Danny Was Tired. Tired Of Trying To Explain That He Was Dead, Tired Of Trying To Explain That He Was

Danny was tired. Tired of trying to explain that he was dead, tired of trying to explain that he was half a ghost, tired of being told he never died. He had thought that the bats reaction to the reveal was better than his parents. No one was trying to give him anti-ecto medicine to "cure him." So he had thought it was better, and that they would understand with time that he had died, but they didn't.

He never knew how much being denied your dead could hurt. The way he felt the electricity going through he's body, tearing him apart, while ectoplasm put him back together... It wasn't just an accident that gave him powers.

He understands the desire for it to be just that, denial helped team Phantom keep going after the accident. But even then, while pretending he was still alive, he knew he had died, and Frostbite confirmed it when he told him he was a Halfa.

He's friends had pushed through their grief and guilt, and accepted that he was half ghost, because they saw how much it hurt him when they tried to pretend he hadn't died. They could mourn together thanks to that. Why couldn't his new family do that?

He gave them time, accepting the new member of the family was dead, was not going to be easy, so he was patient. But it's been a month, and hearing them say how death was something that's just in his mind, hurts. They're denying his own existence, his worst experience, and it hurts.

It's been half a year since Jazz reported their parents for poisoning him. They had good intentions, they thought they were helping him, but their "medicine" only made him weaker by the day. He could feel that his core was finally strong enough to make a portal to the infinite realms once more, and a visit to Frostbite is due.

He was looking forward to teaching them about ghosts, about his ghost guardians, about his culture. He wanted to show them his castle, to show them the crown that would be placed in his head when he turns 100 years dead. Introduce them to his mentors. He wanted to go to Frostbite with Bruce, to finally be able to trust an adult to look out for his health as a ghost.

He wasn't so sure he wanted to do that anymore. They cared about him, he knew that, but he had already learned with his parents that meaning well doesn't always do well. Was it a good idea to take them with him to the infinite realms? What if they denied other ghosts deaths?

He's the prince, he shouldn't so casually take people that aren't even able to accept he's a ghost to the infinite realms. It is irresponsible, it's selfish. But Sam had told him that this would surely force them to accept his reality, and Tucker said it was worth the risk. It's not like they're ghost hunters.

As Jason came into the living room, being the last one to arrive, Danny took one last fortifying breath. There's no going back, Tuck is right, he needs his new family to support him. He can't live through what happened with the Fenton's all over again.

- Okay chum, everyone's here. What did you want to talk about?

- Yeah, well... - Danny started rocking from side to side. - I have an appointment with my doctor this afternoon. I was-

-Wait, you have an appointment with what doctor? We haven't scheduled anything with Leslie. - Said Tim.

- Ah, yeah, no, I'm talking about my Ghost doctor.

Danny could taste the disbelief in the air as they looked at each other, oh, there was also anger and pity there. What was there to be angry about? Ghost's abilities to taste emotions would be way better if he could also read minds.

- Danny, kiddo, - Said Dick oh so carefully, in that way he did every time he tried to convince him that he wasn't dead, as if he was talking to a confused little kid. - who's this ghost doctor of yours? Where did you meet him?

Oh! Right, they don't believe Danny is dead, so a ghost doctor must be a scammer. A scammer that's taking advantage of a vulnerable kid. That's where the anger comes from.

Danny took another breath, he should be given a prize for the patient he's displaying here.

- His name is Frostbite. - More frowns, oh joy - Met him a couple of months after the accident. - A couple opened their mouths to say something, but Danny continued before they had the chance. - As I was saying, this afternoon I have an appointment with him, and I wanted to use it as a chance to take y'all to the infinite realms.

- The land of the dead? - Asks Duke.

- I mean, there's not only the dead but, yeah. - There was silence for a moment and Danny decided to talk again. - I mean, if you have time to come.

They looked at each other once more, and then nodded.

- Okay, we're going with you. - Answered Bruce

- Really? Even Jason? - Danny asked hopefully. Jason was the one he wanted to be there the most. He needed Frostbite to take a look at his injured proto-core.

