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half-dead-ham · 1 year

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On the rise

Another one for the Shipweek! Wings Au! Lets go!

Here's: [Ao3]

“Heads up!”

Someone called just as a blinding blast of magic shot out from Danny's right. He dodged, with only inches between him and the orange energy. Shooting in that direction without looking to see if he hit, Danny dove for another cultist just as he was about to fire off a spell at Aqualad. He kicked out, his leg connecting with the guy's neck and throwing him to the ground, his head connecting with the concrete floor in a satisfying thwack.

One more cultist down, over two dozen left to go.

Did Danny ever mention that he hated cultists?

He went for another dive attack, swooping in with his fist and connecting somewhere on the guy’s upper body before launching himself back out of range of their close range spells. Dodging more blasts and providing arial support when needed, Danny groused to himself about how he had gotten into this. He wasn’t expecting cults when he was called in for this mission. He didn’t know what he was expecting exactly, but they had more magically inclined people as backup for the Team than him, so why was he here? Where was Zatanna when you needed her? Why couldn’t this just be a ghost he could take care of easily? Why him?

A blast glanced the back of his shoulder as he came out of a barrel roll, searing his suit and knocking him off course. He clutched at his shoulder in pain as he looked back to see which sorry sonuva bitch was about to get decked, only to see Robin was already taking care of them.

Good, let Robin handle that idiot.

Kid Flash and Superboy were playing keep-away with the books and artifacts the cult needed to perform whatever asinine ritual they were about to start before they dropped in while he, Robin, Artemis, and Aqualad were on round up. Miss Martian was making sure no one left or entered the area, just in case there were other cult members in other parts of the old hotel they found themselves in.

Seriously, why do cultists find only the creepiest, most abandoned places to do their summoning rituals? Why couldn’t they- Another blast of magic nearly blew through his tail, cutting his thoughts off. Danny growled and shot the guy that had tried shooting him. Not the time to get in your own head, Fenton, focus.

Artemis sent a volley of trick arrows from her perch on one of the rafters, downing more than a few of the remaining cultists.

Only a few more to go.

With one last push the last of the cultists were down. A quick check in with M’gann told them that she was all clear at her position, so they started to drag the unconscious bodies to zip tie them together for later pick up. They could finally relax.

Danny let out a breath as he floated down to the concrete floor, watching as Aqualad and Robin started dragging a few goons into a loose circle close to their nearly completed summoning sigil before picking a few of his own up to join them. KF came out of his red streak as he slowed down, not even out of breath, and Kon began hauling two of the cult members he had body checked away towards the growing circle of bodies.

“Well that was fun,” Danny commented out loud, trying to keep the communication to where he could hear it. While he did link up via telepathy for stealth, he didn’t really like others going through his head. It also made it easier for M’gann to focus when they were in a fight, something about his biology being harder to filter through. Thank the Ancients for that.

“Y’know, I don’t think Gar will be too sad he missed out on this mission,” KF commented as he flipped through the contents of the tome he was tasked to guard. “All we did was beat up some guys, there wasn't even a time crunch. We got here just before they started any of the fun stuff.”

Robin scoffed good naturedly, “So you’re saying you would rather come face to face with a terrifying being from beyond our understanding?”

“I mean, it would make things more interesting. It's been boring with no missions to go on, and I didn't even get warmed up from this."

"Careful KF," Danny smirked. "Or you're gonna start pouting from all this whining"

Kid Flash shot him a scandalized look, which only made his pout more prominent and sent everyone looking into a fit of laughter.

A soft hum took Danny out of his laughing fit earlier than the others, and he turned to see Connor inspecting the statue he was asked to guard. As he floated closer he could see the statuette in more detail; over six pairs of wings centered around the body of a bird, warped and elongated to fit its limbs, with a long neck ending in a goose head. It looked like something out of Greek mythology, but for all Pandora’s lessons on their culture, Danny couldn't place what it was.

“Whatcha looking at SB?” He asked as he floated over his shoulder to get a look at what Connor was looking at. The teen of steel startled, for once not hearing someone approach with his super hearing. He shot a glare at the ghost boy before going back to inspecting the base of the statuette.

“There are words on the bottom of this thing,” he explained, pointing to the etchings on the underside of the base. “They're faint, but I think I can make them out.”

Danny peered at where he pointed, indeed finding the faint markings. Curiously though, they weren’t in english. “Y’know these are in greek, right?”

Connor blushed faintly, keeping his eyes on the statuette in his hands. “I’ve been reading up in between your lessons,” he muttered.

