#yes this is just me mashing all my favorite tropes and prompts into one big fic

[plainclothesdisaster]

Red Knight - Chapter 1

DP x DC | Dead on Main

Jason Todd encounters one Danny Fenton in the streets of Gotham and suddenly he's thrown into a world of ghosts and monsters. Will he embrace this life? Or will it just end up with him dead again?

Read on AO3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

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“Why are you following me?” Jason pressed his arm against the stranger’s throat, pinning him to the alley wall.

Under the sodium glow of the streetlight Jason got his first good look at the guy. Tall, dark hair, maybe his age or a little younger. Not the type he typically saw in the Narrows- he lacked that certain air of despair. The stranger had been following Jason since he’d left his safe house. Maybe the guy thought Jason would be an easy mugging target. Wasn’t he in for a surprise.

The stranger lifted his face and smiled. His blue eyes glowed with a green ethereal light. “How long have you been dead?”

He said it with the casual nonchalance of talking about the weather. Jason tensed, pressing harder on his arm. How the hell did this guy know?

The guy didn’t flinch. He didn’t seem bothered at all. That could only mean one thing.

Jason steadied his breath. “Metas aren’t welcome in Gotham.”

“I’m not a meta. And neither are you. But that doesn’t mean we’re totally human either.”

The stranger tilted his chin up, his smile broadened. Behind his lips he revealed a pair of fangs glinting, taunting.

From nowhere Memories of the pit stirred under Jason’s heart— rage and pain and fear. His pulse raced faster. His arm pressed harder.

As if responding to the pressure the guy’s face softened. “Oh. It’s worse than I thought.” He sounded genuinely concerned. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Shut up!” Somehow the pity stung worse than the taunts.

Jason pulled his fist back to punch the look off the guy’s face, but he didn’t get the chance to. The guy went translucent. He moved through Jason’s arm like a ghost but then suddenly his hands were solid against his chest, pushing with surprising force, sending him stumbling backward to the slimy concrete.

He fell prone and then the stranger was on top of him. Adrenaline flashed through him- too late. His breath clogged in his throat as cold clutch of power hit him. The strangers face twisted in concentration as he put a hand to and then through Jason’s chest.

The fury of the pit raged and roared, nearly as loud as it had when Jason had taken those first screaming breaths back alive. Jason fought, punching and clawing but the guy held form, unshakable. His ears rang and pain sang through his whole body and it felt like he was turning inside out and then—

Quiet.

Quiet, empty relief.

He breathed out. A cool weight sat heavy under his heart where previously there had been a nest of scorpions.

Jason’s mouth fell open. The guy pulled his hand back with a sigh and stood up.

“That should help I think.”

Jason looked down at his chest- unscathed. A thousand questions scrolled through his head. The one that made it out of his lips: “What the fuck?”

The guy shrugged as he stepped back. “Gotta look out for you. You’re one of mine.”

One of mine. Those words sent a shiver through Jason. This guy was obviously a dangerous meta. Jason had been embarrassingly helpless to stop him doing whatever it was he just did. Time for some answers.

Jason rolled up to a fighting crouch and pulled a handgun from his belt. He leveled its comforting weight at the not-meta meta. “I don’t belong to anybody.”

The stranger’s smile came back, and so did his fangs. Jason bit his tongue.

The guy pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and scrawled for a moment, completely nonplussed by the gun pointed at him. “Call me if it gets bad again?”

Jason didn’t move. He gripped the gun tighter. “Who are you?”

Still that smile. “I’m Danny.”

And then he vanished. Not a Batman fade-into-the-shadows type of vanish. One second he was there and the next- nothing but air. The paper he’d written on fluttered down to the ground in the place where he’d stood.

Jason lowered the gun. He got up to walk away, ready to chalk up the whole experience to some meta bullshit he didn’t want to think about again.

But a new weight sat heavy in his chest. The quiet lingered in his head. Whatever that guy did, it made him feel more calm, more in control of himself than he had in a long time. Halfway through that thought the wind picked up and threatened to blow the paper away. Jason’s stomach dropped as he scrambled to catch it. He closed his fist around it just as it reached the street.

He uncrumpled it between his fingers. A phone number, nothing else. On the other side— a receipt for bat burger. What the fuck.