- There's nothing big in Crime Alley today, and I really want to meet this doctor of yours. - Jason said with a smile that didn't really hide the murderous intentions - When are we leaving?

And Danny knew they didn't believe him. He knew they were probably planning to attack the one they thought was taking advantage of him. But he was happy they were at least coming.

- 20 min. I want to have time to show you around some places.

Everyone runs to get ready, weren't expecting to be going out so soon.

Tasting the anger and determination left in the now empty room, Danny thought: "If this doesn't work... Well, It's not like I haven't been ready to give up on living in the mortal realm for months now. I can just not come back."

# Dcu x Dp 177

Danny is having mix feelings his parents believed that his powers were the cause of ecto contaminated and was making him sick and slow killing.

While the bat's and birds think that he is also sick they belived that the powers he has have made him think he is dead and have given him something called walking corpse syndrome

The batfam believes that Danny is a meta with Cotard's syndrome and are trying to convince him that he is not dead. While also making sure that he does not die for real because of starvation or injury/infection.

Cotard's syndrome ( aslo called walking corpse) a rare mental disorder in which the affected person holds the believe that parts of their body are missing, or that they are dying, dead, or don't exist

One of the bats had the theory that the lack of emotion came from a meta-gene activating during the Joker attack and decided to try the meta collars (All the lab results were inconclusive so who's to say that isn't a probability?), just in case, they needed to try everything.

Danny feels like he's ecto-signal is being blocked by the meta collar and risks letting go of his emotions, just a bit, to test it's limits, but the collar doesn't block much, and is easier to just don't feel at all than trying to control how much he feels. So the bats get to see Danny's face gain some emotion (nervousness? Anxiety? Hope? Fear?) for a fraction of a second before he goes completely emotionless once more.

- Theory one: The meta-collar isn't strong enough somehow, let's try with one more powerful. -> Danny doesn't want to risk it again, so he stays emotionless.

- Theory two: Since Danny doesn't react with stronger meta-blockers, then something about the meta-collar gave Danny an emotion strong enough to come through for a second. Maybe it brought memories of something... something before the Joker attack? Was... Was Danny a victim of meta trafficking? Did they just re-traumatize their new little brother multiple times?

Duke feels especially guilty about this because as a meta, "he should have known better". The bats are not as eager to keep experimenting after that, but Danny continues to be emotionless, so eventually they have to try something else, right?

Danny's found a way to dodge GIW trackers, as well as his parents. Their equipment hunts ghosts, ghosts run on emotion; so as long as he keeps his under a tight lid and doesn't feel anything ever, they won't be able to track him.

It works!

He's able to run from them, and goes as far as New Jersey. The plan was to stow away on a ship, and go to literally any country that wasn't America. He goes to Gotham, which hosts the one harbor he knows where no one will ask any questions.

But because of how weird he acted (completely emotionless during a Joker attack), he was fingered by police immediately.

He's handed over to CPP. CPP doesn't know what to do with a teen literally so traumatized that they don't show any emotion at all, ever. He keeps just...walking out of his placements. Just leaves without a sound.

Luckily, he's always caught, due to those placement houses having quiet alarms and him refusing to run.

They call the one foster parent they know who does.

Bruce Wayne takes in the strange, nameless kid who refuses to talk.

On paper, they gave him the filler name of 'John Doe', for lack of anything better to do.

Bruce does everything he can to make the newest arrival feel at home. Damian, for as territorial as he is, actually breaks out of his shell sooner than expected just to try to get the new kid to speak. To emote. To do something. Duke tries the open approach, then tries the 'no one will ever know, everyone thinks I'm an innocent goody-two-shoes' approach. Nada.

Tim even tries to trick him into talking, but nothing works.

Enter Dick; Dick heard about Bruce's new ward, about the situation, and decided to see if he could get the kid to open up.

Danny though. Danny's in trouble.

The Wayne Manor is weirdly secure, and he can't just walk away like he did his other placements. He can't use ghost powers or the GIW and his parents will immediately know where he is.

