Hmmmrph... I've spent the past week debating whether to or not but... I think the fact that I'm on the fence is enough proof that I should. Fair warning to anyone who hasn't read the previous post: this fic is not complete, and I have no clue what I'm doing with it. So, the possibility of getting more chapters is... low, unfortunately. That being said...
It has been requested, despite being incomplete and directionless.
So, here's the first chapter.
The Fic That Is Currently Unnamed
How did he get into this predicament, one may ask?
He was asking, he’s the one, how in all the Realms did he end up in this predicament?
Danny was your average fourteen-year-old when he suddenly became king of the entire multiverse without any provocation on his part - at least, that’s what he’d tell anyone that asked - and was now a twenty-year-old - by his universe’s time, that is - still king of that entire multiverse. Did he try to surrender the crown? Yes. Yes, he did. On multiple occasions. Did Clockwork or Pandora or Frostbite let him? No. Because they were a bunch of jerks that were jerks who did jerk things.
“Oh, Phantom, this’ll be a piece of cake for you,” he grumbled under his breath, moving wires around with ease, “you’ll just be so amazing at it just like you are with anything else! You’re the only one we can have on the throne, no one could ever replace you!” He replaced the panel and pushed out of his crouch. “And since you’re king, it’s such a highly respected position, you must go around the different Realms and retrieve these items! Oh, but Clockwork, most of these items are in museums or stores or private ownership, what do I do then? Oh, Phantom, of course you’re gonna become an amazing thief! After all, look at how amazing of a king you are, you could totally become an amazing thief!” Danny huffed, pushing the door out of his way and stalking through the now disarmed room. “Anyone else who connects ‘king’ with ‘common thief’ would be considered insane, CW. I hope you’re listening to me right now, because this is becoming ridiculous.”
If he were going to be a king and a thief at the same time, he should at least be able to send other people out to get the items and claim those items as taxes or some shit, right?
He paused in front of where he felt the strongest Ecto-energy in the room, scanning the display to see if he could recognize it before sighing and popping the glass up. Three things he was glad about: this wasn’t his Realm and therefore they wouldn’t be able to use his fingerprints; he’s wearing gloves and therefore wouldn’t leave his fingerprints, anyways; and he’s currently dead, so his fingerprints were non-existent since ghosts don’t leave prints.
He pondered that for a moment, setting aside some fancy looking diamond necklace that he really hoped was fake or lab grown, otherwise he’d feel guilty for even touching it. So, really, he was glad about one thing: no fingerprints anywhere.
He bumped up against some thick ring - he thinks it’s a men’s thumb ring? Danny was many things but knowledgeable on jewelry he was not - before focusing on it. That was what he was here for. Grabbing that, he slipped it on, ignoring the way the curse tried to cling to him, before setting the glass back down. Giving a quick look-see around the room, he found two more artifacts - one a necklace of gold and another a bracelet of rubies and silver - which he wore as well. Just as he was putting the bracelet display back, he ducked at the sound of flying metal.
Looking at the metal, Danny blinked rapidly at what looked like… a stylized bird? What? Who makes shurikens that look like that? That looks so lame. He turned to check out whoever had thrown the blade, meeting eyes… that were a blank white? Probably part of the mask but he didn’t know how people in this Realm worked so it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility- hehe, “realm of possibility,” Sam would smack him for that joke. “You wanna return what you’ve stolen, nice and easy?” Well, they sounded male? Probably? Again, not his Realm so uh… yeah, it was probably better not to assume even if this were his Realm, actually.
“Mm,” Danny pretended to think, snagging the bird-riken - no, that sounded stupid, he’d have to workshop that name since he would be here for a while - out of the wall to test the metal with his claws, “what’s in it for me if I do?” Oooo, nice, this was high quality metal. Either his new friend was rich or they knew someone in a high place. He put a little force into trying to bend it, and was appropriately impressed when it didn’t budge at what he estimated to be human strength.
“Depends on how nicely you’ll wait around for the police,” Danny snorted at that.
“Ah, yes, that makes sense, being arrested for reclaiming my hoard.” The other huffed, pulling out some weird-looking batons from behind their back.
“No, you’d be getting arrested for a B&E in a high-end jewelry store. Now, are you gonna surrender and make my night easier?”
“Mmno thanks, I’m good, see ya Bluebird.” Danny gave a two-finger salute before escaping backwards, grinning at the apparent-vigilante who gave an offended noise before they pursued.
“The name’s Nightwing, brat! Bluebird is someone else entirely!”
“I dunno man, you’ve got a big blue bird on your chest; are you expecting people to just automatically know your name when they see your cosplay?”
“What, and your name is better or something? And it’s a uniform!”
“Sure, I look like a dragon, I’m collecting my hoard, what could my name possibly be?”
“Lemme guess, Dragon? Wyvern? Wyrm?”
“Good to know you’re a nerd, I guess. No, obviously, my name is Drake!”
Nightwing stopped, appearing to blink rapidly even with the mask blocking the view. “Tim?”
