So I've seen DPxDC stories where Danny is Damian's twin brother or just full blood sibling in general and not biologically a Fenton at all, where he's Bruce and Maddie's son, Talia and Jack's son, stories where he's either Bruce or Talia's kid with some other random person and was adopted by the Fentons.
Stories where either Jack or Maddie is Ra's kid and Danny (and Jazz) are thus Damian's maternal first cousins.
I've even seen a few stories where Danny was just literally Ra's son, either by blood or by adoption.
I know of one specific post where Danny is Dusan's son and Mara's older brother, but that's it.
I have yet to see a single prompt where either of Danny's parents are descended of either Dusan or Nyssa even though both of them are far more than old enough to be grandparents.
Hell, Dusan is calculated to be around 750 years old by some people, while Nyssa canonically had her bloodline wiped out by the Nazis, a bloodline that included a great grandson and she has a confirmed birth year of 1775 (so she'd be nearly 250 years old in modern day).
So the idea of Damian's first cousin being an adult pushing 50 with kids older than Damian himself would be completely logical (if you go ahead of sticking the show aged DP characters into the 2020s).
Though to be honest if we go this route I'd pick different Fenton Parents and generational displacement from Ra's depending on which of Ra's kids Danny and Jazz are descended from.
If they're descended from Dusan, then I'd pick Jack as being his son, and Mara's older half brother, who is older than her by like 46 years.
The Fenton's are actually aware of their connection to a quasi-immortal assassin, but Jack and Maddie do their best to keep their kids out of that life.
Which Dusan isn't supper accepting about. But he also only discovered Jack when he was already an adult, and if he wants to be invited to his grandkid's birthdays and be allowed to drop Mara off at the Fenton house to be watched he just kind of has to accept that his son and grandchildren aren't interested in the Al Ghul legacy.
While if it's Maddie who's descended from the Al Ghul bloodline, then I'd want her and Alicia to be descended from Nyssa's line, specifically Vasily Vasilevich, Nyssa's great grandson.
Nyssa thinks he's killed by the Nazi's like the rest of her descendants but because he's an infant someone actually manages to smuggle him away before he actually enters any camp. He eventually ends up smuggled all the way to the United States, where he's given a new name, and raised as an American by the family that took him as their own while fleeing from the Nazi's and smuggled him to the state's in the first place.
So Maddie and Alicia are both Nyssa's great great granddaughters, while Danny, Jazz, and Dani are Nyssa's great great great grandchildren. The Fenton's (and Walkers if we go ahead with making that Maddie and Alicia's maiden names), have no idea that they're descended from a weird eco terrorist assassin cult...
Until Jazz insists on the family doing one of those at home dna tests after Maddie casually dropped family lore about how her dad wasn't the biological child of her grandparents, and that they'd ended up taking him in when fleeing Europe from Nazi persecution, and no one knew who his birth parents were or if any of his biological family survived or not. Or even the name his biological parents gave him.
Jazz just thinks this is going to be a fun family history project where nothing weird will happen, unbeknownst to her Tim Drake has created backdoor access to every single one of those at home dna testing databases he can find, specifically looking for hits on the Al Ghul family tree.
That man might be old as fucking dirt, but Talia's existence (and backstory of being conceived at Woodstock with a random hippy lady) is proof that Ra's is more likely than not still producing swimmers and going around banging random women much to Tim's horror.
And Tim wants to know if any oopsie Al Ghuls pop out of the woodwork before Ra's does, at the very least to try and prevent any more from getting indoctrinated into the League of Assassins.
I just feel like either one of these would really hammer home that Ra's line really is comprised of largely unaging immortals (if they have access to a Lazarus pit and want to), who's outer age doesn't really reflect their actual age at all.
WIth Mara and Jack being half siblings but also like 40+ years apart in age, or Maddie being Nyssa's great great granddaughter but looking basically the same age.
Because DC's never really pushes that when it comes to Ra's. Sure all of his kids are adults, but all of them are also seem to be frozen between the ages of like 30 to 50 years old, with Ra's himself looking around 70-ish, and then all of his grandkids (who we get to see) are literal children.
So if you were to take a family picture of Ra's and the descendants (who matter and) we get to see in the comics, it would just look like a normal family portrait or family tree. The grandparent looks 20-30 years older then the Parents/Aunt/Uncle generation, who looks 20-30 years older than the child generation.
Like I just feel there should be more family line fuckery going on with the Al Ghul family than there is in canon.