He really, really wants to take Bruce up on his offer and just spend the day relaxing. Respond to Damian's attempts to provoke him. Overshare about space facts with Tim.

But most of all, he really, desperately wants to get in a Pun Competition with Dick. He wants to laugh at Dick's jokes, and learn coolass gymnastic tricks!

But he can't!

If he relaxes with Bruce, he'll be content, which is an emotion. If he argues with Damian, he'll get annoyed, which is an emotion. If he sneaks out with Duke and breaks the rules, he'll get happy, which, again, emotion. If he overshares with Tim, he'll get excited, which is, yet again, an emotion!

The worst sin of all, he can't even show proper appreciation of the food the Butler keeps making him!

And now there's even more people coming over!

There's a quiet girl who keeps reading his body language and trying to get him to dance ballet, a blonde girl who keeps trying to kidnap him to take him to BatBurger, a guy with a stripe of white who wants to take him to a shooting range, and it just...he really, really wants to!

He wants to do all these cool things with them!

But he fucking can't!

Okay, but I can see that been the drop that finishes Danny's patience. He's doing he's best to lay low and survive until Phantom finds he's way back to him. Having to hear the Wayne's talking about how Phantom won't be able to reach him again in comforting tones, as if that wasn't what was killing him right now.

He thought Red Huntress and his parents abilities to blame everything on Phantom were outstanding, but they're nothing compare to the Justice League and their "he's using you to reach the world of the living."

With his body deteriorating by the day, and Ellie's core getting weaker as time goes by because he's feeding off of it, instead of it feeding off of him as it was supposed to, Danny was hanging by a thread. And now this con artist comes in and tells him his been knocked out by himself?

Danny couldn't help it, he started laughing. It was long past ridiculous. He must have looked hysteric because the con artist went ahead with a pitting look and made it worse.

"Don't worry kid. We can get rid of-"

"You touch Ellie's core and there won't be an Ancient capable of stopping me from ripping your head off your body!"

Stunned silence filled the room, and well, maybe that was the wrong move, but Danny was in survival mode and extremely tired. It's inevitable that he would snap if they threatened Ellie. There was a silent conversation between the three men that were in the room with him.

"Danny, I know this isn't easy," Started Bruce "but your body it's been deteriorating, this thing it's -"

"This thing it's Ellie's core, and it's the only thing keeping me alive right now. Which it's bullshit because the whole incubating thing it's supposed to work the other way! But no! The league of imbeciles had to get their noses where they weren't called!"

And, more stunned silence. There goes laying low until Phantom found him. Whatever, at this rate Ellie was going to fade before Phantom came, and then Danny was going to die, and then Phantom was going to fade too. The Justice League should be proud, their getting an endangered species back to having just one member. That's if they didn't ruin things for Vlad to, Danny doesn't have a way to know.

"Danny..." Tim brought Danny back to the present. Feeling the burning sensation in his eyes, he realizes tears have been gathering in them, but he can't be bother to keep them back. "What do you mean by the only thing keeping you alive?"

Danny bites his lip and glares at the floor. He isn't sure he wants to explain, what would even be the point? He's tired, and angry, and worried, and scared for himself and Ellie, he doesn't want to talk to these people. The Wayne's are kind, but they're basically cell keepers for him, people tasked with keeping him away from his other half.

Bruce kneels in front of Danny, looking him in the eye with a protective determination. One that somehow just makes Danny feel worse.

"Danny, if Phantom has-"

"Fuck, Phantom isn't the problem!" Danny jumps to his feet, almost hitting Bruce. "The problem was the fucking Justice League being unable to listen! If they had listen, they would have known that Phantom wasn't any Ancient possessing someone! They would have known that I was Phantom!"

Danny could see the color draining from the con artist, a contrast to the worried gazes Bruce and Tim were sending him. Of course they don't believe him, they think Danny is being manipulated by Phantom. Danny starts pacing.

