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imagine a child male reader whos siblings w scaramouche and was also abandoned so they only had eachother and encountered many people throughout their lives (fatui, traveler, that little kid who passed away, etc..). i can only imagine the heartbreak everytime scara gets hurt bc of the betrayals throughout ur travels and how the reader is tryibg his best to comfort him since hes still young and doesnt fully grasp the situation theyre both in idkk
srry for being specific i just rlly like sibling stuff đđ
wait for it - hamilton
â¤ď¸ scaramouche acts as though there is nothing in this world that he cares for..
â¤ď¸ that is a lie.
â¤ď¸ a/n: i didnât know how old you wanted the reader so he slowly ages throughout the book. ends up around 14. also, kunikuzushi does not erase himself from irminsul for this fic, as i canât imagine him ever wanting his little brother to forget his existance.
the wanderer and his little brother apart is a sight nome of the seven nations have ever witnessed. wherever one is, the other is trailing behind either with excitement, worry, concern or grumpiness trailing their figures. the wanderer loves his little brother more then anything and everything in this shithole and that has never changed, nor will it ever change.
upon the creation of kunikuzishi, raiden ei (or âmotherâ) had encountered an âissueâ that might be solved if he had something instinctual to protect. kunikuzushi was a gentle soul, and while he loved his mother more then life as he knew it, if he was so weak that he could not hold the gnosis then what was all this for?
and so, the creation of the second kunikuzushi was in production.
â(y/n)â she had named you. you loved your name, you loved your mother who gave you your name and most of all, you loved your big brother kunikuzushi. he was your everything, and for awhile raiden eiâs plan had seemed to have succeeded.
kunikuzushi was getting stronger, he was overcoming his sensitivity and his ability to cry at every given scenario. she thought she had finally done it.
until she realised, it was all a massive lie.
she had caught you coddling your teary eyes big brother near the shine, cradling his head against your little chest and combing his hair in hopes his tears would cease. you could sense your mothers presence and you knew if she found out that he was still as vulnerable as the day of your creation, it would have major concequences.
the gods werenât in your favour, to put it lightly.
wandering the ever so lonely woods of inazuma, you and your brother faced two more instances in which would eventually trigger his switch.
the first? a simple blacksmith that had taken you both in. he was another good soul, cheerful beyond belief and a truly comforting person to be around.
he taught your brother the craft of weaponry. he taught your brother it is okay to be vulnerable at times and for awhile, you truly believed that you had found someone who cared about you enough to love you and your brother for who you truly were.
that dream died alongside his once genuine love for you both, riddled with fear of the both of you.
kunikuzushiâs tears echoed through your ears that night, it was so loud you couldnât even hear the rain that was ever so loudly crashing against the two of you. his body was small and shrunken, and you didnât know how you could help. your little mind may be synthetic, but it does not mean that you comprehend things as an adult would.
you only hoped holding your big brother against you and hiding your own tears would comfort him enough to stop crying.
you couldnât stand his tears, they broke your little heart.
the last was a young boy, only a few years younger then your current mortal state.
raiden ei claimed that to keep kunikuzushiâs guard, she would have your body ever so slightly age, until you would stop abruptly by the time your form would hit 14. this would match up with kunikuzushi as his body would go from the form of an 18-22 year old physique.
this boy was once more, a very loving being. he was full of love and wonder about the world, seeing everything as an opportunity and a blessing.
your little head couldnât comprehend his views until it was far too late for blessings or miracles.
there, lying lifeless and devoid of emotion, going everything against you knew of the boy he lay.
CLICK
you attempted to grasp your big brothers hand, but you did not see a boy who once more needed comfort, all you could see was pure loathing.
you didnât see your big brother in that moment. you saw a stranger in the skin of kunikuzushi. his tears were not in need of wiping, in fact no tears were to be wiped at all.
you lost your brother that day, and it would be a long while before you would see him once more.
in a sense, you lost yourself that day as well, you no longer felt that out in your stomach that lingered endlessly. only a cold numbness filled the gaping hole in which a heart should lay wishing your chest.
by the time you had reached the fatui, the both of you were completely different people.
scaramouche was cold and sharped tongued, and as for yourself? you were reserved and shrunken. you had both completed the aging process that ei had implemented for the two of you, and it was as clear as day.
you had gotten ever so slightly taller, your hair a little longer and your frown weighed heavy on your lips.
your big brother was still as short as ever, but his face was no longer chubby and round. he was sharp and cold, a glare that never disappeared unless iâm the presence of one person.
you.
you hated the fatui. you hated how they treated you and your brother. unlike the humans, they didnât even bother to pretend to care for either of your well-beingâs. you were scared of most, not daring to make any form of contact with any of them. there was only one harbinger that ever spoke to you of his own volition.
tartaglia.
an annoying redhead who treated you as if you were his own kin. that alone had scaramouche seething in his seat. who was this filthy mortal and how DARE he treat HIS little brother as his own? this had the balladeer absolutely livid and so for the sake of your dear brother, you did your very best to escape the mortals clutches.
as his time in the fatui progressed, you soon found yourself truly taking on the roll as his little brother. you seemed to be the one who was there for him, never much the other way around.
of course thatâs not to say he wasnât there, it was just normally him who needed you more then you needing him. you were the one with him against your chest, not the other way around, and honestly you never cared too much. heâs you brother, why shouldnât you be there for him?
you didnât realise just how sad that fact had made your big brother until it had genuinely switched.
scaramouche, as you now seemed to have to adresse him as, not once even entertained the idea of you becoming a full blown fatui member. you simply sat in his office and kept him company throughout his everyday chores and when he went in missions? you rested in his quarters until he came back.
the fatui knew of your immortality and the fact you were not human, and henceforth never bothered to check in on you, not that you cared much.
the doctor struck fear in you that you couldnât quite comprehend and columbina was almost too cheery to be trusted. the knave seemed interested in you, however you soon came to understand she ran an orphanage and decided she was only looking for a potential member of the hearth. the rest of them never much interacted with you and you therefore have no good or bad opinion on them, all you knew is that you could only trust yourself and your big brother in this hellhole.
you had lost count on how many days it had been since you escaped the clutches of the fatui, but you couldnât care less. you were with your big brother and he had you, and thatâs all you needed in life.
scaramouche thought different.
he wanted to laugh in the faces of the mortals and god who wronged his brother and himself, to mortify the deities and to have the humans begging at his feet. he wanted absolute power, and he had finally obtained the key item to acquire this dream of his.
had anyone asked you if you feared your brother kunikuzushi, you would have laughed in their face. if someone asked you if you feared your brother scaramouche, even just slightly, you could not give an answer.
you were yet to meet this âdamned blonde runtâ that your brother so very much despised, however you could only hope in a time like this, she might just be able to save your big brother. he claims she is nothing but a pathetic little worm that he could easily discard by the time he reaches divinity, however you had heard of the deeds she had performed for the other nations of teyvat, and you had a feeling she was going to do the same thing for sumeru.
your feelings were correct.
your big brother was falling, and there wasnât anything you could do about it. he told you to not interfere by the time lumine came, to stay hidden in order to protect you from exposure. to protect himself from people who would use his little brother to exploit him.
too bad you love him a bit too much to allow him to fall like this. he had just quite literally lost his heart right after gaining it, and the pure horror within his vocal cords as he begged the archon of dendro to spare his heart was heavy on your little ears. you couldnât take it any longer.
âKUNIKUZUSHI NOâ you pleaded, you begged the girls to help your brother, however they just watched as he fell lifelessly. so, as youâve always done and will continue to do, you ran to him.
he only mumbled a âget away from meâ and a âwhat if they see you?â before he finally fell into unconsciousness, and that was the last straw.
all you felt in your body was a frozen and bitter hatred. you felt disappointed. wasnât this supposed to be the ever caring saviour of teyvat? the girl who makes friends with the snap of her fingers and fights to protect ALL??
all you saw was a fake, a fraud.
ice shot out from the bottom of your heels, icing the entirety of the floors around the workshop. you were screaming. (think drunk walk home by mitski, that kinda scream)
the room was slowly icing itself around you as you held your unconscious brother in your arms. the panic was visible in the travellers companions voice, freaking out that theyâre trapped in the room and that the ice is closing in, however you could only feel your imaginary heart beating harshly within your chest, pounding on your synthetic rib cage and begging to be released from the clutches of ice growing within it.
the only thing you heard before your body collapsed was a gentle tune, a tune of true harmony.
you awoke to the soft breathing of your brother next to you, seemingly in a blissful rest. instinctively, you raised your body and clutched him tightly, startling him awake. you took in your surroundings before letting him go, him reluctantly sitting up and grasping your shoulder, slouching on you.
in came the little nahida, with a tray of tea and some traditional sumerian snacks on the side.
âyouâre finally awake you two! iâve been waiting for the both of you for ages!â her little singalong voice chimed, puffy cheeks graced with a warm smile. you and kunikuzushi share a glace at eachother, almost in a âwhat the fuck are we doing here?â kinda look. the young archon took note of your confusion and decided to explain.
âwe rescued the both of you from the doctors clutches and have been nursing you back to health! after (y/n) had gained his cryo vision, another vision slowly descended and rested on the chest of the balladeer. the anemo vision seemed to swirl a warm breeze around the both of you as the ice spread as the room started to freeze in on itself. thankfully, i was able to get everyone out uninjured, however we had unfortunately encountered the 2nd fatui harbinger, also known as the doctor. he claimed the fatui had ownership over the both of you and wanted both you and the gnosis, however i bargained that as long as he shut down all his twins, as well as giving us the both of you, he could have both of the gnosisâ i possessed!â
nahida seemed almost too cheery, however you refused to comment on it. all you did was squeeze your bothers free hand as he held you protectively, his guard instinctively high in the presence of a god. smiling softly to yourself for the first time in forever, you rested on the shoulder of your big brother.
you were finally in safe hands.
sumeruâs most notable duo, the young wanderer and (y/n) explore around the lands together, hand in hand. one in his early 20s and the other in his teenage years. though they never seem to age, sumeru does not question it. the elder with a sharp tongue and the younger apologising profusely for his big brothers harsh words. the elder studying in the akedemiya under the request of the lesser lord, and the younger encouraging him to do his best.
the elder keeping his guard up so the younger can finally enjoy his everlasting youth, after giving it up for so many years for the sake of himself. hand in hand, kunikuzushi knew you two would finally be able to rest.
just the two of you, until the end of time. <3
imagine a child male reader whos siblings w scaramouche and was also abandoned so they only had eachother and encountered many people throughout their lives (fatui, traveler, that little kid who passed away, etc..). i can only imagine the heartbreak everytime scara gets hurt bc of the betrayals throughout ur travels and how the reader is tryibg his best to comfort him since hes still young and doesnt fully grasp the situation theyre both in idkk
srry for being specific i just rlly like sibling stuff đđ
wait for it - hamilton
â¤ď¸ scaramouche acts as though there is nothing in this world that he cares for..
â¤ď¸ that is a lie.
â¤ď¸ a/n: i didnât know how old you wanted the reader so he slowly ages throughout the book. ends up around 14. also, kunikuzushi does not erase himself from irminsul for this fic, as i canât imagine him ever wanting his little brother to forget his existance.
the wanderer and his little brother apart is a sight nome of the seven nations have ever witnessed. wherever one is, the other is trailing behind either with excitement, worry, concern or grumpiness trailing their figures. the wanderer loves his little brother more then anything and everything in this shithole and that has never changed, nor will it ever change.
upon the creation of kunikuzishi, raiden ei (or âmotherâ) had encountered an âissueâ that might be solved if he had something instinctual to protect. kunikuzushi was a gentle soul, and while he loved his mother more then life as he knew it, if he was so weak that he could not hold the gnosis then what was all this for?
and so, the creation of the second kunikuzushi was in production.
â(y/n)â she had named you. you loved your name, you loved your mother who gave you your name and most of all, you loved your big brother kunikuzushi. he was your everything, and for awhile raiden eiâs plan had seemed to have succeeded.
kunikuzushi was getting stronger, he was overcoming his sensitivity and his ability to cry at every given scenario. she thought she had finally done it.
until she realised, it was all a massive lie.
she had caught you coddling your teary eyes big brother near the shine, cradling his head against your little chest and combing his hair in hopes his tears would cease. you could sense your mothers presence and you knew if she found out that he was still as vulnerable as the day of your creation, it would have major concequences.
the gods werenât in your favour, to put it lightly.
wandering the ever so lonely woods of inazuma, you and your brother faced two more instances in which would eventually trigger his switch.
the first? a simple blacksmith that had taken you both in. he was another good soul, cheerful beyond belief and a truly comforting person to be around.
he taught your brother the craft of weaponry. he taught your brother it is okay to be vulnerable at times and for awhile, you truly believed that you had found someone who cared about you enough to love you and your brother for who you truly were.
that dream died alongside his once genuine love for you both, riddled with fear of the both of you.
kunikuzushiâs tears echoed through your ears that night, it was so loud you couldnât even hear the rain that was ever so loudly crashing against the two of you. his body was small and shrunken, and you didnât know how you could help. your little mind may be synthetic, but it does not mean that you comprehend things as an adult would.
you only hoped holding your big brother against you and hiding your own tears would comfort him enough to stop crying.
you couldnât stand his tears, they broke your little heart.
the last was a young boy, only a few years younger then your current mortal state.
raiden ei claimed that to keep kunikuzushiâs guard, she would have your body ever so slightly age, until you would stop abruptly by the time your form would hit 14. this would match up with kunikuzushi as his body would go from the form of an 18-22 year old physique.
this boy was once more, a very loving being. he was full of love and wonder about the world, seeing everything as an opportunity and a blessing.
your little head couldnât comprehend his views until it was far too late for blessings or miracles.
there, lying lifeless and devoid of emotion, going everything against you knew of the boy he lay.