Or hell you could make Jack or Maddie Talia's kid if you go with the really old canon of Talia also actually being a lot older but using the Lazarus Pits to stay physically young. I think she's like 150 in that continuity but using the pits to stay in her 30s or so.
Then you could just have Jazz or Danny show up and Damian introduce them to the Batfam as his niece and nephew, played best with Damian being around ten, but Danny and Jazz in their late teens or even early 20s.
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Helpful, in a Heterodyne Sort of Way (ch3/3)
Summary: Klaus arrives in Mechanicsburg to retrieve his son, who he believes has been kidnapped by the Heterodyne. (And Gil has. Just not by the Heterodyne Klaus thinks.) Saturnus (doting grandfather and old school Heterodyne to the core) is determined not to let Klaus ruin his granddaughter's date.
AO3 Link
In deference to the fact that Mechanicsburg was an independent city state and not part of the Empire, Klaus kept Castle Wulfenbach at the traditional two leagues.
Because his son had been kidnapped by the Heterodyne, he landed one of the smaller dirigibles directly outside the front gate and walked right in.
Klaus moved through the streets of Mechanicsburg like the one-man army he was. Tourists and citizens and even Jӓgers scattered before him, but Klaus didn’t notice. He was drowning in his own thoughts, struggling to keep his expression under control, to display anger but not…
He had not felt fear like this since the day Gil was born, when the midwife stood before him and Zantabraxus, two small bundles in her arms, and asked them which one to keep.
He had not felt so angry at another person since the day he came home to a shattered castle and learned that the world had been torn to pieces in his absence.
He had not felt so angry at himself since the day he woke up in Skifander, sprawled out before a long-dead queen’s gate.
To be made a fool again.
The youngest ever Lady of Mechanicsburg had looked up at him and told him, with such sincerity, that she wanted peace. She didn’t want to be an adventurer, but she didn’t want to run around terrorizing people either. And she’d seemed so sincere, and Klaus had thought that Teodora could do as good a job with a girl as with two boys, and Saturnus had looked so resigned—annoyed, but not resentful—that Klaus had believed her.
He'd believed her.
Klaus reached the foot of the great hill and began to climb towards the looming bulk of Castle Heterodyne.
When Teodora died, the world had tensed. A teenaged Heterodyne on the throne, with no voice of sanity to balance out the counsel of Saturnus Heterodyne? Surely, that would be it. Now the peace would end, now would come the fire and the terror and the war.
It had not come. Lady Heterodyne had shut the city down for a week of mourning and declared all seven St Teodora’s Days (none of the Popes had bothered to coordinate with each other) official holidays of Mechanicsburg. And that was it. And everyone had thought—well, that’s that then!—and relaxed.
Oh, Klaus kept an eye on her, watching for warning signs. But he had been braced—the world had been braced—for a Heterodyne. For armies of monsters, for death and destruction. For a return to the days of old.
Not even he had been braced for a Mongfish.
And she took his son. His son! It was too precise to be a coincidence. Even if Gil wasn’t the only young man spirited away to Mechanicsburg, for Gil to be chosen despite all the dangers it held, despite the retribution she had to know Klaus would bring down on her…
It was all too easy to imagine Lady Heterodyne smiling Lucrezia’s smile and saying ‘you know what would be funny?’
Saturnus was waiting for Klaus at the top of the hill with a giant, shameless grin, lounging back in his chair as if he had simply stepped out to enjoy the sunshine.
“Klaus!” he cried, cheerfully. “Welcome, welcome! So kind of you to drop by.”
Klaus strode forward until he stood directly in front of Saturnus, drowning the man in his shadow.
“Where is my son.”
“You’re looking well! Fantastic coat, by the way. You should really give Agatha some tips. She can do stunning, but bombastic intimidation is a mite out of her reach—”
“Saturnus.”
“Hmm?”
“Where. Is. My. Son.”
All manner of Sparks and noble families had quailed beneath that glare, had immediately rolled over and surrendered just to get Klaus to stop looking at them like that.
But Saturnus was a Heterodyne, and the ability to be intimidated had been bred out of them long ago—if they’d ever had it to begin with. His grin simply widened.
“Having dinner with Agatha.”
Klaus’ eyebrows shot up, and Saturnus tutted, shaking his head.
“No need for that look, Klaus, get your mind out of the gutter. All propriety has been observed. This is a civilized introductory dinner between two youths of genteel breeding.”