"They come into my haunt, months after their not needed anymore, months after everyone has settled to our new normal, and fucking rip me apart! Acting all heroic as if they were rescuing me, and then throw me here to die! They're so lucky that an apocalypse hasn't started yet! Because that's usually what happens when you separate a Halfa!"

"But Halfas are supposed to be extinct" The con artist mumbled and both Bruce's and Tim's whipped their head to look at him. Horror setting into their faces as the guys words confirm that what Danny is saying is true, and not something he's been pushed to believe by Phantom.

"There's no such thing as extinction in the infinite realms. All there have to happen for a species to come back, is someone dying the right way."

 Tim was really starting to get worried about his new brother.

Danny moved into Wayne Manor after his parents were arrested.  Jack and Maddie Fenton opened  a portal to the infinite realms with no way of stopping any of the world-ending threats. They let the ghosts wreak havoc and never once closed the portal. 

Danny had gotten some sort of connection to an ancient being. The Justice League Later found out that the ancient being was using the connection to gain a way to stay on Earth. They were able to sever the connection but Danny is not getting any better.

Since the attacks in Amity Park started Danny has been getting sicker and sicker. He got paler and started to bruise more easily. But after they severed the connection he seemed to no longer have energy.

Even now that they have gotten him away from amity park, nothing seems to be helping. It's been 3 months with no sign of getting better. they're on their last straw and they finally decided to get a magic user to try and help. unfortunately The person who knows the most is Constantine.

Constantine walked into the room with Bruce. Danny had no idea that they were connected to the Justice League and they were hoping to keep it that way. They don't want to stress him, especially with how sick he is.  Constantine and Bruce stopped in front of Danny.

 Bruce tried to use a gentle tone and said “ danny I know you're having a lot of trouble so I called in someone to help “

Danny had  an apprehensive look.

 “Kid, I just need your hand,” Constantine said as he reached out a hand. ”I'm not going to do any creepy shit, I'm just trying to make you better”

Danny reluctantly placed his hand onto constantines. it was a few minutes before Constantine Swar under his breath.

"What is it” Bruce demanded.

”the little ghosty left a parting gift”

“that's not an explanation” 

“the kids got a  neverborn”

 “What's neverborn?” Tim asked, interrupting their conversation.

 “The closest equivalent I can make is that technically Phantom got the kid knocked Up”

A dream land - DP X DC Prompt

Okay, so I was thinking about that episode "Perchance to dream" where Bruce is trapped in a dream world and this, even thought really different, came to my mind.

Danny is king or prince of the infinite realms. He's been working on personalizing/decorating his castle in the infinite realms. When he feels someone walking just outside the castles walls. The thing is, that someone isn't a denizen, they aren't in a corporeal body, but he can feel that they are very much alive and feel distinctly human. He approaches the person to ask why and how they are in the infinite realms, but they fade away before he gets the opportunity.

Clockwork, who was with him at the moment, tells him that the visitor from the living, was just the soul projection of someone that was sleeping, and then refuses to elaborate further. Since it's something that was to do with sleeping, Danny decides to go and ask Nocturn, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that he was the one at fault for the soul projection.

Contrary to what he thought, Nocturn informed Danny that Sleeping soul projection was a natural phenomenon that he didn't control. The land of dreams, ("My domain" - Nocturn reminds him), was in the infinite realm after all, and those who have been close to death sometimes slipped they're whole soul instead of just their mind, and ended up all over the infinite realms.

It isn't too different from a lucid dream for them, the body gets all the benefit of the sleep, the mind feels rested if they had a good time in the realms. Except, if they hurt their soul too bad during their little trip, it would have real consequences. Loosing memories, abilities regression, migraine, pain that reflects the soul damage, all either temporary until the soul healed, or permanent and deteriorating, and in some occasions finishing in the persons death. In the latter, the soul is usually too damaged and cease it's existence, or have enough ectoplasm and emotion to form into ghosts with crack cores whose existence is instantly in danger.