CLICK
you attempted to grasp your big brothers hand, but you did not see a boy who once more needed comfort, all you could see was pure loathing.
you didnât see your big brother in that moment. you saw a stranger in the skin of kunikuzushi. his tears were not in need of wiping, in fact no tears were to be wiped at all.
you lost your brother that day, and it would be a long while before you would see him once more.
in a sense, you lost yourself that day as well, you no longer felt that out in your stomach that lingered endlessly. only a cold numbness filled the gaping hole in which a heart should lay wishing your chest.
by the time you had reached the fatui, the both of you were completely different people.
scaramouche was cold and sharped tongued, and as for yourself? you were reserved and shrunken. you had both completed the aging process that ei had implemented for the two of you, and it was as clear as day.
you had gotten ever so slightly taller, your hair a little longer and your frown weighed heavy on your lips.
your big brother was still as short as ever, but his face was no longer chubby and round. he was sharp and cold, a glare that never disappeared unless iâm the presence of one person.
you.
you hated the fatui. you hated how they treated you and your brother. unlike the humans, they didnât even bother to pretend to care for either of your well-beingâs. you were scared of most, not daring to make any form of contact with any of them. there was only one harbinger that ever spoke to you of his own volition.
tartaglia.
an annoying redhead who treated you as if you were his own kin. that alone had scaramouche seething in his seat. who was this filthy mortal and how DARE he treat HIS little brother as his own? this had the balladeer absolutely livid and so for the sake of your dear brother, you did your very best to escape the mortals clutches.
as his time in the fatui progressed, you soon found yourself truly taking on the roll as his little brother. you seemed to be the one who was there for him, never much the other way around.
of course thatâs not to say he wasnât there, it was just normally him who needed you more then you needing him. you were the one with him against your chest, not the other way around, and honestly you never cared too much. heâs you brother, why shouldnât you be there for him?
you didnât realise just how sad that fact had made your big brother until it had genuinely switched.
scaramouche, as you now seemed to have to adresse him as, not once even entertained the idea of you becoming a full blown fatui member. you simply sat in his office and kept him company throughout his everyday chores and when he went in missions? you rested in his quarters until he came back.
the fatui knew of your immortality and the fact you were not human, and henceforth never bothered to check in on you, not that you cared much.
the doctor struck fear in you that you couldnât quite comprehend and columbina was almost too cheery to be trusted. the knave seemed interested in you, however you soon came to understand she ran an orphanage and decided she was only looking for a potential member of the hearth. the rest of them never much interacted with you and you therefore have no good or bad opinion on them, all you knew is that you could only trust yourself and your big brother in this hellhole.
you had lost count on how many days it had been since you escaped the clutches of the fatui, but you couldnât care less. you were with your big brother and he had you, and thatâs all you needed in life.
scaramouche thought different.
he wanted to laugh in the faces of the mortals and god who wronged his brother and himself, to mortify the deities and to have the humans begging at his feet. he wanted absolute power, and he had finally obtained the key item to acquire this dream of his.
had anyone asked you if you feared your brother kunikuzushi, you would have laughed in their face. if someone asked you if you feared your brother scaramouche, even just slightly, you could not give an answer.
you were yet to meet this âdamned blonde runtâ that your brother so very much despised, however you could only hope in a time like this, she might just be able to save your big brother. he claims she is nothing but a pathetic little worm that he could easily discard by the time he reaches divinity, however you had heard of the deeds she had performed for the other nations of teyvat, and you had a feeling she was going to do the same thing for sumeru.
your feelings were correct.
your big brother was falling, and there wasnât anything you could do about it. he told you to not interfere by the time lumine came, to stay hidden in order to protect you from exposure. to protect himself from people who would use his little brother to exploit him.
too bad you love him a bit too much to allow him to fall like this. he had just quite literally lost his heart right after gaining it, and the pure horror within his vocal cords as he begged the archon of dendro to spare his heart was heavy on your little ears. you couldnât take it any longer.
âKUNIKUZUSHI NOâ you pleaded, you begged the girls to help your brother, however they just watched as he fell lifelessly. so, as youâve always done and will continue to do, you ran to him.
he only mumbled a âget away from meâ and a âwhat if they see you?â before he finally fell into unconsciousness, and that was the last straw.
all you felt in your body was a frozen and bitter hatred. you felt disappointed. wasnât this supposed to be the ever caring saviour of teyvat? the girl who makes friends with the snap of her fingers and fights to protect ALL??
all you saw was a fake, a fraud.
ice shot out from the bottom of your heels, icing the entirety of the floors around the workshop. you were screaming. (think drunk walk home by mitski, that kinda scream)
the room was slowly icing itself around you as you held your unconscious brother in your arms. the panic was visible in the travellers companions voice, freaking out that theyâre trapped in the room and that the ice is closing in, however you could only feel your imaginary heart beating harshly within your chest, pounding on your synthetic rib cage and begging to be released from the clutches of ice growing within it.
the only thing you heard before your body collapsed was a gentle tune, a tune of true harmony.
you awoke to the soft breathing of your brother next to you, seemingly in a blissful rest. instinctively, you raised your body and clutched him tightly, startling him awake. you took in your surroundings before letting him go, him reluctantly sitting up and grasping your shoulder, slouching on you.
in came the little nahida, with a tray of tea and some traditional sumerian snacks on the side.
âyouâre finally awake you two! iâve been waiting for the both of you for ages!â her little singalong voice chimed, puffy cheeks graced with a warm smile. you and kunikuzushi share a glace at eachother, almost in a âwhat the fuck are we doing here?â kinda look. the young archon took note of your confusion and decided to explain.
âwe rescued the both of you from the doctors clutches and have been nursing you back to health! after (y/n) had gained his cryo vision, another vision slowly descended and rested on the chest of the balladeer. the anemo vision seemed to swirl a warm breeze around the both of you as the ice spread as the room started to freeze in on itself. thankfully, i was able to get everyone out uninjured, however we had unfortunately encountered the 2nd fatui harbinger, also known as the doctor. he claimed the fatui had ownership over the both of you and wanted both you and the gnosis, however i bargained that as long as he shut down all his twins, as well as giving us the both of you, he could have both of the gnosisâ i possessed!â
nahida seemed almost too cheery, however you refused to comment on it. all you did was squeeze your bothers free hand as he held you protectively, his guard instinctively high in the presence of a god. smiling softly to yourself for the first time in forever, you rested on the shoulder of your big brother.
you were finally in safe hands.
sumeruâs most notable duo, the young wanderer and (y/n) explore around the lands together, hand in hand. one in his early 20s and the other in his teenage years. though they never seem to age, sumeru does not question it. the elder with a sharp tongue and the younger apologising profusely for his big brothers harsh words. the elder studying in the akedemiya under the request of the lesser lord, and the younger encouraging him to do his best.
the elder keeping his guard up so the younger can finally enjoy his everlasting youth, after giving it up for so many years for the sake of himself. hand in hand, kunikuzushi knew you two would finally be able to rest.
just the two of you, until the end of time. <3
Half-brother?!?!????
Prompt ig. Don't have enough knowledge to pull it off.
So, Dp stuff happen. AGIT too. So PP is gone and forgotten.
ANYWAY. Time passes, and after another huge battle of Ghosts, Maddie dies. Jack is distraught. He wasn't the most attentive parent before and had completely stopped trying to be one after that.
Danny was 17 and Jazz was 19 when they woke up to a small note with an apology.
Jack moved away. He was in his late 40s, the Ghosts were never his biggest interest tbh, it was Maddie and he loved her and her interests to bits. Now that the driving force was gone he just saw no point.
He got back into Uni. Got a degree and started travelling to different sights.
There he met Janet Drake and the rest is history upto your interpretation.
Tim, when he becomes Robin, does a more thorough check of his family and finds out about the possibility that he might have siblings. Adult, independent siblings. He didn't know whether or not to reach out. If he even should. He found records of them searching for his father. Maybe they wouldn't at all be happy to learn about the fact that their dad had a whole new family...
Ferret Danny.
So, Vlad has decided to host a Gala at his own mansion, inviting a vast majority of the rich, including Lex Luthor and the Wayne family. Danny, not so subtly begs Vlad for him to join in because he has a plan.
Vlad doesn't know why Danny is begging since he never does, but he eventually caves in an agrees for Danny to attend. Danny calls up the ghost ferrets and makes a whole plan to have them in suits and dresses and little accessories for them as well. He askes Vlad to make various gadgets that would let them translate into human speech and then is off teaching them lessons.
Never would he thought he would use them, but this is one of the best ways he's ever decided to.
The day of the Gala, there are various amounts of ferrets in butler outfits leading in guests (some walk on two feet) and some even being the guests. Danny, meanwhile, is dressed like a king (he is not the ghost king.) with a royal cape, a crown and scepter. He's personally greeting every guest (ferret) that enters alongside Vlad, and when that's over the ferrets are seated at a table (not on the same level as the other guests) and seemingly having a very serious discussion.
Everyone else (aside from Vlad) is confused about this situation. Certainly, they've heard rumors about Vlad Masters has a program buying and collecting various ferrets, but this isn't what any of them even imagined and that, the white one who's eyes and fur glowed was obviously a sight to see as well.
Various people asked where Vlad acquired him from, with Vlad not giving any specific answer. A while into the gala, Lex Luthor is getting increasingly annoyed by the fact that Vlad Masters has shrugged him off to talk with mere animals, and obviously he's noticed that whenever he walks towards the man to make conversation, one of them appear at his side to talk with him and causes him to turn down any other conversation at that point.
Safe to say, he isn't pleased.
Damian Wayne has heard many a rumor about Vlad Masters. How could he not? He's famous for his hospitalization, his quick rise to power, his reclusiveness and love for the packers.
The rumors he focused on, however, was those that involved the ferrets the man seemingly collected. Damian couldn't let it go when he heard rumors that perhaps Vlad Masters buys them to fulfill some sick, twisted pleasure of his, and that he buys more and more because the others he's bought didn't last long.
As the son of the Bat and the successor to the Robin mantle he couldn't let this go until he's investigated to confirm the rumors, and out the man for his cruelty if they prove to be true.
So him holding a gala was a chance he couldn't let go of. For Vlad Masters only attends galas, never does he host them himself, a rare opportunity for him to easily enter the man's domain was one he could not let go of.
What he saw when he got there was not of his expectations, seeing a green colored ferret dressed as a butler leading them into the mansion wasn't it, he expected a human one. He thought back to some of the more gruesome rumors, and suddenly something seemed to click for him and he was worried.
He needed to investigate thoroughly.
Then he saw this one particular ferret, and Damian's stomach twisted. A ferret who's fur glowed a brilliant white and eyes a toxic green that obviously spoke of experimentation, and while he may be dressed as a king, Damian couldn't help but jump to unfortunate conclusions.
If he wanted to know what was going, then he had to speak to someone. He tried speaking with the ferrets that lead him and his family in, a device seemingly allowing them to speak in human tongue on their person and Damian looked closer. He saw that their fur seemed to glow as well, just like the first, not as brightly and there were certain other features he brushed off as them belonging to another species he didn't know of.
But running along the lines of experimentation everything just seemed to click together like puzzle pieces.
Unfortunately, the butlers didn't offer him much information, so he had to set his sights on the other 'guests'. They didn't have much to say either, so he had to look elsewhere.
He couldn't talk to that despicable man called Vlad Masters, that would raise suspicion all to quickly if he asked certain questions, so.
He set his sights on the king, seated at a table with other ferrets dressed like nobles. If anyone were to know better than what was going on here, then it had to be one of them.
Retired Hero Snippet
Danny- So the outlaws are your friends right? Jason- Friendly acquaintances, pains-in-my-ass that keep breaking into my safehouses and eating my food, friends, same difference. Danny- You say the same thing about your siblings. Danny- So when do I get to meet them? Jason- Never. If Roy ever finds out you can make a laser gun out of scrapped microwave parts he'll steal you away and I'll never see you again.
Prompt 132
So it turns out Danny and Billy share a realms guardian. Not like they knew that until they literally got scruffed and taken through a portal- apparently realms paperwork can take years or even centuries so they actually got really lucky with how much their guardian was pushing.Â
Apparently the primordial being of Space and the primordial being of Storm is one and the same and has been⌠well not throwing a fit but also yes throwing a fit at the Observants and other paperwork beings of the Zone.Â
So itâs not the worst kidnapping either of them have gone through, apparently theyâre getting a checkup and a crash course in realms stuff?? Oh god what do you mean thereâs the equivalent of galas in the Zone and they have to go to them??? Sam/Tim help them!Â
On the bright sides, way less attacks on Amity now that a primordial being that literally shuffles around entire galaxies just because is hanging around to teach him how to do things. And when Billy gets found out to be ten he can cheerfully say he has permission from his guardian. The one literally letting them get through space so quickly just because they think the league is neat. In an idle wow yep kiddo that is a funky looking cat we arenât taking home yep, way.Â
Cassiopea and Orion
Ellie had a plan. She promised she had one. This wasn't like when Clocky would sent her off on a mission through time with nothing more but a little note with a cryptic message on what to do.