Danny stared at the vigilante, who was a rooftop away. “Who, now?”
“Timothy Drake-Wayne? Known co-CEO of Wayne Industries and heir to the Drake fortune?”
“Uh, obviously not,” Danny snorted, gesturing at himself, “do I look human to you? Do I look rich to you?”
“LEDs could achieve that effect quite easily, actually.”
“Yeah, no, electronics don’t like me - I bet you didn’t even notice your comms were down, huh?”
“Localized EMP.” Danny gave a deadpan expression.
“Electronics and science don’t explain everything, bird boy. Anyways, I’ve got places to be and things to reclaim so… bye bye!” Focusing, Danny breathed out a mist of ice so forcefully, it took Nightwing by surprise to suddenly find himself in the middle of what was effectively a snowstorm. By the time the vigilante could see again, though it would be more accurate to say by the time the surroundings were no longer a hazy white, Danny was invisible and intangible.
Doing his absolute best to restrain his ghostliness so the vigilante’s comms came back online, Danny settled midair to eavesdrop.
“Oracle,” Nightwing said, hand over their ear.
“Dick,” Danny’s nose scrunched - either people in this world had unfortunate names or Oracle was insulting Nightwing as soon as they spoke, which was weird for allies in Danny’s opinion. “Your comms were down for twenty minutes, what happened?”
“Names.” Another, deeper and raspier, voice said; Nightwing seemed to roll their eyes, ignoring them.
“Seems like we’ve got a new player on the field,” Nightwing commented, still scanning their surroundings. A series of groans echoed through the comms.
“A new one? Seriously?” It was a younger voice this time, frustration obvious in their tone.
“Oh? Did you get a name?” Oracle asked, typing ringing through the comm connection.
“RR, you’re gonna get a kick out of this one. His name is Drake,” Nightwing grinned.
There was an obvious silence, before a tired voice came in, “I hate to agree, but seriously?”
“Can I get a physical description?” Oracle’s voice sounded cheery now, as though they were holding back laughter.
“Color scheme was black and white with green accents, it looked like they were covered in low-level LEDs. Just a constant glow, like a glowstick or something glow-in-the-dark. White hair, green eyes, pale skin. Honestly, looked like some teenager cosplaying a neon green and monochrome dragon, he had a jacket that fell into what looked like a Chinese dragon’s tail and had his hood up; tight black pants, tight white shirt, white gloves and boots. He’s definitely got claws, his boots seem to have some sort of anti-grav system since he ran straight up a wall, he can disrupt electronics, and is capable of breathing snow. Appears to have training or meta-senses since he dodged my birdarang that I tried to use to pin his jacket.” Danny scrunched his nose again - birdarang?? Seriously? That’s more lame than a bird-riken; it’s not like the weapon flew back to Nightwing or anything. “Appears to be non-hostile, since he just ran away; might just be a new Catwoman copycat mixed with Mr. Freeze since he seemed to be looking for very specific items.”
“So, a dragon meta-teen? Did he say why he was stealing those things?” A feminine voice piped up.
“Said he was reclaiming his horde or something. So, I guess if we can figure out where those three items he stole came from, we can guess what else he’ll go for.”
Tim huffed, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He could take Dent’s schtick just to decide which part of his life was stressing him out more.
Heads, the civilian side. All the nonsense and underhanded backstabbing to get more money from others; the consistent need to produce new products like clockwork, and not just new versions of phones or laptops with faster processing, but Wayne Enterprises also had a publishing house, among other businesses. Did any of the public know that WE had a publishing house? Honestly, Tim didn’t know what was common knowledge anymore but Martha Publishing feels a little too obvious to him. Apparently, very few of his siblings agreed, though. And Gotham was in short supply of editors right then, so he needed to find time to employ people who were qualified. Not to mention how one entire branch of the main company was fully destroyed in one of the past Rogue attacks so he was still attempting to get in contact with some of the employees’ families so he could offer support yet for some reason he couldn’t find these families. Not in a “they’ve been kidnapped” way but in a “they moved” way. He’d finally managed to locate a couple families in Metropolis and sent a letter to each of them, just in case, but that still left about sixteen families unaccounted for. He could, honestly, ramble about the things that were stressing him out from WE for ages, all the way down to how Tam refused to switch back to caffeinated coffee so he had to specially go down to the ground floor or how he’d had to replace his usual pen with an inferior quality because he just couldn’t find it and he didn’t really want to accuse the janitor of stealing a pen but really who else could it have been? If he finds out it’s Tam, he’s gonna pull his hair out and-
On Tails, y’know, his nightlife. There was the brand new potential Rogue with sticky hands. None of the things they stole seemed to have any connection, they weren’t even found in the same places. Some of them weren’t found but were designed by world-famous designers, such as Philippe Wolfers, or not even jewelry, such as the times the thief raided natural history museums. One time, the thief even took the main showing piece of a womans’ fashion show. And this was all before Wing’s first sighting in Blud! How did he know it was Drake that stole those pieces? Easy, the camera interference was very specific when it came to Drake’s activities. No one else could replicate that interference, even Tim and Barbara were having difficulty trying to figure it out. But according to that, Drake has been active for the past year, approximately, taking whatever seemed to match their unknown criteria for their hoard. Not that Tim believed their apparent cover story. Ghosts and demons and gods were one thing, dragons having human forms were a whole other can of worms. Not to mention that the Riddler and Joker both seem to have fallen off the map after an ill-timed escape, so he had to try to put down the mystery of Drake to help the clan find those two before they got into trouble - or, more, created trouble. Riddler, at least, should be easy enough since his plots typically weren’t lethal unless someone couldn’t solve his riddles. But Joker needed to be found ASAP because he’d probably already started racking up his kill count-
Tim jerked back, eyes wide now that he’d opened them again. He hadn’t heard anyone open a door or window or even vent so how the fuck did this- this guy get in here?! And why was he so close to Tim’s face?!? “Oh cool, you are awake.” The man leaned back, resting against Tim’s desk and crossing his arms as if he was a totally expected and welcome addition to Tim's office. “You had your eyes closed for a really long time so I wasn’t quite sure.” Cat eyes stared Tim down, as though observing him for even the slightest mistake - and Tim bristled a little at the reminder of Janet.