Danny smiled, it had been a while since they had started their language lessons. In the beginning he had almost thought it was a ploy from the rest of the team to keep him around more often, but Connor had asked him to keep the lessons a secret from everyone else, saying he wanted to try something new on his own, without their help. He did surprisingly well with languages, as they came to learn, and were currently going through both ancient and modern Greek pretty quickly. It also helped Danny, as he found he was able to learn better when he taught.

Danny brushed his thoughts aside for the moment, looking back at the small statue in the clone’s hands. There was a name, along with a few other words that had long faded into the stone.

“An… Acan…” Danny figured out the name a second before Connor, but wasn’t fast enough to stop him from saying it. “Acanthus?”

A blinding light erupted from the statuette, flinging Danny back from Connor and blinding everyone else in the room. Danny could hear the surprised cries from the others from where he had impacted against the wall, but couldn’t move until the light died.

Ancients, please let nothing bad happen to Connor. He was just getting the courage up to ask him out.

As the light died and the spots cleared from Danny’s eyes, he could start to make out the silhouettes of the team, most of them had crouched or crumpled to the ground due to the sudden bright light, but Connor was still standing. There was something off about him though, and Danny had to squint and blink away the after images.

Danny quickly lunged forward as Connor flailed, the newfound weight on his back throwing off his center of gravity and tipping him backwards. He caught him just before the clone could hit the ground, grabbing him by the shoulders and putting him gently back on his feet.

“Woah,” Connor mumbled at the sudden elevation shifts and totally not at how easily Danny could sweep him off his feet. No, that was just Danny imagining things about him. He should really stop doing that.

The other members of the team had gotten back on their feet by now, cautiously approaching the clone and the ghost boy as Danny checked out the reason for Superboy’s new balancing issues.

‘Damn, these might be bigger than mine,’ he thought as he looked over the two large wings now sprouting from Connors back, just below his shoulder blades. They were large, ash grey on the outside and white mottled with more grey on the inside. Danny had to reposition how they were sitting on his back or the primary feathers would drag on the floor.

“Superboy, what the hell did you do‽” Robin shouted at the now feathered clone, who scowled at the approaching Boy Wonder.

“Nothing,” he replied sharply, crossing his arms defensively even as the blush of being practically held up by Danny was still present.

“Well clearly that's a lie,” Wally retorted. “Last time I checked SB, you didn’t have massive bird wings coming out of your back.”

Connor shot Wally a heated glare that quickly let into a surprised squawk as Danny lifted one wing to see how far it extended. He turned his head to look at the ghost boy stretching the new appendage, unable to turn fully with the wing still in the other's grip.

They watched as the ghost boy moved and tested the wing, pulling lightly at the primary feathers, moving to test the full range of the wing, then collapsing it as close to Connor’s body as it could go. When he looked done with his examination Robin spoke up. “Uhhhh, Phantom, what are you doing?”

Danny snapped to attention, before meeting the others curious gazes. “Ope, uh… Sorry,” He reached up to scratch the back of his neck, not realizing he had let go until he was almost hit by a flailing Connor and swiftly put his hands back. “I was just curious about them. You don’t see wings like this in the Realms often, so I wanted to see how they compared.”

“Curious?”

“Compare?”

“You've seen something similar to this, Phantom?” Kaldur asked the ghost boy.

“Uhh, yeah?” Danny went to scratch his neck again, this time making sure he kept one hand on Connor to help him balance. “Some ghosts in the Realms have them as like, physical manifestations of what they used to like?” He still hasn't told the team about Obsessions, so while he wasn’t lying it wasn’t the whole truth.

“So you know of some way to reverse this, then?” He pressed, to which Danny shook his head fervently.

“Nope, nu-uh. This isn’t ghost stuff, this is magic stuff. I wouldn’t be able to tell you the first thing about getting rid of these, just how to take care of them.”

The rest of the team looked between themselves, unsure of how to proceed. Even Connor was starting to look uncomfortable with the situation. Danny was sure there was some telepathic conversation he wasn’t in on happening, but right now he was just trying to keep the teen in his arms upright.

Finally, Robin sighed. “Do you have any idea on how this happened in the first place, at least?”

He nodded, motioning to the statuette on the floor as he spoke, “Nearest I can figure is that when Superboy spoke the name of the god on the statue it reacted like a word of power to the surrounding magic. It ended up invoking a portion of the gods' power and this happened.”