Danny had given her clear instruction. Before one of her many travels to see the world, Danny, in his mid twenties and she in her late teens, had taken her aside once. Telling her about specific instruction she should follow, should she ever find herself in a moment of need, and Danny wasn't able to help her.
Well, now she was in that kind of situation. Amity Park was destroyed with no survivors. Vlads castle was no more. Both Dan and her got deaged, but Dan had to be put in a frozen state when he started to destabilize. And Danny, he had gotten captured by the GIW shoving her out of harms way and telling her to remember what he told her before.
Ellie was pretty sure Danny was telling her to follow the emergency instructions.
So here she was now. In Gotham. Keeping to the shadows and trying to find her way around.
No one ever bothered to tell her how hard it was to navigate through a city like Gotham. You would think it would be easy to find some guy running around at night in an armored spandex furry costume.
But no, here she was, in a random alley. In a city, Danny had specifically told her to avoid it unless the emergency instruction came into play. Maybe she should just steal a map.
She was contemplatingly staring at a gas station for that until she noticed a shadow jumping over the roof tops. It took her only a second to decide on her next action. Ellie was pressed on time after all.
"Hey you!" She shouted loudly flying up to follow that shadow. "Wait up!"
Thankfully, the shadow listened and stopped on the next rooftop toward her. She insanity noticed it tensing. Now, she noticed that the shadow was a kid. He looked small, and Ellie figured he was probably around 11 or 12.
"You are one of the Bees and Birds, right?" She questioned once she floated a bit closer. Also the kid tensed up.
"You mean Bats and Birds." The kid clicked his tongue at her, crossing their arms.
"Bees, Bats, who cares. My question is you know the big bad bee, right?" She waved the kid of, she had more pressing matter than getting their animals right. "I need to get a message to him."
The kid clicked their tongue once more, huffing and muttering something she couldn't hear. Probably talking to someone on a com. Either way, Ellie took his silence as a form of telling her to continue.
"Can you tell the big bad bee-" "Bat" "-the following?" She ignored the kid cutting in trying to get her message across and follow Danny's instructions to a T.
"Cassiopea is calling out to Orions Nursery before Rho dies to help her youngest."
There was long, drawn-out silence, and the kid was hissing something into coms. Ellie fidget with her finger nervously. Going through Danny's emergency instructions through her mind again until she hear a thud close to her and wirled around.
With wide blue glowing eyes, she looked up at the man dressed like a bat for a couple of seconds before taking on a defensive position. Eyes now narrowed at the man that was clearly studying her.
"I was under the impression that Phantom's youngest child was older. You appear to be no older than five."
"Yea well shit happened!" She shot back, still unsure if she could trust the man even if he mentioned Danny's hero alias. Her hands started to glow slightly as she prepared to attack in case things went back. But the man didn't appear to be phased by it. Not like the kid that was tensing up.
"You will be safe with us. But what happened to Phantom?"
Ellie eyes flicked over to the other kid that had now come closer to stand next to the bat guy before looking back to the big guy. She did not drop her stance yet. Still unsure of how much trust she can put here despite what Danny had told her, she had not yet heard the right response.
The man appeared to sense her distrust, as he kneeled to be on eye level with her. "Jupiter and Rho Cas will not be harmed. Orion gave Cassiopea his word."
Finally, Ellie relaxed, dropping her defensive stance but still watching the man with narrowed eyes. She hesitated a short moment before carefully saying her next words, hoping the man knew enough to k ow the grave meaning behind them.
"Phantom lost his haunt."
Cassiopea and Orion #2
Previous Part
A/N: I probably shouldn't be thinking up so many different story lines. But my mind won't let me focuse on something else in peace unless I write these snippets and parts out. So here have another part XD I still have a whole Danny and Bruce backstory conversation in my head that I will probably write out at some point too.
"Really B, another one?" A red helmet wearing guy huffed the moment he spotted her, the little black haired blue eyed girl, sitting on a railing by a huge computer set up Ellie was sure Uncle Tuck would have drooled over.
She blinked at the new arrival before her eyes went over to the man. The one she had told that Phantom lost his haunt. When she had spoken these words the air around the man had changed. Before Ellie even really knew what was happening, the man had turned away from her, talking to the still tense boy before whisking the both of them away to a cave. The place she was now, and one after another more and more of the weirdly dressed people showed up. Each of them appeared to feel the need to comment on something, Ellie heavily believed to be an inside joke.
She let her eyes wander over all the arrivals, her fingers nervously drumming on the metal of the railing she was sitting on. Watching them carefully, despite what Danny had told her, she would bold at the first sight of danger from them. They didn't appear to have any ecto-weapons but that could be false impression. Like the GIW. They had appeared so incompetent only to do a 180 decades later.
"So what is going on? Is B printing adoption papers already?" The red and black one appeared to joke and Ellie tilted her head. There definitely was a insider joke she was not aware of. It would be weird to ask them about it wouldn't it? It would also be rude and tactless. Danny and Aunt Jazz had tried to teach her to not always blurt out every question that pops up in her head. Key words, not always.
"Why would the furry need adoption papers?"
She blinked at how a couple of the people broke out laughing while the kid, who had been watching her like a hawk, was now full on shooting daggers at her. She was pretty sure the kid would have thrown a literal one at her, but something as keeping them from doing so. She heard a grunt, and her eyes went back to the man that had brought her here.
"Not necessary." The man muttered as he turned to face them, clicking a key on the keyboard of the computer, and Ellie blinked as an image of Phantom popped up on screen. The people laughing appeared to quiet down now. "She already has a father."
"Mom." Ellie automatically corrected, shrugging when they looked at her. Before everything had gone to shits and Danny's capture, he had become quiet the mother hen, especially with Dan's and her de-aging. The constant mothering and worry about their well-being had caused Dan to joke that Danny was acting like a mother and she had continued to run with that joke. Even after they had to put Dan into a frozen state under Frostbites care in Far Frozen. The two had silently agreed on that Danny was their mom. The past didn't matter and she would honour their silent sibling agreement.
She didn't elaborate any further and they seemed to get that as they turned back to the man by the computer, putting their attention on that. Though she did noticed that the other kids eyes lingered on her longer.
"This is Phantom. A ghost hero stationed at Amity Park. Code: Rho, one of Cassiopea's dying stars." The man paused, and Ellie swore he had looked at her under his cowl. "And this girl's, Elliza Danielle Phantom Nightingale's, mother. Code: Jupiter, the wandering star."
"How do you know my full name?! Plus, my only recently added ones! They are like only a month old! And what about these weird Codes?" She blurred out wide-eyed, staring at the man in bat costume.
"Even if sparse Phantom and I stayed in contact using these codes." And Ellie narrowed her eyes at him. "Doesn't answer my question."
"Actually, B we would also like to know more." One of the onlookers, that's what Ellie decided they were for now, piped up.
Bat guy grunted, staring them down but not answering. The onlooker in blue sighed but Ellie wasn't giving in. She crossed her arms, keeping her balance by floating slightly on the railing.
"Look, you big bad bee, if you can't tell me that, then how am I supposed to trust you to help me, let alone the rescue of Da- Phantom!"
The onlookers snickered as she held her little staring contest with the big bad bee. Jokes on that guy she had held staring contests with Frighty before and he doesn't even remember how to blink at times.
"Phantom and I correspond about various topics since our teen years." The bat guy finally admitted. "One of which was about... our children."
Ellie blinked several times. Until her eyes widened in realization and she pointed an accusing finger at bat guy. "You're the one that kept calling Danny about parent advice! Like how he got me to go to online school and prevented me from sneaking out or how he handled Dan's anger tantrums!"
"Wait... B went to someone other than Agent A for parent advice?" The red and black onlooker questioned and Ellie shrugged. Danny had always been sort of parenting her since he was 16 and Dan once they learned he was aging lower and then the de-aging happened. She did remember that Danny got his first phone call about parent advice when he was around 24.
Now that Ellie thought about it. That was also around the time he took her aside to tell her about the emergency code.
"Which one of us do you guys think was the cause?"
"Wing."
"Hood."
"Demon Brat."
Ellie blinked once more, her attention turning back to the onlookers as thet started to argue among themselves. She tilted her head, watching them. Looks like she accidentally got them off topic. Though now she really wanted to get the story out of Danny once they rescued him. For years she had caught snippets of Danny's phone calls, to think that the guy on the other end was a armored spandex wearing furry. She couldn't wait to tell Dan about that.
Well, once their mom was saved and her brother stabilized again.
Danny decides to render the Anti-Ecto acts useless. He goes a little Villain-y.
He uses his ghost abilities to get shit tons of ecto and dump them in the water supplies of large cities.
If everyone is Liminal, then the laws have to be revoked. Right?
...
...Right?
Meanwhile in an apartment in Metropolis, Clark and Lois stare at each other in shock as she hovers a solid three feet off the ground.
On her own.
Villian AU. Fentonworks is a multibillion company, and the head of the company, the Fentons, are supervillains. But nobody knows this because they wear full face masks, lab suits, and use voice modulators. Theyâve been active for years, and their two kids even joined into their crimes. The Bats canât get ahead of them or figure out the identities of the villainous family because they had a hacker of their own named Technus. (Tucker). Sometimes another young girl hangs around them: Undergrowth. (Sam). The Bats constantly were trying to get ahead of them, but never could. But the same thing worked in reverse: the Fentons couldnât figure out who the Bats were.
This began their attempts to demask the Bats. The Bats were skilled at this, and beautifully dodged all demasking attempts for years. It became more of a cat and mouse game for both parties after a while. Neither had an advantage over the other.
That is, until the Ghostbusters(Fentons) disappeared into the lab for a week. Danny had an idea. An idea for a type of acid that wouldnât harm against skin, but would dissolve any type of clothing. It took them a few days to stabilize the formula, and by the end of the week, they had multiple vials of the stuff. The Bats were antsy; they knew the criminal family were planning something. They just didnât know what they were planning.
The Ghostbusters plan works beautifully. Jack got Bruce, Maddie got Spoiler, Danny got Red Robin, and Jazz got Nightwing. After that, it wasnât hard to figure out the identity of the rest of the Bats.
The next day, the Bats continued their lives as normal, but they were looking over their shoulder all day. They were antsy, and fully expected something to happen. But nothing did. No new random person started stalking them, nothing out of the ordinary happened. But they kept their guard up because they knew better. They knew the Ghostbusters would eventually do something. They just didnât know when or how.
Danny had been best friends with Tim for two years, and Jazz had been dating Dick for six months, so they were both blindsided by the identity reveals of Tim and Dick. Jazz loved Dick so much by that point, but hated heroes, and had tried to kill Nightwing more than once before. She was torn on what to do.
Suprisingly, it was Samâs idea that they went with. Jazz already had a date with Dick scheduled for that Saturday, so as a test to both Dick and Nightwing, they were going to kidnap Jazz in broad daylight. Jazz couldnât be in two places at once for the attack, so they used a hologram to fool everyone into thinking she wasnât one of the Ghostbusters.
Phantom(Danny) broke through the window of the restaurant that Dick and Jazz were at. In a matter of seconds, Phantom had a knife against Jazzâs throat. Jazz played the scared victim, and Dick tried to reason with Phantom for Jazzâs safety. Jazz was thrilled about the outcome, but still allowed herself to be kidnapped.
Unfortunately, none of the Ghostbusters planned for the Justice League to get involved.
The JL were having a normal, for them at least, meeting when suddenly a portal rips opens and spits out a young teen with snow white hair and glowing green eyes and he's carrying a bundle as he's stumbles out and lands on his knees in the meeting room.
The two main odd things about this kid was floating above the kid's head was a crown made of stars, ice, and the colors shifting like a aurora borealis and the bundle in his arms was strangely made of stars somehow, almost like a blanket of galaxies plucked out of the cosmos.
Before anyone of them could say or do anything, the kid turns around and screams towards the portal as he scrambles for it.
"JAZZ NO DON'T DO THIS! I CAN STILL FIGHT THEM! NONONONO!" but before he could reach the portal it snaps close.
The kid lands again onto the floor when he doesn't reach it in time, pleading for the damn thing to open again, and the bundle in his arms begins to cry from the jolting and noise.
The baby crying was the only thing that stopped the kid from pleading and instead focused his attention on the bundle in his arms.
"I'm sorry, I'm so damn sorry Ellie. I should had gotten us out of there sooner, I should had saved you bef- I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything..."
Those were the rushed, raw words the kid said down to the bundle. The kid curled inwards a bit, to both shield the baby, who was calming down somewhat into tiny cry hiccups, and for himself.
Those with advanced hearing could tell the kid was still whispering apologizes under his breath as he held the baby close.
"I'm sorry everyone, I'm so sorry. I tried, I tried so hard to save everyone but in the end... I'm sorry- everyone's gone... I'm sorry."
-x-x- [Pssst, read the tags, they clear everything up]
Prompt 134
One of the young justice members is complaining about how their parents or mentors benched them after getting injured.Â
And Marvel snorting and saying that that reminds him of Phantom. And of course, the YJ crew, ask who that is.Â
âOh Phantoms my big brother, pops never really understood our human halves or limits soâŚâ and he just shrugs like he didnât just drop Lore. And the teens smell blood in the water, they want to know more.Â
The Justice League has been working to dismantle the GIW for awhile, and finally found enough evidence to get them shut down.
