Past saves Present
Og fic ig
In some cultures, it is believed that children are able to remember bits of their past lives till the ages of 3-5.
For Danny, the opposite was true. He got his memories at exactly the second he turned 5.
And he had to promptly dodge the blade of the boy in front of him.
His brother, his mind supplied. His twin.
Danny stopped swinging his own sword, focusing on dodging and avoiding the fate of being a slashed pillow. His new/earned skills especially helped with that greatly as his head was seriously trying to re-kill him.
"I yield," he rasped as he jumped away from his brother and looked at their Mother. "My head hurts, Mother," he added pitifully.
His twin looked slightly concerned for a second, before schooling his face in a way Grandfather has been teaching them.
"Tch." But he did put away the blade before their Mother, said a word.
"Dynial, Damian, you are not to stop until you have received permission in the future."
The boys nodded. Mother took their hands and led them out of the private training ground back to their rooms.
Danny spent the rest of the day lying down, slightly feverish and miserable as his brain was processing and acclimating the new set of memories. Clockwork said it wouldn't be too bad. We'll, the clock bustard has been wrong. It fucking sucked.
His brother was hovering. Their Mother was always around, not letting anyone into their space. Ra's is being kept in the dark.
A peaceful rest was all he needed for his brain to finish sorting out new information. And Danny was stuck in a bit of a dilemma.
You see, Damian and Dynial love their Mother, strive to be the best Demon Twins, and see nothing wrong with their life so far.
Their hands are still clean.
Danny, on the other hand, has many MANY choice words for his current situation and one Clock Ghost.
You want to try reincarnation ONE time! No wonder others don't really do that.
-------
Their days continued like they did before he got his memory back. It wasn't hard to be Dynial when he actually was him.
The nights were filled with planning. And a personally assigned mission: get Damian to be interested in normal things.
Stars weren't much of a hit. Uncultured child.
Animals were a little intriguing.
Simple art and craft projects seemed to hit the spot.
Keeping their little meetings and activities hidden wasn't as hard as one would think. Mother still had her missions. The two of them were often left alone in their wing of the place, the supervisors being allowed only till the doors. Ra's was the Head. He didn't check in on them all the time. The two of them weren't slacking in their training either and were considered prodigies.
Danny wanted out of this Cult.
A many months after feeding different information, facts, crafts and so on to his brother, Damian was curious. He was suspicious about the sudden knowledge but he was also 5. He only had to reference the Lazarus Pit (unfiltered and dirty ectoplasm? Seriously? Clockwork, you can't expect him to work on his vocation) once to convince the child.
They snooped around and found out that they had a father out in the world.
Danny got a plan.
It was super stupid. And dangerous as hell. As well as literally (half)suicidal. But he felt it in his chest and knew he'd succeed.
His Core was here. But it was sleeping. And if he wanted to be safe and away from here, he needed to start it up again.
The big pool of Ecto would do just fine. His Core would filter out the impurities.
He didn't want to stay here until his hands no longer protected. He didn't want such life for his brother either.
---
Damian infiltrated the Lazarus Room just in time to see his brother jump into the Pit.
He ran to the edge.
He was sinking.
The green was too bright. The smell around them was too much. His ears rang.
He reached towards the water, eyes unseeing and hands numb. His heartbeat was too loud.
His brother's wasn't loud enough.
"Don't touch the puddles, Dami, you'll get sick," a gentle, cold hand stopped him from diving.
The child looked up. His brother was floating above the water. He looked all wrong. But he was there.
"I didn't want you to see this part..." his brother laughed awkwardly as he landed next to him. A bright ring of light blinded Damian for a second.
And his brother was back.
-----
Getting used to his powers again felt nice but tedious. Soothing his twin was heartbreaking. He didn't think this through hard enough.
Their Mother was none the wiser to the fact that one of her children died and came back. Nore was she privy to the escape being planned by both.
On one moonless night, when Mother wasn't there, the shift was changing and the world was asleep; two boys phased through the walls and flew. Small bags of stuff were strapped onto them as they traveled to their father.
Mother's notes called him Bruce Wayne, Batman, Beloved and Detective.
It wasn't hard to find him when they arrived.
Though, Danny didn't expect a furless furry and a pantless child to be their new family.
Can he ever get a normal Family???
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Actually going insane over the implications of Jason asking Dick to be the Robin to his Batman in Battle for the Cowl.
Like I initially took it at the purely surface-level of Jason wanting a partner in the general sense. Which made sense, it's a huge responsibility and a lonely one so an assistant/sidekick/partner seems a no-brainer if you can get one.
But then I really thought about it, because Jason is not asking Dick to be his partner in the general sense; he's not even asking Dick to be his Nightwing. He's asking Dick to be his Robin.
And they both know exactly what Jason means: "Be the light to my darkness. Be the smile to my scowl. Be the hope to my fear. "
He's saying "Be 'Robin'; be the embodiment of Love and Justice and Goodness. Be the exceptional person that you have always been. Be the slightly-less exceptional person that I was when I wore your colors. Be the person that I was in the process of becoming and might have been (or might still be), if only Joker hadn't clipped my wings."
He's saying "I am prepared to become vengeance, become the Night. And I will go further than Bruce ever dared to, because it is what is needed. I will be the necessary evil. But you don't have to be. If Batman is Gotham's curse, Robin has always been its blessing. I will be the brutal punishment to our world, and I am asking you to be its incandescent gift."
He's saying, "Be for me, what we were for Him. Be my anchor, my comfort, my hope. Remind me what it's all for, why it's all worth it. And remind yourself as well."
He's saying "Be 'Robin' again--for both of our sakes."