Robin nodded, crouching to pick the statuette up and store it in a side pouch. He then turned for the nearest exit. “C’mon, M’gann already has the bioship ready and waiting. We’ll figure out how to get superboy back to normal when we get back to the cave.”

~~~~~

“So how do you know how to take care of them?” Wally broke the silence of the bioship on their way back.

“Huh?” Danny turned in his seat, before looking back out the window. “Oh, right. It was a pain when I couldn’t hide mine when I first got them, so I had Frostbite introduce someone to help me take care of mine.”

A beat of silence, then the bioship erupted in questions.

~~~~~

By the time the team had gotten back to the cave, each of them had asked at least a dozen questions each, and Danny very much regretted answering Wally. He’d been able to stall for time in bringing out his wings by saying that there wasn't enough room in the bioship for two winged people, even though Robin pointed out how he could’ve just phased what couldn’t fit outside.

Danny didn’t want to freak the bioship out like that again, and he said as much.

As soon as the drop hatch lowered Wally ran into the common room, saying something about needing the others to see what was about to happen. Floating down, Danny almost wanted to disappear, were it not for Connor still needing help in balancing. Danny had told him the best way to manage the weight, but without visuals he was forgetting and accidentally tipping back as he walked, leaving Danny to catch him and reposition him as needed.

Seems even super strength couldn’t help with this kind of weight.

They made it to the common room where Danny managed to position Connor on the couch before Wally came rushing back, now changed out of his costume and with Garfield right behind him. Zatanna would be out for at least another day, leaving their main magic specialist indisposed.

Great.

“C’mon, Phantom! Show us those flappers already!” Wally cajoled, making Phantom flinch from where he was about to float off.

Danny dropped to the ground, sighing in his failed attempt at escape. Moving over to the more open section of room, Danny turned to face the couches, arms spread as he dropped the invisibility on his wings. A round of gasps came from the group as pitch black wings speckled with white spread out from behind the ghost, the white specks glowing even brighter than his usual glow making them look almost like stars in the night sky.

“Holy-”

“Beautiful!”

“How does that even work‽”

“Impressive.”

“Alright, you’ve seen them. Can I go now?” Danny asks the crowd, folding his wings in so the bend of the wings sat next to his shoulders, keeping his wingtips off the ground and crossing.

“You seem very used to them,” Robin pointed out from behind Danny, startling him to turn and glare at the Boy Wonder as he inspected his wings from behind. Did Danny detect a smidge of awe in those microexpressions?

Must be his imagination again.

“I mean, yeah,” Danny conceded with a half shrug, keeping the mini-bat in his field of view. “They formed a while ago, before I came on as auxiliary for the Team, so I’ve had time to get used to them.”

“And you never told us or showed them to us before, why?”

“Because they’re useless in combat and I don’t need them to fly? Even if I can use them, they’re really only a help for flight in the Zone, and since I’m an earthbound ghost…” He made a ‘there you go’ gesture, figuring the others could complete the statement themselves.

Robin sighed exasperatedly behind him, moving so Danny had to switch which shoulder he was looking at him over.

“Is there nothing you can't do?” The Boy Wonder asked as he crouched down.

Danny snorted, “Can’t pass a math exam to save my life,” he joked.

Gar piped up from his place on the couch, “But you’re dead?”

“Exactly,” Danny smirked, finger gunning at the shapeshifter. He was pleased to be met with one snicker and a resounding round of groans. They had finally got used to his dead jokes. Good.

Something light brushed against one of his feathers from where Robin had crouched and he hastily moved his wing out of reach, startled.

“The hell are you doing?” He asked shrilly, finally turning to face the detective.

The Boy Wonder stood, masked scrunched as he examined the clean slice on the tip of his glove. “Your wings, they’re sharp?”

“Very,” he backed up a step, making his wings intangible again just in case the bird brain went in again for another touch.

Which he did.

“What kind of bird has sharp wings?” Garfield piped up from behind him, tone ever curious.

“A ghost bird,” Danny rolled his eyes, quickly becoming gone with this conversation and being stared at like some sort of sideshow attraction. Unfortunately his little quip only got Gar more interested.

“There are ghost birds‽” The shapeshifter nearly shrieked with excitement, and Danny realized that any chance of him going home tonight just went out the window. Ancients, what did he do to deserve this?

With a droop of his shoulders he faced the young shapeshifter. “Yes? Sort of? It's hard to explain. Can I at least put my wings back?”