Superman is picked to be involved with the dismantling of the base, and equipped with some sort of strange watch bought from a family-run ghost hunting business in Illinois. Apparently, the thing prevents him from being possessed.
He has, of course, ordered fifteen of the things.
Being possessed and used to hurt his friends and family has and always will be one of his worst fears.
As they circle the base, hidden and in groups, waiting for Cyborg to bypass security-Cyborg pauses.
They have someone.
A small-town hero, Phantom. They have him strapped to an operating table, and they're literally about to start carving into him.
Superman sees red.
Inside the base, Danny's waiting for the GIW thugs to start cutting into his duplicate so he can record it and get evidence to the Justice League, so that they know these guys are really fucked up.
He isn't expecting the ceiling to suddenly go missing.
He really isn't expecting to see a spectacularly pissed off Superman start towards the GIW agents while Martian Manhunter (calm down fenton don't be a nerd don't geek out omgomgomgomggggg) himself frees the duplicate.
Then Martian Manhunter pauses.
Looks at Danny.
Danny wills himself onto the visible spectrum and allows the duplicate to dissipate.
Unfortunately, in his effort to not sound starstruck, he just sounds pissed.
"Oh, so now you show up? In the middle of my sting operation?"
The Justice League has been working to dismantle the GIW for awhile, and finally found enough evidence to get them shut down.
Superman is picked to be involved with the dismantling of the base, and equipped with some sort of strange watch bought from a family-run ghost hunting business in Illinois. Apparently, the thing prevents him from being possessed.
He has, of course, ordered fifteen of the things.
Being possessed and used to hurt his friends and family has and always will be one of his worst fears.
As they circle the base, hidden and in groups, waiting for Cyborg to bypass security-Cyborg pauses.
They have someone.
A small-town hero, Phantom. They have him strapped to an operating table, and they're literally about to start carving into him.
Superman sees red.
Inside the base, Danny's waiting for the GIW thugs to start cutting into his duplicate so he can record it and get evidence to the Justice League, so that they know these guys are really fucked up.
He isn't expecting the ceiling to suddenly go missing.
He really isn't expecting to see a spectacularly pissed off Superman start towards the GIW agents while Martian Manhunter (calm down fenton don't be a nerd don't geek out omgomgomgomggggg) himself frees the duplicate.
Then Martian Manhunter pauses.
Looks at Danny.
Danny wills himself onto the visible spectrum and allows the duplicate to dissipate.
Unfortunately, in his effort to not sound starstruck, he just sounds pissed.
"Oh, so now you show up? In the middle of my sting operation?"
Red Robin and the Undead Earpiece.
Back again with another prompt! Although, I might start branching out to a couple of different fandoms in the future, idk.
Tim, when he was going on his Lazarus pit destruction crusade, accidentally drops his comm link in said pit. He was able to fish it out, and aside from the slight glowing, still works fine. Yay for durability!
Things are normal, and apparently Lazarus water encrypts his comm, who knew. But then he starts hearing teenagers voices over it, going on about ghosts, avoiding the government, and even their parents hunting them down.
Unfortunately, the Lazarus waters encryption work both ways, so Tim is having difficulty pinning down where the signal is coming from. At least he can give a few friendly tips to these young heroes.
Tl:dr, Tim drops his earpiece into Lazarus waters and can now hear everything team phantom is saying over the radio.
Danny was pissed. He was chilling in the Speedforce, waiting on his dadâthe Flashâto show up when he felt something shift around him. He exited the speedforce to find that the timeline had changed again, and he had been written out of the timeline. He technically was a time anomaly now, and didnât exist. So he talked to Clockwork, a ghost heâd gotten to know extremely well after Dannyâs creation.
Danny was a clone of the Flash and Green Lantern(Hal Jordan) as part of an experiment that Lex Luthor had taken prior to cloning Superboy. Lex had wanted to know if the power ring was able to transmit anything genetically (it couldnât. It was a wearable weapon, not a genetic thing.) but Danny had inherited Flashâs superspeed, so he wasnât a complete loss. Danny wasnât sure if he looked more like either man, considering they both wore masks. He had brown hair and green eyes. Beyond that, he tanned well, was tall for his age, and packed on muscle far easier than the Flash did. He hadnât ever seen either man out of the costume.
After a talk with Clockwork, he decided he was just going to force his way back into his Dadâs life. Both of them, if possible. He arrived years before his creation by mistake, right near the start of the Justice League. By his estimates, the team had only been formed for a year before heâd arrived. It was strange; he both didnât exist and was from the future. He guessed that it was around nine years before his birth, and since he was technically six months old, he was 9 years in the past. Thinking about this was going to give him a headache.
The Justice League was severely mistrustful of each other. They didnât go out of their way for teamups, didnât have weekly meetings, and almost pretended if the other members didnât exist. The most recluse of them was Batman, of course. If any hero set foot in Gotham, they were booted out before they even got to downtown. Danny highly suspected Batman had the entire city on camera. The situation was weirding him out more than before. What had happened to the team?! He was used to everyone being one big family, and even the sidekicks having their own teams⌠speaking of sidekicks, why was Robin so small?! Wait a minute, that wasnât the third Robin that he was used to, that was the first Robin! Baby Nightwing!
Thankfully for him, he still had his costume on this entire time as he zipped around the country, spying on the younger members of the Justice League. It was surreal watching everyone try to capture him, but he wasnât going to be caught that easily!
Eventually his presence forced the Justice League into another teamup. Batman laid the trap out, and Flash lured him into it. The plan was so beautiful that he didnât even realize it was a trap until he was caught in it. Green Lantern took off Dannyâs mask, and for the first time, he looked at his fathers without a mask. They didnât make the connection to him right away. It wasnât until Wonder Womanâs lasso made its way around his wrist that the truth finally came out.
âWho are you?â Wonder Woman asked.
âOof , hard questionâow ow owwâIâm being honest!â He struggled against the lasso as it started to burn him. âMy designation was Dn-y, I go by Danny, though. Iâm a clone.â
âOf who?â Batman demanded.
âFlash and Green Lantern.â The lasso was glowing brightly, indicating that he was telling the truth.
âHow did you escape?â Flash asked.
He didnât answer right away. He was trying to think about how to phrase the whole time travelingâtimeline erasure thing when the lasso started to burn him again. âOw ow! Sorry, Iâm thinking! Ow! Turn down the settings on that thing, holy shitâokay, okay.â He winced, his words coming out in one breath as he quickly talked, âWhat do you know about time travel?â
Dianaâs eyebrows were rising. âHow are you able to resist the lasso for so long?â
âIâm not really resisting it.â He answered, noting the obvious deflect of his last question, âI just-owwâokay! My mind moves too fast for me to put into words sometimes and it makes me stop to think about it, but like, Iâm not good at controlling the speed in which I speak all the timeâowww make this thing stop burning me! Iâm speaking honestly!â
Diana revoked the lasso, and he rubbed his wrist where his costume was starting to singe. He was still trapped in an anti-speedster prison, so it wasnât exactly like he was going anywhere anyway.
âWhy were you asking about time travel?â Batman asked.
âBased on the crickets chirping I heard earlier, that leads me to believe you guys havenât had any experience in it yet.â He leaned against the wall of the prison, wincing as it shocked him with electricity. âSeriously? How paranoid are you, Batman?â He rubbed his shoulder. âHonestly, I donât know what I was expecting with you people, but I feel so attacked right now.â
âSo we have experience with it in the future?â Superman piped up.
âYeah?â His tone of voice equated to a âduhâ tone. âWhy would I ask what you knew if I wasnât from the future?â
âHow far in the future are you from?â Green Lantern asked.
âNine years, maybe close to ten? Timelines are weird. Iâm technically six months old, but at the same time Iâm sixteen. Cloning is odd, but I was like, the first clone ever, so I donât really have a basis for this sort of thing, if you catch my drift.â He shrugged. He seemed like he talked a lot more than the heroes did, but he didnât know if that was because he was a chatterbox, or because they werenât comfortable in each otherâs presence. Either way, the silence was odd to him.
âHow did you end up here?â Batman asked.
âHonestly? I donât fully know. Donât give me that look, Diana! Iâm telling the truth.â He added quickly as Diana fingered her lasso again. âAll I know is one minute, Iâm chilling in the Speedforce, and the next, the timeline is changed and Iâm nine years too early for my birth. Youâd think the timeline would at least have the decency to spit me out in my own year, but nooo, it wanted toââ
âWhatâs the Speedforce?â Superman interrupted.
He tilted his head at Supermanâs question, then turned to the Flash. âHow long have you had your powers?â
Flash shifted uncomfortably. âTwo years.â
âOh boy.â Dannyâs green eyes widened. âYou donât know anything about them, do you?â
âI do know things!â Flash deflected, âMy suit doesnât catch on fire anymore! I can run up to Mach 2! I can get from either end of the country in thirty minutes!â
He groaned loudly. âOh no. Oh no.â He chewed on his thumb, trying to recall everything heâd learned about his powers from his Flash. While he hadnât learned his or Green Lanternâs identity yet, he knew almost everything about their hero personas and a lot of personal information. They were just worried of the Cadmus connection and didnât want their identity to fall into the wrong hands if they still could see inside of Dannyâs head.
âWhatâs wrong?â Diana asked.
âOkay.â He ran his hands through his brown hair, making it spike up. âHypotheticallyââ he cut himself off as Batman glared at him. âOkay, totally real, but uh, Flash, letâs just say that Iâm faster than you right now. A lot faster.â
âHow much?â Flash took a step forward, obviously curious.
âFrom what we can tell, Iâve topped out at Mach nine.â He responded with a dry laugh, âBut your speed was still a lot faster than mine. Youâd never tell me what it was. Iâm still growing though, and Iâm getting faster. Iâm able to beat my precious time by almost double each time we test. But my situation was complicated, and things were happening, and it was a mess.â
âLike what?â Superman asked.
âWorld war three. I think?â He rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that he had picked up from Green Lantern, âThings got complicated. Thatâs why I was going to wait forâŚâ his eyebrows scrunched together as the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. âIt was you!â He turned to Flash. âYou!â He jabbed a finger at the speedster. âYou set this up! You set ME up!â
The heroes took fighting stances, but Superman took a step forward, blocking them from Danny. âWhat are you talking about?â
âOkay okay.â He was trying to calm down his anger, but he had been told by Green Lantern in the past that he had inherited the manâs anger issues. âLet me start at the beginning. This is going to be a long story, you might want to take a seat.â
Nobody moved, but everyone was tense.
âOr not. Okay. So my creation starts with Lex Luthor.â He noticed Superman stiffen. âHe used me as his trial, if you will. Once he got a successful attempt at cloningâmeâhe moved onto his real target. Cloning Superman.â Dannyâs green eyes hovered onto Supermanâs blue ones. âHe was successful.â
âWhat happened?â Supermanâs voice was unnaturally quiet.
âWell, at first, Conner wasnât showing that he had all the powers of Superman. So Lex tossed him aside and tried again. The second attempt was more successful than the first. But cloning Kryptonian dna was hard, I guess.â He shrugged. âThe second clone lacked basic emotions. Empathy, remorse⌠it made him the perfect little weapon for Lex. But eventually, the cloneâs anger and Lexâs greed got to a point of no return. Lex was elected President of the United States and uhâŚyou can probably see where this is going, right? While the fighting hadnât likeâŚâofficiallyâ started,â He used his fingers to create air quotes around the word âofficiallyâ, âThings were getting tense. See, we couldnât take the clone down because Lex had wrote out the Kryptonite deficiency out of his weakness. And the clone had all the strength of Superman and none of his remorseâŚâ
Superman looked pale. âI see.â
âSo Flash and I came up with a plan.â He turned back to his father, âWe were going to travel into the next dimension for help. From what we could tell, that dimension was full of god-like beings, and one of them actually helped me out earlier! But for a lot of them, they ask for a price for their help. But anyway, Flash and I were going to take our case to the King and plead for help. I was waiting for Flash when the timeline reset and I found out that not only did I not exist, but I was nine years too early.â
âWhat are you going to do now?â Green Lantern asked.
âDunno,â His voice dropped as the reality hit him. He wasnât going homeâhis home didnât exist anymore.
DPXDC AU idea
Danny is the ghost king
one problem he is a minor
so all summonings get redirected to his parent
Cut to Gotham Batman and his flock have finally tracked down a cult trying to summon the ghost king to bring about the end of the world
They're too late as the cult finishes the summoning...only for Batman to disappear and pop up in the summoning circle
Criminal Underworld: sees it as proof the Batman is some kind of eldritch being
Batman: frantically researching why he was summoned in place of the ghost king
Danny: oblivious to the chaos
Ellie is technically Dan's older sister
So, because Dan is now inhabiting a Cloned Body, that means that he is technically now Danny and Ellie's Sibling.
And technically, the Clone was created and released after Ellie was, long after.
Meaning, Dan isn't the Grumpy Older Sibling. He's the Grouchy Baby Sibling.
Dan is the Youngest!
Imagine this in a typical Runaway AU, where the Batfam encounters this trio of Siblings. 2 of them are Teenage Boys who look almost identical, the other is a Girl who looks about 2 years Younger than them.
And then they introduce themselves like this...
Ellie: And this is our baby brother Dan!
Dan: I am literally 10 years older than you! I look the same age as Danny!
Danny: Really? Cause your DNA says you were born only 6 months ago, and Ellie is 12 months old, and I'm 15 years old, so who's really the baby here?