“How did you even get in here?” Tim demanded, looking around the office to see all points of entry were still closed. Not that they could be opened by even Catwoman without a single sound, hell Tim made sure to make it an obnoxious sound for B so he couldn’t do his dumb I am the Night schtick so Selina sure as hell couldn’t open a door or window without cringing at the noise.
“Oh, ya know.” The man shrugged and waved his hand, as though that explained anything.
“No, I do not know, given that I asked the question.” Tim stated drily, his hand moving towards the little button under his desk slowly and subtly.
“Anyways,” not subtle enough, as the man grasped Tim’s hand with his own clawed one, trapping it under a gaze of inspection - a coincidence? “I’m a little disappointed.” Tim twitched, irritated at the statement. “When I heard there was another Drake in this Realm, I was thinking there’d be a dragon like me. But look, you don’t even have talons, your eyes are a normal human’s, and your teeth…” Drake’s hand reached forward, snagging Tim’s chin and lifting in a smooth motion that would’ve made Tim blush - don’t judge him, he’s running on four days without sleep, Drake is rather attractive, and he’s always had a thing for features that were non-human, Kon could attest to that, and Drake was full of them - if that same hand weren’t pushing his lips back to show his teeth, “boringly human.” Drake sighed, dropping the hand holding his chin but not the one holding his hand.
So, it wasn’t just a coincidence.
“Well, now that I’ve not met your expectations,” Tim said, in his most deadpan voice, “feel free to leave.”
“Hm, I don’t think I will.” The emerald green eyes narrowed at Tim, trailing down from his face to his chest. “I believe you have something of mine, Duckie.”
“Duckie?” Tim muttered, tensing up despite himself as a clawed hand reached for his suit jacket.
If this went where he was afraid it was going, there was nothing that would stop him from blowing his secret identity - not even the dragon being his type.
“They are also called drakes, yes? But they are not dragons.” Drake absentmindedly responded, rubbing the material of Tim’s jacket between thumb and fingers before patting Tim’s chest. Green flew up to meet blue in alarm. “Do you have a cursed item inside of your body?” Drake asked incredulously.
“A… cursed item?” Tim frowned, feeling wrongfooted at the question.
“An item of my hoard, an item that is cursed - do you have one inside of your body?” Drake explained impatiently, letting go of Tim’s hand to start searching his jacket more thoroughly.
“Has an item entered your body then your life mysteriously had either bad or good results from seemingly nowhere?”
Tim managed to hit the button as Drake was focused on searching his person, taking a look at an extendable bo staff before setting it aside on Tim’s desk. Within Tim’s reach. Tim took a moment to breathe over the sudden irritation filling him over how much the man was underestimating him. A few more incognito weapons and antidotes were removed and placed on the desk, completely within Tim’s reach, until Tim was technically disarmed. If one considered being disarmed as not physically in contact with a weapon, even with one or several available to be used.
Drake froze, pupils thinning as the man seemed to realize something. Looking back up at Tim’s face, Drake began to withdraw, tilting his head to the side. “Huh…”
“What, no piece of your hoard there?” Tim asked sarcastically, trying to hide how the change of demeanor caused Tim to feel more nervous than before.
“The exact opposite, actually.” Drake leaned forward, until they were basically sharing breath. “I’ve never seen a cursed human before.” Tim blinked a few times, ready to refute the claim, when Drake sighed, pulling away once more. “No, I cannot claim a human, that is not good for the human.” He muttered to himself.
Tim, meanwhile, felt mildly offended that the dragon was willing to steal literally so many things but drew the line at stealing Tim.
And where the hell were the Bats? They should be here, by now.