“No,” Connor stated from his place on the couch. “If I have to suffer, so do you. ‘Least yours look nice, mine look like I got covered in mud.” He let that last bit out with a grumble, almost incomprehensible if not for Danny's hearing. The insinuation that Connor liked his wings made his face frost over slightly with blush.

Hastily Danny cleared his throat and moved his legs to sit crossed-legged in the air, looking back to Gar and his expectant stare.

“So, y’know those old myths about things like unicorns and the Minotaur and all that?” A quick round of nods from the group on the couches. “Well they’re all actually real. Not really sure about the history of them, haven’t gotten that far in my history lessons, but the gist is that either monsters were mortal realm creatures that were all eventually hunted to extinction from the myths, or they were born ghosts that went to the mortal realm because the veil between worlds was much thinner back then.”

“And how does that tie into you having sharp wings?” Wally asks in between mouthfuls of chips. When did he get chips?

“We- that is, me and my friend-slash-doctor Frostbite- found that my wings have similar qualities to the myth of the Stymphalian birds, a greek legend about birds with wings, talons and beaks made of bronze that like to terrorize the villages around the swamp they were named after. It's pretty much the only relation, ‘cause the wing shapes are different, but myths have never been a hundred per-cent accurate to begin with.”

Robin rounded into Danny’s view, a ‘I must know more about this’ look on his face. ‘This is going to take a while,’ the ghost boy thought to himself as he got comfy where he was floating, taking questions about the ghost zone from the curious group of teens he’d found himself a part of. Eyes every so often trailing back to Connor, who was looking at him like he did during one of their private lessons.

That same look that always gave him blobs in his stomach and frosted his cheeks. He hoped Connor didn't notice his core metaphorically melting over it.

~~~~~

When ‘late’ finally became ‘too late’ and Danny had answered everyone's questions (To the best of his ability, some got a little too close to things he wasn’t ready to talk about yet) the team finally meandered off to their rooms for sleep, leaving just Danny and Connor in the living room. Danny because he didn’t really need to sleep (as far as they knew) and Connor because he couldn’t get off the couch by himself. Not that he seemed all that adamant about getting up, and Danny enjoyed the newfound silence.

Floating around on his stomach in the now dim light Danny found himself lazily using his wings to steer and row himself around, flipping to kick himself off walls when needed and half listening to what Connor had put on the TV to relax.

“Hey, Danny,” Connor called up to him just as he flip kicked off another wall. Angling for his descent he gave an acknowledging hum in response.

“Why are you still here?” The clone asked when they were back within regular talking distance.

“Why aren’t you going back to your room yet?” He responded, question for question.

Connor looked to his lap, stern expression softening ever so slightly and Danny could almost see him worrying his lip (though he could have been imagining it, probably. The light the Tv was casting was doing fun things to the shadows of those strong cheekbones). Seeing the gears turn in the other teens head, he decided to settle himself down on the loveseat and finally think a little.

First thought was about what kind of bird those wings could belong to. They were strong looking, but shorter than his own, so probably meant for shorter flying, but the range of flexibility was impressive. Some sort of raptor maybe? It would make sense for a bird of prey to need good reflexes to change the direction of flight while hunting.

Connor was definitely deadly enough to be a bird of prey- nope. No, bad Danny! We don’t think about things like that! We don’t even know if he likes you like that!

… But Ancients, the hugs he could give-

“I was wondering…” Danny snapped out of his daze, eyes shooting up from where they had rested so he could admire the other teens arms. Was it just the light, or was Connor blushing?

“Could you teach me to use these?” He finished the sentence slowly, like he was afraid Danny would ever say no to him. A smile crept onto his face as an idea popped into his head, something he couldn’t mess up if he tried and would (hopefully) keep him in the mood too much to try and back out.

“‘Course I can, Connor! You wanna start now?” The clone turned to meet his gaze with an incredulous look.

“Now?”

“Mmhm!”

They stared at each other, and for a second Danny was worried Con would say no. To his slight relief he got a shrug as the other teen turned the TV off. Danny was pretty sure his glow got twice as bright as he zipped over to grab the clone's hands and drag him off the couch.

Maybe he got a little too excited as he flew through the cave and through the nearest outer wall, feathered clone still in hand and no doubt restraining some sort of embarrassing noise.

~~~~~

“Phantom, this really isn’t what I meant by this!” Connor shouted over the wind as they soared over Happy Harbor’s coast. Danny looked down to see the mildly startled face of the clone in his hands with a grin that hinted he was about to do something stupid and/or dangerous.