Dan: SHE IS! I'm the Oldest! I'm not a Baby!!!
Ellie: Sorry about him, he gets cranky when he doesn't get his nap :D
Dan: *sounds of incomprehensible rage*
Danny: Aw, he's having a little tantrum.
"I'll pay you 10 times the amount you were given to take me out." Bruce Wayne is, very out of character, super serious and looking at him so intense.
Danny isn't paid enough to figure out why the supposed himbo isn't acting like it.
"You know what? Yeah. Deal." He fishes his phone out, accepting the money transfer and calls his boss for the day.
"Heyyy big guyâ yeahâ I know... anyway! I'm not killing Bruce Wayne, you should find someone different to do itâ bye!" And he hangs up, cutting the shouting with a grin.
"If you ever, and I mean, ever need someone out of the way, call me."
He happily hands his contact information to the billionaire and swoops out of the window.
He is rich! So mega rich!
("Did you just buy the mercenary?"
"He's a kid! I panicked!"
"At least you got a phone number??")
Ok guys consider this: DP fic where Danny and Wes run away together
Make no mistake, they still absolutely HATE each other. Wes has been trying to expose Dannyâs identity since the beginning, and that hasnât changed a bit since the GiW appeared.
Now, though, it makes a little bit more sense to Danny.
Wes is at his window, panting and shaking, and he is bleeding. The GiW, he explains, had been harassing him since the beginning. An hour ago, they got the warrant needed to take him into custody, and they went after him immediately. To add to that, they got the papers to go after one other person as well. Danny.
So now, theyâre on the worldâs worst road trip to Florida or Alaska or some other, equally far away state because Wes has an uncle there who he knows has a deep enough grudge against the government that he wonât sell them out for anything.
They hate each other, and desperately wish they could ditch each other, but Dannyâs the only one who can actually keep their rustbucket bike (originally Wesâ brotherâs, gifted to him after it started breaking down) working without dropping at least 2 grand on repairs, and Wes is the only one with a driverâs license.
Dannyâs honestly surprised that Wes didnât just sell him out. Wes told him that, quite frankly, he probably would have, had the GiW not attacked him as viciously as they did. He still hated Danny, of course, but he couldnât live with himself if he justâŚleft someone to get tortured like that.
Danny snaps that he knew the GiW would do that since the beginning, and if Wes had just listened to himâ
In truth, heâs surprisingly touched. Heâs never gonna tell Wes that, but still.
Basically just roadtrip of hell where Danny and Wes slowly get closer and start to understand each other, while simultaneously Jazz and Sam are working together to politically destroy the GiW, Tucker is running digital interference as much as possible (Danny, please stop showing your full face in front of security cameras, are you trying to give him a seizure), and the parents Fenton are beginning to think that they mightâve, just maybe, made a slight mistake in their understanding of Phantom.
Clone Danny Masterpost
So its been like, almost a week since the first part of clone danny came out and, in unsurprising Starry fashion, I already have six parts out. Granted they're not very long but six parts ARE six parts, so here is a masterpost!
Part 1. Danny Fenton Lives!! And also becomes a vigilante
Part 2. More Danny Fenton Trying To Be Phantom
Part 3. Danny finds out he's a clone. Oh and look Bruce is here too
Part 4. What to do when your genetic donor is suddenly in the same building as you: a guide to avoidance
Part 4.5. Dani's Got The Scary Dog Privileges: More On That Here
Part 5. Damian is a menace, and so is Ellie, actually.
Part 6. The Waynes Leave, finally!⌠And Danny ends up in Gotham
Part 7. Danny's still in Gotham. Send Help
Part 7.5. Remember Dan in part 2? he's back in an interlude :)
Part 8. Danny Gets His Phone Call
Memes PT1 Memes PT2
Tag for @gin2212 bc you wanted one when the masterpost went out
i've mentioned in a few past posts about an au where Danny is a variant of Jason Todd. I haven't made a post about it yet because I need a good rhythm flowing however i've been listening to Gladiator by Jann and I have been having thoughts.
but first, let me set the au:
Danny Fenton is Jason Todd, or at least, a variant of him. A him from a universe separate to the major Batman timeline - but still Jason Todd, down to the structure of his face and his name itself. The only thing that changes, is who picks him up - and, that he follows old Batman canon, and was an orphan. Jason Todd steals the tires off the batmobile and wallops Batman with his tirejack, and then runs off. Shortly after, he gets picked up by the Fentons.
(Customary line break,,,, word count check: 5k)
And his name changes from Jason Todd to Danny Fenton. He doesn't care much for the new name change, it stems from his mute refusal to share his name to the people that picked him up; an attempt to make him untraceable should he get away from them, and to keep something of his to himself. So they name him something new. He grows to like it enough as he acclimates to his new family.
(He hangs onto the name Jason Todd like a secret - he may be 'Danny Fenton' now, but he'll never forget his time on Gotham's streets. He'll always be Jason Todd.)
(Jazz is the only one who he tells his name to in the family - she affectionately calls him Jay whenever she wants.)
He becomes friends with Sam and Tucker and deals with Dash and his bullying. And when Danny steps in during a fight between Dash and another student, Dash gives him a bleeding nose and mockingly says, "Do you think you're Robin just because you're from Gotham, Fenton?"
Jason looks him in the eyes and he bares his teeth, "Why not?" he asks, spitting blood, "being Robin gives me magic."
The nickname sticks. It's supposed to be an insult; Daniel Fenton is not Robin, he'll never be Robin. Not now, not in a million years. Jason Todd has always wanted to be Robin, so he takes the insult and wears it proudly. He buys a school varsity jacket and painstakingly undos the stitching of all the school's motif on it. On the breast of it, he embroiders in a black circle with the Boy Wonder "R" on it instead. It's not good stitching, but the next day Danny wears it down to breakfast and into school.
In normal au canon, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton (its a mouthful, just call him Danny) only meets the Waynes after he becomes Phantom - an event that leans more towards Daniel Fenton's accident than Jason Todd's death, but traumatizes him all the same. (Is it too much to want to be mourned? His best friends like to deny that he died - and Danny - Jason? - wishes they wouldn't, even if he did come back.)
(The accident embitters him, even more when his parents don't seem to pick up on it. He stops calling himself Danny Fenton - he's always been Jason Todd. It shows itself in his ghostly form. He doesn't want to wear the thing he died in, not in something that belongs to the Fentons, and his suit reflects that.)
In this timeline, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton, aged 13, meets Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne after a mishap with magic on the other end of the reality sends the three of them careening through time and space, and spat back out on the other end, in a world not their own. And together.
Danny is paired with a very confused Bruce Wayne and Richard Grayson. Luckily, there's a few heroes there to help them. Danny can hardly comprehend the idea that he's in another universe - he doesn't know why Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne are seemingly handling it well.
On their way to a secondary base with the heroes, Danny turns to Bruce Wayne and asks, "So, is it part of rich-person training that you're just totally chill with being sent into another universe, or are you just weird?"
Bruce Wayne huffs at him, rather than get offended, and he smiles that dumb lopsided billionaire smile that Danny's seen on every vogue magazine he's been in. "I'm not so worried with these skilled heroes here to help us get home."
Danny silently concludes that he's just weird. At least Dick Grayson is biting back a smile behind him. "Riiiight..." He says, dragging the vowel out dryly.
When they get to that secondary location -- a safehouse that one of the heroes had set up -- the three of them are sat in a living room-like room while one hero, Zatanna, goes and calls someone from the Justice League. The other two heroes stay with the three of them.
Within a few hours, Danny is face to face with Batman - someone who he hasn't seen since he whacked him in the stomach with a tire iron - and Nightwing. For a moment, Danny swears that the both of them look almost spooked by him.
Batman stares at him for a moment when he enters, and then he goes to speak with Bruce Wayne. Danny doesn't care enough to hear what they're talking about, he pulls out his phone as Nightwing goes to speak with Dick Grayson.
"Are you a fan of Robin, little man?" Someone says, and when Danny looks up he locks eyes with Dick Grayson -- who is leaning around Nightwing to talk to him, the both of them are smiling. And considering who Nightwing was, Danny finds himself turning pink to the ears.
But he will not hide his jacket. He forces a grin through his embarrassment, "Hell yeah, man, Robin's cool." He says, and pushes his arms down to pull out the hem of his letterman, showing off the emblem. "I made it m'self out of a school varsity after the A-Listers started callin' me Robin."
"A-Listers?"
"Popular kids," Danny corrects, loosing his hold on the hem and brushing invisible wrinkles out of the embroidery. "They didn't like that I kept stepping in when they were bullying. Dash asked me if i thought I was Robin because I was from Gotham."
Dick Grayson looks intrigued -- and concerned, and he leans forward onto his knees and raises an eyebrow. "What did you say?"
And Danny grins a shark-like thing, straightening back his shoulders with a burning sort of smug pride and all the sharpness of broken glass left in Crime Alley. "I told him being Robin gave me magic, and then I punched him."
Dick Grayson's smile widens, splitting into showing teeth as he leans back into his seat. Danny isn't sure why he's so delighted - but Nightwing looks incredibly amused, and he suddenly remembers that the Robin himself was there in front of him.
Danny's face burns anew and his arms fold themselves in front of him once again.
"I don't think I ever caught your name, Robin." Dick Grayson goes, his voice thick with laughter, and Nightwing steps off to the side as Batman and Bruce Wayne walk over to join them both. They're just close enough that Danny can see Bruce Wayne raise an eyebrow at them both.
"It's Jason." Danny says before he can think about it, and barely stops himself from frowning at himself for the slip. He amends himself, glancing over at Batman and Bruce as they get closer. "But everyone calls me Danny."
Dick Grayson's head recoils slightly, and he looks a little surprised. "Why Danny?" He asks.
"Why Dick?" He shoots back, and Bruce and Dick both smile at him, with Dick Grayson shrugging with an expression that looks like 'you've got a point.'
In the end, the three of them - yes, three - get sent to this world's Wayne Manor, and Danny is bewildered by that decision to include himself -- he's not a Wayne. Why not just send him to the Fentons?
Batman tells him that the Fentons don't exist in this world, and Danny falls silent. "Oh." He says quietly, a pit growing in his stomach with an ill-kind of dread. He can't keep Batman's gaze, looking away with unease.
No Fentons in this world. No Fentons. Where was he then, in the grand scheme of things? Where was he in this world? What happened to Jason Todd? Was he even alive? He can't keep the worry off his face, and he jumps when a hand lands on his shoulder. When he looks up, Dick Grayson squeezes him gently.
Dick Grayson is steadily beginning to remind him of his sister.
-
They end up driving back in the Batmobile. It's such a shock to Danny that he momentarily forgets the lack of Fentons. He makes a laugh sound, actually, and immediately he covers his hand with his mouth and stares at the car -- tank? with his teeth sunk into his lower lip.
"Jason?" Dick says, and hearing his name being spoken feels like someone touched him with a livewire. It's weird, it's foreign - he hates, in some way, that it's foreign - and it's so nice. Yes, that's me.
He drops his hand immediately. "Sorry." He says, realizing he'd stopped in his tracks, "I -uh, was just surprised."
"It's not every day someone sees the Batmobile." Dick agrees. Nightwing has his back to them but Danny swears he sees his shoulders shaking a little.
"Yeah," Danny nods slowly, dragging his eyes over the batmobile as Batman opens the driver's side and gets in. He thinks for a moment, of what he should say next - whether to admit that he's seen it before, or to pretend that he's seeing it for the first time. Snd as Nightwing opens the door for him, Bruce, and Dick, he chooses the funnier option; "The last time I saw it, I was stealing its tires."
To his surprise and unsurprise, Danny only gets two pairs of eyes on him. Nightwing gets into the passenger seat as both Bruce and Dick turn their gaze onto him; Dick's eyes big like they were going to bulge out of his head.
"You what!?"
So Danny tells an amazed Dick Grayson that he hit Batman with a tire iron after he stole his tires - something he is very proud about and also incredibly embarrassed about when he retells what happened in the backseat of the batmobile, with Batman and Nightwing listening in from the front seat.
(Bruce Wayne doesn't ever tell Dick shit, he's going to lord this over Bruce's head the moment they are alone.)
"Please tell me this didn't happen in this world." Danny groans behind his palms as he sinks into his seat. Dick Grayson is killing himself laughing on his left, and he saw Bruce Wayne stifling a smile before he obscured his vision with his hands.
Much to his luck, its Batman himself who speaks next, (Danny was being mostly rhetorical). "It did." He says, and his voice sounds like the rumble of the earth before a stampede. It will never not throw Danny off every time he hears it. "It takes quite a lot of spunk to steal the tires off the batmobile."
He can't believe it. Batman is making fun of him. Fucking, Batman.
He wants to die with embarrassment. He groans even louder as Dick Grayson's laughter crescendoes. Danny risks a peak through his fingers, he doesn't know whether to regret it or not because he can just barely see Batman smirk very faintly from his position in the middle.
(His world axis tilts five degree leftways seeing it; like someone dunked a bucket of ice water on him.)
"He ended up being adopted by the Bruce Wayne of this world."
Danny's hands drop with his jaw into his lap. Dick Grayson on his left chokes on his laughter and careens into a coughing fit. Bruce Wayne on his right chokes on air, and quickly recovers himself with a cough behind a closed fist.
"What?" Danny croaks.
-
Apparently, Bruce Wayne's family is much larger in this world than it is in his. Danny can barely wrap his head around the idea that he ends up adopted by the man, but now he has to learn that Wayne had several children in this world?
