Steve and Gareth as cousins warm up, part two!
First part is HERE.
Next part is HERE.
Reminder: Someone on Twitter proposed Steve and Gareth as cousins whose family had a major falling out, and then someone else brought it up recently and long story short no idea who to credit the idea too bc you can’t search for SHIT on Twitter but it's theirs not mine.
Warnings: Steve and Robin Get (canon-S3) Drugged.
"I'm just saying the other theater is cheaper." Eddie said around the straw jammed in his mouth.
He carried the largest bucket of popcorn Starcourt’s movie theater offered, alongside the two boxes of candy he'd also demanded Gareth buy him.
"Easier to sneak into, you mean." Gareth corrected, with his significantly smaller bag of popcorn. His, he planned to share with Jeff, Grant having snuck in his own food.
Gareth himself would have snuck in the cheaper (and far larger) snacks, but Eddie had thrown a fit about going to the mall to see a new movie instead of Hawkin’s far older theater.
Of course, the older theater also had several disadvantages, key of which was terrible seating, and so, Gareth had bribed him with whatever treats he wanted.
His wallet took a hit but fuck it, at least they got to actually see the screen.
Not that they even made it into the fucking theater, because someone chose that moment to crash into Eddie.
Popcorn kernels and soda flew everywhere, with Eddie only avoiding it landing on him and Gareth both by years of dealing with this exact bullshit in school. Of course, the mall wasn’t school, and neither of them had their guard up.
"What the hell man--" Eddie spat, immediately on the defense, as they both turned to see what jackass wanted to cause problems this time.
Except Gareth had recognized the person who bumped him.
"Steve?" Gareth asked, causing his cousin to totter around and face him. He was in his Scoops Ahoy uniform, which remained to be absolutely ridiculous, but that hadn't been what had drawn Gareth's attention.
No, that would be the absolute wrecked face staring at him with a doped up grin.
All thoughts of the movie immediately faded away.
"What happened to your face!?" Gareth demanded, immediately stepping up into his cousin's space, eyes darting over the damage.
Recent black eye, split lip, blood splatter all down one side of his neck, nevermind his clothes…
"Robs!" Steve called over his shoulder instead of answering, body moving as if he was walking on a wildly rocking boat and not solid ground. "Come 'ere!"
He beamed, which had the horrific effect of resplitting his lips. "Meet Gareth, my baby cousin!"
"I am two years younger than you." Gareth argued on automatic. He didn’t look to see how Eddie took this little piece of info--he’d figure out what he’d say later, when Steve wasn’t covered in blood.
It did not stop Robin from reaching out to pinch his cheeks.
She too, Gareth realized, was clearly high on something, both of them giggling and weaving on their feet.
At least Robin didn’t appear to be hurt--or at least, not hurt as badly as Steve.
"What the hell did you two take?" Gareth demanded, looking between them as he quickly put his popcorn back off to the side.
"We didn't take anything, dad." Steve said bossily, rolling his eyes. He spoke in a voice so unlike himself that Gareth knew his own face was doing something crazy.
Not that he could stop it because what the hell.
"What my patriotic friend here means is that we don't know." Robin added, smacking a hand onto Steve’s shoulder.
(The entire sentence was slurred and sounded like she'd shoved candy in her mouth before she started talking.)
"You don't know?!” Gareth asked, taking in the way Steve flinched when Robin touched him. Added a mental note to check his cousin's shoulder too. “How do you not know?"
Gareth wasn't panicking, he wasn't, except he absolutely fucking was. Steve's dad was going to kill him, disown him, and throw the body out of his house--in that exact order.
Gareth’s parents wouldn’t take him in, not unless his mom felt she could use it to one up her sister in some way which meant that Gareth was going to have to sneak Steve in and out of the house like he was some--some puppy Gareth was trying to keep and--
"Did someone give you two something?" Eddie asked, interrupting Gareth’s spiraling.
"Give is a very strong word." Steve said with a snicker.
Robin nodded so much she looked like a bobble head. She leaned in, nearly falling into Gareth in the process. “In fact it’s not the word I’d use at all! I’d use…” She trailed off, screwing her eyes up in thought.
“Made us?” Steve suggested as Gareth finally gave in to his instincts and reached out to steady his cousin. “Forced us?”
“Socked it to us!” Robin added with a weird amount of glee, and the two of them once again collapsed into giggles.
Literally, forcing Gareth to try and steady them both.