Danny clearly didn't like the image that was painted to him, so he asked Nocturn if there was really nothing that he could do. It took a lot of talking and convincing, but eventually Nocturn admitted he could be able to direct the soul projecting to appear on a certain place, but he refused to babysit anyone. Which was enough for Danny, all he needed to do was make another expansion in his castle.

He decided to make a garden to receive their soul projecting guests. The garden was enormous, with all kinds of spaced within it. Playgrounds, picnic spaces, soft benches, tables with ghost and space teamed board games, fountains, and of course, the beautiful flowers that surrounded and decorated the place. Once he got ghosts with gardening, protection and caring obsessions on the place to look out for the souls, he was ready to receive them. It took him by surprise the amount of people that came, the garden was never crowded, but was never empty either, and souls of all ages and places were visiting at all times.

He kept expanding the garden as he heard of new things their guests wished for. He enjoyed spending time in the middle of the garden where souls passed by but rarely appeared, it was calm, but not completly quite with the background noice of the soul enjoying their dreams, and he could do the more mundane king/prince work. Until, he starts getting a regular visitor on his little space of the garden.

Choose the DC character you prefer, my idea is for people who hasn't died in the past but has been in the doors of death (so died and came back would be disqualified but you do as you prefer), but I'm going with Tim.

The soul of a boy around his age appears just in front of him, as usual when he greets new arriving soul, he welcomes him with a gentle smile and tells him he is free to explore the garden. A ghost taker is assign to him. The soul, as usual, seems confused and like he wished to asks questions, but seems content to ask them to his tour guide, and Danny continues with his own duties.

But then, the same soul continues to appear in the same place every two or three days, they exchange greetings and every time talk for a bit longer before the boy leaves to explore once more. It's rear to have multiple visits from one soul, even more so for said soul to appear in the same place every time. By the four time, Danny decides to take a break on his royal duties and accompany his new friend.

~ They get close, and have cute scenes, Tim asks a lot of questions and Danny answers and not-answers a lot of questions ~

One day, Tim shows up as usual, but he is in full Red Robin costume, and well, Danny wasn't expecting an identity reveal.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

On the Bats side:

There's an attack of some villain that's able to put Red Robin (or character of your choice) on a sleeping beauty type of sleep while carrying a serious injury, were he stays sleep until teammates or backup gets him out of it. The event affects his soul, making him disconnect partially from the land of dreams and making his soul sleep project almost every time he sleeps.

Tim starts sleeping more often. It's worrying at first, Bruce being paranoid does every test in the book, despite Tim saying he's just finding sleep easier now. But, he was just affected by sleeping magic and suddenly his sleeping easier? Seems like a side effect, and that makes it worrying.

Tim's health in general improve, just like he's concentration and productivity. Who would have thought that working rested actually was more productive than working on less than three hours of sleep and missing obvious details and clues due to how tired you are.

With everything not only being okay, but better than before, paranoia about Tim's new sleeping schedule soon dies, and instead is replaced with teasing about how he used to refuse to rest kicking and screaming, and now he may sleep more than any of them.

On Tim's side, he's loving being able to soul project so often. He knew from the start he was in a different dimension, and he just wanted to know the hows, whys, and everything else. So far, he seems to do it at least once every three days, and he's even gone two times in a row a couple of times.

The garden had a lot of things to do, but Tim doesn't care about that, he's more interested in all the information he's getting. The first 3 times he was given different ghost nanny's, who were more focus on entertaining him and didn't really answer direct question. But then king/prince Phantom decided to accompany him personally, and everything went smoother. He was going back to get to know more about this new world, and maybe to know more about the cute prince/king too. He might also have gotten some better looking pajamas.

Now, he has a mission that takes more than a couple days with some people in his team that hasn't yet sen his face. He didn't realize how difficult it would be to do all nighters after getting used to a sleep schedule. He would usually try to go as long as possible without sleeping, but he decides that he should take advantage of the safety of where they're staying and sleep a bit too. He ended up soul projecting in full Red Robin costume. He tried to play it cool, maybe Phantom wouldn't know it was him.