“Extend your wings Connor!” Danny called back, untwisting his arms so he was now flying backwards and pulling the clone along with him, extending his own wings intangibly as demonstration.

Shakily, Connor did as demonstrated, and Danny felt the moment his wings caught the air with a sharp pull of their joined hands. Rather than keep hold like Connor probably hoped he would do, Danny instead phased out of the other steel grip, leaving Connor to flounder his arms about for purchase as his wings froze. Panic set in on his face as he thought he would fall, and screwed his eyes shut to wait for the impact to hit.

“Connor,” Danny coaxed gently, prompting the taller boy to open his eyes as they did not, in fact, start plummeting toward the beach below. The clone didn’t budge, keeping his eyes shut and his wings stiffly outstretched. With a sigh, Danny positioned himself underneath and facing his crush in the air, admiring the view of the Harbor below them and the way the wind tousled Connors wings as they flew and the strong shoulders those wings sprang from and the blue eyes looking back at him-

A chill bloomed across his face to the tips of his ears, unrelated to the cool air keeping the clone aloft above him as they held each other's gaze. This close Danny was sure the red that bloomed over Connors face wasn’t just a trich of the light, and his core gave a trill at the thought of all those other imagined times possibly not being just his imagination.

“I’m flying,” Connor commented, breaking both out of their trance. The frost on Danny's face flared as he finally looked away.

“Ah, uh-huh! Yup! Totally flying all on your own!” He stuttered, voice a smidge higher than he personally thought acceptable. Danny tried to clear his throat exaggeratedly, but his voice still betrayed him and came out slightly squeaky, “Though you might wanna relax yourself, you don’t want to get wing cramps.”

The teen above him kept his eyes on Danny, but did as told and relaxed his posture, unintentionally angling his feathers and banking softly back inland. Wind rushing past the two was the only sound beside the buzzing in his core that Danny could hear for what felt like ages, and as the silence stretched he could feel a cold sweat start at the back of his neck.

Ancients, this is awkward. How do normal people confess again? He doesn’t even remember if he was the one to ask Valerie out freshman year.

“It's beautiful up here,” Connor’s comment interrupted the panicked spiral his brain was about to go into, and he hummed in response. Twisting, Danny let himself face the ground again, letting go of his intangibility and let the wind catch, using his wings for flight instead of his ghost powers.

“It is.” With the lights of the city below them casting off the waves of the beach, and the cars traversing the streets so small they looked like toys, it really was pretty here. A perfect night for a first flight.

“Hey Connor,” Danny starts, the scenery below helping to calm his nerves and find his tongue. A soft hum from above him encourages him to continue. “About your lessons-”

“Are they too much for you?” Connor interjects suddenly, a hint of insecurity creeping into his voice.

“No, no, I love helping you learn!” And he really does, the moment Connor gets something right in their lessons and smiles lives in Danny's core, powering him like a battery. He has to cut that train of thought off ASAP, right now, so Connor isn’t getting the wrong idea. “I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out outside of our lessons, y’know, maybe come to Amity once in a while.”

A pregnant pause elongated itself with the sound of a car horn from the streets below, and Danny had to resist turning his heat to peek at the face of the clone behind him.

“Like a date?” Connor finally asked, tone hesitant and… hopeful?

This time Danny didn’t stop himself from looking back at the teen flying above him, meeting his eyes with a smile. “Yeah, Con, like a date.”

A small “oh” escaped his lips as the almost faded blush came back with a vengeance. It made Danny giggle, and Connor smiled at the sight.

“Well, do you?” Danny pressed, feeling much more hopeful about the answer than a few minutes ago.

With a small nod and a smile only slightly bigger, Connor replied, “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

Danny couldn’t stop the almost inhuman grin that spread across his face any more than he could stop the whooping holler he gave as he brought in his wings and dove, leaving Conner as he picked up speed towards the ground. As his glow started to be matched by the glow of the streetlights he snapped his wings out, using the gained speed along with a few powerful wingbeats to soar back up and over his new boyfriend, spinning and rolling around him in excitement as he laughed.

“Okay, okay, you’re happy. I get it!” Connor laughed, smile smoothing over his usually stoic features. “Now can you teach me how to land? I’m pretty sure I’m getting cramps from keeping my wings out like this for so long.”

With an excited giggle and energetic hum in his chest, Danny showed his boyfriend how to turn, and eventually land when they got close enough to the mountain. Zatanna still wouldn’t be back for a few days, and Danny could see more than a few dates they could go on while Connor still had those big beautiful wings.

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