (and Superman himself, totally endeared by the kid after Kon and Jon showed him a couple TikToks) would beat the absolute shit out of anybody going after Danny.

Imagine GIW's surprise when they track down Amity's former residential Ghost only to find an entire city frothing at the mouth to protect their Phantom.