He's still not wrapped his head around it when the three of them wind up at Wayne Manor, finally, or even when he's standing in front of him himself. For his effort, Bruce Wayne does a good job at looking unruffled by it.
God, he's weird. Danny's starting to quite like it, actually. How human of him.
He still can't wrap his head around it when he meets the rest of Bruce Wayne's children, all of whom are already aware of the three of them. Danny thinks that someone from the Justice League might've alerted them before they got here.
It makes sense, he supposes.
It helps that they are just as weirded out as he is. A boy named Tim Drake sees him for the first time and blurts out; "Oh wow, you're tiny." In a tone like he's just seen a two-headed snake burst out of the ground.
Danny is still offended. He's still growing. It's not his fault he spent twelve years of his life malnourished. "I'm gonna be taller than you," he tells him seriously, "and when I do I'm gonna kick your ass."
Tim snorts at him.
The other Bruce Wayne -- Mr. Wayne's -- youngest looks at him up and down with a face of carefully controlled judgement. His name is Damian, he's Bruce Wayne's only biological son. Danny can't believe that there's only one.
If anything, Bruce Wayne himself looks surprised too.
"Todd, yes?" Damian says, his green eyes narrowed at him.
Danny feels like the specimen under his parents' microscope, he feels like he's standing on a platform that's being slowly spun by scientists. He looks over at Bruce Wayne in confusion, and then back at Damian. "I- yes?"
Damian Wayne nods, and then leaves.
Danny does not once see himself. That is unsettling in and of itself - surely Jason Todd would have been told about another version of himself in this world, wouldn't he? How old is he here? An adult, probably. Danny doesn't know if he wants to see him. What does he look like when he's grown up? He pulls his Robin jacket around him a little tighter, like a cocoon, like a shield.
"It's weird to hear them call me Jason Todd." He says aloud to himself, and it leaves a weight behind in his chest that shouldn't hurt the way it does. It shouldn't be weird to be called your name. It shouldn't cobweb up your throat to hear your name being said. It was his name. It was his.
-
Danny acclimates to the manor slowly. The house is big, massive. He's never been in a house so large before, he feels like a stray cat being taken in for the first time, again. He and Bruce and Dick Grayson are all given their own separate rooms - one of many inside this mansion - and the sheer size of his bedroom is bigger than his living room and kitchen combined.
it's daunting. Danny sits outside on the balcony and stares at the stars he can see - Wayne Manor is far enough away from Gotham that its light pollution doesn't obscure the sky here like it did in the heart of it.
Danny finds the constellations he can find and wishes he had his books with him. He finds the library the next day and buries himself in the back, curling up into a comfy armchair next and inhaling each book he can get his hands on.
Tim Drake wanders past him at some point, Danny would have missed him if it weren't for the fact that Drake stared at him strangely when he saw him. He walks away when he realizes Danny was staring back.
It's a rinse and repeat for the next few days. Danny doesn't go to meals, he sneaks food from the kitchen afterwards, and then buries himself in hundreds of books in the library.
Dick Grayson, the one from his world, goes and finds him three days later. Danny's eyes hurt with strain by then, but he is furiously halfway through a Jane Austen novel when Dick sits down across from him.
"Have you been here all day?" Dick asks, he drapes himself across the side of his chair, contorting himself into a position that Danny doesn't think is comfortable when he looks up at him.
Not that he looks up at him long - he hums absently and goes back to reading. Frowning when he realizes he lost his place on the page.
Dick Grayson raises an eyebrow, "Have you at least eaten anything?"
Danny hums. No, he hasn't, and he hadn't thought about eating all day. Until now that is, his frown ever deepening as his stomach pangs with a deep hunger.
"That's not healthy."
"Mhm."
"Are you going to eat something?"
"Mhhh."
And this gets Dick to frown. He straightens himself up, propping onto his elbows to stare at Danny. "Jason." He says strongly. And it's that that gets Danny to finally look up from his page, jumping like he'd again been poked with a live wire as he stares at Dick with wide eyes.
"Yes?"
"Put the book down." Dick orders, gesturing towards the side table next to Danny with a nod. "And come eat something." There's very little room for argument in his voice, he sounds like Jazz when she's trying to parent him, but instead he actually sounds authoritative. Not bossy.
Danny still frowns at him. "You're not the boss of me." He says, sinking back into his chair with a thumb bookmarking his page.
Dick gives him a look and makes a decisive noise, swaggling his head side to side while he does. "I'm pretty sure that for as long as we're here, me and B actually are the boss of you."
He's never really liked authority figures, not ones that tried to boss him around, that is. Danny doubles down, his lips curling into a shadow of a scowl. "Just because you're my brother in another world doesn't mean you can act like it."
"That's not what I mean and you know it."
"I don't want to go eat."
"It's not good for you to skip meals."
"Quit talking like Jazz."
"Danny."
Danny sinks his teeth into his lip and scowls darkly at him, shrinking into the back of his armchair in hopes that it'll swallow him whole. The idea of going into that large fucking dining room fills him with a dread that makes him completely forget his appetite.
"Your fucking- dining room is- it's too big." He grits out, finally closing his book and hugging it tightly to his chest.
Dick blinks at him. "What?"
"You heard me! It's too big. This whole place is too big. It's- what do you even do with this much space? I don't know how this- other me ever lived here."
Dick Grayson surprises him, and his expression softens. "Oh," he says, "I get it."
"You do?" The tension bleeds slowly out of Danny's shoulders
"Yeah, I felt the same way when I first moved in with Bruce. I lived with the circus for most of my life, but I slept in a trailer." He says. And he talks more.
The end result of their conversation ends with Dick Grayson offering to let Danny sit across or next to him during mealtimes, and that he can talk to him if he starts getting uneasy. But he can't keep skipping meals - it was making them all worried.
Danny agrees, and Dick takes him down to the kitchens for food.
"They look at me weirdly too." He grumbles as they leave the library, Danny's book returned to the shelf where it belonged. When Dick looks at him curiously, he scrunches his nose up. "The - your other siblings. They look at me like I'm- I'm someone else. S'weird."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Dick asks, "You are someone else."
Dany shrugs, staring at the ground with a heavy frown. "I don't know."
-
Danny seeks out Dick more after that. And vice versa. Dick reminds Danny of Jazz, and he latches onto the familiarity like a leech. If Dick is bothered by it, he doesn't show it, whether he's talking to his other world's self, to the Bruce's, or to one of the other Wayne kids.
Damian Wayne seems particularly keen to seek him out, Danny finds. He thinks it means that they're close in this world, and that Damian wants to see more of what a young Dick is like. That's what he would do, at least.
He takes up on Dick's offer of seating near him during dinner, and finds an open spot across from him. Unless he has something to show him, then he sits next to him.
("You can call me Jason." He tells him one day when they're in the Wayne's massive, fuck-off gym and they're both climbing over the jungle gym. Dick's showing him how to be more flexible. It's the most Danny's worked out ever, he likes the burn it gives him.
Dick looks at him in surprise, "Really?" he's doing a handstand on the bars and Danny's more than a little jealous at his balance.
"Yeah, dipshit," he says, rolling his eyes, "I'll even let you call me Jay, it's my nickname."
Dick happily takes him up on that offer, and much to Danny's embarrassment, starts calling him Jaybird. All because of his stupid Robin jacket.)
Danny has yet to meet his other self still, it's scaring him a little. Where was he? And matter of fact, how long until he could go back to his home dimension? The three of them hadn't gotten any updates since they arrived.
Speaking of, he was starting to talk to Bruce more, it was just... strange. Even stranger than talking to Dick. Bruce Wayne in another life would have been his adoptive father, Danny can't wrap his head around it for the life of him.
Whatever did Bruce Wayne see in Jason Todd that made him worth adopting? He's too afraid of the answer to ask. They start talking more after they run into each other late at night. Danny had been hit with a bout of insomnia and was going to the library.
He ran into Bruce on the way. He was just.. staring, out the window, with a faraway look in his eye. He didn't even look startled to see Danny standing there.
Danny asks him if he wants to go to the library with him. It was out of panic. He isn't expecting Bruce Wayne to agree, and they walk there in suffocating silence. Danny keeps looking at him from the corner of his eye.
("You're staring?" Bruce doesn't sound upset, Danny jumps anyway.
"Yeah, sorry." his voice sounds stilted, "it's just..." his jaw wires itself shut for a spell, "...you looked like you were about to disappear."
"Ah.")
When they reach the library, Danny leads Bruce Wayne into the science section and takes out books upon books about stars. He leads him over to the armchair and fire and they both sit down on the ground.
"When I lived in Gotham I would stargaze." Danny says, it's the first thing he can think of. Bruce Wayne looks at him quizzically. "Well, I would try to. The sky's too polluted for that. Mostly I would just watch the skyline and try and spot Batman and Robin, was the same thing."
That cracks a smile out of Bruce. It's a small one, barely there. "I hardly think the two are comparable."
Danny is still serious. "Not to me."
He goes on, talking about how after he was adopted he got his hands on every star book he could find. He loves english and he loves to read, but something about the stars drew him in like a song. He rambles about every star fact he knows with Bruce Wayne.
Bruce Wayne surprises him by telling him facts he didn't know. Danny soaks it up like a sponge, listening intently to him speak. And when they run out of star books to talk about, Danny tells Bruce that it was his turn to find something for them to talk about.
Bruce Wayne smiles again at him, a sly little thing like Danny's challenged him, and gets up. He comes back with a stack of film books, and they spend the next few hours going through them. Bruce Wayne rattles off every single movie fun fact he knows, and there is so much that he knows.
Danny is in awe, and moves to press against Bruce's side to see the stuff he points at in his books.
"You're smarter than people give you credit for." He says at some point, when his eyes hurt from being open for too long and his head leans against Bruce's arm for support. It follows with a jaw-cracking yawn that he tries and fails to stifle.
"Thank you, Danny." Bruce says, his voice soft and soothing and not helping with Danny's weighing exhaustion. His eyes drift, and then jerk open. "Do you want to go back to your room? You look tired, chum."
He bites back a smile at the nickname, and fails to keep it bitten. "No, no, I'm awake." He mumbles, shaking his head slowly. "I wanna hear-" he yawns again, "-hear you talking."
Danny swears he can hear the smile in Bruce's voice as he speaks; "Alright. Now, where was I?"
In the end, Danny falls asleep on the floor of the library next to Bruce Wayne. He doesn't even realize it until he wakes up the next morning. But it's not to worry, Bruce Wayne fell asleep too, an arm thrown around Danny protectively like he was his own kid.
This becomes a thing for them soon enough. When neither of them can sleep, they go to the library and talk and talk about whatever comes to mind.
There comes the dreaded night after they've finished whatever book they were looking at when Bruce, the little shit, turns to Danny and goes; "You never mentioned what happened after you hit Batman with a tire iron."
Danny groans, big and dramatic, burying his head in his arms, and ignores the low chuckle. "I thought he was gonna chase me down for sure." He complains, his voice muffled by his arms.
"Why did you hit him with a tire iron?"
The look Bruce gets is one of pure disbelief. "If Mothman suddenly showed up behind you while you were taking the wheels off his ride, you'd hit him too!"
"Last time I checked, Mothman isn't real." Bruce told him amusedly, and Danny flops over onto his back to stare him down. His arms sprawl out like a starfish, intentionally hitting Bruce in the shoulder.
"You don't know that, Batman's a cryptid and he's real."
Bruce roars with laughter, and Danny preens like a bird.
That next morning when Bruce passes by him for breakfast, he reaches over and ruffles his hair. It's the same thing he does for Dick every morning. It's the first of many, and it gets many stares from the surrounding family.
Bruce has a newspaper tucked under his arm, and when he sits down Danny stands up and skedaddles over to him, leaning over the side of his chair to peer at the paper.
"Any cryptids spotted, Buzz?" He asks, getting a startled laugh out of Bruce, who looks up at him.
"Buzz?"
"Well, yeah," and Danny states it as matter-of-fact. He gestures his head at Dick Grayson. "Dick calls you 'B', and B is for bees, and I can't just call you Bees, that's dumb. So; Buzz."
He grins triumphantly when Bruce laughs quietly, his shoulders shaking imperceptibly. "I know," he tilts his head up proudly, "I'm a genius."
Now he's actually laughing, dropping his head into one of his hands and trying to quiet himself as much as possible. Danny is positively beaming, ignoring the stares of the other Waynes as he flounces back to his seat just as the other Mister Wayne enters the room.
-
When Jason Daniel Fenton Todd meets Jason Todd for the first time, they both just stare at each other.
Danny recognizes himself immediately in the library, and he freezes up. His tongue ties to the roof of his mouth, and he's unsure of what to say.
He doesn't need to say anything at all, because when Jason Todd looks up and they lock eyes, they both just stare. And stare. Jason Todd is a large, hulk of a man, built like a brick shithouse, with a tired, traumatized look in his eyes and a white streak in his black curls. The same black curls that Danny himself has.
He has no idea what to say. Or if he should turn back around and leave.
Jason Todd sighs at him, "I know they told me you and another world's Bruce and Dickie were here," he says, but it sounds like he's talking to himself. Even moreso when he mutters half-heartedly, "-but I was hoping I wouldn't run into you."
Danny feels small next to him. He doesn't know why. "Sorry." He says lamely, his one foot skips back, "I can leave if you want." It's unlike him to be meek, he thinks. Not after years of Gotham living and dealing with the likes of Dash and his Jerk Jocks.