For a brief moment, Klaus forgot his anger and fear in the face of sheer amazement that Saturnus could refer to the Heterodyne family as genteel with a straight face.
“He’s fine,” Saturnus said, still with infuriating good humor. “He seemed quite taken with Agatha, to be honest—”
Bile rose in Klaus’ throat. No. Gil was intelligent, he was sensible—sometimes, about some things, surely about this—he would never fall for a woman after she had imprisoned him against his will.
But the words history repeats itself pounded in his skull like the Doom Bell, and Klaus found himself striding past Saturnus without another word.
Saturnus didn’t try to stop him, and neither did the castle, which should have been his first warning. He threw open the doors, strode into the main hall of the castle—did not stride into the main hall.
He was in a small, comfortable sitting room, with a crackling fire and a few soft armchairs, walls lined with shelves crammed full of books that were probably all banned in multiple countries. Overhead he heard a distinctly mechanical sniggering.
Behind him came the distinctive tapping sound of Saturnus’ chair, and the ominous groan and boom of the main doors closing—faintly, as if in the distance.
Klaus whirled around, and Saturnus smiled at him from in front of a perfectly ordinary sized door, not nearly large enough to be the main doors. Klaus shoved the man aside and wrenched the door open. It let him out onto a long hallway, one side of which had large windows overlooking an inner courtyard.
“Gilgamesh!” Klaus roared, but of course he got no answer.
It was a nightmare. The nightmare, throwing open door after door, down hallways and stairwells that never seemed to end, streets that went nowhere or doubled back on themselves; hearing Gilgamesh wailing in the distance but unable to tell which direction it was coming from; his wife calling after him she is the heir, this is how it must be; green-haired guards without faces grabbing him with hands like stone; and Klaus half-fell through another door and was once again in the small sitting room where Saturnus was waiting for him.
Smiling.
“Come on, do you really think you’d be able to track him down in this castle all by yourse—”
Klaus lunged. Before even the castle could move, he was across the room with his hand closing around Saturnus’ throat, hauling him up out of his chair, his dead legs dangling uselessly.
“You will release my son,” Klaus ground out through his bared teeth, rage and fear feeding each other into greater and greater heights. “You will release him to me now, or I will finish what the Other started and burn your family and this town until there is nothing left but ashes.”
Dust trickled down onto Klaus’ shoulders. He raised his eyes and saw the stone block hovering overhead. Waiting. Klaus lowered his gaze and met Saturnus’ eyes, which were no longer looking quite so amused.
“I will take you with me,” Klaus said, his grip tightening.
“Right,” Saturnus said, voice slightly strangled because Klaus was strangling him slightly. “How about you put me down, and the castle doesn’t crush you, and we start this conversation over like civilized gentlemen.”
“You have never been civilized in your life.”
“Neither have you. But we are both good at pretending, when we need to.”
Klaus’ heartbeat began to return to normal, and the fog of mindless terror to diminish enough that he could think clearly. Sort of clearly, anyway. At least enough so he could realize that killing Saturnus, while immensely satisfying in the moment, would not help Gil.
Gently, Klaus lowered Saturnus back down onto his chair, which shuffled itself into position so Saturnus did not need to readjust himself.
Saturnus backed the chair away a little, rubbing his throat, and gave Klaus a wry smile.
“To answer your question, as I said, Gilgamesh is having dinner with Agatha. He is safe and sound, physically and—as far as I can tell—psychologically. And for the record, he’s here of his own free will. Now, anyway.”
“Do not lie to me!” Klaus snarled, temper flaring again, ignoring the threatening grind of stone-on-stone overhead. “He was seen with a woman matching the description of Lady Jenka of Mechanicsburg. Lady Jenka, who was then abruptly and urgently recalled to Mechanicsburg, leaving with a large wooden crate—”
“No,” Saturnus said, sarcastically, clearly unable to stop himself. “A woman traveling with large pieces of luggage, is there no end to Mechanicsburg’s depravities.”
“It had airholes in it!”
“Yes, yes, yes, I’m not saying I didn’t kidnap him, I own up to that—and for the record I did it gently, not so much as a bonk on the head. Jenka used a very mild soporific; he just took a nap and woke up here. I’m saying that Agatha was all set to let him go, and he said he’d like to stay for dinner.”
Klaus snorted derisively.