"Red Robin, even if you didn't appear on the same spot as always, I can feel your soul. I know who you are."

Warning - Torture, dehumanization, trauma, dissociation.

Pain. That was what Danny had been waking up to ever since his parents found he was Phantom, and he started living in a cell in the GIW facility about a month ago.

Everything hurts, even with his enhanced healing, his body can't sustain the amount of damage his given in the daily. The lack of ambient ectoplasm in his cell doesn't help either. What's worse is that he knows this base line pain is nothing compared to how he'll feel before he goes to sleep that night.

Danny shrunk on himself, hugging his legs close to his chest. He wanted to try to go back to sleep, he had heard today's "session" was saved for the afternoon, something about the Fenton's wanting to prepare a special gift to honor their lost little boy's birthday.

Right, today was supposed to be his birthday, he had forgotten. It's not like it mattered, he was sure he wasn't going to like his pa- the Fenton's gift.

He hugged his legs with more force, shutting his eyes and trying to just drift away, forget everything.

Then, the pain stopped, not in the way it did when the numbness in his mind helped him forget there was pain. No, the pain disappeared, like it didn't exist to begin with. He didn't feel his constraints either, nor the cold of the floor, in fact, he's sitting in something soft... When did he sit down?

- kiddo, you there?

Danny shut his eyes open and looked to his side. A man in his mid-twenties with black hair and blue eyes was looking at him with a frown. He wasn't in a white suit, nor a hazmat suit, he wasn't from the GIW, what was he doing in his cell? Were they letting people come look at him like he was a circus attraction now?

- tt, were you asleep still? You're supposed to be prepared for this to happen. I can't believe Drake's soulmate is so incompetent.

A boy on the other side of the table said. A table? There weren't any tables in his cell, the only thing "decorating" his cell is a toilet...

Danny looked around, he wasn't in his cell anymore, he was at a dinner table, a huge dinner table. There were seven people sitting at the table with him, but Danny couldn't get himself to focus on anyone, he instead looked back at his hands, hands that weren't burning.

Not his hands. These were definitely not his hands. His hands had a plate drilled into them with his code as a GIW property.

They had found fascinating how his hands healed around the metal. They had found even more fascinating how it healed as good as new when they took it out, and how it healed around it again when they drilled a new one in.

These hands didn't have any metal drilled into it. They were paler than his in human form, but he was sure they were human hands, there weren't any green undertones.

- Did you not know about the soulmate swap? A mark should have appeared in your wrist, like, last week.

A blond girl sitting a couple chairs to his right said.

Soulmate swap? Fuck. He couldn't help when his hands started trembling. Of course he wouldn't know he had a soulmate, only 30% of people have one.

He looked at this body's wrists, his stylized combination of a D and P was sitting there. Ancients, that meant his wrists had some sort of mark from his soulmate, but with the constraints on his wrists...

The "swap bodies when the younger turns 16" being extremely low in Danny's priorities, so sue him if he didn't try checking either.

Hell, they were going to experiment on his body while some other person was in it! His soulmate will have to suffer being in a body that's in constant pain and they will have to go through whatever the Fenton's had prepared for that day.

Even if they screamed that they were not him, nor his par- the Fenton's nor the GIW believe him sentient enough to have a soulmate!

Danny was starting to feel light headed.

- Hey, hey, I need you to breathe with me kid.

Breath, right, breathing, this body needs to breathe. This body is completely alive, he can feel some liminality in it, but it isn't like his half death body. He can't just stop breathing to avoid hyperventilating as he usually does.

Danny tried to take deep breaths, following the man who had first talked to him when he got there. It was hard to not just start hyperventilating.

Fuck, the universe is really trying to kill him, isn't it? There's no way he's soulmate will know how to hide a core from crazy scientists experimenting on him. He probably doesn't even know what a core is! Danny had worked hard to keep it hidden all this time, had done his best to stop the GIW and the Fenton's from knowing cores even existed!

Wait... If they find his core, and somehow manage to shatter it while playing with it, will it even be him the one who died!? Was his soulmate gonna die in his body!?