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"Stillborn? No, no, still born." -- DPXDC AU
Based off a comment I saw where Bruce knew about Talia's pregnancy in the earlier comivs, and was ecstatic to be a father. So much so that Talia feared he'd give up being Batman for it, so when she gave birth she put the baby (Damian) on a doorstep and (seemingly) told Bruce that the baby was stillborn.
Instead of Damian, that baby was Danny! Meet Daniel Brown, the 14 year old foster kid whose been living with the Fenton family for the last two years. He's about two years older than Damian.
His last name, "Brown", was a generic surname given to him because the note he came with didn't have one on it. It just had the name "Danyal" on it, but albeit 'Daniel' was the one that had been put into the system for, I'll be totally frank here, racism reasons.
(I looked it up to make sure, and it's generally not permissible for foster parents to change the names of their foster kids even if it's a permanent residency, and for that reason Danny doesn't have the last name "Fenton".)
Danny's got ✨~issues!~✨ He's been through a handful of homes growing up, most of them terrible for a variety of reasons. Which has, as a result, left lasting scars. He's generally a very sweet kid, just very distrustful and jumpy. He's got the signs of a kid suffering from PTSD, and a handful of other issues including attachment and insomnia. His inferiority complex could rival Damian's, and that's going to make for an interesting mutual hatred for when they finally meet.
(something I'll get into later)
He still has the blanket he was found in. It's made of a very high quality material and is a beautiful emerald green with little golden thread accents, it's high quality as a result has Danny clinging onto a desperate hope that his bio family might be out there, and the only reason they gave him up was because of some outside factor. It's been taken a few times in old foster homes, and he's flipped out each time.
While he still calls Jack and Maddie by their names, he likes them well enough. The bar isn't that high though, and while they're some of the better foster parents he's had, "better" doesn't equal "safest". Their laboratory malpractice. Basically, C- Fenton Parents. They're negligent by virtue of being engrossed in their work, but they do care equally about Jazz and Danny. So he doesn't hold it against them that much.
He kinda prefers it that way, their loud affection is overwhelming and Danny doesn't know what to do with their attention, even if he craves it. It's a bit of a complicated situation.
They took in Danny because they genuinely wanted another child, but didn't want a big age gap between them and Jazz. It was actually Jack's idea to foster, and they discussed it with Jazz beforehand. She was all for the idea. Thus, a handful of weeks later, a ton of paperwork, and inspection later, and Daniel Brown entered their household with a trash bag in one hand and eyes like shards of stained glass.
His relationship with Jazz is kinda strained, but that's by virtue of her constant psychoanalyzing and helicoptering. Like with the parents, Danny's overwhelmed by the attention and also just, straight up doesn't like the fact that she's telling him that there's something wrong with him. He knows that, thank you. He pushes her away when she does this.
Other than that though? When Jazz isn't smothering him and is acting like an actual sibling and not a third parent, they're pretty close, and Danny really likes her. They've hung out a few times on their own volition, and Jazz showed him how to take better care of his long hair.
His school situation,, pretty similar to canon with the bullying, albeit with a few more instances of him blowing a fuse and lashing out against his attackers. He's a rather angry kid, but it's quiet. It builds up, piles on top of itself, until eventually, like a volcano, it erupts and burns everyone within radius.
Danny's got a fire core, not an ice core. Phantom's hair is made of white magma; thick and heavy, setting itself on fire when his anger runs hot. When he gets angry, his skin begins to char and split open to reveal pulsating lava underneath, and he crackles and pops like a raging forest fire.
I haven't decided yet on how he meets the batfam -- i've got two ideas but they're both in opposition to each other, and drastically alter how the rest of the plot goes. But I do know that him and Damian hate each other in the beginning. And it has nothing to do with inheritance or "being the blood son" -- although their blood relation absolutely plays the major role in their disdain for each other.
Simply put, they're jealous of each other for the same thing: thinking that the other was wanted.
Damian hates Danny because, unlike Damian, Bruce knew about Danny since conception and wanted him from the moment he heard about him. He had a whole nursery set up, and still does. He never took it down -- just locked the door. Damian was thrust upon Bruce without warning, and he feels like he forced himself into the family. And while on some level Damian knows and understands that Bruce wants him and loves him as much as his other children, that doubt and feeling of inferiority still remains. He looks at Danny and sees him with what Damian always feels he needs reaffirmed.
Meanwhile, Danny hates Damian because he looks at him and sees him with everything Danny's ever wanted. He hates him because Damian grew up knowing both of their parents, with one of them for most of his life, and then moved over to the other. There was never a moment where Damian was (seemingly) left to doubt his place within the family. Damian was raised with the very same woman who left Danny on a doorstep, with no clue to his identity beyond a little green blanket and a note with only a first name. Damian was wanted everywhere, and Danny was wanted nowhere. Damian is Danny's replacement in his eyes.
(It's the little revelation that Damian grew up with their mother that elevates Danny from being quietly envious of Damian to downright despising him. What did Damian do, that Danny didn't? He could live with Damian living with Bruce -- Bruce didn't know Danny was even alive. But him living with their mom? Are you fucking kidding him?)
Damian never outright attacks Danny physically, but it's not like he hides that he didn't like Danny. Meanwhile, Danny, in all his repressive anger, quietly despised him from a distance until finally one wrong snide side-comment has him blowing up and it becomes a screaming match. They're both just enough similar to each other that when they look at each other they really just see a mirror.
They'll work it out together, eventually. But it'll be ugly and cruel and explosive, and they'll start mending the bridge to become brothers in more than just blood relation in the end.
But yeah, stillborn Danny has... a lot going for him.
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