But this also isn't the streets, and this isn't other kids being dicks. Jason Todd shakes his head, and gestures with one large arm for Danny to come over. "You don't need to do that, you were coming to read, right?"
He nods, and tentatively makes his way over. When Jason looks at him, he sees him cast his eyes over his Robin jacket - he wears it everyday. Danny sees him narrow his eyes, just slightly. But he says nothing.
It's... a strange conversation. Interaction. Jason Todd doesn't talk to him much, and if he does it's stilted and awkward, like he doesn't know how to treat him. Like he's holding him at arm's length.
Jason's getting tired of being treated like a ghost.
They talk about their books. They compare lives. Jason Todd was picked up a few days after he stole the wheels of the batmobile. He wasn't an orphan, he lived with his mom and his stepdad before he lived with Bruce. They both like to read, only Danny has an interest in the stars.
("What do your adoptive parents do?" Jason Todd asks him, one arm slung over the back of the armchair, he looks relaxed. He looks tense. Danny feels like he's back in Crime Alley again.
"They're 'ectologists'." He says, making air quotes over the word. He rolls his eyes, "Ghost hunters. They study the dead and all things afterlife."
Jason Todd makes a dry laugh huff, a sarcastic half-smile on his face. He doesn't explain why he does, Danny doesn't ask why. It doesn't seem like his business.)
Danny wants to ask him where he got that white streak in his hair. It doesn't feel right. It feels like his parents' lab, and that isn't right. Nothing ever feels like his parents' lab.
Jason Todd leaves first after giving him a few book recommendations. Danny isn't sure how to rate the experience. Being in Jason Todd's presence was like standing in a liminal space. An empty parking lot at night. When he leaves it feels like much the same thing.
He struggles to read his books afterwards, unable to shake the feeling of being haunted.
i've mentioned in a few past posts about an au where Danny is a variant of Jason Todd. I haven't made a post about it yet because I need a good rhythm flowing however i've been listening to Gladiator by Jann and I have been having thoughts.
but first, let me set the au:
Danny Fenton is Jason Todd, or at least, a variant of him. A him from a universe separate to the major Batman timeline - but still Jason Todd, down to the structure of his face and his name itself. The only thing that changes, is who picks him up - and, that he follows old Batman canon, and was an orphan. Jason Todd steals the tires off the batmobile and wallops Batman with his tirejack, and then runs off. Shortly after, he gets picked up by the Fentons.
(Customary line break,,,, word count check: 5k)
And his name changes from Jason Todd to Danny Fenton. He doesn't care much for the new name change, it stems from his mute refusal to share his name to the people that picked him up; an attempt to make him untraceable should he get away from them, and to keep something of his to himself. So they name him something new. He grows to like it enough as he acclimates to his new family.
(He hangs onto the name Jason Todd like a secret - he may be 'Danny Fenton' now, but he'll never forget his time on Gotham's streets. He'll always be Jason Todd.)
(Jazz is the only one who he tells his name to in the family - she affectionately calls him Jay whenever she wants.)
He becomes friends with Sam and Tucker and deals with Dash and his bullying. And when Danny steps in during a fight between Dash and another student, Dash gives him a bleeding nose and mockingly says, "Do you think you're Robin just because you're from Gotham, Fenton?"
Jason looks him in the eyes and he bares his teeth, "Why not?" he asks, spitting blood, "being Robin gives me magic."
The nickname sticks. It's supposed to be an insult; Daniel Fenton is not Robin, he'll never be Robin. Not now, not in a million years. Jason Todd has always wanted to be Robin, so he takes the insult and wears it proudly. He buys a school varsity jacket and painstakingly undos the stitching of all the school's motif on it. On the breast of it, he embroiders in a black circle with the Boy Wonder "R" on it instead. It's not good stitching, but the next day Danny wears it down to breakfast and into school.
In normal au canon, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton (its a mouthful, just call him Danny) only meets the Waynes after he becomes Phantom - an event that leans more towards Daniel Fenton's accident than Jason Todd's death, but traumatizes him all the same. (Is it too much to want to be mourned? His best friends like to deny that he died - and Danny - Jason? - wishes they wouldn't, even if he did come back.)
(The accident embitters him, even more when his parents don't seem to pick up on it. He stops calling himself Danny Fenton - he's always been Jason Todd. It shows itself in his ghostly form. He doesn't want to wear the thing he died in, not in something that belongs to the Fentons, and his suit reflects that.)
In this timeline, Daniel Jason Todd-Fenton, aged 13, meets Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne after a mishap with magic on the other end of the reality sends the three of them careening through time and space, and spat back out on the other end, in a world not their own. And together.
Danny is paired with a very confused Bruce Wayne and Richard Grayson. Luckily, there's a few heroes there to help them. Danny can hardly comprehend the idea that he's in another universe - he doesn't know why Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne are seemingly handling it well.
On their way to a secondary base with the heroes, Danny turns to Bruce Wayne and asks, "So, is it part of rich-person training that you're just totally chill with being sent into another universe, or are you just weird?"
Bruce Wayne huffs at him, rather than get offended, and he smiles that dumb lopsided billionaire smile that Danny's seen on every vogue magazine he's been in. "I'm not so worried with these skilled heroes here to help us get home."
Danny silently concludes that he's just weird. At least Dick Grayson is biting back a smile behind him. "Riiiight..." He says, dragging the vowel out dryly.
When they get to that secondary location -- a safehouse that one of the heroes had set up -- the three of them are sat in a living room-like room while one hero, Zatanna, goes and calls someone from the Justice League. The other two heroes stay with the three of them.
Within a few hours, Danny is face to face with Batman - someone who he hasn't seen since he whacked him in the stomach with a tire iron - and Nightwing. For a moment, Danny swears that the both of them look almost spooked by him.
Batman stares at him for a moment when he enters, and then he goes to speak with Bruce Wayne. Danny doesn't care enough to hear what they're talking about, he pulls out his phone as Nightwing goes to speak with Dick Grayson.
"Are you a fan of Robin, little man?" Someone says, and when Danny looks up he locks eyes with Dick Grayson -- who is leaning around Nightwing to talk to him, the both of them are smiling. And considering who Nightwing was, Danny finds himself turning pink to the ears.
But he will not hide his jacket. He forces a grin through his embarrassment, "Hell yeah, man, Robin's cool." He says, and pushes his arms down to pull out the hem of his letterman, showing off the emblem. "I made it m'self out of a school varsity after the A-Listers started callin' me Robin."
"A-Listers?"
"Popular kids," Danny corrects, loosing his hold on the hem and brushing invisible wrinkles out of the embroidery. "They didn't like that I kept stepping in when they were bullying. Dash asked me if i thought I was Robin because I was from Gotham."
Dick Grayson looks intrigued -- and concerned, and he leans forward onto his knees and raises an eyebrow. "What did you say?"
And Danny grins a shark-like thing, straightening back his shoulders with a burning sort of smug pride and all the sharpness of broken glass left in Crime Alley. "I told him being Robin gave me magic, and then I punched him."
Dick Grayson's smile widens, splitting into showing teeth as he leans back into his seat. Danny isn't sure why he's so delighted - but Nightwing looks incredibly amused, and he suddenly remembers that the Robin himself was there in front of him.
Danny's face burns anew and his arms fold themselves in front of him once again.
"I don't think I ever caught your name, Robin." Dick Grayson goes, his voice thick with laughter, and Nightwing steps off to the side as Batman and Bruce Wayne walk over to join them both. They're just close enough that Danny can see Bruce Wayne raise an eyebrow at them both.
"It's Jason." Danny says before he can think about it, and barely stops himself from frowning at himself for the slip. He amends himself, glancing over at Batman and Bruce as they get closer. "But everyone calls me Danny."
Dick Grayson's head recoils slightly, and he looks a little surprised. "Why Danny?" He asks.
"Why Dick?" He shoots back, and Bruce and Dick both smile at him, with Dick Grayson shrugging with an expression that looks like 'you've got a point.'
In the end, the three of them - yes, three - get sent to this world's Wayne Manor, and Danny is bewildered by that decision to include himself -- he's not a Wayne. Why not just send him to the Fentons?
Batman tells him that the Fentons don't exist in this world, and Danny falls silent. "Oh." He says quietly, a pit growing in his stomach with an ill-kind of dread. He can't keep Batman's gaze, looking away with unease.
No Fentons in this world. No Fentons. Where was he then, in the grand scheme of things? Where was he in this world? What happened to Jason Todd? Was he even alive? He can't keep the worry off his face, and he jumps when a hand lands on his shoulder. When he looks up, Dick Grayson squeezes him gently.
Dick Grayson is steadily beginning to remind him of his sister.
-
They end up driving back in the Batmobile. It's such a shock to Danny that he momentarily forgets the lack of Fentons. He makes a laugh sound, actually, and immediately he covers his hand with his mouth and stares at the car -- tank? with his teeth sunk into his lower lip.
"Jason?" Dick says, and hearing his name being spoken feels like someone touched him with a livewire. It's weird, it's foreign - he hates, in some way, that it's foreign - and it's so nice. Yes, that's me.
He drops his hand immediately. "Sorry." He says, realizing he'd stopped in his tracks, "I -uh, was just surprised."
"It's not every day someone sees the Batmobile." Dick agrees. Nightwing has his back to them but Danny swears he sees his shoulders shaking a little.
"Yeah," Danny nods slowly, dragging his eyes over the batmobile as Batman opens the driver's side and gets in. He thinks for a moment, of what he should say next - whether to admit that he's seen it before, or to pretend that he's seeing it for the first time. Snd as Nightwing opens the door for him, Bruce, and Dick, he chooses the funnier option; "The last time I saw it, I was stealing its tires."
To his surprise and unsurprise, Danny only gets two pairs of eyes on him. Nightwing gets into the passenger seat as both Bruce and Dick turn their gaze onto him; Dick's eyes big like they were going to bulge out of his head.
"You what!?"
So Danny tells an amazed Dick Grayson that he hit Batman with a tire iron after he stole his tires - something he is very proud about and also incredibly embarrassed about when he retells what happened in the backseat of the batmobile, with Batman and Nightwing listening in from the front seat.
(Bruce Wayne doesn't ever tell Dick shit, he's going to lord this over Bruce's head the moment they are alone.)
"Please tell me this didn't happen in this world." Danny groans behind his palms as he sinks into his seat. Dick Grayson is killing himself laughing on his left, and he saw Bruce Wayne stifling a smile before he obscured his vision with his hands.
Much to his luck, its Batman himself who speaks next, (Danny was being mostly rhetorical). "It did." He says, and his voice sounds like the rumble of the earth before a stampede. It will never not throw Danny off every time he hears it. "It takes quite a lot of spunk to steal the tires off the batmobile."
He can't believe it. Batman is making fun of him. Fucking, Batman.
He wants to die with embarrassment. He groans even louder as Dick Grayson's laughter crescendoes. Danny risks a peak through his fingers, he doesn't know whether to regret it or not because he can just barely see Batman smirk very faintly from his position in the middle.
(His world axis tilts five degree leftways seeing it; like someone dunked a bucket of ice water on him.)
"He ended up being adopted by the Bruce Wayne of this world."
Danny's hands drop with his jaw into his lap. Dick Grayson on his left chokes on his laughter and careens into a coughing fit. Bruce Wayne on his right chokes on air, and quickly recovers himself with a cough behind a closed fist.
"What?" Danny croaks.
-
Apparently, Bruce Wayne's family is much larger in this world than it is in his. Danny can barely wrap his head around the idea that he ends up adopted by the man, but now he has to learn that Wayne had several children in this world?
He's still not wrapped his head around it when the three of them wind up at Wayne Manor, finally, or even when he's standing in front of him himself. For his effort, Bruce Wayne does a good job at looking unruffled by it.
God, he's weird. Danny's starting to quite like it, actually. How human of him.
He still can't wrap his head around it when he meets the rest of Bruce Wayne's children, all of whom are already aware of the three of them. Danny thinks that someone from the Justice League might've alerted them before they got here.
It makes sense, he supposes.
It helps that they are just as weirded out as he is. A boy named Tim Drake sees him for the first time and blurts out; "Oh wow, you're tiny." In a tone like he's just seen a two-headed snake burst out of the ground.
Danny is still offended. He's still growing. It's not his fault he spent twelve years of his life malnourished. "I'm gonna be taller than you," he tells him seriously, "and when I do I'm gonna kick your ass."
Tim snorts at him.
The other Bruce Wayne -- Mr. Wayne's -- youngest looks at him up and down with a face of carefully controlled judgement. His name is Damian, he's Bruce Wayne's only biological son. Danny can't believe that there's only one.
If anything, Bruce Wayne himself looks surprised too.
"Todd, yes?" Damian says, his green eyes narrowed at him.
Danny feels like the specimen under his parents' microscope, he feels like he's standing on a platform that's being slowly spun by scientists. He looks over at Bruce Wayne in confusion, and then back at Damian. "I- yes?"
Damian Wayne nods, and then leaves.
Danny does not once see himself. That is unsettling in and of itself - surely Jason Todd would have been told about another version of himself in this world, wouldn't he? How old is he here? An adult, probably. Danny doesn't know if he wants to see him. What does he look like when he's grown up? He pulls his Robin jacket around him a little tighter, like a cocoon, like a shield.