... And he was hyperventilating now.

- Kid! Kid! Deep breaths, common, you can do this, deep breaths.

Danny tried to focus on breathing again, but the idea of his soulmate dying wouldn't leave him. So between shattered breaths he asked:

- W-what... Happens if one.... Of us dies... Whi- while in the other body!?

Even with his sight completely blurry, he was sure all the people at the table had stood up. The man who was helping him breath looked like he needed someone to help him through now.

Non understandable screams overlapped over each other for a minute or so, until someone screamed "Enough!" And silence fell once more over the table. The man recovered quickly, and kneeled in front of him, taking his hands and looking him in the eyes.

- Hey, I need you to breathe. We can solve whatever is giving you that worry, but I need you to calm first. Can you do that for me?

Danny wanted to laugh at the idea that they would be able to do anything. His friends broke in multiple times the first week, and failed every attempt, until the security grew to the point they couldn't come in.

His mo- Madeline bragged about the security finally stopping the brainwashed kids from coming in after the first week without alarms in the middle of a "session".

His friends were people used to breaking into GIW facilities in rescue missions, if they couldn't get him out, then how would these random people do it? It was an ignorant promise. But this man's eyes were full of worry that reminded him of his sister, so even if he knew it was hopeless, he nodded, and tried to calm down.

DpxDC soulmate swap

I keep seeing these soulmate AUs that when the younger one is a certain age the soulmates swap bodies.

Now, what about the vivisection/ bad reveal Danny, who is legally being experimented on by the GIW (NOT Ghost King AU), who wakes up during a family dinner, not realising he's awake at first, only for the family to tell him "Yes, this is a soulmate swap, and yes we ARE your soulmates family." He immediately goes to leave and says he will rescue himself- Que panicked family says that they'll get the heroes, only for Danny to laugh in their faces and go, "What are they going to do? Everything that's happening to me is completely legal. Me murdering my way to my body is not. Anyway, hopefully, my soulmate is screaming and thrashing around enough that they sedate them; I've grown numb to the pain, so they don't usually bother anymore". Danny just casually stealing a car/motorbike and driving away

I can't think of who would be the soulmate. Honestly, all of the cross-ship pairings could work.

Danny didn't like this. The walls weren't really pushing too strongly, it had been easy to stop them, but it has been hours. It was starting to get difficult.

The people in the room were collected in small groups. Probably staying with the people they knew, or those who they had felt kinship to during the kidnapping. Weather it was for sharing some characteristic like close age, or similar clothing style.

A guy that was probably a year or two older than him was beside him. Danny guest it was the closeness in age that pushed the boy to talk to him. They had talked in hush voices for sometime, and Danny found he was named Tim.

He was apparently a celebrity of some sort, or at least that's what it seemed from what Danny could hear from the other groups whispers. But he wasn't arrogant, nor was he bragging about it, so Danny payed it no mind.

As time passed and stopping the walls from closing had started to become difficult, Danny had stopped actively talking. Tim had frowned asking if he was okay, but Danny just shrugged saying he was tired. Which he was. Why wouldn't the rogue stop the mechanism after seeing it wasn't working? Wouldn't it still be consuming energy or something?

-It seems the rescue is taking some time, huh? - Tim said looking up to the exit.

Danny limited himself to agreeing with a hum. Panic had long abandoned the room, replaced by a lingering anxiety, murmurs and whispers filling the air. They were lucky no small children were taken, or they would be dealing with crying.

Danny looked forward catching Ellie's eyes. He tilted he's head in a question, which she answered moving her hand in a so so motion. Then she signal in his way with her head returning the question, and he just shrugged. He was tired, but he could hold it for long still.

He worried about how long Ellie would be able to do the same. She didn't have the same resistance as him, and still tended to destabilize when she overdo's it. Danny has a couple of ecto-shots in him, but he would prefer if it didn't came to that.