Which meant Eddie was right--they’d been drugged. It made perfect sense-- Steve wasn’t the kind to experiment with drugs beyond weed. Had in fact, given a very long lecture about how he’d make Gareth go on runs with him if he ever found out Eddie had given him anything stronger than weed.
There was no way he’d change now, and especially not around a jobsite. Particularly one as busy as the mall.
"You can't tell anybody." Robin continued, eyes so wide they were more white than pupils. "But we got truth serumed!"
As if that made any fucking sense.
Gareth turned a half frantic, half disbelieving look to Eddie--whose own face scared him almost as badly as Steve's did.
He was hiding it, and doing a good job of doing so, but Eddie was the one person Gareth knew better than Steve.
Right now? Eddie Munson was furious.
Not mad, or upset, or even as pissed as he had been the time Tommy Hagan had thrown his drug box in the river.
He was enraged.
"Hey." He said, and the only thing more shocking than realizing Eddie was this mad was hearing him talk in a calming, almost playful voice. "Sounds like you two sailors had a pretty rough time. Why don't we go to the bathroom and get you both cleaned up? I bet you'll feel a little better."
It was clearly the right move, because both of them looked downright delighted.
"He thinks we're sailors!" Steve said, cupping a hand around his mouth and leaning to talk in Robin’s ear as if he was whispering. (He wasn’t.)
Robin’s grin grew impossibly wider, before Eddie stepped forward to help Gareth half guide half herd the two into the nearest bathroom.
"I know you." Robin said, squinting dramatically as Eddie opened the door with his regular flair, bellowing for anyone in the place to get out.
It was Steve's turn to nod enthusiastically. "That's Eddie, Robbie." He said.
"I'm honored King Steve knows such a humble peasant's name." Eddie bowed as Gareth finally got both Steve and Robin into the bathroom, trying to get them to sit on the floor before they fell on their asses.
Which just made a hurt expression appear on Steve's face. "’Course I do. You have really pretty hair."
It had the effect of making Eddie look like he’d been punched and Gareth had to quickly turn his bark of laughter into a cough.
"I bet it's soft.” Steve continued, as he pressed his back against the tiled wall and slowly slid down to the floor. “Gare, is it soft?"
"It's very soft." Gareth agreed, trying to wet a paper towel with shaking hands. Finally he gave up entirely, ripping the plaid sweater he had tied around his waist and shoving one of the sleeves into the sink.
“Oh my god.” Robin said abruptly, sitting up from her own slouched spot on the floor as if she’d suddenly been stricken sober. “It’s him! He’s your type!”
“What’s my type?” Steve turned to her, as Eddie leaned his back against the door to the bathroom, blocking anyone else from entering.
“It’s like--like Nancy! But boy Nancy.” Robin seemed to think this made a ton of sense, and given Steve’s immediate groan maybe it did to him, but Gareth was too freaked out to even begin to process what the hell they were on about.
Probably nothing, given they’d been drugged.
Eddie seemed to pick up on his general anxiety and poor attempts at shoving down his own freakout, because he gently called out Gareth’s name.
“I think it’s wet enough.” He added with a raised eyebrow. His eyes drifted purposefully to the sink and with a curse, Gareth snapped shut the water off.
His hands were still shaking.
“Give it to me.” Eddie said gently, moving to take the shirt from Gareth’s hands. “Here, swap me Gare, and guard the door.”
Gareth did, as Eddie knelt down to take Steve’s chin in one hand, and carefully began dapping his wounded face with the wet sleeve.
“May I ask what battles you two sailors have been involved in?” He said, continuing to sound like playful, fun Eddie and not like he was about to murder half the town (which, Gareth could tell by body language alone, is what Eddie actually felt like) “Did you happen to catch a glimpse of the villains who did this?"
“Robin melted into Steve, rubbing her face in his shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe us.”
Eddie smiled his most charming smile, a full blown rouge grin he played up as he continued to wipe and dab at Steve’s wounds. “You’d be surprised at what I believe in, my fair lady.”
Steve tried to talk, but ended up hissing as he ran into Eddie’s fingers.
“Russians.” He managed to get out, when Eddie quickly took the sleeve away so he could talk. “We got kidnapped by fucking Russians. Also we kinda saw some shit and they’re after us. Possibly you now if they saw you with us.”
There was the briefest of pause as Steve and Robin stared at Eddie, as Eddie stared back.
