DCxDP fanfic idea: Timeline Prevention Squad
Clockwork is trying to catch up on paperwork because even the gods had to do tedious work. He is flipping through pages and pages of time concerning reports when he stumbles across a particular request stuck between three old Speed Force crimes reports.
A request from Mordecai Wayne asking the time accident for help to his original time. It was filed through a ritual of one of his lost temples.
Clockwork gapes at it, suddenly realizing he forgot to follow up and had left Mordecai Wayne - better known as Bruce Wayne - to fling around the timeline.
Clockwork, when he was young, had allowed humans to set up temples and given them direct runes to send their burned parchment to him for requests. Initially, he designed the request ritual to enable humans to help or prepare for future disasters.
Give them a little warning in the form of deviation.
Then, humans turned it into trying to control the future. Or to change what had happened by having altered the past. They started thinking he would move the times to fit their desired outcome.
Tried to offer people sacrifices when he ignored the requests. Clockwork can watch the timelines like an observer over a parade, but humans put on the parade at the end of the day.
It was their free will that gave him a show. And it was this free will that cost lives that shouldn't have ended because of other humans' greed.
He closed his temples, scrambled his runes, and let his temples rot.
Clockwork thought he got them all, but he obviously left behind some crumbs of his old worshipers.
Those crumbs were enough for Bruce Wayne to painfully piece together and redo his ritual to send him a request for aid in his time placement.
He hadn't even read it, having flung it into one of his filing cabinets to look over later and... didn't.
Clockwork snapped his fingers, pulling up Bruce's timeline. He winces when he sees it too late; it's past the point, but luckily, Tim Drake pulled him out and brought him home.
People don't know that Clockwork can't undo timelines- he just makes new ones that stream off his intervention.
The most recent time he stepped in was with Danny Fenton in a universe created due to Merlin asking Clockwork to save his lover Arthur, and thus, certain events did not come to pass- like the finding of Gotham.
He rescued Daniel's family by freezing them just as the explosion happened, allowing the young hero to think his dark future had never come to pass. That was not true.
There is still a world where Daniel's family died in the explosion, and it existed right allowed side the one that they didn't.
He could do the same and step in to prevent Bruce from ever getting hit with the Omega Beams, but that would create six different timelines, which would be a pain to file for. Daniel was only two, and he-
Wait. Daniel.
That's what he could do!
He couldn't make up the fact Bruce Wayne got lost in time and asked for aid. But he could send compensation in the form of one eager gooddoer who would help him in his ultimate goal.
Make Gotham safe.
And who better than a child with a strong sense of justice and the power of a minor God?
After all, Bruce's request wasn't to get back home. He thought he was going to die from the overlapping beams. Bruce thought there was no more hope for him.
Instead his request was
Please allow me to ensure my kids are okay and will be alright once I pass.
He picks up his sticky notes, scrambling a quick message to Danny. He pauses momentarily, wondering if he should admit his mistake, but that would.....ruin his reputation.
He chooses to lie by omission.
Dear Daniel,
Please come to my Keep. I have a mission that requires your assistance in an alternate timeline.
You must help keep Bruce Wayne and his kids safe. Whatever the costs are, as is his request for aid from a higher being.
Daniel couldn't resist a mission that sounded like he was a hero, and it didn't mention who the aid was requested.
To ensure Daniel will never learn he will....tell him that the Waynes could never see Phantom or......or he be trapped there forever!
Yes perfect.
A few seconds after sending the sticky note through a portal, Clockwork senses Daniel pick up the note.
And suddenly, he sees events flash before his eyes. Scenes of Daniel following Gotham's hero. Rescuing them from their worst rouges while Bats. Circling through the nights to stop the more minor pity crimes that they were too exhausted to handle.
Enrolling into Gotham Academy to ensure their civilian safety and status. Getting close to the younger Wayne and even obtaining an internship with Tim Drake to help him at WE.
Then, Daniel gets more substantial and robust due to all the deaths that drenched Gotham. It would be just like a Kryptonian on a planet of a Blue Sun.
It would make him more robust than a yellow sun, and Daniel would flush there!
Clockwork smiles as the visions end. He did a great thing making this suggestion. Phantom will be fantastic in Gotham!
Now, hopefully, that pesky free will won't ruin his plan-
A vision of Daniel being worshiped as a Phantom as different Gotham natives start to believe him, and an unlock god appears.
Clockwork winces, but he figures if no human ever sees Phantom unless he is there for righteous heroism, he can understand why they were confused.
Which isn't so bad-
A different version of Daniel possibly appears in the future. This one shows Daniel in a bright red suit at WE with Tim Drake hyperventilating not too far away. Apparently, he suspects Daniel of being Phantom, but his hormones are getting in the way of his logical thought.
This wasn't so bad as it wasn't a cult. It was just risking Daniel's secret identity. Then again, he could honeypot his way out-
A different future appears. One where Daniel accidentally convinces the Bat children that he's stalking their Father. They think Daniel fancies Bruce Wayne, despite the alarming age difference, and try to block him at every turn.
This is okay; there were different outcomes, but nothing bad.
And it's already been done. He can't change the past, not without making more timelines.
He sighs.
Hopefully, this will all work out. Somehow.
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