“Do you seriously expect me to believe Lady Heterodyne went through all the trouble of having him kidnapped and brought here, only to let him go? Short of some plan to lure him in with reverse psychology, I refuse to believe—”
“I kidnapped him,” Saturnus interrupted, disgruntled. “Who said anything about Agatha–” Saturnus stopped, eyes going wide, pieces falling together. “Red fire, no wonder you’re in a state.”
“I am ‘in a state’ because you kidnapped my son.”
This time, Saturnus’ smile was bitter and humorless.
“But would you be in as much of a state if you didn’t so intimately know Lucrezia Mongfish for what she was?”
Klaus did not answer. His first instinct was to say yes, but…well. The thought of Gilgamesh hanging over a vat of acid while a Heterodyne cackled maniacally by the knife switch did invoke less terror than the thought of him alone in a room with Lucrezia.
“She’s not her mother, Klaus. She may look like her, but it’s no deeper than that. She’s a Heterodyne through and through. Not my brand of Heterodyne, more’s the pity, but she is still a Heterodyne. We don’t do subtle.”
“You don’t consider a quiet kidnapping to be subtle?”
“And how long did it take those shadow men of yours to figure out who took him and where? Probably before Jenka even left the dock.”
“Hardly,” Klaus said. “They wouldn’t have let her leave, if they had.”
But the man was making a fair point. Lucrezia didn’t kidnap her men—she simply wove a web and let them walk in of their own free will. She’d even let them think it was their idea.
“I swear to you, Agatha was about ready to bite my head off when I told her.” He rubbed his chin. “Might not have been quite as mad at me if I hadn’t waited to tell her til after he was tied to the chair and dinner was ready to serve. She really was going to let him leave, and he very much insisted on staying.”
“That would be an extremely foolish thing for him to do.”
Saturnus snorted, amused.
“Right, because love never made any man act a fool.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s never even met her before.”
“No,” Saturnus agreed. “But I’ll tell you now—the way he looked at Agatha when he first saw her? That’s how I looked at Teodora, and love made me enough of a fool that I didn’t realize she’d ruined my sons until it was too late. Huh! And now, between her and Agatha, I’m practically domesticated. Didn’t even consider invading Paris to get at him!”
“I would say it far more likely because you knew the Lady Heterodyne wouldn’t like it.”
“Yes. I would not burn down the world for her, Klaus.”
He said it with such determination, such seriousness, that at first Klaus couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a joke.
Then he remembered who he was talking to.
“That’s…very touching,” Klaus said, and mostly meant it. Then, abruptly realizing he’d been sidetracked, drew himself up. Very firmly, he said “Willing or not, I will take my son home.”
“No,” Saturnus said, just as firmly. “Or rather, not yet. He’s the first one she’s really liked that I’m sure can keep up with her. I’ll admit, I’ve gotten a little desperate—you wouldn’t believe the kind of young men who have come swanning in, looking for her favor.”
Klaus noted that Saturnus had not said "and out".
A sudden change came over Saturnus. He sat up straighter in his chair. He met Klaus’ gaze with eyes that burned with a fire that rivaled the depths of hell. When he spoke, his voice was solid steel, and for a moment Klaus could see Lord Saturnus as had been of old, the terror of Europa.
“But I truly believe he could make her happy, and if ensuring her happiness means bringing the wrath of the most dangerous man in Europa down on my head, so be it.”
Klaus considered this. On the one hand, he only had Saturnus’ word for any of this. On the other, it was hard to imagine Saturnus would be hiding the fact that his graddaughter was returning to family form, instead of gloating from the rooftops.
And, Klaus was forced to admit, it would be out of character. If she was responsible, it would be the first act of old-school Heterodyning from Lady Agatha—
Klaus remembered Duke Leffert’s attempted invasion the previous spring, and the mountain on the far side of the Heterodyne Valley that now had a big hole in the middle, and corrected himself. This would be the first unprovoked act committed by Lady Agatha in the nearly ten years she had ruled Mechanicsburg.
“Very well,” Klaus said, stiffly. “But I am not leaving without him.”
“You can have him back as soon as they finish dessert,” Saturnus promised, grinning again. “Now come on, let me pour you a drink. You could use one.”
‘Per my lady’s standing instructions, I am reminding you of the doctor’s orders,’ the castle said.
“Duly ignored,” Saturnus said cheerfully, moving his chair towards a laden drinks cart.
"You know, Wulfenbach, I didn't think much of you in the old days. But I'm glad to see you've gotten all that heroing out of your system and settled down to build a good old fashioned evil empire. And you’re doing a marvelous job! "
Klaus was very glad Saturnus' back was turned to him.