Then Steve and Robin as one started howling with laughter, so hard that Robin’s head ended up in Steve’s lap with Steve’s own head resting on hers.
Eddie turned to give Gareth a pinched look. “Russians.” He said, still calm despite it all. “Right.”
Which had to be the fucking drugs speaking.
Gareth just took a deep breath as Eddie managed to gently prod Steve back into putting his chin in his hand, shaking his head ever so slightly.
He didn’t know who he was going to actually have to murder, but at least Eddie looked to be on board with acting as his backup.
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Your Ancient History, Written In Wax
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Danny knew he should have put better security around the Sarcophagus of Eternal Sleep. It wasn’t even Vlad who opened it this time! The fruitloop was too busy doing his actual mayor duties because for some godforsaken reason, the man got re-elected.
No, it wasn’t Vlad. And it wasn’t Fright Knight, either. Nor the Observants. Who opened the Sarcophagus, then? Danny didn’t have time to find out as Pariah Dark promptly tore open a hole in reality and started hunting Danny down.
The battle was longer this time. He didn’t have the Ecto-Skeleton, as that was the first thing Pariah had destroyed. The halfa had grown a lot over the past few years, and learned some new tricks, but apparently sleeping in a magic ghost box meant that Pariah had absorbed a lot of power. The bigger ghost acted like a one-man army!
Amity Park was caught in the middle of the battle, but the residents made sure it went no further than that. Vlad and the Fentons made a barrier around the town to keep the destruction from leaking. Sam, Tucker, and Dani did crowd control while Danny faced the king head-on.
Their battle shook the Zone and pulled them wildly between the mortal plane and the afterlife. Sometimes, residents noticed a blow from Pariah transported them to the age of the dinosaurs, and Phantom’s Wail brought them to an unknown future. Then they were in a desert. Then a blazing forest. Then underwater. It went on like that, but no one dared step foot outside of Amity. They couldn’t risk being left behind.
It took ages to beat him, but eventually, Danny stood above the old ghost king, encasing his symbols of power in ice so they couldn’t be used again. He refused to claim the title for himself. Tired as he was, Danny handed the objects off to Clockwork for safe keeping and started repairing the damage Pariah had done to the town. The tear he’d made was too big to fix, for now, so no one bothered. They just welcomed their new ghostly neighbors with open arms and worked together to restore Amity Park.
Finally, the day came to bring down the barrier. People were gathered around the giant device the Fentons had built to sustain it. Danny had brought Clockwork to Amity, to double check that they had returned to the right time and dimension.
Clockwork assured everyone that they were in the right spot, and only a small amount of time had passed, so the Fentons gave the signal to drop the shield.
Very quickly did they discover that something was wrong. The air smelled different. The noise of the nearby city, Elmerton, was louder and more chaotic. Something was there that wasn’t before, and it put everyone on edge.
Clockwork smiled, made a remark about the town fitting in better than before, and disappearing before Danny could catch him.
Frantic, Danny had a few of his ghost buds stay behind to protect the town while he investigated.
He flew far and wide, steadily growing horrified at the changes the world had undergone. Heroes, villains, rampant crime and alien invasions. The Earth was unrecognizable. There were people moving around the stars like it was second nature and others raising dead gods like the apocalypse was coming. Magic and ectoplasm was everywhere, rather than following the ley lines like they were supposed to.
Danny returned to Amity.
The fight with Pariah had taken them through space and time. Somewhere along the way, they had changed the course of history so badly that this now felt like an alien world.
How was he supposed to fix this?
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In the Watchtower, The Flash was wrapping up monitor duty while Impulse buzzed around him, a little more jittery than usual. The boy was talking a mile a minute, when alarms started blaring an alarming green. Flash had never seen this alarm before, and its crackling whine was grating on his ears.
Flash returned to the monitor, frantically clicking around to find the issue, but nothing was popping up. No major disasters, no invasions, no declarations of war. Nothing! What was causing the alarm?
Impulse swore and zipped to a window, pressing his face against it and staring down at Earth. “Fuck! It’s today isn’t it? I forgot!”
“What’s today?” Flash asked. He shot off a text to Batman, asking if it was an error. The big Bat said it wasn’t, and that he would be there soon.
“The arrival of Amity Park. I learned about this in school; the alarm always gives me headaches.”
Flash turned to his grandson, getting his attention. “Bart,” he stressed. “What are you talking about?”