"It's weird to hear them call me Jason Todd." He says aloud to himself, and it leaves a weight behind in his chest that shouldn't hurt the way it does. It shouldn't be weird to be called your name. It shouldn't cobweb up your throat to hear your name being said. It was his name. It was his.
-
Danny acclimates to the manor slowly. The house is big, massive. He's never been in a house so large before, he feels like a stray cat being taken in for the first time, again. He and Bruce and Dick Grayson are all given their own separate rooms - one of many inside this mansion - and the sheer size of his bedroom is bigger than his living room and kitchen combined.
it's daunting. Danny sits outside on the balcony and stares at the stars he can see - Wayne Manor is far enough away from Gotham that its light pollution doesn't obscure the sky here like it did in the heart of it.
Danny finds the constellations he can find and wishes he had his books with him. He finds the library the next day and buries himself in the back, curling up into a comfy armchair next and inhaling each book he can get his hands on.
Tim Drake wanders past him at some point, Danny would have missed him if it weren't for the fact that Drake stared at him strangely when he saw him. He walks away when he realizes Danny was staring back.
It's a rinse and repeat for the next few days. Danny doesn't go to meals, he sneaks food from the kitchen afterwards, and then buries himself in hundreds of books in the library.
Dick Grayson, the one from his world, goes and finds him three days later. Danny's eyes hurt with strain by then, but he is furiously halfway through a Jane Austen novel when Dick sits down across from him.
"Have you been here all day?" Dick asks, he drapes himself across the side of his chair, contorting himself into a position that Danny doesn't think is comfortable when he looks up at him.
Not that he looks up at him long - he hums absently and goes back to reading. Frowning when he realizes he lost his place on the page.
Dick Grayson raises an eyebrow, "Have you at least eaten anything?"
Danny hums. No, he hasn't, and he hadn't thought about eating all day. Until now that is, his frown ever deepening as his stomach pangs with a deep hunger.
"That's not healthy."
"Mhm."
"Are you going to eat something?"
"Mhhh."
And this gets Dick to frown. He straightens himself up, propping onto his elbows to stare at Danny. "Jason." He says strongly. And it's that that gets Danny to finally look up from his page, jumping like he'd again been poked with a live wire as he stares at Dick with wide eyes.
"Yes?"
"Put the book down." Dick orders, gesturing towards the side table next to Danny with a nod. "And come eat something." There's very little room for argument in his voice, he sounds like Jazz when she's trying to parent him, but instead he actually sounds authoritative. Not bossy.
Danny still frowns at him. "You're not the boss of me." He says, sinking back into his chair with a thumb bookmarking his page.
Dick gives him a look and makes a decisive noise, swaggling his head side to side while he does. "I'm pretty sure that for as long as we're here, me and B actually are the boss of you."
He's never really liked authority figures, not ones that tried to boss him around, that is. Danny doubles down, his lips curling into a shadow of a scowl. "Just because you're my brother in another world doesn't mean you can act like it."
"That's not what I mean and you know it."
"I don't want to go eat."
"It's not good for you to skip meals."
"Quit talking like Jazz."
"Danny."
Danny sinks his teeth into his lip and scowls darkly at him, shrinking into the back of his armchair in hopes that it'll swallow him whole. The idea of going into that large fucking dining room fills him with a dread that makes him completely forget his appetite.
"Your fucking- dining room is- it's too big." He grits out, finally closing his book and hugging it tightly to his chest.
Dick blinks at him. "What?"
"You heard me! It's too big. This whole place is too big. It's- what do you even do with this much space? I don't know how this- other me ever lived here."
Dick Grayson surprises him, and his expression softens. "Oh," he says, "I get it."
"You do?" The tension bleeds slowly out of Danny's shoulders
"Yeah, I felt the same way when I first moved in with Bruce. I lived with the circus for most of my life, but I slept in a trailer." He says. And he talks more.
The end result of their conversation ends with Dick Grayson offering to let Danny sit across or next to him during mealtimes, and that he can talk to him if he starts getting uneasy. But he can't keep skipping meals - it was making them all worried.
Danny agrees, and Dick takes him down to the kitchens for food.
"They look at me weirdly too." He grumbles as they leave the library, Danny's book returned to the shelf where it belonged. When Dick looks at him curiously, he scrunches his nose up. "The - your other siblings. They look at me like I'm- I'm someone else. S'weird."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Dick asks, "You are someone else."
Dany shrugs, staring at the ground with a heavy frown. "I don't know."
-
Danny seeks out Dick more after that. And vice versa. Dick reminds Danny of Jazz, and he latches onto the familiarity like a leech. If Dick is bothered by it, he doesn't show it, whether he's talking to his other world's self, to the Bruce's, or to one of the other Wayne kids.
Damian Wayne seems particularly keen to seek him out, Danny finds. He thinks it means that they're close in this world, and that Damian wants to see more of what a young Dick is like. That's what he would do, at least.
He takes up on Dick's offer of seating near him during dinner, and finds an open spot across from him. Unless he has something to show him, then he sits next to him.
("You can call me Jason." He tells him one day when they're in the Wayne's massive, fuck-off gym and they're both climbing over the jungle gym. Dick's showing him how to be more flexible. It's the most Danny's worked out ever, he likes the burn it gives him.
Dick looks at him in surprise, "Really?" he's doing a handstand on the bars and Danny's more than a little jealous at his balance.
"Yeah, dipshit," he says, rolling his eyes, "I'll even let you call me Jay, it's my nickname."
Dick happily takes him up on that offer, and much to Danny's embarrassment, starts calling him Jaybird. All because of his stupid Robin jacket.)
Danny has yet to meet his other self still, it's scaring him a little. Where was he? And matter of fact, how long until he could go back to his home dimension? The three of them hadn't gotten any updates since they arrived.
Speaking of, he was starting to talk to Bruce more, it was just... strange. Even stranger than talking to Dick. Bruce Wayne in another life would have been his adoptive father, Danny can't wrap his head around it for the life of him.
Whatever did Bruce Wayne see in Jason Todd that made him worth adopting? He's too afraid of the answer to ask. They start talking more after they run into each other late at night. Danny had been hit with a bout of insomnia and was going to the library.
He ran into Bruce on the way. He was just.. staring, out the window, with a faraway look in his eye. He didn't even look startled to see Danny standing there.
Danny asks him if he wants to go to the library with him. It was out of panic. He isn't expecting Bruce Wayne to agree, and they walk there in suffocating silence. Danny keeps looking at him from the corner of his eye.
("You're staring?" Bruce doesn't sound upset, Danny jumps anyway.
"Yeah, sorry." his voice sounds stilted, "it's just..." his jaw wires itself shut for a spell, "...you looked like you were about to disappear."
"Ah.")
When they reach the library, Danny leads Bruce Wayne into the science section and takes out books upon books about stars. He leads him over to the armchair and fire and they both sit down on the ground.
"When I lived in Gotham I would stargaze." Danny says, it's the first thing he can think of. Bruce Wayne looks at him quizzically. "Well, I would try to. The sky's too polluted for that. Mostly I would just watch the skyline and try and spot Batman and Robin, was the same thing."
That cracks a smile out of Bruce. It's a small one, barely there. "I hardly think the two are comparable."
Danny is still serious. "Not to me."
He goes on, talking about how after he was adopted he got his hands on every star book he could find. He loves english and he loves to read, but something about the stars drew him in like a song. He rambles about every star fact he knows with Bruce Wayne.
Bruce Wayne surprises him by telling him facts he didn't know. Danny soaks it up like a sponge, listening intently to him speak. And when they run out of star books to talk about, Danny tells Bruce that it was his turn to find something for them to talk about.
Bruce Wayne smiles again at him, a sly little thing like Danny's challenged him, and gets up. He comes back with a stack of film books, and they spend the next few hours going through them. Bruce Wayne rattles off every single movie fun fact he knows, and there is so much that he knows.
Danny is in awe, and moves to press against Bruce's side to see the stuff he points at in his books.
"You're smarter than people give you credit for." He says at some point, when his eyes hurt from being open for too long and his head leans against Bruce's arm for support. It follows with a jaw-cracking yawn that he tries and fails to stifle.
"Thank you, Danny." Bruce says, his voice soft and soothing and not helping with Danny's weighing exhaustion. His eyes drift, and then jerk open. "Do you want to go back to your room? You look tired, chum."
He bites back a smile at the nickname, and fails to keep it bitten. "No, no, I'm awake." He mumbles, shaking his head slowly. "I wanna hear-" he yawns again, "-hear you talking."
Danny swears he can hear the smile in Bruce's voice as he speaks; "Alright. Now, where was I?"
In the end, Danny falls asleep on the floor of the library next to Bruce Wayne. He doesn't even realize it until he wakes up the next morning. But it's not to worry, Bruce Wayne fell asleep too, an arm thrown around Danny protectively like he was his own kid.
This becomes a thing for them soon enough. When neither of them can sleep, they go to the library and talk and talk about whatever comes to mind.
There comes the dreaded night after they've finished whatever book they were looking at when Bruce, the little shit, turns to Danny and goes; "You never mentioned what happened after you hit Batman with a tire iron."
Danny groans, big and dramatic, burying his head in his arms, and ignores the low chuckle. "I thought he was gonna chase me down for sure." He complains, his voice muffled by his arms.
"Why did you hit him with a tire iron?"
The look Bruce gets is one of pure disbelief. "If Mothman suddenly showed up behind you while you were taking the wheels off his ride, you'd hit him too!"
"Last time I checked, Mothman isn't real." Bruce told him amusedly, and Danny flops over onto his back to stare him down. His arms sprawl out like a starfish, intentionally hitting Bruce in the shoulder.
"You don't know that, Batman's a cryptid and he's real."
Bruce roars with laughter, and Danny preens like a bird.
That next morning when Bruce passes by him for breakfast, he reaches over and ruffles his hair. It's the same thing he does for Dick every morning. It's the first of many, and it gets many stares from the surrounding family.
Bruce has a newspaper tucked under his arm, and when he sits down Danny stands up and skedaddles over to him, leaning over the side of his chair to peer at the paper.
"Any cryptids spotted, Buzz?" He asks, getting a startled laugh out of Bruce, who looks up at him.
"Buzz?"
"Well, yeah," and Danny states it as matter-of-fact. He gestures his head at Dick Grayson. "Dick calls you 'B', and B is for bees, and I can't just call you Bees, that's dumb. So; Buzz."
He grins triumphantly when Bruce laughs quietly, his shoulders shaking imperceptibly. "I know," he tilts his head up proudly, "I'm a genius."
Now he's actually laughing, dropping his head into one of his hands and trying to quiet himself as much as possible. Danny is positively beaming, ignoring the stares of the other Waynes as he flounces back to his seat just as the other Mister Wayne enters the room.
-
When Jason Daniel Fenton Todd meets Jason Todd for the first time, they both just stare at each other.
Danny recognizes himself immediately in the library, and he freezes up. His tongue ties to the roof of his mouth, and he's unsure of what to say.
He doesn't need to say anything at all, because when Jason Todd looks up and they lock eyes, they both just stare. And stare. Jason Todd is a large, hulk of a man, built like a brick shithouse, with a tired, traumatized look in his eyes and a white streak in his black curls. The same black curls that Danny himself has.
He has no idea what to say. Or if he should turn back around and leave.
Jason Todd sighs at him, "I know they told me you and another world's Bruce and Dickie were here," he says, but it sounds like he's talking to himself. Even moreso when he mutters half-heartedly, "-but I was hoping I wouldn't run into you."
Danny feels small next to him. He doesn't know why. "Sorry." He says lamely, his one foot skips back, "I can leave if you want." It's unlike him to be meek, he thinks. Not after years of Gotham living and dealing with the likes of Dash and his Jerk Jocks.
But this also isn't the streets, and this isn't other kids being dicks. Jason Todd shakes his head, and gestures with one large arm for Danny to come over. "You don't need to do that, you were coming to read, right?"
He nods, and tentatively makes his way over. When Jason looks at him, he sees him cast his eyes over his Robin jacket - he wears it everyday. Danny sees him narrow his eyes, just slightly. But he says nothing.
It's... a strange conversation. Interaction. Jason Todd doesn't talk to him much, and if he does it's stilted and awkward, like he doesn't know how to treat him. Like he's holding him at arm's length.
Jason's getting tired of being treated like a ghost.
They talk about their books. They compare lives. Jason Todd was picked up a few days after he stole the wheels of the batmobile. He wasn't an orphan, he lived with his mom and his stepdad before he lived with Bruce. They both like to read, only Danny has an interest in the stars.
("What do your adoptive parents do?" Jason Todd asks him, one arm slung over the back of the armchair, he looks relaxed. He looks tense. Danny feels like he's back in Crime Alley again.
"They're 'ectologists'." He says, making air quotes over the word. He rolls his eyes, "Ghost hunters. They study the dead and all things afterlife."
Jason Todd makes a dry laugh huff, a sarcastic half-smile on his face. He doesn't explain why he does, Danny doesn't ask why. It doesn't seem like his business.)
Danny wants to ask him where he got that white streak in his hair. It doesn't feel right. It feels like his parents' lab, and that isn't right. Nothing ever feels like his parents' lab.
Jason Todd leaves first after giving him a few book recommendations. Danny isn't sure how to rate the experience. Being in Jason Todd's presence was like standing in a liminal space. An empty parking lot at night. When he leaves it feels like much the same thing.
He struggles to read his books afterwards, unable to shake the feeling of being haunted.