“Yes, it does my heart good to see someone keeping the old ways.”
Klaus managed to get his expression under control just in time as Saturnus turned around. Saturnus held out a crystal cut glass half filled with a dark purple liquid. Klaus did not hesitate to take the glass from Saturnus, or to drink from it, which pleased the old man greatly.
"Ha! Not an ounce of fear in you, eh?"
"I've made myself immune to most poisons,” said Klaus, looking down at the drink in puzzlement. “Especially the rare ones. " He sipped the drink again, and mentally weighed how much he wanted to know what the flavor was against how much he did not want to know what was made of.
"See! You know what you're doing! I'm not at all surprised by your choice of son.”
Klaus looked up, dragging his attention from the drink, which was reflecting the light in a very strange way.
“My choice?” he repeated.
"Heh. Perhaps I've said too much. No good giving you a reason to assassinate me, eh?"
Klaus did not particularly like the sound of that.
“Let’s just say, I’d be careful of those Sturmvarous people. That boy knows some things about Gil you might not want to get out.”
Klaus made a mental note to burn Sturmhalten to the ground as soon as he and Gil left.
Saturnus chuckled.
“Look at that face! Would you believe Agatha thinks you’re still good? I think it’s just because you used to run with her father and her uncle. People change, I tell her! If she’d seen you just now, oh, I’d like to see her try and call you good after that little display.” He wagged a playful finger at Klaus. “Don’t think I missed that subtle little dig about my grandson, either! A man after my own heart.”
Never before had such warm approval caused Klaus so much shame.
“It was over the line,” Klaus admitted.
“Oh it was!” Saturnus said, with evident enjoyment. “And I’ll bet you’re teaching Gilgamesh all you know, eh? Nature and nurture! He’ll make a fine overlord.”
Klaus kept his face neutral, even when Saturnus winked at him. Only when Saturnus took a drink did Klaus allow himself to grimace.
‘Lord Saturnus, the lady is–’
Klaus was suddenly aware of pounding footsteps and shouting. The door burst open, Klaus tensed, and the Lady Heterodyne came tumbling in. Right on her heels was–
“Gilgamesh!”
The wave of relief could have brought Klaus to his knees. Gil was unharmed, though his clothes were slightly rumpled. His eyes were shining and slightly manic, but no more than was usual for Gil under the influence of the Spark.
“Father!” he said, startled, but not displeased. “What are you doing he–?”
“Grandfather!” Lady Heterodyne interrupted. She grabbed the arm of Saturnus’ chair. “The blue orb things in the grey hallway, are they lamps or lightning generators?”
“Lamps-”
Agatha whirled around and jabbed a finger at Gil.
“Ha!”
“--that generate lightning.”
“Ah-HA!” Gil exclaimed.
“Still primarily a lamp!” She swung back around to Saturnus. “I need them. Castle! I want the electrical laboratory prepped! I need you to reroute the extra power to the salamanders, and if you can’t, find a place to dump it that won’t kill all the fish–”
“Father!” Gil said. “Did you bring the castle? Can you bring me my lightning generator–”
“—lamp!—and tell Van to have the river blocked off for the next few days just in case—”
“Oh! And can you bring my weather enhancer, my weather dehancer, and my electromagnetic–”
“There's no time!” Agatha cried. “The storm will be here in half an hour!”
“You know what, nevermind, I'll just build new ones. Let's go!”
Gil and Agatha took off, leaving the door hanging open.
Klaus stared at the open door, listening to their excited shouting fade as they ran down the hall. He shut his eyes, knowing, knowing without even needing to look, that Saturnus was smirking triumphantly. In the distance, Gil laughed.
He sounded…very happy.
“So! Solstice at your place this year?” Saturnus asked, somehow managing to gloat a question.
Klaus downed the rest of his drink in one swallow.
-
“You know,” Gil said, in the dirigible on the way to Castle Wulfenbach, “it’s the funniest thing—Saturnus thinks I’m adopted.”
Klaus’ brow furrowed.
“He told you this?”
“It’s why he kidnapped me in the first place. Apparently, he overheard Tarvek Sturmvoraus saying my real father is Petrus Teuful. I don’t even know where Tarvek got that idea in the first place.”
Klaus, keeping his face perfectly neutral, mentally crossed destroy Sturmhalten off his To Do list.
“I can’t imagine,” he said.
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