Impulse barely glanced over his shoulder. Now that Flash was facing him, he could see a strong glow coming from Earth. “The first villain, first anti-villain, and the first hero,” he said anxiously. “They all protect the town of the original metas. They’re all here.”
“Here? Now??”
“Yeah? They weren’t before, but they are now. The first hero said there was time stuff involved, which was what inspired me to start practicing time travel in the first place.”
“I’m not following.”
“It’s okay. We should probably go welcome them before they tear apart Illinois, though. The history I remember says that some of them freaked and destroyed a chunk of the Midwest during a fight with each other.”
“WHAT?”
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DPxDC: Jarro Adopts an Alien
Ok, so Danny has a space obsession and a protection obsession (I headcanon that as a halfa, Danny has two obsessions like all Halfas do which makes them unique to other ghosts.) and so while he can get his fill protecting people in Amity, he struggles with his space obsession. Sure, he can look up everything he can about space and the stars on the internet. He can stay up until 2 am looking at the stars (who needs sleep? He’s a ghost, he can go days, or even weeks without sleep if he wants, same with a lack of air or food.) but it’s just not enough. He craves to learn more, see more. Just as Dani gets that itch to travel, Danny wonders. What would it be like to see the stars up close? Are they really as hot as a dragons fire breath? Hotter!? Or maybe they are so hot they are cold. What does it look like to see plasma dancing across the surface, or touch the gasses of Jupiter? Does Pluto have ice caves like the far frozen? How many planets are actually out there? What about Mars. There’s a whole species living there with a language and culture Danny can’t even fathom! Oh what he wouldn’t give to talk with martian manhunter or Superman.
And what’s stopping him from exploring this? He can fly. He doesn’t need air. He can go intangible if it gets too hot and he’s practically immune to the cold. He wants to touch a space rock! See if they are smooth because there is no wind or earth to rub against them and erode the surface. He wants to see what planets they come from. What minerals they might have. He wants to know if there are currents in space. All of these things are right there just above the atmosphere. Surely it couldn’t hurt to take a quick peek. So he does. During a particularly bad day Danny flies as fast as he can until the earth’s gravity looses its effects. Until his hair is floating as of it’s in water even more than normal. Until he can feel when breathing no longer became a choice (still not necessary though). And it…was beautiful. To be surrounded by space. To see the earth like this. Pictures just didn’t do it Justice. He flew across the solar system and as he passed planets, he longed to fly through them. To search every crevice and learn their secrets. But he had a bigger prize in mind at the moment. The crown jewel of their universe. The closest star he could find. The sun.
Danny was mesmerized. The plasma really did dance across the surface. Like a never ending performance of science and beauty. There were sparks that few in arcs. Danny flew down and played in them, making a game to see how many he could fly under. His ghost core purred in delight. His obsession had never been more satisfied. He spent hours out there. Just exploring what his solar system had to offer. So when he returned? He couldn’t just forget. Pictures and online science theories had nothing on the real thing. He wanted to explore some more. So he did. Every night he would go out and explore the cosmos. Flying from planet to planet. (Either the Martians were still around and Danny made friends with them, even learning their language, or he just looks at their ruins to learn as much as he can). And with both obsessions now being filled, Danny is more settled. More confident. And he can focus better. Everyone notices the change, even his teachers. They just think that he’s paying more attention to his education now. He’s even better during his ghost fights.
But Danny can fly awfully fast. And he soaks up information even faster. Soon his trips take longer and longer as he flies further out. Sometimes he can barely make it back in time for school. And he can't go every night. Sometimes the ghosts won’t wait for daytime so he has to make sure the town will be safe in his absence. Although he’s been able to take more trips ever since Valerie joined the vigilante ranks. But still, he’s getting farther and farther from earth each night. Until one day he’s visited every planet, every star, every comet or debris in their solar system. Which would be fine. He could deal with that if that was all there was. But it wasn’t. Danny saw the stars just out of reach. He saw places the Milky Way was leaning towards. He saw just the barest hints of new solar systems with new planets and stars. And he knew of legends from lanterns that they had posted online. Heard tales from some scientists that have made better telescopes. And his core itches. It aches to know more. See more. Yet he can't go further. And this puts him in a sort of depression. Suddenly he’s back to his old self. Lagging behind. Distracted. Zoning out. Crashing into a few more buildings during ghost attacks. Yet he tries so hard to be satisfied with what he has. He can still fulfill his obsession…it’s just more like chewing on a granola bar rather than eating a decent meal. He’s almost becoming lethargic.