Maybe it was not wanting to be in the way of their gazes, but no one has sited or standed between him and Ellie. He was grateful for that, they had been able to check on each other the whole time. Tim sent him inquisitive look everytime he did, but didn't ask.

It was obvious he and Ellie were related. Anyone would guess they were siblings with how similar they were. So it was probably weird that they had decided to sit on opposites sides of the room in the situation they were in. Luckily, Gothamites are really good at minding their own business.

Danny could see that a boy was also sited besides Ellie, but their conversation had also died when Ellie started running low on stamina.

Truth be told, it would be easy for him and Ellie to make it out, evacuating the rest of the people may be burdensome though still possible, but not without revelling themselves.

Maybe it was selfish, if one of them hold their wall while the other evacuated, they probably would have already gotten everyone out. Danny could even have used duplication to hold both walls and make it even less chaotic. But he refused to risk their identities, not with the anti-ecto acts allowing people to hunt them. Either way, if things continued this way, they might become too exhausted to get anyone but themselves out in the end.

How much more will the the local vigilantes take to getting there?

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Tim had gotten himself kidnapped in his civilian identity with Damian. Which was always a pain, because they couldn't just fight their weight out of it. Worse of all, it wasn't even a direct attack on them, it was a group kidnapping. Tim was pretty sure the rogue didn't even noticed he had gotten a couple of Wayne's on the group.

He had catalogued that there were 54 other people with them in the room. No one has any restraints on, so probably the rogue was confident that no one could make it to the exit. The room was more like a big whole in the ground, only exit was 10 foot upside.

He has tried to call someone, but phones weren't getting any signal. Damian and him had activated their panic buttons too, they can only hope those are working well. But with how long it had been, Tim had the suspicion that isn't the case.

A simple room with a large group of hostages, and no restraints, with a camera in one corner of the ceiling that was probably recording them for ransome. It should be one of the best situation for a kidnapping, except, the only thing keeping them alive at the moment were two meta kids.

The walls had started to close at a fast pace when they were reaching the first hour mark, and then the walls stopped abruptly. Or that's how it would seem if one wasn't paying attention. What actually happen was that two kids had stopped the walls from continuing to close. When chaos started to unravel within the hostages, scared for the walls moving, the kids ran to opposite walls, and as soon as they touched them the walls stopped moving.

They're meta abilities must be giving them an incredible strength to be able to stop the walls so casually. Tim and Damian had decided to separate to keep an eye on them, maybe give them a hand if they were able. He had found it was easier to go through civilian kidnappings if he concentrated on what he could do. Even if it was just looking out for their meta saviours.

They were similar, to the point Tim would think they were twins if the girl wasn't clearly younger. He had sat besides the boy while Damian was with the girl. The meta siblings checked with each other every so often, not outwardly screaming but it wasn't exactly subtle either. He did the same with Damian, but with the signs they used on patrol and complementing with sign language for any specifics.

The boy's name was Danny, and Damian had signed Danielle for the girl. There was a small fuss after Damian sign her name, Danielle telling him something with irritation in her face. Probably didn't like being full named by Damian. Damian seemed amused by her antics, and Tim almost laughed at him when he finally sign that she preferred to be called Ellie. Apparently got him to call her by her preferred name, which was a huge achievement with the demon brat.

Talking with Danny had made time go easier. He was quite intelligent, loved space, and never passed an opportunity to make a pun. Tim made a mental note to never let Dick meet him. It was fun talking to him, and Tim found the small quirks he showed while they talked quite cute.

He had almost forgotten that Danny was holding the weight of the wall, until Danny slowly started to shut down, only giving small answers and humming for him to continue talking. It must be starting to take a tall on him, and taking a look at his sister he guessed she was having a hard time too.

Tim really hoped the others were here soon, he didn't know how much longer their friends would be able to hold the walls.

DPXDC PROMPT

Danny and Danielle are sitting on opposite ends of a room full of people, with the only exit being the middle of a 10-foot high ceiling.

The Gotham rogue who captured them is getting increasingly irritated that their trap to move the walls closer isn't working while the Bats are getting closer.