So one day he goes to Frostbite to see if there’s anything he can do to lessen the effects. But the yeti just takes one look at him and gives him the infimap. And suddenly Danny is in a whole new universe in seconds. The planets are purple. The stars are blue. He’s pretty sure there are furry blob-like creatures living on one of those planets. And suddenly he gets that itch, but holding the infimap, he knows he had time, so he lets himself go.
And for a while it’s good. great even. Since he can’t keep asking the yetis for the infimap, he goes over to Wulf to see if he’s up for an adventure. Most of the time he is and they go exploring the galaxies together. And then Wulf had the genius idea of teaching Danny how to make portals. It took a long time but soon, he could concentrate the surrounding ectoplasm enough to weaken it and pull. It took a while since Danny didn’t have ecto claws and would have to use his pure will. But this would allow him to follow his obsession anytime, anywhere. So it was only a matter of time. And once he figured it out? It was like something was unlocked. Danny had never before understood how Ellie could travel so much. But now he did. That feeling when you discover something new. When you add to your reservoir of knowledge. When the patterns in the universe just click. There is nothing Danny could compare it to. And to explore that whenever he wanted? It was so freeing. While Wulf sometimes still joined Danny’s adventures, Danny did most of his explorations by himself.
He meets various planets and aliens. So many different cultures. He learns thousands of languages. Tries all kinds of foods (and it’s a good thing his ghost self has an iron stomach and he’s basically poison resistant.) even found a whole comet where blood blossoms grew. (Which he most definitely avoided). And wasn’t that fascinating? To find out they were from space.
And then during his travels one day he met a space alien starfish.
It was actually a funny story. A meteor shower was about to attack a planet of talking blue monkey creatures with 4 arms. Danny immediately started diverting them and was soon joined by some lantern corps (which his inner fanboy wanted to talk to so bad.). And a tiny starfish in a…Robin uniform? Oh and the starfish could apparently do martial arts which was interesting to watch him karate chop a meteor. He could also talk directly into Danny’s head which the halfa found more interesting. So they got to talking and apparently his name was Jarro. He seemed to be helping the lantern corps as a ‘proxy from earth’ to make better use of his skills.
Danny would run into Jarro a few more times. Sometimes he was with Lanterns and sometimes he would just be exploring the galaxies. They started forming a pretty strong friendship and Danny would start seeking out the starfish alien to travel with him. He knew all kinds of space facts. Apparently he had an eidetic memory. When they explored, sometimes Jarro would just stick to part of Danny. Wrapped around his arm, his waist, sometimes just sticking to his back like a strange backpack. But they always had fun.
So Danny was happy. He could fulfill both obsessions and got a space pal. Everything was great!
Until the GIW caught him.
It would probably be the worst day of his life. There was an explosion in the lab. Something set up by them after they realized Danny frequented that place often. So they set a trap and blew it up. Thankfully, Jazz was at college during this but both his parents were home. When the explosion went off, Danny had tried putting a Barrier around them all. It took everything he had to maintain it. That’s how they found out he was phantom. Danny had a few moments where his parents said they accepted him but he couldn’t hold the barrier for long. His parents said that they loved him and then everything went green. He woke up in a lab, tired and injured. His only saving grace being that he remained in phantom form. And he was determined to remain so.
Danny’s time at the GIW was a haze but eventually, he managed to escape. Bleeding, and tired, and still recovering from the burns in the explosion, Danny made a portal straight to Amity. Only when he got there, it was a ghost town. Streets were empty, buildings were boarded up. Even the Nasty Burger was deserted. As for his house, there was nothing but a crater left and some scattered debris. Danny looked everywhere but there was no one. No Jazz. No Sam. No Tucker. No one. and he was tired. And everything hurt, and he needed a friend. Someone he could trust. So in a daze he made a portal and tried to just project safe. Safe safe safe. Somewhere he knew he would be protected. And so Jarro got a surprise when his space buddy suddenly popped out of a green portal, bleeding green and clearly passed out. He didn't know what to do. He didn’t know how to help him. But Jarro knew someone who would.
So with a speed never before seen from a tiny starfish, he flew to earth. Bringing his friend straight to his father. Because surely batman could help!
And with his appearance, the green blood, the knowledge of space facts. The lack of wanting to talk about where he came from (and the nightmares crying out for his parents). This is how the bats became convinced that Jarro brought them an injured alien.
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